Why You Should Never Pay Collections with Ray Bueno

Daniel Rosen  0:00  

Hey, Credit Heroes! Today we're going to be joined by Ray Bueno. He is a bonafide YouTube star with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. I know you've seen his videos. He started a credit repair business only 10 months ago and he's already nearly made it into the Millionaires club. And today, he's going to tell us how he did that and he's also going to give some amazing advice on how you can grow your credit repair business a whole lot faster by creating educational content. So stick around, because this is going to be a good one. 

So the big question is this. How can we take our passion for helping people with their credit and turn it into a successful business without taking loans without spending a fortune by bootstrapping it from nothing so we can help the most people and still become highly profitable? That is the question at this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Daniel Rosen, and welcome to Credit Repair Business Secrets. 

What's up Credit Heroes? Daniel here, at Credit Repair Cloud headquarters. Our guest today is a bonafide YouTube star with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. His show on Youtube is called keeping it real with credit, where he provides a credit and personal finance education and sometimes rap songs. It's so popular, and he's just started a credit repair business very recently and he is well on his way to the Millionaires club with a run rate of very close to a million dollars. He's getting really, really close to that award, and it's only been since August. Am I right? Right?

Ray Bueno  1:49  

Yeah. Okay, there you go. So,

Daniel Rosen  1:50  

Anyways, he gets all of his business by providing free credit information on the internet and he's going to give us a lot of information today on How to Use YouTube or video or educational content on any platform to grow your credit repair business, so please welcome to the podcast, the host of Keeping It Real With Credit. Ray Bueno. Hey Ray!

Ray Bueno  2:15  

What's up? What's up, everybody? Yeah, my name is Ray. I'm the host of keeping it real with credit. And thank you for definitely inviting me over to the podcast and to discuss, you know, this world of credit repair.

Daniel Rosen  2:26  

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? 

Ray Bueno  2:28  

Yes, it is.

Daniel Rosen  2:29  

I want to get right into this. So I want to know, well, first of all, what was your life like before credit?

Ray Bueno  2:35  

Yeah, so my life before credit, it was pretty interesting. So I grew up in Miami, Florida, and a town of, you know, called Hialeah was just one within the cities of Miami. I've been here all my life and I've pretty much from there, went to high school, and took off to the Marine Corps in 2007. May 29th, I went to boot camp and, you know, went to Iraq, Afghanistan, and I got out in 2013. After that, towards the end of my career, I was a recruiter down here, Miami, Florida. So I got very lucky to get stationed down here in my very hometown visiting to my old high school. And then after I got out the Marine Corps, I attended the University of Miami where I graduated with a bachelor's in public relations and advertising. And communications, I guess, in general, right. And then by I guess, by accident, my youtube channel kicked off. And, you know, it's just been a blessing and it's been a crazy roller coaster. Definitely unexpected and I'm still to this day catching up with I guess that Miss not I don't want to call it a mistake, but that opportunity. 

Daniel Rosen  3:39  

Yeah, but what was it that got you interested in credit? What happened?

