Ep136 Clint Salter - The Nicest Millionaire You'll Meet

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Show Transcription:

Tina

Hi friend, I am so excited to bring to you this week's guest, my wonderful friend, Clint Salter. Now I have called this episode The nicest millionaire you will ever meet, because Clint is literally that. So over the past, I don't know, five, six years, Clint has become a very good friend of mine. And he's also featured in my new book Million Dollar Micro Businesses as Success Story because he is one of the best success stories that I know of. Clint is an award winning entrepreneur, business development strategist, and best selling author of two big books. By the age of 16, he started his first dance studio, and by 28, he had not only founded and sold three companies, but was also named the youngest senior celebrity agent in Australia. Today, he's the founder and CEO of Dance Studio Owners Association, the largest community of dance studio owners in the world. Clint has helped over 34,000 dance studio owners grow their business, impact their local communities and improve the lives of over 800,000 children through the programs and services that he's created in DSOA and in our episode, today, I'm talking to him all about how. 

Why I've called it the nicest millionaire you'll ever meet is from the very first moment that I came into contact with Clint, his whole emphasis has been on how do I serve people? How do I do good in this world? How can I make the maximum impact? And what that has done through no accident is actually become highly profitable. And by serving people, and this is one thing that we really drill on in the episode is that when others are successful, when the people you're helping serve are successful, you are successful. And it's this beautiful win-win scenario. And so we go through how he's actually done that and what he did through the journey of the pandemic. Because it's been, I think, about three or four years that Clint’s been doing multiple million dollars a year, through his online courses and programs and experiences that he creates. So it's incredible, what he has built and how generous he is with sharing the information with us that hopefully you can take and apply into your own business too. So let's get into it. our interview with Clint Salter, the nicest millionaire you will ever meet. 

Clint Salter, welcome back to Her Empire Builder podcast.

Clint

Tina Tower. What a pleasure. It's always so nice to see your smiling face and hear your lovely soothing voice.

Tina

Oh, beautiful. And it's like we started 48 minutes ago. Yeah, we'll hit record

Clint

If we recorded all of that, that wasn't a good podcast. 

Tina

I know! It would have, right? Anyway, all right. So I'll eventually like me, I get into it in going okay. Now Million Dollar Micro Business came out this month. And you are a fabulous success story in side of that and I think that like you're one of my favorites because you have played the long game and been around for a really long time and showing people how you can really take like your the essence of going there's no bullshit there. There's no you've actually taken tangible business knowledge, packaged it into something and served people fully. You have always focused on serving people, which is what, you know, whether we talk privately, whether we talk on interviews, the thing that has come across since I have known you is service like you just really want to give massive value and serve people. Has that changed as a strategy as you've had different iterations of business since you've begun?

Clint

Yeah, I mean, firstly, thank you so much for having me in the book. It was an absolute pleasure. And the book is such a cracker you know I’m saying before, there's really no book out there that is this like Bible, step by step how you build an online course. So, so thrilled to be a part of it. Yeah, to answer your question, I've always been obsessed. Even when I had my dance studio at 16, I've always been obsessed with creating experiences for my customers, whether that is an online experience or an in person experience. My team will tell you, I talk about it every single day. It is the pillar of all of our conversations because, you know, working with dance studio owners as we do at DSOA, we don't have a lot of them. You know, there's about 100,000, English speaking dance studio owners in the world. They're not all online. And so we might have potentially, maybe 65 or 70,000, potential customers, I mean, that's a very, very small audience. And so that even makes me more obsessed to ensure that we deliver to our customers, so that we keep them and the way that we keep them is by focusing on consistently delivering them value. I mean, they've got a win, you know. At the end of the day, the customer has to win, because if they're not winning, they're not staying, you know, they're not sticking around. And so how do we get them winning? How do we get them results quickly in our programs? How do we consistently support them to keep achieving results, so they can reach out for help, so they can get training from our coaches or our pro classes, and keep moving them forward. And surrounding them with an amazing community of like minded people like, that is just awesome. And that has allowed us to continue to scale and grow DSOA.

Tina

It's amazing. And so DSOA Dance Studio Owners Association, has been around for seven years now. For people that haven't read the book, those crazy people.

Clint

Oh, my goodness, go and buy the book right now!

Tina

milliondollarmicrobusiness.com for those people. What can you tell us about the customer journey that you have in terms of how people enter your world, and then what your high ticket offer is, so people can get a feel for your business model?

