Clay Clark | The Franchise Business Model: The Pros And The Cons With Terry Powell

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time 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 too, kid, what we got coming. 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 where I’mma 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. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s where you gotta get. Terry, thank you for joining us today. My pleasure, Clay. Hey, well, today we’re going to be talking about the franchise business model. And we’re going to be talking a lot about the pros and the cons of the franchise business model. So people who are watching this who are maybe considering buying a franchise, they can learn a little bit more about this. But before we deep dive into it too far, I wanted to give the folks at home a little bit of background into your career. Can you kind of explain to us maybe how long you’ve been in the franchise industry and in what capacity over the years? Great. Yeah, I’d love to. Been to celebrate our 30th year in business this year and started out in the franchise world and the idea of developing coaching processes with a brand called the Entrepreneur’s Source. And today we work with about 5,000 to 6,000 individuals. Thirty years you’ve been involved. Thirty years, yeah. I was, I think, 12 when I started. Oh, awesome, awesome, yeah. When you see people that come into the world of franchising, a lot of times, they’re new to some of these words. And one of them would be a business model. A lot of them say, well, I’m looking for the right business model. Can you explain in layman’s terms what you think the word business model means? Yeah, from a layman’s terms standpoint, I look at it as the picture on the paint by numbers kit. The model is really putting together all the elements of a turnkey so that someone can just operate that. And so you’re modeling what’s the best outcome, what’s the best customer experience, what’s the best practices associated with that business. Well, you know, the good folks at Investopedia, these guys that wrote this definition, they said it’s a plan implemented by a company to generate revenue and make a profit from operations like you said. The model includes the components and functions of the business as well as the revenues it generates and expenses it incurs. Now, Terry, I’ve met a ton of people over the years that have decided to hop into this world of self-employment, or at least they think they want to. They want to become self-sufficient. They want to become self-employed, and it’s a little bit scary for people. But I wanted to get your take on this a little bit. Microsoft, which is one of the most successful companies we know of, this year in July of 2014, they announced they’re going to lay off 18,000 employees. And then Hewlett Packard, on May 23rd, they demonstrated they’re going to lay off 11,000 to 16,000 employees. And I think a lot of people watching this are going, I think I want to start a business, but I don’t want to leave the security of my corporate job. Do you buy that whole idea that having a corporate job equals security? Do you buy that? What are your thoughts on that? Well, it depends on your point of perspective on it, but I don’t buy that. I haven’t for many years. One of the reasons we launched the company was to help people become self-sufficient and go from employment to empowerment. But the statistics you just quoted and many others from what we call the new normal today, how they’ve kind of reallocated the way businesses and companies treat employees really has brought us to what we call the battered career syndrome. So yes, employment is still an option for many people. It’s always going to be an option for many people, but the culture within most employment relationships has shifted dramatically. So you can’t just build a career and stay the track and retire like he wants to, you might have six or seven different, distinctly unrelated career paths that you need to focus on over your career. That’s wild. Six to eight different career paths. And I think if you’re watching this, you know, you say you thought about starting a franchise, you thought about buying one. We know what a business model is, and we’re saying, maybe the franchise business model’s for me, maybe it’s not. And so we’re going to go ahead and hop into the pros and cons of owning a franchise. I’m going to read off of pro number one. It’s less risky than starting an independent business on your own. Terry, why is it less risky to buy a franchise than to start an independent business? Well, there are a number of factors that come into play, but just going back to the idea of the term, the model, the fact that the franchise is already perfected and created a model that you’re just going to have a turn key to work from. An independent business you’re going to have to start from scratch and develop the learning curves to put that model in place over a number of years. So that in itself means it’s a slower longer track. I went in the other day to get my hair cut at Sports Clips. I go in there and I walk in I was absolutely amazed to see all of the it’s it’s I mean there’s a print piece. Well someone had to make that print piece announcing their special. Somebody asked me if I want the MVP. Somebody else asks me if I want this kind of haircut or this kind of service and the decor. I’m sitting on like bleacher seats and the build-out. I mean someone had to think of all those things. Absolutely. And so when you buy a franchise, I mean it seems like there’s just a ton of systems you’re buying. I mean is that the big pro? Absolutely. You know a franchise is it has to be replicatable and duplicatable. Replicatable and duplicatable. OK, so the con, I guess the opposite of that, would be buying a business model that has been proved to typically work, buying a franchise model that works typically costs more money up front. Terry, you work with business owners. And how often are people concerned when they decide to become a franchise business owner about the upfront cost? Or do they get that sticker shock of saying, what am I buying here? I mean, how often do you see that as a big concern? It’s fairly common and people are evaluating what they’re going to do as far as an investment. So the key is to help them understand it from an investment and return on investment standpoint. Once you think of it as a cost, it seems like it’s a black hole that it goes into and there’s not any upside from that. The reality is they cost more to launch, but they have a much faster return on investment and a more consistent and predictable return on investment. So in the long term it actually cost you a lot less from