February 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Running a business is hard enough—don’t let legal and financial mistakes take you down. In this episode of From Crisis to Justice, Parag Amin sits down with attorney and entrepreneur Shiva Bhaskar, co-founder of Tier 1 Credit, to expose the biggest credit and legal pitfalls business owners face and how to avoid them.
Shiva has helped countless entrepreneurs navigate credit issues, lawsuits, and financial disputes, and his journey from law school to launching a business is filled with hard-earned lessons that every founder needs to hear.
Key takeaways include:
- Credit & Legal Risks: The biggest financial mistakes business owners make and how to stay protected.
- The Art of the Pivot: Why adapting your business model at the right time is crucial for success.
- Building the Right Network: How surrounding yourself with the right people can change everything.
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: Why action, adaptability, and problem-solving are the real keys to winning in business.
This episode is packed with real, actionable advice from real entrepreneurs who have been through the struggles and come out on top.
Learn more about Shiva Bhaskar & Tier 1 Credit:
Website: https://tier1credit.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shivabhaskar
Learn more about Parag's business law firm:
Website: https://lawpla.com
Discover more about Parag: https://paraglamin.com
Follow Parag:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paragaminesq
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawplapc
Subscribe to our newsletter for business law insights and updates:
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.Thanks for coming back.
(00:44):
If you're joining us again,if you're joining for the first time.
Welcome.
I'm here with a special guest, my friendShiva Bhasker, who's not only an attorney,
but he is also the co-founder
and head of legal strategyand head lawyer at Tier one.
He overseesall efforts relating to enforcing
(01:04):
federal and state consumer protectionlaws on behalf of his clients,
as well as assisting them with creditrepair issues.
He is also an investorin the multifamily space,
heading up one of the a syndicatein the multifamily space.
And so I'm really excited to talk to you.
Shiva, as always, welcomeand thanks for joining us.
(01:27):
Thank you, Parag. Glad to be here.
So tell us a little bit about thisjourney.
I mean, did you always knowthat you were going to start
your own business out of law school,or was that just something that happened?
It very much was something that happened.
You know,you hear the classic entrepreneurial story
of the kid who was selling lemonade
(01:50):
or whatever else, you know, on the streetwhere they grew up.
I can't say that I was that kid.
I grew up here in the Los Angeles area.
You know, had had a
had a wonderful childhood,definitely very educationally focused.
So went to college, took a couple of yearsoff, then went to law school
and when I attended, I went to law schoolat Arab Driver School at UCLA.
(02:15):
And when I was there, my I started in 2007
and my focus was I thought I would be
a transactional attorney dealing with,
you know, M&A debt offerings, IPOs,private equity, that whole world.
And I eventually saw myselfmaybe being on the not attorney
(02:37):
side of the business,meaning being working in an investment
firm as a principalor some other capacity.
That's what if you asked me at that time,that's what I visualized.
For folks who remember 28,we had a big crash.
Financial marketscame grinding to a halt with
That was the type of workI just mentioned.
So I graduated from law school in 2010
(03:00):
when the transactional marketwas absolutely dead
and I had to figure outwhat I wanted to do.
So I took the bar in California,
then I took the bar in New York becauseI had interned out in New York City.
And I was I was born on the East Coastand lived there when I was very young.
So, you know,had a lot of friends, family out there.
So I took both bars and then I decidedI was interviewing for jobs here in L.A.,
(03:24):
wasn't finding what I wanted, soI decided to move to New York with no job
as one of my friends aptly put it, movefrom the second
most expensive area at the timeto probably the most expensive one.
Although now I think L.A.
has New York beat on that category,but moved there, didn't have a job.
Look at my ad,got a job at a real estate brokerage.
(03:44):
For people who are familiar in New YorkCity, you would use brokers in many cases
to rent apartments, and in many casesyou would also end up paying their fee.
So I took that job,nothing to do with law.
But my other option was workingin document prep
as a kind of contract role,which I didn't want to do.
So I did.
That eventually ended up findinga, you know,
(04:07):
legal law firm job and doing that.
But that early dose of beingin the real estate space
and being in something entrepreneurialwhere I had to make my own money
for 100% commission,I got the entrepreneurial bug.
And so what happened while working outthere at the start of that one firm
(04:28):
then moved to another after a few yearsin commercial litigation.
What basically happened,Parag, was during the process
of when I moved to New Yorkand I didn't have any money coming in,
I had a lot of late payments on my credit,on my student loans specifically,
and I wanted to clear those upbecause now I was situated.
Now I had money.
I eventually ended upgetting the loan paid off,
(04:49):
but the lake was still remaining.
And so what happened was my now businesspartner,
Anthony Badri,who's a childhood friend of mine,
he had worked with another attorneywhen he was a mortgage lender
and they had helped clientsresolve credit issues.
So I told Tony about what the issues were
and he helped me get these resolvedjust on his own as a friend.
(05:09):
And then I'm working in New Yorkand I said, You know what?
The whole credit thing is so legal.
I'm an attorney,Tony has a background in this.
What if we started our own thing?
And to make a long story short,what happened
was I started volunteering
with a legal aid clinic in New York City.
For people who are familiar, it's calledClara, the Civil Legal Aid Resource
(05:32):
Office, and people who are being suedand debt collection lawsuits
would be able to get representationpro-bono from an attorney.
And I went there and started doing it
because I'm like,if you're getting sued on the debt,
the odds are it's on your credit reportand you have other issues on your credit.
And I would just help peoplewith this issue go in there
once or twice a month and talk to peopleabout their credit issues.
(05:54):
And that's how we started doing our earlycustomer discovery and learning about it.
Long storyshort, ended up moving back to California
and back to Los Angeles after about fiveand a half years in New York,
Tony and I really launchedwhat we were doing with Tier one in 2017.
We started out doing a bit of litigation,but mostly doing credit repair.
(06:15):
So someone had something badon their credit.
Maybe it's not worth suing over, butit's still got some level of inaccuracy.
We would represent them and they wouldpay us if we got the item removed.
We did that for quite a while.
While we would have
legal cases come in meetingwhere there's a serious error
on a credit reportor serious harassment by a collector, and
we would do those cases, either co-counselthen with another firm or refer them.
(06:38):
But it was not the focusof what we were doing.
And we continued with this modelthrough the pandemic,
really grew that wayfor about five and a half years.
And then in 2023, we realized that wecould serve people a lot more effectively
if we started to look for what are thoseviolations on credit reports
and put the case togetherand refer it to other attorneys.
(07:00):
So we really started
focusing on all the legal causes of actionthat exist around credit.
And we no longer offer credit repair.
We may bring it back as a DIY platform,likely for free or low cost at some point.
But we now operate around the country.
People contact us when they have somethingon their credit that they feel
is unfair, illegal,or if they just have bad credit.
(07:21):
Our team examines a report
we look at what happened,we look at the facts of the case,
and if we think there's something,we will connect them with another law firm
or we will provide them and handledispute letters completely free of charge,
no out of pocket costs.
And if there is a case,
we refer them to a firm or we co-counselif they're here in California.
And the great thing with these laws isthat you don't have to pay out of pocket
(07:43):
by law, the attorneys fees have to be paidby the credit agencies
or the creditors or collection agencies.
So that's what we do. We basically
act asa sort of resource or a clearinghouse.
If someone has issues on their credit,we look for what may be illegal
or could be construed to be somehownot fully in compliance with the law.
(08:04):
And then if we find such a thing,we refer it to the
to the appropriate attorney
around the country if it's not somethingthat's in our local area.
So that's what we do well. So
tell us a little bit about
you having moved out to New Yorkafter law school.
There's the financial meltdown
(08:26):
and and you'rejust trying to find your way
where you wereyou confident that whole time
that you would figure it out or were youjust trying to figure out a list?
