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Sean Murray: Okay, we're back.
Sean Murray here again with

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deBanked TV. Today, my guest is
Shawn Smith, the CEO of

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Dedicated Shawn, thanks for
being here.

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Shawn Smith: Thanks for having
me on.

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Sean Murray: No problem. So,
Shawn, you do collections and

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recovery, what brings you here
to the SEAA show?

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Shawn Smith: Well, you know we
work with right now, I think

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somewhere around 90 different
companies in the alternative

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financing space nationwide. And
I'm not sure how many payment

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processors we work with, but
they do need our services as

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well. So there's
cross-pollination there, just

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because we serve a lot of
different asset classes on the

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commercial collections and legal
enforcement side. So there's

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just several different folks
that we can meet with here and

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clients we can hang out with.
And, quite frankly, there's golf

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and ocean and pool. So I mean,
it's an easy sell from someone

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from Minnesota.

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Sean Murray: Yeah, I was gonna
say, I mean, how was your flight

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over was it, did you feel like
you entered a whole another

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world, especially after post,
you know, this being the post

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COVID era? Like, what's your
take on being in this

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environment? Obviously, we're
not wearing masks right now.

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Yep. A lot of people behind us
are not wearing masks, it kind

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of feels like old times or that
handshakes don't well, before, I

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didn't even know whether or not
I should shake your hand or do

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an elbow bump. But, you know,
what's your take coming from

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Minnesota, to this environment?

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Shawn Smith: Well, you know,
look, I'm all about meeting

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people where they're
comfortable, right. But for me,

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and my family, like, you know,
we're very comfortable in this

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space. You know, I think they're
still taking precautions and

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things like that. But I just
think there's a real excitement

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to get back to this. And still,
you know, try to do it

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cautiously. But just a lot of
optimism, and I've just seen,

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you know, I was getting
messages, and we were posting

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about coming down here, like,
should I come like my LinkedIn

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messaging box was filling up,
with like, what is it like,

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who's gonna be there, but you
know, and so I think they said

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they had a lot of even last
minute attendees just signing up

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like crazy and figuring out the
flights to get down here. So it

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feels great. I'm excited for
this fall just with, you know,

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the Broker Fair coming and
things like that. And I just

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think the industry as a whole is
really excited to get things

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back going and get back in
person. It's great.

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Sean Murray: What's going on at
Dedicated what's new at your

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Shawn Smith: You know, it's been
a wild ride. I mean, COVID was a

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company?

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roller coaster for us. You know,
we have a big about 40% of our

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businesses is contingency, and
about 40% is first party

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portfolio servicing. And then
the rest is a mix of repo,

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remarketing nationwide legal and
you know, just kind of ancillary

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things are b2b, just straight
b2b stuff. And so but then by

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mid last year, we went on this
big uptick. And then now our

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first party side, so what we've
seen is that people are talking

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about portfolio management. And
they're recognizing that we can

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take that over for them, do what
we do really well. And they can

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do the front end side really
well. So we've actually grown

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from pre COVID, we were about 30
employees, or team members to I

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think we're close to 90 now. So
we expanded in COVID. And we

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where we really expanded was on
the first party side. So we

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start taking over folk's
portfolios, managing it either

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on their system or ours, and
really helping them build out an

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airtight kind of waterfall
process for every account. So

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that side I've seen grown, that
contingency side is still behind

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pre COVID number as far as a
number of accounts are coming

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in. But that's because they
weren't writing as much right.

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So now I see everyone getting
lines and stuff like that. So I

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really see the you know, it
moving in an awesome direction

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quickly. But yeah, it's just
been a wild ride. I mean, what a

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riot, you know what I mean?
Like.

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Sean Murray: So you so you
tripled in size. But what does

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that mean, as far as customers
go like merchant does that, does

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that suggest that there are more
people in collections that more

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people are paying like, how, how
does a company like yours, get

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that growth? Like what what
change what happened during

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COVID to create on that?

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Shawn Smith: So actually on our
third party contingency side,

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where we in essence, don't get
paid unless our client gets we

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get our client paid. That side
is still down, I would say we're

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roughly averaging about a 50 to
60% average of what we were pre

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COVID. But because I think a lot
of companies realized there was

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a lot of holes in their recovery
process. They've been turning

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over handling their portfolio,
their customer service and their

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collections to us. So that's
really where the growth is

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coming from and what's forcing
the changes. You know, something

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I used to say is, you know,
don't go out and buy the fire

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extinguisher when the house is
on fire. And obviously through

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COVID the house was on fire and
a lot of companies. Their

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solution was to move internal
sales or underwriting over to

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customer service and
collections. The problem is

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that's not their specialty,
right, and it is ours. So we

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were able to, for instance, we
had a client that was sending us

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about 250 accounts a month. And
they had eight folks on staff

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and collections plus a manager
leading that, we cut that down

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to three people, with, they kept
their manager work, you know,

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kind of managing our team
remotely. And we cut it from 250

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accounts coming over down to sub
50. Actually, most of these

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you're on 25, so when you're
paying contingency on all those

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accounts, that number gets big,
really fast. So we can just show

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through the numbers that we can
save our clients, literally

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millions of dollars, for having
our team what we do really well.

