How Investors Can Use Credit and Capital to Buy Assets, Build Income, and Create Freedom

Brandy Greene (00:00)
I think it’s definitely is to be clear on what credit and capital actually means. You know what I mean? it’s not just for shopping, it’s to actually create income. I see a lot of people that are frustrated every day, frustrated at their job, frustrated at how much they’re bringing in. And when you say multiple streams of income, they for some reason think that that’s hard to do or hard to obtain. Or it’s gonna take too much out of their nine to five when it’s so far from the truth. I think that most people need to be educated about leveraging their credit correctly because debt is not just another thing. And when it’s when it’s used correctly, it’s leverage. It’s leverage to buy yourself out of that job, it’s leverage to buy yourself more time with your family, it’s it’s leverage to buy more time with your spouse or whatever.

Quentin Edmonds (02:20)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros— And so I’m super excited to introduce you all to Miss Brandy Greene. Miss Brandy, how you doing today, ma’am?

Brandy Greene (02:29)
Good. Thank you for having me today.

Quentin Edmonds (02:31)
Absolutely. No, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad we get to do this episode together. And and listen, I am a type of—Miss Brandy, to be honest. I like to dive right in, right? And so I would love if you would tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell them what part of the world you’re in. People love to know what people are geographically. So what you’re up to, your origin story, and where you are. Miss Brandy, ma’am, you have the floor.

Brandy Greene (03:01)
Sure, sure. Well, again, my name is Brandy Greene. Thank you for having me today. I am the founder and managing partner for iCredit Solutions. We are a funding and strategic capital company where we help investors, business owners, and entrepreneurs not only seek working capital, but also employ into investing opportunities. So we also help you find those opportunities so you can create income and wealth. How I got into this, it’s been 10 years now. And to surprise, I just got really interested in credit. Because I knew that was the foundation of all of these things. And it was like, okay, let me fix my own credit. Started fixing friends’ credit. I was like, okay, I do this really well. And then I started educating myself and I kept pushing myself and I kept adding services to my firm. So not— you know, after a while I was not only a credit repair company, we were doing taxes and business credit. I also started mentoring. And then I started speaking to people about financial literacy because I realized how important it is. And that’s kind of how I got into it. And it’s just been a passion of mine ever since.

Quentin Edmonds (04:06)
I love it. I love it. Thank you for taking us through the journey. I’m glad that you kind of brought up the passion part of it, right? Yeah. I always like to say before we talk about like strategies and more deeper things, I always like to say destiny has no wasted moments. Yes. Like our life is an amalgamation of just these moments. And I love how you started just kept adding on value to your business because you realize that there are multifaceted to who you are and what your business can be.

Brandy Greene (04:34)
Right.

Quentin Edmonds (04:34)
So I would love to know throughout the moments, throughout the journey, what has destiny taught you about yourself? What has the moments taught you about yourself? Has it taught discipline, resilience? What has it taught you, Miss Brandy?

Brandy Greene (04:44)
Definitely di— discipline and delayed gratification. These past five years have been very I guess like turbulence just I— if I want to describe it correctly, it’s been straight turbulence, been a lot of ups and downs. a lot of shit I keep going. and the only thing I felt like some days are my days of like not wanting to do anything, the only thing that stuck me to those things is the discipline. Yeah. the the continuing to do it no matter what. And then also also not just getting frustrated with the process, understanding the dis— like the the patience, excuse me, the patience behind it, which a lot of people don’t have. I would get f— so frustrated, you know. Sometimes it could take like a month, maybe two months to close with an underwriter, you know, and sometimes bills gotta be paid, you gotta pay them keep the lights on and it’s it can get frustrating. Sometimes you wanna quit, you’re like, “Hey, I’m as much rather bake cookie somewhere like that.” You know what I mean? Something simple. But discipline and definitely delayed gratification, patience. Yeah has held me through—

Quentin Edmonds (06:34)
Absolutely. So discipline, delay, delay gratification. I know some people probably teamed up like that. Delay gratification. What are you talking about? But no, but listen.

Brandy Greene (06:43)
You’d be surprised how many people cannot do that. They can’t— they just can’t. They gotta have what they gotta have like right now and not understanding that sometimes what you’re working on can be so much bigger if you just wait just a little bit longer, work on it, tap on it, just do a little bit more research, you know, before you jump over. And that could be your ticket, you know, from there.

