Chase Craft 0:00
Are superpowers allowing you the ability to make your ticket sales more accessible to all and increase those ticket sales so that you can get more butts in the seat and have a greater impact in the world.
Sarah Fejfar 0:11
How are entrepreneurs like us daring bravely to build a stage? Ditch the sweatpants and step up to the mic? How do we create our own transformative events? So we can get our message out into the world in a bigger way. It's not only profitable, but it's actually something we can be proud of.
Sarah Fejfar 0:31
That's the question and the answers are inside this podcast. My name is Sarah Fejfar. Welcome to Green Room Central.
Sarah Fejfar 0:39
Today I brought into green room central studios Chase craft. He's the CEO and founder of my abundant Chase has been involved in the coaching and personal development space for over a decade. The bulk of that time spent starting and scaling mommy millionaire, a coaching company he and his wife Kayla craft to build together his time and experience in the coaching industry led him to create my abundant a buy now pay later alternative financing company or coaches. His passion is to make personal development accessible for everyone, no matter their financial situation.
Sarah Fejfar 1:14
He's a father of three wonderful kids and enjoys spending his time watching his boys play hockey and being his daughter's biggest cheerleader at her musicals. While Chase doesn't personally host events. He supports those who are hosting events by providing their event participants flexible payment options for purchasing event tickets, allowing hosts to convert more ticket sales by making it more accessible for people and also giving them working capital upfront from those ticket sales to help offset the hard cost of the event. Hey there Chase Welcome to greenroom central studios say hello to linchpin nation.
Chase Craft 1:49
Hey guys excited to be here. Thank you, Sara for having me on.
Sarah Fejfar 1:52
I'm thrilled that you're here because I'm super excited to share about what your company is up to. Because I think I think it's a game changer in that digital product. Personal development space.
Chase Craft 2:04
Thank you. Yeah, sure.
Sarah Fejfar 2:07
So let's get into it and talk about your superpower. I always like to ask people, What is their superpower as it relates to events? And you kind of have a very unique one. So give it to us?
Chase Craft 2:22
Yeah, absolutely. So as some of you know, my company my abundant we offer, buy now pay later, alternative financing for the coaching industry. And, you know, our superpower, as a company. And this is some a mission that I had when I created this company is we make your products and your vision and your message more accessible to all. And that is the mission at my abundant and I really think that our superpower is allowing you to have a greater impact in the world, getting your message into more people's ears, and getting those butts in seats at events, which is so important. Because you're on a mission to create value into the world, you're on a mission to create more impact with the people that you come in contact with. And the way that you do that at events is getting butts in the seats, and our superpowers allowing you the ability to make your ticket sales more accessible to all and increase those ticket sales so that you can get more butts in the seat and have a greater impact in the world.
Sarah Fejfar 3:25
Oh, that's so beautiful. And I think it really hits home for me because my life was changed by getting into the room. And it was at a personal development event. And prior to that, like I was age 36. I didn't even know rooms like this existed. And it was life changing. And just underline that within 10 months of being in that room. I had paid off all debt that we'd been sitting under for 15 years, I had moved my family across the country and left my corporate career of 16 years. I mean, those are massive shifts. Oh, and started my own business. And it all came from getting in the room. And I just can't imagine where I'd be right now, if I wasn't able to find my way from a finance financing perspective into that room. Thankfully, I had the funds, but I know there's so many people whose lives could be changed if they were able to pay over time. Yep. And not every event is going to be a low ticket, where it makes it easy to get in the room. And that's by design. And I think especially even at the higher tiers, there's when and when you get further up in this business, the ticket prices go up naturally. I think
Chase Craft 4:49
VIP options, the whole thing. Yeah, right. And
Sarah Fejfar 4:52
I think it makes sense to have financing options. We'll get more into it in a little bit but I'm sure So that is kind of my story of how I got started into this space, and how just being able to fund getting in the room changed my life. What I would love to know is like, what's the story of how my abundant got started?
