Business Coach | How to Manage Difficult People While Becoming the Leader You Want to Be

Audio Transcription

Today on the show, America’s number one business coach, Clay Clark, and Dr. Robert Zoellner talk about the 3D’s of employees.  The Dumb-Distracted-Dishonest people are the ones you want to get rid of and we brought on Taylor Hall, manager of the Tulsa Oilers, to teach you how to replace employees that are poisonous to the workplace.

Learn About How To Be A Successful Leader From The Business Coach : Podcast Transcript

Clay Clark: All right green country Oklahomies, T town. How we doing? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is the show where you go to experience your daily audio, dojo of mojo foshow. My name is Clay Clark and I am a business coach. I’m the SBA entrepreneur of the year in your ear and I’ve been sent here to really capture a couple of unicorns to bring some people inside the box that rocks who are Oklahomies or local Tulsons who know what they’re talking about in their respective area. First off, we have the co-host with the moost and the international man of mystery, it is Dr. Robert Zoellner. Sir, how are you?

Robert Zoellner: Hello Thrivers. Happy Thursday. You almost made it through the week, but you know what, it’s a New Year.

Clay: Oh, yes.

Robert: It’s a New Year and we’ve got an exciting thing to kick off this year for all the Thrivers out there. January 20 and 21; write it on your calendar, circle it on your calendar.

Clay: Give me a second.

Robert: Maybe get a tattoo, maybe get a tattoo in your arm, 20-21. I’ll tell you what, we’re having an in-person workshop here at our world headquarters.

Clay: Yes, right here on the left coast of the Arkansas River. We’re having the Thrive 15.com two-day interactive work shop. It is 15 hours of power. We’re getting into that boring stuff, but we do it in a fun way. We’re getting into like how to make a work flow, how to do check list, accounting, customer service. All those areas that the search engine optimization, they’re all taught in one spot and there’s no up sales Z, no up sales.

Robert: No up sales and the part that I think I’m most proud about, Clay to be very frank with you, not only it’s like a week in a business school excellence. For those of you out there that are thinking about starting a business, you want to start a business, you’re saying, “This is the year I’m going to do it, just going to do it”

Clay: This is the year.

Robert: Or you’ve started one, you said, “Hell bunny”.

Clay: Last year was supposed to be my year.

Robert: It was supposed to be my year. I’ll you what, what’s good – the thing I’m most proud about is that we have some local partners that have said, “Listen this is good stuff”.

Clay: Good stuff.

Robert: And we know there’re maybe some people out there struggling that can’t afford the full price of it, so they’ve offered up some scholarship money.

Clay: True story.

Robert: And with that means is that whatever you have in your pocket, seriously, we are going to help get you a scholarship so that you can come to this in-person workshop.

Clay: True story. I’d talk to a gentleman the other today, nice guy, who’ll be coming up to one of our workshop here. This guy, financially is in the spot where he goes, “I want to bring my wife and myself and one of my managers and a hundred dollars at this point what we could do, I know the ticket price is more than that, but I want to be there” and he’s like, “are you sure there’s no up sales, are you absolutely confident you’re not going to smoke a mirror at the back of the rooms. I’ve been to that thing. I’ve been to the big arena where they do that move. I’ve seen that whole up selling thing. Are you positive? I just want to – I don’t like lead my team to slaughter” and I go, “Absolutely man. Absolutely. I guarantee you.”

That’s the thing and Z we have a very special guest on the show today. We’re talking about how to manage good people, okay. How to manage good people. How to manage good people. How to go out and recruit a staff. How to manage people, hold them accountable in a world where there’s a lot of dumb, distracted and dishonest people.

Robert: What? Oh no, stop it. Why you got to be so negative? We’re Thursday.

Clay: We’re bringing in a guy who knows again how to manage good people in a world where there’s a lot of dumb, distracted and dishonest people out there. How to become that leader your company needs. We brought in the general manager –

Robert: GM.

Clay: – of your Tulsa Oilers, Taylor Hall in the box that rocks.

Taylor Hall: Boom. Hi Thrivers.

Clay: How are you doing Taylor?

Taylor: Awesome.

Clay: Now, for the Thrivers who don’t know, did you grew up in Canada? Is that right?

Taylor: I did.

Clay: And you play –

Taylor: Frozen white north.

Clay: Frozen the white north. Did you play a lot of hockey up there or where did you –

Taylor: That’s all we did in Canada.

Clay: Did you play pro-hockey or did you play some college hockey?

Taylor: I did, played a little pro-hockey.

Clay: So, how did you find yourself as being a general manager –

Robert: Wooh, wooh, wait, time out, time out. I got a very important question. I’m just going to jump right in Clay. Sorry about that.

Clay: Now you got to do it.

Robert: I just talked right over you.

Clay: You got to do it.

Robert: Sometime it happens or expected. Taylor, how many teeth have you had knocked out in your career?

Taylor: Just two.

Robert: Just two?

Taylor: Just two.

Robert: What’s the average of a professional hockey player?

Taylor: Oh boy, probably – probably two to four [laughs], I don’t think. I don’t know, maybe they don’t know it. They have all their teeth.

Robert: I do, yes, exactly, well [laughs] that’s the thing Clay did you know and Clay have you ever played hockey?

Clay: I did not play hockey as a kid, but I grew in Minnesota and a lot of my friends, a lot of people in the [unintelligible 00:04:50] door for Bjorn or [unintelligible 00:04:53]. These kind of guys. They played hockey up there. That’s a big thing you do up there in Minnesota.

I’m just telling you what, there something about hockey that I don’t understand. I want to see if Taylor can explain this because I’m not sure if this is a management rule. Like in my office, if two of our sales guys are getting into a discussion or dispute or maybe in your office Thrivers, maybe you’re an accountant or you’re a muffler shop and you’re a dentist, people in your office get in to a dispute or maybe you play a sport of yours, people get in to a dispute. Typically, they get in into a dispute and the referee will blow that whistle and call a time out, or the manager will go, hey you two separate, whatever. In hockey, you guys just let them fight, that’s part of the game.

Taylor: That’s the way you solve the problems. The gloves come off and everybody works it out.

Clay: What ages are you allowed to start fighting? You have to be 16 or 15, what’s the age where you can first start fighting in a game?

Taylor: Well they fight all the time. It’s just that you get kicked out of a game when you’re young and once you get to be a teenager then they let you go and you’ll get five minutes for fighting.

Clay: Z, what if they allow that in basketball? Would you be a bigger fan of basketball? They just let the player just go at it.

Robert: Absolutely. And that’s why everybody if you have the opportunity over your lunch time right now. I know everybody is deciding where to go and eat lunch, where we going to go, what I’m going to get? You get in your car. You’re doing your move. If you can get to a computer and watch us on Facebook live because you may not really — you may sit there and go, “Oh Clay and Z, they sound like they’re just such good friends and they get along.”

Clay: Do they really get along now?

Robert: And we actually take off the gloves every now and then and we just have certified here in the box that rocks, certified, just throw down, right here.

Clay: It will happen I’ll tell you.

Robert: We still have our teeth. I’m not that violent, but we get it on.

Clay: I’ll tell you something, if you’re on Facebook live right now and you see Mr. Taylor Hall, the general manager of your Tulsa Oilers, this is what you’re going to see.

[music]

Clay: It’s I candy. He’s bromantic. He’s bromatic.

Robert: Born Canadian, shiny head [laughs]

Clay: All right now Thrivers, I have a question for you right now. If you’re listening right now in the radio, go up to Facebook live, tune in and tell us how many hairs Taylor has on his doom – on his head. Tell us many hairs. That is the trivia question for today. Send us an email, input at thrive15.com and we’ll give you free copy of my newest book, Thrive, the first person, the first three, give the number [unintelligible 00:07:06]

Robert: Hair accounting?

Clay: Yes, hair accounting.

Robert: That’s original. I mean, we have bean eating and now we have hair accounting. There’s a lot of ways to get your book, I mean a lot.

Clay: [laughs] All right now, here’s the deal Thrivers. Here’s a deal for you. We’re talking about this topic in how to manage good people and dumb and distracted and dishonest people while becoming the leader you want to be. I’m going to give you a little fun fact toyed that blows my mind every time that I hear it. The US chamber of commerce estimates that what percentage Z, what percentage of employee steal from the work place and do so repeatedly. By the way, if you want to verify this, just Google CBS news US chamber employee theft. Z, if you’d to guess the percentage of employees that steal from the workplace and do so repeatedly, what’s that number my friend? Here we go.

Announcer: Broadcasting from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.

Robert: I want to ask you a question, can we break something down?

Clay: Okay, come on break it down?

Robert: To break it down on this Thursday. What all the category are you’re saying stealing? Because when you say stealing, what comes to mind to me is a mask, a gun, cash register being opened, you’re duck taped in the back room.

Clay: Once it had happen to me in the last 12 months. It happened in my own businesses.

Robert: I wanted the category then I can give you the percentage that I think it is.

Clay: They’re talking about like tangibles. I say tangibles. This is what this particular study was about, it’s tangible things. Maybe in my office, taken some head phones or stealing some stuff out of the fridge or take a product, take a mouse pad, to take tangible items.

Robert: That reminds me. I needed a mouse pad. I’m glad you said that by the way.

Clay: Oh you do?

Robert: I do actually, so if you have one I’d like to steal it.

Clay: I’ll make that right now.

Robert: [unintelligible 00:08:51] one from you. I know the answer. I’m just trying to let people go out there, think out there that are listening to this right now, getting ready to guess at themselves because what happens is that theft is – there’s a lot of ways that an employee can steal from you. It’s rather high. It’s like three out of four, it’s 75%.

Clay: Yes 75%. Taylor, does that shocked you?

Taylor: Wow.

Clay: I mean that kind of blow your mind. You manage a lot of people over the years, is that? Have you ever, ever – you don’t much made the details in a specific but ever caught somebody is stealing from you or basically you come to the office and they’re doing nothing but you’re paying them to do something. Is that ever happened?

Taylor: Oh yes.

Clay: Z, is that ever happen to you?

Robert: You know my very first employee whenever I first started the firm.

Clay: Oh, boy.

Robert: I’m kind of inherited her if you would a little bit. I didn’t hire her. She wasn’t my first hire if you will, but I inherited her and she was caught stealing cash from me.

Clay: Oh, Billy. Broke ass.

Robert: It’s just kind of freak me out, broke my heart and I’m like, what, what in the world?

