Entrepreneur | Creating A Daily Office Culture Of Success

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 hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a 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, three, two, one, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Brian, I appreciate you letting me harass you, my friend. Hey, we are here today in my dojo of mojo at our undisclosed 3939 South Harvard location of the Thrive Studio here. And we are talking today about creating a daily office culture of success. Now, Brian, I won’t verify, but how do you feel? I feel good, I feel good. You watched a movie that you weren’t really excited about this weekend. Real quick, just tell the Thrivers what movie that was that just was like, eeep. You know, I hate to be such a critic, but Interstellar was my favorite movie. Here’s the deal, Thrivers, you’re watching this, if you’ll watch it, we guarantee it’s either the best movie you’ve ever seen or the worst movie you’ve ever seen. I would agree with that. It’s a 50-50, you don’t know. So, we’re going to get in now to creating a daily office culture of success. And one of the things we’re talking about is that it’s important that you can do this on a daily basis. I mean, this isn’t about creating a culture of success because you went to a seminar and woo! We’re excited. This is a daily thing. So I’m going to go ahead and read an excerpt from the Service Profit Chain. This is a book written by the Harvard Business Professors Sasser, Schlesinger, and Heskett. And here we go. Being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the right job the first time. All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants. Brian, in your mind, why is it so important to design processes and systems that are going to build a culture in every other aspect of your business? A couple of years ago, I was at an event and I was struggling with some of these same situations and Joe Jordan told me, he said, understand that this topic is so important. He said, culture is better than a strategy. It’s what manages when the manager is gone. And I thought, you know what? If I had to sit and really think about that, systems are crucial for consistency across enterprise, but will only happen if the culture is there. Basically, Joe is saying, if you train and lead right, you create this culture, that particular process will help manage and create other systems and processes that you need. That blows my mind! My brain matter is going to fly out here. Brian, we have on the website, Thrivers can email in their questions all the time, questions that they want to ask the guru the question. And one of the ones that came in says, hey dudes, I own a business in the printing industry and it honestly feels like that it would almost be more profitable for me to shut down the shop when I can’t be there in the office Like he said when I can’t physically be in there in the office. I almost feel like I should just shut it down I just returned from my honeymoon and I discovered that nobody checked the client’s file before doing a massive Batch of printing I guess a big printing when I was out of town our guys totally ruined the order and it cost me nearly $3,400 I would totally freak out at an employee who didn’t do their job, but this has happened with nearly every employee I’ve ever had. So I’m starting to think I’m just a terrible trainer. How can I create a culture that gets employees to get their jobs done on a daily basis even when I’m out of the office? I’ve learned with customers that they’ll never love my company until my staff does. And I still believe that this all starts in the interview and the recruiting process with your team. You’ve hired somebody that you’ve not gotten to know. People do it every single day. It’s the norm. You just go out and hire someone when you need them, when it’s actually after you need them. You haven’t gotten to know them, so there’s no expectation, and they serve this temporary need to help you think that you’ve got somebody running your business for a little bit. Let me ask you. We’re going to dive into this lesson nugget here. Customers will not love your company until your employees do? Exactly. Okay. So let’s get into this for a second. Sure. I’m going to unpack this. Let’s say that I own a hair salon. All right. And I’ve got a lady who’s cutting hair and a dude who’s cutting hair and they’re all just like, wow, can I go on break? And, yeah, I’ve been on my feet all day. And they’re just kind of complaining about the general business. Or in this guy’s case, they’re printing stuff wrong all the time. How do you get somebody to love your company, Brian? Sounds so easy. Well, it’s definitely not easy, which is why a lot of people do not do it. But it starts with the connection that you have with the staff. In the interview and recruiting process, you begin to get to know them. You’ve given them assignments that help them connect you to your business, and then when you’ve hired them, you’ve set expectations with them and let them know that you’re not going to ask them to do anything that you’re not willing to do. And when you build this staff and you get it right, you have the staff begins to then show that to the clientele. This is another one of those things where people want the secret. There’s no secret. Look at Chick-fil-A. Look at all the great places you go to where they have built their success, their foundation is on the staff. It’s not on the food. Other people have chicken sandwiches. It’s not on the fries. Other people have good fries. It’s on the staff. It’s on the experience that you have when you go there. And you know another example on the other side, it’s a place I love so I hate to do it, is B****. You know not everyone watching