Secrets to Getting More Clients: Credit Repair Marketing Secrets with Deanna Knowles

Hey, credit heroes. Today we are talking with Deanna Knowles. She is the CEO of the famous group. She has over a decade of experience in marketing and she specializes in lead generation for credit repair businesses. They are a top company in this space and they generate millions of dollars in revenue for credit repair companies. So if you are struggling to get clients for your credit repair business, or if you want to scale your business far beyond your wildest dreams, 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? Without 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 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 here on the Credit Repair Business Secrets podcast. And if you want me to hold you by the hand as you launch your very own profitable credit repair business, then go to creditherochallenge.com and since today's interview is about marketing, I have brought in Kenan Jones, who is our resident marketing wizard, and he helped us to grow credit repair cloud to what it is today. Hey, Kenan.

Hey, credit heroes.

Anyways, let's get into this. Deanna Knowles is an expert in social media marketing and sales, particularly for credit repair businesses, as well as business lending and business credit. So if you're wanting to get more clients, if you want to scale, you are going to get a whole lot of very useful information today. So please welcome to the podcast Deanna Knowles. Hey, Deanna.

Hey, Daniel. Hey, Keenan. Hey, credit heroes. Thank you for having me on. Such a pleasure to be on. I'm so excited to be on as well.

And congratulations on all your success with the famous group. You're doing amazing.

Thank you so much. And congrats to you as well.

Well, thanks. We heard about you because a lot of our most successful customers are working with you. So I can't wait to get into this now. You are working with credit repair businesses all over the country?

Yes, we are.

And how many credit repair companies do you help?

We have helped over thousands of credit repair companies since 2017.

Wow. What are the typical results that you get for a company?

So it depends right within advertising. When it comes to advertising for credit repair businesses, the results vary because obviously we are advertising on Facebook and Instagram. There's a lot of variables, but the number one variable is the conversion rate. Right. So it's the ability where you're the credit repair business owner's ability to convert a lead into a client. So typically what we like to do is we consult with the client and we go based on their ad spend. So the amount of leads that we're generating is all tied to their ad spend. So the amount of leads versus, you know, from the leads to the conversion rate, that's typically what we look at. So what happens is during that consultation we'll kind of, you know, talk to them about what it is that they're looking for. So if you're starting out, you know, we Recommend at least $25 a day to get good lead flow and then from there you can start scaling to $50 a day, $100 a day. We have a lot of clients who spend upwards to 100 to $500 a day just depending. But our goal is to always turn that dollar into $5 for your business. So for every dollar that you spend, we turn into $5 for you.

Awesome. That sounds perfect for someone who's got a business that's going. But what about someone who's just getting started with their credit repair business? Their biggest need is clients. If they don't have any experience, but they don't have money yet to hire an agency, what are some things that they can start to do on their own? What would you recommend?

So what I would recommend is doing organic, right? First and foremost is going through your friends and family. Ask who do you know, hey, can you try some of my services? And they refer me five clients. Start building your base of referrals first. That's my number one recommendation because everybody knows somebody, right? So you can always ask your friend, family member to refer you somebody once you build that base. What I would recommend is coming to an agency, kind of see what it is that we can offer. That way you can start off with one of our starter packages where you can start generating leads so that you can get a taste of how to work with the leads that are generating from Facebook and Instagram because it is very different and you want to make sure you have a system in place where you have automations that's nurturing all the leads that come in as well as a good follow up system on the back end for the leads that we're nurturing as well.

Let's let Keenan jump in. This is his specialty.

Yeah, I'm curious, you Have a, a lot of credit fair companies coming to you. What are like the biggest marketing mistakes or the mistakes that you see business owners doing today?

So the number one mistake or the number one downfall that I see is they don't have a system in place to nurture those leads. Right. And a lot of people say, hey, I have a lot of referrals, I've built my business on referrals. Now I want to scale my company to the next level and I want to, you know, work with an agency. And the number one thing that I would recommend is, like I said, have a system in place, have a team that actually knows how to work the leads. Because the difference between cold leads and warm leads is day and night. The cold leads in a lot of nurturing or what should I say, hand holding in the beginning, right. So that you can nurture them from lead to becoming your friend to becoming a client. Because they, you know, a lot of these leads that we're actually generating for you, they know nothing about you. So your goal would be to get on the phone with them, talk with them, meet them face to face so they can understand who you are and that way build that relationship with them so they can become a long term client.

