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Financial literacy, generational wealth, credit - money in all types of ways. Bruce Milam Jr. talks all things finance for the Las Vegas valley.
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This is a k, u and v studios original program.
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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
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Hey, welcome to find naturalism. And I'm your host, Bruce Mailand, Jr, where we talk about financial literacy, generational wealth, investing and entrepreneurship. We cover everything from credit, business credit, oh, just money in all types of ways. You definitely want to tune into this. Let's go. Oh, here we are back. Five matches. Listen. Hey, what's up, guys, this is Bruce smile. I'm your one and only host. Hey, listen, I want to thank you guys, all my wealth builders out there. Entrepreneurs, my investors, welcome to the show. Listen, we got another good show today. Today, I'm going to be talking about entrepreneurship, and also some business credit. All right. So you know, sometimes, you know, I'm, I'm all over the place, but I bring it all together. And it's all gonna make sense. Hey, it makes sense. It can also add up to dollars. So let's get it. So check it out. Guys. I want to give you guys a little introduction again about my journey and entrepreneurship. So I'm not gonna go too far back. But you know what we'll listen. Listen, I get started in my entrepreneurship journey. You know, my father gave me he printed out a whole bunch of video games. When I was a kid he was used, he printed a whole bunch of them out. And I got some video games. And I had a whole bunch of them. I just don't know how accumulated so many. I started trading them and everything. And I had a nice amount of them. So once I had all these video games, I came up with idea to start getting them out to my friends for like, you know, $1 $2 a day. And they gave me an entrepreneurship book. So I started from there, I'm gonna take it all the way back. They're not bringing it back. So now I got this entrepreneurship bug him doing good. And until I ran out my whole game system to an older guy, and then I didn't see my games again, and I had to that was a whole nother conversation. So don't run out your hole. Don't run out your whole business. Don't sell. Don't sell the cow. Okay? Just sell the milk. Okay. All right. So now I'm gonna bring it back. I moved up. I was from Joliet, Illinois, I moved to Long Beach, California, when I was about 13 years old. And once I got to Long Beach, California, I was always interested in acting, doing music. And, you know, I have my, you know, nice time as a doing reality doing acting. And the music book was really heavy. I moved there in a time when like, like when Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre and all these guys were really blown up pretty big. They're in Long Beach, California. And so you know, I had a record deal when I was about 16. After about three years of moving to Long Beach, I end up getting a record deal. And BB nine records, they produce music for Coolio. They dub sea ice cube, they did stuff where he even got me on a song with ZZ Top, you know, it's called bang bang my shingling it was the remix the default mix. But we was on that music. And about two years after we had the record deal the music was selling out there. It was, you know, it didn't really it didn't really good, you know, it wasn't like big on the charts. It was an independent label. So they got us out into record pools and, and so they had some, some issues with the label and we're kind of ran out of some funds. They were really young guys though, shout out to my guys burnout. And it was some young guys but 2627 They had to deal with RCA a production deal. And so when when the record deal was finished, I ended up buying my own CDs from the label. And so I ended up buying my CDs our group was called the real my brother who was doing music with me he had passed away His name is Dr. Bet smoother when he recipes to my my good brother. And we still you know, I'll still put out music to this day under the brand and make sure that is the name still lives on. But I start buying CDs and tapes. I had to tape out guys, you know, I'm kind of dating myself now how to tape in the CD out. And I started buying CDs from my label and boxes of them. And so I started selling them you know, I ended up now I'm like 19 years old, you know 19 Then about 20 and I'm selling the CD for about two years consistently in front of AMC records all through Long Beach and put them in VIP records. I even have people to call VIP and ask for the music shot to VIP records alone Beach, Kelvin over to Anderson. I even had people to call the record store and ask for my CD so by time I went there, he was like man, you know