Clay Clark | Business Podcast | How Adam Berke Built a Billion Dollar Business (Adroll.com) With 700+ Employees, How to Market Online + 4 Clay Clark Client Success Stories + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s Dec 5-6 Business Workshop

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, is it? Nah, I didn’t think so. No, the thing is, really, uh, do you wanna go to college? No, the thing is really, do you want to go to college? I’m out to prove it, business is a universal language. Now let’s do it. Just like music. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, Welcome back to another great conversation. And today we have Adam Burke, the co-founder and global president of the world’s largest retargeting platform, AdRoll. He’s now an angel investor who’s focused on helping companies with their strategic marketing. Adam, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, my friend? Hi, I’m doing really well. Thanks for having me. Adam, I’m super excited to have you on the show. I’ve read your book, A Retargeting Playbook. I’ve paid AdRoll or spent a lot of money with AdRoll over the years. And I’ve always been very happy with the purchases. And I want to ask you, my friend, I guess you decided to leave the company about over a year ago. And you brought in a very qualified successor by the name of Toby to be the president and the CEO of AdRoll. So I’d like to ask you, why did you decide to start AdRoll and maybe why did you decide it was time to move on to Addenburg 2.0? Yeah, I mean, really the decision at the outset, for me anyway, was really all about the people. The founders were friends of mine for seven or so years living in San Francisco and people who I had gotten to know super well over the years and really came to really enjoy spending time with and also respect on a professional level to the degree that I knew them professionally, but they were just always two people that I just for whatever reason, just wanted to do something with entrepreneurially. And they actually ended up then coming to me about this concept of AdRoll. And I had been in the marketing technology and advertising space for already quite a few years at that point. So they came to me with that context. If anything, I was interested in doing something that was a little bit further afield from what I had already been doing, but because it was those two people specifically, it was sort of a no-brainer for me to join up with them at that point. That was back in 2007, and then it was a long road working together for 10 years, which only recently I made that transition. And it was just a situation where after 10 years, it was time for me to do the next thing in my life and in my career. And I think with a little bit of distance now, I can definitely say that the right person for that role that I was in, it’s really tough to be the best possible person for a company at three people and then 30 people and 300 people. We were 700 or so people when I left. Just a combination of just having been working at those problems for a long time and then also the company changing a lot around me. I think it was time for a clean slate. It was the right thing for me and the right thing for the company. Toby was obviously someone we knew and was just the ideal pick to come in and bring a fresh perspective to the company. It all just lined up. This is a conversation I’ve been having with Aaron for probably a year that at some point we should find someone to take on that role that I described. And it all sort of fell into place over the course of a year or so. And so that freed me up, as you mentioned. Adam, at one point, AdRoll had over 40,000 marketers, if I’m correct, using the platform. But before you became a big success, I mean, before you became a name that a lot of marketers and advertisers knew, you obviously had to start somewhere. Where did you physically start, Ad Roll? Did you start out of a condominium somewhere? Did you start out of a house? Did you start in a garage? What was your San Francisco startup story? I mean, it is that cliche, I would have to say. Yeah, I mean, it was the back of a VW van. Our door opened up onto an underground garage, actually, that was in a condominium in Soma. We were actually renting the back room of another startup, which was founded by Naval Ravikant, actually. So it’s kind of a notable name, increasingly, these days, in the crypto world, but yeah So this is startup is coming called bass and we were renting their back room and that was in 2007 and it was certainly an auspicious time founding company in 2007 We raised our series a in August of 2008 which you know, if you do the math was like three weeks before Lehman and Bear Stearns. Oh, yeah Obviously a It was a scary time, but with some good revisionist history, it was also a very opportune time to start a company. There wasn’t a lot of competition being funded, obviously, after that point. Trying to build a marketing technology product during the midst of an economic downturn is very difficult. Marketing is one of the first things that companies pull back on in an economic downturn. It was very hard to find a product market fit, but we also got a lot of very clear feedback. No one was spending money on anything that wasn’t driving very clear results. It allowed us to actually iterate quickly. There was no opportunity for us to delude ourselves to think, oh yeah, we’re doing something awesome, when we really weren’t because there was no excess budget to go around for those kinds of things. So if we were doing something that wasn’t adding value, customers would turn out very quickly, we would get that feedback. So although in many respects, it was a bit of a nail-biter type time to be trying to build a company, in retrospect, it was actually a really powerful crucible to get really good customer feedback, to really focus our energy, to really figure out a product that added value. And as things started to turn around in the economy, we had had all that great learning under our belt, and then we were well positioned to grow really rapidly, which we did. One of the things I’ve enjoyed about listening to some of your previous interviews is I love the language that you use, and we have hundreds of thousands of people that download this podcast on a consistent basis, and a lot of them aren’t familiar with some of the language. I mean, because you’ve lived in San Francisco, you started your business there. Can you share with some of the folks out there, some of the plumbers, some of the doctors, some of the dentists who say, Series A? I think I know what that means. Can you kind of explain what is Series A funding all about? Well, man, honestly, I think people who are in Silicon Valley itself probably get pretty confused about these terms because they’re constantly shifting. When we raised our quote-unquote Series A back in 2007, it meant something extremely different than it means today. Generally, each of the series with a letter is sort of a sequential round of funding for a business. So A is earlier and now we’re even at this place where there’s multiple rounds of funding that often happen before you even get to A because there’s been this proliferation of early, early stage investors and a formalizing of what we would call seed investing. That’s become sort of a professional activity, whereas back a decade ago, you might raise a small amount from friends and family or an angel investor or something of that nature, and then you would raise your first, quote-unquote, institutional round from a professional firm at your series A. Now, there’s been more and more firms like Y Combinator and 500 Startups and SV Angel that have emerged to professionalize that seed stage round. All of this has been pushed back a little bit and people are doing more quote-unquote seed. I’ve heard terminology like pre-seed, then seed, then maybe an institutional seed is definitely coming up, and then Series A. By the time you’re in Series A, the Series A rounds have gotten, it used to be Series A rounds were relatively small, could be like one to three, one to four million, and now Series A’s are often five to 10 million because people have raised various rounds of seed, pre-seed. I’ve heard the term pre-company used recently where people just want to back a certain entrepreneur who they really believe in and say, okay, well you’ll figure out what even the company is as you go, and it’s wanting to get in earlier and earlier. So, a lot of different dynamics at play there, but yeah. Well, now Adam, another word that you said, as I’m breaking down the definitions of Adam Burke here before we get back into this, you said the word crucible, and the crucible, I mean, that’s a great word to describe the path of starting a business. That’s a situation of severe trial. How long did it take you to push through that crucible or that situation of severe trials before you felt like you were gaining any traction? Because you hear about ESPN struggling for over a decade, FedEx taking nine years, you hear Amazon, you hear Facebook, these companies taking three years, four years. How many years did it take you with AdRoll to gain some traction? Yeah, I mean, it was certainly one of those situations where it’s like the cliche where it’s like the overnight success that takes like five years. Oh yeah. You know, it’s everyone on the outside, it seems like, oh wow, you just kind of like popped, you know, you popped up and all of a sudden you’re everywhere and it’s like, well, there were quite a few years that went into it before that to get to that point and that was certainly the case with us. As I mentioned, we started the company in 2007 and I wouldn’t say we really – we didn’t even figure out what was the sort of winning product for us until 2009. So there was at least two years or so of just iterating and iterating and trial and error, trying to figure out the product that really solved the problem that we were trying to solve, which was bringing sophisticated performance marketing technology to a broad market. That was sort of a high-level thought process, that we thought there was an underserved market of mid and small businesses that didn’t have good tools and all the sophisticated technology was built for for larger brands, and we wanted to build something that would bring those technologies to a broader audience. But what exactly that was and how you actually did that was still a big question, and it took a lot of trial and error to figure that out. And we didn’t even hit on the product for about two years, and then once we sort of did that, it still