This One Debt Mistake Could Destroy Your Business | Amanda Webster

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All right, Science Flipping Podcast listeners, as always, this episode is brought to you by Rocketly.ai. If you're looking for a seller lead generating system that has automation in AI bot and has sellers coming to you, then Rocketly.ai is your choice.
Make sure you head over to the website, fill out an application and schedule a demo now to see the power of Rocketly.ai. What is up, Size of Living family? Welcome back to another incredible episode.
I have an incredible guest here, and we are going to be talking all about how the number one way that entrepreneurs put themselves out of business. We are going to be talking to Amanda Webster about that with Fund and Grow.
What is up, girl? Hey, I'm so happy to be here. Yeah.
Love this vibe. This studio is amazing.
It is. Yeah.
Thank you very much. It's, well, we're in Miami, so we got to make sure we have the Miami vibes.
It is definitely Miami. That's it.
It's not Tampa. It's not Tampa.
So let's dive right into what I think everyone who listens to my podcast, watch my episodes, all these things. They want to go make a lot of money.
They want to build wealth. They want to have an awesome business.
But what we're going to talk about, at least we're going to start with the number one way people actually go out of business, blow up their business, fail, go into financial ruin. Is there misuse of debt, leverage, credit, et cetera? Yeah.
Debt leverage is huge. I think there's a misconception of you should never go into debt.
You're right. There's a famous guy who has made his whole thing about that, right? And on the personal side, I get it.
Is it the purple Bible we're talking about? I mean, there's a couple of them. But yeah, there's a couple of them.
But they make money on telling you to live debt free. Which, listen, I'm not saying that's not a good thing.
But you can't really do that. You know, he's the only person above me in this vertical.
I was trying not to name drop because, you know, we don't want to give him any more exposure. Sure, sure.
Listen, to live debt free is great, right? But most of us don't come from money. We don't come from, you know, access to that.
So I think what entrepreneurs understand is there's a way to responsibly leverage debt, which is basically leveraging other people's money. It's the same concept.
But when you leverage debt for your business, then you're able to not overutilize your personal, which is one of the main reasons why that happens. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time that are maxed out on their debt side of their personal because they put it all on their business.
They drain their savings account. They did all these things.
And I'm like, now you have a double-edged sword. So when you fail because you run a capital, because you're only using the non-debt style, you now also are over-leveraged in your personal.
And how do you climb out of that? Because now you don't have the income source that you were creating with the debt that you had. That's right.
So there's a whole different world out there. And everything, there's a cost to capital no matter what you do.
I mean, we all are used to, in our personal side, getting an auto loan, getting a mortgage, doing these things. But in our personal side, there's nothing there that's making that back.
If you put the debt in the right place and you really do a good plan, you can make it where that debt works for you. You create that ROI and then you're able to build the wealth from it.
Because what's the first issue that an entrepreneur that's in real estate is getting in, getting that first property, getting that first deal, whatever it is. The rest of it's semantics, getting your TC, getting all that stuff is all just kind of like like those have to happen.
But where do you get that fund? Where do you get that money? Well, you only have a couple options in this world, but one of them people don't even realize, which is using business credit because they're like, oh, it's a credit card. I can't use that.
And it's like, why do you think that? Like, what is the issue? Why do you think that? Because let's be real. I think anyone around has learned how to take cash off a credit card in their personal world, right? It's a thing that people do.
They don't realize you can actually do that in a business side. And I'm talking, you could pull 50 grand, 60 grand off of a credit card, and it looks like cash.
And it's not a cash advance. And if you're really smart, you're going to get the cards with all the points and rewards.
And you end even if you pay a couple months of interest you've made it back with the other with the other um you know rewards cash back i think fund and grow we i max out the card every single month i leverage anything that i can use our business credit for i use so that i'm not touching the balance sheet i'm not touching the cash flow. So our financials just always look way healthier and we can actually be bankable to the big banks and be able to, because they don't care.
They don't care if you have $100,000 in the credit card. That's normal to them.
But if you take that $100,000 out of your business, out of the cash flow, now you look poor. Now your business looks like it's not worth the risk.
And so they're not debt leveraging it correctly. You know, and I'm not saying business credit is the only solution, but you should have in business, every avenue of capital you should have available to you.
I think that I think the the asterisk or the warning would be understand what you're using it for. Right.
So I I'm with you. I'm very big on leverage.
I love leverage. I love other people's money, credit card bank.
I mean, our credit card processor now sees so much money coming into our business that they are willing to give us loans against the cash flow of the business. Right.
Correct. And so that is actually one way they keep us because it gives us a stream line of business credit that's from the business account.
And it just comes out of the cash flow that comes in, right? So there's a lot of things, but the reason why I say the warning is too often people getting in this space, they don't know what they're using it for. Someone told them they should just go out all in on the thing, but they don't have an ROI understanding of what are the KPIs to go earn the money back so I can go justify it.
That's the warning that I think everyone needs to understand is leverage is great. I have 24 credit cards.
I applied for another nine. That's not the thing.
It's how you're using it. Oh yeah.
I just applied for one two days ago because it was a special offer for an American Airlines city card, right? With all the traveling that I end up doing, those points add up where I end up not paying for a flight or I don't, you know what I mean?

