# Info You Can Use: Students won $100 million in scholarships after receiving "Prep Expert" SAT/ACT training.

An episode of [Money Making Conversations Master Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1264705641), 24 Feb 2025, 32 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/b1db7263-d1a3-4d00-8976-af62012aab44/c81252ff-b9da-46df-b30f-b28b0151526c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=35a10561-3e1b-4d05-a529-af62012aab6a

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Dr. Shaan Patel. He is the Founder and CEO of Prep Expert. On ABC’s Shark Tank, he closed a deal with Mark Cuban for an investment in Prep Expert. He has created Prep Expert to help high school students achieve their own dreams. Prep Expert has helped more than 100,000 students improve their SAT and ACT scores, get into top colleges, and win over $100 million in scholarships. Prep Expert offers online SAT and ACT courses, academic tutoring, and college admissions consulting. #BEST #SHMS #STRAW Money Making Conversations Master Class with Rushion McDonald is America's premier entrepreneurship, business leadership, financial literacy, and wealth-building podcast featuring successful entrepreneurs, executives, founders, celebrities, and industry experts sharing actionable insights for professional and financial success. Business Podcast Entrepreneurship Small Business Business Growth Financial Literacy Wealth Building Black Entrepreneurs Minority Business Leadership Executive Leadership Business Funding Marketing Strategies Personal Development Startup Advice Sales Training CEO Interviews Founder Stories Professional Development Economic Empowerment Business Success Networking Brand Building Innovation How to start a business Small business funding Entrepreneur success stories Business leadership podcast Wealth building strategies Black entrepreneur podcast Minority business development Marketing for small businesses Business growth strategies Startup funding opportunities Executive leadership training Financial literacy education Success mindset podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I am Rashan McDonald, our host this weekly Money
[0:02] Speaker 1: Making Conversation Masterclass show. The interviews and information that this
[0:06] Speaker 1: show provides off for everyone. It's time to start reading
[0:09] Speaker 1: other people's success stories and start living your own. If
[0:13] Speaker 1: you want to be a guest on my show, please
[0:15] Speaker 1: visit our website, Moneymaking Conversations dot com and click the
[0:20] Speaker 1: bi a Guest button and submit your information. Now let's
[0:23] Speaker 1: get your show rolling, my guests. The founder and CEO
[0:26] Speaker 1: of Prep Expert. Prep Expert has helped more than one
[0:30] Speaker 1: hundred thousand students improved a SAT and ACT scores, get
[0:34] Speaker 1: into top colleges, and went over this check this out
[0:38] Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars in scholarship. Prep Expert offers online
[0:42] Speaker 1: SAT and ACT courses, academic trudering and college admissions consultant.
[0:48] Speaker 1: Please welcome to Money Making Conversations Masterclass. When you say
[0:51] Speaker 1: one hundred million, he is a Money Making Conversation Masterclass. Guests,
[0:56] Speaker 1: Doctor Sean Patel, How you doing, Sean?
[1:00] Speaker 2: Hey, Rashaan, how are you happy to be here? Thanks
[1:02] Speaker 2: for having me?
[1:03] Speaker 3: Okay?
[1:03] Speaker 1: When it is August started, Prep Expert, How did this
[1:06] Speaker 1: get out of that mind?
[1:07] Speaker 3: That brain?
[1:08] Speaker 1: What what initiated that thought process prep expert.
[1:12] Speaker 2: Great question. So, uh, this actually started off as a
[1:16] Speaker 2: side hustle for me and turned into a seven figure business. Now,
[1:21] Speaker 2: so the way it got there was actually as many
[1:24] Speaker 2: great businesses do, which is out of my own experience.
[1:28] Speaker 2: You know, I was like many of the students and
[1:30] Speaker 2: parents listening to this podcast and that I was not
[1:33] Speaker 2: a great test taker. I was good in school, got
[1:36] Speaker 2: good math and science English grades, but had a lot
[1:41] Speaker 2: of test anxiety. I went to urban public schools in Vegas, which,
[1:46] Speaker 2: if you know anything about Vegas, it's not known for
[1:48] Speaker 2: its education. So we had like a close to a
[1:51] Speaker 2: you know, thirty forty percent dropout rate, and so my
[1:55] Speaker 2: parents didn't go to college here in the US. Didn't
[1:57] Speaker 2: know the first thing about test prep, college a mission
[2:00] Speaker 2: and scholarships. But I did know I wanted a high
[2:03] Speaker 2: SAT score. Problem was first one I took. I scored
[2:08] Speaker 2: about average, and so I then spent hundreds of hours
[2:12] Speaker 2: in the library studying for the SAT. Eventually raised my
[2:16] Speaker 2: score six hundred and forty points to get a perfect
[2:19] Speaker 2: SAT score, which is something that only zero point zero
[2:23] Speaker 2: two percent of all students achieve. That completely changed my life.
[2:27] Speaker 2: Got into the nation's top universities, got a half a
[2:30] Speaker 2: million dollars in scholarships, even got to meet the President
[2:33] Speaker 2: of the United States. And so when I got to college,
[2:36] Speaker 2: I wanted to help other students improve their test scores.
