Meet Latoya Jackson | Business Credit & Funding Expert

We had the good fortune of connecting with Latoya Jackson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Latoya, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
On May 9th, 2019, I attended a “Women’s Empowerment Event.” At the event, a woman in the audience asked this question “What is a D-U-N-S number and how can I use it to get funding for my business?” A CPA was the guest speaker for this event. She said “You don’t need a D-U-N-S number, all you need is a 720 personal credit score. She followed by saying, “you must also be in business 2 years, make at least $250k in gross revenue and have 2 years of business tax returns to get approved for funding from the bank.”

I knew that this was not entirely true because I got $40k in business credit cards and I did not meet all these requirements. I was only in business 2 months, and I didn’t have $250k in gross revenue when I was approved. There are nontraditional lenders out there that offer financing for startups and established entrepreneurs without the strict requirements of the bank.

This “Women’s Empowerment Event” gave me the idea to start my company, Excel Capital Group. Prior to starting my company, I was in real estate. My business partners and I raised over $2 million dollars for various real estate projects such as Fix and Flips, Buy and Holds and Mixed Used Commercial Properties. Out of the $2 million dollars, $300k was business credit. The rest came from traditional financing, hard money loans and term loans. We also raised private capital with investors and offered them a double-digit return on their investment.

Most real estate investors are aware of various funding options to secure more deals. However, many entrepreneurs in other industries may not be aware of various funding options outside of traditional banks. I started “Excel Capital Group” to educate entrepreneurs on how to build business credit with their EIN and help them obtain financing.

To date, I have educated hundreds of people through my master class, webinars and membership while reaping the satisfaction of helping people fund their dreams. This to me is priceless!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio by a single Mother. My Father died when I was 2 years old from cancer, however my father was a college graduate and a Vietnam War veteran. My Mother was born and raised on a farm in Georgia and was the daughter of sharecroppers picking cotton most of her life. She graduated from high school and worked various jobs to support me and my sister. I grew up very poor, but as a child you only know the environment in which you live, so I’m not even sure at what age I realized we were poor. However, I always knew that I wanted more for my life. I was the second person in my family to get a college degree graduating from The Ohio State University in 2004 with a BS in Business Administration. My major was marketing.

When I was in college someone gave me the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” which inspired me to learn more about real estate. I didn’t have any real estate investors or entrepreneurs in my family, so I was never exposed to this information. I knew that one day I would invest in real estate, but I had no idea how I would do this as a broke college student. So, this was a dream deferred. After graduating from college, I worked for two Fortune 500 companies, Philip Morris, and Michelin Tire Company as an outside sales representative. Michelin relocated me to Washington, DC and later to Chicago, where I currently reside.

I have over 15 years of business-to-business sales experience. In addition to my sales job, I also received my real estate license during the time that I lived in Washington DC, working for Long and Foster Realtors. Collaborating with different investors allowed me to gain much knowledge in the field. They would tell me how much they wanted to purchase the property for, how much they wanted to spend on the rehab and how the plan to fund the deal would be developed. At closing, they would profit $50k and I was not excited to leave the table with only a $5k commission which then had to be split with my broker. It was at this time, I realized that I didn’t want to be a real estate agent anymore, instead the title of investor caught my attention. The part of my real estate journey in which I am most proud of is selling $1,400,000 in real estate sales. Soon after, my job offered me a promotion and I was relocated to Chicago.

Once I moved to Chicago, I continued working on my plan to become a full-time real estate investor while working my 9-5 job. I attended workshops, seminars and read books on real estate. I also joined a local group of real estate investors and created a plan to exit my job which included the following:

• Eliminate all my debt-paid off all credit cards and other debts.
•  Purchase a 3 unit as my first property with FHA financing so my tenants could pay rent (eliminate my mortgage payment).
• Purchase a car with cash, so I don’t have a car note.
• Have 1 years’ worth of savings so that if my business was not profitable, I could still pay my bills.
• Maximize my contribution to my 401k.
• Buy two more multifamily properties to replace my income from my job.

