Business Coach | The Rhythm of Entrepreneurship: Define, Act, Measure, Refine
Audio Transcription
On todays episode of the Thrivetime show, business coach, Clay Clark, and Dr. Z are talking about the rhythm of entrepreneurship. Learn how to grow your business by following the easy process of defining, acting, measuring, and then ultimately refining. They break all of these steps down for you in a simple and easy to use action plan.
Discover the Rhythm of Entrepreneurship with help from the Business Coach : Podcast Transcript
Clay Clark: Knock, knock. Who is it? Oh yes, he is back and he is the exquisite Dr. Robert Zoellner. Dr. Z, how are you my friend?
Dr. Robert Zoellner: I am fantastic, Clay. How are you doing buddy?
Clay: Man, I’ll tell you what, being here with you in the box that rocks has always been a pleasure. It’s been exciting. It’s been a joy. Then today, I brought in pieces of pinyon into the box so I’m just smelling it.
Dr. Robert: I wondered why it was mosquito-free in here, now I know the rest of the story.
Clay: If you’re smelling your radio right now, we have this new thing I’m working on it’s called smell-o-vision. Thomas Edison did 10,000 field experiments to create the modern day light bulb.
Vanessa Clark: You better get going.
Clay: I’m trying to do 10,000 failed show attempts to create smell-o-vision. I’m doing some different things behind the scenes. We’re on Facebook live right now where folks have told me they can smell the pinyon. It smells like America.
Dr. Robert: That is America. You know what I love most about pinyon, not only smell but apparently bugs hate the smell.
Clay: Yes, it’s a super move.
Dr. Robert: It’s like a win — when we talk about a win-win in business any time it can be a win-win for you as a business owner or maybe an employee, customer, that’s success. That’s what you build up on. Pinyon wood is a symbol of business success.
Clay: It is. It’s a symbol of business success. I’m going to tell you what else Thrivers, Z said, “Hey, I’m looking for a win-win in business.” I’m looking for a win-win, win-win. I’m looking for four wins. That’s a total of four wins.
Dr. Robert: Wow. You’re a greedy win hog.
Clay: I got another win here. Inside the box that rocks, we have a man who is so tall.
Dr. Robert: He’s so tall.
Clay: He’s so tall we even had to adjust the lens to fit him on Facebook live.
Dr. Robert: Hey Sam, can I get a step-ladder so I don’t feel so short?
Clay: Yes, it’s a thing. He’s an intimidator. It’s Ryan Myers here. Ryan, how are you sir?
Ryan Myers: Man, I’m awesome. Thank you.
Clay: Hey first, the Thrivers want to know the obvious question. First off, how tall are you? Question number two, what do you do for a living? What is your core business my friend?
Ryan: Sure, the question most often asked, how tall am I? 6′ 10″. Thank God I did play basketball so I get that going for me. I own a company, Transit Advertising, Inc. We sell the advertising space on the buses, benches, and shelters in Tulsa, Oklahoma City and four other markets.
Clay: If I’m listening right now and I want to auto-wrap a bus or what else I can do?
Ryan: Or a boat.
Clay: Or a boat.
Ryan: Or trucks.
Clay: Or a truck.
Ryan: Trailers.
Dr. Robert: Can I wrap a person? Is that a thing? Can I do that?
Ryan: If you can get him to sit still long enough. We have more left with turtles because they’re pretty slow and hard, but furry things not so much.
Dr. Robert: Can you do turtles? Is that pitted down here?
Ryan: You bet. Yes, we can take it off.
Clay: Now we have win-win, win. Now we have one more win. My incredible wife of 15 years is inside the box that rocks. She’s the mother of our five kids and she’s the herder of the cats. She’s a cat-whisperer.
Vanessa: True.
Clay: She’s the mother of the chicken-whisperer.
Vanessa: True.
Clay: She has a lot going on. Vanessa, how are you?
Vanessa: I’m doing great.
Clay: All right. Today we’re talking about a topic that I’m passionate about as a business coach. It is the rhythm of entrepreneurship. Z, Do you know the rhythm of entrepreneurship?
Vanessa: You did a dance move with it.
Dr. Robert: The rhythm is going to get you.
Clay: Rhythm is going to get you.
Dr. Robert: I can’t wait to hear that. Cue it up deejay.
Clay: The telepathic deejay skills are a little bit further behind your mind. Your synapse is fire very fast and I’m trying — it’s hard to be a mind reader at that level and cue up the songs. But I will –
Vanessa: Throw in the dance moves.
Clay: Throw in the dance moves, yes.
Dr. Robert: That’s why we’re a team. There is Captain and Tennille. There was Laurel and Hardy.
Vanessa: Batman and Robin.
Dr. Robert: There was Batman and Robin. There was Batgirl and the — now we got The Joker in here.
Vanessa: That’s right, we are the whole team.
Dr. Robert: I can tell Ryan is a little bit of a joker. I can just feel it.
Ryan: I was thinking Starsky and Hutch but–
Dr. Robert: Starsky and Hutch. It goes on and on and on.
Clay: Now Thrivers, we’re talking about the rhythm of entrepreneurship. The rhythm of entrepreneurship really involves these four steps that happen over and over and over. Step number one, you have to define what you want. You got to define what your business is going to do, what you want. You have to define it. That’s the part where most entrepreneurs, they love that part. It’s the part where you go to the coffee shop. You watch TED Talks. You’ve just read a book called The Four-Hour Work Week. You’ve just read Tipping Point. You’ve read a Malcolm Gladwell book. You are now sufficiently motivated, you define. The next part is acting. That’s where about a third of the entrepreneurs drop off. They go, “I can’t actually do something. This is stupid.”
Dr. Robert: It’s want-a-preneur.
Clay: Now the third part is measuring. You got to measure the results. Here’s the part, a lot of measure and they go, “Freak, my ad then more work. I’m done.” You got to measure until it works. The ad numbers are in right now. I’m going to pass the numbers to you. This was from our last conversation. This is not factoring in the cost of building out the set tables. This just happened, I just printed it out today for you.
Ryan: It’s very technical.
Clay: But you can see that’s how much we spend on the ads, and then that’s how much came in, and we want that number to better and better. But there was a time where we were spending $1,500 a ticket to explain to people around the world what the Thrive Time Conferences were about. But now when people Google Thrive 15 Conference, they just find all the reviews and it’s a no-brainer. But you have to measure the results. That fourth step is refine. Once you’ve measured something, you have to refine it over and over and over. Today, to make it fun. We’re going to get into this concept of defining. We’re going to start with Dr. Zoellner’s brain.
Dr. Robert: Oh no. Wait, time out. It’s Thursday. Are you sure you want to throw up back that far?
Vanessa: Is it shutting down yet, your brain?
Dr. Robert: No, you want to throw it back that far?
Clay: I do. I want to Throwback Thursday. I want to throw it back in the day.
Dr. Robert: Back in the day.
Clay: How old were you when you graduated from college?
Dr. Robert: Optometry school I was 25, tough question.
Clay: What year was that?
Dr. Robert: It was 1990.
Clay: 1990, so this–
Dr. Robert: The ’90s.
Clay: You’re the ’90s, and so the music back then well you had Vanilla Ice probably.
Dr. Robert: Oh my goodness.
Clay: That was hot song, right?
Dr. Robert: Yes, Ice Ice Baby. Yes.
Clay: Ice Ice Baby was playing, you were looking cool, things were going good. What was your vision? What did you define your life to look like? What were you just going, “Hey, when I get out of school, this is what I’m going to do.” Tell me what was going through your cranium.
Dr. Robert: My vision was completely shattered by the way.
Clay: What?
Dr. Robert: I had it all mapped out. I had a contract. I had a plan. I had a dude that was going to bring me into his practice, and then sell me his practice. I had it all mapped out. It was beautiful.
Vanessa: How do you feel like you’re speaking to everyone right now?
Dr. Robert: It’s glorious. It was like rainbows and leprechauns and I was riding a unicorn through a field, singing Ice Ice Baby.
Vanessa: It was too good. That was the problem. It was too good.
Dr. Robert: I had them parachute pants back like MC Hammer.
Clay: I think you had the Gloria Estefan mixed in a little bit, Rhythm Is Going To Get You. You had the quad-skates on.
Dr. Robert: Oh yes, there you go. Now you’re thinking back up.
Clay: I was like — because you’re a little older than I am. But I was seven and I remember running into you at Roller City and there was nobody who was better on those quad-skates than you.
Vanessa: You all hit it off right away. It’s like you knew you were going to be together.
Clay: You could do the shuffle really well even at seven. It was weird because I’m a seven-year old. My mom is like, “Who is that man who’s dominating at Gallagher and all the skating games?” I’m like —
Dr. Robert: I swear I had a headband on because it was just–
Clay: I reached out and I said, “Can I borrow your denim?” You said, “No, but you can have an oversized button with Gloria Estefan’s face on it.” I’ve carried that button with me every day. No, I’m just kidding. This is the early ’90s, you have this big vision and it’s just shattered.
Dr. Robert: I had to play Gallagher.
Clay: That’s an extra point there in Gallagher. It shattered. You’re playing–
Dr. Robert: It’s even worse than that. It was even worse than that because then I think a lot of people, things don’t work out, it’s like, “Oh, I may need to work out.” Here’s this dude, I’m getting ready to buy his practice and we had the price all nailed down. Then what we do is a caveat, there’s a little caveat. He said, “Well I’ll tell you what, until we close on the business, why don’t you come to work for me for not a lot of money but it’s really your benefit because you’ll learn the practice, and it’s almost like going back to school. I’ll just pay you a little nominal fee until we close on it, and then you just come in and work for me and it’ll all be good.”
Stinger: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.
Dr. Robert: I got it all mapped up. It was Tulsa, my hometown. I was coming home. I was big smile on my face. His office was fine and unique because he office-shared with his son. He was a dentist. They had some shared spaces but it really cool set up. I’m like, “Man, this is going to be awesome; awesome sauce. I got my contract, got everything.”
Clay: Ice Ice Baby is playing.
Dr. Robert: My dream come true.
Vanessa: Being that you’re right out of school, pretty much any job is like you feel like it’s a lot of money even if it’s not.
Dr. Robert: Even if it’s not, yes.
Clay: [background music] You knew it was going to happen.
Dr. Robert: Oh yes, there we go. I’m on my unicorn across the — yes, it’s going on right now.
Clay: Awesome. Okay, Ice Ice Baby is playing. You’re feeling good.
Dr. Robert: It wasn’t a whole lot of money for the practice and I was excited, had all these numbers, had my stuff put on — I even had a suit back then, my one suit and two or three ties to choose from. I ball them pretty them much. I went after bank after bank after some shady goblin street doing loans, and it was just anybody that I could go talk to that I might really get money out of and–
Clay: Question, when you were driving around town trying to get those loans, were you ever listening to the music? Were you an FM guy? Would you listen to music while you drive around?
