Entrepreneur | Systems for Consistent High-Level Service

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. What is going on, Tulsa? Welcome to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. You’ve read about us in Forbes and Fast Company. You’ve probably seen us in Bloomberg. But now you’re hearing us speak into the magical microphones right here in the ThriveofTeen.com world headquarters and studios. And today I am joined with none other than really my brother from another mother, the man with the plan, a guy who just turned 52. It’s time for our daily rendezvous. Dr. Z, how are you, sir? I am fantastic, Claytron. Now you’re a doctor, is that true? I’m an optometrist, so I’m kind of sort of like one. You’re just the entry level. I’m not like a real one. I’m kind of a pretend one. Well, we wanted to keep a doctor theme going, and so today we brought in a guy. He’s really Tulsa’s orthodontist of choice. He is a guy who really knows how to straighten those teeth. It is Dr. Joe Lyser. How are you? Clay, thanks for having me, and just for the record, I’m not a real doctor. I’m just an orthodontist. Okay, so we have two non-real doctors. Just two. We have an orthodontist and an optometrist. If things got bad though, Zeke, do you feel confident you could pull stitches or put stitches into Dr. Joe’s? Shit, he hurt himself today. In fact, I’d like to. I don’t know where he’d want them, but it’s always fun to kind of play doctor, you know, on occasion. Okay, well, I’m not a doctor, but doctor, doctor, doctor. We’re going to be talking today about the six items that make it possible to build systems that deliver consistently high quality levels of service. What are we talking about? We’re talking about six things you can do, six things that you can do that are going to help you deliver consistently high quality levels of service. Now you guys are in a very regulated industry in terms of the medical field. So Z, if you screw up enough and you make enough crazy prescriptions and you really screw up, what happens as an optometrist over time if you just continue to do things that violate the, they’re kind of like crimes against humanity and enough customers get upset. What could happen to you as a doctor? Well, there’s a board of optometry that rules over the optometrist in Oklahoma. The board. The board. Yes. And, you know, if they sanction you enough, if they get on to you enough, if you do enough bad things, they can jerk your license and therefore you can’t practice. And so we’re talking today about these six things that you can do to basically take your level of quality control to a next level. What happens is a lot of us listening right now, you’re not in a regulated industry like a medical field, but you’re in an industry where the customer is just not going to come back if you don’t do a good job. And so item number one is you want to define the outcomes and the deliverables. Again, if you’re driving right now in your car, you may want to pull over and write that down. You want to define the outcomes and the deliverables. I’m going to read you a notable quotable before I ask Dr. Joe some questions about this. The notable quotable is, a smile on the face of a limousine driver is no substitute for an automobile. That’s from the service profit chain. That’s a Harvard case study. What they’re basically saying is that being nice to people is really just 20% of what good customer service or providing a service is all about. You ultimately have to deliver on what you promise. And so, Dr. Joe, I want to kind of unpack some of the things that you do consistently over there at Kirkpatrick & Lye as it relates to defining those outcomes and deliverables. The first is you train with a purpose. Talk to the listeners about training with a purpose and what that looks like at Kirkpatrick & Lye Orthodontics. Well, Clay, that’s a good point. You want to know where you’re going, first of all. What are you trying to accomplish? What’s the outcome and how do you deliver? When you train with a purpose, number one for your employees, it sets a standard and expectation of what you want instead of just kind of letting everybody do their own thing. I find if you don’t set a standard, there is kind of a drifting that occurs if you don’t set that. Talk to me about when you actually go in there, and let’s say you hired me today and I was qualified to work as an assistant for you. When you say that you are going to kind of set the expectation, what does that look like? Are you talking to me? Are you giving me a video? Are you giving me a lecture? What does that look like? Well, it’s a good point. I just don’t throw you out there on the floor and just say, hey, go for it. So I give a little training. Um, we started a new thing, um, when we had to put together a training manual. Yeah. Um, and some people are visual learners and like books, um, that, that gets a little kind of a checklist things for them to do. And then we kind of do a, uh, really more of a, uh, hands-on cause you know, um, I’m kind of a big believer of, you know, if I tell you how to do something, show you how to do it and let you physically go through those steps to learn right on the fly there. So kind of step number one is you want to train with purpose. You want to make sure that you’ve defined the expectations. The second part is you want to have a training manual. Now Z, you guys see thousands of patients per year over there at Z’s, at Dr. Zellner and Associates Optometry. Talk to me about the importance of having a manual, as Joe referenced, to come back to. Why do you have to have a manual? Why can’t you just have an oral tradition? Why not? You pass this along. You whisper it and pass it along. Because, you know, back in school, whenever they’d get all the kids in a circle and they’d whisper one thing in the one ear and then the next kid would whisper it to the next kid. And they’d play this little game where it went all the way around. And then it came back. The teacher would say, what was said and it wouldn’t be anything close to what was originally said. But if the teacher wrote down on a piece of paper writing like you know or now you’d say maybe texting or texting. Yeah. Send me a tweet bro. Yeah send me a tweet. And they pass that paper along and guess what? It would be exactly the same when I got back. Imagine that. I want to ask you this then because I’ve met tons of entrepreneurs. I’ve coached with a lot of entrepreneurs over the years, and many entrepreneurs will come to me and say, I need help marketing, which is true in probably 10% of the cases. But nine out of 10 times, what happens is they get new business, right? They start to get new customers. Yep, yep. And what happens is they start to really screw up on an epic level because they don’t have a manual. So I want to ask you, Joe, if you can remember back in the day, Eckhart Petrikan Live, back in the day, back in the day on this throwback Thursday. Maybe you’re wearing an old school Shaquille O’Neal jersey. You and your partners are hanging out there. What was it like building a manual? How do you build a manual? Do you have a campfire? Do you get some s’mores? What is the process of making a manual? That’s a great question. When I first started, we didn’t have a manual. Oh my gosh! Anarchy! I’m telling on myself now. So what happened was I found myself having to repeat things over and over and over as Dr. Z would say. I was just mentioning. And I got tired of doing that. I felt like I was just talking to myself. So I asked, we broke each step down in the office and I asked each one of my assistants to write down exactly step by step how to do each procedure. What do you say? What do you do? Just bullet points and then we condensed it and put it together just like you’re writing a book. You know years ago I worked with a protein manufacturing company that’s now gone on to do really, really well. And what happened was these guys were right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma and they, the founder was a genius. I’m just telling you, if you were around this guy you would go, you are a genius. And he knew how to make custom, they call it custom compounds or custom supplements. He knew how to do it. What happened is he did it so well that other people came to him, came to him and other people and other people. And pretty soon a major manufacturer based in Dallas said, Hey, we would like for you to custom manufacture all of these different supplements for us. And then we’ll white label it. And it was, it was a multi-million dollar deal. This is a guy right here from Tulsa. The problem was there was nothing documented. I know in his case what we did is we made a big whiteboard and we wrote out all the steps like you said with your team. We wrote out all the steps and what we did is we wrote down all the steps on the whiteboard, we took a step back and we looked at it and we said, you know what? That isn’t how we do it at all. It’s actually this way. Over time we started tweaking it and tweaking it and pretty soon we developed this magical thing called a workflow. Workflow. Wow. Now Z, you guys see hundreds of patients per day. So I’m going to ask you, what is the maximum number of patients per day that an optometrist that works for you can see in a typical day before their brain explodes, scientifically and medically speaking? We’re still pushing the limit. We’re still trying to engineer the doctors through, you know, protein bars and genetic engineering. Between those two things, we’re trying to see what that limit is. Just when they think they can’t see another one. Do you want to go faster? Do you want to go faster? I didn’t use that line. That’s probably like the Himalayan. You just, do you want to go faster? How many patients on the lowest end? On the lower end, what’s the least number of patients that an optometrist who works for you will typically see in a day? On the lowest end? Oh, on the lowest end, you know, a couple dozen to 30 probably. 