[2:40] Speaker 2: I started prep Expert. In the very first six week
[2:43] Speaker 2: SAT course my students ever took, they had an average
[2:46] Speaker 2: score improvement of three hundred and seventy six points in
[2:49] Speaker 2: just six weeks. So that's equivalent of taking a student
[2:52] Speaker 2: from the fiftieth percentile and putting them in the ninetieth
[2:54] Speaker 2: percent tile, totally changing their college and scholarship opportunities. Of course,
[2:59] Speaker 2: I had parents and students who wanted more courses, so
[3:02] Speaker 2: I began training other instructors to teach my curriculums and
[3:05] Speaker 2: the rest is history. Over the past fifteen years, as
[3:09] Speaker 2: you mentioned, we've helped over one hundred thousand students improve
[3:12] Speaker 2: their test scores, get into top colleges, and went over
[3:14] Speaker 2: one hundred million scholarships. Of course, the highlight of the
[3:17] Speaker 2: company was on ABC Shark.
[3:19] Speaker 1: That's not good there yet, I want to stay on
[3:20] Speaker 1: you because to be a highlight, you have to start.
[3:24] Speaker 3: Something and you have to learn how to see something.
[3:26] Speaker 3: Because That's what made.
[3:27] Speaker 1: It happened successfully when you went to Shark Tank. Now
[3:31] Speaker 1: this whole process, you know, like you said, at Perfect
[3:33] Speaker 1: Score your person that sometimes people would through stereotype, would
[3:39] Speaker 1: assume you're supposed to get that your hard, stude and
[3:42] Speaker 1: hard working. But you said, Rashan, I was a bad
[3:44] Speaker 1: taste taker and I had to learn, and through this
[3:47] Speaker 1: learning process, I developed this curriculum. And now you converted
[3:51] Speaker 1: that curriculum to something that you're making money off of. Now,
[3:54] Speaker 1: in the process of developing that curriculum, welcome through the
[3:57] Speaker 1: steps of the dudes and don't of what you had
[3:59] Speaker 1: to do to make it common to everyday people to understand.
[4:03] Speaker 2: You know, when I was trying to create the curriculum,
[4:06] Speaker 2: I was actually I wasn't ever trying to start a course. Instead,
[4:09] Speaker 2: I was trying to write a book. You know, I thought,
[4:13] Speaker 2: I've got this great idea. I'm going to write the
[4:15] Speaker 2: first SAT Prep book by a perfect Score student. Everyone's
[4:19] Speaker 2: gonna love it. It's gonna sell hundreds of thousands of copies.
[4:23] Speaker 2: And so I pitched this book proposal out to hundreds
[4:25] Speaker 2: of literary agents and publishers, and you know, they put
[4:30] Speaker 2: me in my place they say, you don't have a
[4:32] Speaker 2: platform to write the book. The SAT prep markets too competitive,
[4:35] Speaker 2: there's no way this book's going to work. And so
[4:39] Speaker 2: you know, I was really discouraged at that point. And
[4:42] Speaker 2: the way that I was writing my book material was
[4:45] Speaker 2: to your point. I was trying to make it relatable
[4:49] Speaker 2: and easy to understand for the average student, because I
[4:54] Speaker 2: was really average test taker myself, so I knew which
[4:57] Speaker 2: strategies really resonated with me, for like how to read
[5:01] Speaker 2: passages or how to do algebra problems, and which ones
[5:04] Speaker 2: were just way too complicated complex that wouldn't resonate with
[5:07] Speaker 2: most students. And so that's really how I wrote my
[5:10] Speaker 2: book material. Of course, the book material, you know, when
[5:13] Speaker 2: you're writing a book, you really have to think about
[5:15] Speaker 2: your audience and how to make it simple. But that
[5:18] Speaker 2: translated perfectly into the course because I was like, I
[5:21] Speaker 2: could just take all this material and now teach it
[5:23] Speaker 2: in a course format, and it did work. It made
[5:27] Speaker 2: it super easy for others to learn. And the funny
[5:31] Speaker 2: story is that, you know, after about a year or
[5:34] Speaker 2: two of doing the courses, McGraw Hill, the world's largest
[5:37] Speaker 2: education publisher, who had previously rejected me, said, hey, we'll
[5:42] Speaker 2: give you the book deal. Now, we ended up doing
[5:44] Speaker 2: the book. It sold over, you know, fifty thousand copies.
[5:47] Speaker 2: We went number one on Amazon for US at prep
[5:50] Speaker 2: and so it was funny how my original idea to
[5:52] Speaker 2: do the book didn't come to fruition until I took
[5:54] Speaker 2: this other path of you know, setting up my own
[5:57] Speaker 2: courses in business.
[5:59] Speaker 1: And well, we talk about a lot on this show.
[6:00] Speaker 1: Don't next you have the word no, you know, modify
[6:03] Speaker 1: your vision, follow through, and see your dream despite rejection.
[6:08] Speaker 1: And that's the classic case right there. People rejected your
[6:10] Speaker 1: idea because they didn't understand or maybe Sean, you didn't
[6:14] Speaker 1: know how to pitch it.
[6:15] Speaker 3: Is that your case? Two?
[6:17] Speaker 2: Oh definitely. I mean I think through all the rejections,
[6:20] Speaker 2: as I've been through hundreds of rejections, whether it's literary agents, publishers, media,
[6:27] Speaker 2: I didn't know how to pitch in the beginning. Oh,
[6:29] Speaker 2: I was stuttering. I was not presenting myself well on
[6:33] Speaker 2: phone calls, on business investments, whatever it may be. And
[6:37] Speaker 2: that's one of the beauties of entrepreneurship is you can
[6:40] Speaker 2: really hone your presentation and your pitch skills, but you
[6:44] Speaker 2: have to go through sucking at it first, everyone sucks
[6:48] Speaker 2: out averse and you know there are some people who
[6:50] Speaker 2: are just naturals, but I'd say most people have to
[6:53] Speaker 2: hone their pitch, hone their ability to sell, hone their
[6:56] Speaker 2: skills to present and pitch. And that only comes with
[7:01] Speaker 2: a lot of practice and a lot of rejection. And
[7:03] Speaker 2: it's only those that are willing to go through the
[7:05] Speaker 2: rejection that are going to get really good.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, we know.
