Clay Clark | The Importance of Branding

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, Thrivers, we are here today. We have an awesome topic for you guys. We’re talking about branding and the importance of branding, your product, service, business, and it’s so vital. I know that we’ve talked and touched on a few points before, but we’re really getting into it this time. We’re joined today with John Tucker, one of the Thrivers of the Month. John, we’re excited to have you. I’m excited to be here. Now, John, tell us a little bit, give us a nugget of your background and really what you’re doing. You don’t have to get into the super secret details about what you’re doing, but give us kind of a little nugget and a teaser for what you’re going to be doing. I’ve got a passion for cycling that started a few years ago, a workplace thing that took place and kind of started changing my life and so realized that there’s other people and after introducing them to it, they got on the same path and I saw change and so I got excited about that and wanted to get that message out to other people. And so John has been on the site and working through a number of the different trainings had the opportunity to win the Thriver of the Month competition and now he’s here in the studio. So if you want to come to the studio as well, just email us at info at thrive15.com. We have weekend workshops, and we’re going to be doing a number of different things for John specifically. But Clay, get us into branding and why branding determines what you can charge. What is this concept? Well, branding’s like having a mullet. Branding’s like having a bowl cut. That may sound a little counterintuitive or kind of abstract for some of the Thrivers. Not for the Thrivers, for me. Can you break that down? Yeah, it’s a deal where if you were in the early 90s and you had your hair bleached blonde on the tips, you know the tips were bleached blonde, and you kind of looked like you were a member of Backstreet Boys, that was a cool deal. If you were in the 80s and you had a bowl cut, you were the man. But over time, things change and people are going, why are you the only one still sporting the Billy Ray Cyrus? If you’re sporting the Billy Ray Cyrus, that mullet, let me tell you two things are going on. One, you’re the most confident person in the world and you’re making your own style. Or two, you are rocking a haircut style that people just beg the question, what’s going on? What’s happening? And so branding is something that so few people invest nearly the amount of time needed. So the branding determines what you can charge, bottom line. It determines the value of what you’re doing. I mean, the thing is, if you have great branding, it does not guarantee you sales, but poor branding guarantees you no sales. So it’s a key into the door. Now what you do once you get in the room, that’s your own thing. But branding is the key that unlocks the door. If you have poor branding, nothing else will work. It’s just, that’s how it works. I want to back up what you’re saying with a notable quotable here from Elon Musk. He’s the founder, he says, the brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind, but brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product. It’s the impression, it’s the first impression. It’s a lot like if you take a fine young lady on a date, or you take a handsome man on a date, or whatever the thing is, you go on a date and when you go on a date, if you show up and they expect it to be a formal event or a semi-formal, you are supposed to have a tie or a shirt or a nice shirt and tie combo on or she is supposed to be dressed up nice and you get there and you are wearing your basketball shorts and you kind of show up maybe two minutes late and you have a Billy Ray Cyrus haircut, people start to go, what are we doing? I mean, it’s just, and then you’ll invite the young lady into your car, you open up the car door, you could be a great guy, but it’s just filthy. Doesn’t have to be a great car, but you open up the car and it’s just filthy and dirty and there’s trash everywhere. It just says things about you that you don’t really want to be said, so it’s so important that our branding, if anything, it’s over-branded. If anything, you wanna be over-branded. If anything, you wanna struggle to live up to your own hype. You want to, I mean, you have to have over-branding. I mean, I’m just telling you, over-brand. If I can say one thing to do here, over-brand. If anything, over-brand. Be, and then, this is the thing, this is where, I am driven by insecurity. People say, what drives me? It’s always insecurity. So for me, I love over-branding and then having to deliver. I love that, for some reason, I just love that pressure. I’ve been doing it long enough. I’m 35, I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I love the idea of opening up the elephant in the room and saying, it’s Tulsa’s best men’s haircut, period. And my buddies go, okay, I’ll try it. You go there, right? Yeah, I go to elephant in the room. Is it not different than like, let’s say, top cuts or something? Absolutely. Or quick clips? Absolutely. And what’s different about it? For me, personally, is I never have to wait for a haircut. I set an appointment ahead, walk right in, right into the chair. It’s a membership model. We’d have memberships at times, at prices. It’s a men’s grooming lounge. It’s kind of a rustic wood, very similar to the style that I embrace with our studio and different things. We have Edison bulbs hanging down, reclaimed barn wood hanging up. It just, it feels like a man place, like a man dojo. And I’m saying is that we’ve had to work very, very hard on the brand. And now, it just happened last month, I looked at the