are you the Rayleigh finally you here man and people been heckled about your CD and so I used that marketing technique to get my product and and somebody's record stores you know, but um, you know, I sold the CD wholesale but retail I was doing wonderful. Until I sold about two years straight in I was paying rent. I was doing enough to pay bills and you know making a couple $100 a day just selling it you know that entrepreneur spirit is getting out there and grinding the pavement. And it was a well produced CD. I had to add that, you know, they didn't waste any money. You know, Bernie Grundman mastering Paramount Studios, echo sound studios and skip sailor. All that out there in Hollywood, you know, we had the best recording. So we done it, it was done well, you know, and the cover was nice, everything was packaged perfectly. So I was able to sell that for about two years, until one day, I was outside AMC theater. I was selling my CD, and a guy next to me was selling incense and oils. And I had my CD, I was selling them for seven to $10 and his incense were some of only like $1 $2 in the US things like that. I was making more money this guy, you know, but he had a good product, you know, when I was selling my CD and two people the same day said, Hey, man, your CD is this is you've been selling this for a couple I got this two years ago, you don't have any new music out. And I was like, Nah, not yet. You know, so kind of hurt my feelings, man, because I had two people in the same day told me that my music was old, and that I needed some new music to put out and unfortunately, I didn't have the money that the BB nine records put into my CD to produce another album. So I left that day with my head down and I'm paying bills with this I had my first apartment, man, you know, had a girlfriend at the time and we was living together. And, you know, just just a bad day, man, you know, kind of my, you know, my my good music hustle is going down and I I talked to the guy who was selling incense. I said, Hey, man, you know, what do you what do you get those incidents? What do you do with those and he's, uh, ya know, a guy, you know, I know a guy who, you know, who makes my introduce you to him. So I said, Okay, you know, and so he gave me the number he actually gave me his connection. A lot of people don't do this. And so he gave me the connection to this guy who sold incense and oils. And I took $500 of my student loan money because I was going to Long Beach city at the time and Long Beach and I took $500 of my student loan money invested and to a fragrance business, and also had some, you know, money from my, my CDs, little bit of money left. So I got a little money I had and I invested my first $500 Okay, this was 1998. And guys, I'm gonna let you know, I'm still selling incense and oils today. I'll let you guys do the math. Figure out how long that is. I sell them wholesale to stores. But let me tell you the story. So just to give you some little quick breakdown of how long $500 can stretch when you invested. Alright, so I took my $500 I went to the guy, guy, Tony Long Beach, he showed me how to make all these products. I bought an instance I bought body oils, I bought burning oils, I bought all this stuff, took it to my house manufactured all of my kitchen table. I had all this stuff. All this fragrance. So smelling Oh, wonderful. And now I got all this stuff that I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna sell it. I don't want to sell it for $1 each. And so one of my guys in my apartment building bought one for about $2 is okay, that's, I guess that's the start. I guess I'm in business now. Right now I'm converting. And I went to a liquor store and he was selling incense. I said, Hey, I got some incense. He said, Well, you bring me some bring me 100 packs. And I said, Okay, and so he told me how much you get them, he get them for for his vendor. And I told him, I can give it to him about, you know, about five cents cheaper than that. And, you know, give them a deal on it, you know, so he bought 100 packs from me and I was now in business. After I did that transaction a day later, I went to another store across the street soda for five cents more. And then I went to arco that same week, by the end of the by the end of the week. But two weeks later, I was selling incense to all the stores on my street to all the stores, I was now a wholesale, I was in a wholesale business. And over the over the years, I accumulated over 100 stores. And that's what actually brought me to Vegas two years after that, I start selling instance in Vegas, and some of the stores here now you can get them all around the West Side different locations, I do sell my products all over. And so that got me into the wholesale fragrance business actually. So that's the journey of entrepreneurship for me just to give you a little background, oh, let me back it up.
