Clay Clark | Pity | Stop Have a Pity Party for Yourself + Learn How to Move from Being a Victim to Becoming a Victor With Sean Stephenson (1979-2019) | Best-selling Author of “Get off Your But.” – Sean Stephenson + Tebow Joins Conference!

Audio Transcription

When I was born, the doctors in the delivery room told my parents that I wouldn’t survive my first 24 hours of life. My whole childhood I was riddled with physical abuse, but not by the hands of any other human but my genetics. Something as simple as sneezing would break ribs. Putting on a pair of pants too quickly, I could snap a femur. The physical pain was nowhere near as abrasive as the emotional trauma of what it caused me to miss out on. Pain and emotional upset followed me my entire childhood. And it all kind of shifted when I was in fourth grade. I was out of my wheelchair and as I’m rolling around I catch my left leg on the corner of the door and I bent it back and I snapped it at the femur. Between hearing the sound of the snap and feeling the pain and even though it’s a fraction of a second it feels like an eternity because you visualize everything you’re going to miss out on. I thought, why did I have to go through this? What did I ever do to deserve this? I was furious. My mom, she comes running in the room. She looked in my eyes and she said, Is this going to be a gift or a burden in your life? First of all, I thought she was crazy. I mean, you and I have had gifts, right? They come on our birthday, and we open them up with joy and excitement. But in fourth grade, such a young, impressionable age, I got clarity on my life. I realized that I loved my life amidst all that pain. And maybe there was a bigger, grander purpose to why I was in this container. Maybe the reason was to teach the rest of the human race how to love their lives amidst their pain. Knowing the purpose to your pain doesn’t make the pain go away, but it gives you fuel to keep pushing forward and not want to quit, not want to check out, not want to numb yourself. I’m on this planet to look human beings in the eye and say, I know it’s painful. I wish it didn’t have to be painful. You have a choice. Are you going to see it as a gift or a burden? Jason, my understanding is that your mother is a big fan of today’s guest. She is. How did you first hear about today’s guest, Mr. Shawn Stephens? I heard about him. She had shared multiple videos of him just giving encouragement to people on Facebook years ago. Well, your mother is super wise because today’s guest is a larger-than-life speaker. Today’s guest, Shawn Stevenson, is actually endorsed by President Bill Clinton. Jason, are you familiar with President Bill Clinton, the saxophone player? Yeah. Correct. Today’s guest is actually endorsed by the management guru, Ken Blanchard, and the iconic motivational speaker, Tony Robbins. Shawn Stevenson was born with brittle bone disease, which means that his bones are falling apart over time. In fact, before the age of 18, he had over 200 bone fractures. However, despite the adversity that he faces on a day-to-day basis, Sean Stevenson has gone on to become a best-selling author, a leading motivational speaker, and I could think of nobody on the planet more qualified than to give today’s presentation About how to get over your addiction to pity ladies and gentlemen without any further ado is my honor and pleasure to introduce to you Mr.. Shawn Stevenson Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show but this show does Two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Timeshow. Now, three, two, one, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom, now we here. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Dr. Z, I am honored to have on today’s show an incredible guest. I’m excited. Shawn Stevenson, welcome on to the Thrivetime Show. How are you, sir? I’m excellent. Thank you for having me. Hey, today’s topic, we’re going to talk today about how to get over your addiction to pity. I’ve always considered myself to be a pretty resilient person. I feel like I’ve pushed through a lot of adversity. Then I stumbled upon your story, and I just have to say, in comparison to what you’ve gone through, I got nothing. I’d love if you could share with the listeners a little bit about your background, for people who are not as familiar with your background as I have. Sure, sure, absolutely. So what I think you’re referencing that might be of value for everybody to know is that I’m about three feet tall, I’m in a wheelchair, I have a rare bone disorder that I was born with called osteogenesis imperfecta, and when I was born, the doctors told my parents that I wasn’t going to live the first 24 hours of my life, but I’m happy to report that 39 years later, all those doctors are dead and I’m still here. It’s been a wild ride growing up in my container, taking on the challenges of life. I’ve really reverse engineered a lot of what it takes to not be addicted to that self-pity as you had mentioned. And we’re gonna get into that in hopefully some depth today because self-pity is something that we are all capable of using, utilizing, and having it just take our dreams away from us. And so I’m just pleased to be on this program and happy to share some in-depth knowledge, hopefully that helps the listener here. What I wanted to do on today’s show is I want to spend 95% of this interview teaching people how to overcome self-pity. I want to take 5% of it to provide the right background so everybody truly knows what you’ve gone through. I believe that I have read that you have had over 200 bone fractures before the age of 18, and that you actually broke your collarbone from sneezing. Is this correct? Yeah, it’s actually a little more in-depth than that. So like I said, this rare disorder that I have is called osteogenesis imperfecta and it caused the bones to be very fragile. So as you mentioned, over 200 fractures by the age of 18 and it was a very common occurrence to break the bones from sneezing, coughing. I broke my collarbone one time just vomiting when I had the flu. Multiple fractures from putting on a jacket or a pair of pants too quickly would snap the legs or the arms. Hitting a bump too hard growing up in my wheelchair would break a few bones, and so it was a childhood filled with a lot of physical pain, and that’s why I became so fascinated with studying the mind, and how do we live in containers and lives that are filled with pain and not allow that to just keep us down and not play a big life. So that’s where I really got into it professionally. I became a professional speaker when I was an early teenager. And then about 10 years into my speaking career, I had a young lady come up to me from my audience, she rolled her sleeves up and she had cuts all up and down her arms and she said, why do I do this to myself? Now I had no clue, I was a young kid in my early 20s and I said, sweetie, I don’t know, but I’m gonna go find out. And that’s when I went back to school and became a professional listener, also known as a therapist, to understand the human psyche and how do we all navigate our own pain because whether we like to admit to it or not we all have insecurities we all have fears we are things in our life that could allow us to feel sorry for ourselves if we played that card and how do we overcome that so I want to I want to ask you this when you’re going through an adversity what What do you say to yourself? I mean, what’s going on in your head right now, today, when something bad happens, when a rejection happens, an adversity happens, an injury happens? What do you say to yourself? What does that inner dialogue look like? Well, I’ll tell you that the adversity has changed radically, depending on the stage of my life. And I think everybody listening can relate to that, that the adversity when you’re in grade school is maybe not being bullied or maybe being picked for the sporting team right and the adversity when you’re in high school and college is maybe finding love and romance and adversity later is your career and and I I had different sets of adversity, you know mine was how do I navigate without Fracturing a bone. How do I handle surgeries? How do I handle being stared at? Now at this age, I’m almost 40 years old, my adversity has everything to do with growing my company, building a business with my wife, making an impact on this planet. I don’t think as much about the physical adversities even though they’re still present, because I have newer tools in my life to deal with the older challenges that I’ve dealt with my whole life. So what do I say to myself? Well, the biggest thing is I have to focus on three areas to feel good. And I have to avoid focusing on three areas to feel bad. So the way I focus my mind is I focus on what I want, what I have, and what I like. And when you focus on what you want, what do you have, what do you like, you start to feel optimistic. You start to feel that there’s an energy coming to you. You start to see a big why to keep going forward. But the problem most people have is they do the opposite. They focus on what they don’t want, what they don’t have, and what they don’t like. And when you focus on what you don’t like, you’re just obsessed with your fears. When you’re focused on what you don’t have, you’re obsessed with your envies. When you focus on what you don’t like, you’re just riddled with complaints. So a lot of dealing with adversity is just managing your focus. So let’s say- Well, that’s powerful. That’s awesome. That is good stuff. This is like a knowledge bomb buffet here. We’ve got… Give him a couple more. Another boom. I think three. And then a holy cow. Oh, there we go. Okay, now, you have said that suffering is optional and that more humans are addicted to pity than anything else on the planet. Am I getting that correct? That is correct. I mean anything that you are addicted to in terms of a Choice or a substance you only got addicted to it because you were first addicted to pity You first felt like why me? How do I get out of this pain? Why does this always happen to me? This sucks Why did I get stuck into this container this condition this family this mindset, whatever it may be, right? And so I do believe that suffering is optional. I think that we all fall prey to it. I want to make it clear to the person wearing their headphones or out listening to this out and about in their day that you are susceptible just like I am, just like all the guys on this show are, susceptible to self-pity. It will come and go throughout your day, throughout your week, throughout your month, throughout your year and your life. It’s not like I carved it out and that the great Sean Stevenson, that’s me mocking myself, that the great Sean Stevenson doesn’t feel self-pity anymore. It’s acknowledging when I’m doing it. When you do it unconsciously, when you just think that that’s the normal MO to being alive is to feel sorry for yourself. That’s when you really get screwed That’s when you really hold yourself back Versus auditing your own thoughts your own feelings. This is why I like to journal and Constantly journaling out my own thoughts just so I can see them in print and think is this what I want to keep thinking Is this what I want to keep feeling is this what I want to keep focusing on? You have said that you discovered at a very young age that when you do feel sorry for yourself, people back away from you slowly. And that when you do make light of things and have fun and make people laugh, people creep toward you. They inch toward you. They’re kind of drawn to it when you bring them good feelings. When did you discover that and how did that truth impact your life? Well the memory that just popped up because there was sometimes the things we discover we discover them over time and then each time we get reacquainted with it we’re like oh yeah I think I got this lesson two years ago and I needed to get it again. Oh I got this you know two days ago I needed to get it again. So it’s not like I just found it behind the refrigerator one day. It was like a series of being reacquainted to it. But the first memory that I have today that popped up around this is, when I was in high school, I had a physical disability, I looked different, and there was this other kid who had a different physical challenge. And I remember I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman, so I was part of a mentorship group with this young man. His father came to me and said, would you mentor my son? He doesn’t speak up, he doesn’t ask for what he wants, he feels bad that he’s in this wheelchair and he looks up to you for having the confidence that you do. this kid and I said, listen, you feel like your personality is because you don’t have a choice because of your disability, because you feel like people are alienating you, you feel like you are different, you’re focusing on all the things that suck about having a disability. And the reason why you’re looking up to me and the reason why I’m doing a lot here in school and why I’m going to go places in life is because I’m focused on all the wonderful things That this disability brings for instance when I roll into a room Everybody remembers me