Entrepreneur | Create a Culture of Accountability

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. Welcome to the Drive Time Show during your drive time home. You’ve read about us in Forbes and Fast Company. You’ve seen us on Bloomberg. And now your ears are listening to your new favorite show. We’re broadcasting on this magnificent Monday from the Thrive15.com world headquarters on the left coast of the Arkansas River. I am joined as always with my co-host, my compadre, my good friend, Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I am fantastic. You know, I feel a little older today, though. Really? Yeah. How much older do you feel? Is it minutes? Is it weeks? I don’t know how that works, but you just you know now I was reading through the show notes I read don’t make a big deal about his birthday rumor has it. He’s getting older today, sir. How old are you? 52 52 out of it boom, but it is a new 30, so I’m really it’s like I’m 32 Yeah, it’s mad. Well. You look first man. You look 22. It’s like I’m like a reverse mortgage You just reverse it, you know? Unbelievable. I am also one of the co-hosts. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. And I am joined here with a person we love having on the program. We love to get her on the show whenever possible. It’s Ms. Sherita Bent. How are you, Ms. Sherita? I’m great. Thanks for having me. And happy birthday, Z. Thank you, Sherita. You make it look good. Come on, girl. Yeah, you make it look good. Oh, yeah. Now, here’s the deal. We are talking today about the 10 super moves to create a culture of accountability. This is a hot button because so many people out there, you start a business, you can sell the widget, you can make the thing, you can offer the service, the food, the item, you can do the thing. You’re making a product that people want. Now here’s the deal. Now you hire somebody. Oh yeah, here’s where it gets fun. And you hire somebody and you’re like, why can’t they show up on time? So rather than calling them out and saying, hey, it’s 917 and we need you here at 9, you’ve let it drift and now it’s 932 and now it’s 944. You’re getting mad. And I have a story I want to share. But back in college, I went to Oral Roberts University, and do you know what would happen with your clothes? Your roommate would borrow your pants. And he’s like, can I borrow your pants today? And you’d go, no. Well, okay, fine. He’s like, I don’t have any of your clean pants. So you give him the pants. Sure. Next thing you know, he’s wearing the pants all the time. Pretty soon, he acts like the pants are his pants. No. And now you don’t have any pants because all your pants are dirty because this guy’s been wearing your pants. Isn’t there a law with that though? Like after you borrow it for so long it’s yours? No, I think it’s with the fence. After a fence has been up so long, it’s the new fence line. I’m not sure. So what happens is you don’t want your company to drift. So I’m going to tell you this. Either you’re accountable, either your business is accountable, or it’s drifting. And I want to give you the actual definition of accountability. It says an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions. Now, Gallup, our good guys at Gallup, they have this statistic they said, and I want you guys to Google it, you can verify it, don’t trust us, just Google it, okay? Verify it. But 71% of workers are not engaged or are actively disengaged from their work, meaning they’re not accountable. They’re drifting. Now, here’s a statistic. When I read this stat the first time, it blew my mind to the point where I almost had to duct tape my brain back together to keep my brain matter in it. Oh, wow. That’s a nice visual, by the way. Are you ready to hear this, Shrita? I’m ready. Here we go. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce randomly surveyed, they studied, they observed employees, and they found that over 75% of employees are stealing from the workplace. And most do so repeatedly. Now, if you don’t believe me, Google right now. Google. Get on your smartphone. Pull over. Pull over. CBS News, U.S. Chamber, employee theft. And there you will find these statistics. So now, that is the playing field. Most people aren’t paying attention. So you’re telling me I have to start my own little small business here, right? I’ve got four employees. Three. No, I’ve got four. I’ve got four. I jumped ahead mentally. You mathematician, you didn’t take algebra three times, did you? I did, which is why I’ve become such a math wizard. There you go. That explains it. So when you’re sitting there in the break room, you get ready to start the day, you’re looking at those four employees. Three of them are stealing from you. In some capacity, yes. It’s not right. Wow. Now, Sherita, I’m going to ask you this before we get into it. We have ten super moves that are guaranteed. If you implement it, I guarantee the Jackassery. What did I just say? Jackassery. That’s your book. You’re writing a book on that. I actually just finished a book called Jackassery. It is available very, very soon on ThriveTimeshow.com. You can get it. But we study the dark art, the habit force that the world understands called Jack Assery, which is basically a wealth repulsion system. It’s a wealth repulsion force. Now, Shreed, I want to ask you, because you manage some people. I do. You also used to manage a newspaper back in the day. I sure did. If you had 10 people in front of you, 10 employees, 10 coworkers that you’ve managed, what percentage of the time are they either stealing, lying about their hours, or just not doing their job. From your experience. Okay, yeah, the statistic is right. From your own perspective. I think it was more like 90%. Oh wow. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Now here’s the good news. Zee, if you’re listening from another planet right now, because we have a lot of Thrivers in different countries, but we’ve heard there’s some in other planets. Well, we know you’re from another planet. He is. And we know life exists outside Earth. Yeah, because he has his extra days that he gets, but the rest of us don’t have. If you’re listening from a different planet or a special… Maybe your home planet. Or maybe you’re from a special space and time, a special place and time where employees magically do what they’re supposed to do, then you don’t need to listen to today’s training. But for anybody else, here’s super move number one. Z, are you ready? I am absolutely sitting on the edge of this chair. Literally I am. Unbelievable. If you go to the Facebook live, you can watch this right now. I’m literally on the edge of it. Number one, assign every task in writing as you conclude all meetings. By assigning the tasks in the meetings, you are creating a transparency and you’re patterning the behavior you want the leaders you are developing to emulate. When you end a meeting and you need to say, okay, so Team America, when you end the meeting you want to say, hey guys, listen, Team America, at the end of this meeting these are the things you’re accountable for doing, you put it in writing. When you do that and then you follow up the next meeting and you look at the words that are in writing, it creates a certain culture of accountability. So Zee, I want to ask you, because you’ve managed hundreds of employees, why is it so important that when you end the meeting that you assign actual tasks in writing as you wrap up that meeting? Well, that way there’s no excuse. There’s no, what did he say? What am I supposed to do? Did you hear what I heard? I think, well this is what I thought you said. Is that what he meant? Huh? Now guys, there’s three things that I think happens a lot in meetings that you guys don’t even understand. Because Charita is very harsh. She’s very mean. And Dr. Z, he’s just so intense. There’s three viable reasons. One is I forgot. That’s okay. I forgot. Basically who hasn’t forgotten? Second is I didn’t know what you meant. I didn’t know what the intention was. So confusing. So confusing. The third is I wasn’t trained. It wasn’t clear. It wasn’t clear. My favorite one is nobody told me. That’s my favorite one. Nobody told me. Nobody told me. Nobody. So let me give you back, let me take you back in the days. You are listening to your new favorite radio show. What show is this? It’s the Thrive Time Show. Your favorite show, you don’t know the name of. I like it so much, I don’t know what it is. I love it. That’s what it’s like when I talk to my mom about a movie, I say, Mom, what was the movie that you liked so much? She says, I don’t know, but I loved it. That’s how a lot of people are right now. They’re just starting to find it. They’re starting to get cognitively aware of it. They’re finding it on 1170. They’re discovering. This is Tulsa’s only local business radio show. I am the co-host, Clay Clark. I’m the former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, and I’m joined as always as this entrepreneur, this mogul, this tycoon who’s trapped inside an optometrist’s body. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I am fantastic. I’m just trapped in this little body here. Just trapped. I want to get out. I want to get out. I love it. And you’re joined. We’re also, as always, we’re joined here. We always kind of have a special request. People ask, can we get more Sherita? And we said, yes, we’ll get you a little more Sherita. So Ms. Sherita Bench is in the house. Thank you guys. Thank you. And so we’re talking today about 10 super moves to create a culture of accountability. And by the way, if you want to get an example of what a perfect meeting agenda looks like, just go to, just email us, info at thrive15.com. Email us, info at thrive15.com and we will provide you with a template, a specific actionable PDF you can look at so you can understand how a perfect meeting agenda would look. But super move number one in recap was assign every task in writing as you conclude all meetings. Now super move number two is follow up on all assigned action items during the meeting. Now this is a weird tension time because when you actually follow up on all the assigned action items, that means that the person who’s in the room who didn’t do their job is present, but you’re in front of a group of people, so you have that sort of awkward tension because you’ve read all these management books and you’re going, I shouldn’t publicly attack people, but I need to hold them accountable. I need to hold them accountable. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to hold them accountable, but then they didn’t do their job. Z, how do you handle when you’re in a meeting, someone doesn’t do their job and everyone knows it but you don’t want to throw them under the bus? How do you handle it? What are the words you say? Awkwardness. They are looking at you. You are looking at them. You are looking at each other. Hey Z, I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do. You know what we are calling it. Nobody told me. I was just trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Well, it depends, but here is one of my moves that I would do. Okay, here we go. I’m ready. Because it depends. The guy’s just history that this is the way. It might require firing, but short of that, let’s say first time, let’s say new guy, let’s say whatever. So this is an initial move you might do. And he looks like Garth from Wayne’s World, the guy you’re following up with. Okay, that makes me thank you for giving me the visual because I was really wondering what he looked like. So now I know. Now I know. Now I know. I would say, Billy? Yeah, hey Z, how you doing man? Good. Billy, did you know you were assigned that? Yeah, I just, sometimes I didn’t really understand what you were saying, you know? And I just wanted to respect you by not really interrupting you a lot, you know? Well Billy, first of all let’s make it clear what you need to do. So we clarify that. And then I look at Billy and I say, Billy, now what do I need to do to encourage you to get this done? I was watching the debate last night and I don’t know. You don’t know what I need to do to encourage you? Hillary Clinton had all the answers, though. Hillary had all the answers, but I don’t know. Well, Billy, this is very important. And if you don’t get this done, I don’t think the team can count on you for the thing. So if you want to stay here, you want to stay employed, you want your paycheck, then I need you son, step up and get this done. As soon as I get nervous, I just, I’ll smell it. I do that. I’m sorry. It’s okay, Billy. Oh, Billy. But I mean, you can feel that tension, right? Oh, yes. I feel, I need to. You’re so nice. I love how kind you are. You are so nice. Well, that’s the key. The thing about it is that you don’t want to embarrass people. You don’t want to beat up people. You don’t want to do those kinds of things because you always have to look at the future. The future is Billy going to stick around. Unless you’re going to fire him, you’re going to try to keep him on board. Right. Here’s the thing. Many people are asking themselves right now because this is the thing. I have discovered over time there are two things that are going on in my head right now. Maybe I have a lot going on in my head. Maybe someone else listening says, I have nothing going on in my head like that. You’re a sick freak. But here’s what I hear. On one shoulder, I’m going, you’ve got to fire that guy. You just unload on him. Unload on him. That’s what I was hearing, too. In my car, I’m getting ready to go to work. I’m going, I freaking hope Billy doesn’t get his job. I swear, I’m going to. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. On the other side, there’s a kinder side, and it’s equal. It’s because I just went to church on Sunday. It’s a Monday meeting. I was over at the Metropolitan Baptist Church where they bring it. I’m over there, and what is the pastor’s name over there, Sherida? Pastor Owens? Ray Owens, I think. Ray was bringing it. So I’m over there, and I’m emotional. I’m excited, and I go, you know what? It might have been ten times in a row that he has forgotten to do his thing, but God has a plan for him, and I’m going to keep him on my team forever. Well, it’s forever? It probably needs to be somewhere in between. If that’s his tenth time, if that’s Billy’s tenth time, shame on you if we’re still having him around. How many times do you warn the guy, Z? How many times do you warn the guy before you? I’ve got a secret. I’ve got a secret that will answer that. Tell us the secret. I’ve got a secret that will answer that. You ready for it? You’re going to give me a little secret music? I want to, I just, there’s a perfect… You’ve got to set him up. He needs the mood right. Okay, we’ll get the mood right. Oh, how did I know you were going to reach for that one? All right, see, what’s the secret? Here’s the secret. All you business owners out there, all you business owners want to be, when you get your business, you’re going to put up with the Billys of the world as long as you want. As long as you want. And one day, you’ll wake up and say, I’m tired of Billy. I’m tired of Billy. I’m tired. I’ve had enough of Billy. I’ve had me enough of Billy. Billyness. Yeah. Billyness. Billyness. I haven’t had enough of Careless Whisper by Wham! I could just play that over and over. Unbelievable. Okay, so now super move number two, follow up on all assigned action items during each meeting. Now super move number three is follow up on all assigned action items while working off the assumption that these items were not completed in an accurate and timely manner. No faith. Now this is simply a safeguard to protect your brain from exploding when you find that the tasks have been left incomplete because it’s dangerous to assume that your people are being 100% honest and effective with you. Now I’ve been in business. I am now a 35 year old man. People who are on Facebook Live, they’ve started to cover up their computer screens. They don’t have to see me and my face that was made for radio. But what happens is, until I was about 22, I used to assume that people did their job. And something happened, I don’t know what, switch, flip, but I started to discover a pattern that most people would say, I did it. But when I would go look online or try to find the digital file or would go follow up in the bathroom to see if it was clean, they didn’t do it, Z. And one, am I wrong, Z? Am I wrong? Am I out of my mind to assume that most people did not do their job. That’s a two-part question. The first part is, are you out of your mind? Yes. Yes, absolutely. The second part, are you fully following the check? He gave us that one, didn’t he? He did. It’s so easy on my birthday, even. Thank you. It was a gift. It was a gift. He kind of gift-wrapped it and just handed it to me. It was a gift. You are not crazy, and you should always assume that. You should always assume that stuff is not getting done, and then that gives you the drive to follow up on it. But wait, isn’t that stressful? It is stressful, and the thing is, people will say, you’re judging people, but it’s like being a good referee. You’re out of bounds, there’s rules, you have to enforce the rules because you’re a good referee. Now, coming up after the break, Z has a very incredible story he’s going to tell us about assuming that most people did not do their job. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your new favorite radio show. It’s Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show and I’m your co-host with the most, your pale male, Clay Clark, former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. I’m joined here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Sherita, how are you? I’m fabulous. And now we have a guy in the house who’s sort of a big deal. It is Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I was going to say, who is it? I want to meet him. It’s you! It’s you! Where is he? Come on out! He’s a beautiful guy. And if you go to the Facebook Live right now, you go to Facebook and you type in Thrive15, you can watch it right now. You can see this guy. He’s really, really impressive. It’s his birthday. It’s his birthday. How old is he today? He’s 52. I’m 52. But if you’re dyslexic, I’m 25. And 50 is a new 30, so it’s really similar to around the late 20s, early 30s. Sherita and I have never, we’ve been working on this a lot. And when I say like for several seconds, we never talked about it. We just mentally, we were locked in. We recorded a very special, so we’ve practiced a very special birthday tribute for you. Are you ready? Oh my, I’m scared. Happy birthday to you. Sherita, take it. Happy birthday to you. Oh yeah. Happy birthday dear Zee, happy birthday to you. Cha-cha-cha! Unbelievable! Wow! We love you, man. Oh, I love you guys too. Thank you. That was so sweet. Yeah, now here’s the thing, though. We should start a band. We should. It’s a big deal. Drive band? Yes, Drive Time Band. Drive Time Band. Yeah, copyright it. Well, I think that’s how the Tele-Band started. The Tele-Band. Oh, yeah, that’s probably not good. We don’t want to go there. We’re not a political show. Never mind. So Super Bowl number three, we’re talking about follow up on all assigned action items while working off the assumption that these items were not completed. Because if you assume, it makes an err out of you and me. If you assume, it makes an err out of you and me. So Z, tell us an example of where you assumed things were going right and then you found out they weren’t happening. Well, this was a two million dollar. Oh no. Does that get someone’s attention? Ah, got mine. So at my auto auction, Z66 auto auction, it’s right there just north of the circle about. The traffic circle. The traffic circle. The circle. Roundabout. Over in Europe they’re called roundabouts. No, it’s a nice roundabout. I love it. That’s why I drive over there, round and round. Like NASCAR, round and round. So, one of the steps of the process is that when a used car dealer buys a car on Friday, they come up to the counter, and in order to have the car leave, they have to get what is called a gate pass. Sounds very confusing. It is. In order to get the gate pass, what that dealer is supposed to do is write a check. A check? Is that monetary? Is that money? Yes. And they hand it to the person, the person hands them a gate pass, and we have the check. And so when the title comes in, then we can deposit the check and give them their title, right? That sounds very capitalistic. I mean, overall, it’s like you don’t care about people. You just don’t like people. No, no, no, it’s cars. We love cars. You can’t pay, you can’t drive the car. That’s right. Super hateful. So what happens is that little by little they just didn’t collect those checks. They’re like, okay, well when the title comes in you can bring me the check then. It’s okay, here’s your gate pass, here’s your gate pass. And pretty soon, you’ve got to understand this, pretty soon when the title comes in I got to pay a check to the person that sold the car right and then I got to go chase down the guy with the title now to try to get that check so there’s a float there it was a get up to two million dollars that’s complete and out of balderdash We’re going to go in a roundabout roundabout roundabout, so you so let me let me let me ask you so you are Upset that people were not charging customers to take the cost out something crazy like that. I know and you’re right It makes no sense. I dropped my Z. I dropped my Z. Oh wow You there’ll be a certain point you you caught it, and it went. How why were you assuming that it was happening? Why were you assuming that a car would leave before they got the pass? Why would you assume that the money was given to you before they were given the pass? Why would you assume that before they left the lot, that payment had to be exchanged for the pass? Because that was on the checklist. That’s the move. That’s what you do. Because these car guys, believe it or not, they will try to beat you out of a few dollars a few days of having that money. I want to go off. I just want to, real quick, it’s just something I need to get off my chest. It’s just therapeutic to see people say, are you okay? No I’m not okay. I want to share this. Are you going to rant? He is. He is. I just want to make sure I can just fully articulate how I feel about this situation. What’s happening is we are located in the Bible Belt. Right. We’re in a place where people are saying, listen, God loves you and God forgives you, and that is true, okay? But there are consequences to actions. And what’s happening is if you treat your team where you say, I feel bad for holding them accountable, it would be a lot like God going, well, I feel terrible that Adam got kicked out of the garden. Oh, I don’t know, Holy Spirit and Jesus, what am I going to do?” And the three of them are talking, and we’re saying, I don’t know, I feel horrible. No, God said don’t eat from, if you believe in the Bible, he says don’t eat from the tree of knowledge. And if you do, bad things happen, right? So Adam and Eve, they’re like, okay, let’s do it. He says, consequence, boom, you’re out of the garden. And it’s not like he’s a mean God, it’s justice. It’s just right or wrong. It’s the rule. It’s the rule. And what happens is so many business owners, you are feeling guilty right now. If you’re listening right now, I know you’re feeling guilty for holding people accountable. And then the employee who you hold accountable, they mention a personal flaw in your life, which by the way, we all have. And they go, well, how come then you’re not perfect? And then you were like, oh, I feel bad. I shouldn’t hold people accountable. Oh, you got me. I’m not perfect. So you just got to hold people accountable if you want to have a successful business Just understand that now super move number four is be prompt all of the time coming up super more number four Super move number four bedding cleanup is be prompt all the time. So if you’re struggling To create a culture where people are prompt. They’re on time. They’re not wasting time They’re they’re accurate with their time then you’re going to want to listen right here on the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 117. Happy birthday to Zee. Happy birthday to Zee. Happy birthday dear Zee. Happy birthday to you. I should have told them I’m sorry radio fans. Dr. Lee, we’re on the Thrive Time Show. We were just wrapping up a big birthday party on air here for the main man, our co-host, Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you doing? I’m great and I feel the love and thank you, thank you, thank you. I do appreciate that. And we have a very, very special, we’ve had a lot of people have been asking, can we get a little more Sherita Bent in our life? And I said, you know what I’m going to do? Yes, we’re going to make it happen. So Ms. Sherita Bent, how are you? Oh, I’m great. Thanks for having me. And I am the least talented member of the squad. I’m kind of the guy batting ninth on the lineup. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. I’ve also taken algebra three times, and I was kicked out of college for reasons that I cannot argue with. So we’re talking about here, we’re talking about these super moves, these super moves for creating a culture of accountability, 10 super moves to create a culture of accountability. And super move number four is be prompt all of the time. So Z, talk to me about why it’s important to be on time all the time, but then give me the balance of when it’s okay to let people not be on time. I mean, just kind of because every entrepreneur listening right now is going, I want all of my plumbers to be on time to every job. You know, a customer called us, they booked us, we agreed to be there at 10, but at what point does this prompt to get in the way of making money? Talk to me about why is it important first to be on time? Well, bro, it’s always good, man, to be there, bro. If you’re not there, bro, it’s like you’re not there. Yeah, it’s like if you’re not there, then you’re not even there. You’re not even there, bro. Overall, basically, bro. You’ve got to be there, bro. I feel like you’re not even here right now. What if we are in a dream right now, but the dream is a bad dream where we’re on a radio show and we’re getting paid to do it, bro. It’s like we like it a lot, but we’re still, bro, wake up, bro. That’s crazy, bro. Okay, bro. Back to you, bro. Okay. Here’s how it works. You want to be prompt, that’s your deal. You want to be on time, that’s your deal. For example, beautiful example, Southwest Airlines. They take off when they say they’re going to take off, right? That’s right. They probably have the number one rating for on-time arrivals, on-time departures, right? I love those guys. And I’ve been on a lot of Southwest flights. It’s amazing they let me on them, but I sneak on every now and then, okay? Yeah, absolutely. And one time I was on there, they said, we’re holding the plane. And I said, what? You’re not going to be on time? We’re not contingent passengers. We’re holding the plane. You’re holding the plane? They said, yes, there’s six people that just came in on another flight that need to catch this connection and this is the last flight to Tulsa tonight so we’re going to hold it for them. They’ll be here in a few minutes and we’ll load up and go. And I thought, well that makes fiscal responsibility. To have those six people then spend the night, book another flight, the cost of that, they were smarter to go ahead and hold for the five minutes and get them on the flight and then boom. There’s a perfect example of, you know, we strive and our messages and all of our advertising says we’re on time, and yet they purposefully held for a good reason. Somebody listening right now is saying right now, they’re saying to themselves, this is what they’re saying right now, they’re saying, unbelievable hypocrisy in the airways. It’s like they say, be on time. If you’re not on time, then oh, we’re going to make you miss your flight. But then we make everybody on the plane wait. Unbelievable, Z. Hypocrisy. Unbelievable. Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders. Bernie’s at the field of Bern. The hypocrisy is due to this thing called capitalism. Unbelievable. The pursuit of money. It’s like people only want to exchange money for goods and services. You see, Z, that’s the problem with the fiat currency. If we could go back to a time where we all shared everything and we all lived together, then, well, that wasn’t very good either. But the point is… But I like that they told you and there was a reason, you know, and we’re just going to wait for a few minutes. I can respect that. So what’s the balance, man? I mean, if you’re listening right now, if anyone’s listening right now and they own a bank, they own a pharmacy, they own a photography company, they own a… How prompt do you want to be? I want to know. What is your answer? You want to be prompt. You want to be there. You want to be on schedule. But yet, you don’t want to throw the bathwater… You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater if someone’s a few minutes late for a particular reason. I mean, hey, listen. We all want to be on time. We all want to be on time, Shreya. But things happen. It’s called the world. Stuff happens. And so you just have to have just a little bit of grace, a little bit of grace, a little bit of grace. And if you’re dealing with customers, you just got to talk to them. Just like you said, Theresa, Southwest came on and said, this is your captain speaking and we’re going to be a few minutes late because we want to make some money. So you know. Now, here’s what I’m going to say. This is a little actionable point I have for all the Thrivers listening right now, because I know you’re listening going, well, what do I do? What do I need to write down? How do I do it? You don’t want to become chronically late. So I’m going to give you an example. In my family, we have five kids. And let me tell you what happens. We’re trying to get to church. Now we’re going out there to Metropolitan Baptist, which is about ten miles north of downtown. Now I know that to be there, because church starts at nine, and Pastor Owens is a good man. And I know to leave, we have to leave at 8.15. Do you know why? Travel time? Well, because the Suburban does not fly. And there are roads. Oh, you have one of those non-flying Suburbans. Right, and so we have to be in that, and we have to drive in that for about 30 minutes. But of course, somebody is going to be running late. So what’s happening is, I say, 8.15, we’re going now. I grew up in a family where I was around many many people who were always 22 minutes late to church. This is how they did it You sit down and you’re singing a song like father alone We’ll know all about it. Everybody’s doing that Understand why it is service why I’m sitting and tried will off the mint to wonder any clay and then what happens is the person next to you goes, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. And then they say, excuse me, excuse me, sorry, sorry. And they have five kids. Yeah. Excuse me, excuse me, sir, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. And then you sit down and you understand why tempted and tried will. And then, you know, Brother Carlton back in the day was saying, off the man to wonder. And then you and then the person goes, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. And you start to go, you’re late every week. But I’m at church, so I’m gonna be nice to you. But I’m judging you with my eyes. I’m so glad there’s salvation, because if there wasn’t, you would be going right to, anyway, how are you? It’s good to see you. And so there’s people who are late every week, though. We, in my house, we had a routine for that. What was the routine? I have a younger brother, I have lots of younger brothers, but I have one younger brother, who I’m not gonna mention his name, Chuck, who’s always, always, always late. He just is. It’s just his mood. So we developed a thing in our household called Chuck Time. Chuck Time. What do you do? What do you do? How does Chuck Time work? Well, if the event started at 3.30, we told Chuck it started at 3. We do that in our family. So Chuck would always roll in. Did he make it on time though? Well, Chuck did. He did. And then finally one day he kind of was like, wait a second, I’m the first one here? Every time. I’m the first one here? That never happened. So I’m just going to say this right now. I want to give you a notable quotable because if you’re listening to this and you want to start a business, according to Forbes, 57% of the people listening right now, you want to start a business. According to Forbes, by the way, Tulsa is one of the top five cities in the world for entrepreneurs. In the world for young entrepreneurs. Google that mess. You can find it. But here it is. This is John D. Rockefeller. He says, a man has no right to occupy another man’s time unnecessarily. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. So don’t make your team wait. Don’t put up with a chronically late person. Okay, just if it becomes a chronic thing, a habitual thing, pull them aside, say, this is an issue, let’s knock it out. Now we’re moving on to super move number five. Take responsibility for your mistakes. What? Now this is what used to happen back in the day. I used to have this DJ company, DJ Connection, which is now I’m sure in better hands than when I ran it. But when I ran it, I was trying to do my best and about out of every hundred weddings that we would do, we would screw up about four times. And we would screw up, when I first started, I was probably 24 or 23 at this point, I’d been in business for about five years, I used to blame the DJ who screwed up and take no responsibility. So here’s my move. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And they’re like, hey, I need to speak to the manager. And I’d answer, yeah, this is Clay. Yeah, I just, the DJ showed up late for my wedding and he just wasn’t very good. I would go, you know what, I’ll tell you what, Carl, he’s got an issue. I’ll tell you that. I’ll talk to Carl, but Carl, I’ll tell you what, I’ve been talking to Carl and I’m tired of Carl and I will tell you what, Carl will never forget this day because I’m going to brand him. And then a customer would be like, hey, you’re the boss. You’re the boss. And I’m like, yeah, but Carl, I mean, you know, and I used to blame him and I read that 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John Maxwell and I quickly discovered that as a leader you have to take responsibility for the company. As I read it, I was kind of reading it like quietly because I remember my wife and I were on a cruise. I remember my inner dialogue was saying, oh my gosh, you’re a terrible person. You’ve been doing it wrong for five years. But I used to just blame down. Z, why is it so important that you don’t blame your team and that you as an owner step up and take responsibility for any of the issues that they have? The buck stops with you. And if you’re not apologetic, it comes across as hollow. When you or somebody on your team makes a mistake, you as the leader, the boss, you’ve got to step up and own that and take it all on yourself, even if you had nothing to do with it. Now, you have to do that. You have to take the bullet for your team, but you also have to make sure that you pass on the praise. You can’t take the praise. You’ve got to take all the complaints because you’re an entrepreneur. Now, coming up next, we’re talking about super move number six. Make sure that the ball does not get dropped as a result of poor communication all over this nation. We’re talking about it. Coming up next. What is going on, Tulsa? Welcome back here to the Thrive Time Show. You’re listening here to Talk Radio 1170, where we are excited, we’re motivated, we’re just hyper pumped up. We are pumped up to be here with you today to listen to Tulsa’s only local business radio show where you can learn specifically how to start or grow a business. We’re all here together. Dr. Z, myself, I’m Clay Clark, I’m the co-host and former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, and we have Ms. Sherita Benton. We are talking about the 10 super moves that you can implement to hold your team accountable. Now super move number eight, super move number eight, I’m going to read it to you, here we go, here we go. Don’t allow vague and non-actionable items that sound like actionable items to be assigned to members of your team. As an example, you had a meeting and at the end of the meeting the action item was, hey Steve I need you to research some options and come back on Monday with some ideas. So Steve comes back on Monday and he says, I did some research and you said, Steve what did you find? And he says, well I found that I’m going to have to do some research. And what I’m going to have to do is I’m going to have to come back on Monday and really have some research. I think I’m moved by Steve. He needs to do some more research. No, and that’s what happens. And we’ve all been to… Do you remember back in the day when you as a kid went to maybe a Wednesday church service or a Sunday school? Did you ever as a kid go to a Sunday school or a Wednesday church service? Well, of course. I’m American. And the pastor says to you, this is what happens, Sharida, the pastor says, so guys, everyone, did you read your Bible studies this week? So in Proverbs, what’s it about? What is Proverbs 10-4 about? And this is what you would say as a good Bible school student, because there’s always like two kids in the class of like 10 who read the Bible verses. I was one of them. But for the other eight, this is what we say, we go, well overall it was about the Bible and God and how he loves us. Every verse could somehow, overall, and so the pastor who wants to love on kids, and he’s a volunteer, he’s not getting paid, he can’t fire the kid, he goes, well Billy, what did you get out of it? And then Billy says, well, overall, God’s love is just tremendous overall. And then you just, and we’ve all done it in college. You had a research paper that was due. It’s supposed to be 10 pages long. You get to page eight and you’re out of stuff to talk about because you didn’t read that book. Yeah. Oh no. So here’s what you do. You say, you open up the back page, you open up the last two pages of the book that you’re talking about and then you say, in summary, in the Lord of the Flies, what she was saying basically in summation. I don’t know anything about this. I actually read the book. Now, you used to be a teacher though, right? Yeah. How many times do you catch a kid who didn’t do his homework? All the time. All the time. I have a confession. Okay, go for it. It’s a birthday confession. You need to clean. It’s a birthday confession. The eighth grade, I got up and did an oral book report on a book I had not read. And if you’re listening, Mrs. Wolf, Mrs. Wolf, she was one of our favorites. She was one of our favorites. Mrs. Wolf, I just, it was the last of the Mohicans. Oh no, that’s a good book, dude. You should have read it. And I remember, I got a B. I got a B up on the board and I did not read the book and I just want to express my… The birthday confession. I’m so sorry, Miss Wolf, that I got up. And one of my lines that I said is, I don’t want to spoil the book for you. I don’t want to spoil it. So clever. The thing is, all of us without accountability play these games. At Oral Roberts University they used to have this thing called the Spirit, Mind and Body. They’re trying to help you become a whole man and have success in all the areas. And philosophically, although now I understand and I agree with the principle, I was 18. And they said you had to do a fun run. Now the fun run was a deal where… Shreta, can you explain what the fun run was all about? You’re listening to the Thrash Hunt Show on Talk Radio 117. Yeah, you ran what, like three or five miles? Somewhere between three and five miles. Thirty-five miles? Three to five. Oh, God. I can’t remember if it was three. I think if you walked it, you had to do three miles, and if you ran, I think you had to do five. And you had to hit certain time marks, too. You had to. Now, here’s what I discovered, though. They didn’t know who I was. So I went to guys on the basketball team and I said, hey, help me. You look in pretty good shape. And he goes, yeah. I said, I’ve got a DJ show tomorrow morning. Do you want to run it for me? I’ll pay you like, it’s three miles, so you’ll probably get it done in 20 minutes. I’ll pay like $60 for an hour of your time.” He’s like, cool man. So I never ran a fun run ever at Oral Roberts University. No wonder you got kicked out of that school. I did every hack possible. But the thing was, I was like, for $60 I can pay him, I can go get it set up for my DJ show. Boom. And all I’m saying is that we’re all… Did you use the same person or was it different people every time? I have a man who is very fast to run it often. And he loved it because when it was time for the fun run to happen, he would call me and go, hey, do you want me to run it? At first it was a one-time thing, but I was like a revenue supply for him. And then we would go to chapel, and we had a meeting with our chaplain once a week, and the chaplain, Walter Green, was my chaplain, great guy. And Walter would always say, guys, this week in Proverbs we did the assigned reading and I want to know, Clay, what did you learn from these verses this week? And just like I did when I was in Royal Rangers and just like I did when I was in third grade, I’d go, overall my spiritual life is more personal and I just really would like to just be more personal about it. What does that mean? Don’t pull up. What I’m saying is, if you didn’t create a culture of accountability, right now, the move he could have done is he could have said, I want everyone to read the book, read the Bible or read the thing, and I want you to highlight it, and I want you everyone to write a list of three actionable items that you’re going to do as a result of this, or three things you learned as a result of it. You have to bake that into your processes, otherwise people don’t do the thing. So I just want to recap. Supermovement number seven, never delegate an action item to a group of people, right, because there’s no accountability with a group of people. There’s one person, totally accountable. And supermovement number eight is don’t allow vague and non-actionable items to be assigned. So many business owners out there are motivated. You’re assigning reading to your company every day. You say I want my team to all read 21 irrefutable laws of leadership together Because this book made an impact on my life and so you come into your Friday meeting and you look at your team When you say team Did you read that book and they go? Yes? What did you learn about chapter one they go? It’s overall very personal to me Maxwell is an interesting name. I used to know a guy named Maxwell. Bernie Maxwell, Blank for the Hockeys. I wonder if he’s related to us. Wasn’t Maxwell an R&B sensation? So what happens is that you have to make sure you assign specific items. Now, Super Move number 9. Wait, wait, wait, Clayton. I’m out there. I’m listening. I’m driving home. It’s Monday. It’s drive time. I’m listening to my Thrive Time show. And I say, boy, that sounds good, but give me some examples. I mean give me some examples of vague and then specific. I mean you’re doing your office meeting, you’ve got your crew out there and I’m sitting there listening and I go, okay, what is that? Okay here we go, this is what you do. Give me some boom. You always want to assign who needs to do it, when they need to have it done, and what needs to be