Entrepreneur | Part 1 – Overseas Manufacturing- How To Mass Produce Your Product

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. Jill, the thrill. Hi. How are you? Good to see you again. Hey, we are here talking today specifically about how to get your product, how to basically manufacture your product overseas, and really how to mass produce your product. And I’m just going to give you a little background story, a little backstory here. Your product now, how many countries has your product been bought in or sold in? I mean, is it like all over the world now, the rustic cuff? I mean, is it all over the planet at this point? It’s mostly in the U.S. and then we’re maybe in four other countries. And you have celebrities that tour all over the world. Celebrities, you see them. You can’t open up a People magazine or an Us Weekly or one of these without seeing a celebrity who’s wearing your stuff. I know Britney Spears has been caught wearing your stuff. And was it Kathie Lee Gifford has been caught wearing your stuff? And Miranda Lambert. I mean, it is a sensation. And I know there’s somebody watching this right now who has an unbelievable idea that you believe that either God gave you the idea yourself. You believe it’s a God-inspired idea, maybe one of you, your uncle gave you the idea, maybe you just thought of it one day, but however, you have this idea, and you feel like you want to get it out to the world just like Jill has done, and so we’re gonna pick your brain and get into specifically how does somebody manufacture a product, how do they mass produce it? So we’re gonna get into it. So, and just a little backstory though also, you and I are working off the assumption that anybody watching this has already made a prototype. Right. So if you haven’t made a prototype, please go watch the episode on how to make a prototype and then come back and watch this one. Okay, so we’re working off the assumption you already have a prototype. But do you recommend that I should go ahead and try to find a factory to mass produce my product, or do you think that I should just try to sell the heck out of the product before I try to mass produce it? Let’s just say I have a prototype. Should I go out there and try to sell it first or should I go ahead and try to find a factory to mass produce it before I’ve sold a bunch? I think there are different steps that you need to take before you enter the world of mass producing a product. I would first test the market out with that prototype. There are a lot of different ways that you can do it. So you’re going to first test the market? Test the market. There’s no sense in making 2,000, 5,000 of your prototype without having had good data to back that up. This goes for books too. I met a guy years ago, just a beautiful American, great guy. He had this idea that he would become a best-selling author right out the gate. Bam! And someone said, well, you can self-publish that, bro. I mean, you don’t have to go to a publisher. You just self-publish. So he bought, I’m not making up the number, I’m really not exaggerating, he probably bought 40,000 books at like $10 a piece. He self-published. published. Yeah, so you go into his office and you see like probably four hundred thousand dollars still of product just sitting there and he never never moved any units. But he believed in himself. He believed in himself, but I will say this had he had tested it, he probably would have made some revisions, maybe changed the book title, maybe adjusted some things. So you’re saying go ahead and rush to test, don’t necessarily rush to just mass-produce. The prototype is just that, it is a prototype. Okay. There are, you know, for every prototype I make, I may have to do four, six, seven revisions on that prototype, and that’s why you get a prototype, because you want to test it out to see if and what any changes need to be made. So maybe four to six revisions before you even get it right. Sometimes there may be none. It may have the perfect prototype because you spent so much time initially, but you’re lucky if your first prototype is it. I know we talk about this constantly on Thrive, but I want to help you here. We live in a pass-fail world of school where it’s formal education. You get an A, and then you can move on to the next test. You got a D, move on to the next test. You only get one shot. But in entrepreneurship, you really want to go ahead and take the test and then learn the answers, take it again, learn the answers, keep learning from your failures until you get it right. So four to six revisions, I mean you’re an all-star, you’re a Jedi if you get it right in four prototypes. I mean don’t feel like you’re doing something weird if you have some errors. Yeah, absolutely. So when do you know that it is time now to go out and find a factory who will be willing to mass-produce your product? I mean how do you know that it’s time. How do you say we’ve sold enough units that we’re now going to take this to China and sell these? I mean, how do you know when that… I think, going off the assumption now that you have the perfect prototype, once you’ve tested it and you know it’s a perfect prototype and you know that it will sell, or you have a very strong belief because of some data that you have that it will sell. Give us some data. One of the things that I would do, and I know we’ve talked about this in another episode that we did, is you can always go to market. And you can have a really good idea if this is a product that people would be interested in by going to that particular trade show for your product. And again, for those of you who have not seen this episode, I just want to mention this. There are markets that you can take your product to where there’s sales reps there. And if someone was just Googling, let’s say they wanted to find a market to go to in their city. Let’s say I