Clay Clark | The 15 Most Common Reasons For Failure – Episode 1-3 – How to Avoid Failure With Deedra Determan

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 get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s what I’m a dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what you gotta do. All right, Deidre, we are here to talk today about the 15 most common reasons for failure. OK. Not a fun subject, not really uplifting, but it’s one where if you go, well, note to self, that’s probably something I would have done or am doing. And some of these, I’ll be happy to throw myself under the bus when I get to one of these that pertains to me, but we all, every day, wake up with a set of matches. And then we go, and we set ourselves on fire and our businesses just burn because of stupid things that we do. Yeah. And in life, a lot of what we do. I mean, obesity, teen pregnancy, violence, divorce, anger. So many things are self-inflicted. And we’re going to go through some of these things that are causing business failure because we have to look at ourselves and figure out, are we the root of these problems? And how can we kind of treat the root so we get better fruit. So here we go. Reason number one, character trait number one. Again, this is the kind of things that create dysfunction for the entrepreneur. Character trait number one for the dysfunctional entrepreneur, the 15 reasons for failure. The entrepreneur is an excuse maker. So, why aren’t sales good? Well, you know, the economy. I have one guy that I used to work with, no matter what time of the year it was, there was a reason for it based upon the calendar. Well, it’s before the holidays, people just don’t buy. After the holidays, people are not going to buy. The weather in February is just people stay in. March, it’s just people are out. They are out there at the lake. They’re going out with their kids. June, well, the summer’s hot. People aren’t coming. It’s just that constant. How have you been able to fight that trait to maybe, you know, as an entrepreneur every once in a while I want to make an excuse. How have you been able to combat that? You know, I think you have to reinvent. So yes, there’s excuses and I think the path you may want to be going down may turn a course and you have to reinvent what you’re doing. So if sales aren’t working, then why do a sale during that month? You know is there a way that you can you know do something to take him back the Competitor at that time, but you’re saying like if it kind of if it’s gonna be it’s up to me I mean you’re basically saying I’ve got to look inward inward Yeah, and reinvent. What’s what you know the business the product the course you’re going if you’re an entrepreneur I’m telling you right now you no matter what the problem is you to look at yourself and say there is my is my fault. Just this morning I talked to a guy who he has an employee who is a troll like a little troll Disruptive he’s in this in the staff meeting He’s talking back. I don’t want to do that job. You know he’s just ridiculous Then he comes up after showing up late to the staff meeting could you pay me for the meeting? You know just crazy right I was explaining him it the reason why he works there is because you hired him. And I’ve hired people like that too, so you got to fire him. Promote him, as Arthur Greenough would say, to customer status. Instead of talking about him, let’s talk about what we can do. Right. It’s that whole no excuse thing. No excuse. The second character trait that will lead to dysfunction for the entrepreneur and failure is the entrepreneur is a blamer. Well, different from excuse. Excuse is just saying no matter what the problem is, it’s some other thing. But a blamer is like, you, you, you, you camera guy, you sales guy, it is you people. How do you fight the thing about being a blamer? I mean, as a leader of a business, when you grew your company, how do you do that? Well, and ultimately, if it’s your business, I think it’s you. It’s you. It’s your people, it’s your system, it’s your environment that you’ve created. So I think you have to look at that. So you don’t blame? No, I mean I think everybody has a tendency to blame if certain things go wrong. People bet. But I think ultimately as the owner, it’s you. So how do you solve the problem? How do you fix it? Now, if we move on to character trait number three. This is one that’s tough, tough to fix. The entrepreneur is dishonest. I’m going to give you an example of a dude, we’ll call him Marvin. We’ll just say it rhymes with Marvin. But Marvin would go around town and he’d be like, you know, I’m investing in these houses, and if you put in money, I can guarantee you 40% return on the house. And you’d say, well, how could you guarantee 40% return on a house? Well, it’s easy. What I’d do, well, it’s a very complicated system, Mr. Clark, but what I’d do is I’d put that money in, that money’s then reinvested on the secondary market the secondary market We get more houses in bulk. You take that bulk revenue. We distribute it. I’m something a Ponzi scheme Like you take money