How to Build A Thriving Team (and The Future of Credit Repair) with Alex Charfen

Daniel Rosen  0:00  

My special guest today is Alex Charfen. He is my coach, he is my mentor... He's helped me to scale Credit Repair Cloud to over 70 employees and build an empire. His training and his programs, they've become the complete operating system of our company. And they're why we've grown so fast. So if you're just starting to have success with your credit repair business, but you're starting to feel like you're overworked and overwhelmed, and that your business needs more structure, but you're not sure where to start, then this is an episode you need to hear. 

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. 

Our guest today is very famous in the entrepreneurial world. He's actually the biggest guest we have ever had on this podcast. He is my mentor. His guidance helped me to build Credit Repair Cloud from a very small company to a very large company with over 70 employees making 10s of millions of dollars and no, he doesn't teach sales or marketing. No, instead, he teaches something far more important. He teaches how to grow and scale your business into an empire by building processes and a team, his trainings and programs, they've become the complete operating system of our company, and they are why we have grown so big so fast. And besides being the top coach in this space, he's also an entrepreneur himself. He's founded many multimillion-dollar businesses of his own, and his strategies they apply to any business. So if you're just getting started with your credit repair business, or you're starting to have some success, but you have no idea where to go from here, you definitely want to hear this. So please welcome to the podcast, my mentor, Alex Charfen. Hey, Alex! 

Alex Charfen  2:21  

Hey, Daniel! That was one of the best intros I've ever gotten, man, I love you. Thank you so much for having me

Daniel Rosen  2:25  

I love you for being here. I'm so excited! Hey, so can you tell everybody can you tell all of our Credit Heroes a little bit about your background and what you do? 

Alex Charfen  2:35  

Sure, Daniel. I'm 47 years old. I've spent about the last 20 years, most of my career, either coaching or consulting or helping entrepreneurs in some way. My early background I worked in consumer and computer electronics. I owned a consultancy where we helped people turn things around when there was a division or department or a product line or initiative that was not going well. We were often brought into to improve things, we're kind of the turnaround company. And we did that through process, structure, and routine. And when I got out of the consultancy, my wife and I started a real estate business. Same thing, we added some process structure and routine. We went from a startup business to having four multi-million dollar companies and a few years. That was in the early 2000s. If I was writing a book right now, that would be foreshadowing, right around 2007. Our real estate businesses that happened to be in Florida weren't doing so hot. We actually got kind of taken out of business by the real estate, financial collapse in 2007. We ended up going bankrupt. It was brutal, we lost everything. And out of that bankruptcy, we actually started an information product called the certified distressed property expert designation. When I started getting the financial paper, the foreclosure paperwork, when I started to see how people who were having credit challenges were treated. I saw this opportunity that you know, we're going to need the people in the homes and the real estate agents and people in this industry to work things out. And the more I got foreclosed paperwork, the more of an opportunity I saw. So Katie and I, in the middle of bankruptcy, launched a business called the certified distressed property expert designation. We started in 2007. By 2011, we were the 21st fastest-growing company in the country, we did just about $10 million. Over the course of the life of that business. We had close to 50,000 real estate agents in our membership that had paid for the designation. And in 2013 Well, actually, the way to tell the story better is in 2008, we started using the slogan solving the foreclosure crisis, one homeowner at a time. In 2013, Laurie Marciano from the US Treasury came into our office and on a live broadcast to all of our members said that our organization and our members had pulled forward the foreclosure crisis by five to seven years. So that day was confirmation we had actually solved the foreclosure crisis, one homeowner at a time, and it was one of the most exciting things we ever did. And in that business, what happened was we were working with A lot of real estate agents and mortgage professionals and title companies, and even a few credit repair companies. And all of them were exploding and growing. And they started coming to us and saying, Hey, can you help us grow? Can you help us with the systems and the structure? And so right around 2011 or 12, we started teaching business systems and structure. And that kind of took over what we were doing. We did that for a while and the company that we had, then in 2016, we decided to reset everything we had, the business that we did have, we left it behind, we exited from it. And we started the coaching business that we have now. And today what we do is we work with hundreds of businesses around the world. And like you said in the intro, Daniel, we show entrepreneurs we show visionary entrepreneurs who can't turn it off, and want to make a contribution just as much as they want to make a living the process and structure and routine that will help them grow their business, grow themselves, then grow a team then build an empire. And the change we want to make is that entrepreneurs get the help they need and they can make the changes that they want in the world. And when We'll know where successful when entrepreneurs around the world visionaries who want to change the world know that they can come to us to get the systems and the structure they need, so they can actually make it happen.

Daniel Rosen  6:10  

Amazing. Amazing. And it really, really works. really helping us. And this, people, think sexy is a new website or a new thing or getting better at marketing. And no, it's not about any of that. The sexy thing is this. It's process and team it grows a business bigger than faster than wildfire. But I want to get there in a minute. I want to talk about something that I'm really excited about the first time that I've ever heard you speak. What got me so excited about you was you were talking about the entrepreneurial personality type and it just resonated with me. You were describing me and I'm a weirdo. Yeah. Can you talk about the entrepreneurial personality type?