sell wedding dresses and I want to take it to market. What kind of things should I Google to maybe find these sorts of markets? Just so I get a little idea of some of the words or some of the… Okay, so you could put in trade show, wedding trade shows, and it’s something probably broader than a wedding trade show, but there actually are entire markets set up for buyers of wedding gowns, any accessories, anything that has to do with that. So you have these buyers that come around and if you sell something, if you make something, let’s say you make the veil the veil the veil you can go set up a booth at this trade show where you have buyers coming through and You can determine whether or not this is something that people would be interested in and just in case you’re not familiar with the with The nomenclature and the words we’re saying here the word buyer We don’t mean like a consumer the average person who buys something we mean somebody who’s their fault their full-time job is is buying for other stores. Buying for stores. So they’re like, let’s say I’m the buyer for Neiman Marcus. My job is to travel around to the world’s markets, the trade shows, and to find the best products so I can bring them to the best store and sell those. And these people know market trends. They know what the big-box retailers are buying at that time. So these are the people that you want to get your product in front of to even be able to determine if it’s something that you want to go overseas or that you want to mass market. And I want to tell you one trick, and I don’t know if you agree with this. I know one person who’s done pretty well, and her theory is she doesn’t even have the products to sell. She just makes a few prototypes, and she goes to market and sees if anyone wants to buy the product at market. And then when they say, yeah, we’d like to go and order 1,000. She goes, OK. Well, right now we’re overwhelmed with orders, and so we’ll be in touch with you very soon. And then she goes back to her office and is like we need to get started making these so so that’s a way to test it you don’t need to go out and mass produce it and some people have this fear like what if people order tell them you’re already swamped with orders it’s it’ll still be there when you have your product they’ll still the same people that wanted a thousand of them in january will still be there in june when i took my dj service to the bridal show when I only had one DJ, me, and I was marketing to see if there would be a need for other DJs. We actually booked six weddings on one weekend and I had just me. I went ahead and just booked them and figured it out later. But that’s sometimes like that. How to reproduce you. Yeah, but that’s one of the things you have to do as entrepreneurs. You kind of fake it until you make it a little bit there. Absolutely. So as we get into this here, now, when do you know that a factory would be willing to actually mass produce it? I mean, say you start the process and you go, I am going to now find a factory, a big, large, I picture smokestacks, you know, this big old factory. How am I going to know that I’m selling enough or have enough data for a factory to actually want to work with me? This is where a little bit of sales and your personality comes in or the personality of the person that is trying to connect with this particular factory. One of the things that one of the I needed some metal okay I needed um to go and get some metal produced the the minimum order quantity was 10,000. I needed 200. Ten thousand dollars? Ten thousand units. How much is a unit? Well, it just depends. It varies, but… For you, how much was a unit? Oh my gosh. And was it like hundreds of dollars per unit? No, no. I mean, it was anywhere from five to ten dollars. They wanted a minimum of a ten… Of ten thousand. So you right away, you’re going, gosh, because I want to make sure you’re getting the back story here. Yeah, yeah. Guys, we’re talking, Jill started this business for $250. And somebody was just telling you… Ten thousand. You got to have ten… So you’re looking at a $50,000 bill right away. Right away. And I just said, and this is where having a website, this is where having really good branding and marketing, the fake it till you make it thing, even if it’s just a landing page, something that makes you look bigger than you are. So what they do is when you try to connect with somebody who’s going to mass produce, they go and they do a little bit of research on you to see, okay, you know, what’s their story? Is it worth lowering our MOQ, our minimum order quantity, for them? And so I found who I wanted to produce my metal and I said, here’s the deal, I’m new, okay? I mean, you know, my history, I can only go back to a certain date. You can’t fake that. You know, I haven’t been doing this since, you know, 1980. So, but here’s what I’m about. I only need 200. Okay? I project that in the future, I will need a lot more. But I can only do 200 at this point. Let’s look at this as I’m testing you, you’re testing me, let’s start a relationship. So it was more about let’s start a relationship together because they, factories also understand that not everybody is going to be able to start off it. Did you have any factories reject you? Yeah, yeah, but that’s not necessarily people that I wound up choosing. Okay, I want to share this though. I just want to make sure we’re hearing this, you’re watching this. I know of many, I say many, multiple, very successful, very successful, multi-million dollar manufacturer, people, retail product people, who have been rejected countless times. I know when I talked to celebrities early on in my career about different things, the amount of rejection that you get sometimes can be overwhelming, but it’s okay if we have a little rejection. Absolutely, because not everything is going to be the right fit. And