Clint

Yeah, so our business model now is very different to what it was seven years ago. And I think it's important to highlight that because often people will look at DSOA today, seven years in and go, I want that, yeah, new one. And I'm like, No, no, this is, as you mentioned before, this is a long game. And I never built the DSOA to have, you know, like a million dollar year, our first year, I have built on the foundation of what makes a really good business. And then I have kept building on those blocks with our team every single year for the last seven years. And so now what it looks like is we have a flagship program. It's called the Student Attraction Intensive. And it's an eight week course that focuses on how to attract, enroll and retain students in your studio. It is the most requested information we get asked for Ideas Away. And it's also the most important, you know, I always talk about attracting and enrolling students for a studio is what oxygens like for human beings, you know, if we didn't have oxygen, we'd be dead. It's the same for a studio. If they're not consistently attracting and enrolling students, they're not going to have a business. And so it's a beautiful program. I'm obviously biased, but we just, we've just redone the program, actually for our upcoming intake. And during those eight weeks, we walk our members through those three core pillars. We teach them about Facebook ads, we teach them about the customer journey, we teach them about branding, we teach them about digital marketing and offline marketing and strategic tactics and referrals. Yeah, it's massive. And not only is it a course, it's a coaching experience. So we run three coaching calls every single week during those eight weeks. We also have guests, you've been a guest for SDI Tina, we bring guests in, special guests, and bonus guests and bonus templates. And there's lots of cool stuff because, you know, for me, I'm always about building an experience. I'm not just about delivering an online course. And I think that that's important now with so many people out there delivering online courses is how do you really just give them an experience. It's like no other you know, you do social nights where they dress up and party with Mel and do trivia and lots of fun stuff in the eight weeks, and then from the eight weeks, we give them an opportunity to apply for our inner circle. And our inner circle is really at the center of our business. It's our high level coaching experience. And that's for people that you know, really want to go to their next level and really level up their studio and step into the shoes of being the CEO of their dance studio. And we do daily calls in person retreats when we can virtual retreats when we're not able to meet and hug each other. Together, we have experts every month, we have specialty coaches like a Facebook ads coach, and in classroom coach and profit first coach, all of our coaches present every single month to support our members. We do 30-day planning, 90-day planning sessions, weekly planning sessions on a Monday, yeah, so it's really we have curriculum, a curriculum as well that they go through, it's kind of like choose your own adventure that lines up with our 90 day plans. We spend probably about 70 to 80% of our time in business on the inner circle. It's supported with a program manager and a program coordinator, two full time team members, really putting all of their time and energy into making sure that that inner circle experience is truly exceptional. And so that's kind of it we sell through things. And like I said, it hasn't always been that way. But this is where we're at. Works really well for our business. And it means we can really serve our members very deeply versus offering 100 different things and not being able to go really deep and really drive those results with our members.

Tina

And with that, because the question that I get asked so often is the fear around niching and sticking to something simple. And for you like on that front end, when you're doing the eight week course, there's 10 different eight week courses that you could offer. Has it been conscious or hard to just keep it simple and stick with that one?

Clint

It was at the beginning. Now, to be honest, I just don't have the energy. 

Tina

We’re getting old now. 

Clint

Yeah. Right. Oh, my goodness. 

Tina

Oh, my gosh, I   felt that so much lately, I've gone. Oh my gosh, I just I could see all these ideas and all these opportunities and I'm like, I just don't have the energy. 

Clint

Yeah. And I think you know, I remember being 21 and having a million ideas. And I was teaching 20 hours a week, working full time at the agency, running my dance competition. I look back on that time. And I was like, oh, wow, like I had so much energy. But I'm way more focused, way more clarity. And the time that I do have is spent on really making a difference in my team's life, and really making a difference in our members' lives. And I like channeling my energy into those things. You know, I think it's important that we remain creative. But creativity doesn't mean we create new stuff. Creativity means that maybe we go into an existing program. And we might reimagine it, I mean, with the inner circle, every year, we launch a new season, you know. We'll be going into season seven, the inner circle. And we do like a new season of a TV show. And for you, we do a big release with guys. Here's what we're doing in the inner circle for season seven. Wkeep some things, we lose some things, we add instant things. And so that program naturally has evolution. And that keeps me excited because I can channel my creativity into Well, what can we how can we deliver more? How can we get our members results faster? And I think you want to have a filter and you know, your vision and your mission. So that you can always stay aligned to well, here's where I'm going because there's heaps of great ideas out there, right? But they're not all in alignment with where you want to head. So I think having that clarity of here's where I want to go, here's where I want to spend my time is so crucial, because you can be jumping around chasing every shiny object, every tactic, every strategy, following every guru, trying to get all the results and really get nowhere and truly just look like everyone else.

