Zeke Pike – Founder & CEO of Ez Ecomm and Credit Wipe | God, Football, and Entrepreneurship

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About The Guest

Talking Points

 

• 00:00 — Intro
• 02:10 — Zeke Pike’s origin story
• 10:11 — All-American football star
• 23:31 — How does Zeke Pike make sure not to spiral again?
• 26:11 — How did Zeke Pike start his business?
• 33:03 — What was the strategy of Zeke Pike in building the store on Amazon?
• 43:47 — How does Zeke Pike scale a brand with Amazon?
• 46:22 — Did Zeke Pike use influencer marketing?
• 47:51 — Did Zeke Pike use Shopify?
• 53:31 — What did Zeke Pike think about whether more people will invest in these businesses?
• 54:40 — How did Zeke Pike start his second business?
• 1:03:34 — What should people do to improve their credit repairs?
• 1:09:27 — Do more credit cards help people?
• 1:12:39 — Is Zeke Pike about to start another business?
• 1:12:54 — What are the entrepreneurial lessons Zeke Pike learned from his business?
• 1:13:24 — What’s the first thing Zeke Pike looks for when hiring?
• 1:15:25 — What would Zeke Pike’s advice be for beginners or young entrepreneurs?
• 1:16:44 — What is the most essential thing according to Zeke Pike now?
• 1:22:22 — Where do people connect with Zeke Pike?
• 1:23:24 — What is something that keeps Zeke up at night?
• 1:24:42 — What was the biggest challenge Zeke Pike has ever had and what did he learn from it?
• 1:26:26 — Who is the mentor of Zeke Pike?
• 1:27:44 — A book or podcast recommended by Zeke Pike?
• 1:28:18 — What would Zeke Pike tell his 20-year-old self?
• 1:28:55 — What does success mean to Zeke Pike?

Show Links

• https://www.instagram.com/zeke.pike/
• https://twitter.com/zekepike8/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeke-pike-878b731a0/

Podcast & Newsletter Sponsors

• HUBSPOT – http://hubspot.com/successpod/
• SWAG – https://swag.com/success (Promo Code: Success10)

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What is the Success Story Podcast?

On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.

Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures, and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and insights.

He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their stories to help pass those lessons on to others through both experiences and tactical strategies for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between.

Website: https://www.scottdclary.com

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Contact: Scott D. Clary MBA |416-522-5622 | scott@scottdclary.com

Machine Generated Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, business, credit, life, amazon, money, clients, shit, point, products, scale, started, fba, thought, easy, literally, podcast, collections, dad, company

SPEAKERS

Scott D Clary, Zeke Pike

 

Scott D Clary  00:00

Welcome to success story the most useful podcast in the world. I’m your host Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the blue wire podcast network, as well as the HubSpot Podcast Network. That was my podcast network has other great podcasts like marketing made simple hosted by Dr. Jay J. Peterson. Now Marketing made simple brings you practical tips to make your marketing easy and more importantly, make it work. If you like any of these topics, you definitely want to go check out the show how to write and deliver a captivating speech, how to market yourself into a new job, how design can help and also hurt your revenue, creating a social media ad strategy that actually works. If these topics resonate with you. Go check out marketing made simple wherever you get your podcasts. Today, my guest is Zeke Pike. He’s a serial entrepreneur. He’s the founder of easy automated e COMM And credit wipe now’s the extended to greatness started in high school. As an All American quarterback, he was often compared to Auburn star Cam Newton, and rightfully so. However, football didn’t work out for Zeke through setbacks and run ins with the law, drugs and a variety of other things including landing in jail for six months, he realized that he had to find a better way to build his life. Although it didn’t come easy. Zeek over time mastered the art of Amazon he built his own empire selling on Amazon, and then turned his strategy that he learned from scratch that generated seven figures in Amazon sales into a service you offered other individuals trying to launch and scale Amazon stores. This was his first business that he scaled quickly to over eight figures. This was only the beginning. We’ll talk about his football career and journey the drugs arrest near death suicide, turning his life around how he cracked Amazon became the top 1% of sellers he breaks down his full strategy in the pod and then how he’s launched and scaled other businesses since you came into this episode with some amazing perspective on life, success, entrepreneurship and he definitely doesn’t disappoint. You’re gonna love it. Let’s jump right into it. This is Zeke Pike X all American football star turned serial entrepreneur

 

Zeke Pike  02:11

I mean, I think for me, it starts like my my drive for to be like, just great in life in general, like started from a young age. My dad played 13 years in the NFL. So I grew up kind of like seeing that and not really knowing like what he was doing. You know, like, to me, it was just kind of like my dad, right. Like, didn’t realize he played in the NFL. But to kind of see that lifestyle, like from a young kid. Like, it was always like attractive to me like money, you know, things like that, like, you know, that that seemed big as a little kid like, inspired me and obviously I always wanted to play football. And that’s kind of like where my drive even began was was in football, you know, and like, my, my discipline was always kind of stemmed from that. And like, I wasn’t always the most discipline either, you know. And so, for me, I guess I went through a lot of struggles in my life and faced a lot of like, real difficult situations, and many of them were were self inflicted, like many of them were me just being rebellious and wild, and like living life on the edge. And then when I wanted to be, you know, follow my dad’s footsteps and have a chance to go to college and play in the NFL. Like I got all of that you know, I was like number two quarterback in the country coming out of high school five star quarterback all American had offers to go full full scholarships go play really anywhere I wanted to go. And here I was, like, as a little kid that had these dreams and I got all this in my head was just like, and I was just like over for me, you know, and I didn’t handle that in the right way. And that’s why legs

 

Scott D Clary  03:45

over for you. What do you mean?,

 

Zeke Pike  03:47

Like  I thought I was so much better and greater in like, bigger than everybody else. Like I really did. Like, for me, my ego was the one thing that really destroyed me in life at a young age. And so I was able to get through it in high school because there wasn’t as much publicity but I got exposed when I went to college. And no matter how good you are, like, you you so you’re easily able to be exposed, especially in today’s age, with the way social media is like it’s everywhere. But when I came out of high school in 2012 it was like when Twitter just like kind of came out like it was just kind of starting to like, be offensive and everybody got fucked. Yeah. And so like I don’t even really like I just didn’t realize how powerful was I was a MySpace Facebook guy, like, you know, like, that’s what I always wasn’t so

 

Scott D Clary  04:36

and also you’re coming out of your dad who was exactly and you’re like, I’m like probably God’s gift to football coming out of high school. I can do anything.

 

Zeke Pike  04:44

Yeah. And where I’m from in Northern Kentucky, which is five to 10 minutes from Cincinnati, Ohio. Is is a very like big but small town. So it was like everybody knows everybody. And you know for me, there were was a lot of pressure at a young age to film. I mean, I went to the same high school as my dad. So like, there was this, like, my dad was the only guy that everyone’s in high school that played in the NFL. And then here I am, who’s like, really the only other player that’s ever come to the school that’s been as highly recruited and had that, you know, like longevity, or that projection that that was what was gonna happen, you know, and so, I was told in high school, like, you’re going to the NFL, like, it wasn’t even, like, it was just like a no brainer, like, you know, you’re gonna go play at one of the top five schools in the country, and then you’re gonna go to, you know, go to the NFL and so that for me, when I was going to high school was Auburn Auburn University is when Cam Newton was there. And like, I remember, you know, take a visit. I was like, this isn’t saying, like, you know, to be like, I was hanging out with Cam Newton. And I’m like, you know, it just, it was nuts. It was really, for me, it was like, hearing people like, you know, ask me for my autograph, take picture of my babies, like, at 16 years old at plus, I who am I, you know, and so, these were things that I wanted, and then when I got them, I wasn’t responsible with them, you know?

 

Scott D Clary  05:55

So So, right now, like, at that age, like it’s in your head, like, obviously, major in your head. So what are you going into? You’re going to college? Like, I’m Canadian, so so bear with me. I don’t know what the whole like, like, what is NCAA like, and then you like, go into the call or whatever?

 

Zeke Pike  06:11

Yeah, so like for high school, like I started getting recruited, like as a freshman, which is a really young like, I started getting Scottish. That’s not, that’s not common. It’s not common. It’s like very uncommon. It started at a young age in meno down here in South Florida is completely different. Like there’s some studs down here, like the best of the best come out of South Florida. So down here, you can see high schools where there’s like, five to 10 kids on the team that are going division one, where I’m from, like, in the state of Kentucky, there’s maybe 123 guys that year, you know, so it’s like, completely different. We’re talking like just south Florida, that’s how much talent there is down here. And so like it was, you know, I was in the newspaper every weekend, and every, you know, it was just like, it was all it was all the time was constant. And anything I did negatively was also explained

 

Scott D Clary  06:50

what like, what the thing you want to talk about.

 

Zeke Pike  06:54

Yeah, I mean, well, for me, it started in high school, like, you know, I started just like, wanting to, like fit in with the normal crowd and like, go out and party. And then like, you know, live this, like, Fantasy Life of like, you know, party on the weekend. That’s like what you do. And like, for me, being a highly like a high, high level athlete, like I, I needed to have boundaries and have balanced and I didn’t always have balance and boundaries. And that’s what kind of destroyed me, it was like, trying to figure that out when I got to college. For me. It was, it was alcohol, like alcohol was was really what kind of took me and that’s why, you know, I don’t drink like, you know what I mean? I don’t you know, and it’s, you know, I still have had my battles with it over the years. But, you know, that for me, inhibits me and everything I do in my life. And so as an athlete, not to mention a quarterback, which is like, you know, the only player on the team that, like everybody knows that person, right? So that was me. So in in college, I started drinking, partying, and I’m like, you know, when I don’t drink like a normal person, like when I drink? Like, oh, yeah, that’s the key. Yeah. So like, at a young age, that was me in I couldn’t do that when I got to college. And then I’m a chord, I can’t go out to the club and act that way that I was acting in high school, you know, everybody’s looking, oh, everybody. And so it was just like it got it got to the point where it was just like, I got myself in trouble. I got to public intoxication. And by the time I got back to my dorm room, the next morning, it was on ESPN. Like, you know, freshman quarter all you know, five star freshman quarterback Zeke pike arrested in my mug shot, like this little baby of a kid, like, you know, just lost a free literally afraid full of fear. Like that’s exactly what it was, for me my life just like absolutely full of fear. And that didn’t stop there. Like, you know, my time at Auburn was very short, I ended up transferring to the University of Louisville. And it really just kind of continue to spiral downhill for me, like the negative publicity, like, I hated it. And I didn’t know how to handle it, you know? And then when I went to when I do a role model, like exactly a lot of people looked here, and everybody expected me to make it like, you know, there was like, and I’m like, oh, yeah, it’s gonna be easy. Like nothing. Nothing’s Bad’s you know, there’s never going to be any, like adversity. Like, you know, I just never wasn’t like, my life was pretty, you know, I’m not gonna say it was easy. But, you know, I didn’t come from like, you know, a family that had an amazing mother, an amazing father, like, an amazing family that, you know, again, I never really struggled when I was young, I made a lot of poor decisions, you know, but I never really struggled. And so, when I when I ended up transferring from Auburn to Louisville, and I don’t know that it became a point in my life, like, I don’t know if I was playing football because I loved it. Or I was playing football just because I was good at it like, and I think that’s really what it was. for me. I think I did love football. But I think there was more of the expectation, the pressure to play, knowing that I was good, like, Okay, if I just play I’m gonna make money to play the NFL. And so that’s where it kind of like that. That was like, I always thought at a young age, I’m going to make millions of dollars in the NFL. It’s what I was going to do. Like being an entrepreneur was never thought like my dad. Oh, my, you know, my dad passed away in December. So shout out to him. He’s amazing. He’s looking down and I love him so much. He’s taught me everything I know in my life. 100% But, you know, for, for him. It was like Come, you know, he owns health clubs and recreations a recreation center back home, but it’s not like the entrepreneur life is not what it is down here. It’s just not that.

