Clay Clark | Paychex | Billionaire Founder of Paychex, Tom Golisano Shares Why the First Billion Is the Hardest to Earn & You Too Can Build a Successful Business + Request Tickets for Clay Clark’s Dec 5th & 6th Business Growth Workshop!

Audio Transcription

On today’s show we interviewed Tom Golisano, the founder of the $28 billion company Paychex. On today’s show he shares with us how he took $3,000 in a credit card and turned it into a billion dollar net worth by solving a problem that 95% of small business owners have. This right here, folks, is a laser show with Tom Golisano. Did you know that Tom Golisano was once the owner of the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres? And now he’s the author of the new book, Built Not Born, a self-made billionaire’s no-nonsense guide for entrepreneurs like you. 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 Time Show. 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. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we get to interview today’s guest He, Dr. Z, built a $28 billion business. Tom, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, I’m doing well. It’s a pleasure. Hey, how are things in Florida right now? Is the weather fine? How are things in beautiful Florida? Well, I’m looking out the window. It’s about 80 degrees and pure sunshine. Everything is nice and green. It’s wonderful here. Now that’s a long distance from Naples, Florida to where you started your career in Rochester, New York. When did you first figure out what you wanted to do professionally? Well, quite frankly, I thought you were going to ask me when I figured out I wanted to get out of snow and cold weather. That was when I was a pretty young guy. But I decided I wanted to be in business for myself probably in my college days. I had some experiences watching my father in business who eventually ended up going bankrupt. And I saw some of the things he went through and I envisioned some of the things I wouldn’t do if I was in that position. And so when I went to college, I just focused entirely on the idea that someday I wanted to be in business. I think being an entrepreneur is the only way to go. Not for everybody, but at least for me. Where did you go to college? I went to a small two-year college in Alfred, New York called Alfred State Tech. It was in the southern tier of the state. Are they going to rename it Paychex University? That name is already used in our training department. Okay, okay. Well, I’m sure they are proud of you. Now, how did you first start the company? Were you in the dorm room helping your buddies write paychecks for their side hustles? Or how did you start paychecks? Well, actually, I was working for a company that did payroll processing for larger companies. Their target market was 50 employees, up to 500 employees. And I was in sales and then they eventually made me a sales manager and I was driving down the street one day and I got to thinking, you know, most businesses in America have less than 50 employees. So I went to this library to verify that and I found out 98% of all American businesses have less than 100 employees and 95% have less than 50 employees. And I decided that was a market nobody was attacking or going after. So I decided, based on my knowledge working for that payroll processing company, to make some modifications to their product and how they operated, and put it together to see if I could come up with a product line or a payroll processing product that would fit the need. And basically, I did three things that were different in those days. Back in the 60s and 70s, people used to have to fill out fairly complicated computer input sheets, which means they had to be trained on how to do it. And then the information had to be physically transferred to the payroll processor by delivery or by mail. I got the idea, for example, an average 15-employee company, they could just call in on the telephone. A trained operator, a professional on the other end, would extract from the client exactly what they wanted to accomplish for their particular employees. It was cheaper, and it was much more accurate than the customer filling out an input sheet. The second thing is, back in those days, nobody in the payroll processing business was completing payroll tax returns. If you’re an employer in the New York State, for example, you have a minimum of 52 payroll tax returns and payments that must be made every year. And if you don’t do it properly and on time, the fines are pretty strong. And third, we had a price that those small companies could afford it. The average minimum charge back in 1970 was about $24 a pay period, even only if you had one or two employees. Well, we brought it down to about a dollar a check or a dollar a person. And charging at that level. Now, when I had all these ideas, I went to my employer and I said, let’s set up this division. I’d be glad to run it or be a major part of it. They said they didn’t want to go after the small company market. They didn’t think it was going to be profitable. It’s the best thing that happened to me because I resigned a few months later and started Paychex. Paychex is a company that my wife and I use for our businesses. See, I’m always amazed at how they do it so inexpensively. I’m serious. I’m not just saying this because he’s on our show. I’ve been using Paychex forever, and my wife and I have thought about in years past, as you’re looking at the budget, you might say, you