Alex Charfen  6:55  

Absolutely, Daniel. Um, I just want you to know how validating it is for me every time you say that I was describing you because you know, I have so much respect for you. And the first time we ever connected, I'm like, man, I think I've met my brother that like maybe we got separated at birth or something. Because we're very similar. And if you're listening to this, we probably have a lot in common to see. When I was younger, I started researching and trying to figure out what success was when I was like eight or really young, eight, 910 years old, I had seen a family business fail. And I started thinking like, I don't want to fail. I don't want to go through that same thing. So I had this obsession of like, how do you succeed? How do you make a business grow? How do you make things, things happen in the world and I started studying personal development, and I had a really hard time with it. When I was young. Here's what happened. I don't know if you've been through this experience, Daniel, but you read one personal development book and it tells you definitively how you should do things. Then you read another one and it kind of agrees with the first one but there's some conflict. Then you read the third one and it invalidates the first one conflicts with the second one you get to like 5, 6, 7,8, 9, 10 books. They're arguing like crazy and I just couldn't take that level of income growth. fluency as a kid, so I switched I started studying successful people. And I actually got really obsessed with reading the stories of successful people and how did they create success and what were they like and what happened. And when I first started, every story felt like a completely unique individualized story like it had no commonality to the previous one. But then as I kept reading, and I got to 100, and then hundreds and then over 1000, and I kept looking at successful people. Here's what happened. This clear commonality started to show through these clear patterns started to show through. And when I started seeing was that anyone throughout history that matters to be remembered anyone that we remember today was just like us. And here's what I mean by that. The entrepreneurial personality type is the small percentage of the population that gets up in the morning, travels into the future creates a new reality comes back to the present, and demand it becomes real and that is different than the rest of the world. That's not what everybody does. That's what we do. And for entrepreneurs, for people like us with the entrepreneurial personality type, you know, the need to create and make things happen and do things and go forward, we have the need for momentum in all of those areas, more than the average person has a need for oxygen. It's our life force. It's who we are. And so what I saw throughout history through all these stories, is these people that that created the future that needed momentum that had this obsessive drive to make something happen. And the more that I looked at it, the more I realized it's just a different type of person in the world. And the way that we define the entrepreneurial personality type actually wrote the book called the entrepreneurial personality type. Got it? Here it is. And the way we define it is the EP T is a physiologically sensitive momentum base being that is highly reactive to constraint. And here's what I mean by that highly reactive to constraint. It's like anytime something slows us down. It frustrates So I said, it almost offends us. And we want to be in forward motion and in momentum. And when I speak, I often ask, how many of you know what it feels like to be in momentum? And if I'm in a room of entrepreneurs, I get the most amazing answers. It feels like bliss, and it feels like heaven. And it feels like, you know, it's ecstasy. It's amazing. It's incredible. And then sooner or later, somebody says, it just feels like I'm alive. And my definition of being alive is being in momentum, contributing, making things happen, creating things, changing the status quo. And I think that's what we were put on this planet to do. We are that tiny percentage of the population that consistently evolves humanity and pushes the world forward.

Daniel Rosen  10:42  

Wow. That's so cool. Yeah, I really identify with that. And the need to be in momentum. I talk about that a lot on this podcast. If I don't do something every day to move our business forward. I feel like I'm going backwards. I feel like I'm dying like I can't breathe. Got to keep that momentum going. And I just think we're the only ones who feel that you know?

Alex Charfen  11:06  

Daniel, you know, here's why I think that we're the only ones who feel that you know when I look at the rest of the world I look at there's people out there who call in sick. Daniel, how many times have you called in sick on Credit Repair Cloud? 

Daniel Rosen  11:17  

Never... Never ever. 

Alex Charfen  11:19  

Yeah and you know, there's people out there they're like, if I work really hard, I can stop doing everything and sit still. I can't imagine ever having the goal that I want to stop doing everything and sit still. And I talk to people all the time. Like, I really like to understand the different personality types in the world. And you know, I've talked to people that say, you know, Alex, the sooner that I can just finish and retire and get a check and do nothing, the better. I just want to sit on a beach chair and read and drink beer or whatever it is. And I you know, I don't I don't disrespect that but I do not relate to it at all. And I think this it's just because we're different. You know, I make the joke when I'm speaking Daniel that, you know, if you think the rest of the world is like us and has this drive for momentum, and it's need to move forward? Then you've got to explain to me the show ice Road Truckers. Somebody told me about it. And I went and checked it out. It is a one hour show about guys driving trucks on ice. That is not momentum. You know, I think the rest of the world looks for opportunities to check out and slow down and sit idle, where we have this obsessive need to drive forward. You know, when you said just now, Daniel about if I don't move my business forward every day, I feel like I'm going backwards. Yeah, you know, I obsessed over Thomas Edison. I think Edison is one of the most intense and incredible people in the history of the world. And when you look at what he did, over 10,000, tries blowing up bulbs trying to make a light bulb lasts for more than a few seconds. 10,000 tries. You know, the average person doesn't give more than 10 seconds to try and something or 10 minutes to try something but 10,000 attempts over the years to turn night into day. That's what the entrepreneurial personality type is all about.

