Clay Clark | Part 1 – The Thing No One Wants To Do. The Thing Everyone Has To Do. With Mickey Michalec

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zulman. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. All right. We’re here with Mickey Mihalik. I’m pumped up. You are one of the top pharmaceutical sales reps in the region, in the country, and you’re here with us today. Thank you so much for being here, my friend. Hey, I appreciate it. Look forward to it. Okay, so let me go ahead and go to my incredible chalkboard here. Awesome. Now, sales. The thing no one wants to do, but it’s the thing everyone has to do. It seems like you and I all the time, we’ll meet a doctor or a business owner, and they have a desire of making a ton of money or helping a lot of people. Usually it’s helping a lot of people or making a lot of money. It’s one of those two. Correct. But yet, they get here and they kind of get stuck because they can’t do any sales. They can’t sell anything. The sales just don’t happen they can’t sell and because of that it seems like then their dreams just go down and they begin to almost kind of just lay here on the ground defeated and they’re just kind of this is the other than there this kind of die right there so what is the deal why are people so afraid of sales I think first of all that they’re afraid because they don’t know what to do they’re afraid to even start it’s so intimidating the word sales I don’t want to be invited to a multi-level marketing deal. I don’t want to be asking for money. I don’t want to be making people uncomfortable so they say, you know what, let’s just, it’ll take care of itself. And it starts here in the classroom. That’s where it starts. Now, there’s three things here, three ways that we can get rich, basically, if we’re an entrepreneur. You know? You have one, is that you can do work in a place that nobody else wants to be. So geographically, maybe we can go up to Alaska, and we can go fishing. This is my Alaskan boat here. We’re fishing in Alaska. We could do that. And we make a lot of money because we’re in Alaska. We’re fishing. Maybe we could be a contractor in Iraq or some war zone or something. That’s what we could do. The second is we can do work that nobody else wants to do, like sales. Or the third is we can do work that no one else can do. Now, you’ve kind of had a little bit of both, though, because as being a guy 6’11”, a lot of people can’t be 6’11”, and can’t shoot a basketball, or don’t have the artistic skill to be a musician or an artist or something. You’ve experienced both a little bit there. How was it hard for you to transition into going from doing stuff that no one else could do, being tall, to doing stuff that no one else wanted to do, doing sales? How did you kind of transition from star athlete to really bottom of the barrel new guy in sales? How do you do that? Well, I think it starts out first. I want to talk to the athletes that are out there right now. A lot of you guys are aspiring, how do I become successful outside of my sport? I put all the effort, I ran the sprints, I lifted the weights, I learned the plays, and I executed on here. I think the problem is, most players for their entire life, if you were like me, if you were a large kid that ended up being a tall middle school kid and then a kind of a freakishly tall high school kid that got picked up to play college sports, everyone told you from a young age, oh, there’s Mickey, he’s tall. There’s Mickey, he plays basketball. There’s Mickey, we’re glad he’s on our team. There’s Mickey, look at how tall he is, he’s bigger, right? So your whole life, you’re tall, you’re big, you’re a basketball player. You’re tall, you’re big, you’re a basketball player. Even into college, there’s Mickey, he plays college basketball. Big Mickey. There he is, right? At some point, that sport is going to stop. And when it does, who are you? Are you still tall Mickey that plays basketball? No, you’re not. You’re left searching. So, a lot of these guys and girls that are out there playing their sport, I was a, well, I’m not anymore. I used to be, well, I’m not anymore. And I think they have to stop and take that same fire and that passion that said, I want to go to the top of my sport and find something that can challenge them in the same way where you get to see your competition every day and say, you know what? Either he’s going to win when he goes in that office or I’m going to win. I see a lot of times people have the same thing you talked about, being the star athlete, to having to start a different career. I see a lot of times, too, people who are in mid-level management or they’ve worked in corporate America. And maybe you’re watching this, and maybe you just got laid off. And you found yourself going from the top to all of a sudden, uh-oh, I don’t have a job. And it’s kind of like when you can no longer do physical labor and you just lost a job. That’s usually when you have to do sales, or if you want to start a business or something, you have to do sales. With so many people wanting to avoid sales, I think there’s a lot of people who do believe it’s just a natural talent. And then people like you and me believe it’s a learned skill. So how long does it take somebody to learn the skill of sales and persuasion if they decide they want to dive in, starting today? If you want to dive in today, I would give yourself a learning curve of about six weeks. And that’s going every… Six weeks? Yeah. Okay. That’s it. It doesn’t take… It’s not a lifetime. It’s not years. It’s