Daniel Rosen 00:00
Hey credit heroes. Today we're going to talk with brand new credit repair millionaires, Dylan and Thiago Shively. They are a husband and wife team. They built their credit repair business up to a million dollars in a very short time and in a very, very unique way. And today they're going to share with us their secrets on exactly how they did this. 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 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 creditherochallenge.com Okay, let's get into this deal in is a Army veteran, a father and a husband. He's been featured on Yahoo Finance, and published in Forbes magazine. Viano is his wife, mother of his children and amazing business partner and working together to create and run their business. They have made it into the millionaire's club in just 18 months, and today they're gonna share their secrets on exactly how they did this. So please welcome to the podcast Millionaire's club members, Dylan and Theano Shively. Welcome.
Theano Shively 01:57
We are so excited to be here.
Dylan Shively 01:59
Thanks for having us again.
Daniel Rosen 02:02
And congratulations on the millionaire's club. Thank you. I know you just got it. So you haven't gotten your word yet. Have you
Dylan Shively 02:10
know, we're so excited though.
Theano Shively 02:12
We're waiting. We're checking the mail every day.
Daniel Rosen 02:14
It's gonna look like this. Yes. What would your names? Yes.
Dylan Shively 02:19
Can we when you
Daniel Rosen 02:20
get it? Be sure to take a picture. Oh, we will. We will make sure. So how does it feel?
Theano Shively 02:28
Realistic, right. Yeah, doesn't feel real. It feels uh, I don't. We did it. Right. Yeah,
Dylan Shively 02:35
did it? Yeah, what we did was we just kept our nose to the ground and just kept going and going and going. And then we lifted our head one day and was like, wait a minute, why are they asking us if we want to be a part of this? And then we shared everything. And we're like, Oh, my God, we actually really did it. Yeah,
Daniel Rosen 02:54
I know how hard you've been working. Because to do this in 18 months is amazing. Now we're gonna get into all that. But I want to know first. Where do you guys live?
Dylan Shively 03:04
San Antonio, Texas. Oh, wow.
Daniel Rosen 03:08
We were just there. Well, we were near we were in Austin. Just last week.
Dylan Shively 03:13
You're an hour away from us. Oh, darn. Well,
Daniel Rosen 03:17
we're gonna be back in March. So maybe we can come and visit you. Yeah. Hey, we can set that right up. Okay, awesome. Is that where you both grew up?
Dylan Shively 03:25
No, actually, we're from Pennsylvania. So long story short, we came from Pennsylvania. We moved here July of 2020. And so we've been here. How long? Has it been just actually almost about the 18 months, almost 18 months? And we definitely have a story for it. But I'll let you.
Theano Shively 03:45
Yeah. So I was born and raised in Redding, Pennsylvania, which is about 45 minutes on the outskirts of Philly. So I know that's like a big point in Pennsylvania. So I was born and raised there. And I met Dylan through work pretty much. I don't know if you want to tell that. Yeah,
Dylan Shively 04:02
Remo story. Yeah. Well, when
Daniel Rosen 04:04
I hear the story, what was the work? Okay, good. So
Dylan Shively 04:07
previous to this, I used to be a district manager, and also a managing partner at a Verizon store sells running all their Pennsylvania locations. And when I had the opportunity to buy one of the stores, which was two hours away from where I used to live, I was deciding do I sell one of my cars? I'm a huge car person. Do I sell one of my cars to get the money to put my investment into the store? Or do I go to the bank and get a loan? And so my business mind was saying, let me go to the bank that's in the same parking lot as the store that I have. And maybe we can exchange business in the future if I use them. And she wind up being my like, loan officer with the loan.
Theano Shively 04:48
Yeah, wow. That's so cool. I was working in banking. I've been in banking for 12 years. So when he came in, he's like, Hey, I'm gonna buy a store. I need a bank loan. Got it, you know, did the deal closed it and then we ended up dating. And here we are. Yeah.
Daniel Rosen 05:05
That's amazing. So you're at the bank and Dylan and you're very entrepreneurial. Yes, it sounds like you've had lots of businesses, what was your life like growing up?
Dylan Shively 05:15
So for me, I'm very lucky, I have both of my parents, my parents have been married forever. So I have like a lot, a lot of the benefits. I know, some people have some struggles of, you know, single parents are rough, you know, growing up, I didn't have it rough growing up. But it also wasn't easy. One of the things financially speaking, like we didn't talk about those things, but you can tell as you get older, when some bills are missed, and some things happen, and when what you get for Christmas is like a pair of socks for a couple of years. But you're so still grateful for spending the time together. You know, so we had our ups and downs, just like anybody. And so as I was getting older, I kind of got myself in a little bit of trouble. But the good thing about that is, I was forced to enlist into the military when I was 17. And that's how I joined the Army. And they were the ones who definitely straightened me out and got me away from hanging around with the bad crew and doing the bad things. And so I do a lot there. I have a I have a real strong passion for that. Because I feel like without going through it, I would not be where I am today, and I would not be the person I am today.
Daniel Rosen 06:21
Army. Wow. Thank you for your service. Thank you. How long were you in the army? Six years? Six years? Yeah. And then what led from Army to credit repair? What was that path.
