New Credit Repair Millionaires Reveal Their Business Secrets w/ Edgardo Prado & Gilberto Pagan

Hey, credit heroes. Today's podcast has it all. Two young entrepreneurs, a million dollar milestone, and a mission to dominate Puerto Rico's credit repair scene. Today you're going to meet the owners of the credit guys, Gilberto and Edgardo, who turn their e commerce experience into a million dollar credit repair business. They're two humble guys with a different approach and they're here today to share the secrets behind their very successful credit repair business. So you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. Our most successful credit heroes, the ones who make a great living and make a massive impact, they really care about helping people and changing lives. Edgardo and Gilberto, they saw an opportunity to combine their e commerce knowledge with credit repair. And, and it turned out to be the perfect mix. And now they are the newest members of our millionaires club. They've hit that huge million dollar mark using credit repair cloud software, making them the top credit repair company in Puerto Rico. So please welcome to the podcast the credit guys, Edgardo and Gilberto. Welcome.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.

Thank you.

I'm so excited you're here. I want to know everything. Let's start with are you in Puerto Rico right now?

Yes, we currently are in our office, our credit guys office here in Puerto Rico.

My case. Yeah, I basically, I was born here in Bayamon.

So I want to know the whole story. What was your life like before Credit Repair?

Before credit Repair, me and Agardo were e commerce entrepreneurs. So we basically found our own niche and selling physical products online through marketing, different marketing, you know, Facebook, Instagram, and we got really, really good at it. We, you know, quit our jobs, were able to, you know, provide very well for our families. And then we started to teach others to do the same. And in doing so, we were meeting a lot of other, you know, entrepreneurs that were looking for another way to create income sources and things like that. And so that's where we started to realize how big credit was in terms of being able to scale an e commerce business, you know, effectively.

Most people, they learn credit repair by fixing their own credit. Did either of you have credit issues of your own?

Yeah, yeah. Actually at the beginning I used to have, you know, couple things while I was learning. I think the biggest impact to me was that when we started doing E commerce, one of the most important part is the capital, right when it comes to trying to get like credit cards and things like that. So when I started applying for random stuff and started getting denied, I was wondering when, you know, what, what's going on here. You know, what's, what's the deal? So back then I had to, you know, go back to take a look at my credit, start learning. And that's when I realized, well, you know what? I better remove all these things that I have on my credit. If not, there's, there's no business for me. You know, it's. Credit is everywhere. So that was kind of like a rock in the middle for me to, to, you know, to keep moving. And so I realized how important was credit at that time. And so I had no other choice but to start learning and start, you know, fixing it.

And then in terms of me personally, so I always made it. My, my parents made it very, I mean, imprinted on me. Hey, you have to have good credit. And so when I did start my entrepreneurial journey, I had great credit, but I was using all of that credit to, you know, to try in different businesses courses and things like that. And so I ended up really hurting my credit score and just reading about utilization and things like that. And so when we did finally make our entrance into the credit game, it was just, you know, by pure, I guess I don't want to say chance, but what was E Commerce led me into? Already learning a little bit about credit.

One of the things that we were doing in the e comm space is that based, you know, thanks to our knowledge there, we start doing some mentorship. Right? And so when we were with the students and trying to, you know, help them with the capital, you know, when we asked them about their credit, they were like, oh, you know, I got this. I can't really apply right now because I don't have, you know, my credit is not good. So that's one of the things that got me going because I was like, well, you know what? I did it before. Let me try if I can help you so we can move on into the next step. It was just by default I had to help them. So that's, that's another phase of us trying to, I guess, put in practice what we learn.

Amazing. So you had your first clients from the previous business.

Exactly.

Really, really cool. Because that's often the hardest hurdle for people just getting started in this business. And how many clients do you have today?

I believe active clients, 2000. Something, something, something like that.

That is incredible. How long ago did you start this business?

I think it's been two years and some change maybe.

That's really amazing. What strategy did you use to scale up so quickly?

We started by, like I said, by default. We had a bunch of students doing mentorship. So that was kind of like perfect when we started because at first we were doing it, I want to say for free because we were just putting into, you know, test and see how it goes and all that. But once we realize that we knew what we were doing and we have a bunch of, you know, students out there, then that's how we got it going. Right? But then after that, as business owner, we're always thinking about, okay, what, you know, what can we do to make it big to, to, to be able to scale this business. And one of the things that we start doing is we start contacting different affiliates. So that way meeting new people, you know, other from other businesses and credit is everywhere. Right? So that's how we got it going at the beginning. We were able, you know, we're blessed enough to find big affiliates and so that help us a lot.

