Mike Michalowicz | Best-Selling Author of Profit First Mike Michalowicz Shares How to Go From Being Perpetual BUSYNESS to a Profitable BUSINESS + Join Eric Trump & Robert Kiyosak At Clay Clark's March 6-7 Business Workshop
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January 29, 2025
TLDR: Learn about branding, marketing, SEO, sales, workflow design, accounting at Clay Clark's Thrivetime Show Business Workshop. Schedule a free assessment at www.ThrivetimeShow.com, see success stories and testimonials.

In a recent episode of the Thrivetime Show, host Clay Clark welcomed Mike Michalowicz, best-selling author of Profit First, to discuss how entrepreneurs can shift from being perpetually busy to building profitable businesses. The episode covers critical insights into financial management, the importance of profitability, and actionable steps for improving business operations.
Key Insights from Mike Michalowicz
1. Revenue Equals Stress
- Michalowicz points out the paradox that more revenue often leads to heightened stress for business owners because increased sales necessitate more delivery obligations.
- This insight highlights the common misconception among entrepreneurs that high revenue automatically equates to business success.
2. Focus on Profitability
- Despite the focus on sales, Michalowicz stresses that profitability should be a primary goal for every business. He emphasizes that businesses should create a system that prioritizes profit before expenses.
- He asserts that profit is not merely an event that happens at the end of a financial period but a habit that needs to be cultivated consistently through daily actions.
3. The Profit First System
- Michalowicz introduced the Profit First system, which advocates for allocating funds into multiple bank accounts as soon as revenue comes in, instead of treating profit as a leftover after expenses.
- This cash management system involves five accounts:
- Income Account: Depository only account to track incoming cash flow.
- Profit Account: Reserved for paying the owners as a reward for taking risk.
- Owner’s Compensation: Wages for the owner/operator, emphasizing their value within the company.
- Tax Account: Funds reserved for tax liabilities to ensure owners are prepared.
- Operating Expense Account: Money available to cover business operational costs.
4. Behavioral Accounting
- The Profit First approach conforms to how people naturally operate—checking their bank account to see how much money is available. This matches the psychological reality of cash flow management, where seeing available funds triggers spending.
- By allocating funds immediately for specific purposes, Michalowicz believes that entrepreneurs can better manage their resources and reduce financial stress.
5. Common Entrepreneurial Challenges
- Entrepreneurs often lead busy lives yet struggle to identify the root problems affecting their businesses. Michalowicz categorizes this dissonance as "entrepreneurial poverty," which describes the gap between expected entrepreneurial success and the reality that many face.
- He emphasizes that many entrepreneurs are unaware of their core challenges, making it harder for them to seek effective solutions.
Actionable Takeaways for Entrepreneurs
- Understand Your Financial Flow: Regularly check your income account and understand where your money is flowing to reinforce the habit of profitability.
- Create Separate Accounts: Implement the Profit First system by establishing separate bank accounts tailored for different financial responsibilities, ensuring you pay yourself first.
- Regular Assessment: Engage in consistent financial reviews to track your business's profitability and make necessary adjustments promptly.
- Seek Professional Guidance: Consider hiring a CPA or financial advisor who is aligned with the Profit First philosophy to enhance your understanding of business finances.
Conclusion
The episode with Mike Michalowicz provides valuable insights into the necessity of focusing on profitability over mere revenue generation. By adopting the Profit First methodology and understanding the psychological aspects of financial management, entrepreneurs can transform their businesses from chaotic busyness to systematic profitability. For those ready to shift their mindset and strategies, this episode serves as an essential blueprint for achieving financial stability and success in their ventures.
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revenue translates directly to stress. What I mean by this is the more revenue you generate for your organization, the more obligation you have. These are sales. So the more obligation you have to deliver private service. Well, the more obligation you have, the more stress that's put on the organization. And if you're the one operating the organization, that's the more stress directly on you. So more sales equals more stress.
The balance for this necessity is profitability and yet no one focuses on it. So that's why I am so vehement about bringing profitability to businesses of all sizes. On today's show we have the opportunity to interview the best-selling author of the smash hit book for business owners all throughout this country. The book is called Profit First and the author, his name is Mike
And on today's show, he shares with you and I why you must create a system for telling your money where to go before you spend it. Why you must pay yourself first. Why profit is a habit. Why the goal of every business should be to remove the owner from the daily operations profitably.
why profit is a reward for the investors and owners of the business, and why the biggest challenge for most entrepreneurs is knowing their biggest challenge. Today's show can absolutely change your financial life. So grab a pen in the pad and let's enter into the lab of the profit-first Dojo of Mojo with Mike McCownins. Some shows don't need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show.
but this show dies. Two men. Eight kids co-created by two different women. 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the thrine time show. Two, one. Here we go. Starting from the bottom down here. Starting from the bottom down here. Starting from the bottom down here.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Pride Nation on today's show. We are interviewing the best-selling author of the book, The Prophet First, and the host of the Entrepreneurship Elevated Podcast. Mike McCallowitt, welcome on to The Thrivetime Show. How are you, sir?
I'm doing well, Clay. Thank you so much for having me. Hey, since last time I was, I talked to you, I was actually on your show. Um, you have added a button to the top left of your website that helps to, uh, help people understand how to pronounce your name properly, but just to clear it up for our half million listeners. How do you pronounce your last name? Yeah. So it's pronounced McAllowitz, but if you're an old high school friend of mine, it's McAllow.
That was, that was my nickname in high school, which still goes with me. So occasionally people will shout that out in an audience. Hey, it's Michaela shits. Oh my gosh. That is so funny. Well, I first ran into you in 2016 when you so so graciously had me on your show. And during that time,
I've ran into so many people, probably two or three dozen people at our conferences who are disciples of your program. Could you tell the listeners, though, where you were at financially before creating the profit-first system? Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it's critical. It became the inception of profit-first. We got rewind back to 2008, so 12 years ago.
I had built and sold two companies. I was on top of the world financially and until I had everything figured out, but admittedly was chock full of arrogance and didn't realize how much ignorance I had. I started a business right around that period that was a total calamity. It was an angel investing company and I wiped myself out financially. And where I realized it was a devastating period for my life. I actually went through depression and I lost my possessions. The only thing I didn't lose was my family. Thank God.
And it was a, it was an awakening for me that I really didn't understand what made entrepreneurs successful. I thought I did, but I didn't know. And I didn't understand finances. I thought I did, but I didn't. So I started to investigate how to drive profit consistently. And here's what I found. Most entrepreneurs wait till the end of the quarter or actually most cases the end of the year. That's what I was doing to see what my tax returns were to see if there was a profit. And if there was, it was an accounting profit. Anyway, and there was no cash there.
So I decided to create a system that worked with how I naturally behave. And what I did naturally was I was logging into my bank account every day to see if I had money. If I did, I'd spend it. And if I didn't, you know, I'd try to sell something that somebody quickly, a panic wouldn't sue. And I decided to create a system around that behavior of what I call bank balance accounting. So profit first is a system where money as it flows into your business through sales, we immediately allocate money to its intended use before spending a dime. So some of it goes toward profit. Some goes toward
the operations of the business. Others goes to reserve for taxes and so forth.
And by doing this, I was carving up the money at my bank, saw what the money's intended use to us, because these were all different bank accounts. It was very clear. And I started to work within the confines of what I truly had available for the different parts of my business and my life. Now, can you share with the listeners what kind of businesses were you involved in? Because there's so many listeners out there, I think who can relate to this idea of being able to sell a lot, but being unprofitable, you know, being very busy, but not profitable. What kind of businesses were you involved in? Because I think on the outside, you might think, wow, this guy's really killing it.
Yeah, so my first business was in computer integration. It means I was in the tech space setting up the hardware and configuring it. And you know, I grew to like a $2 million company and it was growing consistently, but it was not profitable. You know, that top line is purely just a vanity metric. It's not the health of a business.
I sold it to private equity. I made some money. I didn't make a few money, but I did make me money. My second, my second business was in computer crime investigation. Right place, right time. I started that business six months later, the Enron trial broke and guess who got the phone call. We did not for prosecution. That's the FBI and CIA, but
the defense attorneys for Kenneth lay Andrew Faster called us and said, Hey, can you get involved in this case? And sure enough, we did. And it put my little startup on the map instantly. Um, we bootstrapped it. We did, I think our first year, first full year, we did over a million dollars. Second year, we were approaching 7 million on our run before we sold it to a fortune 500. I had a partner there. We sold it to an a quarter of years in. Wow. Yeah. Oh, it was, and, and dude, it was a big deal.
And I'm like, I, and I became a millionaire in my early 30s. I'm like, I've got this all figured out. Now I'm a genius. Oh, genius. I believe my own shiitake. Anything I touched turned to gold. Um, that, that was ultimately the downfall was I was so full of arrogance and also ignorance that my third venture in 2008 was an angel investing company. I helped always different startups. I threw my money into these businesses and, you know, I'm like, if I'm there, we'll be successful. Yeah.
And, um, that was my downfall. I lost all that money. I lost my home homes over it. I lost everything. And, um, that was a wake up call that I didn't understand entrepreneurship. I happened to be in the right place the right time on that one big deal. Yeah. But that's, that's not, that's not, that's not physical discipline. That's not healthy business. That's good fortune. And that's, listen, that is a part of entrepreneurial success, but it needs to be backed with discipline, understanding prudence and those things I had to learn later on.
Did you watch the end scene of the jerk with Steve Martin? I mean, is that kind of how you felt when you hit bottom? I don't need any of this! I don't need this stuff! I don't need you! I don't need anything! Except this! That's the only thing I need is this! I don't need this or this! This is a bad trick! This is a battle day!
Okay, so when you were at the bottom though, I know we can kind of laugh about it now, but what did it feel like? Yeah, so in the moment it was really hard. I actually
Like I told you, I went through depression and by the way, this is self-diagnosed. I went through what I think is called functional depression. I never saw that out of therapist. After the fact I did, like once I got through them, I'm like, oh, maybe I should actually have someone that specializes in how our mind operates and talk to that person. But so I admittedly started to drink. I started to, I became an Insomniac and was really wallowing in this space. The way I got through it or out of it,
was a friend of mine suggested journaling. And journaling is the male version of a diary. But just write down thoughts. And I thought initially I should just write down grateful things. I'm grateful to be awake. I'm grateful to be alive today. But he explained to me, he's like, no, no, no, write down any thought you have in your mind. And what happens is, I started writing down these hateful and angry thoughts at myself, at the world. And what happens is I wrote those thoughts down,
is that relieved the steam valve. And for maybe five minutes, other times a few hours, sometimes even a full day, I was able to concentrate again on moving myself forward. And when I started to slip back into that depression, I started journaling again and it would relieve me and I'd focus forward and push myself forward. And because I attribute a lot of my turnaround to that ability to relieve the steam of my bad thoughts and start slowly consistently moving forward,
I also found purpose. Like I found that I got to fix these entrepreneurial misnomers for myself, but also for readers. And I committed myself to, as I call it now, eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. There's this gap. Like the day Clay, you started a business. Anyone listening starts a business. The world thing is like, oh my God, you're a millionaire now. Oh yeah. It's so much money. Oh yeah.