right so the the issue is that you have to have a plan that I think it's when people build their business plan they build out this plan they're like okay I have this great idea I'm gonna do

this I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna hire this person I'm gonna have this person help me I'm

gonna set up all these service providers. But then they're like, don't think that, okay, I need to also have a plan for how am I going to get the capital for that? How am I going to pay back the capital for that? Because business credit, whether it's business credit, a line of credit, whatever type of capital, you have to have a plan to pay it back.
These aren't These aren't grants. These are money you've got to pay back.
But if you're making sure that you're only using it for necessities and things that actually have a reasonable ROI, you'll never fail. So, you know, we use it for all of our marketing, right? For all of our marketing, our PPC, because it's just constantly rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
And then I'm going to spend it anyway. Right.
As once you're to a certain point, you're gonna spend anyway. So this isn't just brand new, although it usually is the easiest type of capital brand new, but it's long-term you're not brand new, but you understand there's a whole game you can play with it.
And you're able to extend yourself without actually extending yourself. Because all of this stuff done correctly never hurts you.
You know, you have time to figure it out. We all know that there's ebbs and flows.
And so sometimes maybe you hold that balance for a month or two. But you make it up in the end.
So as long as you have the plan. But that is the actress.
Don't go out and buy a Tesla. Don't go out, you know, and buy a boat.
I always joke, unless you're a fisherman, right? If you're a fisherman, we could probably make a use case for that, right? We've had truckers go out and buy their rigs with it, you know what I mean? And that's fine. But in the real estate world, it's even bigger because you're high risk.
A lot of banks just won't lend. They won't give you the money.
They won't take the risk on you. So how do you overcome that? There's other options.
A lot of people just don't know they're there or how to use them. As a real estate investor, one of the most challenging hurdles you'll face is figuring out how to fund your first project and then how to keep the money rolling in for all the projects that follow while holding on to as much of your profits as you can.
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So you mentioned just even a cash advance that's not a cash advance. How do you take cash out of a credit card? So it's think of, you know, Milio, right on the personal side, because that's that's you can't use it on that.
But there's companies, reputable companies out there that have merchant processing accounts that will pull the money and ACH over to another business to to a closing agent, to whatever, as long as you have an invoice, a HUD statement, something that shows why you're doing it and it's a valid business expense. They're going to charge you a fee, but it's like 2.9% of what you transfer.
That cost of capital is nothing compared to other things. It's just like paying a couple of points on a loan, right? So you can look like you're cash on the other side.
And the credit card company just thinks it's another charge because it's a reputable merchant. So the only asterisk I'll put on that is there's only one out there that you can use with Amex.
Amex is a big player in the business credit game, and they have a special contract with Bill.com. It's the only place you can do it.
Otherwise, not only will you get a cash advance fee fee they'll probably shut you down because they know what you're doing at that point but for some reason they like bill.com but i think it's because there are so many people that use that as their as their way to process payments like we even use it to pay uh vendors affiliates whatever at funding girl we use that with our bank account so i think it's because they're reputable that they're allowing it but there's all there's more than one there's several so there's a so walk me through amex for example i go to this company and i say bill.com charge me 40 grand they're going to take three percent 2.9 they're going to take two point they're going to you're going to set up an account with them. I think it's like $30 a month.
It's something nominal to have an account. Sure.
You load your cards in there, and then you send in a request with some type of documentation. They're then going to take that and transfer it over to wherever you've asked them to go, and they're going to charge you the fee.
And it's going to look like cash on the other side, and then it's going to just come up on your statement like anything else. But again, make sure you have a plan to pay that back.
When you pull off 40, $50,000, it's a big chunk. The only reason why I think someone in the real estate space, that's a great way to do it for a flip.
Yeah. Because you don't need it for marketing.
You can pay anyone on a credit card, but flip remodel costs down payments, right? So, you know, a lot of people don't have earnest money deposits.

A lot of people are like, oh, you know, down payment of whatever.

This can give you that accessibility.

What type of business cards would you think are the best?

Like if you could give advice of what they should be going and looking for.

We stick with the heavy hitters because they just have the best credit limits they'll give you.

They have the best rewards and stuff.

So your Amex, your Bank of America, your Chase, Elon underwrites for a bunch of different cards.

And then I always say don't ever discount where you bank if it's not one of those people.

If you bank with a credit union and they have an offer, look at it.