time, energy, and effort of doing it on your own. I want to give a couple examples to the thrivers watching this that might be helpful. There’s one gentleman I know who was in the oil and gas business. He recently invested in a franchise and within 24 months he was up and totally profitable and doing great and he said it was great. So all I had to do was work the system and it worked. Whereas I know a lot of small business owners that have been in business for 20 years and still don’t have all their systems built. So I think you’re 100% right there. Now I guess the pro number two here is you can receive a complete system to operate the business successfully so you don’t have to waste your time and money guessing about what you need to do to become successful? Kind of like what you said, you don’t have to waste your time? Not only waste your time, but need to bring in all the ideas and creativity and systems and fine-tune and tweak those so that they are model ready. That happens over time in a non-franchise business and obviously that’s a slower track and can be more costly. Going back to that sports club example, I was just thinking about all the graphic design costs of designing the signage and designing the print piece. I was thinking, man, if I bought a franchise like this, I wouldn’t have to do all that. Because I know as a small business owner for years, every time I wanted to make a print piece, I’ve got to pay a designer $400 or $500 or think about, are we large enough to bring in a full-time person yet? There’s a lot of that. Now, the con is that you really have to stick with the system you bought. I don’t have an issue with that, but I know a lot of franchise owners do. I mean… Well, that would be the key, is to stick with that. Because you know your example of the surroundings that you experienced in the sport clip. Just think if you were an independent business owner and you had to go out and acquire all those tradespeople to create that for you, as one individual as compared to Great Clips doing it for hundreds and bringing that cost down. So there’s a lot of cost savings associated with it but then you have to give it the commitment of following the system. And the simplest way to think of it is that if you’re on a superhighway to success with the franchise and it’s a multi-lane highway, six, eight lanes wide but there’s guardrails. Okay. And as long as you stay within those guardrails, success is very predictable. Once you get outside those guardrails, things happen very quickly. We call it the system acronym is Save Yourself Significant Time, Energy, and Money. And one thing changes dramatically when you go outside the guardrails, and only one thing. And that save changed to cost yourself significant time, energy, and money. I want to ask you for your commentary on this story about not following the guardrails. Kind of a story time moment here. I recently met a franchise owner who was explaining to me they wanted to hire me as a consultant because they wanted to build their own website because the corporate wasn’t building a good enough of a website in their mind. I told them I can’t do that because of the legal ramifications and two, you bought a system, you should follow it. But this person was hell-bent on making their own website because they thought that the corporate site wasn’t good enough, quote-unquote. What they were designing that they showed me was a disaster. And all their business cards were just nasty. Do you see that a lot, where people actually buy a franchise and then make their own hideous business cards? Do you see these kind of things? Well, actually, we have a terminology for it, that when we’re training our new franchises, One of the first things we talk about in day one is that for the next six months you need to spare us your brilliance. But franchisees come with brilliance that they believe right away is much better than what the franchisor has done or will do. Not all, but you run into that occasionally. So for the first six months you need to spare us your brilliance. So if you’re watching this and you’ve thought about buying a franchise, you might have a ton of good ideas, but you’re saying, don’t necessarily tell the world about your new ideas yet. Go ahead and implement the ideas you just bought for the first six months. Yeah, because you want to get the benefits of what you’ve invested in, and that franchise during that first six months is putting the most emphasis on getting you ramped up, getting into the systems, and getting a return from that. If you start deviating from that and bringing your brilliance from your past winning formula into the new winning formula, it tends to take you off track from the results. Now we’re moving on to pro number three, and this is you receive all of the benefits and freedom of being self-employed, but with a big brand behind you. Yeah, absolutely. It’s being in business for yourself, but not by yourself. So you have the brand and you have the franchise company there to have an emphasis on your success. And there’s not a franchise or an existence today nor will there ever be that can make money without having successful franchisees. So it’s a win-win interdependent type of relationship. One example I could think of is there’s a guy who opened up a Subway restaurant. He is from somewhere in the Middle East and he bought a Subway franchise right there in a building where I used to do a lot of consulting. And he only had the one location. He didn’t have 15 locations, from what I can tell. It seemed like he had the one location, but as soon as he put up that Subway sign, people just flocked to it. Because we knew that brand, we kind of were drawn to it. Is that kind of the power you’re talking about? Well, most people when they think of the power of the brand, a layperson would say, well, it’s because they have this TV campaign and the brand is known to everyone. Actually, the majority of franchise companies don’t have national TV campaigns. But there’s a synergy that’s created by having a brand consistency. And even if there’s two or three of those brands in an area or people are traveling between states and they see two or three of those, the synergy that’s created in their minds and the dependability that’s created in their minds. I mean, I remember back being a kid and driving, taking a road trip, and, you know, where we were going to stop was always a big debate, because we’re all this one in the car, and it would be, let’s stop at Howard Johnson’s. Everybody knew a lot of things about Howard Johnson’s. The service was slow, the food was mediocre, but we knew we could depend on that. If we stopped at some hot dog joint on the side of the road, we never knew what to expect. We