Clay Clark | Business Conference | Why You Must Focus On Offense & Defense If You Want to Build a Successful Business + Knowing Your Numbers, Your Break-Even Point, Etc. + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s Dec 5-6 Business Workshop!

Audio Transcription

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today, I met his dogs, I met his chickens, I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy is like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February in the last two and a half days. So, and the phone’s blowing up. Everything’s just blowing up. Well, you’re right. It is like a rocket ship. So we’re pinching ourselves Actually, I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does Not what they say You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here And you chose to go somewhere you said man, I can go and I can get better I can go and I can learn I can go and I can maybe go from where I’m at to where I want to go But one of the most important things that you will ever do or not do in your life is to value and seek wise Counsel to be coached hard means you have to be willing to be uncomfortable Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zillner. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. She’s bringing some wisdom and the goodness As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the C and G up on your radio And now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom! Oh, yes, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And, Chuck, Eric, Chuck, business coach, what are we talking about today, my man? Oh, my man, we are going to go over how to determine your weekly break-even and goal achievement numbers. Okay, let’s get into it. Okay, let’s do it. So, first off, when you’re playing a game, a sport, let’s say you’re playing basketball, your kid’s playing basketball, you would want to know what your team’s score is. If you’re on the sideline cheering for a third grade boys’ basketball game, you would want to know how many points your team has scored and then you’d want to know how many points that the other team has scored so therefore you could tell who’s winning or not. This is one thing about cheerleading that’s hard for me because my daughters will perform and I don’t really know whether they did good or bad or whether they’re winning or losing and then magically like three hours later out emerges a second place trophy. Out of something thin air. Or a third or a first. I don’t know what’s happening. But for baseball, basketball, football, these kinds of sports, you can know whether you’re ahead or behind. There’s a scoreboard. There’s a scoreboard. Exactly. And so for your business, you have to have a scoreboard. And some of the key numbers you have to have is you have to know how many deals you need, how many customers you need, how many clothes deals, how many paying customers, how many whatever you need to sell just to break even. It’s a big deal. Now, Chuck, you see a lot of business owners, I know not anybody listening right now, but other people that have no clue how many deals they need to break even. It’s very, very typical to meet with somebody and they’re just kind of like, well, I know we didn’t lose money last month, which is where a lot of people find themselves, right? You’re busy with the day-to-day and you don’t have the time or block out the time to go back and review these numbers. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom. Oh, yes. Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former USSBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And Chuck, Eric, Chuck, business coach, what are we talking about today, my man? Oh, my man, we are going to go over how to determine your weekly break-even and goal achievement numbers. Okay, let’s get into it. Okay, let’s do it. So, first off, when you’re playing a game, a sport, let’s say you’re playing basketball, your kid’s playing basketball, you would want to know what your team’s score is. If you’re on the sideline cheering for a third grade boys basketball game, you would want to know how many points your team has scored, and then you’d want to know how many points that the other team has scored, so therefore you could tell who’s winning or not. This is one thing about cheerleading that’s hard for me, because my daughters will perform, and I don’t really know whether they did good or bad, or whether they’re winning or losing, and then magically, like three hours later, out emerges a second place trophy out of something. Thin air. Or a third or a first. I don’t know what’s happening. But for baseball, basketball, football, these kinds of sports, you can know whether you’re ahead or behind. There’s a scoreboard. There’s a scoreboard. Exactly. And so for your business, you have to have a scoreboard. And some of the key numbers you have to have is you have to know how many deals you need, how many customers you need, how many closed deals, how many paying customers, how many whatever you need to sell just to break even. It’s a big deal. Now, Chuck, you see a lot of business owners. I know not anybody listening right now, but other people that have no clue how many deals they need to break even. It’s very, very typical to meet with somebody and they’re just kind of like, well, I know we didn’t lose money last month, which is where a lot of people find themselves, right? You’re busy with the day-to-day and you don’t have the time or block out the time to go back and review these numbers. And then you’re just kind of drifting along, hoping that you’re making enough money to keep the doors open at the end of the month. And our whole goal here is to make sure that everybody leaves feeling whole and not full of holes. I never want to talk down or feel like I’m talking down to anybody or patronizing anybody. The whole goal is to coach you up. The word charisma actually comes from the Greek word charisma with a K, charisma, which means the gift of grace. So my entire goal is to coach you up and not talk down to you, but I want to just make sure we’re getting this. Chip, what percentage of the customers that you’ve worked with as a business coach over the years, or you’ve seen as a business coach, what percentage of those clients actually know their break-even number on a weekly basis when you first work with them. What percentage actually know, I would say… By default, they know without your