
In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua Kornitsky sits down with Darren Crosby, Founder of Crosby Business Consultants, to explore a game-changing approach to business funding. Darren shares how business owners can build credit tied to their EIN—not their personal Social Security number—allowing them to access capital without personal guarantees. Drawing from his own experience of losing a business during COVID, Darren explains how smart financial structuring can protect personal assets while supporting long-term growth.
Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

Darren Crosby is the founder of Crosby Business Consultants, where he specializes in helping business owners access capital and build financial resilience without putting their personal assets at risk. With over 20 years of entrepreneurial experience spanning mortgage, restaurants, real estate, franchises, and retail, Darren has successfully grown multiple companies to multi-million-dollar revenues—and has also experienced the devastating consequences of personal guarantees when economic disruption struck.
After being forced into bankruptcy following the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on his thriving golf cart rental business, Darren discovered a critical gap in how most business owners approach credit and capital. Today, he’s dedicated to ensuring other entrepreneurs avoid the same fate by teaching them how to build true corporate credit profiles tied to their EIN, not their personal credit.
Darren’s approach focuses on three core areas: establishing strong corporate credit that separates personal and business assets, securing $300K to $5M in growth funding without personal guarantees, and providing strategic tools and resources that support sustainable scaling. His work is driven by a deep belief that small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the American economy, and he’s committed to equipping owners with the financial infrastructure they need to build lasting success. 
Through Crosby Business Consultants, Darren brings both his hard-won lessons and his strategic expertise to help business owners make smarter financial decisions that support growth while protecting what matters most.
Episode Highlights
- Building Business Credit the Right Way
Many business owners believe they already have business credit, but if their name appears under the company name on the account, it’s likely tied to their personal credit. Darren explains how to establish true EIN-based business credit that reports properly to Dun & Bradstreet, Equifax Business, and Experian Business. - From Bankruptcy to Breakthrough
After growing a golf cart rental company to nearly $2.5 million in revenue, Darren was forced into bankruptcy when COVID wiped out 90% of his revenue overnight. That experience reshaped his mission—helping other entrepreneurs separate personal assets from business risk. - The 9–10 Month Path to an 80 Business Credit Score
Darren outlines a structured process that typically takes 9–10 months to build business credit to an 80+ score (the equivalent of an 800 personal credit score), unlocking access to capital based on business spend—not tax returns or personal guarantees. - Using Credit Strategically for Growth
From funding franchise startups to breaking through revenue ceilings by hiring staff, Darren shares real examples of business owners using non-PG credit strategically—not recklessly—to fuel expansion and increase ROI. - The Best Time to Apply for Credit
One of the biggest takeaways: “The best time to apply for credit is when you don’t need it.” Darren emphasizes preparing during stable times so businesses are positioned to respond quickly to opportunity—or unexpected disruption.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.
Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to Cherokee Business Radio. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I’m a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system, and I’m your host here on Cherokee Business Radio. Before we get started, I’ve got a great guest today, but I always want to mention the fact that today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Community Partner Program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, please go to Mainstreet Warriors. Org and a very special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors. Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel. Com. And as I said, I’ve got a great guest today. Uh, Darren Crosby. Darren is the founder of Crosby Business Consultants. His work focuses on helping business owners think differently about capital access, financial structure, and long term operational resilience. He operates at the intersection of funding strategy and business stability for growing companies. He helps leaders make smarter financial decisions that support growth without increasing personal risk. Welcome. I’m so happy to have you, Darren.
Darren Crosby: Hey, thanks for having me.
Joshua Kornitsky: It’s a pleasure. So I’m going to jump right in and ask you, what on earth do you mean by supporting growth without increasing personal risk?
Darren Crosby: Oh, great. Great question. Um, you know, I’ve been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years, owned three different businesses, And, um, during my time owning those, you know, obviously I was getting access to capital, be it work capital lines of credit and whatnot, but I always had to sign personal guarantees. And because I just thought that was how it worked.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Darren Crosby: Isn’t it. And and, uh, about a year and a half or so ago, I stumbled across this platform where you can build the business credit profile tied to their Ein, and it gives the business owner access to capital without any personal guarantees, separating their personal assets from the business.