not something that I was born with. For those that think I was born with it, I want you to come ride with me when I get my teeth kicked in every now and then and go, oh I thought he sold to everyone. Well, every now and then I get my teeth still kicked in, alright? It’s not fun. So I think that if you start learning and putting the effort in and you’re willing to ask the questions, even if the answer is no, are you willing to go back and say why was it no? You said six weeks. Six weeks. That’s amazing. Now, Thomas Edison, one of the famous inventors and famous entrepreneurs, he started GE, invented the light bulb. He says this, if we all did the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. I think that’s the way with sales. Like if we would just do the things that we’re capable of, we would be amazed. Have you ever seen a guy who’s come in and transitioned and had no experience with sales. Have you ever mentored a guy who’s gone from sports or something with no experience in sales and has learned it in six weeks? Yeah, I think it started with an attitude. That was the first thing. You look at them and you say, who is going to be able to willingly balance the highs and lows of the roller coaster of sales and still come back day after day? Because I’ll tell you what, the money’s nice when you’re at the top, but the depression is horrible when you’re at the bottom. I like to tell people that to be good in sales you either have to be really dumb or numb. I like to think that I’m numb, but I think sometimes I’m dumb. But it’s kind of like where you’re just not aware of how much you get rejected, or you’re just numb to it where you no longer care. Do you kind of have a similar view? Well, I think that rejection is, for most people, it’s a stop sign. That’s it. It’s over. Stop, abort, go back, run the other direction. Someone says no. That’s right. When they say no, I’m not buying today. They just say, oh, OK, see you later. It was a no. We’re not going back. And I get a no, and I say, why? Why? I don’t accept no for an answer. You process it as a need for more information. That’s exactly right. What did I not do correct to give him the opportunity to have what I have? Do you view that as a psychological disorder? Or is that a learned skill? My wife would probably say yes, because she told me no for about four years and then eventually said yes. Really? That’s how you got married? Persistence pays off. My wife denied me three separate times. So I can relate. Now, I’m going to get into this here, because this is some really big stuff here. The mechanics, salespeople struggle for three reasons, just mechanically, in terms of the things they’re doing wrong. There’s three main reasons they struggle. One is that they just don’t know the sales mechanics. They just don’t know what they need to do specifically. They don’t know what to say, what questions to ask. Now, the second is they don’t look the part. They just don’t look the part. They don’t look like, that’s amazing. It’s like almost kind of like a weird Spanglish there. They don’t look the part. And the third is they don’t have confidence. There’s just not that confidence. So I want to kind of drill down here for a second. As far as the mechanics go, is there a certain book you recommend or a certain book’s set or a CD or anything you recommend to get the mechanics of what to say? The first book that I would give you when I talk about sales mechanics is Learn to Ask Open-Ended Questions. And here’s a great example. Clay, do you like the color black? Yeah. Great. Closed question. That was not an open-ended question. Same question, but I’m going to leave it open-ended for more answers. Clay, what do you like about the color black? I think it goes with a lot of other things. The Raiders. Oh, so you like football? Yeah. Okay, terrific. What do you like about football? Did you play when you were a kid? Where did you play at? I did. I played football. I was probably the worst high school senior football player in America. And I played at Dassel Cokato where they took two small schools and merged it into one there. That’s awesome. I bet you were a star just because you went out there. Yeah, people knew me, but it was not a good deal. So what we do is with open-ended questions is we try for them to reveal another question that we can ask and lead them down a path to where we want them to go. That felt kind of good by the way. If we could just keep that. So you got me kind of talking. Yeah, yeah. So I’m gonna ask questions that are gonna get you to reveal more about yourself. I don’t want to ask yes-no questions. Those are closed questions. We want those to be open-ended and a great book for that is The Secrets of Question-based selling. Yes. Now, how long ago did you read this book? Oh, man, seven years ago now. Really? And I keep it open. I mean, it’s always right there, because you can always keep going back to it. There is a book called Soft Selling in a Hard World. Yes. It’s probably had the same impact on me as that book had on you. And I know I use it as a textbook. I use it as a reference book, where I go back to it all the time. Is yours all dog-eared and highlighted? Yeah, yeah, because there’ll be a time when that day ends, and I’ll go, man, I was talking to this surgeon or I was talking to this doctor and all of a sudden it just didn’t go where I wanted to go. And what I’ll do is I’ll go back and I’ll write down the notes of that call. How did it go? What were the key words that he gave me? And I’ll go back and I’ll flip the