You don't even work, you just sit in the beach. And of course it's not the reality. The reality is we're making no money and we're panicked and we're working day and night. True. That gap is entrepreneurial poverty. So I devoted, I made a commitment to myself that day forward. I said, I will eradicate entrepreneurial poverty for myself, but for everyone affected by this. And I realized I may not be able to do that on, you know, in my lifespan, but I'm going to commit to building products, my books, putting things in place,
that every entrepreneur that's affected by entrepreneurial poverty has a pathway to achieve what entrepreneurs deserve, which is success, which is wealth.
which is comfort because entrepreneurs are the providers for all of us. And if an entrepreneur can be stable and wealthy and happy, then so can the employees and so can our world. You know, I've gotten into fitness now. You're looking great by the way, just looking. But you know how sometimes you go to the gym and there's a guy in the gym who clearly cannot bench 250, but he'll look over at you and go, bro, how much can you bench, bro? I can do this 250, bro.
You know, a lot of entrepreneurs, you talk about it. And on page five of your book, Profit First, that people brag about the size of their business. They always brag business guys. So how many employees do you have? Oh, I've got 45, 45 guys. You got 45 guys. I got 25 guys. You got a 60 guys, pastors brag about the congregation all the time, bragging about the top line. Can you talk about the danger of running around bragging about how many employees you have?
Yeah. Yeah. It's totally the, how big is it contest? And here's the reality. No one really cares. I mean, so here's the problem. It is perpetuated in our media. So when I walk through an airport or something and I stopped by the newsstands, every magazine or entered toward entrepreneurs are about these entrepreneurs that are wildly successful in regards to revenue. That's how to define it. This person went from, you know,
10 million to a hundred million. This person has a 70,000 employee company. So all the bragging rights are attributed to size and it perpetuates on through all business. I, you know, I go to these entrepreneurial conferences and that's exactly what they ask. Like, Hey, what kind of revenues are you doing? Or if they want to be that bold, they'll simply say, how many employees you have, which translates to revenue. And I used to buy into that. And I was, I felt the competition. I have to be bigger than these other people. Oh, yeah.
I've, I've subsequently flipped the question. Like I really do not care about size. I don't care if a business does a hundred thousand or a hundred million. That doesn't, neither of those impress me or determine. What impresses me is when I ask the question and say, well, tell me how health debt business is and a hundred thousand business, that hundred thousand dollar business, that owner says, Oh, it's 90% profit. It's all actually coming through to me. I build a, uh, mechanisms that I don't even have to work. It's money on automatic. That's mind blowing and the hundred million dollar business. You know, that guy's like,
I'm stressed beyond belief. We have seven million dollars of debt. We're highly leveraged. That sucks. Here's the hidden truth that no one really considers.
revenue translates directly to stress. What I mean by this is the more revenue you generate for your organization, the more obligation you have, these are sales. So the more obligation you have to deliver private service. Well, the more obligation you have, the more stress that's put on the organization. And if you're the one operating the organization, that's the more stress directly on you. So more sales equals more stress. The balance for this necessity
is profitability and yet no one focuses on it. So that's why I am so vehement about bringing profitability to businesses of all sizes. We work, you know, we work was a company. Everybody was talking about we work for a long time going, man, these companies were 16 million. We work. Woo. All of a sudden it comes out. Oh, we work. Oh, oh, oh, I know. So talk to those help the listeners out there.
Uh, go from the, uh, oh, to the, the practical. Uh, page 19 of your, your book, Profit First, you start to get into the details and you start to talk about, um, kind of your, your process. And as you get into about page 40 of your book, you really start getting into the details about setting up all the different accounts. Can you help our listeners out there who are note takers and people who are implementers? What, what, what should they do right now if they're a roofer?
They're, they're a dentist. They got a lot of gross revenue. Sales are high. Talk to us about your, your, your five accounts and how does that all work? Yep. Yep. So what we're going to do is first flip the formula. So first understand the traditional formula for profitability is sales minus expenses equals profit. And the reason that fails us is it tells us that profit comes last.
Profit first, when we're about to teach you is a behavioral mechanism. It works with our minds and it's human nature. When something comes last, it's insignificant. So calling profit the bottom line or the year end are the worst things we can do, yet that's the common vernacular. The new formula is sales minus profit equals expenses and mathematically they're identical, but behaviorally, they're radically different. Every time a sale comes in, we're going to allocate a portion of that money to a profit.
Now, how we do in practice is at your bank. And the reason we do this at your bank is that I found in my surveys of now where I believe well for 100,000 entrepreneurs. Every time I do a speaking engagement on proper first, I survey the audience. And what I found consistently that the vast, vast majority of entrepreneurs do bank balance accounting. We don't read our income statement tied to our balance sheet and cash flow statement.
We simply log into our bank account. And if we have money, we can spend it. If we don't, we panic. That's the story. 100,000 people. You've interviewed 100,000 people approximately surveyed them. And you're saying that most people, they just look at the bank account and they go, if I have money, I can spend money. If I don't, I don't. Is that correct? That's exactly it. And listen, and these people are checking their bank accounts once a day. Oh, yeah. That's the frequency. And these aren't just like micro businesses like doing like $50,000. These are half a million, million companies.
I just spoke at a conference with companies that are doing 10 to $50 million. Same behavior. And they have a controller or a CFO. But the owner is still logging in and is highly biased by the cash flow.
Um, you know, a lot of deposits come in and they're like, Oh my God, business is great. Finally, next day, business sucks. That's this reactionary mentality. I have one quick thing I want to interject because I know the listeners out there would benefit from this. You see this all the time. And when I first started helping companies with their marketing,
I ran into a cosmetic surgeon one time who his card got declined for payment to me, for some marketing. And he's a big house, big nice cars, the whole thing. And we ended up finding out that he had something like a half a million dollars of accounts receivable owed to him.
And he literally was maxed out on every, he had no money in his account at all. I mean, zero. And I had to point out to this guy in his 50s who's a baller built in the new house that dude, the money that you told the lender that you had isn't right because you were looking at a cruel based accounting. You weren't going off the cash. And I seriously watched a grown man cry. And then I had to have my team try to help him collect. Is that uncommon for that kind of craziness as a company grows to happen?
Sadly, it's not that uncommon. I mean, it's devastating. And it's, it's a game we play at the outside world, but it's a game we're playing with ourselves. Like we actually try to convince ourselves we have money and that it's just a cash flow situation that just one more big sale or one client will fix everything and it never does. We're looking at the top line only and it's a real problem. We're looking at sales only. So we need to
Address profit. Here's why I tell people profit is not an event, meaning an eventuality that at the end of the year are certain points going to happen. Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit with the bacon to every transaction, every day, every minute in the business, a small percentage of money must be constantly dripping out. And that's how you accumulate profit. Now in execution, how we do this is we set this up at your bank. And to your earlier point, we set up five bank accounts. They are and these can all be checking accounts for now. An income account is called income, unique income.
profit, owners comp, tax, and op-ex. The income account starting today is a depository only account. Money flows into your business, it sits in the income account, and you don't touch it. You do not pay a bill from there. It's simply to reflect your inbound cash flow. So when you log in your bank account, you see how much money's sitting there every single day.
Then, from the income account, we do an allocation. We call it carving up the cash turkey. Just like Thanksgiving, the turkey comes out, you don't tell people, hey, everyone for themselves fight for it, you carve the turkey so everyone can get some meal, some portion of the meal. Now, with our bank, we do the same thing. The income account, that cash turkey, you carve it up, a portion goes into profit. Profit, just to be very clear, is a reward for the investors or the founders of an organization. Peel it, have shares in stock. You've taken on extraordinary risk,
And which, by the way, supports employees, it supports our economy locally, nationally, globally. You need to be rewarded for that. Just like if you own stock in a public company, I own Ford. Like, Ford sent me a stock distribution. I didn't say, oh, Ford, I don't deserve this. Sorry. Take it back. Oh, sorry. No. And I didn't say, oh, can I work the line for a day or whatever? I simply said, I invested in you. I want the valuation to go up, but it could go down. This is my reward for the risk. That's the profit account.
Next count, owner's comp. Owner's comp is different in profit. Profit is a reward for taking risk. Owner's compensation is a payment for being an employee of the company, arguably the most important employee. If you are an owner operator, this is a person that owns a business but also works in the business, chances are you are the most skilled employee the company will ever have.
As in that role, we need to pay you a salary. And here's the salary we pay you. If we had to replace you, hire someone else to do you, do your work or do you, do your work. What would you, what would you pay them? Reasonably, that's your salary. How to do you to do you. Yeah, I don't think we have to pay anybody to do you. What would you pay them? Okay. You would pay them millions to do you and do you hard.
Then the next, the next account is called the tax account. This is a reservation of money to pay your personal taxes and owner of a business. The biggest liability or biggest bill a business reserves receives, associated to the business inevitably is the tax bill. Yes. The one we're least prepared for the business, regardless of your business formation, can pay your taxes. It can reserve it. And through a mechanism, it can pay your taxes for you. Just talk on the count and to do that. And then the last step is an op X count.
OpEx account is the money available to pay the operating expenses of a business. In summary, we have that one account income that feeds the other four accounts. Those four accounts are based upon different percentages. And if $1,000 for example comes into your income account, you now finally realize you don't have $1,000 to operate your business. After allocating it,
You may have $600 go to opx, but now you've also reserved for taxes, paying yourself and a profit account. Mike, accountants don't like your system and some bankers don't either. I have found that accountants get really surly with me. None of my accounts, just other accounts that I happen to be running into. No one I've actually talked to.
But you know, they get upset when you try to set up five accounts. They're like, it'd be easier if you just do the one account and be simpler for us. I see that. And then bankers, when you start setting up all these different accounts, some of them get kind of squirrely. Have you run into that too? Yeah. Yeah. So I got a first kind of defend accountants and bookkeepers. They have been trained in the traditional process called gap accounting. Profit comes last.
gap stands for generally accepted counting principles. It's in every book, every magazine, every article, uh, in, in our vernacular bottom line year end. So we are steeped in this process of treating profit as an afterthought. I'm simply saying that we flipped the formula, but when you hear, when an accountable keeper hears it, that hers heard the other approach forever, it's, it's, it's like a, it's like getting hit by a brick wall. It's unfathomable. So simply here's the challenge you can do with an accountable keeper.
Say, listen, I want to try this new approach profit first. Um, by the way, there's over 300,000 companies successfully have used it and more every day that are very profitable. Um, but since you're insisting this other system profit comes last, tell me about your client base. You told, are your clients this correct? And they will say, yeah, how many clients you have to say, may they say a hundred? Say, okay. Oh, there's a hundred clients. How many of them post a quarterly profit distribution? Um, you know, none. Okay. How many posts at least a 10 or 15% profit year-end year out?
