Entrepreneur | Celebrating the Peak Medical Tech Clay Clark Client Success Story Including: Growing a Startup, Scaling a Business & the Process of Selling the Business

Audio Transcription

Hi, my name is Ethan Lin and I’m the owner operator of Peak Medical Technologies and we’re based out of Boise, Idaho. I’ve used Clay for about a year now and generally speaking he’s helped me quite a bit just in business. So, we have weekly meetings, we go over an agenda. He gives me tasks to do and he holds me accountable. So things like making sure that we’re doing group interviews, making sure that he has all the information for me needed for the Google searching work that he’s doing. So I’m constantly leaning on him for business questions, business kind of things as far as how do I do this or how do I do that, how do I handle this contract, how do I handle contractors. I’ve learned a lot from Clay about how to work with contractors. We are building some software products right now. His visual team is very good. They provide visual selling brochures, pamphlets, and they look really professional. They came up with all of my websites. They did all of my logo designs. So from a business perspective, it’s been very, very good for me. Not just that, but having a coach that is holding you accountable, that’s there to help you. So it’s been, as a business owner, it can be really, really lonely. So that’s been a really, really good thing for me. So yeah, if you choose to use Clay and work with him, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. He’s got a lot of energy, and I think he tries to impart that energy to his clients and it’s infectious. So, it’s been a very good experience. So, yeah, good luck. On today’s show, one of my longtime friends and business coaching clients, a man by the name of Ethan Lin with Peak Medical, recently had an opportunity to sell his company for a life-changing amount of money. So on today’s show we talk about his process of starting his company, growing his company, and ultimately selling his business. There are so many knowledge bombs during today’s interview. I know it is going to help you and your business. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we have a good friend and the super guest by the name of Ethan with Peak Medical. Ethan, how are you, sir? I’m doing great. How are you, Clay? Well, I’m excited to interview you, my friend, because you have reached the peak of entrepreneurship, the summit of Mount Entrepreneurship. Could you tell the Thrivers about what just recently happened in your life? You don’t have to get into all the nitty gritty details, obviously, but what just happened? Sure, sure, yeah, so I started working with you a couple years ago and just sold my company. So I’ve been in business on my own for almost 20 years and sold the company and there you go. Talk to us about those 20 years. When you first started Peak Medical, what is Peak Medical now and what was it when you first started? Sure, well Peak Medical really is a, was and still is, a consulting company and we deal, it’s a niche market that we deal in specifically with pathology laboratories across this great nation. And so we do consulting services, IT consulting services of all kinds, so interfacing, laboratory information support, adjunct staffing, you have it, whatever kind of has to happen with the laboratory system at a pathology laboratory we were in one aspect of the business, and we were purchased by a software company who felt that we were a good, I guess, additional resource for them. So they have obviously a software package that we’re looking to put out in the market, and they needed people with experience who were working with all the different laboratory systems out there, and so we kind of are going to be their integration arm for that. So it was an interesting, I guess if I could see down the line what would have happened, I never would have seen this happening. Now when you started Peak Medical, how did you go about getting your first 100 customers? How did you make that phone ring? Well it was kind of interesting how it happened. It wasn’t that I had to go and find the customers. In the beginning, the customers were coming to me. I had learned a software package at working for a hospital and decided to go out on my own because I had met all these other software users and I could tell that there was a market for it. And people were asking me to help them, even when I was working at this hospital. And so, you know, initially the customers weren’t the difficult part. So you found a problem, you saw a problem, and did anybody come to you and announce to you if they wanted the solution, or did you have to come up with a solution and see if they wanted it? Walk us through that. When you first saw the problem, were people saying, hey, I would pay you to do this? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was actually meeting these different… Every year they had a users conference for people across the country that used the same software package. So I started meeting all these people across the country while I was working for this hospital. And towards the end of my time at the hospital, you know, these users conferences, people were starting to ask me for me to help them. So it was kind of handed to me on a silver platter, so to speak. You know, it’s a little different than some of the other entrepreneurs that go out there, they start from scratch and have to drum up all their customers from phone calls or whatever else they’re going to do. Ethan, do you like Apple stuff, Apple products? Are you into that? Do you care about it? I don’t care either way. I mostly use PC, but Apple software is cool. Apple stuff is cool, yeah. Well, I was going to say, something that I certainly don’t have this level of genius. And I’m not saying that you’re not a genius, but you are doing what I would consider to be 90% of entrepreneurship. You’re looking for a problem that you can solve. Whereas, like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, these guys are sort of geniuses in that the world wasn’t running around saying to Thomas Edison, I would like a light bulb, please, because they didn’t exist yet. Or no one was going up to Steve Jobs saying, hey, the mainframe is too big. I want a personal computer. They were just unaccessible by the average person, you know? What Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX right now and Tesla, that’s kind of that genius level entrepreneur. And I feel like what you’re doing is like the very realistic entrepreneurship that anybody out there could do. However, it had to have seemed a little scary when you first started Peak Medical. Do you remember what it was like to start the company? Oh, it was terrifying. It was terrifying. You know, going on your own and leaving that warm place, you know, it’s a very terrifying experience. Yeah, it’s just a matter of, you know, I got to a point in my life where I was like, it’s either now or never. And I never liked the idea of somebody kind of holding the purse strings and holding things over my head and making decisions that I didn’t know about. So to me, it was a, I weighed the goods, I weighed the bads and the goods out far outweighed the bads as far as I was concerned. And you just got to go for it. Now did you and your wife talk about like, hey, when I get to this much money in the bank, I’m going to start the company. Or did you have a certain jump point that you determined, or how did that decision to go full-time, all-in, starting your own company come about? Well, at that time, I actually wasn’t married. Oh, wow. The decision was fully mine. Okay. And I actually got offered a consulting contract by a different hospital, and so the reason that it was easier for me to make that jump was I did have a level of stability. I had a full year contract with them. And as an independent consultant, I was able to bring on other customers as well. I wasn’t hindered by non-competing, that kind of thing. So it was the best of all worlds. Had I not had that contract, maybe I wouldn’t have got out of Miami. I don’t know. And so how did you pay the bills when you were first getting started? How long did it take you