Shep Gordon | Hollywood A-List Manager for Stallone, Wolfgang Puck, Vandross, Lagasse, Mike Myers, Etc. + Why You Must Be Willing to Work for FREE to Create BIG Opportunities + 56 Tix Remain for March 6-7 Workshop!

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, we are interviewing the most celebrated celebrity manager of all time. Throughout his career, today’s guest created the celebrity chef concept and managed Alice Cooper, Luther Vandross, Wolfgang Puck, Rick James, Raquel Welch, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Douglas and countless other celebrity names that you know. And on today’s wide ranging interview, we have a cameo appearance from the great one Wayne Gretzky.

Chef discusses how he created the celebrity chef genre, why you have to work for free to create opportunities with the Food Network, Celebrity Management, and any other venture. Why he and Emeril Lagasse invented Emeril Spices. Why fame will not fill up the hole someone has in their soul. How he became the most celebrated celebrity manager of all time. Why he believes that art is not quantifiable.

Why being afraid of making art is not quantifiable. Why being afraid of making mistakes is simply not acceptable. Why managing people is difficult because there is no handbook. What it’s like working with some of the biggest names in the music and entertainment industry. How fame is tough and at most times hard to handle, especially if you’re young, and why he believes that you should be compassionate

and help your neighbors. And now without any further ado, it’s the Shep Gordon interview. Let’s do it. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show.

But this show does. Two men. Eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Thriving Time Show. Now, three, two, one, here we go! ♪ We started from the bottom, now we’re here ep Gordon while he is on a golf course in

beautiful Hawaii. So occasionally during today’s show to provide clarity as to what he’s saying, if the audio signal cuts out intermittently, I will be inserting some audio narration from myself so you can better understand what Shep just said. Shep Gordon welcome on to the Thrive Time Show how are you sir? Aloha from Maui, a beautiful day here and very excited to be on your show. Shep, you now live in Hawaii, you now can count former clients as Raquel Welch and Kenny

Loggins and Blondie and Rick James and Alice Cooper. But I’d love to start off at the very, very bottom. What prompted you to, at the very beginning, what prompted you to move from New York to LA? I moved out for a job in Los Angeles and it was in the late 60s when every hippie, and I was a hippie in America, wanted to be in California. There was that very famous song, where you have a flower in your hair, come to San Francisco, wear a flower in your hair.

I had the flower and I ended up in L.A. Okay, so you caught the fever, you had this vision to move out to L.A., you followed the job out there. How did you go from your first job to landing your first client? My first job lasted a day. It was at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. That’s the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. Back to the interview.

And I had very long hair and in those days they didn’t really like that in California. They probably wouldn’t have liked it more if they knew that I was a pharmaceutical dealer working in their jail. Ship Gordon was a pharmaceutical dealer, aka a drug dealer, working in a juvenile hall. Back to the interview. So they sort of gave me a heavy hint to resign the first day, which I did. And I drove into Los Angeles proper and checked into a motel on to a bizarre lucky break.

I ran into Janice Joplin and she introduced me to Jimi Hendrix and said, what do you do for a living? And I said, well, I sort of sell pharmaceuticals illegally. And he said said are you Jewish? I said yeah you should be a manager too. So Shep Gordon goes into a hotel he meets Janice Joplin and Jimi Hendrix explains to them that he is a drug dealer and Jimi Hendrix asks him if he’s Jewish.

He says yes and Jimi says you should be a manager and that is how it happened And that Alice would be Alice Cooper back to the interview so you were at this point selling drugs illegally You’re at a hotel and just a a random circumstance, you met these people, you meet Janice Joplin, you meet Jimi Hendrix, if I’m getting this right, Jimi Hendrix says you should become a manager and you say, okay, am I getting something wrong here?

Well he was also my best customer in the pharmaceutical business so I wasn’t going to argue with him. Okay, ok. So, did you know what a manager was? Did you know what that involved? No idea. No idea.

Still not quite sure. So you, what was your marketing strategy when working with Alice Cooper? I mean, my understanding is you guys still have a handshake deal today. You don’t have a contract. I mean, how did that relationship start and what was your marketing strategy? I don’t think any of us really thought about it in terms of marketing strategy. It was

how to try and get enough money to buy lunch. And we realized pretty early on that his music was at least at that point, very obscure and not really something that radio was gonna play. So that wasn’t a path for us. And what we saw was that people really started to hate him. Older people would leave the buildings, people would throw stuff at him, and that’s an

emotion, that’s a reaction. And every kid goes through a period of rebellion, so we said let’s let’s look on to that we know how to make parents angry let’s see if that gets kids happy and that’s what happened we got lucky. Did you have the game plan to get banned from Europe did you want to get Alice Cooper banned in Europe was that part of the game plan? By the time we got to

Europe, after a couple of years, maybe a year, two years of doing what we’re doing, we started to realize that that really was our power. That our power was getting word out to the parents around the world that this monster existed, that their kids might possibly go sick, who stood for everything they hated. And that was sort of our drawer, you know, if you tell a kid you can’t do something, that’s the one thing they want to do.

