The Anthony Baucum Story | Former Clay Clark Employee Turned Entrepreneur Success Story

Audio Transcription

Jason after many moons. We are finally now back in the man-cave studios. I know I’m excited. Can you explain what it looks like in here? Did you like the upgrades, the changes since we were since we have recovered from the flood, I will be honest and you probably saw when I walked in I was more confused cause it is just Epic in here. It’s massive. The lighting is great. Your books are now on the walls. They’re everywhere. There are somebody pictures. You’ve got Tupac in one room. Ooh yes. All, all good things. Now on today’s business coaching show we are sharing about the success story of a former employee by the name of Anthony baka, Anthony Baca, B. A U. C U. M. Anthony actually worked with me at DJ connection many moons ago and unbeknownst to me he’s been listening to our show. He’s been reading the reading list, he’s been implementing everything. He’s attended a couple of conferences and now he has built a successful company. And out of the blue he sent me an email to thank me for producing the content on a consistent basis and he joins us on the show to share his success stories. So now let me further, I do the Anthony Bochum, former clay Clark employee success story.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in the writer to introduce the show, but this show does to may eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 moat time, million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome

To the thrive time show.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive nation.

Today’s show. I’m very, very excited. Perhaps the most excited I’ve been and a long time to do today’s show because this man [inaudible] today’s guest personifies my mission. Josh Wilson, one of our show sponsors. You’re here. You’re here with me today. And you know this because you talk to a lot of people who always ask, what is clay Clark’s real motive? Or did you not get that question? What’s his play? What’s his play? What’s, what’s he really up to? Well, my mission is to mentor millions. My mission is to mentor millions. My, I’m doing this because I know that the Lord God wants me to do this. I really do feel called to do this. This is my vocation. And the other day I got a a letter in an email and that it was unexpected, unprompted on solicited. It just came in and John Kelly reads it and goes, ah, you need to read this.

And I look at it and I’m going to read it to all the listeners out there. And then I would like to interview the man who wrote this letter. So it says, clay, I wanted to write this email just to articulate my and realization that you’ve completely changed the path of my life and my family’s lives plural. When I began working at DJ connection, I was 18 and my second year of college, I was a loner and never had a friend, a father, or any single personal influence other than a book I read called the millionaire mind that I got from Goodwill when I was 16. And after reading it, I didn’t know anything in life other than that I would be a millionaire before I’m 30 during my life was my mom constantly worked two to three jobs and we had experienced periods of homelessness and my mom was a victim of extreme emotional and physical abuse from her mother.

And as a result passed onto me and my two siblings. In fact, I’ve learned that I have five total siblings. But that’s a crazy story in and of itself. As a result, I never developed emotionally or socially. So this book and my desire to do anything and everything to get out of my life led me to graduating high school a year early, going to college and once in college I had a dramatic realization that I need some type of people in sales skills to succeed in life. So I jumped onto Craigslist and found the DJ connection.com listing your company at the time. And I interviewed with you because it was the craziest out of character and scariest thing that I could think of to do, to force myself to learn, to socialize. The fact that I was able to DJ at all is a Testament to the training systems that you built.

I was a complete jackass without a sense of of self awareness and no idea of how to present myself, interact with people, persuade or to be a high quality individual. Fast forward a few years, I learned so many things that most people seem to learn as a child and in high school and I credit you in your business with putting me onto a path of business ambitions and distaste for working at a typical job. Although I have experienced five failed businesses from the period of 2012 2016 I lost well over 80 K in total money including being screwed over two separate times by business partners. I continuously listened to videos, materials, and read all of the books you wrote and any book you have mentioned reading or noted. I have bought and read giving me confidence that no matter how much I fail, I will have the wealth of knowledge.

99% of people don’t and something will succeed. Eventually. I finally broke through a wall in 2016 with my current dealership and found a profitable formula and exponentially grew up to the current day where it will all net $300,000 this year of profit this year. And I’m about to complete the sale of my business, putting me within reach of reaching the millionaire by 30 goal. I will reach it by the mid next year when I will be only 28 the constant no BS and blunt information I’ve learned from you has been priceless and I just want to say thanks. I share the passion to help small businesses that just don’t know how to meet their goals and I see a future and providing that specifically to a small used car dealership industry. So this email is just to express that extreme appreciation and to say, and to kind of say thank you for being a proxy role model and influence on me that is going to change, that is going to channel through me to help tens of thousands or more people in the future that then I will in turn influence without sugarcoating and without tolerating jackass. Sorry. Thank you Anthony. Backup. This email requires no response. Anthony Bacca, welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you sir?

Doing awesome man. Thanks for having me.

Hey man, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for responding to your email there. But I have West Carter attorney at law on the show. He’s in the box here with us and I have a Josh with living water irrigation. And we’re just going to kinda ask you some questions and I want to get into this first idea. When you and I first met you applied for a job at DJ connection in the year 2010, 2010. Can you remember, do you remember what that was like when you, when you, when you first applied, can you share with the listeners what it was like to apply for DJ connection back in the day?

Yeah, it was pretty interesting cause you know, it’s not like any interview process I’ve ever gone through at that point or you know, since. But you know, it was a group interview. We went through the group interview process. I don’t remember this specifically the questions, but I know that it was not anything I could have prepared for. And it was something that somehow, you know, they invited me in, we went through the training process and the training process was, was a ton of fun and you know, getting, actually used the systems and stuff in the basement. But you know, at this point I had never really

Where we’re located, where we officed at like 5,800. He’s Skelly where we at my house at that point. Where were we

Kelly that you know, that big tall building? Yeah, Scully.

I loved you, but I hated that building. I’ll tell you what, I’m so glad I’m under that building. If you’re out there and you own that building, I’m glad you own that building. I’m glad other people love that building. But I hated that building. I’ll tell you why. Because it wasn’t a home office. That was the first building I’d been in. I’d moved out of the 8,900 office. We were in the basement, I think. And there’s probably what the time maybe 40 DJs going out to shows was that seem on a busy weekend.

Yeah, that was it. It was, it was a traffic jam on some days trying to get in and out of that little basement there.

Oh yeah. And it was, was my dad helping do load outs at that point?