 

Scott D Clary  10:08

So like, he made a ton of money. Yeah, Pro. I mean, he played 13 years, you know, a lot of money. If you’re talking true entrepreneur that’s like no money. Yeah, figure it out, right?

 

Zeke Pike  10:17

Yeah. And so you know, I’ll be honest, like, I thought that’s what I was always going to do. You know, like that’s, and, and then when I was at the age, I knew that I was going to do that the pay was completely different than it was on my dad played, right. It’s already complete analysis, insane compared to what it was, but it was already completely different. So like, when my dad’s time, it was a ton of money for them back then, you know, and so, but he put it into a business where my dad showed up and worked every day, like he was, he was wasn’t, he was an entrepreneur, he was an entrepreneur, but he was a slave to his business. And like, that was like, you know, we as he got older in life, and I got to become an entrepreneur talk about this later, like, he started to realize, like, I am a slave, but it’s like, the worst thing you can be used to be a slave to your business, like, you know, you know, there’s a point where you have to be for a little bit, but like, the goal is to not be for how many entrepreneurs,

 

Scott D Clary  11:02

they just create a job for themselves. Yeah, and then then they hate it. And they could have been making more money working in

 

Zeke Pike  11:08

Exactly, exactly. So there was a lot of you know, there’s a lot of expectations in but from a young age, like I knew I wanted to make money like and that that was going to do that playing football that was in a way all brand that happens exposed, get to Louisville, and, you know, it just kind of continued actually dated a girl for a little bit of time, that ended up passing away while I was dating her. And it was just like, so many things kept happening. I got it, I got a DUI, you know, just a lot of different things kept happening in my life to the point where I’m like, and then when it when I made these mistakes, I was exposed, right? Where like, my boy and my buddy got a DUI, but nobody did. Nobody gave a shit that he you know, that he got like, Oh, that’s cool. You know, but me is like, everywhere. So it took me a while to understand that I didn’t like that, like, I want to run from that, right? Because I was embarrassed. I was humiliated. I was exposed. I didn’t like that, like, I didn’t want that. So I went to a dark dark place. You know, and and the girl I was dating at the time passed away, I went to doctor a place where I was like, super depressed. You know, excuse me, didn’t, didn’t really know what I wanted. Like, I was literally at a point in my life where I didn’t know if I was supposed to play football. I didn’t know if I was supposed to get a job. I didn’t know if I was supposed to be alive. Like that was just that was what it was, you know. And so I kept searching my whole life for something to like, fulfill me, right? Like I needed something to make me feel better. And that’s where it’s at point in time, I thought I found that an alcohol or drugs or a party in or women or whatever that may be it was like always searching for something more because I was never comfortable with who I was 2016 I’ll never forget, you know, I was at the point where I was like, done with football. I you know,

 

Scott D Clary  12:42

did you formally quit?

 

Zeke Pike  12:43

I mean, I picked it up. Nobody. Nobody wanted me anymore. Like I went from having literally every school in America begging me. I’m talking Nick Saban less I’m talking the biggest coaches in the world are begging me to come play it for them to the point where they were like, bro, fuck you. We’re not touching you. Like we don’t want nothing to do with you. You’re gonna be nothing but negative for our university like

 

Scott D Clary  13:04

that’s like, so I’m, maybe I’m ignorant. So even if you’re like the best of the best, if you have negative press at that age, no one’s touching you.

 

Zeke Pike  13:10

I mean, you dude, I got three chances. I didn’t even tell you. I went to Murray State, like they’re going to another school after Louisville, which I was in no position to play football. But I was like, better than sitting in my parents house, you know, so. But I had opportunities. I just boom, like, I pissed them away. Like i i self sabotage my entire career. And I don’t know, I didn’t, I shouldn’t I don’t know, I didn’t know what it was. Until now. Like, I’ve done some serious work on myself. You know, I’ve done a lot of work on myself. Like, I’m fine. I’m far from perfect. You know, like, I’ve done a ton of work on myself. And, you know, I had a lot of like, built up guilt and remorse and all these things that like, I felt because, like, yeah, I was supposed to be all this and then I wasn’t you know, and then it was like, feel like you

 

Scott D Clary  13:55

did that. Because where you are at in your head at that point in your life. You’re mature. Did you do it? And you’re glad you did it because you felt like that wasn’t what you actually were meant to do.

 

Zeke Pike  14:03

wasn’t mature then though. I was so immature. Like, you know, like it. It took me like, I guess when I finished when I kind of finished I was going to explain more. But like it got to the point where I had a gun to my head and like I was gonna I was gonna end my life. Like, I was so high on Xanax and cocaine. I was up all night. Like I was miserable. Like, I didn’t talk to my mom and dad. I didn’t talk to him for like eight months. Like I was hiding. Like, I didn’t know if I wanted to live I didn’t I didn’t really want to live but I didn’t want to die. Like it was scary. I was miserable. And I was so lost because that was all I thought I had him I was I was supposed to it was supposed to be easy. I supposed to go play Nintendo. And then it got to the point was like, nobody wanted me like, What do I do you know, or and it wasn’t and it got to the point was like, I don’t even know if I want this. But I feel like everybody else wanted it for me or like I didn’t have any other vision outside of that, you know? So that same night I remember I was sitting on my porch and I was I was just not in a good place. And I was like contemplating, I was like I don’t know If I want to, like, I don’t know, if I want to live, I’m gonna die is like God’s plan, I was so mad like, you know, in such a bad shape that, like I’m gonna I’m gonna go on with my life. And I got in my car and I was literally driving back to the woods. This was in Murray Kentucky, like, the sticks, like not a place to be driving in on the way and this is like, two in the morning like bad bad shape. Nobody’s on the road, it’s in the country. I’m like half a mile from where I know, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna do it. And I look at my rearview mirror, and there’s red and blue flashing lights, and I get pulled over. And it was like, a moment where I’m like, do I do it now? Or? Or is this God? Right? Is this God like, intervening? You know? And, and it was that’s what it was for me. You know, it was like some something greater than myself that came and in that moment stop me I spent the next 364 days in jail. Like I was in jail locked up, nobody could save me face and 15 years in prison, like, you know, because of what was you know, what was found in the car, you know, X, Y, and Z. And it was it was it was scary, like I was in a dark, dark place or death. But I was still alive, you know. And so it was in that like, in those moments in that cell that like, I found who I was, like, I found it, I’m not gonna say it was easy, and I’ll get their like, it wasn’t easy after this. Like, that’s where I found who I was, though. And like, that’s where I found that, like, I’m okay with Zeke. Like my whole life, the real issue was I was full of fear. And I still just every single day, I have to check myself like fear of failing, or fear of never accomplishing what I want to have in life. Like it. And that’s a scary place to be, you know, and so it’s like, I think that’s the one thing now in my life, and as an entrepreneur, like, I don’t have fear, and it can be really bad at times, because I’m, like, too quick to do things. But, you know, it was it was in prison that like, not only did I find who I was, but like, I came to really, like, have a relationship with God. And like, that’s a huge part of my life and in everything that I do. And it’s really because of him that I’m here like it’s in that’s what I believe in, call it what you want it but like, I believe that some, like, you know, my God saved me on that night, because I was fully prepared to die that night. And like, it’s scary when I look back, because I’ve never sent like, since that day, I’ve never ever, ever got been there, like, never gone back to that place. And I’m into the spot that it scared me so bad mentally, that when I got out of when I got out of jail, I actually started speaking, it happened so quick, I got an opportunity to speak as soon as I got to jail, they wanted me to come in, they were like, I want you to talk to our school. So I’m like, okay, like walk in, and I talked to the entire school. And like, these kids are just like, like, they’re, I mean, they, you know, and used to have, like assemblies. Like, This is so gay, like, you know, but like, a lot of it, but like you could, like, it wasn’t like that, you know, I would have we would have, like, the kids would have been all rowdy and like, these kids were locked. And you could have heard a pin drop. And that’s when I knew like, I don’t think I’ve ever had an assembly where they had somebody just know. And I was raw, I was like, just gave it to him straight. Like, if you continue, you will fuck your life up. Like it was at this point. I was like, shows, you know, scaling, I just did three or four days in jail. I’m a big dude, I’m six, six, you know, 275 80 pounds right now 50 pounds to me, but I was scared. You know, like, I was scared in aereo, like, scared to sleep. You know, I wasn’t you’re not in there with friendly people were happy people. But, you know, I also at the same time was able to impact some people in there as well. Like I was able to, you know, be a leader for some of those people in there, you know, you have to, you know, you’re locked up, right, you better you know, be friendly with somebody, right? So, I was able to form relationships, and it was like, kind of in there in that moment. From there to the time I got when I was speaking that I realized, like, God had something for me, like greater like, so other than football, right? Like, I have started to see that. I don’t really know what it is. So I started speaking and I had I had an organization and we were like, I got like, I probably spoke at like 250 300 schools, high schools, middle schools, universities all across the country. And these kids were just like, I mean, they were just so impacted. And I was impacted by them, you know, because I it was like, in those moments that I was like, retelling myself my story, and you know, reminding myself like, you know, it’s very you know, and I had a good like, I had a good parents I was like raised the right way. Like it’s can be like I can only imagine like if you’re not if you’re not an if you didn’t come from like somebody that does and like I have so much respect for people that don’t in that can have the discipline and the drive and the understanding to know that there’s something out there that’s more than what you think like, you know, and so it was for me that I realized like maybe there is more than football. And so when I was speaking you know, like I’m telling my story, but it was like, I was really good. I got to jail. Here I am telling like there wasn’t there was not the end that I wanted to the story

 

Scott D Clary  19:44

right? Also not a happy ending either. Exactly. Like you had a shitty point exactly. I was like,

 

Zeke Pike  19:49

hey, what next? Exactly, and so and then like, like, what Oh, you just got out of jail and like so now like I’m a speaker, like, what kind of people going to jail I’m gonna get a job to go to high schools and middle schools and speak Like, I was insane, but for whatever reason, like God opened that door for me and like I took it. And that was kind of like when I realized, like, Yo, I’m like, I’m, like, when I walk into a room, I don’t say this, like, I, it’s a gift that God’s given me. Like, it’s just a presence, right? And so I have a choice. And I think we all do, right, we all have a choice to on our presence in terms of how, how we handle ourselves, and like, I still work on this every day, you know? But it was kind of like, in that in those moments where I’m like, do I need to continue to, like, tell my story? Or is there something more for me? And I knew at this point, like, I was still dealing with, like, a lot of emotional and mental stuff that like, again, you know, I was speaking but it was like, I went to a lot of things. I saw some fucked up shit in jail. And like, I had some things when as a child that, you know, were unfair to me, you know, and, and that other people do, it’s the same shit. You know, we all we all have faced things in our life. And I think the one thing that is repetitive over my life is like, no matter what happened when I when I was down, and I was kicked, like, my dad raised me to always get back up, like, get up, no matter how bad it is, get up, you know. And so, for me, it’s like, that’s what it’s always been. And I knew there was something more for me, I literally came now, I checked myself in a treatment center down in South Florida, because I was like, I don’t like there’s something wrong with me, right? Like, there’s more like, this is all before I realized all these like, all these little voices these little, you know, fears and things inside of me that were killing me, you know, and then these things that

 

Scott D Clary  21:26

you have self awareness, you’re like, Yeah, I’ve self sabotage everything.

