A Turn-Key Plan to Grow Your Business 7X Faster So You Can Achieve Time Freedom & Buy Lamborghinis with Clay Clark & Steve Currington

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Creator Science. Today, we'll be breaking down a turnkey plan to grow your business seven times faster so you can achieve time freedom and buy Lamborghinis. To draw these value bombs, I are brought to Clay Clark and Steve Currington into EO Fire Studios. Clay is the former US SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, founder of six multi-million dollar companies, Forbes contributor, author of 13 books, and host of the six-time iTunes chart-topping podcast.

0:42Steve is one of the top producing mortgage lenders in America and has been a Clay Clark business growth coaching client for over eight years. He is the VP producing branch manager for crosscountrymortgage.com and the founder of stevecurrington.com. And today, Fire Nation, we're going to talk about the power of turnkey marketing systems. We'll talk about the power of turnkey sales systems. We'll talk about the power of turnkey workflows and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Clay and our sponsors. As business owners, it's part of our job to stay ahead of the curve.

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1:59These tools run on OpenAI's GPT model, and both are designed to help you get more done all while growing a better business faster. Find out more about how to use AI to grow your business at hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence. Many EO Fire listeners have launched non-food franchises, and Franbridge Consulting has guided them. Franbridge's founder and frequent EO Fire guest, John Ostenson, has done more placements than any other in the country, and his service is free. Sign up for a consultation with John or get a copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising, at FranBridgeConsulting.com. Wow, Fire Nation, as mentioned in the intro, we have a banger for you today.

2:42A turnkey plan to grow your business seven times faster so you can achieve time freedom and buy Lamborghinis. But first off, Clay, to those who are new to Entrepreneurs on Fire, who are you and what the heck do you do? I am an entrepreneur. I live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have five incredible kids, about 40 chickens right now. I have a growing 40-acre estate, multiple homes. But at the end of the day, what I do is I grow successful businesses. So I grew up very poor, and at the age of 15, it occurred to me, I don't want to be poor anymore. And so I started a company called DJConnection.com, which went on to become one of America's largest entertainment companies out of my parents' basement.

3:25And I grew that company. I worked at Applebee's, Target, and DirecTV to fund the business. When I was 20 years old, I was named as Tulsa, Oklahoma's Young Entrepreneur of the Year. At the age of 27, I was the SBA, or the Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. And now today, I work with 160 clients. I charge those clients$1 ,700 per month on a month-to-month basis to help them grow their company. And with most of my clients, I get a small percentage of the growth. And so as of last check, our clients last year did$2.3 billion of revenue, and our average client doubled the size of their company within 12 months.

4:02And you can see all the documented case studies at thrivetimeshow.com. And because I do document everything, I'm very fastidious about that. You can see over 2 ,000 case studies recorded on video. You can see the actual entrepreneurs at thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOfire. They're real people who are having real success as a result of learning their real systems that really do work. Best$1 ,700 you could spend in a month, Fire Nation. It is unbelievable what Clay's been able to do for his clients. This is his ninth time on Entrepreneurs on Fire. So that's showing you the reason and the results why we keep bringing him back on to the show to rock the microphone.

4:43I've been to his 40-acre estate. I can vouch. The office is amazing. The house is amazing. The chickens are amazing. Everything is fantastic. I hope you join Clay at one of his future events because they are events where you leave saying, I am ready to be on fire. And I want to make the most of our time together here. So let's start by talking about the power of turnkey marketing systems. Go. One of the guests you're going to hear on today's show, his name is Steve Currington. And when I met Steve Currington, he was a mortgage professional, working very hard, making a lot of phone calls. If you're listening out there today and you're a dentist, you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, you have some kind of business, you're a plumber, you got to go out there and get customers.

5:24And Steve was getting customers by grinding, which there's nothing wrong with that. There's actually, it's very important to hustle. But what we did with him and what we do with all of our clients is we develop what's called a three-legged marketing stool or a proven system that can essentially work without you. And so for Steve's business, we focused on the three legs, the three legs to make the stable stool of search engine optimization domination. We want to be top of those Google search results. The second is we wanted to implement what's called a Dream 100 marketing system, the system created by Chet Holmes, the late, great business coach.