Because there's almost all of them have some type of 0% interest offer as long as you've never had that specific card and that's another way to extend that leveraging in the early parts especially when you're first starting but I stick to the heavy hitters because they just seem to have the best well I think it depends on what you want to do right so in business I'm I it buying runway. So if you're going to go get a 0% interest card, that buys you a year.
Now, I'm not saying go max it out for a year, but essentially you have a year before this thing starts taking down interest, right? for all of you maybe kind of listening trying to figure out how this plays in your world I would

always encourage you to figure out where you can put money to go get the ROI that's the first thing

I think of. So marketing is the number one for you.
It's the number one for me. Right.
But there's other things you can do like earnest money deposits, lending money. I mean, listen, the game of arbitrage is very real.
Right. I have members of my community that lend each other money because they do it out of their IRAs and 401ks and it's all right.
So, you know, having some cash in your bank will hurt you. Make sure you have the plan because when we started this episode, we just talked about the number one reason why entrepreneurs go out of business.
They have no plan. They just go rip the cash out or they run up the credit card and they're going nowhere.
And then they use it on their personal side. Yeah.
And then you're, like I said, it's double edged at that point. But what most of them don't understand is it's like you have to have some type of understanding of where you're going.
What's your goal? Where do you want to be? And then, you know, I'm a big fan of EOS. So I always back plan my goals.
So I plan my five years, my three years, my one year, my 90 days. And I think it's no different.
Entrepreneurs, that's probably where they fail in their mental mindset is they're just too busy. I got to go do it.
I got to go do it. And then they don't think about the ripple effect that can happen.
Now, I'm not saying you should overthink the deal because you got a deal, you got to go. Of course.
But that's the other thing. You need to have the capital set up to be able to do that.
Yeah. So, you know, unless you're independently wealthy, then maybe this isn't for you and you're good to go.
But most of the population doesn't have that. But we're all trying to build that wealth.
That's what we're here. Like, that's what we all want to do.
It's the American dream. That's right.
So why not use Chase's money to do that versus using your own? Why not build it up that way? But again, yeah, sometimes you can get them up to 22 months of interest. But the whole point of that is, no, you should not be maxing them out and then just waiting and paying the minimum payment, which everyone knows is like 1%.
Don't do that because that's a terrible plan. But you do have kind of a buffer to figure it out.
And hopefully before the interest ever becomes in play, you've already kind of mastered that system of doing it. Because, you know, we have tons of people in our client base that they do flips, but they're maybe a little bit more advanced at this point.
And they use the business credit to pay for the rehab on the property or the down payment on the property because they have a good commercial lender in place or whatever because, you know, they put in the work.

But that's the whole thing.

But they have a plan.

The ones that are successful plan it out from start to finish.

No different than you're budgeting your, you know, your household.

You got to budget out, you know, that.

Because when you're a solopreneur, which is what most of them start as, there's no support in place. Talk to me about the personal debt and leverage versus the business.
So in personal, one of the big things that tanks your score is actually utilizing your credit too much. So the sweet spot, we say 35% is your max that you'd want to have on your personal revolving debts at any time to keep your credit score healthy.
This is a secret. This is out there everywhere in the world.
The differences on the business is you could be maxed out and it doesn't hurt you at all. It doesn't affect you.
It doesn't touch you. And actually in the business credit world, as far as a credit score for business, as long as you are healthy and maxing it out, paying it off, maxing out, paying it off, they love that.
That's what we do. We get additional offers all the time because that's that business routine.
So one of the issues that I found with a lot of clients that come in is they've maxed out all their personal cards. And I'm talking some of them, I'm talking lots of cards, lots of money, because they didn't know they could get a $50,000, $100,000 Chase or Amex card on the business EIN side.
They thought they had to be in business for years. They thought they'd have all these restrictions and criteria, which just isn't true.
A business credit card is almost the same as when you apply for a personal credit card. They're just taking your word, mostly projections and, and, you know, what do you, what do you got going on? What kind of business is it? Things like that.
And they're going to approve you. And sometimes people get discouraged because they don't get that hundred thousand out the gate, which is why you have to build it.
That's kind of what our whole philosophy has been is you can't just apply and be done and and that's it um because it's not going to work that way they have to build a relationship with you i know there's going to be a lot of people already like where do i go like where do people need to go to find you fund and grow where do we want to push them so i created a fun link just for you guys and it's uh www.fundandgrow all spelled out uh forward slash flip made it super easy fundandgrow.com forward slash flip yep cool and brings you to land because i know people are already gonna be like what am i supposed to be doing because this is if you're not taught this and this is why it's so important that you're on is is i want more financial literacy within our space like how do you do it right so you don't make these mistakes, that you don't go get four or five personal credit cards because you heard this but you didn't distinguish is it a business card or is it a personal card? One of the easiest things for me to distinguish, right, is is there a cost to having the credit card? Typically, these company cards, right, corporate cards, there's some sort of $97, $297, $497 a month that you're going to be paying. I don't know if it's on all cards.
Not all cards, but ones with better benefits, like your Amex Platinum is going to come with an annual fee. But you can get in the early stages ones that don't have the annual fees and still get really good things.
It's just what do you want? sometimes it's not just the credit you're wanting. It's what's important to you of like what's their offer.
But, um, but that's where we specialize in building a plan to everybody. So the first thing I always tell entrepreneurs is where are you at? Do you have any idea where you're at in your personal credit? Do you have any idea what it looks like? It doesn't hurt to check it.
You know, let's figure that out. So we offer that on the front side because we want to have that console to make sure they know what they're doing.
And then also my team are experts at this point where they'll tell you, okay, no, you can't do this right now. You've got to do X, Y, Z.
But a lot of times it's super easy stuff, like you're overutilized. So you're going to have to find a way to pay it down to get in the right position.
Sometimes it sometimes it's it's inquiries those fall off after six months no one really cares like there's a lot of little tricks and trades that you can do but it's it's worth to know where you at and everybody can have a plan even if you messed up even if you completely maxed out your personal cards there's a plan there's a way there's always a way to get there of course yeah now could someone use business credit to pay off their personal you some depending on which one you

