how to think like a bank | bob hunter

In 2015, I was a normal guy with a really great job, a beautiful family, a great home, a great dog, and a generally happy life. As the Director of Operations Development at LMI Solutions, I was the king of my own little hill, creating amazing business development solutions for the company that varied wildly from building ERP software for the company to establishing entire departments, all in the name of growth. The times were great, and the whole thing was genuinely fun.

But unfortunately, I also have this thing called Sickle Cell Disease – a serious and disabling blood disorder – and on February 29, 2016, sickle cell took my vision in my right eye (after already taking my hearing in my left ear 4 years prior), and I lost my job over it because I was now a safety hazard. Really.

So just like that, there went the wonderful job, and all that came with it (family included). At the time, I was too young and foolish to know that I should at least ask for some sort of severance pay, and I instantly found myself struggling to not only learn to read again with my remaining eye but also, how to work and pay bills again.

Within 6 months, I’d figured out how to do both, but this time, I’d create glorious things, not for another employer, but instead, for myself and my own clients. And thus, the entity known as Oxford Pierpont was born.

For over half a decade now, I have worked to provide incredibly polished and efficient business development services to small business owners and multi-national corporations alike, and the experience has been nothing short of incredible.

More importantly, I have gained so much personal value from meeting and consulting with hundreds of business owners at all stages of the process, and in that process, I have changed lives.

Like any good story, there is more to it than I can appropriately convey in a short bio, but if you’d like to learn more about me, my companies, or my missions, please feel free to reach out to my team for a one-on-one conversation.

 https://oxfordpierpont.com/
https://mybusinesscredit.com/

Transcript

Josh Bolton: 0:00

Trading contracts. Are you trading options?

Unknown: 0:04

contracts on futures? Yeah, but I'm basically the s&p 500.

Josh Bolton: 0:12

Wow. Okay. That's cool. That's cool. I mean, I trade options. I do you know, Ken Roberts, the option trader from the 90s. No. Dude made like hundreds of millions of dollars off the futures market. He showed me his tricks of options too. So

Unknown: 0:33

wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's because I've been doing options last year.

Josh Bolton: 0:38

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown: 0:42

But after Russia invaded Ukraine options kind of got a little stressful because I was doing the iron condors, which was a spread. And so the price had to stay in between two points. And so the market got very volatile. And so I was like, No, I need something else. So that's what moved me over to futures, which was just wonderful. I don't care if the market goes up or down. I make money either way. So it's a

Josh Bolton: 1:07

you'll have to listen to news, you just look at charts and be like, Alright, it looks like it's going down today.

Unknown: 1:12

Yeah, I actually. So I actually built a bot, to measure the market for me. So I just do whatever the bot says.

Josh Bolton: 1:21

Python, or?

Unknown: 1:23

No. So in Ninja Trader, Ninja has their own little script that you can modify. And so you can basically say, like, hey, based on these indicators, and these parameters, this price point, if all of these things match up in this formula, then go along. If they don't, then don't do anything. And if they are the opposite, then go short. And so sometimes when you're a trader, you can I guess you can be hopeful, like, Oh, I think it's gonna go up, I feel like it's gonna go up or whatever. The bot is just the math, if the if the indications were there, it takes the trade if they were not there, it doesn't do anything. So it's more

Josh Bolton: 2:05

stable. It is, I have a so use track and trade as my treating provider, and they have a bot that comes with it. And it's annoying, because sometimes they'll go, right? I think it was, like, give me a special like, 1000 bucks for everything, including the pilot was like, hey, that's awesome. I'll take it. But uh, that it's annoying to look at because he goes off the like moving averages and all that and I can get more specialized. But at my best rule, it took anywhere from two weeks in between trades, and I'm like, I'm sitting here sweating bullets again. Oh, it doesn't go the wrong way.

Unknown: 2:47

Yeah, I felt my I thought my boss was like, long. So my bot only takes trades when it's in a certain level on the mark on the on the chart. So there's like the volume weighted average price. And so there are bands. So there's like level one, two, and three. And so my bot will only take the trades when it's in like level two. Because when it's like inside, inside those bands, it can be very volatile, going up and down. But once it's gone to a certain level, it stays there. But sometimes I'm looking at it. It's like, Oh, that would have been such a good trade. But it just wasn't, wasn't guaranteed. So it doesn't take it. So yeah. It's awesome. It's interesting, man. That's very cool. That's super cool. Do I have a delay on my line? Because you've got a pretty significant one. Not sure if that matters for recording later.

Josh Bolton: 3:36

It seems like you're coming through just fine. On my end. It records whatever my screen says.

Unknown: 3:42

Okay, okay, good, good. Just making sure.

Josh Bolton: 3:45

I'll say I'll check it later. If not, I'll just got to sit there and chop everything and paperwork. All right. So I was thinking, Can we get a quick introduction of who you are and what you do?

Unknown: 3:59

Sure. So my name is Bob Hunter. And I am the CEO of Oxford Pierpont, and also my business credit, which is our newer business that does business financing for small and medium businesses. And the reason that there are two is because Oxford is very corporate, for larger businesses, for businesses that are more, I guess, office based think lawyers, mortgage brokers, bankers, accountants, things like that. My business credit is way more friendly, way happier looking brand. And we helped sort of small and medium sized businesses to get money. And the biggest problem that we're trying to solve there is unfortunately about 90 roughly 90% of new business owners will not make it to year five. And the biggest reason that they won't is because is that they are undercapitalized. So that is the that is the single biggest problem that we're trying to solve. So that So what I do?

Josh Bolton: 5:02

So let's say like I open a business, for easy sake, an air conditioning company, I have all the experience, but I don't have the capital, would it be something, you'd help me figure out the financing for that?

