Clay Clark | Start Here | Marshall Marination Moment: Marinating With Your Ideal And Likely Buyers + Identify Your Main Competitors

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s a C and Z up on your radio, and now three, two, one, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. What up, Thrive Nation? 5.10, we got an awesome thing coming up, but first I want to introduce this guy over here. You know him, you love him. It’s America’s top business coach. I’ll tell you what, I was telling you earlier off camera, I came out of my womb ready to do this episode, and then you pointed out that coming out of your own womb would make you kind of like an amoeba or something. Not quite sure how it works, but you’d have to be an asexual being able to reproduce yourself. Invert upon yourself. We’ll put the name of an animal who is asexual who can reproduce itself, we’ll put that on the screen and we’ll compare the picture of it versus me. We can decide whether I am in fact one of those. Love it. Great way to start this session. Yeah. So this is 5.10. Whoa. It’s a Marshall marination moment. Watch your mouth. Marinating with your ideal and likely buyers. Now Marshall says this, he says, as you begin to grow the business you must develop an intimate understanding of who your ideal and likely buyer is. Come on. This does not mean merely studying trends, measuring numbers, and creating graphs. You gotta go talk to them. Yeah. Now real quick, if we could do it again, I’d like you to read it again, but kind of with a little more soul. Because I feel like what you just said had some power. I just need a little more power. Come on. As you begin to grow… Okay. Did I say grow or did I say no I said grow. Oh, no as you begin to grow The business so he didn’t you must develop an intimate get it intimate with it You gotta get intimate with it an intimate understanding Of who your idea I said what of who your I deal deal and likely ideal and likely ha likely and ideal ideal and likely buyer is. Oh, wow, that was, oh, ha, this does not mean merely studying trends. No, it does not. Measuring numbers. Come on. Creating graphs. You must, ha, talk to them. All right, so here’s the deal. Here’s the deal. Paul Graham, he’s the guy who built a Y Combinator, which is the company that has launched, guys, think about it, they launched Airbnb, they launched Dropbox, they launched Reddit. It’s crazy. This is business incubator, basically. Business incubator, Paul Graham. He says, and we’re going to put the quote up on the screen because I’m paraphrasing right now. Sure. But he says, it’s more important to be loved by like a hundred people than it is to be sort of liked by thousands of people when you’re starting. So what we’re saying is a very good example of this. This is crazy. Crazy. I got involved with a bakery, a gourmet bakery probably coaching them a decade ago. Yeah, true story. I go there and I sit down with the customers and this company was located in like the armpit of a shopping center, like this really gross shopping center. And it was hard to find. And I sat down with the brides and I said, Hey, this is after the weddings. How happy were you with this company on a scale of one to ten? Ten. How likely are you to recommend them on a scale of one to ten? Ten. Okay. How much do people typically pay? Would you be willing to pay or do people typically pay? How much do people typically pay for this kind of service in other cities? And they’re like, oh, like twelve hundred dollars, nine hundred dollars, eight hundred dollars. This is for cake. Wow. This company was charging $300. Oh. So I go, $900? So I go over the other stuff. Now, when you were going through the process of choosing your wedding cake, did you know the difference between fondant and buttercream? Did you even know that was a thing? A lot of brides were going, no, I didn’t. And actually, when they asked the question on the phone, like, do you want fondant or buttercream? I was like, ah, whatever most people do, because they didn’t know. Right. And then I said, you know, how much would you be willing to pay if you knew that we could make a groom’s cake in the shape? I went through this book and I showed them all these different pictures and I went through with it. I showed them, how much would you be willing to pay for this kind of groom’s cake? For this kind of, we found out people, one lady said she’d be willing to pay over $1,200 for an Oklahoma State cake that was a replica of the stadium. Oh, wow. I mean, really, I’m just going through this process, and I’m going, what magazines do you read? Yeah. Oh, well, before my wedding, I read Modern Bride. I read Martha Stewart Weddings. What’s your favorite website? What website did you go to? Theknot.com. So I’m asking all these brides. I’m not kidding, Josh. Literally, I probably talked to face-to-face, probably. I’m not kidding, because I had them all come in. Yeah, case study kind of thing. Maybe a hundred brides who we had worked with, the company I’d worked with. I said, what website do you visit? Guess what? Almost every single bride I talked to was a subscriber or a member of the knot.com. And I’m going, I have the whole marketing plan figured out. I literally came back so excited, I told my wife, I said, I got it all figured out. So I drew it up. Dude, seriously, this is awesome. I’m gonna tell you about the plan. This is the plan. We killed all advertising and everything we were doing, the local magazine, the local newspaper, we shut it all off. And we turned on ads on the knot.com. And we had the biggest ad on the knot.com. And then we competed in the cake awards. You know, there’s like the Cake Boss competition, there’s a big event in Miami, but these are the ones that Modern Bride magazine, they tell you who wins. So we’re going to compete in all these cake competitions. So the owner’s like, you want me to compete in cake competitions and turn off all my advertising and just advertise on the not, and you want me to raise my prices five times higher? Yes. And because of where she was at, it was kind of like, I am in such a bad spot right now that, okay, yeah. And do you know what happened? People found the site on thenot.com, and I’m not exaggerating, sales in one year went from like 80 grand a year to almost 500 grand in one year because everyone was just finding them on the knot.com, scheduling appointments, coming in, and then there was no thought that had been put into the lobby. So what we did is we realized that we’re going to have to sell the concept that this cake is art. And when you saw some of the cakes, because of the anonymity of the situation, I don’t want to share, I can just say it was in the Dallas area and it was a neat thing. But anyway, we made, transformed the lobby into like an art kind of gallery. So you walked in, the cakes were on pedestals and there was