Daniel Rosen  12:57  

Absolutely. I know with this business, I tried 10 thousand ways. And yeah, failed and failed and failed and was just so driven, and then eventually found all the ways that wouldn't work. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it worked.

Alex Charfen  13:09  

Right? I checked off all the boxes on what's not gonna work. And then what was left was successful.

Daniel Rosen  13:15  

Exactly. And it's interesting, our Credit Heroes out there. Many of them, their big dream is to be able to break out to be able to quit their nine to five and fire their boss and get this thing going on their own. A lot of them are early on in their journey. They're just in startup. They're in our community. They're in our programs, and they're trying to get their business going, what do they need to focus on? What would be your message to them to get momentum?

Alex Charfen  13:45  

And this is so I have a different answer than the majority of the world and I just want to put that out there early because sometimes I look like I contradict most coaches and most thought leaders, because I do not ascribe to the mentality that you need to kill yourself to get your business started. And I absolutely believe that there is some hustle involved in the start of any business. Absolutely. However, if you're in early business, you have to recognize who's the most important person in your business. And so when I go out and speak, this is a question I ask, I'll ask a roomful of 500 entrepreneurs who's the most important person in your business? And I'll get answers like my salesperson, my wife, my customers, my assistant. And then somebody finally says to me, and I want every one of you listening to us to understand the last answer is the only answer. The most important person in your business at any stage of growth is you. But if you're in the early stages of growth, you are the business. And so here's the challenge that I see in the entrepreneurial world today. If you are the business, that we need to take care of you, we need to protect you. We need to make sure that that you take care of yourself that you're hydrated that you're moving in the morning that you're breathing, that you're eating the right type of nutrition because you are the engine that will make that business grow. And here's what I know about being accredited. Here I'm working with Daniel at Credit Repair Cloud is that you can build a six-figure business. And if you get after it, you can build a seven figure business. And so if you're in this network, I want you to adopt the belief that there is the potential the reality, the possibility, the hallucination, even, that you can have a seven-figure business because you know what that means to me. You're a million-dollar racehorse, if you've ever thought you could hit a million dollars, and you need to accept the fact that you are a million-dollar racehorse in the making. And if we were to go look at a racetrack, and there were a bunch of million-dollar race horses standing around, here's what I can tell you, we would know by looking at them. We would know by the way they were brushed, we would know by the food around them, we will know by their trainers they have we would know by just looking at them and saying man, somebody is taking care of that racehorse when I look at the entrepreneurial world today. It feels like most entrepreneurs are trying to put up with as much pain and as much stress and as much challenge as they possibly can. And so here's my message to all of you who are starting out our business helps people take six-figure business and turn it into seven, seven, turn it into Eight turning into nine. But here's where we start, we start with lowering the pressure and noise for the entrepreneur. First, we start with self-care for the entrepreneur. First, we start with a written morning routine for every entrepreneur we work with so that they get up in the morning, they go through their morning routine, they're set up for the day, they lower the pressure and noise every day. And they can go and perform at their highest and best. And so if you're in the beginning stages of a business, the more you take care of yourself, the more you lower pressure and noise for yourself, the more you increase your ability to be present, to be aware to be in the moment, and actually making the right decisions, the faster your business is going to grow.

Daniel Rosen  16:41  

Wow, I wish I had met you sooner. and years and years trying to get this business going. I was killing myself. I was wearing all the hats. I was working 20 hour days. It was so crazy living off Top Ramen, not sleeping. Just trying to get This thing going and failing and failing. And I didn't understand about taking care of mice, I put on over 100 pounds. Yeah. And I was too terrified to hire a team. I mean, eventually after years of that, I met Kenan and then Kenan started and then he convinced me to start hiring people, but it was so so very terrifying. The majority of our listeners, they're, they're solopreneurs. Many of them have a great offer and a steady flow of clients. But how do they start to get a team? How do they get over that fear and start to grow and scale that way? What's the secret?

