Entrepreneur | Part 4 – Raising Venture Capital: The 14 Points You Need To Know

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 three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, now let’s move on to point number eight. Don’t you. Why you don’t need a business plan. Come on. Now, initially, I mean, I would think that you would need a business plan when presenting to investors, and I would assume many entrepreneurs would think so as well. Why is that not necessary here? You need a business plan for your business. But you do not need to bring the business plan to the presentation to the investors. They don’t care about it. Nor should you send it to them. Because if they want it, they’ll ask you for it. But the pitch deck, the tin slide, is what’s going to give them the initial understanding where they want to see more. And I guess a more elaborate description just to give you an idea is, you know, I am not a big deal. I’m not somebody who’s, I do speak, you know, probably 50 times a year. I have the nine different companies and stuff. What happens is I get a ton of emails from people that are like, hey, I’ve got this great idea for a car wash. And I wanted to know if you could invest and you scroll down. Yeah. And it’s like five pages. I’m like, delete. Right. And if it’s someone I know, I’ll put, call Liz. Or if it’s somebody who I don’t want Liz to talk to, I’ll tell Liz, Liz, if they call you, don’t call them. Right. I mean, just, I mean, I’m filtering all the time. I’m looking for ways to filter. Right. I’m looking for excuses to not open every email. So you’re saying that you are not even as a big of a deal as some of these investors Yeah, and times already extremely valuable to you. So you’re not going to take the time to scroll through a five-page email That’s why you don’t send the business plan an example be think about Sequoia Mm-hmm. Um Sequoia is a big venture capital fund has been around forever and these guys are known for having hitters I mean they they they Hit on the big deals the people who work for Sequoia, they find the new big thing and they invest in it. And they have a track record of being pretty much dead on. Those guys, they don’t get dead on by missing the big deals. So they’ve got to sift through a whole bunch of deals to find the right one. And so if you send Sequoia a big detailed business plan, they’re not going to respond too favorably. You need to send them just what they need to know. And if they want to know more, they’ll call you. Good. Well, Pitching Hacks says, don’t send long business plans to investors. This is what they’ve studied, and this is their area of expertise. They say don’t do it. Then, if we look at Charles River Ventures, who actually invested in Twitter, they wrote, the best way to get our attention is not with a 100-page business plan. This is coming straight from these people who you want investing in your company, and you don’t want this long business plan because they will just delete it. Delete is key. That makes sense. So you’re telling us build the pitch deck, leave everything else out. And you, did you ever struggle with this or did you ever initially send a big long business plan? Yes, I did. So you learned from failure. Every one of these rules I did not observe. Okay. That makes sense. For a long time. Yeah. I mean, it seems bizarre, you know, but how do you keep track of what you’re doing or how do the investors see how you keep track of it if you don’t include that business plan? Um, this is maybe, I’m not going to say the analogy initially came to my mind, but I’ll give you the analogy that makes sense. Okay. If you want to come work in my office and I say, can you send me a resume? Just give me a resume. Don’t come to work and bring me your entire criminal background, your resume, your picture from second grade, endorsements from people who liked playing soccer with you in third grade, and your favorite movies. Maybe I’ll want to see those later and get to know you better, but for right now I just want the resume. Okay. The business plan is it’s too much. Okay. That makes sense. Just stick to keeping it simple with the pitch deck. Keep it real, keep it simple. Boom. Number nine, why your presentation skills and team building skills matter more than the merits of your business plan? Oh, come on. Okay, so initially, what does this mean to you? Why is this important? What happens is you get a lot of people who are super smart, maybe you’re watching this right now and you’re just crazy smart, you’ve been told from a young age, you are smart, you are gonna do well, but maybe you’ve got into the business world and you’ve struggled to get any traction. You’ve had a hard time getting your ideas into action. Everybody needs a pitch man. Everyone needs one. So Bill Gates, super talented guy, but he teamed up with Paul Allen to help him communicate the Microsoft ideas to the broader masses there. But if you look at the CEO of a Starbucks, Schultz, he’s a phenomenal communicator. If you look at the former CEO of GE, Jack Welch, phenomenal communicator. If you look at Apple, Wozniak, not so much the communicator. Steve Jobs, a great communicator. You need a great communicator to communicate your ideas in an effective way. Because persuasion is something you’re going to have to have the gift of persuasion on your team. Whether you’re doing it or you hire a pitch man, you need to do it. Well, John Hancock, one of the men who actually signed the original Declaration of Independence, he wrote, the greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions. I’ve heard you say it a lot. It doesn’t matter what you do, what kind of business you want to go into, if one of the most powerful things you can learn is how to influence people. And if it’s not your strength, got to have somebody else whose strength is that. I think a lot of people just have a very technical business idea, and they submit it to people just via a very cold email system. They send it with no personality. There’s no team, it’s just a business plan. Here it is, it’s like 40 pages long. Look, it’s genius. But people are going to reject the packaging, and we talk about this a lot on Thrive, but I want to share it again because it’s so big. If you give somebody a ring and it’s wrapped, Michael Levine is the top PR experts of all time, and Michael Levine explains that if you give somebody a ring that is wrapped in a Tiffany’s box, it’ll have a higher perceived value than if presented in a Kmart bag. So for your business plan, in raising capital, really, I mean, you’re not going to get capital if it’s in poor wrapping. But what’s your wrapping? Your wrapping is your 12 slides, your pitch deck, and your wrapping is your ability to communicate verbally over the phone, in person, however you do it, your ability to present. So