OPA 2 OPM

Proper Planning for Starting a Business Creating a Solid Business Plan

• Other's Peoples Audience 2 Other's Peoples money • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Summary

In this conversation, the hosts discuss the process of starting a business and the importance of proper planning. They emphasize the need to avoid using platforms like LegalZoom and instead go directly to the state government website to create an LLC. They also highlight the importance of having a business address, phone number, and email, as well as getting a logo and website set up. The hosts stress the significance of getting an EIN and a DUNS number, and they provide tips on choosing a business name and a registered agent. They also mention the importance of listing the business on platforms like 411 and Yelp. In this conversation, the hosts discuss the importance of operating a business as a separate entity and the need to separate personal and business finances. They emphasize the importance of consulting with a tax professional to ensure proper structuring of funds and explain the process of obtaining an LLC and EIN. They also discuss the need for multiple business bank accounts and the different purposes they serve. The hosts provide insights on building and improving credit, including strategies for increasing credit limits and removing derogatory marks. They stress the importance of money management skills and having a solid business plan in place before seeking funding. They also touch on the role of mentors and the importance of seeking professional advice in areas such as taxes and legal matters. The conversation concludes with a reminder that every business faces challenges and the importance of continuous learning and improvement.

Keywords

starting a business, LLC, LegalZoom, business address, business phone number, business email, logo, website, EIN, DUNS number, registered agent, 411, Yelp, business operations, business funding, LLC formation, EIN, tax professional, business bank accounts, credit building, money management, business plan, mentors, professional advice

Takeaways

Avoid using platforms like LegalZoom and go directly to the state government website to create an LLC
Have a business address, phone number, and email, and get a logo and website set up
Obtain an EIN and a DUNS number
Choose a business name that is not a dead giveaway of the industry
List the business on platforms like 411 and Yelp Operating a business as a separate entity is crucial for financial and legal protection.
Consulting with a tax professional is essential for proper structuring of funds and understanding tax obligations.
Obtaining an LLC and EIN are important steps in formalizing a business.
Having multiple business bank accounts for different purposes is recommended.
Building and improving credit is crucial for accessing business funding.
Money management skills are essential for successfully managing business finances.
Having a solid business plan in place is crucial before seeking funding.
Mentors and professional advice can provide valuable guidance and help avoid common mistakes.
Continuous learning and improvement are necessary for business success.

Chapters

00:00 Proper Planning and Avoiding LegalZoom
08:53 The Importance of a Business Address, Phone Number, and Email
18:06 Getting an EIN and a DUNS Number
19:36 Choosing a Business Name and Registered Agent
23:53 Listing the Business on Platforms like 411 and Yelp
31:06 Operating a Business as a Separate Entity
36:15 Strategies for Building and Improving Credit
46:30 Mastering Money Management Skills
49:54 Creating a Solid Business Plan
55:13 Continuous Learning and Improvement for Business Success

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Okay, why do you have that Harry Potter ass? Fucking 1800. This nigga got every, this nigga had an alchemist book.

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Welcome to OPA to OPM where we write down all our goals and our dreams

It's already recording, brother. See? Come on, fool. You gotta get on game, fool. Testing, testing. this is going to get it. Testing, testing, testing. It turned up number one on the headphone. There we go. All right, cool. Yo.

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Hey, yo, I ain't do all that motherfucker. man. Hey, yo. All right, y 'all ready to - Hey, this nigga got jokes today. This nigga stand up convenience right now. No bullshit. Fuck. Fake ass, sin bad looking motherfucker.

yeah. Well, welcome back to OPA to OPM. And we're still not recording. On who we are recording, bro. We're not recording. We're not recording to the record button. God, that shit is counting. That shit is red. That means it's not recording until it's green. no. my fault, my fault, my fault, my fault.

Hey, yo, I didn't know you hit record. Yeah, bro. I hit record two and a half minutes ago. my fault. I ain't see that. I said that shit like one minute ago, too. My fault. My apologies. Hey, yo, we. Part three. Welcome back to OPA to OPM with your host, Mark Hillgale.

shit, part four. Alright, alright, alright. Good lord. Why are you giggling so much? Say that nigga sound like E -40. Do it again. Fuck you. shit, alright bro, your turn bro. Welcome to OPA to OPM. Nah, fuck you.

Fuck this nigga

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Giggled on the mic, grown ass man giggled. Pause, damn. I didn't do it. shit. I didn't do it. man. my God. We four minutes into this podcast and still have not started. Yo, this is going to be... no, no, you got to include all of this. Yo, you know what? Yeah, you're right. You're right. This is gold. You say, how can we be funny?

You know what? This is fucking good. Look at God working. I know, right? Alright, so Markell, start us off. Alex, shut the fuck up. While Markell, start the show. You ready? I didn't say anything. This nigga's still giggling. shit. Go ahead. Bro, what the fuck? Grown ass man over 30 giggling.

I ain't watch your motherfucking mouth. I ain't. man. Welcome back to OPA to OPM. It's your boy, Marquel. Dramatic pause. Hey, Alex.

Introduce myself I'm gonna do it like they mean food. Thank you. I don't do it like Appreciate it man. Make it do it to you Added my own steelo to the now we are Welcome back to OPA to OPM. I am one of your hosts Mark Hill Gill with my two co -hosts Let them know who y 'all are fellas This is Alex AJ the one

This is Dave Mill at Railway to Success. I ain't saying my Instagram right now because I'm changing that drink by the time it'll come out, but it might be Mark Hillgale, it might be Mr. Make It Happen. We're going to see. Whatever's available. But it's going to be in the description. It will be in the description. You know what's crazy? Mr. Make It Happen is a white chef. For real? Yeah, it's a white chef in North Carolina.