Tina

Yeah, completely. And I love that distinction of creativity and going creativity doesn't mean creating all of the different ideas you have but recreating and making better the thing that you do have because we were saying that before we hit record is a boring business is a profitable business. Because once you're on to the winner, it's then going how can we make that better? How can we get better results for our clients rather than burning it to the ground? Because we've been doing the same thing.

Clint

Yeah, because we're like because we're, you know, we're bored. I think about my podcasts. You know, we've had our podcast for seven years, and I think I got out of it three years ago, you know, still running, though, and runs with CO hosts and our coaches, and we still get more downloads than we did when I was running it because I was over it, you know, but I wasn't gonna burn it down because it's, it's such a platform for us. And so I thought, well, how can we reimagine this? How can we deliver even more value? And that was, you know, bringing our co hosts and, you know, eight week kind of series and we've keep reimagining the podcast. But that doesn't need to, you know, have me a part of it.

Tina

Yeah. And so how have you handled that growth, because a lot of people that are listening now kind of in that, in that stage, where they're going, this is where I want to go and then get there and then go, Okay, now what do I do? And how do I grow that without maxing myself out? And I know, in the early days, your service has always been such a value of yours, but you were the one delivering all of it? Which we do. Then? How did you go? How can I maintain that level of value and that level of service and make it better, but also not burn yourself out so that you can still show up and deliver?

Clint

Yeah, it's such a great question. And I think this is the turning point for a lot of businesses. You know, you see people that do burnout, and they just disappear, because they just can't, they'll have a couple of awesome years, they'll be talking about I made a million dollars or $5 million, and then you never hear from them again. Because they just they don't have the energy. I often think about artists like Adele or Ed Sheeran. Right? And I thought about Ed Sheeran recently, because, you know, he took a break for a couple of years. And he had a baby, and he worked on his fitness. And now he's just come out with another album, and he's promoting it, and then he'll tour again, and then he'll disappear again. Yeah, you know, and the thing is, is that, you know, if you're running, if you're running a business, and you're not a mega superstar, you don't have the luxury, you know, definitely disappear for a few years. For a few years.

Tina

My plan is to take January off, and I'm really nervous about that.

Clint

Right? Right. Exactly do. We get I mean, I'm at the moment, I'm off for three days, and I'm very nervous about it. And so those, you know, when I think about those things, and I think about our business, and our turning point is where I was, I was feeling burnout. You know, I remember teaching Facebook ads, and I got off the call. And I was like, I'm so have no idea what's going on. Like, I'm so over teaching Facebook ads, you know, because I wasn't living in that world. And I was like, maybe I should bring in a Facebook ads coach, maybe you need a coach. Because like, I hate it. I don't, I'm not following every day, what's going on. I was like maybe I could get a coach to come in. And like they love it. They know what's going on and every month deliver absolutely gold to our members, our members are going to have the edge, you know, and they're going to get more out of the experience. Again, value experience, Clint’s happier. And I just started replacing myself. Yeah, I just started noticing. I get questions. And I need to be like, I'm so either answering that question or actually don't know, like, I don't have an answer for that. Like, that's not my wheelhouse. And so I started filling my gaps with other people. And it was slow as probably, you know, it was probably truly to get our faculty in place, maybe two or three years of just slowly adding let me get someone else. Let me get someone else. Let's bring on studio growth coaches now who are our inner circle, elite members. Members doing over a million dollars they came on board to start doing coaching. I stopped doing one on one coaching. I was doing like hundreds of one on one coaching sessions. Every quarter, I stopped doing that I slowly bought in a coach, I trained the coach, they came to sessions with me, they watch all of my coaching videos of me coaching other members started building out real curriculum and systems. So the coaches could have consistency, we could have consistency across our brand in what we were sharing with our members. And that was Yeah, probably about three about three years. And I would say the last two years. It's been really locked in. But it was a process and I was just very intentional. Because I saw where it was headed. I saw that I wasn't loving it as much as I wanted to love it. And I was like how can I bring myself more joy in the work that I want to do? And, and, and so I was very intentional about the role that I wanted as being the CEO at DSOA. And I filled all the little gaps slowly around and we continued to do that. You know, we just hired a new person last week. We're about to hire another person in the next two weeks. We've been bringing on a lot of team members as we keep growing the business. And I had those feelings of like, Well, you know, it's been all me and I was scared, you know, my goodness, everyone's gonna leave because like, it's not me doing the calls anymore, and I'm not showing up every day. But it was slow and steady, you and I got really good people. And, you know, they love their love. 

