Clay Clark | Franchising | How Did OXIFresh.com Grow from 1 Location to 500 + Locations? What Does It Take to Become a Successful OXI Fresh Franchise Owner? Special Interview with the Founder of OXIFresh.com, Jonathan Barnett

Audio Transcription

I think the awesome thing about being part of the Oxyfresh brand is just the camaraderie between the franchisee and the franchisor. It’s just awesome when we get together at the conferences, everybody learns, it’s a lot of fun, and it’s just a great group of people to work with. I feel like the brand transcends just carpet cleaning, but it also gives us a team and really a family to work within so we can all better our lives. I get to basically build a team of people that I can call friends and work with together. And not only that, I think it’s the community with the other franchises and home office. I think my favorite part definitely has got to be the fact that it’s just a bunch of great people that understand something and they want everyone to have success. The brand actually works. The product works. It’s such a strong cleaning system. I feel good about coming into customers’ homes and telling them, if I can’t get your house clean, nobody’s going to be able to get it clean because we’ve got the best in the business. It’s easy to be proud of that and it’s easy to move forward with that. JT, on today’s show, we’re going to interview somebody who, let me just introduce this person properly. You know, JT, when you do a speaking event or a podcast, if someone introduces you the wrong way, people won’t pay attention. Yeah. So let me just tee it up right here. This guy is somewhere between 5 foot 4 and maybe 6 feet tall-ish. He led the state of Colorado in scoring during his high school career. He almost averaged almost 30 points a game, despite the fact that he’s somewhere between 5 foot 4 and 6 feet tall. We’ll talk about that. Also, you talk about the amateur hour, JT. You bring up the amateur. This guy, he’s part of Oxifresh and he’s only helped to onboard 500 locations. So it’s kind of like he represents the amateur hour. I remember my first day of franchising. It’s exactly. It’s not like he’s introduced 700 locations to the OxyPression Opportunity. So he’s somewhere between 5 foot 4, 6 feet tall, and he is really an expert from an amateur perspective on franchising. Matt Klein, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I am good. What an intro. Yeah, hey, real quick. The room you’re in now appears to have a 9 foot tall ceiling. I How tall are you? Seriously. About 5’11”. I’m not 6’0″. And you led Colorado in scoring in high school? For the majority of the year, I was about, for the year, I was like 29 points a game. That is so sick. Do you have bird flu, Matt? What’s that? Do you have bird flu? Is that what it is? You’re sick! H1N1, baby? Swine flu? Yeah, that was my nickname, old bird flu client. Okay, all right, now seriously now, this is some serious stuff here, okay? You know, obviously you’re an amateur professional franchiser. You’ve got OxyFresh. How many locations have you guys opened up over the years? Yeah, we’re over 500 now, which puts us in a totally different realm of franchise. Hey guys, what’s happening over here? Oh, John Barnett, that guy. You just let anybody in the show. John, I was telling Matt, I was thanking him for standing up for today’s show. You know what I mean? I was trying to speculate whether he was four feet tall or six feet tall. And by standing up- I’m an eight foot six. I just had a growth spurt. Nice, nice. How are you, man? I’m doing pretty good, man. We’re just knocking some stuff out. Some good stuff’s happening. It’s technology-based, so that’s pretty good. But yeah, I’m gonna get Joel for jumping in here, so sorry. You got him, you got him. Real quick, how many locations exist, territories for Oxifresh right now? It depends if it’s in five minutes or like five minutes ago. How many of you awarded approximately, is it more than three? We’ve awarded more than three franchises. Give me a number. More than 500. Over 500, okay. Let’s keep going. This is rare that you’re both in the same room. Let me keep going here. So there’s a lot of people that they wanna buy a franchise, but then when they buy it, they go, oh crap, when I get back to my city, I get back to Missouri, I get back to Florida, I don’t know what I’m going to do. How detailed is the onboarding checklist there, Barnett, for somebody who buys a franchise? How detailed is that onboarding process? I mean, it’s super detailed. We try to make it, first of all, you’ve got to take things that are very complicated and then you simplify them. And then we always say people do what you inspect, not what you expect. So we gotta simplify it. Some people can handle more information at once than others. But at the end of the day, it’s all the way down to everything that you can think of, insurance, credit card processing, training videos, how to train your techs. I mean, it’s simple. So some people that are fast-paced, some people are slow-paced, but we have onboarding checklists. And we have certain KPIs that if a franchisee is not on pace on any one of these things, then it triggers automatically someone else in our office to jump in and say, hey, why aren’t you getting that, this thing? But they also call our onboarding coach and say why is he needing this thing? So it’s accountability from training side as well as franchisee side, cuz it could be the trainer that’s not doing their job, or it could be the franchisee not doing their job. So they both know that if they don’t hit this KPI measurable, not an opinion, but something that’s measurable, then they’re gonna get a phone call from someone in our office. And this guy that’s in our office that does that calls, he’s likeable, but he’s very motivational and he talks a lot. So you don’t want to do too many calls with this guy, he will just talk, talk, talk. So. It’s rare that we see you on this broadcast, so let me continue for a second here. So how granular is it? Because I think some people think about the big idea of owning a business, maybe it’s their first time owning a business, and maybe they’re a firefighter, they’re a doctor, they’re a lawyer, and this is gonna be a business that they own, but they don’t necessarily go out there and clean the carpets on a daily basis. They don’t actually go out there and do the work. How detailed is it? Because you hear nightmare stories of people buying a franchise where it’s just a big idea and there’s not a lot of detail. How detailed do you guys get? We get OCD out on the details. But yeah, it’s really a vehicle that helps a franchisee, a person achieve their dreams and goals. Believe it or not, I had a guy in our office last week that signed up in 2007. He’s still a franchisee. He still does the jobs himself, but he’s seeing that he can’t do more revenue than he did last year, and he’s at that point where he’s gotta make a change. And he just has a hard time letting go to grow because he has a perfect customer satisfaction score. It’s 100%. It’s 100%. And I’m like, is your goal to have a hundred percent customer satisfaction score or to be going vacation with your friends your family and have three guys out there maybe ninety percent satisfaction score and make more money so it’s a different mindset but it’s also some people are happier they like making a customer feel good and and being coming back every year to do that and there’s some people that they’ve never like my here he doesn’t I don’t know how many carpets you’ve actually cleaned. Zero. Zero, and how many jobs did you do last month? Almost 300. So he had 300 carpets cleaned last month and he’s never cleaned a carpet. And so there’s people like Matt and there’s people that aren’t. So it fits both, it fits both. But marketing, as you guys know, has changed so much from 2006 when yellow pages was the way to make the phone ring. And we call that push marketing, newspaper, radio push marketing. And we’re more of a company that is pull marketing. We rank when people need the service. We’re just now getting into brand awareness, top level marketing down, creating brand awareness, and we’re gonna be doing some stuff connected to TV. So if you’re in your home and you search, I just filled my coffee in my carpet, and you search that, your IP address is connected to that search. So then our vendor that we’re using will make a streamed video play. Let’s say you’re watching Paramount, you’re watching some show on Paramount. It’s gonna show a 30 second ad of carpet cleaning because you just searched, I spelled my carpet, and it knows that. So instead of spending marketing on the whole area of Tulsa or Denver, it’s literally gonna hit advertisement specifically through this newer technology. And that’s brand awareness. So then they’re gonna search OxyFresh. So then, now you gotta know, pay-per-click’s gonna get you credit, but it really came from the Connected TV ad, which really came from the searching. So it all ties together, and you just gotta have to, on the backside, all we gotta do is tell the franchisees, you don’t have to understand all that stuff. Here’s our vendor to use. Just like you might not be able to build a TV, but you can turn the remote on. So we’re gonna give them lots of remotes to turn on and off, and then track the ROI. Now, JT, this is a rare occurrence that we have John Barnett in the same room with Matt Klein here. So what four or five questions do you have for JB about onboarding a new location? Yeah, I mean, one of my questions is how much of your training is in-person, like the training versus, they’re like watching videos. Like how much of it is hands on versus watching videos? So we like to, that’s a great question. There’s always, you know, having 500 franchisees, you realize some people, you email them, but we can see if they’ve opened it, right, because the software we’re using, a lot of them don’t. You text them, some people open the text, some people don’t. You send them videos, we can see if they watch them or if they don’t. We do webinars, some people get on those, some people don’t. So everybody’s different. So you’ve really got, at this size and scale, we have to communicate probably five different ways, even though we’re saying the same thing, because everyone learns differently. Some people want the phone call, some people want the screen share, some people want to watch the video on their own because they don’t want to have to talk to you, they want to learn on their own. So we’re just hitting it all different ways and then creating measurables to see, okay, this person didn’t read the email, this person didn’t watch the video, so we’re going to need to call them, this, you know, stuff like that. So it’s really not a one-size-fits-all, you just have to, but you have to be able to track and measure all of it and so we try to track and measure it if if if these things are happening then that happens so that isn’t happening then we go backwards and figure out where is the hole in the bucket. JT back to you we have time for three more questions. Yeah I mean that was my it kind of answered my next question is after that so after that initial training that on-boarding process my first question is one, how long does that typically take to get somebody completely trained? So a guy flies to Denver for training, franchisee, guy wants to buy one right now, how long is he gonna have to train with you guys? Yeah, before he’s then out, doing it on his own, hiring people or training or cleaning carpets. So I think the number one thing is you’re never done training, you’re never done learning. So if someone comes out here and they think they learned it all, then they have the wrong mindset. So we just try to, when they come out here, we love to know that we’re a company that embraces change. So whatever you learn this week, a year from now there’s gonna be new stuff. So when you get the emails, you get the texts, you get the videos, you can watch them, right? So, and that’s hard because once you feel like you learned how to do something, people do not like to change. Like they get in a routine, they feel like they got it, but marketing is changing so much and we have to evolve with it. So I would say when they come in for training, we do as much as we can in person, it’s gonna be a little bit overload, drink from fire hose for a bit. Matt does an amazing job training before they got here. But then after that, we just break it down according to that franchisee’s personality, their tech skills, and we just, how fast, how do you know if it one bite at a time? Depending on that person’s stomach, how big their stomach is, we just do it. And I like to CFU them a lot. So after we communicate with them, then instead of just thinking they got it, you CFU them, and that’s check for understanding. Then you ask and repeat it back to you, check for understanding and see what they