Entrepreneurship 101: Master Your Money, Build Your Business

Failure isn’t a dead end; it’s the draft version of your winning playbook. Rob Brown sits with Michael Woods L to unpack how a flopped car dealership became the foundation for a profitable electrical company, a decade of business plan and grant writing, and a repeatable system for money that actually sticks. The conversation moves from early influences and community examples to hard truths about cash flow, lifestyle creep, and the difference between looking successful and being solvent.

We get tactical about wealth building: why real estate shows up in nearly every wealthy portfolio, how to use index funds as a simple starting point, and the clear line between assets that pay you and liabilities that drain you. Michael lays out the daily disciplines—separate business and personal accounts, pay yourself a set percentage, and track cash weekly—that keep founders from going “business broke.” He also breaks down how the wealthy use debt to create income, turning mortgages and even cars into cash‑flowing tools when paired with a plan.

If you’re launching or leveling up, you’ll hear a nuanced take on business planning in the age of AI: use it for a roadmap, not a substitute for market research. We explore grants versus sponsorships, when a pitch deck beats a proposal, and where to find investors who respond to clear numbers and a credible path to return. Then we get into the operator’s toolbox—automate lead intake, schedule emails and voicemails, and adopt a CRM by year one so you never lose a prospect to chaos. We close with business credit fundamentals, hiring at the right time, and the simple relocations that turn the same income into more freedom.

If this sparked ideas, share it with a builder you respect, subscribe for more candid playbooks, and drop a review with your biggest takeaway so we can go deeper next time.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Mission Statement
• 1:03 Guest Intro And Early Influences
• 3:10 First Venture: Car Dealership Lessons
• 6:17 Pivot To Electrical Business
• 8:37 Money Mindset And Early Hustles
• 12:15 Multiple Income Streams And Real Estate
• 14:24 Why Profitable Businesses Still Go Broke
• 16:22 Rich Vs Wealthy And Cost Of Living
• 18:06 Taxes: What To Know And What Not
• 19:15 The Non‑Negotiable Business Plan
• 21:10 AI In Business Planning: Pros And Gaps
• 24:05 Grants, Pitch Decks, And Sponsorships
• 26:05 Keep Profit: Don’t Quit The 9‑to‑5 Yet
• 28:14 Cash Flow Tracking And Apps
• 29:52 Separate Business And Personal Accounts
• 31:35 Investing Outside Your Core Business
• 33:01 Building Business Credit The Right Way
• 36:00 Asset Vs Liability In Real Life
• 38:00 How The Wealthy Use Debt
• 40:24 Funding Options: Investors And Pitches
• 43:15 What To Automate First
• 45:20 Training AI And Better Prompts
• 47:12 When To Hire And How To Think
• 49:00 The Must‑Have: A Solid CRM
• 50:30 Closing, Resources, And Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:12

What's going on out there, everybody? What's going on out there, everybody? It's Rob Brown LMT, the People's Fitness Professional, aka Soul Brother Number One, reporting for duty. Today you gotta do the knowledge. That's my name, my main thing from now on. Do the knowledge. Do the knowledge to this uh um entrepreneurship one-on-one, master your money and build your business with the brother Michael Woods L. Uh, before we go into today's today's topic, we gotta throw the commercial up there.

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

Peace family, welcome to NYP Talk Show. This is more than a podcast, it's a conscious platform rooted in truth and culture from the 5% nation, Nation of Islam, Morris Movement, and Mason River. Our mission is to reclaim our narrative and uplift the African diaspora with real stories and real conversations. Support us through SuperChat during live show, donations on Cash App, GoFundMe, Patreon, or BugSprout. And by refing our official merch, available on our website and right here on YouTube's merch shelf. Every dollar, every super chat, every hoodie builds the movement. This is NYP Talk Show.

SPEAKER_03: 1:33

All right, all right. What's going on, everybody out there? We are building on mastering your money. Build your own business. Building your business. Brother Michael Woods L is in the building. I want I want you to give them a brief history before we go into today's build. And uh we go right into today's build, but let's talk about it. Where were you born and raised?

SPEAKER_02: 1:56

I am a Jersey boy. I was born and raised in a place called Willenborough, New Jersey. It's um not too far from Philadelphia, maybe about 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia. And uh it's a for me, it was the perfect place for me to grow up.

SPEAKER_03: 2:15

Okay. Now, why why why do you say it's the perfect place for you to grow up?

SPEAKER_02: 2:19

Because it was a so-called African American community that was a middle-class community where you know people had front yards, backyards, your neighbors were traditional workmen, you know, they had the the blue-collar jobs, you had a few doctors, et cetera, that were in the community, but it gave me the opportunity to be around people that look like me while also seeing some of the um potential of our people. And that was one of the biggest things for me was being around some examples.

SPEAKER_03: 3:00

Right, right. So, can you give me an example of those examples?

SPEAKER_02: 3:05

So the biggest example, of course, I gotta keep it in the family, would be my older brother. So, my older brother was that first example for me when it comes to entrepreneurship, business, etc. Um, since we were uh we have like an age difference. So he's 12 years older than me. So when I was young, everything that he was doing, anything that he was a part of was what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be a part of. So he, you know, oftentimes would tell me, like, hey, you gotta find side work, you have to, you know, do your own lane as far as what it is that you're gonna be in in business. And eventually him and I um later on would actually start an electrical company.