Tina

And if anything, I think it's a better way to serve people because you are about one human. And so there's only so much you can do. And if you're delivering when you're really exhausted, you're not firing with all the ideas, you're not doing everything accurately. 

Clint

And, and I've only had this life experience, you know, I'm only sharing kind of my, my experience and what has been shared with me. And, you know, I'm not running a dance studio anymore. And so I have these quote, incredible coaches who are running dance studios who can provide value in a different way to our, you know, to our members. And we've got the Facebook ads coach and the profit first coach who just talks about profit first, like that's, I know, the principles of profit first, but I'm not living it every day, like one of our coaches, Shannon is and so I love that that's important. That's important to me now and and as well as whatever market you're in our listeners are in. It's ensuring that you can stand out from everyone else. And the way that we stand out is we were the first people to bring in experts. Yeah, you know, and people as well to our conferences that aren't from the dance space. You know, we bring people in, that are really good at what they teach, but know nothing about dance. So our audience, our members get new perspectives, they get to see the outside world, so it doesn't become this like, recycled machine of just the same stuff.

Tina

Yeah. And I think important to to like for me in September, we're bringing in mindset coaches, so coaches that have been trained by Brooke Castillo, His Life Coach School, because I identified a gap with me in every month, if people haven't done the things that they wanted to do, my go to attitude is, why not just get over it, do it, like take action, like, just go for it. Because I've got a very different experience and practice than what a lot of people do. And I'm like, you know what, I need someone who's patient and trained in being able to identify why aren't we doing the things that we want to do and help them through that, rather than me being a bulldozer?

Clint

I too, and the bulldozer, and we were very similar. And we have had incredible coaches come in to do like live coaching, you know, sessions around taking action and what's stopping you and what's in it and just clearing, you know, clearing I say, Wait clearing the trash, you know, we're kind of getting this stuff out of the way so that you can take action because like your, your program members who get the incredible kind of content and training from you. I mean, they have to do the work. Yeah. Right. Like you're giving them awesome information and, you know, great classes and great coaching, but I always say to my members, I'm not going to knock on your door and pull you out of bed and say Come on, like let's get started. 

Tina

I would if I could though.

Clint

We’re kind of the moment you're in lockdown. 

Tina

I know right? And so speaking of that perfect segway into my next question, so 2020, the pandemic hit, you already had, you know, a small niche market, one that was majorly affected by COVID. So most people in your position would be going, Oh crap, here's my whole market that's not going to be able to afford my program anymore. Is this all gonna go down? What am I going to do now? And I remember talking to you, well, actually, you were consoling me because on the 12th of March, I was standing on Newport Beach in California and I was supposed to run my gorgeous retreat in Palm Springs that you were speaking at. And I was in a constant state of denial and optimism and going but I still think I can. Well, the Australian Government was emailing me saying you need to go on the next flight. You were like Tina, it's all gonna be okay, go home. We've just got to do it a different way. This is gonna go big and you need to figure out how you can show up and serve people in this time and I did I went home and I said okay, if anyone's struggling with this, like let me know I'm giving away free coaching calls and I put a link up and I did 72 30-minute coaching calls that week which was ginormous, but I remember talking to you the week after and you had been like off the tools so to speak, for a long time and you, men, you rallied, can you tell me what you did? And how do you support people through them?

