The Lead Engine Bruce Politano Used to Scale to $10 Million (Part 2)

So first you gotta build the foundation of your company. You gotta have the process, you gotta have your SOPs. You can't just wing it. You have to be intentional about everything that you're doing. So before you're worrying about leads, what is a process that person is gonna go through in your business to achieve their desired outcome?

The first ever $10 million award in Credit Repair Cloud history. One person, one business built from nothing twice. And today he breaks down the exact system behind it. Welcome back, credit heroes. In part 1, Bruce Politano gave us the real version of his road to $10 million, the mistakes, the close calls, everything. And now he's giving us the tactics, the exact frameworks that his team uses to sell, follow up, and convert leads without making a single false promise or breaking a single law. This is the episode you're going to want to take notes on. So let's get into it.

I'd love to know, because you're working with a lot of those people from $0 to $100K, what do people over-index on and think are problems but really aren't in those early stages that they put too much focus on, that you'd rather them focus somewhere else?

They put too much focus on getting leads. And let me tell you, um, sometimes leads is a curse instead of a blessing. Imagine for a second that you, um, you bought the McDonald's across the street. Okay. And you're saying, Bruce, I just need a line out the door of people that want Big Macs and McFlurries, and I'm good, man. Just help me get a line out the door of people that want Big Macs and McFlurries, and I'll love you forever. All right. No problem. So we get them a line out the door of people that want Big Macs and McFlurries, AKA leads for your credit repair business. The moment that first person in line walks into your McDonald's store, you don't have a cash register. There's no cashier. Your ice cream machine is broken. What good is that line out the door of people that you can't serve? So sometimes people obsess too much over leads and leads and leads and leads. And I get it cuz leads equate to money, but only if you can serve them. So first you gotta build the foundation of your company. You gotta have the process. You gotta have your SOPs. You can't just wing it. You have to be intentional about everything that you're doing. So before you're worrying about leads, what is a process that that person is gonna go through in your business to achieve their desired outcome? If you don't have that built yet, you have no business trying to get leads cuz you're winging it with other people's finances. You're winging it with other people's hard-earned money. And that's not right. You gotta have the right processes and then you gotta know how to sell. What if you can't sell? Right? What if the cashier is rude? And she's cussing out at the people at line. Hey, make sure you have your wallets out. You know, the ice cream machine is broke. You have the worst cashier in the history of McDonald's. What good is a lot of the door people if that cashier isn't gonna properly sell and upsell? Well, would you like some extra sprinkles with that? Right? Like you gotta learn how to sell because if you can't sell, then you can't convert the leads into paying customers. So how, what's your sales process like? What if I could snap my fingers and I can give you 50 brand new leads every single day? Bam, 50 today. Bam, 50 tomorrow. Bam, 50 the next day. How are you working those leads? Right? How, how are you organizing those leads? Right? Are you sending them to a VSL? Are you sending them to the self-enrollment? Are you sending— what are you doing? How are you squeezing every ounce of opportunity out of every single lead that's coming through your pipeline to ensure that you're enrolling as many of them as you can? If you don't have a sales process in place, you have no business getting leads. Cuz again, you're bringing people into a broken process that doesn't work. Here's the keys to the Ferrari, but it has no engine. Great. Go drive your Ferrari then somewhere. You can't. Cause you don't have an engine. Build the engine to your Ferrari first and then go drive it. So people obsess way too much over getting customers when the last thing they need right now is customers. There's more important fish to fry before you're ready for that. Yes, you're gonna need customers. Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is don't turn clients away. What I'm saying is don't pour gasoline on that yet. You're focused only on leads, leads, leads, leads, leads, leads, leads, and you have your blinders on and just leads, leads, leads, leads, leads while like everything around you is like burning. And you don't even know it because you're so focused on the one thing that really isn't going to matter if you can't get all these other things right. Right. So that's what people obsess over. That's one mistake that I see is you got to take a step back and you got to go build a business before you start bringing people into the business.

