Russ: This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show, and I have back with me from not too long ago Cliff Kurtzman, Founder and CEO of My City Rocks. Cliff, welcome back.

Cliff: Thank you, Russ.

Russ: You bet. But we're not here to talk today about My City Rocks, but if you're interested, just go to TheBusinessMakers.com and check out Cliff's interview. It's a cool, cool model. So, what we're here to talk about today though is an organization that you're very active in, the Entrepreneurs Organization, a fairly mature, global-based entrepreneur organization, and you are the communications director of EO Houston. So, let's start there; tell us about EO Houston.

Cliff: Well, I've been in EO Houston twice out of the five out of the past 12 years, and it has been a fantastic resource to help me learn and grow my business. We have about 135 entrepreneurs in the Houston area, and in order to get in the group you have to have a business that does gross sales of a million a year or more, or there's some exceptions for a VC-funded company, they can do an exemption for a few years.

Russ: Okay.

Cliff: And we get together and do a lot of stuff to help each other become better businesspeople and better members of our community. We have chapter events where we bring in incredible speakers from all over the world that will talk to us and give us ideas on ways to make our business more effective, ways to hire better, ways to get staff more motivated, ways to make more money, all kinds of different things. It can give us a lot of perspective on the world and how to face the tough times and the challenges that we all do in our business. We have a forum of groups, that we're put into groups of about ten people each, and we meet once a month in a highly confidential scenario where we share a very - what we call, top 5 percent issues, the things that we wouldn't talk about with other people -

Russ: Wow.

Cliff: - about our personal lives and about our businesses and have a group that we can share this with and know it will never go beyond that room and use our experiences to help each other through those issues in our lives. So, we have forum; we have local events, and then we're part of a region of EO, the Texas region, and then we're part of the EO Global which has more than 8,000 people in it, and we have opportunities to participate in all kinds of events through those parts of the organization as well.

Russ: Well, that's very interesting. I think we all know the value of, sort of, peer input, and sharing and stuff, but man, in Houston there's 130.

Cliff: There's about 130, yes.

Russ: Wow. And so, it's real interesting when you talked about the smaller group session where, you know, there's, kind of, an oath that, "Hey, we're gonna share some very personal things about our business and our life to help each other." Is that, sort of, a standard venue all across the Entrepreneur Organization globally?

Cliff: Yes, it's a core part of EO. There are a couple of things that can get you kicked out of the group immediately. One is breaking the confidentiality of that group. Another is marketing to another member. We socialize -

Russ: Wow. [Laughter]

Cliff: We socialize, and people will often come to each other to do business, but you cannot sell to another member.

Russ: All right. You can do business, but you can't be promoting yours.

Cliff: That's right.

Russ: Well, that's real interesting, and how long has the global organization been in business?

Cliff: EO Global is 24 years old. We're celebrating our 25th anniversary next year, and our logo is Thrive 25 for the 25th year of the organization.

Russ: Okay. Now, I know for a fact, too, 'cause in trying to get you on the show you were out of town a lot, and that was for EO Organizational-type meetings. What kind of things happen globally that you attend?

Cliff: We have both regional events and global, what we call, twice a year, what we call universities. They're conferences where we get together to have once-in-a-lifetime experiences. You might be brought into a medical center to watch an open heart surgery or to party with Hef out at Playboy Mansion.

Russ: You're kidding.

Cliff: Yes, I actually was able to take my staff to do that.

Russ: Rock, wow. Those are things that at the national level or the global level?

Cliff: At the global and regional level that we've done.

Russ: Okay.

Cliff: To go to very exclusive places and have social events, but a lot of it is learning. I was out last week at our West Coast regional event where we got to learn from Magic Johnson talk about his experience as an entrepreneur, and he actually adopted one young man, a high school entrepreneur in the audience, and told him he was going to become his mentor after the kid asked him a very astute question and gave him his phone number right there, and that was fantastic. And then a few weeks back we had our last university was in Amsterdam where we were completely focused on how we can use our businesses to make the world a better place and change the world for the better, and our next big university is in New Zealand so we'll be going there in February.

Russ: Well, let's say that we have somebody in our audience right now that says, "Wait, I have a million dollars in revenue. This sounds real cool." Two questions: how do they get information, and about how much does it cost? This sounds like it could be expensive.

Cliff: It can be expensive. The annual dues in the Houston chapter are on the order of $4,000.00 a year.

Russ: Okay.

Cliff: You get so much for that though - monthly luncheons and dinners where we can bring our wives, and our staffs or our significant others and learn from great people, and that's all included. You know, lots of stuff is all included in this. Going to the universities and the regional events, those are extra fees, but most of the stuff at the local level, it's all included.

Russ: All right. So, but I guess there's some kind of process involved to become a member.

Cliff: Yes, if someone wants to join they would go to www.eohouston.com, and follow the instructions there to sign up, or they can even just send me an e-mail at cliff@mycityrocks.com and I'll get you hooked up, and then once someone does that we will learn about you, and you'll fill out the qualification criteria. We'll verify their revenue, visit their company, and if we like them, they'll be invited to join the chapter and be part of our group.

Russ: So, is this one of those organizations that will not let somebody in that competes with a member already?

Cliff: You can compete with a member. We wouldn't be put into the same forum group of ten with a competitor ever, but you could certainly compete within the chapter; that's not a problem.

Russ: Okay.

Cliff: There have, on rare occasions, been issues where someone knows someone and said, "That's not a person that upholds the standards of integrity that we want our group to have." And the person wasn't brought in 'cause another member objected.

Russ: Wow, really?

Cliff: It's fairly rare, but it can happen.

Russ: Okay. And that's the Entrepreneurs Organization, and you're with EO Houston. Cliff, I really appreciate you coming in and sharing that information with us. It's Cliff Kurtzman, the Founder and CEO of My City Rocks and the Communications Director of EO Houston. This is the BusinessMakers Show, heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.