Daniel Rosen 00:00
Hey, credit heroes. Are you ready to learn the secrets to getting strangers who want to fix their credit with you? Well, today, I'm joined by Israel Cordova. He's the founder of Cordova Financial, and he's going to share all about how he built his wildly successful credit repair business from nothing. And now he helps 1000s of people, and he's made over a million dollars, 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. One of the hardest parts of running any business is finding clients. But our most successful credit hero, the ones who make a great living and make a massive impact they're really good at, is Israel Cordova has helped 1000s of clients repair their credit. He has built a big social media following and is on a mission to educate his clients as much as possible. I know you're gonna love this interview. So please welcome to the podcast, which is real Cordova. Hey, Israel. Welcome.
Israel Cordova 01:25
Thank you. Thank you, Daniel. Appreciate it.
Daniel Rosen 01:27
I'm so excited. You're here. I want to know everything about you. But let's start with the basics. Where did you grow up? And where are you now?
Israel Cordova 01:35
I was actually born in Mexico and brought over to the US when I was 10 years old.
Daniel Rosen 01:40
Very cool. I love Mexico, and we're in Florida, are you?
Israel Cordova 01:43
I'm in Central Florida and between Tampa and Orlando.
Daniel Rosen 01:46
Okay. I've been there planning. I like it there. What was your life like before credit repair?
Israel Cordova 01:53
Well, I was working at a manufacturing plant. I was a Production Supervisor, working probably between 70 and 80 hours a week. It was it was extreme.
Daniel Rosen 02:03
Wow. And then, what drew you to credit repair? Did you have credit issues?
Israel Cordova 02:10
I did, I had ruined my credit at a young age. And then after that, it was just a search of seeing how I can help myself, you know, come out of that situation, and just started researching as much as I possibly could about it and started working on issues that I had personally until I was able to get my credit repair myself. And then it kind of paused for a second. I didn't go right into business right away. And the situation with me was I ruined my credit and kind of forgot about it. And at the moment when I was ready to buy a house, I started looking for a house. And I kind of actually wasted a realtor's time because they knew where I work. So they assumed that I had a good credit score. And it we just started shopping for houses, and we found the one we liked. And right when we were about to proceed with the rest of the process of buying the home, she's like, Hey, have you been pre-approved? I'm like, oh, no, they didn't even come to mind getting pre-approved. So I'll give a call to this lender, they'll pre-approve you, and we'll get you all set up as soon as she runs the credit. She's like, well, that's not gonna happen now. So we put that on pause. And that's when I started researching about how I fix my credit.
Daniel Rosen 03:20
Got it. That's similar to how I got into it. I was buying a house and didn't know anything about credit. But they gave me a lot of advice on things I could do that could bump up my score. Oh, yeah.
Israel Cordova 03:31
She spoke to me. I called the Reserve Bank as an alias. And I'm not pre-qualified now. But she said that, hey, this is a few tips you can do to better it. But there was so much damage from previous credit card counts that I've left without paying and just late payments on all kinds of stuff. Really, To be honest, you
Daniel Rosen 03:50
left school at an early age to support your family. How did this challenge shape your approach to business and personal finance? Well,
Israel Cordova 03:59
yeah, I went all the way to ninth grade in high school. And then I kind of dropped out of school to start trying to help my parents. Whenever I came into cross Credit Repair Cloud, it was kind of all the information at once and it just at first it was it's a lot of information. But once you start going through the software, and it just makes things so simple for you. It's just common sense, really; even if you're not, you know, a high school graduate or a college graduate, you can still jump on Credit Repair Cloud and figure out everything you guys have on there. It's so simple and explained so well that it's it's easy to comprehend.
Daniel Rosen 04:37
So you actually started learning how to repair credit with Credit Repair Cloud first software I've ever used. That's amazing. And then you were you the first client, yeah, that was my first client, and then how did you start to turn credit repair into a business
Israel Cordova 04:52
I started giving tips. So I once I fixed mine, I figured out you know how to do that. Then I started just giving tips out on social media and started telling people hey, this is what you can do to help yourself. This is what you can do to help others as authorised users. This is what you can do when it comes to collection. Basically, I gave so much information that they asked me to start my business everybody on social media was the one. Hey, can you help me? And at the time, I didn't see it as a business, it was just a matter of giving information. And then when it came to everybody asking them the comments, can you help me? Can you help me? Can you help me? A grew so big that I'm like, hold on, maybe this is an opportunity, and then I need to take advantage? That's
Daniel Rosen 05:34
so cool. It is amazing. You went from just learning credit repair to building this company and reaching the million-dollar mark. What were some of the key turning points
Israel Cordova 05:47
first, initially by myself, and when I really took off, I realized that I needed to separate things. And I handled marketing with another person. So I focus all solely on marketing. Now, being driven to just one thing, I think is, just helps you scale a lot faster.