You teach a lot of different strategies, Bruce, um, on getting, getting someone started. Like you mentioned ads being like a golden goose. That's kind of like a way you recommend people to scale, but like, what if someone really is getting started? You mentioned not going into ads directly. What, what would be that first on-the-ground tactical thing the CRO should be doing to get their first clients in the door?

Two things. The reaching out to mortgage lenders, number one. And now if you have Bruce, why, why not realtors? Realtors are great. Um, and I mean, no disrespect to realtors, but they're glorified Uber drivers without a lender. Okay? A lender is the one who decides where you're going to drive your client to, to go show them a house. Without the lender's approval, you're just Uber driving, right? So I want to get to the source. I want to get to the one professional who's looking at the credit report and saying, "No, can't do anything here." And then it's picking up the phone and calling the lender saying, I mean, calling up the realtor and saying, No, can't do anything there. Who's calling the client and say, no, can't pre-approve you. I want to go to the source. The other thing too is think about, um, how lenders grow their business. Lenders grow their business primarily from real estate agents. So if I really wanted the real estate agent, I'd go to the lender because the lender is the preferred lender for not only this real estate agent, but also this one and this one and this one and this one, this one. One lender may have a network of 50 real estate agents referring pre-approvals to them. Imagine if I had to go to every single one of those 50 real estate agents individually. Instead, I can just go to the lender and getting the other 49 real estate agents' declined files too that I never even had to meet or build a relationship with. I built a relationship with one lender and I'm getting all of their real estate agents' networks' declined files because the lender is the one that owns that. Right? Not the real estate agent. So that's why I go to the lender, because the lender is the source. If not, I'd have to go to 50 different real estate agents to get to those end consumers when I could just go to the lender who has all of those agents' consumers in the palm of his hands, on his desk, on a daily basis. So I go to the lender, not the real estate agent, for that reason. Um, lenders know that the importance of the referral business because that's how they grow their business with the real estate agents. So when I go to the lender and I say, before I go there, if you're going to make a withdrawal, you first have to make a deposit. You can't withdraw from an empty bank account. The biggest mistakes that CROs make when they go to build partnerships is they, they're asking and asking and asking, hey, do you have clients? Hey, what are you doing? Hey, they're not leading with value. You got to lead with value. Right. What's in it? Everybody has, you know, what's in it for me mindset. So when you go to these people and you're saying, hey, do you have clients for me? Hey, what are you doing with your turnouts? Hey. And you're just asking for stuff. I'm gonna work with you. You're a leash, right? Like what you gotta lead with value. So what we do is, hey, Mr. Lender, um, we have clients that sign up for our credit repair program, uh, cuz they have a goal of buying a house. We're great at fixing their credit and getting them approval ready. The problem is I don't do what you do. I can't help them get approved for the house. Only you can do that. So right now my company is actively looking for a partnership with a lender that we can trust is going to take good care of our clients, to go the extra mile for them. Now I can actually get my client what they want by referring them to you so that you can now get them to pre-approve and they can get the house. I can't go all the way with them, but if I partner with you together, we can take them all the way. Now, my clients, they're my number one priority. It's how I put food on my table. So I'm not gonna work with just anybody. It has to be with a lender that I can trust is gonna take great care of my clients. Saw you on online. I saw that you had some great reviews. I figured it'll be, it'll be worth reaching out to you to see if you'd like to grab coffee sometime. Maybe you can tell me a little bit about what kind of loan programs you have to see if you would be a good fit for me to refer my clients too. What lender do you know that's gonna say no to that? They're all gonna say yes. Let me not say all, vast majority of them are gonna say yeah, cuz they understand they're, they're, they're, they're waiting for their phone to ring for, for a conversation like that. And now you meet with them at Starbucks or at Olive Garden or wherever, right? And they feel this is the right way to do it. You have to make them feel like they're interviewing for a position with your company. You gotta make them sell themselves as they are the lender that you're gonna refer, that you have to refer your clients to. So that's the, the, the, the atmosphere they have to create. Hey Daniel, thanks for meeting with me. I really appreciate it. You know, like I told you on the phone a little earlier, or, you know, a couple days ago, um, we have clients that really wanna buy a house and we're great at fixing their credit, but we can't take 'em all the way. Um, looking to partner with somebody that I know is gonna take good care of them. Um, figured it'd be worth a shot at least meeting with you and seeing what you have to say. What kind of, you know, how long have you been doing mortgages? What kind You have, and now you're gonna work and you're gonna sell yourself. Oh, I do all kinds of mortgages. We can approve people with as little as a 580, and you know, we do all kinds of loans and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and whatever. Let them yap away, right? They're selling themselves to you. Why? Because they want those referrals, right? So then use your, your, your gut. And if you feel like that, that