this you know nationwide might know what a b**** is. Okay, what’s a b****? Just can you explain to me what a b**** is? A b**** is an old-fashioned hamburger joint. It’s really popular in the lower five states, you know, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Louisiana, I believe. And what they have is great food. They pride themselves on real hamburger meat. They pride themselves on not just being a fast food place. The problem is that they have a drive-thru. So they are a fast food place that gives you really slow food. And so if you didn’t really love you would never go back there because you sit in line for forever, it feels like. And so what they’ve done is they’ve taken really good food and wrapped it with terrible service, hired people that have no clue. And this is at one, this is consistent among all of them. And you know, that’s why I say that I look at Chick-fil-A as a whole, it’s really good. At B&&% as a whole, it’s really bad. And what has happened is the leaders have gone different directions with how that they’re really emphasizing what staff can do. Well, Brian, let’s go ahead and deep dive into this like an athletic and steroid-enhanced member of the Olympic swimming team there. Not that any of our athletes have ever done steroids. For our country, it’s probably just other countries. But, okay, so we’re gonna be talking about creating this culture of success. So walk me through the daily and weekly routines that you have in place to make sure that you are creating a culture of success. What are some of the daily and weekly routines? You know, and it tries to be daily, but it’s always weekly. One of the first things that I’m always gonna do is I go to connect with my team. When I leave here and I go back to my office, I’ll connect with my team. So many people are checking their emails or checking their messages and doing all those things. There are no emails. There are no messages without a team. And so I’m always first to go and connect with my team, individualize them, create a short conversation with each and every one. We’re going to talk about how they’re doing, what they did this weekend, what’s their plan for today. I make what they have to do today about them, not me. You know, what’s your goals today? What are you trying to get done today? I want to hear them tell me, not for me, for them. What happens is you do that every day and every single week. You build this rapport with your team that make them feel like you’re with them, not just employing them. You’re with them in the fight. So you’re connected with your staff every day. You’re going and seeing these people, looking at them in the eyes, and you’re saying there’s no emails, no phone calls, nothing was going to happen if without these people. If I’m at my office, Clay, that’s what I’m doing. When I walk in, the first thing I do is I look for team members to greet. I look for team members to set expectations with, and I look for team members to shake hands, hug necks, make them feel special. They’re doing something for you, and if you never forget that, you’ll see that they’ll show their want and need to be in your business way more than someone that you don’t do that with. Let’s say you go in, you’re doing your rounds, you’re talking to people and you’re really connected. Let’s say that one person is really, you walk in and you know they’re not doing their job. In the middle of, they’ve got their computer, they’ve got it pulled up there, it’s like their fantasy football league. They’ve got Facebook, Netflix, and they’ve got it all pulled up. They have two monitors. One has Netflix, the other one’s got Facebook. They got their fantasy football. And they’re like, hey, Brian, good to see you. And he said, what are you doing? What are you up to? I’m just working hard on stuff. What do you do to hold your team accountable on a daily basis as you’re making your rounds? You know, I’m a little bit different about that. I don’t lash out on somebody. I make sure they know that I’ve seen what they’re doing and I let them marinate on it. Marinate? Yeah, we’ll talk about that later. They know what they were doing is unacceptable. I know it. We’re going to talk about it. You get one. And I don’t tell anybody that you get one, but you get one. And we’re going to sit down and talk about that later, probably later that day. I’m going to cross paths with you somewhere and say, hey, how was it going earlier, checking out Netflix? What were you watching? And I make it sound like I really want to know. Well, I was watching Interstellar. And I immediately, I’m probably going to get frustrated because if you’re going to waste my time and yours, waste it on Rocky 5, Rocky 3. Yeah, a movie that was something good. You know, if you’re going to spend my time and my internet, watch something good. I would literally go about that conversation exactly like that. Clay, I’m going to joke with you a little bit and then I’m going to say, do you think that that was helping anybody today? Well, no. And so I’m going to say, you know, that’s unacceptable at work and you know you can’t do that. I don’t want to see you watching movies on my time again. I give you plenty of freedoms here. I give you plenty of time and I don’t want you watching movies here at work. That’s not good for me or you or anyone else here to get the job done. Okay, but you had that conversation. Exactly like that. Now a little notable quotable for you, Jeff Bezos, this is the founder of Amazon.com, he famously described culture as, our culture is friendly and intense, but if push comes to shove, we’ll settle for intense. What is the culture that you’re trying to build within your organization? Not Jeff Bezos, what are you trying to build within your organization? You know, I would say with