Now I'll take anything that helps mepay off these loans and do the work.
Tell us a little bit about that,
how you got over,maybe some of the concerns, challenges
and stressas as you're navigating your way through
(08:47):
what was one of the biggestfinancial crises in decades.
Sure. Thank you.
Well, to answer that, Parag,
the great answer would be, oh,I always knew that I would make it.
That's not the truthful answer.
The real answer is thatI had no idea what the heck I was doing.
I just knew that whatever I was doing herewasn't working,
So I had to take some action.And that's that's a lesson I've learned.
(09:08):
Sometimes you have to take a step.
Don't take a stepthat is going to harm anyone else
or is goingto, you know, irreparably damage you.
But saying, hey, I'm trained for this,but I can find a job in it right now.
Let me find out what else works.
That's what I did.So I ended up moving in.
I moved to mymy atlas and Upper West Side.
I moved to my aunt's place, lived onthe couch, did that for a few months,
(09:32):
and then ended up taking overa friend's sublet, a friend's apartment,
which ended up being the place I livewith,
ended up being with some other friendsfor the next several years.
But I really didn't know Parag.
I found the job off of Craigslist.
No joke.
The real estate brokersadvertised on Craigslist when I went
and told them what I want, thatwhat I was doing and why I was doing this,
(09:53):
I think all the brokers were a bittaken aback that with my education
that was what I wanted to do.
But I told them, Look,I want to make money.
I always like real estate.
My other option is gowork in this dingy room doing doc review
for not not a great salary.
I said,At least here I'm going to learn sales.
I'm going to get out and hustle.I'm going to see New York City.
You know, I was a few pounds heavier.
(10:14):
I'm going to lose some weight walkingaround the city, renting apartments.
That was my mindset.
And eventually I did.
I did plan to look for law firm jobs.
I did look for them.
But initially, the first several months,I was strictly focused on
how do I make some moneyand how do I succeed at what I'm doing.
That was really the focus.
So I don't know thatI knew that I would make it,
but I knew that whatever I was doingwasn't going to work.
(10:35):
So my options were either
stay stuck in the same positionor try something different.
And I took the leap.
And I think any entrepreneuror anyone who's thinking about this,
I would never be one to say thatyou should just jump in and do things.
I think if you look at what we didwith Tier one, it was very deliberate.
In fact, looking back, I
think we could have started the companya year earlier and still and still,
(10:58):
you know, had it the same outcomeor even gotten there faster.
But that's the journey.
But I would say at some point you haveto figure out and cut your losses.
Like there is a timewhen you have to go all in.
And me moving to New York with no jobwas basically that was the version of it.
And the great thing about that was thatwhen I had to do that again with Tier one,
I mean, I could have stayed at the lawfirm, you know, making good money
when I had to start my own companyand coming back to L.A.,
(11:22):
it didn't feel uncomfortable becauseI had been in the position once before
and I was in a far better positionfinancially, mentally,
in terms of my skillsets as well than I was that that.
So yeah,
yeah, that's great.
So, so I do think that
well one, I agree with you,but I think it's also my own biases,
which is that entrepreneurs tend to havethis bias towards action versus inaction,
(11:44):
sometimes maybe to a detriment.
So can you tell us a little bitabout a big part relating
to entrepreneurship And successfulentrepreneurship is the art of the pivot.
So we hear about thisin various industries.
Now you've pivoted to your one as well,
so you don't offer any creditrepair anymore.
You used to, you might bring it back,but now you're focused on something else.
(12:07):
So how,how did you go about making that decision?
Because that's it'snot an easy decision to make,
especially if that was a core partof your business initially.
And how did you make the decisionthat this is
definitely the right direction for you,or did you just take a leap of faith
and see how it would work out? Sure.
So this pivot was more
it was partially strategicout of finding a better opportunity
(12:30):
and it was partially out of seeing a dropin our existing business.
So the set the stage, as you know,your audience probably remembers because
it's very recent and starting aroundMarch of 2022 as inflation increased,
we saw a lot of hikes in interest rateby the Federal Reserve,
(12:50):
which meant the real estatemarket dropped in terms of not home prices
but real estate activity,people buying homes and so forth.
And why that's relevant herewas one of the biggest reasons
that someone would want to repairtheir credit is because
they want to buy a homefollowed by finding a business.
But if interest rates go way upand people are pulling back
(13:12):
and a lot of these would be first timehomebuyers.
So to begin with, for many of my clientscoming up with the down payment
to begin with, with work and then nowrates are higher, it led to a shift.
So we saw our monthly inflow of creditrepair clients dropping and I still work
in partner with credit repair firmsand I see that that trend has not shifted.
It remained much lower than it wasfrom 2018 to 22.
(13:36):
So part of it was that and part of it was
a very fortunate thing that happened,which was
we had a gentleman who found founded offthe Internet.
He lived in New Jersey where I was born.
He had immigrated to this countryfrom China.
He worked in tech.
His wife, I believe, is a nurse.
Yeah, she's a nurse.
(13:57):
And long story short, what happenedwas someone opened
a credit cardwith Bank of America in his name.
They stole his identity.
It was not his card and took it and he andhis wife were trying to buy a home.
But an accountthat was written off with $8,000 owed,
no mortgage lender would approve them,even though the rest of their credit
was perfectand immigrated to this country.
(14:19):
In the classic story.You want to achieve the American dream.
But it was impossible.
The guy had done everythingand then he found us and he's like,
You have to help me.I don't know what to do here.
And so we took a look and we're like,Well, you done what you need to do now.
We need to sue the credit agencies.
And what happened was I have a firm thatI work with colleagues and friends of mine
who are in New Jersey, in New York,who represent people over there.
(14:40):
We reached out to them.
We had worked with them beforeon smaller cases,
although they handled much bigger ones.
We just hadn't sent themand we sent this gentleman over, did
one more dispute with the credit agencies,and then they went ahead and sued
Bank of
America as well as the credit reportingagencies.
And settlement terms are confidential.
(15:01):
But I'll put it this way.
The case we we received a portion of theattorney's fees for referring the case.
And what we realized was that the amount,the settlement amounts were
what we would have madeon dozens of credit repair clients.
Okay.
And so what
that led to Parag was that I understoodnot every case would be like that,
(15:23):
But I said, if we can get some caseslike this, refer them to other firms,
we originate them,bring them in, we have our channels,
and then some that are smaller
and then use our good reputationin that to do it and do it.
So part ofit was our existing business was dropping
and then we had the fortuneof this happening.
And at the same time, another colleague
who I already worked withon, on some cases,
(15:44):
who does the work we do,he reached out and said that
the universe of cases he could doon was expanding.
And so we realize, hey,there's even more cases we can refer.
So it was really a convergenceof a few things.
One was our business was having troublein its existing offering,
and number two was that we sort of
just randomly fell into a larger caseand we saw the money that came in
(16:07):
and that kind of gave us you got to lookfor signs entrepreneurially.
You have to look for signs.
I think if you don't seeany signs of anything,
I think that's a sign that eitheryou're not looking for the right things.
It could be one three things.
You'reyou're not looking for the right things
or what you're focusing on is not correct.
Or you haven't you haven't yet
sort of honed your entrepreneurial skillsof spotting opportunity.
(16:30):
And I say skillsbecause that's something you can learn.
I don't think I came with that skill now.
Now we're innow we've gotten a lot better. So
we I don't know.
And I consider it a blessingthat our existing business dropped.
I don't know, with the moneythat we were making
and everything going on
that we would have made thisdramatic shift if we didn't see it drop
and say, Yeah, it really was a factor of
(16:51):
what we were doing.
Wasn't working anymore.
Combinedwith a new opportunity fell in our lap.
But that's oversimplifying it a little bitbecause the truth is we did originate
refer that case.
We were already doingwhat eventually became our core business.
