Entrepreneurial Podcast | The Proven Path to Growing a Successful Personal Training Business (And Other Businesses) On the Planet Earth NOW (During Your Lifetime)

Audio Transcription

• All right Thrive Nation on today’s show we’re gonna teach you how we we’re gonna show you demonstrate for you How we helped a company to grow from seventy thousand dollars a year in sales to 1.5 million dollars in sales the company’s called Cornerstone Fence and we’re gonna teach you how to grow a successful personal training company and We’re gonna feature an interview with the co-author of rich dad poor dad the Robert Kiyosaki book which sold 45 million copies. We’re going to walk you through an interview. We’re interviewing the co-author of the book. Her name is Sharon Lechter. Again, this is one of the top-selling self-help books of all time. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And the co-author of that book, Sharon Lechter, the CPA, she joins us on today’s show. So it’s gonna be a blasty blast. Grab a pen and a pad and prepare to enter into the lab in the dojo of Mojo Faux Show. It’s the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show.

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  00:54

  Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here.

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  01:05

  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 look as a father of five, that’s what I’m about. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go.

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  We started from the bottom, now we’re here.

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  01:28

  We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thrive Nation, on today’s edition of the Thrive Time Show, we are turning now in my newest book, A Millionaire’s Guide, How to Become Sustainably Rich, to page 214. If you go to page 214 of my book, you’re going to see a picture of a success story, a client that we worked with. I’ll never forget this particular client. He contacted me and said, hey, my goal is to grow my business to a million dollars of revenue. And so we took on the client in 2019, and it was a startup, and we grew the guy’s business from a startup to $1.1 million of revenue, and then to $2 million of revenue. And then we helped him to grow to $4 million of revenue. But I remember there was a very emotional, in a positive way, reaction when Jeff Hansen grew his business from zero, or a startup, just getting going, into a $1 million company. And if you want to verify his company exists, that’s concord-home.com. That’s concord-home.com. And if you want to verify that I exist, just know there’s a vacuum in the background because that’s the cleaning team here, cleaning in the office. So Devin, I want to get your thoughts here. Why is it that certain people reach out, fill out the form, schedule a free 13-point assessment, and we help them grow a super successful company, and certain people don’t reach out? Why do you think that is? Because we have scholarship prices available to make it affordable for everybody, and we have over 2,000 success stories at Thrivetimeshow.com. You meet the clients that are successful. Why do you think that is?

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  They probably just think that, oh, I couldn’t do that.

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  Is that what you think?

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  03:22

  Yeah.

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  Now, what prompted this is, you told me that you’re gonna run a, what are you running?

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  15K.

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  What inspired you to run a 15K?

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  I just, I don’t know, I just was like, I need something to work towards, so.

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  So you signed up for a 15K?

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  Yeah, I Googled Tulsa Run, and I just was like,

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  there we go, I’m doing

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  03:40

  it. Okay, you signed up. So you’re running every day or once a week?

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  Yeah, it’s like three or four times a week I’ll run.

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  You’re running?

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  Yeah.

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  Okay, how’s that going? It’s good, yeah. I’m starting to run on the treadmill now because it’s getting dark out.

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  But I mean, you’ve kind of set yourself a goal.

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  Yeah.

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  And I find that a lot of people, what happens is they have a general goal, like I in general want to be successful. But I don’t think a lot of people sit down and take the time needed to figure out what that looks like. And so I’m just encouraging everybody, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire, you can download a copy of my new book and you can, my newest book called A Millionaire’s Guide to How to Become Sustainably Rich, and you can go to page 214 and you’re looking right there at a successful client, Jeff Hanson. We’ve helped him to grow his business and grow his business dramatically. He actually called up to the office and sent us a nice video thanking us for helping him to grow dramatically. I just talked to a client today who we just helped him to sell his business for $3.5 million. This is a guy that before he became a client was struggling paying the $1,700 a month seemed almost impossible to him. We actually started coaching him for a scholarship package, which is where we will work with you at a discounted rate to work with you to make it work. And now he just sold a super successful company. And I’m a person of action, so I sometimes don’t understand. I sincerely do not understand the idea of not taking action. So I’d just like to get your thoughts, because you are around normal people. I really don’t hang out with a whole lot of people. I just hang out with entrepreneurs So I don’t quite understand the idea of Wanting to have success and then not doing it would just love to get your thoughts Yeah I think I think what I was mentioning earlier people might not think they can and

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  They don’t want to put in the work to do it because it’s like you have to be consistent It’s not just gonna happen overnight So I think it’s like the they’re scared to start maybe because they don’t want to fail

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  So if you’re out there today, and you’re saying man, I want to have massive success, I want to encourage you. Napoleon Hill, the bestselling author of a book called Think and Grow Rich, he once wrote that action is the real measure of intelligence. Action is the real measure of intelligence. So I’m going to walk everybody out there through kind of this process of building a successful company. We’re going to go through the various pages of my newest book, A Millionaire’s Guide, How to Become Sustainably Rich, but I just want to make sure we’re clear. I do not do these shows to entertain people. I do these shows because of my own little personal war on poverty. I know what it’s like to grow up poor, and I think it’s terrible when people live in a horrible situation financially, not because they’re not good people or whatever that looks like, not because they don’t have a vacuum in the background, but primarily because they just don’t know how to earn money. They don’t know how to do it. So we’re going to go to page 249 of the book here. Clayton Christensen, this was a bestselling author, a Harvard professor back in the day, he said, to succeed consistently, good managers need to be skilled, not just in choosing training and motivating the right people for the right job, but in choosing, building, and preparing the right organization for the job as well. So what he’s saying there is that you have to build an organization that good people want to work at. I’m going to hang just a little bit of meat on that. How do you build a successful organization? Step one, you’ve got to sit down and you have to know your numbers. Now, Devyn, why does every business owner out there, whether they’re a big business owner or a small business owner, why do you have to know how many sales you must have

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  to break even. Because if you don’t then you won’t know like okay I have to get seven sales to break even. If you’re getting five sales then you’re not gonna break even. You’re gonna lose money. You have to know.

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  You just have to know what you need to know. But what percentage of the clients do you work with that know that number before we talk to them?

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  Probably like 2%.

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  Yeah and so again if you’re out there today and you’re saying well step one what do I need to do? Step one you need to determine the number of sales needed to break even. Right now I’ve got a couple of businesses I’m working on. Basically, they’re more of a startup variety, but it’s in industries that I know very well. I’ve got a couple of those going right now. This particular person I’m thinking of right now, he says, I want to really grow a business in the fitness space. And I’ve helped to build, I don’t know, seven, I think, seven multimillion dollar fitness companies. So I know how to do that. But people want to talk about branding, and marketing, and logos, and print pieces, and websites. But we want to start with determine the number of sales needed to break even. Why do we have to start there?

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  Because if you don’t know that, then all the rest of it doesn’t matter because then the business

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  won’t be successful and it won’t grow.

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  Okay, now the second step is to build a scalable workflow. So I’m going to help you through this process. So this particular business we’re working on is a fitness business, right? So let me give you the pitch. Are you ready for the pitch? I am. Okay, I’m going to give you the pitch. You’re calling me because you want to get in shape and I run this fitness business and fitness is my passion because that’s on the fitness business in this particular case. This is, we’ll call it, Make Your Body Epic.

