Transcript of From 300 Cold Calls to Fintech Exec: Noor Faith on Fan Basis & Scale

Welcome to the LevelUp podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together. Remember, I have your six. Get ready to LevelUp right now. Guys, welcome back to the LevelUp podcast. This is Paul Alex, and today I have another phenomenal guest. Guys, let's talk about payment processing. No, we're not talking about one of my portfolio companies, CashWipe. We're talking about another one, one of the fastest-growing payment processing companies right now for coaches, consultants, and anyone in the online space with e-commerce on the way, guys. All right? I can't forget about my e-commerce, guys. But with that being said, I want to introduce you to Nor. Nor is a startup guy. He's also an executive at one of the fastest-growing companies called Fan Basis, guys. We actually use them at one of our portfolio companies. They are a great service. And we're going to be talking about everything, about payment processes Seeing all the latest technology they have going on, the future plans, and what it took to actually build this startup, guys.

So if you want to learn on how you could potentially do a startup just like this, make sure to tune in. Nor, welcome to the show.

Thank you Good to be here. You're having me, Paul. I'm really excited to be here.

Dude, I'm pumped to have you on here, man. So, Nour, tell me a little bit about your background, what you do, where you come from, humble beginnings, and then what got you up to being an executive at Fan Basis. Yeah.

So really, I think it started for me when I was in college and I decided to drop out my senior year to go into my first tech startup. I learned about sales early on. I think I was doing network marketing in college, and I just understood the value of being able to get commission. And that blew my mind. You could control your own income, right? And bring yourself out of that. And I remember when I was in college, my parents had cut me off at that point. So I had to provide for myself, and I could barely make rent. I was starving at that time. So the first one in college, the network marketing opportunity definitely didn't crash and burn, but I understood the value of being able to write your own checks. So I dropped out my senior year, and I'm so grateful that my wife now, who've been together for 13 years, supported me the entire way through. Dude, congrats on that, by the way. Even her mother at the time told me, when I dropped out of college. I was just dating this girl only for a couple of months. Her mom told me, Nora, I believe in you.

I'm going to see your name on the side of a building one day. Go pursue your dreams, which is rare. And so to this day, my mother-in-law is my best friend and a big supporter. So I think that's important. But what I did is I dropped out my senior year of college, and I went into my first tech startup. They're not too far away from this office that we're sitting in right now. And I was a salesperson. I was making $300 a week, 1099, making 200, 300 cold calls a day. You tell me how many people would actually go through that, right? But I did it. And very quickly, I knew that I wanted to be the greatest, and I wanted to be number one, and I became the top person in that company. Eventually, I became a partner in that company, and I went around the country to go open up other offices, including LA. After that, startup after startup after startup. So I left. I went to go start my own agency. That went well for a while, and then I crashed and burned. I actually had 16 employees on payroll, and I remember one day waking up and I couldn't make payroll.

And that was one of the hardest, darkest days of my life. But I think battle scars are important. I think you learn so much from it. So after that, I rebranded, started up another one, got much leaner, was smarter. That was a huge success. And then I've been in a couple of other tech startups now that are venture-backed, which all led me here to this next venture, which is Fan Basis, which is just an absolute rocket ship. I'm so excited about it because not only are we one of the top, fastest-growing companies in the entire country, but we're making a massive difference where I think we're disruptive. And I think when you get to the point where you're a disruptor, that is when people start paying attention because you're making a real impact in maybe the current antiquated infrastructure of how things are, which is where payment processing falls into that category. Some of the people that do payment processing out there, they have antiquated methods or subsets of rules that allow people to scale their business, and specifically for the online market, specifically for online businesses, people that are selling a course, online coaches It's business mentors.

They can't use normal payment process and tools like Stripe or anything like that because they have holds of reserves on their funds. They maybe don't have access to buy now, pay later options. That is where we decided to build fan bases. And so, yeah, really in the last year, we've absolutely taken off. We work with some of the biggest names in the space, even the people that are OGs that have been doing payment processing, selling online courses for many, many years, over a decade. They now process on fan basis because we're the hot new kid on the block, it seems.

Oh, yeah. And I love it, man. So much to unfold with just your background alone, man. So let's get started with that, and then we'll dive into the nice shiny object of what fan basis is. Let's do it. So you said something in the very beginning of your background when you were like, dude, I was doing... How many dials? 300?

Yeah, 300 calls a day. 300 calls a day. Yeah.