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So they can focus on doing what
they do really well, which is

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bringing in the deals, building
the customer relationship,

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servicing that customer on the
front end. And if there's a

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challenge, we can handle it on
the back end, and we can do it

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with a four, I think we're 4.9
Google's are revealing, so we're

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gonna protect their brand, doing
that as well. So it's, it's

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worked out really well. So that
third party site hasn't grown as

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much. And legal is definitely,
you know, we're not doing heavy

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legal right now. Are we yes, in
the instances where it really

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makes sense. But we're really
focusing on building

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relationship with the merchants
and helping them through this.

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And it's paying dividends for
our clients.

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Sean Murray: So in terms of
building that relationship, that

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means you're talking to them.
How did the EIDL the PPP, how

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did it play a role in a company
like yours? Was it a net

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positive? You know how did it
change or impact your business?

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Shawn Smith: It was wild. It was
wild. So when COVID hit, we go

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into a nosedive. But we
instantly started reaching out

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to everyone saying, hey, we're
here to work with you. And

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unfortunately, that's not always
in not just in this space, but

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just in general, when someone
owes you your immediate

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reaction, I think often when
there's an emotional tie, that

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being your money, right isn't
the best reaction. It's not that

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way for us. And I believe
because we did that when those

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funds came in. They gave the
business owner confidence to use

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the funds that they had. But
they were saying I'm not good.

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They were even saying they don't
have they were just that was to

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make sure they could take care
of their family. Right. Right.

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They when they got back up and
going they used that money, not

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the PPP money. We were never
asking directly for that. But

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they used other funds that they
had, they felt okay with paying

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it out. So, I mean, we had we
grew by 221% last year, on the

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revenue side, and a lot of that
had to do with I feel like

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because we treated people right
through COVID, as things started

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opening up, they took care of us
first. And so we became the

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priority to pay off not because
of threats, right, but because

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of relationship. And the clients
that I saw do that also had

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amazing results internally. And
some of the ones that I know

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that took a more aggressive
approach didn't just have

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collection issues, they had
regulatory issues, and they had

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press issues and right and
thankfully, that was pretty few

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and far between. But
unfortunately it did happen for

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sure.

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Sean Murray: Sure. So you've
talked about having a

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relationship with the merchant,
obviously, you're you're a good

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face for the collections
industry. And I know this

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personally because I know you're
a very charitable guy as well

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like what what type of
charitable work and initiative

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has dedicated participated in?

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Shawn Smith: I'll try to make
long story short with that one.

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But so everything we do is tied
to working with a 501 C three.

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So basically, we partner with
501Cs that our team is

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passionate about, or I'm
passionate about, or even our

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clients or the market is
passionate about. So our biggest

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partner is Feed My Starving
Children. So every time a client

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sends us a deal, we donate 10
meals. So by the end of 2020, we

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had donated over a million meals
to feed children. And then once

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that slides over to legal team,
we just went from one to two

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advocates in Haiti that helped
find and help slaves in Haiti

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unfortunately has over 300,000
child slaves in and around

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Porter France estimated and so
they go in and help them so now

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we have two advocates that are
going out and we are able to

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positively impact over 72
children. We're just about to

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release publicly a partnership
with Doran which fights child

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sex trafficking and pornography
on the Internet with our first

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party team. So we're helping
stop that and effectuate that in

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a very positive way. We partner
with American Gold Star Mothers

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for with a repossession
remarketing and love life now to

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fight domestic violence and so
on so forth. It's like literally

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it's everything we're doing for
every collection or

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administrative or everyday you
work at Dedicated. There is a

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positive action in this world
tied to it, and it's, I believe

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businesses is going in two
different directions, you're

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either a for profit or a for
purpose, both need to make a

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profit to stay in business. But
if people are choosing with

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their dollars, and they're the
same price with the same, you

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know, roughly even success
rates, but one is donating and

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having positive impact,
especially in that sub 40

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category, they're gonna go with
impact all day long. And that's

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what our brand has become
synonymous with is that we can

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trust millions of dollars in
debt, we can trust our merchants

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and our relationship with those
merchants to know that you have

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a 4.9, Google start revealing
that you're going to actually

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treat people right. For a
collections. Right? So one of

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the findings, I just did a
research on this, like two weeks

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ago, we actually have a higher
rating on Google than most of

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the industry out there on
equipment, finance, advanced

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everything, right. And I was
actually surprised by that. So

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yeah, it and it bleeds through
our brand and everything we do.