it’s your 12 points, it’s called a 10 slide, but it’s 12, I don’t know why it’s called 10 slides, and then with having 12 points, but it’s 12 slides on your PowerPoint, and how you percent, and how you overall share and communicate that idea. That’s what you have. And I know that when you identify areas that you’re weak in or don’t have as much experience in, you go and you consume books. Oh man. And so you’ve said, if this isn’t your strength, read How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie. You always encourage us to read things multiple times as well. You need to read that book twice. It’s worth it. Well, yeah, because you know it. You’re going to read crappy magazines this year. You’re going to watch at least 10 hours of ridiculous highlights to games that have already happened, the outcome of which doesn’t affect your life in the least bit. At least take 10 hours this year to read a book that can change the way you forever communicate. I mean, the leaders in our society are the premier communicators. We don’t vote for president based on who’s the smartest. That may be a good idea, but we don’t look at their voting record. We just say, well, he speaks pretty good. He’s a pretty good speaker. I mean, he’s pretty funny. Because you’re willing to follow that person. Yeah. To be a leader. That’s what we do. Yep. You know, so this is huge. Then you got soft selling a hard world Yeah, and so the idea is we live in a hard world a world where people easily reject you They’re used to being sold at all the time. Yep, and Jerry Vass wrote a masterful book. It’s out of print Somebody’s saying well if it’s so good, how come it’s out of print? It’s there are unbelievable books such as pitching hacks. Hmm that are written by some of the most brilliant people like pitching hacks There’s a book that’s by some of the most brilliant people. Like Pitching Hacks is a book that’s unbelievably important in the venture capital game. And it’s written by the guy who started AngelList, yet nobody knows about it. The Federalist Papers are the papers that basically explain the foundational principles with which we founded our country. But very few people have read that. It doesn’t sell a lot of copies. This is the same thing. We need to make sure we’re focusing on not the herd mentality, but the books we need to know. The other one is Pitch Anything. Oh, by Orrin Claff. And Pitch Anything is a book about specifically the nuances of how to pitch. Because remember that whole pitch we talked about, one minute per slide maximum. That’s big. And he explains how to do it. Step by step. It’s boss. So those are your three books, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Soft Selling in a Hard World, and Pitch Anything. Come on. I love it. What sort of people should be on your team here though? Well, when you’re building your team here, what you’re going to have to do is get a pitch man on your team and a gifted communicator. So it’s awesome if you’re working on this and you’re like, oh, this is great and this is great and this is great, but who’s going to actually pitch? Right. And if the answer is not you, that’s okay. Find somebody who can. Is it ever a team thing or is there always one designated pitcher? Every once in a while you’ll have a team, but you need to have someone who owns it. Okay. Just as an example, I recently was in a business meeting where the owner didn’t know his numbers and he was asked by an investor and he didn’t know him because he thought somebody else knew him. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. He thought, well, I thought that guy knew him. Well, they’re looking at that guy, and that guy’s like, I thought you knew. So I’m saying somebody has to take ownership of this pitch and be Johnny on the spot who knows it all, who’s obsessed with it. That makes sense. Because when you get out of a pitch, and if your slide number two or slide number four is pretty weak, go ahead and write down on a sheet of paper what the issue was, so as soon as you get back in your office, you can make the slide better. Your slide should get better and tighter, and more, it should get tighter and better and more concise the more times you deliver it. Good. But you have to have one person who owns that so that it happens. And then how long should I take to kind of build my team? As long as it takes to build a team where the law of, where your credibility is so high that you could not invest. It took me, to build the Thrive team, about two years. And people like, I mean, I wish I could make this easier, I wish I could explain this better, but we live in a culture where people, they get married, and they try it out for a while. They get a job, they try it out for a while. When you start a business, it’s a commitment. It’s a commitment. A lot of people aren’t used to a commitment, but a commitment is where it is like, I am going to do this until it succeeds, not if it succeeds. And very few times in our culture do we see people who have a commitment. So whether I agree or disagree with President Obama, as an example, on his health care, he made a commitment to doing that. He says, this is going to happen. And he did whatever he had to do. Now, we could argue whether it’s a good or bad thing, but he committed to the voters to do it. And whether you like him or not, you have to admire the fact that he did what he said he was going to do in that regard. So it’s a commitment. And in business, very few people are 100 percent committed to building a team. So I’ll pick on you, but with like, let’s see, Project Snow Cone. Well, to me, it would be cool to have a flavor called vanilla ice. Because it’s, what is that? I don’t know, it’s cool, people know about it. Well, I mean, if you’re like, I’m gonna get vanilla ice. If we got vanilla ice as our guy, that’d be hilarious. People could have the vanilla ice, it’d be, you know. Well, he’s already done the branding. Three quarters of America already knows his name. Well, if you’re like, I’m not saying you should do this But if you did you would want to be like well Do we want to get vanilla ice and you’re like I think we do and if someone says well I’m going to your team gets together. They’re we’re getting vanilla ice. Yeah ice ice, baby We’re gonna play it on repeat all day every day at our stands. That’s what’s good. You know if you did that That’s a commitment and you have to just do whatever it takes to build that team right, but don’t just like well I hope I get some good people because I guarantee you when you get in front of a big venture capital fund Yeah, who’s funded Twitter right and Facebook and Dropbox and big companies and you’re like who’s on your team? well Jeff yeah, I mean you better have an awesome plan right you know if you if you have if you don’t have a great team I’m