Ray Bueno  3:45  

Yeah, so I kind of got into credit by force, I guess, in a sense. So everything started with me when it came to credit is after my second deployment to Afghanistan. So for a lot of listeners out there, if you've been in the military, you deployed it, you can probably relate, you know, before you leave here, you... It gives you some sort of paperwork for you to give to your creditors, letting them know where you're going to be at and to freeze the accounts. So we get back to my understanding it's part of the service members Relief Act that protects us with that. went to Afghanistan did our thing there after seven months came back, obviously, where I was at, I didn't have No, we didn't have showers, we didn't have phones, we didn't have anything, right. So much less than the ability to pair bills from over there. And I wasn't married at the time. And then so I came back. And we came back a lot of us came back to a bunch of collections, just left and right. And, you know, typical mindset, we're happy to be back, the pay that we get over there is, you know, tax-free. And so we wanted to enjoy that other people had plans for other things. I mean, particularly, I was just thankful to be back and I wanted to kind of, you know, celebrate life or whatnot here back in Miami. You know, after a few months pass, I started getting collection calls over and over from, you know, obvious debts that I owed. One of them was which caught my attention. It was Franklin, Conan O'Brien, you know, those were like attorneys to me. And I talked to him over the phone, they gave me all my information. You know, we worked out a payment plan. And, you know, I started paying over 12 months. And just because it's in my nature, I went ahead to find out how can I be proactive? To my understanding, if I pay this account off, that's going to better my credit, but how can I put myself in an even better position to leverage my credit, so I started researching credit just because just to try to do better. And I found out that in the world of credit, or in credit reporting, after you pay an account, that amount should be reflected on your credit report every month. So for example, if you're paying $100 a month, on an account, your credit report should reflect $100 less on that particular account that you're that's reporting right on a month to month basis. I found that that that wasn't happening. And I'm like, that was a big red flag. Then I contacted them and say, Hey, can you update my credit report? And they said, Yeah, yeah, and all this other The big stuff. Then I asked them for a Can you send me documentation just so I can have in my records. They sent me an email. And it looks like they created something on word on a Word document where you see like the little outline for you to edit, like their logo. Long story short, it was a fake company, I console consumer attorney, which was a big risk to me because in the beginning, a consumer attorney wasn't going to take my case because they weren't a big company like Midland funding, portfolio recovery, or some of those big companies. I had to give the money upfront just because of the fact that there was no guarantee to find these guys. And so I was willing to put up I think is what I paid in initially 1500 dollars upfront, and when I paid those 1500 dollars, they went out to look for him the process server and luckily they did found them in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Now for some of you guys that don't know, Hilton Head, South Carolina is the very place where people assignment is that that's Marine Corps boot camp. I never proceeded to find out what exactly happened within that process, I was just happy to ultimately sue them in federal court and got all my money back almost $4,000 worth. And so I decided months, months later to make a video. And that video is called why you should never ever pay collections. And I just put that video just to keep people informed. I didn't have a title. I didn't put tags on that video. I didn't do anything. It was just a video where, hey, this might help somebody out. And from a few months later, I checked my YouTube account, and I had like 100 followers there. And then literally the next day 14,000 followers then the next day 25,000 followers like this, I didn't understand what was going on. And I guess in that sense, my youtube channel kicked off. I started YouTube actually started paying me to the point where I was able to pay my rent, and I kind of you You know, it kind of forced me into that world. And I was thankful that I was able to help a lot of people with that video. And I continue to do research, continue to do research, make videos about it, make videos about it, and it all came back full circle.

Daniel Rosen  8:13  

Wow, it's amazing. And I wanted to say earlier, thank you so much for your service will problem. It's really incredible. I mean, it boggles my mind that you would go to the Middle East, be in the Marines, fight for our country come back and then discover that collectors and all this terrible credit stuff has happened while you were away and you'd think you could just say hey, I was fighting for you I'm in the Marines and but they don't care. And then to scam you.

Ray Bueno  8:46  

There's a whole other world out there of people coming across even as attorneys or debt collectors that they're not even a company. They're just people that buy your information off the black market, or wherever they buy it at and then come after you with credit You know, just trying to attempt to collect the debt from you. And they're not even the people you have to pay. And so that's where the whole idea of why you should never ever pay collections came about with that video,

Daniel Rosen  9:11  

Right. I watched that video. It's amazing. And they helped a lot of people with that video. A lot of those guys break the law, don't they? in many different ways,

Ray Bueno  9:22  

All the time. And you know, ever since I started with credit repair or whatnot, it just really, really bothers me that there's people out there that assume that the average consumer doesn't know their rights, and they take advantage of that the average consumer is not going to go to the FTC website and look up Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and find out what debt collectors can or cannot do. And because they know this, they take advantage of it. They know that people don't know where to go to. It's not something you can just go to the cops because they're not going to help you. Right. It really bothers me that a lot of people out there are choosing between feeding their family or keeping their apartment or getting this annoying debt collector off their back because are threatening them with a bunch of stuff. And that's where it bothers me. What are some of the things you've seen them do some of the terrible things, or some of the things they threatened with arrest, they leave really nasty voicemails. I've seen collection agencies send summons, or, you know, us to appear to court for debts that are passed, or zombie debts past the statute of limitations in their debt. But just to get them scared enough to go work out a deal, and then lock them in again with that contract that kind of renews. And now they have legal leverage over it. I hate when that happens all the time. And they're taking advantage of it every day. 

Daniel Rosen  10:35  

Wow. So you had this one video that you created that got it just went viral, basically, and got you all these subscribers? How did you start to figure out what other videos to make? How what was that process like?

Ray Bueno  10:50  

So the process is kind of similar to what I have now. It's just a matter of, you know, going out there into current events or whatnot, maybe setting up some Google alerts for Certain industry industrial topics or whatnot, and doing my research, you know, I don't claim to know everything, I make sure that all my information that I put out there is is vetted, it's documented. And as a matter of fact, I have a lot of fun researching it, turning it into a blog, which in a sense kind of gets turned into a video. And if it's useful for me, if I think it's useful for everybody else, then I'm going to put it out, you know? So that's definitely helped me out a lot.