us, we like to win, but we’re here to serve. And that particular, you know, it’s something that we all say in my office. We’re always talking about we love to win. We want to win, but we’re here to serve. And what we found in our business that if we serve people first, we always end up winning. They come in, they see us, they send their friends and their family to do business with us. And the first thing they say when they got here is, hey, so-and-so said that Tanya was so good the other day, I want to talk to her. They don’t say anything about what can they buy, what was the price, what is this, what is that. They always say, hey, so-and-so said to come see Tanya, that she would be able to help me on this. Well, that’s because we’re serving, we’re helping people. So if I watch this and I’m going, gosh, I would love it if Tanya would work in my office, or I wish those stories would happen. If I’m highly motivated to set up these success processes needed to run a successful business, what are some things you think I should do on a daily basis? I should go ahead and jot down right now action items, things that I can start doing. Well, and you had this here. Jack Welch said, and I just kind of played off it, he said, if the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near. I interpret this to say that we need to act fast. I would immediately look to set a meeting with the most successful person I knew around my industry and learn about what they do. Sometimes we’re so busy looking for secrets and things that people don’t know that we miss the obvious. The obvious is go find someone that’s very successful in your industry and ask them how to do it. You said the Jack Welch quote that if the rate of change is greater outside of your organization than it is within it, then what? The end is near. Oh boy. So, better get serious here if that’s you. Now moving on here, now on the next action item, let’s say that you’re trying to walk me through what you would actually say to team members that show that they don’t want to do the things necessary to win. Like, example, a lot of business owners really struggle with that awkward conversation sure and let’s say that you know I’m there and let’s go to the printers analogy well if you’re a print shop I guess this example you have to print things for customers I would assume on time and accurately so what would you say if you’re running this print shop and Holmes is misspelled something for the fourth you know for the third time how that conversation go down in your office? You know, that’s a really tough situation, losing money like that with an employee that’s doing things without checking their work. But I’ve always kind of thought to myself, I can never rise higher than the expectations that I’ve set for myself. And it’s basically making things real. It’s saying what has to happen. It’s speaking verbally the expectations you have for people. And in the print shop situation, I mean, have these people been trained? I mean, have these people been gone through a process where they know every single thing they’re supposed to do? And then, do these people care about this business when you leave? The ultimate business owner can leave his business for a month and come back, and things are better than when he left. A month? If you have time to do that. Now, let me ask you this here. Now, so if you’re dealing with a hostage situation, okay, so let’s say that I’m watching this and I’ve created one of those hostage situations where I’m the owner, but I feel like I’m being held hostage by my non-performing staff. Should I just go, you know, in there Chuck Norris style and start to knock out the non-performing employees? Or what should I do? I feel like I’m being held hostage by just terrible people. You know, and this one’s so tough because it just depends on how far you’ve let it go. What you’ve got to remember as a business owner is don’t be too quick to forget that you created this. And people hate to hear that because like, well, I didn’t create this. I didn’t do anything. You did. You hired them. You didn’t set expectations. You didn’t train. You didn’t lead. And if you did all that, they still work here. So you’re letting them be here. So, you know, you’re the person who’s created this problem. So you’ve got to be, you’ve got to figure out what’s going to be the best way to either fix the situation or save the person. And you know, it’s really hard to say there’s a hard and fast rule to this, but I’ll tell people, you’ve got to really analyze your situation and your people. And it’s something I don’t tell a lot of people because it’s really embarrassing, but I actually was fired from my first three jobs. Oh, really? Absolutely. The trifecta? The hat trick? Oh, yeah. What were you doing? Were you watching Interstellar? You know, when I look back on it, Clay, getting fired for my first three jobs was a factor of me not really caring about the business and the employer not caring about me not caring about the business. Okay. Can you share one crazy thing you did? Anything at all? Just one. It’s in the past. I mean, to quote Michael Vick, that’s in the past. We’re not talking about the future, we’re talking about the past. What was something you did in the past? You know, I never stole anything, Clay. I never did anything like that. I was just late. I was late all the time. I didn’t see in the world that revolved around Brian why I needed to be there at 8 o’clock. You know, why can’t I be there about 8, 10? I worked for a bank one time in the commercial line and I lost like $502. Well, we figured out that someone actually took the money. I had given them too much back and they didn’t return it. But they let me go that day. I look back on that and think I learned from that situation