Clay: Now, I’m going to tell you what Thrivers, if you’re listening right now. I tell you I inherited Z’s former first employee or maybe you’ve inherited someone that I fired recently, okay. I’m going to give you — this is the problem that we’re going to solve today. This is the problem we have, okay?

Robert: Okay, good. We’re going to solve it.

Clay: Here’s the problem, are you feeling frustrated? You’re working massive amounts of hours but you don’t have enough time in your life because you’re always filling in for people who call in sick? Is that you? Are you somebody who is on the verge of stapling the checklist to the employees’ cranium, to their head, because you’re gong, “I’ve taught you how to clean the bathroom at least 47 times, and I don’t want to make it 74 times, please please just do the thing.”

Do you find yourself where everyone in your office calls in sick, you know the day we had one inch of snow, are you the kind of employer where your whole team is like, “For safety I can’t be here, that’s my safety reasons. ” Do you feel your employees are in charge of your business? You started a business but now they’re in charge of it, you feel you’re working for them.

Robert: I’ve seen that more ties than I cared of seeing that, really. It’s almost like the anarchy, it’s like they’ve taken over and I’ve seen, you be like, “I just don’t want to upset them, they’ve been so nice.”

Clay: This isn’t a political show. Z, this is the one chance I get to be pseudo political. Here’s the deal, this is my point, strong leadership impacts things. Period.

Robert: Okay, breaks it down a little bit.

Clay: Here is the statistic that just came in, this is from Bloomberg, and by the way if you know anything about Bloomberg , you know that Bloomberg is left of center publications. They are more of a democratic or a liberal mindset. This is what they said, “The consumer confidence climbed in December to the highest level since 2001 as many Americans have become more upbeat about the economic outlook.”

They have the CEO of Bank of America on Charlie Ross, a left of center program, talking about how there’s a certain confidence in the marketplace right now because there’s that strong leadership coming. All I can say is left or right, regardless of what party you’re in or your worldview, the consumer confidence index which is one of the biggest indicators of economic growth is spiking right now. I’m asking you in your business, left or right, I don’t care what you background is, your political views. When you come into your office, do you bring a certain swag and a certain economic indicator that, ‘Wow, this person knows what they’re doing.” ?

Robert: You have to. I’ll tell you what, that’s what people want to see in their leader, that’s what they are following, they are buying into that. If you don’t have it, it’s impossible, I’m going to say this again, it’s impossible for anybody in the organization to have it.

Clay: Here’s the thing Thrivers, if you’re listening right now and you’re going, “Okay I got it, I can pretend to be swaggerlicious.” Trust me, we’ve all been there, I started the business from somewhere, Z started from somewhere, Taylor took over the job from somewhere. When you first take the job or take the position, you have to bring a certain confidence to, “Okay, we’re going to change some things, we’re going to create the right culture, and we’re going to take things to the next level.” When we get back, I want to be peppering, I’m going to be asking Taylor a barrage of questions, of what it’s like to every year recruit a bunch of players, put them on a team and try to execute. Taylor you’re bringing on new players every year are you not?

Taylor: Every year, in the middle of the year all the time.

Clay: You’re losing players to the NHL or to different leagues or different injuries, you’re bringing in a whole new squad, you got to lead this people.

Taylor: They need leadership.

Clay: When we come back we’re going to ask on the nitty-gritty of what’s it’s like to bring a band of brothers together and try to galvanize a team and go out there and win some games. Noelle has been very successful over the years so this is going to be getting into the details, we’re also going to be asking Z, how do you do it Z? How do you find the time, how do you find the energy to lead a group of people and many of which are destructed, they’re dishonest, they’re dumb, how do you deal without losing your sanity my man?

Robert: I would tell you right now but you know what? That music signals an obnoxious commercial break which is for something like profit or something, it’s silly.

Clay: Here’s a little subtle endorsement I have, go to Region Bank and go to Oklahoma Joe’s and then go to Region Bank. Thrivetimeshow.com

Announcer: Live, local, now. You’re listening to the Thrivetime show on talk radio 1170.

Clay: Welcome back into the Thrivetime show inside the box that rocks inside the thrive15.com world headquarters, broadcasting live from the left coast of Arkansas river. Well we’re going to teach you the moves Z. These are the moves –

Robert: The moves.

Clay: – If you take these eight moves and you apply these eight moves into your business, I promise you this, if you have a viable business, “What does viable mean?” If you have a product that you’re currently selling or a service that people want, it’s a real thing. If it’s not a smoking mere deal, but its a real business, you can double the productivity of your team, because the research is out there that shows you how non-productive the average person is. I challenge you right now if you’re listening, get out your smartphone and google, ‘Employeetimewastedonsocialmedia Forbes.’ There you will find that the average American employer has a team of people who are wasting three and a half hours a day on average not working Z, which is about half of the work day if you factor in lunch.

Robert: Well, which is really thievery. You’re paying them to work, they’re not working, they’re putting their own personal cred in front of the job that you’ve hired them to do that they said they’re going to do, that you’re paying them to do. It can be super super frustrating. How do you keep that from happening? How do you knock that down significantly? Listen to today’s show because we’re going to give you a couple of super moves as we go through today’s show on how to do that, because you may say to yourself, “Well, I don’t own a business yet, so I don’t have employees yet.”

Clay: “I don’t have a business why does this show even matter.”

Robert: -“I’m going to eat my chicken salad sandwich, I’m going to go to Oklahoma Joe’s, I’m going to swing by Region Bank and cash a check.”

Clay: “I might get somebody to cash my check immediately, we’re going to get some [unintelligible 00:17:09] I got a whole day planned.”

Robert: I’m going to tell you a little secret, a lot of you listening out there you may not have your own business but we know-

Clay: We know.

Robert: We know.

Clay: I swear.

Robert: – Statistics show that more than half of you, 57% is what it says, you can google this, it’s a thing.

Clay: Half of yous.

Robert: – are wanting to start one. This is what we do, we business coach, we do business school without the BS, that’s why we have our thrive15.com online, it’s like the Netflix of business school, that’s where we do our in-person workshops. By the way, the next one is January 20, 21st and now we even have one-on-one business coaching because you guys had just hollad and screamed for it. We’re here as your resource, today’s show take good notes.

Clay: Take some good notes, copious amounts of notes.

Robert: Copious amounts of notes.

Clay: I swear, write things down

Robert: Right. That would be — I guess you can type it into your smart things.

Clay: You want to use your hand, get physical with it.

Robert: Get physical, physical. Or if you say, I’m driving, I can’t pull over to a truck stop right now, I can’t take some notes legally because I’ll get a ticket. We don’t want that for you.

Clay: Can’t do it.

Robert: Listen, you can go to thrivetimeshow.com.

Clay: “Does that require the internets?”

Robert: Thank you Algorius it does. You could go on thrivetimeshow.com, and all these shows are archived on there. We do that for you.

Clay: All archived, that’s two syllables, calm down, that’s a little complicated.

Robert: A little complicated there? Sorry about that. What my point is is that yes it may not apply to you today but you could be a manager. You may not your own business but you could be managing people. These are all the moves that you do to get more productivity out of them, because more productivity equals more profit.

Clay: More profit, this just in from a home office. With profit you can buy copious amounts of goods and services that you want and stuff you don’t even want, you can just buy things. Taylor Hall is inside the box that rocks, the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers. I’m going to tell you what, nobody knows more about selling stuff, selling tickets, selling a product that people want than him selling those tickets. Taylor, one of the Tulsao Oilers. The hottest thing on ice.

Taylor: Most exciting live event that you’re going to ever going to see here in Tulsa. We have live fighting and it’s legal, all kinds of stuff for families and we’ve got beer, we’ve got a great time down at the BOK center and there’s also hockey going on too.

Clay: Now Thrivers here are eight plays I want you to write down, eight plays in your playbook, eight plays as we coach you to business success here today, eight plays to find good people in the lead, good people.

Clay: All right here we go, step number one, never stop recruiting. I’m going to start with you Taylor, every year every day if you go to the thepartriots.com, that’s my team, my football team, the level of transactions that they have, I don’t think people realize how often The Patriots are upgrading a wide receiver, cutting a guy, signing a guy, moving him to the practice squad, bringing in a new guy, working a guy out on the drillers, drillers, did I say drillers? I’m a bad person. On the oilers of Tulsa’s team, on the oilers. Let me ask you this, how often are you bringing in new guys, new people, working them out, trying them out, how often does this happen?

Taylor: Well, quick status, our season lasts about seven months playing, we need 20 players on our roster at all times and we go through about 60 in six months.

Clay: You go through 60 players in six months.

Taylor: Yes.

Clay: I had a friend of mine, who recently I was talking to him about his fast food restaurant, I don’t know he’d want me to share this on the air but he said-

Robert: But you’re going to.

Clay: –I’m not going to share who he is. I’m just going to say not a Tulsa guy, he has a fast food restaurant and what he did is he chose to buy a mini, mini franchises. He doesn’t have just one but he has many of them and they have a business that serves pizza and they have 12 employees at any given peak time. Guess how many people they go through in a given year in order to keep their quality standards high? There’s 12 people they want to keep, given year, a lot of high school people, a lot of college people, a lot of people delivering pizzas on the weekends. How many new people are they doing pay roll for per year to keep a nucleus of 12? Taylor, let me ask you, what do you think?

Taylor: I’d say 48.

Clay: 48, Z what do you think?

Robert: 100.

Clay: Yes, we’re getting there. His deal last year he said he hit 150.

Robert: Wow.

Clay: Excuse that stat is end of the year so that means end of the year discussions. But he says, “Do you have any idea how many people this year I’ve gone through?” Well, some people deliver pizzas so some people might get for two weeks then they get a different job but he’s talking about 150 people. He’s going, “Clay I got to be honest with you of the people that are gone, that I wanted to keep, we probably had 30 people out of that whole group that we could keep if we wanted to, out of that whole group of 150.” The thing is you have to never stop recruiting. You have to understand that you’re only good as your players. The team with the best players wins. You’ve got to have the best players to win.

Robert: Absolutely and you have to have new talent. I tell you what it’s their tour of duty and you can’t get too emotional when someone says, “Hey, my tour of duty is over. I am leaving your establishment.” You may get two weeks notice, you may not get two weeks notice, you may get a month notice, you may get about a 37 second notice.

Clay: There’s’ somebody listening right now though who’s saying this because Tony Hseih, the CEO of Zappos, he says this quote, he says, “I fire those who don’t fit our company culture”. And they’re going, “Yes, that’s’ great because you are like a billionaire.” Zappos is huge, he is obviously a success, he can just whack people like a mole. But meanwhile I need to put out an advertisement on Craig’s list and monster.com that says, “I’m hiring, even though I’m fully staffed. What if the employees start to talk about it?” Z what advice would you have for someone who is asking that question right now.