30? Yeah. 30 is probably the lowest. And then on a peak day when things are rocking, what’s the high water mark? You know, I need to look that up to see what’s the most anyone’s ever seen in one day, but it could be, you know, obviously double that to, I don’t know that anyone’s ever tripled that. We have had some pretty busy days. Maybe 60 patients, 70 patients? Yeah, up in there. And all I’m saying is because when you were telling me that originally, we talked about it years ago, I know there’s many optometrists that see a tenth as many people as what you guys see. And so talk to me about, Joe mentioned it briefly, why is it so important at your clinic to have on-the-job training with this tell, show, and do mentality? Why is it so important that you tell people what to do, you show them what to do, and you have them do it over and over and over before you really let them go out on their own? It’s efficiency. I mean, when patients come in, their time is as valuable as our time is, and they don’t want to sit there and lollygag around all day long in your office. I think I’m going to try on frames for six hours. Is that okay? They want to get in. They’ve got busy lives. They’ve got things to do, they’ve got to get to their Facebook, they’ve got to get to their MySpace, they’ve got to get to all the things that are important to them that they have to do. And so we want to be efficient. And the way that you get efficient is that everybody does their job efficiently and effectively. And so you have to train them to do that that way. Plus, when you’re sitting in the waiting room, you look at the people sitting there staring at you going, when’s it going to be my turn? There’s a sense that, come on, we’ve got to step it up. Let’s go, let’s go. Well, I can say this. I haven’t known Dr. Joe here for years. Joe, when did you get married, my friend? When did you get married? Oh, I got married, it’s been, man. You were at the Summit Club. I can remember it was yesterday. But you’ve been married, how many years total? Have you been married 45 years now, 107 years? How many years? No, I’ve been married exactly 13 years. 13 years. I remember when I first met you, I knew you were an orthodontist. I kind of knew something about that. But over time, you just keep getting positive reviews. Your business keeps growing. Kirkpatrick and Lye keeps taking off. When we come back after the break, we’re going to talk about how you hold people accountable. How you hold people accountable here to doing things the right way. Because we all make systems and checklists, but if they don’t get executed, then we’re not going to have any success. When we come back here on the Thrive Time Show, we’re going to be talking about how to hold people accountable to the standards that we set. What is going on, T-Town? This is your co-host with the most, Captain Clay Tiberius Clark. And I am joined here, as always, with America’s premier, premier optometrist, a man who has reached the pinnacle of awesomeness. He just celebrated his 52nd birthday. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. How are you, sir? Great. For everybody out there that’s dyslexic, I am 25. So hopefully we have some of those listening to our business talk show. Well, now we have a very special guest. We have another doctor. Normally we don’t have two doctors, but we have another doctor. This is a man who’s probably put more braces and faces than any Oklahoma that I know. It’s Dr. Joseph Lye. Sir, how are you? I’m doing great. Great to be here on Thursday. Now we’re doing the Throwback Thursday. I think a lot of people want to know, what does Throwback Thursday mean? What does it mean? I’m going to define that. One is we’re talking about some old school moments. Old school things. And so one old school thing I know is that Dr. Joe, your wife loves Prince. Is that right? She loves Prince. So throughout the entirety of the show we’re gonna be playing Prince an unprecedented level of Prince also it means if you’re listening right now and you have some accoutrements and some memorabilia that’s kind of old-school Z did you remember when you first got married and you move some of your precious possessions into the garage yes you recall that dr. Joe do you remember moving some of your old-school like San Francisco 49ers posters into the attic did that ever happen that hurt but I had to move my Michael Jordan poster out. Really? Oh, that’s just mean. It hurt. So here’s what we’re going to do here. For anybody listening right now, if you will bring that to the thrive15.com world headquarters right here on the left coast of the Arkansas River in beautiful Jinx, America, we’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, Thrive. You just have to look through the attic, look through the garage, find me a bobblehead, find me an old school poster, bring it to the thrive15.com world headquarters, arrange your time by emailing info at thrive15.com and we will give you a free copy of my newest book Thrive on this throwback Thursday. And now we’re getting back into it. We’re talking about the six items that make it possible to build systems that deliver consistently, again I repeat, consistently high quality levels of service. We’re teaching you how to build a system. Wait a second. Why do we want to do that, Clay? What’s so important about building this system? We’ve got six steps. We’re going to teach them how to do it, but why? I was talking to your brother the other day. Which one of your brothers is the chiropractor? Chuck. Chuck. Now Chuck… Or Charles. Excuse me. Charles. Charles. Dr. Charles. Anyway, we were at your house, and it was your birthday. You were turning 52 there, and he was actually adjusting the vertebra of a dog. Did you see this? No, I heard about it. He’s gone to school now to do some animal adjustments. He’s real excited to do it on my horses. Okay, so he’s adjusting a dog. He’s talking about adjusting a dog. I’m watching him adjust a dog. And then just in small talk, he was talking about it. I said, how are things going at your clinic? And he goes, oh, it’s great. You know, we’re getting so many referrals now. Word of mouth is huge. And I know in Dr. Joe’s business, Kirkpatrick & Lye, referrals are a huge source of business. Now, if you’re upsetting every single one of your customers, you’re not going to get any referrals. Oh, I see now. And if you really screw up epically enough, over time, if you’re a doctor, there’s malpractice lawsuits. If you’re a contractor, you might have criminal violations. It’s just not a good thing to charge people and then not deliver. So we’re talking about item number one, which is defined outcomes and deliverables. Item number one, step number one, you have to define the outcomes and the deliverables. Now once you define them, you have to hold people accountable. Joe, you’re a guy who doesn’t love human combat. I mean, you don’t seek out human combat. You don’t go into bars looking for a fight. Talk to me about accountability and what is your method to holding people accountable? Once you set the standards, they kind of hold themselves accountable. They know what your expectations are. So when those are not met, they hold themselves accountable. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11. For anyone listening right now, if you’ve ever had to hold people accountable, I want to ask this question, Joe, on their behalf. Have you ever had to lose your mind? I mean, have you ever got to a point where you go, that’s it, I’m going crazy. We’ve all seen our dad lose his mind at one point, or our mom lose their mind. You know, someone listening right now, you know what I’m talking about. You’re still scarred with the memory of last time that mom freaked out. You know what I mean? You don’t want mom to freak out. Have you ever had to lose your mind? Several occasions, unfortunately. Okay, and what is your process? I mean, do you lose your mind? Do you go ahead and get epic with it? Are you a breaker? Do you like to throw things? Are you calm? Do you kind of do a passive aggressive move? Just what’s your take to holding people accountable when stuff really needs to, you know, when people need to be held accountable? Well, by nature I am passive aggressive. So I try to think about it, sit back, and, but that’s the problem. Over time, that aggression tends to boil and come to a head. So then when it comes to holding somebody accountable, you give them several chances, then you kind of just have to let them know. So I just kind of let it all go and tell them exactly what’s going on. Now, Dr. Z, do you ever have to hold people accountable over there or do people just magically all just do exactly what they’re supposed to do at Dr. Zellner and Associates? owner and associates? You know, it’s funny you should say that because at my place, it’s like everybody just gets it. Everybody knows what I’m thinking at all times. I can telepathically communicate with them. I think he wants me to be on time more often. And then they just know never, ever to do anything wrong. I would never do anything wrong. It’s just like heaven in my office. How do you do that? Does that violate labor law to create a heaven, almost a nirvana state at your office? No, it’s a bug. You implant in their brain when you first hire them and then you can actually control them via, I’ve got a little board that just kind of controls. And so, no, I tell you what, I had to lose my mind when I was younger I must admit I was a little bit more passionate about losing my mind when someone repeatedly did things wrong. And as I have matured, he’s a big kind of a big deal now, as I have matured I take a breath and I step back and I try not to remove their head off of their shoulders. Here’s a move that I’ve discovered recently. You can correct me if I’m wrong in this. I’ve discovered that I’ve been consistently screwed over so many times that I no longer actually have the energy to get intense about things sometimes, but I sometimes have to pretend to be intense so that they remember. Sometimes I’m holding someone accountable right and my inner dialogue is going, holy crap, how many times have we talked about you leaving the proper voicemail and following the script. So I want to just be like, hey, follow the script. But sometimes I have to put on a little bit of a laser show. And sometimes I have to be softer. Sometimes I have to crank it up. But just each person you have to kind of deliver it a little bit differently. But I’ve found that humans are emotional. This just in from our home office. Now we’re talking about, again, item number one is define the outcomes and deliverables. And Joe mentioned earlier, Dr. Joe mentioned earlier, you have to set the expectation from the very beginning. You have to set the expectation. Now item number two is you have to define the workflow and the step-by-step processes, which we talked about a little bit earlier. But Dr. Joe, why do you have to have checklists over there at Kirkpatrick and Lye? Why can’t people just remember everything like you did when you went through medical school? Well, I mean, it’s a very difficult job. There’s lots of steps. The problem is if you miss one step, you might as well just forget it and start over. If you don’t put the little wire that attaches all the braces together, you’re off. You might end up with the tooth up by your eye or something. Alright, well we’re talking about item number two, which is define the workflow and the step-by-step process. Now when we get back, we’re going to walk you through all the steps needed to make a workflow and a step-by-step process. Here with Dr. Joe Lye with Kirkpatrick and Lye Orthodontics and Dr. Robert Zellner. We have a lot of doctors in the house today. Doctor, doctor. We are getting almost, we’re breaking it down to almost a medical level of precision. What is going on Tulsa? This is your co-host with the most, Clay Clark, and you are listening to the Thrive Time Show right here on