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  How can I help you?

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  Hey, I am looking for a personal trainer.

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  Cool, okay, awesome. Have you heard about us before?

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  I, no, I haven’t.

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  Oh, well let me walk you through what we do real quick here. First thing is your first week is a dollar. Second is when we meet with you for that first week, we’re going to find out whether you prefer the group class or the one-on-one. And then third, we happen to be the highest rated and most reviewed in our industry. And so you’re absolutely going to love what we do. With your schedule, are you wanting to work out after work, before work, maybe you don’t work? I don’t know.

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  Are you morning, afternoon?

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  What are you thinking? Morning. Okay, great. And we are the most affordable training company in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. So we have all different packages that will work with you, but I just want you to know we’ve shopped around. Everybody tells us we’re the least expensive in town. So as far as working with you, do you want to start tomorrow?

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  Yeah.

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  Okay. And the way it works is your first workout, you’re going to have to bring your shoes, workout shorts, workout shirt, the whole deal. And then we do have an on-site shower facility, so if you want to work out and take a shower, you can.

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  Or if you want to head home, that’s cool, too.

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  Awesome. Sound good? Yeah. All right. And we’ll see. That’s what it is. That’s the whole business. Okay. That’s step one. Okay. That’s the script. So when people show up, you can’t be shocked.

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  You showed up.

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  We have to be able to plan, right? And then, I was talking to this client last night, you have to script out all the workouts. So if you’re a new client, you don’t want somebody to go, well, one thing we might want to try is, you just want to get after it. So you’re like, okay, well the way it works with us is Monday is going to be back, biceps, and abs. Every Monday, back, biceps, and abs. Tuesdays, we always do legs and abs. Wednesday, we always do chest and triceps. Thursdays, we always, you have like a routine, you know, Thursdays we do shoulders, so the client knows that they’re gonna have an actual plan and you say that you wanna block out an hour for the training, but we normally wanna just go 45 minutes. So we wanna get here right on time, start on time, and for some reason, you know, something goes on, we want to give you a little bit of a, a little bit of a downtime before the next client. That’s kind of the idea. So we need to talk about something, work through something. Okay. So then you come to the first class, you do the workout, things are going great. Then we say, all right, it’s been three sessions. Do you want to do group or personal? Ideally, if price wasn’t a concern.

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  I like personal.

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  Personal. Okay. Well, the way personal works is it’s $1,500 a month, okay, and that gets you three sessions a week for 4.3 weeks a month, month to month, boom. Or if you do group, it’s $750, same workouts, but you’re with somebody else.

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  Oh, okay.

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  What do you think would be a better fit?

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  Yeah, I think group classes.

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  Okay, great. And that’s all it is. The whole, that’s the workflow. All right. Then you say, we want to do debit card or credit card?

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  Debit.

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  Okay. And you just get the card, you put it on file, automatic recurring billing, there it is. Now, after that, the customer has had the workout, they’ve had the onboarding, then you want to give them a booklet. And in the booklet, it’s where they track what they’re eating every day, and they’re tracking their weight, so that way they have a progression book. So you give them the book, and it’s a weight tracker book, and it has the meal plan in it. So here’s the meal plan, here’s the, it’s all right there. None of, everything I’ve talked to you about right now doesn’t cost any money in terms of you have to buy anything. You just have to determine the break-even point, build the scalable workflow, and it’s all documents that have to be done. Now, step number three, this is big, you must advertise. This is where your theory reaches the market and you say, is this a good idea? And you’ll know because if people fill out the form and you generate leads and your website gets you leads, you’ll know it’s working. But if you don’t generate leads, you know it’s not working. And that is really, that’s kind of the first three steps. Now step number four, you have to come up with an HR process. You have to create an HR process. You say, what’s an HR process? Like the hiring, the firing, the human resources. Because when you’re a personal training business, you’ve got to make sure that you have enough people working there to help the clients. But you also have to make sure that you have new employees joining your team at all times in case an employee quits. Because if you have a personal trainer and your workout is on Wednesday at 5 a.m. and you get there at 5 a.m. and your trainer isn’t there, how’s that going to go? That’s going to be disappointing. And what if it happened like twice in one week? That would just be annoying. How many would it cancel? How many misses would you have before you cancel?

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  I think that second time I’d be like, all right, I’m out of here.

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  Would you? Yeah. See, that’s the thing because people want the accountability. And again, so you have to have the human resources process in place, because if an employee quits, they move, whatever, you’ve got to fill in the slot. And with this particular business model, which I’ve helped build multiple times, why do we want the customer to be loyal to the process and not to the specific trainer? Why do we want the customer to say, we’re going to work out with you, our team will work out with you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5 a.m., as opposed to this specific trainer will work out with you?

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  Because you can’t really, you have to expect people to leave. So you have to make them, like you said, loyal to the process, not the people.

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  So they don’t get attached and once someone leaves, they’re like, I’m leaving too.

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  There it is. Okay. Now we go to page 250 of my newest book. You can download this for free at thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. Final point I want to hammer home is you need, this is a Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple. He once said, you need the kind of objectivity that makes you forget everything you’ve heard. Clear the table and do a factual study like a scientist would. This is really important. Again, he says, you need the kind of objectivity that makes you forget everything you’ve heard. Clear the table and do a factual study like a scientist

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  would.

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  So step number five, you have to track. You’ve got to measure your results. Why do you have to measure your results as a business owner? Why do you have to track?

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  You have to know what works.

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  Why?

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  Because if it’s not working, then you have to do something that does work.

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  And what percentage of your clients track the results by default?

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  By default, oh, like 2%.

