Why You Should Never Pay Collections with Ray Bueno

Hey, credit heroes. Today we're going to be joined by Ray Bueno. He is a bona fide YouTube star with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I know you've seen his videos. He started a credit repair business only 10 months ago and he's already nearly made it into the millionaires club. And today he's going to tell us how he did that.

And he's also going to give some.

Amazing advice on how you can grow your credit repair business a whole lot faster by creating education educational content. So stick around because this is going to be a good one.

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 name is Daniel Rosen and welcome. Welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets.

What's up, credit Heroes? Daniel. Here at Credit Repair Cloud headquarters, our guest today is a bonafide YouTube star with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. His show on YouTube is called Keeping It Real with Credit, where he provides a credit and personal finance, education and sometimes rap songs. It's so popular. And he's just started a credit repair business very recently and he's well on his way to the millionaires club. With a run rate of very close to a million dollars, he's getting really, really close to that award and it's only been since August. Am I right, Ray?

Yep.

There you go. Anyways, he gets all of his business by providing free credit information on the Internet and he's going to give us a lot of information today on how to to use YouTube or video or educational content on any platform to grow your credit repair business. So please welcome to the podcast the host of Keeping It Real with Credit, Ray Bueno.

Hey, Ray, what's up? What's up, everybody? Yeah, my name is Ray. I'm the host of Keeping it Real with Credit. And thank you for definitely inviting me over the podcast and to discuss this world of credit repair.

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? Yeah. Okay, I want to get right into this. So I want to know, well, first of all, what was your life like before credit?

Yeah, so my life before credit, it was pretty interesting. So I grew up in Miami, Florida, in a town, you know, called Hialeah. It's just one within the cities of Miami. Yeah, I've been here all my life and I pretty much from there went to high school and took off to the Marine Corps In 2007, May 29, I went to boot camp and, you know, went to Iraq, Afghanistan, and I got out in 2013. After that, towards the end of my career, I was a recruiter down here in Miami, Florida. So I got very lucky to get stationed down here in my very hometown, visiting to my old high school. And then after I got out the Marine Corps, I attended the University of Miami, where I graduated with a bachelor's in public relations and advertising and communications, I guess, in general. Right. And then by. I guess by accident, my YouTube channel kicked off. And, you know, it's just been a blessing and it's been a crazy roller coaster, definitely unexpected. And I'm still to this day, catching up with. I guess that. Not. I don't want to call it a mistake, but that opportunity.

Yeah, but what was it that got you interested in credit? What happened?