 

Zeke Pike  21:29

Exactly. And I’m like, That’s not normal. Like, that’s not no, I’m looking at like, normal kids that are the top five quarterback in the country that has, like, they don’t they don’t do that. You know, they don’t. And so for me, like, it scared me, right. Like for me to get five DUIs. And like, Yeah, after the firt, after the second one, do it again, like after the first one, do it again. But like after the second, third, and then the fourth leg. And for me, it wasn’t always drinking. Like, I got to a point where I was like, really, really heavily, like reliant on Xanax, because of it numb me, you know what I mean? And so it was like, this was all like, you know, 2015 2014 2015 2016. And, you know, I moved down to Florida in 2018. In the 2018, nope, beginning of 2000 into 2017. And I just completely focused on myself, like that was like, I didn’t come down, I had no idea. Like, I thought I was going back home. Like I was just coming down here just to like, get away, I needed to work on myself. I thought it was 100% going back home. And I just felt like, there was more here for me, and I thought it was football. I still thought it was football, you know what I mean? And so I’m like, I’ve got to train to play football again, like this time, I’m like, Look, I’m just going to the league, like free college, that clearly didn’t work. So I’m like, I’m just gonna try, I’m gonna get an agent. I’m gonna go and like it was a complete long shot. And I trained really hard for like, you know, 18 months straight really, really hard. It was in the best shape of my life, a lot better shape that I’m in now. And, and I finally got an opportunity, an opportunity with Indianapolis Colts, and I went up to Indianapolis for a few months, it wasn’t long. But it was enough for me to go back up there and put the helmet back on my head and get back on the field in the huddle. And you know what, there was somebody better than me, and that’s okay, like, you know what I mean? Like, it just inspires me to work harder in the things that I do now in my life. Because again, I’ve understood that maybe God’s trying to tell me that, you know, football is not the plan that I have for you in your life.

 

Scott D Clary  23:31

Something after so you put 18 months in post jail, and you’re like, I’m trying to figure out my life and it doesn’t work out. How do you not spiral again?

 

Zeke Pike  23:42

I think I had an understanding of myself, I’m like, I hadn’t. I was trying when I like I was constantly trying to like hide, like, I don’t hike, hide, I don’t even know from what like I was just full of fear. Like I was really full of fear. And it was like, all this pressure and expectation that I don’t even really think other people were putting on me like I was putting on myself and like, I don’t know why maybe it was because I thought like, you know, I had to make it to the NFL because my dad played you know, like I don’t know if but it definitely like my dad never put pressure on me. Which is what’s crazy, like, you know, insane. He net all do

 

Scott D Clary  24:14

many parents. Yeah, crow never like destroy their kids. Yeah. Never ever

 

Zeke Pike  24:18

put pressure on me. It was like, you know, obviously, he wanted me to play right, you know, because he loved it. Right? He loved watching me but never ever put put pressure on me to play but supported it, you know, and like, I think it would have broke his heart if I said like, you know, I don’t want to play anymore from a young age, but he would have definitely like, you know, there wouldn’t have been any love loss and so even at the like, he didn’t he didn’t push me to go try to play again. Like I wanted to do it. Like, I don’t I think I wanted to do it because I was like, damn if I like continue to live my life like I’m gonna really have some serious regret that that’s the way my career ended. Like I would so much rather my career ended the way it did where I’m like, I trained for 18 months, and I had a shot to go play in the NFL. I got a chance I just said got to play the XF ellos. Ron Yeah. And so it was like, I got closer on and at the time, you know, which kind of takes me into, like, the whole entrepreneur thing is like, I didn’t have time for a job then either, you know, I was training like, you know, between training two times a day, and then, you know, taking care of my body and recovery and, and, you know, nutrition and everything else. Like I didn’t have time. So I’m like, you know, what, oh, what do I do? Like, I have to figure out a way to make money. And that’s when I got involved in E commerce. And that’s, you know, when it all started, because I’m like, I used to sell Jordans in Nikes and shoes on eBay. Like, that’s what I used to do. And I used to hustle. He’s I love shoes. I was just kidding, dude, I used to camp out at the mall. Yeah, like to get shoes. And I used to buy like three or four pairs, and I would sell them and I’d only buy three or four pairs because they never had my size. I wear size 13 Like when I was in like fifth grade. So like they only had one so I never got them. So that was kind of I started I started selling again. And this was when like it this is like post pandemic like all post madness, like upstart pre pre pandemic, pre pandemic, all like, you know, before the real spike in the E commerce market. And we were like, I was like, kill I was like really making some like really good money.

 

Scott D Clary  26:12

I want to know, okay, so you come from like, zero business experience outside of what your dad’s done. Right. And your dad never really scaled. Yeah. So how do you start this?

 

Zeke Pike  26:23

I’m trying to think of what it was that

 

Scott D Clary  26:25

you like, you go you go set up a Shopify store. What are your

 

Zeke Pike  26:28

terms of what we do now? Or what you did when you start? So when I got started, I was like, all this stuff that didn’t go Yeah, I was like, you know, there’s got there’s like, Amazon, I kept I kept buying stuff from Amazon, you know, and I’m like, Amazon, like, so I’m like, somebody’s selling this right? Like, it’s like, clicked for me. Like, this is eBay, right? Like, you know, somebody’s selling like this is so I can do this. And then I was like, I like shoes. You can’t buy enough shoes, right? You can’t like I couldn’t at least at the time and like the margins weren’t like, I didn’t have a whole sell sell. Jordans. Very good price. Like, so like, there wasn’t, you know, so for me, I’m like, I wonder if I do this with just like, any normal product, right? Like any normal product that could possibly

 

Scott D Clary  27:08

sell. Right? Yeah. So drop shipping. Yeah,

 

Zeke Pike  27:10

yeah, exactly. And so I just started thinking like, Okay, I start, I started drop shipping from like, literally, like Home Depot. Like, like, that’s where I started, like I was

 

Scott D Clary  27:18

you you didn’t even do like the thing where you go like, overseas, you would like AliExpress, or some shit, you find a cheap product, you were like, fine.

 

Zeke Pike  27:23

I did eventually, like I have use Alibaba. But like, in the beginning, like, I didn’t even know Alibaba was like, I was like, a Home Depot. Like, I wonder, you know, like, online, I would just like search for different deals, like, you know, every time every certain certain times a year, there’s always certain things on sale, every year, it’s the same. And so I was just like, look for little knickknacks, like nothing crazy, like, literally the smallest things that you would see in a hardware store. And I was like, that’s where it started for me. And then it kind of like progressed into, to selling a lot in, in figuring out products that were really easy to get in the head great margins, which is when we got into like more international market, we started using Alibaba and we were like, it was like, wow, this is really easy, like, to make really good money, like, these products are really cheap, you know, and I just kind of, like started doing that more and more and more and more. And like, you know, it got to the point where I wasn’t really having to do, I wasn’t really having to add any more products, because the products that I had were like, pretty good. So I had like just a stable amount of products. This is like, I don’t know, probably like when I’ve given up to a year after I got down to probably before that, because I kind of started selling before I started training because I was like, I don’t want my time like sort of and I was like, oh my mom and dad were like, Dude, you gotta get a job. Yeah. And I was like, fuck that. I’m like that, but I’m gonna just like milk it as. So that’s when it started. So it started to kind of be definitely before of like a job for football. But it was when I got football that like I had time at night. And I would just like I worked with my schedule. Like I wake up in the morning, I’d make sure if I had any orders, I’d fulfill them and then I’d be good all night that night. I’d have some messages I’d have like, it wasn’t really a lot. And then it got to the point where I was like, Amazon does all the most of them. Yeah, exactly. And so then I was like, damn, like I can if I can just like hire a couple people, then surely this can be like pretty easy, right? Like, they can just do this stuff for me. Like I don’t even have to worry about it. And then that’s when I like found out about like fiber and like some of these other like websites. I was like, Okay, wow. So that’s for me, like kind of where it started after that, you know, this is this is when drop shipping was like good. You know, now you can’t drop ship unless you have a warehouse and I was

 

Scott D Clary  29:39

gonna say because like I’m even curious. Like, how did you how did you like differentiate? Because I feel like everyone I was straight drop shipping. I was straight like everyone says like, everything’s gonna sign up for drop shipping and seems like everybody’s trying to do it. No,

 

Zeke Pike  29:49

I mean it. Everybody’s trying to do it because they’re doing exactly what I’m about to tell you. They’re literally hiring people in India. Yeah, and They’re giving them access to the Amazon store that they just sold for 30 $40,000. And they’re paying these Indians $1,000 for it, like, it’s all the they’re not doing anything and they’re drop shipping what’s not within Terms of Service of Amazon, and they’re, they’re getting a store shut down. They’re like, well, you know, what the hell is that people are doing that’s what’s happening. Yeah. And like, I face these issues on my own, like, you know, I’m like, that’s what you want earlier. This is like, like, going into a now. Yeah. And so like, we started seeing this, because there was a point where you could drop ship and they didn’t give a shit. Yeah, like, this is all right, when the pandemic happened, and everybody started, like, everybody started rushing to buy on Amazon. And then there’s people that are like, I’m out of a job, I’m gonna milk this unemployment as long as I can. And then I’m going to sell on Amazon, but they suck, right? Like, they don’t know how to sell. Like, you can’t just like start doing this. You can’t just start getting when it gets hot on Amazon, like, Oh, I’m gonna just sell like, you know, so it became a very bad experience. And then when the pandemic happened in the middle of it, shipping everything was destroyed, right. So it was terrible. So Amazon was like, we have to crack down because we’re like, it’s our it’s our for allowing it to happen, right? We’re allowing them to drop ship. So essentially, using these Chinese suppliers that we don’t we’re not you, we’re not like we couldn’t get anybody saying

 

Scott D Clary  31:16

that you need a warehouse because you have to, like have like the products every two day delivery and all like the quality you have

 

Zeke Pike  31:22

to have an infrastructure like Amazon wants you to have an infrastructure, right? Like they they’ve created an incredible platform, but they want you to have incredible business. Like they want you to run it at a large scale, if you can, like those are the clients they’re looking for. Right? Yeah, frankly, you don’t need more sellers Right? Like they don’t if 300 to 300 million active users a day and literally less than 2 million sellers that’s insane. You know what I mean? Like that’s really those are those are crazy numbers and so there’s there’s too many buyers and there’s there’s there’s there’s too many buyers and there’s not enough there’s too many buyers not enough sellers, many buyers there’s not enough sellers right now. And so

 

Scott D Clary  32:01

they said themselves that are jumping on quick there’s shit sellers. Yeah,

 

Zeke Pike  32:04

exactly. Which is why they’ve kind of like you know, they’ve come in they literally Amazon will sometimes make you get on a zoom call that can verify your identity. So you’re not just like setting up you know, store after store. So for us like we have over 150 still don’t have any stores suspended zero stores suspended.

