Clay Clark | Sharon Lechter | The Best-Selling Co-Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, Sharon Lechter, CPA Shares Story of Rich Dad Poor Dad Book Series + The Paul Hood, CPA 7X Success Story + Tebow Joins Dec. 5-6 Workshop!

Audio Transcription

Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zilman. 8 kids co-created by 2 different women. 13 multi-million dollar businesses. on the hoops I break down the books she’s bringing some wisdom and the good roots as a father of five that’s why I’m alive so if you see my wife and kids please tell them hi it’s the CNT up on your radio and now three two one here we go Alright, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, I have the pleasure, we have the pleasure of interviewing the certified public accountant and entrepreneur that many, many people know. She’s become a household name. Her name is Sharon Lecter. You see, she is the CEO behind Rich Dad, Poor Dad. She’s the lady who created the book with Robert Kiyosaki. I’m not sure if the listener is out there, if you’re aware of this, but the whole Rich Dad, Poor Dad book series really started as a result of Robert Kiyosaki wanting to make a board game and Sharon Lecter writing an elaborate sales brochure that mutated or was changed and transformed into the book known as Rich Dad Poor Dad. In fact, they sold the first one million copies of that book out of her home. Ladies and gentlemen, in 2009, Sharon Lecter was appointed to the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission as a national spokesperson. This right here, folks, is the same council that served both President Bush and President Obama. And Sharon today has a team of over 5,000 people around the world who help her with her various assets and entrepreneurial endeavors. And in her free time, she was approached by the Napoleon Hill Foundation to take the manuscript to a book that was written in the 1930s called Outwitting the Devil and to Refresh It. So she’s worked with the Napoleon Hill Foundation now to release multiple books including think and grow rich for women and Outwitting the devil ladies and gentlemen family and friends Donny further ado is my pleasure to introduce to you my friend miss Sharon Sharon Lector miss Lector, how are you doing today? I am fantastic clay. Thank you so much. Hey, I have a question for you that I think a lot of listeners would like to know off the bat here. When you guys created the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, what was your role with that book? And where did the idea for that book come from? This is back in 95. Robert Kiyosaki had gone to see my husband, Michael Lecter, who’s an intellectual property attorney, with an idea for a board game. And it was drawn out on a piece of paper, but he needed somebody to help really make it happen. And so we went to see my husband about getting that copyrighted and patented. And in that process, I’d already been working in the area of financial literacy, and so my husband introduced us. I thought that I would enjoy seeing the potential of the game, which I really did. So I met Robert at the first beta test for the game. And it was drawn out on a piece of butcher block paper, and the playing pieces were different caliber bullets, so first impression is everything, right? Right. Of the three tables, I was the only person who got out of the rat race, but at the same time I really saw the value of the messaging, which is consistent with my messaging and understanding the importance of passive income, the importance of building assets, and not relying on a job or a paycheck for your financial health. I volunteered to help them. My background had been I helped build the talking book industry and in that we also had electronic games. So I had a network of influence that I could draw on. And as we were looking at it, Robert wanted to charge $200 for the board game. And I said, well, maybe we need a brochure. We need a brochure that kind of talks about the philosophy so that people will be convinced to invest $200. And in that process, he asked me to be his partner. And the brochure was Rich Dad Poor Dad. We never expected it to be the huge success in its own right. It was written really as a brochure to sell the game. And of course, the world came and said, no, your brand is not only Cashflow, your brand is Rich Dad. And so we thought, well, okay, maybe we should write it. We decided to write three books, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant, and Guide to Investing. We did those and then people still wanted more. We wrote a total of 15 books during the 10 years that I was his partner. I owned the company and I led it as a CEO. Then we had a second brand of books that we launched, the Rich Dad Advisors books, along with all of our other programming. And so that’s really how it got started. He was interested in the fact that my background and my philosophy was consistent with his, the fact that I was a CPA, and the fact that I had the experience and the connections to help build the business. And so we became partners, and in 10 years, we built the Rich Dad brand globally. Now I understand, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but I believe that you sold the first one million copies of the, now we know, brochure slash book out of your actual house. Is that true? Did you actually sell a million copies of a book out of your house? Yes, we did. We really ran the company out of my own for the first three years. And in fact, our local post office got to the point where they said, Sharon, we can’t handle your volume anymore. A local fulfillment house that would store the inventory and ship for us. But yeah, we sold the first million books. We made it to the New York Times bestseller list. The original book was published by a company that my husband and I own called Tech Press. And it was so that we could control the book. If we wanted to give it away, we could. Traditional publishers, that’s not something you can do with them. And as we built that success and got it on a list, all of a sudden we had all these publishers coming to us, wanting to help us. And it was a good thing, because when we really hit the stride, we had a phone call from Oprah, wanting to spin. Oprah, we knew we needed to have more depth of distribution. And it was in the middle of these conversations, so we were able to do a deal with Warner Books and the rest of history, seven and a half plus years in the New York Times bestseller list. That’s phenomenal. Sharon, this is Robert Zellner, by the way. Love your books and so excited to have you on the show. When you were writing the pamphlet for the game, when did it morph into the book? I mean, because that’s a big pamphlet for a game. So you’re starting to write the pamphlet, and then at what point did you say, I think this is a book? Well we said we need a brochure, but the brochure became the book. It was really to tell the story and to really be able to give it to people for free, and really to have a $15 product that would lead to the $200 board game and that’s why it was not originally published in hardback it was originally published in paperback. Now Sharon, I know you’ve met probably thousands of people all around the world as you’ve become more of a face, you know, yourself. No longer behind the scenes, you’re out there doing more interviews and being more seen. I’m sure you’ve run into people all around the world who’ve said to you, Sharon, your book really did change and impact my life. Well, we have one listener who’s one of my current clients who’s the head of marketing for Shaw Homes. And if you check it out there, Sharon, it’s a shawhomes.com. It’s the largest home builder in Oklahoma. And he claims, now again, he claims, now Sharon, you’ll have to get ahold of it at some point to verify this, but he used to deliver pizzas for Domino’s. And he said that the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad changed his life. And he told me, he said, you’re going to interview her? Are you kidding me? He said, so he asked me if I would ask you a question on today’s show. So he wanted to know… First, tell me what his first name is. Aaron Antus. Aaron, okay. Aaron Antus, the head of marketing for the largest home builder in Oklahoma, shawhomes.com. And Aaron said, he wanted me to ask you, he said, when did you have your aha moment in your life, Sharon, that changed your view of your financial world? When did you, Ms. Sharon Lecter, have your aha moment that changed the way you view the financial world? Well, I think our lives are a series of aha moments, but I think first I want to address Aaron because a lot of people come up to me and around the world and say that Rich Dad Poor Dad changed their life. And Aaron I want to tell you nobody changed your life but you. I’m honored and thrilled that something that I wrote inspired you, gave you the motivation to take action. But I want you to own it and I want you to stand in the fact that you sought out the information, but then you actually took action and employed it. And so Rich Dad Poor Dad, as a book, doesn’t change anybody’s lives. Hopefully it inspires people to take action to change their own lives. But as it relates to me, my financial ah-ha’s, there’s probably been quite a few of them, but the first one probably was having grown up in a very entrepreneurial home. We lived in a house between my dad’s used car lot and my mom’s beauty shop. My dad also owned Orange Grows and rental properties. I swore I would never be an entrepreneur because I grew up in that environment and I was going to go be a partner in a large CPA firm and retire with a gold watch. And I was following that dream. And then when I was on the fast track in Cooper’s and Library in Atlanta, Georgia, and I realized that I was working way too many hours for other people. And I said, if I’m going to work this hard, I should be working for myself. And that was in 1979. And that’s really when the entrepreneurial bug bit me, and I’ve never looked back. Now Sharon, your father, now correct me if I’m wrong, I tried to spend a copious amount of time researching you so that I’m well prepared. Maybe some of the things that you hadn’t talked about in some of your books. And I had read, or actually watched an interview that you did