Alex Charfen  17:37  

Okay, so, you know, Daniel, I tend to answer almost every question in a process. Because we have a system for this. And in the early days of being an entrepreneur, here's an equation that is 100% real, the more efficient you are, the more your business grows. It's really hard to like, undo that. You can't say, Oh, well as an entrepreneur, if I'm less efficient, my business will grow. Now, if I'm marginally efficient, I might get lucky in my business, but not really, it's like your efficiency, your effectiveness as a human being is what is going to grow the business. And so when it comes time to analyzing if you need help, and here's something I want to share with everybody, we have a five-step framework we use for just about every decision we ever make. We analyze, prioritize, commit to the decision, execute the solution, and then renew, which means we look at what happened. And we go back to analyze, prioritize, commit, execute, and renew. And when it comes to the process of going from solopreneur, to getting that first help that first person to help you that first assistant, maybe even the first contractor, here's what we do. We have you do a two week Time Study, and like before anybody, like stops the podcast because you're the worst Time Study. Here's what I want everyone to know, the Time Study concept is one of the most effective productivity concepts in the history of business. A lot of times it's used in corporations and as a punishment like hey, you're not doing this Right, we want you to write down everything you're doing. This is not a punishment. If you're an entrepreneur, this is the gateway to getting help and the gateway to getting it fast, and the gateway to get in a way that you feel it. What you do is for two weeks, you take a Time Study document where you write down in 15-minute increments, everything you're doing. In fact, Daniel, if you want, we will share that Time Study document so that people can download it and try this. That'd be awesome. We can link it to the podcast. And so in 15-minute increments, you write down everything and here's the key, you'd write down the in-between stuff. So if you had a call and you check the mail, and you check social, you write down all the little details. If you had lunch, then you ran up to the mailbox and then you did a couple of you send out mailers and send out an email, you write it all down. And here's what happens during the two week Time Study. First, directly before everything in your entire system is going to tell you you shouldn't do it. It's going to come like you will hear all different types of voices saying you don't need to do this. This is unnecessary. You can just look at your calendar later. Not true the Time Study as well. One of the most game-changing things you can do, because here's what happens about two days in, you're already going to be saying I need to change some stuff, three or four days in, you will think the first day was so inefficient compared to your fourth day. At the end of two weeks, here's what will happen. You have 14 sheets of paper, if you only do them for a business days, 10 sheets of paper, they're going to show you everything you're actually doing. And all we need to do is go through them and mark them with either a T for tactical, which means somebody else might be able to help you, or strategics, which means nobody else could do it right now. And here's what we see in 100% of cases after a two week period. The keys almost always outnumber the SS. And we can take that list that direct list of exactly what you're doing. And then ask ourselves, is this list of things that are tactical? Can we hire a contractor? Can we hire an EA, executive assistant, a va a virtual assistant? Can we bring somebody in to help you with it? And that process of getting the data so understanding exactly what you're doing? Then turning that data into the job description then bringing in the person that helped you. To us, that is the cleanest and fastest and easiest way to do it. And here's what happens. I'm sure there's people in in your membership, Daniel that have tried to hire and it didn't work out. Well, here's always, here's what I want you to know. Your management mistakes of the past do not equal your leadership successes of the future, if you didn't use a process to hire the first time and it didn't work out. That's expected. If you follow a process like this, where you analyze exactly what's been done, you hand it off to somebody you coach their success so that they know you know they have your support, and you're telling them how you would normally do it. Within the first week of having somebody on board at the end of the week. It already feels like momentum, it already feels like you've offloaded instead of what it can feel like where if you don't use a process and you hire someone, you almost immediately feel pressure to utilize them. You feel like you're not doing enough you feel like it's almost a liability right out of the gate. So going through the Time Study to job description to Bringing them on and having them execute exactly what's tactical, there really isn't a higher percentage chance way of doing it successfully.

Daniel Rosen  22:07  

Absolutely. And by going through that process, you then have all your company processes all your slps to follow. Yeah, then whoever you get, you have the documentation for them. And that's how you grow.

Alex Charfen  22:21  

And then you just do it again, Daniel. So, you know, what we do is we will have somebody hire their first assistant, and then they work for a couple months. It's like, Hey, we need more help. Well, then both of them do a Time Study and we look at what they're actually doing. And we add that together into another role we bring somebody else on, and the way that we hire or bring somebody on in almost every organization we work with most of the time. It's preceded by analyze, gather the data through Time Study, prioritize, what should they do? What should we do commit to hiring somebody, bring them in, execute that hiring process, and then look at it again and renew and go back to the beginning?

Daniel Rosen  22:54  

Absolutely. And all the people who have grown very large credit repair businesses, they all Do this. None of them are a solopreneur. They've all built a team. They've all built processes. This you guys, this really is the key here. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I want to talk about something because of the timing of when we are and where we are in the world with this crisis that's going on. What's amazing, both you and I have this in common. You had massive success in the last financial crisis. I started building Credit Repair Cloud in the last financial crisis. crisis is a time of opportunity. People are really scared. Can we address that?