took us, I would say, at least another year to really have conviction that we had hit on the thing and could double down on what was at the time the retargeting product that took us a few years to get to and then scale out from there. Do you feel like 2010, 2011 is kind of when you felt solid about what was happening when you were no longer eating a diet consisting entirely of leftovers you could find in local dumpsters and ramen noodles? Yeah, there was definitely a turning point around then. I mean, look, I’ll never, you know, I’ll never say no to ramen. Or a good dumpster, for that matter. Yeah, it depends where the dumpster is located. But, yeah, so yeah, I would say, you know, three years or so, that probably, 2010, 2011, we definitely had turned a corner. I mean, I was doing a lot of the early sales myself. And that’s where it got to the point where I felt like, you know, if someone signed up with us, I felt like really confident that they were gonna stick around because we were solving a real problem for them and really helping them out. And so I didn’t constantly need to worry about sort of filling a leaky bucket. And, you know, that I knew I could have a conversation with a new customer and be like, this really is gonna solve a problem that you have. And then once they tested it, we knew that they would stick around for a long time because it just worked. And so then it became like, how can we get this into as many people’s hands as possible? And so it became more about, okay, well, let’s do free trials and how long of a free trial and how else can we just create awareness? Because we know now that we have something that works and that people will keep using month after month and quarter after quarter and year after year. So you built this business. It took you three years to get that traction. And then you decided to open up offices in Dublin, New York, London, Tokyo, and Sydney while keeping the headquarters, as you informed us earlier, in San Francisco. Why did you decide to open up offices in these additional locations? Why these locations? Yeah, well, I mean, broadly speaking, this was, you know, around, let’s see, 2013 or so. It was very clear that, A, we had a product that worked, that the market, that solved a problem in the market, you know, that quintessential product market fit. We thought we also had a very broad market to go after. Basically, anyone who sold anything online was a plausible lead for us. So there was a lot of potential customers out there. And we knew there was sort of a limited amount of time to go out and win the market, because in technology, as soon as you’re doing something that works, there’s going to be people that are going to try to replicate what you’re doing. And of course, that’s from the low end. You have people that are starting startups that are seeing what you’re doing as successful and are going to try to disrupt you and innovate on what you’re doing. And then, of course, you’re playing in the sandbox of some of the big boys, Google and Facebook and whatnot. And if you don’t move quickly, they could roll out things here or there that could really put up roadblocks. We knew we had to move quickly and we wanted to go after a large market. A large market existed and the challenges that marketers have in the U.S. are not dissimilar to the problems that marketers have online in other parts of the world. Of course, we did our due diligence and we went to these markets and also one of the benefits that we had was because AdRoll is a self-service tool that anybody can go to the website and sign up for and use, we could get all this data and see, oh, wow, there’s people coming in from this country and that country. And so before we were even present physically in those markets, we had customers. So that kind of gave us a good data point to say, hey, this is a good place to go or that’s a good place to go. There’s other criteria that comes into the thought process with respect to what is the cost to operate in these markets relative to the market opportunity? What’s the regulatory environment like? What’s the culture like? What kind of impact is this going to have on our organization when we’re no longer all able to sit in the same office and now we’re spread across time zones. And this was a big learning for sure, as we grew about how you make sure that everyone, you know, who’s working at the same company in all these different offices, is up to date on everything that’s happening with the product, everything that, you know, is happening with respect to how you’re positioning yourself and how you’re, how we’re marketing the company, various decisions that might have been made, and how do you make sure that communication runs smoothly across a global organization, which is not a trivial challenge by any stretch. ♪♪ Thrive Nation, if you enjoyed our conversation with one of the founders of AdRoll, a company these guys started, and they grew it to be over $350 million in size in terms of annual revenue. They grew the company from a startup to a company that had over 700 employees, which means that he knows a little bit about advertising. So if you love today’s podcast, you’re definitely not going to want to miss our next interview with Mr. Adam Burke, where he shares the ad role story part two and the next phase of his career. And he shares about advertising. How do you advertise? What’s the proper mindset for advertising and marketing? And how do you grow a company from very small to over 700 employees? How do you grow from startup to not startup? How do you build a company? How do you scale it? Well, one of the essential components, one of the essential ingredients to growing as a successful company is you must be committed to ongoing marketing and advertising. So you do not want to miss the advertising expert and one of the co-founders of AdRoll as he joins us on an upcoming podcast. Be looking for it. And now, without any further ado, three, two, one, boom! Two men, 13 multimillion dollar businesses, eight kids, one business coach radio show. It’s the Thrivetime Business Coach Radio Show. Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show. That’s it. Arms away. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to The Conversation. It is the Thrivetime Show on your radio and podcast download. Now on today’s show, we are super honored to have an incredible guest with us here. This guy’s name is Adam Burke, and Adam Burke is one of the founders and the former chief marketing officer of AdRoll, the world’s largest retargeting platform. Before he moved on from the company, the company had grown to a place where they were bringing in over $350 million a year in annual revenue and had over 700 employees. Eric Chupp, the book, the retargeting playbook that Adam wrote was powerful for me. That came out about four years ago, getting close to five years ago. But can you explain to the listeners who aren’t familiar with the concept of retargeting ads? Break it down for us. What is a retargeting ad? How do they work? So a retargeting ad is an ad that you see that will follow you around if you’re looking at Fox News or CNN or you’re checking out some scores on SportsCenter.com. Maybe you were shopping for something or your wife had been shopping for purses and then you start seeing these ads following you around. That is what retargeting is. Here’s an example of ad role working. If all the listeners, if you’ll take just a moment today and go to EITRLounge.com, that’s EITRLounge.com. No matter where you are in the world, just go to eitrlounge.com one time. That’s Elephant in the Room Men’s Grooming Lounge, one of my businesses. Now when you go there, you’ll notice that as you start going to other websites, you’re going to start to see Elephant in the Room ads popping up everywhere. You’re going to see it on CNN, as Eric mentioned, on Fox News, on ESPN, on different websites. You’ll go to your local newspaper, like the Tulsa World if you’re in Tulsa, and you’ll just see these ads, seemingly, they seem like they’re everywhere. And your perception at that point is that you are a big company that runs ads with these other big companies, and so it’s an awesome, powerful tool for branding. They also talk about in the Retargeting Playbook, somebody has to interact with your brand on an average of 4.7 times as far as seeing ads or hearing a call to action before they interact with you or make a purchase from you. So those ads following them around all over the place is super powerful. In the book, Retargeting Playbook, that Adam wrote, there’s so much cited and detailed information there where he explains that the vast majority of people that visit your website for the first time are not going to take the action that you want them to take the first time. In fact, between 95% to 98% of people leave a website without taking the desired action that you want them to take. They’ll go to your website and they’re not going to make the purchase. They’ll go to your website and not fill out the form. They’re going to go to your website and not download the software the first time. And so what you have to do as a marketer or as an advertiser is you have to achieve this thing that Guy Kawasaki calls TOA or top of mind awareness. That’s the holy grail of marketing. You want to be top of mind so that way when people are thinking about buying a car, they think about your dealership. When they think about buying a cake, they think about your bakery. When they think about getting a haircut, they think about your business. And before we get back into our interview with Adam Burke, I want to leave you with a notable quotable from a man who could not be here today on today’s show because he is deceased. Henry Ford. Henry Ford, obviously the founder of Ford Automotive, the legendary, iconic entrepreneur. He once wrote, a man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time. I’ll repeat that one more time. A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time. Thrive Nation, you simply cannot afford to not advertise. Now without any further ado, Mr. Adam Burke will tell you why. Well Adam, you grew a company, you pushed through a lot of tough challenges to grow AdRoll, you and your team, from, say, five employees or less, to 700 employees over, you know, you for 15 and a half years or 15 plus years, you invested the time and building this operational excellence to build a company with 700 employees. And I think there’s a lot of listeners out there who they view advertising and marketing as sort of a start and stop activity. You may be advertising is okay, I’m gonna advertise