SPEAKER_03: 3:54

That's peace. So, what age was your brother when he what age were you guys when you started the electrical company?

SPEAKER_02: 4:00

I was 22 years old. 22. Um, and that was actually my second business at the time, uh, because before we actually did the electrical company, we started a car dealership. And the car dealership, it completely flopped. It was, it was a way, not to say a waste of money, um, but we didn't make any money throughout this entire business transaction. The biggest thing that we gained from owning the car dealership was the experience and the lessons that we learned on how to run a business and then make better business decisions.

SPEAKER_03: 4:40

See, I like that you said that because one thing about business is failure. You have to fail. You gotta fail. If you don't fail, you won't learn and you won't grow and you won't be successful. So that's one thing I learned about business myself, you know. So yeah. So so you had the car dealership, that didn't that didn't work, that didn't pan out. Um, how did you fund the business?

SPEAKER_02: 5:09

Good question. So the car dealership was a well, like the majority of the businesses that I've been a part of, was a group effort. So it was myself, my older brother, and two of his friends. Unfortunately, one of his friends had passed away right before we launched the actual car dealership. And then it was just three of us, but we literally put our money together. I think we ended up putting around a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars a piece together. And we uh got all of the general LLCs, uh, bonding insurance. We um got our dealership car dealership license out of the state of Indiana because it was a little bit cheaper for us as far as like the taxes and some of the restrictions um compared to New Jersey, which is where we work, and that's kind of what you know got it rolling, like just us coming together, putting our money together, and saying, all right, we're gonna start a dealership and go from there.

SPEAKER_03: 6:09

Okay. So, how long did it take for you guys to say, all right, this is not working?

SPEAKER_02: 6:16

That's a good question. So some of us came to that conclusion faster than others. Um, some of us tried to continue to make it happen despite the financial side of it not going according to plan. Um, so I'll probably say that business started in 2009. I was 19 at the time. I think by the time uh 2012 came around when we started the electrical company, I was pretty much like officially the end of the uh car dealership by that point.

SPEAKER_03: 6:52

Okay, and then you guys did you guys lose a lot of money?

SPEAKER_02: 6:56

We lost all of the money that we put into it because we didn't make we made revenue, but not enough to cover all of our expenses that we had put into it up until that point.

SPEAKER_03: 7:07

Gotcha, gotcha. All right. So now the the car dealership fails, okay, and then how do you rebound from that point?

SPEAKER_02: 7:16

We actually pivoted right into the electrical company. So while we were doing the car dealership, all three of us were electricians. We worked for a company in New Jersey, um, and we would literally talk strategy all day at work and then try to implement that after work for the car dealership. But once that fell, we ended up getting laid off from the electrical company that we were working at, and they pretty much motivated us to say, all right, well, let's jump right into starting our own electrical business. And this was also something that my older brother was pursuing for years prior to this. This has always been something that was on his list of goals and things to do. And like I said earlier, I was the younger brother just following along. So whatever he said we were doing, I'm like, all right, let's let's figure out how's the best way we can do that.

SPEAKER_03: 8:13

Okay, okay. And your older brother, how old is he? He's he got what five years on you? 12 years. 12 years. Okay, okay, okay, cool. So now, this electrical company, you pivot off into the electrical company. And um, so before we see, we we're jumping right into business, which is cool, right? But before we go deeper into the business questions, I just want to talk about mastering your money. Okay. Now, I don't know if that is your specialty, um, but uh, you know, if not, then we could just you just keep going with the business.

SPEAKER_02: 8:50

I mean, we could definitely, we can definitely talk about it. Um, I'm an amazing saver, and that's really one of the reasons why I've been able to do a lot of the things business-wise that I've been able to do, because I would say I'm a master saver when it comes to money.

SPEAKER_03: 9:09

Okay. So now, um, growing up, uh, what were your what were you taught about money and how did that shape you?

SPEAKER_02: 9:18

That's a good question. Um I think the biggest principles that my mother and father probably taught me about money was that you had to work for it. And I think that was due to, you know, the era that they were brought up in. Um, and I not to say that I disagree with that or agree with it, but I do say that things have changed over the past 10 years or so where you may not have to put as much effort into it as before. But uh, for the most part, I would say, you know, I was taught that if you want something financially, you work for it.

SPEAKER_03: 9:55

Okay. And so so that shapes you to be a person who, you know, doesn't mind, you know, pulling up the sleeves and getting to work.

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

Always. I started, I started on the on the money hustle young. I was the one selling candy in school. Um, probably by the time I was 14 or 15, I was going on construction sites with my brother or my father, and you know, not really doing much other than you know, picking up trash, going to go get people's lunches, you know, whatever they needed me to do, whatever they needed me to pick up or do, that's essentially what my job was when I first started. And I would make$80 a day and I would save$70 every week that I went and did that because uh early I knew, like, all right, if you want money, you save it, and then you can invest into something else or buy something else that you really want later.