say, and you’ll be surprised the answers they give back to you. A lot of times, you realize they really weren’t interested the whole time you were talking to them. And you mentioned something there, you said training before they get to you. What does that look like? Are you just on phone training, you’re just getting them prepared? Well, we’re pretty transparent. Like we, we train them all the way through here and even before they buy, we train them up. We believe our partners, people aren’t gonna be able to duplicate all this technology and all the things we do, whether from answering a phone to our SEO, to the digital marketing we do, to the cleaning system. It all works together. That’s why being part of a franchise system is so valuable. It’s you get the franchisees out there, we have amazing ones that have great ideas, bring them to us. We’re learning from them just as much as they’re learning from us. And so we’re in this together, it’s a great relationship. And that’s why franchise brands, if it’s set up correctly, can really, it’s a great way to grow a business. So yeah, they’re gonna come out, they’re gonna learn, and then from that, we’re gonna get to know them on a personal level. And then we’re gonna set up a coaching plan. It’s usually around 17 weeks, an onboarding plan. And then if they’re not hitting their numbers, you can go longer. And then we have reports we can pull to see if a franchisee’s below average on certain things. And then we follow up with them and reach out to them. We say, you gotta push, pull, and drag someone to success. So you don’t just give them information and let them go. You got to push them, you got to pull them, and you got to drag them to success. And this is scary for a lot of people. They’re new owners. Some of them have a, it’s a big investment. It’s not just selling a car, it’s selling a lifestyle. So they need someone to push, pull, and drag them. Sometimes they got a vent, and sometimes their expectations are a little bit different than they should be and because anyone that buys a franchise thinks they’re going to be the best. But what does it take to be successful? Whatever it takes and not everyone has that self-discipline when you’re your own boss now that they own their own business. It’s up to them to get up in the morning. If they don’t have jobs on the schedule are they going to watch TV or are they going to go try to make something happen? So we really have to, there’s you know, we just, it’s consistent training. It’s never ending. And then, but at the end of the day, it’s their business. So. Now, Matt, final 30 seconds here. We have people out there that want to fill out the form. They want to learn more about buying an OxiFresh. They’re going to thrive timeshow.com forward slash OxiFresh. What percentage of people are needing some kind of financing? What percentage of franchisees tend to bring, need some kind of financing? And then how much does it cost to buy an Oxifresh franchise? Yeah, so about 70% of everyone we got going through gets some form of financing, whether it’s a HELOC, an SBA loan, right, like 401k rollovers, those are all popular. So we have vendors that we work with that will give a lot of options, explain what type of funding you’re going through and the, you know, the types that you can actually make full or partial loans. So we have all that underneath the veil of Oxifresh in regards to the process that we would go through. That will all be in the introductory to Oxifresh, how you get the business, all that. Part of the initial discovery is going through the funding, right? Like you’re going to want to have 47,000 upfront to become a franchise. That includes your equipment, your product, your territory. It’ll include the seven-year agreement plus the training in Colorado, right? We’re going to ask that you have at least about 25K in operating capital to allow you to have a budget that will allow you to pay for things like insurance when you’re actually operating, like your payroll for your employees, like your vehicle costs, like gas and miscellaneous expenses. So, we just happen to have a high investment opportunity in terms of technology and marketing and infrastructure and all of those things. Matt, we appreciate you for standing up for today’s interview. John Barnett, thank you so much for joining us and we’ll talk to you guys next week. Nice to meet you guys. Bye guys. Bye bye. Zee, on today’s show, we are interviewing the founder and the CEO of Oxifresh Carpet Cleaning Franchises. Now my friend, on today’s show we’re interviewing the guy whose business has 151,000 Google reviews. Wow! 396 locations. Wow! What could we possibly learn from this man, Tim? Ouch! A lot. When we come back, going green, can your small business profit by turning eco-friendly. We’re going to talk with the CEO of one business who says it is working for him. That is the head on Fox Business giving you the power to prosper. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. What this show does, two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Timeshow. Now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Guests, guests, guests, and Dr. Z, guess who is today’s guest? I am… it’s fresh. It’s hot and fresh. It’s hot and it’s fresh. It’s America’s… It’s the founder of America’s greenest carpet cleaning company. It is none other than my brother from another mother, Mr. Jonathan Barnett. Welcome on to the show, sir. How are you? I’m fantastic, Clay. How are you doing, brother? You doing good down there? We are psychologically and emotionally prepared for this interview. And we’re just going to ask you a ton of tough questions. Z, we’re going to paint him into a corner with hot blood. Hard hitting. All right, so Jonathan, people who’ve Googled you know that you’ve had some tremendous success throughout your career. So I want to start by asking you about the bottom and the fireworks stand that started it all. How did you start Oxifresh? You know, that’s a great question. And I get to tell the story quite a bit nowadays. But when you look back at it, sometimes you don’t appreciate the story, your stories of the hard times you’ve gone through or your beginning. So I think all of us have that. And if you don’t have that out there, that’s why you’re listening to this show right now. So in the very beginning, before I started a carb cleaning company that was nationwide with 150,000 reviews on the web, there was very humble beginnings. And I grew up with a single mom that always taught me to work hard in school, work hard in sports, get a good job, this and that. And we grew up without a lot of money, but I saw how hard she worked. So my grandpa, my dad’s side of the family, gave all of his grandkids, and he has a lot of them, most of them I’ve never met, $10,000 for Christmas. So I was reading this book in my dorm room at Oral Roberts University in Clayton. We both went to school there. We didn’t know each other that much then, but we knew who each other were. I know you’re an entrepreneur at school as well. I think it’s kind of how we knew each other, really. Basically, reading that book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, it talks about this guy that had two dads, a stepdad and a real dad. One dad always encouraged him to go get a job, get a good education, go get a good job, and keep it safe. And then the other dad was creating jobs for other people, a little more risky, right? But, and he watched his dads grow as they got older. And the safe dad, the dad with the education and go to a good job, he did well at the beginning. But over time, the other dad blew him away. And so when I was driving down the road after reading this book with this check in my hand and I saw out there in Tulsa, which is kind of cool that you’re there, but I’m in Denver now, but I saw this fireworks stand and, you know, it was wintertime, but I saw it and I was like, how hard is that? Like if someone else can do it, why can’t I do it? So I started looking up fireworks where to buy them in, who’s selling them in different states, this and that. So I invested that money I had, the 10,000. I bought two or three grand worth of fireworks, drove over to Kansas, bought wholesale fireworks, drove them back, and had to build a stand that me and my buddy, we slept up for two weeks in the summertime. And that two or three grand worth of fireworks, we turned into 20 grand in sales. Now there’s other expenses we had. So I don’t want to get into all the details of this fireworks story, but what is the fireworks story? Let’s talk about how tall the fireworks stand was. Yeah. How deep was it and how tall? Approximately, we have a few more detailed questions about this fireworks stand. How big was it? Because you were sleeping there, right? Well, so here’s the thing. I had a pop-up camper I was sleeping in. Okay. And had a mobile mini that I put the fireworks in so the people wouldn’t steal them at night. But the fireworks stand was actually eight foot, it was eight foot by four foot planks, I think, or six by whatever. There was two of them, so 16 foot long, me and my buddy built it. We were so proud of it. We named it College Fund Fireworks. We put it right next to the big guys. And people would stop by and say, hey, I wanna buy from you. I don’t wanna buy from the big guys, I wanna support the college kids. We were like, perfect. So I loved it. But the problem was that I had to jump in the hotel across the street every night to take my shower because I had to sleep outside. I traded in town, I traded fireworks for food. My market for fireworks was four or five to one, so every time I traded someone five dollars for fireworks, it cost me a dollar. See, I want to marinate on that idea for just a second, that he could buy fireworks and then sell them for four or five times more than he paid for them. Wait a second, wait a second, time out, time out. Is that ethical? Well, I would like to get into the ethics of this with you because this is a question that I think somebody out there is asking. So in the optometry clinic, in the optometry game, in the jewelry game, in the auto auction game, and in the banking game, these are all different industries that we know about. I’ve coached in different businesses and you’ve owned them. So let’s talk about jewelry. Why in the jewelry industry is the markup so much higher than it would be in other industries? Some industries have more markups than others. I think it’s a pleasure item. It’s also, you know, it has a distinct feel to it. I mean, when you’re buying jewelry, what are you really buying? You’re buying love. You’re buying… Think about that. That right there is a deep thought for somebody. Is that a deep thought? Well, I mean, if I wasn’t married to Vanessa, there’s no way I’d ever buy a diamond. Well, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know. Back in the day, back in the day, when you had your little split earrings in, back when you… I had hoops. That’s right. You were in hoops. I had hoops. I used to have holes in my ears. They won’t go away. Oh, you need to tag a picture of you back at your prime on the show, on show notes. Maybe you’ll stand up and do that. That’d be kind of fun. Because I think the Thrive Nation would really like to see the old Clay Clark. Here’s what I’ll do. Before you and I leave today’s recording session, we will do a show about the old… I’ve got some really good audio files that I think you would love. Oh, perfect. But I think that jewelry is one of those that it’s a… And I think also, too, by marking it up a lot, it gives them a lot of opportunities for discounts. And so a lot of times you can say, you know, half off price, which means I’m not going to rip your head off completely, just partly. So I’m not going to ask you for the specific margins you have on your specific items, but let’s go with like the auto auction. In that industry, there’s no way you could have a four and five time markup on a car at an auto auction, could you? Well, the thing about an auto auction is I don’t actually sell the car, I just do the service. So let’s look at an auto dealership, for instance. Their markups are much less. Now, in a used car, if bought correctly, sometimes they can buy a car for $10,000 to $15,000 range, let’s say, and they can add up $3,000, $4,000, maybe even $5,000 on top of that. So let’s say that somebody goes to your auto auction who’s a used car dealer, and they truck I’m picturing f-250 mm-hmm and it’s got about 50,000 miles on it okay and they buy that thing I don’t even know what that would cost me let’s just say it was like 25,000 bucks okay 25,000 you’re saying that somebody could then the used car dealer could take that vehicle back clean it up detail it out and maybe mark it up $5,000 yeah they probably mark it at $29.99 or something put it on their lot I would imagine and then hopefully try to get you know $28,000 $29,000 maybe out of it because everybody