Dylan Shively 06:34
So in the shortest way I could say it. And when from when I got out, I got my first job in car sales, actually. And I was in car sales for about five and a half years, then I transitioned out of car sales because the money was great. But I can't tell you how many birthdays funerals, weddings, get togethers that I've missed over the years. Like it got to a point where my like my aunts and uncles and cousins, like barely remember who I am just because I was never around. So then I transitioned into the store. So I started as a store manager for Verizon, and of course, worked my way up. And it was only 10 minutes from the house. So where my car sales job was over an hour away. So I was like closer to home, not driving as much. And, you know, it was huge benefits for me, because the time spending with family then became more important than acquiring the money. That's where I started to learn that yes, the money is is necessary, but it's not important and should not be the number one thing. So yeah, so I switched over from car sales to Verizon. And throughout that time, I can't tell you how many people wanted to buy a car and couldn't get approved. Right. And sometimes the stories you hear of, here's this guy who was in a previous divorce. And now he has a new wife and maybe taking on some kids. And he's trying to buy a bigger vehicle that suits everybody. And we have to tell them, hey, you have to come up with a couple extra $1,000 and the payments gonna be $800 a month, even though you just got done telling me you can afford 300 Because now you're feeding kids. And I never had a solution for it. And believe it or not the same thing happened in Verizon, where you know, you finance phones now they're 1000 to $2,000. And so people would need phones for whatever reason. And when they would get denied and they had to go on a prepaid plan. It didn't make them feel good. And I feel like in like a sales position, whether it's cars or phones, your job is to make people feel good and excited about what they're getting. It's not supposed to be a dragged out thing. So I was doing the complete opposite. Then for myself working on commission, I barely like I was having some good months and then I barely started making it because I thought being young Commission's forever, everybody's always buying everything and I'm always gonna make money. And I found out that was not the case. So I wind up shopping for credit repair myself, and I'm sure you've heard plenty of these stories where I then long story short became my own customer after wasting a couple $1,000 on another company that didn't do the things they were supposed to do. Wow.
Daniel Rosen 09:12
And Fianna you probably also saw the same situations as a loan officer.
Theano Shively 09:17
Oh, yes. I mean, every day, I would have to tell people I'm sorry, you know, your home equity loans declined, your credit card is declined. And if same thing you'd hear the stories and it would be sad, we had no solution. Yes, we had a secured credit card. But for the loan, we didn't have a solution at that time at the bank. So saying no to somebody and having no solution. It's like your hands are tied. It's sad. It's it's a hard job to say no to somebody. And when he presented it to me to say Hey, babe, like listen, I think I'm gonna start repairing credit full time now and I'm like, oh, okay, you know, I mean, it's not a secret credit repair, some time has this stigma against it? Sure. All right, sure. Like, go ahead. support you. And he started doing it. And months and months of studying different programmes, seeing what's best. I muted for a while there. He was just reading things on a notebook. I'm like, What's this? I saw names and he's like, Oh, those are my credit repair clients. I'm like, Oh, okay. And then he presented like, one day, I don't know where he's like, I am booked. I need help. And I'm like, okay, so what do you want me to do? And he's like, Well, I need you to quit your job. And I was scared. I mean, have I was a branch manager, I had a secure job. I had benefits. I 401k insurance. I had it all. And when you're a business owner, you don't get all that, you know, right away. So I was scared at first. But I trusted him. I googled things i, we searched. And I was like, You know what, I guess I'm going to take a leap of faith. And I'm going to quit my job after 12 years. And that's what I did. And we joined forces. And here we are today.
Daniel Rosen 10:58
That is so cool. And so initially, you were just doing everything manually. Yeah, word processors, and yeah,
Dylan Shively 11:05
like literally everything. So wearing all the hats. And I'm not joking when I would say I had this lazy boy next to our house in Pennsylvania, it was it was my favourite chair ever. And I wouldn't leave it. I would not leave it for 1415 hours a day, doing consultation calls, posting on Facebook, doing all types of stuff to get it ramped up and going. And then as I got some results for people, I'm very driven like social media wise, I love Facebook, I love Instagram, stuff like that. So I started posting results. And then I made people believers that I can actually do it, and then it just blew up out of nowhere. And I begged her what she's not telling you is I begged her for over four months to, to quit her job. And then I make her like, promise me like, I'm gonna go put in my two weeks at this time, and then I asked her about it, but I totally get it. She was, you know, a little nervous about it. Because you think about, well, what's this stability, like, I don't know anything about this industry. And when you Google things about it, it doesn't have the best reputation. So I want to associate myself with that, you know, coming from the whole corporate bank world. But what was absolutely amazing, and then I'm super grateful for it, she trusted me anyway, to know that I was going to do the right thing and make it happen. Because we do have kids. And you know, it's not like we just have to feed our mouths, we have a roof over our head, we have bills to pay. We have children who you know, rely on us, you know, for food and clothes and shelter, and he NAC and everything. So I always say a tonne all the time, especially in our presentations and seminars that honestly without her, we wouldn't be where we are now.
Daniel Rosen 12:45
That's amazing. You literally went all in? Yeah, how long that that's frightening. That must be very frightening to leave that job. And that security in the 401k and go all in.
Theano Shively 12:59
And I'm like a super numbers person. So like, when I quit the first month, I'm like, Okay, we have to close this many deals for me to pay my bills, like I would put it in writing, this is what I had to do. And I think by the second or third month, we were so busy, I stopped counting. And we looked back and myself I generated it was like 21,000, I believe, Oh 25 I don't even know the number. So I generated myself 25,000 In the month. And I was so proud of myself. And I come from a background of my family's Greek. So a lot of Greeks own businesses, right. So my dad used to ozone, his business, he had a sandwich shop. So I grew up in that owning your own business working hard putting all in. And when I went to the corporate world, it was a huge change for me because I was used to just working on my dad shop all the time. And then when I quit, it was a huge change for me because there wasn't rules like I was on my own boss. So I don't have to worry about dressing up or following you know, you can say this, but you can't say that. And in banking, there's so much compliance involved. And it was a big change. But I'm happy I did it. And obviously he gave me all the support. And my accountability partner. Yeah. Which is key in any business, I think.
Daniel Rosen 14:13
Wow. So literally, just a few months, you were able to make a living at this. And then a few months later, you were making far more than your salary at the bank.
Theano Shively 14:23
Yes. It's funny. You said that because the four months he was begging me. I kind of gave him a I guess like a it was a deal clerk. I
Dylan Shively 14:34
don't know. She was calling me out. That's what it was. She was saying in order for me to feel comfortable to know that this is going to work. You need to make x this month. And I said okay, and so I hit it that month, and then she was like Okay, that's great. I know I said this but actually I meant for this month now you got to do this. And it kept going up and up but go
Theano Shively 14:56
Yeah, so then like month, four hits and he goes he says all day Respect, I just made your salary in like four months. And I was like, oh, okay, I think I'm gonna do this. And it was scary. It was scary to put my two weeks. And it was very scary because again, I was with the bank for 12 years, I was passionate about the bank. And the only thing that I would say we didn't have a solution for was credit repair, and saying no, again to clients, it was tough. So we got into that. And I think we just soared from there. Having a solution for people, I think is key to any business, you know. And that's kind of where we grew up. Plus a pandemic, I mean, that it helped us big time helped us business wise, it was sad the stories that we were hearing, but we were happy that we're able to help them.