frames hanging down from the ceiling with the lights on it like it was artwork. Like, you know, if you go into a modern art museum, there’s like a lighting, like track lighting shining on each cake. And then we had samples out. It was cake art. And before the company ended up merging and selling and moving on, I’m not kidding, like we literally increased the sales by five times more. And what was crazy is because we invested the time to have that intimate relationship with the customer and really get to know them, we learned these things. I had no idea, bro, and the owner who’d been doing this for a long time had no idea what websites they were on and what magazines they read and what because she was so busy making cakes she had never taken the time to get to know those buyers. Right. And that’s really how you do it. You’ve got to get into the mind of your ideal and likely buyers by actually talking to them. And so Airbnb which is now a billion dollar company. Yeah. True story. We’ll put up on the screen. I’m gonna put the graph of the Airbnb growth so you can see their growth. But the owners of the company literally went, if you rented your house out on Airbnb or you stayed in an Airbnb house, Airbnb is a website that allows you to basically put your house on the market and people can decide to rent a room in your house for like a night. Have you ever done this before? No. You gotta do this, bro. I’m a hotel guy. No, you have to one time. I’m a hotel guy. Really? Straight up. Okay, well, anyway, so I’m gonna be taking my kids to the lake here soon. We’re going to use Airbnb and we’re going to stay at somebody’s lake house. That’s cool. But anyway, they flew out and sat down with people and they said, hey, why did you decide to use Airbnb? You know, how come you use that instead of a hotel? How come you decided not to use Airbnb? And they met these people and they learned so much from those one-on-one interactions that they were able to then take that knowledge and put it on the site, boom, and prove it now it’s a billion dollar company. Right. Well, I might have to try it. You might one time. Have you ever done it one time? No, no, no. I’ve not done it once. What’s the fear? Just the stories, you know, you hear saying it, people’s houses, bed bugs, you know, I don’t really want to live in someone else’s house. I want to just, you know, obviously hotels, there’s a lot of people coming in and out, but they’ve got just industrial science like washers and dryers, you know. Do you remember when you’re in high school or college, you go on a road trip? Yeah. High school road trips. You’re on a road trip with a bunch of dudes. And there’s no standards. And you’re just out there free. You’re just on the road. You’re driving to Des Moines, Iowa, en route to Wisconsin. And you’re just willing to pull over and eat some Twizzlers because you have to just eat as much empty calories as possible while driving? Yeah. Put that mindset into your head and just go on Airbnb, on an Airbnb whim one time and just let that freeness be the free bird. Thrivers, I’m going to try it. Do it. I’m going to try it. Now, I want to say this. This is something that we do in Thrive, correct? Yes. We want them, we want to know what they want to know. Yeah, and this is what happens is Marshall, every time that people have questions, they interact and Marshall heads up the customer service team. We’ve had thousands of thrivers we’ve talked to who say, hey, in that training, I have a question about how to apply it to my dentistry, how to apply it to my bakery, how to apply it to my online retail store. We help you apply these principles in your life and business. That’s what we do. We’ve started to realize, man, Thrivers really want ABC 123. Specifically, they’re looking for workshops. They’re looking for answers to their questions. And we’re getting a lot of Thrivers who are reaching out asking for one-on-one coaching. And the problem is there’s not enough one-on-one coaches available. So we’re in the process of scaling that up where you can work with really, really successful entrepreneurs one-on-one if that’s what you want. Or you can come out to the workshops and it won’t cost you another dime. That’s awesome. Yeah. And so that’s something that we’re practicing. That’s something that you need to practice inside of your business. Absolutely. Talk to your customers. Find out what it is that they want. Give it to them. And I’d recommend a little marriage tip. Yeah. Talk to your wife. Oh, that’s good. Find out what she really wants and give that to her. Don’t guess, because I totally, our first year of marriage, I gave my wife an unbelievable selection of fabulous and beautiful gifts from Bed Bath & Beyond that she did not want. All for Christmas, I gave her the blender. She says, what does that say? You want me to blend things for you? I mean, I gave her that, I gave her all new pots and pans, I gave her all these things that I thought she wanted. I gave her a new vacuum one year, I’m not kidding, bro. I gave her all these things, and now I found out that that’s not what she wants at all. So anyway, get to know your ideal and likely buyer and your spouse. I love it. That’s good info and good knowledge for everything in life. Boom, boom, thrive on guys and gals. Thrivers, hello. We are on 5.11 here. We’re business coaching with one of America’s best business coaches, if not the best. Well, I’ll tell you what. I have been blessed to have an opportunity to work with a lot of business owners. We’ve worked with dentists, optometrists, neurologists, organic pet food companies. Right now, working with a basketball coach, a hockey team, a professional hockey team, an indoor ice skating rink. I mean, there’s just endless industries. I’ll tell you what, business is more the same. Every kind of business is more the same than different. And once you understand that the common denominators that bind the business universe together are larger than the differences that separate them, you can win. Once you learn how to build a business, you can learn how to absolutely grow any business. Knowledge bomb. Bam! Boom. Absolutely. Let me hit that bomb. See, it’s not just got to be louder. It’s got to be louder than that. Hit the bass on that one. I want some more bass. Bass. 5.11, identify your main competitors and then take the food out of their mouths. That sounds pretty awesome. Well, Larry Ellison, he’s a billionaire. A lot of people know him because he’s the CEO of Oracle. Perhaps you’ve seen a team known as the Golden State Warriors. I have. Who are currently trying to recruit Kevin Durant from Oklahoma City. So happy that they lost. Go Cavs. They’re going to try to get Kevin Durant. I think they’re going to get Kevin Durant. LeBron James. So they’re going to get him. Are you happy? You like LeBron? Oh, yeah. I’m a LeBron fan. Beautiful. So