Free guide
The comprehensive business credit and finance guide
- The ten credibility items lenders check before approving any business
- How to set up and monitor your D&B, Experian, and Equifax reports
- The payment milestones that unlock store credit, then cash credit
- The complete build order from a new EIN to Visa and Mastercard credit
A checklist you can work through, not a textbook
The guide is laid out as a five-step checklist. Each step lists what needs to be in place before you apply for the next kind of credit, so you always know what to do next and never apply before your business is ready.
- Credibility. The ten things a lender verifies before approving a business: your exact legal name, the right licenses, an EIN filing that matches your state filing, a real business address, a listed business phone, a website, a professional email, and a clean public record.
- Business credit reports. Getting your free DUNS number, then which reports are worth watching. Dun & Bradstreet comes first and Experian second. Equifax gets fewer starter vendor reports, though banks and card issuers still send it account data.
- Vendor credit. How to find three to five vendors that report to the business bureaus, apply on your EIN, and pay in a way that pushes your scores up instead of just keeping them steady.
- Store credit. When your profile is ready for revolving store accounts with major retailers, and what to ask each store about an SSN or a personal guarantee before you apply.
- Cash credit. What cash credit issuers look for, from reported payment history to revenue and bank balances, and an honest look at which cards truly skip the personal guarantee.
The milestones that tell you when to move up
Business credit is built in tiers, and a big part of which tier you qualify for is how many payment experiences your file shows. A payment experience is one account reported to one business credit bureau, so a single account that reports to two bureaus counts twice.
The guide shows the benchmarks to watch for. No bureau publishes a fixed cutoff, but a common rule of thumb is about five reported payment experiences before store credit, and about ten, plus at least one account with a limit of $10,000 or more, before cash credit. Knowing these thresholds is what keeps you from collecting denials by applying too early.
One upsell you can skip
When you sign up for Dun & Bradstreet monitoring, you may get a call offering their paid credit builder program. The guide explains why you do not need it: it adds references to your report, but it does not get you approved for credit you can actually use.
Who this guide is for
It fits owners who have an EIN and want a clear order of operations, and owners who have been turned down and are not sure which step they missed. If you have not started at all, read the 4-Step Guide first for the big picture. If you want to see credit lines and cards beyond business credit, including SBA and alternative lenders, the 12 Credit Lines and Cards guide covers those.
Prefer to have someone look at your profile with you? The free consultation covers where your business stands today and which step comes next. All four free guides are on the e-books page.