book and I’ll go, ah, here was my spot. I could have drove it home right there. And then I go back. Now, the next part is not looking the part. A lot of people, they come in to meet with somebody, and they look down. They look depressed. They look like they’re down and out. Maybe they look disheveled. Maybe they look… Can you explain? Because I know you’ve seen guys who’ve applied for jobs at your business who you guys didn’t hire, and maybe you were even that guy. But how should you not look? When we’re talking about looking the part, how should you not look? Well, I think there was one quote given to me and it was actually by a salesman that sells suits and the quote was would you buy your image today would you buy your image today and so if you were walking around and all of a sudden they said here we have clay Clark for sale on this rack would you buy clay Clark image clicker is a beautiful man and I’m yeah I’m so yes you want for me to handle emotionally. And so I had to stop and think, what are other people thinking about my image? Now, on behalf of all the former entrepreneurs or young entrepreneurs, I used to have double hoop earrings, and I kind of dressed. I did not dress to impress, let’s say that. Talk to me about how you know if someone’s dressing right or kind of, when someone’s dressing for the part, what should they look like? Well, they look like they want it. And it’s very simple. Would I go to this person for advice? Would I invite this person to my house to meet my family? Would I invite this person… And a lot of people come to me and say, hey, I’ve got a great person for you to hire. And I say, okay, great. Let me ask you one question. If I were to see this person today, and based on how this person looks, my children would either get to eat tonight or they wouldn’t. Would I hire that person? Now here’s a brutal deal. I remember years ago we had several people, we’ve had numerous people who’ve wanted to come work with you. And some of them have the absolute heart of a champion. And when you’ve met some of them, you’re just like, I don’t know, I don’t think they’re gonna make it. And then you try to mentor them, but they just don’t look that part. They don’t, and it’s not necessarily like a height or weight thing, it’s just they’re dressing like super casual all the time when they need to be dressing for the role they want to get. So if I’m watching this right now and I don’t have any idea how to dress, because you came from somewhere. One is, how did you dress when you started in your career and what should I do if I wanted to dress like you dressed today? Tell me where you came from and where you’re at today. So a great story about how I first got into pharmaceutical sales. I got a phone call to come interview, and I had just turned down a professional contract to go to Japan and play basketball. And I was coming home from Canada, playing basketball for a team called Athletes in Action. And as I come back, the guy says, hey, I’ve got an interview for you in Tulsa. And I was like, great, sounds good. Well, I started researching, OK, what do I need to look like? What are the questions they’re going to ask me? And I started calling people that were in similar fields to what pharmaceutical sales was. They said, first of all, you better show up in a suit and tie. I went, oh no. Let me tell you something. They don’t have suits on racks for guys that are 6’11”. You can’t go to Dillard’s. You can’t go to these suit stores or anything like that. You have to go and call somebody and say, can you make me a suit? Well, let’s just say that I wasn’t at a good financial spot in life at that time. I had a little blue pickup truck that I would do yard work with to try to earn some extra money and my wife had a little Camry that she was driving. And so I went to a guy that was a custom tailor and I said, hey man, I had this big interview. If I get hired, it’s going to be a great job. I said, how much is a suit? And he said, a thousand dollars. And I was like, oh my, I don’t have a thousand dollars. I said, but see that blue truck out there? I’ll trade you that blue truck for a custom suit. You traded your transportation for a… I traded my wheels for a suit for one interview, for one shot at it. Are you happy you did it? Oh, ecstatic that I did it. Now, I will tell you, the first suit that I had had a five-button suit down the front of it. I had went to a little bit different part of town to ask for a suit. Oh, yeah. Than probably where I should have went to ask for a suit. And so I did have a few extra buttons down the front, which made me a little more noticeable because I am taller. But that first suit, I sold my truck, took my wife’s camera to the interview, and got hired on the spot wearing a suit and tie. That’s beautiful. So you’re saying that if anybody’s watching this and you want to get into the world of sales, am I hearing that you need to wear a suit or a collared shirt? What should I do? I’m hearing you need to dress better than your competition. So there’s a simple rule that I like to live by when you’re out there and you’re in the sales world. You have to make guys want to be like you and girls to want you around because of how you dress. Oh, oh, oh. Repeat it again. I’m trying to take it all in. What did you say? So you’ve got to make guys want to be like you and girls want you around because of how you’re dressed. Oh, that’s why the ladies want me around. Yeah. So these people won’t have you around if you don’t look like success. They don’t want to associate. People