Robert: Well, the employees will have to know your culture, your culture is that and you can help them a lot of resources to get new employees is from your staff that’s there. If you got an A player, odds are they know some other A players and if you let the staff know, you just be open and honest with them, we’re always looking for high character people, we’re always looking to add someone’ whose special to the team, because we’re growing, positive and because we’re always looking to make ourselves better.

Clay: I’ll tell you what, when you find somebody with a new skill set or a new mind set or new connections to come into your business, it can be like, you go from a stagnant pond to like a life giving river. It can create an energy in the office. Have you ever signed a player Taylor that just totally changed the energy of the line up?

Taylor: All the time. It’s a game changer.

Clay: You get one guy, he can totally infect the whole roster.

Taylor: Absolutely.

Clay: Whether you recruit hockey players or optometrists or people to work in the auto auction or hair stylists, you can never stop recruiting. When we come back, we’re going to teach you play number two. What’s play number two? I’m going to tell you when we come back. Play number two, thrivetimeshow.com.

Clay: All right Thrivers, we are teaching you today the eight plays that you need to know to make your business grow. Specifically we are talking about how to manage good people and deal with those dumb distracted and dishonest people while becoming the leader you need to be. Z, I have a statistic right now that I want to read to you, when I read it, I think it might make you cry.

Robert: Is it a mystic statistic?

Clay: It is a mystic statistic and it is something that I have to share with you and I just feel like if I share it, it’s almost like a soul cleansing moment if I share this statistic. Are you ready?

Robert: The box that rocks is a safe zone. You’re in a safe place, you’re in the nest as we would call it.

Clay: I have to cite it because if I don’t cite it some people won’t believe it but it’s kind of scary. Careerbuilder.com, they said this, “A new survey from careerbuilder.com”, by the way this was published in Time magazine, says, more than 2,500 hiring managers, hiring managers they are in charge of hiring people, they found that blank percentage of candidates lied on their resume and that most are fibbing about skills and capabilities.

What percentage of the people candidates on the resume turn it in, it’s not accurate and they know it, I graduated from the university of bumbom, I did this but they didn’t do that. What percentage, if you had to say, this is careerbuild, this is published in Time Magazine, this is a little trivia here?

Robert: I’m going to guess. Taylor, you want to take a guess first, you want to take a shot? Go ahead.

Clay: Whoever gets it right gets some Oklahoma Joe’s baked beans, if they win he brings them back here next time. I might even have to go on a road trip to get them for you. This is Oklahoma Joe’s baked beans on the line here.

Robert: I’m only thinking. Taylor, I’ll let you go first.

Taylor: Okay. 75%.

Clay: He’s a negative.

Robert: I’m going to say higher than that and I’m going to say 83%.

Clay: 56%. 56%.

Robert: You set us up.

Clay: Someone who’s listening right now they go, “Where do I find this?” The article is called, you won’t believe how many people lie on their resumes, Time magazine. Look that up.

Robert: Wow, we were all so negative.

Clay: Here are the eight play Thrivers. Play number one, never stop recruiting. Play number two, you have to schedule a time to make those weekly job posts. I want to talk to you Z, if you did not schedule time to make those job posts at Doctor Robert Zoe and associates, if you did not put it up on the job boards and the now hiring and the social medias and all those things, what would happen?

Robert: Another thing too is you can do in house advertising too. You can sign up on your door, you can sign on your front desk, when you meet someone. I tell you what, when people talk about recruiting they think it’s this whole big, I read, I have to set up a booth at a recruitment fair, I have to post online. No, when you are at Chilles or Apple Bees –

Clay: I go there all the time. I was just there.

Robert: – or at a fine steak house of your choice.

Clay: You can drink during the day at Chilies. This is a great show, who are you guys?

Robert: You want to step from that.

Clay: Oh, sorry.

Robert: And you have the waiter or waitress or the host or the greeter come up to you with excellence and you say to yourself, “That’s a fine person.”

Clay: Thank you.

Robert: It looks like they are doing all the five A’s with excellence.

Clay: I appreciate that.

Robert: And you said it yourself, you know what, I don’t think they know dilly squat about optometry but I liked him as a person.

Clay: Wow.

Robert: I think I’d like to hang out with him. That’s my definition of liking him as a person.

Clay: You would hire somebody for their character and then train their skill?

Robert: That’s the key. That’s the secret sauce. That is the cheese between your bread and your cheese sandwich. That’s the good stuff, bro.

Clay: Just give me as second because I’m going to write that down, hire people based on character and then train their skill.

Robert: It’s not a K by the way, it’s a C-H you start it with a C-H, not a k.

Clay: Focus, here we go. Taylor, I want to ask you this question Taylor, with oilers, what would happen if you just stopped recruiting new players? If you said, “You know what, we’re busy, I’ve got some things going on, I’ve got to emails to respond to, I got some voice mails to respond to and I don’t have time to recruit.” What would happen?

Taylor: We’d eventually be losing every game.

Clay: Really? And who would end up playing? Would you have to go out there and play again?

Taylor: We’d have to down to Doctor Z and then down to the Oilers Oil Center and get the mensli[sp] guys.

Robert: I know how to skate, I’m not real fast. But I’ve never hit a puck before. I need to come out there and try for the team because I could have hidden talents I don’t even know about.

Clay: I have a hysterical story about this Z, about somebody who was in management, who had to go out there and play the game. Paul Presley one of our mentors and investors for thrive15.com.

Robert: Great guy, Paul. Hey Paul, if you’re listening, how are you doing?

Clay: If you Google this, you’ll notice that he had a great career, he was all defensive player, played for the Bucks, he played for the Spurs, things were great. He goes out to golden state for the final year, he’s done.

We love your attitude, we love what you do. By the way, he coached in the NBA for like 25 years. So, he said, I would like you to become a coach. He says, cool. He’s a coach now. By the way, through your coach, are you doing crushers everyday now? And you are going, “I am so glad I am not doing crushers.” By the way, pro athletes train at such a hard level that even people who are in shape can’t keep up with them.

Clay: Here’s the deal, the coach looks at them and says, hey, this is what is in the Golden State Warriors, true story. You can look this up. He’s like, ” We’ve got an injury, Presley you want to play?” He has not worked out in a pro level for over a year and he’s like, “I’ll give her a whirl.”

Robert: Yes, why not?

Clay: He talks about the soreness and just the physical pain and anguish of like, “Oh no. I just agreed to a 15 game deal and I can’t move my body after the first game.”

Robert: I can’t lift my arm.

Clay: I’m just saying, a lot of business owners though — Seriously, you’re running a bakery, you’re running a pizzeria, you’re running an optometry clinic and you’re feeling good. You’re on that cruise and you’re like, “Oh, it’s okay. I don’t have time to recruit. I don’t need to follow up with my team. I’ve got an autopilot baby, this thing is rolling. Things are good because when I looked at my last payroll and I’m looking at my team, I’m doing good. I looked at my last end of the year, I’ve gone, I’m a rocket.” Now, you get kind of lazy. You take your eye off that ball. And all of a sudden, guess who is making those cakes? You as the owner, because the bucks stops at you, now you’re back in the game, now you’re getting bitter, people are going, why is the owner here?

Robert: He makes my cake.

Clay: You’ve got to get serious about doing weekly job post. Now, play number three, you have to block off weekly times to recruit new interviews. You’ve got to block off time. Now, what does this mean, recruit? How is this different? Well, the thing is, you got to block off the time if you’re going to go to your employees and say, “Hey, if you refer a friend, I’ll pay you 50 bucks.” You’ve got to have time in your schedule to do that. If you’re going to do a group interview, you’ve got to do that. If you’re going to go to a job fair, you’ve got to do that. You’ve got to schedule the times in.

Robert: We just skipped over something very powerful. And you didn’t really give it enough unpacking. Someone’s out there, they’re driving. They’re trying to take notes. They’re trying to get into a quick trip or a truck stop to get notes because what you just said was a super move. And it’s so normal to you, you don’t realize the power of that super move. And you know what it was?

Clay: What was that?

Robert: It was when you said, hey, yes, you can pay one of your employees 50 bucks to have someone come in and work.

Clay: Oh knowledge bomb, here we go.

Robert: Knowledge bomb. Yes, but we did it at my offices. We bundled a time in them that the person had to stay for 60 days, 90 days. We had to verify they weren’t complete idiot when they started working there. And then they got their bonus. We did that.

Clay: Somebody had to work there for a given period of time. If I work for you and I say I’m a pretty good guy.

Robert: I know a guy, about a guy.

Clay: And I know a guy and his name is Trevor. Trevor is working over there at Chili’s. I know he’s working there but mentally, he wants to come join the squad. He just says you love your job at Dr Robert Zone as an associate, why do you love it so much? And I’m going, I have my methods. I love the place. Eventually, I go to Trevor and say, “Trevor, I love the people at Chili’s but not as much as the people over at Robert Zone and Associates.”

Robert: I always smell like a chili when I’m done with work.

Clay: And I might or might not be getting what I would call a bonus should you work to switch teams.

Robert: There you go.

Clay: I don’t have any tampering issues here. I’m getting a $50 bonus. I’m going to give you half of that bonus if you join the squad and we’ll all get some glasses and we’ll celebrate.

Robert: Well, celebrate. You know what? And then, we’d go and we’ll lead at Chili’s all we want because now we’ll be living the dream.

Clay: Yes, because Trevor knows the guy.

Robert: That’s how you do it. You can mine your staff. If they’re not an A player, you probably don’t want to encourage them to send their friends in. “Hey bro, I’ve got some bros who really like to come hang bro.”

Clay: I’ve seen this system go bad when people put up that incentive and morons take advantage of it. Then you end up with a bunch of bad employees who are just yelling show me the money. Use this system wisely, grasshopper. Use it wisely.

Robert: Wisdom. What you will learn in the Thrive Time Show.

Clay: .com.

Announcer: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: All right, thrive nation, welcome back in your inspiration station at your audio dojo of mojo. It’s like a self help library on wheels if you’re in your car, if you’re at your office, it’s like a fountain of truth. It’s unbelievable, Dr. Z. It is the Thrive Time Show where we are focused, we’re committed, Z, on teaching people how to start and grow successful businesses.

Robert: That’s our heart. That’s our passion. You contact me a couple of years ago and you shark tanked me –

Clay: Called you on your cellphone.