Got it. So I kind of got into credit by force, I guess, in a sense. So everything started with me when it came to credit is after my second deployment to Afghanistan. So for a lot of listeners out there, if you've been in the military, if you deployed, you can probably relate. You know, before you leave, your unit gives you some sort of paperwork for you to give to your creditors, letting them know where you're going to be at and to freeze the accounts that we get back to my understanding, it's part of the Service Members Relief act that protects us with that. Went to Afghanistan, did our thing there. After seven months, came back. Obviously, where I was at, I didn't have no. We didn't have showers. We didn't have phones. We didn't have anything. Right. So much less the ability to pay our bills from over there. And I wasn't married at the time. And then so I came back and we came back. A lot of us came back to a bunch of collections just left and right. And, you know, typical mindset. We're happy to be back. The pay that we get over there is, you know, tax free. And so we wanted to enjoy that. Other people had plans for other things. Me in particularly, I was just thankful to be back, and I wanted to kind of, you know, celebrate life or whatnot here back in Miami, you know, after a few months passed, I started getting collection calls over and over from, you know, obvious debts that I owed. One of them was. Which caught my attention. It was Franklin, Cohen and Albright. You know, those were like attorneys to me. And I talked to them over the phone. They gave me all my information, you know, we worked out a payment plan and you know, I started paying over 12 months. And just because it's in my nature, I went ahead to find out how can I be proactive to my understanding if I pay this account off, that's going to better my credit. But how can I put myself in an even better position to leverage my credit? So I started researching credit just because, just to try to do better. And I found out that in the world of credit or in credit reporting, after you pay an account, that amount should be reflected on your credit report every month. So for example, if you're paying $100 a month on an account, your credit report should reflect $100 less on that particular account that you're. That's reporting, right? On a month to month basis. I found out that that wasn't happening. And I'm like, that was a big red flag. Then I contacted them, say hey, can you update my credit report? And they said, yeah, yeah, and all this other big stuff. Then I asked them for, hey, can you send me documentation just so I can have in my records. They sent me an email and it looks like they created something on Word on a Word document where you see like the little outline for you to edit, like their logo. Long story short, it was a fake company. I contacted a consumer attorney, which was a big risk to me because in the beginning a consumer attorney wasn't going to take my case because they weren't a big company like Midland Funding portfolio Recovery or some of those big companies. I had to give the money up front just because of the fact that there was no guarantee to find these guys. And so I was willing to put up, I think is what I paid in the initially 1500 dollars up front. When I paid those 1500 dollars, they went out to look for him, the process server. And luckily, luckily they did found them in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Now for some of you guys that don't know, Hilton Head, South Carolina is the very place where Parris island is at. That's Marine Corps boot camp. I never proceeded to find out what exactly happened within that process. I was just happy to ultimately sue them in federal court and got all my money back, almost $4,000 worth. And so I decided months, months later to make a video. And that video is called why you should never ever pay collections. And I just put that video just to keep people informed. I didn't have a title, I didn't put tags on that video. I didn't do anything. It was just a video where, hey, this might help somebody out and from a few months later, I checked my YouTube account and I had like a hundred followers there. And then literally the next day, 14,000 followers, then the next day, 25,000 followers. Like. Like this. I didn't understand what was going on. And I guess in that sense, my YouTube channel kicked off. I started YouTube, actually started paying me to the point where I was able to pay my rent. And I kind of, you know, it kind of forced me into that world. And I was thankful that I was able to help a lot of people with that video. And I continue to do research, continue to do research, make videos about it. Make videos about it. And it all came back full circle.

Wow. It's amazing. And I wanted to say earlier, thank you so much for your service.

No problem.

It's really incredible. I mean, it boggles my mind that you would go to the Middle east, be in the Marines, fight for our country, come back and then discover that collectors and all this terrible credit stuff has happened while you were away. And you'd think you could just say, hey, I was fighting for you. I'm. I'm in the Marines. And, and. But they don't care. And then to scam you.

There's a whole other world out there of people coming across, even as attorneys or debt collectors, that they're. They're not even a company. They're just people that buy your information off the black market or wherever they buy that and then come after you with collection, you know, just trying to attempt to collect the debt from you. And they're not even the people you have to pay. And so that's where the whole idea of why you should never, ever pay collections came about with that video.

Right. I watched that video. It's amazing. And you've really helped a lot of people with that video. A lot of those guys break the law, don't they?

In many different ways, all the time. And, you know, ever since I started with credit repair or whatnot, it just really, it really bothers me that there's people out there that assume that the average consumer doesn't know their rights and they take advantage of that. The average consumer is not going to go to the FTC website and look up Fair Debt Collection Practices act and find out what debt collectors can or cannot do. And because they know this, they take advantage of it. They know that the people don't know where to go to. It's not something you can just go to the cops because they're not going to help you.

Right.

It really bothers me that a lot of people out there are choosing between feeding their family or keeping their apartment or getting this annoying debt collector off their back because they're threatening them with a bunch of stuff. And that's where it bothers me.

What are some of the things you've seen them do, Some of the terrible things?

Oh, some of the things they threaten with arrest. They leave really nasty voicemails. I've seen collection agencies send summons or, you know, to appear to court for debts that are passed or zombie debts past the statute of limitations in their debt, but just to get them scared enough to go work out a deal, then lock them in again with that contract that kind of renews, and now they have legal leverage over it. I hate when that happens all the time. And they're taking advantage of it every day.

Wow. So you had this one video that you created that got. It just went viral, basically, and got you all these subscribers. How did you start to figure out what other videos to make? What was that process like?

So the process is kind of similar to what I have now. It's just a matter of, you know, going out there into current events or whatnot, maybe setting up some Google alerts for certain industry industrial topics or whatnot, and doing my research. You know, I don't claim to know everything. I make sure that all my information that I put out there is vetted, it's documented. And as a matter of fact, I have a lot of fun researching it, turning it into a blog, which, in a sense, kind of gets turned into a video. And if it's useful for me, if I think it's useful for everybody else, then I'm gonna put it out, you know, so that's definitely helped me out a lot.