We just had not realized how profitableit could be if we executed it right.
That was the difference.
Yeah, that's absolutely it.
You know, it's interestingbecause some of the biggest challenges
(17:13):
and pitfalls can become one
of the greatest opportunities, providedthat it's played correctly.
So I agree with you on multiple levels,including that point as well as
the fact that
it is a skill set.
The the ability to spot opportunitytruly is a skill set
and obviously part of it is repetitionsjust like anything else.
(17:35):
It's just putting in the reps of spottingopportunities in various areas.
But is there anything else that
you can think of that can help somebodydevelop that entrepreneurial skill?
There is there are two things that I havefound in my journey that helped.
One was
interact with a variety of people and soakup information from different sources.
(17:57):
You know, I would describe my
I wouldn't describe myselfas extroverted in the sense that I grab
every person walking down the streetto shake their hand.
But in general, I think people who know mewould say I'm a pretty outgoing guy.
And certainly in the business context,I enjoy connecting with a lot of people.
And so for me, but it doesn't matterif you're more introverted.
I was in many ways and in many waysI still think with certain things I am
(18:22):
talked to a variety of people, interactwith people
who are not just in your field.
You know, as an attorney,
I have found and I can say it to Paragbecause I know he's one of the exceptions.
A lot of lawyers don't necessarily connect
with enough non attorneysoutside of their clients.
And I'm not just talking about networkingand trying to grab,
you know, business cardsand LinkedIn connections, really hear
(18:43):
different perspectivesand different things because,
you know, one thing that we're working onright now, in addition
to what we're doing,is becoming an employee benefit
where employers could pay a small fee
to us each month, and any credit issuestheir employee has is covered.
And Barack, I would know about thatif it weren't for having friends of mine
who work in silicon valleyand other things or who work in the h.r.
(19:06):
And employee benefit sidewhere they've raised these issues
and i've seen how other companieshave approached it.
So meet people who are different.
You never know where a conversationwill lead. That's number one.
Be very intentional about that.
Set aside time that you say, hey,you know what?
These 4 hours or this entire day,honestly, as your business grows,
it should be multiple
days are strictly set asidefor building relationships connecting.
(19:29):
I consider it an extension of marketingand sales doing that.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is soak upa variety of information.
In my case,
certain work that I would do in Tier one,especially in early days
or even today, as much as we've delegated,there is still some amount of busy work
rather than deep work like creatingcontent or analyzing the case.
There is some out of busywork.
(19:50):
What I do
when I have busy work and does work for meis I put on podcasts in the background
or when I have a long drive,I put on podcasts and a podcast.
I listen to ourabout a variety of subjects.
Not all of them are business related.
I listen to a lot of truecrime and random stuff,
but I do listen to some businessrelated ones
and I think I learn from themboth in my field or in other fields.
I listen to them, I in technology ones,and that's interesting.
(20:12):
Soak in information outside your field,
subscribe to random email newslettersand actually read what they say.
Okay.
Like if you're if you're ayou know, if you're a restaurant owner,
maybe go sign up for a few newslettersthat talk about
or that talk about medicalor to talk about politics
or anything else isn't going to expandyour horizons, give you ideas.
(20:34):
Because a lot of what we're doing,
especially on the marketing side, on thebusiness side, we did not learn anything
from other attorneys.
We learned from being out in the fieldand be hearing the experiences of
other people.
I mean, there's a podcast called MarketingSchool with Eric Su and Neil Patel.
I don't listen as regularly as I used to,but I still listen.
My first year in business,I realized I knew nothing about marketing.
(20:55):
Each episode is six 7 minutes long.
I would just sit there,listen to that episode,
take a few notes and say, okay, here'ssomething for me to learn.
I would encourage folksto really listen to stuff
that relates to your business,but some stuff that be outside
of your immediate vertical.
You're going to learn a lot and you'regoing to start connecting ideas.
And how you get creativeis connecting ideas
by listeningto things you don't normally listen to.
(21:17):
Yeah, Ilove that and I completely agree with it.
I think entrepreneurs tend to be the best.
Entrepreneurstend to be naturally very curious, and
I think there's two kind of mindsets thatpeople can can approach situations with.
One is I pretty muchknow everything about it or I don't care.
Or two, I'm very much interested in this.
(21:37):
Surely,even if I know something about this,
this person might know somethingthat I know nothing about,
even on the same topicthat I might know a decent amount about.
And it's probingand asking those questions, naturally
curious questionsand being a sponge for information
that lets you then, as you reflect back
on the conversationor a random thought appears to you
(22:01):
whether you're doing something idlior walking or showering,
or that momentwhere you're not really necessarily
thinking about anything in particularand an idea will strike you
is always very fascinating
and useful in terms of your conversationswith people.
Are there certain kind of questionsyou ask that you've found
have been helpful in getting certainresponses that that are helpful for you
(22:24):
in terms of ideas?
Sure.
So for me, asking the right questionsand just learning to listen more was
was always a work in progressand something I had to learn.
But I always knew it was importantbecause, you know, I like to talk,
I have things to say, but I want to learn.
So a few things I like to startif someone's open to it and comfortable.
(22:44):
What I like to start
with understanding their story,their personal story a little bit.
You know,I think it's different in every context.
But personally,the people that I do work with
and I've learned the most from,I, I know a lot about them personally.
I mean, we end up becoming friends.
So obviously I would,but I think try to understand people's
personal story and perspectivea little bit
(23:05):
that might help you connect the dotsbetter in terms of what they tell you
now once you move on from that,okay, in the business context,
try to just
understand what it isthat they do like to tell them, Hey,
I always I always tell peopleand this is the truth almost all the time,
because I think there'sso many businesses, even within law,
(23:26):
feels the law and let aloneother businesses I know nothing about.
I'll just tell them, Hey,I really don't know a lot about this, so
I might ask you some stupid questions,but I would just love to know more
and understand what it is that you doand kind of how you got into it.
That's where I start,
because most times if you tell peoplethat you humble yourself in the beginning,
(23:46):
they're like, Oh, cool.
Like this guy doesn't knows much and like
I do like let me everyonefavorite topic is themselves to a degree.
Let me talk about it.And I think that's how I've learned.
So kind of just let people know that, hey,I may not know about this now.
If I talk to a colleaguewho's in the same field as me,
I still will try to find an areawhere I don't know as much and try
to get them to talk about it.
So that's the first thing, is let peopleknow you don't know much about this,
(24:09):
but balance that with doing some basicresearch like you don't want to.
If you connect with someonewho's a huge expert in the field,
try to know the very basics.
So let people just kind of educate youon what they know and just listen to them.
And then what you should dois really kind of file away
whether you're taking notes activelyor just actively listening,
(24:29):
kind of think about trying to understandtheir thought pattern
a bit or their thought process,because then we came up with around
the whole referral network ideaor the employee benefits thing.
I saw people in other verticals do thisand their thing was,
Hey, if you can beat about that,you can be the force of something.
Then everyone comes to you and you kindof, you know, become very valuable.
(24:50):
Or if you can solve a problemthat a company deals
with,they're happy to pay for that problem.
I learned that from someone who hasan email marketing, CRM and software.
So think about trying to understandthe underlying lessons of what they did.
Like if someone says, Hey,I did this in my business,
don't hesitate to ask him like,what was your thought process
or Why did you do it?
Because they're going to give youan answer
(25:11):
that applies in their context, like,I don't know, Parag,
if I go, you representI know a number of people
in the medical field, doctorsand company owners, Google,
ask them, why did you do thisin your medical practice?
Okay, The answer a specific the medicine,but it could have relationship to that.
So try to look at the underlying patternsof why people do things.
And I think that's goingto give you a lot of instruction.
(25:32):
So once you get them talking,just look a layer deeper.
Why does that move make sense
in that contextand how can you apply in your business?
And not everything will be applied.
