How Ari Page Helped Entrepreneurs Generate $2 Billion In Funding Instantly

The loans that actually pay you back are the ones that upset Dave Ramsey the most. And he's like, "Why would I spend $100,000 to earn $2,000?" Dave, what are you even talking about? No one is going out and just making up $100,000 worth of stuff to spend it on to try and get $2,000 of cash back points. That's not what they're doing. They're spending $100,000 on their pay-per-click. This is spending that they would be doing either way. Now, they're getting 2% cash back. There's no other loan that actually pays you back other than a credit card.

Welcome and thank you for joining us for today's episode, disruptors, where millionaires are made. Today we have Ari Paige with Fund and Grow and Ari Fulin from Spring Hill, Florida to talk about how he's helped his clients generate $2 billion in funding. Now guys, I'm on a mission to create 100 millionaires. Information on the show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next 5 to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you'll become one. And if you're already a millionaire, we want to recognize you here. So, please scan that QR code on that page right now. That way, we can recognize you. And if you want help becoming a millionaire faster, scan that same QR code. And before we jump in, if you're here to learn how real entrepreneurs are building real empires, hit that subscribe button because every week we're dropping lessons that can create your first or next million. And guys, our AI lead manager is now up and running. If you want to hear what our AI lead manager sounds like, text AI caller to the phone number 33777. That's AI spacealler 33777. Ready?

All right. Well, you know, uh I want to say first of all, uh you know, this is long overdue, right? Uh I've heard of Finding Girl. We were kind of chatting beforehand like um I've heard about you guys a very, very long time and I just found out like, you know, you're one of the original members in the family mastermind, right? I came a little bit later. I was not one of the originals. Uh I came a little bit later. But, you know, you've been at this business for a very long time. So, but before we jump into the the business, >> what were you doing before you went into business for yourself or at least before you started Fund and Grow? >> That's a great question and Steve, thank you so much for having me on here. >> Yeah, >> millions of people have watched your podcast and it's just an honor to be here. So, thank you so much. >> So, um >> what was I doing before Funding Grow? Before funding grow, I was working for my mentor Dave Kandle, which was a uh for Loan Pro Financial, which was a a mortgage company. >> And so we were doing mortgages in California. And before that, I was working in the shipyard. >> Shipyard. >> Yeah. So that's different. >> Yeah. So that was a that was a very big transition there. >> Yeah. So what were you doing at uh at the shipyard? So, I was a ship fitter, which means that they would hand you a a stack of blueprints, >> and they'd tell you, "Go on the ship and build it." So, it could be ripping out something, putting in something new, it could be changing a space. We were doing a lot of upgrades to add air conditioning >> in a lot of the Navy ships. And um a whole variety of things really, but that was one of the big things. And it, you know, it was it was a a very fun and exciting career until I learned about this amazing thing for me called uh the law of attraction, which absolutely changed everything for me.

So, what what did you learn about the law of attraction? >> Well, I learned that I can think outside of the lanes that I've been in in the past. Um, you know, my my past, >> my parents joined an Amish community when I was really young. Uh, it wasn't actually Amish. It's Amish like it's called called the Bruterhoff. the Bruterhoff communities. >> I see. >> And >> in California? >> No, that's they're actually um they actually have a bunch of different locations on the East Coast. They're they're global, but they the ones that I lived in were in New York and in Pennsylvania. >> I see. Okay. >> And it was a it's a really beautiful childhood growing up there. Um, it's very communal. It's like the Amish, but instead of everyone being in their own home, they have like it's like a communal setting. >> I see. So, it's a little bit different, but I learned the power of the group of how people can work together to create like absolutely amazing things. Like those people are not poor. >> Mhm. They they have some amazing businesses and they you look at them, they're just like they look like Amish people. >> Mhm. >> But they have businesses that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And all of it is through them working together. They're from the highest levels all the way down to the lowest person. And so it was a beautiful way of being able to to be raised to learn. And after leaving the community, I then, you know, through a bunch of different jobs ended up at the shipyard. So I had skills that I had learned from the Amish place that I was then able to employ and put to work.

I see. So then what got you into mortgages? Because that's a pretty significant transition. >> That was the law of attraction. >> Yeah. >> So I was working 12-hour days in the shipyard, seven days a week. That's 84 hours a week. >> And if you don't do it, guess what? >> There's a thousand guys outside the gate that will. >> I see. >> So, you either work it >> or you leave. >> And when those Navy ships come in, it's 24 24/7 just boom, working on them to get them out. >> Mhm. >> And um >> once learning about the law of attraction, I realized I'm not I I can't live my life like this. M you know I have a son and a daughter and I need to provide for them in a way that's way beyond what this shipyard job could ever provide >> right >> and so learning about the law of attraction which is a whole thing we can't do a whole podcast on that now uh I was able to to basically change what I was thinking about change the way I was feeling and insert other new things that I never would have >> been bold enough to think about.

Gotcha. And so it got me just to kind of shift gears. And at that time, what that meant for me was uh responding to this guy that kept contacting me for that I had met through a previous job. And uh his name was Dave Kandle. >> Mhm. >> So he's the guy ended up being my mentor. >> And why was he reaching out to you? >> So the universe was knocking. >> Mhm. >> And I wasn't answering. I wasn't answering until I learned about the law of attraction. And I was like, "Wow, this is I just my frequency wasn't there. I just wasn't able to to line up with it." So once I did line up with it, I understood what Dave was attempting to get me to do. Really, it was trying to help me. Uh >> I I then was like, "Oh yeah, I want to do this. I I don't want to work in the shipyard. I would love to learn how to do mortgages. >> Uh I I realized I need to put my energy into something for a period of time before I'm going to get any positive benefit out of it." Because when you're doing a mortgage loan or something, like if you're a blueco collar worker, you're going to work for 30 days and not get paid. Yeah, >> you can't do that. And with a mortgage loan, it could be many months >> before you're going to get especially on your first deal, >> right? >> And so, like I had to really open my mind. And so, anyway, after working with Dave for a period of time, it was right in 2007, uh, the beautiful amazing crash.

Well, before we get before we get into the crash, >> um, why was he reaching out to you? So, he was reaching out to me because he had started this process of being able to use business credit cards and he wanted help. >> I see. So, business credit cards, it wasn't like like mortgages is like buying houses. >> Um, no. Well, at the time he he was still doing the mortgages and he wanted help on his website. >> Mhm. >> So, we weren't quite doing the business credit cards yet, but he was taking testimonials and pictures and videos and putting it all together. And so what I was helping him with at the time was the technology side. >> I see. >> It was taking vid like a some video and audio files and converting them from like one format to the other. And that's what I had typically done for Dave in the past. I'd helped him with computer things. >> I see. >> So that's what I thought he was trying to contact me about. >> Oh, you didn't want that work. >> I did not. No, you know, honestly, he would ask me to do stuff and then he wouldn't even pay the money afterwards. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And and we're talking like 20 bucks for can you convert this audio file so that I can put it onto my website. >> Yeah. >> And but I started listening to what these the videos and the audio files were saying and they were talking about getting people business credit cards and to be able to use that to to to fill this LTV gap. The loan to values were dropping. 2007208 what the banks were offering. the amount that they were offering was dropping really fast and you had to cough up extra money if you were going to close that loan, >> right? The house in appraise, you had to come up with the difference >> and Dave was using business credit cards >> to make up that difference.

Fascinating. I I don't think I've ever heard anyone doing that. >> So, okay. So, uh, he reaches out to you, you answer the call eventually. Um, and so, >> actually, my wife at the time, she picked up, she had my cell phone, she picked it up and I was like, "Didn't it was Dave?" I was like, "All right." Right. And then I and then I took the call and changed my life.

So what what did you what did he have you doing when you first started working for him or with him. >> So when I first started working with Dave, he had me calling leads >> and he basically was like, "All right, go read the website and I'm going to fax you over a lead sheet." I was like, "But wait, Dave." Click. And and so I sent him an email like, "Dave, I don't know how to sell this. I don't know what I'm doing." Mhm. >> And he's like, "Ar, I told you go read the website, >> right?" >> And I'm like, I'm the kind of person that asks a million questions, right? I'm not just So anyway, after thinking about it, I was like, "Well, you know what? I could keep on doing what I'm doing at the shipyard, right? >> Or I could try something new." >> And so I started calling leads. And uh I remember the first one that I closed was this guy called Mike on Memorial Day. >> Mhm. >> And he's like, "Why are you calling me on Memorial Day?" And my only line was uh because that's the only time you're going to catch an entrepreneur not working. And uh he actually bought the service and and then he never even contacted us back ever after that. >> Got it. >> And he specifically said he's like, "Ar, your uh your sportsmanship when it comes to sales, I must have been so green, >> so just like excited." >> Yeah. >> That he felt it. >> Yeah. >> And that had something to do because he even mentioned it on the sale. So I always think back of that guy. It was >> first sale.

Okay. So, uh, read the website. You still don't really know what was going on. Did you read the website? Like, did it give you more clarity? >> Uh, a little bit. A little bit, but it was talking about just using business credit cards to be able to, you know, fill gaps and funding. And at the time, he was still doing loans, but I was calling on the business credit card side.

Okay. So, then you were able to get some sales going. Um, and then how did that uh continue? So Dave had all of his people working from home. >> And I don't know about you, Steve, but that doesn't work very well. >> Yeah. >> You have some people that can that can do good working from home. >> And another guy that Dave had working for him. His name is Daniel. >> Daniel is my partner today. >> Got it. >> And he was also working from home. And so it was basically me, Dan, and Dave that were that were doing all of this. and they were still closing business loans. I was doing business credit cards and it was all under Dave's company and we were process doing the processing together. And it kept on building and growing. I kept on asking Dave, we have to hire other people. We need to do this, we need to do that. And Dave's idea was, well, I'll give you a little cut here and then you you do that. Like Dave, that's not the way it works. You have to be able to scale. We have to, you know what I mean? Like I don't know a lot, but I do know that when I worked at the shipyard, there was a lot of guys in there. It wasn't just me. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. You go to um I like whenever I go to In-N-Out, it's like it always seems like excessively overstaffed. Go to Chick-fil-A, always seems like excessively overstaffed. >> No other industry. You're like, you just got to hustle through it. >> Yeah. >> But for some reason, a lot of us kind of like start off with like I got to do everything. >> Yeah. And especially entrepreneurs, they they don't want to relinquish that control to others, >> right?