where you’re talking about, I believe that your father only had a third grade education in terms of formal education, yet he went on to teach the engineering school for the United States Navy. Is that accurate? Did I get that wrong? Is that correct? He did. He was born in the hills of Alabama. His father died when he was very young, and so he had no formal education past the third grade. But he joined the Navy as early as he could, and ended up becoming, he was a Master Chief in the Navy and his last five years he we were in Great Lakes and he was running the engineering school for the Navy. Now you you actually have sold I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but I probably could tell I’ve read you I guess you sold 26 million copies of the Rich Dad books when you were while you were CEO is that correct did you sell 26 million copies of that book? Of the Rich Dad series, yes. Primarily Rich Dad Poor Dad, of course, was the greatest one, but yes, globally. And it was in over 50 languages and over 100 countries. Well, so Sharon, you could probably stop, you know? Why are you so passionate about financial literacy? Apparently you’re doing pretty well. I mean, why are you still continuing to, at the young age you are, continuing to go out there, travel around the world, and passionately teach financial literacy when you could have obviously clearly been done years ago? Well, it’s a true statement. I’ve been financially free for 20 years. But I think what drives us is not necessarily, for me, it’s never been about the money. I believe growing up as a little child, my father would ask me each night if I added value to someone’s life. And I still ask myself that. I lost him in 2006. But I continue to feel that each of us has a responsibility to support others, and I think that I have a gift and a responsibility, that I have the ability to teach people about money, how to change their mindsets about money, how to go from scarcity thinking to abundance, realizing that the opportunity is there, you just need to learn how to teach yourself how to recognize it and seize it and take action. And it was literally, you know, what I’m doing this year with the Play Big movement is really me coming back in to focus on what I want to do. I really thought about retiring last year, and it didn’t sit too well with me. me and I said, you know, this is what I’m, I was, I’ve been given a gift and an opportunity and as long as I can continue supporting people taking control of their financial lives, that’s what, that’s what I want to do. So I’m back in the game and I’m literally doing it and sharing with people what I’m doing, how I’m doing it and inviting them to come along with me in the Play Big movement. There’s a private Facebook page called the Play Big movement with Sharon Lecter that’s joining it for free and come along with us now Sharon you know we have a another one of my clients based in Canada and He actually is a CPA his name is Josh and Josh wanted me to ask you a question because he has an accounting firm that is designed to be very You know it’s designed to help their clients, steer their clients financially, not just pay their taxes. They’re based in Canada. And he wanted to know, because he listens to our podcast all the time, he wanted to know, from your perspective as a CPA, where do you see most CPAs missing it when it comes to actually helping their clients? Not just teaching them theory, but where do you see most CPAs, or do you see CPAs missing it when it comes to helping their clients? Well, Josh, I appreciate that question because I applaud you for going the extra mile. And all CPAs are not created equal. And CPAs, you can fall into the category of being a service provider. Give me your stuff, I’ll do your tax returns, give me your financial records, and I’ll give you financial statements. But a CPA has the opportunity to use their depth of experience of looking at multiple different companies and really becoming true advisor to business owners or to individuals financially and to help steer them in the right direction. All certified public accountants are not personal financial planners. They don’t necessarily have that designation but many of them do. And so to ask them and to sit down and have them walk you through your tax return, both as a business or as an individual, and to find out things that you should be doing or things that you should stop doing is very important. And I think many CPAs should do that, many of them do, and others don’t. So I applaud Josh for going the extra mile because we have, we bring to the table, my years of public accounting still are a huge benefit to me each and every day because I saw how many companies did it right, but probably even more importantly I saw the mistakes so many companies made. And it’s a tremendous education and being able to share that education through my books, through my games, through my mentoring is a true gift for me. And so when you are a CPA, you have that experience, you have the opportunity to share that wisdom with your clients and hopefully they all do, but I know not all of them do. Chuck, right behind you there in the Man Cave Studios, there’s a book on the top shelf. It’s gonna be the very, very top shelf and you’re gonna see a book with all these Post-it notes coming out of it. I’d like if you’d take a photo of that, or photos of that, and share that with the listeners on today’s show notes. But before you do that, can you explain to the listeners what you’re looking at there? What book that is? This says, Guide to Investing, What the Rich Invest in That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not. Look at that book. It’s Robert Kiyosaki with Sharon Lecter. And that book was… And this thing looks like it could be a miniature version, maybe a small rural town’s phone book, pretty good size for a book. And I don’t know what you’ve done with this tabbing system here, but there’s tabs, stapled, taped, stuck, highlighted, checkmarked, crossed out, circled, drawings, everything. You’ve got this thing. That book, I tell you, that book, I could not put that thing down. It’s like a grilled stuffed burrito. I wrestled with that book for probably a year. It looks like it wrestled back. I mean, seriously, it was probably, I mean, maybe six months of just reading the same book over and over and over. And that book was a game changer. And what’s so exciting is that Sharon Lecter has agreed to be with us on six shows, Chuck. So we’re going to have her on six separate shows. So if you enjoyed today’s interview, you are definitely not going to want to miss out on the future interviews. So how do you make sure you never miss out on an interview? Well, if you never want to miss out on an interview, just go to the Thrive Time Show on iTunes. Find the Thrive Time Show on iTunes, and then click the Subscribe button. And after you subscribe, you’ll never miss an episode. That’s right. And if you want to get yourself some free conference tickets in the process, as the Canadians call it, all you have to do is leave us an objective review on iTunes and email us proof that you did it, a screenshot of your review, to info at thrivetimeshow.com and we’ll give you two free tickets to the world’s highest rated and one of the world’s best workshops, it’s the Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. But objectively, it has the most reviews and I’m telling you, you’re going to absolutely love it. To learn more about the Thrive Time Show Business Conference and why you’d want to attend, go to thrivetimeshow.com, click on the conference button and there is the information. Ladies and gentlemen, family and friends, without any further ado, we always want to end this show with a boom. Shep, are you emotionally prepared to end with a boom? Hold on a second. Here we go. Here we go. I’m ready. Three, two, one, boom! Well, Thrive Nation, we have so many wonderful people like you on our website every day, checking out the podcast. I wanted to take a moment to celebrate the success of a long-time client that we’ve had the pleasure of working with for a while, so that they could complain and tell you all the terrible things that we make them do en route to growing their business. Now, without any further ado, we have the owners of Cornerstone Fits. Welcome, guys. How are you? Hey. We’re good. Good. How are you? I am doing great. Now, just so people can know you’re not a hologram, could you guys kind of introduce yourselves, tell us your name and where you’re from, just so people can verify you’re not a hologram. I’m Danica, I’m one of the owners, and this is my husband Jordan. My name’s Jordan. We started Cornerstone Fence about three years ago. I’m a full-time firefighter, so it started as just something to do on my off days, make a little bit of extra money. And about a year and a half ago, we went to a business conference that Clay had out at his place, and we decided that maybe instead of building fences as a hobby, maybe we should actually turn this into a business and start trying to grow the business. Now, how did you originally hear about us? How did that conversation come about? I’ll pick on Danica here. How did that conversation come about? Initially, it was the first Reawaken America tour that we went to, and one of my friends was like, hey, you should definitely go to the business conference beforehand. It was a shortened version, I guess, in the morning before the Reawaken America conference in the afternoon. And really, one of my friends was just like, this could really help you. And just the tools that you gave us in the shortened version of the business conference, it was just mind bombs going off. Now, as far as the growth, you two work together, and I’ll pick on Jordan here for this. What kind of growth have you guys experienced at maybe a percentage, or what kind of growth have you seen since we started working with you guys? The year, the first year we were in business, I maybe did four or five fences. Like I say, it was kind of not a hobby necessarily. I don’t consider fence a hobby. But it was three or four fences the first year, so we maybe did $30,000 in fences. Second year, which was still before you, we maybe were on pace to do about $70,000 or $80,000 total revenue. And then we started with you in October of 21. 