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So it won't be Mr. McInerny. That niggas on dick. Damn. Anyways, yeah, fuck that white man. I'm getting my reparations. Say nah, we love you white. We love you white. We love all. He be cooking. We gonna come check you out, Chef. Nah, we not. No, we not. And I'm gonna pay you for my name. But anyways, anyways, so we got a special episode for y 'all today. We wanna talk about what it takes to actually build out your business and how to properly plan.

how to properly plan. Whoa. So, we want to start it off, because a lot of my clients been coming to me recently asking me like, yo, Kale, shouldn't I just start my business with LegalZoom or, you know, one of them other like platforms or something? I'm like, bro, that's just a waste of money, bro. You about to throw away three. It really is just a waste of money. You about to throw away three, five hundred plus. Their packages is getting crazy.

But your LLC costs what? 120? Well in the state of Maryland. Yeah. It depends on what? I think it's like 200 for everything. yeah. I mean, well, it's like 170 to 190. It depends on what you're on. If you expedited. Exactly. If you expedited and the state you found. Yeah. We talking about hometown. But I'm just saying because this is a worldwide podcast, right? yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm only speaking from our experience, but I feel you. I feel you. So, you know.

In the state of in the state of Maryland the state of New York, you know the state of Delaware It's like three different states. So there's three different You know amounts of money you're gonna pay to start off and you know different states have different things we have to do like annually for it as well, so Definitely check just just check the bylaws of any corporations fouling your state

But go ahead, Michael, how you school? Yeah, nah, all I was gonna say is though like you literally don't literally don't have to go to legal zoom or use another third party to create your LLC. It is very simple. You just got to go to your state .gov website and I promise you just follow the steps of putting in your information. But something that why I'm not big on legal zoom or other those other platforms is because they don't actually teach you how to structure your business.

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They don't teach you that you need a business address before even going on the platform to sign up and register your LLC. They also don't tell you about a business address or a business phone number. So, you know, that's why I just think legal Zoom is some BS, but, you know, any y 'all got something to be going on? Honestly, I think legal Zoom is BS because just because, as you said, it doesn't teach you anything, but because signing up for LLC is very easy.

You know, it can be very easy. You know, it could be done within, what, five to 15 minutes. And so your pain. Can I say 20 to 30? maybe.

Maybe I ain't doing some things right, but for all my LLCs, I've set up within about 10 to 15 minutes. As long as you have everything, you know, documents. So you have your, what is it called, your registered agent already on file. Or if you have your virtual address or whatever you use for your business address, you know, whatever you use for your telephone, which will hit on all these topics at some point in this podcast.

It's just it's a waste of money, honestly So like I've told my kill Alex like I paid $500 for leak was on one time. I believe was found it also might have been 400 And what did you do with that whole $500 pocket?

They just did what I would have done but just charged me $400 I'm guessing they use your house address as your business. yeah No, no, no, I had I was during that time I was in the I was setting up the business for the carbon tools. And so I had a I was using Address of our clearly written me and also both in at the time. I'm the gathering spy. I was using their address Downton the gathering spy DC. I was using their address as a business address

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Also, I was using a virtual office out of For another business out of Rockville Maryland as well. So So yeah, man, I just use those as a dead dress You have any experience with legal zone or know anybody? No, cuz I for me when I got started with my LLC I literally just did things the hardest way possible like is it was all manual like paperwork like

This is before I knew, I don't know if it was before, it was right during COVID. So I think they were transitioning over to being able to do it online. So like, for me, I had to mail my stuff in. Yeah, so it was like a four to six week process just to hear back.

Because when you should like mail it now, it's got to get there They got a process it and all this other stuff So I didn't when I first started again, I learned things the hard way I was like, yo, this is tough like because they're just they're not gonna tell you what's really wrong They just like go fix it and it's like what and you got to mail it back to ask some what's wrong Wow Or sometimes you could call them and if you were able to get in touch with anybody, you know, it's like Marilyn they about the They about to really like answer the phone like that if they are

Hello, what you want? Like, it's just straight attitude off rip. So yeah, I never got to use it, but I can see the benefits of it. Like, with somebody who's like, I want to get it done right. And so they want to put the blame on somebody else, or they just want somebody else to take over to do it themselves, or like have it done themselves. Because there's not that many people out here that are showing you how to do it properly.

without being like, join my course and I'll show you how to do it. And then they charge you for like things like an EIN or something like that. Which is crazy you said that because there is a YouTube video, I believe, on the OPM podcast site where I detail everything I did is starting one of my LOCs. And so I break it down. So I broke down my formula LOC, getting my EIN, setting up my virtual address. So if you want to see that,

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I will link that video in the description. Yeah. Please go get your business address before you go register your LLC. I promise you it's not no more than like $15. You can go to iPost -a -One .com and get you a business address, $15, literally $15 a month. Now when it comes to business funding, I know we're skipping real quick, but I had a question like with business funding, sometimes the bank doesn't like seeing that address.

Cause like mine was at like a Staples. well, so, well. I'm glad you just mentioned that. If you go on iPostonOne .com, when you are picking an address, always Google the address, like pull it up on Google Maps first and make sure it's an official building, like an official like office space or warehouse space. Make sure it's in a commercial district. Yeah, just make sure it's actually a commercial building and not a Staples or Walmart. I seen somebody do it at Home Depot one time.

And because the banks do actually look that stuff up. So yeah, you are right. But using an actual Apple someone address that's an actual official building where they have like official stuff already set up, like I promise you, if you go look it up, you'll see like they're official. The banks will give you money for that. Like it looks like it's crazy because I still got funding with that address. So they probably just literally took.

So let's say you probably qualified or you was applying for 50k and you qualified for 50k, but because you

Like that was one negative on your remark. They probably only gave you 40K instead of 50K. Yeah, because I was doing this for the car rental business where I went to the Bank of America thing to get that. Before we get that, let's just do a rundown of exactly what somebody would need to start a business, literally from start to finish. Because the thing we were talking about in your video, that can be summarized in like a few seconds. But before, it's like it was all these different steps and it was all these different secrets. And nobody really knew.

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You just kind of have to figure things out. I'm sorry, bro. You're forehead playing peekaboo, bro. You got it. Damn. good man. I'm about to take this thing off. Let y 'all see the wave. You feel me? I'm about to get right with the bob on Friday. But go ahead, bro. But yeah, so it's like before...