Everybody looks at me and it burns an image into their mind because it’s so radically different than what everybody else looks like and that Is gold that makes me sticky in people’s minds and in business we call that really good marketing. So my container I felt like was a genetic advantage for being memorable in people’s minds and then if I was able to, and I figured it out, if I was able to create an experience where people enjoy being in my company linked with being very sticky in their mind of somebody that they’re not going to forget because the novelty of what I look like, this could have a lasting impact where people want to spend time with me, they can’t forget me. Years later they’re still going to remember my name. I just ran into some kid at a local sports bar, I was watching a football game and he was like, Sean. I was like, no, I’m sorry, I don’t. He’s like, I went to grade school with you. And I’m thinking, dude, you went to grade school with me. I look the same basically that I did in grade school. Maybe a little more. Now you’re just bragging. Maybe a little more wrinkles and less hair, but you could spot me in the crowd from grade school just like you could now. This kid, I had no idea who it was. So he mentioned his name and I was like, oh, yeah, well, I remembered his name. And he was like, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I remember you. And I was like, oh yeah, well I remembered his name. But that’s the genetic advantage to, one of the many genetic advantages to this container, is that it made me memorable. That stuck in people’s minds. So when you create an atmosphere where people enjoy being around you, that gives you a huge advantage in life. You know, nobody wants to spend time with the feel sorry for me crowd Nobody wants to feel nobody wants to spend time with the angry bitter The world sucks I hate this The only kind of people that want to spend time with that are people that are like that the average person that wants to be Positive and happy they’re gonna naturally energetically be repelled by that lower frequency attitude. Sean, do you recommend anybody out there to cover themselves in honey to become more sticky? Or is that a move you would adore? Is that a move? Is that a move? If you then roll yourself in M&M’s, I would recommend that. Oh, that’s a good one. See? Drive Nation, you’re welcome. You’re welcome on that one. Now, Sean, I want to ask you this, because your book is very sticky. It’s a book that if people have not purchased your book, get off your butt. How to End Self-Sabotage. They really do need to pick up this book. Now, this book was actually endorsed by Tony Robbins. And if somebody does a little bit of internet searching for your name, Shawn Stevenson, they’re going to find pictures of you with Richard Branson, you and Tony Robbins. You are like a… We need to get a picture with him. We need that. We need that. Where are you? What state do you live in there, Sean? I’m in Arizona. Arizona. Wow. See, that’s just a short hop, skip, and a plane flight. Just a plane. So how did you first meet Tony Robbins? How did that relationship first start? When I was in high school, I got asked by this guy that was just… I was… Oh, gosh, where was I? I was at a conference and this guy came up to me and said, you know, I work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and you have a lifelong disability. Have you ever thought about requesting a wish? And I said, well, I’m not dying. I thought those were just for dying kids. And he’s like, no, it also is for people that have lifelong disabilities that are, you know, are you under the age of 18? And I believe I was. And he said, if you could do anything, what would you do? Who do you want to meet? Where would you want to go? And I had always been drawn to Tony Robbins watching his infomercials as a kid and thinking, man, this guy’s got just such a great attitude and such a cool outlook on life. So I said, I’d like to meet Tony Robbins. And a few months later, I was hanging out one-on-one with him in a hotel in Florida after one of his events. And we became close friends. And that’s kind of how all that started. Well, let me ask this. What kind of impact has his positivity made in your life? Like, how has his mindset impacted you? Oh, it’s huge. You know, there’s only one Tony Robbins, and he is the Michael Jordan of the industry, and that’s why I always wanted to be the Kobe Bryant, you know, the one that emulated and got within one ring of his. Yeah. So, you know, Tony had a huge impact because Tony was very much the person that said that you’re responsible for your reality, and if you don’t like who you are, it’s your responsibility to change that. If you don’t like what you have, it’s your responsibility to do something new with that. He also was the biggest influence of why I became a professional speaker. It was Tony Robbins, Les Brown, and Wayne Dyer that shaped the course of my life. You have mentioned the phrase containers a few times on today’s interview. If the listeners out there are going, what’s a container? Can you break down what you mean by container? Well, we all have a body, right? And the body is shaped differently depending on our genetic structure and what we do with it. And I call my body a container because it’s something that’s holding my passion, my purpose, my spirit, my attitude. I don’t believe that my container defines me. I think it allows me to navigate the world, but it doesn’t make up who I am. I think a lot of people who are confined by their body, they don’t like how it looks, they don’t like the color of their skin or the way their body is shaped or how their voice sounds or what their hair looks like or whatever. They pick apart their appearance and yet they’re forgetting it’s just the container you’re in this time. I look at my body as kind of like an Uber. I’m very grateful for the ride. I’m glad to be here. I don’t get out of bed and think, here’s this disabled body again. I got to deal with this and why didn’t I get a normal body? At a young age I did see that, you know, I made a list of all the things that I wanted to do and experience and none of the things that I wanted to be happily in a relationship with the woman of my dreams, I wanted to make money and be able to provide for myself to be independently wealthy, I wanted to be able to travel, I wanted great friends, I wanted to make an impact on this planet and nothing of those five things couldn’t be possible just because of the container I was in and so I’ve just always gone out and I’ve looked for what is it about My container that I love what is it about my container that makes me unique? What is it about my container that I can appreciate today? You know a Paul hood our show sponsor here Yes, he has a question for you Paul. I get the mic to you. I do hey Sean I tell you it’s an honor to talking to you clay Clark through his Thrive time and Dr. Z, they introduced me to all kinds of people. If I went to college for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t gain as much knowledge and practical application as I do talking to people like you. One of the other guys he’s brought in was a guy named Michael Levine. And Michael Levine says, success in life is how you play the cards you’re a dealt. If you’re born on third base, you didn’t hit a triple. So my question to you is, how do you, as a counselor or an advisor to people, how do you not just laugh every time you talk to people when they start telling you their problems? You are an overcomer. I love that. No excuses. You can do anything that you want to do. So how do you have, because I think one of the biggest strengths I’m hearing is the compassion you have on other people. So how do you maintain that compassion when you just want to say shut up? And that’s the thing, being in my container and having my life history, I can say I have a tremendous amount of empathy for pain and empathy for challenges and struggles and some of the concepts that I’ve come across in the things that I’ve learned. One is I believe that everybody’s doing the best they can with the tools they have. Some people just have some crappy tools and they need to upgrade their tools. I also believe that if I had to have their body, their past experiences, their worldview, I would be no further along than they are. And I also believe that, you know, by me just having that attitude of like, get over it, look what I have to go through, that’s just gonna put them further behind. They’re gonna feel worse, it’s not gonna inspire them. People have to come upon realization themselves. You can’t force awakening into somebody’s life. You can only invite them, you can only offer them, you can only be the example to them. So a big part of why I probably exude this attitude of, hey, you’re gonna get it when you’re gonna get it, is because I’ve learned the alternative doesn’t work. I’ve tried to drag people kicking and screaming into being more responsible, into being more loving, into being more successful, and you just can’t. You can only be the example. That’s awesome. I want to deep dive into your book because your book has so many knowledge bombs and we have so little time, so I want to see if I can get into some of the lessons. In your book, you break down these six lessons that I think the listeners can really benefit from. So we’ll fire through a few of them here. Lesson one, start connecting. What is this section of your book all about? Well, connecting is different than communicating. Our digital devices can communicate. That’s just an exchange of information, whereas connection is an exchange of humanity. It’s an exchange of emotion. And it’s important that we connect with other people that literally, and I talk about it in the book at some point, you can save someone’s life sometimes by just asking them how their day is and smiling and telling them you appreciate the time that you got with them because it can change the trajectory of their decisions. They can feel like somebody saw them, that they were seen and observed and cared for. And the ripple effect of that is pretty amazing. Connecting is about getting to know the other person. Cause it’s easy, and I get into this trap too. It’s easy to just wanna talk about yourself. It’s easy because that’s your wheelhouse. Like you know what you think, you know what you’ve done, you know what you’ve experienced and it’s sometimes scary to Get into an interaction with another human being and not talk about yourself, but I strongly recommend that Connecting in order to connect you make sure that you’re equally Requesting information about their life as much as you are sharing information about your life another thing that I found when it comes to connecting is don’t act like you know what somebody else is going through. I don’t think that works. When you tell somebody, oh, I know what you’re going through, like let’s say you’re at a funeral and somebody’s dad just died and you say, I know what you’re going through. My dad died when I was 10 and you think you’re helping that person, but I’ve pulled a lot of people in those scenarios and asked questions. That’s not what makes people feel good. What makes people feel good is asking them, how are you dealing with this? What are you feeling? Tell me everything. What are some of the things that are coming through your head right now? And then offering, you know, when I was younger, my dad died and it sucked. And I don’t know what emotions you might be going through, but here’s how I dealt with mine. And you can achieve so much more by doing some excavation, doing some investigation work and getting to know their reality before you ever share yours. You in your book, Lesson 5, you talk about choosing your friends wisely. Choose your friends wisely. I’d love for you to break down what you mean by this and why this is so important. Studies have proven over and over that there’s a lot of conditions in our life that influence our level of success, our level of happiness, our income, so many different attributes, but the biggest is who you hang out with, your friend base. And the reason why that is, is your friend base has influence over you. Whether you like it or not, you become like those you surround yourself with. And when you’re having a bad day and you’re contemplating doing something stupid or contemplating doing something harmful or being negative and you share that with somebody in your peer group if they say yeah that’s probably a good idea you should probably should do that. Burn it down! Burn it down! Absolutely burn it down! That’s not a good thought. Versus them saying hey hey come on now you’re going through a tough time right now, let me remind you who you are, remind you what you’ve done, let me remind you why you got started in this, fill in the blank, business, family, relationship in the first place, and that is a positive, empowering example for you, they’re gonna lift you up. And I’m convinced that if you continue to get into dirty water, you’ll never come out clean and that’s why our friends have such influence because when we’re having a bad day we turn to our friends and our friends unconsciously are influencing us