22. October of 22. And so that first year with you and putting your systems in place, really going after the Google reviews and trying to grow the company, we went from roughly like $80,000 to $700,000 in total revenue. And so that was last year. And then this year, we’re hoping our goal is $1.5 million this year. And I mean this, and so I’m not just saying this because you’re here. I really do love working with you guys. Our team is always speaking so kindly about you guys. I don’t tell my team, guys run around saying nice things about these people. But you know, work with a client, I mean we’re working on the website, we’re working on the photography, the video, there’s a lot of interaction. And every week you have a coaching meeting with Andrew, and Andrew loves working with you guys. So can you maybe share Danica what it’s like to have Andrew helping you implement the system and program that I’ve created? What’s it like working with him on a weekly basis? Really, Andrew’s phenomenal. He always brings so much wisdom to our meetings. You know, every problem that we have, he has an optimistic and realistic solution to it. And just the accountability in general like it’s hard being accountable every single week to update your sheet to update your tracking sheet to track all your leads and just the accountability is I Don’t think we’d be where we are if we didn’t have that kind of accountability and just him constantly bringing us encouragement realistic solutions different resources we can look to just to continue to find solutions for some of the issues that we run into. Now, you know, I call this the core repeatable actionable processes, aka the crap. You know, there’s all these self-help books about the big idea and the vision and get your mind set, but there’s very few books about the core repeatable actionable processes, the stuff behind the stuff. that people like yourself, shawholmes.com, oxyfresh.com, stevecorrington.com, people that have massive companies now, but I’ve been working with these people for a lot of times over 10 years. The people that do the best are the ones that like the core, repeatable, actionable processes, or they learn to appreciate them over time. And the people that struggle are the ones that are always looking for the new shiny thing. I’d love to get your idea, Jordan, on just the importance of knocking out these core repeatable actionable processes week after week, day after day, because really business coaching is about helping you guys grow, but it’s not an event. It’s more of a process. I’d love to get your thoughts on what it’s like to have those weekly meetings with Andrew. Yeah, they’ve been, like Danica was saying, we like to think we’re organized. We like to think we hold ourselves accountable, but without that meeting, it’s just, it’s awesome because first, we can see on a weekly basis, how are we doing, where are we at, are we meeting the goals that we’re supposed to be meeting? So without that weekly meeting, I would imagine that maybe we would get to it once a month maybe, if we didn’t have the coaching. So first, the accountability, because we’re showing up every single Friday, same time, same location, and going over exactly what did we do this week. And so just staying consistent with that and having the accountability has really changed our business, for sure, just having that business meeting every week. Deanna, what do you think would happen without that weekly meeting and that coaching with Andrew? What would happen with all these ideas you’ve learned at a conference or learned in books? What would happen to the plan? It would fall apart. Because then it’s like, oh, like you said, the big shiny thing in front of you. You can always have things that interfere with your day, but unless you have a plan and something that and a step that you know is gonna hold you accountable. I mean that’s one thing we learned doing business as husband and wife is it’s really hard for us to hold each other accountable. So just Andrew’s just phenomenal. Yeah, having a plan and having a deadline. Like every Friday is a deadline. So it’s like well half steps we’re supposed to do, but if you don’t put a deadline to that and it was just me and her trying to do it by ourselves, you know, we might get it done in six months or eight months or, but having that deadline, which is Friday, every single week is, and then we get like, well, why didn’t you do that? That was, that was what you were supposed to do. It’s like, okay, yeah, we messed up this week, we’ll for sure get it done. I wanted to touch on some of the things that you said we learn over time to like. It’s like I remember when you first brought up the group interview. I’m like that doesn’t work. There’s no way. And then now it’s like we are group interview savvy. Like that I tell everybody that owns a business. I’m like do a group interview every single week. Because you never know when people are not going to be loyal. You think that they’re awesome? Well, you do, it’s weekly almost. Yeah. And having a plan and a deadline, how would you describe the importance of that, Danica, having the plan and a deadline? Well, you can just get caught up in the roll of your week, and before you know it, it’s Sunday and you’re starting Monday, first thing in the morning. So it’s like, just, you get caught up in the tumble and roll of everything. There’s constantly a burning fire, there’s constantly kids that are sick, or kids that, you know, something can always distract you and take you away from the necessary things you need to do to be successful. And if you just, sometimes it’s cram time at three o’clock on Friday before I come down and meet Andrew, it’s like, uh-oh, uh-oh, we’ve got to get the tracking sheet updated. But I don’t know what we would do without that. We think we’re making money, but unless you know on paper and can see it in black and white, it’s a life changer. Now, I want to ask you this, Jordan. What I did when I built my first company, djconnection.com, and I don’t wish this on anybody, but I grew up very poor and I got a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, just like you’re a firefighter. You know, I was working three jobs, and I didn’t know what to do. So I would go to these seminars where they’d have these get-rich-quick, get-motivated people, and they would say, you know, for $4,000 a month and a six-month contract, we’re gonna teach you how to become successful. And at every meeting, they never really taught the stuff. There was nothing really actionable. And then I would go, okay, now that I finally think I know what I need to do, do you guys do the website? They said, no. Do you guys do the graphic design? No. Do you guys help me with my bookkeeping or my tracking? No. Do you guys actually do print pieces, photography, videography? No. Do you help me optimize my website? No. Do you launch ads? No. Do you actually know the people? No. But it was all this big idea of just work on your business, not in your business. Could you maybe explain how the meetings are with Andrew? Because I think a lot of people when they think of business consulting or growth, they’re thinking of what I’m thinking, what I thought of was paying people $4,000 a month to talk in generalities and not get into the weeds. So the structure of the meeting. So when we come, first thing is, when’s the week? Hey, what’s going on? What’s going on in the business? What’s happening? Any big wins. After that, burning fires. What’s, is there anything major that we need to discuss or get off any big problems, fires, that we need to put out right now? And then after that, we get into the items, some of our homework that we’re supposed to be working on. Are you guys doing this? Are you doing this? And then we get into our tracking sheet, exactly how much money came in, how much money went out, how many quotes, how many leads. It’s very, very detailed, way more detailed than I thought you could get it. Exactly what our conversion rate is, how many quotes we did, how many customers we funded, why we funded them, what happened there. Did we do our group interview? Did we do our meetings? So The tracking sheet, I think our tracking sheet has probably 30, 25, 30 different metrics that we go over every single week. Everything from money to leads to where are these leads coming from? Is this working? Do we need to adjust here? It’s very tailored to our business. One of my clients I was talking to, I talked to him just the other day, and he was telling me the story. He said, Clay, when I first hired you 12 years ago, he’s still a client 12 years later. He said, you helped me grow my gym. And then I learned those systems and I hired you guys to help me grow my next business. And his next business is a lumber business. He sells lumber wholesale log cabins. The materials need to make log cabins. And now he has a fencing business, but it’s in Idaho. And so he’s got the fencing going on. He’s got the log cabin thing going on, he’s got the gym going on, and he also owns a Tip Top K9 franchise. And he told me, he said, the reason why I bought the Tip Top K9 franchise is I just knew it was the same system so that I could apply. Let me get your thoughts on that, Danica, because now that you’re kind of really learning the systems, is it helping you to view business differently now that you see that, wow, this system over here, because you come to the conferences where there’s many different industries represented. Has that helped you to kind of view business differently? Oh yeah, 100%. Before, it’s really easy to get emotional when it is your business and things aren’t working, they’re not systematized, but if you having those systems in place and just knowing that that’s what you have to do every week, it’s not emotional, it’s a checklist item or even a checklist. Like what, why are we missing these tools? These are all the tools that we’ve bought and this should be on this truck. And so what, what happened here, if you don’t keep track of those things and have, it takes the emotion out of it and makes it a system. So am I, my final two questions I have for you guys, and I’ll let you get back to having a great Saturday. Um, a lot of our clients who work with our couples, a lot of our couples, this just