The next article features a transcript from a real training with a local entrepreneur and business coach Clay Clark (US Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year) talking about using your goals to motivate you on thrive15.com, one of the most logical business schools in Florida.
Clay Clark: My name is Clay Clark and today I’m joined with Dennis. Dennis is an entrepreneur and business coach who probably, just like you, is wanting to grow a successful business. Today we’re gonna be teaching specifically about how he can define the center of his wheel of wealth, how he can actually define where he wants to be in terms of spirit, mind, body, relationships and finances, because really your business is just a vehicle to help you and Dennis get from where you are to where you want to be. If you’ve ever felt like you’ve built this big business, but you work all the time and you really don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, this episode is for you. It’s one of these episodes where you can take the time out … here, kind of a call, a life time out … to ask yourself what are your goals in terms of spirit, mind, body, relationships and finances, and see how that all interplays and all connects into your business.
Clay Clark: All right we’re here with Dennis Meeter? Do you know if Eminem is a business coach?
Dennis: Metter, yes.
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Clay Clark: Dennis. Metter, Metter. Why did I say Mee-? I probably did that to build rapport.
Dennis: Yeah, that’s what it was.
Clay Clark: Metter, okay, so Dennis, real quick, because I know nothing can be more awkward than talking to a business coach guy with a ton of people having cameras in your face. How many kids do you have? Are you married? Can you tell us just a little bit about your background. Is eminem a business coach?
Dennis: Yeah, I am 36 years old, been married to the same girl half my life.
Clay Clark: Okay.
Dennis: We got married right when we turned 19 …
Clay Clark: Yeah, how old are your business coach kids?
Dennis: … and so, got three kids, a 14-year-old son, a 8-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old daughter.
Clay Clark: You got married when you were 19?
Dennis: Yes.
Clay Clark: I got married when I had just turned 20, so my wife and I were 20 at that point. She was still 19 when we got engaged, I believe. Let me ask you this here. You’ve gone into a lot of different businesses and today we’re teaching about business coach goal-setting and specifically how to contrast where you are versus where you want to be.
Dennis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay Clark: If you can go back to your 19-year-old mind, because I know that I can remember this, and you go back and you’re in college. Everyone says that they want to be successful.
Dennis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay Clark: Then you look at it from a 36-year-old perspective. What’s maybe the one thing that’s been most elusive to you about goal-setting, like over the career, over your years, where you’ve said like, gosh, goal-setting is a lot different than maybe how I thought it was?
Dennis: There’s a book that’s great for a business coach, I think it’s by John Maxwell, called “Talent is Never Enough.”
Clay Clark: Oh, okay.
Dennis: I think that that is probably the one thing that I have, in the school of hard knocks, learned.
Clay Clark: Okay.
Dennis: Talent and intellect is not enough. That’s kind of every time I’ve come to some kind of thresholds and maybe got frustrated or got discouraged instead of pushing through on some businesses. I’ve had some successes and I’ve had some failures. Most entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs, and so the difference was at that time, I just thought because of my wits, because of maybe some natural talents, that I would accomplish anything and everything that I set out to do.
Clay Clark: One notable quotable that I’ll give you … it’s kind of fun … but I met with a mentor years ago, multi-millionaire, and he told me, he says, “Clay? Every successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met is either dumb or numb.” Like they don’t process adversity or they just be able to plunge right through it. As we get into today, I think what we’re going to talk about here is the mindset and the goal-setting, because I’m going to draw some stuff up on here and we’ll kind of work through it together.
The first principle here is that we really, if we don’t have written out goals for every area of our life, if we don’t have a clear vision and really the idea of a clear vision of how we’re going to get there and a clear decision as to what products and services we’re going to offer in exchange for it, I think it’s really hard to get there.
Dennis: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Clay Clark: So I’m gonna use my Deejay business as a business coach example.
Dennis: Okay.
Clay Clark: Then maybe you can draw some parallels with your own career. I know specifically my goal was to hire my dad. That was my goal was to hire my dad. We grew up financially without a lot of money and so it was to hire my dad, and then I also wanted to be a millionaire by 30. That was like two goals I had. I think a lot of entrepreneurs might have that goal. Maybe someone who is 30 says, when I’m 40, or I’m 40, they say 50. I had to one point ask myself, specifically, what service am I going to offer in exchange for this, because I vacillate somewhere between no talent and little talent. I thought that I could be a Deejay because I just grab some speakers and lights and get after it. Do you have any idea what I was able to charge for my first … if you were to speculate … how much I charged for my first weddings I Deejayed?
Dennis: 250 bucks.
Clay Clark: Yeah, man. Jeff Ramsey was the first guy that I convinced. Jeff, I thank you for booking with me. I convinced Jeff Ramsey to book with me for … it was like 225, and it was at circle … it was at something like Two Rivers of the Four Winds, this resort in like Keystone. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there before.
Dennis: Hmm-uh (negative).
Clay Clark: Two Rivers of the Four Winds … I think you got to Google that mess … it’s awesome. I’m Deejaying for Jeff there. I don’t know why he let me Deejay for him. I was dressing like an idiot. I was acting like an idiot. I think I met him at McDonald’s. Actually I did. I met him at McDonald’s, was my appointment. He called me about booking his wedding, and I’m like, “Hello?” Then he says, “Yeah, well, we’d like to get a price.” I said, “Well, let’s meet at McDonald’s. We can meet and go over the packages.” We met at McDonald’s!
I guess he figured the price is so cheap, it couldn’t be worse than no Deejay, I guess, so I go out there, and I never at this point, I never stopped to ask myself how many weddings I would have to do to hire my dad and retire at age 30. Now to hire my dad … I’m making up a number here … but if I wanted to hire my dad, and let’s just say it was $50,000 a year … I’m just gonna do the math. Let’s just say that its 225. That was just me Deejaying. If I paid another guy, if you only work two or three nights a week as a Deejay … you’re an adult man, and let’s say I paid the Deejay 100% of the ticket, the most that I could have paid my Deejay would be 675 a week and I wouldn’t make anything.