Daniel Rosen  11:26  

How often are you putting out new content?

Ray Bueno  11:28  

And so I try to, but for the most part, I have it scheduled for three videos a week one, which is a live q&a, which I really do enjoy because it allows my subscribers to go on there asking questions regarding their credit, their particular situation, and I'm able to respond on that and maybe give them some guidance on pointing them in the right direction. And ultimately, what that results to is a lot of phone calls here in the office, right? Because everybody wants to speak to me or my team or whatnot. And they want to feel it's real, which is important for me. You know, credit repair, unfortunately because there's a lot of bad apples out there. There. A big negative cloud over credit repair, that it doesn't work or that there were scammers or something like that. And it really bothers me, at least for the people that actually do care about the people do their research, and know that this does work. I try to make it as real and transparent as possible for everybody. Because, you know, that's what everybody needs. 

Daniel Rosen  12:17  

That's super cool. And you actually people writing questions, and you're actually calling them and doing all this research before the show?

Ray Bueno  12:26  

Exactly. Well, and the live sessions, I kind of there's like a little chat box there. And I see the questions as they start popping up. And so I kind of transitioned from that and then to real credit repair results. So I show your one click audit, right from when they started, and then I kind of share my screen and I switch to where they're at now. And how many negative items they have left and available. And it kind of starts this discussion as to what's what can really be deleted or not, what can be really rectified or not because the same information that this individual that I'm showing has may be somebody that's watching that has as well to wonder What are my options with that particular account? And how can I get from point A to point B? And the quickest way possible, you know, financial wise.

Daniel Rosen  13:07  

Amazing. When was it that you started the YouTube channel?

Ray Bueno  13:12  

2016 is when that video came out. Yep. 

Daniel Rosen  13:15  

And you only just recently started the actual credit repair business.

Ray Bueno  13:20  

Yes. And last August. Yeah, so what I was doing before that is I obviously got a lot of traction. And so I used to kind of stick in my word, right, because that's what I understood. That's what I graduated with. And so I used to charge sponsorship fees or advertising fees, where if you want me to mention your business or particular product that's kind of aligned with credit or finance, I would charge people for that. And for a while, I made a good living on top of what YouTube was paying for me and stuff like that. It paid the bills, right. And so you know, over time, you know, I got together with one of my best friends from high school, and a couple other now that I caught brothers now, that are my partners right now. And they kind of pulled me aside and say, Hey, if we start a credit repair business, would you be able to run it? And I said, Absolutely. And, you know, we hit it at 1000 miles an hour from the get-go. And I just can't believe where it's landed us here so far, just from last August alone.

Daniel Rosen  14:19  

So amazing. Yeah, we were talking about the numbers earlier, you're like, in less than a year you're at, at around 750,000 annual recurring revenue, correct? 

Ray Bueno  14:29  

Yep. Exactly. We're making around. Yeah, it's roughly between 55 to 60 a month. And it was definitely hard in the beginning, you know, there's no amount of book or anything that will prepare you for that, you know, to be honest with you, and you know, I'm always fully transparent, but, and in the beginning, it was just me, it was just me and the moment I announced that I have my own credit repair company, I would get flooded with appointments. So I had everything integrated, you know, with the automation with Zapier and calendly, and stuff like that, so I get emails daily. And I'd have 40 to 50 appointments, you know, for people requesting and do evaluations 20 minutes at a time, I'd be awake from eight in the morning till 11 o'clock at night just doing evaluations. And in some cases, you know, obviously I didn't have this office yet it was in the work, so I had to improvise. So I remember like it was yesterday, I was telling the story. So the rest of my team where, you know, I had to park really close to Starbucks or McDonald's close enough so my laptop could pick up on Wi-Fi. So I do evaluations for people, with the one-click audit and everything else. And after that triggered the process of disputing where you know, everything was just rolling, rolling, rolling in and staying in between and day, not day out to make sure that the clients are getting service, that they're making sure that they understand the whole process and then my integration because I was alone in the beginning was starting it off, you know, my partners now which they know a lot more now but didn't know how to run a credit repair business or how that world was so it was just me trials and tribulations like I have been, you know, all my life.

Daniel Rosen  16:01  

Wow, how big a team do you have now?

