How to TRIPLE the Size of Your Business Without Tripling the Amount of Work Required with Clay Clark & Attorney James J. DeCristofaro

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like I Digress. And today we'll be discovering the proven turnkey business growth systems Clay Clark helped James Cristofaro implement to achieve 125.65 % growth. And Clay is the former US SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, founder of six multimillion dollar companies, a Forbes contributor, author of 13 books, and the host of a six times iTunes chart topping podcast. And today, for our nation, we're talking about the power of turnkey marketing systems, turnkey sales systems, turnkey workflows, and so much more.

0:44And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Clay and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content, and more. Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts.

1:15NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, streamlining accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance, absolutely free at netsuite.com slash fire. That's netsuite.com slash fire. Fire Nation, I know that you are salivating at this title of this podcast about discovering the proven turnkey business growth systems that Clay Clark used to help James DeChristofaro implement to achieve 125.65 % growth. and listen, you know it's true because there's a 0.65 in there and we just can't make that stuff up in Fire Nation.

1:59We're gonna be talking about some powerful things today and Clay, you and I have talked about this in person. We've actually talked about this on past episodes, but there's some real specific things that we're gonna dive into when it comes down to the power and I'm talking the massive power and turnkey marketing systems, having them, implementing them, using them. Let's share why now. A lot of people are listening right now. You're a realtor, you're a doctor, you're a dentist, you're a lawyer, and you feel like your market's crowded, like it's saturated. You're always looking for a new niche. And at the end of the day, if you implement what we're going to teach you today, you can begin having success right now, regardless of what niche you're in, because today's guest is an attorney in New York who's now dominating in the city of New York in a very competitive market as an attorney.

2:50So I'm telling you folks, this is the show you need to listen to. And Fire Nation, I went to law school. And one of the reasons I dropped out of law school besides failing contracts, but besides that, the reason why I dropped out of law school is because I was like, it's so competitive. Like it's such a saturated market. Like I'm just going to come out and I'm just not going to be able to hack it in this world. But James, you have bucked the trend. You are in not only a crowded location, but a quote-unquote saturated market industry niche occupation, whoever you want to say it. How are turnkey marketing systems working for you?

3:26Oh, fantastically, JLD. And thank you so much for having me on the show. And another reason why you dropped out of law school is because you didn't know Clay Clark and these turnkey marketing systems. That's what I have to say. So there's a few different things that we're doing, right? Clay likes to create a three-legged marketing stool, but here I'm looking at my workflow. We have an eight-legged marketing stool and we call it the spider. So how are they working out there? You know what they're doing? I have to turn them off sometimes because I have too many leads. Now, can't you sell those leads to other lawyers?

3:59Does that work? It would work if I did that. And that's what Andrew, my coach, has been on me about. Interesting. I mean, see what happens when you have a gluttony of riches, Fire Nation. You just say, you know what? I'm just not going to accept money from these individuals because my marketing systems are working so well. And Clay, why are his turnkey marketing systems working so well? Well, if you're listening today, I want to make this very visual and very linear from left to right. Okay. So step one, James, you heard about me. How did you hear about what I do and the business consulting we do at thrivetimeshow.com?

4:33I heard about you through a friend because I was looking around for different things to do. One of them, I was watching and listening to Grant Cardone at the time, and my friend was a big fan of yours and said, hey, you've got to check this guy Clay Clark out, and I started listening to your podcast. So step one is James took action. I remember talking to you. You scheduled that 13-point assessment. It was a free assessment, and really it could be a massive waste of time for you, the listener, and it could be a massive waste of time for me as the consultant, but I do usually five to ten of these consultations a week, and when I'm talking to James, I'm going through this 13-point assessment, and I recognized he was diligent.

5:07So step number one, you got to take action. Step number two, you got to be diligent. What does that mean? You have to be willing to put in the consistent effort on a daily basis to make it happen. Now, step three, now we get very practical. You have to have an optimized website. And when I met with James, and correct me if I'm wrong, James, you had spent a lot of time and a lot of money making some really nice websites. There was multiple URLs and web addresses, and they had a little clever, pithy pitches, and they were things that actually made me laugh and that were compelling calls to action, but not a lot of leads.

5:39Is that correct? That's right. And so a lot of times we're kind of loyal to dysfunction or if you've spent a lot of time building a website that doesn't work, a lot of times you don't want to change it. So we had to build a search engine compliant website. So if you're out there today, you want to move that website onto a search engine compliant website. And if you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, you can see thousands of people that have done this, but we helped James make his website search engine compliant. Then step two, we had to optimize the website, which means JLD, we had to build the website.

