Episode 53: How to Secure Business Funding with Shaniqua Nicole

Acquania Escarne 0:03

You are listening to the Purpose of Money Podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host Acquania Escarne

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Hey guys, welcome back to the Purpose of Money Podcast. I'm super excited today to have Shaniqua Nicole, AKA your Millennial Money Maven. Shaniqua. Nicole is a millennial wealth activists, entrepreneur enthusiast, business strategist, and mentor. She's a serial entrepreneur, mom and wealth strategist on a mission to change the face of wealth. During her successful corporate career on Wall Street, she amassed a six figure savings but came to realize an increasing disparity not only within the financial industry, but also in her network. As a natural born leader, she made it her mission to identify the contributing factors to this disparity and provide a solution for her peers. That is how her accounting and wealth management firm Opulence Financial Group was born.

Hi, Shaniqua Nicole, welcome. How are you?

Shaniqua Nicole 1:23

I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me, Queen. How are you?

Acquania Escarne 1:26

I am great. And I'm so excited that you came highly recommended to be on my show. I love to talk about wealth with other dynamic women, and also how we can help women, small business owners, and people of color level up. But before we get into that deep discussion, I want to know a little bit more about you. What was money like for you growing up?

Shaniqua Nicole 1:48

I'm the oldest of six siblings, to teenage parents. Growing up, I pretty much grew up with my parents. So we weren't wealthy. I grew up in the projects of Trenton, New Jersey, so very humble beginnings. But while we didn't have a lot of money, we definitely had a lot of love. So I was never lacking anything in life. My mom was a hustler. My dad was a hustler. So cash was always flowing through my hands. It's so funny because any of my friends that I have from elementary, middle school, one thing that will say about me is that I always had money. I was like the kid that I was selling candy in school, I would take that all my friends to the store after school and buy everybody snacks. Money has always just been an abundant thing. You know, it wasn't something that I felt like we lacked at all.

Acquania Escarne 1:57

I love that. And they're so familiar to me. I grew up in Georgia, but I was the candy girl. I sold candy as one of my first businesses to raise money to go on a school trip. And I feel like that's what started my entrepreneurial path because I was successful. I raised enough money to go to Spain.

Shaniqua Nicole 2:58

Oh, wow. That's amazing.

Acquania Escarne 3:00

And I had like school bus drivers yelling at me, like don't be hustling on my bus. And I was like, Look, you don't know this hustle this for a good cause.

Shaniqua Nicole 3:10

Let me tell you. In my elementary school day, we had a computer teacher used to sell snacks. So I was her competition. She was not having it. Okay, she was not having it. But no, it's so funny. I think that what what first sparked at me was like a church sale that I did. So like at church, we had a fundraiser, we were selling Katie inaudiable, and oh my gosh, I went home after we were selling those Katie inaudible. And on the back was a number that says if you want to sell with us call this number. I was probably nine years old and I call this number. And I'm like, hello, I want to order some inaudible to have my own fundraiser. Girl. Do you know they sent police to my house? There's like where's your mother? They sent police to the house. They thought I was home alone. But you know, it was a very young age. I was definitely that kind of kid like I was a go getter, whatever I wanted I was gonna have so

Acquania Escarne 4:09

I love it. I'm kind of mad at them for that. But then I'm kind of like, well, they did the right thing because what if you were but i dont know, so many of us were latchkey kids, they could have set some people love but surprise you just really trying to make money. So how did that lead to who you are today you go into financial services, you're helping people build wealth. What do you think is the greatest challenge facing women of color building wealth or even small business owners who you tend to consult?

Shaniqua Nicole 4:39

So there are definitely two different dynamics between women of color and small business owners, although women of color are starting businesses at the number one rate in the world but I'll just speak to women of color right because I think that we number one, a lot of us are first generation a lot of us are first generation so we're breaking a lot of generational curses. We're unlearning a whole lot of things that we learned about money. My grandparents, in particular came from the South to the North, they were looking for jobs, right. So that was their number one key, the number one thing for my mother was, alright, when you graduate, it's time for you to get a job. And that's what I did. I went to school for finance, got my Bachelor's in finance, and worked for one of the top financial investment consulting firms in the world, Merrill Lynch at 19. I started there 19, very high achieving, but it just wasn't really fulfilling. And what I seen what I started to see, even in my early 20s, was that I felt like there is big disparity in pay, right? So even I'm 20 years old, unless you say, I don't care if the girls 25 years old, you shouldn't make more money to me. So I was very aggressive at a very young age. And I felt like women tended to shy away from having those conversations.