Chase Craft 5:15
Yeah, absolutely. So my experience and my story of being in a room and getting into that first event, started a little over 10 years ago. And I attribute that, that intro to my wife, Kayla, who was amazing, and she was the one that kind of, you know, pioneered that if you will, for our family. And I was that, you know, that resistant husband didn't want anything to do with it didn't want anything to do with personal development, we got started in network marketing. That was that was kind of our intro into entrepreneurship intro into the personal development world, all that stuff. And, you know, one thing that that that network marketing companies do really well, is they throw amazing events, and they're, they're loud, they're energetic, they're a little bit on the, you know, crazy side, especially from an outsider coming in. And I remember sitting in that first big, you know, celebration event that they have there, they had their big, global event every year, I think there was, like, 13,000 people in the room. And I was, you know, totally new to this world, totally new to entrepreneurship, I was working in the oil fields at the time, working for my dad and Bakersfield. And I remember sitting in that room going, these people are absolutely have lost their minds. Like, this is like what are people talking about, of, of, you know, manifesting and dreaming and, and going after your, your dreams and all this stuff. And I'm just like, I'm just so content with, you know, with being in my job that I have, and working my long hours every every day, and being away from the home and all that stuff. And so, but there was a pivotal moment in that in that event that I that I particularly remember. And I just remember just kind of sitting back and going, what it what if this could be for me, you know, what if what if I could, you know, open up my heart and open up my mind to to think what else is possible for my life? And from that moment, it was like, Okay, I came home. You know, I think I think Kayla had been in network marketing for a year, maybe two years at that, at that time, I was super unsupportive, didn't help her at all, you know, would tell her that she's crazy, all that stuff, like I was I was the typical unsupportive husband, you know, probably to the 10th degree. And I remember coming home and just telling her all right, I'm in with you, like, let's do this thing. Because I really caught the vision, I caught the dream, I was like, okay, you know, this, this could happen for my life, this could happen for my family. And that that totally changed the trajectory of both of our lives at that moment, you know, obviously, for her, it, you know, just lit a spark underneath her to, you know, she was killing it without me but having my support being there, even though I wasn't involved in building her business, helping her build her network marketing business at the time, I was supportive, I'd be you know, I would have the kids whenever she needed to host an event I would, you know, I was supportive of her traveling and going seeing her team and all that kind of stuff. And so that just completely changed the trajectory for our family. You know, and just in it all started at that one event that I caught the vision, you know,
Sarah Fejfar 8:28
it's interesting that you mentioned that because I I did the same thing. So I was I went to my first personal development event, and it was just so unlike anything I've ever seen before. And it definitely turned me away from being a skeptic about all this personal development stuff and woowoo and you know, totally dialed in. And I came home just like lit on fire and I told my husband I I need to get you into one of these rooms because I don't even know how to describe what just happened and what's going on inside of there and the type of people that you're going to meet and so a few months later the the mentor that I had gone to had was putting on another one and we got our first babies that are ever and had and went away for four nights to this event and it was like he came home the same as yo just wow this is I'm all in like this is crazy how I how life can change and and it's instant yeah so for for those of us who might be like me who are not familiar with mommy millionaire share a little bit about it sounds like she's your your wife started in network marketing and then made a jump to something else.
Chase Craft 9:47
Yeah. Yeah. So at that time at that of that event, I think it was like 2012 2013 Maybe. And, you know, her business started doing really well with network marketing. Um, and obviously I came on board and was being very supportive, but I wasn't involved in the business at all. And then she hit a point with her business where it was like, you know, I was working for my dad at the moment, or at the time, and he would always like, get on me, he's like, Dude, you have to like cash your checks in, like, I have to reconcile my my, you know, banking and accounting, all that stuff. And you're, you have four checks sitting in my office waiting for you to pick up and cash because she was making so much money with network marketing that it was like, I didn't even we didn't even care what my paycheck was at that point. And so I was sitting there going, okay, and this was 2014.
Sarah Fejfar 10:40
Did your dad know? Oh, yeah, he
Chase Craft 10:42
knew, yeah, he knew. You know, he, they didn't, they didn't understand. Like, he's, you know, my, my, our family business started by my grandpa in this in the 70s, my dad took it over in the 90s. You know, very traditional business owners, they have no idea the digital marketing or digital entrepreneur space. So they were just like, mind blown, that we could even, you know, make all this money, you know, basically talking to people over the phone and online, right? Showing up with a with a personal brand. So social media was pretty new. At the time, Instagram was pretty new at the time, it was just like the Wild West. And so, you know, in all that we were, I was actually at an event in 2014. That was another event for this network marketing company. And I was golfing with, with the founder, son, and a couple other guys, and they were just like, pouring into me like, Dude, you know, there's, you have so much more for your life, you have so much more for your life, right? And, you know, again, another thing where you're just surrounded by the right people, you're in the right