6:11So the permalink, the title tags, the descriptions, keywords, every page was optimized properly. And then we had to begin the grind. So the next step was I had to tell James, I said, James, if we want to be top in Google, there are two things that you must do every day. One, we must have more content than any of your competitors, more original HTML content than any of your competitors. And two, you have to have more objective Google reviews than anybody else in your business. And I remember talking to James and James was like, I'm in New York. You know, there's, there's a lot of people in New York, but he didn't, uh, uh, push back.

6:47He just acknowledged, okay, this is a mountain we're going to climb and step-by-step day-by-day. We're not going to get rich quick, but we're going to get rich guaranteed over a period of time. We're not going to get rich in two months. We're not going to get rich in two minutes, but we're going to work on this daily. And how long have I worked with you now, James? I think we're about three and a half years. Three and a half years. And so now when you go to Google and you type in, what is it? New York business attorney, New York business attorney, James is now top of the search engine results.

7:17Why? Because there's so many other things that we taught him. I mean, it's a 13-point plan, so 5 % of it-ish is marketing, 7 % of it is marketing, not even 10 % of what we do is marketing. And there's a lot more to do after the marketing, but we had to generate those leads. And I just want to brag on three other people real quick here. Tip Top Canine, JLD, we've talked about them on your show before. They just opened up their 17th location now. Tip Top Canine, the dog training franchise. I've helped them to grow from one location to 17 locations. And then Oxifresh, OXIFresh.com, longtime client, I've helped them to grow.

7:52Now they have 515 Oxifresh locations. So most of my clients at JLD, they're not six-month clients or two-month clients. Our average client is with us for six years or longer. And one more example is shahomes.com, shahomes.com, one of Oklahoma's largest home builders. And again, the search engine optimization process is a process you have to start today. And in James' case, he had to gather those objective reviews, and he had to write that original search engine content. And I think at a certain point, James said, I'm going to focus on getting the reviews. Will you guys write the content? Did that happen, James?

8:28Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. So we write the content now for James there, JLD. Full disclosure. Fire Nation, I just got to say, I went ahead and I Googled, just like Clay said, and we have these four results that are on that map that everybody likes to go to. And we have a lawyer with 29 reviews, another lawyer with 251, pretty respectable, and then another one with 23. And then James comes in at 448. So he is almost double the second place law firm. And then he is like, you know, 20x the other two. So it just becomes like this no brainer of like, why would I not go with the highest reviewed lawyer that I see here with 448 five stars when I'm seeing a 4.5 stars, 29 reviews and another one with 23 reviews.

9:18It just doesn't make any sense. And guess what? Does it sound easy what Clay was talking about? No. And guess why that's good? Because your competitors are not going to do it. And if you have the systems, the processes, and the instructions, and the guidance from somebody like Clay, you will do it. You will do it, and you will win. So I want to now talk about turnkey sales systems. Because you have the marketing systems down, Pat. We've talked a lot about that. What is the deal with the sales systems? How do you get those processes dialed in? Well, I want to brag on James on this. We work together to write a sales script, and I want James to share that story.

9:59And then we work together to make a pre-written email, and we work together to write the pre-written. You have to write pre-written sales scripts, folks. If you're out there today, you have to write sales scripts. So when the emotion of the moment happens, you're ready to go. You have to have pre-written sales scripts that follow a system. And I've written books about this, but you have to follow the logic of you build rapport, needs, benefits, close. You build a rapport, find the needs, deliver the benefits, call to action. And so James, he did, to his credit, he recorded the calls. To James' credit, he was saying, let's go ahead, let's work on a script.

10:33And then James had this epiphany moment where he came into my office. He was physically – On a Saturday afternoon. On a Saturday afternoon. On a Saturday afternoon. Because I always work six days a week. He shows up. What happened, James? Well, I had lost two major sales that I should not have lost. And I was bummed, annoyed, whatever adjective you want to use after you lose sales like that. And these are big sales. The average ticket, it goes anywhere from$3 ,500 to$7 ,500. I think these two are a little bit larger. But in any event, I walk in, a little bummed out to Clay. Clay says, hey, do you have$10?

11:04I'm like, yeah, you forgot about this part. And I said, was he on$10 for it? So he sold me a book on the spot that he had written for$10. about the sales process. And then he writes this two-step sales process, hands it to me right in front of me, and we're working on it together. I said, I'm not reading that thing. That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. And just do it. That is part of the theme here too. Just do it, Clay tells you, and it'll happen. And here's how I know that. I, like I said, gave all of my faith with regard to business to Clay, the systems, all this stuff, and I am sitting there mumbling through this script.