lender is a good person, Daniel, sounds to me like you are just an extension of what we are already doing. The way you, you deal with your clients, the way you treat them is exactly like we deal and treat our clients, I think this would be a great, um, a great partnership. And really I'm interested in building relationships where everybody involved is winning, right? Um, our clients are winning because I will partner with somebody that's, you know, doing good work and getting them, um, the, the, the approval that they need. You're winning cuz you're growing your business and we're winning because our clients now, uh, think the best of us because we're actually connecting you guys. Um, so, you know, what I would like to do is as soon as I have somebody that's ready, I like them to, to send them your way. What's the best way for me to do that? Oh yeah, you can email it to me or you can just have them go to this link, whatever. Okay, great. Now, quick question, Daniel. Do you ever come across a deal on your desk that you can't approve because of a credit problem? Oh, you do? What are you doing with them now? What do you think they're going to say? Right. And you say, look, what if you just— tell you what, I'm happy to work on those files for you if you'd like. Right. I mean, we're already doing good work. If you want to send them over our way, we'll fix their credit and send them back to you in a little bit. And then now you're closing more loans too, but Here's the thing. I like building relationships based off of trust. All right. Um, you send me some clients, I'll work on them, no charge, just so that you can see what kind of work we do. Right. The reason why I do that is because I want to teach that lender how to refer me clients with no friction in that process. Right. Actually, some of the first 2 clients they send over my way, um, we're going to do them free of charge. We're not going to charge them anything. I just want to show you the quality of work that we can do. Right now, that lender is gonna refer me their first client, and then they're gonna refer me the second client. Now it's a habit. Now there's momentum. When he gets that third client, he's not thinking, well, this one's not gonna be free, so I'm not gonna send it. He already knows the proper channels and the right way to send them to me. Right now, when I do get that client, it's free, but you're gonna pay for credit monitoring, right? So I'm at least covering my costs. But if, if I'm willing, if I'm willing to spend money on Facebook, on ads, hundreds of dollars a day, I can spend $8 a month to fix somebody's credit for free, to build a relationship with a lender that can feed me for years to come. Does that make sense? That's different than, than your auntie who's not going to feed you for years to come with referrals. You guys get that? So that's how we build a relationship with the lenders. We lead with value. Well, Bruce, I don't have any clients to refer to the lenders. Not yet, but eventually you're going to get a referral from somebody that's not working with any lender. And the moment you get a referral, you don't even have to wait till their credit is fixed. The moment you get a referral from any other source, that's not another lender, you do an email introduction. Daniel, meet Keenan. Keenan just signed up for a credit repair program. Uh, he's currently at a 520. Um, we're going to start fixing his credit because his goal is buying a house. I just wanted to connect you two now so you guys can, you know, get acquainted with each other. Cause Keenan, I'll be referring you over to Daniel to do your pre-approval as soon as your credit is ready. Daniel, I'm sure you'll take great care of Keenan once the time is ready. I'll let you guys take it from here. I've delivered on my promise right now. How many times can you do that? How many lenders can you do that with? As many as you'd like. And anytime that you get a referral that's not coming from a lender they're already working with, you don't want to send one lender's referral to another lender, right? But that client that, that lender sent you, they have a cousin, they have a sister, they have a, uh, somebody in their life that they're gonna refer to you that's not working with somebody. That person, you send to a new lender. Does that make sense? So that strategy literally is what built a multimillion-dollar credit repair company, was doing just that. And it cost nothing, nothing. So Keenan, to answer your question, what do I do? You do exactly what I just said. Now, oh, I can't do that. You know, I'm shy. I don't meet with people. Look, get up, go do it. Nobody's going to do it for you. If running a business, if running a business was easy, there'll be a lot more successful business owners, not just in credit repair, just in business, period. It is hard work. You have to do the thing that no one else is willing to do if you're going to succeed, because if not, you're just one of those people that's not willing to do the work. And guess what? Probably won't succeed. You have to be willing to do the thing that no one else is willing to do if you're gonna grow the business. What is your why? What is your why? If you don't have a clear why, anytime difficulty comes up, you're going to give up. So your why has to be strong enough to push you past your level of discomfort. Because if you're— then if not, your why isn't strong enough. My why is my family. Like, I cannot imagine a world where I punch a clock and I only see my kids for 2 hours a day before they have to go to bed. I can't imagine that. I can't imagine only spending, you know, 3 hours a day with my wife. Can't imagine that. So for that reason, whenever adversity comes my way, what's more important? My level of discomfort with this adversity, with this problem, or not getting the quality time that I want to spend with my kids while they're growing up, with my, with my wife. Like, what is your why? It has to be strong enough to push you through those things. But all right, let's say I give in to your little excuses. Oh, I don't want to meet with people. You