Clay Clark | We All Have To Learn To Sell Something + BONUS: Find Best Practice (G.O.A.T.) in Your Industry + The Rule of 50

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zulman. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC, 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 we’ll show you how to get there Hey Clark, how are you my friend? I’m doing awesome. I had just a wonderful night last night. We got back from Houston. And we got back, and I just got home, and I just felt like, ah. Yeah, it was nice. I’m at home. It felt good. We did a lot of travel. Actually, we started a couple different states back and forth, four plane flights. Rochester, Minnesota, Houston, Texas. Now we’re going to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara. Come on. Well, listen, today what we’re doing is we are talking about why we all have to learn to sell something. And we’re talking about this topic of sales no matter what position they’re in. That’s kind of the stance that you’ve taken and what you’ve taught all of your mentees and stuff. I know you’re my Broda and I think we’d all kind of call you our Broda here. From Minnesota. The Broda from Minnesota. But the problem is sales is often very scary for people. Well I would say the word sell, I use the word sell because that is the word people say most commonly. But sell, we all really have to sell something. We all really have to, we all really have to, you just kind of take these two words and you sort of just kind of replace them. You can say, well, we all have to, we all have to influence people. Okay, we all have to influence people. So you’re kind of interchangeable. So if you’re in accounting and you’re watching this, you’re like, why do I have to learn to sell? You gotta learn how to influence people. Good. Well, here’s the deal though, Jack Canfield, he talks about how opportunity is often right next to fear. This is what he says. This is a little notable quotable for you. He says, everything you want is on the other side of fear. This is Jack Canfield. Why should we be listening to Jack Canfield, by the way? He’s sold millions of copies of his books. He’s the guy who’s the chicken soup for the soul guy. He’s a very great success author. He’s had a lot of success with that book and success with things before the book and success with things after the book. He’s a phenomenal success story. So what do you think about that quote, everything you want is on the other side of fear? Well people that can’t conquer fear just get conquered by life. So I’m just telling you, when I started Thrive, I mean, I had a lot of success up to that point, but to raise a lot of capital. Yeah. I mean, that’s a fearful thing. Something you hadn’t done on that scale before. Yeah. Or I had had a lot of success in business before that. And I had never done speaking. Right. And then somebody said, hey, do you can you just speak in a bit for me? And it’s like, uh, but I know enough about fear now to say absolutely. Right. Before I’m ready, before I’ve even processed it, I’m so used to going absolutely. Whenever I hear fear starting to pop up and I start to see it starting to get in the way of a dream, I’ll say absolutely. And so it’s just, if it’s capital you’re afraid of, selling it you’re afraid of, whatever your obstacle is, you want to just say yes and move right into it. I love this too because I have another little notable quotable. Again, it’s talking about how the biggest problem is fear and it keeps people from wanting to learn how to effectively influence people. Absolutely. JK Rowling, she actually, you know, huge success author, she actually not a success author, a successful author, she actually grew up on state support, very, very poor, now you know, worth a ton of money, but she, this is her quote, she says, failure is so important. We speak about success all the time, it’s the ability to resist failure or to use failure that often leads to great success. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing. I’ve met people who don’t want to try for fear of failing. But we have to conquer this fear of failing because of what could be on the other side. Well she’s an author who’s generated north of 50 million, 60 million, 70 million. She’s worth 1 billion now. She’s made a ton of money selling her books. But it’s not the best written books that you talk about. They always give awards for New York Times best selling book. Best selling book. It’s not best written book. You got to understand that at the end of the day, if you have the cure for cancer right now, if you have the answer for cancer, if you’ve got the $1 million, $1 billion solution, the trillion dollar solution, who doesn’t want a cure for cancer? Who doesn’t want to read a great book who doesn’t want to see a great movie? Who doesn’t want a product that’s gonna make your life easier who doesn’t want that right? But if you can’t influence people and convince them that they actually need your product or service You just can’t improve you just get stuck. Let’s get down to the core issues do it ready the core Issues this is what we’re talking about today. Three principles. The first one is we are all selling. The second one is if you can’t sell all your ideas we’ll go to hell. Or Hades. Oh, might go to Hades. Number three, true sales is about influence not manipulation. True sales is about influence not manipulation. So