Entrepreneur | Questions For The Gurus

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 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. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. What is going on, Tulsa, Oklahomies in green country? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is the place that you go to that daily audio dojo of Mojo where you can learn how to start and grow a business. If you’re looking for a political show, you’re looking for a show about politics, this just ended. This is not that show. This is that political alternative. And today, as always, I am joined here with the co-host, with the Mo-ost, it’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Dr. Z, how are you, sir? I am fantastic. Happy Thursday, everybody. We’re doing a throwback today. Yeah. We’ve got mailbag questions. I’m so excited. And more than that, we are going to offer you today visual and audio candy. Visual and audio candy. Now, where can they find the visual candies? You go to Facebook Live. And we’ve got a beautiful man on here who just brought us some meat candy because he is the owner, proprietor, chef, head cook, probably janitor too, I don’t know, of Joe Davidson of Oklahoma Joe’s. Welcome Joe. It’s so good to be here with you guys. You’re kind of a living legend. You’ve literally sold two million grills during your lifetime. Two million smokers during your lifetime. Two million smokers. Sir, does that ever, does the profundity, the size of that number ever just blow you away that you’ve sold 2 million smokers? Does that ever just… I categorically deny that I’m responsible for global warming. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me. Now, today’s drivers, we are talking about a little bit of global warming, but we are talking today about the mailbag questions that you’re asking. We have hundreds of people every day that will call in, they’ll email in, they have questions, they’ll email info at thrive15.com. And so today we’re going to be getting into five mailbag questions. So question number one comes to us from a guy by the name of Colton. He asks a question. He says, I am currently a 19 year old who is not attending college considering I find no need to throw myself into an excruciating amount of debt for the rest of my life. This just in. I work in the hospitality industry, currently at low wages, but with plenty of opportunity. I bring in about $1,200 a month, though this may increase soon. Since I’m so young, I haven’t yet had the ability to build up any credit, and I’m looking to rent an apartment with my significant other as well as continuing to advance my career and opportunities in hospitality. I currently hold two credit cards. I’ve been told that keeping a balance on these cards, but continually making payments That are more than the minimum amount and always making said payments early is crucial to building my credit any Guidance is he he wants to know do we have any guidance to help this man build his credit? I’m gonna start with you. I’ve got some steps. I want to start with you. What what advice would you have for mr. Colton as it relates to building his credit there well I mean, I think he’s on the right and he’s starting off I mean, I think the fact that he’s asking this question is good. I think a lot of people out there, you know, credit, credit management, raising capital, getting the money to start their business, because that’s what we’re about. We’re about the steps of starting and growing a business. That’s why it’s so fun to have like Joe Davidson on here, who’s done those things. We, what we do is we just, we, we, we do a surgical insertion to his brain and we just pull out the good stuff. And then we share it on the radio so that his success can now mentor you into your success. But with Colton, what you do is you say, keep doing what you’re doing. We’ve got some more steps coming up. You know what, credit card debt is not necessarily the best way to build credit, but it is a way to build credit. All right. And obviously, you know, the interest rates are so high. I know a lot of people do that and they go, well, I’ll pay that. And then they may have, well, I can skip it. And well, I’ll skip it. So you got to be real purposeful in that and just be, you know, really on top of that because the interest rate is so high. It’s not the best way to do it, but I applaud you for at least taking those steps. Now I want to ask you here, Joe, because when you were growing your business and you were starting to grow your chain or your product line of smokers, how quickly did you start to sell enough smokers that you realized, hey, if I’m going to scale this business, I’m going to need some kind of credit. Or did you ever involve credit? Did you ever have to get credit or borrow money to grow the smoker manufacturing facility to the next level? You know, that’s a great question because I didn’t even know I should go out and borrow money. I looked at it from the perspective that we needed to be a pay-as-you-go company. And we went literally to our dealers. And my first dealer was Jack Wills Casual Furniture. Really? Jack Wills, the senior, right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I went to Jack and he said, man, you build a great smoker. And he gave me a lot of great life lessons in regard to product quality, etc. But he also said, I’m going to help you out. So how much is it going to cost you to build these smokers? And I said, well, it’s going to cost me $50 to build that smoker. He said, well, then you’re going to sell it to me. How much? I said, well, I’d like to sell it to you for $100, you know, and that way I’d get some money for my labor. Yeah, yeah. Because I was building it myself. He says, well, I’ll front you $50 so you can go get all the money to build them. You bring them to me and then I’ll pay you the rest of the money. And literally my dealers helped finance my company as we grew. And we did that for the first few years. But you know, within the first five years, we never borrowed a dime of money. Now I followed your path. I never really borrowed money at all while growing my businesses. But Zee, I want to ask you, when did you first need credit or did you have a spot where you needed credit? You’re listening to the Thrash Hunt Show on Talk Radio 1170. Oh absolutely. I mean, you build a building. I mean, if I had saved to build that building, it would have never probably gotten bought. You’re talking about the building off of Memorial. That’s what gets one of them. So at some point, you know, there’s the extreme. There’s the extreme that says, I’m never going to borrow money. I’m never going to get credit. I’m never going to do it. I’m never going to be fiscally responsible. I’m never going to do it. And then you grow at the pace that you can, which is OK. It’s OK. Nothing wrong with that. You know what I’m saying? And Joe, just not to pick a fight on our first segment of the show, but you did borrow money. Those guys probably gave it to you. Mr. Wills gave you $50. You didn’t realize it, but that was a loan, and he probably didn’t charge you interest because you had built up a rapport with him because you had convinced him that you were good ground to sow that seed into. But it really was. A lot of people go, I’ve never borrowed money. You’re like, well, didn’t your mom give you some money? Didn’t your dad give away? But just because it’s not a financial institution, Clay, does not mean that you didn’t have to borrow money. And I’ll say about year four with the DJ company, I realized I could sell more weddings. The company was called DJ Connection, and we did entertainment for weddings. And I found that I could book, I remember one summer I go, at my current pace, I’m going to book 40 weddings every Saturday. Forty. Four zero. First up, does the DJ the sound, the lights, going out to the wedding. And I said, I only have six systems. And my wife kind of looks at me and I kind of look at her and she’s like, are you sure that’s a good idea? So I went ahead and I raised the deposit required. So you book a DJ. The DJ is like $600 to come entertain for your wedding. And I raised the deposit from $100 up to about $250. So they would pay the deposit. I had enough money down to start buying equipment. And I started realizing, I’m going to run out of runway here. I’m not going to have enough money available to buy all these systems cash. So I did one of those Discover cards, 18 months, no interest, you know? Oh yeah. I had a $20,000 limit, and I bought all the gear that I could possibly buy. And then I paid it back at the end of the summer with the cash that I had earned from those events. Well, and here again- My first time using a credit line. And here again, you say, well, I did the same. I never borrowed money. That’s borrowing money. It’s from a financial institution called discovery.com, whatever, whatever. Whoever owns them is probably a big bank owes them, I’m sure. But the thing about it is it’s OK. You have the extreme that person says, I don’t want to borrow any money. I just want to do it. I want to let it be viral and let it grow on its own. And that’s OK. But you know what? Banks and financial institutions, they’re not evil. And they’re out there to help you because you can scale faster, you can grow faster, you can get where you need to get faster. Because I tell you what, if you’ve got a great idea and you’re first into the space, that’s awesome. Yeah. But if you don’t grow it quick enough, someone’s going to take that idea from you and outscale you and outbuild you and be able to beat you. Because business is a little bit like war. A little bit like war. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be mean. Now I’m going to walk you through the specific steps right now, Colton, in printing the thrivers who want to get your credit to the next level. You want to understand how credit works. First off, there’s a free tool. If you go to discover.com forward slash free dash credit dash score. That’s discover.com forward slash free dash credit dot score. You can discover what your credit score is and it’s free. And that’s a good starting point to know where you stand. But here are the factors that affect your overall credit ranking. One is your open credit card utilization, meaning that if you have a credit limit for $10,000, what percentage of the money available are you using? If you’re using $9,999 of your $10,000 of available credit, that’s going to affect your score in a negative way. The second is the percent of on-time payments. If you consistently make all your payments late, over time, that will affect your credit negatively. The third is the number of derogatory marks. If you’ve basically just not paid stuff and they’ve decided to report you to a credit bureau, that’s not a good thing. Point number four is the average age of your open credit lines. If all of your credit lines were opened last Thursday, that’s not good. It shows that you’re sort of in a rush to get a lot of money real fast. Point number five, the total number of accounts. If you have a credit card at Target and Dillard’s and MasterCard and Discover and Amex and every possible credit line you can get your hands on and then you apply again for another place, it shows maybe you’re erratic financially. And the final is the total hard credit inquiries. If you go to a bank and you apply for a loan, they’re going to pull your credit. If they pull your credit enough, then it’s going to hurt your credit score. So I would say for you, Colton, specifically, I would have a credit card, but I would pay it off every month. That would be my tip to you. I would pay it off every month because if not, your credit utilization, it will show you’re not being necessarily a good steward of your credit and you’re using too much of your credit, of your available credit. It’s better to show that you pay it off and you pay it off on time each month and that will help you build your credit. Also having a cell phone, that’s actually a loan. And when you have a cell phone, people don’t realize that when you have a cell phone, you actually have a loan with the credit card with the cell phone company and you’re basically leasing that or you’re making payments on that phone you got. But the phone you got for free, you’re making payments month after month on that phone. Month after month, you sign a contract and you’re on the hook for that amount of money. You may not realize it, but you have maybe a two-year commitment or a one-year commitment, whatever that commitment is. Now, when we come back, Thrivers, we have mailbag question number two, and this is going to be for Joe Davidson. We’re going to really ask him a tough question here from a Thriver who is a smoker. He wants to know about how did you build your schedule when you were first starting your business? So back before you had sold two million smokers, how did you build your schedule. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show during your midday here on Talk Radio 1170. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your afternoon. And for many people who are just discovering this show for the first time, you’re kind of going cognitively. You’re saying, what is this? Is this a political show? I haven’t heard any references to building walls. I thought this was a home and garden show. There’s no recounting of votes. There’s no home and gardening roof references. What is this show? This show must be something different. It must be about business without the BS. And Z, it is Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And I’m joined here with a co-host with the most, Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I am fantastic. I’m an entrepreneur trapped in an optometrist body. An optometrist is an eye doctor. I’m not really a doctor, but sort of almost a doctor. You love the rectum. Almost, almost, almost a doctor. And people all the time say to me, they go, you’re an optometrist, why do you have an auto auction? Or you’re an optometrist, why do you fill in the blank? I’m kind of like, there’s no, you don’t have to paint people into corners. Hey, if you’re whatever, you can do whatever, okay? And we’re here to encourage you to follow that passion and turn it into profit, to scale it and to make some moolah moolah, just like the success story of the man one left me. If you’re looking on Facebook Live… It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a beautiful thing. We have Joe Davidson, the founder and head chef of Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue. Man, it’s so good to be here with you guys. It’s… Can I… I’m not handsome. Why don’t I ask you a question behind me? I’m talking about… Clay, you know what the best part of having Joe on the show… Well, other than his aesthetic beauty and the flavor of the food, I don’t know. Well, we’re here at lunchtime and I gotta be honest, last time we had Joe on, I kind of fussed a little bit because he didn’t bring us, you know, the goodies. I’m crying a little bit. I was crying just a little bit. He sent an anonymous hate email. So many people on the Thrive Times show are frustrated with the lack of food. One of the hosts, I’m not going to name which one, is very upset. So today he brought in a sack, a little sack of little treasures, little goodies, little goodies and one of our production guys, I think when he ate the, what was it? The burnt ends? No, no, not the burnt ends. The bread pudding. The bread pudding. I think he, Marshall, I think passed out. Yeah. I think he literally passed out. He was so good. He just, he, bam. For people who are watching on Facebook Live, we’re actually broadcasting here live from the box that rocks so you can kind of see some members of our team who are out working on some things. Mel, did you like the barbecue? Did you like the barbecue? Mel likes it. This just in, Mel loves the barbecue. Oh, fabulous. We’re going to get into the next question. Question number three. This comes from a Thriver and this is what they said. This is from Amy Johnson. She says, how do you stay focused on getting the day-to-day tasks done in your business with all of the ridiculous people and drama that happens every day? Z, I’m going to start with you. How do you do it? Well, two ways. I’m going to give you two little nuggets. You want two little magical nuggets? Yes, that’s the theme, you know. Two magical nuggets. There’s a word you have to get in your repertoire. Here we go. You have to get into your dictionary, your vocabulary, and that is no. What? Yeah, you’ve got to learn to say no. And this other thing is going to sound really mean, and we’re going to unpack this a little bit, but the second one, which is going to sound mean, and don’t… Don’t get off to a bad start. Just give me a chance to explain what I’m going to say, okay? You’ve got to limit the number of people that have access to you. I know that sounds… I know, I know, you’re sitting there, you’re in Oklahoma Joes and you’ve got the burnt ends and the baked beans, you’re welcome by the way, and you’re sitting there eating, you’ve got your soda product and you’re going, that just seems mean. I want to pile on real quick because I have a notable quotable from Lee Cockrell, this is the guy who by the way used to manage 40,000 people. He says, one way to get your priorities accomplished is to schedule them in your calendar. So see, if you’re scheduled to be somewhere, that’s going to require you to say no. And Z, I have a story I want to share about this. Is this story time? Do you know that my last speaking event is this weekend? Wait a second. Give me a story. Story time. Alright. I want a story time. Here’s the deal. I started a company called DJ Connection. And if you’re a DJ, you’re basically like one level above the carnival guy. So if you’re the carnival guy, you’re running the Himalaya, or you’re taunting people to throw baseballs at you for a chance to dunk you in the dunk tank, then you power up. And you power up. Now you’re a disc jockey. So I was a disc jockey, built the company DJConnection.com to the point where we did 4,000 events the last year that I owned that business. That’s awesome. So I’m growing the business. And so the next time I use sell the business, and people start to say, could you come entertain? And I said, sure, what’s the name of your company? They go, oh, Southwest Airlines, oh, UPS, oh, Maytag, oh, and then pretty soon they go, could you also do maybe a motivational talk? Because motivational speaking is one level above DJ. Oh yeah. And then you move up, so carnival to DJ to motivational speaker. The next level is politician, by the way. I’m not there yet. But anyway, so the thing is, so I start saying yes, and yes, and I’m not exaggerating. My wife looks at me. I had 18 paid speaking events on one month and my average was 15 a month that I had back before we started Thrive. I was doing like 15 speaking events a month in a plane, in an aluminum tube, sitting next to some guy named Craig or Trevor or somebody who wants to tell you their life story and they’re bigger than the seat and you’re stuck in the middle somewhere and it’s a weird deal. And I decided I have to change that. So I have one more speaking event that I’m committed to it’s for the Food and Drug Administration it’s in Las Vegas it’s my final event and I’m dropping the mic boom and you know what I had to say no and Z it was so hard to say no and when did you speculate as to why it was so hard for me to say no Z because deep down inside almost every single one of us wants to be liked and loved by everybody around us we want to be the guy that brings the great barbecue to the Christmas party and everybody says, oh we love you. And so you think you want affirmation, you want people to like you, and you want to upset people. I mean we don’t wake up in the morning going, well I sure hope I get to upset some people today. I mean I’m just looking forward to the first person I can kick off. I hope that’s before lunch because that always makes my barbecue taste better. Now Z, when we come back, we’re going to be asking Joe, we’re going to get into a very deep story here, okay? But they were selling, they sold 2 million smokers. And we’re going to ask him about how he dealt with fan mail, emails, phone calls, how you were able to limit the number of people who had access to you. I mean, what’s, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to sell 2 million of something. We’re going to get into the specifics of how he was able to set priorities and get stuff done with that much commerce going on around you. I mean, it had to be exciting, but it also had to be a little bit draining. We’re going to have Joe Davidson, the founder of Oklahoma Joe’s, teach us his secrets. Coming up next. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your afternoon. Many of you right now are contemplating, you’re saying to yourself, what is this show and what am I going to eat for lunch? Zeke, can you help him out? Well, this show is the number one business talk show in Northeast Oklahoma. We call that Green Country. And, of course, people are listening to it around the world because on the Thrivetimeshow.com we have archived every one of our shows. So you can binge watch all night long. I talked to a Canadian the other day, a real true story. I talked to a Canadian who told us he found the show because a friend of his went to Thrivetimeshow.com, shared the link with him, and he said he’s been basically binge listening and he said he was through about 12 of them and he goes this is like the specific stuff that no one talks about and I said hey we pride ourselves on providing business school without the BS and for those of you are tuning in today where this is a mailbag edition so people like you are emailing in to info at thrive15.com you can ask the gurus anything you can ask us anything and the question was asked by miss Amy she says how do you stay focused on getting the day-to-day tasks done in your business with all the ridiculous people drama that happens every day? And one of the tips that Z said was you have to learn to say no to things, and you also have to be able to limit the number of people that have access to you. So Joe Davidson, the founder of Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecues here, and he actually sold two million smokers at the peak of that business. Joe, I want to ask you, how did you limit the number of people that had access to you and how did you start to say no to things, my friend? You know, in the early years I said no to no one. Really? I mean, I literally talked to anyone that was willing to listen to me. We were a young business. But as time went by, we started to understand these are the common questions that everyone has about our smokers. Hey man, can I grill steak with this or put chicken on it? How long does it burn? How long does it burn? That’s exactly it. All those great questions. So we stepped back and said, how can we get to all these people and give them the right answers and literally get to be a friend of theirs? Holograms? Using the internet and holograms? In these days they were called VHS tapes. We gave a VHS tape with every smoker that we sold. You did? Every one of them. Was that you on the video? Me on the video. Oh wow! Absolutely. And I wanted to make certain that they knew how to put it together, how to use it, and then how to be a great chef in their own backyard and a hero. Was your style kind of like Bob Vila? Were you kind of the over the top like Billy Mays? What was your style of delivery on those VHS tapes? I don’t think it was. I was more laid back. I’m an Okie from heart. I was born in Okemah, Oklahoma, so I really laid it back. We were easy going. And I think that’s another thing people really like is that if you’re from Maine or New York or California, you don’t get to hear people that talk like me very often. So you scaled the common questions over and over by making a VHS tape. And if you’re listening right now Thrivers and you’re going man, I just am running out of time Think about what is your biggest limiting membrane as Z calls it. What is your biggest limiting factor? What is the thing that you keep the question you keep answering over and over or the things that are limiting? Your ability to focus on other things because you keep getting into the same Question loop you keep getting into the same question the same situation Z talk to me about how you have been able to limit, what do you practically do right now to limit people who have access to you? What are your rules, how do you do it? Well, here’s my rule is that you have a hierarchy of command in each of your businesses. And so if someone, say an hourly person, catches me in a hallway and says, hey man, I got a problem, I got a question, I got something I gotta talk to you about. I go, okay, great, it’s about the business, yeah. Well, my door’s always open, I’m always accessible, but have you talked to your supervisor about it? No. I said, well, that’s where you need to start, buddy. You know, and then I walk on. See, I got this rash, and I don’t know what it is, but I just, let me show it to you. There’s a 24-7 thing around the corner there. But you do it, so I have my, the top people in each one of my businesses have full access to me 24-7. I mean, you know, 24-7 if they need it. And then they have people that they have that have full access to them and so on down the lines and then that way there’s only… Okay. You have no more… Oh no. Wait a second. There’s a pirate though. There’s a pirate. There’s somebody who’s listening. They’re kind of a pirate of knowledge and they want to pick your brain. And so you, they work at one of your businesses and they go, hey Z, I want to know what are the three steps. Just three. I just got a quick question Z. I just need to grab you for a quick minute. I just need to grab you for a quick minute. Just a minute. Arr. What do you say? I say, hey, you know what? That’s a great idea. And why don’t you schedule some time with my assistant, my personal assistant, or you can email me that. And then, you know, I mean, it’s kind of like, that’s how you get people access to you. You say, oh, okay, here’s 30 minutes of my day that I’ll do nothing other than sit there and listen to you ramble about. All right, here we go. Your coffee shop idea. I’m not going to do it. There’s a time pirate number two. The meeting is clearly over. Everything has been established. Whatever needs to be talked about has been talked about. But the time pirate, he says, he says, arrr, I’ve got one more thing to say. How do you tell him no? Well, I just say, take that parrot off your shoulder and get the heck out of here. I mean, you know, time, the meeting’s over. You know what? It’s how gosh, how do you do that? How do you say this and don’t sound like that dude? That’s rude, but it’s your listen. It’s your time. It’s your day you get to decide what you do with it and If somebody else is trying to pirate your time and pirate your day And you know when you lay in bed and you put your little head on the pillow And you pull the covers up to you and you say to yourself here as you’re going up You’re not asleep I didn’t get anything done today and they think back at all the pirates With the parents and the patch and the time pirate number three here time pirate number three I got I got two more for you One is the full page email or the long social media post on social media? I’m upset about something on social media. I write you a long post I tag you in it are are and then I what I do is I send it to my Whatever business it is whatever manager I sent to him as I handle this and go on so you know every now and then They’ll come back to me and say okay This is what happened and you need to do XYZ And I’ll do XYZ because nobody cares as much about my businesses as I do and same thing about Oklahoma Joe’s I mean I love their burnt ends and baked beans. Oh, you know I do it’s not healthy. I love eating Joe Davidson’s barbecue, but I promise you this, he cares more about Oklahoma Jones than I do. I’ll just tell you that right now. I got a question for Oklahoma Joe. Final time pirate, Mr. Pirate, thief question here for you. So you’re at the office, you’re trying to get things done, and you keep having interruptions. Somebody just keeps going, open the door, excuse me, excuse me, how do you stop the interruptions? I’ll call my Joe. Arr, arr. You know, number one thing that I do is that I don’t keep an office in my store. Really? I don’t keep an office in my store. Come on now. I keep a separate corporate office. Now, the greatest pirate of my time, from time to time, is that I’ll go out and I love to walk the floors. Love to walk the floors. Walking the floors. Walking the floors, my big leg. I love to visit. I understand what my customers want, what they need, what they think. But occasionally I’ll have one that has a lot of extra time. They want to talk about a smoker they bought about four years ago. I love to do that, but occasionally I have to have someone, one of my assistants, who is going to always come back and say, Joe, there’s an emergency. You’ve got an appointment in ten minutes. Can you come to that?” And so I have to get, they’ll call me back occasionally. So it’s always good to have that assistant that helps you with your pirate patrol as well. You saw the movie Casino? I love that part where he’s in there, he’s going to have the meeting with the congressman or the local politician, and he tells his assistant, he goes, after he walks in the door, call up and page me in three minutes. He’s purposeful, he knows, you know, it’s kind of like my sister. She lives up in New York. She’s one of seven. There’s six boys one girl She