I was always curious. Oh, you got that role? What does it take to get that role? How much are they paying you? What did they offer you to do? Did you counteroffer? How'd you get that job? So I was super, super curious and super open about having conversations about money at a very young age. And a lot of women would look at me like, oh, that's just the table talk. We just do not. That's the conversation we don't have at dinner. So I think that number one women have to and we are right, we're definitely becoming more open about having these kind of conversations over a table over dinner over drinks with our girlfriends. And then business owners like the same kind of the same thing. We're first generation. We don't know what the hell we're doing. Most people are doing what they love, and they're not really business owner. So I think that once people understand that being a business owner is not about you, right? It's about earning enough money so that you can hire the people that you need to hire, and, and circulate those dollars. It's not a thing that we need to unlearn. But I think we're doing amazing. And with the world of this Metaverse, and the Internet and everything, it's all coming together. For us. I think the internet is the greatest equalizer.

Acquania Escarne 6:59

That's true, it definitely allows you to get out there. But there's still some learning that business owners need to do it even being on the right platforms. Like I think a lot of small business owners took a minute to get on social media, and now they understand the power, how you can monetize or make money from your followers,

Shaniqua Nicole 7:18

I'm guilty, totally let that I come from the institutional finance. So it's like, you couldn't even be on social media without the federal government regulating your posts and all that kind of stuff. So it just wasn't a thing. And I was always just making relationships in real life and making money that way. But girl this pandemic, when I say how many people turned into a bandemic, and I'm like, Hold on. Let me figure out what's going on here.

Acquania Escarne 7:48

Yes. And I will say, full transparency, my business grew significantly in 2020. And it was mostly through virtual speaking events, just getting myself out there. But not having to physically go anywhere, allows me to do more in less time, and reach more people in less time. And so that is key. But I have totally put effort into social media. But I do understand where you're coming from when it comes to compliance, you have certain things behind your name, you can't just post anything, you can't just say anything. So it makes it harder. But there there are ways to pivot and there are ways to be pronounced in social media space, even if you have requirements. So I like what you've said, so far. It's definitely a challenge. But we're getting there. But another topic that a lot of my listeners, because we're most of them are entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs individuals working with side hustles, they have an issue with getting business funding. So what are some of your tips if you want to get 100,000 or so in business funding?

Shaniqua Nicole 8:55

Business funding is pivotal. This is a it 2020 has been such a great equalizer, I think just for the black business owners, because typically we're not going to the SBA for going to the government is like people feel like you're walking up to the welfare line to get some welfare cheese or something to go on to the government, but they don't understand business owners specifically don't understand the power of leverage. So business credit is the number one leverage that you have in growing your business. And what I find is that, excuse me, most people just don't know the steps to getting your business set up to be properly funded. There are certain kinds of names you want to stay away from you want to stay out of those high risk industries, whether it be trucking or real estate or construction or anything high risk, even tax. Honestly, I would never name a tax business. Shaniqua Tax services because tax is a high risk industry. And some banks won't even allow you to bank there based on the name alone. So definitely you want to figure out your naming for compliance purposes or your business banking is going to be important really people think oh, I Got my LLC, I got my EIN number, and they think that they're done. Well, really your business has no age until you get a business bank account.

So if you're out here operating through cash at PayPal, Zelle, sorry. That's not how you get the job done. And a lot of people have done that for a long time, because it's convenient. And they thought it was under the table. But let me tell y'all, let me tell you something, because I've been doing taxes for 15 years, and the government in these last three years has changed taxes so much. All right, the IRS has also invested so much into their technology, and they're going to be doing a whole lot more automated audits. So make sure you get your books in order, that's another key when it comes to business financing is and business funding is having rock solid financials, right. They don't need to be audit proof. But you need to be able to show a lender that, yes, I'm a profitable business. And maybe you're not profitable, but maybe you're bringing great cash flow, if you're bringing good cash flow. And you have high inventory costs or other high advertising expenses or something like that, that's when you will work with somebody like myself so that we can go over cash flow management. But if you have a good amount of money coming in 10, $20,000 a month, there's no reason that you can't get access to business funding.