help. Maybe two out of ten, so maybe 20%. You might have a really great batch of clients you’ve worked with, because I’ve never seen it. Even less? I’ve never seen it. What will happen is the client, it’s just like a sports team where they’re out there playing the game, they’re working really hard, they’re running up and down the court, going as fast as possible to try to score, but they get down to the final minute of the game and they look at their coach and they say, are we ahead? What’s happening? And the coach goes, no, we’re down by 20! And the coach goes, I don’t know! It’s just a weird deal. All of a sudden at the end of the month, their coach, at the end of the game, the coach pulls them aside and says, guys, we lost by like 28 points. And I just want you guys to know that was terrible. Yeah, we’re going to have to change that. And usually the coach is the accountant. You see, the accountant normally says, you guys lost by like 807 points, and so people don’t even know there was a score. So what we need to do, Stephen Covey, the bestselling author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he says you want to begin with the end in mind. Or Jack Welch, the number one CEO of all time, who grew GE by 4,000% during his tenure. He says, you’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on the short range commitments while you develop a long range strategy, envision and implement it. The success of doing both, walking and chewing gum, if you will, getting it done in the short range and delivering a long range plan and executing on that. All right, so here are the specific action steps that you and I and every business owner needs to take to get to a place of clarity in your mind where you know your weekly break even point and your weekly goal achievement point. And it has to be weekly. So here we go. You want to write down on a whiteboard in your office the number of deals you need to break even. So if you’re saying, well, I don’t know, that’s why I’m listening to this. Well then right now, I want you to get a big whiteboard. Now Chip, if we want to make our own whiteboard, can you explain how to do that, that shower board move? Yeah, you can go to Home Depot and back in the preformed shower, shower door area of Lowe’s or Home Depot, they have these 4×8 sheets of dry erase board. It’s not dry erase board, but it works just as good, if not better, and they’re about $9. You’d pay typically a few hundred dollars for a whiteboard that size. So awesome business hack. You can go in there, put a little wood, put a little decor around it, and make it look nice. Let’s do this. On the show notes, let’s put a link to the YouTube video that shows people how to make a whiteboard. And so after the show, let’s put under the break, let’s put that on there. Yeah. How to make your own whiteboard. So right now, if you get the whiteboard, I’m not exaggerating, you need to put the number you need to break even on a whiteboard. You need to do that. OK. And if you don’t know, just write a big question mark and put it where so where everybody can see it. Chuck, why would you want to put the number somewhere where everybody can see it? Well, this is a super important number. I mean, your cash flow is your blood of your business and so everybody needs to know it needs to be top of mind it needs to be out where it’s not some kind of weird strategic mystery that nobody knows what you’re talking about. Hey guys, gals, we got to get this number before we’re even making money this month to keep the doors open. Okay now the second step again I know you don’t know the number yet but work with me. The second step is you want to write down on your daily to-do list you know the one you carry around with you all the time. Oh yeah. The number of deals that you need to break even. All right, you need to just be on the whiteboard in your office and on your to-do list. Then you want to write down on the whiteboard the number of deals you need or you know customers you need to achieve your financial goals. So don’t over complicate this. We need to put on the whiteboard the number of customers we need to break even and the number of customers that we need to achieve our goals. Both on the whiteboard and both on the to-do list. And this is why that Stephen Covey quote from a minute ago is so important, begin with the end in mind. If you don’t know what these goals are you don’t know what you’re working towards right? Right. So here’s what I want you to do. Now the next action item is I want you to create a list. Okay. Create a list of all, again, create a list of all of the expenses related to delivering your product or service. Some people would call this the cost of goods. I’m not gonna worry about the semantics. I’m saying make a list of all the expenses related to delivering your product or service. So let’s say you’re a plumber. What does it cost you for, we’ll put this on the show notes, but what does it cost you for materials, right? The cost of materials. What does it cost in terms of the actual goods needed? What is the cost in terms of labor? What’s the cost of the labor? What about the cost of driving? What about the cost of insurance? What about the cost of credit card fees? All of the costs related to getting from point A to point B, from delivering the product or service, what are all those costs? Think about those, and this should take you. I have never seen this take less than about a good half hour to an hour to do this. Because, Chuck, there’s so many expenses that people probably have not thought of. Well, and you’ve got to make sure that this list is complete, right? You can’t just go around doing business whenever there’s a whole chunk of these variable or cost of goods sold that you’re not counting into it. I’ve worked with a client a few, I want to say probably two months ago, and they were just grinding along. They were doing good, but we kind of went through all of these numbers, and we got to the end, and the owner was like, well, I knew I was making money, but they weren’t putting in some of those costs, some of those extra costs on those variable prices. And he was like, oh my gosh, we’ve got to raise our prices. And so just seeing the numbers finally after 15 years, okay, let’s raise our prices and now things are going a lot better. So let me just keep listing them off. Cost of credit cards, the cost of acquiring new customers, like advertising, the