that’s why anytime I want to improve an area of my life I will turn to the friends in that area of my life that have better understanding and success and results with that, and I’ll spend more time with those people. If I need to get in better shape, I turn to the friends that are in great shape. And ideally, I want all my friends to take their health seriously. If I want to learn more about investing in creating wealth, I turn to the friends that really have that area as dialed in. And you become like those you surround yourself with. That’s why you have to be very careful who you let into your life. I’m convinced, and this might sound a bit extreme, but one negative person in your life can derail your destiny. One negative person. Wait a second. I want to, Zia, I want Sean to restate that. This is powerful. Sean, can you restate that one more time? Sure. That when you are around these people, if you have one person that is negative, that is putting garbage and toxicity into your brain and that you are exposing yourself to, they can totally derail your destiny. You can totally miss the mark for why you were pushing. That is, that is, not only do I think that that statement, although people may perceive it as to be controversial, I think that right there is the number one situation plaguing anybody out there listening to today’s show who’s not getting success. It’s because you’re surrounding yourself with idiots. Or you are plaguing someone in your life by being an idiot. Yeah, typically. I know there’s been times in my life where I was the idiot. I’m like, is it cool if I pee in the pool, guys? Is it cool? I mean, you know what I mean? Just a little bit of pee in the pool. I mean, it’s going to be a figurative idea. It’s a big pool. You know what I mean? No, it’s just, there’s people, I remember in college, Z, I hung out with guys who literally would talk about the gas stations that you could steal gas from where you wouldn’t get busted. Like it was some kind of life hack. Yeah. Okay, Z, now you have a question for Sean. Sean, wow, what a fascinating story. Yes. And an inspiring story, and it just goes to show you that no matter what container you have, the sky’s the limit, right? I’m kind of curious as to… A couple questions, actually, but if you could go back in time, this is one of my favorite questions to ask you. Talk to yourself, say when you’re 39 now, so let’s go back 20 years and you’re 19. What would you, you walked in the room and there you are, and you could walk up to yourself and give yourself, tell you whatever you wanted to say. Self, let me tell you something, what would you say to yourself? I would say don’t go to that fraternity party when you turn 21. I think we all would say that. There we go. That’s the best answer I’ve gotten so far. I love it. Now, wait. The other thing, too, is what was the lowest point in your life, and how did you dig out of that hole? It was 2017. Wow. Really? Yeah. And I went through a business challenge with a business partner of mine and we had been working together for a very long time and I realized that it was time for me to go my own way and I knew it was going to be really hard for them, for this person and Breaking off it was a it was a business divorce And if you’ve ever gotten any kind of divorce whether it’s business or a relationship, it’s painful you have to split everything up and and there’s hurt feelings and you feel like this jerk and and then it becomes You know you can get into a battle and it did. It went the legal direction and next thing I know it was involved in a lawsuit. It was so hard and painful. And yet, I will say, I have never grown as a man emotionally and spiritually as deep and as accelerated as I did during that period in my life. That’s awesome. Sean, I have two final questions for you. I want to respect your time. Two final questions for you. And I hate two-part questions because it’s kind of hard to, it’d be hard for me to answer two questions, so I’m going to go one at a time here. Question number one, is there a book out there, outside of your book, in addition to your book, is there a book out there that you’d say, Mr. Entrepreneur, Mrs. Potential Entrepreneur, someone listening, this is the one book, in addition to my book, that I think that you should read. Is there one book that you said, that book really changed my life and every entrepreneur out there should definitely check this book out. Yeah, I would say The War of Art by Steven Pressfield because that’s a book that I could reread every year and still get value from. It’s about the creative resistance that rises up that stops us from playing big, the creative resistance that rises up from facing rejection and building out areas of our life that we know we’re capable of, but we’re going to face some challenging, darker times maybe, but going through it anyway. That book had a huge impact on my life. Now, Andrew, for accountability, right now while we’re on this show, I’d like you to purchase a copy of Sean’s book, Get Off Your Butt, How to End Self-Sabotage, and stand up for yourself, so I can add it to my collection, so I can check it. I want to make sure we buy this book, we own this book. He’s going to buy it, Sean, while we’re still on the Today Show. And see, I know a lot of our listeners are going to do it, too. Well, why wouldn’t they? Well, you know, a lot of people say it. Get off your butt. A lot of people say, I want to do it, but I have powerful tunnel syndrome. But I’ll click. I’ll go ahead. I’ll push through the pain. Push through the pain. Push through the pain. Push through the pain. Buy the book. Everybody out there. We’ve got to thumb up. We’ve got to thumb up. We’ve got to thumb up. Thank you. Your order has been placed. Now leave a confirmed Amazon review explaining what a great mentor this guy’s been to our listening audience, OK? Got it. Make sure that happens. OK, now, final question I have for you is, how do you organize? How do you structure the first four hours of a typical day in your life? I think it’s so important that we start a day off successfully, we plan our day. Everybody we’ve interviewed who is intentional about their life seems to have a routine or a plan. How do you organize the first four hours of your day and what time do you wake up? All right, so I have something. I don’t know if you can tell me if it’s appropriate to share with your audience, but I have a gift on this topic for your listeners. Can I share it? Sure, yeah, sure, share it. Okay, so I would recommend they go to theunstoppableformula.com, theunstoppableformula.com. Going there right now. I have a course that I put together that everybody that’s listening right now, they can get absolutely free of charge. And it is a breakdown of what that day looks like, how do I put it together, and specifically, what are you going to need to implement in your life so that you are unstoppable with your schedule and your purpose and your environment? Those are the three basic areas of life, self-care, life purpose, and empowering environment. I break all that down in detail at theunstoppableformula.com, but I can just tell you right now I go through phases with my bedtime and wake time. Sometimes I’ve gone through it more like seasons sometimes I like getting up at 5 a.m. and just getting so much done before the day begins and then there are other times where I’m like you know what I’m gonna be a little bit more self-care based and get a little extra sleep and I might sleep until 9 o’clock in the morning. I don’t agree with the mentality that the time of day determines your success. I think it’s more about the ritual that you stick to. In this entrepreneurial hustle game world that is being constantly pumped and promoted The mentality of I’ll sleep when I die is actually killing people And it’s accelerating the process See you you own a diagnostic a sleep center How many hours do you think the average listener should be sleeping for it depends on their age? But eight hours is a good target. The younger you are, the more you need. An infant sleeps much more than that. The older you are, the less sleep you need. Eight is a good target. For people that come up to me and say, I only sleep like three hours. That’s all I need is three hours a day. I go, you’re killing yourself. You are, technically. I mean, that’s… Well, and that’s the challenge is a lot of people learn how to prop themselves up with caffeine and then put themselves to sleep with wine at night. And that’s… You’re living in a trance. You’re not fully present. You’re not fully clear and sharp. And that’s why, you know, I have a set of rituals. I explain it at theunstoppableformula.com and one of the rituals is consistent restful sleep because I know if I’m not getting that, I’m not good to anyone, my activity, productivity, it plummets and my overall quality of life, it messes with your brain chemistry. I like to set my brain chemistry up to win. We live in a generation where everybody thinks that I need to take some kind of pill in order to influence my brain chemistry. There are times when that’s necessary, but oftentimes it’s how you are living your life. It’s your rituals. It’s your mindset. It’s who you’re hanging out with. We’d like to end every show here with a boom, which stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. Essentially, let’s kind of role play real quick here. We would say, three, two, one, boom. And then actually physically say a boom. We would physically say the boom. Are you prepared to physically bring the boom, Mr. Sean? Oh, always. Paul Hood, are you ready to bring the boom? I am. Andrew, are you ready? I’m so ready. Dr. Z, are you ready? I might even pre-boom. On mic, John, are you ready to bring the boom? OK, here we go. Here we go. Three, two, one, boom. 3, 2, 1, Boom! to info at Thrivetimeshow.com. I mean, I remember some bills of $4,500 a month just to get leads that I was having to pay for and that’s only get a lead on a contact to where now I’m paying you $1,700 a month and I got 80 some leads last week alone and I paid you $1,700. And to me, that was huge for my industry. That was one huge thing that just blowed me away. Okay, folks, money is a magnifier. That’s what it is. Money is a magnifier. It’s an amplifier. It just makes you more of who you already were. So as an example, if you’re a complete jerk and you make a lot of money, you’ll become a bigger jerk. And on today’s show, we’re interviewing a longtime client who’s a really nice, kind, decent person. He doesn’t claim to be perfect nor do I think that he’s perfect, but he’s a guy that I use over and over and over. I utilize his services to plant trees and do landscaping for my family, for my business, because I really enjoy him as a person. I consider him to be a friend and it’s been awesome helping him magnify and grow his business. And without any further ado, we have the founder of Outside Inc., Paul Sullins. Welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Doing good, Clay. Thank you for having me. So Paul, I got to ask you here, and correct me if I’m wrong. I’m looking at your tracking sheet, which for anybody out there who’s a client, we look at the tracking sheet. And last week you had 89 leads. So 89 people reached out to you to inquire about hiring you to do landscaping, pool maintenance, backyard work for them, outside remodeling kind of work. And then I’m looking at your tracking sheet like a year ago, and you were getting like four or five leads on a weekly basis. Can you maybe walk the listeners through what it feels like to be on the receiving end of 89 inbound leads in one week? It’s a little scary, to be straight honest with you. It’s awesome, just to know that the amount of work up front that we put in is actually paying off. You know, you see these people, you hear all these things, and you’re like, hey, it’s going to be there, it’s going to be there. And it’s been kind of mind-blowing to sit there and, you know, one of my office ladies comes in and goes, we’ve got 56 calls in one day, right after a rainstorm. And to actually realize the work and the effort that we put in is actually coming to fruition. It’s been amazing. Well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to pull up your website and I’m going to showcase what you do so people can get a little context. I know you’re not a hologram. Outside ink irrigation, outside ink irrigation is one of the websites. Also, folks, if you do a search on Google for Outside Inc. and the word HULSA, you can find the website OutsideInc.co. So, two different websites there. When you go to OutsideInc.co, we look here, we look at the services you provide. It’s French drains, it’s landscaping, you do monthly home maintenance. If you look at the irrigation services, you guys are doing irrigation system repair and installation. So, you’re not the in your market who’s providing irrigation systems or French drains or but you’re consistently getting a lot of leads. So I want to focus on the four aspects of business growth. There’s a lot of we can focus on but I’m gonna focus on four today. The first is marketing. You’ve got to get reviews from happy customers. Every single week I harass you about