here we go. Principle number one, we are all selling. We got another notable quotable. This one is from Dave Ramsey. He’s the financial expert. He’s written five New York Times best-selling books. This is what he says. We are all in the business of sales. Teachers sell students on learning. Parents sell their children on making good grades and behaving. And traditional salesmen sell their products. But it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. How many parents out there think of themselves as selling? Well, I’ll give you an example. On Thrive, we get testimonies every day from people all around the world who are applying these principles and are having big success. That’s incredible. I had a guy in New York just yesterday I talked to, and he’s like, hey, I want you to know my whole life is different. I’m having success in this area. That’s so cool. Well, if I don’t share it with you, you don’t know. Right. So I can’t influence you if I don’t share. So influence is really about sharing your ideas in a way that helps people see the benefits of your product. But if I just took all these testimonials and we didn’t post them up on social media or we didn’t share them with the Thrive Nation, people would have no idea of the big successes that are going on. You want to share. It’s really about caring enough to step out of your… It’s caring enough about the product, the service, the idea, the concept, the change, the movement. It’s caring enough to step out of your comfort zone and to share it with people in a powerful and meaningful way. Okay, but Clay, what if, I guess talk to a Thriver right now who could be watching and could say, listen, I’m on this track here. I’ve got my position as an employee. I love my job. I love what I’m doing here. And I know for a fact that I’m not selling anything. Yeah. What, what do you say to that person? What do you say to that person who says this actually doesn’t apply to me? I know what you’re saying. You’re trying to convince me. I’m going to give you the quick explanation. What do you say? You’ve got a container right now. And that container, and I’m making up the example, that container can maybe only pay you, let’s say, $60,000 a year. That’s what it can pay you. And I’m not saying anything wrong with that. $60,000 is great for a lot of people. It might be bad for some people. Yeah. But if you want to go to the next level, if you want to begin to make more money, have more influence, be able to achieve more in your career, you’re going to have to basically get a bigger container. And your container, let’s say you wanted to make $100,000 a year, the container has to do with your ability to influence. So right now, you’re in a container. Your container has a label on it right now that says, good job. You are doing a good job. That’s what the label says. This container here says influence. You can do a good job, but your container is only gonna allow you to earn a certain amount of money, right? But if you want to switch to a bigger income you have to get a bigger container and that container is called influence Okay, that’s huge. So it’s sure right now. Maybe you’re not influencing people and selling that’s okay You just are stuck right income wise and probably if you’re hoping not to be stuck Then this does apply if you want to get stuck. I mean just keep not influencing people Okay, here we go. Number two, principle number two here. If you can’t sell, all your ideas will go to hell or Hades. Hades. Hades. It’ll go to Hades. A warm place. What does this mean? Before we dive in, I’ve got a notable quotable, but why is this true? If your ideas can’t even take root, can’t have effect, why is that? Well, we have very in-depth trainings on Thrive about rapport, needs, benefits. Right. Delivering, building rapport, finding needs, delivering the benefits, supporting them by facts calling the people to action overcoming objections We have all that right But at the very core if you’re not willing to embrace that you’re gonna have to be able to deliver a great Presentation in your next staff meeting if you even have one idea, there’s no example There’s one guy used to be in our business years ago one of our businesses and every time he had a great idea He would go hey, I’ve got an idea. I don’t know if you guys like it or not. It’s it’s I don’t really know if it’s that good. You you probably I don’t know. Honestly, it’s probably not that good. And then we’re like, well, tell us what the idea is. And finally, when he would tell us the idea, everyone’s motivation to hear it was so low, right, that we almost dismissed the idea because of because of how it was presented before we even listened. And I had to sit down with the guy and say, listen, Broseph, you’ve got to start to package your ideas differently. You want to say, hey guys, I researched an idea that I know can help us save X amount of dollars. And I’d like five minutes. I really think it can influence our company and make a great, a great impact for everybody. Well, this leads in perfectly to the notable quotable because I have a notable quotable here from Zig Ziglar. Okay. Zig Ziglar says, people don’t buy for logical reasons, they buy for emotional reasons. What? Yeah. What is he saying here? First of all, I guess, who’s Zig Ziglar? Why should we care about what he says about sales? Zig Ziglar is probably one of the top success