Dr. Robert: [laughs] They didn’t have FM back then, Clay. It was all AM.
Vanessa: He’s deejaying today. He’s deejaying.
Clay: I’m just wondering, were you listening to music back in the day when you were getting rejected? Or what were you doing emotionally?
Dr. Robert: I probably was. Yes, I was probably had that in the mirror down I was looking at it going, “You’re okay–“
Clay: I want to ask Ryan. I want to get Ryan’s feedback of this. Ryan, if you went out there and you pitched your idea and you keep getting rejected, would you be listening to FM music? Would you go to Oklahoma Joe’s and just eat until you couldn’t eat any more? What would be your move?
Ryan: I would do that. I would eat. I would be an eater.
Clay: You would just eat?
Ryan: I would go to Oklahoma Joe’s. Did that exist back in 1990?
Clay Let’s not get into the facts, let’s focus on the questions here Ryan.
Ryan: I would listen to Low Chicago, Be the Inspiration, show up at Oklahoma Joe’s get those baked beans.
Clay: Really? Now Vanessa what would you do? Would you listen to FM Radio or would you go eat?
Vanessa: Dance party in my car.
Clay: Really?
Vanessa: Yes.
Clay: Okay it was 1990 you’re probably listening in to Hold On by Wilson Philips?
Vanessa: I was thinking more of a beat dance party.
Clay: No, Z was sombre, he was-
Vanessa: Z was at the bottom.
Dr. Robert: I was at the bottom. I was at the bottom.
Clay: He said he had to hold on for one more day.
Dr. Robert: Just got to hold on.
Vanessa: He was singing it too.
Dr. Robert: Oh yes trying to make it to the next bank, I still got gas I want to make this would it be all right?
Clay: Would you look into the mirror and tell yourself hold on for one more day?
Dr. Robert: Hold on baby, hold on. [crosstalk]
Vanessa: That he was beautiful and he’s perfect.
Dr. Robert: Oh yes you’re okay and that suit is awesome and what a great tie you picked out today. You’re going to do this at the next bank. Oh, yes. I would go marching into that lobby like I own the place. My little sad briefcase oh yes [crosstalk]
Clay: You’re holding on for one more day, you’re holding on.
Dr. Robert: I’m holding on for one more day and I had to sit down with the banker yes I’m here to get a loan, I’m a doctor.
Clay: He had a mullet the guy you were talking to had a mullet?
Dr. Robert: Not that I wasn’t a real doctor I’m an optometrist.
Clay: Oh freak this meeting’s over.
Dr. Robert: I’m kind of like a doctor we get to say doctor you know on occasion doctor. But and no no no I finally found one man by the name of Steve-Steve if you’re listening right now thank you very much.
Clay: Thank you Steve.
Dr. Robert: Steve said, “Listen for some reason I believe in you kid. For some reason I think you’re going to make it”. I’m like that’s really nice.
Vanessa: That’s encouraging.
Dr. Robert: Yes whoo and he said, “Here’s what I’ll do I’ll give you the money and you can take half of it and give it to him but he’s got to keep half of it in a CD in the bank for six months. If you make it after six months I’ll release all the money to him”. I thought homeland score gave Steve a hug when you’ve got a sucker from the drive through teller people left the bank right? It’s what you do yes.
Clay: The thing is when you’re feeling that good and it’s 1990 what you probably would do is you probably get in your car and you probably listen to Macarena because it was the hit song back in the day. You’re probably saying I just got told by a bank that they’re going to actually give me money? You ran to the parking lot you just ripped your shirt off and you start doing the Macarena.
Dr. Robert: I had couple of suckers at the drive through tellers and do the Macarena right there in the bank had my jacket off swirling it round my head.
Clay: What would you be doing Ryan if a bank told you you’re in man you’re funded babe? What would you do?
Ryan: It happened and it was gorgeous, I would be doing the Macarena as well.
Clay: If it was 1990 Vanessa would you do the Macarena or would you have your own original dance moves?
Vanessa: I would do the Macarena for the sake of the show how about that?
Clay: Would you? Because I taught this a lot at weddings and the main key is that you’ve just got to understand there’s a certain group called Caucasians that typically won’t get it. You just have to stay positive.
Vanessa: I’d do the original my own dance moves.
Clay: All right. Z we come back you’re going to tell us what happened? After they told you got the money. You just did the Macaroni in the parking lot. Things are good it’s 1990 life could not be better.
Dr. Robert: It’s a tragic story but it has a happy ending. Stay tuned to Thrive-Time-Show.
Clay: All right Thrive Nation welcome back into the conversation Green Country with your business coach. Hello how are you? We are broadcasting today from the left coast of the Arkansas River inside the beautiful Do Joe of Mo Joe and Inside the Box that Rocks. I’m projecting to you right now broadcasting on this beautiful microphone looking at my dear friend the Tulsa’s mentor Tulsa’s optometrist, Tulsa’s future mime of the year it is Dr. Robert Zoellner. How are you sir?
Dr. Robert: I think it’s more like gloves I guess that’s probably the move if you like gloves and-.
Clay: People always ask is what do you guys do in the commercial break? I’ll tell you what we’re doing. We’re miming.
Dr. Robert: Miming, we do a lot of miming and it’s fun you should try it sometime.
Clay: Yes we have put a lot of energy into a lot of time and we have yet to see a return on it but we believe that our miming career-you’re thinking about miming on the radio? That could be a thing.
Dr. Robert: We could have Smell a Vision maybe we can mime on the radio maybe sock puppets too.
Clay: “That’s a great idea Z. You’re on Facebook live. I just did her land but now okay here we go. Now we’re talking today about the rhythm of entrepreneurship which is you define, you act, you measure and then you refine. I repeat you define, you act, then you measure and you refine. I repeat one more time someone needs to write that down. You define what you want then you have to act though and you’ve got to measure the results and you’ve got to refine. You’ve got to be comfortable with that little system if not your brain explodes that’s why we brought on two guests whose brains have not exploded. We have brought Mr. Ryan Myers, Mr. Ryan how are you sir?
Ryan: I’m awesome thank you. Thanks for having me in the box.
Clay: People want to know what kind of business are you involved in my friend? What is your business?
Ryan: My business is selling advertisement space on buses, wrapping stuff we print and wrap buses, benches, shelters, boats, trucks, trailers, floors, doors, windows.
Clay: What is your website?
Ryan: I have a great website actually and it’s transitadvertisinginc.com put a www in front of that.
Clay: Now where can I find your phone number?
Ryan: You can find my phone number on the website.
Clay: What is your phone number?
Ryan: 918 810 3929.
Clay: Thank you so much I will check it out. Now Vanessa my incredible wife of 15 years is on the show today dealing with my mis-pronounciation of the wh sound as I’m working through this-.
Vanessa: I’m just watching producer Sam lose it over there really. He can’t keep it together.
Clay: Why are you saying that way? I’m working through it Thrivers listen. We just finished miming and now we’re going audio and I’ve got to work through this. Now Z you were just telling us the story before the break about how you just got told that you’re going to be funded by this bank and it’s 1990. You’re feeling good you just did the Macarena in the parking lot to celebrate the future funding. Things are going well what happened next?
Ryan: The world is your oyster?
Dr. Robert: Yes it was my oyster and you could queue up I feel good if you want.
Clay: By James Brown?
Dr. Robert: Yes by James Brown of course. Because we’ve got to play a little bit. Anyway I was feeling great and I went skipping literally skipping back into the office of the Gentleman’s office.
Vanessa: I’d love a visual.
Dr. Robert: Oh yes I am skipping I’m chest thumping high five and I’m gunning all the girls he’s friend of “Daddy’s back with cash.” We sat down I go back to his office and I say, “Dan home shooting score”. That’s right.
Clay: You doing shuffle? Okay he’s doing a shuffle get in there.
Dr. Robert: Come on now. Due to splits pop up on his desk it was I go down and see them pop back up I can’t go on. I’m tickling myself.
Vanessa: You’re having a dance party in there.
Dr. Robert: I am having a dance party. I tell myself sit down listen great news I found a bank the only one in town that’s going to give me some money and here’s the caveat. I told him what I was going to and he sat there and I thought he would be so excited. I knew he’s going to be so excited.
Clay: How could he not be?
Dr. Robert: He just looked at me and he comes and says, “Yes that’s not our deal”. I said, “One second you get half upfront and six months don’t you believe in me too”?
Vanessa: He wants his money.
Dr. Robert: “You something that break this house. Son I’m not going to–“
Clay: Here’s what was going in your head. We actually had a microphone on in your head back in the day we were able to get the live audience. This is what you were saying in your head. You were saying [music] this is one of those reverse psychology moves. I get it you want to lend me the money because you know that I won’t what I can have. I got a feeling you’re messing me with here because I know that you’re going to make this happen. This is different to how I thought it would be but this is one of those Moses moments where God says, “Moses do this thing”.
Vanessa: This space doesn’t look like that was what he was thinking.
Clay: That’s what’s going on?
Dr. Robert: Not at all bro bro bro down.
Vanessa: You’re a little off.
Dr. Robert: You missed that mark by just a little bit. No he was serious I wish that was the case but he was serious.
Announcer: Broadcasting Live from the Center of the Universe. You’re listening to the Thrive-Time-Show.
Dr. Robert: I was incredulous I was, “Dude we get the money in six months don’t you believe in me? Half now half in six months let’s make this thing happen”. He goes, “No no man that’s not our deal. All the money upfront you want the practice, you want the keys but you just keep looking-“. I was, “I think I’ve gone to every place I can I can sell a kidney maybe but anything short of that I think I’m-“.
Clay: Get your kidney get your kidney.
Dr. Robert: Step right up. Anyway I kept working for him for another month looking I’m sure there were a few banks that I hadn’t gone to so I keep looking and then I realized wait a second. I’m working for this dude, I’m working my butt off and he’s paying me peanuts and I brought him a deal,something smells. Something doesn’t smell right about this thing.
Clay: Something’s not good here.
Dr. Robert: Something’s not good. What I defined, what I set out to become what I thought was going to be the boom boom boom came to a tragic end.
Clay: But I have a notable quotable to encourage your younger selves. I think a lot of people they struggle with that and they have this big definition, this big vision and it doesn’t come into the reality they want. This is from Steve Jobs okay he’s the co-founder of-.
Clay: Apple, the former CEO of Pixar. He says “You cant connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in the future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. The point is, you can’t steer apart the bush, you got to keep going.
Dr. Robert: You got to keep going. So I left him, and I went out got a J-O-B.
Clay: Job? A job, I know. How do you say that again?
Dr. Robert: In fact, I had a couple of jobs. I was working seven days a week and just grinding away. And then in a year, by delaying gratification, by working seven days a week, by working as hard as I could and living below my means, I was able to start Dr. Robert H. Zoellner and Associates on 11/11/1991. I spent about a year, a year and a half working for other docs. Someone said “Hey when I’m coming out of school, I had it all mapped out.