Daniel Rosen 15:46
And in those first months of launching the business and getting clients and starting to make revenue, was it expensive? Did it cost a lot to launch this business?
Dylan Shively 15:57
No, not at all. Honestly, I mean, the first, I guess, quote, unquote, mistake that I made was, you know, you started getting all these ads for like, we'll get you more leads, and we'll get you more leads, right. So, you know, I drank the Kool Aid, and I didn't know any better. So I did that. And I realised, okay, they're getting the quantity that they said, but the quality is not there. And then we started to realise, like, Hey, this is the type of business that requires you to be relationship based, you genuinely have to care about the person on the other end of the phone and realise the sacrifice that they're making to open up the most sensitive thing about themselves to you, and that they trust you with all of that, and then compensate you in hopes that you're going to be the person to fix it. That cannot happen on a cold lead source. So Right. That's where we switched everything, our entire model of how we were going to help families and realising that it was so much more than just the basic transaction. Yeah,
Daniel Rosen 17:01
it's got to be mission driven. Mm hmm. Which clearly you are, am I right?
Dylan Shively 17:06
Oh, yeah, absolutely. We can tell you some stories.
Daniel Rosen 17:09
Tell me some stories?
Theano Shively 17:11
Well, I mean, I think in the beginning, he was helping friends family, and one of his friends said, Hey, can you repair my credit, I want to buy a house. So I think you know, that triggered something for us. And so well, let's really sit back and think about it. We don't want to buy leads, we just don't want to do it. That's not us. We are relationship based in the banking industry. I had to talk belly to belly like we always were in front of a client or customer. And so Dylan in the car industry at Verizon, it was a Belly belly transaction. Right? So and today's world, we lose that. But we're like, Well, how can we do that? How can we implement that and the business that we're in today, and that was really zoning in on affiliates, or partners, which were real estate agents and loan officers. And we really started connecting with them so much, that that's how we grew our affiliate base up to things like 434, or something like that. Or so.
Daniel Rosen 18:07
434 affiliates. Yep.
Dylan Shively 18:10
And we, we enrol about an additional one to two, if not every day, almost every other day. It started to explode big time.
Daniel Rosen 18:22
That's amazing. You guys are like superheroes. That's so impressive.
Theano Shively 18:27
Sometimes we feel like it yeah, you are. Yeah. And
Daniel Rosen 18:31
credit heroes for sure. Exactly. How many clients do you have today?
Dylan Shively 18:36
Just over 3100 It's like 3100. And something? Yeah, actually, I'll while you go ahead and do that. I'll look it up and tell you exactly. Yeah. So
Theano Shively 18:45
um, so we really started focusing more on, you know, the homebuyers. I was at one point I was a single mom. Before I met Dylan, my previous marriage, I had two kids and I bought my house by myself. It was it was hard. And we started really looking at people who are paying rent and just wasting their money on rent. And we're like, okay, how can we help these people because their dream is to be a homeowner. So we started focusing on building our Realtors, and we start focusing on the loan officers and the clients that we would talk to. It was just crazy. The situation that they were in like, it almost seemed like a movie. I really take into consideration single moms. I mean, so much of that one of our clients actually ended up. We gave him our apartment to stay in. So I was pregnant. Long story short, we were in a very nice luxury apartment, but a couple buildings down from us. It actually burned. There was a fire, the whole building burned down. I was scared. And I was like, I don't want to live here anymore. We just moved to San Antonio. I think we're only here for like five months. And my great husband that he is he's like alright, I'll get you out of here but our lease has ended up for like another six months, what are we going to do? And I'm like, I don't know, figure it out. So I was like, You know what, I just had a conversation with a client who's living in an Airbnb, her credit was so bad. She was living in Airbnb with her two kids. And I talked to him about it. I said, What do you think if we let her stay in our apartment? And he's like, Okay, do you trust her? I'm like, I don't know her. She's a client. But like, she seems like a good person. And I want to help her. And we did. So we turned her two kids moved in our apartment, we paid for, like, 75% of the rent, she only paid a third and the utilities. Yeah, we paid utilities, and she stayed in our apartment. And then, you know, we ended up doing well for her and she got a new car, she got what she needed to get. And we're passionate about our clients. Like, I don't know, sometimes he says, I'm too nice. But
Dylan Shively 20:51
I mean, I totally get it though. Like, once I met her and her family, like it just it made a lot of sense. And you know, to the average person to the average, you know, business owner or person running a business is not going to say, hey, you need to place a stake, go ahead and stay in my place. And we're going to pay for all of this stuff for you. Just because, like she wasn't somebody that we knew. It wasn't like, hey, at least we've known her for some time, she was legit just the client. But to us in that same breath, just a client, that phrase means so much more. And then just before I forget, I pulled it up on here, just so you can see. There you go.
Daniel Rosen 21:28
3120 clients. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, and amazing the story about your apartment and helping people in the way that you do that explains why you've got so many clients word gets around. When you do right by people.
Theano Shively 21:44
That's 100% Correct. It's if you do right by people, you know it word gets around, we don't look at the sale in front of us. We're not a transactional credit repair company. We're not like okay, when done another one done. It's like, Hey, how can we take care of this person because guarantee that person is going to know another person who needs credit repair and that person is going to know someone else? We didn't have to pay for funnels, we don't have to pay for leads. It all comes organically because we take care of that first person.
Dylan Shively 22:11
Yeah, this is all $0 spent. We no ads, no funnels, no TV, no radio, no carrier pigeon, nothing. We don't we don't pay for anything. marketing wise.
Daniel Rosen 22:24
It's really just organic word of mouth. And affiliates.
