The Real Reason Coaches & Entrepreneurs Are Struggling in 2026

Walk us through your early childhood. What was it like for you as a kid?

I always feel like there's two types of entrepreneurs.

How did you discover entrepreneurship?

That was me. I grew up the oldest of 9 kids.

What was your early career like? How did you end up where you are in your business right now?

I found myself in my third year at the University of Utah.

Did you ever take any, like, traditional employment in the first place?

I started out right out of college. I got into doing mortgages. While these small business owners are trying to get $25,000, $50,000, $50,000.

So how was it for you to actually make this profitable?

That there is a gap in the education that small business and new business owners have.

Why is it important to have credit?

There's two sides to it. You have your personal side and then you have your business credit side.

So I'm curious, how do you build relationships like that?

I said, who already has my clients?

What excites you, Leo?

Like Transforming a business owner's life. What's going on?

What's going on, everybody who's actually listening to this podcast right now? First of all, guys, welcome back to another episode of The Nikhil Sai Show, which is hosted by me, The Nikhil Sai. And guess what's going on today? We're back with another amazing 2 Comma Club X interview. This is going to be interesting. Today we're going to deep dive into a lot of interesting topics. I mean, with the COVID wave, the coaching industry has definitely boomed. You know, the 1 Funnel Away Challenge and Russell Brunson, HighLevel, and many more people actually advertising their businesses for the first time ever online and selling their knowledge and finding this business lucrative. But we have seen a downhill, especially in the late 2023 and early 2024 because of the rising ad cost. And obviously a lot more people are jumping into the space, so it's getting crowded and crowded and, you know, customers are more confused than ever before. And, you know, to be able to get clients, you got to charge expensive prices and that's where your customers might not have funds. And today we are going to solve that problem on this episode. And we have a very, very, very interesting guest today. We have Leo Kennel, who is the CEO at Seven Figure Funding. He's going to break down how funding can unlock new levels in your business, how you could reach more audience, spread your message, create the impact while creating great partnerships and thriving your business. Hey Leo, thanks for jumping on today.

It's awesome to be here with you, Nick. Great to connect with your audience. And I love being around other entrepreneurs and Certainly those who are, you know, helping business owners like you are.

Yeah, absolutely, Leo. I mean, we met in a very funny manner. I scheduled a conversation with you and you were at a networking event, uh, like a physical event, and you're speaking and you still sneaked in, uh, in, in that time. So it was really great commitment to see you as a founder who has a busy schedule and still show up for some random appointments jumping on. And here we are on the podcast. So Leo, I'm stoked to talk about the funding techniques, the opportunities of business growth and JV and all the juicy stuff. But before that, Leo, give us some context. You won the Two Comma Club X Award. I mean, it's, it's an accomplishment worthwhile talking. Before we get into that, talk to us about, walk us through your early childhood. What was it like for you as a kid? How did you discover entrepreneurship? What was your early career like? How did you end up where you are in your business right now? What's like the journey overall?

Yeah, great question, Nick. I always, uh, feel like there's two types of entrepreneurs. There are those entrepreneurs who were maybe, uh, selling baseball cards, or they were going door to door and they had the lemonade stand and they were always built to be an entrepreneur into the future. And then there were the second type of entrepreneur that did everything by the book, got the good grades, went to school, and then got outta college and realized, well, actually I'd rather be an entrepreneur. And, and that was me. That was me. I grew up the oldest of 9 kids. Both my parents went to college. My father was an attorney in a small town in Utah called Beaver. And growing up the oldest of 9, it was all about getting good grades and doing things the conventional way. My parents were not, you know, really business owners or entrepreneurs. In fact, my father worked for the government as a prosecuting attorney. And so it was all about getting good grades, going to college, getting good grades in college. And so I found myself in my 3rd at the University of Utah, and I was sitting down in this marketing class and this gentleman asked the professor if he could make an announcement. And he proceeds to tell me, well, guess what? Your piece of paper, your diploma is not going to translate into as much money and financial stability as you think if you don't have actual business experience. And I thought that made a lot of sense. And I realized why I didn't have very much business experience. And he said, We've got this internship where we teach you how to build a painting business. And I didn't know anything about painting houses or entrepreneurship or sales or hiring and managing people, but I said, hey, this looks like a great opportunity. So there were 100 of us that started. Out of those 100 people, I finished second. Three-quarters of them quit and weren't able to actually build the business, but basically we went door to door. Selling people on painting their house, even though we had no idea how to paint houses. And fortunately, because I had done a mission in Santiago, Chile, in South America, I spoke Spanish and the best painters in our area were all Spanish speaking. Because I spoke Spanish, I was able to bring these amazing painters and they did great work. And I did the sales and the marketing and we were able to have a successful business. And I got married super young and my wife and I went on a, We went on a honeymoon to Cancun, Mexico, and at that point I was hooked. I realized I liked being a business owner. I liked having control. I realized that I could make a lot more money than I ever could at a job. And so from that standpoint, fast forward 20 years later, I've, you know, been an entrepreneur in a lot of different businesses. And so that was my background. And then eventually I learned about business finance and serving business owners, and that's where I've been the last decade.