11:43You're just mumbling. I'm just like - I remember that. You were not participating mentally. Cringing. You were cringing as you were reading it. I'm going to prove them wrong. This is terrible. I'm going to show them it doesn't work. And I made two sales back to back mumbling these words that they asked me. Come on. Fire Nation, pre-written scripts, pre-written emails, a pre-written sales process. You've heard it from the source itself. It works. It just flat out works. So stop losing sales. stop losing money. Stop having pride get in the way of what the reality is, is that you sitting down, having these pre-written scripts, emails, and sales processes, and following the system.

12:22And we have so much more on this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. If you're anything like me, then you're looking forward to a lot of outdoor time this summer. I'm talking about hitting the pool, going on epic hikes, and maybe even getting in a few pickleball matches. But in order to do all that, you and your team need to work smarter, not harder. That's why we're so excited about HubSpot's integrated AI tech. It's helping teams automate the more tedious parts of running a business. With AI-powered tools built into HubSpot CRM, you can do research, pull reports, and write copy in a flash.

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14:08Everything you need, all in one place. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist, designed to give you consistently excellent performance, absolutely free, at netsuite.com slash fire. That's netsuite.com slash fire to get your own KPI checklist. Netsuite.com slash fire. Clay, we're back. We've talked about marketing systems. We've talked about sales systems. I want to talk about workflows because you've built these to scale the delivery of the products and the services that your clients provide to such a great degree. Share that with Fire Nation now. Well, okay. This is a funny story about workflows and I'm going to try to be, JLD, I'm going to keep this private, kind of a secret between you and me and all your listeners and everyone they share it with.

14:53Just people on planet earth primarily. Okay. So my wife, the other day, she calls me and she's very excited about her purchase. She says, I just bought this thing. It's incredible. And my daughter and my son are laughing because they know the deal. Well, what happened is my wife was Google searching for a thing and she found the thing and it came up top in the search results and it had the most video reviews and the most Google reviews. And therefore my wife bought it, not knowing that that person is a client. Now, JLD, this is a true story. So my client comes in the next morning and he says to me, hey, I want you to know I saw a purchase come through and your wife was the buyer and we really screwed it up.

15:35I go, you screwed it up? And he's like, well, I mean, we focused on the marketing and the branding and the sales and all that. And the quality control loop because JLD, that's part of the system. You have to call your customers after you deliver the service to verify they're happy. And he said we were calling through to see if they're happy and she was not happy. Whoa. And I just want you to know, hopefully she doesn't know that I'm your client because it didn't go well. And I say all this to say that's how you learn though, don't you? You take action, right? You define what you think is going to work.

16:11Then you act. Then you measure and you refine. And in this person's particular business, he defined what he thought would work. He acted. But this is his first time JLD scaling it out. Now, to his credit, he had a quality control loop in place where they call the customer to get their feedback afterwards. And it was his first time scaling it beyond himself. And to his credit, he owned the fact that it wasn't done right. And to his credit, he made it right with her. But that's what happens. I mean that's the messy stuff, isn't it? That's the messy middle because you define what you think is going to work.

16:44So you optimize your website. You optimize your sales scripts. And in James' case, you did all that. then the phone starts to ring and you've got to offer expertise in high quality legal services. I mean, you have a licensed business model that you do. And so James's model has licensed the dentists I work with are licensed. A lot of the industries are licensed. I mean, you don't want to make someone's house wrong and it falls down. But as you scale and as you begin to make systems, the only way to know if the systems are ready to scale is to go out there and to sell something. You eventually have to sell something to somebody.

17:19If you don't sell, your business will go to hell. And then you have to have a quality control loop after the fact to call the customers to verify they're happy. And I think most people look at business growth as, oh, it's just marketing. Oh, it's just branding. But it doesn't take too many of those crash and burn customers before you're out of business. I have two questions about that. May I ask? Sure, yeah. Okay. Number one, are they still a client? And number two, is she still your wife? Yeah, my wife, I've been married 23 years. and the client, it just created this awkward tension because, you know, but we worked it out quickly.

17:50All I'm saying is I used to be a disc jockey, JLD, and I had a great part of my workflow. I had the marketing nailed down. I had the branding nailed down. I built America's largest DJ entertainment company called DJConnection.com. I don't own it anymore. I don't know if people know this. I used to DJ over 260 events every single year personally. And so we're DJing all these events. Well, you know, the first time I hired another guy who wasn't me to DJ, he wasn't that great. Why? Because my training systems were terrible. So if you put this in your mind, folks, kind of from left to right workflow, branding is important.