Ray Bueno  16:03  

So right now we have a team of 12. In total, my processing team is three right now. And we have another four when it comes to the sales department, and the rest is just my partners and kind of IT staff or whatnot and behind the scenes, but for the most part, I've taken what I've known from the credit repair business world, and I've been able to improvise it, I'm able to now manage around, I believe, 400 and something clients 405 hundred clients with just three processors. All right, and with my sales team, being able to manage all these appointments that are coming in daily, obviously through my videos or whatnot. And so I'm really proud of that I'm always looking to improve and everything runs, you know, really well oiled.

Daniel Rosen  16:46  

Wow. Now, Have you always been entrepreneurial? Or is this all new? Have you ever run a business before?

Ray Bueno  16:52  

No, I've actually never really been entrepreneurial. However, I've always been a survivor, I guess you would say and I think you know, that's for The Marine Corps training, right being very optimistic, always finding a way and always look, you know, facing the challenges of front and finding a way, you know, out of that. And so, you know, obviously, everything that I've learned right now has been through the hard way, right, I learned the hard way that, you know, this collection thing, which kind of led over to, to this, and then, you know, through the struggles that I went through in the beginning of building this business and taking it to where it is now, right, obviously, with the help of everybody, but, you know, it's just definitely been a challenge. Everything that I went through before in the Marine Corps kind of prepared me for everything now. And you know, I don't call myself an entrepreneur is just a survivor.

Daniel Rosen  17:38  

Sure, I hear ya. Yep. That's amazing. That's really, really amazing. And I can't believe that you're running a business and creating so much content every week. I mean, I do one podcast a week and it's really really hard.

Ray Bueno  17:52  

Yeah, it definitely is, it definitely is. It takes a lot of, you know, practice and you know, obviously organization with Everything as much help as you can get.

Daniel Rosen  18:01  

Absolutely and just running. I've never run a business before this guy, you know, this is my first time being a CEO. And it's a challenge there's a whole lot to learn isn't there? You've got to learn to deal with people and you go to sleep with it, you go you wake up with it. It's It's It's all crazy, like daily meetings, daily meetings in sometimes two to three spontaneous meetings just because you know, just to kind of discuss, but all the time we're discussing new opportunities or strategies. Yep. And are you completely transparent with your whole team and the numbers and everything you guys are doing?

Ray Bueno  18:36  

Yeah, you to an extent, I guess, you know, when it comes to operations, you know, behind the scenes with the partners, we're pretty transparent when it comes to that when it comes to the team. We're transparent in other ways. It's important for me to for the team to know exactly what's going on from the highest level, down to the bottom level. And again, I take that you know, from my Marine Corps training or whatnot, everybody in the chain needs to know what's going on. So everybody in sync with what the main mission is, and everybody's motivated together. And then from there, you know, we assigned like little leadership tasks, you know, within the team to kind of motivate everybody to one same goal. So, definitely, you know, I'm transparent on that, and definitely a lot.

Daniel Rosen  19:14  

Yep, that's super cool. I know with our own team, that at first I was afraid of sharing numbers and this and that, and then a coach we go to said, they already know they can do the math. Yep. And the moment we started letting the entire team know everything we were doing, that's when we really started to grow, because everyone felt a part of it. But I love the way you're talking about your team and all the tasks and everything. It's like you're doing it as a military operation.

Ray Bueno  19:41  

Yep, exactly. Exactly. Just like that. Yep. That's because that's what I know.

Daniel Rosen  19:46  

You haven't met Jose Rodriguez, have you?

Ray Bueno  19:49  

I don't believe I have.

Daniel Rosen  19:50  

Oh, he's great. He's another one of our credit repair millionaires, but he was a marine. And a lot of what he does... 

Ray Bueno  19:55  

Oh, I'm sorry, Yes, I have. Yes. I have Jose Rodriguez de Maria. I met them when we met. The credit repair conference, right? 

Daniel Rosen  20:01  

That's right, we were all there. It's a really, really good background to have. I really, really cool how it's all fall into place. Okay, I want to talk about content doing educating the world and what that means. I mean, this is something I preach a lot to all of our credit repair cloud users, a lot of them I mean, they think there's some magical thing with ads or this or that and it really, you can grow a business just by educating people and talking about credit and, and letting everyone you can know that you're the king of credit and you're the go-to, expert about credit, but so many people are afraid of, of doing that of going live on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. Do you have any tips for people on how to get over that fear?