Alex Charfen  23:34  

Heck, yeah, Daniel, you know, here's what I believe crisis is a period of accelerated change. It's always a period of accelerated change. And the commitment to be an entrepreneur is the commitment to a life of crisis. So I just want to put that out there is that if you are going to be an entrepreneur, some portion of your life will always be in crisis. And the more successful you are, the greater that portion will be, and I get pushback on this. But let me just give you an example. So A friend of mine, Dave Liniger, formerly ran REMAX, he was the founder of REMAX owner of REMAX forever until it went public just retired a couple years ago. And you know, for most of us, if I get served with legal documentation, it's like a crisis like oh my gosh, I'm getting sued. Oh, I got to shut everything down and figure out what's going on. At any given time. REMAX was defending 50 to 100 lawsuits, because it was just constant, there was a constant crisis. They're a multi-billion dollar multinational company, with 95,000 people carrying their business cards, things happen. So at that level, it's like there's just a process to handle crisis to move through it. And so first, I want us to understand that crisis is a constant, it's a part of the human condition. It's normal. Now, let's talk about the crisis that we're in. If crisis is a period of accelerated change, I believe this is the greatest period of accelerated change we will experience in our lifetimes unless something happens in the future, but it's like nothing that's ever happened in the past. And when I look, I just a friend of mine sent me a graph a couple days ago. Where it showed the growth of e-commerce versus brick and mortar over the past 10 years. So in the past 10 years, e-commerce growth equals the growth of the last six months. The graph went like this and then straight up. So the Coronavirus has accelerated the growth of e-commerce to the point where we now have covered 10 years of predicted growth in six months. And so we're in this period of growth and acceleration and its massive opportunity. When I look at the world around us, there are industries and there are entire businesses that will never look the same. But when there's this much change, and as much turmoil and these many people in pain, when you look at the world today, there are so many people in pain. And what do entrepreneurs do? We identify pain, create a painkiller, sell it to people, help them get out of their pain, and get back into momentum. And so this crisis has created what I believe is the most significant opportunity for entrepreneurs in history and don't even get me started about how intense This is for not just the financial services industry, but specifically for credit repair. You know, before we started the podcast, I told Daniel, I feel like this crisis has paved a, like a yellow brick road right to his front door because the Credit Repair Cloud business, but even more, the Credit Heroes out there have been set up for success by this crisis in a way that I don't know that we could have ever predicted or ever anticipated.

Daniel Rosen  26:28  

Yup, we're hearing it all the time from the people in our community, they're getting so many clients, things are just on fire. And we're only at the beginning of this.

Alex Charfen  26:38  

It's going to last the next decade. Here's what I want everyone to understand about what we're going to see in the credit business. So let me qualify this a little bit. So it doesn't sound like I'm just making up what I know about credit. So I've been a real estate investor for over 28 years, or 27 years. I've bought and sold hundreds of properties I've helped buy and sold thousands of properties and we during the foreclosure crash As I was intimately involved with most of the major lenders, most of the major brokerages, and the US government, and so I have an insider's view of the credit industry and how credit is assigned, how mortgages are made, how all that stuff goes on. And so when you look at this crisis, here's what's going to happen in the near term, people are going to want to improve their credit to take advantage of opportunity, the people who are wiped out right now it's going to take a while before they come out of the woodwork and say that, but then in the midterm, there's going to be people who were damaged by this crisis and then want to repair their credit. And then in the longer term, there's going to be people who got really significantly challenged by this crisis that are going to want to repair their credit. So the way I look at it is near term, mid term, long term. Credit Heroes are set up for success like crazy and here's what's so dynamic about what you do, Daniel, and really, the fact that there is a individual is that when it comes to credit, and when it comes to money when it comes to finances, people want to talk to a human being and in the world of financial services today. We all know what you get, you call in and you spend two hours hitting buttons trying to get to a department where you might be able to talk to something that's not a robot. So the fact that this is a person to person opportunity, and it's an opportunity where you can go out and help your neighbor, help your friend help the family member with increasing their buying power, and saving them tons of money over time. I think it's one of the most significant business opportunities I've ever seen before we started recording this podcast. I told Daniel, if I could invest in this business, I would because I think it's that incredibly set up for success.

Daniel Rosen  28:32  

Crazy things are about to happen. A lot of people are going to lose their homes, then the price is going to drop that's going to cause a buying frenzy of the people who can afford it, but they're going to want to bump up their credit. It's going to be amazing for us in the credit world.