And they'll be like, well, you know, a few of them are handful. Well, clearly the system they're working with does not yield a quarterly profit distribution. It doesn't yield sustainable profits on a yearly basis. Why would we want to keep doing a system that's not serving them? Why don't we try this new system? Now, here's the other great thing is profit versus not an accounting system. It's a cash management system. So it simply manages the cash flows to the bank, but the accounting works the same way. But the beautiful thing is you'll be going back to your accountant. And once you set the profit for a system for yourself,
And I surely suspect you'll be the most profitable client they've ever had. OK, now here we go. We're making a unicorn connection here. Ryan Wimpy, you love this guy. Yes, sir. You love magic, Mike. Mike, me, Ryan, Ryan, me. Mike, nice to meet you, sir. Ryan, I'm honored to meet you, my brother.
And Ryan, you tell our listeners, until Mike, how much that the profit-first system has improved your life and the life of your wife and your business tip-top. My wife a lot. When we got married, she was like, oh, no. When she saw the bank account and the one account. But we have six accounts. We actually have an advertising account as well.
Oh, right. Because we have some like vehicle wraps that will come up every month and shows every year, not like a monthly expense. And then we have like events that we made you once or twice a year. So we go ahead and put money aside for that just every week.
So you have some questions for Mike here. I do. I do have a few questions. One is a profit first clockwork question. I laid on me. Here we go. Is it normal for a business with income of like $7.50 to a million range? If you're clockwork in the business and you take yourself completely out that either the owner's owner income percentage or the profit first percentage drops to compensate.
Oh, great question. And just for clarity, and when there's no clockwork as a book I wrote about designing a business to run itself to remove the owner. And that by the way, I believe should be the goal of every business that there is no dependency on the owner.
which gives you, Ryan, the freedom to reinsert yourself in the business any way you want. For us, it's franchising. So I got to take myself out and even some of the time of my top guys so that we can train new locations. Exactly. Perfect. Perfect. It is normal for the owner's compensation to be reduced. Because if you're not working in the business as an owner operator and now you're working less and less for the business,
Your owner conversation will drop because you're not acting as an owner operator, but your profitability should stay the same and even increase a little bit. So drop the owner's comp if you're not working in the business. Got it. Thank you, sir. Oh, wow. Oh, he's one for one. Here we go. One for one. Mike, you get to make a point.
Okay, continue. Nice. So my second one is a clockwork question as well. So we also have a division where we order from like 30 different vendors and we order all the, we have a dog training company. So we order leashes, shirts, hats, all types of stuff. But.
Whenever I read the clockwork book, I recommend doing the screen recording, right? All of your processes and then organizing the videos. So I started off doing that, but I found it very time consuming. And to be honest, a little cumbersome. And I ended up just putting step by step instructions on a Google document. And it's now like 30 pages long. But I just wanted to talk to you about the downside to that versus kind of the time saving, because it is a whole lot faster. And I have sat my guy right down next to me. He sees me do the document.
Um, but why do you recommend the videos? What, why do you recommend the videos? Yeah. Yeah. So, and the net effect is if there's a faster, more effective way, always go with what's faster and more effective. That's the key. Here's the reason for video. When we create a video, we can often caption activity as we do it, right? So we record the process. Um, but the key element says once you deliver it to that guy, you must mandate after a period of time that he records a video explaining the process next, the same process.
Because ultimately, the greatest student in any room is the person that teaches the process. I want to know he's mastered it. And the only way I can know he's mastered it if he can effectively teach it. Plus, if he starts creating the videos now of what you've taught him and any other knowledge he has, should he walk out the door any day, now we have the recordings of all the processes he was doing. So that's the key for video. It brings about teachers, which brings about mastery.
Mike, I've got a few hard hitting questions for you. One is your new book, fix this next, make the vital change that will level up your business. What's this book about it and what inspired you to first write it? So I am so pumped about this book and well, we'll see what readers say about it. But here's what inspired it. I have discovered that the biggest challenge entrepreneurs face is knowing what their biggest challenge is.
People come to me constantly and I was going around and doing the same thing, saying, Mike, what book should I read next? I asked other people, what should I explore now? It wasn't until I realized I need to figure out what my challenge is in the moment in my business, the most impactful thing that if I fix it will move my business forward. I need to pinpoint that challenge. But I couldn't find a mechanism to do it. So over the last five years, I've researched, tested, I've guinea pig all four of my businesses, plus a lot of volunteers that went through the process.
I developed what I call the business hierarchy of needs. I translated it from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is human needs, but into a business structure. And what I found is that there's some fundamental things that need to be addressed first before other things can be addressed. It's like building a structure. You need to have a strong basement in place to put the first floor on and you need to go to first floor structure to put the second floor on. Yet some businesses jump right to building a second floor and there's no first or basement and the thing just collapses on itself. Others,
keep building the foundation forever, say this massive foundation for a skyscraper and they put a little tool shed on top of it and the business collapses again on itself. So fix this next is a way to pinpoint where you are in building your corporate structure, if you will, to find the most impactful thing to work on next, fix it, and then it helps you pinpoint the next thing you need to work on.
You obviously are busy, and I'm not trying to have a competition with you, just to give the listeners some sort of context. How many people work with you at this point? How big is your organization? I have 12 employees, but notably most of them are part-timers.
You see, you have 12 employees and you've impacted the lives of 300,000 business owners that you know about that are implementing your system. So I think with 12 employees making an impact of 300,000 into the lives of 300,000 people. That's pretty awesome. And I know you're busy. So how do you organize the first four hours of your typical day? I mean, what time do you wake up? What does that first four hours of your day look like?
The first four hours is exercise always first. We were talking about that a little bit off air. I, you know, I work out five days a week consistently. You look like you work. Thank God. Thank God for the eye. I have the eye watch, but like the fit, but they're all the same. Yeah. Like I used to say I worked out five days a week, but when I tracked it, I was working out like two days a week. I mean, my mind would fill in those gaps. Now I have no excuse. So exercise and then meditation slash prayer for a little bit.
And then I plan out and vision what the day is going to be like, what, how am I going to feel at the end of the day is really the kind of the visioning. And then I come in and I always start off with the big one. I actually have a team meeting and we go around, we do a huddle and we do it very quickly. But everyone has a report on what's your biggest thing you're going to do? One thing today, not 100 things. It's the one secret thing you're going to do as your biggest objective. And the next day we report on the prior day's big one. And that's how every day starts. What time do you wake up?
I don't want an alarm waking me up because that's interrupting my sleep. I naturally wake up at 5.30, sometimes 5.15, sometimes 5, other days at 6, but 5.30 seems to be the consistent wake-up time.
Well, you have rules, I'm sure, now with your new diet plan. What are you eating and what are you not eating? I mean, do you eat primarily a frosting and graham crackers or what are you doing? Yeah, graham crackers. You know, when I started to investigate, is a vegan diet, I think it's kind of crazy and extreme. So I was hesitant to it, but I started to go more and more plant-based. And I've done the opposite of what a lot of people do. At home, you know, we like to cook a big steak or something like that occasionally. And I love that tradition and I love it. I love steak.
But on the road is actually surprisingly easy to eat vegan, where I heard from vegan saying, oh, it's very hard to eat a plant-based diet on the road. It's actually easy. I'm surprised how many restaurants have a vegan offering. So when I'm on the road, which right now is about 70% of my time,
when I'm traveling on the road, I go vegan and when I'm home, I go back to my steak and potatoes. So you have these habits that you live by for your fitness, habits for accounting, habits that you do. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, I want to go back to accounting for a second. I think they have a habit of using QuickBooks.
And there's garbage in, garbage out. I see it all the time. I told you the story about that cosmetic surgeon, but they look at the quick books and they go, look, I've got a half a million dollars. Woo. And I say, whoa, whoa, whoa, check the bank statement homes. Can you talk about how quick books can make you quick broke if you don't actually keep that thing updated? Can you talk about that? Yeah. Well, quick books is a glorified spreadsheet. And I don't know. All accounting systems are they, they're a spreadsheet. It's just presented in a different format that's very digestible.
here's the work and become a problem it's it can become overwhelming and therefore we avoid it i don't know how to report i don't know how to enter data and we avoid it and therefore
We're not putting any data in or putting garbage in where we're misassigning stuff. Well, garbage in garbage out. So then we look at the reports. They don't have our up-to-date information. It's miscategorized. Oh, yeah. You know, you put something in and you're like, oh my God, I had $100,000 of website design. I haven't talked to my website in three years. No, that was your rent. You put in the wrong category and it confuses you. Oh.
So I'm not a fan on day-to-day management for most entrepreneurs of using an accounting system, not because they don't work, we're just ineffective in using them. It's like giving someone a jackhammer when all they need to do is pound a nail on the wall. So what we should use is I think the profit for a system for cash management, but
You should definitely hire a responsible, capable accountant and or bookkeeper to manage the data entry for your accounting system. Because profit first is not a solve all. It just manages the cash to ensure profitability. It will also tell you when there's problems, when there's not enough cash to pay your bills, profit first will tell you, but then you got to figure out why can't you pay your bills and you need to investigate your QuickBooks or whatever your accounting system is.
And that's when I call my bookkeeper and say, hey, let's go of these numbers together. Well, I know Ryan has one more question for you, but I want to ask you this. What should an accountant do for small business owners? Because I see a lot of people that put their faith in the accountant. They move maybe a little bit beyond just delegating their accounting to their accountant. I would say they abdicate it. They say, hey, you just handle it. You, you, you. And then every time, every single time they come into our weekly meetings and they say, Clay,
I owe $26,000. My account sucks. And I talk to the accountants. It doesn't matter what firm it is usually. And they go, well, the client needs to be, no, they need to stay on top of that. The client needs. And so what should a client, I mean, what should a client expect out of an accountant? Do you recommend a monthly meeting, a weekly meeting, quarterly updates? I mean, what kind of responsiveness should we expect from an accountant?
Yeah, so I mean, just like any industry, there's different degrees of engagement you can get from an accountant and different qualifications. So I suggest minimally that an accountant is an advisor to a company in giving strategic direction around financial decisions. And a quarterly meeting, that's how often I meet with my accountant quarterly, is advisable. Now the primary function of an accountant is really compliance.
compliance with tax responsibilities to make sure that you are ready to pay your taxes. They don't traditionally help you prepare for your taxes. They simply say, here's the tax bill that's coming, get ready. They don't give you guidance on how to prepare. But there's higher level accounts that do that. Now, this is very selfish and kind of pitchy. But I started an organization for accountants called Profit First Professionals to help accounts become advisory and to be proactively guiding clients toward more profits and controlling their taxes and being prepared for taxes.
But an accountant you should meet with on a regular basis. Traditional accountants may only meet with you once a year. And yes, it's a responsibility. But ultimately, you're the one to be affected. So call your account and say, listen, we've got to meet more often and be proactive here.
Now Ryan, we have a, we have just enough time here for Devin to buy a copy of that. We always like to buy a copy of the book from the guest while we're on the show. It's an accountability thing. So we have just enough time here, Devin, for you to buy a copy of fix this next, make the vital chains that will level up your business. We have just enough time for him to, for him to click the, the one click and it takes at least 10 to 15 seconds to click it. Devin's fighting through carpal tunnel right now.
