Daniel Rosen 0:00
Our guest today is Seth Mitchell. He came from little money and humble beginnings a4nd I think he's a genius because he's grown his business by doing really clever things that you're going to want to know about. And today he's going to tell us the secrets that he used to systemize his business, reduce his work, and build a credit repair business that now makes millions.
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 to Credit Repair Business Secrets.
Hey Credit Heroes! I am so excited. Our guest today is amazing. He grew up with very humble beginnings, and which I'm hoping he's going to tell us about today. And now he's one of our Credit Repair Millionaires. He's also got a background in engineering, used his engineering skills and applied them to systemize his business. And he's going to tell us about that as well and a whole lot more. He's very inspiring. I think you're gonna learn a lot today of really clever ways to grow and scale your business. Please welcome to the podcast, Mr. Seth Mitchell. Hey, Seth, welcome to the podcast!
Seth Mitchell 1:34
Hey, appreciate you inviting me on.
Daniel Rosen 1:37
I'm super excited you had the time for us. Thanks for being here.
Seth Mitchell 1:40
Oh, yeah, no problem. No problem at all.
Daniel Rosen 1:43
So for people who don't know your story, which is an amazing story, can you tell everybody what your life was like, when you were young?
Unknown Speaker 1:53
Oh, sure. You know, I definitely always tell people I kind of had a humble background, humble beginnings. I remember growing up, you know, not having a whole lot, you know, my mom was a single parent, she worked at McDonald's for most of my high school years. And we she was just trying to make ends meet, you know, trying to, you know, make sure that I grew up with a house to love but as far as materialistic things, definitely, did not have the pleasure those things. My dad, he was he went to prison when I was eight years old. And, you know, he got out when I was 19, he was able to see me graduate from college, but, you know, he went back to jail after that point. And so, you know, kind of growing up, you know, trying to find my own way, not necessarily having a father figure, you know, I had to kind of rely on people in the community, you know, my granddad was very influential in my life, you know, and so, just being able to have an appreciation to kind of, you know, where I am right now, versus where I came from is definitely, you know, something that I cherish, and I tried to, you know, even teach my daughters, you know, that even though they don't really have that, you know, I don't want to say pleasure because that probably wasn't the best word but, you know, that experience, you know, kind of growing up, you still have to appreciate the small things in life and be, you know, free to do what you have and what you've been blessed with. So, kind of went to college. And I think that, you know, growing up the way that I'd be with the lack of resources that I have, had kind of gave me the drive and the passion, you know, to want more out of life, you know, when you see other people doing other things you're not, I was always, you know, in the impression of being happy for other people and not being envious, but at the same time trying to figure out exactly, you know, how did you get to where you got and how are you able to take these vacations and these trips and different things like that, and you know, just kind of carve out my own way, you know, to kind of get to where I am now.
Daniel Rosen 3:40
And what did you study in college?
Seth Mitchell 3:43
So I went to Auburn University Of War Eagle to all my Auburn fans that may be listening to this podcast, but I studied electrical engineering there and you know, got my degree and went into the electric power utility industry out of college.
Daniel Rosen 3:59
Wow. So how did you go from there into credit repair? What happened?
Seth Mitchell 4:06
That's an interesting story as well. So, um, like I was saying, you know, I believed myself to be very ambitious and you know, I wanted to try different things. And so I'm reading a few books, going to a couple of seminars, I got into the real estate industry and thought that, you know, I wanted to be a big time real estate investor, and, you know, everything started out great, you know, I was making progress, and then the recession in 2006, seven and eight, kind of hit and it took me with it, to say the least, you know, um, definitely, that was a trying time in my life, you know, had, you know, bad credit through the foreclosures and trying to figure my way out of all of those different things. I actually reached out to a credit repair company, initially, you know, and just didn't feel like they hit the heart of a teacher, you know, because not only you know, was kind of looking for, obviously, to fix my credit, but at the same time, you know, no one ever taught me about creating new really understand, like, I remember getting my first mortgage and I showed up at the place and the guy was like, you know, well, in order for you to get the money, you have to sign here. And that's been engineered, you start as a question, well, what's this was then he's like, Look, you don't sign it, you don't get the loan. So never really understood how qualified and what a FICO score was anything like that. And after going through the foreclosures, and you know, you find out that your credit isn't good anymore, people aren't willing to give you money, then you have even more questions. And so that's what I start asking credit repair companies like, Hey, don't worry about it, you know, we'll do what we need to do on our side, you get some things deleted, and we'll get these things off your credit and you can move on and move forward. But I really don't feel like if an individual doesn't get the proper education, that they're going to be able to move forward, you know, later on and you'll find yourself right back into the same spot that you were in when you initially needed the surface to begin with. So I kind of started doing my own research to learn a little bit more about the industry. Trying to figure out exactly how this mysterious thing called fica really works and then started telling my friends and family you know about it and all that, you know, anytime you learn something new, you want to spread the word and spread it, you know, to other people, and they're like, man, really, you know, cool. Can you help me? And after you get a few more of those, can you help me and you're like, well, maybe I can, you know, do something with this business. And when I first started out, you know, we I was just using Excel you know, trying to keep pick, you know, names, numbers and letters and different things like that, you know, we didn't have the fancy credit repair cloud software to work with back when I initially got started in this business, but it really was, you know, kind of grassroots levels like there wasn't anything special fancying great. Me and my wife were laughing probably a couple weeks ago, I was just going through some old files on my computer, found some old letters and then found my our original first logo with power finance solutions like man, do you realize what this look like? You know, back then, so to say the least we can I'm alone way but that's kind of know how I got my start was really I needed to help myself.