SPEAKER_03: 10:54

Right. This is this is uh almost uh I would say this is a great beginning because what you just said is important for people to like really get a clear picture about. So you said you're not afraid to work for it. You went out there, you went just to construction sites. You know, that's like grassroots, grassroots, right? You didn't go ask for a job and fill out an application right to a construction site and you made a deal. You brokered a deal with this construction site.

SPEAKER_02: 11:34

I mean, it was easy because my my brother had the connection, so it was really just him saying, Hey, do you do you want this type of opportunity? And me saying, Yes, I want that type of opportunity, and then going to fulfill it and do exactly what you know they're asking me to do. Right. So without his connection, I probably wouldn't, not probably, without my brother's connection, I would not have been able to get into the industry as young as I did. But that's where I learned my business foundation by watching other people and what they were doing.

SPEAKER_03: 12:08

Gotcha. What what is uh what's the biggest mindset shift people need to build wealth?

SPEAKER_02: 12:15

To build wealth, I would say if you're building wealth, it's rarely going to come from one stream of income, or it's rarely going to come from what would people would consider a typical nine to five.

SPEAKER_01: 12:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 12:34

So can you give me some examples like stocks and that's what you treat me, right?

SPEAKER_02: 12:39

Exactly. So a lot of uh let me start with this. One thing that all of the wealthy people in the world have in common is that they have some form of real estate, whether that be just a simple home, uh single-family home, multifamily home, apartment complexes, buildings, etc. Having some form of uh real estate is one of the key things that pretty much all people of wealth have. So if you're looking to build wealth, real estate, of course, is one of the necessary routes, I would say, to doing that. And then in conjunction with that, you have stocks, you have bonds, you have mutual funds, etc. Um, all of which it's going to depend on what you personally, uh your risk level, like what type of risk you want to have. You know, stocks may have the the highest risk depending on what type of stocks you're doing, um, or if you're trading options within those stocks. So uh essentially understanding that having multiple streams of income, some passive, some uh that you actually have to work for will actually be the beginning stages for developing wealth. But understanding that you want to do what the wealthy people do. And a lot of those things are real estate, stocks, bonds, insurance.

SPEAKER_03: 14:11

Okay. Ah man, I mean, we could unpack that, just that we could go into that. Um, that's like another class. Um, okay, so why do so many business owners fail financially even when their sales look good? Would you know that?

SPEAKER_02: 14:33

There we go. They didn't properly, they didn't properly plan before they started spending. Most people have sales, they have income coming into their business, but they're spending too much money. They're spending too much money on literally running the business, the costs and expenses of running the business, and then they're taking out profits and then using those oftentimes to run their lifestyle. And then when you do those at the same time, it oftentimes makes your overall income uh through your business not as high or as well as you would like it.

SPEAKER_03: 15:12

Gotcha. Okay. What's the difference between being rich and being wealthy?

SPEAKER_02: 15:17

Are we talking about like a number?

SPEAKER_03: 15:20

I mean, if you have a number, yeah. I wanna, yeah, if you got a number.

SPEAKER_02: 15:24

I mean, I don't have like any official uh data that I would say I would point to, but I would say, and then it also depends on what state you live in, but I would say, you know, rich is probably between 150,000 and maybe 180,000, and then wealthy would probably be anything over that. And then you got the super wealthy, which is, you know, millions every year, and then the ultra wealthy, which is the billionaires.

SPEAKER_01: 15:52

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03: 15:53

Now I've read um I've read uh a place where um I've read that uh the middle class now is it's I think it's um uh don't don't quote me on this, I guess. So but it's like 150,000 and down.

SPEAKER_02: 16:12

I could see that depending on where you live. I mean, you live in New York City. I'm a person that lived in New York City.$150,000 in New York City will not get you as far as$150,000 a year in North Carolina or South Carolina or Virginia or West Virginia.

SPEAKER_03: 16:32

Right now, where you live right now, uh is$150,000 would that cut it? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 16:40

That's why I moved out of New York. Okay. All right, so that's another tip.

SPEAKER_03: 16:47

Move.

SPEAKER_02: 16:49

Yeah, move. If uh if your income isn't tied to your location where you're at, go ahead and move to a place where it doesn't cost as much to live. Then you end up having that same amount of money, but you have more room to utilize it because you're not spending it all on your living expenses.

SPEAKER_01: 17:09

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 17:10

Okay, now um how does understanding taxes change the wealth building thing?

SPEAKER_02: 17:18

Well, the more money you make, the more you're going to want to avoid paying taxes. It's as simple as that.

SPEAKER_03: 17:29

Right. Now, I don't know if you want to go into how to do that on this on this channel right now.

SPEAKER_02: 17:35

You know, because that is not necessarily my specialty. Um, I do know uh the basics about it, but that wouldn't be something I would want to speak on confidently.

SPEAKER_03: 17:46

Actual fact. Okay. So um my thing about tax is is uh communication. If you know anything, want to give me any tips about communicating with the IRS. I mean, you know, you give them a call and it takes like a two hours to get someone on the phone. Like, what's the best mode of communication if you know?

SPEAKER_02: 18:07

Yeah, I have no idea about that. I experienced that. All I know is it takes time. Yeah. Uh that's where it starts and starts and ends with me.

