Michael Levine | How Michael Levine Became the #1 Public Relations Expert & the Consultant of Choice for Nike, Pizza Hut, Carlin, Prince, MJ, etc. + 4 Steps to Super Success + “Art of Cold Calling” + The Power of 29,200 Days + A New Normal

Audio Transcription

Not too bright folks, not too f***ing bright. But if you talk to one of them about this, if you isolate one of them, you sit them down rationally, you talk to them about the low IQs and the dumb behavior and the bad decisions, right away they start talking about education. That’s the big answer to everything. Education. They say, we need more money for education. We need more books, more teachers, more classrooms, more schools. We need more testing for the kids. You say to them, well, you know, we’ve tried all of that and the kids still can’t pass the test. They say, oh, don’t you worry about that, we’re going to lower the passing grades. That’s what they do in a lot of these schools now. They lower the passing grades so more kids can pass. More kids pass, the school looks good. Everybody’s happy. The IQ of the country slips another two or three points. And pretty soon, all you’ll need to get into college is a f*****g pencil. Got a pencil? Get the f**k in there, it’s physics. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time 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 how it’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one. Here we go. Well, Thrive Nation on today’s show, it’s a real honor to interview today’s guest. He’s also been the PR consultant of choice for Prince, for Michael Jackson, for Pizza Hut, for Nike, for the Clintons, for the Bushes, for George Carlin, for, really I could spend the next hour just reading off the names, Charlton Heston, of people that he’s worked with throughout his career. And he is what I would call a living legend. And I’m really excited to tap into his wisdom and his practical, it’s a practical mindset training that he provides that I believe is life-changing for many people. And without any further ado, Michael Levine, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I am honored to be sharing your valuable audience. I believe, now this is going to sound very obsequious, but I really believe, Clay, that you are an American hero. Now you might say, really, why is that? Because you have over the last, I think it’s seven, maybe 10 years that I know you. You have devoted every fiber of your being, both in your professional life and in part in your personal life, to to evangelizing the power and the importance of entrepreneurship in a very, very, very lost society, particularly lost. Our young friends are particularly addled. So, I think that if the world were – had its head on straight, which it certainly does not, you would be perceived by Americans as a hero. You, along with your Shark Tank show friends, have pushed, promoted, conjoled people to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset. And I mean every word I’m saying. I’m not just saying this because I’m on your show, I really mean this. Well I remember the first time I met you and I traveled to your location out there in Santa Barbara I believe and it was just powerful having you teach me so much about public relations and I wanted to just pull up your Wikipedia profile because it goes on and on and on and on and so now I want to ask you though, how did it start for you? For people out there that, Tim, my right is JT. He works in our office. He’s a great member of the team. And I’m going to let him harass you with questions as well here. But I want to ask you, how did you start? Did you grow up with a silver spoon? Were you given a winning set of cards? No, no, sir. And I think that’s a great question. I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. And I think that’s a great question. actually had the distinction of watching the World Trade Center be built twice. I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was alcoholism in my, one of my parents. When you grow up in an alcoholic home, you basically have to raise yourself. And in addition to that, I had a disability, which wasn’t very well known at the time, but is better known today. And that disability is called dyslexia. But 40 years ago, we had a different name for dyslexia, and that was called dumb. You were dumb. You were unmotivated and dumb. And so I barely, underline the word barely, old I leave my house and I am scared and skinny. I am have no education, no parenting, no money, no job, and I have dyslexia. Other than that, I got some pretty good cards. So with these bad cards that I was able to learn through observation over time that life is largely determined by how you play your cards. And some people get good cards and play them bad. Some people get bad cards and play them good. And some people get medium cards and play a medium. How you learn to play your cards is how you’re going to determine your life. Now, evidently, in the professional sphere of life, I played them generally pretty well. And but, you know, that comes, as you know, entrepreneurship, as you talked about, plays so articulately. And I was able to get a card that was a little bit more expensive than the one I had. And I was able to get a card that comes with great benefit and some significant cost. And there you go. So that is that’s how my journey began. And I did not have good cards. that could turn out to be an advantage for you, though it appears to be a disadvantage initially. So JT, you know this guy, Michael Levine, I talk about him all the time. You know he grew up in a dyslexic, as with a dyslexia, he grew up in an alcoholic home, he grew up without anything, he built one of the largest public relations firms on the planet. What question do you have for Michael Levine, sir? Yeah, well I think a lot of people struggle with, and I used it in school at first, because I’m dyslexic too, and I used to use it as a crutch and so that I could take special tests and get out of class and other things like that and then because I used to play the victim so I think my mentality had to switch to where I used it as uh hey I have it I just have to deal with it and so I would love if you could speak on that for a second on how think you can’t control what you have what happens to you but you can’t like you can’t like you’re saying you can’t control the cards that you’re dealt but you can’t control how you play them so I think everyone has to like because I’m under the understanding everything in your life is your fault not what could not what happens to you but how you can how the outcome happens like your control of it what are your thoughts on that and what would you say to people who might be relying on something as a crutch because obviously you got over it and stopped using it as an excuse not to get things done. JT, you mentioned maybe unknowingly, just terribly, terribly important word. And I’m going to speak to your question, but I want to speak to what you just said. JT, we’re living in a nation of 330 million people who are basically taught every hour of every day to embrace their victimhood. And if you can’t think of a reason why you’re a victim, think harder. As if we’ve given to 330 million Americans poison to drink and we’re encouraging them to drink it every hour of every day. And it is the root, I guess, of not only personal ruin in people, like if had you continued to think of yourself as a victim for the rest of your life, son, would turn out to be broke, exhausted, and frustrated, probably embittered as well. So Clay somehow was able to get inside your head and say, hey, JT, you can do this, a free country, still modestly so, but you can do whatever you want, but playing the victim deal is a bad deal. And so I just want to preface whatever I’m going to say to you. Here’s an amusing way of me saying this to all the people listening and to you. If you are broken, exhausted and frustrated, think of yourself as a victim and you will be broke, exhausted and frustrated. Now, if you say, wait a second, I don’t want to be broke, exhausted and frustrated, then don’t think of yourself as a victim. more complicated than that. And you were born with dyslexia. Now that’s not ideal. No parent would wish that on a child. On the other hand, think about this. We’re living in an age in which there are many, many, many workarounds to dyslexia that didn’t exist 50 years ago. Now look, the awareness could be a crutch also because, you know, people are today thinking, oh, you’re dyslexic, you can’t, oh, just. Now, that doesn’t mean that dyslexia isn’t real, it’s real. So there you go. But everybody’s got a cross to bear. I think this is what Clay would teach you and me and others. Everybody’s got a cross to bear. Some people are fat, some people are dumb, some people are lazy, some people are who knows what the hell their cross to bear is. Some people came from a bad home, some people came from an overly privileged home, which is also a burden too, right? So everybody’s got to cross the bear. The question is how are you going to play your cards, JT? You know, and here’s what you need to know that’s really sounds harsh. The universe, the world at large, not your friends and family, the universe at large doesn’t really care how you play your cards. Amen to that. Think about it this way, J.T. You know how many Starbucks there are in America? Think about how many there are. Okay, there’s a lot of them, right? Now, the owner of Starbucks, or the founder, Mr. Schultz, has many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many Starbucks. Okay, interesting. Now, do each of those Starbucks units, the thousands and thousands of them, have a toilet? Well, I guess they do, right? Yes, each one has a toilet. Now, does Mr. Schultz want to wake up in the morning and clean the toilet? Well, that’s no, see? So he’s got to find somebody to clean the damn toilet. So he’s not hoping that everybody’s going to be as smart as Clay. He’s hoping for about 30,000 people to clean his toilet every damn day. Or he’s got a problem. So you see how it is. You just got to… All right. Anyway, I hope that was some modest help. Yeah. Now, I’m going to go into rapid fire because I really want to give so much knowledge and I want to just try to get as much knowledge as I can during