know, let’s see, Z, if we can trim costs in area A or B, and we’re always saying to ourselves, we could not possibly provide a service, we couldn’t do this ourselves, that’s expensive. I’m just blown away, I’m getting nervous here, I’m so blown away. What questions do you have for the founder of Paychex, because this guy has been solving my problems for years. I feel like I owe him a debt of gratitude. You know, I go by Dr. Z, so I’m going to call you. Is it okay if I call you Mr. G? Is that good? You can call me anything you want. There you go, buddy. I’ve got a question. You own a superyacht, correct? Yes, I do. Now, did you get to name your superyacht? I mean, how does that work? Are they already named when the guy constructing them? Because yours is named, if you still have it, is named Laurel, from what I find online. Did you name it Laurel? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. them because yours is named, if you still have it, is named Laurel, from what I find online. Did you name that? And if so, what does that name mean to you? Not much. Basically, I’m the second owner of the boat. And the previous owners had called it Laurel. And when I took it over, we decided we’d leave the name the same because it does do a certain amount of charter business. By the way, can I go to our low pricing for a minute? Oh, absolutely. Would you like us to raise your prices? Would you feel better? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We use paychecks also. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean this so seriously. My wife and I, we’ve talked about this, and we were saying, this is years ago, it’s like how in the world do they do it so inexpensively? Now, obviously, you guys have gotten more efficient over time, but how did you go out there and get your first 10 customers? Did you just cold call? Did you show up? Were you doing… You know what I did? I put together a mailing list from the Rochester Chamber of Commerce and sent out about 3,000 letters early in November of 1970. And I was hoping to get 60 clients out of that mailing. I ended up getting six. Wow. So I had gone through all my money by then, ended up with six clients. So from then it was, you know, bank borrower and almost the other thing. But it took me four years to get my goal of 300 clients. I ended up the first year with about 40. So it was a long haul. It went four years without a payroll check. It’s a good thing my wife took on a job in a charitable organization. But we survived it, and then it was just a matter of adding clients year after year. What was your low point when growing the business? Because Dr. Z, you started your first business, I started my first business. I know I worked at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV when I was starting DJConnection.com. And I remember vividly eating ramen noodles, having no disposable income to speak of, being in a tight spot, sharing the one car that barely worked. Tom, what was your absolute lowest point when building paychecks? One of the things that happened to me is I took a few of the people, and we only had a few working, out for dinner one night for some sort of minor celebration. We went to a popular steakhouse in town, and we had dinner, and I still had my American Express card. My other two cards, Master Charge and Visa, had been taken away. But I still had my American Express card. I paid for the dinner with the American Express card. And the owner, who I knew, came back to me with my American Express card cut in half and he said he was directed by American Express to do that. I was no longer going to get credit. So obviously, that was quite embarrassing. So fortunately, he was a client. So I said, how would it be if I just add my charge, subtract my charge for our gender against your bill? And your bill will be reduced, and I’m getting out of here with some sort of pasture left. But that was the one point. I remember friends coming over to the house. I remember one time, a good friend of mine came over, he opened up the refrigerator door, I mean we were that close, and there was nothing in it. That’s a good diet plan. So having gone through that, it sounds like you’ve gone through a little bit of it yourself, it’s a real character builder. So how did you fund the scaling of the business? I mean you said it took you four years I believe to get to 300 clients. How did you fund the scaling of Paychex, which today Z has 670,000 customers. Tom, how’d you do it? Correct. Well, after I got established in Rochester, New York, with about 300 clients, a friend of mine came into the office, and his name was Phil, Phil Wareheim, and Phil said, Tom, this looks like you’re going to make it. Is there any way I can get involved? And I said, well, how would you like to be a partner with me in the cities of Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo? And he said, yeah, we’ll do that. And we agreed to it. He got started. And a couple of months later, an employee of a client came into my office, said, Tom, this is really great service. I’d like to go somewhere in the United States and start one. I said, where would you like to go? He says, well, Miami, Florida. So I thought to myself, gee, being a partner with somebody in Miami, that’s not bad. There we go. So when I mentioned the word partnership, he said to me, oh no, I want to be your franchisee. Now that was a whole new thought, but it meant me helping him get started, maybe an initial fee and a percentage