have to have that first experience. I think a lot of people, we don’t stop and think about how important that is. When we’re out of town, I mean today we’re in North Carolina, we’re in Charlotte here, beautiful area, and you know, when you’re looking for a quick meal for lunch or something, what do you do? You look around for a logo you recognize and you go in, you know it’s consistent. Now on the downside, the con here is that the big brand, the big corporate brand, often has to hold the franchisee accountable to following that consistency. Absolutely. And so I see outbreaks of this a lot, where you’ll see somebody who, in particular, has decided that the corporate menu, let’s say, in the food industry isn’t what they want. So they try to add their own special item to the menu, and corporate says, no, no, no, you can’t do that. Can you talk to me a little bit about why so many self-employed people who buy franchises have this desire to tweak the corporate model all the time? What’s that all about? Well, it varies depending on the individual. Some never tweak it. Some will just operate it and really focus on maximizing having the system work for them instead of working at it. When you get to the point of working at the system, you’re going to be looking for ways to improve it or to change it, which can be problematic. The system is designed to really be focused on and create the best practices that are available today. So you want to make sure you’re taking advantage of that. But people are always going to look for creativity, always going to look for ways to do that. But the thing that’s important is every new menu item that came out for McDonald’s, for example, when they started it was cheeseburgers, hamburgers, fries, coke, and milkshakes. If you look at the menu today, every single menu item that succeeded came from franchisees having ideas and working with corporate to get them in, like breakfast, for example. And every single menu idea that Ray Kroc had actually failed. They’re no longer on the menu. Well, this just goes to show you, if your name is Ray Kroc, you shouldn’t be suggesting breakfast menu items. Exactly. All right, now moving on to pro number four. It’s easier to attract new customers to a new franchise as opposed to a new independent business. Yes. Why is that true? It’s very true. And we talked a little bit about the synergy aspect. It’s recognizable. It’s understanding what you can expect. It’s being able to attract customers with a marketing campaign right from the get-go that most small new business owners outside of a franchise would not invest to that level to drive business that quickly. There’s a gentleman that I kind of knew of, he’s kind of an acquaintance, but he opened up this burger joint in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this new burger joint, and he had some really great food items I’m sure. Many people I know said the food was pretty good, but he had a hard time getting people to get in there. Now right across the street there was a Panera Bread. Well, everyone knows Panera Bread. That new business comes in, everyone just heads over there. We know that brand. And for him, he really struggled to inform people what kind of food he served and why you should trust him and that kind of thing. true. Con number four, if the public recognizes the brand in an unfavorable way, then it may reflect poorly on the actual individual who bought the franchise. Absolutely. So I guess the example is if the corporate office does something crazy, every one of the local franchisees feels that that pain. Can you talk to me a little bit about how this can be a con? Well, it certainly can hurt the reputation of the business and those types of things are going to happen in any flourishing, growing brand. There’s going to be hiccups and so forth, but there’s also going to be ways that they’ll be able to manage that. So the key is we’re all operating under the same brand and that’s why the franchisor needs to take responsibility to keep people within the guardrails so things don’t get out of control and that could cause a harm to the reputation or a downside to the brand. It’s a problem when there’s an issue in a situation. And we all remember the Jack in the Box issue from many years ago and how that rippled. They’ve recovered from that, but it does take time. I think it’s super important if you’re watching this, and maybe you do own a franchise, and you’re watching this and you’re thinking about buying another franchise or something. I think one thing that’s important is one of the Thrive mentors we have, Arthur Greenough, he owns a Chick-fil-A, he owns two Chick-fil-A’s. And he’s been with Chick-fil-A for forever, I mean for years and years and years. And so they’ve had times where they’ve been in this media for all the bad reasons and they’ve been in the media for all the great reasons, but it’s the brand overall, it gets him more awareness, it helps him a lot, but there is sometimes the ups and downs of that. Now moving on to pro number five, it’s often easier to secure the financing needed to open a franchise business versus an independent business. Now this right here to me is a big one. This is huge. Why is it so much easier to get funding for a franchise than for a new independent business? There’s a lot of variables there and a lot of reasons why it’s easier. But typically it’s the idea that that franchise concept has built a model that’s replicatable and duplicatable. That creates a sense of security for the banker or the lending institution. There’s also, you know, the track record of non-franchise businesses from a failure standpoint is quite high as compared to a franchise business. So if you’re lending money to a new business owner and you’re looking at comparing those two, the franchise is going to come out on top 95% of the time. Now, the con here though is that when you’re buying a franchise it often requires more money than starting an independent. So I guess an example is if I wanted to just open up my own haircut salon, I could probably go out and borrow $100,000 or $75,000 and build out a white box, some type of office space and then be up in business. Or maybe buying a franchise might cost me $300,000 or something. Again, I mean, I guess it’s a con, it costs more money up front, but I guess the value of that is that you can get that money easier? Well, there’s a number of values. You can get access to the capital to be able to invest properly and shift it from a cost perspective in your mind to an investment and then a return on that investment. So when banks and institutions that finance and lend look at that formula from not just a short-term, what’s it going to cost to launch this business for the first