Entrepreneur | Creating Compensation Plans

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. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. What is going on, Tulsa? This is your host with the most, Captain Clay Clark here, joined with the main man, my main man, my good friend, Dr. Robert Zellner. How are you, sir? I am fantastic, Captain. And we have a very special guest, a very special guest, a wonderful lady by the name of Kat Graham. She’s the founder of Barbie Cookies, co-founder of Barbie Cookies. Kat, how are you doing? I’m doing awesome. Thanks, Clay. Kat, every time you come on the show, we’re so excited because you are a wonderful lady. That’s two-thirds of why we’re excited. The other third is you always bring these wonderful cookies that we can’t stop eating. There’s like an addictive chemical in there, I think you’re putting in there. That’s my master plan. Part of the evil plan. Getting you hooked. You’re absolutely positive there’s no nicotine in those unbelievably addictive cookies, right? It’s a secret. I can’t tell you. Okay. Oh. We like secrets. All right, so here’s the deal. We are talking today about something that I know, I know if you’re a business owner, I know this is something you’ve struggled with before. And I’m telling you this, having worked with thousands of employers all over the planet, I can tell you that one of the most frustrating and anxiety-causing aspects of building a team is trying to figure out a fair compensation package. Most entrepreneurs, they either buy into this default A or default B plan where they say, A, I’m going to pay people as little as possible and try to keep them employed on the cheap. They’ve got constant turnover and there’s a problem. And default option B is you pay people whatever they ask. People are taking advantage of you. You’re not making any profits. But somewhere in the middle there, we are going to teach you these nine steps that are proven to work to create an enticing compensation plan. So step number one is you want to cast a vision that is both inspiring and motivating. So we’re talking about, I thought we were talking about compensation. Step one, though, is you have to cast a vision that is both inspiring and motivating so that people would actually want to work there regardless of what the compensation would be. So, Z, I want to ask you this. For somebody listening right now who pays people well, they pay them very well, and they have not taken the time to cast a vision to inspire and motivate their employees, why are they losing out when you’re paying people really well, but you’re not in motivating them? Why is that a bad thing? Well, it’s like a mercenary. They don’t really feel the cause They’re just showing up with a gun and they know they got to aim it over there and shoot that person over there But they’re not inspired by the cause, you know, so we kind of like one of my favorite movies, you know It’s like a braveheart. He inspires them. It’s not all those guys sitting there with their little clubs and their little hoes and their sword every now and then and a spear. They’re inspired. They’re not just mercenaries. They feel like they’re part of the team. They’ve got the vision. They know they’re fighting for something, freedom in this case. I want to give you an example of that. You could probably relate to this. Have you ever been into Whole Foods? You ever go in there? Absolutely, yes. Z, do you go there often? No, but I spend a lot of money there. How is that possible? You go into Whole Foods. I think your wife is in there. That’s where they get a lot of my money. Yeah, Carrie is a big, big advocate of Whole Foods. But you go in there and there’s a guy working there. You can picture him right now. He’s got kind of that casual kind of a vibe. He’s probably wearing some kind of reclaimed corduroy pants. And you talk to this guy, and he walks up to you and you say, he says, hey, welcome to Whole Foods, bro. How can I help you, bro? And you say, I’m just looking for some kale. Oh, we got some fresh kale in today, bro. It’s fresh, locally sourced kale. And you’re talking to this guy, and this guy is passionate about kale in a way that I don’t understand. Frankly, I don’t get, I don’t connect with, I don’t, but you get the feeling that this guy loves that kale. And Whole Foods has an army of these people. Have you ever met the guy at Whole Foods who’s passionate about the meat? Have you met this guy? No, but I look forward to it. I’ll make a special point to go by there. 91st and Yale, I go in there and there’s a guy who, it’s almost like the meat is his art. I go in there to buy a steak and he’s, what’s the kind of steak would you like? What the kind of steak would you like? You know, and you’re going, you really love steak. We got the fresh, the fresh ingots. We got the ingots. You know, and he’s just, you can tell he’s just passionate, passionate about it. And he, and Whole Foods has an army of people like this. They’ve collected who like to draw on the chalkboard with the chalk, the special of the day. Ooh, they could print it, but no, no Whole Foods, they have to draw it on there. So I’m going to ask you, if the universe changed, and you were not a top-level entrepreneur, you were not super successful yet, could you become passionate about working at Whole Foods? Is there anything I could do to get you, if I was your manager, could I get you to be passionate about kale? Is that a part of your heart song? Are you passionate about the organic lifestyle? Maybe not. Oh, you didn’t like that question? Okay. So, you’re… No. No. Yeah, I mean, how can it be locally sourced? That’s the part I’m still trying to get over. That’s kind of… Isn’t that like a thing grown in the ocean? Every time you talk… It’s not the same kale we’re talking about. Every time you go into Whole Foods… Don’t think through that too much. Every time you go into Whole Foods, though, there’s a guy who’s passionate about the products and services they offer. You get the sense that they are obsessed with eating naturally and organically. But again, if you go to your bakery, I’ve walked in there before, Kat, and there are people there who are passionate about cookies and you are one of them. Why are you so passionate about cookies? Well, number one, they are delicious. But it’s what I do and it’s why I am in business. Because years and years ago people said, Kat, you need to go into business. These cookies are so awesome. I was a one cookie outfit. White chocolate, milk chocolate, pecan cookie and started from there. Yeah, so we’ve grown. So we have someone who is passionate about Whole Foods. You’re passionate about cookies. I in particular am passionate about growing businesses. Having grown up without having a lot of financial resources, for some reason I got stuck on that idea of learning practical knowledge that is needed to grow a business. I just got very passionate about growing a business and starting a business. That became my obsession. Everyone who works in my office, if they’re not passionate about that vision of helping people start or grow a business, they don’t stick around very long. I can’t pay them enough to get them inspired to do that. And so I would ask you right now as an action item for anyone listening, take an audit of your team. Think about your team. Employee A, B, C, and ask yourself how many of these people are truly passionate about your products? How many of them are? If you are a Whole Foods manager, how many of your teammates are passionate about the products and services? If you’re a bakery owner, how many people are passionate? And Cat, I want to ask you, from your years having been in business, when you find somebody who is passionate about cookies in the way you are, how much easier is it to manage that bakery when you find somebody who is locked in and loaded and 100% passionate about cookies? It’s easy, Clay, because they essentially are representing me. I cannot be in the front of the house 24-7 sharing with the world how awesome my cookies are. So I have to employ people who are going to be me. George Washington Carver has this quote. He says, where there is no vision, there is no hope. Where there is no vision, there is no hope. Who is George Washington Carver? One, he is the favorite historical figure of Thrive15.com partner David Robinson. He loves George Washington Carver. But this is also a guy who got so passionate about the peanut that he came up with all different uses for it, and he helped free the African American people economically. Because these people, they were freed in terms of they were no longer slaves, but they didn’t know how to support themselves financially. And George Washington Carver, who was raised as a slave, he thought we have to find an economic engine that can support us and sustain us. And so he obsessed about the peanut and became passionate about it and basically helped people become successful by raising a crop that they could raise year after year after year. But again, I’m just telling you, if you’re listening to this right now, what is the vision? What is your vision? JetBlue, do you want to hear what JetBlue’s vision is? Please tell me what JetBlue’s vision is. Here it is. It says, in the air and on the ground, we’re committed to bettering the lives of our customers, crew member and communities, and inspiring others to do the same. That is their vision. So I’m going to ask you right now, as a listener, what is your vision? What is your vision? You have to have some kind of vision. You can’t be a visionless business. Z, when you were starting out your first businesses, when did you start to discover the importance of having a vision that could inspire your people? Oh, right off the bat. I mean, that’s very important. I mean, otherwise you end up, like I said earlier, with a bunch of mercenaries. But when you have, you know, employees fall into one of two categories. They’re believers or they’re non-believers, you know? And they either believe in what you’re doing, they catch the vision, they catch the passion, they know how important it is. And no one’s ever going to be, you know, let’s say you’re 100% right? You’re 100% 100% cookie queen 100%. I mean, if you can get them, you know, your A plus employees are going to be in that at least 90 and up percentage of, you know, passionate about cookies, for example, passionate about eye care, passionate about fill in the blank, whatever your business is out there, you want to get started or you already have started. And so if you don’t have the vision, what are they, what are they? It’s like a rallying flag. You stick it in the ground and they rally around it. Without that, they’re all going, what are we here for? I know that you are passionate about affordable eye care. You’re passionate about helping people have affordable eye care. I