$0 to $1,000,000 in a Pandemic with Christopher Gonzalez

Hey, credit heroes. Today we are going to talk with credit repair millionaire Christopher Gonzalez, who started a credit repair business just before the pandemic, and he's already grown it to over a million dollars. And today he's going to share his secrets on exactly how he did this. So you better stick around. So the big question is this.

How can we take our passion for helping people with their credit and turn it into a successful business without taking loans? Spending a fortune by bootstrapping it from nothing so we can help the most people and still become highly profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets.

Okay, before I dive in, if you are new to my podcast, be sure to click to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any of the secrets that I share each week on the Credit Repair Business Secrets podcast. And if you want me to hold you by the hand as you launch your very own credit repair business, go to creditherochallenge.com okay, let's get into this. Christopher Gonzalez is our guest today. And during the pandemic, when other people were collecting unemployment and watching Netflix, Christopher was working around the clock growing his credit repair business, and he scaled it to over a million dollars. And today we're going to learn how he did this. So please welcome to the podcast, the very first credit repair millionaire of 2022, Christopher Gonzalez. Hey, Christopher.

Welcome. Thank you for having me, Daniel. It's such a pleasure to be here with you. And as I said when we first met, I'm so grateful to have met you and grateful for your software to have been able to put me in the position I am today. So I'm so happy to be able to share my story and pay it forward. You know, we talk about the pandemic, and unfortunately, we're still here, right? So I was in the auto industry and I spent 20 years in the car business. And when the pandemic hit, the doors to my dealership closed. And I had started my credit repair business just before this, but I didn't really have enough time to allocate to work on it. So I was spending maybe two, three hours. So when the pandemic hit, I was forced to do nothing more than to sit in front of my computer and watch YouTube videos and find different tools that I could connect. And I started working on. I remember some nights my wife would tap me on the show. There'd be two o' clock in the morning and I was still working. And it never felt like work because I saw the vision, I saw the opportunity and I said, this is where I want to be. And if I worked at a business where the doors would close again, I wouldn't be subject to that. I would have something that I can take with me anywhere I am in the world. So, yeah, I mean, being able to focus on my business a lot more never felt like work. And so I found the right apps, I was able to connect. I started marketing, I hired staff. I couldn't get people to come to work because people were afraid. So I started hiring virtual assistants to help me facilitate some of my phone calls, the onboarding, the follow up. And here I am today with a seven figure credit repair business. And I still say, wow, it still sounds very surreal. But what I would really like to say is this has been probably the easiest business to build and grow. That cost me next to nothing to do. Right. Just time and ambition and effort. And it's very rewarding on two scales. One, I get to help people with their credit and I make a lot of money, you know, because my ROI is super, super high. What I spend to run the business versus what I earn, I mean, it's amazing. Yeah.

And you can run it from home. It's incredible.

And that's actually where I am right now. You just so you know, I'm in my home. I have a bedroom that I converted into an office. And this is when I wake up. I walk in here and if my hair is messy, I put a hat on. I speak to my staff and we, you know, we kind of dial in, see what's going on, and the day goes.

That is awesome. I want to back up a little bit. You mentioned a few things. Okay, so pandemic hit. You're working at an auto dealership. They had to shut the doors down completely. So you had no income?

Yes.

Wow, what a scary time.

I was pushed towards unemployment and I said to myself, I can't afford, you know, my lifestyle on unemployment. You know, I did very well in the auto industry and again, time really well. It might be an excuse for some people. Right. But you're limited as to how much time you could spend doing this. You know, I was working 50, 60 hours a week. So when I got home, I would try to spend two, three hours. My wife would get upset because I wasn't spending time with her. If I woke up early in the morning, I would disrupt someone. So I was really limited as to how much time I could spend here. But I started to think, I thought of two things I thought of 1. What if I worked at this job and my doors would close again? I would really be in the same situation. So let me really dial into this. Why I created a virtual type business was because I said to myself, God forbid anything ever happened to me, where would my family be?