Robert: [laughs] Called me on my cellphone.

Clay: You used to call him on his cellphone.

Robert: You shark tanked me and you said, “Listen Z, I know you’re a business dude and I want to run something past you and you let me know if I am completely crazy, a little crazy, or super duper crazy.”

Clay: Wide hot crazy.

Robert: Wide hot like inferno crazy. And you said, “I know this is going to sound crazy but I have been in business coaching in the last few years with a lot of success. Problem is, I’m limited by the hours in the day -“

Clay: The space and time continuum was the issue. I first wanted to pitch you a time machine and you were like, that’s not going to work. For the plan B, we could scale business coaching.

Robert: Yes, exactly. Like I was, how does that look. And you said, you know what it looks like. We scour the country and we find the best of the best in different categories.

Clay: Hello Mr. Cockerell. Hello Mr. Michael Lavine, head of PR for Michael Jackson, for Nike. The guy used to manage Disney World, Lee Cockerell. Hello Mr. Robinson. Knocking on the door of David Robinson, NBA Hall of Famer, leadership expert. Hello Mr. Terry Powell, Mr. Boom Boom Terry Powell, the franchise Juggernaut. Nobody in the world has sold more franchises than that man. Sean Kouplen, right here in Tulsa.

Robert: Right here, Kouplen. Region Bank. And I tell you what, if you’re like how do I get money to do my business, you get on Thrive15.com and you watch Sean Kouplen’s information, his secret moves and secret sauce and how to get in and get money out of the bank. We’re not talking about thievery. We’re not talking about gun in a mask —

Clay: Thievery, nor are we talking about jack-assery. Because jack-assery is the number one topic in the world right now. Which is why you’re saying, I want to be successful, right, Z? I want to be successful but I have no plan to get there. I don’t know what to do. But if I just sign up for a get rick quick sip system then I’m sure that, although most of them had never worked, this one will work.

Robert: Time out. Listen, a lot of you out there listening, you’ve been scammed in that arena, and we give you a 100% guarantee that if you attend our in person workshop –

Clay: In person.

Robert: – yes, you’re physically here, we are physically here, we actually talk face-to-face like humans used to do it back in the day.

Clay: I remember when the humans used to talk to other humans, it was great.

Robert: Face-to-face. We won’t just text you all this stuff or send you an e-mail, we’re actually face-to-face in the same room in the Thrive. You can look behind us right now if you’re on Facebook Live and see our world headquarters right here on the left coast of the Arkansas River. And you can attend this workshop, there will be no upselling. There will be no fire walking. And on top of that, January 20th and 21st, we have scholarships for those of you out there that say, “Oh men, that sounds like a game changer. I could really project mean to a whole new stratosphere but man, I just don’t have any money.”

Clay: I don’t have any money man. But I’ll tell you what.

Robert: I got the fire in me, I just don’t have the money to back up that fire.

Clay: I did have the money needed but what I did is I used all that money. I invested it in season tickets for the Tulsa Oilers. I’ve gone to every game which is why I’m very excited about today’s show because you guys have on the show today, inside the box that rocks — If I understand this correctly, I’m on Facebook Live. I’m seeing an illusion or a hologram they call it. I’m looking at the beautiful face of Mr. Taylor, you want it all? Just call Hall, the general manager for the Tulsa Oilers. Sir, how are you?

Taylor: Unbelievable.

Clay: I want to ask you, we’re talking about these hiring moves. These super moves, these eight plays. The irrefutable super place for hiring the right people, okay. We’re talking about how do you manage a team of good people while you’re dealing with a population with dumb and distracted, dishonest people. I have another mystic statistics I wanted to tea it off with. Z, are you ready for this one?

Robert: Yes. I love mystic statistics.

Clay: Okay. Here we go. This is a global survey by workforce management company Kronos. This was published, by the way in Fast Company. Found that as many as 58% of employees call on sick on days that they want to watch or attend a sporting event. Good news for you but I want to ask you. Have you ever in the history of human — you’re grown in Oilers organization, have you ever busted somebody pretending to be sick and they weren’t sick?

Taylor: Oh, boy.

Clay: Has it ever happened to you?

Taylor: Yes it has.

Clay: How do you mentally and emotionally process that? Are you still in the dumps over it or you just look in a big pretzel with the concession stand? What’s your move?

Taylor: Well, I move on real quick but we always have lots of people waiting in the wings to take over a job if they’re not committed.

Clay: Wow. So you mean for people who are looking for a job when someone’s not wanting the job. Z, are you hearing what he’s saying?

Robert: Absolutely. It’s kind of a play on words too because I think the wing– [laughs] I’m not a hockey expert but I think wings is actually a position, isn’t it?

Taylor: It is.

Robert: Wings. So when you say wings, it’s kind of ironic.

Clay: Wow. Well, I tell you what. Thrivers, mine just mentally cross checked. I’m trying to process –

Robert: [laughs]

Clay: – the profundity of what just happened.

Robert: I’m on a high stick. Just pay him.

Clay: Here’s the deal. Thrivers, we’re talking about the next move. This is the next move. Somebody has to write this down. This is step number five, play number five. This is the one that’s going to blow your mind when you hear the story that Taylor is going to tell. Guys, so here it is, play number five. You’ve got to look for the best but you got to hire who is available. Okay. Now, Z has a great story. He told me a long time but I’m going to start with you Taylor, have you ever had a situation hypothetically where you have a game and maybe you don’t have enough goalies?

Taylor: Actually this week Clay, so we’re on a two- week road trip. 2,100 miles on the bus and our number one all star goalie gets called up to the American Hockey League.

Clay: How nice of –

Taylor: We have a game. Guess what?

Clay: What’s that?

Taylor: Tonight, and the chances of getting another goaltender on that level are not very good.

Clay: [laughs]

Taylor: Our league has rules that you have to have two goaltenders dressed for the game –

Clay: Oh, boy.

Taylor: – or you forfeit the game.

Clay: Where did you find this guy?

Taylor: Well, we found our guy was our equipment manager.

Clay: Really?

Taylor: The guy that sharpens skates and packs the bags. He slapped on the pads and was the official back up goalie for that game.

Clay: Does he have any flexibility if he had to play with, it would just be insane, where he just tear his sack or really act and tear and rip his hamstring in half. Would it be the bad deal?

Taylor: It wouldn’t be pretty.

Clay: Okay. [laughter]

Taylor: I just have him lay down in the ice the whole time.

Robert: Absolutely. I would humbly submit that. I’m not sure it’s a bucket list item for me, Taylor, but next time you need someone like just dress up and walk around with a little swag –

Clay: With the skates on?

Robert: – I could be your huckleberry. I may just walk around there and just have you do it?

Clay: I would love to see you with the number Z on. [crosstalk]

Robert: What number can I be like? What number’s available?

Taylor: I’d say Z. Number Z. [laughs]

Clay: You run out there. I could just see you talking smack to a 6’7″ Norwegian guy and then just immediately hop again into the box and just staying there.

Robert: I’ll be like that movie slapstick or where I skate around with the other teams. I just take my stick and just run it right through everybody on the bench. Oh, I’m sorry guys. Sorry.

Clay: You’re kind of a height man for your own team mates. I swear my guy’s going to take you out. Not me but my guy.

Robert: Then I would sit down the starting goal keeper saying, “Don’t you get hurt.”

Clay: “Don’t you get hurt.”

Robert: “Don’t you do it.”

Clay: “You stay healthy baby.”

Robert: “Come on, stay right in through.”

Clay: Thrivers, there’s a story that Z told me years ago. I don’t know if you remember it, Z. Z, I’ll retold the story. I think the story was so powerful. It escaped your memory. So I’m going to share it with you.

Robert: Oh, okay.

Clay: We’re sat down for a man session.

Robert: Alright. Man session.

Clay: You were sitting down. There’s fire there. You’re burning some wood. You got the poker.

Robert: Got the smoke going. It’s smells like something burning. [crosstalk]

Clay: No. I’m serious. It is awesome. So it’s one of my favorite memories of my life where there and you go, “Clay, I started my business.” You said you got to restart your business. You got to ride in to town in a dog. I’m going, “What did he say?” So then I’m thinking maybe the fire’s getting to him, maybe ambiance. Maybe you were describing this in a way you weren’t going to recoil from that statement. So I’m, “Okay. Ride on a dog?” The wizard’s talking. Write it down. Somebody write it down. You said, “And then you want to find a horse. As soon as you find a horse, you just let that dog go. You might have put down that dog but now you’re on a horse.

Robert: Now you’re on a horse.

Clay: Now your coming in the town in a horse. Your kind of gallivant. If you find a car, you’re like, “Forget this horse. I’m in this car.” You keep doing that. You’re kind of comparing that to your career and kind of get going. The point is, you got to work with what you have.

Robert: Right.

Clay: Sometimes it’s like you’re brother-in-laws, cousins, neighbors, friend who has a series of misdemeanors and they’re living on your couch. You just need somebody to answer the phone or maybe it’s somebody who’s chronically unemployed and they’re chronically making you annoyed but you have to hire them because you have a trade show tomorrow and you just need somebody. I see so many entrepreneurs that hold down. They go, “But it says to hire great people. You said to hire great people. All the management books, I’m reading Jack Welch He says you got to have A players. I’m reading some Steve Jobs and he says A players.” Meanwhile, you got to hire A player.

Robert: You’re right because otherwise you’re going to be the one answering the phone and you can’t physically answer the phone and see a patient and pretest and distribute glasses. Filling the blanks for your job, your business, sometimes it’s like, “Hey, next up is up until I can get a better buttercup.

Clay: Whoah. Next up is next up until I can get a better buttercup.

Robert: That’s how it works.

Clay: That’s impressive. So here’s the deal Thrivers, is we go back in Texas back to the circle, the circle. It takes us back to rule number one.

Robert: [singing] “Circle of life–“

Clay: Never stop recruiting.

Robert: Right.

Clay: So it’s like a river. If someone’s coming out, someone’s coming back in. Somebody keeps the free flowing. It’s got to keep it going. Don’t become a pond. Don’t be stagnant. Have you been to a stagnant business, Z, where there’s was no intentional turnover and you’re going, “I have seen the same losing squad, the same losing team on the field every game. They are on the ice. They’re never going to win. What are we doing?

Robert: Can I say something mean?

Clay: Oh, please.

Robert: As we’re going to a break, I don’t want to but–

Clay: You can do this.

Robert: Can I? May I? May I say something mean?