rejection also just refines you. You understand that if you’re accepted by the first one, it’s probably not necessarily always the right one. Okay. Yeah. So I found this factory that I really wanted and I asked them, would you be willing to do 200? I know your minimum order is 10,000, so it’s a very, very big stretch, but I started with a relationship. So this is who I am, this is what I’ve done, this is what I want to do. Would you be willing just to start with 200? And this gentleman called me and he said, we’re going to take a chance on you at $200. We generally wouldn’t do it for anything less than $10,000. But because we went to your website, we like what you’re doing, we feel it’s a quality product, we’re going to take a chance. And so that’s how we started. That’s amazing that they went from a $10,000 minimum order to $200. And I think if you’re watching this, we really have to be aware. If you’ve heard somebody tell you, well, you have to have $10,000 to get started, I know one lady specifically who actually stopped trying to even manufacture a product because she called a couple factories and they’re like, well the minimum we accept is 10,000 units. And she was like, well I guess I can’t be in business then. Yeah, I don’t accept no for an answer. If I really really wanted it and I really wanted to get it made somewhere that I could get it made for a lot less than down the street from me, then I wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. You do not accept no as an answer. I do not accept no for an answer. Okay. I love it. Now, the question here for you that I would have is, right now, currently, do you make the products in the U.S. or do you make them overseas or a combination of both? Walk me through kind of your process. It’s a combination. We make our product in our office, in our showroom here in Tulsa, but there are certain parts of the product, certain metals, that we have to get manufactured overseas, simply because we cannot do all that here ourselves. You can’t find your own metal? Can you believe that? I need to go back to school for that. Metallology? Yeah, yeah. When I have a little bit of time, I’ll look into that. So I started looking for, and it was very tricky to find it here for the price that we needed it. So I had no experience, had nobody guiding me, nothing like Thrive. If I would have had Thrive back then, I would have slept a lot more. I can honestly say, I have made so many stupid mistakes. The stuff I’ve learned from you guys, it’s unbelievable. So you basically, you kind of trial and errored your way. I sat one night and I said, you know what, I can’t afford to spend for the metals that I need. I can’t afford to spend any more because now instead of buying, you know, instead of needing 50 at a time, I needed 200, needed a thousand. I can’t afford to buy it here locally, this metal part. So I sat down on my computer one night, had never talked to anybody who had done this, didn’t even know. People in my circles were not buying, trying to look for metals overseas. I didn’t even know where the book was that was called How to Buy Metal Overseas. So I got online and seriously, night after night, figured this out on my own. I don’t even know, I don’t even, I look back, I’m like, how did that, how did that happen? But one website leads you to another, which leads you to another, which leads you to a place that you can go and talk to somebody. Is there a list of legit factories that anybody can go to now? Is there a site you’re like, go to awesomeoverseasfactories.com or supergreatusfactories.com? One of the things that I did that was really, really helpful. There are companies that can actually lead you to very legitimate factories. There is a trade show in Vegas called Magic. Magic? It’s twice a year. Okay. And at Magic, the day before Magic starts, something called sourcing starts, okay? And it is a convention center. It’s at the convention center. And it’s thousands of factories that come from all over the world, from the U.S., India, China, all over Asia, Europe, you name it. People come and they set up booths. And it’s called sourcing? Sourcing. And that was one week before magic? No, it happens the day before magic and then runs through concurrently with magic. But sourcing is like a festival? No, it’s a trade show. Okay. Okay. And so you go to the convention center and there are thousands of booths, thousands of booths of factories that come that want your business. We want to make, we want to mass produce your prototype. Wow. We want to make your prototype and then if you like it we want to mass-produce it. That is their sole purpose for being there at Sourcing. If you want to make a purse, there are people that have purses in their booth and they want you to make a prototype with them. How cool is that? Thousands. When I went to this trade show, I discovered Sourcing and it is really amazing. There is a group with sourcing, the people that head sourcing, that you actually work with to narrow down of the thousands, who would best, who would you most benefit from to, so you’re not, it’s just not this mass sea of people. So we probably need to get out to this magic conference. Yeah, it’s really… What does this dude cost? To just go to sourcing? Yeah. Oh, it’s a few hundred dollars. Okay, I’m just, I want to encourage you guys sometimes you’re gonna have to get out of if you grew up in a town Like me a small town or you grew up in Tulsa coca-cola Real quick those sales pitch for cocaine. Tell me it has an event annually called the corn carnival Okay, at least a thousand people attend the corn carnival in coca-cola Yeah, and it’s a deal where like if you are looking to take your Vicki family vacations the next level sure not only can you? Go there, but within a ten minutes drive. Yeah, there’s the world’s largest ball of twine in Darwin, Minnesota. Within 10 minutes drive, you can see both of the 1,000 people at the Corn Carnival get over there to the world’s largest ball of twine. What’s the population of Cocado? 