and then as soon as I put in money you give that money to the guy who put in money before Me and you keep this going until you run out of you know investors, and he’s like nope Yeah, then I say okay Then you start saying well more when you do this weekend and you hear he makes up a story about his weekend and you start to see dishonesty in his stories, dishonesty in his presentation, dishonesty and you realize that he’s dishonest. Yeah. Once you’ve destroyed that honesty it’s hard to work with anyone right? Right. Have you seen dishonesty destroy entrepreneurs? Oh I have. Can you give me an example in sort of a general sense not to incriminate anyone we know? Right. I’m gonna be like Steve. This is what you did. You know, what is what is it? You know I’ve seen people break up as far as like business partners break up because of dishonesty and I think It’s funny because when we were starting 918moms.com I remember my parents saying like the number one thing is you know Are they an honest person and do they have the same morals and values as you and that really going into business? I hadn’t that’s not my first thought it’s like oh, you know, they’re really good at doing XYZ and I’m really good at this so it’s a perfect partnership but I think thinking of that that honesty is the foundation you know for everything. Just as an example I have a guy that I worked with who really mentored me a lot he is a was a COO of a massive company oil and gas he keeps the door open when he meets with any ladies door wide open to the point where he’s talking about taking doors off of the executive offices because he doesn’t want there to ever be accusations of dishonesty. I know without accountability there’s problems. I can’t tell you though, I mean I’m just being honest about dishonesty, I bet you three-quarters of the businesses that I hear that have a problem it’s because of dishonesty. Yeah I believe that. Very little because the marketing’s not good. Right. It’s internal stuff going on. Right. So, again, if you don’t want to set yourself on fire, make sure you’re honest. Yeah. Next character trait that will actually blow up your business, number four, the entrepreneur is lazy. Now, this is what I hear a lot. I’m just delegating. I’m trying to build up people. Bro, you’re at SeaWorld at 2 o’clock every Thursday, Wednesday, Monday, and you’re not delegating. No, I’m delegating. I’m building the people. Bro, you haven’t checked your inbox for like two months. No, bro, I’m delegating. Bro, you haven’t paid me. I’m your staffer. You haven’t paid me on time. Bro, I’m trying to teach you to live without. You know what I mean? How do you deal with the lazy entrepreneur? I’m not, yeah. Lazy is probably my number one pet peeve of anyone in the world, so I don’t really have a lot of tolerance for lazy. I don’t think you can be an entrepreneur and be lazy. I really don’t. You’ve seen somebody try to be a lazy entrepreneur. Right. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. What about like mommy and daddy? Yeah. They’re like, well, we’ll just give Billy a big pile of money and Billy will open his business. Have you seen that? Yeah. And then Billy just finds it. Comes for money and which, you know, is great and it’s a blessing. And then they go out and try to be in the real world and do business deals and business deals aren’t done like that. You have to work for it. And for anyone to say, you got lucky, you’ve been so lucky. Look at these businesses you’ve grown and it just falls into your lap. And you’re like, you didn’t see the 12 hour days I was putting in and all the hard work. I’ll say this, as a young entrepreneur, I know I’ve been guilty of being stupid, but I will tell you, if you meet someone like in their 40s, who’s maybe not from a different planet, and they believe that people got rich through luck, they have a mental disorder. Everyone I’ve ever met who’s a wealthy person works their butt off. I’m just being real. On the Thrive team, funny group of people we have here. Text message, 4.30 in the morning I look, I get up at 4 in the morning so I can get in my bath and read my books. Don’t text me. I look at, Thrive member texting me, hey, wanted to check in on you. Hey, 434, 445. All these people are up at 5, 6, 4. I’m like, what? So I’m like, I’ll get up at 3 so I can outdo you. Pretty soon, I won’t even go to sleep. I’ll just be up for days. But it’s funny, the most successful people are the hardest working. Yes, and I think they get up early. That’s actually a trait. I just read that in an article. Yeah, they get up early. They get up early and start their day. Very ritual, get up, do the same thing, get started. And what’s funny is we in our house, we have a bedroom adjoins our bathroom. So when I get in the bath and turn on the lights, I’m getting ready to read my stuff, my wife is forced to wake up and she is so bitter about it. And so that’s kind of, you know, in my dream list here. We had, I used to have a place with a super big bath, this place is a bigger house, but less bathroom. Yeah, we’ll get there. Yeah, but that’s like a deal where