The Perks of Business Credit with Danielle Famble

Join Anne Ganguzza and Danielle Famble for the next BOSS Money Talks episode, as they share tips on how to manage both business and personal finances. From choosing the ideal business credit card to managing your everyday spending, The BOSSES provide the tools you need to enhance your financial efficiency. Anne and Danielle delve into the practical aspects of leveraging credit cards for business gains, highlighting the potential to earn cashback and travel points while simplifying your bookkeeping tasks. They discuss the art of planning large expenses and paying off balances to avoid interest traps, alongside sharing personal stories of their credit journeys. 00:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) At Anne Ganguzza productions. I focus on personal growth and artistic expression and can help you unlock the full potential of your voice. It's a journey of discovery and strategy and I'm here to help guide you every step of the way. Your story deserves to be heard. Find out more at anneganguzza.com.

00:35 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so ecstatic to be back again with Danielle Famble. Hey.

01:01 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Anne, I am glad to be back, happy to talk money and finances and being a boss with you.

01:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love it. I love it, except Danielle. I just had to pay my American Express bill. Yeah, and I will tell you and the bosses I have a business credit card, which I think is the best thing since sliced bread and the reason why I love my business credit card maybe not so much for all the money that I have to pay on it this month, but mostly because I get money back. I mean, I try to strategically use that credit card to my advantage, for my business.

01:34 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah.

01:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I know I have a credit card and a couple of other tricks up my sleeve, but I have a feeling you have a couple of tricks up your sleeve that I would love to know about.

01:44 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh, man, If you want to get me to nerd out on anything ever, you chose the right topic Credit cards. Credit card points and miles is my jam. I'm wearing my nerdy glasses today, Just so excited to talk about credit card points.

02:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So fill us in on how we can take advantage, Because I mean, why not? Right? I'm excited, I'm excited. So I'll just tell you, my American Express gives me money back and I picked it specifically because of that. It gives me money back every month the more I spend with it and I thought, well, that's great. That just encourages me to always use that card to spend. And for me, I only have the one for my. Actually, I have a couple for my business, because I do have a bank account which then gives me a credit card by default. Okay, I've got a debit card, I've got a business debit card, but I also have a credit card with them which I don't use right now. But they are always touting oh, you can save 3% if you buy gas, that kind of thing. But I end up using the one card only because for me, my brain, it makes things simple right now to deal with, but I'm sure that I could be taking more advantage of other things.

02:53 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh, yeah, you talk about your credit card. I actually just opened up a new credit card for my business and when I open that credit card you get a certain number of bonus points if you spend a certain amount of money in the first couple of months of opening the card.

03:08 Mostly, really to— yes, yes, similar to my bank. Yeah, to incentivize you to use this card. Well, this particular card would give me I think it was 250,000 points to travel, and I was so excited about it because I have travel coming up to go to conferences and things like that and instead of using cash to spend the money to travel, I can use these points as another currency as a way to get to a conference or two or three, or travel or stay at hotels. So it's a way of utilizing the money that I'm spending anyway and having a different currency to be able to use it. And that's a way of utilizing the money that I'm spending anyway and having a different currency to be able to use it. And that's just sort of the beginning. You're talking about money back into your business, but I just I love talking about like points and miles because you're spending the money anyway for your business, right, and so you're getting this currency back to be able to do other things with it.

04:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then let me ask you a question Are you looking always for deals, current deals with new credit cards, or is it just if it happens to come up when you make a purchase, sometimes like well, let's say, I go clothing shopping, sorry, and they'll be like well, you can save 20% on your order today if you open up a credit card with us. And there'll be a lot of times that I'll do that just because I want to save the 20%, and then I really don't have any intention of using it again. If it's a store I don't shop frequently, but I will absolutely do that. But now I also know that that does affect my credit score. It's not always a negative impact on the credit score, because I happen to have I'm very proud of the fact that I have a really good, almost perfect, credit score.

04:39 - Intro (Announcement) Oh, great yeah.

04:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) After many, many years.

04:41 - Intro (Announcement) And.

04:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm like. Well, I don't know, is that going to affect if I open up a credit card? How do you handle the credit cards?