[7:07] Speaker 1: When I do these type of shows, Sean, I always
[7:10] Speaker 1: like to hold people's attention. You know, I already get
[7:12] Speaker 1: them one hundred thousand students, one hundred million dollars in scholarships,
[7:16] Speaker 1: SAT ACT. We all know parents want their kids to
[7:21] Speaker 1: do well. From your words, people are listening, why should
[7:24] Speaker 1: they take Prep Expert versus the competition?
[7:28] Speaker 2: And I can put it into our brand motto, which
[7:32] Speaker 2: is change your score, change your life. That's our brand.
[7:35] Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is when you come
[7:38] Speaker 2: to Prep Expert, you're going to take our courses. Your
[7:40] Speaker 2: student's going to do well on the SAT and ACT,
[7:43] Speaker 2: but not only that, they're going to open up their
[7:46] Speaker 2: college and scholarship opportunities. We've had students win half a
[7:49] Speaker 2: million million, quarter million, one hundred thousand dollars in scholarships
[7:52] Speaker 2: totally eliminate their student debt. But not only that, they're
[7:56] Speaker 2: going to change their lives because in our courses, we
[7:58] Speaker 2: also teach life. We teach you about time management, how
[8:02] Speaker 2: to study effectively, how to be more productive, how to
[8:06] Speaker 2: realize your dreams. We give them a goal score in
[8:09] Speaker 2: the beginning, and we have them visualize and manifest their
[8:12] Speaker 2: scores and their future careers. No other test prep company
[8:16] Speaker 2: is doing this, and so we're teaching them at fifteen, sixteen,
[8:19] Speaker 2: seventeen years old, how to be better with their time,
[8:23] Speaker 2: be more productive, how to have goals. And I mean,
[8:26] Speaker 2: how valuable is that for you know, I know we're
[8:28] Speaker 2: a test prep course, but we teach you so much more.
[8:31] Speaker 2: And that's why we say, change your score, change your life.
[8:34] Speaker 2: We have students now, since we've been doing this for
[8:36] Speaker 2: fifteen years who are executives that NVIDIA, who are dermatologists,
[8:40] Speaker 2: plastic surgeons. They've become very successful in their lives. And
[8:44] Speaker 2: I know we're just a small portion of it, but
[8:46] Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we planted a lot of those seeds
[8:48] Speaker 2: on how to be successful very early on in their
[8:51] Speaker 2: lives as high school students.
[8:53] Speaker 1: Right I'm talking to doctor Sean Ptail. He founded in
[8:57] Speaker 1: the CEO of Prep Expert Prep expt to have more
[9:00] Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand students improve their SAT and ACT scores,
[9:06] Speaker 1: get in the top colleges, which is key, and win
[9:08] Speaker 1: over get this one hundred million dollars in scholarships. When
[9:12] Speaker 1: you talk about the process, because this is online, some
[9:16] Speaker 1: people might say that's very impersonal.
[9:18] Speaker 3: You know, online you can't touch anybody.
[9:20] Speaker 1: How do you break that wall and make people feel
[9:23] Speaker 1: comfortable or students especially who sometimes can have a very
[9:27] Speaker 1: short attention span.
[9:29] Speaker 3: Because this is what this interview is about.
[9:31] Speaker 1: I'm excited you have a brand that can change people's lives.
[9:34] Speaker 1: But I also want people who are listening to understand
[9:37] Speaker 1: I want to go to this website right now and
[9:40] Speaker 1: help my child become a better get a better opportunity
[9:44] Speaker 1: to set to achieve and exceed. Talk to us about
[9:47] Speaker 1: the process of contacting you and the steps.
[9:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the process to contact me and how our
[9:55] Speaker 2: courses work is really parents or students who are interested.
[9:58] Speaker 2: They can head over to expert dot com and they
[10:02] Speaker 2: can view all of our online services. So we have
[10:05] Speaker 2: online SAT courses, online ACT courses, college admissions, consulting, one
[10:10] Speaker 2: on one tutoring to your point, though, you know, many
[10:14] Speaker 2: parents may be concerned that you know, this is online,
[10:17] Speaker 2: it's not in person. And in twenty nineteen I probably
[10:21] Speaker 2: would have said, you know what, you're right, But in
[10:24] Speaker 2: twenty twenty, the whole world changed. COVID made everyone go online.
[10:29] Speaker 2: Students had to learn online. They're more comfortable learning online,
[10:32] Speaker 2: I would say, than in person. Nowadays. The technology to
[10:37] Speaker 2: learn online is so much better. We're doing this podcast
[10:40] Speaker 2: online now, and you know, there's just so much more
[10:44] Speaker 2: resources and more comfortability, especially among young people on learning
[10:49] Speaker 2: online and learning in a live online environment. And so
[10:54] Speaker 2: you know, students do absolutely fantastic in our online six
[10:57] Speaker 2: week SAT courses, online eight week online four week courses.
[11:00] Speaker 2: But what I love about online is we can do
[11:03] Speaker 2: it live. So it's not just the you know, a
[11:05] Speaker 2: self paced course where your student's never going to go
[11:08] Speaker 2: through the video modules. They're learning from ninety nine percentile
[11:12] Speaker 2: instructors who have all scored in the top one percent
[11:15] Speaker 2: on these exams, who have thousands of hours of teaching experience.