Hand dialing. It takes a very special, unique person to do that. Do you believe that your mindset, the way you were raised, your parents, your background, your environment had a lot to do with that mindset, that belief that you're like, yo, I'm going to go through these 300 dials and make it happen?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's actually a huge thing. And one of the things that I believe is a challenge in today's society is people don't want to be bad at anything anymore before they become good. Everybody wants to get it right the first time. And a lot of that is because maybe our society is coddled when they're younger. For me, for example, when I was growing up, actually, I have a couple of great examples of how I knew that if you put your mind to something and if you put in the work, you can become great at it. If you put in the time was I was playing football when I was growing up, and I was in seventh, eighth, ninth grade. I really wasn't seeing the field very much. But in the offseason, I was putting in a ton of work. And by the time in my later years in high school, I had broken the school record for most catches in a season. I was first-team all-state. I was probably the best player in my high school. I was a captain on the football team, and I was really good. I actually wanted to take it further.

But I knew that it was just because of what was happening in the dark when no one was looking, or was I willing to eat shit for a long time before I I could get to the point where I could be successful? I had multiple other things along the way, situations like that. And also my parents, I would say they were really hard on me. But one of the things they did tell me also was that if I did put my mind to anything, I could achieve it. I love that, dude. So you got to have that belief in yourself. I also think having people around you that support you, I think that is an important thing. You know what I mean? So like I mentioned, my wife, I think that she's along the way, I have crashed and burned, and she supported me through the entire thing, and she believed in me, and she holds me accountable. There are times where I maybe am falling short of the man I said I was going to be, and she says, Hey, this is not who you said you were going to be. And that's huge for me.

But yeah, at that moment, coming into making 200, 300 cold calls a day. Also, I burn the bridges. I burn the ships, is what I meant to say. So I knew there was no going back. I knew that this was the way that I was going to make it happen. And yeah, I became the number one salesperson there within a few months because I put my head down and did the work.

Dude, it has to work. It has to work. And you got to burn the boats.

A hundred %.

You got to go all in on what you want achieve. And there's an ongoing trait in Melio. We know this because you're here. But every successful entrepreneur that comes on this show, I ask them that one question, Hey, was it someone that believed in you? And they're like, Yeah, my parents said that I could do whatever I want in life. And I think that's so powerful, dude, because there's so many parents out there that even by seeing maybe, you may be able to do that. You already put in your handicapping your children. So that's why I'm such a big believer. When I got married a year ago to my beautiful wife, Brittany, I told her, I was like, Babe, the one thing we will not say as a married couple when we start having kids, we will not say maybe. We will not say, well, I will try. I don't say that shit. We're either going to do it or we're going to do it. And that's it. And she's taking that mindset. So now she's actually transformed the mindset of her family, man. It's crazy Because I'm like, dude, have they been listening to my podcast?

That's funny. But it's because my wife. My wife is such a big advocate on positivity, dude. 100 %. On limiting beliefs, on going ahead and being around the right people, right? Absolutely. So that's awesome, dude. I love to hear that. So one question for the audience, because one thing that I always get asked, dude, and I'm pretty sure you've been asked this before, is why do you continue to work? Because people are like, Paul, you're ready to build portfolio companies. You're in Puerto Rico. You're semi-retired, bro, at the age of 37. I'm like, I am, dude, but I'm never going to retire. And for me, it's because I'm always chasing the better version of who I want to be.

Yeah, you said it 100 %. Yeah, dude.

So for you, what's your why when you first started, dude?

When I first started, my why was... I think I was very early on. My why was financially motivated. I just wanted to make money. That's all I cared about. There's nothing wrong with that. When I was younger. But then it became about a lot more than that, because then it became about helping others realize their potential as well, because I started to fulfill my potential. And along the lines of what you just said, that is what it is for me. Now it's chasing the best version of myself. Ed Milet talks about how when you're done in life and you go to heaven and you go ahead and you meet that best version of yourself. You either recognize him or you don't. And you're going to wish that you were able to live this life aiming to fill the potential of what you can do, whether it's finance, faith, fitness, family, fun, all those different buckets of life. So first it was financially motivated for me. Then I started to realize the impact that I'm actually having in other people's lives. Because I didn't know anything about sales. I didn't know anything about business. I was a young guppy back in the day.

But then when I became the top dog in the company, I started to realize that I could help others realize that same potential in themselves. And so for me, that's what it's about right now. For me, making the money, let's say I want to be a billionaire, let's say I want to own companies, let's say I want to be shredded, that's all written for me. That is going to happen because I already know that that is a knowing in in my life. But now it's about helping others get to that point. And honestly, it would be a disservice to me. If I didn't do that, that is probably the most fulfilling thing for me in my life at this point. I have young cats in my company now, in our company now at Fanbasis, that Coming in. And some of them have some good experience, but some of them don't. And just being able to help them and being more to them and help them get to the point where they could lead, manage, and run a team, that to me is like, that makes me the happiest in the world at this point.

That's good, man. Fulfillment. You need to be mission-driven in order to keep going, right? Completely agree. And I agree, dude. I think culture is everything. How important is culture to you?