Interesting. Wow. What an interesting journey. So what happened? Did you ever take any, like, traditional employment in the first place? Have you ever tried to even get on the corporate ladder? How long you have been and what was your early business like? I mean, obviously the decade experience you have in funding, we'll talk about that. But before that, what were the mini ventures where you almost got a lot of learnings from and a lot of failures together? Yeah.

So about 20 years ago, I started out right out of college after that painting business that I ran. I got into doing mortgages and home loans. And so we would get people loans so that they could buy houses. And I started off with this company and we would travel all around the state of Colorado doing loans for veterans in the US. And there was a special loan for veterans. If you served in the Army in the US, you could get a mortgage to buy a house. So I did that for a few months and did really well, and I decided I didn't want to drive all around. That I could do these things over the phone via email. So then I started more as an independent contractor just doing home loans. And then I did work for— in my second year, I did work for a big corporate mortgage company that was out of Baltimore and did that for about a year. And then in my third year, I started my own mortgage company. This is back in— this is back a while ago, back in 2005, and built that into a multi-seven-figure successful business, invested in real estate. And then the market crashed in 2008, '09. And at that point, I had to really struggle and do a lot of deep soul searching and figure out what was I going to do. And I realized I wasn't reading books, I wasn't reaching after mentors, I wasn't investing in myself, I wasn't going to events. And so I finally, a few years later, started getting into that, started reading a lot of books by entrepreneurs. I was reading books by Grant Cardone. I was learning from Russell Brunson about marketing. And then I realized I did commercial real estate loans for big businesses and they would take months to get done and sometimes nothing would happen and I would make no money after working months on a deal. And then I realized, well, all these small business owners are trying to get $25,000, $50,000 to get their business off the ground. And there's a lot of them. So I said, what if I figure out a way to help them? And that's what I've spent the last 10 years doing is how can I help new and small business owners get loans and lines of credit to get their business off the ground? And it's been very satisfying to help these people and then also work with a lot of the big entrepreneurs and spaces and have them send their clients over so we can get them financing. And we've been, it's been fortunate to serve tens of thousands of small business owners with funding and financing. And I'll meet up with some of them years later in events, and they'll have 2 business locations and 20 employees, and they'll thank me for getting that initial $50,000, $70,000, $100,000 that they need. So that's been really awesome to just play a part in helping business owners and entrepreneurs who create small jobs, who create products and services that improve our lives. And that's what I've been doing the last decade. And I absolutely love it.

Wow. I love that. That is so transforming journey, you know, from you just being in the mortgage space to building your own company, to actually helping small business owner. So what was it like to go from like the thought process of, hey, you know, I'm in mortgages or maybe, hey, I'm only serving like these big businesses to get loans. To starting to work with a small business. And I mean, the problem with small businesses, you know, the risk of them paying off, you know, the loan is higher. And then you got to talk to a lot of them and there is a lot of scrutiny before they get, you know, the funding. And when they get funded is when you get paid technically. So there's definitely a lot of things which goes behind the scenes. So how was it for you to actually make this profitable while you have a family? And what was the initial hardships like to build the Seven Figure Funding?

Yeah, great, great question. So what I realized is that there is a gap in the education that small business and new business owners have about credit, about lending, and what it takes to qualify and actually get approved for financing. And then what do they need to do to actually grow their business? And so what we decided— I had had a previous finance company that I started and we grew really fast, and then I brought on business, other partners, and they didn't share my values and principles. And I wasn't able to get that business back on track. So I left that business in 2018 to, to launch Seven Figures Funding. When I did, I said, we're gonna focus on providing a lot of education to empower these business owners so they make good decisions and so that they can always qualify for funding and then use their funding wisely so that they can pay it back and succeed with their business. And so we started putting together education platforms on teaching them how to qualify, how credit works, how to focus on generating a return on the money and only invest it into strategies that are going to grow the business. We realized that if a lot of them worked with someone who had a roadmap for success in real estate or e-commerce or in marketing, they would have greater odds of success. And so we started working with a lot of business coaches and consultants because we knew if they worked with them, they'd have a better shot at actually succeeding in their business. And so the bridge there was not only did we want to have every finance option available for them, but we wanted to educate them to make sure they used the money smartly. If you ever watch Shark Tank, Daymond John talks a lot about this. He talks about proof of concept. And when you're dealing with a small business owner, it's important that they have proof of concept. They, they have a product or service that they prove that the market wants and that they can be profitable with. And then they always should invest small with their initial loan or line of credit and then grow and expand that with that proof of concept. So those were some of the key concepts that we focused on so that they would have a better shot at succeeding.