Clint

Yeah, I mean, you're right. And, you know, I said to our three owners, look, we're really lucky. Because why we can't be in studio, we can run classes virtually. Right? I feel sorry for people like hair dresses, or, you know, those types of markets where it was just hard to do your craft. We, we were hit really hard like 92% of you know, our members lost, you know. 20 30 40 50, some of them at 80% 90% of their students. But within four days, I remember that Thursday, we had Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to put together a guide on how to run your virtual dance studio. And we put together that guide, the team were incredible. I presented it on Monday. And I was like, right guys, we're going virtual with your dance classes, you're not changing your pricing model, you're not going free, you're not doing a discount, still a great service, you still have bills to pay. This were kind of United, funky. But that that was scary. That was so scary. Because here I am saying you're literally running a new business. It's technology based, which was very new for a lot of our members, and their teaching staff, you're teaching from home, you know, on top of your cats and dogs, and on top of your couch, or in your little studio apartment. And you're charging the same price, there was a lot of stuff to work through. And so we ran, we ran daily sessions for I don't know, six months, where we just showed up and like, you know, we're just putting out fires and helping people and consoling our members and telling them it's going to be okay. And but none of us had gone through it. And so every day this is new, different questions while the parents said this, and what about this? And none of my teachers want to teach, you know, and yeah, it was a sad.

Tina

How did you hold that emotional space for people in going because a lot of people were coming to you to be helped me. 

Clint

Yeah, I still I feel like I've never cried more in 2020 than I have in my entire life. And I remember sitting there we were about two weeks in and I hadn't cry. I was two weeks in, I just got off a coaching call. And it was I just felt so deeply for these poor people that had worked their whole life to give the magic and joy of dance. And people were like, I'm not coming back, you should be giving me a dislike. Just just, it was just so bad. And I got off the call. And I just like gruhn literally just broke down for like 10 minutes. And I was like, this is just really crap. You know, and I was like, these people are doing everything. They've changed their business, they've gone online, they're, you know, doing storytime during the day. They're like giving all these bonuses for their customers and their customers are turning around saying, now I'm out. Well, we'll wait until we can come back. Yeah. And you know, we had to really, I remember writing a letter to parents from me. 

Tina

I loved that. Yeah, remember that there was a line in there and going like, if you don't support people now there'll be nothing to come back to. Yeah, it's really good. 

Clint

Yeah, yeah. And we did a lot of that, like, we did a lot of templates for emails from members, I wrote a whole bunch of letters. Because I don't think not all parents but a lot of parents I don't think understood the impact of taking dance away from their child. You know, like what that would be in a world where so much was being taken away from them. Yeah. And since you're so join us, even if you're in your living room, dancing around, like, it still brings a smile makes people laugh that makes people happy. So we decided to lead. Like I saw a lot of people from lots of different industries, like, essentially just disappear. They were like, peace out, like I'm out of here. And I was like, we're going to lead, we're gonna do a whole bunch of free stuff. We did free summit, we took our inner circle launch off the calendar, I was like, No, April, let's completely remove that, you know, lost hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing that. But I was like, now’s not the time.We got to keep our industry in business. 

Tina

What I saw from that was everyone who did go, you know what, I'm just gonna step forward and lead through this and help people through it. Then towards the end of 2020 start of 2021 have literally grown their business more than any other time, is that what you got as well?

Clint

Yeah, completely. I mean, we saw great results around August, September. And again, because we left the market where they were at. Yeah, you know, they were like, Well, we've been doing virtual classes and everyone's over virtual classes, how do we sell virtual classes? How do we sell zoom classes, and unlike they're not zoom classes, you're selling a virtual dance experience. And I created this whole thing around the virtual dance experience, and how to market that and how to talk about it and how to bring people in. And so we just, you know, we listen really carefully to what our members want, and what they need. I always say like, we don't come up with the good ideas of DSOA, all of our members do. We just listen, we just listened to what they want. And if enough of them want it, we deliver it to them, we give them what they need, and people were saying to me claim, everyone's zoom, fatigued, everyone's doing to take no one's enrolling for the new season, because we're going to be on zoom. And I was like, the problem is, you're calling them zoom classes. The problem is you've taken a class that was in person, and you've just dumped it on zoom, you know, it's completely different, you know, creating a virtual environment. And so, you know, we do trainings on that we got, you know, stacks of members in our Student Attraction Intensive program, we pivot that to talk about the virtual dance experience, as well as online, offline. 

Tina

Imagine how many people's lives you saved. 