You miss? Nah, my bag right there. OK. Before, it was just like, all right, I got to go to this person. It's hush hush. And I got to go to this person. It's a similar hush hush situation where it's like, you got to start piecing things together. But now it's like, with COVID, the phrase was coined COVIDpreneur, right? When there was an explosion of just people who were trying to do a

their own businesses and stuff, and so it's like the information became so readily available. So, DeMille, did you want to just like do a quick rundown of exactly what's needed from somebody who has no idea how to start a business? I mean, the first thing we kind of already touched on is you want to have your address. Well, first you want to know exactly what business you're in, correct? You know, whether you're in food, transportation.

Commercial like and you just want to know where business you're in. Okay. I believe you may need to like for certain states you may need like a nice cold So can I interrupt you we not doing none of that if you are in real estate you want to do trucking

Give me some other consulting, high risk in industry. high risk. Yeah. Car rental. Car rental. So, and when we say high risk, the banks look at those industries as high risk. So if you're starting a business in that, don't use those names. You want to use a name like consulting enterprise. Give me some other like just a generic like, yeah, marketing.

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What's what's in the wolf of Wall Street? What was his joke? You can even name it after you I heard that Latin names are actually like so like sought after for real Yeah, like cuz like a Latin like they speak Latin so it's like their their language is Latin So it's like you got a Latin name are cool, then you must know something

Not to interrupt. But my bad. Yeah. Business name. Business name is very important. I'm sorry. Strathmore or something like that. That's what the name of the Wolf of Wall Street. It was just some generic. Yeah, I don't even remember. What does this do? If your business name is like, what does this do? You're good. Yeah. Yeah. So like, yeah, make sure your business name like doesn't like say it's not a dead giveaway. AJ, the one trucking or car rentals. Yeah. Real estate.

I use for some reason Millie auto rental. I know you kind of know what was up. but at that time at the time But what do what do you need? So you say you said address address next code? no, it's no exactly what business you're in.

It's a phone number. And I think that's pretty much, there may be some documentation as well. If you have a partner operating agreement, it may need to be in place. Swing that rock, brother. Well, you got anything? So don't forget you want to have your business email address. Nothing with like Yahoo or Gmail. Make sure it's like at your business, like info at.

your business name. Yeah. So if you buy a domain for your business, you can actually like, I know the GoDaddy, right? You can, when you buy a domain, you can actually buy an email address as well. So that's definitely something you'll need as well. Next, after that, you're going to want to, of course, get your logo and website set up. After you do those steps, please go to the bank, open up a Business Maker account.

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Before you do open up the bank account and I would say even before you do logo you want to have you because you can't open up a bank account without your EIN. well, yeah Boy y 'all skipping around. I don't know why though. We already mentioned the EIN. Please go to your EIN is free irs .gov. That's so the irs .gov there's definitely lines for your next code, you know, they want they want to know what and don't please don't please Please don't say you do trucking like with that

that code just say you do consulting marketing advertising something something along those lines still. And with your with the EIN luckily with the IRS they give it to you immediately so that you can get that get that you can actually set up your well once you get your LLC approved by the state.

then you can go get your EIN. You can go straight for EIN. You can get it. Once you have your, once you submit the application. Okay. All right. So once you submit the LOC, you go get your EIN, then you can just go set up your bank account. Day one. I'll tweak it.

You gotta wait until your article's organization come in before you can go set up that business bank account. Yeah, so... That's what I was saying. Like, first you gotta wait. I was saying, like, you may want to wait until your LLC is official. Because that's when you get your articles. So this is the way I tell people. I say, first, like you said, understand your industry. Find something that's low risk, right? If you know that you're going to be doing something... Right.

You can still say that you're doing consulting in that business. When I was doing the carvonal business, my carvonal business is a consulting business, because I'm consulting on how to get into the carvonal business. But you can't consult in something that you don't actively do. So figure that out. Then.

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Go check the business entity express website. So state business name search. See if that business name is already taken. Because it doesn't matter if you're trying to get a look for that name if it's already taken. Exactly. So now you figure out if your name is taken or not. You then go online, go through the process to get your LLC. But before you do that, you get your, go to Name Cheat.

Right or what's the one I had you go through those names you name cheap or there's another one By your domain get your email, right? I used to go daddy. It's simple. They go daddy is like the the higher price tier Okay, cuz when Markel was going through wicks, I think the the price was like $20 or something for a year Name cheap. It was like 12. Yeah, it's ten or twelve dollars, right?

So do Namecheek let you buy all the domains like .com, .org, .gov? Yeah. So if your domain, like let's say you want railwaytosuccess .com, you can go for railwaytosuccess .io, .co, .net. Any of those things will still work, right? And so you get your phone number from something like Grasshopper, Bring Central. What was it? Call 8.

I'll call eight. Yeah, I haven't heard that. I use a service called Uma. OK, yeah. So phone number, you got your email from your domain and then you got your address, which is either I post the one which is the cheapest one or you know, something like Regis. But make sure you do that. All the reason why I keep stressing to make sure you do that before you register your LLC is because if you don't do it and let's say you.

went to go change it, it's gonna be a $75 to $100 fee. Just to go change it. I've handwritten how to do that shit. Just to go change your business address. So don't pay that extra money. Next thing that was left out is figuring out who you want your resident agent to be. I was gonna hit that, because I definitely forgot about that. That's definitely something you're gonna need when you're filing for your LLC. Especially if you're out of state. Because a lot of businesses register their business in a different state.

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So if you're registering your business in a different state, you definitely will need a registered agent. Yeah, so a registered agent or a resident agent is anybody who's over the age of 18. So it could be a family member. It could be you. It could be somebody, a business, anything like that over the age of 18. But understand that that person is the person responsible for receiving legal documentation. So if you, and I hope this doesn't happen, but in the event that you get sued,

that person and their address is the one that's going to really be on the articles of organization. Exactly. Like I was going to say, for example, my registered agent is my estate lawyer. Right. Attorneys will do that. I think you just pay them a small fee or something like that. The other thing I think y 'all missed on was after you have that phone number, address, email, right, you go to 411 Listing.

