EP 482 – The Ten Biggest Credit Myths with Merrill Chandler

So much has been said about credits and fundability that it has become quite confusing to tell which ones are actually true. Cutting away the fat and getting to the truth of the matter, host Scott Carson sits down with fundability expert Merrill Chandler from Credit Sense to break down the ten biggest myths when it comes to your credit. Let Merrill give you the insights that will take you from being not fundable to fundable and move you towards having great credit and get those lenders on your side.

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The Ten Biggest Credit Myths with Merrill Chandler

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve had our good friend, Merrill Chandler join us, the fundability expert on how to get you “F”able out there who’s been gallivanting across the United States on his funding road show with him and his sidekick, Jessica. We are excited to have you back here because we’ve got a great episode here on the show. Everybody’s going to take some notes on this, Merrill?

You’ve got to know what we’re talking about because it takes us to the pointy end of the credit myths sphere. We’ve got to cut away the fat and get to the truth of the matter. Let’s talk about the lies first.

Knowing you for years and going through the boot camp, online and you did an amazing webinar on the mortgage securitization out to the funding hackers group and the funding hacking boot camp, which was great. I was thinking about what we’re going to talk about. There are always many myths. That’s one of the biggest a-ha that we have from people going through the funding hacking boot camp is the myths we’re all taught. I thought let’s do the ten biggest myths. You’re like, “That’s even awesome.” We’ll start with the falsehoods and come back with the counter, the truce of the top ten. What is the number ten myth about credit?

Myth #10: Paying Interest Is Bad

Number ten is that paying your loans off early is a good thing, which is the corollary that paying interest is bad. We’re going right up against everything that we’ve talked about with our dear friend and compatriot in the financial marketplace, David Ramsey, interest is bad. I was taught that when playing monopoly, my uncle would always tell all the kids who were playing, “Who wants to be the banker?” Nobody wants to raise their hand because that’s a pain in the butt. He said, “Because it is a pain in the butt, the banker has to charge interest.” We went off script with the game and we started charging interest.

Myth #9: Debt Is Bad

We are in a closed system, whoever charges the interest in that system is going to collect all the money ultimately. We’ve been programmed and we won every single time. I learned the myth like everybody else that paying interest is bad. The thing is this goes with number nine as well that debt is bad. Let’s talk about both of those together. Debt is not bad if it is strategic to your long-term goals. If you’re looking to be a real estate investor or a note buyer, an entrepreneur, there is no bank in the country, no financial institution in the country that is going to look at your driver’s license and go, “You look like an honest fellow, I’m going to give you $50,000.” It’s not going to happen. They want to see proof.

They call it your performance data on all your previous loans. If you don’t have debt that you’re servicing on a monthly basis, they got nothing to go on, but the second you incur debt, you also have an interest. People were going back and forth saying, “I’d rather get a lower interest on a loan with a credit union ban than a tier one or tier two bank. Here’s the framework we always teach, if you had $1 million, would you spend money, cold, hard cash, protecting that $1 million in gold bullion. Would you buy security? If you can’t put it in a bank, would you pay money to protect that $1 million? Why? Because that $1 million in gold bullion is an asset. The vast majority of us have been taught that our credit reputation is not an asset. Paying interest belongs to the profit and loss statement.

You minimize expenses to improve your profits. If it’s an asset, you pay money to protect it but if you try and minimize the costs, if it’s on P&L, that’s why there are P&Ls and balance sheets or assets statements. Your single greatest financial reputation and the biggest financial asset is your credit profile, your borrower profile that we call it. Your borrower profile is everything. If you minimize and you don’t invest in that borrower profile, no one is going to give you the phase two by those multi-families, by those tranches of notes and expand your business.

If you’re going to die in W2, no harm, no foul, you’re going to take what comes to you and work off Social Security and work at Walmart. I shamed everybody as I say this, no harm, no foul. If you’re going to work at Walmart, when you’re 70 years old that gets meat, don’t incur debt and don’t pay interest. If you want to value your personal financial reputation, it is the single greatest leverageable asset that you have. That requires giving both current and future letters, something they can sink their teeth into and see how you treat Other People’s Money, OPM. Number ten is paying interest is bad. It’s not bad. It’s strategic. I’m not saying go get a bunch of debt. Number nine, debt is bad. It’s not bad. It is strategic. We want to leverage that. People give us inexpensive money to do awesome things like everybody who is picking up notes and real estate, etc.