I had it all dialed in. You hear that form young people that go “This is my plan. This is my future. This is what I’m going to do.” It sounds good and you’re cheering them on and all of a sudden, something derails them and it’s just, it’s pretty debilitating. I mean, it knocks you. It takes your wind out of you.
Clay: Now when we come back, we’re going to talk about Ryan and how he defined his business. On his mind, where his business was going to be. How it’s going to start. What your big vision was for your company. We’re going to also ask Vanessa about her vision for her kitchen; her vision for her kitchen. What you wanted it to be? What she knew it was going to be? And maybe how it’s different than she thought it would be.
Now, we’re going to come and get it in. The thing is you have to start with the vision. You have to start but you got to know that once you take action, we got to measure the results and change a little bit but that’s the thing, if not, you’re going to end up in a van down by the river, singing that 1990 greatest hots. One of the top songs in the 1990s, you know Bette Midller From A Distance?
Dr. Robert: Yes, I do.
Clay: I feel like every middle school choir was required to sing that song, From A Distance. That was from 1990. That was the year that you were getting rejected for funding. That song From A Distance was written in honor of you, I think. It was a way to encourage you, that in the distance there is harmony.
Dr. Robert: Well, Bette was speaking to me when she was singing it. I’ll tell you what.
Clay: Did you were have to sing that song at a church thing or anything. You’re too old at that point, I guess.
Dr. Robert: I’m not saying I couldn’t go back and do it.
Clay: All right. Stay tuned ThriveTimeShow.com.
[silence]
Clay: All right, Tulsa. Welcome back inside the box that rocks and I am in your ear. I am a business coach and my name is Clay Clark, sent here to tech you how to start and grow a successful business. As always, I’m joined with the optometrist turned tycoon, Dr. Robert Zoellner. How are you sir?
Dr. Robert: I’m great. On the break, Ryan asked me a great [laughs] question. It goes “How did you all think about the name for your business?” I was laughing a little bit going “Oh, yes we’re making a joke.” But not that, “Wait, there is something there. It’s Dr. Robert H. Zoellner and Associates.” So I was forward thinking, little prophetic in coming out because when you first came in, it was me and one lady. That was it.
Clay: That’s Robert Zoellner and a person.
Ryan: What’s your last name? Associates.
[laughter]
Dr. Robert: Yes. No. That about easy. Yes, that’s how I got the name but I thought, you know what? “This thing is going to grow. It’s going be.” So I named it that way.
Vanessa: You had that vision and goal.
Ryan: Absolutely.
Dr. Robert: I had that vision. I wanted to find that. That was my definition. That where I wanted to go. Even though I got turned down a year and a half earlier but that dude. That dude if you’re listening right now, you missed out on being partners with the computer guy that you saw it to a great guy.
Clay: Random idea, should you and I, ever want to start a micro brewery. I would like to name it Responsibly. So you tell people drink Responsibly. And that would just be the branding is already done.
Dr. Robert: I like that. I wonder if anybody out there has done that.
Clay: People have talked about it before. I think it would just actually pull the trigger on that. There’s just the thing, I’m just telling you. That’s a thing. Someone should write that down and go do that. Anyway Thrivers, now here’s the deal. We’re talking about once you define something, you got to take that actions. So Ryan here, Ryan Myers, he has a very successful company in Tulsa. They autowrap buses, boats, big things, don’t you?
Ryan: Yes, big things; we do huge stuff and we do little stuff. Right now, the major league fishing and the FL debut tour starting and we’re finishing that boats and trucks right now.
Clay: What was your website? What your website address?
Ryan: transitadvertisinginc- I-N-C not I-N-K -.com
Clay: How did you get your idea to start the business. When did you get that idea? Where were you when you had the idea? Kindly walk us through. Where did you get that vision to start this business?
Ryan: You know I started off. I sold insurance.
Clay: Oh really?
Ryan: Yes, it was the greatest topic killer at parties “Hey what do you do?” “Oh I sell insurance.” “Oh good, see you later.” It was awesome. I decided I want to do something really cool and the vehicle wrap had just started. The printers were tiny. It just come out some big printers that you could actually wrap a car in less than seven layers of wrap and so I though “This could be really cool. We could have like West Coast customs in Tulsa.”
Clay: What year was this?
Ryan: It was 10 years ago.
Clay: So this is like 2007.
Ryan: Somewhere around there. I’m not good with numbers.
Clay: Do you remember your favorite songs from 2007? Because there’s some great hits. There’s some great music there.
Dr. Robert: Oh, no. Here we go.
Vanessa: Because enjoying this too much.
Ryan: That was about the time when I just started listening to Talk Radio Only.
Clay: Oh really, so you did–
Vanessa: He missed out on the whole music genre.
Ryan: Yes, because we know that the 2000’s are the greatest for music.
Clay: Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll get you some good 2007 to get you in that zone, okay?
Ryan: Yes, give, right there.
Clay: My incredible wife for 15 years is here. You have to have vision for anything. Anytime you want to have success in any area, you have to define what it’s going to look like. We purchased a house. We’ve been renovating that thing, knocking out every wall. Vanessa tell me your vision when you saw the house. What did you envision in your mind’s eye? When you began.
I said “Okay, we’re going to move into this place.” What was the vision?
Vanessa: I think we, both of us, really fell in love with the property but not so much with the house. But we saw that it had potential if we just knock down everything and tore off everything and started from the beginning. But it’s been so fulfilling to see that being fulfilled, it’s not done yet. We’ve got like 20-step plan or whatever but all the walls are out, all the wood floors are in, all the kitchen is pretty much done but as you say define act measure refine.
About a week after our– all our new wood floors are in. We had a bathroom back behind the wall. Flood overflows, something was wrong with the shower and so I want to give a shout out to Farmer’s Insurance. They came out, wrote me a check. I want to say thank you to Farmers. I don’t even know who’s the Travis. I don’t know, but we had a replace all that wood floor.
Clay: That was right there, Farmers Insurance at 392-4000. Why just buy a piece of paper? What you want is the promise. You want that promise to be good; use Farmers Insurance, 392-4000 baby. Here’s the deal, we define, we have a definition on our mind. We say “This is what? This is what I want my future to look like.” You define it but now you got to go out there and act and I think this is the part where so many– that people say this, and if you say this, I want everyone to write this statement down because if you say this statement.
This is an absolute wealth destroying– just absolutely vision killing statement. If you say this statement or you allow this statement to be made to you Z, this is what’s going to happen. You ready for the statement?
Dr. Robert: Oh yes.
Clay: You just got rejected and your friend Carl, Carl has been with you since college. This is what Carl says. You’re out at some place fancy back in 1990 like Casa Bonita.
Dr. Robert: Oh, don’t tease me about that. I love that place.
Clay: You remember Casa Bonita?
Dr. Robert: Of course. What kid didn’t love that place?
Clay: You’re probably at Casa Bonita listening to Suavemente.
Dr. Robert: Am I in the cave? Can we be in the cave? The cave room.
Clay: The cave room and they have as well a little games in there and you’ve got like there’s an in let’s take our cave back. Everybody do today with arcades. Gosh, that’s so–
Dr. Robert: That the treasury, you could get little fake money and then go and give little kids.
[music]
Vanessa: I think for those of us who-
Clay: So you’re at Casa Bonita, you’re friend this is what he says. He walks up to you and he goes “Bro, maybe it’s just not meant to be, bro.” I mean that’s suggested a wealth killing idea.
Dr. Robert: And I just slapped him in the face. Put on my ninja outfit. Take a samurai and right there. Was that old much? That maybe an old much.
Clay: I want to go off. I have to go off just for a second. I’m sorry. It’s a one ace deals where I’ve been couponing up inside for so long and it must be sad. It must be sad. A lot of you are out there, you’re saying ” I want to have a success–
Dr. Robert: Hey, you want to preach?
Clay: I do. It has to happen.
[music]
Dr. Robert: Preach on.
Clay: You’re out there and you want to start a successful business. So you say “I’m going to go door-to-door, house-to-house and I’m going to keep knocking on those doors until I get a deal. And then you go up into that for one day. And then you say “I’m going to do it for two days.” And you say three days, pretty soon you rest, no one is answering the door. If you’re an entrepreneur, you got three options here. One; you knock the freaking door down. You just got to get in through that door.”
Dr. Robert: Come on now.
Vanessa: You need your outfit. You didn’t need your outfit.
Clay: Move number two is you got to sneak around. You got to get into that window. Move number three; you got to climb down through that chimney like Santa Claus and get your paws or what you need because that is how you start a successful business. You cannot stop. I’m serious. This is ridiculous. There’s so many people out there who are, their effort, their tenacity is so freaking awake.
I don’t know what the freak is wrong with you but I love you so much`. I want to help you but it makes me crazy. I hear your idea and you say “Oh my gosh. I love Elote. It is such a great restaurant. Well, if you have any idea, the struggle, that libby went through to build that business. You said “I love Robert Zoellner and Associates.” If you had any idea the hustle and the struggle it took, you would go “Oh, wow. Now I get it.” Vanessa you had something, you want to add it.
Vanessa: Can you share some of your– “These business owner is needing this tenacity. I have so many memories of you on the phone, oh man, you were just the cold-calling machine. You would get hung up on. I remember your move so good. They would hang up on you, and what would you do? I’d see you dialing right back, and you would tell them –
Clay: I would just yell at the phone. Once they hung up on me, I would typically hang the phone up and I would just, [shouts] “You – you — you will buy from me.”
Vanessa: You would call them right back and you would say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I think we got disconnected.” You would act like you didn’t know.
Clay: I did the wounded dog move. This is what I would do, Z. “You just hung up on me?”
Dr. Robert: [barking dog noise]
Clay: I would call back and I’d go, [makes dialing noise] “Is this Robert?” “Yeah, man.” “Hey, I don’t know if I just got disconnected. We were talking and I just — I just -”
Vanessa: Who does that? Who calls someone back who just hung up on them?
Clay: People would always feel bad. Then I would go — After I deal-wheeled around, I’d go, “So, let me ask, if money wasn’t a concern, what do you think is the main benefit of working with DJ Connection?” They would go, “Well, if money wasn’t an issue, I think I could probably do –.” I’m like, “You know, you’re exactly right, because DJ Connection is the best DJ service.” I would just go back into it, like nothing happened. That was my move.
Dr. Robert: That was your move. I like that, the wounded dog.
Clay: Smooth shady. The wounded dog. It’s a patented move. It’s part of the deal-wheel. It’s a system.
Dr. Robert: It’s a system. Pay attention. Listen to the Thrive Time Show, and learn all the deals. All the moves.
Clay: Learn all the super moves. Now go to thrivetimeshow.com if you missed earlier segments. We’ll be right back.