Right. So by then we realized and the best thing you could possibly do is get banned. Getting banned gets you to the front page of the papers, it gets you D’s and it gets it all in the right way so we became pretty good against Ben. I’ve heard you say that safe marketing doesn’t work. Safe doesn’t work in marketing, but you can’t sell something that doesn’t work.

If Alice didn’t have the talent, we would have gone up and we would have come down. Can you talk to me about why safe marketing doesn’t work? Maybe it works for some people. It never worked for me. I mean, it never worked for what my job was. Maybe if you’re selling underwear and you just need the best.

I was selling personalities and something really abstract that there’s no, you can’t really quantify. You know, you can’t, you’re selling a paper towel. You can say this paper towel holds more water than the next. When you’re selling art whether it’s a movie or an artist or music or you can’t really quantify it so it’s very abstract and in those kind of circumstances SAFE doesn’t work because it doesn’t get you above the noise and it doesn’t really define anything different than what everyone sort of sees.

And part of that is working with artists that allow you to make mistakes because if you’re not being safe you’re definitely going to make mistakes. I think there’s somebody out there, I know that I am infinitely curious about the day-to-day operations of a manager when you’re working with huge personalities. Are you the one then booking the travel arrangements and booking the arenas for Alice Cooper? Are you the one booking the interviews? Are you the one ordering all the food, thinking about all the logistics of all the equipment? How far does your relationship go? What do you do? What do you not do? I

know you’re willing to do anything, but what do you do with a typical client? I think every relationship is different because there’s different needs. Again, manager, there’s no handbook. So basically what you want to be as a manager is to be responsible to make sure everything works. So you try and get a travel agent for travel, you try and get a booking agent for employment, you try

and get a record company to put out records, you get a business manager to protect the money, you get a press agent to get agent to get more word out about you. And in each particular, you get a lighting desire to do the show. In each particular relationship between an artist and a manager, some of those things are important and some aren’t. With Alice, I help him write the shows. With Luther,

he wouldn’t let me see the show until it was broken in for a couple of weeks. So that’s about as far as swing as he could possibly get. And I managed both of them. And when you say Luther, you mean Luther Vandross? Vandross, Luther Vandross. Yeah, yeah. I just want to make sure the listeners know that. And one thing that it’s your career is it spans so much time and space and everybody respects you. And if I can I just want to go through a name dropping buffetpping buffet, and I’d like for you

to think of the person and share with me kind of maybe a highlight of working with them or maybe something that people wouldn’t know because you have so many stories. Your interviews are so good. Rick James. What was it like working with Rick James? I love Rick.

Rick came breaking into my office. I had a boat in my office on Melrose Avenue in LA. And when he came breaking, he literally broke into my office right past the receptionist and said, yo mother f don’t know if I can talk like that on this. Paraphrasing him. I know that I’m from Buffalo. I know everything about you,

and you’re going to manage me. And then he went through, he talked about where I lived in Buffalo, the kind of car I had. He literally knew everything about me. Wow. And it was great. So I loved him. He was very, very talented.

Luther. Mary Jane Girls were, you know, one of his inventions. Mary Jane Girls. Yeah. What were they? Can you explain what. Mary Jane Girls. Yeah. What were they? Can you explain what the Mary Jane Girls were for the listeners out there who are not familiar

with them? Well, the Mary Jane Girls were on Motown Records and had a couple of number one records, but it was something he sort of created. So he wasn’t just the master of his own career. He produced other people’s music, came up with ideas for groups and found talent.

He was a pretty multi-dimensional guy. Very smart. I love Luther’s music. I think Luther Vandross, just unbelievable, super talent. Appeared to be a really nice guy. I’ve never met the guy, but I’ve had interviews with him, with Oprah, I’ve be a really nice guy. I never met the guy, but

I’ve had interviews with him, with Oprah, I’ve seen him over the years. His Live from Radio City Music Hall album was just awesome. In a random circumstance, I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma at one point, downtown Tulsa, and a guy was looking for a ride. I picked the guy up and I found out he was a background singer for Luther Vandross at the time. So I kind of got a chance to hear a little bit of some Luther stories from the background singer who was trying to catch a ride there. Talk to me about Luther. What was his personality

like? What was he like? He was a pure artist. Everything for him was his art, his music, his performances on stage He really Directed his shows, wrote the shows He was a consummate artist. He led a fairly solitary life Didn’t have a lot of friends, always was challenged by his weight. That was a common thread of his life. So I would put him more in the

not tortured artist but not ecstatic artist. He was always worried about something. But not psychotic, not erotic, not suicidal, none of those things. But wasn’t the kind of guy that went out on a Friday night party. The documentary made about you is a fascinating film. Did Mike Myers reach out to you to make the film Superman?