2,038 people. Last time when I lived there, there was not a stoplight. Now there is. Things are changing. I love it. And that cannot… If you’re watching this from Cocado, and I know you are, you’re going to have to get over to Vegas. This episode could be a waste of time if you’re not willing to get out of the building. There are ways that you can do this online. There are definite ways that you can find great factories online. I did. But I will tell you that sourcing is a way to get in front of these people and to have somebody direct you to the people that you need. Come on guys, there’s hundreds of Yodas at this event. Go there, meet Yoda, bring the lightsaber, that’s where my Star Wars analogy ends. And it’s almost, when you go there, you have a guide almost, they connect you with people to tell you, here’s a list of 20 of the people in this entire building that you need to meet. And then you walk around and… I love this! It really, I want to say this might be the less than six times they have done this. So it’s fairly new, but every time it gets better. I love it. Now let me ask you this. How did you decide to make your products overseas or in the US? What was your decision? I know what we can do really well here and I know the parts that we can’t do well and so making certain metals was not what we did and not what I was trained in and we had to do them in such a large quantity and so at that point when I realized I simply could not staff enough people to be able to make this many parts of the metal that I needed, I needed to go look for that overseas. So to do that, I mean how long did it take you? What was that process like of trying to find this great big factory for your little product? Did this take months, Jill? Was it weeks? Was it hours? No, it really depends on, you don’t have to narrow it down to just one. You can be asking several different factories at the same time for a sample. Do you believe in the rule of three? I always tell people that you have the rule of three, I said so you don’t forget. But the thing is, I always tell people that whenever I’m doing build out, I’ll hire three builders simultaneously and I’ll say, listen, we’re gonna start on Monday and I’m gonna have you start building the bathroom, you start building the living room or whatever. Because I know that two of them are gonna flake out and then I’m not stuck. Do you believe, because I know people firsthand face-to-face Seen them who have spent years trying to find a factory. Mm-hmm You’re saying you have to be what you do agree with the rule of three or what do you what are your thoughts on? That is the whole I don’t like to put all my eggs in one basket for something that is as important as this so I will have several different people helping me to make certain parts that I need because at any one point if a factory or one of the manufacturers that I’m working with shuts down or for whatever reason then I am not out of business. Has this happened to you before or one has gone out of business? No I did have one where I needed something really it was very very time sensitive and they went on strike. They went on strike and so it was delayed which then of course panics me because I had to have it somewhere else at this time. Yeah. So it all worked out, but if you put all your eggs in one basket for one and that one goes out of business or gets shut down, then you have to start the process all over again. So if I’m talking to a factory and they do want a minimum order before they’re willing to even sit down, right, or let’s say they literally speak a different language than me, right, I guess you’re saying is you cannot let these be barriers because you can’t accept no as an answer? I’m going to tell you something that really really has helped me. For the first year I did it all myself. I speak Russian but not… What? I know it’s weird. Everybody else was learning French and Spanish and I was like I want to do something a little different so I decided to do Russian. But Russia is not where I get things manufactured so that does not help me. Okay. So the places where I like to get things manufactured, I don’t necessarily speak that language. One, for a whole first year, I had to decipher emails. I had to hope that the person that I was contacting could understand what I was saying and vice versa. And so one thing that I recently found and it’s extremely helpful, there are groups of people that will be your liaison for these factories. They take a very small percentage of the sales, not your, I’m sorry, not your sales of the, from off of the purchase order, from the amount that you buy, they take a small amount, you have to pay them a small percentage of that. And what that does for you, not only do you have better quality control there, because these are people that are actually going to the factories, and there’s not the language barrier because they either speak the language or they have a translator at all times to be able to communicate with factories. So it’s extremely important. And people think, oh gosh, I can’t afford that, but it really is a small percentage of what your ultimate purchase order is. Will you type in, like, liaison for negotiation with factories.com? I found mine because I was introduced to them by somebody that had used one, but that is That is probably I would they call a broker. What do you call? I actually call my liaison. I don’t know that they’re brokers How one is called I really don’t know clay. I wish yeah, no, it’s cool answer to their what their exact Title or how to do this kind of our groups you start looking this stuff up there You’ll eventually find your way to it and if anybody watches was a Russian translator or somebody that they