authors of his day. Right. He has since passed, but he is very, very motivational, great sales trainer. I’d say perhaps a stronger sales trainer than anything. Just awesome. But what Zig is talking about is on the human condition, and if you think about the world we live in right now, and the world that we’re always going to live in, is that people, their heart, their heart, their heart, people are led by their heart, and then their mind sort of backfills. So what happens is, is that a guy might go, oh man, that’s a sweet car. That is sweet. And then he’ll go look at the sticker and go, and it’s 32 miles per gallon. Well, really, emotionally, the big reason is you just like this new car. It makes you feel good. Now, logically, you go, well, and it’s 32 miles a gallon. So you start to justify, well, this is why I need it, even though it’s really a logical, emotional reason you’re doing it. But you’ve got to get people by their heart and then their head follows. Not the other way around. Well, and this is something Dale Carnegie talks a lot about, too, in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Another notable quotable here. This is what Dale Carnegie says. When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic, exactly like you’re saying. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity. Why do we have to know this when we’re trying to just communicate an idea to somebody? Well, I used to be in a room back in the day with my staff, and I’d be sitting at the boardroom table talking to guys, and I used to think, okay, what I’m doing is I just have to explain to them the logic of the idea. If I can just explain the logic, everyone’s going to win. But what I soon discovered is over here sitting across the table from me is Mr. Fear. Sitting over here is Mr. Vanity. Sitting over here is Mr. Pride. Sitting over here is Mr. He Needs Love. Sitting over here is Mr. Fun. Over here is Mr. Logic. Over here is Mr. Money. And I realize all these people make decisions for different reasons. Yeah. So I’ve got to address all of that in order to influence them. So literally I’ve got one guy on our team right now and every time I talk to him he’s like, I don’t care what makes us the most money. Right. Every time we look at anything. Right. Okay cool. I got another guy who says, I don’t really care if it makes money. I just want to make sure that I care about the cost. Right. Everyone has a different reason. You got to figure out how to communicate. So don’t just get into a logic based discussion with everyone because you can’t influence people that way. And talking about influence, that leads us right into our third principle here. Principle number three, true sales is about influence, not about manipulation. True sales is about influence, not manipulation. Why do so many people think it is about manipulation? Because these principles we’re teaching you for good can be used for bad. So I’ll give you an example. There is a thing that we know about called nuclear energy, okay? It’s nuclear energy, or just you can call it energy. But nuclear energy could be used to make massive explosions, right? Mushroom clouds, you know what I mean? This could be used to do that. Or it could be used to heat, power, cool, provide energy to houses, right? True. It’s this or this. The energy itself is not the problem. Okay. It’s are we using it to blow things up? Is that what we’re doing? Or are we using it to take care of people and help them heat and cool their homes? Okay, so this is how to influence people and influencing people can be when it’s used in corrective manipulation. So here’s an example. Probably one of the most powerful orators that we can ever think of is Martin Luther King. And Martin Luther King Jr. he actually helped change the mindset of America for good. And he had this thing called the ability to sell or influence. This is what Martin Luther King could do. But also on the worst side of this in the history of humanity is Hitler. The worst in the history. Both of them were powerful orators. I think anybody in the world would love to have the speaking skills of either one of these people But one couldn’t have been more good and one could not have been more evil But they both had the ability influence, but so many people when they think of influence They just think of manipulators right and the reality is we live in a corrupt and fallen world where a lot of people make a lot of mistakes every leader all of us We be the first one to cast the stone if you are sinless. But the point is, everybody makes mistakes. So we think of the corrupt president or the corrupt leader. We think about the corrupt basketball player. You think of Tom Brady with the footballs. He will be justified soon. He’s deflating football. Well, I’d say soon he will be proven to be just and right and pure in every area on the field. But the thing is, is that we think of influence. We think of, yeah, everyone’s trying to screw us, they’re trying to manipulate us or trying to whatever. But really the principle is neutral. Oh and a lot of people I think say I don’t want to do sales because I don’t want To manipulate people that way but Zig Ziglar a little notable quotable from Zig Zig Ziglar says stop selling start helping Stop selling okay helping because that’s where the if you have the ability to sell and influence you can actually start helping other people