[11:18] Speaker 2: They can even learn from me directly. So when you
[11:21] Speaker 2: learn from an expert or a mentor who's done it
[11:23] Speaker 2: themselves and can give you the strategies, the shortcuts, the
[11:26] Speaker 2: curriculum to do it. I mean, it just exponentially improves
[11:31] Speaker 2: your success. And people in the business world know this.
[11:33] Speaker 2: This is why you hire business coaches consultants who have
[11:36] Speaker 2: done it before you. And I do that as an
[11:39] Speaker 2: entrepreneur myself. I will pay people, you know, tens of
[11:43] Speaker 2: thousands of dollars who have done what I'm trying to
[11:46] Speaker 2: do to get there faster in entrepreneurship and business. And
[11:50] Speaker 2: it's the same way in test prep and education.
[11:52] Speaker 1: Now you said it earlier, just started out as a
[11:55] Speaker 1: side hustle, Sean, And when did you say the light
[11:59] Speaker 1: bulb click? You know, I can make some money about that?
[12:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. And uh, you know, it
[12:09] Speaker 2: did start out as a side house. It literally started out.
[12:11] Speaker 2: I wrote this curriculum in my college dorm room in
[12:14] Speaker 2: my senior year of college, and I was like, you
[12:18] Speaker 2: know what, I'll make a little bit of money over
[12:20] Speaker 2: the summer. It's going to be, you know, just some
[12:23] Speaker 2: pocket change, and you know, great. But what I realized
[12:28] Speaker 2: was the students did so well in the first six
[12:31] Speaker 2: week SAT course as I mentioned they had three almost
[12:34] Speaker 2: four hundred point average score improvement incredible that I was not.
[12:39] Speaker 2: Parents didn't let me just quit. They just said, hey,
[12:43] Speaker 2: you got to do more courses. Like I literally had
[12:46] Speaker 2: people calling my phone like, hey, my student couldn't take
[12:48] Speaker 2: that course that you taught. Do you have another one
[12:50] Speaker 2: coming up? And I was like, well no, but I
[12:53] Speaker 2: guess I could. Right, So we started out. You know,
[12:57] Speaker 2: that's when we and then what I realized is and
[13:00] Speaker 2: this is when you know you have a good business.
[13:01] Speaker 2: This is applicable to all the business people entrepreneurship people
[13:04] Speaker 2: out there. The best marketing strategy is word of mouth.
[13:09] Speaker 2: So it's when people tell your customers, your clients, they
[13:13] Speaker 2: tell other customers and clients about you. Because literally, for
[13:16] Speaker 2: the first five years of my business, we spent zero
[13:19] Speaker 2: dollars on marketing, and we kept doubling our business year
[13:23] Speaker 2: over year. And that tells you that it was just
[13:26] Speaker 2: our students and parents telling other students and parents, Hey,
[13:28] Speaker 2: you got to check out this course over here. My
[13:30] Speaker 2: student did really well, and that's what you want as
[13:33] Speaker 2: a business owner.
[13:34] Speaker 3: Right.
[13:35] Speaker 1: A couple of things before we get to the shock,
[13:36] Speaker 1: the shock tank experience. Okay, price points, Okay, you young entrepreneur,
[13:43] Speaker 1: you got this idea. It's a side housetle making money.
[13:46] Speaker 1: Now people are saying I need more, I need more
[13:48] Speaker 1: your one man operation basically correct.
[13:51] Speaker 2: Mm hmmah oh yeah. When I first started, I was
[13:54] Speaker 2: a customer service teacher everything.
[13:59] Speaker 1: How did you set your price points early on? And
[14:02] Speaker 1: then we're going to talk about and what year did
[14:04] Speaker 1: this all kind of like start?
[14:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, So the way that I set my price points
[14:10] Speaker 2: early on was how every entrepreneur sets them, which I
[14:12] Speaker 2: think is the wrong way to set them. You look
[14:15] Speaker 2: at the competition and you set it a little bit lower.
[14:19] Speaker 3: That's true. Ye, that's true. That's true.
[14:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not the way to do it. And the
[14:24] Speaker 2: way that I set them now is I set them
[14:27] Speaker 2: by valuing our time. So what I you know, I
[14:30] Speaker 2: set them on a per hour basis. So I think
[14:32] Speaker 2: our courses are start at about fifteen or twenty dollars
[14:37] Speaker 2: per hour, and that's a lot of value to learn
[14:40] Speaker 2: from a ninety nine percent that's that's pretty twenty dollars
[14:42] Speaker 2: an hour.
[14:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's pretty long. It's pretty reasonable. But just gonna
[14:45] Speaker 3: let you know that.
[14:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so twenty bucks an hour, but it's a
[14:49] Speaker 2: sixty hour course, so that comes out to twelve hundred dollars.
[14:52] Speaker 2: So you know, when you look at it at twelve hundred,
[14:54] Speaker 2: people say, oh my god. But I say, well, you
[14:55] Speaker 2: got sixty hours with the top one percent mentor and instructor.
[14:59] Speaker 2: You know, I think it comes out pretty reasonable to
[15:01] Speaker 2: your point. So that's the way I price it now
[15:04] Speaker 2: is I price it per hour because you know, once
[15:07] Speaker 2: people hear that per hour rate, it's it's a lot
[15:09] Speaker 2: more reasonable than hearing a package rate. And that's that
[15:11] Speaker 2: would be a strategy I would suggest for all business owners.
[15:14] Speaker 2: Value your time and price it out appropriately for your clients,
[15:18] Speaker 2: because if you just tell them the twelve hundred dollars
[15:20] Speaker 2: price at first, I'll say, oh no, I won't pay that.
[15:22] Speaker 2: But if you say it's twenty bucks an hour, that's
[15:24] Speaker 2: a lot more reasonable to when you break it down.