Talk Radio 1170, Tulsa’s only local business radio show. And as always, I am joined here in the dojo of mojo fo’ show with Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I’m fantastic, and just in off the wire, our show is rated number one. Number one, so all you listening out there, you’re listening to Broadcasting Excellence. Oh wow. Have you surveyed people up and down the Riverwalk area? Have you been talking to family? Where do you get these? I asked two people last week and they said it was their favorite. So therefore, the polls are out. The polls are in. This just in. Since we’re the only business talk show in Tulsa, we get chosen as the best pretty often. And to quote presidential candidate Donald Trump, he says, I only talk about the polls when the polls are good. So that’s just in here. There it is. There it is. We have a very special guest today. We have an orthodontist upon us. A man who knows how to put braces in faces. A guy who can straighten the teeth so well you can’t believe it. It’s Dr. Joe Lye. Sir, how are you? Man, I’m doing great, Clay. And Dr. Z, thanks for having me. Hey, it’s a throwback Thursday and we’re playing old school Prince songs and a special dedication for your beautiful wife, Miss April. I love it. She’s going to love this. Awesome. I mean, big Prince fan. Big Prince fans. And we’re talking about item number two, which is define the workflow and the step-by-step processes. And the idea is that if you know how to make a widget or how to do a thing, and enough people like what you do, that eventually they’re gonna refer other people, and pretty soon you’re gonna have to teach multiple people to do what you do. The things that are common sense now aren’t common because somebody who hasn’t done it as much or doesn’t have as much experience as you now has to do this. So Zia, I wanna start off by asking you this. As an optometrist, how many patients were you seeing before you started to hire another optometrist? At what point did you get to where you said, okay, I know how to do this. Now it’s time to hire another guy to help me. What was that level like? I remember distinctly coming home and just flopping, just like I had no energy left. Like I didn’t have enough energy to take one more step. I mean, I was just wrung out, worn out, and my wife comes rushing over to me, are you okay, what’s going on? I said, oh, I’m so tired today, I’m so worn out, I had the busiest day I’ve ever had. And she said, well how many did you see, what happened? And I said, well I saw 16 patients a day. And I was wiped. But then I was doing everything, I had one employee back then. Corneas and retinas, and pupils, names and things like that. What happened was, I think it was probably about, and now you look at 16 and you go, oh gosh, it’s nothing because you have the support staff. That was weak sauce. It was weak sauce. But now, we try to get our doctors to where they can see that 30-40 range comfortably in a day and then maybe push them more to that. So it probably took me about three or four years before I started doubling up doctors you know on the days now. And what were the times where you realized, oh boy I better make a checklist for that? I mean what were some of the basic things? Was it checking people in? Was it checking people out? I mean when did you start to realize I need some checklists. I can’t just keep repeating myself over and over as Dr. Joe mentioned earlier. Well, you’re pretty early on because what happens is is that you know, I know I’ve been to school and I knew how to do everything. Yeah, but I hired someone off the street who didn’t really know anything. And so a lot of things I thought were just kind of common sense, like you washed your hands before you help the person, you know, put their contact lenses in, you know, I mean, that’s, you think, okay, that’s kind of common sense. I mean, who wants a dirty bathroom, right? I mean, you know, you go in. We never cleaned the bathroom over there at the bait shop, ever. At the bait shop? Basically. Oh. Overall. Well, that’s probably why. Or my truck. Or your bathroom or your truck. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, some things, and that’s what I encourage everybody out there listening right now, you’re thinking, hey, I’m going to start my own business one of these days. Early on, early, early on, make your checklist, go through everything step by step, write it out, look at it, walk through it, because a lot of times you think, okay, yeah, this is what it is. When you really write it down and really study it, you may say to yourself, yeah, that’s not what we do at all. I will tell you, this is an example of what not to do that I’m going to share. It’s almost like a confession. Oh, I love it when you do this. You let it go. I love it. Back in the day, we had a company called DJ Connection that I started. When we would load up all the equipment into the van, I knew just kind of visually what I needed to bring. I knew I needed an amplifier. I needed CD players. I needed mic stands. I needed all these accoutrements. We booked a pretty big event in Dallas, Texas. We were based in Tulsa. An event planner saw one of my guys DJ and said, would you be willing to drive down to Dallas? We had never done an event in Dallas, but I said sure so I sent a guy down to Dallas He brought the CD player. Oh, yeah, and Mike Stanton Joe. He brought all the good music Yeah, not a branch. Well. He brought some prints for sure we had 1999 we had kissed by Prince a lot of great Prince songs, but the one thing that we did not bring was a Amplifier an amplifier we didn’t bring an amplifier. Oh So we’re down there at Chapel de Fleur. This is in Flower Mound, Dallas. This is a wedding venue, kind of like Tarp Chapel. That sounds fancy. Yeah, a lot more granite than Tarp Chapel had at the time, but it was kind of a wedding chapel. And the DJ’s down there goes, I don’t have an amplifier. So I had to send a guy to buy an amplifier, to bring him out the amplifier. And this sort of stuff would happen about every fifth or sixth show, where we would barely get it done every time. I had the guys set up early enough that we never completely screwed up a wedding, but it was so stressful because you thought, I imagine you’d be like sending airplanes into the air and going, did I remind the pilots to get fuel? And so it was always kind of a weird deal. And so when we get back, we’re going to talk about specifically, because Dr. Joe over there, Kirkpatrick and Lye, he has to have patient records. They have to see new patients. They have a sterilization process. They remove the braces. They have to have a checklist for how to take impressions. They have all these things and systems and services they’re offering, and they have had to build an airtight, specific, step-by-step checklist that’s allowed them to be excellent and to be the top in their field. When we come back, we’re going to teach you the moves that they do to build these locked-in systems that just deliver quality service over and over again. What is going on Tulsa? It’s a throwback Thursday. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the co-host of the Thrive Time Show. You have tuned in here to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. And I’m joined here as always with a man who’s almost mythological in that he’s put the Z all over Tulsa like he’s Zorro. Everywhere you go there’s a Z. There’s a Z over here. There’s a Z over there. There’s an auto auction with a Z on it. There is an optometry with a Z on it. There’s a bank without a Z on it, but he’s starting to spray paint Zs on Regent Bank to try to show his involvement there. Dr. Zellner, how are you, sir? I am fantastic, and the world cannot have enough Zs is kind of my attitude. Can you share with Tulsa some of the businesses you’re involved in? For someone who doesn’t know, do you have the Z’s? Sleep center? Well, my first one was my optometrist clinic, of course, two locations here in town. And then I have a sleep center, Dr. Z’s sleep center. And then I have a couple of DME companies, A to Z and Madison Medical. What is DME for those who don’t know? Durable Medical Equipment. Okay, fine. So, medical stuff. And then an auto auction, the Z66 auto auction. And then, of course, probably the thing that I enjoy the most, or my horse ranch, Rockin’ Z Ranch, where we breed and train and race thoroughbred horses. And the only reason I bring up all the different businesses you’re involved in is because somebody listening right now might say, well, I’m not a doctor. What does this have to do with me? Well, let me tell you what it has to do with. If you own a business and you have learned how to successfully market and sell your product, you’re going to have to be able to deliver a consistently high level of quality control. And that’s why we have two guys here that have been doing things the right way for a long time in Tulsa. And to my left, we have Dr. Joe Lye. Sir, how are you? Man, I am so excited for this Prince Day. Throwback Thursday. Throwback Thursday, playing some special Prince songs for your beautiful wife, Miss April. Yes. Weaving it in. Now, I want to ask you, how long have you been an optometrist? He’s not an optometrist. I’m not an optometrist. Oh, were you asking me? I’m sorry. I was looking at him and was very confused. How long have you been a… He’s got a wandering eye….orthodontist. A wandering eye. How long have you been working with teeth and helping people there? How long have you been doing this? In September, I’m coming on 17 years. 17 years. Oh, great. Congratulations. You didn’t miss that 20. Wow. Okay, so as an orthodontist, again, you want to deliver a consistently high-level quality of service. And anyone listening to this, if you have a business, you want to. And we’re going to talk about specifically item number two is make a defined workflow and step-by-step process. And we’re going to talk about putting on braces, how to actually put braces in faces. Why is it so important that you have a checklist in place for this, my friend? Clay, imagine you just got up out of the chair, you walked out the door and all of a sudden all your braces fall off. Ooh, that would be good. That would not be good, that would be a sad day for you. Yeah, very sad. So, you know, like in our case, I mean there’s a human element to this, so we want to make sure we’re not hurting the patient. And so the checklists are very crucial. Let me say this, just by human nature, we tend to do shortcuts. Do you find that Dr. Z? Yes, but I’m still trying to figure out, I’m trying not to laugh out loud when you say we try not to hurt patients. I thought that was the whole fun of being an orthodontist, wasn’t it? It’s slight, slight to me. Mild. Mild. Little Bobby’s talking back to the orthodontist and you just give him an extra tightening adjustment there. Oh, Billy! He used to call me in when his kids gave it. Hey, can you throw in a little extra tightening there? No problem. They’re a little sass talking, so would you mind kind of giving a little something for the effort? A little something, something. So when you put on braces, though, I mean, it’s a very detailed process. I mean, how many steps are we talking? Is there hundreds of steps? Is there dozens of steps? I mean, how long is a checklist you have? Is it multiple pages? Or, you know, how big of a thing is it? Yeah, for putting on braces, it’s, uh, the biggest thing is that it’s very detailed. Okay. So we got to follow the checklist. So, uh, there’s probably 10 crucial steps that you need to have to what we call bonding or putting on braces. And if any, at any point, any of those, uh, checklists are, are missed, um, or shortcutted, guess what? You have bond failures, which mean your braces fall off, which is very inconvenient because the patient has to come back or hurts them and I have to come meet them. It’s just not a good deal. Now I want to read a notable quotable that 100% validates what you just said. It’s from Atul Gawande. This is the author of the Checklist Manifesto, How to Get Things Right. And here we go. I now read, Z. Are you ready, Z? Yes, I bring it on. Bring it on. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient to the point and easy to use, even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything. A checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps, the ones that even the highly skilled professionals, a professional using them, could miss. Good checklists are above all practical. Now, I want to give you some statistics. If you get this book, it’s a red-covered book called The Checklist Manifesto, and if you pick up this book, because either there’s a statistic in this book that will blow your mind, probably not your mind. Blow my mind, Clay, blow it! Okay, here we go. They did a study on doctors in surgery. Doctors in surgery. And I’ve never been a doctor in surgery, although I’ve watched some movies on it. And so what you’re supposed to do is wash your hands, then you’re supposed to wash the patient’s hands, right? Then you’re supposed to apparently read their chart because some people are allergic to certain kinds of medication And then you’re supposed to make sure that you’re removing the right thing fixing the right thing Operating on the right leg or the left leg. You’re supposed to check the chart and in this book They studied and you want to guess what percentage of the time that a doctor forgot some of these very very critical Steps when not using a checklist. I’m going to ask you, Dr. Z, what percentage do you guess? It’s kind of like Jeopardy, okay? You want to guess the right percentage without going over. What percentage of the time did the doctor forget one of these critical steps according to the checklist manifesto book? Z? I am going to say, through much deliberation, 37.3%. Okay, he says 37.3%. That’s his guess. Dr. Joe, what is your guess, my friend? I was going to say 50, but let’s go with 45. In the book, they discovered, and maybe they were being a little bit nice, they were discovering basically one-third of the time when a doctor did not use a checklist, they were missing one of those steps. Now here’s where it gets really crazy, is that when they started surveying doctors and asking them why they are not using a checklist they started, the doctors started saying they felt like they were above a checklist. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Like it’s common sense, like I don’t need a checklist to remind me of that, I do it every day. I do it every day man, this is what I do, it’s what I’m paid to do. What are you doing for? I went to school for this, what are you talking, why you got to give me a list? This is what they do, they start to say. What you’re saying I don’t know what to do I am I’m calling you out I’m saying I don’t know what to do I am attacking you yes now I’ll say this now this is not just in doctors this is all different industries and so he went in and studied construction he studied airplanes you know flying airplanes and he found out that consistently that these small airplanes that were crashing all across the country you know why they were crashing Z? Because I’m gonna take a wild one. I’m gonna take a flyer on this. They did not follow their checklist. Yeah, so basic maintenance wasn’t being followed. They’re running out of gas in the air. They’re kind of looking over. I’m gonna tell you a stupid story, but this is funny. Back in the day, I used to drive a Tahoe that we rented. I had a Tahoe that I bought, but it was back in the day when we were still renting DJ vans. So every weekend we’d have all these weddings we were doing and I didn’t have enough money to buy the vans, so I would just rent vans. Well, one weekend we were out of vans to rent. We couldn’t rent anymore. And so Z, I got my buddy’s Tahoe. This is an old, old school Tahoe. Can you picture in your mind? Like a throwback Tahoe? A throwback Tahoe. Okay. Now I’m with you. Big, big, huge vehicle. This thing was a gas guzzler. And it didn’t have a fuel gauge on it where you could tell where they accurate how much fuel was in it. And he told me this, he said, make sure no matter what you always fill up for gas about every hour and a half. Just do it. And I go, just do it. Absolutely. So I’m driving back from Dallas. It’s four in the morning. Jason Bailey’s with me in the vehicle. We’re driving and I am listening to music. We’re jamming and Jason is scared because you know, Z, I’m the world’s worst driver. Yes. Certified, verified. You are the world’s worst driver. Yes, I dub that. So I’ve got some old school music cranked up. We’re jamming, we’re having a good time. We’re just, we’re coming back. It’s probably three in the morning on a Sunday morning after DJing in Dallas. And then all of a sudden the car starts to go boom, boom. And I go, and I remember it was like, it was like everyone got quiet. There’s like four guys in the Tahoe. And I go, uh oh. And Jason looks at me, he looks at me and says, what do you mean? Uh oh. And I go, I think I forgot to get gas. Uh oh. And for those of you who know what it’s like to travel from Oklahoma City to Tulsa, if you don’t pull over and get gas, there’s a long stretch where there’s no place to pull over. And so we were hoping and praying and wishing that we would just run out of gas at a gas station because I did not make a checklist. I did not have a system and I forgot something that was very simple now. Luckily we rolled in on fumes Everybody to this day still talks about it But I’m gonna read you one more notable quotable that blew my mind from a tool go one day He says the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits safely correctly and reliably again the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, and reliably. So what we’re going to be talking about when we come back is specifically, let’s say you’re in a complicated industry. Maybe you’re a web developer, you’re a doctor, maybe you are an auction, an auto auction owner. Maybe you’re involved in a bank. The complexity of the systems is just, it’s so much you’re going to forget. In fact, I might have forgotten to mention it’s Throwback Thursday had I not had a checklist in front of me. And I might have forgot to dedicate this song from Dr. Joe to his beautiful wife of 13 years, Miss April. This is a little prince for you on this Throwback Thursday. Love you, Ape. Now here’s the deal. If you’re listening right now, bring your old school goods to the thrive15.com world headquarters and we’ll give you a copy of my newest book, Thrive. What is going on Tulsa? You are listening to the Thrive Time show on this throwback Thursday. We have been missing you in the worst way. It was Wednesday, we missed you for a whole 24 hours. You’re back. You’ve now put it in your little phone alarm so you could listen to it every day. You’ve marked it on your calendar from 5pm to 7pm every day. It’s almost audio utopia. And I am joined here with the man with the plan, an optometrist who just knows what he’s doing, a guy who’s built so many checklists that he’s become an authority of systems. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Utopia. I like that. Yeah. I think that may be the first time you’ve used utopia in your opening comments. I have a plethora of adjectives that I will be unleashing on your cranium later today. Just something more to look forward to. You look as though you have an alacrity, a cheerful excitement to learn something new today. I’m excited. I very much have an alacrity. Yeah, alacrity. Alacrity, yes. I’m lacrified. I’m joined here with a guy who is more intelligent than really both of us. He’s also an orthodontist. It’s Dr. Joe Lice. Sir, how are you? Man, I am humbled to be here, but when I heard it was Throwback Thursday, I was like, oh, I can wear my parachute pants and my Vans. Now, I’m wearing a throwback jersey. I’m wearing an OSU jersey, Oklahoma State University jersey. This is from back in the day when Bryant Reeves was on the team. Remember that, Z? Oh, yeah, big country, big country. Sick, unbelievable. Now, we’re talking about specifically how to build a high quality level of consistency. There are six items that make it possible to build systems to deliver a consistently high quality level of service. We are on item number three, move number three. The checklist, the tools, or the systems that allow you to actually delegate the completion of a process. Someone is listening right now and they go, I feel bad when I delegate. I feel bad. I shouldn’t do it. I should do it. I feel like I should be the one who makes all the cakes and I should see all the patients. Because it’s my business. It’s my business. And maybe a customer told you, I used to like the business more when you’re the one who made all the cakes and you worked 70 hours a week. Yes, because your sugar is magical. And so you’re starting to feel almost guilty that you’re building a business that now can operate without you. And so rather than making these checklists and systems, you just keep making those cakes. You keep seeing those patients you refuse to delegate. So Joe, I’m going to start with you, Dr. Joe. I’m going to start with you. Who decides when to delegate in your business? I mean, at a certain point, who decides, okay, at Kirkpatrick & Lye, this is something that we can delegate? Who decides? So my partner and I say, hey, you know, we’re just, and when you can delegate is because you have systems and checklists so it allows you to delegate. And you know, you want to be cost effective. So it’s, you know, if I’m doing everything and not entrusting my assistants, then I’m not being cost effective with my time. So when they are allowed to do certain procedures, it frees me up to talk to my patients. I had a situation this week that made me lose my mind. You tell me how you would react to it at Kirkpatrick & Ly. I delegated an item to somebody. I chose to delegate to this person. This person