Okay, helping versus hurting and this right here over here over here on the helping side, okay, this is influence. In my mind, this is, whoa, this is our influence. This would be considered selling. And this over here is called manipulation. So what happens is, is you ask yourself, at the end of the day, is my product helping or hurting people? And if you’re helping people, then in my mind, you should proudly sell it. You should influence people. You should convince people that it is the right idea at the right time for the right person right now. However, if it’s hurting people, it’s manipulation. You can stop doing it. Okay, so what we’re doing here is we’ve hopefully shown you guys that selling is important. It’s something that everybody needs to be doing. The three points we went over were we’re all selling. Second, if you can’t sell, all your ideas are going to Hades. And the third is true sales is about influence, not manipulation. Absolutely. If you have convinced me, talk to the Thriver on the other side of the camera that says, all right, I never thought I was selling. I didn’t think it was important for me to be able to influence people. Now I understand. What books would you recommend to the Thriver who says, let’s get into it. How do I do this better? I need to improve. Well, if you’re somebody who learns very well through reading, Soft Selling in a Hard World by Vass, V-A-S-S, is the most powerful sales book out there in terms of just the brass tacks of how to sell. Never seen a better book about that. Small book, great book. Soft, selling in a hard world. Also, I’d recommend you watch every video that we put out every month on sales because sales is, it’s kind of like working out or it’s kind of like taking a shower. You’re never done getting clean. You take a shower and tomorrow you wake up and you’re like, what’s that taste in my mouth? I’m gross. I’m a gross person. And you want to brush those teeth, right? You want to take a shower. Sales, you want to just keep on getting better day after day after day after day. Don’t just go, well I’ve learned sales so now I’ve learned everything. No, no. Commit to just being the best at it. Maybe take 15 minutes a week and watch a nice video on sales every week until you become the top of the top of the top, the best of the best, and then just keep on going. Yeah, well I don’t know if it’s your, you know, if you’re influencing or manipulating, whatever it is, but you’ve kind of convinced me, just being around you, you have convinced me you are in fact a beautiful man, I love being around you, so thank you. Thank you, I’ve never been complimented for my outward beauty. Boom. Find best practice goats in your industry, okay? So, Clay, what is a goat? We talk about goats. What are we… Can you explain that for me? Well, it’s an animal that will eat anything. Okay, thank you. One that I found in my backyard. I appreciate that. Actually, I found one and we moved out to the forest area now. I found it in my backyard about three weeks ago. You found a… I’ve been looking for my goat. I’m not even kidding. No, but seriously, a goat stands for the greatest of all time. Okay. So you’re looking for something that is the best in your industry. And I’ll just give you an example of this. It’s just something about the delirium and the delusional optimism needed to start a business or product causes us to believe that we will change the world, which is good. But we also have to understand that somebody’s probably already been down that path at least halfway. Or, if you’re going up the mountain path, you know, if you’re trying to climb a mountain, find a path that somebody’s already kind of worn or that you… They’re kind of avoided a lot of the pitfalls. I mean, somebody had to make a bunch of wrong missteps to make that path. And so you just want to ask yourself, who is the best practice company that’s already in my space a little bit? So with your product, it’s biking related, is that right? Correct. Okay. And you’re working on a book, is that correct? That’s right. Okay, so what I would do, this is homework for you, I would immediately go to the store or Amazon and I would immediately buy the top five biking books of all time. Whatever those five are, I would buy them. So you’re probably going to have the courtesy Lance Armstrong book in there, you’re probably going to have that. But buy the top five and read them. And look for common denominators. So take your highlighter out and highlight, and when you see something that’s common from book one to two, type it into a spreadsheet. And then all of those common denominators, make sure that those are at least considered as an idea for your book. So even though you’ve already written your book, and as an example, I’ll give you an example. One of the best business books I’ve ever read, ever, just blew my mind, is a book called the service profit chain. Love that book. It’s a Harvard case study and it is very, very good. The problem is it’s not very top selling because what kind of sick freaks read case studies all the time? So it’s like me, you know. So when you look at Tony Robbins, he’s one of the best selling. So by reading Tony Robbins and then reading the service profit chain, I was able to combine a lot of the best practices from both into my book. And so Thrive is one of my books and whenever I go to speaking events, I get so many compliments where