But if you listen to enough peopleand think about it,
you will start to see the connections.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And part of it is I think about itthis way Life has a bunch of algorithms
and there are different algorithmsfor solving problems,
(25:52):
and sometimes you can have multiplealgorithms
that can solve the same problem,but sometimes one algorithm is
better than another because is
a multitude of reasons.
For example, one algorithm may be cheaper,it may be faster, maybe more efficient.
It may just be somethingthat you're more comfortable with
or have more experience with.
Therefore you can do it fasteror you can do it
(26:14):
alone without necessarilyneeding a bunch of help.
So just gathering as many of thosealgorithms and understanding
how people think about problemsand solutions,
especially when it comesto interdisciplinary approaches, meaning
that's the one thingthat's really fascinating to me
when it comes to problemsolving is the medical field, for example.
(26:36):
Well,we'll try to solve problems in one way,
and that will be many timeslimited to the medical field.
The legal field will try to solve problemsin a different way,
and that will be many times specificto the legal field.
Marketing companies will try to solveproblems in a completely different manner
and maybe in a more creative manner,
arguably, than these other approaches.
(26:56):
But when you
when you look at and try to combineall of these different approaches to see
what is the best one that fits here,and it may be a piece from MIT
for medical or maybe a piece from legaland maybe a piece from marketing.
I think many times, most of the time
you can fashiona better solution to a problem.
(27:17):
I think that's exactly right.
I think
connecting the dots, you hear that worda lot thrown around with entrepreneurship.
And I think for anyone listeninguntil you start running
your own business or nonprofitor company or whatever mission you're on,
it won't always make sense.
But once you do that, you'll take youryour area of domain expertise
and look at otherpeople's and you'll sort of,
(27:39):
you know, start to connect it.
And the other this is more of a metaor a broad lesson that I'd share is try to
if you're willingto give before you receive
and you do that enough times
without sitting there and thinking, Am Igoing to get something out of this person?
I have an attorneythat is in a field of law
that, you know, that becomesthat becomes relevant to what we do.
(28:03):
And we have referrals for him periodically
and not due to a lack of effort,but he rarely has referrals.
You know, for us just because of the wayhis practice goes and all that.
But I don't really sitthere and worry about, Oh, am I giving it
and not getting think about, Hey,how can you solve someone else's problem?
And B often you'll solve your own problem.
He solving a problem for us.But even they weren't.
(28:23):
Think about how you can give to othersand find out what they're looking for.
I mean, I always like to ask onegreat question.
If you're meeting another fellow businessowner, just ask them like, Hey,
what sort of referralsor customers are ideal for you?
I mean, if again, I'm a foodie, so I loveto go back to the restaurant example.
Like if I don't know someone'srunning a Thai restaurant, well, anyone
who likes good Thai food and wants a coolatmosphere probably should come to me.
(28:47):
And I'm like, okay, cool.
Well, if I had their food and I liked itand tell someone about it,
or if I know what Parag does,which I do, since I've had
the pleasure of referring people,then I know that.
So ask people what they're looking forand then maybe make a note of it.
Make it input into a spreadsheet
is something thatI've started doing more recently.
Listen to what other peopleare looking for and you never know.
And it'll also help youbecause you might have
(29:09):
someone contact you with a particularissue in whatever business you're in.
And if you've organized your informationand your network, you're going to know
versus I've had multiple instanceswhere I'm like, Wait,
who's that womanI talked to the one time who does this?
I'm trying to remember her.
And then eventually I find it really besystematic about giving to others
because whoever you refer to themor help them with or whoever
(29:30):
you connect them with someone.
It might not be a client.
It might be someone who can help themwith marketing or their CPA,
whoever it is, they're going to rememberyou and you're
putting something good out in the universeand everyone involved.
Even if you take a very selfish approach,everyone involved is going to be like,
Hey, for God, really help me or ever,really help me.
They did this for me
and that ultimately will come backto you in one way or another.
Yeah, I agree with that.
(29:50):
I think that there's this,
whether it's a karmic principleor just everyday life
is that that law of reciprocity or
some other principle that we haven'teven discovered yet or put a name on.
But this idea of if you want something,put it out first,
you want someone to help youwith something, provide or offer
(30:10):
help to somebody else.
If you're looking for money, donate money.
If you're looking for a lot of give loveand many times somehow it finds you.
So it does.
Yeah.
And you have to believe it becausethe thing is an entrepreneurship, guys.
Look I mean, you know, in my case,I've been running.
I've been running what we do for a while.
I know Parag has as well,but the early days, it's
(30:31):
not going to feel like anything.Like I'm helping people. I'm doing this.
I mean, for all of you that I've talked,I mean, early
days, you answer questions for freeor you feel it feels like it's free.
Even if the person did a paid consultationwith you, you look at the amount
it took out of you, like, wait,what am I doing?
But understand it,
if you keep getting better at what you doand you keep giving,
eventually all those things
(30:51):
are going to come back to you.
And I'll just a really quick storythat doesn't it's not my story, but
when I worked in New York Cityin real estate,
there was a gentleman who workedin the brokerage that I started out at
who helped this woman who workedat a doctor's office that a receptionist
she helped her rent her first apartmentwhen she moved to New York City
(31:14):
at age 22 or 23, Her and a roommate,
we're talking back inprobably the late nineties. Okay.
I guess it was that this happened.
I wasn't doing this the late ninetiesand high school, but whatever.
This was what this broker did
eventually that woman movedand got another place
and she told a few friends, Hey,this guy's got really help me.
He got more business eventually.
He did that a few times.
(31:34):
Eventually she ended up movingout of the city and moving to New Jersey.
She met a guy, they started a family.
He referred to a colleague in New Jersey,got her referral fee,
but she kept workingat the doctor's office and she
she told the doctor she's like, look,I know you know, so-and-so fancy realtor,
but this guy is really good.
He rents apartments, he sells.
And eventually she brought him inand he end up having lunch with the doctor
(31:55):
and the doctor bought a fourand a half million dollar place.
And in the mid 2000, a four and a halfmillion dollar apartment in New York City.
For those who know real estate,that's a commission of over $100,000
at that time that came in all becausehe was giving and he was giving it.
He made a little money,
but he wasn't making a lot of moneyhelping her rent a 1400 dollar apartment.
(32:15):
But eventually it paid offbecause he put something good out there.
And that story from a long time ago.I always kind of
think of that because I've experiencedvariations of that myself.
So yeah, yeah, I have to.
So so I can vouch for that many times.
The thing that you're
sometimes you're actively seekingit won't find you and you won't find it.
But when you, when you put outthat the effort and and from the
(32:37):
mindset of servicemany times that that thing,
whatever it is that you're lookingfor, will wind up finding you.
So speaking of finding things isour listeners want to find your website or
learn more about tier one or about youpersonally, how that how can they do that?
Sure.
So to learn about tier oneyou can visit w WW dot tier one
(33:00):
credit.comthat's tr 0necred it dot com go there.
You're welcome to schedule an appointmentwith our team.
And you know, my my staff will speakwith you if you have a credit issue.
Whatever
any kind of legal issue really come to usthey're will be happy to
answer the question.
And if it's something that requires
my involvement based on the type of case,of course, the well on the other hand,
(33:24):
if you want to reach out to me directly,I'm always happy to my emails
my first name Sheva as hi va at the same thing.
Tier one credit.com tror any credit credit.com or lookup Shiva.
That's gonna be ato look me up on LinkedIn
always open to connecting withfolks, hearing new ideas.
(33:46):
You know
I can't take a lot of credit becauseI've gotten so much help along the way.
So anyone who's a new business owner
and what an encouraging wordor you need something
pointed in a more specific directionas far as who might help you,
please don't hesitate to shoot me an emailif I know someone who can help you
or if I can help you myself.
I'll be happy to love that.