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And I'm just a big advocate that
I think business has the

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greatest opportunity to change
the world, because as this

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massive thing called profit that
it's just been using for just

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the immediate stakeholders and
shareholders. But when you look

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at it, the global economy is
really helping support you doing

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business. Not that you need to
look, I say sometimes we're, you

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know, we're a for profit,
charity, right. So like, we

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still need to make a profit,
right? I'm still a highly

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motivated person. I'm not
judging that at all. But I think

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business has kind of developed a
bad reputation of just being

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about making the money. And
people more and more are going

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to start voting with their
dollars. And I've been advising

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some brands in the industry to
say, hey, if you want to stand

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out, you want to champion small
business. Okay, marketing

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strategies, and everyone's
saying the same thing. We love

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small business, we're here for
you. Yeah, prove it. Prove it

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with your time and your
checkbook. If you want to stand

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out against your competition, go
do cool things. Just because you

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funded a merchant, that's great.
So has your competition, but go

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in and rock their world and do
something really cool or when it

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doesn't maybe make sense. renew
them and give them a better

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rate. Because you believe in,
you know stuff like that. And

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then tell that story on social
media with your brand, tell the

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story on how you're changing
merchants lives by giving them

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the money they need, that is who
people are gonna want to do

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business with, right? And I just
think that you're gonna see a

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big shift over the next five
years, where there's going to be

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massive opportunities to be a
for purpose business, instead of

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a just for profit. And like I
said, especially on that sub 40

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category, the money's gonna go
there.

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Sean Murray: You don't always
hear about brands and social

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media, when you're talking about
collections and recovery. You're

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talking about like the brand as
if like, you're like a tech

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company, you know. But you also
have like a YouTube channel.

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Like you're a very public facing
company. There's nothing like

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mysterious or.

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Shawn Smith: Yeah, I mean, look
at any any company can do that.

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Right? Like, we we wanted the
markets and know who, what we're

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about. And we do a vlog on our
YouTube channel. And we post

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that out on all of our social
medias. And we we have an

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Instagram you know what I mean,
which is so funny.

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Sean Murray: Instagram, I like
it.

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Shawn Smith: Yeah. And, you
know, I think right now, across

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all channels, we have over
12,000 connections or followers

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as a company as a debt
collection agency that we really

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emanated from, and we've grown
more into a portfolio management

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company, as well. And as a
little teaser, we talked off

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camera about this, you'll
actually see I think we'll move

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more towards fintech, and AI,
and machine learning, as well.

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But, you know, with that said,
is, it gives the market a way to

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experience your brand in a real
and authentic way, when you go

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to dedicated, whether it be
their social media or website,

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it's our team in the pictures.
It's not this stock, like hey,

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how you doing? You know what, I
mean, it's real, it's our team,

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I am on camera, I put my team on
camera, even if they're not

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super excited about it, or
whatever, like if they'll do it,

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I'll put it on so people can see
the people that are collecting

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that they can see the people
that are running operations or

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finance and they can experience
and relate, well anybody can do

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that and the market really
responds to that. And I just

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yeah, I'm also big advocate I
didn't never thought you know,

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I'd start a YouTube channel. As
the, you know, the giving.

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Sean Murray: How would they find
your YouTube channel? What do

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they have to type into YouTube?

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Shawn Smith: The given
collector.

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Sean Murray: Okay.

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Shawn Smith: So it kind of
sounds like an oxymoron. But,

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you know, again, just back to
who we are, you can look up on

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you know, me on LinkedIn is kind
of my primary where I focus

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business. But we're on Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter, and we're

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we're usually posting five to
six days a week. So I have an

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amazing person on my team,
Taylor who does our marketing

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who helps me out with that. And,
you know, that's an investment.

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But.

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Sean Murray: I follow by the
way, I follow the page.

