Can anyone here outline what is the best way to build a corporate credit profile for an LLC?

The LLC is "brand-new", has an EIN and has no accounts yet. A DnB number was obtained.
I was thinking of simply opening a checking account, getting a secured credit card, and after a few months getting an unsecured card.
Would that be sufficient to build a corporate credit score? It's my understanding that this score has a range 0 - 100 (D&B) or D - AAA (Standard & Poors).

Googling the topic, I found some companies that promise help / acceleration. E.g.:

http://www.companiesinc.com/services/corporate-credit

http://www.cc4yourco.com/advantagebusinesscredit.html

The 2nd link states:

"The process of establishing corporate credit is a complicated one. There are a number of companies who establish corporate credit profile. One can register with these companies. Unfortunately, many owners who do this find their companies “red-flagged” when they begin this process. These companies have stringent procedures of due diligence to determine the “viability” of a new company. If you have not done their system properly, they will red flag your new company and you will NEVER be able to remove this flag from your corporation. The owner will need to reincorporate to establish their credit."

Is that true? Is there such a thing as red-flagging? Flagging for what?

Thanks for any insight.

Peter

P.S.: before I get comments like 'pay your bills, deadbeat' etc. My personal credit is fine. We have about 500k in personal credit and a multiple of that in cash. I primarily created LLC for asset protection, not to obtain credit. However, I would like to separate personal and business accounts further.

Hello,

First thing you need to do is have a telephone line for the business and get it listed under the businesses name in 411. Then get your Dun & Bradstreet number. There are easy ways to get it that take more initial effort and there is the hard way of easy setup with tons of sales pitch and credit service sales crap. Do your research and figure it out. Then purchase on net-30 terms with companies like Quill to get some reported lines of credit on your dnb report. After 3-5 lines are established for like 6 months or more apply for a no recourse line of revolving credit (credit card) for your business in your businesses name only. X out the sections where you guarantee it. These will be low lines of credit at higher interest rates so use them very carefully to build up new lines of credit. If this is a legitimate business and is profitable you may be able to take out a no recourse loan in several years on the businesses name, but it takes a lot of work. If you are just creating a shell for extra credit, don't expect to get too much credit and expect to have a lot of extra office supplies. LOL. Do some search on some of the topics I have discussed on your favorite search engine and you should learn a bit (i.e. dnb score, net-30, no-recourse loans, business credit, etc.). Have fun and good luck.

You can also get red flagged for having too many inquiries. The general rule IIRC is at the most, one inquiry every 3 months on each bureau for biz credit.

It is easy to obtain business credit if you personally cosign for the credit. Initially, I don't see that you have a choice but to cosign until your company has established a record.

Yes, but if you apply wisely you can spread your inquiries out. One inquiry for each bureau each quarter will give you one new credit line per month. I wouldn't push it further than that. Don't skip the net 30 accounts like Staples, Office Depot, etc. (Not sure what the current hot net 30 accounts are) It's been a while since I've cared.