website, because I look at it about every six months. I know it seems crazy, but I look at it every six months and really dive in. And I’m going, it’s not as good as our brand is. It used to be ahead. It used to be so much better than our product. But now I’m going, our product is a lot better than our website. I’ve got to fix that. And so when I hear you say over-brand, it sounds like you’re saying set the expectations for the customers and set them to whatever you want them to be. Now there’s some people, we’ll say like big box retailers, that set their brand very differently. So you look at a Walmart versus a Whole Foods, two completely different brands, but you set the expectations so the customer can’t set the expectations themselves. It’s hard to justify paying for something, premium dollars for something, that looks cheap. And it’s hard to feel good about paying cheap dollars for something that looks great. You almost feel like there’s a catch either way. So if you stay at a five-star hotel and you’re paying almost nothing, you go, when’s the timeshare tour going to happen? When’s it going to happen? When’s it going to… And then they say, all right, ladies and gentlemen, now thank you for coming out to the Yada Yada Resort. We’re going to do a timeshare tour today. Thank you for being here. And you’re like, I knew it! I knew because it was so cheap they’re going to… Right? What’s the catch? No such thing as a free lunch. You know, you start to… And then on the other side of it, if something is really, really just looks crappy, you’re staying in a motel that just looks gross, it feels gross, and then they take $127, you’re like, I’m just gonna stay in my car. Either way, your price has to match your brand. And people, if you don’t get that right, so many good people are out there. We have so many good people out there all around the world with great products. Good people, great people, great products, great people. With second class branding, it’s gotta stop. And so I want to read this notable quotable from one of the Thrive 15 mentors, Michael Levine. He has this notable quotable, and he’s the guy that did PR for Michael Jackson, the Clinton administration, Nike, Pizza Hut, a ton of celebrities. Not impressed. Name drop something I know. Okay, here we go. If you give someone a present and you give it to them in a Tiffany box, it’s likely that they’ll believe that the gift has higher perceived value than if you gave it to them in no box or a box of less prestige. That’s not because the receiver of the gift is a fool, but instead because we live in a culture in which we gift wrap everything, our politicians, our corporate heads, our movie and TV stars, and even our toilet paper. So we’re talking about the branding around the product. It will immediately have a higher perceived value if it’s gift wrapped in a box like a Tiffany box. Okay? So Clay, what does Michael really mean by this? What does he mean? Well, I drew a little picture here, if we can pull it up on the screen. If it’s possible to pull it up here. Basically what you have here, if it’s in a Tiffany box over here, this guy does have rings in the Tiffany store that are on sale for $19,000. Then over here at Kmart, when you buy a ring, they put it in a plastic bag and it’s $19 and you assume it’s costume jewelry, it’s $19, you know. You could take a piece of jewelry out of a Tiffany box and put it in a Kmart bag and somebody would mistake it for being a $19.99 ring. They think it’s $19 because it’s Kmart, it’s in a bag. If you took the same ring and put it into a Tiffany box, not that you would want to do this, but other people have. If you want to get a cubic zirconium ring that is definitely not diamond, and you wanted to just put it in a Tiffany box, I bet you with enough conning you could sell it for a huge price. So I’m saying that what you want to do is you want to make sure it’s in the box, and then you live up to the branding. This is the branding right here. This is the branding. This is the branding. You want to live up to that branding You know you got all this decorative branding going on you want to live up to it Which makes it worth that much and so many people just don’t do it They have the poor branding great product great product poor branding Great branding poor product recently. I worked with a company awesome branding their service sucks, so it’s terrible every part of their Every part of it’s like this little lube, like a Jiffy lube kind of thing, but it’s not a Jiffy lube, but it’s kind of like one. And their service is awful. And they have the most beautiful, brand new facility. It’s beautiful. People are going, wow, this is great. And it is absolutely 100% garbage service. And people just can’t pay the price. And so, as it relates to determining what you can charge, do you have an example from maybe one of your businesses or maybe the DJ company where you were charging one thing and then you made it change in the branding and the perception and the presentation and then you were immediately able to charge more? Do you have an example from one of the businesses there? Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of them, but I would say specifically one that I’m particularly proud of recently is we’ve done a lot of work with one of our thrivers. They’re American Hybrid Homes. Mikaelo, he’s a thriver out there in New York called American Hybrid Homes. His website, in my mind, looks very good now. He was a startup and his website looks very good. His startup looks actually better. His website looks better than the website of a lot of established brands. He is now able to confidently go into the homes of people and make a price quote. Now, he’s been doing it for a couple of years and things are taking off. He’s hiring new employees all the time. He literally went from the idea phase, when he heard about us on Bloomberg, I think, to now the growth phase. I mean, it’s awesome, but it’s a deal where his website now looks like he’s been around forever. Where before, when you just had a folder and a binder you show people and you don’t really have a professional website or a website at all, it’s very hard for him to get those deals. But now he’s getting the deals. Yeah. Yeah, so determining what you can charge branding plays such a huge part in that. Absolutely. Okay, so the next thing that we’re getting into is that branding does not guarantee customers. Clay, you mentioned this in the first episode here, and I want to get into it, okay? You said branding does not guarantee customers. Break that down for me. I just feel like a lot of people say, if you make a great product, it’ll sell itself. And people have said it so long, so often, so much, if you have a great product, it’ll sell itself. And I’ve never met anybody ever, I’ve met millionaires, I’ve met billionaires, I’ve never met anybody who’s ever told me that, that actually happened. It’s always like, I built a great brand. Then I worked tirelessly for seven years to convince the world they needed it. And then finally I got my big break and boom. Then I heard the other story where I had a horrible brand and I worked on it forever and forever and forever and then finally I changed the branding and the world accepted it. And so the best example I can tell you of something that happened quick as in over a period of years was one of our mentors and one of our good friends here, Jill Donovan with Rustic Cuff. Her product is an internet sensation. She’s selling these rustic cuffs. They’re like decorative bracelets for women. And her branding is awesome. It is world-class branding and world-class product. World-class lady. World-class vision. And she’s got those congruent now where the branding is just as good as the product. And I think for a while she’d probably tell you that her branding was maybe better than the product or vice versa, and it goes back and forth like Elon Musk talked about, but now she’s in step with both. And it is just awesome to see her succeed. And if you get a chance to go to her new showroom that she just opened up in Tulsa, it’s unbelievable. And this lady is just growing and growing and growing. And Marshall, you went there to try to get a gift for your mom, didn’t you? Oh, such a good story. Share the story, though, about this. This is a branding story. No, it was so great i went to go get my mom a mother’s day gift uh… and uh… turns out my dad is having the exact same idea my dad beats me there unbelievable unbeknownst to me gets a gets a bracelet for my mom uh… then he leaves well he knows after he is e-signed a square, like, you know, e-receipt, he knows that he has to go catch the email before she reads it. Well, my mom has hundreds and hundreds of emails in her inbox, and he’s like, I have a window of at least 30 minutes, if not four years, okay? So, that, I get in there, my dad’s deleting the email. Well, I’m in there buying the gift, and my mom walks in, and she was convinced that A, my dad did not know about this company. It was just a, not a hole in the wall, but a kind of undiscovered gem to the males. But this brand had emanated through all the hospitals, through all of the different retail stores, and it was packed, every single person. And that’s why she’s been having so much growth is because she has such a cornerstone brand. It was packed, it was packed out shoulder to shoulder. Couldn’t find it and so I’m trying to hide in there and everything but no this brand has really rippled out through the entire nation and now she’s growing internationally and doing international sales it’s awesome. And another example of a client that I know very well and good friend of mine actually a business partner of mine is Oxifresh. That was a business that he launched out of his mind just out of college. Oxifresh now has hundreds of franchises all across the world. They’ve teamed up with Matt Damon’s organization, Water.org. They’ve been featured on Fox Business. Everything that John has done from day one is world-quality brand. Bottom line, he’ll even say it. If you’re around him for a couple days, you’re gonna hear him say it at least once or twice. He says, the brand comes first. Brand comes first. So people are like, well, are the business cards good enough? He’s like, nope, the brand comes first. World class or nothing. Brand comes first, brand comes first. Brand comes, he’s just obsessed with branding because the branding allows everything else to work. But if you just have great branding, it’s not gonna sell itself. And John is an excellent salesperson. He’s built an excellent sales team, but you’ve gotta start with the branding. And some people say, well, because it won’t actually translate into sales, is it a waste of time? No, you have to get the branding, then we focus on the sales. Okay. So, John, do you understand that, how branding does not guarantee you new customers? It’s not going to bring customers in the door, but once they’re in the door, it does guarantee that you won’t immediately kill them off. Yes, I got it. Cool. Awesome. Okay, so the next thing about branding, the importance of branding, is that branding determines perception and value. Perception and value, Clay. Can you tell me, what does that really mean? The perception, we heard the Elon Musk quote. What is this point talking about? Cheesecake factory. I’ve not been there recently. Have you ever been to the cheesecake factory? I have not. Really? Well, they sell slices of cheesecake at massive prices. If you go to Godiva, they sell unbelievably expensive chocolate. And guess what both of them have? Way over the top, crazy awesome branding. What allows them to sell it? Is the product good? Yes. Is the branding better? I would argue the branding is better than the product for both of those. I literally would argue that the branding is better than the product, as good as the products are. It just creates that expectation that, hey, it’s okay to spend $7 on a piece of cheesecake because the atmosphere, the branding, the decor. On a subconscious level, this was so hard for me as a consultant. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it because it’s a subconscious thing, but I nailed it as a consultant. Once I figured this out, it changed the game. I was meeting with brides and grooms, and I used to not wear a tie. I used to wear a blue dress shirt, but I didn’t wear a tie. I did not have any intentional reason for anything in my office. I had a picture that I liked from college. I had a picture that I liked of a music artist, I had pictures of things I liked. I started deep diving into branding, really talking to some mentors about branding, and it was pointed out to me that if I wanted to triple my prices, I needed to be intentional about building a brand that brides-to-be would love. So I went out and bought a desk that was very ornate, very detailed, and it looked like something you’d find at a wedding venue. I changed the music overhead to match the whole Michael Buble. He was just coming onto the scene at that time. Harry Connick Jr., Frank Sinatra, The Rat Pack. I made that atmosphere. I put images up that women would like, wedding-related images, and I put that all up there. I put the 1955 classic chrome-plated Elvis microphone in every one of our systems. This microphone replaced the handheld mics in every DJ system. I went out and bought one of these for every system, like six different mics. I bought linens to put on the tables that we set up our DJ systems on, instead of just putting it on a plastic table. We used to have a plastic white table. I bought linens. I changed our business cards to make them solid. I went in and made our website. I increased the look of the website. And when it was all said and done, I literally tripled sales doing the same activities. I didn’t change anything about how I marketed at all. I just did everything better because of my branding. I tripled. That was within like a year, yeah? So branding affects the perception, the immediate, the how do you perceive something, what precedes the actual product. Oh, they walk in and go, oh, you must be successful. That’s what they’re thinking subconsciously. Oh, OK, well, I will buy your book then. Oh, you must be successful. I mean, you look like you know what you’re doing. I guess I will buy your book. And it’s like you look like life is stressful. You look like you’re in the toilet of life. I don’t know that I want to buy your book. You look like your office, your office just smells like cat pee. I don’t know whether I want to buy from you. You don’t want to. You have to look successful. There’s a book called Fake It Before You Make It. That’s pretty accurate. You want to really make sure you portray the image that you want to have before you have it. We’re going to get into the elements of branding in the next episode, so make sure that you stay tuned for that, but the perception is basically what is creating the decisions and the value in the customer’s mind before they even interact with you or they buy the product. Before they get to that point, they are immediately, whether they step in the front door, whether they go to the website, whatever they’re interacting with, they’re making decisions and evaluations based on that. Anything that their senses, we talk about the senses, you have a sight, smell, all these different, anything that the customer sees, feels, experiences related to your product has to be first class. If you’re going to make a print piece, make it great. If not, don’t make it. If you’re going to have a website, make it great. It would be better to not have a website than to have a third class website. Everything just needs to be awesome if you’re going to have any success in the world of business. Does that make sense, John? Do you have any questions about the perception and value that branding creates? I think I get it. My father was a really good guy that could give you a perceived value on something way above what you thought it was worth. He had a knack for that. Is your dad like selling you like a log as a Christmas gift? Exactly. He’s like, son, there’s so much you can do with the log. It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood. You can, you know. Were you ever a sales guy? No, well, yes and no. I mean, he was a self-made entrepreneur. Oh, really? Yeah, he was known as a land man at one time and people came to him and he’d buy a piece of land and everybody’s like, why’d you buy that? And the next thing you know, six months later, he was tripling his money. And they were like, wow, I need to do that. Unbelievable, your dad had that vision. That’s awesome. He did. OK, so branding, hugely important for creating the perceived value, the perception and value for your product, business, or service. OK? OK, so the last thing that we’re going to talk about in terms of the importance of branding are the different elements, the different things that contribute to your brand. This is huge, OK? Because there’s some things that a lot of business owners don’t think about. I know that all the Thrivers, they’ve thought about this, but I know that there’s some non-thrivers that maybe haven’t thought about it. Yeah. Okay. So Clay, begin walking me through the different elements of branding and what’s