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Work Smarter Not Harder - How To Build A Team

By: Daniel Rosen Last updated: April 24, 2024

Today I’m sharing super-secret steps that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn. 

When you read these steps, they might sound a little crazy. But they’re exactly what we do at Credit Repair Cloud and how we’ve scaled our company from one broke guy in his underpants to a 70+ person team, making millions! 

And the best part is - these steps don’t just work for us. They work for EVERY company, no matter how new or how small. 

When I first started trying to develop a credit-repair software I eventually launched a $20 CD called Credit-Aid. Now I know the word “launched” makes it sound like I had a team of marketing experts, sales guys, and customer support agents. 

But really, it was just me, totally broke, living on top ramen, sitting in my room with my computer pretending that I was all the different various people on my team because I thought I was too poor to afford any help and besides, since I had never run a company before, I didn’t know the first thing about hiring and scaling a team.

 


Because I had to wear every hat in my business, I was worn out all the time. I couldn’t do anything or go anywhere because something was always broken or on fire. The stress was overwhelming. 

I eventually began resenting everything I’d worked so hard to build! 

It was terrible. If you’re just starting out, you’re probably feeling the same way I did. You’re wearing a whole bunch of different hats, and you’re stuck in the tactical day to day stuff, which is eating up all of your time, and not producing as many leads or generating as much income as you want.

It’s a really exhausting and frustrating place to be. It feels like you’re drowning, and you can’t ever get ahead.  

Does this sound familiar?

Here’s Why This Is Important

  1. Without letting go of some of what you’re doing each day, you can’t scale your business from where you are to a million dollars because, instead of networking, building relationships with affiliates, and marketing, you’ll be doing all the lower level stuff just to keep things afloat! 

Things like answering emails and calls, scheduling, and sales and customer service, and any of the other tactical things that eat up your time. I know you’re doing everything yourself to save money, but when you look at the big picture, this is actually costing you a lot of money!

  1. Have you ever seen an awesome painting, or heard an incredible singer and thought - HOW are they able to do that? I couldn’t do that to save my life! 

Well, the same is true in businesses and on a team. Other people have different superpowers than you do. Other people are often BETTER at these things than you are! 

You need someone who LOVES project management, customer support, or sales. You need other people on your team that WANT to do all the things you hate and that take you way too long to do. That’s how you grow beyond what you can accomplish alone. It takes teamwork to make the dream work!

  1. We’re all about changing lives and the fact is - that’s not just the lives of our customers! When we build a team we have the opportunity to change the lives of our team members and they, in turn, will change the lives of their families and their communities! 

And because of all the work they do, you’ll be able to serve more customers and change more lives!


Here’s What You Need To Know

  1. Do a time study. The way you do this is every 15 minutes for 2 weeks write down exactly what you did during those minutes. It doesn’t matter what it is. Just write it down. 

Then label with a category what those 15 minutes were. 

This would be one of the following: 

S for Strategic (this would include planning, building relationships, making company decisions, and the major things that move your business forward. 

T - for Tactical, meaning anything that is the grunt work of your business. 

F - for Family time (this is a really good indicator if you’re out of balance somewhere. If you go days without family time on your time study, that’s something you can and SHOULD work on).

And SC - for self-care (as entrepreneurs this tends to be the very last thing we do because we work to put our business, our customers, our family - everyone before ourselves. But that’s backward and if you don’t take care of yourself - who will take care of everything when you can’t? 

Remember, when you board a plane one of the first safety features the flight attendant explains is if oxygen masks drop from the overhead compartment - you must put yours on before assisting anyone else! 

Why is that? 

Because if you don’t take care of YOU, you won’t be able to help anyone else! So if you find you don’t have any self-care or not much of it this is something you really want to work on!

Once you’ve completed your two weeks you’ll have a very clear idea of what you do all day. You’ll be surprised by it! All the “tactical” things are what you want to give to other people to do so you become the captain steering the ship instead of being down below rowing. 

  1. Next, start to write SOPs. These are Standard Operating Procedures about how to do each of those tactical tasks from start to finish. This creates a bible for your business. At CRC we store all of these in Google docs so people can pull them up and follow them as they work. 
  1. Next, write a document that explains each position you hope to fill and list in detail all the duties for that person and what experience you want them to have.

Now - this document is meant to change and grow as your team member and business changes and grows, so don’t get too hung up on it. It’s important to do this BEFORE you start to hire so that you make sure it’s a good fit during the interview process. 