anyway, they play at the Oracle Arena. He’s the guy who, you know, that’s named after, the Oracle Arena, okay? So Larry Ellison, he has a pretty intense quote there. I mean, the quote says, it’s not sufficient that I succeed, everyone else must fail. It’s pretty intense. He’s intense. But I’m going to talk to you. Can I get real or should we keep it kind of just… You agree with that statement. You’re all about that. Yeah. Let’s hear it. Okay, so here we go. If you have a business, like a photography business, which is what we, I own one of those, currently own one. Maybe in the future I won’t own it, maybe I will, but the thing is, it’s a business I have right now. Sure. It is like a golden goose, it produces eggs, okay? And those, the golden goose, it’s like golden eggs, right? And, or it’s a money tree, if you look at it that way. Yeah. And the money tree produces money, you go every morning, you go and you pluck money off it, and it feeds and supports our family. So my son says, hey, dad, you know, can we get some ice cream? Well, guess what helps pay for that ice cream? The photography company. Yeah. My son says, hey, dad, can we get some food for lunch today? Guess who pays for that? Epic photography. My son didn’t say anything, but he was born blind. He couldn’t see. And we had to go to see optometrists and all different people and specialists. We went to the Dean McGee Eye Institute in Oklahoma City. We went to all these specialists, and you know what? Who paid for that? Epic. Yeah. So then you go and you say, well, my wife, you know, we had two miscarriages. Who pays for that? Epic. I’m in the process of trying to build a berm in front of my house right now so you can’t see at any point my home. Awesome. Berms and trees. Who pays for that? Epic. I want to watch the Patriots games every single Sunday. I want to watch every Patriot game. And I have my camera that I use to spy on the other team and I send them information that allows them to win by three points because we always have a great field goal kicker. Anyway, who pays for that? It’s epic. So what I’m saying here is that if my business, my money tree is being hit with an axe, think about the visual. The money tree is being hit with an axe and you just hear like this. This is how I look at it. This is my competition. Yeah. And then it starts to go. And I start to go, OK, this guy is hitting and he’s hitting my tree with an axe. I mean, it’s getting more intense. And pretty soon it’s just this massive. And I start to say, that’s it. You must lose. And so what I do is I never this is my rules. I never, ever, ever would speak badly about a competitor. Yeah. To a customer ever. I would never tell a customer Hey, don’t use them because they are not a good company. We never say that to a customer however, I Will mystery shop my competition so I know exactly what they charge exactly what they do and I actually buy from them So I know their emails their drip emails. I know their product their packaging. I know everything too. I Will stop at nothing to take food out of their mouths. If we have a bride who says, I’m thinking about using you guys or this other company, I’ll say, well, here’s the deal. If price was not a limiting factor, it wasn’t involved at all, what are you looking for out of your wedding photographer? So let’s role play that real quick. Sure. Let’s say you’re going to use a company right now called True Photography. Yeah. So here we go. So Josh, I mean, after looking at our packages today, you know, which package do you think is best for you and your wife for the wedding? Got to be honest, I’m thinking about going with True Photography. And watch this deal wheel. This is beautiful. Here we go. This is a system and we’ll put it on the screen. We have it available to downloadable to system. Here we go. I can, you got to suck air. Well, you know, Josh, I can appreciate that. Let me ask you, if all photographers charge the same price, what’s the main thing you’re looking for out of a photographer? I just love truth, really. Truth in photography. And I feel like true photography will give me that. Let me ask you, in addition to truth, what else are you looking for? Tell me, you want lighting, two cameras, three cameras, video, what are you looking for? I’m really looking just for some epic pictures of my wedding. I want them to be in focus I want them to be sharp Yeah, and I want to be able to look at them 20 years from now and think that was a great day Okay, well, you know you’re you’re exactly right in fact most of the customers We work with now felt exactly the same way you did right now And we’ve started working with them what they found is that in epic photography We did win the award from the end We have won the award four of the last five years from the knot.com as being the best photographers. We have unbelievable reviews. We have great customer service. We get your photos back to you within two weeks after the wedding. We don’t take six months or three months. We have total customizable. So you’re big three here, man. We have totally customizable approach to photography, two-week turnaround time. And what I’m going to do for you, because I want to earn your business, is we’re going to go and do your wedding for $1. And after the wedding, if you’re totally happy, how much is true going to quote you? What would they quote you? 500. 500. Okay, so we’re going to do the wedding for $490. So it’s a dollar. And if you like it, then you just have to pay us $489 upon liking it. We’ll just take the watermark off. It’s all yours. If you don’t like them, I’m still gonna give you the photos and you just pay the dollar. Wow. I think I’m gonna go with Epic. That’s right. And I do that every day. Yeah. I will fight for every deal. There’s zero like, I mean, I’m just telling you, every deal is a meal for my kids. Right. I literally will just fight. So whenever I’m going to talk to, I’m just telling you, I did the other day, there was a guy who was going to use me for consulting and he goes, well, I talked to yada yada and he said he would do it for a better deal. And this is a guy who’d been pursued me for a long time. And I go, hey, listen, what is home skillet charge? And he goes, he’s $3,000 a month. I said, okay, so if price wasn’t a concern, let’s role play that. You want to hear this, Thrivers, okay? Yeah. If price wasn’t a concern, doctor, what’s the main thing you’re looking for out of a consultant relationship? Trust, you know? Yeah. I want to be able to trust them. I want them to be knowledgeable, and that’s what I’m looking for. I can totally appreciate what you’re saying, and you know what? A lot of the people we work with have told us, and you’re exactly right, they’re looking for trust, they’re looking for someone to deliver, they’re looking for someone who’s knowledgeable. And I don’t think you can really decide that until you’ve worked with us firsthand. I mean, we have great references I’m going to give you here. We’ve worked with Canbar Properties, we’ve worked with the Tulsa Oilers, we’ve worked with Barbie Cookies. I’m going to give you all these examples here. This is for you testimonials you can take home here. But if, let me ask you this, if all companies charge the same price though, you know, the exact same price, tell me the two or three things that are kind of deal breakers or deal makers in your mind. I want them to be available for me. Got it. Privacy. Got it. And again, trust. Trust is huge. So here’s the deal. I know the guy quoted you said $3,000 a month? Yes. This month, let’s do it for $30. Okay. Here’s the deal, I’ll lose money, I’ll lose our break-even point. Break-even point’s about $2,000 a month, we try to make a 30% profit, but I’ll go ahead and lose $1,970 because I want to make you a lifetime customer, not a short-term, and I’m in it to win it. So that means month two, we probably break-even, month three, we start to make a little profit, and we’ll just wow you. Does that sound good? I love it. Awesome. Let’s go get started. Boom. And I just did that on whatever it was, Wednesday. I will just not lose. I am so aggressive about this. If I want the business, I’m getting the business every time. Tell me about SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis is really this concept of where you want to analyze the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities, and the threats. Okay? Now, real quick, I just, I don’t feel like I did it with enough. Can you, can you, can you read those off with just a little bit of sizzle? For rizzle? The SWOT analysis. Yeah, just, just the four components. I feel like the people at home need to understand the profundity of what we’re saying. The four components! Ha! Of the SWOT! Ha! Analysis! Oh, yes. Strengths. Strengths. Or strength. Strengths. Weaknesses. No weakness. I mean, there’s some weaknesses, but no weaknesses technically. Opportunities. Unitize. And last but not least. Strengths. Ha! Ha! Unbelievable. Man. So anyway, the thing is, is that you want to clearly know this. You want to make a spreadsheet, and we have this available for you. But you want to go ahead and identify what are the strengths of your company, what are the weaknesses of your company, what are the opportunities of your company, what are the threats of your company. Get it all out there on paper, put it in front of you so you can look at it, and then analyze your competition, determine their strengths, their weaknesses, their opportunities, their threats, and then take the food out of their freaking mouths. Take it all and get up. You can find the SWOT analysis on steroids, which we have for you. It’s a thrive 15 dot com slash s w o t o n steroids. I don’t know why I said like that. Some of it was capitalized. Well, for me, I thought you were making an S.W.V. reference. Are you familiar with this? I am not. S double. You know, you’re that song. S double you double V. Yes s never I mean, I’m sure I’ve heard it But I get so weak at the knees I can hardly speak. No, we’ll have to pull it up at the end and I can listen Okay, sorry, that’s dry 15 comm slash SWAT on steroids What top four competitors are already profitable selling to your ideal and likely buyers? This is so important that you know this because a lot of times we go into the space and we’re like, I’m the only person in the world who does photography. We do it. My only competition is myself. Right. Hey, I know you went to the Tony Robbins conference. By the way, some people just hurt themselves walking on some coals. I saw that. No hate for my main man, Tony. No hate. Yeah. But for real, people say all the time, there’s no competition other than myself because I’ve awoken the giant within my body. And my body will tell you that I don’t have any weakness because I’ve unlimited my growth, my mindset. I’ve taken my distractions and I’ve turned them into action. Okay, that’s great, but who are your top four competitors? There’s nobody who makes cakes like us because we’re the cake king because that’s our title. Our title, it says dominance. Our logo says that about us. All I’m saying is, whatever. Figure out your top four competitors. Figure out what they’re doing who are already profitable. Don’t study people that are not profitable. Study the profitable competitors. Figure out what they’re doing to get customers, to deliver the products. Do it. That’s what the Cavs just did. They got beat by the Warriors last year and they said, we have to build our team to beat that team. We have to build our team to beat that team. That’s what they did. Do you feel like Kevin Love was part of that team that built the team or do you feel like Kevin Love was just hanging out on the team? In game seven he showed up. He did. I’ll tell you what, Kevin Love, when he shows up, it’s exciting. It is! By the way, he’s a good rebounder. He can shoot the three, but how does he…is he a good rebounder or is he just so awful on defense that he’s just available because he’s not doing anything else? I’ll tell you, he stopped Steph Curry on that last drive. He defended Steph Curry. He was amazing. Okay, I don’t have any hate or love for Kevin Love. It’s just neutrality. Fun fact, his uncle is in the Beach Boys. Fun fact. Even, and I want to dovetail on top of that fun fact, then we’ll get back into it. The movie about Brian Wilson, have you seen that? Oh, I love it. Love and Mercy. Yes! That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. Have you, you saw it? Yeah, I love it. Did it blow your mind? Oh, so good. Did you cry like a baby during scenes of it? Did you cry at all? I got teary-eyed. That movie’s awesome! Yeah. It is one of the best movies. Again, it’s called Love and Mercy. Yeah. True story about Brian Wilson, the genius behind the Beach Boys. I love music, so the Pet Sounds album is crazy. He is awesome. It’s like in the 60s and the 80s. Watch that movie, get a Kevin Love poster, do it all. The next thing you want to ask is which indirect competitors do your ideal and likely buyers turn to in order to get the products and services they need outside of your direct competitors? I’ll give you an example. One of the companies I work with is in a construction business. And he started realizing that, hey, my niche is kitchens, cabinets, wood floors. That was kind of his niche. But people were going, who were his customers, were saying, you know, since you don’t provide anything beyond wood floors, kitchens, and cabinets, I’m going to go ahead and get my bathroom installation, my bathtub installation from this other person. They go over to the other company, and the other company goes, oh, while you’re getting your bathtub installed, do you know we also do wood floors, cabinets, and so we’re