can do balance transfers especially if you had put the business stuff on there so yeah they will

allow balance transfers to be not all of them but the way you can pull that over to the zero percent

side and get some time to pay that down right put you in a better place that's right yeah

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What do you think is the game plan for the right person getting into this space, understanding a little bit more, like, what should they be applying for? What should they be targeting that if they're just getting into this space of understanding this? So, obviously, I'm going to selfishly say you probably want to consult with someone who knows what they're talking about. So, and I don't just mean on the business cards, but on your personal credit.
Just make sure it is where it is. A lot of people are okay, and that's great.
I mean, business credit, you only need like a 680 credit score. It's not like you have to have an 800.
I was just going to say, is there any level of your own personal credit that is involved in this whole transaction? I say there's a personal guarantee component on any business credit card, and that's true no matter what, unless you're in the corporate vendor space, which those aren't the type of cards we're talking about. But you have to do a personal guarantee.
But don't let that deter you because I promise you in almost any type of lending in this world on the business side, there's some component where they're looking at your credit score. Now, it's not going to appear on your credit score.
It's not going to show up there. It's only going to be on the EIN and you're going to start building that business side.
But you do have to have a 680 credit score. You can't have a bankruptcy still lingering.
You can't have major derogatories or charge off accounts that you haven't settled. It doesn't mean you can't get there because credit is a fun world that we all have to live by.
Of course by of course well it's funny i had a conversation yesterday with a guy who says i don't owe anyone anything i do everything with cash and he's talking about trying to grow his business and i said well at some point you were in a cash yeah yeah that's why i'm talking to you is i got to figure out and he's like yeah but i don't want to take on any debt at all at all and I said well there's very hard to grow a business you're doing well the gentleman is successful in his own right makes money yeah that's fine but if you want to grow the fastest way the best way I'm aware of is to use leverage bank loans credit cards he locks name it because growth is you're speculating to reach a point that you're trying to get to well it's further down the road than you are currently so you need to do things that you're currently not doing right and so he's self-funding all his real estate transactions and like man if you're not going to owe anyone anything you're just limited to whatever's in your bank account there a ceiling for him at that point. And I've had this conversation with somebody who's super, I mean, billionaire type successful.
Same thing. I said, listen, there's the old saying we all know.
Cash is king. It's never going to change.
But I always say credit is queen. You have to have both to grow.
And sometimes you need the credit before the cash because you don't have the cash. It's like this little cat and mouse game that you play with it, but you can't.
You have a ceiling that you hit. And also everything you might need, everything you're doing.
I mean, listen, there's even credit scores required to just not have to pay deposits on things in life, right? So the guy that I dealt with, he came and talked to me and I said, listen, I understand that you're super wealthy, but you literally have one trade line on your credit report. That's it.
One. It was a mortgage that he hadn't even didn't even have anymore.
And I said, you are not lendable. Nobody's going to lend you anything.
I don't care what your cash looks like. I love this.
Yeah. And so he came, came.
He came in to fund and grow and we did a personal round for him because you have to have credit to get business credit. And he was just like, but I don't want credit cards.
I said, I get that you don't want them. Yeah.
But you need them. And I'm not saying, you know, personal credit cards, you don't have to use them except for once a year, usually.
Maybe once every six months to keep them. Right.
Otherwise, they'll shut them down. I learned that.
I had a couple that I just forgot that I had. They're literally in my desk.
It's an angry letter. And I just, anyways.
So they shut them down. Like, I went to go use it one day.
I'm like, I probably should start using this one. And they're like, oh, this doesn't work.
And then your score dropped probably 30 points for that one card closing. because you lose so there's a whole mix right there's a little wheel of like percentages of what it is the mix of credit is one of them so if you only have a mortgage or an auto loan and you have no revolving debt your score is you're also limited on getting your your credit profile up on the bank level side well that's the thing that i'm so happy you're talking about this is people don't understand the weight of the profile versus your score.
Everyone in the world talks about your score. It isn't, and this is what I was taught by the way, is when I went belly up right in 2008 and I lost my home to foreclosure repo man, I did that, right? So I had to go get a credit coach and build myself back up.
And he was like, the thing you always have to be aware of is your report, not your score. And if you focus on building a good credit profile versus just your score, you will actually get more money lent to you from banks or whatever.
Now you can't have a 500 credit score, but make sure your profile to your point is robust where you have lines of credit. You have, what are they called when you go to the like a Best Buy card or whatever? You are your charge cards, your charge cards, your installment loans.
All those things. They want the whole profile.
They don't just want the one thing. It's crazy because everyone focuses on the score.