this hour here. So you work with these megawatt stars. You work with Michael Jackson and George Clinton. And people look at that and go, that’s a big list of clients. That’s a big list. I mean, you work at 58 Academy Award winning actors, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 Times Best Selling Authors. So how did you get your first client? Did you just sit there and tell people how great you were and the phone rang? No. No. So let’s talk, Clay, about what I think we have discussed a little bit. But let’s talk about the four steps. So let’s think of a ladder with four steps. Now, step number one, let’s label step number one. The first step on the ladder, we’ll call that free. Now we’re gonna call step two on the ladder, we’ll call that one below market. See, then we’ll call step three on the ladder, we’ll call that market. And then step four, we’ll call fortune. See how that is? One, two, three, four. So how do you get your first client? How do you get your first job? Now, let’s say JT didn’t have a job. Or let’s say JT’s friend didn’t have a job. I don’t have a job. I can’t get a job. I don’t have a job. This is some shut the hell up. I get you a job in and out. Do me a favor. Will you stop boring me with your stupid I can’t get a job routine. I get you a job in and out. Now, you’re not going to get paid, but I get you a job. Say this. Free is hard to resist. Now you’re working for the guy is going to say, well, you know, you just got me a job. That’s not a job if I’m working for free. Hell, yes, it is because you’re working for knowledge and opportunity. See, once you get in the door, if you got a brain, it’s hard to get you the hell out. If you got a brain. Now, Michael, real quick, this is something I found. This is interesting. I have met people, because the world’s not super big, who have interned for you, who have claimed that interning for you changed their life and I that’s very kind I’ve ran into change they changed their life I didn’t change their life I may have helped you may have helped but had they been a dumb f they they anyway I’ve run into people who’ve told me specifically they’ve said because I you know the girl in the world’s not that big you’re on enough airplanes people say what are you doing what do you do? I say, I host the Thrive Time Show. They say, oh, what kind of guests do you have? I said, well, you know, I’ve had this person, we’ve had Wolfgang Puck, we’ve had John Maxwell, we’ve had Michael Levine. They go, Michael Levine? I used to work for him. Right, so I’ve had that happen to me. And there’s other people I’m sure that look at- Here I am working for free for Michael Levine, even though I cold called him and begged for the job. I believe that just being around successfully can change your life because it changes your normal. You become the average of five people. That’s right. You spend the most time with, you were in the room with George Carlin at the peak of his career, with Michael Jackson at the peak of his career, with Prince at the peak of his career. What was it like to be in the room with the most successful people on the planet during the peaks of their career. Well like you said Clay, if you’re an observer, you change your normal. That’s a great phrase Clay, change your normal. See, let’s try this as a funny way of expressing Clay’s thought. If you have four friends that are broke, you’re going to be the fifth one. See, that’s a fun way of saying it. Now, here’s another fun way of expressing Clay’s thought. JT, look at me, dear friend. Look right at me. Now look and listen. JT, I’m not that bright. I’m not that bright. But I’m above average, son, at watching what bright people do. And that’s been pretty cool. See, that’s pretty cool. Now let me tell you another secret since I got you here. JT, I’m even better. I’m even better at watching what dopey people do. And son of a bitch, that’s even more important. See, watch what winners do. Above average folks, that’s what Clay’s talking about. Change your normal. See, if you I ran into a young lady the other day, she was a waitress and we were just talking for a minute. I was waiting for my guest who was late, by the way. My guest was late for dinner, about 15 minutes. That’s a long time. So I said to the waitress, our maitre d, and she’s a pretty young girl. And I said, young lady, let me ask. She said, where’s your guest? I said, he’s late. I said, can I ask you a question, young lady? She said, sure. I said, are you generally late? She said, well, you know, to be real honest with you, I am. I said, darling, don’t do that. She said, well, I know, but I try. I said, don’t try, darling. See, that’s a bad plan. I want you to change your normal from late to early. See that? Isn’t that interesting? And I don’t want – and listen to me, young lady, I don’t want you on time. So you think I want you on time. I don’t want you on time, darling. I want you early. Clay taught you right there. Now, I’m going to go out and let JT interrogate you again here, but I have another one for you, and then we’ll go to JT. So, Jay, is this entertaining, I hope? No, I love it. I love learning. This is great. So this book, you know, I picked up a copy of this book And I enjoyed the heck out of this book. I highlighted the book, took notes in the book, and I’m a highlighter. That’s the way. I thought, you know what, I’m going to A, I’m going to read this book, and then I’m going to call this guy Michael Levine after I implement it, and I’m going to interview this guy. So it’s a true story. So I read the book. Then what I did is I started working with an account called Kanbar Properties. And I’m just going to show people proof. And Canbar, he invented Sky Vodka. He sold Sky Vodka. And he hired me to do the marketing for his properties. And so there’s still some evidence that this actually happened. The Tulsa world hasn’t scrubbed the internet of this properly. So here, let me put Pierce Clark. You should be able to see this. And so I went through and I implemented every PR that you taught. You don’t need, yeah. It worked. I just did every move and I thought, this guy is telling you how to do, how to write press releases, and I did it. This guy’s telling you how to contact the media, and I did. This guy’s saying how to make, because we had downtown property that wasn’t that interesting, and you talked specifically about how to get in the news, how to get in the media, how to get… We lived on the cover of the Tulsa World, on the cover of Channel 2, 6, and 8, because we were taking downtown Tulsa, and we were reviving downtown Tulsa with entertainment, dining, and retail. And we were reinvigorating Sobo. What does that mean? It didn’t even matter what it meant. The point was, south of Boston, we were reviving it, Michael, and the media was interviewing me every day about renovating south of Boston. Was I the first marketing guy? No. Was I the first real estate guy? No. Were we the first commercial real estate company? No. But I implemented every single thing you taught in the book, and my phone rang all the time, and we did millions of dollars of real estate, and people said to me, Clay, how did you learn how to do it? I said, you see, I got Michael Levine’s book and I implemented everything in the book. And they said, well, what book is it again? I tell them two weeks later, hey, how did you do it? I read the book. What was the name of the book again? Michael Levine’s book. And the cycle kept happening. So I thought, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna interview Michael Levine and ask you directly how you did it. And what I have found is that most people, not our listeners thankfully, most people they receive knowledge in the way that a battleship receives a BB. And so you give them knowledge and you’re shooting the BB at the battleship and it just hangs right off the side of the battleship and it doesn’t impact them. But for some people they take the knowledge, it impacts them and it changes their lives. I’d like to get your thoughts. What is it that makes somebody super successful as it relates to implementing? And what is it that makes somebody unsuccessful where they just won’t read the book, won’t implement it? What is that? Well, it’s a, first of all, a fabulous question. And I’m not sure that you or I, through the force of our personality or anything we’ve learned, can ever teach people hustle. We can try, we can say, JT, you have, life offers you a choice, okay? In the end, this is your choice. You can do the difficult or you can endure the difficult. That’s it. Now, if you make certain choices in your life, certain consequences will result. If you overeat, you’re going to get fat. If you underwork, you’re going to get broke, and so forth and so on. Now, you can sit in a corner and be a victim and talk about how racist and how awful this country is. But in the end, it’s your choice. And all Clay and I can do is point out to you the reality of the consequence. And Jim Rome had a great phrase that I loved a lot. He said, you know, discipline weighs ounces. Regret weighs tons. Isn’t that an interesting way of expressing something? Discipline weighs ounces. Regret weighs tons. So I can’t teach somebody to hustle. If they’re determined to screw up their life, there’s not much Clay or I or JT or anyone can do about it except point it out. You know, Dr. Phil has a fun way with the southern accent of asking guests on his TV show, how’s that working for you? Isn’t that fun? Now it’s real fun with the southern accent, but it’s fun. How’s that working for you, son? Well, I don’t, now listen, here’s something that happened to Clay’s. I’ve spoken at his great events, his entrepreneurial events. And this is a true story, JT. You probably don’t know this story, but I’m gonna tell you, it’s real true. So I speak. And after the speech, maybe I’ll talk for an hour, 45 minutes. After the speech, I’ll come down off the stage and I’ll meet with some of the young people, usually average age, I’d say maybe about 35. There might be two or 300 people in a room, quite large. So I’ll come down off the stage and you know about, I don’t know, 10, 15 of them might be hanging around the stage because they want to say hello or take a picture, whatever it might be. And I’ll talk to them, shake their hand, wish