starting to lose business from an indirect competitor. So you just got to be aware of who is taking the business. Boom. Next question you want to ask is how did your top four competitors acquire your ideal and likely buyers? That’s a really big question you want to ask, and right now I lost my mind yesterday because I have someone on my team for my photography company right now who I am paying to do this process okay and I’m wanting to know how are they getting their family photos how are they booking their sessions and then the person came back and said well their packages started 850 that’s not the question I asked I’m not asking what they do I’m asking how do they acquire customers do they get them through mailers do they get them through online ads? Do they get them through TV? How are they getting them? Because let’s go get them better. Right. How, can I see this? How do you find, like in your local market, how do you find your top four competitors? I would start with a Google search and usually whoever comes up top has probably spent some efforts on search engine optimization. Yeah. Two is I would go ask your ideal and likely buyers. I would try to talk to a minimum of 100 of them. And I would say, hey, when you think about family photography, who do you think of? Hey, when you think about, and you know, about 15 to 20 of those 100 are gonna say, oh, such and such photography. And then you start to go, frick! That’s not me! Right. And then you say, well, how’d you hear about them? And they go, oh, I saw their magazine ad, or I saw them in the Tulsa World, or I saw their TV commercial. And you start to go, double frick! They must lose. Yeah, boom. Next question you want to ask is, what are the strengths of your top four competitors? That is a huge question to ask because a lot of times we start to go, there’s nothing good at all they do. I mean, they’re just terrible. That’s why I’m making my service. They’re all a disaster. One guy I worked with years ago, he used to do, he was a lawyer, and he says, well, the reason why I’m doing the kind of law that I’m doing is because no one does it well. And I’m going, do you really believe you’re the only lawyer who does a good job? Yeah, I do. That’s why I’m starting my law service, my legal service. So you mean that no other attorney does anything well? Exactly. That’s why I’m… So I’m like, bro town, I have done the research for you as your consultant, and I will tell you this guy’s killing it, that guy’s killing it. And what they’re doing to kill it is they’re doing ABC, one, two, three, we need to do that too. Boom, boom. What are the weaknesses of your top four competitors? Yeah, I mean, get in there, find the chinks in their armor. I mean, they might be awesome. They might be rock solid in the DJ business. This is what I found, is that I was competing against Clear Channel, huge companies, FM radio stations, they all have 40 DJs, 30 DJs, a huge marketing budget, and I’m just a dude in a maroon Mazda MPV that I hand painted, right? So I’m going, what are they doing well? What are their weaknesses? And I discovered their weaknesses though was that a lot of them had horrible response time. You would call, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and then you would get a voicemail saying, please hit seven. To be connected to sales, hit two. Please leave your name and number after the beep and our sales associates will get in touch with you as soon as possible, 9 to 5, Monday through Friday.” And I realized those idiots aren’t open at night. So I made it work. You called me up until 8 p.m., I would answer that phone. And I would meet you. Check this out. Almost every wedding vendor, just if you’re a wedding vendor, stop being stupid, but this is the true deal. Wedding vendors are always closed on Monday. Stupid! If that’s you, what are you doing? It’s all sauce, stupid. Why? Why would you be… Customers want to buy on Monday, right? Yeah. Yeah. So be open. You personally don’t have to meet the brides, but you just be open on Monday. Also, also, wedding vendors, they’re not ever open after five. When you were getting married, you had a job, right? Yeah. You’re not going to take off your freaking year of work. I’m going to take off six months to plan my wedding and then I’m going to, after that, what I’m going to do is I’m going to have to really… No, you’re going to be working your butt off to try to pay for that thing, right? Right. So when would you be available to meet with a wedding vendor? Probably like 5.30 to 6. So at night and a weekend? Yeah. But every wedding vendor is closed at night and on the weekends. Yeah. Dumb. Dr. Zellner, our optometrist friend, our CEO of Thrive15.com. This place is open seven days a week and at night. Why? Because no other optometrists are. That was a weakness. Yeah. Find the weakness. Find the weakness and then dominate it. Be the best at it. What you do is you get a video camera, you film the opposition, you tell the coach on the field what they’re doing, and then you expose that weakness, and that is the key to the New England Patriots. And then the Giants beat you in the Super Bowl twice. Go Giants. Hey, don’t, hey, hey, what, what, what, can you do what you just did with your hand there again? A lot of the Giants players can’t do that. What? Because they’re blowing their fingers off with fireworks. Just saying, I’m not the kind of guy that would bring up the pastor. I don’t even want to make jokes about people losing their fingers in fireworks. But can you put your hand up one more time? Moving on. This July 4th, be careful with fireworks, guys. Absolutely, because you might blow off your finger. Hey, we’re going to finish this list when we come back, these questions. I’ll see you in the next session. Thrive on. For any of the Thrivers out there who aren’t into competition, we want to cue up the Communist National Anthem for you. Do you do any voices that are kind of like stereotypical Mother Russia kind of things? Mother Russia. That’s great. We’ve got to weave that in during the training. You know, I can do voices. Then when people ask me to, then it’s just like, oh, hello. I won’t ask you, but just throughout the training, weave in any type of Mother Russia kind of references. I’ll work on those. Old schools, USSR. We are in 5.11, identify your main competitors, and then take the food out of their mouths. Yeah. Competition. As we get into this, all I’m saying is you have a business, and if you are not fiercely competitive to protect your business, again, if you have a tree that you got money out of, it’s called the money tree. You got a money tree, and the money tree supports your family. That’s what the business is like. And when you do not respond to the competitors, it’s like, again, it’s this axe just hitting your money tree. You just hear it happening. And over time, you just start