Makes sense, Leo. Let's kind of Talk about credit. In America, credit is a very interesting opportunity. You know, I have seen a lot of business owners just use this personal credit and business credit very well and without raising funding, getting to 8 figures in revenue, even 9 figures in revenue. Like I know a guy who could buy a private jet with credit card. I was like, that, like, that's kickass. Like, you know, if you build your credit profile to that scale, I mean, you have the control and, you know, I've interviewed people like Neil Patel, he leverages his credit to buy businesses, put trust in them, sell at multiples. And there's just so much, like, there's just so many doors which open up suddenly when you have credit line or when you have opportunity to bring in cash to the table and, you know, the leverage is high. So for someone who's listening to this podcast, who is a business owner, give us like a mini credit masterclass. Why is it important to have credit? What are the basic steps? What are the not-to-dos and to-dos? And how could they actually build the credit profile to scale. And we will obviously talk about how they could fund their customers, but I believe it's important to get the credit well for themselves initially. So I'm curious about your opinion on that.

Yeah, Nick, you're absolutely right. When it comes to credit and funding, there's two sides to it. You have your personal side of building your personal credit profile up, and then you have your business credit side and building up the credit for the business. And so you can't build the business until you have good personal credit. There's a lot of misinformation out there where someone's like, oh, even though you have really bad personal credit, you can qualify for really great funding for your business. And for the most part, that's just not true. And so to build good personal credit, there's 5 factors that the credit bureaus are going to look at. And the good news is now is what we've done is we created a platform called Credit College. And every time someone applies for funding, whether they have good credit or not, we give them free access, lifetime access to that Credit College platform. And then you start to learn, all right, there's 5 factors that, that build a strong personal credit score so that you can eventually qualify for business funding. Number 1 is you need to, of course, pay your bills on time. On-time payments account for 35% of your credit score. So that's the first factor. We recommend that people set up automatic minimum monthly payments. Every single credit card or loan or car loan, mortgage, everything can have an auto payment feature to it. That way you never have to worry about being late with your payment. So that's number one. The second factor is how you use credit cards. And credit cards are these little revolving lines of credit that we all know about. And when we're young, we just think we can get these and we can use these for any purpose. And that's not right. You want to only use them if you can afford to pay them off every month so that you avoid paying interest. And number 2, if you're going to use them, they should be used for something that's going to make you money. Most people use credit for things that don't make them money, like vacations, like expensive clothes, even expensive cars. That doesn't make you money. You want to use credit to invest into your business, into marketing, into education, into improving yourself, learning new skills. That's going to generate more than enough money to pay that debt off. And so with credit cards, it's 30% of your credit score and it's how you utilize them. If you have a $10,000 credit card limit, when you use all of it and you don't pay it down and the card is maxed out with a $10,000 balance and a $10,000 limit, that hurts your credit. If you can pay the balance down every month to below 30 or 40% of the limit, if it's a $10,000 card, you want to pay it down to a $3,000 balance, a $4,000 balance, or even more. That's going to account for 30% of your credit score. The next part of your credit score is how many new accounts you're, you're opening up. You only want to open up new accounts of a few here and there. Maybe once a year. If you're constantly opening up new accounts and applying for a lot of credit, the lenders get very concerned. And that's about 10 to 15% of your credit score is getting new credit. So you want to make sure you're not trying to get new credit. You want to be very strategic about doing it. And when you are going to go get it, you go for it and then you understand you're not going to do it for another year so that you can give your score time to build back up. Now, the next part about credit is how old you are. That's why in the United States, Grandma and Grandpa always have pretty good credit, because when you have accounts that are 10, 20, 30 years old, that tells the credit bureaus that you're a very good borrower and you pay your loans back. And so the longer you can have a credit card open— I just, I actually just did a video about this on why you should never close a credit card account. It's getting hundreds of views every single day because closing a credit card will lower your credit score because now you have less available credit. So you want to keep them open, but you want to be smart about when you actually use them. And so your average age of accounts is 10% of your credit score. And then the other factor in your credit score is having a different mix of credit. You should have car loans history, you should have mortgage loan history with properties you own, and you should have credit card history. If all you have is credit card history, then that will keep your score lower because it looks like all you do is get credit cards and you don't have other types of credit. And so those are the 5 factors. Once you build good personal credit, now you can get credit in the name of the business that doesn't even report to personal credit. You can get business credit cards and business loans and business lines of credit. And then you have to start building the business's credit history in the name of the business. Have that business in good standing with the state where you're located, have your business tax returns filed on time, and then the business can begin to qualify for even more funding in the name of the business. And like you said, I— you can have a business credit card. I have a business credit card that started out with a $10,000 limit and now it's up to a $115,000 limit. And when you have a credit card in the name of your business that's like $100,000, that gives you a lot of ability to make good decisions when opportunities come or to take care of yourself in time of emergency. And so that's how personal business credit work and how you can make them work for you.