this and every week you show up with more, but these are actual customers that have actually done business with you. Can you talk about the importance, and I’ll hit play, but I’ll hit mute as I’m playing these. Can you talk about the importance of gathering objective video reviews from real customers each and every week? What kind of value has that made when you’re even talking to prospective clients? It’s made a lot of difference. I mean, a lot of the phone calls, we’ll sit there and go, hey, we’re the highest rated, most reviewed company in Tulsa. We do all these things. And they’re like, yeah, we know, we went to your website. And we saw the clients speak about what you had done around their houses and how well you communicated with them. And that’s how we decided to work with you guys. So it’s just, you know, I’ve put on, I’ve put on so many different client reviews and interviews on the, on the webpage and it’s, it’s been completely different, you know, through some of your training and seeing some of your different videos from business, from the business shows that you put on, Clay. I’ve noticed that we don’t have to have the looking and the most entertained TV produced videos. It’s just getting videos of real people in their backyards, in their yards and actually talking about you as a person and the products that we’ve done for them and how they’ve enjoyed it. How often when you meet somebody, again, we’re focused just on marketing right now. When you meet with somebody, how often does the potential buyer reference the fact that you, they’ve watched a video review or have looked at examples of video reviews on your website as a percentage, like how often do they reference, yeah, I’ve seen some of the videos or I’ve seen some testimonials? Percentage-wise, I would say at least 25 to maybe 50%. You know, I have a couple of different sales guys and I have some ladies answering the phones here and I mean, I’m hearing it all the time. I’ve got an office right next to the lady, answering the phone. And she goes, hey, how did you hear about us? Well, we Googled you and then it was like, oh, hey, do you know this, this, this? And they were like, oh yeah, we saw it. We already looked at your website and saw all the views, all the video reviews you’ve done. So, I mean, it’s all the time. It might be more than that, but I would say in the neighborhood of 25 to 40%. And again, if you’re talking about marketing, folks, we’re talking about marketing, it’s V-I-S-M. There’s other details, but everyone needs to remember this. V-I-S-M, video reviews, images, search engine content, more reviews. Let’s hop on to I, images. You’re constantly gathering images of your projects. So it’s not an event. I think a lot of people think planning a garden is an event, and it’s not an event. I think people think that getting married is an event. It’s not an event. I think people think that raising a child is an event. It’s not an event, it’s a process. Every week you’re gathering images, before and after images of projects you’ve done. How has that paid off, just the consistency of adding before and after images of projects? It’s actually done it quite well. It gets my guys, number one, it helps my staff and us know that, number one, because as the owner of the business, you can’t be on every job, you know, as you grow. It helps me know that the guys are doing what I’m wanting them to do in the field. My company is actually being portrayed the way I want it to be portrayed. But then also, people always look at a company and look at, you know, we pull up at a nice fancy track and they’re like, oh, these guys, all they’re going to do is the big fancy jobs. And not all our jobs are big and fancy. We talk and we work for the average Joe, the average person in the background. When they’re able to look on and see some of these photos of just a little small French train or we poured a little 10 by 10 concrete patio, it actually helps us relate better to the clients and the customers in the field. I feel just having all those videos and pictures. Just to be super clear, again, video reviews, got to get them every week, images of projects, you do a great job with that. Search engine content, our team handles the optimization, the ongoing updates on the website so you don’t have to mess with that. How much does that help for you knowing that you don’t have to go in to your website and figure out how to code and update a website every week? There’s no way I’d be where I’m at if I had to sit there and mess with that. You know, running a company, a lot of people always say starting your business is an easy thing. It’s managing it and keep on top of it. And these little details like this, I mean, we’re in an age now, word of mouth is one way but most, everybody’s going to Google and going to your websites to see what you’re, see how to, you know, how to get a hold of you. And that’s how, that’s the marketing we are in today, society. And I think that is super important to have that up and running. And when I don’t have to mess with it, it is blowing me away. Cause I mean, I’ve got to deal with my employees, I’ve got to deal with all this other stuff. And so it’s just a huge peace of mind to know that that’s just taken care of. I don’t have to mess with it at all. Now, so again, we go back to this VISM. And I think one way we learn is through repetition, video reviews, images, search engine content, the ongoing optimization of the website. We handle that for all of our clients. And then M, more reviews. We’re never done getting reviews. And so right now, if somebody goes to Google and they do a search right now and they type in Tulsa tree planting, which is how I originally heard about you, was I was looking to plant trees at one of my properties. I went to a church called Church on the Move, a really wonderful church that at the time was led by Pastor Willie George. And the trees looked incredible on the property. And so I kept asking people, who does the trees? Who’s doing the work? And I kept hearing your name. And that’s how I first met you. And now today when they have somatites in Tulsa tree planting, you come up top in the search results, 703 reviews. You’re constantly getting video reviews, images, search engine content, more reviews. Let’s talk about that for a second. How much has it helped you to have the most Google reviews, in addition to video, but the most Google reviews? It gives you validity. I really think with people, I kind of tell this to people all the time, is like, I talk to my buddies of mine in their own businesses and or in any kind of a service industry, and I’m like, what do people do nowadays? They go to Google, they Google. They’re Googling for French grains. They’re Googling for this. They’re Googling where to go eat. And to be at the top of Google gives you the opportunity to actually talk to a client and to bid it. Now, we still have to go out and sell the job to the client, but it’s been very important and very helpful to be able to be at the top to be able to get that. I don’t know if I quite answered your question. No, this is great. And you’ve got the four aspects of business I want to focus on today. Again, step one, marketing and branding. We covered that. The web branding is anything people see, the website, the print pieces, the logo, the auto wraps. We handle all that with you. We do a lot of that work behind the scenes. That’s marketing and branding. The second step is sales. Sales is converting an ideal and likely lead, or an ideal and likely buyer, into an actual buyer. And I believe that a lot of times, and I’ve worked with companies in the past that helped me with my marketing when I was first starting DJConnection.com, and I would say, well, yeah, I’m getting a lot of leads, but I’m not selling anything. And they would say, we don’t really help with that. We just focus on the marketing or just the branding. I want to get your thoughts on the sales thing. You do a very good job of tracking. I won’t show your tracking numbers on today’s show, but you do a very good job of tracking. This is how many leads that came in. This is how many people bought. How has that helped you measuring and tracking your sales? Number one, it helps me because as I’ve grown, I’ve got multiple salesmen that work with me. Number one, I’m able to see what my guys in the field are selling every week and it also gives me time and to see or not time but gives me the capabilities of looking and seeing how our ebbs and flows are in my business because I’m you know I’m an outdoor service company so in the Springs in the Falls it’s able to see when I need to gear up for employees when I need to gear up and get guys ready for stuff, when our down times are. So, you know, over the last two years I’m able to go back and look at it going, hey, you know, January and February is going to be real slow December. So I really need to start as a business owner in October, you know, September and October start pushing sales and start finding different ways to be able to get more business to keep my guys going so we can book out over that time. So if I wasn’t able to track my sales, my leads coming in, the jobs were sold, I wouldn’t know, you know, you get so busy in your day in day out, you don’t focus on that stuff. And you know, me meeting with you every week as a business coach and able to sit there and look at that stuff every week, you, you know, you get trained to be able to look at that stuff and be able to see stuff ahead as you’re growing your business and not looking in the rear view mirror going, man, I wish I would have kept that going or wish I would have known about that six months ago because then I would have been able to adjust then to help us now. Now I’m sitting there going, hey, I’m gonna make money to pay bills and we gotta get some jobs sold and I’m working in the rear view mirror trying to get stuff closed that we should have been working on three to four months ago. Now, most of the clients I work with, I charge clients a flat rate of $1,700 a month plus a small percentage of growth. And the idea is hopefully I’m the cheapest employee that you have. So you look at it, you go, OK, I’m paying this guy $1,700 a month. OK, hopefully I’m the least expensive person on the payroll, the least expensive line item. But over time, once we produce fruit, hopefully that small percentage of the growth makes it all worth it. That’s the idea, to achieve that true win-win. The third aspect of the business coaching I want to cover on today’s show is management. You look at a great project like this, you’ve got to do marketing, branding, true. Step two, you’ve got to do sales. But three, you’ve got to manage. I think that most people who are self-employed feel sort of isolated and annoyed. I feel like most self-employed people feel isolated and annoyed. They feel like, am I the only one seeing the level of jackassery that is often allowed in the American workplace today? And I have to work with all my wonderful clients to teach best practice management systems. I think you do a fine job of that. That’s something that you, in my opinion, is one of your strengths. You do a very good job of communicating the expectations directly to the client, and you manage those expectations. You tell the client, hey, Mr. Smith, hey, Ms. Smith, we’re gonna have your pool remodel, or your pool fix, or your pool house fixed, or your outdoor siding project, your outdoor landscaping, we’re gonna have your retaining wall, we’re gonna have whatever the project is, we’re gonna have it done by this particular day. It’s going to cost this amount of money. And you do a very good job of managing that relationship with the client and then managing those employees behind the scenes. Can you talk to us about the importance of just mastering management techniques? Well, I don’t know if anybody’s ever a master. One of the things I’ve learned, you know, and I’ve had clients over and over in my field, sat there and going, man, when you said you were there, you were there. You were there every time you said you were going to be there, and you did what you said you were going to do. And that, you know, number one, I like to be a man of my word. I mean, I like to be able to tell people when we’re going to be there. You know, I work in the outdoor industry. I mean, it rains. We’re in Oklahoma, so you’re going to have delays. But setting those expectations with the clients, number one, helps me to be able to go, hey, it’s rain. I can’t get it. We’ve been delayed because of this. And setting those expectations up front makes for a happy end product with your clients. And just going through the process, saying, hey, even when I sell the job, I’m like, hey, we’re the highest rated, most reviewed, you know, company in Tulsa right now. And here’s the reason why. But that also comes with, we’re really busy. We’re not going to be able to get to you tomorrow. And the thing is, the people that can get to you tomorrow are probably going to give you the best product. And setting those expectations with the clients up front, letting them know, hey, we’re going to be a little behind. We’re, you know, we’re six weeks out, we’re eight weeks out and letting that client know that and then keeping them up to date. Then the client knows, hey, they just didn’t take my deposit or they just didn’t take this and just disappeared. They know that, hey, we’re coming down, you know, we’re there, we’re still there, we’re going to get the duck. So I think that’s one of the things that’s helping really to set that set with your clients. And it makes it important to them at the end because they know, I mean, a lot, some of these jobs are an investment for their backyard. It’s a lot of money for them on some of these projects. It’s just like buying a house. You want to know that you’re getting what you’re paying for, and it’s going to be there when you expect it to be there. We could share just hundreds of video testimonials or Google reviews. I’m just showing some examples here. The final area I wanted to cover on today’s show, again, just making sure we’re recapping. Marketing and branding, that’s how you generate leads. Second step is sales. You convert ideal and likely buyers into sales. Three is management. You have to manage the expectations. And then the final step is accounting and what I would classify as merit-based pay. At the end of the day, it’s not how much money you make, it’s how much you keep. And I just don’t think that most people think about that when they’re growing a business. And that’s becoming an increasingly part of our ongoing conversations is making sure that, you know, because, A, you’re the kind of guy that quotes a customer a price and you hold yourself accountable to not changing your bid on the client. But that doesn’t mean that subcontractors or employees won’t try to change the game on you and all of a sudden drive up your expenses. So can you talk about that, that final step of just the accountings? I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when they look out for them, when they reach out for a business coach or a consultant, they don’t think about the accounting. But I would argue as we continue to grow outside Inc, the accounting aspect of your business is becoming a bigger part. I firmly agree. I just actually just come out of a meeting talking about accounting and bills and what’s coming in fresh on my mind, you know, and as you grow your business, one of the things I think as you’re young, you’re just trying to get jobs done, you’re just trying to get whatever you can go. But as you grow, it becomes a huge part. It becomes, I think, more than what most people think it’s going to be. And getting, you know, keeping the money and keeping the accounting, it’s just like this last year, Clay, I mean, you’ve been talking about, you know, doing merit-based. Because I think once if you get, if you pay people enough where they’re comfortable, they stay there. They don’t wanna grow. You know, as your business grows, you wanna grow. You wanna give them more money. You know, most people want more money. I think everybody would, you know, not frown against getting some extra money, but as a business owner, you want your salesman, you want your guys out there in the field wanting to be able to make more money. And if you just keep them on a hourly basis, there’s no growth for them to perform better and to make more money. So this last year, I’ve switched my sales guys to 100% commission. I used to have them above base and I put them over to commission. And the amount of calls of clients looking for their bids has got cut down in over half. He’s selling more jobs by, I would say, 30 to 40%, maybe more than that since we’ve been tracking it. It’s maybe a huge, huge thing because the thing is if he doesn’t sell, he doesn’t get paid any money. So especially when you find people that are eager to make more money, they’re going to sell more. This is one thing I wanted to bring up and I’ll let you go here because I know you’re a busy guy here. For anybody out there that doesn’t know this, when I built my first company called DJConnection.com. After every event we did, I was obsessive about calling the bride after the wedding and asking them to leave us an objective review. Now, this is before Google was super relevant, so we had WeddingWire and the Knot.com and those kind of things, or we would get video testimonials on an old-school video camera we had back in the day. We would archive them, and at a certain point, I remember I talked to a bride, and she said to me, you have thousands of video testimonials. And I said, oh yeah, absolutely. And then now today, people go to Thrivetimeshow.com, they click on testimonials. And I had a call, I had the other, just the other day with a wonderful man and he was saying to me, I was going through your testimonials and I had to stop around like page 30 because I kept looking at the testimonials. I realized there is really no end in sight. I mean, I’m looking at this and there’s like years after years after years of video testimonials. And I said, well, yeah, because we document that. That’s a very important thing that we do. But I want to ask you this question. For anybody out there that’s thinking about coming to one of our workshops or scheduling a free 13-point assessment with myself to go over how to grow their company, what would you say or maybe what kind of impact do you think that business coaching with our program has made on your business? It’s been huge. One of the things I’ve loved, the problem is a lot of times with business owners is they’re, I feel, especially with me, we come from, for my instance, I come from, I call it W2 employee status, working for somebody and say, hey, I’m going to go out here and start my own business. Well, I didn’t go to business school. Nobody’s told me the next steps, what I really need to focus on, because as you grow this business, I’m like, what is it? You can read a thousand books. And what’s made it huge for me is to be able to come along, have you come along beside me and something to go, hey, you need to focus on this and this is why, you need to focus on this and this is why. Because when we get down in what I call the trenches as a business owner, you’re sitting there going, man, if all you do is focus on that, you can never focus on what you really need to do. You can’t focus on your accounting and stuff like that. And it’s been amazing. It’s actually, I don’t know how much it’s grown my company so far in the last two years, but it is the peace of mind is unreal because I’m not looking at my numbers at the moment, but it has been huge. It’s just like I used to have to pay, I think we were paying in the neighborhood of $4,000 a month just for leads, just to get leads in now, two years ago. I mean, this time of the year, I mean, I remember some bills of $4,500 a month just to get leads that I was having to pay for. And that’s only get a lead and a contact to where now I’m paying you $1,700 a month and I got 80 some leads last week alone and I paid you $1,700. And to me, that was huge for my industry. That was one huge thing that just blowed me away. And I’ll say this too, you are a client that’s more private about your numbers. That just goes with your personality. Some of my clients are a little bit more flashy. They love to talk about their sales and their sales. But I can say this, I was looking at year over year. So you take the month of May when we’re recording this and you look at this week last year and last week you had eight leads. So last year, this week you had eight leads from what I can tell on the tracking sheet. And this week we had 89. So whatever that’s worth for anybody out there. And again, you know, we have some of our clients that like to talk about gross sales and we and Paul keeps it more private and that’s totally fine. So I just encourage everybody out there, you can have a tenfold increase in your number of leads, your amount of activity, you can do it, but you gotta be a diligent doer. You can’t just be a hearer of these words. You have to implement what you’re learning. And Paul, I really appreciate you for making the Thrive Time Show World headquarters look incredible. Thank you for the maintenance you provide. Thank you for the work you provide. And again, it’s been awesome serving you. So again, thanks for your time today, sir. Hey, thank you, Clay. Have a great day, buddy. Take care. Bye. All right. Bye. I’m Glenn Shaw, owner of Shaw Homes in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Started the company in 1985. At that time, it was one employee doing everything, me. I met Aaron Antus in 2007. 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He brought in unique hiring skills. He was able to find the right people for the right seat on the bus. And Aaron brought sales techniques that we weren’t familiar with up until that time. When Aaron came, we were selling about 80, 85 houses a year. And during the 16-year period, we sold sales, get up over 400. And before I met Aaron, the only sales manager we had was myself. And I was completely unable to perform that job. And so Aaron brought major changes and great results with them. In the many years that I was building houses before Aaron, I was great at selling if somebody wanted to buy. But they had to be knocking on my door asking me to sell them a house before I could actually make that sell. I had no sales techniques and no ability to generate sales. Aaron coming in as a natural salesperson just absolutely transformed that and made the sales experience better for the company and better for our buyers. Prior to Aaron, I would work all week for the company. I’d sit in a model home over the weekend, and I had a salesperson or two, but I was actually out there all weekend working that. Since hiring Aaron, I was able to take my weekends off, even reduce my workload during the week. I went from working 60, 70 hours a week to almost a normal workload. of the Builder 20 program in the National Association of Home Builders for 25 years, 20 years. And during that time, I’ve seen a lot of sales managers with the other companies that have been involved. And in my opinion, Aaron is smarter and sharper than any sales manager of any builder that’s ever been in our group. Now, some markets, they don’t have to try to sell, they just sell themselves. But with the ability to sell and to train and hire, Aaron was better than any of those sales managers that were in my program. Well, I remember when I considered hiring Aaron many years ago, the thought of spending the extra money was a little scary, but in hindsight, it was one of the best things I’ve ever done. It freed my time, increased our sales, and at the end of the day, increased our profitability beyond my wildest expectations. Years ago, I was concerned that if I didn’t do whatever a customer asked me to do, it might be the last house I sold. And so, over time, we were able to move away from unlimited customization to pre-design options. The problem that we were having in those days is that the customer would tell us what they wanted, but they didn’t really know what they wanted. And we would deliver exactly what they told us to do, and they wouldn’t be happy with it. So as we became more standardized, we give lots of options, but we don’t customize. And in the end, that allows us to sell more homes for better margins than spending countless hours trying to customize in just every avenue of the sales process. We get weekly reports on sales, on profitability, on production, and it provides all the manageable tools that I need to review the company from a 10,000 foot level. All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, what we’re gonna focus on is how to grow a successful company. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna pull up a graphic that is the theory of how to grow a successful company, but vision without execution is hallucination. And so if you go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire, you can download a book that I have written called A Millionaire’s Guide How to Become Sustainably Rich. You can download it for free at Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire, but you have to actually implement that which is in the book. And so on today’s show, we’re joined by a very successful person in the home building business, a great friend of mine, a man by the name of Aaron Antus. Aaron Antus, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, Clay. Thanks for having me on. Hey, so I got to ask you this for people out there that want to prove you’re not a hologram. First off, what’s the website for your company so people can verify that you are in fact a real business? You bet. It’s shaholmes.com. S-H-A-W-H-O-M-E-S.com. Shaholmes.com. I’m pulling it up, Shawhomes.com. That’s the website, Shawhomes.com. And when you and I met, before we met, you had been already very successful as a home builder. You turned your dream of being a home builder guy into reality. And so how many homes had you sold or what kind of sales had you done in your career as a home builder guy before you and I even met? Before we met, probably about 750 million in sales prior to meeting you. And then you did, the year we first started working together, what were the sales totals that year? We were at like 19 million. 