Entrepreneur | 7 Super Moves For Connecting With Your Staff

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! Look, look, as a 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, 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Brian Smith, how are you, my friend? Hey, I am today here with this pen. It’s a pen by Sharpie. And it’s like the precision pen. I’ve got two highlighters. I’ve got a red pen. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on here. And I am excited to be connecting with you about how to connect with your staff. Sure. Are you as pumped as I am? It’s my favorite part of my business. OK. All right. Now, Brian, I want to ask you this because there’s a lot of entrepreneurs watching this who are not connecting with their staff. So I drew a little picture. You see that’s the guy on the left. He’s the boss. Over there to the right is the staff. The staff’s like, they have a staff shirt on going, hey, I’m happy. Boss is connecting with me. Now, but this picture almost never happens, though. So I’m going to read you the statistic here from Gallup. Okay, here we go. 13%, according to Gallup, again, the Gallup poll, 13% of employees are engaged at work, which means that 87% of employees don’t care or are not engaged in their workplace. So in your mind, why aren’t most business owners able to connect with their people? Well, and this is a subject I think that I’m always having to work on too, Clay. You get busy and you make excuses for why you’re not going back to the priorities. But I would say most business owners are just worried about what their why is. Everyone talks about why they’re in business, why they want to be successful. So they know what their why is. They never take the time, though, to figure out what is the why of each one of their individuals that work on their team. Why is it so important to connect with your staff? Why does it absolutely have to happen? Well I guess you don’t have to do it. If you want to have a business where you have turnover all the time, where you don’t have people that believe in your product or in you and in your business, you don’t have to have it. But if you want to excel, if you want to have a business that lasts, I believe it’s important to have a place where people come to work and know that they matter. Beautiful, beautiful. Now, I want to read this definition to you here of the word freak from Webster’s Dictionary. It says, as one that is markedly unusual or abnormal. Now, what I’ve found is a lot of business owners in my mind are freaks. I mean, seriously, they’re people that are absolutely obsessed with growing their business and delivering their product or service to customers in exchange for the ability to pursue their own possibilities, options, and dreams. Therefore, I’ve noticed that a lot of entrepreneurs, maybe not you, probably just me, not you, not so much of you, but more so much of me, we tend to get frustrated with people who say stuff like, I want to go on a break, or it’s my birthday, or I would like to take the day off, because we’re just obsessed with business growth. So any type of humanity, we’re like, are you kidding me? Did you tell me that you had to go to the bathroom? This is a business. You know, that kind of stuff. I’m just curious. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are frustrated. Don’t you feel like that? Am I out of my mind? Do you feel like a lot of entrepreneurs are just frustrated with the fact that employees do things that employees do? Well, I think that a lot of business owners do that, and I think they do that because they miss the whole point of what they’re doing and having a team. I’ve had people that work within my organization tell me multiple times that they consider the environment and the culture that I provide part of their compensation. And that really set me back when I heard that. One of my team members shared with me one time is, don’t hire people that could ruin this. Watch out for people that could poison this.” And I’m like, what do you mean by that? What are you talking about? And she was like, we consider the culture that we have in our office a place to where I would rather stay here and make a little bit less money than if I got offered to make more money at a place to where I had to clock in and clock out and I was a number. I got to be real. The other day, I kind of tell, I tell businesses I consult with all the time, I tell them the same story, but I say, hey, your business is like a garden and you have weeds. That’s maybe a bad hire. That’s your fault for putting a weed in there, but you got to pull that out quickly. It was funny, but I guess it was about a month or two ago, but we had an employee that was shadowing for the day. Not the workforce now, but someone who’s going to work with us or wanted to work with us. And they shadowed for the day just so I could see if they’re the right fit. And I do that often so I can see, well, one of the customers just pulls me aside and says, they understand our culture. They go, that person’s a weed. Like, they can’t work here. They’re gonna like ruin the vibe. And I thought it was interesting how I hadn’t picked up on it yet because they just showed up at work, but they were just, they were the weed. And what you’re saying is so critical. The employees will actually say, don’t let them ruin this, right? Protect