Yes. Right. So you Google for one on listing because what you want to do is start getting out. It's like that's like the yellow pages of of of businesses. So in the event that somebody goes to look you up, which a bank will do, you're already out there and you have a presence online like they can. OK, this is a legit business. It ain't no fly by night.

They got their business email. They got their business phone number. That's not their personal phone number. They got their business address. That's not their home address because they'll just go on Google and they're listed on 411. All right, cool. We can start doing business with this person. Side note too, banks also like to see 1 -800 -NOES. Yes. Right. Shit, if you're going to do the 401, make sure you get the Yelp as well. Right. So you can get the Yelp as well. After that...

You have all that listing 411. And all of this can be done in like 15 minutes, 20 minutes, right? Very cool. Immediately go for your EIN, which is you go to EIN online. And then you have to make sure it's the irs .gov website, because there are sites that are like, apply for EIN here, and then they charge you. Exactly. And it's free. It is free. So.

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Once you go through the process where you're just documenting everything and all that information that is going to be asked on the IRS website is literally everything that we just went over. And as you're going through everything, it's going to ask you what's your business type and all that other information. At the end of that, that's where it's going to say, yo, how do you want to get your EIN letter? Do you want it mailed or PDF? Please, for the love of God, choose PDF. Because I accidentally chose the mail one, and that thing took six weeks to come in.

I was I didn't know like I really didn't know I was like 19 20 years old. I really did not know it didn't know to get the PDF Nah, I was just like I want the mail version because like if I go into the bank, then I'm gonna have documents and shit Yeah, I know when he could print up like you could print out the video you cover out the PDF, but you didn't know I was 20 years old I was Nick because again this information was before kovac. So it wasn't like

out there, out there. Like it wasn't a lot of people talking about that. Nobody in my friend group, I think it was, what was his name from McNamara? Bewhash or something like that. He had like this consulting business at like 18, 19. He was the only person I knew that had a LLC, right? I didn't know, the next person I knew that had a LLC was until I was like 24 or something like that because nobody was talking about that stuff. So it's in hindsight, it's like,

What are you doing PDF but back then it's like that's some scary stuff. You don't know you just want to make sure it's done Right just the same reason that people go to legal legal zoom. Yeah, they want it done, right? The other thing is Right after you get your I in go to Duns and Brad Mm -hmm and get your Duns and Brad number set up and your Sam's number Sam's Sam's that good

So basically the Duns and Bradford number is almost about to become obsolete. Duns and Brad. Duns and Brad. Yeah, that's Duns and Brad. I thought you said Bradford. My fault. No, I said Duns and Brad. My fault. I said Duns and Brad is number. my fault. That's my fault. But the D &B number is about to become obsolete. So definitely go get a sams .gov number along with that D &B number. Yeah.

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It's basically the same thing, but the government want to control everything. Yeah, I know that. Yeah. So yeah. So now that you got all that stuff, then again, all of this can be done in a total of like 45 minutes. Then go for your your your state filing. Right. And each state is different. You don't do that when you sign up to business. Huh? You ain't do that. I'll do that last because I mean, it's just like I can knock all that other stuff. So when you say state filing, what's the difference between, you know, when you.

Applying for your LLC formation and then your state. Well, your state is your LLC. Okay. Right? Your federal is just that. It's just for tax filing purposes. They just want to know that so they can tax you. Right. And that's where you decide if you're an LLC, an S court, a C court. No, this is new, correct? What? Like the...

the federal government asking you for this information. No, they've been asking. No, because what's the thing they just started? The Court of Transparency Act? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had to do that today, actually. So I'm glad you said that. So again, you're taxed at a certain rate based on what you choose. So you can choose whatever it is that you want. But if you choose a certain thing and you're not ready for that, you're going to get taxed even harder. So I know. You just reminded me. Please don't go set up an escort.

Straight out the gate like that's the dumbest thing like a lot of people do like unless you don't got the income for if you can't show 40 and 50k and profit not revenue but in profit It's pointless. You're gonna get double triple tax. yeah. This is not financial advice This is not legal advice. This is not tax advice. This is for educational purposes. Yeah, I appreciate that

What he said, right? So yeah, like like you were saying I've what I've seen and heard is that if you don't make like you said 40 to 60 thousand dollars in profit is not Worth it or as worth it for s -corp. So most times from what I've seen People do it an LLC right and if it's just you that's a sole proprietorship. let me take that back from what I've heard a sole proprietorship is

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Yo, this is my business, right? But it's just in the eyes of a bank or like legally, they just see it as a side hustle, right? So if you're co -mingling your funds, meaning like if you have your personal account and you're running your business out of your personal account, that's a sole proprietorship. That gets taxed crazy. A single member LLC is just that, it's a single member LLC. But they kind of look at it the same as a sole proprietor.

And then you have like partnerships. I got messed up with partnerships because With a partnership. I'm like, yeah me and my man's we doing business together but what they don't tell you is is that You have to do a whole different tax filing for that. If you don't do it in time You're getting tax hard and you got to pay a penalty for that So I just for me personally all I've done is just straight LLC's and then I would just go into there and say

LLC, Limited Liability Corporation, which limits, I don't think, we didn't even talk about the difference. Again, it's not tax information. An LLC and why an LLC is important versus just running things until you make enough profit. Well, no, we haven't. We haven't, but I kind of think, I shouldn't say, it's kind of very. Touchy subject. Yeah. Pause.

I'm a good freak man. I just say limit your exposure because for me - I mean it's in the name, limited liability. Yeah and some people, I don't really know what that means. I hear it, limited liability. It means that if everything that the LLC owns, you can't be personally held responsible for.

