Clay Clark | Business Coach | The Power of Practical Education + The Importance of Unlearning What You Learned In School + “Vision without execution is hallucination.” – Thomas Edison (The Founder of GE & Prolific Inventor)

Audio Transcription

Sure thing. Shoot, Timmy. Danny. Danny. When you were my age, did you ever have trouble deciding what you wanted to do with your life? Heh. No. I never had that problem, really. Why? Forget it. I didn’t think you’d understand. I gotta go to college. I gotta. Uh, Danny, this isn’t Russia. Is this Russia? This isn’t Russia. Nah, it’s… No, the thing is really, uh, do you wanna go to college? No, the thing is really, do you want to go to college? Just like music, I’m out to prove it, business is a universal language, now let’s do it. We discussed the importance of unlearning what you’ve learned in school. And we discussed the difference between formal education and practical education, while also breaking down what two of our conference attendees learned at our last in-person Thrive Time Show workshop. 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 Timeshow. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thomas, you’re back inside the box that rocks, my friend. How are you? I am great. How are you? Thanks for having me on. Hey, I’m excited you’re here today on the show, and I know that you traveled via Tesla to get here to… or did you fly in this time? Nope, drove. You drove? The Tesla drove me. And can the Tesla get you to Tulsa on one charge or do you have to stop multiple times? It’s close, but it can get about 20 miles left after the drive. Now if it’s really windy, does it require two charges? Windy or cold, you have to go through Oklahoma City and it adds about two hours. Really? Yep. Is it still worth it in your mind? Absolutely. Okay, now for the listeners out there that don’t know who you are and what you do for a living, can you share who you are and what you do for a living? Yeah, my name is Thomas Croston again. I own Full Package Media. We are a real estate photography, drone videography, 3D tour company with locations in Dallas, Texas and Austin, Texas and we’ll be franchising here starting in 2020. So you’re from the great state of Texas. That’s correct. And we are sure the listeners out there that don’t know, how long have you and I worked together and how would you describe our working relationship, both good or bad? Yeah, so we’ve been working together for about three years now. Just hit three years, I think, about a week ago. Our relationship is a coach and business relationship, also a mentor type relationship. I get told that I’m wrong at times and kind of I told you so, but that’s what it’s all about. Now you are working right now on the franchise disclosure document. And you now, I took the original one and cleaned that dude up. And just dozens of hours invested into cleaning up that paperwork. But I wouldn’t be helping you franchise if your company wasn’t already profitable. Can you share with the listeners out there about what your business does and kind of your path to growth maybe the last couple years? Yeah, absolutely. So the kind of core service of what we do is photography, videography, 3D tours, and other marketing services for primarily residential real estate agents. That’s about 95% of what we do and then the rest of 5% being commercial photography for different venues, event spaces, that sort of thing. But mostly residential real estate and we’ve grown in the past three years since when I started it. It was just myself and had pretty much no idea what I was doing. Now we have a team of about 21 photographers, full-time call center staff, and this year we’re on track to do a little over a million dollars in sales. And your first year you did about how much in sales your first year? About 400. And your second year? About 880. And then this year you should be at what number? On track to do about 1.2. And what kind of profit margin are you trying to stay at for your own business? Are you focused on a 10% or a 30%? I know like Shaw Homes was in attendance. They do a 6% profit margin. What is your profit percentage that you aim to achieve? Yeah, our aim is right at 25%. We’re a little bit lower than that right now, about 20% to 22% because we invest a lot of money back into the business to do the franchising process and software development to kind of help us grow and scale. When you say reinvest in the business, how much of that is the barbecue budget? The barbecue budget a couple years ago was quite significant, about 6,000 miles of driving to visit the top 50 barbecue places in all of Texas. This just in. Now, Thomas, how are you still spelling your name before I begin to interrogate our next guest here? Thomas is pretty easy, but Crosson is the one that, uh. How do you spell that? C-R-O-S-S-O-N instead of E-N. O-N, really? That’s correct. Unfortunately, your name is misspelled in many, many books. That’s quite a shame. So, nice. Now, Jennifer, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you? I’m good. Thank you for having me. Hey, we’re so excited. Now, you flew in from Houston, am I correct? Correct. And did you, is it a direct flight or did you have to make a connection? I made sure it was a direct flight. Most of them are not, but I worked it around. I have a hard time navigating in my own city So I wasn’t gonna try to navigate in airports now. Did you fly it on Southwest or what airline Southwest? Okay, okay now Could you share with the listeners that the name of your business and what you do? I own legacy home decor. It’s a retail storefront in Pearland, Texas, and we sell home decor and furniture What what would make it different? I think with some people think of home decor. They’re thinking right away. Okay, that’s a Hobby Lobby What makes your store different than like the big chain like a Hobby Lobby? Well we have about half of the store is handmade home decor from local artisans and the other half would be more of your manufactured products. So we can have both in there so you can get a little bit of both and mix them up. And if the listeners out there wanted to learn more about your website and the products that you sell, can they buy products? Can anybody all around the world buy your products? They sure can. We ship all over and the website is shoplegacydecor.com. Shoplegacydecor.com. Correct. All right, so you guys both came to the workshop. Jennifer, this would be your first time attending a workshop. And Thomas, you’ve been to how many workshops now? Man, probably six or eight now. Okay, and so I’d love to get your take. And I would like to start with you, Thomas. That way Jennifer can one-up you. Because anytime we have a female guest, they’re always just a little bit smarter than the male guest anyway. That’s always true. But when you go first, it really shows some separation and really just be able to show that’s all he has and I’ve got this much more. So I’ll let you go first there, Thomas. So what did you get most out of this conference, this past conference, or what did you like most about it? Yeah, so each conference is a little bit different. That’s kind of what’s great about coming back and going to so many is you kind of get a little bit different content material out of each one. I think one thing that this conference really showed was that it’s not as much about the individual people or that business, the individual businesses. It’s all about the systems and the processes because you come to these conferences and you see these kind of testimonials from different clients that work with the ThriVetime show and that no matter what the business is, whether it be solar panels or home building or photography or home goods sales, it doesn’t matter what it is. If you follow the kind of process that the ThriVetime teachers, it’ll work. One thing that always blows my mind is when you’re at the conference and I notice how similar all of the successful people are. That’s probably the one thing that I, it blows my mind, is regardless of their race or their religion, they’re always on time. And regardless of their race or their religion, they’re always taking notes. And for anyone who’s not been, all the conferences start at 7am, which is, you know, your other conferences out there with unsuccessful people probably start at 10 or maybe noon on Sunday. A lot of them do, and I’ve noticed that the people who are always successful are ones who are already driven. They would call themselves self-starters. Others would refer to them as self-starters. They’re kind of alpha. They just get stuff done, and they’re taking notes. I find that the people that don’t have motivation and that can’t seem to get there on time are the ones that don’t do well. Have you noticed that phenomenon? It’s funny. I don’t notice it at the conference because typically those humans are not there. I’ve noticed that that’s an interesting phenomenon. I will say, we had one gentleman that came to the conference and I spoke to him just briefly and he was wanting to know how much time we’re going to focus on motivation. I said, well, everybody here should be thoroughly motivated. We focus on the execution of the proven path, not how we feel about the path, but the execution. We focus on getting it done, the application of the knowledge. And he was like, oh, I didn’t know that. A lot of conferences I’ve been to, it’s always two thirds motivation, one third sales pitch. I think he was expecting that, because he said, you know, I’m still worth it though, because you always get one good idea. And then he came up to me at the end of day two, and he’s like, I’ve got a book of ideas now. So I think that’s a big, is that different than what you? Yeah, that’s definitely different than other kind of conferences, or even other podcasts that are out there, where it’s all about motivation and how you feel. At the end of the day, no matter how you feel, if you don’t get Google reviews, if you don’t make cold calls, if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, if you don’t do a good job, it doesn’t matter how motivated you are, you’re still not going to have a successful company. Now, Jennifer, what is your last name? Nick Dougald. Nick, how do you spell that there? M-C-D-O-U-G-A-L-D. Nick Dougald. It’s almost like it’s a past tense. It’s that. Yeah, actually I didn’t pronounce it right when I was dating my husband for like a month before he told me. He’s nice. It’s complicated so I expect people to get it right. On average it takes Clay three years to get your last name spelled right. True. I’m working on it. Now you have attended the conference for your first time. How would you describe the conference and maybe what are some of the things you learned at the conference? Actually, I learned a lot. I really enjoyed the conference. I agree that it’s a great conference for people who don’t want to go to the pep rally, who really want to go to class and learn something. I had learned a lot over the podcast over the last few months, but I really got to, at the conference, come in