(34:07):
I appreciate thatand I can vouch for that.
She was a good friend for yearsand he's been there
through the ups and downs of my ownentrepreneurial journey, and we've shared
many meals together and many conversationsand I always enjoy them.
And hopefully you have all enjoyedthis conversation as well.
If this is your first time tuning in,
please make sure you like and subscribedepending on the platform you're on.
(34:30):
So you knowwhen the new new episodes are coming out.
And so I can continue to bring you valuefrom excellent guests
like Shiva and othersto help you with your business
and to help you go from crisis to justice.
Thank you all so much for joiningme today.
Thank you. All.
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
I'm your host, Parag Amin.Thanks for coming back.
(00:44):
If you're joining us again,if you're joining for the first time.
Welcome.
I'm here with a special guest, my friendShiva Bhasker, who's not only an attorney,
but he is also the co-founder
and head of legal strategyand head lawyer at Tier one.
He overseesall efforts relating to enforcing
(01:04):
federal and state consumer protectionlaws on behalf of his clients,
as well as assisting them with creditrepair issues.
He is also an investorin the multifamily space,
heading up one of the a syndicatein the multifamily space.
And so I'm really excited to talk to you.
Shiva, as always, welcomeand thanks for joining us.
(01:27):
Thank you, Parag. Glad to be here.
So tell us a little bit about thisjourney.
I mean, did you always knowthat you were going to start
your own business out of law school,or was that just something that happened?
It very much was something that happened.
You know,you hear the classic entrepreneurial story
of the kid who was selling lemonade
(01:50):
or whatever else, you know, on the streetwhere they grew up.
I can't say that I was that kid.
I grew up here in the Los Angeles area.
You know, had had a
had a wonderful childhood,definitely very educationally focused.
So went to college, took a couple of yearsoff, then went to law school
and when I attended, I went to law schoolat Arab Driver School at UCLA.
(02:15):
And when I was there, my I started in 2007
and my focus was I thought I would be
a transactional attorney dealing with,
you know, M&A debt offerings, IPOs,private equity, that whole world.
And I eventually saw myselfmaybe being on the not attorney
(02:37):
side of the business,meaning being working in an investment
firm as a principalor some other capacity.
That's what if you asked me at that time,that's what I visualized.
For folks who remember 28,we had a big crash.
Financial marketscame grinding to a halt with
That was the type of workI just mentioned.
So I graduated from law school in 2010
(03:00):
when the transactional marketwas absolutely dead
and I had to figure outwhat I wanted to do.
So I took the bar in California,
then I took the bar in New York becauseI had interned out in New York City.
And I was I was born on the East Coastand lived there when I was very young.
So, you know,had a lot of friends, family out there.
So I took both bars and then I decidedI was interviewing for jobs here in L.A.,
(03:24):
wasn't finding what I wanted, soI decided to move to New York with no job
as one of my friends aptly put it, movefrom the second
most expensive area at the timeto probably the most expensive one.
Although now I think L.A.
has New York beat on that category,but moved there, didn't have a job.
Look at my ad,got a job at a real estate brokerage.
(03:44):
For people who are familiar in New YorkCity, you would use brokers in many cases
to rent apartments, and in many casesyou would also end up paying their fee.
So I took that job,nothing to do with law.
But my other option was workingin document prep
as a kind of contract role,which I didn't want to do.
So I did.
That eventually ended up findinga, you know,
(04:07):
legal law firm job and doing that.
But that early dose of beingin the real estate space
and being in something entrepreneurialwhere I had to make my own money
for 100% commission,I got the entrepreneurial bug.
And so what happened while working outthere at the start of that one firm
(04:28):
then moved to another after a few yearsin commercial litigation.
What basically happened,Parag, was during the process
of when I moved to New Yorkand I didn't have any money coming in,
I had a lot of late payments on my credit,on my student loans specifically,
and I wanted to clear those upbecause now I was situated.
Now I had money.
I eventually ended upgetting the loan paid off,
(04:49):
but the lake was still remaining.
And so what happened was my now businesspartner,
Anthony Badri,who's a childhood friend of mine,
he had worked with another attorneywhen he was a mortgage lender
and they had helped clientsresolve credit issues.
So I told Tony about what the issues were
and he helped me get these resolvedjust on his own as a friend.
(05:09):
And then I'm working in New Yorkand I said, You know what?
The whole credit thing is so legal.
I'm an attorney,Tony has a background in this.
What if we started our own thing?
And to make a long story short,what happened
was I started volunteering
with a legal aid clinic in New York City.
For people who are familiar, it's calledClara, the Civil Legal Aid Resource
(05:32):
Office, and people who are being suedand debt collection lawsuits
would be able to get representationpro-bono from an attorney.
And I went there and started doing it
because I'm like,if you're getting sued on the debt,
the odds are it's on your credit reportand you have other issues on your credit.
And I would just help peoplewith this issue go in there
once or twice a month and talk to peopleabout their credit issues.
(05:54):
And that's how we started doing our earlycustomer discovery and learning about it.
Long storyshort, ended up moving back to California
and back to Los Angeles after about fiveand a half years in New York,
Tony and I really launchedwhat we were doing with Tier one in 2017.
We started out doing a bit of litigation,but mostly doing credit repair.
(06:15):
So someone had something badon their credit.
Maybe it's not worth suing over, butit's still got some level of inaccuracy.
We would represent them and they wouldpay us if we got the item removed.
We did that for quite a while.
While we would have
legal cases come in meetingwhere there's a serious error
on a credit reportor serious harassment by a collector, and
we would do those cases, either co-counselthen with another firm or refer them.
(06:38):
But it was not the focusof what we were doing.
And we continued with this modelthrough the pandemic,
really grew that wayfor about five and a half years.
And then in 2023, we realized that wecould serve people a lot more effectively
if we started to look for what are thoseviolations on credit reports
and put the case togetherand refer it to other attorneys.
(07:00):
So we really started
focusing on all the legal causes of actionthat exist around credit.
And we no longer offer credit repair.
We may bring it back as a DIY platform,likely for free or low cost at some point.
But we now operate around the country.
People contact us when they have somethingon their credit that they feel
is unfair, illegal,or if they just have bad credit.
(07:21):
Our team examines a report
we look at what happened,we look at the facts of the case,
and if we think there's something,we will connect them with another law firm
or we will provide them and handledispute letters completely free of charge,
no out of pocket costs.
And if there is a case,
we refer them to a firm or we co-counselif they're here in California.
And the great thing with these laws isthat you don't have to pay out of pocket
(07:43):
by law, the attorneys fees have to be paidby the credit agencies
or the creditors or collection agencies.
So that's what we do. We basically
act asa sort of resource or a clearinghouse.
If someone has issues on their credit,we look for what may be illegal
or could be construed to be somehownot fully in compliance with the law.
(08:04):
And then if we find such a thing,we refer it to the
to the appropriate attorney
around the country if it's not somethingthat's in our local area.
So that's what we do well. So
tell us a little bit about
you having moved out to New Yorkafter law school.
There's the financial meltdown
(08:26):
and and you'rejust trying to find your way
where you wereyou confident that whole time
that you would figure it out or were youjust trying to figure out a list?
Now I'll take anything that helps mepay off these loans and do the work.
Tell us a little bit about that,
how you got over,maybe some of the concerns, challenges
and stressas as you're navigating your way through
(08:47):
what was one of the biggestfinancial crises in decades.
Sure. Thank you.
Well, to answer that, Parag,
the great answer would be, oh,I always knew that I would make it.
That's not the truthful answer.
The real answer is thatI had no idea what the heck I was doing.
I just knew that whatever I was doing herewasn't working,
So I had to take some action.And that's that's a lesson I've learned.
(09:08):
Sometimes you have to take a step.
Don't take a stepthat is going to harm anyone else
or is goingto, you know, irreparably damage you.