 

Scott D Clary  32:17

So hard. Okay, so then I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today’s episode, HubSpot. As a leader, you’re always on the lookout for more ways to arm yourself with knowledge, the books, the seminars, and most importantly, the podcast and help you make the best possible decision for you, your company, your customers, because when you know more, you can apply more. And you can grow with HubSpot CRM platform, you can store, track, manage and report on all the tasks and activities that make up your relationships with customers. With a bird’s eye view over all your customer interactions. HubSpot empowers your decision making like never before. So you can give your business and your customers all the good you’ve got learn how to make your business grow better@hubspot.com figured out the process to scale up and do this properly. So you’re within Amazon’s Terms of Service. So the way that you deploy these stores, obviously it’s the way that works. Yeah. So what’s the way you’re supposed to do it now? Like what’s your

 

Zeke Pike  33:15

there’s a there’s like there’s three different models that we use. So we do we do use FBA and FBA is great, FBA is fulfilled by Amazon, which is, you know, where you’ll essentially buy products in bulk, you’ll send them to Amazon, they’ll carry the heavy labor for you. The key is in finding the products, right, there’s millions and millions of products and not every product has a margin, you know, so there’s a huge, huge need and in for us in this space to develop relationships with brands and certain distributors that have relationships with brands, where we can sell product that we want to sell and be in it’s okay, like, we have the right to sell X, Y, and Z, you know, product, whether that’s a toothpaste company, you know, Sensodyne like we’re working with some companies right now that are pretty big companies, and I can’t say any names, but like, would put us over the edge, like in terms of like, there’s no telling what its gonna look like at holiday season, but you really have to have the infrastructure in place. And so for us, like I did the Indian, I did the whole like Indians thing, you know, I was like, I’m gonna go to India and like, it was it was okay at first, but it got to the point where now like Amazon would rather have one seller that’s really, really good and 10 that are really, really bad. So the three things that we do right now are the FBA, which is we’re sending in, we still do dropship, but we dropship within Terms of Service. So we’ll buy products in bulk will actually package written or repackage label and send it directly to the to the buyer. So that’s kind of what we call like our hybrid model, which is how you’re supposed to drop ship. The reason why people can’t do they can’t you know, they can’t show a warehouse. They can’t show proof of receipt for purchasing these products. They can’t show some of these things. If they’re just you know, drop shipping it from from another website. So that’s, that’s the second thing that we do, which is called a hybrid model. The third thing is, is white and private label. So we private label will create customizable packages. And this is more for like our higher tier clients that understand the importance of like PPC campaigns and ads and yeah, kind of, you know, really what it takes to run a business and be honest, like people would look at this and be like, Oh, well, you know, $45,000. You know, that’s a lot of money, like, Yeah, but if you’re making $2,500 a month, like go find that in real estate, like you can’t find that in real estate unless you have a loan over your head. And like with interest rates right now, like, they’re not going any lower anytime soon. So it’s like, my personal opinion, it’s a great opportunity. It’s just people don’t sell it the right way.

 

Scott D Clary  35:41

So when you’re talking about that, so I’m not even talking about like, like, like people that are sitting at home that don’t look for help, because that’s something that you should be doing anyway. But what you’re doing is actually like, listen, we have the playbook. We know the terms of service, we’ve done this like 2 billion times, we’re going to set you up, right. And the thing is, and I think it’s important to figure out, like when somebody is looking to start on Amazon, a lot of people don’t figure it out themselves and probably screw it up 1000 times, kind of like you did before they get it. But there’s also a lot of people that teach and like, Coach, how to set up on Amazon. Yeah. So when somebody’s like, never touched amazon before, how the hell did they know to go to you? Versus like the 2500 other people that have YouTube videos and websites? Because it’s like Wild West, right, irregular?

 

Zeke Pike  36:23

I mean, we’re the type of company and excuse me, I actually we have a warehouse in Kentucky. Okay, so which is where I’m from?

 

Scott D Clary  36:30

And is that the word you’re talking about the other day, when you’re like, I’m setting up another?

 

Zeke Pike  36:33

No, this is what I’m gonna say. So we had a we had a word, we have a warehouse in Kentucky that we’ve been, but we want one, we have to scale, we need more space, we’re just scaling quickly, which is great. It’s a great thing. But we want people to come in like we want people to come visit us our warehouse in Kentucky like a warehouse. Like we, we were at the knitting grid and we got that thing. But now it’s like we want people to come in, come in, come see what we’re doing. Come sit down with us. Like nobody can do that in this industry. Like, show me a company that can do that. Not one. Like what are you gonna fly over to Bangladesh? Like, no, that’s doesn’t work like that. You know what I mean? So it’s like, that’s why we got our Building America one because we can we have the money to do it. We’re scaling appropriately. We have 150 clients that are super happy. We turn down clients all the time, because we want to work with good clients. We want to work with clients that understand this is a long term business. If you want a drop shipping store, go get a drop shipping store. Yeah. And come see me in four months, you know, when it shut down? Yeah. And you’re like, Oh, can you help me? Can you get my money back for me? Like, I should have listened to cheapest shit, you know, anything cheap is not good. And so we attract a specific client, where it’s like, you know, if you, you know, there is a couple, there’s probably a couple of people out there. I mean, there’s people that we work with mentor wise, that are incredible coaches, right. Like, I’m not any different. I have mentors that I have in my business that I know they have courses and stuff. So yeah, you can absolutely go do it yourself. But the client that we attract is the client that doesn’t have the time to do it, you know, or they they’re looking for a passive income, because their nine to five job is just barely enough. You know, like, they need something that can, you know, and right now, dude with inflation up, like, shit is not cheap. And it’s not getting any, you know, it’s not getting cheaper,

 

Scott D Clary  38:07

at least for whatever. Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir, when you’re talking about like, finding ways to diversify your income, like, Yeah, I’m an operator and a company still do this podcast, write a newsletter, I do a lot of shit. I know, people that diversify. So this is something that like, it’s smart to figure out ways to write revenue on the side doesn’t matter if you’re

 

Zeke Pike  38:22

working. And I didn’t ever really plan to, like do this for other people, until other people started asking. And that’s when I figured out I was an entrepreneur, like, it never even clicked for me. Like, I thought owning a business was like what my dad does, like, you build it, you put the stuff in, and then you show up to work every day. Like, I’ve thought that’s what a business owner was, right? It’s not like it’s not, you know, you can’t I mean, you know, you own multiple companies, you know, like, that’s what’s that’s the beauty of being an entrepreneur. So like, for this space, when I that clicked for me, and I was like, wow, I can make this on my store. And then somebody would be like, oh, I want you to help me, like, you know, friend of mine, I want you to Alright, well, it takes me time, right, my time is money. And then I started doing them as well, the numbers together. And then, you know, it kind of just started from that. And this is like, again, this is like five years ago, you know, six years ago, whatever, whenever I first got down here five years ago, it was when I kind of got and since then it’s like, I knew that at some point in time, this would be for the pandemic, I knew, at some point in time Amazon would would get would get tight, because their platform is too good, right? It’s too good. They don’t need that many sellers they need if they have too many sellers, and they’re just gonna keep growing. They want to make sure that they’re growing the right way. You know, so, I think for us, we saw the longevity in Amazon and just the E commerce in general like it’s just starting for all of us and we were all victim to it like we all do it all the time. I mean, I buy him and stuff on me I buy every day I don’t buy everything on Amazon. Yeah. And so that’s the only thing where it’s just super attractive like you know, even right now like the crypto market is freaking bleeding. You know, it’s it’s not it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. The stock market is getting ready to take a massive crash and inflation Since high interest rates are high, like real estate markets high like, ecommerce is the only thing where it’s like, we’re not getting affected no matter what, like, send a pandemic are way cool. We’d love it. Yeah, like, you know, we were we thrive in times like this because everybody else is freaking out like him we’re not like so I saw consistency in that. And I was like if I can just really put the time, energy and effort, and I tried to like I’ve tried working with companies overseas, I’ve tried working with other people, and all it is is taking a shortcut, right? It’s like taking the shortcut, take an easy way out and have somebody else do your shit. Like, no, it doesn’t work, you know, I was like, I’m gonna do it myself. Like, nobody can do it better than me, you know. And so, so I started doing it. My brother in law works for me, Jake, he’s, he’s incredible. Like, he literally left his job to come work for me. Like he had a job paying six, six plus figures a year, like, completely fine. And he was like, I miserable. I hate it. I hate going to work. I hate my boss. I’m like, Are you gonna work for me? I care. I don’t can’t guarantee you that we’re going to make that but by the pandemic hit and we went nuts, like we did, you know, five $6 million, like in just in sales, like in our, you know, in stores, right? Like, and then we kind of got to this point where it was like, Hey, we got to slow down and make sure that what we what we have is right, like what we’re doing is good. And we were still dropshipping at this point, right? We were doing small FBA stuff, because we, we saw a future with it, but we were still able to drop ship. And then the pandemic hit. And I mean, we had like 50, stores get suspended, like shut down. And I’m like, I’m excited to do that always stays liquid in my business, just in case she hits the fan. I’m like, I don’t know, you know, like, I, I just want to make sure but we have such good relationships with our clients. We didn’t lose a single one. We didn’t lose one single client, we were able to I mean, we have a team, we have teams that are in place for things like that at the time. Now, we don’t even use them anymore. We don’t need them. You know, we have one guy that knows what he’s doing. If a store is happening ever get in trouble, but, and I was like, Man, I don’t know if I’m in the right space. Yeah, like, you know, because I’m like, But then I’m like, you know, this FBA thing is like, it’s working. Right? Like we’re seeing it work. It’s slow. And we’re used to like, $10,000 a month. $50,000 a month, we were drop shipping, right? Like profit. Yeah. And I was like, you know, I couldn’t wrap my head around only making $2,000 a month. Like, that’s not why why would I waste my time if I can do this, you know, but you can

 

Scott D Clary  42:18

scale up the stores too. Right? Right. Yeah. And so then

 

Zeke Pike  42:20

as just as I was grew as an entrepreneur, right, like I was young entrepreneur, you know, I came up, you know, kind of like came up, I just happen to be in the right field and do the right things at the right time I came up but it’s great to like, come up, but like, I want to come up like at the end, you know, and so I started realizing like, even just with the amount of clients right now, like I don’t need another client, like even the clients right and out right now I’m in a My business is nine figures. You know what I mean? Like, in four years, five years from now, no doubt insane. You know what I mean? So it’s like, and not only that, but like my clients have the ability to exit the you can exit the dropshipping business. Hey, there’s no exit and what are you gonna show me your infrastructure? Like, yeah, here’s my product.

 

Scott D Clary  43:02

So explain Yeah, so you don’t exit

 

Zeke Pike  43:04

you can’t exit the dropship. And there’s, there’s not really any exit to it. I know. So, so you have to scale up, that’s the only way but you have to do that by having the infrastructure which is you know, eventually getting to the point in my opinion, in this space, you have to have a brand you have to have some type of non private label. So the goal for us is like we want to generate revenue. Yeah, make you passive income. Make your money back. Yeah, be completely passive. And then build a dope brand that we’re gonna sell for like my company could be like a $500 million.

 

Scott D Clary  43:34

I see you’re saying so now now that’s what the exit so

 

Zeke Pike  43:36

now I’m like, Okay, why am I like I’m already making money and like, I can be patient right? Everybody’s got to have like that long. So this for me is like I have a lot of power in my hands. As long as we continue to scale.

 

Scott D Clary  43:48

Okay, so how do you scale how do you scale a good brand? How do you how do you build it? How do you build the brand that works with Amazon? And all all ecommerce? And how do you scale that up? Like what’s the lever you pull? Is it like, you you build a website? Obviously, you build social I’m thinking like, Movement Watches or shit like that, like Yeah, I’m thinking like,

 

Zeke Pike  44:05

I mean, it’s it’s yeah, it’s we we have a jewelry brand. That that is pretty crazy. You know, like everybody loves like cube and chains and all that and so I don’t know. My wife My wife was in here. I would I would show you she has one. Brandon was taking pictures of them today, but it’s like the margins are crazy. Like think about it. Like

 

Scott D Clary  44:30

I get it even better when you have a name attached.