Ray Bueno  20:51  

Yeah, so I would say just do it. You got to start at one point and your first video is never going to be you know, Steven Spielberg quality right? There's always Gonna be that progress. I hate watching my never ever pay collection videos, I hate how I sound the camera was using I would never use. But that just goes to show that if you just do it, you know, don't really worry about the rest. You see, again, going back to the credit repair business. Remember, for everybody, it has a negative cloud out there. And so what you need to do is figure out how do you separate yourself from the rest or the competition, and I used to talk a lot about this. See, I'm used to, I guess, being looked at as either the underdog or with the negative cloud because it's not fun, being a recruiter, and anytime, especially in Miami, where most of them are Hispanics, and they relate their military experience to how it is in their countries like in Cuba, where is mandatory and things like that. And so I've had my I had the doors been closed on me a lot. So I had to learn really quick on one why you should join the Marine Corps, right in this case, why should they join your company? And why should you join our establishment amongst all the others establishments that are out there, and the only way to do Do it is to create content and come across as the educator come across as somebody that knows what they're talking about. But that's just not enough. You have to feel what you're talking about. You have to understand what you're talking about. And you have to learn how to apply it. Because within this business, you know, it's not just fixing people's credit. I tell people all the time, unlike other businesses, we don't want your business back. If you come back to us, we didn't do our job, right, we didn't educate you properly, our job is to go ahead and fix you up with your credit, educate you on credit, so you better know how to handle it once you're out there. And so content is extremely important because everybody's going to post before and afters, you know, you have to look at it from the potential customers perspective. If I see a post where there's a before and after 500 to 730 credit score, well, you could have copied and paste that from anywhere that doesn't tell me that you're the people I need to speak to. Right. And so the only way you come across that way is doing your research, writing books if you have to articles blogs, because at the end of the day by you, forcing yourself into this regimen of research and credit on an everyday basis, now you become more comfortable and you become an expert. Right? And so, by default, you become an expert. And now you're sharing all this information with current clients and potential clients. And that makes everybody feel a little bit more comfortable as to pay. I'm know regardless of what I'm paying, I'm dealing with the right people, if that makes sense.

Daniel Rosen  23:22  

Absolutely. And you tell your own story planning as well. Yeah, that was what makes people relate to you.

Ray Bueno  23:30  

Exactly. Yeah, no, I, you know, it's unfortunate that the information on credit is not really accessible everywhere. And so I can relate to everybody. It's either if it's accessible, it's hard to understand. And there's not a lot of opportunities for the everyday people like I like to call it for all of us. But again, you know, what makes you stand out from the competition from the rest? Why should a customer choose you, then why should a customer choose 123 credit repair agency than ABC credit repair agency At the end of the day, everybody, you know, the process of disputing is the same regardless, we're all playing under these rules that the FCC and the government created for all of us. The only difference is, you know, it's a little bit of flavor over here and how you do your letters here, how you treat your clients here, and how you come across the people over here, you know, people are giving you their whole lives, you know, and it's important for them to understand that you're protecting it properly, like using a software like credit repair cloud, right with its encryption, and that the people that they're dealing with that's working on their credit, understands and knows how to maneuver during different scenarios.

Daniel Rosen  24:37  

Absolutely. And really, the biggest part of trust of a client is getting to know you. People want to do business with a person they like that they feel it maybe as walked in their own shoes. Exactly. So many people starting a business want to abandon who they are and be anonymous and have the fancy logo. And it's not about any of that you've built all that This all on your personality and your own stories.

Ray Bueno  25:03  

Yep, it's all you have to come across as real people got to have the opportunity to get to know you. You know, at the end of the day, you know, even though the company's called score shield Financial Group, people don't care about the name, right? They only care about Hey, Ray was the one to fix my credit, right? When they recommend you to somebody, they're going to say, they're going to say your name, they're not going to say score shields fix my credit, they're going to say, hey, Ray, fix my credit, or whoever the credit analysts or the salesperson on the other line, hey, Christian, fix my credit. Hey, sure. Here, fix my credit, not score shield, financial. That's just a name. It's a design. It's a logo. But at the end of the day, it's more about the people that are working in there, as opposed to just the brand. Right?

Daniel Rosen  25:42  

Amen. So back to content. What are the biggest topics that you see your audience asking you about these days?

Ray Bueno  25:51  

Definitely collections right where there's certain things can be removed or not how to deal with their phone calls, because I definitely don't want people to be afraid to pick up the calls to go That kind of leads into wage garnishments and everything else, hospital bills, and why is my scores so different or fluctuating? I get those questions a lot. And, you know, obviously, I don't mind saying it again, but people need to be aware as to how this credit repair world works around them. And then from there kind of build a foundation of knowledge, you know, from the ground up. 

Daniel Rosen  26:23  

Got it. Now, and I've noticed you've got basically two different kinds of content, you've got the educational, and then you've got the QA sessions, which ones and you're going back and forth. Why to use one versus the other and, and which one is helping your business more. Does it all add together?