18:23Yes. Marketing is important. But that next step, you're going to have to learn how to hire people. You're going to have to hire people. You're going to have to train people. You're going to have to hire people. You have to inspire people, but you have to train and retain people. And then you have to have that quality control follow-up. And then you have to do accounting and you have to have all those systems. And so in the case of James, he's done a very good job of just not taking on clients if he knew he couldn't deliver for them. But JLD, I'm sure we've all seen this before. If you're listening out there and you're honest with yourself, I'm sure everybody out there, you thought you could take on that big client.

18:59You thought you could deliver that big order, and maybe you dropped the ball. That's why we're not just a marketing company at Thrivetimeshow.com. That's why when you go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO Fire, Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO Fire. When you go there and you look at the success stories and the testimonials, I would argue that 65 % of the testimonials that you will see will be clients talking about how the branding and marketing and hiring processes change their life. Then you'll see maybe a third or a fourth of the customers talking about the marketing services that we provide.

19:27So it's not just marketing. It's not just branding. It's all of it. It's an entire workflow. You have to deliver a workflow, create a workflow that systemically delivers success. Fire Nation, I know you're listening because you want success. And these processes we've been describing today will get you there. But at the end of the day, you still need to know your numbers. You still need to understand your key performance indicators. Clay, take us home with these two value bombs. Yeah, I would just say this, the key performance indicators, You have to know your key performance indicators. So if you – just as an example, James, many people are going to go to thelawyerjames.com as a result of this podcast, thelawyerjames.com.

20:08And a lot of my clients have used your services, and they're going to go there. But you're going to track, right, how many people went to thelawyerjames.com and maybe became clients as a result of this interview? Yeah, the leads that come in, we track those for sure. So you'll know that. Yeah. So you've got to measure what you treasure, folks. You can't just have this mindset that I'll throw some stuff out there and not track. So you've got to measure what you treasure. And then back to those key performance indicators. In James' case, every time you deliver a great service for a client, James, what are you doing?

20:37Get a review. Every single time. So step one, do a great job. Step two, get a Google review. And then you have to constantly write that content. And once you define your key performance indicators or those daily activities that you have to take on a daily basis, you will begin to have massive success. And so if you're out there today and you feel kind of stuck and you go, I don't know what to do. If you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, I got a couple of things for you. One, our workshops are$250 to attend our two day interactive business workshops. But if you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO fire, you can attend this upcoming workshop for only$50.

21:13Now, why would I do that? I would do that because I know it's going to change your life and I only take on 160 clients. Why would I do that? because I only want to work with great people like James that we can build that relationship that extends multiple years. So again, call to action here, folks. Go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EO Fire. Request a ticket for an in-person workshop or schedule a free 13-point assessment. And if you're looking for an attorney, I highly recommend you check out thelawyerjames.com. And I'm not saying that because I get a commission to say that. In fact, I can't get a commission to say that.

21:42And JLD, I've asked James if I can get a commission to say that, but he's told me I can't get a commission to say that. So I've tried. So I have tried to get a commission, but I don't get a commission to say that he really does a fine job at thelawyerjames.com. This is fantastic stuff, Fire Nation. I've been at these events in person. I've spoken to them. I've met the people who attend. You want this ticket. It'll be the best$50 that you spend on business knowledge in person this year, period. James, I want you to take this home for us. What is the one thing you really want Fire Nation to get from our conversation today?

22:17I don't know if I can limit it to one, but if I have to limit it to one, I would start with reading books that Clay recommends. The Midas Touch. The Midas Touch. The Midas Touch. And it's written by Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump together. And it's about their journey toward or through entrepreneurship and some pointers throughout the process. Well, I could say this. It's not a political show. I am friends with Eric Trump, and I can tell you the Trump family, whether you've liked their political views or not, if you stay at their hotels, they're always first class. And we've had Robert Kiyosaki on our podcast before, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and they know what they're talking about when it comes to business growth.

22:56And I agree with James. Again, you do become the average of those five people that you spend the most time with. And JLD, that's one of the big value things that you offer here at EO Fire. It's kind of a way for people to escape into like an entrepreneurial success closet or to escape into some sort of utopian entrepreneurship bubble where people can escape the jackassery that the world throws out there and they can escape all of the businesses that are bombing and they can learn proven success tips. And so I encourage people to keep listening to the EO Fire podcast. Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

23:29You've been hanging out with CC, JD, and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And I just want to say, Clay, James, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you both and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Michael for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs are great at three things, productivity, discipline, focus. That is why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can master these three things in 100 days. And we're talking step-by-step. Visit themasteryjournal.com.