Don't Let Your Business Kill You - Learn How To Delegate

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Building a business from nothing is the hardest thing you will ever do. It is so difficult. But when it starts to work, and it starts to make an impact in the world, and it starts to earn you a living, it's the most amazing feeling you've ever had. But there's something really important. I want to warn you about if you're just starting to grow your business. So if you have a credit repair business, you really need to hear this. 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.

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Whenever I interview someone on this panel, podcast, I always ask if you could go back to when you started and give yourself advice, what do you know now that you wish you could tell yourself back when you started? And in my case, I'd say you don't have to be a one-man band. Sure, you have to do that at the start. Absolutely. But it's very, very hard to keep up momentum if you're pushing all along. Now, for the first 10 years of my business, I did everything alone. I sat in a tiny room, like a weirdo, trying to design and build a business with no money. Literally no money. And those were some really crazy years. And the hours that I put in were insane. And the business, it didn't work, and I do rebuild it over and over and over again, for 10 years. They talked about Thomas Edison trying 10,000 ways before he built a light bulb that actually worked and that's how I was. That's all I did was fail over and over for 10 years. But when I finally launched Credit Repair Cloud in January of 2013, after so many failed other versions, that's when it started to work. And that's when I started to get customers. And I thought, "Wow, now it's going to get easier!" But no, it didn't get easier. It got worse, because once they were real customers, it got totally overwhelming, because it was just me, pretending to be an entire team because I couldn't afford a team. So I was Phil on sales. I was Tammy on support. And all the customers hated Tammy. There would be emails from customers that just said, Tammy is a bitch fire her and nobody knew that Tammy was really me. And I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't eating or bathing or shaving. And the stress during that time was unbearable. Looking back, I wish I had never been done that. Because it nearly killed me, I gained over 100 pounds. And that was just from the stress of trying to do it all myself. So the biggest mistake I made during all those years was not getting help and not building a team. And if I change just that one thing, it would have saved me over 10 years of pain and failure. But I didn't even know that I should be building a team. It didn't even occur to me. And then I finally hired Keenan, just to help me with support because by then the stress was so bad, I would actually get in fights with customers. Keenan was in high school and I hired him to be our first support person, you know, to replace Tammy, and just getting that little bit of extra help. That made a huge difference. And you know what happened? The business started to grow just a little bit. And then Kenan started giving me advice which was kind of weird. At that time, I'm thinking, why is this kid giving me advice, but his advice was start hiring more people. And that was really scary. I mean, initially, I think I was paying Keenan like $500 a month to work part time while he was in high school. And I was so scared about spending even that money, how can I afford more people. And that just seemed impossible, but I trusted him. And the amazing thing that happened was that the more people we would hire, the bigger our business would grow, and the more money we would make. So now, Kenan, who started his support person number one. Now he is the Vice President of our company, and he pretty much runs everything. As we grew. I set out to hire even more people who were smarter than me to other geniuses like Tanmay, who is our CTO, he drives all of our technology and he manages our technical team of 40 and Ikey who runs our operations, and Corey, who is a genius with the credit repair knowledge and Isaac, who started in support, but now he's in charge of the entire customer experience. And Danny, who managed to our support team, and our support team, who are now huge, there's a whole bunch of them, and they are so talented at support, and so much better than I ever was as Tammy. And Ashley, our amazing designer. When I used to design everything myself, and the 40 engineers and technical people who maintain our software. They're all amazing, and they are all so much better at what they do than me trying to do it for them. Building a team has freed me up so now I can concentrate on the parts I'm good at, like making this an amazing experience for our customers and helping them to be more successful. Unfortunately, even with all this help, I still kept up the same pace of working on round the clock seven days a week and the stress it increased. And after so many years of that, I didn't realize what a toll it was having on me. Now when you turn 50, you're supposed to have a colonoscopy, which I didn't do. Okay, I was too busy, and everyone got on my case. And finally, six years later, I finally did the colonoscopy, and that that was a few months ago. And then the doctor said, Oh, we should have an endoscopy too. And I said, What's that? And he said, Oh, we'll go down your throat and look around your stomach. And I said, awesome. Can't wait. And when it was all over, I was thankful to hear that the colonoscopy didn't find anything, because it was so many years overdue, so luckily, that turned out okay. But during the endoscopy, they found something weird, something that shouldn't be there. I don't know how to describe it other than it looked like I was growing a third thumb in the middle of my stomach. It was pretty freaky. And the doctor was freaked out too. And he started telling me how big it was. And he started showing me pictures of it. And that freaked me out even more. And so I asked him, is it cancer? And he said, I don't know, I'm going to send you to another doctor to do an ultrasound. And it took three months for me to get that next appointment. So for three months, I was really scared. And I was thinking about that weird thumb thing growing in my stomach. And I, I thought I was going to die. And I started working on my will and planning who was going to get what and how Kenan was going to run everything. And then finally, the day came and the doctor did the surgery, and they remove that thumb thing that was growing in my stomach, and they sent it off to the lab to see if it was cancer. And as I waited for the results, I got more and more stressed. And so I did what I always do, I buried myself more and more in the work so I wouldn't have to think about it. And then finally they called and it wasn't cancer, and they said I was going be okay. And that was a big relief. But I know deep down that the extreme stress of working around the clock and the punishing myself that I had worn as a badge of honor for all these years, I know that's what caused that thing to grow in my stomach. So I took that as a wake-up call to slow down a little bit, and finally start taking care of myself. So ever since then, I started taking more off my plate and offloading it to other people. So I can be the captain of the ship, instead of being down below rowing. So I can see where we are going. And I can actually live to see us get there. So here's why this is important to you. Not trying to do everything myself and starting to add team members that grew my business and then taking all the tactical things off my plate, you know, the day to day work of running my business, the support and all the other roles and offloading that on to other people. That It has grown our business like crazy, and it will do the same for you. And now that I'm no longer feeling the stress of putting out fires all day, I now have time to be the face of our company to plan what we do next to plan our upcoming credit repair Expo to record this podcast, and to finally start taking care of myself. This morning, I walked on the treadmill, and I rode my bicycle here to work. And I decided I'm going to make a goal to lose 20 pounds by credit repair Expo. And making these changes in my life has grown our revenue. But here's the cool part. Having the business was always so scary and so stressful. But now that I'm offloading all the things that I shouldn't be doing, I realized recently, this is the first time in my life, that I'm actually having fun. So here's what you need to know if you're starting to grow your business. Starting to gain some momentum, congratulations. Now get some help get it as soon as possible, even if it's part-time help, okay, on sites like Upwork, or free up, you can get someone from another country for a small amount of money, and then start offloading stuff to them. You can do this slowly by just hiring an assistant that might only work a few hours every week. And you want to start to hire people to do the tactical work, whether it's sales or onboarding clients, or handling the disputes, or customer service, or any of the other pieces that make your business function. And the way you do this is by documenting the process, and then you offload that onto someone else. So you can spend more time taking care of yourself and being strategic, which is planning the future building relationships and making a better experience for your customers. And eventually, that's All you should be doing. And when you start to do that, it will always increase your revenue. I'm not saying you need a huge team overnight, no. But if you are alone, just get a little help and grow from there. And finally, don't be like me, don't punish yourself like I did. It's not a badge of honor. It's stupid. You are the most important person in your business. So don't neglect taking care of you. Okay? You don't have to work that hard. Because the more rested you are and the more fit you are, the better you're going to be at leading your team and growing your business and the more you will enjoy the ride. Now I want to talk again, about Malik Green because the interview with him had such a profound effect on me. That interview was a few podcasts ago, and if you didn't hear it, I really want you to hear it. See Malik, he's much smarter than me. Because he started from day one on growing a team. And I think he learned that from his previous experience at the auto dealership before he started his credit repair business. And because he has helped, he's not working crazy hours, he makes time for his family, he takes time to care for himself. And I believe that's why only eight months into his very first business that he has ever had, he's already at $230,000 in annual recurring revenue. So remember, you don't have to do this alone. You don't have to be in pain to grow your business. Don't make my mistake, don't punish yourself, or hurt yourself to be successful. You don't have to do that. In fact, it's the opposite. All the people who have gotten our Millionaires Club Award, they've all built a team. A team increases your momentum, and it enables you to have a business that won't kill you. So you can live to see and celebrate all of your heart. Work paying off and all the lives that you change. Now, I hope you're enjoying this podcast. If you're liking what I'm sharing here, please click below to subscribe. If you're feeling kind, please rate and review it. And that will help me a ton, because it's a new podcast and I can use all the help I can get. And I want to tell you about Credit Repair Expo. It's coming up and this year it's going to be in Dallas, May one, two and three. We have this event once a year, and it is amazing. There's going to be a 1000 Credit Heroes, there the Credit Repair Millionaires, the most successful people in our industry, all sharing what got them there. And amazing networking and it's just fantastic. If you have never been to Credit Repair Expo, this is something amazing that you really need to experience. This event has sold out every year and it's going to sell out again this year. And I look forward to meeting you there. And the prices, the prices do go up as we get closer to the event. So get your tickets now at creditrepairexpo.com. And I will see you there, and I'll see you on the next episode. And until then keep changing lives!

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Hey, this is Daniel again. And really quick, I want to thank you so much for listening to the credit repair business secrets podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, can you imagine what it would be like to experience this for three days with 1000 other amazing credit heroes, people who are just like you who think like you, who believe like you and who change lives like you do. If you'd like to do that, that you need to be at this year's Credit Repair Expo. It's coming up very soon. And if you don't have your tickets yet, you can get them right now at creditrepairexpo.com. It gives you the ability to leave your home and come back A place with a whole bunch of people who think like you who see visions like you have, what they can create and what they can become. Credit Repair Expo is not just a conference or a networking event. It's all the top people in our industry, all the top mentors, it's an experience that will change your life forever. So I want to make sure that you get your tickets if you don't have them yet, go to creditrepairexpo.com and get your tickets now. We have sold out every year and we will sell out this year as well. And after you get your tickets, you will be there with a 1000 other amazing fun credit heroes talking about how they grow their business and sharing their best marketing secrets and credit repair tactics that are working today. But you've got to get your tickets now at creditrepairexpo.com and thanks so much and I will see you in Dallas.