So then I'm not So Dave was then going through some lawsuits that had to do with uh mortgage loans that he had given that had that were it was like a uh I forget but basically he had he had like assigned a mortgage that a lady's mortgage where he basically was going to like get her house when she died and he was going to pay for the for the uh the payments until she died. >> Mhm. And these this these family members that were not her family members, they were like nurses and stuff that had worked for this lady in the past came up and claimed to be the children. And it created this whole big suit that for you and me, >> we would have just moved on from. >> But the day it became the end of the world. >> Yeah. >> And he focused on this lawsuit like in such a big way that he felt like he needed to move on from the other things that he was working on. >> I see. >> And so he first asked Daniel, he said, "Daniel, do you want to run this company?" And at that time it was called credit card builders >> because we specifically were building credit cards for small businesses. But that's the worst name in the world. >> Why is it the worst name in the world? >> The word credit is a pjorative in many people's minds. The word credit card is the word uh builder. They see that as a blue collar like it's got so many pjoratives built into it. Just the word credit card itself. >> Yeah. You know, we're the our new name, Fund and Grow, is more about what we can do for you. >> Aspirational. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Which and that was such a fun process coming up with with that. We we were going to go with growth capital >> because you think about it's the same thing. It's fun and grow. >> It's about growing and it's about getting access to to to capital. >> But go on Google and type in growth capital. >> You get like two trillion. You know what I mean? every single company out there that does anything close to what we do, >> they're called they're growth capital partners, unsecured growth capital, there's like every variation of that. >> So I went through this process uh and I you know we eliminated all these different things. I don't know if you ever gone through the process of nicknaming a company and so I went through that. Okay, you have a mentor that kind of helps you and so and I was just going through it and like figuring out all these things until we and and I really like the word fund >> and I like the word grow. just couldn't figure out how to, you know, grow growing funds, you know, until we just came I came up with the idea of just kind of smashing it all together, fund and grow. Yeah. >> And I remember when I first sent it through the through the our text chat and people are like, that doesn't work at all. It that fund and grow. >> And I'm like, stop saying it like that. Say it. Fund and grow. >> Fund and grow. Think of it as an end. Fund and grow. >> And then suddenly it caught on to us and we were like, wow, this was like the best name in the world. It just felt like magic.

Yeah. So, all right. So, um Dave reaches out, Daniel, we interested. He's like, I'm not sure. So, what happened after that? >> Oh, that's right. So, so Daniel is he's more of a CF. He's like my CFO. He's more of an accountant. >> Very good at numbers, very good at all of that, but not a outwardly facing type of individual that wants to do sales, webinars, presentations, speaking, so on so forth. But he wanted to be part of it, just, you know, the part that he's used to playing, which is as a chief financial officer. So we just So Dave first offered it to him. He said, "No, but you should offer it to Ari because he's already doing all the work." And so I So Dave offered it to me. At first I was like, "Dave, are you under uh any kind of investigation? What's going on here, Dave? >> Why would you give it away?" >> Yeah. Why Why are you doing this? >> And um he was he was ready for that. It wasn't it wasn't something he got paid in perpetuity. >> Mhm. >> So >> in what? >> Uh you know, as a stock sale agreement. So every every month he got paid off of funding grows. >> So he still gets paid today. >> Well, he passed away many years ago, but if he hadn't, he would be. >> I see. Okay. So there was something in it for him. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was getting paid excess of six figures a month. Yeah. >> Oh, wow. Okay. So, it worked out well for him. >> It worked out very well for him. But a lot of people would think, well, why wouldn't you want to make, you know, a million dollars a month, you know, but I don't think Dave could have ever really scaled it to that. That that wasn't his >> expertise. His expertise was coming up with ideas and creating things. Me coming from the Amish background and understanding the power of leverage in the group and being able to trust, being able to trust. Like I know that these people aren't going to do as good as I'll do it. But it's just a percentage that they're going to mess up. Find out that percentage, >> then operate off that >> and then try to bump it up. They're they're not going to do it perfectly. But even us, we don't do it perfectly every time. >> Not even close. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

Okay. So I offer it to you and you guys come to terms fairly quickly then. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. And when about was this? >> So that was in 2009. >> Okay. So still incredibly challenging market. >> Yes. Right after right after the crash of 2008. >> Incredibly challenging market. Credit's tight. >> Mhm. >> And you're doing this well now it's fun and grow but you know it was like credit card. >> We were still credit card builders back then. >> Yeah. Credit card builders. So what was that like like you know this transitioning like I guess first question do you remember approximate kind of like revenue you guys are doing or like volume >> I think when I when I bought the company from Dave we had done maybe maybe eight or 900,000 in the entire year. >> Mhm. >> So the the revenues were really small. >> Yeah. Okay. And so in taking it over like what were some of the because you obviously had to change the culture, the look. I mean you said it was basically just three of you, right? >> Yeah. At that time >> there were no employees. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So let's talk about like you know obviously you know like spoiler alert you're still here. You're doing well. So what were the initial challenges in in in building this business? So the first thing that I did after becoming the owner was I took I everyone that was working from home and I which was me and Daniel and I was like we're we're going to create an office. >> So instead of having outside contractors instead of doing that old model even though it was only a couple of us we're going to come up with a new model which is going to be one to have people come in and sit down and do work and you know Daniel you're going to hold those same office hours. I'm going to hold those same office hours. Uh so that's that's what we did and it started with me going to my office in Spring Hill and uh I had well no it actually first started in my living room. So I had my first two employees were were Zach and Lyanna and I say that because they still work for me today. >> Okay. >> And um there was there was others kind of in between but they don't work for me but those two worked literally out of my living room. >> Zach is now our guy on on YouTube. He's our YouTube guy. >> I see. So after we worked out of my living room for a little less than a year, I then ended up renting a unit in Spring Hill and then we hired more people, went to that unit. Then I ended up buying that entire building. Uh then eventually we uh I think it was in 2019 we bought a new building in Spring Hill uh which is about 5,000 square ft and

Yeah. And but what kind of adversity did you have? Cuz 2009 was bad. Like I mean we're talking people getting divorced, people killing themselves, right? Like it was a bad time. Credit was super tight. Did that affect your business? Was that good for your business? Was it bad for business? >> Yeah. So this is a really good question because at that time what were the what what was crashing? >> Real estate values. >> Yeah. Soures. So specifically with the banks it was mortgages. >> Yeah. And one of the things that they were doing was they were the banks were going from putting out major, you know, a million dollars in one mortgage to putting out what they would see more as a microloan. >> So what a a healthy model that was working suddenly is crashing. Now they're going to turn to the other models that they already had that were not crashing that were already doing well. We found that we were able to give out to get access to more business credit cards as the crash went on. >> I see. they were unregulated loans versus the highly regulated loans. And I know it crashed because supposedly they they removed uh different types of regulations and so on, >> but really there there's a lot of regulations still tied up in mortgages and it made it more difficult for the banks to deal with that crisis because of all those extra all the extra red tape. They turned to other loan programs that were not having those pro those problems at the time. Credit cards did have a default rate, but they didn't have a massive systemic crash of all credit card companies and business credit cards like they did like the banks did with mortgage loans that physically needed bailed out from. >> Yeah. When those mortgages were significantly larger than credit card >> Yeah. >> balances. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And some of them were like Freddy and Fanny like that, you know, they don't even do credit cards. Those are the major mortgage holders. >> Yeah.

Okay. So, it was easier to uh get credit. So lend it and get credit from I don't know who who do you get the money from exactly? >> So the business credit cards that we apply for are from all of the major lenders. So anybody watching right now could Google 0% business credit cards or just even 0% credit cards in general and you'll find that every major bank offers it. >> Okay. So even though the banks were in crisis with taking over properties for closing on people and all this other stuff on the other side of it, they were still just as happy to lend to to hand out credit cards uh 0% unsecured and so on. >> Well, if you think about it, the banks are just big cash flow machines. >> If they're not lending money, they're not making money, >> right? >> So they couldn't just stop lending. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably uh an important principle, you know, like cuz you're in this world. Um you want to dive just a little bit deeper like why that's the case. I mean it might sound obvious, maybe someone's listening like you know what's the big deal, but you want to explain a little bit greater detail why they have to lend. >> Yeah. So when when you look at banks in general and they're they're not making a whole lot off of their money. They're having to do a thousand different things with their money in order to in order to make money. And so their different lending pro programs are definitely ways that they can bolster their revenues that they can make more. Um, business credit cards in general tend to be very low on default. There's different default rates on everything, but with personal cards, there's a the default rate is at least two to three points higher than on business credit cards. And just in general, using business credit cards and unsecured cards is a is a safe way. It's a safer way than the banks giving out these massive massive million dollar loans on properties that if they if they lose on a million dollar property that's you know that that that's a huge amount that they've just lost through a mortgage and yeah they get access to the property but most of the time they're not even being renumerated properly for that they're selling them and short sales so quickly. So the the from what I've seen the minations that provide the liquidity behind these different types of loan programs is is is absolutely you know something that it's just a very complicated process and it doesn't always pop out to us as to why you know like if if we had one division that wasn't doing so good that does loans but we have five other divisions this one's not doing so good it doesn't seem obvious to the public why they are going to boost these other divisions temporarily. But of course, if these ones are unregulated, this regulated one is not doing as well. They're going to boost it in the ones that are easier to to put money out. And so, uh, you know, we could get way more complicated on it. But, you know, but that's perspective, right? Cuz I don't think everyone understands that cuz we don't look at it generally speaking in that perspective. It's like, well, there credit site, credit sight. It's like, no, that credit's tight over here. So, we have to loosen up credit over here so that we can keep the flow going.

So, um, not everyone knows this, we don't talk about a lot, but like I happen to be a partner in a bank, right? And so, when I sit there and through like our annual meetings and I just look at it like what are the two things they they care about? Cash uh in cash in a bank and how much of that have we lent. That's the two numbers they care about because the cash that they have at the bank, they're paying, you know, if it's a CD like 4 and a half%. Right? So, whoever's putting money in the bank, they're getting four and a half%. They have to lend it at like six and that arbitrage is all they make. Yeah. >> And any dollar not lent, they're still paying the premium on it's not borrowing it, right? They're someone's deposit that money, but there's a cost. >> Yeah. >> To the bank for for those deposits. So, you have to get that money working if you don't. >> Yep. They look at it like it's a it's it's a block of ice. >> Mhm. >> That money those deposits are block of ice that are just melting, >> right? >> And if they don't take that and put it to work right away, it's not going to grow. No, it's not growing.