Daniel Rosen 7:04
Wow, that's really cool it just sort of organically happen. So you started getting these people saying can you help me too and you started repairing their credit but you're doing it all manually? What was that like?
Seth Mitchell 7:20
I don't know what kind of podcast to see you so I will tone down my words but it wasn't fun...
Daniel Rosen 7:26
Anything goes! You can say anything here but tell us about doing it manually versus software what was that like?
Seth Mitchell 7:32
It was definitely hell. I remember you know, having letters stacked on the floor and you know, licking envelopes and trying to keep up with who, you know you mailed off this month and you know what letters you need to send out and everything else is very chaotic. And again, being an engineer I don't like chaos like I like things to flow logically you know, step one, step two, step three ABC and I think Really could not figure out a good way to be able to do that, you know, at the time, and as you begin to scale, those problems get even worse, you know, so when you start with, you know, one or two clients not that bad 10 to 20 not that bad, but you hit, I kind of feel like that hundred 250 threshold, you have to have processes in place to be able to handle that type of, you know, business flow and just monthly transactions and everything else. And so, when we first initially started out handling everything manually, you know, I even had my little baby at the time ansley was to you know, she was licking envelopes and putting stamps on letters and everything and no, people think I'm joking, but I was serious because she had a lot of slavery. So it was it was okay, she was very efficient, but at the same time, that's not a good way to run and operate your business. But I know that a lot of first time you know, listeners and people in the business will be listening to the podcast. So I will say this at the same time. Do not be ashamed of small beginning Because you may have to, you know, kind of set things up that way, just due to your circumstances. And it's okay, you know, I'm a real big believer is, you know, add things as you get the capacity to be able to do them. Um, at the same time, too many of us want, you know, the pretty shiny business versus, you know, just the grind of, you know, trying to get everything up and running. And you have to bootstrap sometimes, and it may not look the best, but you know, as long as you're getting good results, that's all that really matters at the end of the day.
Daniel Rosen 9:28
Absolutely. So I know, your business is very, very different than other people's businesses out there. And you've created really clever ways to automate and systemize it. And I know that also gives you a lot more time to spend with your family with your two daughters and your wife. Can you give us some examples of processes that you've implemented? Because they're really really clever?
Seth Mitchell 9:52
Oh, yeah, sure. So one of the first things that we did back when we first got started was you know, basically using zaps. In order to you know, automate a lot of the front end transactions, so when someone would enroll into the services, you know, you want them to have them come in and have an automated way to intake them. So whatever systems you have, and to get business, you know, clients, you know, once they get ready to sign, being able to transfer that information from, you know, wherever they're coming in into CRC is very beneficial, you know, on the front end and then having a follow up behind that. So, again, you know, a lot of things have changed since I think I got started with CRC in 2014 2015 or So somewhere so you guys have made a lot of progress. So a lot of things that I built initially, you guys kind of came in and you know, did some things with your own software that those things are kind of obsolete now, you know, in our processes, so appreciate that. But at the same time, it could have been a little bit sooner today. But yes, anything that I feel that is manual that can be automated, whether that's you know, especially now entry. Like that's something that no one should be doing. You shouldn't be handwriting notes or putting, you know, typing in people's names, addresses, phone numbers and different things of that nature, when there's tools out there to kind of get people imported, because their time savers, like one of the things I learned in this business is that, you know, we always hear Time is money, but the more time you're spending on tasks that really are not generating any revenue and just a part of the process and you can cut those things out, the better off you are, and it allows you to scale because again, you know, typing 10 names is different than typing 1000.
Daniel Rosen 11:33
Now, you mentioned zaps. I bet a lot of people out there listening don't know what that means. Can you break that down?
Seth Mitchell 11:40
Oh, sure. So zap some is a company called Zapier.com. You go there for the non techies is definitely you know, something that I would recommend because you can kind of you know, see your workflows and everything systematically. And there's a lot of basically software so just think about it like apps. So there's a bunch of different apps. And Zapier allows one app to talk to another app. So you know, CRC is an app, and then things like Excel and Zoho and MailChimp and a lot of those other apps out there. Zapier allows them to speak the same language without you knowing a lot of code and everything like, because even given the fact that I'm an engineer, I never like, you know, computer software and coding or anything to that nature. So this gives the, I would say, novice user an opportunity to do some things from a technology standpoint, that they otherwise would probably have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to kind of create.
Daniel Rosen 12:37
Can you give us some other practical examples of things apps can do for you?