I'm fasting for the entire day. I'm not going to eat a single thing. So I can afford the $17 to buy the book. So we're doing all those things. We have enough time, though, Ryan, for you to ask one more question for Mr. Mike. Well, yeah. First real quick, I just want to say the profit-first system when the multiple bank accounts actually help my marriage because my wife really was frustrated with the income. And I did not know how much was coming in.
a lot of business time with you. It really helped. It did help, so we really appreciate it. We actually do it weekly just to keep it on top for numbers even.
But I did. So like what Clay was saying earlier, and it was kind of answered, but we have had two different accounts with a lot of pushback for multiple accounts, especially with multiple entities. And I know you do have your own profit first professionals, but do you have another tip on how to get non-profit first accounts on board with the system? Non-profit first accountants, a tip for getting non-profit first accountants. Yeah. So why I gave that one strategy is to, you can be a little bit confrontational and say, how has it been serving your clients so far?
The second tip is simply to really let accounts know that this is a cash management system. They don't realize that and invite them to read the book. Say, listen, I understand that, uh, that you're resistant to it, but usually resistance comes out of ignorance, meaning in experience. I really want you to read this book or download the audible and listen to it and then come back to me afterwards. So many accounts have their aha in that process because it doesn't
You know, I don't say account and suck. I don't tell you accounts are actually absolutely mission critical. Uh, it exalts their capacity and gives them an extra tool. So just by getting them to read the book, sometimes you'll convert them and get them on your side. And I'll tell you after having them read the book or I'm telling you, they don't read, they don't want to read the book and they won't have them telling you they won't support the system. There's a certain point where I say, well, this is my vendor and they're not willing to comply with the request that I'm making as a client.
Maybe they really don't want my business so much, and that's when I go elsewhere. Mike, I appreciate your time so much. If everybody's out there and you've learned anything today, and we've covered so much ground, we talk about how profit is a habit. Why you gotta pay yourself first? Set up those five bank accounts. There's so many knowledge bombs, and I encourage you, if you care about a strong America,
in your family. You probably need to buy a copy of this book. Fix this next. Make the vital change that will level up your business. Some have suggested that I should passively aggressively attack listeners who don't buy the book, but I'm not going to do that. That was me. I'm not good. Yeah. Okay. Everybody pick up a copy of that book and Mike, thank you so much for being on the show.
Clay, it was an honor to be on your show. Thanks, and Brian, pleasure meeting you. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sarah. Look forward to the new book. Thank you. And now, without any further ado, three, two.
Yeah, so my name's Kelsey Hershey and my husband and I and rock haven't retrievers. We've been working with you guys for probably eight or nine months now since last May, and it's been a great experience. So when we first started, Leeds was actually our biggest limiting factor. So we just...
Yeah, we were struggling to get some leads. We had great connections with people, but we were just hoping to grow a little more and a little faster than we were. So that was our biggest limiting factor. We've about doubled our leads. And so that is no longer our biggest limiting factor right now. So that's been great.
Some of the things we worked on or fixed was we were already doing some advertising. So we increased our advertising. Our website was kind of a mess. I mean, it was beautiful, but it wasn't being found. So that was our biggest issue. So you guys helped make us more Google compliant. Our coach worked with us. That was amazing. Getting it where people can actually find us.
So that has been really important and then also getting really good high quality Google reviews where people can, we're in an industry that very much relies on trust. And so having those referrals and Google reviews has been really important for us.
It's had a huge impact. So just the stability and predictability that comes with a business coach. Honestly, that was the biggest thing for me. I really appreciate. I know every morning, every Friday morning at five AM, we're going to meet with Andrew. We're going to go over our numbers. We're going to talk about our biggest limiting factor that way we can just kind of shink away at that. And so we can grow systematically. It's not chaotic at all. And so having that
And the way it impacts our family has been huge too, just because
Yeah, we have, like I said, we're very much family oriented. We have four kids. And so it's really important to us that that it doesn't become all about the business. And that is something I've really appreciated. Andrew actually cares about our marriage. He cares about our family and our kids and keeping that all in line with what we have told him is our highest priorities has been really important. And honestly, if that wasn't the case, we probably would not be joint business coaching. So that's a very important part for us.
From a 13 point assessment, it's kind of a no-brainer just because there's literally no risk involved. We've also go on to the business conference and come away with a lot of value as well. So honestly, I would say just do it because it is worth it. I love that if someone is hesitant, it is a month to month basis. So you can just set aside a certain amount and say we're going to try it out. And if you're diligent and you're going to be open and do what your business coach asks you to do, then you definitely won't regret it.
Ladies and gentlemen, on today's show, we're going to interview a real person who is a real business owner. So many people ask me, well, Clay, you know, what kind of business owners do you work with? And the reason why we only work with 160 clients, James, is I only want to work with really good people. James, you get it. I get it. I don't want to work with people. They're not good people. And so today's show might commercial for her if she's good people. Her name's Kelsey, the name of her company, folks, the name of her company. Look it up. If she's a real person, not a hologram. It's rockhavenretrievers.com. Kelsey, welcome on to The Thrivetime Show. How are you?
I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Hey, so just so people can verify that you're not a hologram, tell us your first and last name and the name of your company. Yeah, so my name is Kelsey Hershey, and my husband and I and Rockhaven Retrievers.
And I'm going to pull the website so people can look at it real quick. And again, if you're out there today and you're looking for a retriever, my understanding, and I'm inferring based upon the name of the website, Rockhaven Retrievers, that you breed retrievers or tell us about the kinds of products you provide there at rockhavenretrievers.com. Yeah, so we raise labs. So Labrador Retrievers, purebred AKC, Labrador Retrievers, and Golden Retriever puppies for amazing families.
And so how did you first hear about us here at The Thrive Time Show and the business coaching services that we provide?
Yeah, I think we heard about you probably five years ago. So originally, I think we actually was through a podcast, but then we worked with y'all for almost a year on a different business, which we actually got to be able to sell, which was great. And now we've been working with you guys for probably eight or nine months now since last May, and it's been a great experience.
So what I want to do, James, you talk to people every day that reach out that would like to be clients and your job is you and the team. Your job is to sort of filter out who's a good fit and who isn't a good fit for what we do. That's right. Okay. So I'm going to go through kind of line by line some questions for Miss Kelsey here. So that way people watching online can figure out if you're a good fit for what we do. So first off, um,
this year versus last year. Can you tell us about the leads? Like what kind of growth have you seen in terms of lead growth from this year versus last year? So from life after business coaching to maybe life before business coaching, what kind of contrast have you seen in the lead?
Yeah, so when we first started, Leeds was actually our biggest limiting factor. So we just, yeah, we were struggling to get some Leeds. We had great connections with people, but we were just hoping to grow a little more and a little faster than we were. So that was our biggest limiting factor. We've about doubled our Leeds. And so that is no longer our biggest limiting factor right now. So that's been great.
So you've doubled. Now, James, you have questions that people ask you all the time. What follow up question would you have for Kelsey about lead generation? Cause I know people ask you on the phone all the time. They say, can you guys help me generate leads? Do you have any follow up questions for Kelsey? Well, a lot of people don't know to get where to get leads. So where do you get your leads from?
Yeah, so some of the things we worked on or fixed was we did, we were already doing some advertising. So we increased our advertising. Our website was kind of a mess. I mean, it was beautiful, but it wasn't being found.
So that was our biggest issue. So you guys helped make us more Google compliant. Our coach worked with us. That was amazing. Getting it where people can actually find us. So that has been really important. And then also getting really good high quality Google reviews where people can, we're in an industry that very much relies on trust. And so having those referrals and Google reviews has been really important for us.
Okay. So second fault questionnaire for you is, um, when you do advertisements, I meet so many people all the time and James, you talked to them on the phone. They're, they're spending thousands of dollars advertising their products. So I'm going to pull up a bunch of examples real quick. These are real examples. Okay. So rockhavenretrievers.com. That's your business. Okay. Here's another business. True story.
A client of mine, longtime client of mine, PMH, OKC. This is a real business, PMH, OKC. They do not sell retrievers. They are a home remodeling business. They build pools, outdoor kitchens, that kind of thing. Another client of mine, Hola Fitness. This is a client that's based in Joplin, Missouri. This is a company that's based in Dallas, Texas, OK?
These companies, also the Purcell Group, the Purcell Group, Stacey Purcell, the Purcell Group, wonderful lady. These are three examples of clients that I met that were spending over $2,000 a week before I met them advertising on the internet, and they were not generating any leads at all. I want to get your thoughts on this, Kelsey. We are obsessive. We are fastidious about tracking. Can you talk about the importance of having a coach that helps you track where your leads are coming from?
Yeah. So in an ideal world, we would have done all the tracking already. And sometimes it's a matter of having that accountability. And that was actually the biggest thing for us is we knew we were supposed to be doing some of these things, but just having knowing that every Friday morning, we're going to meet with our coach. We're going to go over a tracking sheet. We're going to know what we're spending every week. We're going to know our leads.
Making sure that those numbers are lining up has been really important so that, like you said, the advertising doesn't get out of control and we know exactly how much we're spending every week.
Now, in the world we live in, even right now, someone's watching and they're going, I bet you she's being paid to say these things. There's a world we live in where people are, I love it. I love it. I actually love it because I do believe only the paranoid survive, but there's a world we live in, James, where a lot of people, there's shamakari, there's jackassery, there's scams. You see it, you know, get rich quick, get rich in 17 minutes, the whole thing. Our service happens to be month to month.
And so when you sold your company, you called us with great enthusiasm and you said, guys, congratulations. We're selling our business and we were so excited for you guys. And we helped you guys to grow your company and you sold it. And there wasn't a contract where I said, this just in Kelsey, you're locked into a contract.
I didn't say, oh, you owe us a lot of money to get out of the contract. We've all been in a contract for a gym, or a timeshare, or a phone plan, or something. Can you talk about the peace of mind that gives you knowing that you're paying 1,700 a month, 1,700 a month, 1,700 a month, and knowing it's a month to month, even though our average client is with us for six years or longer, tell us about the peace of mind of knowing that it is month to month.
Um, yeah, I would say there's definitely peace of mind there. Honestly, the trust we built at this point, I have no concerns at all just because we have a very, very good relationship with Andrew, our business coach. And, um, honestly, I was more concerned that we'd be able to get Andrew again after we sold our business just because he's amazing and has done so well. I was more concerned that you guys would keep us as customers and with our next business. So that was not an issue at all.
Okay, now for your business, go back to your business. We've got to gather video reviews. So I'm trying to celebrate my clients today while giving a lot of examples. So if you go to ThriveTimeShow.com, that's obviously a business that I'm involved in. If you go to EITRLounge.com, that's obviously a business I'm involved in. If you go to Dr. Zellner and Associates, that's obviously a business that Dr. Zellner and I are involved in. So when you look at these different businesses, we are teaching that which we do. Like we're teaching you to do things that we do in our own company.
And so when you go to ThriveTimeShow.com, the idea of having a business conference is not a new idea for me. And I know this sounds shocking, but I've been doing...
business conferences for 20 years. This is my 20th year doing the same thing. So we have thousands and thousands of testimonials from real clients. So people say, click, Clark, I've never heard of you before, but I know Robert Kiyosaki speaking at your conference or I know Eric Trump's coming or I know that you're bringing in Tim Tebow or whatever. But ultimately James, people they often want to know, how long have you been doing this?