So, all right. So, then it was easier uh to to to uh get capital to lend. How did you grow the business? How were you finding people that uh were looking to get business credit? Investors, you're not going to want to miss Carrot Summit August 27th through 29th. It's online and free to attend. Day one is all about online lead generation from SEO and paid ads to video marketing and million-dollar funnels. Day two is all about closing, negotiation, follow-up, and dispo. You'll hear from Ryan Zolan, Jamil Damji, Henry Washington, Chris Vossa's team, and a whole bunch more. And I'll be there breaking down seller calls with a couple of rookie investors. It's going to be a lot of fun. Grab your free seat at carrot.com/steve sve v.

Just like I met you, Steve, through family mastermind. >> Mhm. >> So Dave had taught me about affiliate marketing because that's what he was doing with Lone Pro Financial. So he had originally made uh uh affiliations with companies that were that was specifically about referring mortgage loans. >> But then when the whole industry crashed, Dave was talking to those same affiliates like hey look with this business credit card thing that we're doing. And at that time we were getting up to we were advertising getting up to 500,000 easily getting it. And you didn't even have to do a cash advance. You could just literally have them deposit the money from the credit card into your bank account. >> Wow. Okay. So Dave took the relationship of those affiliates and started selling the business credit card program to them. We were selling it at $1,500 an hour and it would take us on average 15 to 20 hours per client. >> And after a period of time, the affiliates that we were working with were like, "Listen guys, you know, and I don't know if because we were making more than them, they were like, "Listen guys, you have to like put this into a package. You can't just be 1,500 bucks an hour ad nauseium for our clients. It it needs to be, you know, a specific thing. We need to make it easier to sell. Plus, you guys will probably make more. You'll sell more. >> Mhm. >> So, you need to create a system and you need to have a package. And then that's where we came up with the idea of the membership. >> Mhm. >> Of saying, well, we will apply this amount of times with for this fee. >> Mhm.

All right. So, you changed your pricing structure. Yes. >> To instead of per hour, it's like here's like membership and here's how many hours it comes and we should be able to get it done this amount of time. >> Yeah. And then working with those affiliates led us to go to other uh conferences, masterminds, meet other affiliates, and then figure out better ways of being able to to to describe and discuss what the Funding Grow program was, how to use business credit cards, how to do these affiliations with other with other companies. So, if you have a real estate educator >> and they have they're teaching their clients about getting access to real estate, buying real estate, doing fix and flips and burring and all these different things, what do you need for that? >> Money, >> right? >> And it would be great if it was other people's money, right? So, it just makes perfect sense for these real estate educators or any of those affiliates to partner with us. M so we're working with them to help them sell more of their own product to help them create liquidity for their customers uh so that their customers can go out and do their course. >> Yeah. >> So, that's that was kind of the way was through affiliations.

So I think it's an important point cuz like uh you know we have our own company and we're trying to grow through affiliates, right? Uh and then you look around like Prop Stream sold you know a couple years ago whatever maybe three years, four years ago now, right? Over hundred million dollars, right? How do they grow? Affiliates, right? Uh and you look at Batch, right? They just sold recently. How do they grow affiliates? So, like there's a lot that um maybe is not talked about enough, right? But I think this is like a a huge um what's the word? Not niche, but like a specialty that a lot of people could definitely learn a lot more about. >> Yeah.

So, so from you like how did you uh you said Dave taught you about affiliate. So like step one, right? Like I want to grow my business through affiliate. What are the first things you want to do in wanting to build your business through affiliates? >> Find conferences and masterminds that are going to have synergistic businesses at at there for you. >> Uh for example, like for us, the real estate educators or an Amazon reseller, someone that teaches other businesses how to sell on Amazon. >> Um, you know, those are going to be perfect partners for us. that we would go to a real estate investing conference. >> So I guess step one is find people whose client base would benefit from your services. >> Yes. >> Okay. Right. That's step one. >> Yeah. Then it helps if you're a speaker on that stage so that you can speak to the other speakers >> because they're not going to really speak to you if you're not speaking on the stage. >> Right. So you have to get authority. So, a reach out, find who it is, and b create uh how have them help you create authority. >> Yeah. >> In there. So, speaking on stage, not sitting in a booth in the back, >> right? Yeah. You can have someone sitting in that booth, but not you. >> Right. So, how have you found like what's the difference? Have you tried just sitting in a booth in the back? >> Yeah. >> What's like what is the difference? Like is it like 10 times different, 100 times different between speaking on the front or sitting in the back? It's 100% difference. Yeah. If you if you're speaking on stage, people are going to come up to you. They're going to ask you questions. Uh if you just run a booth in the back, uh people just walk by. >> Mhm. >> You know, I mean, you'll have people come up and ask questions. They'll be interested. They have nothing else to do at that moment. So, they'll >> curiosity. >> Yeah. But in terms of them feel being really compelled, >> you you kind of need to to to speak. Now, one of the things that we've also found is that if we have the uh the main presenter >> talk a lot about funding growth, like there's a lot of conferences that we're kind of at without actually being there >> where they're talking about if you have if you need help funding any of these programs that we're talking about at the conference or if you need funding for real estate or if you're at the back table trying to purchase something and you can't purchase, they'll bring up a QR code that has our pre-qualification tool >> and then they'll just funnel people right into it by talking about us. They'll bring up the QR code on the main screen a couple times just in a couple key moments. People scan it and we'll find that we can channel way more people without us even showing up to the event. We can channel more people into the pre-qualification which is going to pull their credit and it's going to tell us exactly how much funding we can get for them which then they become a lead under that affiliate >> so that our sales team can follow up and close them.

Gotcha. Okay. So, um going to events, speaking on stage, what else do you have to do with the affiliates? You have to do a good job for them. You have to get a lot of funding for their clients and then they'll give you introductions to other affiliates which is really that that's >> a referral to other affiliates. >> Yeah. And that's really the way we got our first affiliates was by our top affiliates telling their friends and then telling other affiliates and you know because they they don't really take take your word for it. Not unless you >> business which was going to be like my next question which is let's say um who's your biggest affiliate right now? like who who who refers the most business today? >> Um we have a big affiliation with Nerd Wallet. >> Mhm. So Nerd Wallet, right? >> Uh big website, right? Like when you Google things, there's Bankrate, there's Nerd Wallet, right? All that stuff. That's that's what I'm thinking. Is that correct? >> Yep. >> All right. So, how do I Steve, right? If I want to get Nerd Wallet's attention, >> how do I get their attention? >> Wow. Now, that's a difficult one because we like with these big companies like with Nerd Wallet, we had to try over and over and over and over and over and over and over. You have to just be okay with rejection and you have to keep trying over and over. With Nerd Wallet, there's no conference that we went to that we could meet the owner of Nerd Wallet. They did like 700 million last year. >> Wow. >> You know what I mean? Like, we're lucky to speak to the person that runs a division of their affiliate department or whatever. So, um, their vetting process was extensive. Uh, but their, you know, working with them is great. You know, we have an integration. So, when people come to their website and they're looking for small business credit cards and it matches our criteria, then the website is just, >> it just pushes the data right into our Yeah. >> But how did you get that? like >> just by trying over and over again on the phones like did you go like LinkedIn cold call like the front desk >> walk in with like uh donuts? >> No, we didn't go to their headquarters. That's a good one though. But um and and I've heard that those that that can be helpful or even sending gifts, >> right? >> But the thing is is that I could send a gift to you, Steve. >> People can send a gift to me, but I don't even know who the owner of Nerd Wallet is, >> right? you know, or even how to get access to his house, you know, to his address or where would you send it? I'm sure there's thousands of gifts being sent to Nerd Wallet's offices every day, right? >> We Funding Grow gets it. You I'm sure you get them sent here all the time. >> Yeah. Always appreciated. So, but it is hard to like with those bigger companies, it's about you would what I would first recommend is you go to their website, you apply for their affiliate program >> and if you know anybody else that's already in their affiliate program, of course, you can talk to them to try to get them to talk to their contact at NerdWalt. We didn't have that. I'm just saying, right, >> you know, sometimes that is the case, >> but applying and then having Synergy, obviously, we are a company that does fit into their criteria of who they would >> refer to. It's not they didn't have to reinvent anything for us. Yeah. So it's a sales team who goes like is it Ari is it a sales team who's responsible for creating that relationship. >> So at that time when we created the nerd wallet relationship that was uh people that worked for me I believe my executive assistant is the one that was doing the reaching out and the communication. >> Okay. And then they're just trying to communicate with them in every which way. So go through the front door which is like go on the website and fill out the form >> but still just non-stop followup. >> Yeah. Non-stop followup. Yeah.

Okay. Who is your biggest affiliate in the real estate space? >> Uh probably Connected Investors. >> Connected Investors. Okay. Uh which is, you know, another company if I understand correctly had a large exit, right? >> Yeah. >> And so um and I'm guessing they probably got quite a bit of affiliates. >> Yeah. >> So let's say same thing here, right? So me like I want to get connected with connected investors. What's the first thing I do? >> So for us it was we met Ross Hamilton at the family mastermind. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, he was also I think he's one of their founding members. >> Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. >> So, um >> he's pretty active in there now, right? Right now. >> Yeah. So, at that time, my team and me were at Family Mastermind and we met Ross and it was a match made in heaven because they now have a uh kind of like a little funding marketplace on their website. So, if you're looking for a million-doll loan, they're going to refer you over here. If you're looking for this type of loan, they're going to refer you there. So, >> they segment the list. >> Exactly. So Funding Grow is one option just like on Nerd Wallet. >> Yeah. >> They they have a variety of different types of loans they're going to refer to. >> Yeah. So again, so similar concept was uh with Connect investors was that you were able to create that relationship because you're in the mastermind together. >> Yes. >> So did you know Ross prior to joining family or like hey we're in family? Oh hey it's Ross. That's created a relationship. >> That's because of family. Yeah. So, and we had done business with some of the businesses in family that we were just already doing business with them before we even, you know, before uh Matt had even created family cuz we were one of the founding members. And um having having those relationships with those existing affiliates made Matt Andrews aware of the fact that we are an honorable legitimate company which of course Ross Hamilton checked with him before you know doing anything with us. So it's it's a whole network and of course they're going to go online they're going to they're going to research us. They're going to see our reviews. They're going to see the people that are writing scam and this that and the other and they're going to they're going to weigh all that and balance all that. So, you know, it's not just about relationships either. Some of it is also about like like there there's affiliates that that that approach us that we got they were highly recommended by friends and affiliates and you go online and you're like I could never promote this. Like have you looked at anything under page one? You know what I mean? It's like no, I couldn't do that.