I equate the score to your resume, right? Your resume gets you in the door and the interview gets you the job. Your credit score will get you in the door of a lot of things, but it promised you on the backside when they actually look at the raw data, if you don't have what that, that mix of credit, the utilization, you know, that you're not shopping out with a bunch of inquiries, like there's this whole little thing that makes it up.
And if you aren't healthy on that and you don don't have this nice array, people get scared. You said you had, you know, 25 cards, right? So on the personal, I probably have 15 to 20.
And on the business, I probably have 10. And people think that's crazy.
And I'm like, I'm not using everything like I'm like, I'm not doing. But I'll tell you that it wasn't until I got those had an auto loan had a mortgage, and it didn't matter the score itself.
Because my score is in the sevens. I think it's like 760 or something like that right now.
But I can tell you that I had it higher and I got denied because I didn't have the mix. Because they're like, well, it's not just a score.
And that was years ago that I learned. And same thing is like, you have to have this healthy thing.
So that billionaire has nothing. And he always just thinks, oh, we'll have plenty of cash.
So I'm just kidding. Right.
And the same thing I was talking to this gentleman yesterday. The conversation was pretty frustrating for me because I believe in debt and leverage and credit.
Again, not in a silly way, but in a good business way. He wants to grow his business.
Well, then you're going to likely need to lose leverage because you only have so much cash. He had a million in cash.
He uses it for all his flips. But then when he's out of cash, there's nothing, there's no growth.
There's no way to go get another deal. Right.
And he won't listen to me. So I was like, God bless you.
You can only lead the horse to water, right? You just, you can't get any further than that. So there's a couple of questions tactically.
I think people want to know where can they go get, so I use identity IQ. That's how I always am looking at my credit score and getting my reports.
I go in there. Credit Karma is a great resource that I use.
Uh, I think I pull it from my, I think I pull my reports from identity IQ. It's like 20 bucks for all three reports.
Yeah. Um, So I think, do you have any other names that you would say those are? So we own a credit monitoring company.
There you go. It's Fund and Grow Credit Services, and it's actually only $15.95 a month for all three.
But again, it's pulling the raw data, so we're looking at a little bit different. But I always remind people that no matter who you use, and all those are great.
You can go to the, you know, Experian Direct, you can go to all them, right? No matter who you use, their modules are all different. So your scores are going to be slightly different no matter where you look at it.
It's the raw data bank level that really matters. And that's not out there in the consumer world.
And so but you should be watching it for all the things that are happening to making sure there's no fraud issues, making sure you're not having things ding on your credit, making sure, you know, you didn't miss a payment because, you know, we've all been there. It's, we're not perfect.
Well, let's talk about deeing the credit. They're going to go out and apply for two, three, four, five, six, seven.
And all those have little dings in the polls, right? So how do you get rid of those or what's the? So at Funding Group, we don't do that quite that many. Because we're doing 12 months of building, we limit each round of funding to four cards typically, unless the client really wants us to.
The one thing to understand is that every lender is not going to the same credit bureau to pull your credit. So they're all pulling different, you know, one of the three.
It depending on your situation, sometimes like Chase pulls one primary, but sometimes we'll pull a secondary if there's a reason for that. But we know all that.
We know exactly who's pulling what. So we try to make it where it's one, possibly two pulls per report.
So in our plan, we're building that out. But also, there is a way to remove those inquiries because they were not for a permissible use on your personal credit.
They were for a business trade line. They didn't end in a trade line.
One exception would be Capital One Business. Absolutely reports to your personal.
You cannot deal with them. I mean, it's not a bad part to have.
I'm not saying that, but they will report to your personal no matter what. And so is it just time for that to go away? Because when I had to rebuild my credit, my guy had to go in and I had to pay him to do this.
And he had to go fight all these things for a better part of a year to kind of like. So we always suggest post rounds requesting the careers be removed.
And we have a coaching package. We get our clients on how to do that.
So we always recommend that. However, we also educate them also educate them on hey listen if they're just stubborn and that happens you know we'll usually get one that's really just a pain in the butt and they kind of rotate who wants to be a pain but you that's six months after six months most of the lenders don't care yeah but i'm not saying now if you had 27 inquiries sure it's going to take a little bit of time because of that.
Also, one of the things that people don't realize is Chase, whether it's business or personal, they have a 524 rule. And so you can't have more than five new revolving accounts in a 24-month period or they will deny you that you can't get around it.
It doesn't matter. So you have to be really careful.
And so we're always watching for that. So there's also a science of who do you go to first? What order do you go in? Because certain ones, as soon as that inquiry hits, they're just, that's it, you're done.
They're not going to touch you. So knowing those pieces is part of what we've tried to figure out, that whole formula that we've spent the years doing.
But you definitely will get a heart inquiry. There there's no way around it the only time that you can get around a hard inquiry is on like your second time like say with amex if you have an established card with them established relationships most of the time they'll just do a soft pull yeah and they won't hard pull you again um but they're really the only one and i always tell people even if you're just going for an increase on your current cards,