to actually make a profit? I was profitable right off the bat. I know that’s kind of a unique scenario, but I didn’t have a few months where I was really digging into my savings. I didn’t take any time off. I kind of quit one job and started right the next, and that’s what made me comfortable. What was the hardest part in growing Peak Medical? As you look back two decades, what was the hardest part? Well, the hardest part for me was, as the market changes and as the job changes, you have to kind of look internally, I think, and change the way that you look at the business and change the way that you operate. And, you know, it’s easy to get kind of set in your way, so to speak, and one of the great things that, you know, working with you was that, you know, you forced me to take a look at things and reevaluate. And I think that’s one of the most important things. You’re a very coachable soul, which is awesome. I know, like for me, I might have no idea what I was doing wrong, you know, with my businesses. I had no idea early on. I just I just was doing it because that’s what I always do. And then I get to a point where I knew I was stuck and I knew that I needed some help. But I didn’t even know where to turn to for help. So I turned to a lot of these contract consultants where they sign you in for like a one year deal. And they talk in circles about metaphysics. And then you don’t have any action items and it’s just sort of like you just leave with feeling like I must be an idiot because I’m not getting it. Or I definitely don’t want this anymore but I’m stuck with a contract. I think the neat thing with us is when you told me you’re selling the company, I’m not sitting there every month going, well, you need to pay me for two more years. There’s none of that kind of stuff. I was really excited for you to sell the company. Walk us through the process of selling the business. What were your initial emotions when somebody contacted you and said, hey, I want to potentially buy your business? Was it a negative? Was it a positive? What were you feeling? Oh, gosh, it was across the board. My first thought was like, this guy is just kind of blowing smoke. Smoke blower. Yeah, exactly. That was the first time I’ve ever done it. That was the first person that ever come to me asking me potentially to buy the business. So my first thought was like, wow, this is really different. And I guess going down the line, I was getting kind of excited about it. But one of the great things about working with you was that you were looking at it from a very, you know, conspiracy theory type of, I guess, a point of view. And you really helped me to kind of stay grounded on that stuff. And because I think you have to during that process. Right. It’s not a fast process. It takes a long time. You have to do due diligence. It’s a very involved process and you can’t get to the point where your son is saying, okay, forget it, whatever. You really have to, it’s kind of like you’re redoing your house and it starts getting difficult and you say, forget it, or whatever, and then in the end it looks like crap, right? So that was a fantastic service that you provided me as far as keeping me grounded and helping me through the process and looking at it from a conspiracy point of view for sure. Now when you went through the process of agreeing on some initial terms, what was going on on the home front there? Was your wife a big fan of this idea? Was she saying, don’t do it! Were you saying, I’m going to do it! Was there any back and forth? Was it a deal where she was like, please sell, and you wanted to sell? Was there no discussion at all? What did life look like at the home front at that point? Well the home front, I guess I’m very lucky on the whole front end is that, you know, my wife is very, very, she’s not somebody that’s going to sit there and tell me not to do something simply because she has a problem with it. You know, we always work together on that kind of thing. But there was definitely a lot of discussion around it. And, you know, we looked at the goods from the sale far outweighed any of the bads. And again, it takes looking at yourself, it takes looking at the business, and it takes reevaluating kind of everything. And when I looked at the whole picture, it was a good thing for me. It was a good thing for my employees. And it was just kind of a merger that I felt just good all around. And something interesting is, as soon as the sale went through, three days later, we’re in major discussions with a couple of potential customers, whereas if I hadn’t merged with those people and they hadn’t merged with me, then those discussions never would have happened. And I know you really care about your team quite a bit. So before you sold the company, how many people were on your team? I’ve got five people on my team before and I’ve still got five people now. Okay and I know you that weighed on you you want to make sure that everyone had a job, they had a future, they weren’t you know in a bad spot. So after you had all those issues resolved in your mind and then you agreed to terms, the moment that the wire came through you know when the money comes in whatever that amount was right they wired in. Did you get a big check? Did you get a sound effect? They said you know did you get a Facebook message saying bling bling? Did you know and did Ed McMahon show up and say hey oh I mean what happened? Well obviously I was looking at it from a conspiracy you know point of view as you were coaching me on. Yeah. And so my biggest worry was that I was gonna sign everything and they’re like, oh, wait a minute. We’re not going to pay you. Yeah right, so so basically it was a Long drawn-out process ended on basically a Friday morning And as soon as I docu signed the documents I kept watching my bank account and within 10 minutes the wire actually was initiated So I can see it as a pending in my bank account And so it was something that was, you know, it was a big relief. And when when the money came through, what were you feeling at that moment? Were you going, yes, or oh, or what were you thinking? Well, definitely a range of emotions. My first one was like, thank God, you know, that I had, you know, that in the end, you know, they came through on their promises and I did as well. And it was it was it was a big relief, actually, because the whole selling process is really, you know, I was very much out of my comfort zone. You know, it’s going through something that I had no idea. You’re spending a lot of money on lawyers. You’re spending a lot of time and effort, you know, reviewing. You’re signing your name to, you know, reps and warranties that, you know, you’re pretty sure on, you know, but there’s always places where you can forget things or that. And so it’s a stressful process. So when the money finally came through and everything was signed, it was a relief. So you mentioned you have to sign these representations and warranties documents. What other kind of documents did you have to sign? Because there’s got to be other listeners out there who are trying to sell a company right now. They’re going through this right now. What other kind of documents do you have to sign? So obviously, the process starts with the due diligence, which basically means that you have to disclose all of your contracts. You have to disclose all of the company’s assets. You have to basically have an open book to everything that they may have an issue with. Idea being is that you want to be as forthcoming as possible because the company that’s purchasing you doesn’t want to get down the line and think, ìOh, I didnít know that.