[15:27] Speaker 4: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
[15:30] Speaker 4: Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
[15:40] Speaker 4: Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashaan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
[15:45] Speaker 4: continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
[15:50] Speaker 4: Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, because.
[15:54] Speaker 3: That's what you did with me. You lay what you're
[15:56] Speaker 3: twenty bucks an hour?
[15:57] Speaker 1: I like that price total sixty hours, twelve hundred dollars.
[16:03] Speaker 3: Okay.
[16:04] Speaker 1: See I'm already in because you got me in with
[16:06] Speaker 1: the twenty dollars an hour.
[16:09] Speaker 3: Okay, I could work with that. Sixty hout. I could
[16:11] Speaker 3: work with that. Now.
[16:12] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're making money now now you want investors. See
[16:16] Speaker 1: that's the part of this conversation I really need and
[16:20] Speaker 1: it's all online. I'm trying to figure out why did
[16:22] Speaker 1: you need investors or why did you feel the need
[16:25] Speaker 1: to grow like that.
[16:26] Speaker 2: So the reason that I needed investment was actually when
[16:31] Speaker 2: I first started, it wasn't online, it was in person.
[16:34] Speaker 2: So we were in Las Vegas, where I grew up,
[16:38] Speaker 2: and you know, we opened a second location. But then
[16:41] Speaker 2: I you know, opening locations, as you know in person
[16:44] Speaker 2: locations is expensive, so we needed investment to start other cities.
[16:50] Speaker 2: So we started opening in California, in Texas and Florida
[16:55] Speaker 2: on the East coast. And the problem was that is one,
[16:59] Speaker 2: it was expensive. But the bigger problem I ran into
[17:02] Speaker 2: much later was twenty twenty, I couldn't have twelve kids
[17:06] Speaker 2: in a small classroom because of the six foot rule,
[17:09] Speaker 2: so we had to shut all our locations and then
[17:12] Speaker 2: we pivoted fully online, which is where we're at today.
[17:16] Speaker 3: Now.
[17:17] Speaker 1: The year you launched it was what would you say,
[17:19] Speaker 1: what was that year you launched it?
[17:22] Speaker 2: We launched originally in my first set of courses was
[17:25] Speaker 2: in the summer of twenty eleven, so we're coming up
[17:28] Speaker 2: on fourteen years yet.
[17:30] Speaker 3: Okay, cool?
[17:30] Speaker 1: And then the shop tank experience.
[17:33] Speaker 3: How did they come about and why? Yeah?
[17:36] Speaker 2: So I was really looking for investment in about twenty
[17:40] Speaker 2: fifteen sixteen time frames.
[17:42] Speaker 3: This was a brick and mortar This is the brick
[17:44] Speaker 3: and mortar style.
[17:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, investment you wanted because that was the model that
[17:49] Speaker 1: you had prior to COVID.
[17:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really the play I thought brick and mortar.
[17:54] Speaker 2: And to your point, parents wanted in person before COVID.
[17:56] Speaker 2: They didn't really they were scared of online courses, you know,
[18:00] Speaker 2: they were like, we got to be in person. So
[18:03] Speaker 2: twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, I was looking for investment to
[18:05] Speaker 2: expand brick and mortar, expand our marketing because I feel
[18:09] Speaker 2: like we had really maxed out what we could do
[18:12] Speaker 2: with our couple locations in my hometown of Vegas, and
[18:15] Speaker 2: I wanted to go further. So I went to a
[18:18] Speaker 2: Shark Tank casting call pitch and I stood in line
[18:22] Speaker 2: with five hundred other entrepreneurs and I was the last
[18:25] Speaker 2: person in line. Because I'm always late. I was late
[18:27] Speaker 2: to this interview and consistency. I waited eight nine hours
[18:36] Speaker 2: to give a one minute pitch and the casting call
[18:39] Speaker 2: producer was totally unimpressed with my pitch. I was like,
[18:42] Speaker 2: We've done a million dollars in sales. I've been in
[18:44] Speaker 2: the New York Times. I was saying all this stuff
[18:46] Speaker 2: that I thought was impressive, and his face was stone cold.
[18:50] Speaker 2: Until the very last second. I pulled out my book,
[18:54] Speaker 2: my sat prep book that I had done with McGraw hill,
[18:57] Speaker 2: and he noticed my face was on the cover and
[18:59] Speaker 2: he could believe that I was a published author. And
[19:02] Speaker 2: I think this is another great lesson for entrepreneurs. Having
[19:06] Speaker 2: a book can produce so much authority for you. You
[19:10] Speaker 2: become the expert in your field. And you know, he
[19:14] Speaker 2: was like, can I have the book for my nephew?
[19:16] Speaker 2: And I gave him the book and two weeks later
[19:18] Speaker 2: they were calling me to be buying me out to
[19:20] Speaker 2: La to be on the pitch Shark Tank. And it
[19:24] Speaker 2: never would have happened if I didn't have the book,
[19:25] Speaker 2: which kind of pieces everything together. You know, originally one
[19:28] Speaker 2: of the book, book didn't happen, Book happened, Book happens.
[19:30] Speaker 2: I get on Shark Tank. So it's kind of this
[19:32] Speaker 2: weird string that I would have never been able to
[19:35] Speaker 2: connect the dots until looking back.