like I get up now I get three or four and she does now too, so it’s like a it’s interesting now moving on here So character trait number five. This is something that’ll just just make your business dysfunctional It will blow up your business the entrepreneur is convinced that he or she knows it all yeah Have you seen this happen? I have seen that talk to me about this. Yeah, that doesn’t that never works No one knows it all you know it can be an expert in every area So I think you’ve got to lean on other people to be that expert. And the most successful people I’ve seen, they know their flaws right away. I mean, I’m not an accounting person. I don’t like accounting. I don’t want to look at spreadsheets. Now, I like sales numbers coming in, but actually, you know, figuring out, so you have to lean on someone that’s good at that. What about that false humbleness, too? Like, for example, like some business owners are like, well, my biggest weakness is I’m awesome. Yeah. And it basically is just tough to deal with my awesomeness, you know, it’s like tough for them You know, I mean there’s people who do that to you, right? You got to be real about it. You have to be real and know what you’re good at your strengths and your weaknesses Patience and less patience than a lot of European dentists Yeah, if you wouldn’t Europe I like that one, but anyway, I I have very little patience I Definitely definitely have no tolerance for laziness. I definitely do not like to have math conversations. I definitely don’t like planning. I like doing. So I’ve got this whole, here’s the weaknesses I have. I know you’ve got weaknesses. We all have them. And so we just have to hire somebody to help us, or ask mentors. But real quick, once we’re convinced that we don’t know it all, we need to be careful to only ask people who know what they’re talking about, right? True. Because everyone will give you an opinion, won’t they? Yeah, definitely. I see a lot of entrepreneurs who ask their staff for opinions on things that they don’t need to ask their staff about. Right. Like, guys, do you think we should clean the bathrooms? No, boss, I think it’s cool. Okay. I mean, you don’t ask your staff if you should clean your bathroom. Right. So you need to be careful where you’re getting this information from. Now, character trait number six. The entrepreneur has all the facts, yet still will not make decisions. So it’s usually you can tell if this is you. You’ll say, let’s table it, and then we’ll think about it, we’ll circle back. We’ll come on back, we’ll circle, we’ll come back to it. We’ll put it on there later. We can talk about it later. I’m going to discuss. A lot of men go, I’m going to talk to my wife. A lot of women say, I’ll talk to my husband, which is code for I’m not talking to anyone. Right. Pending it off. In Oklahoma, we pray about it a lot. Anything at all. Do you want to go out to Sonic? I’m going to pray about it. Do you guys want to go out for dinner? I could pray about it. Do you want to invest in my company? I’m going to pray about it. I mean, well, I could never think about it again, but I’m just gonna… Or if you’re in the East Coast, it’s like, you know what, we’ll circle back, we’ll come back to it, I’ll get back with you, I’ll get back, it’s just different. Have you seen this happen a lot with entrepreneurs, you’re in there coaching them and they don’t make decisions? Yes, a lot. And I’ve had a boss like that, and whether you’re in a corporate world or an entrepreneur, if you can’t make quick decisions and move on, I think that could be the death of your company. I mean, your staff is looking to you to make that decision and let’s go this way, this way. And you have to, I’m from the world of you’ve got to move fast. If you’re doing, you know, a startup, new company, first out, first to the punch. So you’ve got to make quick decisions and move on. Big deal in entrepreneurship here, kind of a little bonus one here for you, is always have to define what we want to do, then we have to just act. Then we have to refine it, and then you define, you act, then you refine, and you just keep doing this over and over and over. This is what you do. Yeah. And the people who get stuck in this endless like defining and this endless refining, never act and people get upset. It’s just a bad deal. I see it all the time. I think it’s super important that you hurry up. If you’re gonna fail, fail fast. Right. Right? Right. I mean, just get over it. I think it’s huge though. We have to try it, move on. Building this studio, can you kind of pan around for a second in the studio? Just to see. We’ll go up to the top here. You know, building out this studio. I’ve never built a studio. I’ve brought in people, but like that wood beam over there, I love that wood beam by the turntables in my water bottle collection. I love it. I love the Coke sign. I love the lighting. But there’s things we didn’t like and we just had to try stuff. I mean I’d never bought an illuminated Thrive sign before. I don’t know if you guys remember, but the first one we put in here was nasty. Yeah. And it, you