cost of taxes. A lot of people don’t think about that. They think about, oh I make $100,000 a year. No, you don’t. Talked to one gentleman last week who said, I owe $45,000 in taxes. And I said, well, that’s what happens when you make $100,000. You want to make sure you understand that the government takes half of that stuff. The cost of taxes, the cost of administration, these are all things that cost. Because if you’re a plumber, and you have somebody who answers the phone for your plumbing business, and then you deploy a plumber who goes on the job, but someone else answers the phone, somebody’s being paid to answer that phone. So what is the cost of that person as it relates to delivering the service? You have to think about all that, okay? What are all of the costs? You gotta think about that. Now, the next thing you have to do is you wanna create a list of all of the fixed expenses. Now, Chuck, can you kind of hit on some common fixed expenses, some of the expenses that are mostly each month the same. Yeah, so some of those are going to be like maybe salaried employees, right? They’re getting paid no matter what. If we’re building products or delivering on a product or service, they’re getting paid. Your rent, that would be another one, right? It doesn’t matter necessarily how much business you do, but the building and the office or whatever you’re in is going to stay the same. So those will be two of the main ones that I see. You know, your electric bill, just basically these fixed costs are all of the costs that you’re still going to have. You’re still going to owe this money even if you don’t do $1 in business. These are costs that are going to happen every month regardless. So this could be, I’m just listing off some of these to get you guys going because I know sometimes it’s hard to look at a blank sheet of paper and not know where to start. So printing costs, leasing costs, electric bill, phone bill. Oh, the phone bill, that’s one. Water bill. You know, the water bill at the Riverwalk. I always love getting that bill, because sometimes the ladies’ restroom gets stuck on there at a conference. Have you heard about this? Yeah, I’ve fixed it. Did you? I have before, yeah. Did Vanessa tell you how rowdy the bill got one time? No. The bill, our building’s like $27,000 a month to be there, and I think the bill one month got to like $1,800 just for the water, because that thing got left on. See? See what can happen? You’ve got to be reviewing this stuff. The earning costs, leasing costs, the electrical bill, the water bill, the phone bill, the internet bill. Think about this, the insurances you’ve got. All the insurances. Yeah, it stays. Yeah, the insurances. There’s a lot of that. A workman’s comp, I know it’s an insurance, but there’s so many insurances. There’s so many kinds of fixed costs. Right. After you do all that stuff, what you do now, you know the cost related to all of your, the cost of delivering the goods, the cost related to actually delivering the product or service These are costs you only experience if you deliver a product or service now You know that and now you know your fixed expenses your coach will work with you to create this thing called a pro forma And a pro forma is nothing more than a future projection of financial performance based upon Previously known factual data. Right. So it’s where you, based upon knowing this information, then we can make a projection of future financial performance called a proforma. It’s an educated projection, right? You’re not just kind of pulling numbers out of thin air. You just have to do this. Now, here’s what we’ve got to do. This is where it gets a little weird. You’re going to have to make sure that after you know all these expenses, we’re going to put here on the show notes that you need to do this, but I just want to make sure you’re getting this. You’re going to create a proforma. Now I know that a proforma is a vague idea, but the whole point of a proforma is you want to ultimately know, you want to know from this thing, and Shep will put this on the show notes here, you want to know the profit per customer. And then just put that in parentheses. We want to operate at least at a 30% profit margin if possible. 20 to 30% profit margin. You have to know the profit per customer. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom! All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. It is the Thrive Time Show on your podcast download. And today we’re talking about determining the profit per customer that you want to make per deal. Per deal this is absolutely super important for everybody listening because I know there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there That are really really really good people and what’s happening for you is that you are Devaluing your business right now every single day because you’re not charging enough money to make a profit You’re just not and there’s somebody else listening right now. What you’re doing is you’re overcharging. You are charging people so much money that people just can’t afford to do business with you. And they might want to do business with you, but they realize that doing business with you, you’re going to get, you’re going to screw them. They go, hey, you know what, you offer a good service, but I know that this guy’s going to always try to take as much money as possible per deal. And so Chuck, read the first notable quotable so we can kind of understand this concept of determining the profit per customer that you want to make per deal. We’ve got a notable quotable from Bill Gates, a little man named, not little, he’s a normal sized man, but started a company, co-founder of Microsoft. Oh, I’ve heard of this guy. Yeah, he says, know your numbers is a fundamental precept of business. Knowing your numbers is a fundamental precept of business. So what Bill Gates means is he’s saying that if you, when you start a company, from day one, you want to know how much money per customer you want to make. So this is so backwards to how most people think, but this is how I think. So Elephant and The Room, we’re approaching capacity at our three stores, which means that we cannot possibly bring in more members. So if you have not been to Elephant and The Room, men’s grooming lounge, we probably will only have consistent availabilities for probably the next 30 days. I mean, it’s crazy. So I was sitting next to Victor in the call