Quentin Edmonds (07:03)
Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. So the delay gratification, how has that refined and defined some of the strategies that you use in business? So how has that delayed gratification really helped you kind of with business strategies, maybe operations and different things like that?

Brandy Greene (07:18)
Definitely like I say when it comes to my clients because of course when they come to me they want capital right now, right? Yeah. But sometimes it might be a situation where someone needs to wait till they get their utilization down. They might have to pay some credit cards off in which— well, you know, when you pay a credit card off, it’s not gonna automatically update, right? You gotta wait one billing cycle, which is thirty days. So you gotta wait. You know, it might not be that you can invest in that property day, but you might next month or two months from now, depending on how long. That’s one thing. also too, that when it comes to comparable credit. A lot of people don’t know that banks and credit unions typically like to lend you money when you don’t need money or they want to see that you’ve already had that type of trade line before meaning that you’ve already had that type of loan or credit card. If you’re asking for 50,000, I want to see can you handle 50,000? It might be a situation where you need to purchase trade lines, and then that fact you gotta wait 60 days. You know what I mean? So a lot of that has to do with proper planning and knowing when you’re about to enter into this market of what your investment’s going to be. And a lot of people will go through, you know, getting personal term loans first. That’s not wrong. That’s not a wrong strategy. However, you do need to be cautious that you might not be profitable in 30 days. That, you know, I don’t know what you’re doing, a fix and flip, a wholesaling, mortgage notes, a lot of things take a long time to be profitable, or you’re not gonna see that return quickly. You have to plan for those things. So I just tell, you know, that’s something that I’ve id— identified where that discipline, that delayed gratification, that patience comes in. And because I know it so well, it’s so easy for me to teach somebody the else that I know it’s frustrating for people, but they normally see that the the rainbow at the end of the pine. They’re like, “Okay. All right, I get you now.” ‘Cause that weight could be a difference between twenty five thousand dollar approval and a hundred and twenty five K approval, you know? Come on. So you might want to wait.

Quentin Edmonds (09:12)
So if someone w— if what’s a good starting point? Like I I come to you. I mean, I’m just a wreck. Like I just, I mean help, Miss Brandy. Like what what how do you give somebody a good starting point? Cause you know, it’s like this big elephant that we gotta bite one bite at a time. So sometimes what a good— what’s a good baseline starting point for somebody that maybe want to, you know, prepare their credit and get better healthy financially.

Brandy Greene (09:35)
definitely you— like I said, credit is always the foundation, right? Because a lot of people don’t realize, and I do realize there’s a lot of myths that go around online, especially like social media, things like that. People say, like, you can go just go to the bank, just get an EIN an LLC, boom, 50K. It’s not that simple anymore. A lot of the rules of the engagement has changed. So you do have to have a good credit score. You do need to be over 700 or 750 if possible. You do need to have like at least 20% or lower utilization. I don’t think a lot of really what I realized, I was like, wow, these people got a lot of money and they don’t realize that. I’m like, where they’re sitting on money, why are they not paying it down? You know? different things like that. Another thing I see is this the delayed gratification part. They go buy cars. They go buy something that— that drives their utilization way crazy before they can even get to funding. And it’s like, your assets should have paid for that, not the funding that you’re supposed to obtain the funding to buy the income vehicle, then get the assets. And a lot of people try to skip the cart before the horse, you know? And that always kinda kinda backfires in their face. So I would say always get make sure you’re looking fundable for the underwriters. That’s like your first thing. a lot of that has to do with lender credibility too, as far as like making sure you filed your taxes, you know. if you haven’t done that, that’s something that our team helps you with, you know. Maybe you’re backed up, you haven’t filed the last two years or something. Maybe it’s a situation where you don’t have any business credit built. Let us help you structure that, you know, first so that you do look presentable and low risk to the underwriters. That’s the whole objective, is to not look like a risk.

Quentin Edmonds (11:49)
Yeah. I love it, Miss Brandy. Well, what’s the next real goal for your business? What are you looking to solve or scale next? What’s next for you, ma’am?