SPEAKER_03: 18:18

Right. Now, um, let's go into um entrepreneurship. Uh, for someone starting a business today, what's the smartest first step?

SPEAKER_02: 18:28

A plan. Business plan. A business plan is the first and only step that anybody starting a business or thinking about starting a business should consider. If you skip over the business plan, you're going to regret it later. Whether you realize it directly or indirectly, you're going to regret it.

SPEAKER_03: 18:47

So now, in this new world of AI, um, you could, what do you think about it? Uh, like back in the days when I wanted to get into business when I was younger, uh, you had to go to the library, you had to do research, you had to really put in work to uh uh uh for to to create a business plan. Now you can uh just go on Chat GPT, a business plan spit out right at you, or you can hire someone online to do the business plan. What are some uh drawbacks from that, you know, and or pros and cons for the for uh you know for uh the new world versus the old world? Right.

SPEAKER_02: 19:29

So I'm a business plan and grant writer with over a decade worth of experience. AI can only do but so much when it comes to creating your business plan. And if you're looking for a simple, what I would what I call a robe roadmap style business plan where it's just telling you uh some of the things that you need to be doing and taking care of and taking care of, uh, that's that's a perfect type of business plan that you can make with AI. But if you're looking to have a thoroughly market research business plan, AI can only do so much, especially if you're not trained on how to uh ask the the AI the correct questions or input the correct prompts to get the accurate results you want for your actual business plan.

SPEAKER_03: 20:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 20:32

And I see that, you know, I see it all the time. I see people, you know, asking about, you know, well, I can just go on Chat GPT and just tell it to make me a business plan. Or I've I've literally had people tell me and send me their business plan that was created on ChatGPT, and then I end up having to tell them a list of things that ChatGPT did not put into your business plan that's a requirement for you to actually know what it is that you need to do for your business.

SPEAKER_03: 21:04

Okay, okay. Now, um, you said you're a business, business plan writer and grant writer. Uh, I'm just asking for myself. I guess we could talk about that off off there. You know, like I I need I need help, man.

SPEAKER_02: 21:20

I need help. I'm there for it, man. That is something that I've been doing for over a decade. Something that I got into because I couldn't afford to pay a business plan writer. So I actually had to figure out how to do it myself. And then during that process, I realized that I actually had a love for creating business plans. And then that's really where my business plan journey started. And then uh maybe two or three years ago, I uh partnered with a young lady who is an expert at grant writing, and she was like, Well, if you're a business plan writer, you can write a grant. It's easier to write a grant than it is the business plan. And I'm like, no way, it can't be easier for a grant than a business plan. And once she kind of showed me her strategy and how she does it, it was easier, just like she said.

SPEAKER_03: 22:14

Now, writing a grant, right? Now, when you write these grants, what's the uh what's who would I would be giving these grants to? Like, uh, is it the government? Is it like sponsors? Is it like how what who am I giving these grants uh um papers to?

SPEAKER_02: 22:37

So it could be either. It could be a regular uh nonprofit organization or a for-profit organization. It could be a state entity, it could be a federal entity, it could be a local government entity, so it could be anything between your local fire department who has some sort of program that they set up for grants. Um, so for somebody like you, your fire department or the state fire department may have a fitness program that they want to keep the firefighters in physical shape, and you would apply for that grant with your business information and then explaining in that um that grant uh proposal why you're a good fit and how you'll be able to actually allow the firefighters to achieve the goal that they're trying to reach on a fitness tip.

SPEAKER_03: 23:29

Okay, now let's say if I'm a podcast, right? Like this one, and uh, you know, I'm looking for sponsors. Would you be able to write a grant for sponsorship?

SPEAKER_02: 23:40

So for sponsors, you may not want to have a grant. You may be, it may be more of like a pitch, a pitch deck may be more of what you need, where it essentially it tells them who you are as a podcaster, um, what your podcast has done over the time that it's been uh started, your subscribers, your view counts, and then you want to let them know okay, well, based off of this, this is what I can offer you as a sponsor. I can offer you a one-minute uh ad on my show. And because I get you know 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 views a month, this is how many people will see your ad. So sponsors, you may want to approach on more of a partnership direction versus a grant. It's normally based off of you performing some sort of task, unless it's a grant based off of something you're already doing.

SPEAKER_03: 24:36

Gotcha. Makes sense. That makes sense. Okay, uh, how can entrepreneurs keep more profit instead of living uh instead of living uh business broke? Business broke.

SPEAKER_02: 24:51

I have never heard that term, but I love it. I know a lot about it too. It comes with the territory, so I know a lot about that one. But the best thing I'm gonna say, and some people may not like it or may not agree, but I would say work a nine to five while you work your business. That is the best way to have consistent income, ensure that your lives' expenses are going to be paid for while also growing your business. A lot of people, myself included, we go into 100% business ownership or 100% entrepreneurship, and we don't give ourselves a backup uh plan or any type of financial leadway to actually leave room for mistakes. And when that mistake comes, you kind of get pushed in a position where you may have to resign or or or stop your business, or you may be in a position where you're in too deep, and now you have to force things to happen within your business, and which also causes mistakes, delays, etc.