Which goes back to reputation. Um, and so like that's something that we talk about quite a bit about, you know, like make sure you take good care of your name. You know, something growing up. Uh, when I was a kid, my dad, you know, said like, "Hey, like make sure you you take care of your name cuz you only get one of them, right?" That was when I was a kid. Today, it means way more. >> Yeah. >> Right. Like what was it? I always say, uh, keep your jersey clean, right? Like you got to >> you have to have a pristine reputation. Every once in a while, you know, our sales guys are on the phones like, "Well, I don't know much about Steve Train. you know, I don't

know if I should buy his product, blah, blah, blah. And one of the things that they're I've told them says like, just tell them to Google me. Like, good luck finding anything bad about me, right? Yeah. Out there, you can't.

Um, and so, yeah, I applaud you that, right, for doing a good job, fulfilling all your clients, keeping them happy, doing a good job because that's what leads to these other opportunities later on with Ross Alton, the connected investors, which leads to Nerd Wallet, right? Mhm. Uh, and and I just want to quickly throw in there, even the negative ones, even the people that have written negative, if you're doing your job good, their negative review is going to be like this. They promised me a h 100,000 and they only got me 75,000 and it they said they were going to get it in two weeks and it took two and a half weeks and you get what I'm saying? Like even the negative reviews are going to be like, uh, I'll sign up for that. You know what I mean? Like they're like, you know, so discouraging, right? Yeah. That's a good point. Very, very good point.

And so, um, for everyone that is listening there, right? So, the first one was just incess and follow-up, which is sales. Yep. Right. That's just sales, prospecting. Number two, networking, masterminds, right? So, like we're in family uh uh mastermind together. And then, you know, you guys listening, I'm in all sorts of different masterminds cuz it's the easiest way, right? We're all rowing the boat in the same direction. We're all trying to accomplish the same things. It's easier to do business someone do business with someone that you know is in the same room has done similar things. It makes sense for us to collaborate and have synergy to do stuff together versus someone that you know I've never heard of that does a collaboration. I mean look you and I were talking earlier before the show, right? Like I was aware of Fund and Grow cuz one of your sales guys reached out to me years ago, many years ago and I talked to him once but I was like yeah not really interested right cuz I didn't know who he was. I didn't know who Fun and Grow was. I didn't know who he was. And he's like, "Well, go talk to this other person." And I did. He's like, "Yeah, that guy made me money." But then I was kind of like, "H I was not really sure. I don't use you guys. I want to promote you guys." Right? That's kind of the the conversation. Uh but now, right, we've interacted uh through Amanda initially and then Amanda connected you and me. How's that happen? Yeah. Yep. Right. And then when we were at family literally, you're like, we saw each other and you're like, "Hey, I want to talk to you." Exactly. Yeah. Right. Uh, is there a third thing? So, besides, you know, like prospecting, going through the front door and prospecting, masterminding, anything else for people listening, like how do you grow your affiliate reach?

Um, requesting clients that have to to to leave a public experience. Mhm. To let them to tell them you need to let other entrepreneurs, other potential entrepreneurs know about your experience with Funding Grow because your business couldn't have gotten this leverage without it. So, asking for testimonials. Mhm. That's I think that's an important one because that kind of floods the net, right, with with all of your testimonials and I and I see companies out there that I know do way more revenue than we do. Mhm. And I don't see as many reviews. Yeah. And that's that's just a that's just a systems process. It's as easy as just putting in in your workflow putting in a specific node that's about requesting a testimonial. And you try it a few times. you perfect it and you find which one you know 89% of the time they're going to respond to you in a way that they're is going end up leaving a review and then boom now you got all these reviews going out just like clockwork with every client that's graduating from the program. So I think that uh putting that word of mouth out there and getting a client to write about that gets them to think about that. Yeah. And in that same email, we even recommend them. By the way, you should probably send this to like five friends of yours, right?

So, yeah, So, I was a client. I did. I mean, technically, I guess am a client. So, you know, there was a moment in time where I didn't even know that. Yeah. Well, I I went through Amanda. Okay. This is before uh you know, she uh decided to do something else. Uh and so, yeah, like she connected me and got a loan uh done. I was like, you know, uh wanted to get some cash on hand. And I want to say like the experience cuz I've tried with other companies and I felt like I was kind of like felt like I was doing the work, right? I felt like I had to push, right? So it was pleasant working with you guys cuz like hey like uh she's like send me these documents, give me this and then I want to say like 3 weeks later like hey we got it approved. Yeah. Like Okay. Like there wasn't this thing where like I'm chasing you. Yeah, it was like, hey, I submitted my documents and then it was taken care of. Yeah, that's we are in terms of our systems and processes, we are super on top of moving our clients forward, getting them to funding, getting them out the gate like because we have we work with affiliates that are only referring them so that they can move forward with their programs. Our affiliates are logging into the Fund and Grow affiliate account and they're seeing were they funded yet? They weren't funded yet. What's funding growing? Right? because they have deals that are hinging on that, right? Your clients, uh, your affiliate partners, they're waiting on you so that they can get paid. Well, so that they can move their clients forward and Yeah. And usually their payday is way bigger than any commission they're making from us. It's nice that we're paying them a commission, but they're looking for the commission on their $100,000 program, right? Exactly. Yeah. It's holding them back on potential revenue. Yeah. Forget the Forget the affiliate on potential revenue. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So yeah, you got to keep everyone happy. Yeah. Yeah.

So I and and beyond that, just from an ethical standpoint, you know, how are you going to get up every day and be able to do what you do and be passionate and excited if you're not really benefiting people? And if you're not really benefiting people, how is it going to even grow? You know, from a law of attraction standpoint and from an energy standpoint, it has to be something that's uplifting. It has to be something that that adds value. Otherwise, value won't come back. in the terms of law of attraction, mirroring energy.

Well, yeah, because I did, you know, I went with this other guy. I tried it uh some time ago and it felt like I was doing all the work and at the end like we got you approved for a credit card. I was like 9,000 like 9,000 isn't worth me like if you would have told me in the beginning like I'll get approved for a $9,000 credit card. Like I wouldn't even like filled out I wouldn't even send you an email, right? Yeah. So it was just it was just this awful experience. It was it was very very bizarre. Well, I got to say that sometimes we have a harder time with you could have like a 750 credit profile and even though these are business credit cards and report to the EIN, they still look at the personal and you could have one 750 that produces a $9,000 card and then one that produces $100,000, you know, over two or three cards. Yeah. And so, uh, what we create our own algorithm, our own software that will run your credit and be able to give a print out or, you know, our synopsis of how much we believe we're going to be able to get based off of all of our experience, all of our clients that we've put through. Um, and it's it's pretty accurate. Yeah. But every once in a while, we still run into that. And so, we it's it's it's a difficult thing. But when it comes to what we're doing for the client, Mhm. that we want to be on top of it. We want to move them forward because again, we have affiliates breathing down our back. But um but at the same time, you know, in order to to to really be able to to to move someone through the program of what what we said that we're going to get for them, we got to get them through multiple batches of funding. So sometimes we got to prod them and we got to move them forward. And with the FTC coming down heavier and heavier and heavier on credit repair companies, credit stacking companies, all these different companies, it's really important that we follow the guidelines or you know the law, whatever you want to call it. Like I don't think it's actually it's not actually a law, but basically that we're following regulations in such a way where the banks aren't going to single us out. Mhm. So, one of those things is to be walk is to walk the client through this process because we can't directly communicate with the bank for you. We have to walk the client through that process. And so, that's that's an important aspect is that we want to we want to be compliant, which means that it's kind of it's a done with you service that we're doing it with the client. So, there's some things that our clients have to do to get access to the funding, but then there's some stuff that we're doing that we're legally allowed to do on their behalf. And then there's some things that the only way to get that funding is to have the client make that phone call. But in our case, what we do is we prep the client. We describe exactly what needs to happen. We'll even go as far as getting the underwriter and them on the phone and doing the hold time for them. Mhm. But the client is the one, and this is all surrounds legality. The client is the one that actually has to do that communicating. And so that's where we've seen some of these other companies, and I don't want to name any names, but there's quite a few other companies out there, ones that I've even met recently at at different masterminds. And um one of them, the owners of them were like, "Arii, I would be I would love it if you could like look over my website and stuff." And I did. And I was like, "Dude, this is like an FTC disaster waiting to happen." You know, like your entire website doesn't say anything about business credit cards and you sell

Well, so a lot of times when someone's a credit card stacker, when they're selling business credit cards like us, they don't want to tell their prospective clients that they're selling credit cards cuz the word credit card, credit cards just don't sound good. Yeah. like funding and credit line and you know a line of credit and all of that sounds so much better. Sounds more sophisticated. Yeah. And that's what these other companies were doing, you know, Seek Capital as an example. And Dave Ramsey's hammers Dave Ramsey hammers on credit cards. He doesn't hammer He doesn't hammer funding or he hammers credit cards. And that doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, cuz think about this. You could get a mortgage and use a mortgage and that mortgage loan will never pay you anything. They'll never give you a percentage back. They'll never give you anything except for grief and you have to pay the payment. Same with an auto loan. Same with a business line of credit or a heliloc or any other type of loan. The only loan that will ever pay you anything is a credit card. Yeah. And you can get a 1 and a half% cash back, 2% cash back. You get the airline miles, which end up being more than 2% cash back if you know how to use them properly. Yeah. And so the loans that actually pay you back are the ones that upset Dave Ramsey the most. And he's like, "Why would I spend $100,000 to earn $2,000?" Mhm. Dave, what are you even talking about? No one is going out and just making up $100,000 worth of stuff to spend it on to try and get $2,000 of cash back points. That's not what they're doing. They're spending 100,000 on their paper click on their different, you know, their facility on their, you know, phone bill, on their electric. This is spending that they would be doing either way. Right now, they're getting 2% cash back. There's no other loan that actually pays you back other than a credit card. Yeah. And that's that that's really important. And then if you if you're looking at the like the airline miles, like you can I mean there it's absolutely amazing that you can double triple them. People don't know that. Like if you are using like the American Express or like any of the cards like the the um the American Airline card from like Barclays. If you or use the card and you build up 20,000 miles and then you go to purchase using the uh the Barclay's website, your airplane tickets, you're only going to get a certain amount of miles. But if you go and log into, you create an account at American Airlines and then log in your account at American Airlines and then you do a transfer from your Barclay's card, the points over to your American Airlines, suddenly the points are worth like 10 times the amount really. And so when you're spending directly out of the points programs, you kind of get screwed. But when you learn to transfer the points and use them through these point transfer programs, you can get in some cases up to 10 times the amount. And that's for people that just would rather use it for traveling and so on versus the cash back. Personally, I like the cash back. On the webinars, I bring up screenshots of like Funding Grow's cash back deposits. I think that's pretty cool. Yeah.