Brandy Greene (11:56)
I think it’s a lot more about me being outside, which is a lot of like I I tend to be— and a lot of entrepreneurs kind of know this and investors too. You tend to be a little isolated in your own little world. You kinda only get along with or mingle and network with other entrepreneurs and things like that, right? But I want to kind of break the mold instead of just trying to get outside and just pass a a a business card. I do have a speaking engagement coming up where I am speaking to people in downtown Atlanta. That’s my area where I’m at now. speaking to them about alternative housing solutions. Since people are being priced out of the market, we are seeing a demand for housing. People are going to always need somewhere to stay. I live in an RV full-time. This is something I promote on my social media channels. So I try to get people— to help them to understand that, hey, maybe you could do an RV, a modular home, a tiny home. Let’s look at some of those things as far as like consumers, but then also as investors, let’s create that supply where there’s a demand at. Don’t be so stuck on just, “Let me get a single family home and fix and flip it,” just because that’s the knowledge of what you heard to do. You know what I mean? Pay attention to the market. You know, I feel I— one of my all sayings, I guess, as an entrepreneur is if you can always solve a problem for someone, you will never be broke a day in your life. Never. Come on. So that’s a problem right now. People— housing solutions, people are priced out everywhere, every single state. So it’s— you can’t lose with that that strategy. Yeah. So and then I also too have— I will be on season twenty six of *The Blox*. If you’ve never heard of the company, it’s called *The Blox*. They’re an entrepreneur company where they help entrepreneurs scale as far as like kind of like a *Shark Tank* mastermind, little game show and documentary that and they do— you want to see any episodes, I think they’re on Amazon Prime and YouTube. But I have that coming up in February too. So I’m really excited about, you know, just being out and networking with other business owners and seeing how I can help them obtain funding for their their ambitions and their goals and dreams.

Quentin Edmonds (13:51)
No, I love it. So listen, I I want to get your perspective on this word, the word relationship. And relationship within business, how has it served you? what what word premium, if there is one, do you put on relationship? It’s tell me a little bit about relationships from your perspective when it comes to business.

Brandy Greene (13:52)
No. Relationships is huge. I mean, this is something that I teach, right? Because you have to establish a relationship with the bank or credit union in order for them to lend the money. So the same thing transpires across the lines as far as just being a business owner, having that business acumen. Like relationships are important. If you don’t build those relationships, like I say, you’re gonna end up being that isolated entrepreneur that really only talks to their laptop, you know what I mean? And you don’t you don’t network with other people. And I think it’s very healthy to try to get into other niches of businesses, you know what I mean, and trying to understand that. I think that’s something that’s made me very strong as an investor and businesswoman is to— is to the way that I have put myself in proximity of different things. Like I say, like I— I know RV Park investing, I know mortgage note investing, I know private equity for— I know, you know, all of these different things because these are different niches, right? But the relationships that I’ve built in each one of those people. Like I said, I have my mentor, you know what I mean? And I have a data furniture and different things. So if if you come to me and be like, “Hey Brandy, where can I get this?” Guess what? Brandy knows where it’s at because of the relationships that I have built with other people, other companies and things like that. And it’s so important as a business owner investor to do the same. And especially if you’re gonna go into this game as far as being where they know your name at the bank, right? That’s the objective. Where they know you, that’s what you want to do. You don’t want to just like hit it and quit it, which like a lot of people are teaching that method. They’re like, “Hey, just go in there and get 50K,” and stuff like that. But imagine what kind of relationship you know, what kind of funding outcome you will have by building a relationship with that business banker, by ha— holding your mortgage for your house there. Because they’ve already seen how how you pay your mortgage on on time. So it’s nothing to give you 100k on the business side once you open that account. You see what I’m saying? So just start to really getting your mind, “Who am— who am I gonna build a relationship this year?” You know, we got what, six months left in the year, and you might even want to think about next going into next year. Who like am I gonna start? I want to be with Chase, right? Go ahead and open that account now. Go ahead and start making small deposits. Put a little money over there, let it sit. That’s a relationship. Because now they’re starting to see that deposit withdrawal history. They’re starting to see that bank rating sit in that daily balance every day. Now you don’t have so much strife. And I think that’s what I see, I want to say 90% of the time out of people, because they want what they want right now, and they didn’t build a foundation of relationship first.

Quentin Edmonds (17:19)
Ms. Brandy, you are giving us some real nuggets. I appreciate— I know you’ve given us just some real valuable things. I I I wanna kinda open up the floor just a little bit more. Is there a topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Is there any other words of inspiration, education, or motivation? Like maybe you came in with a a specific thought in your brain. Like, “I want to make sure the viewers get this information.” I kind of just want to create the space that if there’s a message like that, that you can land it before we get up out of here.