know, I can't afford to get my nails done to go look. I don't care. Right. So go to social media. Eyeballs are on social media. That's where all the eyeballs are congregating all day. Right. So find your old Facebook friends, right? Your old crush from high school or whoever, and ask them if they were, if they will tag you in a post and you send them an image of like, you know, like a progress report, Google credit repair results, screenshot an image, right. And say, hey, can you tag me in a post? Just, just include this image and here's a text that you can put on there. Hey, if anyone is looking for help with their credit, I got the connection. @BrucePaletano can help. He does great work. Comment info below if you need help with your credit. They are tagging you in a post with an image to stop the scroll, right? And the text is saying exactly what you want. Anybody on my friends list need help with their credit? @Bruce— they tag. Why am I saying Because when you put the symbol on Facebook, it allows you to tag the profile of the person that you're trying to tag in the post. Why do you want to be tagged? Because when somebody interacts, likes, or comments that post, you want to get notified. If you're not tagged and somebody likes somebody else's post, you're never going to know. If somebody comments on that post, you're never going to know. So they tag you in a post so that when somebody likes and/or comments on that post, you get a notification. And then somebody commented info. What would you do? You go to your notification, you click on that post, you reply just sent you a message. You click on their profile and you send them a message. Hey Daniel, thanks for commenting on Susie's post. What seems to be the problem with your credit? And now you have a lead. If you get 10 people a day to tag you in a post, you will have more clients than you know what to do with it. I can't take credit for that. I hired somebody to come work for my company. His name was Leo. He was 23 years old. I paid him $40,000 a month in commission checks alone. And he said, Bruce, I generate my own leads. I don't need you to generate leads for me. And I said, okay, that's interesting. Um, cuz every salesperson that I hire, I have to provide leads for them. He came to me, he's like, look, I, I'll, you don't even need to provide me leads. Just pay me more cuz I'll generate my own leads. How are you generating your leads? And he taught me that strategy. And Leo was enrolling 3 to 7 clients every single day. And you know what's funny? I would wake up in the morning and I see that he was enrolling people at 3 o'clock in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning, because people on Facebook, I guess at 3 o'clock in the morning commenting info to fix your credit. Right? So that costs you nothing. You can be in your underwear, under the covers, in bed, hitting up your friends on Facebook, asking them to tag you in a post. But Bruce, what if, what if I run out of friends? Well, that's a beautiful thing. Say you get 10 people to tag you in a post. Those 10 people are gonna generate info comments, right? Every single one of those people that comment info on the 10 of your friends that, that tagged you, those are now leads that you're gonna have a conversation with. Right now, you're not gonna close every single one of them, but you're gonna have a conversation with every single one of them, whether you enroll them or not. What do you think you're gonna ask them to do? Tag you in a post on their Facebook because they only found you because somebody else tagged you. So what if you now ask them, hey, look, I'm sorry that, you know, it seems like we're not gonna be a good fit for you. Would you mind doing me a solid and maybe tagging me in a post on your Facebook, just like you saw from on Susie's Facebook? That would really help me a lot. Maybe you have some friends that could benefit from my help. Would you do me a solid and do that? You will never run out of people to tag you in a post because you're always gonna have a never-ending flow of info, info, info, info, right? Now look, you do that, you start making your first $3,000 to $5,000 a month. You take that money and you build your predictable lead engine with paid ads because by now you have a proven offer. You've closed enough, you've sold enough people to know that your pricing is on point. You know how to sell your services. You know people want it. You know people like it. So now you take the little bit of money that you're, that you're generating from these free strategies and you invest it into building a predict— we call it a predictable lead engine, which is ads into your business. And then you'll never have to guess how, when, or where your next lead is coming from. You never have to guess how many clients you're enrolling today, this week, or this month, because you have a predictable lead engine that was built with money that you generated from these free strategies like meeting lenders and getting your friends to tag you in a post. Oh, I'm not on Facebook. Do it on Instagram. Right? I like Facebook because it just seems to work better. That's just how I was taught. But yeah, they can tag you in a story on Instagram. Why not? Right? And then they, if you're tagged, they go to your profile and they DM you. It still works. Choose your favorite social media platform. But look, if you're watching this episode and you're, and you still say, I don't know how to get clients. I don't know how to get leads. Shame on you. Go do half of the things that we just talked about here, and you'll never have to wonder where you're gonna get your next lead from. Just go do it. Get out of your comfort zone and do something that makes you feel uncomfortable, cuz success is on the other side of those things. Right, Daniel? Success is on the other side. You had no idea how to build software. Zero. You were juggling on ice skates. Mm-hmm. You had to be out of your comfort zone and start doing things that weren't comfortable to you. And look at where we are today. Success is on the other side of your comfort zone.

