STEVENPALMIERI

Walk the loop

Personal credit: what to check before the call

Your personal credit.

Why it matters: A lender reads you before the company. Your score sets the rate on the truck, the line and the building.

Answer it and see your picture.

What lives here

  • The three bureau reports
  • Cards and their limits
  • Anything in collections or disputed
  • The personal guarantee behind every company loan

What good looks like

  • You know the score before a lender does.
  • Every balance is under a third of its limit.
  • Nothing on the report is a surprise.

Do this yourself

  1. Pull the free report from each bureau once a year.
  2. Set a reminder for the card with the highest balance.
  3. Write down every loan you have guaranteed.

See it on a company like yours

Here is the debt, in the guarantor view, for Cinder Mesa Landscape, the fictional company in our worked examples.

Debt

Illustrative composite. Not a real client.

Cinder Mesa Landscape LLC · October 18, 2026

The note, the seller note, and the line

Bank-account balances are not in this extract. The debt lines are. Interest on the acquisition note is $11,200 a month, and the cost line for the ten months is $112,000. Interest is being paid. Any principal step-up is a question for the lender, not a forecast.

FacilityAmountNote
SBA acquisition note$1,480,000Arroyo Bench Bank. Interest $11,200 a month.
seller note$186,000Held by prior principal (fictional). $2,140 a month starting March 1, 2027.
operating line$96,000Arroyo Bench Bank. Drawn amount only.

Filing questions, lender disputes, and seller disputes stay with counsel. This example does not give that advice.

Levers and moves are priced from the client's own books and returns.

Swipe to see the rest of the table.

Open this page in the CFO example

Read more on the Personal credit page

Steven sees your answers before the call. Nothing here is graded.

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