for two weeks. And then I’m going to pause because we’re getting a lot of leads, and then I’m going to turn it back on because I don’t have any leads. And they just run around kind of on, off, on, off. Can you talk to me about why advertising is absolutely a must for both small and large business owners? Yeah, well, you know, I think at the end of the day, if I had to boil it down, like nobody Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking of your product and how they should buy it, generally speaking. There’s a few urgent examples where that might be the case, but generally speaking, you’re going to have to communicate with people to let them know that you exist and to think about whatever product or service you offer. Advertising and marketing all come down to that principle. You’re going to have to get on people’s radar one way or another. And there’s a lot of ways that you can do that and a lot of different techniques and a lot of different channels. And some will be right for certain businesses and some won’t. But at the end of the day, you can’t just expect that your customers are going to just magically show up. So generally speaking, that’s the responsibility of marketing to figure out how to get on people’s radar, how to make sure that at a high level they are aware that your company and product and brand exists. And then you know, moving down sort of the messaging hierarchy, what problem it is that you solve for them and why you’re the best to solve it. And so that’s clearly not a, that general set of responsibilities is clearly not a start and stop activity. That’s something that you kind of need to be thinking about constantly. Now, of course, some of these things might, there’s certainly something to be said for certain flights that you might run at certain times. As you become a bigger company, you might have product launches and you’re going to ramp up marketing at those times and ramp certain activities down at others. But generally speaking, there’s going to be a set of always on type activities that you sort of have to maintain because if you don’t, you’re just going to fall into obscurity and drop off people’s radar, and that’s not going to result in authorizing business, as it were. I don’t want to make you nervous for this next question, but this question will help at least 100,000 people when you answer it how I know you’re going to. But there’s so many entrepreneurs who have a website. Let’s say you’re a plumber, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor, and you’re starting to advertise for the first time. Whether you’re using AdRoll to help you, or you’re using AdWords, or whatever platform you’re using to advertise. And people go to the site, but you wrote in your book that you wrote four years ago, a retargeting playbook at the time, that about 95 to 98% of people will leave your website without taking the desired business action. business actions such as purchase something, filling out a form, downloading software, and so on. Can you explain to us why that is the case and what we can do about it? Yeah, I mean I think that’s just that’s just consumer behavior and the way that people use the Internet, you know, just think about your own own behavior as you’ve bought different things or check out different businesses. I can’t think of many if any opportunities where I’ve gone to, typed in the URL from scratch, immediately gone there, learned about the product for the first time, immediately put a bunch of stuff in my cart and then immediately filled out a lead form or purchased or whatever the case may be. Just consumer behavior is much more fragmented than that. People jump around, they get distracted, they might be less, I mean I would never do this, but maybe they’re researching something while at work and then they get pulled into a meeting or they’re working at home and the dog needs to go out or the baby’s crying or whatever the case may be. Those kind of life things happen and then just people like to comparison shop. And so they’re going to go to one site and find out about that. And they’re probably going to go to your competitor’s site. They’re going to find out about that one. And then they might go read some product reviews. And so that’s just the sort of inherent behavior that people are trained for on the Internet. And so as you’re thinking about marketing, a key component is how do we, once people express what we call in the industry intent, as in that they’re interested in whatever it is you’re offering, they’re intending to either buy from you or a competitor, that intent signal is one of the most important things to key off of and say, okay, well, now someone’s interested, how do we make sure we narrow our marketing and stay in front of that group of people that have expressed intent? And that’s why, at the end of the day, retargeting is so effective because it just really hones in on people who have expressed interest. It is that group of people that have been to your site, that’s sort of them raising their hand and saying, hey, I’m interested in what you’re doing because they’re there for a reason. They’re not there to check out your beautiful design, unless you’re a design blog. But if you’re a business like the ones you mentioned, you’re there because you’re in market, as it were. And so staying in front of those people is essential as they go through all those activities that I mentioned, the distractions and the comparison shopping and so forth. And for those people out there who aren’t familiar with retargeting and what that is, and just kind of reintroducing this topic to anybody out there who’s not super familiar with it, in your book, the Retargeting Playbook, you had reported that Forrester Research showed that only 3% of shoppers who actually go to a shopping cart actually check out, basically. 97% of people leave without buying something. You have all the stats there, and the book is phenomenal, Retargeting Playbook, but the vast majority, almost all people, abandon their shopping carts. They don’t buy something. And AdRoll, like let’s say that I went to a website today. I go to the website for the first time, and then I get distracted, and then I go to ESPN.com or Fox News or CNN or wherever I go. The ads just keep following me around. And your book really introduced a lot of people to that concept. And now, you know, since you’ve introduced the world to that concept and worked almost for 15 plus years developing Adderall, you’ve now moved on to this next phase of your life and career, apart from Adderall, where do you see this next phase of your life and career going? Yeah, well, I mean, I think as we’ve discussed a bit already, I think I had a lot of hard-earned learning on the job. I saw every phase of the company from, you know, from when we were in that little back room of another company connected to an underground garage up to, you know, a 700-person global company. There was a lot of things that we did right to get there, and there were a lot of things that we screwed up. Right now, I think I have an awesome opportunity to be able to bring some of that learning to folks that are going through that type of growth and scaling for the first time, and just help them see around corners a little bit, help share some of my experiences and just lay them out there. Not to say that I know exactly what anyone should do in their business, every business is different and every challenge is a little bit different, but I can share some of the similar stories and go talk about why what we did at one stage or another worked or why it didn’t and see how those apply in other situations. And I’ve just found that, you know, those types of conversations have been really helpful for people to sort of accelerate through tough decisions that they’ve been trying to make. To hear someone else’s experiences and just have them be presented as options and hearing the pros and cons of each and the factors that went into them can really help people move forward and get through some of these challenges. And so I’ve been really enjoying working with a range of entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses and going through some of these things and just bringing my experience to bear and helping them. I’m doing some of that angel investing that we talked about. Sometimes it’s financial help and sometimes it is more advising or consulting or saying, okay, well, you’re trying to grow out your marketing team. What should that look like? What are the types of people we should be hiring? What are the types of marketing channels we should be using? How do we build out a marketing strategy and a marketing plan? We haven’t done that before. What should that look like? So, I can help with the knowledge. I can help with the experience. I can help with the strategy, and I can help with investment where that makes sense as well. If somebody out there is listening, we have a lot of people who listen who already have a successful venture, or they have a company that’s to a certain size, and they are looking for somebody like you, how do you advise people go about getting a hold of you, or what’s the vetting process if somebody’s looking for an angel investor, somebody to provide them with this strategic marketing? How does somebody go about getting a hold of you? Yeah, I mean, my website is a good place to start, adamburke.com, that’s my name, dot com, B-E-R-K-E. It’s got information about my background, areas that I help, and a way to get in touch. So, that’s probably the best place. And, yeah, in terms of the folks I work with, you know, it just depends on fit and my bandwidth and how many other folks I’m working with at any given time, some of these projects scale up. And then if I can help build out their organization and we can find the right people to hire, then it’s got a hand to baton and sort of consult my way out of a job as I look at it. So it sort of depends on that. And then it sort of depends on location as well. I think being able to be physically present can be really helpful with some of these topics. So, you know, I split time a bit between San Francisco and LA, I’m actually in LA more of the time these days. So, you know, anything in California is where I tend to focus, but you know, for some of these things, I don’t rule out businesses that are elsewhere and there’s a lot you can do on a video conference, Skype and whatnot as well. You are a person who strikes me as being very interested in strategic marketing. You’ve obviously had success with strategic marketing. As an angel investor now and as a kind of a strategic