Were you located we talked to lady their day? She said does Tulsa have hotels River this label wonderful lady Yeah, I mean sort of people that have lots of questions about does Tulsa have hotels What kind of questions do people ask you about our conferences James? Well, they want to know a lot of people want to know what exactly are you gonna talk about? So they don't know that you're gonna talk about marketing systems and scaling human resources accounting social media marketing Branding search engine optimization. That's a big one sales training just all these things people ask this every time
Right. They do. And so we have testimonials. And so I want to get your thoughts on this Kelsey. Why or how has gathering video testimonials for your business impacted you? Because I hear so much from people. They say the video testimonials were important for them. How has gathering objective video reviews from real customers impacted your business?
Oh, it's been so important. So for us, like I said, our business is very much built on trust. So having people that trust us to raise their puppy to know that it's being cared for well, and is getting everything that we say, we're in an industry that.
Unfortunately has a pretty bad reputation in some areas and there are, there's scans out there, there's things out there unfortunately. And so we need people to be able to trust us, to trust that we are doing the right thing and really caring for our puppies. So having those video reviews on our website and also able to just send them to people when they ask, being able to say, hey, this is a real person who's gotten a puppy from us. That has been very important for our growth.
Now next area and this is something important. I don't know James. James, you like to make steak, right? I do. Okay. So let's talk about making steak for a second. I'm getting into your wheelhouse. When you're making steak, is it the quality of meat? Does the quality of meat matter? It does. And I always try to go to the, the part of the, the store that has the glass with the person behind it and get the prime cut. So the quality of cut matters. It does. Does it matter that you're, what do you cook your steak in?
Uh, in a cast iron pan. I'm part two of today's show, by the way, we're going to put on the video of how you cook steak. Okay. So so part two, you use a cat. What kind of pan do you use? Cast iron. What do you put on the steak? I do butter and oil, like extra virgin olive oil and then just salt and pepper. Yeah. And then, you know, sometimes a little garlic and rosemary on it too. And then do you just cooking the steak, how you cook the steak matter? It does. I always cook that thing on high heat and the alarm will go off four out of five times.
Now this is so important though. This is so important because people say, Clay, I want to grow my business. What's the most important part? And James people ask you all the time. They say, so are you guys an accounting firm? Are you guys a marketing firm? Are you guys a sales coaching thing? Are it it's all of it? So when you come to our workshops or you're a client, we go through all 14 aspects of your company. And so I'm really going to tap into Kelsey's brain on this because her and her family
team. They really are attentive and diligent about all of these areas and really trying to do the best they can to provide the best service possible. So first off, we have to figure out your revenue goals. I'm not going to ask you to share your goals on today's show, but you have to know how many dogs you have to sell to break even. I mean, at the end of the day, you have to know your break even point box number two. And again, anybody who wants to download this book for free.
you go to thrive time show.com forward slash free dash resources. And you can follow along. You can download my book, a millionaire's guide how to become sustainably rich thrive time show.com forward slash free dash resources. And again, we're talking here from page five of this book. Kelsey, how has that impacted you knowing your break even point?
That's been really important. I mean, we wouldn't be able to, this is a passion of ours. We really love it, but we can't keep doing it if we aren't making the profit and feeding our families. So we have four boys that we need to be able to feed them, to care for them. And so knowing our break even has, I mean, it's a non-negotiable. We would not be doing what we're doing for this long if we didn't know our numbers.
So you got to know the numbers and get somebody out there says, I, I, I, I, I plan on an accountant. We'll help you with that. Don't worry about it. Look, she got to know your numbers. Okay. Now box three is you got to know how many hours per week you're willing to work. Now this is a very controversial subject. I will share my thoughts on this. Someone out there can disagree. I believe that everybody watching today's show, you should pray about it. Ask God, I mean it sincerely and then talk to your spouse and figure out the boundaries with which we are going to work. So for my wife and I,
I like to work six days, rest on the seventh. That's the mindset that I have. That's my ideal scenario. Some people say you work six days a week. James, new employees are always shocked that I'm here six days a week. They are. I mean, do you hear that a lot there? I can see here six days a week, but it's every week. I do it every single week. Yeah. And you work six days, seven days a week. You do it too, right? Right. But there's some people that want to work four days a week or five days a week. Kelsey, why is it important for you and your husband with the four kids you have to know how many hours per week that you're willing to work?
I think it's important just because we have priorities and so if we know what our priorities are and then we can, we can assign timeframes to them. It really helps just our family operate better and us feel like we're actually achieving what we say is our priorities. So for us, yeah, we do the same thing. We work six days a week.
And I think honestly, you don't have helped us a lot with just feeling comfortable that that is OK, because there is a lot of shame and stuff around that. But yeah, priority wise, we do assign timeframes to things just so that we can accomplish the things that are important to us. I'm not saying this to name drop. I'm saying this because it's true. You know, tonight my wife and I are taken out of one of the most successful TV hosts in America. And it's on a Saturday night.
And to us, that's work, but we like it. You know, uh, I'm not saying this to name drop. I'm just saying this when we have Robert Kiyosaki that will come in or Eric Trump, we will be working that week, probably seven days that week. I don't want to do that though. So because I, so we will, we will go to church, but then it's like there's, so when we get James, when my wife and I just got back, we had to go to Florida for a business trip recently.
I got back and I had a lot of work. I had to get caught up on. So my schedule got out of whack, but it's so important that you're out there. You have an ideal schedule that you feel good about. And for my wife and I, it's six days a week, someone out there watching, it might be four days a week, but it's really important. The next area you have to focus on, if you want to scale a company, will help you through all of this folks, is you got to figure out box number four, what makes you unique? So this just in. There are other dog breeders in America.
There are other dog breeders in America. This just in. So we've had to work with you. You've worked with us to just figure out what makes you unique and then tell the world about it. Can you talk about why it's important there Kelsey for your business to know your, to know your unique value proposition?
Yeah, so for us, we definitely lean into this really hard because, like you said, there's so many others. There's a lot of unethical ones, and so we really want to differentiate ourselves. So being able to share that we do health testing with our parents, we provide a really good health guarantee to your health guarantee with all of our puppies. That sort of thing allows us to show how we are different because there is a
A small group of people are looking for what we provide and if they don't know how we are different, they won't be able to find us. So that's why we make that very clear on our website and talking to people how we differentiate ourselves.
Now, box number, this is so big. Books were going through each one. There's 14 steps of business growth. There's 14 steps. I want to hit on these because it's so important that you check all these boxes. Box number five, you're branding this just in. People do judge a book based on the cover. They do judge a product based on the website. They do. Now, James, your desk is oftentimes
four feet from mine. Yes. And sometimes it's 15 feet away from mine. Right. Does it ever blow your mind that people come in to the office figuratively speaking or or literally sometimes with an unsuccessful business and they end up building a multi-million dollar business almost every time.
Yeah, it's really insane because I've been here for two years and I worked in the part of the business that wasn't really part of the business doing other stuff. Yeah. And so I've got to see contractors, home builders, roofers, dog groomers, just so many different doctors, doctors, lawyers,
account is come in and then they have a business that's struggling and then you help them get more leads and then you help them with the sales scripts and then you help them with hiring and inspiring and then there's just so many things that you do that help scale their their business which is what everyone wants to do is scale their business and have more time freedom and have more financial freedom and I see it and it's like every week it's a new person that you believe that goal I believe
can you see it every day? So I want to ask your thoughts on this Kelsey. Why is it important that your branding is top notch? I mean, it reflects what's inside and what's happening here. So if other people, if we do an amazing job, but we can't portray that to everybody else, it's going to get lost in translation. So it's really important that what we're doing here matches what other people are seeing.
This is folks, I'm hoping you're learning something folks. This is such a powerful interview here because these folks over from telling you at Rockhaven Retrievers, they're high quality. I'm totally against cloning technology.
But if I were to clone people, I would want to clone these people. Okay. So box number six, marketing, you have to have a three-legged marketing stool. By the way, branding consists of your website, your business card, your print pieces, your logos. And we do all of that included for the $1,700 a month. So everything, we do all of that for you. That's all included. Let's talk about marketing for a second.
Kelsey, why do you have to have a three-legged marketing stool? Like three viable ways that you generate leads. So in your case, you're getting Google reviews and video reviews. That's powerful. Boom. Two, search engine optimization. Three, boom. Or two, search engine optimization. And then three, online ads. So it's not just one way you're marketing. It's not just Google reviews and video reviews. Two, it's not just search engine optimization. Three, it's not just online ads. Why do you have to have three ways that you market to your ideal and likely buyers?
Well, mainly because if something would happen to one of them, we need to be able to pivot. So if we're all in on just one area, say we just do advertising, well, if that advertising gets shut down, we don't, that immediately stops all of our deal flows, all of our growth, everything is done. So we need to have, I don't want to say diversify because that almost makes it sound like we can be distracted, but if we can focus on three different things and do them very well, it has worked really well for us.
Folks, this is, I'm telling you, this is powerful stuff. Somebody out there, A, you need a dog. So you're probably going to Rockhaven Retrievers right now, but B, if you're trying to grow a company, take notes. These are real people doing real things. Box number seven, you have to create a sales conversion system.
has to be a documented process. If you're building a boat, I'm hoping that you're using a blueprint. If you're building a car, I'm hoping that you're building a car using a blueprint. If you're building a house, I hope you're using a blueprint. If you're building anything of consequence at scale, I would hope you're using a blueprint. I don't know why in business people don't want to use blueprints. I don't quite have it figured out yet. I don't know why people insist on operating via verbal traditions and tribal knowledge. And you know, well, Carl knows the passwords.
I don't understand that, but in order to scale something, you have to create a documented system. And so for sales, you have to have call scripts, call recording, a one sheet that clearly documents how you provide solutions for the marketplace. You have to have pre-written emails that make sense, a lead tracking system that makes sense. Kelsey, talk about the sales conversion system. Why do you have to have all these systems in place?
We need it in place because we're people who make mistakes. So for me, I can be going about and doing things and I can totally forget something and ask my husband. He knows this. But if I have a checklist and I know what I'm doing, that is much less likely to happen. So I really rely on having systems in place because with raising puppies,
They are living and breathing. Like we can't mess up on this. So we really need those systems in place to make sure every single thing is getting done. Folks, I'm telling you, whether you're feeding dogs, you're a dentist, you're a doctor, you're alert. Uh, you know, we have a, a wonderful, and I get James on part two of today's show. We're going to, you're going to be able to teach the world how you make a steak. And I'm being real, too cool. Keith, a wonderful guy in Visalia, California, he makes the best steaks in the world.