Alex Charfen  28:47  

Yeah, and it's coming Daniel. So just so everybody has some perspective, about 30% of people last month, were unable what predicted they would not be able to pay their mortgages or their rent this month, one out of three and so that is is way bigger than anything we saw during the foreclosure crisis, we're going to see numbers that exceed any record we've ever said before. We've had more people lose their jobs in a six month period than ever has lost it lost their jobs in any multi-year period in the United States. And so when you look at all of those things adding together here's what it means. There has been this virus introduced into the world that is created a lot of financial challenge for people. So if you're in a business, where you help people out of financial challenge, this is like this is the ideal place to be and not just because you're going to make money. I want to make this clear, not just because you're gonna make money. One of the most rewarding things that Katie and I were able to do during the foreclosure crisis is help someone out of foreclosure or take someone who thought they were going to face financial devastation and show them they could come back or even better. The people that we helped early in the crisis. Were able to get their stuff together, repair their credit, come back and buy a house a few years later, like that feeling of helping somebody rejoin the economy and give back into homeownership and get back into having real credit and being able to participate. It's one of the most rewarding feelings in the world. Because let's get real, like the access to credit dictates what type of a quality of life you're going to have. And so I don't even look at this as just a financial services company. It's like you guys are going out and helping people improve their quality of life. So yes, I think you can make a ton of money and you can have that seven-figure credit repair business at the same time, the bigger the number coming in, the more people's lives. You're changing. Absolutely.

Daniel Rosen  30:31  

And that's really that's our mantra here. With our Credit Heroes, is about changing lives. Yeah. knew that the money comes anyways. You don't focus on the money. We used to say the same thing during the foreclosure crisis. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's fantastic. The other thing that's happening right now is a lot of our folks work from home and there used to be this whole stigma about working from home, but this has changed everything for all businesses, hasn't it?

Alex Charfen  31:00  

Completely Daniel, you know, there is going to be a massive permanent migration to homework. In fact, if you look at the major tech companies in Silicon Valley, except for SpaceX, and Tesla won't set them aside because musk wants everybody in the office yesterday. But if you look at Google and Facebook and Apple, they pretty much told people they don't have to come back to work until the end of next year. And Facebook and all three of them have actually said they're going to put permanent programs in place for work from home. And so I feel like we were pretty lucky. We already worked out of the house. We already homeschool our kids. I already have a home gym, there's a pool in the backyard. We were set up for this. And I think you know, the home-based business has already exploded. I don't think we're going to see that go down. I think we're only going to see it grow. 

Daniel Rosen  31:44  

Right. I agree. And what's amazing is what's what I think is driving it is you watch TV, the news people they're in their homes, they're interviewing people in their homes. Yeah, watch the tonight show or Jimmy Kimmel, they're in their homes. It's normal now. It's done. Normal is crazy. So this is perfect. Hey, I want to talk about your upcoming training event, because I know our Credit Heroes want to hear about that.

Alex Charfen  32:09  

Awesome, Daniel. So we have this event coming up first week of October. And, you know, here's what we're attempting to do. We want to help as many people as we can in the first week of October to really create insane momentum. We have this event called momentum masterclass. And I'm going to be training for three days, morning sessions and afternoon sessions, and showing people showing any of you who want to come how to understand yourself better and exactly where you are in your business, then how to understand how to build a strategic plan to get to the future in your business. And here's what's really important, you will walk away with an understanding of what to do next. So that you have three things, the clarity to know what you're doing next, the confidence that you're doing the right things. So you have massive commitment to move forward. Because here's what I know about entrepreneurs. And here's the assumption I make about anybody who's listening to us when you know where you're going and you're excited about the destination, you take the accelerator and mash it to the floor. And if you're listening to us and the accelerator isn't matched to the floor and you're holding back in any way, or you're not really pushing yourself at the speed that you know you can I make the assumption that there's a lack of clarity, confidence or commitment. And so in three days, I'm going to help you resolve that get incredibly clear and be excited about where you're going so that you can go fast.

Daniel Rosen  33:27  

Amen. Amen to that. 

Alex Charfen  33:30  

And if they if they want to join, you can go to momentum masterclass.com and register.

Daniel Rosen  33:34  

momentummasterclass.com

Alex Charfen  33:37  

We have that alliteration thing going Momentum Masterclass.

Daniel Rosen  33:41  

Hey, Kenan has a question for you. 

Alex Charfen  33:44  

Let's hear it, Keenan!

Keenan Jones  33:45  

Hey Alex! So my question for you is, so we have a lot of entrepreneurs that are in this starter phase. They're just starting their business and maybe even their first opportunity that they've done to get out of their nine to five and get started. So you talked a lot about the high level of what someone would should focus on. But like, what should this be person be focusing on a day to day basis tactically to really create that momentum for themselves? 