Another factor and that is separating yourself from the business. So people are out there, operating as a sole proprietorship is not gonna cut it right, you want to make sure that for legal purposes, that's why you have an LLC and limit your liability. So you want to at least get an LLC, maybe even look into getting an S corp, depending on your business, what you do, how much you make, etc. But your business structure is going to be important in that as well. And oh, one thing I hate to see, oh, my goodness, I hate when I'm looking at someone's business. And their address is on the Secretary of State, do not put your personal address on your LLC. Number one, it's public information. If you have a bad client, a bad customer out there, do you want these people showing up the house for a refund?

Acquania Escarne 12:17

No,

Shaniqua Nicole 12:19

Right. So do not use your personal address, you want your business to look like it's entity that one way to show that is that you have separate banking, separate address a mailing or billing address something that's totally separate from you. So we've got your address, you've got your income, oh, and your personal credit. So you can always leverage your personal credit. Here's the thing. I'm not gonna let you borrow $100, if I know that you have not been able to manage $100 in your personal life, okay. You don't have to personally guarantee every thing in your business. But your personal guarantee is just saying, I'm good out here, I pay my bills, I'm responsible. It's also shows the different variety of debt that you're able to manage. So if you already have personal loans, if you already have a mortgage, if you already have these different level of cars, and a lot of people are starting Toro businesses, and they think they're just going to go and get a G Wagen. But you're not going to jump from a $20,000 car to a $200,000 car. It's not going to happen right when it comes to business funding, but you can. Now you can get business funding to get a car. But there's level so you start at 20 you get a $50,000 car, you get 80,000 $100,000 car, and then you can go and get your Lamborghinis and your your top notch cars.

Acquania Escarne 13:45

She's like, Shaniqua is like we going to keep this real? Yeah, I'm not about to get to G Wagen. But you know, one thing I wanted to point out because you mentioned this, and it's been in the news, starting next year, the Cash App and Pay Pal and all of these money transfer services are supposed to start tracking transactions that exceed $600. And so many entrepreneurs are getting scared because they weren't properly accounting for all their income. So let's talk about that for a minute. I mean, you did talk about it a little bit, keeping your book straight, making sure you're accounting for everything and understanding that it's not under the table. But also being a legitimate vendor that accepts multiple forms of payment has been a pain point for some people because like you said, they see these transaction apps as a convenience. It's convenient for their customers. It's convenient for them. But we still should try to have invoices and clients that pay us maybe through payment systems

Shaniqua Nicole 14:55

Right? Yep, payment link. There's so many it's so easy right? There are so many easy ways that you can facilitate payment from customers. And here's the thing, Oh, I miss one when it comes to business funding your email, please, no more Gmail, no more at Yahoo News. If you're using Yahoo, I think you're back in 2000

Acquania Escarne 15:13

People are being aged discriminated against because of the email addresses that they're putting on applications. So here's a great tip. I know this is, I know this is a little off subject but I have to say this, if I have anyone on here, who still has a Yahoo account that they use for more than junk mail, because I do have my Yahoo account, but it's my spam mail, you may want to consider using a Gmail or another type of email account when you're applying for a job because some employers will look at that. And they will say, she's still our Hotmail, she's still on Yahoo. Let's think about this. Okay. But that's a pet peeve of mine, too. When it comes to business, I want to see your business name and the.com. I know everybody doesn't do this, maybe you're trying to see if your business is a viable business before you invest in some branding. But I do agree with you on this one. I like to know that you've invested the $5 a month that Gmail charges to personalize that email.