and do a deep dive on learning more in depth about things that you can only cover topically on the podcast. So it was really great to have some thorough explanations on how to execute some of it. Now what were some things that you took away? I know there’s so much in the Boom Book. There’s a lot of specifics, but for anybody out there who’s on the outside listening right now who has a company, who has a business, and they’re on that kind of a threshold, they’re going, I want to attend, but is it worth flying from Houston? Is it worth making the trip? But what did you take away from the conference? It absolutely was worth the trip and I would definitely suggest that others come and do the same because you can only learn so much from podcasts. You can get topical knowledge. But as far as learning how to put things into play and actually being able to go and fully exercise it and implement it, the deep dive really did help me a lot with that, specifically the side of it that used to really intimidate me about the business, the SEO, understanding how to run ads, I’d run ads but none of them were working. Just getting that technical information that I can actually use and I’m not so intimidated by that anymore. I feel like I can go back and implement it now. I always tell our clients, I refer to it as the search engine optimization myth busters kind of a thing. Because I think there’s a lot of people that feel like only an Amazon or a Yelp or a Nike could ever possibly rank. And I don’t think that they realize that the folks who made Google, Larry and Sergey, actually made it so that they made it for the little guy. So that because back in the day, if you wanted to be a big business, you had to buy the bigger Yellow Page ad or more commercials, and they wanted to make it where you could really go out there and wage war. That’s what is exciting for a business like yours, Jennifer, is that you could go, you know, you could be the next pioneer woman in your own way. And that’s just fun to see that. Thomas, when you discovered how search engines first worked, walk us through what you were thinking. Were you thinking, A, you know, this probably won’t work, and then B, it definitely will not work, and then, holy crap, it’s working? Or tell us, walk us through what you were thinking when you first heard about how search engines work Yeah, it’s interesting that you mentioned the kind of the big companies and the kind of misconception that it’s only Meant for the Nikes the Amazons the apples of the world to be top of Google because that was totally my thought my opinion When we first started I remember having that conversation of like well We need to focus on referrals and how to do the best networking because that is what matters in our industry. And you’re like, just trust me, it’ll take time, but we’ll get there. And it’s definitely not an overnight thing, but nothing that’s truly successful is. And it was years and years. We started seeing results off of Google probably about a year into is where it really started picking up traction. And now it’s like every day we get a lead from Google. I bet you it was about 300 articles in before we saw any success. Probably. 300 pages of content. It was probably about six months of my pushback before I bought in. I think it took about 300 articles though to do it. I think that that, Jennifer, as you were learning how Google works and meeting people at the conference who benefit from it and people who have benefited from it for years, what were some of the thoughts going through your mind as you’re hearing how Google works? Well, I was actually really relieved when I found out how it worked because I always thought it would take, you know, like these big companies have deep pockets to be able to end up getting my business that high on the ranking. And so to find that there was another way to do it, just with some sweat, equity and commitment, then I would be able to actually get up there and compete with, you know, competitors I wouldn’t be able to normally compete with. Now you were able to get an insane amount of reviews. You have a very loyal customer base that really enjoys the products that you sell. How many reviews were you able to gather in just one day? In one day we were able to get 141 Google reviews. That is unbelievable! 141 in one day! Amelia came into the meeting and she just could not get over it. She was just like, this lady is just… We have a lot of clients that do really, really well on gathering reviews, but all in one day. That’s impressive. Yeah, I’m pretty competitive. I’ve been in a coaching program for like 24 hours, and I said, okay, tell me the top number. What’s the highest number? And she told me. It was, I think, 35 at the time. I said, okay, well, tomorrow we’re going to beat that. She’s like, tomorrow? I said, yeah, tomorrow. And how did you, did you email your folks? Did you call them? What was your plan? So, I have a group on Facebook where we have more of a community. We kind of interact a little more than we do on a personal level than we do, say, on the main business page. And they’re my tribe. You know, if I need something, they’re there. It’s a sense of community. They followed me around for a few years. They’re loyal supporters. And basically, it wasn’t about me getting the Google reviews. It was about, you know, I asked them, are we going to let their customers beat our customers? And so my customers are competitive as well. And they decided they wanted to beat the top Google review for the other companies. So they beat their customers. And it wasn’t about me. It was about them versus them. That is awesome. Now, Thomas, a lot of people come to the conference and say they’re having a hard time finding good people. A lot of people will come to the conference from all over the country and say, my big issue is I can’t find people. I’m here from California and I have an auto detailing company and I love it, but I just can’t find good people. I hear another person say, I’m loving my business, sales isn’t a problem anymore. By the way, once you solve your marketing problems, it becomes a human resource problem. A lot of people come to the conference saying they can’t find good people. When you first heard about the group interview system that we teach, what was going through your mind as we were teaching, as I was teaching you that, I think over a phone call? Yep. The group interview system was something that we really pushed back on in the beginning with kind of the mindset of we, quote unquote, need to find good people, not just kind of random people. And so we sat at Starbucks, I think for like eight hours and wasted a bunch of time and interviewed like two people that were horrible. One on one? Yeah, one on one. For eight hours? At first, because we thought we were different. And now we do group interviews. And we kind of, over time, have increased the frequency. And now we do them every week, every Tuesday at 6 o’clock. Oh, it’s the best. And it’s something that so many businesses struggle with on, quote unquote, finding good people. But we had a great person last week. Great person. You didn’t meet the person. They were great. And by the way, this show’s going to come out in October, so I can say, great, last week without getting myself in trouble here. Great person. And then they just sent a text message this morning, doing the whole, it’s not for me. But we don’t even care, because we just hired two new people today, I’m sure you saw. Yeah, I saw the new people today. Last Thursday, right before I left to come up here for the conference, had to part ways with someone and it was so freeing to know that, it’s like, hey, we’re not a good fit, thanks for your time, but I know that today, Monday, we’ve got a new person who’s starting training. When you get to the point where you don’t have to worry about it, you don’t have to think about it, it’s just something that’s totally off your plate because you just have a system and process that kind of runs. I love too when it scales, not really stressing out at all. I mean, zero stress. I love the idea that, yeah, you can replace them, you have candidates, but I love the stress-free nature of it because for a long time I was building my DJ business. If I had one guy quit last minute, man, it would just stress me out. Yeah, and about a week ago, my business partner and I, we were sitting there talking and she was like, I think we’re getting good, you know, we’re kind of staffed, and I was like, yeah, but let’s just, we’re not gonna stop because just in case. And then, like I said, last week had to let someone go and boom we’ve Already got someone filled that spot. No, no stress here Did the the principle or the concepts Jennifer of the of the group interview all make sense to you? And did you have any questions about the group interview process? I don’t have any questions I see that if I have you know, kind of pushed back. I haven’t pushed back but in my head thinking, you know I’m such a small business at this point. I only have three people on staff, so I’m trying to understand why I would do a group interview every week. It was hard for me to concept at first. Yeah, let me walk you through this. Your business, Steve Jobs talked about, he says, the dynamic range between an A player and a C player can be like 10 times as much. So as an example, my consulting program consisted of me and like 40 clients for a long, long time. It was very profitable. I enjoyed doing it. It was great. I would charge a client $4,000 a month. It would be me and the client, and I would do the majority of the back-end work. After selling DJConnection.com, I had a nice team. Then I hired John Kelly. You’ve met John. There’s probably only one John Kelly in the world of humanity. There’s many idiosyncrasies that make this man wonderful. But I decided, he was sort of on our search engine team. And once I found John Kelly, I realized, hey, listen, we could scale the search engine program to beyond just my 40 clients. It could do more, but you need someone with that kind of integrity to do the check, to make sure no one’s copying content. You would need somebody with the kind of rigor needed to hold people accountable. I did that by myself with the 40 clients, but to grow at a certain point, you needed John Kelly. Then we expanded to where we had like 80 clients. It was myself, John Kelly, and a certain team. To speak to Jennifer’s comment of only having three people, we were there, obviously, about 18 months ago, and I used to only do the group interview kind of once a month or kind of as needed, but then I still had just constant stress about someone quitting. It’s like one of three quit, now you just lost 30% of your workforce. A 30, right. So that actually happened to me yesterday. So it’s like just group interview and then every week, and then even if you don’t hire someone it’s cool. And then if someone does quit, you’ve got just a whole list of good humans that are ready to go. What you said is 100% correct, and just kind of hammering home the importance