And like, for most. Kind of. Kind of. Like, there's a thing called piercing the corporate veil, right? OK. And what that means is, if, as long as you are operating that business the way it is supposed to be, meaning that if you make $100 in the business and you don't go spend it on something for you personally, and you're just using that money for your own personal benefit, now

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you're operating as a business, because like, all right, cool, I have my own separate business bank account that I don't touch those funds. And the money that's for that stays in that. The money for my personal stuff stays personal. So I separate those accounts. As long as you're doing that, you're cool. But the minute that you start mixing and matching and cold mingling your funds. So you're just in that one transfer over, buddy. Right. And there's a way that you can do it.

but you have to talk to a tax professional, because they're going to be like, all right, you got to structure it this way, because of course your money's going to have to go into the business, right? Because how else you going to get money? Like the business is just getting started, and they, like, IRS knows, like, all right, you ain't making the most money in your business. Most businesses don't make money within their first three to five years, right? So of course your money has to go into it, and there's going to be times where, like, yo, you might need to have some money that you take out, because I'm like,

I need to move things around to finesse some things. But as long as you're talking to a tax professional and making sure that they're explaining this stuff to you, you should hopefully be good to go. Because there are some bad tax professionals out there. I had to cut mine out. My former tax professional. I was in Puerto Rico. Boy, I was in Puerto Rico. I was laying his ass out. whoa.

Take it back on topic. So What was the last thing you said? The in the steps was you know, the we were talking about the Duns and Brad and then Sam's like Sam's I go So what would you say? after that I was saying that you get the LLC from the state and

Depending on how you want to go about your artists as an organization. Yeah, so your articles organization is basically that's the formalized Business actually happening that once you get that that is your actual LLC and so for me I don't know the process for other states, but or the time frames for the states, but for Maryland I think it's a seven to ten business day turnaround if you expedited Yeah, if you expedited if you don't it's gonna take like three

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Six weeks. Yeah, it's kind of bad. Yeah. I've been on both sides where like now I can get an LLC done in like a week when before it used to take me like six to nine weeks. Yeah. It was no joke. I'm like, I'm stressing. I'm waiting stuff and just. But now again, it's like everything that we just said in this podcast in the past, like however many minutes like you can have your entire business set up to start. Yeah. Now.

Operating your business is a whole different story. All right. Yeah. Well, so I guess we was about to go into the operations part. But yeah, definitely want to go get you not just one, but I would say at least three business bank accounts. They all all three of them are going to serve different purposes. What accounts would you say they need? Within one bank? Or like you have? I mean, well, I personally go to different banks because I know I'm going to get business funding from.

those banks. So you want to establish the relationship. Yeah, so I'm there to build relationships, but you can open up three accounts under one bank. So what accounts would they be? Checking some savings or what accounts are you talking about? not that you wanted to. What was it? One is for money coming in, one is for money going out, and then the other one is for taxes. Okay. And then. Well, shit, what's the play for getting business funded?

shit. So if you want to go get business funded, I think you must literally have all that set up. Like everything we just covered in the front half of this video, if you don't have that set up, then you're just limiting the amount of money you're going to get. Again, talk to a professional. Don't just rely on us, but talk to a professional. Please. Because we don't want to be held liable for anything. If you fuck up, don't hold us liable. But yeah, have all those things set up, like she said. so all right, once all those things are set up, you want to ...

Open up your business bank account. Start putting $50 a week into it. You can touch it, you can access it, but like I said, we're just about building a relationship with the bank. I say let it sit. You want to at least do that for like one month. At least let that sit for one month. After you start building a relationship with the bank,

 (35:45.581)
You want to make sure that your credit score is a 680 plus with no derogatories, no late payments, nothing like nothing holding your credit profile back. Next, you want to also make sure your credit profile is set up. You want to have at least five years of credit age. You want to have at least two personal credit cards with at least 5K limits. Is that all together or each? Each. 5K limits each. How do people get a 5K limit credit card?

So you can literally apply. And when you apply, don't just use your income. If you have a significant other or if you're in a household with your parents, use their income as well. They always ask for household income. And that's how you get a higher limit. And for people who already have credit cards and you've been doing a good job paying them off and everything, every 91 days you can ask for a credit limit increase. And the bank will give it to you as long as you're doing what you're supposed to do.

I don't know why it's a rumor that you gotta do it every six to 12 months, but every 91 days you could literally ask for a credit limit increase. What about those people who put their kids on credit cards or who open up a credit card in their kid name? Is there a workaround around that? Because that's a long time to wait to build up credit and it's possible that you can... The other thing is putting the electric bill or light bill...

Or the water bill or something in the kids name to help them build credit. Is that? So you talking about helping a kid build credit or you talking about helping them build credit? Both. I guess because you kind of veering into another. I was gonna say a kid can't get business funding. No, so what I'm saying is that people are oftentimes people like, yeah, like my mom put my the light bill in my name. That's the only thing I have. So when I go for a credit card.

Cause we were talking about - so you're saying like people with only that under their profile? Yeah. so I would find people in your family. Most people in our community don't have access to this, but if you have someone in your family, like for example, my mom and my dad, they are really great with credit. They were the first people to introduce me to credit. So -

 (38:04.557)
They added me as authorized users. That's what I was getting at. Yeah. So you can be added as authorized user to your parents credit card. Please don't make don't have them lock their credit card in the safe. Your debt credit card is not for you to use and mess up there. Honestly, if you get them all right, you don't you don't even have to give them the card. Yeah, you don't like don't. But you know, it's their parents and stuff. They might. this is for you. No, that's not for you. Give it back to them.

had them put it away in a safe, maybe even shred it, because you don't need to use it. It's just to help boost your credit profile and make you look better for when you apply for your own personal stuff. You can also, if you don't have access to parents and stuff, or a family member that does have good credit, you can always, and that is good with their credit cards, paying that stuff off. You can also go to tradelinesupply .com and get a trade line. Trade line is basically an authorized user as well.

where they can add you someone, you're gonna pay someone to add you to their credit profile account and their credit history is gonna report on your credit profile. One thing I wanted to touch on is if you're trying to get some extra money and you have a good solid credit card that you've been making payments to, you can reach out, because me and my boy, I asked him, I was like, yo, how much would you charge to add me as an authorized user on your card? Right, because he had a $16 ,000 credit card.