Unknown: 5:16

Yep, so we'd help you figure out the financing. But more importantly, we would make sure that you're doing all the things that you need to do to be attractive to a bank in the first place. So many business owners what they do is they open their business, and they're thinking about everything in the context of how do I provide the best service or the best product and you know, get more customers make my customers happy? How do I hire people? How do I grow all of these things that they're thinking about from an operating perspective, they're not really thinking about the business administration side as much. And so what ends up happening is you've got a business owner who's ready to grow, maybe they're ready to hire more people, or acquire new products, or maybe even buy another business, but they do not have the, the history to justify giving them money. So they might have cashflow. For example, let's say that your business is doing really well, you end up producing $20,000 per month. So on a cash flow, you know, from a cash flow perspective, you look wonderful. But then we find out well, you're bringing in 20. But in your bank account, you're actually only keeping about 19,000 or less. So really, you're spending all of your money. So if you're talking to the bank now and you say, hey, bank, I need $100,000, the bank looks at it as well, you're only really able to spare $1,000, just from your current revenue, we get that you need the money, but we need a little bit more cushion and security. So that's why they have something called a bank rating, where the bank is basically measuring what your average account balance is over the last 90 days. And that number needs to be 10,000 or higher. So little things like that. We try to make sure business owners are understanding, you've got to run your business, but you've also got to build your business. So that later you're able to have these conversations with parties that are able to give you money. And there's a long list of them 20 things Be more specific. So

Josh Bolton: 7:16

Oh, wow, that plenty of talk about that. But I'm just I'm just thinking of one. And because it probably popped up in other people's head listening to this, does that mean that I have to increase my price, so I have more cushion. But that could scare off customers kind of thing.

Unknown: 7:28

It's it's more about how you're using, how you're using your money. So for example, with the bank rating, right? Let's say that you genuinely did need that money. Because obviously, you did in that hypothetical example, if you brought in 20, and you were spending 19, I'm sure you weren't going out and you know, paying a monthly note on a Ferrari, you know, you were probably paying your employees, we were probably paying for advertising or anything for your business. So what you want to be able to do is instead of just having that cash always been spent, have a revolving line of credit a business line of credit, that is cycling every month, that is secured by a certificate of deposit. And that accomplishes two things for you. One, you took your original cash that you had, you put it into a certificate of deposit, which is a high interest savings account at your bank. And then your bank said, okay, cool. So we've got this money here is growing interest, you're now able to say, Well, hey, I want to use that CD, as collateral for a revolving business line of credit. So now you've got two sets of $20,000, you'd have the one that was your original cash, which is now safely sitting inside of that CD. And now you've got $20,000 of revolving money, okay? If you do not pay that $20,000, like, let's say that you spend up all the money, and the following month, you don't do anything to bring your balance down, while the bank isn't as worried as they normally would be. Because they will just simply take the money out of your out of your CD, because that is your security, that's your collateral, if you end up defaulting on that. So it makes the bank feel better. By having that money safely sitting in that CD bearing interest. That means your bank rating is now going to be a little bit higher, because your bank balance is always staying at least the same or higher as it is increasing. And finally, by having a business line of credit at the bank, you're now more attractive, attractive because you're able to go to another bank later and say, Hey, I've got this account with Bank A, it's in good standing, I pay my bill. I'm always keeping the money revolving like it's supposed to be. Give me more money. If we take that a step further, when we're talking about how to bring down these expenses, bringing it to a vendor, instead of just spending money outright. Let's say that you are, I don't know spending money on gasoline, right? You're driving around, maybe you're driving them to your worksite maybe you're delivering stuff or whatever it is. Get a gas card. That's another example. Maybe you're spending money on recurring bills like you've got some software bills where you have a payroll bills or whatever it is as recurring, instead of spending that as just cash, get a special credit card just for those kinds of revolving bills. So it's not necessarily about only about just reducing the costs, which I mean, if you can, by all means do. But it's about spending the money in a way that is wiser, and allows you to get multiple uses of the same dollar. So I don't know if that makes sense.

Josh Bolton: 10:26

It does for me, but I wanted to ask on a question, I didn't think how would I, let's see, I formed my LLC, I buy my virtual real estate place, my LLC there. How would it convince a bank to be like, I know I'm new, but can I get a $10,000 line of credit? How would that work?

Unknown: 10:44

So there's, so the banks are going to want to honor these three things. So you've either got to have cash flow, which generally needs to be 10,000 or more, or you've got collateral, which in your case would have been the house, or you have good credit. So you've got to have two of those three, any two, but you need at least two of those three, if you are someone who has good credit, and by good, we mean a score of 680 or higher, then you're able to now leverage that good credit history and say, Hey, bank, give me give me money. And the other thing too, is you still need some kind of cash flow to back it up. Because remember, you need to now if you've just started a business, you might not have cash flow yet, we do offer startup financing, that is a type of financing that we can give a business that has not even been opened yet. And it's based on your personal income at that point. So the bank needs to verify in some way that the money is secured, either because you're putting up collateral, or you're putting up not that you're putting up cash, but that you at least have cash, or you've got, you've got good credit. So in your case, house, and your credit would be would be your would be more attractive features. There that case. Now, if you are going to be also specifically talking about real estate, you can also go and get private money loans. So we do offer that as well, a lot of real estate investors, what they will do is a lot of fix and flips, they'll go buy a property at one price, they will put a certain amount of repairs into it, and then sell that property at a higher price. We provide financing for that as well up to$2.2 million.