We even go so far as to have employees take a personality test called a DISC test to learn more about them. There are paid versions, but you can find the DISC test for free at tonyrobbins.com/disc

Just be sure you tell the potential team members to answer the questions as if they were in their ideal work environment doing their ideal job. If you don’t tell them, they may answer based on their home personality or based on bad past job experiences which will skew their results. 

  1. Next, hire people that fit the roles outlined in the SOPs you created. Eventually, other people should be doing ALL the tactical and you should only be left with things that are really strategic and move the company forward (plus family time and self-care). 
  1. Put as much focus as possible on giving amazing customer service. That will grow your business faster than any automation or gimmick. Just be awesome EVERY DAY for EVERY CUSTOMER. 
  1. Have a morning meeting with everyone every working day to share numbers (including goals and revenue), critical issues, and company updates. 

This is all about transparency within all areas of the company and it is one of the most important aspects of building a team and scaling a business. Business owners get really scared about transparency with the team and they get worried that their employees will steal their business. 

That makes them act all paranoid and weird. This is all wasted energy to worry about these things and run a paranoid business. Paranoid business owners never grow far and they’re miserable all the time. So if you’re worried about that nonsense - KNOCK IT OFF! 

Think big, not small. 

Transparency with the team is the biggest secret I can tell you. They already know how many clients you have. They can already guess your revenue. They can do math. So make them part of the process of celebrating wins every day, and you’ll be surprised how much more fun your business will be, how much harder your team will work for your success, and how much faster your business will grow. 

This is one reason we just recently added profit share for every team member! We’re in this together and when done well, they’ll drive your success and revenue!

  1. Then, create a company mission, an employee manual, a rule-book and policies so that you create a great workplace. We have rules like the no gossip policy, no discrimination policy and more so that we create the culture we want and that everyone WANTS to come to work to. 

Be sure to get these in place as early as possible because culture is EVERYTHING! Also, delegate responsibility. Empower your team. Don’t micromanage. Move people up. Advance them in their career. Delegate leadership and build leaders. 

This will make your company amazing, and it’s why your employees will become a tight team and stay with you through thick and thin! 


This may look overwhelming, but know that it’s not a race. Take your time and do a little bit every day. Start with the time study to better understand what’s eating your time and where you need support. You’ll be surprised how it starts to come together and really pay off!

A mentor and friend of mine, Alex Charfen is the champion and pioneer in this space. I owe a lot of my team’s success and my ability to have grown and continued growing month after month to his processes. 

If you’re not familiar with his methods, I encourage you to look him up on YouTube, listen to his podcast, The Momentum podcast, or grab one of his free books or resources. All of his stuff is time and money well spent for yourself and your business. 

And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck in the day-to-day grind of the business and you want to know how to build a solid foundation so your credit repair business can become profitable and successful without killing you in the process then I want to invite you to join our upcoming Credit Hero Challenge!

 

Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform below!

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Topics: Podcast

Transcript

0:00  

Today, I'm going to give you some super-secret steps that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn. Now, when you hear these steps, they might sound a little crazy, but they are exactly what we do. And they are exactly how we have scaled our company from one broke guy in his underpants to a team of more than 70 people making millions of dollars. And the best part is, these steps, they don't just work for us. They work for every company, no matter how new or how small. So if you want my high value, super-secret steps to building a team and scaling your business by working smarter instead of harder, stick around. 

 

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

 

