Building a 7-FIGURE Credit Repair Business from Nothing with Israel Cordova

Hey, credit heroes. Are you ready to learn the secrets to getting strangers who want to fix their credit with you? Well, today I'm joined by Israel Cordova. He's the founder of Cordova Financial, and he's going to share all about how he built his wildly successful credit repair business from nothing. And now he helps thousands of people, and he's made over a million dollars, so you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to credit Repair. Business Secret. One of the hardest parts of running any business is finding clients. But our most successful credit heroes, the ones who make a great living and make a massive impact, they're really good at that. Israel Cordova has helped thousands of clients repair their credit. He's built a big social media following, and he's on a mission to educate his clients as much as possible. I know you're going to love this interview, so please welcome to the podcast Israel Cordova. Hey, Israel. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate it.

I'm so excited you're here. I want to know everything about you, but let's start with the basics. Where did you grow up and where are you now?

I'm actually born in Mexico and brought over to the US when I was 10 years old.

Very cool. I love Mexico. And where in Florida are you?

I'm in Central Florida. I'm between Tampa and Orlando. Okay.

I've been there plenty. I like it there. What was your life like before credit repair?

Oh, I was working at a manufacturing plant. I was production supervisor, working probably between 70 and 80 hours a week. It was. It was extreme.

Wow. And then what drew you to credit repair? Did you have credit issues?

I did. I had ruined my credit at a young age. And then after that, it was just a search of seeing how I can help myself, you know, come out of that situation and just started researching as much as I possibly could about it, started working on issues that I had personally until I was able to get my credit repair myself. And then it kind of paused for a second. I didn't go right into business right away, and the situation with me was I ruined my credit and kind of forgot about it. And at the moment when I was ready to buy a house, I started looking for a house, and I kind of actually wasted a realtor's time because they knew where I work, so they assumed that I had a good credit score. And it just. We started shopping for houses and we found the one we liked, and right when we were about to proceed with the rest of the process of buying the home, she Was like, have you been pre approved? I'm like, oh no, they didn't even come to mind. Get pre approved. So I'll give a call to this lender, they'll pre approve you, get you all set up. As soon as she ran the credit, she's like, well that's not going to happen now. So we put that on pause and that's when I started researching about how to fix my credit.

Got it. That's similar how I got into it. I was buying a house and didn't know anything about credit. But they gave me a lot of advice on things I could do that could bump up my score.

Oh yeah, she spoke to me, I called the realtor back, I said, hey listen, I'm pre qualified now. But she said, hey, this is a few tips you can do to better it. But there was so much damage from previous credit cards accounts that I've left without paying and, and just late payments on all kinds of stuff really.

To be honest, you left school at an early age to support your family. How did this challenge shape your approach to business and personal finance?

Well, yeah, I went to all the way to ninth grade in high school and then I kind of dropped out of school to start trying to help my parents. But whenever I came into Cross Credit Repair Cloud, it was kind of all the information at once and it just, at first it was, it's a lot of information. But once you start going through the software and it just makes things so simple for you. It's just common sense really. Even if you're not, you know, high school graduate, a college graduate, you can still jump on Credit Repair Cloud and figure out everything you guys have on there. It's so simple and explained so well that it's, it's easy to comprehend.

So you actually started learning how to repair credit with Credit Repair Cloud?

First software I've ever used this.

That's amazing. And then you. Were you the first client?

Yeah, yeah, I was my first client.

And then how did you start to turn credit repair into a business?

I started giving tips. So I, once I fixed mine, I figured out, you know, how to do that. Then I started just giving tips out on social media and started telling people, hey, this is what you can do to help yourself. This is what you can do to help others as authorized users. This is what you can do when it comes to collection. Basically I gave so much information that they asked me to start my business that everybody on social media was the one, hey, can you help me? And at the time I didn't see it as a business. It was just a matter of giving information. And then when it came to everybody asking in the comments, can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? It grew so big that I'm like, hold on, maybe this is an opportunity and then I need to take advantage of.