I think culture is everything. I think culture is especially important when you're in a young startup or you're in an environment where you need to be able to build because you want everybody to be all in, to be bought in. And that's not easy to do. So culture is really important. At my last company, culture was great. The companies before that, culture was not great, and we suffered for it, and we didn't have it. And that was partly on me. I wasn't the leader I needed to be, and I had to look in the mirror. I was like, why are these people quitting on me? And I had to look in the mirror, and I knew that it was a reflection of me not building that culture. Now here at Fan Basis, and just in general, culture is paramount. So what we do is you implement core values, but core values is not just something you throw on the wall, that's a sticker or something you hand out to people on their first day at work, but you really live and breathe core values. And when you do that, and it's When you're from top down, when leadership is totally bought into the core values, now everybody in the company, they know how to act when it's a moment of crisis, or when they're by themselves and they need to make a decision, or when there's a new employee, and they want to know, How do I fit in here?

How can I ramp quickly? When you have a strong culture, you feel it. It's a living, breathing energy within the company, within the organization. So I think it's important. One thing I say a lot of the times, especially in a startup, you live and die by the people that you have. A hundred %. So for us, people don't even get in the door if they're not honest, ambitious, teachable, creative, hardworking, and they're not completely bought into it, into the mission. They can be an A player. They can have all the experience in the world. But if they're not a good culture fit, we're a hell no. And so for us, it's either hell yes or hell no. Yeah.

And then let's see, for example, let's paint a scenario here. Let's say fan bases is hiring. You're the one doing the interviews. What traits are you looking at inside a young person? I'm talking about probably 18 all the way up to 25. What traits would you look for when you're looking to hire someone?

Yeah, that's a good question. So it's something that we developed along the way in my career, actually one of my first startups. And I said this recently. It's called Hatch. Hatch is something that I am looking for, where I know if they are honest, ambitious, teachable, creative, and hardworking, that we, at Fanbasis, we have the systems, the training, the great product market fit to be able to meet them halfway, so where they can succeed and be exceptional in their role and also contribute to the growth of the company. So Hatch is very important. Honest, ambitious, teachable, creative and hard working. The most important one for me there is teachable, coachable, because I would rather Take someone that is coachable, that is more green, that doesn't have a lot of experience, rather than take someone with 10 years of business or sales experience, because that person may have bad habits. That person may think they know it all. That person may not be as malleable or may not be open to being wrong or having a new idea. Whereas that person that's a blank canvas, everything I tell them is going to be the truth, and they're going to be more open to coaching and feedback.

So coachability is the most important. My top reps right now are top people in our company at fan basis. They are the most coachable. As soon as we run that morning meeting or that sales standup or sales training, they're implementing it right away into their next call. So I think that's a huge thing. Now, of course, you do look for experience, right? I do look for people that have experience in the space. We look for people that may have worked in venture-backed startups before, and all that definitely plays a part. And then also we look at, do they really want to work at fan base or do they just need a job? And that's just in general. I want people to be running towards us, not be running away from something else. So I think that's another big thing. But it's funny, the drive and hunger of people is also something you look for, and that can compensate for a lack of talent or lack of experience. A hundred %. So I look also in the previous time when I was in more scrappy startups, one of the things I looked for was like, hey, if they just moved here from out of town, they have no choice but to make it work.

So I love people like that because they were all in. And then also people that maybe were going to community college, but also working at the same time, they have the work ethic. Those were other things that also I just identified that would work for me. And yeah, we have really polished people here. So I think character is really important. You could be an A player, but if you don't have character, it's not going to work.

A hundred %, man, because it's a cancer. It's a cancer to your culture, and you got to get rid of the cancer before it grows. Because it can go ahead, and their beliefs and their bad traits could go ahead, and it can contaminate the rest of the crew, right? So I'm a big believer in that, man. Dude, trust me. We talked before this. You know how I feel about culture. Culture is everything to me, dude. In business, longevity, don't burn bridges, man. Burn the boats to go on in on your idea, but don't burn bridges. Guys, do good business.

Completely agreed. One of my mentors once taught me that the idea of not burning bridges, assume that everybody that you meet, you're going to see 126 months a year down the road at some point. And I've seen people, young people burn bridges because they're doing it for the wrong reasons. They're just chasing after cash. They don't care to be honorable in business or they're selfish. At some point, you will learn because I've had to learn it myself, where you will see those people down the road. And you know what? I was graceful on the way that I've exited certain relationships or that I part ways. And that has come back around tenfold, where now those opportunities have presented themselves down the road. Absolutely, I think not burning bridges and keeping good relationships long term is everything.

It's everything, man. It's your character. And in this space, payment processing, dude, I mean, everybody knows everybody, dude. Eventually, you're going to walk into a network party event. Somebody's going to know someone. And people are only about three to five people away anyways, right? And you guys are down the street. So Miami is a hub right now. That's true. This is startups, especially in the online space. Yes. Huge, right?

