Clay Clark | Business Podcast | How to Win Friends & Influence People With New York Times Best-Selling Author & Wharton Professor, Johah Berger + Join Tim Tebow At Clay Clark’s Dec. 5-6 Business Workshop! ThrivetimeShow.com

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here 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? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former US Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zunich. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and I’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here We should fly Started from the bottom, now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books She’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 CNC up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, now we’re here Robin. Yes, Batman? Where have you been? You’re late! I’m sorry, Batman. I was at Chipotle getting myself a burrito. What? And then it appeared to me like a vision. I forgot the Tabasco sauce and I had to double back, Batman. I had to go… Are you kidding me? We’re interviewing Jonah Berger, the New York Times bestselling author. Who? We’re interviewing Jonah Berger, the Wharton Business College professor. Okay, now I get it. We’re interviewing someone who’s kind of a big deal. Well? And you mean to tell me that you went back for extra sauce? You don’t have to yell at me. You’re just sizzling. You’re sizzling, Batman! Mom, you must be on time. Calm her down! Calm her down! We’re interviewing Jonah Berger, the best-selling author of the new hit book, The Catalyst, how to change anyone’s mind. Batman, I just have a quick question. Would you have gone back? No. That’s why I was upset. Robin, I need you to understand what I’m saying. I understand. You’re saying that if I go to Chipotle again and I have to go back to get extra sauce, I’m running a little bit late. No, you son of a b****. Batman, when you curse at me, it doesn’t make me want to change my mind. Not gonna do it. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent to change your mind when being yelled at by a yeller. Batman, you should vote for Bernie Sanders. Feel the Bern 2020. Now we in, we started from the bottom, now we’re on the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive So if you see my wiping kids, please tell them hi It’s C and Z up on your radio, and now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we in, we started from the bottom Yes, yes, yes, and yes, Z, it is ecstasy when you are next to me and you are back from injury. How are you, my friend? I’m alive and kicking, in fact. What is wrong? What’s happening? Oh, gosh. Tell us something. Tell us a little something. I just got a little pinched nerve, and you know, so I’m kind of worried. I just did a move, you know, so that kind of aggravated a little bit, so I’ve been kind of, my little arm, my little wing. What’s weird is when you pinch the nerve in your neck, your arm isn’t in pain and yet you have all these sensations in your arm. The stinging, the burning, the numbness. I want to tell you what I’ve been doing to get ready for the show. What have you been doing? Well, there’s the phrase, no pain, no gain. So because you’re in a lot of pain, we’re going to have a lot of gain. Today’s guest is like a pinch of awesome. You have a pinch of nerve, he’s a pinch of awesome. Jonah Berger, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Thanks for having me. I love being called a pinch of awesome. I’ll take it. A pinch of awesome. This guy is a Wharton Business School professor. We’ve had him on the show before. Jonah, your book, Contagious, how long ago did you write that book? Oh, wow. Seven years ago now. It came out seven years ago, 2013. Seven years ago. Okay. Now, tell us, how long have you been a professor over there at Wharton? This is my 13th year at Wharton. So I’ve been there since 2007. So what was your path like that led to landing this dream job? Because Wharton is one of the most prestigious schools on the planet. What was kind of your path to that job? You know, I’ll tell you a fun story, which is when I applied to Wharton as an undergrad, I didn’t get in. So any of your listeners are sitting there going, I didn’t get into Wharton. You are the same as me. We did not get into Wharton together. I did a PhD in marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and that’s where I studied word of mouth, social influence, change, why things catch on, and then was lucky enough and fortunate enough to get a job at the Wharton School. Hey Jonah, now that you’re on staff, did you ever figure out who it was? I mean, there had to be somebody that said, now this kid can cut it. Did you ever figure that out? Just out of curiosity, did you ever figure out, oh, that was probably Dr. Johnson said that, or somebody. Did you ever figure out why they didn’t let you in? Why didn’t you get admitted? Did you ever figure that out? Getting into college is a hard thing. It is. There’s many great students, so it’s hard to choose among them all. Your parents didn’t have enough money? Oh, jeez, that’s a whole other story. That’s a whole other show. I want to ask you this here because, as a professor, you could be writing about a lot of things at the business school, but you recently felt inspired to write this new book, Catalyst, on how to change anyone’s mind. What inspired you to write this book? After Contagious came out, my life changed quite a bit. I got an opportunity to work with all sorts of companies and organizations, from big Fortune 500s, like the GEs and the Googles and the Apples of the world, to small startups and everything in between. And I realized that everyone, regardless of what industry they’re in, regardless of what company size, all had the same problem, which is they all had something that they wanted to change. The business owners wanted to change the customers, the clients’ mind, leaders wanted to change organizations, and employees wanted to change their bosses’ minds, startups wanted to change their industries, parents wanted to change their kids’ minds, whatever it might be, we all had something that we wanted to change, but it wasn’t working. Often, we push, we pressure, we cajole, and no one moves. No one budgets. That customer doesn’t change their mind. That client doesn’t come around. The employees don’t change. The question I wondered is, could there be a better way? I spent the last number of years doing a lot of research, talking to some of the best salespeople, great leaders, people from a variety of industries to understand, could there be a better way to change minds? And if so, what is it? And that’s what the Catalyst is all about. Paul Hood, you are a CPA. I am. And you went to school for a long time to become a CPA. How long did you go to school to become a CPA? Well, I’m pretty sharp. I only went five years. Five years? Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s in college. That’s post high school. You know, you actually learn something. Jonah, just to give you a little background here, Dr. Zellner, to my right in the studio here, Dr. Z started an optometry clinic, which is the state’s largest optometry clinic, the state’s largest auto auction. He has a part owner of a bank. He doesn’t own a bank. He’s part owner of a bank. He wants to declare he’s a show off owner of a bank. He has all these successful companies. And you see, how long did you have to go to school to become an optometrist? Eight years total after high school. And I’ve met a lot of broke CPAs, Jonah. I’ve met a lot of broke CPAs and a lot of broke optometrists. And Paul is in the process of building a 25,000, or built a 25,000 square foot house. It turns out you need to have money to do that. Starter home. So I want to ask this question, Jonah. Well, how is it that a CPA like Paul could be so successful. How could a guy like Paul be so successful and other CPAs are not? I feel like it comes down to, Paul, you have the ability to change anyone’s mind. Sure. So what questions would you have for Jonah about this? Let’s say you’re talking to all the CPAs out there, Paul, because you’ve learned how to change people’s minds. What question would you have for Jonah about how to change people’s minds? Because you’ve learned how to do that. I’ve seen Z do that. Right. Most CPAs can’t do it. So Jonah, the question I have is, you have a marketing degree, and I think all successful business owners are salesmen, they’re marketing people. Did you find that a lot of your research actually kind of went over into the psychology side of things? If a guy was wanting to study and kind of figure the things out that you did, is it more connection, or is it actually a sign of the times, you know, that kind of dictates what’s successful and what’s not successful? Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right. It’s all about that behavioral science, right? You know, usually when we try to change someone’s mind, whether it’s a client, whether it’s an employee, whether it’s a spouse, we think if we just push a little harder, it’ll work. If we provide more facts, more reasons, more information. We just call that client one more time. They’ll come around, and it’s clear why we have that intuition, right? If there’s a chair in front of us and we want it to move, pushing is a good way to get it to move. You wanna move that chair in a particular direction, pushing works, but for people, pushing often fails for one very simple reason, which is when you push people, they don’t just move like chairs move, they often push back, right? They often don’t go in the direction you want them to. They often go in the exact opposite direction of what you want it to. And so what this book is all about is, hey, how can we change minds not by pushing, but by actually saying, well, hold on, what are the barriers preventing change? Why hasn’t that person changed already? And how can I mitigate those barriers? How can I get rid of the things that are in the way of them doing what I want them to do and get them to go along? I think a great analogy, you know, think about getting in a car. If you get in a car, it’s on a hill, you know, you get in your car, you want to go, you stick your key in the ignition, turn your key, you know, you put your foot on the gas pedal and you just push it and you hope the car goes. If the car doesn’t go, we think we need more gas, right? If that client doesn’t change, that employee doesn’t change, we just think we need to push a little harder. We rarely say, well, hold on, what about the parking brake? Because that parking brake is depressed, that car, as much gas as we put in it is not going to go. And so that’s what the catalyst is all about. What are those five key common parking brakes that come up again and again that stymie change across a range of situations and how can we remove those brakes and get people to move? Jonah, when you’re preparing to write your book, how much, let the audience know, how many hours or months or even maybe years did you put into preparing for it? And then, and then second part of that question is, as you were gathering and preparing and writing it, were there any big surprises to you? Yeah, I mean, so I’ve spent over a decade in some way, shape, or form writing pieces of this book. So, you know, I’ve interviewed everything from top salespeople and top leaders to, you know, hostage negotiators who got people to come out with their hands up, to substance abuse counselors who got people to quit, and even a canter who was a religious person was able to get a Klansman to announce the KKK. So looking at all sorts of change from a variety of different angles. And I think the thing that surprised me the most is this approach, this way of thinking about change. I think, you know, we tend to think that pushing works. And I’ve done study after study of this where I ask people in a variety of industries, what’s something you want someone to change and how can you get them to change? And over 98% of the time, it’s some version of pushing. We just tend to default to that approach. We rarely think about the barriers, rarely recognize what those barriers are. We’re so focused on ourselves and what we want, we don’t think a lot about that person we’re trying to change, what’s stopping them, and how we can help. You know, Jonah, I’m a big fan of Dale Carnegie’s book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, which Warren Buffett said that that single book changed his life. And I’d kind of liken your book to, it’s almost like how to win friends and influence people, part two, and you go deeper. You know what I mean? It’s like you’re really getting into the psychology of it, you really do get into the research of it. How much money do you think it costs a CPA or an optometrist per year to not know how to change anyone’s mind? I mean, for the entrepreneurs out there that own a company that just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. I mean have you ever thought about that Jonah? I mean how much money could it be costing somebody if they have the branding right, the marketing right, the website right, they got all that, they