of revenue. And I said, okay, and he went off to Miami, Florida. After I got these two individuals started, I said, gee, is this a way to build a national organization? So during the next four years, I brought into the company ten different partners and six different franchisees. They all, except one, lived in Rochester, New York, and they moved to various parts of the country. And we got started that way. We had a goal, or at least I had a goal, that we would someday consolidate into one company and either be a public corporation or else sell out to another company. Every year we added sales people. We try to average at 7% more people, more sales people every year. Today we have over 2,500 people in the field as sales representatives. Wow. Okay, so now you got 2,500 people in the field. Z, they’re out there selling. 670,000 customers. One yacht, one super yacht. Super yacht, by the way. This is not a little dingy out there. This is a super yacht. Not a dingy. So when did you get inspired to write your new book? I mean, tell us about your new book. What’s it called? What inspired you to write this new book? Okay, the book is called Built, Not Born. Built, Not Born. We picked that title because it sort of very well described the process. I wasn’t born with any money, didn’t inherit any, et cetera, et cetera. Built it from scratch. When I started the company, I had $3,000 and three credit cards in my name. People have been asking me to write a book. And my first thought was to write an autobiography. But in talking to various publishers, one of them suggested, why don’t you write a business book first? And I said, gee, that might be a good idea. And while I’m talking to them on the phone, I started writing down a table of contents about what I would want to say. And it flowed real easy. So I decided to write the business book, HarperCollins as the publisher, and it’s being released in the middle of February. I would like to get your take on this because your book title is, it’s a built not born, a self-made billionaire’s no-nonsense guide for entrepreneurs. Now Zee, I’m going to ask, it’s like a passive-aggressive mentorship session for you right now. So I’m going to, I’ve got a friend, Tom, hypothetically, he goes by last name Zellner, not this Zellner, but a different one. He only owns about 10% of a bank, and he’s struggling. He’s got the one optometrist, the optometry clinic that’s doing the most revenue in his state, not you, someone else, and a very successful auto auction and other companies. And he wants to get to the B zone. He wants to go from the M zone to the B zone, from the millionaire status to the billionaire status. What tip would you have for my friend? Not our co-host here, not you, but someone else. What tip would you have for somebody who’s already a multimillionaire who wants to become a billionaire? Well, the way we did it, and the way I probably would advise people to do it, is do it in plateaus. You know, when Paychex had 50,000 clients, we set our site on 100,000 clients. And when we got 100, we set our sites on 250, and so forth, until we got it up to the point that we’re at. The other thing, we did a very good job, a combination of luck and good management. We picked a market that’s huge. You know, the number of small businesses in the United States is at least 12 to 15 million of them. And today, even today, with our success and other companies’ successes, if you add all the payroll processes together, we still only have about 20% of the market. So it’s a huge marketplace. So that’s one of the things that served us very, very well. But the other thing is, we didn’t try to do it in big gulps. We did it in small plateaus. And when you have a product that works and you can make money at it, that’s a good way to go. So how do you differentiate yourself? So if 80% of that, like you said, you have 20% of the available marketplace, how many of that, do you know how many of the others are using a payroll company? And how do you differentiate from those other payroll companies? Well, if there’s, let’s say there’s 15 million businesses and that means the payroll processes all together have about 3 million. And I think that’s pretty close to being very accurate. How do we differentiate ourselves? Well, you’re a client. I hope you feel you get very personal service and we’re very responsive. Yes. We have software that I think is very comprehensive and fits most situations, so people don’t need to change services. We’re, as you said earlier, we price fairly low, so that we’re very competitive in that area. The fourth thing I would say is our sales organization is very well trained in the product and the product knowledge. You’re not going to buy a payroll service from a salesperson that comes in your door and doesn’t seem to know what they’re talking about and not very confident. So we spend a lot of time and effort training our salespeople on our service, how it works, and the benefits to the customer. You know, Z, I’ll say this as far as paychecks. I have my three reasons I love these guys. One is the pricing is unbelievable. Two, they are super accurate. I mean, the price, the accuracy, everything is they say yes all the time. You call and say, I have a question, and they go, yes, how can I help you? And I’ve dealt with other payroll companies, and Z, you’ve probably dealt with this too, but they can’t give you a straight answer, no one calls you back. I mean, these guys do it right. I really do like