I should, I should definitely appreciate the fact that you have dumbed it down so simple that all the credit videos which I ever watched on, you know, how credit works, you know, like I just need to Delete that information altogether. What you're good in the last 5 minutes, it's so simple and easy to digest. Thank you so much. You know, you have exponentially very well explained it. I really enjoyed what you've taught. Now I'm curious, there is a lot of friends in my circle who run businesses, and these guys are like me. They're foreign LLC owners. They have an EIN. They don't have a, you know, personal Social Security number or anything like that. And American, you know, banking is friendly but not too friendly for foreign owners. So I'm curious, like, can a foreign owner even apply for personal credit or business credit? If yes, how can they go about it? This would definitely help a lot of entrepreneurs like myself.

Yeah. So starting out, if you have a tax identification number, which is the same 9-digit number that is used as a Social Security number, and you can get that tax identification number as a foreign individual and then if you can obtain some kind of US address, a mailing address for your business, a mailing address for you personally with your name on it, sometimes that ends up being a mailbox or you pay a monthly fee to, to have a mail address for your business and both personally. Once you have that tax identification number and you have an address in the US, then you can start to build up a personal credit profile, which is what you'll need to ever qualify for credit, including in the name of the business into the future. Once you do that, then you can— the first step is to set up a secured credit card. And all a secured credit card is, is you go to Capital One and you give them $500, and now you've got a credit card for $500. You use it for a year, pay it back, and then they give you your $500 back. And now you have an unsecured, no collateral, $500 credit card and you got your money back. And then if you use it and pay it down, then that $500 credit card can become a $5,000 credit card. And now you can start to build personal credit history. And then with your personal credit history, eventually build business credit history in the name of the business. And eventually, at some point, it's certainly helpful if you can establish some sort of residency in the US, even if that's just a very affordable apartment building that you have, that a friend stays at, that you're on the lease or you're on the address, you start to build that. That's important because, because for US lenders to be comfortable with you, they want to know that if you don't pay them back, they can find you somewhere to communicate and work out a payment plan to get paid back. And so that's, that's the big factor. I think is that residency. And then the other thing is hopefully our government takes steps to make it easier for entrepreneurs from other countries, to make it easier for them to come work in the US. We need high-quality people like that. And I've heard good things from some of the presidential candidates where they're talking about making it easier for high-quality entrepreneurs from other countries and technical professionals to be able to move to the US and, and, or at least do business here. So that's, that's something that I've heard on the, on the movement.

I mean, if not residency or moving, at least let us like come into the country for travel or business purpose for a few weeks. Like I was refused to be on the stage of Funnel Hacking Live to receive my awards. And that was disheartening. And now I'm actually invited to speak at a high-level event. And, you know, there is another Funnel Hacking Live coming up in 2025. I want to attend these amazing meetings. I want to be at this networking events and whatnot. I have the funds to pay. I'm living in Dubai and whatnot, but they still refuse. And it's like frustrating to see like, oh my God, like, you know, it's, yeah, hopefully they'll make the decisions to change the immigration laws or whatever.

The government in the US has the wrong idea right now. Their border's wide open. We're letting the worst people in and what we need to be doing, that's what I'm confused about, attracting the best people like you who are entrepreneurs who are creating jobs and driving the US economy and being an asset. So the government needs to make those steps. But there are steps with residency and that tax identification number and then having your business set up and getting an entity identification number for the business, which is like the Social Security number of the business.

For the business. Yeah. I mean, it is frustrating to see on the content, like, you know, when I watch it, like, there are millions of immigrants crossing the border with, like, You know, like, whatever. And then here I am generating half a billion for my clients combined, and I can't enter the US. I'm like, what? Like, that doesn't make any sense.

Unacceptable. It's got to change. Gotta change.

Yeah.

I don't know, I don't know if you watch the All In podcast, or are you familiar with the All In podcast?

Yeah, I do watch them frequently.

Yeah. So, so yeah, they had, uh, they had Trump on, and Trump committed that anybody who is going to college or doing anything entrepreneurial he was going to make it easy for— he was going to give him a green card automatically.

That was beautiful. Yeah, I like it.

Would be— I'd love to see that.

Yeah, I kind of reconsidered signing up for college to get a green card. Yeah, because I dropped out in India. But anyway, I might not do it. I, again, I love Dubai. I don't want to get into the whole—

you have the equivalent of a degree. You've— you're an entrepreneur that was built a very successful business.