have the degree right, they have all the education, but they just can’t change someone’s mind. How much money is it costing people? Oh I mean hundreds of thousands of dollars easily if not more. I think the thing is, you know we often think about that one client that we can’t get to come around. Oh, yeah. But if we’re really good at this stuff, we’re not just convincing that one client. We’re convincing dozens of clients. True. We’re convincing other people to want to join us and become employees. We’re growing that business from that, you know, one-person CPA firm we might be to dozens of people. We’re not doing the work anymore. We’re managing teams. We’ve got to learn how to manage those teams, right? And so this is a skill, whether you’re, you know, getting a client to come around or whether you’re trying to manage more people and get them to come around. I love the link to Dale Carnegie and that book is a fantastic one, but we’ve learned a lot since that book was written. That’s true. That book is decades old. Yeah. We’ve learned a lot about behavioral science since then and it’s really exciting to be able to share some of that science with people through this book. Yeah. Jonah, I got one more question for you. So this is very interesting. I can’t. I’ve already, I just ordered your book on my phone. I can’t wait to read it because I deal with business owners. We teach them success principles. A lot of our business owners are really aggressive type A personalities. I’ve said for years, if you step towards somebody, if you step towards that somebody, they have a natural tendency to step back. Trying to teach a person that is a type A personality to just stand still. So do you see that too? I mean, have you thought about that or addressed that to where people have a tendency, like you say, is to push your chair. I guess that’s what you’re trying to say is when somebody pushes the chair, they need to push back or the chair can just take off running when it’s a person, correct? Yeah, you know, someone said it so nicely. They said, you know, you need to stop selling and figure out how to get people to buy in. And I think that’s exactly right. You know, I talk about five key barriers in the book. The first one is reactants. The basic idea of reactants is people like to feel like they’re in control. When you tell them to do something, when you pressure them, they don’t feel like they’re in control. They feel like you’re in control. What do we do when we feel like other people control? We push back. Essentially, people have an ingrained anti-persuasion radar, almost like an anti-missile defense system or like a spidey sense of sorts where their defenses go up when someone’s trying to change their mind, they know it’s happening and so they push back. They push back against it. They say, I don’t want to change my mind. They either avoid the persuasion attempt, they ignore it. Think about when that salesman calls, for example, you get that email that you don’t want. We ignore, we avoid it, or even worse, right, we counter argue. That person’s sitting there, it seems like they’re listening, but they think you’re in, think about all the reasons why what you’re suggesting is wrong. And so one tip I talk about in the book to reduce reactance is essentially to provide some sense of choice, right? So imagine you’re pitching someone, for example, right? You’re sitting there, you’re saying, this is the right course of action. Often that person sitting there is thinking, oh, this is going to be too expensive, or it’s not going to work, or sure, it worked for that type of client, but it’s not going to work for me. They’re thinking about all the reasons why what you’re suggesting is wrong. But if you provide them with multiple options, two rather than one, maybe two, even three, suddenly it shifts their role very importantly. Rather than sitting there thinking about all the reasons why what you suggested is wrong, they’re thinking about which of those options you suggested they like best, which means they’re much more likely to pick one of them at the end of the conversation, right? Because now, rather than being lectured to or being told what to do. They’re participating. You’ve guided that choice You’ve guided their journey. They’re much more bought in and much more likely to go along Jonah Do you like the tiny desk show on YouTube? I? Have I have seen a little bit of it? Yes, you got it You got to really be watching some tiny desk in your life I’m just gonna change your life, but you’ll get like you know a hip-hop artist performing in a stripped-down version on It’s like a PBS, but it’s performing. It’s a tiny desk is a great great show for the other hasn’t seen it but imagine you had a tiny desk okay so you’re doing a tiny desk show and in the room it’s you president Trump and Bernie and you are sitting down with these but then there’s no there’s no crowd though we’re not playing to the crowd now no playing to Jonah just Jonah and you’re sitting down you’re going guys guys guys guys guys guys guys and we eventually get them to stop doing what they’re doing. And you say, now, what I want you guys to do is I’m going to teach you, Mr. Trump, or you, Mr. Bernie, how to change the other guy’s mind. So you’re going to pull Bernie aside, and you’re going to tell him. Now, you’re not going to tell Trump that you’re doing this. So you’re going to pull Bernie aside and say, Bernie, here’s the deal. I’m going to teach you the secrets. This is how you’re going to change his mind, or vice versa. What could political candidates like a Trump or a Bernie Sanders, what could they do better in your mind when doing these debates to not make them so divisive? Even if they have different world views, what could the other party do to potentially change the other party’s mind? Now again, I realize in modern politics you’re playing to a crowd and you’re trying to get people to cheer and you attack each other and make crazy statements. I’m just saying, if you were actually sitting down and you were coaching Mr. Sanders or Mr. Trump on how to influence the other person, what kind of advice would you give to politicians? Yeah, you know, I’ve worked with a number of politicians and I share a few political examples in the book and I think part of the problem is, as you outlined, it’s almost like a football field, right, where the Democrats are on one end and the Republicans are on the other. And yeah, there’s some moderates in between, but you know, when Democrats say hey, you should believe this, Republicans say well that’s really far away from where I am at the moment, no thanks, and vice versa. When Republicans say, you know, you should do X, Y, Z, Democrats say, well, that’s pretty far from where I am. Sometimes when we ask for too much, it almost gets disregarded, right? It’s almost outside our zone of acceptance. It gets in that region of rejection where it’s so far away, we don’t even want to think about it. And so one thing I talk a lot about in the book is how can we ask for less? You know, we want big change to happen right away. I get it. We all want big change to happen right away. But sometimes we got to be a little patient. I was talking to this doctor who’s a great example of this, right? So, doctor was talking to a trucker who’s morbidly obese, way overweight, drinking like three liters of Mountain Dew a day. And what does that doctor want to tell the trucker to do? Stop drinking soda, right? Of course, cut out the soda, which is exactly what the Democrats and Republicans want to do. They say, switch to my side right away, all your ideas are wrong. Cold turkey, baby. Right? Yeah, which is not going to happen, right? That trucker’s not going to quit drinking Mountain Dew. Those truckers love Mountain Dew. They love it. They do. Oh, they love it. So instead, she says, hey, instead of three liters a day, just drink two, and fill up that third bottle with some water, have it in the cab of your truck, you can drink the water and, you know, refill it in the truck. So he complains about it, grumbles, but is able to do it, right? Next time he comes back, he’s down to two. Then he says, okay, go from two, now go to one. He grumbles, goes away, goes down to one next and says, okay, now go down from one to zero. He does it and eventually loses over 35 pounds because what she did is she didn’t just ask for less. She asked for less and then asked for more. Essentially what she did is she took big change and broke it down into smaller chunks. I think that’s the same thing we’ve got to think about in politics, right? Stop asking people to completely change in a moment. Just find a piece of common ground. Switch that field a little bit, break down a big ask into smaller more manageable chunks. It’s like stepping stones as you jump across a river, making people much more likely to come for the ride. I want to talk about these five key parking breaks. And I also want people to actually buy the book. I mean, Paul, you know how it works. You’re a CPA. It turns out you have to sell a book, right, to make money. Is that how that works? Yeah, isn’t that weird? Yeah. Weird. Okay. So we want people to buy the book. We don’t give away all the moves, John. the moves. We’re shameless entrepreneurs. We want everyone to want the book. You’ve already bought the book there, Paul. I bought the book. Jonah, can we go through a few more of these parking brakes? Sure, yeah, happy to. So I talk about five in the book, and they’re actually part of an acronym. So the first is reactants. We talked a little about that. The second is endowment. That’s the E. The third is distance. That’s D. U is uncertainty, and C.E. is corroborating evidence. Put those five together, they spell reduce, which is exactly what good catalysts do. We talked a little about reactants already. We talked a little about distance. If you’re too far away, it gets disregarded. But one I think your listeners might find useful is this idea of uncertainty. One thing we often forget is that any time we’re asking someone to change, there’s some fear, some anxiety there. Truth. Right? New things are always riskier than old things. Even if old things are bad, we know how that old thing works. Right. Sure, it might not be perfect, right? But we know that old thing. People often talk about their spouses this way. It’s like, yeah, my spouse isn’t perfect, right? But I know what the challenges are. Whereas new things are really risky. And so any time you’re asking someone to change, you’re asking them to go from a sure thing to a risky new thing. You’re asking them to take a switch from what they know to something they often don’t know. And there’s a lot of cost to doing that. Not only is there time or energy or effort, it’s often expensive to change. And so one thing I talk a lot about is how can we reduce that uncertainty? How can we, in a sense, lower the barrier to trial, make it easier for people to try what we’re offering? So think about Dropbox, for example. Many of you guys have used Dropbox. Every day. Online storage. Yeah, a wonderful system, right? So they come out. Originally, they say, Hey, we’re going to store your stuff in the cloud. People go, Where’s the cloud? What if the cloud goes down? They don’t want to try this new technology because they don’t know how it works. And so rather than saying, OK, we’ll make it cheap or rather than saying, Hey, we’ll buy a lot of ads. What they say, look, we’ll give you some for free. We’ll give you a two gigabytes of storage for free. It’s not an infinite amount of storage for free, but it’s just enough. You get a sense of what it’s like. So if you like it, you’re willing to upgrade. Why? Because rather than them trying to convince you, you’ve convinced yourself. And so what lowering the barrier to trial is, how can we give people a taste and experience, almost like a test drive of what we’re offering. Going back to CPA, if I’m a CPA, of course I say I’m great. And of course I say you should switch your business to me from someone else. No CPA is gonna say, no, no, stay with your old CPA. So we have to think about, well, how can I show you that I’m great? How can I give you the experience that allows you to realize how great I am, so you convince yourself rather than me convincing you? Jonah, I want to get some of the listeners out there to get a chance to know you, you know, know you as a person here. Do you remember, can you picture in your mind, can you think back to like your eighth grade school dance, eighth grade? I can actually, scarily enough I can’t. What was your jam? What was the song? I’m dancing my way to Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. Oh nice! Oh there you go, well done. Nice! Well done. That’s the jam, okay. Give him a mega point, he gets a mega point for that. You get one mega point for that. He gets a mega point, I think that’s fair. Now let me ask you this, now, who are your favorite music artists right now, or a couple of them where you go, man I really like this group. Just give us, we need to know the personal life, the deep dark secrets. We won’t share with anybody, just between us. Just us. Just us. You know what’s scary by the way, is I thought you were going to ask me who I was dancing with at that 8th grade dance. I thought it was going to be even worse than who I was listening to music-wise. In terms of music, I like all sorts of stuff. I like everything from country to hip-hop to rock and everything in between. I find at the moment I like a lot of indie rock, mellow stuff. I have a new baby in the house, so anything that keeps it mellow and light is good for me at the moment. That’s not from the same girl you dance with in 8th grade, is it? Just out of curiosity. Unfortunately, it’s not. Okay, well done. That’s good. I’m never making a point. Okay, so now, your book is obviously called Catalyst. This is an awesome book for people to read. But I want to ask you, because to write a book requires a lot of time, it requires a lot of focus, a lot of energy. How do you organize the first four hours of your day? Because you are a professor, you’re a speaker, you’re a writer. How do you organize the first four hours of your day, and what time do you typically get started? Yeah, you know, people talk a lot about big rocks and little rocks, and I think it’s such a good analogy, right? There’s a tendency to want to start with the little stuff, right? Just to do all the little stuff, and eventually once we get the little stuff done We’ll go to the big stuff But sometimes if you don’t make time for the big stuff it never happens right if you pour all the little rocks in there’s not Enough room for the big rocks. Yeah, if you pull the big rocks in first the little rocks sit around them Yeah, I think you really got to be protective of your time right you got to say What is that big thing I want to accomplish today or this week writing a book not fun Let me tell you right, so it’s it’s me locking myself in that room and saying, what’s the chapter I’ve got to get through today? What’s the idea I want to focus on today? Let me do that, and then I’ll do some of the small stuff. What time do you start the day typically? I probably start around 7 a.m., something like that. 7 a.m. Okay. And then where are you starting the day? Do you work out of your house? Do you go to Wharton to work from the campus? Maybe a Starbucks to get a latte. I walk to work with my cane every day. I swing my cane around in my top hat. Wow. Skipping? I bet I can see him skipping. Skipping down the sidewalk. I start from home. I find it’s good to greet the day from home. Sometimes in those sweatpants and that t-shirt. Don’t start too heavy. Ease yourself into it often. For the listeners out there that are thinking about it, and we have time for two more questions. We’re going to go lightning round here. So Paul, be ready and Z, be ready. I’m ready. I’m ready. For the listeners out there that are thinking about it, and we have time for two more questions. We’re going to go lightning round here. So Paul, be ready. And Z, be ready. I’m ready. I’m ready. For listeners out there who are thinking about buying the book, it’s a tight budget situation. We might get a Chipotle twice this week. Each time we go, it’s $8 for a burrito. Give up a burrito or two. It’s a tight time for me. I might go on iTunes and buy 19 songs in the next 60 days that I’ll listen to one time. Or I might buy a book that could change my life. Why should everybody pick up a copy of your book? I am sold out to the idea that emotional intelligence is super important, and I’ve never met a super successful person who does well in the game of life, who cannot change people’s minds. That’s my reason, but why should everybody pick up this book? So I’ll actually say two things. Don’t believe me. Go to my website. There’s some free resources there. Check them out. If you find them useful, get the book. And by the way, if you get the book and you hate the book, email me and I will send you your money back. I am that sure that people will find this book valuable, that I’m happy to send them their money back. I think there’s tips and tricks and useful stuff in there for everyone, whether you’re a small business owner, a big business owner. And there’s a bunch of free stuff on my website, resources, whether you’re trying to change a boss’s mind, change a client’s mind, there’s a bunch of free stuff people can dig into there. If you’re not sure yet about the book, it’ll give you some sense of what the ideas are. I think it’s really useful stuff and I want to make sure people can get access to it. Paul Hood, rapid fire question before Z one-ups all of us. He always one-ups, just when he walks in the room. So the question I have is, again, we deal with businesses, startup businesses to businesses that have 50, 60 employees already. Would you say that this book has a benefit to really anybody that wants to grow their business, that wants to truly market? Because we have a tendency to people think marketing is just going out and buying ads and all of that, but the reality is that connection, that people that spread your, you’ll tell your story. So my question is, is there a target for a specific size of business that you would be after this book? No, it’s really all about the goal that you have in mind, right, that thing that you want to change. I’ve worked with small businesses. It’s tough being a small business owner. You don’t have a big budget. I work with a lot of medium-sized or sort of high-growth businesses that are trying to take it to the next level. But the challenge is, while they’re somewhat different, are also often very much the same. You’ve got limited resources, and you’ve got to make a lot of those resources. And so it’s really about thinking about, what is that behavioral science that gets people to change, and how can we harness them to move them in the right direction? Jonah, now Z’s gonna one-up us all with the ultimate question, but I want to ask you, sir, will you ban the selling of your books to communist dictators? Will you do that for me? I think they need it more than anybody. No, we don’t want them to change people’s minds. I don’t want the communist leaders changing people’s minds. I don’t. I mean, my goodness. A book like this in Kim Jong-sun’s hand? What could happen? Could you commit to not selling this to communist dictators? Is that a pledge you would take for us? Please. I’m happy to make that pledge. He lost like six or seven book sales right there. Just alone. Right there on the top. Back to you. You know, this is an interesting concept, and I love the premise of the book, How to Change Anyone’s Mind. And I know this isn’t our listening audience because we’re all entrepreneurs and capitalists and we’re people out there trying to sell goods or service. Shameless. But, you know, occasionally somebody may click on this podcast or this radio show and go, what are they talking about? What’s going on? What’s happening? Isn’t that, I mean, you’re manipulating someone’s mind? Are you, are you, is this ethical? What, changing someone’s mind? Are you a dark lord? I mean, are you like, is this, is this a dark spirit? Are you controlling? Is this like taking over the world? Is this the Illuminati? Is this part of the Matrix? Is this, am I plugged in or plugged out? Is this part of the Federal Reserve? I mean, is this manipulation at the highest level? It’s like a chiropractor of the mind. I mean, are you putting things in my brain that don’t belong there? It’s just artificial intelligence. What is going on? I don’t control myself anymore. No, I mean, how do you answer that for the average Joe out there that may be listening to this? You know what, that just doesn’t, I don’t want someone changing my mind. I mean, that just sounds like something wrong or something dirty. Like a demon book. Like a demon book. He’s inside my brain or something. I’ll say two things. Okay. First of all, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not a psychiatrist. Like a demon book. He’s inside my brain or something. I’ll say two things. First, there were some earlier views on Amazon. One of the earlier views basically said, this book is too useful because it will change people’s minds and salesmen and manipulators will use it. So don’t read this book because it’s bad because the tools are useful. And they gave it a low review as a result. I was like, you know what, I’m pretty happy about that. And what I would say is again, tools are tools, right? You know, you can do good things with a hammer and you can do bad things with a hammer. So just the fact that they’re tools doesn’t mean they’re good or bad. It’s how you use them. And I think what’s great about something, even like uncertainty, right? Take Dropbox, what they did with giving away a free trial. If the product’s not good, it’s not going to work. By giving away something for free, lowering the barrier to trial, giving people experience, if your thing’s terrible, you don’t have a word-of-mouth problem or a marketing problem, you’ve got a product or service problem. Right. Right? And so these tools are useful, but they’re going to be more useful the better your thing is. And so if you don’t have a big budget, you don’t have a lot of resources, these tools are going to be great. If you’ve got a product or service that isn’t quite great, well, then you’ve got to work on that product or service. Joan, I want to complain here before we wrap up. I have a complaint I want to share with you. This is a certified official complaint. Joan, I want to complain for a second here. Your book is endorsed by Daniel Pink. That’s a mega point. Daniel Pink, he’s been on the show. It’s endorsed by Jim Collins. That’s also a mega point. Now, see, we’ve had the founder of Netflix reach out to us this week to be on the show. We’ve had the founder of Square reach out to us to be on the show. We have Wolfgang Puck, has been on the show. He’s been on the show. Guy Kawasaki has been on the show. On the show. But you know who has rejected me more than almost anybody? Who? Jimmy C. Jimmy Collins. No way! So Mr. Wharton here, Mr. Jonah, if at any point you could give him a copy of your book, and inside it, when you sign the book that he’s endorsed, just say, Oh, I’ll personalize the book, that’s always a good move. Please book my good friend Clay, and use your Jedi mind tricks to get him on the show. You need to change your mind. Good Jonah. Jonah, use it for good. For good. He only rejects me because he has class and style and standards and all the things. Apparently we tricked you into being on our show. But could you could you maybe work on him on the side? I will work on that. I’ll put that on my to do list today. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I want Jonah’s book and he will give us Jimmy C. There’s a half million of you that are begging for Jimmy C. Email me all the time and say, I want Jimmy C. I want Jimmy C. And we want to say yes, but Jonah’s not going to do it unless he sees some immediate sales. Buy the book right now. The Catalyst, How to Change Anyone’s Mind. The Catalyst, How to Change Anyone’s Mind. Jonah, I appreciate you, my friend. You offer an unbelievable value. You are the man. Thanks so much for having me guys. I really appreciate it. It was awesome to be here. This was a whale of a show. He’s a stud. I haven’t seen him twice. First time I understand you trick people. The second time… He thought this was the Jim Collins podcast. Alright, John, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Later, guys. And now, without any further ado… 3, 2, 1, boom! If you don’t understand you’re the one, you won’t understand why you’re being attacked like you’re being attacked. Whenever the enemy knows that the one is coming, he always sets traps to stop them from succeeding because they’re the one. And to him whom much is given, much is required. And so the text starts out talking about Abraham because Abraham is the one. And Abraham had to move out from his country and away from his kindred because he was the one. So he was a mystic because he was the one. So he didn’t get to stay because he was the one. So he had to live in isolation because he was the one. So he probably was lonely because he was the one. Because he was the one. Because he was the one. New city, new state. It’s gonna be a mean race. All the sins that I have done, I’m grateful for a clean slate. Felt like I was different. I ain’t never try to pull with those. Stack your chips, get on your grind. Don’t never make your shoes grow. Solid as a rock. Loyalty is all I ever know. Doing what you’ve always done, they told me you can never grow. Conversations with the Lord, I ask him would I ever blow. Told me I got dead weight. So friends, I gotta let them go. We don’t make it. I know they stay caking. It’s all on their faces. We desperate for greatness. I said, I been patient. I know it’s my moment. No stopping. We going. This thing is emotional. What you going to do when you’re back against the wall? You going to stand up like a champ, or you going to curl up in the ball? I’m the one. I’ve been chosen, so I’m riding to it all. Got to keep your stakes up so you can rise and never fall. Let’s go. And Abraham had to move out from his country and away from his kindred because he was the one. So he didn’t get to stay with his ten folks because he was the one. They are always on the hit list because hell knows that he is the one. I want to talk to some people that have been up under crazy attack. And to him who much is given must be spurred. The devil’s been attacking, I ain’t stressing from it. Cause every time that happens there’s a blessing coming. Assessing over problems that you can’t change. I had you going crazy, learn your lesson from it Remember when they cut my water off, homie? Man, reflecting how they cut my lights off too I had to move back in with my mama Had me feeling like a failure, that’s what life would do Gotta get up on your grind, I had to make the right move Raymond noodles every night, I had some beans and rice too Execution is the key, don’t tell me what you might do Favor from the man above, no other god is like you You can knock me down, but I promise I ain’t staying there. Feeling like I am the one we just begun to see it clear. Me and Clay clicking up. Y’all don’t even get it bruh. About to be colossal taking over when we rip it up. And Abraham had to move out from his country and away from his kindred because he was the one. So he didn’t get to stay with his kinfolk because he was the one. They are always on the hit list because hell knows that he is the one. I want to talk to some people that have been up under crazy attacks. And to him who much is given. But just for us. Yeah, started from the bottom, now I’m here. Hoping I success that for 23 years. Got the dragon energy, got another gear. Got a superpower man, I can’t persevere. Cause I never had a thought, people call fear. I never stopped writing when the picture’s not clear. We’re gonna be dead soon and I’m just being real So I be paralyzed by the thoughts that we feel So you’ll stop begging for people to come into agreement with you So you’ll stop doing polls and census and trying to get everybody to come into consensus with your vision So that you won’t need nobody to say amen when you preach Cause you already know that you got heaven saying amen. The power of one. Listen to the entire T.D. Jakes sermon, Grasping the Moment, by visiting T.D. Jakes’ YouTube channel, simply named T.D. Jakes. Shut it up! You get ready to flow! Until the glory of… Alright, 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 long-time client. Paul Hood, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, like my old friend, R.D. Mercer, said, CPA stands for certified professional ass kicker, not certified pain in the ass. All right. 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… 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. So 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. I asked Steve, who do I talk to? He said, you’ve got to meet my guy. He got me to one of your workshops. I said, holy smokes. I went to one of the best accounting schools in the country. They didn’t teach anything that you were teaching. I was lit from day one. I remember when you came to the conference and watching you take notes, you were smoking out that, they had a notebook for taking notes, and it was like the piece of paper was gonna 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 gonna 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’s 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? And it was actually pretty simple. It’s actually made me angry. I’ve told you multiple times, I went to college and they didn’t teach me this stuff and 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. Maybe that seems like it’s a backhanded compliment I don’t want to feel that way. I just I’m saying you were like top of your class CPA, but yet the marketing Didn’t match how quality of a service you provide it. Maybe I’m getting that wrong I’d love to get your just can you 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 it’s it’s 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. I remember the first time we met individually, you said, well, let’s look at your website. I said, what website? Because 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 of, 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 renovated your Claremore office. I’m going to 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 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 in to 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. And so we needed to portray a success-minded, an anti-CPA environment, if you will, with the slogans and the positive saying and the financial things. And 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 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. Now, 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 had 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 were 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 grow, a business that wants to be seen, 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, Clay, I’m waiting for the check in the mail, but you’re not paying me to say this stuff. It’s reality. 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. I wrote the first book, really, frankly, you wrote most of the book. 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. 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. I have a great lifestyle, but what I wanted to do 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, you know, I’d probably be some drunk Indian smacking a woman around, you know? 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 then to sow those seeds of success in 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, you know, 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’re 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, 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 wanted 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. We just had a big conference with Tim Tebow last week. 