Clay: I give you permission.

Robert: I’ll wait till we come back from the break. You know why? Because I got to unpack a little bit on the thrivetimeshow.com Come back.

Announcer: Broadcasting from the center of the universe, featuring optometrist turned entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Zoellner and US SBA entrepreneur of the year, Clay Clark. This is the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 11:70.

Clay: One, two, two into the three. I’m on the microphone With Dr. Z. What’s going on my friend?

Robert: I love it. I love it when you get in DJ Muggs. Start wine men and –

Clay: Oh.

Robert: – and hit your buttons and kind of –

Clay: Bam.

Robert: I just love with that DJ and you just perk your lights up. It’s– oh. See there where we go.

Clay: It’s old school right there –

Robert: Okay. [crosstalk]

Clay: It’s oldschool. I’ll just let this beat play for a while, let me introduce our super guest here. We’ve got Taylor Hall inside the box that rocks. This guy is the general manager for your Tulsa Oilers Hockey Team. Taylor, for anybody out there who’s not familiar with you or this hip hop song, let’s start with you. First off, what are your doing my friend?

Taylor: I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers Hockey Team.

Clay: What can you do? Does that mean you can put yourself in as goalie or the wings? What can you do? What’s your moves?

Taylor: I go anywhere I want to go.

Clay: You’ve ever fire somebody?

Taylor: Yes.

Clay: You’ve ever fire somebody?

Taylor: A few times.

Clay: Thrivers, this song is by the Notorius B.I.G. It’s called Juicy. The point of the song is Notorius B.I.G. was the boss, Taylor is the boss. We’re getting old school here. We have 50 emails coming. We have some Thrivers here saying, okay. I’m taking notes over here. I’m reading Region Bank.

Robert: Hold on we got to rewind my mean statement.

Clay: –Oh, mean statement.

Robert: Someone just sat down. They’re eating their burnt ends and their baked beans and they are swinging by Region Bank to deposit a check.

Clay: People at Regional Bank are saying there’s too many people in the lobby eating baked beans. What have you guys done?

Robert: It smells like a barbecue restaurant here.

Clay: [laughs]

Robert: What have you done to us? Today’s show is all about employee management. This is what it really is about. So we’re talking about hiring, continue to hire, recruiting, continue to recruit. We’re talking about the different ways to do that, making sure you’re purposeful on posting. Always know that up front and center that you’re always looking for better help for quality people. I was going to say something kind of mean right before the break. I just want to come back and circle back and finish up this thought and that thought is, it’s one of my course sayings. If anybody wants to email me and fight Clay on this they can.

Clay: Oh, wow.

Robert: But it’s, people change seldom.

Clay: People change seldom?

Robert: When you hire excellence you’re going to end up with excellence. When you hire jackassery you’re going to end up with jackassery. A lot of people will hire someone who is an idiot, let’s just call it what it is.

Clay: Oh, boy.

Robert: All right? If you’re listening out there you’re going to nod your head, “that’s right, I’m an idiot.”

[crosstalk]

Clay: Dress code’s a killer when you got to wear pants.

Robert: [laughs] Because [inaudible 00:50:27] pants for that. And at 40 hours a week, what are they thinking there?

Clay: It’s hard to find a job if you’re trying to wear, you know–, it’s hard to find a job right now, all of them are making you work 40 hours, at least.

Robert: And wear pants, and wear pants.

Clay: Wear pants.

Robert: Anyway, if you hire idiots and then you say to yourself, “I can change them, I can life coach them up and they’re going to be a better person.”

Clay: I often do, I have a big track record on this.

Robert: “I’m going to, I’m going to make them, I’m going to change them.” Let me just give you the short-cut version of it today, while you are probably on dessert now, for lunch. That is, you can’t change them. Now, people can change and they do on occasion, but people change seldom, so, what we’re saying is start with excellence as best as you can, but also understand if someone isn’t excellent. Don’t be afraid to replace them and move on.

Clay: I want to make sure I establish this point because I think that someone is listening right now and they’re maybe missing this or maybe this is what you are saying to yourself. You might be saying, “Okay, so, Z, you’re saying people change seldom, so what’s the point of trying to improve. Walk with me? What Z and I are saying is that you listening right now– because I went from the bottom to what I believe to be the top being at achieved all the goals that I have, pretty quickly.

When Z and I formed up to– when we teamed up to build Thrive15.com he literally asked me, “What are your goals?” Because I had achieved all my goals it was kind of, “What’s the point? What’s the next move?” And that happened within about a 10-year window of time. If you’re listening right now, you, learning things that Z and I can teach you, you could absolutely change your income and your direction and your success within about a year or two. This is like an 18-month, 12-month journey, but you have to want it.

But if you don’t want it, we can’t make you want it. If you have an employee who works with you and they don’t want it, you can’t make them want it. Now, if they say to you, “Here, this is my history, my history isn’t very good, but I want to go over here and I am now coachable, something happened in my life and I’m ready to be coached.” Yes, you can coach that person. We’re not saying a blank statement that nobody can be helped, we’re saying that people who don’t want to be helped, you can’t help them.

Robert: You’re right, you can’t force them to do it. Is this Russia? Is this Russia? Is this USSR?

Clay: I don’t know where–. I thought we pulled the permit with a jinx. I didn’t know that we were–. Okay.

Robert: I know, is this the Soviet Union? I don’t even–.

Robert: Oh, yes. Is this Russia? I don’t think so.

Clay: It’s kind of a communist theme we have going here.

Robert: We should take some selfies with our shorts off [music] and dress all our people like military attire and have them surround us.

Clay: And talk about Putin.

Robert: And talk about P– [laughs], put that on social media, just blow that out, just blow that thing out.

Clay: A lot of people ask us, they say, “who’s doing your–, who helps you, guys, with your internet marketing?” We have an in-house team now that helps to do targeting and retargeting ads, but before that, Z, we just used Putin.

Robert: Yes, just Putin, that guy–.

Clay: [cross-talk] puts the ads everywhere.

Robert: They’re really, really good at that, by the way.

[laughter]

Clay: All right, now we have Taylor Hall on the show here, this is the General Manager of the Tulsa Oilers Hockey Team, the Tulsa’s professional Oilers Hockey Team, and he noticed heading into the break, he could feel your thrivers’ notice, he like, “Hey you skipped from, I’m taking notes here. I’m in rigid bank right now. They’ve asked me to leave four times. I’m just eating my–. I don’t even have an account there, I’m just eating my baked beans over the rigid bank. And you guys went from three to five. I’m not a math guy, but I think four typically follows three.” And I’m going, “that’s true, that’s true, I get excited.”

Robert: It is the integer between the three and five, that is a correct statement.

Clay: Is just it.

Robert: Yes.

Clay: Here we go, step number four, plan number four is, conduct your interviews with both passion and purpose while following an agenda. You’ve got to follow an agenda. It can’t feel like– To your audience, it can’t feel like your mind is an entrepreneurial blender. You’ve got to follow an agenda. Now, Z, let me walk you through this. You tell me.

Robert: Okay, all right, all right.

Clay: You tell me, feedback, if you ever–. I’m going to sit there in front of a candidate. Taylor, you are sitting in front of a candidate, you are going to hire somebody, potentially to come work in sales at the Oilers, hire someone to do marketing, somebody to work at the optometry clinic, whatever, you’re going to hire somebody.

Why is it–? I’m going to start with you, Taylor. Why is it so important that you as the leader, you the person who is doing the interviewing must be able to inspire confidence? So that the person– why is it that you have to inspire confidence in the person that you are interviewing?

Taylor: Well, Clay, a lot of times they were trying to recruit the cream of the crop, and so, some of these recruits have all kinds of different options to work at different places, and for us, I think it is very important to create that passion and get people excited about wanting to work for us. If you’re not on your game, you’re not following an agenda and showing some passion, maybe the other person goes, “Do I really want to work here? What am I doing at this interview?” I think it’s a two-way street.

Clay: Z, I have a story that I need to tell you about how not to do this properly.

Robert: Yes, because I’ve been picturing you, in there just, you just yelling and screaming in passion, and just frothing and sweat beating off your forehead, and just, this kid in there–.

Clay: Do you want this job, do you want this job?

Robert: This kid [laughs] skinny tie all sitting there this little, sitting there listen to you, just going ranting on them. It’s what I was picturing, by the way.

Clay: Here’s what–.

Robert: I want to hear your story, by the way.

Clay: Here’s what happened with a DJ connection back in the day.

Robert: Okay. Back in the day.

Clay: We had a payroll of six employees.

Robert: Yes.

Clay: I realized, “you know what? I need to spend my time doing sales and accounting and fixing equipment. All I’ll do is I’ll delegate the pipeline of the humans that are going to deliver my core product.” Not a good move.

Robert: Not a good move.

Clay: Somebody who I had never trained in how to do interviews.

Robert: Okay. Oh, this is going in the right direction, I get the feeling.

Clay: The pipeline, we had twenty weddings on the books, maybe fifteen wedding on the books, and we went from like four weddings in a weekend to like twenty a weekend within one summer. Okay, so one year we jump. A lot of word of mouth coming in. I remember going, “We have weddings on June 26,” whatever day it was, like twenty of them, and I’ve got like–

Robert: You need twenty people, right?

Clay: Yes, and I got like four. I’ve got like 45 days to train people how to do this. And I’m going, “Oh, no.” I popped into one of the interviews just to listen and this is what the guy was saying. He goes–, I’m paraphrasing, but roughly, he said, “Hey, if you want to work here, we’re kind of new, we’ve been around like four years. This is our first time we’ve had an office, and Clay has always paid me on time up to this point.”

Clay: He says, “he’s always paid me on time up to this point. If things go well, I think we’ll get through the summer, and probably will get some new gear.” And you can just see the look of terror on the person saying [crickets sound]. It doesn’t feel good when you’re in an interview and the person says, “I’ve been paid on time every week up to this point.”

[crickets sound]

Robert: Up to this point, that’s–.

Clay: What does that mean?

Robert: Well, it’s a true statement, I mean, they didn’t lie [laughs].

Clay: I pulled the guy aside, this is the guy, this is the kind of stuff for you, this is the same kind of guy. His name was a name you could pronounce two ways, so let me tell you an example, let’s say you’re listening right now and your name is Andrea, but you could pronounce it Andrea or whatever that name is, but you’ve got two ways that it goes, but there’s one way that it’s right and one way it’s wrong.

Robert: Yes, yes.