[19:37] Speaker 1: Now, now let's talk about brick and mortar versus own
[19:41] Speaker 1: line when it comes to the quality of instructors that
[19:44] Speaker 1: you're able to get because your own line. Because brick
[19:48] Speaker 1: and mortar, they basically got to be in the city
[19:50] Speaker 1: where they ad to go to that location. But because
[19:54] Speaker 1: your own line, basically these instructors can reside anywhere. I
[19:58] Speaker 1: would like to believe that you were able to raise
[20:01] Speaker 1: the quality of people that you brought on board to
[20:04] Speaker 1: be instructors for your prep expert correct.
[20:07] Speaker 2: Oh big time. Yeah. Anytime you can increase your applicant pool,
[20:12] Speaker 2: you're going to be able to have a higher quality
[20:15] Speaker 2: of person fill that role for you. So instead of
[20:17] Speaker 2: having to look in the certain cities we were in previously,
[20:21] Speaker 2: now I can look in all fifty states, and what
[20:24] Speaker 2: that does is we have a pretty high bar. As
[20:27] Speaker 2: I mentioned, you know, we only hire ninety nine percentile scores.
[20:31] Speaker 2: We only hire people with a ton of teaching experience.
[20:33] Speaker 2: We have them do trials of online teaching for us
[20:37] Speaker 2: before we hire them to see that they're personable, that
[20:40] Speaker 2: they can teach well, that they can really command a classroom,
[20:45] Speaker 2: et cetera. And it's really raised the bar by being
[20:48] Speaker 2: able to do it online. So that's another big benefit
[20:50] Speaker 2: that you pointed out for sure.
[20:52] Speaker 1: Now let's talk about online because you're talking about it.
[20:55] Speaker 1: You said the word classroom, So I'm going to look
[20:57] Speaker 1: at it as a session, an online session. The instructor,
[21:01] Speaker 1: what's the smallest session and what's the largest session that
[21:04] Speaker 1: you have in these training courses.
[21:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, so the smallest session is usually like ten to
[21:10] Speaker 2: twenty students, and the largest session, some of our summer
[21:15] Speaker 2: courses can get to like sixty students something like that.
[21:18] Speaker 2: So they do get larger once you get into the
[21:20] Speaker 2: more popular timeframes. With that being said, every student gets
[21:25] Speaker 2: to ask their questions. We have teaching teaching assistants, we
[21:29] Speaker 2: have office hours that they can attend to get even
[21:33] Speaker 2: more of their questions answered, and we really try to
[21:36] Speaker 2: make it like in on a classroom experience. You know,
[21:40] Speaker 2: we have the students call us mister or doctor or whatever,
[21:44] Speaker 2: you know, because it's important, you know, it's important that
[21:47] Speaker 2: we go back to the basics of just you know, teaching, respect,
[21:51] Speaker 2: classroom and and students love it like you'd be surprised,
[21:57] Speaker 2: you wouldn't. You'd be surprised if you read our reviews
[21:59] Speaker 2: up expert of the students like, I love this course.
[22:02] Speaker 2: I really didn't think I was gonna like the cos
[22:04] Speaker 2: I didn't think I was gonna like that, say, tea
[22:05] Speaker 2: prop course. But I learned so much about you know,
[22:07] Speaker 2: test prep. I learned so much about life, and I
[22:09] Speaker 2: improve my score for hunder points and it's it's incredible,
[22:13] Speaker 2: Like it's really really I love that we can do
[22:16] Speaker 2: good for students and do well for ourselves at the
[22:18] Speaker 2: same time.
[22:19] Speaker 1: I would tell you this just on a personal note, Sean,
[22:21] Speaker 1: You're very likable, you know, very engaging, and I think
[22:25] Speaker 1: that reflects your business model prep expert, you.
[22:28] Speaker 3: Know, I hope so it does reflect it, you know,
[22:31] Speaker 3: very so. I would.
[22:32] Speaker 1: I'm not shocked that you said that there's a level
[22:34] Speaker 1: of enthusiasm and the level of care that you put
[22:38] Speaker 1: into the whole process and people that you want to Yes,
[22:41] Speaker 1: you are making money, but you also, like you said
[22:43] Speaker 1: in the beginning, changing lives and then that's your legacy.
[22:47] Speaker 1: You're building a legacy through academic training. That and that's
[22:50] Speaker 1: what is the model which should drive this country and
[22:54] Speaker 1: in any country that that wants to be an academic success.
[22:58] Speaker 3: Now that's if you want to be a leader. I think.
[23:01] Speaker 2: I know people talk about getting rid of test. I'll
[23:03] Speaker 2: tell you China and India aren't getting rid of test.
[23:05] Speaker 1: So we want to compete.
[23:06] Speaker 3: We got, you know, on the show.
[23:09] Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure people understand their options out there.
[23:12] Speaker 1: Like they said, there are some people I brought on
[23:14] Speaker 1: the show, but your model was really engaging to me
[23:17] Speaker 1: because I did my research.
[23:19] Speaker 3: I liked those the extra the purpose.
[23:21] Speaker 2: You know.
[23:21] Speaker 3: It was like a.
[23:22] Speaker 1: Student comes to you and they don't feel and I
[23:25] Speaker 1: didn't feel they were going to be left with that
[23:27] Speaker 1: one angle to be achieved success. Like you said, there
[23:31] Speaker 1: are other ways you can communicate. They felt like, no,
[23:36] Speaker 1: you're not in a building, but you're in a home,
[23:39] Speaker 1: and this home is here to help you win. Now,
[23:42] Speaker 1: you first went to Shark Tank. Let's get back over
[23:44] Speaker 1: there because I want people to this amazing story because
[23:47] Speaker 1: it changed your life financially. You can pitch at at
[23:51] Speaker 1: one minute pitch, you pull out the book at the
[23:52] Speaker 1: last minute. Two weeks later they call you, Okay, what
[23:56] Speaker 1: did you do differently and how did you prep for
[23:58] Speaker 1: the actual show or did they help you?