year, but what’s it going to cost to keep it growing and successful to get the return on investment over a five and ten year period. Franchises almost always come out on top. Because you’ve worked with so many franchisees over the years, I mean you’ve worked with thousands of people that have bought a franchise or wanted to buy a franchise. Do you ever see an aha moment where they go, oh my gosh, I can actually get funding for a business? I mean, do you ever see that moment happen? Quite often. Actually, that’s one of the biggest fears that individuals are looking at business and franchise ownership is they don’t understand how easy it is to get funding. And they don’t understand how to leverage their reactive investments to turn those into proactive investments with themselves behind them. Can you give me a little bit of a story or an example of what you mean by taking a reactive investment and turning it into a proactive, just so that the folks at home understand what you’re saying there? Yeah. Well, we mentioned earlier about the battered career syndrome and the job market, but also of late last 10 years, we’re all suffering from what’s called the battered investor syndrome. So those reactive investments that were doing quite well in the, before we shifted to the new normal, and we recalibrated those returns, have gotten very minimal returns right now. So the reactive investments aren’t really growing like they need to. You can leverage by transferring some of your reactive investments to a new line on your net worth statement called value of business own. You still have the asset, but now they’re going to work with you behind those to get a higher return. Would that be like a 401k where someone’s saving money for retirement and they can kind of roll that over into a loan there Yeah Or taking some of my stock portfolio Hmm and liquidating that and shifting it to that new line of my network says value of business now I’m behind that those other investments somebody else is really orchestrating whether it’s a good or bad return I really can’t impact that I want to just share this for anybody watching this is maybe struggling to grasp This or maybe you’re going gosh. What what exactly are you talking about? As an example, if we put money into a mutual fund, you and I might make 10% a year return, if it’s a good year, 10% return every year. But as a business owner, if you put in $100,000 into a business, a lot of times you can make a 20% return or a 30%. I’ve seen people double their money, triple their money. It’s very hard to do that in the stock market. You can do it, and there is people that do. But when you’re betting on yourself, you get that sort of return. You can make a huge return if you’re an aggressive marketer. So it’s not, I don’t believe it’s as risky to invest in yourself as it is to invest in a bunch of companies that you can’t control the results there. So now moving on to pro number six, franchisees often receive great training and support, meaning that if I buy a franchise, I’m getting some great training. What kind of training and support can I get if I’m buying a franchise? It’s very extensive. And the reason that’s in place is because the franchisor is focused on getting that franchisee and their team ramped up as fast as possible, because it’s about a return on that franchisor’s investment also. At the earliest stages of getting you started, your royalty payments are at their smallest. But the franchisor is giving the most amount of training, support, guidance, and help to get beyond that startup phase so that there’s a win-win where the royalty payments grow and then the franchisor can start to recapture some of their returns. And just so I can give an example for the folks at home, let’s say that I own a franchise, I just bought one, and it does $100,000 a year of gross revenue. Typically, what kind of royalties go back to the corporate office, to the franchisor? It varies depending on the industry. Some franchisors provide a lot of back office type of support that that franchisee would have to invest in themselves, so they charge a higher royalty. Some of the franchisors actually do collection and manage those things for the franchisee, so that would be slightly higher. But anywhere between 5 to 10 percent is pretty typical in a franchise. So just to give an example, if I was bringing in a hundred thousand dollars a year of gross revenue and let’s say my royalties to corporate were 5%, corporate makes $5,000. So they have a desire to get me to be as successful as possible quickly, right? So that they can make their, they can make more and more royalties. It’s a win-win. It’s referred to as an interdependent relationship. Either the franchisee doesn’t work for the franchisor and the franchisor doesn’t work for the franchisee. They come together in this license called an interdependent win-win relationship. I just love the way that relationship works. That’s one of the main, one of the big, most exciting things about the franchise world is that corporate, who sometimes can get, people might say, well, the guys at corporate don’t care. Well, in franchising, the guys at corporate get paid a percentage of what you get paid. So they’re trying to push you to be as successful as you can quickly. They’re trying to equip you and empower you. I just love that relationship. I mean, that’s a really neat part of franchising. Through win-win. Now, on the con side of that, I guess is it what you would say that you really have to have a lot of training from corporate? I mean, they’re pushing you all the time? Well, it’s depending on your desire to excel in that model. The better franchise, what we call world-class franchisors, have not only initial training, but they have ongoing education and training to continually fine-tune the skills of their franchisees, but also bring them back to basics. What happens is franchisees get into a rhythm of following the system and it works so well they stop doing it. Yeah. They get out of sync. So it’s a deal where you might feel like man, corporate’s really on me about compliance. Well, they want you to be successful. And so I think it’s all of us have had a great basketball coach or sports coach or some sort of great teacher. And sometimes they have to push us out of our comfort zone to make sure we’re successful. Absolutely. Some of your best mentors do that all the time. Now, on the pro number seven here, benchmarking opportunities exist within the franchising world. So you can kind of compare yourself with other franchisees. Can you explain how that works in the franchise world? It’s one of the greatest examples of how franchise organizations work collaboratively with each franchisee. Rather than competing with