comes in to buy a car knowing you’re going to do a little dealing, wheeling and dealing on it, right? Now what’s interesting is this, when you talk about the auto industry, is that the guys that do the buy here, sell here, they mark theirs up a lot more. Really? A lot. Really? Because they have a very unique clientele that can’t get financing conventionally. And so it’s like the poorer you are, the worse you get beat up financially. It’s interesting. It’s very interesting because you think about different industries. I see so many people I’ve met at workshops who are contractors. I’ll think of a good example of a contractor that I’m a big fan of is our pool guy right now. Yeah, he’s doing a great job. Doing an awesome job. Our pool guy, he didn’t apologize for the profit. He says, this is what it’s going to cost for labor and materials, and this is how much I add on as my profit. He didn’t apologize for it. He didn’t feel bad. He was transparent. That’s unusual. And he did not feel bad about it. So unusual to be transparent. That’s not normal. It’s not. But every other pool guy was kind of, not every, there was a couple, I think five or six people we were talking to, but there was like three of them that were just squirrely. They wouldn’t show you what they were spending on materials. They couldn’t give you a hard cost. I would just say that you don’t need… I think there’s more entrepreneurs out there than not who are really underpaying themselves and not marking up their products and services enough to achieve their goals. I think for every five that are gouging somebody with too high of prices, I would say there’s 50 who are underpaying themselves. It’s a shame, and that’s why in my soon-to-be-released book, Business Pig, Big Pig eats first at the trough. You’ve got to pay yourself. If you’re not able to pay yourself enough money to live, you’re not charging enough. If you can’t charge enough, in other words, if you say to yourself, I can’t charge that, well try it. You may lose a few customers, but overall, you know like when you went up on your DJ, when you went from like $600 to $650, some crazy move, you lose a few, right? Yeah, I know that with the DJ business, I was doing my first shows for $225, $225, $250, very, very low. What a bargain they got. I had this mental block, though, thinking I’ll lose all my customers, all of them. And you’re all going to start talking. If I raise my prices to $500, I’m going to lose all of them. And I stayed there at that poverty line for a couple years, just refusing to raise the price, thinking I would lose all my customers. Right. It’s a shame. Yeah, and I think a lot of people stay there. Why do people stay at that level where they’re underpaying themselves? Why do they do it? I don’t know. I think a lot of people just don’t understand all the costs that go into running a business. So they have just a simple mindset of, okay, I already own my speakers, I’ve got gas in the van, I’ve got a payment on the van. You don’t realize all the small stuff that goes into the taxes and the cable company and the phone bills. We think about your optometry clinic, the one by the mall there, Wilder Hills Mall. That piece of land is a million dollar piece of real estate right there. Probably now when I bought it 26, 27 years ago I bought it for guess how much I bought it for? How much did you buy for? Take a guess. Well right now we are based on the volume of the construction outside based upon the weather conditions based upon these things I would say a quarter of an acre right next to the mall. The pad side out in front of the mall. You had to have bought it for $200,000. It was $300,000, and I actually paid $310,000 for it. That’s a great story. $310,000. Yes. And today it’s got to be worth at least $2-3 million. Well, with the building on it, yes, of course. I think last time I had a price it was about $1.5. $1.5? Yeah. And then you’ve got to pay taxes on that thing. Oh, yeah. Oh, ho, ho, ho. But you’re aware of it, and you… So therefore, when you’re charging someone for the glasses, you’re not just charging for the glasses, you’re charging them for the insurance, you’re charging them for the real estate, you’re charging them for electricity. So what you’re going to do, I want to make this actionable for all the listeners out there, what I want you to do is I want you to get out a sheet of paper or maybe a spreadsheet and I want you to add in every single cost last month that you’re going to get next month. Every fixed cost, add them all up. Add up every single cost. Add them all up. Now, on the next column, I want you to add up all of your variable costs. That’s like the cost of doing business, the goods. The goods. The glasses that you buy that you have to resale, that kind of thing. Add all those up. Get to a total between the fixed and the variable expenses. And whatever that number is, add 20% on top of that, and that’s about the profit margin you should be making minimum. I would go a little higher. You want to end up with 20 and there’s always that uh-oh for the month. I mean that’s the minimum though. Right, that’s the minimum. I would probably start with 30 and hopefully you can end up with 25 in your pocket. Can we talk about rushing to the bottom for a second? Rushing to the bottom. It’s almost like we’re… I thought you were going to say rushing to the bottom. I go… The hunt for red October? I want to talk about this. There are a lot of business owners that want to bottom feed and be the carp of that industry. They’re rushing to the bottom. The cheapest price, the cheapest service, the cheapest employees, cheap, cheap, cheap. Now, if you have that mindset that you want to be the Walmart of your industry, what pretty much always ends up happening unless you’re Walmart? You have not a very good business. And you can’t pay really good people? You can’t pay really good people. And you can’t use good products? And you can’t use good products. And you can’t use good products. And you can’t use, you can’t do good advertising. You, forget that. And you end up living in a van down by the river. Ta-da! Now what kind of a profit margin do you think somebody should have if they have a restaurant? If you, if you were coaching a business owner who has a restaurant out there listening today, and they have a very, very nice food, right? And you sit down with them and you discover they have a really crappy decor, crappy location, but great food. So you convince them to move to a new location, new menus, new decor, new ambience, new. The food is good though. What kind of a margin would you sit down, if you had a buddy of yours who has a restaurant, would you say, buddy, we’ve got to be at least a 30% or a 10%? How would you advise someone to do that? I would shoot any business out there listening, listen up. Any business out there listening, unless you’re some unique, nobody else is doing it, you invent the widget that is unbelievable. Unless you’re hand-making axes out of recycled grass. Nobody else can make. Right, out of plutonium. Right. Is that a thing? I don’t even know. It could be. I would tell everybody to shoot for that. Shoot for 30% markup and then try to get 20, 25% of your gross sales in your pocket. Now, sometimes, the busier you are, sometimes you can give up a little bit of that percentage. Sometimes it’s not about the percentage, it’s about how much you’re making, too. Some larger companies, in other words, like a Walmart, they don’t try to make 20% of their gross sales. No, they don’t. They can’t. They can’t. But they do so much volume that they can make 4% and 5%. What about people who lose money and then try to make up for it? People who lose money per transaction who try to make up for it with volume. They lose money per transaction. Forbes has a column for these people. Forbes actually has how to find these people for us. Forbes is our business bible for those of you who don’t know. We comment on it a lot because we like, for our stuff to be fact checked. We like to go to reliable sources like the Google and the Forbes. It’s called Forbes, but if you want to mispronounce it at home, you could say F. Orbs. You could. You could. Okay, back to you. They have a category for that, and that falls into their 80 to 90% category of failed businesses. They call it the FB, the failed business. Now let’s talk about this. We’ll get back to the interview in just a second. Let’s talk about this. Oxifresh has a great billing system, accounting system. They’ve thought through all the systems, okay? Right. But there’s a lot of independent carpet guys that are out there that are willing to invoice people. I know this because I’ve met them. And they’ll say, hey, I’m having a cash flow problem. And I’ll say, what kind of problem do you have? They’ll say, well, I cleaned Clay’s carpet. I cleaned Dr. Z’s carpet. I cleaned the carpets. I’m cleaning carpets. I’ve cleaned a record number of carpets. How many carpets are you cleaning? They’ll say, well, I’m cleaning a lot more than before because of your coaching and the mentorship. I’m getting two times as many carpets cleaned as before. I’m going, that’s good. They say, no, no, it’s bad. I said, how is it bad? They said, well, what’s going on? I have been invoicing my clients and they haven’t paid me yet. And now I would say, I would submit to the business center, I would say, don’t invoice for carpet, nor should the grocery store say, Dr. Z, do you want these avocados, these seven avocados and this almond milk? Great. Here’s an invoice. Pay us in the next 30 days. Yeah, we’ll bill you. Remember back in the good old days when they had the hardwood store? They threw it on the old Western. Put it on your tab? Yeah, put it on. I need a sack of sugar. What is going on with that? I need two by fours. Can you please explain to me why a business owner would like to, wants to, needs to invoice like plumbers? Why are plumbers invoicing individuals? See, I had a plumber come to my house probably, what, three months ago? No, it was four months ago. He comes to my house and I had a little bit of an issue. He was fixing it. I don’t remember what it was, but he said, OK, you want to do debit card or credit card? After he did the work, it was like 80 bucks or something. I don’t want an invoice. No. No. No. The builder guy doing the work for me right now, he says, hey, to get started building the deck, I need a quarter, 25% down to buy the materials, and then I do draws each week as we go. I don’t want an invoice from this guy 90 days after he completes the job. I don’t want him living like he’s homeless because he’s trying to finance my deck? Exactly. He’s like, I noticed you’ve been wearing the same clothes the last three days and it looks like there’s some blankets over here by the corner of my house. He goes, yeah, I just want to get here on time. What makes an entrepreneur want to have death by invoice? I don’t know, but you know what? I’m not sure, Clay. Maybe you’ve done a lot of business coaching, as the world’s foremost business coach, what do you think is more challenging for a first or a new entrepreneur, and that is to ask for the business or to ask for the payment of the business? I think asking for the payment is harder for most people. I think so too, and why is that? Why do people just have this mental block in their head? I have a lot of reasons, and if I can go quasi-political just for a second, I’ll give it to you. Okay, here we go. Okay, there we go. There was a study that I was looking at the other day, and they’re talking about who’s going to run for president in the next two years, Democrat and Republican. And they were showing that well over half of millennials will vote for a socialist if they can choose, a socialist office. And then the justifications that I was reading this person explaining, they said that once you have enough, you need to be paying 70% taxes. This is what this person was saying. This candidate. She says, once you earn enough… And we’ll decide that, right? Have you heard of this story? Have you heard of this thing? This person is proposing a 70% income tax once you’ve made enough. And what is the enough? That’s my point. These are the… This is what I’m saying. Oh, I’ve heard variations of this. I think that poverty mentality, though, of like, okay, just because Dr. Z is making a lot, now we should take 70%. 70%. Go to Canada. I think Canada is way up there. 