But saying, hey, I'm trained for this,but I can find a job in it right now.
Let me find out what else works.
That's what I did.So I ended up moving in.
I moved to mymy atlas and Upper West Side.
I moved to my aunt's place, lived onthe couch, did that for a few months,
(09:32):
and then ended up taking overa friend's sublet, a friend's apartment,
which ended up being the place I livewith,
ended up being with some other friendsfor the next several years.
But I really didn't know Parag.
I found the job off of Craigslist.
No joke.
The real estate brokersadvertised on Craigslist when I went
and told them what I want, thatwhat I was doing and why I was doing this,
(09:53):
I think all the brokers were a bittaken aback that with my education
that was what I wanted to do.
But I told them, Look,I want to make money.
I always like real estate.
My other option is gowork in this dingy room doing doc review
for not not a great salary.
I said,At least here I'm going to learn sales.
I'm going to get out and hustle.I'm going to see New York City.
You know, I was a few pounds heavier.
(10:14):
I'm going to lose some weight walkingaround the city, renting apartments.
That was my mindset.
And eventually I did.
I did plan to look for law firm jobs.
I did look for them.
But initially, the first several months,I was strictly focused on
how do I make some moneyand how do I succeed at what I'm doing.
That was really the focus.
So I don't know thatI knew that I would make it,
but I knew that whatever I was doingwasn't going to work.
(10:35):
So my options were either
stay stuck in the same positionor try something different.
And I took the leap.
And I think any entrepreneuror anyone who's thinking about this,
I would never be one to say thatyou should just jump in and do things.
I think if you look at what we didwith Tier one, it was very deliberate.
In fact, looking back, I
think we could have started the companya year earlier and still and still,
(10:58):
you know, had it the same outcomeor even gotten there faster.
But that's the journey.
But I would say at some point you haveto figure out and cut your losses.
Like there is a timewhen you have to go all in.
And me moving to New York with no jobwas basically that was the version of it.
And the great thing about that was thatwhen I had to do that again with Tier one,
I mean, I could have stayed at the lawfirm, you know, making good money
when I had to start my own companyand coming back to L.A.,
(11:22):
it didn't feel uncomfortable becauseI had been in the position once before
and I was in a far better positionfinancially, mentally,
in terms of my skillsets as well than I was that that.
So yeah,
yeah, that's great.
So, so I do think that
well one, I agree with you,but I think it's also my own biases,
which is that entrepreneurs tend to havethis bias towards action versus inaction,
(11:44):
sometimes maybe to a detriment.
So can you tell us a little bitabout a big part relating
to entrepreneurship And successfulentrepreneurship is the art of the pivot.
So we hear about thisin various industries.
Now you've pivoted to your one as well,
so you don't offer any creditrepair anymore.
You used to, you might bring it back,but now you're focused on something else.
(12:07):
So how,how did you go about making that decision?
Because that's it'snot an easy decision to make,
especially if that was a core partof your business initially.
And how did you make the decisionthat this is
definitely the right direction for you,or did you just take a leap of faith
and see how it would work out? Sure.
So this pivot was more
it was partially strategicout of finding a better opportunity
(12:30):
and it was partially out of seeing a dropin our existing business.
So the set the stage, as you know,your audience probably remembers because
it's very recent and starting aroundMarch of 2022 as inflation increased,
we saw a lot of hikes in interest rateby the Federal Reserve,
(12:50):
which meant the real estatemarket dropped in terms of not home prices
but real estate activity,people buying homes and so forth.
And why that's relevant herewas one of the biggest reasons
that someone would want to repairtheir credit is because
they want to buy a homefollowed by finding a business.
But if interest rates go way upand people are pulling back
(13:12):
and a lot of these would be first timehomebuyers.
So to begin with, for many of my clientscoming up with the down payment
to begin with, with work and then nowrates are higher, it led to a shift.
So we saw our monthly inflow of creditrepair clients dropping and I still work
in partner with credit repair firmsand I see that that trend has not shifted.
It remained much lower than it wasfrom 2018 to 22.
(13:36):
So part of it was that and part of it was
a very fortunate thing that happened,which was
we had a gentleman who found founded offthe Internet.
He lived in New Jersey where I was born.
He had immigrated to this countryfrom China.
He worked in tech.
His wife, I believe, is a nurse.
Yeah, she's a nurse.
(13:57):
And long story short, what happenedwas someone opened
a credit cardwith Bank of America in his name.
They stole his identity.
It was not his card and took it and he andhis wife were trying to buy a home.
But an accountthat was written off with $8,000 owed,
no mortgage lender would approve them,even though the rest of their credit
was perfectand immigrated to this country.
(14:19):
In the classic story.You want to achieve the American dream.
But it was impossible.
The guy had done everythingand then he found us and he's like,
You have to help me.I don't know what to do here.
And so we took a look and we're like,Well, you done what you need to do now.
We need to sue the credit agencies.
And what happened was I have a firm thatI work with colleagues and friends of mine
who are in New Jersey, in New York,who represent people over there.
(14:40):
We reached out to them.
We had worked with them beforeon smaller cases,
although they handled much bigger ones.
We just hadn't sent themand we sent this gentleman over, did
one more dispute with the credit agencies,and then they went ahead and sued
Bank of
America as well as the credit reportingagencies.
And settlement terms are confidential.
(15:01):
But I'll put it this way.
The case we we received a portion of theattorney's fees for referring the case.
And what we realized was that the amount,the settlement amounts were
what we would have madeon dozens of credit repair clients.
Okay.
And so what
that led to Parag was that I understoodnot every case would be like that,
(15:23):
But I said, if we can get some caseslike this, refer them to other firms,
we originate them,bring them in, we have our channels,
and then some that are smaller
and then use our good reputationin that to do it and do it.
So part ofit was our existing business was dropping
and then we had the fortuneof this happening.
And at the same time, another colleague
who I already worked withon, on some cases,
(15:44):
who does the work we do,he reached out and said that
the universe of cases he could doon was expanding.
And so we realize, hey,there's even more cases we can refer.
So it was really a convergenceof a few things.
One was our business was having troublein its existing offering,
and number two was that we sort of
just randomly fell into a larger caseand we saw the money that came in
(16:07):
and that kind of gave us you got to lookfor signs entrepreneurially.
You have to look for signs.
I think if you don't seeany signs of anything,
I think that's a sign that eitheryou're not looking for the right things.
It could be one three things.
You'reyou're not looking for the right things
or what you're focusing on is not correct.
Or you haven't you haven't yet
sort of honed your entrepreneurial skillsof spotting opportunity.
(16:30):
And I say skillsbecause that's something you can learn.
I don't think I came with that skill now.
Now we're innow we've gotten a lot better. So
we I don't know.
And I consider it a blessingthat our existing business dropped.
I don't know, with the moneythat we were making
and everything going on
that we would have made thisdramatic shift if we didn't see it drop
and say, Yeah, it really was a factor of
(16:51):
what we were doing.
Wasn't working anymore.
Combinedwith a new opportunity fell in our lap.
But that's oversimplifying it a little bitbecause the truth is we did originate
refer that case.
We were already doingwhat eventually became our core business.
We just had not realized how profitableit could be if we executed it right.
That was the difference.
Yeah, that's absolutely it.
You know, it's interestingbecause some of the biggest challenges
(17:13):
and pitfalls can become one
of the greatest opportunities, providedthat it's played correctly.
So I agree with you on multiple levels,including that point as well as
the fact that
it is a skill set.
The the ability to spot opportunitytruly is a skill set
and obviously part of it is repetitionsjust like anything else.
(17:35):
It's just putting in the reps of spottingopportunities in various areas.
But is there anything else that
you can think of that can help somebodydevelop that entrepreneurial skill?
There is there are two things that I havefound in my journey that helped.