That's so cool. I mean it is amazing. You went from just learning credit repair to building this company and reaching the million dollar mark. What were some of the key turning points?

First initially by yourself and when I really took off is when I realized that I needed to separate things and I handled marketing with another of another person. So I focus all solely on marketing now. Being driven to just one thing I think is just helps you scale a lot faster.

That's amazing. And how long were you a one man band? How long before you hired your first employee?

It was probably three to four months.

Wow, that's pretty quick.

Yeah, it was in the first month we signed up almost 100 clients in the first month that I started. Once I got to the 250, 300 client mark, I kind of stopped marketing because I wanted to make sure that I had everything in place to be able to take on more clients. So it wasn't that we couldn't grow faster, it was just I was making sure that we had everything in place.

Sure. Very, very smart. How many clients do you have today?

Just over 1300.

Wow. Good for you. That is amazing. Can you share a memorable success story where you really impacted a client's life through credit repair?

There was a family, I did a consultation, one of the brothers and he pretty much brought in the whole family, all his brothers. And then one of them called me and said, hey, I was just pre approved for a house man. I'm pre approved. And then say about three months later he's like, I'm closing, I'm doing the closing of the house. He's like, my brother just got pre approved and my brother's going to be looking shopping around for a house too. And it was him, his brother and his dad.

Wow. What were the biggest obstacles you faced when starting your credit repair business and how did you overcome them?

Whenever I started with credit repair cloud, you guys didn't offer yet the master training that you guys do now.

The master.

So the master class. Yes. You guys didn't have that when I first started and now you do. But before then it was like I did the 14 day challenge. From the 14 day challenge, I just started reading every single thing that I can get across every book that they offer online. I bought it. Every single video that I can give myself, my eyes on, I went after it. I wanted to make sure I knew everything I possibly could. If there was something out there that I could read, I went after it.

I love that. And as I've been diving into all your content, which you have some amazing content, what I've noticed is you've got a very clear brand. So I want to know in the world of Credit Repair, how important is brand trust and what are some good.

Ways to establish is critical if you want to grow. You want those clients to remember they see that logo, they see the company name. No matter where they see it, you start building trust. They see it. Once they see it maybe a few times before they even call you. There's been clients in the past where they said, hey, I watch your videos for three months before I called you. You know, I built confidence with them on lives. I build confidence with them over videos and just giving tips and branding is everything. If you want to have a scalable company, something that you grow into the millions a year, you definitely need to focus on your brand. Initially, I didn't have a logo, but after seeing the success that we're having, I'm like, I need to invest and make sure that people remember who they worked with.

And in your experience, what are the most common misunderstandings that people have about Credit Repair and how do you address them in your business?

I think misunderstandings is just people don't trust the industry. There's been so much misinformation on social media and it's made it easy for people to come on there and just place a video that doesn't have fully truth, just to get people to call or inquire about their service. That people don't trust Credit Repair as much as other industries, but branding has a lot to do with it. If you promote and you use truthful content that you give tips, tell people exactly what's going on. People like honesty. People like for you before with your information. They rather you tell them, hey, listen, there's nothing I can do about this because the accounts reported accurately and tell them, hey, but we can do these other things to help your score and your overall report. They like honesty. They like somebody that's going to do what they said they're going to do.

I like that. And I was looking at your website earlier and I noticed on your site and a lot of your social media, it's all in Spanish or nearly all in Spanish. What motivated you to start focusing on helping the Spanish speaking community with credit repair.

When I started this credit repair journey, I didn't find a whole lot of information when it came to Spanish. I'm like, hey, this is, this side is. There's, there's hardly anybody actually talking about tips, tricks, how you can better your score. There's a lot of information in English, but there's very limited when it comes to Spanish. So there's not a whole lot of companies out there that are doing credit repair for the Hispanic community. So I figure this is, this is where I need to go.

