The BIGGEST Industry Secret about Merchant Accounts with Rick Kamal

Daniel Rosen  00:00

Hey, credit heroes. Today we are talking with an amazing entrepreneur named Rick Kamal. And he's going to give us the lowdown on merchant accounts, how they work, why you need one, how to avoid chargebacks, and so much more. This is really, really important stuff. If you are running a credit repair business, so you better stick around. 

So the big question is this, how can we take our passion for helping people with their credit, and turn it into a successful business without taking loans without spending a fortune by bootstrapping it from nothing? So we can help the most people and still become highly profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. Okay, before I dive in, if you are new to my podcast, be sure to click to subscribe and turn on notifications. So you don't miss any of the secrets that I share each week here on the Credit Repair Business Secrets podcast. And if you want me to hold you by the hand, as you launch your very own credit repair business, go to credit hero challenge.com. Okay, let's get into this. Rick. Kamal is an amazing entrepreneur. He is widely known in the credit repair industry. And he's a very, very good friend to credit repair cloud. He is the founder of five star processing. And he he helps so many credit repair businesses to get their merchant account. And he knows an awful lot about the money side of credit repair. And he's a really good guy. So I know you're going to enjoy this. And you're going to get a whole lot of very useful information. So please welcome to the podcast. Rick Kamal. Hey, Rick, welcome.

Rick Kamal  01:53

Hey, thank you so much for having me really appreciate it.

Daniel Rosen  01:56

Well, I appreciate you being here. This is great. You're such a big part of the credit repair industry. So I want to know, before anything, what were you doing before you founded five star processing? And what got you into this?

Rick Kamal  02:13

That's a great question. So before five star processing, I worked in the banking business, and from there actually opened up my own credit repair business. And I actually use your guys's software to help me get started to believe, believe it or not. And from there on out, I had a rich history in Merchant Services. So I really blended, you know, two and two together and said, You know what, let's, let's get five star rocking and rolling, and take the knowledge and the information I know from the credit repair space, and, you know, bring two worlds together. And here we are today.

Daniel Rosen  02:48

It's awesome. And I remember at that time, when you appeared on the scene with five star, merchant accounts were very, very hard to get it was a mysterious thing people didn't understand about them. So we're gonna dive into all that. But first of all, I know you're in Northern California, right?

Rick Kamal  03:05

Correct. Sacramento, California. Got it. Got it. And how many people are on your team? We have about 37 people on our team.

Daniel Rosen  03:14

Wow, you've grown a lot since we last talked. Awesome. Congratulations. And you're supplying merchant accounts in all 50 states? Is that correct?

Rick Kamal  03:23

All 50 states and different industry types as well. And then

Daniel Rosen  03:27

in addition to merchant accounts, you also do business lending, right?

Rick Kamal  03:33

We help educate people on business credit, lending, and we have a variety of business resources and services to help our small business owners get everything going from start to finish. Right. I

Daniel Rosen  03:44

saw that on your site. I saw you had a business credit card programme, too.

Rick Kamal  03:48

We do we do have a business credit card programme.

Daniel Rosen  03:51

Very, very cool. Okay, so many people listening are at the very beginning of their business journey. So let's get down to basics. For everyone listening, what exactly is a merchant account? And why is it so important to have one?

Rick Kamal  04:09

That's an awesome question. So a merchant account, you know, short, sweet, it's a way it's a financial service product or a business product to help you take credit card payments from your customers and deposited into your bank account. It's very, very important to have one simply if you just want to look at it from an automation standpoint, you want to make money while you're asleep. And the real reality is most people when they make payments, they want to pay you with credit card or debit card in this day and age. So you know, you lose business just by only taking cash or cheque. And that's why it's really important to have a merchant service account.

Daniel Rosen  04:42

Absolutely. And and a lot of people they try to get around having a merchant account by being sneaky and trying to Pay on PayPal and Stripe and square and Cash App and all those other services. And what happens when you try to do that?