Theano Shively 22:30
Yeah, yeah, credit education. So I don't know if you can see his sweatshirt credit education. So we're big on that. Dylan spends about, I don't know, 60 hours a week, educating real estate agents and loan officers, he was just doing a presentation today. Um, so that is how we, technically I guess your lead generation, because he goes out he presents to client or real estate agents, he presents the loan officers, at the brokers we built relationships with them, they let us use their rooms or conference rooms, and we packed the house and every pretty much day we're doing a presentation.
Daniel Rosen 23:04
I saw one of your videos, it looks like you you put on an event. You you do a seminar, you feed them what goes into one of the what makes a successful event and and where are you doing the event and who for
Dylan Shively 23:18
so any event that we do, because I have multiple different types of classes and seminars that are that I'll do. So for example, I can do a credit 101 for real estate agents. And then I'll also do a second class for agents. That is how to build your real estate career through credit repair. Right? So it's understanding that our job is twofold. The first one is making sure that we're getting clients in homes. And then the second part or the byproduct of doing that means that's going to be more commissions for the agents that they would have never got if they didn't refer them over to us. So when we're hosting these classes, the purpose is to educate the agents to show them exactly how we do that. So of course, like before credit repair cloud, we didn't have this option. But now with it, I cannot tell you how often I mean, well, you know, with how many affiliates we have, how often we use the portal, right? So not just the client portal portal, but we call it like the partner portal by No, it's the affiliate portal, we just put our own name on it. But um, we actually leverage that majorly. And it has been one of the most successful things that when I'm demoing that in a seminar or a class full of real estate agents, they love the idea that they have pretty much a free CRM, that they can look at all of their credit repair clients in one place without filtering anything. And then they can see how many signed up how many did not sign up. And then he asked us why didn't they sign up and we'll give them all the details so they can know what's going on. So to make that class successful, all we have to do is make They know what they're showing up for. And of course, you feed them a little bit. Everybody likes free food, you know, but they don't come just for that they come with the desire to be educated, because nobody in our industry in our area is doing it at that level. Right? So we even went so far into it that like to be a real estate agent, you have to have your licence, and you have to have CEE, you have to do continued education. In order to maintain that licence. Well, we got to prove to trek the Texas Real Estate Commission to give actual CPE credits to the agents to show up to our class. So we're actually contributing to them maintaining and keeping their licence and getting their hours while educating them and showing them how the business should be run morally and ethically. And how to debunk those myths on what their thoughts are when they hear the term credit repair. Wow,
Daniel Rosen 25:57
that is one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard that you've got to credited for that. That is really, really cool. Thank you. And then what's the impact this is having on their business
Dylan Shively 26:10
huge, is one of the scenarios we give is this if the average price of a home and we know inflation and crazy prices and paying over asking, but let's say the average home is $300,000. And at that at a 3% commission. And of course, if you're an agent, or anything that's watching this, I understand you have splits and things like that, but just for the math purpose, if you have a $300,000 home at a 3% commission, which most charged three to 6% 3% is $9,000. Well, if you sent us five clients who couldn't qualify that month, and four to seven months later, they become qualified. That's $45,000 as a commission to the agent right there. And that's assuming they're all at just the $300,000 price point.
Daniel Rosen 26:57
So it could easily more than double their income.
Dylan Shively 26:59
Absolutely.
Theano Shively 27:00
Absolutely. And it has, it has we have a lot of real estate agents and loan officers who will, you know, send us hundreds of clients. And they tell us all the time, thank you so much for the services that you provide. Because not only does it make myself stand out from other agents that maybe aren't using credit repair, but now I can, you know, go on a trip with my family. Now I can get this new car now I can pay all my bills, or whatever the case may be. Because we have tripled their income in a month because of it.
Daniel Rosen 27:33
So you're changing your partner's lives and the clients lives. You're just changing lives all around. This is amazing. It's a win win. And it's changed your lives.
Dylan Shively 27:43
Oh yeah, absolutely. The byproduct of doing the right thing and serving other people is eventually you wind up getting what you want, as long as you can put them first.
Daniel Rosen 27:51
Exactly. I always say if you focus on money, sure, you'll make money but it'll only grow so far. But that passion for helping people. You focus on that and the money comes and you guys are living proof of it. Yeah, exactly. It's amazing. Okay, I want to talk about marketing because I know you're not doing paid marketing. Yeah, but you're doing organic marketing, on social media on like Instagram and Tik Tok.
Dylan Shively 28:17
I have been doing more tick tock. Yes, I'm not the most popular in the world that have I think 8200 followers, something like that. So it's not huge, but it's getting there. Yeah, I
Theano Shively 28:27
would say, Yeah, I'm pretty much the head of the marketing. I do the Instagram, the Facebook, our personal Facebook, and I do credit education. So I don't want to hold back anything from clients? Because at the end of the day, can they fix their own credit? Absolutely. But they pay us because it's a peace of mind. And just like we don't want to change your own oil in the car. We pay someone to do it. Right. Sir, same thing. And I don't like to just say, Oh, well, you can't do it. Or you know, it's a secret couriers a secret, it's not a secret, you can do it yourself. Absolutely. So I give a lot of credit education, I post a lot of tips and tricks on what they can do to fix their own credit, I post results. And that is how I kind of brand ourselves and say, Hey, like, we're not gonna hold anything back. We're not here to scam anyone or whatever the case may be like, I'm giving you all the tools and the resources. But what did they do? They don't do it themselves. They don't have time life is busy. So they call us anyways. And you know, we get just regular leads in that way through our website. We always put it on there and kind of build from there. Yeah, it's
Dylan Shively 29:40
crazy to think that other business owners that we've spoken to in the industry because we actually teach other credit repair owners like how to get their business where it needs to go in that it's so funny. How often I hear well, I don't want to tell them everything because then what do they need me for? When it's the actual opposite if you come off as the educator and you're genuine, and you don't make a post, and every single post says, Oh, hey, and go ahead and sign up for this and pay for this, if you actually just put the education out there and help people, what will happen is they then trust you because you're not trying to sell them. And at their convenience, when they're comfortable, they will reach out to you if they need more clarification on a post that you made at one point.
