How Clay Clark Helped Small Businesses Survive—and Thrive—During the Pandemic and Beyond

One of the gentlemen, his name is Bob Healy, came to our conference with a quasi-functional prototype. He had terminal cancer. And Bob came to me and said, help me. Entrepreneur Clay Clark has built several multi-million dollar businesses. Now, he helps budding entrepreneurs like Bob turbocharge their ideas with a 14-step plan. And grillblazer.com is now a massively successful company that's becoming a In this episode, we dive into how to rebuild American small businesses and industrial capacity. You never want to outsource your core competency. We have to import certain technology from countries that hate us to make military weapons to defend us. That doesn't even make sense. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Jekielek. Clay Clark, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders. Hey, thank you for being here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So this current administration is looking to revitalize the economy to push it to a next level. And for me, always small business has been a centerpiece of this. It's kind of, some people describe it as the engine of American innovation and growth and so forth. But during the COVID years, just we're emerging out of them as we speak, a lot of small business was frankly wiped out. And you're the guy who's actually helping people kind of build those small businesses. So tell me about what you do. Well, in America today, we have about approximately 330 million Americans that live here. And we have 9.2 million Americans that identify as being self-employed. And so what happens is somebody out there, a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, a plumber, somebody says, I want to start my own business. And when they do, they don't really know the proven processes to start and grow a company. And that's what I do. So I basically take somebody with a dream and I align them with my team and we help them scale something. If you sell something to humans on the planet earth in exchange for a profit, that's what we help people to scale. You've structured your business in such a way that it's actually, unless your client does well, it's impossible for you to do well. And I thought to myself, what a brilliant way, what an ethical way to set up a business because you kind of have no choice. Well, the word Shalom, which Pastor Jackson, I go to Sheridan Church and Pastor Jackson talks about that word from time to time, Shalom. But the Shalom is like a win-win. It's a win-win relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship. Napoleon Hill, the best selling author, Think and Grow Rich calls it the mutually beneficial relationship. And so what I do is when I coach a client or work with a client, I tell the client, hey, look, I'm going to help you grow your business for the smallest monthly fee possible. And I just want to get a small percentage of the growth because if I'm getting one percentage point of the growth, theoretically, you're making a hundred times more than I am. But if I can scale multiple companies, it turns out to be a great thing for me. So I've been doing the same thing for 20 years. And so what I'll do is I'll sit down with an electrician and the electrician will have a business that's stuck. It's not thriving. It's barely surviving. And they go, I don't know how to grow. I don't know if it's marketing. I don't know if it's human resources. I don't know if it's accounting. I don't know if it's pricing. I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's me. I don't know if it's the economy. How do I grow my company? And I sit down with them and I say, look, we're going to go through a 14-step plan to rejuvenate, to revive, to bring life into your business. And I'm going to get a small percentage of the growth. And you're going to be rich. And I'm going to be doing very well if this works. How do you actually figure out who you're going to work with? Because with your particular model, it's clear you can't. It's not that anybody who wants to work with you can because you have to make your decisions about who you think has potential because you're going to be on the hook for it. Well, when you got a chance to kind of shadow me a little bit off camera, you know, I do a lot of the video editing myself. I do a lot of the web development myself. I do a lot of the accounting myself. So I'm very much hands-on. And so I like to keep a group of around 160 clients I work with. And I do these free assessments. And the reason why I do a free 13-point assessment is I just want to see, are we going to have a shalom or a win-win relationship? Can I? And there's three things I'm looking for. Do you actually solve the problem? Or do you provide a product or a service that the marketplace would benefit from? So if somebody's selling something that I think is ethically a foul or against my Christian morals, I'm not going to work with them. So thing number one is, do you sell a product or service that I actually