Sure.

So that's where I said, let me focus on building this business with a virtual team and automating it in such a way that it wasn't me who was operating it, I was simply just overseeing it. Right, right. And the truth is I can teach my 17 year old daughter to oversee it the way I oversee it. But my family still eats. So two motivations. Doors closed. What would happen if something happens to me? If I wound up in a coma? I couldn't go to my dealership and sell cars and manage it or anything like that. So what happens to them? So I said to myself, I started this business, I believe in this business, now's the time. Right. Because while everyone's hoping that things would go back to the way they were, I was thinking about how they're not ever going to go back the way they were. How are we going to adapt, evolve and change to the new times? Right. And here we are, you know, like, I mean, again, I'm proud to say that I can really operate this business anywhere I am in the world. Like if I'm at home or I'm on vacation or I'm at a family gathering, I can simply dial into my business, see what's going on. And I have people that are doing it because it's set up that way.

Amazing. And the foresight you had when the pandemic hit, I thought, oh, this will be a couple of weeks. But you knew, you knew it was going to change everything. And now we're entering year three of this. Absolutely brilliant of you now. So before the pandemic, you're sort of dabbling at it, kind of doing it a little bit.

So I want to touch on that. Right. So you promote and you teach people how to acquire their first clients.

Yes.

Go to auto dealers, go to real estate agents, go to mortgage brokers, go to funding companies. And I did all of that stuff. Right. I did that. And in fact, when I was at my dealership, when I had a customer that would walk through the doors that we couldn't get approved, I put a process in place with my salespeople for them to refer them to Apex Credit, fix my company where I would rapidly. Right. Not the drip, sending three, four items. I would do Everything all at once. Because I wanted quick, fast results so I could sell them a car in 60 days, 90 days. And it's. It started working like, you know, I was. I was making enough money to cover what it was costing me to have the business. I wasn't earning, but it was at least building. And it gave me the confidence to say, man, if I can just structure the business right, where, where things can flow and I can then drive traffic to it, I could really earn a good living. And I just want to. I want to circle back. And I say this not to impress anyone. I say it more so to impress upon people that it's so important to stick with it even when it gets tough. Because it was tough, right? I had the time issue. I had my wife nagging me that I wasn't spending enough time with her. I had my demanding job. I had all the excuses in the world to quit. Right. I didn't have as many customers I would like to. I didn't have the right staff. They had so many reasons to quit. But that first year in the pandemic, I did $900,000. So that's from March to December, I did $900,000 in revenue. And I was just mind blown. Like, I'm like, are you. I'm never going back to work, ever. Going back to work. So. And it goes back to acquire, you know, how do you acquire that first client, you know, even those free clients, those testimonials, those reviews are going to breed future clients in the future. And you can go check my post. I have a post I posted probably six months ago where I gave them the credit repair roadmap, which is your roadmap. Right. First, get the free software. Second, sign up for the challenge. Third, basic disputing. And just do this. And you have enough to run a business.

Exactly.

And you have a community where you can ask any question you want. And people are not like, you're asking a dumb question, sir or ma'. Am. They're giving you the answer. They're literally feeding you the information you need. And why so many people quit is beyond me. But unfortunately, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. So. So that's why I emphasize my. My first real year, I did. We did $900,000 in revenue, and just last year we did 1.35. And this year we're probably projecting 2 million. Like, it's just, I mean, you, you do the math, right? And I'm not saying you. I'm saying Whoever might be listening to this, you do the math. Like, what do you need to live? How much money do you have to earn? If you could do $10,000 a month, I'm sure you could provide for your family, you know, and that's how you got to look at it. You know, you got to start with 500, grow it to a thousand, grow it to two, grow it to four, grow it to eight, grow it to 16, grow it to 32. Like, it's just, you know, it's the power of compounding. And unfortunately, we're not taught that growing up. Right. Like, I didn't come from that household.

