How to Create a Time and Financial Freedom Creating Business NOW with Clay Clark: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01John Lee Dumas:Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by high level the all in one sales and marketing platform on today's classic episode we'll be breaking down how to create a time and financial freedom creating business now to drop these value bombs I brought Clay Clark and the EO fire studios and Clay is the former SBA entrepreneur of the year author and business growth coach and he is also joined by Ryan Wells of flow photography and he's also joined by Ryan Wells of flow photography and he's also joined by Ryan Wells of the year. to share their success story.

0:32John Lee Dumas:And today we talk about how the purpose of a business is to create time and financial freedom to pursue your calling, how to nail it, then scale it, build systems first to make growth easier and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring our episode goes to Clay and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you get a 30-day free trial, Plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more.

1:04John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com. Highlevelfire.com. Clay, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Well, one, hello, Fire Nation, EO Fire Nation. I will say I'm excited to be here with you. Thank you for lowering your standards by allowing me to interrupt your day here. One thing that I believe that most people don't believe is that success is easy to achieve if you just have a proven plan. Fire Nation, you've been hearing Clay for years and years and years on this show now. So when this man speaks, please listen, because today we're talking about how to practically build a turnkey business model to help you earn both time and financial freedom.

1:51John Lee Dumas:And I know that you want both of those things, Fire Nation. So let's just dive right in. And I know you have a guest today that we'll be introducing pretty soon here, Clay. But I want to talk about building turnkey marketing systems. Break that down for us. Well, if you have a business, let's say that you – I'm just going to give some examples. But if you go to Thrivetimeshow.com, Thrivetimeshow.com, and you click on the testimonials button there, I'm just going to reference some people you can easily see, some low-hanging fruit. If you train dogs, one of my clients is called Tip Top Canine. If you are a physical therapist, Body Central.

2:26If you're a harbor, it's Keystone Harbor. They do boats. Complete carpet. If you're into the snorkeling business, if you're into the home building business, if you're into the landscaping business, you're into pest control, you're into fitness, or you're into interior design, or selling cookies, or mufflers, any business, you have to have a turnkey way to generate customers. So step number one is you want to make a list of your ideal and likely buyers. You have to ask yourself, who on the planet actually wants to buy from you? Who actually wants to buy from you? This show right here, only people that care about achieving time, freedom, and financial freedom would listen to a show about entrepreneurship.

3:05But at this very second, there's other great podcasts going on right now that talk about the origins of black holes and people's theory on the theories of relativity. And so this would – if I hopped on a show about black holes, it would probably be a bad show to talk about entrepreneurship success tips. So you want to figure out who are your ideal and likely buyers. That's step one. Step two is you want to ask yourself, what is the most effective, what are the most effective three ways to reach your ideal and likely buyers? What are the most three effective ways to reach your ideal and likely buyers?

3:36John Lee Dumas:So at this point, I think we need to bring in Ryan Hutchins. He's been patiently waiting by a microphone and he has a business called Peak Business Valuation. And he's actually been an entrepreneur, a fire listener for seven years now. And fortunately for him, he listened to a Clay Clark episode back in either 2019 or 2020 and decided to say, hey, I want to experience a little bit more with Clay Clark. And in 2020, signed up with the Clay Clark here. And now he's seen a 238 % growth in his business. So Fire Nation, today you'll be hearing from Ryan, a Fire Nation listener for seven years, who a couple years ago listened to Clay Clark, took action, and has a 238 % growth in his business.

4:24John Lee Dumas:So Clay, you take the ship here, how you want to weave in Ryan with these different things, and then we'll keep on going. Well, Ryan, you know, his company, PeteBusinessValuation.com, is a business that helps business owners determine their value, what's your business worth, and that way if you want to sell your business, or merge or be acquired or whatever your situation is, you have a better understanding of where you're at. And Ryan does that very successfully, but he just needed to know how to scale his company. And so, Ryan, you were listening to the show. At what point did you decide, okay, I'm going to go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOfire.

4:56I'm going to actually go there right now, thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOfire. I'm actually going to fill out a form, and I'm actually going to schedule an appointment. What point did you decide to move from just listening to a conversation to actual activation? I probably looked at and really listened to the podcast about two to three times before I actually decided to make a decision. Yeah. And once I believed that someone could actually help me get to that spot, I'm like, I got to make a call. It won't hurt. Did you watch a lot of testimonials before filling out the form? I watched about two pages worth of testimonials.