î And so, you know, hopefully, you know, if people are out there selling their businesses or trying to, you know, one of the big things that is, you know, a strong bookkeeper that knows how to do those kind of things. So my bookkeeper has been awesome. And so our books were tight. They were good. There was no real, you know, serious questions from the potential buyers. So we got through the first due diligence process. And then a big old fat contract comes our way, which is basically the purchase agreement. And so the purchase agreement really you’re going through there and you’re negotiating back and forth on that, on different terms. There’s again, you’re warranting certain truths about the business that they understand it and that you understand it. You’re disclosing any kind of contracts that may be in conflict. You have to look at it that way. In the end, I also signed an employment agreement and a non-compete. So by selling my business, I was agreeing to not compete against them and I was also agreeing to work with them for two years. Okay, so I’m going to make sure, and again I’m not trying to hold you accountable to remembering every single document you had to sign. But this is powerful stuff for somebody out there. Did you guys sign a non-disclosure at some point? Did you sign that? Yes, yes, yes we did. In IDA, correct. And was that pretty quick? Pretty quick into the deal? Yes. That was a quick, that was a very quick. And then you had a due diligence document, which basically let them know like, hey, I’m going to provide conflict of interest, you know, my contracts, you know, as far as any contracts have. You’re going to, full customer disclosure, you know, full asset disclosure, a purchase agreement. All these things are being, is there any other documents you remember that you had to look at and go, what is this? Oh, I know you’re leading me somewhere, but I don’t recall. No, it’s okay. I had a rule I wanted to share with all the listeners out there, and I don’t know if you and I ever had to go over this rule because you had your stuff together. But a lot of people, I have to go over this with them, they say, I want to sell my business. And I go, yes. And they go, here’s my problem. And I say, what’s that? And they say, I haven’t really done my accounting for a couple of years, man. You know, and so I’ve been having a lot of these brownies, man, and been running around the mountains, you know, having success and having these brownies. And, you know, a lot of times people are going to get to a level where they’re profitable. And if you have loose books, you really don’t get any second looks. Because if somebody calls you and you’re way behind on your taxes or your numbers aren’t accurate, that would have been a nightmare. Now, you’ve used the same bookkeeper for a long time. Was that a full-time bookkeeper? No, she was a part-time bookkeeper. Oh, wow. And so, yeah. And the good thing about working with her was that she had access to a fantastic CPA. So all of our taxes and that kind of thing were really in order. And so that was really the easy part of the whole process. You should probably buy her a big burrito or something. I’m sorry. You should probably buy her a big burrito or something to celebrate her bookkeeping-ness. Yeah, exactly. Do you have a Qdoba in town or a Chipotle? Or what do you guys have there in Boise? Yeah, we’ve got Chipotle here. We also have a local co-op that actually has fantastic burritos. Oh my gosh, yeah. You probably have to get a nice co-op burrito. That’s probably what you have to do there. There you go. I’ll tell you that. Yeah. Now that you have worked out an agreement, and obviously this is a show that hundreds of thousands of people listen to, so I’m not going to get into the details of the math. But now that you’re in a spot where you really, you know, you don’t have to want for money in the near future. And you’re also part of the team, which is cool. They wanted to keep you around for a couple years there at least. That’s pretty cool. How do you feel? What’s going on in your head? Talk to me about the future of Peak Medical as you see it. And what title did they give you? Is your title like now, are you the assistant water boy? Or what title did they give you as part of the new deal? To be honest with you, I don’t even know what my title is. Oh, nice. I don’t think they gave me a title. But to me, it’s a different perspective because when I was on my own and everything is resting on my shoulders as far as making sure that everything is taken care of, everything with the business owner rests with that person. And so the money is always a worry. And I’m a worrier anyway. So to me, I was always worrying about money. So now that, you know, that’s not really a concern anymore. It’s a different perspective for me. And I’m able to concentrate more on the work. I’m able to concentrate more on what I want to be doing. And so there’s a sense of relief there. And so, you know, I’ve got, you know, the job is the same, but I’m learning a lot more. I’m seeing kind of ways that I should have been doing when I was running it by myself. I’ve given my employees a lot more room to grow in their own careers. I’ve given them a sense of, I think, a little bit more of a relief also because with the new company, they’re able to get medical insurance. So everything there has just been a big relief for me. Now, I know you know this, Ethan, but our listeners don’t know this. A lot of times there are business coaching programs that what they do is they’ll say, I will coach you for this much money per month, but in the event that you sell your company, I still need to be paid after the transaction, and I will help you negotiate the transaction for an extra fee. So instead of paying somebody $2,000 a month, all of a sudden it’s $4,000 a month now because they’re going to help you negotiate. You didn’t have to pay me any extra fees throughout the process, but how helpful was it to know that you had somebody kind of looking out for you during the process who actually was sincerely excited for you to sell it and that you didn’t have some obligation afterwards to continue paying? Oh, the whole thing was fantastic. Yeah, the obligation piece and the payment has always been fantastic with you. And just having somebody there to help me through the questions that I have and to keep me grounded, that was so, so valuable. Like for instance, we weren’t even done with the due diligence and I wanted to go and tell everybody, like, Ethan, you got to keep it quiet, which was absolutely the right advice. You have to wait until things are more concrete because it’s an up and down process and you have to be concrete before you tell people. So just having you to talk to every week, talk about the problems, helping me get through it was invaluable. Now, since I won’t be talking to you on a weekly basis with our coaching anymore, you can still text me and I’m available. But at the same time, I kind of feel like I need to just talk to you weekly to get my weekly fix of Ethan here. So this might just be like a podcast format of the future here. But in all sincerity, we’ve worked together for a couple of years, essentially. Could you share with the listeners how you and I first met? Did you stumble through a dive bar and I was there, like the job of the HUD of the bar? Or how did we meet? So I’m good friends with Brett Denson, who is owner of Cavell Academy here in Boise. And he’s a business owner also. Yeah. And I was going through a rough time in my business and I asked him for advice. And looking back, I think, you know, the issues that I was dealing with were maybe over his head a little bit. And he got me in touch with you, which was really great. And so it was definitely through a friend, but I’m just so glad that we were able to get hooked up and everything that you’ve been able to help me with. And I want to make sure that we go over a few things with the Thrive Nation that you know, obviously, Ethan, but the listeners probably don’t. Your website that we’ve helped you modify and build, I mean, you’re fully aware that you own that website and you don’t owe me any ongoing fees afterwards, right? I mean, I think you know that, I know that, we all know that. But again, these are things that a lot of companies hold these things over your head, all the deliverables. Could you kind of explain some of the things that your Dropbox account, some of the assets that Peak Medical has now, some of the deliverables that you have that we’ve helped you build over the years that are yours, and part of that sale that we don’t make commission on, just so they can kind of know what all the things are that you’ve got to keep. Sure, yeah. Like everything, yeah, so I guess for the listeners out