Exactly. Me neither. But I think the roadblock is it's easy to learn the credit repair. The software makes it easy, but the turning it into a business part, this is where I'm fascinated with how quickly you did that, how quickly pandemic hits. You go all in on the credit repair business. How soon did you start getting help? How soon did you start hiring?

As soon as. As soon as I started driving traffic. So here. So here's what I did first, right? My, my. I tried charging people, and it was difficult because initially I created a website that looked great. And the truth is, because it looks great doesn't mean it converts, right? And too many of us fall in love with our website. And we really have to look at the CTAs, the call to actions, like, where is it going to generate that name, phone number, and email address? That's number one. Once you have that data, you can put them into a drip campaign and drive them back to your website, educate them until they need. Until they want your services, until they sign up. So the first thing I did was I eliminated price. Let me get as many people as I can into crc. So I use your form. I use the form that's on credit repair cloud, go to company, and it's the website tool. And all I did was fill up CRC with leads and people would put in. I was amazed that people would give me first name, last name, date of birth, Social Security address, everything. Like, you're giving me your life.

Sure.

Why wouldn't you give me your credit card, right? So put the credit card aside. I said, let me capture all of that data. And now I started making phone calls. And I would call and I would say, hey, Daniel Rezn, how are you doing? This is Chris Colin from Apex Credit Fix. I see that you were on our website and you requested some information. I'm going to get you started at no charge. We'll see where you are and see where you'd like to go or how you would like to proceed. And all I would do is walk them through the onboarding, send them that client agreement, let them sign it, let them order their credit reports and scores. And I actually did a video on this the other day for someone within the community. But that credit audit is the sale. Once I provided that client or that prospect with that credit audit and I showed them everything that was wrong. If you're telling them what's wrong with their credit without knowing them, do you know what you're doing? Yes. But the truth is I didn't really know exactly what I was doing, but I knew enough to get them that far. And that's how I started. I started just driving the traffic and then the traffic got overwhelming where I said, okay, I can't have my staff chasing all these people. And I went to okay, if you want to get through, you have to pay, right? But that was after all of my trials and errors with my website, trials and errors with my checkout, trials and errors, even with my pricing, you know, and that's really where I think people lose sight, is they don't test different things and allow them enough time to figure out what really works, right?

What would you say was your greatest struggle getting started?

Really the time that was the main thing. Really, really time. I got through your training really quick. I set up my credit card processing right away. I built a website which I thought was great and I would see. I started spending money driving traffic to it. It didn't really work and I said, okay, let me stick to the affiliate stuff until I can get this down. But my biggest issue was time. And it's really an excuse because here's how I break it down, right? If I wake up one hour earlier or I go to bed one hour later, I afford myself 365 more hours a year, which divided by 24 or a work week, 40 hour work week is really nine weeks. I just gave myself two extra months to work on my business, right, by just thinking I had an extra hour a day. So that's the biggest struggle is time, right? Finding the time within your day to allocate it to this. Now when you find that time. So let's say I'm available from 6 to 9. I'll make sure I'll post something on Facebook at 5:30. So between 6 and 9, I'm ready to deal with these people, right? So it's really about strategizing, right? It's like planning out your day and you'll find there's more time in your day than you give yourself credit for.

Sure, sure, absolutely. How many clients do you have today?

Almost 2000.

Wow, that is phenomenal. Now you were talking about traffic. How did you first start getting traffic?

First started at my dealership.

Got it right.