How often are you putting out new content?

And so I try to, but for the most part, I have it scheduled for three videos a week, one, which is a live Q and A, which I really do enjoy because it allows my subscribers to go on there, ask me questions regarding their credit, their particular situation, and I'm able to respond on that and maybe give them some guidance on pointing them in the right direction. And ultimately, what that results to is a lot of phone calls here in the office. Right. Because everybody wants to speak to me or my team or whatnot, and they want to feel it's real, which is important for me. You know, credit repair, unfortunately, because there's a lot of bad apples out there. There's a big negative cloud over credit repair that it doesn't work, or there were scammers or something else. Like that. And it really bothers me, at least for the people that actually do care about the people do do their research and know that this does work. I try to make it as real and transparent as possible for everybody because, you know, that's what everybody needs.

That's super cool. And you actually. People write in questions and you're actually calling them and doing all this research before the show.

Exactly. Well, and the live sessions, I kind of. There's like a little chat box there and I see the questions as they start popping up and so I kind of transition from that and then to real credit repair results. So I show your one click audit right from when they started and then I kind of share my screen and I switch to where they're at now and it shows how many negative items they have left and available. And it kind of starts this discussion as to what's. What can really be deleted or not, what can be really rectified or not. Because the same information that this individual that I'm showing has may be somebody that's watching that has as well too, wondering what are my options with that particular account and how can I get from point A to point B in the quickest way possible, you know, financial wise.

Amazing. When was it that you started the YouTube channel?

2016 is when that video came out? Yep.

And you only just recently started the actual credit repair business?

Yes, last August. Yeah. So what I was doing before that is I obviously got a lot of traction and so I used to kind of stick in my world. Right. Because that's what I understood, that's what I graduated with. And so I used to charge sponsorship fees or advertising fees where if you want me to mention your business or particular product that's kind of in line with credit or finance, I would charge people for that. And for a while I made a good living on top of what YouTube was paying for me and stuff like that. It paid the bills. Right. And so, you know, over time, you know, I got together with one of my best friends from high school and a couple other now that I call brothers now that are my partners right now. And they kind of pulled me aside and say, hey, if we start a credit repair business, would you be able to run it? And I said, absolutely. And you know, we hit it at a thousand miles an hour from the get go. And I just can't believe where it's landed us here so far just from last August alone. So I remember like it was yesterday, I was telling the story to the rest of my team where you Know, I had to park really close to Starbucks or McDonald's, close enough so my laptop could pick up on WI Fi. So I'd do evaluations for people with the one click audit and everything else. And after that triggered the process of disputing, where, you know, everything was just rolling, rolling, rolling in and staying in, day in and day out, day out, to make sure that the clients are getting service, that they're making sure that they understand the whole process. And then my integration, because I was alone in the beginning, was starting it off. You know, my partners now, they know a lot more now, but didn't know how to run a credit repair business or how that world was. So it was just me, trials and tribulations. Like I have been, you know, all my life.

Wow. How big a team do you have now?

So right now, we have a team of 12.

Wow. Now, have you always been entrepreneurial or is this all new? Have you ever run a business before?

No, I've actually never really been entrepreneurial. However, I've always been a survivor, I guess you would say. And I. Thanks. You know, that's from the Marine Corps training. Right. Being very optimistic, always finding a way and always look, you know, facing the challenges up front, finding a way, you know, out of that. And so, you know, obviously, everything that I've learned right now has been through the hard way. Right. I learned the hard way that, you know, this collection thing, which kind of led over to this, and then, you know, through the struggles that I went through and the beginning of building this business and taking it to where it is now. Right. Obviously, with the help of everybody. But, you know, it's just definitely been a challenge. Everything that I went through before in the Marine Corps kind of prepared me for everything now. And, you know, I don't call myself an entrepreneur, is just a survivor.

Sure, I hear you. Yeah, that's amazing. That's really, really amazing. And I can't believe that you're running a business and creating so much content every week. I mean, I do one podcast a week, and it's really, really hard.

Yeah, it definitely is. It definitely is. It takes a lot of, you know, practice and, you know, obviously organization with everything. As much help as you can get.