Clay: This is the guy who you would say to him, “so your name is,” in this case, “Andrea,” and they would go, “or Andrea, whatever you want.” Is just that kind of person, the person who just you could’ve even thrown a name at them and they didn’t care. It is this kind of flippant like, bottom pusher that we hire to do some work and I put him in charge of interviewing, and so, I had some really solid candidates who I circled back, and I’m like, “Hey, do you want to come work here?” And they go, “I just don’t think it’s for me.” And I kept hearing that. And I realized, “I’ve got us make a switch.”

I literally switched to myself. I went back into the system. I did what Jack Welch talks about doing. One, you establish quickly what are the goals of the candidate, that’s step one. Step two, you clarify what are your goals as the company. Three, you clarify roles, “this is what you’ll do, this is what you do”, and next, you clarify expectations and compensation.

Robert: Yes.

Clay: It’s pretty easy. So, goals, goals, okay? Your goals, their goals. Roles, what you’re going to do. Expectations. And compensation. And I’ve had some great conversations, then you end the interview by saying, if you like them, “Well why don’t we go and schedule a half day for you to shuttle? Because I think you’d be a great fit and you think you’d be a great fit. Why don’t we go and have you shuttle for a half day, I’ll pay you for your time to see if you are a good fit, and if you’re not we just part ways. If you are a good fit we’ll get it started.”

But either way, that way instead of me talking about the job and me e-mailing you 47 times about all the things that are included and what to do, let’s just get it going and see if you’re a good fit and that–. It got to a point where we are able to hire people so fast at that point, I almost had to tell myself and the team-mates, “We need to stop hiring people,” because if we become busy that way– [crosstalk].

Robert: You just have to sell back [crosstalk].

Clay: We just–, another conference attendee.

Robert: Another gone “boom”.

Clay: Another conference attendee, they–[crosstalk].

Robert: January 20, 21st.

Clay: Z, by the way, what’s going on January 20th and 21st? I was listening but I was trying to scarf down some Oklahoma Joe’s Baked Beans, I was trying to recruit some people using ZipRecruiter.

Robert: You seem like you really like those beans, I don’t know. You may have–, you might be addicted to them, I’m just going to say it. I don’t want to be–. It’s not like I’m a real doctor or anything but I think you may have some addictive behavior with those beans.

Clay: I’ve kind of an OCD with my beans.

Robert: Oh, I have an OCD with my B-E-A-N-S.

Clay: I just got to have my beans, got to have my beans, got to have my beans.

Robert: All these letters you’re just throwing out. Okay, here what’s going on January 20, 21st. Write this down. Take your, you got a pen– just write it on your arm right now, that’s what I’m doing right now, just January 20 and 21st. Okay?

Clay: January 20th.

Robert: Go to thrivetimeshow.com and it has all the details on there. But the short and skinny of it is we are doing an in-person, yes, that’s– you physically here. In-person workshop, 15 hours of excellence spread over two days and you’re going to learn all fun stuff. You are going to learn about time management which I think is huge by the way.

Clay: Time management and sales those are the two that like, you talking time management and sales?

Robert: Game changer, game changer.

Clay: Search engine optimization being the top of Google, what?

Robert: There’s two things I can promise you. One you will not be upset. This is not some high pressured thing to get you in a room, lock the doors and not let you leave until you give us so much of your money to do something about something to get rich. It’s not it’s not at all. There’s no upselling at all, number one, okay. Number two we have scholarships. Why is that? Because that’s our heart. Listen, if you’re out there and you want to change your stores, you want to start a business you want to grow the business you’ve already started, you need some help, guess what we’re here as your resources.

Clay: Well do you know somebody who needs somebody? By the way the call of the day, you said, “my husband and I run the business and I’ve noticed that we’ve been doing this for about six years and we’re not making any progress at all.” I said, “what do you mean?” She said, “we’re making a lot of money, but we’re not getting any of that time freedom. We work all the time.” I thought of this quote, I want to read this to you. This is the quote that can help you right now. This was from the book scale. The real finish line in business is to build a truly scalable business that creates massive value in the marketplace without needing you to be there every day to run it. The true goal is time freedom and financial freedom.

Robert: Yes but I mean, “hi bro if I know if I don’t personally make that latte, it just doesn’t taste the same bro.”

Clay: “Bro, if I don’t personally put every widget on the thing and do the whatnot and do the accounting and the sales calls, the whole place is going to fall apart.” Well, maybe there’s hope ThriveTimeshow.com, ThriveTimeshow.com.

[music]

Announcer: You’re listening to the Thrive Time show on Talk Radio 1170.

[music]

Clay: All right Thrive nation today we are focusing on this specific topic of how do you find good employees, good people got to find good people. Well, you’re in a world of the 3D, Z. It’ s 3D world right now. This is a 3D. “You’re talking about like virtual reality and holograms and all that?” No. Someone might be saying so 3D I get it. I’ve had some of those 3D football cards back in the day. No, I’m talking about the 3Ds; Dumb, distracted, dishonest. You go, “why are you saying that? Don’t you understand that the majority of people listening to this are not employers?”

Work with me. 57% of people according to Forbes surveyed said they’d want to start a business at some point and I’ll tell you this, I was my first job a bad employee. I did not understand the concept of diligence, I did not understand the concept of having sustainable work habits, I did not understand the word the concept of keeping my word or my promise. These are things I was told but I didn’t own these ideas. I want to give you a mystic statistic Z, before we get back into it.

Robert: Let it rip.

Clay: Here it is. This is from Forbes. “You guys use Forbes a lot.” Because it’s a big vetted news organization for entrepreneurs, we love Forbes. They say this, the number as is the number of people who admit to wasting time at work every day has now reached a whopping what percent Taylor Hall of the Tulsa Oilers you have to guess Dr. Zellner here the optometrist turned tycoon. What is the number that you would guess? What percentages of employees who are surveyed admit to wasting time at work, Taylor Hall?

Taylor: I’m going but with my number again 75

Clay:75.

Robert: Not that they admit it. I’m going to say it’s pretty low it’s probably 25%

Clay: Now this was an anonymous survey okay–

Robert: Anonymous, okay probably 50 then.

Clay: 89%. The way they did this the survey, some of these are all different surveys, but this is where they did the survey. And this is like recent stuff. They’re asking me like hey yesterday this week did you waste time at work, 89%of people are going like, “yes.”

Robert: Sure did.

Clay: I would say this Thrivers, that’s unfortunately normal, but the culture can change quickly by implementing these eight moves. We move on now to move number six. You want to save time? Save time. Rumor has it you can create more time, check it out Thrivers, you can create more time Thrivers? No, you create more money but you can’t create more time. I’m going to burn that for a second Z. Z you want to save time by running a candidate through your interview process before reading the resumes and calling the references because you want to save time. Why in the world would you want to save time as an entrepreneur?

Robert: Because time is money and that’s the one thing– you can make more businesses, you can build more widget, you can make more apple pies if that’s your business you can make a lot of things but you one thing you can’t make more of this just in this just in.

Clay: This just in off to let’s go

Robert: You can google this to verify. You cannot make more time.

Clay: You cannot make more time.

Robert: I’ll tell you what? One the number one things I hear from young entrepreneurs are people that want to be an entrepreneur, is– the thing I hear over and over and over, “I just don’t have the time, bro I just don’t have the time. I’ve got this great idea you don’t understand. I got a game changing thing I’m going to do. I just don’t have the time, I just don’t the time.”

Clay: I mentored a young man this week. He’s a small business owner. I told him this and I want to see what your advice would be for the guy.

Robert: Okay, okay.

Clay: He had an employee who violated the non-compete agreement. Taylor, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that happen, but is it violating the non-compete agreement. He said I’m not going to compete and now he’s directly competing with one of our clients right there in Dallas Texas. A former employee is now calling up his former clients and try to steal clients.

Here’s my advice to him I said, “Hey, if you want to enforce the non-compete, you’re probably going to pay an attorney a thousand or $2000 at some point and you’re probably going to have this litigation go in small claims court or some court, some litigious action and it will probably just linger around for about a year and probably around the 8 month to 12 month mark, you are eventually going to realize you want to put 5000 more into it to go after somebody who doesn’t have the money to pay you anyway or do you want to let it go?”

He goes, “you’re telling me not to enforce my non-compete?” I said, “No, no given your situation and the amount of time you have as a solo entrepreneur building your business, this is not the best use of time.” I think it really hit home when he realized okay, “you’re not saying it’s not a good use of my time, you’re just saying it’s not the best use of my time.” Z is that what you would encourage?

Robert: That is exactly what I would encourage. One of my steps in my book, my upcoming book, Business big. I try to make sure and emphasize be a lover, not a fighter. I mean there’s plenty of fights coming down the road, there’s plenty things to fight over that you’re going to as an entrepreneur, it’s just built into the equation and if you can’t stomach that then you probably need to flip over to the home and gardening show right now.

Those of you that can handle that statement and say, “you know what? One of these days I will start my business, I’ve started it I’m going to grow it.” That is something you have to understand is that when to pick your fights and like you said that’s not the best use of his time. He could be using it better on building his business and going forward and that’s why if you spend the time vetting the person before you meet them, you immediately go, “I don’t even like this person.”

Clay: Let’s get into the hockey realm.

Robert: “I don’t even like him.”

Clay: Can I get a hockey realm here because what I do in the business world. Hockey is a business by the way. It’s professional sports team. What I do is, I don’t even read the candidate’s resume at all and I do not vet the references at all until we’ve done a in-person interview, a group interview and until they’ve shadowed me for at least an hour because most people can’t get through that barrier. They just can’t get through that litmus test. I want to ask you, Taylor, if you’ve ever seen a guy, he sends you a nice resume or whatever they send you at hockey, the stat sheet and then you watch him try out and you’re like this is junk. This isn’t even a thing.

Taylor: All the time.

Clay: Does that happen ever?

Taylor: I rather go try-out first.

Clay: You go try-out first?

Taylor: You can tell right away within a couple of minutes.

Clay: Are there guys who had some great stats but they’re putting up some stats and some cake walk league in rural South Dakota and they’re just average and maybe one or two goals a game and they show up for you guys and they just aren’t what you thought they were going be?

Taylor: Absolutely.

Clay: You prefer the face to face?

Taylor: Face to face try out quickly as we can get them on the ice or in the office meet him face to face the better it is.

Clay: Z, talk to me about this. Do you look at people and really– with your businesses now, what is your process now? Dr. Robert Zollner and associates. Let’s say I’m a cold candidate and I have a degree from the University Of Whatever and my resume looks pretty decent. How deep do you vet somebody before the interview process? Talk to me about how you do it now.