grew up and I had one pair of glasses that had a lasting long time, tape all over them, and I had those black frames that were very… I tried to get the sturdiest ones because I hated the tape on them. I was just real passionate about that. Giving people affordable eye care. That’s one of my main cores in my optometry clinic is making sure that price is always a big deal. Because it was for me growing up. I needed eye care and it was embarrassing. Character building, but embarrassing to have your glasses held together with tape. So have you ever had to fire somebody who maybe did a pretty decent job at their job, but you could tell they didn’t care about the patients. Have you ever had to fire someone who checked the boxes and did the thing and cleaned the bathroom and showed up on time, but they just weren’t passionate about your patients in the right way? Absolutely. You know, that goes back to the old saying of, you know, what you’re saying is not what you’re necessarily communicating. You know, how much of what you’re communicating is the words versus everything else, your body language, how you’re saying it, the inflection of your voice. I mean, can someone actually answer the phone and say the right things, but absolutely miss the mark? Now, guys, coming up next, when we come back after the break, we’re gonna be talking about step number two. And this is all about determining what your candidate’s life and career goals are. Sitting down and actually determining what your candidate’s life and career goals are. We’re gonna teach you everything you need to know about it and how to really set a fair compensation plan when we come back. All right Thrive Nation, and we are back in Better Than Ever here. It’s Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s a Thrive Time show. It’s business school without the BS. And yes, I am back, your host with the most, Captain Clay Clark here, joined with Dr. Robert Zellner. Hey, hey. And one of America’s most beautiful people, both inside and out. It is Miss Kat Graham, the co-founder of Barbie Cookies. Kat, how are you doing? Doing awesome. Now, we’re talking about something that a lot of people struggle with. I know I struggled with it when I was first starting out in business. How do you determine a fair and enticing compensation plan? How do you figure out what to pay people? I mean, should you pay them this much? Should you pay them that much? How do you do it? And so we talked about step number one. Now, step number two is all about determining what your candidate’s life and career goals are. So Kat, I want to ask you this. You have a business that is thriving. When I say thriving, I always tell people, if your business is thriving, it’s growing by more than 20% a year. I mean, you’re having some big growth over there at Barbie Cookies. By the way, where’s Barbie Cookies located? It is at 8393 South Memorial Drive in Tulsa. And if you’ve never been in before, I’m telling you, you need to go in there and just try it out. Once you have one, you’re hooked. It’s an addictive chemical that she puts in those cookies. And you just can’t have one. How many flavors of cookies do you have, by the way? We have about 25. Really? What’s the most popular? Without question, it’s the cinnamon roll cookie. If you’ve never been in before, they do a thing where you get a free cookie for your first time. You’ve got to kind of register so you can’t be like me where you put a Ronald Reagan mask on and go in the second time and the third time for a free cookie. But President, you’re back so soon. Absolutely, absolutely. The thing is, what we’re going to talk about here is, is Kat, what is your vision for your bakery, for barbiecookies.com? What’s your vision? The vision is this, Clay, that we will, we’re in a single location right now. Yeah, single location. We want to have two additional satellite locations. Is that like out in space? No sir. We would like to continue baking in-house but feed to satellite bakeries because we have people in Midtown constantly asking, hey when are you coming to Midtown? Yeah, well when are you coming to Midtown? Well you know I’m hoping it’s 2017 so Midtown location and then possibly Broken Arrow. That’s still up in the air. The goal is to continue growing. So we’ve been successful in our location at 83rd and Memorial. The goal is to eventually franchise, actually. Cool. So when you’re sitting down with a new candidate and you’re going over their life and career goals. Muhammad Ali says, what keeps me going is goals. That was something Muhammad Ali said. This is again a famous Olympic boxer, world championship boxer. He said, what keeps me going is goals. How disturbing is it for you or how not desirable is it for you to hire somebody who does not have any goals? When you ask them and they just go, well, I’m just looking for a job. It’s very concerning because they’re not like-minded like I am. I want to grow. I want to have barbie cookies nationwide. And if that person isn’t on the same boat, if they don’t have the same goals, then what are they going to do? How is that going to benefit me? So Zee, when you interview people in your businesses, and I know you have people that do the interviewing now for you, but when you interview somebody, how important is it for you to know their goals and to know if they’re a right fit. Before we even get into, hey, here’s the dollar amount. I’m going to pay you. How important is it for you to know their goals? Well, you’ve got to do a character check as best as you can in an interview. Surprisingly enough, Clay, sometimes when you’re interviewing people, they tell you things that you want to hear. What? Yeah. What are you saying? I know. Are you saying people would be dishonest? So you have to have your BS meter. If it pegs too much over here, then you’re like… You hate people. No, no, they will. They’ll tell you things, you know, that like, you know, what’s the worst part of you, you know, and then they’ll be like… Dude, I love like, the worst part of me, honestly, is just, I’m so humble. Like overall, I just, it’s like a plague, you know what I mean? I run around and I’m always like… I’m so good. I irritate people because I left my last job as a custodial engineer, bro. It was a custodian meets engineering because it was just, it was too limiting, you know? My last boss, he would see my vision and crush it every day. See, that guy I go past, I say, I think there’s a good job for you down the road. So I think it’s important not to get too hung up on, you know, you want good people, you want people of high character, you want people that are friendly people, and you want people that can catch your vision. You know, most of the time, you’re not going to have, like for Barbie, you’re not going to have, for Barbie cookies, you’re not going to have someone come in and say, oh, that’s my goal too. I want to have a cookie place on every corner too. It’s hard to find that particular, but when you find someone that has goals and they’re driven and you’re going to catch them for a season of their life, they come in and say, well, my goal is to X, Y, Z, get through college. I need a job. I’m motivated. You know, I’ve got, hey, I’m support you in what your vision is, my vision. I had a young man a couple of years ago work for me and he was a great guy. I pulled him aside one day and I said, man, I kind of see you as a long-termer. What do you want to do in five years? He says, I know this sounds crazy, but I really want to be a maitre d’ at a nice steakhouse. Really? Yeah. So the other day I went into a nice steakhouse here in town and guess who the maitre d was? The dude! The dude! But he did a great job while he worked for me. The five years he worked for me or so, he did a great job and was a great guy. But you know he had a goal and I helped and I was like, man that’s an awesome goal if I can help in any way. But you know while you’re here in this boat rowing with me and doing a great job. So you know a lot of times if you find people that are great, you know they have goals, it just helps define their character. You know? They’re not just out there a sailboat with no rudder. They’re like, oh man, whatever the wind blows me, bro. Just, you know, I don’t know. Those are probably not the kind of people you want to say pass on. So step number one, again, is you want to cast that vision that’s both inspiring and motivating for a potential employee. And I’m telling you this, I bet you nine out of 10 business owners I’ve met are getting that wrong. You’re casting a depressing vision. You’re saying, what I need is a guy to show up on time and we’re going to try to keep this business. We have a local food truck and my goal is to keep the tires inflated all year and to earn $40,000. That’s my goal for my food truck. Come join my vision. Yeah. I mean, no. Who wants to work there? No one does. No one does. But then the second step is you have to determine the candidates’ life goals and career goals. Now this third step, here’s where we start to get into the money. We get into the money. You’ve got to determine what the job market would currently pay someone with the skill sets you’re looking to employ. You’ve got to figure out what the market currently would pay for this. Z, why is that so important? Well, you don’t want to overpay or underpay. I mean, if you overpay, then you’re taking money out of your pocket you don’t have to. And if you underpay, you’re not going to keep that person very long. So that’s important to understand. Just kind of like it is to do a little scouting out there. You got to know what the current rates are You got to know you got to know what the competition is doing You got to know those things so you can get a game plan Well because the thrive time show is a show where we don’t talk about religion or politics very much You have your fill of that but we’re here talking about business I’ve got a break in one of the rules here by quoting Joel Osteen who does happen to be a Member of the Christian faith here, but I’m gonna read this world notable quote. He says about compensation. He says I I don’t mind saying you know that I don’t take a salary from the church and God has blessed me with more money Than I could imagine from my books So Joel Osteen’s going hey look I’ve looked around the market I’ve realized what I could pay myself But I he’s making millions from his books and so he’s not taking a salary at all from the church And that’s a weird scenario, but he looked around at pastoral compensation realized. Hey, I’m a top earner for my books. I don’t need to take any more compensation from the church. Steve Jobs famously worked for $1 a year after he was worth $100 million. But the thing is, I’m just saying you have to figure out what’s fair in the marketplace before you go out there and offer a wage. When