Got it. And for people that don't know, like, how do you define like a hot lead versus like a cold lead?

Got it. Good question. So a hot lead is someone like your best friend, right? So your best friend or referral. Let's say a lot of our credit repair clients, they have referrals, right? From let's just say mortgage brokers, real estate for people that are wanting to buy a house. So let's just say the real estate office next door refers someone, someone over to a credit repair client office and they're saying, hey, my friend Stanley actually said to come here, you know, to help get my credit fixed so I can potentially buy a house. So that's a hot lead. That's a hot referral where they've been referred to someone that has trust, a cold lead. Whereas they opt into an advertising, right. When it comes from Facebook, Instagram, they're opting into advertising, requesting information. They don't know anything about you. It's not a referral. So you're going to need to warm them up a little bit, get to know them, what are their needs, you know, ask them questions and then that, that way you can actually present your services to them. So with a cold lead, you have to build that relationship of trust first.

Got it. So if, if a new credit repair Business owner, they take the first steps of, like, building their business, going into their. Their audience, of their friends and family to get some case studies, and then they're like, ready to go and work with an agency like yourself. I'm curious, what are the biggest misconceptions about working with an agency like yours? And what are things that people think coming in but aren't necessarily true?

So what happens is when they work with or partner with a marketing agency, they think that we're gonna change their business and that's it. Right? It takes time. So with any business that you're building, whether you're doing referral marketing, it's gonna take time. And with marketing, it's not something you wan one month and be done the next. What you're doing is building your sales pipeline with the leads that we're generating. So you want to make sure you can consistently have lead flow, which means you have to have a good investment on the front end, right? So you have to make. You have to understand that marketing takes some type of an investment on the front end, so you can build your sales pipeline on the back end. So, for example, if there's a new business owner just getting started, they have to understand that leads take time to nurture, right? So let's just say someone asked for information through an advertising today. They might not be be ready to go next week versus until next week, versus a hot lead that comes in. You can get them as a client right then and there. So with the leads that we're generating, they have to understand that it takes time, but time is what's exponentially going to grow your business and scale it in the future.

And talking about investment in someone's business, I'm curious to know, because you're working with a lot of different businesses all across the country. What is the typical cost to get a lead in? Like, how much should someone expect to pay if they're just getting their. Maybe they're just getting their business off the ground. They're. They're not looking to do a million dollars a year, but they just. They're looking to get their first consistent, maybe a hundred clients in their business. What would you expect for them to pay per lead? How much would you expect for them to pay online in Internet advertising?

So it depends, right? Because with Facebook's changes becoming totally different now, right. So there's Facebook algorithms that we obviously can't control, but the goal is to obviously get the cost per lead down. So with the famous group, we can get the cost per lead down anywhere from 5 to $8 on average which is good because sometimes it goes above $8. So as a marketing agency our goal is to make sure that on the back end where the advertising is optimized to a point where we can stay between 5 and 8 because if we can save between 5 and $8 we can generate the client more leads. So for someone that's just getting started I would recommend a budget of $25 a day which is about 7:50amonth. We also when we talk with potential credit repair businesses we go into detail about the ROI calculator so their return on ad spend calculator based on where they are and how many clients they want to get. So we always ask the client what is your budget? That is the number one thing I will ask any credit repair business owner that wants to partner with an agen have a marketing budget anywhere from 750amonth minimum on up because you do, like I said, have to spend money on the advertising side to generate those leads.

What's the best way to nurture these leads until they become a client?

So what I would recommend is obviously with us we already have all the automations upfront. Let's just say someone opts in for advertising, we immediately tell them hey, you should reach out to them, call them, introduce yourself. So speak soon as the lead comes in, within five minutes, call them because they can get cold really quick. So you want to make sure when the lead comes in not only is our text message email automations going out, put a familiar face, put a familiar voice to it, stand behind your company, call that lead saying hey you know I saw that you requested information about our services. I'd love to get to know you. That's the number one thing that sets the businesses apart is the fact that they get on the phone quick. So the faster you get on the phone with them the faster you can build a relationship and help them become a client.