Robert: Well the way I do it now. First of all the hourly I’ve handed off so the hourly I haven’t hired or fired one of those in quite a few years. The only one that I’m still involved with are the doctors and you want to hear a great hiring and firing story about one of my doctor’s from a few years ago?

Clay: I want to hear it.

Robert: Okay, well here’s the deal. I had a female doctor and her husband changed jobs to a different city, and so she came up to me and said, “Hey listen. We’re going to be moving. I’ve enjoyed working here. I’m going to give you about a month, but I’m unwinding up.”

Clay: It’s a good thing.

Robert: It’s a good thing.

Clay: She handled professionally.

Robert: She did and I was like, “That’s awesome. I’m happy for you. When you go to that new city, if you’re looking for a job, make sure they call my cell phone because I’ll give you personal reference” and we did everything right. Right?

Clay: Yes.

Robert: Later on the afternoon, knock on the door. Another doctor walks in. It just happened to be a female doctor.

Clay: Hey you doc. How are you doing?

Robert: Hey. How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? And she sat down and said, “I’ve got some bad news” and then she said, “I know that the other doctor just gave her 30-day notice and she is going to leave and move off.”

Clay: Probably not the best timing right now to bring this up.

Robert: “But I just want to let you know that if I don’t get a better schedule and a pay raise, just more money then I’m going to put my notice in and I’m going to leave you, and I know that’s going to be a horrible thing for you to lose two of your six doctors that work for you.”

Clay: And they usually use the indirect move, like “my husband wanted me to tell you.”

Robert: Now, when we come back from the break, how are you going to tell you by Paul Harvey style, I’m going to tell you the rest of the story.

Clay: Good day. Thrivers stay tuned, Thrivetimeshow.com.

Robert: Don’t miss this.

[music]

Announcer: Live, local, now. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.

Clay: Green country, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. We could not be more excited, more privileged, more honored, more– Z, what’s the word I’m looking for here. More–

Robert: Jacked up baby.

Clay: Jacked up.

Robert: I tell you what. You know what, this just in, we are– they call me from the studio from Scripps Radio Empire and they said we are the number one business talk show in this market.

Clay: In Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Robert: Oklahomies.

Clay: Oklahomies are making that possible.

Robert: And you know what and I said, “Oh great.”

Clay: That’s great. Baked beans for everybody.

Robert: Everybody baked beans. [Unintelligible 1:13:36] bank and get a loan on us. And then I said, “Great. So where we’re ranking on the other business talk shows from Tulsa?”

Clay: You show us the list.

Robert: They said [murmuring], they said, “You’re the only ones.” Yes. Why we’re number one?

Clay: Wow.

Robert: You always scared them all up. That’s my story that I’m sticking too. Let me reset the story. We go to break and for those of you just tuning in from your lunch break, you get back in your desk, got us on boom, before the break, I talked about a hiring situation. I had a doctor that gave her 30-day notice.

Clay: A key employee gave a 30-day notice.

Robert: Yes. Very key. I have six doctors so you lose one — you know it’s a recruitment process to get one replaced, right?

Clay: [crosstalk] workforce is gone.

Robert: She said, “Hey. I’m leaving. My husband got transferred. We’re moving” and I said “That’s awesome. Thanks for giving me the 30 days. You’re a great employee.” Everything right. Then while the heels of her were walking out of my office, another one of my doctors walks in and says–

Clay: “Hi Z. I need to talk to you.”

Robert: And basically presses me up and says, “Listen. I know you just lost a doctor–“

Clay: This could be a bad timing.

Robert: “But I’m going to leave also if I don’t get two things. One, more money and two, a better schedule.”

Clay: And it’s not personal, I’m just saying–

Robert: And sat there and looked at me, and here’s the rest of the story. What I did, I looked at her and I said–

Clay: What did you do?

Robert: You know what? I’ve been thinking about giving you a raise. That sounds like awesome. How much you want? That’s just perfect. You bet. And what schedule did you want? That’s easy. Let’s give you your new schedule. Whatever you want.

Clay: You’re very generous.

Robert: I was in a good mood that day.

Clay: It’s like you’re delegating or you’re kind of like negotiating with a certain president with a certain trade deals, what it feels like there, you’re just like, “I’ll make it happen.”

Robert: You know what but in my mind, in the back of my mind, what I said to myself is this, “You just got fired, but I can’t do it yet because I don’t want to have to go down there and see patients next week or in a couple of weeks.” What I did then is I got online and made phone calls, I dug around, I found and hired not one doctor, but two doctors.

Clay: I do this move often now as a result of this story. I’m not kidding.

Robert: True story.

Clay: This is a story that– the reason I love the story is because it’s true and it shows that you have the self-discipline needed to make the short-term call that was the right call and the long-term focus to make the right call and the emotional intelligence to not freak out, and I can tell you this. The first time I tried to implement your move years ago, I got the first part right where I’m like, “Okay. I’m going to fire you in my mind” and then I just didn’t recruit anybody else. I just put up with it for like a year.

Robert: That’s horrible. Then my two doctors start, get them on schedule to start, and you know what the second doctor that come up as a strong army, I called her in my office and said, “Hey, can you run up here for a minute?”

Clay: Just real quick. I’ve been thinking about you.

[Music]

Robert: She pops in the office dancing back and forth. She goes, “Man, I’m really busy today. I don’t have a lot of time to talk because I’m busy seeing patients downstairs.”

Clay: But I’ve been thinkng about you.

Robert: I said, “Have a seat because you will not be seeing any more patients.” I said, “Not in my office because you remember 30 days ago when you came in and did that thing and you said those things? In my mind, I fired you and I couldn’t say it until right now.”

Clay: Why the music stopped?

Robert: “You are fired.” The music stopped. The dancing stopped and I said, “It’s just not working out and you need to get your stuff and you need to leave, and I wish you the best, but we’re done.”

Clay: I want to ask you this Taylor, have you ever had to start a guy who was just a cancer on the team and knowing that you’re going to have to whack fire the guy, get him off the squad a couple of days later. I mean have you ever started a guy and go– and someone in your team walks up to you and says, “Hey, listen. Seriously, I don’t have a problem. I don’t ever talk about personnel but the stuff he’s doing, the stuff he’s saying, the rumors he’s spreading, you know this is a bad deal.”

Announcer: Broadcasting from the center of the universe. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.

Clay: And you had to look at him and you needed to say, “I got it. I’ll take care of it. Have you ever had to do a slow play like that?

Taylor: All the time. I mean it’s–

Robert: Really? Wow.

Taylor: You have to play the game.

Clay: You have to play the game?

Taylor: You can’t just play short. You got to give the team the best chance of winning. Sometimes, the best move is waiting till the right time like Z did.

Clay: Now, I’m telling you this Thrivers. The next move you’re playing. This is play number seven. You got to utilize the shadow process. You got to utilize the shadow process.

Robert: What is that? Like shadow boxing? You got the shadow, you got to hide in the shadows? What do you mean by that?

Clay: I’m going to talk about our team. You’re on Facebook live right now, go ahead and tune in. I’m just going to talk about our team, okay? Because this is a real example. Michaela over here to the left. She was at Sprouts and my kids spilled, and she had the kindness and the compassion to help my kids. Not in her lane, not in her aisle. Just did it. I noticed that week after week, week after week–

Robert: Probably kids are messy.

Clay: I just noticed that she– I have five kids and I try to be a low maintenance when I go to the store, but I noticed that she’d always like, “How are you guys? Good to see you kids.” You could just tell that she cares about people.

Robert: Yes. Okay.

Clay: I made my mind I’m going to hire her. I told my daughter Havana. Havana was like nine at the time. I said, “I’m going to hire her.” I kept recruiting her and then she came over here, okay? And she shadowed and quickly we discovered this is the right fit. She was with one of her friends who heard, “You mean they’re paying you how much per hour?” and she was “Well, they’re paying me $2 an hour, more than I was making and I get a bonus every week if I get my stuff done.”

She was like, “Oh my gosh.” Her friend wants to come up. Nice lady, make it model in my mind, comes over and just get into an epic argument day one about dress code. We move on. We didn’t lose time, we didn’t lose money, it was just over. Then you got Alex over here. Alex is on our team. He is in the background here. He’s on the phone probably helping a Thriver right now get signed up for the conference, and on the other side of the cameras. Sam, can you hop on the camera just real quick? This is Sam our [crosstalk] producer.

Robert: Sam, the lumberjack.

Clay: America’s model Viking great guy.

Robert: Great guy.

Clay: Sam Parker, his wife had worked with me for about three years– two and a half years and she goes my husband will be a great fit and that timing wasn’t just right for a while. We bring him in. He’s a perfect fit. Perfect timing. Great. He tells me that his brother– his brother is great. Then the other day, Jack, your other brother is shadowing up here.

Robert: Walk me through that. Okay. I’m listening to you. I’m finishing up lunch, I’m wrapping stuff up. I’m listening and you keep saying this word shadow, so walk me through the specifics of that.

Clay: [crosstalk] His brother Jack– Sam and Alex. His brother Jack literally followed me. He met me at the office. I said meet me at 8:50, I’ll be there since like 7:00 but get there at 8:50.

Robert: First step he sets there on time.

Clay: Yes. And he follow me around-

Robert: Okay. Step one.

Clay: -for every meeting and dress as sharp as you need to. It’s what I wear so just dress sharp. That guy dressed super sharp. He wore a suit. He was attentive. He took notes and I told them after the interview. I said “Hey–

Robert: You took him into meetings you have with business clienteles and coaching and intimate stuff. You just dragged this kid around with you all day long.

Clay: Absolutely. I just wanted to see if he’s attentive and I’m going to tell you what, at the end of it I said “Hey, if you want to come work here, we’ll figure out the specifics. If not, no stress but you’ve seen me I’ve seen you. There’s really nothing to talk about. You’ve seen it and then you can decide.” Because I think so many times in the interview, the interviewer is going “Oh you’re going to love it here. All employees love it. The hours are great. It’s pretty flexible.”

[music]

And the employee is going “I was a custodial engineer back in the seventh grade, graduated. Waited until we graduated but I didn’t go back and get my associates.” It’s kind of this BS going on. Eventually you just going to accept the shadow process. Have someone follow you around. You can find out they’re a good fit real quick. thrivetimeshow.com

Announcer: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Top radio 1170.