When I first started trying to develop credit repair software, I eventually launched a $20 CD called Credit-Aid. Now, I know that the word "launched" makes it sound like I had a team of marketing experts and sales guys and customer support agents. But really, it was just me totally broke, living on Top Ramen, sitting in my sad little room with my computer pretending that I was all the different people on my team because I was too poor to actually afford to hire help. So I was Phil on sales. I was Tammy on support, and I even had little pictures on my site of all these people that I was pretending to be. Since I had never run a company before. I didn't know the first thing about hiring and scaling a team. The problem was because I had to wear every single hat in the business, I was worn out all the time. I couldn't do anything or go anywhere, because something was always either broken or on fire. And the stress was overwhelming. And I began resenting everything that I'd worked so hard to build. It was terrible. See, in a business, there are two types of work. There is tactical work, which really is the grunt work of the business. It's all those tasks that you'll have to do every day. Paperwork, importing reports, sending off letters. That's all tactics. And then there's strategic, which is looking into the future, planning, being the face of the company, you know, building partnerships. This is all very strategic. And this, this is what really grows the company. Okay? But if you're just getting started, you're probably so overwhelmed that you never have any time to get to the strategic parts. Am I right? And if you're just starting out, you're probably feeling the same way I did. You're wearing a whole bunch of different hats. And you're stuck in the tactical day to day stuff, which is eating up all of your time, and it isn't producing as many leads or generating as much income as you'd like. Am I right so far? It's really, really exhausting. And it's a frustrating place to be because it always feels like you're drowning. You can never get ahead. Does this sound familiar? So here's why this is important. Without letting go of some of what you're doing each day, you cannot scale your business from where you are now to making a million dollars, because instead of networking, building relationships with affiliates and marketing, you're doing all the lower level stuff, just to keep things afloat. Things like answering emails and calls and scheduling and doing credit audits and sales and customer service. plus any other tactical things that eat up your time. I know you're doing everything yourself to save money. That's how we all start. But when you look at the big picture, this is actually costing you a ton of money. Have you ever seen an incredible painting, or heard an amazing singer and thought, how are they able to do that? I couldn't do that to save my life. Well, the same thing is true in business and on a team. Other people have different superpowers than you do. Other people are often better at these things than you are. You need someone who loves project management or loves customer support or love sales. You need other people on your team that want to do all the things you hate. And that take you too long to do. Okay? That's how you grow way beyond what you can accomplish alone. Okay, it takes teamwork to make the dream work. We're all about changing lives. But the fact is, that's not just the lives of our customers. Okay, when we build a team, we have the opportunity to change the lives of our team members, and they in turn will change the lives of their families and their communities. And because of all the work they do, you're going to be able to serve more customers and change more lives. So it's time. Aren't you're ready for the super-secret steps that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to figure out, Okay, then, here's what you need to know. Number one, do a time study. Okay, do this first. The way you do a time study is every 15 minutes for two weeks. You're going to write down exactly what you did during those 15 minutes. It doesn't matter what it is. Okay? Just be honest about it and write it down. Okay, then label it with a category of what those 15 minutes were, okay? those categories would be one of the following. You'd put a big s for strategic. Okay? If you were doing strategic work, this would include planning, building relationships, making company decisions, you know, the major things that really move your business forward. You put a tee for tactical meeting anything that is the grunt work of your business. You put a big F for family time. Now, this is a really good indicator. If you are out of balance somewhere. If you go days without family time on your time study. That's something you can and should work on. And then you put SC for self-care as entrepreneurs, self-care tends To be the very last thing we do, because we work to put our business, our customers, our family, everyone else before ourselves. But that's actually backwards. Okay? And if you don't take care of yourself, who's going to take care of everything when you can't remember, when you bought a plane? One of the first things the flight attendant says is if the oxygen masks drop from the overhead compartment, you must put yours on first, before assisting anyone else. Now, why is that? Because if you don't take care of you, you won't be able to help anyone else. So if you find you don't have any self-care happening in your life, or not much of it. This is something you really need to work on. Okay. self-care can be Working out, going for a walk, getting a haircut, going to the doctor, you know taking care of yourself. And you need to take care of yourself, because the most important person in the business is you. Now, once you've completed your two week time study, you're going to have a very clear idea of what you do all day. Okay? And don't cheat on this. You've got to really, really do it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be two weeks well spent. Okay? When you have this time study, and it's accurate and it's in front of you, you are going to be really surprised by it. And also just remember, it's all the tactical things that you want to give to other people to do. So that you can become the captain who is steering the ship, instead of being down below rolling. Next, you start to write SOPs. What's an SOP? Well, if you ever in the military, you know what these are, these are standard operating procedures about how to do each one of those tactical tasks from start to finish. So you need to write down all the steps of what you actually do, okay? And then all these SOPs they start to create a Bible for your business and how it runs. That way. It's not all in your