From Rock Bottom to Running Six Businesses: Clay's Entrepreneurial Journey

Clay shares his remarkable journey of losing everything and rebuilding multiple successful businesses, revealing how facing your biggest fears can become your greatest source of resilience and confidence.

• Building business resilience through adversity and learning to count on yourself
• Clay's six interconnected businesses spanning networking, women's entrepreneurship, speaking, publishing, and real estate 
• The philosophy behind H7 Network's abundance mindset versus traditional networking groups' scarcity approach
• How developing five trusted champion relationships creates predictable business growth
• Key differences between networking organizations: membership requirements, meeting structure, and community access
• Implementing "Operation Less Clay" to overcome scaling challenges through strategic delegation
• Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: "do it anyway" despite family skepticism

Clay Hicks

• Tel: +1 937-671-6238
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claytonrhicks/
• Website: https://www.h7network.com/
• Email: claytonrhicks@gmail.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Facing Fear and Finding Resilience
• 2:51 Clay's Business Empire Overview
• 6:05 Networking Approaches and Preferences
• 9:03 H7 vs BNI: Networking Philosophy Differences
• 17:43 The Power of Five Trusted Champions
• 22:01 Entrepreneurial Advice and Overcoming Struggles

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Tanya Scotece: 0:37

I think I resonate with you as far as like it's like you haven't lived until you lost it, because I think you know most people, let's say just the majority of the masses. If people are just you know, let's speak for the states. You know, born and raised in the States, average, you know. Maybe you know middle income people just going about their business, they're comfortable, they don't know anything but that and the fear for most people is losing everything. So most people go into life with fear, right.

Tanya Scotece: 1:03

So when you face that fear head on and it's coming right at you and you're done and it's like wait, but I'm still here, like I'm not deceased. I'm like I'm still here to come through the fire and rebuild, and it's kind of like so, when you've faced one of your worst fears, or the worst fear for most people, it kind of shatters you and it does make you like, just like you're still here, you're invincible, you know well, it gives you a different level of confidence, for sure.

Clay Hicks: 1:33

You know that you can, that you can actually count on yourself. You know that that's. That's a big deal too. Uh, people have a hard time counting on just anybody else, including themselves all the time. It's popular, you know.

Tanya Scotece: 1:53

Yeah, yeah, it's almost like if you hit rock bottom and it's like if that was your worst fear and you survived it. So even if you quote unquote fail again in the modern world, it's not really fit. You know what I mean. It's like, okay, so we're here, we're back here, we've already been here once, like. So you know, and I this is my feeling, clay I'm from the death care industry.

Tanya Scotece: 2:13

Okay, so it's like we come in with nothing, you go out with nothing. So it's kind of like along your journey, whether you make millions or not or whatever, it's like it, literally at the end of the day, you know, yes, you can. You know, legacy for your family. I'm not disputing that fact, I'm just saying that we ourselves, as individual humans, come in with and yeah, so it's kind of like what happens in between those two spaces. You know, that's up to you. So if you don't mind, clay, can you just go over? I just want to ask all the business that you have currently, what fields are they in, like, what type of businesses? Just to kind of give us an overview.

Clay Hicks: 2:51

They're a little connected and then disconnected.

Tanya Scotece: 2:55

So I have H7.

Clay Hicks: 2:58

Then I have a white label version of H7. This white label version, you only know it by powered by H7. So a company could have its own title, okay, and so that exists. Then there's Evolve Women's Collective. That's an entrepreneurial development for women, okay, and then so that's three. And then we have my CRH brand, which is where I speak and write.

Clay Hicks: 3:28

I've authored four books now, two of which are bestsellers. The other two I didn't actually try to get bestseller status, they're just there but anyway. And then I do presentations, and I speak on the Connect, serve and Ask methodology, which I like, leaving a week and a half for another presentation. And then I'm into real estate as well. So my wife and I have our own real estate business with her mom, and then the last is ARC Capital Investments, and what we do is we buy real estate in vacation areas and turn them into short-term rentals. But I'm like the CMO in both of those real estate businesses, so I handle just marketing strictly. And in CRH, I mean, I have a bunch of training due to come out this summer, but it's not here yet, so it's just speaking, if that makes sense um h7 is humming, and so is ball.

Tanya Scotece: 4:34

So what a, what a, what a wide variety, but connected right, that's the, that's the theme, it's like it's still connected, even though completely, uh, different, um arenas. So amazing, fascinating that's amazing clay.

Shireen Botha: 4:48

I think that's so cool. What is uh? Can you mention one of the big seller books that you've written to the listeners?

Clay Hicks: 4:54

yeah, so. So yeah, we just um, it's a crack cracking the code, best business lesson I ever learned, and so my story is actually in there. I told a little brief piece of the story that I've just shared about how I started H7. But anyway, that's in there. There's nine other members that are in there with us and everybody's sharing a story about the best lessons they've learned in business, and so that one is the most newest one.