Alex Charfen  34:15  

You know, Kanan, I'm going to answer that question in a process. In fact, in a framework, I want to share one of our most foundational frameworks with you, we call it the contribution equation. And, you know, I talked to Daniel earlier about reading the lives of really successful people. And as I started to read more and more, I saw those patterns start emerging. And this is a definitive pattern I saw over and over again, here's what I like to do in the world. I like to take really complex subjects and make them so I can understand them, and so that they can be applied quickly, and they can be applied rationally. And I feel like the world of business is confusing enough. Our frameworks should be really simple. And so this is a simple one. But I actually feel like it's the meaning of life for entrepreneurs like us. What I saw in people's lives over and over again is they followed this four-step process. The first step to being successful as an entrepreneur, especially when you're first starting out is to lower the pressure and the noise in your life. That's the first step of the contribution equation, lower pressure, and noise. And here's what I mean by that. Far too many entrepreneurs are so focused on the outcome that they allow anything to attack them, they tolerate whatever they put up with everything. And I know why I get it. Here's what I know about people like us. There has been a time in your life where there was a tiny little light at the end of the tunnel, and you were going towards that light. But the people around you were telling you, hey, you don't have what it takes. And you maybe didn't have the time or the energy or the resources are what you should have had. But you kept focusing on that light and compelling yourself towards it and propelling it towards you. And you step through that light and that is where you become who you are. Kanan, are you familiar with that story? Yeah, absolutely. You've been there, right. And here's what I know about that. every entrepreneur out there has been through that experience, but here's the problem. That period of difficulty, that period of challenge that period of stress to finally step through that line convinced us that in order to be successful, we had to be in pain that in order to be successful, we had to put up with tons of pressure and noise. And as a result as entrepreneurs, we tolerate way too much. So when I say lower the pressure and noise in your life, here's what I mean. Look at the people, the places that things in your life, take an inventory, and ask yourself, Is this giving me one momentum? Or is it taking it away? Because it's binary, it's either on or off. It's either giving you momentum, momentum or taking it away. So step one, lower the pressure and noise, obsessively, relentlessly every day. Here's what happens if you do that, in most systems and most programs, it's like step one is do a ton of work in our program. Step one is offload a ton of pressure and noise so that you can have this space. And what happens is if you lower the pressure and noise, the next step of the contribution equation starts to happen naturally, and here's what it is. It's asking for protection and support. You know, every entrepreneur including me has such a hard time asking for help. I call it the entrepreneur’s dilemma, we need far more help than the average person to reach our destination. But anytime we have to request help or protection or support, it leaves us feeling vulnerable and exposed. I know that feeling every entrepreneur knows that feeling. But here's the fact if we're going to get to where we want to go, if we're going to create the outcomes make the change in the world we want. Eventually, it's going to require help. The Myth of the solopreneur who changed the world is just that it's a myth. There's no such thing. Anyone who's changed the world got help got protection support had people around them. You know, Daniel mentioned earlier, there's now a 70 person team behind them. The reason is, when you start lowering the pressure and noise in your life and you ask for protection support, it actually starts a system where you lower more noise, get more help lower more noise and get more help. And if you do those two things, you consistently lower the noise in your life and increase protection and support. The third step of the contribution equation is your strengths and abilities will just show and I know this is kind of a leap of faith, but I've watched it so many times with our members with people who are in our programs with entrepreneurs who I know that as soon as they start to lower the noise, and ask for protection and support, they get better at everything they do. You know, we're constantly flying around and taking courses and, and learning and trying to make ourselves better. But if we do these two things, lower the noise and increase protection and support, we literally become gifted at everything we do, we get better at everything we do. And if you're willing to do these three things, lower the pressure and noise, increase protection support, allow your strengths and abilities to show you will go make your greatest contribution. The fourth step is to make your greatest contribution. So for us, if you're just starting out, think about this framework, write it down in front of you, every single day ask yourself, Am I lowering the pressure and noise in my life? Have I created the morning routine? Am I hydrated? am I eating healthy? am I walking? Am I breathing? Am I doing the things that are going to support me as a human being? And then the second step is am I getting help? Am I reading the books I should get? Am I intentionally consumed What's going to help me right now? Do I know what help I need? And if I'm doing those two things, you will start to see your strengths and abilities show and you will go out and make a massive contribution. I want to make something clear. When I talk about contribution, here's what I mean. Sometimes I get misinterpreted, and people think that I'm telling everyone to go start a charity. I'm not I don't think entrepreneurs should start charities, I think we should fund charities, not start them. We're not good at begging for money. We're good at making money. And so when I say contribution, here's what I mean. In the world we're in today where people vote with their dollars, capital flows to the greatest contribution. So if you go out and you make the greatest, most massive contribution there is that will show in revenue and dollars and wealth. And that's what I mean, I want every entrepreneur to go out, make a massive change in the world, build an empire make a huge contribution, have the wealth and the success and the influence and the affluence. You've always wanted because if your mind is telling you you could, I want you to know that's an indication from the universe you can 

Daniel Rosen  39:59  

Absolutely.

Alex Charfen  40:00  

Yeah. 

Daniel Rosen  40:00  

Awesome. Okay, before we close out here, I want to go into a rapid-fire round of questions that we're going to answer really quickly, kind of like a game show. I love this answer with the first thing that pops into your head. You're ready. I mean, if you could go back in time, what do you know now that you wish you had known when you had first started?

Alex Charfen  40:20  

People are way more important than you think they are.

