Practical Steps to Growing Your Business – In Just 7 Minutes with Clay Clark and Robert Zoellner

Resources/Links:

• Check out The World’s Highest Reviewed Business Growth Program: https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/

Summary

Clay Clark is the former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, founder of 6 multi-million dollar companies, Forbes Contributor, author of 13 books & host of 6-times iTunes chart-topping podcast.

Dr. Robert Zoellner owns a bank and started eight multi-million companies and an ent trapped in an optometrist body.

In this episode, Clay and Robert share the secrets of how they help others launch and grow by providing their leaders with the wealth of knowledge they attained through studying the past and present “giants in the business.”

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:53 – Clay and Robert’s ideal client: For Clay: People needing real estate, photography, haircuts, glasses, carpet cleaning, dog training, banking, used cars, marketing, business conferences, and best practice business books. But I would say, specifically, people needing help growing their business.
  While for Robert, it’s soccer moms.
• 02:18– Problem they help solve: For Clay: What we want to do is find a problem that our ideal and likely buyers have. We want to solve it the way they want it, not the way we want to solve it, but the way they want to solve it. So, they will pay us, come back, and bring friends. While for Robert: Well, my core business with eye care, I want to help people see. So, when people aren’t seeing clearly, they come to me.
• 02:56 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Clay and Robert: For Clay: I’ll put on my business coaching glasses for a second. I see a lot of people that are not happy with the way their life is going, but they’re not sure how to get to where they want to go because they haven’t taken the time needed to define their goals for their faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, and fun. Their goals to their faith, family finance, fitness, friendship, and fun. While for Robert, obviously, the people that need me are people that, about half of Americans, are not seeing the way they want to see whether it’s up close or from the distance.
• 04:01 – Common mistakes people make when trying to solve that problem: As it relates to business, people are watching Tai Lopez videos, trying to get rich quick, and not implementing proven best practice systems. It takes longer to get rich quick.
• 06:13 – Clay and Robert’s Valuable Free Action(VFA): Go to thrivetimeshow.com
• 06:54 – Clay and Robert’s Valuable Free Resource(VFR): thrive15.com
• 07:49 – Q: “What trade-offs do I make on a daily basis to live the life I live?” A: I wake up at 3 AM and I do things I don’t want to do, but I have to do. And then I hire people to do the things I don’t want to do that I can afford to have them do. I don’t say you should wake up at 3 am, I’m just saying that’s what I needed to do to record 1800 podcasts while being happily married to five. I mean, being married to one woman and having five kids.- Clay
• 08:13 – Q: “How do I know I’m working too much in the business?” A: Well, there’s no work-life balance. I’ll tell you what, when your pendulum swings too far over here, your spouse, your significant other will say, “Honey, get your butt home.” And when they do that, you need to get your butt home, okay? And when your kids say, “Dad, you remember me”, that means you need to spend a little quality time with the family.- Robert

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“I hire people to do the things I don't want to do that I can afford to have them do.” -@TheClayClark Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 0:09
Tom Poland 0:09
Greetings everyone. This is Tom Poland with another edition of Marketing The Invisible. Joined today by Clay Clark and Dr. Robert Zoellner. Guys, good day, and welcome, and where you guys hanging out?

Clay Clark: 0:20
In the man cave here at Camp Clark in the chicken palace in beautiful Tulsa, Oklahoma, while surrounded with thousands of trees and the lampoon lagoon with a man cave waterfall.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 0:29
And good day. Good day, good day.

Tom Poland: 0:32
Good day.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 0:33
Good day. Am I saying that right, good day?

Tom Poland: 0:35
It’s a bit more British. Down here we sort of, we did have a G-I-D-D-A, good day.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 0:40
Good day.

Tom Poland: 0:41
And if you really want to be an Aucker, you can go, “Good day mate.”

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 0:44
Good day mate, wow.

Tom Poland: 0:45
Yeah. Or good day mate is probably a bit more Australian. So enough of the elocution lessons, for those of you don’t know, you’ve been living in a clave, cave somewhere, I going to say clay. That’s a Clay and Clark, and cave. Clay is a former U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 1:07
Wow.