04:46 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So again, we've talked about this. For me I'm dealing with personal, totally separate than business. So, for example, with my business credit card that I just opened, I knew that I was going to have a lot of really big expenses coming up for the business and because I was planning that, I was looking for a credit card to be able to capitalize on the amount of money I was already planning on spending and had already planned and put that money aside to pay this.

05:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Okay, so let me ask you so, for example, not that I'm going to delve that deeply, but I'm thinking was this for travel for a voiceover conference, or maybe new equipment or something new for your studio, or maybe demos right, things that you would invest in, right for your voiceover business?

05:28 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So, big ticket items like a demo or a voiceover conference would be a good opportunity to maybe look into this Potentially yes, I always give a caveat first with using credit cards at all, and you're talking about your great credit score and I'm proud to have really worked to build my credit score as well. To have a great credit score is making sure that you can pay the credit card off in full at the end of the month.

05:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, thank you for saying that. Yes, I absolutely make it a point to do that every single month, exactly.

05:56 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Because if you don't, then you're actually kind of not really getting all the perks and having the benefits of having this credit card, because then you're paying this huge fee for interest and things like that. So for me, when I'm looking at credit cards be it for personal or for the business I want to make sure that I have the ability to pay it off. It's almost like using the cash that I already had on hand to pay off this bill and I'm getting this huge point value, or I'm getting points along the way.

06:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that you said that, because I will always, when we talked about our business accounts, our bank accounts, I am so thankful and grateful for that business savings account. Because that business savings account says to me I've got a big ticket item coming, I have the money that I can pay it all off at the end of the month, which I think absolutely is so important. And I'll be the first to admit I mean I have let my credit cards go.

06:48 I mean when I was younger and foolish, I let my credit cards go and have a balance and at one point there was a big balance on it and you end up spending so much money on interest that it's not necessarily an ideal situation, that's for sure, and especially if this is your business and I'm not saying that you have to wait to buy everything until you can pay it off at the end of the month. However, it certainly makes things a whole lot easier.

07:12 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, it makes things a lot easier and also you're able to plan for what's coming up. So you're being proactive about what you're doing for your business. Talk about, like big-ticket items buying a new booth or a microphone or demos Lord knows, they're not inexpensive and so these are things that you need to plan for, and by planning for it and having the financial resources able to pay for it, then really you're able to utilize other tools to get you a little bit more for the money that you are already planning on spending. You are already planning on spending. This is actually something I learned from a personal finance situation when I was trying to really understand like money and finances and learn about, like, how money works.

07:52 I learned in my own personal life that if I didn't have the cash to spend on something, I was putting myself deeper in a hole by spending additional money on interest because I really didn't have the money to buy that thing in the first place. Now I understand. You know, not everyone has the money to like pay everything off in full. I was at my grocery store and, ann, I will tell you they have pay over time at my grocery store. Oh man.

08:18 It's unreal and I get it. Times are tough and money can be really, really tight. Get it, times are tough and money can be really really tight. But I do think this is an opportunity for planning for certain big expenses that you can utilize, opening up a credit card or using your credit card to be able to get you things like protections for that device. You know, if you use a certain credit card, they may cover it instead of needing to get the extra insurance.

08:43 That's actually a really good point. Yeah, there are so many different things that you can utilize by using a credit card for let's talk about business for the business purchases that you're doing.

08:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So warranty like additional warranty or protection, so I wouldn't have even thought that actually, if you buy it with your credit card, does it give you additional protection?

09:00 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, yeah, and also my boyfriend was telling me that his debit card, his number, got like taken or hacked or something like that, and so they were trying to take money out of his account. But if that happens with a credit card, you're dealing with the bank's money, not your own personal money, so it's a little bit easier to get that money recovered if something would happen with it.

09:20 So there are so many different protections that can happen. And even you said you have one credit card for your business for bookkeeping we talked about bookkeepers and things like that.

09:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's one ledger to be able to cross-reference and say, okay, this is what I spent over the course of time, and I mean I'm getting so excited right when I went to a conference.

09:42 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I went to J Michael's Euro Retreat. Actually, when you and I met in person to Amsterdam, you know I flew there on points. My flight was totally covered by points and it was accumulation of points that I had spent by utilizing my credit card for all of the business expenses that I pay monthly. My Source Connect, my Zoom accounts, my all of this stuff. It's paid through a credit card. And then I had accumulated enough points to be able to fly for free Business class.

10:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It was nice. I love using my credit card to pay for all my monthly subscriptions because, again, my one subscription that I have for personal right, which is I have a subscription, peloton which is like $44 a month, which is some crazy amount, but I use it. So for me it's worth it and it's funny because the amount that I'm getting paid back on that credit card pretty much pays for about half of that. So it's kind of cool. I broke my monthly price down from $44 to like $24. And so it really works out. It's $24 a month. So for me that works. And so, if you can look for those creative ways. But like, how much time do you spend looking for deals or checking on the deals? Because a lot of times I think credit cards will have a deal and then it only lasts for a certain amount of time, right, and then maybe interest rate will go back up or maybe it won't get 3% or 4% on gas purchases. You won't get it anymore. So how on top of it do you have to be?

11:08 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I think you would need to be on top of it. If that's something On a monthly, probably on a monthly basis. If that's something that you are planning on, for example, opening up a new card, for example, for me, I was ready to open a new card, and so I spent a couple of hours on Google YouTube like just checking around to see what was out there.

11:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So what do you Google? So, if you're searching for a new credit card, what do you Google? What's a smart thing to search for?

11:34 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) For this one, I was looking for business credit cards because again, personal and business. So there are some business credit cards you can get. You can just Google best business credit card in the year. And then, for the most part in Google, it'll tell you, like what options are available and it'll even give you potentially some hints if you were to go into incognito mode. When you're looking for new credit cards, the bonus points may be higher than when you just search for it normally.

12:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, that's so interesting because you're right, because your information is in Google anyways. There's the tip of the day, Guys, we can go home now Because I think that's a great tip. Like you would I never would have thought of that to go in incognito mode, because then they're not necessarily going on information that they already have on you for that credit card and you might get better deals.

12:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, exactly.

12:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Because more than likely, they know that I have an American Express credit card that I've used online 100 billion times before.

12:29 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So they're not trying to bring you in as a new customer because they don't know that you are or are not a current customer.

12:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So do your searching in incognito mode.

12:38 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I love that, yeah, and that's actually exactly what happened to me. I was looking for this particular credit card and my first Google search said okay, great, 150,000 points. Wonderful when incognito mode, 250,000 points, same card, same everything. And I was like oh, what can I do with 250,000?

13:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) points. I would just say, personally, this doesn't matter. I mean, you could be shopping for studio equipment, right, which I always say. Vioboss has a great studio equipment list that you can certainly click on and buy. But when you are searching for equipment online, I mean you can even like do that in incognito mode, or if you're signing up on a website for the first time, a lot of times they'll give you an offer for, say, 15% on your first order, right, or whatever it might be, and so I might be going back to the same company that I already purchased something and I'll sign up with a different email address so that.

13:35 I can get that discount and that will actually help me to make that decision. Well, all right, I can save 15%. So, yeah, that's good, that's good for me, I'll buy it. So same thing with a credit card, right. So when you're shopping, pretend like you are a new person shopping for that, and I think you'll get a really good deal, yeah, and just look around and shop around Again.

13:54 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) When you're ready to make these big purchases is a good time to start looking to see I'm going to spend the money anyway, what can I get for the amount of money that I'm planning on spending? So that's a really great opportunity. But also there are ways to get deals or to get stuff for the points that you're already accumulating. In some ways it can be just cash back. In other ways it could be travel, which I absolutely love that because I like to travel anyway, and I'm going to be traveling for some of these conferences or staying at hotels.

14:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And hotels too, like, if you are, we're a Marriott vacation owner and so we try to stay at Marriott's whenever possible because we can get points with Marriott's, and so then when I go to a voiceover conference, I can use those points theoretically to either have a room if I'm not provided a room already, but if I'm provided a room, I can use the membership that I have to upgrade that room, yeah, and then get maybe a free breakfast or get access, get free water. Gosh knows that we need water all the time.

14:55 So, I'm always looking for that free water deal. I'm like, okay, I am a gold card member or I'm a Marriott club member and so I need my free water today. Right, yeah, so every time I go to VO Atlanta, they don't put water in the rooms anymore. And now they're doing a thing. Well, they do. I'm sorry, Excuse me.

15:15 There was one place that I went where they don't put water in the rooms they now have, like a place where you can fill like a refillable sort of thing, which I think is a great idea so that you don't have to waste the plastic bottles anymore. But at Vio Atlanta, at that hotel I had credit at the store so I would go down and get like the big because I drink a lot of water. I get one of the big bottles of water every day for my coffee machine. I don't love Starbucks coffee, so I'd make my own coffee. But yeah, there's so many cool things you can do with hotels and airfare.

15:40 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) And even having access to like, for example, you said, american Express. You have an American Express card. There is the American Express card that has access to what's called fine hotels and resorts. So you can book through that relationship and I was actually looking at that for a trip that I was taking and you get like free breakfast and early check-in and check-out and you get like an experience credit at that hotel. So you get more just by having the virtue of having this relationship, which then can possibly make your stay a little bit more comfortable.

16:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So you're saying the relationship with money can help you get more things?

16:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yes, and have a different quality of life.

16:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, you can have a good relationship with your credit card, and I think that's a good thing. Have good relationships with your credit card, not bad ones.

16:32 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Exactly, and that actually is a really, really good point, because I grew up and I'll just have a little bit of a transparency moment I grew up hearing credit is bad, credit cards are bad, do not use it, and I actually didn't even get my first credit card until I was in my mid-20s because I was told that I didn't need it because it was bad and nothing good could come from it. But really it's a tool that can be used to enhance your quality of life, to give you more protections, if used properly.

17:03 If used properly, that's the caveat and understanding how it works and what the tool is to be used. That interest, if you're carrying interest, is a tool that can work against you so quickly because that interest rate for credit cards specifically, is so high. And you'll know what it is because you can actually log into your account and see what the interest rate is. This is not secret stuff and see what the interest rate is. It's not, this is not secret stuff. So if you go and you take a look at it and you see, okay, I'm spending 20, 25% interest Every single month, it's working against you. But then we talked about the savings accounts, right, and how much you can make in having interest when you have your money with some of these accounts.

17:48 So it can work for you but also interest, can work against you. If not, this tool is not being used and utilized responsibly and properly for what is needed for.

17:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and it's so hard sometimes when you lose that control. I think it has to do with well, I don't know, maybe we talk about like we're talking about, you know credit cards and all that, and so I think, with all due respect, we do have to say we have to have a respect for it, for the credit card, a respect for the money so that it is being used responsibly, Because when it does get out of control and I will tell you, as a young girl, mine got out of control and I ended up having a huge balance and then spending this atrocious amount of interest on it and I, like you, was told that credit is bad. You should really just pay for everything. You should have the money right. If you don't have the money for it, don't buy it Right, which I agree with right.

18:37 I know where that philosophy is coming from. It was meant for protecting me. However, you still, I think, need to have the money before you buy it, but now you can use the credit card as a tool to get more right and to maybe get more value for that. So I think the idea, the premise, is still the same Make sure you have the money before you buy it. I mean, in an ideal situation you should have the money to buy it, Otherwise maybe not buy it and then use a credit card as a tool that has benefits and perks and all those other things so that you can get more value out of it.

19:11 Absolutely, yeah, yeah. So what sorts of things, danielle, do we have to watch out for when maybe we're using credit cards for our business or shopping for credit cards in our business? Are there any red flags out there? What do you?

19:21 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) recommend? I recommend having a business credit card, specifically one that is for business. You can get like what would be a personal credit card in your business's name, but that goes back to sort of mixing the business and personal. There are business credit cards for a reason. I would utilize a business credit card when you're looking to open up a credit card for your business, and it does need to be in your business's name.

19:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, I agree, I have both a business and a personal. Yeah, american Express and Costco. By the way, I have both a business Costco card and a personal Costco card.

19:58 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, so just whatever is business and personal, they are completely separate entities. Your business, if you run your business in a certain way with like a LLC, for example, it has its own federal identification number. Yeah, so like it's really a separate entity. So if you're going to be looking for a credit card for your business, look for business credit cards, and I have found that business credit cards will offer certain protections for things that we utilize, things for business for. I even saw American Express Platinum has like a credit for the Adobe Creative Cloud, and so if you utilize, you know, adobe Audition, for example, then maybe that's something you know you want to use it for. So, looking for things for a business, looking for a business credit card, is the first thing that I would take a look at.

20:46 Second of all, be prepared to get a new credit card if you do have like large purchases that you're already planning for, going back to essentially having the cash on hand to justify the amount that you're going to be spending, so that you do not start paying interest on this card that you were trying to get you know value from?

21:05 And the other things that I would look at are is there an annual fee for the card Because you are spending money to have this card, and are you able to justify that annual fee with the benefits or the credits or the perks that you're getting by having this card? And there are plenty of cards out there that do not have an annual fee, and that's something to think about.

21:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I was just going to say. It used to be a thing where almost all the cards had an annual fee and then they started. And again, I think it's all a sell right, it's all a sell mechanism right. They started most of the ones. I won't even entertain the idea of one that has a fee, unless, of course, the benefits outweigh, and I haven't had a card with a fee for many years. I don't know what about you.

21:45 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I have several cards that have fees.

21:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then that means that the benefits, though, the benefits though are outweighing those fees that you pay every year. Okay, and especially, I think you're going to find that in a business credit card sense right the fees versus a personal card, because I think a lot of times personal cards people are looking for no fees right, they're looking to get the best deal possible. But for businesses, I think companies want to say, all right, for this fee we'll offer additional protection for blah, blah, blah. And it's very interesting because I never actually looked into. I have an American Express business credit card and just because of the simple fact that I got money back every month was enough for me, and I never really looked at beyond that what it offers. And so now I'm going to go back and look at the fine print and see what protections it offers and warranties and maybe additional deals that I'm not taking advantage of Exactly.

22:37 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I mean one of my business credit cards offers protections on rental cars, so it offers that like you don't have to buy that insurance Exactly.

22:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So really which is a huge fee these days Exactly. Oh my gosh.

22:49 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So, taking a look, it kind of becomes a little bit of a matrix of like okay, this covers this and this card will cover these things and everything else. And, like I said at the beginning of this episode, I get really nerdy about these things. So you know, I have a spreadsheet about all the different things that my different credit cards can provide for me in terms of bonuses and value.

23:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And now do you have more than one business card?

23:12 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I now have a second business card. I just this week opened my second business credit card. Like you, I prefer to have everything streamlined on one card.

23:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure, but I couldn't say no to 250,000 points, I mean yeah, no, I get you and those points will apply. And then you know what? Here's the deal If you do open up an extra card and then you find out that it's no longer serving you with that value, then you're done with it. There's typically no penalty for not using it.

23:38 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) What I would say to that and for me this is always my calculus, personal or business opening up a new card is is there a downgrade path? So you don't necessarily want to close the account because that may work against you. But is there a way to go from a paid card to downgrade to a no-fee card, and so I always think about that when I'm looking at getting a new credit card. Is there a downgrade path to a no-fee card that I can open up instead?

24:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now you just made me think of something different. Now, when I bought a car again, I was fortunate enough to have money in the bank and I could have paid cash for that car. However, I opted to put half down and pay the rest of the half on the finance plan, because the finance plan was 1%. I had 1% and it was like literally, I think, over the course of seven years, I paid $500 or something, I don't know. It was like a total of $500 to do that, and the reason why I did that was to gain better credit, because if you don't have any credit, you don't have any credit.

24:44 You know what I mean you can't get good credit if you don't have any credit. And so when my husband and I got married, we were trying to consolidate credit cards and pay off debt and get that out of under the way, but we realized that you do need to have some credit cards in order to keep good credit and for people to entertain business loans to you. So having good credit is an important thing for your business and, as a matter of fact, I happen to know that when we were buying a home and myself being self-employed right, they looked at my credit card. They looked at my business credit card because they wanted to see what do I pay on a monthly basis? How much money am I putting out? That was part of my certification that I could be part of that mortgage that we were going to get for this house, and so having good credit actually was working against me.

25:45 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So what I was told and what I understood to be true about just avoiding credit was not going to serve me for the things that I wanted, in the long run, to buy a house or to get a really nice apartment or qualify for certain things, it requires having credit, and not having any at all was not helping me, and so utilizing credit cards as a tool and respecting it and paying off the credit cards in full or paying on time those kinds of things really do help. So not having credit at all really can hurt you, but utilizing it improperly can hurt you even more.

26:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So, bosses, use your credit wisely to invest in your business and to get extra value. So great discussion. Danielle, thank you so much for joining me today and again, I look forward to our sessions all the time. I look forward to talking with you about money bosses out there. Great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we will both see you next week. Bye.

26:48 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.