Now, if you’re an entrepreneur…or you want to start your own business…or you just want to learn how to generate more revenue to grow your business…
You can’t afford to miss this week’s podcast guest!
He’s the King of Business Credit…Ty Crandall!
Ty is the CEO of Credit Suite. He's the authority in Business Credit Building, Business Credit Scoring, and Business Financing.
In this week's episode, he's gonna share some of the amazing strategies that you can use to build business credit and generate additional revenue and cash for your business.
We cover a lot of ground, and you don’t want to miss any of it. So let’s get started!
Ty Crandall is the CEO of Credit Suite. He’s an internationally known speaker, TV, and radio personality. He’s the Best Selling Author of Perfect Credit and Business Credit Decoded. He’s an expert in Business Credit Building, Business Credit Scoring, and Business Financing. He's spoken at every Credit Repair Expo that we've ever had, and he’s forgotten more about Business Credit than most people will ever know.
And he's here with us today!
It’s a great discussion. You don’t want to miss a single minute.
So head over to Youtube to watch the Full Interview now!
Here are a few of the highlights…
It's been a while since we talked at the beginning of the pandemic. That's when we started our podcast, and you were one of the first guests. But a whole lot has changed because of the pandemic. How did it affect your business?
We've done really well. I mean, when the economy shifts, we see two things happen with entrepreneurship…
We see business owners…the amount of people that start businesses…skyrocket. And then we also see, of course, those that are already in business go to get capital as quickly as possible.
So we saw hockey stick growth during it because we were really well prepared for educational content. The minute it hit, we started releasing educational content about recessions, recession’s impending changes to the economy, and you know, we had a vault of that stuff. And so we were out there. We doubled up on our live streams. And we just did really well through it. I think we had a strategy that helped us navigate through it pretty well. How did you guys do?
Actually, it was kind of amazing for us. I think there were so many people wanting to launch a business from home. And for us, it was like a hockey stick as well. What people don't realize is that…time of turmoil is actually a time of opportunity. Right? I mean, we're heading into a recession, people are afraid of that. But I see it as an opportunity. How about you?
There's a lot of opportunity. I think that whenever the economy shifts, you have people that are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was me owning a mortgage company during the mortgage crisis. And then we see on the other side of the stories of all the people that took advantage, that were in the right place at the right time. So I think it's, you know, every change in the economy, we know what's going to happen, right?
I mean, it's a cycle economy, we understand that you've got peaks, you've got troughs, so being prepared for when times change, I think, gives you the best positioning to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities because every economic shift, there's opportunities.
Okay, let's get into Business Credit because we're always taught about Consumer Credit here. But for everyone listening, what exactly is Business Credit?
Well, everybody in your audience is very familiar with consumer credit and how it works…
Business credit is really similar in a lot of different ways. It's just credit for a business that's linked to a business's EIN, unlike consumer credit that's linked to a consumer’s social security number.
So the idea is for a business to build its own credit profile, get accounts that report to the business credit reporting agencies, that establishes a credit profile for the business credit score for the business. And then the business has the ability to obtain a lot of credit without a personal guarantee, without a personal credit check. And then the building of the business credit just makes it easier for the business to be able to get all kinds of credit, credit lines, loans, basically just all kinds of financing, and help the business owner get away from personal guarantees and a lot of cases as well.
Can any business get business credit?
Yeah, any business can. I mean, if you have a business in the United States, you can get business credit. So I kind of look at business credit as the way for a business to fund itself.
And in a lot of situations, you've got business owners who just can't get money. They have bad credit, they have, you know, no collateral, they're getting started, they don't have cash flow, but they need some money to be able to fuel the business. And what's nice is business credit is kind of like a catch-all, anybody can get it. You can get it even if you just started your business today, you don't need collateral, it's unsecured. You don't need to have cash flow or verify any kind of cash flow. So even brand new businesses can get it, or businesses that don't have tax returns or bank statements or want to show those can get it as well. So because there is no cash flow credit or cash flow requirements, then it just makes it really easy for any business owner to get it as long as the business owner owns a business here in the United States.
How does someone with a business start a business credit profile and score?
Well, it starts with foundation…What I see is entrepreneurs want to just jump ahead as fast as we can. And they skip the basics. And so, as a result of that, that's what gets more than half of all applications denied…basics. It's not your credit, it's not your income. You never even get that far…Because if we think about how we start businesses, we typically go, our names available at the Secretary of State, we get it, we get the entity, then we end up getting an address, and we get a phone number and a website, and we just never even think about updating this stuff ever. We never even think about it. And so that's a problem.
We've gotta just make sure that we update everything. Everything is congruent. We get that fundability aligned. It really is step number one and the most important step of any type of credit financing.
Then the next thing you wanna do along the line of fundability is get a Dun’s number. Go to CreditSuite.com/duns or just search “Free Dun’s number.” Go to Dun and Bradstreet, get your Dun's number…One week to four weeks to usually get it…100% free…10 to 15 minutes to fill out the application. That's the first step with getting set up with Dun and Bradstreet and with Equifax and Experian Commercial. The minute you get accounts that report to them, they'll then automatically create your numbers with them and create your credit profiles as well. So fundability is most important, including Dun and Bradstreet. That's really the very first step with getting any kind of financing and the first step with building business credit as well.
What if you're a brand new business owner? Can you still get a loan to start your business?
Sure. So the way that we look at this is that when it comes to getting money, I like to simplify it by just calling them the Three C’s.
Meaning there are three main points or things that lenders really wanna see: Credibility, Cash flow, and Credit.