Yes.

So let me ask you, man, let's talk about the startup of Fanbase. Yeah. Okay. Were you part of the founding executives that found Fanbase?

I was not. I was not one of the day one employees. I've been here now at the company for six months. But what I can tell you is that founding team at Fanbasis, the work that went in, it's really hard to go from zero to one. Zero to one, in my opinion, is the most painful because you're iterating, you're reiterating, you're finding what doesn't work, you're finding what works. But that founding team at Fanbasis, they are incredible because this company has been around for about four and a half years, but really, I think something clicked in the last year where we found the right positioning in the market, the right product offering. Our tech is second to none in the space now. So shout out to everybody that's founding member of the team here at Fan Basis, Yash, Andrew, Lyle, Alicia, and there's definitely some more in there. But this company would be nowhere without them. And I'm just fortunate that I was able to come in on the back end of what they were able to do, and that they trusted me to come and bring in my experience to help take it to the next level.

So, yeah, my job is easy compared to what they had to do to get to this point.

Well, I always tell people, if I was to do it all over again, and I wanted a shortcut to get to success faster, I would want to be a number two or number three under the number one.

A hundred %.

And most people don't realize it. I get it in the past five years since COVID, man. Everybody wants to be a CEO and a founder. Oh, Dude, I got a company and all that jazz. Guys, when you get to a certain level in business where you have employees, you have payroll, you have liability, right? And that's key word here. Liability. Everything falls on the number one. That's true. Number two, Actually, he sometimes gets paid more than the number one. Guys, I got a couple of executives in my camp. They get paid way more than I do. But at the end of the day, they are grinding. They are going ahead, and they're making the moves to make it happen. And I'm proud of that, dude. I want them to grow, right? So with that being said, dude, that's awesome. So six months in the business, and you guys are growing massively. I mean, I'm seeing you guys everywhere, dude. So what is making you guys different, right now? What is the pain point that you guys are solving for thousands of online companies right now that the other payment processing platforms couldn't do?

Absolutely. Great question. Thank you for it. So at Fanbasis, one of the biggest things we have a heavy focus on is payment processing, right? The big thing there is we will never put a hold of reserve on their funds. And It's because we scrutinize so much the integrity of our platform. We don't just bring everybody onto the platform like other payment processing companies out there that do that. And we really don't advertise ourselves as this mass market solution. We advertise ourselves as the premium solution in the space. And so because of that, you have some of the biggest names in the space, the most respectable, reputable business owners that everybody here knows, that now process on fan basis. Because for us, when we talk about reputation, the most important reputation you have is the one that you have with yourself. And I get through a rock from here in the office, and we would be able to hit clients that currently work with our processor. And so it's important that we have a reputation with ourself first, and then a reputation with others second. But because we hold ourselves to a high standard, we want to make sure that we only bring on businesses on the platform that are just doing good business, that have a good risk profile, that are scaling, that have good tenure.

They've been around for some time, and that's who's on fan basis right now. I love that. And that's one of the big things. So we won't put a holder reserve on their funds on their account, which is huge. And that's not something that any other processor can really say out there. And then the second thing for us is we've been able to build out the infrastructure where people have the full suite of buy now, pay later options. So that's massive. I think for Right now in the online space, you have a lot of people that are selling courses or they're selling mentorships or people that are running an online business that are not in that coaching course space. They haven't had access to something like I remember back in my day when I was a salesperson trying to close deals, it was Visa or Amex, how are you going to pay? And that's it. If they didn't have the money, I would have to really try to handle and use some snazzy sales tactics to be able to handle those price objections. Well, now with Buy Now Pay Later, that price objection, for the most part, just went out the window.

Absolutely. And now our business is on our platform. They're able to transact with so many customers that before they weren't able to. And furthermore, we have actually went and taken it a step further. We've actually went and inked partnerships with some of these buy now, pay later companies. So we're able to offer more favorable terms to our clients on our platform. So because of that, very interesting, when sellers jump onto fan basis and they have not used buy now, pay later before, offer it to their customers, they will do about 38 % more top line revenue in the first 90 days because they're able to transact with customers they otherwise weren't able to. And sometimes, kid you not, we have people that have double, triple their revenue within the first months of using it because it just widens the customer base. So we're We're really proud of that. We're really excited about it. And sure, we're rolling out new features and products all day long. Again, we just hold ourselves to a very high standard. So we are shipping new features to be able to not only just implement increased conversions at the top of the funnel, but give our sellers on our platform a chance to collect more cash towards the bottom of the funnel once they're actually transacting and processing payments as well.

Dude, that's awesome. There's so many things to unbox here. I mean, first off, number one, kudos for you guys and putting good business first. There's so many companies out there, dude, that just are looking for cash flow. They're looking for the dollar. They're trying to expand, right? But what you guys are doing, you guys are doing it right. Not every customer is going to be the right fit. Not all money is good money. I always say this all the time.