she was back in the day back at the day when she started a to-do She already picked the charity new the issues gonna break up with him I mean she was purposeful time management You know so I’m gonna tell you this right now if you’re listening to this right now thrivers as an actionable item for you I want you to go ahead I call this the 24-hour audit and I do this with business coaching clients all the time. I say, look at your last day and write down where you spent all your time. Go ahead and do it. And once they do it, I say, go ahead and look at this week and think about what you did this week. And the secret, and this is, I’m paraphrasing a John Maxwell quote, but John Maxwell, the best-selling author of 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he says that your success or failure is found in your daily calendar. And so you’ve got to look at that and ask yourself, where did my time go? Because even though Dr. Z has had huge success in business, and Oklahoma Joe has had huge success in business, you guys did it by focusing on the things that matter. Because you could have spent all your time, Dr. Z, going out there by the weed office at the Riverwalk here in James. You could have spent all your time going out there pulling weeds. You could be out there fishing on the river. You could have done that. Joe, you could have been out there doing every weld yourself, but at a certain point you had to focus on scaling the business. Now, Thrivers, when we come back, we’re going to be talking about mailbag question number four. Now this question is something that a lot of people want to know, and Z, it’s kind of a humbling question. We’ve had a couple Thrivers ask this question and they’re kind of wanting to know. I don’t want to give away the question, but it’s a question. Hold on a second. I want to go back to the floor. Can you imagine how many times Joe is walking on his floor and some of the older couple says, oh my gosh, that’s the guy on the VHS tape. I remember when I watched it myself. I remember that tape you watched over and over. My wife watched it at an absurd amount of times. I watched that thing 37 times on a Tuesday. Because he’s eye candy. He makes meat candy. And they just watched it. They wore that VHS tape out. So they stopped you on the floor and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’re that guy. I watched that movie several times, Joe. The plot was amazing. When you’re making the beans, I didn’t know, could he do it? Is he going to be able to make the beans? He’s going to tie the countdown. All right. Stay tuned. We’re going to be talking about mailbag question number four. We’ll be back. Not only are we broadcasting from the center of the universe, we are broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas River within the beautiful thrive15.com world headquarters in beautiful Jinx, America. And within that particular building, we are inside the box that rocks. And I am talking on the magical microphone. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year. I’m glad to be here with you today And as always I’m joined with the co-host with the most this guy. Let me just walk you through his Itinerary here. He’s been to Guatemala and he’s been to Minnesota. He’s been to Vegas all in the past week How does he do it and he’s still here with us? It’s dr. Robert Zellner. It’s called airplanes air nice It’s the aluminum tube that takes you there. That would be a lot of walking. I couldn’t have done it if I had to walk. Your life wouldn’t have been possible 70 years ago. Well, true. It’s amazing. It’s just math. But you know, it’s throwback Thursday. It’s the second half of our show. Old school. Listen, if you drew the short straw and you had the late lunch today, it’s not too late to get in your car or walk or ride your bicycle or however mode of transportation you like to do, maybe a helicopter, I don’t know. Should you have been a former mall cop and you own a Segway? Oh, that’s the best. Do one of those if you can figure out how to do it safely. And you’re sitting there thinking, what do I do for lunch? I’m in the late lunch, I’m listening to the Thrive Time show. I tell you, we got the play, we got the move. We got the move. You’re in Broken Arrow, you go over by the Bass Pro Shop, a little place called Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ. It’ll blow your mind. If you’re in Tulsa over at 61st and Sheridan, Oklahoma Joe’s, and you walk in there, you get in the line, you look up at the board, but you don’t even look at the board. Don’t even, I’m going to give you the move. You go in, you say, I want the burnt ends, I want some baked beans, and if you’re a little bit of a sweet tooth, you ask for the baked, the bread pudding. You know one problem Joe’s had over the years, and Joe, I don’t know if you can confirm this or if you would deny this, but Joe, how you doing by the way? I’m great. It’s so good to be here with you guys. You know some people, they go on a religious trip. They go, I’m going to go to Israel and I’m going to see the birthplace of my religion and I’m going to go to these different places. People have started to plan vacations around going there to your business to try the world’s best baked beans. It’s become kind of a problem because what time do you close? We close every night at 9 o’clock. And it’s like 9.15, it’s 9.20, it’s 9.30. There’s a line of people just starting to camp out there. And you’re going, bro, I know you traveled here from Wisconsin for these baked beans, but you have to go home. We love you, we love the cheeseheads, but you’ve got to go home. Joe, have you ever had to just shut it down and say, listen, I love you guys, but we’ve got to shut the door. You can come back tomorrow. Come back at 11 a.m. We start again then. So listen, if you’re listening right now, if you go to Thrivetimesshow.com and you hear the podcasts, so many people, thousands of people go to Thrivetimesshow.com. They listen to the podcast and they share it with friends. And I’m going to tell you what, if you travel here from another state, can we give them a tour, Joe? Is that something we could do? I’ll give you a personal kitchen tour. Ooh, personal kitchen tour. If you come here to Oklahoma. Absolutely. And today, Z, we’re doing the challenge. We’re calling this the Baked Beans Challenge. Challenge, just throw it down. Just throw that down. You go to the two locations. You go over there and you go ahead and try some baked beans. And if they are in fact the world’s best, then you come here to the thrive15.com world headquarters in beautiful Jinx, America at the Riverwalk. I give you a high five and a copy of my newest book, Thrive. That’s fair. And here’s the other thing, too. He has another store here. It’s at the Cain’s. When is it? When are it’s hours? When’s it open? Cain’s Ballroom. It’s a Tulsa icon. It’s a little famous. Very famous. And it’s hours from Monday through Friday, 11 till 2, but then on concert nights. Selling great barbecue on concert nights too. You’re kind of in Oklahoma. If you’re downtown, you can grab some lunch down there. So you’re working in the tower, you’re doing the thing about the thing. You’re working in the tower of power. The tower, you can go down there to the Canes Ballrooms and get some Oklahoma joes. You got to get in there and pump yourself up. Now Thrivers, we are talking about the mailbag question number four. This is a question from Lorenzo, and he asks this question. He says basically, Z, the question is, he says, what makes Clay so successful? I mean, you guys, when you guys aren’t on the air, what does he do on a daily basis that allows him to get so much done? Seems like he’s everywhere. Z, what would be, I mean, I can’t speak about myself, but for this guy Lorenzo who’s going okay when he’s not on the air, when he’s not pontificating or being ridiculous, what is it like? You can explain the Clay Clark experience, good or bad. Well, I’ll tell you one thing he’s not doing, Lorenzo, and that’s sleeping. He’s not a big sleep, sleep, sleeper-upper. Sleep in late, you don’t catch him his PJs. I mean, the guy is up early, he’s working hard all day long, he’s purposeful. And you know why he’s purposeful Lorenzo because he has his calendar and that calendar allows him to stay on schedule That calendar allows him to get stuff done that calendar allows him to say no He’s and you know he’s kind of robotic. We have a charging station, but with a mobile one So he is he’s going because of he’s purposeful in his day. He gets a plan. He gets a plan of what he’s going to do. He knows what he’s going to do. He’s got his calendar. He’s got his plan. Oh, wait, who sets that? He does. He sets that. So if someone says, hey man, can you come to 2.30, man? I sure could, you know, can I swing by and visit with you? No, I’m in a meeting from 2 to 3. Can’t, no. By click. Boop. You know. Well, that’s kind of mean. That’s kind of mean. Aren’t you? Aren’t you here to help coach me up? Aren’t you here to like, you know, I’m hurting you. I will say this one thing that I struggled with. And Joe, you talked about it earlier and I want to get your feedback on this. I struggled with I was so flattered and so excited and so joyful and almost moved to tears the first time I went to Office Depot and ran into a guy whose wedding I DJ’d. You’re listening to The Thrash Talk Show on Talk Radio 1170. I used to have to practically beg people to book me for their weddings when I was a wedding entertainer. And the first guy, this is years after the wedding, right two years after the wedding, he’s like, you’re the DJ, you’re the dude, you’re the dude. And then I was like, yes, well my wife, I’m out there with my wife, you know. And when you’re a business owner, you’re always trying to find will-o’-ways to sneak away time with the wife. My wife and I go on hot dates at Office Depot. If things went well, we’d usually buy CDs in bulk, bring