He did, yeah. He was on me for years. What did it feel like to know? to make the film Superman? Sure did you. He did yeah he was on me for years. What did it feel like to know because you’re a guy who I think you’re a very self-aware person I think you’re so self-deprecating that I am so approachable I think you know all your clients have nothing but great things to

say about you. What did it feel like when you realized oh uh oh, I’m old enough they want to make a documentary about me but I’m still alive. I mean what was going through your mind at that point? Well you know it was an interesting process because I said no to them for four or five years and with the thought really being in my brain I really feel that you know there’s no real upside the same

it’s like a dangerous thing that if you can avoid avoid it unless you need it to make a living so I never really wanted to flirt with it. And then I had a, I was in the hospital with emergency surgery and I had very slight chance of survival. And Mike called me up from the hospital, he was my first call, and he said, and it was like, okay, you ready to do this if you get through this? Because now I have a great

story to tell. I almost got an ending. And I was so morphine out that I said yes, my ego sort of took over. And then a couple weeks later I called him up and I said, did I say yes? And he said, yep. And I said, can I take that back? And he started the project. So in retrospect I’m very happy I said yes. The movie is very well done. The movie’s called Superman. I’m gonna put a link to it on the show notes. The movie is very well done. The movie is called Supermensch.

I’m going to put a link to it on the show notes. The Legend of Shep Gordon, Supermensch. It’s a very well done film and I think it parts, it was uncomfortable for me. Now I was raised and I am a Judeo-Christian and I’m a big fan of your work. So I’m looking at what you…you know, you lived pretty hard there for a while. Now you seem to be kind of in a meta kind of time of life out there in Hawaii.

Can you, and if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay, but can you talk about just the lowest, most intense partying of lifestyle part of your career and then contrast that to how you live now yeah I think you know I I never was at least I on self-reflection and it’s really hard to look at yourself and come up with judgments but I never really was self-reflection and it’s really hard to look at yourself and come up with judgments, but I never really was self-destructive part of it. I never tried to, I never got to the point of trying to hurt myself ever, at least I

never felt that way. But I had a, my lifestyle was completely the opposite. I had a nightclub in LA. It was open till two in the morning. And so most days I would see the sun come up, get four or five hours sleep and get to the office about 11.

Always sort of a workaholic. Yeah. And as life started to move on, I started to find some passions. Cooking was a passion. So I started to find some things that filled up my time that were more rewarding to me. And then when I got to Hawaii, I started to live with the sun,

go to sleep early, wake up early, and I just feel better. So I don’t, I don’t, there was no real low point in the partying for me. It was just sort of a natural evolution. Yeah. And I realized that if I stayed in the groove I was in, I was headed for

trouble. That you can’t stay up all night, you can’t do the drugs I was doing, you can’t drink as much, you can’t all those things, you just, you know, all you have to do is look around and you see you can’t all those things you just you know all you have to do is look around and you see you can’t do it forever unless you want to. Can you share with the listener I think this is something that I think a lot of listeners want to know I know I do I I know you I didn’t expect you Shep to do a lot of research on me but previous to doing this podcast I’m a father of five and my wife

and I, we started our first business together called DJConnection.com and before I sold it, it was America’s largest wedding entertainment company. So we did 4,000 weddings a year. So I would listen, I’d play Rick James, I’d play Blondie, I would play Luther Vandross. So it all kind of led back to me. You know what I mean? So it’s like I always kind of knew of you but didn’t know who you were.

So this is a real, I mean, pinch myself moment here. A lot of the great artists die young. You know? Why? What is the deal? What’s going on?

Fame is tough. Yeah. Why? What is the deal? What’s going on? Famous stuff. Famous stuff. I mean, I think it’s tough in that the ones who are driven towards it usually are looking for some type of outside source to tell them they’re great. There’s something, there’s some hole inside them that drives them to take the kind of abuse you have to take to get famous. Because, you know, there’s no such thing as overnight success. Everybody’s been beat up for years.

And then I think once you get there, it doesn’t fill up that hole. You know, you can have a hundred thousand people applauding if you look in the mirror and think you’re a rotten, miserable person. They can all applaud you’re still a rotten, miserable person to you. And that’s when the drugs and stuff start to come in, not to get happy, but to fill up the hole. And a lot of people, you know, overdo it or just don’t have a desire to go on anymore.

So it’s not uncommon in the world of fame. I think it’s whether it’s stockbrokers, musicians, film stars, athletes, you know, you see these people really hurting themselves that want to get really famous. Michael Douglas and Sylvester Stallone have really, really good things to say about you. And I am obsessive, compulsive, I have a problem. I love Sylvester Stallone, love his movies.

I’ve seen Rocky IV so many times that no matter how many times I’ve bought the VHS or the DVD, I still owe him more money. I mean this guy I just I love Sylvester Stallone What was your what is your relationship with Sylvester Stallone I Don’t see him much anymore when I was living in LA and we were both bachelors.

We spent a lot of time together. Our relationship started when I got a phone call at my office and the girl said, Sylvester Stallone on the phone, and this was right at the height of Rocky and everything. You know I said come on you kidding? He said no no it’s Sylvester Stallone. So I pick up the phone it was Sylvester Stallone and he had bought the rights to my life story and he was planning to make a movie playing me. Really?

Yeah. How does that work? So he had lunch and he could study me. It was a book called Billion Dollar Babies by Bob Green. And he had bought the rights to it. He never made the movie, but that was how we met.

And we found that we had a lot of stuff in common. I was a good cook, he loved food. We both had an attraction to beautiful women and it all sort of worked. So we spent a lot of time together and we were both in the film world so we go to con together. We had a great relationship. I can’t ask you on a podcast where half a million people are listening to name your

favorite artist you worked with, but could you maybe think back on some of the artists or talent you worked with where you go that was a special relationship that you guys had or you have is it can you can you reflect back on that and say you know here’s a couple people that I really I would say Alice and Teddy okay so the two that I would say what and Teddy. Okay. Those are the two that I would say. What makes that relationship with Alice so special?

Well, you know, we were the first and we just, we’ve been together 50 years now and it’s sort of like we’re beyond family. We’ve never had a fight. We’ve never raised our voices at each other. Just been a beautiful relationship and it’s sort of worked.

I’m sure working helps the relationship. Now Teddy Pendergrass is a legendary R&B vocalist. Why did you hit it off so well with him? I always loved his music, loved what he did. And we just hit it off. We had again the same kind of thing. We had a love for life. We both were partiers. We both had plenty of women in the world. Yes, there are.

That’s very funny, that’s Wayne Gretzky walking by here and me talking about women. Is Wayne your neighbor? He just walked by and started laughing when he heard that. Is Wayne your next door neighbor? No, no, at the golf course. Oh, at the golf course. Okay, awesome. I’m in a pub on a podcast.

Shep Gordon is currently talking to Wayne Gretzky, the best hockey player in the history of professional hockey, while on a golf course on the beautiful island of Hawaii, while also participating with us on the Thrive Time Show podcast. Yeah, yeah, no, I just took it. Okay, so now you, I just took it.

So now you at some point in your career, you shifted into the phase where you decided to focus on culinary people. You like food, you mentioned that. And you started working with Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck and you’ve sort of I guess not not sort of you definitely are known as the guy who created the celebrity chef genre. How did that happen? Walk us through that. I had a mentor named

Roger Verger who was a French chef, very famous, but in New World Cuisine. And, uh, traveling with him, I got to meet most of the great chefs in the world and realized that they weren’t really getting paid. Um, that, um, they weren’t getting really a lot of respect, they weren’t getting paid, they didn’t have, none of them could afford to send their kids to a private school.

And I sort of felt like I had the skill set to help them. And they trusted me and off we went. We got lucky we got the Food Network on the air, which really is what launched it all. How did you get the Food Network going? What was your role in launching the Food Network? I had an acquaintance named Reece Schoenfeld, he was part of CNN and he was looking at starting a cable channel, he was thinking about food, and I represented most of the celebrity chefs. So I told him that I could get him free talent

for a couple of years if he did the cooking challenge and gave my guys jobs. And we traded one commercial rather than payment we got one commercial in each show and that launched Emeril Spices. That was what we invented, Emeril Spices, to put in that commercial. So it worked out well. Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse. Talk to me about Wolfgang Puck. What’s your relationship like with Wolfgang? Very good. He has a restaurant here in Maui down the street from me. He comes once a year.

And actually a couple years ago I made him Thanksgiving dinner, which I was very proud of. Wow! So you can cook food too? Yeah. Oh yeah, Yeah, pretty good. Sylvester Stallone has described you as saying that you’re a protector, you keep the wolf from the door. What do you do for your clients that would make Sylvester Stallone say such high praise

about you? I have a good stomach for trouble and I keep them away from it. What kind of trouble do they run into that you keep them away from? You know it’s always different stuff and you know you’re in a restaurant you see trouble a mile away or a paparazzi around the corner, or someone trying to do a deal with them that’s got a heated past, or you never know what it is, but you

know I tend to err on the side of protecting them rather than self-interest. It’s really tough, you know, when you’re inside the bubble of someone like a Stallone, everybody is trying to get out of them wanting to bribe you with anything they can bribe you with. Right, right. I have three final questions for you. We have about a half million folks who listen to us, many of them are entrepreneurs. So I’d like to ask you this. How do you get paid? I’m not asking for the specific details of the specific artists, but how do you get

paid when you help a guy like a Stallone or you help a guy like Wolfgang? I would, I mean, with all the shots I did a pro bono because they weren’t making any money. Got it. But with normal client I take a percentage of the revenues. Okay.

Like a gross. That I generate. So it’s anywhere from 10 to 20% of the revenues. Okay and that’s how you do it. And it’s just pretty much a matter of fact. You’re going to go in there, you’re going to make it happen, you’re going to get the

revenue and it’s a percentage of the gross. Pretty simple. Shep, do you have a certain, you come across as a very thoughtful person, one of the most self-deprecating wisest people that I’ve interviewed are there certain books that you’ve read that have brought you to the knowledge that you’re at now or the wisdom you have a Certain book or two you’d recommend for listeners Yeah, I would say for me the most maybe one of the most significant was a bill Moyer series with Joseph Campbell, The Power

of the Myth, M-Y-T-H. It’s available I know on Amazon because I just bought it from someone. I think it’s a five-hour series. I want to ask you, my final question for you is you are a resilient guy. You’ve been through a lot of adversity. What was the biggest adversity that you have been through with your career?