We've learned that.

Dude, seriously. And you guys are looking for companies that are actually scaling. They're actually growing. They actually have a good customer base. And that's why you guys are one of the fastest growing companies out there right now in payment processing for online companies. But with that being said, the second thing I like about you guys is the Pay Now or Buy Later, correct?

Yeah, Buy Now, Pay Later. Dude, that is fire. It's a game changer.

That is fire because I usually only see that with e-commerce, typically. Not digital products, not courses, not programs on the online space. And so I think that's a big needle mover that You guys are actually probably going to open the floodgates when people drop this episode, dude. But when they find out about that, it's going to be fired, dude. So many people can leverage that. Now, is there a certain amount of time that a business has to be in business in order to work with you guys?

No, there is not. It just is how this naturally has evolved, where more rapid goal businesses want to work with fan bases. We just haven't advertised ourselves and haven't positioned ourselves where we're only here for you to go and make your first dollar. Now, we won't. We don't reject anybody. Anybody can sign up to fan bases and start processing with us. But we want to make sure people are doing good business, right? Because at the end of the day, we're not just here to help be a payment processor. We're here to help you scale the business. So that's the big thing. I think I would like a lot of people to know is that when you get into fan bases, you're getting a partner in your business that doesn't take any equity. Our team actually at Fanbasis, our account executives, our account managers, everybody, even our CEO, Yash, they all come from this. Even myself, we all come from this digital info product space, this Internet economy. We've all ran or been part of businesses and sat on offers before at some point. So we know exactly what the pain points of our customers are.

So the beautiful thing is when we bring on a seller to the platform, we're not just processing their payments. We're actually looking at their funnel. We're looking at their email marketing. We're looking at their media buying. We're advising them and consulting them and helping them set up their funnel to optimize conversions. The best thing about it is the nature of what we do. We have tens of thousands of sellers on our platform. So we have the best media buyers in the world, the best sales agencies in the world. And we're able to put our sellers in the best position to be able to convert at a high level. So we've absolutely changed the game. We've revamped so many of our top sellers' funnels, and I think that that's a big value add as well, and something we tell sellers, And I think that goes back to relationships, right? When something we were talking about before we jumped on to this podcast is we just have such strong relationships with our sellers because we actually care, right? People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Our sellers, our clients, they'll never leave us.

It doesn't matter if they're getting a lower processing fee somewhere else because we actually take care of them, and we're here to help them scale their business. I think that's a huge thing, and that's almost an intangible.

I always tell people this, man, because ever since I got in the online space since April of I'm not selling myself. I wasn't online for eight years. So I had no part of knowledge on selling, marketing, copywriting, all this crazy shit that we do on the online space, right? And I self-taught myself that spent now in the past five years since then, over a million dollars of self-education. I think self-education is key here. Educating yourself is the shortcut to success, because what you don't know is what you don't know. But with that being said, dude, you're helping business owners actually scale their business, which is very important when I hear that, because I feel like partnerships, that's the value, dude. That is the value. Like, what else? Absolutely. You're not just doing payment processing. I mean, Stripe, and not to hate on Stripe because I use them for a very long time. When they would hold my funds to one of my portfolio companies a few years back, they were holding up to $700,000. And that's a hit, guys. Imagine $700,000 bank account frozen because you're a high-risk business and essentially online programs. They are.

They're considered a high-risk business unless you have a tangible item that you send or whatnot, you could prove that. That's true. So when it comes down to it, for everybody right now that is dealing with payment processing issues, and you have an online program, you sell coaching, Consulting, Consulting, all that jazz. I would highly recommend that you talk to Noor and his team at Fan Basis, guys. They will hook you up to scale your offer. Now, let's talk about some inspiring stories, dude. One client success story That resonates with you, dude. You're like, Yo, we just dramatically changed this person's business because they use our services, they use our customer service. They've met me. I've been able to connect with them and all that jazz. What story do you have?

I love that. One of them that comes to mind is someone on our platform that does... He has a Section 8 housing offer. So he teaches people how to go and buy Section 8 properties, find them, buy them, get the funding for it. And One of the things that we did was we helped him build a good conversion strategy where he could get people not only through the funnel, but be able to transact with them at the bottom of the funnel. Because a lot of these people, when you're selling an offer, the people that are buying a course, for example, they're trying to get out of maybe the situation that they're in very quickly. They're trying to make money fast. So some of those people may not be necessarily in the best financial position that are buying a course or they're buying an online info product. So what we identified was, and we helped him identify, was that a A lot of the people that were in his webinar that were coming through the top of the funnel didn't necessarily have the financial purchasing power to be able to purchase the 5K, the 10K products, whatever it was.