Josh Bolton: 12:26

So the person then must have a very good plan and very good credit history for you to consider something that I

Unknown: 12:34

Yeah, so credit is going to be the biggest thing. There's so many people who have this misconception that and I get why because people say this online all the time, oh, you can go and just open an LLC. And you're going to be able to go and buy, you know, an Escalade, or f150 or all this stuff just because you have an LLC or to open a week ago. And it does not really work like that. They still need some kind of verification that you have the means to pay, whether it's through your credit history as evidence that you've paid other people on time and responsibly, or if it's through your personal income that verifies that you do at least have access to it to an income that justifies the amount that you're looking for. Or if the the thing that you're getting, right, so the collateral that you're getting in this case, being the house is worth enough to satisfy the loan, if for some reason you defaulted. Everything that the bank asks you all the different questions, it's really only to answer one thing, and that is if we give you money as the bank, will you as the borrower pay it back? If the answer to that question is yes, then the bank is very happy to give you all the money that you need.

Josh Bolton: 13:47

Interesting. So let's say hypothetical, because you definitely a guy that could tell me the right answer. Let's say I get a bunch of backers private investment, I formed my LLC, but I get for accredited investors to give me 200k. Total is that then when I could take it to the bank and say, I know this is a new LLC, but I have$200,000 worth of cash from backers. I'd like to put this down as a payment is that can that work?

Unknown: 14:16

After about 90 days, it definitely can. The reason that I say 90 days is because they always ask for about three months of history, you still can go ahead of time, but it's more guaranteed after 90 days.

Josh Bolton: 14:29

So then I would have to prep my investors say I would need to form my LLC put everything in, keep it there legally, 90 days, and then I can we can start the process right?

Unknown: 14:40

The 90 days just makes it more ideal. So you can definitely like let's say today's Tuesday, I'm gonna go in and take this 800k that I have in one straight to the bank and ask for more money. You certainly can. But there's still a possibility that you can get denied. Whereas in 90 days of you showing that hey, I've had this money and it's stable. It's Not money, that is just a quick blip, and then it's gone kind of thing. Because again, you got to think about it from the bank's perspective, are they going to be safe giving you more money, right? After them asking for your last three months of history, and now your bank rating is, you know, is very high. They're very happy. It's way easier to get the money, especially if on top of that, you've also got a decent credit

Josh Bolton: 15:24

or credit partners that will say, We're partners. Okay. That was really helpful. Yeah, that would have been, as one of those I've been thinking of getting into real estate. Now, I know you're the guy that also called you if I'm gonna do it. But um, oh, yeah. We had it

Unknown: 15:40

was just a website, too.

Josh Bolton: 15:42

Oh, yeah. I liked it animation, if you scroll on your website?

Unknown: 15:49

Oh, yeah, thank you. There's a page on our website that goes into more detail about real estate specifically. And there's an animated video as well, where we talk about exactly what what is needed to get real estate financing. So where you know, you go, you get the property, you need to find out what property you want. Basically, find out what repairs it needs. If you decide to get into the fix and flip side of things. This cannot be an owner occupied property. And we work with private money lenders to get you that money. So it's a very, very good way to get access to capital and get into business very quickly. If you know what you're doing. Of course, you still have to put the legwork in of actually, you know, doing flipping the property. Yeah, they're doing right.

Josh Bolton: 16:38

Yeah, either you're doing it yourself, or you're hiring a good contractor to do it. Either way, you're gonna have to do something. That's interesting. So what exactly is, so I'm sure we hit a couple of steps, they were talking about one of the the 20 steps, what are a few that I might miss that I'm not familiar with?

Unknown: 16:57

Sure. So a few things that people will just kind of overlook, or don't even realize, matter. Let's start with the basics. So the things that are called a lender compliance, this would be things like, if you are normally putting your cell phone down, you know, your personal cell phone number on these applications for the bank, you really need to be putting down a business phone number that are going to check, this would be a 411 registered business phone number. Same with your address, you need to make sure that you have a dedicated business address, not just your house, even if you have a home office still need a dedicated business address. Another one is your email, you might be putting you know bob.hunter@gmail.com When it should be Bob dot Hunter at Oxford pierpont.com. Basically saying that you need to make sure you've got your name at your business.com or dot whatever, as a legitimate email that just further gives the bank comfort that you are a real business, right. You also want to make sure that you'd have a website for your business, they will check that basically they're trying to find out. If you are actually a business that is legitimate and has been in business for some time, they're looking for that they're looking for your state registrations, they want to make sure that you're not only registered with your local Secretary of State, but you are also in good standing and in compliance with Secretary of State. A few other things, if you are going to be getting higher amounts, they would like for you to be in business for at least two years, they would like for you to have at least $10,000 per month and in recurring revenue coming in, they'd like for you to have a bank rating of five or higher, that means that you are keeping at least $10,000 per month in your account or more. There's there's a long list. But basically all of these things help the bank answer that one question of if I give you money, will you pay it back? Every time that the answer to one of those questions is no, that increases the likelihood from the bank's perspective that you're going to be someone who will default on the loan.

Josh Bolton: 19:06

Sir, I'm looking around like I've tried to process everything like he's given me gold right now. And remember this, oh, well, we're

Unknown: 19:12

actually going to be putting all this on our website for for free for everyone in a few weeks here, so it'll be there for you.

Josh Bolton: 19:20

Awesome, then be checking in your site. And this is awesome. So that like already the I knew the business number, but I didn't because I was thinking like oh, just buying a nerd cricket number will cricket the mobile company listed then I would have to register it through my okay. This is good stuff.

Unknown: 19:39

It's there are plenty of companies that will give you a phone number and there's nothing stopping you from forwarding that number to your cell phone. But it still needs to be an actual business number that is registered. Like that is like 411 or excuse me 411 registered like that is just your business line. Banks really look for that.

