Entrepreneur | 5 Steps to Start a Business

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve read down the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s where we gotta get. Welcome into the Thrive Time Show. So glad you’re listening today. Josh Merrill here with America’s number one business coach, Mr. Clay Clark. How you doing? I am excited. I know some people right now are wondering what has happened to our main man Mark Levine. Where’s Mark Levine? He just got pushed back a little bit, but we are here in your ear to teach you how to start a business, Mr. Josh, and I could not be more excited to be here. It’s Thrive Time at Drive Time, if you will. Ooh, if you will. We’re so excited to be on Talk Radio 1170 right now. Today, Clay, in the studio, we don’t have Dr. Z with us. He is in the force just making things happen. You can feel his aura. You can feel it. You can’t see him, but it’s almost tangible. You just know that Dr. Z is out there doing something good. But in the studio today, we do have a very special guest. It’s Coach Don Calvert. He’s the founder of Score Basketball and a former OU basketball player, Boomer Sooner, heck yeah. He has coached many players who’ve gone on to play in the NBA and at the Division I college basketball level. His program has been endorsed by Hall of Fame Oklahoma State basketball coach Eddie Sutton. Coach Calvert, so good to have you today. Yes, good to be here. Coach, I just want to say that I love basketball. You love basketball. And everyone should. Everyone should. It’s just, Clay, do you love basketball? I do love basketball. And I will tell you what I love about today’s guest is Coach Calvert is a great guy. If you haven’t met him, he’s an awesome guy. But he took something that he loved, a passion, and he turned it into a profit center. And I think a lot of people view their passions and their profit centers as mutually exclusive ideas. It’s like, I love basketball, but I could never be paid to do it unless I was a pro athlete. Or I could never be paid, but he found a way to do it. He really is living the American dream. He started a business and it’s doing well. So coach, we’re going to get into these five steps here to start a business. I’m going to start off with this first one, because the first one is you want to find a problem that the world is willing to pay to have solved. You want to find a problem that the world is willing to pay to have solved. That’s step number one, so let me ask you, what was the problem that you saw in Tulsa, Oklahoma or in just Oklahoma as it relates to basketball? I mean, what was the problem that you saw and you said, I’m going to start a business that’s going to solve this problem? We like our kids to be involved in sports, right? And they’ll get involved in these leagues. And in the leagues, when you play in them, usually like one or two kids touch the basketball and they’re the ones that develop and then all the other 10 kids on the team don’t get to play. So we want to take kids and get them basically coordinated, get them confident, get them where they enjoyed the game. I found out with each group that we worked with there were certain goals that we needed with that group. So if it was like a five to six-year-old we’re just trying to get them to enjoy the game. Seven or eight we’re trying to get them to where they’re having a whole lot of fun. Now coach I’ve seen you do this. There was one young man who’s playing at a local private school. I want to see he was a freshman. That dude was riding some pine. If you’re listening to this right now and you’ve ever ridden some pine, what that means is your grandparents show up, your mom’s there, your friends are there, the girl you’re wanting to date is there, maybe the girl you’re dating in high school is there, but you are not going to see the floor. You’re not going to play. And you dress up and maybe do the layup drill and you do a little extra sizzle on it. Maybe you can barely dunk and you’re kind of putting on a little show in the warm-ups. But you know, unless somebody gets hurt, you’re not playing. So part of you is going, I hope we win. But the other part, he says, I hope he hurts himself. Not like a permanent injury, but more like a hammy. If he pulls a hammy, that would be good for my career. A slight sprain. A slight sprain will do. And so what happens is I’ve seen you coach this kid and he went from not playing at all to starting I think as a junior and going on to having a great senior year and playing at the college level. But this kid would have never had that kind of coaching or that experience if he wasn’t doing those drills at Score Basketball. So I want to ask you this. How are most coaching programs being run or most camps being run and how are you different from that? Most coaches, they dumb it down to the lowest common denominator. They’ll take beginners and they’ll take good players and they’ll take really good players and they’ll throw them all together. And you always have to dumb it down to the lowest common denominator. So what we did is we developed all our different levels to see how can we get the little kids really good? How can we get the kids that have been playing a while really good? And so we just started forming our program according to what each need was, what each problem was. Well, you know, Josh, I want to mention this because if you’re listening right now and you want to start a business, you’re not alone. I mean, there’s all sorts of statistics out there that show that a little over half of the population, according to Forbes, wants to start a business. One stat came out and said 47%. One said over half. But check it out. There’s a little fun factoid for you. According to Forbes, Tulsa, Oklahoma has actually been named as the number one city for young entrepreneurs. But it doesn’t matter, that stat doesn’t matter at all if you don’t actually take action. And so I want to read this notable quotable to you, Josh. Josh, you ready? I’m so ready. I love notable quotables. Here we go. It says, achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit. That’s Conrad Hilton. If you think about that, that we’re in a city that’s great for entrepreneurship, you’ve got to take action. This is a huge, huge opportunity you have. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11. Clay, I want to ask you, I know your story and I want to hear it again, but you saw so many problems when you were coming up, even starting in high school, you saw problems that you needed to solve. And it started a business for you. Tell us about some of those. Okay, well here’s the deal. I went to a school dance called the Sad Dance, Don. It was called the Sad Dance. That would be me. And it was the Students Against Drunk Driving Dance. And the idea was to raise awareness for not drinking, you know, and the students are like, sure, let’s come to the Sad Dance. The name was just weak sauce and they hired this DJ This is in Minnesota and they hired the DJ and all the DJs are the same basically they all go alright everybody Welcome to tonight’s dance party. We’re gonna have a great time here How many kids are having a great time and the guy who’s saying it’s like 45? Yeah Next we’ll play a slow song and then next we’re gonna play some hip-hop And then who wants to hear some country and it just random you couldn’t get in the flow There was no groove no one danced, and I thought, I could do it better. I made the mistake, or I saw the opportunity, and I put my hand up and I said, Ms. Page, because Ms. Page was organizing it. Do you remember that show Superman and the lady who played Lois? Do you remember that lady? It was Terri Hatcher. She looked just like Terri Hatcher. She was a teacher. She was like 23, 24. And she says, you think you can do it better? I don’t want to hear you complaining unless you’re willing to throw the dance party. Unless you’re willing to do this dance party, I don’t want to hear it. If you’re not willing to go out there and DJ the party from the beginning to the end and get your music and all that, get your equipment, then I don’t want to hear you and Jeff complaining.” And so Jeff was like, dude, dude, you should do it, bro. And I said, you know what? I will do it. I will DJ that dance. It will be the best dance in the history of the world. And so I ended up meeting with her and I said, here’s the deal, what’s the most number of kids we’ve ever had, what’s the high water mark? She says 200. I said, here’s the deal, if I can get more than 200 kids at this dance party, can I keep all of the door charges? She goes, no, you can keep half. So it’s $5 a kid, roughly. So I can keep half, and I say, well, can I keep all the concessions if I sponsor it and bring in all the food? She goes, absolutely. Now, I remember, I’m like 15 at the time. Well, long story short, I end up renting equipment from a man named Oswald, who had smoked so much pot that I don’t know that he could really, he’s just like, yeah bro, just show up around tomorrow or something and just pick it up, whatever. You know, the garage was always open. I rented this equipment from him, got it, figured out how to set it up. I had CDs. I didn’t have a mixer, but it was me, a mic, a lot of enthusiasm. I cold called a great many companies pretending to be an organization called SAD. And I got one of them a company called Vault. It was an energy drink, kind of like a Mountain Dew. They agreed to sponsor the whole dance, so I showed up with case after case of that. I got pizza from a place called Casey’s. It was a gas station. I got the Casey’s pizza. I got the Vault. I got the speakers. It was me. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had practiced a lot. And I was promoting it all month to get people there. And Josh was my first time making thousands of dollars in one night. Right, and I think that this leads us right into our mystic statistic here. It says most American millionaires today, about 80%, are first generation rich. And this was something that you can definitely relate to. Yeah, I would just say this. I mean, if you’re listening right now, and you’re looking to be appointed or anointed, or you’re looking to have that degree or that certification give you the validation needed to start a business, it is not going to happen. You’ve got to start right now. This has to be your catalyst. You’re living in the best time in the history of the planet. Yeah, there’s horrible things that happen, but back in the day, like your uncle would die of polio at the age of 40. Back in the day, the pilgrims, these guys were working seven days a week, barely able to survive. People were dying in their 40s, their 50s. This is the best time to start a business in the best city, according to Forbes. And so, Don, I want to ask you, when did that moment happen when you said, I am starting a business, I’m going to do it? Do you remember when that moment was? Yeah, I was teaching in middle school, and I decided I’m not doing this. What? And I was like, oh my goodness, I cannot sit here for eight hours a day doing this. I’ve got to find something that I love. This is boring me to death. Do you hate kids? Only when the parents try to tell me what to do with their kids. Okay, I’m just asking. So you’re a middle school teacher and you’re going, I’m not doing this anymore. No, and I was like, well, I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ve got to try something. And so I just started asking parents, you know, if I taught some basketball lessons, would you do it?” And so I started asking around and they were like, yeah, we’ll do it. And we tried it out. All of a sudden I just filled up my schedule. And then, to make a long story short, I started filling up so much that I was able to go full time. And I did what you did. I started calling everybody and anybody to find out who would sponsor me, who would work with me. I remember the first few years I got Mozzios to sponsor all my camps. I got Coca-Cola to give me pop and stuff. Wait a minute, did you call people that you did not know? I called and called and called and called. Sounds like you’re a cold caller. And I came up with a deal with Mozios where I would do a pizza party on every Friday and then they would sponsor my program. So you made cold calls? Cold calls. We called everybody to find out who would do giveaways for us. Remember the old Bells here in Tulsa? Clay, I tell you what, starting a business is something that if you want to do it, you’ve got to get out there, you’ve got to start doing it. And on today’s show, we are absolutely going to help you with it. Yeah, no, the thing is, up next, coming up after the break, we’re going to be talking about step number two, which is to create a differentiated, high-quality solution that you can consistently deliver. If you’ve ever wanted to start a business, you do not want to miss this. It’s going to be a game changer, a life changer. Coming up next. Welcome back into the show. Josh Merrill here with America’s number one business coach, Clay Clark, and our special guest today, Coach Calvert. Good to have you, Coach. It’s good to be here. Hey, today on the show, we’re talking about how to start a business from scratch. We’ve actually got five steps for you in order to do that. Right now, we’re talking about step number one, find a problem that the world is willing to pay to have solved. I’ve got a great mystic statistic here. This is from Forbes. It says small businesses have generated over 65% of the net new jobs since 1995. That’s small business right there. Yeah, and that’s according to Forbes, guys. I mean, this isn’t a stat where I’m going, this is a new statistic. This is a clay stat. Yeah, these are real stats here. And I want to tell you this, is you have to get back to the root of this. You have to create a solution that the world is willing to pay for. So I’m just going to give you some examples. Quick trip. Do you guys remember when you would go to a gas station and it was like a third world country in that bathroom? Do you remember that? Where you’re going, what is going on in here? And you’d go in there and the coffee would have like brown little floaties in it. It was just nasty. And your wife wouldn’t go to the bathroom and there’s like a window between you and the cashier. See, that’s what I’m saying. And then Chester Cajun goes, nah, we’re going to come up with a place that’s clean, has convenience. It’s going to be like the Taj Mahal of gas stations. Those new quick trips they’re building are crazy awesome. And that’s what quick trip is, OK? Southwest Airlines. Remember when you wanted to buy a ticket, and it was like $700 no matter where you wanted to go, and it was really expensive? Southwest says, you know what? We’re going to only fly 737s, and we’re going to lower that price. We’re not going to charge for extra bags. We’re not going to charge you extra fees. Southwest Airlines is focused on making flying affordable. You’re now free to fly throughout the country. The third is score basketball over here. You remember when you used to take your kids to a basketball camp, and no one got taught anything, and then the coach is like, hey, everybody, you get a third-place trophy. And there’s no teaching. There’s no drills. There’s no mentorship, there is nothing deeper than just basic drills. That’s the world before score basketball. Epic photography. Remember when you used to hire a wedding photographer and you’d go, yeah bro, I should get your photos back to you, probably in like six months. Bro, like six months probably. Really we’re backed up right now and it’s looking like $3,000. I’m just doing a personal project about the forest. Yeah, probably three months I’ll be back from my trip. Come on, that was the world before Epic Photography, the company I started. And then Elephant in the Room. Remember when you used to have your mop shop, you’d go into a place, there’s old crappy magazines, like a People magazine from like seven months ago. That’s not what Kim Kardashian is doing right now. That was six months ago. You sit down, there’s somebody complaining to you, talking to you about their third divorce, and the phone’s ringing inside the building. You’re trying to get your hair cut with a phone. You keep being interrupted with phone calls, and it’s just chaos, and the line is huge. No, no. Now we have elephant in the room, where there’s no wait. It’s appointment-based only. It’s membership-based. Full disclosure, I do own the business. But elephant in the room. I’m just telling you, all you’ve got to do is find a problem that the world is willing to pay to have solved, and you’ll make lots of money. Boom. Let’s move on to step number two. Step two, you’ve got to create a differentiated, high-quality solution that you can deliver consistently. That’s a lot. It’s a mouthful, but let me break it down for you. You have to do something differently than everybody else is currently doing. It has to be different, because if it’s not different, then why would I pay you? Why would I just not go to the current solution that is available. And so, Coach, I want to ask you this at SCORE. For those people who haven’t been there before, you walk in and it’s beautiful. It’s professional. People always say, wow, it’s so professional. It starts on time. I hear people saying all the time, the coach I used to use, he’d say, we’ll meet you up there around like 5 to 6-ish and we’ll get started. You start on time, it’s clean. How have you tried to make SCORE Basketball different than any other basketball facility really in the Midwest? First thing I did was I started making lists. Lists of how do I want things run, how do I want things to look. I worried about everything. How are the bathrooms, what’s the look of the place. I wanted everything to be professional. I talked to my guys all the time about nobody comes in the gym without us saying hi to them. No kid leaves without or walks in the door without us greeting them. We’re taking care of every little subject that we can take care of. Now for somebody listening right now and you’re like, actually I’ve been there one time and I wasn’t greeted. Well, let me tell you what, that’s the ideal. The ideal is what we’re talking about. You want to create a differentiated ideal. Okay, so the Constitution. Okay, many people, I hope most people believe in that controversial You said the Bible on the radio? Do you like people? But anyway, all I’m saying is there are ideals. Thou shalt not steal. It’s an ideal. It’s a thing. It doesn’t mean that nobody in the world is ever going to steal and that the whole country is crap if somebody does. What it means is that’s the ideal. I see you constantly as the entrepreneur fighting to uphold that ideal, pushing to bring excellence to every camp and every event you do. You do. We’ll talk about it. We have a meeting on every Monday and we talk about what we did well, what we didn’t do very well, what we need to get better at, what we need to add. We’re always trying to renew our program and keep our program fresh. Our coaches are responsible for coming up with new ideas. They have to have two new ideas every Monday. I’m going to brag on you for a minute. You do survey your customers and I see the look on your face if you fail to meet that standard I see the look of joy when you do, but you really do care and here’s the great thing about capitalism, right? People have choices so they don’t like the camp. They don’t have to come back. That’s why you grow every year You’re listening to the thrash time show on talk radio Got a great notable quotable here from Seth Godin. He’s the best-selling author of the purple cow and a renowned marketing expert. He says, you’re either a purple cow or you’re not. You’re either remarkable or invisible. Holy cow! Holy purple cow! Holy purple cow! All right, so here’s the thing. Here’s the thing about Seth Godin. He said that idea that you’re either remarkable or you’re invisible. That was just, and I remember reading that the first time. Jason Bailey bought that book for me, and I remember going, I am not remarkable. I’m just, I’m just, I’m just average. I’m just a dude with a suit on. So here’s the deal. Let’s talk about this radio show. This show is made for entrepreneurs or wantrepreneurs. And if somebody is going, I thought this was going to be a socialist show where you guys would talk about how you guys feel in the community and supporting the local community with extra taxes and grants. I just thought you guys were going to get together and talk about how you feel. This isn’t that show. This show is about how to actually start a successful business. It requires work, and we know who you are, and we know who you are not. That’s why we have a new section on our website, The Thrive Time Show. It’s called Darth Haters. Last week I got my first round of Darth Haters. So anybody who complains, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take your email with your email address and your phone number, whatever you sent to us, your voicemail, and we’re just going to put it right up there on the site and you can get your daily sip of Haterade. It’s awesome. And so I want to ask you this. When you started SCORE and you went out there and built something different, how big of an obsession was that for you at first, Don? How big of an obsession was that for you to make it different and better? Part of it was fear. You know, fear of failure and all. So I was not going to fail. And so I talked to every coach, every parent. I tried every program. I tried just doing everything I possibly could. I would do it from sunup till sundown, just working and work. I’d work 12 hours on a Saturday. It’s kind of like chasing a… I always tell people, entrepreneurs like chasing a bag of money while being chased by a hungry lion. You’re like, I am so motivated to get that money. It’s going to be awesome. And then you’re like, holy crap, there’s a lion in the room. And you’re going back, I mean, you’re chasing the money, but you’re also being chased by a lion called budgets, called money, called failure, called whatever. And so Josh, tell us about what we’re going to be talking about after the break. Yeah, so when we come back, we’re going to be talking about the three-legged stool of repeatable and effective marketing. Now if you’ve never heard of this three-legged stool, you’re going to want to stick around because Clay is going to break it down for us like it’s never been broken down before. It’s all on Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170 because it’s Thrive Time at Drive Time. We’ll be right back. Welcome back into the show. Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark and our special guest today, Coach Calvert of Score Basketball. We’re talking about the five steps to start a business from scratch. Clay, this is huge. This is the beginning. This is us starting businesses. This is us saying, this is how we did it. This is the proven way to do it. And right now, we’re on step number three, which is find your three-legged stool of repeatable and effective marketing. Well, I have something I’m going to quote that might sound biblical in nature. It might sound like, wow, that guy’s, that’s a pretty profound statement. Wow, that guy’s pretty intense. I don’t know if I agree, but please work with me on this. Step number one is you’ve got to find that problem. Step number two is you’ve got to find the solution. But step number three, this is the whole deal, and I hate to say it, but your business, your dreams, your money, your vision, everything will go to hell if you can’t sell, period. Doesn’t matter. So that’s why I am proud to be the only business school without the BS, because they don’t teach sales school. You can graduate with a degree from the university or whatever the heck, and you can’t sell anything. And that is horrible when you graduate with a degree from the university of wherever the heck with a degree in whatever the crap, and you have a PhD and can’t sell anything, and all of a sudden you come into my dojo of mojo, which people all over the world do, and they go, can you help me sell? And yes, we can. And at thrive15.com, we have market training, we have marketing training about search engine optimization and how to do mailers. We have templates for you for mass mailers. We have cold call scripts. We have recorded call examples. You mean you have recorded calls and you have examples? Yes, we have all of that, but if you can’t sell, everything just goes to Hades real, real, real fast. And so what you need to do now is you need to develop this three-legged marketing stool now work with me there This has to be repeatable and effective You have to have three ways that work so coach you had this vision to coach basketball You knew you saw the problem. Hey kids aren’t getting coached. They’re not developed being developed in the skills Their head coach is trying to win games, but no one’s focusing on developing the players who aren’t playing. I can solve it. What was the first way that you started getting traction with your marketing? What was one of the first ways where you started getting butts in the door, people in the seats, people paying you, getting customers? What was the first way? First thing is I just started talking to all the parents. I wasn’t very good at marketing at all, but I was willing to try anything. So I started making a cool brochure that I thought was a really good, catchy name. Did you have Photoshop experience? No, none whatsoever. I was terrible at it. Did you make it with Word or did you just draw it yourself? Somebody encouraged me and I found one on sale to buy an Apple computer way back when. And I started learning on Apple. It was very easy to use. And so I just worked and worked and worked at it. And we now have workshops available for Thrivers on Tuesdays and Thursday nights where we’ll teach you Photoshop for 50 bucks. 50 bucks! 50 bucks! 50 bucks! You mean I don’t have to have a degree in graphic design? No, we can teach you. But you made flyers. Did flyers. And you know what? I’m not ripping you. Because I’m not ripping me. Well, I am ripping me. I’m not going to rip you, but I’m going to rip me. My first flyers were awful. Mine were terrible. They were just… they were like hideous. Too wordy, boring, kind of ugly. Boring, wordy. Yeah. And we have templates now for all the Thrivers at Thrive15.com where you can download a proven flyer and what works. But the second thing, and I kind of teamed up with you and helped you on this part, is search engine optimization. Which that would have been a foreign language to me. There’s no way I would have ever figured it out. So now you’re topping Google. So right now if you’re listening, just Google Tulsa basketball camps. And are you going to find Russell Westbrook and his multi-million dollar camp? No. No. Are you going to find the University of Tulsa? No. No. Are you going to find really the NBA team, the Thunder, their basketball camps? No. You’re going to find the YMCA? No. You’re going to find score basketball. You know why? Because we are Google geniuses and you can be too if you learn it. But you have to find three ways that work. So I’m going to fire off a bunch of them, Josh. Let’s do it. One is cold calling. Yeah. Let’s figure that out. Two is mass mailers. Three is Google. Four, billboards. Five, check it out. We have lists of hundreds, hundreds, hundreds. You have hundreds, hundreds of ways to market, but you have to find three. And Josh, why do you speculate why we have to have three and not 17? Oh, that’s a good question. Please tell me. Well, because it’s not scalable. Your brain will explode if you’re trying to execute a 77-part marketing system. You’ve got to have three that work, and it’s called the three-legged marketing stool. It’s a little phrase I came up with. But basically a stool is very stable if it has multiple legs and a business is very stable because back in the day there was this thing called the yellow pages, Josh. Josh, have you ever heard about the yellow pages? What are the yellow pages? Well, Josh, let me tell you something about the yellow pages. The yellow pages, first off, they were yellow. They were yellow pages. They were pages that were yellow. Yes. People would get the good book. It would be about 400 pages long. It would be huge. Yes. It would have a lawyer on the front of it. And he would be talking about something and in the bottom of it there would be an ad for a pizza. Pizza. There would be an ad for a lawyer on a pizza. You open it up, things were sorted alphabetically. People coming up with ridiculous names for the company like A plus automotive, A plus DJs, A plus anything so you get that A listing. Triple A DJ. Oh, Triple A DJ. And you know I started a company called Always and Forever Wedding DJ Service that was not even a company so that I could get the call and say, I’m sorry, we’re not available, but DJ Connection is, because that was a D, and that’s after A, and I was not stupid. So I’m just telling you right now, the yellow pages are no longer around. And this thing called the Google came out. And when that thing called the Google came out, the world changed. And now Google owns the internet, they own the world, they own the planets. They’re making a lot of money, and we’re all using it. So things are going to change. If I had had a one-mega-marketing stool built on the yellow pages, I would have been currently making minimum wages. You would have not been around anymore. No, I would have been killed like the dinosaur, man. So you’ve got to have three. Because they didn’t adapt to Google. They did not adapt. I’m going to read you a little notable quotable, 90 miles an hour. Okay, here we go. This isn’t something that hard work alone is going to solve. Blindly working hard is part of the problem. The more your growth is based on your personal production, the more dependent your business becomes you for that production. You’ve got to make sure that even in the midst of meeting the daily demands of your business, you take some of your energy and invest in systems. That is by Jeff Hoffman and David Finkel, the guys who wrote the book, Scale. Homies, you have to build a system for repeatable marketing. That’s why after the break, we’re going to be talking about the next step. The next step, it’s move number four. It’s how to find a way to fund it. You mean how to get money? Yes. We’re gonna learn how to fund your business and check it out in the second hour. We’re having Sean Copeland, the CEO and president of Regent Bank on the show. Boom. Let’s do it. When I think of adversity, I think of tolerance of rain. I think of dark clouds. I think of things that you don’t have any control over, yet they’re coming at you. And you have to make a decision, what do I do? Do I just stand here, or do I move? So, going up into Mississippi Delta, as I did, during the era of legal segregation, it was a time that adversity was surrounding one’s life. It was like torrents of rain that had been coming for generations. And sometimes it seems as if it would never stop. But somewhere along the way you ask yourself the question, how do I get out of this rain? What do I do? What can I do to make a difference? To bring some sunshine into my life? Into every life, as the song says, some rain must fall. And rain is what people run away from, to get out of. But it is also the rain that waters and nurtures those incredible ideas that live within us. I think that adversity is challenging, no question about it, but it also becomes a great teacher as well. the the the the Hey, what are you doing? I’m just cleaning the bathroom. Looks good. Let’s go to lunch. All right. the the the the Boom! We are back on the Thrive Time Show. Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark and our special guest today, Coach Calvert of Score Basketball. We’re talking about the five steps to start a business from scratch. We are right now on step number four, Clay. Find a way to fund it. That’s huge. Well, there’s never been a better quote about this concept than the quote that I read from Jack Welch. This is the former CEO of GE who grew the business by 4000 percent. But people forget he started somewhere. He was an entry level employee. You know, he was started at the bottom and worked his way up. But he says you’ve got to eat while you dream. You’ve got to deliver on short-range commitments while you develop a long-range strategy and vision and implement it. The success of doing both, walking and chewing gum, if you will, getting it done in the short range and delivering on a long-range plan and executing on that. He’s talking about you have to be able to, you can’t starve while you’re building your big vision. When I said entry-level employee, he’s an engineer. So the entry-level engineer with a degree and he worked his way up, but he started somewhere and he couldn’t just starve. So I see a lot of these people, you’re probably behind one in traffic right now, and this guy’s got like 87 bumper stickers, and I’ve found there’s a ratio. I’ve been working on it. It’s a mathematical equation. Are you ready for this, Josh? Let’s do it. For every bumper sticker you have on your car, it’s a $500 per year deduction on your income. Oh, wow. So if you have like 47 bumper stickers, you potentially are spending more than you make. And so you’re at a coffee house, you’re talking all the time about Tulsa needs to do more to support the entrepreneurs in this community, and we need to get out there and we need to fight for social change, and we need to… Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are grinding. We’re just grinding. You gotta grind. We’re just grinding. We’re hustling. So the thing is, you have to find a way to go out there and fund your business. And I’m going to give you some controversial ideas. You ready? Do you have some ample examples for me? I do. One is called Get a Second Job. What? Second job? No. Would Bernie Sanders approve of this? Bernie Sanders wouldn’t he? Because you don’t want to work more than 37 hours because you want work-life balance. Well, Exodus, controversial book in the Bible, 2011. He says, Exodus, Bible, work with me. Exodus, 2011. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. But he rested on the seventh day.” What am I saying? Sometimes in the Bible things are taught and they are meant to be… you are supposed to pull a truth from them or an idea or an action item from what they are saying. The concept is he worked on the sixth day, right? On the seventh day he rested. Just throwing out this concept called the sixth day principle. You might want to work six days a week, have two jobs. Someone says, I don’t like the Bible and I hate when you reference it because, listen, that is a controversial book that I do not believe in and I say you know What buddy I have something here for you, and it’s called Elon Musk Oh boy, and Elon Musk is not taking people to church, but Elon Musk is the guy who was the founder and CEO of SpaceX He’s the co-founder and CEO of Tesla. He’s currently rated right now as like the 83rd I think wealthiest person in the world not bad. He’s the co-founder of PayPal. He says this you have to work like hell. I mean, you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week, because this improves your odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour weeks, and you’ve just got to put in 100 hour weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in four months, what it takes them a year to achieve. Let me tell you what, I don’t know any successful entrepreneurs who don’t have the hustle game figured out. So if you don’t have enough money, go get a second jobby job. I did that. I worked construction to fund the painted houses you painted houses. I work construction I mean we’ve all done something if you started a business you’ve had to get that second job The second is the friends and family I call this the Sam Walton method and how does that work Sam Walton went to his wife’s? Father because his father-in-law by the way she lived in Claremore Claremore It’s like the zebras right yeah, I’m zebras or something more zebras Yes, anyway, so he went out to her father and said, hey, I want to start a business. Would you fund me? And he goes, I’m sure the conversation was like, you know what, I’ll fund you, but if you lose it, I’ll probably kill you. I mean, something like that, you know, but anyway, so he funded his business. Walt Disney, his brother helped him fund his business. So family and friends, that’s a method. Move number three is small business loans. In fact, coming up after the break, we have a guy who owns Regent Bank, bankregent.com, but in order to go out there and get a small business loan, you do have to have a package together. You have to make a loan package or a packet. We have trainings on thrive15.com and templates to teach you how to make an SBA compliant loan application or package. There’s credit cards, Josh. There’s a website called cabbage.com for credit lines. You mean loans? Yeah, homie, I’m talking about the concept that you would borrow money to start a business is not as crazy in my mind as borrowing money to buy a car. You ultimately have to find a way to fund your business, and you have to be willing to risk something. You’re listening to The Throck Time Show on Talk Radio 11. All right, we’re going to move on to step five on how to start a business from scratch. Clay, step five is protect it. Yeah, once you’ve funded that thing, you’ve got to start to protect it. People say, well, how come you didn’t start talking about protect it to start? Well, the reason why is because I really don’t care about protecting something that’s worthless. But once you have something where you’re… I always tell people, once you have 15 customers, I would do these steps. So step one is you want to start saving something. I recommend you set aside 10% of your gross revenue. It’s kind of like your war chest because bad things are going to happen. You’re going to get sued. You’re going to have an employee quit. You’re going to have a sign. Clay, that’s so negative. It’s going to happen. I’ll tell you what. I remember the first time I had saved up about $25,000 and somebody stole the trailer that all of the DJ equipment that we had just purchased was in. So I called my insurance company. By the way, now I use Farmer’s Insurance and Kirk Fryer over there at 392-4000. That’s 918-392-4000. Now I use Farmer’s, but before I didn’t understand. So I went with the cheapest insurance I could buy. And Josh, why is that a bad move? Tell me, Clay. Because they wouldn’t pay me out! They wouldn’t pay out! Oh, Clay. They said, well, technically your insurance only covers the trailer if it’s on your commercial property, but because the trailer is no longer located on the property, it technically is not insured. What would be the point of insuring a trailer? Hey, bro, we got you a good deal. So all I’m saying is you want to make sure you have that insurance in place. With me, they closed my gym all of a sudden. Are you serious? They sold the place out from under me. I had to go find another place. You were operating in a gym. You were renting a gym. You were at a gym, and they just shut it down. Shut it down. But because you had savings, you could get out there and make it happen. We were able to make it for a year. So the next thing is insurance. So one is savings. Two is insurance. Number three, move number three here, is you want to have legal protection. And we have a guest coming up on tomorrow’s show. It’s phenomenal. He’s going to be teaching us a little bit how we do this. Wes Carter with Winners and King. It’s an unbelievable law firm. They represent Pastor Osteen. They represent TD Jakes. They’re huge, huge. They’re based right here in Tulsa. But you need to form an LLC, you need to get that legal protection because if you don’t, you put yourself in a very, very precarious situation. So again, savings, insurance, legal, you’ve got to get all those things in place to protect yourself. The stuff you don’t want to do but you have to. So coach, I want to ask, you’ve been in business for how many years now? 16. Fifteen, sixteen. What have been, in the last two years, list me some horrible things that have happened to you in your business in the last two years. Actually twenty-one, sorry. Twenty-one years. Just from the last two, because I want to be very fresh. Drivers listening to this believe that small business ownership must be sexy and it must be very free of stress. But what are just a few horrible things that have happened in the last two years that would have completely wiped you out if you hadn’t saved? I had a young man steal a ton of money from me. He faxed and in fact he just pleaded guilty. How much money did this guy steal from you, Coach? $20,000. Now, business is sexy. Business is sexy. We don’t have drama in business because if you were a real business you wouldn’t probably have had someone steal from you. I’m sure anyone listening to this right now, you’ve never had someone steal from you because business is sexy. Coach, what if something else had happened to you in the last couple of years that was horrible? Oh, health. Health? I need another back surgery. I can’t do as much work, as much time. What’s a good back surgery cost? Is it like $7, $8, $19? I went to Germany and had two. Well, yeah, it’s probably cheaper in Germany, right? Actually, yeah, it’s about $50,000. Did David Hasselhoff conduct the surgery? Nobody came and sang in my room for me. So going to Germany to have that surgery, it cost some money. Now coach, over the entirety of the 21 years, I just want to list off some things that I know about. The gym that you operated in just closed down. You were renting space. They just said, we’re going to do this thing right now. What we’re going to do is we’re going to do a reorganization. You go, what does that mean? We’re going to just kind of relocate. We’re going to, you mean relocate like a new location? We’re just going to, what we would call, shut it down. And you’re going to shut it down? But because you had some money saved, you made it through that. You’ve had money stolen from you. You had back injuries. Clay, now this is great. We’ve been talking about how to start a business from scratch. You’ve got to obviously protect it like we’ve talked about. Find a way to fund it. But listen, I know that this was a pretty quick talk on how to start a business. Is there a place we can go to that can teach us how to start a business? Well, yeah, if you go to thrive15.com, it is irrefutably the world’s best business school. It’s 19 bucks a month, so you could spend $100,000 and get your degree from the university or whatever. Now, I’m sure there’s a value in that for some people, but a lot of times people own a business and they’re stuck in the business. They don’t have the answers. They can’t find the solutions, but if you go to thrive15.com, I