Daniel Rosen 06:07
That's amazing. And how long were you a one man band? How long before you hired your first employee?
Israel Cordova 06:13
It was probably three to four months. Wow.
Daniel Rosen 06:17
That's pretty quick. There.
Israel Cordova 06:19
It was. In the first month, we signed up almost 100 clients. In the first month I started, once I got to the 250- 300 client Mark, I kind of stopped marketing because I wanted to make sure that I had everything in place to be able to take on more clients. So it wasn't that we couldn't grow faster. It was just I was making sure that we had everything in place.
Daniel Rosen 06:44
Sure. Very, very smart. How many clients do you have today?
Israel Cordova 06:47
Just over 1300.
Daniel Rosen 06:50
Wow, good for you. That is amazing. Can you share a memorable success story where you really impacted a client's life through credit repair,
Israel Cordova 07:01
there was a family I did a consultation with, one of the brothers. And he pretty much brought in the whole family, all his brothers. And then one of them called me and said, Hey, I would just pre-approved for a house man, I'm, I'm pre-approved. And then say about three months later, he's like, Hey, I'm closing. During the closing of the house. He's like, my brother just got pre-approved. And my brother's gonna be looking shopping around for a house too. And it was him, his brother and his dad. Wow,
Daniel Rosen 07:34
what were the biggest obstacles you faced when starting your credit repair business? And how did you overcome them?
Israel Cordova 07:40
Whenever I started with credit repair, glad you guys made an offer, yet the master training is do now the master? So the master class, yes, you guys didn't have that when I first started. And now you do. But before then, it was like I did the 14-Day Challenge. From the 14-Day Challenge. I just started reading every single thing that I could get across, every book that they offered online, I bought it every single video that I could get myself, my eyes on I went after it. I wanted to make sure I knew everything I possibly could if there was something out there that I could read, I went after it.
Daniel Rosen 08:20
I love that. And as I've been diving into all your content, which you have some amazing content, what I've noticed is you're you've got a very clear brand. So I want to know, in the world of credit repair, how important is brand trust? And what are some good ways to establish it.
Israel Cordova 08:40
It is critical if you want to grow, you want those clients to remember they see that logo, they see the company name, no matter where they see it, you start building trust, they see it once they see it maybe a few times before they even call you. There have been clients in the past who they said, Hey, I watch your videos for three months before I called you. You know, I build confidence with them on on lives. I've built confidence with them over videos and just given tips. And branding is everything. If you want to have a scalable company, something that you grow into the millions a year, you definitely need to focus on your brand. Initially, I have a a logo, but after seeing the success that we're having, I'm like I need to invest and make sure that people remember who they worked with. And
Daniel Rosen 09:30
in your experience, what are the most common misunderstandings that people have about credit repair and how do you address them in your business?
Israel Cordova 09:39
I think misunderstandings is just people don't trust the industry. There's been so much misinformation on social media and it's made it easy for people to come on there. And just place a video that doesn't have full truth just to get people to call or inquire about their service People don't trust credit repair as much as other industries. But branding has a lot to do with it. If you promote and you use truthful content that you give tips to tell people exactly what's going on, people like honesty. People like for the forum with your information, they rather you tell them a lesson. And there's nothing I can do about this, because that counts reported accurately, and tell them hey, but we can do these other things to help your score and your overall report. They like honesty, they like somebody that's going to do what they set out to do. I
Daniel Rosen 10:37
like that. And I was looking at your website earlier. And I noticed on your site and a lot of your social media, it's all in Spanish, or nearly all in Spanish. What motivated you to start focusing on helping the Spanish-speaking community with credit repair,
Israel Cordova 10:54
when I started this credit repair journey, I didn't find a whole lot of information when it came to Spanish. I'm like, hey, this this site is there's hardly anybody actually talking about tips, tricks, how you can better your score. There's a lot of information in English, but there's very limited when it comes to Spanish. So there's not a whole lot of companies out there that are doing credit repair for the Hispanic community. So I figure this is this is where I need to go.
Daniel Rosen 11:21
I think that's so cool. And do most of your clients speak Spanish?