5:30Now, JLD and the Fire Nation, I've got a little over, I think, 2 ,000 video reviews now from former or current clients. Because I've been doing this. I'm 41. I've been self-employed since I was 16 years old, and I was the entrepreneur of the year for the state of Oklahoma when I was 27. And since that point, doctors, dentists, lawyers, they all reach out. And I only want to work with people like Ryan because I only take on 160 clients. And I'm looking for diligent doers who are ready to plow, not people who are debating the ethics of plowing or somebody who's concerned about their hands might get calloused while plowing.

6:00I'm looking for someone that actually wants to plow now. I just want to show them the proven plan. And so you filled out the form. And when you filled out the form, what happened next? I was reached out by one of your employees that asked certain questions, kind of gauged whether or not I'm the right fit. And then you and I jumped on a call, 30-point assessment, discussed kind of your written plan for the success of my business. And it must have been successful because I've got a client. How do you get leads now? How are you getting leads? How are people finding peak business valuation now where they weren't in the past?

6:37We primarily get leads through our website, through SEO search. Valuation is a black box to most people. And so we write hundreds of articles a month to basically drive people to our website, learn about valuation, and give us a call. So search engine optimization. Did we help you make a video for your website? Yes, you did. Did we help you build the website? Yes, you did. Did we help do the online ads? Yes, you did. Retargeting ads? Yes, you did. Sales scripting? Yep. But okay, so JLD, there's a lot of work that he had to do. But the first step was to listen to your show, which I encourage everybody, if you're not listening to EO Fire consistently, I really do mean this, you become the average of the five people that you spend the most time with.

7:18And if you want to reference Proverbs, Proverbs from the Bible actually says, for a companion of fools shall suffer harm. Okay? And it's walk with the wise, you'll become wise. it's very important that you don't surround yourself with people that are not successful. That can't be your number one input. The problem is, according to Inc. Magazine, 96 % of business owners fail. 96 % of business owners fail within 10 years, according to Inc. Magazine. So if you think about that, that means if you were to go into a room, JLD, at a local networking event, and you were to ask 1 ,000 people, say you went into a room with, let's say 100 people, and you said, I'm looking for advice from a successful entrepreneur.

7:57Do we have any successful entrepreneurs here? The statistical probability, if you ran into a room of entrepreneurs, of finding an entrepreneur who's been successful for over a decade would be 4%. Now, given that only 10 % of the American population approximately ever becomes self-employed, we're talking about 4 % of 10%. Now, if someone can do the math, you can reach out to his business valuation company. He has a company with people filled with calculators all over their desks. they can help you with this. All I'm saying is you don't want to get bad advice. And that's why when you listen to this show and you see the people that JLD has interviewed over the years, what's happening is, and again, sometimes people want to listen to the newest show, but JLD, you've been doing this for years and you had Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes, so many big time people who listen to or are on your show consistently.

8:43It is so important, folks, that you escape from the norm and you reconform your brain to proven systems that work. So I encourage everybody, action item, listen to EO Fire at least once a week, do it.

8:56John Lee Dumas:I love that. And one thing I do want to clarify with Clay sharing all this stuff is, I do get Fire Nation coming to me all the time. That's you, my listeners right now. And they say, John, I'm willing to do the work. I'm willing to plow. I'm willing to get my hands calloused, but I don't know the next step. I don't know what that next step in the process is. Just point me in the right direction. That's what Clay does. He gives you the steps. He tells you what to do. You execute on proven systems and then you win. What did Ryan Hutchins, a seven-year EO Fire listener do? He took action and he did the work.

9:30John Lee Dumas:He followed the systems, 238 % growth. Now, what did Hion Rutchins do? Listened to the episode and did nothing. And that person is still doing nothing and they're still in that category of unsuccessful entrepreneur. So what do you want to talk about next? We got turnkey sales systems. We got turnkey hiring, recruiting systems. You take it, Clay. Well, the next we want to do is once you have a marketing system, again, I want to be very clear on the details of this. You define your ideal and likely buyers, and I will just sketch out some more details. I know we have a lot of note takers that listen to this show.

10:00Once you define your ideal and likely buyers, you have to ask yourself, how are you going to reach out to these people? So let's just say that you wrote down, okay, my website. Let's say you wrote out online ads, and let's say you wrote down maybe billboards or social media ads, if you said social media ads, you're going to need to implement best practice systems. You don't want to hack away and say, well, this might work. I think this might work. Again, you can work through guesswork, or you can implement proven systems. And I recommend you go with proven systems, otherwise you're running through the landmine of life.

10:36Now, Ryan, with your company, Peak Business Valuation, what are the primary three ways, again, you generate leads right now? primary way is through seo with websites so if you look up how to value an hvac company we should show up number one number two on google um that is the primary we primarily get 90 of our leads through seo we also have google ads and ad roll which is a retargeting um service and otherwise we we produce youtube videos and produce a lot of youtube videos because ultimately people like watching. Okay, folks. So again, now we've kind of figured out the marketing game. We have to move into sales.