in, uh oh, a lot of our couples, my wife and I, what we do is I run the daily operations and she loves accounting. That’s kind of her sheet music she likes to read. She likes to sing that song, the accounting song. That’s kind of her world. Other couples I work with, they work together on everything. For anybody out there who is working with their spouse, how has that helped you guys? Because my wife and I, we don’t really talk about business at home and we don’t have any work-related conflict at home. We just, it’s sort of like we have our lanes and we figured that out at a young age. But I know a lot of couples, when you don’t have coaching, it can just be like a perpetual debate that never ends about how should we optimize the website or what’s the best route to hiring or what’s the most effective way to launch an ad. And it’s like, there’s a lot of debates going on. I’d love to get your thoughts, Danica. Is that, has that helped at all? Like on the, on the home front at all? Oh yeah. We couldn’t, we wouldn’t be where we are without the, just not having to think about the website, not having to think about where we stand because we have to discuss it every single week and that time’s allotted for those discussions. And like you said, kind of our lanes, it’s, I’m like the phones, the at home, uploading pictures to Google, you know, all that. And he’s the face and the person that’s meeting and discussing the logistics of any project and directing the guys. So, knowing your lane, staying in it, and just not having to think about our assets, not having to think, that’s all on the back end and you guys take care of that. It helps me sleep at night. All right, that’s great. That’s a bonus right there. Now, final question I have for you guys, and I’ll go back to your husband on this one, so Jordan, for anybody out there who’s thinking about scheduling a 13-point assessment, well, we did our 13-point assessment. It was a free assessment, a free initial meeting, or coming to a conference. We have scholarship tickets so that everybody out there can afford to go. So we tell people, you know, it’s $250 for a ticket or whatever you want to pay. What would you say to anybody out there that’s thinking about coming to a conference or scheduling a 13-point assessment? I highly encourage it. When we came to the very first one and we had, we didn’t know about your coaching stuff, and then you guys offered the 13-point assessment. And Danica was like, I think we really need to do this. And I was like, man, I don’t know. You know, we, like, last year, you know, at this point, we’re doing like 50 or 60,000 in fences, total revenue. And I was like, I don’t know. It’s just, we’re a tiny business, we don’t have the skills to run a massive business. I was almost scared first to grow it, but very doubtful that something that we were running maybe could be a big business. It still sounds weird to say that we did $700,000 last year and this year that we’re hopefully on track and our goal’s over a million dollars. In my mind, that still doesn’t compute because I’m not, I guess I don’t consider myself like a successful business owner, or I didn’t at least before. And so doing, really it all started with that coming to a conference and then doing that 13 point assessment and talking with you. Our first meeting was, we came in and visited with you. And, oh no, it was just, it was totally, it freaked me out, but it’s really changed the way that we view business, number one, how we run our business, and has gotten us to this point where maybe we will this year be over a million dollars in total revenue. Can I give you a little pro tip on the show? This is my little pro tip for you on the show. Do you want to hit two minutes? This is a real thing. This is a real advice I would give you. One of my wonderful clients named Don Calvert with Score Basketball. He did this move, and I’m giving you this move, and everybody listening to the move. And what he did is he said, you know, in the future, I’m going to start servicing Owasso, Oklahoma. Not now, but soon I’m going to start providing basketball, consulting for Owasso, and soon I’m going to start gathering, I’m going to start servicing Broken Arrow. Now at the time he was just in Bixby. So I said, so Don, let’s go ahead and register the Google map for the office that you’re building, or the location you’re going to service, and let’s go ahead and put a sprinkling of articles on those search engine content and on those markets so that your phones will start ringing before you actually open up the new basketball training facility. And no exaggeration at all, his leads almost tripled by doing that, and then that created the growth and the justification, and I’m telling you, just a little secret between you and me and everybody watching, Oklahoma is in need of some serious professional fencing installers. I mean, I’m just telling you. So if you guys were to do what you’re doing and kind of start going down a little bit further down the highway, like registering a map in Owasso or Oklahoma City or whatever markets you’re thinking about going to, and begin putting just a little bit of energy into calling your current happy customers and getting reviews and writing that content, you’ll start getting massive leads and you’ll probably hit 2 million in the next 12 months. I’m just telling you because you guys have the systems, you’ve worked so hard to build these systems, I know you guys can continue to scale. Thank you guys for carving out time. Are you guys in like a pole barn here? Is this the man cave? Where are you guys? This is our big win of the week. Yeah, that’s the win of the week. We’re finally working on getting the shelf finished so we can start buying materials in bulk so we get better pricing on materials, storing it, and saving time. Instead of the crews right now, the crews get here in the morning, then they go to the supplier, get materials, and then they go to the job site. You built this? Yeah. This is awesome. This is exciting. Yeah. This is a 40 by 60. And anyways, it’s exciting because this has been one of our big hang ups is we need to get better pricing on materials, which is happening now. And the way you do that is you buy it in bulk. Well, you’ve got to have somewhere to store it. And so it’s all, anyways, this is our big win of, I guess, really. Can I get a little tour? Can I get a tour real quick? Can you kind of walk us around real quick this is awesome I’m so excited for you guys I I love you does it smell like new wood it does oh yeah look all right so this is the front of the shop so we and really it’s at our house so a lot of things is like we wanted a commercial facility but right now that’s not in the budget so we’re making do with what we have. So we got a 40 by 60 going in. So we got all the work trucks here behind us. Anyways, right now it’s gonna get us by until we hit that 1, 1.5, maybe 2 million. At that point we’re gonna go and start looking for commercial lanes. So anyways, we’re gonna store a lot of like 2x4s, pickets, steel posts, like the bread and butter of what we do will be stored in here. And so garage doors are coming hopefully in two or three weeks. Those take a little while. But we just got the concrete poured. So it’s really a blank canvas right now. So we got today we’re planning out shelving and where we’re going to start storing everything and how to, I guess, try to make the best use of it. You’ve got to be pretty pumped up about this, huh? Oh, I’m super excited. We’re both very excited. Oh, this is awesome. Well, congratulations guys. I know you guys have been putting in the hard work there and it’s good to see it paying off for you. And again, thank you so much for carving out time and we’ll see you next week, okay? Thank you so much, Clay. Take care guys. Bye-bye. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Alright Thrive Nation, on part two of today’s show, I’m going to introduce you to Paul Hood of Hood CPAs. Paul Hood is a guy that we’ve worked with to help him grow his practice. I believe he said on part one, I recorded part two of today’s show before now, but I believe he said during the recording that we’ve helped to grow Hood CPAs by something like 800%. It’s a massive number, so I want you to hear that story folks, but Paul Hood of Hood CPAs, now one of the largest accounting practices in the Midwest, he’s who introduced me to today’s guest. So today’s guest, his name is D’Amico. If you haven’t heard his name, you should probably look him up. I’ll let him tell you about his website. But again, he was introduced to me by Paul Hood of Hood CPA. So that’s how I know today’s guest. So without any further ado, D’Amico, welcome to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing good, sir. How are you doing? I’m doing very well. I’m doing very well. Now, obviously, I know you because Paul Hood introduced me to you. But tell me, or tell us, what’s your website address? Where can people go to learn more about you? Okcommunitycaregivers.com. Okcommunitycaregivers.com. And what is Ok Community Caregivers? Well, we’re basically a home care agency and we take care, we help seniors with the caregivers, we help them with home modifications, as well as we help them for financing, such as reverse mortgages and things of that nature. So again, that website is OKCommunityCareGivers.com. OK Community Care. I want to pull it up real quick so people can look at it. And most of our listeners, you know, are not in the great state of Oklahoma. We have listeners all over the country. Do you provide services for people outside of Oklahoma or is it just Oklahoma or primarily Oklahoma? Primarily Oklahoma, we provide the caregiver and the home modifications, but outside of Oklahoma, we do provide the reverse mortgages, which people use for long-term care services. Okay, so what is a reverse mortgage? I think we all know what a mortgage is. Obviously, a mortgage is extended financing that allows someone to buy a home they could not normally afford to pay for up front via cash. A more general meaning of the word mortgage is death grip. That’s interesting. Steve Currington, who will be on Part 3 of today’s show, is a long-time mortgage provider, a guy we’ve worked with for years. What is a reverse mortgage? Reverse mortgage