we come back, we’re going to talk about how to find out what the fair amount is. We’re going to find out what is the comparable. We’re going to figure out the secret moves to figure out the common denominators and how to figure out what is a fair… Are they top secret? …level of competition to offer. Are they top secret or just secret? Well, they’re classified. The IRS, the FBI, no one knows about them. Wow. Can we say it online? Hillary Clinton knows about it. What’s going on there, Thrive Nation? What’s going on, T-Town? You are listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show. And I am your host, Clay Clark. And I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner. How you doing, sir? Clay, if I was any better, I’d be twins. Sometimes on this Thursday, driving home, I mean, if I was, just think about it, if all of a sudden, if I was doing any better, I’d just erupt into two people. And then I’m, he would be driving, if I’m driving, because most people listening may be driving home or driving someplace, I just, he would drive then. It’s almost like the nuclear energy, nuclear energy is very good, it supplies a massive amount of power, but it’s not very safe unless it’s controlled properly. That’s how you are, you’re at that nuclear level of awesome, where at any point if you had a meltdown… You’d just lose control, yeah. Lose control, any more… It could go bad. Any better, it could get worse. Yeah. Now, Cat, we’re here with Cat Graham from Barbie Cookies, she’s a co-founder of Barbie Cookies How are you doing miss Kat? I’m doing awesome now We are talking about this does this topic so many people want to know the answers to they want to know how do I pay? My people how do I determine the fair? Compensation so we’re teaching you the nine steps to creating an enticing Compensation plan we went over step one we went over step two and now we’re into step three determine what the job market would currently pay someone with the skill sets you’re looking to employ. So, this is how I do it, Z. This is my move. Okay, tell me your moves. One is I go onto Craigslist, onto Monster.com, onto all the job hiring sites, and I search as though I am a person looking for the job. So I just look at what other people are paying. So Cat, for you, you have a bakery. So I’d be looking at all the grocery stores, what they’re paying, maybe other bakeries out there, what they’re paying. I really, that’s what I do. That’s my move number one. Move number two is I hire a member. I’ve done this in the past. Some people say, that’s not very honest. And you know what? You can judge me, and that’s okay. I’m just telling you what I do. I’m not telling you what you should do that I don’t do. I’m telling you what you should do that I do. I actually have a member of my team often apply for that job because I want to know the whole process. Like what do they say in the interview? What’s the compensation level? I’ve done that. You do that? You do that a lot? Yeah, I’ve done it a lot. You should do it right now? Yeah, I still do it right now. You’re terrible. Well, yeah, but I want to know. I mean it’s like it’s kind of like the Patriots. No, no, no. What we do is, as an avid Patriots fan, we understand that Bill Belichick is breaking down game film to the next level where he has watched the other team. A few years back, they got fined and they actually lost a draft pick because they were busted with filming the other coach’s mouth and then having a guy translate what the coach was saying and then use that against them in the game. That’s why all the guys now, they put that thing up over their mouth when they’re talking. It’s the Patriot rule. It’s the Patriot clause. Tom Brady, lobster, boom. So here’s the thing is, I want to get in it. So my two moves here is one is I definitely, definitely look at the job boards and see what they’re offering. Two is I have an embedded person go out there and apply. And move number three that I do here is I think about how in demand that job is and how replaceable that position is. So if somebody has a job where if I could teach somebody how to do that skill within 15 hours or less, then there’s a certain pay level. Now if someone’s like a doctor or a lawyer or a specialist or a professional, then the pay goes up based on how replaceable that position is. And so I think about those three moves. But Z, how do you do it, man? How do you figure out what’s par for the course with paying people? Well, some of the same things you just said. I mean, obviously, you have to know what the competition’s doing, because you’re competing, you know, we’re, as a business owner, not only are you competing with people for the products that you’re selling, but you’re also competing for them for the people you’re hiring. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11 Sessions. Z, that’s kind of a deep thought. It kind of is. I mean, it’s kind of, to me, kind of deep. You’re saying that if you’re a business owner, you’re in competition? Yes, and not only with… So, like, my optical stores, they’re just not in competition with all the other optical players in town. They’re also in competition with all the businesses in town for one of the more critical things I can get, and that is employees. If you keep talking about this competition, pretty soon you’ll be talking about capitalism, pretty soon you’re talking about money. I don’t like it. I’m just going to shortchange it and just say, hey, listen, it’s war. It’s war. Yeah. And if you want to own a business and you don’t know, are you, you’re naive enough to think that it’s not going to be war. You might want to just stay being an employee. But I’m in it for the people. I love people. I love America. I love bunnies. I love peeps. Well, you can love bunnies and you can love peeps, but understand that when you saddle up and start your business, which hopefully a lot of you out there will do, we’re going to encourage you and edify you to do it and help train you up in that regard. But when you do it, understand it’s war. Why does it always have to be so violent? You’re always so violent. So I want to ask you, another secret sauce move that I throw in there is when I’m interviewing someone you always have to ask the question. This is a very important question. You know what, I think I’m going to save this one for after the break and let Kat here talk. What question do you have for Z or I as you’ve heard these moves to figure out fear of compensation. What questions do you have? I have many regarding this issue because in six and a half years of business, this has been so challenging for me. So when I hire people at a certain wage and they come to me eight weeks later, Kat, I need to make more money. I’m thinking, my word, you’ve worked here two months. What is an appropriate time, like how often should an employee receive a pay increase? See, I’m going to let you tackle that. Well, that is so frustrating because you make a deal, you honor your part of the deal. I’ve never had an employee to date come to me and say, hey listen, I think you’re overpaying me. You’re paying me too much actually. You know what, you’re overpaying me, I need to give this back to you. And you know, but when we come back from the break, I’m gonna answer that question. I’m also gonna give you the other secret super move. I’ve got so much inside, it’s just, it’s bubbling, it’s exploding out. My mind’s gonna explode with anticipation. I’m excited. All right, Thrive Nation, you are back. You are listening to the Thrive Time Show here on Talk Radio 1170 here. It’s Tulsa’s only local business radio show. I’m your host, Clay Clark. I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner, Cat Graham, the co-founder of barbycookies.com, and we’re talking about how do you determine a fair compensation level for people. We’re teaching you these specific moves. We’re on move number three right now. We’re really, really starting to unpack it and get into the details. So Kat had asked a question before we went to break. Zeke, can you kind of reset us and get into the answer for Ms. Kat? Well, she said that the example she gave was that someone she hired and then eight weeks later they come to her and say, hey, I really need to make more money. You know, we’ve got a situation. So her question was really like, what’s appropriate? When should I do that? How do I respond to that? What’s going on? Oh my gosh, I’ve been here like eight weeks and I’ve done my job like most of the time. Can you pay me more? First of all, the mistake was already made, Kat. That’s not too harsh, is it? That’s so mean. What are you saying, Dr. Dizzee? What are you saying? The problem is that that person had the expectation that they thought they could come to you after eight weeks and try to strong arm you for more money. So you didn’t set the expectation when you hired that person. That’s the first mistake and one that a lot of entrepreneurs make when they’re starting their business. They don’t fill in those blanks when they’re hiring somebody. I see this with Kat. I want you to coach Kat through this moment because I care about Kat. If you make Kat… Wait, coach Kat, you care about Kat? I’m going to tell you this. I’ve known Kat for a long time and I’ll tell you this. If you’re listening to this and you’ve ever met Kat Graham, you’ve been blessed. She’s a wonderful lady. She’s built a neat business. And when you walk into the Barbie Cookies, you feel, I’m not exaggerating this, you feel the love and the warmth. And people come back there. I’ve talked to many people who say, I go back just to talk to these people. They’re nice people, beautiful decor. It’s a great place. But you, Dr. Z, are not nearly as approachable as she is. So this concept is called sometimes foil in business, but where you want to create a layer of separation so that people don’t feel, the employees who work with you, don’t feel as though they can just come to the CEO and demand a pay increase, or come to the boss and demand it. How are you doing that, though? How are you doing that? What coaching would you have for a cat to kind of make it where there’s maybe a little bit more of a, oh, ah, oh, ah, Darth Cat, where people are a little bit, maybe they don’t feel like they can just come to her and ask her for a pay increase like that or even demand one. Well, here again, you set the parameters. You’ve got to set the parameters. And when you’re hiring someone, you say, hey, listen, okay, here’s our deal. Here’s our pay. Here’s your benefits. Here’s what’s going on. And in one year from today, we’ll have a job evaluation and we’ll talk. I’ll let you know how you’re doing. We’ll go through things. We’ll have a complete evaluation. So now you set the parameters up about when they can approach you. You picked the date already. And it’s going to be in a year. And