70%. Think about it. 70%. And in fact, the vast majority of people are saying, that sounds great. That indicates to me, the vast majority of the Americans who are surveyed have a psychological problem that I could not possibly diagnose. Well, no, the average person, the average person, not our listeners, not the Thrive Nation, but the average person out there, they want to live on somebody else’s money. I mean, why wouldn’t you? Right, because it’s… If you have no ambition, no drive… Because it’s… There it is. So if you want to live on someone else’s dime, it’s because what you want to do is you want to do the easy route. Water runs downhill. Yeah. I mean, why not? So people are saying it’s easier not to ask you for the money. It sounds good. Somebody else pay for my health care. It’s easier to not have to go get a job and work hard. Somebody else buy my food. It’s easier to not have to ask the client, will you pay me? It’s easier not to ask. It’s easier. You think it’s easier until you’re poor. That’s right. Then it’s harder. That’s right. So life gets easier when you do hard things. And you know, one of the hard things that Jonathan Barnett’s been doing is building the world’s best carpet cleaning franchise. This company has 396 locations and for under $50,000, all of our listeners out there, for 50 grand, you could have yourself your own business. It’s incredible. It’s an incredible business. It’s a move. It’s a move. I think somebody there at Oxifresh is going to say, don’t say under 50. Fine. For some amount under $60,000, you could buy a business and be financially free as a result of oxy… I can hear him now, I can hear him now, Jonathan. No, no, stay there! No, Clay was very firm. I can play it back for you if you want. He said it was 50k. No, no, I’m not going to pay 53. I’m not going to pay 54 even. So… Clay said it was 50. And as of today they have over 150,000 objective Google reviews. And without any further ado, back to the interview. See, this is the rest of the story here. I don’t know what year it was, I just know that I had a big DJ company at the time I was in college. I had about five or six DJs working for me. He was doing three or four hundred thousand bucks a year at this DJ company. And I get a call from this Jonathan Barnett guy, who I knew of, and asks if we can DJ for this college fund fireworks. And you offered to do trade-out. So we did trade-out, and now I know that you made quite a markup on that. But here’s the thing, that was the first year that Vanessa and I ever bought fireworks. Now I buy them every single year. But dude, you traded out, I think, $500 of fireworks. I’m like, this guy’s the man! I’m slaughtering this guy! This guy’s just taking advantage of this guy! Because I quoted you like $150, and you’re like, nah, let’s do $500 of fireworks. And I’m just like, yes! Yes! Which is actually less than $150. Yeah. I’m playing. So it was a fun gig. I’m playing chess and not checkers with you right there. I’m playing a little chess with you and not checkers. But I’m sure that you played more chess with me than I played with you. OK. It was a fun event. It was a fun time. And I can vouch for it. You were out there, you guys were sweaty, you were up there all night, all day, every day. And how did you kind of go from the fireworks into the next phase of your career? And what role did your grandfather have in that transformation from the firework king to the carpet king? Great question. So check this out, the fireworks. This is all gonna lead to the franchising, but out there for two weeks, sleeping out there, yeah, I made some money and stuff, but it wasn’t like a ton and it’s seasonal. So the next year, I did tents instead of stands and I could rent the tents for way cheaper and I could build the one stand and they were bigger. So I looked way bigger, but instead of running the stands myself, I had youth groups do it and they got paid as a fundraiser so their whole church would buy. So they had all these flyers so my sales doubled and yet I would go and I had two stands in different locations so I swing by picking up the money they were winning I was winning I learned it was a win-win and I had a lot more fun that summer versus sleeping outside all summer so I guess looking back it was really hard and I was stressed because you do 80% of your sales the last couple days so if it rains if last couple of days, man, you’re in major trouble. So, but how all this led to what I do now with franchising is I was able to help create an opportunity for a win for that youth group, but also a win for me where I could scale and grow. So franchising isn’t too much different than that. It’s you’re creating opportunity for others to win, but then an opportunity for the brand to win also. And when the brand can win and the franchisee can win, the franchisees can win more because you get more resources, you get more thoughts, you get more fine tuning in, the more franchisees you have, it keeps getting, they make you get better. I wanna ask you this, this is my attempt to be nonlinear, just to mess with you here. I wanna ask you this, you’ve got some franchisees who are really winning as a result of the Oxifresh system. I mean there’s a lot of people that are doing very, very well. Do you have a particular franchisee that you want to brag on that’s been able to utilize the systems and really do well with Oxifresh? Yeah, I mean you go to different categories, right? But I have lots of franchisees that I would love to brag about. One particular stick in mind reminds me of this firework story because he’s 20 years old. He’s a full-time student at Lubbock, Texas and he’s setting records in our system for the most jobs done in his first year of business. And I think he has somewhere over like three or four hundred Google My Business reviews. Wow. And he’s a full-time student. He has two techs that are full-time and he’s making, he’s doing so well. And you know, it’s so encouraging to see that if they follow the systems and they have passion and they don’t wake up the day and just be lazy, but they, what can I do to work on my business today and make it better? And he’s a full-time student and he’s crushing these guys, some of these guys that have owned businesses before or whatever. And we have great franchisees in our system, but I would like to give a shout out to Leo Johns out of Lubbock, Texas for being 20 years old and having that same passion I had when I had the fireworks stand. So, that’d be one guy that I definitely want to hear this out. Yeah. It’s Leo. His name’s Leo? Leo Jones out of Lubbock, Texas. Big Z. You know what? That deserves a big shout out to Leo Jones. Yes! Leo Jones, Winds of the Week, Lubbock, Texas. Big shout out to you. Here we go. Come on, Andrew. Get that light on him. The room is spinning. The room is spinning. Okay, we’ll calm down. So back to the story. We got an award at our conference this year and at the award ceremony, Matt was pretty funny. He gave him a bottle of milk since he’s 20 and he couldn’t drink at the award ceremony. But, you know, John, we appreciate you, buddy. You’re doing great out there. See, does it blow your mind that there’s a 20-year-old franchise owner in the OxiFresh system right now who’s killing it. Does it blow your mind that a 20-year-old is doing that well? It doesn’t blow my mind. I see young people all the time. When I was a young man, the idea that you have that drive in you, I think if you have that drive in you, and they say that 67% of the people listening out there want or are thinking about wanting to start their own business. That means you’ve got that little spark, that little seed in you. You know, if you’re 20 years old and you want to be successful, you might not need a degree. A full disclaimer, if you want to be an optometrist, if you want to be a dentist, if you want to be a chiropractor, then you will need to go and get that degree. And in those specific instances where you have a profession or a technical skill, I would agree with you and I am 100% wrong in those isolated incidents. No, I hear you. But if you’re out there going, man, I want to be a dentist. I can’t throw that man. I’m going to go and I’m watching a lot of YouTube videos. I mean, I know I heard about that long weekend course in Puerto Rico. I heard about that long weekend course in Puerto Rico. But so I think that there’s a there’s a there’s the vast majority of people, though, don’t need to get a degree. What you need is a system, a proven system. You need a proven process, systems, strategies. You need, Z, if you could have all of that. You need us. If you could have all of that, Z, in one place, that would be our business coaching program. If you say, I don’t want that, I just want the system, that’s an OxyFresh, that’s a Papa John’s, that’s a franchise. That’s a franchise. I tell you what, franchises are wonderful. I think there’s what, there’s 30, how many different franchise opportunities are there out there? Oh boy. I think Jonathan’s going to tell us. In terms of franchises, I will say this. The failure rate for a startup right now, according to Forbes, is 9 out of 10. So 9 out of 10 startups fail, according to Forbes. Do you know what we need to look up? Andrew, look it up. See if you can Google this through Forbes. See the number of franchises that startups fail. The number of franchises. That would be a fun thing to look at. I’ve sat through and attended many franchise conferences, and I will say that the statistics are almost reverse. So it’s like instead of 90%… Oh, very good. You know then. Yeah. We’ll get the actual stat for you, but instead of 90% of startups failing, in the world of franchising it’s like 10%. It’s very little. It’s almost completely reverse. We’ll get the stats here for you. But you know why franchises don’t fill very much? Because they have a system. Right. It’s proven. It’s proven. You can’t make up things. You have to disclose your financials. And you don’t even know how much to charge for your sandwich. Dude, it’s crazy. They’ve got it all figured out. It’s a push button. They broke it down. You just hit the button. Guess how many franchises in 2017 were operating in the United States of America? How many franchises? I got it right here. Oh, I don’t even want to, I don’t even know. I mean, it could, uh, 745,290. Well, in honor of Tom Brady, I guess 12. What’s the number? What do you think? 745,290. Is that the score of the Patriots versus the Rams? Oh, sorry. It could be 291 listening out there. Repeat that number one more time. 745,290. 745,290. Oh, shunned up. And you know what one of the fastest growing franchises in the world is right now? It’s Oxifresh. Oxifresh, I know. And you know what? He’s on today’s show. Now, back to our interview with JB. Oh, it’s awesome. Come on, JB. That is great. Now, you, okay, okay. Now, back to our linear story here. Now, so, from the firework stand to the Oxifresh. Oxifresh, right, right, right. How’d it happen? Right. Okay, so, you know you gotta live your passions, right? So if money is your passion, I that’s to me that you’re in danger swing, but but you know money is important It’s what makes things work, but my passion at the time was a basketball outreach called crossover And as you know I played basketball whole Roberts I was a walk-on so I I didn’t play a whole lot, but it taught me a lot But basketball was like my identity and like what I thought, you know, looked at myself as. And that’s what, if money becomes your identity or this or that, it’s very dangerous for anything you do in your life. So I decided to use basketball as a platform to reach youth around the world. We did a traveling team across the world for 10 years, but I did a five-one-C, five-one-C-three nonprofit. Tried to raise money for multiple years. Everyone just thought I wanted to keep playing basketball. So then I decided, OK, I’m just going to start my own business to fund it. So Oxifresh, the carpeting franchise that you probably want to hear the most about, more than fireworks. But the thing is, my why was bigger. My why, why I started Oxifresh was to help fund something I was passionate about, which was Crossover. So some people’s why out there might be their family, more time, because they’re just 8 to 5. They don’t have any time with their kids, or they can’t take vacations, or they’re stuck. So for me, my why was this crossover thing. So, whatever your why is, if you make that very important, then it’ll drive you past, you know, certain obstacles that are bigger than yourself, right? Did you feel like that your grandfather taught you these lessons? Because he was an entrepreneur. Is that where you got some of this mojo? Was it from your mom? Were you checking out a lot of entrepreneur magazines? Where did this entrepreneurial fire come from? It’s funny because you could hear people that are brothers and sisters, they have the same parents going on, they could have different. For me, what I took is I did take a lot from my grandfather. He was always inventing things. He always thought outside the box, so he was always never settling, questioning things, thinking there’s a better way. And I thought that’s how it was supposed to be. I wanted to be like him. So then on the other hand, my mom was a little bit more opposite, but she was no quitter, just very tenacious. And then my grandmother was like, love no matter what. So I was very blessed to have three unique people raise me with their different values that helped me become. And I also got it, probably my coach Sutton at ORU was a big, he taught me how to delegate and I learned so much playing basketball there that I didn’t even realize it at the time. So that I use today. Which I know you like Belichick and the Patriots and you know sports teaches us so much, right? Sure does. So, hey JB, I promise you there’s somebody out there listening. Maybe probably more than one maybe hundreds that have a successful business are killing it doing very well and they Have been told over and over and over you should franchise this you should franchise you should Friends is what you should be Cal and For those out there listening going, oh my gosh, he’s read my mail, that’s me. Walk them through the initial steps of when you have a successful business, when you’ve figured it out, what to do next, that process of, because it seems pretty daunting to the average entrepreneur, to the average business owner out there, it’s like, oh my gosh, there’s no way I can do that, that’s overwhelming. So walk them through the process, the steps, the baby steps to get through for taking a successful business to franchise. You’ve got what over 400 now working out there? We’re close to 400. We’re right towards 400. Don’t let the facts ruin my good faith. Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truthiness. Come on. Come on. Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truthiness. You’re going to call me a liar for two franchises probably. I mean come on. Okay. Walk us through. Okay, so here’s the main thing with franchising is one is it’s a very big responsibility. When someone buys a franchise from you, they could have saved their whole life savings for this. So it’s not something to take lightly. But at the same time, if you’re planning on franchising your business, you almost start looking at your business differently from day one, right? So because it’s not about the… You can’t rely just about the people. You can have the right people. If you have your own business, you’re not franchising it, it probably is focused just on the people, and that’s fine. But when you get to where you’re scaling it, and you gotta make it bigger and duplicatable, bigger than that one person, you’ve really gotta start focusing on your systems and your processes. And sometimes that is such a deep dive that it makes people nauseous, or they’ll do it tomorrow, because when you get down into your systems and your processes, sometimes it’s like looking at yourself in the mirror and you’re like, man, I got a lot to work on here with myself. So I would say the first thing I would say is if your vision is to franchise it, one is you better make sure your business is profitable. And I like to say… Zee, on today’s show, we are interviewing the founder and the CEO of OxiFresh Carpet Cleaning Franchises. Now my friend, on today’s show we’re interviewing a guy whose business has 151,000 Google reviews. Wow! 396 locations. Wow! What can we possibly learn from this man, Zee? Ouch! A lot. When we come back, going green, can your small business profit by turning eco-friendly? We’re going to talk with the CEO of one business who says it is working for him. That is the head on Fox Business giving you the power to prosper. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Timeshow. Yes, yes, yes, and Dr. Z, guess who is today’s guest? I am, it’s fresh, it’s hot and fresh. It’s hot and it’s fresh, it’s America’s, it’s the founder of America’s greenest carpet cleaning company, it is none other than my brother from another mother, Mr. Jonathan Barnett. Welcome on to the show, sir, how are you? I’m fantastic, Clay. How are you doing, brother? You doing good down there? We are psychologically and emotionally prepared for this interview and we’re just gonna ask you a ton of tough questions. We’re gonna paint him into a corner with tough questions. Hard hitting. Alright, so, Jonathan, people who have Googled you know that you’ve had some tremendous success throughout your career. So I want to start by asking you about the bottom and the fireworks stand that started it all. How did you start Oxifresh? You know, that’s a great question, and I get to tell the story quite a bit nowadays, but when you look back at it, sometimes you don’t appreciate the story, your stories of the hard times you’ve gone through or your beginnings. So I think all of us have that, and if you don’t have that out there, you know, that’s why you’re listening to this show right now. So in the very beginning, before I started a carb cleaning company that was nationwide with 150,000 reviews on the web, there was very humble beginnings. And I grew up with a single mom that always taught me to, you know, work hard in school, work hard in sports, get a good job, this and that. And we grew up without a lot of money, but I saw how hard she worked. So my grandpa, my dad’s side of the family, gave all of his grandkids, and he had a lot of them, most of them I’ve never met, $10,000 for Christmas. So I was reading this book in my dorm room at Oral Roberts University in Clay. I know we both went to school there and we didn’t know each other that much then, but we knew who each other were. Yeah. And I know you’re an entrepreneur at school as well. And so I think it’s kind of how we knew each other really. But basically reading that book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, it talks about, you know, the guy that had two dads, the stepdad and the real dad, one dad always encouraged him to go get a job, get a good education, go get a good job and keep it safe. And then the other dad was creating jobs for other people, a little more risky, right? But, and he watched his dads grow as they got older and the safe dad, the dad with the education and go to a good job, he did well at the beginning, but over time, the other dad blew him away. And so when I was driving down the road after reading this book with this check in my hand, and I saw out there in Tulsa, which is kind of cool that you’re there, but I’m in Denver now, but I saw this fireworks stand and, you know, it was wintertime, but I saw it and I was like, how hard is that? Like if someone else can do it, why can’t I do it? So I started looking up fireworks or to buy them in Wholesale environment, you know different states this and that so I I invested that money I had the 10 the 10,000 I bought two or three grand worth fireworks drove over to Kansas bought wholesale fireworks drove them back and Had to build a stand That me and my buddy we slept up for two weeks in the summertime. Yeah. And that two or three grand worth of fireworks, we turned into twenty grand in sales. Now there’s other expenses we had. So I don’t want to get into all the details of this fireworks story, but what… Let’s talk about how tall the fireworks stand was. Yeah. How deep was it and how tall? Approximately. We have a few more detailed questions about this fireworks stand. How big was it? Because you were sleeping there, right? Well, so here’s the thing. I had a pop-up camper I was sleeping in and had a mobile mini that I put the fireworks in so the people wouldn’t steal them at night. But the fireworks stand was actually eight foot. It was eight foot by four foot planks, I think, or six by whatever. There’s two of them, so it’s 16 foot long. Me and my buddy built it. We’re so proud of it. We named it College Fun Fireworks. We put it right next to the big guys. And people would stop by and say, hey, I want to buy from you. I don’t want to buy from you guys, I want to support the college kids. We’re like, perfect. So I loved it, but the problem was that, man, I just had to jump in the hotel across the street every night to take my shower because I had to sleep outside. And I traded in town, I traded fireworks for food. And my market from fireworks was four or five to one. So every time I traded someone $5 for the fireworks, it cost me a dollar. See, I want to marinate on that idea for just a second. That he could buy fireworks and then sell them for four or five times more than he paid for them. Wait a second, time out, time out. Is that ethical? Well, I would like to get into the ethics of this with you because this is a question that I think somebody out there is asking. So, in the optometry clinic, in the optometry game, in the jewelry game, in the auto auction game, and in the banking game, these are all different industries that we know about. I’ve coached in different businesses, and you’ve owned them. So let’s talk about jewelry. Why in the jewelry industry is the markup so much higher than it would be in other industries? How come some industries have more markups than others? I think it’s a pleasure item. It’s also, you know, it has a distinct feel to it. I mean, when you’re buying jewelry, what are you really buying? You know, you’re buying love. Think about that. That right there is a deep thought for somebody. Is that a deep thought? Well, I mean, if I wasn’t married to Vanessa, there’s no way I’d ever buy a diamond. Well that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know, back in the day, back in the day, when you’d have your little stud earrings in. I had hoops. That’s right. I used to have the holes in my ears. They won’t go away. We need to tag a picture of you back at your prime on the show. Maybe you’ll stand up and do that. That’d be kind of fun. I think the Thrive Nation would really like to see the old Clay Clark. Before you and I leave today’s recording session, we will do a show about the old… I’ve got some really good audio files that I think you would love. Perfect. But I think that you know jewelry is one of those that it’s a… and I think also too by marking it up a lot they… it gives a lot of opportunities for discounts and so a lot of times you can say you know half off price which means I’m not going to rip your head off completely just partly. So I’m not going to ask you for the specific margins you have on your specific items but let’s go with like the auto auction. In that industry, there’s no way you could have a four and five time markup on a car at an auto auction, could you? Well, the thing about an auto auction is I don’t actually sell the… I just do the service. So let’s look at an auto dealership for instance. Their markups are much less. Now, on a used car, if bought correctly, sometimes they can buy a car for $10,000 to $15,000 range, let’s say, and they can add up three, four, maybe even $5,000 on top of that. So let’s say that somebody goes to your auto auction who’s a used car dealer, and they buy a truck. I’m picturing a F-250, and it’s got about 50,000 miles on it. And they buy that thing. I don’t even know what that would cost. Let’s just say it was like $25,000. You’re saying that somebody could then, the used car dealer, could take that vehicle back, clean it up, detail it out, and maybe mark it up $5,000? Yeah, they’d probably mark it at $29,99 or something, put it on their lot, I would imagine. And then hopefully try to get $28, $29 maybe out of it because nobody comes in to buy a car knowing you’re going to do a little dealing, wheeling and dealing on it, right? Now what’s interesting is this, you talk about the auto industry, is that the guys that do the buy here, sell here, they mark theirs up a lot more. Really? A lot. Really? Because they have a very unique clientele that can’t get financing conventionally. It’s like the poorer you are, the worse you get beat up financially. It’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s very interesting because you think about different industries. I see so many people I’ve met at workshops who are contractors. I’ll think of a good example of a contractor that I’m a big fan of is our pool guy right now. Yeah, always doing a great job. Doing an awesome job. And I’ll say, our pool guy, he didn’t apologize for the profit. He says, you know, this is what it’s going to cost for labor and materials, and then this is how much I add on as my profit. He didn’t apologize for it. He didn’t feel bad. And he was transparent. That’s unusual. And he did not feel bad about it. So unusual to be transparent. That’s not normal. It’s not. But every other pool guy was kind of, not every, there was, I think five or six people we were talking to, but there was like three of them that were just squirrely. They wouldn’t show you what they were spending on materials. They couldn’t give you a hard cost. I would just say that I think there’s more entrepreneurs out there than not who are really underpaying themselves and not marking up their products and services enough to achieve their goals. For every five that are gouging somebody with too high of prices, I would say there’s 50 who are underpaying themselves. It’s a shame, and that’s why in my soon-to-be-released book, Business Pig, you big pig eat first at the trough. You’ve got to pay yourself. If you’re not able to pay yourself enough money to