Yeah. Yeah, he was. It was Eric at the time and a few other people.

Big shout out to my dad, dad. I miss you. Thanks for loading Anthony out. Now with one, my dad loaded you out. Did he give you a hard time or did you give him a hard time? Tell us, tell us about the training process and the first time you loaded out gear with Tom Clark. May he rest in peace?

Yeah, I had a little, I had a little also go cut list and was like a four door. He showed me how to like cram everything in there and he, it was always really fun to, you know, talk to he giving me pointers and cause I really had no idea what to expect my first show. And he kinda, he would give me some pep talks cause like literally every show I was like fight or flight. I was like almost ready to just leave and run away like every single show I had to like get over that feeling of actually doing it. So it was like a constant sense of panic and he was always like, you know, he’s got to take a breath, you know, kind of relax and then, you know, he, he had a lot of good points. I think that was a big help every time.

Well a little a secret for you. I don’t know if West, cause West is an attorney and Josh you do you install irrigation system. So I’d like to get your guys’ take on this, but for me I stuttered a lot. And so when I was like 13, I finally got if you see a speech pathologist for stuttering, what they find is a lot of times you get stuck on a word. It has to do with your synapses and stuff. It’s a little bit weird but you get stuck in a word and they teach you how to think of synonyms. But if you can’t, you get stuck on a word. And the last time I got stuck was like two weeks ago. It was like a Saturday morning and I just couldn’t get out of it. I hate cause it’s like a panic thing when it happens. So when I do this show I’m scared to at any point I’m like I got to get at it because it happens sometimes and it’s not a fun thing. I’m West as an attorney, do you ever have any like is processing that much information for you? Stressful. Is it presenting ever? Is that stressful? I mean what’s the most stressful aspect of being an attorney?

Well, I’m pretty comfortable now with the public speaking portion of it. But you’re good when you’re doing transaction documents for 20 or $30 million deal or you know, something that’s, you know, maybe not that much money, but is life changing for whoever you’re working on and you still stress out about every single detail in 150 page document. You know, you’re reading it 20 times and did all my periods in the right place? Did I get the words right? Are the names right? You know? So if you stop feeling butterflies or nervousness at all, I don’t think that’s a good sign. I think you should go into it with some degree, uncomfortable or anxiety because that means, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re paying attention, you’re doing it right.

You know that the CEO of Intel once said, this is Andy Grove and Andrew put this on the show notes. He said, only the paranoid survive. I have found that people that are a little bit quote unquote anal, a little bit, who are a little bit too fastidious, people who obsess on details tend to do well. But we all do it a different way. So for me, I tend to have to print something off my wife, hands it to me and I go, I’m going down to the man cave and I’ll just stay down there for hours to read things that would take some people 10 minutes. Some people struggle with the speaking. Josh, when you, when you put irrigation systems into you, do you cry or is that part of your irrigation plan or, well, what’s the most nervous part? What’s the most nerve wracking part of managing living water, irrigation.

I mean, you guys are doing well. Well, my wife will tell you, I cry all the time, like little puppy commercials and really give me every time. But the biggest thing for me growing up as idle horrible self-esteem, it had no confidence. We can go in deeper, deeper into that. So still take us into the weeds, make us cry and we don’t want to go that far. I like counseling and everything. Andrew will be like, here man is a tissue. So there’s still days at times I’ll pull up to a meeting or pull up to meet somebody and I have to really have a conversation with myself. Hey, you belong here. You know what you’re talking about, you know what you’re doing and go do this. And I think it’s, it’s a good thing. Like, well, Wes was saying, if I ever get to a point where I think I’ve arrived and it’s a great quote from somebody, much smarter than me, but if you think you’ve arrived, you have nowhere else to go.

And so I do get those moments where I’m like, Oh crap, Oh crap, I’ve got to go talk to West Carter and I, you know, I get that every time he walks in the room. Oh wow. Well, I’ll tell you, it’s more of a like a glow cloud. You know, some people in the charismatic right claim to see manifestations of the glory cloud, the glow collab where they can see the divinity in their room. I won’t go as far as to say that I see that when West walks in the room, but I can say that I feel it. Right? It’s all there. It’s like a lot, like the first time I went to the Minnesota state fair and I saw a full size butter sculpture of a Paul Bunyan or something. And I thought, wow, so you’re saying less big sculpture of butter, but Paul Bunyan made out of butter. That’s how I picture him in my mind. Now we move on. He smoothies smooth. That’s uncannily accurate? No, no. Anthony talk to me about your, your mom. You, you wrote here in this letter your mom would work two to three jobs. You’ve been homeless and you find yourself with nowhere to go, but up. How did your, your time at DJ connection help you from an emotional perspective or from a communications perspective, how did it help you improve?

Yeah. You know, actually I have the opposite speed from, I typically have proms articulating and sometimes my boards are like jumble jumble until I just a cluster of nothing. And then I have to reverse. So at school I’d go weeks without ever talking. So DJ connection was like, if there’s any, there’s never ever a time I’m gonna learn how to properly speak in public, this will be it. And so doing that, it taught me how to articulate and how to you know, kinda change it to anally, my voice up and down. But also looking back, I realized how terrible I was because I really how far I’ve gotten in the last eight years. I can only imagine how bad it must’ve been back then. But it also gave me the confidence to, to you know, speak to hundreds of people at a time. And I think one of the key things that really helped me was learning how to coordinate all the vendors and all the people while doing the job. Because I know in business you really have to coordinate kind of people at one time and tell everybody what to do. And it turned into like a really good management experience as well as the, you know, sales and the speaking part.

What was your first show? Do you remember your first show where you went out on your own?

Oh man, that’s tough. Oh yeah. Yeah, it was a, at the petroleum club, it was a middle school dance and it was like 10th floor or something. And it was, it was kinda crazy cause I, there was so many things that I consciously messed up people like it was little details but people didn’t really seem to notice because, you know, the show was great but it was just like little things that, you know, even now I’m super obsessed with like every little detail and a lot of times people don’t notice that. But when you put all the details together it is noticeable in terms of the quality that comes through.