I think that's so cool. And do most of your clients speak Spanish?

I think probably 80% of our clients are Spanish speakers.

Wow, that's a big percentage. So you must be using all the new Spanish language tools that we've added in crc, like in the client portal and the onboarding. We added that in Spanish recently and I think we just recently launched the credit audit in Spanish.

Are using all those, all of them, every single thing. As soon as they would come out and you guys would make the switch to have it available in Spanish, we started sending the clients audit in Spanish. We started sending the client the onboarding in Spanish, their portals in Spanish, all that.

Awesome. Now, are there any common challenges that you find that the Spanish speaking community faces regarding credit and finance information?

Not having all the information? I think there's a whole lot more information in English. And then also a lot of the Hispanics that move to this country, they're looking to work and to have an opportunity in a different country. They're not so focused on education. So it's kind of, I guess, missing part of their life to have that information to be able to better their finances. Not just credit, but overall finances.

Awesome. So how do you help educate your clients about how to avoid damaging their credit scores?

We have done zoom trainings for our clients. So how to manage credit cards, when is a credit card important to have a low balance, what balances they should keep, all that. And we also educate them on how is the best way to get a car loan when you should go buy a car loan when you shouldn't. And also I do Monday through Friday lives on TikTok where I just go on there and answer People's questions for 45 minutes to an hour on a daily basis. And people just offer the lives. Not clients, but just people that come to watch. Like, hey man, I started watching your content and never interested in getting a credit card. And now my credit score has 760 just by watching your lives.

That's so cool. I love that. Now, with so many clients, what's your secret to keeping them engaged and committed throughout the credit repair process?

We typically on the first call we tell them, hey listen, we offer a money back guarantee. We don't guarantee that the results are every single account is going to come off. But if we can change your life, we'll give you your money back. All you have to do is just give us six months. And once you give us six months, if we can't change your life, we'll offer your money back. But we're very, very clear with them at the beginning, you cannot miss any payments on anything else that you have right now. You cannot add any more negative items. Any questions you have, contact the office, give us a call, let us know what your concerns are. Give us a list of things that you feel like you don't know or you don't understand when it comes to credit. We'll educate you. We try to do every single month a consultation with our clients so they onboard. Once they onboard, the salesperson onboarding person will make an appointment for three days after with the credit repair specialist and they will get on the phone again three days after they signed up. Hey listen, we're starting with everything right now. Any questions you have as far as how to manage credit cards and anything on your credit report. And then once they finish that second call, they schedule them for another call 35 days after that. And there's never, I guess in point as far as when you're gonna hear from us, you're gonna hear from us when you sign on three days later, 35 days, you'll hear us again and then we'll set an appointment for the following 35 days again.

Awesome. And do you have email automations going when anything changes in their account, things like that happening?

We do only thing as the Hispanic community, they're not too fan of emails. Oh no, it's easier with anybody that's American that speaks English. You can have an automation and shoot those emails out on a regular basis. They'll get there and read them. But somebody that has, you know, trouble with technology being on their phone and all that, they're better with a phone call than they are with them when it comes to emails and stuff like that.

That makes a lot of sense and I think that's so smart to have a money back guarantee. I saw that on your site, I think that's brilliant. A lot of credit repair businesses, they're afraid to do that, but I think it's important what effects has this brought to your business?

We've never had to give anybody any money back. That's the thing. But the thing is, when you do a money back guarantee with your clients, make sure that they understand what's their portion of the deal. So make sure they understand that they play a huge part in the credit repair process. It's not like a client could come with us and just forget about us and expect their credit to be great in six months. They have to work with us. It's a mutual relationship where, hey, listen, lower your credit card balances. This is the day that your credit card reports. This is when you should have a balance between 1 and 6%. Make sure your payments on time, if you have automatic payments still go online, make sure that those are going in and they're, they're getting posted. So it's, it's a mutual relationship. If they want to have a very big change in their credit and needs to be mutual.

Awesome. I love it. What advice would you give someone who's looking to start their own credit repair business?

I'd say go for it. Go open it. And sometimes people will research and what they call analysis paralysis. They go on there and just look for so much information. You'll never have 100% of the information. If you want to get started, go ahead and get started. I would definitely suggest, you know, reach out for help, but definitely get started.

We talked a little bit about your team. How big is your team?

We have 14 people as of right now.

Wow, that's a big team. Congratulations. How do you train your sales team, especially in the sensitive area of credit repair?

So our consultation is just going through the report, giving the client all the information, telling them what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, what would help them, and then they make the decision. If you have a really good product, you don't need to sell it. You just have to give them all the information for them to have a good decision towards the future. So if you tell them, hey, listen, there's a total of these many accounts on your report. These you're doing really good. But on these accounts, you either stop paying them a long time ago, these have some late history. Explain them every single account. And that's what we do. We pull the report, we go through personal information, ask them about their addresses, names, explain them how the names get on there, how the different addresses get on there. We basically educate them on their credit report, and then it's pretty simple for them to be like, yeah, let's go ahead.

Yeah, that's really smart. That really establishes you from the first meeting that you're the expert. That's really good. Very, very good. Let's talk about marketing and attracting new clients. I want to know what's working. I saw you make a lot of TikTok videos. Is that driving a lot of your business?

It is, it is. Well, I feel like the live videos on TikTok build that confidence for people. Like I mentioned a few minutes ago, there's clients that say, hey, I've been watching you for three months before I even called you. But just being able to answer every question that they have on a live, it shows that you're not just reading off a script whenever you're making a video. If you're on a live and you're answering every question of a client on that live, they know that you are the expert because you're answering every single person's question on there. Giving them tips at the same time and just giving them all the information. I give them all the information and they can better their credit and they don't have to come to me, hey, that's good. They don't necessarily have to come and work with us. They can come on our lives. They can watch all the information. They can have all that information and just better their score that way, if that's what they need.

That's the secret to getting strangers to want to fix their credit with you.

Yes. You give them so much information that it comes to a point, the person's like, hey, man, what can I do for you?

How important are client testimonials and referrals for your business?

Huge. Honestly, huge. If you look at it this way, if you're starting your business, if you go after doing five people for free, but you do an excellent job with all five of them, those five will tell. It will tell 40, 50 people. Hey, listen, I went to fix my credit with this. This person. If you did a poor job, they'll tell 200 of them. So testimonials are going to either make you or break you when it comes to this business because you can sit on social media and promote, promote, promote. But if your service is not good, word of mouth will also kill your business. So focus on good results and word of mouth will just make it super easy to scale.

And do you have any systems in place to gather more testimonials and referrals?

We typically run sometimes specials. When it comes to signing on, we give them a discount. Hey, listen, our signup fee is this amount. But if you Go on there and give us a Google review, or if you go on our website and leave a good note, we can give you a 10% discount today. And it just encourages them to go and do that.

Very, very smart. How do you respond to critics who claim that credit repair is not legitimate?

They don't understand the law. They don't understand what we do. They go by these videos that are in TikTok, you know, throughout social media, honestly. And the bad advertisement on social media of people just putting information that is not completely 100% true. Give those people some fuel to be able to say that.

Sure. So how do you handle the skepticism surrounding credit repair effectiveness?

I think our personal guarantee and having so much content of just tips that people go out and try your tips and then they come back, hey, I tried what you said on that video and man, it worked. And then that gets a person to be like, yeah, he knows what he's talking about. I've already tried several of the things that he's mentioned on here and they've worked, they've helped me. So it's just like I said, volume of content. The more information you put out there, the more people that are going to try, the more people that are going to come back and be like, hey, man, I tried that. It worked. So thank you. And then from there on, you get a client.

Speaking of tips, of all the credit repair strategies you've learned, which one is the biggest game changer?