And so what we were able to do is push the buy now, pay later financing options on the webinar. And now there's millions of dollars coming through on the webinar. And you just see buy now, pay later transactions that are coming through on the webinar, one after another, because now he's able to transact with people. And look, it goes both ways. Yes, the vendor, the seller that I'm We're talking about they're able to collect cash now, and they're able to scale their business. But also the people that want to learn this service, learn this product, be able to buy Section 8 properties, now they're able to get in, and they're able to make payments over time, whereas the ROI of the information that their learning is going to be higher and much more than what their payments are on a monthly basis. So I think that's a huge thing and a huge success story. And there's many more just like that. And one of the things also just to mention is, how do you know when you have a webinar, for example, how do you know if those leads are even qualified? Or if that lead has the financial purchasing power to purchase your product?

Most of the time you don't. A lot of the times, a lot of our sellers on our platform, they just had a name, an email, and a phone number as a lead, and that's it. They were flying blind. So they're wasting time and resources because they're paying salaries and their salespeople are getting on calls with people that either are unqualified or the sales or the customer, the prospect doesn't even show up. They're spending millions of dollars a year on ads and media They're buying, but they're not necessarily knowing who to target, or if they're even targeting the right candidate. They don't even know the profile of their best customers. And then if people get on a webinar, for example, you don't even know if people have the financial purchasing power. They could be all over the spectrum of people that have good credit versus not. So we actually, if I may, we rolled out this new product called Lead Qualifier. We're really excited about it. So the Qualifier product, what it does is it enriches all of their leads and all of their customers, both going forward and also retroactively. So you can see exactly what every single's leads, what their income is, what their credit score is.

Do they own a home or are they renting? What is that mortgage payment? Is it an FHA? What is their religion? What is their political affiliation? We have all of this data now that shows you the financial purchasing power of that lead. So that way you can make sure that your best salesperson is partnered up with the best lead that is conducive to that salesperson. You can make sure that you're only focusing your time and attention on people that can afford your product. Let's say you are running a webinar. Now you can separate the people that are in your webinar from low ticket versus high ticket instead of trying to come at everybody with a one size fits all fee. With media buying, you can actually find out who your best customer base is, feed that back into your pixel, create custom audiences. I mean, there's so many use cases for this, but it's Absolutely game changer. And I think right now, it's been about the consumer education phase. So a lot of people didn't know that this was something that exists, or they didn't really know how they could implement this in their business.

And for us now, it's selling like wildfire because we are able to really make a difference to give people more insight so that they can operate with precision instead of just throwing leads at the wall and seeing what sticks.

I always say it's like throwing spaghetti on the wall. You're trying to see what sticks, man. But with what you guys got in this qualifier, okay? A couple of things you guys are doing, man. You're helping somebody ramp up their marketing. Because if you're even getting to the point where you're getting to know the person and their political views, oh, man, that's a redirection of your marketing, right? By the wording, the copyright and all that jazz. And then the second thing is you're able to optimize the sales process. And when you optimize the sales process, you're saving money on the back end. You're actually helping out with the culture. Because why? You're feeding your team, qualified leads.

100 %.

So what ends up happening, and this happened to a few dozen of my buddies that have companies in the online space, and they were like, Yeah, dude, I got another one quitting on me today. I was like, Why? Why? They're like, Dude, because my leads are shit. And I'm like, Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Have you tried this? Yes, yes. I just don't know how to do it. So something like this is a game changer, man.

Absolutely. I've been a sales leader myself, in fact, and I would hear my Most people complain about the leads. Most of the time, I would yell at them. I'd scream at them. You'd be like, my marketing is like this. You know that scene in Glen Gary, Glen Ross, right? Where he's like, the leads. So I would absolutely say, it's not the leads, it's you. But there comes a point in time where buyers Our leaders now are smarter. They are. You want to make sure that you're not just targeting anybody. You want to make sure that you're targeting qualified leads. It is important. I've learned that the hard way, where I also had people quitting on me because I had them just spraying and praying. Absolutely. And so important. And you will have much better retention with your team. Your salespeople will love you. Your salespeople will convert. And you're not going to be spending time, money, energy, resources on these salespeople, wondering why they're not closing, when the reality is it's your responsibility as a business owner to get them in the best position to close deals. And now with the qualifier product that we have, you have just that.

Oh, yeah. And then as far as that goes, man, I mean, what is the future plans for fan bases? What are you guys cooking, man? Anything you could tell us?