Sure. And pushing through lots and lots and lots of failure.

Bruce, I want to make sure we get the audience the right specifics on that post-sharing strategy. So for yours specifically, can you lay out exactly what should be in that repost or that, that comment? If you have something to screen share too, um, you could, you could show it through here as well.

So here's a post. All right. So when you get somebody to tag you, this is what it could look like. Here's an image and everybody knows what this image is from. It's from Credit Karma, right? So it's a sexy image. It's very, it's, it's, it's very appealing. 770 credit score, 758 with 53 points going up. And then you have collection accounts removed. This is the image. Here's a text. That your cousin, your mom, your aunt, your friend from high school, your coworker is tagging you in. If you have less than perfect credit and want an increase, I have a connection that legally removes unlawfully reported things like late payments, collections, charge-offs, repos, student loans, and more. Comment info and, and here says Bruce CRJ, and you can't really see it, but it's, it's like blue because this is tagged, can help. Amazing results. That's it. Now, don't copy this verbatim, word for word, because then you're gonna water down the strategy. Create your own version of this post. Find your own image, right? So that it doesn't get saturated. But the idea, model what works. What works is somebody is tagging you in a post with good credit, and the, the post is saying, if you don't have good credit, comment info because I have somebody that could potentially help you. This is what it could look like. I love it.

Brilliant and simple.

People ask, well, Bruce, um, I can't find anybody to tag me in a post. Okay, well, make it worth their while. What if you tell them, look, pay you $50, $20, $10 out of every person that signs up for my services from your post? Last person that did this, we had 18 people in a row. You do the math. It's not, it's not gonna cost you anything. Can make you a little bit of money, right? I'll pay you $50 or $20. You pay them whatever you want, right? What Leo used to do is he used to Cash App people $5 to tag 'em in a post. Hey, I'll Cash App you $5. If I Cash App you $10, can you tag me in a post? He'll just Cash App them. Now that $5, oh my goodness, it generated way more than $5 by the, the people that would enroll from commenting on that post, right? I wouldn't start by saying I'll pay you. To post. I would start with, I'll pay you if somebody enrolls from your post. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain here, Daniel. Just tag me. The post is going to take you 32 seconds. Can you copy and paste? Great. Here's a, here's a text. You don't have to come up with what to say. I'll tell you what to say. And here's the image. Just post, copy and paste, and you're done. And then get a check from me. Get— I'll, I'll Zelle you. I'll Venmo you. Whatever. $50, $20 from every person that comes. If that's enough, fine. I'll, I'll, I'll Cash App you $10 right now. Just do it for me. All right. I'll buy you lunch. I'll buy you a pizza, whatever. Like just get uncomfortable, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If you're, if you're gonna be in business, get comfortable being uncomfortable.