Daniel Rosen 30:26
Absolutely. And it makes it all less mysterious. And yeah, I think that's so brilliant. I mean, sure anyone can cut their own hair, anyone can do their own taxes, anyone can be their own plumber. But who has the time for that? And it's exam for credit repair. So you're doing these videos on Instagram, on tick tock? Are you doing them on Facebook? We're all are you doing them? How long are they? How often do you post them?
Dylan Shively 30:52
So Facebook is at least once a day. And it's like, believe it or not the primary source, because what we like to mix in there also is, hey, we're human. Right? This isn't a let me leverage my personal to gain more business. It's, hey, I'm Dylan. This is the No, we have a family. I love cars, she loves hanging with the kids and having fun. Here's the places we go. And by the way, we are the subject matter experts when it comes to anything you need for credit. So Facebook winds up being the primary source just because I think I mean, I don't want to speak for you. But I think that we can both agree. That's where we get the most personal with people. You know, it gives us the opportunity to get the most personal. So that way people already trust us because they can investigate us and see who we are and what we're about.
Theano Shively 31:45
Yeah, yeah, definitely Facebook. And when I do make credit education posts, or I make any post, I look up what's in the news today, you know, for instance, collection agencies now can go on your social media message you and try to collect debt, you know, so I'm always posting news about the industry news about the mortgage industry, which attracts real estate agents attracts, you know, the loan officers, and that's how we build our affiliates as well.
Daniel Rosen 32:13
Wow, that is so smart. Okay, so once leads come to you, they see these ads or whatever they come to you, if they don't sign up right away, what's your lead follow up strategy.
Dylan Shively 32:24
So to follow up with the leads, we actually have employees, so like actual legitimate put on payroll employees. So of course, we were wearing all of the hats in the beginning. And I think that was part of the craziness of we didn't realise how many months went by just because we would live on the phone with it plugged in call after call text after text, trying to make it happen. But now, we have 38 team members. So it's split in between our onboarding staff, our customer care staff, and then also our dispute team. So we have three, well, technically, we have four because affiliate relations, oh, this is a tool a I guess wherever you are on here, I'll tell you guys, believe it or not out of all of those are affiliate relations team is amazing, and probably one of the most secret weapons ever. Because as we growing clients, you know, you need customer service reps to take care of them and make sure we're nurturing and not just signing them up. And that's it. Well, the same thing goes for our affiliates. And that is what a lot of people don't think of that's why we have over 400 of them. Because we have staff that their job is once they sign up as a partner. They're checking in with them, how are things going? Do you still have access to the portal? Do you need a demo of anything? Do you want to know the status of any of your clients? And on the client side? You know, it's the same thing. They talked to an onboarding member, once they decide they want to sign up and all their questions were answered, they move on to a customer care rep. And that customer care Reps available to them five days a week by text call or email, whatever that client's preferences, and they're there to be that customer advocate and make sure that they never feel like I wonder what my updates are coming Why am I not seeing any progress? Is there anything I could be doing? So that's how it all works. We rather than paying ourselves a tonne of the money, we took more than 90% of it, put it back into our business, hire staff members so we wouldn't drop the ball or let people slip through the cracks or whatever term is being used now. So in that way we can instil confidence in clients and partners to say hey, we're never going to get too big to the point where our customer service slacks or ability to get results or sending letters out. We will never drop the ball because we will staff properly to make sure that you never lose confidence in our ability to serve and get you guys where you need to be.
Daniel Rosen 34:53
That's brilliant. That's really brilliant. So many people who are working like like a one man band. They're so afraid to hire, I think that's so brilliant that you made that shift, because that's a hard shift to make. Yes, it's very, very hard. And you have how many team members? 3038? That is huge. What are your tips for people listening? who are just getting started with their business? What are your tips for growing a team?
Dylan Shively 35:19
Do you want me to go? Or do you want to? Okay, so I want to make sure I don't overstep. So when it comes to building a team, first, you have to know exactly what you want from them. Right? You have to know what parts of my business Am I missing? So for example, you have to be able to poke holes in your own business, and accept your criticism and realise this is a development standpoint. So I know, maybe I have a couple onboarding reps, and we're solid on that end? Well, what happens in the customer journey, when they're already signed up? Well, hey, our customer service kind of slacks do I want to mentally tell myself, Oh, I got this, and I'll pick up and do better? Or do I want to delegate somebody that's going to be able to fill that slot. Another thing with the team building is strategically placing them in the places that they're going to shine best. So for example, we had somebody we brought on to our onboarding team, he was one of our first employees. And I would push and push and push because he was onboarding he had to convert clients into signing up. Well, I found out that that was not his strong suit. And I had to stop trying to push him into that. And as soon as I gave him the customer care role, not only did he crush it there, but he wind up we actually customer service is one of our biggest departments, he manages the entire customer care team. And they are phenomenal at his lead. So it's understanding poke the holes in the business, find out where you could do better, and find people to fill those holes. Because you as the business owner, need to focus on your money making activities. So that's why for example, for me, I'm the lead gen, I go out and I speak in new classes and seminars, because that's what I'm good at the things that I'm not good at, I'm not going to spend time trying to get better, I'll find somebody who can do it better than me. And I'll gladly pay them. Because the time that I free up from not trying to learn it allows me to do my job even better, which is making sure I can keep our onboarding staff as busy as possible.
Daniel Rosen 37:39
Got it. Okay, so now that you've delegated just about everything, for both of you, what are your days like?
Theano Shively 37:47
Um, so for me, after we just had the baby, he's six months old. So I'm kind of more on the back end, I schedule, his AIPAC, his schedule, this poor guy, sometimes back to back with classes and seminars. So I get with agents, I reach out to ellos and say, Hey, do you want to hold a class? Do you want to do it for clients or for yourself? Because ellos lenders, you know, real estate, loan officers are always trying to pull in real estate agents, they want to work, they want to build their book of business, too. So we hold classes, not only does it benefit us, because we're gaining agents, so there's a loan officer. Same thing with the real estate agent, they want to hold classes, because they want to bring maybe teams like for people to recruit to their team. So we're always doing stuff and I booked that I'm always booking things for him. And then I do the marketing. So every day certain times, I'll post, and then I kind of oversee the sales or onboarding team, I oversee kind of the customer service. I'm kind of like the overhead of that stuff. So that's pretty much my day to day.