And big shout out to him, by the way, his company's called Crawdatties. This guy makes the best takes in the world. I'm being a real, it's worth the vacation here. This is a Besselia, California. If you're like going, man, I don't know what I'm going to take my kids to this year. Go to Besselia, California, find a way to get there. Head on over there to Crawdatties. It's worth the trip. Once you get there, you can see all the wonderful things that Northern California has to offer. But the highlight of your trip will be going to two cool Keats. It's the business is called Crawdatties. It's incredible. I love this place.
best steak in the world. State number two coming in hot. That was a place called Bluestone. They're not, they're not around anymore. The owner decided to shut down. So moving into the second position is you James. That's right. Now third is Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. So they're, it's kind of a tight competition. My wife's moving into third or fourth position right now. You're making some great stakes. Okay. So I want everyone to know you have to have a system in place. Okay. It's a system box number eight.
You've got to know you have to determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. At the end of the day, how much does it cost you to get a new customer? So Kelsey, whatever you charge for the dogs that you guys sell, you have to know how much it costs you to get a new customer. Talk about the importance of knowing that.
Yeah, that's right on our tracking sheet. So we need to know the cost of when leads come in, what each of those costs are that we're accounting for just because costs can get out of hand very quickly. And so if we're tracking them every week, we know exactly where we're at. Now, again, folks, I'm hoping you're taking notes. I'm hoping you're getting this. This is powerful stuff. And someone says,
This isn't exciting at all. This seems like a very tedious step-by-step process. Yeah, exactly. Doing your life to be exciting. Don't use systems. You're going to have an exciting life. Will you be able to pay the bills? Are you on the verge of bankruptcy? I mean, that's exciting stuff. But if you want to have a proven path to create sustainable success, you've got to implement these systems. Step number nine. Create repeatable systems.
processes and file organization. This just in. You can't build a successful organization if you are not organized. Kelsey, preach the good news about being organized.
Well, it's not necessarily my strong seat. It's my husband. And so that is why we need these systems in place. So my husband is very much naturally detail oriented. I tend to be a little bit more on that. I love to talk to people and do things and play with puppies, but I'm not necessarily system oriented. So when we have these things in place, it
Helps our marriage, that's for sure, but it also helps our business and helps us make sure that we're doing everything that we say is really important to us and that we're getting things done in a timely manner. Final three steps folks coming in hot, box number 11 or box number 10. You've got to create a management system. You have to have an effective management system. What am I saying? Management is what are the people on your team expected to do?
and do they do it? How do you convince humans on the planet Earth to do their jobs with excellence? I see a lot of people have great systems, great processes, great visions, but nobody is getting anything done because nobody's being managed. Can you talk about that because your business, you've doubled the number of leads you're getting? Can you talk about the importance of learning these management systems or even these hiring processes?
Yeah, so we're still very much a family operated business. We're really still small business, but it's not just me, my husband works here. We're full time together. So knowing that we're on the same page, we do have meetings in the morning, just making sure we're on track that we're focused on the same things and we know what's going on. I would say it's key for us having quick meetings in the morning, making sure that we're both knowing what's happening for the day and going through our calendar once a week. We will do that as well just to make sure
Our week is planned out and so it's not chaos during the week.
Okay. Box number 12 here, folks, coming in hot. We're almost there. Almost there. Stay on target. Almost there. Box number 12, your box number 11, you have to create a sustainable and repetitive weekly schedule. You know, like, when is your daily huddle? When is your weekly group interview? When will you call the leads? When will you go home? When will you show up to work? What is your schedule? Can you talk about that about Kelsey, about the importance of having a documented schedule that you, your husband and your team adheres to?
Yeah, we keep a pretty good schedule just because we need to know what's going on. So we can't be losing kids during the week. We got to know who's getting the kids. We need to know puppies. We need to know who's coming and visiting, who's coming to take a puppy home, that sort of thing. So if we don't know that, it's going to be pretty chaotic during the week. So that's why we do a weekly meeting and we do plan out pretty tightly our schedule.
Now, James, we move on to the final couple of boxes here. So we got box number 13 or box number 12. You have to create human resources and recruitment systems. There's got to be a process. Now Kelsey, I'm sure you could see the writing on the wall. You're going, wow, we're getting more leads. We're just doing more transactions. And at a certain point, hiring people will become your biggest limiting factor. At some point, hiring people will become your biggest limiting factor. Can you talk about the importance of having a plan in place for onboarding new employees?
Yeah, this is actually something that is very top of mind right now that we've been talking with our business coach about because this is our next step. So we have been talking about different ways of finding leads, whether that's, I'm sorry, finding our first employees because as we grow, like you said, it's going to become our biggest limiting factor. So we are actually, this is very like top of mind current for us because we are starting to go down this path with our business coach.
Okay. Now box number 13 and 14 folks, um, you've got to make sure that your business that you automate the earning of, of your millions. What am I saying? You have to have an accounting process in place where you track every dollar because it's not about how much money you make. It's about how much money you keep. And so if any of these aspects are neglected, your business will not succeed. And that's why I believe everybody out there, if you have a sound mind, um, you should probably have an attorney you work with who knows what he's talking about to guide you through the legal
uh, aspects of your company. You should probably have an accountant you can trust to guide you through the accounting aspects of your company. You should probably have a dentist that you go to that's not a guy you know who's watched a couple of YouTube videos on tooth, on teeth brushing. I mean, you probably want to have an expert in your life to help in these various areas. And the whole purpose of that is so you can achieve what we call the F seven success where you have success with your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, your fun.
So Kelsey, as you're going down this path, so many people are taking notes right now. If you could share with everybody kind of a maybe a 60 second recap of what impact having a business coach has had on your life and your businesses, we'd love to hear from you.
Oh man, it's had a huge impact. So just the stability and predictability that comes with a business coach. Honestly, that was the biggest thing for me. I really appreciate. I know every morning, every Friday morning at five AM, we're going to meet with Andrew. We're going to go over our numbers. We're going to talk about our biggest limiting factor that way we can just kind of chink away at that. And so we can grow systematically. It's not chaotic at all. And so having that
And the way it impacts our family has been huge too, just because
Yeah, we have, like I said, we're very much family oriented. We have four kids. And so it's really important to us that it doesn't become all about the business. And that is something I've really appreciated. Andrew actually cares about our marriage. He cares about our family and our kids. And keeping that all in line with what we have told him is our highest priorities has been really important. And honestly, if that wasn't the case, we probably would not be joint business coaching. So that's a very important part for us.
And so what do you say to somebody who's on the fence? They're thinking about coming to our workshop. They're thinking about going to thrive time show and scheduling a free 13 point assessment. They're thinking about coming to a business conference. They know it's $1,700 a month. They know for the business conferences that we have scholarship pricing available to help families in need so you can name your price. They know that we do scholarships for clients from time to time. But what would you say to somebody who's on the fence and thinking about either attending a conference or scheduling a free 13 point assessment?
Well, from a 13 point assessment, it's kind of a no brainer just because there's literally no risk involved. We've also go on to the business conference and come away with a lot of value as well. So honestly, it, I would say just do it because it is worth it. I love that. If someone is hesitant, it is a month to month basis. So you can just set aside a certain amount and say we're going to try it out. And if you're diligent and you're going to be open and do what your business coach asks you to do, then you definitely won't regret it.
James, I'll give you the final question here. You talk to wonderful people every day that are maybe the potential Kelsey's of America or some people you say, whoa, we can't help you. And I don't want anybody to waste their time filling out the form if you have an esoteric belief system and not an actual business you're trying to grow. So James, what final question would you have for Kelsey? Um, if you could do it all over again, would you hire us?
Yes, absolutely. Yeah, very thankful for you guys. It's been a huge blessing. We love it. Honestly, Fridays when we meet, it's the highlight of our day. It's our most productive day for sure. So, absolutely.
Kelsey, thank you so much for carving out time for us today. I encourage everybody out there. If you don't hate yourself and you do love retrievers, what? If you do love retrievers and you don't hate yourself and you're looking to get a retriever, go to rockhavenretrievers.com rockhavenretrievers.com. That's the website rockhavenretrievers.com. And on part two of today's show, James will teach us how to make one of his epic stakes. Thank you so much, Kelsey. Have a great day. Thanks to you guys. Bye bye.
I started a business because I couldn't work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don't answer insurance companies. I don't answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that's it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don't need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out.
But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 investment. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world.
He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He's been instrumental in hiring good quality employees using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We've been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced,
I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business.
Hi, my name is Tim Johnson. I'm the owner of Tuscaloosa Ophthalmology, as well as Southern eye consultants to ophthalmology practices in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And I'm a client of Clay Clark. He asked me to answer a couple of questions. The first question was, how did I hear about Clay Clark? I am a big fan of business podcasts and his podcast popped up as a recommended listening. So I started listening to the podcast.
I was a little suspicious or skeptical because I thought there was going to be like an upcharge and upsell. But the idea of the month-to-month canceling really appealed to me. And I kept waiting for the shoe to drop and for the upsell or for the scam to come in, but I never did. It's very legitimate. Since working with clay, I've gotten much firmer grasp on how business works, even in medicine, business is business.
I've learned a lot about marketing, especially how Google reviews work and how important that is. That's very important, even in medicine. At least once a week, if not every day, I get a new patient because some of you googled eye doctor in Tuscaloosa or ophthalmologist in Tuscaloosa. And you'd be amazed how many patients just look for an eye doctor that way.
And so he's really changed our business. Our business has grown a lot. Maybe 15 to 20% this year. And so we're really grateful for the things he's done for our business. And the last question was, when did I perfect the laugh? I would say that you can never perfect the laugh. You just keep working at it and just keep getting better and better each day. But you gotta keep working at it.
Dateline, August 31st, 2024. James, this is the most important video ever shot. You're probably the third best steak maker that I know of. You have Keith, I mean, Crawdaddy. Crawdaddy's Keith. He's a headie in the game. Keith's Gore's gate in. He's a headie in the game. You're number two. I put, you know, Texas Roadhouse at a kind of solid three there. So we're going to
See if you can teach us your system for making the perfect steak. All right. What do we need? What are those essential ingredients? So the first thing we need is we need the steak, whether that's going to be the, you know, the porterhouse, the New York strip. All right. You're making it complicated. What do we need to get here? What do we need to get? You need to first get the steak. What are you getting now though? All right. We're getting the steak right now. What kind of steak are you getting? We're going to get, we're going to see what they have. We might be able to ribeye. We might get the New York strip. We'll check back in just a moment. There's too much to spend.
Folks, things are changing. James, you stopped in the vegetable section or something? What are you getting now? You know what? You have to put rosemary on the steak. You just have to do it. It's a must-have. If you don't do it, you're not going to make a 10 out of 10 steak. I'll try to deal with the emotions I feel right until then right now. We'll be right back. In a shocking turn of events, we're still in the vegetable section. What are you getting now? We need to have garlic.
If you're going to make a 10 out of 10 steak, you need to have garlic. OK. The wheels fall off the wagon for a lot of people at this stage. Tell us this is the stage where you're picking the meat. Yeah, this is the Casey strip. It's also known as the New York strip. And this is my favorite cut, I think, of the steak. Really? How many ounces do you get here? This is, looks like, it's 1.4 pounds, so maybe like, you know, 25 ounces or so. Wow. OK.