then they know in eight weeks what they try to come to you. You’ve already said, hey, we already discussed that. I’m going to bridge the gap real quick. Let’s say that somebody violates that rule. You’ve set the expectations. You’ve told them a year from now, we’re going to reevaluate and talk about maybe a pay increase or whatever. And they come to you early. And you can’t fire them yet because you don’t have a replacement. In your mind, will you just go ahead and fire them mentally and then wait until you find a replacement? It depends. You can’t have the fire button on too quickly sometimes. Fire! Fire! Fire away! Fire now! Boom, boom, boom. It depends on how often they do it and how annoying they are. Every week they’re harassing you with that. At some point you’re kind of going, okay, how many times do I need to tell you that we’re not going to talk about this for another 10 months, 9 months, 8 months, 7 months. You’ll put up with that as long as you want to put up with that being harassed by them about that. But the key to it is setting up the parameters when you hire them. And then that way going forward, then they just, you know the deal, right? Now, you said, how do you foil? How do you, well, you have, I have a hierarchy. And so my managers, if someone, every now and then someone might stop in the hallway, it happens, and go, hey, you may not remember me, but I’m blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, oh, yeah, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they’re like, man, I could show you a pay raise. I haven’t had one in a while. And I look at them and I say, that’s a great idea. You know what? Have you talked to your supervisor? Have you talked to your manager about that? Why don’t you talk to them about that, and they’ll come talk to me about it. And Kat’s at a point with her business as it’s grown where she’s starting to hire key people and she’s starting to delegate things. So from a revenue perspective, would you say one of the first things that she should do is try to hire a strong manager as her business grows where she no longer has to manage everybody directly? Yes, you have to have that cat. What that does is it allows you to focus on the bigger picture. In yesterday’s show, I talked about when you’re the boss, you’re kind of like the animal kingdom. You’re the lion and the lion can’t survive by chasing around little chipmunks and eating chipmunks all day. It would physically die because you can’t get enough energy from what you have to expend to go catch them. So what I tell the bosses and as they become a bigger line, you have to go after the bigger problems and focus on that. And what you should be focusing on is where I’m going to open up my Midtown store. And that was matter of fact, Clay, that was a great time for Yoda to come in and say, you know, with your little Yoda voice you do, no hope, you do. Because she said, I hope I can do it in 2017. No, no, no, no hope. Just do. There we go. Okay, love it. Little A, but right on. Success you will have. Now, so, Kat, what other questions do you have for Dr. Z, as it relates to setting that compensation level? Absolutely. So, here’s another great question. How do I determine how much that pay increase should be? I have a sneaky move. Okay. Anybody want to know my sneaky move? I want to know your sneaky move. Well, now everybody will know it. Most of my employees now kind of know it, but it’s fun when they don’t know it. Sneaky, sneaky. Yeah. Sneaky, sneaky. What I do in my mind, I know this sounds crazy, but what I do in my mind is I evaluate them. I have them evaluate themselves and we come up with a number and it’s from one to ten. And if I give this person a ten, sometimes I’ll go a 10% raise. That sounds crazy. And if they five, I’ll give them a 5% raise. You know, if that’s what their evaluation is on what they’re doing and how they’re doing. So I think any time you, 10% is probably all the chili. Okay. And that’s not just talking about the restaurant. That’s all the chili. And you know, I think 3% is probably just, you know, cost of living increase. So I want to break, break down one thing you just said. Cost of living increase. For those of you listening who don’t understand or don’t know and have heard about this concept before, every year, and this is not a political show, this is a factual-based business show, but I want to get into it. Whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat in office or an Independent, every year, every person who’s ever been elected to Congress, it seems like they want to spend more money than what we have in the federal budget. So we operated a deficit, and therefore we say, well, since we don’t have enough money to actually honor all of our spending, we’re just going to print more money. So when we print more money, it dilutes the value, and now the money is worth less. It dilutes the value of the money. It’s like pouring more water in Kool-Aid. Now the money’s worth less, and now everything went up in cost. And so over time, every year, the inflation rate, average inflation rate, is about 3 to 5%. So just being real, if you bought a house in 1971, as an example, that thing was about $25,000 and in today’s money it would be about $175,000 for the same comparable house. A car back in 1971, and I say 1971 because I’ve looked at a bunch of historicals recently and that was the date that was stuck in my cranium. But all I’m saying is the inflation rate, every year the cost of living goes up. So about a 3% is what people need just to keep up with the cost of living. And so that’s what we’re talking about here. OK, but again, he’s saying on a scale of one to ten, ask them to rate their performance. You rate their performance. And if somebody gives themselves a 10 and you give them a 10 and a 10 percent raise is the max. And if they give themselves a one, then maybe a one percent is the least. That kind of thing. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. And so this is done annually, not like every six months. We do this once a year. I would suggest that yes, but I mean, you know, it’s once again It’s your it’s your business and and those are suggestions I think the more often you do it the more you just got to go. It’s just stressful as a business owner I mean, I’d rather be I’m working on other things other than you know And another another the secret sauce of the thing that I left you hanging on before the last right give it to us Give it a hang on for the last break It’s nothing very powerful as a business owner that you can put in your arsenal Kat. You can just load this up, stick it right in your gun, your little bullet, fire it when you want. And that is when people come to you, a very powerful thing you can say is you look them in the eye, you smile, and you say, what would you like? Wow. What would you like? Well, what if, what if their answer is far more than you feel is appropriate. Then the negotiations begin. Okay. But if they tell you something, more times than not, they’ll tell you a number that you’re like, huh, I probably would have given you more. And you go, you know what? You’re such a valuable employee and I really love you being part of the team. I’m going to give you what you want. And then you can, it’s a win-win. But they think, oh my gosh, I got what I wanted. There’s a deeper question, a deeper thought, a deeper understanding that I’m starting to see come together. If you own a business right now or you want to own a business, the purpose of a business is to help you achieve what I call the five F’s, the F5. You want to have success with your faith. You want to have success with your family. You want to have success with your finances. You want to have success with your fitness, and you want to have success with your friendships. And on that F, those five Fs, none of those involve making everybody in the world happy. They don’t. Again, it’s your F5. It’s your, the business exists to help you achieve your goals. So Zee. That seems mean. Zee, I want, when we get back after the break, I want to talk a little bit about lifestyle entrepreneurship and why you’ve chosen to be an entrepreneur. I want to talk about that because if you don’t understand why you’re in business, this will seem mean, the stuff we’re saying doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem nice, but the whole point of starting a business is so that you can live a lifestyle that is awesome. And Z, you’ve been able to do that. So when we come back after the break, I want to talk a little bit about how you’ve been able to build a business that helps you achieve your life goals. It’s gonna be awesome, I’m excited. A lot of references to horses coming up next. I’m excited too. Woo hoo. Hello Thrivers listening from all over green country. We have people listening from Independence, Kansas, people listening in Oklahoma City, Tulsa. We have people listening in Bentonville. Hello and greetings, people tuning in to the podcast, people tuning in from Australia, Canada, Mexico, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. It is the number one place that you need to go to get all the answers to your business questions. I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner, Ms. Kat Graham, co-founder of Barbie Cookies, and we’re talking about how to set employee compensation. And I kind of went a little bit deeper. I’m not on a rabbit trail. I really do have a point here, is when you set compensation, at the end of the day, there has to be some profit left so that you can have the money that you need as a business owner who’s working, oh, by the way, 60 hours a week, oh, by the way, who put up your own money, oh, by the way, who signed on the loan, oh, by the way, who pulled the all-nighter. You have to have some money left for yourself. And we somehow live in a culture where people feel guilty that they’re making bank and the people who just started with you aren’t. And so, Z, you have this concept about the hog and the pig. I want you to kind of walk us through that. But I want to start with this. You drive a nice car. Yes. Okay. You have a nice house. You could say so. You travel about once every two weeks, somewhere? I travel a lot, yes. You’ve been, though, this year, I’m going to throw out some, you’ve been to Aruba. Aruba, Jamaica. You’ve been to Vegas. You’ve been to Vegas. You went hunting in Australia, I believe. These are all true things? I didn’t do any hunting down there. I was in Sydney, yes. In Sydney, okay. So you travel a lot. Have you been to Europe? Yes. And do you feel bad that the guy you just hired yesterday or a member of your team who hasn’t started their own business or who works with you. Do you feel bad that there is a vast level of difference between what you pay yourself and what they get paid? Do you feel bad? No. Did you ever