Affiliates. And then I moved to, I had at 1.114 affiliates that would send me one or two prospects. And I found that the affiliates would over promise things like, hey, they'll clean your credit in 30 days or they'll get things removed and whoa, you know, slow down. It's not 30 days, it's a process. Right. Like so you, you know, I found myself kind of overcoming the referrer. Right, sure. So, but that's how I started. I started at my dealership sending. I started, you know, with insurance companies. I started with mortgage brokers. Just, you have a customer, mechanic or proof, send them to me. I'll, I'll give you $50 for every one we sign up. And I'll return that customer back to you in 60 to 90 days with hopefully a better credit score. Yeah, you know, and it's win, win, you know, they get some, it's, they get something now and if they really play their cards right, they could have someone in, in 60 to 90 days with a better credit score. You know, sometimes the difference is a few points. You know, like a 590 credit score may not get approved on a mortgage, but a 6, 10 will. So 20 basis points, you know, is a different ball game. So it was putting myself in front of people that could send me the traffic. And then I said, you know, when I started to see that I was able to send traffic via Facebook, Instagram, via social media, and via, you know, Google AdWords, I kind of, you know, moved away from the affiliates and I said, I'm just going to, this is my business model. I'm going to sell online. I'm going to put them into a good drip campaign. I'm going to target these people for 60 to 90 days and, and eventually they'll sign up and I'll build lookalike audiences around those people and I'll just keep, you know, the pipeline going.

Got it, got it. So, but initially you were able to get all those clients from the referrals that got you going without spending on advertising.

I only spent on what I booked. Right. What I wrote, what I signed up.

Exactly.

If I picked up $198, I paid out 50, I'd pay out 100 at that dollar amount. You know, Very cool. You got to get an idea of what's going to come in so you can decide what you're willing to pay out to get that right. It's all numbers at the end of the day.

Sure. And then I saw now you're doing a lot on Instagram, you're doing a lot on Facebook, but you're especially doing a lot on TikTok, which I'm fascinated by.

How do you know that? How do I know that you're a spy on me? I was.

I spent all morning looking at your. You've got this fantastic guy, this broke millionaire character. I love him.

So influencer marketing is tremendous. And, you know, I recycle all of his content, you know, like. So I have a YouTube channel. We have 6,100 subscribers. That YouTube channel makes $3,000 a month. So.

Wow.

So. So I'm paying someone to make me videos that's in turn making me money because I'm able to monetize it, and it pays for the ad spend. The. The. The. The goal behind that was to eventually become my own influencer. If I could build up my channels, you know, big enough, I can just run them on my own page, you know. But, yes, I have a guy that makes videos, and, you know, he made $140,000 last year, but I did 1.3 million. So, you know, again, you do the math.

You know, how did you find him? How did you go about hiring him?

So the process is simple but difficult, right? So it's simple to find these guys. So. So my niche seems to be people who like humor, right? So if I can get someone who's a comedian to make funny videos about my service, and he's got a million followers, he's going to put my stuff in front of a million people with a link that's going to lead to my website, and I get that web traffic. And again, my website captures the data. That Drip campaign pays tenfold. How did I find them? I direct messaged them. Hey, Daniel Rosen. I see you have, you know, a million followers. Would you like to make $10,000 a month with me? I mean, sometimes you got to put it in those numbers, like. And that's where I am. But, you know, someone might, you know, find someone that they could pay $500, $1,000 or $2,000. All you need is a few posts, but you got to give them time to build, you know?

Got it.

I know if I find someone with a million followers who gets the views, who gets the shares, who gets the Likes who gets the comments. I'll spend $10,000 with that person because I'll earn with them. You know, Amazing. Got to direct message them.

Got it, got it. Now, are you directing that content at all or is he doing it all.

On his own at this point? It's what he feels like today.

Huh?

You know, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say one thing. The, the, the main platform that's gonna drive the most traffic is Facebook, because you're able to put that link in the first one to two sentences of whatever his caption is. So that's what people are gonna click on. So you need, you need something that's gonna land them directly on your website. You know, like an Instagram post where they have to go to your page and then go to your bio. That's too much. Right? Facebook is the driver. Stories are the driver. But I reuse that content. You know, I run ads with the same content.

Amazing. So you'll take a snippet of it or something and use it on, on the different platforms.

Correct, Correct.

Brilliant. Brilliant. So now let's talk about your team. How many are in your team?