It’s all about leverage too. One of the biggest questions people ask, “Should I pay my house off early?” I’m like, “No. If you’ve got like a 5% interest or less, you put some money on the planet, take your money, go out, invest and make it 8%, 10%, 12% versus sinking into asset that you pay off, now you can’t do anything with that equity without having to go back and get a loan against it. Save it, leverage it and go from it. What is number eight?

Myth #8: Paying Your Balance To Zero

Number eight is it’s best to pay your balance to zero every month. Scott already went to my Funding Hackers Bootcamp and learned deepest possible dive into this technology. There is a secret date that you’ll have to go to the boot camp and get a deep dive. Here’s the Reader’s Digest condensed version. There is a secret date that’s called the reporting date. It’s the date every one of your accounts gets reported to the bureaus. Most of those dates are in the middle of your billing cycle. Every single time you believe you’re paying your balance down to zero, you pull a credit report and it will show an artificial balance, which messes up your utilization, which drops your credit score and more importantly ruins your fundability.

Words out of Ethan Dornhelm’s mouth, the Chief Scientist of the Credit Score Development team’s personal and business. When we asked him, “What balance do we keep?” He said, “I can’t tell you the exact number because there is a formula. We have dialed that insignificantly. I’ve been assigned an NDA from FICO, but he said, “Less is better than more when it comes to a balance. Some are better than none.” There is that little magical thing. Some people say, “It’s less than 30%. It’s far less than that. You need to find out in the Funding Hackers Bootcamp. We go through the metrics of measuring all this. I can’t tell you what your balance should be, but you will go through and find out exactly what it should be as a cursor amount. Number eight, it’s best to pay your balance off every month. No. The mechanics of working all of that out is available to all of us. Zero balance is not a thing if you’re looking to look awesome to current and future lenders.

That’s why people will also get all bent out of shape. I paid my credit card off each month. Why does it keep showing that I have a balance? It’s all about the reporting date. You can get halfway through the month or compare to where your payoff number is or is it a little bit week before a week after does it vary?

There is a measurement, but we have a document. It’s a workshop. This is not a sales pitch. You don’t go to Funding Hackers Bootcamp. We do a deep dive using documents that examine your very own credit profile and your borrower profile metric.

That’s number eight. What’s number seven here on the ten biggest myths of credit?

Myth #7: All Credit Cards Are Equal

Number seven, all credit cards are created equal. He knows this stuff because we address every one of these and two dozen more minutes than the ones we’re talking about at the boot camp. All credit cards are not created equal. There are sixteen different valuations for credit cards. There are four tiers of institutions, Tier 1, 2, 3 and 4. Tier 1 is the best. There’s value point value contribution of 100%, 80%, 60% and 40%. That matrix creates sixteen different ways that different credit cards and even loans, all credit instruments fit within these sixteen dynamics and the best is Tier 1, 100%, and the worst is Tier 4, 40%. I’ll give you a hint. All mall store cards, every card, a retail card that you get in a mall is a Tier 4, 40% junk card, a low-value card that hurts and harms your credit profile. In your borrower profile, FICO gives negative ticket called a negative indicator on your credit profile. If you have even one of those that say there is a consumer finance account on this credit profile. You can be a consumer profile or you can be a professional borrower profile. Guess which one gets the $50,000 and $100,000 business lines of credit from multiple banks?

It’s a professional. My Victoria’s Secret Card is hurting me is what you’re saying?

You have to evaluate your lifestyle choices in order to make sure because we only do all of these to have a good high quality of life. I did have one woman who watched my presentation. She watched the Funding Hackers Bootcamp. She came up to me and said, “Merrill, I wanted to do some coaching with you. I want the details in my particular situation, but I’m telling you right now I’m not getting rid of my Kohl’s card.” I’m like, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Many people requested, “Can I keep this? Can I keep that? Did we have an allowance in our funding model to what we call a lifestyle card allowance?” Yes, you can. If you have to, you can keep your Victoria’s Secret Card, Mr. Scott Carson.