gonna give a great team your plan can be less awesome You identified who you wanted on your team. It took you a while. You didn’t get to even talk with David Robinson the first time you tried. No. David was very hard to pursue because he’s a very, he has unbelievable ethics. He’s extremely talented. And he has a huge success record. I mean, who wins two golds, one bronze, starts a $300 million equity fund, and then also starts 20-something schools? You can’t expect him to be easy to get a hold of. Yeah, so everybody wants it. Everyone wants to be a part of a winner. And so it’s tough to get a hold of, but you make it happen. Okay, so if I’m sitting here on the other side of this camera, and I’m realizing, ooh, my presentation skills aren’t great, and my team is kinda, I don’t really, it’s not great, what do I do, what are my action steps right now? I would right now think about where in your team, like if you’re an investor, switch it for a second, imagine that you are an investor. And if you’re an investor, what would you think is the weak link of your team? And then try to find somebody on the team that can work in that role and maybe incentivize them with a little percentage of equity. Okay. Okay, I’ll give you a part of the company if you come do this for us. Okay. Or sell them part of the company for equity or something. All right. Number 10. Yeah. Why you don’t ever want to use the word NDA when working with investors. True. I don’t think that’s a word, but it stands for multiple words. And you don’t want to use that? Well, OK, if you’re watching this and you don’t know what an NDA is, an NDA is something that you hear people who’ve been to a lot of college, they typically say that, or people who are very familiar with legalese. So they’ll say stuff like, yeah, can you send me an NDA? Well an NDA is a non-disclosure agreement. Right. Well if you’re presenting an idea to an investor and you’re telling the investor that I want you to sign this agreement that you’re never going to basically Disclose what I’m telling you Why would any investor sign it? Because they’re going to meet with thousands of people. Their whole job is meeting business owners who have ideas and figuring out which idea is the best idea. So you might come in tomorrow and have a great idea. I keep talking about snow cone stands, because we can relate to. You might come in tomorrow with an idea for a snow cone stand, and I might go, well, your team’s terrible. Your summary’s terrible. You didn’t know what the word pitch deck was. You, your metrics and your benchmarks, everything about your plan is terrible, but I do like snow cone stands. Next week, another guy comes in and he’s the snow cone king. He comes in, I love his plan, but I don’t like his team. Next week, a guy comes in, I love his team and I love his plan. Yeah. I am not gonna disqualify myself from any potential deals. And I am going to take some information I learned from your pitch and help him make his company better. This kind of happened to us. That’s why we thought about doing this. This happens all the time. We pitched it and they’re like, this is really interesting. We really like this. Cool. And then next we heard he was opening a snow cone stand. Really? This actually happened to you? Yeah. Well, it seems like it’s going to. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Really? It’s awesome. This conspiracy world. Yeah. We were like, oh, shoot. And the first thought was, we need to add an NDA. No, NDAs don’t work when you’re pitching investors. I want to tell you this because, real quick, though, guys, let’s be real. If you’re watching this, I want to be real with you. I want to be real with you. Most people aren’t going to start a successful company because most people aren’t hardworking. Right. Now, you will. Other people, not you people watching, but other people have no chance of ever being successful because they’re lazy. So you take my business plan, I take my business plan, I beat you because I outwork you. So you don’t have to be afraid of somebody taking your idea. No. Come on. Let’s do an example. Let’s say we went to NFL training camp. Yeah. Okay. And I snuck in there somehow. Right? Yeah. And so we have Ray Lewis back in his prime. Yeah. And he says, this is my plan. This is my game plan right here. And this is my workout plan. Well Juan, how many people out of 100 are going to do the game plan, actually implement the plan? I don’t know, like maybe 5? And then how many of them are going to implement the workout plan? I don’t know, maybe five. The chances of anybody becoming another Ray Lewis because they, you know, it’s very rare. Because then he’s gonna say those ten people also do better than you. Yeah, so I’m just saying like it really comes down to, I wouldn’t worry about it. Now where I would worry about it is if you have zero funding and you’re talking to a guy who has a big track record of having success With taking ideas and running with them. You got to be careful because he’s implemented somewhere So real quick, let’s say you came up with a new invention right now that produces hydrogen Power because a lot of people right now are wanting to make hydrogen powered cars Let’s say you had the you had the patent, but it wasn’t patented. So you have the idea, but it wasn’t documented So you it’s something that you could patent, but you haven’t patented it yet And now you’re so I call you up, and I’m like hey you want to see my idea, and you’re a billionaire Yeah, and you are known for being a guy who gets things done right, and you’re like well is this patented nope Yes, I do and all of a sudden like boom they just take it and run with it right, but if you if you have an NDA You’re basically asking them to not call you back right so a non-disclosure agreement really creates a barrier between you and the investor. But then, like you said, if you’re inventing something, a patent is a way of doing that without doing an NDA. Yeah. Because it’s protecting what you’ve made, but it’s allowing him to talk to a bunch of people, refer people. In a patent, in a copyright, like we talked about commitment, a patent will usually take you between one and two years. You just had something. And a copyright will take you close to a year. Yeah. So I’m just saying, sometimes you get it done in six months, but it’s usually about a year. Right. So I just want to make sure you know, this is not a get rich quick, it’s get rich slow. It’s get rich for sure. Right. You know, you ask a farmer, you ask a farmer, you say, hey, what’s a get rich quick scheme of planting crops? Well, you till the soil, you sow the seeds, you water, and you wait for the spring. Can we go faster? No? Okay, I want to go faster. Okay, well we’ll put some steroids in some chickens and we’ll have these chickens that are steroid enhanced