associate with people they want to be like. Did you, now if I’m on a very limited budget, because I didn’t have the AC on in my apartment for the first year of our marriage, and then when I was in college we struggled a little bit. You came from a place where you didn’t even have a thousand dollars to buy a suit. What do you recommend if someone doesn’t have a truck they can trade in? Are you saying, hey, whatever it takes, trade in your truck? I’m saying if you want the job bad enough, you will find a way. You will call a friend that’s the same size as you. You will call a parent. You will call a relative. And you will say, hey, can I borrow it? Until I can make the money to pay it back and buy something better, you will find a way to look the part so you can gain the part. There was one guy who applied to work here, and I remember I told him that he had to dress sharp. He had super long hair and you know if you want to be like a musician or you want to be an artist or there are certain careers you want to do, certain hair doesn’t matter, certain sports it doesn’t matter, but in our profession we do a lot of PR and a lot of work with big companies. He just had to get a haircut, you know. Sure. And I told him you have to have a suit. This dude literally went to the store, bought a suit, cut his hair for the first time in a decade or whatever, comes back with short hair and a new suit he’s never worn before for the interview. Oh, nice! And you could tell it was new, you could tell, but it’s that sort of resourcefulness and he was kinda in that point in his life where he didn’t have a lot of cushion there. Yeah. And I know we’ve all been there before, but it’s really dressing for the role you want. And so many people, an excuse I hear is, well I’m not comfortable in a suit. Well let me tell you, I wasn’t comfortable either. I was a guy that was wearing basketball shorts and a jersey. That’s the last thing I wanted to be was in a jacket, a button-down shirt, a tie. I remember in that interview trying to swallow going, oh, this is so tight on my neck. And now I enjoy it. I look forward to dressing up because it makes me feel good. Now, if I’m watching this right now, and I’m struggling with this final area here, if I’m struggling with my confidence. Now confidence is, it’s hard to really describe it sometimes to people what it is but it’s that look in your eye that says I can do it. It’s that eagerness to to vault to raise your hand and say oh I would like to try. It’s that belief that you can do something. But a lot of people you know when your situation you know your mother attempted suicide you grew up in a rough rough in a rough spot some people might have grown up worse. But if someone doesn’t have confidence, what is a step that they can take right now to kind of get their confidence up? Is there a book you recommend? What can I do? No, the first thing, it’s a mindset. You have to start thinking positive all the time. Attitude is a choice. You have to start thinking positive all the time. Attitude is a choice. It’s not something that someone else can dictate unless you allow them to dictate your attitude. Attitude is a choice. It’s an absolute choice. I choose to be happy. I choose to be sad. I choose to be mad. I choose to be frustrated. If you don’t choose to go down that path, it’s your choice. Don’t allow them to win. Do you talk to yourself in the car when you have a big rejection? Do you ever say to yourself, self I’m on fire, I’m good. Self, you know, or you ever say I got it, I’m good. I’m getting it together. You ever talk to yourself? I do, I do. Let’s go big boy, let’s get this one. We got to get this one today. This is the one we have to get. You’ve been waiting for this one. Guy’s a big dog. You know he’s gonna affect other people by the choices he makes. Let’s go get him. Do you call him big boy? You call yourself big boy? Big dog. Let’s go big dog. Let’s do it. Whatever you want to do to hype yourself up. Because let’s face it, I don’t have the lights anymore. I don’t have the crowd behind me. I don’t have the coach saying, go get him, go knock him down, go set that screen, get that rebound. The rah-rah that I have is me. That’s the guy. It’s a choice for me to say. You motivate yourself? Yes. Why not? Who else is going to do it? I feel like a lot of people wait for the cavalry to come, though. We’re waiting for the horses and the backup troops and the paratroopers and the reinforcements and we want that to happen. You’re saying it’s not going to happen. You have to be your own. No, I think you can surround yourself by successful people that choose to live the right way and have a positive attitude and they choose success. They choose positive. Don’t surround yourself with negative Nancy all the time. Don’t let that person be around you saying, yeah, it probably wasn’t that good. Man, it’s going to rain later. Can you believe that? How about you be thankful? Man, I’ll tell you what, we need the water. I’m glad it’s going to rain a little bit, but I tell you what, because it’s raining, now the docs aren’t going to want to go outside. They’re going to be inside trying to get work done because nobody can go outside today. And so you’re always looking for that positive spin. Yes. So a couple of things I want to clarify. As we’ve been shooting these Thrive videos and interviewing entrepreneurs from coast to coast, pro athletes and musicians and entrepreneurs, people who are at the top of their game, the thing we constantly hear over and over and over, and I’ve heard