11:16Now, sales is where you actually have to sell something to a human on the planet. You have to actually solve a problem for another person in exchange for a profit. And this part can be tough because it's like, well, what words do I say? What do I do? How do I say it? Well, Michael Levine, who couldn't be here today, but he's the PR consultant of choice for Nike, Pizza Hut, Michael Jackson, Prince back in the day. He's a friend of mine. His name is Michael Levine. He actually wrote this years ago in a book called PR 2.0. He says, if you give someone a present and you give it to them in a Tiffany box, it's likely that they'll believe that the gift has a higher perceived value.

11:52If you give it to them in a box or – think about this. He says, if you give someone a present and you give it to them in a Tiffany box, it's likely that they'll believe that the gift has a higher perceived value. you than if you gave it to them in no box or a box of less prestige. That's not because the receiver of the gift is a fool, but instead because we live in a culture in which we gift wrap everything, politicians, corporate heads, TV stars, movie stars, even our toilet paper. So your branding has to be top notch. And that means your website, your logo, your print pieces, everything people see.

12:24But then when you answer the phone, you have to have a proven system. How has scripting, Ryan, helped you guys at peakbusinessvaluation.com? Uh, scripting has truly helped my team understand what is the meat and potatoes of a conversation going from rapport to the needs to kind of closing and kind of addressing any kind of hesitancy to working with us. Cause it's, it's, if you make it simple, anyone can do it. And I'll quote Michael Gerber, a friend of mine, who's also the author of the book called the E-Myth. A lot of entrepreneurs have read his books and quoted him and JLD. One thing I like to do, and I know you do as well.

12:59I like to meet the authors. That's one of my favorite things is to go read a book and go, ha ha, I'm going to find you. So I found myself at Trump International Hotel in Chicago in a hotel suite talking to Michael Gerber, the great bearded one. And I said, Michael Gerber, baby, I remember reading your book back in 2005, building my company, djconnection.com, which I no longer own. And I use those skills. And you wrote in your book, E-Myth, it says, if your business depends on you, you don't own a business, you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic.

13:34And I thought to myself, man, I need systems. So we've helped Ryan with all the scripts, the systems, the pre-written emails, the turnkey processes. Now, step three, once you have those processes, turns out you need great people willing to follow those great systems. So an example of this would be Jack Welch. He wrote a book called straight from the gut, or the summary of the book, if you had to summarize the book called Winning, is the team with the best players wins. And so if you have a team of A players, they will run circles around a team of C players. And so what you have to do is learn how to hire people.

14:10Ryan, how have we helped you learn how to hire people at scale? Because again, all the systems in the world are great, but if you don't have teamwork, you just cannot make the dream work. Correct. The primary way is through a system called a group interview. ultimately having a job ad on a deed or LinkedIn and basically inviting everyone that applies to that group interview to essentially assess whether or not they are a good fit for the company. And so it saves us time because we do not have to go through resumes. We essentially just get to see them in person and basically look at their characteristics and the way they present themselves and see if they're a fit for what we're looking for.

14:50One thing I'll say this, JLD, we're old enough now to remember the 80s. I remember the 80s. Jeans jackets, Back to the Future. We remember all that Star Wars. We remember all that. We're old enough to remember that. But listen to this. I've been doing consulting. People started reaching out to me before I knew what consulting was in 2002 because my businesses were booming. And people would call me, knock on my door. Sir, can I pick your brain? I didn't know what that was. My wife, we've been married 21 years now. We have five kids. My wife says to me, We've been married about four years. She says, perhaps you should charge for this service.

15:26And I'm going, no, I'm not going to charge for my service. I'll just help these young whippersnappers. Well, pretty soon, I'm not kidding. I'm helping like hundreds of people per year at a low, low price of$3.99. I'm speaking at events all over the country, speaking in Vegas, speaking for Maytag, speaking for Hewlett Packard, speaking, speaking, speaking. And people all say, I can't find good people. That was in 2002, 2003. People say, well, things have changed now. Millennials, you can't teach. Listen, folks, people have been saying they can't find good people since at least 2002 that I'm aware of.

15:56And it increases over time. But I'm telling you, I have some of the best employees on the planet, some of the best people in the world work in my businesses, and I'm honored to call them friends, coworkers. We have an awesome team. But you know how we have an awesome team? We have a proven plan that takes hours to break down all the details of it. But if you're having a hard time finding people, that's not a problem I have anymore. Is that a problem you have anymore, Ryan? Nope, not anymore. They do not, that's just it. They do not have a problem hiring people at peakbusinessvaluations.com.