Joshua Kornitsky: I had no idea that type of thing even existed.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And, um, I didn’t either. And, you know, as I always say, nobody opens a business saying, let me just drive this car right into the ditch.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Darren Crosby: They think everything’s going to be up and to the right, and five years down the road, they’re going to be doing $10 million a year in revenue.
Joshua Kornitsky: I wish we all sure hope so. Yeah.
Darren Crosby: And but something like Covid could happen where your business gets decimated. And that’s what happened to me. I had a golf cart company that I bought in 2013. We were doing about $900,000 a year in revenue. Grew it up to when we closed the books on 2019, we were just shy of $2.5 million in revenue. Love the business, loved my clients. Had what I thought was a phenomenal business model. But then Covid threw a nasty curveball at me. I had the largest rental fleet of golf carts in Atlanta, and 90% of our revenue was rentals to all the festivals and events around town.
Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.
Darren Crosby: And so the beginning of March. March 6th, 2020. I’ll never forget the date, right as we were ramping up for our busy spring season in a matter of about four hours. I had every festival event and summer camp cancel on me. I had a 20,000 square foot warehouse space that I stored the 250 golf carts in. Landlord wasn’t willing to work with me and so unfortunately, I had to bankrupt the company and I had to file personal bankruptcy as well because I was personal guarantor on an owner held note, as well as a quarter million dollars line of credit that I used to add carts to the rental fleet. And so when I stumbled across this, I was like, every business owner needs to take advantage of this because you never know when there might be something hugely negative that impacts your business and keep your personal credit, your personal assets intact.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right. Well, and it doesn’t correct me if I’m wrong, but it doesn’t even have to be a negative thing. It could be a need for growth or a need for expansion, where you’ve got to get hands on capital. And and if your PG personal guarantee for all of it, there’s there’s a limit somewhere, right. So so help us understand as best you can understanding that obviously circumstances dictate everything. Right. How long the business has been there. There’s there’s a million factors. But what are what are some of the major things that are part of securing credit in this, in this fashion.
Darren Crosby: So on a daily basis I speak with business owners and they tell me I already have business credit, I’ve got a platinum Amex for business or I’ve got a chasing for business. And I asked him, I said, is your name right underneath the company name? I go, yeah, like check out your Experian report. It’s being reported there, right? A huge misconception is people think just because they have that business credit card, or they got an auto loan for one of their fleet trucks in the business name that still get reported to the credit bureaus. Um, only about 5% of the financial institutions in America intentionally. And that’s the key word, intentionally report a positive payment history to the three business bureaus Dun Bradstreet, Equifax for business, and Experian for business. If you miss a payment, they’ll gladly report the negative, of course. And so I’ve got a platform where we go through, set up the foundation of the business, the little things like making sure the current business address matches what what’s on file with the secretary of state.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Darren Crosby: You have an actual business email. It’s not a Gmail account.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right?
Darren Crosby: Um, you have an actual physical address that is not your home address, and there’s ways to get virtual addresses that appear as if they’re maybe a business address. And then one of the things that is mind boggling to me, a hot button with the business credit bureaus, is that the business number is registered with 411. Really, when was the last time anybody used 411?
Joshua Kornitsky: I didn’t even know it still existed.
Darren Crosby: I a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a kid who was he was like 29, 30 years old. And we were having this discussion about building the business credit for his business. And I told him, you know, 411 and he just there was this blank stare. I’m like, let me guess, you’ve never heard of it? He’s like, no. But, um, and then from there, just lining everything up where we’re registering the business with all three bureaus, most business owners, probably 99% of business owners I talked to are already registered with Dun and Bradstreet, but they don’t think about registering with Equifax or experience for business. And the reason that’s important to register with all three is then when they go out to apply for credit, be it a corporate credit card, working capital line of credit fuel card, those financial institutions aren’t necessarily reporting to all three bureaus. Some of them might only report to 1 or 2. And then from there, it’s just a process of applying for credit, using it responsibly, and going up the steps of the ladder and getting to a point where their business credit score is 80 or higher as the scores go from 0 to 100.
Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you for clarifying that, because it doesn’t sound pretty, doesn’t sound really impressive on the consumer scale.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And um, so an 80 credit score on the business side of things, is the equivalent of having an 800 credit score on the personal.
Joshua Kornitsky: That makes sense.
Darren Crosby: And when they cross that threshold of 80 or higher, what’s interesting is the amount of credit they have access to has nothing to do with tax returns, nothing to do with Parnell’s balance sheets. It’s all based on a multiple of the monthly spend of the business.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Darren Crosby: And they end up getting roughly ten x the monthly spend and where that can be hugely beneficial for a business owner because they might have a line of credit with Wells Fargo or Truist.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Darren Crosby: But in all likelihood, it’s going to be a smaller credit limit than what they can get at that ten x multiple.
Joshua Kornitsky: And so I have a lot of questions. The first one that jumps out is, um, as as you meet a prospective client and talk with them, and you just gave us a list of 4 or 5 different things are, you know, as an example, getting listed with four one, one. Um, if you put a million bucks on the table right now, I couldn’t tell you how to do that. And I’m a pretty technical guy, so I assume those are things that you helped them with. Yeah. Because. Yeah. Because there’s no clear direction. Right?
Darren Crosby: Yeah. We’ve got our software program is, you know, it’s kind of a DIY for the business owner, but the majority of the time I hop on a call and I help them as they’re going, you know, as they’re getting over each of the hurdles trying to finish, finish the race. But we’ve got two tutorial videos in there that tell them what they’re going to do, point them in the right direction. We’ve got an AI bot that we coached up with something like 35,000 ebooks.
Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, wow. Okay.
Darren Crosby: And so it really, even though it’s more of a do it yourself program, it’s really like a guided tour through the process.
Joshua Kornitsky: And the answers are there if you need it. Sounds like so. That’s great. So the next question that occurs to me, um, assuming that you’ve gone through that, that onboarding package and gotten through things, um, is it like consumer credit in that you, you then need some time with payment history?
Darren Crosby: Um, so the whole process to get to that promised land of 80 or higher. Um, takes about nine months, 9 to 10 months.
Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, okay. So not a ridiculous compared to getting financial loans from a bank. It’s about the same depending. Right. Um.
Darren Crosby: So it’s a lot quicker than building your personal credit because, like, think about it. You’re 18. You want to go buy a car. Your parents are cosigning. Yeah, because you have no credit history. Well, it could take seven, eight, even ten years until you’ve got a 750 or an 800 credit score. Because when you’re first getting that credit card and your university mailbox, it’s probably a $500 credit.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right. Because nobody wants to take a chance. Yeah. That’s that’s actually a really valuable piece of information for for people to know, because time to harness it into productive value for you, where you’re able to, uh, float money that’s not directly tied to your PG is huge. Um, and in the time that you’ve been doing this, have you had success at, uh, you know, are there specific size organizations that are better suited for it? Is what what size, what what sizes have you worked with as far as just dollar Amounts.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. Um, I would say the majority of my clients are between the 1 to 10 million revenue range.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Darren Crosby: Got a couple of outliers. Um, I’ve got one company that’s going through the process right now. Uh, they’re about two and a half years old, and last year they did about 450,000 in top line revenue. Okay. Um, and then I’ve got a custom home builder out in Boulder, Colorado. Um, that if anybody’s listening, looking at building a home in Boulder, Colorado, check out some construction. He happens to be my little brother, but, um, he he doesn’t touch at home for less than $3 million, and his top line revenue is about 40 million a year.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic. And it sounds like it’s much more about the recurring payment, um, activity than it is about the longevity of the organization. I mean, longevity, I’m sure doesn’t hurt you. Being a 20 year old company is never a bad thing. But if you’ve got ten months of of revolving credit history that they see, I imagine that’s what they base their initial assessments on. Yeah.
Darren Crosby: Uh, to your point about, uh, Lincoln business longevity. I had one client that, uh, she’s up in, um, Memphis, and she went through the process, started about, I guess, almost two years ago. Her LLC has not generated $1 in revenue, has never filed a tax return. She went through the process and put all of her personal expenses on the cards that she was getting for her LLC.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Darren Crosby: Paid for it out of her personal account. But groceries. She’s got three young kids, and, um, she’s now at a point where she’s got access to $100,000 line of credit. And her reason for going through that journey is her husband. Is an EMT. And as I mentioned, they got three young kids and he’s like, I want to be present with my kid’s life and ours. That an EMT works are brutal.