 

Zeke Pike  44:32

I’m not gonna say numbers on here but it’s just like there it’s so I mean it’s like two 300% margins right like which is like it’s like it’s not so it but it’s about finding something that’s like you’re gonna be able to build right not something that’s like all hot for like a couple like a week you know, like

 

Scott D Clary  44:47

and that’s what a lot of dropshippers did. Yeah, the training for I’ve heard people talk about like, I’ll find some shit on Tik Tok. Yeah, and I’ll go to I’ll go dropship right, like, a month.

 

Zeke Pike  44:56

Like, like now that there’s like all these different programs that really pulls. So to say, like products for you for dropshippers, it became really easy like they, you know, like, just the same way now that more and more software’s are being created for the benefit of FBA, like wholesale, you know, FBA wholesalers. That was the same withdrawal, like all these different types of, you know, websites that people were using that was giving them information that the same people have, it’s not hard to get on Amazon and see what products are selling. Yeah. But when it comes to a brand, it’s about establishing something that is going to be able, you’re gonna be able to put the money into it and know that it’s like got a couple years to go. And so I think it’s about finding the right product, but not about being like over like overcomplicating it, you know, like, I don’t know, Gronkowski like Robin Kraus, who’s really does the whole like a shaker like the end like they kill it. But it’s such a simple thing, right? Like, it’s not he doesn’t even have to overcomplicate a cup, like everybody, every day, you see him everywhere, like and that’s the stuff that like we started to think about is like, you can sell that, like, you know, like, we can sell that like, you know, my wife actually just started a supplement company. Shout out to her boss babe supplements. I’ll get her on here to one Yeah. And and and dude, like, it’s just it was the same way. She was like, Dude, the margins are crazy. And all it is is marketing, right? Like and so that that is just about if you have a good product, like the marketing is easy, right? Like we I’ve we’re pretty good with the marketing side of things. It’s about being creative, being visual, you know, what do people want? But

 

Scott D Clary  46:23

it’s about like, for that stuff? Do you use like a lot of UGC stuff like influencers? You use like paid like, Yeah, I

 

Zeke Pike  46:29

mean, everything like, for, it just depends, you know, like, honestly, like, we can run just campaigns through, you know, social media, you know, and get plenty of traffic and spend little little, in terms of costs just because of the product. Right, like, so. It depends, you know, there’s definitely celebrity like influencers and celebrities are obviously great, right? Like if they’re, if it’s legit, and like their their following is it gets the engagement, then absolutely, like, those are the probably that’s probably the best marketing you can get right now. But you also don’t want to find some like axes. It’s also there’s also a lot of influencers and like that are willing to just like put their name on anything, right? It’s about like, I tell, I tell Dre. I’m like, what show looking for somebody right now, you know, they’re looking for they have a couple people that they’ve been, they’ve been talking to, it’s like, find somebody that like really, because they’re women supplement company, so it’s obviously boss. So, but it’s like, yeah, so it’s like, yeah, you know, like, find somebody that complements that, you know, can can be, but they will do that. You know, a lot of times it’s not that complicated, though. Just find people that don’t like PPC campaigns and like, you know, just running any type of campaign. Whether it’s a Google campaign I mean, anything it’s these are like, just about people seeing it right, like you just

 

Scott D Clary  47:50

take it off, not take it off. Do you ever do like your own site Shopify? Or do you just try and sit? Yeah, we

 

Zeke Pike  47:56

use No, we use Shopify, we create brands, and we use we use Shopify. Now we’ll use Shopify more for like the analytics side of things. And to be able to like, just from the manageability side, it’s more friendly. The Amazon also takes a cut. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which insane margin. Yeah, exactly. Which the margins aren’t saying, but you don’t have the control like that you can you can use when you’re using Shopify. So when it comes to like, your own brand, so on on Amazon, you know, it’s just about having the skews, which is like, you know, every product has a SKU, right. So it’s like, you have to enter every single SKU one by one into Amazon, it’s

 

Scott D Clary  48:31

a lift to get it set up. Yeah, it’s a lot after you got to set up, like don’t overcomplicate? Yeah, I mean, for this

 

Zeke Pike  48:37

for our clients, like, that’s why we do what we do is for our clients, it’s like literally all your responsibility is to literally, one have the upfront investment in to have the capital, we say 1510 to $20,000 of initial upfront capital, which is in the credit card, it’s not in cash, you have to have that, you know, you can use that in the credit card, and you’re fine, you know, explain that as well. So for so the credit card. Again, it’s like for real estate investors for whoever, like us, you know, other people’s money, right? Yeah, we always want to use other people’s money. And so we instead of using our own money to buy these products, and knowing we’re going to sell them, right, we want to leverage the bank’s money like bank give us money, you know, whether it’s a credit card, whether it’s a line of credit, whatever that may be, knowing that we’re not ever going to max it out, unless, you know, the store is scaling appropriately. But in the beginning, it starts on a low scale even $10,000 a lot, you know, we may start the first month with only a $5,000 purchase order, you know, in the store scale slowly. So, once that store is paid back, you know, probably by the, you know, the you know, say 45 days, you’re paying it back but you’re getting paid every two weeks. So every two weeks, you’re paying your card so that’s how I got you know, that’s I started a credit repair company, you know, which we can talk more about too, but it was like, I see okay, the credit the credit points, so I started hacking the credit. I’m like, wait a minute. Holy shit I have like, because I obviously I have my own ecommerce stores I was doing I was this is what I did using I don’t have money this scared. So I was like, I’m gonna use the bank’s money. Yes. And so that’s where it all started for me on credit

 

Scott D Clary  50:05

card about like, interesting shit if it doesn’t scale like no,

 

Zeke Pike  50:08

I mean, I when I was doing your dropshipping, it didn’t matter. But now like where we have it down to like, again, that’s why I say we it’s a slow scale, you know we we were not going to buy, you know X amount of products month one if it’s not going to sell it’s

 

Scott D Clary  50:21

also like like candle you’re talking about five to 10,000 We’re not talking about like 200 300, that leaves a relatively small investment, like if you if you’re working a good job, you could have 5000 bucks that you could put towards product if it’s going to sell anyways. Yeah, not that big.

 

Zeke Pike  50:36

But. But what gets more people is the upfront investment. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. And that’s where we have to get people understand is like, you know, and it’s hands off if you do that, right. Yeah. And that’s where it’s like, you know, look, if you want to do it yourself, like you can, but, you know, that’s what we charge and you know that, you know, we’ve had to raise our prices again, shipping is expensive, everything’s more expensive right now, you know what I mean? So it’s like, we have to be able to keep up and we’re gonna continue to scale to continue to provide the results

 

Scott D Clary  51:01

that our clients are Yeah, man. It’s like business in a box. Yeah. Like, like I and that’s what it is nowadays. Like, that’s what you want. It’s interesting, because, like, I’m the kind of person that’s always like, I’ll just figure it out myself. Yeah, but I can tell you how many times probably like you, you’ve tried to figure it out yourself. And it’s cost you like a ton of money, and are not all for like, I appreciate what you’re saying about like, come sit down with us come like come to our warehouse. A lot of bullshit out there. Yeah, for sure. An immense amount of bullshit, right? It’s like what so it pissed me off as an entrepreneur as well. Because if somebody’s putting money into something, you don’t want them to get fucked. But I think that realistically, if you find the right people, and and the best way to start your entrepreneurial venture is to do it while you’re still working. Yeah, you keep working, keep your nine to five, and you invest in things.

 

Zeke Pike  51:41

Like I mean, for this, it’s not gonna matter. But if it’s, you know, for someone else, like Yeah, it’s definitely the way to do it. It’s gonna suffer a little bit, but you

 

Scott D Clary  51:47

could do it for you could do it for the suit. Yeah, exactly. If you if you work a full time job as a professional, so you’re making like, whatever 100 $200,000 per year, and you want and you want to, and you understand that your pension is going to be shared, it’s not going to be great. You’re trying to find ways to generate cash flow, like outside your job, right, a couple ways to do it. But I mean, like, it’s not a bad way to do it. Yeah, think about the money that you know, anything that’s going to generate significant revenue, here’s what I tell people have to invest in, like, even again, I’ll bring it back to my reality, the podcast, I spent a lot more than 45,000 bucks in ads for this. Yeah, like a lot more and that and now it makes money, but like, Fuck you, you spend money? Yeah,

 

Zeke Pike  52:21

you have to, you have to spend money to make money. And I think like, people have to understand that. A little like any, like, if you can build any stream of passive income, that’s the absolute best way to create wealth for yourself or for your family. Like, you can’t just like start investing into these things until you’ve created some type of passive income stream, where you can generate the money because, you know, that’s, that’s the one thing where I realized, like, the two businesses that I have, like, people need passive income, and everybody needs their credit fixed, like, you know, like 90, and we say, one in three people, one in every three people, like, they suffer from bad credit. You know, like, it’s just crazy. There’s three people and one of us got bad credit. So, you know, that’s like, that’s, that’s, you know, we try to we try to find things that are going to be around for a while, like the stock market. I mean, it’s just it’s, it’s, it’s, we’re not we’re in a scary place and a scary situation in terms of like, the markets right now. Like, it’s just, it’s very uncertain. You know, like, in my opinion, I think we’re gonna see, definitely, it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. I

 

Scott D Clary  53:31

think that more people are now looking for it. Because like, obviously, a lot of people go into real estate, a lot of people go into crypto, a lot of people go into like, just like high volatility, like even like tech stocks. Do. You think more people are going to start moving towards investments like this? Do you see more people looking

 

Zeke Pike  53:45

at it? Yeah, I mean, I think the problem the, one of the problems, too, is like, again, we talked about the whole like, everybody started selling drop shipping, right? And it was like it there was a lot of people that did a really, really bad job and gave gave the name the industry. So to say a bad

 

Scott D Clary  53:59

bad name on YouTube, you look up how to drop ship. There’s like 1000s of it.

 

Zeke Pike  54:02

Yeah. And it’s like, it’s really sad, because it obviously works, or people wouldn’t be selling on it. Right. So it’s like, it obviously works. And there’s obviously hundreds and 1000s of people that are selling on it. So if you can do it the right way it’s gonna work you know. And so we tried to do things just the right way. And when we started doing that and started like, you know, game when you’re when you’re when I was a little bit younger and started first started making money, like, I wanted money, money, money, money, money, money, and then as as I’m like, No, I want longevity. Like, I want to be able to sell my business you know, like and so I like, like speed rush. I’m like, all in on everything. So when I had an opportunity in business, like I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, but I think I’m gonna figure it out.

 

Scott D Clary  54:41

Alright, let’s let’s talk about gait because like you also built out the second business Yeah, so where’s your head at when you’re building a business the first one was kind of a necessity Yeah. And the second one is such a it’s such a useful and explain what it is useful, but I thought like this is a weird business to be like sitting in bed at night me like, I’m going to start a credit repeat business even though I’ve built this like E commerce Empire, and I feel like I don’t know where to start. Yeah, it’s like it’s like it’s like a little bit.