Josh Bolton: 19:59

form one one registered, okay, is there like a specific site I would need to go to for that

Unknown: 20:05

there are plenty. So um, on our website, there is a Resources tab right on the homepage. And in those resources, you'll see where it says marketplace, there are a lot of phone companies that we recommend, like go to RingCentral manage any one of those can get you a number for the address, you can actually use I postal, but I postal actually provides phone numbers as well. So you can kind of kill two birds with one stone there, you can find links to all that stuff in our website under Resources. Under resources, you'll also find very helpful, we list out the vendors that you might be able to use to get vendor lines of credit, we tell you exactly what credit bureaus, they report to whether it's done in Bradstreet, Experian, or Equifax. And we tell you if they have any net terms, so like net, 15, net 30. Net 60. And for those of you who do not know what net terms are, is basically where the vendor says, Hey, we're gonna give you the product or the service today, and you have 15 days to pay in the case of Netflix team or you've got 90 days to pay in the case of a net 90. Basically, you want to make sure that your bill is paid in full by whatever that term data is. That way, you're always in good standing with them, you need 15 accounts total on your credit report. And those vendor lines of credit will help you get to that number 15. And make sure you keep them all in good standing, then boom, your credit score your business credit score just slowly inches up.

Josh Bolton: 21:31

Something these vendors or doesn't matter in particular, which vendor or it's just 15 vendors in general,

Unknown: 21:38

the wall not even just a team vendors, it can be a mix of credit cards, business lines of credit and vendors for a total of 15. When it comes to the vendors, the main thing that matters is that they actually report to the Bureau's if they don't mean that doesn't mean don't work with that vendor. It's just so you'd have to be conscious of the fact that working with that vendor isn't really going to help you from a business credit building perspective, because no one's reporting.

Josh Bolton: 22:04

Good points. Yeah. But it's like maybe it's one of those, they're hardworking, and they're trustworthy, but they're not going to necessarily tell the others about the credit between us.

Unknown: 22:18

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And that mean, vendors, I mean, that can be something as simple as a gas card or something as complicated as, I don't know, maybe you sell T shirts, if you've got a t shirt vendor that's always giving you you know, those products, or maybe you manufacture something, and instead of just buying all of your stuff from various suppliers, you're taking the extra time to say to each supplier, hey, do you all report to Dun and Bradstreet or Equifax or whoever? That way you at least know that this particular supplier when you're buying for them from them, you're still gonna get credit for it from a business credit perspective? Getting again, yet another use out of every dollar.

Josh Bolton: 22:59

Right? Yeah, it's like, maybe you have like the t shirt analogy you gave earlier. Maybe you have one t shirt wholesaler that gives you an amazing deals, but he doesn't report like the savings is worth a sack. So you're not getting the double hit but

Unknown: 23:13

Right, right. And I mean, it's, it's one of those things you kind of have to do long term math for because you might be saving money today. But maybe by having a vendor who was actually reporting and boosting your business credit score, you might have been able to get access to more money later. So you just kind of have to weigh the pros and cons of that. But that's part of having a business. Right. It's part of it. Right? That is part of

Josh Bolton: 23:35

the plan. Been for some,

Unknown: 23:41

but for some Yeah. As soon as I said, I realized, well, that doesn't sound very fun at all.

Josh Bolton: 23:47

That was a joke. Man. So yeah, that's interesting. So how, let's say, I do get my LLC, I go through I postal and get everything out who would ever talk to you for the grass gas card because you bring that up a lot?

Unknown: 24:06

Well, the reason I bring up the gas card is because I live in Atlanta, and you can't get anywhere without a car in Atlanta. I mean, I guess technically they have the bus, but the bus takes forever so people almost always have a car for the most part. So like it's low hanging fruit, because it's money that you are almost guaranteed to be spending anyway. So if you were gonna have to spend that money regardless, you might as well be getting credit for it. So if you are on our website, you click on vendors under the under the resources tab. You can filter by gas cards, and you'll see there's like you know, all your big gas stations Kwik Trip is really big down here. You basically apply for that card and now whenever you're filling up, you make sure that you always use that gas card and just like any other credit you pay it at the end of the month in full. Always pay your bills in full that matter. was a lot, but you paid in full. And now great. Now you've gotten to users out of the money, not to mention you're able to delay having to pay in the first place. So.

Josh Bolton: 25:10

So when you say pay in full, let's say I did $80, Phillip of my tank, what I paid the full 80 off, or the minimum a request for the month.

Unknown: 25:20

Because I've heard if you paid, I would never recommend paying the minimum. Okay? Here's why I say that. You want to make sure that your utilization is always as low as possible. And so it's great to have the benefit of being able to delay a payment. But people get into trouble when they start paying the minimums because now balances start to add up. Because now you're carrying over this month's expenses into the next month. And if you have a limited amount of money as your resource, Will, you're setting yourself up for failure, because at some point you're gonna run out, it's better to only limit yourself to money that you are going to spend anyway when it comes to credit. Because let's say that you are already going to spend $80 on that, Philip, just pay that full $80 Don't get don't don't do the partial, I know that people sometimes do it like Oh, I'm just gonna pay the minimum, you end up incurring interest now, you end up pissing off your vendors and running the risk of, of I guess tarnishing those relationship relationships because you're not paying your bill as agreed. And you just end up running into problems. And then you're also taking more of a personal credit approach to something that really should be handled as business credit. So does that make sense?

Josh Bolton: 26:38

It was probably something like a Grant Cardone talk or whatever, where they're like, only pay the minimum, one bike, that doesn't sound smart, but a lot of people and I keep saying so I guess my favorite thing.