[24:00] Speaker 3: The producers haamp you out.
[24:02] Speaker 2: I'd spent hundreds Just like I spent hundreds of hours
[24:05] Speaker 2: prepping for that SAT I spent hundreds of hours prepping
[24:07] Speaker 2: for my Shark Tank pitch. I watched tape, I watched
[24:11] Speaker 2: all the Shark Tank previous episodes. I wrote down every
[24:14] Speaker 2: question that Mister Wonderful was asking, that Damon John was asking,
[24:17] Speaker 2: that Mark Cuban was asking, and then I prepped you
[24:20] Speaker 2: know answers. You know, one really unique thing I did
[24:24] Speaker 2: that I thought was really important for my pitch, and
[24:26] Speaker 2: why I think a lot of people remember it is
[24:31] Speaker 2: I have the most boring business in the world. It's
[24:33] Speaker 2: test prep, all right. So, and I know that Shark
[24:36] Speaker 2: Tank is an entertainment TV show, and I knew that
[24:40] Speaker 2: they don't air all of the pitches, so I had
[24:43] Speaker 2: to make sure that I was interesting enough that they
[24:46] Speaker 2: would air my pitch. So I wrote down every interesting
[24:51] Speaker 2: story about my life related to how I started the business,
[24:54] Speaker 2: about entrepreneurship, about how my dad came to the US
[24:57] Speaker 2: with seventy dollars, and I was like, I'm going to
[25:00] Speaker 2: share these stories within the questions so that I can
[25:05] Speaker 2: make my pitch a little bit more interesting than essaykeeprap
[25:08] Speaker 2: and make it about the American dream. And you know,
[25:11] Speaker 2: all these larger themes. And it worked. It totally worked.
[25:14] Speaker 2: It was one of the most remembered and seen Shark
[25:17] Speaker 2: Tank pitches ever. And you know, the takeaway for entrepreneurs
[25:21] Speaker 2: out there is make your business, make yourself interesting. Think
[25:25] Speaker 2: the art of storytelling is so so important in any
[25:28] Speaker 2: business or any path you pursue.
[25:31] Speaker 3: Now again, now we're talking about pricing again.
[25:34] Speaker 1: How did you say for that amount of money, I'm
[25:38] Speaker 1: gonna give up this amount of my business. How did
[25:40] Speaker 1: you come to that decision when it came to prep expert,
[25:43] Speaker 1: this is your baby, now decide it's a business. Now
[25:47] Speaker 1: the money can come your way, but you also have
[25:49] Speaker 1: to give up some of your brand.
[25:51] Speaker 3: How'd you come to that decision?
[25:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, so at the time, you know, we weren't a
[25:57] Speaker 2: huge business. I think we were doing about half a
[26:00] Speaker 2: million in revenue per year, so I had priced it
[26:04] Speaker 2: at so I used the strategy, which was I knew
[26:08] Speaker 2: the Sharks were going to negotiate on the equity, so
[26:12] Speaker 2: I would be comfortable at a quarter million for twenty percent.
[26:15] Speaker 2: But I went in asking for a quarter million for
[26:17] Speaker 2: ten percent, having knowing that I'm going to have that
[26:20] Speaker 2: ten percent negotiation room. And Mark Cuban must have read
[26:23] Speaker 2: the room perfectly. You must have been in my head
[26:25] Speaker 2: because he said I'm only doing a quarter million for
[26:27] Speaker 2: twenty percent, and I said that's my limit, and we
[26:30] Speaker 2: shook hands and we ask you yeah, so laid out
[26:36] Speaker 2: to a t. Yeah, I love it.
[26:38] Speaker 1: You know this whole thing about you know, social media,
[26:41] Speaker 1: word about website traffic. What type of website traffic does
[26:45] Speaker 1: you do you generate? Now that let you know, Wow,
[26:50] Speaker 1: there's a lot of people through curiosity, through trying to
[26:54] Speaker 1: get understand this brand is really blowing you away. Talk
[26:57] Speaker 1: to us about the social media aspect of marketing, the
[27:00] Speaker 1: website traffic part of the business.
[27:02] Speaker 2: Oh amazing. Yeah, So, I mean, just to give you
[27:05] Speaker 2: an idea. When we first started, I think our first
[27:07] Speaker 2: year in business, we had about ten thousand hits to
[27:10] Speaker 2: the website and now fifteen years later, we get about
[27:14] Speaker 2: two million hits to the website on an annual basis,
[27:18] Speaker 2: which is pretty incredible. You know, what is that twenty
[27:21] Speaker 2: x or something like that.
[27:23] Speaker 3: And so you so call, you so called, don't worry
[27:25] Speaker 3: about you so call.
[27:28] Speaker 2: And we've produced over fifty million in revenue. Now I
[27:32] Speaker 2: think I told you we did half a million a
[27:33] Speaker 2: year when we were on Shark Tank. We are just
[27:37] Speaker 2: crushing it on every We have a you know, email
[27:39] Speaker 2: and social media list of two hundred thousand followers, and
[27:42] Speaker 2: that's just a function of doing good work for a
[27:45] Speaker 2: long period of time, building a brand. I think a
[27:47] Speaker 2: lot of people don't talk about building a brand enough.