Clint

Like, actually, yeah, I mean, it's, we hear a lot of stories, you know, we've just done a bunch, we, on Sunday. Monday, we just filmed, we went into our studios in California, and do I think seven or eight, like videos, case studies, and, and it's been really wonderful to kind of hear their journey, which, which was really tough. But see the light in what 2020 provided them with, and how the inner circle was a part of that. It's, but you know, our team double down, and they also had to put up their hand with me and say, we're going to lead because I couldn't, like, as you mentioned, emotionally, it was, it was so you know, it was so draining. And, you know, during that year, we had sickness in the family. There was also a lot of stuff going on in 2020, aside from the pandemic, so I needed our team to step up as well. And they did do a really stellar job. So it was definitely a collective, it was a collective endeavor. 2020 for sure.

Tina

And so going through that, and you're stepping forward, again, kind of thing and going, did you undo the work that you had done by pulling yourself out beforehand? Like how did you keep that community ties guide when, when you have boundaries, and you can't physically talk to everyone when they're sending you messages or emails saying Clint help, and you want to help because they're in a bad way? And you know, you can solve that problem? How do you keep your boundaries?

Clint

Yeah, so I'm really good at setting expectations. I think it definitely is one of my superpowers, I don't, I don't remember the last time a member sent me an email or a Facebook message like I couldn't, what I couldn't tell you, because that's not available to them, right like that, that's not on the table. And I tell them, guys, if you email me, you're not going to get a response, I am the last person you want to email. Because I've set up systems and processes so that we get back to you in a couple of hours. But that's not through emailing me that you're emailing out in a circle email address that we have the inner circle members, or our general [email protected] email address. Don't send me a Facebook message. And I say this on our kickoff calls on our onboarding calls. Because that's not going to be helpful. And I'm not there. You don't want me as the CEO of DSOA. You don't want me answering customer service emails, you don't want me sending your login details. You want me focused on how to build an incredible experience for you. You want me looking and sourcing speakers, you want me working with our coaches so that you get incredible coaches. You don't want me responding to your little message about the broken link on a PDF, or a good use of my time. And so I'm very I'm very upfront, but we don't leave them hanging. Right. And I see a lot of people who are like, I'm not gonna respond to your email, but then I don't have anyone that is, you know. And so you cannot say that and not have support for your members. You've got to make sure that you've got a team there that this sits in there. At the beginning. I was doing customer service. I was going into whatever the random membership site we use and like re sending, sending logins. I was loading stuff into the membership site. I was editing the podcast. You At the very beginning, I was doing all of that stuff. But you know, again, don't look at my year seven. Yeah. And go, I want that in my year one or year two, right. The great thing is, is that you're, well, if you're working with Tina, in her mastermind, or you're obviously listening to her podcast, you know, you get a lot, you get to hear a lot of journeys from different people and where they're at in their business. And so you get a head start on what it can look like down the road.

Tina

And I love that yours is like, you've been very open and going, like, it wasn't like one year you went, Okay, now we're going to change everything. It was slowly, slowly, like one thing at a time just going hang on this is past my boundary, how can I fix that? Hang on? I'm getting a bit tired again. How can I fix that? Hang on, I'm getting asked too many things here. How can I fix that one thing at a time?

Clint

Yeah, it's it's so true. It's really been a journey. And there have been big scary decisions that I've had to make. But I never make more than one at a time. You know, I'm not, I'm not dumping and, you know, on our members and saying, Okay, guys, I'm not doing calls anymore, and bringing in these new people who never hear from me again. You know, we're getting rid of this, we do like, because at the end of the day, I'm just like, what is going to be most valuable. And the point that we're at, at DSOA at the moment, is me showing up physically coaching is not what's most is not what's most valuable, you know, and the best use of my time.

Tina

And one thing, I mean, it comes across every time I speak to you, and I think it was what attracted me to you, when we first met was you've got this such, and I'm interested to know whether it was learned or natural, is you have such an abundance mindset. So many people are going like I have to do this now. And in a hurry. And you even just the way you said like I just deal with one of those big problems at a time. It's like even when the pandemic hit, you didn't, you didn't go into that spiral panic going, Oh my gosh, my whole business, it's going to be gone. Like, you know, that acted, desperate, you went straight to how can I serve people get them through this, they'll stay there and you're always going, I'll move here, I'll move there in such a beautiful, abundant, like, it's inevitable way.