Vanessa: He has moves. Ninja moves. Sorry.
Clay: All right, Thrive Nation. We’re now talking about action, because once you have the passion, once you make that vision, you’ve got to start to take some action. There’s a notable quote that I’m going to start right off the top with, this is from Chet Holmes. Chet Holmes, who’s he? Who’s Chet Holmes? He is the former partner of Charlie Munger, who’s Warren Buffet’s business partner, there.
He says this, he says, “The missing ingredient, for nearly of the 1,000 plus coaching clients that I’ve worked with directly to improve their businesses, is pigheaded discipline and determination. We all get good ideas at seminars and from books, radio talk shows and business building gurus, the problem is that most companies do not know how to identify and adapt the best ideas to their businesses.”
Dr. Robert: Businesses.
Clay: Implementation not ideas. Implementation not ideas. I’ll repeat, bring it back. Implementation not ideas. [rewind noise] Bring it back, one more time. [rewind noise] Here is the key from the business coach: Implementation, not ideas is the real key to success. Z, I want to ask you, if I’m listening right now and I’m going, “Okay, okay. I get it. I had to define what I wanted to do.”
Tell me about when you start taking action to actually buy your optometry clinic at the first one going, start that thing up. What kind of adversity did you have? After you’d saved that money, you’re working seven days a week, delayed gratification, what kind of adversity did you run into at that point?
Dr. Robert: The biggest thing I ran into in my career early on is that I started advertising very early. You’ve got to understand, back in 1990 there had just been a lawsuit that had been settled by some attorneys — I forget where, I could probably Google it and give you the details of it. Basically, it was a lawsuit that said that even though you’re a professional, you can’t advertise. There was a thing back in the day, when doctors and attorneys wouldn’t advertise, because it wasn’t considered ethical.
Clay: Wasn’t it the oath of jackassery you all had to take?
Dr. Robert: Something very similar to that. You’ve got to understand one thing is that, when I started advertising, I instantly became, in my profession, the black sheep.
Clay: You instantly got the power. You got the power, Zig. [music] You got the power, right away.
Dr. Robert: DJ, come on now. DJ Connection. I feel connected. There we go, oh yeah. I was the bla –bla –black sheep, is what I was. I’d go to conferences, I’d be feeling all good. I’d be doing my thing. Everybody’d just give me — I’d walk by, walk in the room and just silence. You’ve got to understand –
Vanessa: Whenever you get on top, you’re the black sheep, right?
Dr. Robert: I wasn’t quite — I was working my way up there. I appreciate where you’re going with that, Vanessa. Day one, I was starting to advertise and people were like, “Who do you think — What are you doing? Stop that. Stop that. That’s wrong. We didn’t teach you in school to do that.”
Clay: You’re an all-star. You’re an optometrist and you’re walking into fancy places like Ruby Tuesdays. You’re like, “I’m going to get some salad,” and they’re like, “Are you Dr. Zeller?” You’re like, “Yes, I am.”
Dr. Robert: Everybody outside the optometry community, it wasn’t a big deal to them. They appreciated it. They looked at that, they said, “Hey, that’s cool. That’s good.” It is what is what it was around the business. Business was business, but in the optometry culture that was the thing that probably was the hardest on me, to be very frank with you. You’re a young man, you’re starting your business, and you’re instantly the black sheep.
Clay: Was that hard on you? Really?
Dr. Robert: Yes, I’ve got some stories I won’t go into.
Clay: Come on, give me one.
Vanessa: You were a young buck.
Clay: Give me one story where you’re just — Now you’re like a tough guy. This is the thing is, this is what’s happened to you. Do you remember, Vanessa, you and I watched the Star Wars, where Anakin, he became Darth Vader?
Vanessa: I love Anakin. Yes.
Clay: You know, he became Darth Vader? What happened is, is that you went through some tough stuff, you decided, “I’m not going to become Darth Vader.” You’ve been through some stuff. You got the Anakin fork in the road, but you could have become the Darth Vader of optometry. You decided not to do that. You’re kind of a smiley, cheerful guy. You could have easily just put on the [Darth Vader breathing]. Give me a story.
Dr. Robert: Have a red light sabre.
Vanessa: I’m going to add to that, I really think –
Dr. Robert: Do you really want — I don’t want it to sound like it’s sour grapes, because it’s not, now. I get it and I understand.
Clay: We know that, but let’s face it, it’s helpful to the entrepreneur listening, because as I say, they want to hear how you dealt with it as a young man. Who you were unsure of yourself. You were unsure of all the moves you were making, yet you still went for it. You did it, even though were ostracized and it was hard. Tell us about getting through those hard times and encourage these listeners.
Vanessa: It’s true.
Dr. Robert: Okay, I’m going to open up my heart just a little bit here, and my brain. I’m going to share a story with you that was painful at the time, but you know what? It’s character building and you overcome it. You learn to forgive people and you learn to, as Taylor Swift says, shake it off. [laughs]
Clay: Oh, nice. Nice.
Dr. Robert: Shake it off. Okay, so here’s the deal. I get contacted by my alma mater, North Eastern State University, which used to be the Red Men, now the River Hawks. I played soccer there, back in the day.
Clay: Back in the day.
Dr. Robert: I get contacted by the marketing company that they had hired. They approached me and they said, “Listen, we’re doing a commercial for the university, and we want you to be in it. We’ve rated alumnis [sic] from there and you’re in the Tulsa Green Country region. You’re one of the most recognizable, so we’d like to use you. We’re not going to pay you anything, but do you want to do it?” I said, “Absolutely.”
Clay: Your professor people are calling the college that you graduated from is calling you. That’s got to be an exciting call. They’re going, “We want to use you.”
Dr. Robert: It’s the advertising company they hired. They did a bunch of research on who they were going to use. Of course, working closely with the school. Anyway, I’m like, “I’m honoured. I’m flattered. That’s cool. That’s very cool.” They come out and they shoot the commercial. They do a professional job. It was actually brothers, advertising agency here in town, and they’re great guys. I know the guy that owns it, Paul, great family and great people.
Anyway, the commercial comes out and it’s well done. It was awesome. I was proud to be on it. It was a neat message and it was boom. [chuckle] Then one day, someone calls me up and says, “Hey, man, what happened?” I said, “What are you talking about?” They said, “Well, I saw that commercial the other day, but you’re not on it anymore.” “What?”
Clay: You’re right away, this is what’s happening, because this is 19 — What year was this?
Dr. Robert: I’d have to do some research, but I’ll Google it and I’ll do it.
Clay: It was deep enough into the ‘90s where you had Michael Bolton cued up. You went into your car –
Dr. Robert: It could have been early — I started probably ’91, so this was probably early 2000s, I’d say.
Clay: Let’s pretend it was the –
Dr. Robert: Late ‘90s, early 2000s.
Clay: It was in the 2000s, but you still had a car from the ‘90s. What car were you driving?
Dr. Robert: What car was I driving then? I was driving a — The first car I ever had was a 1974 Pinto runabout.
Clay: Say, for some reason, you still had that car, and you had a tape, and you put in a tape. [music] You sat there and it was raining. You just cued up the Michael Bolton. You realized, “I don’t normally get into his music, but today, I’m asking how am I supposed to live without you, commercial people who previously had my face on — I played soccer for you. I’ve paid you. I’ve showed up on time.”
Vanessa: What more can he do?
Clay: You’re sitting there, weeping. You’re like, “What am I going to do but play this song again, and because it didn’t have the repeat, because it wasn’t on a CD, you had to play it, rewind it. It was a struggle, but you went through it.
Dr. Robert: I was in struggle mode. I’m like, “That’s weird.” That got my curiosity. I went on to the website, [mimics connecting sound] got on the website. Of course, they had the current TV commercial. I play it. I’m watching, sure enough, I’m not on it anymore.
Clay: Holy, holy.
Dr. Robert: True fact. I was like, “Hmm. What? What?” I was like, “Well.” I kind of knew in the back of my mind what had happened, but I was like, “Eh, you know, it is what it is. Somebody at the university, I’m the black sheep. I get it.” I’ll be honest with you, it is what it is, and sometimes you’ve got to shake it off. No matter when your peers or other people, they don’t determine your destiny.
They don’t determine what you do. They don’t determine your future. None of those optometrists around town were saying, “Hey, man, let me make your car payment. Hey, man, let me make your house payment. Hey, man, here’s a little cash. Just be cool, because you know we’re all in the same profession.”
Clay: We’re all in the same profession, bro’. We want you to succeed.
Dr. Robert: “We’re all one big happy family.” Sure enough, it wasn’t until months later, I get a call. [mimics dialing sound] It was a fundraising entity of my Alma Mater.
Clay: Come on. [laughter]
Dr. Robert: They were– the person on the phone’s like, “Hey man, we need basically the short great idea but we want money” and I said, “I tell you what, here’s what you need to do in order to get a callback or a meeting with me,” because I always want to get a face-to-face with you, I said “I love to have a face-to-face with you and I love my alma model, and I want to get money, that’s so exciting, thank you for the opportunity. But here’s the deal, in order to have a meeting with me I need you to answer one question, I need you to figure out whenever that commercial, I could tell my story and why I’m not on it anymore. Just out of curiosity now more than anything. Sure enough crickets didn’t hear back from crickets.
Clay: Crickets just nothing.
Dr. Robert: Six buts a year later I get another call from a different fundraiser, same story. But the third one actually had enough nerve to do a research and found out what happened.
Clay: Really?
Dr. Robert: We have a meeting, and we are at the meeting and I’m like, “Well, I’m glad you went through the thing, this is kind,” I’m opening my heart up a little bit.
Clay: Yes, open it up a little bit.
Dr. Robert: I’m opening it up a little bit, I’m just telling you out there, when you’re acting or when you’re defining and when you’re doing your business, adversity is going to come. People are not going to like you especially if you are successful. I hate to tell you this but you think, “Well, the more successful I am, I know people are going to love you.” Yes customers will, but your competitors–
Clay: That’s why I never leave this building [laughter] because there are snipers out there at the flying D is looking for you. Hit with the golf ball.
Dr. Robert: Anyway, I found out that it was the– well, he’s not there any longer, and I won’t say his name. I’ve forgiven him and made up and it’s all good. But it was the dean at the autonomy school at the time that said that I wasn’t quite the representative of the optometry school that they wanted in that commercial.
Clay: Yes, you don’t really have a poor person who doesn’t advertise.
Dr. Robert: It hurt my feelings, but you know what, I said– I nodded and I said, “Thank you for being honest with me, I thought that’s what the case was. But I’m still going to get to university and I’m going to do the right thing, and I’m going to take the high road because when you take the high road, you’ll never take the wrong road.”
Clay: Here’s the deal, when we come back, we are going to be talking to Ryan Myers about some of his adversity stories and maybe any adversity he ran into early in his career.
Ryan: I have piles.