5:57Chet Holmes wrote a book called The Ultimate Sales Machine. It's called The Dream 100 System. And the third is we had to have online advertisements that produce leads. And so we don't have 450 different marketing strategies. We don't have 87 different theories. We have three moves that we currently use to generate leads that then flow into a funnel where they could be systemically followed up with. And so everybody out there, if you're listening today, you've got to have a turnkey way to reach your customers in a way that doesn't require you to do all of the work. You have to have a turnkey system that is scalable and repeatable.

6:30And remember this, folks, complexity fails and simplicity scales. You have to have a turnkey system if you're going to create time freedom and financial freedom in your life. And Fire Nation, I can just tell you, seeing Clay put this together during his live event was really cool to see. It was a wonder to behold. And you need to be listening and understanding how powerful this process is. Now, we just talked about the power of turnkey marketing systems. What about the power of turnkey sales systems? Well, okay. If somebody goes to stevecurrington.com, that's one of my clients. It's the mortgage professional, stevecurrington.com.

7:09If you go there to get a mortgage, he provides mortgages in all 50 states. And by the way, This just in, there are thousands of companies that do exactly what he does at stevecurrington.com. However, he has a system in place where you're going to get a text message that makes sense. You're going to get a quick follow-up call that makes sense. They don't work bankers' holidays, which makes sense. They have a call script. The calls are recorded for quality assurance. They have all these systems in place. Now, if you switch gears and you go to eitrlounge.com, this is a company that I own, Elephant in the Room.

7:38It's a men's haircut grooming lounge chain. We have five locations. If you go to that website, we're going to send you a text that makes sense. We're going to follow a script that makes sense. The calls are recorded for quality assurance, and we have a follow-up system that makes sense. Another example of a business that I am involved in, it's called pmhokc.com. And Fire Nation, look this up. This guy went from$600 ,000 a year of revenue. Check this out, folks. From$600 ,000 a year of revenue to$1.3 million a month of revenue. He's on pace to doing$22 million of sales this year, and instead of just a guy in a truck who answers the phone when people are reaching out to perfect their home, his company is called Perfect My Home, he now has a system in place where somebody who's not him calls the leads.

8:26somebody who's not him emails the leads and texts the leads the calls are recorded for quality assurance and pmhokc tiptop canine eitrlounge.com oxyfresh.com they all have scalable systems i'll just leave you with this final note if you go to oxyfresh.com i've been working with that brand for 14 years we just opened our 507th location of oxyfresh this guy went from a guy in a truck cleaning carpets to 500 plus franchise locations. And he's now America's highest rated and most reviewed service business. And if you don't believe me, just do a search on Google for carpet cleaning quotes. And the reason why I'm mentioning these companies is because these are actual clients.

9:09They're having actual success. And JLD, many of them have been listeners and are listeners to your show because they recognize that when they listen to your show, they thought to themselves, you know what? I can do this. I can actually implement this and turn my dreams into reality. The time will never be just right. To quote Napoleon Hill, I must act now. And these people went to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire. They filled out the form. They came to a workshop and now they're a documented success story. And JLD, when you came to Tulsa, you met a lot of these people. A lot of the people I just mentioned, you've met them in person.

9:46And because I only work with 160 clients, I know their names and I can back my claims. I love all of this. And I can tell you my only negative experience when I went to Tulsa was that I am so mad at myself for this. I just gotten a haircut before I went. And I was like, I got there. I'm like, I wanted to experience elephants in the room. I've heard you talk about it for years and years and years and how awesome it is. And I was like, I just want to go experience that. And literally, unless I was going to shave my head. I just wasn't able to do that. So next time I come out to Tulsa, I am going to come as a shaggy monster and I am going to experience Elephants in the Room, the best haircutting experience that I will ever experience.

10:24And it's going to be amazing. And I want to bring Steve in here because he's been waiting so kindly, so patiently standing by. And we are talking about the power of turnkey sales system. So Steve, what do you have to say about that? I can just tell you, I've watched Clay implemented across many different businesses and i've been a a big clay clark fan for a long time the builder that i work with and that clay works with shaw homes originally um i connected him to clay because of what clay had done for me my cpa who's now the largest privately held cpa in the country paul hood also a thrive client and also a clay client and you know clay does a really good job of you know clay is like a savant but in many different things and that's what the best way to describe finding somebody that can just not do a lot of talk, but do a lot of action.