So yeah, appreciate that. So let's kind of get into, uh, you know, how funding opportunities can actually impact business bottom line. Again, the most common objection, it's not partners, it's not time, it's mainly money. Like 90% of the time, if they have the funds, they would do it. They just don't have access to it, or they're not willing to take that risk with the capital they have with their own cash. That's like what we hear on any education programs or services typically, and you know, in any B2B sales, uh, hypothetically. So I'm curious, Leo, like how do you solve for it and how Seven Figures Funding has actually been helping tens of thousands of individuals with these type of problems overall?

Yeah, great question. So if you're a business coach, consultant, trainer, you work with new or established business owners and they want to invest in a marketing platform with you or a coaching or a training program or a course, and they're short on cash, or they might have enough cash, but then if they, invest all their cash. Now they feel nervous because they don't have a backstop of savings. And so what's happened is we build out a marketplace of options with our 0% interest business card stack program, our 5-year personal loan program. We've got business lines of credit and SBA. So when your prospect needs funding options, we create a partner link so that your client, your prospect can apply and immediately get a preapproval with every option that they qualify for. And that way they can move forward, get financing, invest in your training program, and have additional financing to implement what they learn. Because sometimes they can get financing for your program, but if they can't get additional financing to actually invest in ad spend or invest in hiring and building a team, then they get stuck. And so that's where we provide these lines of credit, these 0% interest business cards where they can invest in your program and invest in growing their business. And we've just tried to invest in technology to make it as easy as possible so you can track the outcome, know if this is someone who can qualify or not. And if they can't qualify with us, then they're not gonna qualify anywhere else because we've taken all of the top funding resources and lenders and put them on our marketplace and vetted those that are actually lending. And so that way it literally usually boosts your sales by about 30% because now those people, like you said, who said no because they were short on money, now feel really good. Well, I can finance this at 0% interest up to 18 months. And that's my favorite is when somebody can get 0% interest, use the funding, and then pay it back during the 0% interest period and build a successful profitable business, change their family's lives, change their employment. Employees' lives. And, and that's why I love working with good business coaches, consultants, and trainers, because you provide a framework that helps them to succeed in a way they wouldn't or might not on their own.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love, I love that. I love the way you said, if they don't get approved in our system, they can't get approved anywhere. Like, that confidence is something I like. So now you're no longer anxious about maybe I should look for another financing partner. No, like You don't need to, like these guys got it all. That's pretty cool. So kind of, can you kind of give some examples of how this has actually impacted like a coaching business or consulting business at a bottom line level overall? Again, the 30% revenue increase, I've seen that in my own business when I actually started introducing funding and we have clients who sell high-ticket programs and some of them actually do 50 to 70% of their especially B2C coaching programs, like when they're teaching beginners, most of them are like funded deals overall because these guys have the time and energy to do the work, but they don't have the money. And that's where funding can really come and exponentially help them get the better lives they deserve. So I'm curious if you could share a few stories on how it actually impacted and how somebody can learn and start implementing what you're teaching here.

Yeah, there's this awesome group. They're a Two Comma Club X winner as well, and they help moms who are trying to build an Amazon e-commerce business.

Why not?

And they've got a really nice training program. Their names are Steven and Chelsea, awesome people. So we met them in just after the pandemic hit and they were doing these 7-day challenges and a lot of the prospects would get to the end of the challenge and say, yeah, I can, I can probably afford the $6,000. To get into the program, but then I need another $10,000 to be able to buy inventory and sell it on Amazon. And I, I don't have that $10,000, so I'm not going to do the program. And so what happened was one of his, one of his prospects, Jennifer, was actually already working with us at Seven Figures Funding, and we got her about $30,000. So she was able to do the program and invest in the inventory. And she felt bad in the Facebook group seeing all these people say, oh, I really wish I could do this program. I just can't afford it. And so she told Stephen, hey, this group here can help. And so on their next challenge, literally 50 people that would've said no were now able to say yes, which generated an additional $300,000 in sales. But more importantly, many of them were able to buy inventory and build 6 and 7-figure e-commerce businesses. Because we got them the financing for the training program and to buy the inventory. Fast forward a few years later and over $3 million in additional sales has come into that business because so many of those clients have been able to get the financing that they need. And so many of them have been able to succeed because they had the funding to purchase the inventory and they knew they were getting 0% interest, which gave them time to pay the money back without having to worry about paying a lot of interest.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. I mean, I come from a country where the credit is not really as good as it is in the US, you know, and I think lack of money was like one of those very important factors which pushed my growth very backward. Like, you know, I didn't have a computer growing up. I didn't have a mobile phone growing up. So I had to like scrape my own money and make it in a hustle bustle way to invest into these things. But I believe in an economy like America, when you're a small business owner and you have entrepreneurship spirit in you, I believe accessing funding will just exponentially fast-track the road overall, you know, anybody is walking. And definitely that's very impactful. Talking about that, I'm curious, the ad cost has been higher than ever before. Like it's just, it's just going to the moon, like what they call it, Bitcoin is going, you know, it's crazy. Like that's not, going up, this is going up actually. So I'm curious, you have a very unique strategy with JVs and affiliates and partners, and you have grown organically very well with a lot of partnerships, and you got a lot of referrals, and I was referred to you as well by somebody else. So I'm curious, how do you build relationships like that? How do you build businesses which are generating tens of millions in revenue through great partnerships and affiliation, affiliates, so that we could decrease the money we are giving to Mark Zuckerberg or Google, and invest in the personal business or incentivize the partners instead. So I would love to get a simple masterclass from you on creating JV programs and partnerships.