Joshua Kornitsky: They are.
Darren Crosby: And so what they’re doing is he’s identified a, uh, ground guys franchise, just a little landscaping franchise. They’re using that $100,000 to pay the upfront franchise fee, purchase a truck and trailer and lawn mowers, weed whackers, whatever else you need to run a landscaping business, and doing all that without a personal guarantee and able to to launch the business faster.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s that’s amazing. But you also said something that I think is important to to draw focus to. Obviously, you don’t have to be in the state of Georgia for this to work. It sounds like you do business. Is there any state you don’t work in?
Darren Crosby: Uh, I can do business in all 50 states.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic, because that’s the other piece that, uh, a lot of folks that might hear this would be. Well, that’s great, except I don’t live there, you know? And it sounds to me like the the opportunity that you’re bringing is game changing on a lot of different levels. Do you have any. That’s a great story. Do you have any other stories without sharing private information, uh, of where this has made a significant difference?
Darren Crosby: Yeah, I’ve got a, um, another company. I’ve, I’ve helped, um, their, uh, graphic design slash swag promo business. And, um, he’s going through the journey of building up his business credit, but he also got an upfront working capital on a credit that has a personal guarantee on it. When he finishes the process of building the business credit, he’s going to close out that one and get a working capital line of credit without the PG. But his company, he told me, he said, Darren, you know, I’ve kind of hit this glass ceiling of about a million and a half in revenue, right? Growth isn’t for a lack of business coming in. I just don’t have enough employees to handle the business constrained resources.
Joshua Kornitsky: He can’t go higher.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And he’s like, if I could add 4 or 5 employees. We could take this business to the next level. That’s going to be maybe a quarter million dollars in annual salary. But at 1.5 million in top line revenue, the financials don’t support bringing on a quarter million.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Darren Crosby: And so he’s gonna float payroll off of the line of credit he’s getting, because as he told me, he said, I know if I can add these additional employees, I’m going to see an ROI in 4 to 5 months. And then my forward looking trajectory is going to be roughly 2.5 million, right.
Joshua Kornitsky: So it absolutely makes sense for him.
Darren Crosby: Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah that’s a great example.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And you know, I was having a conversation with a lady a couple of weeks ago. She’s a, um, fractional CFO.
Joshua Kornitsky: Mhm.
Darren Crosby: And we got into the conversation about debt and how people are afraid to take on debt. And, and also talking about there’s good debt and there’s bad debt. Bad debt is just going to buy a motorcycle or Jeep to drive on the weekends and put it in the business name. Good debt is like the example I just gave you, where they’re using it to strategically grow the business.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Darren Crosby: And, you know, I’ve got a pool supply company I’m working with. His impetus for going through the process is he’s got an SBA loan on the building that his company is located in. Well, the SBA, they sink their teeth into everything, and they’ll put a lien on your house. And he’s like, it keeps me up at night knowing I’ve leaned on my house. And if something were to happen to the business.
Joshua Kornitsky: It’ll cost him everything.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And so he’s in the process of refinancing the SBA loan into a regular real estate term loan without any personal guarantees. Well, I told him, I said, while you’re at it, you ought to get a working capital line of credit. And he’s like, well, I don’t have any debt. That’s great. I’m not telling you to take on debt, right? But think of it as in case of emergency break glass.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right?
Darren Crosby: Because you never know when you’re going to have a slowdown. And when you do have a slowdown, you probably needed money two weeks ago.
Joshua Kornitsky: It’s an excellent point. And I’ve seen that in in real time because when you realize you need it, it’s already too late.
Darren Crosby: Yeah. And a bank isn’t going to want to extend credit to you.
Joshua Kornitsky: Certainly not when you’re two weeks past the time you needed the money. Yeah, because there’s a whole bunch of implications to that concept of already, you know, the horses are already out of the barn. Yeah.
Darren Crosby: And it kind of goes back to the old adage, the best time to apply for credit is when you don’t need it.
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah, absolutely. And and it’s about it sounds to me like it would be something that, with good financial guidance, would just be a great way to prepare your organization for both positive and negative rapid change. Yeah. Because because you I always like to think on the positive side of it, that rather than you get hit by a bus that you won the lottery. You know, maybe, uh, some great business opportunity comes your way. And I’ve seen this with my own clients where too good of a business opportunity they couldn’t afford to take advantage of because they didn’t. They didn’t have the resources, the capital, the the inventory, whatever it was, in order to satisfy the order that came in and the amount of time it would have taken them to put it together was longer than the buyer was willing to wait.
Darren Crosby: Right.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um, so the only other question that jumps to my mind with something like this is, is what? What? So obviously reaching out to you and we’ll get the links to publish. What are some things that that a business that’s hearing this that has interest. What can they do to get prepared to talk to you?
Darren Crosby: There’s really not a whole lot of prep. You know, I, I as I tell folks, I’m like, look, it’s worth 20 30 minutes of your time. I can show you how the process works, walk you through a demo, and if you don’t see value in it at the end of the call. No harm, no foul. We walk away as friends and maybe you see value in it down the road. But, um, my initial phone call is typically tell me a little bit about your business, where you are, where you want to be, what’s going well and what are some pain points. And then just kind of let the conversation flow from there. You know, because as I mentioned, I’ve been a business owner for 20 plus years. I’ve always been very passionate about small, medium sized businesses. And so now I just try to bring all my experience, the home runs and strikeouts to the table.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure, that’s a great way to.
Darren Crosby: Help a business owner make smart decisions because as as we all know, there’s plenty of business owners that are bringing a great product or a great service to market, but they have no idea how to run a business.
Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, could not agree more because they’re great at what they do, but what they do probably doesn’t have much to do with running a business, whether they’re whether they’re in the trades, whether they’re in finance, they’re great at what they do. But that doesn’t mean they know how to run the business, right?
Darren Crosby: And so that’s where I just try to help them out, because it pains me to see when a local business goes out of business.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. And the single biggest reason that I’ve generally seen is lack of capital. I mean, that’s it that ultimately, if you distill it down to the root cause for why they shut the doors is they couldn’t afford to stay open. Yep.
Darren Crosby: 100%.
Joshua Kornitsky: And and this sounds like a really, really, uh, fantastic opportunity for business to, at the very least, explore if it’s an avenue for him.
Darren Crosby: Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: So, Darren, what’s the best way for people to get Ahold of you?
Darren Crosby: Um, my website is Darren dot a r e n t r y t u r I n g dot ai. And my email is d Crosby. Crosby at t j corporate credit.com.
Joshua Kornitsky: And we’ll publish both of those along with the interview. So people didn’t get a chance to write it down. They’ll be able to click on it and go right from there. Well, I certainly learned a lot today. Darren and I certainly have some folks that I want to introduce you to because I think, at the very least, they owe it to themselves to explore what else is available to them. Uh, and without that PPG on it, that would probably appeal to to most business owners that have been at this for a while. Yeah. Um, my guest today has been Darren Crosby. He’s the founder of Crosby Business Consultants. His work really focuses on helping business owners think differently about capital access. And I have to tell you, Darren, I learned a lot. I really appreciate your time and I really hope everybody gives you a call.
Darren Crosby: Um, and thank you again for for having me on here.
Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely. I do want to remind everybody that today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, please go to Mainstreet Warriors. And a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel. David. Com. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I am a professional implementer of the entrepreneurial operating system known as EOS, and I’m your host here on Cherokee Business Radio. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.







Andre Albritton is a serial entrepreneur and community builder focused on content, connection, and city-level impact.


Jordan Inman is the co-founder of 

Kirsten Ross Vogel coaches leaders to build high performing teams and eliminate the friction that can happen while scaling….or working with family.
Joshua Kornitsky is a fourth-generation entrepreneur with deep roots in technology and a track record of solving real business problems. Now, as a Professional EOS Implementer, he helps leadership teams align, create clarity, and build accountability.













