Preparing for Business credit with Bob Hunter of Oxford Pierpont

Dex: 0:08

Hey, welcome to another episode of In the Black. This is Your Boy Dex. And like every other episode, we do our best to turn the narrative and say what we have to say and speak our voice and. Show real representation within the business community and really try and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. I'm doing that again with this episode. I have an amazing guest today, a man by the name of Bob Hunter. He's actually on the line right now, so I'm just gonna let Bob take over. Bob, how are you?

Bob Hunter: 0:43

Wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you so much for having me.

Dex: 0:45

Oh, no. Thanks for being on the show. I did a lot of looking over on you and you've gone through quite, quite a lot. And I gotta say, you have a lot of fortitude my friend. I probably would've given up, but I think, this would be a lot more powerful if we heard it from you. Just so people know about you. Tell us about your business, consulting and everything.

Bob Hunter: 1:09

Sure. So my name is Bob Hunter and I am the C E O of Oxford Pierpont, and my business credit.com, which is our newer brand, which just handles the business financing aspect, but that is not where we started. So we started out doing a lot of business development work. The main problem that I was trying to solve is, a lot of business owners have problems, but they don't really have a good consultant that they can just reach out to and just ask anything and get a very direct answer. So that is what a lot of my, when I was starting out, that is what a lot of my time was spent doing for about 50 hours a week on average, simply answering a really wide variety of random questions to business owners. And that is where a huge amount of experience came. And that was all fine and dandy until the pandemic happened because that is what forced us to rethink our business model. As a lot of our clients, they were either slowing down or closing, not out of their own, fault, but just because of the pandemic, like attorneys, banks for mortgage companies. Literally they were like just stopping the courts were literally closed. So that is where we had the change. That is where now, two years later we've got my business credit, which really just focuses on building building business financing solutions for small and medium business owners. So that's a little bit about our business. Of course, there's more to it than that, but that's the very short over.

Dex: 2:30

That is, that's awesome. It is funny cuz you're actually the second business consultant I've had on the show and the approaches are so different and I realize everyone has this vast array of experience and there's so many different things to be brought to the table and I think it all has to do with, there's so many different problems. So there's naturally gonna be so many different solutions, but. You really have to go further sometimes when it comes to dealing with it small and medium businesses. And I realize with businesses there's a relationship aspect and people really want to get to know someone that they're working with, someone that's been through some of the things they've been through. So tell me what did you do before business consulting?

Bob Hunter: 3:15

So before business consulting, I was just a regular happy guy. Emphasis on the happy, just because for those of you who've been doing business for a while, business being a business owner can take its toll on you. And when you're just a normal employee, even if you hate your. You still have this relationship where, hey, if I show up at this place for this set amount of time, I'm going to get this amount of money, and I can usually count on that, right? When you're a business owner, the only person that you can really count on is yourself, because everything else is so dynamic. You're literally writing the rules as they go, and half the time you don't even know what the rules are supposed to be so that stress level can come into place. So before I was a business owner, before I was into consulting or anything like that, I had a regular job. I was the operations development director. Every 90 days. I basically built a new department for the company that I worked at. And that was exciting. I had a wonderful office I made, I basically made up all the rules because I was making departments every 90 days. So I would just show up to my bosses every once every quarter Hey, we have this now. I think I should be building this for the next quarter. And that was it. and I probably would've stayed in that position forever. If it had not been for my sickle cell. That kind of forced me out of that simply because I ended up having a stroke that caused me to go blind in my in my right eye and. I lost my job over that. I was so in love with that job. I didn't really I didn't really know anything about getting, the whole worker's comp thing and all that stuff. I just left myself with nothing. And the unemployment thing, that doesn't really work because if you're making a lot of money, unemployment's not gonna help you. I didn't even know that cause I had no experience with that until it. And so I very quickly had to pivot into something that was going to pay the bills. That is why I have a business at all. It was that knee-jerk reaction to that happening. And then of course I thought I was going, gonna be doing this temporarily. I'll find another job and I'll be fine. And here we are. Now it's going into 2023 and I now have three companies. , that's how life works.

Dex: 5:21

Yeah, absolutely. The key word to that was pivot, because yeah, you really do have to make changes and this is one that was on the fly and you went with it, but I feel and correct me if I'm wrong, but building those different departments gave you the roadmap on how to do everything that you do. Set up systems, maybe write manuals, get the right people,

Bob Hunter: 5:44

I would say it gave me the opportunity to, and I am still grateful to that company for this, but it gave me the opportunity to even try out different things. So many people, you have your job and that's just what you do. And usually it's not changing unless you've done a lot of convincing for your boss. Whereas my whole job description was to create new things. So one quarter it would be implementing an entire Companywide phone system. Another one we're doing an E R P system, another one we are we're changing some finance stuff, so I got to try out different things. . The problem with all that is I felt like I gave that job a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. And it was so easy to lose all of that, and I didn't like that feeling.

Dex: 6:26

Yeah.

Bob Hunter: 6:27

I lose my business, I only have myself to blame at any given point. Of course, there are a lot of moving parts and a lot of reasons that might lead up to a person losing their. But at the end of the day, it's still a decision that you have to make to stop trying whatever it is that you're doing. And I like that little aspect of control. And that's one that you don't get with any job. Doesn't matter what you're doing at any point. If you've got a boss, they can let you go if you are no longer necessary for that business's goals or if you're liability or anything. So that's where we.

Dex: 7:01

Yeah, absolutely. Do you feel like. You put in the exact same amount of effort in your old company as you do your current business.

Bob Hunter: 7:12

Huh? Absolutely not. The glory of having a job is usually 50 hours a week is probably gonna top it off for most people. The average is gonna be 40. You've got people who let, who work less than that. , but for the most part it's pretty stable. As a business owner, you're putting in 90 to a hundred hour weeks, and the worst part is when you're starting. Very often you don't even get to keep the money

Dex: 7:37

Yeah, that's true.

Bob Hunter: 7:39

so when the question comes up oh, am I gonna be able to to, to work less? No. If you're normal, you're probably gonna be working way more than you've ever worked at any for any employer at all. The benefit to doing that though, unlikely the. If you are putting the effort in on the front end for your business, you very likely, once you have systems in place, once you have teams in place, you can take that time back on the back end, right? So after everything is established, you've still got people who are hustling for you 40 hours a week, but you might be on vacation in Bali somewhere, but you're still getting all of the benefits of being that business owner. So it's just a different dynamic in where the work gets.

Dex: 8:20

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So with consulting, which industries do you find yourself working with the most? Cuz you mentioned small and medium sized businesses.

Bob Hunter: 8:30

We still do consulting and business development. That's where we started though. I'd say about maybe two and a half years in, we started nicheing down. Because we found more consistency working specifically with attorneys and in the mortgage industry. So that would be like mortgage brokers bankers, things like that. For a few reasons, primarily because they had Larger budgets, they could pay more consistently, little things like that, easier to sell. But when we were doing heavy consulting, it would really vary. Over a period of 50 hours for the week of of just consultation calls, it would be as wild as this person owns a roofing company. This other one is trying to start a tech company. Like a huge difference in whatever you're talking about. The approach would always be the same. I like the approach of of doctors, so you can go, you see your doctor. You describe whatever your symptoms are and that doctor is educated and has enough experience to know, hey, based on the symptoms that you're telling me, this is what that root cause is. And here is the prescription of how to solve that that problem. So that is always the approach that we took to our consultations. We would listen to that business owner describe the symptoms of their problem, find out what they really were trying to achieve, and what the root was of, whatever's causing the. And then from there, provide a prescription that would be appropriate for solving that, that business owner's issues. Sometimes we're talking about getting them more money. Sometimes it's more people. Sometimes it's better marketing. Maybe your website is trash and we've gotta start all over for that. Maybe you just have bad people or something. So it would always change from one person to another, but the process would always be the same.

Dex: 10:08

That is awesome. That is awesome. So walk me through, you mentioned, the whole doctor process, but walk me through how you would help a business. Do you look at certain. Key performance indicators, matched with their goals, or do you look at the industry as a whole and work within those trends?

Bob Hunter: 10:29

So it depends on, first, it depends on what business we're talking to because everyone is starting at different levels. The biggest gap that I find with most of the business owners that I talk to is really just one of just basic knowledge and education of their own industries. . And what I mean by that is if you are not aware of what the industry standards are, what people have already done the hard way and figured out like, Hey, this is what's working. These are the things that are going to help your business move faster, at a more efficient rate you're going to always have a hard time. So we're really starting by just figuring out. Where's your baseline and what is already working for your competitors? At the very least, you wanna make sure that you are breaking even with your competitors. If your competitors are succeeding because they they have these massive marketing campaigns that are doing better. Maybe you can't afford that right now, but you could at least still emulate that. Little things like that. Maybe your competitors are succeeding because of the way they organize your teams. So we find out what that market information is for the. And then we can have a more informed conversation about solutions. If we're talking to someone who specifically has come to us for business financing related consulting, then first we need to find out if they've even done the basics. When I say basics, basics as in lender compliance. Do does your business even have a a business bank? Does that business bank account maintain a balance of at least $10,000 or higher per month? Are you properly registered? All of those things. So the very first step for anything that we're gonna be doing is always finding out what that person's baseline is, and then we're growing from there.

Dex: 12:13

Okay. Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. But it brings up another question. You mentioned industry knowledge. , how many of them actually have business plans? What's the percentage that actually have business plan?

Bob Hunter: 12:28

In my personal experience, I have not met a single person of the hundreds and hundreds that I've talked to. I've not met a single person that was ready to present a proper business plan for what they were doing. And when I say business plan, a traditional business plan that is well thought out, where, starting with your executive summary, you've got your team, you've got your financials, you've got your marketing. you've got all of that stuff laid out. So many people have a very haphazard approach to to going into and running their business. A lot of that might have to do with the fact that like how I was when I started, often a business is a kneejerk reaction to something else. It might have been a reaction to a life event. It might have been that you had a certain passion that you just wanted to suddenly. Maybe you just decided, Hey, I hate my job and I'm just gonna go for it, whatever it is. Often it is that knee-jerk reaction, and it's not something that people plan properly. Now, of course there are plenty of people that do. They go through the rounds of startup funding, they go through pitches, they get investors, but that's not the norm. The majority of people that I've ever spoken to that have ever come to us, they are coming in this almost like an afterthought of. I already am running the business. I think I need to do this, or I'm having these problems. How do I get out of that? That's where a lot of people are starting. So none would be the answer that I've met. It could also be that they just didn't tell me, but none that I'm aware of.

Dex: 14:00

Okay. Okay.

Bob Hunter: 14:01

Yeah. Yeah.

Dex: 14:03

One of the things that you do in particular is business credit. So besides getting a Dunn's number, if someone wanted to build their business credit before coming to you, what should they do?

Bob Hunter: 14:17

So two things. Number one, make sure that you do have, and I mentioned, I touched on this earlier, about your basic lender compliance. because there's this big myth out there that says, Hey I'm going to just be able to go and get an EIN and never have to put my social down on anything, and people are just suddenly gonna give me money because I have a business. You have to have some kind of credibility and you have to make sure that the banks are comfortable working with you. So a lot of that can be just established by first lender compliance. Those are things like you are an established business, properly registered, you've got a proper business address, you've got a proper business phone number proper business email. You have a dedicated business bank account. In that bank account, you are maintaining your bank rating, which means you're keeping at least $10,000 or more. For your average balance in the account. After that, you wanna make sure that you are getting relationships with other with other business credit related entities like vendors business credit cards business lines of credit. You're basically wanting to establish for the bank that you're gonna talk to later that, Hey, other people do already trust me. Cause no one wants to be first. So if you have just those basic net terms, maybe you got a store card let's say you got a Amazon store card, you got a Staples store card, whatever it is. You have 15 lines that actually report to your business credit, and then you're maintaining all of those histories, right? So you're actually keeping the good relationships. And now if you want to go and say Hey, I want to go ahead and start talking about getting $250,000 or half million dollars worth a big amount like that, you've got the relationships to back it up and you're you've got all the basics to back up and. Those amounts. There's even more though that you need to make sure you're establishing your actual business has to be well run. You need to be producing at the minimum $10,000 per month. For most applications you're gonna do, ideally you're actually producing $35,000 per month or more. You also wanna make sure you are still taking care of your personal credit, because unless your business is two years, You've got at least an 80 business credit score and a whole host of other things, you're almost always gonna be asked for your business credit score or sorry for your personal credit score. Even if it's not gonna be used as a personal guarantee, that score needs to be specifically six 80 or higher. If it's anything under six 80, that doesn't mean that you cannot get financing, but it does mean that now the conversation is gonna be a little bit more difficult where they're asking for for more qualifiers. So that's a lot. I know I just dumped a lot of information on people, but I think I really need people to understand that there's this myth out there that says, Hey, I'm just gonna do the bare minimum and have access to all this money. And there are a lot of things that you really do need to do to just make sure the banks can trust you.

Dex: 17:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm so glad you had mentioned all that because it always sounds so easy, especially if you watch something like YouTube, but. With all of that said, and you mentioned the pandemic earlier, with the pandemic and the great resignation, how much of your business has come from those events?

Bob Hunter: 17:38

Without the pandemic, we would've never transitioned into finance in the first place. We almost didn't survive the pandemic. And so if we hadn't transitioned into finance I don't know if my business would be as strong as it is today. And a lot of that kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier. We had niche down at some point in our business and decided, hey, attorneys and the mortgage brokers, They're paying the most, they're paying the most consistently. Let's put all of our eggs into that basket. That was a poor decision on my part. Because instead of having a wide variety of clients, we had a very small variety of clients. And when the courts closed and the attorney didn't need our marketing services anymore, and when the mortgage started to slow down and they didn't need our marketing and consulting services. We left ourselves with nothing. And so I said hey, if money is the issue for so many of of our clients, then maybe we should start selling money because you gotta keep in mind during the pandemic, a lot of businesses were actually just starting to close left and right. That's what triggered Congress to even do E I D L and the the first. Because they literally were unable to to stay afloat these businesses. And so that was their way of throwing that safety net. And we were in that bunch too. Like we almost did not make it. So to answer your question, it is thanks to the pandemic that we even have a financing firm now. It's thanks to the pandemic that our remote staffing agency is is as strong as it is now. And of course we still have our original company.

Dex: 19:06

Okay. I want to talk to you about your staffing agency, but I have another question about finance. , what is your relationship with local banks in getting and making recommendations, for mutual clientele?

Bob Hunter: 19:20

sure. We are actually for 2023, we're expanding and building one-to-one relationships with about 209 different lenders across the country. So we are getting better at establishing those just so that we can offer our clients even better terms. . In the short term though, we work with third party companies who do the packaging. So to explain what that means a bit better, you have three parties starting out. So you have of course the person who needs the money, and then you've got the person who has the money. And then there's usually someone in the middle who connects those two parties. The issue with just saying, Hey, I need money. Let me go to my local bank. Number one, you're only going to the one. The person that you're talking to at the bank, they might know that you're qualifying or not. And they might have a general overview of if there was something major that caused a disqualification, but they are not underwriters at the bank, you know that banker you're talking to. So they're not seeing all of the fine details on what went into whether or not you were approved or. The bank, all they care about is getting their money back, right? So all of the underwriting questions that they may ask you, it's really just answer the single question of, if we give you money, will you pay it back? Are you gonna be someone who defaults? And so our job is to be that person who's able to match you. With all of these different lenders based on those underwriting questions, if we know that this lender specifically has already said, we only want to deal with people who have a 700 credit score or higher, and you've come to us with a six 80, we know that you're going to be declined. So why would we send you to that particular lender? Maybe now we send you to a different one. And so that is where you have the benefit of dealing with someone that is a commercial loan. because they are able to call upon that, that that book of business, that all those relationships, they're able to call upon all those different qualifications that they're aware of for all these different establishments, and then match you to the one that is going to be most likely to give you the loan that you're looking for. And also, let's not forget, give you the loan that you're looking for as the terms that you're looking. . Just because you get the money, that doesn't mean it's not expensive money. Money can be very expensive if you're not getting it from the right place. So that is that is really how how we operate in what we do.

Dex: 21:42

That is awesome. That is something else right there that it, my mind is just swimming with all the different possibilities for so many new entrepreneurs out there, especially the ones that have come from the great resignation. There were so many people that had side hustles. and they decided to expand those things. There was of course some people that went back to school, some people that even bought the old businesses that they worked at. But one thing that every business seems to run into, especially lately, is labor. There just isn't enough labor to go around. So you have a staffing service. Tell me about your staffing.

Bob Hunter: 22:25

so originally the reason that there's even an Oxford Pier Pont staffing is I needed to be able to have all of my staff. Under one roof for payroll purposes. So if we had people who were working at this brand or this brand it was easier to have everyone on one payroll system for just tax purposes and just payroll purposes in general. And then later, because of the pandemic, it did turn into something that was more for everyone else where we started hiring for other companies. And we even started expanding to where we were hiring for Fortune 500 companies for remote customer service. And then I got into virtual assistants. And again, this was for me first because we needed to have more efficient processes and I discovered, wow. I can hire in the Philippines. I can hire people people who have really great qualifications, but I can hire them at a more affordable price, which means that I can now either increase my profit margins or I can grow those departments. So that is where the staffing agency is today. We primarily do focus on the on the business process outsourcing. Generally our agents start at about 237, yet $237 per week for a 40 hour person. And that's someone who's educated, they speak very well, all that good stuff. And it's an amazing thing just because in the US. The conversation really has to start at about $10 an hour at the minimum. And for that minimum, that minimum pay, you're really getting a minimum skillset. You're thinking about someone who's so I've got a 14 or 15 year old sister. She's someone who should be getting, that minimum pay. She's still in high school. Really no skills. That's where you're coming. , but so many business owners are burdened with labor cost and they are having a hard time just growing their teams. Because if you want someone who's actually qualified, you really should be paying that person between 15 and $20 an hour for where the economy currently is. If you want that person to be able to commit to your business and focus. So that is the gap we fill. We help business owners find staff that they need and we help them do it at an affordable rate without having to sacrifice the quality of someone who's experienced and educated.

Dex: 24:42

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. So I've noticed also there, there's been that trend of remote working and there's been a pushback from a lot of corporations about having remote workers. How has that helped you with convincing people? Remote work may be the best way to go.

Bob Hunter: 25:05

I think I have the pandemic for thanking for that too. And I. Just for context, the pandemic, of course, was terrible and I personally lost people, but with every crisis there is an opportunity for growth. And the remote work transition was another opportunity for growth for a lot of companies because it was this experiment that was forced on everyone. We always thought him. I bet a lot of these jobs can be done outside of the office, but I still would prefer to see that person in the office. Now that we know, hey, zoom works just fine, everyone can get their work done anyway. In fact, some people can get more work done. The whole thing is just more comfortable. And then you've got this great resignation because if I no longer have to show up at this place every day, that means that now my employment opportunities have expanded to everywhere that office remote positions, right? It's not just the positions that are in my city or my town, but the entire country is. It's my oyster, so to speak, of possibility. And so that's where we've benefited. It's acquiesced everyone to the concept and so we are rioting that wave of acquiescence where now yes, everyone is into remote work. Why don't we go ahead for expanding our business as well.

Dex: 26:24

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I've always been a big fan of work from home, remote work. I could take my work with me on vacation, things like that. But I wanted to pivot a little bit. You and I are both based out of Georgia and this is a black business show. We are always trying to push the narrative of how people see our culture. People see our people and how we are viewed. And I feel like especially in a capitalist society, pushing that narrative of we're able to do our own things, we're able to become entrepreneurs and build wealth with being in Georgia. There's tons of black businesses. What have you seen in the growth of black businesses in Georgia that would make Georgia stand out?

Bob Hunter: 27:13

For me personally, Georgia stands out because it's this constant reminder. That there are other people just like you who are succeeding. There are so many black people in Atlanta specifically that are just, extraordinarily wealthy people who have done it by themselves in many cases. Of course no one does it by themselves, but meaning that they didn't have some handout or they didn't have someone holding their hand along the way to get to the point that they are, and yet they got there anyway. And to see that reinforced. I guess that reinforced confirmation that yes, it is possible. If they can do it, I can too. That just really helps drive your own success and your own motivation. If you live somewhere where you are constantly the outlier, it does sometimes become a challenge to stay motivated because you might think that. Maybe the reason that I don't see anyone else like me doing it is because it can't be done. That narrative would never fly in Atlanta because it doesn't take long to look around and see all of these successful black people to know yeah, it can be done.

Dex: 28:16

I'm gonna add to that comment, that excellent comment that you just made. There's so much hustle culture here in Georgia. You can see it on any corner or any parking lot of a. Grocery store. Someone out there with a tow behind barbecue selling ribs. You just see pop-up shops everywhere. There's always somebody doing something. One of my previous interviews, the lady started off doing plates, another one of a mobile DJ and bartender. So I see it a lot here. , what other places do you think would end up becoming, let's say, the next Black Wall Street outside of Georgia?

Bob Hunter: 28:59

I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that. And the reason I say that is I travel a lot outside of the country. Not so much within the country. I have a little boy, he's 11 and the only reason I've stayed put in Georgia in the first place is because of him. And I definitely should travel more. I've traveled maybe for specifically for business meetings, but then I come right back. So I don't know if I have the insight into just significantly diverse or welcoming. Other states truly are.

. Dex: 29:28

Okay. I have a couple personal honorable mentions. Charlotte, North Carolina Memphis, Tennessee, Nashville all of those places have shown up. Houston is also another one that has has really pushed our culture.

Bob Hunter: 29:40

have heard a lot about Houston.

Dex: 29:41

Yeah.

Bob Hunter: 29:42

I forget about Houston.

Dex: 29:43

yeah, I think a lot of people do . It's it's a hard city to pin down, to be quite honest with you. There's a lot of good things about it. There's a lot of things that I shake my head at, but for the most part, Houston is definitely doing its thing, and it's definitely doing its thing. It's crazy how many questions that I.

Bob Hunter: 30:01

get out more

Dex: 30:02

Yeah, definitely. There's a reason to live in all 50 of the states. There's a reason to visit. I'm originally from Denver yeah, you don't see a whole lot of us in Denver, the few of us that are, we show up. We definitely show up. So there's that. You've answered so many of my questions so excellently and I feel like

Bob Hunter: 30:22

Thank.

Dex: 30:22

No, thank you. I feel like a lot of people can get a lot. Just not just information out of you, but a lot of good business sense. A good business relationship. And I'm just gonna have to say that, Oxford Pier Pont is going to end up being the compass for a lot of small and medium businesses, in the direction that they want to go. But I

Bob Hunter: 30:44

I definitely plan to so long term cause everything that I have, it's not random. So my original vision for Oxford is I wanted to be the one stop shop. Because I didn't have that when I was starting out, and there's so much, there's just so much that you have to figure out on your own. And it is it's a stupid way to do things because very rarely are we actually inventing anything, and just about every case. For the average person, there's probably someone who has already done whatever it is you're trying to do. It's just a matter of having an opportunity to learn from that person or connect with that person. And so I do want to eventually be a resource that any business owner can come to and truly get all the answers, or at least get access to the answers, be able to run their business, end to end, whether it's staffing, financing, marketing, any of that stuff. And then be able to to have a higher chance of success instead of being that statistic where within the first five years, you're 90% likely to fail.

Dex: 31:47

Yeah.

Bob Hunter: 31:48

that's the long term.

Dex: 31:50

D do you feel like it's harder for certain industries? I know restaurants are incredibly hard to get started and to keep going, but are there other industries that you feel people have a really hard time with?

Bob Hunter: 32:03

it's absolutely harder. first, let me not disparage anyone who's doing something because they like it. Okay. Cuz I totally get that. In fact, you're more likely to succeed if you actually enjoy what you're what you're starting a business for. So that's the first thing. But there's still dollars and cents that have to be counted. And the simple fact is that if you are in a business that has low overhead with high profit margins, you are more likely to succeed than any business where the reverse is. If you are doing something, for example, that is digital, right? And so now your digital products are able to be sold to, essentially an unlimited base of customers without significantly increasing the overhead. Obviously, that business is going to be way more profitable, much faster than a business where say, a direct service has to be. Customers have to be found one at a time or there has to be a sales process and there's a one-to-one relationship. So I'm not saying don't do the latter style of business, but I am saying be aware of the challenges that you are going to have to face because not every business is profitable outright, and sometimes they're just barely profitable. But you still do it because you like it. You just have to really understand why it is that you're doing what you're doing. And. Don't just do things for the money because even though, like I said with that first example, the digital business, they might make a whole lot of money right away. If it's not something that you know about and you end up putting out terrible products, you're not gonna succeed either. So you need to make sure you just have a balance of those things and find the business that is the balance of profitability and passion.

Dex: 33:44

That is awesome. That is awesome. That is great advice. But I am, I'm gonna have to drag a little bit more out of you. If there's one thing that, from this entire conversation that we've had, if there's one thing that people need to take away from, what would that piece of advice? Me,

Bob Hunter: 34:04

Take care of your personal credit

Dex: 34:07

Okay.

Bob Hunter: 34:07

That's probably the most random advice. And we don't even do personal credit repair. There's a thousand people that will go do personal credit repair for you. It's not something we need to do. And yet, Not having your personal credit taken care of and or just not even understanding the basics of it. That one thing will hold you from so many other things.

Dex: 34:24

yeah.

Bob Hunter: 34:26

I would say, and it's the most misunderstood thing. So I would say I could only give one piece of advice. Take care of your personal credit, get as close to that 700 credit score as you can, and make sure that you maintain that score. Because then if, even if you wanna go to the bank and talk about a business that doesn't even exist, They will give you the money because it's not the easiest thing to have a a 700 credit score. So obviously, you know something, you're doing something right to be able to to have that base of proof. Even for my business credit, if you are looking at our funding options, one of the first ones you'll see is startup financing. You don't even have to have a business for that one. They will give you up to 2 million for the start of financing. For a business that you haven't even started yet, but you've gotta have I believe it's a six 80 score and you have to have just a basic income of at least $50,000 per year. There are other little qualifications in there, but those are the main two. Without that credit score, none of that conversation is happening and there's so many conversations that we cheat ourselves out of just because we have not really taken personal credit as seriously as it.

Dex: 35:39

Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it really does, start at.

Bob Hunter: 35:45

Yep.

Dex: 35:45

is that is amazing. As a wealth of inspir information, I realize other people are going to ask or need to have more questions asked. They're gonna have a lot of issues that you're gonna have the solutions to. How do people get a hold of you?

Bob Hunter: 36:04

Yeah, easiest way is to visit my business credit.com. I specifically made that domain super easy to remember and say . And on there, there's a there's a contact tab and you can book an appointment with me. And that, that calendar actually is connected to my calendar. So I see all of those and you can talk to me directly. You can always call us and my assistant, she will get you in touch with me. You can call Oxford Pier Pont if you, even if you don't know how to spell Oxford Pier Pont google us. Google knows who we are. So before you finish typing the words it'll show up and you can always contact us there, book a consultation. And yeah, I would just highly recommend visiting my business credit.com and just starting from there cuz that serves the lion share of people these days.

Dex: 36:48

That is awesome. Even though Bob has mentioned that I am going to go ahead. All that information in the show notes. It's been amazing and enlightening and I feel like one of the people that I really make this show for is my baby brother Ian, and he's a business guy. He's got his MBA and he's very analytical and I feel like this is one of those interviews to where he's gonna be like, yeah, you did a good job there. So shout out to you, Ian.

Bob Hunter: 37:17

Awesome

Dex: 37:19

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. For everyone out there take all these little things into, take them into your plan. Do not take them for granted. Take this advice. For as far as you can take it, and when you've reached that limit, please reach out to Bob Hunter. He's going to help you. He's going to give you the information that you need. Again, Oxford Pier Pond is going to be the compass for the direction that you want to take your business. I cannot say that enough. Go ahead.

Bob Hunter: 37:52

one, one thing I might wanna also add for people so we are genuinely trying to help people at my business credit. And so I have, there's a resources tab right on the homepage, and under that, tho those are resources that you would normally have to pay for. . And they're just right there. So for example, we talked about building your business credit, accessing vendors. All of the vendors are right there down to what credit bureau they report to and everything. It's all right there. Business credit cards, it's all right there. , those are not affiliate links. Those are links to the actual company's website so that you can apply and we have all the qualifications laid out Hey, this is specifically what is required to qualify for this particular account versus that one. So use those resources. They're completely free, tell other people to use those resources, because for us, we want to see people get. When I was starting out, I did not know anything about all of the stuff and everything was behind the paywall, and it's annoying . So there's this guarded access to information. Just go to our website. The information is right there for free, and I'm actively working on adding more for people. So enjoy it.

Dex: 38:59

Awesome awesome. That. That is it, that is, the spirit of the show is each one reach one, and this guy's gotten behind that paywall gone past the gatekeepers and giving you the information that you need. So please use that resource. The best way to support this show is to support these businesses that I put on the show. The other way to support the show is to share this information with a friend. Share it with someone that needs to hear it. If you got a business, more than likely you got friends that have businesses. So you know, there's information that they need to hear to put them on the next level. So for my amazing guest, Bob Hunter, thank you again. I am Dex this is in the Black. Find us on all of your podcast platforms, apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen again to support the show. Share this with a friend. You can also click on Buy me a Coffee. If you go to intheblack-podcast.com, sign up for the email and get a reminder. And yeah, reach out and send this to a friend. So again, for our guest, Bob Hunter, I am Dex. This is in the Black and we thank you. Have a great day guys.

Bob Hunter: 40:13

Thank.