room. And so, you know, they just furthered my belief in myself further, my belief and my family of us being able to make something more for our lives. And at that moment, after that event, I told Kayla, I was like, I think I need to join you in this, I think I'm going to quit my job. And I was positioned with my dad to obviously be the third generation to take the helm. You know, I was 24. At the time, I had been working for my dad since the day I graduated high school. I was, you know, very well known in, in my industry, I was, you know, ran one of his divisions of his company, at the time General Manager, like I had, you know, the keys to the kingdom basically. And I really just feel called that I had more for my life than then this job. And so I came home and I told Kayla, I was like, I think I need to do this and, and July of that year of 20 2014, or 2014, I had left my job with my dad and joined her in the network marketing world and started helping to build that business. quickly found out that that wasn't my thing. I wasn't the network marketer, I was great at managing people. I was great at training and all that stuff. But man, I couldn't recruit to save my life. That was like, not my thing. And so, you know, went through that massive identity shifts in my life, right, like going from, you know, having, you know, a purpose within, you know, my job working for my dad being very, very well known. I had, I was managing 30 employees, like, I was the man and then quickly went into, oh, you're Kayla crafts husband. Oh, that's cool. You know, like, it was a massive, you know, so I went through a couple of years of like, who am I? What is What am I supposed to be doing? I don't, I'm kind of just like, you know, trying to fumble my way through this entrepreneurship thing. Am I Am I an entrepreneur, I don't know. Like, you know, it's a it was a big life shift for me for those couple of years until we until we started mommy millionaire. And then I kind of like, found my groove, a little bit of like, okay, I can build a more of a traditional business this is feels more in alignment with me, you know, Kayla, and I both came on board of like, Hey, we're gonna build this thing together. She's obviously you know, being mommy millionaire. She was obviously the, the front facing, you know, product, if you will. But I really took ownership of all the backend stuff. So I was basically acting as the CEO of the company, I was hiring our employees, I was developing our managing or our marketing efforts, you know, you know, taking her vision and essentially putting legs to it was kind of, you know, my role in that and we built a very successful company with mommy millionaire mommy millionaires, basically, you know, a online coaching brand for for entrepreneurial moms. And it kind of opened up to women, you know, in general, but we are our main focus was was moms that wanted to build their own personal brands that wanted to build online businesses, you know, kind of, you know, the natural progression of that was a lot of the network marketing women that wanted you know, something more than network Marketing one to build their own brand have their own coaching products, that kind of stuff was was a kind of the transition for us a lot of our clientele there. And so, you know, we we built and scaled that that company to a multiple seven figure, you know, online coaching business and so that's how I kind of got my background in, in, in the coaching industry, you know, which then obviously led me to start my abundant. But I've been a been a part of the personal development and coaching industry for a very long time, through obviously, the network marketing and then transitioning into building multi millionaire.
Sarah Fejfar 15:34
Yeah, so I can really see through your story why you're so passionate about making personal development accessible, and that be the ethos of your company. Absolutely. I get that. And I just I resonate so much for that with that, because just, it's just mind blowing to me that I didn't know that the personal development space existed before age 36 Yeah, and I think that's way too late. And I would have made high school so much easier. If I had just had some confidence and just like some tactics in my tool belt, in that space, and yeah, you better believe it that when my kiddo is age appropriate to get in the room, at a personal development event, we will be there together.
Chase Craft 16:21
Because what's cool about parenting, you know, being a parent, you're able to able to start instilling that kind of stuff in their subconscious mind. Right, like so true. You know, my, my oldest is a is a, as an athlete, he plays, you know, a very high level of ice hockey. And, you know, part of his development as an as an athlete as a elite athlete is the mind, right? Yeah, we're constantly just, you know, giving him those tools in his tool bag to deal with, you know, you know, sports anxiety and, you know, giving him confidence by, you know, all the tools in the personal development industry that we learned to now, you know, raise, raise our kids that way. So,
Sarah Fejfar 17:04
it's almost as if I, I practice it every day, because our I believe in therapy for everybody in the family now. And my kiddos therapist, was like, well just start sport, cuz sportscasting what you're doing and how you're thinking through things. And so then I'm using what I'm learning in the books that I read, and you know, with my therapist, and in the courses that I've taken in the rooms that I've been in to just like be able to sportscast my way through my day. And in doing so, we just like have much deeper conversations about all sorts of things like that, which I just never had growing up. Yeah. And I could just already see how it's making such a massive difference. And it's, it's so exciting as a parent.
Chase Craft 17:51
Yeah, it really is. It really is, it's, it's cool when you see them start to pick up on that stuff without you even having to, you know, foster any of those types of conversations, you know, yeah. So,
Sarah Fejfar 18:03
I want to shift a little bit and talk about when you started noticing inside of your company with your wife that there was a need for an alternative financing option for people who are buying event tickets or retreat tickets, or someone who's buying a conference ticket or a digital course, or any sort of, like online program? What Yeah, what were you noticing?