Rick Kamal  04:58

Unfortunately, your merchants service account gets closed down, just because credit repair is considered a higher risk industry type. And because of that, you know, we've seen clients where they'll, you know, disguise it as different names, just to avoid the word credit repair, which for us, we can help you, you know, we can definitely get you rocking and rolling, but the companies you'd mentioned will shut you down a few, because they're not set up to take credit repair specifically,

Daniel Rosen  05:24

right, it's against their terms of service. So that's why you shouldn't be sneaky. If you're out there, you need a specific merchant account that's for credit repair. And I remember when I first heard that it was high risk. I was freaked out by that. And then I learned lots of industries are high risk. And I was looking it up this morning I saw was like, well, the adult industry, for example, that makes sense, but but also travel and airlines and all kinds of furniture things. It's a lot of things that are gambling, online dating sites, tech support, e cigarettes, CBD, all that kind of stuff. But it's mainly about the card not being present, right? Well,

Rick Kamal  06:09

it's it's the card not being present. Also, the it could be a one the industry itself. So just the industry that, you know, banks aren't primarily a big fan of it can also be the client base. So you know, credit repair owners are very honest, they do their best to help customers, sometimes it's the industry or the people that they deal with, for example, they get someone to get a score, you know, my score got to 699, it didn't get to exactly at 700 the way I wanted it, so they're prone to do chargebacks. They're prone to dispute transactions. And that's another reason why it's self is considered high risk. And that's what makes some industry types high risk, again, outside of cards not being present.

Daniel Rosen  06:50

Makes sense. So can we get into the actual description of what a merchant account is? It's it's like an account with a bank similar, right? They they are they kind of fronting the money we you get the credit card can explain how that works with the money. Yes, of

Rick Kamal  07:08

course. So you go to a business or, you know, this case, you take your payment online, person types in their card, or they type it in for $45, the transaction goes through, if the transactions, there's funds and everything gets verified, it takes the money out of that customers account. And within 24 to 48 hours, the money goes into your bank account, short and sweet. So it's a service for business owners to be able to take payments from their customers. quick, convenient, seamless. And that's really how merchant service, merchant service accounts work.

Daniel Rosen  07:45

Now, what does it take to get approved for a merchant account.

Rick Kamal  07:49

So one of the few things that's going to take is you're going to need to have your client agreement. So this is the agreement that the client signed for your products and services. And the agreement that you guys have with your software is a perfect sample agreement that can be used to open up a merchant account, which is really cool. So it is compliant, you're going to need three months, business bank statements, or if you're brand new, three months, personal bank statements, articles of incorporation or organisation really, just to make sure that we're verifying that your businesses open is legitimate. Naturally, you're gonna need a government issued ID. So passport or driver's licence, state ID. If you have prior processing history, somewhere else, those are perfect. And then actually, we're gonna need a voided check. So we know where to put all of your millions of dollars for all the hard work you do. And then last but not least marking material. So marking material can be as simple as a flyer, a brochure of the products and services that you're offering. For example, once you have all that you're good to go. Got it. So

Daniel Rosen  08:59

you do have to create a business entity of some kind. But it could be a simple one like an LLC, right?

Rick Kamal  09:06

It could be a simple one like an LLC. So if you do end up using a sole prop, for example, you know, setting it up for yourself, you know, Rick Kamal credit repair, and you do it as a sole prop, we can still set you up with a merchant service account for that. But if you are set up as an LLC, or a corporation or incorporated, we're just going to ask you supply the supporting docs and if you are set up, as you know, Rick Kamal credit repair. Just give us your business licence, and we should be able to rock and roll.

Daniel Rosen  09:33

Got it. So you don't have to have an LLC or corporation. You could just be a sole proprietorship, which I know the requirement is having your full name and the business name. But then you'll save a lot of expenses if you're just getting started. Exactly. Got it. Okay, that's really good to know is is it required that you have an office or can people do this from their home?

Rick Kamal  09:56

No, it's really cool as virtual office works or you can do it from You're home. That's the nice thing about that. No, no questions asked.

Daniel Rosen  10:03

Got it? And does it matter? If you're brand new business and have no history?

Rick Kamal  10:07

No, it will take three months personal bank statements.

Daniel Rosen  10:10

Awesome. Now what? What are some common mistakes people make when trying to get a merchant account things they goof up?