decided to delegate to somebody else. Remember, I delegated to somebody and then they delegated to somebody else and that person they delegated to didn’t get the job done and I pulled them aside and I said, listen, when I delegate to you, you can’t delegate to somebody else. Oh, they delegated to delegation. Yeah, and they said, well, I think it was the best use of my time. Talk to me about that in your office if that ever has happened. I’m sure it’s never happened. Your office is a perfect and holy shrine to entrepreneurship, but when someone delegates, when you delegate to somebody, are they allowed to delegate to somebody else? Is that cool? Can people do that? I don’t advocate that, but it does happen in my office, believe it or not. So I always tell the person that I delegate it to, if they’re going to re-delegate it out, that they ultimately are responsible for that. So I hold them accountable if they’re going to re-delegate. Somebody has to own the item, and I encourage you, if you’re listening right now, make sure that somebody in your office owns the action item. Now, Z, I want to ask you, why do you delegate? I mean, when you’re thinking about all the things you have to do, why do you delegate certain things? For anybody listening right now who’s struggling to figure out what should I delegate, what should I not delegate, why do you delegate, my friend? I don’t. I do everything myself in all my businesses. That’s why I’m so busy. I mean, I answer every phone call. I pre-test every patient. I do every eye exam. That’s tough in two locations. That’s difficult in two locations, by the way. If you want to do things right, you’ve got to do it yourself. That’s why at Z’s auction, Z sees every car, he polishes the car, he sees every patient. Driving 800 cars in a two-hour span is difficult. Every business you invest in, you personally work there. Regent Bank is an example. You check out all the public customers. I make every loan. You make every loan. You write it up. You deal with the federal government, the local government. You do it all. You’re amazing. See, how do you do it all? That’s really what we’re talking about is the amazing bank, auction, optometry, medical guy. That’s me. I’m going to give you the big secret. Are you ready? You think you can handle it? I don’t know if I can handle it. Emotionally, you’re kind of leaving me on a cliffhanger here, my friend. Can I just let the helium out? You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. I’ve got a secret. Okay, what is the secret? And I don’t share this. This is the first time I’ve shared this. Oh, wow. Because this is how I can do everything. OK, here we come. Ready? The fax machine. I just fax myself everywhere. It hurts the first few times. I know it’s scary. It’s scary out there. And trust me, finally it gets to where it doesn’t hurt as much. So you put your body in a fax machine. Yeah. And then you just hit that button. And then boom, it works. It works every time. Unbelievable. They’re not teaching this in college. Whoa. So I want to ask you, why do you delegate? See, why? So you can get more stuff done, of course. And I tell you what, it was so fun. You know, when I first started off, it was me and I had one employee. For a total of two. Two of us. If you want to get home. Two of us. And what she didn’t do, I did. So then when I got to hire my second employee and delegate some more stuff to them, it was so exciting. Yes. So exciting. Someone’s listening right now, though, and I’m going to go through a checklist of things that you could delegate. I want to ask you your thoughts on this, okay? Okay, all right. I have been accused of over-delegating over the years by people that are, I would say, ignorant. But this is what they’ll say. You can’t ethically, the ignorant means you just don’t know. They say you can’t ethically delegate someone picking up your dry cleaning if they’re an employee of yours. But yet I’ve done it for years. They say you can’t because it’s personal use. You can’t do personal projects for you. But do you delegate things like this? Do you take pride in picking up your dry cleaning Z? Do you take pride in that? Not only do I pick up my own dry cleaning, I go in the store and do the dry cleaning myself. Okay, okay. So, but I mean. No, I do not feel bad about having any of my employees do anything that I require them to do. I’m paying them. Who says that I can’t, you know, change what their duties are for that day? I mean. And I’ve delegated over the years, just examples. Go to Office Depot and pick up ABC 123. Have you ever delegated something like that or do you like to do that yourself? I mean, this is not… Is this Russia? It could be. This is not Russia. Ok. We actually… Oklahoma is an at-will to work state. Unlike Russia. Unlike Russia. And if I told one of my employees to do something they didn’t want to do, it’s not Russia. They could say, you know what, I will seek gainful employment somewhere else. Because I don’t want to stop by and pick up your dry cleaning. Exactly. I don’t want to go outside the building and pick up trash. I don’t want to go outside the building and pick up trash. I don’t want to go outside the building and pick up trash. Exactly. I don’t want to go outside the building and pick up trash. Now I want to ask somebody listening right now, I want you to ask yourself right now, let’s make a list. If you’re listening right now, there’s a thing called Pareto’s Principle, and the idea is that you should spend 80% of your time focused on the 20% of things that you can only do. You want to spend 80% of your time doing the 20% of things that only you can do. You want to put your highest and best use at the priority. You want to focus on those things. I want you to make a list of things that you can delegate. How do you decide here, Dr. Joe, when to delegate? How do you decide what items you should delegate, my friend? Well, I want to make sure that I do the things that the patients want me to work on. So I just decide what’s important, like you said, the 20%. The 20%? One of the things I found out in my profession, optometry, is that as you go through optometry school it’s a big deal to learn how to do the stuff. The stuff. The stuff. The things. The things. To push this button, to look over here, to pay attention to this, all the moves. Look at that cornea. It’s a great cornea. And then there’s a portion of it that says, okay, now once you gather the information, then here’s what it means and here’s what we do. That retina looks good. So when I hire a doctor, I sit them down and I say, listen, here’s the way it works. You can be a technician and you can get paid 12 bucks an hour, or you can be a doctor and get six figures It’s up to you now look at me like what are you talking about? So you know when you ever are you I tell him I said when you go to the doctor Does he measure your height does he take your your history does he check your temperature? Does he do all those things no a nurse does right or a health care assistant does those things yeah? And so one of the things that happened that I saw in my profession is that they really identified being an optometrist to collecting that data. That was the move. They had to collect that data because that was what was being a doctor. There is a notable quotable that I want to read that totally piggybacks on what you just said. This is from Michael Gerber, the bestselling author of… Gerber, Baby Food? Michael Gerber, from the book. It’s the E-Myth book series. He says, with no clear picture of how you wish your life to be, how on earth are you going to live it? What is your primary aim? Where is the script to make your dreams come true? What is the first step to take and how do you measure your progress? How far have you gone and how close are you to getting to your goals? The reason why that quote just jumped off the page to me is because you have designed your life in your head, Z. I know, Dr. Joe, you’ve done this. You’ve designed your life. Dr. Joe, how many kids do you have at last count? Four. Four kids. And Z, how many kids do you have? Three. Three. And I have five, so I win this game. Yes! Wow! Team clock! But the thing is, I have a vision for what I want with my life. You have a vision, Z. You have a vision, Dr. Joe. And one of our visions we have, I think the common vision we all share is we don’t want to spend our entire life just doing the same repetitive task over and over and over while not being able to go out there and pursue our dreams. And the whole purpose of starting a business is so that you can turn your dreams into reality. So for some reason, if you’ve built a business and now your business has become almost a vehicle that you’re trapped in, instead of being a vehicle to get you to your goals, it becomes a vehicle that you’re trapped in, that’s where you don’t want to be. You don’t want to be there. You don’t want to do it. Now, coming up, we’re going to talk to you about move number four. You want to know what move number four is? Come up next. What is going on, Tulsa? Welcome back to Talk Radio 1170. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show. If you’re just now tuning in, this is really the show you want to mark your calendar for. You want to put this in your phone. You want to set the little phone alarm. It is the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. You can listen to Tulsa’s only local business radio show where we give you the business school without the BS. We talk about the things, we provide you the answers to the questions you’ve been asking yourself for years as a business owner or somebody who wants to own a business. And as always, we are joined here with Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I am fantastic. And this show is professionally crafted. Crafted? For 57% of the people listening to it right now. According to Forbes, 57% Z. 57% of people are doing what? They’re just waiting to open their own deal. 57%? Their own move. Their own pizza hut, burrito truck. If you Google this mess, if you Google, you can verify 57% of the people listening right now want to start or grow a business according to Forbes. And so we brought on a guy, a very special guy, a guy who apparently helps America straighten their teeth. What kind of doctor are you, sir? Dr. Joe, what kind of doctor are you? I’m an orthodontist. I put braces in faces. What’s the funniest, I mean, orthodontist, people probably said you were fill in the blank doctor. What’s the funniest thing you can remember? Because they do it with me with an optometrist. I’m a… You’re like a neurosurgeon, right? Have they said something other than orthodontist? For me? Yeah. I called him an optometrist earlier today, which is why I called him that. Boom. They did one right there. Jackassery in action. Eyes, teeth, that’s all in the same area. Yeah. I get… All good. I don’t know why, but there was a period of time people would go, oh yeah, he’s my obstetrician. I’m like, yeah, that’s okay, no, no, no, but okay. We’re talking today about something that I know is near and dear to both of your hearts. It is how to build a system that allows you to deliver consistently high quality levels of service. In other words, how to build a system so you can delegate and get out of the office occasionally to enjoy life. So Dr. Joe, I want to ask you this. When you’re not seeing patients, what are some of your favorite things to do? You and your beautiful wife April and the kids, what are some things you like doing when you’re not seeing patients? What kind of stuff do you like doing? Well I tell everybody now that I’m a professional little league coach. Oh, professional little league coach. Wow, that’s impressive. Yep, I coach football, basketball, you name it, baseball. Did you come from a long line of doctors? What was your life like growing up? Were your mom and dad both doctors? No, I did not grow up in a line of doctors. My parents owned a restaurant. Really? I pretty much grew up in a restaurant. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a doctor. Did your parents work very hard? Were they pretty hard working people? Were they working around the clock? Around the clock, 24-7 it seemed like. Like I said, I lived and grew up in a restaurant, so it’s just who I was at that time. So at what point did you decide, hey, I want to become a doctor and an orthodontist, and I want to maybe do things a little bit differently. When did that spark occur in your brain? That probably happened in college. Really? I’m just kind of figuring out my path. I thought I was going to be an engineer. Wow. And that kind of got squashed pretty quick. Really? What squashed it? Was there a mean professor? Was he a mean guy? Yeah, I wasn’t a professor. Just one of those feelings. I couldn’t see myself crunching numbers and stuff like that. Fell into the profession of the sciences that I liked and dentistry. And then one thing led to another. Now if you’re listening right now, I can tell you 57% of you, as we mentioned earlier, have that feeling. You want to start a business you want to do what you say I want to get this business going you’re listening to the thrash time show on talk radio 11 some of you have actually started the business you’re crazy enough to do that you wake up every day you wake up every day excited and scared excited and so we’re moving on to item number four okay item number four is you want to build a training system to teach the process once it’s been documented. Now Zee, I have a notable quotable from none other than a guy who could be president of the world. It’s the coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick. Are you ready, sir? Yes, yes, yes, I am. This is the notable quotable. He says, My personal coaching philosophy, my mentality has always been to make things as difficult as possible for players in practice. However bad we can make it, I make them. However bad we can make them, I make them. So let’s talk about this. So once you build a training system and you want to start teaching the process, Joe, I know you guys do it over there at Kirkpatrick and Lye Orthodontics. Why is it so important that you teach them how to do it, show them how to do it, let them do it? Why is it so important, again, that you teach, that you tell them, show them, and let them do it? Talk to me about your approach to practice? I like that Bill Belichick way he says it makes it as hard as possible. I think if you’re under stress and you’re working right there with the patient and you’re doing it exactly how we want them to do it, they’re going to pick up the process quicker and faster and be more efficient over time. So they’re just putting it in play. And then obviously it’s okay to make mistakes. That’s why we want them to put it in play. I have a funny story that involves making fun of myself. It’s kind of fun on the show where we can tell old school stories like before we had some success. Well, it is Throwback Thursday. It is, but this one is like Throwback like five days ago. Oh. Oh. So Eric Chup, one of our producers, Chup, if you remember this, I know you can’t talk to me on the air here, but he comes to my house and I have this set up at my house, so I practice all the time. So he pulls up, and I guess that the outdoor mic was on. Is that right? The outdoor mic was on? Yeah. So the outdoor mic’s on, so he hears me making introductions for the show, and he pulls up. I didn’t realize, I wasn’t worried about it, but I didn’t realize that the mic was on. And we have a contractor working in the house right now, and I walk out to my car today to grab some stuff, and he goes, your announcements sound good, man. And again, my son flips the switch, and so the speakers are activated outside. Those kids. And so I’m sure my son thinks it’s hilarious. But the thing is, is that I have to practice over and over and over. And as you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show, many people all around the world have told us, man, we love your show. We will love the show. Well, I appreciate that. But I can tell you this, the show right now is half as good as it’s going to be next year. And it’s going to be half as good as the next year. The next year is because of preparation. We have to prepare. The research we do for this show is just over the top. Mind boggling. Mind boggling. You have to prepare. You have to prepare. You have to prepare. So if you’re listening right now and you have a system, you have to block out time in your schedule to actually teach your team. So I used to do, back in the day, on this Throwback Thursday, I used to set up all the DJ systems and I would have the DJs, I’d have six guys at a time, usually between five and six guys, and I would put a stopwatch out and I’d say, go ahead and set up your system, you have ten minutes, go. And they would go as fast as they could to set up the equipment, they’re trying to plug in the amplifier, plug in the speakers, plug in the mic, plug it in, and then I would go, hey, you’re over. And the guy’s like, man, I have two hours to set up, why would I want to set up in ten minutes? I go, because if you can set up in ten minutes, then two hours isn’t stressful. Then what I did, then what I did is after they would set it up, I would unplug random things, and they would have to troubleshoot and figure out what wasn’t working. You better check them. I did over. You better check them. People used to drive by 91st and Lynn Lane, and they would see all these guys with like eight different sound systems setting up, taking down, it was like the Olympics. And I did that because I didn’t want the stress of the daytime performance to overcome people, because it’s so hard to be an entertainer when you’re stressed out. It’s almost impossible. Since it was like the Olympics, did you give out medals? I did not give out medals. Was there a medal ceremony with the stage set? Our equipment did involve various kinds of medals. There was all different kinds of alloys and medals and so we didn’t. No we did not. Well on this throwback Thursday, since Dr. Joe is here, he loves his wife and his wife April loves print. All of our outtakes we’re doing print today. We’re going to print. What do you have in store for us? Joe you have the mic. Just say anything you want to your beautiful wife. This one’s dedicated to you, April. Aw yeah. From Dr. Lee. And April you can’t see it, but he’s got a little tear in his eye right now. I think there’s going to be some romance going on tonight. This just in from our weather center. I see a chance for romance here at the Kirkpatrick and Lye Home Office of Dr. Joe Lye. It is a throwback Thursday here on the Thrive Time Show. You’re driving home and you’re thinking to yourself, throwback Thursday? What does that mean? What does that mean? Let me tell you what it means. It means that you’re listening to Tulsa’s only local business radio show. But we’re people. We’re people of the people. We represent the people. We live right here in Tulsa. And we know that if you’re in your car right now Let’s say that you’re a lady and you’re in your car right now You know that you moved all your husband’s favorite a coupe favorite accoutrements and memorabilia into the attic But I’d have line item number one when you got married You said move all your stuff into the garage move it into the attic and so now he has a Jose Canseco Poster. Oh, yeah, he has a David Robinson dream team bobblehead somewhere in the attic. A stuffed squirrel somewhere. A stuffed squirrel somewhere. And so what we’re offering to you is if you will bring that unused sports memorabilia or that accoutrement to the Thrive15.com world headquarters and studios here off of the Arkansas River here in Jinx, America at the Riverwalk, we will give you a signed copy of my newest book Thrive. But you have to bring it this week and then we’re going to incorporate it into the studio set here. We’re going to incorporate it into the studio set here We’re gonna incorporate it into the studio set so you have to bring some good swag. You can’t bring some weak swag No weak sauce is the what’s your favorite old-school? Sports memorabilia that you are the owner of my friend. Oh man, you just right there BAM. I’ve got a An old football that was signed by Every quarterback the Dallas Cowboys really well, I don’t have Dak Prescott on there now, but I had Tony Romo on there. But it goes all the way back to my favorite, Roger Staubach, who was like the definition of a man. Now, Dr. Joe, back in the day, Dr. Joseph Lye here with Kirkpatrick and Lye, our special guest, did you have an old school team back in the day that you cheered for? Were you a big sports fan? Did you have an old school favorite sports team you were really hot for back in the day? Back in the 80s, are you kidding me? The Lakers. The Lakers! Magic Showtime. Oh, yes. Somebody’s listening right now. You have a James Worthy poster. You have a Shaquille O’Neal poster. You have a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar poster. You’ve got some kind of… Ooh, yeah, doing the big… The hook. The sky hook. Bring that here. We’ll give you a signed copy of the book. But before we get too hot and bothered about the throwback Thursday, let’s get into what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the six items that make it possible to build systems that consistently deliver high quality levels of service. And we’re talking about move number five. Move number five, item number five. You want to have a training video or some kind of system that allows you to teach 15 new people your systems if you had to without the investment of your personal time. That’s the big challenge. You know, can you teach people to do what you do without you being the one who has to teach what you do? Can you delegate it that far where now someone else can teach the people? Can you teach the teacher of the people? So I want to ask you, Zee, how do you, at this point, if somebody starts at your optometry clinic, who trains the new people? Do you train all the new people? Who’s training all the people? I’ll tell you what, though. I just want to pause for a second. Yeah, sure. Because it was this concept that led you and I together down this path we’re walking down right now. We’re walking down a path together. Walking down this path. Yes. You had the brainchild to say to yourself, how can I business coach more than one person at a time? Yes. How could you do it? We looked at a cloning. Yes. It wasn’t ethical. My wife says, not ethical. We tried. Not organic. That clay number two, he’s not that. We tried the cloning deal. Yeah. We tried the hologram game. We watched that Tupac video where Tupac does a live concert. Michael Jackson does a live concert. Didn’t look that good. So we came up with another idea. And that was Thrive15.com where what we did is we did training videos to where now we can train millions of people. Millions. Millions. It’s been confirmed. Millions of people at the same time how to start and grow a business. So we did it. We did step number five and that’s what led us together to do Thrive 15. So if people want to get on there and get marketing, marketing videos. 