in those rebates, get some stuff on sale, and then we’d just make out in that parking lot. If things went well. The thing was, this guy wants to talk. I’m there, and I’m there for probably 45 minutes talking about the wedding and what happened. It was only a four-hour performance, and we’re talking for 45 minutes reminiscent about this wedding. But eventually I realized, gosh, because I did so many weddings and so many parties, I eventually had to cut it off. And you almost feel kind of mean, Joe. So for everyone listening right now who’s built a local business or maybe they’re building one and customers are coming in and they really want to talk to them and marinate, we’re not talking about just conversing. I’m talking about marinating, you know, where you just slow cook that conversation. What advice would you have, my friend? Number one, I love talking to customers. I absolutely love it. That’s how we get to know what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. It’s kind of like personal space. Personal space. Time space. And the way I look at that is that my wife is the same way. We work together. My kids work with me as well. So I always will say my wife is my greatest partner because she can sense when I kind of get fidgety with visiting someone. After a while, maybe ten minutes, it’s an appropriate amount of time to spend with someone where they really get to know you. But there is a time that you have to go on to complete your events of the day to be productive. So having an assistant, having a wife, having someone that’s there to come to your shoulder and say, hey, you’re going to be late for your next appointment. It’s so important. I’m going to read you a notable quotable. This comes from Ryan Tedder, a local Tulsa musician who went to Oral Roberts University and now he writes songs for Beyonce and Adele and One Republic. He says this, he says, when you’re around enormously successful people, you realize their success isn’t an accident it’s about work. Z what advice would you have for somebody right now who’s listening who feels like I just can’t find enough time in my day to get stuff done I just feel like I just never have enough time what advice would you have for them? Well if you didn’t catch our earlier segment on today’s show the good thing about it is we archive all the shows at thrive timeshow.com and Clay mentioned something magical earlier in the show. And that is that whenever you, you know, as you’re going through your day and as you’re planning out your day and as you’re doing that, you need to also reverse engineer it. In other words, write down, write now, get a piece of paper. If you’re listening, piece of paper or the sack that you just bought your lunch in, get out a pen or pencil and write this down. What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? Let’s reverse engineer this thing a little bit. What did you do? What did you spend your time on? I mean, get specific. Well, I was on Facebook for about four hours. I was getting my profile updated. I mean, you know, okay, you watch TV for three hours. Oh, see, there’s three hours of production I can give you. Social media, but let’s be honest. You think about it. If you’re not being honest, then just throw away the paper, turn off the radio, and just drive until your car runs out of gas, get out and just walk. These statistics are scary about how much time the average person, I encourage you to look it up right now, how much time the average person spends a day on social media and watching TV and Google it, it’s a lot. It’s a lot. And so you’re a reverse engineer, you go, I don’t have to plan out my day. Well, let’s work with what we’re not going to do. I mean, let’s start being purposeful on and being honest with what we’re really spending our time on. Because if you’re not getting stuff done, you’re letting time pirates steal it, you’re letting poor management of your day steal it, you’re letting the inactivity of your planning if you will, steal it from you. So now, you can’t just go from being unproductive to this whole day of meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting people to get to you. You got to be honest and say, well, what do you spend your time on now? Now, Z, I have a very offensive thought. I want to have you and Joe help me. Are we going to fight? Are we going to fight? No, this is intense, though, because here’s the deal. Your network determines your net worth. So who you’re around starts to basically dictate what you think is possible. And so for anyone listening right now, if you’ve read Napoleon Hill’s book, Think and Grow on the planet for a while, you’re going to notice that successful people tend to hang out together. And the thing is, if you’re listening to this show, and you haven’t had a lot of success in your career yet, the chances are that if you add up the net worth of the 10 people you spend your time with, and you divide it, you go, that’s me. And so what you got to do is you got to figure out, gosh, do I need to change my social circle? Do I need to change who I’m around? Do I need to start to surround myself with people who are where I want to be? And if you do that, kind of separating yourself and moving yourself into a different social circle or a different group of people, it can be hard, it can be tough, it can be offensive. And we’re going to talk about how to really upgrade the social circle, how to surround yourself with people that can pour into your life and people that have the capacity to lift you up. Right. And you have to be realistic. I’ve said on a show before, I mean, if you’re in a dinghy, you can’t go, you can’t go fishing for a whale. If you’re in a dinghy, you can’t go fishing for a whale. We’ll unpack that and more when we come back to the Thrive Time show. Happy Thursday. Alright, green country and Oklahoma-homies, welcome back to the Thrive Time show, Tulsa’s only local business radio show. The place that you go to get that business school without the BS. And yes, my name is Clay Clark, Clay Tiberius Clark, and I am the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. I’m a guy who’s started a lot of local Tulsa businesses. Perhaps you’ve heard of DJ Connection or Elephant in the Room, or perhaps you’ve seen me in such feature films as, anyway, Dr. Zellner, back to you, sir, how are you? Fantastic, Robert Zellner here, and I’m just a little entrepreneur who’s trapped in an optometrist body. And you know what’s so fun about this show, Clay, is that we both have a heart to mentor and to business coach people up because we’ve learned in life, folks, if you’re out there listening and you’re thinking, I want to start a business or I just started a business, you’re going to learn one or two ways. You’re going to learn either by mentorship or mistakes, right? And we have with us a gentleman here who probably made no mistakes. Probably not. He’s got a great mentoring story that I’m going to pull out of him right now. But this is Joe Davidson, owner, proprietary, head cook, head bottle washer, chief janitor. I think he does everything there at Oklahoma Joe’s. Barbecue. Oh, it’s so good to be here. And I appreciate the break from actually the bottle washing. I have to say this. If you’re looking at him right now on Facebook Live, you’re looking at America. You’re listening on your radio, you’re smelling barbecue. This guy, you smell success. Oh, it’s just so good. So Joe, early on you had a guy, a dude, and he mentored you. That’s a touching and lovely story. Tell the radio audience, they want to hear, and the Thrive Time Show audience, they want to hear about your mentoring story. You know, it’s so important to my life. When I first started my business, I lived in Perry, Oklahoma. My wife was a teacher. She really supported our family with her income of $16,500 a year at that time. And then I was in a little shop in downtown Perry, Oklahoma. And a guy would come down there every day almost and drink coffee with me. And his name was Ed. He said, this reminds me of my shop. And I’d say, Ed, and he was an elderly gentleman. I’d say, well, Ed, where’s your shop? And he said, just across town. I thought, well it must be closed down. So we’d visit a little bit and I’d say, Ed, I’ve got to get back to work and build some smokers. I’ve got a lot to deliver this week. So he’d leave and he’d take off. And he’d come down there. And it had been a few months that he’d been doing this. And then a guy came down there and said, you know, I’m Mr. Roth and I’m the executive VP of Ditch Witch. And Mr. Moulson asked me to come down here and see if you’d be interested in the R.L. Fraley facility. The executive VP of… Ditch Witch. Ditch Witch. I have a big deal. You’re connecting with this guy. I didn’t know it at the time. I had no idea. I said, Mr. Malzahn sent you down here. He said, who’s that? I said, well yes, Ed Malzahn. I said, Ed? Ed owns Ditch Witch? He never told me that. You’re like the Ditch Witch whisperer. I’m just a kid. I mean, literally, I’m 25 years old. So I said, I can’t afford that. There’s no way I can afford the RL Fraves. It’s a plant. And he said, well, how much could you afford? I said, well, maybe $600 a month. And he said, okay. And I said, oh my gosh, you’re joking. He said, no, I’m not joking. I said, if I had offered you $400, would you have taken it? And he said, yes, I would have. I would have taken it. But he not only said, I’m not joking. I said, I’m not joking. I said, I’m not joking. I said, I’m not joking. I would have taken it. But he not only helped me grow into a plant to be a big manufacturer, he would lend me his CFO. He would lend me his engineers. He’d lend me equipment. He’d lend me knowledge and experience. When you moved into that group and you started getting mentored from these top level people, people. Did they give you different advice or higher quality level of advice and mentorship than maybe just some of the