want to read off just some of the things that you have access to, okay? One, is you have weekly workshops in person. Tuesdays and Thursdays you can come here. Two, we have best practice downloadables, like checklists, like specific systems. Three, we have a book called Start Here that you have access to. It’s the whole curriculum. You have thousands of video trainings. We have weekly podcasts. And, check it out, you know how you can call a company and ask for technical support, or you can call in with customer service? You can call in on the hotline, and when you call in, if you’re a thrive15.com subscriber, you can call in and we’ll answer your business questions. Boom, it’s thrive15.com, you gotta check it out. I wanna thank Coach Calvert for being with us today. Hey, coming back up here in our number two, we’ve got Sean Copeland, CEO and President of Reach & Bank, talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off your growth. You don’t want to miss it. We’ll be right back. Welcome back. Josh Merrill here with America’s number one business coach, Clay Clark. It’s our number two, Clay. And I’m so excited because we have a brand new special guest with us today. Very special. Very special. His name is Sean Copeland. He’s the CEO and president of Regent Bank. OK. He’s a business leader and award-winning CEO, obviously. Before the age of 35, he became one of the owners of Region Bank, and he served as the youngest president of the Oklahoma State University National Alumni Association, representing over 180,000 alumni worldwide. You’re wearing yourself out. I want to finish the rest of the bio, because this man has more awards and accolades than anybody else here. For me, it’s just like, Clay Clark, we have one thing to say. But he was also named Citizen of the Year for his hometown in Bixby. Bixby’s the best. This guy’s the former chairman of the Bixby Chamber of Commerce. And he suckered me into working for free at the Bixby Blues and Barbecue Festival during its first year. But think about the exposure you got. And barbecue. You had a lot of barbecue. And that’s how we met. And so we became friends. And now, obviously, you’ve started Regent Bank and you’re having all sorts of success. And so we’re talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off of your growth. So Sean, this first one, move number one, is you want to create a customer service experience that your customers are going to love. Not just like, but love. So I’m going to ask you, at Regent and the other businesses you’re involved in, why is it so important to create an experience that people don’t just like, but they love? It’s because we have so many choices. If you think about it, it doesn’t matter what you’re shopping for, whether it’s banking, investments, insurance, cars, plumbing, you name it. We have so many choices and information is so rampant. So if we’re not happy with where we are, we just leave and go somewhere else. I’ve noticed with Regent, there’s so many banks. I hear Josh, when we’re done with today’s recording. He’s gonna switch over to Regent Bank. I’ve heard that kid I’ve got a switch I’ll do it. I’ll do it so here’s the deal is though, but seriously at Regent there’s so many banks people could bank with and What are some of the ways that you’ve tried to make your customer service experience? Unique or better or different than the competition because there’s it’s such a crowded marketplace What are some of the ways that you’ve gone out there and done that. So what’s interesting is yesterday afternoon I had an opportunity to spend some time with Chet Kajoe from Quick Trip. One of the things that he said which really resonated with me and is perfect for this show is that customer service is different for different people. And so what you have to do is you have to in your business determine what is important to that customer. So at Quick Trip their customers want friendly and fast. You want to get in and out. You don’t want somebody engaging you in an in-depth conversation when you’re trying to get a pack of cigarettes. I mean, that’s just not the deal. At Regent, it’s totally different. Our customer is primarily a business owner. As you know, being a small business owner is very difficult. I mean, a lot of demands on your time, demands on your cash, it’s a lot of anxiety. It’s just that people just have no idea unless you’re trying to make payroll how hard it is. Do you guys staff a therapist there? Is that what you’re saying? Close. Tell us how you feel. But I mean, you guys, I mean, I’ve seen this firsthand. You guys have that methodical, diligent, caring approach that says, hey, we get what it’s like to start a business. We get you. And I’ve seen you sit down with people who are trying to make a loan packet, and they maybe have the financial resources to qualify, but they don’t know how to fill it out. They don’t know how to get started. They don’t know the first thing about it. And I’ve seen you guys, I’ve seen your team sit down and coach people through what it means to get an SBA loan and what’s the best kind of funding. And I want to ask you this, because you speak all the time. You’ve written a couple of books and you travel a lot, you speak a lot. When you’re speaking at a local business event, what percentage of the business owners in the room do you think frankly don’t know what they’re doing financially and maybe need the kind of coaching that Regent provides? Honestly, if a group of 100 people, what percentage would you say, they’re good people, they’re smart, they have a business that’s successful, but they just don’t know the first thing about banking. Probably half. Yeah. I mean, in reality, because here’s what happens. An individual is really good at something. So let’s just take a perfect example. I have a business partner in a technology company, and he was extremely good at programming and developing that technology product. But when it came to financial management, capital resources, marketing, you know I mean all people, all of the other aspects that insurance, things that you have to know to be successful in business, he didn’t have any background in any of those. And so our partnership was fantastic. He brought the technology, I brought the other. So that’s what we find with most of our clients. They need a resource. They need somebody to help them. And so that’s that’s really what we try to do. So I’m going to ask you, if you’re listening right now and you want to start a business or you own a business, what you think right now? Sean said it, but think about this. What is the customer service experience that your ideal and likely buyer is looking for? What is it? You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11. Got a notable quotable here from Sam Walton. Who’s Sam Walton? He’s the founder of Walmart, Sam’s Club. Don’t they make the walls? Is there a wall making company? I think they might sell some wall stuff. I don’t know. But he says there is only one boss, the customer, and he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else. So let me give you an example. In 1969, Harley Davidson was purchased by the American Machine and Foundry. It’s called AMF, okay? They bought the company. Anybody who’s around, I was born in 1980 so I didn’t live this but I want to walk you through this. The Harley has always been known as a motorcycle that goes, and you get on that thing and I’m not sure the whole mindset, I’m not sure the whole mindset because I don’t own a Harley, I’m not into that thing, but you put on a bunch of leather, you get that leather on and you, hey man, you want to get on this now you do that Oh, yeah I Don’t know about the Harley, but Here’s the deal no, but seriously you have this and you kind of you have a beard It’s like a lot of facial hair. Yeah, you’re always celebrating Movember and you say hey, man We’re gonna go up to Sturgis. We’re gonna ride two days straight shoot Got my underwear and my clothes my shoes and my t-shirt everything I’m gonna wear it’s on right now. And I’m going to eat bugs for 12,000, for 1,200 miles going. I could probably ride 16 hours straight. We’ll probably pull over, see how big of a steak I can eat, and we’ll just keep heading up there. You have to talk like this? Yeah. You get up there, and then what happens is, you’re a Harley enthusiast, right? So in 1969, this company buys it and says, I know what we’re going to do. Let’s streamline the bikes. I know what we’re going to do. Let’s streamline the bikes. He goes, oh man, I want to see the new Harley. What is it going to look like? He’s probably like, shoot, that doesn’t sound good. Yeah, and so people quit buying it because it was more fuel efficient and it was quieter. Which is what a lot of people actually want, but not the Harley enthusiasts. Right, and so what happened is the company began to go into bankruptcy. It began to struggle. And unfortunately, we’re not in a communist country, so people have options. And so what happens is, people have options. And so Harley began to just struggle week after week, day after day, realizing that Stalin wasn’t coming to help. And so they just kept making these efficient bikes. They just kept making them more and more fuel efficient week after week. And they went into bankruptcy. And somebody else bought them with the Harley last name, brought him back, but he brought him back. He said, let’s make these things less fuel efficient. Let’s make these things more powerful. Let’s make them louder. Let’s do all the things that wouldn’t make sense to the average mind, but let’s do it because our customers love it. Clay, let me ask you about your DJ business. You started a very successful DJ business called DJ Connection. What did you do? What was that customer experience that you created that your customers just absolutely loved? Well, it was an experience that half the people hated and half of them loved. I mean that. So when you would call us, a guy would say, thank you for calling DJ Connection. This is the amazing DJ Clay. How can I make your day awesome? Everyone would say the same intro. The amazing DJ Clay. How can I make your day awesome? And they would go, I’m just calling to book a DJ. OK, well, great. What day are you looking at? And the guys were enthusiastic. If we put you on hold, the music was hilarious. Plus they all had the DJ voice. That’s right. We trained everybody to do that. And so it became this culture where all of our guys were very similar. We had everything standardized. So if you wanted to have a fun event and you wanted it to be affordable and you wanted to have high energy and you wanted an event planner, but basically our big four was we had a limited time, super affordable pricing, an event planner and hosts that would