Daniel Rosen 38:50
Awesome. How about you, Dylan.
Dylan Shively 38:51
So for me, my schedule is completely packed with somebody who runs my schedule, to assign me to all of the places I'm going for the day. And typically, we're booked for just about five to seven days out, where my sole purpose and job is to go out and educate any listening ears that are in the room. So whether it's a first time homebuyer seminar, if it's a credit, one on one for agents, or for loan officers, or like how to build your business, how to increase your pipeline, whatever it is any of the classes that we teach, I'm the main instructor and provider. And so I do a lot of the travelling a lot of the speaking and the engagements. But then also at the same time, I focus on a lot of the poking the holes, and then finding the solution to say how can we improve and be better? You know, for example, we automate a couple things, but we don't rely just on automations because with every layer of automations, you lose the human touch. And then people feel less committed to to you because they can tell the difference of an automation versus a person. So I'm always just Looking at, where are our flaws? How can we improve them? And then oh, I got another seminar go to let me go hop in the car and drive here and prepare for that.
Daniel Rosen 40:10
Sure. Wow, that sounds like a lot like our process. Every monthly. Yeah, we look at the five parts of our business and what's and we rate them and whatever is the lowest, we focus on that in the next quarter. Yeah, it's very, very smart to keep poking holes at your business. That's why you guys have become monsters at this. It's amazing. What are you working on now for the future? What are your plans.
Dylan Shively 40:37
So right now what we want to do is we want to expand in more states. And we know in order to do that, we have to make sure that we don't focus on just scaling, it's actually becoming stable before you go to the next level. So in the past, about 30, to 45 days, we've been really focusing on making sure that all of our systems are flawless. We're not overloading anything, or there's no limits on anything, making sure that our staff is trained and ready to go, auditing their conversations and making sure everything is going as planned. And then really focusing on like the CEE classes for the agents and the loan officers. Because what happens is, when I do one of those classes, and there's anywhere from 20 to 80 agents in the room, you're not talking about one or two people signing up, right? You're talking about multiple agents that enrol and then wind up saying, Hey, I have people so it's making sure that we're not just going up and up and up, it's, you know, being stable. So then that way, we launched big into 2022. Because right now, we're in 23 states, and we want to grow to more. And, you know, that was a huge deal for us as we started to expand out in different states. And, you know, getting our licences and expanding the bond and making sure we're all compliant with all the states. So yeah, that's our main focus right now is we really want to take 2022 and 100x, what we did in 2021, by educating more people, empowering more people and making sure that our systems, our processes, and our people are prepared to handle that workload. Brilliant.
Daniel Rosen 42:20
Now, what's your advice for anyone just starting out with a brand new credit repair business?
Theano Shively 42:25
So I would say, this is like one of my favourite quotes that doing 15 minutes of something is more productive than thinking about it for 15 hours. So going all in, and hey, you may not get it perfect the first time, you don't have to be perfect in everything that you do, and really humble yourself. So when I first started, I had my corporate hat on where I was like, super, like, I need to talk a certain way, I can't say certain things. And it got me nowhere, I had to humble myself and say, Hey, human to human, what's going on with your credit what's happening. So don't think that you need to have it all, like picture perfect, be a human talk to them, like they are just another person and that you're going to help them. You don't have to have everything all squared away. Like we didn't have 38 employees, when first started, it was just him and I customer service, we didn't think about it, it was just we're gonna do it. So just go all in. And as you go, continue to think of the future, you know, don't just get stuck at one spot, you know, think of the next goal and execute on it, don't just talk about it.
Dylan Shively 43:36
That's really good advice. I would say for me, um, is may get a little deep for a second, but I usually think that way. Always do the right thing. And if you want to stand out from anybody in your industry, because again, we're all in the same industry, and there's so many people who do what we do even local to where we live. But if you really want to stand out, just do what's right, not what's easy, right, do the right thing. And if you can't tell the difference of well, how do I know if I'm doing the right thing or not? Well, if that question comes up when you're thinking about implementing a process or doing something that's your answer right there, if you have to question whether it's the right thing or the best option, that is the answer right there. And lastly, when you know your why the how becomes easier. Right so that the deeper the why the why you got started the why you chose this over anything else. The why you want to keep going the you know why to go big. You will figure it all out the deeper you get with that why and the how just become so much easier. Don't get caught up so much in that how am I going to do it? Find your purpose. Be intentional about it. Be genuine about it. Do the right thing. serve other people put them before you, and the how just winds up coming very, very easy. And before you know it, you pick your nose up and you're like, oh my god, I'm on the podcast and I'm a millionaire. Yeah.
Daniel Rosen 45:13
That is so cool. Well put, that's amazing. Hey, what's so that people know you're not perfect? Because no one's perfect. Far from what's one of the big mistakes maybe you've made in the past in your business?
Theano Shively 45:27
Only one. I mean, one was awesome. I mean, definitely like hiring the wrong people. I can tell you in the beginning, we're just looking for butts to fill the seat, you know. And at that point, we're like, Wait, alright, we're losing that relationship, because they're just we hired somebody, I can tell you a story, we hired somebody, their resume was like, so long, they were the best of the best, they manage these million dollar companies, and they were sales, blah, blah, blah. So we hired him, we thought, Oh, my God, he's gonna be amazing. Look at his resume, he lasted maybe two days. Because we actually can keep track of, you know, conversations, we audit that like we really, even though we're kind of outside of the every day client base talking, we still focus on that we don't hold our nose too high that we can't be in that conversation, we need to audit our conversations, we need to do that. So thankfully, we did because the person that we put in that seat did not work out. So that was a huge mistake in the beginning that we were just hiring just to hire. And we got to the point where now our interviews are like, hours long, because they have to be we have to put people in the right seats, we have to get to know you as a person. I don't care how many sales you closed in the past, that's not our business. We're not here just to close deals, we're here to make an impact. And we're here to change lives and improve their quality of life. So we need to make sure that your mindset that you're thinking the same way, you're not just trying to close a deal to get you know, paid or commission. Wow, same here. Same here,
Daniel Rosen 47:01
they have to be a fit for the culture. Absolutely. You have to believe in the mission.