them well. I said, oh, you know, you’re a cool guy. You’re a cool girl. You got a lot going on. You’re smart. You can turn this thing really in a good place. Would you do me a favor? I want to stay in touch with you. Would you give me your business card? And very often the people almost always would say business card. And then I’d say, son, dear, hold on now. You got a business, you just started, it’s not doing well, you don’t have a business card? Did you ever hear of Vistaprint? I mean, it’s about $9 to get a set of business cards. Come on now, you can do better than that. That should be the normal. Now they’ll say, but nobody carries business cards. And I’d say, really, you want to bet? If we went to the top, if we went to the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies, how many of them do you think have business cards? Well, a lot. Well, that’s right. See, that’s how they got there, with a mindset. That’s the normal. Carry a business card, son. If you can’t do that, you’re not smart enough to succeed in the first place. So that’s just one option or one thought. Now, Michael, one thing that, again, through your books I learned so much, but one of the things you talk about in the PR book is, and again, I’m paraphrasing, but the idea is that you’re not memorable unless people remember you. I mean, you have a different way, but the idea is you have to be memorable. And I thought to myself, I need to have a mental business card. Why? Because nobody has a metal business card. So I built America’s largest DJ entertainment company years before I met you. I carried a metal business card. It was engraved, it was high quality, and it cost me a dollar and 25 cents per card. And any time I would say, do you have a card? If I gave them the metal business card, they would keep it for years. I’ve run into people, 15 years ago I gave a metal business card and they still have it. So again, these moves you’re teaching, they are so powerful. And if you’re out there today, I mean this sincerely. It’s not just because Michael’s on the show. If you have not read his book on PR, it will change your life. Now, JT, just so you know, JT has built his own successful business. He is serving as like a PR booker for me and others. So he actually books people on podcasts. He also has a dog training franchise. So he’s kind of into that six figure club. What type of franchise is it? Dog training. It’s a dog training franchise. Dog training. There you go. He’s getting into the six figure club. Now, here’s a question for you, JT. Now, you do dog training, right? That cool? Yep. OK, now look right at me. Son, tell me quickly now, don’t think about it too much. I want you to tell me three upsells that you got on your dog training business. Go. Yeah, so we have lifetime group class, we have a dog school, and we have where you have different packages where you can upgrade and you can get your dog trained more. There you go. Now look, let’s tell you, let’s talk about what that’s predicated on. Good answer. Very good, JT. Now look, have you ever been in an airplane JT? Yes. Okay, cool. Let me tell you about an airplane. See son, it’s a long tube, about 85% of the people in the plane, they’re really nice people, loving, good, kind people. They sit in the back. Those are called, you know, they got the shitty seats and no food. Yeah, yeah. See, that’s called coach. That’s called coach, son. That’s coach. That’s about 85% of the plane. Then you move up a little bit further and there’s a business section. Now those seats recline a bit. They’re nicer quality and they’ve got some food up there. Then you go to the real front of the plane, about 10% of the people sit in business class. So you got 85 in the shitty seats in the back. That’s coach. You got 10 in the business class. And then in the real, real front, then you got about 5% of the people, that’s first class. Those seats go all the way back. You can lie down, like sleep. Then you got food and you got free champagne. Now, isn’t that interesting? That’s about how consumers make every purchase. 85% of the people choose the cheapest option. And that’s something. So just give them the cheapest option. Then about 10% will go to the mid-tier level, and then about 5%. Now you gotta give them those upsells, those opportunities to, see when I was young, when I was 25 years old, I’d fly to New York, right, which is where I was born. I’m in LA now. And I’d fly and coach in those shitty seats. Now, if you want me to go to New York with you now, son, I’m not flying coach. I won’t do that. See? Now, it’s not because I’m arrogant. I’m 6’2″, and I just don’t, I won’t do that. So, there you go. Now, JT, again, I’m just bragging on him for a little bit. He’s written his first book. He’s gotten us in the six-figure club. Things are going well. But maybe you haven’t had this thought, we haven’t talked about this, but one of the thoughts I’ve had JT that was frustrating for me when I was 25 years old and having a lot of success was it I wanted to share success with other people. Yeah. Like it was a gift I wanted to share with family and friends you know because people would say I hate my job I can barely afford to give. You can’t keep what you won’t give away. Well I thought to myself, Michael, people would say to me, they would say, Clay, you know, this reunion, man, it was so expensive to get to, weddings, say, man, it was so expensive to travel here, I hate my job, I can barely afford anything. How did you grow your DJ Connection.com empire? And I would tell them with like sincerity, this is how I did it. And it seemed as though they could not be less interested in anything at all than the path to success. That’s kind of, have you had those? They were addicted to their victimhood. They were addicted to their victimhood. It was like telling a drunk to stop drinking. They were literally addicted to their victimhood. Now, it’s easy to do in this sick culture. It’s easy to do in this sick culture. And Clay was trying to give away a pearl of great price. Clay was trying to give away, give away, pearl of great price. And most people said, no, I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I’m fine. I don’t need it. I got three football. Now look, I’m told that people who make 50 males who make in America males in America make less than $50,000 a year. Drink six beers on Sunday during football season. Now, since I drink none, that means somebody’s drinking 12. There you go. Figure it out, son, or not. And listen, don’t worry. Not to worry. Not to worry. In America, we have jobs for everybody. If you don’t want to get up on time, if you want to be late to work, we got jobs for you. No problem. They come with a the uniform and the name tag. They pay minimum wage. You’re not going to like them much, but we got jobs for you. No problem. Yeah, JT, what else is on your mind, dear friend? What, what, what, where do you want to debate me? If you would, I would like a challenge. I’d like something where you say, now wait, hold on here. Let’s think about this. Where’s a debate point or a challenge? Well, I’m normally, and Clay can attest to it, but I’m normally very receptive to information. But you don’t often get the chance to talk to a living legend like you. I mean, Clay, I know your guy’s story a little bit where I believe, Clay, you had to pay Michael Levine. I did. I paid Michael Levine because Michael Levine is a highly paid PR consultant. It’s just in. He was not sitting around waiting for my call and so I hired him to spend a day with him to interview him and it was one of the best investments of money I’ve ever spent yeah and so you don’t get this opportunity often but you have a best-selling book you’ve worked with a lot of best-selling authors I just wrote my first book I guess my question would be not how do I make it a bestseller well how do I make it a bestseller and what advice would you have okay let me tell you a fun little story, see if this helps you. There were two guys, one was named Jack Canfield, I don’t know the other guy’s name, we can look it up. And they wrote a book called, what the hell is that book? Chicken Soup for the Soul. Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup for the Soul. the soul. Okay, now these two guys, one of them was a marketing guy. One of them wasn’t. Maybe it was Canfield that was the marketing guy. And he wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, the two guys. Okay, so let’s look up Chicken Soup for the Soul. Chicken Soup. Now real quick, this story, I’m pulling this up real quick here. I actually met one of the authors of this book series, Michael, because I gave out my cell phone number to promote the conference, and he called me and he said, hey, I’m actually one of the co-authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And I remember saying, which one? Chicken Soup for the Soul. So I actually met one of the co-founders. Yeah, yeah. So you’ve got Mark Vincent. But here’s what these two guys did These two guys wrote this book called chicken soup for the soul Now the two guys are unknown ones marketing guy one is okay. Just like you JT and What they did Is they made a commitment to each other They said to each other listen, let’s do something crazy and fun. Let’s agree that we will not go to sleep any night that we do not do one promotional thing for the book. Seven days a week, 365 days a year. So if we fail in the course of a day to do one promotional thing for the book, then both of us will commit not to sleep that night. Okay, that’s a powerful incentive. Well, guess what? They slept most nights. You got to do something, JT, every day. Every day. Now, it doesn’t have to be. See, in baseball, you can strike out, you can hit a home run, you can hit a single, a double, a triple, or a grand slam. See, you can hit a single. Now, JT, single’s not a home run, but it’s a single, you get on base. So every day, seven days a damn week, you didn’t, 365 days a year. That means your birthday, Halloween, you know, all of it. You got to do something to promote your book. Now, you’re going to say, well, what should I do? I’m going to say, J.T., if you’re not smart enough to figure out what you should do, then you’re not smart enough to have a bestselling book. So go visit your two favorite relatives. If