partner, where do you see most business owners and entrepreneurs getting it wrong when it comes to advertising and marketing before receiving some coaching or feedback from a guy like you? Yeah, that’s an interesting question. You know, I think there’s a lot of things that come to mind. One that I think would be particularly actionable, though, is that I find people want to jump immediately to tactics, such as, you know, okay, well, you know, should we do FDM, or should we do, you know, this type of email, or whatever the case may be? And, you know, it’s really hard to jump to that before you identify and spend some time on your target customer. And this is particularly true with companies that are starting to scale. And there’s an entrepreneur who has sort of a inherent understanding of who the target customer is, but then might bring someone in to do marketing, let’s say, and they don’t know as well as the founder does or what this customer looks like and how they think and the problems that they’re trying to solve. And so not taking the time to step back and really document who is our target customer, where do they, is it a consumer, is it a business? If it’s a business, what are the different criteria of that business? How big is the business? Where is it located? You know, et cetera, et cetera, to really then give the marketer the ability to say, okay, I know who this person is that we’re trying to communicate with, and then we can develop messaging that will resonate with them. And then tactics come last. How you get that message out there, you know, then you can start to pick the various channels and how you might use social or search or whatever it is. But you really need to start at who is the person, then what is the message that we’re trying to say, then the tactics of like, okay, how are we going to get that message out? What kind of business ventures are you now interested in investing in? I know the proximity matters to you. What kind of ventures are you interested in right now and what kind of ventures are you not interested in? I mean, if I’m listening out there, Z, if I’m a huge plumber right now, the question is, Zee, I want to know, should we call you for some strategic advice in angel investment if we decide to open up a plumbing business? Who should call you? Who shouldn’t be calling you? Well, look, I’m always happy to chat, and if there’s anything I can do to help, or if you want to pick my brain for a quick call or whatever the case may be, I’m totally open to any type of business. The types of businesses that I invest in are more technology businesses. I’ve invested in an e-sports company, an autonomous vehicle company, a company doing apps for smart watches. These are all definitely technology companies, but always happy to chat. Hopefully I don’t get more than I asked for, but I’ll make my best effort to talk to anyone and help wherever I can. As I mentioned, I’m sort of in a phase right now where that’s sort of my top priority that I’ve spent a decade plus really focusing on my own venture, and now I really think there’s an opportunity that I can take some of those learnings and help other people and help them be successful in theirs. And so that is the thing that I really am focused on right now. So I’m always happy to do a quick chat, whether it makes sense to do a full-on engagement over the course of months or quarters. That’s a whole different story, but it rarely hurts to just have a quick chat and help wherever I can. Adam, from your perspective, you’ve obviously been around, you mentioned Naval Ravikant, you’ve been around some really, really smart people, some really successful people. What has been the biggest and most game-changing advice that you’ve ever received up to this point, and how has that impacted your life? Yeah, I mean, there’s so much stuff along the way. I think one thing that… I think it was 2012 or 2013, as we talked about, we had certainly turned a corner and we were growing really rapidly. We hired a guy by the name of Suresh Khanna, who had built a lot of the sales organization at Google to help build our sales organization. At that point, we were starting to add a ton of people. And for a lot of us on the founding team, we were now becoming a larger company than any company we had ever worked at. And so some of this was new territory for us. And it’s not – he said it and many others have as well, but just the statement that it’s all about the people at this point. And the skill set that you need as a co-founder, as an entrepreneur, as a leader, really needs to shift from what you do yourself on a day-to-day basis to whether it be, if you’re a technical person, the code that you write, or if you’re a marketer, the copy that you write, or the materials that you create, and it becomes much more about how you build and enable that team around you. And it’s a statement that you hear pretty often, but until I experienced it firsthand, I didn’t fully appreciate just how true it is that it really is no longer about you, and it really is all about the people that you hire and what you do to help them succeed. Because it no longer does it matter necessarily what you do on a day-to-day basis with respect to, like I said, tactical execution. It’s really all about how you build and support the team around you, because that’s how you create a lever and a multiplier that allows you to continue to grow. Because there’s just only so much any one person can do in a day or a week or a month. So it’s really all about how do you enable and build that team. Although you hear it and it’s written in every book, just experiencing it firsthand, and then how you then change your behavior around your hiring and how you think about hiring and how you think about your team, it really just informs a lot of that. You come across as a guy who’s well-read. One of my favorite authors was David J. Schwartz. He wrote The Magic of Thinking Big. And he once wrote, the mind is what the mind is fed. If you had to recommend a couple of books for all of our listeners out there, what would they be and why? Yeah, well, you know, on the, I guess, both business and life front, you know, the one that jumps to mind immediately of late was, you know, is Ray Dalio’s book, Principles. I really wish I had had that earlier. I think it’s so good. And I think there is a maze, and it sort of dovetails off my last answer a little bit with respect to hiring and people and whatnot. But I’ve been observing as I’ve been spending more time in this investing and advising capacity that especially first-time entrepreneurs, they usually go into business because they see an opportunity and they see a problem that they want to solve. They’re really focused on that and they’re focused on building the product and the solution to that problem. Then what happens is if they’re actually successful, they actually have to run a company. And really, if you ask them on day one, that’s not what anyone is signing up for. They’re mostly motivated to solve a big problem and go after certain opportunities. What you end up spending more and more time on is this operating of a company. And if you’re not thinking about codifying some of the best practices of operating that business. A lot of things unfold organically and just sort of evolve naturally that might not be the best way of doing things. So they just sort of happen, but you’re not paying attention to them. I think decision-making is a good example of that. Very few companies talk about, okay, how do we make decisions here? Is it a consensus? Is this a democracy? Does everybody’s vote count equally? Does whoever the most senior person in the room, is that the person that makes the call? Or do we have some sort of other method where people are weighted based on their subject matter expertise? And this is bringing it back to principles. They took this to the extreme. At Bridgewater, I don’t know if some of this stuff would work everywhere. But just thinking through and having that conversation, having a language around how a decision gets made here can really help to, I mean, one of the most important things you do as a company is make decisions. And then so just to have that be sort of willy-nilly and just undiscussed and just let the chips fall where they may is leaving the most important thing that you do as a company to chance. It feels kind of crazy, but I totally also understand being in the thick of it and being like, okay, well, when do you take time to have this conversation? But it really is one of those things that you do need to take a step back at different times and say, okay, what is the best way for our company to do certain things? What are the principles that we believe in for decision-making, for hiring, for promotions, so that everybody knows what they are? It takes some of the confusion out of it and it avoids, on the decision-making one, the pitfall of just the loudest voice in the room just has this outweighed impact on the company. That’s just demoralizing for everyone. It gets to some of the diversity issues that we’ve seen crop up. Not everyone wants to be super loud in a 20-person meeting or in any sort of context, but that person might be the most thoughtful and subject matter expert out there. So how do you make sure that person’s input gets captured? So I think it’s a broad topic. I don’t have answers to all of them, but it is an area where I found myself being more thoughtful and really thinking about how I would do it differently next time and maybe even what tools are available to sort of nudge people into best practices. Adam, I have two final questions for you, but Dr. Z has one hard-hitting question. I’ve got a hard-hitting question. He’s been sitting on this one. I’ve been sitting on this one. So Adam, I’m going to put you in the DeLorean. The wings. We’re going to fly back in time. We’re going to fly back in time to 2007. And you are going to have lunch with yourself. What would you tell yourself, now that you know what you know now, going back in time in 2007? What would you say? You’re sitting down with your… One point twenty-one… What would you say? What would you do different? What would you say to yourself? How would you coach yourself up? What would you say to yourself? Yeah, I think a big chunk of my advice to myself would be on that hiring piece, that those decisions would be some of the most important decisions that you make. Be thoughtful, not that I wasn’t at the time and not that I didn’t do my best and not that I didn’t hire great people. One of the things that I’m proudest about with respect to AdRoll is, oddly