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Also opened up a store opened up a store right there in South and Atlantic, called the smell good company play a play this little store I had there. And I had that store for about a year and a half. But it was tough doing retail and wholesale. And that overhead was quite was quite massive, compared to me having low overhead and wholesale business. So that's a little bit of my background and entrepreneurship. Guys just want to just bring you there just so you know, before we start, you know talking about this journey. I want to inspire everybody out there about entrepreneurship. And you might have a hobby, you might have things that you do. My wife actually does products on Poshmark. Right, you can if you've got clothes in your closet, right? You can sell these products, right right on posh. There's so many different things you can do now. So I want to insert hire everybody out there to whatever your hobby is, if it's music, you do music, turn it into a business, you can go get you an LLC, you can go open up a business bank account, right? You can go on now you have, you can start your own record company like that. And there's distribution sites, you know, where they can end up going on, they can go on Spotify, they can go on Pandora, they can go on all these sites, once you put them up, as you know, you can put them on the sites, and, you know, distro, kid and CD Baby, there's a lot of different brands out there where you can go to and upload your CD, and you know, you choose what's best for you, right, but you go in there, and you upload your CD, and then they can go on to all these accounts, but you can business structures, what I want to talk about, just make sure do everything right in the beginning. Okay, set up your LLC, your even if it's a sole proprietorship, you know, you can do that also and take that down to the bank, get you a business bank account, and then you can start building business credit. Now you have a business, it's not just a hobby, right? And at the end of the year, you can write off your things like Hey, I had to buy clothes for my music video, I went to my guys and we went out to eat and talk about this music. I went to the studio and I ate food while I was recording, I had to buy headphones, I had to buy the MPC 60 I had to come do my podcast and buy microphones whatever you have to do. Those are write offs now, if you do it properly, business structure business foundation, all right. So I had to grow to these levels. Of course when you first start, you just make it money. Now when I first started business, nobody told me about all this in the beginning, you know I got with SBA Small Business Association, I took those six weeks training I did little things like that score, you name and little, little things that I did in school I learned about organizations and foundations be a part of that go out there and learn it tell you how to set up your you know, you know how to get your, your business, your business resume done as far as your business plan done different things like that, that you need to be able to go to the bank and even get some funding. So it's very important to set up the foundation. So my day to day is inspiring you guys about entrepreneurship and how it's important and it can be a tax write off for you guys. And this is financial lism don't forget we are listening to Bruce smile. I'm your host, the more you know, the more you grow. So let's dig into it. Now, let's talk about business building business credit. All right, understanding business credit. Now building business credit is not just about securing finance, this is about establishing financial credibility for your business. It begins with separating your personal and business financing, and by obtaining a Federal Employer Identification Number EIN and open up a dedicated business account. Now business credit is crucial for obtaining loans securing favorable terms with suppliers and even attracting investors. It reflects your business financial responsibility and can open doors to growth opportunities. Now by managing credit responsibly, responsibly, you only build trust with creditors you not only build trust with creditor creditors, but also position your business for future financial stability. Now steps to build a business credit to build it. To build strong business credit. Start by applying for a business credit card or line of credit. Use these accounts consistently for business expenses and make sure to always pay on time okay. Additionally, establishing trade credit with suppliers who report to business credit bureaus can further bolster your credit profile. Now, consistently paying bills on time maintaining low credit utilization, and regularly monitoring your credit report for accuracy are key steps to building and maintaining strong business credit. It's a gradual process that requires diligence and financial discipline. Now these proactive measures lay a solid foundation for positive credit history which lenders consider when evaluating your business credit worthiness. Okay. Now, benefits of a strong business the benefits of strong business credit. Strong business credit offers numerous advantages beyond access to financing. It enables you to negotiate better terms with your suppliers, secure higher credit limits and potentially lower your cost of borrowing. Okay, now business with strong businesses with strong credit profiles are more likely to qualify for larger loans at lower interest rates. The financial leverage can be pivotal for expanding operations, purchasing inventory or even hiring additional staff. So ultimately, building and maintaining business credit is an investment in the future growth and stability of your company. Now some of the best places to apply apply for business credit when seeking business credit is essential to explore various options tailored to small businesses. Consider reputable lenders such as banks, credit unions, and online financial institutions that specialize in business financing. Okay, now many financial institutions offer business credit cards, lines of credit and term loans designed to meet the unique needs of small businesses. Compare