Unknown: 26:50

I mean, you know, I always say only stupid people know everything. So that's a good, I definitely would not, I definitely would not disagree with Grant Cardone in that way. But I will say from personal experience, and just what I've seen, people have this stigma about credit in general. And it really has a lot to do with how credit gets handled. So let's say that we're talking about personal credit here, okay, you might have a credit card, let's say that your credit card has a, I don't know, $10,000 limit, okay. And so over the course of a month, people will swipe, swipe, swipe, and all this stuff, then the bill comes and they've got a minimum payment, they pay that, but you still have this big balance. And now you've also got interest added to that, because he carried over a balance. And you might still need that credit card, and you're still swiping and buying stuff. And now you're just kind of setting yourself up with a hole. And now your credit score starts to go down because you've got this balance that you're carrying over. The thing about personal credit is that usually, that bill is being paid by your personal income, which is often limited for most people, it's whatever your job pays you in most cases. So that's the amount of money that you have to spend on paying down any credit cards. With business, it's a little bit different. Because with business number one, the thing that you're buying probably is something that is an asset, not a liability, meaning that it makes money instead of just costing money. So that's the first difference. The second is with a business, you're able to generally make income that you can then use to pay the card back. And so or not even just the card in this case, but the debt in general, you're able to take that money from the business and now pay off that debt because that debt has now produced money with personal credit. Debts don't usually produce money they usually are for buying things. So that's why I say I wouldn't be careful about taking personal credit habits like only paying the minimum over to a business, a business credit card or business line of credit whatever it is, just because it's kind of setting you up for failure down the road, at least in my opinion. Now again, other people might think differently, but I would not form that bad habit if I can help it

Josh Bolton: 29:03

No, it's a it's a very good point that you bring up because it I've always paid aggressively on my personal line of credit. Just I don't like seeing debt so I just like make it go away as fast as possible. But we have like for the business like different entrepreneurs I've had on the show they've even said to like yeah, we we took it we maxed out all our credit cards, cash advanced everything. I did that once by accident and I'm like God the interest in seen on cash you're bouncing. Yeah. But I'm sitting here going. They're like, Yeah, we just paid the minimum enough to not make the banks angry with us until we hit it big Mike. What if you didn't hit a big though? And he's like, Well damn, screw that.

Unknown: 29:44

Yeah, yeah. I don't get me wrong. I get why people would do it. But it's your it's almost like you're in Vegas and you're gambling with your future at that point. So if it's a habit that you can avoid just avoided. Again, I understand why people would, especially if money's tight, but you're borrowing time in that, from that perspective, it might have been better to slow down and revise your marketing strategy or your business plan or your operating strategy in a way that produces more revenue so that you don't really have to play that risky game.

Josh Bolton: 30:24

Yeah, I agree. And that was a big one for me. Because that's that was the final fall for him. I was the guy that set for multiple he was the final one. I asked him. I said, so what happened? If you didn't hit it big? He like, oh, have we so scared? He's like, I he's like, I've already had like, two bankruptcies? And I'm like, that's not good. Yeah,

Unknown: 30:44

it's a it's a very risky way to do business. I mean, it does work in some cases. But it's a very risky start to the process.

Josh Bolton: 30:54

Yeah, it's like I tell a lot of people and it sounds like you're very similar mindset is like, just bootstrap it, make it work. Work within your means. And then as you grow, just throw everything back into it.

Unknown: 31:06

Right, and I mean, use other people's money whenever you can. But there's a difference when you're dealing with people in the sense of like investors, right. So like, an actual somebody gave you money instead of an institution, that would be a bit of a different situation. Usually, an investor has already understood where you are financially in your business, and what you're planning to do with the money. They will also, in many cases, be giving you advice on what to do with the money, it's not just the money that you get, but often you get a little bit of counsel, because the investor they want just like the banks to get their money back if they gave it to you. And there's also not always a whole heap of interest that is rolling over every month that you do not pay down your balances when you're dealing with, with a private investor. If you're dealing with money from an institution like like credit cards, or a loan or something like that, unless you're on some kind of terms, where it was 0% interest for the first year or something, you know, something glorious like that, you always do need to be conscious of how much money the money is costing you how expensive that money is, right? And if you can make that money as cheap as possible, and put it to work, so that it produces itself as quickly as possible, covers your debts, and you can now expand and move on. Definitely do that, even if it means slowing down, taking some time to revise your operating strategy. And then starting again. I mean, that's what I would recommend just being safe. With money.

Josh Bolton: 32:44

Yeah, no, and we see everything you've presented very sound up trying to lock it and keep it there. So then, let's go back to the hypothetical was talking to you earlier about the business credit, Blitz, is there certain industries that you may not have the best track record, but because you're in aerospace engineering, or tech, SAS company? Are there certain because of that aspect? Is it easier to get investors and funding from banks that you've seen,

Unknown: 33:19

it's easier. It's way easier for businesses that have physical assets. So interesting. Another way of putting it is, again, this still yet again, goes back to that question that the bank says of, hey, if we give you money, well, we get it back, the bank can feel better about getting their money back is, if there's something that they can sell off later. Let's say that you are a factory, you might be selling off some of those heavy equipment assets that you've acquired. That's way better for the bank, instead of having, let's say, a digital marketing agency where there's not really anything tangible. If you go under, what can they sell. So you see the difference there. So that's why it's easier to fund to fund I guess, those equipment, heavy asset heavy businesses. So and it just kind of scales down. Now, there are limits to that, for example, with trucking. A lot of people will ask me, Hey, do you offer loans for trucking, you know, Equipment Financing like that? We do technically, but they're not easy because the banks don't like truckers simply from branches and that a lot of new trucking companies. They don't really, they don't succeed very often. And so there's a high risk not to mention, those trucks end up costing a lot of money, not just after you bought them but a lot of maintenance, a lot of gas. There's a lot that has to go into a truck. So how much the equipment costs after you buy it is also a big factor.