As soon as he did that.

Actually, it's funny because it took three months for that to report and my credit score, I think it went up a little bit. But I started seeing his address on my report. I'm like, yo, this is fraud. What's going on? Somebody, I'm like, wait a minute, that's his address. But when I added somebody else to my credit card as an authorized user, it was like within 30 days, it just went through and his score went up 80 something points, 90 something points.

 (39:57.645)
Yeah, so like what I learned is like for example when we did it and you added me to your job. So remember I was like damn bro my school went down. The only reason why my school went down wasn't because you still had a balance on the card and it fucked up my utilization. It was because the history and the age brought my history and age down. So like that's another thing people gotta pay attention to is like being cognizant of

Like if you are going to add a trade line or if you are going to get added as an authorized user, make sure it's like an older card or it averaged more years out than your current credit profile. I got a question because you said, like when you start and get funny, make sure you got at least a 680 credit score. Yeah. And there's no derogatory marks when your credit report, right? But what if someone starting over, like in their financial journey, like they've had

You know, they had some young mistakes or not even young mistakes, but they had some mistakes. They took some risks, right? And it didn't pan out. And so you're restarting your finance, your whole financial profile all over again. Like you got to rebuild it. So is there a way to not, I guess, like probably not going to be able to get funding immediately. But how can they? Everything is a process. Yeah. But how can they rebuild to make them more, I guess,

More banks more willing to get take a chance. Are the derogatories and leaks still on there? Let's just say yes. Go get a remove. Maybe it's two years. Go get a remove. Okay. Two years old. I will say you have a better chance, but you're not going to qualify for what you should qualify for. So what if they have like a bankruptcy on their credit report? Go get a remove. Okay. You could get a lot of this stuff removed. Collections, late payments.

Medical shit I don't think medical can be on there anymore. That's just that's new they just passed that so medical I guess medical debt is no longer allowed on your credit report. That's all right But yeah a lot of stuff you could get removed. But yeah, once you get that removed now, let's say like Because there's people, you know, they'll wipe your whole credit profile clean So let's say you just start from the base like nothing like you have nothing go ask some credit builder accounts

 (42:21.389)
Damn, gas cards. Now I'm talking more like a. So like a secure credit card. Yeah, like yeah, like like whatever you got to put the money down. Yeah, like I'll even send the mail. I got a whole list like of credit builder accounts, but basically you could be in the description. Yeah, I'll send it for the description. But essentially what you do is you go on adj and.

It'll basically be like they're building you a savings account while reporting you reporting a credit limit to your credit card and you'll just pay them like a certain like let's say $50 a month for them to have. Yeah. yeah. Nav is one of Nav is one of them. Yeah. But that's for business though correct. For business. Now. No. It's a personal. Yeah. OK. I knew it. Yeah. So yeah. So once they start reporting that to your credit account

You know, that's something right there that you can already add and start building up. Like I said, you got trade lines, authorized users. Yeah, I say we'll leave like all the rest of that stuff in the description. But yeah, once your credit profile is like this may be a good video for you to do like for the YouTube like just yeah, solo video. And I definitely, you know, do this just for for the people. But

Go check out Evolve .bsg, there's definitely like three videos on my Instagram explaining this whole process. But I'm definitely do it for the whole page, you know, for the people and everything. We will definitely do it for a YouTube video for this one. But yeah, once your credit profile is like amazing, like I said, you got the credit age, you got the credit limits. one, make sure your credit usage is below 30%. I like for my people to have below 10%, but...

30 % you'll still be fine. yeah, you're a little in that. So yeah, you got age, usage, two credit cards. I got a whole checklist, I'll even leave that for y 'all too. But once you got all that, you're good to go. Because somebody with a 680 credit profile, I mean with a credit score, but with a icy credit profile will qualify for...

 (44:42.093)
more money than somebody with a 70, 40 credit score in their profile. You might only got one credit card with, you know, a $2 ,000 limit, but because you pay that Jane off every time, you know, your credit score has been going up and everything. So yeah. And also one thing is that people don't realize as you start paying student loans off, that can actually start lowering your credit because that's the old that's most people's oldest account is their student loans. It will go down for six months, but after six months, it should go back up.

Because that actually happened to me after I paid off my student loans you lost you lose that I was gonna ask you because some people like that credit school go down like when they pay off a car or something like that because it is the credit history. Definitely when you pay off a car too, but well I want to say nowadays they supposed to start leaving the car up there like the history you won't still have that balance Yeah, and everything but reporting and everything but yeah the history should stay. That should be dope.

What we were talking about a while ago and also things that we realized is that oftentimes most people when they start a business, they're trying to use all of their money to fund that entire business. And what happens is like, we've all been there where you're trying to put in all your money to keep this business afloat. And you just realize like it ain't enough. Like it's just not enough. And because you're trying to manage that money.

between yourself, the business, your personal life, groceries and life, bills, this tire blew out, right? And you got all these things and you're trying to front the money to pay all this stuff. And it's like, something's going to sacrifice. Yeah. And I think like it'd be remiss of us to say like.

First, learn money management skills. If you can't manage $100, you can't manage $1 ,000. You can't manage $1 ,000, you can't manage $10. If you can't manage $10, you can't manage $100 ,000. It's real easy once you have your credit profile built up and a 700 score with multiple trade lines reporting and multiple cards and things like that, good credit history. It's real easy to get a 100K. I promise you, I promise you, your credit profile, icy. You don't got no derogatories, no nothing.