[27:50] Speaker 2: You know, as I mentioned, our brand is change your score,
[27:53] Speaker 2: change your life, and a lot of people like to
[27:55] Speaker 2: follow that message because they know the importance of education
[27:58] Speaker 2: and how it can change your lives. I'm a result
[28:01] Speaker 2: of that myself, my own personal story, but also all
[28:04] Speaker 2: my students and hopefully in the larger scheme of things. Really,
[28:08] Speaker 2: what I want to embody is the American dream. Go
[28:11] Speaker 2: back to meritocracy, go back to working hard and getting
[28:15] Speaker 2: rewarded for it, whether that's in business or in education,
[28:18] Speaker 2: and that's what we embody.
[28:20] Speaker 1: Wow, you know this is a I looked up and
[28:22] Speaker 1: I went wow. Twenty six minutes and it's just it's
[28:25] Speaker 1: just been a fun interview.
[28:26] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[28:27] Speaker 1: Like again, I have just compliment you on your personality,
[28:30] Speaker 1: compliments you on your vision. Is a great story, but
[28:33] Speaker 1: also you're changing lives and that's what really excites me
[28:36] Speaker 1: about being able to be a part of your life,
[28:39] Speaker 1: you know, be able to share this information to people
[28:42] Speaker 1: who are trying to give their child or themselves an
[28:45] Speaker 1: opportunity to exceed with that note. I know parents come
[28:50] Speaker 1: to you, do adults come to you? You know, who
[28:53] Speaker 1: are post high school gets into these course And what's
[28:57] Speaker 1: the difference in those type of people versus the parents
[29:00] Speaker 1: bringing their child to be part of prep expert.
[29:03] Speaker 2: Yeah. So for the most part, it is parents of
[29:06] Speaker 2: high school students. But there are some adults we've had
[29:09] Speaker 2: who will come to us who are going to go
[29:11] Speaker 2: back to school and they need an SAT or ACT score.
[29:14] Speaker 2: And you know what's funny is those are often the
[29:16] Speaker 2: most motivated because they've been out in the real world
[29:19] Speaker 2: and the real world is not as kind as the
[29:23] Speaker 2: education worlds as I know having been in business and education,
[29:27] Speaker 2: and they so they work the hardest, they do the best.
[29:29] Speaker 2: We've had really remarkable stories of adults doing well with
[29:33] Speaker 2: our courses.
[29:33] Speaker 1: Too cool, close out this man, what's the future? Brother
[29:37] Speaker 1: for prep Expert? You already talked about the thens, the doctors,
[29:40] Speaker 1: the teachers, the lawyers, probably congressmen who you actually took
[29:45] Speaker 1: taking your course, and it really is it really is
[29:49] Speaker 1: a system where you can take control of your lives.
[29:53] Speaker 3: You know, I was a poor test taker.
[29:55] Speaker 1: I think I made like seven to fifty on my
[29:57] Speaker 1: SAT Okay, Yeah, I got a degree in mathematics and
[30:01] Speaker 1: minor in sociology, so I was just a poor test taker.
[30:04] Speaker 1: So you could have really changed my life if I
[30:07] Speaker 1: knew about you when I was in high school, but
[30:09] Speaker 1: I didn't.
[30:10] Speaker 3: Those type of things didn't exist, but it exists today.
[30:13] Speaker 3: So what's the future and what's the brand deal of
[30:15] Speaker 3: the scale?
[30:16] Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So I think, as I mentioned, over the
[30:19] Speaker 2: past decade, we've helped students win over one hundred million
[30:22] Speaker 2: in scholarships. So over the next decade, I want to
[30:24] Speaker 2: take that a step further. I'm on a billion dollar
[30:26] Speaker 2: scholarship mission. I want to help students win over one
[30:30] Speaker 2: billion dollars in scholarships, get those thousand, two hundred thousand
[30:34] Speaker 2: dollars full ride scholarships through their test scores, through college admissions,
[30:39] Speaker 2: and change their lives. Because if I can financially remove
[30:43] Speaker 2: your student debt when college is so so expensive, I've
[30:47] Speaker 2: changed your life forever. Because now you're financially free after
[30:52] Speaker 2: college or after your graduate education to pursue your passions.
[30:56] Speaker 2: You can have more freedom in the careers and the
[30:58] Speaker 2: entrepreneurship choices you make. And so that's really the future
[31:02] Speaker 2: vision that I have is to help hundreds of thousands
[31:04] Speaker 2: of students eliminate their student debt, get billions in scholarships,
[31:09] Speaker 2: and do that over the next decade, to change their
[31:11] Speaker 2: scores and change their lives.
[31:12] Speaker 1: Thank you, brother, I really really appreciate you coming on
[31:15] Speaker 1: Money Making Conversations master Class.
[31:17] Speaker 3: Thank you Sean, Thank you Rashwan.
[31:19] Speaker 2: It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. And I'm
[31:21] Speaker 2: going to do a shameless plug any parents the students interested,
[31:24] Speaker 2: check out prepexpert dot com.
[31:26] Speaker 1: Don't worry, brother, we say a prep expert enough, they
[31:29] Speaker 1: know where to go. I know how to plug your baby.
[31:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, I trust me.
[31:38] Speaker 1: I know.
[31:38] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[31:39] Speaker 1: This has been another edition of Money Making Conversations Masterclass
[31:42] Speaker 1: posted by me Rashaun McDonald. Thank you to our guests
[31:45] Speaker 1: on the show today and thank you listen to the
[31:48] Speaker 1: audience now.
[31:49] Speaker 3: If you want to listen to any episode I want
[31:51] Speaker 3: to be a guest on the show.
[31:52] Speaker 1: Visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Social media handle is money Making Conversation.
[31:58] Speaker 3: Join us next.
[31:58] Speaker 1: Week and remember to all always leave with your gifts.
[32:01] Speaker 1: Keep winning.
[32:02] Speaker 2: Mm hmmmmm

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