Chase Craft 18:30
Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, you know, we started about new millionaire, and one of the one of our big, you know, products was that we did annual live events that were so powerful. But as you know, and as probably a lot of listeners know, you know, there's a lot of, of, of barriers and a lot of hurdles that you have to go through when hosting your own event, right, you have to, you know, pay a lot of money upfront to secure hotels to secure rooms, if you're offering room blocks, you're paying, you know, the event planners, the stage production team, the AV team, you know, securing speakers if you're having to pay speakers, right, like there's a lot of expenses that come with, with offering, you know, your own your own live events, and it was something that we were passionate about, because we knew the power of people getting in that room, like it was so evident when Kayla would get up on that stage, like people's lives were gonna change, no doubt about it, and we've got to physically see it like it's hard when you're when you're a digital entrepreneur and you're selling coaching products, group coaching, you don't really get to see those, you know, one on one transformations that people have, but when you have people in seats in a live event, and you're you know getting to physically see people have life transformations before your eyes like it just gives you the fire that you want to to continue to do that stuff but there's obvious barriers right? You you need working capital in order to in order to secure you know, all those expenses up front and then you're hoping Okay, I hope that I can, that I can, you know, secure enough ticket sales to at least be, you know, like, even when when the event, you know comes right, like I want to be out of the red by the time that that first event, but a lot of times that doesn't happen, you're getting tickets, tickets away to fill seats and your you know, a lot of people want to come but they can't afford the ticket, you know, they can't afford the the ticket price plus the hotel plus the travel plus everything else, right, all of a sudden, $1,000 ticket becomes a $5,000 weekend because you have the food and the travel and in the stay. And so, you know, making that more affordable without you actually having to offer your own payment plans for that. Because obviously, that's that is kind of what's common in the industry, that's changed, it's changing over the last couple of years. But it's most common that, that the hosts themselves and the coaches themselves offer their own payment plan, which then comes with another, you know, multitude of different issues, right of, you know, people defaulting on payments, what do I do if somebody isn't paid in full by the time the event happens, I need to tell them that they can't come because they you know, defaulted. And, you know, now people are asking for refunds and cancellations. And it's just you're not good at collections, right? That's not your expertise as a coach, right? Your your, your expertise is showing up and transforming lives, and you just need people to get in, get in the room. And that's where I really saw a need in the industry a couple of years ago, back in 2020 was, you know, I didn't want to have to offer you know, at that time, we weren't doing a ton of live events, but we were doing, you know, coach coaching certification programs, we were doing, you know, one on one coaching, we were doing group coaching stuff. And so we had a lot of high ticket, high ticket offers within mommy millionaire. But we were really struggling with the fact that I wanted to completely get out of the payment plan. Worlds, right, I wanted people to pay me in full, I wanted that working capital upfront, and I didn't want to have to, you know, manage any of the payment process anymore. And having those awkward conversations with people that, you know, are in a financial, you know, struggle at that moment, or they can't pay me Yeah, you know, it just becomes once you involve finances, finances, along with, you know, the personal development and coaching, it just gets muddy and weird. And so I was like, Okay, I need to find a better way to make my products accessible for people. Because obviously, if I just require people to pay me in full, I'm gonna limit the amount of people that I can have impact, right? And so that that sent me on a mission within for mommy millionaire, I'm like, I'm gonna go find somebody that can that can help us with this, right, I'm going to find alternative financing options for me to, you know, make my products accessible for people and still be able to capture that revenue. But I went on that mission and did not succeed. I tried, you know, all of the different affirms and Klarna as in and went to local lenders, and I spent about a month trying to research something that would work with this industry. And at the time, there was nobody, or at least I wasn't able to find anyone at that time.
Sarah Fejfar 23:20
I think it's, I mean, I still run into this every single day that there are people that do not know that this industry even exists. And obviously I was one of them for 36 years, just not not even an awareness. Like I am aware that there's people in the world who are stock traders, I'm aware that there's people who are trash collectors, but like, I did not even know that there was this personal development world where people had online courses and they had like events that I could go to I just didn't even know and so I imagined that the financing world is kind of like that where a firm probably was like what are you selling? Yeah. What is that even? Whereas I used a firm when I bought my peloton it was like very I'm sure that's an easy thing for them because like oh yeah it's like a physical thing we can we know what it is like if this is normal people buys have been buying you know, sports equipment for their homes. Excellent. Yeah. And for ages, but this different
Chase Craft 24:21
well, it makes it hard from a lender's perspective in this industry is one that you're you're not getting a real physical product at the end of the day, right. So like you mentioned affirm, you get financing affirm for a phone, right that you have your phone in your hand, I can I have a physical product here, I can't deny that I received this. Yes. And so from a lender's perspective, you don't have a physical asset or product. It's very subjective, right? A lot and then also the, the, you know, the product that you're offering is dependent on you as the coach showing up and offering that product in that service. Right. And
Sarah Fejfar 24:57
I always assume or even,
Chase Craft 24:59
like total You're showing it's it's it's so subjective. And I always use the analogy of Tony Robbins, right? If I if I was financing Tony Robbins, you know for one of his
Sarah Fejfar 25:13
UPW Yeah,
Chase Craft 25:15