you want to talk to Clay, that’s cool. But here’s two favorite relatives of yours that you can go visit. Now, you can do it for free, and you can do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These two relatives of yours are available to you 24 hours a day, seven days a week for free. May I tell you their names? Sure. Great. Uncle Google and Aunt YouTube. Uncle Google and at YouTube. Go visit Uncle Google for an hour and type in. Promotional ideas is your book self-published son? Yeah, Clay, help me publish it. OK, so self-publish. The best tips for promoting a self-published book, go ask Uncle Google. Then when you’re done doing that and reading that for a half hour, and by the way do yourself a favor when you’re doing your reading on Google, do it in complete and total silence. So here’s what that means. Turn your damn phone off. Put your phone on airplane mode son. Put the damn dog in another room. Tell your damn friends to not bother you. Silence. Concentration. Here’s something worth considering JT. Brilliance is born of contemplation. Contemplation is born of time. Okay? So go visit Uncle Google, go visit Aunt YouTube, you’ll come up with 100, 200, 300, 500 promotional ideas to make your book work and do one of them a day. Every day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And if you don’t, why don’t you make a commitment to Clay that you’re not going to sleep that night. That’ll focus your mind pretty good now Michael um one thing that you have taught me And I say this I’m not I’m not saying this to puff up what you’re saying or to be very clear I’ve always had this mindset even before I met you But then you but then you validated it in a way that really changed my life So let me just give an example The best selling author of the book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. The best-selling author, everyone’s seen the book, Orange Covered Book. I decided years ago, I will interview this guy on my show. Called him, so I called him, I emailed him, I texted him, I called him, I emailed him. People said, where’d you get the phone number? Where’d you get the website? What I did is I did every possible thing. I went to LinkedIn, I went to Facebook. I just kept reaching out. You figured it out. And I finally got a response. Yes, I’d be happy to do an interview. So I do the interview and I’m asking the guy, how did you become a best-selling author? Yeah. And he basically told me how I reached him is how he became a best-selling author. He just kept getting on shows every single day for years doing shows until finally became a best-selling overnight success. And so today on my JTBC there’s a famous pro athlete who wants to speak at one of our in-person Thrive Time Show business workshops coming up here in March. Yeah. The pro athlete, their agent calls me and says, I represent said pro athlete, they like what you do, they want to speak at your event, what day is it? They tell me the day, I said, great. JT, you know this because your desk is next to mine. Yeah. I call this person every two hours, this agent, every two hours. And Michael, I’ve been calling this person every two hours for weeks, texting, calling, emailing, and I just won’t stop until I reach the person. And then people around me will say, you’re obsessive. You’re stopping so obsessive. And when I met you, that helped me so much. When you told me that all super successful people are obsessive about their success and they work on something as if their life depended upon it until they’re there. And previous to meeting you, nobody except for myself ever told myself that was a good idea. So I’d love to get if you could speak that into JT’s life and somebody else’s. JT, let me share something with you. And this is sincere, it’s not a joke. Here are phrases never used to describe super successful people who Could be alive or dead right there have been many successful people who are no longer alive Right, but here are phrases Never ever ever used to describe super successful people ready. Yep Laid back You know, laid back, chill, relaxed. They like to kick it a lot. See, super successful people are on a mission and they take that mission damn seriously. Now, some people who are idiots want to refer to that mission as obsessive, whatever they want to say. But it’s a mission. It’s a way, it’s a belief. It’s a way of thinking. Now, some of us, like Clay, like to evangelize the mission, right? They think that what they’ve learned in life is so important, so valuable, so transformative that they want to share it with others. Other people say, no, I don’t need to do that. And you’ll decide who you are as you go along. How old are you, JT? I’m 28. 28. Well, you’re off to a great start. And first of all, any 28 year old in America that doesn’t think of himself as a victim and And where this is wreaking the most havoc, as you know, J.T., the people that are being most deeply damaged by this victim mentality are the folks in the minority community. Our dear African-American friends, our dear Hispanic friends, our underprivileged Caucasian friends. They are being, it’s as if we’re giving them literally mental fentanyl, what happens? The story doesn’t end well. Well, victimology, victim thinking is mental fentanyl. And it’s a bad, bad deal. And it’s wreaked havoc on our society, in American society. And it’s particularly acute in our minority communities. If anybody, you know what I would love? I would love Clay one day to do one of his events that I’ve been to that’s very valuable, just exclusively for minority folks. No buddy, middle class or above is allowed in. It’s just for people who either had bad cards, have bad cards currently, have a chip on their shoulder, understandably, but they got to get rid of it. I wish you would do that just one time and record it and share it because I think he’d be doing one of the great services of his life if he were to do it. I want to pull this up real quick, Michael, because I want to make sure people know where to find you and I want to just hammer home this book here because I think it was very powerful for me. And there’s multiple books you’ve written and I want to make sure people know about these. First off, you just do a search for Michael Levine, folks, and I like to look up the first book I would buy. And by the way, it’s… A Broken Windows. Get that. Get Broken Windows. Well, it’s January, so it’s never too early to buy your Christmas gifts. So I’d recommend you start off with Guerrilla PR 2.0. This book is a phenomenal book on how to do public relations. And branding, you talk about your Tiffany theory, and it’s so powerful, how people perceive you. It’s an incredible book. I recommend you get that. Second book I recommend, and again I’m not saying there’s other books you haven’t written that are valid, these are just I would recommend, is Broken Windows, Broken Business. The idea of drift. That’s the current book so that is the book that I think might be of some real value to some people in that it’s all about how little details matter a lot in life and in business. You see, clay right now has a beautiful red tie on, right? That’s pretty cool. Now, if I had a little ketchup spot on it or an ink spot on it, see, your eye would go right to that ink spot, wouldn’t it? Yep. That’s a bad deal. So, Broken Windows is about how little details matter a lot. And I commend that book to you as I do with others, but that’s my most current one. I highly recommend that everybody checks that book out. And the final note I want to make here is that I’ve interviewed Michael on multiple occasions and each one of them has been profoundly impacting for many of our listeners. If you do a search for Thrive Time Show and Michael Levine, you can find the different interviews that we’ve done that’s great you’ve really done a lot of service. Well I mean and you by the way what Clay’s not mentioning JT and you know it but he just pulled it up and he said you can find previous DriveTime shows right but here’s what he didn’t mention for attention for free. For free. You can sit your ass down on your couch for free and listen to and learn for free. You don’t have to go to a damn school. You don’t have to pay money. You don’t have to park your car. And that’s his service to the world. This is why I believe Clay will be regarded someday by historians as one of the American heroes, along with the Shark Tank folks and others that try, sometimes against great odds, to get that message, liberating message of entrepreneurship to their head. You know, Michael, I want to hammer on what you said here briefly here before I let you go. Dr. Robert Zellner is a great friend of mine. He co-hosts the show from time to time. And years ago, there was an employee in our office who heard about his radio commercials, they heard about his auto auction, they bought glasses from him and they’re going, hey, Dr. Z, I’d love to pick your brain. And I remember Dr. Z pulled him aside and said, I want to tell you something. I think you’re a great young man and I really believe in you. I’m glad that you see value in what I do, but I just want you to know under no circumstance will I ever go out to lunch with you. But I appreciate you and I encourage you to listen to the Thrive Time show that we’re on, read the books Clay recommends. That’s his lane, that’s not my lane. And it was, I thought, a powerful moment because this young guy just thought that people like Michael Levine or Dr. Zellner, they’re just hanging out, wanting to share their knowledge. And what I have found is that super successful people are very intentional about how they spend their time because time is a resource. I just want to say I’ll let you have the floor here for the final thoughts you have. Time is your most important asset and so I appreciate you investing your time and our listeners with that being said I’ll give you the final word there sir. Okay final word I think Clay is capable of doing this on his computer. So let’s try it together, okay? Let’s go to Google and let’s type in 365 times 80. So let’s try this together. So we’re gonna go to Google together and we’re gonna type in 365 times 80. Now you can see the answer right there for free by the way, JT, in case you haven’t figured it out. 29,200 days. So what that means in