Josh Bolton: 34:49

Right on that note of the trucking let's say I was getting into more of equipment rental, like trailers and small box trucks. Would that be easier to for me to get money

Unknown: 35:01

I don't know if I would say easier because, again, if anything happened with the money that the bank gave you, well, what do they have to sell as assets? There really aren't any. That doesn't mean that this is a problem. It just means if we're just talking about like, Hey, what is easiest for the bank that have come and put it so that that business where you're renting, like Sprinter vans and box trucks would be almost the same as the digital marketing agency, both of them own nothing really? Does that make sense?

Josh Bolton: 35:33

Okay, so that they look at the vans as more than half value when you buy it. After

Unknown: 35:39

for my lecture, so yeah, but you can say that, yeah, at least you have an asset, though, at least you have an asset. So it's not the best asset, because it's an asset that requires a lot of maintenance and money, but it's still an asset, technically, you can still sell the truck, technically. Whereas if you're renting, we really don't have anything to sell. But again, this also has a lot to do with how qualified you are from beginning because if you've already got a let's say that you've already started a business, you've been in business for two years, and you're already bringing in revenue, with the rentals, and you've protected your personal credit. So you've got a 680 credit score or higher, it's still an easier conversation to have. So I don't want to give the impression that it's all about the equipment, or all about the purchase, only, because that's just one factor of many that have to be considered. on whether or not you're going to defaults on the loan.

Josh Bolton: 36:35

That's interesting. Yeah. Because I would think if you have because trailers don't usually, usually drastically deplete in value. I know if you buy a truck, it's like a car within the first five years. Like,

Unknown: 36:47

trailers. Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't even hear that part. I'm so sorry. It's okay. Yeah. My, so my partner, she owns a trucking company, you know, give her a quick plug a global fleet logistics, and her Yeah, her biggest, our biggest challenge is, is getting the people who do have the trailers and getting them as for drivers, because they can take heavier loads, they make more money. And like you said, the trailer is not something that has to be like, maintained all heavily, I was thinking just about the actual truck, the vehicle on the front end, that is where all the maintenance and all the heavy expense is coming in, I guess, which is, which is definitely a problem. But it's a problem that can be worked around. The important things here are making sure that you're bringing enough to the table, to to make yourself attractive to the bank, so that you are bringing your good credit, you're bringing good cash flow, you are bringing, you know, a good history with vendors and other creditors, you are making sure that your cash flow inside of your bank account is healthy. So even if you are bringing in over$10,000, that you're actually keeping a good portion of that money, making sure that you're actually registered properly, so that you are attractive to the bank in that way that your SLS, registration is healthy, and in good standing, all of that stuff that goes into whether or not the bank wants to work with you. So if you're thinking about it from that perspective of hey, would I give me money, right? Based on all these things, all these different factors, then you're able to just have an easier conversation at the outset.

Josh Bolton: 38:30

So then, yeah, it's more lay the proper foundation down, and obviously scale and grow but have the foundation so when you do go on a year to to the bank and be like, Yes, I'm still new. I know this. Look at look at my business how well it is. So with all the bells and whistles I've lined up for you make it to the point like and then they just the chairman's are like, Alright, how much do we give them?

Unknown: 38:54

Yep. It's so funny, because, you know, there's so much money out there, and people will easily give it to you, if you can prove that you that you can pay it back. That's really all it comes down to. I mean, there there are people who will go and like, okay, great example. Elon Musk just bought Twitter for what was it like 44,000 Billion US me not $1,000? Yeah, we're billion. But he didn't finance that all himself. You know, he does have, he does have loans for that. He has investors for that. And he has his personal money in that as well. So my point is, there's plenty of money out there that can be gotten for you. If you can just prove that you are someone who is capable of paying it back, lowering your risk overall.

Josh Bolton: 39:53

Well, I think also, there's a whole thing with Elon Musk in that so did you hear about his 55 billion payout?

Unknown: 40:01

No, I didn't. So like,

Josh Bolton: 40:04

a month after he bought Twitter in, I saw the headline in my trading newsfeed saying Elon Musk got paid out from Tesla $55 billion. Like, that's why he kept floundering during the summer, is he wanted to make sure he's going to get that payout.

Unknown: 40:19

Because of that, yeah. That will make way more sense. Right learning.

Josh Bolton: 40:25

I love sir dude has so many layers to how he's thinking it must be insane to live in his own brain.

Unknown: 40:34

Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, he's, he's been a hero of mine for quite some time. So it's always interesting. It's interesting. Even seeing the struggles that he's having. Now. I'm curious to just kind of watch this play out and how he ends up overcoming the whole thing with Twitter. So yeah,

Josh Bolton: 40:52

one of my one of my buddies, he's a coder, and he even said he like this either gonna be the best thing for Twitter, or it's gonna be the death. We don't know. We'll figure it out in like, two to three years.

Unknown: 41:03

Yeah, I'd say two to three years is pretty accurate. I mean, I feel like it's gonna go well, I think that they're just whenever there's change, it's always difficult. And he's not doing anything that any other m&a person, or mergers and acquisitions person doesn't do is one of the first things that they do, they company gets bought. And they kind of cut the fat, like right away, trying to figure out who deserves to keep their job, who doesn't, what processes are making money, which ones aren't. And over time, things start to stabilize, and things start to grow. And then you have a stronger business. The big thing about Twitter, I think that is fascinating is it's the first kind of social thing that he's had to really do. With PayPal, he had all the payment systems, revolutionized. And then of course, with Tesla, he had the whole electric car industry revolutionized with SpaceX. He literally has space travel revolutionized, because that was kind of NASA's ballpark at first, and I'm just curious to see how he would be able to revolutionize Twitter, or not, not just Twitter, but social media in that way. So we'll see. Let's see.

Josh Bolton: 42:10

It'll be very interesting. If we might have a chat in two years and be like, Wow, he did a great job. Yeah,

Unknown: 42:16

I mean, I feel like you will I mean, you know, it's, the guy literally does rocket science. So how hard would it be? However, though, in his events, rocket science might actually be easier than dealing with people.

Josh Bolton: 42:29

Because the honest at times. You have computers and science, you don't have to deal with emotions, and we got emotions. There's a whole hot mess with that.

Unknown: 42:40

Yeah. Yeah. And then I mean, he's still also has the Optimus robot coming out, too. So he's got a lot on his plate was all connects together?

Josh Bolton: 42:52

I'll say he also is like, involved with open AI. And the neuro link thing too, because it was like six or seven. Link. The boring company? Yeah. Well, he has ever really done anything. They just made the flavours, right. He's the guy. He's still

Unknown: 43:14

he made the flame throwers to to raise money.

Josh Bolton: 43:18

But obviously, I haven't heard anything about the boring company sense. Or is it just

Unknown: 43:25

something maybe about a month ago? Yeah, it's it's it was. So I think the biggest roadblock that he's dealing with are the state regulations. Literally drilling, you know, through like drilling tunnels, through states, I can imagine, is problematic. So I think that's where his biggest roadblock is, with the boring company. And I mean, the concept itself, I thought was a wonderful one. Like taking California for example, you're supposed to be able to make that trip from San Francisco down to LA in like a quarter of the time and be able to just, you know, on this automatic track through this tunnel. Like I think that's an amazing concept. If you can actually get the permission to do it, because it may on the surface is simple enough. But in doing like in practice, it's probably a lot to deal with to literally drill through real estate. Yeah,

Josh Bolton: 44:23

yeah. Then you have a whole dilemma of are you a still in California or Nevada, like if you're going to Vegas? If you get pulled over for some reason. Where's the lines?

Unknown: 44:37

Yeah, I think it's an I could be wrong. I think it's supposed to be automatic. Like it's supposed to be a track that is pulling you. So like once you are at the start of it. It's almost like you're on this conveyor belt. Well, not a belt, but you're basically automatically being taken through the thing at this really high speed. So it should be safe, you know? Sounds like basically high speed rail for cars is what it sounds like.

Josh Bolton: 45:03

Yeah. Yeah, it's probably just gonna be the politics in the lines of where everything goes is his biggest problem right now. That's interesting.

Unknown: 45:13

I'm just curious solutionary though he if he pulls it off, all right,

Josh Bolton: 45:17

he's gonna He's gonna be changing so many things about just the human condition in general. And then like three or four generations later, like, oh, it's normal. And like, oh, it was Elon Musk. Who did this, like Nikola Tesla's like, who? Exactly

Unknown: 45:32

will talk about him the way we talk the way we talk about Tesla? Yeah, only Tesla didn't actually get to be as wealthy or as famous. So Elon is already doing pretty much pretty, pretty well.

Josh Bolton: 45:47

I'm certain he because he's, he loves reading his sci fi books. He's He's studied Tesla. And it's like, I am not going to be that guy. I've just got to four.

Unknown: 45:56

I love I love Tesla. I mean, probably another was about 10 minutes. 1020 minutes. Yeah. Cool.

Josh Bolton: 46:05

And then I'll slowly start winding it down. But yeah, Tesla. Man, the things Nikola Tesla has done for us is amazing.

Unknown: 46:16

I love Tesla, because I mean, so I always in reading, okay, well, I'm a bit of a nerd. And so there's this thing that I am always always interested in. And it's atmospheric electricity. And basically, you have the ionosphere, which is well above our atmosphere, that is constantly dropping ions. And so the sky is very, is very positively charged, the ground is negatively charged. And so if you're able to basically connect something to the ground, and, and put it into the air, where at every what is it? It's either every mile or every meter, I can't remember right now. But the level of the level of charge goes up, as the higher you get into the sky. And so I was wondering, like I bet, people could basically turn buildings into enormous batteries, where the height of the building is what ends up making it possible to collect ions directly from the sky, and use the ground that the building was attached to as the grounding force to circulate, or to create a circuit of electricity throughout the building, therefore making the building one enormous battery. So I've thought about that, though, because of what Tesla does, and how Tesla was trying to create free energy for everyone. And I was like, man, there's all this electricity out there, all the pieces are already there, it's just a matter of getting them put together in a way that is effective, without killing anyone, and without threatening anyone as far as the economy goes, because some things that are possible still are not allowed, just because they're so disruptive.