terms, fees, and rewards programs to find the best fit for your business financial goals. Now, by researching and understanding your options, thorley, you can make informed decisions that align with your business financial strategy, okay? Now listen, building business credit requires patience, diligence, proactive financial management, but by following these steps, understanding the benefits, and selecting the right financial partners, you can position your business for long term resilience, and an ever changing market. All right, now, that concludes that part right there of the business credit. So I just wanted to drop that on you guys, when it's really important. Build relationships with your banks and credit unions. All right, that's the key. All right, you say how can I do this, you know, this is this, those are things you can do. Now, let me tell you, one of my best business partners I have is actually my job. I do business loans for living right now. That's my nine to five. And I'm also going to right now almost finishing up with my real estate license. So I practice in California before it now be an agent here in Vegas pretty soon here. But my nine to five I do business loans, okay. And when I get my when I get paid, you know, like I teach and then preach is that I have all my investments on automatic, automatic, as soon as I get paid my money goes directly to accounts for my savings, my my investment to stocks crypto, and into an account where I'm putting money to my business. So I listed my fragrance, I've listened to find naturalism, which is my new brand, financial lism.com, where I'm gonna get my new shirts come in my hats, my merchandise, my you know, my different products for financial lism, though, you know, into the even, even the even the radio show, everything is an investment, I have to put money to the side for that. So my job is, is a way that you can invest into your business. So don't think you are I hear this a lot, you know, hey, jump off the ledge and go for entrepreneurship. Listen, what does it cost for you to live every year, right? Your if your company cannot pay you that don't take that step all the way just shit, okay, at least at least build up to that part. I'm not saying don't become a full entrepreneur. Remember, I was an entrepreneur for 20 years without working in California. At that rent, you already know California is expensive. So I did it. But it was a struggle, I didn't have a lot of time for those vacations that I do. Now I have a lot of that time it was just hustle, hustle, hustle, work, work work. And that work life balance was a lot of thrown off because I had to grind. So muscle entrepreneurship, of course is not for everybody. But remember, you will have to work hard. So you can position yourself to where you got a job already. And you can start taking some of that money that you are making now and invest into your business. That's key and then let that business start to bring in some revenue. Build that get that LLC going your business bank account going and start investing to everything even delegate even hire somebody, you know somebody you know, affordable and assistant, things like that while you're working while you have that guaranteed paycheck coming in, invest into that business on the side, let that money start coming in, develop some funds, let that fun, start rolling, be able to get that business credit going, get that business loan going. And then you can step off that ledge 100% When you got you something solid. Now there's some people out there who's single, who can just hate hustle all day, but if you you know you you're a grown person with a family, okay, you got to have some consistent thing so I understand so I'm letting you guys know, giving you guys to faith that you can work and be an entrepreneur at the same time. Trust me, I'm doing it right now as we speak I'm still running that same business that I've told you about in 1998 to smell good company. I have nor home and body that's the new brand, nor home and body the fragrance this essential oils, oils, I sell wholesale to the store, but the website is coming guys, nor home and body and even though financial lism.com You're going to be able to be able to access some products also, right? So it's important, you know, to use your job as your business partner. And if you want to do it, there's a lot of people out there who may be you know, you're single you and you have some extra money to say hey, you're not ready to go full blown. Hey, do it. If you can do it, hey, do it. Just make sure that you do it right and understand that the money that you make is not your money. So I used to live out of the cash register, which means that all the money they used to come in I used to spend it on everything that I had all my overhead so if I had to go have some fun You know, close, whatever I did, it came out of the entrepreneurship money came with the business money. So I never really separated things. So don't commingle. Get your business account, put that business money in there. And when you have expenses, use your business account. So many times that I'm working with my company, now, I'm working with my when I do business loans that I do my nine to five, when I do my business loans people call in, and they have a really good business, like I told you guys before. And this is happens every day just yesterday, right? So happens all the time. People call in and say, Hey, I need business funding. I say, Okay, perfect. What I'm going to need is your last three months of business bank statements, he was like, oh, man, I'm an LLC, but I use my personal account for my business finance. And I'm saying, oh, unfortunately, whenever you have, unfortunately, when dealing with credit, and business loans is a problem, even in a letter when you when you see, unfortunately, this is a problem. We all you, you've seen it before, you not know everybody's wasn't born with a silver spoon. So you know, I know some people have seen that, unfortunately. Right? But you got to try it, you got to know what you you know, you got to know what you're working with, you know, but I have to say, unfortunately, since you and Loc, we need you