That takes us to number six.

Myth #6: Paying Your Bills On Time

Paying your bills on time is all you need to do to have great credit. There are a couple of the little misdirects in there. First of all, what is great credit? Most people think credit is a score. Great credit means will a lender lend me money? Can I get a mortgage, an auto loan, business line of credit, commercial loans, real estate or etc.? Good credit, we define as fundable or not fundable. I don’t care if you have an 800 and there are plenty of people out who have 800 plus credit but don’t have the $1 million in business credit lines that should go with that. We’ve got to define great credit. They’re saying paying bills on time is all you have to do. No.

I’m sitting at an event and I do a presentation. This woman comes up and says, “Here’s the thing, I already have an 820 credit score.” I’m like, “That’s awesome. Where are the million dollars in business credit lines that go with that? Why are we talking if you’ve already got that?” “No one will lend money to me.” I’m like, “Why do you think you have an 800 plus score?” She says, “I pay my bills on time.” That’s the myth. FICO measures 40 characteristics of your personal credit profile, that borrower profile, 40 metrics. Paying your bills on time is one of them. We already know that we don’t want to keep a zero balance to be determined what the balance should be. I’m telling you are paying your bills on time is one of 40 things that is measured by FICO for your borrower profile that makes you fundable.

The reason why she had an 820 and couldn’t get a dime is that it was all of her high credit scores technically, which means you get more of what you’ve already got. She got a lot of consumer accounts. While she would qualify for the highest and best rates for a new mall store card, Chase Bank is not going to give you a $50,000 business line of credit by your Home Depot reputation. Number six, paying your bills on time is all you need to have good credit. First of all, what is good credit? It’s fundable and no, paying your bills on time is one of 40 things.

It takes us to number five. Let’s recap ten through five. What’s number ten?

Ten is paying interest is bad. Nine is debt is bad. Number eight is it is best to pay your balance off every month. Number seven is all credit cards are created equal. Number six is paying your bills on time is all you need to do to have good credit.

What’s your number five?

Biggest Credit Myths: Great credit really means being fundable.

Myth #5: Bad And Good Credit

Number five is credit is bad or good. Bad credit is bad. Good credit is good. It’s black or white. It is a spectrum of great people because everybody defines good credit and bad credit as do I have derogatory accounts or do I not have derogatory accounts? Nobody until we’re having this conversation until Funding Hackers was born, nobody was having the conversation, “Am I fundable or not fundable?” The solution to this myth is to stop talking about good credit and bad credit. It’s not about good credit or bad credit. It’s that are you fundable or not fundable? Are people giving you money or not giving you money? Getting a car is different than getting a $50,000 business line of credit. If they can give you a car but not a $50,000 business line of credit, you’re not fundable for the thing that you can leverage, write a check, do a deal and make things happen in your life.

The myth is credit is bad or good. It is not. It’s are you fundable or not fundable? Number one. The degree of fundability, are you meeting your goals? As a real estate investor, as a note buyer, as an entrepreneur, do you have the financial instruments to promote and move your business forward? If you do not, you are not fundable. You can have great credit, you may not have had a single negative account and still not get a dime. I have clients who have derogatory accounts, late pays or collections or bankruptcy on their credit profile and are fundable because it’s not about good or bad credit or good or bad accounts. It’s about what metrics have you given the underwriting software, the approval software for lenders in FICO that prove that this new lender should give you money? What have you given to them on your personal credit profile, that borrower profile? What are you telling them where they’ll be like, “I want to give them some money” even if you have a negative account? Number five, credit is good or bad. Nope, it’s are you fundable or are you not fundable?

Would you say it’s 40 shades of gray?