19 million, and then when you ended 2022, obviously we’re in 2023, and so we’ll see how this year ends, but as far as ending 2022, how much sales did you do last year at the end of 2022? 2022, we were at like 84 million. Okay, so from 19 million to… 84 million. 84 million. So you’re doing some things right here and what we’re gonna try to do is kind of demystify the plan here. Okay, so here we go. So establishing revenue goals. Yep. When you and I first started working together, we started off with a 13 point assessment. We went over your goals. I’m not gonna ask you to share your goals on the air, but why is it important that you have goals? Well, I mean, goals are sort of your guideposts that, you know, you set something out there in front of you and you start chasing after it. And without that, you’re just kind of floundering in mediocrity. You don’t have any reason to get up in the morning and really get after it. And so, you know, I think goals are, you know, it’s you can have lots of different types of goals. And we’ve talked about a lot of this. We’ve talked about, you know, having financial goals and having, you know, fitness goals and having friendship goals and just all these different areas. I know you’ve got the F6, you know. So that’s kind of something that, you know, we touched on very early on. You asked me like, is the goal, is one of your goals more income or is it more time? And so I said, well, really at this point, it’s more income. And then later it became more time. So, you know, it’s changed over the time I’ve known you since 2016, we’re going on seven years and the income went up considerably. So now it’s, you know, turned in the last couple of years towards more time. Now, the break even numbers, again, I’m not asking you for the numbers on the show, but you guys have a lot of fixed costs. I mean, if you go to Shawhomes.com, you have so many skilled people, you have a full-time sales team, you have an admin staff. And if you don’t sell a house, you still have the service of the land, you still have all the overhead. Why is it important for every listener out there to know their break-even point? How many deals they need per month just to break even? Well, yeah, because you’re going backwards real quick, and it doesn’t take very long if you’re at the beginning of your business, it doesn’t take very long for you to be in a place where the creditors are knocking at your door and you can’t pay your bills and all of a sudden you’re going to lose all your – for us, all of our trades, all of our suppliers are going to start backing out. So you’ve got to know what that number is that lets you tread water so that, okay, this is the worst case scenario, everything above that, at least I’m into the profit zone. So, you know, you go out of business pretty quick. Most businesses don’t last more than just a few months if they get below that break-even number. So now folks, again, these might seem like simple steps, but they’re all the linear steps you have to take to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And if you want to grow your company, this is how you do it. Box number three, though, is you have to know the hours you’re willing to work. Now, your incredible wife is here off camera for accountability, so at any point she could yell like, hey Matt or boo! But you guys are on the same page with the hours you’re willing to work, and you guys, as a couple, I want to brag on both of you, you guys both committed to sacrificing time and energy and a lot of things to get to where you’re at in life. And then as you had your children, you raised them, you decided to devote time to raising said kids, and now that your kids are older, you’re devoting time to raising these kids. So it’s not like you advocated being a parent while also growing a company. You did both well. I’d love to get your thoughts on sitting down with your spouse if you’re watching this today, or your significant other, and making sure you’re on the same page about how many hours per week you’re willing to work. Well, yeah, I mean, you don’t want to grow a business to make a whole bunch of money just so you can split it in half later. Oh. Because that’s kind of what happens when you don’t work out those details ahead of time. And so my wife and I have been married 25 years. We’ve been together for four before that. And so yeah, 20, sorry, 26. Did I just say 25? 26. Real quick, just like, I hate to do this to you. I just got in trouble. I hate this. Your wife just turned 27 on Thursday and what you said is 100% false. Okay, so the unique value proposition here, now let’s talk about this. Whether it’s growing a home building company or a dog training business or a haircut chain or a carpet cleaning franchise or whatever business we’re involved in helping to grow, you have to sit down as a listener out there, as a business owner, and you’ve got to figure out what makes your company unique. Absolutely. So I want to ask you, what makes Shaw Homes unique in the marketplace with other home builders? Yeah, we have more furnished and decorated model homes than any other builder in the market. So, you know, a lot of times people when they walk into a home and they’re trying to decide if they like the floor plan, the layout, whatever, they usually most builders in our market have an empty house that they walk into. It’s just kind of echoes when you walk through it, there’s no furniture or anything. And we completely, as you can see in this little video here, we completely furnish and decorate it, make it beautiful. We are the most award-winning builder in the state of Oklahoma. We’ve won like five times as many awards as any other builder in the market. So definitely that is one of our big takeaways. Now I’m going to throw you under the bus real quick, and I don’t mean to do this super passively aggressively. It’ll just be more of a subtle passive aggressive. When I met you, you guys had all these awards, but no one knew. That’s true. It was like this weird, bizarre thing where you had all these awards. I remember talking to you and I’m like, what makes you guys different? And you’re like, you know, we do a good job and you’re going to be nice about it. You’re a good salesperson. But I said, well, I mean, tell me about the awards. And you’re like, well, we got this award, that award, this award, like 45 minutes later, it’s like that award, this award. I need to shave now. This award, that award. I need to go brush my teeth. This award, that award. I want to go mow the lawn now, this award, that award, I’m thinking about retiring, this award, my kids are turning 18, I can see it, this award, and this award, and that award. And so we put those on the website and that helped. And the other thing you guys were, we needed to change was all these people were saying great things, but we didn’t have video reviews of them saying it on camera. So it was like your online reputation didn’t match your real world reputation. You had so much good momentum there, and so many people loved you guys. And now you guys have, would you say, 100 video reviews? Oh, gosh. I would say more than that. We’ve got, yeah, we have a lot. Everyone keeps scrolling. You just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. I was scrolling. And this is actually all that’s on this page. If you go to our YouTube channel, we have way more than this. So again, and this is all the stuff. You’re going to grow a successful company, folks. Step one, you’ve got to figure out your revenue goals. Step two, you’ve got to figure out your break-even goals. Step three, sit down for an hour in a power. Sit down with your spouse. Make sure that you guys are on the same page of your hours you’re willing to work. Step four, unique value proposition. Figure out what it is that makes you unique. And we have an in-depth guide that you can download for free at thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire if you get stuck. Next box, you’ve got to improve your branding, your website, your one sheet, in your case, model home presentations, business cards, social media branding, everything that a customer sees needs to be first class. I was talking to a guy named Ronnie Morales today, it’s Morales Brothers, I think you met him at a conference. He told me, and I’m not slamming Ronnie, Ronnie if you’re listening, I’m not slamming you, this is the real thing. Ronnie said he had listened to our show for seven consecutive years before ever reaching out. And now he’s reached out and he’s up 57% in about eight months. That’s awesome. And we’re gonna put his story on part two of today’s show because he’s in Texas and he’s seven years behind you, but he’s doing a great job. What do you think that thing is where people have bad branding and we’re not aware of it? Is it someone hasn’t brought it to our attention, what causes bad branding? You know, the number one thing I hear business owners say is, well, you know, I don’t really need good branding because I sell everything by word of mouth. Oh yeah, baby. I’ve got such an incredible reputation. You do. Everybody just comes to me by word of mouth. And then it’s like, okay, yeah, but how much business did you do last year? Well, not very much. And you know, I’m really unprofitable, but I’ve got great reputation out there and I get a lot of word of mouth. So when people switch over to starting to improve branding, I know you helped us a lot with that in just creating a lot better looking website, creating, you know, we’ve got an office environment now that is when people walk into our model home, they are blown away. We truly wow our customers when they come to our model homes. Yep. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience in the state of Oklahoma. And the process of that, you know, just going through, branding it so that it looks really top-notch. And, you know, that includes everything from, you know, marketing to all of your senses and everything else. So it just really brought us to another level. And when the customer comes in and experiences us, after having walked through other builders homes, they usually come in and go, you guys are just on a whole nother level. It’s sights, sounds, smells, experiences, everything that your customer sees, they’re grading you on. And you might not know that they are even judging you because they’re not filling out the form. And I have a funny story to share with you that’s kind of sad. I was working with a fitness guy years ago, and I’m not going to tell you what studies and what city folks, I know you want to know, but I’m not going to tell you. And he filled out the form because his wife wanted him to schedule a 13-point assessment. He did not want to. And he tells me, Clay, honestly, I’m just doing the call because my wife wants me on the phone. I got to, I don’t really don’t get leads from social media. I don’t get leads from marketing. I get all my leads word of mouth, like you were saying. And I said, well, let me just do this. Let’s just, this first month working together, let me get all the passwords for your Facebook, your Google, your YouTube. But I’m just, as the first month, we do this with every single client. We optimize your YouTube, your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, all that. We log on, this is a fitness guy. He was spending like 400 bucks a week, every week on ads. And he hadn’t known, he wasn’t aware that every time a lead came in, it got stuck in Facebook and went to an email address that he wasn’t checking. So think about this. And it’s like 15 to 20 leads a week for years this guy had. That’s not good. And so I’m going, you’re spending, you know, 20 grand a year on ads that you’re not getting anything from. And are you aware that the phone number on your site rings to a phone that’s no longer a real phone? And I’m serious, this is real. And then he had before and after photos where somebody had had the idea of let’s get before and after photos. You know where you interview someone before they start working out? Yeah. But then they never completed the thought. You know what I’m saying? I do. Where it’s like they interview him about getting in shape, but then they never actually like aired the part where they’re in shape. Oh no. So it’s just sort of like an interview with people that are not in shape. And I’m like, and again, he’s a busy guy, busy entrepreneur, that kind of stuff is very common. It’s kind of laughable if it’s not your company. But okay, next box. You’ve got to determine your customer acquisition costs. How much does it cost you to get a customer? So Aaron, you guys run ads on Google, on Facebook, on retargeting ads. You have massive signage. There’s a lot of stuff you do. Why is it important to know how much it costs you at the end of the day to get an actual new buyer of a shawl? Well, because if you want more of those, you know what it costs to go generate more of those. And it’s a cost where it’s like, okay, well, I’m down in sales this month or this quarter or whatever, and I need four more sales to make it a good quarter here before the end of the quarter. And it’s like, I know I can go put money into that and it’s going to cost me X number of dollars per