Dylan Shively 47:05
Yep. And you have to put that before the desired results that they can tell you that they're going to give. Because when you align with the culture, and everybody's on the same page, the results wind up coming, you don't put those first, I would say another one of the mistakes that we made, is in our onboarding process, we had training, but it wasn't as good as it should have been. But again, you need to have mistakes happen in order to know how to course correct and compare what is good and what is bad, you got to experience bad to know what good is. So we would onboard some, you know, pretty good people. And there has been times where we have dropped the ball. And being as consistent as we should have been. That's where I got introduced the loom. And that made my life so much easier. Because rather than sitting down, you know, like, say, for example, now if I'm sitting down and training somebody, and then I forgot that I have a class to start, I don't want to cut short and cut the quality of our conversation to train them, you know, because I forgot and you know, has to do this class now. So loom is my best friend. And it helps tremendously. And now we have built an entire onboarding process, to where all of the documents like our non disclosures, and our non competes and all of that, they get signed all in the beginning. And they have their own hub, each employee has their own hub where they have to watch the training videos. And then they take their little quiz to make sure that they know what's going on before they can even start the position. So they have consistency. They have a path and they have an end goal. And now they have a clear way on how to get there where we were definitely bumpy. There were some potholes, and that is 100% on us, we should have could have and would have done way better. But now we've been able to fix
Daniel Rosen 48:55
- Cool. For people who don't know, can you describe what loom is?
Dylan Shively 48:59
Yes. So loom is pretty much like a screen recording platform where and you could do it from your phone to I actually do this. Here's a tip for you guys. I use loom when I have one of our partners that say, Hey, Dylan, I just want to know what's going on with this client's profile. Or even when I would have a client that would say, I want to know why my scores aren't going up or anything like that, what I would do is I would open up their credit monitoring, and then I would open up loom and I would start recording so it shows the entire screen. And then I walk through the entire report with them. So for example, I'm saying like, Hey, here's this deletion, and this deletion, and this deletion, as you can see it came off the credit report, one of the limiting factors for you to get into the seven hundreds or to get a better score to see a bigger jump. It looks like you don't have any open Active Accounts. And here are the links that you want to use and this is how you apply. And what I'm doing is I have all of that in loom and Then if I do have links that they do need to sign up for, like a secured card or self lender, anything that they can build their positive payment history up, I'll attach the links in the email, and then I'll attach the loom video. So then they can see here is everything in detail. And then oh, the links are here to I don't even have to search for them. I can click it. And I can sign up right now. And I know exactly how to do it.
Daniel Rosen 50:24
Brilliant. And the best part about loom is it's free. Yes. Yeah, I don't know how they make money. It's amazing
Dylan Shively 50:32
once they let you do five videos, and but what you can do is you can delete some and then make new ones, but five is the limit. And then after that, I forget what I pay monthly, it's not a lot. Also, that's another thing, don't worry about if you have to invest in your business, these are all small things. Don't look at what the cost is. Because one, you can write it off as a business expense. And two, it's a small investment for a significantly higher return. Because if you take the time to do that loom video, and take the time to give detailed explanations, what winds up happening is you blow the mind of that person because nobody's doing it. And then they tell their friends and their family about you because you're doing the right thing. And you went above and beyond, even when you weren't called to do so.
Daniel Rosen 51:18
Awesome. Hey, what would you do differently if you started your business from scratch today?
Theano Shively 51:26
Oh, that's a good one. Again, I think employees, Dylan and I spent the first I don't know, seven, six or seven months doing everything ourselves. And I can tell you being a mom and I was pregnant at the time. It was horrible. It was tough. There are days I cried, and I wanted to quit. And I thank God I didn't quit. But it was tough. And the reason why is I was more worried like oh my god, we have kids, we need to set up a future. We gotta set up accounts we need, we need the money, we need the money. And my mindset wasn't correct at that time. And when we figured out like, okay, the money is great, but like we're losing it, we need to do something like our sanity, our sanity, yeah, we're losing our sanity. And I'm like, Okay, what do we do? What do we do? We need to hire people. I wish we had done that sooner. Because I think we would have grown faster, we would have scaled faster, there's so much we could do faster. We were just too worried. I think a lot of business owners are like, especially small business owners, they think of the right now sale, and you don't know until you go through it. So don't be afraid to invest in your business. Don't be afraid if you don't get a paycheck, that first month because you're putting the money back into your business. I think that's the only way to really scale and grow your business. You know, if you're cool, if all you're doing is paying yourself every month and not doing anything else with it, you'll get money, like you say you get so far, but to really scale you can't focus on that you have to focus on how what am I going to do to really grow? And it's okay to put money back into your business. That was my big thing. I think about your
Daniel Rosen 52:59
million. How about you doing?
Dylan Shively 53:00
How do I follow that up? No, I mean, I agree 100%. But just another thing that I have is not just the employees, but also the systems, right? So technically speaking, I've been nibbling and dabbling, if that's the word, I think, in the credit repair space since early 2017. But again, like she said, it was the notepad and the paper and trying to write down and remember everything. And I mean, I was even taking payments on like Cash App and Venmo and stuff like excited. No, I didn't know any different. You know what I'm going to say in complement of that, I would have invested into a course sooner rather than later from somebody who was in the position that I wanted to be. Because without I would have never known about credit repair cloud, if I didn't start searching things up. And then honestly, I saw the ad pop up and then I started watching the YouTube videos. And when I heard that you get 30 days for free. The like entrepreneur in me was how many deals can I close to prepay for this and so many months in advance, and I wish I would have known about it sooner. So I was like nibbling and dabbling in 2017 and, you know, a little money here and there but it wasn't, you know, organised it wasn't a business. May of 2020 is when we finally got CRC. And that is when we just went big. And I mean, I have like people for personal development and my circle of influence of people that are outside of the industry. But I think finding somebody who has been in the place that you want to be and becoming their shadow and allowing them to walk you through would have been a significant help for us where maybe this would have been recorded in like 2018 Right, we know those I wish I would have known and it would have been sooner. It's one of those The system's the process and having the person to follow that is in the shoes that I want to wear. Brilliant,
Daniel Rosen 55:08
brilliant, brilliant. Okay, we're running out of time. I gotta say this has been amazing getting to know you guys. I think this is my favourite interview we've done. We've done 100 Thank you. Notes. Yeah, this is so great. Okay, so we're gonna switch gears right now we're going to go into a rapid fire round of questions where you answer whatever pops into your head real fast. The first thing that that you think of, okay, okay, here we go now, okay. What's the most important lesson you've learned as a business owner? Either one of you do the right thing? Is there a book that's changed your lives?
Theano Shively 55:44
That one that I just read? I'm really bad with the chapters. I do a lot of podcasts. How about
Dylan Shively 55:50
a podcast? Yes. Okay. So I have to do the abbreviation because then I'd be cursing. So it's. So it's called MF CEO project? I am for Scylla. Awesome, that podcast has absolutely changed your life. 100%. Cool.
Daniel Rosen 56:07
What does business ownership mean to you
Theano Shively 56:10
being responsible for other people. And, again, doing the right thing and finding a solution for others?
Daniel Rosen 56:18
What drives and motivates you?
56:22
Helping others? Absolutely. So
Dylan Shively 56:24
I've two parts, the results at the end of when we've done our job correctly. And then also my wife and kids, because they depend on me. And I want to set the right example. And honestly, I want to again, this gets deep for a second. But the whole reason that I've done this, and I you know, go through it even on the hard times is because when my kids grow up, I want them to be proud of who their dad was and what he did and who their mom is. And you know what she did and what we did together. Like I want them to be able to talk about us and a sense of pride, like these are who my parents are, and this is what
Daniel Rosen 57:01
they did leave a legacy for them. Legacy I love that. What's your definition of success? Hmm.
Theano Shively 57:11
So
Dylan Shively 57:12
I go for it doesn't matter. I know, just like that. Seeing other people win.
Daniel Rosen 57:18
Love it. Love it. Okay, most important question. Actually, I have two more questions. Sure. First, most important for me, will you guys come and speak at the next credit repair Expo?
Dylan Shively 57:30
When is that going to be? Yes.
Daniel Rosen 57:32
I don't know. Because of COVID. It's kind of scary. We it was supposed to be in Dallas. And then we had to cancel it for COVID. But we're looking at, hopefully mid next year, we're working that we got some meetings coming up to decide oh, yeah, okay, good. Because that helped. Dallas is not too far from you, right?
Dylan Shively 57:52
It's a 45 minute flight. Yeah, from where we are.
Theano Shively 57:54
And it's funny because we were actually scrolling through your YouTube channel. And we saw the promo for the last one. And we're like, we have to be there. We want to be there. So to speak. Absolutely.
Daniel Rosen 58:06
Now, you'll be on stage. And last question. You mentioned that you're helping other credit repair business owners? How can people listening? How can they learn more about that.
Dylan Shively 58:15
So all they have to do, and I'm probably gonna regret saying this. But all they have to do is if they find us on Facebook, they can send us a message directly. And you know, we can go ahead and talk with them and find out what it is that they need help with. And just believe it or not, it's not for everybody, I want to make sure that nobody ever waste any of their money because they thought they were going to get one thing and they wind up getting another. So I would love to have the conversation with people to find out what it is that they need in order to grow their business, and make sure that we're a good fit. I don't see any reason why we would not be because if we have somebody who is genuinely looking to help people, and to serve people and to actually change lives, then they're going to be a good fit for us.
Theano Shively 59:03
And actually one of our 2022 goals is to actually have a course put together right now I can tell you there's nights where Dylan will sit on loom I don't know zoom zoom. Yeah, till like midnight helping another credit repair company or, or a phone call whatever it may be. So I think so far you had 70 students, 7373 students, so he's helped grow and scale their business. So we're like, hey, like, we did it. Look, why not help others get to success. And we really want to put something together for that, and especially as a husband and wife because like I said, doing this together has changed our lives. But it also made our relationship stronger. You know, as a husband and wife, but I'm strong in he may lack in we just kind of work as a team. And we want to show other families or moms and dads that they can do it too. We're not we're no one special. We're just normal people and We want to share that with others that, hey, if you want to change your life, you want to change others, you want to be a part of your community, you can do it too. And we're here to help you.
Daniel Rosen 1:00:09
Awesome. And you're teaching them how to do it the right way, the
Dylan Shively 1:00:13
right way, moral and ethical way, right. Moral morals and ethics typically are not in the dictionary next to credit repair, right, and that mental dictionary we have. So we want to be able to show people, if you want to operate a moral and ethical business that is scalable, that actually helps people, we are a good fit. If you want to just collect a bunch of money, we are not a good fit. If you don't want to change lives other than your own, we are not a good fit. However, if you come from a servant heart, and you do want to deliver and help other people, we are the perfect fit. And we will do all that we can to get you where you need to be with the understanding of knowing we're not doing all the work. We're going to show you how to get the work done.
Daniel Rosen 1:01:01
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I want to thank you both so much for your time today. You are so amazing. And congratulations again on the millionaire's club and all of your success. And thank you for being here. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks for Thanks for having us. Yeah. Oh, you're
Theano Shively 1:01:17
so happy. We were happy to have found CRC. It's literally saved our lives with notebook and paper.
Dylan Shively 1:01:22
We're Yeah, so much more organised.
Theano Shively 1:01:24
And yeah, we're happy to be part of.
Daniel Rosen 1:01:27
I'm happy. You're a part of our family. And I'm happy to have gotten to know you today. This has been great. Please send a picture of the of the holding the award when you say Good, good, good. And to everyone out there. If you are enjoying this podcast. Click below to subscribe so you don't miss any of the secrets we share each week here on the credit repair business secrets podcast. If you're feeling kind, do me a favour, rate me and review me so we can move up the charts, 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 the 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 creditherochallenge.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
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