Shaniqua Nicole 16:14

It's not hard

Acquania Escarne 16:15

No shade, I'm just No, but it helps legitimize the business, it helps me feel like

Shaniqua Nicole 16:20

It not even just us, it's not even just us personally, if we're just your customer, or potential customer. Imagine what a lender feels like when they go out and they Google your business. And you're using at Gmail on your website. Like it's just not professional. And it definitely doesn't ring. Yes, I'm going to give these people $100,000. It's just not doing it for me, right? I don't want that for you guys. So please, please get the 5.99 Gmail

The number two thing that the IRS is looking for is an under reporting of income and over reporting of expenses. But the greatest thing about the techshow is that the IRS, like as a business owner, you open yourself to over 400 deductions. So you just need to learn whatever you don't know. And I'm actually having I actually have a five day mastermind that's coming up, and I'll be posting them throughout the year. So whenever this airs, there should be one where one of the days do go over? What are the deductions that you can qualify for? But the other side of that coin is income. How much income have you made? And are you trying to under report? Because here's the thing, right? Sometimes you might have started off the year using cash app and you might have ended the year only using Zelle, but then you forgot about cash yet, but you made a good $25,000 $50,000 in CashApp and you just totally forgot. Well, guess what? Before now, right before this new mandate, nobody knew the IRS didn't send it to anyone cash up wasn't required to report it to anyone, they weren't sending you a 1099 for it. But now, if you have more than 600 coming in or out of any of those electronic processors, Cash App, square, all of these intermediary banks are now required to send this information to the IRS.

So even though people think that this is something new, and that they are just now supposed to start reporting income. No, that's not true. Even though last year, the square wasn't reporting its income, that doesn't mean that you weren't required to report it. So even though they weren't reported, you were still supposed to be reporting it. So that's one misconception. I see people say, Oh, my gosh, I'm under the table. Sorry, you're not under the table, we were never under the table. And this is what I have to tell people. You can't be out here living a $10,000 per month lifestyle. And you're only showing that you're making $500 a month, right? Because when it comes down to it, the IRS is gonna they they can look into your income, they look into your spending, right? Everything that we spend is digital, unless you're out here paying your mortgage in cash, which I doubt unless you're paying your electricity bill in cash, which I doubt every single dollar that you make and spin is trackable. And now especially with the way that we're going with like cryptocurrency and all that the digital wallets like it's super encrypted , so that information is never going to be lost. So I just want people to get used to reporting your income, showing a profit. And the profit is very important because you're not getting funding. If you are always losing money.

No bank is gonna find you if you're not making any money. Of course, we don't want to have to pay a lot of taxes. But listen, just pay your dues, keep them off your back and get your books in order. One of my favorite apps is QuickBooks. Of course, QuickBooks is super easy to use plug into. They also have an accountant side where you can work with your accountant through your QuickBooks, and they also offer I believe it offers like virtual accounting services so you can pay like $125 a month to have a bookkeeper do your bookkeeping for you. So Oh, There's so many

Acquania Escarne 20:02

Those are good tips. I'm like, wait, wait, I didn't know about that one. Yeah,

Shaniqua Nicole 20:07

I think it's called like, live or live accounting or something like that. Yep, about $100 something dollars and Wave App. So let's just say you don't want to pay $25 a month, WaveApp.com is a free accounting software where you can go ahead and keep your books. It's not it's not like audit proof financials, but it does give you a cash flow statement where you can see your income and expenses.

Acquania Escarne 20:30

I love it. Thank you so much for all of those valuable tips. Y'all heard it folks get your money, right, let's start to track all of our income and account for I've always said that though, you can't make $100,000 in revenue, and then spend $100,000, and think that you don't owe Uncle Sam a dime. They might question that.

Shaniqua Nicole 20:48

People always want to get to zero, there are so many ways you can get to zero, right? There's so many credit. So that's one thing a lot of accountants don't talk about is their credit. So there's a research and development credit. So a lot of people think, Oh, I started a business, I'm not making any money, I shouldn't even claim this, I'm not gonna claim it on my business. Here's the thing about taxes, right? It is annual. So if you, let's just say I want to purchase a car, and I want that car to count towards my income. And this year, if I purchased that car, on January 1, it no longer counts for 2021. It's now in 2022. Year. And so that's how tax breaks. And that's just how taxes work. If you're if you work on a calendar year, you have to take advantage of those things. And that year goes the same for your income, right. So you can't just say, Oh, I started a business last year, I didn't make any money, I spent money, but I'm gonna just wait and claim this till next year. That's not how it works. If you started a business this year, you didn't make any money, you have been doing market research to start your business. And there's actually a credit that you can get from the IRS for research and development that the IRS will pay you for. So it does require documentation required receipts requires specific forms that needs to be submitted. But they will literally pay you r&d credit. And this is how like some of the biggest corporations end up not paying any taxes at all, because not only are they writing off a bunch of things and do you know through high level tech strategy, but they're also receiving credits from hiring people, and really doing the things that the government doesn't want to do.