11:13You know, there's not a lot of fluff and you may not like what Clay has to say, but every time he tells me to do something and then I don't do it for six months, I'm wishing that I would have started doing it. Let me jump in here for one quick question, because I would just love to know one thing, because there's a lot of things that you implemented that Clay told you to implement, but what's one thing that you implemented and you're like, oh my goodness, this made such a difference. Google reviews and putting a system in place to get reviews from every single customer that we close. And we're currently at 730 this morning.

11:48I think Google's taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 or 600 from us over the years because we plan on getting three and losing one. So, but we're now the highest and most reviewed lender within about 500 miles. And our closest competition has about half of the reviews that we have. Everything we do these days is based on reviews, Fire Nation. Think about it. Every time I'm in a city that I don't know, or even a city that I do know, I look up a restaurant and it's all about their reviews. I only actually sort by 4.5 and higher. That's it. And then there also has to be a high number of reviews to go along with that high ranking, or I'm not even going to see these restaurants.

12:23The same thing goes with Uber drivers, with Airbnb renters. I mean, everything that you're doing, and this is why this is such a good process. And we have so much more to talk about around the power of these turn key systems when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship. One of Scott's recent episodes was with none other than Jack Canfield, where they discuss adapting to life's twists and turns.

13:01Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. More and more entrepreneurs and investors are discovering the awesome franchise opportunities that exist outside of food. Franchising can simply be the better path and interest in franchising is at an all-time high. Lucky for you, John Ostenson, founder of Franbridge Consulting and a frequent EO Fire guest, is here to help you explore the premier franchise opportunities today. Today, John and his Franbridge consulting team are part of the largest brokerage in the U.S. and have vetted the market thoroughly. Franbridge is hands down the premier source for the best opportunities in the non-food franchise world.

13:37They represent every type of non-food franchise, from healthcare to dumpsters, youth sports to business services, specialized senior care to pet grooming to insulation and floor coatings. John has served as an Inc. 500 franchisor, a multi-brand franchisee, and he does more placements than any other in the country. sign up for a free consultation call with John today or get a free copy of his book, Non-Food Franchising at FranBridgeConsulting.com. That's FranBridgeConsulting.com. Clay, we're back and I want to talk about the power of turnkey workflows. Talk to us about that. If you're listening out there today, go to these websites and look at these systems.

14:17You know, so if the tip top canine dot com, that's a dog train franchise that I've helped to scale that I'm a I'm an equity partner with, you know, and I had a very good friend of mine. He didn't know that I owned tip top canine. He didn't know I was involved. He didn't know they started out as a client. I grew him into a very successful business. He didn't know that he just knew he found him top in Google. He lived in Texas. He fills out the form and somebody who wasn't me picked up the phone. somebody who wasn't me sent him an email somebody who wasn't me trained his dog and then he calls me and he goes bro are you involved in tip-top canine and i said oh yeah and he goes i knew it and i said how did you know he's like because of the workflow i got a text i got a call they did a great job they followed up for a google review they got a video review i knew it was you i knew bro it was you and so if you go to papa gallo's pizzeria down in florida satellite beach florida You're going to discover a turnkey workflow.

15:11What's a workflow? A workflow, picture in your mind what the perfect customer experience is like. So how will the customer first discover you? That's called marketing. Then when they find you, what will they find? That's called branding. By the way, if you go to thriftimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, we've thought about that. That's called branding, thriftimeshow.com forward slash EO fire. What will the customer experience? Then the next thing is when you reach out to them for the first time, when you have that magic moment. When you reach out to them and it's that first moment, what will you say?

15:42What words will you say? What is the call script like? What's the environment of the restaurant going to be like? When people go to stevecurrington.com and they request a mortgage, what's that first interaction going to be like? And then after that, it's how are you going to deliver the service in a way that's unique to your industry? So with Steve, I was talking to Steve. And I said, Steve, we can't be the lowest rate. We can't be – because the lending industry, you can't really compete on rate because everybody's about the same rate. But what you can do is you can be the guy that's available basically 24-7 and who doesn't work banking hours.