Ray Bueno  26:41  

Yeah, they all add together. So one, it's a recorded one where I research the topic, I look it up, I research it deeply look into the sources. Then from there, I kind of you know, kind of formulate this, I write a paper on it right, just like I didn't swear write a paper on it, make sure I understand it. And then from there, that kind of creates The idea of the flow that I'm going to go ahead and follow within my video. So I take out the camera, I do a lot of B roll, you know, I make a nice video just to kind of, you know, present it to the world, then the q&a makes it more real for everybody. I'm not just a YouTube personality just recorded, I try to answer as many comments as I can, but the q&a makes it real. Hey, this is Ray. I'm real. I'm just like you. You know, I understand credit, I want to be able to help you out. Um, at least give me the opportunity to show that I can help you out. And so together, I mean, Wednesdays, I try to do it. But it's beautiful that when I'm live on the computer right now with the same setup, and I'm answering questions for those 30 minutes that I'm on there, the phones start ringing like crazy. It just starts ringing ring, you're right behind me starts ringing ringing ringing ringing. And you know, my processing team sometimes has to go and pick up the phone, do an evaluation or you know, get people's information down. But this is all these people that want answers to their questions and I'm just different. blessed to be able to help people out and that they can trust me, you know further, you know, to answer their questions, you know?

Daniel Rosen  28:05  

Yeah. Wow. Hey Ray, Keenan has a question for you!

Ray Bueno  28:09  

Alright, let's do it.

Keenan Jones  28:10  

Hey, Ray. So I have a quick question to ask as well, too, with all the success that you've had with your YouTube channel. I know you and Daniel talked about how you educate your clients and you create all these topics. But for someone that hasn't maybe started their platform yet, like whether it be their advertising on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook, how would you recommend someone start to know like the types of questions and topics to teach their audience and how would you recommend them get out there?

Ray Bueno  28:44  

Yeah, so I would definitely start with answering your own questions. Everybody has like a basic, you know, streamlined set of questions that they have on credit, which is most likely what they're what other customers are going to ask. But you know, you can always ask friends or family members on You know, why wouldn't you do credit repair? Or why would you do credit repair? Or what do you understand about credit or credit repair, and kind of make a list of those things, and really spend the time on going online and doing your research, writing down some notes, and kind of create this understanding and just, you know, either grab your phone, if you have a camera, and just shoot it, and see how the world reacts to it. And just leave it on there. And always expand on those ideas. When it comes to that, try to stay away from stock pictures or stock videos and stuff like that, you know, come across as more real show you show where you're at show, you know, even if you don't have the car your dreams yet, show that because people like to see progress. You know, if you have bad credit and you're starting your own business, then I dare you to be as transparent as fixing your own credit and having the world to see how it is really that possible. You know, just again, going above and beyond and doing what others are not willing to do. But for the most part. I would just go from there. There's a bunch of information out there, and kind of break everything out and go from there. And one thing I wanted to add from before is, you know, as I make these videos, I'm learning just as much as my viewers are learning, I'm learning at the same time they're learning. And so I'm excited when there's a new topic when there's a new video idea to come out because it requires me to research understand it, before I even come out on video about it. Because, you know, I may get asked questions about that particular topic, I need to be ready to respond to that. And so it's always refreshing to understand the financial world and the credit world a little bit better, because I'm learning at the same time, everybody's learning and so, you know, I always tell my viewers to always bring fresh and relevant information for everybody because, you know, that's this is why what I am now this is what I do.

Keenan Jones  30:46  

Awesome. Right. I have one follow up question. So you mentioned that if you're just getting started, you might ask some, like your family and friends have different questions that they have around credit or maybe you start getting questions from you. YouTube comments and other various places? How do you actually go about that research process of knowing like what to actually teach your audience when you're creating your videos,