Tom Poland: 1:08
Yeah, that is a wow. Founder of six multi-million dollar companies, Forbes Contributor, author of 13 books, hosts of six-times iTunes chart-topping podcast. Oh, my goodness, that is impressive. Dr. Robert, not to be left behind, get this, owns a bank and started eight multi-million dollar companies and describes himself, quite rightly I believe, as happily as an entrepreneur trapped in an optometrist body. Guys, our subject today is, “Practical Steps to Growing Your Business”, in just seven minutes. We’re going to squeeze every drop of wisdom out of your collective brains. And our time is going to start now. Question number one is, who’s your ideal client?

Clay Clark: 1:53
People needing real estate, photography, haircuts, glasses, carpet cleaning, dog training, banking, used cars, marketing, business conferences, and best practice business books. But I would say, specifically, people needing help growing their business.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 2:06
In my business, I target soccer moms. My answer is a little quicker.

Tom Poland: 2:11
So, it’s good to hear you guys have niched. So, what’s the problem you solve? That’s question number two, six and a half minutes left. What’s the problem you solve?

Clay Clark: 2:18
What we want to do is find a problem that our ideal and likely buyers have. We want to solve it the way they want it, not the way we want to solve it, but the way they want to solve it. So, they will pay us, come back, and bring friends. Dr. Z, back to you.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 2:30
Well, my core business with eye care, I want to help people see. So, when people aren’t seeing clearly, they come to me.

Tom Poland: 2:36
Perfect. So this could get interesting because you are multi-talented and you can boutique and customize a solution, but question number three, six minutes left, how would you describe the typical symptoms that your, is there a normal client, if there was one, what are they going to be lying awake at night worrying about? What are some of the symptoms they’re experiencing?

Clay Clark: 2:56
I’ll put on my business coaching glasses for a second. I see a lot of people that are not happy with the way their life is going, but they’re not sure how to get to where they want to go because they haven’t taken the time needed to define their goals for their faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, and fun. Their goals to their faith, family finance, fitness, friendship, and fun. And because nine out of 10 businesses in America fail, they’re getting advice from most people, and most people are wrong. So, what we do is teach proven best practice systems that have been proven to work. And we say, you might not like it, but there’s a scoreboard and it works. So that’s what we do. That’s people that need help growing a business.

Tom Poland: 3:06
Nice one.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 3:32
I would dovetail on that and my core business, I mean, obviously, the people that need me are people that, about half of Americans, are not seeing the way they want to see whether it’s up close or from the distance. And so, therefore, they come and see their friendly optometrist, and we’re here to help them.

Clay Clark: 3:44
And he messes up my wife’s prescription on purpose so she can’t see me which is why we stay married.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 3:48
And you’re welcome.

Clay Clark: 3:49
Thank you.

Tom Poland: 3:52
Alright. So just out of five minutes left. Question number four, what are some of the common mistakes that people make trying to solve their problem before they find out about you guys?

Clay Clark: 4:01
As it relates to business, people are watching Tai Lopez videos, trying to get rich quick, and not implementing proven best practice systems. It takes longer to get rich quick. Z.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 4:11
Well think about it is the secret formula is there’s no secret formula. It’s all hard work and there’s a proven method. We layout in our thrive nation package of helping people grow their business because that’s where our heart is. And so, what we do is we find the people that are coachable, that is open to input into their lives. They either learn by mentors or mistakes. And you can only make so many mistakes and then you go, belly up. So, mentorship is really the way you should be going. And not just any mentorship, but people that have actually been there, done that, and are willing to share it with you.

Clay Clark: 4:42
There you go.

Tom Poland: 4:42
Perfect. Thank you. Four minutes left. Question number four, what are some of the common mistakes people make trying to solve their problem before they find you guys?

