Join TPG's new community for small-business owners and leaders

Small-business owners and leaders face unique demands every day. As a self-employed small-business owner myself for the last two years prior to joining TPG, I had to shift my focus hourly from my subject matter -- loyalty programs and travel -- to worrying about things like taxes, health insurance and family life. And if you're a small-business owner who doesn't have the expertise in points and miles you wish you had, it's hard to find the time and resources to master the craft, save yourself a lot of money and earn rewards.

To help educate and connect small-business owners with a passion for award travel, TPG is proud to launch The Points Guy Small Biz Facebook Group. The group is for entrepreneurs and/or business owners looking to:

• Learn how to turn monthly expenses into cash back, points or miles.
• Connect with more seasoned business people to learn about how to make sense of and strategize loyalty programs and returns.
• Have a place to ask questions unique to others like you, from spending strategy and employee travel to taxes and niche business-related finance topics.
• Know which next card you should get, which expenses to put on it and why.

Plus, we want to give small-business owners access to TPG's networks with our hotel, airline and bank partners, so that you can tell these major players in the travel and banking industries what small businesses need to succeed -- on the road or through credit cards and bank products.

A community of vetted small-business owners and leaders

We want to make sure that all members in The Points Guy Small Biz group are in fact small-business owners or leaders. So in order to join, you need to fill out three simple questions (they will auto-populate from Facebook when you ask to join the group.) They are:

• What is the name of your small business? We'll let you know if we think it's clever.
• What is your business website? We want to check it out.
• Are you a leader of your business? What's your title?

Answer those three questions and that's it, you're in the club. What awaits is a weekly editorial calendar of posts designed to get you the info you need. It'll allow you to ask routine questions, like what credit card you should get next, and educate you on topics and challenges unique to small-business owners, like controlling credit card authorized users and maximizing rewards on business cellphone expenses while getting free insurance for your phones.

All group members can also submit posts 24/7, 365 to the community, either asking for help or advice, or educating fellow group members. Down the road, we plan to host events specific to The Points Guy Small Biz community and have monthly Facebook live sessions with small-business experts who have walked in your shoes and know a thing or two about points and miles.

Bottom line

The group is moderated by me and three of my top Facebook moderators who have been on my team for more than two years. All of us have small-business experience, and we'll be using the U.S. Small Business Administration's Size Standards Tool to define if a company is a small business. Sole proprietorships and single person LLC's also qualify — they just need to be legitimate businesses.

All of us at TPG are excited about the launch of a new community and hope you'll become a part of a place designed to teach small-business owners and leaders how to maximize loyalty returns and travel better.