each other, they’re complementing with each other. And to have your peers sharing successes and being competitive and allowing those benchmarks to be shared, it actually, what we call, the rising tide raises all ships. So it creates a synergy for the rest of the franchisees to really aspire to follow those examples. I know in my career, I started my first business, this was called DJ Connection, and we did wedding entertainment. And I remember when I had, I was doing like one wedding a weekend, I would go meet with some of my competitors and they didn’t want to talk to me, and I get it, I don’t know why they would want to help me. But then as we grew, we started doing like 30 or 40 weddings a weekend. I didn’t really have any other competitors that could relate to me because we were doing so many more weddings than anybody else. And I think in the world of franchising, it’s so special that you can actually get on the phone with a franchisee in a different part of the country who doesn’t feel threatened by you wanting to pick their brain, and they can help you say, well, this is the kind of results I’m getting. Here’s how you can tweak it, or here’s the systems we use. I think it’s a neat thing. Now, on the con side, is that benchmarking can often make the business owner feel like corporate expects some sort of unreasonable result. So if some guy in Phoenix is just really doing a great job, and you’re in Florida saying, man, it’s hard, and sometimes corporate wants you to rise to that level there. And so I think maybe the con that franchisees see sometimes is they feel like they’re being held accountable to the maniac franchise who’s doing the best? Is that right? Don’t hear that terminology often, but there are some examples of that. And some franchisees are going to feel that way because in any franchise system, there’s what we call the 20-60-20, the divide of what results franchisees get. So the franchisor doesn’t dictate how successful you can drive the model. In fact, that’s one of the downsides of being a franchisor is we can’t require each franchisee to maximize the results. They really build it based on their own goals, needs, and expectations and their income, lifestyle, wealth, and equity plan. So the 20, 60, 20, there’ll be a top 20% that are doing three to five times the amount of business. There’ll be a bottom 20% that are just getting started or aren’t following the system or getting ready to get ready that are on the bottom end of that spectrum. Then you have this wide range in the middle called the 60%. Those 60 and that 20% are all very happy with the results, but they’re quite different. So you get to really model the lifestyle that you want from your income, lifestyle, wealth, and equity by how you build your franchise. And I love that you have that. I’ve never heard of the 20, 60, 20 outside of some of the things I’ve seen you talk about. It’s so true. Oh, yeah. Because you’ve spoken to countless franchise groups, and I’ve spoken to several of them as well, and it’s interesting, but you’ll always get those alphas. They’re out there, these men and women, they are just performing that top 20%. The middle is just as content as can be, and then you always, it doesn’t matter what franchise it is, there’s always that 20% who’s just upset, they’re not performing, and it doesn’t really… So if you’re watching this and you think about buying a franchise, I really have yet to see an example where everybody’s in the top, every single person’s the top or there’s always the bottom discontent, there’s always that top 20%, there’s always that 60 in the middle. It’s amazing how that happens. It’s amazing that you can go through your initial franchise training with a group of 10 or 12 individuals and find out what each individual’s income, lifestyle, wealth and equity goals are and how diverse they’ll be, you know, and that’s just the beauty of being able to grow and drive your business to the level you desire. Now we’re moving on to pro number eight. Pro number eight. So here we go. It’s often easier to attract new employees to a small business that is a franchise. Where I guess it’s easier to convince people that you’re not crazy as a startup when you’re coming to an established brand. Is that why it’s easier potentially? It’s very much easier to do that and employees are looking for you know that employer who has their act together and can offer them the assurances of training and being able to have a career path And being able to grow more more predictably and also typically have a slightly better wage earned from a franchise concept than you may from a non-franchise business. I want to give an example for the people watching this, because this is a true story. When I started my first business, I remember trying to convince people to come work for me. Exactly. And they’re like, well, how many locations do you have? One. Well, where do you office? My apartment. Where do you meet clients? Here at Panera Bread. I mean, I didn’t have that brand, and if I would have had that brand that the years of history I could have said well you know our company’s been around for 22 years and we have 400 locations throughout the US or that kind of thing. So I mean this is I can just tell you if you’ve never started a business this that’s a huge value right there. Talk to me about what kind of hiring standards that corporate may have. Well there’s systems on all aspects of a franchise and the systems related to hiring are there and utilized because they get predictable results. It saves that franchisee time and effort in hiring and bringing on new employees. So the reason systems work so well is because they’re predictable. We could use the example of McDonald’s having an employment situation that if I said to you, would you like a business that has a 300% employee turnover and there are employees in your operation 24 hours a day and typically the ages are teenagers or senior citizens, what do you think? Well, most people say, why would I bother? But McDonald’s has created a system that allows franchisees to succeed with those kinds of variables. That’s amazing. If you’re watching this, I mean, that’s just one example, but I mean, and you spout that stuff off because you’ve done this for so long, and to me it’s like a fire hose of knowledge. It’s just overwhelming. But you’re saying something like McDonald’s has a 300% turnover, so they’re turning over their whole staff three times a year. And then the other thing you said is they have a staff of teenage workers. Teenagers are senior citizens, and they’re in that operation 24 hours a day because when they’re not open, there’s a team in there cleaning and prepping for the next crew in the morning. So you can’t be there 24 