 

Zeke Pike  55:09

But it all started it all started from from E commerce, like, I was trying to scale my store. And I was like, I didn’t have I didn’t have credit, like, my credit sucks. Yeah, so I was like, Okay. And I honestly, I paid for credit repair, and I got, I got screwed, I got screwed. It was like not it was they fucked my credit, but it made it worse. It was not good. And so I was like, Okay, now I’m gonna fix it, because nobody can fix it better than I’m, nobody’s gonna care more than I’m gonna care, right? So I’m like, I’m gonna figure it out. So I just started figuring it out. And I started researching it. And again, it’s something you can do yourself, right? You can do it yourself. But it’s not easy, right? Everybody can do it. Everybody can do it a different way. You know, we the way that we go about credit repair is, you know, we don’t we don’t use Experian. You know,

 

Scott D Clary  55:53

I don’t know anything about credit. But all I know is that like, okay, so I know that. Like, there’s TransUnion, Equifax, and there’s actually a third one in the US and Canada is only the two main ones

 

Zeke Pike  56:03

transmit TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian are the three bureaus. Yeah. And, and those are the only there’s more, but those are the three members, they go by. Okay, but,

 

Scott D Clary  56:13

and I do know that all you the only trick I’ve ever learned is, if you see something that’s not on your report, you can like report it to one of the bureaus and try and like get it off. Yeah, and I’m sure there’s like a lot other, there’s a lot more

 

Zeke Pike  56:25

like, the, you know, the common thing one I wanted to give, when I figured out the process, and I did it for myself,

 

Scott D Clary  56:33

I want to back up, because you know, this, you’re in it, how many people actually give a shit about their credit?

 

Zeke Pike  56:37

Once they understand it, they give shit? Okay, like, a lot of people aren’t educated on it. A lot of people don’t know, I think education. Yeah, a lot of people, a lot of people will just go and try to buy a car. And they’ll be like, sorry, like, you know, your credit is not good enough. And you’re like, Okay, well, maybe I should pay my credit cards, like, you know, you know, pay my balance on like, it’s not it, like it could be, you know, it can be something standing back 10, you know, 510 years now, you know, that you didn’t even realize, you know, that Nordstrom credit card that you opened and just forgot, or you moved in the bill, you know, the got lost, and you know, whatever, like, and now you’re sent to collections, right? And so you’re like, why can’t I get over a 650, you know, credit score? Well, because you have two collections from, you know, 2011 on your credit report, and it’s still showing, and so, believe it or not, like, it’s, it’s not ever going to get better, like, you know, it’ll go up and down. But it will never get better until those things are actually handled. So believe it or not, like every person should care about their credit, every person should know how to go in dispute some of these things, because every time you go and apply or submit or give your name and information for anything, and you know, their inquiries, or, you know, they’re on your credit, you know, like they’re showing on there. And so there’s a there’s a method to the madness. And like when people do like you said, Do people give a shit, like, once they understand it, they do. And then when they understand how it benefits them, then it becomes like addicting. Because, like highlight

 

Scott D Clary  58:02

how important it is, like talked about, like getting a car, getting your house, like all this stuff. And I

 

Zeke Pike  58:07

mean, I think that all Yeah, I think the most like the thing that people obviously aspire to have in life is like a house, a car, a family, you know, a successful job, accessible business, you know, I started my business was $0, I started my business off of credit, literally started my business off of credit. And when that clicked for me hand in hand, I was like, wait a minute, even other businesses I have like completely off of just having good credit and going to the bank and getting money, right? When I was a kid, my dad was like, use the debit card, do not use the credit card. I’m like, why the credit card is terrible. But no, like, we were fed that lie like no debit cards are trash. Like, they’re trash, they’re absolute trash. And if you’re going to spend the money, you might as well get the points, right, like and so when I started seeing, like people, like I have clients that make like three, four grand, sometimes, you know, every two every 234 months, like on cash back rewards, like you know, just from like spending, you know, so there’s like, for me, it started one wanting to be able to help people. And when with the E commerce business, we obviously haven’t had to have have a price, you know, that was affordable for us that you know, especially if we wanted to grow our business that was going to be able to support this long term. And so I saw a need for a lot of people that wanted to get some type of business but like they didn’t know how. And so like when we grow, we take clients to the credit repair process, which is very simple. It’s very hands free. It’s only $1,000 $997 a one time fee. And we take you through the process, not just a fixing your credit, but of taking to the next step of getting funded. And that’s when like your whole life can change, right? Like whether that’s, you know, you getting whatever you want to do or starting whatever job or whatever business or whatever that may be, you know, so we try to start there because we understand like, yes, you know, there’s clients that can afford $45,000 It gets no big deal and start, you know, that can do that. But there’s a lot of people that, dang, they could really use 25 $3,500 a month of passive income, but they just don’t have the cash. But if we can fix their credit, we can get them funded. And they can make that at 0% 1218 months, we’ve been getting client service and interest $120,000 Sometimes, you know, it’s insane, insane. And these clients are turning around and making their money back in 1218 months. And it’s like, you know, it’s pretty, I

 

Scott D Clary  1:00:32

just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today’s episode swag.com. Now, you know, if you’ve ever received a corporate gift or swag in the past, how many of those gifts did you actually keep? Probably not many, which is probably because the stuff that you got was not so great. I’ve gotten like a lot of stuff on trade shows, and from companies in the past that I’ve just thrown out the second I get it. So this is why you need checkouts. why.com, I’ve been on the receiving end of getting garbage gifts. I’ve also worked in companies, where I only had access to a really, really small inventory of stuff that I wanted to give my customers and my employees. And I knew that it wasn’t going to resonate, I knew that was going to suck. So what is swag.com? Well, it’s like swag upgrade, it’s the best place to buy custom gifts and swag that people will actually want to keep. So they sent me a box because obviously they’re sponsoring the show. And I wanted to see what it’s all about, you know, I’ve worked in businesses, I want to make sure that the quality of their stuff actually was up to my standards, because I can tell you right now that when I get garbage, it goes right into the trash, it’s like it really goes right into the trash a second ago back from the trade show or the conference or whatever. So I received one of the customs white boxes from swag.com. I loved the unique packaging. So it was a beautiful unboxing experience. I love the actual products they sent me and there’s a whole bunch more that obviously they didn’t send me. But the stuff that they did send was absolutely beautiful, it was very high quality. And I can only imagine that if I actually got this when I was working for companies, I probably would have actually use it. And to be honest, I’m going to start using them for people that work on my show and in my company as well. Because I know that this isn’t just a novelty gift that somebody’s gonna throw it, it’s stuff that they can actually use, they have so many unique and customizable gifts that I’ve never seen anywhere else. They have custom yoga mats, they have custom Apple air pods, they even have branded kayaks, which I did not know was a thing. So they carry all these premium brands like North Face, Yeti, Nike, and more. And it’s all customizable. With your company’s logo or artwork with swag.com, they take care of all of your swag at their warehouse, and they ship it to individual addresses. Or if you prefer, you can just send it to a bulk location in one single shipment. It’s easy to manage from their online portal, which you obviously get access to. So if this is something that you think would benefit you if you have clients, or customers or a team, and you want to go the extra mile and you actually want to give gifts that people appreciate, which is the whole point of giving these gifts in the first place. Go to swag.com for the perfect swag and custom gifts. Right now they’re giving everybody who’s a success story, podcast listener special offer, it’s 10% off your entire order, but only when you go to swag.com/success and enter promo code success 10. Remember, for 10% off, go to swag.com/success and use promo code success 10.

 

Zeke Pike  1:03:32

So it’s like a cheat code.

 

Scott D Clary  1:03:33

Yeah, it is. So okay, so then somebody realizes they don’t have good credit, or they’ve been going through like, if you’ve been going through life, you have been paying attention to this probably your credits. No, you don’t

 

Zeke Pike  1:03:44

have you don’t realize you don’t have good credit until you like apply to for the new apartment, or the car. And they’re like,

 

Scott D Clary  1:03:50

whatever things they do, what are the things that they should start doing that even they can do? Yeah, I

 

Zeke Pike  1:03:54

think the most important thing is like utilization makes up like 1/3 of your credit score utilization. Is that like how much actual space is being taken up? Yeah, based on the limit that the banks have given you. So there was a point where my credit was this is this is why my credit was low, because I didn’t have credit cards. That’s literally why I didn’t have lines of credit. So yeah, so like I’m have I’d have like up to like a $5,000 credit card that I’m trying to like scale my business and I’m like, maxed out like, you know, when they report which they report once a month, which every different every company reports once a month, usually at towards the end of the month, middle end of the month, you can call them and that’s what what do you report right? Yeah. And the key would be to make sure that you’re paying those balances off before they report. So any credit any credit card company, whether it’s Chase, American Express, you know, whatever, whatever company, you know, Bank of any any of them, they’ll tell you, they have to tell you when they’re reporting your credit, so every day of the month, depending on what day it is, they’ll tell you and as long as you pay before that date, your utilization will always be reflect that and your credit score will boost. So it’s little things like that that can make a huge difference. Again, it’s a lot of just being uneducated. You know, for us, we actually tell people like, experience not bad, right? It’s not, it’s actually it can be a good thing for you. But when trying to repair your credit, it’s a terrible thing. Because when you sign up for these apps, like Credit Karma, and Experian, etc, you give them the right to expose you. Like you give them the right to go and expose your information to banks and tell them basically, every month this dude’s got collections do not give him anything. You know, next time he applies? Absolutely not. He’s got a collection for what for 300? My wife had a collection for $700 from her sorority. I’m like, Are you? Are you kidding me? So like, we fixed it. And her score went from like a 680. She’s like a 790. Now, which is like, you know, we’ve done some other things, but it’s, you would just like, you would be surprised that and some people don’t even know it. You know, like, they just don’t know that they have until

 

Scott D Clary  1:05:57

they until they apply for something they don’t know what sitting on the report,

 

Zeke Pike  1:06:01

right? So we say don’t like credit, credit card and experience like an absolutely no, no, they expose you, you know, they’re exposing your information to the bank. There’s, we use identity IQ, which is basically a fraud protection, it’s more of a privacy protection, where we can actually go in with the same capabilities that, you know, these other platforms have, however, they’re not affiliated with banks, like they’re there. You see everything. Yeah, there’s going Yeah, exactly. You’re seeing anything you wanna see. But you’re also able to be like, dispute aggressively. So you can go through and dispute to the Bureau’s without them saying I’ll do this do just went and disputed it, you know, it’s kind of like, they’re shady. They’re working together, though, right? They’re feeding each other money, you know, so it’s, once we get them on to identity IQ, and we can see, you know, like, what we’ll we’ll set up a call and speak to them, like, it’s not just like, we want to educate clients on their credit, like, it’s not just like, oh, we want to repair your credit. Yeah, we have some clients that just don’t care, they just want to fix but like, I tell my clients, we’re like, we want to educate you. Right? We want and again, so it doesn’t happen again. And so you know, because if you want, you know, it’s pretty easy to avoid, right? Like, once you, you know, like, it’s one that you shouldn’t get, usually you shouldn’t go to collections, unless you’re being irresponsible, didn’t pay anything. And then, you know, knowing some little things like one like, you know, specific lines of credit you want to have, you know, the utilization is huge. You know, just there’s lots of different tricks to the trade

 

Scott D Clary  1:07:22

that yeah, so you so you keep utilization down your report shut? That’s an accurate, say, say somebody has gone to collections. Yeah. So what do you what do you do now? Is that stuff on there for good? Or do

 

Zeke Pike  1:07:32

you know, I mean, no, no, absolutely not. It’s not on there. For Goodman, a lot of times, like will will actually, like they have to prove documentation that, you know, they can send you to collections once but why did they don’t keep those papers around? You know, then things are in the shredder long gone, like, prove it right. You know, so we’re aggressive. And a lot of times, you know, it is like, like a risk. Like, they didn’t mean for it to happen. It was just a mistake. It was a miscommunication. You know, it was I’ve had