Rick Kamal  10:19

I'm glad you asked that one? That's a That's a great question. So some of the things that we've ran into and you know, things that you can avoid, if you're submitting bank statements, again, either personal or business, please make sure you have funds in your bank statement. So don't submit a bank statement, if your ending balances, you know, negative 20 $30. Why? Because this is the safety net that the bank uses to, you know, to validate, you know, if this person had a refund, or they had a chargeback will this put their will this put them out of out of sequence will this mess them up. So making sure that you, you know, provide healthy bank statements. Another thing that you can avoid is using the words trade line. So that's a very big one. So if you're going to provide marketing material or flyers, or your website, making sure that you have the words like trade line, remove student debt consolidations. And if you offer like a variety of different services or products, what we've always recommended to do if it's for credit repair, have a site dedicated just for credit repair, then some last we will why does that matter? Because the notary because if you offer notary, you offer bookkeeping, underwriting another side doesn't know what they're paying $99 for? Is it for credit repair? Is it for bookkeeping? Is it for notary? So there's just some ways to you know, get you rockin and rollin? And then, of course, just make sure you have you know, all your other supporting documents in order. And that I think those are probably the two biggest ones is just having healthy bank statements, and making sure that we don't use words like trade line on our website or marketing material.

Daniel Rosen  11:53

Got it? And don't take don't talk about trade lines in the credit repair cloud community. Either

Rick Kamal  11:59

not it will be a no, no. And that's a big no no for us to so we were definitely on the same page. Yeah,

Daniel Rosen  12:05

cool. And you actually what I love about you is you actually hold them by the hand and help them through all of this when someone applies with five star, right

Rick Kamal  12:17

100%. So we actually help you from start to finish. So we do offer a class of some sort to make sure our clients are set up for success. So during the class, we go over their rates, we go over the required documents, we give them some credit repair, you know, education tips, merchant service education tips, to make sure that they're set up for success, once they have all the supporting documents, because clients are in different places, some just want to search, some just want to get started right away, and some are just waiting for their voided check or they're waiting for additional documentation, but same process, we educate you, once you're good to go, then we get you set up. So just to create that transparency. And to make sure you're you know, the biggest thing is, you know, making sure the money hits your account correctly. So we want to make sure we do our part to make sure we make it as painless and, and convenient for you and and well educated at the same time.

Daniel Rosen  13:08

Absolutely. Now, here's a question we get all the time, how high a credit score do you need to get a merchant account.

Rick Kamal  13:16

So what we've told you is you can have a score around 550. But what we tell everyone is not just credit based. So we look at your whole portfolio. So you might have, you know, challenge credit, but you still want to be able to take payments from your customers might have very healthy bank bank statements. So we tell everyone is let's look at your full portfolio. And we're an advocate for you, we'll fight for you. You know, until then, to get you that merchant service approval that you're looking for.

Daniel Rosen  13:46

Got it. And if you do have a credit score that low and you want to start a credit repair business, you should start by being your own client and fix it. Yeah, you could do that very, very quickly. So what happens after after someone submits their application with you for a merchant account?

Rick Kamal  14:06

Great question. So once the merchant service application submitted, we tell everyone it typically takes one to three business days for approval. If you're submitting your application, everyone, you know, four o'clock on a Friday night, don't count Saturday and Sunday. But once your merchant service accounts approved, we'll send you will get your authorised net or we'll get your gateway set up for you. And we'll even take it as far as helping you integrate it with your software. So if you do use builds before integration, we even take an extra mile help you get integrated from start to finish and then you see you're able to start taking your reoccurring payments and everything else in between. So again, yeah, typically one to three days once your packets submitted. Now if we do still need additional information or what you supplied is a little blurry. You know, our relationship managers work really closely with you to get that you know, to get it submitted to get it you know, submitted in so we can get you get you up and running.

Daniel Rosen  14:57

Awesome. Okay and we talked about what should not be on On the website, but is there anything special that should be on the website of a credit repair business applying for a merchant account,

Rick Kamal  15:07

for sure. So Terms Conditions, privacy policy, the refund policy, and anything that you probably want to have on your website, if you do have your prices, make sure that your prices are consistent with what's also on your client agreement. So we've seen websites where your website will say that we charge $99 a month, but your client agreement shows that you charge $129. So just making sure that you're consistent along those lines, legal name, phone number, making sure all of your contact information is correct, on your on your website. And then they you don't have any links that just go randomly to a whole different website as a middle of nowhere that's not consistent with what products or services that you're offering.