now. By the way though, they might make you sick. I mean, so I’m just telling you, there’s no shortcut. Okay, so just… But this will work if you do it. There’s no diet cokes in life Cuz diet cokes any like sugar-free diet coke. Yeah, maybe do the research on that. Yeah Good so in pitching decks they write your deck probably won’t get in the hands of the competition But you should assume it will so don’t share information that must remain confidential and real quick How many pages are in your pitch deck 12 and how many lines should be on most of these pages? Like three or four. Yeah. So I mean, I would hope that you didn’t put the whole kahuna. Right. This is meant to build intrigue. And to get you know, if they want to see your whole business plan. Now we’re in that romance phase. Now we’re meeting for dinner. Right. Just so you know, when you do this process, I want to make sure I’m being clear for you. And then of those five that meet with you, two are interested. And now we have got to go out to dinner. We’ve got to do our research called due diligence. And then one of these will close. And this is built on I like you and I trust you. So if you do your hundred, then you narrow it down to your five that you send all your, you know, your, if you send out your, uh, your, um, your, your pitch deck to all 100, five are going to respond. Five of these guys are going to respond to you. Okay. Right. Of those five, two are probably going to be interested if you do it right. Okay. Now you’re going to go out to dinner with this guy and if he likes you and trusts you now he’ll invest. Ooh, that’s how that works. Right. That’s how you win. Got it. So, I mean, let’s be real. I mean, I’m going to give you more information. The more I know you, the more I trust you, the more I like you. Sure, sure. That’s how it works. And so you don’t have to be worried about somebody, you don’t have to do the NDA if you’re just doing the pitch deck the way the pitch deck should be done. And do I know this guy who’s competing with you for the snow cones? No? I don’t know. Okay. Well, let’s just say that I did know this guy. I would just beat the crap out of him. Yeah. In terms of in business I would do whatever I can do to make I would beat him in every area because you you sue somebody and I sue somebody Yeah That’s a waste of time right is a general rule the best way to get someone to shut up is to beat the heck out Of them in the marketplace. I feel like nobody does it better than dr. Zeller. So I’m saying yeah I’m just saying like I would definitely Dominate see if you do have any frustration here because I sense a little bit That’s kind of tough then we want to turn that into motivation. Yeah to put the dude out of business. I’m talking about you need to be willing to run at a loss or a non-profit for so long that it just shuts them down. I’ve done this numerous times. But if you sue somebody, I’ll just give you one example to be done. I had a business plan I did. I had somebody who copied my business plan. Next thing you know, I have somebody competing with me in the wedding business doing the exact same thing I’m doing. So what I did is I said, if I was working with a corporation and they were thinking about hiring me or this guy, I said, I’ll DJ your party for one dollar. You know? One dollar. And if you like it, you can pay our normal fee, and if you don’t, it’s fine. But in the event planner, I would say, why would you do a party for a dollar? And I would say, well, because if I do your party for a dollar, then you’re gonna love it and tell people. And if I am fraudulent or I am a bad company like my competitor said I was, I would be insane to do a party for a dollar with no upside. And then usually they would say, well, you know what, let’s go ahead and pay you. But I won. I mean, you’ve got to get competitive there. You kicked them out. It’s like the art of war, baby. Get intense. I love it. Beat them. That’s good. This is very helpful. I’m enjoying this. Number 11, why you need an introduction to investors. So we’ve talked a little bit about how you need to focus on that middleman, but specifically we’re gonna dive into why you have to have that introduction. Okay, all right, number 11, why you need an introduction to investors. We’ve talked about focusing on the middleman, but we’re specifically gonna dive into why you need that introduction. Why in your mind can I not just cold call, I mean, you’re all about cold calling, why can I not just call up these investors myself well if I can call a hundred middlemen mm-hmm I mean your reputation is so powerful and if I can get a hold of you on the phone and I can wow you and your best friends with the the venture capital partner, or you’re his uncle, or you’re his cousin, or you’re… the chances of you being open to hearing what I have to say are higher. I had a guy just about a month ago who called me and said some really crazy stuff on the phone and was trying to get $25,000 investments to invest in fracking. And I said, well, what is the name of the LLC with which I’ll be investing? He says, oh, I really don’t know. I just help raise money. You don’t know who you’re raising money for? No, I don’t know. Well, right away, I didn’t pass the smell test. So I didn’t mind into it. I don’t really care. I’m just like, that’s a scam guy. Well, about a year ago though, very similar situation, but the person says, Hey, I want to introduce you to a guy I know who’s trying to raise money for his oil business. You should meet him. I’ve known him forever. He, well, all of a sudden I’m more interested in a deal that sounds equally crazy because of the introduction. When I got into it, it wasn’t the right temperature for me, wasn’t the right time, I was fully committed to thrive. But I’m saying is one, both sounded kind of crazy. But one of them was like, and so I heard one of them out. And both ideas ended up being nuts and I wouldn’t do it. But what I’m getting at is that I was more receptive to even listening and hearing the other guy out because of the introduction. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. It’s the key to dating too. You may, is it true that you had a similar move here with Vanessa? Yeah, Jake Aldridge was a guy I went to college with. Yeah. Jake’s just a great guy. Yeah. And we had this thing called get your roommate a date. Yeah. Or ORU, the tradition is you get your roommate a date and you go on this big combined date with all the guys in the dorm. Right. And the ladies that you convinced to go with your roommate. My roommate was not participating. Oh. Because he was already dating somebody. Total violation of freshman man code. And so I reached out to Jake. I said, Jake, I want to go out with that girl on a date. He says, that’s tough. Whoa. Cheerleader. Gorgeous. Yeah. Probably not going to get the date. I was like, Jake, come on. We’ve been through some things. I’ve been on the floor with you for like three weeks. You’ve cut my hair. We’ve bonded. I’ve seen you naked. Oh, of course. That’s what you do in the dorms. So I said, and he says, okay, you owe me though, bro. So then he walks up. Did the introduction. Does the introduction. I don’t know what he said, but he built me up. So she’s like, hey. And I’m like, whoa. Jake. And there you go. That’s it. Now you’re married to Vanessa. Yeah, Jake, so come on over, have some steak. Awesome. I’m going to read a quick excerpt here from Pitching Hacks, and I want to hear your commentary on it. Boom. You’re not the only entrepreneur in the world who’s trying to raise money. Investors get more requests for meetings than they can accommodate in this lifetime or the next. So they use introductions to prioritize and filter meeting requests. Basically, if you cannot get an introduction, then they know that you’re not a true entrepreneur. That’s their move. Yeah, that makes sense. I’m being serious. They know if you can’t get an introduction, you’re probably not a very gifted entrepreneur. And they’re only wanting to invest in gifted entrepreneurs. It goes on to say, you could send investors a cold email, but your traction team or product better be mind-blowing. And they probably aren’t. Getting an introduction is a test of your entrepreneurial skills. If you can’t convince a middleman to make an introduction, how will you convince employees to join your company? Oh, sounds like what you just said. I had a meeting the other day and I was talking to a guy, he owns a small business in town, and he was like, I don’t have the money needed to find a good accountant. And so I talked to him, he’s a consulting client of mine, so I can be real, and I said, hey, I think you’re a great guy, but that’s a weak statement. I want you to find an accountant and tell him, look, I’m gonna give you a percentage of our revenue, plus I’m gonna pay you half of your normal fees if you can come on and help me fix the ship here for in terms of accounting. And I’m telling you, this is gonna be huge, I wanna show it to you.” And he was just like, you saw it in his eye, like he didn’t have the cojones needed to convince somebody to come and work for him at a discounted rate. And I’m just telling you, if you cannot convince a venture capitalist to invest in your business, you certainly can’t convince an employee to come work with you. Because if I’m an employee, I’ll tell you this, I mean this, and I don’t mean this just about Thrive, I mean this in general. I will not, and no ambitious person with a functional brain will work for somebody who is not in some way greater than themselves or someone they can learn from. Again, I’m not going to, and anybody ambitious is not going to go to work for somebody who’s not greater than themselves or is not someone they can learn from. If you’re not growing as a person, you want to be going on to the next job. And so you’ve got, you just have to make sure that that’s you, that you are the kind of person who can get in touch with the middleman and get that introduction pulled off. It says a lot about what you can do as an entrepreneur. So are the action steps for me just to kind of revisit those books or seek out the 100, what is the action steps? Going back to our very beginning about this subject here, what you’re gonna do, and I wanna make sure I can recap those for you because I don’t wanna get too far away from those here, OK? It’s angel listing. Go back to the angel listing, find those people. Go on the LinkedIn, find the people that know those people. Then headline hunting. Then you’re going to be calling the people, the relentless networking. Call everyone. Everybody. Right. And then the Dream 100. Get them up on a board. That’s how you’re going to do it. Just the board. It’s going to be tough. And for Thrive, just real numbers, I try to contact over 400 people and everyone except for six Said no That’s all you needed. I mean look at this. These are the numbers 100 Hopefully you get five from that five Hopefully you’ve got two and you start whining and dining you pick the one that you like that likes you That’s how it is. I love it. You can do it number 12 who does the best introductions to investors? So this is probably important because you’re saying to call everybody, which we need to do, but specifically how do we identify who does the best introductions? Why don’t you call them out and I’ll give a little flavor to it. Okay, here we go. Other investors who have invested with the investor before. Okay, so if I’ve teamed up with you and we’ve invested together in snow cone companies, then if I said, hey buddy who I’ve invested with, this is a something I recommend you look into because I’m looking into it too, you should look into it. That seems like a good one. So it’s like people who work, yeah, it’s A+. That’s probably the top-est one. The top-est? The top-est. Well, that’s Latin for I speak broken English. Good. The top-est one. Then we’ve got executives of big-time companies within the market niche you’re going for. Let’s say that I was pursuing the snow cone industry, and I could find, on my team I landed a partner, or I landed an introduction from a guy who owns a series of, a massive chain of convenience stores. And he’s used to impulse purchase, selling frozen items, that kind of thing, and he says, hey, you should invest in this company. That’s a good introduction. Okay, got it. Then you got the lawyers and accountants. Whether they should or not, most people trust their lawyers and accountants. And so when an accountant refers you to somebody or a lawyer does, you tend to listen to them. So as we’re going through this list, are these like the first people I’m calling when I’m calling everybody? I’m like, hey, I know this guy’s an accountant and this guy’s a lawyer. Is that how we prioritize? Let me say this, a referral from a sales guy is not very valuable a lot of times. Right. That makes sense. Because the sales guy can sell anything. And everybody knows it. Yeah. So he’s like, bro, this thing is the hottest thing going. I’m telling you, this thing is boss. And so everybody’s already kind of questioning it right off the bat. Yeah. Makes sense. People, the investor met at a party. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times, one of the Thrive mentors we have, Tim Redmond. I worked for Tim as an intern years ago. He had no idea who I was. I knew who he was, but he was the lord, the boss of 450 people. And he saw me at a speaking event. We still didn’t hit it off and then I was at a party Mm-hmm, and so those parties where you you you know, you have wassail You know wassail is it’s like a hot cider. So you’re sipping on the wassail Reminiscing with people who are significantly older than me. Yeah, the average age is about two times that of mine And I’m there and I’m like so Tim we meet again and we start talking Well, you know at a party you get like that undivided time to talk. Yeah about 20 minutes later He was excited about Thrive. I was excited about having him on board. That’s awesome worked out Well, so the party the party intro happens actually more than you know, okay, that’s why people like me Who are I am kind of a bizarre creature and that I really enjoy Outgoing things and for business. Yeah, but I’m not a big like I would much rather go lift weights or read a book by myself than to go to a party. Right. But I make myself go to networking events so that I can meet certain people. You kind of motivate yourself with the purpose of it probably, I’m guessing. Yeah, but I don’t want to go hear the speaker or eat the food. I just want to go home and work out and read books. Well, and that’s part of the points we’ve outlined, the relentless networking. Relentless, you’ve got to schedule a time for it. Good. Relatives of the investor. Oh, yeah. This guy’s the cousin of the… I mean, what’s kind of funny is that Mark Cuban had a mom, dad, family. I mean, the most successful, Michael Jordan, has a family. If you think about basketball again, if you think about, let’s say like the NBA, like Magic Johnson. Yeah. Magic has a family. Yeah. Well, he came from somewhere. Yeah. Magic came from Michigan. And if one of his family members are trying to get his ear, he’s more likely to listen. Yeah, and he might not even take them seriously, but they’re like, listen, brother, you need to look at this. Yeah. I don’t want to. Come on, brother. And a lot of times they’ll listen just because it’s the family connection. So think about that. People whom you’ve done business with before. That’s huge. For Thrive, a lot of the guys who’ve invested in Thrive have done business with me in the past. So they’re saying, I like doing business with you once, I want to do business with you twice, because I know you’re going to treat me the way I want to be treated. To me, that’s honestly the most gratifying thing that happened for me this year. It was really cool, because the first investor we had in Thrive, Braxton Fierce, was my real estate partner. And when you work with somebody, we were partners for like three years, when you’re a partner with somebody, you get to see them freak out, you get to see them curse out people in the office, you get to see them tired, you get to see them going through the ups and downs, you get to see their marriage and their kids, and you get to see all the good and the bad. And for you to look at somebody after that and say, I want to invest in you, that was cool. And so for me, that was like the highlight of my year. That’s awesome. You know, and that’s what you saw. I will tell you, as an entrepreneur, what’s great is once you raise money one time, you will never have a hard time raising money again if you do it right. So with your snow cone thing, I would say that it’s more likely to get 100 people to invest $5,000 than it would be to get 10 people to invest 50 for a bunch of young guys. And then once you build a reputation with those people, how many people are now going to say, man, I got a great return? Right. Makes sense. So those are the best people for the introductions there. That was point number 12. Bam! Now we’ve got point number 13. Come on. Clay, who does the worst introductions? Oh, man. We’ve talked a little bit about the sales guys, but who does the worst? I’ll go through the list again here. The investor who said no. You gotta love that one. This is one that happens all the time to me. They’re like, you know, right now it’s not a good time for you to invest, but I have a good friend. Oh. So then they call their friend. Yeah, John, I just declined to invest at this time in this company, but you should. Yeah, that’s not gonna work. Hey, John, I actually don’t drive a BMW, but you should. Yeah. John, I actually am totally organic, but there is some awesome food that’s very processed that you should eat. Yeah. It’s just, I’m just telling you, that doesn’t go over very well. That makes sense. So people don’t trust something that the person recommending them doesn’t personally believe in. Right. Okay. So how about the dude who barely knows you? Yeah. The dude who’s like, there’s guys out there who will charge you a broker fee just to introduce you to a billionaire. No guarantee. There is introductions you can do where they say, if a deal is done, I want to be in on it. That’s a legit thing. But if a guy says, hey, for $10,000, I’ll introduce you to this billionaire, don’t do that. Don’t do that. Okay. And then a shady character. Yeah. You have people all the time. I remember this one guy, Martin, I hope you’re watching. Martin, idiot. And this guy, Martin. That was his last name? First name, Martin. He’s unbelievable. But Martin used to run around Tulsa being like, he can’t even speak proper English, but this is all due to my Martin impersonation. All right, so I got these houses right now, and one of them is about ready just to pop. This is gonna be bam, like, blow! It’s on the market, it’s like, blah! Now I got a return last month for an investor of mine for like 78% Now I’ll give you I’ll give you I’ll give you invest right now I’ll make sure that you get the big cut on the next one. They just bow. Well, he started a Ponzi scheme And you knew because he rolled up and his car smelled like pot. Yeah, and It is like a Cadillac with all the rims on it. Mm-hmm And like Martin, what do you do is if you would invest five thousand in his company? Yeah He would immediately take three thousand and go give it to the guy who had just invested and say it was a quick return. And he was a Ponzi scheme. He was just giving… The late investment dollars from one guy goes to the pay returns for the new guy. And it just goes on and on. But like, he’s shady. He just looks shady. So he introduced you to somebody. That’s not a good thing. Oh, and I remember he did one time. So I said no to him, and I get a call from a guy named Martin told me to call you about investing. And I’m like, what? I mean, because you don’t want an introduction because now the guy’s like, you know, Martin, your friends, you guys are friends. No, no, I have not invested in Martin before. It makes sense. And, you know, so you just don’t want an introduction of shady characters. That power of association works both ways. Oh, yeah. So real talk. If you’re watching this and you’re hanging around some seriously shady characters because that’s the way you grew up, because you’re keeping it real, stop doing it. Right. Get out of there, move. Move to the other side of town. Get a new roommate. How can you get a middleman to