people go, I love all the quotes and all the statistics in the book. I just, that totally is my thing. And I go, oh I know, I’ve read all the top entrepreneurship books. I know what you’re looking for. But I also know they like the stories and the motivational aspects of Tony Robbins. So just look at those top five books and I mean, wear them out. I’m talking about highlighting them. One trick I do too is I’ll go to Walgreens and I’ll buy those little tabs you can put in there and I’ll tab it out and I’ll put a little tab there where it’s kind of a book marker and I’ll say, great example of how to do boom, boom, boom. I’ll just go through and I literally will have a spreadsheet of like 150 specific things that I want to make sure weave my way into my book. And I promise you if you do that, the reception will be unbelievable. And also get the covers of the top selling books in the fitness industry. So go out there and you don’t necessarily have to buy them. I love to buy them because you can get them used at least and you’ll have them on your desk and it helps you visually lock in. But find the top five fitness related books. And Napoleon Hill, my favorite author, did this move and it’s unbelievable. What he did was he bought the copyrights to books that didn’t sell. So he went out there, I mean, imagine these people worked so hard. How many hours have you spent on your book so far, you think? I mean, if you had to speculate. Oh, a hundred. Yeah. A hundred. So, I mean, you’re passionate about it. The more time you’ve put into it, you know. So he found these people who had spent hundreds and hundreds, thousands of hours writing books and they just didn’t sell. So he said, can I buy them from you for like nothing? And people are like, okay. So he bought them and then he decided to split the profit with them a little bit. He went in and put a new cover on them and he just rebranded them and the book sales went. And so again, that’s an old school, that’s the bookstore before digital stuff. But I’m telling you, this is something you definitely can do. Definitely do. Okay. Make sure, make sure that you look at the top five. And then one little bonus tip, I’m going off road just a little bit to help you for your specific niche. Find 20 people that you want to endorse your book that everybody who’s in cycling knows. Find 20 of them. And call them all until they cry, buy, or die. But get one of them, seriously, one of them to endorse your book. The best example I can give you is Tim Ferriss. He’s now super popular. He wrote a book called The Four Hour Workweek. Super popular. And when he wrote his first book, no one had any idea who he was. And so one of the first things he did is he had a guy by the name of Phil Town, T-O-W-N. He’s a bestselling author. He had Phil Town endorse his book. So right on the cover it says, Endorsed by Bestseller. And right away it just gave it enough validity to pass the smell test. The book was called A Four-Hour Workweek. Are you kidding me? So he was able to get that validation, which helps him a lot. So again, just to kind of recap on that, very, very, very important that you look at the goats. I’m going to give you a notable quotable that kind of solidifies this in my mind. An organization’s ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage. Jack Welch, one of the top CEOs of all time. So Jack grew GE by 4,000%. People say, how do you do that? Well, he didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. He literally, when he took over one of the TV networks, and we’ll put the name of the network on the screen here, but he brought on Seinfeld and a lot of programs that did well, but he took a struggling, it was a national TV network that was doing okay, but he was able to take it to the next level by just studying what makes shows great and then asking himself, are we doing those things? And if they weren’t, he cut the show and he made room for shows like Seinfeld and that took off. So again, just look at yourself as an organization, look for the top five and say, what are they doing that I’m not? Look at the covers, look at the content, reverse engineer that and a little bonus, make sure you reach out to 20 people to endorse it. Find one person that you’re willing to say, Hey, I will literally, I will pay you 200 bucks to read my book, and if you think it’s great, I really, you know, we could talk about a deal to endorse it, or just do whatever you have to do, because Bill Zanker, I think his name’s Bill Zanker, he wrote the book called Think Big and Kick, with, by Donald Trump. So if you go, we’ll pull the book cover up on the episode here, but if you go onto Amazon and you type in Think Big and Kick, and then A-S-S, you’ll see the book and it says, by Donald Trump, massively. But Bill understands the move. And so it says here, really small, Donald Trump’s the big word, but it says, by Bill’s anchor with Donald Trump, but the with is like, the Trump is massive on the cover and the Bill’s anchor is small. And he literally, Trump literally wrote like, I want to say, one page of that book, but it just pushed sales. So anyway, do you have any questions for finding goats or the process that is involved with that or how you would go about doing that? I’ve actually, through watching some of the episodes, have kind of taken those steps and started looking. I hadn’t actually bought the books, but I kind