Seth Mitchell 12:43
Yeah, so we talked about the intake, they can also create calendar invites for you know, your audit process. If you were doing that, in the end, you want to automatically schedule an audit for them. You can use apps for that as well so they can go you know, create this app set up the appointment, you don't have to touch it, you'll get an email, they'll get an email in the time will be scheduled, you can send out reminders are the one of the big functions that we use in our day to day is text messaging. There's a couple different platforms or apps this out there that you can plug into. But text messages when someone signs up, they get a text from us saying, Hey, we got everything successfully. Here's a little quick outline of what you expect. And we did an audio recording. So they get a little link that they can kind of hear what the next steps are, you know a lot of the customer service in of you answering questions you want to try to get that you know in a video or audio version of something that you can automatically send out to someone to cut down on the questions that you may catch on the back end, or what usually people want to know. Now that I paid you What can I expect in the next 30 to 45 days. So you can automate that and record it and send it out in a text message through zap that just makes everything a lot easier.
Daniel Rosen 13:57
And to me I think all that Communication makes the service a lot more transparent. And I bet it helps with Am I right that it helps with your client retention?
Seth Mitchell 14:08
Exactly, um, people don't want to feel like they're in a black hole. And this is one lesson that I learned just being in business in general, especially in this business that your customer service is your biggest cost, but it's also your biggest benefit and the more communication that you can have with your clients. And that's not to say that you need to talk to them day every day because they will talk to you every day of mine. But at the same time, you know, touching in, you know, on a seven day rolling schedule or 14 day rolling something periodically, it makes them feel like you're you know, in this fight with them, and you're not just waiting 30 days for the credit bureaus to respond back and then sending out another round of letters or something to that nature. So I recommend anybody that if you're not doing that, please start today. Absolutely. Now I know another one of your processes. is pretty cool. And it enables you to not have to be sending off in licking stamps and doing all of that. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, sure. So I told you my pain point was, you know, really when I was looking at the letters in being stacked up and everything, so we contacted a company, they're based out of India, but they don't have because I know a couple of people doing some things a little bit differently. So what we did is that we had to write a program for this. So we take PDFs, they scan them, you know, through OCR, and they can catch you know, name, address and everything like that. Now, how that works on the backend, I don't know, I just know it works, you know. So whatever the program looks like they take the letters from CRC, once you print them, and then they put them in a zip file and they send them to a company that basically mass producing mails everything out, and that's all automated so every night is basically a batch file that runs at swivel one in by one o'clock that next morning. those files are sitting at the Mail processors computer in DNA does print out on a systematic basis in the mail process and sends this, you know, a report that says these people went out, we take that we tag them. And then we send a letter saying, hey, that your letters have been mailed, you know, on such and such date to the client. So, there's a lot of different types of companies that are out there that's doing that. But so I think I'll talk more in general the pieces that you need. So you would either need someone who's processing the letters, and I would definitely recommend outsourcing even if they have physical people that's doing them and or, you know, talk to them about writing a program to batch file these letters. We chose to mail ours in the United States, just due to HIPAA laws and different things of that nature. Again, you know, I'm not a lawyer, no attorney, but you know, I would recommend that you talk to someone just to make sure that you're covered, you know, in that area. So that that was just kind of our own personal opinion about that. But you know, either way, you don't want to be the person who's milling out the letters if you're planning on scaling your business, if it's going to be 50 clients a year. You probably can manage. But if you're thinking that you want to turn this thing into something big, and if you listen to this podcast, I'm going to assume that you are, you definitely want to make sure that you're outsourcing that part of the process.
Daniel Rosen 17:12
Super cool. And I remember you saying that this brought your dispute letter cost to about $3 and 17 cents per client. Yep, his actual totals, including all that labor that's outsourced.
Seth Mitchell 17:26
Labor, stamps, letters, envelope, and getting to the credit bureaus. Now that doesn't include I know a lot of people like to send their letters serve back, they have an option where you can send it certified, but for me, they send us a tracking, you know, report every month. So we don't necessarily eat that because the only reason why you really send them certified is to prove that you mailed them. So that's not an issue for us. Not to say that you should or shouldn't do it. But at the same time, you know, that calls were on general think when I started, you just include my time we're probably around more six $7 or something like that. So if you can get those costs down, you can do some interesting things with pricing models and different things of that nature on the back end, it opens the door up to a lot. Super cool. Are you doing any other outsourcing any other parts of your business to other companies or people we were doing the customer service? And that didn't work out too well, just because there's a I mean, there's not really a systematic approach to credit and credit repair and what people want to know from it typically starts off with when do you send my letters and then it's like you have a financial advisor, you know, kind of talk through problems or maybe even a counselor, so that wasn't the best approach. So what we tried to do, I think, you know, we've talked a couple different times, but we did more in the b2b Arena. So a lot of our clients come from other business owners that have some type of credit me, you know, with their clients in some shape, form or fashion. So they typically now handle all the customer service piece, we figured out that that's just not a good vertical force. been trying to take on, especially when you add the caveat that they're also someone else's client. And that's how they got to us. So we try to keep all our clients to take care of their own clients, if you will. Gotcha.
Daniel Rosen 19:12
Yeah. And for everyone to know, I understand you, since we saw you last, you've now begun doing outsourcing for other credit repair companies and you're doing all their back end processing. What does that look like?