Brandy Greene (17:49)
Yeah. I think it’s definitely is to be clear on what credit and capital actually means. You know what I mean? it’s not just for shopping, it’s to actually create income. I see a lot of people that are frustrated every day, frustrated at their job, frustrated at how much they’re bringing in. And when you say multiple streams of income, they for some reason think that that’s hard to do or hard to obtain. Or it’s gonna take too much out of their nine to five when it’s so far from the truth. I think that most people need to be educated about leveraging their credit correctly because debt is not just another thing. And when it’s when it’s used correctly, it’s leverage. It’s leverage to buy yourself out of that job, it’s leverage to buy yourself more time with your family, it’s it’s leverage to buy more time with your spouse or it’s it’s leverage to take those great vacations, you know, like I’m gone somewhere every month. And credit is, you know, that whole foundation is the way that I’m able to do that. And so I think it’s really important that people realize that that’s your ticket out. Yeah. Right. Real estate’s even bigger, right? To as far as like if you want to talk about a long term play or a wealth play or something that you can pass down to your children or your loved ones and things like that, that’s the ticket and way to go. And you do not have to be a landlord and deal with tenants. You know what I mean? Like I think that’s another fear that people have. So I just like to to encourage people to educate yourself on all the different ways that you can invest. It’s not just real estate out here, too. It’s franchises. Another thing I teach is to go to websites and buy businesses that’s already established. There’s boomers that’s going out of here, going out of business. They’re look— they’ve been established for the last 20, 30 years. They’re looking for someone to pass their business down to. Sometimes you can create seller financing with them and not even need as much capital. You know what I mean? But talk to someone like us, talk to someone like me, so you can get an idea of what’s out there so you know how to implement that for your life. You know, maybe you want to pull a HELOC out of your house. We help you do that too. Like whatever it takes that you can go ahead, you can be profitable next month. It doesn’t take a year. Yeah. So just I just encourage people to just be more educated about what’s out there for them and don’t get discouraged just because— keep your nine five. That should be funding the business, right? Until you can do something otherwise. But definitely look at the options, the alternatives. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (20:12)
Yeah. Well listen, Miss Brandy, I thank you again so much information that you give that I know is really gonna help. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, ma’am?

Brandy Greene (20:27)
Sure. Well, you can Google me, Brandy Greene. It might also pop up in my— my last name was like Brandy Walker as well. But it’s Brandy Greene, iCredit Solutions. My website is www.iCredit-Solutions.com. You can also find me on Instagram at iCreditSolutions. My TikTok is Brandy Janelle, and our YouTube is iCreditSolutions as well. So I answer messages on all platforms. just shoot me a message. You can also call us at 800-404-1143. But if you go to our website and you just want a free assessment about where you are in your business and how much you can possibly be funded, there’s no obligation. You do not have to pay for a consultation up front. Just go ahead and go over to the website again. That’s iCredit-Solutions.com. Go ahead and fill out a form and someone on our team will contact you.

Quentin Edmonds (21:16)
Well listen, again, let me just say three things to you. sincerely. One, thank you for your time. You know, is our most precious commodity, right? And yeah, I know how you know podcasts work, right? Like, but I couldn’t do this episode without you, right? So you know, so thank you for your time. I put up our time is our most precious commodity.

Brandy Greene (21:39)
Thank you too as well. Very gracious to be here.

Quentin Edmonds (21:43)
Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for your gift of your authenticity, the gift of your integrity. You know, I think our stories have a way of planting seeds in people. We may never fully see the growth or how that seed may manifest, but the seed is still planted. So thank you for coming on and planting real seeds that can really help some people and really, of course, correct their life, like literally. Literally, right? And lastly, Miss Brandy, thank you for your mindset.

Brandy Greene (22:06)
Yes, literally.

Quentin Edmonds (22:12)
Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly, greatly appreciate you coming on today.

Brandy Greene (22:19)
Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, Quentin.

Quentin Edmonds (22:22)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Miss Brandy. Her information is in the show notes. Get in contact with her. Let her help you out. Let her literally help change your life, right? Give you more freedom. Give you some more time back. So definitely check her out. The show— her information is in the show notes. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here. Cause I promise you we’re going to continue to bring on amazing people just like Miss Brandy. So ma’am, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.