I completed everything on my list except the last one. I was so frustrated at my job that I quit earlier than expected which proved to be a pivotal mistake. In 2016, I left my full-time six figure job and started my first business with partners. We raised over $2 million dollars within a 5-year period for various real estate projects such as Fix and Flips, Rentals, Mixed-Use Commercial, Wholesale deals and Airbnb. I learned so much about funding and fundraising in my first business, experiencing a lot of success and a lot of failures.

Fast forward to now, 5 years later, I battled a myriad of minor setbacks. I lost everything. My home was going into foreclosure, my car was repossessed, my credit was ruined and as a result I had to file bankruptcy. In essence, I was at my lowest point in life, and no one knew. I asked myself, how did I get here?

After this ordeal, I never imagined I would entertain the thought of starting another business. In my opinion, my dream of entrepreneurship was over. I had to return to Corporate America after bragging about leaving.

Corporate America was not for me. The old advice to go to school, get good grades and get a good job no longer resonated with me and many others. There are so many opportunities that we have available now that our parents and ancestors could never dream of. You no longer have to stay in a dead-end job working 40+ hours a week for a low salary or go back to school to make more money even though you are in a higher tax bracket. Due to technology and social media, you no longer have to settle for the” rat race”. You can start a business or build passive income. Through it all, I experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, therefore learning many lessons the hard way.

Here are some of the lessons that I learned along the way:

• Don’t quit your day job until your passive income or net income from your business exceeds your 9-5 job.
• Set up your business the correct way so that your business qualifies for grants, loans and lines of credit.
• Hire a Lawyer to set up a business entity the correct way from a tax and legal standpoint. Do not select a sole proprietorship as it offers the least protection from a tax and legal standpoint.
• Hire an Accountant or CPA to do bookkeeping & tax returns. Discuss goals and financial health of the business. The CPA can help you understand the numbers of your business, breakeven analysis, spending plan, cash flow analysis, system analysis, compliance, etc.
• Hire a team: In addition to hiring an attorney and CPA, hire help. Maybe you need an assistant for customer service or social media. Maybe you need a mentor or coach in your field to help you become successful quicker. Learn from their mistakes. Find the top person in the industry that you are in and learn from them and pay their fee. Their expertise and knowledge can help you avoid losing a lot of money and making a lot of mistakes.
• Pay yourself and your employees the correct way so that you can provide proper documentation when applying for loans and lines of credit for your business. There are several ways to do this with quickbooks or payroll companies such as ADP and Paychex. Talk to your CPA for more information.
• Have strong personal credit and business credit. If you have both, you have funding opportunities on each side in order to leverage, grow and scale your business without funding everything out of your own pocket. Only leverage your personal credit if you understand all the pros and cons of leveraging it. If you are ok with the risks then go for it. If not, focus on building business credit.
• Funding-Have a plan when you are receiving any kind of funding whether personal credit cards, business credit cards, loans and lines of credit. So many entrepreneurs get money, and they have no idea what to do with it. After time goes by, that low interest rate will go up and now you have expensive monthly payments and if you didn’t leverage the funding, you now have more debt. The entire point of getting funding is to leverage it to make more. You can leverage funding to grow and scale your business or use it for passive income. Every large corporation in the US uses business credit (Facebook, Apple, Walmart, Microsoft). They leveraged it to get as big as they are today (by using it for inventory, expansion, staff, remodeling, vehicles, advertising, etc.). You can do the same thing with your business.
• Partnerships-Be selective about the partners you chose to be in business with. Start with a trial and see how it goes before you form a business or partnership. Be sure to set up your operating agreement so that everyone knows their roles and responsibilities. Also have provisions in place if you want to dissolve the partnership someday. It’s like a prenup. Set this up first, don’t wait until problems persist to figure out how to dissolve the partnership. Have an attorney draft all legal documents.
• Systems-All successful companies have systems and processes in place. You simply cannot grow and scale a business without it. Put systems and processes in place for your business. If that’s not your area of expertise, then hire someone who can create it for you.
• Marketing-You might have the best product in the world, but if you do not have any leads no one will know. There are several ways to market your business for leads such as social media platforms, youtube, clubhouse, social media ads, tik tok, email list, etc. These are just a few examples. “You can buy leads, build leads or borrow leads” as well.
• Don’t give up-Don’t ever give up on your business. There will be tough times and you will make mistakes, but you must make mistakes in order to learn and grow from them. You cannot learn everything from a book. You must take action. You will be amazed at what you accomplish when you don’t give up.