think is ethical, legal, that kind of thing? And you'd be surprised how many people are selling illegal things that won't help doing it. Step number two is, does the person actually identify with the worldviews that I have? If I'm going to sit there and debate about the Constitution or capitalism, that's probably not the thing. So one is, do we have a product or service that we can actually help you scale? Two is, is the person ideologically aligned with me? And then three is, is it realistic? We want to be able to set these SMART goals. I call them SMART goals. They're S-M-A-R-T. I'm quoting a Brian Tracy bestselling author. But a SMART goal is a specific goal. It's a measurable goal. It's something that's actionable. You can actually take action and do it. It's realistic and it's time-sensitive. S-M-A-R-T. Is it specific? Is it measurable? Is it actionable? Is it realistic? Is it time-sensitive? Because if I can help somebody grow a company and I can see a clear path to get there, it is exciting, Jan, when you know, wow, this person's business is struggling and I can help them scale. So I think about Papa Gallo's Pizzeria in Florida. We've helped this couple grow. They've opened three restaurants. So since I've started working with them, we've opened up restaurant two and three. They've grown their business fivefold. I think about Shawhomes.com from $14 million to $150 million. I think about companies like Oxifresh, where I've had a role in advising them. They're now up to 500 locations. Beverly Hills Precious Metals. Here's my Precious Metals dealer that I've worked with for years. And to watch him scale his company, I just, that never gets old to me. You know, it's like infinitely exciting to help someone achieve their goals. So that's really what gets me excited. And then growing up poor or without money, I'm sure there's somebody watching this who grew up more poor, but you know, my dad was working at a gas station, working the night shift. My dad was delivering pizzas for Domino's. May he rest in peace. In his late thirties, he's in his late thirties, delivering pizzas. He's working at a gas station. He has a college degree from Oral Roberts University. That wasn't a reverse shout out to ORU, but that's a fact. But yet he didn't know how to financially help our family thrive, but he had the work ethic and I appreciate him being willing to work those two jobs. And so whenever I talk to that new potential client, I picture it like I'm talking to a 37-year-old version of my dad. You know, my dad's no longer with us. He passed away from Lou Gehrig's, but that's how I look at it. And I can't communicate it with enough sincerity or passion, but every person I talk to on the phone who wants to become a client or wants to come to a conference, I pretend in my mind, maybe it's not healthy, maybe it is, that that's the 37-year-old version of my father. And that's what I look for. But someone who wants the hand out yet? No, I don't want to do that. But this person needs a hand up. That's who I try to work with. Tell me about your background. So, you know, you did grow up in kind of a humble situation, but you had some very interesting, I guess, pivots along the way. Well, this is what happened. I'm a kid that stuttered. My dad's working two jobs, working at the gas station, quick trip, and working delivering pizzas. My mom's doing what she can do. And it occurred to me, and I don't remember the exact moment, Jan, but I remember that kind of era of my life, thinking to myself, we're poor. Although we don't care about money, every decision was somehow impacted based upon money. And I thought to myself, 12-year-old self, 13-year-old self, I'm going to find a way to make copious amounts of money so therefore I can focus on other things. Because for anybody who spends any amount of time with me, there's three things I'm always doing. I'm always writing songs. I'm always writing books. And I'm always writing business plans. So I get into that kind of stuff. But you can't afford to write songs that very few people listen to unless you have the time to do it. So I set out on this quest to create time freedom and financial freedom. So out of my parents' basement, I started a company called DJ Connection. Back in the day, it was called C&G DJ Service. And it was called G because the youth pastor that mentored me, he was old enough to drive a car. See, I couldn't drive a car. And so the guy who drove me to my gigs was my youth pastor. And he lost a bet and shaved a G into his very hairy chest for some reasons I don't understand. So it was C&G DJ Service named off of that. And then I basically started cold calling schools. I'm a 14-year-old kid, 15-year-old kid, cold calling schools saying, hi, who DJs your school dance? Who's in charge of organizing the school dance? And they would say, oh, that's the PTA, or that's the booster club, or that's the parent sponsors. And I say, hey, I'd love to DJ your school dance, and I'll do it for a dollar. And you can just pay me after the event what you think it's