could buy a massive truckload of rustic cuffs from, you could help them on both fronts. Absolutely. I did not realize how much you knew about the Russian language. No, well, I can’t say I’m not fluent, but I fake it till I make it. If I say the word Putin, what does that mean in Russian? Putin. Okay. Keep going here. That was good, thank you so much. Now, Lori Montag… Do you know Russian at all? No, no, I know a lot about Putin and some of his shirtless horse-riding expeditions, which I personally am excited about, but that’s just me. That’s another episode. That’s another episode. Anyway, moving on here, segueing from the shirtless dictators back to capitalism. Now, Lori Montag, she’s a co-founder of ZanyBands. She’s also the co-founder of the Slapwatch products. She’s been, her products have been on The View. I have them all in my kids’ drawers. There you go. They’ve been featured in my house. Now, she says, you have to fake it till you make it. So how do you deal with that whole dilemma of them wanting you to produce thousands of units, you being a little scared. Let’s go back just to the emotional side of it. You’re a little scared, you’re trying to find this liaison. You’re trying to find a dude to mass produce something in China or Singapore or Korea or Oklahoma. I mean, you’re trying to find a factory. Are you scared that your contract with an international company might not go through or that you’re going to give somebody 50 grand to mass produce a product right here in Oklahoma? Are you worried about this? Yeah, there’s a lot of things, especially when you initially start that I’m gonna give some, I’m gonna wire over $50,000 to a company, which is why having a liaison takes a lot of that fear out. I didn’t have that for the first two years that I did this, but you know it’s again like you say a trial and error, but there’s a lot of things that you can’t believe you’re trusting people that you can’t have never even talked to on the phone that you’ve never even seen. So having a liaison is a great great place to start. Do you think every entrepreneur should be watching this should be that they should go out of their way or they should be fairly obstinate about having a smaller minimum order? You know every company most of the successful companies didn’t start off with, okay, we’re going to place an order for $20,000. Factories know this. The people that are the reps at the factories know this. And so it’s a matter of finding the right one that is willing to take a chance on you. Just because if you look and every factory says, okay, minimum order of $2,000 and you want $500 made, I wouldn’t turn away from a good factory just because of that. I would use your best negotiating skills to get them down to a lower minimum order. If you’re watching this and you’re maybe guilty of what I’m going to share with you in just a second, I want to make sure you’re hearing this. You mentioned your personality will come out here and you’re negotiating. If you currently, and I used to do this, I still have the earring holes to prove it here, but if I used to dress like I was part of some like hip-hopera, you know, my life was this hip-hop operatic worldview. And I had this whole… and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just want to share with you, it’s a first impression thing. So if I’m gonna be a musician, I would probably want to dress that part. So if I want to dress like Eminem or the Wu-Tang Clan, I mean, if I want to be a musician, that maybe makes sense. But when you’re dealing with some of these factories, their first impression of you is huge. And I’ve heard it said by numerous people that have manufactured overseas, they said you really want to have like a pro shot of your packaging or your product, a nice website, nice headshot of you. So when they tell, when they Google you, they’re like are we going to take the time out of our factory production and shift into production? It’s expensive for these companies to retool and to make 200 of something. They’re betting on you as the entrepreneur. So we owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves if we want to get this deal done. We have to look sharp and our product has to look good. Because nobody in their right mind would have taken me up. I mean if I honestly when I started if I was trying to mass produce any product overseas anybody would have to be crazy to listen to me because I talked kind of I had a slacker way I talked and I didn’t have my stuff organized. I looked like I just woke up every day and I seriously, I’m surprised that I wasn’t homeless for a long period of time. And I think that it’s concerning though because I met a guy just a few months ago who has an apparel line. His product is magical, Jill. His product is awesome. But he looks awful. Like he’s just his whole aura. Did you tell him? Yeah. It’s a deal where he asked me to reach out to him. I just said, hey, your appearance, you’re a great person. Yeah, and you’re referred to me from a person I respect, but your appearance isn’t as good as your product. And whether you’re starting FUBU or we’re starting Calvin Klein products or Hilfiger, there’s a certain you just you’re stylish. Yeah, you’re selling a style product. You have to look that way. And when you’re dealing with overseas companies that who can’t necessarily see you, what represents you would be your website. Yeah, so that’s, you have to almost look at that as your personality because that’s what they’re going to go look at. So the action steps, I guess, what action steps do you recommend that every entrepreneur should take if they find themselves trying to negotiate with a factory who wants a small order? Or wants a big order, or wants a larger order, but yet that, you know, as an entrepreneur I can’t afford it. What’s the action steps? One thing that you can say is, here’s my intention, I’m going to go, I can’t buy 10,000 today. This is where I think I’m going to go right now. Initially this can be my order. And persistence also. If you find the factory that you want. There are factories who will do lower minimum order quantities. Absolutely. And so you don’t have to just land upon one where 10,000 is the minimum order and then be so persistent. Because there are plenty of places that will do a lower minimum order. 