is simply a nickname. It’s the nickname, the legal name is home equity conversion mortgage. It’s basically a federally insured loan that allows seniors ages 62 and older to have access to a portion of their home value. And without having to make any payments back, they don’t pay any, they don’t make any payments back was, it’s voluntarily basically. That’s basically what a reverse mortgage is. It’s a nickname. It’s just a mortgage. What are the questions that people typically have when they first talk to you about a reverse mortgage, or maybe what are the concerns people have when they hear about a reverse mortgage? The main concerns is they believe they’re going to lose their house, I guess there’s a misconception. That is not true at all. They are always stay on the D, they always stay as the homeowner. That’s the biggest misconception that they’re going to lose their house and that the bank takes over their house when they die. And that’s just not the truth. What happens when you pass, I mean, just like if you have a mortgage at any time, you sell the home, your heirs can sell the home, they have up to a year after you pass or leave the home or go to a facility or any way that it doesn’t become your primary residence anymore. You just sell the home and then the difference, the proceeds goes to you, pays off the mortgage and then the profit stays with the heirs. And with a reverse mortgage, who’s a good fit for that? I mean, who’s the kind of person that should look into that? Well, the thing is I’m learning that it’s being sold or being talked about as like a last ditch option versus if a 62 year old person, for example, had a $500,000 house, okay? You can access, let’s say, we’re gonna talk about half of that, which is $250,000. Let’s say they have a $100,000 mortgage remaining. That leaves you with $150,000 that you can use as a growing line of credit. That’s the part that people miss and that is very valuable. And that growing line of credit grows compounding at six and a half or 7% each year. And so that home, if it’s untouched, if that line of credit is untouched, it can double within 10 years, that growing line of credit can double. So anyone can use it who is 62 and older, because you can do anything with it, such as travel, pay off debts, pay off bills, all kinds of things. Even if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re 62 and older, you can use that to help you as well. Now, just to be super clear, I don’t make a commission to tell people about your services. Furthermore, I’m not saying that I think anybody should or should not get a reverse mortgage. I simply was told about your services via Paul Hood, and Paul Hood is a very respected CPA. You’re going to hear more from him on part two of today’s show. And you know, there is a belief that a reverse mortgage may be a good fit for some people. And again, it’s probably not a good fit for other people. Again, for just for added clarity, if somebody is watching this show today and they say, you know, I want to maybe schedule a consultation to learn more about it, to see if this is a good fit for me. How do they get ahold of you? What does that look like there, sir? We have a website, which is dnacaregivers.com or you can just give me a call. And that number is 918-404-7895. Again, that’s 918-404-7895. And can you repeat that web address one more time for anybody that may have been driving their car trying to take notes there? It’s OKCommunityCareGivers.com. Oklahoma Community Caregivers, if you put in the Google search, Oklahoma Community Caregivers, but it should come up as OKCommunityCaregivers.com. And that’s the best place to go to learn more about the reverse mortgages? That’s the best place, yes. You can go there, schedule a call with me, or you can call me straight, 918-404-7895. Now for everybody else that’s watching today’s show, folks, again, if you’re looking for a traditional mortgage on part three of today’s show, Steve Currington of SteveCurrington.com, long time client of ours. He’s been providing mortgages in all 50 states for a long time. He’ll be joining us as well. Sir, I’ll give you the final word. Why should everybody out there reach out to you and learn more about these reverse mortgages that you’re offering? Well, it’s just a product, like I say, it’s an untapped or a secret weapon. I mean, the growing line of credit is the part that really is not being explained. It’s a growing line of credit that grows compounding if untouched. So that’s something that people can use. You don’t have to make any payments. You do stay on your home. You still always on your home. You own the deed. You own the title. Everything. It’s just a mortgage ultimately. And so, yeah, that’s it. You can give me a call and let’s, let me just talk about it. All right. Thank you so much, brother. I really do appreciate you and we’ll talk to you soon. Thank you, sir. Have a good one. All right, Thrive Nation. I want to tell you a story today about a gentleman I had the opportunity to meet years and years ago and he has really scaled his company. He’s been a just a great friend and he’s a guy who, money is a magnifier. So when you help somebody make more money, it just makes them more of who they are. He’s a generous man, he’s a hardworking man, he’s actually a CPA. Some people tell me, Clay, doesn’t a CPA stand for a certified pain in the ass? I don’t think that’s always true, folks. There are some good ones out there and we’re joined here with a long-time client, Paul Hood. Welcome to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey, like my old friend R.D. Mercer said, CPA stands for Certified Professional Ass Kicker, not Certified Pain in the Ass. I’ve got 11 questions for you in about 10 minutes, so here we go. Let’s get it. Let’s get it. How did you and I first meet? I guess maybe when did you and I first start working together? Back in the day, I had… I still do, I have a really nice car. I was sitting at a restaurant and the manager came up and said, hey, do you know this guy, Steve Currington? I said no. I said, why? He said, because he’s got these nice cars and you really need to meet him. I met Steve. The first time I met him, he was dressed up in a Hulk outfit at a fundraiser yelling Hulk smash over the place. I had been searching, Clay. I had built a business that was doing about $3 million, had about three offices. And I wanted to go from successful to systematic. And I asked Steve, who do I talk to? And he said, you got to meet my guy. And then he got me to one of your workshops. I said, holy smokes. You know, I went to the best, one of the best accounting schools in the country, and they didn’t teach anything that you were teaching. So I was lit from day one. Now I remember when you came to the conference and watching you take notes, I mean you were smoking out that, they had a notebook for taking notes and it was like the piece of paper was going to set to fire because you were taking so many notes and you were engaging with all the different successful entrepreneurs. And I knew that your business was going to scale because previous to meeting me, you’d already built a successful business. You were top of your class in college. But I knew you could scale. Just to give the listeners some sort of an idea in their mind, how much have you grown from the time that you and I first met to now, just to give you some context? Yeah. So last year, Clay, so we went from about $3 million in revenue with three offices to now we have 17 offices across four states. And last year we did $20 million. And, you know, we’re poised now, my industry’s in a kind of a change or die scenario, and we are literally fighting off private equity companies that are wanting to throw money at us to be a part of what we’re doing, because you helped me create what, in my world, they call the platform How do you take a wisdom-based business and scale it? And it was actually pretty simple. It’s actually made me angry. I’ve told you multiple times. I went to college and they didn’t teach me this stuff. And you’re saying, have a meeting with your people. Well, what does that mean? And you played a massive role in our expansion. Well, Paul, I want to talk to you about this. This might feel like a backhanded compliment, but that’s not the way I mean it. You were graduating near the top of your class. I mean, you have been a very successful accountant before I met you, but I believe that when we met, you didn’t have a website. Maybe that seems like it’s a backhanded compliment. I don’t want it to feel that way. You were like top of your class CPA, but yet the marketing didn’t match how quality of a service you provided. Maybe I’m getting that wrong. I’d love to get your, just, can you hear me talk about that? Because I believe you were a top of the class CPA with a non-existent website. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it’s, I hear what you’re saying, Clay. You’re saying is, oh my God, how’d this guy ever become as successful as he was before he met me. But the reality is, again, business school, they teach you how to be a technician. They don’t teach you how to grow a business, how to manage people, how to create leads, how to create that marketing funnel, that sales funnel that goes into it. I remember the first time we met individually, you said, well, let’s look at your website. I said, what website? Because I’m a professional, and professionals get new business off of referrals. And dude, you turned on that website and we started getting Google reviews and videos. And I’ll tell you, in the three months of the beginning of this year, my sales team closed 400 new clients in three months, all off of inbound calls, meaning they called us. And that’s all because of what you’ve done with social media, with content, and that website. So, bravo. Now, we talked about, you know, one of the things that you did, which I loved, is you, there are what we call passive learners, people that watch information and they don’t think about how to apply it to their lives. Then there’s active learners. You are an active learner. You think, you see something and you think, how can I apply this to my life? And so I remember when you came to the workshop, you almost immediately, we started talking about renovating your offices on the outside and the inside. So basically renovating the brand, like the website, the digital marketing, but also renovating the way your physical CPA practices look inside. I think in your Claremore office, you renovate your Claremore office, and I’m gonna try to pull it up on the screen so people can see this, but you actually implemented so many of the things quickly. And so you actually went through the process of renovating your office inside and outside. Why did you decide to renovate your office on the inside and the outside after having been to workshops and conferences? Why did you decide to do that? Because very few people do that. Well, it was two things, Clay. The first thing is when I had clients come into me and they’d say, you know, they’d rather go to their dentist than see me. And you know, people buy what they want, not what they need. And we were selling what they needed, not what they wanted. And so we needed to portray a success-minded, an anti-CPA environment, if you will, with the slogans and the positive saying and the financial things. And it’s kind of weird though, Clay, because if you compare your office and my office, they strangely look alike. I’m not saying I copied off of you, but they strangely look alike. Well, you know, and the other thing- We wanted to sell success. We don’t want to just do tax returns. We want to sell success. And that’s what I jumped all over going to you. I told you one time, Clay, I could like live in your office. It’s the success and the positive and the motivation that’s created. And so I wanted to recreate that in my offices. Now, other things that you implemented successfully, and again, I’m just trying to brag on some of the wonderful things you’ve been able to accomplish, is you and I talked and you said, Clay, I have a desire in my heart to write a book. And so you and I worked together on writing your first book, Take a Look Under the Hood, which is a phenomenal book. There you and I did that together. And then the next book here is called Roadkill Tastes Like Chicken. And again, I can’t help somebody to typeset a book or to make a cover if someone doesn’t write the book. And so you are willing to put in the work. And then we were able to work together to produce the end result. What would you say to somebody who’s on the outside of the website right now who’s thinking about becoming a client of ours and we have sort of a, our business is designed, I only take on 160 clients and so I work with a lot of the same people year after year after year. So what would you say about the amount of effort you had to put in to something like the website or writing the book and then maybe what would you say about how what kind of work we put in just so you kind of explain how that relationship works. Yeah, Clay, I’m still astonished at what all you guys were willing to do. The you took a and you proved to me that you can do this with any business, a business that wants to grow a business that wants to be seen a business that wants to start with the end in mind, you have all the tools to do that. And again, Clay, I’m waiting for the check in the mail, but you’re not paying me to say this stuff. It’s reality. And I always said, and we’ve sent you a lot of clients over the years that you’re the offense, I’m the defense, you show them how to make it, I show them how to keep it. I wrote the first book, really, frankly, you wrote most of the book. I went through, you did a lot of stuff, and I added some verbiage and made it more towards CPA, the defense side, if you will. In the second book, you taught me that it’s not about making money. It’s about sowing seeds. It’s about changing people’s lives. It’s about one of the first things that you and I talked about is why am I wanting to do this? What’s the intent? What difference am I going to make in the world? With wealth, when you create wealth, you get attention and therefore people give you credibility and they’re more apt to do is, with the book, with you, with my business, is how do I break generational sin or generational punishment? Or in my book, I call it, pigs don’t know pigs stink, because if my mom hadn’t made a change and said no to being abused and alcoholism, I’d probably be some drunk Indian smacking a woman around. It wouldn’t be my wife because she’s German. She’d cut me. She’d hurt me. But that, and now I’ve got a college degree and all my kids have college degrees. And so it’s beyond just, I feel like people owe it not only to themselves, to their community, to their family, to people they don’t even know, to be successful and to sow those seeds of success in other people. And frankly, Clay, I admire you. I am astounded by your knowledge and how you can take a business from where I was to where I am now. And it’s all about sharing life’s successes because you can create wealth and benefit the world. But if you can teach other people to create wealth and how to benefit the world, that’s amazing. So bravo to you, Clay. I appreciate that very much. I got three final questions for you. Three final questions. I want to tap into your wisdom on this. One of the things about your business that blew my mind is that if we typed in Tulsa CPAs into Google or whatever market you’re in, we couldn’t find you. So it’s kind of hard for people sometimes to grasp the idea that the best accountant isn’t findable, that the best dentist isn’t findable. People typically, they go to Google, they type in the search term, and whatever comes up top, that’s who they call. And I wanted to ask you if you could share about the impact that search engine optimization maybe has had on your business, because I think a lot of dentists, doctors, lawyers, photographers, web developers, people I meet at conferences, we just had a big conference with Tim Tebow last week, I meet these people who are the best chiropractor in their area, the best neurosurgeon, the best whatever, and people can’t find them. Could you talk about the impact that the search engine optimization has made on the business? It’s immeasurable, Clay. Earlier I had mentioned we brought in like 400 new clients organically in three months, two and a half months. All of them were what’s called inbound liens, meaning they reached out to me. They weren’t referred to me by another client. They were actually Googled, you know, CPAs, and they looked at reviews and videos. And so, you know, when you and I first met, I said, you know, people don’t look for CPAs on Google. You know, they call their friends or whatever. And you smiled and shook your head and said, okay. And you set out to prove me wrong, and you did. And so, anybody, especially in the service business, you can call me, and I’ll tell you that I didn’t believe Clay Clark for a minute, but it has magnified the reach that we have. And what it’s done for us, Clay, it’s allowed us to be selective on what clients we take. And these clients are calling us. They literally, we don’t have to pick up the phone and call them, they’re calling us. And it’s 100% off of Google, Google reviews, Google searches. So I’ll admit it right here, and you proved me wrong. People do look for CPAs off of Google. They look for doctors, dentists, attorneys as well. Now my final 90 seconds here for you in the hot seat, you know, the conferences. Dr. Zellner participates in the conferences. You know, we’ve had Tim Tebow, Michael Levine. We’ve had the head of Harley Davidson. I mean, over the years, we just continue to bring in new folks. But when you get past the big names, could you maybe describe what the conferences are like or what kind of an impact of the conferences had on your business? Yeah. So the main thing is, you know, as a business owner, you know, there’s plenty of times I felt like I’m alone. You know, there’s nobody that thinks like me. You know, I’ve got great staff, but, you know, they go home at the end of the day, you know, and you fight negativity and all that. And then, and you don’t know what you’re doing. And you know, nobody taught me how to be a successful business owner in business school. And then I go to your workshop, it’s positive. I’m surrounded by forward, positive thinking, hardworking, success-minded people. And then you start laying out the very simplistic methodologies because Clay, you taught me there is a pattern to success, and here’s what you do. In your workshops, for the… My gosh, you need to quadruple the cost of that going in there because if somebody… Now, here’s what I really like about it. I’m not an excuse maker. I don’t make excuses. A lot of people like to go and they’re, oh, I can’t do it. I don’t know what I’m doing. Or my mama couldn’t, my dad couldn’t, so I can’t. And your workshops take all excuses away. All you got to do is be willing to put in some effort and show up. There’s a pattern to success. It’s teachable, it’s replicatable, and it’s engaging. I would absolutely recommend anybody and everybody to go to your workshop. Because, one, you’re going to walk out of there, you’re going to be on fire, you’re ready to go. But, Clay, you give practical steps on what to do. And all I’ve got to do is do it, and that’s what I did, even though I didn’t believe you. You proved me wrong, and here we are. We’re five times the size we were when – seven times almost the size we were when we met you a few years ago. Final question for you. People, when they think about growing a business, they think about sales, they think about marketing, they think about accounting, they think about workflow, they think about human resources, they think about public speaking, they think about PR, they think about social media ads. And people always ask me, they go, so you help people with workflows, or they’ll go, okay, so you’re the website guy, or you’re the book writing guy, or you’re the whatever guy. How would you describe what it is that our business coaching platform does or what it’s done for you? So what you’ve done for me and what I’ve seen you do for clients is you clearly define the success pattern. The success pattern that you taught me is you define where you’re at, you define where you want to go, you create a plan, you execute the plan, you measure results, you modify the plan. In that plan, there’s a lot of consistencies, no matter if you’re a pool business, if you’re a lawn