this and I think you, Tom, are a source of wisdom on a lot of things. But in your book, you write about some stuff that I think is controversial. And so I would like to bring up some of the things. And if you don’t like the question, you just hang up and that’ll be our little code, Z. He doesn’t like the question. Fair enough. In your book, you talk about writing a pre-Neptual or even a post-Neptual agreement and it’s very critical to any business owner. You’re saying it’s very critical for any business owner to have a prenuptial and a post nuptial agreement. Can you explain what a prenuptial and a post nuptial agreement is and why you think it’s important for any business owner? Well a prenuptial agreement is an agreement between two parties who are about to get married as to how they would distribute assets that they accumulate or come in with at the time of the marriage. Post-nup is just an agreement written after a marriage when the two parties decide it’s appropriate. Here’s why it’s so important. I’m sure you’ve heard of business people that have gone into business, no prenuptial agreement or post. They go into business, they’re successful, and then one day they decide that they’re going to split up. Well, that puts the entrepreneur in a real bad situation because chances are he’s going to have to make some sort of payment to the other spouse. And that may require that the business be sold. And there you are now in a situation where the business has to be sold. You’re not going to be selling it at the time you want to sell it most naturally, or at a time when you can maximize the sale price. So it ends up being a real tussle, and sometimes could make a divorce proceeding very, very sensitive and very, very difficult. You know, what I’m going to do is we have some listeners out there who are saying this right away. I can hear the listeners saying this right now. They’re going, but what would be the point of being married to somebody, Tom, if you’re not committed to it working out, somebody out there is thinking this and they’re going, by signing a prenuptial, I am going, before it even starts, conceding that it’s not going to work out. I know that’s the argument people are saying out there. What would you say to that? I would say a prenup or a postnup is a contingency item, okay? But we also have to remember, 50% of the marriages today in the United States of America end up in divorce. And that’s a reality you’ve got to face. Keep in mind, you know, 60, 70, or 100 years ago when the life expectancy was so different than it is today, or 200 years ago. But today, marriage is being so long and people change and a post-Nup or a pre-Nup will, you know, take care of that continuously so that when the time comes, unfortunately, if it does come, it’ll be more easily settled. Tom, I definitely get the pre-Nup. I’ve heard about those, I know about those. I understand, but post-Nup, that’s… this is kind of one of the first times I’ve heard about that move. Oh, how do you bring that up over a cocktail argument? Like, hey honey, guess what I think is a great idea? Now that we’re together and things are working out well, my good buddy, the billionaire Tom, the founder of Paychex, he told us the advice he’s given us. On this book I opened up here, it says we should get together and talk about how we’re going to break it up. Because it’s a coin flip. No, I totally get it, but that’s a super move right there. This is a controversial book? Post-snap, that’s kind of a super move. You know, being part of a business person, you have to be a pretty good negotiator, too. There you go. That’s true. Okay, now, Tom, I have another question for you here. In your book, again, this is a new book, Built, Not Born, A Self-Made Billionaire’s No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs. In the book, you talk about this idea of going against the grain to generate opportunities. Are you talking about petting a cat backwards or what are you talking about? Well I thought I gave you an example earlier. The payroll processing industry back in the 60s and 70s was focused on a much different market than paychecks focused on. It went after larger companies. Paychecks, our desire was to go after the low end of the market for two reasons. Number one, there were so many more of them, more small businesses than larger businesses, would fall into the paychecks range. And secondly, and here’s a little bit of the key to paychecks success, the way payroll processors process is they charge you per check created, in other words, one for every one of your employees. The more employees you have on the payroll, the lesser per check you’re going to pay to a payroll processor. In other words, if you’re a 100 person payroll, you may only pay 50 cents. I’m just pulling these numbers out of the air. You may only pay 50 cents a check. But if you’re a 5 person payroll, your total bill might be $7, which means you’re paying $1.40 a check. The revenue from 10 10-person payrolls is two and a half times more than it would be for a 100-person payroll. Do you get that? The revenue for 10 10s would be two and a half times greater than a 100-person payroll. Now, I think it’s easier to sell 10 10s than 100 because all the other processors are going after those large clients. So it’s much easier to sell the 1010s and the respective overhead is not consistent with the fact that it’s 10 companies instead of one. In other words, we can do 10 payrolls almost as easily as we can do one 100. There’s got to be something that you do or worldviews that you have that most people don’t have because a lot of people just don’t become millionaires let alone billionaires. Do you have maybe in addition to your book do you have maybe some books that you’d recommend or do you have a kind of a pithy quote that you like to share with people or what’s your big tip for our listeners out there? Well I’ll tell you I’ll give you one. Some people ask me if I’ve had a mentor. Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever had a mentor. What I’ve had is a bunch of negative mentors. In other words, as a salesperson for Paychex and for the company I sold before and the company that Burroughs Corporation, I was exposed to a lot of small business people. And I learned a lot more watching them operate when they were doing well rather than when they were doing great. So I learned watching people make mistakes. I think that helped the most. Also, I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the company focused, both on product line and achieving sales quotas. That was number one importance to our management team that we always met our sales quotas and sales goals. Tom, I’ve got a question for you. If you could go back, say, the mid-70s, you got paychecks started in 71 you’ve kind of hit that critical mass of Right that point where you you said in your interview earlier You said it looks like you’re going to make it your friend said looks like you’re going to make it if you could go back To that time frame back going back in the old time machine and talk to yourself What advice what would you say to yourself at that time? well number of things. I’ll give you one is as soon as we went public, I came out with a product line that was much different than what we were doing. It was similar to Monster.com, but it was before the Internet. Now we made an investment in it, but the sad part of it, or the bad part of it, was Wall Street did not like us going into a diversified business, much different than what we were doing so soon after going public. So our stock price suffered for some period of time because of that. Now, after a year, I said, that’s enough, and we closed it down. Secondly, I said we brought in 10 partners and six franchisees. I probably could have done it with fewer people. It just made their territories larger, then they would have had less people to deal with. Yeah. Excellent. And that’s probably positive. There you go. And now, on a personal note, I’ve been looking at your bio and kind of doing some research on you. A very interesting life you’ve led. But if you could go back, say, a few years ago, and you could either, one, own a professional NFL football team or be the governor of New York, which one would you choose? Well, I’ve never wanted to own an NFL team. You know I owned a hockey team, the Buffalo Savers. And that was a great experience over an eight-year period. I did want to be governor. I tried to be governor three times as an independent in New York State, which is a tough road to hoe. The two major parties have so much strength in New York State for an independent to get elected. But I would have loved that challenge back then. I really would have. I have a couple final questions here. I notice you’ve donated throughout your career $250 million. Is that correct? You’ve donated over $250 million to charities thus far? Is that right? Actually, it’s over $300 million now. $300 million. What kind of charities do you give to? What do you look for in the charities that you give back to? Actually, there are two categories of charities. I have a son that’s intellectually, developmentally disabled, and Stephen is now in his early 50s, but because of his experience, we’ve spent, he and his mother, we’ve given quite a bit to organizations that deal with people with developmental disabilities. We have a foundation set up in our name. It gives out approximately $2 million a year through the foundation. Also, there’s a lot of organizations in any community, hospitals and schools, that type of thing and we probably hit quite a bit, most of them, at least I know we’ve hit most of them in the Rochester, New York area. Now we’re expanding down to Southwest Florida. So individuals with developmental disabilities is a major one, but we also help as many schools, colleges, and universities and hospitals as we can. We have three children’s hospitals named after us, one in Rochester, one in Syracuse, and one in Naples. Well, I’m not sure what series of poor life choices that Tom made to end up on our show. But we had Wolfgang Puck on the show, and I know he was confused as to how it happened. We’ve had John Maxwell on the show. We’ve had so many great people. But this was one of my favorite interviews. This was awesome, Tom. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate doing it. Hey, well, I tell you what, if we’re ever in the Naples, Florida area, we’re going to bring out our megaphone. We have a megaphone. Do we not have a megaphone in the studio? We actually do have a megaphone. And if you hear some guys running around the water, shore area. The harbor, looking for Laurel. Say it. We’re looking for a former owner of the Buffalo Sabres here. We’re looking for Tom Salasano. If you hear us, just wave at us, and that way we’ll know that you know that’s us. Or duck and run. Duck and run. Why don’t you give me a call and I’ll buy you lunch. Oh, there we go. I’m booking Naples. And you are a customer, right? We are. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You can write it off. Yeah, even better. We’re doing lunch. I’m coming out there, Tom. We’re coming in hot. All righty. That right there was a blasty blast. I encourage everybody out there, if you are stuck in a rut and you don’t know how to grow your business and you can’t afford one-on-one coaching and you can’t afford to get to a workshop, why don’t you check out our online school. It’s just $19 a month and you go to thrivetimeshow.com and you click on the business school button. So again go to thrivetimeshow.com and click on the business school button and there for $19 a month you can have access to millionaires and mentors via video, super success stories just like today’s guest. I mean if you want access to Michael Levine, the world’s top branding and PR expert, or Lee Cockrell, the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts who once managed 40,000 employees at one time and one million customers per week, you can have access to all that for just $19 a month. Check it out today by going to Thrivetimeshow.com and clicking on the business school button. There you can subscribe. You can check it out. If you have enough money to do it, if you’ve got the money in your pocket, I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Tom’s new book. He doesn’t need your money, but he does need to share the wisdom that he has learned over the years. This guy’s given away over $300 million of money to charities and he’s written a book, not to make a quick profit off you, but to teach you the skills and the principles that he’s learned in route to building a billion dollar business, a $28 billion business known as Paychex. His new book is called Built Not Born, a Self-Made Billionaires No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs. Check it out today. Again, it’s Built Not Born, a Self-Made Billionaires No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs. born a self-made billionaire’s no-nonsense guide for entrepreneurs. Now if any further ado, we like to end each and every show with a boom, which stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum, because we know that’s what it takes to build a successful company. 3, 2, 1, boom! What if you could gain access to download each and every book that I’ve ever written for free? Well that’d be terrible, because I don’t like you. OK, we’re making a big assumption here. But assuming that you do like me and you like the Thrivetime Show, you can now go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash free dash resources. That’s thrivetimeshow.com forward slash free dash resources to download each and every book that I’ve ever written for free. You can download the e-book version of each and every book that I’ve ever written for free. Ah, Clay, I just want to chime in here real quick. I don’t like you. Or capitalism. I feel like we should all get free stuff. Well, I am in the process of explaining where you can get free stuff. And you can now also download all the helpful infographics. There’s infographics on Firing 101, The Perfect Hiring System, The Principles from Ray Dalio, internet marketing 101, the lead bin management system, managing humans 101, logo creation 101, why Google loves WordPress, time management 101. We also have an incredible infographic about the importance of calling your leads often, because the average person no longer answers their phone unless they are called multiple times and unless they receive a text from you. We also have the importance of file nomenclature 101, sales lead conversion 101 and much, much more. And it’s all available for you to download for free right now by going to thrivetimeshow.com. Are you suggesting I should have to move my body? Yes. This is for free. Isn’t there a way you could just beam it? I mean, why do I have to move my body? Because it causes me anxiety. Which is why I would never go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash free dash resources. I would never go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash free dash resources. All right, let me clarify. If you have the capacity to move your fingers, go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash free dash resources to download an e-book version of every single Amazon best-selling book I’ve ever written and all the infographics that have the power to change your life. Well Thrive Nation, we are the Thrive Time Show. What we do is we help businesses grow their business owners to grow their businesses. The purpose is to create time freedom and financial freedom and we’ve had a longtime client that we’ve worked with and this is sort of like our exit interview because he’s actually exited the business. And so he’s at the other end of the rainbow or he got to the top of the mountain or he hit it or he hit his big goal. And I’m honored to call him a friend and a longtime client. Tim Whaley, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing outstanding, Clay. Thank you for having me on. Can you tell everybody, how did you first hear about what we do in terms of business coaching. I first heard of you through your podcast, actually. So I started listening, was very intrigued. Actually, you had built and sold businesses in the industry that I was in. So it seemed like a natural fit to inquire about coaching. Yeah. And, you know, once we connected and you did your, I’m not sure if it was an onboarding interview or it was more of