center yesterday. The phone rings, and this would be, I guess it would be Saturday. The phone rings, and he tells me that, he says, dude, I had to turn that haircut down. And I said, okay, cool. He said, I had to turn that deal down. Okay, cool. Daisy says, I had to turn that haircut down. Okay, cool. Jacqueline says, I got to turn the haircut down. And I turned to Daisy, the call center manager, and I said, hey, I’ve heard you guys shut down on Friday, at least nine people in a row, saying we’re not open. They go, we are literally booked out for two weeks in advance. I don’t know most people that book their haircuts more than two weeks in advance. Dr. Edwards with Revolution Health, one of our clients, he’s actually booked out three weeks in advance. If you want to see a doctor, we’re so good at marketing that he now is booked out in advance. So again, but we have to know, the elephant in the room, how much profit we want to make per customer. And I want to be very transparent for all the listeners out there. I would like, if you buy an elephant in the room franchise from us, I would like for you to make about $3 per haircut. That’s about what I’m looking for. Yeah. Three hours per haircut. So at 15, it would say 5,000 members, you can kind of predict your income there. That’s what I’m looking for. The next thing is when I built DJ Connection, I knew that my profit per wedding was about $175 a wedding. So I knew based on my income goals, what I did is I, and this is something I don’t think a lot of people do. I actually did the math with my wife. We sat down and I said, okay, I want to make $10,000 a week. And she says, okay, let’s do that. So we figured out the math and we realized we need to make about $175 per show in order to get to our goals check. And then you can know where you set your price point, right? And you can actually use these numbers as more of a dashboard like we talk about with Paul Hood from hoodcpas.com all the time. You want to use these numbers as a dashboard to show you where you’re going. And that way you know you’re not just kind of drifting along, you’re on a path that you can stay on. So you want to determine the least amount of money that you will make on a deal so that you can determine how many deals per week you need just to break even and how many deals a week you need to achieve your goals. So again, you have to know how much money you make per deal. So that way you need to know how many deals you need to make per week to break even and how many deals you need to make per week to achieve your goals. And if you don’t know this stuff already, don’t beat yourself up. This is such a common thing that I see with the clients that I work with, that we work with at The Thrive Time Show and our business coach program, you’re typically in the business every day, the burning fires, you’re fulfilling your product or service. And when you sit down with clients and we break this down, every single time it’s kind of like an eye-opening experience. They’re just like, right, I knew it. We’re making money, but now I know exactly what I need to do by day seven of the month if I’m going to hit my goals. So I’m going to walk you through the six steps you have to take. And then I want to get Steve Currington with Total Lending Concepts, your editorial on this and Ryan Wimpey with Tip Top K9. So here are the steps. One, you’ve got to create a massive spreadsheet with three columns. So on the first column, put your income. All right. Now this would be your very, this is your income, all the money that comes into your business. On the second column, you want to list all your fixed expenses. Those are the expenses that are the same every single month. Like your lease, that’s your Fletcher, maybe your insurance, things that are more static, more consistent bills that are not going to change. It’s like a phone bill, a utility bill, that kind of thing. And then you want to list your variable expenses. Now, the variable expenses are the expenses that go along with every time you provide a service. So maybe every time you train a dog, you have these services associated, these costs associated with training the dog, maybe housing the dog, paying the trainer, the food, that kind of thing. Step two, you want to type all of your income and expenses, and this should take you a minimum of five hours to do this. You want to type all your income and all your expenses for the past three months. So step one, make the spreadsheet with the columns that include income, fixed expenses, and variable expenses. Step two, type it all in for the last three months. And this should take you about five hours. Somebody would say, put in some quick books and I would say, how come you don’t know this already? Step three, place all expenses that are variable into the variable expenses column. Step number four, put all the expenses that are reoccurring, that are flat, into the fixed expenses column. Step five, schedule a free attendance at our in-person Thrive Time Show financial workshop. We do basically one a month. If you’re a coaching client, it’s free. It costs you nothing extra. Paul Hood is there. Marshall Morris is there. If you’re a coaching client, this is free. If you’re not a coaching client, become a coaching client or you can get out to one of our two-day workshops and you can buy your tickets at thrive timeshow.com. Now schedule six or step six, step number six, is schedule a specific time and place to hold your weekly one hour of power accounting meeting with yourself. With you? With yourself. With yourself. And every, or maybe one other person that can help you. And then every week you look at your fixed expenses and your variable expenses and you wage war on any increased expenses. And then you ask yourself the same question every week. Self, how can I cut expenses by 3% without hurting the customer experience? Then you say to yourself, self, how can I improve the experience for my customers by 3% without increasing costs? Then you ask yourself, self, what can I live without? And then you say, what can I stop spending money on so that I can begin investing 11% of my gross revenue in advertising? A minimum of 5% of my gross revenue should be spent on advertising. So what can I do without? Maybe it’s cable, maybe it’s that new iPhone watch you have, maybe it’s… What are the things that you could cut from your personal expenses, your business expenses, that you