Alright James, what are we looking at now? This is olive oil, and this is what we're gonna cook the steak in, and it's gonna be great. So you're cooking the steak in olive oil, do you cook the steak in anything else? I also add butter to it as well, and then it just, you mix the two, I don't know what it does, but it comes out great. What kind of butter are we talking about?
You know what, just their regular butter, unsalted, organic. Stop dodging the questions. We'll go find the butter next. The steak game is so easy for you. You knew exactly the kind of butter you're looking for. What kind of butter are you getting here? This is the Kerry Gold's pure Irish butter, and you just throw some of this in the pan with the steak, and it comes out great. And I eat a stick of butter every day. Holy crap. Try that at home.
Now, a core component of your steak regimen, your steak plan, your steak blueprint, your steak recipe is what here, what are you doing? Salt and pepper. You can't have salt without pepper and you can't have pepper without salt. I kind of sold to you getting here. So just grab them both, just, you know, whatever salt, I guess is good salt. McCormick, sea salt, or you can get the pink salt. Which one do you get? Don't give us options. I don't play that game. All right. Don't manipulate us. I got the pink one. You do? I do. Oh, wow. So you get your kind of booze. You get the pink salt here. Yeah, pink salt. And then you get what kind of pepper? Just
black pepper. But you turn it, you grind your own. You grind it, you have to grind it. You gotta keep it fresh. Okay, got it. All right, we caught him. He's already getting started on the steak without telling us. So what are you doing now? What are you working on now? So I'm gonna cut up the garlic and the rosemary. Okay, all to make the James patented, well, not patented, patented, patented, pending super steak. Exactly. We caught him trying to skip a step. He's washing.
That was not one of the steps that he talked about earlier. It was potentially misleading the viewers out there who are just trying to learn how to make the lake steak patent pending from James. Real quick, what kind of military credentials did you earn?
Well, spent four years executing the Air Force up in Minot, North Dakota. Is that what you learned to this controversial state? This is where I learned it. Really? Kudos to my boy Camoella, I won't say his last name on here, and his wife from Hawaii. Really? This is how they do it. Yeah. They taught me the really very... You can't even speak of them, man. It's such a secret thing. It's like, okay, okay, all right, we'll come back. Okay, what are you doing right now as you're preparing for the stake there, sir? What are you doing?
Uh, just picking off the plate, eating off the plate right now. What are you doing? Seriously, what are you doing? Just a little taste, test, action, cut up the garlic. You're cutting off the garlic. See, you didn't disclose that. It's all cut. Okay. Alright, so you're cutting.
Alright, so you're unpacking the meat here, you're taking the meat out of the package? Yep, and we're going to salt and pepper it, and then we're going to put it right on the pot. This is a controversial strategy, some would keep it in the package, and we put the package in, and sort of, but you're taking it out of the package. I'm going to leave it in the package and put the salt and pepper on it while it's still in the package. What going on, folks? Stay tuned. Alright, now he's going to get the olive oil.
The oil got it from the olive. Boom. Boom. Let me zoom in real quick here. I'm gonna throw somebody off the trail. Okay, you got it. It does a rich taste. Rich taste. Now we're getting the butter. Now we're getting the butter. Okay, here we go. It's getting the butter.
Butter, butter, butter. Controversial move. He's keeping the butter in a frick to have what's called a refrigerator. Folks, if you need to get one of those, you'll want to write that down as well as a step. Okay. Here we go. All right. Now. Now. This is the controversy. So, okay. You know, this pot right here. Yes. Oh, yeah. I used this bad boy yesterday. Yeah. And my secret is that I keep the butter and the oil in the pot for like. So like the remnant, like the fat from the other. You keep it in yesterday.
Oh, wow. And I just, you know, that's the base that we need to keep a great steak. Okay, all right. You're a wild man, a man without boundaries. Next step. All right, this is the double whammy. We're going to salt and pepper the steak. And then we're going to also heat up the pot or the pan, whatever you're using. Wow. And this is something, again, Keith, who owns Crawdatties, and I mean this, folks.
Keith, who owns Crydaddy, makes the best steaks in America. He does. Maybe the whole universe actually. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's worth making the trip to California. California. It's hilarious. It's worth the trip just to go to Crydaddy's to behold the wonder. Now, coming to number two, that's your steak. Number three, that's Texas Roadhouse, other places. Number 14, it's Outback, whatever, but this is some hot stuff, folks. Okay, so what are we doing now? All right, we're gonna salt and pepper it. Yeah. So we're just gonna, I call this move the Keith.
I call this the quinoa. It's too cold quinoa. So it is. Grinds the salt, yes. The next move is the carbs. Grinds the pepper. You grind it.
He grinds the pepper. Yeah, a lot of pepper on these things. You know, I've heard that Keith will grind the pepper until other men would suck. He goes, I heard he uses his teeth. He grinds it. That's why you want to eat a craw down. I don't know why he doesn't put that on the menu. So I'm going to say handmade, excuse me. Re-tuse your food.
Alright, it's poetic. That's it. Now we're gonna wait for this to heat up. Oh, it looks pretty good. It's pretty good. Are you gonna eat it right now or are you gonna cook it first? We're gonna cook it down. Oh, okay. We're gonna let this heat up for just another minute or two. Yep. And then we're gonna toss it on. And then we're gonna turn it on this fan. Otherwise, the fire alarms are gonna go off crazy. That's your specialty. That's my specialty. That's what everyone knows before, setting off the fire alarm. Fire alarm, James.
I always catch this guy moving in an extra step, sneaking in a step. What's the next step you're doing? We're gonna add some butter. That's a butter. That's some butter. Okay. And a little bit of olive oil. A little bit of olive oil. Yesterday, when you didn't have the pump from the night before, you just started with olive oil. That's what I started with. The olive oil. Today one can be like the roughest day of your steak profit. Day one's always rough. Day five, how's that going? Ah, day five is great. Why do you ever replace the stuff?
You know what? I'm starting to not, so you know. So we've reached your record in two weeks now. Oh my gosh, we're good. But, you know, somewhere else. Alright, let me get a fork. This is an official fork. It's an airport approved fork. Three little forks. But can you use a fork like this? You know what? I think Keith's fork just got one point on it. You think General Flynn would approve what you're doing here? I think he would. He was put in there.
Okay, it's in there. There's one. One, one, okay. One, two, oh two, oh you're in. The second one. Now what are you doing? What are you doing now? What are you doing now? Let's go up to your head. Don't. And then now we're going to salt and pepper. Yep. This side of the steak. While it's cooking. While it's cooking. This is controversial. Risking life and limb. You're doing the key. Grands of pepper. Grands of the salt. This is what keeps, if you go to, if you go to crawdaddy's.
You're going to notice that people do it better than what you're doing now. Guys, I like that it's the best in the world. But you're number two. It's good here. You know you're doing good when you're getting burned. Oh, man, that's how you know. That's the secret. That's what you need to know. Oh, wow.
I don't want you to cook this thing. You get to break two hours or a week. What are you doing? Let's just tell you when you're done. You know what? It's different from the size of the piece. Okay. And I always try to eye it down because it's like, you know, it's an instinct thing. It's an instinct. You could have known. You could write down the rule. You can't. And then now I'm going to add the rosemary. Rosemary. It just goes right in there. Oh, wow. And the garlic too. Come on. Incredible.
You just smell that. You'll have to stay cooked for like an hour or 10 minutes, give us some sort of time. Maybe like 46 minutes. 46 minutes? Oh, a lot of controversy there. And you're doing good after that. Look at what you're doing here.
Then you start to smell the rosemary, the garlic, and the steak. Folks, we'll put your nose against the camera. Put your nose against the screen, folks. If you're watching or not, put your nose against the screen and sniff it. Just take it in. Smell the screen. Put your nose on the screen. Smell the smell.
Smell the smell. And then I close that lid up. And then I, you know, pace around for four minutes, five minutes, and then check on it. And you draw a crowd. I mean, I've noticed there's a lot of women showing up to watch you do this. It's the second best steak in the world. James, the game is a foot. All right, here we go. We're getting ready. All right, we're still waiting. It's a foot game. You know what? Before I flip it, I like to see the top of the steak.
And if it's still red, it's not ready to clip. You're looking for non-red. Getting into crunch time here, folks. You can feel the tension. People are sniffing their screens right now. You can feel the energy. People are gathering around to see what's going on. We're almost there.
This is what we call the lake steak, a product of James. Something that's almost as good as what, too cool Keith, at Crottetty's. I'm telling you, I'm honest, it's the best steak I've ever had.
It was a lobster tail that was literally this big. It had to be like two pounds, and it was the best thing I ever made in my whole life. And for the price, I mean, it's incredible. I mean, you know, you would think it would be 2,000 or 4,000 for the stuff. But no, it's great. It's really economical, it's affordable, it's worth a trip. I mean, you could buy a ticket to fly out to Tulare, have the steak. And, you know, but if you can't do that, what do you do? You do the James Move. Number two, best steak in America. I'm zooming in here and watching it.
Washing bubble and stumbling, rumbling, looking to see what's happening here. Well, here we go. Starting to see it. You feel like it's done or how do you feel? You just look at it and then I think to myself a couple of things. I noticed that you've been bending the knees while doing this. Is this part of the process? You've been the knees? You've been the knees? Okay, we're just waiting.
Just wait. Just wait. Okay, here we go. Game time. Alright, I think it's time to flip them. We're going to take a look. Usually when you grab the top of the pan and it hot and burns, that's probably around the time that you put it. Burn your hands. Oh yeah. There we go. Are you going to cook it some more? What are you doing now? Once it, like you see the top of them, a nice crisp on top.
Look at that. This is what we want right there. Incredible stuff right here. Only Keith does a better job. Only Keith does a better job. And we believe that General Flynn may approve of this strategy. It's a good stuff. Here we go. Hey, we're back. What do you do now? We're going to check to see how the other side looks and I always hide this thing down. And it looks like this.
I think you've got it. I think you want to have it. So maybe another minute. Another minute. Another minute. OK, got it. Davis, what do you think? What do you think? This is action. Do you agree? Davis, do you agree? Davis agrees. All right. What are we doing now? We're going to take the stakes off, and we're going to let them sit for like two minutes about. OK. Then we'll cut them open. Here we go. There it is.
There it is, baby. That is how it's done. All right, James, what is the next step? It's the moment of truth. We're gonna see how this thing came out. Okay, let's look at it. Here we go. Oh, this is incredible. This is, you know, nice. I haven't felt these emotions since being at a funeral or a wedding.
It's just like you're at the funeral of a great man, but you're at the wedding for a great people. It's just that's emotional for me. I'm not ready for it.
I love it. So I like to cut it open and just be nice and pink and juicy. I think it just run off the table. And this thing is that cow still talks. That's a talking cow. That thing still moves. That's how you know. That's incredible. And then when you just eat it or do you carry it around your pocket for a week or two or what do you do? What's your when you go right to the dinner table with this bad boy and you eat it. That's the final step, folks. You eat.