of know, I have an idea on some of that stuff. So I think it’s good. I’m going to tell you one thing that, again, just kind of an encouragement. When you buy the book, something will happen to you on almost like a, for those of you who have a spiritual beliefs, maybe you can connect with those of you who don’t. But it’s like when you talk about biking, how committed are you to the idea really? But when you buy a bike and you’ve gone through the effort of buying it and investing in it, now it’s kind of like, well, I should probably ride it. When you have the books in front of you written by guys just like you who’ve gone on to be best sellers and you have them in front of your desk every day and you sit down, I’ve worked with many, many authors to help them with this. It’s unbelievable how much it’ll change the game for you. So I would buy those books and have them right out there in front of you. You were telling me it’s just the same thing. Like when you bought the Lufa, you wanted to use the loofah. You told me that. That’s very true. That’s very true. You always are trying to… Because I have five kids and a very organic wife, Marshall makes fun of all these accoutrements, all this organic and this loofah. I know about a whole different world that you don’t even know about with your infinite singleness. Yeah, okay. One thing that we’ve learned from a lot of Thrivers is Thrivers have told us, guys, I love the video trainings. In addition to that, though, I’d like to come and have a workshop with my staff. I want to bring my team. I would like to bring five people. Can I do that? Marshall and I in a room, we probably would have never thought about that, our team. We would never have been like, oh, let’s have a workshop. You’re going, well, sure. Then you talk to someone else and they go, can I listen to it like audio only while I’m driving or biking or more like… Okay. You know, the idea that you’d want to listen to a training while riding your bike, I mean, I never would have thought of that because I think about it from my narrow perspective. So I’m going to play the game with you real quick and see if you can educate us just so we kind of get this. Okay. So you’re on Thrive. What is the part of the experience that you like the most? Oh, let’s see. Well, I like the videos. I like the fact that they’re short, but yet you get a lot of content in them, and I can do that every day. I don’t have to schedule a big amount of time to do that, and so I think that’s what’s intriguing to me is that you get a lot in little. If you had to add one feature, let’s say you had to, you could choose, you’re CEO, so you’re Dr. Z. Now we have Dr. Z’s big Z up on the wall there and his massive horse trophy. But if you could be Dr. Z for a day and you could say, here are three features, it doesn’t matter what they cost, here are three features, if I could add those I would, what would they be? Wow. Or even one. You’d go, oh man, it’d be great if you had this. You can totally just, anything you want. Anything you want. Traveling to a… Smell-o-vision is mine. You want to make it where you can smell the screen? Through the screen. That right there, sir, is not a good idea. Back to you. I’d like to see you guys do a podcast on bikes and training while you’re speaking. The reason why I’m asking you guys this, though, is because this is what it’s like when you interview your customers. This is what it’s like. And a lot of times they haven’t thought about what they would make it better or what they don’t like. But you kind of have to have a conversation. And let me tell you what, via email, it won’t happen. They’ll just respond and go, you know, I’m happy. So I’m coming back to you again because we’re role playing here. You have to give me one and then I will give you a free beverage, a non-alcoholic beverage from our bar area, you know, biking approved beverage, very low calorie. What’s one, just one magic feature you’ve done? One magic feature to Thrive 15. Man, man, got me on the spot. Don’t you worry about it. Let’s say what, we’ll keep going and when you think of it, you just, you write it down. The reason why I’m doing this is because Thrivers, this is what it’s like. This is how it is. I’m not kidding. I went out there and with my DJ company I built the entertainment company and I’m sitting down with the brides and I’m going This is what I did. I’ve literally went to wedding shows without any equipment. I’m not exaggerating. I went to a wedding shows I did not own any equipment and I went to try to Find out what brides wanted and I couldn’t even if you booked me I had no equipment So I would tell the bride I say hey, they’d say well, what do you guys charge? I mean, that’s a great question We’ve got a lot of different packages, but let me ask you, we’ve got an unbelievable special going right now, and I just want to see if we’re a good fit. What are you looking for from the DJ?” And the brides would say, remember one lady goes, well, unlimited time. Nobody had said unlimited time. Every DJ in Tulsa charged for four hours. Everyone. Everyone in Texas. Everyone in New York. I couldn’t, I mean, unlimited time. She goes, yeah, it’s just stressful. I’m thinking in my mind, my DJ mind, most venues kick you out at midnight anyway. But in her mind, just not having to worry about that extra overtime was huge. I said, well, what else? She goes, if you guys could