Clint

I think I remember working with a mentor, and they said to me, Clint, you'll always be able to make money. While they will, like you will always be able to make money. And you know, I came from an incredible single mother in Housing Commission, you know, when we didn't have any money, I never felt like I didn't, we didn't have money. But looking back on that journey, we didn't have a lot, you know, a lot of money. My mom was working like two or three jobs, you know, working at the desk at the dance studio to pay for my dance classes. And so, you know, I always had this thing of like, I want to make money, you know, like, I want to ensure that I can have money to live the life that I want and that I love. And I just, you know, I really think to myself, like, I'll be good. You know, I just have that model of like, I'll be, I'll be fine. Like if this I would hate for DSOA to be burned down tomorrow. But if I'm away for these next three days, and it burns down while I'm away, Jessica and the team have got it handled. But if it burns down, I always think to myself, like, I'm going to be okay. Yeah. Out of that is really, because I truly believe like we every inch of my soul and being that if I deliver value to other people that financially I'm going to be okay. Yes, yes. 100%. And that's like, and that's where everything comes from for me is how can we deliver more value? How can we increase their experience? How can we get them wins faster? Like, I'm so obsessed, just with those notions? That in turn, that equates to me well, if I'm looking after other people, I'm gonna be okay.

Tina

Yes, that's what franchising taught me is you're successful when they're successful. And the more successful they are, the more successful you are. And it's like this Win Win thing that just carries on. So since you started doing I mean, you're seven now, super successful, what's changed for you personally, since you started doing multimillion dollar years?

Clint

You know, We just bought a house which was in you know, which was incredible, a great endeavor to be able to do that. I don't, you know, I think one thing that has really shifted for me, you know, in terms of generating the revenue that we do, it's been different things at different levels. I think the first thing was just being able to live in a beautiful place. You know, like really live in a beautiful Inspiring environment. And that, like that, leveled me out. You know, the other thing that really leveled me up was flying first class, like fun flying business class. I know it sounds so superficial, but it's something I remember sitting next to 50 cent on the flight back home to me, he spilled his drink on me back home to New York, he asked me how to plug in his headphones, we'll find back to New York. And I just, it was just that experience I was so I didn't want to

Tina

Just the thought of sitting on a plane is bringing tears to my eyes. 

Clint

Right, me too. I mean, but those types of experiences, you know, sitting there and talking to a CEO of another company, or being in those environments around other people who are, who are high achievers, you know, have has really upgraded me, it's the same I was able to invest more into coaching and mastermind groups and experiences with other like minded people, you know, pay 10,000 for two days to go to an event with like minded people who are going to push you to make you think bigger to dream bigger. I mean, for me, that like hands down the best investment I've ever made, or in my education. Yeah, no, and me and me growing. And then the other thing it's allowed us to do now is bring on incredible team members, you know, and pay them really well. We just did our six month bonuses for everyone. And that was really exciting to be able to pay out these bonuses, and just sit on a team call and go, geez, you guys are like, really good. You know, like, you're really great workers and just wonderful people. And it hasn't again, I don't want you comparing your year one guys. It has been tough, like leadership and finding the right people has been one of the most hated parts of my jobs. But I feel like we have great cohesion, and everyone is slotting nicely into their roles. We've done some restructuring. You know, it never ends. But I'm feeling really good about that. So personally, you know, it has allowed me to grow as the CEO, it's allowed me to be in beautiful spaces. It's allowed me to pay for things for family members, which has been really beautiful, as well. It's allowed us to invest more back into our members and their experience and their experience in our event with the team members that they work with. We have a chef that cooks for us every Wednesday. Anthea comes over, spends five hours cooking our food for the week, which is such a luxury. And is just every time I see her on a Wednesday, I just kind of like want to cry thinking oh my goodness, I have someone making our food. Like, this is incredible. We have Diana cleans the house every Friday. I mean, and I walk out of my office, and I just again feel like crying because the house is so clean, and it just smells incredible. Other than that, you know, I'm away. As you know, I'm away for three days on a staycation. And I forgot my sunglasses. And I was like, Oh my goodness, like how did I forget my sunglasses? There's a shop in the hotel, these sunglasses, which are probably $5 like $65. And I didn't even have to think about it. I just bought the sunglasses. Yeah, you know, and I bought them. And then I didn't even look how much they were, so silly. I didn't even look how much they were. So it's like, oh, these look good. And then because they never had prices on anything, right? And so I just like bought it. And she's like, you know, 69 or whenever we taxes I was like, Okay, and then I went to the pool, and I was like, oh, wow, that's not that's not an experience that a lot of people can have. They would have to go. How much is that? Can I afford it? Yeah, what do I not need to do? Because I'm buying these glasses Do I need to go and walk somewhere further to get the $10 you know, glasses. But you know my motto, what I spend money on is anything that isn't in alignment with my notion of frictionless living.