hours a day. Without a system for hiring and managing those employees, that business would never succeed. That blows my mind. That’s just amazing. That’s amazing. Okay, well, the next thing we’re talking about, Pro Number 9, is standardized effective marketing materials. That comes with the package. You get standardized effective marketing materials. Now, why is that such a benefit in your mind for franchisees? Well that’s sort of the Achilles heel of most new business owners is marketing and investing in marketing. They sometimes miss that equation or they’ll skimp on that or they’ll say well I’ll invest that level once I have business coming in the door. But they don’t realize that there’s a formula of how much you have to invest in advance of that business coming through the door. And the marketing plans and the marketing materials and the launch strategy of that franchise is well thought out to get that business up and running and generating dollars in the cash register a lot faster. And those materials are put together and tested. They don’t just come up with an idea and throw it into the franchise system. They’re actually tested and proven before they’re used. One of my friends, he’s a franchisor. So he’s the one who owns the actual company that now sells the franchises. And one of the things that he’s done is he has a couple of local markets where he tests the print materials on his own, on the franchises that he actually owns himself. And he tests them, and he finds out what doesn’t work and what does work. And then once it works and it’s replicatable, then he distributes it out to the franchisees. And it’s great because they don’t have to go through the trial and error phase. And I just don’t think that people realize how awesome and how important that is. I know for me, Terry, I didn’t have the money needed to auto wrap my vehicle professionally or to do some of the graphics I needed. So I hand painted a Mazda MPV van, and it looked awful. But it made the phone ring sometimes for the wrong reasons. But it was, again, had I had these systems, I think I could have gotten there faster. And I love that. Now, I guess the con of that is that some franchisees may feel there’s less room for creativity? Yes, that is one of the things that we hear frequently is there’s no room for creativity in a franchise system. And depending on how creative you want to be. But the beauty of it as it relates to marketing is what I tell clients all the time is where you get your creativity is in the marketing and business development side. So there is aspects in all franchises to be creative, especially as it relates to your local and regional markets. Getting out there, using some of the proven materials in creative ways, and customizing it to your own creativity to build your business. So you’re saying that you can be creative, but in two areas? Can you have me outline those two areas again, just so I get a better understanding of what… How you market and how you market and do business development in your brand. Franchisors will have a myriad of things that are allowable from a standpoint of marketing. So many that not one franchisee is going to be able to deploy all of them. Because they know franchisees will be creative in that result and they’ll be drawn to certain ways of doing it. So maybe if I bought a franchise, maybe I want to do billboards and mailers and maybe you want to do TV commercials and so we get to kind of choose which avenue we’re going to use there. Yeah, there’s some aspects of creativity that come into play that allow you to go out and even do some regionalized and local campaigns within the community to really draw that community and your business together. I’ve always found, too, in business, because I’ve been doing this forever, I’ve been self-employed since I was like 16, I’ve found that whenever I’m the most creative with the marketing, that’s when it’s the most painful, because I have to discover what works and what doesn’t. So I’ve come to love systems over the years. I’ve come to get to the point where I just, show me what works, I’ll do it, great. Exactly. Because to me, I like the creativity with what I can do with the money I make as a result of the profit. I like to be creative with that money that I make as opposed to being creative on crazy ideas that might or might not work. That may or may not work. Exactly. Now, moving on to pro number 10. It’s often easier to sell a franchise business than a non-franchised. So if I’ve run my business for 10 years and I say, I want to move down to Cancun and sip on margaritas full-time, it’s easier in theory to sell the franchise. Well, why is it easier to sell a franchise business? Great question. Yeah, because the potential buyer is not going to look at the franchise business based on what only you did with it. They’re going to look at the franchise system. They’re going to look at other franchises in that organization. They’re going to look at what it’s doing overall. They’re not going to be limited by how you built the business. So for example, if I’m buying an independent business, I’m going to base it all on what you’ve done or not done, and the price is going to vary depending on that. If I haven’t deployed on that franchise system to the best of my abilities, and it’s underperforming, but the majority or most of them are performing well, the buyer’s going to see that as an opportunity and they’re going to want to invest in purchasing that business. So, the resale ability and if it’s highly successful and now you’re selling that business for multiple return, now you’re going to get the highest formula for that because it’s not just I’m looking at your business and seeing it being that successful. I have a whole franchise system I can compare to and see that this is very predictable. I can continue this beyond you. If I buy an independent business, it’s built around you. You leave, many times that business will decline. Roughly, how many sports clubs are there on the planet at this point? Wow, that’s a great question. Are there thousands? There are in the thousands now. But I remember when they first started. I don’t remember what year it was. I just remember that I think they had an NFL player that was associated with the brand when it first started. I can’t remember his name now, but it’s Dallas Cowboy I think. And they just started, I remember seeing them and then now there’s a ton. And that will affect the value of my business. Absolutely. It creates what we call synergy. When people see synergistic results, it creates multipliers that relate to the value of that business. That’s why we talk a little bit about income, lifestyle, wealth, and equity that’s built by a franchise because that