ask the question,

are you going to do a hard pull?

Because you want to plan for that.

Hard pulls are part of life,

but you need to plan because again,

typically you don't want to see

more than like four or five

within the last six months.

You don't want to see more than that

at any given time

because then your score is going to go down

around five to 10 points for every hard inquiry. And it will go down for as long as it's on your six months is when it will start creeping so let's say it took ten points off at six months it might give you two points back it's like a kind of like a weird aggregate they do i don't know again these credit bureaus are not here to be your friend they're a business model.
Well, so you've heard, or at least I've heard, if you're going to do one, do 10 because you're going to get hit by one anyway. So you might as well apply all the same day.
What is the philosophy behind that or what's the point of that? Why does that matter? Because they can't see the inquiries yet. So if you do everything in one shot, then the of them being able to see that you just did that they won't know until you've already have the credit line that's right so now again i wouldn't suggest 10 normally sure um now what you i mean i would suggest six months apart if you're gonna like five and five if you're really gonna do it but also i always hope don't be discouraged if you get a small amount at first.
Just prove it. Just use it aggressively and prove it.
I mean, I think it was Capital City Bank gave me a $3,000 card and I was insulted. I'm like, really? Chase just gave me a $40,000 card and he gave me three.
But you know what? I aggressively used it. I never even had to ask for an increase.
They just started increasing it. Amex is the same way.
They started me with, I started me with like i think 10 000 and i've already at like 20 after like two months because they just did the same thing i literally got an email i think yesterday hey we've increased your credit because there's no balance so they're just like all right we'll start using it it's like a reminder hey use the damn thing another one i got a email a week or two ago like hey we give you a promotional rate right so they right? So they dropped the rate down to 9%, which relative to, I guess, their 19% or whatever it would be. They'll keep kind of reminding you, hey, use us, use us, use us, use us.
Listen, they're a business. And we all know right now banks are hurting for a lot of different reasons.
Interest rates are through the roofs on everything else. Credit cards tend to stay mostly stable.
I mean, there's a little swing here and there but you know you're going to see them sometimes you can get business cards as low as nine percent it just it's very specific ones but they can go all up to like 35 i saw one for 29 recently yeah but again don't plan to keep money on them and then it doesn't matter the interest rate doesn't matter anymore because you're getting it off quick enough but it stays pretty stable whereas the interest rate right now it's so volatile of what's going on in the other lending areas but um you know if you need an sba loan go get an sba loan like don't don't just get business credit like well i was just gonna mention that this is just a small fraction of what is really out there i mean there's sba loans there's also i just talked about my credit card processor gives loans against the merchant yeah the merchant cash advances right which is great right for small businesses we do them like they're they're great it's a great revolving door and you know how to predict when you have a certain cash flow in your merchant account you know how to predict and how much to pull out and what's healthy and kind of what you can afford. And you don't ever see that money basically because it never really hits your account because it's being handled over there.
So it's like pretend, right? It's like pretend it's over there. But it's the reverse of a savings account, in my opinion, when it comes to that.
It's like, you know, they have the reverse mortgages. It's kind of like that.
It's the reverse side of that. But you're still getting all the benefit because you're able to leverage everything as it's going.
Let's talk a little bit about the points game. I think people think it's a sexy topic, but I don't think they know how to really play it, right? Do you suggest like airline cards, Marriott cards, things of that nature to play the points game? Or is it more about what's the best angle in your terms? So the best angle is what are you actually going to use? And also I love the cards that have both, that have either the points or the cash back, and you can choose which one you're going to do.
So sometimes it's good for people to have a mix. Sometimes it does.
If you don't travel, don't get ones with travel. It's not going to matter.
Make sure they have the ability to cash out the points instead. So I think it's a matter, again, of building a plan that makes sense of figuring out.
But the biggest pain is actually tracking it and figuring out. So I just make it a routine every month to go in and check my points, check where I'm at.
And it doesn't matter. You don't have to let them build up.
They're the same value no matter what. I think a lot of people think they need to wait six months or a year before they use them.
That's only if you're building miles sure if you're building miles you got to build them until you can you know get that flight for free or whatever but i also love most of the airline ones are partnered with hotels yeah so those are great because you can use them for both pieces and car rentals a lot of times car rentals are wrapped in there as well um i it is. Bonvoy Marriott is with one of the airlines.
Maybe United. I don't know.
I think it might be United. I always use it just for the hotels.
I know. I love.
I never. I have a Marriott girl all the time.
All day. But no, I mean, there's.
And then if you have their point system, you're just like, you could almost double dip with it. But you have to pay attention.
i know that sounds like it's i have a spreadsheet like tracking certain pieces because i there's no way and that's both personal and business i put them all together because it doesn't matter when you have an amex on your amex app you can kind of combine things when it's one you know when it's yours so i'm i was told i'm doing it the wrong way and here's how i'm doing it I use the hotel or airline type card so I have like three American airline credit cards I have two Southwest credit cards I have two Bonvoy Marriott credit cards and I was told you're doing it the wrong way what you really should be doing is using like a Chase preferred I think it is or American express platinum or gold because they're actually transferable into different platforms and you actually get a better um what's the word i'm looking for the the transfer value is high transfer value is higher than if you just use so i have like 300 000 points on this city american airlines card and if i use it yeah i get my 300 but if i were to have transfer over the same amount of points for american express over to american airlines a bit more it would have been more yeah sure you gotta look at the fine print it's all there it's all there where have you guys been everybody throws the people go back rewind what i just said listen to amanda about this i mean this is like i thought i knew the game until someone was like dude you're like kind of there like a rookie but you're you're in the league you're just not playing at the highest level listen there'll be times though that that american airlines card is gonna be better because they'll have a promotion so you have to also i know it's annoying um i have one email that's just for my annoying ones like these credit card things they'll release promotions just for may we're going to give you an extra 5 000 points or whatever if you do this thing yeah so outside of that it typically your especially your platinum your amex platinum is going to have one of the best point systems ever and you earn them faster you there is an annual fee you also have like the whole like i'm not bougie but there's like a really cool thing about having like the lounge access and things like that like that's a cool you know thing to have the whole status of it but yes as someone who travels a lot have you been in these like there's lines around the corner now for the uh american express launch right yeah it's insane especially here in miami they literally make you stand downstairs and wait because it's that full i i i don't you're doing too good at your job getting too many people american express platenums because now i can't even get in the lounge anymore you know um depending on the airport i, I don't care because like Miami, in my opinion, it's like a mall.