12. 12.

That's a big team. Is everything delegated at this point?

Everything. Wow.

So now that everything is delegated, what are you doing with your time?

Another business. So here. So you think credit repair, right? So big picture for me is offering all financial services, right? The gateway is credit. Right? People tough credit. What do they want to do? They want to buy a home, they want to buy a car, they want to start a business, they want funding, they want credit cards. Right? It's, it's. I don't want to call it affiliate, but I want to be the hub, right? I own the database, I fix the credit. The biggest way to grow a business is to, is. Is to not always acquire a new client, but see how you can maximize the ones you have.

Exactly.

Right. I mean, brilliant.

Okay, let's talk about earlier. You mentioned these automations drip campaigns. What are your favorite automations? What do they do?

So number one is, is I have a pop up on my website. So if you go to hyprexcreditfix.com you'll see a pop up. It started out as Covid 9 tips to a better health. Right? COVID 19 tips to a better health. I mean, everyone fills it out who doesn't want a tip on how to improve your credit. And then it kind of evolved into, okay, you know, COVID 19 is kind of getting a little played out. Let's Just make it, you know, credit tips so that first I literally send them a PDF, right? It sends them into my CRM. My CRM sends them an email with exactly what we do, our exact process, how we look at a credit file, how we dispute what information you should put on there. If you want to do it on your own, we know you're not going to do it. So I have no problem giving you that information. And I'm saying the consumer, the consumer is not going to take the time to. Some will, but the majority will need you. But you position yourself as a professional by handing them that information. The next thing is my checkout, right? So page one is, you know, gather their information that goes to my CRM. They go into an abandoned cart, it waits a couple of minutes. If they hit my second page and they wind up processing payment, then they wind up as an active client. That's a different automation. Active clients, the first seven days is onboarding until onboarding is complete. And then it's just, you know, things they can do along the way to improve their credit, what they should look out for, how they shouldn't apply for credit. You know, the credit secrets, like just information, information, information. At the 30 day mark we do updates. So when we're doing round two we'll then, you know, re import their scores. If there are any changes, we'll provide them with that feedback. One, I believe it's a great thing. It doesn't replace credit monitoring. One thing we do is we, we get credit karma credentials. The reason we do that is most people don't, don't keep their credit monitoring. So you're kind of blind, right? So we're able to log in every, every couple of weeks into credit Karma and kind of see what the changes are and we send them those updates and it's like, and we teach them how to use that. You know, you can't tell me that what we do doesn't work because I see we're getting your results, right? So, so that's kind of our process. So we have a drip campaign for the tips. We have a drip campaign for abandoned cart. We have a drip campaign for active clients. We also have automation based around payment failures. Right. Payment fails text message hey, your payment failed. You know, would you like to update your payment emails? When that payment is successful, there's an automation that takes them out of that payment. It's just, it's Amazon, right?

Sure.

That's kind of where we are. So we have status change automation. We have each client that winds up in Abandoned cart gets put into a auto dialer campaign where I have a staff member that is calling those hundred people that hit our CRM but didn't sign up today to say, hey, Dana Rosen, we see you stopped by our, our website. Do you have any information? Can we answer any questions? How can we help you? You know, and it's just again, building it to where it's really scalable. Right. Like, it's not possible for me to track all 10,000 users that hit my website. But you put things in place to capture data here and there. You could use that data for something.

Sure. And you built a machine that. That's the amazing part. What I love the most is that it sounds like you're really in constant communication with your clients that you are working with.

Yeah. So I'm in constant communication with my staff, but I'm in constant contact with. I read every email that comes in. I read every, every customer that calls in and says, hey, I couldn't reach you today. Or, or I want to cancel. I want to. I'm on that email. I forward it to my team. We handle it. I'm going to give you one real quick. Recent thing that has come. So the credit bureaus are now sending what I believe to be stole letters. Right. That state, if you hired an agency or a credit repair company to work on your credit, we don't accept their letters. It's kind of what it says, right?

