Clay Clark | Entrepreneur | Part 2 – Start Here Book – 3.4 Decreasing Your Business’ Reliance Upon You

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re 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 the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. We are back here with point number 19 out of the 29. Self-evaluation for your business here, Clay. Number 19, he didn’t have a time management system set in place to block out distractions and to create time to focus on the important aspects of his business. Now let me tell you this, I feel very confident in my skills as a time management manager, but I have never felt more psychologically naked than when I was talking to Lee Cockerell about time management. Now remember, Lee Cockerell was the former Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World Resorts. How many employees again? Over 40,000. Wow. They call them cast members. And they have over a million guests a week. So imagine you ran… A week? Yeah, think about this. If you took the national… I want you to put the stat on the screen here because I don’t want to misquote. I hate when I I don’t hang with people make up statistics And you know they do so I’m gonna put the stat up on the screen here so that we were very Very very transparent and very specific on this because this is very important something like this my mystic statistic music ready Yes here comes nice So whatever the statistic is we’re putting on the screen this many this this percentage of people have a heart attack This percentage of people have a heart attack. Whatever the number is, it’s on the screen. Look at that number. Guess what? Those are people. And last time I checked, Disney World has people that go to Disney World. So every day at Disney World, somebody’s having a, hey kids, you guys want to get another corn dog or a, dad, are you okay? Yeah, I’m having a heart attack. No big deal. Have fun. Mickey Mouse, get on the ride. Dad, can I still ride the ride? Bobby, get dad, you know. And it’s the whole drama of like, dad, are you really having a heart attack? No, I’m just playing with you. No, seriously, I’m going to tell you. I mean, it’s not fun to think about. Correct. Out of a million people that go someplace every week, put the stat on the screen. I mean, whatever that number is, that statistical amount is not an anomaly. It’s like people only have heart attacks when they’re not at Disney World. Yeah. It’s like God says, thou shalt not be able to have a heart attack when on the land of Disney. You know, so people, so I’m just saying is imagine you’re running a business where somebody has a heart attack or dies every day at your facility man and then if you ever run a staff of 10 people how many of those people go into nut job mode so this is what I’m talking about the other day was about what to their desk I’m gonna get an old man but it’s like about a year ago remember an employee walked in and she’s like getting into that whole, I’m at work but not to work, if you know what I mean. I’m here on the prowl, I’m looking for a man. And I’m going, there’s some pheromones here, I don’t know if it’s pheromones or there’s some estrogen, I’m not sure what’s going on. But I’m thinking to myself, I pulled my assistant aside and said, hey listen, that girl is showing her whole body. I don’t want to see her whole body.” And she’s like, I know it’s pretty ridiculous, she went over and I saw her whole deal going on. And I’m like, can you talk to her? So she goes over to her discreetly, hey, your body is showing. And she’s like, so is there a problem with my dress code? So then she wants to meet. Can I meet with Clay one-on-one to discuss it.” She’s like, ah, so she pulls me aside. Hey, this person is like, showing her whole body, and she wants to meet with you one-on-one. That’s the kind of nut job, that’s my, I mean, that’s the kind of stuff where that’s why, you know, where you just sit there at your desk and my wife’s like, how’s your day going? And I’m like, oh, it’s going freaking, you know. So anyway, I pull the person aside and they want to have a big discussion and it gets kind of crazy. I’m just saying all this to say that this is a situation where that will take your time. Lee Conquerel had 40,000 of people running around, many of which were having divorces, marriages, problems, death, near death, heart attacks, anxiety issues. I want to show my whole body. The employee who wants to get a tattoo on their face the day before their big… All that. He managed all of them. So no matter who you are, the time management system that we are teaching, I’m very confident that it can help you improve your efficiency. And because we only live one time, I believe that time management might be the most important thing you could learn. And so when I met with Lee, I realized that I was like a four on my time management skills. He’s like waving the lightsaber. He’s levitating rocks. And I’m going, you’re the time management wizard. And he’s like, in due time, teacher, I will. And I was just going, this guy’s like the Yoda of time management. So I’m just saying, on a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself right now. 10 is like you manage Disney World. And a 1 is like you’re managing a Burger King, which is tough. There’s like 40 employees. You know what I’m saying? Can you go below a 1, right? Well, a 1 is like you’re managing a, I don’t know, we’ll come back to it. You’re managing a petting zoo, and you’re in charge of petting the animals. The iguanas of Mexico. I’m sorry Safari Joe, I realize I’ve never worked with you and I’m sure your job is very difficult and your snakes freak me out. Anyway, back to you. Alright, number 20. His overall growth was stagnant. Well the stagnant growth is mean on a scale of 1 to 10, you’ve started to say things a lot to the point where you feel like they’re true. So as an example, you say, I do this all the time with my marriage and I’m just being real with you guys I do about every I want to be honest I hate to be honest I want to be honest every 40 days. I go I don’t say it out loud this is how I feel just forget it we’re two worlds apart she wants to talk about her feelings and I just want to get stuff done. And then you get to that point and she’s probably going all he wants to do is get stuff done Why won’t he talk about my feelings? I’m just like I swear to God if I have to talk about those feelings again I’m good. You know, you know you every 40 days one for about an hour. It’s always my fault cuz I’m an idiot I’m a man-bear pig, but I will do something where I push that limit, right? Yeah, and then we reset but if you’re not careful you start to say well This is how my marriage is gonna be. This is the cap This is as good as it can get it could never get better because I don’t have the capacity to improve. But what I realize when I get unemotional, and I’m every 40 days, I’m not emotional 39 days, but one day it happens. I go, I can be a better man. And so recently, you shouldn’t compare yourself, but I do. I’ve started reaching out to more and more male mentors who have kids who are teenagers because now I have five kids and they’re getting older. Yeah. Why are they getting older? But anyway, I’ve started reaching out to them and I’ve started realizing, how do you do… And you always are seeking for improvements in your business. Yeah. I’m just telling you, if your business is stuck, and I say stuck, if you’re not growing by more than 25% a year or more, your business sucks like a Hoover. So I’m just saying, so I’m just being real. So our photography business, Herman, who works in our sales team, he’s always like, why are you upset? Why are you always about, are we over 25% I’m like because it’s