Clay Clark | Business Podcast | How to Organize Your Day, the 4:00 AM Mentality + Interview w/ Best-Selling Author & Marketing Guru Seth Godin + Celebrating TortillaSoup.com Success Story + Tebow Joins Dec 5-6 Business Workshop

Audio Transcription

Sometimes a fellow’s will is stronger than the man’s actually better physically and the determination weakens the other man just to see him so determined. When I get to a point where I feel I can improve as a choreographer, I walk away from the game. What you do now and what you decide now at this age may well determine which way your life shall go. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zilmer. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. 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. We started from the bottom and now we’re at the top, teaching you the systems to get what we got? Colton Dixon’s on the hooks I break down the books See it’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the C-N-T, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we here Started from the bottom, let me show you how to get here Started from the bottom, now we here Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Now we’re here. On today’s show, Seth Godin, the iconic entrepreneur, New York Times bestselling author, and the 1998 sold his company yo-yo dine to Yahoo for 30 million dollars Well now that’s a lot of money if you round it up You know joins us to share how he started his first business out of his New York City Studio apartment why he believes that instead of wondering where your next vacation should be you should set up a life that you don’t want to Escape from why nobody bought one of the first books that he wrote why he doesn’t own a television his process for writing books, his criteria for what he says no and yes to, his mantra of pick your customers, pick your life, why he rails about industrial complexes, our shared love for patina and much, much more. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. Two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. Mr. Seth Godin, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m fantastic, but getting better. Thank you for having me. Well, Seth, you’ve written now over 15 books. I believe 17 is the official count. Do you have a favorite book? It’s a little like asking about your favorite kid, but I will tell you, you know, the new one is my 19th. The one that I tend to talk about when people ask me that question is the second or third one, which is called Survival is Not Enough, and the reason is because no one bought it. It was a total failure. There are two reasons for that. One reason is because it came out right after 9-11, which was tragic for so many people. And then the second reason is because it’s about evolutionary theory. I worked on it eight hours a day for a year. I loved that book, but it didn’t work. So you learn a lesson. You know, Seth, you have written a lot about finding your vocation. I don’t know if you’ve ever used those specific words, but the word vocation originally in the Latin means you’re calling, and vacation means to retreat from. But you have a notable quotable where I’ve read that you once wrote, instead of wondering where your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from. Can you share what you mean by this? I think we begin with this. Everyone should have something that they love to do, something that feels to them like they’re truly connected to it, but that doesn’t have to be the thing you get paid for. It’s just a very happy moment if they turn out to be the thing you love, if we give ourselves permission to do both, to say, I love opera and I’m going to work in my spare time and I’m not going to try to make money from that. And then when I do my job, I’m going to do my job with care and grace, but I’m not going to expect it to feel like opera. We let ourselves off a dangerous hook when we do that because then we can go to work and act as if, act as if our work matters, act as if we are making a contribution, act as if our energy will come back to us many times over. What I found when people do that is they can turn almost any job into a job where they can thrive. When you take that attitude, suddenly you’re not in such a hurry to run away from it. You know, I feel like you’ve been running towards your vocation for many years, and a lot of people know you now as the best-selling author, as one of the most influential entrepreneurial authors of the past decade, some could argue. But you started out of a New York City studio apartment with a book packaging company. Can you share with us what it was like to start that book packaging company and really, when did you start to develop some type of traction as an entrepreneur? Well, you’re being really generous because for something to be a company, it needs to have revenue. Yeah. Yeah. And so for a year, I didn’t have revenue. You know, I was getting close to selling my stuff to the pawn shop, but that’s all I was selling. Because what book packagers do is they invent ideas for books, bring them to the book publishing world. If someone likes them, they give you money and you go make the book. And I started the company with a project I did with Chip Conley, who also went off to become successful. We sold that book for $5,000 on the first day. But then I started the company and I didn’t sell anything for a year. Rejection, rejection, rejection for a whole year. I was working 12 hours a day, shipping out proposals, 850 or so proposals, not one thing sold. And that was really, really hard. And it wasn’t just that I wasn’t getting revenue, it was that the people around me didn’t get what I was trying to do. So not only didn’t the world understand my vision, the people who cared about me didn’t understand it either, and that took a lot of reserve to get through. You know, Dr. Zellner and I both started from the bottom. He is an optometrist turned entrepreneurial tycoon. I started a company called DJ Connection out of my dorm room that grew into the largest wedding entertainment company in the country, and we’ve gone on to grow 13 multi-million dollar companies together. And we love stories about guys like you that started from the bottom and sort of grew to the next level. And I think one of the things you have to do to become successful, you have to build a foundation of your daily mantra, your daily rituals, your daily flow state, your normal. Can you walk us through the first three hours of your typical day? What does that look like, my friend? Because you’re the master of saying no. What did the first three hours of your day look like? How do you organize your day? Walk us through your routine. Well, I think it’s important to not get confused by the specifics. As you know, Dr. Zellner went to school in Buffalo. I went to school in Buffalo. Does that mean you have to go to school in Buffalo in order to be successful? I don’t think so. That’s an irrelevant coincidence. What’s relevant is what’s the story you tell yourself about the work you’re going to try to do? And for me, I was telling myself a really negative story, particularly halfway through the first year. The phone would ring and I’d say, oh, here comes someone ready to reject me. And the mail would come and I’d say, oh, here comes some more rejection. It was as if I was hoping that it would happen, right? And I spent a lot of time listening to Zig Ziglar, a lot of time making sure I was feeding myself a different story. And the big shift for me happened when I made the decision that I was now doing work that I get to do not that I have to do and That’s the biggest thing about my daily ritual. I don’t have an alarm clock I just leap out of bed because I can’t believe I get to do this again and There’s not one part of my day Where I roll my eyes and go oh, I can’t believe I have to do that because if I’m gonna do it It’s choice, and if I don’t want to do it, it’s choice. If I don’t want to do it, then I can arrange my life so I don’t have to. I don’t go to meetings, none. I don’t have a television, because those were things that were winding me down. Instead, I’ve tried to organize a day where I can’t believe I get to do this. Tell me about the process you go through in creating a new book. Where do you start and what does it look like and then how do you finish it? So the way it used to work is I made a commitment that I was going to do a book a year because I liked the rhythm and the process. So every once in a while I would say, hmm, if I’m going to have a book coming out next year I better have something ready to go soon. And I would look at what the world was saying to me, where I saw a hole happening, where the opportunity was, but I haven’t done that in about eight or nine books. Now it’s so painful to bring a book to market that I only write a book if the book demands that I do. So my blog lets me off the hook. If I can just write a blog post, then I don’t have to write the book. Done. But if the idea keeps knocking on my door and won’t let me go, I say, all right, well, this idea demands this format. Because I’m not saying to the world, read this book, buy this book because it’s time for me to sell you a book, my posture is different. I don’t have to go out and say, oh, time to sell a book again. It’s a different sort of process. generally is write the whole thing in three weeks and then spend Six months or so rewriting it thinking about it throwing parts of it out. There are five books I’ve written the whole book and no one’s ever read it because it wasn’t good enough when I was done so I It sort of put that in to place see how it all fits together And if I think it’s something that I can be proud of ten years from now, then I’ll share it with people. You know, Seth, one of the things I think is remarkable about you is that you say no to a lot of things. And I’ve heard you in previous interviews talk about this. And you say no to speaking events routinely, which Jonathan, who works closely with me in my office, who I believe arranged our interview, Jonathan knows this. Whenever someone reaches out to me for a speaking event, I almost immediately say no unless XYZ is the case. Can you explain your criteria for what you say no to? Because that’s why you have the time freedom to focus on the things that you’re excited about. I mean, it’s because you say no. Can you talk about what’s your criteria for the things you say no to? And what do you say yes to? Well, I would begin with this. The mantra that I think is true for everyone is pick your customers, pick your future. The people that you are serving, the people who are paying you are the ones who are going to determine how you’re going to spend your day. I don’t have a staff. I don’t have a team. It’s just me. If I don’t spend today doing X, then I could do Y, but I can’t do X and Y at the same time. I used to limit myself to about 30 speaking gigs a year. Now it’s 15. And I think hard about how far is this gonna be, how many people am I gonna be able to impact? Is the audience, is the biggest one, enrolled in where I wanna go? So I mistakenly took a gig six or seven years ago to 3,000 men and women, mostly men, who own car repair, a big chain of car repair franchises. So there were 3,000 people there. It met many of my criteria, except they had no interest in what I had to say. What was your speech of that day? Do you remember? Yeah, totally. My speech was, the speech I give is, if I were in their shoes, what would I need to hear? What would I want to hear? How could I open a door for them? So I imagined what I would do if I owned a Goodyear, good, rich, tire and rubber kind of facility. How could I be significantly above average? What would it mean to have a different relationship with my customers? What would it mean to do work that they would miss if it were gone, to not be in a commodity business? I was right except for one thing, which is that’s not why they were in the business. They were in the business for something that I would never be in the business for. They liked owning a car repair shop, and they didn’t want it to be one that was exceptional. They just wanted it to be the one they had. Right. Pay the bills. I just want to pay the bills. And I’m like, fine. That’s great, but I shouldn’t be the person to talk to you today. Well, now I want to ask you this, because you have said, there was an interview you did with Tim Ferriss, and Tim, for those of our listeners out there who don’t know, Tim Ferriss is one of the top podcasters on the planet. And you talked about how you typically rail against industrial complexes. Can you please explain why you rail against industrial complexes? And if you have time, I want you to talk about patina, because you and I share a love for the patina. So talk to me about railing against industrial complexes. And if you have a moment, I’d love for you to share your focus on patina. So General Eisenhower famously warned the public that there was a military industrial complex being built that was pushing us to be in the Vietnam War. And what it means is you have a company that makes weapons. You use some of that money to lobby the government to get into wars so you can sell more weapons. The military industrial complex that works in tandem and what’s happened is various industries have grown as they’ve also turned into complexes. We have the educational industrial complex which is a for-profit system that’s constantly chewing kids up, putting them through test prep, putting them into debt, etc. You have the social media industrial complex where people are basically going to work for their phones, not vice versa. If you’re on a social network and you’re not paying for it, that’s because you’re not the customer, you’re the product. We have these engines that push us Push us to be cogs in a machine. Push us to be part of the cash system, not part of the make a difference system. Whenever I see one of these working, my disruption is to say to the people who are willing to listen to me, wait a minute, you have more power than you think you do. You have more freedom than you think you do. It’s worth standing up and saying, I care enough about this that I don’t want to be a pawn in the system. I just want to make something better instead And so I’m against cogs I’m against people who check their imagination at the door when they get to work and who you know work For the weekend work for the self-storage unit work for the TV and the six-pack because life’s I think it’s too valuable to waste Spending nine hours at work so that you can spend an hour and a half watching Netflix at night. Can you talk to me about patina? Because I think you and I share… I think we have a vesicle of Pisces. I think we have an intersection of our two values. I love patina. Can you talk to the listeners out there? What is patina? Why are you into it? So there’s a Japanese term, wabi-sabi. Wabi-sabi is the decay of nature and its intersection with the rest of us. Wabi-sabi, patina, it’s the disorganized bookshelf, it’s the fingerprints we leave behind. And so my office has a patina of 25 years of making stuff, the patina has a patina. I can tell when I walk into my office if someone’s moved a few of the books, because they’re not in any order whatsoever, except they’re in my order. Right! And patina is the sort of cruft that’s left behind of a life well-lived, so I don’t have a lot of patience for people who want it to be industrial and pristine. I would like to see that someone was here before me and I’d like to leave behind this set of fingerprints. Seth, if I could ask you this question, this is a self-help question for me personally, and then I’ll let you hang up on us, because I know you have other things to do, and you’re choosing to be here with us. You guys are great. You’re good at this. I really appreciate this, because this is like, I’ve read your books, and I’ve thought to myself, I would love to meet Seth Godin. And because I built multi-million dollar companies, that doesn’t take away my boyish excitement to have you on the show, and it’s going to go down as one of those like, I want to put it on my tombstone. I once interviewed Seth Godin. It’s so exciting. So, I want to ask you this question. You’ve been interviewed by some of the top podcasters and publications on the planet. In your mind, who was your favorite interviewer? The person who interviewed you where you thought, that was a good interviewer because I want to get better. So, what was the best interviewer you’ve ever had and why? Well, I would say minute by minute, you two are up there because it’s almost impossible to do an interview in 10 or 15 minutes that actually gets to something of substance. And I applaud you for being crazy enough to try and this has been thrilling. The interviews that are on my all time list are much, much, much longer than this because you need to get into sync with people. My friend Brian Koppelman has done five with me. My friend Krista Tippett did an interview that made me cry that I recommend to people because that’s my best version of myself when I was on Being. And what I’m doing with my podcast Akimbo is interviewing myself and I’ve done that for 25 episodes so far and I really think that’s resonating with people. So those are three that I would mention. And as we’re wrapping this up, I just want to point out that you’ve had great success and I would say the secret of your success is work that matters for people who care. And that’s the untitled subtitle of my new book. Because if any of us get the chance to do work that matters for people who care, that’s all we can ever hope for. That’s powerful. I love that. If I could sneak in one more question. Can you tell us about your new book, your new thing? Because I’m excited as a consumer, and I know that if I buy your book after you pay this guy who pays that guy who pays that guy, I don’t know what you make. Let’s say I buy a book for $20, which I always buy your books. So let’s just say you get, what do you get? If I buy a book for $20, do you get two bucks? I mean, how much? Less. Less than two. One dollar? Yeah, a dollar fifty. I probably have to buy four of your books, though. I’m not kidding. I have bought at least 50 of the Purple Cow book, and I’ve given it away. Well, then, you get what I wanted you to, but let’s be really clear. If anyone thinks they’re going to make a living writing books, they’re crazy. I do not write books to make a living. I write books to make a difference. I go through all the hassle of cutting down all those trees and going through all these steps not because it’s a good way to make a living but because some people benefit from having that object in their hand. I’ve written 7,500 blog posts for free. If you want to read those, read those. But if a book helps you, then my new book is called This Is Marketing. The idea of this is marketing is when you appeal to the smallest viable audience, not the biggest one, with work that matters, when you see people for fear, when you see them for status, when you understand that some people measure affiliation and some people measure dominance, that when you get to the humanity of the story we tell ourselves, then you can finally get down to making the work that you care about. Seth, I appreciate you for writing content that matters, books that matter for people who care, like myself. I hope I didn’t screw up this interview so much that you never want to come on again. I want you to know, your book, Purple Cow, helped me launch a company called Epic Photography. It helped me absolutely change the way I ran DJ Connection, and our company, Elephant in the Room, that we’re franchising, and a brand called Oxifresh, that has over 400 locations have all been impacted by the book Purple Cow. And so I’m honored and humbled to have you on the show. And thank you for not saying no to me, because I know that you are the master of saying no. And it means the world to me. And I’m probably going to go into my forest here behind my man cave studio and probably cry to celebrate this moment. And prophetically, prophetically chop down a tree because you said you chopped, you have all those trees chopped down to produce your book. I mean it though, it’s been a huge highlight in my life. So thank you so much for being here today. I feel great about it. I’m glad we got to connect. Thank you both. Good luck with the show. Thank you. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ll see you. Have a blessed day. Classy out. Thank you. Thank you, Seth. Bye-bye. Thrive Nation, if you are looking for a gift for somebody in your life who loves business, growing businesses and the idea of achieving success in the world of entrepreneurship you gotta go by Seth Godin’s newest book called This is Marketing. You can’t be seen until you learn to see. Again I repeat this is marketing. You can’t be seen until you learn to see. Pick it up today in bookstores or on Amazon.com. Also if you’re out there and you have yet to attend our in-person Thrive Time Show workshops, I would encourage you to purchase your tickets for our December conference. This thing is going to be hot. It’s December 7th and 8th. And we’re going to be featuring the best-selling author and the public relations expert of choice, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Pizza Hut, for Prince, for Michael Jackson, for George Michael, for President Bush, for President Clinton. Michael Levine will be attending the workshop and we’re going to actually be speaking at the workshop and Ken Schmidt, the man responsible for the turnaround at Harley-Davidson will also be speaking at the workshop. If you have yet to attend a Thrive Time workshop, I’m telling you, you owe it to yourself, to your family, and to your financial future, get your tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. And now, without any further ado, we’d like to end each and every show with a boom. And so here we go. Three, two, one, boom. We’ve been, like me, my family, I brought all my managers at one time, and I’m going to bring another manager on June 27, 28. I’m going to bring another manager over there. You should come. I mean, you should. I’ve been there several times, me, my son, my wife. We’ve been there. You have to be there in order to believe it. You have one, I mean, you, I don’t know, several books, but the millionaire, whatever, the big, huge book, you have to read it. It’s the one I read it from one page to the end several times already. It’s worth thousands of thousands if not millions. The price, I mean, the price is unbelievable. All right, ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we have an opportunity to interview a wonderful longtime client. His business is called Tortillasoup.com. It is a Mexican restaurant with multiple locations, and I’m super excited to have the owner, the founder of the company, Sol Mendoza. Welcome on to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? Life is beautiful. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to work with you, my friend. I gotta ask you, how did you initially hear about the business coaching that we do? Somebody told me about the great job you’re doing and I read the book and I decided to go to the tradeshow.com. That’s the most important thing happening in my life. Oh my. I love you, I love all of you guys. Now I tell my team all the time, and I think Jordan probably tells you, I absolutely love your family, love you guys. It’s just, I really feel like you understand the same values and mindset to work ethic that we bring. But I want people to know this, before we met you had been in business since I think 2008, is that correct? That’s correct. That’s correct. When I opened Tortilla Soup, it was 2008 when the crisis was in the country. I don’t believe in crisis. I just believe in hard work. I love. I love you. Now, let me ask you this. What motivated you to start your restaurant in 2008? Hungry. All the immigrants who come to this beautiful country, we are lucky to be in this beautiful country, hungry. You need to bring up money for your family, your wife. So you started this company, Tortilla Soup, and over that time, we ended up working with you here the last couple of years, and my understanding is you’re having growth. Could you tell the listeners what kind of measurable or visible success have you been having since we teamed up with you? Well, sales are keeping steady, and Tortilla Soup Macon, we have an increase of 13% growth, which is a great success in our restaurant industry. And on Brookhaven, we have an 11.40% increase in profits. And I mean, everyone is happy. They’re making money. We’re making money. You’re making money. Everyone is making money. Everyone happy. I love happy people. Now, let’s talk about this for a second. I mean, when we talk about business consulting, you know, there’s a lot of wonderful companies, I’m sure, consulting firms that talk in theories. I’m all about action, practical steps. And so I want to talk about that for a second. We had to really work with you guys and you’ve been fast to adapt to make sure that every single customer that comes into your place is wowed and wow that person. I know you were already doing that, but how has, what kind of emphasis have you put on wowing those customers? Because you guys always were doing a great job, but from what I’m hearing from your coach, Jordan, is that people are absolutely being wowed. Yes, yes, sir. Any first customer who comes to the restaurant, he will get a free cheese dip or a free margarita. It’s up to them. But the thing I want everyone greeting them, making them hospitality, making them happy. I want them to greet them the most to feel like they are better than at home. Because, I mean, service, you can get an amenity in my gym, but hospitality, you have to provide it. You have to make them feel, because emotions work. And I want them to live happy. If they are right happy, I want them to live better, better way. And the way I look at the business, I know you do too, is from left to right, very linear. And so the first step is you got to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers. The second step is you have to actually wow them. But step number one, you’ve got to get in front of them. Can you talk about the increase of number of people who are finding you online? Are you finding that since working with us that more people are finding you online? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Just to make it sure, on one of our locations, we triple our Google reviews, video reviews. People is happy to provide us the video and Google reviews, because we provide quality but we didn’t know we had to increase the Google and video reviews. Now every server or most of them, the eight players, they are happy to provide video reviews and people are happy to provide us with that because that way some people they even drive three or four hours just because we are making noise on all social networks. I mean, it’s incredible. It’s incredible. And one location I don’t improve in the way you tell me else because one of the managers, he doesn’t believe it. And the sales are less and less. And with you guys, oh my God, we keep growing. To the moon. You’re getting more people in now. More people are finding you online. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. More people. Do you think it’s the number of new people finding you? I mean, you’re in the restaurant, you manage the teams, you manage the locations. Do you feel like you’re, is it maybe double the amount of first-time customers that are finding online or is there some sort of number or metric you’ve found there? More than double. More than double. That’s why we have sales increasing. I mean, more than double. I mean, I’m pretty sure we’re making a lot of people, they find us online, especially because of the video reviews, the Google reviews. We are texting them also, because we have a lot of customers, and we text them every Sunday to them, sometimes we do on Mondays, and I mean, we see the numbers. I love the numbers. I’m a numbers guy, too. So, step number one, marketing, that’s happening. We’re getting in front of ideal and likely buyers. If I’m getting it right, you’re having more than double the number of first-time customers, too. You’ve got to wow the customers in your restaurant. And, again, you have two and multiple locations. Can you tell us what city and state your locations are in there, sir? Yes, sir. We have two locations in Macomb and Brookhaven, Mississippi, and we have another location in Louisiana. And we are about to open another one coming, I guess, July. It’s going to be another location in July in Summit, Mississippi. Amen to that. It’s going to be five locations. So step number one, again, folks, you’ve got to market to those customers, and that’s one of the things we’ve worked on together is to help you reach more of your ideal and likely buyers through search engine optimization, through online brand reputation enhancement, through social media advertisement, et cetera. The second is we’ve got to implement a checklist to wow the new customer. And you said that one of the things you’re doing in your store, and again, folks, if you have a restaurant out there today, you want to optimize the site, the sound, the smell, the experience for the first-time customer, the site, the sound, the smell, the experience for the first time customer, the sight, the sound, the smell, the experience. And you’re saying first time customers get what now when they come into Tortillasoup.com? Free cheese dip or free margarita. If they drink, we give them a free margarita. If they don’t, we give them a free cheese dip. I mean, sometimes they want something else. We provide it. Don’t care. First customer, you have to treat them like kings or because they are king and queens. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, to treat them that, make them feel very important, no matter what. So again, folks, I’m just making sure we’re getting this idea. The marketing, you have to develop a three-legged marketing stool. And we’ve done that with Saul and his team there, through search engine optimization, through online advertising, through social media marketing. The second is the wowing, the sights, the sounds, the smells, the experience, you got to nail it down. Step three, you’ve got to build a database. You have to build a database and then stay in their face. What am I saying? You have to build a database and stay in their face. And so we collect the name, the phone, the email of first-time customers. And then you’re able to text them and email them and to stay in touch with them. Talk about that process and how that’s impacted your restaurant. Oh, yeah. My son over here, he’s the one in charge of the EZ texting, his home, and Josmar, my son, they’re helping me. Every Sunday before 11 o’clock, we send a text message to them, massive text for everyone, and you see the sales increase. Sometimes it doesn’t work. One Sunday it didn’t work, and we sell very low on that Sunday. So I love it. I love it. I love it. When the people, they may feel important, they feel important usually, because we send them only once a week, sometimes twice, but mostly once a week, and the sales increase. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. It works. Now, step number four, you got to hire people that are on fire. You’ve got to hire people that are on fire. There are certain people that want to work and certain people that don’t. And unfortunately, we have some people that do want to work and some people that don’t want to work. And so the solution is we implement a system, a hiring process. We call it the group interview, but it’s a hiring process. Can you talk about how implementing our turnkey hiring process has impacted your business? Yeah, before you and even my managers, they were not believing in hiring a group. I saw you, how you did it, I read about your book, you tell us, Jordan told me also. We do a group meeting every Wednesday at 9 a.m. Every Wednesday is a group meeting. Sometimes we post on social networks and Indigo also and we do a group meeting, I mean they have to ask me questions about what they wanted or what their goals, what the money goals and then whatever and then from there you see which if they come on time, in time, every time I tell them, that’s what I tell them, I start on time, no matter what. If they don’t come on time, they’re not going to be working at Tortilla Soup. I like to hire eight players and since we’re doing this every week. Group interview meeting, we have a lot of A players coming and coming. And the C and B players, they’re leaving. I don’t care about the C players. Maybe the B players, but I want A players all the time. Now, the next step here, step number five, is you have to implement a daily meeting. You might call it a daily huddle, a daily meeting, where you’re going to experience a financial beating. What I have found is if you do not schedule a daily meeting, you will experience a financial beating because people will start to drift, things will start to slip, especially with the restaurants we work with. I mean, you just cannot communicate with your team via e-mail only. You can’t just have like a quarterly meeting. You can’t have an annual review. You’ve got to have that daily huddle. Talk to the listeners out there about how implementing that daily huddle strategy has proven to be effective for you? Well, we do at least one to five minutes daily hot hours meeting, pre-ship meeting, I call it pre-ship meeting. I mean, they have to know what are the specials, how they should be treating the customers, and how the food should be handling to the customers. I mean, we have to treat them well. We have to remind them of their special. We have to remind them, the customer tell us when they’re happy or what we need to improve. That way we can improve. We’re willing to take comments from people in order to get progress. And we do a daily meeting, especially with the eight players, they encourage the other players. I like happy people. I like happy. That’s how we do. This tracking thing is super big. The tracking, I always tell people, again, we’re going back to step six here. Implement tracking or you’re going to start to find that you’re financially slacking. What am I saying? Implement tracking or you’re going to start to find you’re financially slacking. You do a great job of that. The tracking sheet really is what matters. It’s like keeping score in business. Talk to the listeners out there about how implementing the tracking system has impacted your company. Well, the tracking system, the tracking sheet, you know, first thing, where are the customers coming from? If they coming by word of mouth, if they coming by Google Ads, by AdRolls or whatever. And the other thing, you’re tracking your numbers also. So whatever you say, I can prove it is real. It’s not just talking or saying something else, something that’s not real. We see the numbers every week and we have a yearly wall and we see if we get it or not get it to that goal. Keeping all the numbers in one sheet is more amazing, I didn’t know. We did it once in a while, once in a while, now we have consistency, self-discipline and then bad managers leave it also because they don’t want to be tracked. I mean, now there’s no excuses. We have to see the numbers in real time, every day, every week, every year, every quarter. Now final question for you here before we wrap up, and I appreciate you carving out time for us, is