19 bucks a month. Bam. If people want to get on there and learn about leadership, they can learn from like David Robinson. 19 bucks a month. I mean like David Robinson, NBA Hall of Famer. And for 19 bucks a month? Just $19. So it’s video, they got online training templates, that kind of thing. But let’s get back. Let’s say that you’re listening right now and you own a bakery, you own a photography business, you own an orthodontic practice. We hope if you do own a competitive orthodontic practice that you will stay out of Tulsa. Otherwise, the good folks at Kirkpatrick and Lye will just dominate and you will only have the leftovers. Dominate. They will dominate you. No, but in all seriousness, how do you go about training people at your office? I mean, do you personally now train every single front desk person that starts, Dr. Joe? How does that training process occur? No, I used to. Here’s the problem. When you’re first starting out, like Dr. Z said, it was just you and a couple of assistants. You have the time. Yeah. Okay? So time we cannot buy. And as you get busier, you find, oh, I just don’t have that 10 minutes or five minutes. So again, you delegate that to your senior staff member to train the new person coming in. And I will say this. On this throwback Thursday, I was thinking about it. I’ve been married now about 15 years. Oh yeah. And one of my pursuits that I keep chasing, I love just chasing my wife around. Z, can you relate to this? Oh yeah. I’m not sure what to do once I catch her exactly. Yeah, you kind of sort it out. The thing is that I can never find enough free time with my wife and my five kids and it seems like there’s always one more thing to do at work. There’s always one more thing to do at work. What I like to do is I like to ask myself when I have a thing in front of me, would I rather do this or spend time with my kids outside of that nine to five? I started in the last five or six years going during 9 to 5 let’s get crazy what if I don’t even want to do that work at all 9 to 5 what if I want to actually spend time with my wife? Is that possible? 9 to 5. Z do you actually spend time with your wife and kids during the 9 to 5 day? Yes! What? I know it’s crazy! You built systems that allow you to do this? Systems! Do you ever feel bad? Uh, let me think about that. No. Have people ever made you try to feel bad that you spend excessive amounts of time with your wonderful wife and your beautiful kids. No, not at all. Really? No. People cheer for you. They’re excited. They’re excited. They’re kind of more questioning sometimes. I mean, they’re more, you know, how are you able to do that? What’s going on? Why aren’t you at work? We’re going to teach you when we come back in our final segment, we’re going to teach you about how to design the life you want because you have these systems that you’ve designed. We’re going to teach you how to come up with copious amounts of free time as a result of building these airtight systems. What is going on? You are listening to your new favorite business show. It’s Business School without the BS. It’s the Thrive Time Show. We’re here on this throwback Thursday talking about something that so many entrepreneurs struggle with. So many entrepreneurs, if you’re listening right now and you’re saying, I just don’t know how to delegate. Every time that I delegate, no one does their freaking job, and then I just want to do it right, so I wanted to do it myself, and you’re tightly controlling every aspect of everything. We’re going to teach you how to just kind of delegate, and then that way you can enjoy your life. You don’t have to be the one who does every single aspect of every process in your business. So we’re talking about item number five, which is make a training video or a system that allows you to teach new people without you Personally being the one to do it, but I want to read this little notable quotable here I want to read this notable quotable and then dr. Z I want to get your take on this and dr. Joe lie with Kirkpatrick and lie I want to get your take on it notable quotable says the difference between great people and Everyone else is that great people create their lives actively Well, everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is living fully and just existing. That’s Michael Gerber, the bestselling author of the E-Myth book series. Why is it that great people always seem to be contrasting where they are versus where they want to be? Why is that a universal thing you see as you begin to study great and successful people? Ah, therein lies the rub. Ooh, the rub. The comparing happens because you have a goal. You have a target. You got somewhere you want to get to. You follow? So if I look at my day-to-day and I say, listen, that’s not what I had quite planned for my day, then I can make adjustments on what I need to do different to get to what I want. And I think that’s what successful people have, is they have that goal, they have a target, they know where they want to get to. Because if you don’t know that, then you’re just kind of like a boat without a rudder. I mean, you’re just kind of just, wherever the wind blows you, I guess I’m doing this today. Dr. Joe, I want you to unpack this next notable quotable, because this one relates to you guys. The Kirkpatrick and Lye, if you’ve ever been there, if you haven’t been there, let’s say that you have your kids, they want to get braces on, maybe you don’t have a lot of money, you have a no money down, great financing options there, but you go there and you go in there and you go, okay, I’ve heard about the no money down thing, so maybe the financing options have led you to find Kirkpatrick and Lye. So you bring your kid in there and there you will be greeted by an army of awesome people. You have great technicians, you have great assistants, great people, there’s great people everywhere. It’s like a quick trip of orthodontics. It’s great people there. And one guy that you might not see when you first walk in is Dr. Joe, because he’s probably back there doing something else, but you have a great team. And so I’m going to read this notable quotable. I want you to unpack it. It says, if your business depends on you, you won’t own a business. You have a job, and it’s the worst job in the world because you’re working for a lunatic. That’s Michael Gerber, best-selling author. So I want to ask you there, how would your business be different, my friend, if you were the one who personally had to do the insurance and check the patients in and check the patients out? How would your life be different if you were the one man band and you did every aspect of the orthodontic process? I would see one patient. Like one a day? One a day. And I’m good. Oh. That’s it. I specialize in one patient. So how have you been able to get your team to be accountable when it comes to doing the paperwork properly, my friend, and doing the insurance properly? How have you been able to do that? Well you know, a lot of it’s on pride because if you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, then you’re going to self-relegate yourself because you’ve got all the checklists and everything’s there. So you just kind of know that that’s what you need to do. And I think some are listening right now, they’re struggling, Z. They’re struggling with delegating. They’re struggling to not feel guilty. They feel like the patient’s going to get a second quality service if they’re not the one who personally checks all the boxes. What encouragement would you have? What would you say to that person, Z? Get over the fact that they’re going to make mistakes. And they’re going to make a mistake that you wouldn’t make. And it’s going to drive you a touch crazy. You know? You’re saying get over it. Just get over it. It’s going to be okay. They’ll learn from that mistake. It’s a teaching moment. If they make too many of them, get somebody else in there. But if you don’t, you will not have control of your life because you will be doing every single thing. You just said if someone can’t do the job right, get them out of there. Oh gosh, did I? That’s so mean. We are talking, we’re in an election year, my friend. You’ve got debates going on. This is not a political show here, and you’re talking about advocating, firing people who can’t get their job done right. It’s so mean. Do you hate people? Oh, gosh. I guess I must, if I said that. How much do you hate people? I mean, I guess a lot if I said that. I guess you would prefer… So you’re not one of these people that would prefer to make all your customers upset and to hold on to terrible employees. Well, I tried that once. It didn’t work out so well. Okay, okay. All right, I’m just moving on. I just want to make sure it’s on the record. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. And so item number six. Item number six to help you delegate like a boss. Like a boss! You want to have a quiz-based system to basically find out if your people actually know what they’re supposed to be doing. Now maybe you have a quiz, like a formal quiz, maybe you have a formal test. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you just don’t trust them? No, you don’t. Let me get super political. Remember Ronald Reagan? Remember that guy? Oh yeah. Ronald Reagan, he said, President Ronald Reagan, he said this, he said, trust but verify. It’s pretty impressive. Trust but verify. Carlton Pearson, I know some people listening right now, it’s kind of controversial, he’s a former minister in Tulsa, but Carlton Pearson told me, he said, Clay, you can only expect what you accept. And I went, what? And he goes, and what you inspect. And I’m just going, what? I mean, so he goes, whatever you accept, whatever you let pass, that’s what’s gonna happen. And you have to inspect or things won’t get done. So Joe, I wanna ask you, after you’ve been training somebody, you’ve been matriculating with somebody, you’ve been coaching them up, teaching them. You’ve been teaching them. Breaking out the dictionary. Unbelievable, you’ve been helping them get a little bit better at their job. How do you know when they’re ready to go out there and fly off and go out of there and just dominate without you being present? Clay, it’s a process, but we do, we have a mentoring process, so there’s always a senior assistant helping a new employee that’s training. And then after that, we do kind of cut the cord. We’ve got to let them go and do what Dr. Occantuza did. Very scary because we have to trust them, right? Make sure they do the checklist. You have like six weeks with the mentor, don’t you? At least, minimum, six weeks. And I’m going to brag on you for a second, because Joe is probably one of the most humble people on the planet, which is why for this year for Christmas, I’m going to get you a big trophy that says, America’s Most Humble Man. That would be good. You just have to sign it before I can give it to you. You have to sign the document authorizing it. But the thing is, you guys, you have a six-week mentorship program at a minimum. I mean, you guys are obsessed with training. I’m telling you, you are like the Bill Belichick of orthodontics, my friend. You are just, it’s got to be done right, it’s got to be done right, it’s got to be done right. You train, you test, you train, you test. When they go out there, your people deliver. So when you delegate, it’s not a casual thing, but yet when you delegate, now you can go around and you can take a throwback Thursday, for instance, if you wanted to, to maybe leave a little bit early and go home and hit on your beautiful wife April on this throwback Thursday. You could, in theory, you could delegate that well. I probably could if I wanted to, in theory. In theory, but he’s very diligent. He’s always working hard too. But you could, you could delegate. Z, you have built systems so well that I’ve heard some days at the auto auction you don’t actually clean and detail every car anymore. Yeah, I gave that up. Yeah. It’s hard on your knees. You just didn’t know all those cars and all the detailing. I mean, I’d have to do 30, 40 a day. I mean, that’s a lot of work. Well, up until six weeks ago, I think when you had like 800 cars, you know, how many cars do you typically sell on a Friday at the auction? We’ll run, you know, 800 to 900, somewhere in that, in that vicinity. And I’m just reading my notes here. Up until six weeks ago, I mean, you were detailing every car you were out there with. Every car and driving every car and checking in every car. Do you remember financing? And what’s really challenging though is when I auctioneer and drive the cars at the same time. That’s tough. That’s mentally taxing. Well, what I do is I just mic myself up as I’m driving through, you know. When someone right now, you’re listening and you’re going, okay, I get it. There’s some good stuff here, but I might want to hear this again. I want to listen to it again. I’m going to give you the resource. You go to thethrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. You can listen to it again. And we have these downloadables and these checklists and these systems, but they are only available for exclusive members of a little website that Dr. Z and I have developed called A Little Club, an exclusive membership. It’s a little bit higher caliber than the Summit Club or the Cedar Ridge or the very high brow. We have people who work there, butlers who just feed our dogs lobster. That’s how exclusive it is. That’s lobster with the right amount of butter. No, but seriously, tell people what Thrive15.com is all about, my friend. It’s your one-stop shop to get business coached up. In other words, $19 a month, you can get on, kind of like Netflix, you can get on and you can just binge watch all the business coaching. There’s thousands of videos and we’re adding more all the time so there’s no way you’re going to get caught up and go, oh, they need another video. And you can watch the video of today’s training. So if you want to watch the video version of all the radio shows you can do that. If you want to ask a question, a question, a question, you mean in the world of no customer service I can pick up the phone and boop boop boop boop and talk to a live human? Yes. Yes, this just in, we have live humans that work here as well to help you on the business hotline. The thing is, it is your business school without the BS. If you’ve been putting it off, if you’ve been saying, okay, I’ve been thinking about it, I don’t know, I don’t know. Let me tell you what, you’re going to spend $19 at Quick Trip this month buying random energy beverages and random, what did you buy me today, a Lunchable? You’re going to spend more on Lunchables this month than you’re going to spend on Thrive15.com. It’s $19 a month and in our history, we have no student debt. No student debt. And on this throwback Thursday, since Dr. Joe’s here, and his wife loves Prince so much, we’ve been giving the listeners out there just a little bit of Prince. Dr. Joe, you have the floor. Is there a special dedication you want to make to your beautiful wife, April? This is it right here. A little Red Corvette. Oh, nice, nice. Survive Time Show. Come back tomorrow. 3, 2, 1, boom! Boom! Alright JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? Um, to get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would, uh, you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your mind, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals. Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right. So the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap. Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they could reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like nah that’s not worth my time. We getting there, we getting there. There’s probably some someone out there. Okay. They would think that. Well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard because you can compare rates you can save money and you know the big the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom and in order to do that you have to maximize your profits holy crap now one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss. I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Uh, uh, uh, uh. Stop looking at me swan. Well let me tell you a good story here real quick here. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS it’s integrated payment services and I scheduled a consultation I I don’t know that was skeptical I just thought whatever I’ll take 10 minutes I’ll compare rates I can’t tell you can tell me I’m a doctor no I mean I’m just not sure but can’t you take a guess well not for another two hours you can’t take a guess for another two hours. And in my case, in my case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, you know, like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. No! Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, alright? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, alright. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s in elegant, from Ridgeway. It’s from Ridgeway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there to go to ThriveTimeShow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you ten minutes or less and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we wanna do is we wanna share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just wanna let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on What they’re listening to right from there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews You know asking our customers for reviews And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area and that’s really helped with our conversion rate and the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411 percent over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten, people really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And it’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast, like Jared had mentioned, that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten the success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. And we didn’t know… Oh, sorry. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the head of Disney, with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers. And they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6 to 8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6 to 8 weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same system that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t loan. We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. We go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to our call. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster and so now we we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of a hundred clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking but I had no control over it. I didn’t without the systems you’re gonna be at the you’re gonna be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage what is that? I have grown, I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, yeah I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating new, some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, turns into sales. Well, I tell you, you know, it’s, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with the script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually, we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day on that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do… If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. That’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012. And at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software. It was about 10 11 years we met How did we read me? What was the first interaction or some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to hideaway pizza, but you remember when we first reconnected. Yeah Well, we had that speaking thing that oh there was so it’s victory Christian Center. I was speaking there My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship. But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay and the experience working here has to put it real plainly has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge but I have gained a whole new mindset mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you wanna implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, It’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. He’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, in short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day actually. I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning come coachable. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.