Ray Bueno  31:10  

Right. So what I do is I go on Google and I set up alerts, very simple, you can set up alert on anything your name, meaning if your name ever pops out in the World Wide Web, then you're going to get an email about it. So I put topics on relevant topics when it comes to credit mortgages, homes, car finance, credit itself, and Google kind of sends me a list of relevant topics that just came out. And I kind of looked through those I kind of read through those. Sometimes I don't pick topics but sometimes I read other topics down and I kind of spend my time kind of looking over those things, researching it, putting it together, and you know, kick it in off on YouTube. So that's exactly how I know and I'm and I make sure that all the the topics that I choose, it's relevant and current, not any old information. But sometimes it's important to give people a baseline like this idea where you know, We have to tailor our credit habits, or we have to tailor our financial habits around the older credit scoring models. See, that's where a lot of people need to understand that the banks of today are using older FICO scoring models, right. And so we don't understand how those algorithms calculate your credit score, then we're never going to understand and better strategize other things you see, you know, on Final score model eight or nine, it doesn't factor in paid collections or hospital bills. But the fact of the matter is, is that the banks of today are not using those FICO scoring models. So we have to go based on the older FICO scoring models that calculate a collection, whether it's paid or not as negatively impacting your score. So knowing that when a collector calls you, knowing that you have to better strategize, you know, Hey, I know that if I pay this account, it's not going to remove itself from my credit report, and it's not going to improve my credit unless I negotiate a payment for delete, but that's not always available. So sometimes before you fork out money, I tell everybody, why don't you ask for validation that Within your right, you want to make sure that any third party that you never contracted with in the first place has all the information that you need to make sure that you're dealing with the right person. If not, it can happen to you just like it happened to me. You're dealing with fake debt collectors, fake attorneys, they're not even companies. And so you want to do the right thing by paying it, but you never know who's on the other line. And guess what, if in 30 days, they can provide any validation of that debt, then the law states it has to be removed. And I personally wouldn't pay anybody that can't prove to me that I owe them that that to pay them any money or much less, give my bank account information. And so, you know, that's the whole beauty of these things. You know, make sure that you have all your paperwork correct, then act. If it gets removed, then depending on what's remaining on your credit report, your score goes up. But you see, we have to have an understanding and a knowledge of the financial industry of today. So we can tailor habits around those things and further educate our clients to so that they can better strategize if that were to come out again, right. And so These are things that during research, nobody's going to know, unless it's brought to them. And that's very important to understand 

Keenan Jones  34:06  

Awesome. Right... When you research a bunch of content and produce it for your audience, when you're bringing in leads, and people are signing up for sales calls with you, how is that affecting the sales process for you guys? Is it making it super easy to sell someone and get them started with credit repair or? Yes, so how is that working?

Ray Bueno  34:26  

Yeah, obviously, you know, again, through that process, I make sure that my information is locked in. That kind of leads into you know, in the description of all my videos, there's a link there a sign up for your free credit evaluation that kind of leads them on onto my on my landing page and that landing page. They type in their information. I have a Zapier integration where that automatically goes from my landing page directly into credit repair cloud where I get a notification Hey, there's new leads available. I also have a Zapier integration where you know, the phone systems that we're using here, you get a text three minutes After you submit your information from me. And so even though that message is automated, you're getting my number. And that's important for me because I want to make sure that everybody knows how to reach me. However, even though that mesh is automated, I'm able to see through my phone that actually sent that text at that time. And when I'm up, or when I'm going about my day, and somebody wants to ask me a question, because they think it's me, which it is, I get to respond back. And that makes everything a lot better. And so, you know, once that text goes in, around five minutes later, they get an email saying, Hey, did you sign up for credit monitoring yet? Because that's important to have set up. So use a one-click audit. And so what I did was is that I got that information. And so in the email, I described why we need credit monitoring the importance of credit monitoring, because a lot of people may complain about the dollar that they have to pay. And there's the link available and I put a please make sure to have this link. Have your username and login ready by the time of your evaluation. They also get a text with a calendly link for them to schedule their appointment. And so by the time I come into work and my salespeople come to work, there's already leads already scheduled for them. They don't have to even think it's already there for them. And so I also hold Not only do I hold their responsibility to my viewers, but to my team, because, you know, I make sure they eat by making sure I put out consistent videos, quality videos that are informative to everybody. It's a win-win, you know, around here with everybody.

Daniel Rosen  36:28  

Do you even have to run ads at all?

Ray Bueno  36:31  

So I haven't run ads at all whatsoever, which is great. However, I know that I shouldn't be banking on that, right? We, we have to leverage, you know, advertising, especially through either Google or Facebook or whatnot. And so right now, it's where the attention is that right? So we have to go from there. But I'm really blessed. I mean, for everybody that the YouTube algorithm is always changing. Sometimes I'll get 30,000 views on a video. Other times my views kind of plateau at 3000 views and kind of stay there. I haven't figured out the algorithm yet. But just put a video out there, just put it out there, share it with people share with family and friends, have your staff share that with family and friends put it on their posts, and you never know who's going to reach out to you have to care more about the content, right? What you're delivering on the video, versus where's it going to be posted? Or if it's going to give us or not, you can't get lost in the viewership. You have to always make sure that the video you're putting out there, whether it gets popular or not, is going to help everybody. And so you know, that's definitely important when it comes to and it's easy for everybody to understand

Daniel Rosen  37:35  

And to just keep doing it.