Clay: All right Thrivers, we’re talking about the rhythm of entrepreneurship, that rhythm of entrepreneurship which is define, act, measure and refine. If you’ve never defined what you want to do with your life and you’ve ever have the courage to take action, you are eventually going to end up with your head in the toilet. Someone listening right now, your head is in the toilet and you’ve got three options. One, you could queue up How am I supposed to Live Without You by Michael Bolton and you could just keep your head in that toilet and your friends are going to say, “Why is your head still in the toilet Stan? You got to pull that head up,” and you are like, “No there’s good reverb in here,” and you’re just sinking into that toilet, and you’re just staying in there. Or, you can pull your head out of the toilet, take a selfie, put it up on social media, get a few likes move on. Or the third is you could just lament about it and talk about it all the time and never get over it. We want to encourage you, you got to move past these things. I want to ask you this Ryan, you’ve obviously built a successful company, what is the name of your company for anybody who’s new to your brand?
Ryan: Yes, Transit Advertising Inc.
Clay: If somebody was seriously having– getting down on Oklahoma Joe’s during the break, they are over there, they went out and got some Oklahoma Joe’s during their lunch, they have brought it back now to Rigid Bank, they are trying to open up a new checking account while eating the burnt ins and the baked beans and the aroma. They are getting carried away and they maybe forgot what the name of your company was, what’s the name of your company again?
Ryan: It’s Transit Advertising Inc, Transit Advertising Inc.
Clay: Okay, now they are focused. Tell us, when you defined what you wanted to do, you wanted to build a successful business, when was the first time when you acted and you ran into a little bit of adversity or push-back?
Ryan: Well, from the beginning. Every day you wake up and you think that “Hey, this is going to be great. I’m working for myself, I’m willing to work 12 hours for myself so I don’t have to work 8 hours for somebody else.” It was doors closed, doors closed, now we’ve got somebody we love him, “Hey, can I get a chance to quote your business?” “No, we’ve got somebody we love him.” But you got to keep going, Winston Churchill, I love the guy, says “When you’re going through hell, keep on going” and that’s what you got to do.
Clay: Now Winston Churchill, this is a little historical context for anybody listening, he was the Prime Minister there of the Great Britain and the United Kingdom during the time when Adolf Hitler was trying to take over the planet. Just as an example, just think about how this feels the United Kingdom– you’ve traveled to Europe, have you not?
Ryan: Yes I have traveled too far beyond.
Clay: You’ve had the finest cheese, you’ve had the finest wines, you’ve seen the castles, you’ve been over there.
Ryan: Dyed with her majesty.
Clay: But seriously, geographically speaking, Europe is– is Europe– how is it size-wise in comparison to the United States, Europe as a whole all the countries?
Ryan: It’s the size of about Coweta. It’s small.
Clay: That makes sense. [crosstalk]
Ryan: I don’t know. You got it on Google.
Clay: I’m just saying, you’ve got about–
Ryan: More like the actual square miles because I might figure it out.
Clay: No, I’m just saying you have about five times– Europe as a whole is about seven to eight times larger than Great Britain by itself.
Ryan: Yes, yes.
Clay: This whole- the whole area’s been taken over by this crazy fascist nazi freak named Adolf Hitler. He calls up Winston and he says to him, it’s historical fact, there is documents that show the letters he sent, he says, “If you’ll turn over your Jewish people to us, we’ll give you a hall pass and we’ll just fold you into our nazi regime.” He kept doing that to other countries. Other countries kept just one by one giving in because he’s just bombing everybody. Winston’s like, “No, we want to stay calm and carry on.” That was his phrase, he coined that.
He’d hop on the radio every night and tell people, “Remain calm, carry on.” But people are being bombed constantly. Could you imagine what that would be like, we’re doing this radio show today, and imagine what would be like you’re listening to the radio show and in the background, you hear the [explosion sound]. It doesn’t stop, sounds are closer sounds are far away, but could you imagine what that would be like for years just [explosion sound]. By the way, the Americans have said we’re not going to come to help. When you say he said that he talks about enthusiasm, he says if you’re going through hell, don’t stop.
He also defines enthusiasm as the ability to maintain enthusiasm while going from adversity to adversity without losing motivation. He talks about that a lot, that’s a profound thing for him to say, he wrote that he was going through some serious hell, but you can’t stop. I want to know, what is your source of your motivation man, how do you stay motivated, what’s your move, do you taze yourself, what do you do?
Ryan: I wake up in the morning and realize that I have about 14 families that rely on me, that sell something and not including my own which they like when I sell something too, and so that’s a big motivator for me. When I wake up at 4:30 in the morning, that’s what I’m thinking about, when I go to bed 9:30, at 9:00, I’m a big party guy, 9:30, 9:00 that’s what I’m thinking about.
Clay: Now, Vanessa, you and I built the businesses together, we’ve been there together doing some crazy stuff, I remember that when we would walk yo Walmart over there off of Louis, 71st in Louis, we would walk–
Vanessa: From the Fountain of Grace department.
Clay: Right, we’re walking southbound from the Fountain of Grace departments, and we’re walking over there past the office depot. We would go in there and would get that chicken panini.
Vanessa: Yes 97 cents, 96.
Clay: 96, bagel gourmet good stuff. Vanessa is a health person, person of health, she cares about her health, she would look at the sodium content.
Vanessa: Then I don’t think I was doing too well [laughs].
Clay: But you’re like, “It’s 87% sodium, okay let’s do it.” When you’re going through that six we’re going “What should I eat today, either Ramen or the budget gourmet?” There are sort of a– if you could fall in love with the process, I mean this sincerely, if you are listening right now, if you could fall in love with the process of eating that bagel gourmet, and eating that Ramen and knowing that it’s not where you are but where you are going. If you can get into that, there’s something sexy about it.
Vanessa: I love this, I want to add to it. When you’re making this process, you’re going to be in it for a while so make it something that is sustainable. Don’t go 200% and then you’re burned out in three years. But see if you can run it 75 and you’re going to have to make a lot of sacrifices along the way and enjoy the process and make it sustainable.
Clay: Because there’s nobody on the show, “Mainly me, they’re talking about me,” who’s ever built an unsustainable schedule, “that’s what I do all the time,” could you maybe share a story from let’s say at least, let’s go at least 10 years ago. At least 10 years ago where I did something unsustainable and you were like, “What are you doing?” But I just kept doing it because I refused to quit.
Vanessa: Okay. Back in deejay land, we started small, it was just you and then it was– we’re ecstatic, when we hired our first deejay. Of course, just to have anything sustain we keep growing, keep growing, keep growing, but you love doing the show. Clay would have the deejays go out but he would be booked personally because he was the best awesome, Friday, Saturday usually he was off Sundays, I think we’ve had that as a thing which is great, it’s another–
Clay: Which is good because I would have died.
Vanessa: He would have died. He would be working all during the week doing sales in driving the team hard, and then I would meet everyone that come in because he was out deejaying. I would pregnant or with the babies whatever they are in bed, people would come back to my garage, we then load the equipment, and literally I would sign checks load in equipment until he got back. He would usually be one of the later guys back because he was so good like 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, and then he would stay up to maybe 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning because guys had come back from Dallas –
Clay: Okay, real quick. There are some deejay rules here Z. Some deejay rules.
Clay: If Ryan was a DJ and Z you were a DJ, this is how we would compete.
Dr. Robert: Sure.
Clay: Whoever’s show went the longest. Whoever’s show went the longest, okay, because if you’re in the groove and people can’t get out there, they become a slave to the groove.
Vanessa: Unlimited time. Unlimited.
Ryan: Yes, they can’t stop.
Clay: Unlimited.
Ryan: Can’t stop.
Clay: Seriously. Do you get people, they couldn’t stop? That’s a thing. Two is whoever got the biggest tips. Then what you would do, is when you would come back from the show, if you were a real DJ, you would want to come back last because you were the man. You’d come back like at two o’clock in the morning, three o’clock in the morning —
Vanessa: Especially if you’re in Dallas, you have to drive all that way too.
Clay: We made our DJs drive back from Dallas, [laughs] so it’s like 7:00 AM in the morning but you’d come back and you’re riding that adrenaline like you just rocked the concert. It’s now like 4:00 AM, 3:00 AM and you want to be the last guy back. You’d come back and there’s like 20 other DJs on the driveway. They’re like, “Bro, how big is your tip?”
Vanessa: Burning things and — Yes.
Clay: There are just all sorts of trash-talking people going, “Dude, how big of a tip did you get?” Then whoever got the biggest tip had to take everybody to Taco Bell because it was open late nights. You would buy like, “Yes, I’m going to have 64 tacos, 10 burritos.”
Vanessa: [laughs]
Clay: You would just — All of the guys, seriously 15, 20 guys, we’d hop in this extended van, like a church van. Hop in there and we’d all go to Taco Bell and just eat. Just eat. That was the move every week and I got to keep them around going-
Vanessa: You mean —
Clay: – mentor the DJs, coax the DJs, and they would say, “At this wedding tonight, I tried to announce this first dance, what happened is no one would get on the dance floor to cheer for the bride. What do I do?” I’m like, “You have a question for the DJ Yoda. I have the answer.” You would mentor them and all the DJs would hold court and go, “Oh, this is the move. This is what you do.”
Dr. Robert: The move.
Clay: [laughs]
Vanessa: Enjoy that you love this but this is the thing, so you would be done at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning and literally would crash in the closet. I don’t know why the closet. The closet was the move.
Clay: Because it was dark and no one would talk to me.
Vanessa: That was the move. He would be sleeping all day Sunday, the only day off. Eventually, I was like, “This is not going to work forever. Maybe when we didn’t have kids and I could keep a crazy schedule with him but now that we have two kids, how is this going to work?” At that point, I think you declared that you would DJ until you were 80 and die deejaying until I think you had to get to a point where you had a breakdown and there was the breakthrough.
Clay: I said 97 in a fit of age because you said, “You have to stop deejaying.” I go, “I will never stop deejaying. I will die DJ — When I’m 97 years old I will still be rocking the mic.” See what I did is I pulled an all-nighter and I took a picture of myself and I put it on Benjamin Franklin’s-
Vanessa: It looked so bad. This is my favorite picture.
Clay: – body, the skullet and I put it up on the wall-
Vanessa: My favorite.
Clay: – and I just put on there, “DJ Clayvis in his 90s,” whatever. I just was like, “I am not stopping.” Then eventually I stopped.
Vanessa: That’s the thing. When you finally had a breakthrough and that was thanks to Jesus, I’ll just say that. That is a breakdown, that’s when the breakthrough happened because he realized, “Oh my gosh –” You couldn’t do anymore, you didn’t want to do it anymore. There’s is just too much drama, you love deejaying in itself but it was just too much. You couldn’t do it.
Clay: What happens is you define what you want then you act but then you got to —
Vanessa: Make it sustainable.
Clay: Z, you as a DJ, as an entrepreneur, as an optometrist, as an auto wrapper, whatever, somehow you have to have the pride, and the confidence, and the energy needed to start a business but you also did the self-awareness to measure and go, “What the heck am I doing here? Am I getting where I want to go? Are we making progress?” Z, why is that so hard to have that yin and that yang, that ability to be confident but also be self-aware and humble? That’s a weird thing.
Dr. Robert: Well, it is. When you start getting some success, the worst that can happen is everybody comes up and pats you on the back and says, “You’re awesome.” The thing about it is is that I found with a lot of entrepreneurs Clay, is that being self-aware and understanding what you’re not good at is what we don’t want to focus on but that’s very integral in having a successful business. Is when you get to the point of, okay, what you’re acting. You’ve defined what you wanted to do and then you’re acting. You’re just running all out.
Like Vanessa said, you got to make sure that something it’s sustainable. It’s at a pace that you can sustain.
Vanessa: Because you’re going to be in it for a while.
Dr. Robert: Well, hopefully.
Vanessa: [laughs]
Dr. Robert: Forbes came out and said, “Eight out of 10 businesses fail.” If you want to be one of those eight out of 10, just go, [spluttering noise]
Vanessa: [laughs] Sprint to the den.
Dr. Robert: Yes, sprint to that closing of your business. We’re going to change that here in the Thrive Time Show because we don’t like 80% failure rate, we don’t.
Clay: No.
Dr. Robert: You can Google that, that’s an actual thing. The thing about it whenever you’re now measuring, that’s been the most difficult things to do when you go from acting which you’re now you’re making sustainable and now you’re starting to really take a hard look at your self.
Clay: Here is the soundtrack for successful entrepreneurs who are not self-aware, this is the soundtrack.
[music]
Remember Brass Monkey, the Beastie Boys?
Dr. Robert: Yes.
Clay: These homies were out of control and they were selling millions of records. They were just going 90 miles an hour and no one said like, “Eventually you’re going to die if you don’t stop.” We were just going and you’re going, “I’m selling stuff, Z. I’m selling stuff.” You’re going, “Ooahh,” and you just can’t stop because you’re so — You can’t stop, won’t stop, you’re so just filled with this energy, and vigor, and persistence, and you’re just, “Ahh, ahh.” If you start to have any success at all, you start to get really like, “Don’t talk to me.” I’m telling you that is the recipe for disaster.
Next step if you are the kind of person who has the type of confidence needed to start, now you can hit the brakes a little bit. You got to be self-aware. We got to slow down a little bit and measure.
When we come back Z, we’re going to talk about some of the stuff that you measure in your business, that we measure in our business, that Ryan measures in his business because you got to measure, baby. You got to measure.
Dr. Robert: You got to measure and guess what, there’s different ways to measure. When we come back, we’re going to give you all the secret moves of measuring. What to measure, what to look for because without that it’s hard to improve your business.
Clay: You know what rhymes with measure, it’s treasure. Oklahoma Joe’s baked beans.
Hey, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation with your business coach. We are laughing so much off air, it’s like we just don’t care. Now here’s the deal Thrivers, I’m not going to say that — We know that you’re an intelligent listener, we know you have a lot going on but I don’t ask too much out of you. I don’t say, “Go do this, go do that,” but one thing I want you to do right now. If you’re listening right now, I want you to just put your hands up in the air and wave them around like you just don’t care but we know you do. We know you do.
Then I want you to take those hands, I want you to just put those hands on your desk or something. You get a pen, get out your pen. I want you to write down the words Oklahoma Joe’s. It’s the best memorization tool. When you say something and you write it down, it begins to become imprinted on your mind. This is a teaching moment. I want you to write down Oklahoma Joe’s. Oklahoma Joe’s. It’s so important that we say it in a cultish way Z. We can just practice two or three times. Here we go.
Clay, Robert, Ryan: Oklahoma Joe’s.
Clay: Yes, one more time. Just —
Clay, Robert, Ryan: Oklahoma Joe’s.
Clay: The more cultish and weird it feels the better it’s going to help the sales. I’ve been working on this —
Dr. Robert: I can almost smell the barbecue now.
Clay: Here it is.
[music]
Oklahoma Joe’s.
Clay, Robert, Ryan: Oklahoma Joe’s. Oklahoma Joe’s.
Clay: Anyway, that’s what I’m working on, it’s my new commercial. I pitched it to them, I got rejected but there’s a corporate, they said —
Dr. Robert: I can’t imagine why.
Clay: They were like, “Why would you use bagpipes to promote a barbecue business?” I said, “Listen here buddy, I’m ahead of my game. I’m like the new Picasso of ads for barbecue companies.”
Dr. Robert: By the way, I love having Joe Davidson on, the founder and the owner of Oklahoma Joe’s. He’s a great guy, he’s a man’s man. When you meet that guy, you just want to go cook some barbecue and have a cold beverage with him in your backyard. It was like, “Would you just come over and cook something in my back yard, and have a beverage with me, and just act like you’re my buddy?”
Clay: I’m telling you what, he’s a great guest to have on the show. We have two other great guests on the show. We have my incredible wife of 15 years Mrs. Vanessa Clark on the show.
Vanessa: Woo hoo.
Clay: We have Mr. Ryan Myers.
Ryan: Hello, hello.
Clay: He’s a Tulsa treasurer.
Ryan: I am a treasurer.
Clay: He auto wraps big buses and things of that nature. Let me get into this next step, first you define what you need to do as an entrepreneur. This is the rhythm of entrepreneurship, you define. Then you need to act but then you got to measure and then we’ll get into refining. Measure, Z. What kind of stuff do you need to measure in your business?
Dr. Robert: Well, there’s a lot of numbers, it depends on your business but there’s all your daily transactions, the number of transactions you’re doing. For me, we measure how many eye exams we did, we measure obviously the gross sales, we measure whether that was cash or insurance, we measure — Like on the PNL statement. There’s so many things we measure, percentages. In a healthy business has certain percentage marks that you try to get to. I tell my managers, I say, “Listen, you can do so much of a percent on employees. In other words, your employee number has to be at this percent, okay?”
Then they can decide if they’ve got say, $30 to spend, they can hire two people at $15 and get a little higher quality person. They can hire three people at $10. That’s up to them but they have so much money to spend based upon the percentages of the gross that we’ve done.
Then we have — you’re trying to beat last year’s. You’re always trying to beat year over year, we call those comp numbers. That’s a very healthy business. Of course we’ve been open for 25 years. We’ve grown every year but we used to have this really big gross and now it’s smaller growth but still growth in the right direction.
Clay: You know what happens, is a lot of times I see business owners measuring things that don’t matter.
Dr. Robert: Give me an example.
Clay: Sinéad O’Connor, her song Nothing Compares came out in 1990, the year that you were getting rejected for business loans. You think about this song, I might say, “Z, this song Nothing Compares –” I’m in a meeting with you, “Hey, Z you know, this song by Sinéad O’Connor has been played 331,000 times-
Dr. Robert: Wow.
Clay: – on the channel by Jay Junior.” That’s not her official channel, that’s just the bootleg channel. I just wanted you to know, thanks a lot.
Dr. Robert: Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you Sinéad O’Connor.
Vanessa: Don’t they often tell you how many maybe hits they’ve had on a page but you’re like, “Did that convert to a lead?” Does that matter if they’re —
Clay: Well, let’s look at the online ads for a second. This is something to think about. If you’re paying for pay-per-click, what you want to do is for every 100 clicks you have typically, if you’re the best in the world, you’re getting five people to fill out that form.
Ryan: Wow.
Clay: If you’re the best in the world.
Vanessa: The best.
Ryan: If you’re the best.
Clay: If you’re the goat — Yes. If you are the greatest of all time and if you’re just terrible, it’s zero. Zero is pretty, “Man, that’s a low number.” Five, it doesn’t feel that great but I’m telling you, if you’re paying like in some industries you’ll pay $10 a click. $10 a click and you’re having 100 people click and nobody is filling out something —
Dr. Robert: That’s 1000 bucks.
Ryan: Wow, it’s a lot of money.
Clay: You’re going, “Whoa.” Now the thing about radio ads, why I love radio, it’s a format because what happens is when you’re listening to Talk Radio, we have a lot of wonderful listeners who’ve actually become sponsors of the show. Then what happens is they say, “As a listener if I get into the topic, I want to listen through the commercial. I want to listen through the commercial to hear the rest of the story.”
Announcer: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.
Clay: But on FM radio typically what you do is if you don’t like the song, you just switch it.
Vanessa: That’s very unique to AM. That’s awesome.
Clay: It is awesome. That’s one thing though that like Oklahoma Joe, we talk about this a lot. People come in and say, “Hey, I heard you on the Thrive Time Show.” That’s so important, you as the listener if you tell them that because it keeps great shows like this on the air. It’s the thing where he measures how many people come in as a result of the radio show. That’s a measurement that he looks at. We have had business owners all over Tulsa right now who are looking for small business loans, they’re looking for a local bank that can help them.
They walk in and they say, “Hey, Regent Bank, I heard about you guys in the Thrive Time Show.” That’s a measurement. You would say, “Well, how many people heard of the business as a result of this advertising?” You’ve got to know certain numbers. Other numbers, I’m going to fire off a few more numbers, I would encourage everyone to measure, okay. I would definitely measure how many sales you’re making per day. I think it’s a big thing, per day. I really think that’s important.
Dr. Robert: Big thing.
Clay: Second is how many presentations did you make per day? Let’s just say in your optometry clinic, if I’m the worst salesperson ever.
Dr. Robert: Ever.
Clay: People were coming in for an eye exam, and for a pair of glasses, and for whatever reason everyone doesn’t buy any glasses at all as a result of my presentation. It would be healthy to know, “Hey listen, Clay does 100 presentations per week, 20 a day and nobody buys anything.” That’s some statistics you want to know but you got to know your numbers Z. You got to know.
Dr. Robert: You have to know your numbers because that’s the only way you could measure because if you can’t measure something, you’re wandering in the dark, you’re flailing around the dark. If we turn all the lights off in here, board up the windows, it’s just dark and we’re like, “Okay, let’s [mumbling].”
Clay: “Why are you touching me?”
Dr. Robert: “What are you doing here? Who are you?”
Clay: “Whose elbow is in my mouth?”
Dr. Robert: “What’s going on?”
Clay: Okay, now —
Dr. Robert: You’ve got to —
Ryan: That’s not an elbow.
[laughter]
Clay: Whoa.
Dr. Robert: You’ve got to be able to measure the numbers that matter and you’re right, transactions and how many presentations you’re doing are very important because then guess what? If somebody is not closing, you need to know that so you can one, coach them up to do better or you can — It’s because I’m mean. You can replace them, so that’s important for you to know.