Josh Bolton: 48:05

Yeah, that's interesting, because I read three or four months ago of this one place in Dubai, where they're building like 480 stores, it's gonna be the tallest building ever. And with the the data demonstration, where it would be it would be up in the cloud. So would that be close enough that I on few

Unknown: 48:26

words, so it's funny, because the ions are just concentrated, the higher up you go, when you're getting into the clouds, that's why you know, you've got all this electricity in the clouds, just because of how high it is. And so it's just a matter of being able to capture those ions. So your, your building has to basically have almost like spikes on it. And so the spikes are able to attract the ions on their points. And then the ion is able to travel into the into the grounding wire. And that's what's able to create that circuit. So if you've got a building covered and enough of those of those spikes, you're basically and I'm sure I'm explaining this terribly some, some average versus electrician or scientist is probably watching this and thinking that's the wrong answer. But the general idea is simply taking the positive ions connecting them with the negative ions, but doing it in a massive flow, so that you're able to constantly generate this, this circuit of electricity. So it can be done quite certainly can be done. And if not, then it'll mean you will actually need to figure it out. If not, yeah. Figure it out. Hopefully, he doesn't, he doesn't take everything. I remember I was a kid I was in 11th grade, I was in environmental science class. Right. And we were just talking about like solar panels and all that stuff. And my first thought was, oh, someone should just put solar panels on the car and on houses and just, you know, turn like the shingles into solar panels. They're both black. Anyway, like, that was my thought and I was just a kid. But sure enough, Elon did and I was like, Dammit, I should have done something. I should have done it. So I'm sure you will because to me, it's like a common sense thing, which means it's probably common sense for somebody else to.

Josh Bolton: 50:12

Well, like, for me the biggest one, it was meant to be a joke, but I took it quite literal. And in elementary one of the teachers like, oh, la traffic's terrible this snap. Does anyone know how to cure it? Like as it were, like six to eight year olds. I was like, why don't we just dig a hole in the ground and just have people drive there. You can't get a car crash if you're in a hole.

Unknown: 50:33

And look, now you've got your long doing the boring feel on doing that. That's funny. It's funny, but it's very true.

Josh Bolton: 50:45

Exactly. This has been an absolute honor and a blast to be with you. I've learned so much personally. Thank you. We're kin. So my three going out questions our first one, other than work, what have you been doing to keep yourself busy during these COVID Time for previous COVID times?

Unknown: 51:08

Oh, boy, I actually work 16 to 20 hours a day, every day. So that is pretty much my life. If I'm not working, I'm doing photography. I will before the pandemic travel was fun, like I like traveling. And I like traveling specifically to eat. So I like like taking photos of food. So that's always fun. And yeah, that's I pretty much just work though. And that's mostly it. So I go to bed at midnight and I wake up at 4am every day. So sorry, hours asleep.

Josh Bolton: 51:45

And slough mad props, I six hours, my minimum five minute push shit.

Unknown: 51:54

But someone for so long, I can't even help it.

Josh Bolton: 51:58

Technically, like, I don't know where the off switch is now. So someone that's inspired by you that wants to go down a similar path. Trader investor, helper business, investor trading, and getting them funds. What are some tips, tricks or advice, you give them the start down a similar path.

Unknown: 52:20

I would invest time in just properly researching and planning out your business. Really making sure that the business you're starting is one that will add value to the marketplace. Just because the internet the world that we live in, it's so competitive, you can avoid a lot of difficulty by just having proper planning from the very beginning. And making sure that you're actually bringing something that is unique to the market. The other thing I would make sure I focused on is handling your personal credit, I know that there's this whole narrative out there about Oh, you don't need your personal credit, and you can use your EIN make sure you handle your personal credit, the amount of opportunities that you're limited from just because you don't have access to money. It's It's astounding. And your entire business your entire life will just be dramatically different in how you go about it just because you have the you have access to the funds and the the credit that you need. And not having it just makes everything unnecessarily difficult. So that would be the second thing. Yeah. And I guess the third thing is just make sure that you are persevering and just having discipline, and not just trying to run off of the fuel that of motivation, just because motivation by itself is a pretty weak fuel. If you have something that is very disciplined, meaning that you have structure in order, you're saying, Hey, these are the things I'm going to do. And I'm going to do them and I'm forming the habit of actually completing things, you're going to be more successful, a lot of business owners, they will start, but you don't make it to your five, not just because you ran out of money, but because you ran out of that motivation and energy to keep going. So make sure that you have discipline because that is what gets you to do the things that you're supposed to do even when you didn't want to. So that's that's what I would I guess, recommend to a business owner, all the rest of this stuff. I mean, yeah, it's pretty easy to figure out. Don't be afraid of breaking stuff. I break something once a week, you know, I fail at least once a week just on purpose. I mean, oh, I wonder what happened. If I do this, that didn't work out. I will not do that again. Or go well, that was that was very helpful. Let's do more of that. It's okay, this isn't school where the teacher will give you a lesson then give you a test and then give you a greater than that greatest kind of the end of it. In life. You get the test first and the lesson after so just you know, just do it. Just do some stuff fail. It's fine. You'll figure out ways not to do it and you'll be successful as you continue figuring out ways to avoid those problems and just be better. So that's it

Josh Bolton: 55:00

I like how you said life is the test and you get the lesson at the end. That was That was deep. I like it. Yes. Well, thank you. So it's, it's true. It is. So whoever made it this far and where can everyone contact you at?

Unknown: 55:20

Yep, so you can go to my business credit.com I deliberately made that name super simple, that domain cost me a lot of money. So by all means, please visit it. But you can go to my business credit.com I believe in providing a lot of resources to people, just because I do genuinely want people to get funded. So understand that 90% of the people that we talk to, they do not qualify. But our job is to help you get qualified. So find out what you're missing. And then work on those things. And then try again, in 90 days, when you're more attractive to the bank. Also, do not take the first money that people offer you generally is not the best. And I say that because if someone is just willing to take the time to show you, hey, you qualified for this, but you really could have qualified for this other amount if you would just fix these little things. fix those things and then work with someone. Just slow down in how much money you need and how quickly you're trying to get it because you can fix your problems and then you'll be in a better position. All that is on my business. credit.com

Josh Bolton: 56:28

That's awesome. Thank you so much for everything again.

Unknown: 56:33

No problems. Pleasure to be here. So pleasure

Josh Bolton: 56:36

and honor