Until morale improves. Thank you, James. I appreciate it. Thank you, Clay. Thank you Keith leave Keith for inspiring this video. No one's better than Keith. Crawdaddy Keith, baby. Crawdaddy's Keith to Larry, California. You got to go there. Boom. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday dear Mariah, Joey Havana. Happy birthday to you. Woo! Walk the candles. Walk the candles. Walk them out. Nice, nice.
Okay, okay, okay. Here we go, here we go, here we go. This song goes out to my main man Keith. I met him up in Tularee. He's the owner of Claudadees. Wouldn't have shut down during the court in teens. Like a real American, he's rocking those jeans. Owns a restaurant and he sings. Every single minute is karaoke. Makes his own wine like give a new niece. Claudadees is what it's called. Got enough food for all of y'all.
All y'all, for all y'all Yes, oh yes It's time to rise and grind Oh yes, let for the rooster crows Oh yes, it's time to rise and grind Oh yes
All right, we're here with Devin Nunes. Devin, what was the name of the restaurant we're out here, sir? Crawdatties. We're at crawdatties and by sell ya. Crawdatties come early. They have the second floor, it's quiet. If you just want to have a quiet dinner, they'll break food here. Stay for the music afterwards. Folks, it's going to be a blasty blast. It's called Crawdatties. And what city are we in again, sir? I saw it in California. Was it? Oh, it was a 10 out of 10. I had the lobster. There was steak there, chicken. Whatever it's getting. You're going to love it. Plate Lark is here somewhere. Where's my buddy play?
Clay's the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He's like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy is like the greatest marketer you've ever seen, right? His entire life. Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. OK, Aaron Antis, March 6th and 7th. March 6th and 7th. Guess who's coming to Tulsa, Russell? Oh, Santa Claus? No, no, that's March. March 6th and 7th. You're going to be joined by Robert Kiyosaki. Robert.
key assess selling author of rich dad poor dad possibly the best selling or one of the best selling business authors of all time and he's going to be joined with eric trump will be joined by eric trump to get eric trump and robert kiyosaki in the same place in the same place erin why should everybody show up to hear robert kiyosaki well you get billions of dollars of
business experience between those two, not to mention many, many, many millions of books have been sold. Many, many millionaires have been made from the books that have been sold by Robert Kiyosaki. I happen to be one of them. I learned from the man. He was the inspiration. That book was the inspiration for me to get the entrepreneurial spirit as many other people.
Now, since you won't brag on yourself, I will. You've sold billions of dollars of houses, am I correct? That is true. And the book that kickstarted it all for you, Rich Dad Port of the author, the bestselling author of Rich Dad Port of Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that kickstarted your career. He's gonna be here. He's gonna be here. I'm up.
And now Eric Trump, people don't know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. There's not 50 employees that the Trump Organization, again, most people don't know this, but the Trump Organization has thousands of employees. And while Donald J. Trump was the 45th president of the United States and soon to be the 47th president of the United States.
He needed someone to run the companies for him. And so the man that runs the Trump organization for Donald J. Trump as he was the 45th president of the United States and now the 47th president of the United States is Eric Trump. It's Eric Trump is here to talk about.
time management, promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. Everything that you see the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages
billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest brands on the planet from a business standpoint. I mean, who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean, look at it. And this is the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He's been the man behind it. So you're talking we're into nine going into 10 years of him running it. And we get to tap into that knowledge. That's going to be amazing.
Now, think about this for a second. Would you buy a ticket just to see a Robert Kiyosaki and Eric Trump? Of course you would. Of course you would. But we're also going to be joined by Sean Baker. This is the best-selling author, the guy who invented the carnivore diet. Oh, yeah. Dr. Sean Baker, he's been on Joe Rogan multiple times. He's going to be joining us.
So you've got Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author, rich dad, poor dad, Eric Trump, Sean Baker. The lineup continues to grow. And this is how we do our tickets here at The Thrivetime Show. If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it. It's $500 for a VIP ticket. We've always done it that way. Now, if you want to take a general admission ticket, it's $250 or whatever price you want to pay. And the reason why I do that
And the reason why we do that is because we want to make our events affordable for everybody. I grew up without money. I totally understand what it's like to be the tight spot. So if you want to attend, it's $250 or whatever price you want to pay. That's how I do it. And it's $500 for a VIP ticket. Now, we only have limited seating here with them. The most people we've ever had in this building was for the Jim Brewer presentation. Jim Brewer came here. The legendary comedian Jim Brewer came to Tulsa and we had 419 people that were here. 419 people. Yeah.
And I thought to myself that there's no more room. I felt kind of bad that a couple people had VIP seats.
in the men's restroom. Oh, no, I'm just kidding. So I thought, you know what, we should probably add on. So we're adding on what we call the upper deck, or the top shelf. So the seats are very close to the presenters, but we're actually building right now, we're adding on to the facility to make room to accommodate another 30 attendees or more. So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com.
go to ThriveTimeShow.com. When you go to ThriveTimeShow.com, you'll go there, you'll request a ticket, boom. Or if you want a text to me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now. Just text my number. It's my cell phone number. My personal cell phone number will keep that private between you, between you, me, everybody. We'll keep that private in anybody. Don't share that with anybody except for everybody. That's my private cell phone number.
It's nine one eight eight five one zero one zero two nine one eight eight five one zero one zero two. I know we have a lot of a Spanish speaking people that attend these conferences and to me to be biolingually sensitive myself on numbers nine one eight eight five one zero one zero two. That is not actually bilingual. That's just saying quan for one. It's not something.
I think you're attacking me. Now, let's talk about this. Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrivetime Show Workshop? So, Aaron, you've been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So, let's talk about it. I'll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you're going to learn here, okay? You're going to learn marketing, marketing and branding. What are we going to learn about marketing and branding?
Oh yeah, we're going to dive into, you know, so many people say, oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand. You want to get that brand out there. It's like, how do I actually make people know what my business is and make it a household name? You're going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that.
You're going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something. This just in your business will go to hell if you can't sell. So we're going to teach you sales. We're going to teach you search engine optimization at a come up top in the search engine results. We're going to teach you how to manage how to manage people. Aaron, you have managed to no exaggeration hundreds of people throughout your career and thousands of contractors and most people struggle with managing people.
Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well, because first of all, people either have great people or you have people who suck. And so it could be a challenge. You know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But
If you have the right systems, you have the right processes, and you're really good at selecting great ones, and we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they're teachable, they're driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction.
So we're going to teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization. We're going to teach you accounting. We're going to teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance. We're going to teach you time management. How do you manage your time? How do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization if you're not organized? How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart?
Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two-day interactive business workshop. Now, let me tell you how the format is set up here to get books. This is a two-day interactive 15. Think about this, folks. It's two days. Each day starts at 7 a.m. and it goes until 5 p.m. So from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. two days to two-day interactive workshop. The way we do it is we do a 30-minute teaching session
And then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session. So Aaron, what kind of great stuff happens during that 15 minute question and answer session after every teaching session? I actually think it's the best part about the workshops because here's what happens. I've been to lots of these things over the years. I've paid many thousands of dollars to go to them.
and you go in there and they talk in vague generalities and they're constantly upselling you for something trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership and you don't you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you're doing on your marketing and what's awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks and it's very specific to what your business is.
And what we do is we will allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard. And then we take a 15-minute break to stretch. And to make it entertaining when you're stretching, this is a true story. When you get up and stretch, you'll be greeted by mariachis. There's going to probably be alpaca here, llamas, helicopter rides, a coffee bar, a snow cone. I mean, you had a crocodile one time. That was pretty interesting.
You know, I should write that down. And I could be better. Sorry for that one guy. We lost the crocodile. We duct tape this. It's face. Right? We duct tape. No, this is a baby crocodile. Yeah, duct tape around the mouse. It didn't bite anybody, but it was really cool. He passed that thing around. I should.
of a
That means you have less than 3% of our population that's even self-employed. So it's you only have three out of every hundred people in America that are self-employed to begin with. And when Inc Magazine reports that 96% of businesses fail by default, by default, you have a one out of a thousand chance of succeeding in the game of business. But yet the average client that you and I work with, we can typically double this. No hyperbole.
No exaggeration. I have thousands of testimonials to back this up. We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company within 24 months. Yeah. Double. And you say double? Yeah. There's businesses that we have tripled. There's businesses. We've grown 8X. There's so many examples. You can see it. ThrivetimeShow.com. But again,
This is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. And then you add to that Robert Kiyosaki, the best-selling author of Rich Dad Ford ad, you add to that Eric Trump, the man that runs the Trump organization. You add to that Sean Baker. Now you might take, but Clay, is there more? I need more. Well, okay, Tom Wheelwright is the wealth
Or Robert Kiyosaki. People say, Robert Kiyosaki, who's his financial wealth advisor? Who's the guy who manages, who's the, who's his wealth strategist? His wealth strategist, Tom Wheelwright will be here and you say, Clay, I still, I'm not going to get a ticket unless you give me more. Okay, fine. We're going to serve you the same meal both days. True story. We have, we can't run the food and because.
I keep it simple. I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch. It's Ted Escazito's an incredible Mexican restaurant. That's going to happen. And Jill Donovan, our good friend, who is the founder of RusticCuff. She started that company in her home, and now she sells millions of dollars of American products. That's rusticcuff.com. And someone says, I want more. This is not enough.
Give me more. OK, I'm not going to mention their names right now because I'm working on it behind the scenes here. But we've got one guy who's giving me a verbal to be here. And this is a guy who's one of the wealthiest people in Oklahoma. And nobody really knows who he is because he's built systems that are very utilitarian that offer a lot of value. He's made a lot of money in the. It's the. It's where you rent. It's short. It's where you're renting storage spaces.
he's a storage space guy he owns this but what do you call that the rental the uh... storage space storage units this guy owns storage units he owns real road cars he owns a lot of assets that make money on a daily basis but they're not like customer-facing was most people don't know who owns the many storage facility or most people who owns the
warehouse that's passively making money. Most people don't know who owns the railroad cars, but this guy, he's giving me a verbal that he will be here. And we just continue to add more and more success stories. So if you're out there today and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself a incredible gift.
You want a life-changing experience. You want to learn how to start and grow a company. Go to ThriveTimeShow.com. Go there right now. ThriveTimeShow.com. Request a ticket for the two-day interactive event. Again, the day here is March 6th and 7th. March 6th and 7th. We just got confirmation. Robert Kiyosaki, best-selling author. Rich Dad Portad. He'll be here. Eric Trump, the man who leads the Trump organization. It's going to be a blast. He blasts. There's no upsells.
Uh, Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event. I think it is incredible. And there's somebody out there right now you're watching and you're like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program called Smoke Your Way to Thin. I think that's going to change your life. I promise you, this will be 10 times better than that.
like I think the wrong week we smoke. Don't do the smoke your way to thin conference that is I've tried it don't do it yeah chain smoking is not a viable I mean it is life-changing it is life-changing if you become a chain smoker it is life-changing weight loss program right not really so if you're looking to have life-changing results in a way that won't cause you to have a stoma
Get your tickets at TheRiveTimeShow.com. Again, that's Aaron Antis. I'm Clay Clark and reminding you and inviting you to come out to the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you, it will be a life-changing experience. We can't wait to see you up right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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