No, I did a DJ training on West of my non-compete over. I did an intense DJ training in their day. We, my, my son’s DJ business, he had one of his first wedding he had to do. Andrew was there. Andrew could vouch for Andrew. You’re not Mike, but could you just vouch? Could you say I saw it. Okay, that’s nice. So I’m going to cue up audio. This isn’t me working with my son. I’ll cue it. I won’t make you listen to the whole thing. But this is me as of recently, as of last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday interrogating my son. It’s, it’s a mixture of West, it’s waterboarding, legal and training process. That depends on who you ask. Okay, so I’m going to cue up the audio. This is me treading my son and an Anthony. You can tell us if this brings back flashbacks to your DJ career. Here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and it’s my pleasure to introduce to you the, you know, mr and Mrs. Jason Beasley. They want to end with a crescendo. I got the, the, the peak. You want a crescendo up? You want to move up? Do you want to, do you want to end with up with a high note? A high point, right? So here we go. Ladies and gentleman, please stand. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand once again. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand. Is my push the new mr and mrs Jason basally better? But let me try one time. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, please stand. By the way, eat the mic. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand is now my pleasure to introduce to you, mr and mrs

Jason

[Inaudible].

Do you remember these insane trainings in a basement training with a man yelling at you, practicing a fictitious announcements over and over. Do you remember that? Is it stuck in your cranium?

I didn’t know any better. I would’ve swore that was a me right there. I remember. Yeah, I remember going to the actual shadow with you. I know it was crazy because training actually seeing that and I never thought I can get to that point of actually being able to do that, but it was just hours and hours of training and not really getting, getting it at first. But you know, the scripts description is so good that you know, eventually you get there even if you’re not very experienced in the vocal ranges and stuff like that. But the scripts get you there. And Eric did an awesome job of training.

Did you ever read the scripts on the party starter CDs? Did you read the scripts on the [inaudible] song? Like the announcements of what to say per song? Did you read those?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would use those if it’s on there, I’m sure it’s good.

I’d pull all nighters thinking about these things, but it’s like, well ladies and gentlemen coming up, we have the cutting of the cake. Once again, it’s the cutting of the cake. We’ve got a bride, we’ve got a groom, we have a knife. It should be exciting, you know, and then, or like ladies and gentlemen, up next we’re going to take some requests here and maybe if you have any music you want to hear it all, let us know. Just not Michael Bolton, you know, and I have all these little lines I work on for. And it became kind of like a shtick. And the first time you saw it, it kind of was like Dave Letterman humor works on you. And over and over the night it gets a little funnier, but you got to stick to it. Do you remember how favorite DJ connection line, did you have a favorite DJ line there?

Man, I’m having a hard [inaudible]

Or a favorite DJ song. Or did you have a song? You hate it? I just want to, I want to let people in because this really did happen. I mean this is what we did. We were role playing, setting up gear, taking gear down. You had to set up the gear like within like 10 minutes. We made you set it up and take it down in 10 minutes. Stopwatches everywhere. It was like, it was like Marine style.

It was a workout. I don’t listen to eighties music at all to this day because of so many, so many eighties music that we had and you know, all the different people requesting their specific stuff. But I think on those little lines on the CDs were the funniest ones cause I knew if I set him with a straight face, people would kind of give me like a funny look. I can say, Oh over the night they kind of, they started laughing. They were like, this guy’s not going to give up on this.

There was, I wish I had them in for, there’s so many just bizarre things and it just was a beautiful, beautiful time in American history. Okay. So you weren’t there, you’re w what, what kind of life skills did you learn while teaching the communication skills? Did you learn anything? I mean, what else did you pick up on it? Because I think there’s somebody out there who’s probably not going to work for me. And there’s a lot of people that go on glass door and they go, well I like listening to the show, but I’ve been reading some of his Glassdoor reviews and apparently he’s a, he’s a tyrant. So could you explain maybe the good and the bad of working for me? I mean there’s gotta be bad and gotta be good. I can share that. The equally divided my friend, like the Bible rightly divided.

I remember my favorite thing about deejaying I would say was not the deejaying itself, but like actually managing everybody in the entire event right now. You know, my dealership, I would be selling five customers at a time and I think going back to that where I’d have five people and being in control of the entire situation. Cause you, you, you tell the photographer what to do. You tell the event planner, you tell the people, you tell, you know, the bride, the father of the bride telling all these people what to do at specific times. That was probably my favorite part. And then actually working for you. I know that, I think it was in the transition of where you were selling it. So I saw Jason Moore I think, but it was very demanding. It was like merit based you, if you do a good job, you get paid more. If you suck, you don’t get paid as much. And I think that is something that really sticks with me is paying based on how well somebody does and not necessarily, you know, you’re resting on your laurels or just getting paid. Just get paid.

Does every show’s opening night now I want West to break this down. I like to get Josh’s take on this. With West, you’re an attorney and it’s so easy to say, I’m like a quick trip has merit pay. They pay you more based upon your productivity. You know they pay you more based on mystery shoppers and reviews and that kind of thing. Starbucks does profit sharing in certain capacities. Some companies like ups have an employee stock ownership program, Outback does managing partners and profit sharing. It’s so easy to say, Oh we’ll just pay our people who get it done more. And the people who don’t get it done in the last, it’s easy to make that statement. But talk to me about the legality of that because with the DJ business back in the day, how I set it up was I believe if you were a DJ you got promised a minimum of like 150 bucks a show or something like that.

So you got at least what came out to like 15 bucks an hour. But then if you got a great review you could make up to like 300 bucks if you got into the top five of the DJs based on a ranking system. Can you talk to you about the legalities of implementing a merit based pay program and where maybe people get that wrong sometimes? Well sure. I mean basically like here in Oklahoma, we are state minimum wage and overtime laws pretty much mimic the federal laws. Some States they do put more stringent rules in place, but you know, the fair labor standards act, which is the federal law basically guarantees non-exempt people. So most of your employees minimum wage and then over time, which is time and a half of your regular rate of pay if you go over 40 hours.