worth. Well, a lot of schools are infinitely disappointed in their disc jockeys. And so I started getting some gigs. I started doing two gigs a month, three gigs a month. I needed equipment. I was selling the gigs, but I didn't have any equipment. So I found a pothead by the name of Oswald, and I rented equipment from him. This is a true story. And I thought to myself, I probably don't want to be renting equipment from potheads. I probably need to have a more viable. This is my 14, 15-year-old mind. So I got a job working poured concrete, and I got a job working at the Norseman Restaurant, and I got a job working as a home health aide. So I had three jobs simultaneously. That was my pro tip for getting rich quick. And I took every dime I had, and I just kept buying more speakers, more sound, more lights. The speakers I bought were called JBL TR-225s, and these were like $500 a piece. And I tell you this because I was making $8 an hour. So if you're making $8 an hour, you got to work 70 hours to buy a speaker before taxes. So you got to work 80 hours per speaker. So I had three jobs. I'm working these three jobs. Eventually, I decided to go to college early because in Minnesota, if you have enough credits, you can go to college early. So I went to St. Cloud State, and I picked classes, graphic design, language, accounting, things that I thought would help me on my career. And then I transferred to Oral Roberts University. And at that point, I changed the name from C&G DJ Service to DJ Connection. And then over time, I started getting into weddings. And before I sold the company, we were doing 4,000 weddings a year, which is 80 weddings a weekend, by the way. So think about all the vans, the lights, the mic stands, the speaker stands, the lighting equipment, all the people training these people. And then I started this thing called the Tulsa Bridal Association, which was a big bridal shop. And I started one of the region's largest wedding photography companies called epicphotos.com. And what happened is the fathers of the bride would pull me aside and they'd say, hey, I'm a dentist. Could you help me grow my business? Hey, I'm a doctor. Could you help me? Hey, I have a hardware store. Could you help me? And I won this thing called the SBA Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the state of Oklahoma. I also was the City of Tulsa Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the chamber when I was 20. And I was the state's Entrepreneur of the Year when I was 27. And I kept winning these awards. And every time I would win awards, people would say, can I pick your brain? And I kept being asked and asked. And eventually, we found ourselves with 160 clients. And that was almost 20 years ago. So I've been doing the same thing for 20 years, and I love it. Thank you for tuning in to American Thought Leaders. In a world where spin and agendas dominate the headlines, I'm proud to bring you unfiltered insights from the brightest minds in America from a relative outsider Canadian perspective. To keep this possible and to access even more exclusive content, in-depth documentaries, and our daily digital newspaper, consider subscribing to The Epoch Times today. It's your way to support independent journalism. Just hit the link in the description below to subscribe and unlock the full American Thought Leaders experience and so much more. You can try it today for just $1 a week. So just hit the link in the description below. And now back to the interview. And we're back with Clay Clark, business coach at Thrivetimeshow.com. Tell me about the BS in business school. Well, I primarily think that business school is primarily BS. I primarily find that business school involves talking about theories, thinking about concepts, theories, and things that don't impact actually growing a company. But when you get out of business college or you start a business, you've got to learn the four steps to grow a company. Step one, find a problem. Step two, solve the problem. Step three, sell the solution. Step four, nail it and scale it. Because if you can't sell, your business is going to go to hell and your life will not go well. And so most people have a degree from business school, but they have no knowledge of how to actually start and grow a successful company. I call my Thrivetimeshow, I call it the Thrivetimeshow Business School without the BS. Because I find that so many people, my father is one of these, where again, may he rest in peace. He went to school, he was top of his class, he graduated with great grades, but he had no concept of how to turn his goals to own a business into reality. One of the gentlemen, he came to our conference, he had terminal cancer. By the way, in the grace of God, he did not die. His name is Bob Healy and all your listeners can go verify his story. It's grillblazer.com, grillblazer.com. He showed up at one of my conferences with a quasi-functional prototype, meaning it's a prototype that wasn't polished for a thing called the grill gun, which is like a flamethrower for