dudes that you knew who were your age? Oh my gosh, there was no comparison. I had no idea. You know, I got my bachelor’s degree in ag education, my master’s in ag engineering, so I really didn’t have a business degree. Now I’m going to walk you through this, Thrivers. There’s a reason why everybody listening right now you need to get out a sheet of paper and you need to write down 10 people that you need to know. You’re listening to the Throck Time Show on Talk Radio 11. I want you to dream, I want you to dream big. Think about 10 connections that you need to have in your life that can do the three C’s. So here are the three C’s that you’re looking for out of your big 10. So one, people that have more capital than you. Oof, good choice. You really want to surround yourself with people who have more money than time. And they go, hey, I have a bunch of money and you as a young entrepreneur, you have a lot of time and maybe I want to invest in you. Because that’s how they’re going to make money. Okay, so more capital than you. The second is more connections. Maybe they know the guy who can get tickets to the game. Z, you just went to a Minnesota Vikings game, is this correct? Oh yeah, up in the new stadium up there in Minneapolis. It was awesome. And you have a friend of yours who owns a jet? Yeah, we flew up there, then he got us weed and we did that. And that stadium looks like Darth Vader’s mask from the outside. It’s black and angular and it’s just like… Is it awesome? Luke, get off your side. Oh, it was awesome, yeah. And of course, the Cowboys won. But the Capitol and the connections, if this guy didn’t have the connections to all these different, you know, to the actual plane, to the luxury suite, to all that, I mean, those things are possible if you’re not in a different group of people. Yeah, if you have a friend like that, I’d highly recommend putting a friend like that on your 10 want list because that’s pretty cool. That’s a pretty cool day when you get that call, hey Z, you want to do this thing? You’re like, yes. I say cash, okay? We said connections. Now the final one is counsel. Somebody who can coach you or counsel you, someone who has the wisdom that maybe you don’t have. And this is the thing, I’m not asking you to look at all your friends and go, that’s it friends, we’ve been together for a long time. Losers, we’re out of here. And now I’ve decided I’m moving on. I’m leaving you guys. I’m upgrading. You’re a business coach and I’m going to, I mean, you’re a coach and I’m going to business first class. That’s right, you guys to the back of the plane, I’m going to the front. Let’s go!” You don’t do that, but what you do is you reach out and you’re intentional about it. I’ll give you an example. In my life, it’s kind of fun, but it’s kind of fun to pick up the phone, and if I need to, we can call David Robinson. Z, you and I can pick up the phone, we can call David Robinson. Great guy, great guy. He’s a partner with us at Thrive15.com. He’s an NBA Hall of Fame player, and he’s awesome! We can pick up the phone and call Michael Levine and he’s one of our mentors at thrive15.com and oh by the way if you’re on Facebook live his book is right there on Z’s desk. He is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson’s family, for Prince, for Nike, for Pizza Hut. It’s the blue covered book right over there. We know you can pick up the phone and call Lee Cockrell. Lee’s one of our investors and teammates. He’s a great guy. And he used to manage Walt Disney World. He stayed in your house. Yeah, great guy and very purposeful in his day. You talk about a man that is the king of time management. He does a lot of our time management coaching on Thrive15.com. The good thing about Thrive15.com is you say, well, I can’t get to Lee Cockrell, but you know what? You can listen to Lee Cockrell as much as you want for only $19 a month. Go to Thrive15.com. We went around and gathered up all these great mentors. We filmed them. We made it fun. We made it edutainment. I love that word, by the way. Edutainment. Yeah. It’s a thing. I want to ask you this Joe. How much are some baked beans? I go in there for maybe a pint of baked beans. How much are those roughly? $2.79 for a side of beans. So let’s say I go in there for $2.79. Now I don’t have $19 a month I can spend on Thrive 15. I only have like $16 after tax because I bought the beans. We have a scholarship program Z. And we have it affordable for everybody. You can actually set your price if you’re on a tight budget. I’m telling you, we’ve made it affordable for everybody at Thrive15.com. Now, Thrivers, when we come back, we have a mailbag question that I get asked all the time, and this is a great question. We have a Thriver who’s wanting to know, how do you manage people? I mean, how do you manage, you know, you’ve got this great business idea, and you’re just, you’re starting to get some traction, but you just can’t get the team to do their job And now you don’t feel like you own the business anymore Because the people who work there act like they own the business and now they’re telling you what to do It’s almost like you’re held hostage in your own business We’ve got some mentorship. We’ve got some specific tips and we’re gonna answer this next mailbag question So if you’ve ever struggled to manage your team and to get the people on your team to do what they’re supposed to do This next segment is for you. I’m looking forward to it. And don’t go away because this is just this is radio magic. Thrive Time. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time show. This is your place, the place that you go consistently to learn how to start and grow a business. You see, a lot of times there’s people who are listening right now today and you listen and you go, gosh, you know, I went to business college. I checked the box. OK, I got my degree. OK, I started a business, or maybe I want to start a business, and I just don’t know. I’m stuck. I just can’t seem to go to the next level. But then I drive around town and I see Dr. Z and I see his optometry clinic and I see it growing. I see Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue, I see it growing. I see the elephant in the room, the men’s grooming lounge is growing. I see these guys growing their businesses and I want to grow like those guys. And so you want to grow a successful company and you have really two, sort of a fork in the road you can do here, Z. You can decide, are these guys successful because they’re geniuses and we’re not? Are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they’re following some proven systems that I can learn and apply to my own life? Are we successful because of luck? Because of just genius genetics? Or are we successful because we’re applying proven principles? And I will tell you this, I was having no success and was struggling until I learned these proven systems. And when I began applying them in my own life, it changed the trajectory of my life financially and in every area of my life. And so I’m telling you right now an encouragement for you. If you’re listening right now and you feel stuck, we can absolutely help you get unstuck. But the first step is you have to be curious, Dr. Z. And Z, why do you have to be curious? If you’re stuck, why does it start with you being curious about how successful people do it? Well, because here’s the deal. You’re going to learn by mistakes from mentors. And mistakes are painful, they’re costly. You’ll learn. You’ll learn. I’ll tell you, you do some mistakes and you’ll learn. Kind of like Joe here to my left. He’s like, you know, I should put that, I’ll never put that ingredient back in into a bucket of chili or whatever I’m doing. I learned from the mistake, you know. Or he could have, you know, like the world’s best chili cooker pull him aside and say, hey Joe, here’s how we’re going to make chili, you know. And earlier, I didn’t really get to unpack this too much. But you said something in an earlier segment. If you missed it, Thrivetimeshow.com, you can go and listen listen to the show over and over and over again as much as you want to for free but you said make a list of the 10 people want to go after and earlier I had said something kind of funny but it but I wanted to unpack it just a little bit because someone may have heard and thought what does that mean and that means going whale hunting in a dinghy in other words if you’re not very high up the food chain you probably shouldn’t put Bill Gates down on your top ten list to go be your friend. My step one for success, I’m going to be a partner with Bill Gates. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, my top two. I’m going after those guys. They’re going to be my inner circle. I’m going to get both of those guys. They’re going to be, you know, they’re going to teach me how to be a billionaire and it’s going to be wonderful. I’m going to call my company Bill and Mark and Clay. Bill Mark and Clay. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Billionaire Clay. We’ll sell it every once. Yeah, yeah. It’s good for you because we can do it. No, you want to be, listen, if you’ve got some kind of angle into somebody and they’re higher up the food chain Ie they own a successful business in town and you know, somebody knows someone could maybe make that introduction Maybe you can get to them You don’t want to be too much of a creeper, but you want to be you want to be persistent You want to be persistent? You know what I’m saying? So just like it’s like what clay first came around his wife was working for me So there was kind of is the in that got him access to the place. He could kind of hang out We’re like who’s this dude? Who’s this dude? I don’t know. And then someone said, I think it’s Vanessa’s husband. I’m like, that’s Vanessa’s husband? Why is he always hanging out with her? He looks like a poorer version of Eminem, you know, the rapper. He’s this white dude with clothes that are like six sizes too big, and loop earrings, and this kind of an edge and hard attitude, and trying to pick fights with people and just creep on stuff. But the more we was around, he kind of softened, and he kind of figured things out, and I met him a few times. I thought, well, he’s not a complete idiot, you know? And then he just kept asking me to spend time with me and finally I was like, okay, we’ll go to lunch. And we did it. And, and now we had that gave him access to my life. And so a couple of years ago when you shark tanked me about thrive15.com, you had access into my, you had access because of the things you had done before. And it was because your wife worked for me. I mean, that was, there was a connection to people. And here’s a specific move I encourage everyone to do if you want access to somebody who’s more successful than you. This is the move. This is the move. Call them up and do something for them for free and don’t ask for anything in return. Yes. And do that three times. Yes. So as an example, Clifton Talbert, he helped introduce the Stairmaster into the marketplace. Yes. Very busy. His life was made into a major motion picture called Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored. He helped open up O&B Bank. He had no reason to spend time with me. None. And so I cold called him. And again, you have to think about it. Can I get creative? So it’s like, can I come in and do paperwork for you? No, you don’t work here. Can I volunteer? I’m serious, because if you don’t have a whole lot of skills, you’ve got to do an internship. Can I come work for free for 10 hours a week? And I’m just telling you, you have to start that way. And Steven Spielberg, if you look into his life, he started by working for free at an internship. Ryan Tedder, the best-selling recording artist, he started working for free for Timbaland, the music artist. I can go on and on about all the different stories, but Napoleon Hill, the best-selling author, he went to work for free for Andrew Carnegie. Joe, what advice would you have for an entrepreneur right now if they want to kind of upscale and upgrade their social group and they want to kind of meet some of the mentors? What advice would you have for them? How is the best way for them to get connected to somebody who is much more successful than they are? You know, I would first of all say, how do you reach any of those people? Maybe join a social group that meets at least once a month, if not once a week. Oh wow! Like a networking group? A networking group. Yeah, cool. Absolutely, because they are all there to network. They are there to grow. Join your local chamber. Do things to surround yourself with other local small business people that are very successful. And a great place to meet with your local group is at Oklahoma Joe’s. And this month you have a great special at Oklahoma Joe’s. Tell us about the specials you have this month in December. I’m telling you, we’ve got two great specials. It’s gift giving time, obviously for family, friends, corporate gifts, or for yourself. That’s very festive. A $50 gift card, you get a $10 bonus card to use for free. So you can buy a $50 gift card for yourself and save $10. And yeah, or get a $10 one for free. Or buy two 50s for only $80. So you’re saving 20%. You’re saving $20 for yourself. Even if you’re a regular. That’s a great deal. It’s a great deal. And it’s only available over at Oklahoma Joe’s. Only at Oklahoma Joe’s and through Christmas. Two locations to serve you. Now Thrivers, coming up next, we’re going to get into mailbag question number five. This is about how to manage those difficult people. Do you have difficult people? I’m sure you do. Learn how to manage them. Coming up next. All right, Thrive Nation Oklahomies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is the place that you go to learn how to start or grow a successful business. When I say you, I’m talking to you. You’re listening right now. This isn’t a show about other people. This is a show about you. Because Z, according to the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book of the book, the book This isn’t a show about other people. This is a show about you. Because Z, according to Forbes, 57% of the people listening right now, that’s you, you want to start or grow a successful business at some point. You want to start a business. 57%. And I think here in Tulsa it might even be higher. I’ll be honest with you. I mean, we’ve been rated as one of the best places for entrepreneurship in the country. And actually, number one Wall Street Journalist came out with it. You can see that. And women were, it was actually the number one place for women entrepreneurs. This is a great city to start or grow a business. It’s in the water. Which, that’s where the water is, because it’s not in the Arkansas River. It’s somewhere, you know, the water’s somewhere else. Oh, look at that little segue. Now this, we have our next question, our mailbag. We have a mailbag question, a mailbag theme here, as we have our special guest, Oklahoma Joe, Mr. Joe Davidson on the show. How are you, sir? I’m great. It’s so good to be here with you guys. This question is for you. Here we go. This comes from an anonymous doctor within Tulsa. Here we go. Whispers so no one hears it. Whispers. Whispers. Whispers. My nurse is a disaster. Oh God. And never shows up on time. And my front desk guy talks back to me constantly. How do you guys do it? You make it sound so easy, but my staff acts like they own my office. Oh, so let’s start with you, Joe. Joe, what advice would you have for this person? Well, number one is that set clear expectations of what you expect of them. So I’m writing this down. So one is I have to set clear expectations. Clear expectations. I expect you to show up on time. Let me say this. Let’s say, let’s pretend that they have done that. I’m not saying they have it, but let’s say they have done it maybe in one situation. Or let’s say they are listening and they go, okay I haven’t done that. How do I go about doing it? What does that sound like? You know, to me it would be, Sandra, you are my nurse. I really appreciate what you do for me, but when we start at 8 o’clock and you arrive at 8.30, it’s not very convenient for our customers, our patients there. And it’s creating a problem for me. And I really think that if you want to get here at 830, maybe you just need to be a customer or a patient and not a nurse at that point in time. Joe, that’s me. I want to go to you, Z. How do you set the expectations, Z? What do you say? Well, you write it down, number one. Write it down. You don’t sit there and go, okay, I’m going to partially tell you what I expect of you because you’re smart and you can read my mind, so I’m just gonna sit here and think it I’m thinking what I want you to do Common sense it’s overall you know my brain is easily read so therefore you should be able to read it And and do the right thing you gotta write it down You gotta write it down put it on the tablet you gotta have your checklist for them of things that you expect from do I? Just assume they need to clean the bathroom. I just assume. I mean who doesn’t like a clean bathroom? I mean, you go to McDonald’s, you go, I mean, it’s a clean bathroom. I mean, you stop there because they’ve got a clean bathroom. I mean, how do they not know to clean the bathroom, Clay? What were they? Well, you’re going, you’re going, and these are things that you, I think you have the curse of knowledge. I think you’ve forgotten what you used to not know. So I’m going to get into a few things you just said there. I think it was powerful what you just said. Powerful, powerful. So you write it down and then you hold them accountable. So okay, real quick. So you said those expectations. Yes. You said checklists. Oh yes. I can tell you I have been guilty of back in the day of trying to run my business without checklists. You have to have a checklist. And by the way, Thrivers, if you want an example of the checklist that Chick-fil-A uses, if you want a secret copy of the Chick-fil-A checklists, we have those available for you. If you want checklists, if you want an operations manual, you mentioned an operations manual. Yeah, employee manual. If you want a handbook, an employee manual, we have those for you. We have those all available exclusively for Thrive15.com subscribers. And by the way, it’s typically $19 a month. However, if you’re in a financial crunch, we have a scholarship available. So if you have $1 a month, you can have access to that at Thrive15.com. Now the second thing, Joe, let’s say I have set the expectations. What’s the second move to get my team accountable, to hold them accountable. What’s my move? Well, just as Dr. Z has said, you’ve got to hold them accountable for their actions. So we start out at Oklahoma Joe’s number one with a verbal warning that we note in their file. Okay, one, boom, check. Number two is another verbal, number three is a written, and number four is a termination. You go four though, you go four. The fourth is the termination. Your bed clean up is when you do the… Well, yeah, you get that boom, boom, boom. Boom. He scores, he shoots, and he scores on that. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 117. Now, Zee, at Elf in the Room, we have a point system. And so if you’re late, this is how many points you get. If you’re late again, this many points. If you get 12 points, you’re fired. And so it’s the same kind of thing with the point system. And one thing that you lose all your points for, boop, boop, boo-doo, these are where you lose all your points at one time. Yeah lying to your boss Wow, that’s good. When one was one of my automatic terminators Is today is turning down a walk-in really turn down a walk-in. You’re gone. You’re gone done done day immediate immediate is that big of a thing for me so, you know, and that’s the thing about it is and I once had a Entrepreneur a business owner starting off and they were just really, really just torn with how they handled an employee that was doing jackassery, doing the stuff that they shouldn’t have been doing. And they looked at me and they were just, they said, what do I do? And I go, you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to put up with that as long as you want to put up with it. What? Yeah. I feel like I don’t understand what you’re saying. No, no, no. You have a threshold. And whenever you hit that threshold, let that person go. Oh, Billy. Yeah, Billy. It’s kind of one of those things where it’s kind of like it’s your life, you’re miserable because of it. You don’t have to be. You’re choosing to be. I have a very, this is a very special place in my heart, this discussion here. And I’m going to help you guys. If you’re listening right now and you need sort of an example, you need sort of a, I mean, you go, I need some agricultural examples here. I don’t really get it. Work with me. If you have a business plan that says we’re going to sow seeds and we’re going to sow the seeds and then we’re going to do is we’re going to harvest some corn. Right. It’s in the manual. It’s in the manual. It’s in the system. It’s a checklist on the chain. You say all right Clay go out there and so that’s it. And then the guy next to me you say go so the seed the guy next to me sows the seed all day and I don’t so any seed. Is there any miracles or any profundity? Is there any sort of cosmic epiphany that occurs when I don’t have any corn and the other person does? No, it’s whoever sows the seeds. If you don’t sow seeds, things won’t grow. And I think in business, what happens is, is we want to shield people that aren’t sowing seeds and we expect our company to grow. Work with me. So if you have a bunch of people on your team who aren’t sowing seeds, the company itself isn’t going to grow. I have two notable quotables that are given to us by people that you would know. The first one is Elon Musk. This is the guy who helped found PayPal. Oh, and he helped found Tesla Motors. Oh, and he helped co-found SpaceX. He says, the longer you wait to fire someone, the longer it has been since you should have fired them.” Awww. I love that. And that’s a thing. That’s a statement he made. It seems pretty brutal. It seems pretty tough, but that is a thing he talks about. Now the other thing he says, this is another notable quote coming at you. This is from Warren Buffett though, for those of you business owners out there who are struggling to hold your team accountable. Check it out. Okay. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. Warren Buffett. So as an example, a great company called British Petroleum, they had an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. And they were drilling down, I don’t know, miles down into the earth’s crust, which by the way, I’m very thankful they do that. It’s very hard to do it. They’re procuring fossil fuels out of the center of the planet so that I can drive my Hummer and get eight miles a gallon. So they’re drilling way down there. And then what happens is they have a blowout. And people blamed people. They said it was poor maintenance. They said it was poor this, poor that. But the point is, at the end of the day, who had to take the blame when the massive leak happened? Who had to? The CEO. The CEO. The CEO of the boss. You mean the buck stops with the boss. They were sued for billions of dollars. They destroyed large portions of the Gulf of Mexico. And it was a national story for months. They couldn’t even get it to stop leaking for days and days. It got a lot longer than that, actually. Yeah, it was bad. It was bad. And so you know what? If you put up with something, to your point, you just have to put up with it for as long as you’re going to put up with it. But I guarantee you, somebody on that rig, because the hearings came out and you can read the depositions and things, somebody said, hey, there’s a maintenance problem. But people kept putting up with it. Yeah, they kept putting up with it, and it ended up costing the business billions of dollars. It’s a shame. And the CEO ended up losing his job over it. Yeah, and the worst part of it is the environmental throwback, kickback from it. So, I mean, there’s probably still oil still washing up. So if you’re listening to this show today, Thrivers, we want you to be successful. And today you’re at the fork in the road. You have three things you can do. You have three things you can do today. One, you can do nothing and accept life as it is. You can just do nothing. Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to buy a lottery ticket and I’m doing something. Point number two, you can go to thrive15.com, Z, and if you go to thrive15.com, what are you going to find there? Oh, you’re going to find just a copious amount of information that is outlined in fun fashion. What we did is we found these great mentors, coaches, and we filmed them and we made it entertaining and we’re only charging you $19 a month for that. You also have downloadables. Yes, you have templates you can look at, like you talked about. Examples for employee, you know, operations manuals, performance, checklists, search engine system, these things like that. You could say, I don’t know. It’s a starting point. It’s a starting point and it’s practical steps and you can watch it by topic. You can watch it by mentors. You it’s up to you. It’s a Netflix of business coaching. It’s Thrive15.com. Also, option number three, you can sign up for one-on-one business coaching or a Thrive 15 business conference. A Thrive 15 business conference. You want to know more about it? And I know you do. You go to Thrive15.com. But I don’t care what option you do. Option one, two, or three, you got to go to Oklahoma Joe’s. Oklahoma Joe’s. And try to get those world’s best baked beans. Burnt ends. And Z, as always. 3, 2, 1, boom. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma June 27 and 28. 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 follow 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 is 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. Wow. 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 $100 million 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 gonna be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody wanna hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, cause 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 got to come learn from him. Also let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times Best Selling 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. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.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, or whatever price that you can 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 a 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 to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come. Who? You! 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, 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 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 will be at, have I told you this? You have not told me that. Oh, 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 out shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show 2-Day Interactive Business Workshop. If you’re out there today folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get in, 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 the sports enthusiasts. Thrivetimeshow.com This moment we own it I’m not to be played with me cause it get dangerous See these people are right with this moment 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 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 going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I’ve 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. 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 got to 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, Octononverba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Herbert Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And for my 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, 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 hour. 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. Well 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 guy named Jeremy Thorn, 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 want 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, but 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, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. 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, 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 the 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. In the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, 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 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, it’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tag nets, 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 Thrive15. 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. 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 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. 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 of 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. I 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 a 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 get a job. I was looking for a job and I was looking for a job and I was looking for a job. I was looking for a job and I was looking for a job. I was looking for a job and I was looking for a job. I was looking for a job and I was looking for a job. helping us really rank high at 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 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. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.