Absolutely. And just running a. I've never run a business before this, you know, this is my first time being a CEO, and it's a challenge. There's a whole lot to learn, isn't there? You've got to learn to deal with.

People, and you go to sleep with it, you'll go you wake up with it. It's all crazy.

You have daily meetings.

Daily meetings and sometimes two to three spontaneous meetings just because, you know, just to kind of discuss. But all the time we're discussing new opportunities or strategies. Yep.

And are you completely transparent with your whole team and the numbers and everything you guys are doing?

Yeah, you. To an extent, I guess. You know, when it comes to operations, you know, behind the scenes with the. With the partners, we're pretty transparent when it comes to that. When it comes to the team, we're transparent in other ways. It's important for me for the team to know exactly what's going on from the highest level down to the bottom level. And again, I take that, you know, from my Marine Corps training or whatnot. Everybody in the chain needs to know what's going on, so everybody's in sync with what the main mission is, and everybody's motivated together. And then from there, you know, we assign, like, little leadership tasks, you know, within the team to kind of motivate everybody to one same goal. So definitely, you know, I'm transparent on that and definitely a lot. Yep.

That's super cool. I know with our own team, at first I was afraid of sharing numbers and this and that. And then a coach we go to said they already know they can do the math. And the moment we started letting the entire team know everything we were doing, that's when we really started to grow because everyone felt a part of it. But I love the way you're talking about your team and all the tasks and everything. It's like you're doing it as a military operation.

Yep, exactly. Exactly. Just like that.

Yep.

That's because that's what I know.

You haven't met Jose Rodriguez, have you?

I don't believe I have.

Oh, he's great. He's another one of our credit repair millionaires. But he was a Marine, and a lot of what he does.

I'm sorry. Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Jose Rodriguez, the Marine. I met him when we met at the credit repair conference.

Right?

That's right. We were all there. Anyways, it's a really, really good background to have. Really, really cool how it's all fallen into place. Okay. I want to talk about content and educating the world and what that means. I mean, this is something I preach a lot to all of our credit repair cloud users. A lot of them, I mean, they think there's some magical thing with ads or this or that, and it really. You can grow a business just by educating people and talking about credit and letting everyone you can know that you're the king of credit and you're the go to expert about credit. But so many people are afraid of doing that, of going live on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. Do you have any tips for people on how to get over that fear?

Yeah. So I would say just do it. You got to start at one point and your first video is never going to be, you know, Steven Spielberg quality, right? There's always going to be that progress. I hate watching my never ever pay collection videos. I hate how I sound. The camera I was using, I would never use. But that just goes to show that if you just do it, you know, don't really worry about the rest. You see again, going back to. In the credit repair business, remember, for everybody, it has a negative cloud out there. And so what you need to do is figure out how do you separate yourself from the rest or the competition. And I used to talk a lot about this. See, I'm used to, I guess, being looked at as either the underdog or with the negative cloud because it's not fun being a recruiter in any town, especially in Miami where most of them are Hispanics and they relate their military experience to how it is in their countries, like in Cuba where it's mandatory and things like that. And so I've had my, I had the doors been closed on me a lot. So I had to learn really quick on one, why you should join the Marine Corps, right? In this case, why should they join your company? And why should you join our establishment amongst all the others, establishments that are out there? And the only way to do it is to create content and come across as the educator, come across as somebody that knows what they're talking about. But that's just not enough. You have to feel what you're talking about. You have to understand what you're talking about and you have to learn how to apply it. Because within this business, you know, it's not just fixing people's credit. I tell people all the time, unlike other businesses, we don't want your business back if you come back to us. We didn't do our job right. We didn't educate you properly. Our job is to go ahead and fix you up with your credit, educate you on credit so that you better, you know how to handle it once you're out there. And so content is extremely important because everybody's gonna post before and afters. You know, you have to look at it from the potential customers perspective. If I see a post where there's A before and after 500 to 730 credit score. Well, you could have copied and paste that from anywhere. That doesn't tell me that you're the people I need to speak to. Right. And so the only way you come across that way is doing your research, writing books if you have to, articles, blogs. Because at the end of the day, by you forcing yourself into this regimen of researching credit on an everyday basis, now you become more comfortable and you become an expert.