Yeah, it's such an important question right now. And it's funny, Nick, you know, I was at Russell Brunson's mastermind group in Boise 2 months ago, and I was sitting right next to him at lunch and talking to him about how he actually built ClickFunnels at the beginning. Because we're building out a fintech platform called MyFigures. And I wanted to, and it's a software that helps small business owners. It's not a marketing soft— it's not a funnel software like ClickFunnels. It helps you with cash flow so you can manage your finances and make good decisions with money. Interesting. And so I'm like, Russell, so what did you do with ClickFunnels at the beginning? Did you just do a bunch of ads and automatic sales funnels? He said, no, I didn't spend any money on ads the first 2 years. I'm like, really? What did you do? And he's like, well, we did these joint ventures. I said, who already has my clients? And I made a list of my Dream 100 who already had a bunch of clients who wanted to build and grow their business. And if they could use the ClickFunnels sales platform and build sales funnels, they would succeed at a higher rate. And so I build out a joint venture structure and I think he was paying them 40 or 50% of all the revenue that came in. And he would do a joint venture webinar with these groups and he would bring in a bunch of customers. And then he shared those revenues, not just the first year, but because it's a software, he shared it in perpetuity forever. And I thought, wow, that makes so much sense. And so for the last 6 years with our business at Seven Figures Funding, we said, All right, we can spend thousands of dollars to get one funding client on Google or Facebook, or I can go find someone like Steven and Chelsea who already have hundreds of clients waiting to get funding and build a relationship with them, pay them an affiliate commission, give them transparency with a backend portal where they could track all of their clients and know that they're being taken care of. And so that's what we did in 2020. We invested in that partner software portal, and that has made things so much easier. And that was the key really to giving them transparency and control and their own funding link. And 90% of our business to this day comes from the thousands of strategic referral partners who already work with business owners, whether it's a business coach, a business consultant, whether it's a digital marketing agency, whether it's a sales funnel organization. Whether it's an accountant, they send their clients in knowing that we're going to take care of their clients and we're going to take care of them and pay them a commission for sending in that client. And so that's driven our business. And now as we go to launch our cash flow platform, MyFigures, we're going to be doing it the exact same way, working with our strategic referral partners whose clients need this software solution. And just as Russell did, we're going to share a good portion of it. And it actually, people get scared. Oh, I can't pay out 40% of my revenue, uh, on an affiliate program. That's too much. But you don't realize you're only paying after the money's already come in. The problem with ads is you might spend $10,000 on Facebook and only get $5,000 that comes in. And so with an affiliate program, you set the terms and what, maybe it's 20%, maybe it's 10%. Depending on how much that affiliate brings to the table. But if you work with strategic partners who already have your dream customer and client and you only pay out referral fees after you've already made money, then that's a smart way to grow your business and you didn't even have to pull any money out to do it.

Yeah, I agree. And so many people are scared about losing that 50%, but the point is you don't make the remaining 50% if you don't have them affiliating in the first place. So get out of that scarcity and just partner with people. And when we've generated multi-six figures with multiple partnerships, and I know the importance of it, so I'm glad you're giving a playbook on how to actually build successful ones. And I mean, it makes 100% sense. And I kind of like the idea of you building this cashflow software because I mean, this freaking dashboards and Excel sheets we are using to track our portfolio, our own revenues and our clients and whatnot. It's just, Nuts. So I'm curious, why, why are you stumbling on SaaS? What's the goal? What's the vision? What are you trying to solve for in the market?