 

Scott D Clary  1:07:57

cell phone bills. Yeah,

 

Zeke Pike  1:07:59

it was, or it was the other party’s response, like felt like, there was no email, there was no communication, like, you know, so it sometimes, you know, it’s it’s, it’s just, it’s about going through the process, right, you have to know the right way to go through it, you have to submit the right letters, you have to speak the right language, you have to know ultimately, the way to go about it. And that’s by giving them as little information as possible, right. Like, it’s better to just be like, I don’t know what this is. This is not it not like, you know, and I tell them all the time, if you have a collection dump it, the worst thing you can do is pay collection. Really, it once it’s paid, like you’re like, oh my gosh, I paid the collection. No, but see, it’s like it’s not dude,

 

1:08:40

it’s like it will fall

 

Zeke Pike  1:08:42

off. Eventually, it will fall off eventually. But it will still stay on there for a while. You know what I mean? Even though it’s pay, it’s like, oh, yeah, collection, but he paid it but he’s still getting collections. And we’re still gonna penalize them for it, even though he paid it. So it’s like I see. That’s the thing. Like they don’t teach a shit. They don’t. This is not teaching school. I first of all, I flunked school. I didn’t, I don’t know how I

 

Scott D Clary  1:08:58

learn this stuff to be smart. Because I can guarantee you that banks will not be helping you through the process. No,

 

Zeke Pike  1:09:05

I mean, they like because they don’t want to help you why they want the highest higher interest rate, they want the higher APR, like, yeah, they want you to have bad credit, you know what I mean? Because that’s where they’re able to tax those rates on to get the money that the banks don’t have money, they’re making money off of our money, you know what I mean? So it’s like 100% So

 

Scott D Clary  1:09:25

if you have if you have a case you have shitty credit, is you like all the low utilization you make sure that you’re getting shut off shouldn’t be there. You’re like, using other things that don’t communicate with bank? What about like, like, getting cards and stuff? Like are there cards that you should get that like, help you out?

 

Zeke Pike  1:09:41

Yeah, there’s definitely a process and obviously, we got to repair the credit first, right? If you need your credit fix, you got to pay the credit. There’s other different ways other than should you apply for cards, if you have low credit, is that I would, I would say no, like, it’s just gonna add more to you know, it’s gonna add more to your report, right? So it’s like instead of adding let’s just be patient let’s fix it. You know, like Understand the long term vision of this, you know, it’s not going to be fixed. And you know, sometimes our days are very rarely, you know, to take some 3060 90 days, you know, a little bit of time, sometimes longer, you know, if I’ve seen very, very, very, I mean, you can’t show me a credit credit score, that’s worse than I’ve seen, like, yeah, you know, and it’s just, it’s, it’s sad, it really is sad. You know, like, it really is sad because people aren’t educated on it. Enough.

 

Scott D Clary  1:10:25

How did the company that you use, how did they fuck you over? Like, what did they do?

 

Zeke Pike  1:10:31

It was like, I gave him my money. And I’m like, Well, I

 

Scott D Clary  1:10:34

don’t want to be like, what’s the red flag that people go from?

 

Zeke Pike  1:10:38

I think like, I didn’t want to want my credit score got worse. Like, I’m like, why is it getting worse? Like, you know, and I don’t know, maybe I was doing something wrong. But if I was doing something wrong, they should have educated me, right? They should have told me and so, you know, we always educate like, if we’re fixing your credit, like, please do not go apply for a credit card. Yeah, please do not go to try to buy a car, like let us just do what we need to do. And we move quick. Like we you know, if you get signed up with us today, I mean, you’re gonna have disputes by tomorrow that are in action, you know what I mean? So, and that’s all able to be seen, we have a client dashboard that we’ve built that is very accessible for our clients to see every little thing that we’re doing. And it’s a benefit to them. And like I said, maybe it was something I screwed up in this company, but like, it’s important that you educate people on it, you know, and so for me, it’s like, I like to educate people on it, because it’s like, kind of a cheat code. Like, I’m really you know, and it’s like, I used to love when I was a kidney that’s

 

Scott D Clary  1:11:32

like, most unique, that’s the biggest differentiator like as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I think it’s the biggest impression differentiated that you offer, like, because you don’t just provide the service,

 

Zeke Pike  1:11:40

right? I mean, that, yeah, we’ve become more of an education platform, because I like it, right. Like, it’s cool to see people when, you know, and like when you see people that are like, Oh, my God, I just got a 25,000 other credit line. Like, you know, that meant a lot to some people. But like, that’s a lot of people, that’s a lot, you know, that can do a lot. And then when you start understanding, like, dang, you can transfer debt, you mean I have had debt on this credit card, and I can transfer it to this, and this and this and get points for it, and X, Y and Z, like, there’s a lot of things that we tried to do to educate them. And then even from like, the travel side, like, you know, there’s like, think about how many people that spend money all the time, and they never got to go on a family vacation. Like they should be able to go on a family vacation at least every couple years based on the amount of points that their mom or dad or the family had to spend through the year on credit cards, because they couldn’t make it that week, but they don’t know it like this is all cheat codes of life that we want to educate people on you know what I mean? Like, that’s where I get purpose in life. You know what I mean? Like making people money while making money and then educating people on how to go and do it themselves.

 

Scott D Clary  1:12:39

More businesses after this one or is this like, we’re like

 

Zeke Pike  1:12:43

super focused on on our on our E commerce business right now? We’re growing and we’re super excited. I mean, we’re just we’re really clicking on all cylinders. And like my team’s

 

Scott D Clary  1:12:54

you Okay, so like lessons you learn? I want to I want to be like entrepreneurial lessons, because you’ve built a couple Yeah. But lessons that you learned building the credit company, how did you scale that one up? How do you start? How do you scale up the people the tools attached? Yeah,

 

Zeke Pike  1:13:06

I mean, just started again, you know, doing it myself, you know, everything I’ve started doing myself and then you know, hiring some people to limit your workload, right? And then from there, like then, okay, how can these couple people that we’ve hired to limit our workload become my my head guys that can take the business? And I

 

Scott D Clary  1:13:26

just, what’s the first thing you don’t want to do?

 

Zeke Pike  1:13:30

Anything on a computer. Anything on a computer, any of that? Like, I love talking to people, I love working with the client, I love like, you know, I love selling like I love get, like bringing the opportunity to people and then building the relationship with them. But I hate computers. I honestly like hate all like the back end of everything I do, but it’s so important, right? And it’s like, it’s like I’m so ADHD that like I have to really like focus. Okay, this is important. Even though it doesn’t seem important, like this is really important. You know, it’s like I just don’t like it’s I don’t want to do it like, but that’s what like I said my brother in law has been freaking phenomenal my credit business we’ve just been able to find some really solid people that again have kind of grown with me over the last two years of that business. And again, I like as we scale like I’m able to people pay people more and hire people more like you don’t don’t start with too much right like don’t start with too much keep it simple, stupid. You know, that’s what they say. And like so for us it’s just like, you know, you said are you gonna start any more businesses like if the right business comes along Yeah, but like I’m not in a hurry you know, the one thing I mistakes I have done is I’ve gotten into I’ve lost money I’ve gotten into bad businesses I’ve you know, done made poor decisions because

 

Scott D Clary  1:14:43

what’s the word like worst mistake you want to talk about?

 

Zeke Pike  1:14:46

Like I think honestly, the probably the dumbest was like the whole like shit coin market like that. Like just like I’ve lost hundreds of 1000s of dollars on stupid shit just it’s like I’m just amazingly everybody would win and I would never win and I It always cause

 

Scott D Clary  1:15:00

a lot of loss. I think I think people like they seem like they’re winning.

 

Zeke Pike  1:15:03

Yeah, no, I’m like, I’m definitely not up. So. No, that’s

 

Scott D Clary  1:15:07

good man. No, I think that like, just like coming from zero business background. I think people overcomplicate starting shit. Yeah, I think that the one thing that you mentioned that was actually super interesting was your mindset. And it was like being slightly fearless. Starting things. Exactly. If you were going to talk to an entrepreneur and tell them advice for starting something from scratch, what would be your advice? Or your recommendation? Is it mindset is it just do more start shit, what is it?

 

Zeke Pike  1:15:35

I think the most important thing is like, take the first step. Like it’s so freakin uncomfortable in the beginning, like it is really, really uncomfortable. And you’re gonna go through some situations that are just really hard. And you’re like, Dude, there’s so many times where I’m like, this is never gonna work. Like, this isn’t gonna work, right? Like, it’s just not. So I think. I think the biggest thing is like, just in the beginning, understand you’re going to be uncomfortable. And when you’re uncomfortable, like that’s really when you’re growing. And so like, even now, there’s times in my business, like it’s been uncomfortable lately, right? We just got this new warehouse, we just hired 20 new employees, we just stripped the warehouse painted the warehouse, yada yada X, Y, and Z, like, you know, so there’s a lot of things that we’re doing that are you know, so I would say don’t, you know, don’t overcomplicate it. And, and make sure that again, like you’re whoever you’re aligning yourself with whoever you’re surrounding yourself with, like, always aligns with your values, too, you know. And so that’s kind of been the biggest thing for us is like, just anybody that does work for us, like, you know, this is who we are, this is what we stand for. We do things the right way. And then it just pays off. It seems like it continues to come back and benefit us by just doing things the right way.

 

Scott D Clary  1:16:45

After, after starting this, you know, when you first started selling Amazon, you’re doing drop shipping yourself. Have your priorities changed, like in your life, like what’s, what’s the most important thing to you now?

 

Zeke Pike  1:16:57

Oh, I mean, the most important thing to me is my faith and my family, my daughter, I have a daughter, she’s freaking gorgeous. She’s coming to see me tonight. She’s on the way down here right now. I’m super excited to see her. But that’s definitely the most important thing. And the next is like just being being good, right? Like, it’s hard. Like, I have business partners. And there’s times where they probably think I’m like, a loose cannon. You know, but like, I want people to win so badly, right? Like, I just want people to win. I don’t get fulfillment like, Dude, I swear. Like, I don’t get from it fulfillment, like I can make so much money and it doesn’t give me fulfillment. But when I make other people money, it gives me so much fulfillment. Interesting. It’s like, and I in the beginning, I’m like, I gotta make more money. Because it’s not it’s like, not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. I guess not fixing, you know, yeah. But like, I really get joy. Like I said, like, kind of, like, you know, I like I get joy from that. Like, it brings me joy, you know, and so,

 

Scott D Clary  1:17:51

I don’t know. No, it’s good, man. No, I appreciate I appreciate ya for doing this. Like, I think that your story is, is probably one of the most inspirational stories, like there’s people that have incredible stories, you’re sure, but there’s not a lot of people that had such you were so laser focused on what your life was gonna be. And then when you have that rug pulled out from underneath you, and you hit like, like talking like, suicidal thoughts. JL rock was like, that’s true. Like, you can’t, yeah, literally more rock bottom.