Shireen Botha: 5:25

That's so cool, and if we wanted to purchase it, we can get it on Amazon or any of the platforms that sell books, right?

Clay Hicks: 5:33

100%. Yeah, my other one that is a bestseller, sales Fusion. That's also on Amazon. They're on my author's page. But then I have two books that I've held tightly for H7 Network members only so far as the CRH brand comes out, then you'll see those books able to be coming out and all that good stuff for the public.

Shireen Botha: 5:56

So working on that stuff behind the scenes now my goodness, you've got so many things going on in play. I love that. I think that's really really cool. So many things going on and play I love that, I think that's really really cool. Um, the other thing that I'm just thinking to myself, you know, being a business owner, uh, we wear so many different hats, right, and one of the hats that I hate wearing.

Shireen Botha: 6:16

I hate it with a passion but, but I know it was necessary for my business. So I've learned and and I've done a lot of different courses to help me in that department that I'm not good at, so I can do it, but it doesn't mean I enjoy doing it. And that is the marketing and sales side of my business. Yeah, and I find out of all the different ways one can market and sell themselves. I find networking, where you meet other people and find your referral partners, people that are going to kind of like be your sales team in a way is is my go-to kind of. I feel more comfortable in that.

Shireen Botha: 7:06

I don't enjoy the tele sales, that all the other forms of different ways you can sell and market your business. It's just I don't enjoy it. So I lean towards leaning towards the mic here, so I don't go, my voice doesn't disappear, but I lean towards the, the networking businesses and um and so on. The networking businesses, there is a few out there, as you know. Yeah, yeah, there's bni, there's amspirit, um, and now, you know, there's h7. So if we could talk about the, you know what makes H7 different to the other networking businesses out there.

Clay Hicks: 7:52

Yeah, before we go too far, I just want you to know like I'm friends with Frank I mean, we were just together last week.

Tanya Scotece: 7:58

We love Frank, we love Frank.

Clay Hicks: 8:00

So Frank and I are now collaborating, which is super exciting. I love collaborating with other networking groups, so I would collaborate with approximately 16 other groups. Oh gosh, yeah, so yeah and. I have relationships with those CEOs. And you know, and we talk about helping each other and we do help each other and we do different stuff. And Frank and I have've really he's only like two hours from me, an hour, and a half, okay, okay so I've known for about.

Clay Hicks: 8:30

Uh, we first did a round table like in 2010. That's when we first met oh my gosh yeah great guy.

Shireen Botha: 8:38

We really, really love him. Of him, yeah, um are you on same terms with um Ivan Meisner or no?

Clay Hicks: 8:48

so I, uh, I want to meet him okay so you also yeah well so well, so there's a, so I'm one degree of separation from him right now okay.

Clay Hicks: 9:00

I just gotta ask and I know that's all I got to do, I just haven't done it but I'd like to meet him because there's specific things that he did in his career that set the tone for, of course, networking and the foundation of it. And then I came in and I broke it, invented, and so when I did that, I yeah, I want to meet him. Like, oh, I I just think a conversation, uh would be really cool. Like you know, I I'm not college educated, I don't have the background that most people do and I have a unique journey, uh, doing thousands of one-to-ones, like just a whole different design that h7 has. It's the complete opposite of b I love that, love that, love that.

Shireen Botha: 9:51

There's no, yeah, there's no one way of doing things and I think people can forget that. You know, it's one specific thing. It's not the alpha and omega. You can get to the end in different ways and and that's true for so many parts of life in general, but let's talk about the differences. You want to talk about some of the differences. That's that makes H7 stick out of the crowd.

Clay Hicks: 10:20

Yeah, yeah. So I have no challenge or inability to share, because, because H7 is a unicorn, it really is. It's such a unicorn, it's like a brand new version of whatever was going on before, because of the pathway that we've taken, which makes it easier for us to collaborate with everybody else. I mean easy to do that, and so who would have thought but yeah, whenever you're ready, whichever. Do you want me to compare it to BNI? That's probably the easiest.

Shireen Botha: 10:53

Right, go ahead.

Clay Hicks: 10:55

Yeah, because I want to do it that way, because of course I love Frank and everything but and I appreciate Donnie at SCN and all my relationships, but I think it would just be easier to do it with BNI, because they kind of somewhat compete with BNI and that's a very general statement, but raw statement, so let's just compare them, can you do?

Tanya Scotece: 11:18

a comparison, though, clay, just for our listeners, just because some folks out there may not be familiar with specifically BNI. So if you could just do you know like an overview and then compare yeah.

Clay Hicks: 11:30

All right, so BNI has been around since 1984. Okay, h7 has been around since 2008. Uh, ivan meisner, uh began bni after being in la tip. I started h7 after being in some no-name networking group anyway, not a big deal. So BNI is is has been around the longest, the most successful, the most most impact to date.