SPEAKER_03: 26:10

Yeah, you know, um I can I I have some I know th I I could see what people do out there in the world, and uh I I I can look at some examples of that, where um, you know, they try to go head first and forget the nine to five, and then now they're just doing whatever they have to do to make their business growth. Yeah, and uh, you know, that's that's uh you don't want to be, you don't want to become as as we say in a five percent nation, a savage in the pursuit of happiness, you know, which I see that happening in and I've been there, so I'm not I'm telling people from experience.

SPEAKER_02: 26:49

You know, when we started the electrical company in 2012, that was that was that experience of jumping in 100%, no backup plan. It's we were either we had the mindset of either this is gonna work or it's not, and we're going to pivot to something else. So part of that mindset was good because we, you know, we had a get it done or or or else type of mindset. But for people that want to grow a business and not necessarily a hustle, you want to make sure that you have those back-end things already organized beforehand, if possible.

SPEAKER_03: 27:27

Right. All right. What is cash flow cash flow ready? Uh what is cash flow flow really, and how should owners track it weekly?

SPEAKER_02: 27:40

So, cash flow is basically how much income is coming into your business, whether it's on a weekly, bi-weekly, or or a monthly basis. And you want to there's a lot of apps out there that will literally track your cash flow. It will take all of your income and it will tell you where to put it or where you could put it, give you a list of options as far as your business taxes, your marketing, your advertising, um, promotion, employees, etc. And you can uh don't want to promote any right now, but what we can do is get you a referral link so you can promote it on the next episode that we work on, and then we'll uh add another uh revenue stream to the podcast through that. Oh, we're okay.

SPEAKER_03: 28:30

That's what's up. There we go. Yeah, that's what's up. All right, so now um, should every entrepreneur separate business, personal, and business accounts?

SPEAKER_02: 28:42

Absolutely, all the time, 100%. Okay, why? So the first and most important reason is taxes. So you need to basically be able to show that separation when you're filing your taxes. Your business's money belongs to your business, your personal money belongs to you. So when you mix those, which a lot of business owners, myself included, have done in the past, it messes up your taxes, it messes up your income statements, and it also messes up your cash flow. So most business owners uh will either pay them pay themselves first or they'll pay themselves last. But normally when they use that pay your first, pay yourself first or last technique, they set a percentage of how much they're going to pay themselves, and then they proceed pre paying themselves that percentage every week or every uh bi weekly. So now they know if we made$10,000 this week, I'm taking 10% out of that$10,000, which is$1,000, and putting it into my personal account because that's what I'm paying myself for the week. Versus what we oftentimes do, which is have one account. Account or two accounts, and we have these accounts, and we're using it to pay our card note, to pay our phone bills, to pay our business expenses, our business insurance, and everything else, and it's all being taken out of the same account. And then, of course, when you go to file your taxes, or if you're using um a tax professional, they have to go through all of these transactions to kind of tell what your what your transaction types were. And if you have a lot of personal transactions in there, you're actually making their job harder, which could make it more expensive for them to file your taxes for you.

SPEAKER_03: 30:37

Check. Okay. All right, investing. When uh when should business owners start investing outside of their business? Um, could you be more specific? I want to make sure I answer that directly. So uh, when should business owners start investing outside of their business? So, like, of course, you make a profit and you invest back into your own business. The question is asking when should the business owner start investing in other things outside of their own business? Maybe uh another business.

SPEAKER_02: 31:12

Uh so personally or through that business? Uh through that business. Uh only when it's uh growth-related, I would say, if you're going to invest into something else outside of your business, um, it would make the most sense if it's something that's going to help your business grow. So, for example, um with fitness. If you wanted to make a business purchase, uh, let's say you wanted to purchase a printing press company that is printing hats and shirts and workout gear already. It's not what you do. You're not a printing press, but you could utilize the assets that that business has to now expand your business and grow your business further by expanding your your brand, if you will, with fitness by now having access, direct access to a printing press where you can print your own shirts, hats, etc. Gotcha. So in those types of cases, that's where it makes the most sense.

SPEAKER_03: 32:26

Gotcha. What are the four main types of income streams everyone should know?

SPEAKER_02: 32:32

Uh the four types of income streams? Like, like passive, passive, yep. Okay, right. So, yes, you got passive income, you got residual income. Um, what else do you have? Passive, residual. Um man, I'm drawing a blank on the other two.

SPEAKER_03: 32:54

Um passive, passive, residual, and of course, uh tax, tax wages. Yes, tax wages you're nine to five. Yep, that's income. That's uh another form of income. Uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm like lost on that. What was I thinking? Anyway. Anyway, yeah. Let's let's move on to the next one. If someone only had$500 to start investing, uh, what should they do?

SPEAKER_02: 33:27

Investing or starting a business? Because those aren't necessarily the two two of the same.

SPEAKER_03: 33:33

Uh, I'm gonna go with investing.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

Um now this isn't financial advice. I would say uh if I had$500 and I want to start investing, I would put it into the SP 500 and let it sit. The SP 500 is basically a group of the 500 most popular companies on the stock market. And when one uh company falls lower than the the bracket, a new company is put in, and it has one of the most consistent um interest-gaining uh profit margins for probably the last 40 years, I would say, or maybe even longer, however long it's been around. But if I had$500 that I wanted to start investing, the first thing I would do would probably be put$500 in an SP account and let it sit from there.