One was
interact with a variety of people and soakup information from different sources.
(17:57):
You know, I would describe my
I wouldn't describe myselfas extroverted in the sense that I grab
every person walking down the streetto shake their hand.
But in general, I think people who know mewould say I'm a pretty outgoing guy.
And certainly in the business context,I enjoy connecting with a lot of people.
And so for me, but it doesn't matterif you're more introverted.
I was in many ways and in many waysI still think with certain things I am
(18:22):
talked to a variety of people, interactwith people
who are not just in your field.
You know, as an attorney,
I have found and I can say it to Paragbecause I know he's one of the exceptions.
A lot of lawyers don't necessarily connect
with enough non attorneysoutside of their clients.
And I'm not just talking about networkingand trying to grab,
you know, business cardsand LinkedIn connections, really hear
(18:43):
different perspectivesand different things because,
you know, one thing that we're working onright now, in addition
to what we're doing,is becoming an employee benefit
where employers could pay a small fee
to us each month, and any credit issuestheir employee has is covered.
And Barack, I would know about thatif it weren't for having friends of mine
who work in silicon valleyand other things or who work in the h.r.
(19:06):
And employee benefit sidewhere they've raised these issues
and i've seen how other companieshave approached it.
So meet people who are different.
You never know where a conversationwill lead. That's number one.
Be very intentional about that.
Set aside time that you say, hey,you know what?
These 4 hours or this entire day,honestly, as your business grows,
it should be multiple
days are strictly set asidefor building relationships connecting.
(19:29):
I consider it an extension of marketingand sales doing that.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is soak upa variety of information.
In my case,
certain work that I would do in Tier one,especially in early days
or even today, as much as we've delegated,there is still some amount of busy work
rather than deep work like creatingcontent or analyzing the case.
There is some out of busywork.
(19:50):
What I do
when I have busy work and does work for meis I put on podcasts in the background
or when I have a long drive,I put on podcasts and a podcast.
I listen to ourabout a variety of subjects.
Not all of them are business related.
I listen to a lot of truecrime and random stuff,
but I do listen to some businessrelated ones
and I think I learn from themboth in my field or in other fields.
I listen to them, I in technology ones,and that's interesting.
(20:12):
Soak in information outside your field,
subscribe to random email newslettersand actually read what they say.
Okay.
Like if you're if you're ayou know, if you're a restaurant owner,
maybe go sign up for a few newslettersthat talk about
or that talk about medicalor to talk about politics
or anything else isn't going to expandyour horizons, give you ideas.
(20:34):
Because a lot of what we're doing,
especially on the marketing side, on thebusiness side, we did not learn anything
from other attorneys.
We learned from being out in the fieldand be hearing the experiences of
other people.
I mean, there's a podcast called MarketingSchool with Eric Su and Neil Patel.
I don't listen as regularly as I used to,but I still listen.
My first year in business,I realized I knew nothing about marketing.
(20:55):
Each episode is six 7 minutes long.
I would just sit there,listen to that episode,
take a few notes and say, okay, here'ssomething for me to learn.
I would encourage folksto really listen to stuff
that relates to your business,but some stuff that be outside
of your immediate vertical.
You're going to learn a lot and you'regoing to start connecting ideas.
And how you get creativeis connecting ideas
by listeningto things you don't normally listen to.
(21:17):
Yeah, Ilove that and I completely agree with it.
I think entrepreneurs tend to be the best.
Entrepreneurstend to be naturally very curious, and
I think there's two kind of mindsets thatpeople can can approach situations with.
One is I pretty muchknow everything about it or I don't care.
Or two, I'm very much interested in this.
(21:37):
Surely,even if I know something about this,
this person might know somethingthat I know nothing about,
even on the same topicthat I might know a decent amount about.
And it's probingand asking those questions, naturally
curious questionsand being a sponge for information
that lets you then, as you reflect back
on the conversationor a random thought appears to you
(22:01):
whether you're doing something idlior walking or showering,
or that momentwhere you're not really necessarily
thinking about anything in particularand an idea will strike you
is always very fascinating
and useful in terms of your conversationswith people.
Are there certain kind of questionsyou ask that you've found
have been helpful in getting certainresponses that that are helpful for you
(22:24):
in terms of ideas?
Sure.
So for me, asking the right questionsand just learning to listen more was
was always a work in progressand something I had to learn.
But I always knew it was importantbecause, you know, I like to talk,
I have things to say, but I want to learn.
So a few things I like to startif someone's open to it and comfortable.
(22:44):
What I like to start
with understanding their story,their personal story a little bit.
You know,I think it's different in every context.
But personally,the people that I do work with
and I've learned the most from,I, I know a lot about them personally.
I mean, we end up becoming friends.
So obviously I would,but I think try to understand people's
personal story and perspectivea little bit
(23:05):
that might help you connect the dotsbetter in terms of what they tell you
now once you move on from that,okay, in the business context,
try to just
understand what it isthat they do like to tell them, Hey,
I always I always tell peopleand this is the truth almost all the time,
because I think there'sso many businesses, even within law,
(23:26):
feels the law and let aloneother businesses I know nothing about.
I'll just tell them, Hey,I really don't know a lot about this, so
I might ask you some stupid questions,but I would just love to know more
and understand what it is that you doand kind of how you got into it.
That's where I start,
because most times if you tell peoplethat you humble yourself in the beginning,
(23:46):
they're like, Oh, cool.
Like this guy doesn't knows much and like
I do like let me everyonefavorite topic is themselves to a degree.
Let me talk about it.And I think that's how I've learned.
So kind of just let people know that, hey,I may not know about this now.
If I talk to a colleaguewho's in the same field as me,
I still will try to find an areawhere I don't know as much and try
to get them to talk about it.
So that's the first thing, is let peopleknow you don't know much about this,
(24:09):
but balance that with doing some basicresearch like you don't want to.
If you connect with someonewho's a huge expert in the field,
try to know the very basics.
So let people just kind of educate youon what they know and just listen to them.
And then what you should dois really kind of file away
whether you're taking notes activelyor just actively listening,
(24:29):
kind of think about trying to understandtheir thought pattern
a bit or their thought process,because then we came up with around
the whole referral network ideaor the employee benefits thing.
I saw people in other verticals do thisand their thing was,
Hey, if you can beat about that,you can be the force of something.
Then everyone comes to you and you kindof, you know, become very valuable.
(24:50):
Or if you can solve a problemthat a company deals
with,they're happy to pay for that problem.
I learned that from someone who hasan email marketing, CRM and software.
So think about trying to understandthe underlying lessons of what they did.
Like if someone says, Hey,I did this in my business,
don't hesitate to ask him like,what was your thought process
or Why did you do it?
Because they're going to give youan answer
(25:11):
that applies in their context, like,I don't know, Parag,
if I go, you representI know a number of people
in the medical field, doctorsand company owners, Google,
ask them, why did you do thisin your medical practice?
Okay, The answer a specific the medicine,but it could have relationship to that.
So try to look at the underlying patternsof why people do things.
And I think that's goingto give you a lot of instruction.
(25:32):
So once you get them talking,just look a layer deeper.
Why does that move make sense
in that contextand how can you apply in your business?
And not everything will be applied.
But if you listen to enough peopleand think about it,
you will start to see the connections.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And part of it is I think about itthis way Life has a bunch of algorithms
and there are different algorithmsfor solving problems,
(25:52):
and sometimes you can have multiplealgorithms
that can solve the same problem,but sometimes one algorithm is
better than another because is
a multitude of reasons.
For example, one algorithm may be cheaper,it may be faster, maybe more efficient.
It may just be somethingthat you're more comfortable with
or have more experience with.
Therefore you can do it fasteror you can do it
(26:14):
alone without necessarilyneeding a bunch of help.