And how did you get through it? I don’t know if I ever had a huge adversity with my career. I mean, my life, I’m a cancer survivor. I’ve had a couple of bad medical things but in my career I never really looked at it like that and I never really looked at it as a career. I wake up in the morning I did what I did

you know I’ve had I’ve had artists that I’ve managed that I couldn’t really help and that was disappointing for me. Someone like King Sunny Ade, who was a great Nigerian artist. And that always made me feel bad because they only have one life. I can move from one to the other. So if you’re not successful with someone, you really hurting their life. Um, but on an overall basis, not really splitting up with my partner was hard.

That was back in the seventies. We had been doing this in college. Um, we’ve gotten to the point where we just felt like we couldn’t do it together. We’ve been through a lot of things. We’ve gotten to the point where we just felt like we couldn’t do it together. So that was difficult for me because then I was on my own rather than having a partner. Our listeners are very action-oriented.

Is there a certain action step you’d like our listeners to do or you’d advise like hey you know if you had a little if you give everybody you’re sitting down with everybody you got a half million people sitting in front of you in some kind of stadium or arena what’s the advice you’d give all of our all of our listeners? I would say be compassionate, try and help out your neighbors. I think particularly we’re living in a world where there’s so much hunger, which

doesn’t need to be, you know, feed your community. It’s compassionate and it’ll provide safety. No one will break into your house if they’re not hungry. So that’s sort of my mission in the last few years is trying to feed people. Do you have a specific website or a specific movement or cause or a specific group that you’d like to direct our listeners to to help join with you? I support the food banks around the

country, local food banks and feed your local neighbors. You know, I think we’re living in a day and age now where probably more than half of the people who get food from the food banks have jobs. Raising children, you know, so wherever we can help there. Shep, I thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule for being on the show and I just want to say on behalf of all of our listeners, thank you so much for the work you’ve done and for investing your time on today’s show.

Thank you so much. Aloha. Thrive Nation, if you’re out there today and you’re going, wow, I learned a lot on today’s show but what can I do as a result of what I just learned? I’m going to give you one action step that everybody should take and that most people, not you, I’m sure not our listeners,

but other people would easily miss. Shep Gordon said that Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck and these celebrity chefs all provided content for free for a couple of years For a couple of years he also said that I know Jason I’m not sure if you caught that but he said he also worked and represented them for free for a couple of years right because he Had a friend who had helped to launch CNN who was looking to build a food network

And he said hey I’ll supply you free talent for a couple of years in exchange for you helping build their celebrity. Did you catch that part? Vaguely yeah. That’s powerful. Right. Because how many people I mean think about this Wolfgang Puck was already making a lot of money. Oh for sure. Emeril Lagasse was already making a lot of money. Yep. But they said we’re going to provide free content for a couple of years to build the relationship and throughout his entire career he represented some of the biggest artists

on a pro bono basis to start to build that relationship and then he began charging them. So I would just ask you this Thrive Nation, if you’re on the outside looking in right now, you’re knocking on the door of that mentorship that you’re looking for, who in your life right now, who is the mentor in your life?

Who is somebody you want to spend a little more time with who has the potential to help you to create those connections that you need? Who is that person? Write that person’s name down who has the potential to help you to create those connections that you need. Who is that person? Write that person’s name down or write that business’s name down. Write that job that you want down. Write it down and think about am I willing to work for free for a couple of years because that is how Steven Spielberg got started. That is how Andrew Carnegie got

started. That would be how Puff Daddy got started as an intern. I could just go on and on listing examples of this, but this is how you get started. This is how John D. Rockefeller got started. But so many people are out there looking for their dream job or their dream opportunity and you’ve never been on TV you’ve never been on a TV show before. Yeah these guys were great celebrity chefs right they were great chefs but they had never been on a TV show before and so they had to

earn their way they had to get better over time and you might have that opportunity right in front of you but are you willing to work for free? I know that I DJed Boeing Airline, the Boeing company that makes all the airplanes. I DJed their first Christmas party that I ever DJed for them was for a dollar. I’ve DJed for some of the biggest companies in America for a dollar. I remember DJing at KG’s, it’s a Kevin Garnett’s store back in the day at the Ball of America. I have the picture of it right there on my fireplace.

And I DJ that thing for free. I’ve done so many big events for free because it opens opportunities and it builds relationships. And when you have a bunch of relationships, you’re going to discover, you’re going to find a relationship. You’re going to find that once you have a network, it’s going to improve your net worth. But there’s not a whole lot of successful people right now begging you to bring your

lack of experience to their workplace. So if you want to build an opportunity, I would just encourage you to write down today, who are you willing to go to work for for free in exchange for learning what you need to learn and getting the experience and the connections that you need. Write that name down and commit to it today. Write it down.