grilling. And he had never sold any, he had never had a team, he never employed people. He didn't have a website, didn't have a logo, didn't have a brand, didn't have a marketing plan, but he had a prototype. And Bob came to me and said, help me. And grillblazer.com is now a massively successful company that's becoming a household name in many American homes. He's kind of like the grill master now. So, and that's a guy named Bob who is battling health issues, marketing issues, branding issues, accounting issues. And Bob couldn't find financing either. We actually helped Bob raise all the money to sell the product. Bringing back manufacturing is a centrally important feature of America being successful. Some of that is going to be small business. How many of your businesses are manufacturing and how can that be done? Well, I believe that my client portfolio is very indicative of the American entrepreneurial portfolio as a country. About 10%, I would say, ish of our portfolio has to do with manufacturing. I would tell people as a pro tip, you never want to outsource your core competency. Exporting jobs to China started under Nixon, but that's just complete jack. To outsource 95% of our essential medical supplies to countries that hate us. We have these essential metals, these essential elements needed to make car batteries, to make cars. And we have outsourced that to the point where the majority of the countries that hate us are the ones who are procuring these essential elements needed to make manufacturing possible. So America needs to do, I know you recently interviewed Eric Trump and Eric talked about this. We've got to bring manufacturing back to America. We've got to do it. And so anybody out there that has that dream to make jeans in America, make a tie in America, make shirts in America, make shoes in America, make clothing in America, I encourage everybody really seize this opportunity under the Trump administration and find a way to bring manufacturing back to these United States. We saw it happen a little bit under President Trump and Dr. Ben Carson. We saw an urban renewal. Dr. Carson was instrumental in bringing investments into urban development areas that basically the world had given up on. And they brought in great restaurants and nightlife and entertainment and they rejuvenated. They put life and investment capital into these abandoned buildings and revitalized a lot of downtowns. I know we can do the same thing with manufacturing. So if you're watching today's show and you have the ability to reinvigorate manufacturing in America, I would encourage you to do so. And I don't speak for the Trump administration, but I know they are really wanting to team up with and support and to breathe life into entrepreneurs that want to breathe, that want to bring manufacturing back into these United States. There's this idea that a country can't be successful without it, this core element of manufacturing. There's this philosophy, right? Do you subscribe to this? That the bulk of manufacturing has to be within a country for it to even be successful ultimately. It can't be service oriented. It can't be. I'm working with a client in Wisconsin who has a home remodeling company, okay? And he actually does beautiful home remodeling. He does great work. Well, he's not outsourcing the manufacturing and the remodeling of a house to somebody who can do the work because he can't. He does the work himself. Therefore, when he talks to, in this fictitious example, he talks to the Thompsons and the Thompsons say, you know what? I want the pool table to go here. I want the lighting to go here. I want to move this to create this ambiance. This client who I actually work with in Wisconsin, he's able to get in there and get in the conversation with the client and rearrange the building plan to accommodate the client's needs. He can do that. But if he was outsourcing that to a third world country or a second world country or some country not here, it would be very hard to make those real-time modifications. So my client, yes, he's a home remodeler, but I would argue he's almost a plumber. He's almost an electrician. He's almost a designer. He's almost a sales guru. He's almost a manager. He's almost an accountant. He's wearing a lot of hats. And this is what you call a polymath, okay? And a lot of the founding fathers were polymaths. I challenge anybody out there to look up the life of Benjamin Franklin and tell me what career he was in. Thomas Jefferson, what career? Look up George Washington. What career? What career were these people? Were they politicians? Were they military leaders? Were they entrepreneurs? I would say a lot of our founding fathers were all of these skill sets. And I think it's a good idea to be resourceful. Now, what happens is when we outsource our core competency to countries that hate us, by the way, what does that even do? I mean, I don't even understand how that's a sustainable idea to make some of the cutting edge military technology that America's military now uses. We have