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, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! All right, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save $3,000 a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has the same mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you said the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. Now 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 It’s probably some someone out there, okay, we think that well I’ll just say it folks if you’re out there today, and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshare.com forward slash credit dash hard it because you can compare rates you can save money and you know the big the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom 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 and 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. Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. Stop looking at me swan. Well let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS, it’s integrated payment services and I scheduled a consultation, I don’t know if I was skeptical, I just thought whatever I’ll take 10 minutes, I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell, you can tell me I’m a doctor no I mean I’m just not sure, or 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 case, 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 gonna be easy so I need you to be brave, alright? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, alright. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies One question, what’s the brand name the clock the brand name of the clock Rod? We have a name of the clock It’s an elegant from Ridgeway. It’s from Ridgeway Let’s Let’s buy by the clock and sell the fireplace I encourage everybody out there go to thrive time show.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. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, 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, you know, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals 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. And it’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews, that way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists, that way 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 it a diligence and Consistency and doing those and that system has really Really been a big blessing in our lives and also, you know It’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with right we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year. But we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we’re in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So, we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key 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, 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, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up. He teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like the 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. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal. 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 and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways just an amazing man. So anyways impacted me a lot, he’s helped navigate any time 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 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 four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re 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 systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. 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 our talk. Well, 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. 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 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100. As a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. 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, is 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 turns into sales. Well I tell you you know it’s if you don’t have a script 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. That’s really what it’s all about. With a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. Call them script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do… If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, 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. That’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to hideaway pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well, we had that speaking thing that… Oh, there it was. So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert 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 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 as a business coach, business consultant, I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe, wherever I end up, will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable You know how to hire people it’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn I have learned a lot in those different categories And then again the the mindset that I’ve gained here Has been huge you know working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I 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. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that 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 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 and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.