there’s a lot of people that have a business right now and it is stuck. And one of my highlights of having our business conference every couple of months is I love seeing you guys. I love seeing your son, love seeing your family. I love being in the room with other successful entrepreneurs. I like seeing all my clients come to these events and hearing about their success stories and having them share how they’re implementing it. And so to me, the workshops, the highlights to me of our workshops is to meet great people like you who are actually growing as a result of implementing these systems. However, a lot of people are maybe a little bit concerned or resistant to scheduling a free 13-point assessment. Maybe they think there’s going to be some weird bait and switch or upsell. Maybe they’ve got screwed over or scammed over somewhere else. What would you say to somebody out there that’s thinking about scheduling a free 13-point assessment today or somebody who’s thinking about coming to one of our in-person, two-day, interactive business workshops? Oh, they have to do it. They have to do it. And we’ve been like me, my family, I brought all my managers at one time, and I’m gonna bring another manager on the next, on June 27, 28. I’m gonna bring another manager over there. You should come. I mean, you should, I’ve been there several times. Me, my sons, my wife, we’ve been there. You have to be there in order to believe it. You have one, I mean, you, I don’t know, several books by the millionaire, whatever the big, huge book, you have to read it. It’s the one I read it from one page to the end, to several times already. It’s worth thousands of thousands, if not millions. The price, I mean, the price is unbelievable. It’s unbelievable. You have to be at the shop. Do you actually, I try to write books that entrepreneurs would want to read. I try to make it, I know it sounds crazy, but I try to write books that have words, but a lot of graphics. Do you like those graphics that are in the books and the different supporting images? Is that helpful for you? Yeah, I love it, I love it. That’s why I love it. It’s not a regular book, just words and things. I like the graphics, I like the jokes. You have some jokes over there. I like the quotes. I mean, even a third grade child can learn from that book. It is easy. You have several examples over there. There is no doubt. You should read it. I read that my whole life, like a thousand books or maybe more. It is one of the most important books and I keep recommending that book and I keep recommending you show to the people. You have to go in order to believe it. Everything, the organization is different. There was with a lot of quotes, Jesus, which is very important. I saw him behind you. I love it, I love it. That’s another part I love it too. Yeah. Well, I tell you what, you’re a highlight for us. We love working with your family. Thank you for Carving Out Time. And for anybody who’s in the area, check out the businesses. Go there today, folks, Tortilla Soup. Tortilla Soup, it’s expanding the locations we have here. We have Brookhaven and McComb, that’s in Mississippi. And do you have any other locations, where are the other locations there, Saul, for people out there that maybe want to come visit? You might become a tourist destination. Yes, sir. In Louisiana and New Orleans, I have it with a different name. Yeah, but I’m going to switch probably to Tortilla Soup one of them because I’m going to implement the system and all of them no excuses you have to do it my friend in order to believe it you have to do it I believe it thank you very much I love it I love it thank you brother have a great day have a great day thank you so much you too see you in June all right see ya bye bye JT do you know what time it is um 4 10 it’s It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia, baby. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, if I follow 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 cuz I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow is 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 gonna walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is gonna be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks I’m telling you if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of 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 have had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop, December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a question and answer session, so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you, folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show 2-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. 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 could 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 Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! Who? You! 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, Russelam. 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 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 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 systems 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. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop. All you 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 in Kings Point, New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, Harvard Kiyosaki. The Rich Dad Radio Show today. I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona, they’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds and of a special guest today Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as Mr. Clay Clark. He’s a friend of a good friend, 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 Donald, who is 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. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. 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, King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.