know, you just trial and error. But the guy who’s like, well, we’ll get back with it next week. I’m just like, this is why I said, I finally got to a point, I said, let’s just buy the crappy sign now. And they’re like, well, it might work. I’m like, let’s buy it. And I’m going to plan on it not working. But at least we’ll have it decided in the next two days. And that’s as an entrepreneur, you’re going to have to do, if you can’t make a decision, you just paper, rock, scissors, and you go. It’s huge. For 918 Moms, when you’re growing this big old website and you couldn’t make a decision, did that ever happen? You could make a decision and then you just… No, I mean I think you have to… I didn’t make the right decision all the time, but I’m a pretty quick decision maker. But you always make a decision. You have to make a decision. And I think your staffers will respect that. You don’t respect a leader that can’t make a decision. Even if it’s wrong, and I’m, you know, you’d be the first to admit, that wasn’t the best idea, that wasn’t the best decision. But we’re moving forward this way. I’ve heard it said in entrepreneurship, if you can make six out of 10 decisions right, you’re okay. I mean, if you’re like the man or the woman, if you can do six out of 10. Now, moving on, here’s trait number seven that will just cause dysfunction and failure. The entrepreneur does not have a clear vision for the direction of the company. So, as example, Thrive is for entrepreneurs. If you wanna start a business or you own a business, it’s for you. This is who it’s for. If you do not have any entrepreneurial interests, it’s not for you. Right. We have a vision for this. 918 Moms, what was the vision? Going after moms. Giving them information. Serving as a tool for moms. A tool for moms. What about dads? Right, and we had that. We’d have a couple people say, well, you’re not going against dads. We are going after a niche. What about 918 dads, Deidre? Right, right. And you responded by saying… You know, this is really made for moms. This is a niche going after moms. What about sexism, Deidre? Right. What about dudes? You know, I think it’s just… And I’ve actually had customers say that. Well, you know, what’s your target? Is it women, 25, 35, you know, that range? Well, yeah, but… and older and younger and men. And you can’t be everything to everybody. So I think you have to decide who your target is and stick with that niche. Next, character trait number eight for reasons for dysfunction and failure. The entrepreneur refuses to delegate. Gosh, I’m guilty of that. I’m guilty of that too. I hate myself. I know that for me I always try to work better at it, but I’m like, I want you to do this task. And I give it to them, and I write it out, and I feel like it’s so detailed, and they get it back, and it’s not the way I wanted it. I’m like, well, fine, I’ll just do all projects moving forward of this kind. And they’re like, dude, that’s sales. You can’t do all the sales. Fine. And then, so what we have to do is we have to give good direction, follow up, be kind, be patient, all the things that I’m not. And we have to keep that, but we have to delegate. Because if not, there’s only so much we can do. I think it’s hard for most entrepreneurs. Because you’re a doer, you’re used to doing everything yourself, and then when you do grow, that’s when you have to go, okay, what can I pass on? What was the hardest thing for you to delegate at 918? Sales is hard for me to delegate, because I think I can just go in and get it and come out. Easy. Yeah. In and out. And it was my site. Selling it as my site is different than someone else selling it. They might say it wrong. They’re not giving it right. So you have to train. Did you ever think about recording your voice and then when they would walk in they could open their mouth? I never thought about that. That’s something that would be a bad idea. That would be a quick decision that you made there. So moving on to carrot trick number nine. The entrepreneur is involved in a niche that is not scalable. Example, I’m going to, this actually happened. A person came to me and said, I have this business idea. I said, what’s the business idea? Well, what I’m looking at doing is I want to focus, it’s an online niche business that’s going to help communicate the value of this city versus other cities. So it’s a travel site. People want to come to this city. I don’t want to sell ads though. What are you doing again now? I’m gonna have a site developed to tell people about the history of this city and how much better this city is and people give it credit for. Who’s gonna buy it? How do you get paid? Bro, if we get enough subscribers, money won’t even matter. Facebook, do they worry about it? No. And it’s just like, it’s a weird niche. Or maybe painting ancient sea turtles while they’re alive at sea would be a weird niche. It’s you have to find something that’s scalable. Have you seen this with business owners that have just weird? Yeah, or it’s maybe their passion, but do the masses want it? Is it solving a problem for someone? I remember