there, when you work with Clay and the group there, he assigns you a Dropbox folder. So in that Dropbox folder, he starts putting things as you start working with them. So sales scripts, you know, we worked on so many sales scripts to kind of work those out. And so those are all there and available for me now to use. All the branding, all the look and feel, the business that’s all there. We did a lot of headshots of me going in there. I did keep 87 of those for myself. I just kept 87 of those for myself. Just something I’m into is your headshots. Nothing weird here, but when you come to Tulsa next time, we’ll have a fat head of you on the wall. Nothing weird, just a fat head of you on the wall. Continue, I’m sorry. Excellent, excellent. No, no, all the headshots are there. I still use them here and there depending upon what I’m trying to do. Obviously, everything on the website, client lists, there’s also a bunch of flyers in there about different things like the deal wheel. So just everything that we’ve worked together on together is there and available still for me, even though essentially we’re not working together anymore. So what does the future look like for you now? I mean, now that you’re a big baller, now that you’ve got the spinners on your… you get a nice Honda with the spinners on What kind of car do you drive? What do you drive? I drive a 99 Volvo. I’m definitely a cheapskate. Okay, you and Bill Belichick are driving the same vehicle, essentially. Now that you’ve added spinners to your Volvo and subwoofers to your Volvo, and now that you’re running around wearing a mink in the office, and now that you’re getting Botox done on your face at all times, now that you’re kind of in that Jerry Jones phase of your life, what do you see the next 12 months of your life being like? What do you picture for the next 12 months to let’s say five years? Well, so the next 12 months I’m just going to continue enjoying my work that I’m doing now. It’s a lot of the same work I was doing before, but just on a bigger scale now. I’m learning a lot and having fun. As long as I’m having fun, I’m going to stay. So again, I’ve got a two-year contract, so we’ll see what happens after two years. I may stay on if possible, or I may at least want to go do something else. But I’m definitely not somebody who’s going to sit around and do nothing. But the beauty of it is that I have now, I guess, the means and I will have the time to figure out what I want to do and then be able to do it. What advice would you have for anybody out there that is in that startup phase of where you were 20 years ago? And they’re going through a rough patch. They started the business because they had some initial wins, some early customers, but now they’re like a decade in. And they’re in that wilderness and they don’t know what to do next and they’re just sort of, I don’t know. They’re just overwhelmed by just trying to tread water, but also knowing there’s a problem. What advice would you have for anybody out there listening right now who wants to get to where your company is now, and they’re not there yet. They have some initial wins, some early customers, so they can pay the bills, but they’re just overwhelmed and stuck. Yeah. Well, first piece of advice is definitely call Clay and get business coaching. Well, I appreciate that. That’s number one. Yeah, but I guess the first question I think that you have to ask yourself if you’re going through a rough patch in your business, which I don’t know of anybody who hasn’t. And it’s a difficult process, number one, because if you’re a business owner, it’s a very lonely place to be. But I think that you have to really ask yourself and be honest with yourself, it’s do I believe in the business? If you believe in it, then I say keep going, don’t give up. Because if you do give up, then all the work you’ve put into there is really, potentially may be for nothing. So I just say keep going and figure it out. There’s always a solution, and it’s just a matter of keep going and figure out that solution. And that’s really what it’s all about. And I think that, you know, I loved working with you because you did tap into a lot of the different resources. I mean, you came to Tulsa for headshots and video, and we did print pieces and stuff. We also did some software enhancements, you know, where we made the software look better graphically for you. And then you came to a conference. Can you explain for the Thrivers out there what your experience was like at our conference? And feel free to air your grievances too if you’re like it was bad. I mean, please feel free to share. No, no, no, absolutely. So the conference actually was a really great experience. Number one, what I always really appreciate about anything that all the times I’ve come to Tulsa to work with you or to be there is it is everything there is very positive. If you the minute you walk in the door, everything there is positive. The people that are there, I think, feed off of that. And so it’s a very, very just kind of good experience to be there because you’re talking with other people. You’re learning about new things. You’re able to kind of figure out problems and talk to other people who have gone through the same issues that you are. And there’s just a ton of information that you can take away too, just simply about how to hire people, how to do interviews. Everything that you struggle with with your business, you guys have gone through and figured out solutions for. If you’re struggling with your business, if you’re doing, and if you need help, I definitely recommend going to one of those conferences. Number one, because it’ll make you feel good, but two, is that there’s actual practical solutions that you’ll learn there. I feel like at the conference you came to, and it’s been a while, but I feel like you came to the conference where the Delrics were in town, the people from the clinical research facility in New Orleans. Did you meet those guys, Tyler and Rachel? Do you remember meeting those guys? Absolutely. They’re fantastic. I had lunch with them. Okay, I was going to say, yeah. I just want to make sure the listeners out there know, too, you’re not an idiot. They’re not idiots. I think one great thing to be is be in a… It’s really hard to have a positive environment when you’re surrounded by idiots. Could you maybe talk about the quality of people you met there and maybe our super high pressure sales techniques that we did between every session, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. No, definitely, everybody that I met there was very of a high caliber person. There definitely were no high pitch sales in between, it was basically you guys wanted to impart your knowledge, which was fantastic. As far as the people there, they’re great. It was just a great experience. Well, I’ll tell you what, Ethan, we have a lot of listeners who listen to this podcast all around the planet, and I know that you have a niche business, but maybe there’s one one out there listening right now that could benefit from your company. Can you tell everybody what your web address is and what exactly you do? Yeah, definitely. So, I was peakmedicaltech.com and now we were hired by, or sorry, purchased by a company called Gestalt out of Spokane. And what Gestalt does is basically they bring the digital age to pathology. So if you think about radiology, the people or doctors looking at radiographs and, you know, determining broken bones and those kind of things, they took that technology and moved it into the realm of pathology, which is looking at slide images. So the idea being is that you can have a pathologist who’s a doctor sitting in his office and he can be getting slide images from all around the world or the country and be looking at those slides and making diagnoses with them. And so what Gestalt does is that they have a software package that is really a digital platform. So back in the day, historically, pathologists have always looked at the actual glass slides. And that type of technology is really, or that type of workflow is really going away with the advent of digital. So it’s a very exciting time. And it’s so if anybody’s out there looking for a digital platform for their pathology business, definitely look us up. And my final question here for you, you know, a lot of people say, gosh, you know, sometimes after I sell a business, there’s a secret rebel inside me, you know, that entrepreneur rebel rebel spirit that I used to have, you know, and I feel like now that I’ve sold my business, I’ve kind of, in order to become the man, I’ve had to sell out, you know. Have you find yourself wearing like cut off, peak medical t-shirts to work and just chanting peak, peak, peak, peak, even though you’re now clearly a part of Gestalt? Well the transition was a good one for me, and so I’m actually, I’m actually excited to be a part of Gestalt, and I’m kind of jumping in with both feet. The people that I’m working with now are fantastic. And so it’s just a good thing for me. Is that a subliminal way, passive-aggressive way to explain that you’re wearing Peak branded shoes? Yeah, exactly. Okay, nice, nice. Well, hey, I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to share about the transition. I’m so glad that it worked out well for the three Ps. The people who work for you. That is so cool that the people who work for you, you thought about them before making that transition. So they’re in a great spot. That’s awesome. Two, it’s awesome that the purpose of this business now, the two businesses combined, are going to be able to achieve so much more than they would have been able to have done individually. And then three, it’s great that you made some profit there, man. I’m excited about it. Yes. It’s a great experience. Well, I tell you what, my friend, don’t be a stranger and text me if you ever need something. And I just am super honored to know you. And I appreciate you taking the time to come on this podcast. We have so many of our listeners that have reached out about wanting to sell their business or are in the process of selling the business. And you’ve imparted a lot of wisdom that I think that through the first-hand knowledge that really is hard to come by. Well, thank you Clay. I appreciate everything you’ve done. It’s been fantastic working with you. Alright my friend, you take care and have an awesome day. Andrew, how you doing my friend? I’m doing fantastic. You and I are at the same phase of what I would call DEF CON 7 project we don’t recognize that we’re sick. That’s true. What are your symptoms over there? You know, the good old stuffy nose and cough. What about the meat sweats? Do you have the sweat like you eat too much meat? Like spicy meat? I wasn’t going to bring it up, but… Okay, so you’re experiencing the spicy meat sweats. Yep. Do you have the nasal thing going on? Yep, the nasal thing. You sound like you’ve smoked a lot of packs of cigarettes. Your voice is a little different. What other symptoms? Are you at the bottom right now or are you at the peak? I feel like I’m coming out of the bottom. Same here. Here’s what happens. We have a process here, a system, a culture, a theory, a principle, a way of life really at this Rhyme Time show that we call No Days Off. No days off. Oh yeah. And why do you and I really not take days off? Unless we have to be in the hospital. Because if you only work on the days that you feel like it, then you can never get anything done. Think about how screwed we would have been this week if on Monday I didn’t come in to work and you didn’t come in. Oh yeah. So then somebody would have to fill in to run my meetings, someone would have to fill in for your ad reports and your meetings, and then the person who was filling in now has to fill in for them, and pretty soon you’re running out of people to fill in, and all of a sudden you’re like, oh man! So if you’re out there today, I want to make sure that everybody here does your due diligence. Do some research, because I want to brag on this guy, Ethan with Peak Medical Tech. This guy has been a client of mine for years. He was referred by a friend of his, Brett Ditton, over there at Cavell Fit, a fitness facility based in Boise. Two different industries. He was referred by a friend. He’s been a super coachable guy. And however, Andrew, nothing works unless our clients do. So what if we had recommended for Ethan to get his website updated and he didn’t do it? Then it would never happen? He wouldn’t have any progress in his company. What if I asked him to record, you know, monthly podcasts that you can find on his website, but he never did it? Well, he would never reach the top of Google. What if I advised him to lead his staff meetings differently, but he never did it? He would have, depending on how he managed it, a possibly dysfunctional staff. So are you saying that he had results because of what he did? Absolutely. Not based on what he just learned? Based off of action, yeah. Really? Yeah. That seems like a profound idea. I’m not really sure if everybody out there is getting this. This is a guy who diligently did what he’s supposed to do each and every day, which is why his company was able to achieve extraordinary success. Ordinary is just working when you feel good. Right. But extraordinary is working when you don’t feel like it. Extra-ordinary is going beyond the ordinary. That’s what Ethan’s done there. How cool does it feel to work with a company, Andrew, knowing that when he sold the business, at the very moment when he should be the most excited, he doesn’t have to deal with a business coach or a web program that would call him off, a web company that would say, oh, by the way, you owe us for your website. It’s so much relief knowing that you have everything. Knowing that you don’t depend on someone else at that moment anymore. Once you’re ready, you have it. And working here, doesn’t it feel good for you to know that your clients, when they sell their company, they don’t owe us some ongoing fee? Yeah, absolutely. Now think about this. I didn’t charge them extra to negotiate the sale of the business either. Right. There’s a lot of companies that do that, though. Yeah, they try to squeeze every penny out of you. You’ve worked with, think about Papagallo. You were talking to them today? Yeah, I talked to them today. They’ve had crazy wins today. What kind of wins do they have today? Today, just this past week, they’ve been trying to get up and hit a sales goal, and they finally hit that sales goal. Bam! They’ve been trying to hit a thousand tickets in a week, and they finally hit that. Bam! They have had the greatest sales week. They’ve had the greatest week in the bar. They’ve had just a crazy amount of wins. They’re killing it. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to share some of the specific action items and the knowledge bombs from today’s show. Just so we can unpack them. But I want to make sure that all the listeners out there know, no matter what industry you have, whether it’s a pizzeria or a biomedical tech company, we can help you grow. Absolutely. As demonstrated here. Whether it’s a B2B business, right? B2B. Some people say, well, my business is business to business. And so, could you possibly work with me because my business is business to business. I’m not business to customers. They have little fancy names like I’m B2B, I’m not B2C. Okay, so you’re B2B, not B2C. This guy’s business to business. His clients include UCLA, Stanford, Oregon Health and Science University, the University of Washington. I mean, these are clearly large organizations, right? Let’s recap the things that he had to do in order to get prepared to sell that business. One, he had to do what, and Andrew I don’t know if we’ve talked about this a lot, but he did what I would call the 90% of entrepreneurs game. He went that route, which is he just saw a problem and solved it. I really do believe that’s what 90% of people should be doing. However, he didn’t go with the Steve Jobs move. This is called genius entrepreneurship. There’s the 90% entrepreneurship. There’s the every man entrepreneurship. And then there’s the genius entrepreneurship. I can’t do genius entrepreneurship. The 90% entrepreneurship is where you look for a problem and you solve it. You say, you know, the world needs snow cones. And I’m going to make those snow cones. That’s not a genius move. A genius move