Israel Cordova 11:26
I think probably 80% of our clients are Spanish speakers. Wow,
Daniel Rosen 11:31
that's a big percentage. So you must be using all the new Spanish language tools that we've added in CRC like in the client portal and the onboarding. We added that in Spanish recently. And I think we just recently launched the credit audit in Spanish are using all those, all
Israel Cordova 11:46
of them every single thing as soon as that would come out. And you guys would make the switch to have it available in Spanish. We started sending the clients the audit in Spanish, we started sending the client, the onboarding to Spanish, their portals in Spanish, all that
Daniel Rosen 11:59
awesome. Now, are there any common challenges that you find that the Spanish speaking community faces regarding credit and finance information,
Israel Cordova 12:08
not having all the information, I think there's a whole lot more information in English. And then also, a lot of the Hispanics that moved to this country, they're looking to work and to have an opportunity in a different country. They're not so focused on on education. So it's kind of a, I guess, missing part of their life to have that information to be able to better their finances, not just credit, but overall finances.
Daniel Rosen 12:34
Awesome. So how do you help educate your clients about how to avoid damaging their credit scores,
Israel Cordova 12:39
we have done some training for our clients. So, how to manage credit cards, when is credit card important to have a low balance, and what balances should keep all and we also educated on the house, the best way to get a car loan, when you should go buy a car and when you shouldn't. And also, I do Monday through Friday lives on tick tock, where I just go and answer people's questions for 45 minutes to an hour on a daily basis. And people just offer their lives, not clients, but just people that come to watch and I started watching your content and never interested in getting a credit card and now on my credit score as 760 Just by watching your lives. That's
Daniel Rosen 13:20
so cool. I love that. Now, with so many clients, what's your secret to keeping them engaged and committed throughout the credit repair process?
Israel Cordova 13:32
We typically on the force call we tell them hey, listen, we offer a money-back guarantee. We don't guarantee that their results or name, every single account, is going to come off. But if we can change your life, we'll give you your money back. All you have to do is just give us a six months. And once you give us six months, if we can't change your life, we will offer your money back but we're very, very clear with them at the beginning. You cannot miss any payments on anything else that you have right now. You cannot add any more negative items. Any questions you have, contact the office, give us a call. Let us know what your concerns are. Give us a list of things that you feel like you don't know or you don't understand when it comes to credit. We'll educate you. We tried to do every single month a consultation with our clients. Once they are onboard, the sales person on an onboarding person will make an appointment for three days after would the credit repair specialists and they will get on the phone again. Three days after they signed up. Hey, listen. We're starting with everything right now. Any questions you have as far as how to manage credit cards, anything on your credit report. And then once they finish that concert, that second call, they scheduled on for another call 35 days after that, and there's never I guess, important as far as when you're going to hear from us. You're going to hear from us when you sign on three days later. You're 35 There's, you'll hear us again, and then we'll set an appointment for the following 35 days again, awesome.
Daniel Rosen 15:05
And do you have email automations going when, when anything changes in their account things like that happen?
Israel Cordova 15:12
We do. The only thing as the Hispanic community they're not too fan of email, oh, no, it's easier with anybody that's American and speaks English, you can have an automation and shoot those emails out on a regular basis, they'll get there and read them. But somebody that has, you know, trouble with technology being on their phone and all that they're better with a phone call than they are with them. When it comes to emails and stuff like that.
Daniel Rosen 15:42
That makes a lot of sense. And I think that's so smart to have a money-back guarantee. I saw that on your site. I think that's brilliant, a lot of credit repair businesses they're afraid to do that. But I think it's important, what effects is this brought to your business, we've
Israel Cordova 15:58
we've never had to give anybody any money back. That's that's the thing. But the thing is, when you do a money back guarantee with your clients, make sure that they understand what's their portion of the deal. So make sure they understand that they play a huge part in the credit repair process. It's not like a client could come with doesn't just forget about us, and expect their credit to be great in six months, they have to work with us. It's a mutual relationship, where hey, listen, lower your credit card balances, this is the data, your credit card reports, this is when you should have a balance between one and 6%. Make sure your payments on time, if you have automatic payments, still go online, make sure that those are going in and they're they're getting posted. So it's it's a mutual relationship if they want to have a very big change in their credit, and needs to be mutual.
Daniel Rosen 16:54
Awesome. I love it. What advice would you give someone who's looking to start their own credit repair business,
Israel Cordova 17:01
I'd say go for it. Go open it. And sometimes, people will research and what they call analysis paralysis, they go on there and just look for so much information. You'll never have 100% of the information. If you want to get started. Go ahead and get started. I would definitely suggest you know, reach out for help. But definitely, get started.
