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Good evening, everyone! I have been in the hunt for a business since 2019 and everything that has been said is true of me as well: I’m an African-American (minority) woman who should have money thrown at my feet to finance my business. I wanted to provide housing for veterans so I acquired a building for very little money (long story) and went hunting for funding. Mind you, I had already started the process of establishing my business structure – LLC AND corporation; virtual address and phone number; business bank accounts; Nav; D&B Paydex score…the whole nine yards. Fast forward to 2023: I expect to close on the sale of my building for just enough to pay my realtor and reimburse myself for the cost of the material and labor for the roof I put on the building to stop the water from damaging my investment any further!
I did learn something very valuable along the way though: you cannot establish good business credit without fixing my personal credit FIRST contrary to what the gurus tell you. No, business credit is not created in a vacuum. More often that not, you have to provide PG – personal guarantee – credit that is contingent on your good to excellent personal credit. Yes, I also opened the credit union accounts with the military, the Pentagon, etc. and made some head ways by securing some high credit limits, however I didn’t have the mentorship I needed to make profitable moves with those funds and I’m back to square one…but with debt. You can go so much further if you work on your income to debt ration which will boost your utilization, acquiring great mentorship, your business plan, did I say great mentorship? There’s no shortcut to getting great business credit that will allow you to have either the credit you need to buy a property or an investment that you set to cash flow in a short period of time. And oh, beware of the shiny object syndrome!
There are some great resources out there, Galaxy being one. HelloAlice is another. Nav is another. The credit unions that accept national memberships. We can do this!