just get any song for me. All these other companies have to limit, you have to choose through a list. It’s time consuming. You have to look through this list of 5,000 songs. Just any song at all, if you could do that. I’m like, okay, what else? Another lady says, I need a coordinator who could plan my whole wedding, organize the event. Someone else says, I hate all the lighting stuff I’m paying for. I don’t really want that. I just want sound, lights, and music. You start going, everyone keeps saying the same thing. I bet you if I built that, they would want it. These are just some of the moves, but you just got to draw it out of people and just understand that when you talk to 50 people, you’ll probably get feedback from 20, 25, but you’ve gotta get that initial core feedback. So homework for ya, I might recommend that you would go to the bike store and you might set up a booth, and you set up a booth, and it’s a booth promoting your book. You see you have a table there, and the table there has a little banner that you bought from like SignsNow or something like that that has the name of your book on it. And it has your, you know, and then there’s a little banner of you. And it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, you know, table with like a black linen on it. And you’re literally sitting down and you’re paying people five bucks. I’d like to hear any of your things that you want to know as it relates to my book that’s coming out. And they go, Oh, okay, sure. And they tell you and you keep doing that. Well, you’re out 250 bucks, but what you’re going to do is you’re going to gain so much knowledge that you can’t possibly get while talking to yourself. You got to get out of the room. And so these guys were talking about that. That’s not a scalable solution to fly out and meet every single customer now. But at the time it was. Now they have millions of customers, but they had to get it right. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. Any questions about that? Am I connecting with you? No, that’s right on. Okay, cool, back to you. Boom. Create online ads targeted at your ideal and likely buyers and track the results. So Clay, this fourth step seems a little bit off. It says track online ads. So you’re saying go ahead and launch the ads before the idea is validated or that’s part of the process. So that seems a little counterintuitive. So walk me through that. Well, Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, W. Edwards-Deming, they both have quotes that are kind of similar. But Edwards-Deming, he says this, in God we trust, all others bring data. What is he talking about? What he’s talking about is that if you have data, it’s easy to look at the factual numbers. If it’s opinion, so you’re out there meeting all these people, a lot of people will say, oh, I would totally buy that book. If that book was out, I would buy it. I hear that so much. Oh, Clay, Clay, if you opened up a party rental company, I would totally buy from you. I hear that all the time. Really? Yeah. So I did what? I went out and actually bought a party rental company. I literally did this. And then guess who didn’t buy? Those people. Why? Because they weren’t actual people who were buying. These are brides who were telling me in hindsight, oh, if you would have had that, I would have used it. But looking forward, after I owned it, which was I did the reverse of this, okay, I’ve learned over time, but I own this company. So I have now hundreds of thousands rentals, big bands, employees, bills, and no customers. And I’m going, what is the deal? And I discovered that it was so weird for the bride to say, so you’re my DJ, right? Yeah, I am. And you’re my party rental company, right? Yeah? It’s like having a Jiffy Lube and a men’s grooming salon in the same business. So it’s like, welcome to Big Al’s Jiffy Lube and plumbing and haircuts. And it’s just too separate of an idea. People start to wonder, are you really good at either one of these things? And so I had to realize that I had to actually refer myself. So I had to have our DJ say, hey, are you still looking for party rentals? And they go, yeah. And they go, well, one of the companies we work with is called Party Perfect. We highly recommend you give them a chance to check them out, look at their inventory, they’re good people, call Kim. The referral worked 10 times better than me providing the service myself. Another example is Southwest Airlines. On their website, they sell airplane tickets, but you can also buy a hotel and you can rent cars up there. But they don’t own their own hotels. They own the airline business and they refer stuff. And I say all that to say that they discovered over time that a referral was better than them actually doing that industry. So here’s what you do. You’re going to create an online ad that’s going to try to sell your book before you can actually fulfill it. And don’t feel bad about it. You’re not going to take anyone’s money, but you’re going to create an ad. And what you’ll do is you’ll go into, we have separate trainings on this that will walk you through, but you’ll go into like Facebook and you’ll build out your profile. So they say, who do you want to market to? And you say, people who are between this age and this age, men or women, and you say, and then they say, what are their hobbies? You put cycling, bicycling, fitness, you put it all