introduce you? Yep. How can you get a middleman to introduce you? Well, this is a little bit of a rehash, but I want to hammer it. Let’s do it. Because in order to convince a middleman to introduce you, now I’m going to read this excerpt from the book again so you can hear it. This means you’ve identified him, you’ve done the calls, you’ve found the middleman that you want. Now you’re convincing him to actually make the introduction. You basically need to already have your pitch deck ready to go before you start calling middlemen. So you call him and say, pick up the phone and call everyone you know who knows investors well and will listen to you. Call in all of your favors to get the attention of the middleman. Explain why investors will appreciate the introduction. That line is from pitching hacks. What it means is that you want to already have your pitch deck right there and ready to go and you should be able to like, this is almost like a practice for you. Right. And you explain, Hey, Caleb, if you introduce me to Dan over here, it’s going to be a great thing because I can make him a great return and I can make you a great return. Here’s how it works. Right. 10 minutes later we’ve gone through the pitch deck. You’re like, Oh, that makes sense. Cool done and you have to go through that with them. This is them putting their name on the line They’re sticking their neck up for you a little bit, right? One of the neatest people I met this year is a guy by the name of Paul Presi Yeah, and Paul Presi is a great middleman. He actually played basketball in the NBA with David Robinson and Paul is a high-credibility Super dedicated father and husband and he knows David and Paul was like I’m not gonna introduce you to David until I know you right so he drove all the way out here We met we met again. We called we met he wanted to know why we’ve looked me up. He’s looking for references I mean before we even get into now once I’ve done that once I haven’t I haven’t even convinced Paul yet, right now He wants me to convince him again then once I finally have convinced him now. There’s an introduction and you know, that’s a valuable middleman Oh, he’s powerful because he’s not just sending everybody to David who comes not know and he was very skeptical, right? Of course, that’s the big thing So that’s the best middleman you can find yeah, you know also as far as the number of calls that you have to make in order to You know set up these kinds of middlemen relationships thousands. Yep Thousands yeah like Yeah, I would be lying to you if you didn’t have to expect making maybe 4,000 calls. That’s real. 4,000. Yeah, like 100 calls a day, every day for like 40 working days, like three or four months. You just got to get your, you got to take that chance. You got to get out there and do that. It’s like 4,000. Yeah. Now, when can you stop? Once you have the capital. Right. When will you stop? Once you have the capital. So that’s the big thing. And I want to read this quote to you here is Mrs. Fields You know, she’s a lady who started Debbie Fields sort of Mrs. Fields cookies. One of my favorite teachers actually dated her That’s a neat fact for you. Are you serious? Damn, I don’t know why I get a fist bump Awesome. He knows the people that dated the people. Here we go Now the important thing is not being afraid to take a chance. Remember the greatest failure is not to try That’s so important. So we should expect 4,000 calls to be made, and probably less than 4,000 calls returned? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I’m just being real. If you call 100 people, maybe two call you back. Right. So do that same math. It’s like a 2% return, maybe 1%. So when you call, though, what do you say? Hi, do you know who, I would script it out, so it wouldn’t be clumsy like this, but I’ll say, hello, do you know how I can set up a meeting with Mr. Taylor? I wanted to speak with him about investing in my firm. Nobody will say, can you email me something? And I say, absolutely, I’m going to email you my pitch deck or my executive summary, so I’ll send that to you right now. I send those 12 points, I follow up. Appointment? Yeah, I follow up, I send it over, I send it over, the pitch deck, with those 12 points. Then I follow up and I say, hi, I wanted to follow up to see if Mr. Taylor received it. Oh, no he didn’t, he’s been busy. Okay, well, when would be an opportunity for just for five minutes for me to come by? I would love to just share this with him. Five minutes, 10 minutes, however little time he has, I’d love to share this with him. So I really think this could be a win-win. Well, could you be here Thursday? Could you be here Tuesday? Doesn’t matter where in the country they are. Yes, get there. That’s how it worked for Sarah Blakely when she started Spanx. That’s how it’s worked for me for investments. It’s how it always works. Thomas Edison, the founder of GE, famously said, Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. When it comes to raising capital, do you agree with this? I just want you to know that if you have a great idea, so do a lot of other people, but it comes down to sheer will. Think about this. How many people in the history of the world dreamt of a free country before our country? Our country now is unlike anything people have ever seen in the history of man. How many people have dreamt of that, though? There are other countries that are free. There’s other countries that have prosperity. But how many civilizations went by, how many people were sitting there musing and thought, it’d be great to have a free country. But then when they signed the Declaration of Independence, that was a statement that we are declaring our independence from the British Empire. Do you realize that when they signed that, that meant that they were going to die if they didn’t win the war right like we’ll fight you to the death But we’re either gonna die or we’re gonna I mean, it’s it’s and one of the famous lines was, you know We’re either gonna hang together or we will hang separately Right, and the whole idea is that that was a big idea to have freedom Hmm, but to be crazy enough to actually sign your name on the Declaration of Independence That was pretty wild right to write it. That was pretty wild, right? So the first had the idea then to write it then to have people sign it. Think about all the networking it took to get all those people to get to agree, all those leaders to agree. It was huge. So talk to me about this. You mentioned that you gave us an example of what the script might look like, because I feel like you’ve got to have that script when you’re putting in this hard effort. How do I go about making the script? Well the scripting process, and I’ll put it up here for you on the board here because this is big and stuff they don’t talk about