What clients are you willing to serve for free to build that reputation, to gain those testimonials? That right there is an unbelievable message that somebody needed to hear today. And if you learned something today, if you had some fun today, I would encourage you to share today’s podcast with at least one person. And what I found is that people that share the podcast within five, people tell me, hey, Clay, if I ever share the podcast within like people tell me hey clay if I ever share

the podcast within like two minutes of completing it it happens but if I ever say I’m going to do it tomorrow it doesn’t happen so think about right now who could you send a text to who could you share this with on Facebook or Twitter or Spotify or iTunes who could you share today’s podcast with and share it with them in the next 60 seconds. And now without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom!

Gosh man, time flies. I’d say right around four or five years ago, I just kind of felt like we were stuck and I wasn’t, my wheels weren’t moving and I had this goal and I just Didn’t really know how to get there. So You guys actually helped me with that. I mean I reached out to you guys. We started our relationship We started our coaching sessions and and you guys helped me build a lot of the systems

That we have now But you know clay had I not actually sat down and took the time and the energy to reach out to you and then set aside time every single week to actually work on the specific goal of scaling window ninjas, then it would have never happened and we wouldn’t have the… it wouldn’t have come to fruition like it is today. Gage Salinas, welcome on to the Thrived Time Show. How are you sir?

I am wonderful Clay. I’m glad to be here with you today. And just to give people a little context, how long have we worked with you in your business sir? A little over three years Clay. We’ve been together for a little bit of a journey now. And I think we picked the best of times and the worst of times to work together. I mean, it’s like right at the peak of the geopolitical craziness. That’s when we started working with you, but you’ve continued to grow. What kind of growth have you seen over

these past three years? Just so the listeners know that you do have, in fact, a business that can navigate through difficult times. Well, we have over doubled our business here at Window Ninjas since working with you. I actually went back and looked through our numbers and I looked at some of our goals that we had set in the original conversation that I had with your team and we have surpassed my original number that I wanted to hit with you guys and I was quite shocked at how, I won’t say easy, but systematic it was

for us to be able to get to where we wanted to be. So, information is key. Making sure you’re following the process when it comes to marketing accurately and repetitively is something that we do over here and we have really really really scaled it to the next level and you know what Clay you guys

are the ones that taught us that in the beginning and we have followed through with that for over the past what four or five years now that we’ve been working together. We have spent the last seven years scaling this business and and and we have these checklists in place with the help from your team, Clay, and it just creates success for all of our customers, all of our franchisees, me here in my corporate office, all of our call center employees,

our accounting department, all of our leadership teams. I mean, it really, really, really solves a lot of problems. And so as opposed to trying to reinvent the wheel, man, just grab a checklist that somebody has already taken the time and the energy to develop for you, use it, and then master it,

and then reap the benefits with the revenue that you’re gonna earn from doing those specific things that are on that checklist. It’s super powerful, Clay. It’s the best thing. I mean, I know that I can come into this office whenever I want, whether if I want to be here at seven o’clock in the morning or if I don’t want to be here at seven o’clock in the morning. I know that I’m going to have people that are going to be here doing the specific tasks that everybody in this operation

needs them to specifically do. Having good key people is important. Are you going to lose some of your key people? Absolutely. But if you are always looking for great individuals, great people, and encourage them to come work for you, and then you teach them the systems, and you

teach them what their specific job is, and you let them know how important they are. Clay, well first of all, thank you for having me again today. We’ve been doing this for quite a while. I’ve been working with you for quite a while. Anybody out there that’s looking for a coaching system, I would definitely give Clay a call. You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I’ve definitely

learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. 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.

The play is hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, and so the humor definitely helps. It breaks it up. But the content is awesome, off the charts, and it’s very interactive. You can raise your hand.

It’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak. The wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely,

it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone who’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information, but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches. Getting in their thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they upsold… it was great information and then they upsold us

like half the conference. I don’t want to like bang my head into a wall And she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her like it’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh I want to strangle you shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for and that’s not here There’s no upsells or anything. So that’s awesome. I hate that. Oh, it makes me angry So glad that’s not happening. So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college.

I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15

conference. The information that you’re going to get is just very, very beneficial and the mindset that you’re going to get, that you’re going to leave with is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right?

So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team.

We went from four to 14. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that.

We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016 we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month

and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you

Thank you. Thank you times a thousand The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your

website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you.

You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems. So now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated,

but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated

seminars and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny but inside of it it was a hollow nothingness and I wanted the knowledge. They’re, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know.

There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction.

I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates, look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same system that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever.

And we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. Alright, and now ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to bring up my good friend Ryan Wimpey. My good friend Ryan Wimpey and his his dog Odin, this dog has the ability to eat me so I’m sort of concerned. I’ll pass the mic to you and Odin you can have your own mic if you want, whatever you want Odin. Okay, I’m a little bit afraid of Odin.

Hi I’m Ryan Wimpy. And I’m Rachel Wy. And the name of our business is Tip Tap Canine. 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. 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 at thrive.

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 helped 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 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. They can’t afford one and their local web guy or a 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.

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay! Clay Clark! Clay!. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats his chickens his dogs So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen right his entire life clay Clark his entire life is marketing Okay, Aaron Antis on March 6th and 7th March 6th and 7th. Guess who’s coming to Tulsa, Russia?