I think being able to give good results is. It's a game changer for sure. If you're starting credit repair and you don't fully understand how to get the best results, how to dispute these accounts, or how to also educate your client, because I think you have to have both through the process, you have to teach them on the areas that they don't understand, but at the same time, you have to dispute the most effective way. Those two things are going to be the crucial. Whether you stay in business or whether you fall off after a few months of working and you get, you know, just overwhelmed by everything.

Sure. Well, what are a couple strategies that have been effective for you for disputing any sort of item on a credit report?

We've used law for anything that is a collection company. We mail directly to that collection company and we ask them to send a specific list of items to be able to validate that. And on that first letter, we typically tell them, if you can't send me that list, please go ahead and remove it already. And out of every single person assigns with us, out of 10 people, eight of them get results that very first month that they sign on. And just because we use also certified letters, we track and make sure that the collection company received it, when they received it, and we let them know that we're using certified letters as well.

And we've been talking on the show lately a lot about stall letters from the credit bureaus. How do you deal with stall letters?

We have a power of attorney from every single client. Every single client. When they sign on, they give us a limited power of attorney that just specifies that we're disputing for them. And that has completely stopped. I think we don't get any at all anymore.

Wow. So you include that letter with. With the round one dispute letter?

We do. We do, yes.

And does it say you're a credit repair company or what? Tell me about it.

Yeah. It shows on there that the client has hired us to help dispute items on their credit report and that we're working on their behalf. And it has their signature, it has a date that they started. It gives us six months. And then if the client wants to continue with this, it gives them the option to, you know, extend that time. But it definitely shows that bureaus, hey, listen, we have permission from the client. We are working to help them, but we have their permission to do so.

I love that. So you're not even getting that response, the transunion sense that says, we suspect you're working with a third party company.

Not anymore. Now.

Oh, that is so cool.

We used to. And then as soon as we implemented that, that letter went away.

That is amazing. Wow. Okay, so I want to switch gears real quick and I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions. So answer with the first thing that pops into your head. The first word or the first phrase. Okay. You ready?

All right. Okay, ready.

What's your business superpower?

Getting clients.

What's your business Kryptonite. The area you have to work hardest to improve.

More customer service, I think.

What does business ownership mean to you?

Freedom.

What drives and motivates you?

My family.

What's your definition of success?

Freedom to do what you want to do.

Awesome. And if you could go back in time and tell yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Start sooner.

I love that. And do you have any other advice for someone just starting out with a credit repair business?

Start yesterday. That's. That's the best thing that I can tell you. You'll never be 100% ready. But the best time was yesterday. The next best time is today.

Awesome. And last question, what's next for you? What's the next big goal?

We are also going to start mentoring other credit repair businesses that want to scale. I think that we are barely scratching the surface when it comes to the clients that we have. We're going to use 20, 24 to score scale and probably 10x this business. And then we also going to help other business owners be able to reach those goals as well.

I love that. And how can our listeners reach out to you? What's the best way to find you?

Definitely they can watch all the content on social media or come to the website, shoot us a message. Definitely. We'll give you a link for our mentorship program that we have and let them reach out if they're interested in scaling their business.

And what's the website address?

Cordoa financial.com awesome.

And we'll put that link in the show notes too. Well, thank you so much for your time today Israel. This was a lot of fun.

I appreciate it. Thank you for the invite and like I said, thanks again for your software.

You're welcome. Thanks for being a CRC Credit Hero. And for everyone out there, if you're finding value in the things that we share on this podcast, click below to subscribe and follow. Also give us a five star review or share the show and help us to change more lives. And if you have a question or a comment, drop it down below because I read each and every one of them. I would love to hear from you and I'll respond as soon as I can. And if you want to learn more secrets about finding clients, check out my podcast on secrets to keeping credit repair clients hooked and happy. And if you'd like to get certified in disputing and gain confidence and grow your very own credit repair business, check out our Credit Hero challenge. Doors are closing soon, so sign up right now@creditherochallenge.com and keep changing lives.