Sure.

Okay. How many of these letters have we gotten? We got X amount. Okay. So let's put a process in place. Maybe we have to now start manually signing the. Or change the signature or change some of the wording. Maybe they're used to the wording that's within our letters. So let's start changing the text. Let's adjust some of the reasons and what we want them to do. Let's not put the address the way we have it listed. So, yes. Am I dialed in? I'm very sensitive to change and I'm not reactive in the sense where I'm not constantly changing, but I gather intel, so to speak. Right. Like, sure. How many have we received? Do we have to change something? Right. And that's the communication. So I do speak to my staff every single day. We communicate via Slack. They communicate what's going on every hour, on the hour. So, like, they'll tell us how many people have signed up, how many onboarded, how many phone calls were made, how many texts were sent out. Like, this is all. Every hour. This, this, this gets put into, into our slack Chat So I could see at any moment what's going on. Anyone has a question, it gets escalated to my manager. If my manager can't solve it, it gets escalated to me. That's it. I mean, it's, you know, it's as seamless as it could be. And it could always be better.

Sure. But it's simple. You keep it simple.

It's very simple.

Sounds like it makes a lot of sense. And that communication you're talking about, after the first onboarding and the first 30 days, then you're doing monthly updates or monthly updates.

So, yes, the customer gets a phone call and an email and a text message. So the phone call is to go over their review. The text message goes out, hey, we tried to contact you and the email goes out. Here's what we found. I've also shared my exact email within the chat, if anyone wants to use it, like in the community. And I'm telling you, I try to think of every way to improve the customer experience. Right. In the past 90 days, the past, from last quarter to this quarter, we're up $224. That's our lifetime value. LTV is up $242, which is huge.

That's amazing.

And it's contributed to communication.

Sure.

A little tweaks in the processes have improved the customer experience. So absolutely, we're there. You know, like we're, we're headed in that direction.

Yeah. That's just that change alone would improve your retention. That's why that's happening. And that's also the biggest mistake that a lot of new credit repair business owners have is they don't have that communication with the client. Client doesn't know what's going on. They cancel, they get angry, they file a charge back. This is awesome that you're doing all of this.

And if you think about it like, you know, if we're waiting for these clients to contact us, it's already too late. Like, sure, we really have to get to them before they get to us because, you know, what do they feel? They feel they signed up and now we forgot about them, you know, and that is the number one thing we have to avoid. The other thing that's super important is reputation management. And I don't see too many people take it, you know, as important as it should. So, you know, we have, we have a thousand Google Reviews. We're a 4.9 rating on Google. And I don't even like, really investigate what other credit repair companies are. I just 4.9 rating with credit repair. That's amazing. I mean, like again, I was in the car business. If you're over four, you're good, right? So we're a 4.9 and the most. This is actually a tip for anyone, right? Anyone who wants to get a review. The customers are the happiest when they're signing up. So get the review then let them review the call. Let them review how you explain things. Let them review the attention you paid to their file. Like there's so many ways to get a review, but if you don't ask, you don't get, you know, so super, right? Like we focus on, if I get a free client, I expect a review. Well, the free client has no vested interest in really doing anything other than maybe getting good credit, right? But that person who pays, you know, they want results and they're happy. Get the review then.

This is gold. And I went looking through our community this morning. I can't believe how much gold you're dropping in there. You're giving so much amazing advice. Have you thought about starting a mentorship program?