it every single time so far, and I’m hoping this tradition continues, every entrepreneur who’s successful talks to themselves. And it’s bizarre because everybody who I know who is struggling to have success is like, that’s weird. I would never talk to myself. I would never do it. Every entrepreneur I know dresses for success. Now, some are musicians and they dress the part for that. Some are into athletes and they dress the part, but they all dress the part for success. And they’re really, they’re kind of going, hey, if it’s up to me, if it’s going to be, it’s up to me. Like you start with yourself. You encourage yourself. That’s right. Now, I want to ask you this here. When you get your confidence rocked, I mean, you can imagine the last time you got throttled. I remember just recently we were sharing the Thrive concept with about 400 venture capital firms. We had some really big, big people come in recently who are really passionate about Thrive and get it and it’s taken off. I remember I got off the phone with a huge firm. If you’re watching, you’re that firm. I hope that you get to see this one, buddy. He was just like, not only is Thrive not a good idea. But the idea to make learning fun doesn’t even make sense. It’s not about fun. It’s about learning and the institution of college will never be questioned. And this whole thing. And then he gets kind of personal. And he’s like, I don’t appreciate you taking my time. And then just that extra little like, oh, oh, oh, you know. And it does that. So it kind of gets into your soul, and it kind of like just twist the dagger a little bit. Yeah. I remember immediately going into my Hummer of love, that’s my car, you know the Hummer, driving home and eight miles a gallon in my car thinking to myself, I feel horrible. But I didn’t say it. I just remember thinking it and then I’m like, I feel great. I am turning my thoughts of frustration into energy. The energy is what motivates me and the motivation is what’s keeping me pumped and I’m even more pumped and I’m glad you rejected me. And I got myself to where I pulled into the driveway. I got to a point where I was almost excited again. But it’s like you have to trick yourself, don’t you? Yeah, yeah. I think you have to balance the highs and lows. I think that roller coaster peaks really high and it dips really low. And constantly when you dip low, you can either allow that to take over the situation and take over your environment, or you can instantly change your mindset, which change your environment. What do you do every day to keep your confidence level high? Because I’ve known you for a long time, and I’ve seen you. You have a family, so you’ve been around childbirth and the ups and downs when your wife wasn’t feeling good. I’ve seen you at the peak where business is rocking. I’ve seen you when you’re transitioning. I’ve seen you. How do you stay positive on a daily? What do you do every morning? Well, first of all, I start out by waking up at 5 a.m. I choose to do something for me every day. Five? Five o’clock. It’s time you got to get up. I work when other people are sleeping. It’s not my family’s job for them to spend time with me while I’m being selfish. So while they’re sleeping, I do my selfish things. I work out. I read the newspaper. These are things that I need to do to make me feel good and everybody has to have something they do for themselves every day. But I’m gonna do it while my family sleeps. So you get up every day at 5? 5 o’clock. And what do you do from 5 to, let’s say, 6? 5 to 6, I get up and I prepare my day. So I’m going to make my gym bag and put everything I need in there when I go to the gym. I’m going to make my pre-workout, my intra-workout shake. I’m going to set my meals that I have my meals set out the night before in the refrigerator. I pack my lunch every day. I don’t go eat. My meals are orchestrated, that they are planned out so I know I can take a break three times a day and stop and get my meals. So you go work out. What time are you done working out? I’m done working out by about 645. And then you said because you don’t want to take away from family time. You’re doing it in the morning because if you were doing it at night, you’d be taking away from your wife’s time. Exactly. Okay. And then what time do you show up at the office? Well, I’ll tell you what. In the pharmaceutical sales world, I don’t need to be in the office because if I’m in the office, I’m not making money in front of a doctor. So I need to be out there in offices before they open. There are things that I can do. I can show up and I can wait and I can find out if Susie is the first one to get there, I can find out if the doctor is the first one to get there, if he’s the first one to get there, that’s what I’m going to talk about. I’m going to say, hey, you’re an early riser too. You get here and you work while everyone else is waiting to come in. He’s like, yeah, it’s the only time I can get stuff done. I do the same thing. All of a sudden now we’re on the same level. So do you make a to-do list every day or some kind of day timer? I do. I have a whiteboard that I use at the end of my day. So when I come home, the first thing I do is I stop in my office. I have a six-foot dry erase board that’s on my wall, and I offload my thoughts so I can be a husband and a father. On the big whiteboard? On the big whiteboard. When you get home? As soon as, first thing I do, take out the dry erase marker, start writing what happened that day, who I saw, who I need to go back to see, who I need