I love it. During what business did the motorcycle accident happen?

The first one. Hmm. During the first business. Um, and I'll tell you this. The— I was fortunate that when that happened, like, this business was already like, it was at the brink of, of me exiting. Like, it was a few months before. So everything was in place. Everything, all the right systems, all the right process, all the right people, all the right marketing, everything was already in place. So when I had my motorcycle accident, it was like the business didn't even notice that I had the motorcycle accident. But then on the second business, I knew that That's the first thing I was gonna do was build from scratch, right? So we got pregnant with our third child, and I'll tell you, if you have kids, one kid, pretty easy. Two kids, you're like, oh, this isn't so bad. Going from 2 to 3, you might as well go from 2 to 9. Adding that third child is chaos. It is insane. It's crazy. And we have lots of friends who went from 2 to 3, and they warned us. Hey, it's not just gonna be one more. It's gonna feel like you're getting 8 more. So prepare yourselves. So I was fortunate enough to, 2 months before my wife gave birth, I said, I'm done. I told my team, unless, look, anything that needs $1,000 or more to solve, contact me. If it's less than $1,000, just take care of it. Unless somebody is dying, I don't wanna hear from you. Send me a report at the end of every day, and that's all that I want from you. And I did not work again until 3 months after my daughter was born. So I was able to pretty much take 6 months off, not ever have to come into this room, turn on this computer, worry about anything in the business. All I did was read an email at the end of the day from all department heads, just so I know what I was walking back to 6 months later. So it gave me the freedom to do that. It wasn't a motorcycle accident that had me in a hospital and had me learning to walk again. It was freedom to be able to be with my wife and my two kids right before we welcomed our third child home, and then be able to be part of those first three months of my baby girl's life and be able to help my wife with the other two kids. And like, it was a freedom to be able to do that, right? It's same principles. The same principles that I learned during that motorcycle accident that kept my business thriving were the same principles that allowed me to take a six-month vacation, right? So It's— I can't, I can't stress it enough. Once you build a business that way, you will never go back to doing things differently. Like, it's always gonna be like that moving forward. Always. Because of the freedom. We all want the financial freedom, but if we don't have the time freedom to enjoy the financial freedom, then what's the point?

Sure.

What's the point?

If you could tell every credit hero who's watching right now to go and automate one thing in their business this week, that the single thing that most people skip that costs them the most time, What would that be?

Useful automation we have in our business. And it's the silliest thing. It's the silliest thing, but I'm going to say this and a lot of CROs are going to laugh and they're going to be able to relate. You ever have a client where you just sent out their dispute letters like 3 days ago and they're picking up the phone, hey, what's going on with my credit? Right? I cannot tell you how annoying those calls were. Like, what do you mean what's going on with you? I just talked to you like 8 days ago when I did your last round update. Like, we just sent out another round of letters. It's going to take 35. So the best automation that I had was our client communication throughout the dispute process. We have a workflow that the moment the letters are sent, they get an email and a text. Hey Daniel, this is Bruce over at, you know, the credit repair company. Just want to give you a heads up. We just sent out your letters. We're going to have an update for you in 35 days. 10 days later, we're going to send another email, another text. Hey Daniel, Bruce here, just stopping by to let you know it's been 10 days since we sent out your letters to the credit bureaus. By now they received those letters, they're starting their investigation. We'll have an update for you in 25 days. Now, if you're the client and you're getting these emails and these text messages that say you're going to have an update for me in these many days, I'm not going to pick up the phone and call you for an update because you just told me when you're going to have a— yeah, we got ahead of it. And that saved our customer service team hours and hours and hours of conversations that maybe the client just picked up for an update, but now that call lasted 30 minutes because they had all these other questions that we could have avoided completely from them calling in the first place. Right? So that's been by far the most useful automation that we have in our business because of the time suck that it saved from my customer service team. For sure.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And otherwise without doing that, they're gonna think you're doing nothing.