All right. So, before we get back into this uh um because I want to talk about like, you know, the how to use Funding Grow. We talked about how you grew it, which was affiliates. That's been your primary driver. Yeah. Okay. So, what were some of the adversity along the way in building your business? cuz again, right, you're here, you're doing well. What were some of the big pain points?

My name is Lance McCann. I have recently switched sessions with Ian Ross. Those conversations with Ian has made me $50,000 in the past two deals that I've had. I was able to renegotiate, go back and renegotiate the original purchase price on one deal and they say $40,000 and I got another $10,000 off my other deals. Call Ian, give him a chance. He won't regret it. If you like what you just heard and would like similar types of success, text close to 33777 and we'll see if you qualify to join objection proof selling. We're taking good sales reps and we're making them objection proof.

So one of the problems with scaling is finding is a good employee base creating employees and uh different departments. Funding Grow has uh at this point we have about 45 people that work for us. um 45. Yeah, we've it's we've kind of scaled back for, you know, creating better systems as well as the economy, but um because we were up to like 60 people at one point, but then we've we've automated a lot. We've put a lot more. We we built all of our own software from the client login that to what the staff logs into to the affiliate login. All of that is our own software. We're not using any outside stuff. And so it makes it really easy to communicate with the client, with the affiliate to draw everything together to make it, you know, just super super simple from that standpoint. Um, but what I forgot the question though, uh, adversity challenges and growing.

So yeah, so yeah, back to HR. So growing the team was definitely the hardest thing. And for me, I got lucky because I hired this lady called Crystal and she was my HR manager for she's actually our chief operations officer now with you. Yeah, I interacted with her. Yeah. Yeah. So, she's worked for me for I think over 13 years now. Wow. Okay. And um she's really really really really good at hiring people. Mhm. And at just getting the pulse and understanding who they are, knowing how to fire them real quick if they're not going to work out. Um you know, putting pouring our time and our love and our energy into them to try to get it to to work out for each person because there's no one that comes like they're like, "Hey, I'm a credit stacking expert." There's no one that comes like that. we have to teach every single one of them. So, being able to build out our departments and get people that really understand this stuff and to be able to hold on to them for long term, we had to just have a nicer location. We had to have better benefits. We had to have more of an employeecentric focus in terms of what would get someone to want to hire in and to put their trust into a company long term. um you know we were operating very much like a small business and not even you know offering benefits and stuff you know in the past. So you know getting all of those same things you know 401k you know all of that you know was definitely a big driver in helping retain employees long long term. Um so that that was definitely one a big hurdle that was difficult. Of course uh another hurdle is uh pay-per-click marketing. So advertising and being um basically like our advertising was going great um in terms of Facebook, YouTube, Google um until and I forget exactly which years. I think it was around 2021 or 2022 is when they passed the um it had to do with like not uh singling people out in advertising or something. Basically, we weren't able to target people based off of their age or based off of their gender or privacy. Yeah. If it was a credit based product because then they're saying that it's not uh equal opportunity even though you have to qualify. Yeah. It makes no sense. So, I'm targeting a 13-year-old girl the same way I'm targeting a 64 year old man. Mhm. That's a pretty wide net that you have to cast now. Yeah. So, we went from doing like like 600 700,000 a month off of pay-per-click marketing sales to that entire stream just gone. Oh, okay. So, it just no longer made sense to advertise in that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we still have stuff going on Google and YouTube, but we're we're, you know, from both of those streams alone, we're maybe generating 100,000 a month. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Uh, how did you account for that? And what did you do about it?

Well, that we've we've tried to do stuff about it, but we haven't found any way of really being able to cast a wide enough net where it makes sense. Well, I guess like that's pretty substantial, right? 600K a month, 700K a month in revenue. So like did you have to like slash departments? Did you have to refocus efforts?

Well, luckily at that time we were doing about 2 million a month. So it it it was a substantial hit, but it wasn't something that forced us to have to take such drastic actions. Got it. Um but it would be really nice to get it back. Yeah. And we've I've I've spoken to many different experts about it and they're they basically say that you just have that there is no real you can't target based on that. You just can't use that same targeting. You have to find a way of doing it through your video, through your, you know, through through your graphic basically and through advertising. Yeah. It has to resonate through the advertising. And there's a lot of people that are doing that type of advertising even for credit cards. Mh. And and and they can bring in leads, but they're not bringing it in anywhere close to what we're able to do with is not going to be the same. Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense. So going back to then the about the employees like hiring them has been the hardest part. Uh but it really hasn't been your responsibility. It's been Crystal's responsibility, right? Yeah. Um so there's a couple different things. Uh benefits. Most people listening right now aren't the kind of people that provide benefits, right? Whether a company's smaller or everyone's 999 or whatever. So what differences do you see offering benefits to your hiring or retention in your business?

you're going to attract um people that are essentially similar to us from an entrepreneurial mindset that are too scared to run their own businesses. Mhm. You're going to be able to retain those people. So, you're saying more like you'll hire more entrepreneurs. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll keep them. Yeah. So, that's it's it's really about the long-term keeping. Mhm. You know, if you have a retirement program, we we've had one person retire from Fund and Grow and, you know, officially through the retirement, you know, and um Sweet. Yeah. And so, like, if if you have all that, like I don't think that that guy would have worked for me long enough to retire if I we hadn't had those different benefits and programs and, you know, because otherwise he could go to another sales organization and get paid that. Yeah.

What kind of benefits did you guys offer? What do you guys offer? So, a health uh the 401k um we have a uh it's called an ESOT, an employee savings operation trust. So, what that does is the company actually puts money into a ESOT account for each employee for when they uh for when they retire, they get paid a benefit that they don't even have to match. They don't have to put anything in for. Wow. and ESOTS are absolutely 100% awesome. If anybody's listening to this right now and they have like a really big tax burden, but you have a tax burden over 100,000, especially if it's like a million dollars a year, then you can use an ESOT. An ESOT can definitely reduce the amount of taxes you're paying while redirecting some of that saved taxes as benefits to your employees. Yeah. We'll definitely have to learn more about that because I've heard ESOPs. Yeah, that's an ESOP is for a public company. So, they're going to an employee savings operation program. They have a board member that's that would be running the program. Whereas an ESOT is an employee savings operations trust and I am the trustee because my company's not public. I'm the owner of it. Gotcha. So, a private company would use an ESOT. Got it. Fascinating. So, I have to learn more about that. And then employee centric, right? again cuz like you look at every great business, it's always the people. Always the people. So how are you how is your business ran where it's employeecentric?

Well, to say it simply, the as management, we care about our employees. We love them and we know that it starts from the employee. How are you going to get someone to care about a client if you don't care about them as an employee? Mhm. You know, it's like your parent asking you to do something, but they're witnessing exactly the opposite of that thing, right? So, it starts with me. It starts with the management and it starts with actually caring on a on a granular level about the different things that you're working on and being honest, being open. Um, I think that all too often employees follow their employer because they're being told what to do. Mhm. There there there's there's not a huge cycle of respect and then you end up losing them over time. You end up losing their heart. You might even end up losing them as an employee. Yeah. And then if you lose their heart, then then they're not doing what they could do for the client. They don't if they're a few minutes late for the client, do they care? If they don't get quite as much funding for the client, do they care? Yeah. No, you there is a way of caring and that's by by witnessing to what it is that you would wish for them to do. And one of those things is um you can actually teach them those those uh ideas. So, at Fund and Grow, we do I don't know, we don't really have a name for it, but I do know that Zach recorded the last one and put it on YouTube, but um but we do like these law of attraction sessions, which is basically like anybody that wants to be part of it during work time gets to come in and to be part of a little seminar that I'll put on where we talk about law of attraction and all of the things surrounding that. Yeah.

So, can you give an example like what the last session you have? What do you guys talk about? So the first thing that we do is we'll sit down and watch the documentary The Secret. So you've heard of The Secret, right? That's a great introduction for people to to understand. It's very physically motivated, if you will, on physical things, but it really kickstarts the idea of the law of attraction. Then from there, I'll talk about what the law of attraction means to me. Usually I'll tell my story of, you know, being in the shipyard and changing my mindset and and just explaining to them, hey, I I was getting paid way less than what you guys are getting paid now. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like you you think I can do it, but you couldn't. If I could do it as a shipyard worker below where you are now, you could do it, too. Yeah. And by the way, I've had employees that have eventually quit and gone off to start their own businesses. And I'm actually kind of proud of that. Like how many businesses do you know that were like I used to be like the this and this at Google or this and this at Facebook and there was like that was their big break. Now they they're out here running their own business. Yeah, that's cool. I would love it for someone that has a huge business be like I I learned with Ari at Funding Grow, you know what I mean? Like that to to me that's not a loss at all. Like Amanda moving on to work at Acruity. Mhm. She started as my executive assistant. Yeah. She was a uh a not a CPA. She was a Who are the people that do the notaries for a for an attorney? Esra. No, she I forget. She She has a um parallegal. Yeah, she was a parallegal. She was a parallegal. Got hired in as my executive assistant and now she is an executive at a company. Yeah, she is. And that makes and that makes me so proud. And she became an executive at my company first. She became our COO. Mhm. before she was offered a job at Acruitity. Yeah. So, and I love that. I think that's what every entrepreneur should want for their employees is that you're not going to have someone be your slave for their whole life. But you can teach people how they can rise. And as you're doing that, you're making a whole process. There's all these other people, all these other Amandas in the company. My new executive assistant Stephanie is awesome. Absolutely amazing. Yeah.