feel bad? No. There’s rallies out there that go, one percent, one percent, you know, where people are mad that a certain percentage of the population controls a vast majority of the wealth. Well, let me tell you something right now. Okay. I got a little secret for you. Oh yeah. All the people listening out there in Radio Land. Oh yes. Drive Time Show at Drive Time. I got a little secret for you. What’s that secret? And that is we live in the greatest country, the United States of America. And if anybody wants to get off their couch, throw their hat in the game, they too can start their own business and be successful and make however much money they want. That’s the greatest thing about this country is. And you know the other fun thing too, the other fun fact a lot of people don’t realize is that most jobs are created and most people have their job through a small business. No, don’t say, I think we’re being able to say, I want more, is not a bad thing, and there’s a vehicle to go and do it, it’s called entrepreneurship, it’s called starting your own business, and hopefully, hopefully this show, we can help encourage you and give you some keys to be successful in that arena. I’ve seen Kat, I’ve seen Kat work 60, 70 hour weeks before. I’ve seen her do it. I’ve seen Kat work, I’ve seen you work an all-nighter. Yes sir. I’ve seen you start something from nothing, just you and an oven and build something that’s successful. And I’m going to say this to empower you, but I want to get Z’s take on this. People start to hate when you start to succeed. When you start to win, people start to want to take. Family members come out of the woodwork wanting money. Do they not? Yes. People that you never even really knew, like a guy you went to high school with, he sends you a Facebook message, hey, could you lend me $10,000, $5,000. Family members, friends, employees, they’re all coming, they’re all trying to be hogs and not pigs. Z, will you break that down? Well, it’s my number one rule in business and probably in life too. And in order to really, really, you know, go there, I gotta go back to the farm. Going back to the farm? Farm logic! Yeehaw, Z! You see down on the farm, we got pigs and we got hogs. Yeehaw! And I encourage people in business and in life to be the pig and not the hog because you see a pig will get fat and a hog gets butchered. And what I mean by that, it really deals around with greed and it really deals around with you know not wanting more than what you should expect right then and that’s just a concept in business. You know if you’re overpricing your cookies too much, guess what? You’ll be a failure, right? Mm-hmm, correct. And so you want to make a good profit on it. You want to make a good profit on the people that are working for you. But if you’re a hog as a business owner, in other words, if you don’t share enough of that profit with the people working for you, they’re going to go somewhere else, i.e. they’re going to go get a job somewhere else. So if you’re just trying to squeeze everybody, suppliers and employees and everybody in your life, it’s not a good feeling. You’re listening to The Thrashtime Show on Talk Radio 117. Now we’re moving on to step number four, and you want to determine what an employee’s key interests and passions are as they relate to the ongoing projects in your workplace. And so Larry Bird, Larry Bird, Boston Celtic, great, Larry Bird, he has this notable quote of, well I don’t get to quote Larry Bird very much, so I’m excited about it. He says this, he says, a winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals. And I’m going to say this because a lot of times you have somebody in your office who is a very talented graphic designer, but you had to hire them to make cookies. And they might feel resentful that, hey, I could go out there and make X amount as a graphic designer and I’ll only make an X amount to make cookies. Well, their need has nothing to do with the proper pay rate, period. You know, because they need to make 22 an hour has nothing to do with what the job can afford to pay. And you’ve got to figure that out. And so what you want to do is you want to get the right people on the right seats. And it’s irresponsible of you as an employer if you have people that are super talented in a given area and they can be very successful at a different business, it’s very irresponsible to hire them and then to hold them captive doing something that doesn’t utilize their highest and best use. And I’ve done that in the past before. I’ve hired somebody who’s super talented, and I brought them on for a position that wasn’t going to allow them to tap into their skills. There’s no opportunity for advancement, and they get resentful. And so you just want to make sure you put people in the right spots. And so you want to determine what an employee’s key interests and passions are, and you want to find a way to try to incorporate them into the office. So I would just say, thinking about your team, if you’re listening right now, if you have somebody who’s super talented with sales and very outgoing, don’t put them in the back having to do accounting. If you have somebody who’s more analytical, great with numbers, don’t put them up there with sales, if at all possible, because if you do that, if you put the right people in the wrong positions, they start to come to you for more and more compensation as a way to like almost, they’re like, well, if I’m gonna hate my job, at least I need to be paid a ton. And you start to have to compensate for wrong placement with huge pay. The next move, step number five, is you want to determine what small details and benefits would greatly improve a prospective employee’s quality of life. And the best example I can think of is that I, years ago, hired a member of our team who didn’t have a lot of money, but they’re expected to dress up nice for work. And I realized, you know what? If I would pay for their daycare for their kids, and I would pay for their dry cleaning to be picked up and just a few things that would allow them to not have to think about that during the workday. And I did the math and I’m going, okay, it costs me X amount per day. And that’s far that’s worth what they’re doing in the workplace. And that’s something I should do. Another employee years ago, I hired a chiropractor. I got a chiropractic membership at a health source, a business in Tulsa. It’s a chiropractic center. And I bought a membership for them so that they would never have to worry about paying for chiropractic care when they worked for us because they had a bad back. And so I a lot of times look for those kind of things where I can add to their quality of life without giving them a huge extra pay raise. Z, have you ever done those kind of things with your people over the years? Have you ever kind of thrown in a little perk, maybe delivered lunch for somebody or maybe paid for some ongoing education or have ever kind of thrown in a few little, you know, benefits? All the above. And what’s really fun, when you get out there and you have your, really your entrepreneur spirit going and you have, you have different businesses going, then you can, you can, you know, you can benefit with three or other businesses. So like, you know, now I have one of my docs who went up the other day and said, Hey, my kid has turned 16. I need a car. I said, Hey man, well, let’s get one through the auction. It’ll be wholesale, save a bunch of money, and it’ll be a great thing. He’s like, oh, really? I thought it was a dealer’s only. I said, well, it’s a dealer’s only unless you know the guy that owns it, i.e. me. So yeah, so we were able to get a car, and they saved thousands of dollars from what they would have had to spend on retail. And same thing, all my employees get great vision benefits. Trust me on that. So that’s a good thing. So I would encourage you right now if you’re listening and maybe you don’t have a huge amount of money to pay people, think about the things you can do. So like in your business, Kat, I would be doing free cookies for their birthdays or maybe birthdays for their immediate family. Maybe it’s a free, because everyone has a birthday. Everyone has kids, husband, wife, and maybe you have free birthday or deeply discounted. You know, I know people, Z, have you ever met people who work at Abercrombie just for the discounts? Yes, I mean, or working maybe not at Abercrombie, but some other place they’ve worked for it, and then they end up spending, you know, the whole paycheck. It’s like, well, I think I owe them money this week. Here’s the move at Oral Roberts University. By the way, you were so kind to provide Zio’s for my father’s funeral and that gathering you bought Zio’s for. I appreciate you doing that. You bet. And, but when I went to Oral Roberts University, Zio’s was right across the street. And the move was you get a job at Zio’s because they let you eat there for free or at a deep discount and then everyone who worked there, we always joked, would spend more money at Zio’s than what they actually earned. Yes, yes. But Zio’s new college students are always struggling to eat. They would let you take home the leftover lasagna or the breadsticks. And we just thought if you, let me tell you this, you were the most popular guy on campus if you had a job as a waiter at Zia’s. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It was the deal. And they didn’t pay him a ton of money, but they always gave him free food, leftover pizza, whatever. So again, if you’re listening right now, I just encourage you to be resourceful and think about, what are some of the key interests and the key aspects of your employees’ lives? And how can you maybe throw in a few perks that would greatly improve their overall experience in the workplace and maybe supplement for a lack of additional compensation if you don’t have added value We call that added value so you want to see what you can do Maybe doesn’t cost you a lot but can really enhance and bring a lot of value to them now coming up after the break We’re gonna be talking about how did step number six which is determine what stretch goals and bonuses you can offer? It’s kind of like the carrot principle. You’re telling people if you do this This is coming down the way. If you do this, this is a bonus you can look forward to. If you do this goal, every week you can get this bonus or that bonus. We’re going to talk to you about these stretch goals and how to set them. Coming up after the break. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back. It’s the Thrive Time Show, broadcasting live from the Thrive15.com world headquarters, specifically in a room known as the Temple of Boom. And we are here to teach you how to start and grow a successful business. And specifically, we are talking about this little idea, this little concept, that’s a huge, makes a huge impact in businesses today. It’s how to set the right level of compensation for your team members. How to figure out what you’re supposed to pay people. Are you paying people too much? Are you paying people too little? We’re going to teach you the specific steps. And right now, we are on step number six. Determine what stretch goals and bonuses you can offer. You see, if you can clearly explain to an employee that if they help your company achieve this particular goal, then maybe they get this reward, that can motivate people. But off air, Dr. Z just said, he just said, he said, most people are doing bonuses incorrectly. Most people are not using bonuses correctly. Z, you said most people. What do you mean by that, my friend? You know what a bonus is, Clay? What is a bonus, my friend? A bonus is an unexpected benefit that you give your employee. Woo. OK, here we go. Come on now. Unexpected. I’m going to get all over this, OK? OK, unleash the beast. So many times what will happen is, and we have Kat Graham here with Barbie Cookies, so I’m going to use Kat as the example, OK? So she goes to her people and says, hey listen, if you sell a thousand cookies this month, I’m going to give you an extra blank. I’m going to give you, I’m going to bonus you $100. I don’t know. I’m just throwing numbers out there. Okay. Well, that’s not a bonus. Okay. What is that? That, that is part of your compensation for the sales that you’re doing. Okay. All right. So when you do that, it no longer becomes a bonus. In their mind now, it’s a contractual thing, okay? I’m saying, okay, well I sold a thousand cookies, where’s my money? Right? Yep. Okay, so that’s not a bonus. So, when people, I know people bantered around like, oh, you know, here’s a bonus, you know, but what the thing is, what she could do is, is if that happened, okay, what she goes up to that person and says, listen, you did a great job last week, here’s a bonus. Unexpected, that’s a true bonus, alright? Unexpected, boom! Yeah, and what will happen is, when you do that enough, when you do that enough, you kind of sprinkle that through your employees every now and then, it perks them up and then all of a sudden they go, I wonder what I can do. Wow, she’s recognizing it. She saw how hard I worked this last week and she did that. So, if you want to say, listen, I want to give you a bonus, and then that’s unexpected, and that is up to you, and that is completely on you Kat. In other words, how much you give and when you give it and how you give it, that’s completely up to you. But as soon as you put parameters around that bonus, as soon as you describe that bonus of here’s how you get it, then it’s no longer a bonus. Does that make sense? It does, yes. So if you want to be that little surprise, hey it’s Christmas and you didn’t know it was Christmas and you want to show up with a little gift, that’s great and that encourages your people and that motivates them and it leaves it completely up to you as the employer. When you said Christmas, they fired very quickly. I saw you perk up. Years ago, my wife was the front desk lady working with Dr. Z. Somehow she got promoted or reassigned, but she became the person who blows a puff of air into your eyeball. A pretester. A pretester. And that’s where she was at. I would go there to his optometry clinic and I would sit around and take notes and kind of stalk him and try to get, see if I could steal a checklist or just kind of peek over the front desk and the lady would, and I would just kind of be a creeper really. I was always trying to figure out how I could build a business that was as successful as his. One of my early goals was to DJ your holiday party. Yes. At the time, you used a different business that, and I wanted that business. And so somehow, I tried to get through to Kylie. Now, Kylie’s like the office manager of all office managers. You wanna talk about a great manager, that’s Kylie. And Kylie was like, no one gets to see the wizard. You can’t get through to the Z. And I’m trying, I’m working, I’m like, my wife works here, come on. So finally, it’s probably a year in, I get a chance to DJ the holiday party And it was at the cityplex towers. Yes, it was awesome, and I was I don’t know maybe 22 23 How many years have you had your party there? How many times have you had it there? I mean we’ve had it there at the cityplex off and on probably 15 years you know sometimes we’re sometimes we miss the day. We don’t get the day. We have to go somewhere else I’ve never been there before and I went up to the top of the 60th floor I go up there it is in the towers built by Oral Roberts. I get up there, I see you, and I remember, true story, he had a casino theme, and I remember going, that’s the wizard. That’s why it’s such an honor doing this show with you. Seriously, you’re my hero. You’re awesome. You’re going to make me blush. I mean it. I’m watching this guy and I’m like, I get it. I mean it though. I’m like, this guy, I’m going to DJ the heck out of this party. You did. I’m going to bring it. I mean, you were sweating blood up there. You were just DJing away. I’m going to make every announcement, every transition. You couldn’t get off the dance floor. I was in pain. I couldn’t get off the dance floor. It was so good. I’m just trying to hammer home that agenda, the casino night. I’m just telling you. He came up to me at the end, and I remember he said, job well done, and you gave me two $100 bills and you didn’t know this but that’s what Vanessa and I needed to kind of make it right then. Wow. And you had given me two I’m serious he gave me $200 bills. Wow. I get very emotional thinking about it but you did it and I didn’t expect it and that’s why it was I was like what because I had agreed you were gonna pay me like $700 to DJ the party but you gave me two $100 bills and I just remember going wait a second it was that much? Yeah. Oh my gosh, I should have given you those $400. So you got a bonus. So that is a bonus. That’s what you get a bonus. And I couldn’t afford, I nuked glasses and my glasses were beat up. And he told my wife, he said, hey, make sure he comes on in, we’ll take care of him. And I got new glasses. And I’m just telling you, like it was a bonus. It was an unexpected thing. And it made me perk up. It did all the things that you just described. Now there’s another concept called merit-based pay and I think people mix those two. I want to make sure we’re getting it and I don’t want to get caught up in semantics but work with me. If you had a job today at Quick Trip, there would be a mystery shopper that would come in during your shift to inspect to make sure the restrooms were clean. If you had a job right now at Outback and you’re a managing partner, they basically allow you as a partner to buy in over time and now you’re a manager on steroids. You get to share profit at the end of the month. If you’re listening right now and you work at Starbucks and you’re a manager, they do a revenue profit share. The profit share is like if you do this, you qualify to earn this compensation. But it’s a week to week, it’s every week, it’s like every week you’re trying to get that compensation, but it’s a clearly defined parameter as you said and a bonus is like an unexpected Gift and you just don’t want people to become dependent and expect because we is creatures We all start to become entitlement people and I’ll give you an example Arthur Greenough one of our thrive 15 comm investors and mentors He told me that it at Chick-fil-a the craziest thing happens with ketchup packets. Do you know what that is? People put it on their sandwiches people take like 20 ah yeah They had to like get rid of them because people would take like oh yeah I’ll take one and then 18 for my purse yeah, and so cat is that clarifying bonuses and merit-based Feeling good. Yes. I’m feeling good. What question do you have for Z about that where you’re kind of maybe? We’re missing the mark or failing to communicate well, I my understanding is compensation for something stated is not a bonus. Correct. A bonus is something that’s unexpected, like you receiving that $200 after DJing Dr. Z’s party. So I’m clear on that. Okay, great. Now, you’re going to do, coming up after the break, we’re going to talk about step number seven, which is establish how the employee can earn freedom and autonomy over many aspects of their work day. We’re talking about how you’re telling people, hey, if you do this long enough, soon you can become a manager, and now you’re in charge of things. I’m not going to micromanage you. This is going to happen, but you have to do x, y, z. We’re talking about autonomy. A lot of people want to be independent. We’re going to teach you how to do that. Coming up next. And you’re listening to Michael Jackson. This is Clay Clark, recovering former disc jockey, your host of the Thrive Time Show. I’m joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner, Tulsa’s optometrist. Am I like the co-host? You said you’re a captain earlier, and I was kind of confused. What it is is over time I keep adding more and more descriptive narratives to make up for my lack of talent and skill. The host with the most, the voice of choice, the dude with the attitude, your brother from another mother, the broda from Minnesota. I mean just so much knowledge. You kind of look like a Viking. I do. I’m kind of very Nordic. You’re very Viking-ish. Do you have a hat with those two horn things? I’m on this new Soylent diet right now, which is crazy. What did you say? I’m on this new Soylent. Have you heard about this? What? Have you ever heard about this? No, no. Okay, Soylent is like, I get into these times about every two or three years where I just lose mental balance and I say, I’m gonna just dominate this area. Like fitness, I get into it. So I’m doing Soylent right now where it’s like you eat, your whole meal is in like a packet. And that’s all I eat for the whole day. Like space food? Yeah, it’s like space food, Soylent. It’s unbelievable, I auto-ship this stuff. And I used to do it with Myoplex back in the day. When I do it, I just, I get very, cause I have that jawline, I start to get very Viking-esque. Pretty soon you’re gonna see me bringing a spear in here. You’re going to see me- I just want you to get the how to horns. That’s the thing. And then when you only eat the same thing every day, you start to get a little more angry. And you start to almost look around like, ugh, like I’m hunting at all times. It’s going to get very Nordic in here. Well, Kate Graham’s here from Barbie Cookies, so she has a box of delicious cookies over there. I doubt that they’re part of your diet. And that must be driving you crazy to sit there and look at those for the entirety of the show. I rebuke those. All right, now here we