It’s FICO 40 shades of gray. Here’s the other thing. I’ll even add a little more and I’ll go into a little more detail on that one. It’s one thing to get a $5,000 credit card. It’s another level of fundable to get $100,000 business line of credit, unsecured at prime plus 1.5%, 2%. That’s why it is 40 shades of gray because someone gives you $5,000 in a credit card doesn’t mean that they’re going to entrust you with their most precious credit instrument. Write a check and do a deal. Those are the scales. It is variable on approval. Not all approvals are created equal.

That takes us to number four. What is number four biggest myth when it comes to credit?

Myth #4: Credit Scoring

Credit scoring is a simple process. People say, “I have a credit score.” Remember now we have 40 characteristics that are being measured. I’ll blow your mind a little bit further. There are thirteen scorecards that those 40 characteristics are grouped into eight for good credit and five for bad credit. Think of the 40 characteristics as ingredients in a piece of cake. The thirteen positive puts in a certain amount to make this ingredient to create an 800 plus fundable profile all the way on the other one, the five scorecards that deal with derogatory accounts, is it bankruptcy or late pay? Is the collection over $100 or under $100? There’s a whole group of them. There are thirteen different ways that they shape those 40 characteristics to fit your model. I won’t even get further than that. It is not a simple process, but it creates a simple result. That’s why our students when we teach them that in the boot camp, when we’re coaching a client, we don’t care about the score. We care about the quality of the profile because that borrower profile is what lenders software is going to look at. That’s what a lender is going to prove you on. We know that scores follow the profile but profiles don’t necessarily represent a good score. It’s a non-symbiotic relationship.

That’s the thing that’s beautiful about Funding Hacking Bootcamp is you get the scorecards. We are going through pulling off the credit bureau reports from the three major ones and filling it out to see where that starting point is to build that fundable profile.

Credit scoring is not simple. It’s not up and it’s not to create mystery. It’s simply that there are a number of ways to skin this fundability cap. The beautiful thing is that the score, the FICO process, the algorithm is trustworthy that lenders are now moving to automatic underwriting from having human beings do manual underwriting. They’re moving even mortgages. There are few automatic underwriting mortgages coming up, which has been the slowest. They have to fit the Fannie and Freddie guidelines to be conforming for the secondary markets.

They are even coming online to automatic underwriting, which means you fill out an application. They review your docs and you don’t even talk to a human being. It is highly predictive. If it’s highly predictive and we know what they’re trying to predict, that’s why we call it funding hacking because we know the inside. We’re not taking advantage of the system. We’re looking at the inside scoop of what they’re trying to measure. Comporting, changing and modifying our borrowing behavior to reflect what they need to see. They’ll be like, “You look great.”

What’s the number three myth associated with credit?

Myth #3: Becoming An Authorized User

Number three is becoming an authorized user is a great way to build your credit score. Not so, ladies and gentlemen. I have met with the credit score development teams, both business and personal at FICO two times in a row and I am going back again for our third round with a whole new slew of dialing in questions so we can make up this fundability process even easier to implement. Out of the mouth of the team at FICO, they said that they only count an authorized user, 40% positive points. Let’s say you own that account. Let’s say you get 100% of the possible points. Let’s call it 100 points. If you’re an authorized user, you only get 40% of those points.

You only get 40 points contributing to your profile. If they have a high balance, it counts 100% against you negatively. If they go late on a payment or over on a payment, it goes 100%, not 40% negative. You inherit 100% of the negative impact that the owner of the account has. The part of the myth of the authorized user, people have done it, “My son or daughter is going to college. I want an emergency card or otherwise.” When they see a score responding positively to that authorized user account, once again, we’re deceived that it’s all about a credit score. We say, “Authorize use must be good.” None of that is true. A high score does not mean fundable. We get fundable high scores all the time that they’re based on fundamental metrics that FICO is measuring. There are better, easier and cheaper ways to get your son or your daughter or a significant other a fundable profile.

We don’t care about the score. We care about fundability. If they’re not fundable, it doesn’t matter what score they have. Myth number three, becoming an authorized user will help you build your credit score, the score doesn’t matter. Notice how many of these myths we’re pulling the rug out from underneath. The premise of the question we’ve been trained wrong on every one of these, the score doesn’t matter, fundability matters. Whether or not you’re fundable, that’s what matters. An authorized user does not make you fundable because you don’t get to write on a coattail of somebody else’s payment responsibilities.