All right. And so the adversity. So then let's talk about what the business looks like today. So you said how many people? You said 40. Yeah, we're at 45. 45 people. All right. And so what does that look like on a day-to-day site? Like you know do you have are you are you marketing heavy, service heavy, salesheavy? What does your organization look like?

So all of those things. Um so we got marketing stuff happening daily. There's a whole marketing team. There's a studio. Um they're recording probably something every day usually. Yeah. Um there's a sales team, the sales floor that's buzzing every day. Um there is the customer journey people. There is the intake people. There is our account managers who are the negotiators. Um, then we have um some specialty loan departments where if you're a client with us and we can help you get other kinds of loans that I haven't even talked about yet, like not business credit cards, we'll help them. We we don't really do a lot of those types of loans. We mainly do it for existing clients and for for leads that we're in conversation with where if they have a specific need or a problem where we can help them. But our main bread and butter is the business credit cards. Yeah.

Well, that that was the the thing when I was talking with you guys was like, well, you know, it' be easier if you just get SBA loans. I was like, oh, really? Right. So, I'm guessing that's probably what that is. Uh, so, uh, looking at the business then, uh, I think there's a lot of noise out there about credit card stacking, can you get some clarity like what does it mean? How does it work?

Yeah. Oh, I'd love to. So, this is going to immediately make sense for everybody because probably everybody watching this has a credit card. Mh. So, I'll just start with talking about a credit card and then we'll talk to about business credit cards. So, if you have a credit card with, let's say, Chase Bank, and let's say it's a $10,000 card, you can go back to the same exact bank and you can apply for the exact same product. And if they won't allow you to apply for that product, you apply for a very similar one to that product, but it's at the same bank. So, let's say I have a $10,000 card. the 0% period or the introductory period of 0% is up because I've had this card for a year. So, I've had a $10,000 card for a year, no special offers on it. I go back to the same bank and I apply for the same credit card. And they say, "We gave you 10,000 a year ago. So, we'll give you five grand today." Mhm. So, now this client has a balance on this $10,000 card. So, how are we going to 5,000 isn't enough to move the 10,000 on to, right? Right. Doesn't matter. We take the 5,000. So we take the $5,000. Now we have a $5,000 account. We have a $10,000 account. The $5,000 account is a new account. It's got 0% on it for either 6 months, 9 months, maybe up to 22 months. We take the $5,000 and the 10,000 on a separate call and we merge it together. Now we have a $15,000 account. The 0% is over the entire account. This is the only way to bring 0% back to an account. You can't take an old account and get 0% back on it unless you apply for a new card and merge them together. Now you have one $15,000 card and you have less of that product. So you can go back and apply for that product again a year from now. I've never heard this before. I probably should have heard this before. It's fascinating. So all right. So and we do this on the business side. Okay. Because if you do this on the personal side, like there's a lot of these credit card stackers that will apply and get you a bunch of personal credit cards. Those personal credit cards when you use them, they're going to as soon as you start bringing up the balances, what people don't know about a personal credit card is that you can't go over 35% of the credit limit to the balance. So on that $10,000 example, if I put 3500 bucks on there, I'm now at that 35% ratio. I go above 3500 on a $10,000 card, it starts to bring my personal scores down, right? So if I get a whole bunch of personal credit cards, I spend them in my business now 6 months, 8 months later, the 0% is about to expire. How am I going to refinance that if those are all personal credit cards? I I'm not going to be able to refinance. I'm going to be carrying a lot of personal credit card debt on my personal credit card. Yeah. on my personal report. I mean, and so what we do is when we're applying for these cards, we're using the client's business so that the credit card doesn't even report to the personal credit report. Now, not all banks allow this. There are some banks that you click on their business credit card and they'll report it right to your personal credit. So, we don't take any client to a bank that would report it to their personal credit. We're taking them to banks that we know 100% confirmed, only going to report it to the EIN number. But once it's all the debt is on the EIN number, once it's being carried by the business, it makes it so much easier to go back for batch after batch. When I say batch after batch, I'm talking about to be able because when we do this credit card stacking process, I I explained a $10,000 card and another card, you know, like merging them together. But if you're trying to go for larger amounts of funding, you're going to be applying for four or five of these credit lines in the same application batch. Mhm. So, a client comes into us, we look at their credit report, we do everything we possibly can to help raise their scores. We're not a credit repair service, so we're not talking about deleting negative things. We're talking about merging uh cards from the same bank together so they have less accounts with higher limits. We merge them into the accounts that were open the longest. And we would even recommend that for the $10,000, $5,000 example of the merge that we would merge it. we're merging it into the $10,000 account because the $10,000 account was open for longer. But in the case that you're merging three cards together, you would merge them all into the account that was open the longest. So now you have higher limit on the account that was open the longest. The accounts with the shorter seasoning fall off and that helps your overall ratios, right? So doing it on the business side allows you to be able to do the process over and over and you don't have to pay it down. The credit card's down to 35%. To do a new batch, which you would on the personal side, now on the business side, you do have to pay it down a little bit, but it's not down to 35%. It's like 60%. I see. So they don't they don't want them to be fully maxed out when you're doing new applications. So we help the client, you know, we make sure that they're at those ratios prior to moving forward. And the funding and growth service is going to navigate people around any of those roadblocks. We're going to be like, "Nope, cannot do that." A lot of times people would move themselves into a situation where they're kind of establishing with the bank. Mhm. The problem that they have and then it's like 6 months, 8 months, a year before you can go back to that same bank because you've established that problem. We got to get these things fixed before we go and apply. Otherwise, you're kind of establishing with that bank that you have that problem. I see. Okay. Um, and then how would I use some newer right in the business and I'm think about scaling my business. How do I use fund and grow to scale my business?

So now there's two different ways. Let's say an entrepreneur just needs access to funding to buy more of their own products and ser you know to buy more product to be able to sell. Mh. like an Amazon reseller or a real estate uh rehabber. Obvioulsy, just them getting access to the funding alone is going to be able to help them scale their business. But there's a lot of companies that we work with that we're able to help them sell more of their own products by working with Fund and Grow where they have leads that are coming to them and the leads want to buy their service. It might be a $50,000 program, $100,000 program, or even something less than that.$25,000 is pretty common. And they the client would like to buy it, but they can't. So, we have a lead pre-qualification tool. This is one of the things that helped us scale is having this lead pre-qualification tool where our affiliates will put the client's information in and with the client's permission, do a soft pull. So, it's it's not a hard pull on the credit, it's just a soft pull. And then immediately it runs their credit and lets them know how much funding that that client would qualify for. So now this affiliate can qualify their lead whether or not the the lead even gets started with us. Yeah. So as these affiliates are qualifying their leads and finding out if these are good leads for them, they also become a lead for Fund and Grow. They become something that Fund and Grow can sell. And in either scenario here, when they get funding, they're using it, you know, with this company that referred them. Mhm. So, in some cases, it's about helping the the company sell their own product where the product is simply too expensive. It's $50,000, $100,000. In many cases, it's about being in conjunction with the affiliates product where they're send selling them a $5,000, $10,000 real estate education course, but they want their client to be successful. And the only way to be successful is to have a little bit of OPM, other people's money, a little bit of loans to be able to actually spend in the real estate program, right? So, it could be that they want to use this as an adjunct to help their clients because funding is just part of what it is they're teaching or it could be that they are trying to actually sell more of their own program directly because their their program is so expensive. So, if I'm newer in the business and I'm looking to buy some get some software, I buy some data and so on, right? I can apply for this, right? Yes. What if I'm trying to flip more houses? Like like can I use this money sound like a dumb question? Can I use this money for a down payment?

Yes, that's a actually an excellent question because people might be thinking, well, these are credit cards. How are you going to use a credit card for a down payment? Where in the escrow account do you swipe? Right. Right. Well, this is I'm so glad you asked this question. So, Funding Grow, we're not just applying and getting credit cards and like, okay, goodbye. Yeah. We're helping you. We're teaching you about Melio payments, about plastic, about bill.com, bluevine, zil money. All of these payment processing services are about being able to do exactly what you're talking about. So, Melio, for example, heard of Melio before? Yeah, Melio Payments. That's a big one. And another one's plastic with and the the with a Q. Yeah. So plastic allows you to fund an escrow account directly. Okay. So you set up your Melo account, you add your credit cards in, then you take your invoice, you upload it from the escrow company. Mhm. And you have to just request it and they they then you upload it. Then they will either do a wire, an AC, or a oldfashioned check. The oldfashioned check is the cheapest. Mhm. Um the wire could be up to like two and a half percent. The check is usually like one one and a half percent. Um but that way you're you're able to use services that the banks absolutely approve of, the government absolutely approves of. They're not going against any type of breaking any type of regulation. We're not liquidating the cash off the card. We're not trying to pull the cash off the card because all of those things are red flags to the bank. The bank says if you want to pull the cash off, use a cash advance. But there's other better ways of being able to purchase things like for example funding an escrow account without having to pull the cash off the card. Yeah. Just use the payment services. If you need to pay a contractor, then use the payment services to pay the contractor because if if they don't accept credit card, then you take their invoice, you upload it into Melio or into Plastic, and then they simply send a check to whoever the contractor is. Yeah.

So I I think it's it's great because again like I hadn't heard of Melio he said. Yeah. Like it's a it's you know I go back to you know I'm pretty old so I remember watching like these sitcoms as a kid you know like these guys buying houses with credit cards for flipping right and it's you know like they're flippers and it's a disaster right like because they bought the house on a credit card and didn't sell on time. Like what are you going to do? It's 18% interest right? Yeah. Which today it's funny because like it's just hard money but as a kid I was like you know how how are they going to figure that out? So, it's really fascinating to see that you can actually uh use a credit card uh to fund an escro account. Yep. And sometimes you might have to use three or four credit cards um within plastic. You can add a whole var you can add all your credit cards in there and then you can say I want to pull 10 from this one, five from this one, three from that one. Gotcha. Um so right now I run my business uh any expense I basically run through MX. any perspective or opinions on using MX versus any particular other business credit card credit cards?