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  That’s the same thing? Yeah. And again, folks, I’m walking you through that. There’s so many things in this book. It’s like a 450-page book. On part two of today’s show, to build your faith that you can do it, I’m going to introduce you to a story about a couple. They started a company called Cornerstone Fence. We helped Cornerstone Fence to grow from $70,000 a year of business to $1.5 million a year of business. So they’ve gone from $70,000 a year to $1.5 million a year of business. Same couple, but they implemented these systems. If you’re out there today, we have in-person workshops. We do those every two months. So you can go to those workshops and you can request a ticket today at Thrivetimeshow.com. You just click on the conferences button and you can learn more about these two-day interactive business workshops. They’re $250 to attend or whatever price you can afford. Or if you want one-on-one business coaching, business consulting, we can do that for you as well. And you can learn more about that at Thrivetimeshow.com. That’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Devon, I greatly appreciate your time being here today. If you’re out there today, folks, and you want your business to thrive, be encouraged. I know you absolutely have the mental capacity and tenacity needed to do it. You just have to take action. Remember that Napoleon Hill, the bestselling author, once said that action is the real measure of intelligence. Action is the real measure of intelligence. Now, without any further ado, part two of today’s show, our interview, our testimonial from a longtime great client, a company called Cornerstone Fence, who’s grown their company from $70,000 a year to $1.5 million a year of sales. And then before we play that testimonial, I’m going to play a little video clip of an attendee, a guy who came to a conference and he said on camera, he said, man, this conference was incredible. I can’t wait to take everything that I’ve learned and apply it to my business because this person had a struggling business that was very stagnant and they came to the conference and they were just filled with, they knew exactly what they needed to do moving forward and I want you to just hear their reaction post-conference there. So a lot of excitement there. Again, Devin, I really do appreciate you and if you’re out there today, be encouraged. You do have the tenacity and capacity needed to grow and to start a successful company. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation on today’s edition of the Thrive Time Show. We have kind of a fun combination snack pack for you. We’re joined here with John Lee Dumas of EOFire.com, the host of the EOFire podcast, a podcast that’s been downloaded by millions and that features Tony Robbins. He’s featured Gary Vaynerchuk. You can insert the name of the big time entrepreneur that he’s interviewed on his show over the years. Well, long story short, he interviewed me, I want to say now, what, seven years ago or eight years ago for the first time, and we hit off a friendship, and I really connected with him, and he loves featuring our clients on his show to share their success stories, stories because oftentimes we get great ideas from workbooks and from seminars and from self-improvement gurus, but oftentimes we don’t actually hear about people actually implementing that which they’re learning to go on to achieve massive success. And that is what I do. You know, since 2005, I have helped countless brands grow dramatically. So let me just throw out some examples for you. Oxifresh.com, oxifresh.com, they’ve grown now from three locations to 517 locations. You look at a brand like a shawholmes.com, and I don’t want to exaggerate, but I believe they’ve grown from about 16 million to over a hundred and thirty million dollars a year of annual revenue from 16 million to 130 million. You have James D. Cristofaro, an incredible attorney based in New York. We’ve helped James to grow his business dramatically. Just to cite my sources, that’s ShawHolmes.com. That is the other websites I mentioned. That’s thelawyerjames.com. Thelawyerjames.com. That’s oxyfresh.com. O-X-I fresh.com. Other success stories that come to mind. There’s kind of endless success stories at this point. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com and you click on the testimonials button, you’re going to see over 2,000 client success stories. Also, Tip Top K9, we helped them to grow from a small business doing about $350,000 a year of revenue into a business with 18 locations. That’s tiptopk9.com. You look at Elite Training, it’s a personal training business. We’ve helped them to grow to multiple locations, taught them how to license and how to open up multiple locations. Thankfully, we get a chance to work with grateful, appreciative people. That’s what’s wonderful, is when you work with grateful and appreciative people, you get to celebrate their wins and build a friendship with these folks where it’s not a transactional thing. We help people grow their company, but we get to be friends with them along the way. You look at ColawFitness.com. We’ve had the opportunity and honor to serve Amber and Charles Colaw to help them grow. And again, these are all success stories. You can verify them all. And I say them because, you know, according to Inc. Magazine, 96% of businesses fail. According to Inc. Magazine, that’s the stat, 96% of businesses fail by default. And if you go to usdebtclock.org, I’m not trying to depress you, but this is a fact, if you go to usdebtclock.org, according to usdebtclock.org, you have about 8.7 million people in America right now that identify as being self-employed. So if you’re self-employed, it can seem daunting, to be a daunting task to be one of those one out of a thousand people in America that grow a successful company. Think about the math for a second. There’s 330 million Americans in our country right now that we know about, and you only have 8.7 million people that identify as being self-employed, and Inc. Magazine says that 96% of businesses fail by default. So what we do for clients to help them grow is unusual. And so on today’s show, you’re going to be joined here by the voice of John Lee Dumas of EOfire.com And he reached out to us and scheduled an interview And I’m going to be playing that audio for you And if you want to hear the full broadcast from the EOfire podcast or hear other if you want to hear other EOfire Podcasts just go to EOfire.com That’s EOfire.com and there you can hear the rest of the John Lee Dumas podcast. Now without any further ado, here is the Danica and Jordan Norman success story. Their company is called CornerstoneFence.com. It’s Cornerstone, actually it’s CornerstoneFenceTulsa.com. CornerstoneFenceTulsa.com. They do decorative fencing, they do protective fencing, privacy fencing, they do chain link fence, wood fence, they do all of it. And again, you can learn more about it at cornerstonefencetulsa.com. But before we get into the interview with Jordan and Danica, we’re gonna do an interview here with Sharon Lecter. She’s the co-author of one of the best selling self-help books of all time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. If you haven’t read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, it might just change your life. Over 45 million people have purchased the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and today’s guest is a CPA, a CPA by trade, and she’s the co-author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Her name is Sharon Lecter. So without any further ado, here we go. Two men, 13 multimillion dollar businesses, eight kids, one business coach radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Business Coach Radio Show. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show.

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  That’s it.

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  Arms away. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here.

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  23:00

  We started from the bottom, now we’re here. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to The Conversation. It is the Thrive Time show on your radio and podcast download. Now, Chup, as a business coach, you and I have both worked with a lot of top-level, high-flying entrepreneurs. We’ve also worked with a lot of entrepreneurs that come to us slightly broken. They’re a little bit down, and we’ve helped repair them and helped them get into a level of success. Stitches and band-aids and things, yeah. But one of the things people always want to talk about is marketing and branding and sales. But people never want to talk about accounting and bookkeeping. They want to talk about the holy triumvirate. Marketing, branding, sales. They love that. Feelings and visions and new deals and growth and build-outs. But no one ever wants to talk about financials. They always want to delegate that. But yet, every single successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met really has a fundamental grasp of the financial aspects of the business. And so on today’s show, we’re interviewing a certified public accountant. Check. We’re interviewing a New York Times best-selling author. Check. We’re interviewing the CEO of the Rich Dad Poor Dad organization. Check. We’re interviewing somebody who worked with Robert Kiyosaki to write the 14 books of the rich dad poor dad series check we’re talking about the lady who took his idea which is on a piece of paper to make a board game robert kiyosaki’s idea to make a board game and turned it into a book empire check we’re talking about a lady who was asked by the national cpa financial literacy commission to serve as their national spokesperson all by the way this is the same council that served both President Bush and President Obama. Check. This is a lady who has a team of over 5,000 people who help her with her various entrepreneurial projects. 5,000, that’s a lot. Check. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a person here who’s written Napoleon Hill’s or she helped recraft Napoleon Hill’s book, Outwitting the Devil. You see, Napoleon Hill wrote a book, the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil in the 1930s. But when the best-selling self-help author of all time went to release it, his wife told him not to because she thought it was too controversial. And so years later, Sharon Lecter revived the manuscript and helped her release Outwitting the Devil. Check. She also helped to write Think and Grow Rich for Women. Check! She also helped to release the Napoleon Hill book, Three Feet from Gold. Check! Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is bona fide. She’s an unbelievable author, a dynamic speaker, a top-level entrepreneur, which indicates that she does not know who I am, because if she did, she would not have agreed to be on today’s show. So ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, our exclusive interview with Sharon Lechter. And she’s teaching you why you just cannot delegate your financials. Now, as far as the financials, look at the numbers. Sharon, very few entrepreneurs, I mean, we have a ton of people that attend our workshops. When they come to the workshops, and Dr. Z, you’ve seen this, people want to talk about marketing, the vision, sales, and then they want to go back to talking about the vision, marketing, and then sales. Then, Sharon, sometimes they’ll go back to the vision, then back to sales, then back to marketing. And yet, but you have to know your numbers. And I’ve heard you talk at length about this, but I’d like for you to share with the listeners about why you can’t abdicate your financials and why you can delegate them to a certain extent, but why you as the owner of the company have to be aware of what is going on financially. Can you coach us?