of the group interview when you’re small, is when John got really good and I gave him more tasks, then I thought, okay, right now this is the biggest we can get with the current configuration. Well then we started doing more group interviews and more group interviews, and Marshall, who’s worked with me for a long, long time, Marshall’s like, well hey, I’d like to step up in this particular position and I would like to help coach any additional coaches. If you want to grow that direction, I’ll be happy to do that part and the group interview because I had done the group interview for the previous like 12, 13 years, you know. So I said, okay, so now you got Marshall doing the group interview. You got him coaching coaches. You got John over here managing the system. And again, you get to a certain point and you’re like, we’re good here. Well then Ben, out here, Amelia’s husband, Ben says, hey, you know, I really would like to manage the team. And I’m like, you want to manage a team of search engine people? Are you sick? Are you crazy? Are you sure? And he decided to do that. And then that led to even more expansion. So what happens is great people, A players, allow you to elevate when you delegate. You can delegate down tasks and then you can elevate what you’re spending your time on. But if it’s always stuck with you and two people that are very good, let’s say, or three that are very good but they’re not at the same level as you, you get kind of stuck. Right. And John is funny. In certain ways, he’s been sort of my coach this year. So this crazy guy’s like, hey, why don’t we book such and such on the podcast? And I’m like, well, we probably should, but I don’t have the time to do it. I don’t have time to reach out to these people. And John’s like, well, I know your method, so I can just do the method for you. I’m going, you know, there’s nothing in the budget to pay you extra to book him. He’s like, well, I know, but I mean, don’t worry about that. I’ll just book him. So then over time, there’s more and more, you know, big, big guests on the show. And then John says, hey, if you didn’t have to do ABC 123, how many books a month could you pump out? I was like, I could do one a month. And he’s like, well, let’s try it. So we’ve done like four books this month that I had had on my list for about three years because he’s been able to take certain tasks from me. So I had four books that were pretty much 80% done, but in order to finish, you gotta focus. And John’s been able to sort of look at my schedule and find that the 80% of the stuff I should not be spending my time doing and he’s been able to do that stuff so that way that I’m freed up to do what I do, which he knows, ironically, will pay him more, actually, because as I’m able to do what I do, there’s more things for him to do, and it’s a win-win. Now, the other area of the conference I see a lot of people pushing back on is the whole idea of call recording or video recording surveillance in an office environment, in a retail environment or in a call center environment. Or, Thomas, did you have any pushback on call recording and or surveillance? I would say that’s probably the one item that I didn’t push back much on. But we do call recording. We use RingCentral. We do video and audio recording in our office with Nest. And it’s another thing that’s kind of freeing where you don’t have to kind of deal with the lies that team members will tell you. And you can just, in front of them, say, hey, let’s pull the call, or hey, let’s pull the video. Let’s take a look, and we’ll watch it together, and then we’ll go from there. Do you have people that have lied to you and said, hey, I definitely was on the phone, I was doing this, I was doing that, and then you found out they weren’t even there? Yep, or I definitely was not vaping in the office. It’s just a natural smell. Yeah, it just smells like nicotine all the time for some reason. Yeah, cameras are super helpful. I actually found someone drinking out of a whiskey bottle. Wow. Yeah, I didn’t ever think I would find that, but I found it on the camera just looking for something else. So, there it is. Speaks truth. So anything else, Thomas, that you saw at the conference that you thought, wow, that is a pushback area that maybe you used to have or that certain people have. Because I think once people learn how to hire people, once they learn how to market, once they learn accountability, things get so much easier once you learn these systems. Was there any other area that you saw at the conference that we covered that you thought, wow, I’m so glad we do that now, but maybe back in the day it was an area of pushback? Yeah, I think two things. One is the kind of consistency mindset that you have to have in order to start and or grow a business where you just stop thinking about what the ad says or stop thinking about how much you’re spending. Just automate it and set it and forget it. You want to look back and see what the numbers are. Make sure it’s working and make small tweaks as needed, but don’t make an emotional decision every week of how much should I spend on ads or should I do ads this week because business is up a little bit this week. Just do the ads and just don’t change it. Then the other thing I thought was really interesting and I don’t hear it talked about too much on the podcast and kind of opened my eyes to a good thing for some of the listeners out there, is if you don’t have a business, the conference can still be and is super valuable for you. So I think there was three or four people that were at the conference that have a job currently but they’re looking to start their own business. And coming to the conference I think is a great idea for people to kind of start off on the right foot and understand what it takes to start and grow a business and how to do it the right way. And although it is self-serving to mention this, one of our Thrive Time Show guests we have on a lot is Matthew Klein with Oxifresh. And obviously I’m a big fan of Oxifresh and I’ve worked with him over the years. But Oxifresh is an example. One of the attendees came to the conference and they can’t buy an Oxifresh because we’re sold out in their area. And they were saying, well, what other kind of business could we do? And once you come to the conference, you’re going to know what kind of business you can handle, what kind of business you couldn’t handle. And there’s a lot of great franchise opportunities out there, which is why we’ve decided to help you franchise your business, Full Package Media here, hopefully in 2020. Yep, that’s the goal. If somebody were to go out there and buy a full package, they go to fullpackagemedia.com, and you can’t sell one right now, but in the future when the franchises are available, why do you think a full package media might be a good franchise opportunity for somebody? Yeah, I think a full package media is a great opportunity for a lot of different people out there regardless of what your situation is in life or with different family dynamics, whatever it is. I think it’s a great opportunity to have some time freedom and financial freedom because we’re as a franchise, we’re going to take a lot of the stuff off the plate. We’re going to handle all the calls for you. We’re going to handle the sales. We’re going to handle the ad management. We’re going to handle all the editing, all the post-production, all the customer service. It’s really a job where you’re out and about. You’re meeting great people, mostly residential real estate agents, and shooting, capturing that content. Then we’re handling all the post-production and booking appointments on your calendar and setting those appointments for you to make money. You’re saying if somebody buys a full package media, essentially all they’re going to have to do is to A, actually take the photos, take the videos. Yep. And then B, hire, train someone else to take the photos and the videos. Yeah, group interview, hire people, fire people as needed, do quality assurance on all the media that you do, and then just meet and kind of develop relationships with the realtor. So if I owned a full package, basically I would wake up every day, I’d have a schedule filled with shoots. I go shoot those shoots, then I upload the content to you and your team edits them. Yep, and you answer the phone to book the appointments. That’s right. So all I have to do is hire people and train people. Correct. You’ll never have to respond to customer service calls, sales inquiries, emails from customers, even complaints. We’ll handle all that for you. All right. All right. Now, the consistency mindset there, Jennifer, talk to me about that and how you keep yourself motivated as you’re growing your business. I’ve always had my eye on the ball. I did go through a period when we first opened. I really wasn’t anticipating the success that we would have right away, so I spent a lot of time just trying to stay above water. Then when I finally got that under control, I decided to take it to the next level. And that’s when I sought out the coaching and really going into the next phase with a plan. And also, I don’t wanna do the next chapter like I did the first chapter where I had to figure things out the hard way. So the coaching program is educating me so to the conference on what to expect at different steps. And I may not be at that level yet, but I do plan on getting there. So having that knowledge ahead of time and going into it more prepared, I think, will get me further faster. But motivation is, you know, it hasn’t really been a big issue for me. I’m typically pretty self-motivated, but having a coach definitely keeps you on track because, you know, you’re in communication all the time. And that definitely, you know, just I have to have a personal trainer. You know, I want to work out and I’ll show up at the gym, but I’m not going to push myself to that next level. You know, I just go do it and I check it off my list. I think a coach is like having a great partner too, because you get to be right. So I mean, you get to ask for feedback. A lot of times you have a partnership, it’s 50-50, and maybe the two parties can’t agree and it ends up in this discord and there’s that passive aggressiveness. But I love in a coaching meeting, every time I’ve ever had a coach in my life, in my businesses, it’s great, you have someone you can bounce ideas off of, but you know if you absolutely don’t agree, you can decide what you want to decide. And I like, to your detriment sometimes, but you can decide that. Now we had a Thriver that emailed in a question, and I thought we would take some time, about 15 minutes or to break this down, because she was talking about at the conference, the epiphany she had was that there’s a big difference between formal education and practical education. Like a huge difference between formal and practical. And so I thought I would go over with the listeners the differences between formal education and practical education. So I think right away when you hear of a conference, you might