Right.

And so by default, you become an expert. And now you're sharing all this information with current clients and potential clients, and that makes everybody feel a little bit more comfortable as to, hey, I'm. No. Regardless of what I'm paying, I'm dealing with the right people, if that makes sense.

Yep, absolutely. And you tell your own story plenty as well, right? Yeah. That was what makes people relate to you.

Exactly. Yeah, no, I, you know, it's unfortunate that the information on credit is not really accessible everywhere. And so I can relate to everybody. It's either if it's accessible, it's hard to understand, and there's not a lot of opportunities for the everyday people, like I like to call it, for all of us. But again, you know, what makes you stand out from the competition, from the rest? Why should a customer choose you then? Why should a customer choose 1, 2, 3 credit repair agency than ABC credit repair agency? At the end of the day, everybody, you know, the process of disputing is the same regardless. We're all playing under these rules that the FTC and the government created for all of us. The only difference is, you know, it's a little bit of flavor over here and how you do your letters here, how you treat your clients here, and how you come across the people over here. You know, people are giving you their whole lives, you know, and it's important for them to understand that you're protecting it properly. Like using a software like Credit Repair Cloud. Right. With its encryption. And. And that the people that they're dealing with that's working on their credit understands and knows how to maneuver during different scenarios.

Absolutely. And really, the biggest part of trust of a client is getting to know you. People want to do business with a person they like that they feel maybe has walked in their own shoes.

Exactly.

So many people starting a business want to abandon who they are and be anonymous and have the fancy logo. And it's not about any of that. You've built all of this all on your personality and your own stories. Yep.

It's all you have to come across as real people got to have the opportunity to get to know you, you know, at the end of the day, you know, even though the company is called Score Shield Financial Group, people don't care about the name, right? They only care about, hey, Ray was the one to fix my credit, right? When they recommend you to somebody, they're gonna say. They're gonna say your name. They're not gonna say, score Shield, fix my credit. They're gonna say, hey, Ray, fixed my credit. Or whoever, the credit analyst or the salesperson on the other line, hey, Christian, fixed my credit. Hey, Shaheer, fix my credit. Not Square Shield Financial. That's just a name. It's a design. It's a logo. But at the end of the day, it's more about the people that are working in there as opposed to just the brand.

Right? Amen. So back to content. What are the biggest topics that you see your audience asking you about these days?

Definitely collections, right? Whether certain things can be removed or not. How to deal with their phone calls. Because I definitely don't want people to be afraid to pick up the calls because that kind of leads into wage garnishments and everything else. Hospital bills. And why is my scores so different or fluctuating? I get those questions a lot. And, you know, obviously, I don't mind saying it again, but people need to be aware as to how this credit repair world works around them. And then from there, kind of build a foundation of knowledge, you know, from the ground up.

Got it now. And I've noticed you've got basically two different kinds of content. You've got the educational, and then you've got the QA sessions. Which ones? And you're going back and forth. Why do you use one versus the other? And which one is helping your business more? Does it all add together?

Yeah, they all add together. So one, it's a recorded one where I research the topic. I look it up, I research it deeply. I look into the sources. Then from there, I kind of, you know, kind of formulate this. I write a paper on it, right? Just like I did in school, I write a paper on it to make sure I understand it. And then from there, that kind of creates the idea, the flow that I'm gonna go ahead and follow within my video. So I take out the camera, I do a lot of B roll. You know, I make a nice video just to kind of, you know, present it to the world. Then the Q and A makes it more real for everybody. I'm not just a YouTube personality. Just recorded. I try to answer as many comments as I can, but the Q and A makes it real. Hey, this is Ray. I'm real. I'm just like you, you know, I understand credit. I want to be able to help you out. At least give me the opportunity to show that I can help you out. And so together, I mean, Wednesdays, I try to do it. But it's beautiful that when I'm live on the computer right now with the same setup and I'm answering questions, for those 30 minutes that I'm on there, the phones start ringing like crazy. It just starts ringing, ringing right behind me. It starts ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing. And, you know, my processing team sometimes has to go and pick up the phone, do an evaluation or, you know, get people's information down. But it's just all these people that want answers to their questions. And I'm just definitely blessed to be able to help people out and that they can trust me, you know, for their, you know, to answer their questions, you know?