So the government doesn't want to have to provide all the jobs, they don't want to have to provide all the housing, they don't want to have to do all the research, right? So if you're an inventor or something like that, they want to encourage people to do specific things. And the way that they do that to business owners is offering you tax credits and deduction. So yall learn code tap into my one business away challenge, because that's where I go through all of the deductions that are gonna help you figure out what you can and can't qualify for.

Acquania Escarne 22:52

That is that's golden and worth it if you're gonna get paid to do what you're already doing. Come on now. I love it. My I have another friend who is a CPA, and it's all about getting the IRS to pay for you to do things you're already going to do business related. But still, yeah, I love it.

Shaniqua Nicole 23:10

Yes.

Acquania Escarne 23:11

So I'm going to pivot just a little bit

Shaniqua Nicole 23:13

IRS pays me very well. IRS pays me to pay my kids.

Acquania Escarne 23:17

Ah, let's see. So you help transition to the next topic. I saw you are a new mom. So kudos to you. And I want to talk about this because some people when I was a kid, my mom was an entrepreneur, all of my childhood. She sold life insurance, ATM machines, she did consulting, accounting, like she was a hustler. She had several other things she could do. She never quite built that empire that I had hoped for. But she taught me a lot about entrepreneurship. And I worked for my mom, I used to do filing, phone calls, stuff, envelopes, you name it, and I got paid. And I'm sure she wrote it off. But I wanted to know, as a new mom, who knows the tax game, too. And you're a wealth builder, what is something that parents can do to help their children build wealth?

Shaniqua Nicole 24:09

Absolutely. Thanks for asking that question. Because it is super impactful, right? If I had a college fund or any money when I became an adult, I wouldn't owe 40 $50,000 to these schools now our generation wouldn't be overburdened with school debt. If our parents knew some of the things that we know. One thing that I do and have done for my kids is I pay them through my business. So number one, your business must be a single member LLC. Now you can have multiple businesses right, so when I work through high level tech strategy, I'm saying I'm telling people sometimes you might need to look at three different entities. So you're gonna have your S corp, you're gonna have your family management company, you're gonna have your your other business here, your real estate holdings here, right? So sometimes you need a mixture of entities People are always like, Oh, should I do this? Or this? Sometimes it's and and not at all. So I pay, I pay my six year old. We haven't gotten the newborn on payroll yet. But he will be soon because we're writing a book and he is the topic of the book. Soon.

Acquania Escarne 25:16

Okay, he can be the cover photo shoot, you know?

Shaniqua Nicole 25:19

Exactly, actually, we have a book ABC for rich kids. And the baby on the book is modeling, you know, model less of the newborn. So I've been thinking I might pay him some royalties or something for that. But the number one thing that you have to be able to prove to the IRS when you pay your kids is that they are actually working in your business, what are they doing, what kind of four months, five months old, baby do, we can't really do much you can, okay, we're gonna pay him for models. Yes, we can do. And my six year old, my six year old, he actually does work, we actually just had a book launch for him, we've done vending events. So he goes out, he's signing his books, giving his autograph taking pictures, he's doing those things now, but before he was just mostly modeling, and we would do some YouTube type things, he your kids have to have a job. But the great thing is that you can pay them over $12,000 a year tax free. And that's so important. Because for you, it's $12,000 that you deduct off your taxable income. And it's also $12,000, that your kid has that is tax free, they don't have to pay taxes on. So if you're getting away with murder, right, because you're getting on both ends, it's tax free.