Daniel Rosen  15:50

Makes a lot of sense. Now, here's another thing people always bring up in our community is near an in person site inspection.

Rick Kamal  15:59

So the only time we require that is if you're going to invite me over for barbecue, other than

Daniel Rosen  16:06

if you're gonna feed me inspection with with you guys.

Rick Kamal  16:09

Absolutely not, unless you're going to feed me we don't need to come take a look at your house, take a picture of where you're, you know, where you're working, or what you're doing. And that's one of the cool things we haven't done that since fivestar began, we know our community, we trust our community, we're very close with our community as well as our bank relationships. So yeah, it's just as simple as submit your information we can get you going.

Daniel Rosen  16:32

That's awesome. What what does it cost to have a merchant account,

Rick Kamal  16:37

there is a $50 a month, so there's a $50 months. So as long as you know, you're gonna make over $50 a month, you're good to go. What we tell every client is the rates itself, we have two options. So option where if the clients want to pay credit card processing fees, or if they want to pass it on to their customers, and we typically give them both options, whatever route they want to take, but your rates are around to 2% plus 10 cents a transaction. We don't do contracts. So we're not a big fan of contracts at all. And then once your merchant service account set up, there is a setup fee of $150. But that does include your gateway set up. And the cool thing is when we set up your gateway, if you go to authorise.net directly, you pay $25. With us, it's 15. So you'll save yourself $120 A year because of the amount of business that we do with them. So get some savings right then and there. And then other than that, nothing else I can nothing else I can think of that would stand out.

Daniel Rosen  17:39

Well, that's awesome. And if there's no agreement, then they can cancel anytime.

Rick Kamal  17:45

And that was one of the big things that we prided ourselves on is for me, I personally don't like contracts. Yeah, I don't want to put my customer in the same situation for stuff that I I don't stand behind. So that's one of the things is, you know, if we have to earn your business every single month, I'm a firm believer in that, you know, we started off helping you from day one, we want to treat you the same way we treated you on day one to give that five star experience. So it has to be earned every single month.

Daniel Rosen  18:14

That's awesome. Because some of the other companies, they have scary contracts, and then you get charged lots and lots and lots of money if you cancel, which I always thought was really creepy. So this is good to know. You don't have that. No contracts. Awesome. Okay, so someone gets a merchant account. There are other parts needed to collect money you touched on one of them which which was the gateway authorised dotnet is a gateway. Can Can you describe what a gateway is? What it does? Yeah.

Rick Kamal  18:46

So what a gateway is gateway is like a middleman. They're the ones that will let you let you in the door. Right. So when you whenever you type in a transactions, they are a virtual terminal. So they're going to be able to let you take transactions right there on the spot. If you want to type your no card number 12345. Right then in there, if you want to be able to connect it to your website, or your subscription base, billing platform like bills bills example, you can connect it over there. And it also does have the invoicing, reoccurring billing features on there. So gateway, secures encrypts blocks the payment, sends it to the merchant service processor five star which will give it all the data would be card number, amount to you know, take out it gets processed. And then from there, once it gets processed, the money hits your once it clears, the money hits your bank account. Chain. That's it.

Daniel Rosen  19:46

Yeah, we should talk a moment about bills B bills B is the recurring payments platform that most credit repair cloud users use. It's very inexpensive and that's for the recording. subscription payments, if people do business that way,

Rick Kamal  20:04

100% once someone's set up their merchant accounts going, we do help them get that set up. So as long as they have their bills via account, we help them get their API codes that are within their authorised on an account connected to their bills be. And as you mentioned, for example, if they want to charge the individual 199 a month, or if they want to do a special plan where they want to do like a Mother's Day special, and they want to be able to track all of that, you're going to need to be able to process those payments. In there, you're going to have connected to your authorised net account.

Daniel Rosen  20:35

That's awesome. I didn't realise you help people set up bills be as well, that's great. Yeah, it's yeah, it's different parts, you have to take the API key from one and put it in the other. And, and it's, it's it's not complicated, but it's stuff most people have never done before,

Rick Kamal  20:51

you guys actually did an amazing job at explaining it on how to get it done. Which is very, very nice to help us and help you on our team. But just because we want to be able to provide that five star experience to our customers, you know, we do go the extra step, and get them going from start to finish.