So there's plenty of other things to be doing.

You could be doing all the things.

And it's right next to the Admiral's Lounge, which I also have access to that.

So I'm like, where do I go to ease?

Sometimes you get other benefits than just the lounge.

So I think it's matter of pace.

You need to compare the points, right?

You need to look at that transfer rate. And it's all public.
You can go into your portals or into your accounts and see what that is. But again, look at the promotions, the specials that they have going on.
Like they did one on the flight today. I was on American and it was like, oh, if you apply for this card today, you're going to get this.
And I'm like, I just applied two days ago. I guess I missed the boat on that one, but I don't even know if it's the same card.
But it's a game. It's literally the game.
And there are, trust me, there's YouTube videos on the personal side about the game. There's a whole, there's a bunch of them now.
Yeah, yeah. I don't know how accurate they are because I don't watch them.
But I think it's just paying attention and building out what cards matter. Again, have as many as you want.
It doesn't matter. You're these lines up but prioritize so i prioritize my mx and my chase over almost everything however i'll pay with my chase in my maria bonvoy app earn my maria bonvoy points then i can still transfer points from the chase into the app after i've gone on that trip that That's right.
So you can almost double dip. Right.
It's all free money at that point. Well, that's why people also need to understand like the bonuses of using lines of credit and leverage is this, right? I mean, I used it.
The example that I did a couple years ago is like first class to Y with the entire family staying at the Four seasons like didn't spend any money yeah right and now again the joke is you know 50 eggs in the morning is still spending a lot of money but you know at the end of the day like if you want to live a certain lifestyle it doesn't always actually need your own money to do it not to kind of leverage you're leveraging a game system a gamification of this and you can go live an incredible life that you don't need to even go make more money. Right? I don't even think it's about the $50 eggs, although that's funny, but I've done it too.
But no, I think so my number one motivator in life for my life is experiences and building memories of my family. Of course, I need money to do that.
So money obviously is a motivator too, because of that. But why not be able to be exposed to the higher end culture, the higher, you know, things that come with it.
You don't get to do that without some of this sometimes. I mean, I know the CEO of Funny Girl, he's traveled multiple times for free all over, over the pond, over, you know, all the things.
I'm big on the cruise. I love cruise ships.
Really? So I have status with

Royal Caribbean. Okay.
Love them. But they have cards and they have points and they have all those things too.
And so it just makes it easier. And it makes it easier for me to convince my husband to pay for the trips.
Of course. When I have like, oh, but we're going to save 50% if I do it by Tuesday.