could afford to spend 5 to 11 percent on marketing? Because all the studies out there will show you that small businesses on average spend less than 3 percent of their total marketing budget on advertising, but all the Fortune 500 companies are spending over 10 percent! Michael Levine, the former PR consultant for Michael Jackson for Nike for Pizza Hut, he’s a Thrive mentor. He explains in one of our podcasts that the average Fortune 500 company is spending 5% minimum on advertising, but the average one is spending 11%. The fastest ones is what I have. Nike. The average is the fastest growing, yeah. McDonald’s. Yes, this is how it works. So I want to get your take on this. So Steve, you do mortgages, roughly, if somebody gets a $300,000 house from you, how much profit do you make on that deal? The company? Yes. We make a percentage of the loan amount when we sell the loan. Don’t be screwy. How much do you make? On a conventional loan, the typical, and this is across the board for most lenders, they’re making between like 2 to 2.5 or 3% of the loan amount when we sell a loan, on a conventional, on that loan size. Now I want to make sure you’re getting this, all the listeners out there. Typically, a loan is where Steve’s company and all mortgage companies will give you, they’ll sell you the mortgage, they’ll give you the mortgage. So now you owe money, right? And then as soon as they get you a loan, they sell that mortgage as part of a tranche, or something called a tranche, on the secondary market. It goes into, as a mortgage-backed security, it’s usually sold into a mutual fund, or big funds buy it, and that’s how they do it. Okay, that’s how it works. But, so you’re making like $6,000 on one of those. Right. Roughly. $300,000 house, $6,000. Yep. Why don’t you try to make $14,000? Why haven’t you tried to just get, because I see companies in town that really rip people off with closing costs and fees. Why don’t you do that? Well, we won’t close very many loans, first of all, if we do that, and the ones that we will, it really won’t be a good loan for them, for the person that does get it. And furthermore, the government has come in and regulated lenders on what we can’t even charge. So there’s maximums that we can charge. So there comes a point where even if I want to take advantage of somebody, I can’t because the law doesn’t allow it. So Ryan, at Tip Top K9, it’s a dollar for the first lesson, then you have different package options. Right. How have you arrived at your price point? Over time, to start with, it was based off kind of what other people were doing. And we started in a little lower and then we raised prices over time. I feel like a lot of people do that, but we have competition. One of our packages that we do a lot of boot camp right now, it’s $2,500. I have a competition that’s selling them for $3,500. And they’re not doing as good a job or don’t have as many add-ons as we do. And what you want to do is you and your wife have certain financial goals and you want to achieve those and you want to be fair. I would just tell everyone out there listening, you always want to make sure that your prices never take advantage of people. And your business coach can help you determine a fair profit point, but you just want to make sure that your prices are never gouging your customers. Otherwise over time your business will shrink. We always want to end this on a three and a two and a one and a boom. So here we go. Three, two, one, boom! The first time that I ever met you, Clay, was at that first conference in Tulsa, and that was an incredible conference, and I was so impressed with just the whole thing, just the professionalism, you as a person, your business, your work ethic, and really just who you are. And I was very impressed with all of that. And I thought, gosh, you know, this might be someone that I would really consider working with. Like, maybe he could really help me. And that’s really what got me interested because I was so impressed with just the professionalism of all of it. And I learned a lot. I come about once a year to a business conference. And I’d like to come more, but every year I try to come with my marketing girl with me. And we always learn something. We always learn something. And I think next year I’m gonna bring my husband because he really needs to come too. Okay, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, I wanted to share with you a story about a good person who’s growing a good business by treating their customers the way they wanna be treated. She’s a long-time client. We’re honored to serve her and help her grow her business. And I want you to hear a great success story. So that being said, Dr. Stephanie, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you? Hi, I’m doing great. Thank you so much, Clay. Well, first off, I’m gonna pull up your website. So tell all the listeners what’s the name of your website so we can verify that you are in fact a real orthodontist. Okay, my website is smileshollywood.com. Okay, smileshollywood.com. smileshollywood.com, yes. I’m gonna pull this up real quick here. And as I pull this up, I’m gonna ask you a little bit about your background, because you’re doing really well. You’re based in McKinney, Texas. When did you have that vision to become an orthodontist? Like what age were you where you thought, you know what, I want to become an orthodontist? Well, that had to have been when I was visiting my own orthodontist, Dr. Jim Bolli, who’s retired now, but was an awesome, great orthodontist and one of the greats really. But what’s funny is that I actually wanted to be a medical doctor first. And I used to go into his office and he’d say, Stephanie, you don’t want to be a medical doctor, you want to be an orthodontist. And I said, no I don’t, Dr. Pauly, why are you saying that? And he started telling me all of the great things about dentistry and why it’s so great because you don’t have to deal with people dying on you. You don’t have to deal with sick people. You get to make people look amazing and beautiful by straightening their teeth and you leave with happy patients. And you know, he talked me into it and I thought that sounds like a great job. So that’s really how I became an orthodontist. And you’re in McKinney, Texas, right? So how long have you been an orthodontist in McKinney, Texas? So I’ve been an orthodontist for 26 years, practicing at McKinney. And when you