go. We’re talking about how to set the proper employee compensation, how to set the right compensation, how to determine what you need to pay your people. We’re on to step number seven. And you want to, step number seven is you want to establish how the employee can earn freedom and autonomy over many aspects of their workday. You see, some employees really want to dress how they want. They want the option of wearing headphones at work. They want to be able to come in and work from home maybe one day a week. They have these little things they want to do. And in some jobs, it’s just not appropriate. I mean, if you’re a flight attendant, you can’t work from home. There are certain moves. But Z, talk to me about maybe some of the autonomy, some of the freedom you give people who’ve shown that they’re diligent and they do their job, not for a week in a row, not for three weeks in a row, but maybe a year in a row. A year in a row? Yeah, a year in a row. What are some of the things… Wow, a year, that’s a long time. Yeah. I mean, what are some of the things that you offer as little nuggets, little freedom nuggets for people who are really getting the job done right? When they’re really getting the job done right, then I don’t micromanage them. I think that’s the biggest set of freedom that you can put out there on somebody. I trust them to do their job. I inspect the results, but I don’t follow every step along the way and micromanage them. I tell them that, listen, if you’re the kind of person that I have to micromanage, I don’t want you on my team. The different offices have different freedoms, if you will. You can dress differently at the auto auction than you can. What I’ve done at the optometry clinic is I’ve gone to scrubs, and that way everybody’s kind of uniform and it’s kind of good and that’s a really big benefit. Think about how much money you spend on clothes every year. It’s a nice benefit to have. Are you comfortable being alone for vast periods of time? I’m asking this question because… I’m questioning your motives. I’m going to ask you… What? This is not a sales pitch. Are you telling me I’ve got to leave? No. So much of this Compensation game. It’s almost like you’re a referee of business and you have to like judge you have to say I am NOT going to pay you this because you didn’t do that You’re listening to the thrush on show on talk radio 116. I’m going to fire you because you didn’t do this I’m going to promote you because you did this you have to judge Judge people judge people you can’t judge people only God can judge me! Yeah, and me, because I’m your boss. How comfortable are you with judgment? I mean, is that something… because I think that’s something that’s hard… I mean, if I’m a listener listening to this for the first time, it could sound pretty harsh. Like, man, you’re telling somebody, hey, if I have to micromanage you, then… I mean, talk to me about that. Are you okay with everyone in the office disliking you, if need be? If need be. Yeah, but that’s why, you know, in previous shows, if you’re just now kind of finding Thrive Time Show at Drive Time, we’ve had a lot of great shows already. Go to thrivetimeshow.com and you can catch some of these concepts because every day we tackle a new area of excellence for you entrepreneurs out there. But yeah, you have to. You have to be the good cop, as we said before, and the bad cop. And when you’re wearing the bad cop hat, you’re not liked real well. I call this the Jason Stewart rule. Jason Stewart works in our office and he does a very good job at a great many things. And so one day I said, Jason, I appreciate what you’re doing. I know how much it pains you to not wear a black shirt every day. And I want you to know that you have autonomy to wear whatever you want every day. It’s probably a black shirt, but you can do that. You don’t have to wear a tie. You’re the guy. You can wear what you want. And somebody came up and said, how come he gets to dress like that and I don’t? Everyone else has to wear a tie and he gets to dress casual. I said, well, because he’s diligent and he gets a lot of things done. And frankly, I’ve decided that he has earned that and you have not. Well, that’s not fair. It’s true. It’s not fair. It’s business. And I’ve made the rules and I’m okay with that. But what questions do you have about that? As you try to implement these things with your team, what kind of questions would you have for Z about giving certain people autonomy? Do you have any questions about that or do you feel pretty good? I’m feeling good. I appreciate the input that Dr. Z is giving and just thinking about how I can do that same thing with my own team. Well, there’s a quote from a movie that I’ve taken to heart. It’s just kind of one of those universal truths, you know, and it’s something you have to, as a business owner, you have to get your head wrapped around you have to just really you know You might tattoo it if you’re a millennial tattoo it on your arm or or put the semen out in front of your business Or or or maybe just type it up and put it up there on the board You know, but how about your screensaver even better on your computer? I’ll tweet it. I’ll put it on LinkedIn I’ll put on Facebook and it goes it you really got to get your head wrapped around it. And what I’m doing is, I’m going to tease you once again, and I’m going to tell you this after the break. It’s almost break time, and I’ve got to give it to you. Can you not give it to me right now? No, it’s after the break. You’ve got to stay tuned. Don’t run off. After the break, you’re going to be giving us that incredible knowledge. Coming up next. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is your co-host, Captain America. Captain America, welcome back. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is your co-host, Captain America, Captain Clay Clark, and the water boy for the real host, Dr. Robert Zellner. Dr. Z, how are you doing, sir? I love all the titles. I mean, this is every segment. Let’s just change it up. Yeah, you change it up every time. I mean, we are joined here by one of America’s most beautiful entrepreneurs, one of the most just, her business is incredible. She’s a great lady. It’s Kat Graham, the co-founder of Barbie Cookies. How are you, Miss Kat? Thank you. I’m doing great. I’m doing great. I’m doing great. Her business is incredible. She’s a great lady. It’s Kat Graham, the co-founder of Barbie Cookies. How are you, Miss Kat? I’m doing well. Thank you, Clay, for those kind words. Now, I’ve tried to hold this back during the show, but I really can’t do it anymore. I’m going to brag on you a little bit here. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. I left everybody cliffhanging on the thing, and I don’t want to get anybody cliffhanging anymore. I feel… Unless you want me to. No, no, no. I just… It’s sometimes I get so excited about Kat. I get excited about you. I thought it was the cookies. I thought it was the cookies there, though. Yeah, I can tell them. I guess, just keep pulling you into them. You break it down, friend. Well, what I was saying before, Cat, and all entrepreneurs out there, and all people wanting to start their own business, you’ve got to get this mindset. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but it’s something you’ve got to do. Just repeat after me when I say this out there. Keep saying it to yourself over and over and over as you go through your business day and it’ll help you with those tough decisions. It’ll help you with those emotional decisions. It’ll help you with those decisions that make you go, I don’t know, just, oh, I’m breaking someone’s heart. And that is, famous line from a movie, and that is, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. That’s awesome. And that’s how you gotta look at it. You gotta look at it, hey, this is nothing personal. You know, I’m letting you go, it’s nothing personal. Okay, okay. Well, I’ve got to say this. When you say it, there’s people out there who do very nefarious and terrible things, and they say, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Walk me through, where does that line end for the listener who’s maybe going, what do you say? Well, no matter what it does to the individual you’re talking to, the filter is, is it best for my business? And so, for example, I’m going to fire someone today and it’s not what’s best for them necessarily because they’ve got to now go out and get a new job. They may skip a paycheck. I mean, it’s going to be stressful for them. But if the filter of your decision goes through and says, this is what’s best for the business, then it’s the right thing to do. No matter what the fallout is on the other side of it. And that’s why you need to say to yourself, it’s nothing personal. I might like that person as a person, but they’re not a good employee. So here’s the filter. What’s best for the business? Oh, okay. Well then. Well, and Mr. Jack Welch, Captain Jack Welch here, he says this, strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs, tough decisions to cut jobs, provide the only true job security in today’s world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs. What he’s talking about at GE is they were making refrigerators out there in Louisville, Kentucky. They were making appliances. They weren’t making any money. And he says, look, as tough as it’s going to be, we have to shut down this plant, retool it and make things that we can make a profit at because we’re getting our butts kicked by the foreigners. We can’t do anymore. Right. And those are the tough decisions you have to make. But if he didn’t do that, make those changes, GE would not be a successful company that’s still around today. You have to evolve. You have to change. I want to brag on Kat here because her business, if you go in there, man, I’ll tell you what, the cookies are great. The team is great. It’s a wonderful place. But Kat, when you go in there, walk the listeners through what they’re going to find inside Barbie Cookies. What does it look like in there? What does it feel like inside Barbie Cookies? One of my goals, Clay, in building my new bakery, I want people to come into my bakery and feel like they are going to Grandma’s house. That might sound kind of hokey. I understand that. who are in heaven now. They were wonderful, hospitable women. And when I would go to their homes and eat their cookies and their pecan pies, it was a precious time. And they made me feel so welcome. So I wanted my business to be welcoming. I have my grandmother’s pictures hanging on the wall because I’m so proud of them. They were super influential to me and so I want people to feel welcome, feel like they’re back at grandma’s house, have just enjoy the smell of the delicious cookies. And for all the listeners, all the 1170 listeners right now, if