Clay: Well, today in our office for Thrive — Example, we have people all over the world buying Thrive Time conference tickets. We have one gentleman, who every time he talks to somebody, they get it. All the questions are answered. It’s like 100% of the time he talks to somebody, they end up coming to a conference. We have another lady who’s working through the system and learning things and it’s about 80%. You want to bridge that gap. You want everyone to be 100% if at all possible.
When we come back I’m going to ask Ryan a little bit about what kind of things he measures in his business and then we’re going to move into this final step about refining. Because once you have the data, once you have the figures, the measurements, you got to act on it. You can’t just have data. You can’t just have numbers coming at you and going, “That’s a nice number, thank you.” “Z, thanks for showing that number man, it was awesome. I love how you texted me and emailed me those various numbers. Those were interesting metrics.”
Dr. Robert: Yes, my staff they text me every day with numbers. You’ve got to stay on top of that every single day. In fact, I’ll even ask my managers how we’re trending for the month in all my businesses. You don’t just wait till the month is over. If you’re just month by month then sometimes if something is going awry that you don’t know about — You can’t fix the problem until you know there’s a problem.
Clay: Thrivers when we come back, we’re going to get into this whole thing. What do you do, once you’ve been measuring, how do you refine? We’re going to get into what numbers does Ryan Myers measure. Stay tuned on the Thrive Time Show and get to Oklahoma Joe’s, get those baked beans baby, baby.
[pause]
All right Thrive nation, welcome back into the conversation, we are back. In fact you’ve been listening to some Michael Jack in your ear. That’s Michael Jackson, some ’80s right there.
Ryan: Who’s that?
Clay: ’80s, Michael Jackson for the ladies. Remember that white glove? That one glove? Remember that — He had those socks, he’d pull up. Those pants that didn’t fit, they were too tight.
Vanessa: High-waters.
Clay: Hee hee.
Dr. Robert: He carried around a little monkey with him.
Clay: Ow. Remember that just, ow. Just the whole vibe he brought to America was a beautiful thing. To other planets, to other regions.
Dr. Robert: One of my favorite moments is when he unleashed the moon walk. Remember that, the award ceremony?
Clay: Yes, it is unbelievable.
Dr. Robert: He popped that thing out and beautiful thing.
Vanessa: We’ve got to see his concert again. We have the Buchera? I can’t say it. Bert, how do you say it?
Clay: What’s that?
Vanessa: Bucharest, the concert? It’s was so amazing.
Clay: Live from Bucharest.
Ryan: Bucharest?
Vanessa: Bucharest, yes.
Dr. Robert: Bucharest, yes.
Clay: By the way Michael Jackson was offended-
Vanessa: Amazing.
Clay: – about what you just said there. He wanted you to know that.
Vanessa: I apologize.
Dr. Robert: Clay, he’s no longer with us.
Clay: I think that you don’t understand how the force works.
Ryan: He and Elvis are together.
Dr. Robert: I’m sorry.
Clay: What did you just say Ryan?
Ryan: He and Elvis are together.
Clay: Yes, when a top performer leaves the planet, they move into the force and they surround us. That’s what binds the universe together. I write exclusively, intensively about this phenomenon in my book called Jackassery. You couldn’t learn any more about —
Vanessa: It’s too bad he didn’t go up in a firework like your plan.
Clay: That’s my plan, that’s my — We’ll get into my death plans later. Here’s the deal Thrivers, we’re talking about define, act, measure, refine. The path of an entrepreneur, the rhythm of an entrepreneur is define, act, measure, refine.
Let’s get into measures. When you take action as a business person, you need to measure the results. Was your hypothesis correct or not? Was your guess right or wrong? Were you wrong? Don’t get emotional, just measure the results, determine whether your assumptions and propose solutions that are correct or how you can improve next time.
The inventor of the first fully functional light bulb, and the inventor of recorded sound, the inventor of video, and the founder of General Electric, Thomas Edison once described his countless failed attempts to make a working light bulb as saying, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So, you’ve got to measure, you’ve got to just keep on going.
Ryan, I want to ask you. Ryan Myers, sir, what kind of numbers do you measure in your business?
Ryan: Lots of numbers. We’ve got numbers of impressions. People are wrapping things so people can see their business and it’s out and about and so they need to know how many people a day on average are seeing that business. We’ve got those numbers. Then —
Dr. Robert: Whoa, whoa, whoa , whoa. Okay, you wrap the bus, how on earth can you tell them how many impressions that they got? You just follow like a clicker? You just see if anybody looks in at it, “Okay, look, look, look.”
Clay: I saw Trevor.
Ryan: You pay professionals to drive around with the clickers and they do —
Vanessa: Really?
Dr. Robert: [laughs]
Clay: This is a real thing? Seriously, you’re saying this is a thing?
Ryan: They measure how many times you look to the left, and how many people per car, and they come up with impressions.
Clay: Okay, I’m going to argue with you for a second. I’m listening right now —
Dr. Robert: : Are you serious, by the way?
Vanessa: They’ve got to have someone driving with them.
Dr. Robert: Currently, yes.
Vanessa: One is the clicker, one is the driver, I hope.
Ryan: Yes, there’s a company, that’s all they do.
Dr. Robert: Wow.
Clay: I’m listening right —
Ryan: Traffic Auto Bureau.
Clay: I’m listening right now and I have some serious doubt because I’m saying, listen, I auto wrap my vehicles. Okay, I auto wrap my vehicles from my company because my thought is my vehicles are already out around town, I’m a plumber, I’m going to go ahead and auto wrap. It makes sense, right.?
Ryan: Sure.
Clay: Why would I want to auto wrap a bus? Why?
Ryan: Well, your vans typically aren’t driving around 14 hours a day, they’re most of the time they’re in a parking lot somewhere, just like your car. They’re either in a customer’s parking lot. The transit buses are literary driving around 14 hours a day, six days a week. They stop to pick up people but they’re not parked in parking lots and they’re not — If you were driving around 14 hours a day in your car, you wouldn’t have a job because you’re driving all the time.
Clay: Let me ask you this, how much does it come down to per — Let’s just say that I’m trying to do the math and I’m going, “Okay, what does it cost me per hour to auto wrap a city bus?”
Ryan: Yes, half a million dollar bus?
Clay: Yes, half a million dollar bus.
Ryan: Half a million dollar bus, it costs you about $7 an hour, that it’s out there, that’s the wrap, that’s the driver, that’s the fuel, that’s everything. It’s the insurance.
Clay: $7 an hour to wrap a bus. Now, let me — Okay, so I go, “$7 an hour, okay. Well, I don’t know if the bus people are the people I’m trying to market to.”
Ryan: Yes, that’s true.
Announcer: Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show.
Ryan: They’re totally not the people you’re tying to advertise to. It’s all the 50,000, 60,000 people a day that see the bus driving around that you’re advertising to.
Clay: Okay, these are measurements though. You look at these things. These are things you look at. If you’re listening right now Thrivers, action step. One, write down what are the numbers you need to measure in your business. I remember when I ran DJ Connection, I used to run Epic Photography. I talked to one of the sales guys the other day and we had a spiritual conversation because I’m no longer in charge of Epic Photography. I don’t own it anymore.
I had a talk to one of our former sales guys and he’s adjusting. When you have a new owner, there’s different things and different ways they approach things. He calls me and goes, “Dude, I’m having a hard time staying motivated.” I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, “You used to come up to me every hour and ask me how many calls I made. Every day you’d come up to me. Whenever you are in the building, you’re like, “How many calls have you made?” If you didn’t say 100 for the day, I would lose my mind.
Sometimes I didn’t even feel like losing my mind, I wasn’t too upset but I focused on 100 calls a day-
Ryan: Sure.
Clay: – because I knew what it would produce at the end of it. I think Z, for your optometry clinic, you’re probably after how many people per day you need to see.
Dr. Robert: Absolutely, because you have the average you make per person, so you know how many you have in the door. I know the cost of advertising, bringing those people in. That’s what makes me just absolutely crazy is we have somebody in the office and I know how much it cost to get them in the office, there’s a set fee there. They’re having a problem and to fix it is less than it cost to bring somebody else in and my staff is arguing with this person about not fixing the thing and I’m just like, [crying] “I’m going to go crazy.”
[laughter]
Clay: I want to ask you, there’s a lot of thivers out there who’ve been listening to some really emotional ’90s love songs.
Dr. Robert: Oh, no.
Clay: Because they say, “I don’t want to get into politics.” They go into that kind of easy listening music during the morning, and then at noon they flip over faithfully to the Thrive Time Show.
Ryan: That’s neat.
Clay: But some of them have been listening to-
Dr. Robert: That’s at 10:00.
Clay: – Taylor Dayne, Love Will Lead You Back. They’re looking at the numbers Z and they don’t like the numbers and rather than embracing the numbers, they’re getting emotional and they’re saying, “Love is going to bring ourselves back. Love, my passion, my love, my energy, my belief, it”s going to –” Don’t worry about the numbers —
Dr. Robert: It’s going to turn around. That’s a fallacy. That’s not really happening, that’s not a thing.
Vanessa: I feel like if you define and you act but you fail to measure, you could just be going full force straight over a cliff and you don’t even know it. It’s so important to do these measurements and then take action from what you find.
Clay: Can I say this real quick? If I was going to die and I was going to drive off a cliff-
Ryan: This song, that would do it?
Clay: – I would want this song to be playing. I want to crescendo, [singing] Lead you back.
Dr. Robert: Crash.
Clay: Someday I just know that. Love — Right here, this is right where I would want to come around that edge, it’s like that — What is it, Pike, a Pikes? What is it Pike Place? What is it in —
Dr. Robert: Pike’s Pass.
Clay: In Colorado, what is that?
Ryan: Pike’s Peak.
Clay: Pike’s Peak, yes. I’d want to be going around there in a race car with this song just cranking, knowing that at any moment I could lose — right when you get to the crescendo, that’s when I would want to end it all.
Ryan: That’s when I would want to slam my head in the car door.
[laughter]
Dr. Robert: Clay it boils down to this, it boils down to this in the measurement part of it, you’ve got to inspect —
Clay: What you —
Dr. Robert: Expect.
Ryan: Nice, that’s sports harmony right there.
Dr. Robert: Yes, you expect a certain — You’ve defined your business, you’re excited about it, you’re making your cookies, you built your widget, yo’’re wrapping buses, you’re deejaying weddings, whatever it is that you’re doing, and you’ve got a passion about it, then you put it in action. 2017 is going to be your year by the way, 2017 mark it. All you out there want to be wantrepreneurs, this year it’s going to happen. You’re going to become an entrepreneur and start your business, side note. Then when you start measuring, okay, now we’re measuring-
Clay: Oh, boy.
Dr. Robert: – getting out because that we’re inspecting —
Clay: What we’re expecting.
Dr. Robert: You know what’s horrible sometimes?
Clay: What is horrible? Tell us.