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Shawn Smith: Yeah. I mean,
that's, you know, we were just

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talking about some of the other
leaders in this space that do

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the same thing. And when you go
to these conferences, when you

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go out there in the market,
people are like, hey, I know you

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and I love, this and I love that
and that, you know, that they're

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experiencing your brand
authentically. So it's already

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done the work for you now, it's
just if it makes sense to work

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together, you know, so I really
suggest people consider that you

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can put just a little bit of
time into LinkedIn or whatever,

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and it'll pay dividends long
term, but you have to

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consistently, you know, set that
aside, you know, that time

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aside, and, yeah, it's really
added a lot of value to our

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brand, of doing that. But, you
know, there will always be a

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reason to not invest that time.
And I think authenticity is the

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key. Sure. I know we joked on
camera that I say, look, I live

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in a glass house, and I have
skeletons in my closet, like

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anyone else. And you know what,
my skeletons are in a glass

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closet. So I'm not a perfect
guy, I screw up. You know, but

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we are trying to do business the
right way. And we want people to

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experience our brand in an
authentic way. And what a what a

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tool to do that people are on
their phone six, eight hours a

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day, and especially with COVID.
Right, so they gave the

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opportunity for people to
experience our brand and why we

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were different. And.

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Sean Murray: Because you
couldn't you couldn't go to

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networking shows.

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Shawn Smith: Yeah, so yeah, it's
kind of like, well, we see it,

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we're like, I'm not that bright.
Like, I didn't come up with this

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idea. I saw amazing people, you
know, do this, do it really

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well. And I just took what they
did and said, okay, that's

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working really well, for them.
I'm going to try to do that,

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too. So anyone can watch the
leaders in our industry. Do that

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start off and I'm like, look,
I'm the redheaded stepchild,

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right of this industry and no
offense to judges out there. I

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got a red beard. But, you know,
like, that's kind of how we're

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looked at we're. People don't
come to these conferences

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typically to meet us, right, and
that we're okay with that. So I

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really do try to focus on
connecting brokers, with funders

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and just helping other people do
business and building

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relationships. That way.

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Sean Murray: It sounds like
you're a giving collector.

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Shawn Smith: Well you know, hey,
you know, there's, like, I

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believe in servant leadership, I
believe, like, if you what you

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put in the ground is what grow
us, you put corn in the ground,

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you're gonna get corn, right? If
you put good out there in the

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world, if you do, right by
people, whether they're, I can't

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really do business with a
broker. But if I get a broker

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hooked up with a couple of
funding sources, and that

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becomes a great relationship,
guess what, when they're talking

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with someone who needs my
services they're gonna be like,

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and again, if I have a social
media challenge. Yeah. If I'm

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tuned in, I'm going to debate
conferences, I'm sponsoring

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things people know what my brand
is, guess where it's going to

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come back. And I don't know the
stats on this. But I feel like

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we're kind of the preeminent
entity in this space now. And

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it's, it's a lot of hard work.
It's a lot of grinding, it's

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getting everything. But it's
doing these additional things

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that really separate yourself.
Why are you different than

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anyone else? I mean, we meet you
go, you meet every funder out

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there. They all they all say
they're different. Why? Why are

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you a different broker? Why are
you easier to work with, right?

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And it just gives you an
opportunity to separate

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yourself.

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Sean Murray: Well you come on
the live streams, that makes you

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different, right?

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Shawn Smith: Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, definitely nerve wracking

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for anyone who is like, you
know, hey, do you want to be on

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camera? Sure.

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Sean Murray: I just pulled them
out of the crowd. This wasn't

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even planned.

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Shawn Smith: Yeah.

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Sean Murray: No, I was playing.

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Shawn Smith: No, appreciate it.
And you know, for me, like

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deBanked has been a huge part of
our business we've been

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involved, the only thing we ever
missed, I think was your golf

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tournament, when you first kick
things off, I think we've been

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at everything since. And, you
know, you've just you have such

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a broad range of who you're
willing to bring into the

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industry, support them, show
them the ropes, you did that

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with me. And, you know, I can't
promote enough like, you need to

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be at these types of things. You
need to be out all the deBanked

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stuff. You need to be meeting
the funders, the service

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providers, the experts in our
industry, and connecting with

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them. And I mean, just knowing
you and honestly being able to

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reach out and say hey, you know
something about this or

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whatever, can you help me? It's
been really good. I mean, it's

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it's really changed our
business. So you know, at a deep

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level appreciation, the things
go comes off from this corner

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for sure.

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Sean Murray: Well, thank you,
Shawn. The feeling is mutual, by

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the way you do you know, you put
on a good face for the

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collections and recovery
industry. I think everyone is

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eternally grateful for the way
you present yourself for

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everybody else. And I want to I
want to thank you for joining me

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here today. Really appreciate
your time.

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Shawn Smith: Thank you for
having me on. And I you know, my

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my hope is that people see that
that's authentic, that this

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isn't a show. I'm not just here
to sell and all like this. This

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means the world to me who we are
as a business and how we do

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business. And yeah thank you for
having me on I generally

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appreciate it.

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Sean Murray: Alright thanks again.

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Shawn Smith: Hey we're gonna
shake hands love it, alright,

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00:20:05.794 --> 00:20:06.300
get down.

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Sean Murray: It feels good.