But the power is when you start to invest that 12,000. So we have an IRA. So we have regular IRA, we have a Roth IRA set up for him. And we also have a college savings fund. And I also have an IUL policy. So there's levels y'all, but

Acquania Escarne 26:47

You just said my one of my favorite words, IUL, but that's okay. We're not talking about life insurance right now. We talked about strategy. So lets talk about it. So black people,

Shaniqua Nicole 26:56

Inaudible is also a strategy, right? Because what I call what I call this, what I call this strategy, in particular, for children under two years old is the Million Dollar Baby. How do you create a Million Dollar Baby by leveraging under $200 a month for your child and turning them into a millionaire? Guarantee millionaire guaranteed, death benefit, right guaranteed that it never is going to decrease in value. That's very powerful tool. We do that through the IUL. It's only $200 a month that we invest over there. But we also have his Roth for his Roth IRA. So the Roth IRA is super powerful, because we can put up to $6,000 in a year for him. And it is tax free for when he gets into his retirement. It's tax free. Yes. So the goal is right now I think he I saw a post today, I haven't done the calculation on it. And I should, and I will and I posted on my Instagram, but I think he might have 17,000 or something in his IRA, because you can only do 6000 a year. But if we never put anything else in there, and it continues to increase that 6 7% a year on average, which your stock market has done over the last 30 years, he's going to be a millionaire right when he retires inaudible in that one account is one Roth account, you just leave it don't put any more in there. But he also has a regular brokerage account, he has an IRA, we're trying to figure out crypto for children, because I know that it can be a big impact for them. So that's going to be next we're figuring out how we how I can get into crypto, but we also do the college savings fund as well. Not a whole lot and that but I would say my favorite is the Roth IRA because it's tax free now. And it's tax free later. But the IUL is super powerful to that.

Acquania Escarne 28:45

I love it. No, I'm a life insurance producer, I have been trying to

Shaniqua Nicole 28:49

Are you

Acquania Escarne 28:49

Yes, and I've been trying to get more people to understand that term can be the solution for those who need a budget friendly option, they need a lot of coverage, they need a low cost. But when you have the extra income and the health to get qualified for permanent insurance, it can be so powerful for your family and I am similar. I have a policy on my oldest son, he's young, he's healthy, it took no time to get him covered. And we've stockpiled quite a bit for him just in life insurance, in addition to other investments we've made for him. It's such a powerful tool. And he's 11

Shaniqua Nicole 29:29

The thing about life insurance, people really tried to get it when they need it and they can't qualify. Or it's too late. So you really have to get it while you can and when you can. And here's the thing, you can even you might have a windfall, you might have a good year in business. That's definitely when you need to talk to a financial adviser because you can put a one time deposit into these policies and still let it work and let it do what it's going to do. So yeah, we'll go On that rabbit hole of IUL, but I love them. Because this is how you create infinite banking, right? This is an infinite banking system, you put the money in there for your children, it grows and grows, it never is going to lose value, you have money in your stop, you're up for, down, you can lose money, you can go up, you can go down in the value of your policy, your insurance is never going to go down and value. But the most powerful thing with the IUL is that you can borrow from that money.

So let's just say he has $3 million in there by the time he's 60 years old. And now it's time for him. And let's just say he's even like 50. And he's a he wants to now help his child, buy a house start a business or something, he can borrow $500,000 tax free from his policy, give to his children, and still leave a death benefit when he dies. So for me, that's super powerful, because it's something that I set up something that I fund, and he doesn't have to worry about. But the goal is to teach him how to do this, right? Because the Bible says that a rich man plans for his children's children. That's a rich man and the rich woman.

Acquania Escarne 31:13

Yes, yes. Oh, yes, you are preaching today. Thank you so much. Because this is a strategy that I talk to my clients all the time, and when the when it's appropriate for their financial situation, we definitely have this deep dive conversation. But I love any opportunity where I can find other sisters who believe in it just like me, and because there are haters out there, and they will try to tell you all these things, but I'm like

Shaniqua Nicole 31:39

And this is the thing, everyone's situation is different, right? You can't get advice from rich white men, when they have never lived this life. They're not first generation, they don't know anything. And you know why they're preaching no life insurance, because their parents left them millions of dollars.