like we suck we are terrible for only growing at 25% you know yeah we got to push so if your growth rate’s not 25% or more you need to you need to figure out what’s limiting your growth. Boom number 21 here he was spending everything he was making and actually he was behind in many of his financial responsibilities Clay. Yeah and it’s if it happens is we’re in a country with a good thing but we have access to credit, which is a double-edged sword. Some people are like, I don’t do credit cards because they’re just the devil’s work. The devil. And you’re going, so you believe that Satan actually invented the card? Oh, absolutely. He’s like, Satan, my card number ends in a six. You know. No, in three sixes. It’s a black card. It ends in a six. You know, so what you do is, but credit allows you to buy the things you need to grow your business, right? But it also allows you to put yourself into perpetual poverty because you owe money to everybody. So what you have to do is use it as a… the way you use ice cream. Note to self, I’m going to watch this video later so I can learn from this. But ice cream is like, it’s a good deal. You know, it’s probably not a good deal to eat the whole gallon of ice cream as you’re coping with your dad’s health illnesses, but I don’t know anything about this. But anyway, the thing is, obviously… What flavor? What flavor ice cream? What? My wife does. My wife and I, we don’t speak about it. It’s the unspoken thing. But she knows I’m having a rough day, so she’ll be like, salted caramel. I’ll bring that home and tempt him so I can beat him in the game of… Salted caramel. No, I think she’s trying to beat me in the game of self-discipline. So she’ll bring this home and I’m like, who bought this? Oh, I just picked it up at Whole Foods. What, Eve? Are you tempting me with an apple? No, I just got it for the kids. And you can have a little. And I’m like, how thoughtful. Yeah, and then I’m like, the next week has gone by and I’m like every moment walking by I just want to eat that ice cream. And then I realize no one’s eating at all. And she’s like, baby, do you want some ice cream? What, Eve? So all I’m saying is you’ve got to use your credit the same way where you have it, but you’ve got to not use it all the time. That’s smart. Yeah, so anyway. That’s a good story. All right, number 22. He did have a proof of concept and he knew from first-hand experience that people were actually willing to pay for professional soccer coaching services, especially if a parent believed that their kid had the potential to play soccer at Division I NCAA college level on a full scholarship basis. What do you mean by this? Okay, there’s kids in Oklahoma, they go to a school called Monte Casino. Monte Casino. Monte Casino. Monte Casino. If you Google it, it’s M-O-N-T-E and then Casino, C-A-S-I-N-O. Oklahoma’s good in casinos. We’ll put up on the screen. We’ll put up on the screen. No reference to the tribal owned casinos here, but if you what you do is if you google earth it It’s a beautiful prestigious school It was built like an 1870 something Utica thousands and thousands of dollars a year to go there But people who go to that kind of school want their kids to go to Harvard They want their kids go to Princeton. They want their kids to go to Yale They go Oklahoma State Can they even read there? Hey, I mean, that’s how they kind of mindset. And so all these parents, they’re willing to pay whatever it costs to get their kid to the elite level. And then there’s middle class families, too, who don’t have a whole lot of money, but they say if my kid could go to a four-year state school and have it paid for, it’s worth the $400 a month we’re spending on soccer, or whatever. So he knew that model worked. And I would just ask you right now, do you know if your model works? You know what I mean? Like if you’re trying to like, ah, here’s a weird one. I used to own a chocolate fountain company. You did? Which if you have ever had a chocolate fountain at a wedding, you’re not going to want one after I tell you this. What you do is you take like a half gallon of like Crisco and you mix it in with the chocolate and a spatula. And then when you’re done, you go, man, this has a lot of, you just keep adding it. And then when you’re done with that container of oil, you throw it away and you try to make sure no one saw it, and you do it again. I’m not kidding. And you usually do two to three containers of oil in it before, so it makes it flow. And then people come up to the wedding all dressed up nice, women who haven’t eaten in three weeks trying to get ready for the wedding, they come in going, they’re thinking, I’ve got my Spanx on and I’m very thin right now. I’m looking good in my white dress. I’ve got an off-white, not to offend, very conservative dress at this wedding. And I want to have some chocolate fountain.” And they have it, and then they go, “…it smells like grease. Oh my gosh, how much grease is in here? I don’t know, Becky. Becky, Becky, did you… how much… you’ve had a lot of chocolate tonight. You shouldn’t have any more, girl. We’ve been working too hard at boot camp.” And so what happens is, that’s what they do, and pretty soon people start to say, don’t use the chocolate fountain. So if you’re out there trying to sell a chocolate fountain, if you’re trying to hustle one right now, I’m just telling you, that’s a hard sell. To try to sell someone on the chocolate fountain right now, it used to be an easy sell because people didn’t know what it was. So I owned a lot of them, I sold a lot of them, but then I got out of it before people quit wanting to buy them. You’re smart. But sometimes you’re just products that people don’t want. And the best examples that I could give you would be even Maurice Kanbar, who invented Sky Vodka. He developed many products over the years. And in his book called The Inventor’s Handbook, we’ll put it up on the screen, The Inventor’s Guidebook, I believe, or Handbook. Okay. We’ll put the book title up there. Maurice talked about several inventions that he made that people didn’t want, and therefore he realized he shouldn’t sell them because people didn’t want to buy them. So all I’m saying is he knew that his product was viable, but on a scale of one to ten, I’d ask you to test how viable is my product and how much money am I willing to spend on testing it? Because sometimes some products just aren’t meant to be made. There you go. There you go. Yeah. Very true. So are powered flashlights. Very true. Number 23, he didn’t have any documented processes in place indicating how the company would eventually scale, expand rapidly to different markets in the event that their marketing efforts were successful and their trainings were shown to be effective. Can I tell you why I hate speaking to Vince? Tell me. Because they’re not scalable. And people always ask me to do another one. And so because I am weird, I think, I think it’s because I’m self-deprecating and I lack talent, people go, well, if that guy could do it, I could probably do it, too. So they feel kind of motivated knowing that, honey, I don’t think this guy has any talent at all, but I think he’s done well. They feel kind of encouraged and we have some fun and it’s entertainment meets education. But people will then ask me to do another one. So then my wife, this is what my wife does, people will come up and go, Hi, my name is Marsha. I wanted to get your husband’s card to book him for another event. And I’m sure my wife does it on purpose. She’s like, Martha, what was your number? And the person says, 918-555-66… my wife goes, okay, 777-777… and she gives me a wrong number, because she doesn’t want me to book it, because she knows that it’s us in a plane again, setting up, taking down, and it’s not duplicatable. It always involves me. It’s not duplicable. This soccer coach, he wanted to build a system in his mind that could work without him someday so he could retire or enjoy a vacation or time freedom, but he wasn’t building any systems and so therefore the bigger he got the less time freedom he had Thus he had some problems. And so we had to help him make everything into a duplicatable turnkey System boom and make it effective. Yeah, absolutely up next we’re talking about Financial peace so say soon you want to watch this one. Don’t miss it. All right clay We are back and we are on point number 24 he did not have financial peace and in fact was actually quite stressed out financially most of the time. Talk to me. Okay. Here is the example. I have a nice little quote. It’s in my man cave by Humphrey Bogart. It says, the point of making a lot of money is so that someday you can tell a big shot where to go. I agree. So I’m just being blunt about how I built my DJ business. Sharita, one of our producers, she’s seen this, and you’ve known me since college. Right, 1999. Yeah, so I’m working in my dorm room. I have no air conditioning at all. I had the air conditioning in the dorm room, but I didn’t have air conditioning when I went to my apartment. So I’m working in my apartment, no air conditioning, no cable, really no time freedom, just working my butt off all the time. And I remember I got to a point where I had a lot of money, like $200,000 in the bank and a passive income of $8,000 a month. Now I had like seven years, by the way, seven years of like, I didn’t make any money for like four or five years. And I remember a client, very surly, a very surly guy, he wanted me to do the Bat Mitzvah. And no disrespect if you are somebody who wants me to do the Bat Mitzvah, but it’s like So he’s asking me this and he says, now look at me, do I look like I am from Israel? If you put a kippah you might. I guess I do. So anyway, the guy says, are you familiar with bat mitzvahs? And I know that they celebrate a young child becoming an adult in their faith. Yes, yes. What do you know about the Torah? Well, it’s the first five books of the Bible. Well, what if we don’t believe in the New Testament? Well, okay. And pretty soon I realized, what am I doing? I’m having this religious debate with this guy named Gary at Panera Bread. I remember it was yesterday. His name was Gary. And his last name started with a G. And you know who you are if you’re watching. So anyway, he starts getting into this whole debate with me. is I don’t know the answer to your questions. I do have hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. I doubt that you do. I don’t give a crap to have this conversation. So if you want me to do your wedding, I’m freaking awesome. If not, shut up.” And he was like, well, that’s for DJing. And his wife, if you’ve ever been around like a traditional Jewish Israeli family, his wife’s like loved it because he’s from New York. And she’s like, well, good Lord, this guy knows his stuff, honey. We should book him. He seems like he knows it Gary’s like I bet can this is a traditional like you know like that It just straight from New York, and she was like we should book him. He’s great I just I don’t know what the deal is why you ask what his question Let’s just book him and so I ended up booking the deal I’m becoming friends with a guy and it was a deal where like I just didn’t care Wow and so now the company that is invested a Building that we’re in is owned by a group that I have some disagreements with. The point is, we’re in a building and there’s a person who’s kind of intertwined with us a little bit, and they wanted me to move my car the other day. And I don’t want to move my car because I wasn’t given a 24-hour notice to move my car. And the fine to not move my car is about $120. So I just didn’t move my car. So that’s my deal. So I’m just saying for you, I don’t know Thrivers what you want, but for me I like time freedom and I love financial freedom. I love knowing that I could say to everybody in the world, screw yourself, and I could sit at home and do nothing for a vast period of time except for look at my stacks of money and feel good about that. And so, I feel like that’s the whole point of starting a business, is you could have time freedom to minimize the interaction and also in a positive way you can bless people, you can contribute, you can get it in the causes. If you’re watching this and you’re like the biggest, you’re just obsessed with Bernie Sanders, you love Bernie, feel the Bern, and you’re the huge Bernie guy, you love Bernie Sanders, you could get a big shirt that says, I am Bernie Sanders. You know one of those shirts that says, I am Bernie, I feel the Bern. Or you could be a biggest Trump fan, you could cut your hair to look like Trump and run around looking like Trump or looking like Bernie. And you know what you could do is you could do that and have total freedom to do so if you had millions of dollars. That’s why Justin Bieber gets away with it. I mean, the guy putting like a tattoo on his head per hour. Every hour he’s getting a new tattoo. And he’s willing to get beat up by some bigger guy. Yeah, but you know, people put up with it because he can do what he wants. So all I’m getting at is the financial freedom aspect. This guy was working all the time and had no money saved. So it’s very important to ask yourself, Thrivers, what the heck are we doing? I mean, are we building a business just to work all the time and coach soccer until four in the morning on every Saturday and Sunday and travel around and get in… By the way, have you ever seen a basketball coach after the team loses? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There’s always a kid who weighs like 407 pounds who can’t really move, and the parents will be like, I feel like he should be a striker. Lady, he just can’t physically move his body. Could he be a striker? And you’re like, no! And that’s how it is. They attack you. So I’m just saying you have to really think about, you know, what are you doing? You want to achieve financial freedom. And why are you doing it? And this next point on number 25, Clay, goes, you’re very passionate about this and I’m glad that we’re going to talk about it. This gentleman didn’t have any formalized goals for his life in the areas of faith, Faith, family, finances, fitness, and friendships. Why are these vital? There’s a Thriver I talked to the other day who is married to a woman, or a partner with a woman who lives in Tucson, I think. And we’re talking to her, and the point is, she talked to me. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with her or disagree with her. She owns a successful business, and she knows her faith, she knows her values, she’s very confident in that and she feels as though she’s using her business to move where she wants to go. And I’m mentioning that because we’re in a world where this is something being discussed right now. The world is wanting to know how do you handle these things. And all I’m saying is she knows her faith, she knows her values, and she doesn’t want me to give her my values. I would tell her if she asked, but she’s not asking. But she knows what she’s about. And then we have other people I talked to at Thrive Everyday today who owns a funeral home who is a devout Christian man who is all about trying to push back on what he believes to be a certain agenda and XYZ. But he knows his faith. And you have to know your faith, because if you don’t know what you’re about, what’s the point, right? I mean, what’s the point of going to work if you don’t know what you’re going there for? True. Second is your faith, your family. You’ve got to know your family. I mean, I have a beautiful wife. I have five kids, and I want to chase my wife around every night. There you go. I’ll just leave it at that. I do. I want to chase her around. That’s how you have five kids, by the way, Thrivers. That’s a little tip, but just a bonus. So all I’m saying is that’s the, I want to take her on dates. And so clients, there will always be more clients, there’s always going to be more consulting deals, there’s always going to be a new big idea. But faith, family, you’ve got to have your goals written down. So we have goals for family, faith, family, finances. We have financial goals. People say, why didn’t you buy a bigger house? Well I’ve lived, people have known me for a while, known I used to live in a big old 5,000, 6,000 square foot house, but we had the business on one side and the home in the other. And then when I sold the house, I moved to a different place where I had a bigger office and a really small house. And then I moved, I haven’t changed. Some people, when they came to the small house, after they had the big house, were like, are you okay? Is your business going to survive? People are going to have their opinions, but I don’t care. Faith, family, finances, friendships. You’ve got to have scheduled time for what matters and who matters. I’ve got to be blunt, I have some very, very neat people. Eugene Willis. Eugene Willis, where you at? He’s out there in LA. I’ve known him, his nickname in college for me was White Lightning, and my nickname to him was Black Thunder. We used to argue all the time about racially divisive issues like Sammy Sosa or Mark McGuire, who’s better? We’ve been best friends since that time, and we disagree on every political issue, and we love talking business. And I make time in my schedule to call him, not because it financially benefits me, but because we’re buddies. That’s what friends do. And then you have faith, family, finance, and fitness. And fitness is kind of a deal where by default we all don’t get where we want to go, and we all need to schedule time to do that. And so these are all the areas, the faith, family, the finance, the fitness. I call it the F5. I think life’s kind of a tornado. High pressure, low pressure. And so we need to block out time for what matters. And I love the workout equipment you got in that man cage. Oh, dude. It looks sweet. Let me tell you. Sweet. Yeah, last night was workout number one in that thing. It was getting kind of spiritual in there. It was… Dude, open it and open a membership base or something. I get choked up talking about the man cage. Let’s move on, because I feel like if I get into it too much, it’s just this beautiful place. Okay, sorry. I have such a sensitive audience. A lot of pain. Okay, number 26. All right, Clay, he didn’t have any formalized or accurate checklist set in place, and I know you don’t like checklists at all, so. And those are all questions from employees and customers. We’re consistently being directed towards him. Let’s talk about this one. Okay, well, if you don’t have a system in place, everyone will ask you for the answer. So Nate, one of our producers today, you asked, hey, I want to get an idea, I want to know what our move is, I think it was. You know, how are we going to do this? What’s the way we agree? What’s our process? Right. And if I haven’t given him a directive, he’s going to ask a question. I can’t be mad that he wants to know. He wants to know because there’s not a process. So it’s on me. If it goes uphill, whoever the boss is, if he doesn’t have a system, then there’s a question. So you want to have systems so people can fall to the level of preparation. So if I would have had a system to anybody’s defense on our production team, then he wouldn’t have had to ask me. But I don’t have a systems, therefore they didn’t ask me. And so you can’t, as a business owner, you’re very busy, and a lot of times we’re like, why does everyone ask me all these questions? I say, I mean, I do it still. I’m just like, I just want to test. Live in a van, don’t buy the rubber. Just, you know, because you want, you’re so busy, right? You have these obligations, but if you don’t have a system. So there’s a book called The Checklist Manifesto, written by Atul Gawande. He is a surgeon. He’s the at Harvard University might have heard of such schools as Harvard and he is also a Leading surgeon who has worked with the World Health Organization What if was his bio up on screen here? But the book checklist manifesto shows me I want to add the stats to the screen here Yeah, but it shows that that when they did studies at all these major universities when doctors did not use a checklist to remind them to do such complicated things as wash the patient’s skin before surgery. Read the chart. Make sure you’re not giving them medication that will kill them. An alarming number of them did not do it. We’re talking more than 10% forgot to do it without a checklist. We’ll put the stats up on the screen. It’s pretty dirty. Don’t do that. Use a checklist. Don’t kill your patients. Don’t kill them. Doctors. Number 27. He did have effective communication skills, yet he was terrible at communicating with his loyal ongoing customers in an effective manner, whether it be text, email, social media, mass voicemail sending, etc. etc. I’m going to turn myself in here. So let me keep a fun song so I get in a positive mood before I rip on myself We need to oh Oh, all right. It’s time for a public vlogging. I’m gonna vlog myself publicly here. We go like Clark, okay? I hate social media I Hate tweeting texting what I do I hate Twitter. I don’t give a crap about LinkedIn right now my LinkedIn I’m not kidding. I probably have a a thousand messages or more and probably whatever the max number of red dots is. Did you hear that that YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are coming together? They’re all part of the Illuminati? They’re going to be called YouTweetFace. You thought about that one so I’ll give you the answer. You need the ha ha ha ha. I do, I need that button. But the thing is, on the social media aspect of it though, a lot of entrepreneurs, we’re busy. So it’s okay. On the social media aspect of it, though, a lot of entrepreneurs, we’re busy. So let me just give you an example into the two worlds of people. Today I walked, we have a bar area at work, and there was two people talking. I won’t mention their gender. We’ll just say they’re transgendered people with neutral, you couldn’t tell. We’re calling them UFOs. And they were there, and this is what they said. What are you going to go get to eat? This is like at 1030. And I thought to myself, I don’t think I’ve ever had something to eat ever at work. Like I’ve never gone to lunch. And it’s not because I don’t want to eat lunch. It’s because I have crap going on. And so if your ambition level is high, you got to figure out, do I have a liquid lunch or do I? And so Deidre, who works up here, is one of our Thrive 15 mentors, Deidre always has these little shakes and stuff. She’s got a lot going on. If we do get something to eat, it’s like we’re bringing it in, we’re eating it fast, we’re breaking all the ethics, we’re eating while we’re moving, we’re moving while we’re eating, we’re just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We like have half-eaten lunches everywhere. I mean, entrepreneurs have like, they have like a half-eaten lunch and you’re like, are you going to eat that? Yeah, tomorrow sometime, maybe, whatever. And so we’re going, and all I’m saying is that social media is like a thing or texting your customers or newslettering, you know, sending out newsletters, sending texts, sending social media. You as an entrepreneur probably are not as much of a connector as you need to be. I know I need to improve. That’s kind of my chink in my arm. I just don’t like to do it. So I had to find people on my team who like that and let them dominate that. And so as we’ve grown, I’ve continued to add more and more people in my life who’ve liked that kind of stuff. And you wouldn’t believe, I mean, I had so many consulting clients over the years ago. I got your newsletter this month and I was curious, do you still do the search engine help? I’m like, what newsletter? The newsletter you sent to me from your personal email. Oh yeah, that’s the one that I wrote the heartfelt email, right? All I’m saying is, so he was not very good at those systems, those ongoing communications. Wow, wow. Number 28, he had very little documentation for anything, including his passwords, processes, the service experience delivery, the bathroom cleaning checklist, and actual coaching process itself. All I’m going to say is the mind forgets but the pen remembers. Put it on paper. Say that again. The mind will forget but the paper will always remember. And if you’re a biblical scholar, God allegedly told Yahweh, and God allegedly told Moses, if you want to mispronounce it’s Moses Anyways, but anyway says he says he hey write it on the tablet and Moses is like, you know, I can’t you I can I just you know God, I mean, why can’t I just you know, remember it and God’s like well, here’s the deal Moses You’ve only had one man so far. You have one man. You’ve delegated to become your manager Yeah, his name is Aaron the one manager you’ve ever hired Moses He’s down there getting naked and making golden calves, and you’ve only been away from the job here for like a couple days Yeah, I asked you to come up to the mountain all you got to do is delegate to one guy yeah, and you delegated to a guy named Aaron who has built a Golden calf which is one of my anti rule you can’t do that, and he’s already getting naked Why is he naked when you’re like God? I’m sorry. I’m pretty bad at delegating at this point, but what was that again? And he’s like, just write this on the tablet. All I’m getting at is you have to document your rules, otherwise you’ll drift and you’ll lose sight of them. There you go. And finally, Clay, step number 29. He did not have a customer relationship management software in place, despite having worked over 10,000 paying customers throughout his 30-year career. CRM is a customer relationship management software. And this coach in particular, he had over 10,000 moms and dads that he had coached over a 20-year period. Imagine that. Wow. So imagine being like 45 and having that many people in your database. Yeah, man. They could be in your database, but instead you have nobody in your database. If he would have just sent out an email, I call it the wolf, and then we’ll wrap it up with this. I call it the wolf. Yeah. If you send a text every month and an email and a voicemail and a video message to all of your customers once a month, if you are competing with Hoover for maximum suckage, you will still have 1% of those people who will buy something. So if 10,000 Homeboy could have been getting like 100 new customers a month just by default, just by top of mind, even if he just would have sent the wrong email, someone would have said, hey I got a message from you. Are you still coaching kids? Yeah, I have a kid. I have a neighbor, I have a cousin, I have a, you know, he would have got business. So very, very important you stay in constant communication with your customers. And we have very detailed training on how to send out those mass text emails, the whole deal. Awesome. Okay, up next we’re gonna be talking about the proven path to small business death, those three points that you’re gonna expand on it. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back. I hate to do this. I hate to do this, Tyler. I know I’m over the limit, but I want you to get the careless whisper stuck in your head because remember, if your business drifts, you’re going to end up living in a van down by the river, listening to George Michael. The one with the ladder on the back. Ladder on the back. You’ll be in there alone. All right. So we are back, Clay. We’ve talked about the 29 points of the self-evaluation business exam, so to speak, that this gentleman took. Basically, in a synopsis and a summary, to make this long story short, he was an incredible father, a great husband, a committed, outstanding coach, but he was down this road of something that you call the proven path to small business death. Can you just expand on this three points to let us know why he was going down this path? Yeah, I mean When my dad, you know, we grew up we weren’t homeless, but like I remember my dad delivered pizzas. Okay, and so My dad was like top of his class in college, I mean he was you know, he graduated his val He’s in his high school. I mean, I know he graduated 1971 and I think he was like second in his class or something He went to oral Roberts University. He graduated near the top. He was an all-star baseball player in high school, all-star basketball, you know, all these great things. But he’s delivering pizzas. And as an adult now, like I look back at it and I’m like, that was freaking awesome. That’s freaking awesome. Like you talk about freaking awesome, like that was free. I’m talking about like Steph Curry’s freaking awesome. And when your dad delivers pizzas instead of walking out, that’s freaking awesome. I mean, because a lot of people walk out. I mean, but he did that. So I applaud that, but I also, I hate poverty. I hate it. I hate, it’s like my individual war on that. I just, ugh. And so what happens is these small business owners, what happens is they don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re doing it fast. And they’re just good enough at the job that people applaud them. So people go, oh, look at the good coach. You’re a good coach. Thank you for what you do. And it’s just enough validation to keep going, but it’s not enough compensation for growing. That is so true. It’s like just not enough. It’s enough validation where you go, man, I’m gonna keep going, but it’s not the compensation there to keep growing. So you start running out of health. You start pulling all night on Tuesday. Well, you’re pulling all night on Wednesday. Well, you’ve got to be back to work on Thursday. So you’re pulling all night there. You’re pulling all night here. Then you start to run out of money because you’re like, well, I maxed out that card, maxed out that card, maxed out this card. Now my cards are maxed out. Now I’m going to get another job. And then you run out of time because you’re like, I can’t do it. Oh, geez, I’m running behind. And all of a sudden, the… And what I saw with this particular coach was his lessons were getting worse, he was getting more stressed, the practices were getting terrible, and he literally was in the death cycle. Wow. And what happened was he did not have any of the core tenets in place that you need to really build a successful company. Wow. And so that 29-point evaluation we just did, no one had done that with him, so he didn’t even know what he didn’t know. He didn’t know what he needed to get better at. I mean, it’s kind of like, if you’re the only man in the history of the world to experiment with air travel, like the Wright brothers were trying to do, there’s no one for you to look up to to show you how to fly. They’re looking at birds going, look at a bird fly. I mean, imagine being the Wright brothers. You’re trying to fly, right? And you’re looking to a bird for mentorship. You know, like, bird, what do you think we should do? Caw, caw! Bird, is that for you? Okay, bird, I’m going to do it. I’m going to put the bird on, okay? I mean, you’re like, I’m going to strap this wing on you, buddy, and you’re just going to jump off that cliff and it’ll be all good. I mean, that’s how they were trying to fly. A lot of entrepreneurs are trying to learn to fly without any type of manual or an operations manual or a blueprint. That’s what we provide. There’s a notable quote I want to read because it just absolutely blows my gourd. Clayton Christensen, he’s a guy who, he’s at Harvard Business School, he’s a professor, he says, he says, resources are what he uses to do it, processes are how he does it, and priorities are why he does it. He being the sexist world-read. Now let’s change it again here. Resources are what she… Hey, ladies, ladies night, every night here. She uses to do it, you know, and probably better than a man, actually. And processes are how she does it, because you know that ladies know what they’re doing. You know what I’m saying? Ladies, I mean, ladies, you know. And then priorities are why she does it, you know, because she doesn’t need it for… she doesn’t do it for a man. I’ll tell you what, you know, she’s just like, you know, she’s, uh, no, no scrubs, you know what I’m saying? No scrubs, you know, just she makes her own money. All I’m saying is you as an entrepreneur have to know the resources. We’re always trying to get a small business loan. Yeah, yeah. Trying to get business cards, trying to get a website. We’re trying to get all these things, these accoutrements, these, if I just had these things, I’d have these new cameras and this new website and this new, this new trinket, this new small business loan, a new office. Right, right, right, right. If I have all that, I’ll be successful. No, it’s not that. And if I have all these checklists, all these systems, if I just have a checklist, I’ll be successful. No. You have to know why you start with the priorities and know why you’re doing it. So that is the thing that is crazy because you know, my wife and I, I was in 2007, I had received the Oklahoma Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. We’ll put a picture of it on the screen so you can see it’s fabulous. And so you get this, I mean, you’re a business owner, your life sucks for a long, long time and then all of a sudden you get an award and you’re like, yeah, look at this. But all I’m saying is I got this award and I remember I was in this limo with a bunch of people who I didn’t know. It’s just stupid. It’s like you’re in the limo with a guy who’s like on the board of whatever the heck and someone who’s the chief representative from Who Gives a Crap and they’re all here from the state of Oklahoma to shake your hand and they’re like I look at I’m not kidding my wife looks at me and she says After you know this award ceremony When do you think I can schedule a time with you where you can see your kids? Oh wow? And I was like you know you You and your facts you go out there talking facts. You know let’s not focus on the facts. Let’s talk about my opinion Which is I am an idiot and I didn’t have my priorities at all documented So once I got my priorities down We talked and we realized that my son was born blind and I couldn’t be at his own freakin doctor’s appointments Because I was always busy. I would literally was booked for every single Saturday Wow Sure, remember that every single Saturday I DJed for like a decade. Every Friday, every Sunday, every holiday, and Thursday Thursdays at Crony’s Yucatan Liquor Stand. That’s what I did. I’m DJing all these crazy bars and clubs and weddings. I literally, one year, I was so happy. I DJ’d almost 300 events that year. I think I did like 270 or something. And my wife goes, you’re so proud of yourself doing 270 events, aren’t you? I’m like, absolutely. And she was like, don’t you think at some point it would be healthy to build a system so that you could spend time with the family? Listen, I will die! I literally told her, I will die DJing! I’ll be an 80 year old man going, alright ladies and gentlemen, who wants to do the cha-cha slide? Here’s a good one, here we go, let’s do the wobble. Wobble baby, wobble baby. And I just thought, I’m going to go out with fireworks and the whole world is going to cheer and I’m just going to be, Wubble, Wubble, America, this is how you do it. And my wife was going, babe, have you seen a 60 year old DJ? They’re just sad. Shereen and I were talking about the bad boy people, you got like Puff Daddy now, or P Diddy or Diddy. And you got Mace. And I don’t know who else is part of the bad boy crew, but you got the Taurus B.I.G.s. I think the Lox are probably still part of the deal. And they’re all like, Mariah, we on fire. And Mariah’s like barely able to sing. She’s got like a bum hip. P Diddy’s got some sort of like nasal hair growing in there. And all the bad boys getting old. I mean, it’s old boy now. Old boy records. And all I’m getting my wife is pointing out that that’s not where you want to go. And I realized, yeah, it’s a fine trade. So I’m saying as an entrepreneur, you really need to think through that. Break it down. Differentiate working in the business versus working on the business. I know that Michael Gerber has a great quote, and we have it here. We can read it if you want. But I think our thrivers need to know, well, how do you differentiate the two and bring balance to that. Well Michael Gerber wrote this awesome book which you should probably buy. Well, I hate to say this, but I do believe it. The world’s best business book is the book that we’ve written for you that’s part of your subscription. Yeah. And in my humble opinion, I mean that great business book, I put that on the shelf at my house next to my sales trophy that I bought myself to celebrate my humbleness. Do we have a picture of the trophy? I don’t know that we do. I’ve never seen it. When I sold the DJ business, Jason Bailey took it and he has it at the office. We need a picture. Dude, when we sold the business, there were so many stupid things I put in that agreement, like I get this couch, but I want this couch, and I want this and that, and then he added stuff like I want the trophy, and it got kind of litigious where we were just screwing around with each other where I’m like, and then I want all your, I want one night a week with your son to play video games or something stupid. So you put all these weird things in. But anyway, all I’m getting at is that Michael Gerber has this quote that he says, that most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneurial seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because you are working in your business rather than on your business. This is from his landmark book, which in my mind is the second best business book. There you go. There you go. Michael, it’s for you, number two. You’re always right there with me, buddy. But anyway, so he says that and what he’s talking about is what happens is entrepreneurs who get excited, we have that seizure of like, I have an idea. My idea, I came back from Oklahoma State University, I’m sitting on the couch, my wife goes, so why are you on the couch? And I said, because I dropped out of school. That crazy Clark Griswold, I mean, I kind of I’m very Clark Griswold. And so my wife goes, you what? I dropped out. I walked out, done, boom. Done, too. Career over. Done. Oh, yeah. I get kind of crazy. When I’m mad, I get kind of funny. And she was like, is that a wise decision? Oh, yeah. Wise. The wise man. The wise man. I’m drinking Sensor Mer the whole day. Yeah. And I’m not kidding. You have to ask her. You probably have to email and ask her. I’m pretty sure. She says that I laid on the couch for almost a day by myself. And I had a little bit of money saved, not a lot. I was working three jobs and I just basically just checked out. And I was like, I’m going to DJ full time. And I didn’t drink alcohol or anything. I just sat there in a serious comatose state in a dark room for, I’m not kidding, at least a day. And my wife’s like, are you coming out? Sure, yeah, absolutely, come out. You know, with a lot of weapons you know I mean, I just like I got a crazy Eye, you know and so I my wife was just so worried, but anyway Um I came out and I had a seizure and I started like I’m gonna build this DJ business be the best DJ business in The whole world because the DJ. I’m gonna get to be a world headquarters right here in Tulsa So I’m cold called every single. I’m not kidding every single business in the yellow pages I started a Wow you’re calling some weird crap in the a by the way you’re calling like the apothecary shop. We sell custom compounds. So do you guys want to DJ to celebrate your custom pharmaceuticals? No, we don’t think so. Okay, fine. Next call, next call. And I called the apartments. I ended up booking a really shady apartment complex where there are gunfights. No. No, true story. There’s one over there by ORU that you know I’m talking about. By the college I went to, Oral Roberts University. I booked that one. And I booked a nice one at the Vintage on Yale. I booked another one, and I said, here’s the deal. I will DJ your party for free, your pool party for free, for your residence, and if you like it you just pay me $100. That’s all I’m asking. And I figured if I get seven of those a week, I’m rocking. Well, the problem was I started booking them, bro. So seven days a week I’m at pool parties. Like you know how depressing that is, at apartment pool parties? You’ve got a lady and a dude, you’ve got a dude who just should never be naked? Yes. You know where it’s like, well God’s looking down and going, I don’t approve. You might not get to heaven for this. And he’s like, what God? Put some clothes on. What? So that’s how it is. And you’re at these pool parties DJing, and then you go to these ones where there’s like, you know, rednecks who are yelling at their kids. It’s just a weird, weird vibe. Apartment pool parties are just, hey Randy, get on the pool. Put your coat on. Put some, well forget it, just hop in naked. You know, that’s just how it is And then I booked the holiday in select and I got the deal for the holiday and select by being an entrepreneur with a seizure I got the holiday and select deal and you know how many days a week they asked me to DJ tell me Seven you’re gonna go for that Seven how many dollars I got a week for that sweet gig tell me Patrick cross you booked it You know you did you Wow he’s probably what an idiot. $700. And I wrote into the contract, I was so smart, I get free lobster. So I’m eating lobster tail like it is… I probably have caused the endangered… the lobster to become an endangered species. My wife would come by, babe, are you coming home? Yeah, at midnight. Every night. And I was DJing for the impersonators who are from the Las Vegas impersonator thing. So every night I’m opening up for a guy who thinks he’s Neil Diamond. And he’s up there, I am, I said, I am, said I. And he’s just, you know, what’s that song? If I come into America today. And he used to yell at me in between sets, Clay, when I say today, you have to say today, yeah. Because when you do it, the crowd sings. And I’m like, are you freaking kidding me? And I’m like, so I would refer to him by his first name, which was like John or something. I was like, hey, Johnny is Neil. You will refer to me as Neil. And he was like in character, freaking me out. Anyway, what I’m saying is that was an entrepreneurship seizure. Working on the business, though, was when I decided, I remember this guy named Josh, he wanted to learn to DJ. And I double booked myself, which is a cardinal sin in the DJ world. You do not do that, but I did, a lot. So they’re like, is there any way you could DJ at my friend’s wedding? Yeah, absolutely. When is it? Saturday. Sure. I think it was actually Shark’s wedding, probably I did, because she had her wedding at the Scottish Rite, where they sacrifice animals. Were they in there? Oh my gosh. I’m just messing. If you’re in the Scottish Rite, you know that people think you do that. I’m not saying you do that. You probably don’t sacrifice anything but goats. I’m just kidding. You probably don’t do that. But I’m at the Scottish Rite, DJing there. You know, come on. You know it’s funny because people think I’m just, that was a comedian to be funny, but because I’m a business guy, I was like, it’s not funny. Don’t they blow their balloons and make animal balloons? Absolutely, that’s what they’re doing. They have the secrets to the universe. They are, they own Chase credit cards, basically. So I’m there, and I remember Shark’s party was in October, it was October, maybe, October 11th? Yes! And she was like, this all like reggaeton music, and O’Neal’s wanting us to play like Wayne Wonder and all this fun. It was fun. And I remember I had to be at the Holiday Inn that night, so I had to teach Josh how to do it. I talked to Patrick a month in advance. I said, Patrick, I have a new guy. He’s going to run it for me one night because of my friend’s getting married. I want to be at her wedding. And Josh was like, well, how do you turn on the system? And I’m like, well, you flip this switch, you hit this button, you do this, it’s no big deal. And then, by the way, you want to play some songs that fit together. Like Brick House goes great after you play that funky music. And by the way, Billie Jean beat matches perfectly with Rapper’s Delight. And Josh is like, I have no idea what you just said. And I’m going, okay, well let me write it down. So I’m writing it down in entrepreneur writing. By the way, entrepreneurs, we all write in like a hieroglyphics, meet Spanish and Mandarin. Hieroglyphics. Like a good timeshare salesman. What you do is you bam, bam, boom, and I give them this thing that looks like this. And I give it to them, I’m like, this is how you DJ right here. You just put passion in the middle. And over here, this stands for systems, and this is R&B. Energy, energy, energy. Yeah. And so anyway, all I’m saying is I didn’t have a system. Over time, I had to literally write out every single song to play in a row. Wow. And I had to take a picture of the levels back when you had to get the one hour photo. You remember that, dude? Yes. You couldn’t have digital camera. We didn’t have a camera on our phone. If you have a camera on your phone, you’re a genius because we didn’t have that technology. And so I had to do all that. I had to tape Polaroid pictures of the equipment and all the equipment. I had to build a system. But the system allowed me to do what? Half-time freedom for the first time in my life. And I remember I was at their wedding, and, oh, Neil, you guys had some sort of like, did you have some sort of peach bellinis or something? Am I making that up? Yes, these had some kind of beverage. It was great. And they’re all Jamaicans, these Jamaican people. And I remember the, whatever, they were like, yeah, man, you want a couple, you know, I don’t know how they talk. I can’t do it. But it’s these Jamaican people. And they would come out and be like, hey, you want to dance? You want to have some music? You want to have some food? You want to have some Jamaican chicken, I think it was? Oh, so good. That’s so good. Yeah, and so I’m just like in euphoria, and I realized, I could make a profit at the Holiday Inn without being there. And then in my inner dialogue, I was going, I’m never going back. So the next time I saw Neil Diamond, I just, I’ll