business, or you’re a CPA. And so, what you did was, and I’m a proponent of going to college, especially the CPA, you have to. But if I didn’t have to, I could have skipped all that crap and hung out with you for a couple years and learned every step of the way. Because every business that I’ve sent to you or that I work with, maybe they’re good in this area, but they’re not good in these areas. And so to be able to bring the thing full circle, regardless, and Clayton, and again, this is a compliment. You’ve done this with many, many different businesses. So you’re the guy that takes away excuses. If you want to be successful, there’s a pattern. Show up, do the work, modify your plan, and reap the rewards. Paul, I really do appreciate you. I want people to know about the resources that you provide. You have a wonderful team there at hoodcpas.com. We have typically about a million listeners that will listen to this show on a typical week or every couple of weeks. What are the solutions that you provide there at PaulHood.com? PaulHood.com. Well, so what we do is we’re different than most CPAs because my industry is in a really a change or die scenario. Seventy five percent of CPAs are at or above retirement age. There’s about 90 percent of the firms that are out there are potential acquisition targets. So what we have to do is we have to re-envision, and you help me with this, re-envision what we do. We sell success, Clay, just like you do. We’re not marketing people, though. So like I said, you’re the offense, we’re the defense. We teach people how to minimize their income tax, how to maximize returns, how do you keep more, save more, and protect more. And we do it in a format, Clay, that’s a membership type model to where it’s a fixed fee. So every time you call us, you’re not getting a bill. And same thing, it’s very predictable. Keep more, save more, protect more, not just do your tax return. Paul, I really do appreciate you carving out time to join us today. Again, folks, that’s paulhood.com. You say, what’s that website? It’s paulhood.com. If you need a CPA in a major way, check out paulhood.com. Paul Hood, thank you so much for your time today, sir. We’ll talk to you soon. See you, brother. See you. Bye-bye. My name is Paul Hood, and I’m from right here in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I’m a CPA with offices in Bartlesville, Tulsa, and Claremont. I originally heard about the Thrive Time Workshop through some friends, a guy named Steve Carrington, who has a very successful business. He said, if you want to be successful, you need to be. My business consists of a CPA and a financial advisor and we’re very successful and I want to go from successful to systematic. I want to learn systems and processes so that the business can run without me. The atmosphere here at Thrive and Clay’s office and the team is very upbeat, very positive, very proactive, very forward looking. They have very specific things that they can offer. Clay’s delivery is very unique. He’s very, he’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, but he’s also one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met. So he combines those in a very, very awesome way. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned at the workshop is to be very deliberate, to be very specific, to have a plan in mind, and then they can help you put together the processes to get it done. A favorite aspect is probably just how entertaining it is. And the fact that I pick up one or two or three things every time I come to take my business to the next level. Well if people are missing out on basically a plan, a guaranteed plan pretty much if you’re willing to work it to be successful. Most people, I think everybody should attend one of these workshops at least once because you don’t know what you don’t know. And we’re not taught to be successful in school. What I’ve learned is my college degree is great for preparing me for, to be a technician, but to be a business owner and to create a process or a business that can continue without me, I’m not there. I’ve been looking at it, looking for such processes for a while and what Clay is showing me is how to do that step by step. Well, I’ve enjoyed the entire workshop. What I’ve liked the most is Clay’s presentation style. You go to seminars, I’m 49, I’ve gone to seminars for 30 years, and this first seminar I’ve gone to that is entertaining, both entertaining and it’s very usable information. The atmosphere of Thrive headquarters is really actually kind of convincing me to change the atmosphere of my offices, even though they’re traditional CPA practices. The static, non-inviting environment here, I want to come back. When I came here a few weeks ago, I couldn’t wait to come back. Clay’s presentation training style is really like nothing I’ve seen before. Most business seminars I’ve gone to, suit and tie, very, you know, try to stay awake, drink a bunch of cups of coffee, but Clay’s very entertaining. And the information he has is, I haven’t heard before, I’ve heard pieces of it, but the way he puts it together in a total package, and his presentation style is both entertaining and very knowledgeable. Well, I guess what people are missing out if they don’t come to Thrive Conference, it depends on them. You know, if they like working 60, 70 hours a week and barely getting by or making, you know, decent money but you can’t replace your time, that’s fine. If you’re a position like me, you make good money, but you like to buy back your time. You like to still make the money, but not have to show up, not have a business that’s dependent upon you showing up. Coming here, if you don’t come here, you’re not going to get that. What we’re going to do today is we’re going to give you a little tour of the house that we just bought. In Oklahoma, this is what we call a big old house. So come on in and check this out. We bought this house about a year and a half ago, and we’ve been finishing it. It was partially constructed, and so everything’s under construction. So this is kind of a sneak preview for everybody. So follow me. This right here is the living room, family room, whatever you want to call it. It’s got a bar for watching football, of course. Go Cowboys. It’s got 50-foot ceilings, windows out to the pool, really, really nice kitchen over here. We flew the vent hood in from Mexico. It was handmade. Let’s go this way. This is a really unique room. There’s a six-story tower in the middle of the house. Don’t know why. It’s got six rooms straight up top. You can go 85 feet in the air, shoot deer, take pictures, whatever you want to do. See the sunrise, sunset. This will be a photography studio, actually. But you see, it’s got 25, 30-foot ceilings up here. It’s got a… We had to get a special permit. It’s got an elevator that goes up six floors. Normally, in a residence, you can only get like a three or four-story elevator. Again, just six rooms like this. On the third floor, I’m going to have, I suck at golf. I love golf, but I suck at golf. We’re going to have a golf simulator up there, so I can play golf for 30 minutes. I get mad, and I can leave, but it’s all inside and air conditioned. Over here off of the photography studio, there’s actually a safe room. It’s all concrete walls. We had a steel door made for it, and so tornadoes come, or people we don’t really care, whatever, it’s a safe room, we can come in, it’s going to have security cameras and everything else in there built in. Now down this hall is my favorite room, well, two favorite rooms. One, there is a pantry and there’s a stairwell right there in the back of the pantry that actually leads from my bedroom. So if I want a snack in the middle of the night, it comes straight down from the bedroom. There are 109 interior doors here, 33 exterior doors, 25,000 square feet. It’s got five garages, different garages. This is the best room in the place. We teach success principles at Hood & Associates CPAs, and one of them is just to have balance between your personal life, your finances, your fitness, your friends, your family. And so for fitness, I’ve got this. This is, I’ll spend a lot of time in here. And of course, right out here, it’s all under construction. There’s stuff everywhere, but about a 70,000 gallon swimming pool. We’ll have, it’s got a swim jet, so you can exercise against the current or it can make waves. It’s got a huge hot tub that you can to place you can stand in a massage from your neck to your to your back. You know, because when you’re out being successful making money, you get kind of tensed up. It’s got a layout shelf, a walk in a beach entry and water shooting everywhere. It’s got about eight different waterfalls. It’s got a cave in it. It’s got a little lazy river, a little lake thing, pond thing up on top where you can lay out and play in the water. So, you know, all the necessities of life. Now we’re on the second floor. This is the master suite. It’s actually two stories and has three staircases to the second story. One over here, one there, and then one in another room. It’s got five fireplaces in the whole house, just one here in the master. Second story, the master’s up there, which we’ll go up there in a minute. This is the master bathroom. Just a little bathroom. If you notice in the shower, there’s no knobs to turn the water on. Everything is digital. We have to have Wi-Fi for it so it talks to your phone or a tablet. And you program it for Paul’s summer shower, Paul’s winter shower, or what have you. It also, in the top there, it’s got a builder where if you want to take a shower in a thunderstorm. It has sound, lightning, thunder, all of that good stuff. I guess that’s the thing, take a shower in a thunderstorm. The bathtub is heated. It’s actually heated, not just the water, but it’s heated. And then over here is the bathroom, and there’s two things in there. I know what that one does. That one is called a bidet. Does anybody know how to work a bidet? I don’t. This is the master closet. One of them. I think there’s six closets, but this is, I don’t know how, this is probably a thousand square feet or give or take. All over here. It keeps going over here. I don’t know who needs that many drawers, but apparently we do. This is the wife’s craft room. She likes to craft. We