is like Steve Jobs where you say, world, excuse me, world, ladies and gentlemen, I know that nobody out here is wanting a personal computer, well, let me survey. How many of you here want a personal computer? If you asked people when Steve Jobs was first creating Apple if they wanted a personal computer, there would be nobody that would say they wanted one because they were currently mainframe computers only used by nerds. So what he did is he said, I’m going to come up with a way to make a computer, he and Wozniak, that is going to be used by every man, and then we’re going to introduce it to the world. That is a genius. Another example, Elon Musk. If he ran around saying, world, how many of you want reusable rockets and a completely electric car? No one would want that. But he’s creating things, and then the market realizes, oh man, I need that. Yeah, he’s creating a market. He’s opening a gap and filling it himself. I got nothing on that. I mean, I can’t, I’m not that smart. Thomas Edison, this guy, if he ran around asking people with lanterns… Right. So how many of you guys, and by the way, in all scenarios these inventors apparently had megaphones, but how many of you guys would like an incandescent light bulb? It’s an incandescent light bulb. No one would even know what that is, because it hadn’t been created yet. What about recorded audio? Imagine going back in the day and saying, how many of you want to be able to hear your voice on a piece of wax? I think a lot of people would say, you’re an idiot! Or you’re going to create like a creator, Steve Jobs, not so good with the marriages. Elon Musk, not so good with the marriages. Thomas Edison, not so good with the marriages. So what happens is a lot of these complete genius game changer guys, they have to sacrifice every part of their life to get that win in business. I’m more about the everyman game. I’m about creating a business that will create time, freedom, and financial freedom for you. And so Andrew, you and I were talking about this, but Thomas is one of our clients with Full Package Media, and he was a paramedic about three years ago. And we’ve worked with Thomas since the very beginning, literally the very beginning of Full Package Media. And Thomas, I only met Thomas because somebody who used to work for me was running around the Dallas area pretending to be my partner. And I didn’t, so they hired Thomas without my knowledge because I didn’t know that I was in partnership with this guy. It’s an incredible story. And he hires Thomas and then unbeknownst to me he doesn’t pay Thomas for the longest amount of time. He’s using my name to open a business. Hires somebody using my name and then using my good name doesn’t pay the guy. So the guy is a smart guy, Thomas. He drives up from Dallas to Tulsa unannounced to get paid. It was at that moment I said, Thomas, I didn’t know who you are. I didn’t know how much money do you think I owe you?” It was like $2,000 or $3,000. I think maybe it was $1,000. I don’t remember. You have to ask Thomas. But it was less than $5,000. I was like, well, I don’t know who you are, but I’d love to pay you for work that you’d do with me. But since I don’t really know you, I mean, how much do you… Because he could have made up any number. So I paid Thomas what he was owed, because he’s a young guy. He’s a paramedic out there working without pay. And I said, well, hey, why don’t we just coach you and grow this thing? So we’ve grown full package to the point now where it’s, think about this, in the month of February, which is typically the slowest month of the year, dudes do a north of $25,000 a month of revenue. It’s crazy. Or a week of revenue, $25,000 a week. Think about this, if you were doing $25,000 a week of revenue, and you were doing that times 52 weeks a year, that would be $1.3 million. It’s hot. And the profit margins on that company, by the way, because it does real estate photography. By the way, everybody should look this up real quick. It’s called Full Package Media. Full Package Media. Look this up. This is a company that, Andrew, what kind of a profit margin do you think you could make on $1.3 million if you had a Full Package Media? Ooh, off the top of my head, I don’t know, 25%? It’s about a 32% profit margin. That means that you as the owner would make $416,000. That’s hot. That’s incredible. Due in real estate photography. Now what’s really cool is we’re going through the process of franchising that. Now here’s what’s going to be crazy. My understanding is that you guys might be doing Oklahoma City? Yeah, we’re looking at Oklahoma City, yep. Speculate! What do you think it’s going to cost? Thomas and I are going through the line item list of what it’s going to cost. The way we do it is we sell the franchise for a dollar. Right. And then if you have one, what happens is that every week a team on your behalf, so you don’t have to make these calls if you’re a franchise owner, you don’t have to make these calls, the full package team will call the realtors for you and schedule the first shoot. So you just wake up with a full calendar every day. How much money do you think it would cost you in initial equipment to get going? Oh man, with gear and everything? Because you know, you know, you know, cameras. I mean, you’ve got cameras, you’ve got drones, lenses, you know. 30, 40 grand? Yeah, we’re talking about 30, bro. Oh man. For 30 grand to be able to generate some sick revenue. That’s a move. You know how I build businesses, but the whole point is to create what? To create time freedom and to reach your goals and your why. Time freedom and financial freedom, that’s the goal, right? Steve Jobs though, what was his goal? What do you think Steve Jobs’ goal was? To make a device that’s simple and can do very few things well for the masses of people. Steve Jobs. I think you’re pretty close there. Steve Jobs, what he wanted to do is he wanted to create simple devices that are usable by the average person, that were elegant, that were simple, and that had unbelievable performance. But Steve Jobs, I mean, his goal was to just make the best products ever, insanely great products, is something he talked about a lot. So you can’t ever really achieve time, freedom, and financial freedom if you want to make insanely great products as your end goal. Right. If that is your end goal above your time and family and everything else, there’s a trade-off. And that’s why I would encourage everybody out there, if you go to Full Package Media today, just check out that website. I mean, if you’re out there and you’re going, I’m a doctor. I’m a foot doctor. I’m an ears, note, and throat doctor. I’m a dentist and I don’t make 400,000 a year. I want to make 400,000 a year and I’d love to have time freedom too. Tell me more. Well you got to go up there to fullpackagemedia.com and check it out. This is a real guy. Just Google search Dallas real estate photography real quick. Dallas real estate photography. Do a search for it. And when you search for it, you’re going to see that right there, full package media comes up number one on the search engine results right there. And it’s not because I’m a genius. It’s because we know the systems. We know the processes. And if you’re out there and you want to earn time freedom and financial freedom, there’s multiple ways to do it. One of which is to do what Ethan did. In my opinion, this is the hard road. It’s where you start a company from scratch and you grow it. And Ethan said on the show, it’s taken him 20 years to do it. 20 years. If you’re somebody who has the tenacity to do it, through our coaching program we can help you do that. That’s one way. Way number two is buy a freaking franchise. Now a lot of times you buy a franchise, they’re going to charge you up front like 50 grand up front for the fee, 25 up front for the fee. If you get a full package, it’s a dollar. That’s crazy. Now, it’s not a dollar for everybody. It’s a dollar for the first 20. So if you’re out there and you say, I’m interested, well, you’ve got to go. What you’ve got to do right now is you’ve got to go up to full package media, look for the contact form, and just request to learn more information. And then we’ll schedule a