Only 40% of the good, all the bad. That takes us to number two myth.

Myth #2: Credit Approvals

Credit approvals are based on credit score. Slide this throughout some of the other ones, but now we get to take it head-on. Your score may very well be the third or fourth most important funding metric. There are at least two, if not three more important funding metrics that they look at. All those metrics, those top three, if the score is four, those top three are based on your borrower profile. Quality that counts, how fastidious you are in certain behaviors and what is the past 24-month lookback period? All of those things count more than your score. Your score has addressed a completely different metric. We need you to focus on what makes you fundable. Your credit score is not that thing.

I’m interested in the number one thing, but before we bring back the number one thing, let’s do a recap. Number five is what again?

Credit is bad or good. There is good credit and there’s bad credit. It’s all about fundability.

What’s number four?

Credit scoring is a simple process. Credit scoring is 40 characteristics spread out between thirteen different scorecards or buckets. You fit into one of those thirteen buckets and you’re graded by the bucket you’re in, not just the 40 characteristics. You get positive score points. You get positive fundability points or negative fundability points based on what market you’re in. Number three is authorized users to help you build your score. We don’t even care about the score. We don’t care about the score. Number two is credit approvals are based on scores.

That takes us to the number one biggest myth when it comes to credit.

Myth #1: You Have A Credit Score

Number one, the biggest myth you run into. I’ll tell a story, “But I have a good credit score.” There is no such thing as a credit score. There are dozens of credit scores. There are mortgage scores. There are TransUnion, Experian and Equifax mortgage score. There’s an auto score for Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. There are three versions of software, five, four, two, eight and nine for the auto or TransUnion. There are 28 consumer facing scores for all manner of lending decisions. There are the FICO/FAKO scores that your bank or financial institution sends you and says, “We’re giving you a credit score.” It’s FICO that’s more legit than all the FAKO scores out there. No lender uses the score that is being given to you by Bank of America, American Express or all your banks. They don’t use that score.

The number one myth is that you have a credit score. We already talked about whether or not it matters because it does in third or fourth and in line for funding priority. You have dozens of them. Unless you know what you’re doing, you’ll walk into a lender, you don’t know what bureau they’re pulling, what score they’re pulling and what version of that score they’re pulling. You’ve got three strikes against you and you’re thinking you’re walking in there. Number one, the FAKO score of all FAKO score, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. If you are a subscriber to any score that does not have the FICO logo, know these Credit Karma subscribers, those are all fake scores. No lender uses Credit Karma scores. You’re not using a legitimate score to make a buying decision whether it’s personal or business. Nobody uses Credit Karma. It’s free but it’s worthless. You don’t have a credit score. You’ve got to make sure it’s the right credit score to know what you’re doing when you walk into a lender. You’ve got to know who they’re pulling, what version and what FICO metric they’re using.

Do you find yourself and your team having to rehash those over and over again with ones?

The whole reason why we have a Funding Hackers Bootcamp is because I have dozens and dozens of training videos. People would watch them or not watch them. There’s no Q and A unless you send your team an email and say, “I have a question about this thing.” We developed, put and made available live. These are not recorded. I do them live. We put together the Funding Hackers Bootcamp so that we could be present with people while they learn all of these things. Without this knowledge, you haven’t got a chance out there. You’re playing pickup rec center ball against the all-stars of the NBA. You’re getting crushed out there. You’re getting noes. You’re not getting approved by the very credit instruments you think you qualify for. That’s why we developed that entire thing was because there is no way you can play rec level ball against the pros. What’s the NBA equivalent of Spring Training for baseball?

Biggest Credit Myths: A high score does not mean fundable.

They have the Summer league or the D-League.