16:25John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, I know your pulse is racing and you can't wait for the next thing Clay's about to say, but we're going to take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Fire Nation, I already know two things about you. You take action and you're always looking to learn and grow. That's why I'm excited to share a source of inspiration. I think you're going to love Blinkist. Blinkist is an app that takes the world's best nonfiction books and breaks them down into 50-minute reads or listens. So whether you're commuting, working out, or in between calls, Blinkist delivers insights you can apply immediately without the week it takes to read a full book.

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17:39John Lee Dumas:That is where High Level comes in. High Level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together seamlessly. Plus, award-winning 24-7 support so you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at highlevelfire.com, you unlock my full bonus stack. A 30-day free trial of High Level with full access, a private 50-minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more.

18:20John Lee Dumas:Stop piecing tools together. Start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. All right, Clay, we are back. Let's move on to the next step. The next step you have to do is you have to learn how to manage people. Now, Brian Tracy, the best-selling author, who I've never met. I never met Brian Tracy. I wanted to. His standards were too high. A lot of rejection there. I never met him. It's kind of a difficult subject to even talk about at times. But I reached out to Brian. He never called me back. But I did read his book, and he said this. And I believe he said it to me via the form of his book.

18:54He says, no one lives long enough, Clay, to learn everything they need to know, starting from scratch, Clay. I always just picture him saying that. To be successful, Clay, we absolutely positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals, Clay. I'm going, okay, Brian, fine. It's a one-sided conversation. But the point is you've got to learn the proven systems and how to manage people. And managing people can be difficult. Now, you're here shadowing today, Ryan. You flew in from Utah to shadow. What time did you start shadowing today?

19:30I started shadowing you before 6 o 'clock this morning. And what have I been doing all day? You've been on the phone talking with people 24-7. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm not going to take this show to a political way. I'm not going political. I'm just going to share this. Today, I was on the phone with Eric Trump. I've been on the phone with Mike Lindell, a lot of entrepreneurs. I'm on the phone with these people. And I'm on the phone. And I'm on the phone with these people. I have to have a plan of what am I going to say? What am I going to do? You have to organize your day. So you have to learn how to manage yourself and manage a team.

20:03because nobody wants to work for somebody who doesn't have a plan. And so today, have you seen me spending any of my day gossiping or pontificating about random things that may occur? No. What have I been doing the whole day? You've been going through your printed out checklist of what you scheduled this morning, and you've been calling people and multitasking. And this is one thing I love about JLD. I heard about JLD because a guy named Dave who worked in my office is, Clay, you've got to meet JLD. and I'm going it's like T.I. J.L.D. Tupac it's not like a rap name is this a rapper he's like no no no this is a guy who has this podcast he puts them out every day and at the time nobody was going daily nobody I mean this was like cutting edge stuff J.L.D.

20:49you were one of the first to go daily people were like how's it possible how could he do it well J.L.D. I mean you had a plan correct

20:57John Lee Dumas:for organizing your day call it batching like a baller yeah Yeah, and this is so important. So if you're out there, you're a reader of the 4-Hour Workweek. You're a reader of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. We've interviewed the co-author of that book, Sharon Lecter, on our show. I've interviewed John Maxwell. I've interviewed – who else have we had? Damon John from FUBU recently. All these top successful entrepreneurs that you found on the EO Fire Show or on my podcast at ThriveTimeShow.com. Every single successful entrepreneur that I'm around, they have three things that the world doesn't have. It's like if the world were to find these things, it would change their lives.

21:34One, they have a to-do list in some shape or form. Two, they have a calendar that they have control over. Someone should underline that. They have a calendar that they have control over. They determine their destiny. And the third thing they have, it's amazing, they have a vision, either a vision board or a vision somewhere that they keep. Because I remember, JLD, you were talking about moving to Puerto Rico to reduce your tax liability and to maybe increase your quality of life. And at the time, people were like, I don't know if he's going to do it. Sounds crazy. But you did it. And you didn't just drift to Puerto Rico.

22:10You made a plan. And I think that's so important. We have a to-do list, a calendar, and a vision.

22:15John Lee Dumas:I love all of that. I'm a big believer in the phrase, win tomorrow, today. So I don't wake up in the morning and say, what's my plan for the day? my plan for the day has already been created the day before and it's all down to discipline and I am a disciple to a plan of action every single day and I make that happen and for years people have been saying John how do you do a daily podcast I mean you must have time for nothing else I say not only do I do a daily podcast I do a daily podcast four days a month I only work four days a month doing the podcast interviews. I'm doing seven interviews today.