anymore. You want to have rapport, needs, benefits, close. So for rapport, I would recommend that you have three questions that you can ask the person on the phone to build rapport. I would recommend you have three questions to ask them to help find their need. I would recommend that you have three benefits, okay? These are three benefits that your company does that makes you unique and I’d recommend you have a call to action like what is Sorry, whoa, what is the desired outcome you want and that could be a follow-up appointment, right? Yeah, so you’ll say they call thank you for calling such-and-such capital. How can help you? Yes How can I get in touch with right? So that’s question one. How can I get in touch with? Well, who’s calling? You want to script that out. My name is such and such. I am with Thrive 15. Do you know what the best way is to get an appointment with this person? Question two. No. Could you email me something? Absolutely. What would you like for me to email you? You want to script it out. You don’t want to be unaware of what they’re going to say. I know one guy who literally did this, and I actually thought it was such a good move. I’ve done it myself You go to the one of those stores and you get one of those like temporary phones Yeah, and you call in a weird voice and you call the venture capital funds first Oh, yeah with a weird voice just to see how they answer it and what they asked for so you can nail it when you Really call right that makes sense. See like hey, you know who’s in charge of you know, you call and seriously Martin And you can serious and you get all that information so that way you’re not testing on them. That makes sense. So those are things you can do. I mean, but you really want to nail rapport, needs, benefits, call to action. And this whole thing, this whole process should be about a three minute call. And you want to role play it and practice it with somebody who cares enough to tell you why it’s not good enough. That’s how it works. I love it. Rapport, needs, benefit, close. Have those three questions. Be prepared for questions they’ll ask you, and practice it. Roll play with your wife, your girlfriend, your husband, your friend, and sit there and practice the calls. Good. Get used to it. Nail it. Now, this quote by Mark Cuban, owner of My Dallas Mavericks, co-founder of Broadcast.com, he’s done a lot. We know Mark Cuban. He said, it doesn’t matter how many times you fail. It doesn’t matter how many times you almost get it right. No one is gonna know or care about your failures and neither should you. All you have to do is learn from them and those around you because all that matters in your business is that you get it right once. Then everyone can tell you how lucky you are. That’s exactly right. Mark Cuban could not have said it better. Yeah. Everything he said right there I agree with and I can just tell you that history shows over and over that the victory always goes to the bold. So if you’re watching this and you’re like I I think I might want to do this but what do I don’t know if I you’re never gonna have it all figured out but you know what the time will never to meet to quote Napoleon Hill the time will never be just right you must act now. I love it that’s perfect thank you Clay. Hey you’re the boss. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had, where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth, who’ll be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind Nine Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher, he’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you gotta come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this folks, I don’t wanna get this wrong because if I get it wrong, someone’s gonna say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine, he’s gonna be coming, he’s gonna say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t wanna get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like Top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s gonna be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrive timeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket. Yep. Or whatever price that you could afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get any inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You. You’re going to come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russell. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day, interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Pruitt Hill, Rico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th primetime show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, and you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the 2-Day Interactive, June 27th and 28th, Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com James what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com James one more time for more enthusiasm Thrivetimeshow.com Shine, everything rides on tonight Even if I got three strikes I’ma go for it This moment We own it I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See, these people I ride with this moment. We are winning. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business 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 gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Harvard Kiyosaki the Rich Dad Radio Show today. I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona, they’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds and of a special guest today Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent I’ve done this show before also And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hours. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing but I thought since you and Eric are close Trump what were you saying about what Trump can’t what Donald who’s my age and I can say or cannot say what first of all I have to honor you sir I want to show you what I did to one of your books here there’s a name of Jeremy Thorne who was my boss at the time I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpy. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow. The linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super…it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility, and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in Systems in the business that make my life much easier allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. And it’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. 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 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 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. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business. Bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow our business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.