16:18And he and I remember talking with him about that. And he goes, well, that's what I do anyway. And I'm like, well, let's tell the world about it. But again, you have to create that unique experience. And then after you do a great job, you have to follow up for quality control to make sure that You're doing a good job, and then you have to have the courage to ask for an objective review after you've done a great job. Now, all of that doesn't work unless you have employees that are willing to come to work. And so most people tell me – I don't – Clay, they'll say, Clay, I really struggle to find good people.

16:45I can't find good people. I just feel like because I live in Texas, it's hard to find good people. I live in New York. It's hard to find good people. Oh, don't you know I live in Minnesota? It's hard to find good people up here in Minnesota. But what I found is all of our clients are all over the country. Very few of our clients are in Oklahoma. And what I found is that people put in a workflow process for hiring people. The process of hiring people is very easy as well. So true story. Last night, we had over 45 candidates applied for a single job position that I had open. And we filled a vacancy in less than 24 hours.

17:19And you have to be able to do that when you're in my case and you have hundreds of employees. You can't take a month to find a good person. And you can't take a month to onboard somebody. you have to have a turnkey hiring process. And then, by the way, once you hire people and you have all the systems, now you've got to make some money, and you have to have a turnkey workflow in place for accounting. And that's one great thing that Steve does with his mortgage company as well, is he gets you a great rate. All my friends and family use stevecurrington.com. They really do. But at the same time, he knows that he's making money, and that's how he drives a Lamborghini and then has another Lamborghini and has a plane.

17:52And then you have three Lamborghinis now, Steve? Maybe four. Three Lamborghinis and a plane. That's how you get three Lamborghinis in a plane. You have a good workflow. Well, listen, you brought Steve on for a reason, Clay. So I want to give you co-host duties right now. Let's weed this guy in here. Let me tell you something about Steve. And Steve has said this on his social media. So I don't think I'm putting Steve under the bus or anything. But Steve was a guy, Steve, what, seven years ago was the last time you had your first, when you had your last drink of alcohol. Is that correct? Yep. Seven years ago, two days ago.

18:23So he's been completely sober for seven years. Yep. And when I met Steve, Steve has an incredible work ethic, and he had just – I mean, literally, you became sober, I think, to kind of celebrate our first meeting. I think that was the – Well, it was within about six months of when I first started working with Clay. I quit drinking, yep. Yeah, and so Steve had a sober mind, but great work ethic, and he was just saying, what do I need to do to create success in my business? And so I want to walk you through some of the things we had to do, and we'll go back and forth kind of rapid fire. Steve, you got to do the group interview.

18:56Every single week you have to interview job candidates, even if you think you're fully staffed. Why? Well, a couple of reasons. One is that you don't want to be put in a position where a key employee quits without notice, and then you're left holding the bag because no employee is ever going to quit when it's coming up for you. They rarely give you the notice that's needed. And furthermore, if someone is quitting, you probably aren't going to keep them on for two weeks while they take your client base from you after they notify you that they're leaving. And the other thing is, is it sends a message to everyone else on the team that, Hey, we're always looking for top tier talent.

19:32So don't be a slacker because I got 10 candidates every Wednesday that are coming to our group interview. I don't know anybody now, but, uh, you jack around and you might be the one getting replaced. And so it brings up that level of work from those people because they know they, you know, sometimes employees get big heads and they think without me, this business couldn't run, you know, and you've got to have those resources there to be able to hire and to bring people on when you're not in a pinch. And then, Steve, every week you block out time. We talk about that. You have a great calendar where you block out time for certain revenue-producing activities.

20:07You have a great, you know, you have a calendar where you block things out, and you have a weekly meeting that we have together to make sure that all of the systems are being implemented. Could you maybe explain to the Fire Nation how important it is to have that weekly meeting and that calendar where you block out time for the revenue producing activities? One of my favorite books that I ever read, Dr. Green gave me, and it was his Get Rid of People book, but I actually read it, so he didn't get rid of me, was called The E-Myth Revisited. And in the E-Myth, it talks a lot about working in your business versus working on your business.

20:40And what I tell people is when I meet with Clay every Tuesday at 7 a.m. for one of my businesses and at 8 a.m. on Wednesdays, that's the time that we're working on the business. That's the time when we're saying, hey, look, I'm going to get out of the work shoes on actually originating home loans and doing what I need to do that. I'm going to get into working on the systems and the processes and the metrics of my business so that I can continue to improve it and make sure things aren't broken. And the next thing that he does, JLD, that I want to brag on Steve about is that Chet Holmes, may he rest in peace, the late great self-help author of, again, the book called The Ultimate Sales Machine.