This is you going and getting training from pro-level coaches at the Funding Hackers Bootcamp. Imagine sixteen hours of this level of intensity. I’ve been accused of it like drinking out of a fire hose, but it’s relentless because I have so much I want to share. This is the forum that we developed. Since we instituted the Funding Hackers Bootcamp, our quality of clients, our client satisfaction and awareness has gone through the roof because they’re coming out. You don’t have to have coached. You can do the best you can with what you learned at the boot camp. Coaching clients come in and they’re like, “I know what I want. This is awesome. I know exactly what to do. I know what I need. Here’s my situation.” They blaze forward because now they are educated, at least what game we’re playing. You can’t have a Major League baseball scorecard up on the wall while you’re playing basketball, that doesn’t compute. You’ve got to know what game you’re playing and you’ve got to know who you’re playing against or with on the court. That’s what we do at the boot camp.

That’s such an important thing that people have to realize. You’ve got to be playing the right game. You’ve got to be playing in the same leagues as your competition. If you’re in AAA ball, but everybody else is in the Major Leagues, you’re going to get crushed. You had some other bonus ones that we didn’t get to. Why don’t we talk about some of those bonus myths?

Let’s talk about another myth, which is it’s best to pay off your loans early. I’ll give you the dirty on this one. Straight out of FICO’s mouth told me that there are two ways that you get credit score points on your installment loans, mortgages, autos, student loans, personal loans, boat loans, etc. If it’s younger than 24 months, and if the balance is above 50%. After 50%, that points flat line. You’re not getting more points, you’ve proven up to that you can pay it down to 50%. If it’s younger than 24 months, they front load the points that you can be a six-year low, but they give you all of the credit score points at 24 months or 70% of the points. We can get into details at the boot camp. They front load the points to give you 70% of the points for that loan in the first 24.

Knowing this allows you to refinance, re-release, re-purchase and re-engage a loan so that you’re always maximizing the number of points. It’s straight out of FICO’s mouth that they don’t even count an installment loan until it’s six months old. You have to be at least six months because many people will buy a car and they’re like, “I’ll pay it off.” That messes up their funding metrics. They want to know you paid it for a minimum of six months, but it’s best to pay for at least 24 months before you pay that down.

What’s another extra myth there?

Credit scores in the 700s are great.

Credit scores in the 700s are not great.

Remember we’re talking about the 40 shades of gray. Let me put it in the frame of lenders underwrite. It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what lenders lend off. Tier 1, the highest, the best rates, the best of everything for an auto loan, you have to have a minimum of a 720. That’s the floor to get the best rates on an auto loan. The floor to get the best rates on a mortgage is 740. If the best rates to get off for unsecured credit cards, credit lines, personal or business is 760. Tier 1, the best score or that lower level is different. They’re 20 point differences based on what you’re trying to purchase.

Those are minimums. We also have underwriting guidelines from all kinds of financial institutions that show the perks and things of having a fundable profile. When I say scores, always include, these are profiles that have been developed to be fully fundable. I’m not talking about a score. I don’t care about the score. If you have an 800 plus fundable profile, there are some institutions that have an 840 fundable profile metric that AAA where you get extra bonuses, rebates or other things. Nobody knows how to get them because an 800 score is not an 800 fundable score. You’ve got to have those fundamentals inside of the profile to hit the score. There are bonuses, bonus rates, bonus, all those things the higher and higher you go. It’s like the previous webinar where we talked about that the NINJA, Sista, DCBA, AA and AAA. Those are in the 830s and 840s on a fundable profile. 700 are the floor. Fundable is in the 800s but built on a sound and structurally complete borrower profile.

What’s another extra myth we’ve got there?

We’re going to go through all of the topics. You can’t have an 800 plus credit score and still have negative accounts. That’s not true. When I say 800, remember always hear fundable profile. An 800 plus fundable profile can have derogatory accounts because these derogatory accounts do not have as much negative drag as there are positive contributions for this amazing profile. Let me break down the FICO 40. FICO 40 would probably shame me for using that term. We call it the FICO 40. Only ten of those 40 characteristics measures bad credit. That means there are 30 ways to optimize your profile without even touching a negative account. Imagine optimizing 30 of these things have spectacular fundable metrics and you still have a collection, bankruptcy, lien or judgment. You can be over 800 and still be fundable and still have derogatory accounts.