you go to Barbie Cookies and it’s your first time in there, you can go in and grab a free cookie. What? A one time, a free cookie. You can go in there and try it out for the first time. You’ve got to try it because once you try it, you’re never going back. You’re listening to the Throckton Show on Talk Radio 11 Central. I’m just telling you, it’s not that store-bought cookie stuff. I’m talking about game-changing grandmother’s cookies. But when you go in there, how much is a cookie should I come back the second time I want to buy a cookie? What’s a cookie cost? Well, we have two different sizes. We have the baby size, which averages about 75 cents per cookie. And then our regular size cookies in the display case, which are actually like extra large sized cookies, the average cost is about $2.20. Okay, so $2.20. Now let’s just say that you went around and you paid everybody who worked there as much money as they wanted. Sure. You know, again, Sibner rate is the term in the actual amount of cash that you can sustainably afford to pay people. If you paid everyone what they wanted to be paid, how much would you have to charge for a cookie? $10 a cookie. And how many people would buy those cookies? Nobody. So I guess the example would be either you’ve got two options here. A, you pay everyone what they want to be paid, Bernie Sanders, you pay everyone what they want to be paid, and when you do that what’s going to happen is you’re going to have these $15 cookies that no one’s going to buy, or B, is you pay people what you can afford to pay them. And, oh, it sounds so mean and so difficult. It is so difficult. Is it so mean? No, but Lee Cockrell, Lee Cockrell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts, a thrive15.com mentor, he says this, he says, when you do hard things, life gets easier. Which carries me over to step number nine, the final step, it’s you wanna create an environment where people want to work, where people want to work. And at your bakery, you’ve done that, Kat. People go in there. Can you tell them what it visually looks like? What can we see? What can we find inside this beautiful… It’s a beautiful… It’s almost like a temple of cookie glory. What can they find inside there? Well, they’re going to find over 25 different types of cookies in the display case. Beautiful product packaging. Something proud. If you want a great gift, something that tastes great, come in because our boxes look like gifts. I also wanted the decor to be kind of a vintage feel. We use reclaimed lumber and cool lighting. So if you want to bring your family in and enjoy some family time, there’s a comfortable seating area. It looks cool. If you want to have a little date night where you come in and get a great cup of coffee and some cookies, that’s awesome too. It’s just something that we’re…Barbie Cookies is just a place we’re super proud of. And my business partner, Kelly, and I, we’re kind of particular about the decor. And so we love it and we think others will as well. It’s a game changer. I’ll tell you this. At Thrive15, we have these… if you’re a Thrive15.com subscriber, meaning that you’re somebody who listened to this show and you said, I want to watch the video version. I want to be able to have access to the downloadables. I want templates. I want to come to a workshop. When you come to the workshop, you will be coming here to the Riverwalk in Jinx, America. Right there on the west side of that beautiful river that’s always full. Z, it’s always full. Have you ever seen it not full? It’s full of something. Usually sand, but it’s full. It kind of looks like a scene from the first Star Wars, The New Hope, you know, where Luke grew up on that kind of sandy planet. It looks like that. But anyway, you go here and seriously, we have an office environment. We have a tiki village in the back. We’ve invested to make a really nice atmosphere because we want it to be a place where people would want to come to work. Z, you’ve met a lot of business owners. Where do most business owners get it wrong as it relates to creating an office environment where people actually want to come to work? Boy, that’s a deep question. I tell you what, I’m still kind of stuck on the Thrive thing over there. You know, I was, somebody the other day came up to me and said, hey listen, I really appreciate what you guys are doing on thrive15.com because I don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on a business coach every month. So I can for $19 a month, I can have all my business questions answered just like that. What’s crazy is because there’s thousands of people all over the world now in 40 some odd countries, almost 50, what’s happening is that when I ask, let’s say I’m a business owner listening and I ask a question, I just email info at thrive15.com and a question gets answered in a video form. Well then somebody, we had someone the other day who’s in Canada who told me, I watched that video you guys just made and it answered my question. It was spot on with what my question was. And then we had a guy named Brian I talked to just the other day in Denver, Colorado. Brian Zimmerman. Brian Zimmerman, how are you doing? And Brian has some questions that I’m sure are going to be the answers to the video that we recorded to answer his questions. I’m sure it will answer your questions as a thriver. So it’s this unbelievable, ever-growing library. There’s thousands of videos. There’s exclusive access to the Ask Us Anything business question hotline. There’s downloadables. It’s all right there for you, Z. And it’s only $19 a month. And if they want to see a true Nordic Viking, they can get on and binge watch Clay Clark as much as they want. And for like $25, we’re going to throw in a Barbie cookie. Woo! So it’s $19 a month, but for $25, we’ll ship that to you. And people can order those cookies online now, right? Oh, absolutely. We ship via UPS all over the country. Oh, beautiful. What can Brown do for you? I tell you what, Brown can ship you cookies. They can bring you some cookies. Absolutely. That’s right. Now, Thrivers, we tell you what, as always, we appreciate you listening here to the Thrive Time Show. It is your place to go for business school without the BS. Until we talk to you next time, Z, we love to kind of do a countdown here. So we’re going to get yourself emotionally ready, Thrivers. Here we go. And 3, 2, 1, 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, when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get your to you to get your 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 all right so the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees would you do it yes absolutely all right 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. 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 that 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. Hello, we getting there everybody, we getting there everybody. There’s probably someone out there that 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 ten minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thronetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and 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 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 ten 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 like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. Everything okay, ma’am? 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 ten 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. It’s from Ridgeway Let 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 $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, 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. 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 dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand 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%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with with our new customers. Amazing. Right, so not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85%, and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one-and-done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success 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 is of the diligence and consistency and doing those and 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. 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 I had to get out of this rut that we’re in but Thrive helped us with that you know that 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 and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 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 proven 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 Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay 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 Lee Crocker, the head of Disney, with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day-to-day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly he’s running 160 companies. 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 into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like 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. And 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 you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My 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 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, you know, 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 a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 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 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 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 system 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’ll even give you your money back if you don’t loan. We 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 didn’t, without the systems, you’re gonna 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. I’ve doubled in clients. I’ve doubled in revenue 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 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 on that script. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 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. 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. 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 was. So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. 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, a 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 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. 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. 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 wanna 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 would 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 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, 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.