$10,000 ticket price or whatever it is, right? And then all sudden Tony Robbins passes. Or I'm going to as a lender, I'm going to have a big problem on my hands because people paid for that ticket and finance that ticket to go and see Tony Robbins. And even if his understudy is just as good, it's not Tony Robbins. Right. So his whole business is relying on Tony Robbins showing up in in doing his, you know, what product and service that he promised these people. So from a lender standpoint, it's it's very high risk and subjective. But so for people that don't know the industry and don't know, the characters involved in in offering these these products and service, it's it's a heck no for them, because it's, there's too much risk. So that's where, you know, me being in the industry for so long? Knowing the industry so well, I know, I always say that I've been in the industry long enough that I'm one contact away from pretty much anybody in the industry. You know, and so I have, you know, I can vet people I can say, you know, hey, you know, one of my best friends, Chris harder. Hey, Chris, harder, can you know, do you know this guy? Oh, yeah, I know him. He's great. Cool. Like, I can vet the process a little more, because I'm, I'm, I'm immersed in the in this industry. And so it allowed me the capability of like, okay, I think, you know, this is less, less risky for me, right? It's less risky for me, because I I'm in it, I know it. Like I know what these coaches want. I know what the coaches need. I know what the consumers want need. I know how to provide that service for them? Well, I know, you know, like I've said, I'm one contact away from pretty much anybody in the industry, I'm well connected, like I can, I can limit my risk in this. And so that's where, you know, when I when I started going down the road of trying to find a lender that would work with us, and I couldn't find anyone I was like, well shoot, like, this is a big need. Obviously, if I'm looking for it, other people are looking for it. And why don't I just started on my own, I'll just become a finance, you know, guy for the coaching industry. And little did I know that that was a big, you know, bite to chew. I had no, I had no, you know, prior experience in finance, like, all I knew was the coaching industry. And I knew that there was a need, and I needed it, and I wanted it therefore I knew that other people needed it wanted it. And so, you know, I, you know, got thrown to the wolves, if you will. And so it took me a while to really, you know, figure out the product that I wanted figure out how to, you know, one of the biggest things for me is I wasn't familiar with the finance industry, I didn't know how to how to go and get capital in order to give these people working capital, right. You know, in order to be a lender, you got to have money, you got to be bank, or you got to be networked with other lenders and banks where you can kind of like broker their products. And so that was my biggest hurdle. When I started this, it was like, I can I know what I want to build. I know how to do it like, but how do I get the money to lend, like, if I'm a lender, I gotta have I gotta have money. And then I started coaching with my good buddy, Gerard Adams, who probably a lot of people know, very well known in the coaching industry. I started coaching with him for a mommy millionaire at the time, because I was still involved in mommy millionaire, and building that but I had this like little thing over the side with my abundant that was like, kind of a pipe dream that I knew what I wanted to build, but I had no idea how to do it. Yeah. And I was in Gerards house, and I started telling him about this and he was like, bro, like, what are you doing? You need to stop whatever you're doing mommy millionaire. Let Caleb you know, take the reins on that hire someone to do your job and my millionaire and you need to go and run with this because this is genius. And he said he's like, this is life changing for this industry. Like you need to go. Yeah. And it was at that time. And then he said, You know what, I have the perfect guy for you. I need to introduce you to my buddy who's in the lending industry like he is going to be if he doesn't like want to be a part of this with you. He's going to know how to connect you with the right people to be a part of it. And so right then in there, he dialed the phone, got on the phone with with my partner. Now my partner Chris Granja, and we started chatting, and within 30 minutes, I had a I had a flight booked to New York to go and meet him there in like two weeks and flew out to New York and it was like a bromance right off the bat. Like we hit it off. You know? And, you know, by the end of that four day trip to New York, we were partners and and the rest is history like we you know, he's he's a he's a great dude wealth of knowledge in the lending lending industry, been in lending industry for, you know, over a decade, and he really just has helped me, you know, take my Vision and he's also in the personal development industry, that's how he knows, knows Girard and is connected with him, and he's really invested into the personal development industry is a part of the Tony Robbins, Platinum club and all that stuff. And so he really caught the vision of what I was trying to do. And he was like, Dude, we can have so much impact doing this, like, let's run. And so, you know, from that time, and I think that was like the end of 2021. To now, you know, we've we've, you know, built a bunch of tech, we, you know, we have our own capital, we don't have to, you know, go out and, and, you know, work with other other lenders and banks, we are the bank, which is so powerful for us, because we get to control how we spend our money. You know, we're not subject to lenders and banks that don't know the industry that aren't connected to the people that don't, you know, at any moment, those other lenders and banks can say, you know, what, we this, this industry is just too foreign to us, we're gonna pull out, right. Where we are the bank, we are the ones that make that decision, we are invested into this industry, you know, 1,000%. And so, you know, that's, that's how we, that's how we got going.
Sarah Fejfar 31:10
Okay, so I'm a super detail oriented, like operations kind of girl. So I would love to get into how this works. So people understand how they add this into their current payment flow for their events. And I at last time we met when we were talking about seeing if we could make this podcast a reality. I had you show me what it looks like. And I was so impressed, because one of my biggest soapbox moments that I have with event ticket sales is i i love it when business owners understand that the less friction between I want to buy the ticket and I bought the ticket, the better. And it only be we can wait on their tick on their T shirt shot size until after they've pressed the buy button on a percent. And I think that's it's hard for some people to get past but I know that it increases conversions, if we can just just get down to just exactly what's needed. And obviously adding in, basically, get it taking on a loan in between that process of like I want to buy and I bought, can perhaps bring up some unease for people going oh, how would that be easy? Or is it going to add too much friction, and I've seen it and it doesn't add hardly any friction. And it's easy, and it's almost seamless feeling. And so I love that, but let's talk about so we've got our event, we got it up for sale. And normally I'm a Kajabi user, I would just put the event up for sale on Kajabi. And it would be the ticket price, or I'd perhaps have a secondary offer. And it would be like three easy payments of whatever. But if I'm doing the, as you call it, financing it myself by putting the three payment option out there, then I don't get any money upfront, I have to wait Well, I get the probably the first payment upfront and then I have to wait for the other two. Meanwhile, I'm accruing expenses for this upcoming event like having to put a deposit down at the hotel, perhaps having to pay for some speaker fees or buy swag, whatever the case may be. So talk us through now what do we do to then use my abandon? And how does that what pressure does that alleviate for us?