 (46:59.725)
Go open up bank accounts at like three to five different banks. I promise you, make sure you could call them and ask them, when I apply for funding, or don't say funding, when I apply for credit, who do y 'all pool from? So get two banks that pool from Experian, two banks that pool from TransUnion, two banks that pool from AcroFax. You're gonna go to those banks and apply for the max. Chase will let you apply for like up to 75K now. If you have everything we said with the business address, EIN,

Everything yeah everything email phone number they will give you that whole 75k and that's only one inquiry sure airtight if you make sure your shit is airtight before applying that's only off one inquiry and that inquiry is under trans union mm -hmm so the other two yeah your trans union might drop by like seven points, but guess what Equifax and Experian never saw that so now I'm gonna go to the credit unions that pulled from Experian and I'm gonna go run it up

do the same thing. You can go do the same run the same process at three or five banks and then you'll notice after like the fifth or sixth bank if they start giving you like, you know, either a little bit less or a lot less then all right, them acquire and it's starting to take effect. So now you either need to go remove the inquiry inquiries and run the playback or you might have enough funding. That's like two to three hundred K right there just to operate with. But understand again, if you can't manage a little money.

and you try to go manage a lot, you can get yourself in a lot of trouble and a lot of debt very quickly because what I've seen some people do is that they'll get $200 ,000, $300 ,000, like, I'm good. They go pay this off and pay that off. And they're paying all this debt off or they're transferring the debt from one debt source to another debt source and saying, I got a 0 % interest rate for 12 months. But what they're not doing is in that 12 months, they're not

paying the amount monthly that it needs to pay to get that down. So then all of a sudden it's like, shoot, I got I used to have 20k, but now I got 40k because I paid everything off, put it on this credit card and I started swiping, swiping, swiping. But you're not adding, adding, adding. You're not adding revenue sources to that credit card or to that business to then pay that money off. So it's like if if you get this money, you got to have a business plan in place to say, all right,

 (49:24.717)
once I get these approvals for this amount, this is where I'm going to allocate that money towards to make sure that I have enough money coming in to then pay that money back or, you know, education is a good thing, right? If you get, you know, I think we're good. If you get, let's say 50K of money, right, business funding, then I think that you'd be remiss to not at least spend 5 % of that.

on getting a tax strategist, because now that might be considered income the minute you start putting money out there, right? A tax strategist, a tax planner, or a tax filer. Attorney. Attorney, right? Paying for your attorney subscriptions and all this other stuff. Paying for mentors to show you, like, hey, look, these are the things that you need to have in place now that you have a business. This is more money than most people are coming across. For clarification, a tax strategist and a tax filer.

are two different positions. No, they can be one person, but they're two different jobs, correct? Yeah, so a tax filer is basically saying, all right, I'm going to take the information that you give me and put it into some tax software, sometimes TurboTax, sometimes their own proprietary software. But they're just taking the documents that you get and saying, all right, this is your expected tax filing status. The tax strategist is saying, hey, we're going to plan for the...

for this year and the years before so that you can be in these situations? Before you continue, the reason why we also been stressing the business bank account, or we even mentioned, also get a merchant account or some way you could accept payment. And it's going directly to your business account. Strike, Clover. Paypal.

Square yeah square. Yeah So you want to keep track of all your numbers all your expenses? You know the tax strategies and files is maybe reminding me of that But those things are important because especially being in your first two years of business like he said We are just giving advice. Please consult with a official professional recommendations. Yeah, we're your recommendations, but you can write

 (51:47.629)
A lot of that stuff. A legal strategy. Yeah. Consult with an attorney or a certified accountant. But yeah, first two years in business, you can write a lot of your stuff off as a loss and get some of that money back. So it's definitely important. Again, please go with an attorney or a certified accountant to verify this. Also speaking from experience. But yeah, please, like you said, do consult a professional or somebody that...

It specializes in that field, but I think that's people get the term confused to pay yourself first. That is paying yourself first. If you go out and like I said, pay the subscriptions for your attorney, your tax attorney, your your contract attorney to get actual contracts. Stop trying to wing it or using templates. yeah. Please do not use those sites. We. Yeah, good. Right. For them to review your articles.

to review your, what's the other, operating agreements and stuff like that, right? It's gonna cost a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars, but at least you know things are set up properly. And then also paying the right mentor, right, to show you like, hey, now that you have this, you need to have this account set up, you need to have advertising set up, you need to have marketing, you need to have these people in your circle.

so that if stuff hits the fan, you can make these calls. Well, I got a lot of tid bits to add to that. So another thing with your mentor or coach, they are your how. We got to get out of the habit of asking how, but we got to ask who. And your mentor is the person that's going to keep you from making all the mistakes that they made and then some. And they're like propelling you.

They're giving you all the information that you need to not only, you know, create a solid foundation and structure now, but to be successful moving forward in the future. Right. So we touched on forming an LLC, getting your EIN. We touched on operating. Was there anything else that we, what was it? Anything else that you wanted to touch on? No, I think that's it. Because again, like you said,

 (54:13.869)
forming the business, operating the business, getting funding for the business. At that point, now is just, again, like we talked about before, is starting the actual services your business is gonna do. Having a plan, having a vision, having it written down. I would definitely say once all of these things are set up, we should definitely check out the audio podcast we did our last podcast.

Unfortunately, the video wasn't out to par, so I won't be releasing that on YouTube. But you can listen to it on Apple, Spotify, Our Heart podcast. Anywhere you get your podcast, we're there. But we touch on how to market that business and how to generate sales in that business. So once these things are up and running, I guess then it's just time to make money, right? Yeah. That's it. We're trying to make consistent money and making sure that you're doing good business and stuff.

I think that the audience has a very good starting point to get everything. If you go through those steps of forming the business and operating it and then getting the funding, I think that you're going to be way ahead of most business. Way ahead. Yeah, most people who try to get in the business. And these are things that we're still trying to perfect ourselves. So it's not something where it's like, yeah, we got $500K in funding across five different businesses. And that's another thing is, before I guess we sound off,

is that just like you were able to go to multiple different banks to get funding. So I go to a bank, one, two, and three, and each one of them gave me $50 ,000. That's $150 ,000. Why do that per business? So it's like, imagine I take some of that 50K and I go start two more businesses and run the same exact play because a business

is what most people don't realize is a business is its own entity. When you go open your business, your bank account and your personal name, that's under your social security number. It's a nine digit number that identifies you. When you get your EIN, it's a nine digit number that identifies your business. When you have another business, that's another nine digit number that is separate. So let's say that you have

 (56:37.837)
OPA to OPM Enterprise. And then you have OPA and OPM Consulting. And then you have OPA to OPM Marketing. Those are three separate businesses. And if you go into a bank and you open three separate business bank accounts, they're like, all right, cool, these are three separate entities right here. So you can run that same play and say, yo, look, I want funding for this business, this business, and this business separately.