the environment was exactly the word she used. And so I, you know, funny enough, you’d think you’d know that as a business owner already. I had no clue of that when she said it. I said, you know what? I never actually thought of this culture being part of the way you felt like you were getting paid. What would you say to the entrepreneur who’s watching this who says, you know, I don’t need, I don’t want to connect to my staff. You know, I just, I’m tired of it. You know, that person’s probably not gonna make it in their business very long. And I can’t imagine that type of life anyway. I can’t imagine how unhappy that person might be at work and how unhappy the staff might be. So, you know, I wouldn’t want to work in that environment. All right. Well, let’s jump right into the seven super moves for connecting with your staff. Super move number one, have a place where everyone matters. Brian, this move comes from Lee Cockrell, the man who once managed 43,000 cast members as the former Executive Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney World Resort. He’s a Thrive mentor and he says, have a place where everyone matters. What does this mean to you? You know, when Lee says that, even when he’s speaking, it always hits home to me because that exact quote is the reason why I had success now and in my past. I got treated that way. I was treated like someone that mattered. So the person that came before me understood this already and said, you know what, I see the potential and here’s what we can do with it. And so I’m a product of it and I try to pass that on. How do you actually try to apply this super move? Let me just give you an example, okay? At my office, we brought on a young designer about two weeks ago and she’s great, okay? She’s great. Then we’ve got another person over here. He’s a designer. He’s great. Then you’ve got another person. We’ve been hiring all these new people, right? What happens is, is somebody, everyone wants a little bit of your time, and now you’ve got all these responsibilities. Your wife’s texting you. You’ve got to pick up the dry cleaning. For some reason, you have a weird itch. You can’t figure out why your leg itches. is how do you balance all those needs and taking care of those new hires with the rest of life? I mean, how do you as a business owner prioritize that? Well, I think you have to remember what’s extremely important, and that’s what’s the need and what’s the why of that person you’re trying to train and mentor. And if you can focus on those things, you’re gonna begin to build that relationship with each person individually. All right, well, we’re gonna move on to super move number two. Connect with your staff when you arrive or return from appointments. Brian, what does this super move mean to you? This is all about making my staff and my team feel like they’re a part of my life too. I know lots of business owners that come and go within their business, off to appointments, off to this, off to that, never carry on any conversation at all with their team. That person is just their boss. I try to be a part of the team and so when when I come in I’m gonna take time to recognize you I’m gonna take time to ask what’s going on I’m gonna do my very best to do it as sincere as I possibly can because I think you’re gonna be able to notice I’m gonna I wanted to do a little therapy for the thrivers watching this because I feel like one of the things I offer is As America’s most pale man I’m kind of like a modern day Viking, really. I make a lot of mistakes, too. I’ve learned to get better and I’m always getting better. But some things that I tend to do if I’m not very careful is I am results focused. I love getting things done and I really don’t care about how anybody feels about me. So as an example, when I go to the bank, I go, yeah! That’s my time of the week. That’s the only praise I get. Usually my wife never calls and says, you’re the boss. Or very few staff members say, you’re awesome. I just feel awesome. And then I go to the bank, I know I’m awesome. That’s how it works. But a lot of entrepreneurs I see, they’re the same way, where they don’t really need praise. So then we start to think that no one needs praise, right? Sure. So then we’re just going to the bank, going to work. And then people are like, I don’t feel appreciated. And yet, so we have to do that though We have to connect don’t we have to take the time to do that You know, I would say clay even thinking about your own than your own business Yeah, you know what you’re saying is just think about if you’re already to do as well as you can forgetting to do it Think of how good it can be if you remember to do it And so when I when I think about it, I I look at my office and I’m not perfect at it, and I remember, you know what, what was it like, we were doing pretty good when I was ignoring this particular strategy. What would it be like if I went from one in my office to 11? Wow. So. Yeah, and this is, I’m just saying this because every entrepreneur has a weak link. We all have something that we struggle with. And I know for me, you know, I’m an alpha driver, and for me, making sure I connect with people is one of my biggest weaknesses, you know? And I, not that I just say I’m not gonna do anything with it, I try to get better all the time, and every year I do get better. But if you’re watching this