Chase Craft 33:51
Yeah, for sure. So when I built this, I didn't want to reinvent the wheel. I knew what worked in in in other industries, particularly like buying out the Buy Now pay later industry. So I had seen Klarna I had seen afterpay I had seen a firm and Pay Pal and all those things that have started to realize that consumers want they want speed. And and they want you know it to be easy for them to sign up for something right into into you know, do the new the new layaway product, you know, and so when I when I had the vision to build my abundant, I'm like I don't need to reinvent this wheel. I need to just take all the great things about those other products that are offering services for this industry and I need to adapt it to what that is right. And so that's kind of what we built right we I always you know, use a firm as kind of you know the because most people know kind of what the firm is. If you don't it's basically just a payment plan version of of you know, for the retail industry is kind of what a firm is right?
Sarah Fejfar 34:56
Yeah, it's like you can pay with MasterCard or Visa or Discover or affirm? Anybody's right?
Chase Craft 35:04
Anybody that's bought anything online in the last two years will know even if you don't know what a firm is, you've seen it right? It'll say, you know, I can buy the t shirt for $12 payments, right?
Sarah Fejfar 35:15
I was buying groceries on Instacart yesterday, like, but you could do it, I think it was Karna on Karna for, you know, extra easy payment. I'm like, crazy. It's groceries.
Chase Craft 35:29
Days like it's, it's it's taken over the retail online buying experience, you know, and I think all of this kind of stems back to it back to Amazon, right, Amazon kind of changed the way that consumers buy. And everybody's just kind of been adapting to that and finding new ways for new, easier, faster ways for people to make purchases. And so that's kind of the way that we built it, right. And then I took my experience from the coaching industry and from being a digital marketer for many years of, I want to remove any barrier that I possibly can to get conversions. Right when I was when I was in working mommy millionaire and doing all my, you know, digital marketing stuff, it was all about my conversion rate, like how, what kind of, I'm going to change copy, I'm going to change colors, I'm going to change all these things. Where are the buttons that were the pictures that like you just, it's just all testing, right? I love
Sarah Fejfar 36:22
everything that's coming out of your mouth right now. Yeah, you're
Chase Craft 36:25
just changing as much as you can all the time to try and increase that conversion rate by half a percent or a percent, you know, and so. So with that in mind, and that experience, I was like, Okay, I need to build something that isn't going to affect conversion rates for my clients when they're dealing with digital checkouts. And, you know, the friction, and the barriers aren't there, it's really easy, it's really fast, right? For people to make a sale. And so we built a product for that, right, we built the affirm, if you will, for the coaching industry. So it's instant checkout, there is no waiting time for approval, you know, your clients, we even have, you know, our branded buttons, just like PayPal, or Apple Pay, or all those things where you can add on to your checkout page for people to to, you know, purchase with flexible, flexible payment options, right, we kind of position it as as a payment plan, if you will, kind of like a firm does, right? You can sign up for this for 12, you know, $12 for payments for $12. Right? Yeah, whatever that looks like. So, so that's the way that we built it out, right. So they, you know, your, your client, you have the button on your page on your checkout page. So people can either, you know, pay with their credit card and pay you in full for, you know, $1,000 or they can make, you know, 12 easy payments of whatever. And then they they click on our button and we build out customize your links for you, that's, you know, custom with your branding, in our branding, and your client goes through the process, it's super fast and easy. They get automatic approvals, right then in there on the checkout page, and they can convert and make their first payment, and then they're back into your program, you know, within within minutes. And so there's no wait times there's no we actually have 100% approval product. So anybody that goes through through the Link gets approved for for some sort of a payment plan. And we have different payment options that we pay you out on the back end for different levels, you know, tears of of credit worthiness of your clients. But I really wanted to I didn't I and the reason that we kind of built out the 100% approval model is is I didn't want I created this so that I can remove the payment plan process from the coaches, right i coaches are not good collectors were most of them are too empathetic to be good payment collectors, right? They get you know, they they have they have such big hearts, they want to help people. And in turn, a lot of times they get taken advantage of because they aren't, you know, good payment collectors. So I didn't want to kick someone back to the code and say, sorry, I can't approve this person, now you're going to have to figure out what to do with them. Either you lose that revenue, or now you're back in the payment collection business that you shouldn't be in that you're trying to get out of. That's why you're working with me in the first place. And so I wanted to, you know, eliminate that I wanted to eliminate the the ability for a client to get cold feet, right? If there's a wait time, you know, they submit an application and there's a 48 hour wait time for them to get an approval. And let's say that say I gave him approval after 48 hours well now now they've sat on it for 48 hours and they decided it's not for them right. And now you lost a conversion. So I tried to eliminate all of those things with our product and that's kind of you know, I think my experience in the coaching industry really helped me in building a really good product for this industry and that way
Sarah Fejfar 39:48
I I'm hearing it every everything that you've thought of the level of detail that you've gone into thinking of this and how to build my abundant really tells me that you've like you've lived and breathed This industry, you get it. And it's so cool. So then what you're saying is that, let's say we, we offer the full pay on our nor in our normal channels, but then we offer the payment plan via my abundant and then my abundant then takes care of all of the servicing of that payment plan. So if someone misses a payment, you handle reminding them or working on the collecting. So that's just completely out of our hair. Is that how it works? That's exactly