live, you’re not charging enough. If you can’t make it with what, if you can’t charge enough, in other words, if you say to yourself, well, I can’t charge that, well, try it. You may lose a few customers, but overall, you know, like when you go up on your, when you went up on your DJ, when you went from like 600 to 650, some crazy move, you lose a few, right? Yeah, I know that with the DJ business, I was doing my first shows for $225, $225, $250, very, very low. And I had this mental… What a bargain they got. I had this mental block, though, thinking I’ll lose all my customers. All of them. And you’re all going to start talking. If I raise my prices to 500, I’m going to lose all of them. And I stayed there at that poverty line for a couple of years, just refusing to raise the… Just thinking I would lose all my customers. Right. It’s a shame. Yeah. And I think a lot of people stay there. Why do people stay at that level where they’re underpaying themselves? Why do they do it? You know, I don’t know. I think a lot of people just don’t understand all the costs that go into running a business. So they have just a simple mindset of, okay, I already own my speakers. I’ve got gas in the van. I’ve got a payment on the van. You don’t realize all the small stuff that goes into the taxes and the cable company and the phone bills. When we think about your optometry clinic, the one by the mall there, Woodland Hills Mall, that piece of land is a million dollar piece of real estate right there. Probably now, when I bought it 26, 27 years ago. Guess how much I bought it for? How much did you buy it for? Take a guess. Well, right now, based on the volume of the construction outside, based upon the weather conditions, based upon these things, I would say a quarter of an acre right next to the mall. On the path side, out in front of the mall. You had to have bought it for $200,000. It was $300,000, and I actually paid $310,000 for it. That’s a great story. $310,000. Yes. And today, it’s got to be worth at least $2-3 million. Well, with the building on it, yes, of course. I think last time I had a praise, it was about $1.5 million. $1.5 million? Yeah. And then you’ve got to pay taxes on that day. Oh yeah. But you’re aware of it. So therefore when you’re charging someone for the glasses, you’re not just charging for the glasses, you’re charging them for the insurance, you’re charging them for the real estate, you’re charging them for electricity. So what you’re going to do, I want to make this actionable for all the listeners out there. What I want you to do is I want you to get out a sheet of paper or maybe a spreadsheet and I want you to add in every single cost last month that you’re going to get next month. Every fixed cost. If I want to add them all up. Yep. Add up every single cost. Add them all up. Now on the next column, I want you to add up all of your variable costs. That’s like the cost of doing business, the goods. The goods. The glasses that you buy that you have to resell, that kind of thing. Add all those up. Get to a total between the fixed and the fixed expenses and the variable expenses. And whatever that number is, add 20% on top of that, and that’s about the profit margin you should be making minimum. I would go a little higher. Because you want to end up with 20 and there’s always that uh-ohs for the month. I mean, that’s the minimum, though. Right, that’s the minimum. I would probably start with 30, and hopefully you can end up with 25 in your pocket. Can we talk about rushing to the bottom for a second? Rushing to the bottom. It’s almost like we’re… I thought you were going to say rushing to the bottom. I go… The hunt for Red October? I want to talk about this. This is Russia. There are a lot of business owners that want to bottom feed and be the carp of that industry. They’re rushing to the bottom. The cheapest price, the cheapest service, the cheapest employees. Bam. Bam. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Now, if you have that mindset that you want to be the Walmart of your industry, what pretty much always ends up happening unless you’re Walmart? You have not a very good business. And you can’t pay really good people. You can’t pay really good people. And you can’t use good products. And you can’t use good products. And you can’t use, you can’t do good advertising. You, forget that. And you end up living in a van down by the river. Ta-da! Now what kind of a profit margin do you think somebody should have if they have a restaurant? If you, if you were coaching a business owner who has a restaurant, not that they’re listening today, and they have a very, very nice food, right? And you sit down with them and you discover they have a really crappy decor, crappy location, but great food. So you convince them to move to a new location, new menus, new decor, new ambiance, new. The food is good, though. What kind of a margin would you sit down, if you had a buddy of yours who has a restaurant, would you say, buddy, we’ve got to be at least a 30% or a 10%? How would you advise someone to do that? I would shoot any business out there listening. Listen up. Here we go. Any business out there listening, unless you’re some unique, nobody else is doing it, you invent the widget that is unbelievable. Unless you’re hand-making axes out of recycled grass. Nobody else can make. Right, out of plutonium. Right. Is that a thing? I don’t even know. I think it could be. I would tell everybody to shoot for that. Shoot for 30% markup and then try to get 20, 25% of your gross sales in your pocket. Now, sometimes, the busier you are, sometimes you can give up a little bit of that percentage. Sometimes it’s not about the percentage, it’s about how much you’re making, too. Some larger companies, in other words, like a Walmart, they don’t try to make 20% of their gross sales. No, they don’t. They can’t. They can’t. But they do so much volume that they can make 4% and 5%. What about people who lose money and then try to make up for it? People who lose money per transaction, who try to make up for it with volume. They lose money per transaction. Forbes has a column for these people. Forbes actually has defined these people for us. Forbes is our business bible, for those of you who don’t know. We comment on it a lot, because we like, for our stuff to be fact-checked. Right. So we like to go to reliable sources, like the Google and the Forbes. It’s called Forbes, but if you want to mispronounce it at home, you could say F-orbs. You could. You could. Okay, back to you. They have a category for that, and that falls into their 80 to 90% category of failed businesses. They call it the FB, the failed business. Now let’s talk about this. We’ll get back to the interview in just a second. Let’s talk about this. Oxifresh has a great billing system, accounting system. They thought through all the systems, okay? Right. But there’s a lot of independent carpet guys out there that are willing to invoice people. And I know this because I’ve met them. And they’ll say, hey, I’m having a cash flow problem. And I’ll say, what kind of problem do you have? They say, well, I cleaned Clay’s carpet. I cleaned Dr. Z’s carpet. I cleaned the carpets. I’m cleaning carpets. I’ve cleaned a record number of carpets. How many carpets are you cleaning? They say, well, I’m cleaning a lot more than before because of your coaching and the mentorship. I’m getting two times as many carpets cleaned as before. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m going, that’s crazy. I’m getting two times as many carpets paid as before.” I’m going, that’s good. They said, no, no, it’s bad. I said, how is it bad? They said, well, what’s going on? I have been invoicing my clients and they haven’t paid me yet. And now I would say, I would submit to the business owner, I would say, don’t invoice for carpet, nor should the grocery store say, Dr. Z, do you want these avocados, these seven avocados and this almond milk? Great. Here’s an invoice. Pay us in the next 30 days. Yeah, we’ll bill you. Remember back in the good old days when they had the hardwood store? They’d throw it on the old Westerns. Put it on your tab? Yeah, put it on. I’d need a sack of sugar. What is going on with that? I need two by fours. Can you please explain to me why a business owner would like to, wants to, needs to invoice like plumbers? Why are plumbers invoicing individuals? See, I had a plumber come to my house probably, what, three months ago? No, four months ago. He comes to my house, and I had a little bit of an issue. He was fixing it. I don’t remember what it was, but he said, okay, you want to do debit card or credit card? After he did the work, it was like 80 bucks or something. I don’t want an invoice. No, no, no. The builder guy doing the work for me right now, he says, hey, to get started building the deck, I need a quarter, 25% down to buy the materials, and then I do draws each week as we go. I don’t want an invoice from this guy 90 days after he completes the job. I don’t want him living like he’s homeless because he’s trying to finance my deck. Exactly. He’s like, I noticed you’ve been wearing the same clothes the last three days and it looks like there’s some blankets over here in the corner of my house. He goes, yeah, I just want to get here on time. What makes an entrepreneur want to have death by invoice? I don’t know, but you know what? I’m not sure, Clay. Maybe, you know, you’ve done a lot of business coaching as the world’s foremost business coach. What do you think is more challenging for a first or a new entrepreneur, and that is to ask for the business or to ask for the payment of the business? I think asking for the payment is harder for most people. I think so, too. Why is that? Why do people just have this mental block in their head? I have a lot of reasons, and if I could go quasi-political just for a second, I’ll give it to you. Okay, here we go. There we go. Quasi-political. There was a study that I was looking at the other day, and they’re talking about who’s going to run for president in the next two years, Democrat and Republican. And they were showing that well over half of millennials will vote for a socialist if they can choose, a socialist author. And then the justifications that I was reading this person explaining, they said that once you have enough, you need to be paying 70% taxes. This is what this person was saying, this candidate. She says, once you earn enough… And we’ll decide that, right? Have you heard of this story, heard of this thing, this person is proposing a 70% income tax once you’ve made enough? And what is the enough? That’s my… These are the… These are what I’m saying. I’ve heard variations of this. I think that poverty mentality though of like, okay, just because Dr. Z’s making a lot, now we should take 70%. 70. Go to Canada. Canada’s way up there. 70. Think about it. 70% and in fact the vast majority of people are saying, that sounds great. That indicates to me the vast majority of the Americans who are surveyed have a psychological problem that I cannot possibly diagnose. Well no, the average person, the average person, not our listeners, not the Thrive Nation, but the average person out there, they want to live on somebody else’s money. I mean why wouldn’t you? Right. If you have no ambition, no drive. There it is. So if you want to live on someone else’s dime, it’s because what you want to do is you want to do the easy route. What’s your water runs down him? Yeah. So people are saying it’s easier not to ask you for the money. Sounds good. It’s somebody else pay for my health care. It’s easier to not have to go get a job and work hard. Somebody else buy my food. It’s easier to not have to ask the client, will you pay me? Well, it’s easier not to ask. It’s easier. You think it’s easier until you’re poor. That’s right. Then it’s harder. That’s right. So life gets easier when you do hard things. And you know, one of the hard things that Jonathan Barnett’s been doing is building the world’s best carpet cleaning franchise. This company has 396 locations, and for under $50,000, all of our listeners out there, for 50 grand, you could have yourself your own business. It’s incredible. It’s an incredible business. It’s a move. I think somebody there at Oxifresh is going to say, don’t say under $50,000. Fine. For some amount under $60,000, you could buy a business and be financially free as a result of Oxifresh. I can hear him now. I can hear him now. No, don’t say that. No, Clay was very firm. I can play it back for you if you want. He said it was $50,000. No, I’m not going to pay $53,000. I’m not going to pay $54,000 even. Clay said it was $50,000. And as of today, they have over 150,000 objective Google reviews. And without any further ado, back to the interview. See, this is the rest of the story here. I don’t know what year it was. I just know that I had a big DJ company. At the time I was in college, I had about