And you mentioned having all the automations in place. So you're actually creating the drip email nurture sequences and all of that?

Yes we are. So we create all the sequences on the front end, the text message automations, the email automations. Let's say someone doesn't book an appointment, we have automations that go out as well. So they get text message emails probably once or twice a day and then throughout the week we're dripping on them and believe it or not the automations get them to reply and book an appointment with our clients.

Absolutely. Those automations are how we grew credit card cloud Exactly. Thousands of fishing lines all reeling in.

And that's it. That's exactly what it is. You have to make sure you're touching them on all angles, you know. So that's the one thing that I would recommend is not just having the automations in place, which is part of the system, it's having that human touch. What I like to always say is automated by software optimized by humans. So that's what I like to say. You know, the software can only automate so much, but we optimize the entire system by getting that human touch involved.

Well, I'm curious like with the human touch part, like what parts would you say would you recommend to automate and what parts would you recommend to actually have someone step in and take the conversation to the next step?

So basically you want to get involved. The human touch is after the first initial automation goes out. Right. So you want to make sure that as soon as the automation goes out you call them. And also when the automations go out and they respond, get on the phone right away. Because a lot of the automations that we send out actually entices the lead to respond, yes, I'm still interested. As soon as someone says yes, I'm interested, get on the phone. That way you're not going back and forth through text message.

I'm curious to know too, like when. So jumping back to like generating the first leads for the business there you're starting to generate a ton of leads for them. Let's say you're generating a hundred leads a month. What should a credit repair business owner expect to convert? How many of those leads should they convert into a client? And I know sales processes could vary depending on how good someone is at that process. But like what do you typically see with companies you work with?

Yep. So out of the leads we typically say 30% of the leads that we generate turn into qualified credit consultations. So out of those credit consultation they can close roughly about 30% of those 30 to 40% of the credit consultations and then the rest you'll be following up with. So that's also why we see you have to have a follow up system on the back end where you know, the rep, the credit consultations or his sales team are going in there and building that relationship because the better relationship you build they'll be able to remember you and want to do business with you.

So you're saying about 30% of people are potentially qualified for even credit repair that you generate leads for and then about 30% of those will Actually could potentially convert into a client.

Right. So for example, let's just say we have, we generate about 200 leads. Right. So for example purposes we're generating 200 leads. 64 of those will be converted into credit consultations, meaning they've met the qualification filters based on what the client sets. Out of those 64 credit consultations, 19 to 20 of those would become clients. So out of those 64, you'll sign up roughly 19 to 20. And then the remaining 44 of those, you're going to be following up with them. And then the rest of the 200 leads, they're in a nurture until they become, or they become qualified to be in a credit consultation.

Very cool. It just puts emphasis on you really need to generate a lot of leads to grow your client base.

Exactly, exactly. It all ties down to the ad spend and that's the number one thing is you know, they want all these clients, but they have to play the numbers game as well. And it all starts with the amount of money you spend into marketing.

Right. And the importance there of the follow up that a lot of people think you put an ad, you're going to get a client and it doesn't work that way.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. A lot of people think once you put an ad on there, okay, they're going to come and they're ready to go. That's not the case. You know, you have to, like I said, you have to work the lead, warm them up and then, you know, meet with them to potentially get them as a client. You have to build that trust. Sales is all about trust.

Sure. Plus building that whole.

Exactly. The whole. Yep.

Yeah. Well, I'm curious too. So like business owner starts, you're starting to get leads coming in. But then what are some of the biggest roadblocks from going from they got a business, they just quit their nine to five, they're they got a groove going to scaling their company. What are biggest roadblocks you see with.