And what were the biggest obstacles you faced when starting this credit repair business and how did you overcome them?

I would say in the beginning was thinking it was going to be a lot simpler than it really was. And as we attempted to grow and you know, really, I guess attempt to scale, we, we saw a lot of holes in our, in our, in our business model that were, you know, we didn't, we hadn't foreseen when we first started, you know, doing the credit repair. We didn't really, I don't want to say we didn't take it seriously, but how we started was by helping, you know, people through our other, through, through E commerce that wanted to start E commerce businesses. And so once we realized that there was a market there to help a lot of people with credit, that there was a lot of people who needed help with credit, well, we started to dabble. And then once we were dabbling and we're actually, you know, generating some, some serious or some decent income, right, for just a side hustle. That's when we were like, well, we just started to onboard a bunch of clients and you know, we didn't really have the, the correct infrastructure. Luckily we, we learned very quickly from our mistakes as well as like, you know, we take what we learned from E Commerce in terms of building a solid foundation. So we just applied those same principles into that business and you know, we were able to, to get it fixed.

Another challenge to us at the beginning was dealing with, with the, the right education that we need to, you know, get out there, you know, because a lot of the people that sometimes come to us, they maybe had a previous bad experience or maybe they're have the wrong expectations, right? And so I was, I don't want to say it was super hard, but it was, it was definitely a rock because we, we had to, you know, explain them, set the right expectations and try to change their mind. Because like I said, if you have obviously a bad experience before, it's kind of tough to change that.

Right?

But if you explain them and you go to the right, you know, you get the right expectations and you know, they'll understand. So that, that part of the tr. Sometimes it was kind of hard at the beginning.

Our reputation is always number one. It doesn't matter. You know, we like, we care about what people think about us. We want them to know that, hey, they can trust what we're saying. So we had to really, really dig in and learn the concepts of credits, the do's and don'ts, the expectations, to make sure that we were feeding, you know, our customers the correct expectation. And so they knew beforehand what to expect and what not to expect. And we found that that was missing in the credit space within. You know, a lot of companies are doing it right, but many, many more are doing it, I guess, you know, maybe not at capacity that they should be doing it. So we wanted to really, really make sure that we were, you know, teaching our customers what to expect beforehand so that way we wouldn't, you know, have any unhappy customers.

Very smart. And do you guys have a team?

Yes, we do. Right now we have about 20 employees.

Wow, that's incredible. Good for you. And what's, what's your advice for growing and scaling a team?

Obviously, firsthand, we're the type of people that we don't like to hire somebody for a position unless we've done it ourselves. And obviously not everybody likes to go that route. They just, you know, we'll bring on somebody and, you know, that's that. But we want to make, we want to know the ins and outs of the business right beforehand so we know if there's an issue or we know if something's not connecting correctly that we've already experienced that so we know how to handle it. And we also, you know, want to make sure that we, the people we bring on, have the same, have the same mindset and same hunger for, I. I guess perfection or for customer satisfaction as us. So first things first, for anybody who is looking to build out a team, do it all yourself, right? Until you can't handle it anymore. Obviously, if you would like to grow, then there's no way you can do things on your own, you know, the entire time. So once you have that down, just make sure that you hire quickly and fire just as quickly because one bad, you know, one bad representative can, can, you know, can. Can hurt your company. And so yeah, just make sure the foundation is set correctly, take it slow and steady, and once you have the foundation correctly laid where it's basically unbreakable, then you can scale comfortably without having to worry about something break or putting out a big fire.

Now how did you replicate your processes across the greater team?

So we actually have. One of the most important part want to say on our company is that we. I'm a hard believer, believer of SOPs. That's huge. I want to say that's huge because yes, you can train them, you can, you know, hire people, train them, show them, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever you would like to at that time. But we, we all humans, you know, and at some point we can maybe forget about something or, you know, we did something wrong. So we have, for every department, every position, we have an sop. And that to me that's the key factor. That way we all in the same page. We all talk the same language. And so there's no, you know, and, and it's also good for, for our quality team because that way if we make a mistake, we can go back and see. Well, let's, let's take a look at the sop, you know, what happened here? Can we make it better or, you know, something happened at that time, then we can fix it, you know, but it's so important. I want to say that's the key for, for our, our team success.