five or six DJs working for me. He was doing three or four hundred thousand bucks a year of this DJ company. And I get a call from this Jonathan Barnett guy, who I knew of, and asks if we could DJ for this college fun fireworks. And you offered to do trade out. So we did trade out, and now I know that you made quite a markup on that. But here’s the thing is, that was the first year that Vanessa and I ever bought fireworks. Now I buy them every single year, but dude, you traded out like, I think, $500 of fireworks. I’m like, this guy’s the man. I’m slaughtering this guy. This guy’s just taking advantage of this guy. Because I quoted you like $150 and you’re like, nah, let’s do $500 of fireworks. And I’m just like, yes! Which is actually less than $150. It was a fun gig. I was playing chess and not checkers with you right there. I was playing a little chess with you. I’m sure that you played some more Chesapeake than I played. Okay, it was a fun event. It was a fun time and I can vouch for it. You were out there. You guys were sweaty. You were up there all night, all day, every day. And how did you kind of go from the fireworks into the next phase of your career? And what role did your grandfather have in that transformation from the firework king to the carpet king? Great question. So check this out the fireworks. This is all going to lead to the franchising, but out there for two weeks sleeping out there, yeah I made some money and stuff, but it wasn’t like a ton and it’s seasonal. So the next year I did tents instead of stands and I could rent the tents for way cheaper than I could build the one stand and they were bigger. So I look way bigger, but instead of running this stand myself, I had youth groups do it. And they got paid as a fundraiser so their whole church would buy. So they had all these flyers. So my sales doubled. And I had two stands in different locations. So I swing by picking up the money. They were winning. I was winning. I learned it was a win-win. And I had a lot more fun that summer versus sleeping outside all summer. So I guess looking back, it was really hard and I was stressed because you do 80% of your sales the last couple of days. So if it rains, the last couple of days, man, you’re in major trouble. So, but how all this led to what I do now with franchising is I was able to help create an opportunity for a win for that youth group, but also a win for me where I could scale and grow. So franchising isn’t too much different than that. It’s you’re creating opportunity for others to win, but then an opportunity for the brand to win also. And when the brand can win and the franchisee can win, the franchisees can win more because you get more resources, you get more thoughts, you get more fine-tuning in, the more franchisees you have it keeps getting it, they make you get better. All right Thrive Nation, I want to tell you a story today about a gentleman I had the opportunity to meet years and years ago, and he has really scaled his company. He’s been just a great friend, and he’s a guy who… money’s a magnifier, so when you help somebody make more money, it just makes them more of who they are. He’s a generous man. He’s a hardworking man. He’s actually a CPA. Some people tell me, Clay, doesn’t a CPA stand for a certified pain in the ass? I don’t think that’s always true, folks. There are some good ones out there, and we’re joined here with a long-time client. Paul Hood, welcome to the Thrived 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. 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? So back in the day, you know, I had a, I still do, have a really nice car. And I was sitting at a restaurant and the manager came up and said, hey, do you know this guy, Steve Currington? And I said, no. And he’s, and I said, why? And he said, well, 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. And I asked Steve, who do I talk to? And he said, you’ve got to meet my guy. And then he got me to one of your workshops. I said, holy smokes. You know, I went to the best, one of the best accounting schools in the country and they didn’t teach anything that you were teaching. So I was lit from the day one. Now, I remember when you came to the conference and watching you take notes, I mean, you were smoking out that, that they had a notebook for taking notes and it was like the piece of paper was going to set to fire because you were taking so many notes and you were engaging with all the different successful entrepreneurs and I knew that your business was going to scale because previous to meeting me you’d already built a successful business, you were top of your class in college, but I knew you could scale. Just to give the listeners some sort of an idea in their mind, how much have you grown from the time that you and I first met to now, just to give you some context. Yeah. So last year, Clay, so we went from about $3 million in revenue with three offices to now we have 17 offices across four states. And last year we did $20 million. And, you know, we’re poised now, my industry’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. Well, what does that mean? And you played a massive role in our expansion. Well, Paul, I want to talk to you about this. This might feel like a backhanded compliment, but that’s not the way I mean it. You were graduating near the top of your class. I mean, you have been a very successful accountant before I met you. But I believe that when we met, you didn’t have a website. And maybe that seems like it’s a backhanded compliment. I don’t want it to feel that way. I’m saying you were like top of your class CPA, but yet the marketing didn’t match how quality of a service you provided. Maybe I’m getting that wrong. I’d love to get your just… Can you hear me talk about that? Because I believe you were a top of the class CPA with a non-existent website. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I hear what you’re saying, Clay. You’re saying this, oh my God, how’d this guy ever become as successful as he was before he met me. But the reality is, again, business school, they teach you how to be a technician. They don’t teach you how to grow a business, how to manage people, how to create leads, how to create that marketing funnel, that sales funnel that goes into it. And I remember the first time we met individually, you said, well, let’s look at your website. And I said, what website? Because I’m a professional, and professionals get new business off of referrals. And dude, you turned on that website, and we started getting Google reviews and videos. And 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 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 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 Claremont office, you renovated your Claremont 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 outside. Why did you decide to renovate your office on the inside and the outside after having been to workshops and conferences. Why did you decide to do that? Because very few people do that. Well, it was two things, Clay. The first thing is when I had clients come 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, to, you know, 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. We want to sell success. We don’t want to just do tax returns. We want to sell success. That’s what I jumped all over going to you. I told you one time, Clay, I could live in your office. It’s the success and the positive and the motivation that’s created. 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 talked and you said, “‘Clay, I have a desire in my heart to write a book.'” And so you and I worked together on writing your first book, “‘Take a Look Under the Hood,’ which is a phenomenal book there. You and I did that together. And then the next book here is called “‘Roadkill Tastes Like Chicken.'” And again, I can’t help somebody to typeset a book or to make a cover if someone doesn’t write the book. And so you are willing to put in the work and then we were able to work together to produce the end result. What would you say to somebody who’s on the outside of the website right now, who’s thinking about becoming a client of ours and we have sort of a, our business is designed, I only take on 160 clients. And so I work with a lot of the same people year after year after year. So, what would you say about the amount of effort you had to put in to something like the website or writing the book, and then maybe what would you say about 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. And I always said, and we’ve sent you a lot of clients over the years that you’re the offense, I’m the defense, you show them how to make it, I show them how to keep it. And I wrote the first book, really, frankly, you wrote most of the book. I mean, I went through, you did a lot of stuff, and I added some verbiage and made it, you know, kind of more towards CPA, the defense side, if you will. And in the second book, you taught me that it’s not about making money. It’s about sowing seeds. It’s about changing people’s lives. It’s about one of the first things that you and I talked about is, why am I wanting to do this? What’s the intent? What difference am I going to make in the world? And 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 Think, because if my mom hadn’t 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. It wouldn’t be my wife because she’s German. She’d cut me. She’d hurt me. But that – and now I’ve got a college degree and all my kids have college degrees. And so it’s beyond just – I feel like people owe it not only to themselves, to their community, to their family, to people they don’t even know, to be successful and to sow those seeds of success 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, you know, 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 have to appreciate that very much that three final questions for you three final question 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, you know, CPAs, and they looked at reviews and videos. And so, you know, when you and I first met, I said, you know, people don’t look for CPAs on Google, you know, 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 a service business, you can call me and I’ll tell you that I didn’t believe Clay Clark for a minute, but it has magnified the reach that we have. And what it’s done for us, Clay, it’s allowed us to be selective on what clients we take. And these clients are calling us. They literally, we don’t have to pick up the phone and call them, they’re calling us. And it’s 100% off of Google, Google reviews, Google searches. So I’ll admit it right here, you proved me wrong. People do look for CPAs off of Google. They look for doctors, dentists, attorneys as well. Now my final 90 seconds here for you in the hot seat, you know, the conferences. Dr. Zellner participates in the conferences. We’ve had Tim Tebow, Michael Levine. We’ve had the head of Harley Davidson. I mean, over the years, we just continue to bring in new folks. But when you get past the big names, could you maybe describe what the conferences are like or what kind of an impact have the conferences had on your business? Yeah. So the main thing is, you know, as a business owner, you know, there’s plenty of times I felt like I’m alone. There’s nobody that thinks like me. I’ve got great staff, but they go home at the end of the day, and you fight negativity and all that. You don’t know what you’re doing. Nobody taught me how to be a successful business owner in business school. 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 pri—my gosh, you need to quadruple the cost of that going in there because if somebody, now here’s what I really like about it. I’m not an excuse maker. I don’t make excuses. And a lot of people like to go and they’re, oh, I can’t do it. I don’t know what I’m doing. Or my, you know, my mama couldn’t, my dad couldn’t, so I can’t. And your workshops take all excuses away. All you gotta do is be willing to put in some effort and show up. There’s a pattern to success. It’s it’s teachable. It’s replicatable and It’s it’s engaging I Would absolutely recommend anybody and everybody to go to your workshop because one you’re gonna walk out of there You’re gonna be on fire. You’re ready to go But clay you give practical steps on what to do and all I got to do it is do it And that’s what I did, even though I didn’t believe you. And 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. So what you did was, and I’m a proponent of going to college, you know, 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 Clay, and again, this is a compliment. You’ve done this with many, many different businesses. So you’re the guy that takes away excuses. If you want to be successful, there’s a pattern. Show up, do the work, modify your plan, and reap the rewards. Paul, I really do appreciate you. I want people to know about the resources that you provide. You have a wonderful team there at hoodcpas.com. We have typically about a million listeners that will listen to this show on a typical week or every couple of weeks. What are the solutions that you provide there at paulhood.com? Paulhood.com. Well, so what we do is we’re different than most CPAs because my industry is in a really a change or die scenario. 