think of formal education. So step number one, if you’re out there scoring at home and I know you are there, you say step number one for getting rich. Step one for getting rich. This is step one. Determine your goals for what rich looks like. You know, determine your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, your fun. I mean, really sit down and write that down. What are your goals for your faith? When are you gonna, you know, practice your faith every week? Your family, like tonight, I’m playing my kids one-on-five basketball. The basketball goal is now in the pool. My daughter is a sweet shot. She’s 14. My son is pretty good, but Havana can just shoot from anywhere. But my goal tonight is to beat the kids. If I win, they don’t get any ice cream. If they win, they all get ice cream. My goal is to make sure they don’t get ice cream. I’m defending team diet here. They though want that ice cream. And is there something exciting about going home and knowing that about 5 o’clock Central Standard Time I will be destroying my kids. And we got the oldest is 14, they got a 12, you got a 9 year old, you got some 7 year olds. I want to whip up on them, I do. But there’s something liberating and exciting about having a goal, you know, a goal for your faith. You know, I listened to Craig Rochelle’s sermon this week, the Pastor of Life Church. It’s just something beautiful about crossing off the to-do list, going, boom. I like that. And then finances. I love going and checking on the bank statement and seeing it go up every week. That’s fun. There’s just something fun about the financial goal. Fitness. There’s something that feels great when you’re on a path and you’re following a path, you’re making progress. Friendships. There’s something great about being around great people only. I mean, there’s just something wonderful about being around people who choose to see the positive side of life, even if they’re going through something. I just love being around people that choose to see betterness and not bitterness. And then there’s something great about setting goals for your fun. Now, I don’t know that any of these things are discussed in college, because I went to college and maybe your college experience was different, Thomas, but did you, when you were going to Baylor? I mean, did you ever have a professor sit down and say, guys, the entire purpose of this Program is to help you gain practical skills so you can go out there and pay some practical bills That are caused by you living the life you want did any professor ever say the purpose of going to this school is to learn How to make enough money so you can achieve your goals that anybody ever talk about that? No, definitely not. I don’t even think college goals were well defined and certainly no kind of actionable steps scheduled to attain those goals is kind of more of Everything general so that you can get out of school and get a general job in whatever And just kind of live a general life. That is lame. It’s interesting But there is an article written by Suzanne Lucas and she’s talking about it’s called why your barista probably has a college degree. And it’s explicit, this article is explaining that there are more and more baristas that have a college degree. Jennifer, in your mind, how is it possible for someone to graduate with a college degree and have no idea how to optimize a website, have no idea how to sell anything, have no idea how to manage people, have no idea how to do marketing for a business? How is that possible? Well, I actually, I didn’t know you went to Baylor, Thomas, so did I. I went to Baylor. I did not finish. I ended up having my daughter early, but I tell everyone I’ve always been someone, I’ve always sought personal development and education, but what I was learning at Baylor for an obscene amount of money was not anything that I could actually apply in life. I will say I got about 10% of my education from Baylor and 90% from Barnes & Noble. That’s back before podcasts, but that’s truly where I developed my business skills and where I learned how to manage money and how to manage people. It’s so interesting whether I have an ophthalmologist or a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer or a retail store owner or a… Everybody I have on the show who has a degree always says you know I met some good people you know we got some sweatshirts to prove I went there but I didn’t learn anything that I use on a practical basis now here’s a little fun factoid for you when I say fun I mean this is this is a kind of a not fun fun fact we put a people you put kind of a spin on it here the latest student loan debt crisis has become for borrowers all across the United States. There are now more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student debt. In the U.S. alone, student loan debt is now the second highest debt behind only mortgages. Think about that. That’s crazy because they say it as a problem as the debt. No, the problem is that too many people are going to college and not learning anything. Now think about this for a second. Jennifer, when you bought a house, or Thomas, if you’ve gone and bought a house, or you got a loan to maybe buy a car or something, have you ever heard of this concept called the appraisal? Yes. And they usually look at the house and say, oh, it’s cool, Jennifer, you want to buy that for $200,000 or $300,000 or $400,000. It’s cool you want to buy that car for $30,000, but how much is it actually worth? And the bank will only lend you a little bit less than what it’s worth because in the event that you can’t make your payments, Thomas, what does the bank do to your property? Take it and sell it. So why don’t they have appraisals for degrees? You know, if someone wants to study history at Oral Roberts University. Currently, it’s $41,000 a year. If they did that, then there’d be a lot of unemployed college professors. Now, if you went to the University of Tulsa, it’s $59,435. So imagine you sit down with a student and you say, hey, what do you want to study? They say, history. You go, OK. Well, you take $60,000 roughly per year at Tulsa University, it’s 59,435 times four years. Well, you’re gonna be out $240,000. And as a history teacher, the most you’re gonna make out the gate is X amount. They would simply not offer that degree anymore because nobody would ever get that degree. So step two, again, step one is write out your goals. Step two, determine what it costs for you to achieve those goals. That’s where I see a lot of people getting it wrong. Determine what it costs for you to achieve those goals. So as an example, I want to watch every Patriots game. I’m blacked out right now though for the preseason. I’ve watched all the highlights, but it’s an abomination. But to watch the games, it’s like $120 a month or something for NFL direct ticket and the whole cable apparatus. And all I ever watch is that. So my family will laugh because it’s never on except when they play. But that’s 120 a month to watch my guys. So that’s 16 games a year. Then we go to the playoffs usually. So we got, I got 20 games a year. You know what I mean? 20 games a year for, we’ll just call it, I’ll say $1,200, let’s say $320 times 12 months. So I’m paying $1,440 to watch my 20 games. So I’m paying per game, $72 a game. That’s cool. That’s a great deal in my opinion. But that’s what I want to do, therefore I have to be able to earn enough money to pay for that. But what’s sad is when people don’t factor that in when they go and get a degree And now they have a job that pays them, you know, seventy two dollars. Let’s say No, I get about seventy two dollars a day And they’re working about five days a week and they’re going okay. I make oh I make 450 450 dollars a week Barista out of college and I have a degree now you know you try to make those student loan payments, you can see why so many students are defaulting because they’re now making $70 a day, $72 a day as a barista using a degree. And that’s an abomination right there. Thomas, think about this, 72 times five. That’s 360, yes, they’re probably making about $100 a day as a barista right now. Yeah, it’s hard when you have, on your earlier math, a $240,000 loan payment. You make a $1,250 an hour and you got a huge payment. Wouldn’t you rather have a house payment? Exactly. Yeah, or, you know, I think back to starting my business with literally $0, and if I would have had the money that I spent on college to start my business, it probably would have gone so much better, so much quicker. And there’s this book that is sold at college that says, you meet the best of friends. Now, again, if you’re out there and you’re your best friend, you met him in college, that is great. And if you have friends from college, that’s great too. But let me tell you what, my wife’s very, very good friend. Her name is Heather. She loves Heather. She thinks Heather’s great. We watched Beaches last night. That’s the tier-a-thon. We watched Beaches. And her and Heather used to watch that a lot. Well, Heather’s great. My wife didn’t meet her in college. And Thomas, you’re a great guy. I’ve known you for three years. I didn’t meet you on a college campus. That’s correct. I don’t know. No, John Kelly out there pretty well didn’t meet him on a college campus. It’s like we’re getting to become friends with Jennifer, didn’t meet her on a college campus. I feel like there’s this jackassery that says that the only way you can meet people is in your formative years of college because I find that people change a lot during college and they’re not the same person when they get out as they were. And I find very few people stay in touch with college friends. I’m not in touch with any of my college friends. This is what I’ve discovered though. I thought so actually I think if they were to say college is where you meet the before you meet the and you had to fill in the blank where you meet the people you’ll never talk to again. Yeah the people you talk to for during college maybe for a little bit and then that’s it. And a lot of colleges is like this forced expectation of let’s have a beer Did you not go to college experience that that that sophomore year where it’s like hey, we gotta go get a beer Oh, yeah, like every every meal It’s like we gotta get a beer like at every moment like we got it. We got to get a beer That’s true. And then when you get out in the real world and you own a business It’s probably the last thing you’re thinking like let’s go get a beer. You’re like I gotta Go places. Yep. That never crosses my mind. Yeah So again, I just think that the caught like the guys who are like the college celebrities too, are almost always the ones that can’t get a job. Yep, they’re the baristas. That’s right, that’s the guy with all the beer. That’s it. All right, now step three if you want to get rich. You’ve got to write out a list of problems that you plan on solving in exchange for the amount of compensation you’re seeking. So I’ll have Jennifer share with us about the problems she solves. Thomas, I’ll have you share with us the