MX is a really good brand and they tend to have good cash back. Uh what's the rewards on that particular card? I don't even know. I got I got I got platinum, I got a gold, right? Everything but the black. So yeah. Um I don't know. Like I know we have like the hotel deal, right? Like you know we can use for air for hotel, but I'm not the points guy. Yeah. Um so it really depends on what you're trying to do. Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you exactly right now which card is like the the the best card, but that's definitely something that our team knows. Yeah. Um, and in our case, we're we're looking to try to get as much funding for the client. So, we're we're trying to get them the MX card, too, but we also want to get them to chase the US Bank and Wells Fargo and every other card because it's about the total amount that we're getting. Um, but in your case, you're talking about using funding and paying that credit card off every month for spending that you'd be doing anyway. and what's the best cash back or rewards that I can get. Um, and it kind of does vary, but MX and Chase tend to be two of the highest. Yeah. We use Chase for personal, Chase, Sapphire Reserve, whatever for traveling. I don't even know. Uh, that's the wife's department. Um, and that's I know you put in here like you can use credit cards as asset protection. I've got some big news and you'll want to hear all of this because I'm going to give you the best bonus ever at the end of this video. You all know that I've been providing sales training for six years now and I've had the opportunity to train hundreds of the best

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Yes. So, we've had some really cool uh experiences. Actually, I'll just tell you about my personal ones.

So, I had two different projects that that I was doing that I had to that I basically had a problem with a contractor and was like, "What am I going to do? Am I going to sue them?" And so, one of them was an electronics project for $35,000. And another one was a solar panel, a water hot water solar panel. Uh kind of like a um like weatherizing your house. It's like a whole little package. I forgot. I was like $17,000 or something. And um in each of these cases, they were a couple years apart, but but what happened was the contractors didn't finish. They weren't able to get the the uh the house. They weren't able to get past inspection.

So the solar panels did not get past inspection. Um, in the case of the electronics project, the contractor, even though I had done a $100,000 project with them at the Funding Girl office building, they completely crapped on this personal project I did at my house. Absolutely shocking. But am I glad that I put it on my business credit card? You bet. Because when it came down to it, I was able to go first off, I tried as hard as I could with the contractor directly. You're halfway through this project. Please come and finish it. You know, like you're not on schedule. Blah blah blah. go back and forth with them until he stopped communicating.

Then I went and called my credit card company and I was like, "Listen, you know, I can show you all I'm trying to get this project finished. I've already paid them." And so, long and short, I was able to initiate what's called a chargeback and I was able to get all $35,000 back.

Yeah. Now, I did not think I was going to be able to keep that 35 grand because in the case of a chargeback, once you've initiated it, they they give you the money back, but then the business gets to respond, right? So, I thought just like the other chargeback I done before that that as soon as I initiated it, this guy is going to be in contact with me. He's going to come and get the job finished and then his $35,000 will go through.

In this particular case, I never heard back from him. I got my $35 grand back and the project was almost finished. I had to pay someone else to come and finish it and that didn't cost $35 grand. And so in the case of the solar panel, what happened was it was a hot water solar panel that it didn't pass inspection and so it was essentially red tagged and I tried to get them to come back. I tried over and over. I even left a Better Business Bureau review dispute or you know on them. No, I charge back on them. The guy calls me the next day. The next day he calls me. And so he's like, "Oh, it's not my fault. It's your fault." All right, then. and I guess I'll keep the $17 grand.

But instead, they came out and even though it was supposedly my fault, they finished the job. They got it to pass inspection. The county passed it and they then they were able to char the $17,000 went through. So basically when you initiate a chargeback, it doesn't mean you're going to be able to keep it, but it does mean that the the credit card company becomes an arbitrator or they actually use an arbitration company and essentially they look at this transaction and they they become like a little judge between you and the contractor and until the contractor can prove that they've done it, they don't get to keep the money.

So credit cards, so we had a situation of a of a client do redoing a rehab or redoing a roof on a rehab. He was in a a new area that he didn't usually do business. He was dealing with a contractor that he was unsure of and so he made sure he got a roofing company that accepted credit card. Inevitably, he had a problem. It didn't pass inspection and he was able to do the chargeback process which then got the company within a few days to come back and to finish it.

Funny how that works. Yeah. So, you might not ever think of using credit card as as a way to hold it over the contractor, but in today's world, it's definitely worth doing. And these are the benefits of using credit card of of Visa, Mastercard, American Express of that process is that chargeback is built into it.

Yeah. So I think it's a it's an important thing to uh and another thing with with if you're a business and you're not accepting credit card, my question becomes why, right? Are you unable to because so many people have charged back on you that no merchant account will give you a merchant account anymore? So it tells us a lot just if if a business doesn't accept credit card that might be enough for you to say I don't want to do business with you.

You know every time I see a company that doesn't accept credit card I always think it's unfortunate you have such bad business acumen like that's try not to be a judgmental person but like you see these guys like I'm trying to save 3% like really really how much business have you lost right saving 3%.

Um for me the convenience is is is way too important. So yeah.

Um, so one of the things that we talked about, right, like the when we were talking before, what was important to me to make sure everyone understood is like you have this ability to get people $250,000 fast, right? So someone's listening and they wanted to work with you to get capital like what is the process to get started?

So the process says they would go to the fund and grow website and they would click the pre-qualification link which is right at the top of the website. without the pre-qualification. We don't know what someone will qualify for.

Yeah. So, we have a 60-day money back guarantee. So, we really want to know before you get started if we're going to be able to help you. So, we don't have to run your credit card and then give you your money back, you know. So, the pre-qualification tool immediately within like 20 seconds prints out exactly how much funding they'll be able to get access to with a soft pull. It does not leave any inquiry on their report.

Yeah. And so there are a lot of companies out there that offer the service, right? Uh for someone that is wanting to make sure they're working with the with the right company, what question should they be asking? What are some red flags to look out for?

That's a good question. So because it's hard for us on the outside looking in.

Yeah. Or on the outside like like what makes a good company or not?

Yeah. One of the things I would ask is are these all personal credit cards or are these business cards?

Mhm. So many of the companies that we work with, they apply for personal credit cards and then they're like, "Well, we could do business too if you want. What do you specialize in? Will you like Funding Grow will help you set up the entity? We'll make sure that the EIN is set up properly so that we we can use it in conjunction with applications and keep it off your credit report." So, that's really important is keeping it off your credit report. I would ask that.

Now, another thing Fund and Grow does is let's say that someone's signing up for us and they're they're using a credit card that is maxed out or I'm sorry, close to being maxed out and they're like, "Well, I'm going to put it on this card." Funding will be like, "No, because then now it's going to hurt your ratio and then we're not going to be able to apply for you."

Mhm. So, we're going to even through that pre-qualification tool look at all of their credit cards that they already have. even recommend we recommend that you put our charge on this card or on that card to make sure that you're at the right ratio so that when you get started we can move forward right away. A lot of companies they're looking to just to make that sale. That's it.

And they're not first. Yeah. And they're they're not asking you to pay by credit card. We just talked about that. They don't have a 60-day money back guarantee. uh there most of these companies I don't I haven't seen a single one that's offering the third-party payment services to be able to help people after the after the you know to be able to actually make make their payments and do the things.

Um so there like there's a a whole variety of things and I would say that another thing is just being able to have access to a team that's built $2 billion worth of this type of credit cards.

Yeah. Um, when you're applying for these and getting access to these, you you you don't know what to say to the underwriter. You don't know until you've talked to Fund and Grow and Fund and Grow tells you, "Listen, this is the psychology of what they're looking for. This is what they're going to ask you. This is what you need to tell them. We're not talking about lying or saying anything untoward. We're talking about just uh being able to present their business in a way where the banks are like approved, right?

So, that's another thing. There's a lot of these services. In fact, I don't know any service that teaches the client how to do the followup that we do. Like if I had our CRM pulled up in front of you and I was showing you this month where we're get where where we're getting whatever like 25 million in business credit cards and where you could see 5 million of those credit cards came from the application, 20 million came from the follow-up process.

Yeah. So, we would have got 5 million had we just done the application. And even that 5 million in business credit cards the client wouldn't have got had we not done the positioning, the merging, all of the different ratios and things that we're looking for before we even applied. So, before we even applied, we're doing that positioning. Then we're when we apply, that's usually less than onethird of the total funding that we're going to be creating. Twothirds, if not more, come in through the negotiations process. We don't know any other company that even does that um negotiation with with the banks to be able to follow up and communicate with the banks to be able to get whatever the limits they gave you popped up to a higher amount. That's that's the bread and butter of what Fund and Grow teaches their clients.

Gotcha. Uh and then like I've seen some stuff, you know, on Instagram and so on. It's like, hey, like you get business credit cards because when you get a business credit card, you don't have to pay it back.

You don't have to pay it back. Yeah. That's what I've seen. and it's popped up in my feed and I was like, "This is crazy."

That's Yeah, that's that's that's a red flag. That sounds like a red flag. Yeah. You don't have to pay it back. Yeah.

Yeah. So, what are you seeing like these promises like you know your your your competition? What are they saying out there that's like uh I don't know if that's true. Are you seeing anything else like that out there?

Um there are Yes. So some of our competition what they do is they they will directly um interact with the banks as if they are the client.

Really? Yeah.

Okay. So, that's you know like Seek Capital and a couple of these businesses. That's one of the things that was mentioned in the FTC lawsuit. You can't you know even if you have a power of attorney on your client you can't call the bank and pretend to be them.

Yeah. Well pretending that's that's the problem. Yeah. Yeah. You can have a power of attorney that you can do verbal and audible. Yeah. Yeah. But you would have to to to tell the bank that and then if you tell them that then the bank doesn't want to move forward under that arrangement.

Got it. So, it's really important that we are advising the client on how to do this properly. We don't want to get your card shut down.

No. And so that's what can happen in those situations is it ends up hurting the client, not funding grow. So we need to make sure that what we're teaching the client is going to benefit them the most. It's just like applying for personal cards versus business cards. If I only focus on personal cards, I could get you way more. I might look better.