You're in the dark. If, if clients cancel, look, Sam Walton, which was the, right, the creator of Walmart, he said the most powerful person in your organization can fire anybody from the janitor all the way to the CEO by simply choosing to spend their money somewhere else. The most powerful person in your organization is your customer. It's who you serve. They can fire You might simply choose to spend their money at Target instead of Walmart. So people don't cancel because of results. They cancel because they don't feel like you're servicing them correctly because they don't feel like they're like, like you care. You see, like you enroll them and then you never talk to them again, or you enroll them and then you go 30 days radio silent. Of course you're gonna cancel. Like, I'm gonna feel like you're not, you don't care about me, right? If I take my wife out on a date and then I don't go on a date with her again for another 9 months, what am I telling her? That I don't wanna spend time with her, that I don't care, that I don't, right? So you have to care about your customers. That's what keep, look, you can have 2 companies, Company A, amazing results, amazing, but they suck at customer service. Like they're horrible. They're gonna lose clients hand over fist, left and right. They're never gonna grow a successful organization because they keep losing more clients than they can enroll every month. Company B, so-so results, not the best, but man, their customer service is on point. Like their clients feel loved, they feel appreciated. They're never, they're not, you know, they pick up the phone and call you, it rings 1.5 times and somebody answers. You're always overly communicating what's going on, that company is going to grow much further and faster than the company that gets good results or better results. Does that make sense? So absolutely, customer service is what, is what grows companies. If you're losing more clients than you enroll, then you're in trouble. You have to retain. You got to have a retention in place, and your customer service team is like frontline to retention. Yes, results are important, But that's not what's keeping your customers. What's keeping your customers is how do you make them feel after they give you their money? That's what's keeping them.

I loved on your website how for your company, um, you, you really communicate with your clients. You have progress reports for them. You even talk about having credit therapy sessions with your clients, monthly updates to keep them up to date and, and have that communication.

Yeah. You have to, if you're running a compliant credit repair business where you're not charging upfront and you know, all this mess you're doing, either like a pay after results or a monthly charge in arrears, like a compliant business model. Okay. Um, you need customers. It's like, if it's like Netflix or gym membership, right? The more customers they have, the more money they're gonna make. But then people worry, it's like, well, if I get too many results too fast, I'm gonna lose customers. You're not, because that one customer that you got great fast results for is gonna refer you 3 more, right? Like if you don't look, if every one of your customers is not referring you at least 2 more people, you have a problem. Every single one of your clients need to be sending you referrals. When is the best time to ask for a referral? I'll tell you, it's not when you get results. It's when they enroll, cuz that's when they're the most excited. They're so excited that they opened up their wallet and paid you their hard-earned money. The best time to ask for a referral, the best time to ask for a review is when they enroll. That's the best. I'm not saying it's the only time I'm saying it's the best time. Why? Because they were excited enough to pay you money. Like, tell me there's a better time than that. Let's ask for a referral. Oh, for a review. Well, what is my, what are they going to say on the review? I haven't got— what was your experience like with our, you know, with speaking with our team members thus far? Oh, Bruce was super knowledgeable. He was able to break down my credit for me, helped me understand how, you know, these inaccuracies are hurting me. Great. There you go. When people are looking for reviews, they're not only searching for, oh, they got 20 items removed from my credit report. My credit score jumped 180 points. No, they're, they're, if they're actually, even if they're, if they're even, even reading the reviews, right. They just want to see that positive things are being said about you and What those positive things are, they matter, but not as much as them being positive, right? I'm not signing up with them because I don't see any reviews about credit score increases. No, they're— Bruce is super knowledgeable. Um, you know, he, he helped me understand what was inaccurate on my credit profile, how my consumer rights were being violated, you know, and that's a great review. And that's a review that somebody can leave you at the time of their enrollment, right? Best time to ask for a review. The best time to ask for a referral is at the time of enrollment. And then of course, if you have an amazing, you know, round with results, yeah, you better ask for a review then too. And ask for, for, for a referral then too. But don't sleep on asking them for a referral when they sign up, cuz that's when they're literally the most excited about working with you. And so they were gonna leave you probably the best review is at that point in time.