problems that you solve. I’ve got some problems that we can solve. I’m hungry. So yesterday I went to Chipotle. I paid them because I was hungry. It’s incredible. I didn’t have to make it myself. I paid them. Yes. So that’s a company. I paid for the solution. That’s called a product or a service. People don’t want to cut their own grass. So yesterday I paid someone to cut the grass. I come home and it smells like fresh grass being cut. It’s a Sunday. My businesses are off on a Sunday. His business is on a Sunday. Great. The pool guy. I love my pool guy. Never met my pool guy. The guy who’s doing all the pool maintenance. Never met that guy. That’s perfect. I love that guy. We’ve got a good relationship going. I’ve never seen him. See the truck leave with the pool stuff in it? The pool guy leaving? I paid the pool guy because I don’t want to maintain my water pH levels. I just want to hop in the pool. Splashy splash. I don’t want to be thinking about what are my pH levels. Somebody says, well Clay, you could save a lot of money by learning about the acidity of water. I think it would be very dangerous to have you in the pool. I don’t want to haul off hay. Behind my house, we’ve got a lot of hay. I’d pay someone to do that. What happened to Aubrey? Did he get fired from mowing? There’s a lot back there, bro. It’s getting wild. He’s just a young man. He needs a bigger mower. Yeah, it’s crazy. People don’t want to walk their dogs. There’s a company now called… Wag. Wag, yeah. And they will come and walk your dog for you. Kind of like Uber for dog walking. People want to get from A to B, but maybe they don’t have a car with them. So Jennifer, you used Uber today, right? I did. I’ve used Uber this whole trip. See? That’s… Okay. People in country clubs want someone to hand them hand soap, which I don’t understand at all. That’s weird. Have you seen that, Thomas? I hate it. It’s uncomfortable. Have you been to places like that? I have. Have you been to places like that, Jennifer? I have not. I don’t get out much. It’s like a wedding, and there’s a guy who doesn’t talk and stands in the bathroom. I encourage you, one time in your life, find a way to get to a country club. I can’t believe it’s a real job, but there’s somebody who’s dressed like you, looking sharp. If you’re in the men’s restroom, it’s usually a guy, but they’re dressed up and they’re like, would you like a mint? And I never had that thought of like, yeah, I don’t even know how to talk to that person. And they’re just in there waiting for you. They don’t leave the room when you’re in there. They’re just waiting. Would you like some mouthwash? Probably with a college degree. Right. Would you like, there you go, would you like some soap? Now, people in country clubs, though, turns out they have enough money, they want to pay someone else to hand them soap. I wonder if country clubs are going to roll out a guy that feeds you soon. That could be a move. All right. And then people want to shoot compelling marketing videos turns out Thomas real estate agents They want to why would what would a real estate agent pay you to shoot photography and videography? Over there at full package media as opposed to doing it themselves so most of what we do is Very high quality a lot higher quality than they could do on their own, and it’s also saving them time So they could go out and buy a nice camera They could invest in the time to learn and train on how to do it, but instead they can just pay us. We knock it out for them. Very kind of one-stop shop for them. You know, people, when they get gasoline, like backup gasoline, they typically don’t want to put the gasoline in a cup. They don’t want to put it in their pocket. They don’t want to put it in their hand. They want to put it into a container. I met the guy who invented the red gas can. Turns out he’s rich. I bet. Why? Everyone has a gas container for emergencies. It’s a move. Also, this just in Thomas, most people don’t want to cut their own hair because they don’t, we are able, oh yes, we are able to charge them for their haircuts over elephant in the room. They don’t cover these things at college at all. It’s like a college we’re fascinated with. Learn things that nobody cares about. That’s true. It seems like, like, okay, so now that you know about papyrus, what problem can you solve? None. Thomas, remember that one time that I said to you, I can’t find my pencil or my pen or my Etch-a-Sketch or my computer or a calculator or my phone or any other writing device at all. Where is the papyrus? And you said, I got it. Yep, back pocket. And I said, hey, do you know cuneiform? And you go, yes, I do. I mean, seriously, no one cares about your vast knowledge of things that don’t matter. Correct. I think it should be criminal to teach these things personally. But we continue. So step three, write out a list of the problems that you can solve. Jennifer, what are the problems that you solve at your business? Well, we offer online. We do a lot of business online. And our market is typically busy moms busy running kids around and working and so we sell online we ship also a lot of people have trouble putting things together so our staff will help you you know you can send a picture of your room your wall and we can help you piece it all together and save you from having to pay like a designer to come out and tell you what to do so we’ll kind of do like an in-store like one-on-one consult with you. And what kind of products do you sell? So home decor, gifts? What are some of the things you can find in your store? Home decor, gifts, furniture, I mean everything from pillows to wall hangings, signs, some handmade, some manufactured kitchen items. For every room in the house we have a lot of bathroom humor signs. Oh really? Those are great. Really? Yeah. And what is your website again? ShopLegacyDecor.com. I don’t want to paint you into a corner, but can you… we’re trying to picture this here. We’ve all mentally gone to our restroom. What are some of the bathroom humor signs or maybe just so we get kind of a mental picture? One of them says no selfies in the bathroom. What’s another one? Another one says, text me if you run out of toilet paper. I know you were on your phone. What’s another one? There’s another one that gives the bathroom a 4.5 star rating. Alright, that’s Tim Johnson’s laugh there. That’s a gift. Is there one more? One more. Let me think. Okay, here we go. We’re going back to our pondering. I’m going to go back to our pondering. I’m going to go back to our pondering. I’m going to go back to our pondering. Let me think. Okay, here we go. Here we go. We’re going back to our pondering. What better way to make your bathroom echo and to be funny than by calling our good friend over here, Ms. Jennifer, to get… What was that website one more time? ShopLegacyDecor.com. You like that, Thomas, don’t you? That’s great. Oh, it’s impressive. I want to have that sound clip I said at funerals. Just hit that little action button there. Dr. Timothy Johnson, our ophthalmologist client, has perfected the art of laughing. That’s good. Did you see how the conference, he was asking questions that appeared on our whiteboard while not being at our conference? Wow. Did you see that? That’s special. He’s texting Justin Wren and Justin Wren’s putting up questions on the board that I know pertain only to him. That’s awesome. That’s impressive. That’s sneaky. Okay, so now we talk about step number three. Write out a list of the problems that you can solve. Now, if you already have a business, write a list of all the problems you can continue solving. What are other problems you can solve? At the end of the day, you get paid to solve problems. So what are other problems that you can solve for your existing customers? That’s a powerful thought. Now, at college, I pulled up the curriculum here for Oral Roberts University, some of the general ed classes. And Jennifer, I would just like for you, I know you went to Baylor, but this is Oral Roberts University where my wife and I went. I’d like for you to share with me if you ever use these particular skills at your job right now. Okay? Art history survey three. No. Okay. That didn’t go well. What about advanced ceramics? No. I look at ceramics, but I don’t know how to make ceramics. Advanced sculpture. No. Really? No. Biblical Greek too? No. New Testament introduction? I took New Testament, haven’t used it at work anyway. Jewish civilization? No. Hermeneutics, principles of biblical interpretation? Negative. Hebrew exegesis? Oh no, the word Hebrew is in one of our signs. It says that men are supposed to make coffee because God said he brews. Nice! Nice! There we go. Tim Johnson! There we go. All right, so here we go. Now you’ve got Human Ecology Laboratory. Do you ever use that? No. Thomas, what about this one? Do you ever… Oh, okay, here we go. Senior Paper. Do you ever write big papers in business? Nope. Have you noticed in college they want you to write a big paper, and in business, they want you to write a small, pithy paragraph? Yep. That’s so true. Banks hate large proposals, and business people do, too. Seriously, if an employee gave you a 25-page document, wouldn’t you almost be irritated, Thomas? They have, and I have been irritated. What about travel study, Thomas? Do you ever use that? Nope. Phonetics in conversation? Nope. Team ministry? No. You wouldn’t use any of this stuff? Okay, how about this? Augmentation and persuasion, theory and practice. Nope. What about, I’m just trying to, there’s so many non-practical, I mean this whole page is filled with things that I’ve never, quantitative literacy. It seems like it doesn’t even make sense. Music therapy. Oh, is that a thing? How is this a thing? This is a thing. And your parents out there listening, if you want to get $59,000 a year in debt, what better way to get in debt than by having your kids take classes that don’t apply at all? How is it possible? Now, Peter Thiel couldn’t be here today because he was rejecting me yet again, but Peter Thiel, one of the early investors of Facebook, worth over a billion dollars, writes, pretty harsh here, he says, University administrators are now the equivalent of subprime mortgage brokers. Selling you a story that you should go massively into debt, and it’s not a consumption decision, it’s an investment decision. Actually, no, it’s a bad consumption decision. Most colleges are just four-year parties. Peter Thiel. Oof. So, step four, I’d ask yourself, this is as we wrap up today’s show, ask yourself, do you need a degree to solve those problems? Do you now need a degree to solve those problems? Don’t say, I have a degree, now what problems can I solve? Don’t do that game. Don’t get it mixed up. Figure out what problems you can solve and then say, do I need a degree to solve these problems? And if I do, what degree do I need? So, yeah, you need a degree to become a doctor yes you need a degree to become a lawyer you betcha you need a degree to become a dentist etc but Napoleon Hill defines an educated man as a man who is what he’s