He has indicated he has 40 employees that work for him, and he has multiple projects going on at one time.

The guys at Home Depot are the employees .

To add to what others have said, a W9 (which is for contract workers like cleaners and handymen who are NOT your direct employees) gives you the vendor's EIN or SSN and their mailing address. 

If you qualify for a solo 401k (self employed with no w2 employees other than a spouse) you can take what's called a participant loan. 

I've done a lot of searching, but havn't found anyone with a situation quite this niche.
I am a 100% commission sales person for a new home builder. My entire day and time involves learning about, keeping up to speed...

Transition from employee to employer.

The more equity you have when you are ready to retire, the more cashflow it will turn into.So you can optimize for two things: higher priced properties with a bigger potential to appreciate (find the sweet spot, don't go too high) and harness more tenants with higher income to pay higher rents (= higher monthly paydown).When you start thinking this way, you quickly realize that today's cashflow is not that important as long term equity.

For the shoe store that would include things like your utilities, rent on your store, the salaries you pay your employees, bookkeeping, advertising, insurance, and probably lots of other stuff.

Insurance programs or discounts provided by one company to the members of a specific organization (ie. trade group, alumni group, company employees, etc..)2.

How have you educated yourself on Infinite Banking, and on other concepts of financial planning that people could harness as part of their strategy as an alternative to IB?