Okay, cool, we'll give you 50k apiece. And then you go to the bank too. Okay, we'll give you 50k apiece. I'm so glad you just said that. So, like I said, just be careful with the inquiries running under that play. But Truist will let you do that all under one inquiry. Yeah, I think, does American Express do that too? yeah, A -Max too, but.

 (57:33.485)
Certain people, you gotta be careful. Like how he said, the money management part, like, you know, yeah, you gotta, well, don't get it. I don't suggest getting a charge card or starting off with a charge card, you know, in AMX, but yeah, I love AMX. Yeah, I didn't even start with a charge card. Most people jump with the gun with it. You did not. well, actually. I started with a blue preferred cash one. Yeah, I'm gonna say, like, I love that you mentioned it, but like everything we're telling you is just stuff that we should have done.

when we first started with stuff that we're doing now. So learn from our mistakes too. Exactly. I was going to say that before we signed off as well is that just because we're saying these things, there still may be different areas where you may have trouble with. And just know that every business has its bumps along the road. So if there are different challenges that you face, that's not something that we covered today.

You know, just keep going. Drop a comment down below. Please ask us. I'm pretty sure one of us three been through it. Exactly. So, yeah, definitely leave a comment. If there's something that we touched on today that you want us to go into further detail, please leave a comment. Hit the like button. Hit the like button, subscribe button and hit the notification bell if you're on YouTube. If you're listening to Apple or to the audio.

Can you like that? Can you like? Yeah, you subscribe. Or you can add a channel. Yeah, please like and subscribe to the audio version on Apple, Spotify, or Heart, wherever you are. Please go check out the Instagram at OPA2OPM on Instagram. We're definitely trying to grow that into something that we can use to reach out to our fan base as well.

And to really build a community. So if you're like if you're really trying to reach out to us There's options. Yeah, there are really options You can find again. You can find us at opi at o p On Instagram We definitely probably need to set up a tick tock as well in time in time in time also we're gonna set up a fan base account as well, so If you're into fan base We'll be there as well.

 (59:58.349)
Also, before we go, I definitely want to give you guys an opportunity to plug anything you may be promoting. So, Alex, I know your school. Do you want to promote that? Yes, I got a couple of things. We got the school where I teach you how to get in Turotek and Airbnb. It's completely free. So if you are interested in that, follow me on Instagram at underscore AJ. The number one click the link in my bio. Enjoy my school. If you are.

Also trying to automate your business and get that whole process automated will do this whole business will map out your business for you so that way you can start getting closer to business funding. Go to Optimize. It's O -P -T -U -I -Z -E. Optimize .net. I had to think about it. I was like, how do you spell that? They got on me a couple of times.

Cause like I always just send the link. So yeah, optumize is optimized, but with the you instead of the link below. Yeah, there you go. We will leave everything in the description. Yeah. And then again, I don't really be on TikTok like that, but if you want to, I think it's the underscore Alex underscore Jay. All right. And Markel working it because you dropped a lot of jumps today, my brother. Like you really had to dope. Shit, this is your mother fucking. Domain about to come out. Domain about to drop.

I'm sure anyone who listens or watches this episode they gonna want to know where to find you for more information as you always said Okay, but like do you have some I know you dropped a lot of gems on evolve .bsg. Yeah, do you have anywhere else they could follow you? so

Again, my Instagram name is shot back here right now. Most likely about to change that June 1st. My name Markel Gill Gale. what? Whichever one it is, it will be in a link in the description. Please come check out that page. I go live every Wednesday to give out financial literacy advice and different strategies. I am a financial advisor, so I hope people, you know, tackle debt elimination.

 (01:02:17.965)
plan to buy a house, and just plan to build wealth and assets for the future. Is there a way to contact you? You just want them to contact you on Instagram? No, I have a website. Yeah, we're just waiting for the domain to transfer over. But it's EvolveBiz, B -I -Z, StrategiesGR .com. If you go to any link on either Instagram, the link is in the bio. You could book a...

Free consultation. I'm just here to, like I said, serve and educate. Yeah. You also have a school coming soon, correct? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. School coming soon. I plan on honestly dropping it probably by the end of June, but. Honestly, I think all this could be in OPM school. Yeah, Blessin's coming soon. So, you know, hopefully by mid -June it should be launched.

That's actually a good idea. I'm not opposed to that. To be discussed. To be discussed also. To be discussed, we may be dropping some behind the scenes video as well on Instagram. And we may try to do something where we can drop maybe too early. But we may do something where I'm actually interested in doing something for Patreon as well. But yeah.

I'm gonna say definitely go follow the OPA to OPM, you know pod Instagram I know I'm getting back in my content bag three content posts a day Sorry June 1st, so I do plan on doing most of those with in collaboration with OPA to OPM So if you just follow that page, you will see the content too Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Again, you can follow me at railway to success as well

or Instagram to talk. Fuck you. I don't even. R -A -L -E. Hey, look. Hey, look. Motherfucker, you just. You struggling with optimize over there, motherfucker. Got it. Let's get your shots to a motherfucking minimum, OK? Don't start no shit, won't be no shit. All right. Do you want to sign us off? No.

 (01:04:44.267)
I knew you had a bar. I just knew you had to say it. Wait. no. All right. Well, we appreciate y 'all for real. Exactly. Do you want to turn us off? Hey, man. Appreciate y 'all for kicking it with Mark Kale, Alex, and Dave Mill. This is OP8 OPM. We signing out. Peace. Hey, I should probably start doing this shit.