I worked with a medical business years ago, a land far, far away, near Tantowine over there by Dagobah. It’s an interesting place. This person has a whole host of products in their lobby that they are passionate about. No one in their right mind would buy from a doctor. It’s like Eddie’s doctor, Dr. Smith and stuff. And then the stuff, just like everything that Dr. Smith likes, like this garage sale in front. I’m like, not only does that not inspire confidence, it freaks people out that you’ve got this collection of garage sale items in front of your medical clinic. You see this a lot though? Yeah, I mean, I think it’s because people think it’s their idea or it’s what they like rather than what the customer likes. So choose a niche that people want to buy, solve a problem. Moving on to point number 10. Point number 10. The entrepreneur is unable to handle confrontation. Right. So Deidre, I need to talk to you about some things. No eye contact. So you’re doing pretty good overall. You’re a good employee. And so thanks for this meeting. Thanks for the meeting. And you’re like, what was that meeting all about? And then it gets time now where you’re like, you’ve done something horrible. Now I’m like, you’re fired. And there’s gotta be a way to deal with the confrontation without firing, or there’s gotta be a way to do correction. Do you see this a lot? Yeah, I had a hard time with confrontation till I owned my own business. So I mean, I think that’s always, you know, I wanna be everyone’s friend, you wanna make it amicable, but you have to, as a business owner, set that tone of, you know, this is the way we’re gonna be, and if it’s not, call them to the front. I don’t have a problem today doing that because I’ve gone through that, but, you know, no one should ever be surprised that they’re fired. They should have been sat down and talked to you about what they’ve been doing wrong. It should never be a surprise. And that’s, so you said you’ve gone through that process. Did you go through the process when your husband just lost his job and you’re trying to sell something and you realize like, I can’t even worry about this person’s feelings, I just gotta tell him what the real is? Right. Because we gotta sell something. Right. Is that when you went through it or you go through it when you had, how did you go through it? I think, well, basically before I started my sites when I worked at Fox, got a job, young, overproduction, overmarketing, and I remember the GM saying, you’ve got to go in and fire these two people. Well, it was people left over from the manager before, but he was testing the waters to see if I could do it. They were all older than me. I was young, young, new manager going in there, and I thought, I have to do this or I won’t have this job. And it was awful, and I wanted to throw up before I did. But I did it, got through it, and thought, okay, I think being that person, then you get respect. People respect you. They don’t respect a boss that can’t confront when there’s a problem. I have a funny little story. This is a really good one. My wife won’t find this to be funny. Vanessa, I’m so sorry. We were on a cruise. We’re going out to sea on a cruise line. We’re out to sea. No voicemails, no text messages, just on the beach, just out, listen to music, you know, going out, listen, you know, getting those huge, those huge drinks, you know, like the margarita thing, but they’re like the size of your head. Having a great time. Come back in our big, we had a big house, home office. Get in there and it’s about six, paint the picture, about a 7,000 square foot house, 4,000’s house, 3,000’s office. There’s bugs everywhere. And I remember going, I’m gonna have a confrontation with somebody. So I go to the dude. Dude, did you not take out the trash the entire time that I was gone? And furthermore, did you put fruit in the trash? Yeah. Bro, bro, man, I just forgot, bro. I’m like, you were here! It smells bad! My house smells bad! Yeah. Bro, I’m sorry. I’m like, okay. And I couldn’t confront him. I just got mad. Yeah. So I go downstairs. My wife’s like, did you talk to him? I’m like, yeah. Yeah, I told him it was up. You did? What’d you say? I said, can’t believe you didn’t take out the trash. She’s like, so is he now knowing that if he does not, he will be fired or that there will be some type of consequence? And I’m like, yeah, yeah, I did say that. And he’s totally scared. And then she’s like, you get up there and you tell him right now that he’s not gonna, so I go upstairs and I’m like, hey, just try to keep doing a good job. My wife’s like, I heard that. I’m like, okay, fine. So I go back in and I had to be like, listen here. And I forget, a lot of people when they get new to confrontation we just yell. Yeah. Because we don’t know how to like communicate without being crazy. Right. And it took me the fruit fly, the great fruit fly manifestation of 2007 to really learn this principle. Right. But I think of businesses right now, I was just talking to a lady today I work with and she was saying, I’m gonna terminate this purse. And I said, does