and you’re a hard-driving entrepreneur, make sure you take out time to go from me to we. Well, now, Herb Keller, that’s the guy who’s the founder of Southwest Airlines. Southwest is known as being the airline that’s the friendly guys, the one that’s done great. They’ve been very financially successful. He says, your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back and make your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that. Brian, why is it so important to treat your employees right? You know, I’d say the simple answer is so they come back tomorrow. But the standard answer is that employees really want to feel like they’re included and know they matter. If you can get your team to do just 50% or feel just 50% of what they feel about their own personal hobbies, just imagine what that’ll do for your business. So let me ask you this here. Give me a story of a time. Give me a story of a time where you found one of your staff members doing something awesome for you that was totally above and beyond what you expected because of the way you treated them. You know, we talked about this a lot of times. We have a lot of stories on this because we try to create a culture that’s not like no other. I had a person come to me one time and tell me that they had been offered more money to do a different job. I said, well, obviously you took it, right? It’s more money. Are you going to help me find someone to replace you? She said, no, I didn’t take it. She goes, I’m going to take $5,000 more to have to be at work at 8 o’clock straight to 8 o’clock at night and be a number that I just clock in and clock out and I have to clock in and out on breaks. I just don’t want that lifestyle. I just wanted to know it was important for you to know that I chose to stay here instead of doing that. That’s because of the way you and your team have tried to treat the team members. It wasn’t a money thing. It wasn’t anything but a culture where she felt like she was a part of the business. She was a partner. All right, super move number three. Super move number three. Be different from the normal place Brian. What is this? What does this mean? Normal places just manage people lunch breaks on time sure you got to have some structure in your business But you can’t you can’t miss focusing on their efforts. You can’t miss focusing on the relationship in my office I do something crazy. I don’t give you a strict vacation schedule when you go to work at my at my business We don’t talk about how many days of vacation you get. You know, I don’t really care how many days you need. If you need some days, let me know. Just don’t take advantage of it. Funny enough, over the years, I’ve never had anyone take advantage of that. Because you’ve built that culture from the beginning. Sure. I think if you’re watching this and you’re building a startup, one thing you have to be careful of, don’t feel like you’re an idiot if you hire somebody and they’re not the right fit culturally, because you have to hire people. When you’re in a brand new business and you’re hiring people, I would say, and I’m gonna make sure we’re giving a balanced approach here, I mean, you would agree that sometimes you’re gonna make a mishire and you gotta quickly move on, right? I think you gotta do, yeah, you’ve gotta hire way quicker than, you gotta fire way quicker than you hire, for sure. Okay, and so again, if you’re in a small business and you’re going, well, yeah, it’s easy for you to say, but I’m starting a business right now and I need employees right now, again, it’s kind of a tree pruning process. It’s not like the tree just grows perfectly day one. You have to cut off some branches and do some things to make sure that it grows the right way. And sometimes you’ve got to do a little more than what you planned on doing. That’s just part of opening a new business. Now Brian, I’m going to read this quote to you again from Herb Keller, founder of Southwest Airlines. He says, if employees come first, then they’re happy. A motivated employee treats the customer well. The customer is happy, so they keep coming back, which pleases the shareholders. It’s not one of these. Now, here’s the part he adds on here. I want to read this to you. It’s not one of the enduring great mysteries of all time. It’s just the way it works. Again, it’s not one of the enduring great mysteries of all time. It’s just the way it works. It seems so simple, the way you put it, that you just take care of your staff and they take care of the customer, but yet it’s so rarely seen. So if it’s so simple for you and Herb Keller over here, why is it that very few people watching, not you guys watching this, but other people, why is it so rare that companies are doing this? Well, it’s, I believe, a humility thing. We talked about it earlier when Jim Collins talked about being, you know, having humility in your business. You’ve got to understand that when you’re working with other people, you can either push them away and treat them like staff, people that work for you, or you can bring them in, you can make them partners in your business. The part is that’s very hard to do. We’re busy, we got things going on, and a lot of times we forget the priority. The priority is the people that are answering the phones, the people that are opening the doors, and the people that are closing up the shop. Now one