Latest / Financial Survival Network / "Your Success is Granted" - Stormi Banks #6147

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"Your Success is Granted" - Stormi Banks #6147 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And we won her three hundred and eleven thousand dollars
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: and we've won more money than that, but her story
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: specifically was just so inspiring for our whole team. They
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  Speaker 1: still bring it up to this day of just the
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  Speaker 1: changes that it made for her life. Now she has
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  Speaker 1: five different facilities in the area that are twenty four
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  Speaker 1: hour service and she's just making an impact where she's at.
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  Speaker 1: So that was a pretty cool win for us.
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  Speaker 2: You're listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you
• 0:26
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• 0:30
  Speaker 2: thrive in today's trying times. You need the Financial Survival
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Network now more than ever. Go to Financial Survivalnetwork dot
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival
• 0:43
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• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Ed.
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  Speaker 3: Welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial Survival Network.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Hey, you know that I'm
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: a huge, huge proponent of going into business, of becoming
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  Speaker 3: an entrepreneur, of entrepreneurship in America, and I think I've
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  Speaker 3: found somebody who's even a bigger proponent than myself. Not
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  Speaker 3: only is your proponent, but she's actually helping you get
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  Speaker 3: grants get funding to start your business or name is
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  Speaker 3: Stormy Banks. Stormy, it's really an honor to have you
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  Speaker 3: on the show. Hey, obviously, I would venture to say,
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  Speaker 3: and we didn't talk about this pre call. You probably
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  Speaker 3: got yourself a grant and then it dawned on you
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  Speaker 3: that hey, I figured out how to do it, but
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  Speaker 3: there's so many of you out there that have no clue.
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  Speaker 3: I can make a business helping you get grants. Do
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  Speaker 3: I have that story right? Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: For the most part, it was kind of like during
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  Speaker 1: COVID when everyone was needing money and businesses were failing
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  Speaker 1: left and right. We were in the same boat, right,
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  Speaker 1: and we were like, how can we get some money
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  Speaker 1: fast without having all the qualifications of traditional lending.
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  Speaker 4: But it honestly just started as a free education.
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  Speaker 1: We were on zooms and on Instagram lives and just
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  Speaker 1: telling people where to go and how to get it,
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  Speaker 1: and then ended up people were like, well, can you
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  Speaker 1: do the work for us? And we're like, hey, maybe
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  Speaker 1: we should make this a business because we're getting so
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  Speaker 1: many people that are in need. And that's kind of
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  Speaker 1: how the whole grant writing agency you know, became alive.
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  Speaker 3: That's really cool, and hey, how many people have you
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  Speaker 3: worked with in the past, and how long have you
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  Speaker 3: been doing it? I guess I should ask.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so right now, we launched in March of twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty one, so we're coming up on four years in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, and so far we have had ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand clients that we have served in help throughout this process.
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  Speaker 1: We actually just got a notification from our CRM system
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  Speaker 1: that said, congratulations, you've hit a ten thousand mile mark.
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  Speaker 4: So that's cool.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's remarkable. What kind of fees do people pay you?
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  Speaker 4: So it depends on what they're coming for.
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  Speaker 1: We do still have our educational services, so we teach
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  Speaker 1: you know the full process and then also we have
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  Speaker 1: our full service to end grant writing options that start
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  Speaker 1: at seven hundred and go to thirty five hundred.
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  Speaker 3: All right, tell us your biggest success story to date.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have the name names, just tell us the industry.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So it's actually she's she has a child care facility
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  Speaker 1: out in Houston and she had never won a grant
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  Speaker 1: before or gotten the loan. She was She had one small,
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  Speaker 1: like in home child care facility, and she had these
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  Speaker 1: big dreams of being twenty four hours and having transportation
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  Speaker 1: and making a change in her area. We found this
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  Speaker 1: grant that was available in her a local area that
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  Speaker 1: was given monies to remove your in home based child
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  Speaker 1: care facility to an actual commercial space, and we won
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  Speaker 1: her three hundred and eleven thousand dollars and we won
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  Speaker 1: more money than that, but her story specifically was just
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  Speaker 1: so inspiring for our whole team. They still bring it
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  Speaker 1: up to this day of just the changes that it
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  Speaker 1: made for her life. Now she has five different facilities
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  Speaker 1: in the area that are twenty four hour service and
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  Speaker 1: she's just making an impact where she's at. So that
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  Speaker 1: was a pretty cool win for us.
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  Speaker 3: He that's amazing. That's really amazing that you could do that.
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  Speaker 3: And the Hey, I'm sure your rip your files are
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  Speaker 3: full of success stories.
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  Speaker 1: Huh, absolutely, which is such a blessing, right. We don't
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  Speaker 1: take those for granted.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, And it seems like for the amount of money
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  Speaker 3: you're charging, this is like the deal of the century.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of people grant writers, they're charging
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  Speaker 1: a lot more than what we charge.
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  Speaker 4: But we really wanted to hone in.
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  Speaker 1: On the fact that we know that people are small
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  Speaker 1: businesses and so they're needing the grant money because they
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  Speaker 1: need money, right, So we didn't want to charge exponential
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  Speaker 1: prices to make the entry, the barrier to entry super
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  Speaker 1: duper hard. So we focused on what could be something
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  Speaker 1: that would not only serve our expertise because we're all
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  Speaker 1: certified grant writers, but also give access to the people
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  Speaker 1: who have been under served for historical you know, time periods,
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  Speaker 1: all right.