That not being able to convert them? Right. So it goes back to cold lead versus hot lead. That's why I said they have to build a foundation first of at least a referral engine and have a referral engine on top of a lead engine like ours because you want to make sure that you have two engines going. Right. So the referral and the lead generation. Because you always can't. You don't want to rely your entire business just based on referrals and you don't want to have your business just based on Marketing. So you want to make sure you have a balance. So when it comes to someone that is doing full time credit repair, like I said, they have to make sure there's a budget set aside. They have a system in place to nurture the leads on the front end, they have a follow up system in place as well as understanding how to talk to these leads that we're generating.

So you're talking about two different systems generating leads. And I'm sure you specialize, your agency specializes in that, like paid media, going, buying ads on Facebook. But then also you're talking about referrals as well. Do you have any recommendations on how a company would put a referral system in place?

Yeah, so they just, like I said, somebody knows somebody. Right? So a lot of our clients, they start with their closest friends and family. Someone's going to know a realtor, someone's going to know a mortgage broker. For us, when a client actually becomes a client and hires our agency, once they actually start generating leads as well and to become a client or they have a lead become a client, they ask for referrals. So they'll send out, you know, hey, if you refer five people, et cetera. So they'll have a referral on the back end on top of the leads that we're generating. So they use our marketing system to generate the leads, get the clients, and then have the clients refer them and tap into their market as well. So that's what we also recommend is not just generating leads or not just using our leads to get them clients, but to also build a referral engine on the back end. So through your warm market and then through the leads that we're generating as well, you can say, hey, who do you know that could use our services if we refer them, we can definitely, you know, we can figure something out.

Got it. Are there any type of offers that you recommend companies put in place? Is it just, hey, you like my services, I want to, they want to spread to more people and. Or you just simply ask them, hey, do you have any friends to refer or do you, are there any offers that you put in place to incentivize those referrals?

Yeah, so what we like to do, I mean some of our clients, they could do strive for five. Where, hey, if you refer five clients, you get a month of service for free on us. Or if you refer people, we can get 10, 10, 20% off your monthly services with us. Just anything that's going to allow them to get referrals and it helps them. Obviously on Their bottom line, it's the business owner that has to come up with it. But we do, you know, we kind of coach them on what works with some of our clients and what's going to be able to work for them as well.

I want to know, how did you learn all this? What were you doing before that? You're so good at this? What's your background?

So I was in marketing and sales since 2010. So that is my background. I've been doing marketing and sales for quite some time. And then we just decided to pivot in 2017. We strictly focus on financial services because we know there's a need for it. And we know that a lot of credit repair businesses not only need help generating leads, but they also need help on the part of developing them into a potential client. Right. So that's where we come into place, is we don't just. We're not just here to generate the leads. We want to make sure that as a new business owner, you can come to us, we can help you from our starter package and scale your company up. And we've had clients who have been with us since they started their credit repair business. They've called and said, hey, I just finished the Credit hero challenge, and I want to take my business, you know, to the next level. And we've coached people on that. And that's the benefit of partnering with the famous group is we want to make sure we want to hold your hand through the process of scaling your company because we know it's not easy. So we're there to help you every part of the way and kind of coach you and guide you and kind of train you on what it's like to partner with an agency to nurture the leads, to have a system in place. We built all of that for you. And you also have some guidance from us on how to actually deal with these type of leads that we're generating, because, like I said, it is very different from hot, warm referrals. And that's why we like to coach our clients on how to actually deal with the leads and, you know, nurture them along the way.

I'd love. I'd love to know a little more about all the packages that you have with. So if a credit hero is listening and they're like, hey, I'm ready to take the next step. What does it look like working with you from someone that maybe is just taking their next step in their business? Starting with, like, just getting their business in the. In the start stage, but then also, like, what do you offer for someone that maybe needs to scale as well?