went to medical school, what percentage of the time in medical school or dentistry school, dental school, did they spend teaching you how to market and or grow your own practice? Absolutely zero. Zero marketing skills. Okay, okay. And so one of the great things that I love about working with you is, you know, we get to help you grow your business, but, you know, you get to be more of who you are. I mean, you get to help more patients and help more people create great smiles. And then we get to do some of the nitty-gritty stuff that, you know, maybe isn’t your highest and best use. And so I wanted to focus on some of the things you’ve been able to accomplish together over these few years here. First off, from a branding perspective, I really do feel like your website is first class. And from when I talk to Andrew, you’re the coach who works with you, I’m always hearing that more and more patients are coming in from Google. Could you talk about that? How much of an impact does it have having a, maybe a rebranded or updated website and Google leads coming in? It has had a huge difference. Absolutely huge difference in our patient load coming in. And, you know, before I really wasn’t tracking really well. And that’s one of the things I learned from Thrive Time Business was how to track patients coming in, how to really, how to see where they’re coming from. And at the time, I really didn’t know much about Google. And, you know, being an orthodontist for 26 years, I didn’t really know a lot of, I kind of went through a time where I went through shock. It was really what I call culture shock because the old ways of marketing were not working anymore and because I really didn’t know about online marketing, I really didn’t, I was still doing, you know, phone book ads and magazine ads and all of these things. And so Thrive Time has really helped. I started out with 97 reviews. Now we have almost 600 reviews. And you know it takes a long time to get those reviews and you have to really work diligently. And you know Andrew was amazing. My coach, he’s fantastic, really, really had to prod me sometimes because you know sometimes I was like an old mule and just stuck my feet in and said no I don’t want to do that. And he said trust me it works. And I just kept going and he kept pushing. And I tell you what, it’s really working. We’re getting a lot of patients from Google and it’s fantastic. Now, as far as gathering patients from the Google search results, there’s a couple of things that have to happen. I mean, one, you’ve got to have the most content. There’s four variables. One, you have to have the most original HTML content or text. Second, you have to have the most objective reviews from real customers. Third, your website has to be in constant mobile compliance where we’re updating the website to meet the current updated guidelines of the ever-evolving Internet. And then we’ve got to make sure your website is canonically compliant, where it basically follows all Google’s rules. How much has that helped your peace of mind, knowing that you have a team that’s helping you update your website every month and that you don’t have to do that? It is a huge relief, an absolute huge relief, because I know that these things are being done, the SEO is being done properly, the backwriting under the website is being done properly, and increasing and we’re relevant every single day, we’re relevant because I know these things are happening. And before, I actually was trying to do some of these things on my own, and you know, I’m not the best writer, and then I realized, why am I doing this myself? Because honestly, I don’t have the time. And so it’s really a great relief to know that these things are being done and that they’re working. And I saw, when I first started with Bribetime, I was probably 11 or 12. I was working with an SEO company at the time, and I was probably coming up 11 or 12, which is really the second page when somebody brings you up on the computer. But now I’m at two, I’m at three, I’m at four, depending on the key words. So I am more happy. And you know, again, if we do a search for orthodontist in McKinney, Texas, we can find you right there in the top three. Also, if you move past the three pack or the top three there, we can also find your site in the search results. And again, it’s not a result of luck. It’s not a result of some sort of woo-woo plan, it’s specific, actionable processes. The next thing I want to talk about is just overall lead tracking and Dream 100 marketing. I think a lot of times people, not you, but other people, entrepreneurs, none of our listeners, we might market based on feel. So if we feel like we’re not getting enough leads, we might feel the need to go market. And if we feel like we’re overwhelmed with leads, we might feel the need to not market. But one of the things that we try to teach to our wonderful clients like yourself is the importance of implementing a consistent and implementable plan, a consistent and practical plan. Could you talk about the importance of tracking your leads and then also just consistently doing those marketing systems like the Dream 100 that do this route? So the Dream 100 has really been a great addition. We were doing something similar to that, but really not with the concerted effort and doing it on a regular basis. We were kind of doing it a little more haphazardly, and I really have noticed a difference because when you are visiting dentist’s office and you’re developing a relationship with them and they are seeing you on a regular basis every week or every two weeks, the staff starts to remember you, and so, you know, you never know. A patient may come in tomorrow, and you just dropped by their office with a goodie today, you know, and then they are going to think of you whenever it’s time to refer for an orthodontist. And that’s really made a big, big change in our practice, too. And we track every single one of those, so we know how many Dr. X sent over and we know how many Dr. Y sent over. So we know our top referrers and we know the ones that we need to kind of get to know better and help them send to us too. There’s somebody watching this right now who’s a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, and they’re going, I don’t know if the Dream 100 works. What do you say to that person who’s sitting down with you right now? And they go, yeah, I just don’t know if that works. I say it definitely works. And you definitely do have to get out and meet the dentist yourself at least one time, even if you just, some of the dentists I couldn’t actually just go meet, you know, to have lunch, they didn’t have lunches. So I just actually went by the office myself, I took a little goodie with me, you know, a muffin or something, and I’d go by maybe right before lunch and just introduce myself. And then when my gal would come by every week or every other week to deliver things to their office, they at least knew who I was. I had introduced myself. And we found that we started getting patients that way. So it definitely helps. Now, next thing I want to talk about is hiring. And I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like this. I’m sure you have, it’s probably just me. But whenever you have a garden that you plant, I’ll pull up a picture of a garden so we can all picture it in our minds. Whenever you plant a garden, there’s probably some initial excitement. You go, you know what, I’m going to plant these tomatoes. I’m going to do it. I’m going to get after it. This is my year. I’m going to get the garden going. I’m excited. I’m going organic. Let’s go. Well, what happens is, is over time, people stop pulling the weeds. They stop tending to the garden. And over time, the garden becomes like an overgrown monster garden. The garden starts to become something that looks like a mistake, something that looks like an uh-oh, something where your neighbor says, are you going to mow that thing? And it gets bad. And the same thing is true with employees. If you have a team of people that work for you on your payroll and you’re a business owner, it turns out that the average American today, for whatever reason, and I’m going to pull some stats here so people don’t think I’m crazy. The US Chamber reports that 75% of employees steal from the workplace. What? That’s the US Chamber reporting that 75% of employees steal from the workplace. You might say, really? Yeah. And 85% of employees, 85% of employees lie on resumes, meaning that they just make up some statistic on their, they throw it on their resumes. 85% of employees are, again, are lying on their resumes. I’m pulling this up here, folks. But there are, there’s a certain group of employees that they just lie on their resumes. Called 85% of job applicants lie on their resumes. And 75% of employees steal from the workplace. So in your business, you have a great staff and you want to keep it that way. So you can’t hire the thieves. You can’t hire people that lie on their resumes. So that 85% of the population that lies on the resumes, they can’t work for you. And that 75% of the population that steals from the workplace, they can’t work for you either because you want to wow your customers. Can you talk about embracing the processes that we teach of the ongoing hiring processes and just always recruiting new people? Absolutely. So we have taken on really the task of making sure that we have every single day and at any one time, there is going to be an ad out there for any position in our office. And occasionally we’ll have somebody come in and we’ll have them just do a little affidavit or something. And what’s really interesting is that even my employees, even when I’m not needing someone, my employees will be like, why are we having somebody come in, do a working interview? You know, and everybody gets really nervous, but it actually also helps them get on their best behavior again. So, but it’s like, if you always have someone waiting in the wings, then should you have someone that drops off? Maybe their husband gets transferred and they’re a wonderful employee, but it’s just now they have to move and now you’ve got someone that you can hire. Or if you have someone that’s like what happened in my office where it was a inventory day and doctors weren’t there and she decided to go work out and hang out with her boyfriend for five hours and then forgot to clock out. So that’s called stealing. Yeah, and recently, and these are just real examples I’m sharing with people, I’ve had some of my really, really nice employees, two of them decided to have a baby and start a family. And so I’m not gonna hold an employee hostage, I’m not mad that they decided to move on, but you get to a place where if you’re not careful, folks, you’re gonna find yourself in a kind of a defensive posture where you’re not gonna be able to cover the appointments, the obligations, the customers that are reaching out to you. So if you’re out there today, hiring has got to be a process and not an event. So again, just recapping, the branding, the marketing, the search engine optimization, the hiring, the tracking. I want to talk about retargeting ads. Retargeting ads, whenever somebody goes to your website, we’ve got to have ads that follow people around the internet, so that way people constantly see Smiles Hollywood, Smiles Hollywood, Smiles Hollywood, and that creates top of mind awareness. Can you talk about how important it is for you to know that you have a team of people thinking about those kind of things so again, you don’t have to? Absolutely, and I think just being a Thrivetime customer really makes you feel like you’re taken care of in so many different areas because I didn’t even know what those ads were when I first became a client. I didn’t even know, I remember thinking, I wonder how you get to have an ad when you’re going to your bank account and then all of a sudden this thing pops up, you know, for some brand of sunglasses that you were just looking at. I thought, how do you get those ads, you know, how do you even find out about them? And so these are the ads that you guys fixed us up with and they’re fantastic. And I do know that they do bring in patients. Now, coaching is an ongoing process. Every week, Andrew meets with you every week. I know this might sound shocking for folks out there, but every single morning, our coaches have to meet with me at six in the morning. And I ask them every morning, I say, how’s your client doing? And I go over all 160 clients. It’s a real thing. I go over 40 clients every single day. I go over the checklist of all 40 clients every day, and we do that every single morning. So every week, we review the files of all 160 clients to make sure you guys are thriving, you’re growing, you’re not backsliding, everyone’s doing well. Could you talk about the importance of having