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  26:59

  Certainly. And I can’t agree with you more. You do a webinar or a seminar on sales and you sell out. You do a webinar or a seminar on understanding your financials and it’s hard to get people in their seats because it doesn’t sound exciting. But at the end of the day, your numbers tell a story and you’re creating that story and so if your story isn’t going the way you want it to go, the sooner you know about it, the better and so it’s very important for entrepreneurs. And sometimes, you can’t be the one doing the numbers because you want to focus on growing your business but you need to make sure you have the right people on your team. But you always need to know your numbers and you need to have a dashboard or something so that you’re constantly on it. As I sit at my desk right now speaking to you, I have my accountants outside working on some things for me. They know that I need to, you know, at any given time, I know what kind of accounts I have, I know what kind of money I have just because of my years of experience. But as a CPA, that’s obviously important to me, but it’s more important to me as a CEO. If you own your company, if you don’t know what the numbers are telling you, then you can get a very rude surprise, and it’s very important for people to understand the importance of understanding the income statement, which is telling you over a period of time how you’re doing it, and then also to understand your balance sheet, which tells you basically like a snapshot of a day in time showing you what your assets and liabilities are and how those two play together are very important.

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  28:37

  Sharon, I see, it’s painful for me to see it and as a coach and I write for Forbes and so I have a certain platform, but you have one of the biggest platforms in the world. So I’d like for you to maybe give the tough lesson to the entrepreneurs out there listening who are saying, yeah, I know accounting I know I need to know my balance sheet, and I know I need to know the income statement But I don’t because my accountant handles that. Could you give us the tough love for somebody out there who is refusing to know their numbers? I’m sure you’ve met people like this before

• 3

  29:08

  Well, they know the stat of the number of businesses fail in the first three years, and the primary reason they fail is lack of capital, lack of funding, and lack of financial management. What happens is those entrepreneurs that fall into that category, Clay, are the ones who put their head in the sand. They think that if they just drive faster and they make more sales, everything is going to be okay. The issue is unless you understand the whole picture and you understand what your margins are, understand what the bottom line is, you can’t really grow your business. People that are losing a nickel on something say, if I can just sell more of them, I’ll be okay. No, you’re just going to lose that much more money. You have to understand the cash flow of your business. More importantly, you need to understand the timing of your cash flow. And so it’s not just understanding that you’re selling a lot, but you need to understand when that money is coming in and when you have to spend money in order to make the product. So let’s say you sell a million dollars’ worth of product. Well, you have to have that product in your inventory or you have to have the money to build it so that you can collect a million dollars. And so you probably need a lot of that cash up front. And so what happens is business owners who don’t pay attention to that end up having to go to very expensive money, factoring those receivables to be able to pay for the inventory. And they get themselves further into debt, further into problems. And instead of feeling good about being successful, that success costs them their business because because they have not paid attention to the numbers, to the cash flow, and the timing of that cash flow.

• 1

  30:54

  You know, our show, we’re all about teaching listeners specific action steps they can take. And so I want to take a second to brag on a listener that’s actually doing this properly. But Erin, who I mentioned earlier with Shaw Homes, one of the things that gives them an unfair advantage over their competition is that they know the costs of the materials. So like when the cost of plywood went up drastically recently, uh Sharon they know that and so they were able to quote the clients accurately and they don’t get to the the end of the when you finish the home you know you close on the home the new buyer moves into the home they don’t have to tell the buyer oops it’s gonna cost more money and they don’t run out of cash. So I’d like for you to put on a little mini seminar here about what we need to know about cash flow because Shaw Homes knows cash flow, they know their expenses, that’s why they can quote people a price and honor it. But their competition, I mean, if you go online and read the Google reviews, there are so many reviews by customers complaining about the bait and switch move. I don’t think people are, the other builders are dishonest as much as they just don’t know their numbers. Can you talk to us about cash flow and just kind of cash flow 101? What do we all need to know?

• 3

  32:02

  Well, Aaron’s business is a perfect example of the timing of cash flow that I just mentioned because you don’t build a house overnight. And so they have to have the financing to get that house done, knowing that the payoff is in the future. And when that payoff comes in, hopefully it’s going to have not only pay off their expenses, but give them the profit on top of it. And those expenses include all those materials you’re talking about, but even more so, the labor of all the people on their team. And so just as in when I talk about cash flow, I want to take a minute about materials. So we talk about just-in-time ordering. So when they’re building that house, they can’t put plumbing in until the time they have the plumbing in before they can pour the concrete over it. Those things have to come in. There’s a stage in which you have things done. You can’t have the roofers waiting to put the roof on when it’s not ready for them. And so each stage of process of building a home has to be timed appropriately so that you have the minimum cost of labor for the people and technicians doing their job. And that has to be perfectly timed. And so that takes talent, that takes people who know what they’re doing. But it also, underlying, takes that expert and individual understanding what every minute of that costs them. So when they have a delay, or they have products not, you know, the lumber isn’t there, they have a week delay in lumber, they have to recalculate and find out what that’s going to cost them to make sure they’re always working to their budget to make sure they have the profit that they’re expecting at the end of the day. You know, people, we talk about remodels as the homeowner, all right? You always say it’s always going to take another, several months past what they promise. It’s a guarantee and it’s going to cost you more than what you originally commit to because you’re going to have surprises. And that’s something that can be very painful, but that’s those unexpected things. Every business has unexpected things. The issue is, the sooner you find out about them, the sooner you can plan and recover. And that’s all about cash flow. And cash flow comes with, from the moment you start your business, one of the things that can kill you is that you think you have sales and the sales are there but you don’t have to, it’s going to take you 60 to 90 days to collect on those sales. You have to have the cash to be able to build the product as I said earlier. What happens when all of a sudden you’re hugely successful and you have a huge order that comes in and you don’t have the ability to respond to that order? Your business can crumble and that’s why it’s so important to always have a pulse on your cash flow, not just your income and expenses, but also the cash flow, which is the timing of that. That’s why when Fortune 500 companies, they do an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement, so that you can see what’s happening within the business. Because the assets could go up because they’ve got outdated inventory. You know that when you start looking at the cash flow statements.

