Starting a credit repair business? With any new business it’s nice to have help from someone who’s been there. Veteran credit repair professionals are often more than willing to help their newer counterparts get their credit repair businesses off the ground. In an industry that is all about helping people achieve their financial goals, it is common to see established companies mentoring new ones to reach as many people as possible. With that in mind, we asked a group of expert credit repair professionals for the top tips they give to people considering entering the industry:
- Credit Repair is NOT a part-time job
So many people think they can do credit repair one or two days a week on top of their current full-time job. This is almost never successful. Clients and prospects will not take you seriously if you’re only reachable a few hours a week. If starting a credit repair business is something you are serious about, and you want to build a profitable business, make it a full-time job.
- Create a business plan
The “start first, think later” method is never a good idea when starting any kind of new business. Before even reaching out to your first prospect, make sure you have a well-developed business plan in place. It should cover the 4 basic parts of starting a new business: Finance, sales, marketing, and operations. This is a great opportunity to reach out to other small business owners to ask for advice and begin building relationships. Keep in mind, you don’t have to spend any money to do marketing. It can all be done with relationships. Watch our how to start a credit repair business webinar and you’ll get plenty of ideas.
- Identify your niche
Before you get started, you should identify which types of potential clients you are hoping to target. This will affect your affiliate, marketing, and operational strategies. For example, you might start by targeting people who have been recently turned down for mortgages whose FICO scores are above 540 but less than 620. This will give you a target range so you can easily decide who is and is not a potential client. Taking on clients who you simply cannot help to achieve their goals is a losing game.
- Learn, learn, learn
In many ways, you are the product you are selling. People need to feel like you are an expert who can advise them on a very personal and confusing issue. The more you know about credit repair, the better able you will be to teach your clients what they need to know. Read as much as you can about credit repair strategies, history, and the industry. Get credit repair business training, attend events, build relationships with other credit repair professionals, etc. Ongoing personal education will help your business thrive. Additionally, read our blog (for weekly credit repair business tips) and read our many free guides.
- Delegate, where possible
It can be so difficult for small business owners to give up control. After all, they have single-handedly launched this business from the ground up. However, you can’t do it all. Fatigue will set in and you will start to let things fall through the cracks. Additionally, working with people with different skill sets will strengthen your business. If you’re a great long-term planner but not so good with the day-to-day, hire an operations guru who can help you with the details. At the very least, if you’re overwhelmed, get an assistant.
- Build affiliate relationships
Our experts agree that one of the fastest way to get clients and scale your business is to build strong affiliate partnerships. Mortgage brokers, car dealers, and other lenders make amazing referral partners. They want to see your business succeed so that they can complete a sale to a customer they otherwise would have had to turn away. Focus on creating these relationships in the initial stages of launching your business.
- Educate affiliate partners
As we mentioned above, affiliate partners are an amazing resource. However, they are not nearly as strong when they are uneducated on how your services work and what types of leads you are looking for. Let them in on the “niche” we discussed above so they don’t spend time sending you unrealistic leads. It also helps to provide them with an education packet or sales script so they know how to talk about your business to potential leads.
- Create a thoughtful pricing structure
Many people decide on a pricing structure based on their competitors’ prices. This is often unsuccessful as it does not consider what will actually make your company profitable. Figure out your Cost per Acquisition based on the time, money, and resources you’ve spent acquiring leads. Base your audit fee on this figure so that you know you will always start out with a profit. For example, if your CPA is $89 your audit fee should be greater than that.
- Have an operational system in place
Before you talk to your first client, you must have a clear, transparent operational system in place. This should include your client intake process, how you will pull credit reports, when clients will be charged, email automation, etc. This will make your life so much easier in the long run and will make your business appear professional to outsiders.
- Educate your clients
Your clients look up to you to be the expert. Let’s face it, the actual “work” of repairing credit is minimal. Once a client is set up in the system, it’s about 5 minutes of work per month to manage each client. Go the extra mile by > educating your clients on how credit works, how they can help to speed up the credit repair process, to pay down balances and stop applying for credit, .and most importantly; help them to change their credit and debt habits, so they can maintain their great credit long after your work is done. These little extras that will be very easy for you, will give your clients the “wow-factor” that will make them want to tell all their friends how much you helped them. This personal touch is what grows a business like wildfire.
We wish you all the best of success!
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