the bravery that the person had to just, in the spirit of that was their business, they did not like me. They just didn’t happen And and I look back on those lessons and think Okay, I can’t let people lose money. That’s a huge problem. We can’t make mistakes I can’t let people be late because it’s it’s terrible for our office and our service and the demeanor of everyone that decides they want To be on time. So these little bitty things that people think oh, these are just kid things They’re not these are teachable deals. You can set expectations. I was a solvable problem at all three of those jobs. But when I look back on it, the leader and the people that were running the business, they didn’t really care that I didn’t care. And they didn’t want to have awkward conversations to help me get to a place. And so I look back on some of those businesses still today, too, and they’re the very same. Turnover rates very high. high, profits are low because they’re continually hiring people and paying to train them. I would say this, if you’re watching this and you’re afraid of that awkward conversation, there’s no other I guess encouragement I can give you then you’re just gonna have to do it. Yeah. It’s gonna happen all the time and until you can find a way to hire personable robots, you’re just gonna have to do it, right? I mean, yeah. Now, all the business owners that we’ve interviewed, a lot of the mentors we’ve interviewed, they all basically seem to rally around some of these concepts. I want to go ahead and just read them off to you to hear how that would relate to what you do. Sure. One is you don’t fire until you have a replacement. It seems like a lot of business owners are like, hey, if it’s you and a dude, you don’t want to fire the other dude until you have a replacement. So you’re going to constant recruiting stream. The second is don’t wait on the employees to change. They’re not going to change themselves. Then the third is do not negotiate with terrorists. You know, these people who are just caustic, hateful people. So let’s get into this here. Don’t fire until you have a replacement. Do you sort of, is that why you’re always recruiting? So you never get a buy? I think that you answer the question there. If you’re always recruiting for your business, you’ve solved that problem. You’re always building relationships with people that could become a part of your organization. Now don’t wait on employees to change. I think a lot of business owners are like, well, they’re just young, or they’re just old, it’s taking a while to get adjusted to the culture. It sounds like you’re saying, hey, you’ve got to make that change. Well, I think people can quickly show you whether or not they want to be there or not. And this can be done in the way that they give effort. This can be done in the way that they try and go the extra mile. I think if someone can show you in immediate fashion that they want to be there, I’m the type of person that I’m actually going to give that person a chance. I want to see the effort and that can be done overnight. This isn’t a thing to where you have a good conversation, you set expectations and it takes them 95 days to come around. That’s not changing. This isn’t a relationship, we’re not trying to save a marriage here. This is a deal to where I need you to immediately react to what I’m telling you. And if you want to be here, I want to see these changes implemented now. I see this a lot in call centers where you get a guy who doesn’t follow the script and the owner is like, hey, could you try to follow the script? And the employee says, I’ll try, I’ll see if I can make some changes. And it’s things shouldn’t take a week. You’re talking about immediate, like homes right now. Bam. Well, that’s a great deal. If it took this kid, what, three weeks to start to follow the script, I think he’s telling you that I don’t really care what you say. Oh! If the very next day he’s implemented the script and he’s trying his best, okay, problem solved. Now, what about this whole thing about negotiating with terrorists, as an example? In our office, we had this guy, we’ll call him the Destroyer. We won’t say his first name. But his whole deal was like, I don’t have any idea how this equipment broke. I have no idea. I don’t know how that equipment broke either. I don’t even know. In fact, my the guy you’re telling me, he says to me, Clay, my boss, he said hateful things to me. He did all the way his tone was out of control, his tone, the way I can’t deal with people talking to me that way. My equipment keeps breaking. And then he says a horrible thing about a really good employee. Well, this employee, he’s never told me that. He must be lying to you. Now I’m like, ooh, you’re a terrorist. I’m realizing this guy’s having like jihad in our office. In that situation, are you the kind of guy who wants to negotiate? You’re like, hey, you know, do you wanna? You know, I’m not good with that kind of stuff. I think the best defense is to never let someone use offense on you. If there’s a major problem detected, you have to act quickly. And again, it goes back to, everybody wants the secret potion that’s not there, the awkward conversation. If someone is doing that right in front of you, the very best thing you can do is immediately put an end to it. Bam! You’ve got to stop terrorists, you’ve got to stop poison in your office because it spreads so much faster than positive stuff. Positivity takes a lot longer to build and to generate results in an office. The negative one, though, it takes immediate action and you’ve got to get rid of it. I hate to go back to football analogies, especially that involve the Patriots, because I know that our program observer can’t stand the Patriots, which is why I question his Americanism