It's girl math.

Yeah.

Sense of urgency, honey.

No, it's just, it's one of those things that, you know, you have to be able to do those things. And that's, that's, you know, that's what motivates me.
And I love to be able to explain to people like, you don't have to do it all by yourself. There's all these things out there.
There's all this free stuff that you can get. There's, there's a, trust me me Marriott's getting something by me using their app right well I was just gonna say and what you just said really kind of triggered me because the higher up I get in success within business there's always these hacks that they're even more successful and the more like that you realize like man there's always an angle like you think people are out there just blowing money when they like they

just have a way to move that you don't know yet because you're not at that level to learn the thing that they're doing yet right this is one of them this is not the lowest but the most entry level way to hack life is to find out how do you travel for free at least once a year the way i pointed out is is like, if you're still buying on Amazon, groceries, gas, like why not get points for it? And that's the obvious. You pay attention.
Certain cards give you higher points for certain things, right? So you look at those classes, like my, like Apple card has a certain benefit for, I think restaurants, has a really high one with that one. But my But I always say to entrepreneurs specifically, I'm like, do you use your debit card in your personal life to buy things? Is that your primary source? Because if it is, you need to stop right now.
That is the worst thing. With the fraud that comes with that, it's the worst thing in the world.
So I don't use my debit card for anything. I'm not saying I don't use my bank account.
I just don't use my debit card. I use my credit card.
Only reason I have my debit card is in case I'm in the need of cash right then right there. At least I can go get it.
Right. Yeah.
Yeah. But beyond that, it is credit everything.
It's gotten to the point. I don't even, I used to be the guy that would carry several thousand dollars in cash every day of his life for that, like just in case moment and it served me well for years but now it's like you can give a valet guy on venmo or cash app like there's no more need for cash i almost never have a need for cash the more events i've been going to like the ones with my kids like monster jam or you know the little things take them to, even going to the amusement parks, almost all of them are cashless now.
You can't even use cash in most of them because it's just not worth it, right? It's not, it's so much easier just to swipe the card or, you know, use your Apple Pay or whatever. So it's the same thing in business though, is that when you open a business bank account, you get a card that's attached to your business bank account.

So worst thing in the world you could do is use that card because someone

gets ahold of that card.

Cash goes with it.

That's it.

It takes,

it's a nightmare to deal with that on the debit side.

You know,

how many swipers are out there at the gas station pumps and things like that.

Right.

We've,

I mean,

I think probably almost everyone's been some type of victim of fraud at some

point.

Of course.

I just got an AMAX $450 for Mary Jones.

I don't know who mary jones is to this moment so we're looking up and whatever but i say that so to kind of circle back to just make sure people understand the value of leverage debt, I think they need to get ahold of you, funnygrow.com forward slash flip. Yes.
At least have a consult with them because I have 24 cards. I'm getting another nine.
It just is what people do. It doesn't mean you need to be an idiot and go use them in dumb ways, but leveraging them so you can win the game of business is really important.

Yeah. And the console doesn't cost anything.
It doesn't hurt. It never hurts to have information.

Yeah.

So it's information for you.

But the bigger thing I like to stand out from your traditional business lines of credit, your traditional funding, is when you get a business loan, you're handed $150,000 from the bank, right? It goes into your bank account. You have to start paying that back day one.
If you get a business credit card, you're only paying it back if you're using it. It's just having it for that next deal.
Because in the flip world, how many deals do you lose because the capital wasn't secured right at that moment? How many deals fall through because you couldn't secure the down payment? How many deals fall through? How many times do you go over budget on the renovations and you didn't have anything in place and you then had to cut corners and then your asking price goes down because you didn't get to put in that high-end countertop or whatever? So all of those things are resolved by just having the business credit lines on on these cards it's it's well i'm at a point where i have to now do a pfs because where the amount of money i'm going and getting on the business side yep at some level they still want to make sure that the pg is like all right is this guy valid right but again this is where levels are this is the credit card is not going to ask you for a personal financial statement but when you're going for multi-million dollars to go buy an apartment they are but this is why all this plays into the greater good of you understanding how to play this game and be a part of it um so find amanda on instagram ask her direct questions what's your actual handle so i actually don't use Instagram for business. See there? Facebook is actually where you find me.
But it's just look up Amanda Webster. I'm on there.
I'm verified. You know, it's me with the little blue check.
So ask me any questions, direct message me. I do answer them.
Sometimes my EA is in there and I have to step in if she's thinking it's spam, but you know, go to the link. You know, you can get pre-qualified for free.

It's a soft pull.

It doesn't hurt you.

Find out where you're at and where you could be.

Yeah.

It doesn't hurt to find out.

All right, guys, that is all for this episode.

Go to fundangrow.com forward slash flip.

Go talk to them.

This is really, really important.

That is why she's here talking to you guys.

Stay tuned for the next episode and the next guest.