a, you were going to determine whether or not we were a good fit. I think that was it. But once we did that, I was hooked and was really hoping that you would take me on as a client, which you did. Now, before I met you, I mean, you’d been in business for a long time and one would say you’re probably the dominant resource or one of the top providers in your industry before we even met. Could you tell the listeners how implementing the Dream 100 system impacted your business growth? Oh my gosh. So within just a few short years, it doubled our revenue, plain and simple. So Dream 100 was by far the secret sauce for our success, and really the reason why I was able to exit my business ahead of schedule. So just a brilliant program makes total sense as a company. It’s one of the few marketing slash advertising outlets that you have total control over. It’s not like you’re on Facebook which owns Facebook or Google which owns Google but I mean you own the system. You make it work and great things happen. Now with the Dream 100 you have to identify the the vendors that you want to refer you or the or the prospects that you want to refer you have to identify the the ideal and likely buyers that you want to refer you and then you have to reach out to them consistently and you guys have done a phenomenal job at doing that. What were a couple of the challenges of persistently reaching out to people to get them to refer you guys a business? Well a couple things. One, you just really have to find the right fit. You have to find the right employee or employees. Because really, when you’re going out there, you need somebody who’s obviously great at building relationships, and that’s a lot of different people. But what I found is you also just need a hunter-killer. So it’s not necessarily somebody who’s very personable and great with people, but somebody with those qualities, but also just has a, like I said, a hunter killer, just wants to, has a drive to bring business in. And you find that person and they just make it happen. And we were fortunate enough to find a couple great employees who were just very good at that. And now that you have sold the business, you’re going to stay on as an advisor to make sure that the brand is successful and that sort of thing. What does it feel like to be on the other side of the rainbow or to be at the top of the mountain or to be on the other side of selling a business that you started so many years ago? Well, Clay, it’s only been six weeks. So obviously mixed feelings there. But if I had to put it in one word, I would have to say freedom. Okay. Yeah. So, it feels pretty darn good, and my wife and I are very excited. Now, obviously, we’re still helping the new ownership transition and whatnot, so there’s stuff we’re doing and stuff to be done, but overall, when you’ve been hitting it hard three years and then all of a sudden you don’t have to, it feels pretty darn good, not going to lie. Now, Robert Kiyosaki, you know, the best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I recently interviewed him and he had me on his show and it’s been kind of fun to connect with this guy who wrote the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. It’s just fun to connect with him and he’s been talking borderline obsessively on his show recently about it’s not what people say, it’s what they do. You need to watch people do, not what they say. And I think a big thing about having a business coach or a personal trainer if you’re into fitness, is if you’re into fitness, you need to have a nutritional plan, you need to have a workout plan, and then you need someone to hold you accountable. And if you’re a business owner, you need to have a business plan, you need to have weekly actions that you need to implement, and then you need to have some accountability. How has having a business consultant or a coach to guide you down the path, how has that impacted you? Tremendously. So there’s a running joke between my wife and I. I will often say I’m the most consistently inconsistent person you want to meet. So, historically, I’ve been the guy who starts this, goes for a little while, and then, you know, sees a, you know, I’m like a squirrel, right? I see the next great thing, and I’ll go after that for a while, and then, so, I’m an artist, right? I’m a photographer first, and, you know, business guy second, I guess. So, you have helped corral my artist brain. And having the weekly accountability calls and the action plan has definitely helped me stay focused on what needs to be focused on. So yeah, it’s been life changing. Nothing short of life changing. Now I want to pull up something real quick and get your thoughts on this because you and I have worked together I think for about three years or is it, how long did we work together there before you exited the business? Do you know? We started in 2019. So 2019, okay. So we’ve worked together for quite a while there. And so 2019, wow, so that’s almost five years, four and a half years or so. But if we do a search for carpet cleaning quotes, I’ve worked with one particular brand for 14 years, I’ve been talking to the same ownership about, you have to gather objective Google reviews from your ideal and likely buyers. You have to get reviews. After you clean the carpet, you have to gather video reviews and Google reviews. And we talk about it every week. And it’s just like, it’s like bamboo. I keep coming back every week. I just, you can’t kill it. I come back