English is that if you live to be 80, now you may not, you may live longer, you may live shorter, you could die tomorrow, God forbid, but it’s possible. All you get is 29,200 days. That’s it. The game is over after that if you live to be 80. Now if you live to be 70, you know how it is. If you live to be 90, you know how it is. That’s it. So every day is never to be recovered, ever once. Now think about how many days JT and try to be honest with me, when did the conversion of you begin away from victimhood? Was it at age 16, 18, 21? What was it like? When I really started making a change and really started taking everything serious was about 25 and a half, 26 years old. Okay, so let’s play this now. Let’s go back to Google and let’s put 26 times 365. Well, now, play’s gonna do it for us because he’s that good. So we’re gonna go 26 times 365. That means you screwed up 9,490 days that you can never ever get back. Yep. That’s it. They’re over. And if you became friends with Elon Musk, if you became friends with the President of the United States, if you became friends with Bill Gates, and you said, Mr. Buffett, please give me those 9,000 days back, he says, son, they’re gone. Son, they’re gone. So the fierce urgency of now. And there we are. It’s all. By the way, do you. I want to point out one last question for JT. Yes. JT, do you have any confession that you can give us about why you changed to 26? What happened? Was there an incident? Was there a, you know, did somebody punch in the nose? What made you wake up? Well, really, one of the big things was I read COVID happened. I was supposed to go play basketball in Spain and then COVID stopped me from going. And then I read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and I bought it and my I started reading. Why did you read Rich Dad Poor Dad? Well, my, it was, we were on a family trip like three years before that and my uncle recommended me Rich Red Poor Dad and I said, yeah, I’ll get to it. But then did you like your uncle? Yeah, I liked him. Did you respect him? Yeah. Okay. So, finally, after a couple of years, you said, okay, I better get this down. COVID happened. Your life got interrupted. And there you go. Yep and then I realized that there’s a new path and then I met Clay and I felt like I was in a cube of a house that everything’s covered in glass and all the windows were painted and then when I met him it was like he was shattering windows and I started a whole new world and I was like holy crap. And Mr. Kiyosaki, I believe history is also going to record him along with Clay and others as one of the American heroes. Now, they’re fighting a war, Clay and Mr. Kiyosaki and myself, we’re fighting a war against every societal force that we know of. Every force is determined. The latest iteration of this force, by the way, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, is called DEI. You know what that is? DEI. This is the latest hustle in the victim game called diversity, equity, inclusion. OK, so if you any school, any corporation, they’ve all got big D.I. departments. And what they’re doing is they’re trying to tell the places they work for that we have to spread the message of diversity, equity, inclusion. But what’s missing in their beautiful words is merit. Merit. See, when I go on an airplane, JT, I don’t give a rat’s ass if my pilot is gay or straight, black or white, young or old. I don’t really, he can be transgender. I don’t give a, I don’t give a damn. Yeah. See, so I don’t want my pilots chosen based on their race, their shoe size, their sexual preference. I want them based on something called merit. You’ve heard of merit, right? Yeah. That’s how it used to work. But now we’ve got every force going against that. And so Clay and Dr. Kiyosaki and many others will be America 25 years from now. This will have a way of clarifying. And so I hope he continues. I I’m going to do my whatever best I can. And then you’ve got to become an evangelist, JT. You got to spread the spread the good word. Yes, sir. Trying to. Michael, I just want to say this in closing there. What you do is so powerful, it’s so profound. It has had a massive impact on my life, and it’s not mean. You just share the facts, you share the truth, you put a bias on the facts and the truth over feelings. I really do appreciate your style, your delivery, your directness, and the impact you’ve made on my life and the life of so many others. I encourage everybody to pick up your books. Thank you again, sir, for your time and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you, thank you, JT, thank you, Clay. Take care. All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we have an opportunity to celebrate a client who’s what we call a diligent doer, somebody that doesn’t just want to know what to do, but somebody who wants to apply what they’re learning. We call this person not an ask-hole. An ask-hole is somebody who asks a question but doesn’t want to actually implement what they’re learning because we know here that vision without execution is hallucination to quote Thomas Edison. Vision without execution is hallucination. We know that knowledge without application is meaningless to quote Napoleon Hill. Knowledge without application is meaningless to quote Napoleon Hill. I’m fired up for you to hear the story about today’s guest. Tavis, welcome on to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? Hi, we are doing amazing, doing a product we’re enrolling. I gotta ask, for people that wanna go to your website, what’s the web address we need to go to to verify you’re not a hologram? FullArmorWindowsDoors.com. FullArmorWindowsDoors.com, I’m pulling it up right now. And what do you guys do? What are the services that you guys provide? Well, we started Windows and Doors. We have our own in-house installers, but actually started doing a little break into roofing, siding. And now we’re kind of looking at some other options, too, to expand our full list of services. So yeah, but right now, we’re rocking. How did you guys first come in contact with us? I know you guys service Nebraska and Iowa. How did you first come in contact with us? Your show. Your show is how we found you and then reached out to you and haven’t looked back. How long have we had the opportunity to work to work with you guys? Since 2021 is when we started. The beginning of the year. My understanding is you’re having a record sales month. Is that accurate or is that hyperbole? No, that is accurate. We had one week where we hit 184,000 and that was one week. So every week past that, that month we hit, I think it was around 250 in a month. And one sale alone was 115. Wow. Wow. So for people out there that are kind of discouraged or doubtful, I talked to a guy this week, true story, I go to church with this guy and he came to our business workshop because his pastor told him to his pastor said you need to Go I said I look like I am your pastor of your church, and I go there. You should go you should look into it How would you describe what the coaching experience has been like for you for people out there? They’re on the outside kind of looking in We meet I mean with Andrew every week. We hit on, we start with our normal, just going through the metrics. What did we sell? What’s our, what do we have outstanding? How many leads do we get in and where did those leads come from? And then did we do what we were supposed to do in terms of metrics? And then from there, we have an agenda. Did we write our content? Did we do all the tasks assigned to us for the week? And then we just kind of review and then after that then we kind of see what what our hang-ups are and I’m having trouble with something then we kind of work through that. How would you describe who your ideal and likely buyer is? Like if someone’s listening right now who could buy products or services from you guys? Any residential homeowner so anyone that owns a home so for windows, doors, those doors roofing if you own it we can help you. Anywhere in the United States? We’re pretty much right now in Nebraska we do a little in Iowa as well so but that’s kind of our main service right now but at the same time we’re gonna you know probably look into some other options as well. Now I’m gonna put this up here because I want people to understand the totality of what we do or don’t do. What I found is early on as a young guy in business, I reached out to a business consultant. And I’m not gonna mention the guy’s last name or his name of his company, but his first name was Bruce. Bruce. And Bruce, God bless him, I was 18, 19 years old. And I said, Bruce, I need to grow my company, DJConnection.com. I don’t know how to grow it. I’m stuck, I’m working three jobs, Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. Could you help me grow my business? And Bruce says, oh, oh yeah. And Bruce used to say, he’s kind of East Coast guy. And he’d say, oh yeah, baby, I can help you, oh yeah. And then we would meet, and he’d say, Clay, you just gotta work on your business, not in your business, you gotta work on your business. Not just in it, but you gotta work on it. And these things were helpful, but he never really walked me through specific moves that I needed to actually do. So it was very theoretical, but not necessarily practical. So I wanna get into the practical here, into the tactical, the practical. So as we look at my book here called A Millionaire’s Guide How to Become Sustainably Rich, box one, we gotta establish our revenue goals. I’m not asking you for what your revenue goals are, but does your organization have your revenue goals clearly determined? Yeah, absolutely. And Andrew’s been helping us define all those as well. And the second box, you have to know the break-even numbers. I mean, you could be excited, I could be excited, but I just had a conversation with my wife about one of our businesses and what the break-even number is. And it’s very important that everybody out there knows the break-even number if you have a business. Do you feel good about the break-even number? I do, I do. We’ve been able to offset some things too to help make that a little bit lower, to help make everything profitable. And, but really at the same time, that’s where we really had no idea what it was that when we first started like well I guess it makes sense that we have that and it really does and it’s it’s given us a benchmark to start and then after that then it’s just celebration after that too. Now this is my schedule this is my schedule and I this is a typical week for me and I block out my time and into half-hour blocks and that’s what I do you know so I wasn’t shocked that we were going to interview you today, nor were you shocked that I was going to interview you. And so the time blocking is a critical thing. But most people, the average American does not time block. In fact, right now, Nielsen reports, this is a real thing, I’m not making this up. Nielsen reports the average American now spends 11.3 hours per day distracted by media. 11.3 hours a day. What? 11.3 hours per day distracted by media. So I know Andrew has worked with you guys on building a sustainable schedule. Do you have clarity now as far as how many hours a week you’re gonna work and what you’re gonna be doing during those hours? Absolutely, and actually that was a huge game changer just having it all spelled out and time blocked and to-do lists, all of it. I used to have stickies everywhere and sometimes I still use it as memory, but my desk was covered and putting it in a to-do list and start blocking it and then it’s been easy ever since. It is the biggest game changer. Now box number four is determining your unique value proposition. So if you had to describe what you guys do at Full Armor that separates you from the pack, what would that be? It’s a lot of it’s our in-house installers, but we were just talking about this with the group. It’s our attention to detail and quality where we hear stuff around where people are slapping windows in and leaving and where, you know, a lot of our feedback comes from of, hey, these guys take that extra mile just to make sure things are done right and they look nice. So we hear it a lot and to me that’s what really separates us. Now branding, I know working with you that’s something that a lot of people get excited about. However, I will tell you folks that’s an event not necessarily a process. That’s where you make your website look first class. That’s where you work on your website to make it look great. That’s where you work on your logo, your print pieces, your videos. You’re optimizing the branding and branding is what people see. So branding is the opinion that somebody has or the reaction somebody has when they first think about your product or service. And on part two of today’s show, I’m gonna do a deep dive with Michael Levine, the world’s most celebrated public relations person of all time. I hope you on part two of today’s show. This was the PR guy, the branding guy for Nike, for this real story for Charlton Heston for George Carl, George Carlin, the comedian. This is the the branding person of choice for at the same time he represented both Bill Clinton and George Bush. Well this guy I mean this is Michael Levine and for people that don’t know who Michael Levine is again I’m gonna pull it up. This is like the world’s top PR guy and we’re gonna do a deep dive into it. He’s written books about it. He’s been celebrated for doing it. He was the PR consultant for Prince and for Michael Jackson at the same time. He’s been written about in Variety, Forbes, New York Times. And you can write whole books about it, and he has. But at the end of the day, you gotta make sure your branding looks first class. And at fullarmorwindowsdoors.com, fullarmorwindowsdoors.com, you guys have done that. Can you talk about the branding and how much that’s impacted your business? Well, got one right here on already. So it’s recognizable. Everyone knows our logo now. Even just the simple things that wrapping the trucks wrapping our trailers, having it on the website, like people are recognizing us like, Oh, I’ve read, we’ve had installers come in before like, I’ve seen you around town and had to check you out. So I mean, it’s been great because now people just anywhere are like, oh yeah, I’ve seen you around and things like that. So it’s been huge and been a great help. Now for folks that don’t know this, we charge a flat fee of $1,700 a month. We charge 1,700 per month. And then my goal with all my clients is to enter into what I call a non-equity partnership. So a lot of my clients, when you come to conferences, you’ll discover I’ve worked with clients for seven years or I, wow, this guy’s, Clay, you’ve worked with the same client for 12 years? One of my clients, I’ve actually worked with this client for 15 consecutive years. And so people, when they come to a conference, they feel like they’re part of a family. And again, we charge $1,700 a month, it’s a flat rate. And with those non-equity growth partners, we get a small percentage of the growth and that’s something we can talk about later. But how has it been for you guys knowing that you’re, all of this, the implementation of all this, graphic design, photography, video, web, search engine, everything is all fitting into that $1,700 flat monthly set it, forget it price. There’s so much that you guys do for that price and along with it, then we’re just growing constantly. I mean, even just a short amount of time we’ve been on, you’ve probably already heard the phone ring a handful of times already. So I mean, it’s all just been amazing, amazing and everything like that. So now for the sake of time, I want to totally respect your time today, but I also want people to know we help you with your sales conversion process, the scripts, the recorded calls, the one sheets, the prewritten emails, helping you determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs, building checklists and processes for everything, whether it be onboarding a new hire, whether it be installing something, we’ve got to build checklists and systems for everything. Then we have to teach management systems how to manage employees, which would work off of the idea that we also help finding employees. So many business owners today say they can’t find employees, let alone manage them. This is all the things that we do. We help you learn how to hire, inspire, train, and retain top quality people. I want to get your thoughts on this, and I want to respect your time. For people out there that are thinking about going to thrivetimeshow.com and scheduling a consultation, it’s a free consultation, it’s a free 13 point assessment. What would you say to anybody out there thinking about it? I would say, why are you still thinking about it? I’d say, give it a call. Because, I mean, proof’s in the pudding, you know, uh, you know, so we’ve, we’ve been doing great. And I mean, there’s, there’s no sense in hesitating at this point. You know, it’s, I’ve listened to the show. I I’ve been a partner for, you know, for how long, since 21, everything is knowledge and there’s no reason to be holding back and not making that call. Absolutely. And how much has the, uh, coaching, how much have you grown since we started working with you as far as a percentage, if you had to factor in a percentage or maybe some sort of stat in terms of growth, because obviously this week I have the notes pulled up here, this week we’re celebrating, and this is so important for people to know this, you should look this up folks, we’re celebrating the best sales week ever, $186,243 of sales. How much have you grown since we started working with you? Ooh, we’re 100 and probably 35 to 45% growth. Wow, and again, you’re a real person, real business. I’m gonna pull up the website one more time, folks, so you can see it. And if you’re out there today and you’re discouraged or you feel like you don’t have what it takes to do it, folks, we have a proven plan. Everybody, you can implement the proven plan. We have in-person workshops you can come to. We have one-on-one coaching. If you go to FullArmorWindowsDoors.com, you can see a recent testimonial with today’s guest. But if you want to see thousands, some people like to go up here and just watch these until their head explodes. I talked to a guy this weekend, and he told me, he said, Clay, I have watched, I think, all of the testimonials. I said, You have? And he says, Oh, yeah. And I said, That’s incredible. Wow. And he said, I went through, I scrolled down, I hit play, and they were great. And I said, did you click the button where it says see thousands of additional testimonials? And he said, there’s more? And I said, well, yeah, we have over 2,000, and we enumerate them. So we actually know this is a verifiable fact. We don’t have hundreds. I mean, we have thousands of video testimonials. And that works for our business because we document the success, but it also works for your business. Could you share how in closing, how has gathering objective reviews via video and Google, how has that impacted and improved or changed your sales process? Because again, somebody out there today, they’re looking on the outside going, I just don’t see that I could ever grow my business like that. How has gathering objective Google reviews, video reviews and building that gallery impacted Full Armor WindowsDoors.com? Well, the easy answer is we’ve grown 135%, so there’s that. But we could tell a huge difference from the moment we started getting more of those reviews. We had a jump initially that we jumped like 40 reviews in like a week or so. And all of a sudden, that just that bit, that phone started ringing like constantly. It boosted us. Similar with the video testimonials, people that go to our website are like, well, you guys are doing something right. You got all these people that are even just talking about you on video. So it adds a trust layer to any potential customers out there for sure. And again, that domain, it’s a little bit of a tricky domain for people that are looking at it for the first time. Just to be clear, it’s fullarmorwindowsdoors.com, fullarmorwindowsdoors.com. And I’ll sneak in one final question. I think a lot of people will reach out to me and they say, Clay, what’s the most important thing you do to grow businesses? And some people want to hone in on marketing, some want to hone in on accounting, some want to hone in on hiring, some want to hone in on sales. Let me try again. There’s four different, how I look at it is there’s four major boxes. Some people