thing I wanna throw out here, this is maybe probably a therapy for me right now, so I’m just going to kind of open up a little bit here. I think one of the times as an employer that’s tough is that you open up your house to somebody. Let me give you an example. Years ago a young man, he was named after like a biblical character, I’ll just say that, I’m not going to get myself in too much trouble. But he’s working with me and he’s making more money than ever, he’s coming to our house all the time, I mean literally this guy went from making nothing to making probably two three thousand a week He is doing great And then one day we find out that he is opening up a company to just to directly compete with us You know now years down the road. He calls me and says I’m so sorry for my actions I realized I made a bad decision, but at the time Right I’m like I want to rip off your head and then but instead I just did the American thing Which is you sue people for violation of non-competes and you do all that. But then for about a month or two I started pulling back and I started like not wanting to ever talk to other employees. I’m like they’re all gonna screw me man. You know like conspiracy theory like there’s a helicopter man someone’s you know and you get to the point where you kind of mistrust other employees. Then I recovered. Then we had a headphone gate. Guy started stealing headphones out of my office. Found the guy who stole it. Again, the mistrust happens. And this goes back and forth. And now I’ve got to a point where I’m kind of like, I believe the best in everybody, like I want to believe the best, but yet there’s always that lingering like, what if they screw me? So how do you balance that? How do you do it? I mean, what’s your tip for people out there who are kind of maybe hating a little bit? They’re starting to hate the staff a little bit because they had their headphones stolen. I think some things are worth the risk, Clay, and this is one of those. If you can’t continue to connect with your staff, you’re not going to have a business to worry about later, in my opinion. People are going to burn you. You’ve got to get back up and you’ve got to keep hiring and you’ve got to keep recruiting like-minded people and you’ve got to keep offering the trust and offering the partnership in your business. I think it’s one of those deals where, and I’m just encouraging if you’re watching this, it’s better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all. So really important that you don’t just say, well, I’m just gonna live at home by myself and have a bunch of cats. I don’t need to, you know, you wanna have relationships, you need to do it, you just gotta find the right balance. Now, super move number four. We all have speed bumps along the way. Brian, what does this super move mean? You know, no one’s perfect, not you, not I, none of our staff is going to be perfect. And if you handle those situations right, the time where they’ve made the mistake, the time where they have maybe burned you, if you handle that situation right, you’re going to gain the support not only probably back of that person, but the other team that’s there to view what’s going on. They’re going to see how you handle that. And at very minimum, you’re going to build an even stronger relationship with the audience. Now Saddam Hussein, one of our great leadership experts in the history of the world, he had this thing where his soccer team, they’d go play the Olympics every year, and if you missed a goal, he’d cut your foot off, you know, and I was like, you know, I’m going, you know, you kind of see where some mistrust would happen on the team there, and I’ve noticed it’s kind of a whole dictator thing, you know, if you miss a goal, I chop your foot off, and in businesses, though, I see a lot of business owners that chastise people for making an honest mistake. Or I see the other extreme, right? Where they never, ever, ever, ever, ever lay down the hammer when somebody’s intentionally doing what I like to call jackassery. So, how do you find the balance of, you know, cutting off someone’s foot if they miss a goal, and then being somebody who, like, you know, someone steals headphones, and you’re like well, I you know they probably didn’t know they couldn’t take them home permanently and sell them I Think I think the biggest deal with that clay starts way before the the mistake or the intentional accident ever happens in the relationship And if you’ve not built this relationship with a person where you have mutual respect You’re always going to see what they did as intentional or on purpose, okay? So I think it’s important for you to do your part you can’t fix everyone and you can’t trust everyone, but you’ve got to go into it like you can. Can you give me a specific story? Maybe you don’t have to tell me the person, the place, or the time, but you know, was there a time in your business where someone in your team did something just insane, but you gave them grace because they knew they had the right attitude going into it, or you went, you know, I know they didn’t mean it. Has that happened to you? You know, it’s happened multiple times, and a lot of things that happens in our business is there’s a lot of things to know and a lot of things to understand. One of my guys on my team was talking to a customer one time, thought he was solving