Clay Hicks: 11:59

They obviously are franchised, so they're not corporate, they're all franchised and so that most people don't know that, but they are. And then you know, bni is where you will have a group that you meet with on a weekly basis for 90 minutes, where you'll have a chance to deliver a 60-second commercial talk about what you're looking for, as well, as there'll be presenters each week like the members can present about their businesses and their formalities. There's also a leadership that they have that is more like a board of directors kind of is a great way to think of it. They have a president, vice president, so on and so forth. They have been on the move recently buying back some of their franchises. I've just recognized that over the last few years from the pandemic, actually, I hope that helps.

Clay Hicks: 13:00

They have a very specific motto called Giver's Gain that they use, and so does that help. Tanya, just to give a little bit of background about B&I, does that help?

Tanya Scotece: 13:10

Yes, yes, For the listeners that are not familiar with it. Yes.

Clay Hicks: 13:13

Yeah, great, all right. So now let's get into doing a comparison. So it begins with the actual vision of the communities, the mindset of the community period, like at the very top, at its core. We're absolutely different, absolutely different. Starting with mindset. We abundance mindset.

Clay Hicks: 13:42

You know you can be in the room with your competition and BNI that's a no-no, they don't want that. Okay, so that alone. The strategic metric that B&I would use versus ours theirs is going to be based on dollars, roi investment 10 times. Whatever it is, it's all about the money. They track it. We don't. They track the dollars. They ask you for the dollars, all that stuff. We do not.

Clay Hicks: 14:15

Ours is a strategic strategy which is five trusted champion relationships. Okay, so we don't track the dollars, but we track the relationships, because we know and have proven and time-t tested that if a member has five trusted champion relationships, they write their own check, they do whatever they need to do. I proved it by starting H7 with five people already 17 years ago. So that's a little bit about that. When you get into more of the blocking and tackling the structure of things, I shared that B&I has a board, h7 is ran by a collaborative team Alpha team is what it's called, and they go through a team building experience all the way until they become that team that we have engineered for them to be able to do that. And so, where the board and BNI they're not like, they run the meetings and facilitate the group. Ours facilitates the group, but also they work collectively with their team in a very predictable way to create referrals for each other and introductions for each other and grow their business and it's our own proprietary intellectual property that they follow through with. Then you get into the meeting itself. Those are 90-minute meetings you are required to attend in B&I. In H7, 60-minute meetings not required. Costs will vary based on where B&I may be, but it's usually around $1,000 or a little bit more. H7 across the country $599 a year, so $400 less, let's see. In BNI you have one required training that comes with your membership, called MSP, and which they show you how to operate the B&I meeting for themselves. That's what that is more or less. In H7, we have five hours of word-of-mouth marketing training that supports a member being able to create those trusted champion relationships as fast as possible, be able to grow their business more predictably using our tools and resources available to them and with the cost.

Clay Hicks: 16:34

In B&I you get one group, one group. Whatever group you go to, that's your group In H7, you belong to the entire community. You go to means that you wish to go to when you wish to go to them. Bni and this is it for the last one here. Bni has lots and lots of requirements. H7 has one, one requirement that everybody take their Connect, serve and Ask training. And we ask them to do that because it is our culture maker and is our difference maker in this world Around our meeting styles that are focused around. When you attend the meeting, the objective is that you walk away with a meaningful connection to your ask every single time, and we are the only groups that do that powerful, powerful clay.

Tanya Scotece: 17:23

And can you just clarify when you say the five, you know that what is that referring to? Is it five individual people? Is it five? What does five mean like? Is it just five grand? Like what is? Can you just dive a little deeper in that five?

Clay Hicks: 17:36

yeah, yeah. So five a lot of numbers.

Tanya Scotece: 17:38

Oh my god, we got seven, we got five. I'm trying to keep track. So what's the five?

Clay Hicks: 17:44

just fyi, tanya, we use numbers a lot. Okay, so five trusted. So five individual trusted champion relationships. Okay, which means that Tanya would be one of my trusted champion relationships in this scenario, and then Shireen would be, and so now I have two, so five trusted champion relationships. So the training supports them in being able to develop those trustee relationships faster to get to champion status. Because champion status in that relationship means that we're meeting once a month for the sole purposes of opening up doors for each other, with introductions and referrals and bam. That's what we do and it creates results.

Tanya Scotece: 18:34

It's more results. So what is the? I mean, if you have to put an average, because we're on numbers, what's the average size group of your of these groups? I mean, are they 20, 30, 10 like five, like how many you're supposed to have?

Clay Hicks: 18:43

well, also, I forgot to say this one thing h7, the, is the b2b community. I was referring to the b2b over zoom I I was referring to. I forgot to say that BNI that's uh, that's a big difference as well. So B2B and um, so so what's your question? I think I messed it up. What was your question again?

Tanya Scotece: 19:03

Just so how many people like are in each respect. I mean, I know you said it's not like just one group, but like this initial group, so to speak how many people are we talking Um?

Clay Hicks: 19:14

So an average group meeting size is 11 to 20. But pure B2B, pure B2B. So when you're in that room with 10 other people and you're a consultant, you're not in there with, say, a mortgage broker. You're in there with 10 other people that could potentially help you.

Tanya Scotece: 19:36

Very interesting. I want to learn more about it. Is there one in Florida? You got one in Florida.

Clay Hicks: 19:41

Yeah, we're opening up, okay.

Tanya Scotece: 19:43

All right, well, keep my number handy.

Shireen Botha: 19:47

Yes, yes, we were chatting after the podcast because I went to go and visit one of yours in LA, but anyway, we're digressing here. Listeners, I apologize, but before we carry on, I do want to jump in here with a little Buzzsprout ad. You all know that Friends from Wild Places uses Buzzsprout, uses Buzzsprout. It's a fantastic platform when it comes to just starting your own podcast and being just really a great, easy way to work on one platform, but yet it spaghettis out to all the live stream platforms out there that people use to listen to their podcasts. So Friends From Wild Places is a place to share stories from other business owners and entrepreneurs. It's a safe place, as you know, to show support for each other. We feature non-profits every month to try and make a difference or give a helpline to someone in need.

Shireen Botha: 20:50

So basically, do you have a message you want to share with the world, or maybe you just think it'll be fun to have your own talk show? Podcasting is a easy, inexpensive and fun way to expand your reach online. So to start your own podcast, please follow the link in the show notes and this lets Buzzsprout know that we sent you and it really does help support the show and also subscribe. It's only five dollars. Only five dollars. That really supports myself and Tanya. We do this for fun. But if it means anything to you what we're doing and you really find it helpful, then please think about maybe subscribing. But Buzzsprout is definitely the way to go. If you're thinking of starting your own podcast, all right back to you, clay. So, talking about the different methods that each networking business uses, why do you think yours is the winner?

Clay Hicks: 21:56

That's a good question. You know, I've never been asked that question. Why do I think Because it puts more power in the individual member's hand. That's really the best way to answer that. They're in age seven, you don't have to worry about. Oh, I have a client so I can't go to the meeting. No, your client's first. Oh, family, yeah, family first. You're not going to get a letter in the mail. We're not going to hawk you because you've missed a couple of meetings or whatever.

Shireen Botha: 22:35

I love that. Yeah, I like that answer. Thank you, Claire. So if you could give a piece of advice to someone that would like to start their own business, what would that piece of advice be?

Clay Hicks: 22:47

Number one do it anyway, Do it anyway Not to worry. We already know your family's not going to like it, your family's not going to connect with it. It's already there. Just do it. If you've been thinking about it as long as it wasn't like you thought about this morning, don't do it. I'm not telling you to do that. I'm telling the people who have been thinking about it for a while, not the one who just thought, ooh, I want to be one. So I would say to do it.

Clay Hicks: 23:19

That would be number one Number two is find yourself some trusted relationships as fast as you humanly can, as fast as you can find the people that you can potentially rely on as a relationship to help you get going.

Shireen Botha: 23:43

I like that. Thank you. What would be one of the biggest struggles that you've faced being a business owner or entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Clay Hicks: 23:56

Oh my gosh, I've had so many different. Uh, yeah, okay, I got one.

Tanya Scotece: 23:59

I got a recent one for you, I got a reasonable for you.

Clay Hicks: 24:01

So, um a year ago, somebody tells me that, uh, I I'm never going to be able to scale this business as the person who sells it and sells everything you know I'm the.

Clay Hicks: 24:15

I'm the opposite to be able to scale this business as the person who sells it. It sells everything. You know I'm the opposite of Shereen All marketing, all sales, leadership over the time, over time. But anyway, yeah, so I would.

Clay Hicks: 24:32

Essentially, I needed to make such a massive change to where I was bringing in, delegating more and more of our services to other people, and I called it Operation Less Clay, and it wasn't me being arrogant either, it was like being truthful, like logical, get out of the way. Clay, more or less, is what it was. So I had to put a plan in place for me to eliminate myself, which was quite fun, and so I was able to do it right on time. It was amazing how it landed. And then, all of a sudden, I've got, you know, less clay, more strategy where I live, the place I live, set the BHAG for five, five years, set it for three, set the strategies for one, and we went to work, and I've grown so many steps forward since just December and been through the slammer, more or less so I've just I've uh very, though, for what happened.

Shireen Botha: 25:38

Tune in next week for part three of Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover: 25:40

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.