enough, that a lot of our best people get approached by the best companies in the world because AdRoll is known as a great hiring brand and people know that if you work there, you learned a lot when you were there, you developed a lot, and then that we selected great people. So I wouldn’t say it’s something I necessarily did terribly but I should have been, I think, more systematic about it and I think I could have developed a process that would have made it feel less chaotic at times. And then on the flip side of that, how do you, on day one, have a candid conversation about going to that point of it’s all about the people. How are we gonna make sure that this person is developing, is learning, and is having the best possible trajectory to do more at the company and ultimately beyond. So I think I kind of eventually figured some of these things out, but if I had known it early on, I think it would have made a better experience for people that I hired, it would have been better for the company, and we could have gotten some of those end points sooner. So I don’t know, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I’m sure there’s loads of others I could go back through, but that’s the one that comes to mind for me. Perfect, thank you. Adam, I want to respect your time, so I have two final quick questions for you. For anybody out there who’s wondering, what is something that you believe that very few other people believe, or maybe nobody else believes? I heard you talk about the autonomous car, you know, the car that could drive itself that you’re investing in. What do you believe other people just say, that is crazy, bro, but you’re 100% convinced that it is what you think it is? I mean, well, I’d say one very tactical one that, well, I’ll give you two. First off, I think, this is a conversation that I’ve had with, that I’ve had with some of the entrepreneurs that I’ve been working with who are feeling very, very stressed, I would say. I think it’s a pretty common sentiment that there’s a lot of responsibility on you and there’s a lot coming your way. And a lot of them think that there’s something around the corner that’s going to reduce that stress, whether it be raising the funding that they needed, hiring a particular person. And I think the thing that I think is seldom appreciated or most people don’t believe is true is that like stress is entirely intrinsic in that it comes within yourself and it’s all about your own thinking and how you respond to stimulus and not about anything that’s gonna happen externally. Once you raise, and just generally speaking, things only get harder as your company becomes more successful. And this is something that I would probably go back and tell myself also. If I had told myself on day one, hey, you’re going to get to 700 employees and this much revenue and this many customers and whatever, I would say, oh my God, well, I’ll probably be just like on cruise control at that point. I’ll just be easy. And that’s just not true. Up until my last day, things were as busy and intense as they ever were. And that’s because as you get bigger, there’s more people relying on you. The decisions that you’re actually making carry increasing consequence because only the things that are the most urgent are getting escalated to you. So things only get harder, not easier. And if you’re taking that mentality where like, if only X or Y happens, things will be easier, then you’re probably thinking about things the wrong way. And you need to think about your own approach to and your own reaction to those things, because they’re only gonna increase. So letting things, yeah. I think you’ve been watching some T.D. Jakes sermons, because he talks all the time about how promotion equals problems. You know, it’s just the higher you rise up in life, the more problems you have. I’d like to ask you this final question, because now that you have exited AdRoll and left the company in a great place, and now as you are an angel investor and a strategic marketing advisor, what does a typical day in your life look like? Are you waking up at noon and sipping on margaritas till about 4 PM and then getting busy? Or what does your day look like now? No. I’ve always been a bit of a morning person. I think I have a really good balance going on right now. I’m really enjoying being able to spend time with a variety of companies who are maybe at different stages and working through different problems. Today, for example, I’m in the office of a company that I’ve been working with and so we’ve been talking through pricing and packaging and hiring, a lot of these topics all day. But a lot of times I’ll jump between different clients, I’ll have different meetings set up with them to work through different projects that we’re working on and then I’ll probably meet with a few entrepreneurs on the fundraising side who are raising money and where I might be a good fit because I might be able to be helpful beyond whatever investment I can make, which frankly is usually in the smaller check size. So it’s not like my investment is going to make or break them. It’s more going to be, can I be helpful once I’m an investor to help them achieve their goals. So it’s a mix of those things. And then I prioritize my hobbies a bit more now, too. So getting in the ocean, surfing and whatnot, whenever possible, that’s sort of my meditation. Adam, I cannot thank you enough for being on today’s show. I know there’s hundreds of thousands of people that have benefited from this show. And I would encourage each and every listener to go to adamberke.com, that’s adamberke, B-E-R-K-E, to learn more about how we can help you as a strategic marketing partner, as an angel investor, maybe as a strategic coach. Adam, thank you for your time my friend. Okay, yeah, sure thing, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Hey, have a great day. Hi, my name is Steven. I lead the team at ModScenes. We’re a company that does church stage backdrops. Abby and the team at Thrive in about four months have helped us to get to number one on Google for our keyword, which is awesome. It’s been a huge help to us. It’s helped us to get in touch with a lot of churches who are looking for our product and have a need, and we’re able to serve them. It’s been really great for our business. It’s helped us to grow and to serve more people. All right, Thrive Nation, I want to tell you a story today about a gentleman I had the opportunity to meet years and years ago, and he has really scaled his company. He’s been just a great friend, and he’s a guy who, money’s a magnifier. So when you help somebody make more money, it just makes them more of who they are. He’s a generous man, he’s a hardworking man, he’s actually a CPA. Some people tell me, Clay, doesn’t a CPA stand for a certified pain in the ass? I don’t think that’s always true, folks. There are some good ones out there, and we’re joined here with a longtime client. Paul Hood, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, like my old friend, RD Mercer said, CPA stands for Certified Professional Ass Kicker, not Certified Pain in the Ass. I’ve got 11 questions for you in about 10 minutes. So here we go. Let’s get it, let’s get it. How did you and I first meet? I guess maybe when did you and I first start working together. Back in the day, I had a… I still do, I have a really nice car. I was sitting at a restaurant and the manager came up and said, hey, do you know this guy, Steve Currington? I said no. I said, why? He said, because he’s got these nice cars and you really need to meet him. I met Steve and the first time I met him, he was dressed up in a Hulk outfit at a fundraiser yelling Hulk smash over the place. And I had been searching, Clay. I had built a business that was doing about $3 million, had about three offices, and I wanted to go from successful to systematic. And I asked Steve, who do I talk to? And he said, you got to meet my guy. And then he got me to one of your workshops. I said, holy smokes. You know, I went to the best, one of the best accounting schools in the country and they didn’t teach anything that you were teaching. So I was lit from day one. Now I remember when you came to the conference and watching you take notes, I mean you were smoking out that, they had a notebook for taking notes and it was like the piece of paper was going to set to fire because you were taking so many notes and you were engaging with all the different successful entrepreneurs. And I knew that your business was going to scale, because previous to meeting me, you’d already built a successful business. You were top of your class in college. But I knew you could scale. Just to give the listeners some sort of an idea in their mind, how much have you grown from the time that you and I first met to now? Just to give you some context. Yeah, so last year, Clay, so we went from about $3 million in revenue with three offices to now we have 17 offices across four states. And last year we did $20 million. And you know, we’re poised now, my industry is in a kind of a change or die scenario. And we are literally fighting off private equity companies that are wanting to throw money at us to be a part of what we’re doing. Because you helped me create what in my world they call the platform firm. How do you take a wisdom-based business and scale it? It was actually pretty simple. It’s actually made me angry. I told you multiple times, I went to college and they didn’t teach me this stuff. You’re saying, have a meeting with your people. What does that mean? You played a massive role in our expansion. Well, Paul, I want to talk to you about this. This might feel like a backhanded compliment, but that’s not the way I mean it. You were graduating near the top of your class. I mean, you have been a very successful accountant before I met you, but I believe that when we met, you didn’t have a website. And maybe that seems like it’s a backhanded compliment. I don’t want it to feel that way. I’m just saying, you were like top of your class CPA, but yet the marketing didn’t match how quality of a service you provided. Maybe I’m getting that wrong. I’d love to get your, just, can you let me talk about that? Because I believe you were a top of the class CPA with a non-existent website. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I hear what you’re saying, Clay. You’re saying is, oh my God, how’d this guy ever become as successful as he was before he met me. But the reality is, again, business school, they teach you how to be a technician. They don’t teach you how to grow a business, how to manage people, how to create leads, how to create that marketing funnel, that sales funnel that goes into it. And when I remember the first time we met individually, you said, well, let’s look at your website. And I said, what website? Because, you know, I’m a professional, and professionals get new business off of referrals. Dude, you turned on that website and we started getting Google reviews and videos. I’ll tell you, in the three months of the beginning of this year, my sales team closed 400 new clients in three months, all off of inbound calls, meaning they called us, and that’s all because of what you’ve done with social media, with content and that website. So bravo. Now, we talked about, you know, one of the things that you did, which I loved, is you – there are what we call passive learners, people that watch information and they don’t think about how to apply it to their lives. Then there’s active learners. You are an active learner. You think – you see something and you think, how can I apply this to my life? And so I remember when you came to the workshop, you almost immediately, we started talking about renovating your offices on the outside and the inside. So basically renovating the brand, like the website, the digital marketing, but also renovating the way your physical CPA practices looked inside. I think in your Claremore office, you renovate your Claremore office, I’m gonna try to pull it up on the screen so people can see this. But you actually implemented so many of the things quickly. And so you actually went through the process of renovating your office inside and outside. Why did you decide to renovate your office on the inside and the outside after having been to workshops and conferences? Why did you decide to do that? Because very few people do that. Well, it was two things, Clay. The first thing is when I had clients come into me and they’d say, you know, they’d rather go to their dentist than see me. And, you know, people buy what they want, not what they need. And we were selling what they needed, not what they wanted. a success-minded, an anti-CPA environment, if you will, with the slogans and the positive saying and the financial things. It’s kind of weird, though, Clay, because if you compare your office and my office, they strangely look alike. I’m not saying I copied off of you, but they strangely look alike. Well, you know, and the other thing… We wanted to sell success. We, you know, we don’t want to just do tax returns. We wanted to sell success. And that’s what I jumped all over going to you. I told you one time, Clay, I could like live in your office. It’s the success and the positive and the motivation that’s created. And so I wanted to recreate that in my offices. The other things that you implemented successfully, and again, I’m just trying to brag on some of the wonderful things you’ve been able to accomplish, is you and I talked and you said, “‘Clay, I have a desire in my heart to write a book.'” And so you and I worked together on writing your first book, “‘Take a Look Under the Hood,’ which is a phenomenal book there. You and I did that together. And then the next book here is called “‘Roadkill Tastes Like Chicken.'” And again, I can’t help somebody to typeset a book or to make a cover if someone doesn’t write the book. And so you are willing to put in the work and then we were able to work together to produce the end result. What would you say to somebody who’s on the outside of the website right now who’s thinking about becoming a client of ours? And we have sort of a, our business is designed, I only take on 160 clients and so I work with a lot of the same people year after year after year. So what would you say about the amount of effort you had to put in to something like the website or writing the book? And then maybe what would you say about how, what kind of work we put in, just so you kind of explain how that relationship works? Yeah, Clay, I’m still astonished at what all you guys were willing to do. You took, and you proved to me that you can do this with any business, a business that wants to measure profitability, a business that wants to start with the end in mind, you have all the tools to do that. And again, I’m Clay, I’m waiting for the check in the mail, but you’re not paying me to say this stuff. It’s reality. And I always said, and we’ve sent you a lot of clients over the years that you’re the offense, I’m the defense, you show them how to make it, I show them how to keep it. And I wrote the first book, really, frankly, you wrote most of the book. I mean, I went through, you did a lot of stuff, and I added some burbage and made it kind of more towards CPA, the defense side, if you will. And in the second book, you taught me that it’s not about making money. It’s about sowing seeds. It’s about changing people’s lives. It’s about one of the first things that you and I talked about is, why am I wanting to do this? What’s the intent? What difference am I going to make in the world? And, you know, with wealth, when you create wealth, you get attention, and therefore people give you credibility, and they’re more apt to do what you advise. And I have a great lifestyle, but what I wanted to do is, with the book, with you, with my business, is how do I break generational sin or generational punishment? Or in my book, I call it pigs don’t know pigs stink, because if my mom hadn’t have made a change and said no to being abused and alcoholism, I’d probably be some drunk Indian smacking a woman around. It wouldn’t be my wife because she’s German. She’d cut me. She’d hurt me. But that… And now I’ve got a college degree, and all my kids have college degrees. And so it’s beyond just… I feel like people owe it not only to themselves, to their community, to their family, to people they don’t even know, to be successful and to sow those seeds of success into other people. And frankly, Clay, I admire you. I am astounded by your knowledge and how you can take a business from where I was to where I am now. And it’s all about sharing life’s successes because you can create wealth and benefit the world. But if you can teach other people to create wealth and how to benefit the world. That’s amazing. So bravo to you, Clay. I appreciate that very much. I have three final questions for you. Three final questions. I want to tap into your wisdom on this. One of the things about your business that blew my mind is that if we typed in Tulsa CPAs into Google or whatever market you were in, we couldn’t find you. So it’s kind of hard for people sometimes to grasp the idea that the best accountant isn’t findable, that the best dentist isn’t findable. People typically, they go to Google, they type in the search term, and whatever comes up top, that’s who they call. And I want to ask you if you could share about the impact that search engine optimization maybe has had on your business, because I think a lot of dentists, doctors, lawyers, photographers, web developers, people I meet at conferences, and we just had a big conference with Tim Tebow last week, and I meet these people who are the best chiropractor in their area, the best neurosurgeon, the best whatever, and people can’t find them. Could you talk about the impact that the search engine optimization has made on the business? It’s immeasurable, Clay. You know, earlier I had mentioned we brought in like 400 new clients organically in three months, two and a half months. All of them were what’s called inbound liens, meaning they reached out to me. They weren’t referred to me by another client. They were actually Googled CPAs and they looked at reviews and videos. You and I first met, I said, people don’t look for CPAs on Google. They call their friends or whatever. You smiled and shook your head and said, okay. You set out to prove me wrong and you did. So, anybody, especially in the service business, you can call me and I’ll tell you that I didn’t believe Clay Clark for a minute, but it has magnified the reach that we have. And what it’s done for us, Clay, it’s allowed us to be selective on what clients we take. And these clients are calling us. They literally, we don’t have to pick up the phone and call them, they’re calling us. us and it’s 100% off of Google, Google reviews, Google searches. So I’ll admit it right here, you proved me wrong. People do look for CPAs off of Google. They look for doctors, dentists, attorneys as well. Now, my final 90 seconds here for you in the hot seat, you know, the conferences, Dr. Zellner participates in the conferences. You know, we’ve had Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, we’ve had the head of Harley Davidson. I mean, over the years we just continue to bring in new folks. But when you get past the big names, could you maybe describe what the conferences are like or what kind of an impact have the conferences had on your business? Yeah. So the main thing is, you know, as a business owner, you know, there’s plenty of times I felt like I’m alone. You know, there’s nobody that thinks like me. You know, I’ve got great staff, but, you know, they go home at the end of the day, and you fight negativity and all that, and you don’t know what you’re doing. Nobody taught me how to be a successful business owner in business school. And then I go to your workshop. It’s positive. I’m surrounded by forward, positive thinking, hardworking, success-minded people. And then you start laying out the very simplistic methodologies because, Clay, you taught me there is a pattern to success, and here’s what you do. And in your workshops, for the private… My gosh, you need to quadruple the cost of that going in there because if somebody… Now, here’s what I really like about it. I’m not an excuse maker. I don’t make excuses. And a lot of people like to go and they’re, oh, I can’t do it. I don’t know what I’m doing. Or my mama couldn’t, my dad couldn’t, oh, I can’t. And your workshops take all excuses away. All you got to do is be willing to put in some effort and show up. There’s a pattern to success. It’s teachable, it’s engaging. I would absolutely recommend anybody and everybody to go to your workshop, because one, you’re going to walk out of there, you’re going to be on fire, you’re ready to go. But Clay, you give practical steps on what to do. And all you got to do is do it. And that’s what I did, even though I didn’t believe you. You proved me wrong. And here we are, we’re five times the size we were when we met you a few years ago. Final question for you. People when they think about growing a business, they think about sales, they think about marketing, they think about accounting, they