just bring the enthusiasm. But I can’t tell you how many times someone would come up to us at a wedding who wasn’t the one paying us and say, hey if they wanted to have a guy get on the mic and talk all the time they would have probably hired a guy who talks all the time on a mic, not you. And you’re going, but you’re not the customer. Or a guy would come up and go, hey man you didn’t play enough country tonight, you know, because overall, I mean, I love that early Waylon Jennings, man. I love that early Waylon. That was good. And I’m going, hey, you know, you have to be tactful about it, but the bride, whatever she wanted, we would do. And if a bride wanted to hear all country all the time, we would do that. We did not take requests. I told my guys, never, ever, under any circumstance, ever take a request. Which is big for a DJ. Nobody did it. And then we did this thing called Unlimited Time in the American Wedding, the American DJ Association. This is hilarious. I was the only person who wasn’t a member of it. And they all got together and they said, we’re all going to do four hour parties and we’re going to charge a minimum of this much per hour and nobody in the group, we’re all going to charge this much per hour and we’re going to do a maximum of four hours per event without overtime. And I said, I’m not going to do that. For your union. Yeah. For your VJ union. It was. And so I said, I’m not going to do it. And I was hated. And many of my competitors went out of business. And I made a lot of money because the customers loved us, but the competitors didn’t like it. They thought it was weird. I wasn’t part of the association. And so all I’m saying is if you’re going to really listen to your customer, you have to ask yourself, who is your ideal and likely buyer? Josh. Yeah. So on today’s show, on hour two here, we’re talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off of your growth. We’ve got our special guest, Sean Copeland, who’s gonna bring some knowledge your way, business owners. You don’t wanna miss out on it. At the end of the hour, we’re gonna be talking about move number three, which is the move that you gotta do. But coming up before that’s move number two. I’m excited, just as important, we’re gonna be dropping some business knowledge on you guys. Hey, it’s Business School without the BS. It’s a Thrivetime show on talk radio 1170. We’ll be right back Welcome back to the Thrivetime show Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark America’s number one business coach Also our special guest today CEO and president of Regent Bank Sean Copeland today We’re talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off of your growth Clay we just talked about move number one, which is create a customer experience that your customers love. And one place that I know that does this, you talked about Quick Trip. For me, it’s Come and Go. And they just… And real quick, we did a survey. We had a group of people, there’s about 45 people earlier, and we had said, how many of you love Quick Trip? And you were just like, yeah! 44 of them. Yeah. And then we said, how many of you love Come and Go? And we have a live audio of their reaction. Oh. And so what happened was is that that cricket counted as a vote. And then we’re trying to record and we’re trying to make the room, you know, soundproof and make it sound great. We’re going, where’s that cricket? And so, but Sean, you had something else you wanted to add about the importance of making a great customer service experience. All I was going to do is give a quick example. Yeah. In this meeting, you had Quick Trip, you had Chick-fil-A, who I think we would all agree has amazing amazing Customer service experience and then you had our bank totally different quick trip in and out fast friendly Yep, chick-fil-a a little bit more of a connection. Yeah, they do the my pleasure. They’re talking to you as you come through a Little more social and then we’re really consultants, you know, so I’m in our gig I just came from, the reason I was late was I was meeting with a client, helping them with their website and marketing, which you do. So I mean, we’re trying to help small businesses become, the banking piece is pretty bland, but the help and the consultant and the advice, so my point is it’s different in every business. And I would say this, it’s even kind of a commodity. So as an example, if you’re a cab driver listening to this right now, we have a lot of thrivers in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, where you at? A lot of Brooklyn subscribers. I’m just telling you, I had a cab driver that picked me up at the airport. This was probably about a year ago in New York. This guy had recommendations of where to go. He had beverage options. He was super cool, but they have to charge the set rate because New York has regulated pricing and it’s basically almost a little bit communist but they have a set pricing structure and that guy lives off huge tips. And I asked him, I knew the answer, I just wanted to ask him, I said, you know, why do you do all these things? Why do you have the beverages and why are you having the little tour guide thing, the maps and why does your car smell not weird? Have you ever been in a New York City cab? It smells like a human body in that thing. A human body. It’s like armpit. It’s like, hey, it smells. But this guy smelled great, the plate, the car was awesome. He goes, well, you make more for tips. All I would say is there’s a certain, no matter what industry, if you’re selling insurance, if you’re a bank, if you’re a restaurant, if you’re a convenience store, you really, really do have to make sure that you make a customer service experience that your customers love. That’s why Come and Go has done that for Josh Merrill. Yes, they’ve always done that for me. I want to say this real quick about Thrive15. Have you ever been there? Have you ever come and go? All the time. All the time. That and Little Reesers. Mark my words. What are you talking about? But I want to say this about Thrive15. A lot of people are amazed, but we have the Ask the Mentor button. You can call us. You can email us. And we actually get back to you. We actually answer your question. Well, we have a Thriver named Ricky. Ricky, how you doing? She’s based in Sydney, Australia. What’s up, Ricky? And Ricky says she’s a scaffolding company, and she’s asking questions, and she can’t believe that people on the other side of the ocean are responding, and how come she hasn’t heard about it before? And it’s just kind of a thing of, if you wanted to get a degree, there’s a place for that. There’s places to get the degree, but if you just want to get the answers, that’s what Thrive15.com is. So let’s move on to our next move here. Move number two is you want to regularly meet with your team. Regularly? This right here is my Achilles heel. Oh. I just will tell you this, I naturally, my natural state, my natural me, my wife knows, is to avoid human contact. I enjoy being around very few people, and the people I like to be around, I like to be with them a lot, like have deep relationships, really know those people. Yeah. But I struggle with the desire to have a home fellowship or camping or go to a game with meeting other families. I tell the parents, we’re going to take the kids to prom. A home fellowship. Can you explain? Well, okay, if you go to like churches, they typically want to get together with other families. I typically want to just, you know what, you guys do that. I’m going to go home. I’m going to watch the Patriots. And so my whole thing is that I know that this is, some people listening to this though, if you’re a hard charging entrepreneur, you probably sometimes could be saying, why do we need to meet with everybody? And then somebody else listening, you’re a connector and it’s easy for you. But I want to ask you, Sean, why is it so important, one, to connect with your team regularly at set times? And how do you do it at Regent? What is your philosophy, your process? We use a management operating system called Traction that basically gives us a rhythm of meetings and accountability. The reason that we do it is really threefold. One is motivation. In every job, I don’t care what it is, you can get tired, you can get beat down, you can get bored. We want to bring everybody together to get them pumped up and remind them why their job is so important. And there’s a notable quotable from my favorite author, Napoleon Hill, who I named my son after this guy. So my son’s name is Aubrey Napoleon Hill Clark because the book Think and Grow Rich just changed my life. It was awesome. Think and Grow Rich. He says, drifting without aim or purpose is the first cause of failure. So I think what you’re saying is that if we’re not intentional about meeting on a regular basis then we’re going to drift. You’re listening to The Thrash Talk Show on Talk Radio 11. Now you meet with your team weekly and you’ve got about an hour to 90 minute meeting. What do you do in there? Well, are you referring to Gino Wickman’s book, it’s called Attraction, How to Get a Grip on Your Business. I subscribe to the same system, the same philosophy. For our photography business, we meet every single Wednesday at 3 and we go over what we call our KPIs, or our key performance indicators. We go over our, we call it the three-legged marketing stool, but our Dream 100, our search engine optimization, and the bridal shows. We go over all those things every week. We go over the same items, and then what we try to do is find problems, and we spend the majority of the meeting trying to solve those problems and assign those action items. I want to ask you this. You said that this was one of the hardest parts for you. This was the move that’s so hard that you don’t like. How do you get past that? When Lee Cockrell, who is the guy who used to manage Walt Disney World Resorts, he managed 40,000 people. He was the former Executive Vice President. 40,000 people. It’s like managing the attendance at two Drillers Stadium games. It’s two baseball stadiums simultaneously. Managing Bixby. There it is, managing Bixby. All the people. In the profundity of what he told me, I’m sitting next to him and he told me something. He’s one of our Thrive15.com mentors. So I’ve got a chance to meet this guy and meet great guys like Sean and Dr. Z. I’m sitting there with him and I said, how do you stay motivated to do these weekly meetings? I’m just asking him. He goes, Clay, when you do hard things, life gets easier. And I remember going, it was like a slap me in the face with a truth cannon there. And so, Sean, how do you stay motivated to do these weekly meetings? How do you stay in that rhythm? Well, I’m one of the people that you described that likes that type of thing. So I am more of a connector. So it’s not as difficult for me, but I would just say the results are the reason you do it. You know, we also, we also want to inform people like you do of what’s going on that you know that would be the second reason and then they you learn from each other you have a time when you learn from each other so they’re very good when we come back we’re going to be telling you exactly how to have the perfect weekly meeting and later on in the show we’re going to tell you how to recruit how do you recruit people how do you get people to help you in your business it’s all coming up on the Thrive Time show on talk radio 1170 Welcome back, Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark and our special guest CEO and President of Region Bank, Sean Copeland. Today we’re talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off of your growth. Move number one was create a customer experience that your customers love. Move number two is regularly meet with your team. Right now we’re going to be talking about the perfect meeting agenda, Clay. Yeah, no, here’s the thing. I know a lot of people right now, you’re in your car, you’re driving, and you’re going, I just want to watch that again or I want to hear it again. You can do that by going to the thrivetimeshow.com, thrivetimeshow.com. If you want to watch the video version, you go to thrive15.com, and if you’re a subscriber, you can watch it. And you’ll have access to a complete downloadable, like the actual show notes of all these things. So don’t get into a wreck while taking copious notes while driving. But we’re going to go through this. And during this segment, it’s going to be kind of like old school Run DMC, where one guy says one thing and the other guy says a thing. So I’m going to read off the thing you should cover. Oh, wow. Wow. Can I read it? Can you do that one more time, Sean? You talk while I’m doing it, though. OK, here we go. Ready? Yep. All right, up next, we’re going to be talking about wins of the week. Big wins of the week. You must talk about it with your team every… That was impressive. That was very good. That was a beat boxing banker. That was crazy. You can use that for your intro. We’re going to. I’m going to beat box before we’re done. Okay, so here we go. So the perfect weekly meeting must include big wins of the week. Why? Motivation. Everybody wants to win. That’s what builds your confidence. That’s what keeps you going. Have you ever had a time where you didn’t have a win of the week when you were starting the bank and everything’s in the toilet and you had to come up with a win of the week and you just struggled but you found it. Yeah, we had about two years with no wins. So for about two years I was saying, hang in there, we can do this, it’s going to get better. Okay, and so the kind of wins, what kind of win would you say when you were struggling? Oh, it could be. We were still landing new clients. We were still bringing on new business. We like to spotlight great customer service that we see our other employees do. This person, I could give a lot of examples, but specific examples are awesome. Okay. Now the next is the vision of your company and why your business exists. What would that sound like if you were telling your team, if you were kind of trying to summarize your vision and meeting, how would that sound to come from you? It’s critical for us because we become so operationally oriented and so we have to step back and go, okay, why are we here? And the reason that we are here is to help our businesses achieve their dreams. I mean, that’s really why we’re there. Now the next is the status of the key performance indicators. Okay, these key performance indicators. What are the kinds of key performance indicators you may watch at your bank? We’re looking for both, as you know, outputs and inputs. And so from an output perspective, you’re looking for growth, you’re looking for margin, you’re just looking for productivity. From an input perspective, you’re looking for things like number of new accounts open, number of sales calls that we’ve made, a number of activities that we’re involved in, hours that we’ve given back to the community. So you’re measuring both inputs and outputs all the time. Now the next one we want to talk about is biggest limiting factors. Some people might call these problems. But why is it so important that you bring up the problems and you don’t just wait until next week or you don’t mention them at all because it’s uncomfortable? Why is it so important that you actually bring up those problems? Here’s a great example. Every year we have an anonymous corporate culture survey from our employees and they are able to come on and basically online give us their feedback on how things are going. If you don’t address a problem, it doesn’t go away. You’re making a decision one way or the other to deal with it or not. A lot of times leaders, they hate problems, they want to just brush them under the rug and all that does is create more frustration. It’s so, so important again that you really identify the problems and the limiting factors on a weekly basis. Don’t do this monthly, don’t do this quarterly. The quarterly is a great time to meet with the board and give them a recap of what happened, but this should be like your compass for your business. Your weekly meeting is like a compass and not a rearview mirror. The whole idea is to help you stay on target. We call them key issues, you know, issues that we’re having. And I’ll tell you, in our experience, our employees and our team loves transparency. So I mean, when you’re vulnerable and you come to the table and go, okay, what do we got? What are our issues? And they feel like they can bring those up without any kind of reprimand. It’s powerful. Why is it important to talk about low-hanging fruit and some of those immediate action steps that have to be taken? Why is it so important that you talk about specifically, you know, order the business cards or get the flyers done or return? Why is it so important to talk about the low hanging fruit in that meeting setting? Yeah, it’s just accountability, just so that people stay on task and they’re focused on those basic things that you build on. This is the part that right here for me was the hardest part, okay? Because I remember I was, when I first read that book, I get my team together with the DJ business, I said, guys, we’re gonna start having a weekly meeting, and that meeting’s gonna start at 8 a.m., and in that meeting, I’m pumped, I just read the book, 8 a.m. we’re going to meet and we’re going to go over these key issues. What’s going to happen is we are going to be accountable and we’re going to get traction. We’re going to grow. It’s going to be sustainable. It’s going to be succinct. And 8 a.m. starts. And I’m thinking, these guys, where are they? 8.06 they come in. And the first tenant of this whole system is the meeting has to start on time. And so I’m like, guys, we have to start on time. Okay, bro, it’s cool. We’ll try that better next time. And I let it go. And I didn’t make an issue about it. And then any time someone would have an action item that was assigned, I would never put it on the agenda or on the record. I would never put it in the minutes. I would just kind of skip over things when I knew somebody did not do their job. And so I would say right now is if you’re listening and you’re a business owner and you are struggling to get the members of your team to do what they said to do, you’re struggling with creating a culture of accountability, you absolutely need to listen to the next segment. I’m telling you, when you come back, you need to hear this because if you don’t, what you’re going to do is you’re going to have all these ideas, all these dreams, all these business books, all these visions, and you’re not going to progress forward. You’re just going to get stuck. If that’s you, you need to listen to this next segment. I want to tell you this at Thrive15.com we’ve got a template for you for the perfect weekly meeting agenda. It’s Thrive15.com slash the perfect weekly meeting agenda template. If you can’t remember that just go to Thrive15.com you’ll find it on there. We’ve got a bunch of great templates Clay. They’re awesome. Hey guys, weekly meetings they’re huge. Coming up next, never stop recruiting. We’ll be back. Welcome back Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark and Sean Copeland of Regent Bank CEO and President of Regent Bank. Hey, we’re talking about the three power moves for taking the limiters off of your growth. Move number one was create a customer experience that your customers love. Move number two, regularly meet with your team, Clay. Now here’s the deal. So many people listening to this right now, you’re not getting any traction. You’re stuck, and I’ll tell you why. Because you come up with a big idea, and it doesn’t get executed. Execution, absolutely. So Thomas Edison said that vision without execution is hallucination. The guy invented the light bulb. He invented video. He invented the recorded sound. He knows something about execution, okay? But this is what’s happening. In your meeting, you have three kinds of personalities. There might be more, but there’s three I always see. One is Yoda. This guy talks in parables and in no point has a point. So this is what he does. He goes, Sean, overall, growth we must have. Vision matters most. And you’re going, what are you talking about? That actually sounded like Grover in Sesame Street. I don’t know what I’m working on. This is the first week here. No problem. No problem. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And then you have the next guy. He’s the feelings guy. So he says, Sean, I just feel like we don’t have enough coffee. I know we need to focus on growth, but the coffee just just I don’t know if you’re okay I just ran out of coffee and then you have the third guy he’s kind of that Bostonian guy and he’s like I will I will I literally will will hit you with a lead pipe if you don’t get your stuff done I swear I swear and you’re going could you not curse in the meeting listen here I will literally if you don’t get your stuff done I’m gonna call you know you have these Tom Brady lobster Tom Brady let’s deflate the ball let’s win whatever so I want to ask you you’re trying to lead a meeting, you’re dealing with Yoda, Mr. Feelings, Angry Boston, they’re in every meeting. How do you get stuff done, man? How do you do it? Focus. You just got to be focused. We were just talking about this. There’s nothing worse than a non-productive meeting. Oh, you got too much stuff to do. We got stuff to do. We can’t be sitting around listening to people pontificate. It’s up to the facilitator, if you will, of that meeting to keep everybody on task. You are the Joel Osteen of banking. The way that you speak, the way that you care, the way that you share. I’ve watched you when no one knows your… Not in a stalker way, but I’ve watched you when you didn’t know I was watching. I hear things about you from people who you don’t know they’re talking to me and you are the Joel Osteen of banking of this compassion for people But do you ever have to draw the line and just go okay? We’re done talking doing or hey, you didn’t do what you said We’re gonna have a problem here me. How do you handle it Sean cuz you’re such a nice guy? How do you handle it well? I mean, I think people know that I care about them, so I and I’m not trying to embarrass them You know in front of our the rest of our team I mean we have a we have an our executive team as an example, we have seven people, all very seasoned veterans, all very strong personalities, and somebody’s got to bring some order to the court, you know? And so, yeah, I mean, you just got to, when you’ve made the point, and we, we teach this, but make your point, move on. So here we go. I’m going to give you the three scenarios, and I’m going to see you deal with them. This is role play in a meeting, a real meeting, okay? So this is the first guy. Here we go. Here we go. Get ready. So overall, you know guys, I’m pretty excited. I mean, basically, I know I’m supposed to be short with this, but Sean, I’ve got a big vision. Really, I just want to talk. I’ve got some ideas I want to bring up. I did not get what I was supposed to get done, but I had a very busy week, as you can tell. So, did you guys bring any biscuits or bagels? And I just won’t stop talking. I just keep talking. I keep bringing crazy energy, chaos. How do you handle that kind of personality? Well in that scenario, I mean you get several issues. One is the over-talking and so the point there is I would basically say, are you Clay or are you some other name? I’m Clay. I’m Clay at this point. Okay, we’ll say we’re Clay. So I would say, Clay I appreciate what you’re saying. We got to move on. I think you’ve made your point. So we would move on to the next topic as far as the time management. The other issue is you didn’t get done what you committed to the team to do. So we have a phrase within our organization that is, call it tight. So if somebody doesn’t do, if you’ve made a commitment to the team, you’ve got to do what you said you were going to do. What about this scenario? I’m sure you’ve never had this scenario. I know that I was supposed to get it done, but I’m going through some personal stuff right now and I just feel like if you would just understand. Sean, there’s a lot going on right now and I didn’t return the calls because I had a lot going on. I’m the crier. How do you deal with the crier? The crier is the hardest for me. How do you deal with the crier? Because you know the move, it’s a move, it’s a move. I know and I love the criers. I feel sorry for the criers. But again, you’ve made a commitment. It’s really no different than OU or OSU. They’re in training, practice right now, first game is coming up. Each of the team members depend upon the other team. You’re only as good as that weakest link. And so again, it’s really non-negotiable with us. I understand you’re going through things, but you have to you know follow through in your commitment So Josh is trying to make a point and I’m gonna be the guy who cuts him off So Josh, let’s go ahead and make the point I’m gonna cut you off because I’m the guy wants to hog the meeting and I’m angry at all times I think that if our you know bank drive-thru also serve burgers Oh, I’m gonna someone to say I’m so tired of you when you talk every week You just come in here and you just bring that that that that this I literally am about ready to come over and fight you with a lead pipe. So what would I do? Well I would call out you Clay for interrupting. We don’t interrupt. And you would do that in a meeting? Oh yeah. And people would occasionally get frustrated with you? Oh yeah. Have you ever made somebody mad? Of course. I’m just saying there are entrepreneurs whose goal is to not make somebody mad. No, no, no, I understand what you’re saying, of course. You have norms and values within an organization. Here is my favorite. I just learned this yesterday. I’m never going to forget this. We all get the organization we deserve. Oh, where did you get that? Oh my gosh, I was at a YPO training session yesterday and a consultant out of Dallas, he said this. He said, we have to take responsibility for our companies. We want to blame. It’s this person’s fault. It’s that person’s fault. If you’re the leader, you get the organization you deserve. Knowledge bombs everywhere. Josh, okay, we’re moving on to this third one, this third move here. Okay. The third move is you always want to be recruiting. You want to never stop recruiting. Never stop. And I see so many companies that say, I’m going to stop posting on Monster, I’m going to stop posting on Craigslist, I’m going to stop putting the Now Hiring sign up, I’m going to stop saying we’re hiring. And then they lose one key team member and everything begins to crumble. Why is it so important? I mean, I guess, why and how do you guys at Regent embrace that mindset of never stop recruiting. So I want to apologize to Chet Kajo for over quoting you today. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re my buddy. I can’t help it. But yesterday they said what’s their number one limiting factor for court trip? Human capital. Finding talented people. I know this is not a show where we should be political except for when we are. And so here’s the example. There are many people who there’s there’s there’s unemployment statistics that are out there that show the unemployment rate is like nine percent and ten percent. I’m going to say this. You don’t have to agree, but I’m just going to say this. I believe the actual unemployment rate should be 25 percent because I have, whenever I hire four people, I only can find three of those four people that can show up on time and do what they said they’re going to do. And so I know for companies like Quick Trip that don’t put up with idiots, it’s hard to find good people because we love Quick Trip because of the level of people they have there. We love Quick Trip because of those people. We love going to Chick-fil-A because of the kind of people they have. You know what? When you have standards, that means you have judgment, and that means that certain people fail to meet the standard. I know, Regent, you’re relentless about having kind people that are an extension of your personality. What kind of things do you do to make sure that the recruitment never stops there? Well, we’re always looking. I mean, constantly looking. And many times, our candidates will come from outside of the industry. So one thing, if you’re out there and you own a company, don’t just look within your particular industry. Look for personality, passion, energy first, and then teach them your industry. You know, actually, another Chet Cascio. Chet, we love you, Chet. But Chet, literally, I got a chance to meet him years ago for breakfast. He handed me these two books. He told me to read Service Profit Chain and the Value Profit Chain by Harvard. And it was this whole idea of recruiting people that have never worked in the industry before, recruit character, train skill. And people would be shocked to know this, but every single DJ, Connection DJ we hired from that point forward, they had the prerequisite is they could not have been a DJ previously. They had to be just high character people, and we trained people how to DJ, Josh. Boom, hey, if you’re looking for a sample job post that is both practical and inspiring, you can go to thrive15.com slash the perfect job post. And Clay, there’s a bunch of great stuff on thrive15.com. Yeah, the bottom line is we built it to be the number one platform that you can go to to learn how to start or grow a business. And I’m not joking around when I say this, we’ve gone after the world’s best. So Michael Levine, this was the PR consultant for Pizza Hut. You mean Pizza Hut? Michael Jackson, Prince, Bill Clinton, the Bush family. This is the same guy. He teaches PR. The guy teaching sales is a top performing sales guru. Management is taught by the guy who used to run Walt Disney World Resorts. It’s unbelievable. It’s all there for it’s 19 bucks a month and includes in-person workshops Thousands of videos and it’s 19 bucks a month. No student loans, baby. It’s unbelievable Josh clay. That’s amazing thrive 15.com Hey, thanks so much for listening to the thrive time show here on talk radio 1170 I want to thank Sean Copeland for joining you very much. It was my honor I want to thank America’s number one business coach clay Clark boom I want to thank our producer Marshall Morris Eric and Nate you guys are the best. Sharita, shout out. I don’t think Sharita, why are you always, I just did, come on. I let it, Sharita, thank you. It’s the Thrive Time Show on TalkRate 1170. We’ll see you tomorrow, five to seven. Join us then, see ya. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So, what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessimon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85 percent and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need, that script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal, it was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months or I’m sorry the first we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. The last three years, our customer base has pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah. We didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now, it’s been a grind. Absolutely, it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So, we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985. Nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s friends with Mike Wendell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like the most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing is when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and and and an economy that’s like i remember we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to um just survive through all the covid shutdowns lockdowns i’m rachel with tip top canine and we just want to give a huge thank you to clay and vanessa clark hey guys i’m ryan with tip top canine just want to say a big thank you to thrive 15 thank you to make your life epic we love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s, uh, nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.