Ray Bueno  37:37  

That's it.

Daniel Rosen  37:38  

Yeah, just show up into it. People dabble at it and then quit and you're just consistent every week, every week. And what's amazing, you've built this you're gonna hit a million this year, I'm certain enough and that you've done this with no paid advertising is just phenomenal. Do you do any other social media Instagram, Facebook, any of that stuff?

Ray Bueno  38:02  

Yeah, I do as just where I kind of post the thumbnail that I create for every video where it talks about the topic with the link to the YouTube channel. So hey guys, I'm posting a new video, you know on X, Y, and Z. Make sure to check it out on this link on this channel. That's it.

Daniel Rosen  38:16  

Wow, this is really great information. I really appreciate you sharing it. Okay, now, we're going to go and do a rapid-fire round of questions, right? You're just going to answer like in a couple of words or a sentence or two, the first thing that pops into your head Okay, are you ready? Let's do it. Okay, if you could go back in time. What do you know now that you wish you had known when you first started?

Ray Bueno  38:39  

Not pay collections.

Daniel Rosen  38:40  

Ah, good one. What's the most important lesson you've learned as a business owner?

Ray Bueno  38:45  

Customers come first and you have to be transparent. 

Daniel Rosen  38:48  

Awesome. Is there a book that's changed your life?

Ray Bueno  38:51  

Yes. Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins.

Daniel Rosen  38:54  

Oh, wow. I don't know when I'm going to get it. 

Ray Bueno  38:56  

Definitely. 

Daniel Rosen  38:57  

What does business ownership mean to you?

Ray Bueno  39:00  

It means freedom. It means opportunity and good karma. 

Daniel Rosen  39:04  

Amen to that. Do you have a morning routine?

Ray Bueno  39:07  

Yes. So I wake up in the morning, I usually run at least four miles or whatnot. I get my little workout in. And the whole time I'm listening to either Tony Robbins or Eric Thomas or David Goggins himself for Jocko willing in my ear, just kind of, you know, screaming all these motivational things where it kind of you know, sometimes you need to be reminded and you get lost of everything. So, I do that I drink coffee or kombucha in the morning, on my balcony, and come to work.

Daniel Rosen  39:37  

Wow, that's cool. What is your definition of success? 

Ray Bueno  39:41  

Whoo. That's a deep one. A definition of success is being able to get up, every time you get knocked down, and learning from me and understanding there's no such thing as failure. There's only opportunities that you learn from.

Daniel Rosen  39:54  

Absolutely. What's your advice to anyone just starting out with a credit repair company?

Ray Bueno  40:00  

Be transparent. Customers always come first and take ownership of everything. Everything's your fault. Even when customers ask you questions that you don't understand that you answered already in the evaluation, maybe, but everything's your fault. 

Daniel Rosen  40:16  

That's good advice. Okay, most important question. How can people find your YouTube channel? 

Ray Bueno  40:22  

So, go on YouTube on a search bar type in keeping it real with credit, you're deaf, you're gonna see me on there. And go ahead and check out all the videos make sure to answer any questions that you guys like. And let's continue to start this conversation on credit. 

Daniel Rosen  40:36  

Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Ray. I really, really appreciate you. You're so awesome.

Ray Bueno  40:42  

Thank you for having me. 

Daniel Rosen  40:44  

Oh, my pleasure. For those of you out there watching, I hope this was inspiring to you. I hope you'll start creating content. And if you're out there trying to launch or grow your credit repair business, be sure to click below to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and I will see you on the next episode. And until then, keep changing lives! 

Hey, everybody, it's Daniel again. And really quick, I'd like to invite you to join what I believe is the best thing we have ever created inside the Credit Repair Cloud Community. And it is a challenge that we call the Credit Hero Challenge. If you're just planning out your business or you're just getting started, and you dream of having a successful business your own, so you can quit your nine to five and fire your boss and have financial freedom, or so you can add another revenue stream to your existing business, if that's your dream, you need to get into this challenge. We created this challenge to help you to create and launch your very own credit repair business. To build a proper foundation for a really successful business. This challenge is going to help you to understand the strategy, the tactics, and all the things you need to be successful at credit repair. It really is the greatest thing we have ever built, and it will change your life. So I recommend you do it right now. Stop everything, pause this audio, go online, and go to creditherochallenge.com. That's creditherochallenge.com and join the next challenge. And there's a challenge that's starting in just a few days. So go get started right now at creditherochallenge.com.