Seth Mitchell 19:27
Well, it's actually what happened in kudos to you all for marketing and everything else. But you know, once the Millionaire's club thing, you know, kind of took off people, you know, either from CRC cloud or just people on Facebook, you know, they all want to reach out and all want to, you know, Hey, what are you doing, and everything like that, which that's perfect and great and everything, but what I found out is that one we weren't really set up for coaching calls and that wasn't really my niche. And I was like, well, should I get into and I'm like, well, that's not really what I like to do. You know, I like to help people, but you know, to have business and charging, I haven't really got to that place yet. I feel like, you know, people helped me and I need to help other people, but at the same time, that becomes time consuming. So what we decided to do was instead of trying to build, you know, base cloud infrastructure in backend and just say, hey, you're already using CRC, all the things that we've already set up plugs into all these different things, all we really need is a username and a password. And we can basically do the same thing for you that we're doing for ourselves and kind of cut costs and everything else. Because I think most people when they get involved in this business, they just want to go out and help them they're good marketers, you know, in the backend is just, it slows them down and they probably could go out and get a lot more you know, clients and customers and, and being able to pay a small nominal fee not to have to deal with that side of it and just know that things are being you know, taken care of, just makes it a lot easier, you know, for them and for us versus You know, every it's almost like people like My solution. So when we first started talking to people, you know, it was like, well, we want to do this. And now we don't want to text message, we have an email. And, and again, it was just easier for us to kind of take over the process and just Hey, we'll handle the backend, and you handle the front end.
Daniel Rosen 21:15
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Because some people are really good at sales and bringing people in, but they don't have the organizational mind and the time to do all that processing though. So that's super cool. They can plug into your system.
Seth Mitchell 21:29
Exactly, exactly.
Daniel Rosen 21:30
Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, I'm a big fan of outsourcing, of all sorts of things. Now, but you're still got your own financial services company going as well at the same time,
Seth Mitchell 21:43
Correct. Yes. So we do a lot with home ownership. So we have a home buying program that a lot of our clients come to us on a day to day basis, you know, they're looking to buy a home and these people probably start off with anywhere from 500 to 550 credit score, so they're essentially a nine We have even 18 months out from buying a home. And a lot of times, you know, realtors and mortgage brokers, you know, they're worried about the next 30 days, not the next nine to 12 months, and trying to help somebody walk through their process, because realistically is not beneficial for them, you know, at the end of the day, now, some you know, we'll walk through a client process like that, but they're not going to be you know, that ingrained for those individuals knowing that, hey, you know, credit is a piece of the home buying process, but there's a lot of other things that we kind of got to have in place as well, you know, in order to really get you ready. And we form those relationships, you know, with the particular realtor that they may be using, letting them know that hey, this is who we are, this is what we're trying to do in them, you know, being able to send them back to them without them you know, having to spend any money you know, on the front end, meaning the realtor you know, kind of selling leads because I think, you know, again, a lot of people starting this business. I'm going to talk every realtor in town and I need you to send me all your reject clients and everything else. Listen to that in a lot of times, you know, that's a hard sale for realtors because their brand and who they are and their trust back there is the biggest thing. So if they don't know you and you haven't really took the time to kind of get to know them, that transaction is a very hard sale for the product.
Daniel Rosen 23:18
Okay. Fascinating. At the last credit repair Expo, you talked about the difference between growing a business and scaling a business. Can you give us some examples of these differences?
Seth Mitchell 23:32
Yeah, sure. So again, if you're new to the credit, repair business, and you maybe have your first client, you don't have any clients, you know, there's a lot of different things that you're probably trying to research figure out, you know, what letters do I seen? When do I send them again, what's the Fair Credit Reporting Act and all those other things that are definitely important to our industry? You know, but as you're going to do that, you know, what you have to start asking yourself is, you know, What do you want the end goal to be? You know, are you building you know, a 5000 square foot house or is this just the little, you know, worksheet is going to be in the back, and a lot of planning and everything else depending on which scope of work you're trying to do kind of goes into that. So when you growing your business, you're just trying to get the next sale and you know, want to make sure that you're taking the necessary steps, then you're doing all aspects of business, you're the marketer, you're the customer service, you're, you know, milling the letters and doing all those other things. But when you kind of go from growing and scaling, and you hit that critical mass point that we were talking about earlier, that hundred to 150 clients, you want to make sure that you're either outsourcing or you have processes procedures, I think Derek thousand slps. against that, I think that must be a military thing. That was a new one for me. standard operating procedures. Exactly. Yeah. So you want to make sure you have those things in place. So as you're taking on more clients, that your business doesn't start busting at the seams from an operational standpoint, because that's the death of a lot of businesses that they go out and they start doing great things, but they don't have the infrastructure in place to really start taking on that massive growth and massive scaling. You know, and I don't think now you will mind but I've kind of seen, you know, even credit repair, cloud grow, you know, in that capacity and, you know, if you putting different things in place to be able to take on what you all are doing now, with all the tremendous success, and I went through the same thing, and, you know, trying to figure it out a bunch of late night. So, you know, like, Man, this is not going to continue to work and you just try to hold it together. And I call that the growing stage, but the scalability stage is really you know, putting those things in place, and I recommend anybody to, you know, do those things on the front end. Now, that's not tied to money. You know, a lot of times people throw money at different things and think that's kind of preparing them for scalability, but it's really looking at your business from an operational standpoint and saying, hey, you If I got 1000 people coming in today, can these processes procedures workflows handle 1000 people coming in? And if the answer is no, and that's where you want to be, then you need to start putting those things in place to be able to handle the thousand people coming in. Because it happens quick, you know, there's a lot of new credit of CRC millionaires that I've seen, you know, come across, even since I was honored for that. So don't think that just because today you only got two or three clients that you're working with that 30 days, 69 days from now, won't turn 500 because it will.