have grandkids and daughter-in-laws, and this will be full of stuff, and they’ll sit in here and make things and make memories. Of course, it’s off to the balcony. There’s a balcony off to the pool all the way around. Those of you that know me or that will get to know me know I like shoes. And so there’s tons of places to put my shoes in that closet. That’s what I’m excited about. This is, the house has three laundry rooms. This is the master bedroom laundry room. This is just part of the master suite. So we do laundry right here. This is just a little storage room. You know, you got to have a place to put suitcases and shoe boxes and stuff like that. Just a little extra thing. It’s wired for the smart home, so this is one of the brains. Now we’re circling back. If you get lost, we’re circling back to the master bathroom. Another closet. Right here’s that stairway I said that goes down to the pantry in case I want a snack. This room here I’m excited about. This is, we have three grandkids and a fourth on the way. And the house is so big that if our grandkids come and stay with us, we want them to be close. So this is just like an extra bedroom attached to the master suite. Now let’s go upstairs to the second floor of the master. This is a stairway, one of the second or second of three stairways to the second floor. It’s actually third floor of the house, second floor of the master. We think we’re going to make this a slide because that right there room we just came from was the grandkids bedroom So they’re going to be able to come up to our second floor slide down into their bedroom. What do you think about that? I think that’s a necessity. This is the third story of the house second story of the master bedroom This room right here is kind of cool. It’s going to be like a little small room we’ve got a commercial tanning bed that goes in there and a massage chair, you know, all the relaxing music and all of that. This would be like a library or reading room off of the master. Still part of the master. It’s got a separate balcony out there. Every room in the house is wired for speakers for entertaining. There’s a lot of speakers, I can tell you why, and they suck putting them up. I’d put a bunch of them up, but there’s a lot of them. These fans are really cool. They spin like this, and then the fans inside of them spin. So it’s got like three different motions going on at once. OK, we’re now back on the second story of the house, over by the tower. This is my office. This is where my office will be. And then we can go over here, and you can see the second floor of the tower. Now, on the third floor of the tower, I’m going to put a golf simulator, like I said earlier, because I suck at golf, but I want to play. But you can see, we just got to keep our grandkids, because we have three granddaughters. They’ll be okay, but I have a grandson coming, and I know he’s going to want to be climbing. We’re going to have to be careful of that. This is a, this will be just an entertaining room, a game room. There’ll be a pool table here. Kids play Fortnite. fortnight. Now over here is when you have a game room, you also got to have a place to have snacks. So this is our snack kitchen. This is one of three kitchens in the house. I’d say there’s three laundry rooms, three kitchens, there are 13 bathrooms. This is kind of cool. But this is for entertaining. I was looking to learn how to take my business, like they’ve said today, from being very successful to being systematic. I’ve got a very successful practice in three different cities. Make good money. I just want to take it to the next level with systems and processes to where I can drive my cars more. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I’ve definitely learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place, so having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super…it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. The play is hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, so the humor definitely helps, it breaks it up, but the content is awesome, off the charts, and it’s very interactive, you can raise your hand, it’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak. You know, the wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely, it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone that’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information, but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches, getting in their thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where they, it was great information, and then they upsold us like half the conference, and I don’t wanna like bang my head into a wall, and she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her. Like, it’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh, I wanna strangle you, shut up, and go with the presentation that we paid for, and that’s not here. There’s no upsells or anything, so that’s awesome. I hate that. Oh, that makes me angry. So, glad that’s not happening. So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15 conference. The information that you’re gonna get is just very, very beneficial, and the mindset that you’re gonna get, that you’re gonna leave with, is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016 we’ve grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you Clay and thank you Vanessa for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy, Elon Musk kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time, a coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or you know navigating competition and an economy that’s like I remember we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that. And of course, we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. But he was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing. And I encourage you, if you haven’t ever worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s gonna help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and and he loves it. So anyways this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank You Clay and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay it’s a great great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye bye. Hi I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing 800 million in sales over a 15 year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of sales people for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area. And that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1,800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend ClayClark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years, and my three kids started school, and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads, and trying to decide, what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people. I love building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time, and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. This conference is a kick-off, this house is packed, we’ve got Aaron Hansen from Shop Homes up there, we’ve got Steve Kerr and Tim from Total Energy Concepts up there, talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the provenance. So exciting, people are going crazy. Now Michael Levine, writer of many, many PR books, the man who represents Michael Jackson, Arthur Streisand, George Bush, and his steady body, is speaking to people here at our conference, talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here at our conference, talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one, it was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers, Michael Levine We just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called rustic cuff talking about the power of the dream 100 I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds Hey guys with this primetime show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. Follow me. I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, you go, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them. Bathroom break and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his drill gun, melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside, you can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again. And one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hood, the Cook CPAs. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up. It just imparts so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of our TVs. Hey there, Thrive Nation, one of the things that we love most about our business conferences is that we want every entrepreneur to leave with their questions answered. So what we do is we let them put the questions up on the board here so that they can ask their specific questions and Clay will not end the conference until every question is answered. Behind this, Clay Clark is answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes. And so Clay always wants to make sure that he answers all of their questions so that they’re the most set up to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at Thrivetimeshow.com. We have come to the end of the 2019 Christmas Conference. It was incredible. These entrepreneurs have gotten so many tangible things that they can go and they can implement. Check us out for more information at Thrivetimeshow.com. And as we always like to do, we want to end with a boom three two one boom! Once I saw what they were doing I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I’ve learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort, and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do, and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else can do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. It’s never been super fun, it’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Place office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door, and it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business bottom line. I love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow our business using Google reviews, and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that, because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on, how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall, just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.