Oh Santa Claus no, no, that’s March March 6th Oh, you’re gonna be joined by Robert Kiyosaki Robert He is best-selling author of rich Kiyosaki, best-selling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, probably the best-selling or one of the best-selling business authors of all time and he’s gonna be joined with Eric Trump. He’ll be joined by Eric Trump.

Eric Trump and Robert Kiyosaki in the same place. Aaron, why should everybody show up to hear Robert Kiyosaki in the same place. In the same place. Aaron, why should everybody show up to hear Robert Kiyosaki? Well you got billions of dollars of business experience between those two. Not to mention many, many, many millions of books have been sold. Many, many millionaires have been made from the books that have been sold by Robert Kiyosaki. I happen to be one of them. I learned from the man. He

was the inspiration. That book was the inspiration for me to get the entrepreneurial spirit, as many other people. Now, since you won’t brag on yourself, I will. You’ve sold billions of dollars of houses, am I correct? That is is true and the book that that kick-started it all for you Rich dad for the author the best-selling author of rich dad for dad Robert Kiyosaki the guy that kick-started your career Yeah, he’s gonna be here. He’s gonna be here I’m bummed and now Eric Trump people don’t know this, but the Trump organization has thousands

of employees. There’s not 50 employees. The Trump organization, again, most people don’t know this, but the Trump organization has thousands of employees. And while Donald J. Trump was the 45th president of these United States and soon to be the 47th president of these United States, he needed someone to run the companies for him. And so the man that runs the Trump organization for Donald J. Trump as he was the 45th president of the United States and now the 47th president of the United States is Eric Trump.

So Eric Trump is here to talk about time management, promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. I mean everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest brands on the planet from a business standpoint. I mean who else has been able to

create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean look at it and this is the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it so you’re talking we’re into nine going into ten years of him running it and we get to tap into that knowledge. That’s going to be amazing. Now think about this for a second.

Would you buy a ticket just to see Robert Kiyosaki and Eric Trump? Of course you would. Of course you would. But we’re also going to be joined by Sean Baker. This is the best-selling author, the guy who invented the carnivore diet. Dr. Sean Baker.

He’s been on Joe Rogan multiple times. He’s going to be joining us. So you’ve got Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author, rich dad, poor dad, Eric Trump, Sean Baker. The lineup continues to grow and this is how we do our tickets here at the Thrive Time Show. If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it. It’s $500 for a VIP ticket. We’ve always done it that way. Now if you want to take a general admission ticket,

it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. and the reason why I do that and the reason why we do that is because We want to make our events affordable for everybody. I grew up without money I totally understand what it’s like to be the tight spot So if you want to attend it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay That’s how I do it and it’s $500 for a VIP ticket Now we only have limited seating here with them with the most people we’ve ever had in

this building was for the Jim Brewer presentation. Jim Brewer came here, the legendary comedian Jim Brewer came to Tulsa and we had 419 people that were here. 419 people. And I thought to myself, there’s no more room. I felt kind of bad that a couple people had VIP seats in the men’s restroom. Oh no, I’m just kidding. But I thought, so I thought, you know what, we should probably add on. So we’re adding on what we call the upper deck or the top shelf. So the seats are very close to the presenters, but we’re actually building right now. We’re adding on to the facility to make room

to accommodate another 30, about another 30 attendees or more. So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com, go to thrivetimeshow.com. When you go to thrivetimeshow.com, you’ll go there,

you’ll request a ticket, boom. Or if you want to thrive timeshow.com, you’ll go there, you’ll request a ticket, boom. Or if you want to text me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now. Just text my number. That’s my cell phone number. My personal cell phone number.

We’ll keep that private between you, between you, me, everybody. We’ll keep that private. And anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody that’s my private cell phone number it’s 918-851-0102 918-851-0102 I know we have a lot of Spanish speaking people that attend these conferences and so to be bilingually sensitive my cell phone number is 918-851-0102 that’s not actually. That’s just saying one for a one. It’s not the same thing. I think you’re attacking me. Now let’s talk about this. Now what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show workshop? So Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight

years. So let’s talk about it. I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re going to learn here. Okay. You’re going to learn marketing, marketing and branding. What are we going to learn about marketing and branding? Oh yeah. We’re going to dive into, you know, so many people say, Oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand. Right. You want to get that brand out there. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is and make it a

household name? You’re going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that. You’re going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something. This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell. So we’re going to teach you sales. We’re going to teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you sales. We’re going to teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you how to manage people. Aaron, you have managed, no exaggeration, hundreds of people throughout your career

and thousands of contractors, and most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well, because first of all, people are, you either have great people or you have people who suck. And so it can be a challenge, you know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But if you have the right systems, you have the right processes, and have the right processes and you’re

really good at selecting great ones. And we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable, they’re driven, all of those things, then you know, you can get those people all pulling in the same direction. So we’re gonna teach you branding, marketing, sales,

search engine optimization. We’re gonna teach you accounting, we’re gonna teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance, we’re gonna teach you time management, how do you manage your time? How do you how do you how do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization if you’re not organized? How do you do? How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart?

Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two day interactive business workshop. Now let me tell you how the format is set up here to get folks this is a two day interactive 15. Think about this, folks. It’s two days. Each day it starts at 7am and it goes until 5pm. So from 7am to 5pm, two days, it’s a two day interactive workshop. The way we do it is we do a 30 minute teaching

session and then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session. So Aaron, what kind of great stuff happens during that 15 minute question and answer session after every teaching session? I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops because here’s what happens. I’ve been to lots of these things over the years. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them and you go in there and they talk in vague generalities

and they’re constantly upselling you for something, trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership. And you don’t, you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your

marketing and what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks and it’s very specific to what your business is. And what we do is we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard and then we literally as you mentioned we answer every single question on the whiteboard and then we take a 15-minute break we answer every single question on the whiteboard. And then we take a 15 minute break to stretch

and to make it entertaining when you’re stretching. And this is a true story. When you get up and stretch, you’ll be greeted by mariachis. There’s going to probably be alpaca here, a llamas, helicopter rides, a coffee bar, a snow cone.

I mean, there’s just- You had a crocodile one time. That was pretty interesting. I should write that down. Sorry for that one guy. We lost the crocodile. We duct taped its face. It was a baby crocodile. Yeah, duct tape around the mouth so it didn’t bite anybody. But it was really cool passing that thing around. I should do that. I should. We have a small petting zoo that will be assembled. It’s gonna be great.

And then you’re in the company of hundreds of entrepreneurs. So there’s not a lot of people in America today. In fact, there’s less than 10 million people today, according to U.S US Debt Clock, that identify as being self-employed. So if you have a country with 350 million people, that means you have less than 3% of our population that’s even self-employed. So you only have three out of every 100 people in America that are self-employed to begin with. And when Inc. Magazine reports that 96% of businesses fail by default, by default, you have a one out of 1000 chance

of succeeding in the game of business stuff. But yet the average client that you and I work with, we can typically double this. I’m just no, no, no hyperbole. No exaggeration. I have 1000s of testimonials. To back this up. We have 1000s of testimonials to back this up. We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company

within 24 months. Yeah, double. And you say double. Yeah, there’s businesses that we have tripled. There’s businesses we’ve grown 8x. There’s so many examples you can see at thrive timeshow.com. But again, this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. And then you add to that

Robert Kiyosaki, the bestselling author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. You add to that Eric Trump, the man that runs the Trump Organization, you add to that Sean Baker. Now you might say, but Clay, is there more? I need more. Well, okay, Tom Wheelwright is the wealth strategist for Robert Kiyosaki.

So people say, Robert Kiyosaki, who’s his financial wealth advisor? Who’s the guy who manages? Who’s the who’s his wealth strategist? His wealth strategist, Tom Wheelwright, will be here. And you say, Clay, I still I’m not going to get a ticket unless you give me more. OK, fine. We’re going to serve you the same meal both days.

True story. We have we cater in the food and because I keep it simple I literally bring him the same food both days for lunch. It’s Ted Esconzito’s, an incredible Mexican restaurant. That’s going to happen. And Jill Donovan, our good friend, who is the founder of Rustic Cuff. She started that company in her home and now she sells millions of dollars of apparel and products. That’s rusticcuff.com. And someone says, I want more. This is not enough.

Give me more. Okay. I’m not going to mention their names right now because I’m working on it behind the scenes here, but we’ve got one guy who’s given me a verbal to be here. And this is a guy who’s one of the wealthiest people in Oklahoma and nobody really knows who he is because he’s built systems that are very utilitarian that offer a lot of value he’s made a lot of money in the uh it’s the uh it’s where you rent it’s short it’s where you’re renting storage spaces he’s a storage

space guy he owns this what do you call that the rental the storage space storage units this guy owns storage units he owns railroad cars he owns a lot of assets that make money on a daily basis but they’re not like customer facing most people don’t know who owns the many storagefacing. Most people don’t know who owns the mini storage facility, or most people don’t know who owns the warehouse that’s passively making money. Most people don’t know who owns the railroad cars,

but this guy, he’s giving me a verbal that he will be here. And we just continue to add more and more success stories. So if you’re out there today, and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself an incredible gift, you want a life-changing experience, you want to learn how to start and grow a company, go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Go there right now. Thrivetimeshow.com. Request a ticket for the two-day interactive event. Again, the day here is March 6th and 7th March 6th and 7th we

just got confirmation Robert Kiyosaki best-selling author Rich Dad Poor Dad he’ll be here Eric Trump the man who leads the Trump organization it’s gonna be a blasty blast there’s no upsells Aaron I could not be more excited about this event. It’s like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. So if you’re looking to have life-changing results in a way that won’t cause you to have a stoma, get your tickets at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Aaron Antis, I’m Clay Clark, reminding you and inviting you to come out

to the two-day interactive Thrivetimeshow workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you, it will be a life-changing experience. We can’t wait to see you right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I promise you it will be a life changing experience. We can’t wait to see you right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Transcribed with Cockatoo