tell you what, I didn’t want to go back. So I built a system working on the business, not in it. That’s what Michael Gerber says. He says, most entrepreneurs are merely technicians with an entrepreneur’s seizure. Most entrepreneurs fail because they’re working in the business rather than on your business. Michael, thank you for writing the second best book in the world. There we go. I agree with you. Talk to me about the pledge that every entrepreneur, business owner should say. Let’s read it. If you’re watching this right now and you’re alone, you’re with a group of people, unless you’re like in the subway, I know we have a lot of New Yorkers, we have a lot of ladies in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, where you at? New York, right here. This is like my Brooklyn sound effect. My dad was born in New York. This is my Brooklyn, this is where… ♪ Dritty, dritty, dritty, dritty, dritty, dritty, dritty ♪ That’s what Brooklyn, the founding location of hip hop. But here’s the deal, if you’re in the subway, just kind of look ahead. Don’t say anything. You could probably get slapped. But here’s what you want to read. I, so I, state your name, you know, I, so Clay, I. Jose Miranda. Yep. Believe that although my business does have unique variables and specialized aspects, I know that the similarities of successful businesses greatly outweigh their differences. I realize that saying yes, but my type of business is very different is not helpful and is a limiting belief. You’ve got to say that because if you’re running around going… Sign and date it too. You got to sign it and date it and it’s in your book. We’re going to send it to you. But if you don’t, I mean, you’re just running around just… I just hate to use it, but the word jackass mixed with that is called jackassery. You are suffering from a deep case of jackassery if you believe, well, yeah, but my business, we do insulation. One lady I talked to, she goes, I’m going to change her industry because otherwise she’ll know who she is. But she was like, my industry is so different. It was to say it was in the world of raising horses. And so I said, so you’re saying that it’s harder to teach someone to raise a horse than it is to become a neurologist. Because I work with neurologists. I work with aviation businesses. You’re saying it’s harder to make a fuselage or harder to train a horse than it is to make a fuselage of an airplane. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know what we do at that point. Anything that’s worth doing in the world of business is scalable and duplicatable. If it’s not, it’s called a hobby. And a hobby is something you should not do during the day, otherwise your wife will be mad at you. Go get a job and then do the hobby. You’re like, I love making replica Civil War figurine stage set. Honey, you need to come inside. No, this isn’t my job. No, you’re just somebody who wants to be professionally unemployed and you’re going to call yourself an entrepreneur so people don’t make fun of you. Get back in here. Quit making your Civil War reenactment little figurines and you’re painting them all night. Look here, this is Colonel Sanders. He wasn’t in the Civil War. It doesn’t matter, honey. It’s just a replica. I mean, just get inside, come inside, quit doing the hobby, go start a business. There you go. There you go. Very humorous. I love the entertainment here. So Thrivers, that’s how we can decrease your business reliance upon yourself, actually. If you have any questions, never hesitate to send us an email at info at thrive15.com. Feel free to press the button in the bottom right hand of your screen that says, ask us any questions or any business advice. It’s a purple little emblem there, logo on the bottom. Feel free to do that. As always, come here for a workshop. It’s included in your membership. We’re not going to upsell you, upscale you on anything other than just coach you to success. Remember, we are here for you. Until next time, Clay, thanks again. Yeah, absolutely. And for all of our German subscribers, I’ve got something here for you. There you go. All right, see ya. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s T-Bo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. 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, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some real estate sort of things. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business, and he’s built over $100 million net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks, I don’t get this wrong because if I get it wrong, someone’s gonna say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine, he’s gonna be coming. He said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times best-selling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow 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? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket, or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it, and I’m 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, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It says Tulsa Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Russel. I’m 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. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You! You’re gonna come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com and again you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours a business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russelaum. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com Hello I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners 34 Grammy Award winners 43 New York Times bestsellers I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of L.A., come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Pruitt Hill, Rico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com. James, one more time, one more time. Thrivetimeshow.com. Because it can get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. I mean, 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 gonna leave energized Motivated but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I’ve 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 built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today, and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop All you got to do is go to thrive timeshow.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 in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does not what they say whoa Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. I have a special guest today. The definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing, but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who 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 Thorne, 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 then I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah, that’s that’s the greatest thrill for me today not a thrill but Recognition is when people young men, especially come up and say I read your book changing my life. I’m doing this I’m doing this I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa nonverba Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using, and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. So having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super. It’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. In the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals, and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group Inuses completely eliminates that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It’s real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the touches for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. you