head, okay? That way you can transfer those duties to other people at credit repair cloud, we have over 100 SOPs. And we store all of them in Google Docs, so that people on our team can pull them up and follow them as they work. Okay, and that makes it really, really easy for them. Because what they have to do is right there in front of them. Okay, next You want to write a document that explains each position that you hope to fill, and you want to list in detail all the duties for that person, and what experience you want them to have. Now, this document, it's meant to change and grow as your team member and your business. They also change and grow, so don't get too hung up on it, okay? It's just a starting point. But it's important to do this before you start to hire, so that you can make sure you've got a good fit during the interview process. Now, over here, we go so far as to have potential employees take a personality test called a disc test, so that we can learn more about them. Now there are paid versions of disc and you can also find the free disk test at tonyrobbins.com/disc. That's disc. Now, just be sure you tell the potential team members to answer the questions of the disc test, as if they were already in their ideal work environment, doing their ideal job, if you don't tell them that they might answer based on their home personality or based on bad past job experiences, and that is going to mess up your results. Next, you want to hire people that fit the roles outlined in the SOPs that you created. Eventually, other people should be doing all of the tactical and you should only be left with the things that are really strategic and really move the company forward. Plus family time and self-care. Next, you want to put as much focus as possible on giving amazing customer service. Okay, I know that sounds simple, and basic. But that's what will grow your business faster than any automation or gimmick, just be awesome every day for every customer and always, always over-deliver value. Okay? That's what you want to concentrate on. Next, you want to have a morning meeting with everyone on your team. Okay? Every single working day, you want to have this meeting. We call ours the morning huddle. And on this meeting, you want to share numbers, including goals and revenue, you want to share critical issues and company updates. Now, this is all about transparency within all areas of the company. And it's one of the most important aspects of building a team and scaling a business. Now, business owners think it really scared about transparency with the team and they get worried that their employees will steal their business. And that makes business owners act all paranoid and weird. So if you're feeling that way, just with me bringing this up, I want you to know, this is all wasted energy to worry about these things, and it's wasted energy to run a paranoid business, paranoid business owners. They never grow far. And they're miserable all the time. So if you are worried about that nonsense, knock it off. Okay? You want to think big, not small transparency with your team. That's the biggest secret I can tell you. A lot of business owners really freak out over this one. But here's the truth. Your team, they already know how many clients you have. And they can already guess your revenue because they can do the math. So instead make them part of the process of celebrating wins every day. And you're going to be surprised at how much more fun your business will be. And you'll be surprised how much harder your team will work for your success and how much faster your business will grow. If you make your team a part of this, okay, this really works. This is one reason I'm going to tell you inner truth here about our company. Okay? This really is the real stuff that grows a business. Okay, this is also the one reason we recently added profit share for every single one of our team members. Okay, we are in this together. And when this is done well, your team more than you are going to drive your success and revenue. Next, you want to create a Company mission. also create an employee manual, which is like a rulebook with policies so that you can create a great workplace. Okay, we have over here we have rules like the no gossip policy, no discrimination policy, and more policies, lots and lots of policies so that we can create the culture that we really want, okay? And the culture that everyone wants to come and work at. Okay. Be sure to get these in place as early as possible, because culture is everything. Also, delegate responsibility. empower your team, don't micromanage them, trust them, let them make mistakes. Let them have ideas and move people up. Okay, advance them in their career, delegate leadership, and stuff. start to build leaders. This will make your company amazing. And it's why your employees will become a tight team and why they will stick with you through thick and thin. And that's it. This may sound overwhelming, but just know that it's not a race, you can take your time and do a little bit every day. Start with the time study, okay to understand what's eating your time, and where you need support, and you're going to be surprised at how it starts to come together and really pay off fast. This is how you turn your side hustle into a business. And it's also how you turn your business into an empire. My mentor and friend Alec Charfen is the champion and pioneer in this space. And I owe a lot of our company's success and our ability to have grown continue growing month after month after month, to his processes. Now, if you're not familiar with Alex Charfen and his methods, I encourage you to look him up on YouTube. Okay, or listen to his podcast. It's called the Momentum Podcast, or grab one of his free books, or one of his free resources. His name is Alex Charfen, that's Charfen with a C, okay, and all of his stuff. It's time and money well spent for yourself and for your business. And if you're feeling overwhelmed, and stuck in the day to day grind of your business, and you want to know how to build a solid foundation, so your credit repair business can become profitable and successful without killing you in the process, then I want to invite you to join our upcoming credit hero challenge. We've actually got another one that's starting in just a few days. So grab your spot today at creditherochallenge.com. And if you're finding value in the things that I'm sharing on this podcast, click below to subscribe. And if you're feeling kind, or rate me and give me a review, because this is a new podcast, and I can use all the help I can get. And I will see you on the next episode. So 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.

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