Ty Crandall: Education Over Selling

Thank you for listening to the Business Blast podcast. So for all my listeners out there that have been wanting to do your own podcast, I'd like to introduce to you Anchor. Anchor is a one-stop shop for recording, hosting, distributing, and monetizing your podcast. So before I found Anchor, I had never actually done a podcast because all the research that I had gathered made it seem very complex. Then I found Anchor, and Anchor makes podcasting extremely simple. So if you want to do your own podcast, go to anchor.fm/start. I can't wait to hear your podcast. Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today I have Ty Crandall with us. He's an internationally known speaker, author, pod show host, and business credit expert. So welcome to the show.

Showtime. Tyler, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited to be here.

Awesome to have you, brother. We'll dive into the first one, Ty. The first question I have for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Oh man, you know, I think that how I got here probably is that, you know, the first business I ever owned was a mortgage company in the height of the mortgage industry, and I was there through the entire crash. So, you know, we'd saved a lot of money, done the right things, had good consumer credit, And, you know, when the whole thing collapsed, we completely lost our ability to be able to produce any kind of revenue whatsoever. So inevitably, I personally guaranteed a lot of things for my business, as a lot of business owners do. I got credit cards for the business that reported on my consumer credit report. So the problem was, once the business started to fail, these, these guys, we started to kind of unfortunately default on some things. The business that directly carried over to me in the personal world and all this available credit I thought I had available as a consumer was immediately gone because once negative items started to appear on my credit reports, literally they withdrew all of the available credit we had. We basically— the limits were lowered to what we owed. And anybody knows anything about credit means that when your utilization becomes 100%, your credit scores are ruined. And that progressively just caused a real downfall. And inevitably they would come after our personal assets to pay back the business debt. Debts. It was really just a disaster. So I think a lot of lessons that I've learned from that, you know, one, that, you know, business credit is designed to make it where you don't have to commingle personal and business, where you could separate the liability, where they wouldn't have come after that assets, where you could separate the reporting, where things in the business wouldn't have affected what was going on in our personal life. But from that, it was pretty cool. I learned a lot of good things. You know, I would I would really move on to find my passion of when I discovered what business credit is and, and what it could do to help others. So I think there's a lot to learn from having a really bad negative experience and then just facing it with an attitude of being able and willing to learn, and then come out of that and learn a lot of cool lessons about how to build sales funnels and use education to market versus selling. And, and eventually that led me to find my passion. So I think There's a lot of lessons that come out of that, one of which is that sometimes the worst of times are where you get your best of ideas to move forward.

Definitely, man. Yeah, well, obviously, and it turned you into a business credit expert, right? So definitely was perfect.

Yeah, definitely did. I mean, I would get into consumer credit because I know that a lot of other people would struggle, and I think it was the first time in my life— it might sound cliché, but, you know, I kind of went from selling to actually really relating and being empathetic towards what other people were going through and trying to produce a solution to help them avoid pain that I was feeling. And then when I would discover what business credit was, it was really be anger and frustration because I would realize that if I would have known about that at the time, it would have saved me that. And then that was kind of the moment where I stood up and found my real passion. It's a— man, I— somebody's got to do this. I'm like, I think I have to be the guy that tells everybody how this works. So it's interesting how that negative experience, you know, produced so many positives that have really led to some of the coolest experiences and times that I have in my life now.

And what's the most valuable piece of information that we should know that is within your expertise or industry?

Well, I think there's several. I think one is that there's a ton of money available for entrepreneurs that most just don't know about. And I think it's, it's that people should know that if you're going to get money for a business, there's a lot of places out there that will lend money based on your strengths, whether it be that you have good credit or some kind of collateral or revenue. And when you go go with these type of alternative financing options is much easier than getting approved for bank financing, because I think a lot of people just don't try to get money for their business because they don't think they can. And it's all because they're looking in the wrong place at their bank versus looking at these alternative lenders that will just lend money based on the strength. And tying into that, you got to get money before you need it. You know, lenders do not like to lend money when they see your utilization ratios are high and that you're desperate for for it. They want to know that you're being proactive and that you're obtaining credit cards and credit lines and, and financing before you need it. So I think getting that before you need it becomes really, really, really important and doing it responsibly, meaning know what your commercial credit is, know that you have business credit scores, know that those determine whether you get loans and how much you get, the rates and the terms. And from the inception of your business, focus on building business credit. And if you do that, then It's entirely possible for your business to fund itself without relying on personal credit and family and friends and so many of these other places that people try to get money.

And what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.

You know, I think overall one of the biggest lessons I've learned is to stop selling and start educating. And I kind of indirectly ran into that in the consumer credit business. People just didn't understand how consumer credit repair works. So we kind of got frustrated and said, well, we'll show you. And we designed this email content that would explain how the Fair Credit Reporting Act worked and how the FICO score worked. And it was kind of— it was completely unintentional, but we went from this really difficult sales process to months later, people would start getting our emails and just calling and ready to enroll with us. That was really a shocking experience because we had to fight this uphill battle of not only convincing them we we were the best person for the service to choose, but that the service even worked. And then through email and education, people were coming to us already having trust, rapport, and credibility built. They already wanted to work with us. They already believed the process worked because we'd pre-educated them. And all of a sudden, there was no more selling involved. It was just a simple answering of a few questions and enrolling. And that really completely shifted my life. And now we do it at a much bigger scale where we just pour so much free content information into the space to help people. And then we have built really loyal tribe, some of which do business with us, and some of us just take our free advice and use it. But even the people that take the free advice and use it become really big testimonials. They will absolutely fight to the death to protect our honor and reputation. It's really been interesting to see what happens when you just genuinely try to help and educate by teaching people how to do what you do and then letting them choose and want to come to you to do business, that you become the obvious choice for them to do business. And when you do this and make the shift, you really feel sorry for all the people that aren't on this side of it because they're fighting these uphill battles trying to make these difficult sales when they're competing against people like me that are just out there trying to do the right thing and help. And in that battle, there is no battle. The person just trying to help and educate, I think, wins by a landslide.

I love that. That is one of the best answers ever. I love that. So education over selling. I like that. And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

You know, don't be afraid to fail. In my experience in life, I've kind of went through this transition where I've grown a lot in the last year, but I've realized at one point that some of my biggest successes happen after my biggest failures. And, you know, I think a lot of people are afraid of failing, and I've always welcomed failing once I've made this realization because I've realized that As entrepreneurs, when you fail and your back is against the wall, that's when you get really scrappy and produce some of the coolest things you'll ever produce. So I think that's what I would tell my younger self is, look, don't be afraid to fail. You just must, absolutely must walk away from every one of those experiences and ask yourself what you've learned and how what you've learned will make you better. And I really even at the time thought of that with the whole mortgage crisis. I thought, I'm going through something that very small percentage of entrepreneurs will ever go through. And that means I have like a greater understanding of these things than anybody that hasn't gone through it. And I think you really have to have that attitude, not be afraid to fail and know that you just have to take something from it, apply lessons of what you'll do to then grow from that. But now I've kind of grown in the last year and realized that I think what happens with this law of attraction world that we live in and those of us that that believe in that, I think it's a lot of entrepreneurs do, is that, you know, we tell the universe what we want and the universe kind of serves up these opportunities. But then we get in these comfort zones that we're kind of like, yeah, universe, I appreciate that, but no thanks, I'm good where I am right now. So we're telling the universe what we want, but we're not willing to take the actions to do it. And then eventually, like, the universe just slaps us upside the head and, like, forces disaster upon us to make us change. To get us one step towards reaching that goal. So it's been interesting since I've learned that because now I'm able to better recognize problems before they arise and then fix them and really have avoided a lot of these disasters that I've experienced so much along my professional career. So all that would kind of tie into that one message I would try to pass on to my younger self.

And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?

Well, I think it's balance. I learned very early in my career that you have to set goals and timetables of what you want to accomplish by when, but it's also equally important to set boundaries of what you're willing to sacrifice to be able to get there. And in my life, my parents were such awesome people and they worked really hard when my sister and I were young to support us, but that meant they weren't around a lot. My dad worked on weekends, he worked till very late in the evening. So as an adult, I always wanted to make sure I was there for my kids and that was one of the Those are conditions I built into my life. So I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I wanted to do these things, but I also said I won't violate these rules, these boundaries. When my kids have live sporting events or they have plays or any of these things, I immediately drop what I'm doing and I go. And I've set these boundaries to have this really nice balance where I still get the blessing of being an entrepreneur and making a difference and having an impact. And helping others and employing others and helping them grow and all these things that I love and I just hit the floor running every day and I'm excited to jump into, but at the same time I have this balance where I can turn it off and spend time with my family and spend time with my kids and get to do all the things that I wish my parents would have had time to do more of with me. So I think setting boundaries, I think creating balance and having what you want in the business life and then on the personal side, to me that's happiness is having all of that, it kind of in one package.

And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?

You know, I've read so many books, man. I'm an avid reader and it almost changes from day to day because every new book I'm in is like the coolest thing ever. One of the coolest ones I just read was called Contagious, and I love this book. Contagious talks about virality, what makes things go viral. But of all time, I would say it's The Power of Positive Thinking. By Norman Vincent Peale. And that just really taps into a lot of my internal beliefs of how much control you really have of your life and your environment and things if you just are willing to look inside yourself and kind of adhere to these mental rules per se or understand how they work. So I've read a lot of great books, but that overall, the best advice I live by day to day really is all encompassed in that book.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

I got a lot of favorite quotes too, but one of the best ones that I think I like the most comes from Warren Buffett, which is, "It's good to learn from your mistakes, and it's better to learn from other people's mistakes." And that's why I read so much. I think that I'm in a place now where I'm charting territory that I've never been before. I don't know what's gonna happen ahead, but a lot of other people have been where I am in business, and they know things I don't yet know. Getting an experience to have a podcast and listen to them talk and, and reading books and listening to books as much as I do, I get a chance to learn what mistakes other people have made that have created their passion in helping other people avoid those mistakes, the same as I do with business credit. So that quote really means a lot to me because I really am obsessed with learning from mistakes and getting better, but I'm even more obsessed at absorbing information of other mistakes that people have made and learning from what they've done to avoid making the mistakes altogether.

I love it, man. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. This episode was massively valuable. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where is the best place for people to find you online?

Our website is creditsuite.com. That's creditsuite.com. And at creditsuite.com, we got a great free guide at creditsuite.com/ein. And at creditsuite.com/ein, anybody can get a free guide that maps out the exact steps to build business credit that's not link to the personal social security number and do it without a personal guarantee or without a personal credit check.

Amazing, man. Thank you for that, and we'll talk with you soon.

All right, man, thanks for having me on. I had a blast.