in there, and they say, what do you want to spend per day? And you say, five bucks a day. And they say, okay, so you run the ads now for like a thousand people, and you’ll be able to see which ads they click. So if people click that book title and not that book title, you should probably go with the book title they’re clicking. And Tim Ferriss who built the 4-Hour Workweek book, this is what he did. So you can actually test the book title idea by just putting up an ad and seeing who clicks on what. And people don’t lie when they’re not being asked directly. They’re just clicking and then the data shows you what they’re doing. And so the kind of things you want to track is the number of impressions, which is the number of times that the ad was shown, the number of clicks, you know, which ad got the most clicks that you want to have. How many people went from the ad to the actual shopping cart in an attempt to buy it? I mean, how many people went that far? Now, once you get your shopping cart up, we can help you do all that. Then you’d want to track your purchases and then you want to track the cost of, uh, each paying customer. So you’d go, well, for every customer that went to the shopping cart, I paid $8 to get them there. Wow, that might be too much for me. Or that might be perfect. So if you’re self-publishing a book, maybe the cost of print of the book is like $3 a piece, and you pay $8 per conversion, and you’re selling it for $15, maybe there’s enough of a margin there to do it. So you’ve got to be thinking about the cost of doing that. And you just want to ask yourself, which advertisement campaign is the most effective. And then that answers your question for you. So after you’ve gotten the book put together to a point where it’s basically done, you’re going to want to then track the ad data before you go through the process of actually publishing it. So when the book manuscript is pretty solid, and maybe you’re struggling between this title, this title, and this title, that’s when you’re going to want to run those ads. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. And if somebody clicks it, you just say, coming soon, stay tuned. Right. And the best, do we have it set up where I can pull up web examples right now? No? Okay, cool. What we’ll do is we’ll go ahead and add it to the screen here, but if you go to 4-hour work week, we’ll pull up a tool called, is it called Wayback? The Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine, okay? So you go to thewaybackmachine.com, thewaybackmachine.com, you go there and you’re going to put in four-hour work week. You can see how Tim Ferriss’ book, the four-hour work week, how the website looked. You’ll see the evolution of that where he was tracking the data and how he changed the look of it until it got to a look that people were willing to pay for. Little bonus tip, look huge. I know you. I know you’re credible. I know you’re not delusional but most people won’t buy from somebody who they don’t view as a source of wisdom so make sure that your professional photos are unbelievably well done your photography your website all of those tools are done you know to it to the next level high quality right cool cool yeah JT you know what time it is It’s T-Bo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Over the years we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show Workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of Rustic Cuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of Rustic Cuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes! We’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop, December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15 minute question and answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show Today Interactive Business Workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrivetimeshow.com, simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at thrivetimeshow.com. You’re going to see thousands of people just like you who’ve been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to ThrivedTimeshow.com. You just go to ThrivedTimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket, or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! Who? You! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russell. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars, and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of L.A., come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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. 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. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point, New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki Radio Stand Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. thing but I thought since you and Eric are close Trump what were you saying about what Trump can’t what Donald who is my age and I can say or cannot say what first of all I have to honor you sir I want to show you what I did to one of your books here there’s a name of Jeremy Thorne who was my boss at the time I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books, and I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor, and I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump, but I just wanna tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. So anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.