Daniel Rosen 17:23
We talked a little bit about your team. How big is your team?
Israel Cordova 17:26
We have 14 people as of right now.
Daniel Rosen 17:29
Wow, that's a big team. Congratulations. How do you train your sales team, especially in the sensitive area of credit repair.
Israel Cordova 17:38
So our consultation is just going through the report giving the client all the information, telling them what they're doing right what they're doing wrong, what would help them, and then they make the decision. If you have a really good product, you don't need to sell it, you just have to give them all the information for them to have a good decision towards the future. So if you tell them, hey, listen, there's a total of these many counts on your report. These you're doing really good. But on these accounts, you either stopped paying them a long time ago, or these have some late history. Explain every single account. And that's what we do. We pull the report, we go through personal information, ask them about their addresses names, explain to them how the names get on there, how the different addresses get on there, we basically educate them on their credit report. And then it's pretty simple for them to be like yeah, let's let's go ahead. Yeah, that's really
Daniel Rosen 18:33
smart. That really establishes you, from the first meeting that you're the expert. That's really good. Very, very good. Let's talk about marketing and attracting new clients. I want to know what's working I saw you make a lot of TikTok videos, is that driving a lot of your business? And
Israel Cordova 18:50
is that is? Well, I feel like the live videos on TikTok build that confidence for people. Like I mentioned a few minutes ago, there are clients that say, Hey, I've been watching you for three months before I even called you. But just being able to answer every question that they have on a live, it shows that you're not just reading off a script, whenever you're making a video, if you're on a live and you're answering every question of a client on the live, they know that you're the expert because you're answering every single person's question on there, giving them tips at the same time. It just given them all the information. I give them all the information and they can better their credit and they don't have to come to me. That's good. They don't necessarily have to come and work with us. They can come on our lives. They can watch all the information. They can have all that information and just better their score that we have, if that's what they need.
Daniel Rosen 19:45
That's the secret to getting strangers to want to fix their credit with you.
Israel Cordova 19:49
Yes, you give them so much information that it comes to a point a person's like, hey man, what can I do for you?
Daniel Rosen 19:56
How important are client testimonials and referrals? hurls for your business huge,
Israel Cordova 20:01
honestly huge. If you look at it this way, if you're starting your business, if you go after doing five people for free, but you do an excellent job with all five of those five will tell you it will tell 4050 people, Hey, listen, I went to fix my credit with this, this person, if you did a poor job, they'll tell 200 of them. So, testimonials are going to either make you or break you when it comes to his business because you can sit on social media and promote, promote, promote. But if your service is not good word of mouth will also kill your business. So focus on good results. And word of mouth will just make it super easy to scale.
Daniel Rosen 20:40
And do you have any systems in place to gather more testimonials and referrals, we
Israel Cordova 20:45
typically run sometimes specials when it comes to signing on, we give them a discount, hey, listen, our signup fee is this amount. But if you go on there, and give us a Google review, or or if you go on our website and leave a good note, we can give you a 10% discount today and it just encourages them to go and do that
Daniel Rosen 21:06
very, very smart. How do you respond to critics who claim that credit repair is not legitimate? They don't understand
Israel Cordova 21:14
the law. They don't understand what we do. They go by these videos that are already TikTok, you know, through our social media, honestly. And the bad advertisements on social media are just putting information that is not completely 100% true. Give those people some fuel to be able to say that.
Daniel Rosen 21:35
Sure. So, how do you handle the skepticism surrounding credit repair effectiveness,
Israel Cordova 21:40
I think our personal guarantee and having so much content of just tips that people go out and try your tips. And then they come back, hey, I try what you said on that video and made it work. And then that gets a person to be like, he knows what he's talking about. I already tried several of the things that he's mentioned here, and they've worked. They've helped me. So it's just like I said, the volume of content, the more information you put out there, the more people that are going to try it, the more people that are going to come back and be like, Hey, man, I try that and work. So thank you. And then, from there on, you get a client. Speaking
Daniel Rosen 22:17
of tips of all the credit repair strategies you've learned, which one is the biggest game changer? I
Israel Cordova 22:25
think being able to give good results is it's a game-changer for sure. If you're starting credit repair, and you don't fully understand how to get the best results, how to dispute these accounts, or how to also educate your clients, I think you have to have both through the process, you have to teach them on the areas that they don't understand. But at the same time, you have to dispute the most effective way. Those two things are going to be crucial whether you stay in business or whether you fall off after a few months of work. And then you get you know, just overwhelmed with everything. Sure.
Daniel Rosen 23:02
Well, what are a couple of strategies that have been effective for you for disputing any sort of item on a credit report?