Most people don’t realize that. They think everything goes with it. People miss it too. If people have judgments or previous bad things have happened because we had a lot of people ten years ago who went through some bad things.

I did myself. I was leveraged to the hilt following my own advice. Fortunately, I know how to create a soft landing because of what lenders are looking for. I know how to at least manage my relationship with these lenders so I’m not thrown out the baby with the bathwater as many people did in ’08 and ’09.

These have been amazing thirteen points. We were talking about ten and three bonuses there. People are loving it. We had some minds blown. Let’s talk about it. You’ve got an upcoming Funding Hacker Bootcamps coming up?

We’ve got a Funding Hackers Bootcamp on July 27th and 28. It simulcasts. We are doing it live in Vegas and we’re almost full with the in-person event participants. We’re taking all of our registrations manually because it’s going there. It’s FundingHackers.com. It’s where you would find the information. It’s $100, $97 to attend the two-day event. There are some options if you want a strategy session with me or whatever. There are a whole bunch of opportunities. If you’d like Sky to respond to you, she will enroll you manually because that’s where we’re centered. We’re already packing them in. This is exciting. You can also watch online in the privacy of your own underwear or pajamas. That’s how Scott has watched the Funding Hackers Bootcamp that he attended.

It was full of content. You talk about personal credit the first day, that’s Saturday. You went through 9 to 5 going through pulling your scorecards, going through what people are seeing and mistakes of like I saw mine 26 different addresses because I’ve moved a lot over several years with different properties and things.

You have an underwriter or to see what you look like through the eyes of an underwriter or the underwriting software.

It’s a big key. I always taught people to hate about looking at notes from the eyes of a banker is different than a fix and flipper or a realtor. I was like, “Ding. The lights went off.” You spent a big chunk of time going through the business credit, how to optimize the stuff. You get your lines of credit and stuff like that. We’ve had students raving about it. We’ve had people that are already getting lines of credit in 90 days. They’re doing the things. They’re surprised. Everybody is pleasantly surprised with where they’re at. Realizing now instead of being in limbo and the unknowing of having a solid line, a solid foundation where they’re at, “I’ve made some mistakes in the past.” Who hasn’t everybody?

Remember the good news about the Funding Hackers Bootcamp, I stumbled my way for many years, falling on my face in everything. I didn’t take no for an answer. I built out the personal side of optimization. My team is crap at being able to coach on all of this. A few years ago, I took on the business funding marketplace. I created the funding metrics and met with FICO. We’re verifying the things that we’re doing. This is not a marketing organization. I’m a Jack Weenie. I am totally committed to translating all of this into your funding pocketbook. My jollies come off of doing the math, making it work and knowing how to act in order to trigger positive approvals.

Your job is to go out and acquire business lines of credit so you could write a check and do a deal. Personal on the first date, but you have to do personal because I’m going to give you a hint. Read this carefully. FICO told me, Dave Smith at FICO. He’s the SBA, the Small Business Association liaison there said that 80% of all business funding approvals for small businesses and entrepreneurs derived or come from your personal credit profile. That’s what they have to measure. Find out from the boot camp how this works and all that. 80% of the decisions are based on your personal. We spend the first day on personal and the second day on shaping your funding entity so that you can qualify for the highest and most in credit lines. It’s going to be the 27th and 28th. Go to the website. Here’s the thing, if we’re past the 27th, the 28th, go to FundingHackers.com or email us at Bootcamp@CreditSense.com and you’ll go straight to Sky and we’ll make sure that you get into the next possible boot camp.

It’s going to be live streaming from Vegas. The thing is you have a limited number of in-person seats, but the people that are watching online, it’s fully interactive since you’re using Zoom. People have been watching from the private Facebook group. I’ve been able to re-attend and watch some the sessions on there. It’s fully interactive. Your staff, Jessica, Cheyenne, Brad and Sky over there does an amazing job of making sure to address any questions or concerns.

We’re all there. This is not remote viewing. This is interactive. We stop after every lesson. There are 27 modules that we cover in the two days. Throughout every one of them, we’re taking questions. We’re examining. We’re solving to the degree we can without a full deep dive in your situation to all the ways that we can. We give you every answer to every question. We pay as much attention online as anywhere else.