wealth and equity is transferable through a sale or through your estate things of that nature. Now the con of this I’ve heard a few franchisees that I’ve met over the years they say the con is that corporate requires them to maintain their books at a certain level and they’re like corporate wants me to do my P&L this month corporate wants me to do… ah, corporates always want me to know if I’m making a profit or not, or whatever. Talk to me about why franchisees sometimes have a little pushback when it comes to maintain their books to the corporate standards. Well, the question the franchisee should be asking themselves, why would the franchisor want to be managing those expectations and making sure that you’re doing those things unless it created that interdependent win-win relationship? So it’s beneficial for that franchisor to be monitoring and looking at benchmarks so they can help you meet your business goals. Because franchisees will set yearly objectives for themselves that the franchisor is dedicated to help them achieve. You know, you’ve heard the term, you can’t expect what you don’t inspect. And that’s why they do it. Now, the pro number 11, and I think a lot of people get excited about this one, is our final pro here. Is it, is a franchise, when you buy a franchise, you can essentially make as much money as you want to make. Do you find a lot of people buy franchises for this reason? Well, you know, interesting, we talk about buying franchises, actually what we’ve learned from 30 years of working with so many individuals is that no one really wants to buy a franchise or be sold one. They just want to own the outcome of it. So you know looking at buying a franchise is typically where they start from, but helping them understand how to use that business as a vehicle to drive that income, lifestyle, wealth and equity is the key. The word business model, the word business vehicle, they’re somewhat interchangeable, but the idea is that you’re saying that you’re going to buy this franchise, you’re going to buy a McDonald’s, you’re going to buy a Sports Clips, you’re going to buy whatever you buy to help you get from point A to point B. You’re not buying it just because you want to say, look, I own one. That’s not the goal in and of itself, right? And you’re right. The upside in the career path you have is really without limits. You know, 52% of every franchise business open today is owned by a multi-unit operator. Really? 52%. And multi-unit meaning that I own more than one franchise in one brand, but also multiple brands. That’s the trend. I met a guy that owns a 1-800-GOT-JUNK, I believe, and I think he owns a Sports Clips, and he owns multiple. So that’s kind of what you’re talking about? Diversification. Okay. Smart thing to do. If you buy a franchise and you’re watching this, you can literally own three or four or five different kinds of businesses and you basically become very good at running systems and so you realize I can just buy another system and run that too and I love it. Now con number 11, this is the final con, the wrath of con if you will. So here we go. You have to pay those franchise fees and some people feel like that is a terrible thing. Walk me through why some franchisees get a little frustrated with those franchise fees? Well, the franchise fee is the fee associated with acquiring the license. The license is the way franchises operate. They grant you a license to operate their business model and use their intellectual property and brand to build your income, lifestyle, wealth, and equity with. So they’re looking at it from a standpoint of there’s a fee associated with acquiring that. Franchisors go to great lengths to meet the requirements and be able to provide franchises in North America because of the regulations. And the fee is just designed to be able to recapture some of that so they have the opportunity to then work with you on creating dollar revenues in your unit so that the royalty stream becomes the profitability. Franchise fees aren’t really designed to be profitability areas for franchises. And we have some other great content up on the Thrive 15 website here where you can learn more about this specific concept of it. But the regulations, as you alluded to, just to be able to run, if I’m a franchisor, and I am the guy who came up with the franchise system, just to be able to operate in all the different states, there is an unbelievable amount of legal requirements and compliance and federal standards and all these different things. Can you walk me, just kind of on a high level, can you walk the people, the thrivers through just kind of how much legal compliance there is to own a franchise like that? Well, meeting the Federal Trade Commission regulations to be able to offer a franchise is putting together this extensive document that requires you to provide information in the same sequence that every other franchisor does. And some states require you to register those individually, which means you’ll have attorneys working on all these elements. And once you have attorneys involved in multiple states, working on very extensive documentation that needs to meet a criteria, there’s obviously an investment that needs to be made there, and that’s costly. You know, the idea of being able to take a franchise concept and create the beginning stages of an emerging brand, just to get it out the door, you’ve got to invest in the training, get invested in the manuals, get invested in the personnel ahead of having a franchise come in. So the regulations and the the cost associated with getting to that point are pretty extensive. But the good news is the Federal Trade Commission regulates offerings of franchises in the U.S. and it’s the most highly regulated form of investment of any. Even the Securities and Exchange doesn’t regulate stocks and bonds as thoroughly as the Federal Trade Commission regulates franchisors. I think also if you’re watching this and you’re getting frustrated with fees or the potential of paying fees, you’ve heard about big fees. Just as an example, with the DJ business, we had to do graphic design pieces. And you know, you got to a point where I’m going, should I take $70,000 a year and just hire two graphic designers or a graphic designer to work here? Or should I just keep paying and subcontracting out and buying these different items? As a franchise, the idea is the print piece is already made for you by corporate and so you don’t ever have to worry about that. And that’s just one example of the kinds of things. Whenever I wanted to change my operations manual, I had to hire an attorney and make updates and all that. And when you buy a franchise, the corporate office does that for you. And so there’s so many