Tina

Yeah, I love that. 

Clint

I want to remove as much friction as possible so that I can be in as in joy, as much as possible.

Tina

And I think when you haven't come from money as well, it's the little things like at the moment, were on lockdown. And so the kids are going into Week Five of that. And we went I took one of my sons to do the grocery shopping yesterday, and from when they were like two till about five. So about three years I shopped with a calculator sorry. Everything that I would grab I would have to add it in there because I had the certain amount of money and if it went over the $80 I had to decide what's most important and start putting things back and I had that exact sunglasses moment yesterday when Cohen my little one walked in and then he was like, Okay, what do we need because he Chuck's it in, and you know what, you're locked down at the moment, like, make a snap cupboard, grab whatever you want. He's like, whatever I want, like whatever. Because they actually don't, it's not like he was going to get two trolleys and fill it up because he doesn't use mine doesn't even go there. Because he's not, he's not practiced at it. So he literally, he grabbed coco pops, he grabbed like mac and cheese, like things that he's not normally allowed to get. But I had that moment like walking down with such joy down that aisle going, I can get any grocery I want like it is those little things that really bring that joy.

Clint

Totally, totally. And I love you know, and I love that, you know, I don't? And I often laugh because my friends like When are you getting that car and that Tesla and that and it's like, I don't need that stuff. Yeah, you know, I wear the set I've got five black polo shirts, I've got five black pants, you know, I have the same outfit every time

Tina

You look so good in it, it just works. 

Clint

You know, and it's so versatile. I can go working, walking in it, I can wear it on a podcast interview. And so yeah, those are the things that I love putting, you know, my personal, you know, my personal money into. And then I'm just really enjoying putting it back into our team and just into our experiences. Yeah, and putting that beat back into the business is awesome.

Tina

And so what is next for you? Do you continue to dream? The bigger dreams? Are you still thinking? Yeah, what do you mean? Well, something very exciting now.

Clint

Yeah, so we're working on Dancely. At the moment. Dancely is an entertainment education and exercise platform for that under six market. And we just launched the Dancely licensee program for our studio owners so they can teach our dances using all of our original songs. We have songwriters for Netflix and Disney and Marvel written all of our music. And so our studio owners have just started last week actually, we have over 400 Studios around the world teaching Dancely to their three to six year olds in their preschool dance classes. And yeah, we're launching a consumer app at the end of August. And we have big, big plans for that brand. So I'm really excited by that. I continue to be excited and enthusiastic on the work that we're doing at DSOA. Due to the incredible people we're bringing on board for our team to continually up level the experience for our members. And I'm just yeah, look really kind of looking forward to the next 12 months and continuing to spread the joy of dance and the different avenues that we have.

Tina

I still want to say you dance there. 

Clint

Might send you a couple of sneaky I did actually call it I did actually choreograph for dances for Dancely. So

Tina

I made those videos. 

Clint

I might share those with you. But we will definitely when you come back to the US. We can we can have it we can have a dance off. 

Tina

Yay. Thank you so much, Clint, thank you for sharing your journey. You really I called this episode The nicest millionaire you'll ever meet. Because that makes you go. Like you really are like,

Clint

Talk to my team

Tina

So generous with with your peers like me in sharing. I mean, this is something that a lot of people don't know, too. Like when I got into online courses. You were one of the people that I rang and you're like, what do you need to know? And you sat there for hours? And you answered everything. I mean, the generosity with that is the same generosity you have with your friends, with your family, with your clients with your team. You're an amazing human.

Clint

Thank you my love and back at you. I always enjoy our time together and so proud of what you've achieved and putting the book into the world. I mean, guys, this book, you have to get it. I mean, I sat there, Alex is like why you're invincible. I'm like hey, this this book is I'm learning so much this book is incredible. Guys go and get yourself a copy of the book. It will really enhance your journey in the online course world that you're already in or if you're just getting started. I mean, don't waste your time anywhere else. This will literally give you this step by step process. So congrats really well deserved. I love seeing it everywhere and can't wait to see its continued success as it gets into more hands.

Tina

Thanks gorgeous.