...And Have Record Setting Sales!
While it is impossible to be well versed on every topic and strategy that can improve bottom line results, that doesn't mean that those areas can't have a strategic and successful approach. For a lot of business owners, growth is one of those areas that often goes overlooked.
Recently, our CEO sat down with an award-winning entrepreneur who educates, inspires and coaches business teams on growth strategies. In this blog, Hollywood Branded learns how to build a dream team in your business, from the expertise of Clay Clark, founder of The ThriveTime Show!
A Little More About Clay
Clay Clark is the former “U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year,” a member of the Forbes Business Coach Council, an Amazon best-selling author and the host of the Thrivetime Show podcast which has hit #1 on the iTunes charts in the category of business 6 times. Throughout his career he’s founded several multi-million dollar businesses.
Clay has been featured in Fast Company, Bloomberg, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, PandoDaily, and numerous other publications. He’s been the speaker and consultant of choice for top brands throughout the country including: Hewlett Packard, Maytag University, Valspar Paint, and O’Reilly’s Auto Parts.
Interview Transcript Highlights
Question: Can we start off by having you share a little bit of your background and gotten you to where you are today? (follow up) Do you find that a lot of entrepreneurs when they're starting businesses, or they're enmeshed in businesses aren't as focused on money? Is that where they go wrong? Where do you think they get off the track?
Answer: Well, it's a simple one, two, three program. Step one, I went to, I grew up without money. I grew up without money. So step two, I determined that I needed more money to buy the goods and services I needed. And then step three, I decided I was willing to trade off everything in the way to get that money. And so I wake up at 3:00 a.m. Most people wake up at six or seven or eight and I've been doing that for 23 years.
I have a book that all the listeners can download for free called The Boom Book and they can get it at thrivetimeshow.com. They can download the ebook for free. It's called The Boom Book. You can get it, just click on the podcast button, you can download it. On page four, we have this diagram. It shows a linear workflow from left to right, so it's a linear workflow. What happens is, most people, step one, don't have goals, defined goals.
I have five kids. So I sit down and I say self, I have five kids. I want to have five kids. Before I had five kids, I had the thought, I want to have five kids. So I asked my potential wife to be, do you want to have five kids? She says, yes, boom, goals. That's the achievement of goals.
If she said no, I would not have married her and she wouldn't have married me. We agree on the same goals, we've got five kids, we want to do that. So I want to spend time with my kids. So my goal is to make the most amount of money possible in the least amount of time so that I can chase my wife around and see my kids.
I don't care about money. Money's just the fuel I put in my car to get from A to B. For me, a business is just a vehicle to get from A to B. I focus on the money right away, so I never have to think about the money because I don't care about money. I care about getting to my destination. I am as passionate about money as I am fossil fuels. I just need it to get from A to B.
Question: What should entrepreneurs be passionate about?
Answer: If you had all the money in the world, what would you do? And then that's what you should be passionate about and the business should just exist to get you there. That is my worldview.
My partner and I between the two of us, there's 15 multimillion dollar companies and he's the top optometrist in the State of Oklahoma, that sees the most patients. He also owns a bank and an auto auction and he's a great guy and he loves his patients, but he never sees patients. Like he never ever, ever, ever, never ever nor does he ever go there. And so, or like the bank, the one place you won't find him is at the bank or at the auto auction.
I believe I want to build a business that can serve me and my customers. I call it the three P's. I want to have a great product that I'm proud to show my mom where my mom goes, oh well. I want to have a profit of 20%, that's my goal and I want to hire people that I would want to hang out with. Dudes I'd want to have a beer with, ladies who I wouldn't mind hanging out with my family. People might that are wife approved. You know, my wife does all the accounting and all the legal and then I do all the system and workflow creation.
If you're a listener out there, you want to figure out what would you focus on. If you were like 85 years old and you had one year left, or you're 95 one year left, or maybe you're 45 and you have one year left. What if you just had one year left? What would you be doing with your time? And then figure out how you could build a business that allows you to free up the time needed so you can do what you want to do.
Question: What are some of the initial roadmaps that an entrepreneur needs to put in place for their business so that they can actually set this up for success?
Answer: I'm going to turn to page four of The Boom Book, here we go. Step one, we want to figure it out our goals and specifically how many customers do you need to have per year to achieve your financial goals? How many customers?
Then step two is how many hours per week are you willing to work? I started off by telling you I get up at three every day and I hate it. Oh, I hate it, it's three. Ah, who set this alarm? This is terrible. Once I get the momentum going and I'm wrapping up my day at five and with so many people were helping, that's great. I don't want to wake up at three, but I've chosen that. I'm not mad about it. It's just the life I've chosen. I have five kids. We've got a lot of land and business ventures and stuff. So you got to figure out how many hours a week am I willing to work?
Step three. You want to figure out how do you compete with people and what can you do differently or better than your competition?
Want even more of Clay's roadmap to business success? Check out the full episode below!
Check Out The Podcast!
Clay shares a ton of more great information about building a successful business on our podcast, be sure to check out the full episode!
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