want to hone in on marketing, some want to hone in on sales, some want to hone in on hiring, some want to hone in on accounting. I would argue it’s all of those situate, all of that, all of those areas, all 14 areas of the business growth path are needed to achieve success, not just one. I’d love to get your reaction to that as a long-time client who’s having success. Because you know how it is, when you come to a conference, people ask you, what’s the one thing you did that changed the game? I’d love to get your reaction to that. Well, I’m kind of on the same, it’s everything. It’s all parts because the marketing helps bring the sales, and once we start growing, we got stuck. We’re like, well, shoot, we need more people to help service all these people now. So having a plan and hiring, I mean, so it all works hand in hand. It really does. And so when it comes to one thing, you know, one thing set the domino effect of everything else. And that’s the only way for it to grow. We can’t just focus on the marketing, otherwise then everything else would go. So it’s the whole package that really makes everything successful. Now, coaching is all about, you know, accountability. One, you got to have someone hold you accountable. Two, you got to know what to do. And three, you got to have someone who can help you do it. What am I saying? One, you have to have the accountability. Two, you have to know what to do. And then three, you have to have someone that can help you through it if you get stuck. How would you describe the coaching experience? We have a weekly meeting. It’s a weekly meeting. It’s a flat fee. But how would you describe that weekly coaching meeting meeting with Andrew and our team? We have a checklist. We go through our agenda. Here’s what you need to do next week. And then so when we’re having our meetings, it’s did you do this, how did it go, what do we need to do from there. So it’s everything you just said. It’s we have a plan, Andrew’s keeping me accountable, and then we’re discussing then as well what our next step is and having that person to communicate with and talk to, you know, like here’s what’s going on, like what do you suggest. And you don’t always have that person sometimes depending on what it is. And, you know, Andrew can answer all the questions we have. And if he doesn’t, he knows how to get it and, you know, have an answer shortly soon, you know. And it all, I mean, it’s just great. Otherwise, you know, it’s easy to drop off and be like, okay, maybe we’ll do it next week or something. But you have that one guy, Andrew calling you, I was like, where are you at with this? Like, yeah, I need to do that. So if you miss one at a time, you’re like, okay, I shouldn’t do that again. Now, if you had to describe what we do in like a sentence, maybe, like if you had to say, or maybe sentences, I won’t try to paint you in a corner, but sentences for somebody who’s, how would you describe it in a sentence or sentences, uh, what we do? Business coaching services. Um, and, and that’s really kind of, it’s a whole program that really helps grow everything. And it’s, you know, I thought, you know, at one point, like, oh, okay, we got to do all this and in one sentence, it’s, it’s just the coaching and helping create a legitimate profitable business. Brother, I am so honored to know you and to have you on the show. And for people that want to verify, we know your first name is Tavis. What’s your last name so people can look you up and verify you’re not a hologram? Tavis Hine. Hine is my last name. Tavis, I really do appreciate you, sir. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. You guys are first class there, and again, folks, that website, if you haven’t been to it, it’s fullarmorwindowsdoors.com. Take care, sir. Have a Merry Christmas, and we’ll talk to you soon. You too. All right. Thank you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we’re going to be breaking down what Robert Kiyosaki has recently been talking about. Robert Kiyosaki, the bestselling author, the New York Times bestselling author and real estate investment guru, has recently been talking more and more about acta non verba. You say, what’s acta non verba? Well, one, it’s Latin, so don’t get too concerned there. But it’s acta, again, it’s acta non verba. What it means is, what it means is is action you need to watch people do and not what they say That’s that’s the idea watch what somebody does and not what they said. I am Ryan Wimpy And I’m Rachel and the name of our business is Kip Talking. Our business is a dog training business We help people with behavioral issues and teach their dog how to listen When I was learning to become a dog trainer We didn’t learn anything about internet marketing or advertising or anything at all. It’s just dog training. And that’s what’s so great about working with Clay and his team because they do it all for us. So that we can focus on our passion and that’s training dogs. Clay and his team here, they’re so enthusiastic. Their energy is off the charts. Never a dull moment. They’re a threat. We’ve been working with Clay and his team for the last five months, two of which have been our biggest months ever. One, our biggest gross by 35%. Clay’s helps us make anything from brochures to stickers, new business cards, new logos, scripts for phones, scripts for email, scripts for text messages, scripting for everything. How I would describe the weekly meetings with Clay and his team are awesome. They’re so effective. It’s worth every minute. Things get done. We’ll ask for things like different flyers and they’re done before our hour is up. So it’s just awesome, extremely effective. If you don’t use Clay and his team, you’re probably going to be pulling your hair out, or you’re going to spend half of your time trying to figure out the online marketing game and producing your own flyers and marketing materials, print materials, all the stuff like that. You’re really losing a lot as far as lost productivity and lost time. Not having a professional do it has a real sense of urgency, and it actually knows what they’re doing when you already have something that’s your core focus that you already know how to do. You would also be missing out with all the time and financial freedom that you would have working with Clay and his team. We would recommend Clay and his team to other business owners because they need to be working on their business, not just trying to figure out the online game, which is complex and changing daily. So, no one has a marketing team, too. Most people don’t, and they can’t afford one, and their local web guy or local person that they know probably can’t do everything that a whole team and a whole floor of people can do in hours and not just weeks or months. There’s a definite sense of urgency with Clay and his team. I used to have to ride other web people, I mean really ride them to get stuff done and stuff is done so fast here. There’s a real sense of urgency to get it done. It’s great. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Deeds not words. So acta non verba. Deeds not words or acts not words. James, a lot of people, they come to our business workshops because they’re listening to our podcast, our business podcast, and they say, Man, I want to achieve massive success. And they see some of the testimonials and they go, If that guy can do it, I can do it. That’s kind of where it starts. I see it happen all the time, Clay. Because your desk is about two inches from mine. Right. And so people will say, if that guy can do it, then I can do it. That’s correct. So the two big principles I want to teach you on today’s show, just two principles. One is this idea of acta non verba, means acts not words. The second concept I want to teach is that money is a magnifier. I was looking to learn how to take my business, like they’ve said today, from being very successful to being systematic. I’ve got a very successful practice in three different cities. good money. I just want to take it to the next level with systems and processes to where I can drive my cars more. Paul Hood. I’ve been a CPA for 33 years. And what kind of growth have you and your great team had here over the past, let’s say, five, six years? The last five, when I met you five years ago, we were doing three million. This year, we’ll do 24 million. Which is more than, he’s an accountant, so we’re going to talk about that. So Paul introduced me to Bob because he said there’s a guy that came into my office looking to raise some capital, I think that was the thing, and he needed to get some sales going. That’s how, and so we, if we tell Paul from the accounting perspective, I’ll pass the mic to you. You do accounting. You do accounting. Why do you have to have a website that makes sense and all that branding stuff? How has that impacted your brand, having websites and all those branding things in place? Well, when I met you, like most CPAs, I thought my clients only come from referrals. But we get five leads in a two-month period, every month or so from Google. And so this is my face. This is, we have 17 offices across four states. We have in every country, in every state. But this is our face. Like what you were saying, it’s visual. And it also has to say why we’re different. That about us from there is spectacular. And it’s just, it’s an industry that is changing. We’re modifying it, we’re going to offer our services in a subscript model to where it’s all inclusive and it’s just been awesome. Well determine the level of success. So success in business is not what you know how to do, it’s actually doing it. And so the thing that I would tell you is stop it. Get a guy like this guy and let him go after it. It’s insane because then you can be doing what you do well and take that time and invest in something else on top of that. On top of that, he has contacts. This is not, I don’t get anything for selling his. I’m just telling you what he’s done for us so that we can focus. Then he’ll come in and I’ll say, I think I’ve got it all and he listens for five minutes and he makes one and I want to slap myself in the face. Well, why didn’t I think about that? That’s idiotic. But they’re sick freaks. They just get it done. I don’t know. I think it’s merit-based pay in our office. So the people here, like they get paid. So if we were taking on your account and someone else to do this, but if you hired a different marketing company, I’m just giving you best practices. You want to make sure that they win when you win. So like in our office, if we grow Dave Acy’s podcast, that benefits our company to the extent it benefits them, but we actually benefit if they benefit. Does that make sense to you? I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. So on today’s show, I’m going to just hammer a testimonial so you can see people that heard about the conference through a podcast, through a friend, or whatever. And they had a business that was stagnant. It was stuck. It wasn’t growing. It wasn’t thriving. It was just surviving. It was stagnant. It was stuck. It wasn’t growing. It was just stagnant. It was stuck. It wasn’t thriving. It was surviving. And they heard about the podcast. They heard about the conference. They heard about the success stories. And they came to the conference. And by the way, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com, thrivetimeshow.com, you can name your price for all the workshops I do. We want to make it affordable for everybody. So they came out to the in-person two-day workshop. They went to Thrive Time Show, they requested a ticket, we called them, got them their ticket. Then, James, we interviewed them after the conference and we said, how was it? Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I definitely learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. The goal setting, while it’s not like, it’s somewhat basic stuff, making sure we have different goals for every part of your life is super important. Also, the linear workflow. The linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. I learned at the academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. And they said, oh my gosh, I learned so much about business. I learned about the workflows and the marketing and the search engine optimization and the branding and the hiring and the checklists and all the bookkeeping, the search engine optimization, the online advertising, the social media. I learned it all. Yes, I learned it. However, it’s acts not words. Acta non verba. So James, if somebody comes to a conference and they learn all this stuff, but they don’t apply it, what happens? Nothing happens. But there is a certain group of people, not our listeners, who run around acquiring information and they don’t apply it. Those are the worst types. So this is what happens. As Napoleon Hill, the best-selling author, he says that knowledge without application is meaningless. Napoleon Hill, the best-selling author, think and grow rich. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over 800 million dollars in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes and then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing 800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four-month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry, but the thing that I’ve found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing, and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Knowledge without application is meaningless. So James, if somebody comes to a conference and they learn all this and they don’t apply it, that doesn’t matter because the idea is acta non verba, acts not words. So if people come to this conference, you’re going to see testimonies of people who came to the conference and they say, wow, I had no idea that this was possible. And then you’re going to see people, I’m going to show you a testimony of people that applied what we taught them. People that have grown their accounting practice. Now by the way, in accounting practice, this is not someone who has invented the concept of accounting. There’s other accounting, this just in, there are other accountants. My business, it consists of a CPA and a financial advisor, and we’re very successful. I want to go from successful to systematic. I want to learn systems and processes so that the business can run without me. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, Acta Non Verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. But this person, they came to the conference, they learned about how to scale their company. I taught them how to create a subscription model for their accounting as opposed to doing the traditional accounting model. And they’ve grown the company from $3 million to over $20 million. Wow. Then you’re going to see a testimonial, a success story of a home builder who grew the home building business from $15 million to over $150 million. A home builder. And by the way, this just in, there are other home builders. But this home builder grew from 15 million to 150 million sales. That’s life-changing, Clay. You’re going to hear about a dog trainer who came to this event. Now let me tell you about the dog trainer. He came to this event and he had a wonderful business that was just, it was stuck. It was stuck. It wasn’t able to grow. He was a great guy. He knew how to train dogs, but he didn’t have a no-brainer offer. He didn’t have a website that was optimized. He didn’t have branding that made sense. He didn’t have one sheet. 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. 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 van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you Clay and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. I learned at the academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. He didn’t have a branding that made sense. He didn’t have a one sheet. He didn’t have a pricing structure that worked. He didn’t have a linear workflow. He didn’t have an office culture environment. He didn’t have decoration in the office that would make people want to work there. He didn’t understand the process of hiring, inspiring, training, and retaining great people. He didn’t have a performer. He didn’t know how to franchise. He didn’t know how to license. But what we do, James, is we take people in, they come to the conference, they learn this stuff and they go, could you teach me how to do it? And I say, absolutely. Now, folks, here’s the secret sauce that allows me to be the boss. My job is to make big obstacles seem small. Here’s the secret sauce that allows me to be the boss. My job is to make big obstacles seem small. A favorite aspect is probably just how entertaining it is. And the fact that I pick up one or two or three things every time I come to take my business to the next level. Well, if people are missing out on basically a plan, a guaranteed plan pretty much if you’re willing to work it, to be successful. Most people, I think everybody should attend one of these workshops at least once because you don’t know what you don’t know and we’re not taught to be successful in school. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York acta non verba. Watch what a person does not what they say. A lot of people they have a fear or a phobia of scaling their business or building the process. They feel like they don’t know what to do or they need kind of a coach or a mentor to guide them down the path. And so on today’s show, you’re going to see people that came to a conference, step one. Step two, we taught them how to apply these principles at the conference. Step three, they hired us to help them scale their company. Step four, you’re going to hear their success stories. Now James, money is a magnifier. We have a little bit of news for you guys. It’s now what, May 31st at 621, you’ve been closed for 20 minutes? Right. No, it’s now June’s. Let’s run the numbers for May. Let’s see what we got. Runs the totals, 102,837. What’s last year to date? 102,837 this year? And last year was 60,667. Whoa! Coming out of the weeds now! Boom, baby! Boom! Out of the weeds, onto the pavement. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York. Octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. What does that mean? We’re going to share with you some stories today of an accountant who grew a business from $3 million to $20 plus million, of a home builder who grew a business from $15 million to $150 million, of a dog trainer that was able to scale his business from a stagnant business to 15 plus locations to grow the business that was perpetually stuck at $400,000-ish, grow that into a million dollar plus annual revenue. This year’s sales for this week. So this is the same week last year. Do you see the difference? What was that? I can’t really tell. One is Michael. Can you, can we just do this? I was going to get it. Jason, can you kind of pull this in maybe? Just so we can see it. I can’t tell without the link. It’s hard to tell. So that’s last year’s sales. This is last year’s sales. And the total is a mere $4,711.73. Same week this year, 2015. The total is, read it Michael 11,000 313 50 oh hello my name is Charles Cole all the cool off fitness today I want to tell you a little bit about clay Clark and how I know clay Clark clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017 he’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations we’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crocker, Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours, where he does these tours all across the country, where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. 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 it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like 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 the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My 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. And 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. Anytime 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, because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. But he was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing and I encourage you if you haven’t ever worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day and literally the rest of time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and and he loves it. So anyways this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank You Clay and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay it’s a great great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.