to realize that your tree is eventually going to fall over if you don’t stop it. If anyone is attacking your money tree, you’ve got to fight. And that’s what we’re talking about, is how to beat your competition. We’re going over a list of questions that you need to ask. Do it. All right? We’re going to pick right up where we left off, which is, what are your opportunities to beat the crap out of your top four competitors? Yeah, really. You just want to look at what are the areas of low-hanging fruit right now. What are customers that they’re too busy to work with? They’re pricing themselves out of the market, they’re charging too much, maybe they’re… So as an example, just as an example, Sam Walton in his book called Made in America, he talked about how if you wanted to compete with Walmart, you know what you’d do? He says you’d open a sporting goods store in the same parking lot as Walmart, and you would offer a variety of specialty baseball gloves, specialty basketballs, specialty products, because Walmart’s just going to carry the major, most common sporting good products. They’re going to put them at a low price. So we’re going to have the most common size baseball glove at a low price. But he’s like, if you want to compete with Walmart, you need to go have the specialty items that we can’t get at a discount, and you want to make those all available so people start to realize, if I want the specialty items, I’m going to go over here, and then you start to take market share away from the mighty Walmart. Sam Walton telling you how to beat him, I love it. Yeah, he’s great. The next question you need to ask, what are the threats that your top four competitors face? Yeah, you want to ask yourself what are the threats they face? I mean, what are the things that are keeping them up at night? And you want to try to expose those weaknesses. That’s why, and I know you don’t like the Patriots, but work with me. I read a book about Bill Belichick, and we’ll put it up on the screen here, we’ll pull it up on the screen, but it’s talking about in preparation for playing the Rams. It was discovered that Marshall Falk doesn’t like to be hit. Who does? But he personally emotionalizes it. He’s one of the best running backs in the league. But when he would get hit after the whistle, it would kind of break him down. So they decided to, after the whistle, hit him. So they said, no matter where he is in the field, if he has the ball or not, hit him. So Brewski, I think it was Brewski who was telling the story, and it’s been a while since I read it, but Brewski, I think he tells the story, he says, basically, coach said, for the Super Bowl, hit Falk all the time. And the linemen, they all know the weaknesses of their competitors, too. They know that the linemen, so if you’re on defense for the Patriots, you know that the offensive lineman you’re going against has a bad left finger, and he has a shoulder that hurts. So when you try to get past him, you put your hands under his pad and you squeeze where he just had surgery. The entire game. And so it gives you a deal where people don’t want to play, and they’re hitting Falk. Boom. Boom. But about the third quarter, it starts to work. And Bruschi says, Falk is mentally out of the game. He’s not even involved in the play. He’s a running back, but he’s not even on the play, and they’re just smashing him. Two guys are hitting him. Boom. The play’s down the field over here. They throw into a receiver, and they’re just smashing him, and they’re just talking to him about it. It’s been like the third quarter. He’s been hit more than he’s ever been hit in a game, and he’s not even involved. He starts pouting, and Belichick’s like, yes, this is what we wanted. And all I’m saying is this is how you win. The competition, you find their weakness and you just throttle the crap out of them. For Elephant in the Room right now, I am enjoying this because we have our friends at Great Clips that are doing haircuts for $3.99 and Broken Arrow. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, we are coming for you. So right now we’re doing a dollar haircut. We do a dollar for your first haircut and we will always do a dollar for the first haircut. And check it out. If you do pay us a dollar, you know, we do that dollar, Josh, what do you do? We donate it to the boys home, the Tulsa boys home. So we don’t even keep the dollar. How could you beat it? We are open that we are just coming for all of the business. We want all the business. Yeah. And I’ll work. We’re just saying, listen, we understand Tulsa is a big city. There’s a lot of people in Tulsa, and there’s enough business for me. We want all of it. If I have that kind of fierce competitive spirit, I won’t take all of it probably. If I do, the government will say, you have a monopoly, which is the goal. But then what you do is that they’re also competing with us. You know who wins? Who wins? The customer. That’s right. Because we’re trying to beat the crap out of each other to win your business, and then you get to choose and the customer wins, aka capitalism. Now a real quick deep thought, if you take away competition, okay, and you say, you know, let’s, so let’s think about cab drivers. Have you ever been to like, have you ever been to New York City? Cab drivers? Yeah. They said they all have to charge the same price. Have you guys discovered the smell that’s going on in those cabs? Have you ever done that? Yeah, it’s not good. Yeah, it’s because what would be the point of taking a shower? I’m going to drive the cab today. Don’t you think you should take a shower, honey? Nah, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has to use the cab. They all charge the same price. No matter. It doesn’t matter. I just pull up, boom, and we all have the same routes. We all charge the same price. The signs have to be the same. It’s awesome. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to let my body just create the natural odor and I am not gonna take a shower at any point. I’m just gonna drive my cab and it doesn’t freaking matter. That’s what’s going on. Uber. Uber. Uber. See, you over that in. By the way, a lot of people have asked, do you guys get paid to reference Uber? Is that a kickback? Be honest, do you get paid by Uber? No. Never. Uber’s never paid me. Okay, well. Check my taxes. You will see no Uber payments. Sure. Sure, Trump. The next question that you need to ask is, what are the reasons that you dislike your top four competitors? Okay. Now, see, again, people are watching this going, do you really do this? Yes. So I’m going to tell you why I dislike my top four competitors for haircuts. I’m going to tell you the reason, okay? One, I find it ridiculous that when I get my hair cut at these places, by the way, and I mystery shop there all the time. So I’ll be coming to you today, because it’s Saturday, I get my haircut at one of my competitors every week. Awesome. I go in there and I get my haircut. And I hate the fact that a woman or man will tell me about their personal problems while they’re chopping my mop. I hate that. They’ll say, how are you? I’m great. And they go, so you have any kids? And I go, yeah, I have five. And they’re like, oh, are you Mormon? You know, they always kind of do the whole, oh, so are you part of a fanatical religious group? You know, they usually do that. And they’ll go, and then they’ll say, so what are you doing this weekend? And I’ll say, oh, we’re gonna take the kids out. We’re gonna get, you know, probably buy some chicken feed, probably work on the man path, you know, buy some rocks, build, we’re always adding something onto the, always adding boulders and rocks and things to the man cave and the man path and the land and the property. And then they go, and I go, how are you? And they said, well, right now my husband, now he has, now my husband, now what he’s done is he has been, he’s been, uh, you know, unfaithful and we’re now going through a divorce and I’m just like, no. And then by the end of my haircut, I have now heard way more than I was a confessional like I’m the priest It’s somehow like a weird do or I’m a priest who’s getting my haircut, right? And she can just confide in me all these life secrets So I hate I hate I hate the whole drama per haircut to I hate the old magazines I hate sitting down and reading the people magazine from 2007 where it talks about something that Prince Harry did in 2007. I’m tired of it tired tired. I’m tired of it. Third thing I hate. I hate, I hate, hate, do you hate? No, I really do. I really hate the fact that they, one of our competitors, he apparently has the audacity to send in his staff into our shops to spy on us. You can’t spy on us. I can spy on you. Why are you spying on me? That’s dirty. And the fourth reason I hate them is that one of them went so far as to send one of their employees to our shops to spy on us. I hate that. I hate that. I hate that. I hate him is that one of them went so far as to send one of their employees to actually come work for us. Weird. So he paid them to work for us. And they were asking a lot of questions and I went, I smell something. I said, do you work for yada yada? And he goes, I think it’s called knockouts or something. Do you work for them? No. Really? Because I think you used to work with them. I think you are still dating one of the managers. I feel that you. And they’re like, true. Unbelievable. Crazy. Love. Love. I love to hate. I got to get that hate. It’s like Michael Jordan. He had to find somebody to motivate himself. You’ve got to find some reason to just hate the competition. You’ve got to beat him. Yeah. Beat him. Like me. I hate the Red Sox. Do you really? Oh yeah, I’m a Yankees fan. Dude, come on! Come on now. Okay. You know. Alright. Next question you need to ask is, why are you motivated to beat the crap out of your top four competitors? Why are you motivated? Yeah, what’s the deal? So what you do is you have to determine your why. Your why will determine how big your company gets. So, I have the five kids. That’s a why. That’s a lot. I want to help support my kids. Yeah. I love, I just love to wow my wife with accoutrements. So my wife’s like, hey, you know, can we go to Starbucks? I love to say yes. So I think about, I love just to say yes. I’ll just go, yeah. I mean, when we were first dating, she’d be like, hey, can we go to Starbucks? And I’m like, if I get a raise, we just had no money. We didn’t have the air conditioning on. We couldn’t afford anything. So it was a deal where like, hey, can we go to a movie? As long as it’s the dollar movie and we sneak in food. Right. You remember the dollar movie where you go to the dollar movie and you sneak in food I can’t do it. I can’t sneak in food really yeah, it’s too much. Thanks, sir. Is that your purse? Yes, it is my purse and inside my purse. I just have various things that I have to use sir. Are you transgender? Yes, I’m absolutely changed. I need this purse for all my accoutrements Well, I’m saying is like you really really really need to think about making sure that you know why you’re in business. Because running a business is stressful, it’s time consuming, there’s a lot of energy that goes into it. And you’ve got to know what is the point. Get a big goal, make a dream board, put it up in front of you, in front of your desk, with all the things that motivate you, and work to achieve those goals. Love it. What about your top four competitors’ websites are better than yours? Yeah, look at your top four competitors, take screenshots of them, just grab screenshots, capture the screen. I think the apple goes, what’s that sound it makes? You take photos of your competition’s website, print them out, and you take pictures of your competition. And then what you do is you just print them out, and you look at them, you set them all out on, I would literally tape them up on a whiteboard or something, and look at them. I like to put them on my big dry erase board. I tape them up there and I look at them and go, what features do they have that we don’t have? And you want to take the best and improve on it and put it on your site. Boom. What about your top four competitors? Marketing materials is better than yours. Yeah. So every time I get my hair cut in my competition, I’m always bringing home their receipts, their business cards, their literature. And I’m asking, what are they doing that’s better than us, and I want to improve upon it. What niches in the market are not currently being dominated by your competition? We’re talking best price, most cheerleader, really friendly, best customer service. Well, as an example, you’re a video guy. Yes. So if you were a client of mine, and you said, hey, I want to build this massive video production company for companies, to market to companies, I would go, I’d say, well, who are the biggest competitors in your space? So in Tulsa, you have Steelhouse is a good company, there’s a company called Video Workers. Who else is a video company in Tulsa? There’s Retrospect Films. Retrospect Films. Okay, see these are things I don’t even know, but these are the top four. Then I’d figure out, okay, I would go through this whole assessment and I would start to figure out what are the niches that they don’t want to touch. And I know Steelhouse has gotten to be a very large successful company. And I believe they work with, don’t they work with Sonic now? I think so. And they work with some pretty huge, I think they work with Sonic and Walmart, some huge accounts where they’re probably not going to mess around with the small businesses anymore because they’re now working with the big fish. So I might focus on the small guys because I could get that business, I could beat