Clay: All right. Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. The audio dojo of mojo that you want to go to, to learn how to start and grow a successful business and I’m going to tell you– I’m going to tell you why you want to start and grow a successful business. I’m going to tell you why you want to do it. Okay, because this is a very real situation. I just got my health care bill in the other day. I’ve got five kids and my son was born blind, so he’s a number of pre-existing conditions.

Robert: Yes Sir. I do sir.

Clay: From optometry perspective, when someone is born blind you can’t take that off and they are legally blind and on the documents you can’t take that off. He’s a miracle baby. This is another story but I will say that he was legally blind. We’ve had kids, we’ve had injuries and sicknesses and things like that. Anyway, I get my health care bill and my health insurance. It’s rocking around 2100 a month for my health insurance.

Robert: Rocking around.

Clay: It’s a good number. It’s good. So you take 2100, okay? You multiply that times 12. I’m just doing the maths. Anybody listening right now you’re going “2100 times 12. This is a crazy show.” Yes, that’s about 24000 a year-

Robert: And change.

Clay: -on insurance. But let’s keep going. I’m just going to add this up. Then you go– what you do, you insure your car. That’s about 600 to 700 a month. Okay. It’s now up to 3000, just for insurance. What about insuring your house? Yes, let’s do that too. Let’s go ahead and not under-insure our home. Let’s do-

Robert: Well Nick, you don’t want to– you can’t do that.

Clay: I spend about to my family about 40,000 a year just for the insurance.

Robert: Oh yes. Okay.

Clay: Now let’s get started though because really we have other things to do like food. Food oh food. Okay.

Robert: You’ve got chickens. You just [crosstalk]

Clay: Should we have provision of food? Should we be gluten-free? Should we be organic? Should the chickens roam free-cage, free public as my wife loves that kind of thing? Now we are getting into that $60,000 zone just for insurance and-

Robert: And food.

Clay:-food. Now the thing is though– rumor has it though about half of what you make when it’s all set and done, when you add in the gasoline tax. There’s a tax on gasoline? The toll-road tax. That’s not a toll, it’s actually a fee. Whatever buddy, you’ve been scammed. Health– insurance– excess tax if you travel a lot, there’s fuel taxes, there’s consumption taxes. There’s taxes on everything. There’s property tax.

Robert: Sales taxes.

Clay: Income tax. State and local. You add all up and you go. Really, you had to make like $100,000 just to make it with five kids, and a wife and–

Robert: And chickens.

Clay: Yes. And then you had a little ambition in there, probably you’ve got to be hitting more than that and you go and sit and realize, okay so now you’re going to start a company. We are going to start an online school, you and me.

Robert: Okay.

Clay: And by the way when you do you get a higher team of coders –just strolling out there. Typically they want to get paid too. Right? Typically there are people you are hiring and they want to get paid something so you go and pay those guys. Let’s just say you are spending 2500 a week or so on that– pretty soon you are going– you guys have got to be making some serious money to do what you want to do. And I’m going to tell you what Thrivers: I’m not talking about money in the braggadocious way.

Am talking about the money in a way that’s going to help you because so many of you, you’ve had big dreams and you’ve had to fit it into a small box and you’ve had to give up on part of your dream of having time freedom and financial freedom and now this is what you sound like in a dialogue “Holy crap, am going to go to my freaking job and do my freaking thing.” You’re in the elevator on Monday people are like “How are you Greg? Freak–” You can see it on your face, you have given up. When you were 12, you didn’t want to grow up to be striving for health care. You didn’t want to push yourself– “Bobby, what do you want to be when you are 12?” I want to work in a job I don’t like. Barely surviving.

Robert: Barely surviving.

Clay: And living on paycheck to paycheck.

Robert: Kind of like being on the move, barely surviving.

Clay: Just paycheck to paycheck and in fact I almost don’t measure my paycheck. It just really some weeks– goes negative, wrong. I can’t even make it.

Robert: The goal is to take control. The goal is to create time and financial freedom. That’s what we are talking about today. And if you are crazy enough to start up a business some day or you own one right now, you’re in that rear 50 [crosstalk]

Clay: But that means I’ve got to go back to college and spend hundreds of thousand dollars to get a four year business degree because that is the only way you can really do it, right?

Robert: Well it’s a general rule the people that teach the card courses many of them are good people but they usually are on the campus because they are usually not running a business.

Clay: Well, and you know we love our professors and-

Robert: We do.

Clay: -there’s probably some listening right now. How’re you doing? We love you guys. You do a great job. Keep up the good work.

Robert: The thing is we want to create a practical bridge.

Clay: Right. If you don’t also– anybody can go back to– drop everything and go back to school for four years. Not everybody has tens of thousands i.e. $100,000 and you don’t want to live on your Mum’s couch-

Robert: When you’re 44, joining a frat is weird.

Clay: It’s– there was a funny movie though, one I’m thinking about. But the thing about it is this, is that we have brought the business school to you in an affordable way, in a tangible way and a way that you can address it and you can conquer it as fast or as slow as you want to and that’s thrive15.com. What we’ve done is we’ve brought basically Netflix a business coaching and we’ve just dropped it into your lap. And it’s for a measly– I’m talking– we are practically giving it away.

It’s for a measly $19 a month. You have all these great mentors and a business coach, teaching you all these great moves and you know what? It is doable and this year– this year is the year that you go from being a wantrepreneur to an entrepreneur and we’re going to help you. We’re going to be right here to help every step of the way.

Robert: It’s going to get epic in here if you apply all the teaching, you have a scholarship. Everyone can afford it. We’re talking about how to lead your team, how to manage people in a world where the 3Ds are everywhere. Damned, distracted, dishonest people. How do you do it? Play number eight of the– this is the Ought Show.

Clay: There’s what’s kind of mean I think-

Robert: Here we go, somebody needs to write that down. It says– here we go, let me get my music ready for this.

Recording 1: Little DJ time [music]

Robert: All right, so you’re ready? [blowing]

Robert: Taylor– Taylor, you’re ready for this one? Taylor Hall, General Manger Tulsa Oilers. Here we go.

Recording 2: Fire those that you cannot inspire and who cannot do what is required. Signed Do Vedas. Wow. Do Vedas? [background noises]

Robert: Now Taylor, I must start with you. Why do you eventually have– if a guy can’t carry. You have a Hockey team. If a guy just cannot score goals and that is what you need at that position or he can’t play defense and that’s what you need, he can’t stop people from scoring and he is a goalie. If somebody just can’t do the job, why do you eventually have to move on?

Taylor: Because they are a wreck on the team. If they can’t get their job done and they can’t– can’t inspire the rest of their teammates to be successful there’s no reason to have them anymore.

Robert: So you’re saying they’re a wreck on the team?

Clay: If you– if you do not fire the players, would you use the General Manager of Interim be fired by ownership or somebody else?

Taylor: Absolutely.

Robert: That’s it. You know what—and I tell you what Clay is saying, same thing applies when you are in a business. If you do not fire the guys in the 3Ds, if you don’t fire the dudes that are are the bad employees, guess who’s going to fire you?

Taylor: Let me take a guess.

Robert: The customer.

Clay: Which, by the way, the customer is meaner than any boss ever. True story. The other day we were going out to eat and we took the kids out to Olive Garden and they did a great job with their broken arrow one right up there by the lows by Lynn Lane there and we go out to that Olive Garden, great people, great staff, our waitress was great. I go out into the parking lot picking up the car because it’s cold I’m going to go warm up the car, pick up the kids.

I go out there and this lady’s like “would you believe it, oh my gosh, those breads sticks were terrible.” And you could just see her on her phone going to town. Let me tell you what she’s not going to walk up to the waitress or the waiter or discuss with them kindly, she is just going to – and I had a great experience and I always have one, but who’s perfect? Nobody.

But that customer they just they’re judgmental, they paid for something and crazy enough they want to get what they paid for and so you’ve got to wow the guests, you got to set a standard internally. Oh, here we go, someone should write this down.

Taylor: I’m writing

Clay: You need to set a standard internally that is higher than what the customers set externally.

Robert: That’s difficult to do because there’s is very, very high. Clay, today’s show’s been awesome I feel more equipped to hire good people. To train good people to not put up with the negativity. And you know what? If I want more there’s something- today’s Thursday.

Clay: Thursday.

Robert: Tomorrow’s Friday the 13th. One week from that day some magical, special event happens.

Clay: Here’s what’s going to happen you’re going to walk, if you are fortunate enough to get a ticket to this you’re going to the Riverwalk and Jinx right there golf facility called Flying Tee you’re going to park your car, you’re going to come inside. You’re going to see kind of Disneyland. Taylor, would you describe it as a kind of Disneyland of entrepreneurship?

Taylor: The Disneyland of business right here.

Clay: You’ve got notable quotables, stats, quotes, stories, we’ve got a great team of people. You’re going to come and you’re going to notice there’s not seating for thousands. It’s set up where you get your own desk to sit at there there’s going to whiteboards, there’s going to be trainers, business gurus, a business coach, teaching you the specifics stuff you’ve always wanted to know, the stuff behind the stuff.

Search engine optimization, sales, marketing, accounting, hiring, firing, personal finance. You’re going to be surrounded by people who are entrepreneurs who are wantrepreneurs and you’re going to have security of knowing Z that nobody there is going to try to upsell you anything during the two-day fifteen hours of power, Thrive Time workshops.

Robert: Are they going to make me walk on hot coals, though, because I heard that’s a thing at some of these things.

Clay: We’re not going to it this time, though, I can’t say that – no hot coals, no upsells, no jackassery, just real talk about how to start and grow a successful business.

Robert: But what if I really, really, really want to this okay? I’m listening from somewhere around the world and I think man this sounds like a game changer for me and it will be and I go “wow, I can’t do the travel and the hotel and all the stuff, I can’t really afford it.”

Clay: We have scholarship.

Robert: What are my options?

Clay: We have scholarship program and I can just say we’ve had a few people we’ve scholarshipped who we met them where they were at and luckily we’ve been blessed to be in a situation where you can I can do that for people and so we’ve said hey listen we’ve teamed up with some great Tulsa investors and if you want to come to the Thrive Time Show two day 15 hour workshops, go to thrivetimeshow.com that’s thrivetimeshow.com, go up there click on the conference request your tickets get it going, get it on and just understand that we’re going to meet you have way, meet you three quarters of the way we’re going to help you. See what a business coach can do to help you.

Robert: Absolutely and that’s our heart and that’s what we want to do and we want every one of you great 2017 to start, and grow that business, we’re here to help. As always Clay, we have a little fun at the end 3-2-1. Boom.

[01:33:40] [END OF AUDIO]