Daniel Rosen  40:23  

Cool. Is there a book that's changed your life,

Alex Charfen  40:25  

How to Win Friends and Influence People. I wish I had read that book at eight years old instead of at 28 years old.

Daniel Rosen  40:31  

Wow. What drives and motivates you?

Alex Charfen  40:34  

Contribution. Seeing a change in other people seeing other people grow, seeing other people do things that they didn't believe that they could is the most motivating thing for me.

Daniel Rosen  40:44  

Cool. What does business ownership mean to you?

Alex Charfen  40:48  

Freedom and independence and possibility and being able to have the family that I want in the life that I want and being able to control my own destiny.

Daniel Rosen  40:58  

What's your definition of Success

Alex Charfen  41:01  

is being able to intentionally design the life that I want and then make it happen. Once a year, I sit down and I write out exactly what I want my perfect day to look like. And then I work on it over the course of the year. And what's interesting, Daniel, when I was younger, I used to do it. And every year at the end of the year, I would be like, I'm getting closer. These days, I write down my perfect day. And I'm usually there within a few months, and I write it down again, and I write it down again. So to me, success is designing the life that you want and exactly the way you want it.

Daniel Rosen  41:27  

Very cool. What's your advice to anyone who's at Ground Zero, just starting out with their business?

Alex Charfen  41:35  

Do not doubt that you should do this. I think the biggest issue for people who are just starting out is that there's this voice in our head that says, Do you really think you can do this? Are you good enough? Should you do this? Remember when you screwed up when you were a kid like all of those things? I call it imposter syndrome. And imposter syndrome is is one of the most like foundational human traits because it actually stops us from doing the wrong thing. Sometimes like we need that resistance we need that question. But if you're starting your business, here's what I want you to know. If you hear the imposter you're in the right place because imposters don't have imposter syndrome. They're imposters. So if you're hearing it, it's confirmation you are in the right place. And if you felt like you want to start your own business, if your mind has created the question, I want you to know you have everything you need to do it right now. Kill the imposter every day. And here's what I mean by that. Get up every day and do something to move forward. Get up every day, do something that makes you uncomfortable. Get up every day, do something you didn't do the day before kill the imposter one day at a time. And then you get to a day where you think, huh, I haven't heard that voice in a while because look at all the success I've created. Wow, that's so cool.

Daniel Rosen  42:44  

I love that. I love your voice. I don't know if you know this. I listen... You're in my ear every day. I listen to your podcast every day on the way to work on the way home. It's just... And, in fact, can we tell everybody where they can hear your podcast? 

Alex Charfen  42:59  

Oh, absolutely Daniel, if you go to momentumpodcast.com, my podcast is called Momentum to the Entrepreneurial Personality Type. Daniel, this is super cool. We just found out a few weeks ago, I haven't really gotten statistics on the podcast in a long time, but there's a new program out there called Chartable and we just found that we are in the top 100 of business podcasts in the United States. And we're in the top 1000 of all podcasts worldwide 800,000 podcasts were like in the 900. So that was super exciting to find out.

Daniel Rosen  43:28  

Wow, that's great. Congratulations. And tell us again one more time where people can learn more about your Momentum Masterclass.

Alex Charfen  43:35  

So go to momentummasterclass.com there's a brief just registration there and then you'll start getting emails so that you can show up and watch me live. We're recording everything but here's my advice. Treat this like a paid event. Take Momentum Masterclass, as though you paid for it. Here's what I want you to know. Every element I will be training over those three days is the stuff that we have sold for thousands of dollars, and so treat it like a paid event, and from the beginning of that to the end, you will end up in a completely different place in your business. But here's my commitment. It won't just be in your business, we work holistically, we will help you in your business and your life.

Daniel Rosen  44:10  

Absolutely. That's for sure. It's helped my personal life too. It's made me happier. It's affected everything. Hey, I want to thank you so much for your time today, Alex, you are so incredible. And you guys watching, I hope this was inspiring to you. If you're out there trying to launch or grow your credit repair business, be sure to click below to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. And I will see you on the next episode. And thanks again for being here, Alex!

Alex Charfen  44:39  

Daniel, I will come back anytime I absolutely love hanging out with you. You're one of my favorite people in the world and everyone who's listening, I just want to validate something. You are in the right place. You have a massive opportunity. Take advantage of it. There is very few companies out there that, you know, create the type of opportunity this one is. I'm excited for all of you.

Daniel Rosen  44:58  

Thank you. Okay, also, see you guys on the next episode. Keep changing lives. See ya! 

Want a fast track to creating an amazing business that helps people, changes lives, and makes you a great living in the process that I'd like to invite you to my free online training at creditrepaircloud.com/freetraining. In this free training, you will learn how to get clients willing to pay you even if you're just starting out how to get easy credit repair results without being an expert, and how to get all the clients you'll ever need without paying for advertising. Again, this training is absolutely free. Just visit creditrepaircloud.com/freetraining.