So yes, and so obviously the, the answering inside the group and what I post, the feedback, but the DMs, the direct messages that I get. And you know, I could see where people are struggling, right? Like I'm not the smartest person, but I have a lot of process and I'm very process oriented in my head being in the car business, right? So, you know, maybe I look at things a little different and I could see where it could become hard, you know, people could struggle. So yes, I am actually going to be dropping a live free webinar where I'm going to give away three secrets of how to scale your business to a million dollars. And my feedback from the people who DM me seem to be kind of consistent. So that's why I made it around these three secrets. So number one, people struggle with their website, right? So how do you create a wet. Build a website that converts, right? How do you build. Someone build a website that converts? Number two, you know, how do you hire staff? When do you hire staff? When do you quit your job, right? Like these are all questions I hear. Like everyone wants to do credit repair and quit their job and whoa, stop. You know, you got to ease into this because your business is going to need cash flow, your household is going to need cash flow. This will replace that if you do it right. And number three, how do I drive traffic? And I'm actually going to give this nugget away right here. And briefly, briefly the most effective way to target people on Facebook is to have. If you're going to run ads, don't land them on your website because you're not prepared for it and you don't have enough money to deal with bigger players. Right. So here's what I would do. Drive them to messenger, but make sure you have someone in messenger ready to answer their questions. And the goal is to drive them to Messenger. Messenger to a phone call. Phone call. To onboarding. Onboarding to what credit card would you like to put on file? It's really that simple. And it's the audit, right. That does that. The audit is what makes you the money. It's not, hey, you know, I'm doing credit repair and I want to help. Okay, great. There's so many people doing credit repair. Show them how you do credit repair. And that speaks for itself. So, yes. So mentorship. And again, it's. Look, I have the time, right? And I have. Well, I know how I built my business. And the only thing I could say is I can teach someone how to build my business. And you'll probably love this. I'm actually doing this with my daughter and her roommates at college. So they're all sophomores, they're going to be seniors. And so I have them, they're going to be building their own credit repair business and they're going to be working it. And the goal is for them to pay for their college in the next two years. That's the goal.

That's so awesome. Amazing. Now, I want to know, what are some of the biggest mistakes you've made in your business?

Got started too late, was ready to quit. Oh, yeah. Well, not. I mean, it's, you know, ready to quit. It's just, look, when things get difficult, the older you get, the easier it is for you to feel disappointment, the less likely you are to follow through. Right? Like, you know, with the older you get, the more security, the more assurity you want. You want to be sure that this is going to, you know, really pan out, right? Mistakes or.

What would you do differently if you started your business from scratch today?

I would not hire people to build my site. I would not hire people to help me with things too early. Because, again, so I found myself, actually, when the pandemic hit, I had to really break everything down and kind of start from scratch again. Because the website, I wanted it to do this, but it couldn't. It was limited or I wanted it to do that. And if I did this, it would break something else. Right. So if Knowing what I know now, I know exactly what I would connect. Right? My phone system, my CRM, my website and my processing. It's like the four pillars. I can change anything I want because I know how it works. There was a time where I had no idea why it works. And that's probably my main motivation for doing the mentorship. Right? Like, look, Daniel, I could tell you who to hire. I can tell you who to do your website, I can tell you who to hire for automation, I can tell you who to. But if you don't understand it, then two things, you can't fix anything. And three, you won't really know when something breaks.

Right?

So, you know, we're, we're too quick to hire someone. We, we need to do it first. Right. Like, I need to do the first sales call, I need to do the first onboarding call. I need to do the first follow up so that I can create the word tracks, so I can create the script and the process for the flow. Once I have that down, I can now delegate it to someone else. Here's how you handle the call. Here's where you may get stuck. Here's where you know that's the biggest mistake, thinking you could just hire someone else to do it for you.

Got it. That's great advice. Okay, I want to switch gears now, and we're going to go into a rapid fire of questions where you answer the first thing that pops into your head. Okay. What's the most important lesson you've learned as a business owner?

Set up your systems and processes. Like, again, it goes back to that last question. Right? Like, you have to do it first. Yeah, I agree. You can't teach someone to do something you haven't done.

Right.

That's the biggest thing. Right.

What's your biggest superpower in business?

Vision. Vision and painting the vision for others so that people who come with me, like all of my reps, they love me. Like, you know, I'm not telling you I'm the greatest boss because they tell me I'm the greatest boss. I feel that from them. I feel that from them and they feel it for me. Right.