done. Period. Who, what, and when. And then you need to ask them, you need to say it to them. You say, Billy, do you understand what you are supposed to do? And then Billy can ask right there in the meeting, what do I need to do? And if he doesn’t get it, then you repeat it again. But if he gets it, then you hold him accountable and you follow up in the next meeting. That’s how you do it because if not, you just drift and pretty soon you start to say, well, if you want something done yourself, Z, you just got to do it yourself. Because if you want it to be done yourself, you’ve got to do it yourself. And you just end up in a cycle of dysfunction. You’re no longer a business owner. You’re self-employed where the business owns you. You have an option. Do you own the business or does the business own you? Coming up next after the break, we’re talking about super move number eight. Super move number eight and number nine. Super move number nine is require everyone to use the same system today. Everyone to use the same system. What is going on 918? You are looking great. You’re in your car. You’re headed home. You’re just feeling good and you’re saying, what am I listening to? Well, you’re listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. You see, it’s the Thrive Time Show. It’s like business school without the B-S. And I am your co-host with the most. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. And I am joined here with Ms. Sherita Bent. Sherita, how are you? I’m fabulous. Now, for a lot of people who maybe thought I said Sherita Ben, it’s Sherita Bent. Is that right? That’s right. How do you spell that? B-E-N-T. No, no, no, that’s not how you spell that. T-H-A-T. What’s going on? Crickets, crickets, crickets. I’m tracking with you. My, my, my, my. That’s a birthday joke. It’s his birthday. He’s got a job. I have a very slow mind. It just grinds to a halt. It’s all right. We’ll wait for you. We’ll wait for you. I have the mind of a rooster. Now, also, we’re joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner, who you’re celebrating. How old are you today, sir? 52. I want to ask you. I want to ask you. You know, 50 is a new 30. So, if you’re dyslexic, 25. I mean, I’m somewhere in that late 20, early 30 range. You’re looking good. We’re talking about the 10 super moves to create a culture of accountability. But I want to ask you some stuff you really can’t ask the typical millionaire tycoon. So I’m going to go ahead and ask you. How long do you think you’re going to be on the planet Earth? Here’s my plan. Here’s your plan. I’ve got a plan. My plan is I’m going to live forever. And so far, so far, it’s working. It’s working out. It’s great. A lot of people laugh when I say that. I go, look, look, look, I’m alive. It’s working. It’s working. You can’t argue with success. But I want to ask you. You can’t argue with success. I want to ask you this, though. Seriously, I want to ask you this. This is kind of a morbid birthday question. You’re 52 years old. You’ve had a lot of success. How important is your time to you now? Real important. I mean, how important is it? It’s very important. I mean, it’s the one thing you can’t get more of. I mean, your day is only so long, just kind of math, unless you come from the planet where you come from, where days are longer, weeks are longer. Weeks extra days. Extra days and things like that. The 80 hour work week. That’s crazy. But us here on earth, we’ll call this earth, we only have so much time every day. That means so much time every week, so much time every year. Well, somebody listening right now, what’s happening is you’re having a meeting with your staff and every week nothing is getting done. Come on. You’re listening right now and you know that every week you have a meeting and nothing is getting done. That’s got to be frustrating. And so you’ve read Tony Dungy’s book and you’re like, I’m going to be a quiet and firm leader. And then you’ve read Darth Vader. You’re like, is there a Darth Vader book? And you watch the movie, but you read the transcript and he’s basically telling people, where are the plans that we get? And he’s just threatening people. And the choke hold thing was pretty cool too. And then you’re going back and forth and you’re trying to figure out how do you hold people accountable. You’re reading a lot of Old Testament right now and you’re like, well God actually just put them into the center of the earth and set them on fire, it looked like. But you want to hold your team accountable and we’re trying to teach you specific moves that you can do that won’t take you to the Old Testament, they won’t put you in jail, so you can get some stuff done and go home and have a good life. So we’re talking about these moves. Super move number eight was don’t allow vague and non-actionable items that sound like action items to be assigned to the members of your team. But super move number ten… I mean, nine. Super move number nine. Sorry. Super move number nine. I got very excited. You are. And that’s okay. Super move number nine. Super move number nine. Very calm. You want to require everyone to use the same system. Now, this is the thing. One guy on your team is using his Google Docs. Someone else is using his Basecamp. Someone else is using his Notepad, someone else is using his Post-it Note. And it doesn’t necessarily matter what system they’re using, but the system is they must be accountable. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 117. And what I’m talking about is you’re in a meeting right now and you know who you are. You’re in a meeting, you’re supposed to lead the meeting. I do know. And you know that you have no idea what everyone on your team is supposed to do, and you have no idea, you don’t remember what was supposed to be done in the last meeting, and your team is taking advantage of it. So Z, I want to ask you, why is it so important for you, like at the auto auction, as an example, for the manager of your auction to know what everyone’s doing and what they’re accountable for? Why is it so important for the manager at your auto auction to know what everyone’s supposed to do and what everyone is accountable for? Because when you have that many cars and you have 100 employees and you’re selling 800 cars on a given day, you have to be a well-oiled machine. Otherwise, you will not get that machine down the road. I see a lot of entrepreneurs, though, that this is what’s happening. You’re really good at DJing. I used to do this. I was a disc jockey. I was very good at DJing, and my wife would say, Luther Vandross CD live from Radio City Music Hall. Where’s that one? We have a wedding tonight. Where’s that CD? Oh, it’s over there by the chair. And she says she grabs it by the chair. What chair? Oh, the one over there with the red chair. Okay. Now you bring an employee in. He says, Hey, Clay. He doesn’t say, Hey, baby. He says, Hey, Clay, where’s the Radio City Luther Vandross? And I say, By the chair. And he says, Well, what chair? And I said, The one over there. And he says, What chair? And I said, What chair? The one over there. And so it’s like the fourth, and pretty soon I have three people and they say, hey, where is the MTV Uptown Unplugged CD and the Luther Vandross and the Celine Dion Greatest Hits? Where are those? And I’m like, over there by the chair and it’s over there by the couch and overall, and pretty soon there’s dysfunction because there’s disorganization, there’s no system, there’s no processes, and pretty soon you can’t grow beyond two or three weddings and I had to get very organized I think a penalty of ambition is you have to become more and more organized Interesting I wanted to want to talk about this because in your at your optometry clinic You have different frames and different glasses and stuff, but everything’s very it’s sorted. It’s very organized Talk to me about the importance of organization as you begin to sell things successfully and as you begin to grow. Why is organization so important? Well, the good thing about our office is that we’re fairly busy for an optimist’s office, okay? And busy will do a couple of things. Busy will either kill you or it’ll make you strong. What I mean by that is, is that when you’re really busy and you don’t have a good organization, it just upsets everybody. It upsets your customers, your patients, they don’t come back, and that’s the worst thing that can happen is negative word of mouth. But if it’s organized, guess what? What? Guess what? What? What is it? What is it? I’m guessing. It runs smooth. Oh! Patients come back. They give you their money. Well, somebody’s listening right now, and they’re saying, I don’t want to grow too fast. I don’t want to grow too fast. I want to grow slow. I want to take it forever. We’re going to talk about it coming up next. Green country, Tulsa, T-Town, Oklahomies, how are you doing? My name is Clay Clark and you are listening to your new favorite show. It’s the Thrive Time Show, the place where you come to each day. You’ve come here faithfully. You have adjusted your calendar. You’ve set a phone alarm. I know you have. You set a phone alarm. I’m not mad at you. I know. I get it. You’ve got to remember from 5 to 7 every day on your drive time home, you want to listen to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. People say you have a problem and you say no, no I’m just thriving baby, I’m just thriving and my name is Clay Clark I’m the former United States Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year and I am joined with a tycoon, an optometrist, an entrepreneur, a father, a birthday boy, a guru, a husband. When I say a husband, he’s a love machine. He’s a great guy. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Thank you, Clay. I’m thrilled to be here. And one thing I’m trying to figure out is, what if I’m listening to your intro and I go, I think it’s really maybe my second favorite show. Maybe I like… Well, one is you need to stop lying to yourself because when you’re lying to yourself, you can’t be honest with anybody. I kind of like that gardening show on Saturday, too. Here’s the deal. There are a lot of great shows on PBS where they talk like this and you are listening to the Thrive Time show on PBS where we talk slow and we plead for people to listen because we can’t sell ads. But then there is the Thrive Time show where we are rocking. We are joined here today with Ms. Sherita Bent. Sherita, how are you? Hey, y’all. I’m great. We are talking about the ten super moves to hold your team accountable to create a culture of Accountability someone’s listening right now, and they’re saying I just want the people on the team to do their freaking job. I’m so frustrated I just wanted to do their job Hey Clay before you hit number 10 once you do a quick recap of the first nine and listen Some of these are gonna if you haven’t been listening to the whole show you can go on the thrive time show calm and listen And listen to this show and catch these first nine that you may have missed. Super move number one, assign every task in writing as you conclude all the meetings. Super move number two, follow up on all assigned action items during each meeting. Super move number three, by the way, super move number two, maybe you want to do this. Oh, Billy. That’s so good. Follow up on all assigned action items during the meeting. Man. Now, supermovement number three. Follow up on all assigned action items while assuming that the items were not completed in an accurate and timely manner. Now supermovement number four. Be prompt all the time. All the time? Why all the time? Because you only want to be prompt on the days where you want to make money. The other days don’t worry about it. Oh, well I should hear you back to that capitalism thing. Yeah, it’s all about capitalism. Now, super move number five, take responsibility for your own mistakes. When you make a mistake, you want to hold yourself accountable because the customer has choices. America! In America. Now, if you’re listening right now from a communist country, don’t worry about it. Customers can’t choose. They have to use you. Just keep screwing up. Yeah, you just marked that off the list. Yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s a stupid move if you’re in a communist country right now. Now, super move number six, make sure the ball does not get dropped as a result of poor communication from station to station, from handoffs between team members. Super move number seven, almost taking me to leadership heaven. If my name was Kevin, if you know what I mean, ha! So never delegate an action item to a group of people. Okay, never, never, never. You want to assign it to one person, not a whole team. Super move number eight, a good move for you to marinate on right here, super number eight for you to marinate on is don’t allow vague and non-actionable items that sound like action items to be assigned to members of your team. Super move number nine, require everyone to use the same system because there’s so many time management systems and you’ve got to make sure you’re all on the same page, literally. And by the way, if you want a time management system, you go to thrive15.com and we teamed up with the former Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World Resorts, a man who managed 40,000 people. Some people are listening right now and you’re struggling to manage two people. Don’t worry about it. I used to do it too. Three people, four people, five people. This man managed 40,000 people. How’s that possible? And he teamed up with us and helped us build a time management system for you. It’s available for $19 a month as part of your Thrive15.com experience. Super move number 10 is assign key performance indicators and follow up. Now, a key performance indicator, you might be asking yourself, what is that? Billy, Billy? It says, at the end of the day, a key performance indicator is those measurable deliverables. It’s the quantitative metrics. I’ll give you a very specific example. It’s near and dear to my heart. It’s a call center. I love that that’s near and dear to your heart. When I go to a call center, it’s almost like making a religious trip. Some people feel this way about going to Jerusalem or Mecca or to Mount Rushmore or Covita. But when I go into a call center, I begin to feel like I’m at home. And I get my whiteboard out and I say, Person A, you never refer to them by their name. Person A, Person B, Person C, you all make 100 calls per day, 25 calls per hour, and you will set this many appointments. You’re going to follow this script. Let’s review. Person A, Person B, Person C, this is how many calls you need to make per day. This is how many appointments you need to set. And you’re going to follow this script. And every time I run a call center, they work. And you know why they work? Because we hold people accountable to the specific… Do you mean you force them to do all that? Now, Z, I know there’s like six or seven people listening right now who understand and who remember what the game of baseball was. Is that still a thing? Well, not really, but people are still getting paid a lot of money even though no one is in the stands. I don’t get that by the way. I wish I was a baseball player. Have you watched SportsCenter recently? I haven’t. Unfortunately that player on the Marlins died the other day. I was watching that and I was sad that the person died and I looked into the stands and I noticed that it’s not very full. NBA, NFL, it’s always full. I guess because they have so many games. 162 games, they probably have a little bit of emptiness in the stands. But the thing is, in baseball they’re all about statistics. One guy is going to be batting like 300. In baseball terms, if you get a hit 3 out of 10 times, you’re very good. If you get a hit 33 out of 100 times, you’re a Hall of Fame player. If you get a hit 40 out of 100 times, you’re like the best ever. No one’s done that in years. So it’s a big thing. So you have to know the measurable numbers for the members of your team. So Zee, I want to ask you, because in your optometry clinic or in the bank you’re involved in or in the sleep center, there’s a good salesperson. You can think about a good salesperson. I’m sure you’ve just mentally pictured a good salesperson. And there’s a salesperson who’s not very good. Yeah. Why is it important that you know, I guess, how do you use your key performance indicators or the metrics that you keep track of to know who’s good and who’s bad? How do those numbers help you manage your squad? Well, in the sleep center, we have salespeople and they go door to door, doctor to doctor, pounding on doors. Let me in. Let me in. Is the doctor here? Is the doctor here? I have donuts. I have food. And so they have so many offices they have to go and visit. And then you can see if they do a good job with their visit of explaining us, explaining the importance of a sleep study, explaining the importance of sleep, explaining all the side effects that people are having if they’re not sleeping well. And so therefore trying to get that business referred in, you can see an uptick. You can measure, we have measurables that we measure how many offices we’re going into and then also how many referrals we get from those. And someone listening right now, you’re trying to manage somebody. You’re trying to manage maybe three bodies, three bodies, maybe one somebody, maybe three bodies, four bodies. There’s a lot of bodies. You’re managing some humans. And what you’re doing is you’re walking up to your sales guy and you say, so