as an educated man is one who has so developed the faculties of his mind that he or she may require anything that she or he wants or its equivalent without violating the rights of others Henry Ford comes well into the meaning of this definition. Henry Ford, who did poorly in school, but yet was educated. Albert Einstein chimes in a little bit more feisty than Napoleon Hill. Albert Einstein writes, by the way, Albert Einstein is the only reason we’re not speaking German now. He developed the nuclear bomb and all the theories needed to make it happen. And he created the sense of urgency for President FDR to start the Manhattan Project, which created atomic energy that we use today and we used to blow up the Germans because they were going to drop the atomic bomb on us. They were developing it. So we’ve developed this bomb to drop on the Germans. But instead we dropped it on the Japanese first. And they said, hey, we’re good. We’re good. And we say, you want us to drop it again over there, Mr. Hitler. And anyway, so we didn’t have to do it there. But Albert Einstein writes, the only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. That’s brutal, but true. So true. Another another gentleman here chimes. I have so many of them. Napoleon Hill says action is the real measure of intelligence. So I’m going to read off a list of 76 people that didn’t have a degree that’s changed the world. So the guy who invented the modern banking system, a PG and any no degree after dropping in high school. Check that out. Number two, you’ve got the world’s wealthiest man during his lifetime, Andrew Carnegie, dropped out of middle school. Person number three, U.S. President Andrew Jackson became an attorney despite being homeschooled. He passed the bar having no formal education. Four, oh, the princess of the princels, Aunt Biler, aunt, auntie Annie’s, or auntie Annie’s if you’re from Minnesota. She started the business without graduating from college. All right. Number five, one of the world’s top photographers, Ansel Adams. No degree. Ansel Adams, no degree. Number six, the former CEO of Paramount and the CEO of Fox. No degree. Barry Diller. Number seven, the favorite polymath everybody loves, Benjamin Franklin. No degree, despite having dropped out of high school became one of the founding fathers the billionaire boss who founded clear channel media no degree red mccombs billionaire billy bill gates microsoft no degree after dropping out of college the power of perfume coco chanel no degree the captain of the kentucky fried chicken colonel sanders colonel sanders no degree dropped out of school at just the age of 13 the founder of Wendy’s Dave Thomas No degree the co-founder of oh, yes the co-founder of DreamWorks Jeffrey Katzman David Geffen David Geffen has no college degree number 14 the man whose passion was more than just a hobby David Green Hobby Lobby no degrees started Hobby Lobby with $600 David Karp No degree. Debbie Fields. Mrs. Fields Chocolate Factory. Chocolate Chippery. No degree. DeWitt Wallace, the founder of Reader’s Digest. No degree. What? The guy who writes Reader’s Digest? Yes. Dustin Muscovich, one of the co-founders of Facebook. Worth $13.4 billion. No degree. The guy who reinvented the way that we do architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, no degree. The man who makes the world’s best engines, Frederick Henry Royce, no degree. George Eastman, George Eastman, this is the guy who’s one of the premier developers of photography, no degree. Wayne Huizenga, the guy who started Blockbuster Video, owned the Miami Dolphins, the Florida Panthers, no degree. Henry Ford, the guy who modernized the automobile, no degree. And I can keep reading and reading and reading, but I’m going to put all the show notes on the, all these people on today’s show notes, because you talk about IKEA, the guy who started IKEA. Ingvar Kamprad, no degree. James Cameron, the world’s number one movie producer, no degree. We’re talking about industry changers here, no degree. Jimmy Iovine, the guy who launched Interscope Records, no degree. John D. Rockefeller, who created rubber and modernized the oil refinery industry. No degree. We can read this list all day. But the point is the people that change things as a general rule don’t have a degree. Now, if you have a degree, here’s what you’re going to have to do. You’re going to have to unlearn a lot of stuff. So, Jennifer, I’ll let you and Thomas have the final word, but you’re both educated people. You’ve gone to college more than I have, at least. What is maybe one thing you had to unlearn that maybe you were taught in formal education that you’ve had to unlearn, whether it be at the conference or through the podcasts or through reading or through Barnes & Noble? What is maybe one thing you’ve had to unlearn? Really, I don’t remember learning too much at all at Baylor, just because I didn’t go very long before I realized it just wasn’t going to help me, knowing that I wanted to be an entrepreneur at some point. Got it. So I never really went down that path. I felt like it was a false sense of security that I just didn’t want to keep racking up the debt for. Okay, so Thomas, what is something you’ve had to unlearn that maybe you learned at college and you thought, okay, this is how life works, and then you realized, uh oh, that’s not how life works. Yeah, my degree was in athletic training, sports medicine. So very science-based. So a lot of that was research and making sure everything was perfect before it was put into practice. And I’ve learned that I had to unlearn that. And with business, it’s more about doing. Define, act, measure, refine is kind of the way to do it. And that’s so much quicker and saves money and saves time. Instead of it, you know, if you own a business and you try to wait until everything’s perfect, then you’ll never go or grow anywhere. That’s good. So you’re saying you learned the rhythm of entrepreneurship, define, act, measure, refine. Again, define what you think’s gonna work, act, take action. Action is the real measure of intelligence, according to Napoleon Hill. And then measure, measure, is it working? Is it working? Is it working? And then refine it, but never stop. Don’t wait for perfect. Yeah, if you wait for perfect, you’re going to wait forever. Hey, Jennifer, I appreciate you visiting us from Houston. I know you have a flight to catch. Yes, thank you. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I appreciate the conference. It was super helpful, and I’m going to be coming back, and I’m probably going to bring some of my team with me when I come. Would you encourage the listeners out there to come to a conference? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely I would. I learned a lot. It was really mind-blowing. I mean, the second day by like 9 a.m., I was like, wow, okay, I have a lot more knowledge even having listened to every single podcast there was. I still learned so much in two days that I’m going to be able to take back with me and be a better business person because of it. You know, something’s magical when you can actually ask a question. Sometimes you listen to a podcast and you kind of get it, you’re almost there, but you’re like, I don’t understand that one thing. Right. Yeah. And I had a few of those. I had a few of those. I came with notes on some things and I held them to see if they were covered in the conference and they were. And if I had any further questions, then I was able to ask them during the conference. So I’m not walking away with a list of questions like I was when I got here. Thomas, I appreciate you, my friend. And for anybody out there who’s contemplating attending a Thrive Time Show workshop, what say you, my friend? Do you have the final word about whether we should attend a Thrive Time Show conference or not or why we should or shouldn’t? Yeah I would say just just make it a priority. Just schedule it. Things that get scheduled get done. So just put it on the calendar. Go to thrive timeshow.com and see when the next one is. Probably October? October. Well this one here, we’re gonna air this show October 22nd. Okay so December. Yeah by December. Every two months they have one so I would just go. Just make it happen. If you can’t afford it, then they’ll usually work something out with you. So I would just go. Make it a priority. Make it a rock in your life, in your schedule to get there. There’s so much value, and it doesn’t matter what stage of your business you’re in. Even if you don’t have a business, like I mentioned earlier, or if you have a business that’s been around for 20 years, but you’re waiting to get to the next level, or you’re trying to get kind of more out of the business and kind of more passive. No matter where you’re at, there’s something there that’s valuable for you. How old are you? 26. Do you remember what it felt like to have $100,000 in your account for the first time? It was pretty kind of unreal. When you hit $200,000, did your head explode? Did you go buy a bunch of burritos? I did it. Barbecue. As you get closer or got to $300,000, what happened in your mind? We’re getting there. It keeps going up and up so it’s a good good problem to have. I’m just trying to say out there if you’re listening out there the average American has listed less than $400 saved and how old are you again? 26. Let me tell you what this guy has got he’s 26 years old so he probably has half as many years of experience as half of our listeners. I mean a lot of our listeners are 50, 45 and if a 26-year-old man can diligently implement the plan and get at least $200,000 stacked up in a bank account somewhere, right? Yeah. And you pay taxes on. And if you are 50, if you’re 60, it’s not too late. I see plenty of people at the conference who, you know, Clay Stairs is a perfect example. He was a teacher for years and years and years, became a millionaire through quitting teaching and becoming a public speaker. He did not become a client of mine, I think, until he was like 47. Yeah, so it’s not too, no matter where you’re at in life, how old you are, there’s always something to do, some problem that you can solve. There’s a police officer that was here and he was like, I don’t have a business, I’m interested in starting something. And I think in about three minutes, you kind of laid out a whole path for him that he could probably make. Well, I thought about it all night. A couple hundred thousand dollars. I thought about it all night. I was thinking about what can this guy do part time on the side, what’s something, and so I sketched it I I laid it out in three minutes but I lost like three hours of sleep thinking about that guy so that was a problem but I hope we’ve helped him. Patrick’s… Patrick is his name though his son won the TV he did his son got the big TV so big shout out to Patrick big shout to you Thomas big shout out to Jennifer and we’d like to end each and every show with a boom and so now that he further had to three two one boom head do. 3, 2, 1, boom! Stop what you’re doing and think about this for