Feel empowered today to use your business credit cards! Credit cards can be your best friend, or your worst enemy — it’s all in how you manage them! The truth is there are lots of ways to use business credit cards to benefit your company AND yourself if you use them correctly. Listen to this episode, and I’ll show you how.
ALERT! It’s not too late to perfect your time management and seize every minute of the day.
Join my Re-Wire Your Time Bootcamp! CLICK HERE
Are you ready to start making real money with your new business?! CLICK HERE
Want to level up your business? Get on the waitlist! CLICK HERE
Catch up with Coach Jess and Sincerely, Future You on:
Website: https://www.sincerelyfutureyou.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessmckinleyuyeno/
*This Transcript is Autogenerated*
Jessica McKinley Uyeno 0:00
When you hear the word business credit card, how do you feel? Whenever this topic comes up with clients, I usually see a variety of emotions coming up ranging from Yolo. To neutral to empowered to anxious to guilty to overwhelmed, to responsible, irresponsible, credit cards are just a neutral tool, similar to a shovel. Let's use this analogy when you use it properly. You can use it to build to beautify or even to speed up your goals. But when you don't use it at all, you're simply going to work harder and slower. And if you use it improperly, you can accidentally barrier s Welcome to sincerely future you a podcast that helps ambitious women like you make decisions today with the future you in mind.
Welcome back to sincerely future you I'm your host, Jess McCovey. Now heads up fellow badass entrepreneurs, I am under the weather I'm sure you can hear it. But guess what this show must go on. So let's get to it. This episode, we're tackling something that can and will probably eventually cause business owners some sort of anxiety with spending. Did you figure it out yet? Yep, business credit cards. Let me provide you with some of my insight and knowledge so that you can go from being overwhelmed with business credit cards to inspired this is why I'm here my friends to coach you through the stuff you need to know so that you can bypass harder times so that you can thrive in your business. Did you sign up for coaching yet? Next week, we're actually going to be in a rewire your time boot camp. And that's for all of you no matter what level you're at. But if you are ready to get in a room where you're ready to take these episodes and apply it and start seeing the results as soon as next week, you need to listen to the end to get those links. But until then it is shout out time. You guys know I love to shout out a client of the week and this week's client is Ashley from beauty marks NYC. Ashley and beauty marks creative is a full service production company. And they're dedicated to finding feeling and creating beauty one creative project at a time. I've hired her and her company for lots of things from being a makeup artist and helping me feel really beautiful. On the day of my events. She actually did my makeup for my wedding as well. But she also is the producer of the live event for the masterful CEO school, which has turned into such a wild thing you guys the January live event is going to be so amazing. I can't wait to tell you guys all about that. But it's not about the magical CEOs go this is about Ashley because really, when she came into this round of CEO school, she was telling us that she had just kind of worked last round about really getting into her relationship with money kind of healing her relationship with money as a lot of entrepreneurs. We don't always just go straight into entrepreneurship, right? Like you have to come from somewhere. And a lot of us came from an industry where we were making a lot of money and Ashley was and then when she went into her business, it was this relationship or she was making a lot of money, then she was making a little bit of money. And as you also know, if you're listening to the show, you're probably an entrepreneur you've experienced as you're growing where you get influxes where you get lots of hits of money, and how you deal with that. And your relationship to this yellow, we've made it it's amazing things are really thriving to what you make it mean, when you are having periods of time were either, you know, her business in the pandemic had really slow down because most of her business offers required her physically going in doing in person events. And she couldn't do that for a period of time. She couldn't touch people's faces, right as a makeup artist in that branch of her business. And so she had to really heal her relationship with her with money as a business owner, and it just took a little bit longer than she wanted. And I think that's some of the hardest work to do. It's when we're doing work on our brain on our mindset as a business on entrepreneur and we just kind of want to speed it up. And when we're not in it for as long as it takes when we're trying to rush past it. You will now never get there. But Ashley really did the work of sitting in it, letting it take as long as it needed for her to take as many lessons needed to come up for her to heal that relationship with money. And now, she basically declared to the world, okay, it feels healed. And now it's time for me to go in and get back out there and make room for more clients, she had intentionally slowed down taking on new clients. And now it's like, there's a boom, and she is now shifting to managing her time again and her schedule because as we know, if it's not one thing, it's either our money or hard time. And once she got that mindset part in in place, she has