imagine you’re selling like surfboards, okay? You’re selling surfboards. Your company is a surfboard selling company. Somehow you’re based in Tulsa, but you’re selling them on the coasts. And you walk up to the guy and you say, so how many did you sell today? And he goes, bro, bro, dude, I almost had one. Bro, I got some gnarly calls I was talking to. And then basically, I just got like, it’s hard to describe really overall, but it was huge. You go, what was the number of sales you made? It’s hard for me because I got a couple of them on the verge of it, bro. Seriously, I was on YouTube and I was watching the spit from this wave and it got pitted and I was like, whoa, whoa! You’re going, how many did you sell? You have to ask two or three times, do you not? When you’re following up with sales people, you have to ask and you have to get down to that number because the truth will allow you to manage somebody. But you have to have the numbers, the key performance indicators. You have to know what percentage of memberships did you sell, how many hours a day are you supposed to be doing this, how many calls did you make. And Z, if someone wants to know everything they need to know about managing people, we have created a website for them and tell them what that website is, my friend. Oh, it’s a beautiful thing, too. It’s thrive15.com. That’s T-H-R-I-V-E, the number one five dot com. You can get on there and you can binge watch videos until your eyeballs just like explode. So don’t do it that long. So Steve, do you have to be on the internet to go onto that website? Yes, you have to be, thank you Al Gore, you have to be on the internet to go on the website. You take your little credit card, it’s $19 a month. I promise most of you listening out there are spending more on Starbucks every month than you would on this. Life-changing stuff on there on how to start a business, grow a business. We have workshops, in-person workshops. We have downloadables. You can just email us in questions and we will answer them. It’s unbelievable. It’s Thrive15.com. It really is the world’s best business coaching platform, the world’s best business school. And check it out, in the history of Thrive15.com, we don’t have any students who have hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt. So again, we appreciate you listening today to the Thrive Time Show. We’re going to be back tomorrow, and tomorrow we’ve got an incredible training for you. You’re not going to want to miss out here, the Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one. Boom! All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! Alright, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, ten minutes or less and see if you could save three thousand bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. No, that’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like nah, that’s not worth my time probably some someone out there okay everything that while just a folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than a three thousand dollars per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshare dot com forward slash credit dash hard up it because you can compare rates you can save money and you know that the big the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom and in order to do that you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss. I cannot think of any other reason. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really, fool? Really? Stop looking at me, swan! Let me tell you a good story here, real quick. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here. It’s called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know that was skeptical. I just thought whatever. I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare eights I can’t tell you can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure but can’t you take a guess? well not for another two hours You can’t take a guess for another two hours and in my case in my in my case my particular case I save over $20,000 a year Wow, which is uh, you know like a Holy crap! Wow. Which is, uh, you know, like, uh, groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. No! Everything okay, ma’am? Oh, it’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s in elegant, from Ridgway. It’s from Ridgway. Ridgway. Ridgway. Ridgway. Let’s buy. Let’s buy. Buy the clock. And sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. 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 want to do is we want to 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, okay? 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 nonexistent 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, you know, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn 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 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 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, 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. And it’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is 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 contributed to our success. But that, like, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, 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. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. 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, that 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’re 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 going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to 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 services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re 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 Industry 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. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, 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 like Lee Crocker, 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. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So, in the weekly, he’s 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 multi-millionaires, 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. 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. I was really most impressed with him is 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. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime 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, right? This is where we used to live 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 ten 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 highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. 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. When 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, 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 Edith McChocolate 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. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but 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. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their call. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking But I had no control over it. I I didn’t without the systems You’re gonna be at the you’re gonna be victimized by your own business There’s somebody out there who struggles with math if you would say that your average Number of clients was 30 and you go to 100 as a percentage. What is that? I I have grown I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7-8 years and I’ve got doubled 5 times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when they needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, turns into sales. Well I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there is having a hard time. On that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC. The computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to hideaway pizza, but you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah Uh, well, we had that speaking thing that oh, there it was. So it’s victory christian center. I was speaking there My name is robert redmond. I uh, actually first met clay Almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not But I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship. But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses, implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn. I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory, and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else’s that can be as passionate. You know whenever a business starts working with Clay it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by. People who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people and in short anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day actually. I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.