think about workflow, they think about human resources, they think about public speaking, they think about PR, they think about social media ads. And people always ask me, they go, okay, so you help people with workflows. Or they’ll go, okay, so you’re the website guy, or you’re the book writing guy, or you’re the whatever guy. How would you describe what it is that our business coaching platform does or what it’s done for you? So what you’ve done for me and what I’ve seen you do for clients is you clearly define the success pattern. The success pattern that you taught me is you define where you’re at, you define where you want to go, you create a plan, you execute the plan, you measure results, you modify the plan. In that plan, there’s a lot of consistencies, no matter if you’re a pool business, if you’re a lawn business, or you’re a CPA. And so what you did was, and I’m a proponent of going to college, especially the CPA, you have to. But if I didn’t have to, I could have skipped all that crap and hung out with you for a couple of years and learned every step of the way. Because every business that I’ve sent to you or that I work with, maybe they’re good in this area, but they are not good in these areas. And so to be able to bring the thing full circle, regardless, and Clay, and again, this is a compliment. You’ve done this with many, many different businesses. So you’re the guy that takes away excuses. If you want to be successful, there’s a pattern. Show up, do the work, modify your plan, and reap the rewards. Paul, I really do appreciate you. I want people to know about the resources that you provide. You have a wonderful team there at hoodcpas.com. We have typically about a million listeners that will listen to this show on a typical week or every couple of weeks. What are the solutions that you provide there at paulhood.com? Paulhood.com. Well, so what we do is we’re different than most CPAs because my industry is in a really a change or die scenario. 75% of CPAs are at or above retirement age. There’s about 90% of the firms that are out there are potential acquisition targets. So what we have to do is we have to re-envision, and you help me with this, re-envision what we do. We sell success, Clay, just like you do. We’re not marketing people, though. So like I said, you’re the offense, we’re the defense. We teach people how to maximize returns, how do you keep more, save more, and protect more. And we do it in a format, Clay, that’s a membership-type model to where it’s a fixed fee, so every time you call us, you’re not getting a bill. And same thing, it’s very predictable. Keep more, save more, protect more, not just do your tax return. Paul, I really do appreciate you carving out time to join us today again, folks. That’s paulhood.com. You say, what’s that website? It’s paulhood.com. If you need a CPA in a major way, check out paulhood.com. Paul Hood, thank you so much for your time today, sir. We’ll talk to you soon. See you, brother. See ya, bye-bye. My name is Paul Hood, and I’m from right here in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I’m a CPA with offices in Bartlesville, Tulsa, and Claremont. I originally heard about the Thrive Time Workshop through some friends, a guy named Steve Carrington, who has a very successful business. He said, if you want to be successful, you need to be. My business, it consists of a CPA and a financial advisor. And we’re very successful. I want to go from successful to systematic. I want to learn systems and processes so that the business can run without me. The atmosphere here at Thrive and Clay’s office and the team is very upbeat, very positive, very proactive, very forward-looking. They have very specific things that they can offer. Clay’s delivery is very unique. He’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, but he’s also one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. So he combines those in a very, very awesome way. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned at the workshop is to be very deliberate, to be very specific, to have a plan in mind, and then they can help you put together the processes to get it done. A favorite aspect is probably just how entertaining it is and the fact that I pick up one or two or three things every time I come to take my business to the next level. Well, if people are missing out on basically a plan, a guaranteed plan pretty much if you’re willing to work it to be successful. Most people, I think everybody should attend one of these workshops at least once because you don’t know what you don’t know. And we’re not taught to be successful in school. What I’ve learned is my college degree is great for preparing me for, to be a technician, but to be a business owner and to create a process or a business that can continue without me, I’m not there. I’ve been looking at it, looking for such processes for a while. And what Clay is showing me is how to do that step by step. Well, I’ve enjoyed the entire workshop. What I’ve liked the most is Clay’s presentation style. You go to seminars, I’m 49, I’ve gone to seminars for 30 years. And this first seminar I’ve gone to that is entertaining, both entertaining and it’s very usable information. The atmosphere of Thrive headquarters is really actually kind of convincing me to change the atmosphere of my offices, even though they’re traditional CPA practices. The static, non-inviting environment here, I want to come back when I came here a few weeks ago I couldn’t wait to come back plays presentation training styles really like nothing I’ve seen before Most business seminars I’ve gone to suit and tie very you know try to stay awake drink a bunch of cups of coffee But plays very entertaining And the information he has is I haven’t heard before I’ve heard pieces of it, but the way he puts it together in a total package and his presentation style is both entertaining and very knowledgeable. Well, I guess what people are missing out if they don’t come to Thrive Conference, it depends on them. You know, if they like working 60, 70 hours a week and barely getting by or making, you know, decent money, but you can’t replace your time, that’s fine. If you’re in a position like me, you make good money, but you like to buy back your time. You’d like to still make the money, but not have to show up, not have a business that’s dependent upon you showing up. Coming here, if you don’t come here, you’re not going to get that. What we’re going to do today is we’re going to give you a little tour of the house that we just bought. In Oklahoma, this is what we call a big old house. Come on in and check this out. We bought this house about a year and a half ago. We’ve been finishing it. It was partially constructed, and so everything’s under construction. So this is kind of a sneak preview for everybody. So follow me. This right here is the living room, family room, whatever you want to call it. It’s got a bar for watching football, of course. Go Cowboys. It’s got, you know, 50 foot ceilings, windows out to the pool, really, really nice kitchen over here. We flew the Ben Hood in from Mexico, it was handmade. Let’s go this way. This is a really unique room. There’s a six-story tower in the middle of the house. Don’t know why? It’s got six rooms straight up top. You can go 85 feet feet in the air, shoot deer, take pictures, whatever you want to do. See the sunrise, sunset. This will be a photography studio actually. But you see it’s got 25, 30 foot ceilings up here. It’s got a, we had to get a special permit. It’s got an elevator that goes up six floors. Normally in a residence you can only get like a three or four story elevator. Again, just six rooms like this. On the third floor, I’m going to have, I suck at golf. I love golf, but I suck at golf. We’re going to have a golf simulator up there so I can play golf for 30 minutes. I get mad and I can leave, but it’s all inside and air conditioned. Over here off of the photography studio, there’s actually a safe room. It’s all concrete walls. had a steel door made for it. And so tornadoes come, or people we don’t really care, you know, whatever, it’s a safe room. We can come in. It’s going to have security cameras and everything else in there built in. Now, down this hall is my favorite room, one of the two favorite rooms. One, there is the pantry. And there’s a stairwell right there in the back of the pantry that actually leads from my bedroom. So if I want a snack in the middle of night, come straight down from the bedroom. There are 109 interior doors here, 33 exterior doors, 25,000 square feet. It’s got five garages, different garages. This is the best room in the place. We teach success principles at Hood & Associates CPAs, and one of them is just to have balance between your personal life, your finances, your fitness, your friends, your family. And so for fitness, I’ve got this. This is, I’ll spend a lot of time in here. And of course right out here, it’s again, it’s all under construction. There’s stuff everywhere, but about a 70,000 gallon swimming pool. We’ll have, it’s got a swim jet so you can exercise against the current or can make waves. It’s got a huge hot tub that you can to place you can stand in a massage you from your neck to your to your back. You know, because when you’re out being successful making money, you get kind of tensed up. It’s got a layout shelf, a walk in a beach entry and water shooting everywhere. It’s got about eight different waterfalls. It’s got a cave in it and it’s got a little lazy river, a little lake thing, pond thing up on top where you can lay out and play in the water. So you know all the necessities of life. Now we’re on the second floor. This is the master suite. It’s actually two stories and has three staircases to the second story, one over here, one there, and then one in another room. It’s got five fireplaces in the whole house, just one here in the master. Second story the master is up there which we’ll go up there in a minute. This is the master bathroom. Just a little bathroom. If you notice in the shower there’s no there’s no knobs to turn the water on. Everything is digital. We have to have Wi-Fi for it so it talks to your phone or a tablet and you program it for Paul’s summer shower, Paul’s winter shower or what-have-you. It also in the top there it’s got a build where if you want to take a shower in a thunderstorm, it has sound, lightning, thunder, all of that good stuff. I guess that’s the thing, take a shower in a thunderstorm. The bathtub is heated. It’s actually heated, not just the water, but it’s heated. And then over here is the