Yeah, I'll share some sauce. That's fine. Look, we're really excited. I think, alone with the product market fit that we have, number one, our tech is second to none in this space. We're just playing a different game than anybody else in this space. And we don't look left or right. We're really focused on We're doing what we're doing here. Like I said, we hold ourselves to a really high standard, and we just have a great team. There are people in the office that are working essentially like 22 hours a day because they really buy into what we're building. Sure, we'll have the unicorn valuation. Sure, we'll have the multibillion dollar exit down the road. We commit first and we figure the rest out as we go, but we do have a really great plan. So what that looks like is for us, one of the next frontiers is definitely that B2B market. When COVID happened, this digital and info product economy took off. Everybody started an online business. We wanted to service that, which is why we pivoted and focused completely on payment processing and buy now, pay later for that market. But just like individuals and individual creators and these online coaches, they also deal with these issues with holes and reserves on payment processing.

So do regular businesses as well. My last company, for example, we would have holes and reserves, and we were using Stripe. So that is the next frontier for us, just getting to that market. So it's about positioning. It's about partnerships. It's about marketing. It's also just about maybe building out our outbound sales motion. The thing is, it was just funny, is we haven't had to do any outbound, which I'm the head of sales also at Fanbasis. And so for me, I'm like, I want to turn this into a boiler room as much as possible. But we're so spoiled in the sense that our product is so good. We have such a good lucrative affiliate referral program, which I'm happy to talk about as well. And so people are just coming in droves over to fan bases. I can't hire fast enough over at fan bases, which I'm really excited about. It's a good problem to have. It's a good problem to have. Absolutely. And so the leads are just coming in in droves. And we're getting to the point where I need to hire just to be able to handle the leads that are coming in.

So we want to service that market, absolutely. But we want to also focus our time and attention on that next frontier, which is the B2B. And of course, there are some features that we are going to be rolling out here pretty soon. It's a different payment orchestration features, some new buy now, pay later options that we're going to be able to offer. And some stuff I can't really reveal right now, but it is exciting. Just know if you're on the fan basis ride right now, you're going to the moon, essentially, if you're running a business and you're with fan basis.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a no brainer, man. It really seems like a no brainer, especially comparison between what Stripe used to do for online creators and business owners and what you guys are doing. You guys actually look like you care, right? And in business, H2H, man. Human to human interaction, right? Absolutely. So you guys got your account executive, you're You're talking to the people, you're talking to business owners, and they feel all warm and fuzzy, dude. They're going to stay doing business with you for a very long time. Yeah. Okay, dude. So with that being said, let's talk about... You mentioned the affiliate. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about your affiliate. How does your affiliate program work for fan bases?

This affiliate referral program, I haven't seen anything like this in my entire life. People talk about passive income, and most of the time when people talk about passive income, in my opinion, it's BS because it does require work. Absolutely. People say owning real estate is passive income. It requires work, right? It truly does. If stuff happens in your property, you have a property manager, you have to manage that. This is truly the definition of passive income and something I'm really excited about. Again, how fanbasis has been able to grow so successfully. But the way that it works is, Paul, let's say you wanted to send over somebody that you know who runs an online business or runs a coaching business. You wanted to send them. They had an issue with payment processing, and you wanted to send them over to Fanbasis so that we could handle their processing for them. So you refer somebody over to Fanbasis. They sign up with us. Now you, Paul, you are receiving a percentage of our net margin on that referrals, processing volume in perpetuity for life. Oh, yeah. There are people that don't even process on our platform, but all that they do is they just refer people to sign up on Fanbasis, and they're doing six figures a month.

I believe it. I mean, it's insane. So if I wasn't working inside of Fanbasis, this is probably going to be my full-time job. Oh, yeah. It's just being an affiliate For a fan basis, and we want to take care of people. And the good thing is we have such brand equity right now. We are the hot new kid on the block in that sense. So it's not like we are pushing this affiliate program. We're fronting in any way. People naturally want to go out and refer us because they've also had a good experience with fan bases, which is the best thing, right? Word of mouth travels so fast, especially in this space, as we mentioned prior to talking on this podcast. But that is how the affiliate referral program works. So I would advise anybody that's watching here on the podcast, anybody that you know that's running an online business, anybody that's running an online coaching business that's a business mentor selling a course, send them over and you believe that they need help with payment processing, or you think they can take advantage of the buy now, pay later suite that we have, or even if the lead qualifier product, for example, because we actually offer affiliate referral for that as well, send them over to Fanbasis.

We'll take care of them. We'll sign them up on the platform, and we'll get you the referral on the back end. And you guys are going to earn passive income for the rest of your life as long as they're processing on our platform.

I love that. And you guys know I love passive income. I'm just saying. So, Nour-Who doesn't, right? Exactly. Guys, it is a new brainer. So if you have a small business in the online space, coach, consultant, you have an online offer. Right now, they're working on an e-commerce in the future, guys, for you e-commerce guys and gals, go over to Fanbase. Talk to Nour. Name drop me. All right, guys? I'll take that affiliate all day.

Absolutely. We're excited about that. And I think reputation goes a long way. So Anybody that comes over from you, Paul, will absolutely be taken care of. No.