Chase Craft 40:35
right. Yeah, wow, yeah, we have a full, we have a full in house collections and retention team, we have a full legal team in house. So as soon as that client makes their first payment through that link, and they have, you know, you make a conversion, and that Pro, that person's either has a ticket to your event, or in your coaching coaching program, or whatever that may look like, We handle everything from there. So any payment collections that are needing to be done payment reminders, updating credit card or banking information for payment, you know, methods, all that stuff is handled by us, you just, you just get ACH bank transfers into your bank account. So it's
Sarah Fejfar 41:15
and you said most of the time, then you get the coach gets paid upfront, for the full price of whatever was sold. Sometimes if the credit worthiness was a little bit lower than it's like, over time. Yeah. So that's pretty helpful then for getting those deposits paid. Off coming? Yeah,
Chase Craft 41:39
yeah, we have, we have, we have a few different ways that we pay out. And it's all determined on on the credit worthiness of the client. And so, you know, prime sub, or prime and super prime clients, obviously, you know, those are great borrowers we give you money up front for and then you know, some of the subprime or you know, super subprime, you know, we pay out pay out a little bit differently. But either way, you're, we're managing the payment process, you're getting working capital upfront for, you know, some of your payment plans, you know, rather than you offering all your own payment plans, and just, you know, having extended receivables for, you know, foreseeable future. So, it really, our, our goal is, and we're constantly trying to fit, because we are the bank, we have the flexibility to constantly molded and form that to what we feel that our coaches need, right? If we, you know, obviously, our goal is to get as much money into your pocket as possible day one. And so we're constantly trying to find creative ways, for us as a lender, because we are the bank, to mitigate our risk, obviously, our main goal is to get our money back, right, as a lender, that's, that's our main goal. But also, you know, mitigate our risk, but also give you the options of having more working capital upfront. So that's, that's our goal. You know, and we're constantly going into the drawing board and figuring out different creative ways that we can do that. And so you know, it's always a work in progress for us, right. And we really feel like, you know, we have a great product that gives you multiple ways to get paid, getting you that working capital upfront, getting you that cash flow, you know, that you need to, to grow and scale your business or funding events, or, or all those things. So, and then you don't have to worry about any of the payment plan process, right. Like, that's the big headache for most people. That's why a lot of people are trying to get out of it. And that's where we come in.
Sarah Fejfar 43:34
So you're just so my people chase, I love your I love that your heart is in it, you're so passionate about this, that you clearly are just so well versed in this industry, and that you're so detail oriented. If I love all that, if someone wanted to, you know, they they host events, or they have digital products, and they want to get started adding my abundance as an option on their checkout pages, what do they do?
Chase Craft 44:03
So you can go to www.my abundant.com, okay, and fill out a get started. Form on there, and then we'll notify our team and and we usually do a sales call to make sure that it's in alignment with both you and us. And the process is super easy. It's just an application, we build out your links and you're and you're off to the races. We don't have any you know, monthly management fees or anything like that we we you know, the only fee that we charge you is a simple 3% management or platform fee per per, you know, ticket that you sell or per product that you sell. It's basically the same thing as you're being charged from stripe or PayPal. I think it is that you're doing processing. So
Sarah Fejfar 44:47
that's the basic the same as the processing fee if we were to Yeah, use stripe or PayPal. So it's like it's it's the same but you get more.
Chase Craft 44:56
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um So obviously, we're obviously, you know, our goal is to help you grow and scale your revenue and your business and also cut back on, you know, payroll costs for having to have employees manage those internal payment plans for you and have to, you know, or your own time, right, like I, you know, one of the first things that that one of my mentors taught me, when I first started to get into entrepreneurship was my time is most valuable, right? And so he, he, he, you know, he had me go, Okay, what's your annual revenue goal? A million dollars, okay, cool. Now that divide that by how many hours you want to work per day. And then, you know, so he had me do this, this conversion of like, okay, you're, you're worth $2,000 an hour, based on how many hours you want to be working per day and your revenue goal. This is your hourly rate. So charge accordingly. And I was like, wow, that's, you know, who charges $2,000 an hour, like lawyers, doctors don't even charge that much, right. But that if that's your goal, then you know, you need to, you know, build your business in your life around that. And so if you're the one, if you're if you're worth $2,000 an hour, and you're the one that's doing all the payment management and collections within your own business, you're losing money, you can, your time is worth more than that, that you could be doing more revenue generating activities. So that's our hope is obviously that we're getting your working capital upfront, we're helping you cut costs, internally, giving you back your time freedom, your, your team's time freedom to be able to work on stuff that is actually moving the needle in your business. You know, and, and, you know, being your back end retention team
Sarah Fejfar 46:39
and help with a little less stress in the lead up to an event because it's a stressful time in and of itself. And to eliminate just a little bit of the stress during that time, from the money side of things. Feels like a win win to me.