SPEAKER_03: 34:32

Okay. So now to talk about business, right? You know, I wanted to go into this. Um when it comes to building business credit, how do you separate the personal credit from the business credit? Because that's something that I've been trying to do. And uh, I don't know. I don't know if I've been successful at doing it or not. You know what I'm saying? Because every time I go for a credit card for my businesses, they ask for my own, my um my my social.

SPEAKER_02: 35:06

Yeah. Um, that's normally because your business hasn't been in business long enough for whatever their credit requirements are. Ah. Or that could also mean that your business hasn't developed a score for itself where they can utilize only your business's score.

SPEAKER_03: 35:29

I love that, brother. Okay. So how do you build that score through through uh nav in uh the um Dungs and Brad Street?

SPEAKER_02: 35:40

Yes. So basically, um those are the credit boroughs, if you will, for a business, um, and they're free to register. You go onto those websites, you register, you set up everything as far as it's maybe a four-page application. They want all of your general business information, your name, your business name, address, et cetera. And once they have all of that, once you uh you could once you apply for a credit card or uh if you applied for a line of credit or something along those lines, they'll now be reported to those agencies, which will now grow your credit score, your business's credit score the same way your personal credit score grows. And once your business credit score is high enough and your business income is high enough, they'll only look at those two things, especially once you've been in business for whatever their criteria is as far as the amount of time.

SPEAKER_03: 36:39

Ah, okay. Hold on a second. We cooking right now. Peace, uh, peace uh Ben, what's going on? A B the light in the building, my brother. Peoria in the building. Um now, okay. Business credit and personal credit, they are similar, but they are different at the same time. Correct. Okay. I just don't understand how to build the business credit as much as I know how to build a personal credit.

SPEAKER_02: 37:13

It's literally the same concept. Okay. Anything anything that you know about building personal credit, you would pretty much apply that to your business credit. Except the the so your your personal credit could have, you know, you can go up to an 800 credit score. With your business credit, you can go up to 100, which is perfect uh credit score. That's probably one of the only main differences as far as like the numbers go, but everything else is pretty much the same. You want to show that you're paying things on time, you want to make sure you have, you know, at least three to five different credit lines open at a at a at a given time. Um, all anything that you pretty much probably heard that's reasonable when it when dealing with your personal credit are the same things that you want to apply for your business credit.

SPEAKER_03: 38:08

Well, the the the uh business credit, the nav business credit, and the done's business credit number, those are two different ones, right?

SPEAKER_02: 38:17

They do have different criteria and different numbers, uh, especially the Dun and Brass Street, which has recently changed, I think probably in the last two or three years, maybe a little bit longer. So, yeah, they they definitely have um, as far as how they score your credit, they have different um settings, if you will. But what it takes to actually gain the scores are the same across across both. They're both looking for the same type of criteria to give you your score. So these are just two different companies giving you a score.

SPEAKER_03: 38:54

Okay, that makes sense. All right. So now um let's go into this next one. Uh how do you how do you how do you tell the difference between a good asset and a liability?

SPEAKER_02: 39:10

A good asset is gonna make you money, a liability is gonna drain you with money.

SPEAKER_03: 39:16

So they you know, I hear this online sometime. A house is a is a liability.

SPEAKER_02: 39:23

Uh your own personal house. Your own personal house as a liability. I would disagree. Because on average, homes, uh the property value of your homes normally stay at rate with inflation. Um, let's say prior to 2020. So if you owned a home prior to 2020, because that's when things got a little bit weird, but prior to that, the market would basically say that if you own a home, it's the value of it is going to increase with inflation. So if that's the case, you don't really lose any money uh as far as it. Now, what people may be considering a liability is the maintenance that you have to put into your property to keep it up. But that's also going to be based off of the purchase of the property. So if you purchased a new home, it's going to be less likely that you have to do maintenance over the first, let's say, five years of that property versus a property that may have been remodeled, where you know they may not have uh taken all of the inners of that house uh out and started over. They may have just put some fresh paint and made it look good. So now you have to deal with the mechanical issues and updates that come with it. So in that case, then it would make it more of a liability if you're spending more than the house value is going up.

SPEAKER_03: 40:58

Check man. Oh man. That's okay, brother. You got you you got it. All right. Uh, how do the wealthy use debt uh differently than the average person?

SPEAKER_02: 41:14

That's a good that's a great question. So when you're wealthy or even rich or have a good business strategy, you use debt to make income. So we'll stay on a real estate. So for example, and I'm just throwing out numbers, you purchase a home for$100,000, and then once you put the uh$50,000 investment into rehabbing it, that house is now worth$250,000. You got a mortgage or a loan of some sort to pay for that. And let's say that mortgage is$1,000 a month. And every month you got to pay$1,000 mortgage, plus you got to pay your property taxes, plus you have to pay your property insurance. Let's say all together that's$1,300 a month. But that property that you just got a loan on and went in debt, you can now rent that property out for$2,000 a month or$2,500 a month. So now you have a$700 to$1,000 um uh investment spread in between, where the debt is actually making you$1,000 every month in the form of rental uh payments via the property. So it makes sense that you got the debt because the debt is now making you more money than it would have if it if you just used it on a on a liability uh uh side, as far as like if you purchase a vehicle and you're just using that vehicle for your day-to-day travel or for entertainment, that vehicle is losing its value and it's not actually gaining you anything. But with that same thought, if you purchase a vehicle, let's say you get a luxury car, you pay$100,000 for your car. If you take that same car and you put it on rental platforms, you may be able to get$500 to$1,000 per day for that ride, which would mean that car needs anywhere between 100 and 200 days of being rented before you make your money back on it. And then everything else after that is now profit. So now it takes something that would normally be a liability and turned into a liability and a debt and turns it into a form of income.

SPEAKER_03: 43:39

Okay. Now I want to rewind, you know, and talk about getting funded for businesses. Okay, uh we kind of like went past that. So, you know, what are ways of getting funded for businesses? I mean, grants, that's one of them. And you mentioned that you, your brother, and other people put like$1,300 or$1,000 together. Right. You know what I mean? Like how what other ways you can get your business funded?

SPEAKER_02: 44:10

So one of the most popular ways that people kind of see that um, you know, you'll see the big headlines uh are investors. So you'll see, you know, headlines. This investor invested$2 million into this startup business so they could grow their whatever it is that they're growing. So investors are probably one of the oftentimes in our community, I would say overlooked avenues for actually funding your business. Investors. Investors, private investors. So a person that has an extra, well, depending on the type of business, it could be a thousand dollars, it could be five thousand, ten thousand, depending on what the business needs and its and its goals, finding an investor that fits within that bracket of what they can afford to give your business, and then showing them the return on their investment. A lot of people would, if the business plan is right and they can see in plain language the investment, the results from the investment, and the proposed income from that investment, people will be willing to say, okay, well, yeah, I'll invest into your business to help you fund whatever uh part or strategy or situation you're in uh regarding your business.

SPEAKER_03: 45:34

Okay, now how do you find these investors?

SPEAKER_02: 45:37

That's for some people is the hard part. So they are oftentimes not promoting themselves as, hey, I'm an investor. So you probably know people that invest into businesses and you didn't know that they were an investor because they're probably not on social media, they're not out there promoting it. It's just something that they do with the additional income or the investment income that they personally have. Um, so there are different types of groups that have investor meetings, um, especially in major cities. So if you're in New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, uh DC, there are groups that host investor meetings where investors come to a pitch competition. And for example, you get on stage and you pitch your business to everyone that's essentially there, but the person or the investor that you know resonates with your business idea will now approach you and say, Hey, I seen your pitch. I liked what you have to offer. Let's talk more about me investing into your business.

SPEAKER_03: 46:49

Wow. Okay, so I guess you Google that.

SPEAKER_02: 46:54

Yes, you can just simply Google pitch competitions. Um there used to be a uh a group called Meet the Lenders, and this was hosted by uh, I want to say the Better Business Bureau, but I may be incorrect, it may not have been the best better business bureau. But you could Google Meet the Lenders, and if that program is still around, um, essentially you would go to a meeting, and there would be anywhere between 15 to 22 investors at that meeting, and you would have the opportunity um and a networking setting to kind of tell them about what you have going on and how much uh investment you're looking for, and you know, the basics of your your pitch and what it is that you need, and then they would kind of say, Hey, yes, this is something that I'll be interested in hearing more about, or no, this isn't something that's in my investment thesis.

SPEAKER_03: 47:58

Gotcha. Okay. Now we're gonna go into uh hold on a second. Sorry. Pardon me. No worries. All right, what should a business automate first as it grows? What should it automate first? I'm gonna say social media, social media.

SPEAKER_02: 48:29

Social media is a great thing to automate.

unknown: 48:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 48:35

If you're a social media-based business, then I would say that that would be one. But if you're a business that is run off of phone calls, I would say having some sort of AI assistant that handles your phone calls would be the first thing that you uh want to automate. So if you're in the real estate and um industry, or even if you're in the investment industry and you make a lot of calls throughout the day, having an automated system that can either um do ringless phone mail or ringless voicemail drops or just ringless voicemails, period. Um, like those would be the things that, you know, depending on your industry, you may want to automate first. Or if you're email heavy, you want to automate your emails. So I think it's gonna be based off of how you game your clients. So however you game your clients, you want to find a way to automate a portion of that to make sure that you can have a consistent amount of clients coming in on a month-to-month basis.

SPEAKER_03: 49:43

Man, there's so much to automate, right? For like as I'm thinking about it, right? Like uh people reaching out for merch, that's another set of a different set of clientele. People reaching out for programs for personal training, that's another set of clientele. People reaching out for videos that they want, you know, that's another set of clientele. So, how do you separate the automation, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 50:09

With something like that, if they're if they're incoming questions, I would have an AI system that is trained on your business or businesses so it could answer all of the standard questions and anything that required a conversation, the AI would be trained to now say, let me schedule uh an appointment with this person so you they can talk to a real person.