to have a business account, in order to get funds. Now, we just need three months of business bank statements. And if you got that business bank statements, and if your personal credit is good, and then you also have some business credit, oh, yeah, we're gonna fight to get you the best interest rate, the most funds available. So and that's the key guys, you're you're talking to a person who's not only an entrepreneur, but I work in business funding. So I'm able to tell you that if you get that business bank account, and you put as much money in there as possible, when you go to funding, that is that's going to be important. And people hear these things on YouTube, oh, yeah, go get your business credit. And don't worry about your personal credit, you can get business credit without your EIN, and all that stuff. Okay, all that's fine and dandy, but let me tell you something, get your personal credit together, okay, keep that utilization rate under 10%, they say under 30, do under 10% You got your due date, in your statement date, we got a whole credit segment, we're gonna talk about an another episode coming on just straight credit all day. But you know, get that utilization under 10%. And when that statement, they come in and report to the credit bureaus, make sure as much money on there as possible, and pay those bills on time, build that credit really good. And so when you start to go get business credit, sometimes you have to be a PG a personal guarantor, on your business credit, okay, so you know, in the beginning, you're gonna have to, you know, extend in there, you know, sometimes you can get trade lines and just use your EIN, but a lot of times, you don't have to, you know, they're gonna look at your personal side. And if you do this properly, you can have your personal credit, very good. Go get that business credit going. When you have strong personal profile, get the business credit going, right, and then you can use that business credit to wipe away all that personal debt. And that's the key. Remember, this is fine naturalism, the more you know, the more you grow, okay? And that's what I want you guys to do, I want you to, to get that foundation by getting your LLC even if it's a sole proprietorship, LLC. And when you get this LLC, it's another couple steps real quick, we're gonna talk about this more also, LLC. virtual address. Don't use your home address when you get your LLC. Don't use your home address, don't use a peel box, use a brick and mortar or virtual address you can go to find naturalism.com and I can give you more information about that y'all got my email, Bruce, at financial ism.com or find naturalism, financial Isaac m@gmail.com, you can reach out to me if you you know, if you need to, also I can guide you, that's my job to make sure that you get the right guidance, LLC corporation, you know, you can do a dual doing business as you know if you need to do that. But if you get the LLC get the virtual address, get a business phone number that you can register. And that's your business phone number. Don't get a Pio box, get the virtual address. You got your LLC you got your EIN go get that business bank account. And now you set up to make some money. Also go get you a website and get your business email like I got Bruce at financial ism.com Get one like that because what you do is you get your domain name like financial lism.com and then you can email Bruce F on naturalism.com like that right and you got your virtual address I got when I deal with alliances, those are my buddies over there, I got the referral referral code and all that good stuff. So you know, you can get the get that the business phone number and then your setup because what happens is, when creditors look at you, they want to make sure that you're a legit business and that you're doing business for real. Even if you're a beginner, they know that you're structured properly, so be structured Like the big boys, set yourself up for your blessings, open yourself up and be ready for that, you know, don't don't just just come in, don't go to the bank not ready, you know, you want to get a few times and make that first impression, you only get one chance to make the version pression. Right. So not a few, you get one chance to make the first impression. And that's it. But, you know, you always can get another try and come back. But you know, you want to make that first impression, your best impression. So set yourself up, guys. All right, you make your job, your business partner. All right. And I want you guys to you know, just know that I got your back here, Bruce at financial lism.com. You know, you know, reach out to me, I'm here for, you know, I want to let you know, my purpose is to make sure that everybody have more information about financial literacy. And that's all I want to do. I want to bring this information to the community, you know, and today was about entrepreneurship and building business credit. And I want you guys build that whatever business you have, you can do it. All right, stay focus. Remember, when you make your first dollar, you are actually in business, okay? Don't look at social media and judge yourself by them. Stay in your own lane, but judge yourself by what you do. And remember, the more you know, the more you grow. And this is for naturalism. I'm your host, Bruce myelin. And it was an absolute pleasure to speak with you guys today. Have a blessed one holla at you soon. Hey, thank you for listening to find naturalism. I'm your host, Bruce Milan Jr. It has been an absolute pleasure taking you to the next level. And I want you always to remember, the more you know, the more you grow. You can always reach me on all platforms, find naturalism. All right, that's what the I ZM at the end, don't forget website, financial ism.com and all platforms. And if you want to reach out to me directly on my socials you can go to be my love Jr. That's mi la m, Jr. on Facebook and Instagram, and also downtown Bruce out there telling you all the hotspots about where to go to in Las Vegas and all that. Love you guys. Thank you so much for your support. And once again, this is financial ism
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