a problem. And instead of going and getting the resources and finding out the answers, in his mind, fixing it now was the way to do it. Fixing it now actually caused way more problems than before. But ultimately, I knew this guy. And what he was trying to do was keep this problem from landing in my office and he thought by just handling it now Even if wrong, yeah, I would avoid the problem. Okay, so really in his in his own little weird way He was trying to protect me from it Yeah what he learned is that sometimes we can’t protect ourselves from Consequences and that we got to use resources to figure out the real answers No super move number five environment is part of the compensation plan in the mind of most employees, in the minds of most employees. Not that each employee has multiple minds, that’s multiple minds correlating with multiple employees. Now, Brian, explain the super move to me and why it matters to have the right environment. You know, if you don’t have a good environment for people to excel in, you’re never really going to find out about them. It’s a lot like the sales conversation on the phone. This happens with your team every single day. You’re talking and you’re trying to figure out what it is about them that speaks to them. Some people don’t even care about money. Some people care more about money than anything. So a lot of times we’ll have a contest and at the end of the road, it’s not just a money prize. Sometimes it’s something that they just really like to do. You’ve got to really tap into what your people like individually to get the most out of them. I’m going to throw this out here and I’m not trying to attack anybody who works for the Department of Motor Vehicles. I mean, I would not I would I would never Directly say if you work for the Department of Motor Vehicles, this is specifically for you. That’s something I wouldn’t say I’m just saying if somebody’s watching this and they might have worked there at some point this might or might not pertain to you But a lot of times you go in there and the decor is from like the 1970s like in the 70s It was bad. They got like the orange carpet and they got a chair They grabbed from some random failing college and they put it in there and they got a picture that says like excellence but it’s tilted and it’s like a like an eagle face and it’s got this nasty wood on it and then The everything about the place is just mediocre to below average The environment is terrible, you know, and then they want you to be They’re kind of shocked when the customer service isn’t awesome. Yeah in your mind is environment I mean is it have to do with the look of the office, the way you motivate your staff? Is excellence everything? Or when you say environment, is it just you? Talk to me about where the environment starts and stops. What all does it affect? I think environment can be very, very flexible. The environment, just like for instance, we don’t have scheduled break times in my office. If you need a break, take a break. Take a break. There’s no rule book for that. I also think in my environment, my team knows that every once in a while, I’m gonna surprise them and buy lunch for them. I understand that maybe everyone on my team doesn’t always have the money to eat out for lunch, and so if I surprise them with that, that environment. So the environment to me is encompassed with everything. And what I’ve learned about my competition and other business owners, they can’t get on this particular deal. They can’t understand that atmosphere, environment, and culture is why we’re better. They think we’re better because our salespeople are better and that’s not the truth. I could spend all day talking about why we’re better just because of the environment and the place my staff comes to work. That’s what makes us better, not our sales ability. Now there’s a lot of businesses out there that are watching this who spend a ton of money on decor but yet it’s hollow. They don’t provide the leadership to make the environment or other ones are the opposite way. The opposite way, where they put a ton of emphasis on leadership, but it’s just a nasty environment to work in, you know? I think it’s a matter of doing both, right, to get the culture? I think that’s correct. I mean, I think you gotta do everything. It’s not just one thing. It can’t be a fake thing. You’re investing in a new office building right now, though. Yes. And I would argue that you’re making it look sharp. I mean, it looks great, right? I mean, you didn’t go for the cheapest thing possible. No, it’s very different. Right? And can you explain to the Thrivers what it’s going to look like, just so we get an idea? I know we can’t show people video footage of it yet, but can you explain kind of what it looks like and why you decided to do it that way? You know, when I started thinking about this office a few years ago, I thought, when you drive down in South Tulsa, what do you see? And it’s the same thing. You see restaurants, and you see rock buildings, and you see stucco. And they’re all doctor’s offices and different things like that. I said, when I drive down South Sheridan, I want to feel like that I just drove through downtown and just forgot about it. I didn’t realize I was there. So when you drive up on our building, you’re going to see a building that looks like it was put together with huge