Daniel Rosen 26:36
Right What would you say to the people out there? who think they can do it all as like a one man band?
Seth Mitchell 26:47
Well, the fact that I laugh probably lets you know where I'm going with this that again, yes, you probably if they're in that place, they're probably thinking that they're saving money. You know, you only can do so much. I like To say we got 24 hours. But if you got, you know, spouse, family, kids, dogs, pets, other family members, your time every day is going to be cut short. So one thing I learned very early on through some of my early endeavors is that, you know, you have to be able to leverage other people's times and other people's efforts. And if you're not able to do that, then you know, at the end of the day, you can only do so much. So you know, you have a team, I have a team, every credit repair cloud millionaire, that you will talk to him, he will let you know that they're leveraging other people's time and other people's efforts. So we're not you know, on the island, we reach out to one another, you know, try to bounce ideas off. The CRC group is probably a good testament to that. So not only just from, you know, leveraging other people's time and effort just for your knowledge base and standpoint, because, you know, I don't know it all. You know, I just happen to have the right opportunities and was prepared for them when they came across, you know, my table doesn't mean that I'm a expert, you know, I just try to work hard, you know, try to be honest and try to be fair, but then at the same time, be open to new ideas and new ways of doing things.
Daniel Rosen 28:02
That's really good advice. It's funny, you mentioned that you started with credit repair cloud in 2014. Back at that time, I was trying to be a one man band. I was everything I was Tammy on support, ever wrote support tickets. I was everything. And I that from the stress, I put on 100 pounds, and it nearly killed me. And so when Keenan came on board, he got me to start offloading things. And now I'd never be able to even do this podcast or drive our business if I hadn't offloaded everything onto other people, and I know you've done the same, right? What's that process been like for you?
Seth Mitchell 28:44
Oh, it's been fulfilling. I mean, again, like you said, the stress levels to be able to, I remember very vividly, we were at Disney, we go to Disney up with girls for Christmas every year. And this particular one is kind of when the company really kind of started taking off And I was so frustrated and my wife was definitely frustrated, you know, because while everybody else was having fun, I was in the hotel room still trying to get out letters and you know, do different things like that. So, you know, where I really wasn't able to work on the business because I was working in the business and I came back from that trip making a real conscious effort that was um, right after the first CRC conference in LA, you know, I heard there you know, kind of talk about some of his automation I was like, I have to, you know, do something different in order to be able to step away and be able to do more because if you get caught in that cycle, man, it is definitely dangerous and like you said, it will kill you. So Kenya, you know, I know you're listening as well appreciate you saving Daniel because that was gonna be rough. And I remember having a couple conversations with Tammy and she was very, uh, don't say stay out of customer service thing. It's your forte.
Daniel Rosen 29:56
We would get support tickets that said, Tammy is about Because I can relate sometimes, but But yeah, it's definitely something that you know, have to make a conscious effort to be able to, you know, do the things that you're good at, we're not good at everything and find someone who can plug in in those gaps, or you're filling the gaps. Right, exactly. Because entrepreneurs often think that they can do everything, and you got to start hiring people who are better at it than you. I mean, I'm always saying, I hire people that are smarter than me. And you feel the same.
Seth Mitchell 30:31
Oh, yeah, definitely feel the same way. I don't want to be the smartest man in the room and definitely don't want to be the smartest man on the team. You know, because we all have different skill sets. So a lot of times the smartest person isn't necessarily the best suited for the particular task at hand. You know, I I've been around a lot of engineers that are great, you know, from a technical standpoint, but they can sell you know, wett paper bags...
Daniel Rosen 30:53
Right!
Seth Mitchell 30:54
You know, so, at the same time you get you just got to figure out what you know, what do you need Your team in kind of fit in where you are and where you want to go.
Daniel Rosen 31:03
Yeah. And then free yourself so that you can even just be the face of the business. Plus being the captain of the ship. Exactly. It can be down below rowing.
Seth Mitchell 31:13
No, not at all.
Daniel Rosen 31:15
Now at the last credit repair Expo, you were on stage and you were amazing. And you talked about you said inconsistency in your pricing structure will make it challenging to scale your business. So how do you simplify your pricing structure?