to email, and my thoughts are offloaded so I can clear my mind of work and open my mind up to being a father and a husband. And do you listen to like success audio? Do you read books? Do you listen to things on tape? What do you do to kind of get that ongoing education that so many entrepreneurs do? Yeah, I’ll tell you what, my biggest struggle is reading books. It’s hard for me. I think everyone out there says, oh, I get to page six, and then I flip to page 12, but I started daydreaming at page six, so I have to flip all the way back. Well, let me tell you something. The power of the pen. Mark it up. Write on it. Scribble on it. Highlight it. Color a picture next to it. Stop and talk to somebody else about it. I use YouTube. I get on there and I type in motivational. I type in careers that I think are awesome, like learning about an astronaut. What did this astronaut do to become here? That guy made a choice to do extraordinary things to become an extraordinary person. I want to know how he did that, and I want to get there. So you are very intentional, though, about what you do. If I’m going to kind of shadow you and kind of be mentored by you up the mountain of success, I’m going to have to get up at 5. Is it possible if I don’t get up at 5? Not my lifestyle. And then I’m going to have to pack my lunch or organize my day and get kind of my things together so that I’m basically preparing my day before my competition even wakes up. They’re not even going to wake you. They are still rolling out of bed. They’re trying to make their choices. Who do I go see today? My month is already mapped out. I know where I’m going, so now I’m proactive instead of reactive. Now there are times throughout the day where I have to be reactive. I have to go and say, okay, let’s go put out this fire, try to gain that business. Oh, I didn’t know they were in over here. Oh, you guys are friends. Let’s go put those together. But that day is already mapped out, so I am proactively choosing where I want to go every day. So now, as we kind of, the next point here about sales, it’s something that no one wants to do, but everyone has to do, is sales really is the highest paid profession in the world. I’m going to give you a quote here, and you can just kind of marinate on it and tell me what you think here. Our leaders in business, politics, research, and the arts are all great salespeople, or they have great salespeople on their payroll. This is Jerry Vast, the author of Soft Selling in a Hard World. President Obama is a good salesperson. The CEO of a lot of these tech companies you see, whether it was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs when he was alive or Richard Branson, they’re all good salespeople. Have you ever met a leader who’s the top, who couldn’t sell or influence people? Because I think the first person they sell is themselves. To get up every day and say, I choose to be this way. And every person I’ve had along the way, I’ve always asked, I’ve been transparent, how do you do it? What did you do? I like to look to that next generation. Right now, let’s talk about family and home life. I want to go to someone, since I’m in my 30s, I want to go to someone in their 50s that has their children that have grown up, and I want to say, how’d you do it? What would you change? What would you do different? Because I want to learn from those mistakes and I want to capitalize to make my life better. Do you have any sales people or a mentor that you’ve looked up to in far as their ability to do sales or influence others? Anybody you’ve looked up to in your career? Yeah, I think there’s a lot of people that I had. I had a manager when I was early on in my career that I said, how does he do it? Because he made it fun. He made it challenging. He made it competitive. And he was a guy that I would always call, and to this day I would probably run through a brick wall for him. When he comes in and he says, hey, I need you to do this, I knew he had my back every time so I was going to have him. Nobody cares about you until you care about them. The people that cared about me, I will run through walls for. So you, in your career, it seems like you’ve looked up to people who are where you want to be. That’s right. And then you said, how do I get there? And you’ve kind of reached out to those people. Are you ever shocked, though, at how much money can be made in the world of sales? There is so much money out there just sitting there that I’m more shocked that there’s not enough time to get it. Every time I drive down the road, I go, oh my gosh, we haven’t been there, we haven’t done this, we haven’t done that. There’s so much out there that I wish I had more time to get to it. Now, this is one thing that’s a huge, huge, huge thing I want to underscore here. In the world of entrepreneurship, you know, you have two different mindsets. You have the poverty mindset, which is what a lot of people have grown up with or maybe you’re struggling with now if you’re watching this. And then you have the prosperity mindset. And the prosperity mindset says there is an abundance of deals. There is more deals than we could possibly get. There is so much fish out there that we could never possibly get it all. Then there’s the scarcity, that poverty mentality that says there’s not enough. Oh boy, we should probably just work on the few. You’re a pharmaceutical rep, but it’s like, we’ll just probably manage these two or three doctors we have because we don’t want to ruin a relationship with this guy and there are so few leads. How did you get to a point where you started embracing the prosperity mindset and believing there was more than enough and an abundance? Yeah, I think people put limitations on themselves with their call cycle that they put in place. A call cycle meaning that a list of doctors that I put in place during a month’s time that I’m going to call on in an organized, orchestrated way. That is my call cycle of people that I’m going to go see. But on my way to see those people, am I going to pass opportunities because it’s not on my list? Is the limitation of that paper going to stop my ability? No, it’s not. Just because I’m going to room 203 and 201 is open, do I pass that one? Because my call cycle says go here. No, I don’t. I’m going to stop because I’m there, and I’m going to ask because all they can say is no. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. So you… now, do you actually enjoy sales today? I mean, do you honestly… do you enjoy it now? I love what I do. Okay. But it’s taken you a while to kind of get to where you like it? You know, at first it was a challenge. That first six weeks that I told you about, I was going, oh boy, what did I sign up for? I don’t know if I’m smart enough. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if it’s going to work, because you’ve got this great job, but if you lose it, all of a sudden I feel like, oh, I’m back to where I’m nothing again, because pharmaceuticals, once again, is a desirable opportunity that people want to get into. And if you lose that pharmaceutical job, are you damaged goods. Oh, he couldn’t keep a pharmaceutical. Oh, he couldn’t keep it. He couldn’t. I remember my first sales job, I was working at a place called West Telecommunications, where we sold gas rebates. So we had to convince people to subscribe to Newport News Magazines, which I don’t even know if that’s a real magazine anymore. We would try to get people to sign up for Newport News Magazine, and then if they did it, for whatever much the amount was, they could get free gas rebates. Rebates, so you have to get gas, and then mail in this coupon to get a rebate, and then if you didn’t call them and tell them to cancel, you started getting a big bill for these magazines. It was just a ridiculous thing. And I remember there was one guy in our room who was selling like seven subscriptions an hour. And then there was a machine called Auto Dialer. So the machine would literally dial for you. So there was no break. Like if you got rejected, it’s just going to call again and again and again. And I remember being like going hours without any deals. It was just like, you know, I’m just laying there like a lifeless body, and then the phone rings again, and someone’s on the phone, and I’m getting rejected and rejected. And finally I was like, man, I’m going to have to get serious about this thing if I’m going to make it. And now I love it, though. And I don’t know, was there a turning point for you where you went from being scared to liking it? I mean, when was that for you? Yeah, I think there was a time for me that I was part of a team, right? When I first started, I was the rookie. I was part of a team, and I was checking the box. I was going through, I was calling my doctor, seeing who I needed to see, leaving the samples I needed to leave, and all of a sudden I went, there’s got to be more. There’s got to be more to this. The paycheck wasn’t enough anymore. It was fun for a while, it gave me a great lifestyle, but all of a sudden the money wasn’t the value. The value was, am I making a difference? And all of a sudden I stopped and I said, this isn’t good enough. I want more. There’s more. There’s got to be more. And that’s when I made a decision to say, not only am I going to do sales, but I’m going to be the best. And when I’m the best, I’m going to choose to put more on my plate. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Houston, 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? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing. That’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. We’ve had the top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’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 two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop, December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks it’s gonna blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who have been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day, we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup. But I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Thrive time show. 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 is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show 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 Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful, sunny weather of L.A., come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the Diffic chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business Come to Tulsa book a ticket and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and wouldn’t 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’ve 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 King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvey Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark, he’s a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, Trump. What were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. 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. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa!