10/11/2026
*This is happening Monday evening
In late 2020, a bank turned down my small business funding request.
I'd started or bought eight businesses by then. It didn't matter. I was the one asking, and they were the ones deciding.
That "no" changed my career. In response to that "no", I became a business loan broker. Along the way I learned something most entrepreneurs find out too late: Your business is building a financial reputation whether you build it on purpose or not.
Most founders build the product, the brand, the customers, and the revenue. Then they fund all of it with personal savings and personal credit cards until both run out. Their utilization climbs, their scores drop, and the tools they relied on start working against them.
The alternative is to build business credit on purpose:
→ Build it. Get a verifiable identity: entity, EIN, business banking, a domain email, a real phone number, and consistent public listings.
→ Prove it. Open trade lines with vendors who report to the business bureaus. Buy what you already need, and pay early.
→ Leverage it. Move up the ladder to cards, lines of credit, and bank and SBA financing, and use each one for a defined purpose.
→ Scale it. Use the capital on assets that produce cash flow.
Done well over time, this flips the dynamic. You stop asking banks for permission. You start reviewing offers that come to you, some at 0% or low promotional rates.
That doesn't make it free money. A $50,000 limit is permission to borrow, not profit. Every dollar needs a job and a repayment plan.
The goal isn't to get a loan. The goal is to become the business lenders want to finance.
I cover the full process in my webinar "How to Create and Leverage the Power of Business Credit" sponsored by SCORE Mentors on Monday, October 12, at 6pm (Eastern).
Register (free) here: https://www.score.org/fl/orlando/business-education/how-to-create-and-leverage-the-power-of-business-credit-4/