That's awesome. What does business ownership mean to you?

Freedom. Time and money. Freedom.

What drives and motivates you?

My family. And just knowing that this is my time. Right. Like, I only have one shot at this life. I need to make the best of it.

And what's your definition of success?

Actively working on a predetermined goal.

Awesome. And last one, if you could go back in time, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

Hmm. What do I know now that I wish that I would have known when I first started? That's a good question. And it's a complicated one because I just. I, you know, obviously I acquired a lot of knowledge with my past experience, but. But more so dialing in. So, like, I also put this in a post the other day, right? So whenever there's a situation or an obstacle or something, I can't understand, if I would just ask that question in Google or in YouTube, I would usually find 100 to 1,000 different examples of that. So I watch videos, I read, I gather information, and. And I. Wow. Wow. Is that really possible? Can I do that? How do I apply it? Let me troubleshoot it. Let me see what, you know that, like, that's. Sure.

All the information's out there.

Everything is out there. Like, there's. There's. There's no limit. There's no limit to how much money you can make, and there's no limit to how much information you can make. But our time is limited, right? Like, how much time we spend on this earth is definitely limited. So I can't control the third one. Let me put that one away. Information. And let's go after it.

Awesome. Well, you sure dropped a lot of gold here today. I really, really appreciate it.

How.

How can people reach out to you about that mentorship program? What, is there a URL they can visit?

So, yeah, so it's apex. Apex credit mentor.com. i also have a Facebook page that I just put up. It's Apex Credit Mentor. Yeah, I mean, send me a direct message. I'll. I'll send you a link, and hopefully in the next 14 days, that. That first free webinar will be out. And, you know, it's. It's really up to you. What do you need? You know, it's. I don't bind anyone to anything. Like, you want help, you don't want help. But I've honestly built. And you could see it, right? Like, I can't buy this plaque, or if I could buy it, I couldn't buy it and be on a podcast with you, right? But this is real, you know, this is so real. And it's the easiest business you could build, the least expensive one, the most rewarding, and it's. I don't know if it's the most profitable, but trust me, I have no complaints. I work hard so I could fish. That's it.

Awesome.

But Apex Credit. ApexCreditMentor. Dot com.

Got it. Well, thank you so much for your time, Christopher. You're so amazing. This was really great advice you gave everyone. And congratulations again on the Millionaires Club and all of your success. And thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you so much for having me, Daniel. And more importantly, again, thank you so much for creating the software that has afforded so many of us to get here and so many to come.

Well, it's my pleasure. I'm just so happy to see your success and all the lives we're changing. That's the important part. And everyone out there, if you are enjoying this podcast, be sure to click below to subscribe so you don't miss any of the secrets we share each week here on the Credit Repair Business Secrets podcast. And if you're feeling kind, do me a favor, rate me, review me, give me a thumbs up, leave a comment, or ask a question because I read each and every one of them. I actually do. And I will see you in the next episode. And until then, be a Credit hero and keep changing lives.

Hey, everybody, it's Daniel again, and really quick. I'd like to invite you to join what I believe is the best thing we have ever, ever created inside the Credit Repair cloud community. And it is a challenge that we call the Credit Hero Challenge. If you're just planning out your business or you're just getting it started and you dream of having a successful business of your own, so you can quit your 9 to 5 and fire your boss and have financial freedom, or so you can add another revenue stream to your existing business, if that's your dream, you need to get into this challenge. We created this challenge to help you to create and launch your very own Credit repair business to build a proper foundation for a really successful business. This challenge is going to help you to understand the strategy, the tactics, and all the things you need to be successful at Credit Repair. It really is the greatest thing we have ever built and. And it will change your life. So I recommend you do it right now. Stop everything. Pause this audio, go online and go to creditherochallenge.com that's creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that's starting in just a few days. So go get started right now@creditherochallenge.com.