now gotten to a place where she was able to turn that faucet on, that's what it should feel like an entrepreneurship where you're like, Okay, it's time I'm ready, I feel ready to receive, I can just turn that money faucet on, and I'll be able to dial it in with my schedule to accommodate it. So way to go, Ashley, I needed to have that long winded shout out for you. Because you deserve it, you've done all of the three things that we always say here on the show, which is to make sure you are mastering your time, your money and your mind. Can't wait to hear more. And now for the hype set, we're gonna get you guys hype. If you can't hear already, you guys, I am under the weather. But as CEOs were also human beings. And I think it's a really good reminder that we don't have to be inhuman, to do incredible things and create incredible results in our business. And in our life. My brain right now it's a little bit foggy, my body is slower than it typically moves. My schedule has had to be reworked every single day this week. And today, I decided not to schedule at all. But you know what, I am still calm. It's like that calm in the storm. And my clients kind of describe that as the as the benefit that comes from coaching that they never came for. But it's their favorite thing that they received, which is that they don't stop having circumstances come up in their life. They don't stop having clients that have presented with an obstacle or an unexpected money hurdle, or a new level that makes them feel terrified. But there's a calm within the negative emotion, there's a calm within the undesired circumstances, that allows you to remember that whatever you're going through right now, it's frickin temporary, and that we don't have to adjust our goals. Every time we have a human moment. In fact, we have to accommodate for our humaneness in our big grand vision. Because probably for most of us, when we picture our future selves, she's doesn't have a head goals, right? Or at least for me, I know it for most of us, right? We're picturing our future version of ourselves kind of at the pinnacle at the highest moment. But you know what she's a human being to and on her route to being masterful with her time to having lots of money and knowing what to do with it to having a business that is making an impact out there in the world. She really had to go through some head colds, she had to get sick a couple of times, she had to stumble, she had to rearrange her schedule, she had to snooze her alarm, whatever, on your route, it's going to look imperfect, and you're going to have to move all the pieces around. So if you're going through a season, where you have to move some pieces around where you are, you know not able to keep up with the plan physically and you have to shift to tending to yourself, whether like we were talking about in the shout out this week, whether it was Ashley and you just have to spend more time on your mindset than you really feel like it or you have to spend more time in the vitamins aisle at Whole Foods, like whatever it is for you this season, partner with reality. And when you argue with the reality of the circumstances that you're in, whether it's a business circumstance or a personal circumstance, you lose and you don't have to lose here because the reality that you're in is good enough to get you to your amazing future to that future self. Alright, so I hope you're feeling hype because we're gonna get into a kind of kind of left field nitty gritty super detailed episode when it comes to money and that is on business credit cards. We haven't had a money episode like this in a while. But these are questions that I've been getting a lot behind the scenes. And I just thought it was a topic that needs to be addressed. Because whether you're at a beginner phase of your business and an intermediate phase, or in advanced phase of business credit card is something that you probably need to be playing with, you probably need to be engaging in. So I wanted to give you everything I've got on it so that you can start to reduce the amount of overwhelm if the word business credit card just kind of triggers you to start off with. Okay, so let's talk. Let's start right there. When you hear the word business credit card, how do you feel whenever this topic comes up with clients, I usually see a variety of emotions coming up ranging from Yolo. To neutral to empowered to anxious to guilty to overwhelmed, to responsible to irresponsible. Wherever you fall on the spectrum. The goal of this episode is just to help you get closer to neutral or empowered when it comes to business credit cards. Credit cards are just a neutral tool, similar to a shovel. Let's use this analogy when you use it properly. You can use it to build to beautify or even to speed up your goals. But when you don't use it at all, you're simply going to work harder and slower. And if you use it improperly, you can accidentally barrier s. And if you don't have a business or a personal credit card, yet, this episode is still going to be valuable for you. Because to be honest, you're missing out. But first let's talk about the type of credit card user you want to be. And whether you have a credit card or you don't whether you have a business credit card, or you don't this applies. So we're going to talk about four different types of credit card users. Number one is called a revolver. A revolver is somebody who regularly carries a credit card balance and rolls it over from month to month. So moving your credit card balance from one month to the next is what's known as revolving credit use. And these people aren't just using their credit cards to pay for things, but also to borrow money for an extended period of time. Now, as I mentioned, I have neutral thoughts about borrowing money, there are times when leveraging debt is your best option. But if you're ever going to use a credit card, like a revolver, this should be a temporary solution. And here are my two tips to making sure it is temporary. Number one, create a plan and a timeline super important for eliminating the debt. Don't just say I'll put it on a card without coupling it with a plan. Now if you've done this already, and you do have debt and you've accumulated debt, and you've continued to revolve it month to month, this is not an episode to shame you or to pile it on. It just means Okay, it's time to get serious and couplet with a plan. If you don't yet have a plan, and you have no idea where to start, DM me, I'll let you know whether I feel like you're a good fit for either of my programs, or I can put you in the direction of a program or a plan or even account or a person that you must follow to be able to feel like you can begin to get started with a plan. And number two is to do the math. So if you haven't ever done this, but maybe you're thinking, okay, maybe I do want to leverage debt as a tool. And I don't know, if I put it on the credit card I don't like that's why I would use the credit card. In this case, I don't have the money necessarily to pay it off in the next 30 days.
We just want to do the math, that is only scary when you don't know how you're going to get out of it. I've had clients come to me with over 100k in debt, and we neutrally created a path to them getting back into the green. Now some of you when I say 100k in debt, you're like oh my god, no. And listen, no one ideally wants to be in 100k worth of debt. I don't recommend that you do that as your plan necessarily. But sometimes it's where you're starting at because of either lack of knowledge up until this point, or and you'd be surprised. I mean, the stats and the numbers. If this is you, if you have 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of debt, you're not alone. The credit card companies make it very easy for that to happen very quickly. And so we just want to create a plan for you. And so number one is creating a plan with a timeline to eliminate the debt saying like specifically what needs to happen in order to eliminate the debt. And then number two, doing the math knowing it exactly what it is that needs to happen each month, especially next month in order for you to begin to make a dent, and to make sure that you are not accumulating more interest, or spending more on cards than you are paying down. Okay, the number two type of credit card user is a transactor. A transactor is somebody who uses their credit card throughout the month, but then pays off the balance in full by the end of the statement cycles. They're not actually using the card to borrow money, but as a means of leveraging credit and earning points rather than interest. So this shouldn't be everyone's eventual goal. But the best way to guarantee that you don't overspend or overstressed and that you can be a transactor is to part partner your credit card with a budget. So longtime listeners of the show know that I'm a super fan of the budgeting app YNAB, you need a budget, it's an acronym, yn A B, and I actually train my clients on it within the masterful CEO school. This strategy, you need a budget strategy allows you to assign every dollar a role, it'll even do the math of your credit card debt goals for you, if you start out with some. So again, a transactor is the goal. And eventually, this is how you can start to benefit from credit cards in the long term, not just in the short term where you're, you're getting access to something that you don't have the means of getting access to this is really how you can establish your credit and begin to actually earn money back like and for me, I know that looks like me, never putting flights for my business expenses, like I just pay for them all in points. And before I actually used to travel a lot more before I began to use credit cards because I was so scared and overwhelmed by the idea of credit that I just like put my blinders on because I was so scared of overspending and having debt. And because of that. And because I didn't just understand how to become a transactor. I missed out on so many free flights, it ended up costing me money not to use credit cards. So a transactor is the goal. Now the third and fourth one type of credit card user we're not going to go into because they're pretty self explanatory. But the third one is a dormant. So dormant account holder is someone who just has a credit card that they seldom if ever use, and they keep the account open, but they haven't used it a long time. So you know if that's you, and then a gamer, a gamer is someone who has mastered the credit card industry. This is not me. This is not where I like to spend my time but it is kind of cool. A gamer uses multiple loyalty reward cards for the sole purpose of earning rewards. These gamers earn trips, cruises, merchandise, cash and more through numerous points, miles and Cashback Offers, they will use different cards at different times, and they spend a lot of time researching what card makes the most sense to use at that time. I just don't think that that is where I want to spend my time and energy. So I prefer to put all of it on AutoPay. And I am now a transactor. But I do think that there and we'll talk about this in a second. That there is a time and a moment, especially for an entrepreneur to be in a season of being a revolver. It's not the worst thing in the world as long as you have healthy thoughts about it and you're being thoughtful about it. Like I said, I'm creating this episode because it's a hot topic, I get asked about it at all levels of business coaching, should I get a business credit card? When which one? What can I put on the card? I'm scared of debt? My money is commingled. I'm not a credit card expert or credit expert by any means and telling you which card to use is not the purpose of this episode. It's simply to answer some really important questions when it comes to thoughtful business spending. Well, that the beginner and the advanced level. For me when I say masterful money, what I mean is that you are thoughtful and your thoughts, your feelings and your actions all match when it comes to earning spending, saving, investing, having and giving money. Those are the six areas of money engagement, that I teach my clients right, and this episode, we're talking about thoughtful business spending. And so for spending as a business owner, we really can't overlook the value of a credit card. I also just wanted to publicly share some of the questions I've answered within the splash pad In the masterful CEO school around credit cards so that you guys can benefit. So here's number one, when should I get a business credit card? This is the most common beginner question I get. And the short answer is now, it doesn't matter how much money you make or spend, if you don't have a credit card, you're just missing out on a lot of potential rewards and earnings. But something I really wish I knew when I first started, is that if you are an LLC, or a sole proprietor, meaning that your business is attached to you as an individual, you don't need to have a business credit card or a business checking or savings account with an annual fee or minimum balances or anything like that, you can simply use any credit card as your dedicated business credit card. So if you haven't yet, just start simple, look at a few options and choose one card and get started. For me like I, I was like, Okay, I'm starting a business, I want a business credit card with my business name on it. And I just walked into Chase, and I was like, I want a business credit card. And so the options that they had required me to open a business checking in a business saving, and have a certain balance in each. And at the, at that time, I was trying to transfer money. And I I wasn't really quite ready for all of that. So I would recommend starting simple even if you only have one checking account and one savings account, you can get two different cards, a business credit card and, and a personal credit card. And that will help you to keep all of the transactions separate, and it will make your tax time so much easier, right? If you already have a credit card that you use for both business and personal, this isn't a problem per se just means your taxes are paying probably and that your account and and you have a very close relationship or a complicated one. If you have a business with regular expenses, especially a product based business, or a brick and mortar, I definitely recommend having two separate cards, one for business and one for personal. The most important thing here again, is that you put the payments on auto pay. So that or make sure that you have a budget for both your business and your personal account, so that you are not getting to the end of the month, looking at your credit card balance or your checking balance and saying I have a lot or a little and that's how you're making your money decisions. This is one of the huge reasons why again, I recommend you need a budget, which helps you to only assign money that you have, right instead of just spending based on your checking account balance, and then getting to the point where like, oh, the credit card balance is actually higher than my checking account balance, right, that money wasn't actually there to be spent. So number two, what bills
should I put on my business card versus my personal, this has some gray area. But generally, I recommend just putting the things that are true business expenses, like your website hosting fee or business products, supplies on your business card, and your personal is on your personal card. I know that seems obvious. But of course there are bills that overlap like maybe your phone bill, for example, you can put that on the card that yields you the most benefit, as in my personal card actually has like 1.5 points per for rewards instead of one point on my business credit card, it just has a slightly better benefit. So with really big one time payments, I will put them on my personal card, and then I'll pay myself that bonus for my business. And I'll just note it in my accounting. So I there will be situations where that might make sense for you to do. And the reason you could do that is because there's some good news just because something goes on to your personal or business card doesn't mean that it's locked in as a personal or a business expense. So for example, like I said, if at tax time your business writes off your phone bill, it doesn't matter which card it went on just as long as the accounting is accurate, and you're not writing off anything that you shouldn't. Number three. What about big business expenses? Can I put a big business expense that I can't afford on a credit card? So at the start of this episode, I set it pretty simply credit cards are a tool. They are designed to help us bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to go. Because the fact is, we don't always have Have the capital or experience to prove that we're good for it. And nowadays, you can get access to credit pretty easily, which is a pro and a con. But if we're using it properly, this is a good thing. For that reason, I think credit cards are an amazing thing. They can be a part of your startup capital, they can get you access to materials, a storefront education coaching before the money is rolling in. And when you're a business owner, in the beginning, there are a lot of expenses that you will be required to make in order to get your business off the ground and really running really, in the first couple of years. Even credit cards are not, however designed to help you live boozier than your means, while you're doing all of this. And so you want to check in with yourself and your habits. Are you committed to getting results? And is that one of the things that is determining whether you're ready to put this on your business credit card or not? Or are you after a shiny new thing, and just pushing a problem down the road? Like I said in the beginning, if you want your revolver status as a credit card user to be temporary, you need to partner it with a plan a deadline, do the math and have a budget as well, so that you understand what needs to happen in order to get you back to that transactor status, where you're actually getting points and earning the benefits of being a credit card user. I did an episode specifically on big investments called Are You a smart or a reckless investor, it was episode 83, if you want to go back and listen to that, and I go more into detail, but essentially, it's just about being thoughtful. I haven't personally put a big investment on a credit card without a plan to pay it off immediately. People ask me this all the time, I haven't done it. But I have coached many successful business owners who have in a way that I think was smart and thoughtful. And that I would have done in their situation, I set a deadline for myself to apply for the Life Coach School certification back in 2020. And at the time, it was 18k that I did not have when I set the deadline to apply. It's an internal deadline, right, I just said I'm definitely going to be in for this round. That's what I recommend you do if you want to get into the Masteral CEO school, otherwise, it will be very difficult for you to prioritize budgeting for a big ticket item. And when I started the 3k payments payment plan, I actually only had 7k saved so I was willing to put that on a credit card if it came down to it. But I just ended up not having to my commitment to the deadline allowed me to go all in to get strategics to do all the things that I said in the beginning that you want to do to look deeper at my numbers to do the math, and I ended up just making more than what I needed each month. If time mastery is something that's always eluded you, if you're someone who was like, Oh, I really wish I could be less scatterbrained or be more productive within my week. Or maybe you're someone who really just struggles to be in one place at a time when you're working. You wished you could be working. But you're always thinking about your your family or your social life. And when you're with your kids, you're thinking about your business and you're feeling guilty about that. I am going to solve all of your problems in five days, October 23 to October 27, we are going to be doing a time mastery bootcamp where you're going to come an all together in five days, we're going to expose all of your thoughts about time that are causing you to make decisions slowly to undermine yourself to continue to multitask, to not go after the bigger things to only tackle things that have outside accountability, and not the things that really really matter to you to move your mission and your dream life forward. And we're going to get tactical, I'm going to be sharing with you the things that I teach only inside the masterful CEO school, we're going to do a condensed simple version, where you can take this process, you can take this experience and change the way you approach time forever. I cannot wait to do this together. This is going to be 199 you join it's a one time deal. Come and really shake things up. See where even if you just take one of the tools, I promise you, you're going to see impact within a week of these tools. All right, I will see you there. So the long answer short is is take a minute to think about future you is the way that you're doing things helping you become her. How did she get to the next level of her business? Did she have to take a risk and put it on a card? Did you have to set a deadline for this big investment that you want to make? Did she have to believe deeper in her vision? And is one of those ways that she showed that she believed in herself putting her money where her mouth is? Did she have to start getting more organized? Did she have to start doing the math? Did she have to stop second guessing herself? Did she have to seek an expert or partner with them or hire an expert? For me when it comes to my goals? I'm always looking to future me that's what this whole show is about. Future you. She's always getting more uncomfortable. She is deeper in belief. She is more in tune with her numbers her goals her industry, and I for one would do whatever it takes for her. I hope you enjoy this money episode. Future you is masterful with her friggin time her money in her mindset. And here on the show. I'm here to just give you an actionable way to get there one angle at a time. If you found this particular episode valuable, share it with an amigo right now or connect with me over on Instagram. My handle is just at just McKinley Uyeno that's je s s MCKINLEYUYENO. can't wait to see you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Comments