Israel Cordova 23:10
We've used the law for anything that is a collection company, and we mailed directly to that collection company. And we asked them to send a specific list of items to be able to validate that. And on that first letter, we typically tell them if you can't send me that list, please go ahead and remove it already. And out of every single person who signs with us. out of 10 people, eight of them get results out the very first month that they sign on. And just because we also use certified letters, we track and make sure that the collection company receives it when they receive it. And we let them know that we're using certified letters as well.
Daniel Rosen 23:54
And we've been talking on the show lately a lot about stolen letters from the credit bureaus. How do you deal with stolen letters,
Israel Cordova 24:01
we have a power of attorney for every single client. Every single client, when they sign on, gives us a limited power of attorney that just specifies that we're disputing for them. And that has completely stopped. I think we don't get any at all anymore. Wow.
Daniel Rosen 24:17
So you include that letter with around one dispute letter? We
Israel Cordova 24:22
do? We do? Yes.
Daniel Rosen 24:23
And does it say your credit repair company or what? Tell me about it.
Israel Cordova 24:29
Yeah, it shows on there that a client has hired us to help dispute items on their credit report and that we're working on their behalf and it has their signature, it has a date that they started. It gives us six months. And then if the client wants to continue with this, it gives them the option to, you know, extend that time, but it definitely shows the Bureau's, hey, listen, we have permission from the client. We are working to help them, but we have their permission to do so.
Daniel Rosen 24:55
I love that. So you're not even getting that response to that. TransUnion cents that say, We suspect you're working with a third-party company. Not
Israel Cordova 25:05
anymore now.
Daniel Rosen 25:06
Oh, that is so cool.
Israel Cordova 25:08
We used to, and then as soon as we implemented that, like a letter went away, that
Daniel Rosen 25:13
is amazing. Wow. Okay, so I want to switch gears real quick. And I want to ask you a few rapid-fire questions. So answer with the first thing that pops into your head, the first word or the first phrase. Okay, you're ready. All right. Okay, ready? What's your business superpower?
Israel Cordova 25:31
Getting clients?
Daniel Rosen 25:32
What's your business? Kryptonite the area you have to work hardest to improve more customer service? I think what is business ownership means to you, freedom? What drives and motivates you,
Israel Cordova 25:43
my family?
Daniel Rosen 25:44
What's your definition of success,
Israel Cordova 25:46
freedom to do what you want to do? Awesome.
Daniel Rosen 25:49
And if you could go back in time and tell yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?
Israel Cordova 25:54
Start sooner?
Daniel Rosen 25:57
I love that. And do you have any other advice for someone just starting out with a credit repair business?
Israel Cordova 26:02
start yesterday? That's the best thing that I can tell you. You'll never be 100% Ready. But the best time was yesterday, and the next best time is today. Awesome.
Daniel Rosen 26:13
And last question. What's next for you? What's the next big goal? We
Israel Cordova 26:18
are also going to start mentoring other credit repair businesses that want to scale. I think that we are barely scratching the surface. When it comes to the clients that we have. We were going to use 2024 to scale and probably 10. Next, we are also going to help other business owners reach those goals as well.
Daniel Rosen 26:42
I love that. And how can our listeners reach out to you? What's the best way to find you? Definitely,
Israel Cordova 26:48
they can watch all the content on social media or come to the website, shoot us a message definitely give you a link for a mentorship program that we have, and let them reach out if they're interested in scaling their business.
Daniel Rosen 27:03
And what's the website address?
Israel Cordova 27:04
cordovafinancial.com
Daniel Rosen 27:07
Awesome. And we'll put that link in the show notes too. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Israel. This was a lot of fun.
Israel Cordova 27:14
I appreciate it. Thank you for the invite. And like I said, thanks again for your software.
Daniel Rosen 27:19
You're welcome. Thanks for being a CRC credit hero. And for everyone out there. If you're finding value in the things that we share on this podcast, click below to subscribe and follow. Also give us a five-star review or share the show and help us to change more lives. And if you have a question or a comment, drop it down below because I read each and every one of them. I would love to hear from you. And I'll respond as soon as I can. And if you want to learn more secrets about finding clients, check out my podcast on secrets to keeping credit repair clients hooked and happy. And if you'd like to get certified, dispute and gain confidence, and grow your very own credit repair business, check out our Credit Hero Challenge. Doors are closing soon. So sign up right now at creditherochallenge.com 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. 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 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 understand the strategy, 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 starts in just a few days. So go get started right now at creditherochallenge.com
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