customer to get there. And so then it’s just a matter of, do I wanna spend that money to get to that point? So, for us, it’s a pretty high number cause it’s a big ticket item, but for some people it might be very small to get that each customer. But for us, you gotta know what the number is because ultimately that goes into the price of your product and whatever you sell, you know, we’re doing homes, that is one of our line item costs in our homes. That’s a cost. Yeah. Now, if you go to any of the businesses that I’m involved in, you go to eitrlounge.com forward slash staff. I put in the password here. Once I put in the password, I have all of the documents needed to run the company and they’re all saved. So the checklist for the manager, the opening checklist for the assistant manager, the bathroom cleaning checklist, everything needed to grow the companies all in one place. And therefore, the business, everybody who works there knows where to go to find those documents. This is the kind of stuff that fires me up and it makes other people crazy. So with the conferences we do, if we ever do a conference that’s out of town, I have a checklist of stuff I print out. I know it seems kind of crazy for people, but this is real. I print it out and it’s like, okay, socks. I’m gone for four days, I wanna have 12 pairs of socks. Why? Because it could be hot, I don’t know. Could be wet, I don’t know. I have a list of deodorant and socks and shaving and I have a laptop and a backup laptop and I have patch cables and XLR cables and we bring three, you’ve seen all this stuff but it’s multiple monitors, backup monitors, it’s backups for everything. When you guys build a Shaw home, you’re not moving off a guesswork. There’s blueprints, there’s plans, there’s systems, so houses don’t fall down. There’s somebody out here listening right now that doesn’t have systems in place. They don’t have checklists. They don’t have it. So they have to think about everything all the time, because if not, they forget a step. What would you say is the importance of having taken the time to have built these systems now? It is the night and day difference between running around like your hair is on fire every day, constantly playing firefighter, or you hear people say, I’m up to my armpits in alligators. It’s because you don’t have systems and processes. And every time at Shaw Homes, every time that we have a problem come up, we automatically go, okay, what step in our system did this fall apart in? And what’s broken in that step? And how can we fix it? So it never happens again. So we go fix the process. You know, we address the problem for the customer, but then we go back after that and we go, how do we fix the process so we don’t repeat this problem? And the business owners that are running around with their hair on fire all the time, it’s because there’s no systems, no processes. Everything is urgent. Everything is hair on fire. Correct. And it is a chaos world that you live in. And if you’re going to build homes for a living and build a lot of them, you cannot live in that chaos world. Now this next box, I get excited about all these boxes. This is what I get excited about. This right here is what I care about. Okay, the next box is management and execution. You have people on your team, and I’m just gonna give some examples, and I hope this benefits somebody out there listening. You have people on your team, it’s their responsibility every time that you do a new house, they go out there and they design, or they get the blueprint on the website. They get the new design of the home because people want to see floor plans. So somebody’s job is to get those up there. Somebody gets photos of every house that you guys are building. Somebody gets videos of every house. Somebody puts them all up for sale. Somebody answers the phone every day. Somebody calls the leads every day. Somebody cleans the bathroom every day. Somebody builds the houses every day. Now, this is what I find, and I’m sure none of our listeners can relate to this. Some of our listeners fire people, and then nothing happens. So work with me on this. There’s listeners out there that I talk to every day because we do free 13-point assessments. So I talk to two or three people a day who go to Thrivetimeshow.com. They want to schedule a consultation. And the other day, you heard me talking to Jordan. I said, Jordan, go ahead and keep setting those. He set an appointment with someone who’s definitely not a good fit. Yep. And you could tell he had a little, you know, question if that was okay. And I said, I would rather you set an appointment with somebody than not because I don’t know if who’s a good fit or not, you know. Yeah. But the idea, though, is I sit down, I was talking to a guy the other day, and he was like, you know, the reason why my team did not get Google reviews or videos reviews this week is because we fired a guy. And I go, cause I’m just asking him, you know, where are we stuck? What’s your biggest limiting factor? I have a big process I go through my evaluation. I said, who calls the leads? He’s like, well, normally I have a person that calls the leads, but we just fired her. And I mean this, I’m going, how long have you been in business? This guy’s been in business for over 10 years and he’s reaching out for help. Good person. We’re trying to help him. I think it’s going to be a good fit. But so I said, so basically everybody follows the systems until they don’t work there anymore. And then no one does the systems. And you go back and forth vacillating from things being done to not being done. And one of my favorite things about working with you guys is that you’re honest people. What does that mean? You do your best to do what you say you’re going to do, and you hold yourself and the employees accountable. Absolutely. But what would happen if every week you, if somebody wasn’t performing, you remove them from the position and then the houses weren’t built for the week because something wasn’t going well. Or because maybe a salesperson wasn’t performing at the peak, you let them go and the next thing you know. What would happen if you managed your company that way? It would be a disaster. I mean, I can’t just fire my superintendent without having somebody already ready to take over all of those responsibilities because I’ve got materials showing up at the job site today, tomorrow, and the next day I’ve got trades showing up who need some supervision, need to know what they’re supposed to be doing. If I fire that guy with no warning, somebody else has to come fill in that position. So, you know, for us, we try to never have that gap happen. And, you know, sometimes it’s like, you know that you’re gonna need to fire somebody and you can see the writing on the wall. But you want to get the next person up and ready to go before that happens. And you guys have a weekly meeting. So we talk a lot on this show from an employer perspective, but how frustrating would it be to be an A player employee and you’re working for a C player boss? You know, a boss that doesn’t have a staff meeting, that’s not organized, that doesn’t pay people on time, that’s constantly emotional. I see that a lot. And so management is a learned skill. And thankfully, you know, when I first met with you, you’d already really mastered, in my opinion, managing people. But this next box is where I thought we needed some help, was to build a system for constantly recruiting new people, because certain people work for Shaw Homes for three years or four years, and then they want to go move, they want to have a baby, they want to stay home, they want to get a new job. And even though you have low turnover at Shaw, certain people get to their expiration date and it’s time for them to move on to something else. And because we didn’t have a process in place at Shaw at that time to consistently bring in a pipeline of new people, it made it difficult to do the management that was needed. Can you talk about the importance of implementing a human resources program for hiring, inspiring, training, and retaining good people? It’s huge. I mean, that was definitely an Achilles heel for us. And you helped us a lot with that. Putting in a, where every single week I’m seeing, potential candidates that could come work for us and their job shadowing and seeing what it’s like to work in our company every single week. It does multiple things. It helps the people who work there to know, hey, there’s other people who desire to come work here. Here we go. And if I’m not doing my job, I might get replaced. So there’s a little bit of that. And then it’s also a thing of the people who are shadowing get to see the job being done by people who are happy doing their job. And it helps them to want to come be a part of Shaw Homes. I’ve got a very long list of people right now in every single position that would be excited to come work for us if I did all of a sudden find myself with an opening, you know, because occasionally people leave with no notice or whatever, you know, something happens, family emergency, whatever. Right. And you have that, oh, I need to replace somebody immediately. And the great thing about it is I have a whole bunch of people that I could plug into that position very quickly because every single week I am interviewing. Now, the next box here is you’ve got to do your accounting. In order to earn millions, you have to automate your accounting. What does that mean? You have to have a system in place for making sure you price your products and services correctly and that you pay yourself first, that you set aside a set amount of money to pay yourself and your staff. All these things work together. What I find is people ask me, often just not knowing, they come from a place of a good heart, they don’t know, they say to me, Clay, what is the most important step in growing shaw homes? I’ve heard Aaron on the show. He’s a great guy. Clay, I’ve heard PMH OKC on the show. Clay, I’ve seen Oxi Fresh on the show. What was the most important thing they did? And to me, that’s like asking a hiker, what was the most important step you took to get to the top of that mountain? Well, I was the one we took there an hour ago. I took a left step. So I guess get a baker. What’s the most important ingredient? Is it milk? Is it sugar? Is it eggs? Is it, you know, it’s like asking a farmer, what’s the most important thing, feeding the animals or watering them? What’s the key to your success? There’s just certain questions that I understand people want to know, but all of this has to work together and nothing works unless you do. So I have three final questions for you. For anybody out there that’s thinking about scheduling a consultation, a free consultation with Thrivetimeshow.com and myself. Obviously they’re stuck with me at the Fill Up the Form. I’m the only person that does 13-point assessments. I believe we, I’ve seen it since 2005, we help people decrease their costs, increase their time, freedom, and profits. What would you say is the benefit of scheduling that 13-point assessment? Well, actually, the 13-point assessment was very eye-opening for me, you asked me a lot of tough questions that I probably should have been asking myself and wasn’t. And so as we went through the questions, I was like, I think at every question you asked me, I was like, oh, that’s a good question. And I was like, hang on, let me think about that for a minute. So I find that it kind of helps open your eyes to, you know, these are some things that I know I have some areas of weakness. And then there were, I think a couple of the questions where I was like, oh, I know the answer to this one. I got this one. No problem. But it helps you sort of identify. I walked away having identified areas of strength and areas of weakness, even though that really wasn’t the purpose of the phone call necessarily. It helped me to see that. And then I was like, hmm, I think I have a need in a couple of these areas. And I didn’t really know what to do for myself. I didn’t have the answers. You know, in part three of today’s show, part two, we’re going to show the Ronnie Morales story. In part three, we’re going to do a testimony with Myron. And Myron just bought his first Lamborghini today, and he’s super fired up. And so Myron’s about six years down the path. We’ve been working with you for about eight years, whereas Ronnie’s been with us for less than a year. And it’s at a certain point that we have to take action. Knowledge without application is meaningless. What would you say to somebody who’s like, you know, it’s $1,700 a month and, you know, I’m spending that much right now on random ads and that much money on random regrettable purchases at the gas station and, you know, a lot of iTunes I’m downloading. I’m spending $1,700 a month on various things and I don’t know if I can afford it because I’ve just bought another vehicle that I can’t afford, but I’m leasing it. You know, what would you say to anybody who’s kind of on that fence? I mean, I would say you need to do it. I mean, it has been a game changer for us. I don’t know why you would sit there and think $1,700 a month is too much money to spend. Go find