contributed to that. You have six of them and I’m gonna move pretty quick on these, but there’s six powerful ones. One is it smells. How does your product smell? If you’re selling a book, are you kidding me? One thing you can do, magazines do it, they put perfume samples in the magazine. Guess what? That will add value to the magazine. In your office, it needs to smell good. Elephant in the Room, we have man candles. These candles, you burn them and it smells like pinion wood or it smells like meat or whatever. I mean, so you definitely want to have a smell, very intentional smell. Smell is just, the absence of smell is a license for things to be bad So make it make be intentional about your smell ask yourself. What are you selling cookies? Are you selling men’s haircuts? Are you selling what are you selling? How should your office smell? sharp gas stations sharp Convenience stores they get smell Not sharp ones you walk in it just smells kind of weird and the human body Smells weird by default so you have to be intentional about creating positive smells. Starbucks is intentional about the smell. Jiffy Lube has fresh popcorn. They waft. You want to be intentional about the smell. The second thing is decor. That’s the imagery around you. On our Thrive15.com studio, why do we have so much images in our headquarters, in our studio, in every aspect? Because when you’re surrounded by the thoughts of great people, great women, great men, positive things, it begins to change your thinking. It begins to change and influence your behavior. So in our office, I have Phil Pressey’s jersey up here. Why? Well, Phil is 5’10”, and he’s in the NBA. He’s a friend of ours. It’s pretty cool to be 5’10”, and make it to the NBA. He’s a grinder. His father coaches for the Lakers. He was a grinder, too. It’s awesome. So I put him up here because he’s the grinder. He’s kind of the heart of the, he’s kind of like a mascot for us almost. It’s that sort of decor that sets the tone. So if you own a men’s grooming lounge, think about what do men want. In this case, barn wood works really well for our clients. If you have a women’s wedding focused business, what kind of decor do women want? For your book, maybe think about the decor and the background if you’re recording podcasts or video broadcasts or the letterhead you send out. Anything the customer sees, you just want to make sure they see visually that it ties into your brand. And so Thrivers, if you are looking for examples on what to put up in your office or surround yourself with these powerful notable quotables, maybe you’ve seen them in the newsletter, these different quotables, if you email us at info at Thrive15.com, we will send you some of the downloadable Notable Quotables so that they can post them, print them, and put them up in your office. We have a lot of Thrivers who have begun to print these Notable Quotables and put them in their office to encourage themselves. We have 16 by 20 sized print Notable Quotables you can download for free. We’ll send those to you. And a lot of people print them and encourage themselves. I mean, that’s a huge thing. It sets the tone. The third is music. If you have a restaurant and it’s fine dining, you probably want to lower beats per minute so it’s more of a regal atmosphere. If you have a Friday’s restaurant or Elephant in the Room, that’s our place, we want kind of a pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, that kind of tempo because we want to have that speed. We want you to not be there for two hours while you get your hair cut. We want to create kind of a relaxed atmosphere, but we want to go at a decent pace. Disney is very intentional about the music. It’s very whimsical. It’s very orchestral. If you go to Disneyland, they’re playing the songs to the movies, and it’s very inspirational. I play in my own office when I’m doing paperwork, relaxing music that is from scores from movies. If I’m working out, I choose intense music. Everyone has their own, but the music will set the tone. So if you watch a scary movie, I don’t do that, but if you watch a scary movie, the music will set the tone. So on your website, and then you play a video of you talking about your book, maybe you want an inspirational movie score that underscores what you’re saying. If you’re in an office environment, you wanna have music that sets the tone. If you don’t have music in your office, anybody, I’m telling you, you’re creating by default a weird environment. There’s major, major corporations that are beginning to get this, where if you walk into the DMV, it’s just like this, it’s just kind of that, and then somebody walks up to you, walks up and gets a sip of coffee, because the DMV is super quiet, you know, and they walk up and they go, and everyone’s like, oh, what a weirdo. It kind of sipped a little bit, and you hear that sipping, and you’re like… So pretty soon at the DMV, everyone sits like this, don’t we? We go… No one talks. It’s like being in the elevator with the third party you don’t know. You’re like, hey guys, how you doing? And, new person’s in the elevator, weird. And it creates that awkwardness. But if you have fun music playing, it just creates the right emotional state. Daniel Goleman wrote a fascinating book, G-O-L-E-M-A-N, Daniel Goleman, on the emotional state, emotional intelligence. It’s so important to understand that emotionally, we’re dealing with creatures here. We’re not dealing with robots. We’re dealing with humans who have emotions. You have to make sure that you create the right emotional state for buying something that’s conducive. Fourth is the print materials. If you’re gonna have a business card, a print piece, the book cover, your one sheet, your menu, your pricing options, it has to be