to import certain technology from countries that hate us to make military weapons to defend us. That doesn't even make sense. Think about that. If you go, let's go back to the time of kings and queens and castles. And imagine that you are a king trying to protect your castle and you have to get behind your castle walls and yell out on your castle, you know, megaphone, excuse me, enemy, could you please ship us spears? We are trying to protect us ourselves. And from you, from you, right? And then the hostile enemy says, sure, how many spears do you need? I mean, just the jack, the duality, the mental gymnastics I have to go through to understand how outsourcing our core components, our core resources, our core manufacturing to countries that hate us. I just can't do it. Also, the CCP, they are not a competition. They are an enemy. The Chinese Communist Party does forced organ harvesting. The Chinese Communist Party has no problem with sending people to re-education camps. The Chinese Communist Party is not somebody that we should be working with. You do not want to be investing heavily into a country that has a ideological hatred towards your worldview and who has psychopathic tendencies. It's just not a good idea. There's this term that's often used, whole of society, right? And that can mean different things. Whole of society could mean, like in communist China, where the Communist Party, the supremacy of the party is complete and the party dictates what happens on down and the whole of society has to follow. That's how it works. But whole of society can also mean something else. It could also mean bottom up, right? Which means people basically working together, getting inspired to start their small business, be entrepreneurial, come up with new ideas, come up with new manufacturing concepts, theories, and actually just get down and do the hard work of raising, what is it? The rising tide lifts all boats, right? And so, as we finish up, let's talk a little bit about that. Well, years ago, there was a gentleman who personifies the American dream. His name's Kevin Thomas. Everyone can look him up. His company is called MultiClean. Everyone can look him up. I think it's multicleanok.com. And Kevin made a profound statement. He said that if he could have just five employees, that would be success. You say, well, what does Kevin do? It's a janitorial service. You'd say, well, what does a janitorial service do? He cleans commercial buildings. And Kevin made that profound statement. If I could just have five employees, that would be success. And at the last conference, somebody put their hand up and they said, well, Kevin, you're having a lot of success. How many employees do you have now? He says, just a hair over 350. Think about that for a second. So this guy, Kevin Thomas, had a goal to have just five employees. He thought entrepreneurship wasn't quite for him, that maybe he didn't have the education. He didn't have the marketing background. He didn't have the accounting. He didn't have the skills. But what he did is he went on over to thrivetimeshow.com. That's where I live, thrivetimeshow.com. And he went there and said, you know what? I'm going to fill out the form and I'm going to schedule a call with this crazy guy and we'll just see what happens. He has 350 employees. He's one of the most successful people in his town. And I share that story because everybody out there, you can become successful. And when you are, money's a magnifier, good and bad, by the way. So money allows you to be more of who you are. So if you're a generous person who loves to donate and celebrate and tithe to your local church or community or your outreach, you can give more. Money allows you to be more, to give more, to be. It allows you to just magnify who you are. And so if you're watching this show and you're kind of in the mind space where my 37-year-old father was, where he was delivering pizzas at Domino's Pizza, which again, great company. We're appreciative for that opportunity. He was working at Quick Trip Gas Stations and we appreciate that opportunity too. He's working the night shift and I have not an ounce of resentment that my father was working the night shift during my years growing up. I respect him for doing it. But if you feel like, man, success has passed me by. Kevin was the guy in his early 40s who was having these thoughts and now he's profoundly successful. Clay Stairs, who's now an Oklahoma state representative. He started his entrepreneurial path when he was 47 years old and now he's super successful. Bob Healy had terminal cancer and was in his early 60s and now Grillblazer is booming. I can list off examples all day, but everybody out there, if you have the mental capacity and tenacity to listen to today's interview, I promise you, you have what it takes to do it as an entrepreneur. Well, Clay Clark, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you. Thank you all for joining Clay Clark and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders. I'm your host, Jan Jekielek.