And I'm pretty sure we're going to get a link down in the bio, guys. We also shoot it on our socials and our email campaigns. We have a humongous network, guys. So I'm pretty sure there's going to be some exciting entrepreneurs that want to jump on the fan bases wagon, brother. So with that being said, guys, phenomenal interview, right? For all you online coaches and consultants and everybody in the online space right now. With that being said, some words of motivation from you, Noor. You You have been a successful entrepreneur. You have the mindset. You have a winning mindset, brother. And that's what I can appreciate when I talk to anyone is, is where they're at. Are they solution driven? Are they hungry? Do they have that power, dude? And you have it all, dude. You have it all. You have that winning formula that most people are looking for, bro. So this is the reason why I started the LevelUp, because people need to hear from the one percenters, from the outliers, right? From the people that are making it happen, not just talking about it. So we do about three million downloads on a monthly basis right now.

If you can tell a piece of advice, just coming from you, dude, you're a representative If you're an executive at fan bases, to our audience, whether they're a beginner entrepreneur, whether they're in their 30s, their 50s, their 60s, they're running a business, they're like, Dude, I'm on my own roadblock. What would you tell them?

Yeah. By the way, I appreciate the kind words. Thank you. You know what I'll say directly to everyone watching right now, that one of the biggest things that I've seen in the most successful people and something I've learned to develop, which over time, which is not easy, is risk tolerance. So you have to be willing to risk it all. You have to be willing to lose it all. Now, the further along you get in life, when you get a mortgage, when you have kids, when you start to build your family, the harder it gets to do this, because now you're not just making decisions for yourself. You're making decisions for everybody. The earlier you can in life take risks and be able to put everything on the line and be willing to fail. That's, I think, one of the biggest things. You have to be willing to fail. One of my favorite movies, Paul, it's the Replacements with Keanu Reeves in it, that football movie. There's a moment at the end of the movie where Keanu Reeves is in the huddle And he says, Chicks dig scars. He said, Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever.

And that, to me, sticks with me. And yeah, I have battle scars along the way, but I've had a risk tolerance, which has helped Let me get to that next point in my life. So that is another thing. Like, battle scars are attractive. People are drawn to people that have a story that have been through the mud, that have been through the fire. So the faster you can fail in life, the better. In fact, that's something that I tell my people right now at our company, is I want you guys to fail as fast as possible because trying to get it right early on, you're going to learn the hard way that if you try to be perfect early on and you don't have that expansion mindset where you're willing to be wrong or you're willing to go through the fire, eventually you'll get punched in the face and you won't know how to handle that. Instead, understand that it's a part of life to get scars and that that is what will make you more attractive in the future, not only to a partner in life, but also to business partners and people that you want to work with.

So risk tolerance is the biggest thing I can give people as far as advice.

I love that, dude. And that is the LevelUp. Nor an executive from Fanbasis, guys. Nor, where can they find you, first off? Because I want people to connect with you, dude. You got a wealth of knowledge, my friend.

I appreciate that.

And then where can they find Fanbasis?

Absolutely. So So for myself, it's @alldayfate. That's allday, F-A-T-E-H. And then Fanbasis, of course, you got to connect with us. It's @fanbasis on Instagram and Twitter. It's F-A-N-B-A-S-I-S. You can also go to fanbasis. Com. Go ahead and sign up and create an account. Let us know you came from the podcast, and we'll hook you up with someone special. We're excited for you guys because right now, this is the culmination of what the Internet was supposed to do. And so get with us. Follow us. Follow on the journey. We're excited to have you guys part of it.

So guys, if you're ready to level up your payment processing, make sure to talk to Nore. He just dropped his contact information. Make sure to click the link in the bio. It will direct you right to Fanbase's contact information as well. And they'll help you scale your payment processing and business together, guys. Okay, guys, we are currently right number one in business on Apple. What is it? Apple podcast. I was about to say Spotify, Emilio. I don't know why. But anyways, as you guys know. Yeah, soon, soon, soon. Well, we're working on it, guys. We're closing some deals on the back and on that. But with that being said, we are top 15 in all categories on Apple podcast, guys. And we're growing because of you, not because of me, maybe because of video because he does everything. And that's it, guys. Catch us on the next episode. We're going to bring phenomenal guests. We're just getting bigger and bigger, and we're growing, and we're growing every single month, guys. And we're launching our new podcast room here in the next in the next couple of months. So you guys are going to see a new display coming soon.

And that's it, guys. Make sure to LevelUp, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Thanks for listening up to the LevelUp podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to share with a family, friend, and everyone you know who's ready to LevelUp. Leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you tune in. It really helps spreading the word. And don't forget to check out officialpaulalex. Com for more episodes and resources to kickstart your journey. Let's LevelUp together.