first class. The people that work with you, number five, anyone who represents you, oh this is gonna be huge for somebody, anybody who works for you represents you. That is just not fair. So just an example, Marshall works with me and therefore Marshall represents me. I represent him. People say, why do you have everyone wear a shirt and tie? Because I want in my office, if you interact with anyone on my team, I want to set the standard of what I want our team to look like. Someone says, well in your office there’s one guy you don’t make him wear a tie. Why? Because he’s awesome in every area all the time and he’s earned that right. I know he’s going to dress sharp without a tie. A lot of people just dress awful if you don’t mandate a uniform, right? So in your business, think about your uniform or you as a speaker maybe or a writer. I know four different speakers I can think of off the top of my head who dress a certain way on purpose. It’s their brand. Think about Donald Trump. Always dresses the same every time. Right? Blue suit, red tie, white shirt. I mean, very similar every time. Very, very similar. The power tie move going on. He’s very, very, very, very consistent in that look. I mean, you think of Donald Trump, the hair’s the same every time you think about that appearance. Also, think about Jeffrey Gitmer. It’s G-I-T-T-O-M-E-R. He wrote a book about selling, it’s called The Little Black Book of Selling, and he has a little black book of networking. He’s always wearing the same outfit. It’s calming to people when they know there’s a consistency and an intentionality about what you’re wearing. You want to set that right tonality, but you also don’t want to hire anybody who’s terrible. I used to hire people that were terrible and think, I’m just coaching them up. I remember the first time I got an email from a lady named Tara. It just crushed my soul. She goes, no offense, the guy that works who met us does not inspire confidence and we’re asking for a refund. So I was like, well what do you mean? She goes, he doesn’t inspire confidence. And that’s when it hit me that the people who work for me, those books I’ve read about this, it’s not just hoo-ha. It really is a cultural thing. People don’t want to buy from you if you don’t inspire confidence. And the final thing is you want to have your overall experience. You want to be intentional with your overall experience. Starbucks, they’re very intentional about making sure there’s lots of samples available from time to time. It smells great. The music is right. The decor is right. The people are polite. They say nice things to you. They name every beverage. It’s the Grande. What is it, Marshall? The Atoll? The Grande? The… Venti? Venti. I mean, they have names for everything, you know? The whole experience is like a third place. It’s not work. It’s not home. It’s the third place. Disney, from the moment you walk in the gates, where you park, everything has a theme, has a smell, has an intentionality. Well, if the big companies are doing it, how come the small business owners were not? People ask, I would do that if I got, I guess I would probably do it too if I was big. People ask sometimes, where would you find the money to do that when you’re small? You’d probably be easier when you’re bigger. But the thing is, you’ve got to do the things the big guys do when you’re small to ever become a big guy. So you’ve got to be very intentional about it. Hobby Lobby plays Christian music overhead to create the atmosphere they want. You got to think about the music that you want, the atmosphere that you want. If you have a sushi restaurant, there’s a restaurant called In The Raw, and their music is very up-tempo, that pfft, pfft, pfft. It’s really neat decor, up-lighting everywhere. It’s dimly lit with up-lighting, and it just feels kind of like a really futuristic California, East Coast, West Coast, kind of like a New York City fine dining experience, and when you eat there in Tulsa, you’re like, wow, I feel like I’m in New York. I feel like I’m in California. It just feels like a world-class experience. And those are the kinds of things that we need to do if we’re going to sell on a national level, as it relates to branding. So have I covered it? Am I missing something there? No, I think that covers all of the different elements. And so, bottom line, you just have to be intentional about all of those things because any area that you’re not intentional is subject to somebody else creating their own expectations or their own kind of off the reservation decision. And you can’t drift to success. So you know by default we’re all going to bomb. So we have to be intentional about success. John, does that make sense? Do you have any questions about creating the branding with these different elements or any questions about the importance of branding for the business or for what you’re going to be doing? I think this has got it covered. Looks good. Awesome. You know what happens is when you have a firehose of knowledge like it it can be so distilling all these items into a checklist and just every time you start a company or you build a product just have a checklist just print it out just save it in your notes section and print it or just type it in there. Every time you open a business or you do any venture, just keep that checklist and then pull it out and go, are the smells locked down? Is the decor good? Is the music good? Are the print materials good? Are the HR selections good? Is the overall experience good? I’ll just tell you this, without a checklist, I used to miss major aspects of my overall experience. We moved into this building, Marshall. Very few people were like, hey, I wonder what kind of music we’re going to play overhead. Don’t I every day say, though, don’t I every single day, I’m like, music, where is it? All day. Without change. It’s part of the experience, and it creates a totally different atmosphere. It feels like almost depressing when you have 40 people working in absolute silence. But if you create a music atmosphere, it changes the whole atmosphere of the office. And so I’m very, very intentional about these things now, but make a checklist implement it action is the real measure of intelligence All right, so thrivers. Thanks so much for tuning in about the importance of branding and John thank you for joining us today. Thanks again bang 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 business, but you have $15 million of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right. 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 a year by reducing your credit card fees. Would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap. Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, Thrivetimeshow.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 three thousand bucks a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I would encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.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 then it won’t it’s not possible There’s somebody out there that 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 thrivetimeshow.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. 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, I cannot think of any other reason. 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, fool? Really? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Hmm? Stop looking at me, swan! 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 ten 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. Or 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 case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic store. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Oh God. 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, alright? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, alright. 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, do we have it? 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 ten 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, 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. 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 dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent 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 and Lawn 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%. Okay, 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 and 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 and 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 is 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 when 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 is it a diligence and consistency and doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten the 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… 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. So 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. Overall, our average is running about 40-42% 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 proof-and-turn-key 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. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like 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. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 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 ups to being multi millionaires. Teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. 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 him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. 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. And anyways, 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. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we 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 thrive time show today 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 small business loan. We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same 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 built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. If you 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 your call. Well, 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 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. 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 a hundred percent 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, 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 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. That’s when it 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 two to 300 calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. On that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred 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 about 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. When 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 even 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 that… Oh, there it was! So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. 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, you know, 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. 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 the mindset that I’ve gained here Has been huge you know working here You can’t 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 wanna 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, you know, 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’d 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 that can be as passionate. 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 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.