So we, we did a lot of research and we've obviously helped tens of thousands of business owners and some succeeded and some failed. And we realized that all the statistics showed the number one reason why small business owners fail is because they don't understand cash flow. And so we said, well, maybe there's a good software out there that people just need to use. And we did the research. And in the entire globe, the entire world, there was not a very good software for cash flow. There are accounting softwares to help you with your profit loss, with your balance sheet, but nobody was doing a good job on cash flow forecasting or creation except for the companies that worked with like the $100 million and billion-dollar companies. There's a company that works for them, Microsoft, but all the $30 million, all the millions of small business owners, there was nothing. You know, they didn't have $100,000 to spend on software. And so we said, well, let's build this out. And that's what we did. And it's got a dashboard that shows your money over the last 30 days that's come in, your expenses. It shows your cash balances. It shows your gross profit and your net profit margins. And those are the key financial indicators that you need. And the coolest thing is it allows you to forecast and say, all right, based on last month's numbers, you know, what, what would it take for me to pay myself an additional $5,000 a month for the next 12 months? Okay. And what if I invest in this marketing campaign? Am I increase my sales here? My marketing costs are here and I pay myself here. And it will tell you if you can afford it. And if you can't, then it will tell you, you need to be able to raise your price, increase your value, or maybe you need to be able to get a loan so you can finance and not have to pay upfront all of the advertising costs. And so that's what this does. It gives you cash flow insights today so you can make the right decision tomorrow. And it also does all your bookkeeping, so it saves you like $3,000 or $4,000 a year in bookkeeping. It gets your profit and loss put together to do your business tax return. And the coolest thing is this is the first time we've had a business that's global with funding It was only US-based because that was the financial market. But with our cash flow platform, it works everywhere. We've got connections with every major financial institution in Europe and South America and Asia. And so we're really excited to roll it out. We're going to have a great joint venture program with it, and we're on a mission to help millions of small business owners get their cash flow right so that they can make the right decisions succeed and take care of their families.

Oh, I love that. I completely agree. The biggest reason most companies fail is because they don't look at their cash flows right. And if there is a dashboard which reminds them that, hey, you know, you're draining cash and you're out of business in 30 days, if you do this, they're going to get into the mode to change it, change it around, and they will realize it late. And that's where the business suffers. So awesome. I'm rooting for you and I hope that would be a huge success and I'm definitely willing to be a part of it in any way possible. We have a series of questions for you overall. Can you walk us through the typical tools you use on a daily basis to manage your personal productivity, your clients, your projects, the tools to manage projects, your personal productivity, your projects, your clients, and whatnot? Daily tools you use online?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the daily tools with our CRM, we use Zoho, zoho.com. I feel like they do a better job than Salesforce. I think it's a quicker moving software. I think it's a better looking software. Uh, we have it integrated into our partner portal platform, which is backed by GoHighLevel. We've, uh, enjoyed working with them. Our calendar links and all of our automation with Zoho are connected with Zapier and GoHighLevel for all of our automatic sales funnels. We build those sales funnels, of course, with ClickFunnels. We feel like ClickFunnels does the does the best job with sales funnels. For email management, we use Mailchimp to manage all of our email lists. Obviously with the, you know, accounting and our cash flow software, we use myfigures.com, our platform that we just launched. And so that takes care of all our bookkeeping, dashboard, business tax returns, profit loss, and cash flow management. And yeah, I'd say those are the, The main softwares we use.

Sweet. Can you walk us through a typical day, Leo? How does your day look like from the time you wake up to the time you sleep?

Yeah, the most important thing I can say is you've got to use a calendar. If you're not using a calendar, the— I used to have a mentor who said the white space in your calendar is where the devil lives. So if you have a lot of white space in your calendar, that's where you can get into trouble. You've got to take advantage of every second. So when I get up, I get up. And I put my workout clothes on. I've got a little home gym. My wife or some of my sons will go down there and work out. I work out every single morning. There's not a morning, even if I'm traveling at an event, I'm going to get up early and work out that morning. While I work out, I'm going to listen to a book or listen to a podcast and learn something. I'm going to have a protein drink for breakfast. And then get to work as early as possible. If I'm home, I'm going to get to work at my, my commercial office space. If I'm at an event, you know, I'll be at the event and then I'm going to have every minute mapped out. I'm going to order lunch with DoorDash so that they can drop it off and I don't have to waste time going out and getting my food. I'm going to eat my food and go through and then I'm going to have every minute. But before I start my day, I'm going to look at what are the 4 or 5 most important tasks. If I get these done today, they help me achieve the big goals I have for the year or for 5 years. And if I'm not doing tasks that move me closer to my long-term goals, then I adjust those into my calendar. And then I'm working on those, you know, in the morning and then obviously in the afternoon, come home, eat dinner with my family, and then I'll usually work another hour, hour and a half, get a few more things done, plan my day out for the next day, and then go hang out with my family after that.