a person know they’ve had problems in the past? Well, they should. Have you ever told the person even one time that you have a problem? No. They should know, though. Well, they’re not going to, and they’re furthermore dependent upon it, and you can’t blindside people when you fire them. Right, and they’re not going to get better. If you’ve never told them, how would they get better? So the confrontation thing is big. Is there a method you use when you do confrontation? I think you just have to look at it from a business angle. If it’s hurting you and your business and it’s making your job difficult or money’s going out of your pocket, it’s time to confront. I do my method is Jack Welch came up with this thing called the kick and hug. Jack Welch was the CEO of GE you know and he calls it the kick and the hug where you kick like you know that’s bad and then you hug and so I have to do is I try to compliment somebody’s Americanism regardless of whether they’re from America or their exterior beauty. So I usually look at a man and say, you know, you are such a beautiful American. Your beauty is like singing from the mountains. Have I told you how wonderful your face looks? Can you exfoliate? And then they’re like, like what? And I’m like, here’s the deal. That was the worst effort I’ve ever seen on a sales call. Stop doing that. And they’re like, oh, okay. Right. So everyone has their own method. I know you always say it with a smile. I’ve seen you with a smile. You smile. You need to get a little better, a lot better. And you want to make people better, and they should appreciate that. That’s how they grow. Okay. I love it, though. Now, moving on here, he says, point number 11. These are reasons why entrepreneurs are dysfunctional, why their businesses fail. The entrepreneur is not organized? Crap everywhere right you see this a lot a lot. Yeah, how often well out of ten people how many clients? We have a ten business owners. How many you eight eight totally disorganized this work. I haven’t checked her inbox in four years Yeah, not the successful ones just just yeah like for me one thing It’s funny is like I try to keep my inbox at zero every week I try to get it to zero. And I have these deep dives, and it drives me crazy when something’s not there. And I know that it’s like an insanity, and we always are trying to stay caught up. But the entrepreneurs that I have seen struggle, they just let it go. I haven’t checked email in 14 years, I’m going to check it now. I don’t pay bills, don’t check my… What causes someone to do that? Is it just laziness? I think it’s just that it gets overwhelmed. If you’re not delegating right, you’re overwhelmed. You have 20 million emails to check because you’re not delegating. It’s when you get all those Chuck Norris jokes, you just got to respond to those. Okay, now, character trait number 12. The entrepreneur serves a niche that cannot possibly be profitable. So this isn’t like scale, this can’t be profitable. So I’ll give you an example. I got one lady I worked with who was doing some catering. And the business, she says, I’m doing catering because I love people, I love to serve people, it’s my talent, it’s my gift, God’s given me a gift to serve catering, and I would like to serve catering for my job. I’m like, well, that’s fabulous and wonderful. Now, at your current price, after you pay your staff, you have zero dollars left. Sometimes you even lose money. You’re so negative. You’re so negative. You don’t believe in my dream. I know I do believe in the dream, and I believe in the dream that needs to be charged a little more for that dream so you can make some money? No, I just, and then I really focus on quality. I’m like, well, is it you got to charge more? Right. Do you see this a lot? Yeah. What causes that? Well, I think not being educated on knowing what their breakeven level is. You know, people don’t know. They don’t know. They don’t know. So I think just knowing the numbers. If I’m watching this right now, let’s say I’ve got $2,000 to my name. Are there people that I can hire that can come out and talk to me about my break-even point or my mentor? Is there something? You can definitely read a book. Read a book. You know. Yeah, and I’m going to say right there, if you’re right now and you’re going, this is freaking me out, there’s a book called E-Myth Mastery by Michael Gerber. It sort of walks you through from the beginning to the end. Or my book, The Wheel of Wealth, which is smaller than his book, so I like it more. But it can help you kind of deep dive into that. Character trait number 13, it’ll just blow up your business. An entrepreneur provides a terrible service or product. Come on now, this frustrates you because you’re a marketer. Right. So you spend all your time marketing, you make my phone ring. Right. And I’m like, hello. Right. Hello, Harry’s, Harry’s here. What? And you’re like, that’s how they answer their business phone. Yeah. They don’t, they say their professional greeting. They don’t treat people nicely. They’re rude. They don’t… and the product’s terrible. Right. The food tastes bad. Right. Do you see this a lot? I have seen that. Not a lot. I wouldn’t say a lot, but I have seen this in business. And how are you going to succeed with that? Funny story. I had a business that I wasn’t working with. I’m changing the dates, the events, the people, the weather. It was a business in Antarctica that a dude I know was working with. It was run by all women. But they asked us to help do cold calls for them. And the cold call was, hi, I would like to call on behalf of yada yada, you’re one of our customers, how are you today? People were like, fine. I wanted to call to get your feedback to see how well we’re doing on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, two. What can we do to get to a 10? Stop peeing on our property. And I’m like, okay. And I’m thinking like, so the caller says hey we have people who are peeing on the property of the customers I’m like well let’s not talk about let’s take that evidence burn it tell the owner but let’s it in a few more calls yeah for what could we do to get to attend stop pooping on our property he and pooping on the property of people who are… Imagine a horn. You’re building a house in South Tulsa and you’ve got dudes who are just getting after it, you know? On your property. And you’re like finding human whatnot all over the property and you pull up in your nice car to check on the property. Oh, they’re doing the framing and they’re pooping. And the owner says, well you gotta go. I’m like, no you didn’t just say that. You know? Or funny. You talk to them and the staff says, hey Mr. Clark I have a question. The owners are telling us to shove all the trash from the job site into the actual footings of the house so we can pour concrete over it because it’ll save time on cleanup. I’m like you mean they’re so like your concrete if you build concrete around plastic it’ll just jack it up. Really? Yeah and they said we were short on rebar so we didn’t put it in the driveway. Like you didn’t put rebar in the driveway? Well this guy’s business just goes to hell. And I back that. I’m like I can’t I can’t help you. I’m going what you just I don’t know you. Yeah. Speak of this. But I see that a lot. Yeah. I see it a lot, and I think that it’s really important to ask ourselves, are we offering quality products? Right. You know? 918moms, how did you make sure the quality was good? I know you always wanted to make it better, but how did you make sure the quality was good, Deidre? You know, I think ours was based on the content, so making sure the content was really good. So we had real moms that were really living their life, you know, that way, blogging on our site, and just, you know, quality control is so important. Just looking over, having someone make sure they look over all the content make sure everything was good I got ripped today by a producer who’s Apparently can speak English and they were looking at some bio stuff that our team had put together and they found like five little errors And it’s humbling. It’s good. It’s good. No, it’s good It’s good And their whole thing they were saying was like before you ever send out a press release. You need to have someone else prove it, and then you need to prove it again when you go national. I’m just like… So you learn all the time. With who used without the blame, cast the first stone here, I’m not gonna throw stones at you, but we’re all making mistakes. Final two here. Entrepreneur, point number 14. Entrepreneur refuses to sell or push his or her team to sell. You see this? Yes. And selling is the name of the game. Revenue is the name of the game. I just don’t want to sell. I’m an artist. I just don’t want to sell. Right, right. I don’t want to sell because I’m a florist. I just don’t want to sell. To me, it’s my art. Right. I don’t want to sell. I’m a grocer. I’m a caterer. I’m a… You see that a lot. Yeah. And you’re never going to make money if you don’t sell. I didn’t say that. I’m not the mean one here. Can you say that one more time just to make sure that you heard him say it? You’re never going to make money. Okay, just want to make sure that’s on the record there. The character trait number 15 that will cause dysfunction and cause your business to fail. The entrepreneur who does not use checklists, day timers, or to-do lists. They’re just random. They’re like… Right. Where was that meeting agenda? agenda. You know, this thing right here, I hate these kinds of notes. I hate them to the point of like, I’m just like, set them on fire. So I want all my to-do lists. Right. And I don’t like where there’s all that stuff. So like today, you know, I got cards everywhere. Got a nice one. Sam, thank you for the wild fork. This is an entrepreneur. I’ve been mentoring and he gave me a wild fork. I can take my wife on a hot date. But all these things, I probably won’t do anything with a lot of these cards and things. They’re just become trinkets. Right. So I have got to, if I don’t take this and put it on my to-do list, nothing’s gonna get done. Right. How do you use your, I want to hear how you use it. How do you, A, use a to-do list and