• 1

  35:16

  Now, one of the things that you have created that was powerful for me as a young whippersnapper, Sharon, the year would be 1999, I believe. This is maybe what, because you wrote the book in 95, is that correct? You and Robert came out with the book in 95? Well, we published it in April of 97. 97, okay. So the year is 1999. Dr. Zellner can vouch for me here. I dressed like Eminem. I had no idea what I was doing. Sharon, I went on to build the largest wedding entertainment company in the country called DJConnection.com. We did 4,000 events per year at the peak before I sold it. But I’m there working in a call center. I’m reading this book, the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book, and at some point you’re talking about this cash flow quadrant concept. I’m not sure how refined it was at that point. It was probably 2001 when I really started paying attention to the book and really understanding it. So it’s 2001, so I might have even read Cashflow Quadrant. But you talked about, there’s this quadrant, and you said to me directly like it was yesterday, you said, Clay, you start off as an employee, step one. I’m going, oh, that’s good, that’s good. Step two, you become self-employed, you own your job. And I’m going, yeah, that’s awesome. Step three, you own a business where other people work at the business. It creates jobs for others and time freedom for you. And then step four, you become an investor. And I realized I am an employee and I can’t afford to become self-employed yet. I now must get three jobs. So I worked at Target, Applebee’s and DirecTV. My wife worked at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University. I turned off my air conditioning, Ms. Sharon. You caused me to turn off my air conditioning. It is your fault and your credit. So it was very hot in Oklahoma in June and July. We had no air conditioning. It was hot and I’m reinvesting in myself, but I didn’t quit my day job until I could afford to become self-employed. Can you walk us through those four steps about being an employee and when it’s time to make the jump to become self-employed and what it looks like to become a business owner? Just walk us through your cash flow quadrant?

• 3

  37:15

  Well, the cash flow quadrant, if you imagine just across the top left corner is E for employee, the bottom left is S for self-employed. And so that left side of the quadrant, that’s what school teaches us. That’s how we are taught. And that’s exchanging your time for money as an employee or self-employed individual or even a small business owner who really owns a job, not a business. The right side of the quadrant, the top right corner, is B for business. And that’s where you have systems, you have other people working for you. And the real test of whether you’re an S or a B, as a B, you own a business. If you walked away and came back in six months, it would still be operating. It’s not dependent on you being there. So you totally own an asset, and that asset is the business and the business is being run by systems and people. And then you have investor is the bottom right and the investor is where your money is working for you. Whether you’re invested in real estate or in the stock market or in IRAs, whatever that is, that’s your money working for you. So your personal business is your personal financial statement. When you put money into your asset column, they’re like employees working for you. Those are your investments. And you want, you know, every wealthy person in the world has one thing in common. They own investments. They own assets. And those assets work for them. So on the right side of the quadrant, school doesn’t teach us how to be business owners. School doesn’t teach us how to be investors. We learn that through the real world education the world apart not and so at any give a sit here today on the phone call i i live in all four quadrants the vast majority of my income comes as an investor in the business owner but i’m still in play of my own corporation i still and self-employed when i go out and speak at the speakers fee and that’s that’s the left side quadrant that i want more and more of my income to come from the right side, because that’s not me working for money, it’s my assets working for money, business owners and investors. And so you don’t have to be an only one, you want to be. Everyone wants to have money as investors that are working for you, and have a business owner. And if you own real estate, that’s a business, you are in the business of real estate. So all of those things work together. Your ability to earn money on the left side as an employee or a self-employed person is finite. You only have so many hours, so many days in a week. However, on the right side, as a business owner and as an investor, your ability to make money is infinite.

• 1

  39:57

  I think a lot of people get stuck there in that self-employed area where their ability to earn is limited. It is finite. They get stuck there. Why do people get stuck there, Sharon? You’ve helped people get unstuck in that area. What’s that doom loop where people are stuck in that self-employed area?

• 3

  40:15

  Well, I think a lot of times you start getting so busy working in your business, you forget to work on your business. People feel like they have to do everything on their own. They don’t bring in the talent to help them grow their business. I mean, in order to be able to go from a small business to a big business, you have to have systems. And when you do everything yourself, it’s going to be hard to grow, and nobody’s going to ever be doing it exactly the way you want to. But if you create the system, you know, obviously we can think of the most perfect example, McDonald’s everywhere. The owner is not there. It’s run by teenagers and it’s done that because the systems are so ironclad that all that somebody has to do is follow the systems. And that’s the ideal of having, going from a small business to a big business. A big business has systems and you manage the systems, not necessarily the people. And you have people working for you, your systems are working for you, other people’s money. And that’s what really gets you out of a small business to a large business. Now maybe as a small business, you’re a doctor or you’re a lawyer, so how do you do that? Well, you hire other doctors or other lawyers and you start building a practice around it so that you have the ability to earn, have systems on how the operations are being handled and other people and you make a percentage off the other doctors and lawyers you’re taking the overhead and your Ability to grow and leverage in order to you know, you might have a very successful small business but a successful small business can only scale and Therefore be sustainable if it has systems I

• 1

  41:57

  feel like the systems involve checklists, processes, workflows, and sharing their things. They’re so boring. I mean, they’re not vision. They’re not sales. They’re not marketing. I mean, the systems thing, I’m kind of a sick freak in that I actually enjoy making systems because I like the result, and I think a lot of people get stuck in that rat race and they’re not even looking for a way out. Why do you feel like a lot of people get stuck and they’re not even, I mean, before they’ll be, I think people will come up to you at a seminar, they’re 45 years old, and they’ve been stuck in the rat race for 20 years, and then it just occurred to them for the first time at your seminar that it is possible to get out of the rat race. Is it just they don’t know or they’re overwhelmed? You’ve seen it probably more up close than I have. Why do you think a lot of people get stuck in that rat race?

• 3

  42:59

  Well, sometimes we get in a world of comfort, and that comfort turns into complacency. And even though we’re not where we want to be, we’re able to pay our bills and we can put our head on the pillow at night. And we end up just getting too comfortable. And what happens is a lot of times we have a crisis and we get thrown into chaos and we end up having to become creative again and that gives us the ability to have a bigger vision. And that you know the whole concept of understanding what’s possible and I think you know a huge issue is your environment. Are you hanging out with other people that are in that same category, people who are just getting by, people who are on the rat race. And if that’s the environment you’re putting yourself in, then it seems normal, right? If you want to get out of that environment, then you need to put yourself in an environment with people who are really striving for success, because they can help you. And most of the time, school certainly teaches us to do it on our own. And so, you know, we come out in the world business world, we think we have to do everything on our own. And it’s so important that we realize that you have the right people around you, the right team, the right peer network. We have the opportunity to really grow more quickly. The right mentor. Mentors are priceless because they’ve been successful where you want to go. And they can help speed your way to success by opening doors, steering you around the pitfalls. And there’s a difference between a mentor and a coach. A coach may not have that success, but they know what you want to do and they can help you be accountable and make sure you stay on track.

• 1

  44:35

  Oh, Thrive Nation, we just had Sharon Lecter on the show. How is it possible, Chop?

• 13

  44:44

  It was a Sharon Lecter lecture. I was nervous.

• 9

  44:46

  So good.

• 19

  44:47

  I was nervous. Yeah, well you should be. Sharon?

• 16

  44:50

  She’s an authority.

• 1

  44:51

  Sharon, do you remember when you wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad? That was pretty cool. I mean, I was, I’m just telling you, she is such a great lady, kind lady, and she’s agreed to be with us on six separate shows, which is so exciting. And so on our next interview with Sharon Lecter, we’re going to ask her about why college is

• 15

  45:14

  probably not the right move for most people.

• 1

  45:14

  We’re gonna ask Sharon, you know, why do you feel that college may not be the right option for many people? And so she’s gonna question the great religion of college, which I know is heresy to many people. You can question people’s religion, you can question their politics, you could question a lot of things, but you cannot question. Chip, I think questioning, even asking the question whether you should go to college or not, I think asking that question to some people, saying, should I go to college or not, is a lot like getting a kiosk at the mall and setting up a nice, beautiful, beautiful, can you, Chup, can you grab my megaphone over there by the man sink? It’s like setting up a kiosk. Imagine this Thrive Nation. Imagine you’re at a mall, a local mall area there where there’s a lot of stores. There’s Victoria’s Secret, there’s Bath and Body, there’s Champs, there’s a Foot Locker, there’s an Orange Julius, there’s a Chick-fil-A. It’s the standard amount of malls. Imagine that you set up a kiosk just outside of the food court and you play this game.

• 20

  46:20

  All right, ladies and gentlemen, step right up.

• 1

  46:21

  It’s going to be the weight guessing game I’m gonna guess your weight and if I get it right you win a magical prize if I get the weight wrong just keep on walking here folks I’m gonna start with you there you’re looking like you’re weighing 187. No? Okay well we’ll try again here we’ll play it again here I’m not getting a lot of interaction here I’m not hearing I’m not getting a lot of feedback from you I’m gonna say that you weigh 152 Sir we’re gonna play the IQ guessing game here folks sir you look like your IQ is a seven Don’t guess you can’t go over like the price is right you can’t go over is it 50 I’m not going to go up in the world, Chuck. No, it’s not going to get you very far. But because I have a megaphone available at all times in the man cave, we were able to imitate that scenario with perfect quality. It’s funny how many times you’ve said that.

• 19

  47:48

  Hey Chum, grab my megaphone, would you?

• 1

  47:51

  Alright, so Thrive Nation, stay tuned as Sharon Lechter on our next episode here asks the question, is college right for you? And as always, without any further ado, three, two, one, boom!

• 5

  48:05

  Fire Nation, we are back and of course we are on fire. Talking about from startup, not just to success, but to super success. And of course I have Clay Clark, who blows your mind every single time he’s on the mic. I also have Jordan and Danica on the mic as well. And I want to start, Clay, by talking about generating leads because we hear about this all the time, but so few people actually do this consistently. Despite your bold pronouncement, which I love, without solid leads, your business will die slowly as it bleeds money. True story, Fire Nation. Clay, tell us more about this.

• 1

  48:50

  Well, you know, with Jordan and Danica here as an example, you know, they have a fence company and I challenge everybody out there to not believe what I’m saying. If you go to CornerstoneFenceTulsa.com, Tulsa’s the city, CornerstoneFenceTulsa.com, you go there and we can talk about workflows and how to manage people and accounting and legal strategies or in your case, you know, moving to Puerto Rico to take a wonderful advantage of a totally legal tax loophole. There’s all these things you could talk about, but none of that matters if you don’t have leads. Leads are like oxygen for your business. If you don’t have oxygen, you’re not going to be around very long. It’s like food for your business. If you’re out there listening today and you feel like, wow, I’ve got a great product or a service, I can solve a problem for people, I’m a doctor, I’m an attorney, I’m a lawyer, I’m a home builder, but I don’t have any leads, then if you don’t have any leads, it’s sort of like you’re playing a video game back in the day contra that video game And you’re running out of life or something. You know, it’s like playing Street Fighter and you’re running out of lives It’s like you just got to have Leads and so if you’re out there today and you need to lead that’s what I really want to focus on today is teaching everybody out there how to Systemically so how to do it as a system and how to sustainably generate leads

• 5

  49:59

  leads. Okay I love everything about that except your Contra reference because anybody who really knows Contra knows left right left right BAB select start ABAB something something will give you 30 lives with every one of your continues as well so you actually never end up running out of lives but for Street Fighter totally realistic. Now Clay let’s bring in Jordan and Danica how did you work with them to make this happen in their business?

• 1

  50:28

  Now I’m going to go to Danica first because Danica, how did you even hear about me or what we do here at thethrivetimeshow.com?

• 11

  50:34

  So initially we went to one of the first two Reawaken America tours and after that I found out one of my good friends who also has a really successful business was currently coaching with Clay and so I bounced ideas off her and she’s like, just come to my meeting with Clay and he can kind of go through everything with you and see if it’s good fit to start working

• 1

  50:55

  with him. And Jordan you are and or were a firefighter as well as a business owner is that correct? Yes sir still a firefighter. And so from the time we met I think you guys were doing what was the amount of revenue you were doing per

• 4

  51:06

  year before we met maybe Jordan versus now? So that that the very first year in business so being a full-time firefighter, I would just build fences on my days off. It was more of just, could I get a little bit of just some extra money walking around money? And, uh, then that, so we did all of 2020, uh, by ourselves started 2021. Uh, I think we’re on pace to do, I don’t know, maybe 60 or 70,000 in revenue. Of gross revenue, total gross revenue. Yeah. And then, so we came to you towards the end of 2021, I think it was October. And now, this year, I think we just hit 1.2 million on the year. Still got a few months left. And so hopefully we’re going to hit 1.5, 1.6.

• 1

  51:56

  And JLD, I’ll tell you, this is so important for people to know this. You’ve got to go to cornerstonefencedtulsa.com to look at these people. They’re very normal people. And husband and wife, great team. And they have an incredible product. And I’ve actually hired them to build a fence on our property, JLD, where you came to one of our in-person workshops. And the fence is straight. It’s not falling down. It’s high quality. I’m actually putting ivy on the fence. And it’s a great fence. But none of that would matter if we didn’t know how to generate leads. So what we do, if you’re out there today, you need to generate a three-legged marketing stool as I talk about often on your program. So imagine you’re listening right now and you have a stool, and you’re sitting on the stool and the stool has one leg. It’s probably a short sitting experience. Or if you’re on a two-legged stool, that’s probably odd. A three-legged stool is sturdy. A four-legged stool would be great too. But you want to have a stool or three ways to generate leads that are sustainable. So the three that we decided to go with, with their fencing company, if you’re out there today by the way, and you want to license, maybe you want to license a fencing company and use their business model, perhaps they would be open to help and teach you. Maybe not. We’ll see. But I can tell you, this is how you grow the fencing company. You have to dominate the search engines. What? Yes! This just in, people use Google. You have to dominate the search engines. This just in. Someone says, but some people use DuckDuckGo. That’s cool, but we want to dominate Google and DuckDuckGo. The second is you’ve got to have what’s called the Dream 100, and that’s where you want to get contractors and builders and other people to recommend you. So one of my great friends, his company’s called Outside Inc., he comes to me and he says, Clay, I don’t do fences, but my customers are asking me about installing fences. I’m a landscaper. And I said, well, you gotta talk to my good friends over here at Cornerstone Fence. And they do that all the time. That’s called the Dream 100. That’s where you’re marketing to your ideal and likely referral sources. And then finally, you gotta use online ads. You gotta do online advertisement. You have to do that because when people Google search something or they go on Instagram or they go on Facebook or they go on TikTok or whatever, you want your ads to be showing in front of your ideal and likely buyers. And that’s the kind of things that we teach at our in-person two-day workshops. And if you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, if you come to our workshops, we always charge $250 or whatever amount you can afford, and we take two days and 16 hours of training to get into the weeds of how to do that, but you got to have a three-legged or a four-legged marketing stool to make your business grow.

• 5

  54:15

  See, this is so powerful, Fire Nation, and guess what? I was at one of the more recent events that Clay threw, and I left with a page full of notes every single day because I was like, these are things that are right there in front of me, low hanging fruit in some cases, sometimes it’s medium, sometimes it was high hanging fruit, but I wanted it all, and these are things that I could apply to my business after having run a multi-million dollar business for now 11 years in a row. So there’s something for everybody there and I love that three-legged stool effect and that’s so cool what’s been happening with the businesses that Clay’s been working with because they’ve all had great results. Because there’s power, Fire Nation, in scalable, easy to implement, turnkey sales systems. So Clay, what did you do with Jordan and Danica when it came to this?

• 1

  55:07

  Yeah, well, I’ll just say this. In the way they work together, Danica, how would you describe what you do with the company with CornerstoneFenceTulsa.com.

• 7

  55:15

  What’s your role?

• 11

  55:16

  So my role is really behind the scenes. I do interact with a lot of the incoming customers and then just kind of putting out fires and just keeping everything on target, making sure that we’re profitable, making sure our employees are kind of staying within our…

• 1

  55:32

  Kind of your guidelines? You’re kind of like the back end of the system, right?

• 11

  55:38

  Yes.

• 1

  55:39

  And does this crazy guy, your husband here, does he, does he, do you build the fencing, or do you oversee those that build, or what is your role?

• 4

  55:46

  So when we started, yes, I was building all the fences. But in the last year and a half, two years, once we really, once we started with you, it got too busy for me to be out building fences, because we were getting so many leads that my role kind of turned into really the estimator and the face of the business with the customer and then coordinating the crews and getting them to the jobs and making sure doing the final walkthrough with the customers making sure they’re happy with the

• 1

  56:10

  product that we’re turning out. Now folks I’m not gonna be sacrilegious at all but in the Bible it says where there is no vision the people perish and a lot of times people look at the Bible and they go how does that relate to my life again this Proverbs 29 18 it says where there is no vision, the people perish. Now we go back to business. I always tell people where there is no vism, your leads will perish. What? Vism, V-I-S-M. You got to get video reviews, and nobody does a better job than my clients getting video reviews. Why? Because I harass these people all the time. Because when somebody gets a great fence installed or they get their teeth worked on, the last thing a cosmetic dentist thinks about is, you know what? I should record a video review of you expressing your gratitude for me fixing your smile. But I have to work with my dentist to get them to do that. So you want to get a video review. Next, you want to get images or proof of the work you do. So all the dentists I work with, we do before and after photos. We don’t show the rest of the face. We just show before and after, you know, the teeth. And the before and afters are tremendous. If you’re installing fences, if you’re building homes, you’ve got to get images. So V for video reviews, I for images, S for search engine content. Folks, this just in, you’ve got to write it down. You’ve got to write search engine every day. Every day? Every day. Now, if you hire my company, this is what I do. I charge my clients $1,700 a month and then a small percentage of their growth. So $1,700 a month, it’s month to month, and then a small percentage of their growth. We do that deal. So most of my clients, in fact, all of my clients elect to not write their own content. But if you want to write your content, you have, but you need to write a thousand words of content on your website every day. So that’s S, more search engine content, and then M, more Google reviews. So V, video reviews. I, images. S, search engine optimization content. We’re talking about a thousand words of original HTML content, and M, get more reviews. Now I’m not attacking AI. A lot of your wonderful guests talk about AI, but right now there are people that are creating fake apps claiming to write original content using AI, and I’m seeing people get their websites flagged left and right for having AI quote unquote write their content when it is a fake app that’s just basically scraping the Internet and writing bogus content. So you need to write original content, and if you’re doing it right, JLD, it shouldn’t take you more than about 15 minutes a day. So it’s like with your program. I mean, I suppose we could use an AI to host your show for you, but you as the host want to host your own show. So if you’re out there today, I just encourage everybody out there, take the time needed to get the video reviews, the images, the search engine content, and more Google reviews.

• 5

  58:34

  Fire Nation, I hope you’re getting even more fired up hearing from Jordan and Danica where they were, where they are now, what they’re doing. It’s not rocket science. And we’re going to talk about more around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. All right, we’re back. And Fire Nation, Clay does something that I like to call provoking duh moments. Like, duh, that is obviously going to work. What he’s saying right now, why wasn’t I already doing this? But what’s obvious isn’t always common sense, isn’t always being done by people that are wanting to grow their business because you’re just caught up in the minutiae, you’re not doing the obvious thing. So Jordan, Danica, let me put you on the spot, and we’ll start with Jordan. What was a dumb moment with Clay that really just sticks out to you right now?

• 4

  59:24

  So when we first started, we were trying to grow the business, and at that point, it was all word of mouth. So we would, again, I was just doing this on my days off, but we were getting maybe one, two leads a month that was coming into the business. And we were never, our customers were happy, but we were never really trying to get the Google reviews. Well, a dumb moment was when we started with Clay is we need reviews. Like today, we need reviews because if you want more leads, people gotta be able to find you. And so that was kind of one of those moments. And once we did what Clay told us to do, I think that first month we were working on getting the reviews. That second month, the phone started ringing a little bit. And then, you know, we got into our busy season just this springtime, it was kind of spring and summer real busy. But just this last year, it goes from, you know, two years ago we were getting one or two a month in leads and now we’re in a busy time. It’s 30 or 40 a week and really those leads are what matters.

• 5

  60:34

  Now Danica, putting it on you, what was your dumb moment? Over and above the leads part,

• 11

  60:39

  just even the accountability of holding us accountable. Like, do you know where you’re at every single week because it’s there’s been weeks where we’ve lost thirty or forty thousand dollars and it’s like if you do that for too long you get yourself in a pretty bad spot so even just being accountable to ourselves and somebody else and tracking it like having a

• 4

  61:09

  sheet where you actually we know where we’re at because we go through our numbers every week. Before we had a coach, you really just would gauge that off the bank account once a month and look at the account and be like, oh man, we didn’t do good.

• 1

  61:23

  One thing I want to brag on, JLD, and this is not a commercial for my attorney, but my attorney, I work with a company called wintersking.com, and I don’t make a commission to pitch that, although I’ve asked for a commission, but I don’t make a commission. And so wintersking.com, if you look up, these guys represent, I mean, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jake, some of the biggest names in the world, you know, and I’m not a household name, but I have had some success as an author, and I thought to myself, you know what, I need to work with a literary attorney that can help me through some of the details related to putting out copious amounts of books. And now that I’ve written 20 books, I’m glad I did that. And I think everybody out there, if you’re struggling, you’ve got three phases to stop struggling. One, you have to learn what to do. You have to learn the proven system. Two, you have to be accountable to doing the system. And then three, you have to measure what you treasure. And I just know, working with Winner’s King, my wife loves it because of the nature of what I do and just how many shows I put out at Thrivetimeshow.com and how many books. There’s just a lot of stuff. And having an attorney that I’m paying $4,000 to $5,000 a month to every month to make sure that we’re complying with all the new laws. And as I buy investment properties, isn’t it great to know that you can take certain money from a sale of one piece of real estate and roll it over to another one? And isn’t it nice to know what the taxable rate is? And isn’t it great to know what states charge what tax rate? So there’s kind of a merger of where the accounting meets the legal. And I recommend everybody out there, if you feel stuck, whether you hire me or somebody else, you’ve got to have someone who knows the way, someone who’s gonna hold you accountable and someone who’s gonna help you track and just measure what you treasure.