of those instances that are just a fraction of the cost that they would be if you were paying it for yourself. Absolutely. So there is just a ton of savings that a franchisee is going to experience if they buy a franchise as opposed to going at it themselves there, is that right? Absolutely. That’s why franchises are flourishing and growing and have such a high success rate compared to doing it without a franchise system. Now, final question I have here for you. You’ve been in franchising, involved in it, for the franchise industry for 30 years. What are you so passionate about? What keeps you going after all these years? Why are you so passionate about this? Well, passion comes from a lot of areas. I have always had a passion about empowering people to explore their possibilities and to go outside of what their comfort levels are and what their perceptions are. Because that’s really where growth happens. So it’s been a passion of mine to motivate and empower more people to at least explore the options about being self-sufficient. 75% of the adult population has a strong, a very strong desire to be self-sufficient. But the majority of us are scared to death to be self-employed. And my passion is to just give them a safe space to be able to explore that so they know what their possibilities are, rather than just believing, as my father did, that you just go to work and you stay in that career path and then you retire. That doesn’t happen in our society today. Terry, I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. I know you’re super busy. You’re always flying all around the country, doing great seminars and trainings. And I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to mentor the thrivers all over the world. So again, thank you so much for your time. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks, Clay. Thank you. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! Alright, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! it yes absolutely oh crap why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind why would they not go to thrive timeshare.com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshare.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least 3,000 bucks a year why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you said the website This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas No, that’s that’s clear. Okay, so that that could be a deck of be true So I would encourage everybody check out thrive timeshow.com Forward slash credit dash cards right time show.com forward slash credit dash card What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they can save $3,000 or more on credit card fees. Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes, and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. Hello. We getting there, everybody. We getting there, everybody. There’s probably someone out there. OK. They would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you, folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thronetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates, to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average. I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours. And in my case, in my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. No. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic so because my wife eats organic I had to take the ten minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock Rod, the name of the clock it’s an elegant from Ridgway it’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. All right. Let’s go, let’s go. The number of new customers that we’ve had Let’s go, let’s go. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So, what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest Salon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. That way everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives, and also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Okay, the last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems. They taught us those systems. They taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind. Absolutely, it’s been a grind this last year. But we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut. Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. We just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense. Starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney, with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6 to 8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Awaken America Tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyway, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live two years ago. This is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales which is awesome but Ryan is a really great salesman so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system 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 gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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. I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. The great thing is we have nothing to upsell. 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. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their phone. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s an up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with. Now so, so I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, yeah, I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating new, some, some, some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when I needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management. He said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day on that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do… If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say you bought a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected. I think it was in the year 2000 and what was it? Maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012. And at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing. Oh, there it was. It was Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redmond. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship. But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn. I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else’s that can be as You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again, unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all, and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people and in short anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay. I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say, come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.