discovery day where you can learn more about the ins and outs and how it works. And then Thomas is in the process of finalizing the franchise disclosure document. And so those will be first come, first serve, really starting in June. But it’s a dollar for the first 20. So if you’re out there and you’re going, I have a dollar, check. And I could probably round up 30 for equipment. Check. You might be the right kind of fit. Now, here’s the deal. You sound kind of sick, and I sound kind of sick. So you’ve got to be willing to work on the sick days and not drop the ball. If you’re self-employed and you only have one employee when you start, when you call in sick, what happens? You call in sick, you’re calling yourself and no one’s going to run the business. If you call your customers and say, oops, I’m sorry, I can’t do the real estate photography shoot today because I’m sick, what’s going to happen? That’s going to cause you to have a very bad reputation. But if you want to get time freedom and financial freedom, you’re going to push through that. So one, Ethan went with the 90% of entrepreneur game that I’d recommend, which is find a real problem that people actually have now, not a problem of the future, and solve it. The next thing is he started from the bottom. He decided it’s either now or never. So you have to determine your jump point. You can talk about this forever. You can get in there and talk about, someday I want to open a business. Well Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday are all going to come this calendar week, but someday will never come. The next thing is you’ve got to understand only the conspiracy theorists survive. Only the conspiracy theorists survive, according to Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel. Think about that. So, when he was telling me, Ethan was telling me about somebody wanting to buy his company, I advised him to be very skeptical of the entire thing. Stay grounded and objectively weigh the pros and the cons. Weigh the pros and the cons. Look at them and say, is there more pros? Was there more things in favor of this deal or more things going against the deal? And then you got to do the due diligence process and your coach can help you through this process. But the person who has loose books never gets second looks. You’ve got to stay on top of your numbers. You’ve got to stay on top of the numbers because people try to pump them up and lie about the numbers and they try to sell the business and if you’re lying about the numbers and you’re not paying taxes on your income you can’t sell the business because people want to buy the business for what you’re paying yourself. You can’t say, well secretly on the side I take a lot of money but I don’t pay taxes on it. You can’t do that. You’ve got to have this in high integrity bookkeeping. Then you’ve got to go through this process of signing a non-disclosure agreement. Then you’ve got to go through the due diligence document where you’re agreeing to state any conflicts of interest that you have. You’re willing to say, I’m going to not compete if this deal goes through. You’ve got to agree on an employment agreement if they’re going to keep you around. So in Ethan’s case, they wanted to keep him as part of the company for at least the next two years. Then you’ve got to provide a list of all of your current customers. Oh yes, and of all your current assets, then you have to have an attorney review a purchase agreement. And then after you do a sign where you sign for the representations and warranties, you agree that what you’re saying is true, then you’ve got to cross your fingers and go through the negotiation process. And then they wire you the money and then you go buy a bunch of burritos. That’s what happens. So, again, if you’re out there and you want to become super successful, I know that you can do it, but you’ve got to decide today. Are you going to buy a franchise? Are you going to grow your own thing? You know, are you going to grow that thing? Are you going to buy an existing business? What are you going to do? But don’t just wait for it, because the time will never be just right. My name is Clay Clark. This has been another outstanding edition of the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download encouraging you no days off when you’re starting a company no sick days when you’re starting a business just show up God blesses the hands of the diligent according to Proverbs 10 for God blesses the hands of the diligent and punishes the hands of the slackered people don’t like that part so look it up Proverbs 10 for we like to end each and every show with a boom, and so now without any further ado, three, two, one, boom! Well, Thrive Nation, we are the Thrive Time Show. What we do is we help businesses grow their business owners to grow their businesses. The purpose is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And we’ve had a long time client that we’ve worked with, and this is sort of like our exit interview because he’s actually exited the business and so he’s at the other end of the rainbow or he got to the top of the mountain or he hit his big goal and I’m honored to call him a friend and a long-time client. Tim Whaley, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing outstanding, Clay. Thank you for having me on. Can you tell everybody, how did you first hear about what we do in terms of business coaching? I first heard of you through your podcast, actually. So I started listening, was very intrigued. Actually, you had built and sold businesses in the industry that I was in. So it seemed like a natural fit to inquire about coaching. Yeah. And, you know, once we connected and you did your, I’m not sure if it was an onboarding interview or it was more of a, you were going to determine whether or not we were a good fit. I think that was it. But once we did that, I was hooked and was really hoping that you would take me on as a client, which you did. Now, before I met you, I mean, you’d been in business for a long time and one would say you’re probably the dominant resource or one of the top providers in your industry before we even met. Could you tell the listeners how implementing the Dream 100 system impacted your business growth? Oh my gosh. So within just a few short years, it doubled our revenue, plain and simple. So Dream 100 was by far the secret sauce for our success, and really the reason why I was able to exit my business ahead of schedule. So just a brilliant program makes total sense as a company. It’s one of the few marketing slash advertising outlets that you have total control over. It’s not like you’re on Facebook which owns Facebook or Google which owns Google. But I mean you own the system. You make it work and great things happen. Now with the Dream 100 you have to identify the vendors that you want to refer you or the prospects that you want to refer you have to identify the the ideal and likely buyers that you want to refer you and then you have to reach out to them consistently and you guys have done a phenomenal job at doing that. What were a couple of the challenges of persistently reaching out to people to get them to refer you guys a business? Well a couple things. One, you just really have to find the right fit. You have to find the right employee or employees. Because really, when you’re going out there, you need somebody who’s obviously great at building relationships. And that’s a lot of different people. But what I found is you also just need a hunter killer. So it’s not necessarily somebody who’s very personable and great with people, but somebody with those qualities, but also just has a, like I said, a hunter killer, just wants to, has a drive to bring business in. And you find that person and they just make it happen. And we were fortunate enough to find a couple great employees who were just very good at that. And now that you have sold the business, you’re going to stay on as an advisor to make sure that the brand is successful and that sort of thing. What does it feel like to be on the other side of the rainbow or to be at the top of the mountain or to be on the other side of selling a business that you started so many years