So just gathering as many of thosealgorithms and understanding
how people think about problemsand solutions,
especially when it comesto interdisciplinary approaches, meaning
that's the one thingthat's really fascinating to me
when it comes to problemsolving is the medical field, for example.
(26:36):
Well,we'll try to solve problems in one way,
and that will be many timeslimited to the medical field.
The legal field will try to solve problemsin a different way,
and that will be many times specificto the legal field.
Marketing companies will try to solveproblems in a completely different manner
and maybe in a more creative manner,
arguably, than these other approaches.
(26:56):
But when you
when you look at and try to combineall of these different approaches to see
what is the best one that fits here,and it may be a piece from MIT
for medical or maybe a piece from legaland maybe a piece from marketing.
I think many times, most of the time
you can fashiona better solution to a problem.
(27:17):
I think that's exactly right.
I think
connecting the dots, you hear that worda lot thrown around with entrepreneurship.
And I think for anyone listeninguntil you start running
your own business or nonprofitor company or whatever mission you're on,
it won't always make sense.
But once you do that, you'll take youryour area of domain expertise
and look at otherpeople's and you'll sort of,
(27:39):
you know, start to connect it.
And the other this is more of a metaor a broad lesson that I'd share is try to
if you're willingto give before you receive
and you do that enough times
without sitting there and thinking, Am Igoing to get something out of this person?
I have an attorneythat is in a field of law
that, you know, that becomesthat becomes relevant to what we do.
(28:03):
And we have referrals for him periodically
and not due to a lack of effort,but he rarely has referrals.
You know, for us just because of the wayhis practice goes and all that.
But I don't really sitthere and worry about, Oh, am I giving it
and not getting think about, Hey,how can you solve someone else's problem?
And B often you'll solve your own problem.
He solving a problem for us.But even they weren't.
(28:23):
Think about how you can give to othersand find out what they're looking for.
I mean, I always like to ask onegreat question.
If you're meeting another fellow businessowner, just ask them like, Hey,
what sort of referralsor customers are ideal for you?
I mean, if again, I'm a foodie, so I loveto go back to the restaurant example.
Like if I don't know someone'srunning a Thai restaurant, well, anyone
who likes good Thai food and wants a coolatmosphere probably should come to me.
(28:47):
And I'm like, okay, cool.
Well, if I had their food and I liked itand tell someone about it,
or if I know what Parag does,which I do, since I've had
the pleasure of referring people,then I know that.
So ask people what they're looking forand then maybe make a note of it.
Make it input into a spreadsheet
is something thatI've started doing more recently.
Listen to what other peopleare looking for and you never know.
And it'll also help youbecause you might have
(29:09):
someone contact you with a particularissue in whatever business you're in.
And if you've organized your informationand your network, you're going to know
versus I've had multiple instanceswhere I'm like, Wait,
who's that womanI talked to the one time who does this?
I'm trying to remember her.
And then eventually I find it really besystematic about giving to others
because whoever you refer to themor help them with or whoever
(29:30):
you connect them with someone.
It might not be a client.
It might be someone who can help themwith marketing or their CPA,
whoever it is, they're going to rememberyou and you're
putting something good out in the universeand everyone involved.
Even if you take a very selfish approach,everyone involved is going to be like,
Hey, for God, really help me or ever,really help me.
They did this for me
and that ultimately will come backto you in one way or another.
Yeah, I agree with that.
(29:50):
I think that there's this,
whether it's a karmic principleor just everyday life
is that that law of reciprocity or
some other principle that we haven'teven discovered yet or put a name on.
But this idea of if you want something,put it out first,
you want someone to help youwith something, provide or offer
(30:10):
help to somebody else.
If you're looking for money, donate money.
If you're looking for a lot of give loveand many times somehow it finds you.
So it does.
Yeah.
And you have to believe it becausethe thing is an entrepreneurship, guys.
Look I mean, you know, in my case,I've been running.
I've been running what we do for a while.
I know Parag has as well,but the early days, it's
(30:31):
not going to feel like anything.Like I'm helping people. I'm doing this.
I mean, for all of you that I've talked,I mean, early
days, you answer questions for freeor you feel it feels like it's free.
Even if the person did a paid consultationwith you, you look at the amount
it took out of you, like, wait,what am I doing?
But understand it,
if you keep getting better at what you doand you keep giving,
eventually all those things
(30:51):
are going to come back to you.
And I'll just a really quick storythat doesn't it's not my story, but
when I worked in New York Cityin real estate,
there was a gentleman who workedin the brokerage that I started out at
who helped this woman who workedat a doctor's office that a receptionist
she helped her rent her first apartmentwhen she moved to New York City
(31:14):
at age 22 or 23, Her and a roommate,
we're talking back inprobably the late nineties. Okay.
I guess it was that this happened.
I wasn't doing this the late ninetiesand high school, but whatever.
This was what this broker did
eventually that woman movedand got another place
and she told a few friends, Hey,this guy's got really help me.
He got more business eventually.
He did that a few times.
(31:34):
Eventually she ended up movingout of the city and moving to New Jersey.
She met a guy, they started a family.
He referred to a colleague in New Jersey,got her referral fee,
but she kept workingat the doctor's office and she
she told the doctor she's like, look,I know you know, so-and-so fancy realtor,
but this guy is really good.
He rents apartments, he sells.
And eventually she brought him inand he end up having lunch with the doctor
(31:55):
and the doctor bought a fourand a half million dollar place.
And in the mid 2000, a four and a halfmillion dollar apartment in New York City.
For those who know real estate,that's a commission of over $100,000
at that time that came in all becausehe was giving and he was giving it.
He made a little money,
but he wasn't making a lot of moneyhelping her rent a 1400 dollar apartment.
(32:15):
But eventually it paid offbecause he put something good out there.
And that story from a long time ago.I always kind of
think of that because I've experiencedvariations of that myself.
So yeah, yeah, I have to.
So so I can vouch for that many times.
The thing that you're
sometimes you're actively seekingit won't find you and you won't find it.
But when you, when you put outthat the effort and and from the
(32:37):
mindset of servicemany times that that thing,
whatever it is that you're lookingfor, will wind up finding you.
So speaking of finding things isour listeners want to find your website or
learn more about tier one or about youpersonally, how that how can they do that?
Sure.
So to learn about tier oneyou can visit w WW dot tier one
(33:00):
credit.comthat's tr 0necred it dot com go there.
You're welcome to schedule an appointmentwith our team.
And you know, my my staff will speakwith you if you have a credit issue.
Whatever
any kind of legal issue really come to usthey're will be happy to
answer the question.
And if it's something that requires
my involvement based on the type of case,of course, the well on the other hand,
(33:24):
if you want to reach out to me directly,I'm always happy to my emails
my first name Sheva as hi va at the same thing.
Tier one credit.com tror any credit credit.com or lookup Shiva.
That's gonna be ato look me up on LinkedIn
always open to connecting withfolks, hearing new ideas.
(33:46):
You know
I can't take a lot of credit becauseI've gotten so much help along the way.
So anyone who's a new business owner
and what an encouraging wordor you need something
pointed in a more specific directionas far as who might help you,
please don't hesitate to shoot me an emailif I know someone who can help you
or if I can help you myself.
I'll be happy to love that.
(34:07):
I appreciate thatand I can vouch for that.
She was a good friend for yearsand he's been there
through the ups and downs of my ownentrepreneurial journey, and we've shared
many meals together and many conversationsand I always enjoy them.
And hopefully you have all enjoyedthis conversation as well.
If this is your first time tuning in,
please make sure you like and subscribedepending on the platform you're on.
(34:30):
So you knowwhen the new new episodes are coming out.
And so I can continue to bring you valuefrom excellent guests
like Shiva and othersto help you with your business
and to help you go from crisis to justice.
Thank you all so much for joiningme today.
Thank you. All.
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