somebody who, A, helps you track, but also kind of pushes you to be your best? Well, that has been a lifesaver because honestly, well, I kind of learned it on myself because Andrew was good about pushing me. And he would say, okay, well, did you meet with your staff about this or that? And I said, oh, yeah, I didn’t quite do that. And so he was really good about reminding me that I needed to meet with my staff once a week or once a day, whatever it was, depending on the item. But I found, like, for instance, with my front desk girl, she was fantastic, but she was supposed to be following up on leads. She was supposed to have a lead list. And so every week I would call her and say, hey, how’s that lead list? And I would actually have Andrew on the phone with me, and we would talk. And she kind of would say, oh, yeah, yeah, they’re good. And then finally I think she got it. She realized I need a list, and so I think she realized Dr. Christ is going to ask me every week, and I better get organized here. And so she actually came up with her own lead list in her own little system, which was fantastic, by the way, and it’s helped us tremendously at the front desk. And anytime we go over the lead list, because I have several, I have about three employees that have lead lists, different kinds of lead lists, and she is fantastic. I never have to worry about her lead list. The other two I have to check theirs, but, and that’s the thing is I think you start to really hold your employees accountable and Andrew helps hold me accountable and make sure that I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing because let’s face it, life gets busy, you know, and I mean, I’m a mom and I’m a wife and I have all kinds of other things going on too and so I want to have a thriving business, but you have to put the work into your business and it’s nice to have someone there prodding me along when I get lazy. Now you’re one of these wonderful folks where most of our clients, they actually come to the workshops, they also do coaching. And so you’re somebody who’s been to the conferences, you do the weekly coaching, you’ve seen the whole experience. I guess, some people describe our coaching system as life-changing or they focus on the numbers. How would you describe how the one-on-one coaching in conjunction with the conference has impacted maybe you and or your business? Well, the first time that I ever met you, Clay, was at that first conference in Tulsa, and that was an incredible conference, and I was so impressed with just the whole thing, just the professionalism, you as a person, your business, your work ethic, and really just who you are. And I was very impressed with all of that. And I thought, gosh, you know, this might be someone that I would really consider working with, like maybe he could really help me. And that’s really what got me interested because I was so impressed with just the professionalism of all of it. And I learned a lot. I come about once a year to a business conference. Um, and I’d like to come more, but every year I try to come with my marketing girl with me, and we always learn something. We always learn something, and I think next year I’m gonna bring my husband, because he really needs to come too. And he’s been going along with this with me, and he’s thinking, wow, this is really working for you. Maybe I need to come. So we’ve loved it. So if somebody’s watching right now, they’re on the website, they go to Thrivetimeshow.com, they’re thinking about scheduling a free consultation or they’re thinking about coming to a workshop. What do you say to somebody out there that’s on the fence, thinking about coming to a conference and or scheduling a free 13-point assessment? Well, I say absolutely do it. Absolutely do it. And I will say that it’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but if you stay the course, you’re going to see results. Because I’m absolutely convinced. Dr. Christ, thank you for allowing us to take up some of your valuable time today. I really do appreciate you, and I can’t wait to see you in person here soon. All right. Thanks so much, Clay. Take care. Bye-bye. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma and the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma and the Thrive Time Show two day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of Rustic Cuff dot com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of Rustic Cuff dot com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop, December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a question and answer session. So that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies watch those Testimonials today at thrive time show calm simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at thrive time show calm You’re gonna see thousands of people just like you who’ve been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s exactly how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office, and so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com, and again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford, and we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things, and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars, and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. 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 specifics of what we’re doing, we’re going to be able to tell you what you need to know to grow. We’re going to be able to tell you what you need to know to grow. We’re going to be able to tell you what you need to know to grow. We’re going to be able to tell you what you need to know to grow. I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. 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 Vipik chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’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, and 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 built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop. All you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as a Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend Eric Eric Trump but we’re also talking about money bricks and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour so Clay Clark is a very intelligent man and there’s so many ways But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. I learned at the Academy, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.