Yep. So we do have three different packages and we also do have a website that kind of explains everything with the little explainer video as well. But we have three packages. The first one is our starter package where it's just for someone getting started. Right. So they can get their feet wet. In the marketing industry that is a one time setup where we put in our best performing campaigns in your ad account. And then what we do is we build all the automations, we build a lead generation funnel for you and we build everything out for you within the scale CRM. We will onboard you so that you understand how to use the CRM and then we'll turn the ads on for you. So best performing ads are set up in your Facebook ad account. We'll tell you exactly how to use the CRM and we'll tell you basically the basics of what to do so that you, you know how to nurture the leads and how to talk to them. We also give you a script when you become a starter client because that's a lot, a lot of credit repair business owners ask us that. Hey, what do I do when a lead comes in? I got all these alerts, I have like five leads today. What do I do next? We're like here, this is what you're going to do. Call them, here's the scripts, you know, just so that you kind of can get your feet wet. So that's the starter package. There's no commitment on that one. We don't require minimum ad spend, it's just based on what you're comfortable spending on marketing. We recommend $25 a day to get enough leads but you know, you could go lower than that. But like I said, the more you spend on advertising, the more leads you can generate. So that's our starter package. The only thing you're paying for monthly is the CRM cost. And then the growth package is our full on advertising system where everything's customized with the ads. We use your videos, we use your images on our landing pages. You have access to us real time via text and sl. That's our growth package. And then our pro packages we're handling our advertising and you also get a lead development representative on your account where they are handling all the leads that we generate for you. So the pro package is where we're actually generating the leads for you. And our call center that we have is the one actually vetting all the leads and pre qualifying the leads so that you can spend your time Building relationships with the qualified prospects. Right. So our call center are the ones calling them, doing all the outbound, doing the outreach, qualifying them based on your specifications. Once they're qualified, we book them into a meeting with the credit repair business owner, where the credit business owner will be able to build that relationship with them and go over their credit report. So that's the pro package. So we kind of have everything in there. It's an entire system where we have the marketing and the lead development representative on your account. So the only thing you have to focus on is building that relationship with your potential clients.

Oh, that's. That's awesome. What, what type of results have you driven for companies? Are there any case studies you can talk about?

Yeah, we have a few. I mean, if you go on our website, you can actually see them. We've actually helped scale a lot of companies to six, seven figures. And there are some of our clients who like to remain anonymous, unfortunately. But yes, we do have credit repair. We have actually testimonials on our video. We've done interviews with some of our clients clients as well. And we've actually helped people scale to a 6, 7 figure credit repair business when they just got started in the industry.

Awesome. And what is the URL of your site that people can visit?

It's the famous group.com CRC and famous is F A MOS.

Let's switch gears and we're gonna go into a rapid fire round of questions where you answer the first thing that pops into your head. We want to learn more about you. Okay. Are you ready?

Ready.

What's the most important lesson you've learned as an entrepreneur?

Oh, man. Patience.

Good one. What's your biggest superpower in business?

Oh, what's my biggest superpower? Negotiation.

What does business ownership mean to you?

Everything.

What drives and motivates you?

Hmm.

What drives and motivates me? That's a good one. I think. Family and having freedom.

I like that. I like that. What's your definition of success?

So my definition of success is where you basically can have the time freedom that you want, not having to worry about anything.

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

Wow.

These are good questions, Daniel.

Thank you.

I will say that everything takes time. And, you know, if I knew what I know today, I think I would have just done things a little quicker because I feel like the time frame in which someone does something, you can speed up the learning curve if you just learn a Little faster. You go through all your mistakes quicker. Because I feel like anybody can be successful, honestly. It's just the timeframe in which you want to achieve it. And I believe that if you want to become successful, obviously there are roadblocks and things that you have to do in business, but if you speed it up, you can get there quicker.

Absolutely. And to not be afraid of making mistakes.

Exactly.

That's how you grow. That's how you learn.

The faster you make mistakes, the faster you can get there. Because there's a lot of mistakes that I've made as a business owner, that's for sure. But you learn from them.

Deanna, this was awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

And before we go, tell us one more time, how can people learn about your services? Where can they go?

You can go to the famousgroup.com CRC and famous is spelled F A M O S. Great.

Well, thank you again for being on. We really appreciate it and thank you for serving our community too.

Yes, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much and have a.

Great rest of your day. And thanks for your time today.

Thank you.

You too.

And to 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 that we share each week here on the Credit Repair Business Secrets podcast. And if you're feeling kind, do me a favor and rate me. Give me a thumbs up, leave a comment or ask a question because I read each and every one of them and I will you on 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 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 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 credithhero challenge challenge.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.