21:14He once said, I'm quoting, he says, the missing ingredient for nearly all of the 1 ,000 plus clients that I've worked with directly to improve their business is pigheaded discipline and determination. We call that the PhD. And with Steve, it's on the agenda. You know, we got to every single week, we got to get objective Google reviews from our real customers every single week. Every week, we have to have online ads on, and we cannot turn them off. And every single week, you have to do the Dream 100, and every single week, you have to do your group interview. Now, that's only about four hours of work right there we just said, Steve, but keeping it all together and having the pig-headed determination to when you get off the phone with me to go into your office and actually implement the plan.

21:54Because if everybody out there, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO Fire, I schedule a free one-on-one consultation with anybody who I think is a good fit. And if you want to come to one of our workshops, when you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO Fire, you can name your price to attend. What does that mean? I tell people it's$250 to come to our conference or whatever you can afford, but I give you a turnkey business plan. And the reason why I only take on 160 clients and why I do it month to month, it's for my sanity because it makes me crazy if I'm meeting with somebody who wants to know what to do and they won't do it.

22:29I call these people an ask hole, an ask hole. They ask the question, but they don't actually implement. And Steve, you go home and you implement it, you knock it out and you go back to your beautiful wife and you have a great time together as a family. Being a successful business owner doesn't wreck your marriage. I mean, you're able to have a great marriage and a great business, but you implement it every single week. And I think that pigheaded discipline is something that you do well, Steve. Yeah, thank you. And the biggest thing that I can tell you in when you get those systems in place that you fight, and Clay and I just talked about this a couple weeks ago is boredom because then it's like well everything's running uh when my phone rings to answer it but i've got a whole system in place to like take care of the apps when they come in to do everything i've got my production manager my processor i've got everything rolling i've got all my relationships i've got everything going and then i'm like what am i going to do today so i'm always looking for things to keep me busy so that i don't get you know i was really good at drinking which is why i quit are you hearing this if anybody out there wants to support steve current if you want to donate to a man who has a multi-million dollar company to help him buy another lamborghini so we can fight boredom you can just go to steve currenton.com literally in our meetings he tells me he's like i'm i'm super bored now now what because i'm trying to find other things to do because i'm not saying i'm like the top mortgage originator in the world but you know i make really good money originating loans and i help a lot of people and i like the size that we are i like the production that we do i like the relationships that i have and so then it's just a matter of like, well, what's broken that I can fix in the business or what are we not executing on?

24:03And then what other businesses can I get into? And that's another thing Clay's been a great help in doing is finding businesses that service the mortgage industry and figuring out how to get into those businesses so that I can create more wealth and buy more Lamborghinis so that Clay can tell people that I have nine Lambos and an airplane. I think Fire Nation is sitting there and they're saying to themselves, I want to be whistling during the day, wondering what to do. You know, a lot of people are just working themselves to the bone, never having enough time every day, feeling they never can come up for air, feeling overwhelmed, feeling burned out.

24:35And then you have the other end of the spectrum. And this is what Steve's talking about. And why is Steve like this? Because of these turnkey processes we're talking about, Fire Nation. Implement them. Let them work for you. Clay, I'm going to hand the mic back over to you. Take us home, brother. how do you want to end this episode with a bang? Stephen Covey, the bestselling author, he said you have to start with the end in mind. And Steve, you had an end in mind? Yeah. Well, no, I was just going to say the other thing that's super motivating when you work with someone like Clay is I didn't go to college because I think it's a joke, but I don't dog anybody that did go to college.

25:12But there's a whole lot of professors that are teaching theoretical things that they haven't done. Okay. And what I like about Clay is he's a coach that you watch him doing it. Okay. Everything he's telling me to do that he's taught me to do, I'm watching him do it, except he's executing it at 10 times the level that I am and making me feel like a weak ass. And sorry, you have to bleep that out. But that's what Clay does is it's not some theoretical thing of something that should work. You're watching him do it in his business and you're watching him multiply it and duplicate it across multiple businesses.