Clay Clark: 4:49
Well, Thomas Edison once said that vision without execution is a hallucination. Vision without execution is a hallucination. So, if you go to a Tony Robbins conference, he does a great job serving as a catalyst to get you inspired and motivated. But now you have to learn the practical steps, you have to take practical best practice steps that work. So, as an example, if someone went to thrivetimeshow.com right now, you could download my free book, Search Engine Domination, you can learn specifically how to get to the top of Google. But just buying the book will not help you. You have to buy the book and implement what it teaches. Dr. Z, back to you.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 5:18
And the other thing, the first step is understanding what is Google and why do you need to be at the top. And what is SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and why it matters in your business? So, a lot of times people don’t know what they don’t know. And so, some of it is just that “Aha” moment. You see the light bulb come off, “Oh”, angels, the clouds open and then doves fly down. It’s very dramatic when it happens. When someone goes, “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize I didn’t know that, and I need to know that.” So now, “Where do I go to find that?” And that’s part of the process is, first of all, figuring out what it is you need to know. And then where do you go to get that information. And then implementing and doing that information.

Tom Poland: 5:56
And that’s where the mentoring comes in.

Clay Clark: 5:58
Yep.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 5:59
Bingo.

Tom Poland: 6:00
Absolutely. Thank you. So, two and a half minutes left. Question number five is, what’s one valuable free action that an audience member could take, that’s going to take them a step closer to solving their problem? Not going to solve the whole thing, but just going to take one step in the right direction.

Clay Clark: 6:13
Well, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com, our podcast, we’ve hit number one on iTunes, six times, in there you will find interviews, where I get into the messy middle of the specific things that Wolfgang Puck, that the founder of Ritz Carlton, that the head of Adobe, that John Maxwell does on a daily basis, that it will allow them to go from where they…

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 6:31
The head of NASA has been there.

Clay Clark: 6:32
The head of NASA has been on the show, I mean, and it’s free. Thrivetimeshow.com. Spotify, iTunes, anywhere you can stream podcasts. Z.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 6:39
Yeah. I would reiterate the same thing and that is to understand that we are here as a source for you. We’ve got a lot of free stuff on our website and applicable that you can get on. And the other thing too, we have thrive15.com, you can go in and check out there’s a platform you can look on and then you can search within that your particular problem and we can help you. We’ve got a lot of great guys we’ve interviewed and we have them in little bite-size. They’re twice as long as seven minutes, they’re 15 minutes long. They’re bite-size areas that you can study and learn. And then you can also come into one of our in-person workshops. We have people, we had someone from New Zealand yet?

Clay Clark: 7:13
We’ve had from Australia, from Guam, from Canada.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 7:16
Maybe we can get someone from New Zealand.

Tom Poland: 7:21
Sounds good. So, we’ve got thrivetimeshow.com and also check out thrive one five, thrive15.com. Valuable resources there. Just over a minute left and we’ve got, well, we’ve given you the answer to question number six which is one valuable free resource. We’ve given you two. So, let’s get further to number seven, question seven. Final question, 50 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you, but I did not ask you?

Clay Clark: 7:43
What trade-offs do I make on a daily basis to live the life I live?

Tom Poland: 7:47
Great question. What’s the answer?

Clay Clark: 7:49
I wake up at three and I do things I don’t want to do, but I have to do. And then I hire people to do the things I don’t want to do that I can afford to have them do. I don’t say you should wake up at 3 am, I’m just saying that’s what I needed to do to record 1800 podcasts while being happily married to five. I mean, being married to one woman and having five kids. Z, back to you.

Tom Poland: 8:10
I had a wife like that once too.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 8:13
You know what, I would say the question you didn’t ask is probably the question I get asked the most and that is, how do I know I’m working too much in the business? How do I know that I’m spending all my time in the business and not in my family or my personal life over here?

Tom Poland: 8:24
And your very, very quick answer is?

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 8:27
Well, there’s no work-life balance. I’ll tell you what, when your pendulum swings too far over here, your spouse, your significant other will say, “Honey, get your butt home.” And when they do that, you need to get your butt home, okay? And when your kids say, “Dad, you remember me”, that means you need to spend a little quality time with the family.

Tom Poland: 8:41
Perfect. Guys, thanks so much for your time. Cheers.

Clay Clark: 8:44
Appreciate it.

Dr. Robert Zoellner: 8:44
You bet.

Tom Poland: 7:49
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.