We're gonna ask you a few rapid questions. Answer with the first thing that pops into your head.

Okay. All right.

What's your business superpower?

Processes.

What's your business kryptonite? Control. What does business ownership mean to you?

Freedom.

What drives and motivates you?

My family.

What's your definition of success?

Having the time freedom and financial freedom to enjoy it.

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

Build a predictable lead engine. You'll grow your business more intentionally, more successfully, and faster.

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

Yeah. Um, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Don't worry about what everybody else is doing. Don't worry about, well, this person's doing it this way and this person's doing it that way. And you're gonna, you're gonna drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how to do things when everybody's doing things differently. And now you're gonna be overwhelmed. Now you have an elephant. One bite at a time. What's the thing that's right in front of your face right now that you need to take a bite of? Take a bite of that. So one bite at a time.

And what's next for you? What's the next big goal?

I honestly don't know at this point. I want, I want to be able to be influential enough to help more people become successful in this space. It's hard, uh, because there's just so much mixed messages out there, right, about running a credit repair business. The next big thing I think for me is turning the credit repair industry around. I want the stigma of it being, you know, shady and a scam. And like, I want this to go away. And it can only happen if enough good guys can infiltrate and teach people to do things the right way. I'm living proof. I mean, there's a box right there that I haven't even opened yet that has a $10 million— like, I've earned over $11 million at this point in the last couple of years in my business. Doing things the right way. You don't have to scam people. You don't have to do things illegally. You don't have to do things wrong to be successful. You can do them right and be successful. So that's what's next for me. Like, I'm on a mission to turn this industry on its head and show people how it's possible to do it the right way. You don't have to do the shady things that everybody else is doing to be successful. So I think that's, that's next for me. Like, I want to increase my influence in that area.

Awesome. And how can people reach out to you?

Credit Repair Junkies on Instagram. Believe it or not, we are on Instagram. But again, I don't— I'm not very active on there. I know a lot of people nowadays are on Instagram, but, you know, you can just go to our website, creditrepairjunkies.com. There's always something there. We have a free community. I do a live coaching call every Wednesday for anybody who wants to join. It's free to join. Show up, you know, if you have questions, if you need help. Again, if I'm going to make an impact, I really need to make myself available. And the only way I found to do that is I got to give people a way to have access, right? Um, and I want you, whether you're a millionaire or just getting started, I want you to be able to have the access, right? So join a free community and show up every Wednesday and ask your questions and get unstuck. Use my brain, use my help to help you grow your business. Um, and that's really the, the way that I feel is the best to move forward. If you want to get a hold of me, if you're going to get a hold of me, it's because you want my help. If you don't want my help, don't reach out. Right? Because I have plenty of people that I want to pour into. Right? If you don't want to be poured into, no disrespect to you, but my time is valuable and I want to invest it in people who are willing to build their businesses the right way. Right? If that's you, please reach out. I'd love to help you for free. Join our community. It's free. Right? But if you, if you don't want to, if you're going to waste time, then You know, go back to your favorite YouTube guru and go help, go get help from them.

Well, thank you so much for your time today, Bruce. This was a lot of fun.

Thank you, Bruce.

What I love most about Bruce is that he is proof that there is no ceiling in this industry if you're willing to keep making decisions and keep moving and keep working through those mistakes. He sold a company, he started over, he built it bigger. That's what credit heroes do. And for everyone out there watching, if you're finding value in the things we share on this podcast, click below to subscribe. Let's get to 100,000 subscribers. Also, give us a 5-star review or share the show. Help us to change more lives. If you have a question or a comment, drop it down below because I read each and every one of them. I'd love to hear from you, and I'll respond as soon as I can. If you'd like to start your very own credit repair business or 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 at startrepairingcredit.com. If you want to see another powerful success story that shows what's possible in this industry, check out my interview with Patrice English. And keep changing lives.