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, and you smiled and shook your head and said, okay, and you set out to prove me wrong, and you did. And 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. We don’t have to pick up the phone and call them. They’re calling us, and it’s 100% off of Google, Google Reviews, Google Searches. I’ll admit it right here, and 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 of 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, you know, and you fight negativity and all that. And then, and you don’t know what you’re doing. I mean, and, you know, 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, oh, I can’t do it. I don’t know what I’m doing. Or my, you know, my mama couldn’t, my dad couldn’t, so 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 replicatable, and 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 I 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 – seven times, almost, 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’re not good in these areas. And so to be able to bring the thing full circle, regardless, and Clayton, 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. Seventy-five percent of CPAs are at or above retirement age. There’s about 90 percent 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 minimize their income tax, 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 said, 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, and he said, if you want to be successful, you need to be here. My business, it consists of a CPA and a financial advisor, and we’re very successful, and 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 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 need to 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 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. Clay’s presentation training style is 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 It depends on them. If they like working 60, 70 hours a week and barely getting by or making 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 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. So come on in and check this out. We bought this house about a year and a half ago, and 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 the Ben Hood in from Mexico 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 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 a 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 gonna have, I suck at golf, I love golf, but I suck at golf. And we’re gonna have a golf simulator up there so I can play golf for 30 minutes. I get mad, 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 we had a steel door made for it and so tornadoes come or people we don’t really care you know the whatever it’s a safe room we can come in it’s gonna have security cameras everything else in there built in. Now down this hall is my favorite room well the two favorite rooms one there is a 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 a hundred and nine 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. I’ll spend a lot of time in here. And of course, right out here, 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 it can make waves. It’s got a huge hot tub that you can two places you can stand and it’ll massage you from your neck to your, to your back, you know, cause when you’re out being successful making money, you get, 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. 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’s 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 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 know how, it’s 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 gotta 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 is 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 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 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. Still part of the master. It’s got a separate balcony out there. Every room in the house is wired for speakers for entertaining. It has a lot of speakers, I can tell you why. And they suck putting them up. I’ve 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 gonna 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 gonna 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, 5, 6 years? The last 5, when I met you 5 years ago, we were doing three million. This year, we’ll do 24 million. Which is more than anything an accountant. We’re going to talk about that. Paul used me to Bob because he said there’s a guy that came into my office looking to raise some capital. I think that was the thing. He needed to get some sales going. That’s how. Paul, from the accounting perspective, I’m going to pass the mic to you. You do accounting. Why do you have to have a website make sense and all that branding stuff? How has that impacted your brand, having websites and all those branding things in place? 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. 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, it’s visual. And it also has to say why we’re different. That about us from there is spectacular. And it’s just, it’s an industry that is changing. We’re modifying it. We’re going to, we 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. On top of that, he has 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 can 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 one and I want to 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, like 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 like in our office, if we grow Dave Basie’s podcast that benefits our company to the extent it benefits them But we actually benefit if they benefit that make sense to you Hello, my name is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness today I want to tell you a little bit about clay Clark and how I know clay Clark clay Clark has been my business coach Since 2017 he’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise and clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, 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. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go and that’s what I like the 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. I was really most impressed with him 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. Anytime 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 ever 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 for maybe six hours a day and literally the rest of the time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and and he loves it. So anyways this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank You Clay and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay it’s a great great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye bye. Hi I’m Aaron Antis 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. Then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes, and I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I 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. 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 Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. 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 epic chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. 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.