Chase Craft 47:00
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's our goal.
Sarah Fejfar 47:03
So I will link up my abundant in the show notes so people know how to find you. Cool. Before we wrap up, because I know you're a personal development junkie, just like me, I want to know what you're reading right now.
Chase Craft 47:18
Oh, that's good. You know, you, you caught me in the time that I'm not actually in a book at the moment. I mean, I
Sarah Fejfar 47:29
What's the last one you read?
Chase Craft 47:32
I'm a I'm a believer. And so I'm, I am reading some, some books. In regards to my faith. I love that. Oh, so yeah, yeah. So that's kind of what you know, I go through, I go through transitions of times that I'm really, you know, obviously invested in, in, in business and personal development and all that stuff. And then I'm going through kind of a, I'm so busy during the day, that I need that a little bit of reset to like, Okay, I need to spend time, you know, in in with God, and yes. And so that's kind of what my, my time has been, in my free time been spending. So, obviously, the Bible and I have some other, you know, books that I'm reading in regards to my faith. So
Sarah Fejfar 48:15
well, that's so good. Yeah. So I do feel that sometimes there's a time when I need to be, I just feel like open and available to be learning more, like increasing my capacity and other times where I just need to turn inwards and like less is more. And yeah, I love that you're doing that.
Chase Craft 48:34
One of my favorite from a from a business or personal development books. One of my favorite is traction. I don't know if you've read I have not right. Yeah, I don't remember who the author is. I'll have to have to go in. But it's it's such a great I mean, if you're if you're in a CEO position, or you're, you know, an entrepreneur, trying to figure out how to structure structure your business well and manage people. Well, it's such a good book. So yeah,
Sarah Fejfar 49:01
I love that. Today. I finished the psychology of money. That was so good. And I started 100 million leads by Alex Mozi. And I'm very excited about that one.
Chase Craft 49:13
Nice. Yeah, like it. Yeah.
Sarah Fejfar 49:14
And because you mentioned it. The podcast that I'm currently listening to is Chris Harders. Oh, no, that's just one of it's probably my favorite. And he's so good. He is yeah, he's so he's always in my ear in between when I'm like, I don't want to read all up today. I'm gonna listen to Chris.
Chase Craft 49:31
He was he was one of the first guys so just kind of giving you a background of my relationship with Chris he was he was in the, in the network marketing company that Kayla and I were in. And he was one of the first guys that I met he was like, one of the top income earners and I was just like that guy is and I've gotten to obviously, you know, he's one of my best friends now. And I've gotten to to, you know, spend a ton of time with him, but he just he's, he's one of the good ones, man.
Sarah Fejfar 50:00
That's how I feel listening to his information.
Chase Craft 50:02
He's now he's now in in, you know, building a lending app. So we that was in common there. So it's been fun, you know, just from a friendship standpoint of like being able to we just get around and just spit, spit, fire all the stuff that we're learning. And, you know, it's a lot of fun. That sounds fun
Sarah Fejfar 50:17
to have that kind of history. But then also your paths are kind of converging and how your, your work life is going. So cool. Yeah, yeah, well, Chase, this has been an absolute pleasure. I can't wait for people to learn more about my abundance. And you. I'll put your your links in the show notes. I appreciate you spending the time today here. I know you're super busy as the CEO and founder. But this has been really special. So thank you.
Chase Craft 50:47
Thank you so much for having me. I hope that I provide a little bit of value for your audience. And yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on.
Sarah Fejfar 50:54
Take care. Thank you for listening to the greenroom central podcast. If you love this episode, then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it to Instagram. And be sure to tag at zero Fejfar. And let me know why you liked it. And what you'd like to hear, or who you'd like to hear from in the future that will help me know what to create for you. The number one thing I'm asked by CEOs, whether it's their first event, or their 20th and Sarah, how do we get more butts in seats, and so I put together a guide for you head over to filling events.com For your free copy of 107 ways to feel I want to help you quickly master event marketing events. Even if you've never done I scoured the online business world and found 107 of my favorite strategies working right now. To fill your next in person or virtual event. Create the event promotion plan you need from these easy to implement customizable strategies for free over at filling events.com.
Sarah Fejfar 51:58
I appreciate your commitment to leveling up and learning the mindset and strategy of live events. Keep going, keep learning. If you want more, head over to greenroom central.com For show notes and all the links from today's episode.