We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Latoya Jackson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Latoya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
In February of 2020, Chicago was the host city for the NBA All Star Weekend. I attended the Boss Network #LaunchSummit: All-Star Weekend Edition to support a friend that was presenting that day. At the event I networked with other business professionals, and met AC Green, radio host for 106.3FM and 1390AM. He asked me about my entrepreneurial endeavors, and I told him that I teach business owners how to get business credit and funding. He was extremely excited and informed me that he was looking for someone with my knowledge to appear on his show. We exchanged business cards, and he told me to call the office on Monday. This was the moment I realized that my knowledge of business credit and funding had become an integral part of my day-to-day conversation. I attended this event to support a friend, yet I left feeling valued and purposeful in my passion to expose open minded individuals to a world of financial empowerment. This further proved to me that you always need to keep your elevator pitch ready because you never know what opportunities lie ahead!
The truth is I almost backed away from this chance of a lifetime because I felt that I wasn’t ready; however, this man, an absolute stranger that I had just met, told me to move forward. He had more confidence in me than people I had known for most of my life. After speaking on The AC Green show several times, I got invited to speak on the Perri Small Show. From there I did podcast interviews, spoke in groups and other virtual events. This is how I launched Excel Capital Group LLC.
We often hear that you just need to take a leap of faith, that first step, but what about the second, third or fourth steps. It never stops. I was nervous to launch a new business and transition from real estate investing, but I’m glad I did. I had this new business idea one year prior to launching, but I was afraid to launch because things didn’t work out as I had hoped in prior business ventures.
When I think back to what I deemed as failures prior to Excel Capital Group, are now recognized merely as minor setbacks or roadblocks. What if I didn’t have those reference points? Why do we as humans internalize our failures as mistakes or we allow them to devalue us or even in my case I questioned my capabilities as an entrepreneur. Society is not concerned with a person’s struggles as they climb the ladder to success, they don’t think about how many “no’s” before the first yes. We hear the story after we see the success and that is only of those who never gave up!
Before the influx of social media, how were we educated in finance, credit, retirement plans? Did we know what a high credit score meant, the meaning of a 401K, a Roth IRA, an EIN, business credit, a 1099? The list goes on and on. Most of us surely would have swapped that lesson for practicing linear equations and finding the square root of a number.
I was at a Women’s Empowerment Event in 2019 and one of the guest speakers was a CPA. A woman in the audience asked, “What is a D-U-N-S number and how can I use it to get funding for my business? “The CPA answered and 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. Many people graciously received the info, but for me it was an Ah-Ha moment and the spark which led to Excel Capital Group LLC.
This was going to be my way of offering a different approach and being able to connect my prior experience from 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 LLC” to educate minority entrepreneurs on how to build business credit with their EIN and help them obtain financing. I have two courses to show entrepreneurs how to build business credit with their EIN. And we also offer financing options to those with great business credit. They can get up to $250k in 2 weeks or less.
Shortly after I launched my business the pandemic hit and access to capital was more crucial than ever. 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!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I enjoy sharing my story because this journey wasn’t typical for someone like me. 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 and a major in 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.
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 became a member of a local real estate investors’ group and formulated a strategy to transition from my job, ensuring I had one year’s worth of savings to cover my expenses in case my business didn’t yield profits. 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.
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, but through it all, I experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, therefore learning many lessons the hard way.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
During the onset of the pandemic, the in- person radio show guest appearances came to an abrupt halt causing me to pivot my business strategies. I began offering Facebook Live presentations with fun and energetic Q & A segments every Friday. I also built a presence for Excel Capital Group LLC Live on Clubhouse every Tuesday, which had advantages of being a brand new platform. From there I purchased ads on Facebook and Instagram to generate traffic for free webinars on business credit and funding. I also spoke on various podcasts and created my own YouTube channel. I have spoken 46 times since the launch of my business.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
My advice to someone who is starting out on social media is to build the “ like, know and trust” with your audience. You can either build traffic, meaning you should start by providing value to your audience. There are several ways that you can do this such as going Live on Instrgram, Facebook, Youtube and Tik Tok. You can host webinars and create reels for Tik Tok and Instagram. You need to build a brand where people see you as the expert or thought leader in your area of expertise. You can borrow traffic such as speaking in other people’s groups. There are people on social media with large followings and you can speak in their group to borrow their audience. You can sell your products or services to this group. And lastly, you can buy traffic simply by investing in an email list of your target audience. You can also pay influencers to advertise to their audience.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.excelcapitalgroupllc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/excelcapitalgroup/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ExcelCapitalGroup/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/la-toya-jackson-5208aa9/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ExcelCapitalGr1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiKFoy_2UQzA5Z9eilATBYA?view_as=subscriber
Image Credits
Amber Marie Green