stone blocks and nuts and bolts that big around. When you walk in, you’re going to see all the way to the ceiling. You’re going to see neat fixtures everywhere. You’re going to see pipes on the wall that make it look like there’s water running through them. So our idea was that people actually want to come to this office and see us for more than just what we sell. Now moving on to super move number six, when you care, they care. Brian, I’ve heard you say many people will take less money to be valued, cared about, and listened to. This doesn’t seem like it makes sense though on the surface. Walk me through what this super move is all about. I think everybody needs to be paid. That’s an obvious one. People need to be paid, they need to be appreciated in their compensation for what they’ve done. But what I’ve learned through the last few years of working with people, building the relationship, creating a culture environment, doing all the stuff, not just one step, doing all the steps to create a valid relationship, I’ve figured out that people are just a little bit more concerned with being happy than they are rich. What? Really? Exactly. Little nugget, people are more concerned with being happy than being rich. Yep. Okay, okay. Now, how has this principle helped you grow your business over the years, understanding that idea? It’s created some very, very loyal relationships on my team, and you know, my turnover is almost nothing. People want to work there, and you know, they feel valued. Principle and super move number seven, it all boils down to culture. Brian, what does this super move mean? You know, culture is going to make or break the team. People want to be needed and appreciated. If you’re not willing to do these things, you might have a successful business in some areas, but you’re going to have turnover. So you’ve got to figure out how to run a business. The very best businesses out there have retention figured out. They have production figured out. They have their return on investment figured out with their marketing. They have their staff figured out. It’s a team. So you’ve got all these pieces that have to go together to be to be the very best. Now as Howard Schultz, who’s best known for being the chairman and the CEO of Starbucks, says when companies fail or fail to grow it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need. How have you invested in your people, systems, and processes to create the growth culture that you now have? How have you invested in the people, the process? Just maybe ramble off a few ways you’ve done that. Well, you know, my colleagues laugh at this and a lot of my competition, too, when I speak about it is I let my team voice their opinion. Hey, tell me how you should get paid. Tell me what your compensation schedule should look like. Tell me what the bonus should be. What’s fair? You know, I’m always letting the team implement new theories and ideas they have, because if it’s important to them, it should be important to me. If it works, then we’re going to have some major victories. Just to make sure the team doesn’t unleash the black plague, you know, because some offices you might say, what’s your idea for compensation? You’re like, well, I feel like we should unleash the black plague on people over there in that department. And to keep them from doing that, how do you, do you let them chime in with their ideas, but you ultimately make the decision? I think ultimately you’ve got to lead them to the right decision, and good leaders can do that. When you’re beginning to coach with people and they have a real understanding and respect between the two of you, no one’s gonna ask for something they don’t deserve. You’re gonna find that people, that respect you, will actually begin to talk even more fair than what you thought because they want to impress you with what they’re willing to do. So Brian, in your mind, why is this concept so hard for most entrepreneurs to grasp? They’re selfish. I think, and here’s the deal, I think it requires a certain selfishness to be crazy enough to start a business, and then a certain selflessness to grow a business. Do you agree? I agree. You know, I think sometimes you got to be selfish to go after what you want, but then you got to remember that most things you can’t do alone. Okay, so if I’m watching this and I’m like, timeout, timeout, timeout. Okay, my culture stinks, I know it, I don’t have Street Fighter 2 in my office. I have The Black Plague is going in the office. I’ve got a bad deal going on. I have employees that are upset I’ve got malaise in the office I got you know Bernie’s down there yelling at Jared and and and Sherry’s coming in late every day and and just terrible turnovers huge people are pissed It’s just it’s a melee in the streets What is step one that you say, do this and you’re on the right path? I think you’ve got to identify a leader in your group. You’ve got to find out if you have a leader and then you’ve got to break everyone up individually. I think you’ve got to begin to dig into are the right people on the bus? We discussed it earlier. You may have to let people go in a situation as crazy as the one you just described. Now, what if I say this? What if I say, well, you know what? I have a retail store. And yeah, Ed, I mean, he’s been working with our customers for 30 years. And I know he’s terrible. I