a second. What would happen if your company was suddenly able to generate exponentially more quality sales leads? That would be incredible! What would happen if your company came up at the top or near the top of the Google search engine results. Well, I would just feel overwhelmed with all that business. How many thousands of dollars in lost sales, or millions of dollars in lost sales, are you missing out on simply because your potential customers can’t find you when they go online to search for the products and services that you offer? I refuse to fake that thought because I don’t want any more business. In my new book, Search Engine Domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate the search engine results. What do you mean by dominate? We will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate search engine results Download your free ebook copy today at the best SEO book Calm I repeat that the best SEO book Calm my name is Amy Baltimore, and I am a CPA in Covington, Tennessee I’ve been working with the thrive team now for about a year One of the first things that they did was to update my website and my search engine optimization. I prior had a website, but I was not being found on Google, and all of my new business was coming through referrals from friends, family, etc. And right away, I started to see results. People were calling and coming in saying that they found me on Google. They just Googled CPA near me and there I was at the top of the page. And so, it’s been a great help to my business. Again, you can download your free e-book copy today at thebestseobook.com. Hey, this is Dustin Huff. I’m with Keystone Harbor Marina. We joined Thrive back in January and have been working with these guys for about seven months. During that time period, we have moved up our Google rank through reviews and SEO processes that we’ve compiled through these guys. Our leads have gone from about four a week to now 165 a week. So the process works. I will tell you from experience, once you begin, you have to stay with it. As long as you continually do this, week in and week out, month in and month out, you’ll continually grow. The system works, but nothing works unless you do. You’ve got to take some action. Download the e-book for free today at thebestseobook.com. Hello, my name is Daniel with Daniel’s Heating and Air here in Amarillo, Texas. The way Google has affected my business, we have got a lot of calls from Google. Right now it’s July and we’ve had the best month ever. And it took us about eight to ten months to get on top of Google and I’m glad we did. Remember nothing works unless you do. You have to go to thebestseobook.com today. Download the e-book for free. Just download that e-book for free and you’ll be off to the races. Hi, my name is Christina Niemus. I’m the owner and operator of Angel Touch Auto Body and Detailing in Bourne, Massachusetts. We have been working with Thrive and their coaching for, say, eight to nine months. And it took us about six months, five to six months, to get on the top of Google and with their help with the website and marketing and the SEO and retargeting ads with Google, and it has been phenomenal. We just have light and day business coming in, phone calls coming in, walk-ins, referrals. It’s just through the roof, and we couldn’t be happier. At the moment, we are up 50% this year from the previous year, and not only is that part of our own hard work and diligence, but also with the help of Thrive and what they’ve done for us and getting us on the top of Google and you know all their knowledge and coaching and yeah so super grateful super pumped to see what the future holds for all of us. Thank you. This is your year to thrive. Success you will find. Today is your day and now is your time. Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. Proverbs 10, 4. I’m here to tell you, you can do it if you can just motivate yourself. Twelve the masses had to cut off a few, so on the day D, you and I could rendezvous. A misshapen tree that I had to prune, I had to make cuts to be here daily at noon. So, like a tidal wave of knowledge monsoon, I could reign on the parades of those who doubt and you Are you the next Rockefeller or the next guru? Or the next Dr. King who’s changing the rules? What was in your way would you run right through? Like a running back, force the one that’s up to you I remember my days back in the dorm room Tune to the gloom like the temple of doom Overwhelmed with the doubts that try to consume My hope for the future that I can pursue But from the mountain top now I can conclude That you have what it takes if you want the view to win This is your year to thrive Success you will find Today is your day And now is your time If your year to thrive Success you will find Today is your day And now is your time This moment is profound cause you’re above the ground Your road might have been rough, but what you got now is now We’re here to pick you up and to even show you how But you gotta be resourceful with that old plow plow Started from the bottom, but I worked my way up Cause by 4am I always been prayed up Rise and grind, now’s your time, don’t give that up You gotta get it, don’t quit it, till you see it’s grown up See it’s your year to thrive, success you will find. Yes, yes. Today is your day. That’s what I’m trying to say. And now is your time. It’s your time. If you’re here to thrive. Come on, come on, come on. Success you will find. Today is your day. And now is your time. It’s your time. We all have a wish and we all want to win. But we cannot begin without self-discipline. If you fall on your face, get yourself up again I taught yourself to close, not playin’ with a friend When the storm’s gettin’ rough and it’s gotta be You only dealin’ with yourself and what you believe We believe in you, but not as much as God does If you’re goin’ through hell, he’s got nothin’ but love Apply what you’ve learned, increase what you’ve earned And in due time, you got money to burn Apply what you’ve learned, increase what you’ve earned And in due time, you got money to burn So buy what you learn, increase what you burn In due time you got money to burn So buy what you learn, increase what you burn In due time you got money to burn With this miracle, miracle, I’d like to shout down the doubters Kill the weeds that be killing your dream flowers Empower you to devour All the obstacles that make your sweet dreams sour As for me, I used to stut stut stutter But now I’m on the microphone smooth like butter If I can do it, I know you can too, but you must stick to it like postage do And while Merton’s on the chorus, singing what he sings, I encourage you to dream big dreams Today is your day, and now is your time This is your year to thrive, success you will find Today is your day, and now is your time. Today is your day, and now is your time. Today is your day, and now is your time. I realize I can’t sing like that, but I can talk and play the woodblock. Okay. Ryan Wilk, welcome to the Thrive Fact Show. How are you, sir? I’m good. Thanks, Clay. Thanks for having me on. Hey, do you remember how we first met? How did you and I first meet? Yeah. So I had a friend in Oklahoma City who does outdoor living. So he builds pergolas, outdoor kitchens, a company called PMH OKC, Randy Antrikan. He had been telling me about some success that he’d had in his business. In fact, sending me checks from customers that were huge. And I got super curious, what’s going on, man? He said, well, I had some help. I have a coach. And so he actually invited me to come to one of your Thrive Time business conferences. And so I did. And I was blown away at everything that I heard and immediately signed up to have a conversation with you about what coaching might look like. And so it was seeing Randy’s success and another one of our insurance friends. Oh yeah. Worked with you as well. Yeah. Now, it’s what about our insurance friend? Is our insurance friend now, he was telling me he’s in the top, I believe 1% of all insurance agents now in the country. And he went from, you know, doing okay to doing great. You went from doing okay to doing great. Randy went from doing okay to doing great. And money’s just a magnifier. Money just allows you to have the time freedom and financial freedom to do more of what you want to do anyway. When you and your wife aren’t running your flow photography business, what are the kinds of things that you and your wife like to do together? Yeah, so we are super involved in our local church and it’s really our heartbeat. My wife is, she plays the piano and leads worship at our church. I serve in our kids ministry every week and speak in there and work with kids. One of the things we really like to do, we’ll kind of travel it. I’m sure you’ve heard, I know he’s been at some of the Reawakened American tours, but Sean Foyt, we’re big fans of Sean Foyt. And so we’ve had the chance to travel across the country to attend some of his live events. And so, yeah, just trying to stay real hooked up in the church. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go to your YouTube channel for a second, and I’m gonna just show people kind of the work that you to do do because you guys provide real estate you probably provide real photography for real estate you do videography you do drone you provide that that content for real estate agents so if there’s a real estate agent out there they’re listing a house they’re listing a commercial building they need photos videos 3d tours the whole thing I’m on the on the YouTube channel. Is there any particular recent project you wanna direct me to? Or can I maybe just click on this one here with the pool, the house with the pool, is that fine? Yeah, any of them’s great. Okay, I’ll click on this one here. And again, this is what you would be creating. If you own a flow of photography, this is the work you’d be producing. Oh yeah, 2401 West Sierra Streets. Now folks, real quick, one service that Ryan doesn’t currently provide is narration of the home tours, but this is something I want to provide for this one. Here we go. Do you want to live in this house? Do you want to have that be your lawn? Do you want that little star thing in your… Do you want that horse head? Do you want that horse head? Does that horse head speak to you? Does the call of the wild resonate with you when you see that star? Do you want that bull’s head? Do you want that woodpecker? Do you want that horse head? Do you want that horse head? Do you want that horse head? Do you want that bull’s head? Do you want that wood floor? Is that what you need? Do you want that deer head? It’s all negotiable. Do you buy this house? Do you buy this beautiful house at 2401 West Sierra Springs in Edmond? Do you want that painting of that? Do you want that picture of that family? No, you can’t have that picture, because that picture’s their family. You’ve got to put your own family. You want that stove? You can get that stove. You want that granite? Oh, there’s no vermiculair folks that’s granite granite oh you want that stove you want that oh you want the living room you want this light you want all this you want to buy this house you want to live in this house you want this beer you want this aquarium you want to feed those fish you want that painting you want all this that’s what you want you gotta fill out the form and contact your local agent. They’re gonna charge you 6%, and that’s fair. That’s very fair. That’s a fair number. You’ll pay a 6% commission because you’ve been inspired by these photos to buy the house at 2401 West Sierra Springs. Okay, they don’t do narration. They don’t do narration with the photo. I’m gonna have to hire you, Clay. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to taunt the prospective buyer. OK, so then you guys do photos, though, too. So where can I go to find photos? Where on your website can I see examples? Yeah, just go to flowphotos.com and click on the gallery. I got it. OK, here we go. All right, click it on the gallery. This is all, so you do real estate photography. You got the photos. It turns out people look at the photos before they buy a house. I don’t know if people know this, but it seems kind of obvious to most of our listeners, I would think, but the vast majority of people look for the home they’re going to buy, look it online. They go online, they look at the photos, then they schedule an appointment with the real estate agent, and the photos, the clarity and the brightness and the imagery of the photos really does determine how many leads a real estate agent gets. You do commercial photography as well. You do the drones thing. Are you liking the 3D tours, too? Do you like the 3D tours? Yeah, the 3D tours have become super popular. You know, it’s kind of what you see whenever you look at houses online, apartments online, something like that, where you can actually click through and view the property and sort of click and go all around in 360 space. They’re super popular and websites like Zillow.com actually give listings that have 3D tours a preferred rank so they show up on the list higher than listings that don’t. I’m walking through this house here, I have a question. How come you don’t have motivational music with the 3D tour? What’s that all about? Hopefully that technology is coming soon. Right now it’s not available, but yeah, just pull up your Spotify or something. Let me get the right music for this moment. Let me get, this is the, let me get the right, I think I got the right music. Let me see. Oh, this will be the best music. Okay. Okay, here we go. I think I’ve got, no, that’s not it. Oh, let’s see here. Okay. Oh, here we go. I think I’ve got it. Yes, here we go. Review your Bible. Nope, nope. That’s a commercial. Let me, folks, this, you’re going to want to buy this house as a result of this tour. Here, let me, here we go. The autumn wind is a pirate. Bustling in from sea, with a rollicking song he speaks along, swaggering boys are you ready to buy this house is with us it was a put it with a silver about his head and a bristling black mustache he growls as he storms the country big and bold And the trees all shake when you go in your face. As he robs them of their gold. The autumn wind is a raider, pillaging just for fun. He’ll knock you round and upside down and laugh when he’s conquered and won. OK, so that would be the theme song. I would go with that one. Perfect. And then if people want to learn how to buy a flow, what are the steps? What’s step one, step two? Walk us through the steps to owning a flow photography. Yep. So the first thing would be to go to flowphotos.com and click on open your own flow photography. Read through the information that’s there. We kind of break down the process and the costs. And then at the bottom, there’s a form that you can fill out. Just give us your name, email, phone, and in the notes just say, hey, I’m interested in opening a flow photography. Yep. of Flow Photography. What we’ll do is we’ll give you a call to schedule just really like 15 minutes, 15 to 30 minute conversation. We’ll break down the numbers, the process, talk about everything that you get as a licensee and the responsibilities that we at Flow Corporate would have as well. And then we’ll get a shadow day scheduled. So that would be the next big step. So you’ll actually come to Oklahoma City for a half day of shadowing and you’ll go on photo shoots with us. You’ll see what it’s like to interact with clients, to take pictures of houses, to fly a drone, to do a video, to do a 3D tour. And if it still sounds like something that you’re interested in, then the next step is to schedule training and that’s going to be back in Oklahoma City as well. A couple of days of training where you’ll have a hands-on experience with the cameras, the drone, all the things, and then we’ll kind of go through that process of getting you up and going. So step one, fill out the form at flowphotos.com. Step two, schedule a free consultation. Step three, schedule Discovery Day in Oklahoma City. Step four, if it’s a good fit, go ahead and sign the agreement and begin training, right? Yep. Okay, and then if I own one, on a daily basis, correct me if I’m wrong here, but there’s four things I need to do on a daily basis. I’ve got to take photos, I’ve got to train people to take photos. If I have employees, I have to teach my whole team how to take photos. So I have to take photos and videos and 3D tours, but I also have to teach people how to do it. Then I need to maintain good relationships with realtors, make sure they’re happy, and I need to gather objective reviews from happy customers. It seems to me like that’s what the core business is. Then you edit the photos for me. So if I’m the local guy and I take the photos, I give them to you and then you edit them and doctor them up, is that correct? Yeah, that’s right. So you don’t have to worry about editing at all. You’re pretty much just pushing a button. I mean, that’s really all you’re doing is just hitting a button. If you can hold a camera and you can hit a button, then you’re definitely able to do this job and to grow this business. We have an editing team that will handle all the editing for you. We’ll handle the delivery of the photos to the clients, to your realtor clients as well, so that all that’s taken care of. And you’re the founder. You’re Ryan Wells. That’s who they’d be talking to if they fill out the form, correct? That’s right. Okay, so folks, again, Ryan’s been a long-time client. I’m honored to serve him in that capacity. He’s a patriot. He loves America. I love Sean Poit. Praise and worship. He wants to help you. So if you want to own your own business, you want to quit and leave corporate America and do your own thing, this may be a great opportunity for you. Or it might not be a good fit. But in order for you to know, you just got to go to time. You just got to go to flowphotos.com. That’s flowphotos.com and click on the button to learn more about here. Only opening your own flow photography. It’s a big yellow button up here. Click it. We’ll schedule a consultation. Next thing you know, you’ll be on the phone with Ryan Wells and we’ll see if it’s a good fit. Ryan, thank you so much and I’ll have more innovative ideas with the music and the narration next week. I know that so far, 0% of the ideas I’ve suggested on today’s show will be implemented, but I’ll come back each week with more and more hot ideas. Awesome, looking forward to it. Thanks, Clay. Take care, brother. Bye. Bye. The Thrivetime 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 system 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 going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and you’re like, 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 systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase, month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. I established my practice here in Tulsa in 1985. One of the things that I hear in my world a lot as a business consultant from business owners is they will tell me, Clay, I want you to help me, but my industry is different. And so on today’s show, I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful client who’s a pediatric dentist. And I also am going to introduce you to a wonderful client who’s a real estate agent. And I’m also going to introduce you to a wonderful client who does mortgages, and a wonderful client who’s a family doctor, and a wonderful client who trains dogs, and a wonderful client who runs the UPS stores for all of Canada. Then I’ll introduce you to a wonderful client who has a massive real estate empire, real estate franchise empire. Then I’m gonna introduce you to a wonderful client that sells new homes. Then I’m gonna introduce you to a wonderful client who sells insurance, and then a wonderful client who runs a church, and a wonderful client who… A wonderful client who sells insurance. I think I mentioned that. A wonderful client that has a research lab. And at the end of the day, you’ll discover that if you will follow the proven systems that I will teach you at our in-person workshops, or through our one-on-one coaching program, it’s like bumper bowling for business. It’s like if you’re tired of throwing gutter balls and you want to have success, this system will absolutely change your life. It’s a step-by-step system. It’s a linear workflow. It’s going to absolutely change your life. Now, without any further ado, here is Dr. Morrow sharing about how this system has changed his life and his business’s life and the lives of his employees and the growth of his pediatric dentistry. So here we go. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, or Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day-to-day. He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable he helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. But he was a great man, I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing. And I encourage you, if you haven’t ever worked with Clay, work with Clay, he’s gonna help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working. And he can outwork everybody in the room every single day. And he loves it. So anyways this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank You Clay and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay it’s a great great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye bye. Hi I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four-month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So, I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I’ve found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic. And as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35-year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of the Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people, I love working with people, I love building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time, and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. The Thrivetime 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. 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