 

Zeke Pike  1:18:24

And that’s like, that’s why it’s bigger than entrepreneurship for me, because it’s like, the like me coming on. And like this podcast is an opportunity for me. Like if I don’t I don’t need any business from this podcast. Like, it’s my story is bigger than my business. You know what I mean? And so it’s like, wanting you know, there’s people out there that are freaking hurt right now. Like our world’s fucked up right. And that’s not good. You know what I mean? Like, and people are really sad. Like, I’ve I have mental health issues. I work on them daily on the daily because I’m conscious of that, right? So I know there’s somebody that’s going to hear this podcast is gonna be like, You know what? I’ve been in the same spot. I felt the same way. Whether you can, it’s not like it’s not it’s about what you can relate with, or your story doesn’t have to be the same but what can you relate? What are

 

Scott D Clary  1:19:03

you You understand that like, listen, watching. I’m watching Zeke, and he hit rock bottom, and I’m going through shit, right? Yeah. And if you can figure this shit out and comment on the other side, like that’s the whole point of this. At the end of the day. Yes. This whole podcast meant to be like yeah, tactical and you learn some shit but you understand that people that are like, you look at your social you like you look like, like successful us. Definitely. You have a beautiful wife. You have nice things. You’re successful business. But you have to understand there’s like always stories behind it. Right? Nobody, very few people wake up and get that day one. Oh, yeah, for sure. And a lot of people go through a lot of shit to get that. Yeah, that’s what I try and bring it. Yeah, and I

 

Zeke Pike  1:19:39

still go through I still go through shit. You know what I mean? Like even even even now, like I still go. Like I said, like I told you, you know, my father passed away in December. You know, he lost the battle with cancer. And it’s like, I could choose to just like sit down and pout and be miserable. But you know what, like, there’s somebody else out there that just probably lost a day or two. You know what I mean? From the same situation and if I can rise up i I can keep going and I can keep succeeding and keep winning. So can you soak in that person and same thing I went to jail, I was in jail for a year like people like when you go to jail, they count you out. Yo, you’re done your bomb your waste, you know what I mean? Like, I was determined not to be that, like, either you were not going to know me as a frickin jail. Barely you weren’t, you know, and so if that’s you, like, if that’s you, and that’s you in the situation, like, look, look at me, you know what I mean? Like, you can do this and it’s not gonna happen tomorrow, or even next week or next month or probably next year. But if you keep one step at a time, and you just believe I can manifest manifestations usually manifest all the time manifested all this. Literally you asked my wife I manifested, she’s, she’s brunette now. But I manifested a blond haired blue eyed girl, I was gonna buy our white G wagon. And that’s exact she she took a picture in front of white G wagon, and I thought it was hers. And she showed up and like this beat up red Audi. And I was like, you just can’t fish me, right? I thought you were like, but I said, You know what, maybe we want to buy your way to Eggman. Like, those are the things that I’m able to do now. Because I don’t have fear. I just I just have faith, I just step I move. If something feels right, if something feels aligned, if I feel like something is a good idea, and it’s going to benefit me, I don’t sit and wait and ponder on it and say let me think about it for a week or two weeks. Because by that point, I’m definitely not going to do it. Right. So it’s like, if I have you know, it’s like if God’s giving you a spark of the universe, whatever is giving you this internal spark or voice, do it act on it, just do it. You know what I mean? Just take action. And so me in my life the reason I’ve been successful is because I’ve taken action that’s it. If doors have opened, I’ve walked through them like not everything’s a scam. You know what I mean? Not everything. There’s a lot of scams out there. I’ve been scammed a lot. Not that everything’s a scam. You know what, leanin once in a while leaning once in a while and take a chance and do due diligence, right, dude, that’s why we tell, come see us come visit us. Come meet us. Let’s get on the call. Let us educate you. Like, if you just send me your money tonight, like that’s, you know, great, we’ll take care of you know, but that’s not smarter. That’s not it’s not for you. But we and again, we want to we want to build the relationship with you because like it’s it’s this opportunity is really in today’s age, you anybody can start a business anywhere whether you’re in your bedroom, you can do it you know, look at me, anybody can start their ecommerce store today. And never worry if they figure it out they never work another day in their life. Never

 

Scott D Clary  1:22:23

I wanted to couple rapid fire closes up before I pivot. Where should people go check you out? All the websites all the social Where do you want send people

 

Zeke Pike  1:22:29

Yeah, I’m credits dash wipe.com Yeah, credit dash web.com. And it’s Eazy E comm.com. It’s easy letter Eazy E COMM With two M’s EC o m m.com. And on Instagram as well, that’s probably the best way to get in touch with me. Which is Zeke dot pike. And those are the best. I mean, Instagrams definitely the best way to get in touch with me. I can leave my you know, we can we can leave my email all that information. And yeah, I mean, if you reach out, you know, we’ll help you, you know, in any way, shape, form or fashion that we can. And that’s just what we want. Like, we just want people to win, you know, and honestly, like, that’s, that’s why we have good relationships. That’s why clients keep bringing

 

Scott D Clary  1:23:13

it back. Just tell about it. I know. I don’t know. I think it translates to the camera, but I am your Fascinating. Well, it’s very good. Okay, let’s do a couple of rapid fire closes that what keeps you up at night now?

 

Zeke Pike  1:23:28

What keeps me up at night?

 

Scott D Clary  1:23:29

Yes, sir. As in as in like, what is the thing in your life and your business is stressing me the fuck out that you don’t have to deal with?

 

Zeke Pike  1:23:36

I think this is something that I’ve dealt with all the time as an entrepreneurs because I feel like I have to do everything in one day. Right? I can’t say I can’t do it tomorrow. Yeah. So it’s like, for me understanding that. I can do it tomorrow. And if tomorrow doesn’t come with me, I don’t have to do it. You know what I mean? Like, so you know, but I always like, look at it like that, like, you know, don’t you know, so for me right now my biggest stress is like my anxiety, we’re getting this new place together, you know, anxious for hiring new employees, where they just swear they just suck. What if they’re really good, you know, like, all these different things where you want the best want the best words like I have to check myself, check yourself, how

 

Scott D Clary  1:24:15

do you send yourself? One I mean,

 

Zeke Pike  1:24:16

I meditate. Like I said, I’m super spiritual, I’m in tune with, with with God and my faith. And that’s huge for me in just terms of making conscious decisions with what I do and anything, you know, I put that first and then, you know, ultimately, just try to continue to you know, put myself in positions to really, you know, be a light for somebody else, you know,

 

Scott D Clary  1:24:41

yeah, no, I appreciate what’s the biggest challenge that you’ve had in your life. The one thing has been many, but like the one thing that sticks I

 

Zeke Pike  1:24:48

mean, I’ll be honest, like losing my dad was but was was was was was was rough. And that one was like, probably the one that hit me the most and you know, I still I’m still Dealing with it right now, you know, and yeah, it’s super fresh. And so it’s like, that’s definitely been the hardest thing. But besides that, I would say it’s just like being so low to where I felt like there was no way out. And, and feeling like my life was over. What did you learn from that? I learned it’s not, you know, I learned no matter how rough life gets, no matter how tough and that’s why I was able to hit it. And I’m not perfect, I’m able to handle losing my dad, right? Because I know, one my dad’s in heaven right now I know that he’s watching over us. And I know that he would be super proud of me, you know. So, for me to continue to move forward is about just, you know, handling things, right? When I’ve learned that through being in the darkest times in the past where, you know, I continued to move, I didn’t give up, I didn’t quit, I didn’t put my finger on the trigger and pull it, you know what I mean? And for that, I’m still here, and I have all of this that I never imagined I would never have wanted it. But then when you start to get it, you’re like, wow, you know, like, really is incredible, you know, and so, I’m super grateful in my life, you know, I’m blessed, I have an amazing daughter, my wife is gorgeous, I have businesses, we’re making money, our clients are happy. You know, and all of this is like super, it’s just, it’s remaining grateful and and understand like days and days are still gonna suck. Like, I still have sucky days and still have tough days. But it’s those dark moments that I realized, like, you know, get the fuck up, keep going, you know, you’re tired, you’re laying around, like, those are the days that you have to get up. The days that you don’t want to the most of the days that you have to do it. There’s been

 

Scott D Clary  1:26:27

many people in your life that have impacted you, who’s one person, what did they teach you? How did they impact you?

 

Zeke Pike  1:26:34

I would say my dad, my dad, for sure. 100%. And for that for, for him, it was just being present, being present. And it’s so easy for us to miss so many amazing memories and amazing moments in life because we’re so distracted by everything that’s going on around social media, you know, tick tock all this crazy shit. You know, we just live in such a high like, there’s so much stimulation. Yeah. And being present, like the one thing that my dad did for us was he was present like he was there. He was president when he was there. He wasn’t on his phone. He wasn’t scrolling through Instagram, like he was present. You know what I mean? He was with us. And so like, that’s super important. And like a lot of people miss a lot of great relationships and a lot of great opportunities in life because they’re not present. You know, they’re concerned, they’re consumed. What keeps you up at night, like, just be present, be in the present moment, you know, and so that’s like, the greatest gift that He’s given me. I practice it every day now and I’m stuck. I’m far from being good at it. But I know that it’s something that truly gave him peace right? Even though he had all the money and all of it he had everything. He wasn’t on his phone when it when he was at dinner and in like in situations that he was just present so

 

Scott D Clary  1:27:43

good. Yeah. A book or podcast or something that’s impacted your life.

 

Zeke Pike  1:27:49

I’m probably thinking Grow Rich was was one of the books. I mean, I’m not a big reader. I’ll be honest, I hate I, I don’t say I hate reading. I’m much more of a audio book, guys. I can’t sit like I’m like, Yeah, so like, listen to him while I’m working out. That’s been good. You know, I, I listened to a lot of different podcasts. It’s just, you know, more for me, it’s like I said, you know, I’m very tuned in my faith, you know, I get a lot of of answers from that.

 

Scott D Clary  1:28:18

One thing to tell your 20 year old self

 

Zeke Pike  1:28:22

start, like, start, you know, like, I thought I had to be an adult. Like I thought I had to like grow up right to start my businesses and start making money. And it’s not like there’s such an opportunity right now for you to start whatever it is, you want to start, whether you’re still in high school or middle school, yo, kids are out here getting it right now. And a lot of people don’t understand that. And so for 20 years old is like, Look, if you’re miserable, where you’re at, you’re miserable in your job. And you’re miserable. With everything else that’s going on, stop quit, you know what I mean? Keep keep going. Yeah, you know,

 

Scott D Clary  1:28:55

ya know? And last question, what does success mean to you?

 

Zeke Pike  1:29:00

Success to me, I mean, this is this is this is where it was like, for a while success was was was all about, like having the money, the cars, you know, all of that, right? And for me, now, it’s not it’s like being a great husband, great father. And ultimately, like leaving a legacy for my family, taking care of my mom, right, she’s going through right now taking care of her taking care of my brother, my sister. Like, for me, it’s just about leaving an impact on this life that like my dad left, right, the same impact he left and I’m so far from it, but wanting to leave a greater impact than I ever thought like football could ever imagine. You know, football is like, Well, yeah, it’s only you know, if I’m destined for more, I’m designed for more than that, you know, and so, now it’s just about being able to not just, you know, help people make money and fix their credit, but hopefully along the way, form a relationship with them or have an opportunity to share something with them because, you know, I get I get joy from it, I get peace and not only that, like, I get healing from that too. You know, I get healing from sharing my story. I get healing from talking to somebody else. I get healing from listening to somebody else because it reminds me you know, like, I’m very easy to You know, think the world is good and go make a bad decision because not because it’s bad because things are good. Like, go get it’s cool, go, you know, go go get loose, you know, go do this or that and it’s like, no, like, I’m a husband, I’m a father. You know, I want to be that when I’m not here anymore, you know, I want to be known for that I want to be known for the dude that you know, fucked up and went to jail. You know, like and so, for me, you know, every day I wake up it’s like, I want to be greater than my legacy to be greater than when I leave here. You know, for my kids, my future son daughter that’s not even born yet. You know, it’s like that’s what I want to leave

 

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