mean, I read the surveys. I know that customers think Ed’s terrible. And I know that people think Sherry’s terrible. And I know that, I know these things, but you just don’t understand my business. You just can’t replace Ed. You just, you know what I mean? So people kind of feel like they, you know, yeah, but you don’t understand my industry. Because I’ve heard people in the jewelry industry, the roofing industry, the photography industry. Well, yeah, but you don’t understand my business. What would you say? Because you’ve worked in mortgages, insurance, you’ve done a lot of things. I’ve actually got a short story for that. I had someone that worked for me for a couple of years and they were great, great at production. The problem is, is that the things they were terrible at, like having a good team member relationship, like treating the clients like they were valued and treating me with respect, they were terrible at. And what I had to figure out through some coaching of my own people, because a lot of times in our business when someone is doing something good and it’s production, it’s something that we need, we think, okay, at least they’re doing that. Yeah. But what’s going on is if they’re disrespecting the team and they’re creating poison, what happens is now I’m producing and this person’s producing but everyone else is infected. What if this person goes and everyone else can turn into you? Well, you have four or five people going and one missing. So you know that really happened to me and it’s not been long ago to where I had to part ways with someone who did a very good job in the sense of production but a very terrible job in the sense of being on a team. Now, final question here. How do I know when it’s time for the love fest to end? When I have an employee and I’m like, oh yeah, you’ll be so good, I love your resume, I just hired you, we’ve got a good thing going on, I paid you, you did your work, and oh, you know, you made a sarcastic comment, but I still love you, and then you just showed up a little bit late, but I still love you, and then you kind of stole the headphones and ran away and sold those to Bernie, and I still love you. How do you know when the love fest, it’s time for that to end? The hugs are done. Sure. And it’s time for the firing to begin. I think you’ve got to be able to recognize that as a leader very quickly. And when you recognize you’ve done everything you can to foster relationship and the other party’s not willing, I think it’s time to go. Brian, I appreciate you bringing clarity to this subject. Your business is awesome. I’m super excited about your grand opening. I know a lot of people watching this. We have thrivers all over the world. We’ve got a thriver in Australia We have one guy in Costa Rica and a lot of people say I’m gonna plan a trip to Tulsa And I’m not exaggerating we literally have had about a half dozen people this month We’re like I want to come to Tulsa to meet you guys. I Believe this will eventually be thousands of people when they do they’re gonna have to come see your new office. Where’s it located? 67th and Sheridan Google Earth that beast Google Earth it BAM a few months from now. You’ll see it. It’s gonna be glorious. Hey, thank you for being here. Take care. 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 wanna do is we wanna 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, Terminex, they’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent 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 or ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn 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%, 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, 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 is 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 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 had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, that 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 the use of services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re 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. 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 written books with Lee Crockerill, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. 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. 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 start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it 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, 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 him 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 of you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was 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. And anyways, just an amazing man. So 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 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 get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. 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. OK. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s 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 van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 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. Whoa! 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 systems that Dr. Zellnery and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day, interactive, Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.