the money somewhere. Go empty out your sofa cushions. Go sell the stuff that you have in your house that you’re not using. I mean, go get, you know, whatever you need to do to get to that place, you need to find that $1,700. And I will say this, that cost was very quickly replaced with the extra money we were making. And I’ve seen, I’ve actually seen, because I’ve been around you for a long time, I’ve seen a lot of your clients come in and right off the bat, they’re real nervous about, am I going to be able to, you know, because maybe they’re a smaller company or whatever. And they’re like, I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to handle this 1,700 a month. And then I see them six months later and I’m like, how’s it going now? And they’re like, man, we’re just hitting record after record. I have referred several business owners. And they’re doing great. That are killing it. And that, you know, I’ll give one example. I won’t name the person, but I did send one of my very good friends to you who was on the verge of losing his business because he just wasn’t able. He had bought another one of the shops of what he does. He opened it and it was not profitable and it was gonna take under both of his shops and I sent him over to you. And I remember about three months later, I asked him, how’s it going? And he goes, man, we just had a record breaking month. This was amazing. And- And by the way, he said first, he just had another record breaking month, just so you know. Yeah, and I know right now, not only does he have way more income, but he has a lot more time freedom because he’s been working with you for many years now. And so that was, it changed his life, just like it changed my life. I would say, if you’re thinking about, you know, doing a 13 point assessment, stop thinking, dial the phone, pause this video, make the phone call, reach out to Clay, get it started right now. Now, final question I have is, I think people look at oxyfresh.com and they go in, there’s 500 locations now. Yeah. And they look at Elephant in the Room and they go, there’s five brick and mortar locations now. They look at Shaw Homes and they go, you know, these are big success stories. I don’t know that I can do it. What would you say to somebody out there that just feel like they might not have the, like all this stuff they’re going to learn is going to be over their head, too complicated. What would you say? I would say the information, the ideas are easy. It’s the application that is difficult for people. The ideas that you share, there’s nothing that’s like, oh my God, I don’t have a PhD, therefore I can’t do it. I feel like it’s all very, very simple stuff, but it is a lot of action to get traction. And you got to get the action going. And I think if somebody has diligence and discipline or can learn diligence or discipline, they’re going to do extremely well. And it’s not about education, it’s about action. Now, Aaron, I got one thing I want to say, and then I’ll kind of wrap up today’s show, okay, with a boom, because boom stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum, and that’s what’s required to have success. You know, people watching this, they’re going, wow, Aaron, you know, he looks like a normal guy. Well, that’s true. They say, well, he sounds like a normal guy. I’m just, I don’t know, sounds like an all right guy. You know, that’s true. But the one thing you can’t quite picture on the show, and I want to just give that gift to you folks who are watching, is Aaron smells tremendous. It’s like a, it’s a, it’s like a, if you had smell-o-vision, if you could just get up there and just smell that, it’s incredible. And it’s really, it’s his aroma that allows him to achieve massive success. So unless, if you’re out there and you’re going, what’s the secret sauce? It’s not a sauce, it’s more of just a smell. So I don’t know if you qualify to have the kind of success he has unless you smell like he smells. It’s a really tremendous smell. Okay, let’s do this thing with a boom. Here we go. Three, two, one, boom. Well, Thrive Nation, we have an opportunity all the time. Well, folks, on part one of today’s show, hopefully we all learned how to make more money. However, on part two of today’s show, I want to walk you through something you can do in the next 10 minutes. It’ll take you about 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes total, and this could save you thousands of dollars a year. On today’s show, to talk about how you, as a business owner, can save thousands and thousands of dollars a year, is my trusted friend in the credit card processing space, Tyler Carson. Welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, Clay. Thanks for having me this morning. So Tyler, I’m excited to have you on the show. Got to ask you, typical week when you meet with new potential customers, how much money are you able to save the typical business owner? How much money can you save the typical business owner? And how are you able to help these business owners save so much money? Sure. So on average, I would say anywhere from three to $4,000 a year, some of them more. I mean, we had one last week, it was $1,500 a month. So obviously that customer is going to save more than three to $5,000 a year. The way that we possibly can and have your business for many, many years and be your partner in the credit card processing world for the entire length of your business. Now I have found that for my companies, when I reached out to you to compare rates, you came highly recommended from multiple mutual contacts and the process was stress-free, it was easy. You worked directly with my wife to set up everything and compare rates. It was a significant savings. Why are you able to save people so much money? Because we’ve used other credit card processors and you blew them out of the water. I mean, yeah, I guess the only thing I can say there is just, it’s just, you know, it’s how IPS does it. I mean, we, like I said in the beginning, we see this as we want to get you the lowest rate possible right from the beginning. So I know there’s a lot of processors out there, they want to make their money quick, they want to do it in six months or a year or whatever, and then they’re gone. For us, we see it as how low can we get your rates, and then let’s be your partner and your processor for the entire length of your business. The other thing that we don’t do is we don’t have any contracts, Clay. We don’t hold your feet to the fire and make you process with us. Everything is month to month. So again, if we go to the website you guys have, your business, it’s called Integrated Payment Services. Integrated Payment Services. And what I would encourage everyone to do right now, we created a landing page to make it easy to get a hold of you. That’s Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. If people fill out that form to request a free quote, what happens next? Walk us through that process. Yeah, so as soon as that form gets completed, I get an email. I know that they’re looking to speak with me. And then me, someone here on our team, we reach out. It’s about a five-minute conversation just to learn more about their business. For us, it’s not only about lowering and saving money. It could be about us having a product or a tool that’s also going to enhance their business, maybe help them process in a way that they haven’t in the past. And so we have that brief little conversation and then they send us over some information. We put together a comparison. The whole process takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Now, I know you’re not going to give away any personal information of a specific client, but could you give us a case study or a recent example of maybe a specific industry or a kind of business that you were able to meet with recently and maybe how much money you were able to save them? Yeah, I actually got one here on my desk. It is an eye care, it’s an optometrist, we’re going to save them right at $1,500 a month. The optometrist, $1,500 a month right now. Yep. And what they have to do, I mean, what all is required of them to begin saving that money? We looked at, we took a look at their current setup. We provided a comparison. We’re actually, the equipment that they use we’re compatible with, so it’s a matter of us just reprogramming their equipment so there’s no upfront costs. The whole process for them to complete the agreement took about five minutes, and the whole time for us to reprogram what they have will maybe take, you know, four to six minutes. So for them, it was a no-brainer. So it really is a no-brainer. I would encourage everybody to take the challenge. Now, once people fill out the form, you probably get hit with the common two or three questions. What questions do people typically ask you right away when you first make contact with them, you call them back, they filled out the form? What questions do people typically ask you? Oh, how are we able to save this kind of money? That’s normally number one. Why are you lower than anybody else? All I can say is it’s because of how we do business, because of how Integrated Payment Services sees ourselves as a company. Well, I’ll tell you this, folks. I’m very happy with Integrated Payment Services. Tyler, I’m really happy to work with you, to have you on the show. I think it’s a win-win for our listeners. I’ll give you the final word there, sir. For people out there that are thinking about maybe someone that’s carpal tunnel and it’s a little bit painful to fill out the form. Somebody thinking about taking the massive sacrifice of time and energy to go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card and fill out the form. What say you? Yeah, I mean, we’re here to help you. I mean, it’s a five minute conversation to talk to me and our team. Who doesn’t like to have more money in their pocket as a business owner and that’s what I love about my job is that I’m able to to come in look at these you know studies or look at these different industries and actually help people really save money. So let’s you know let’s make it happen let’s save some money today give me a call. Again folks that’s Tyler with Integrated Payment Services. Tyler thank you so much for your time for your energy and I will talk to you next week. You got it you guys have a good week. Bye-bye. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim TiVo 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 and 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, if I 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 is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. Over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. 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 rustic cuff.com has spoken at the two day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we have had the man who is 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. The way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the 2-Day Interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the 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’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrive timeshow.com simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com. You’re gonna see thousands of people just like you who’ve been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com and some people might be saying, well how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the Request Tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in a bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, 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. It’s supposed to be 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. Who? You! 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 LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it, and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrivetime 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, 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 system 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. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point, New York, acta non verba. octagonal watch what a person does not what they say good morning good morning good morning barbecue soccer instead radio show today on broadcasting uh… from phoenix arizona not scottsdale arizona their clothes but the completely different worlds and uh… of a special guest today uh… definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing But I thought since you and Eric are close Trump What were you saying about what Trump can’t what Donald who’s my age and I can say or cannot say well I have to 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 name of 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. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, no. 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. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump, but I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. So 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 a 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 in Kings Point in New York. Acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa, man.