We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tass Banks a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tass, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One deeply underappreciated facet of being a service provider is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?

I am a spiritual being. I do my best to not dwell on anything negative. When I am faced with anything meant to destroy me, I deal with it MY WAY and I take the good from it. You’ve heard of the saying, “you have to take the good with the bad.” One word, LIVELIHOOD! It’s so important to me. Having my life in order is my passion. I wholeheartedly understand that if your personal life isn’t in order, your business can’t be (in its entirety). My goal as a business owner is to never have to leverage anything personal. I went from thriving, surviving to struggling. I built my firm with passion. To not be able to cover basic office expenses, maintain/renew licenses and certifications, etc. all because my personal life was crumbling, had to be the hardest thing to accept. Let me inform you, trusting the process is not for the weak. You have to still be able to understand it and determine a solution that supports growth! What this situation did for me was make me an Humble Beast. It woke up the Hustler in me. Instead of having a pity party, I self-evaluated and took action. Time! It can be the enemy of progression or serve its purpose and reveal. You definitely have to decipher how you’re willing to use yours if you’re expecting POSITIVE results.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

The Banks Firm, LLC was established this year (2022). I found myself always helping entrepreneurs organize their business. I helped individuals start businesses. I literally created blueprints for others to run a successful business FREE OF CHARGE. I decided that I would make it my profession as I really enjoyed providing these type of services. In addition to my business solutions, I also provide financial solutions such as tax preparation, bookkeeping, payroll management and business funding. I am a certified notary public. I will soon be a licensed real estate and insurance agent. What sets me apart from others is my work ethic. I verbally can’t speak on it because my delivery speaks for me. I have more than enough clients who can agree to that statement. One thing about facts is that they can be proven.

“I Am Your Solution!”

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I am an advocate for business funding. I cannot stress it enough. Funding a business with personal assets is quite the challenge. Bet on yourself? Yes. Have a plan though. In an instant, life can happen. What I mean by that is, if you don’t have any funding capital from lenders whether it’s grants or loans, you can possibly be left to “figure things out.” The goal is to live comfortably while running your business because your business itself can challenging. Work/Life balance. For me, I’ve always used every single dime of my personal assets to fund my businesses. The reason I don’t borrow as my business is because I am working to get my personal livelihood in order. Debt is a real thing. Avoid it at all cost. Have sources and use them.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

“Taking someone else’s blueprint and applying it to your business.” Yea, I had to unlearn that. I respect the master classes, ebooks and speaking engagements about “your story.” True story, it took me a lot of failed attempts to understand that what worked for “you” did not work for me. You can’t take someone’s methods step by step and expect their results. Analyze their methods and understand why it worked from them. Then determine what works for you. The light dinged for me when my business started to fail. I took a blueprint from someone in a totally different lane than me. Very successful business savvy individual. It just felt right. It was easy for that person to “mentor” me or give me “free game” because they’ve already made the mistakes to be able to share what not to do. The knowledge that was shared did not work for me because their tactics didn’t align with my services. What was I thinking? Maybe I wasn’t. Lesson learned.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thebanksfirm3.com
• Instagram: www.Instagram.com/nbanks.business/
• Facebook: Tass Banks | The Banks Firm, LLC

Image Credits
@thephotofirm (main picture) @raekadephotography (family picture) @kreativemindzgfx (logos)