Digital Social Hour - How I Built a $500K Credit Empire in 14 Months | Jack McColl DSH #1239

Episode Date: March 15, 2025

Unlock the secrets to building a $500K credit empire in just 14 months! 🏆 In this jam-packed episode of Digital Social Hour, Sean Kelly sits down with credit expert Jack McColl to uncover his game-changing strategies for leveraging 0% business credit cards, optimizing personal credit, and scaling your finances to new heights. 💳✨  From insider tips on building relationships with top banks like Chase and American Express to hacks for maximizing credit card rewards, this episode is packed with valuable insights you don’t want to miss! Discover how Jack went from struggling entrepreneur to credit powerhouse, helping thousands secure $100K-$200K in business funding—no tax returns required. 🚀  Whether you’re looking to fund your next big idea, invest in real estate, or simply take control of your financial future, this is the ultimate guide to making it happen. Learn about business credit benefits, the importance of personal credit profiles, and Jack’s proven mentorship program, Credit Stacking. 🎯 Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and join the conversation for more eye-opening stories, expert advice, and inspiration on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🙌 Don’t miss out—your journey to financial freedom starts here. 🔥 CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Business Credit Strategies 01:18 - Jack's Entrepreneurial Journey 04:58 - Sponsorship Message 06:00 - Money-Making Strategies 07:17 - Securing Additional Funding 08:58 - Age and Credit Impact 11:44 - Credit Space Changes 12:20 - Understanding Credit Points 15:52 - Application Process Tips 18:08 - High Credit Card Limits 20:00 - Lessons Learned in Business 26:50 - Connect with Jack APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] GUEST: Jack McColl https://www.instagram.com/jackmccoll/ https://linktr.ee/jackmccoll SPONSORS: SPECIALIZED RECRUITING GROUP:  https://www.srgpros.com/ LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ #chasesapphirepreferred #chasefreedom #americanexpress #businesscreditcardsfornewbusiness #businesscreditcards

What you want to do is apply for too many personal credit cards too quickly. So no more than two opening two personal cards in a six month period. Oh, wow. That's pretty low. If you do that, you will see denials. Damn. For sure. And that's why another good tip is people should really be intentional about the credit applications they're putting in, not only business credit applications, but the personal credit applications.

All right, guys, we got Jack here today. Someone I've been trying to get on for a while, man, been killing the credit game brought brought a stack of cards for you guys to see. So he's not capping. Wait, what's in that book? This is my main stack. This is my small stack, my priority cards. And then I just haven't got another book. Holy crap. And then I have another probably 30 on the table right there. Dude that's insane. I need to get a bigger book. Dude so you got over like 200 cards at this point. Probably getting close. And they are mainly business ones right?

Yep primarily business cards. I think that's the better way to spend between business and personal right? For sure big time. Business credit has major major benefits. So it doesn't impact and personal, right? For sure. Big time. Business credit has major, major benefits. So it doesn't impact your personal credit score. Exactly. There's really two main benefits that I see. One, the accounts of the business cards don't report your personal credit. And then two, you can get approved for way more, way quicker. Yeah.

Credit's been a game changer. I actually started this podcast thanks to a 0% credit. Nice. Because that gave me 8, 12 to 18 months to kind of figure stuff out. Yeah. And yeah, I was able to pay the cards off within a year and got 100k you know, perfect. I think for for anyone not making a million dollars, or more. This is the easiest way to borrow money by far the easiest way to borrow money. The only thing you need is have a strong

personal credit profile. You can literally have a brand new business entity. If you build relationships with the right banks, very easy to do optimize your personal profile. It is quite easy for a brand new entrepreneur to get approved for 100 to 200 K. Wow, even still to this day, for sure. So it hasn't slowed down, has not slowed down for sure. Because I did mind about a year ago. I didn't know if it still worked. Yeah, honestly, like we're getting better results than ever before. Wow. And I think that's kind of a combination of probably just having the amount of data that I have. So I have the largest coaching group in in the business funding space,

about 3000 people, then I've a done for you funding program called scale with funding, where we have a done for you approach of getting people approved for this type of credit. And so we just have so much data on exactly what what works really, really well. And we just find really specific correlations and, you know, continue to help people get 100 or 200k. I love it. So if someone has no income, does that matter? So with these business credit applications, it's just stated income, stated income and projected business revenue. Got it. So none of the income is verified.

Sometimes if you project income that's too high, you'll trigger a financial review and then they'll ask for tax returns or ask for you to connect your bank account. But if you stay below certain thresholds, it's not verified income. That's a good trick to know, right? To know those numbers.

And that's part of the correlation of just having all this data is each bank differs with that certain threshold. So Chase, you can project a lot higher without getting this request. American Express, they're a little bit more strict. And so we have projections at American Express that are a lot lower than other banks. And we've just really dialed in what are the best projections per bank. And those are the ones you want to use on the applications.

That makes sense why Amex would be strict because they get the most chargebacks. Amex does get a lot of chargebacks. And that's why even the rate is increased when you use Amex, right? For sure. It is more expensive for a business owner who accepts credit card payments to take Amex because the fee is higher. Yeah, and it's like a big percent jump. I think it's like 1% more. It is expensive. Pretty crazy.

But Amex and also Chase, I think it's like 1% more. It is expensive. Pretty crazy. But Amex and also Chase, I think is the two best banks to build relationships with because they have the best business credit products. So the best 0% cards, these cards come with big signup bonuses. The 0% is for 12 months. And then another huge reason why I really love Amex

and Chase is because when you get a new 0% card, you can transfer that limit to another 0% card in the future. So let me just give you an example. And I've done this at those two banks and also Bank of America will allow this not all banks. So if you get a $50,000, 0% interest business credit card, you spend on it, you invest that money, you pay it down, then you apply for another 0% card at the end of that 0%. Say, for example, you only get another $20,000 approved.

Well, you can move that previous 50,000 limit over to that new 20,000 limit card. Wow. So now you have 70,000 at 0% for 12 months, and you can do that a third year and a fourth year. Holy crap. It is crazy So I will say you can't have the first card maxed out and then get a second one You you want to bring that balance down got it and then any of the available credit you can then move to that new car Hmm, dude, that's such a good hack cuz something all right. Shout out to today sponsor specialized recruiting group

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Times you can't make the money back in a year so you might need an additional year to pay off the money right in a year so you might need an additional year to pay off the money right that certainly helps and so like if if someone has a maxed out card and they need more funding you can always go to different banks to get a different limit and then balance transfer to a different bank wow the first strategy i just mentioned really is beneficial where if you can pay that balance down then you can get a new card at that same bank and then move the available limit to that second card. But when you need a balance transfer, that's when you wanna take advantage of different banks.

So say you had a $50,000 card maxed out at Chase. Well, if you go to Bank of America or American Express, they usually can't see what Chase has lent you because it's a business credit card. Oh wow. And so you can still get good limits from those banks. That's good to know. Is there a fee for the balance transfer? 3 to 5 percent. Okay so you got to factor that in but that's not too bad actually. Yeah small fee but then it allows you to have zero interest for 12 to another year. Sometimes 18. Yeah that's

that's huge man because building business ain't easy. You're not likely to be profitable in a year. You know? Yeah. So a lot of times where people will strategically plan out two years, so they get 50 to 100k on a few cards, and then they keep a couple banks open. And so they can still get those cards in one year to then balance transfer over to those other cards. That's smart. So technically, could you just keep making LLCs and do this?

You can do that. Ideally, it's best to do it with two entities. If you have more, if you have four entities, I would recommend to pick the two strongest LLCs strongest in terms of age and the entity type, nature of business, I should say. So the lower risk, that nature of businesses, the easier it is to get more funding. That makes sense. And do you know which businesses are lower risk that nature of businesses, the easier it is to get more funding. That makes sense. And do you know which businesses are lower risk? Anything, businesses with lower risk or anything with lower overhead. Got it. So generally ecommerce, drop shipping,

consulting type businesses, anything that doesn't have a ton of overhead, like restaurants, construction, those are higher risk businesses. So anything with less overhead. But one thing that's actually really important is when you go into the bank to open up your business, bank account, they're going to ask you what is your nature of business so they can give you this NAICS code. This classifies your the risk of your business. And so I always recommend business owners when they go open the bank account to do a little research on this NAICS code and think about what you can kind of

tailor it to be to kind of lean into a lower risk category, not to be misleading. But you know, you don't want to lean on the higher risk side. And usually there's a few codes you can choose. Whereas someone has a brick and mortar gym, and part of their business is online fitness coaching. Well, that's kind of a consulting, you know, it's an online service. So I would lean towards the low risk fitness training online instead of the brick and mortar

gym. That's one way to just like lean on the favorable side. Yeah, that's super smart. So you said age matters. So what about buying aged LLCs? Buying age corporations can help because when you have an entity that's over two years it is easier to get funding but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing is having a strong thick optimized profile on the personal side. And so the ages when it comes to

credit there's many different levers you can pull. There's business credit scores, there's the NAICS code, there's the relationships with the bank, there's the age of the entity, and then there's the personal credit profile. The personal credit profile is the most important thing. If that is strong, you can get high limits on a brand new business that's two weeks old. One benefit of a two-year-old business or more is you can then start to get business lines of credit. So business lines of credit work almost like a bank account, where you can just transfer money from the business line of credit into your checking account. And then you're paying interest when you're borrowing the money. But it's so easy to just transfer money back and forth. The interest rate usually comes at between 10 and 15 percent

in 2025, but it can be very beneficial depending on the opportunity. Yeah, if you got the right investment or the right play, you know. I've seen people use credit cards and buy houses. Nice. Isn't that nuts? It's awesome. They literally do 0% credit cards, buy a house, put it on Airbnb for a year. They make enough to pay off the interest and more. Yeah. It's super mind blowing. A lot of people I've helped have done exactly that. Yeah, because to make a 100k like would take the ordinary person a full year. You could just get it in funding and like probably a month if you have to build your profile out right. Yeah. And I think when it comes to like borrowing the money and putting into a specific investment

like real estate, you just need to make sure there's a clear line where you'll make the money back and pay off the card. Right. And think about what kind of timeline is that? One thing I did at the very end of 2024 is I bought Bitcoin mining machines at the end of 2024 on two 0% cards that totaled 40,000. So I bought the Bitcoin miners on those two cards and I got a great tax deduction It came out to like 85% deduction of that purchase price just how it works on Bitcoin miners and I won't make enough money in the year

Well, hopefully Bitcoin 5x, but even if it does I wouldn't even sell the Bitcoin to pay off the cards I'm just budgeting some of my income to pay off the cards in the meantime, but I still was so confident in Bitcoin going up over time that it made sense for me to take that risk to use the 40 grand on 0% to buy those miners, get the tax deduction, and then I'll just pay the cards off with other income and just not sell the Bitcoin. That's interesting. Is there any upcoming changes to the credit space? Anything that Trump's proposing?

Well, he's proposing to put a cap at credit card interest, which I think is ultra favorable. It makes it a lower risk credit product in general. So we'll see if that goes through. That's pretty much the biggest and most significant one that I've seen, but that would be a good thing. In general, I think the banks are gonna lend a lot more. I think a lot of people are quite bullish on the economy. And usually when that happens, the banks are lending more because they wanna fuel that expansion.

Absolutely, so that'll be good for you. Hopefully. And there's a whole other side of this business, which is the points. So not only are you like getting funding, but you're spending that money and getting a crap ton of points, right? You probably have millions of points, I'd imagine. Yeah, I do.

So not I've gone on vacations, flights, hotels, just points. Nice. Yeah, that's one of the benefits people don't really know. For sure. There's just so many benefits of these 0% cards are really credit in general. Like not only do you get the money to put in your business to make more money, but then you're getting all these points by having the top cards. So you'll get 100 150. I just got a signup bonus for 250,000 AMEX points on my AMEX business

platinum. It was a targeted offer, but I literally just got approved for it a couple days ago. Wow. And if you cashed that out, if you just cashed it out, which is the worst way to do it, it's worth just under $2,000. But there's certain strategies in the points game where you can transfer the points from the bank to the airline to find much better deals so you can get a 10 times better valuation on those points than if you use them in the bank portal. Yeah, you just got to keep your eye out for those transfer bonuses, right? Transfer bonuses is another strategy to tack on top. So when you transfer the points out, you get a bonus. Here's an example. I transferred points from American Express to Hilton. I think I transferred 185,000 Amex points and because there was a I think was a 260 percent transfer bonus it turned into about

480,000 Hilton points Wow, so I transferred 180,000 it turned into like 480,000 that was the math and then I booked a five-night stay in Bora Bora at the Conrad with those now 480,000 Hilton points and I got that for free instead of spending $10,000 cash. Damn, that's nuts. And you could do that once a year probably. You can do that a lot more than depending how many points you have. Yeah, I guess you got to spend to get it.

But that's so cool, dude. Yeah, I did that in Mexico and Ken Kuhn. It feels wild that that's even the thing. It is crazy. It feels like an absolute cheat code. Like the two things again, it's being able to borrow this much money as a newer business owner with no tax returns. It is it is an absolute cheat code.

Like for someone that's trying to get out of the what they feel like they're stuck in, get out of the matrix, get out of nine to five. You know, it's it's not easy to make money. But it's a lot easier to make money when you have access to money facts, it becomes I believe easier to make money if you have the access and the easiest access to money that I have found is through these zero percent interest cards. And I was I struggled in business for so many years, having the biggest constraint of capital,

because I didn't know about this for seven years as an entrepreneur. I self-funded two businesses, the third one I brought on an equity partner, had to buy them out as a nightmare. And then I learned about this amazing credit product and got approved for just over a half a million dollars in credit in a 14-month period. I dumped a lot of it into e-commerce stores and they absolutely ripped. I'm like, wow, this had such a life-changing effect on me and if I didn't know this, being an entrepreneur for seven years, there has to be so many other people that don't know about this and I became so good at getting these high limits, I knew I had to help people. So I put together my

mentorship program, credit stacking, which is about 3000 people and then put together my done for you funding service scale with funding. And we help a lot of people get this type of capital. Yeah, it's important people watching this to have someone like you because there's a certain application sequence, right? So if you if you're watching this, they could get 50 to 100 K, it probably is impossible. you could get 50 to 100 K, it probably is impossible. There's a lot of small things you have to do in a very specific order. And the first thing you need to do is make sure your profile is in a position that's attractive to the underwriters. And there's just so many different things

that they're looking at. Things like the amount of accounts you have, the balance of your utilization, the amount of inquiries you have in the last six months, the amount of limits if you add all of them up. And so if someone, for example, doesn't have more than 15,000 in collective limits, then you would want to apply for a high limit personal credit card. And so I have a very specific list of these high limit personal cards that I've seen to give great limits. So Chase Freedom Unlimited, Chase Sapphire Preferred, the built card, and I'll put city strata on there as well. So increasing your personal limits really helps with business funding limits. Yeah. Such as one of the things

they look out for. And what one thing you do not want to do is apply for too many personal credit cards too quickly. So no more than two opening two personal cards in a six month period. Oh wow, that's pretty low. If you do that, you will see denials. Damn. For sure. And that's why another good tip is people should really be intentional

about the credit applications they're putting in. Not only business credit applications, but the personal credit applications because more than two, it will start to create denials. So you want to make sure that you're applying for a personal card at a good bank that you want to build a relationship at and at on a card that you think is going to give a good high limit like those four that I just listed. And there's two main ways to build a relationship with banks. That's through bank accounts and through credit cards. And so why would someone want to get a personal credit card at a bank that doesn't have 0%

business credit cards, if that's your goal, if your goal is 0% business cards, then you want to do everything you can to build a relationship with that bank. Right. And one of the ways you do that is through their personal cards. Got it. So it's like a like a ladder almost you got to take certain steps, right? For sure. Yeah. What's the highest limit you've seen on a credit card? I've personally got 100,000 on one card. I help a lot of clients that work with me to get 150,000 over two cards at Chase, which is the best you can do before they ask for tax returns. Got it.

150 is where they cap it. And generally they do 75 K per card. And so if you do that twice, it's 150 K. We do that frequently. That's nuts, dude. It is nuts. Black card, there's no limit, right? There's spending power.

So with the charge cards on American Express, there's, there's no limit, but there's spending power. So with the charge cards on American Express, there's there's no limit, but there's spending power. So kind of Depending on your payment history, they can increase that spending power but the black the black card It's a hard card to get you have to spend several million millions of dollars on a yearly basis and That spending power starts off very high. Yeah, I don't have it, but two of my friends do. I haven't been invited yet. Yeah, same. I'm patiently waiting. Yeah, I need to spend more.

I heard they give some favorable terms to influencers, though. I bet. Sometimes you don't have to spend the millions. So if you're watching this, I'm ready. It's like 10K. I'm waiting for my invite. It's like 10K a year. I don't know if it's worth it.

Yeah, I don't know. It's more of like a flex, I feel like. It's more of a flex. There's many benefits that come with the card like concert tickets and you get a private number you can call when you go to lax they bring you on a car on the tarmac up to the plane. Oh, that's pretty badass. You don't got to deal with the the lines. I like the lounges at the uh how they have their private section at the amex lounge. Yeah, I feel like that's cool. I've actually never seen someone in that section really so they must be super hard to get those black cards They're really hard. I had a friend spending a ridiculous amount of money for

Several years and he's like dude They still haven't given me the invitations and then finally he did and he was super happy I was like a badass card. You just got your pilot license. Are you gonna buy a jet on a credit card? I will hopefully buy a jet on a credit card I did just buy a plane Cessna 206 it's a six seater but hopefully I'll be able to buy a jet on a nice card some good ride outs with that right big time are they bringing back the 100% this year um I I think they are one really cool thing about aviation uh the asset class on the bonus depreciation, it's been one year behind. So like in 2024, it was 60% bonus depreciation you could take on real estate. It was 80%

on the aviation asset class. And so now aviation 60% or real estate, it's 40%. Got it. So I still got the 80% benefit in 2024. But I do think it's coming back to 100%. You know, Trump's a real estate investor. Yeah, he's a huge proponent of it. So that's why I got the G wagon to nice, you know, over 6000 pounds. Yeah, I got the GLE 63. Yes, sir. Years ago, back when it was 100%. Let's go. Yeah, I've seen people use this credit method, get cards and then rent them out to there's all sorts of stuff you could do There's a there's a so many ways you can make money Yeah

Once you have it like you said that's the tough part because me making my first hundred K took two three years of grinding Same same. I made that in revenue Rather quickly, but to keep a hundred K and then to like have that to roll into something else. It took me several years Because I was self-funding my first couple of businesses and it was very difficult. And when you're strapped for cash, like I had 5,000 bucks to my name when I started my first business and it was just a very slow turn. It was profitable, but it just takes so much longer. And you know, life's pretty short and I like taking a little bit of risk. And usually when you do the rewards better. And so that's what I see with this type of credit

product. Absolutely. Yeah, when you're young, I feel like that's the best time to take some risks. And the more you fail, the stronger you get. Yeah, like when I fail, it's not easy sometimes, of course, but I learned to be grateful for those hardships and falling on your face because you just know you're stronger after that. What were your biggest failures or lessons along the way? One I briefly mentioned is on one of my businesses, I brought on equity partners. I literally gave away 51% of the company and we were selling these inflatable loungers that got super viral. We were one of the first to we were selling these inflatable loungers that got super viral and

we were we were one of the first to market in the United States. It came out in Europe. We were first to market in the United States. We're selling tens of thousands, but we wanted to go really big. We wanted to go really big and we knew we needed a ton of capital to do that. And these specific two people had a bunch of money. They had all these different relationships, and they were really going to ramp a lot of things up for us allegedly, and

gave him 51% of the company. And ultimately, what we were trying to get done didn't get done and the car contracts were weak. And so we had to buy them out. So that was the biggest mistake, just not, you know, properly, uh, bringing on the right partners, not having good enough contracts. I was my younger twenties. Uh, but what I did know at that time was I needed money to really take this to the next level.

And so that was the risk that I made. Let's bring these people on. They have the money. Um, but it, uh, didn't work out. Yeah. That 51% thing that's bring these people on. They have the money. But it didn't work out. Yeah, that 51% thing that's always on Shark Tank. Yeah, that 1% is what controls the company. Totally. That's the decision maker. Yeah, that's one of the bigger mistakes I've made. Another mistake I made was a business venture right before that I was selling hover boards and also super viral we were like pretty first to market and we we were selling the product we didn't have the patent for it as someone in China had the patent for it but we

were selling them in the States and there was a lot of companies selling them in the States to I think technically infringing the patent but we were doing our thing and we started to get in a conversation with Mark Cuban. My business partner reached out to Mark Cuban on his, I think it was called Whisper, his new app. We got in touch with Mark and Mark was actually going, he was in talks with the patent owner to try and buy the patent. And he wanted, he was giving us some interest about doing a deal with us because we had

the best brand. We had the best content, the best brand for these hoverboards, had all these influencers promoting it and we were great looking from a social media presence. So Mark was like, hey I'm interested in doing a deal with you guys but I'm not gonna get into business with anyone who's infringing on a patent. And so we had the decision, do we keep selling this product and technically infringing on this patent and make probably a million dollars or more? Or do we not sell through the holidays in the most viral season of this product in good

faith to potentially work with Mark Cuban? And we had a letter of intent from him about this possible deal. We decided to hold back in good faith to do a deal with Mark Cuban and he then did not buy the patent. Wow. Yeah, that's rough. So you skipped out on q4. We skipped out on q4. It was the most viral year for hoverboards. I forgot the year. I remember 2015 maybe it was the year is the Christmas we would have made a killing We had the best brand so many YouTube influencers were promoting my dad said my dad was leaning on the on the side of Hold hold back and hopefully do a deal with Mark Cuban my business partner Jared gets he was like dude

I think we should keep selling and we ended up holding back Yeah, and you know, that's just one of the things you you learn He's been on the show. That's a Jared. Yeah. He's revolutionizing the e-commerce dropshipping space with his company, right? Totally. Yeah I'm a early investor. I remember that that was before they started catching on fire right before That you got banned, right? That's pretty much what ruined that product all the knockoffs were catching on fire there were literally times where we would ride the hoverboards in the airport i would i would ride them onto the airplane and then pick it up yeah like down the jet bridge they didn't care and then they started our competitors started catching fire and they started cheapening out on the yeah quality yeah damn that, that's wild though. That took it down.

I will say enforcing that international patent would have been super expensive. If you only did like a million, they probably wouldn't have came after you. Exactly. It would have had to have been like millions for it to be worth it. And that's why we weren't worried about selling in general.

It was just for this, blowing the possible deal with Mark Cuban and kind of got pushed around a little bit by him and He's a multi-billionaire again. Yeah, so the Mavericks. Yeah, I have to mark. Well, dude, it's been awesome Where can people get funding if they're interested in working with you? Yeah scale with funding is our website It's my done for you funding service So I help people on a daily basis many people get approved for a hundred thousand dollars and zero percentage credit for 12 months That's scale with funding comm my Instagram is Jack McCall basis many people get approved for $100,000 and 0% interest credit for 12 months at scalewithfunding.com

my Instagram is Jack McCall, Jack McCall MCCOLL I appreciate you guys thanks for tuning in Sean. Absolutely thanks for coming on I'm going to open up a new LLC and use you guys and I'll post on my Instagram the results. Cool. Cool sounds good. Awesome dude. Stay tuned guys.

Peace.