ago? Well, Clay, it’s only been six weeks. So obviously, some mixed feelings there. But if I had to put it into one word, I would have to say freedom. Okay. Yeah. So it feels pretty darn good. And my wife and I are very excited. And obviously, we’re still helping the new ownership transition and whatnot. So there’s stuff we’re doing and stuff to be done. But overall, when you’ve been hitting it hard for 33 years, and then all of a sudden you don’t have to, it feels pretty darn good, not going to lie. Now, Robert Kiyosaki, you know, the best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I recently interviewed him and he had me on his show and it’s been kind of fun to connect with this guy who wrote the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series and it’s just fun to connect with him. And he’s been talking borderline obsessively on his show recently about it’s not what people say, it’s what they do. You need to watch people do, not what they say. And I think a big thing about having a business coach or a personal trainer if you’re into fitness is if you’re into fitness, you need to have a nutritional plan, you need to have a workout plan, and then you need someone to hold you accountable. And if you’re a business owner, you need to have a business plan, you need to have weekly actions that you need to implement, and then you need to have some accountability. How has having a business consultant or a coach to guide you down the path, how has that impacted you? Tremendously. So there’s a running joke between my wife and I. I will often say I’m the most consistently inconsistent person you want to meet. So, historically, I’ve been the guy who starts this, goes for a little while, and then, you know, sees a, you know, I’m like a squirrel, right? I see the next great thing, and I’ll go after that for a while, and then, so, I’m an artist, right? I’m a photographer first, and, you know, business guy second, I guess. So, you have helped corral my artist brain. And having the weekly accountability calls and the action plan has definitely helped me stay focused on what needs to be focused on. So yeah, it’s been life-changing. Nothing short of life-changing. Now, I want to pull up something real quick and get your thoughts on this because you and I have worked together, I think for about, what, three years? How long did we work together there before you exited the business? Do you know? We started in 2019. So 2019, okay. So we’ve worked together for quite a while there. And so 2019, wow, so that’s almost five years, four and a half years or so. But if we do a search for carpet cleaning quotes, I’ve worked with one particular brand for 14 years, I think almost 15 now, and they have 271,000 Google reviews. So for 14 consecutive years, I’ve been talking to the same ownership about, you have to gather objective Google reviews from your ideal and likely buyers. You have to get reviews. You know, after you clean the carpet, you have to gather video reviews and Google reviews. And we talk about it every week. And it’s just like, it’s like bamboo. I keep coming back every week. I just, you can’t kill it. I come back every week talking about the reviews. And in a world now where people go online to look stuff up, this has been a powerful tool for oxyfresh.com. It’s grown from a handful of locations now to 500 plus locations. How has gathering objective Google reviews and video reviews impacted your sales process? Well, I feel like it’s a one-two punch, Clay. So Dream 100 and the reviews work hand in hand So the majority of our business comes from the dream 100 But you know, that’s one referral source. So our couples Will be referred by you know venues, but they want to check us out So they’re going to go online and look for our reviews. So, you know, not only do you have to have a ton of five-star reviews. And so the referrals plus the social proof on Google brings them in. Final questions I have for you, and I’ll be done harassing you here, is you now have got all the systems, the scripts, the website, the ads that work, the Dream 100 system going, and so to give people some clarity, you now have a turnkey marketing system in place. I mean, you have a Dream 100 system that works, you now have an online advertising program that works, you now have a sales process that works, it’s all documented, it’s all systemized for the new owner. So what would you say for anybody out there that is maybe thinking about coming to one of our in-person workshops or scheduling a free 13-point assessment with myself or a member of our team? What would you say to somebody who’s kind of on the fence about maybe coming to a workshop or scheduling a free 13 point assessment? Get off this fence. Just get off the fence. Bottom line, you know, you’ve helped make my company sellable, right? So those systems is exactly what made our company attractive to the buyer. They were looking for a company that was highly successful that they could then take and scale. And our business qualified because of what we’ve done over the last five years. And so yeah, I would never, I would not hesitate. I’ve told anybody who’s ever, you know, asked me about my coaching relationship with you and your organization, I said, I wouldn’t hesitate. Never in a million years. You have literally changed my life as a result of what you’ve taught me. You know, you have got to come to Tulsa one of these days here. So I know you guys are going to enjoy your retirement or whatever it is you’re doing. But at some point, if you ever get the bug and you ever start a new thing, or you’re ever in the Tulsa area, I really want to see you guys. You have my cell phone number. We can talk whenever. But I just want to tell you, it’s been an honor working with you and it’s been so exciting to help you hit your goals and I know you’ve worked 30 plus years to go on this dream vacation lifestyle that you’ve built. What would you say to anybody out there that has a business and they feel, my final question for you, they feel overwhelmed by all the systems they have to build and they’re not at the top of the mountain, they haven’t sold the business yet, it isn’t systemized and all they see is perpetual chaos. What would you say to that person? Just take the next step, right? Every journey begins with the next step, and that next step should definitely be contacting you guys. If they just do that, the rest will take care of itself. You make sure of that, so. Tim, it’s an honor serving you again. I appreciate you very much, and don’t be a stranger there, sir. You got it, thank you. Take care, Chief. Bye. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. Get rich quick walk on hot coals Product it’s literally we teach you the brass tacks the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business But I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the z66 auto auction I want you to Google elephant in the room Look at Robert Zellner and associates look him up and say are they successful because they’re geniuses Or are they successful because they have a proven system when you do that research You will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business Come to Tulsa book a ticket and I guarantee you it’s going to the best business workshop ever wouldn’t give you your money back If you don’t love it We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we wanna do is we wanna share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed pest alarm company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85%, and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one-and-done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive and in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews that way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really been a big blessing in our lives and also it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. We were in a rut. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40% to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. me, it brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day, interactive, Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. all you got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.