SPEAKER_03: 50:35

Gotcha. All right, all right. And um those um AI systems, I guess I I don't want you to give too much sauce, you know what I mean? I guess, you know, uh, because there's a lot of uh automation systems out there, like it's hard to figure out which one to pick from, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 50:54

Um always say try to find one that is already based on the industry that you're in, because it's going to normally be a shorter learning curve than just picking a broad or overall one. So if you're in the fitness industry, see if there are fitness-based AIs that are already created and then go from there. You don't want to just find like a general one and then you have to teach it everything. Because if you're not, you know, if you're not trained on how to actually teach an AI um how to essentially answer questions in a human-like form, you're not gonna like the results that the AI is giving you, essentially.

unknown: 51:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03: 51:37

Yeah, I'm learning that you have to teach the AI. Now, what's your experience with teaching the AI? Do you yell at the AI?

SPEAKER_02: 51:45

You know, I'm gonna be honest, sometimes I have gotten really upset, but it's really about having the right prompts to train it on. So AI more or less learns through prompts. And a prompt is just a way of executing a task. So the more detailed your your prompt is, and the better is written for the AI system that you're actually using, the better results that you get, and the quicker results that you get for an AI. So, as far as training them, that is something that I do have a lot of experience in and I spend a lot of time doing. Um, I'm probably always training some form of AI, whether it's for one of my businesses or somebody else I'm working with.

SPEAKER_03: 52:36

Okay. Um how well um okay, we'll go with this question. How do you know when it's time to hire?

SPEAKER_02: 52:47

When the time no longer allows you to continue not hiring, and when you're losing money by not having a person that can take on whatever task that may be. But when you do hire, you want to hire smart. Some people hire prematurely. They hire because they want to feel like the boss, they want to feel like the person that's you know given the orders and etc. That's not the reason or the or the mindset you want to be in when it comes to hiring. When it comes to hiring, you want to be thinking, if I want to make more money, I need to have this person complete this task. If I want to have more time, uh more bandwidth, if I want to be more accurate, I need to hire this person to do this task. That's when you want to really think about um hiring. Don't want to hire too soon because hiring and employees are always the most expensive thing on your uh uh on your in your business operation.

SPEAKER_03: 53:51

All right, what's a system that every business must have by year one?

SPEAKER_02: 53:57

A CRM system, customer relationship management. If you don't have a CR CRM system, then you're going to be missing leads, you're not going to be able to track your leads, you're not going to be able to tell where your leads are coming from or where the bottlenecks are within your business. And essentially, you're going to be um not running your business as efficiently as possible.

SPEAKER_01: 54:26

Customer relationship management. Nice.

SPEAKER_03: 54:37

Dope, dope, dope. Man, you really got your stuff together, brother. I'm I'm impressed, man.

SPEAKER_02: 54:44

And a lot of it is from being a business plan writer for over 10 years. I've literally written probably hundreds of business plans for different types of businesses. Um, so I'm thoroughly experienced on a lot of different levels, and I'm perfectly fine to say when I'm not experienced in a level or don't know uh a certain uh business information.

SPEAKER_03: 55:12

Gotcha, gotcha. Well, um, we're out of time right now. Um we will have you back again to build on this. Um, I got way more questions for you. I'm ready for it. I got way more questions, but as you know, most of the time, this uh uh platform, we only do like an hour with each guest, except for one group, because they they uh been asking for it for a while. That's Abdullah and Israel, Yesrael. Peace out to them, Islam. Islam to them. They're like, we gotta do two hours, brother. Two hours, two hours. They've been saying that. They've been saying that for a while. So I said, all right, let's do the two hours. Uh but anyway, uh, we'll come back and build on this subject again. And uh thank you for coming up this evening. I really appreciate you. If you missed the podcast today, I want you to rewind this. Uh bring up bring out your pen and pad and write some stuff down because this brother definitely dropped a lot of jewels on this podcast. Uh, thank you, Michael Woods, for joining us. I really appreciate you. If if you want to let people know where to find you and give your social medias and things like that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02: 56:23

I'm Michael Woodsell on all social media platforms. Michael Woods, that's all you got? That's where I'm at. Any platform you want to find me, I'm Michael Woodsell. If you're looking for um business plan services, it's Diamond Business Plan Writing. If you're looking for um estate planning, then it's a Mexim Estate Planning. And if you're looking for a CRM system, then it's Oxcho Marketing System. But you can find all of those if you just put me personally into Google, Michael Woodsell. You can put me in there and I'll pop up. And then you'll most likely be led to my website, which has a link to all of those things, uh, including some of the books that I publish.

SPEAKER_03: 57:13

All right, that's peace. Thank you for coming out this evening.

SPEAKER_00: 57:18

And we are out of here, peace. Peace family. Welcome to NYP Talk Show. This is more than a podcast, it's a conscious platform rooted in truth and culture from the 5% nation, nation of Islam, Moorish movement, and Masonry. Our mission is to reclaim our narrative and uplift the African diaspora with real stories and real conversations. Support us through SuperChat during live shows, donations on Cash App, GoFundMe, Patreon, or BugScrout. And by wrestling our official merch, available on our website and right here on YouTube's merch shelf. Every dollar, every super chat, every hoodie builds the movement. This is NYP Talk.