Where else are you going? Because you were in Houston for the Funding Roadshow? Are you going to be in Houston later in August for the Quest EXPO as well?

Biggest Credit Myths: There are 30 ways to optimize your profile without even touching a negative account.

We’re not on the books for Quest, but I am going river rafting on the 12th, 13th and 14th of July with Mark McKeller of the HomeVestors crew. I adore those guys. We’re their fundability crew for HomeVestors. We need to go to the Transatlantic. I want to do what you did because we’re way past professional. We need to go cruise the Atlantic.

It’s time that you meet Jason, Aaron, Tom, Tracy and a few others to get-together for a cruise.

Instead of at Epcot, our upcoming meeting, we go to the Caribbean.

We might have to look something like that. Steph is extremely excited about having the event at Epcot for the podcasting mastermind that we’re doing, September 30th and October 1st. The last time they’re having Illuminations play there at Epcot before they change it up. We’re excited to see you. Take the opportunity. Check them out at CreditSense.com or Funding Hackers Bootcamp.

It’s FundingHackers.com and CreditSense.com. FundingHackers.com is better because it gives you information about the boot camp. If you want to know about our company, let’s go to Credit Sense. For Funding Hackers, it gives you all the Q and As. There are hundreds of testimonials of people who’ve been there who are like, “This is insane. Why didn’t we know this in high school or college?” Now, you know so let’s do something about it.

I’m glad to hear that. You’ve got somewhat Funding Hackers podcast in the works as well too?

Are you “F”able? We are going to be starting in August. August 15th is the launch date. We’re starting a podcast of which your beloved Scott Carson is going to be one of our first spokes. The roles are being reversed. The bottom line is that we’re going to be talking about this podcast every single day, five days a week, Monday through Friday. We are going to be doing deeper and deeper dives into every one of these situations and have amazing guests who are going to be able to apply what we’re talking about there with the fundability into notes, real estate and entrepreneurial skills. Be on the lookout for that. Also, if you want to go to FundingHackers.com/book you can reserve my new book, Are You F***able? (Or Just F’ed?) That’s going to be coming out here as well. If I’m a good writer, it will take less time. If I suck, it needs a little more time.

It’s already been written and just being edited. That’s a good thing. Merrill, thank you so much. It’s a great episode. There are lots of great people sharing some things out there. Once again, thank you for reading. Take Merrill up on his offer, check it out. Go to their website. You want to go there, reserve your seat, whether it’s in-person in Vegas or online. Also, check out future dates because you’re having these boot camps usually at least once a month.

Except where there’s a holiday, it’s usually in the second to the last or the last week of the month.

Once again everybody, go check it out. We’re coming to the halfway point of the year. It’s up to you to make the second half of the year and once you rather be sitting come December, come January six months further along on your journey to being fundable, to being “F”able, to having those lines of credit and be able to take advantage of what’s going in the market. There are some major economists coming out there saying, “We’re going to see a recession or the United States is already in mid-recession right now.” It may not be as extreme as it was several years ago, but things are already starting to trickle down so take the advantage. You have to be able to pick up those properties, pick up those notes and be able to lend that money at prime, hard money or private money rights to put the money into your topic. Go out and take some action and we’ll see you all at the top.

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About Merrill Chandler

Merrill Chandler, CEO and Chief Strategist at CreditSense.com, has been an influential player in the credit restoration industry for over 21 years, and has co-founded numerous successful credit restoration firms around the country, including Lexington Law. Unsatisfied with the results of credit repair alone, Merrill has used his extensive knowledge of credit reporting and credit profiling to single-handedly invent and dominate the credit profile optimization marketplace.

Since 1997, Merrill and his staff of advisors have assisted real estate investors, business owners, entrepreneurs, and savvy consumers nation-wide to create FUNDABLE Tier 1, and even 800+ credit profiles. Today, CreditSense’s credit profile optimization process has no equal, especially for clients who want to leverage their financial reputations towards wealth and prosperity.

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