Acquania Escarne 31:57

Facts

Shaniqua Nicole 31:58

They don't worry about it

Acquania Escarne 32:00

Facts, It's just everybody's different. And what I try to tell people all the time is, I am speaking from my truth. So I know the power of life insurance, I have it on myself, I have it on my children, I know what it can do. And I've also invested. So it's one thing

Shaniqua Nicole 32:18

It is my greatest joy to be able to deliver somebody a check when they are going through the worst time in their life, that the worst thing that you can do is come up as their financial professional as your accountant, as their advisor, and say sorry, when I come and talk to my clients, and when they're going through the worst time ever, like they just lost someone they love. I have a check to deliver, because we're gonna make sure if term is the only thing that you can get right now. That's what you're going to get right now. And then let's revisit this conversation to later.

Acquania Escarne 32:47

Yes, absolutely. And I love that and I to be truthful. I've been licensed since 2016. But I didn't get the first worst phone call of my life, even though I know I sell life insurance. I didn't get a call until this year.

Shaniqua Nicole 33:04

Ok

Acquania Escarne 33:04

And it was really hard because of two things. So this gentleman called me, and he's Hey, how you doing? My name is Steven. And I said, Oh, Hi, Steven, how you doing? He says I'm the brother of Jacob. I said, Okay. And then I said, How can I help you today? And so he's all Jacob passed away. I said, I'm so sorry to hear that. He said, Oh, I found your insurance information in his files. And I said, I'm so sorry to tell you this. But Jacob never applied for the policy. So the first call I got was not even from an existing client. But it was from a potential client that decided not to get life insurance and then passed away. And his family in hope was calling me to get that check. And I had to tell them, he never applied.

Shaniqua Nicole 33:54

So this is another reason why I say get covered why you can while you're young, we move with urgency on Black Friday, when we think things are 20% off. Here's the thing, you're never going to get insurance cheaper than you'll get it today. Right? Because every day you get older, and every day there's more of a chance that you become sick. So please hit the Queen up. Get your life insurance.

Acquania Escarne 34:18

Yes, please. Okay, I love this. This conversation has been absolutely amazing. But the name of the podcast is called the Purpose of Money. So I asked all of my guests this, what is your purpose for money?

Shaniqua Nicole 34:35

My purpose for money is to make the most money that I can make, only so that I can give as much money as I want to give so that I can continue to live free. And so that I can teach my children it's very important for me to teach my children that money is just a tool. I feel like when you come from a family where it's money don't grow on trees or where there's a lack mentality that you got your back into the wall and it forces you to do things that you wouldn't you don't want to do. Sometimes you just got to do things because you got to do them. So I like to teach my kids that money is a tool, right. It's not something that you should want. It's something that you deserve, especially when you are doing God's will and God's work.

So I tell my son all the time, who you're asking, rather, who's the person that makes the most money? And his answer is the person that helps the most people. So these are the things that I try to instill my also like him, like for him to know and my boys, both of my boys that you can literally create something that allows you to share value, right? You don't have to physically help people with your hands, you can help people with your thoughts with your ideas, you can help people with your mind with your creations with your information, right. So all of those things are the seeds that you need to sow. And money is just another one of those seeds. So I believe that the purpose of money is to continue to flow through my hands for my purpose that God has given me and into the next person's hands. It's owned by no one, but it's one of the most powerful tools that you can leverage to live the life that you want to live.

Acquania Escarne 36:23

I love that answer. Thank you so much Shaniqua Nicole. Now before we depart, please let my listeners know where can we find you?

Shaniqua Nicole 36:31

Yes, guys, first off, thank you so much for having me on the show. Like I told you, you came highly recommended. So I'm super excited and grateful to be here with you. But you guys can find me on Instagram at Money Maven Club, you can also join my free weekly Money Mastermind at Money Maven dot and also host a one business away challenge every single quarter, where I help you start and grow your business from the structuring to taxes to any and everything you could think of marketing operations. I've worked on some million dollar campaigns. And so I compact that into a five day training. You guys can check that out at OneBusinessAwayChallenge.com You can always find me at ShaniquaNicole.com

Acquania Escarne 37:18

I love it. Thank you so much, guys. If you love this episode, please like it. Leave a five star review and share it with someone else.

This has been an amazing opportunity to talk about women, wealth and life insurance. Until next time, keep building generational wealth.

Thank you for listening to the Purpose of Money podcast. For more resources and information, check out my website the PurposeofMoney.com and while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter so you have the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep creating freedom in your life today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai