What Are the Holi-Plagues? – Ask Clay Anything

Audio Transcription

Do you have questions? America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay. Anything on the thrive time business coach radio show,

They should, on today’s business coach edition of the ask me anything, a thrive time show podcast, I’m answering a question that’s been asked to me by our, by our employees and our business coach clients alike for years. They say, clay, what are the Holler plagues? Here’s the holidays. You will have heard of the holidays. Great. Yeah. A lot of people haven’t heard of the, the, the conjunction of taking the word Hala and combining with plagues known as the hollow plagues. So Chop, uh, I have written down wipe what I believed to be the most accurate description of the hollow plagues, but hall plagues are the self imposed famines and cashflow problems caused by small business owners who spent more money than they have while simultaneously you have to do both simultaneously spending less time in the business. Good examples of the hall of the hall. Plagues would be the week of thanksgiving, maybe fall break, spring break the last entire two weeks of December. The week and the weekend of Memorial Day, the week and weekend of the fourth, etc. Small business owners also killed themselves throughout the year by acting like they have unlimited paid time off and paid sick days throughout the year. I call thiS the whole of plagues. Chop. Andrew andrew, you’ve been with us for awhile now. How real are the hall plague?

It’s crazy. People just decide that it’s a specific day. That’s the nations decided to celebrate and they must take off the business even though their bills are still coming in and they’re not making any money. And what about taking the entire week off around a holiday? How often do you see that scenario happens? All the time. Everyone decides the week, the day before, the day before festival, the day before, the day before festivus. All these days you’re supposed to take off just because it’s. It’s, it’s expected. It’s, it’s what’s the standard for our culture. Oh, when you’re thinking about it, chris rode on thanksgiving thursday. We’re not going to work fridays, so we might as well.

You had the financial resources to do it right, but just simply taking off an entire week and acting like you’re a business coach employee when you’re not well, and the crazy part is it’s not just that it’s that your customers are still out there wanting you or your services or your products, and so you’re like literally turning down growth. You’re turning down more money. Not so. Let me explain this to the listeners so we get this idea. Elephant in the room, our men’s grooming lounge chain, we closed the business every sunday. Why? Because it can be profitable in six days and it’s a value that I have. I want to have the employees. I want to give them the time to be off on sundays. I wanted to be a family day. I want them to be able to be able to observe sabbath. I wanted to be off to do whatever they want to do on the seventh day of the week.

What if we weren’t profitable? Wouldn’t make any sense to give them off on sunday if we. If we couldn’t sustain ourself. Oh. Another example would be elephant in the room. We don’t open our stores, I believe until 11 in the morning, right, and andrew and the reason why is because people want to get their haircuts up to 8:00 at night and our what? I want our employees to have some semblance of life balance and so we don’t open the stores until 11. We were closed on thanksgiving and the day after thanksgiving. Why? Because I wanted our employees to have some semblance of balance and have been built to enjoy time with family. I know a lot a family comes in out of town. I wanted all the employees to be able to enjoy that time. However, we do work on the saturday after thanksgiving, however we do stay open till eight.

There’s, there’s a balance there at thrive. What time does our typical workday start tevin up there at the thrive offices and we started typically around six for the coaches and then a eight. I think the team starts getting there and we’d work until about 5:00 typically and we go four days a week. Why do we work monday through thursday? Devin? What do you think that the move. Why? Why have we decided to go monday through thursday? Because we work really hard. Um, I believe that we have the best team in the best coaching program in, in the world, and to do that we have to, you know, grind and work really hard and so, um, we will, we can get done in four days is usually even more than some, some places can get done in a month. Also, we have conferences that are once every two months and it requires working all weekend and uh, we have, we have the thrive, we have sort of the motto for our clients, so we’re going to stay until our to do list is done.

So I see a lot of people staying at work on a tuesday til 8:00 at night. I see people get into work at 5:00 AM or 4:00 AM. Our whole philosophy just get it done right. But again, we’re not sitting there taken off massive portions of the year while we have a failing business. I see this a terrible business coach idea. I’ve termed it deserve ism. I don’t know if this is a real word or not, but I see a lot of people they say, but I worked so hard. I deserve that deserved, deserved to take friday off to it.

Thank you.

Like just said, no, you don’t until you’re profitable. I don’t Care how hard you’ve worked. If you haven’t built the business to a profitable standpoint, you don’t deserve the day off because you haven’t done your job yet. OkAy. Sorry. So that is what the hall of flags are all about. So again, if you’re out there and you’re going, gosh, my kids are off for fall break, I should be off too. I just wAnt to clarify this idea just because your kids are at a school for fall break. None of your customers care at all just because you have the sniffles or a headache or you feel sick. Nobody cares. Nobody cares at all. You’re going to have to be starbucks as an exhibit. Just think about this idea. Starbucks, when you get there, they’re always open, right? Mcdonald’s always open. Pop up. How many times chubb have you been to like a low to a local burger place and they weren’t open?

It happens a lot because their philosophy is that if the owner is sick or someone’s out of town, we’ll just close it for a day, but that’s why everybody turns to the big brands like starbucks and mcdonald’s is because you can count on them. They’re going to be open in whether you like mcdonald’s or not. People go there over and over and over because you know they’re going to be open. Quick trip is always open and freight. There’s all these small gas stations everywhere that are only open during certain hours, and I have no, I’m not. I have no problem with you. if you’re out there and you’re saying, look buddy, I only. I want to be closed on saturday and sunday. That’s fine, but be profitable, but don’t tell me that you’re not profitable and don’t make it in a not even an option to be open and extra hour on the weekends if that’s what standing in the way of your profitability, right?

Don’t let the hala plagues be the disease that poisons your pocket books. Don’t Have the poverty mindset. Say no to the hollow plagues, and then you won’t have to be ringing a bell and hoping that people make donations to support your family to you and not salvation army. I’m here with, uh, the salvation clay foundation, family foundation. Donate here. I was enjoying the holiday legs for the last decade to support your local chops if you have a full lunch. Your local jobs. Yeah. So again, now thrivers, if you choose to continue to enjoy the hall of flags while I’m not making money, we’re going to have a future podcast on how to get out to find a piece of cardboard and had to find a sharp because that’s what you need. You know, cardboard or you needing a sharpie did this. These are the components you’ll need to be able to support your family.

You’ll need a big sharpie notice. All homeless people have always had a huge, massive one. It doesn’t matter how poor they are. Always have access to the largest sharpie ever and cardboard. You never any other kinds of writing material? Nope, never. I dry erase board. Never a big chalkboard, never a printed sign like an election sign. They always have cardboard and you wouldn’t have a cart there and you want to have some semblance of a tent or the business coach materials needed to make a tent. Thin, thick beard, his beard, and you want to say on that side, you want to write will work for food and that’s how you survive the hollow legs. If you choose to continue to observe them and your business is not profitable and now any further ahead to break.