Daniel Rosen  21:09

That is really awesome. And by the way, anybody listening, if you want to learn more about a deeper description of all these different parts, we also have a guide to getting paid at credit repair, which is completely free, it goes into depth on all these things. I'm going to put a link in the show notes. But you can also, if you don't want to look at the show notes. That's okay, you can also Google credit repair cloud guide to getting paid at credit repair. And that will come up first. And it goes into a lot more detail about this. So let's get into the business basics. Rick, what are some of the biggest mistakes that credit repair business owners make related to collecting payments and dealing with customers over money.

Rick Kamal  21:56

So I'd say one of the biggest things mistake wise, is because now you know, with this industry type, we might have customers that are not aware that payments are going to come out. So taking the extra mile and notifying your customers that payments are going to be withdrawn out of their bank account. So if you know your payments are going to be done on the 15th Given that notification on the 13th get that notification on the 12th in a minute, we're going to be debiting your account, these are ways one to you know ensure that if you need to stop a payment on a customer's behalf to give them that amazing customer service experience. You can. It mitigates chargebacks because you know, for a customer, they might you know, not I mean our customer, their customer, they might choose paying their gas over paying for their credit repair service. So making sure you let them know about that. So they you know, those avoids avoid chargebacks. And another tip is if you're processing is going to change. So you offer $99 a month for your service. Tomorrow, you wake up and you say hey, I want to offer 299 299 For my service, let your merchant service company know, let us know ahead of time that your processing is going to change. So we can update your portfolio as well, too. So that's one of the things that happens. People grow their business over time, and they start doing transactions over their high, high dollar amount. It's like hold on, that's not what you were approved for. So let's take it back. Let's get you rocking and rolling and get you up and running.

Daniel Rosen  23:26

Got it? Got it. That's really good advice. You talked about chargebacks people listening might not know what a chargeback is. What is a chargeback,

Rick Kamal  23:36

the bane of my existence to what a chargeback is, it's when a customer calls their bank and disputes the transaction. So they can call the bank and dispute it for different reasons. services were not rendered. I'm not sure what this transactions for I didn't allow this transactions, there's a variety of different things that they can dispute. So if you've ever had fraud on your account, and you've called your bank and says, Hey, I didn't allow this transaction to go through, and they, you know, credit you X amount of dollars, they have to pull that money from somewhere. So they pull it from that business. And what a once that what happens with a chargeback and this is why it's so big to use a merchant service company that supports credit repair is if you dispute a transaction, and you are in the credit repair space, or you're in a high risk industry type. And you send that paperwork for example to PayPal or to stripe. Kudos for, you know, verifying that your actual transaction but unfortunately, once they find out that your setup is a credit repair business, your accounts gonna get shut down. So it's also important that because it's industry or this industry type does get chargebacks choosing a merchant service company that is aware of it, they can swallow those chargebacks so if you do need to dispute it, you know to advocate and say hey, the services were rendered You won't be in a position to have your merchant service account closed, you'll be in a position to get your money back that you deserve.

Daniel Rosen  25:05

Got it. And, and nearly every business has chargebacks. This is standard for just about any kind of business that takes a credit card. Am I correct? 100%. But there's like an acceptable level, it's usually at 1% or below, is his standard, or am I right?

Rick Kamal  25:24

You're right on the.so. Anything under 1%? You know, Visa, Visa says, you know, you're compliant, if you're anything under 1%. So stay under that 1%. Mark, to keep yourself in good graces.

Daniel Rosen  25:37

Absolutely. And what are some of the best ways to avoid or mitigate chargebacks.

Rick Kamal  25:43

So as I mentioned, notify your customers ahead of time. So let them know that payments are going to come out, creating transparency, when you have the conversation in the beginning with your client, we are going to be billing you on this date. So confirming payment dates that work best for the client, and work best for your company. Another thing that I would recommend is there are specific mitigation, chargeback mitigation services. So there are third party software's if you do a lot of volume, and you're in a niche where unfortunately, you can't avoid chargebacks, just because it is the as I say is the nature of the beast. There are third party software's that will help you during those mitigation challenges to be able to dispute it. And you know, last but not least, your documents will always set you free. That's the biggest thing. So making sure that you always have your documents in order. So if I sign up for your service, and I went to dispute this, and I call my bank and said I didn't allow this transaction to go through. Just like if you were to go to court, for example, you want to have all of your stuff ready to rock and roll, you want to have your invoice, you want to have your client agreement that you had them sign up for, if you have their IP address, anything and everything you can to verify or validate that that transaction is legitimate is what you're going to need. Not just, you know, a signed receipt that doesn't get the job done.

Daniel Rosen  27:04

Got it got it. And I thought of something to add to that too, to avoid chargebacks. If some if you have a customer who's unhappy, and they asked for a refund, give them the refund, right

Rick Kamal  27:18

500%. As much as that's a hard pill to swallow, if you provided a good service, I know sometimes in that situation, but at the end of the day, given the refund, it's better from a customer experience standpoint. And you know, if they still try to dispute it, it's still going to impact you, you know, in your portfolio, seeing that you had a chargeback. So just let it go. And then you know, push on, keep growing. Yeah, and

Daniel Rosen  27:43

the other thing is, if you give the refund, you may avoid that customer writing something terrible online. And that could cost you way more than you're refunding. 100% Yeah. So I always I mean, I know in the beginning of our business money was really tight, I was selling a little $20 Download, I would sell maybe two or three of those a week and live on top ramen. And if I got a chargeback, that was really, really painful. And I would argue with those people and try to do whatever I could to hang on to that $20. And then finally I learned just give them the money. And I started thinking that the more refunds you give, the more money you make. Because then your reputation, your reputation is really all you have. And that keeps it clean. So that that does speaking of which should a credit what you mentioned a refund policy earlier, what should be a what's an appropriate refund policy, from your point of view for a credit repair company?

Rick Kamal  28:43

My personally, my personally, I'd say you know, like you said if they if they want the refund, and it's within 30 days, or you've made maybe you've done one round, then I would go about, you know, as I said, cut your losses, offer the refund right then and there. But if you're, you know, 234 rounds deep, that might be a different situation altogether. But if the service is, you know, even if on your side, you know your service hasn't been good, or to what you expect of your own company. Depending on the time, you might want to make the executive decision to offer that refund just because it could be the right thing to do. So I'd say definitely within the first 30 days. That's probably a good a good start.

Daniel Rosen  29:29

Yeah, or I suppose if it's many months, maybe see if you can come to some kind of understanding with the customer. Maybe work things out to pay half it says that ever done things like I

Rick Kamal  29:41

mean, come to an agreement because at the end of the day, if you've if you've done your job for three, four or five months, whatever the case may be, you know, you deserve the hard work that you put in so you like I said you probably want to have that conversation with that client. Understand why the experience was was not the best and why they're really requesting a refund. And then you know, if done correctly, you know, you can either settle out, maybe even not giving a refund, if it was miscommunication or refund is granted, work it out to give them a less, you know, less amount 5050 down the middle is probably would probably be a good, good middle point.

Daniel Rosen  30:18

Got it. And what I'm hearing through all of this through everything we've been talking about is communication is really is everything. So many people hide from their customers and don't talk to them, and they don't know what's going on. And it's really just letting them know what's happening every step of the way, right?

Rick Kamal  30:34

100% good, bad or ugly, people will respect you more if you let them know what's going on, versus just hiding out altogether. It's, it causes more stress for you. And it might cause more stress for your business.

Daniel Rosen  30:47

Yeah. And it's a people business, you have to interact with your customers. Yeah. And it's it's really customer service, heavy business, you have to be good with people. And if you are and you talk with them, then you're going to avoid all these issues over money. 100%, what's your advice to anyone just starting out with a credit repair business?

Rick Kamal  31:09

My advice for anyone starting out with a credit repair business, is make sure you keep it simple. So there's so many people out there that have they want to go from zero to 100 Real quick, because they see this person successful, or they're seeing screenshots of someone doing 60 $70,000. But you know, everyone's started at $1. So I'd say keep it very simple. And educate your customers before you sell or offer any services your customers, I think that's the biggest thing that you want to do. You go to Open House, don't go in there and saying I offer credit repair service, go in there saying I want to provide free education. Take advantage of the awesome classes that you guys offer, you guys offer some amazing classes to make sure that they're set up for success. So using the tools that your your software provides you because it doesn't steer you the wrong way it gets you going correctly. But yes, keep it simple. provide education to your customers. And when you do that, people will come to you. No questions asked.

Daniel Rosen  32:10

Awesome, awesome answer. Thank you for that. Okay, before we close out of here, I want to switch gears real quick. And we're going to go into a rapid fire round of questions where I'm going to just ask you something and the answer with the first thing that pops into your head because I want to learn more about you. Okay, hear me, okay. What's the most important lesson you've learned as an entrepreneur?

Rick Kamal  32:33

That your stressful days is not your most stressful day? There will be more so just play it cool and keep pushing along.

Daniel Rosen  32:42

Amen to that. I snorted. What is your biggest superpower in business?

Rick Kamal  32:50

My ability, I'd say mine my ability to relate to my clients and understand their needs.

Daniel Rosen  32:57

Awesome. What does business ownership mean to you?

Rick Kamal  33:01

business ownership means making sure you set up your clients for success. So getting back I'd say giving back is the biggest thing about being a business owner. Me too.

Daniel Rosen  33:15

What drives and motivates you.

Rick Kamal  33:18

Honestly, my team, my family first and foremost, and my team, you know, someone comes in on day one, I'm able to see the pics of their vacation that they went on and stuff that they're able to do, because of what we're doing as a company, you know, people that were able to help and seeing the customer, man see my customers going from, you know, processing that $1 To all of a sudden now they're doing 50 $60,000 a month and just seeing, seeing the growth. I think that's really, really cool. Yeah,

Daniel Rosen  33:46

yeah. What's your definition of success?

Rick Kamal  33:50

Giving back, the ability to give back is my level of success. So when you know something like I know, for example, my history, I'm a killer, I'll be honest, when it comes to merchant services, I know my stuff. So it'd be able to just do stuff like this taking the knowledge you have, and giving it back to people as is what I what I really enjoy.

Daniel Rosen  34:11

Awesome. You and I are a lot alike. That's what I like to okay, if you could go back in time, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

Rick Kamal  34:21

I have to say that it is as much automation as that you want to be able to do with your clients. You do not want to lose the human touch and the human quality of the relationship. Being that person that you can still have you can they can still pick up the phone and talk to I'd say it's probably the biggest thing is don't go 100% on automating. Going up to where you can keep the flow of your business going but don't lose touch of who you are what your company stands for.

Daniel Rosen  34:50

Amen to that. Rick, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I

Rick Kamal  34:55

know for sure. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Daniel Rosen  34:57

I know this is going to help a lot of people And before we go, I want to tell everyone, if you have a credit repair business and you want to take credit card payments, you must have a merchant account. So reach out to Rick. And you can actually do it with one click from our site. So to get a merchant account for credit repair, go to credit repair cloud.com/merchant and then choose five star for the best deal. And I'm going to put that link in the show notes as well. And thank you again for being here. Rick, you're so awesome.

Rick Kamal  35:31

No, appreciate you. Thank you so much for your time. And thank you, everyone. Kudos to all your success.

Daniel Rosen  35:36

Yeah. And thanks for being such a good friend to our company here at credit repair cloud, you are the best. Thank you. And to everyone out there. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to click to subscribe so you don't miss any of the secrets that I share each week here on the credit repair business secrets podcast. And if you're a feeling kind, do me a favour and rate me Give me a five star. So we can move up the charts. And be sure to leave a comment or ask a question, because I read each and every one of them. And I will see you on the next episode. And until then be a credit hero and keep changing lives. 

Hey, everybody, it's Daniel again. And really quick, I'd like to invite you to join what I believe is the best thing we have ever created inside the Credit Repair Cloud Community. And it is a challenge that we call that Credit Hero Challenge. If you're just planning out your business, or you're just getting started, and you dream of having a successful business of your own. So you can quit your nine to five 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 credit hero challenge.com That's creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that starting in just a few days. So go get started right now at creditherochallenge.com