So some of the common pitfalls when they’re doing incentive based compensation is too much of, it’s based on incentives where you might not equal at least minimum wage for the employees for the hours they worked, which is a big no, no, because then you end up getting a wage claim. And the other part that people get confused a little bit is sometimes when you give those bonuses, those performance based bonuses, those get figured into what your regular rate of pay is. And so when you start calculating overtime, time and a half, it’s not just their base rates sometimes, but you have to figure out time and a half, including those regularly earned bonuses. So that the math can get a little bit complicated and those are probably the most common pitfalls. Especially in States where you don’t have a whole lot of rules like we do in Oklahoma that go beyond the fair labor standards act. Anthony, did you ever move into the top five DJs or top 10 on the DJ rank list? Did your move into that list?

No, I did it and I, you know, I’m honest and saying I wasn’t very good. I was just as good. Remember you had all the DJ set up as independent contractors and that kind of stands out to me today in terms of like creatively hiring or doing certain things. But I can’t say I was that good at it.

Quick detail on that. The DJ’s who DJ like one, I think you need like one day a week, you know, you guys were contractors, you must have, you guys had full time jobs and with DJs, you know, I got on the side sometimes whatever. But then you had like the employees and I didn’t want to make somebody an employee unless they were really good, you know? So the idea was if you were great and deem great deejaying, I’d make you a full time employee. But I, the hard part for me, Josh, was that people who were not good would usually come up to me and they would say, I do my best. And you’re going, I know you did your best, but the bride you know it wasn’t happy with your performance until you’re not in the top 10. And the guy would look at me and say, [inaudible],

I did my best. I did my best

Enforcing that policy. I, I’ve never had a big desire to be liked, so it was, wasn’t very hard for me. But Josh, you’re, you’re more of a guy who cares about your, you’re a man of the people. You like people you’re not a sick freak. Sure. Is it hard for you to sometimes enforce stuff? Like, you know, when a guy who’s clearly running late for work for the third time in a row looks at you with great and with great sincerity and says,

I did my best, I did my best.

Is it hard for you to enforce merit based pay when people say that kind of thing. So it’s not, I actually ever Friday I fired a guy and he said to me whenever I let him go, but I actually, I found him another job. I had a buddy who was looking for some money. He pointed on the road, there’s a job. I said, I called him and I said, Hey man, he works at y’alls speed. He does what y’all do. He’s just laid all the time so y’all can have at it. And he was like, yeah, I’ll take him. It’d be great. So anyway, I fired him Friday and he said to me, whenever I let him go that I thought you were a Christian. Oh. And so I said to him, and I don’t mind saying this, and I’ll say it out in front of everybody, I would be a horrible steward of the job that God has given me, the company that God has given me in the finances he’s given me.

If I weren’t to enforce the standards in which we have set forth his expectations. So we don’t just come up with some mysterious, vague, whatever the rule is, be on time. Do your specific job function and what is there. There are people that lay out expectations. Yeah. They clearly define it. It had to have a handbook. They have defined them and I’ve got an audio clip from a, a Christian man who fired unemployed for not doing their job. And I was asking him, I said, what do you feel like now that you’ve let go of the worst employee you have that was really holding the company back that they were holding the team back. You knew it. You defined it, sir. What do you, what? How do you feel? This is what, this is what he said to me. Plugging a spoonful of Draino sure. It’ll clean you out. Leave you hollow inside plum. People feel bad. Wes.

Yeah. One of the great answers I heard was, you know, on a previous interview we did with Craig Rochelle, you know, nationwide known pastor. We asked him this specific question as a, obviously a Christian man of faith based man. How do you do this inside of a church where you fire people who don’t perform? And he had a similar answer, which is, you know, there’s a certain standard of excellence and it’s biblical to hold people to their job and to do everything you do and attempt to do it well. But it’s, I think it’s a personality thing. I don’t know if it’s a moral right or wrong. Some personalities just don’t like conflict. And so having that conversation, whether you feel you like you have the moral high ground or not, you’re just uncomfortable in that conversation. You don’t want to have it. So you avoid it. You let it slide forever because you’d just rather put up with a bad performance.

Then how the uncomfortable conversation. Now, there are a lot of bosses that believe in positive reinforcement only. I’ve got audio of a, of a boss out there who believes only in positive reinforcement. This is an amazing audio clip here. Let me, let me cue it up here. Babies before we’re done here. Y’all be wearing gold plated diapers. There’s a lot of bosses running around saying that though. Anthony, you, you, you run an auto dealership, things are going well. Now you’ve why does positive reinforcement only not working? But why do you have to have positive? But also you have to have some sort of, you know strike one strike two rule. Why, why is that? Why does it have to be a carrot and a stick? Why can you not just be running around offering, offering your employees the, the promises of gold plated diapers?

Oh yeah. Things will spiral out of control very quickly. I’ve learned and I, I actually, I enjoy firing people now that I’ve learned that every time I get better at to find expectations, the job in hiring. So I’m actually every person I get better and better and better find the right person. So I know 100% of the next person is going to be better than the current person and productivity is going to increase. And I just fired someone last Friday for the same reason. They were always late, I assume down the road to another dealership. Got him a job. I just couldn’t handle the lateness. And I was like, man, you gotta go. And then we hired someone within three days through the group interview and he’s been awesome. He is 20 minutes early, every single day. We’ll see if it lasts. But I do know that every time I hire someone new, it’s gonna be a better process and they’re going to be better prepared than the last one.

That’s a secret move that you both brought up, which is on the way out. Just because you’re enforcing your standards doesn’t mean you have to make an enemy. You know, you got to, you have to get a job for everyone you fire. But the most common reason employers get sued, it’s because Matt, your employees are mad at you. And so if you can have that conversation and say, look, I set these, you know what, these were, you know, you do it in a humane manner without, you know, unnecessarily stoking the fire. I think that’s, that’s a, that’s a great move. As you exit that relationship.

And I, I agree with what West said and I do want to share something that is easier in practice. It’s easier than to just to say that in practice, but this is kind of a rule I have internally. I try to fire somebody before their first $400 of income. So if I have to fire you, I’m trying to figure out before I pay you $400 if you make $100 a day or 200 a day, I’m trying to figure out like do I need to fire you? Because once you go 400 days on the job, it’s harder to look, you know, love him on the way you drive. A lot of times it can be such resentment there and because I am so myopic, my wife does a very good job. So does John. They’ll point out like that person left the meeting pissed and I’m like, Oh really?