But that's how you're able to handle so many clients. That's amazing. And hey, I want to talk a little about your big achievement too, because I see the award there. So I want to give you a huge congratulations from making it into the millionaires club. And that means that you've made a million dollars doing credit repair. And that's a huge deal. So how long did it take you to get there and what kept you motivated the whole way?

We started basically like around 2020. Learning, right? Learning and doing on our, on our own. But when we fully committed to this and we started, you know, getting clients and not doing it for free anymore, I want to say it took us about two years basically around that time to be able to, you know, to get to this level.

Very, very cool. And you are the first Puerto Ricans to make it into the millionaires club. What's your secret sauce for Becoming the number one credit repair company in Puerto Rico.

We go hard on everything we do, but even though it doesn't matter which business we do, we, we select our, our, our clients because we're, we're honest.

Right?

We don't like to take people just to take people and sell them something that's, that's not us. Like he was saying before, our reputation right now, based on what we were doing before, it's already up there. We don't want to mess with that and we want to be able to provide, you know, and, and I think the biggest, biggest secret is, is being honest. You know, a lot of people might think that just be, you know, you should say this or that so that way you can get clients. That's not us, you know, we rather not take you if you don't understand how this process works, you know. And so I believe when you're honest, you know, you get so many lessons, you know what I mean? So that I believe that's the key factor. And, you know, that's what made us what we are right now.

And of course, we couldn't have done it without Credit Repair Cloud for sure.

How is Credit Repair Cloud helped you to make a million dollars?

So, funny story, real quick. We obviously, the systems and everything in place and we, we actually took, we actually sat together and said, hey, like, is it worth it for us to try and create our own platform for us personally, outside of Credit Repair Cloud to see, you know, how that would work? Um, and it turns out that no accredited replayer COD actually has everything we need, plus more. And I know you guys are updating things all the time and keeping up to date. So, you know, it's, it's been, it's been a huge, huge factor in how we've been able to scale so quickly and, and keep, you know, keep our clients happy with the systems and everything that is available in Credit Repair Cloud.

Yeah, without crc, it was going to take us a long time. There's no way. You guys have pretty much all the important stuff. You know what we need to have a good customer service experience and everything. So that was key.

Yeah. It's funny, our biggest affiliates, which are big companies, every time we bring them on and we explain the process and we always give them a presentation and we'll say, hey, this is what your customer is going to see on their end. They'll have access to this, have access to that. And they're always just blown away by, you know, everything, because maybe they've, they've tried Partnering with other credit repair companies in the past and you know, they didn't have maybe credit repair cloud or what they were using. But yeah, one of the biggest tools in our, in our arsenal is definitely having credit repair cloud.

I want to talk about marketing because you guys are doing an awful lot on social media. You have a lot of followers on Instagram and YouTube. How has social media helped you to grow your business?

Well, obviously a lot. That's one of the biggest advantage that we, you know, that we took when we started this process. Obviously we have, you know, a lot of followers, like I said, because of back businesses that we, that we had and so we took advantage of that. I mean it's, it's crazy the amount of people that you can, that you can reach just because the, the content that you have or, or whatever you're doing right every time. So that was a huge factor. And again, a lot of people, they, they like to see, you know, what you do and the things that you do. And like I said, our reputation based on our social media and the value that we provide and all that, that's also huge. You know, we never sleep on it. At the beginning we were like, well, we don't want to say too much now and this and that, but when we started doing that, people like, that people love. I feel like when you give them value, they're going to come, you know, it's just, they're going to, you know, sign me up, you know what I mean? So it was a huge factor using social media. It's, it's everything for us.

What is your most effective marketing strategy for attracting new clients these days?

What's working so for, for us personally, it's still our, our affiliates is about 90% of our clients. We do run some small paid ads here and there, but our biggest, biggest thing is, is our affiliates and it, it does take a while to build that reputation up. Luckily for us, we already had somewhat of a, of a, of a stable level because of our prior business. But to anybody who's thinking about, you know, starting a credit repair business and maybe they don't have money for marketing or anything like that, start knocking on doors, I'm talking about, start going to dealerships, start talking to, you know, your local bank, start, you know, if you don't ask, the answer is always no. And you'll be surprised at how much of a need credit repair service is. But people don't know where to look or people don't know, you know, maybe they've tried it in the Past and. And have had a, you know, a left a bad taste in their mouth. So you got to be that difference. So just by going and knocking and creating those relationships, it opened a ton of doors and we made it. One of the biggest things was we made it our goal. You know, two years ago, we. We got together, we had a vision board, and we said, listen, we got to get a little bit uncomfortable and start reaching out to, you know, different companies and knocking on that door and creating those relationships.

And.

And it's changed. It's changed everything for us. Yeah.

One of our biggest affiliate. I want to share with you guys. It took me about three months just knocking at them because I know they were going to be huge for us. I knew it, but they didn't know who I was. So I was just knocking at the door, sending emails, sending messages, looking who. Who was the. At me, who was the secretary, you know, trying to find their emails. Do it all. Just do it all. Because I knew that if that all I needed, it was just a couple minutes to present, you know, what I had. And so, long story short, after three months, they said, you know what? I really like the hustle. I really like, you know, what you presented to us, so we'll do it. And it's been like four years.

Three.

Three years already working with them. So that's why you never quit.

It's awesome. What kind of business are they in right now?

They are into the auto. Auto industry.

Got it. And what other types of businesses are you working with?

So we have a couple solar companies. We were partnered with a couple different real estate companies and so a few other brokers. So, you know, anywhere you can think of where credit is needed to either close a deal or close a sale, then, you know, you can. You can position yourself very nicely in between.

Love it. How important are client referrals and testimonials for your business?

Oh, so we. We love it. Obviously, it's a very critical part because you'll trust a recommendation from a close friend first, right? If you say, hey, man, I got this haircut here, all the haircut looks great. I got from, you know, this dude over here. All right, perfect. I'm going to go see him. You know, there's no. There's no selling it because they already see the product versus, you know, trying to sell the haircut from the barber's perspective. Like, hey, man, I cut hair really great. You know, come. Come and find out for yourself. And then, you know, so it's just. It just makes the relationship a Lot easier because you already have that middleman connection, for lack of a better word.

With so many clients, what's your secret to keeping them engaged and committed throughout the entire credit repair process?

So that's actually that we, one of the things that we do, the way we, we sell it, is that we don't only want to, you know, fix their credit, we also want to give them value and help them optimize their credit. Whether they're looking for mortgage, they're looking for auto loan, they're looking for something specific. We're going to help them with that too. So that makes the relationship even better because, you know, most of them are going to be like, well, they're going to fix my credit. But hey, I'm looking for, for a car. So they know who. And we, we definitely have a lot of affiliates and a lot of people that, you know, we, we. All we have to do is tell them, hey, this, this is our client. He's looking for this specific car or this specific mortgage. You know, I know you can, you know, you're in good hands. And so that's something that they love too, because again, you're not only, you know, fixing their credit, you're also guiding them and showing them the path to, to get whatever they're looking for at that time. So I think that's one of the key factors that help us a lot. And also the value, you know, a lot of. We have our YouTube channel, and so we always giving them value. We, you know, we have a show that is about to come out pretty soon too. So it's just about value. And so I feel like that's also one of the things that help us a lot to, you know, to keep them full on.

Yeah. And alongside that, the biggest other, you know, thing that we would say is communication. You know, it's initially, it's easier when you have a smaller client base, but I think with anything in life, as things get bigger and bigger, you know, maybe the customer service aspect or the value aspect of it starts to decline. And so, so we were very, very careful to make sure that, you know, that doesn't happen. It's just, you know, whether it's sending email updates or just being available. Right. Being available to the customers every month to, you know, to let them know, hey, we are here, we are working, we are listening, and, you know, we're not going anywhere.

Very smart. What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone who wants to start their own credit repair business?

I would just say make sure that your prime focus is to the servitude of. Of helping others.

Right.

Whether that be by setting up clear communications or clear expectations and then learning the ins and outs of credit repair, because it is changing all the time. We, I mean, we are always trying to stay on top of the new laws and, you know, things that they put out. So it can be a little overwhelming, right. If you come in with certain expectations and find out that you have to know a laundry list of things. So just take it one step at a time. Of course, CRC makes it incredibly easy to get started and gives you kind of like a roadmap. So definitely start with CRC. I mean, follow the great content that's on the YouTube channel. You know, we're just. We're replicating what we've already learned from people like yourself. And then we've taken it and, you know, turned it into our own. Our own team. So definitely learn as much as you can. Take your time. Right? The credit repair. Credit isn't going anywhere. So take your time, Learn everything. And then once you have everything stabilized and you have a great foundation, then you can go ahead and go hard and start to scale and. And, you know, see. See how many people you can help, right?

Yeah. And another thing that I want to add to that is that you want to be mentally prepared. I, you know, I believe a hundred percent of the time that whatever you put in your mind, you can, you know, you can achieve it yard. You can. I'm sure you can make it happen. So just don't quit. It's like any other business. You're going to have your challenges. That's part of it. But if you quit, you will never get there, that's for sure. So just be mentally prepared. Believe in what you're doing. Learn everything. That's, you know, the information, like you said, is out there. There's no. You don't have to complicate things. A lot of people, sometimes they want to open a business and just want to complicate things. And it's not like that. It's simple, right? But you got to be able to work, right? You got to put in the work, be disciplined. And I'm sure you're going to. You're going to find a way to make it happen.

That's great advice from both of you. Okay, I want to switch gears right now, and I'm going to ask you guys a few rapid questions, so each of you answer with the first thing that pops into your head. Okay?

Okay.

Okay. What's your business Superpower.

Customer service.

Communication.

And what's your business? Kryptonite. Meaning the area you had to work the hardest to improve.

Yeah, go ahead.

Customer service.

In my case, I believe at the beginning, structure.

What does business ownership mean to you?

Responsibility.

To me, Freedom.

And what's your definition of success?

Waking up, doing what you love and helping others.

Yeah, my definition is just being happy. Um, it's not about reaching a goal because if not you just reaching a lot of goals at the end, you gotta be happy of, you know, with yourself and what you're doing. Otherwise you're just again reaching goals. So to me, being successful is, is being happy.

If you could go back in time and tell yourself one piece of advice.

What would it be to me that never quit. You're gonna get there no matter what.

Probably don't stress as much as you had because in the end, when one door closes, another opens. So I love that.

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

It's. The limits are. The only limits are the ones that you place on yourself. The hardest thing, like I said, I think with anything in business, right, not just credit, but anything business is going to be your mental, whatever mental blocks that you put up for yourself and the mental walls that you put up for yourself. Because every time we come up with a new challenge or something that we didn't foresee, we always look at each other and say, hey, I'm glad it happened to us because now we're going to learn from it and we're going to, you know, we're going to be a lot better because of it. And we love, we. Even though it does sting at first, we do love the challenges that come because it keeps us on our toes and it keeps things exc.

Yeah, in my case, I want to tell you guys that focus on yourself, focus on what's going on on your life. Don't compare yourself with other people's out there. I know a lot of people start looking on social media and they see somebody, you know, maybe they look at us and say, hey, they did it in two years and I've been doing this for three and nothing. Don't compare yourself. You know, we all got different routes, we all start different places. If you focus on yourself and forget about all the noise that it's out there and you go hard, I again, you're gonna make it happen.

I love it. What's next for you guys? What's the next big goal?

Well, so right now we, we have some Things working on in the background. Credit wise, we would love to, you know, take over Puerto Rico. We have this office here. We have this set up. So we have a lot of things planned.

Yeah, we got a lot of different projects right now. We're like, I want to say, number one company in pr, but we feel like we're still learning that we still like barely crashing the floor. So there's so many things that we can still do. And our main, want to say our main goal for credit is to be able to go out there and educate people so that way they know and learn about this. Life, in my opinion, is so hard without credit, you need credit for everything. If you want to start a business, you need credit. If you want to buy a house, an auto, you need credit. To rent a place, you need credit. So there's a lot of missing information out there. And so I would like to not only be able to, you know, keep taking over in terms of helping people, fixing their credit, but also that they feel like Credit Guys is a place where they can come and learn and.

How can people find your products and reach out to you?

So we are on social media, obviously we, you can find us at Credit Guys Underscore. That's where we are more active in terms of, you know, education and all that. Also on YouTube, we have our, our YouTube channel called Credit Guys. We put a lot of information there too. Again, just knowledge and education for free. So that's, that's free information that you guys can, can, you know, find and, and also in, you know, in our website.

Well, thank you so much for your time today. Edgardo and Gilberto, you are amazing. This was a lot of fun. Did you have fun?

Oh, yeah, 100%. We appreciate you guys being here and, you know, giving us this time.

Well, I appreciate you too. And for everyone out there watching and listening, if you like this show, give us a thumbs up so more people will watch this show. 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 six months of our credit repair software for free and access to our advanced, disputing and business courses, go to creditrepaircloud.com free training and sign up for our masterclass. And if you want to hear how to build your very own credit repair business, check out my 10 steps to success. And if you'd like to improve your credit score and learn how to earn extra income Repairing Credit for Others Check out my brand new Start Repairing Credit challenge. Doors are closing soon and it is completely free. So sign up right now@startrepairingcredit.com and keep changing lives.