Being a firm believer that a minor setback paves the way for a major comeback, I am a better person and businesswoman. I definitely would not be where I am today without this experience. One of the frustrations of being a minority businesswoman is supported by an article taken from Forbes. com which discusses the generational statistics of minorities in business who receive substantially less opportunities for funding compared to their white counterparts. This has served as the fuel which ignites my passion to succeed. The comeback is greater than the setback!

What sets me apart from others in my field is my expertise and experience in real estate and financing. I have systems in place to help clients achieve their goals. I am most proud of helping my clients get money to build passive income or to grow and scale their business. One of my students needed funding to start her Airbnb business. She qualified for $60k and used the funding to obtain and furnish 2 Airbnb properties without owning them.

I want the world to know that you can do anything you set your mind to. It doesn’t matter your background, your educational level or upbringing. I never thought my life would be where it is today. A negative mindset is the only obstacle in obtaining whatever it is that you want in life, therefore I have learned to surround myself with people who celebrate my success.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a weeklong trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc. In your view, what are some of the most fun, interesting, exciting people, places or things to check out?

I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and after relocating to Chicago, I now refer to Cleveland as a “small” city. My relocation was due to a promotion on my job. I only visited Chicago twice in college and I absolutely loved it. I never imagined that I would live here many years later. Chicago is now my second home.

Chicago has been named the “Best Big City” nationwide for the past 5 years by the Conde Nast Traveler Report. Chicago has it all-restaurants, museums, festivals, night life, concerts, events and so much more. There is no better place in the summer than “Summertime Chi.” In the summer, the city is filled with rooftop parties and yachts. With the best skyline in the world, there are endless activities. If a friend was visiting from out of town, I would recommend the architectural or bus tour to see the city as a whole.

Next, I would take them to my favorite breakfast spot which is Batter and Berries. It’s a black owned restaurant and it is the home of the world-famous French toast. The Grand Lux Restaurant is another favorite which is located right downtown with an internationally inspired cuisine. Next, it would be shopping with the girls on Michelin Avenue. I would also check out the concerts and festivals that they have all summer long like “The Ravina Festival or Silver Room Block Party.” The Next stop would be “Chicago Chicken and Waffles” for soul food.

You cannot visit Chicago without getting Pizza, so I would take them to Giordano’s for some deep-dish pizza. We would also go to one of Chicago’s many beaches or Navy Pier and check out the fireworks.

We would also check out The Willis Tower (aka the Sears Tower) which is a 108-story, 1,450-foot skyscraper in Chicago. The tower has 108 floors and it’s one of the tallest buildings in the world. There are lots of events and festivals in the summer like “Taste of Chicago, House Music festival or so much more. I would check out the riverwalk area or hang out at the beach near Pier 31 which hosts a variety of festivals and neighborhood events with house music. There is so much to see and do in Chicago. You simply can’t see it all in one trip.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The person that deserves the most credit is my former cosmetology teacher, Denise Mc Queen. She has always been there for me and supported me with all my endeavors. She was there in my darkest moments. Without her there would be no “Excel Capital Group”

Website: www.excelcapitalgroupllc.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/excelcapitalgroup/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/la-toya-jackson-5208aa9/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcelCapitalGr1

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExcelCapitalGroup

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiKFoy_2UQzA5Z9eilATBYA

Image Credits:
The first headshot is from Amber Marie Green of Amber Marie Green Photography
Amber Marie Green Photography