every week talking about the reviews and in a world now where people go online to look stuff up, this has been a powerful tool for oxyfresh.com. It’s grown from a handful of locations down to 500 plus locations. How has gathering objective Google reviews and video reviews impacted your sales process? Well, I feel like it’s a one-two punch, Clay. So Dream 100 and the reviews work hand in hand. So the majority of our business comes from the Dream 100, but that’s one referral source. So our couples will be referred by venues, but they wanna check us out. So they’re gonna go online and look for our reviews. So not only do you have to have a ton of reviews, but you have to have a ton of five-star reviews. And so, the referrals plus the social proof on Google brings them in. Final questions I have for you, then I’ll be done harassing you here, is you now have got all the systems, the scripts, the website, the ads that work, the Dream 100 system going, and so to give people some clarity, you now have a turnkey marketing system in place. I mean, you have a Dream 100 system that works, you now have an online advertising program that works, you now have a sales process that works. It’s all documented, it’s all systemized for the new owner. So what would you say for anybody out there that is maybe thinking about coming to one of our in-person workshops or scheduling a free 13-point assessment with myself or a member of our team? What would you say to somebody who’s kind of on the fence about maybe coming to a workshop or scheduling a free 13 point assessment? Get off this fence. Just get off the fence. Bottom line, you know, you’ve helped make my company sellable, right? So those systems is exactly what made our company attractive to the buyer. They were looking for a company that was highly successful that they could then take and scale. And our business qualified because of what we’ve done over the last five years. And so yeah, I would never, I would not hesitate. I’ve told anybody who’s ever, you know, asked me about my coaching relationship with you and your organization. I said, I wouldn’t hesitate. Never in a million years. You have literally changed my life as a result of what you’ve taught me. You know, you have got to come to Tulsa one of these days here. So I know you guys are going to enjoy your retirement or whatever it is you’re doing. But at some point, if you ever get the bug and you ever start a new thing or you’re ever in the Tulsa area, I really want to see you guys. You have my cell phone number. We can talk whenever. But I just want to tell you, it’s been an honor working with you, and it’s been so exciting to help you hit your goals. And I know you’ve worked 30-plus years to go on this dream vacation lifestyle that you’ve built. What would you say to anybody out there that has a business, and they feel—my final question for you—they feel overwhelmed by all the systems they have to build, and they’re not at the top of the mountain. They haven’t sold the business yet. It isn’t systemized, and all they see is perpetual chaos. What would you say to that person? Just take the next step, right? Every journey begins with the next step, and that next step should definitely be contacting you guys. Tim, you… If they just do that, the rest will take care of itself. You make sure of that. Tim, it’s an honor serving you again. I appreciate you very much, and don’t be a stranger there, sir. You got it. Thank you. Take care Chief. Bye. The 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. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the 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 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. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we wanna do is we wanna share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed pest alarm company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85%. And that’s largely due to, first of all, our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy. But also, we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months. Or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. And it’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency and doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives and also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business and we were in a rut and we didn’t know… The last three years our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. 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. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the 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, and graphic designers and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So, think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So, in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like 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. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. 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 get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales which is awesome but Ryan is a really great salesman so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The 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. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna 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 with 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 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 And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.