how do you use your day timer and checklist? Yeah, so I have a to-do list that’s got each one of my clients on it and then what I’m doing for my own business as well. So each week the task that has to be done that week. And then I have future stuff. So what’s coming up next quarter that we need to think about with each business and with myself as well. So I’m a huge list. I mean, I have, it’s about 10 pages long, but I look, every day I glance through, see what needs to be done that day, move stuff off, make notes. And then every Friday I clean it up, because I like the clean, typed up. And just for the week, I feel done, checked off. You clean it up, type it up. I clean it up, type it up, print it, and then Monday morning it’s ready to go and I can start right away with the first thing. I’m going to say this, and there’s not a kit coming, that’s what makes Deidre a great American. It’s just the unbelievable, it’s attention to detail, it’s the energy, it’s the excitement, it’s the enthusiasm, but it’s also the detail. Just getting those notes down there. Deidre, I appreciate you for allowing us to pick your brain here and putting up with my attempts at humor that don’t stop. But thank you so much. Thank you. It was a great time. Yeah. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Rosalim, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, 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 gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying Tim Tebow’s gonna 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 gonna walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslim. 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. You say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling 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? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. 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 exactly 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 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show 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 gonna 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 and 28th who you you’re gonna come who you 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 give you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500 it’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful, sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. 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’s Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be on. 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 traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show two-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 in 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 two-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 gonna be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com. James, one more time before it’s too late. ThriveTimeshow.com Everything rides on tonight Even if I got three strikes I’mma go for it This moment, we own it I’m not to be played with Because it can 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 do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny but inside of it it was a hollow nothingness and I wanted the knowledge. They’re like oh but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. 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, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system. When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and 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 in Kings Point in New York, octa 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 we have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark 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’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy by the name of Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books and 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 want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success and I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. Well, not only that Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta 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 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. 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, it’ll 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 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 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, allowing 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 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 and 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. 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 two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is 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 fourteen 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 Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere of 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 a 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 purpose 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.