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  Speaker 3: So if somebody comes to you and they're a budding
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  Speaker 3: entrepreneur but not a lot of experience, not a lot
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  Speaker 3: of work experience, what the top three pieces of advice
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  Speaker 3: that you would give that person?
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  Speaker 1: If they're a budding entrepreneur without a lot of experience,
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  Speaker 1: top three pieces of advice that I would give them
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  Speaker 1: is you need to start reading, like asap. You know,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of the things that you need to know
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  Speaker 1: in business are written down in books. People have cataloged
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  Speaker 1: their processes, they've cataloged their experiences. I'm a huge advocate
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  Speaker 1: for audible. I listen to you know, at least two
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  Speaker 1: books a week at minimum, and I've just gotten so
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  Speaker 1: much insight from those books to help me grow and
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  Speaker 1: develop new systems and become a better leader. Second piece
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  Speaker 1: of advice is get someone on your team. Will those
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  Speaker 1: good with money? You need someone who can raise capital
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  Speaker 1: and who can manage capital really really well. Your finances
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  Speaker 1: are going to be so important to the vital success
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  Speaker 1: of your business, and if you're not good with it,
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  Speaker 1: you need to hire someone who is. And then third
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  Speaker 1: piece of advice is become a good leader. You know,
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  Speaker 1: any business that scales, you have to be focused on
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  Speaker 1: building people who want to also serve the mission and
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  Speaker 1: the vision that you have. And the better you can
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  Speaker 1: articulate that to people and serve what they want to
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  Speaker 1: do in their lives and help them develop and sustain
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  Speaker 1: what they want as well, the more people you'll have
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  Speaker 1: on your team to kind of grow what you're doing.
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  Speaker 1: So leadership is a big important piece for me.
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  Speaker 3: All right. So obviously you get a lot of people
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  Speaker 3: coming through because people are thinking free money. It's so easy.
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  Speaker 3: You just send out a letter and they send you
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  Speaker 3: a check, right, But it's not that easy. What are
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  Speaker 3: the biggest obstacles to you to your clients from getting grants.
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  Speaker 1: I think the biggest obstacle is honestly that it is
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  Speaker 1: a competition.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people do have that notation that Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I can just fill out a grand and I'll get
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  Speaker 1: the money. But you're going up against other people, and
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  Speaker 1: some people have not been taught in the skill of war.
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  Speaker 1: This is like a war for us, you know, writing wars.
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  Speaker 1: You are trying to articulate yourself in the best way
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  Speaker 1: possible in order to be seen or deemed as the
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  Speaker 1: obvious choice for the grand tour. And so figuring out
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  Speaker 1: what makes you different in your industry or doing something
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  Speaker 1: that others haven't done before will set you apart. And
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  Speaker 1: right now, technology is so big that you can add
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  Speaker 1: a tech component to what you're doing and really revolutionize
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  Speaker 1: your industry. To get grants for that, I think that's
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  Speaker 1: one of the biggest things in just having a really
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  Speaker 1: good plan.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: People want the money, but when you don't know what
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna do with the money, and it's hard for
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  Speaker 1: you to express that to someone else thoroughly, then you
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  Speaker 1: find yourself constantly getting denied and then end up being
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  Speaker 1: defeated by the process of grants. So I think those
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  Speaker 1: are the biggest two difficulties in what we do.
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  Speaker 3: All right, Well, life is full of obstacles, but with
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  Speaker 3: every obstacle comes an opportunity, right, Yes, So what was
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  Speaker 3: The biggest obstacle when you started your grant writing service,
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  Speaker 3: your education service.
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  Speaker 4: The logistics.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it was the logistics of just managing
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  Speaker 1: client expectations and managing the process. We've redeveloped and reimagined
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  Speaker 1: our process so many times to enhance the customer experience
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  Speaker 1: that now we have it really down to a formula
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  Speaker 1: and a science. But getting started with it is just
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  Speaker 1: how do we maintain our expertise and the way that
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  Speaker 1: we like to work, but also making sure that we're
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  Speaker 1: just having good communication educating our clients through the process,
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  Speaker 1: because a lot of people who come to us, they're
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  Speaker 1: new to this, they don't understand what's going on, and
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  Speaker 1: they're really depending on us to not only offer the
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  Speaker 1: service but educate them. And so those two things were
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  Speaker 1: joining those two things together were probably the most difficult
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  Speaker 1: part of when we got started.
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  Speaker 3: All Right, well, I love what you're doing. I wish
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  Speaker 3: it was around when I was doing this, but hey,
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  Speaker 3: you know it's here now. That's the important thing. And AI,
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  Speaker 3: really you're saying before it makes a big impact on
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  Speaker 3: what you're doing, Stormy. How do we connect with you,
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  Speaker 3: How do we find out more about what you do?
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  Speaker 3: And perhaps employ you.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
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  Speaker 1: So I'm on all social platforms at Stormy Banks with
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  Speaker 1: one underscore with that Stormy Banks with an I. Or
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  Speaker 1: you can also look up our company. It's called pink
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Print Firm and that's Overall Socials and that's also our
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  Speaker 1: website as well.
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  Speaker 3: All right, and the links in the show. That's to
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. Please got
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: a question for Stormy or myself, shoot me an email
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: kl at Carrie LUTs dot com. While you're on the site,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: please sign up for your free newsletter if you information
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: like this, a lot of info you just can't find,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: very difficult to find. Information really is the key to
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  Speaker 3: success in business. Stormy, it looks like you've really mastered it.
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  Speaker 3: Appreciate you coming on. We'll talk to you again.
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  Speaker 4: Thanks so much. This was awesome.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: ever