Yeah. Wow. Hey, Ray, Kenan has a question for you.

All right, let's do it.

Hey, Ray. So I had a quick question to ask as well, too. With all the success that you've had with your YouTube channel, I know you and Daniel talked about how you educate your clients and you create all these topics, but for someone that hasn't maybe started their platform yet, like, whether it be their advertising on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook, how would you recommend someone start to know, like, the types of questions and topics to teach their audience, and how would you recommend them get it out there?

Yeah, so I would definitely start with answering your own questions. Everybody has, like, a basic, you know, streamlined set of questions that they have on credit, which is most likely what they're. What other customers are going to ask. But, you know, you can always ask friends or family members on, you know, why wouldn't you do credit repair? Or why would you do credit repair? Or what do you understand about credit or credit repair? Kind of make a list of those things and really spend the time on going online and doing your research, writing down some notes, and kind of create this understanding and just, you know, either grab your phone if you have a camera and just shoot it and see how the world reacts to it and just leave it on there and always expand on those ideas when it comes to that. Try to stay away from stock pictures or stock videos and stuff like that, you know, come across as more real show. You show where you're at. Show, you know, even if you don't have the car, your dreams yet show that because people like to see progress. You know, if you have bad credit and you're starting your own business, then I dare you to be as transparent as fixing your own credit and having the worlds to see how it is really that possible. You know, just again, going above and beyond and doing what others are not willing to do. But for the most part I would just go from there. There's a bunch of information out there, kind of break everything out and go from there. And one thing I wanted to add from before is, you know, as I make these videos, I'm learning just as much as my viewers are learning. I'm learning at the same time they're learning. And so I'm excited when there's a new topic, when there's a new video idea to come out because it requires me to research, understand it before I even come out on video about it. Because you know, I may get asked questions about that particular topic. I need to be ready to respond to that. And so it's always refreshing to understand the financial world and the credit world a little bit better because I'm learning at the same time, everybody's learning. And so, you know, I owe it to my viewers to always bring fresh and relevant information for everybody because you know, that's, this is what I am now, this is what I do.

Awesome. Ray, one follow up question. So you mentioned that you, if you're just getting started, you might ask some like your family and friends different questions that they have around credit or maybe you start getting Questions from your YouTube comments and other various places. How do you actually go about that research process of knowing like what to actually teach your audience when you're creating your videos?

Right. So what I do is I go on Google and I set up alerts. Very simple. You can set up alert on anything. Your name meaning if your name ever pops out in the world wide web, then you're going to get an email about it. So I put topics on relevant topics when it comes to credit. Mortgages, homes, car finance, credit itself. And Google kind of sends me a list of relevant topics that just came out and I kind of look through those, I kind of read, read through those. Sometimes I don't pick topics, but sometimes I write other topics down and I kind of spend my time kind of looking over those things, researching it, putting it together and you know, kicking it off on YouTube. So that's exactly how I know and I'm, and I make sure that all the, all the topics that I choose, it's Relevant and current, not any old information. But sometimes it's important to give people a baseline, like this idea where we have to tailor our credit habits or we have to tailor our financial habits around the older credit scoring models. See, that's where a lot of people need to understand that the banks of today are using older FICO scoring models.

Right?

And so we don't understand how those algorithms calculate your credit score, then we're never going to understand and better strategize other things. You see, have a zapier integration where that automatically goes from my landing page directly into credit repair cloud where I get a notification, hey, there's new leads available. I also have a zapier integration where you know, the phone systems that we're using here, you get a text three minutes after you submit your information from me. And so even though that message is automated, you're getting my number. And that's important for me because I want to make sure that everybody knows how to reach me. However, even though that message is automated, I'm able to see through my phone that I actually sent that text at that time. And when I'm up or when I'm going about my day and somebody wants to ask me a question because they think it's me, which it is, I get to respond back. And that makes everything a lot better. And so, you know, once, once that text goes in, around five minutes later they get an email saying, hey, did you sign up for credit monitoring yet? Because that's important to have set up to use the one click audit. And so what I did was, is that I got that information. And so in the email I describe why we need credit monitoring, the importance of credit monitoring. Because a lot of people may complain about the dollar that they have to pay. And there's the link available and I put, hey, please make sure to have this link have your username and login ready by the time of your evaluation. They also get a text with the calendar link for them to schedule their appointment. And so by the time I come into work and my salespeople come to work, there's already leads already scheduled for them. They don't have to even think it's already there for them. And so I also hold, not only do I hold a responsibility to my viewers, but to my team because, you know, I make sure they eat by making sure I put out consistent videos, quality videos that are informative to everybody. It's a win, win, you know, around here with everybody.