them to that, I could take that business and start there. Next question, who is going to mystery shop your top four competitors? Talked about it earlier, but you have to have somebody who works for you who goes and buys from them. You want to buy from them, shop from them, know everything about them, know what they say, how they market, what their signage looks like, what their staff dress is like, what uniforms they have, maybe take photos. You want to have all that kind of stuff so that you know everything that you need to know to beat those bros. You would never hire someone to go work for them though. Or would you? I have never. Okay. I have never. You asked me, would I? Yeah. And that kind of poses the question, like, would I? I never have. Sure. But, you know, you never know. One of the guys from Amazing.com, he signed up for our website. So one of their lead coders signed up for our website. And I appreciate the gamesmanship of that, that you would sign up for your competitor. Yeah. The only part I didn’t like, and again, it’s just like pirate ethics, where you’re like, are you can’t do that to our people. Only we can do that to our people. But he signed up for our website. And then while signing up for our website, he signed up to the Hand Up movement, which we provide free education for members of the military. So he posed as a member of the military to sign up for a free account to spy on us. And I thought, are you kidding me? You would do that. He’d pose as military. And he’s probably going, you shady guys, you signed up for us, and it’s competition. Right. Next question is, what is your marketing plan to beat your top four competitors? How are you gonna beat your top four competitors? You gotta have a plan. You can’t just say, well, I’m motivated, I’m gonna work hard. You have to have a specific linear plan. You have to think about it. So what is your strategic step-by-step plan? And you say two sentences or less for that. Yeah, you don’t want to have a big old paragraph, you don’t have a big old book, because no one reads that crap. You got to go, okay, we’re going to do mailers and we’re going to do, like for Elephant in the Room, we do mailers through ValPak, we do signs in the road, and we do internet optimization. We also do Facebook ads. That’s pretty much it. You want to get your hair cut like a man, you go to Elephant in the Room. That’s true. Our next question, the final question you’re going to ask is, what is your plan to offer a better product and service experience for your ideal and likely buyers than that currently being offered by your top four competitors? You’ve got to offer a superior product. And I always tell people, try to make your product 10 times better than your competition because if you try that, I mean, just trying to do that, you might fail and only be two times better. But Josh, think about that. If your product offering is literally 10 times better than your competition, it becomes a no-brainer to switch to you. So you really want to try to make it 10 times better. Awesome. That finishes the questions that you need to ask yourself about your competitors. And we’re going to continue this conversation in the next session. I cannot wait. We’re going to be talking a little bit about Jack Welch. Love Jack Welch. Is it OK if I transition again? Because we’re talking about competition. And as we transition, I want to just kind of play our non-competition music. So. music so drive on baby level jd you what time it is uh… fortune it’s not it’s people time in total baby tim tebow is coming to tulsa oklahoma june twenty seventh and twenty eight we’ve been doing business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a $100 million net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He said, who is Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times best-selling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like Top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup. But I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrivetimeshow in Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russelaum. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful, sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa. Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military, and he started recording this podcast daily in his home, to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Pluto, Rico, to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show 2-Day Interactive Business Workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get an, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the 2-Day Interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com James, one more time for the four enthusiasts. Thrivetimeshow.com I got three strikes, I’ma go for it. This moment, we own it. Ain’t time not to be played with, because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave in power The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this. I would go to these Motivational seminars no money down real estate Ponzi scheme get motivated seminars and they would never teach me anything It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it It was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge. And they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day, interactive, Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money, and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, no. My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor, and I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life. I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa born and raised here. 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. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us and getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. 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. 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 the 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 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. He 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. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to 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. Everyone’s super fun, 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 tag teams. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is good. 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 four 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 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 wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the ThriveCon workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere at today’s 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. 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. It’s 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. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.