181: Going to Business School with Serial Entrepreneurs Dr. Robert Zoellner & Clay Clark

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneurs are Clay Clark and Dr. Robert Zellner. You may have heard of them before as they are the hosts of the #1 Business Podcast The Thrivetime Show. But these two entrepreneurs are much more than that. Clay is the founder of Thrive 15 and was the U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the year. Dr. Zoellner built a massive optomology practice and is a venture capitalist.

Together, Clay and Robert have built over a dozen multi-million-dollar businesses, been featured everywhere from Forbes and Entrepreneur to Fast Company, and have interviewed and worked with some of the most compelling and successful business leaders of all time.

My goal is to squeeze every ounce of wisdom and inner misfit I can get out of them in this episode. So grab a seat and get ready…

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​Dr. Zoellner started out with an optometry practice with a goal to grow it to other practices/offices focused in the Tulsa, OK area. Along the way, he got into a number of other businesses from auto-auctions to even buying a bank. And about 4 years ago, he connected with Clay. He now has 8 businesses.

At the 6 min mark, Dr. Zoellner shares the story of how he ended up buying a bank.

Clay started out with DJ business called DJ Connection that he started out of his dorm room in college. At the time, his wife worked for Dr. Zoellner and told him that he should meet him as he was a successful entrepreneur. As Clay says, he was just a punk kid and when he met with Dr. Zoellner, he helped with understanding how to market his business and run it in the best way. Clay grew DJ Connection into the largest DJ wedding service in the U.S. He was a millionaire by 27 and hired his dad, which was a huge goal of his. As a fun anecdote, as Clay grew the business he wrote a parody song about the school’s president that got him kicked out of school.

Josh met with Clay a couple years ago when it was just him and a van and have grown the business over 6x in just a few years. He uses the systems that Clay and Dr. Zoellner teach.

What is the running theme or one thing that makes the biggest impact on success?

Clay:

• In his BOOM book, on page 4, there is a linear workflow on how to succeed.
• Your business exists to serve you. It’s comes down to math. You have to know your goals
• You have to know the hours you have to work to reach your goals (how much time is needed)

Dr. Zoellner

• Value is the key to succeeding in business
• You must figure out every way to maximize value for clients and create such an amazing deal that people can’t believe.
• You must then have great branding to go with it. Perception is reality and the goal is get perception and reality to be the same. But, you have to look great to your customer in addition to bringing the value.

You must also have your “3-Legged Marketing Stool.”

• Marketing is the gas peddle for your car (business)

What is some of the best advice on how to market?

Josh example – 3 things that are always going:

• Google ads
• Retargeting ads (Adroll.com)
• Facebook ads
• They also go out and get reviews on Google daily

Get reviews – studies show people read reviews.

• Never turn your ads off.
• Never stop adding a page of content to your website – every day add a page.
• Business Insider article reference – Google controls
• 90% of the search engine traffic. 60% is standard search. 25% is done via google images. 5% is Youtube.
• 90.8% of all consumers search via google product

Dr. Zoellner – you can play to Google game, but if you are a local company, or even national – you want to dominate the airwaves, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, etc.

• Don’t just rely on Google as it is double edged sword – a bad review can sink you and suck your time in fighting it.

You’ve built this thriving coaching and mentoring business, the most reviewed in the world – tell us more about the principles you teach in addition to what we’ve already discussed.

Sales

• Create an inbound sales script for anyone that is going to be on the phone to be consistent
• Install call recording (ClarityVoice.com) to inspect what you expect and make sure things are being done at the level you want them.
• Get a video of your best sales person doing their best sales presentation to use as a teaching aid.
• You then need to track your numbers

F6 – Design your F6 life. Define the following for yourself:

• Faith
• Family
• Finances
• Friendship
• Fun
• Fitness
• What does your perfect week look like? Your perfect life?
• If you don’t design your life, someone else will.

What has been your bigger failure and mistake as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it?

• Clay used to have F5 not F6. He was missing the Fun. Clay shares the story of how he was so successful, but all he did was work. His wife had to ask him to “schedule time with his daughter.” He changed that and brought in the fun.
• It has made all the difference in his life as he was on path to just make a ton of money and die with it. Now, he has a real life.
• There is so much more to life than just business…everyone has to figure that out.
• Dr. Zoellner, when he was younger, had a tendency to run over people and situations and nowadays that time and wisdom have helped that.
• Stop and listen. Listen to your family. They will let you know when the pendulum has swung too far away from them. The key is to spend the quality time with them. ​

At the 54 minute market, Dr. Zoellner talks about being a misfit.

 

Best Quote: "If don't design your life, someone else will..."

 

Misfit 3:

#1

1. Dr. Z: Pigs get fat, hogs get butchered. Beware of greed in your life.
2. Clay: Vision without execution is hallucination. What do you need to do today to execute and get a step closer?
3. Josh: Just go to work.

#2

1. Dr. Z: Be the pig at breakfast, not the chicken. Go all in. You have to whatever it takes.
2. Clay: Know your F6 goals: Faith, Family, Finances, Friendship, Fitness, Fun.
3. Josh: Treat people better than you want to be treated. It costs $0 to be a kind, great person.​

#3

1. Dr. Z: Know when to cook the pig. Celebrate when you have a victory. When you have a success, take time to celebrate it.
2. Clay: Implement systems that are proven to work. Quit getting advice from most people.
3. Josh: Help the next person coming up behind you.​

 

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