Love that simple routine, but effective because we're primarily focusing on the day-to-day, but also making sure this day-to-day is aligned to the yearly goals. No wonder why you're achieving your business goals. If you could go back—

I work every Saturday and Sunday too. I still will go to my kid— I don't miss any of my kids' games. I coach them in sports. But if you are honest with yourself, there's 3 or 4 hours on a Saturday and a Sunday that you're wasting. That are not being spent with your family. And if you use those for learning in your business, it helps.

Yeah, I agree. And you know, it's kind of taboo to work on weekends, but it does make sense when you really see the impact you're making in your business. Why can't you, like, why don't you work on weekends? Like, you would love to, right? So I have a few last questions before we sum up. If you could go back and give a suggestion to 20-year-old yourself, what would that be?

The biggest suggestion would be to pick a space that's growing, become an expert in that space, and do it by learning from a mentor, somebody who's already doing it well, who can— you can work with. They can be your mentor. You can even work for free at the beginning, whatever it takes, and learn from that, uh, individual who's already an expert in that space. If you go and you try to do it all on your own, then it wastes a lot of time.

Yeah, absolutely. I love that solution. This is one of the reasons I do podcasts, because I learn from you overall. So if you could point to one big mistake you have made so that we can avoid, uh, that making the same mistake again, what would that be?

It would be waiting too long to invest in myself. Reading entrepreneurial books, investing in training, mentoring, coaching, masterminds. Invest in yourself.

What's your life's biggest achievements and next big goal?

What's, uh, what's my biggest achievement so far?

Yes.

Well, it's been fun building this, uh, 8-figure business, uh, business-wise, that's the biggest right now. We're working towards My Figures becoming a 9-figure business over the next 3 to 5 years. And at the same time, I would say my 5 kids. I've been married 22 years to my wife. That's probably a bigger achievement than anything, but the business achievements fuel the life that you want to have with your family.

Love that. Love that. If anybody wants access to your platform or check out your, you know, cash flow software, how can they work with you in any shape or form?

Yeah, they can go to CashFlowSecrets.com. We just bought that website, so it's CashFlowSecrets.com. We've got a free book that you can download. There's a web class all about it. And if you're interested in becoming a Premier Partner to help get this program out to businesses so that they can succeed. You can integrate it into your coaching programs. Then you can email support@myfigures.com as well, and our team will reach out to you and, and create that for you. And of course, if you're looking to offer funding to your clients, same thing, you can reach out to info@sevenfigures.com, or they can reach out directly through you, Nick. And, uh, and we'll be there to help for sure.

Appreciate that. Any last words for us to conclude the whole show for today?

Last words I would say is always be learning. You've never learned enough. Always be learning every day and make that commitment to learn and think about all the time you're wasting. You're wasting a lot of time. Most people are. There's a, there's a little mental physical challenge called the 75 Hard Challenge. It's 2 workouts a day, sticking to a diet, drinking a gallon of water, reading an entrepreneurial book, taking an accountability picture. But the real lesson you learn doing that challenge is you learn that you actually have been wasting a lot of time in your life, and you learn to really maximize every second within the framework of a calendar. And you find out that you actually have a lot more time than you thought. And so if you want to win, you've got to take advantage of your time. And I feel like that's an effective way to do it. And then you've got to make that commitment to keep learning, keep improving.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, without the learnings, where would we be? That's definitely what drives the entrepreneur. And I think learning new things will always keep our dopamine high. So we are excited to get to work as well. If you just keep learning new things instead of just scrolling on social media and doing nothing. So Leo, that was really, really impactful. You have given us a wonderful masterclass on how to build great person for it, how to actually help your clients fund the businesses and how to create great partnerships. And thank you for sharing your amazing journey of 20 years of your entrepreneurship and giving away all your learning so that we don't have to go through the same struggles you have gone and listen to this podcast. So guys, hopefully you learned a lot from this podcast and you have 3 actionable things at least to do from this podcast. Make a list and get to work. Don't this podcast be some motivational woo-hoo for you so that you could just listen and do something else, you know, and continue to scroll on social media. Don't do that. But he given you the 5-step framework to build your personal credit. Start doing that, you know, whichever partner you want to pick to get funding. Hopefully, you know, you'll work with Leo on that, you know, try to do that as well and start helping your clients to get funding as well. And make a list of 5 people who you could reach out to for JV and do that right now. And this is how you get results. No matter how much you think, if you only do is, you know, is when you actually achieve results. So stay tuned. I'll be back with another amazing guest just like Leo on this podcast and appreciate you showing up for the Nikhil Sachdev Show. Share this with your friends who actually are entrepreneurs who might want to learn about credit building or attracting clients using credit and whatnot. And hopefully this story will be shared because it's worth sharing. Thank you, Leo, for jumping on once again. Have a good day.

My pleasure.

Thank you so much, brother.