from time to time. But the thing about this is that the Patriots football team, Bill Belichick, he’s won three Super Bowls and the team’s always successful. Or the Spurs, the San Antonio Spurs in basketball. Or if you look at like Disney, let’s say those three, the Spurs, you got the Patriots, you got Disney. It seems like in all those organizations, if they have a bad apple, they quickly move to get rid of it. You know, if they have… so the Patriots, they got a guy who’s talking too much and he’s, you know, complaining about his contract. I mean, he’s just not on the team anymore. Spurs, same way for basketball. It seems like at Disney, they’re very good about, hey, we’re going to create a culture at Disney World that is conducive for families. And if somebody is not with that, they’re out of here. Is that your mentality, just kind of a quick move? I believe that way, too. I think that if you’ve done all the things on the right, all the companies you just named, Clay, don’t have special powers. The recruiting process, the training process, and the expectation setting process all resides in all those organizations you just said. This isn’t one quick fix. It’s something that starts at the beginning of employment. At Disney, when you get hired there, they tell you right away, you’ve got to wear your hat and your name tag every day. Hat and a name tag every day. If you show up without it, you got to go home and get it. If you don’t show up with it again, you don’t work here anymore. So people don’t forget their hats and their name tags because the day they’re hired it’s made extremely, it’s set, the expectation set so high. So all the organizations you’re talking about don’t have this haphazard way of doing things. It’s very structured, it’s very regimented, and if you step out of line there’s no surprises. You know in Oklahoma, the labor law, it might be different in different states. If you’re watching this let’s say from like Oregon or Montana you might have a different rule. But in Oklahoma you can’t rip off the arms of an employee who refuses to pull the weeds in front of your building. You can’t. It’s just like against the rules, you know? You can’t just go in there and just separate their arms from their… You can’t rip their arms off and then beat them with their arms. That’s just against the rules. It’s something that we’ve sort of… I’ve read into the labor law and I’m like… It’s frowned upon. It’s frowned upon in Oklahoma. Now, the thing is, I mention this because today, when I get to the office, I’m going to have a mind-blowing, in-time, in-depth, super interactive, pull-the-freaking-weeds conversation with somebody. Talk to me about how you would do it, though. You got somebody who, they know they need to pull the weeds. They know they do that landscaping in front of your sweet, sweet building, your new building, your building. And yet, they’re not doing it. What do you do? You know, I like to, instead of tell people what they have to do, Clay, I like to ask you what your plan is for the day. And I’ll do that when I get in today. I’ll sit down with a few people in my individual conversations and say, what are you trying to accomplish today? What are you trying to get done? When you start to tell me the things that are going to help you win today, when you start to tell me about the goals you have, you’re starting to take ownership of those and I’m not telling you you have to do them. So let’s say for instance we gate Let’s say for instance that the the team member doesn’t bring up something that I really needed them to get done Yeah, I’m gonna remind him and say hey, you know, we really needed to get the landscaping done. Is that on your list today? Well, I didn’t have time for it Friday. I don’t know if I’ll get to it today We we both know it needs to be done. Just let me know when you can get to this You know, what are your priorities today? And then what I happen is this conversation ends up leading into maybe a priorities conversation. It ends up going into what do you think is better to serve you first? What’s going to serve our organization better? It just all goes back to making them create this ownership for themselves. People just don’t want to take the time to have these conversations. They want to go in and bark at everyone what they need to do and then wonder why people aren’t happy. Okay. Now, if you’re in a situation where you’ve got to the point where you’ve asked the questions and it’s not getting done, how does that conversation go? Because I think the awkward conversation, Brian, in my mind, is something that a lot of people struggle with. What do you say to me? It’s awkward now. Here we go. I think if we’re getting to the part where you’re having to reprimand somebody or even worst case, fire them, these things need to be done swiftly. And they have to be done consistently. If you’re going to reprimand someone, you don’t reprimand one person and not the other for the same thing. You’ve got to document every single thing that you do. I believe, and I like to have these reprimand-type conversations or firing conversations with a witness. I like them to be done quickly, and there’s generally no questions asked. I’m going to let you know what you’ve done, how it went against the expectation that we have here, and you’re either getting written up, you know, this is gonna go in your file, or it’s a situation where this has just happened too many times and we’ve gotta part ways today. Would you say that to me? Absolutely. It’s happened too many times, we need to part ways today? Exactly. Okay, do you feel bad? Yeah, I think any normal human being’s gonna feel bad about not, you know, taking a job away from somebody, but ultimately they’ve decided to do that to themselves. Brian, I appreciate you the way that Hallmark appreciates Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and any other holidays They’ve convinced us are now holidays. You know where they I appreciate you like that my friend. Thank you for being here from Alright JT so hypothetically in your mind. What is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goal, 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 business, but you have $15 million 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, 10 minutes or less, and see if you could save $3,000 a year by reducing your credit card fees would you do it yes absolutely all crap why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has the same mind why would they not uh… go to thrive timeshare dot com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshare dot 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. 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. There’s probably some someone out there. Okay. They would think that. Well I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to throttletimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money. And you know, 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 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 three thousand dollars a year on average. I am at a loss, I cannot think of any other. 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 called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean I’m just not sure. Why 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 particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, you know, like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. 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. I need you to stay with me. 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 the clock the brand name of the clock Rod? We have a name of the clock It’s an elegant from Ridgeway. Let’s 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 ten minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than three thousand dollars 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, 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. 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, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest 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%. 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. It’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists, so when 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 I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. And we didn’t know what was going to… 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 were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So, I just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase, month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense. Starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with 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 Crockwell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Wendell. 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, 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. In the weekly 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. I’ve seen guys from start ups go from start ups 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. 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. Coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing 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. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate anytime I’ve got 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 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems 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 going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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 big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. You 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. go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s an up and down roller coaster. So now, we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. So I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For 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 have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients. I’ve doubled in Every year, it’s 100% growth. Every year I’ve worked. Now so, I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five 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 new, 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 it 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, it 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 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 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. Call them 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, and 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, is 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 even further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I had 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 or 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, 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 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, you know, 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 it was 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 the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know working here you can’t 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, you know, 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’d 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 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. 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 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 Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.