• 5

  62:55

  Measure what you treasure, which actually leads me to where I wanna end with a bang. KPIs, key performance indicators. And most people, Clay, they would just give a blank stare if you ask them what their KPIs are. But the power of knowing your KPIs is undeniable. We have to hold our entire team accountable. You know, as Danica mentioned, the accountability factor is so key, but how specifically do we do this in the real world?

• 1

  63:26

  Well, let me hammer this here. So with the good folks, and again, I encourage everyone to look this up. These people are not holograms. They’re great people. Go to cornerstonefencetulsa.com. But when you go to their website here, this is, these are real people. We have a tracking sheet every week, and we track every week. It’s week to week. What were the gross sales? What was the profit for the week? How many objective video reviews did we get? How many objective Google reviews did we get? How much content did we write? Where are we ranking in the search engine results? How many leads are coming in? And we track all these things, and every week we look at it, and what happens is you only want to measure what you treasure. So you don’t need to track things that don’t matter. So a good example for Cornerstone is I like to know the conversion rate. You know, so for every 10 leads you get, how many of them turn into a client? And when you look at that, Danica, when you look at the numbers and you say, wow, we had this many clients and this many converted, how does that help you to know your conversion

• 16

  64:18

  rate?

• 11

  64:19

  Well, it helps, one, to know where our price point is. If we’re not getting a single job out of 20 leads, there’s a problem there. If we’re winning 96% of those jobs, then we’re probably a little cheaper than the competition should bump up and compete with the market. Yeah, I mean, but no, this is great stuff. And JLD, I think a lot of shows,

• 1

  64:38

  and I’m not attacking other podcasts, but you know, you can get these high flutant ideas, but at the end of the day, are you generating enough leads? And so I want to give people some homework here real quick. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com and you click on the testimonials button, we have over 2,000 client documented testimonials via video. You can’t fake that stuff. And if that doesn’t work for you, go to oxyfresh.com and ask yourself, how did they grow from three locations to 517 locations? Go to wintersking.com and look at their growth. Go to cornerstonefencetulsa.com. Go to tiptopcanine.com. Say, how did they grow from one location to 18 locations? Go to PMHOKC.com. Go to ShawHolmes.com and say, how do they grow from 15 million to 150 million? And what you’re going to find is all the companies had kind of flat growth or no growth, and then they met me through a lot of times through your show. And then my incredible team, we work with wonderful clients to help them grow. We teach improving systems. And now these companies begin to scale, and they move beyond having thoughts about, how are we going to pay the bills, to, what are we going to do with all this money? And so I just encourage you out there, if you feel stuck, go right now to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, and book your attendance to one of our in-person workshops. You can get those tickets today for $250 or whatever price you can afford, or schedule a one-on-one consultation with myself. It’s called a 13-point assessment. And because I only take on 160 clients, we’re a little bit fastidious about who we decide to take on as a client. We have about 10 people a day that reach out. And we have about one person a month that we can onboard because our average client sticks with us for six years or longer. But I encourage everybody, be a doer. Don’t just be a hearer. Take action. And remember, folks, action is the real measure of intelligence.

• 5

  66:22

  Fire Nation, I hope that your pulse is pumping a little bit right now, saying this is something that I can get on board with and that I should be getting on board with because there have been, as you mentioned, over 2,000 video testimonials of people that Clay’s worked with. Many, many people within Fire Nation have listened to past episodes just like these, heard inspiring stories just like Jordan and Danica’s, and they’ve got on, booked the call, taken the assessment, and become clients. And then some of them have come on this show to talk about it. And it’s been really cool and really inspiring. So Clay, take us home, brother. What is the final word you want to say to Fire Nation?

• 1

  67:03

  Well, this might kind of end on a downer upper, but when my dad died of Lou Gehrig’s disease, that was a tough time. And people said to me, man, do you regret anything? I closed my inner circle. Do you regret anything? I said, no, because my dad and I, we scheduled time to be with each other. I hired my dad when I was 27 years old. We grew up without money and my goal was to hire my dad someday and to have him work in my office. And I did that. But if I hadn’t hired my father and if I hadn’t spent those times, I would have had regret. And I think a lot of times what happens is people don’t take action for fear of what might happen if they take action and it doesn’t work. And so hopefully people out there know with my program, it’s a month to month consulting program. So if it’s not a good fit, you’re not stuck with me. And if you are in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area and you go to cornerstonefencetulsa.com, it’s a free quote, you know? So if you schedule a consultation to have someone look at your fence and decide to see if it’s a good fit or not, you’re not obligated to move forward just because you did a free quote. And with my business, we do free 13 point assessments. And we do that because we wanna make sure we’re a good fit to help you. So again go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOFire Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOFire and final note keep listening to the EOFire podcast. I cannot tell you how many people JLD we’re ecstatic to meet you at our in-person workshop who listen to you every day faithfully because I really do believe as you often say that you really do become the average of the people you spend the most time with. You provide a great outlet for people to hear from real clients like Jordan and Danica, from real entrepreneurs like myself, and I really appreciate you providing the space and place to do that.

• 5

  68:34

  I appreciate you, brother. The event was awesome. I’m looking forward to going back. Fire Nation, I’m looking forward to seeing you at one of his future events and, of course, hearing about your success story if you take Clay up on his amazing coaching. Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire. Clay, Jordan, Danica, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

• 18

  68:57

  Boom!

• 4

  68:58

  Thank you.

• 8

  68:59

  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.

• 7

  69:15

  Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google.

• 8

  69:57

  And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pesamon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. How much are we up?

• 7

  70:15

  411%. So 411% we’re up with, with our new customers. Amazing.

• 8

  70:22

  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%.

• 7

  71:01

  We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems

• 8

  71:34

  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 and that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives and also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a

• 2

  72:14

  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

• 8

  72:24

  rut. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either.

• 7

  72:32

  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’re in a rut. Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to give a big shout-out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive.

• 2

  73:14

  We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help.

• 6

  73:17

  Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatrician. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense. Starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for.

• 2

  74:18

  I went to the University of Oklahoma 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 like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockerill, head of Disney, with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like 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. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up. He teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. 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 doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. 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 gonna touch it. I’m gonna turn it down, because he knew it was gonna harm the common good of people in the long run, and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or 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.

• 10

  77:48

  I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark.

• 9

  77:52

  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.

• 16

  78:03

  This is our old house.

• 9

  78:05

  Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood.

• 17

  78:10

  See, it’s nice, right?

• 9

  78:15

  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.

• 17

  78:25

  This is our new house with our new neighborhood.

• 10

  78:32

  This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four 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

• 9

  79:02

  We’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year in October 2016. We grow 13 grand for the whole month Right now in 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

• 1

  79:32

  The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. 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 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

• 16

  80:54

  our next workshop.

• 1

  80:55

  And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for

• 15

  82:22

  you.