bathroom, and there’s two things in there. I know what that one does. That one is called a bidet. Does anybody know how to work a bidet? I don’t. This is the master closet. One of them. I think there’s six closets, but this is, I don’t know how, this is probably a thousand square feet or give or take. All over here. Keeps going over here. I don’t know who needs that many drawers, but apparently we do. This is the wife’s craft room. She likes to craft. We have grandkids and daughter-in-laws, and this will be full of stuff, and they’ll sit in here and make things and make memories. Of course, it’s off to the balcony. There’s a balcony off to the pool all the way around. Those of you that know me or that will get to know me know I like shoes. And so there’s tons of places to put my shoes in that closet. That’s what I’m excited about. This is, the house has three laundry rooms. This is the master bedroom laundry room. This is just part of the master suite. So we do laundry right here. This is just a little storage room. You know, you got to have a place to put suitcases and shoe boxes and stuff like that. Just a little extra thing. It’s wired for the smart home. So this is one of the brains. Now we’re circling back, if you get lost, we’re circling back to the master bathroom. Another closet. Right here’s that stairway I said that goes down to the pantry in case I want a snack. This room here I’m excited about. This is, we have three grandkids and a fourth on the way. And the house is so big that if our grandkids come and stay with us, we want them to be close. So this is just like an extra bedroom attached to the master suite. Now let’s go upstairs to the second floor of the master. This is a stairway, one of the second or second of three stairways to the second floor. It’s actually third floor of the house, second floor of the master. We think we’re going to make this a slide because that right there, the room we just came from, was the grandkids’ bedroom. So they’re going to be able to come up to our second floor, slide down into their bedroom. What do you think about that? I think that’s a necessity. This is the third story of the house, second story of the master bedroom. This room right here is kind of cool. It’s going to be like a little spa room. We’ve got a commercial tanning bed that goes in there and a massage chair and all the relaxing music and all of that. This would be like a library or reading room off of the master. It’s still part of the master. It’s got a separate balcony out there. Every room in the house is wired for speakers for entertaining. There’s a lot of speakers, I can tell you why, and they suck putting them up. I’d put a bunch of them up, but there’s a lot of them. These fans are really cool. They spin like this, and then the fans inside of them spin. So it’s got like three different motions going on at once. Okay, we’re now back on the second story of the house, over by the tower. This is my office. This is where my office will be. And then we can go over here, and you can see the second floor of the tower. Now on the third floor of the tower, I’m going to put a golf simulator, like I said earlier, because I suck at golf, but I want to play. But you can see, we just got to keep our grandkids because we have three granddaughters, they’ll be okay, but I have a grandson coming and I know he’s going to want to be climbing. We’re going to have to be careful of that. This is a, this will be just an entertaining room, a game room. There’ll be a pool table here. Kids play Fortnite. Now, over here is when you have a game room, you also got to have a place to have snacks. So this is our snack kitchen. This is one of three kitchens in the house. Like I say, there’s three laundry rooms, three kitchens. There are 13 bathrooms. This is kind of cool, but this is for entertaining. I was looking to learn how to take my business, like they’ve said today, from being very successful to being systematic. I’ve got a very successful practice in three different cities. Make good money. I just want to take it to the next level with systems and processes to where I can drive my cars more. Paul Hood. I’ve been a CPA for 33 years. And what kind of growth have you and your great team had here over the past, let’s say, five, six years? The last five, when I met you five years ago, we were doing 3 million. This year we’ll do 24 million. Which is more than, which is more than, and he’s an accountant, so we’re going to talk about that. So Paul introduced me to Bob because he said there’s a guy who came into my office looking to raise some capital. I think that was the thing. And he needed to get some sales going. That’s how it was going. That’s how. And so we, if we tell Paul from the accounting perspective, I’ll pass the mic to you, do accounting, do accounting. Uh, why do you have to, you have to have a website that makes sense and all that branding stuff. How, how has that impacted your, your brand having websites and all those branding things in place. Well, when I met you, like most CPAs, I thought my clients only come from referrals. But we get five leads in a two-month period every month just off of Google. And so this is my face. This is, we have 17 offices across four states. We have in every state. But this is our face. Like what you were saying, it’s visual. And it also has to say why we’re different. That about us from there is spectacular. And it’s an industry that has changed. We’re modifying it. We’re going to offer our services in a subscript model to where it’s all inclusive. And it’s just been awesome. Well, determine the level of success. So success in business is not what you know how to do. It’s actually doing it. And so the thing that I would tell you is stop it. Get a guy like this guy and let him go after it. It’s insane. Because then you can be doing what you do well and take that time and invest in something else. On top of that, that’s contacts. And I’m not, this is not, I don’t get anything for selling his, just telling you what he’s done for us so that we could focus and then he’ll come in and I’ll say, you know, I think I’ve got it all and he listens for five minutes and he makes, and he makes one and I wanna slap myself in the face. Well, why didn’t I think about that? That’s idiotic. But they’re sick freaks, they just get it done. I don’t know, I think it’s just merit-based pay in our office. So the people here, they get paid. So if we were taking on your account and someone else to do this, but if you hired a different marketing company, I’m just giving you best practices, you want to make sure that they win when you win. So in our office, if we grow Dave Acy’s podcast, that benefits our company to the extent it benefits them, but we actually benefit if they benefit. Does that make sense to you? 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. 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 Crockrell, 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, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 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. I’ve seen guys from start ups go from start ups to being multi millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical of critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, 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. 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. 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. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing is 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 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 worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to 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 time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and he loves it. So anyways, this is Charles Colaw with Colaw 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 sales people 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 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. 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 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 D. 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. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business I’m dr. Chad Edwards and I own revolution health and wellness clinic The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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 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. And 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 it. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim TiVo 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? Hmm, well, they’re gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying Tim Tebow’s gonna 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. 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 rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.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 2-Day Interactive Business Workshop. 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 2-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 have been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have 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 actually 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, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show in 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 Tebow 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 and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa 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 system that Dr. Zellner and 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 big 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. 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. 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 got to 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, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The 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. And so 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 we could take this thing 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 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. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, no. My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. 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 want 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, you know 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. 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 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, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.