They go, how did you not pick up on that? And I’m like, ah, cause I never made eye with them I guess. And they’re like that’s why they’re mad at you. And so I think it’s important that you have somebody around you that helps you be aware. I think you have to have a weekly face to face meeting with your team, which I now insist on. It helps me know the emotional state of people because if you’re not careful and you’re a high flying performance based, get her done high octane alpha, you may not notice that people are pissed. And with your business, Anthony, you maybe were pissed. I dunno, you wrote here in this email that you’ve failed five times, which by the way, you’re in the Henry Ford category. So you get to come here and sit in the a model T we have out here on the floor a fee five times, but yet you continued to press on and now you’re, you’re earning a Rab money.

[Inaudible]

Whoa. So now that you’re earning that Abe Rab money talk to me about it. I mean, how did you what, where was the turning point, man? I mean, you lost it five times. How did you finally figure it out?

I wouldn’t say desperation, like a man. I, I had 500 bucks. I just got fired from another dealership in 2016 and my, my other dealership, I had just got my first dealer should have gone bankrupt. February of 2016 I tried to work for a dealer. March, got fired because I couldn’t sell cars, tried to do door to door resales, couldn’t do that. So it’s like April and I’m desperate. Get 500 bucks for living in a 500 square foot house. Lacy, no heater, who’s we can getting married in three me and my wife.

Okay, so you guys are living in an apartment with no AC.

Yeah, we were about to get married in three months and she’s since told me that she was having second thoughts, which I don’t,

We take him back to that day. We’re going back, take us back. It was rough. It was very rough. And so

I realized that, Hey, I got 500 bucks, I’m gonna go buy a car. I’ll flip it, make 300 bucks, sold it for 800 and I took day under a butter car, soda for 11, you know, kinda did that a few times. And I realized that there’s very little risk and cheap cars. So you know, fast forward to like July of that same, you know, a few months and I sold like 35 cars that month and I made 300 bucks a piece. And I mean shoot, that’s nine grand. And all my expenses were variable across the board. So that means if I didn’t do any business, I was at 100 bucks for insurance. But you know, the more I sold, I paid a friend 20 bucks every car. I parked on his driveway to sell them. So the more I sold, you know, more my expenses went up. But I also had a little bit of safety.

And then, you know, you fast forward three years and you know, we’re doing it. We’re going to do over 700 cars this year. And I’ve learned and systemized and created a process and everything’s automated to the point to where I spend like 30 days, 30 minutes a day on my business, and all I gotta do is buy the cars. And pretty much I’ve got a GM and three employees that do everything. So it started with desperation, but then I got some traction and then I spend like two hours a day just learning, reading, listening to podcasts, learning ideas, and, and experimenting to the point to where, you know, it took me three years to even get successful to the point to where, you know, we’re doing pretty well, but I know the first year I was just trying to make my goal was 300 bucks a car and I don’t care about making more than that. I’m just going to make 300 bucks a car and I’ll try to survive and see where it goes.

I’d like for you to give a tip in West. I’ll let you go a second here. Okay. So I like to get you, do you have a tip for somebody if you went to law school and how long did you have to go to law school there? Your home, you get to go to school total to become a lawyer, I guess.

Well, it’s four years of undergrad and law schools, typically three years.

Okay. So I’m going to cue up a tip. And auntie, get me your tip ready. Okay. We don’t have time to get into all 12 tips. I’m going to start with just tip eight. We’ll get into tip eight and then Wes, you can do tip nine. Josh, you can do tip 10 and then I don’t know why it’s funny here. And then after you can get to a typical 11, if you find yourself at the threshold of Haiti’s with your business and you’re on the verge of quitting, a lot of people could say, I’m on the verge of quitting law school. I’m on the verge of quitting my job and we don’t have time to get into all 11 tips. I’m just gonna cue up tip eight. And then West you can immediately follow up with your tip number nines. This is tip number eight for not giving up when you’re facing adversity. Probably my best tip is tip number eight. Always keep bags of your own poop collected throughout your stay and just have it ready. I don’t know if you can beat that tip. You know, from a practicality standpoint, that’s just hard to one up. So number nine, maybe, maybe this’ll be a real tip. That tip right there turns out to not be a very good tip.

So what I would say is when you’re on that threshold, I would have a hard conversation with yourself. Do you believe in this? You know, looking at it with an honest, I have I gotten into a bad business decision, you know, is this a business I thought would work and now I just can’t prove it and just not a working business. Cause if so it might be time to move on to something else or do I still believe in this business? There’s a market out there, there’s a customer out there, I’ve got a good product or service and I’m just going to bear down and work twice as hard through this until I turn this thing around. Because you can’t go happen, you can’t dip your toe. It’s either gotta be all in or all out. And I think that’s the time when you decide it’s time to move on to another project or it’s time to double down and work even harder. And if I go bankrupt doing it, I’m doing something I believe in. And I love

This. Just inform our Darth Vader, evil empire helpdesk West. Darth Vader loves what you had to say right there. That was very messy. Okay, so now we’re moving on. Now Josh living water, irrigation. [inaudible] How long has your company been in existence? A little over two years now. What’s the biggest sales you’ve done in a month? This year? So far? Biggest bigs. My 170,000 woo. Shunda I have audio of you actually go the bank. This is a sorry to Mike your vehicle like this, but you’re going to the bank. Drop off the deposit. Yes sir. And the lady says how much you wanted to pause it today? And you said, well, 170 big ones and she’s used to you from like three years ago, depositing 170 bucks and she’s like on with it. Write me the check. 100 minutes folks. Two 71 70 is what we did that week when we got that. Sorry, two 70 and so she’s like, just for my own numbers, write me a check for $270 you know? Yeah, absolutely. 270 big ones. And this is, this is you after you pass the check to the, to the lady who was depositing the check and she had that look of kinda like whatever. And then when she saw the check, her eyes got big, realizing how much money you are depositing and this is you. This is what you said to her face right after she, she gave you one of those complimentary suckers

And then we’re going to Washington D C to take back the white house.