Mhm. But the way to help you long term is to get you business credit cards that do not report to your personal so you can actually use them time and time again and be able to get to grow that amount and not bog down your personal.

Can you explain that a little bit more nuance like why? And you might have said it already, but like you know why is why why is business significantly better than personal? Because you talk about 60% versus 35%. Are there other reasons like does does the limit just continue to grow over time? Why business, right, over personal credit?

So imagine that you are living like the rest of your life like you got kids, you got other stuff going on and you need to use your credit. Maybe you need to co-sign for your kid on a auto loan or you need to do uh maybe in your real estate business you're getting more mortgages. These are all reasons why you don't want to take a personal hit for using money that's going to be invested into your business. If you're in putting money into your business that needs to be coming from a loan that's been approved for a business, right?

Um I mean I'm not saying that anyone's doing anything illegal by using personal credit cards for their business. I'm just saying just strategically, yes, we're better off uh going that way.

Um, and then you guys do was it 20 million a month now?

Yeah. I mean, we've done more than that. We've done like 30 million a month. We've done down to like 15 million a month. Yeah.

Um, it it kind of it varies, but like we were saying at the beginning, two billion you as an organization, you guys are funded.

Yep. So, that's a lot of money.

Yep. And you're clearly passionate about it. Why are you so passionate about funding grow?

So, I love being able to help entrepreneurs. When I think of what I learned in school and uh they used to teach us about America, right? And I know that hundreds of years ago, Americans were like they were like trading furs and they were farmers and they were hunters and they were woodworkers, carpenters. And what would people do with that? Did they take it to Walmart?

No. No. They directly represented their wares in the market.

Mhm. And here we are, fast forward a couple hundred years, 99.9% of the people all work for some big company, right? Funding Grow is helping entrepreneurs leave their corporate job and and do it for do whatever they do, whatever they're going to bring to market to do it for themselves to get to directly be able to give them access to leverage.

Um, I'm I'm sure you've been on cruises and you've been down in the islands like in Jamaica and these different islands and when you walk around when you go on the little tours and stuff, you see these houses that have the rebar coming out the top. You know what I'm talking about? They got like one level, two level, but there's still rebar stick like and what we find out the reason why that doesn't happen in a lot of Western countries is because people have access to OPM.

Mhm. You can get access to enough money to build the whole house. Right. In Jamaica, mom and dad build the first level. Second level's waiting for the kids to build. You know, they they don't even have enough money, per se, to be able to build the whole thing. And here we are with this amazing ability to be able to lend millions or hundreds of thousands if not and for some people millions of dollars to be able to buy things like real estate or businesses. To me, that's just absolutely amazing, you know, like we live in this Disneyland that gives us access to all these different things like like business credit cards and SBA loans and stuff like that. Like, how can we not be thankful and take advantage of these things and, you know, use them to help build, you know, our businesses, which end up helping our families, our communities. You know, I think every every man should be working hard on trying to become an entrepreneur. I just feel very strongly about it that when you're working for yourself and you're putting all of your energy into things for yourself and your family, you're going to put so much. You're going to be 24/7. Do you ever stop, Steve? You're never going to stop. And it feels freaking awesome. It feels just amazing. Like, I would never want to go back to, you know, I mean, not that saying working for for people is bad because I love my employees, but it's just not for me.

Yeah. So, a special place in your heart for for entrepreneurs. So then, um, what is what is something you want to be remembered for when everything's said and done?

Helping a lot of people. Yeah. So, uh, helping businesses grow, helping a lot of, you know, people get out of their 9 to5, out of their corporate into their into doing something that makes them feel proud for themsel. And it's just like it doesn't matter if it's gardening or woodworking or if they were hunting, you know what I mean? Like back in the day or even today, it doesn't even matter what you do.

Mhm. Just find a way to be of service and of value to others and guarantee you, you'll have a lot of people coming to buy your service.

The best thing about this country is there's literally an unlimited way unlimited number of ways to make money. like you know you see like um you know I do a lot of marketing and internet marketing now as well on top of everything else is get into like you know people like they make money from like um make selling Etsy templates right like these like these things you know you make a template for an Etsy site and you sell these templates for like $17 and that's their whole business.

Mhm. Selling these little $17 templates. There's literally no limit to like how you can make a living.

Yeah. working for yourself.

Yep. In this country.

And also, uh, the Amish community, it wasn't really Amish like I told you, they're called the Bruderhoff, but they are they're extremely entrepreneurial. They now have a lot of different, uh, what they call Bruterhoff houses where they're like inside like there's one in St. Pete. They do all thing all kinds of things from like carpentry to daycare. And these aren't even in their main locations where their main businesses are. So, I just find that there's so many things that are that down to earth like daycare.

That's such an easy thing to, you know, and and uh it's also something that people pay a really pretty penny for, you know, and how often are people worried to drop off their kids at some of these big corporate places or some of these, you know, more known places. And so, there's just so many different niches and ways to get in to be able to help.

Um, one of my friends, he uh helps people by doing this process of putting magnets on them. This guy didn't know anything about that. And he learned about this biomagnetism process and and if you Google it and look it up, it's it's a huge thing. It's like some it's a wellness thing. Like over in Europe, your insurance pays for it and stuff.

Oh wow. Yeah. It's a real thing. I I do it and it it's unbelievable how it makes you feel. They call it magnet pair therapy. You've heard of like acupuncture, right? So they take the needles and they put it on the different points. Well, the the magnet pair therapy is by taking two magnets and it creates a like a flow between them from the north to the south. So, they puts on like one side of the heart and the other side and then it flows through and gets the chi or the energy to move rather than using the needles.

Yeah. And so they put the magnet pairs on either side of all these different organs that they want to do that to. And this guy is now making like $10 12 grand a week. He went from charging like $100 a session to like $300 a session to like $1,200 a session.

Yeah. And he says, "I wish I had just listened to this other guy that was telling him." He's like, "You got to charge more. You got to charge more. You got to charge more." and uh and and that is anybody could get into that particular industry. The magnet parotherapy is something that you can get certified on, you can go and do and people are are are trying to get into the holistic alternative health space, you know, more than ever before, you know. So, like I find that type of um uh entrepreneurship just absolutely amazing.

And I had this other friend who uh I met him when I was buying guns at this gun shop that he owned. I'm from Florida, so we love guns. Oh, he is Arizona, so you guys do too.

Open everywhere. Yeah. But under under, you know, some of the past administrations kind of been under under attack, so his gun store wasn't doing too well. And so he went into woodworking woodworking. And he built this shop in the back of his house, like outside, you know, like an actual shop. And uh he's done all kinds of woodworking stuff for me, for my friends, for all these. He has a whole business now doing it. And I think he makes more than what he was doing doing guns.

And so this is like it's so easy actually. You just have to like put your energy into something and keep doing it. Like I have people all the time that telling me, Ari, why are you not doing this type of loan and that and doing this and doing this? You have all these clients coming to you. You know what we got good at was doing one thing, focusing on one thing and doing that really, really, really, really well. Not focusing on a thousand things and all the new things.

Mhm. We're doing the same thing, business credit cards that we did when I got hired by Dave.

Yeah. Uh, what is your superpower?

Superpower? I guess I should say our superpower is funding people.

That's a company superpower. Yeah, that's that's our company superpower.

Uh, personally, um, I I don't know that I have any superpowers.

What would your uh uh Daniel is your partner?

Yes. What would Daniel say?

What is my superpower?

Mhm. I don't know. To annoy him.

No. Um, I mean, I guess they would say to bring in the leads, you know, to to make it easier for everyone in the office, to make the sales people happy.

Yeah. Probably the most important thing in an organization.

Yeah. Get the sales people to make it easy to sell. Um, and I guess the the uh last question here is what book have you gifted more than any other?

Have I gifted? Well, unfortunately, I would say that's the fund and grow book.

You have a book. Yeah. But um but putting my own self-s serving book to the side, which is not near as good. Um, Abraham Hicks, the law of attraction without a doubt.

Uh, actually, I'd recommend any of Abraham's books. So, yeah, I know his name, but I'm trying to think like I actually picked up any of those.

It's actually a um I know it sounds really weird, but um it's actually a female and her name's Esther Hicks, but she's like she she calls herself Abraham because she's she like channels the information. I don't care where the information comes from. When you hear the stuff that Esther talks about, it's it's completely changed my life. Esther is the reason why I went from working in the shipyard because she's also one of the people that was in in the original version of The Secret.

I see. But she was actually so much in the original version of The Secret that when it went international two years later, cuz I think it came out like 2002, and then like a year like and then they were on Oprah.

Mhm. And then like a year after that, it was like all over the world. And um on the international version, they actually cut Abraham out because she was receiving like 60% of the revenue of the entire film. And so and they were like, "What can we do?" And Abraham's like, "Well, I don't care. Just cut me out." She lets people use her content on YouTube at no charge either.

Right. Yeah. If I remember now, I think uh our ops person in our organization is always listening to that. I think that's the one she's always like, "You got to listen to this." It's like, "Yeah, yeah, I will."

Yes. Once you start, you become addicted.

Yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay. And so again, if someone um wants to connect with you, it's just funandgrow.com.

Yeah. If I mean, if if they want to connect as an affiliate, then you know, they would say reach out to me directly.

Um, you know, I could leave maybe my email address.

Sure. Or Yeah.

Yeah. What's the best way to get hold of you?

Uh well, my email is re a r i and then period then page p a g-fundgrow.com.

[Music] All right. And um yeah, I would love to to reach out, you know, for anyone that reaches out to me to to talk to them. Um and any client that wants to get started or just to see what they qualify for, that's where I'd recommend go to fungrow.com, click on the pre-qualification tool.

Yeah, perfect. Simple enough. Uh what are some last thoughts you want to leave all the listeners with?

Last and first, get started doing something now. Uh, like my mom used to tell me when I was younger that I would probably end up selling ice to Eskimos and I didn't understand that. But now I wish I had started way earlier, you know, like I didn't need to have a career working in the shipyard and all that type of stuff. You know what I mean? I could have just started doing what I was passionate about, which is talking to people in business and just communicating because I'm very certain I could sell whatever. If it was ice and if it was Eskimos, I'd do that, too.

Yeah. All right. So get started.

Yes. All right. Perfect. Well, thank you very much.

Thank you, Steve. You're welcome. Appreciate you. Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next time. Disruptor us.