So if you have one of those strengths, you can get money. It used to be, you needed all of 'em, right? We had to go through a bank. We had to go through SBA. 90% of funding went through them. We had to have a really well-established business for years, you know, years in the making, to be able to get approved. And then we really saw with DODD Frank and a lot of changes after the 2008 mortgage crisis…a complete shift. Now, 90% of funding plus comes from alternative lenders, not from SBA, and they're looking at “a strength” instead of “all strengths.”
So if you're in any kind of industry in any kind of business, what you gotta look at is what is your strength? Do you have collateral? Do you have stocks, bonds, 401ks, IRAs? Do you have equipment inventory? Do you want to purchase real estate? Use that as collateral?
For example, do you have account receivables? Are you flipping homes and using that collateral? Do you have an asset that has value that can serve as collateral? If so, you can give very low-interest rate financing…If you're a startup 10 years in business, doesn't matter if your credit's a 400 score, or an 800 credit score, you can get approved.
Then that second C is Cash flow. So if you have six months' worth of cash flow, everybody wants to give you money from PayPal, Square, Stripe, kind of guys, all the way to what we call cash flow, financing, merchant cash in advances, all these lenders that lend on the fact that you have consistent cash flow.
Then we have the third one, which is Credit. You can get it. And by the way, when we talk about cash flow, that's the kind of financing startups just can't get. They don't have cash flow yet. They need six months' worth it. So if they're just starting their business, they can't get that C. But if they have collateral, they could still get everything in that category. And then the third is credit, and that's kind of two subcategories.
If you have good consumer credit, there's a program like Credit Line Hybrid, where you can get credit lines up to $150,000 just based on you having good consumer credit or a guarantor, a partner, a family member, a friend, somebody that wants to be a signer for you…You can get credit lines for $150,000, 0% rates report to business credit reporting agencies, or you build business credit, and you get money based on business credit.
So you just have to know what your strengths are. And if you're just launching a business, you don't have cash flow. The question is, do you have an asset that could service collateral?
Most don't. That rules out that category. So now we look at either consumer or commercial credit, consumer credit from you or somebody else, or commercial credit.
And that formula works any which way. You only need one of the C’s.
If you have one, you don't need the others.
So if you want money, you just need to think about which one you have. If you have zero of them, you need to build Business Credit and let that help the business fund itself.
Once you get things lined up, how fast can you build business credit?
Well, Business Credit, you never stop building it. Like Consumer Credit, there's no end to where you wanna be. But you can start getting Business Credit accounts right away.
So that means if you set up a business, you can come in and start applying for what we call “Starter Vendors.” And these are vendors are unique for two reasons…They're unique because they'll give you credit when you have none. If you have no business credit reports, they'll still issue credit. And they report that credit to the reporting agencies. And that's really important for multiple reasons.
First of all, over 90% of trade credit doesn't report anywhere. And this is what we deal with. We have, you know, 3 million, 2 million, 10 million business owners come in and say, “oh my gosh, I just got denied for auto financing. I just got my credit line pulled.” All these things happen, and they say Business Credit’s the culprit. What's going on? And they say, “I pay A, B, C, D, E F.” But the problem is none of those people that they are paying report the credit to the reporting agencies.
So consumer credit, you just build it accidentally. Like you go to Target, they offer you a credit card for 20% off on your purchase. You take it, you know, it reports in your Consumer Credit Reports. It's just not like that in the consumer world…It's a nightmare to get reported to D&B, Equifax, Experian. I don't know why, but it is a nightmare to report data to them. It could take you years to ever get approved, to report to them. So, as a result, 90% of people that give you credit, they don't report it. So it's not showing anywhere. So you really gotta get credit with starter vendors that do report the credit that they give you.
Then the other thing is, of the vendors that are out there that will, they want you to be established. They wanna pull a business credit report. They wanna see a Dun and Bradstreet score and all these things. If you don't have that, they're not gonna approve you. So these “Starter Vendors” will give you credit when you have none. They report, then they give you those initial foundation, that initial credit profile, that initial credit score, then you can build off of that profile and score, continue to get more and more tiers of credit as you continue to get more credit to report.
What are some examples of these “Starter Vendors” that you could go to?
Two of my favorites are Uline and Grainger.
I love Uline because they sell shipping supplies, all kinds of stuff that most of us use in our business. And I love Grainger because if you just give them a business license, they almost automatically give you a $2,500 credit line, right off the bat. And I get batteries and First Aid kits and all kinds of stuff from them.
There are a lot of other ones out there, but those are two of my favorites to get started with. They report to the reporting agencies. They're true starter vendors. They'll give you credit when you have none, and you can use those to create a basic foundation with the reporting agencies that you can then continue to build off of to get more and more tiers of credit.
Ty already shared all this amazing information, and we had only just started talking!
There’s so much more to learn: business tips, facts, and strategies…
You can’t afford to miss any of it!
Also, if you don’t already have a Credit Repair Cloud account, check it out. It’s the software that most Credit Repair businesses in America run on. Just sign up for a 30 day free trial at creditrepaircloud.com/freetrial
And If you’d like me to hold you by the hand as you launch your own credit repair business, check out our Credit Hero Challenge!!
It’s an amazing program where you’ll learn the processes that have made millionaires, and it costs less than you'll spend taking your family to McDonald’s for dinner.
We’ve got another challenge starting in a few days, so grab your spot right now at CreditHeroChallenge.com!
Until then, keep learning about Business Credit and finding ways to grow your business…
And keep changing lives!