That’s impressive. I don’t remember that. You don’t remember that? Well it turns out that was Howard Dean, my bad. So give the listeners a tip out there who are on the verge of mail on it in quitting giving up saying I’m done. What advice would you have for them? So I mean, kind of piggyback off of what West said. I mean, my, my thing that I tell anybody who asks me how we got here is just to outwork everybody. But I think the other huge thing that’s been successful in my life, and we could go into this forever, clay, with how grateful I am for you and all the things you’ve done but is to ask people the questions is to be humble enough and to swallow your pride enough as a man, which is so hard for us because we know everything and we’re gorillas and caveman, but to go find people that have been there and done that, that you can ask those questions to and say, Hey, I have no idea what I’m doing.

Same thing I do every time my wife’s doing the accounting and I say, I have no earthly idea what you’re doing, but do we have any money? And she’s like, no, we don’t go to work. And I’m like, okay, great. Well, but just to ask the questions, go find you some people who give you honest feedback and ask the questions. Have you ever seen a therapist to discuss why you have made this statement repeatedly? To your wife. This is an audio clip of what you’re to say to your wife a lot after she corrects you. And I just want to hear why, why, maybe if you can explain to the listeners why you say this to your wife. I just want to, don’t know why. Why do you say that to her? You know, I think we’re all born with different things, you know, different fetishes, you know, you know all the Holy Rex Ryan right there. That’s impressive. Okay, so we move on. Anthony, what’s the time to get Anthony back in this company? And he wants, what’s your tip pretty buddy who’s on the verge of quitting right now? They’re overwhelmed. They’re just a three feet from gold. What? Say you?

Well, assuming there’s gold. For me there wasn’t, when I was getting to the end of my business, I had a hard conversation and I was like, this is not working. I’m just gonna. I’m just gonna cut, you know, cut, pull the bandaid and failing was not as bad as I thought in terms of like financially I thought all these lawsuits would come flying me and bankruptcy and this and that. But looking back right now, I did realize like all the things that it instilled in me actually failing like that. I, for me, I obsess over every single customer and Lee, and if you’re gonna fail, you might as well do this. But I’ve assessed over every single possible sale because I am not failing for something that’s my fault ever again. I will fail to an outside factor. I can’t control, but I will never allow something that I’m not doing to be the failure point.

So if you’re, if you’re going to keep doing what you’re doing, you got to make that obsession of every little detail and deal. If you can turn that up a few notches, that’ll push you through to where you’re trying to get to. But if you have that hard conversation where it’s like, this is not going to work. I can’t keep doing this. I mean you need to cut the cord. If you truly believe it and learn those lessons, try again and you’re going to realize all this stuff that you’re learning. But you can start from ground zero. Now

West, if somebody is thinking about declaring bankruptcy, I, I, again, this does not take the place of hiring an attorney, but if somebody’s listening to the show right now and they’re like, okay, I’m six years into this thing, I owe 4 million bucks. We have no revenue sight. I have no other way to pay my bills. Talk to me about the downsides of a bankruptcy and maybe the relief that it could provide as I play ominous, scary

Bankruptcy music. I mean, personally, I have to understand that as you’re building your business, so those of you that are listening, that are in those initial phases, avoiding as much personal liability as you can is paramount. Because if you sign a co an agreement in the name of your LLC or your corporation, then worst cases, your LLC goes broke. There’s no money left to pay and someone’s going to have to really do some maneuvering to get to you personally. Now sometimes you can avoid that. If you’re a new business, they want you to sign on the dotted line to guarantee whatever their they’re in the business. And in those instances, that’s where you do have to start considering what you can do both from a business bankruptcy standpoint. And then personal bankruptcy is a separate issue. So business, bankruptcy, if you’re to the point of liquidation, it provides you with cover.

So there’s a, what we call an automatic stay that goes into effect where your creditors have to stop coming after you. Now they have to look to the bankruptcy court to get paid and they’re basically going to fight over whatever you have left in the bankruptcy process controls that. With a personal bankruptcy you know, there’s different forms as well. So don’t always assume that bankruptcy means I’m going to sell everything I own and go on down the road and start completely over. There are reorganization bankruptcies where they help force a payment plan on your creditors so that you can pay those people off to some degree and they come out on the other side without as so either on a corporate or a personal level. So your bank, your business could survive on the other side or you can do a reorganization personally

That might help you keep some of the assets that you don’t want to get rid of. No. On an emotional level West, I mean th and that is on a literal level, on the legal level, what to, how to handle it on the emotional level. I have found, this is a tip I give to all the listeners out there. When you’re at the bottom, the absolute bottom, you’ve got two options here. One is you could keep slinging mud when you’re at the bottom, you know, and you’re find yourself in a hole. You can just keep slinging mud, keep getting more mad, keep getting depressed. Or you could express an attitude of gratitude. A lot of people would not have sent an email that you just sent Anthony. You know, you have the blue send an email and I’m reading you said, so this email is just to express that extreme appreciation and to kind of say thank you for being a proxy role model.

Now you don’t know this but you sent that email to me on the on the day where I got like the worst, worst negative feedback from somebody that I had been helping for a long, long time. It was like the day that that hit the bottom, this hit the top. And I think that’s one way you can help yourself get out of a cycle of, of suck. You know, is, is by expressing an attitude of gratitude. Can you explain Anthony does that something that you do on purpose where you intentional? Did you wake up one day and go, wow, I need you to send that guy an email. What prompted you sending this email and expressing gratitude that that’s an uncommon.

That was, yeah, that’s something that I’ve been working on in the past few months is like the positive, the good attitude. Cause I’m just always super intense, go mode and like nothing is good enough and constantly trying to fix everything. But I tried to slow down and actually have like the positive feelings of appreciation, gratitude, you know? And once I really got there I was reading your book also the how to get things done, the art of getting things done. And I was like thinking like, wow, you know, I’ve read almost all your books, listen to your, and I’m probably single handily responsible for most of Amazon’s revenue cause I buy like every book I hear about that you mentioned. Sure I hear from someone else or yeah, I just read like crazy. So it got to the point where I was like, man, I didn’t never really realized how much of an effect on my life at this point that the DJ connection experience forward, you know, all the way through, you know, the, the thrive 15 thrive time show, you know, even going to the conference last year just all that stuff has made such a huge difference.

I would have never found all this out of my own this quickly. Maybe 20 years from now, I would have eventually figured it out. But it’s better to learn from mentors and not mistakes even though that was a mix of both. But I feel like 10 years later I’m really at a point to where most people don’t get to ever or maybe 30 years.

Have you gotten yourself to a place now by listening to this show enough where you appreciate silver spoons for being the great American sit-com that it was? Anthony, have you, have you have you to a point where you can sing along? I mean, do you know the lyrics now? Are you, are you aware of that? Did you ever think of the song has ever stuck in your head?

I’m pretty familiar. I haven’t watched TV in like a year, but I I think I’m getting to the points where I could, could tell you about it a little bit.

Well. I’m just telling you, if you’re out there right now and you’re at the bottom, I want you to queue on up. Get on Netflix tonight. Cue up that silver spoons and watch some of the best acting in American history. Ricky Schroder West. Remember the show? Oh yeah, just close your eyes. Think that you’re riding that little train around the living room. Oh, listen to this song. It’s so, so great. Here we go. Cow bells. Real fun, doorway, everybody. Now come on now folks. It’s between you and the man upstairs. We know if you’re sitting along or not. Now listen to him. Hit this high point. This is impressive. Here we go. Anthony Branson. Morocco’s or sums. You can play along at home.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. How does he do that? Does he do it one more time? Impression. Josh impressed. I am. I mean, right now this has taken me back to when I was just a wee little lad. Here we go. Oh, you smoothed it out at the end right there. It’s beautiful. How’s it possible? Well, it’s just, Ugh. I don’t want to do this, but I kind of feel like we need to play it again, but I’m not going to, I don’t, I think one’s good. I think one one’s good. Salt part of me wants to play it again and part of me says no. A part of me says, can we require Andrew as an employee to sing along with us? He’s got a great voice. Could you want me to, as an employer, is that [inaudible] acquired as part of the job, you know, risky legal situations there. Okay. Okay. Now Anthony, people out there want to verify that your company’s real. What’s the name of your company? What website? How can we verify that you are in fact a real deal?

So the dealership is ocean auto sales and it’s here in Tulsa. And we are, we got the most reviews in Oklahoma for used car dealership. The website’s right there. Ocean tulsa.com. We have a real physical location. You could come by [inaudible]

Now real quick, I think I might’ve cut out there. You say it.

Oh,

Auto sales. Is that what it’s called? Oh, auto sales. What did you say it was again? Sorry. I just, what’d you say

Ocean? Like the a, B, C.

We don’t have any, watch your mouth. Watch your mouth. It just such a dirty name. Our listeners have, they, they expect us to have CLA. We can’t just West, we can’t be using those kinds of phrases as the name of our company. We can’t just be naming our business.

Oh,

Auto sales. Right. What? I want to get a call from the FCC. Okay. So what’s the, what’s the web address there? I Anthony

It’s ocean tulsa.com.

And if people want to get out there and, and you know, meet you, shake your hand, talk to you. I mean we’re, how can they learn more about you? Hopefully, buy a car. Buy a car. Yeah. Yeah. So most people they could talk to Chris, my general manager case, I usually hide in the back of my nerd cave. And when people do catch me walking around, I just tell them that I’m the manager of the bathrooms. So they usually leave me alone.

Now. I have audio of what I believe to be your used cars, salespeople talking to customers. And if you could explain to me if this is your team or not. It could, it could be or it might not be your team. Let me queue it up here, but this is a

Pull it through the paint, wiggling it. See, wiggle it. Start with just touching the canvas. You just the corner of the brush. Just the corner and begin pushing. Making the bristles.

No, they’re describing a Ford Taurus right now.

You see there? Oh, that was an escape. Look at that. Isn’t that a nice little tree

Like eighties days and Boston car? Was that what kind of

See there, look at that. Nice little,

Okay. No, seriously. What kind of, what kind of sales process do you have there? Is it very high pressure? Is it low pressure? Is it, is it a tornadic activity? Is it, what, what kind of a hurricane? What level? What kind of pressure or what kind of experience can we find here?

It’s very low pressure. That was one of the key things, right when I went out of business like I’m a terrible salesperson, so I learned that if I buy a car and price it cheap enough, it’s going to sell itself. So our sales process is, Hey, how’s it going? Do you want the key? Do you wanna drive it? Do you want to buy it? And then that’s pretty much it. But you know that the car sells itself because it’s such a good deal that they know the, Hey, it’s, you know, a good deal. They’ve been shopping, all customers are educated. We do a free warranty, free car, fax, no fees, and we get people in and out in 20 minutes, including the test drive. That’s our goal. And you know, it’s really easy. We try to make it as simple as going to Walmart and getting something off the shelf and leaving and checking out. That’s it.

Did you say 20 minutes?

Yeah. So they take one test drive. We try to have them in and out in 20 minutes. If they take a few, it could take 20 to 30

Nice. Now. Okay, so I have, I’m going to open it up for, I have some questions for you here and then I’ll let West ask you a final question as well as, as Josh here, what tips or advice would you give to all the listeners out there that are not enjoying the kind of success that you’re having right now and maybe identify? Do you have any specific tips for the used car dealership listeners out there or for anybody out there who owns any kind of business at all?

Yeah, I will say my first favorite one is require that your salespeople have a call to action in every single interaction with any customer, whether it’s email, call, text in person. There needs to be a call to action required on every single interaction with any person. And that’s, you know, when do you want to come to see it? What time can you make it? When they show up, it’s like, Hey, do you want to check out the car when they want to drive it? Do you want to buy it? You know, can you leave us a review? And each, I think every single interaction should push forward to the next interaction because that’ll, that’ll quickly and efficiently funnel out all the non-buyers. And what are you down to the few people that are serious because you know, we go, we’ve got 500 people a month showing up and there’s one salesperson and he has to quickly get through every single person to the people that are buying.

So I would say any, any sales organization, if they can require like a call to action on every single customer interaction, I think that could easily boost most businesses. And then secondly, I would say you really need to find like the one or two things that directly produce results and be as good at that as possible. Like for me, buying the right cars that we can sell cheaply. Is it because in a, it made in America by Sam Walton, I learned that they had a 30% market and they took over the industry because of that. So in our dealership, every single car has 25 to 30% markup regardless of the book value, regardless of any factor, it’s just the cost plus 30% and it’s a no-haggle price. It’s the best price because you know, it’s just a 30% markup as opposed to what most dealers do.