Seth Mitchell 31:33
Let your price be your price. I know a lot of people think that price is what's going to get people in and in to some degree that is true. Obviously, I think you've tried to charge $10,000 for credit repair services. No one's going to come to your business but you know if you're talking to you know Person A and you tell them $49 and the person see a 79 and you don't really have a real consistent you know, process on pricing, then you You're not going to be able to scale because if it changes every time you talk to somebody, guess what? That's a stop. Yep. So you want to make sure that you are comfortable and you're providing the value that whatever your price is, and whatever structure that you kind of come up with, you know, to be able to scale. I know a lot of people are doing paper delete, that's a big thing now, as well, if you charge monthly, whatever that is, if you say hey, we're going to charge $99 a month it's $99. And that doesn't matter if you're talking to your mom or if you're talking to somebody you don't know um, and that's something in business that you know, a lot of times people have a hard time with. You know that I'm a big fan of chick fil a I don't know if they're out in California where you are, they are all perfectly you guys are spoiled rotten. But you know when you go into a chick fil a those prices all the price, you know, no one's going in and saying Well, hey, my cousin works here. You know, I want you know, a discount. And if they are they're probably not getting it and you have to treat your business the same way. Even They know you at the same time again, if you're going to grow and scale it, then you're going to have to make sure that your prices, you know, kind of stay consistent. Because I see a lot of people like, well, they may want to run a special and then that special turns into free. And then they don't feel confident because I talked to a lot of people like, well, I just don't feel confident charging people and is like, but if you don't charge then you're not going to be in business long. So how is this gonna work? But being comfortable and knowing that you have value to the marketplace and you adding value to the marketplace? And your prices? You know what it is?
Daniel Rosen 33:33
Got it. I'm curious, I know you work with realtors. What are the other ways? What are the many ways that you get clients?
Seth Mitchell 33:41
Sure. So yeah, we kind of talked about the real estate aspect. Another thing that we do a lot a lot with is with car dealerships, and a lot of furniture stores have been one of our biggest new verticals. Um, you know, they may offer you know, the 90 days same as cash and different things like that. But again, our approaches not so much the backend, oh, well, this person is qualified for the service. And maybe they did you know, but at the same time, if they're going to these places seeking credit, they probably don't have the best credit to start with. And it's an added added value to the business. So in that particular example, what we do is basically offer, you know, a back end product. So way you can buy a mattress, and you get, you know, 90 days of credit repair services. So three letters, it doesn't really cost the business that much it doesn't cost us that much. I told you our pricing that is, again, we're roughly $15 for three months worth of service, and we charge this business 60 $65...
Daniel Rosen 34:37
Wow, that's really clever!
Seth Mitchell 34:39
Yeah. So you know, different approaches like that, you know, kind of keep us out of the what I would consider the normal market. So you know, when you start going to real estate agents, and you say, Hey, I can help people with credit, they probably got hit up by 10 or 11. When I go talk to these furniture stores, uh, you know, make a zoom meeting or call is new to them. Like they're like Well, how does this actually work and you know, and they can be, the way we sell them is that you know, you're going to be the only one in town to be able to say that, hey, you're helping your community by helping you know, people with their credit, when they buy a mattress, or they buy a, you know, a new bed or new living rooms, you know, because, again, the customer leaves with what they want it to begin with, you know, the financing may not necessarily be the best, but on the back end, they have someone that's helping them work. And then at the end of the 90 days, because we all understand that it may take longer than that, then we just follow that up with those clients and say, Hey, this is where you are right now. If you want to continue to services, then you can continue that kind of keep your revenue or in our case, our revenue, kind of going, you know, and moving forward as well.
Daniel Rosen 35:42
Wow, that's really, really cool. And then are you also getting a lot of clients from word of mouth from the existing clients and happy clients?
Seth Mitchell 35:50
Yeah, you know, a lot of times you know, for us, we always ask the business owners because the good thing about that is people know people so you know, we always ask them to They know anyone else that you know, they may kind of be able to take advantage of these services, you know, that we're offering Now depending on if they feel like it's gonna create competition, a little hesitant, you know, at first but at the same time, you know, word of mouth is probably one of our biggest you know, marketing tools we don't do a lot of you know, ads and different things like that even on Facebook. Um, mainly because we have had enough business kind of coming in from you know, either people that we know our relationships and our sense, our leads are basically people who are coming in from the marketing that these other businesses are doing. So it's definitely not necessarily prototypical probably for most people business profile in this industry. But as the way that we've been able to carve out a niche, you know, in the marketplace, this kind of hooked this up.
Daniel Rosen 36:44
What I think is cool about that is a lot of people out there listening who are probably getting their business going or about to launch or having struggles. Many people think they have to spend a lot of money in advertising and I think this is real proof that you don't?
Seth Mitchell 36:59
No. With technology today, I mean, it's really simple as identifying, you know, the business owner or whoever may be in their business development department. That's what we use to call and ask for. And they're like, Well, I have anybody here by that. But that just kind of gets the conversation started. But and then just setting up, you know, a zoom meeting or a quick phone call. I know a lot of people like to go out to lunches and do all these interesting, but these people are busy. So if you can just get on the call for 10 to 15 minutes, kind of go through your spiel, it saves you time, money, gas, and everything else, and you're able to probably get in front of them a lot faster than you would even want to their business establishment trying to wait. So I usually just word of advice because I know people will say, Oh, yeah, go ahead and implement this, you know, reach out call, you're probably gonna get a customer service person and just ask them, you know, is there anybody there that you can talk to, you know, that works with their, you know, commercial or business development department? And they'll say, well, we don't have anybody, what do you need, you know, most of the times you just Tell them that you have a way that you can add some value to their current clients, then once you're able to get on the phone with the decision maker, it's just a quick Hey, all I need is 10 to 15 minutes, I think this would be a good product for you, you know, we're in this particular town, you know, reaching out to other business owners, you know, do you have some time now or do you have a time over the next couple of days, they give you an appointment, you call them back and not a whole lot of sales, pitchy stuff, like just get down to the business, this is a product this is you know, the added value to your business. This is how much it's gonna cost and let them make a decision and move on to the next one, you'll probably get 20 to 30 notes in this circle back because again, it's going to be new to them. No one's reaching out, I promise you. No one's reaching out to them asking them this. They usually want something in return one way or the other. And you don't have to be real, you know, creative with your sales pitch is really a direct approach.
Daniel Rosen 38:54
Do you show them results like pictures of people's results, things like that?
Seth Mitchell 38:58
Well, I don't do Just because I don't feel like it really means a whole lot, you know, one way or the other what I feel in that case is people trying to say, you know, this does work is enough proof in the industry that it works. Um, you know, and then the other thing I was at a training and the guys, I don't know who it was now, but anyway, he was like, so what happens if they don't get those results? You know, you kind of set the expectation because granted, everybody's not going to get their 10 deletions, you know, in the first 30 days, if that happened, you know, so there's no corner setting those type of expectations. And you don't really have any control over that. One of my biggest mottos is control what you control. And what I can control is that, hey, we're going to be consistent on Melling out the letters, you're going to get your results and we're going to make sure that we did everything on our end that we said we do because the credit bureaus as we know, they can do whatever they want to do. So I don't want to play I don't want to play that game. And that's not to say that if you are doing it, listen, this podcast that you're the worst is just something that we don't choose to do.
Daniel Rosen 40:00
That's really good actionable advice. I really appreciate that. I know everybody out there is appreciating that. You mentioned just a moment ago that you're at a training, do attend trainings and live events frequently.
Seth Mitchell 40:13
Oh, yes, we usually go to at least one a quarter, I try to go to a couple, you know, again, I know I don't know everything. So I like to go and, you know, get other ideas. I like to network meet different people at the first CRC conference, you know, that kind of help you know, me, you know, into some of the things that I was trying to do. That's why I met Derek corporate, you know, so any type of event where there's like minded individuals in the room, it's something that I definitely promote me and my wife will be out in California in March, you know, at a conference, so there's always different things that are out there, you know, again, I think the biggest value is in you know, meeting the people that are attending in getting the information from you know, business leaders and experts and you know, different people in those particular industries that you're in. The knowledge base. So I definitely recommend you doing it more often than not.
Daniel Rosen 41:05
Absolutely, if anything to just be around like minded people is that I really think that's a shortcut to success. And we Kenan and I, we go to lots of trainings ourselves as well.
Seth Mitchell 41:16
Yes, I saw that big award you got a couple weeks ago.
Daniel Rosen 41:19
That was at the ClickFunnels event. Yeah. And we we go to trainings with them to learn marketing, and we go to trainings to learn how to structure a business and how to build a team and set goals and all that kind of stuff. What was that last training you were at that you mentioned,
Seth Mitchell 41:34
the last one that I that I was it was a it was a real estate convention out in Florida here. We're in Florida in Miami. We were trying to get some information on some real estate funding, again, trying to figure out I don't know if you're familiar with trio and then there's a couple other companies that are basically they're kind of like rent to own programs, but you know, they allow customers to kind of go Getting into the house, they will buy it and then you know, basically provide the funding on the backing. And so we're trying to form some relationships to where we can kind of implement something similar into, you know, our process and get people you know, into the home because like I was saying earlier, you know, a lot of people that come to us, they're looking, you know, 1218 months down the road, but if we can set some things up to where they can get into the house that they want now, and start paying for it and have that sense of ownership, you know, in a real true rent to own program, not wanting to just high rent and you know, they don't have any real path to homeownership on the back end. That's what we were looking forward. Just trying to make some connections there.
Daniel Rosen 42:38
That's really, really cool. Okay, now we're going to start a new tradition here on the podcast. We're going to go into a rapid fire round of questions. Are you ready?
Seth Mitchell 42:48
Wait a minute, so I get to be the guinea pig?
Daniel Rosen 42:51
Yeah.
Seth Mitchell 42:53
All right. Go for it. Um, okay.
Daniel Rosen 42:55
Seth, if you could go back in time. What do you know now? That you wish you had known when you first started
Seth Mitchell 43:03
Not to get into customer service.
Daniel Rosen 43:08
Okay, good answer. Anything else that you wish you had known when you first started?
Seth Mitchell 43:13
I think when I first started that don't get so caught up in the details of the disputing process, you know what letters to mail and, you know, do I need to go in and be an investigator and really dive into the details of the letters A whole lot? Like I think that I know, I wasted a lot of time and I hate to say it that way, because I know that's gonna offend some people in his industry. But at the same time, you know, understanding the laws and make sure you're protecting yourself and your clients is one thing, but really being a forensic reporter on the credit repair process is not necessary.
Daniel Rosen 43:51
I agree. What's the most important lesson you've learned as a business owner?
Seth Mitchell 43:56
Knowing your numbers and what I mean by that? is knowing you know your expenses, you know, your profit margins and making sure that those things make sense. I'm talking about pricing earlier. But another caveat to that is if you don't price your product, right, you're not going to be able to scale and grow is going to, you know, basically strap you down and not allow you to do some of the other things that you need to do to be able to grow your business. Good advice. Is there a book that changed your life or your business that you'd recommend? Yeah, it's actually sitting on my dad just looked over here because I was like, it's sitting on my desk now. It's called the dip by Seth Godwin. It basically talks about knowing when to call it quits. You know, a lot of times we want to press on a persona, but there's a systematic formula to say, hey, you need to get out of this thing because it's not working. So that's one of the delay. I got a lot of books but that's one of the latest ones that's really you know, been influential. I think over the last probably 10 years or so of my life.
Daniel Rosen 44:55
Oh, Seth Godin's amazing!
Seth Mitchell 44:57
Yeah, it's a short read to is Not even that many pages for the people who, you know, don't like to read a lot.
Daniel Rosen 45:04
Super cool. What is business ownership mean to you?
Seth Mitchell 45:08
You know, you're able to create and grow and make decisions good, bad or indifferent, that you know impacts not only your life, but the people that's a part of your team and part of your businesses. Well, I know that there's this it seems like the year the entrepreneur or the decade, entrepreneur, if you will, and that's all good and well, but, you know, at the same time, when you really take own entrepreneurship, and being a business owner, you really are impacting other people's lives, you know, and, and that's a lot of responsibility. And I take that seriously. And so along with that, I think that you know, having the flexibility to kind of change paths if I want to or you know, kind of continued and is going to grow something bigger is something that I can appreciate.
Daniel Rosen 45:52
Cool. most successful people tend to have a morning routine. What's your morning routine?
Seth Mitchell 46:00
Prior to getting up getting the keys ready, I get up, you know, kind of go to go to the bathroom, you know, look in the mirror, I actually do do affirmations. So you know that that is a thing for me. Awesome. And my wife, you know, we both, you know, kind of go through that whole process together every morning, and then the dogs usually barking so gonna take him out, let him do his business. And then after that, you know, I come back in and I just write down the five things that I want to get done that day. And I just kind of take cuz this usually I get up around 535 45 so it's kind of early start for me most days but I tried to, you know, say hey, today, these five things are going to get done no matter what else and go through that process. And then it's, you know, chaos in the Mitchell household so getting kids up and you know, I got one that loves to get up got one that does it. So that morning routine and Ethernet point you know, it's kind of the demo how is going to go one way or the other and I dropped the kids off And come back and you know, get to it.
Daniel Rosen 47:03
I love that. And I love that you write the five intentions for the day. Kenan and I both do that. Well, he's better at it than me. I'm working on
Seth Mitchell 47:11
Yeah, you seem to be more of a free spirit. So I can see that.
Daniel Rosen 47:13
I have a hard time in structure, but I'm working on it. But Kenan is very good with structure. And finally, what's your advice to anyone just starting out with a credit repair business?
Seth Mitchell 47:25
Enjoy the process. You know, don't forget why you even decided to start most people probably had the same story, similar minds of why they got started because their own credit was messed up, or someone close to them his credit was messed up. So you know, I always remember that part of it. Because as much as you know, we grow and we talk about all the great successes and everything else. What keeps me grounded is always looking back and you know, remembering that, you know, 2122 year old guy that wanted some help. That's what we tried to, you know, express to our team to give to our clients is that most of these people If they had another option, they probably wouldn't call us. So let's treat them as such, you know, give them some value and try to educate them in the process. So definitely remember why you started.
Daniel Rosen 48:10
That's good advice, and especially the making it fun, you know, and enjoying it. Um, hey, before we go, how can someone find out about your outsourcing services?
Seth Mitchell 48:22
Here it is reach out to me very simple. I'm on Instagram, but not that much. I'm trying that's something I'm working on this year, but just go to Facebook. Seth Mitchell. Now there's a boss that says Mitchell that's not me, you know, so maybe you look for me in the CRC cloud Facebook group first is to make sure you're reaching out to the right individual, just inbox me you know, I'll let you reach out to you let you know kind of what we offer if this fit great, you know, if not, don't look too many envelopes. I'm telling you, it's gonna get rough. You know, but that's the easiest way to get to me and obviously, you know, our website priority finance solutions.net But again, the easiest quickest way is through Facebook.
Daniel Rosen 49:00
Awesome. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time today. Seth, You're so awesome and inspiring, and you have such great insights. I really appreciate you being here. And thank you so much for your time!
Seth Mitchell 49:14
Thank you for all the awesome things you're doing, you know, with the CRC credit heroes, is that definitely a movement I get excited. I know, I don't have as much time to plug in as I would like to, but I'm still watching you. So don't... Don't worry.
Daniel Rosen 49:26
Okay, well, thanks again. And you guys, I hope you enjoyed this. And also remember, this is a new podcast. So if you're enjoying what you're listening, please click below to subscribe and also rate and review us and that'll move us up the charts. And we'll be able to reach a lot more people. And thank you again, Seth. And you guys have a great day and keep changing lives.
Want a fast track to creating an amazing business that helps people changes lives and makes you a great living and the process? Then I'd like to invite you to my free online training at creditrepaircloud.com/freetraining. In this free training you will learn how to get clients willing to pay you even if you're just starting out, how to get easy credit repair results without being an expert, and how to get all the clients you'll ever need without paying for advertising. Again, this training is absolutely free. Just visit creditrepaircloud.com/freetraining.
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