Do you even have to run ads at all?

So I haven't ran ads at all whatsoever, which is great. However, I know that I shouldn't be banking on that. Right? We, we have to leverage, you know, advertising, especially through either Google or Facebook or whatnot. And so right now it's where the attention is at. Right. So we have to go from there. But I'm really blessed, I mean, for Everybody, that the YouTube algorithm is always changing. Sometimes I'll get 30,000 views on a video, other times my views kind of plateau at 3000 views and kind of stay there. I haven't figured out the algorithm yet, but just put a video out there. Just put it out there, share it with people, share with family and friends. Have your staff share that with family and friends, put it on their post, and you never know who's that gonna reach out to. You have to care more about the content, right? What you're delivering on the video versus where is it gonna be posted or if it's gonna give views or not. You can't get lost in the viewership. You have to always make sure that the video you're putting out there, whether it gets popular or not, it's gonna help everybody. And so, you know, that's definitely important when it comes to that. And it's easy for everybody to understand.

And to just keep doing it.

That's it.

Yeah, just show up and do it. So many people dabble at it, then quit. And you're just consistent every week.

Every week.

And what's amazing, you've built this. You're going to hit a million this year, I'm certain of. And that you've done this with no paid advertising is just phenomenal. Do you do any other social media? Instagram, Facebook, any of that stuff?

Yeah, I do. It's just where I kind of post a thumbnail that I create for every video where it talks about the topic with the link to the YouTube channel. So, hey guys, I'm posting a new video, you know, on X, Y and Z. Make sure to check it out on this link on this channel. That's it.

Wow, this is really great information. I really appreciate you sharing it. Okay, now we're gonna go into a rapid fire round of questions. You're just gonna answer, like in a couple words or a sentence or two, the first thing that pops in your head. Okay, Are you ready?

Got it. Let's do it.

Okay.

If you could go back in time, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

Not pay collections.

Aha. Good one. What's the most important lesson you've learned.

As a business owner, customers come first, and you have to be transparent.

Awesome. Is there a book that's changed your life?

Yes. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.

Oh, wow. I don't know that one. I'm going to get it.

Definitely.

What does business ownership mean to you?

It means freedom. It means opportunity and good karma.

Amen to that. Do you have a morning routine?

Yes. So I wake up in the morning. I usually run at least four miles or whatnot. I get my little workout in, and the whole time I'm listening to either Tony Robbins or Eric Thomas or David Goggins himself or Jocko Willink in my ear. Just kind of, you know, screaming all these motivational things where it kind of, you know, sometimes you need to be reminded and you get lost of everything. So I do that. I drink coffee or kombucha in the morning on my balcony and come to work.

Wow, that's cool. What is your definition of success?

Whoa, that's a deep one. A definition of success is being able to get up every time you get knocked down and learning from it and understanding there's no such thing as failure. There's only opportunities that you learn from.

Absolutely. What's your advice to anyone just starting out with a credit repair company?

Be transparent. Customers always come first and take ownership of everything. Everything's your fault. Even when customers ask you questions that you don't understand that you answered already in the evaluation, maybe, but everything's your fault.

Wow. That's good advice. Okay, most important question. How can people find your YouTube channel?

So go on YouTube on a search bar, type in keeping it real with credit. You're gonna see me on there. And go ahead and check out all the videos. Make sure to answer any questions that you guys like. And let's continue to start this con on credit. Awesome.

Thank you so much for your time today, Ray. I really, really appreciate you. You're so awesome.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, my pleasure. For those of you out there watching, I hope this was inspiring to you. I hope you'll start creating content. And if you're out there trying to launch or grow your credit repair business, be sure to click below to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and I will see you on the next episode. And until then, 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 creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that's starting in just a few days. So go get started right now@creditherochallenge.com.