Now I have two buttons ready to go here. Two buttons. Ready to go real quick here. Do you buy your vehicles from dr Robert zoner ever? Do you buy cars from the Z66 auto auction?

Oh yeah. I go there every week. I’m usually like five or 10 a week.

Oh nice. Cause if you say, if you said no, I was going to click this button, you fired

[Inaudible] I have that button ready because I was ready.

Z’s gone right now on a little trips. I was, I was ready to hit that button for him but, but instead, I have another button ready to go cause you said the right answer. So

Yeah.

Good job. So you you buy from 66 auto auction, is it a good experience? Do you like it?

Yeah, it’s great. It’s, it’s by far the best in Tulsa and I’m kind of amazed to how bad the other auctions are to be honest. Yeah, it’s clean, clean, efficient, fast. It’s great. It’s a great business. Will run for sure.

West Carter, your final question for Anthony Bochum. He’s a diligent doer. He’s an implementer of what we teach on the show. Great, great American. What question do you have for buck them?

You know, what I am curious about is some of the failures you talked about. We’re all in the car industry, car dealership, working for a car dealership, car sells, and then you go back to the same oil again. What led you to stay in that same industry instead of exploring other pastures?

That’s a good question. I, I guess is because it just want us to flip those first few cars in, you know, 2016 it kind of worked. I was making some money and paying the income, but I realize like how easily it could be to beat out the competition because it’s like they all suck. So it’s easy at this point, you know, I start to realize like how bad they all suck cause I suck, you know,

Terrible dealer.

But everybody is so sales focused and I was by focused, which is, you know, buy the right car and sit back and try not to screw it up and sell it. And then you know, eventually it gets to the point where I realized all the things that I failed at and I could actually fix as opposed to blaming the economy or the customers or whatever. And that’s what most dealers do. You talk to most dealers, they’re blamers and they suck and they don’t really know what they’re doing. They don’t have any business processes and that’s 80% of the industry. So I knew that it was just a matter of fixing what I’m doing and I could easily dominate.

That’s interesting cause those, it’s not always a 180 degree change you need, it’s sometime it’s just fixing what’s broken. Keep doing what you’re doing. Alright.

Completely flipped 100%. Yup.

Now, Josh, you have a, you’re an irrigation specialist, which kind of is similar to the used car dealership. Both of you businesses have employed invocation numbers. Both businesses have humans that work. There are a lot of similarities probably to the same industry, almost exactly this question about be, I don’t even know why, it’s, why don’t you just call living water irrigation and used car sales? What, what, what question do you have for Anthony Bach? And final question. So anything, what I would have for you to, to wrap up is actually an opportunity that I don’t think a lot of folks get or take and it will embarrass clay. But gratitude is such a great thing and it’s such an awesome thing that you took the information that was readily, freely available and went and applied it and did those things. So I’m going to give you an opportunity before clay interrupts to, to just show your gratitude again.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I definitely appreciate it. Clay, you know, everything you’ve taught and drive time, all the different guests that you’ve had. Man, it’s been amazing, amazing information. And I really can’t believe that it’s free. You know, sometimes you, you know, you can’t really believe that it is free information, but it’s out there and if you use it, it works

Well man, I appreciate you being a diligent Dewar. And I will say this, if you’re out there today and you go to pro dealer secrets.com forward slash resources Anthony has put together some free stuff available that’ll show you how you can take your auto dealership to the next level. That’s pro dealer secrets.com, forward slash resources. And if you go there, you fill out the form, he’s going to give you some free pro tips. But again, Anthony, thank you for being a diligent Duer my friend. I’d love to have you on the show again and I’m going to, I’m going to have to hang up on you to make your, you know, your, your life easier cause otherwise you’d have to have a difficult conversation. You’d have to hang up on me. And this is just as, it’s a smoother way to go for me just to hang up. Does that sound fair?

That sounds fair.

Well, let’s say with a boom. First queen with the moon first. Dan Joshie. Ready? I’m fired up. Carter. Are you ready? Oh yeah. In subordinate. Andrew bloomer, unwilling to sing silver spoons. Are you ready? Okay, here we go. It’s good. He’s good. He’s improved his morale there, right to work state. I almost thought we lost it. I’m not going to sing silver spoons. You can’t make me do that. I wasn’t hired for this. Whatever. It’s in your job description, buddy. Read the handbook. Here we are. Face to face. It’s all right. That’s how I picture it has happened. Okay, here we go. Three, two, one.

[Inaudible]

You can record your calls or your business will fall off a cliff called mediocrity. You’ve got to record your calls or your business. We’ll both fall off a cliff called mediocrity. Now, what’s the company I recommend? I recommend clarity. Voice. How do you get a good deal? Go to thrive time, show.com. Forward slash. Clarity. Thrive time, show.com. Forward slash. Clarity. Tim you work in the call center. What’s your final justification and reason why you think all the business owners out there should record their calls? Yeah. If you you wanna make sure you actually have a good call and don’t sound like you’re having a panic attack while you’re talking to know the customer, probably be a good idea to record your calls. Daisy, what’s your final encouragement as a call center manager? How impossible would your job be without recording calls? What’s your final tip for the, for the listeners out there as to why they should record their,

Well, I just look at Tim, he’s like my personal testimony. We literally called him the nervous bomb diffuser for the first six months. He worked with me and it’s like he went from nervous bomb diffuser to Brad Pitt over night.

I used to be the fast talking confused guy, my first job and then they played my calls and they’re like, wow, you talk fast and wow, you’re confused. And so we all have some sort of dysfunction that we can’t fix, right? Absolutely. Can’t hear the calls. So if you’re out there today, again, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash. Clarity you know, they say, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash. Clarity. You know what they say? Go to thrive time, show.com/. Clarity you know, they say, ah, quit. Quit saying that because I don’t know what they say, but I know that I say, go to thrive time, show.com forward slash clarity. You know what they say? See abroad to get that booty act snag. Thanks. That clears it up. Wow.