Dr. Robert: Is you’re in there inspecting [laughs] and you’re not getting what you expected.
Clay: That’s not good. That’s not good. Now Thrivers, when we come back, we’re going to talk about this concept of refining. Once you’ve got the data, you got to refine, you got to refine, you got to polish, you got to pivot, you got to move, you got to change, okay, because you can’t just keep doing the same thing the wrong way and expect things to change. Stay tuned, thrivetimeshow.com, baby, baby.
All right thrive nation, welcome back to the conversation. I am so excited to talk about this next aspect of the entrepreneurial rhythm. You have define, you have act, you have measure, and you have refine. This is how I’m going to tee it up. Z, I’m going to tee it up, here we go. Putting the ball on the tee, this is how we’re going to do it. Here we go. Is there somebody out there listening right now and you’re a good guy but you’re refusing to do what I had to do about 15 years ago. You’re saying, “Hey listen, the internet could be a thing in the future but for right now, my money is on the Yellow Pages.”
Ryan: It’s a fad.
Clay: You’re saying, “The internet –” People might eventually log into this but right now I’m just telling you is, I’ve got a relationship with my ad rep with the Yellow Pages — No offense to any of the Yellow Page ad reps out there who are peddling smoke and mirrors right now. Seriously, you have to eventually say, “Hey, hey, hey, hey, I know I got this great relationship but Mr. Yellow Page I love paying you those commissions but you’re going to have to probably switch to something more relevant because I am measuring the results and I’m not getting any business.”
What’s happening is — No, no, no. You my friend, you the listener, for some reason you are loyal to this dysfunction, it does not work and it doesn’t generate leads. You’re looking at the numbers and someone on your team says, “Hey, we’re not getting any calls from the Yellow Pages at all.” Rather than saying, “Okay, that could be a rational thought,” this is what you do, you queue up your Taylor Dayne Tell it to My Heart and you just start singing, you say, “Tell it to my heart buddy.”
Dr. Robert: Tell it to my heart because my brain is not listening.
Clay: Yes, you tell it to my heart because I tell you what, I’ve been buying these Yellow Page ads since I was wearing my quad skates, going to roller city. I would go to the concession stand, I’d buy a big old pickle, I’d play Galaga.
Dr. Robert: Putting a picture of my staff in there, that was the move.
Clay: Yes, that was the move.
Dr. Robert: That was the move.
Clay: You played that Donkey Kong. You played Donkey Kong all night long, you’re playing pin ball and you’re going, “Listen, I’ve been buying these Yellow Page ads since the ’80s baby. I wore denim when it was old school, when it was new school, and now it’s new again. I am not changing those Yellow Page ads. I will die on the Yellow Pages.” I tell you what, you could tell it to my heart because my brain is not going to listen. That’s the thing.
Dr. Robert: I tell you what folks, if you’re listening out there right now, first of all thank you, we’re glad you are. We’re glad you’re enjoying the show. We’re here our heart is to help you start and grow a business. It really is, that’s what we’re doing this for. Clay and I started a couple of years ago with thrive15.com and now we’ve morphed it into this radio show, the Thrive Time Show. I’m going to tell you something right now, when you are in the refine step of the loop of entrepreneurship —
Clay: Here we go.
Dr. Robert: When you’re in the refine step of the loop of entrepreneurship, insanity is defined as doing the same thing and expecting a different result. When you measure and you’re expecting and you’re not getting what you expected, you’ve got to take a hard look on the mirror. One of the things that we teach on thrive15.com, in our in-person workshops, one-on-one business coaching, on the Thrive Time Show, that’s four ways to catch us. One of the things that we teach is that we need — You touched on it right there with the Yellow Pages, that’s kind of tongue in cheek and it’s old school, the transition but we want marketing to have three legs.
If one of those legs if you’re measuring is not producing, you can’t get emo — It’s A, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business. You have to measure those people coming in from. If you’re spending money on something, however great the rep is, however great you think it used to be, however great it could be or you think it’s going to be, you know what, stop it and go to a different leg because that’s what we coach, is having three legs in our marketing plan.
Clay: Or you just queue up that Taylor Dayne and [singing] tell it to my heart. Tell it I’m the only one.
Dr. Robert: [laughs] You’re fired up this afternoon.
Vanessa: I also think that those times when you’re in this — you might feel like it’s monotonous, it’s define, act, measure, refine. Define, act, measure, refine and I think oftentimes we see entrepreneurs they define, they act, they measure, and they think, “Let’s try something new.” Define, act, measure, “Try something new.” Instead of refining the tools they have and getting the results they need. I know that’s something that Clay is really good at, is just honing in on something and staying on it.
Dr. Robert: He’s a honer.
Vanessa: Sometimes business isn’t always a new idea every day but it’s staying consistent with that goal and just keep refining it.
Clay: I want to give you the example of something that just sucked to my soul recently, this is bad here.
Dr. Robert: Good, I love those examples.
Ryan: We’ve got soul-suckers.
Clay: This is bad here. What happened is, we wrote this book called Start Here which many people all round the world are saying, “This is the best-
Vanessa: They love it, the best.
Clay: – most comprehensive business book I’ve ever read.” Which I’m thankful that you feel that way but here’s the issue —
Vanessa: It;s almost like a 500-page book, right?
Clay: It’s 550 pages, yes-
Vanessa: A lot of your time went into that.
Clay: -with 200 downloadables. Yes. But many Thrivers I’ve talked to, one thriver in particular, he says, “I struggled to read.” I said, “Okay.” I thought isolated incident. Talked to another person, he said, “I struggled to comprehend.” I’m like, “Okay.” Pretty soon I realized, the majority of people out there are looking for a play book.
Vanessa: They’re not going to read that long book even though it’s the best business book.
Clay: That’s why they love this show because it’s fun, it’s entertainment, it’s education. Z and I we sat down, we made all of our plays into a 13-point system. Now at our workshops we’re giving people what they want. It’s two days, 15 hours of power. In this book, the play book here, these are all the moves. These are our three-legged marketing stool, how to establish the revenue goals. Everything you need to know all in a little bit sized book. Even though I’m kind of a long form, I love to get deep into it and I want you to know why everything works. Some people are like, “Hey, I don’t want to know why baby, I just want to do it.”
Clay: I want to ask you this. I want to ask you this Ryan, from your perspective with your business.
Ryan: Sure.
Clay: What’s an area of your business that you’ve had to refine over the years, where you had to make a pivot that was maybe different from your original hypothesis but you had to change it because the data was in and you’re like, “I need to do something.”?
Ryan: Well, it happened pretty quick, I thought we’re going to start this company that was going to be like the West Coast Customs of Tulsa and focus on custom car apps for cool guys and found out that really, there aren’t that many cool guys and most people just really need advertising on their vehicles. We had to make that transition from being the custom cool wrap to, “Hey, how do I help the business owners get more impressions?”
Clay: I want to ask you this here Vanessa, as a mom when you’re working with the kids, obviously, we have five kids. We have a lot of listeners here who have business-
Ryan: Congratulations.
Clay: – and they have kids, there are mompreneurs out there, there are moms that are supporting their husbands, husbands supporting the wives.
Vanessa: At the business, at the house, yes.
Clay: Yes. How have you as a mom had to evolve your parenting style as you went from one to two to five? How do you do that move?
Vanessa: Well, in conjunction with the business, I guess. I tell people there’s seasons to your life. In the beginning it was just you and I. I was 100% on the business, at every show. Then when the kids came I was at home signing all the checks and then there was too many kids to do that anymore and so I was out of that season. Then when the time came back, we pivoted and said, “This is a great time to jump back in.” With the kids too, of course, they all have very, very, very different personalities. They’ve got little Clays, little Vanessas, and in betweens. I love them all the same but I can’t discipline them the same. Some can’t even take a reprimand and the others need to be — They need the strongest from of discipline.
Clay: Now once you have refined and you finally found the groove that works, you get into that groove and you know, “Hey, listen, this is working, this is working.” Then what you want to do is you want to say that, “Tell it to My heart by Taylor Dayne is probably one of the better kept secrets ever.” When you get to that late night part of a wedding reception and people have had about six too many beverages, this song is just a winner every time. People don’t even remember what this song is called but they can all sing it and they just start singing passionately. This song would always be a killer right after you play Madonna, Holiday. Remember Holiday?
Dr. Robert: Yes.
Clay: Remember Get Into the Groove?
Dr. Robert: Yes.
Clay: [singing] Get into the groove, boy, you’ve got to prove — Those songs would fit together. Debbie Gibson, that whole deal. That was a proven — Once you refined the playlist as a DJ, once you finally found the groove that would make the people move, you cannot change that. That’s why In-N-Out Burger does the same thing over and over.
Dr. Robert: Boom, boom, boom.
Vanessa: I was just thinking, it’s also there’s going to be many different parts of your business that you need to define, act, measure, refine. It could be your sales, it could be your numbers. I love numbers that’s what I do in our business but it could be, okay, what are we paying for? It’s taxes, towards employees, towards like you said advertising. It could be just even, what is it costing for us to hire new people and get them in? There’s not just one thing that you measure. One thing to measure the way that you do sales but you need to.
Clay: There’s a lot of things to measure Thrivers and we are going to get more into it here. Z, if someone has a feeling right now, they have that feeling they want to become an entrepreneur. 57% of people out there want to start a business, they got that feeling right now. There’s four ways we can help you. Z way number one is what?
Dr. Robert: Do exactly what you’re doing today and that is from 12:00 to 2:00 turn into Talk Radio 1170 here in Tulsa, Oklahoma and listen to the Thrive Time Show where we give practical business tips on how to start and grow your business.
Clay: All right. Now, move number two, you could go to thrivetimeshow.com and get it on. You could be listening to these podcasts, sharing it with people that you barely met, sharing it with people that you know, sharing it with people — Just go on the podcast Thrive Time Show, hit that share button, and boom. Move number three Z is what?
Dr. Robert: You can log into thrive15.com and there you could find the best business school without the BS for a measly, I’m talking measly $19 a month. You can have access-
Vanessa: It’s crazy.
Dr. Robert: – 24/7 on your smartphone, on your iPad, on your computer, even your neighbor’s smartphone for that matter. You say, “I forgot my phone, give me your phone. I got to watch an episode.” 15-minute chunks of business goal.
Clay: Move number four. This is move number that’s quickly approaching, it is one-on-one business coaching. We’re talking about if you want to work one-on-one with a business coach who knows what you need to do to start or grow a successful business, we have that available for you my friend. Now, Z, this is all available for the Thrivers, this is all here for them.
Dr. Robert: All here for them. We’re doing it for you because we want you to be successful in your business. That’s our heart and that is why we’re here every day from 12:00 to 2:00 coaching you up.
Clay: As always Z, here we go.
Clay, Dr. Robert: Three, two, one, boom.
[01:24:33] [END OF AUDIO]