75% of CPAs are at or above retirement age. There’s about 90% of the firms that are out there are potential acquisition targets. So what we have to do is we have to re-envision, and you help me with this, re-envision what we do. We sell success, Clay, just like you do. We’re not marketing people, though. So like I said, you’re the offense, we’re the defense. We teach people how to 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 say, what’s the 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. 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 technician, but to be a business owner and to create a process or a business that can continue without me, I’m not there. I’ve been looking at it, looking for such processes for a while. And what Clay is showing me is how to do that step by step. Well, I’ve enjoyed the entire workshop. What I’ve liked the most is Clay’s presentation style. You go to seminars. I’m 49. I’ve gone to that is entertaining, both entertaining and it’s very usable information. The atmosphere of Thrive headquarters is really actually kind of convincing me to change the atmosphere of my offices, even though they’re traditional CPA practices. the static, non-inviting environment. Here, I want to come back. When I came here a few weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to come back. 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 Clay’s very entertaining and the information he has is, I haven’t heard before, I’ve heard pieces of it, but the way he puts it together in a total package and his presentation style is both entertaining and very knowledgeable. Well, I guess what people are missing out if they don’t come to Thrive Conference, it depends on them. You know, if they like working 60, 70 hours a week and barely getting by or making 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 ol’ house. So come on in and check this out. We bought this house about a year and a half ago. We’ve been finishing it. It was partially constructed. And so everything is 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 50-foot ceilings, windows out to the pool, really, really nice kitchen over here. We flew the vent hood in from Mexico. It was handmade. Let’s go this way. This is a really unique room. There’s a six-story tower in the middle of the house. Don’t know why, it’s got six rooms straight up top. You can go 85 feet in the air, shoot deer, take pictures, whatever you wanna 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 and I can leave but it’s all inside and air-conditioned. Over here off of the photography studio there’s actually a safe room. It’s all concrete walls. We have a steel door made for it, and so tornadoes come or people we don’t really care, you know, whatever, it’s a safe room. We can come in. It’s going to have security cameras and everything else in there built in. Now, down this hall is my favorite room. Well, there are 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 the night, it comes straight down from the bedroom. There are 109 interior doors here, 33 exterior doors, 25,000 square feet. It’s got five garages, different garages. This is the best room in the place. We teach success principles at Hood & Associates CPAs and one of them is just to have balance between your personal life, your finances, your fitness, your friends, your family. And so for fitness, I’ve got this. This is, I’ll spend a lot of time in here. And of course right out here, 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 of the master is up there, which we’ll go up there in a minute. This is the master bathroom. Just a little bathroom. If you notice in the shower, there’s no 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 builder where if you want to take a shower in a thunderstorm, it has sound, lightning, thunder, all of that good stuff. I guess that’s the thing, take a shower in a thunderstorm. The bathtub is heated. It’s actually heated, not just the water, but it’s heated. And then over here is the bathroom and there’s two things in there. I know what that one does. That one is called a bidet. Does anybody know how to work a bidet? I don’t. This is the master closet. One of them. I think there’s six closets but this is I don’t know how, this is probably a thousand square feet or give or take. All over here. It 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 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’ve got to have a place to put suitcases and shoe boxes and stuff like that. Just a little extra thing. It’s wired for the smart home. So this is one of the brains. Now we’re circling back. If you get lost, we’re circling back to the master bathroom. Another closet. Right here 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 or second of three stairways to the second floor. It’s actually third floor of the house, second floor of the master. We think we’re gonna make this a slide because that right there room we just came from was the grandkids bedroom so they’re gonna 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 gonna be like a little spa room. We’ve got a commercial tanning bed that goes in there and a massage chair and you know all the relaxing music and all of that. This would be like a library or reading room off of the master. It’s still part of the master. It’s got a separate balcony out there. Every room in the house is wired for speakers for entertaining. There’s a lot of speakers, I can tell you why. And they suck putting them up. I’d put a bunch of them up, but there’s a lot of them. These fans are really cool. They spin like this, and then the fans inside of them spin. So it’s got like three different motions going on at once. Okay, we’re now back on the second story of the house over by the tower. This is my office. This is where my office will be. And then we can go over here and you can see the second floor of the tower. Now on the third floor of the tower, I’m going to put a golf simulator, like I said earlier, because I suck at golf but I want to play. But you can see, we just got to keep our grandkids because we have three granddaughters, they’ll be okay, but I have a grandson coming. And I know he’s going to want to be climbing. We’re going to have to be careful of that. This is a, this will be just an entertaining room, a game room. There will be a pool table here. Kids play Fortnite. Now over here is when you have a game room, you also have 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. I make good money. I just want to take it to the next level with systems and processes to where I can drive my cars more. Paul Hood. I’ve been a CPA for 33 years. And what kind of growth have you and your great team had here over the past, let’s say, five, six years? The last five, when I met you five years ago, we were doing three million. This year we’ll do 24 million. Which is more than, which is more than, and he’s an accountant, so we’re gonna talk about that. So, Paul introduced me to Bob, because he said there’s a guy who came into my office looking to raise some capital, I think that was the thing, and he needed to get some sales going, that’s sales going, that’s how, and so we, if we tell, Paul, from the accounting perspective, I’m gonna pass the mic to you, you do accounting, you do accounting, why do you have to, you have to have a website that makes sense, and all that branding stuff. How has that impacted your brand, having websites and all those branding things in place? Well, when I met you, like most CPAs, I thought my clients only come from referrals. But we get 500 leads in a two month period, every month just off of Google. And so this is my face. We have 17 offices across four states. We have in every state, but this is our face. Like what you were saying, it’s visual. And it allows us to say why we’re different. That about us from there is spectacular. And it’s an industry that has changed. We’re modifying it. We’re going to offer our services in a subscript model to where it’s all inclusive and it’s just been awesome. Well determine the level of success. So success in business is not what you know how to do, it’s actually doing it. And so the thing that I would tell you is stop it, get a guy like this guy and let him go after it. It’s insane because then you can be doing what you do well and take that time and invest in something else on top of that as contacts. This is not, I don’t get anything for selling. I’m just telling you what he’s done for us so that we could focus. Then he’ll come in and I’ll say, 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. 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 wanna make sure that they win when you win. So like in our office, if we grow Dave Acy’s podcast, that benefits our company, to the extent it benefits them, but we actually benefit if they benefit. Does that make sense to you? Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay 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 Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup 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. So, 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 doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months He helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to? Just survive through all the Kovach shutdowns lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have three hundred fifty thousand dollars 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 gonna help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working. And he can outwork everybody in the room every single day. 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 dollars in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes, and And then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of 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 realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35-year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people. I love building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credit’s due, and Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is 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. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business growth workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Hmm, well they’re gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks I’m telling you if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve got the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the 2-Day Interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the 2-Day Interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a question and answer session, so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you, folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show 2-Day Interactive Business Workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who have been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? 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, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Jerusalem, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russelam. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training we’re going to give you a copy of my newest book the millionaires guide to becoming sustainably rich you’re going to leave with a workbook you’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company it’s practical it’s actionable and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russia get those tickets today at thrive timeshow.com again that’s thrive timeshow.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 learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250 we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York octa non verba watch what a person does not what they say. Good morning good morning good morning Harvard Kiyosaki the Rich Dad Radio Show today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts as a Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money bricks and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man. And there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, uh, since you and Eric are close Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say. What was- Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I wanna 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. 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. I just want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today not thrill but Recognition is when people young men especially come up and say I read your book changing a 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