Franchise Funding SECRETS 💰 ROBS, SBA Loans & Expert Advice w/ Mike Minitelli (Benetrends)

Unlock the secrets to funding your franchise dream! 🚀 In this full Franchise Freedom episode, Giuseppe Grammatico interviews Mike Minitelli, funding expert from Benetrends. Deep dive into ROBS (using retirement funds), SBA loans, combining strategies, HELOCs, portfolio loans, and crucial advice on timing and financial planning. Essential listening for aspiring franchisees!

DISCLAIMER: The information on this podcast is for general information purposes only. Franchising involves risk and careful consideration should be given before making any decisions.

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Transcript

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I've moved up in several roles at Benetrends and now I get to lead the sales team and, you know, work with people like you and different franchise concepts. And it's exciting, man. I never get bored and it's great to let people know that they have options out there, right? When it comes to lending. I think one of the biggest mistakes Giuseppe people make is going into this undercapitalized. But you can't predict everything, right? So it's always, I always tell people, get more than you need. And if you don't use it, great, you can throw it back to the principal of the loan or put it back into retirement, however. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast, where you can escape the corporate trap through franchise ownership. Here's your host, Giuseppe gr, the franchise guide. Welcome to the Franchise Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Giuseppe Grammatic, your franchise guide, this show where we help corporate executives experience time and financial freedom. Thanks for joining us today. We have a really exciting episode. You guys had looked one guest you were sick of hearing from me, so. We're bringing on some great guests, some professionals each in different fields. We just had kit Higgs on, we talked about a franchise attorney review, and today we have Mike Minitelli from Benetrends and we're gonna talk all things funding. So Mike, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jaap. I appreciate you having me, man. I appreciate it. This is awesome. I've been looking forward to this. I we recorded a show. With with Jen back a couple months ago and I wanted to do a little bit deeper of a dive in all the various funding options'cause we've been getting a lot of questions or if there's been changes and updates. So, before we dive into that, if you could give the audience a little bit of background who Mike is and how did you get into the Benetrends and funding. Yeah. Yeah. My my name's Mike Minitelli. I'm actually a Chief Development Officer here at Benetrends Financial. Benetrends Financial is a full service funding company. We're based in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. It's about, you know, 45 minutes from Philadelphia. And we're actually best known Giuseppe for something that you know, and. Very popular. Our industry, something called a Rob's plan. Our founder, Len Fisher, is the original architect and creator of that funding strategy. Rob's is the acronym that stands for Rollover as Business Startups. This is a funding strategy that most people have no ideas at their disposal. It allows people to utilize retirement funds without tax or penalty to start their business. Purchase their business or in cases like this, purchase their franchise. Super, super popular in franchising. But Berend also does more traditional lending options, right? And SBA loans, equipment leasing, unsecured lending. And really the role of myself and my team is educating potential entrepreneurs on what options they have. It's to your point earlier. There's the lending environment is always changing and adapting, and things do move in different, you know, directions. So it's good for candidates to have an expert you know, guiding them through the process. And that's what we do at Benetrends. We've been doing it for quite some time. I very much like you and a lot of the people you know, you work with. I was a, you know, a corporate transplant. You know, I spent my first 15 years as a. You know, business development individual in different sales roles from a company called Cintas Outta College. Then I got into technology and software and a friend of mine actually introduced me to the franchise space in funding and. I honestly, I fell in love with our industry. I fell in love with what I was doing as far as, you know, I did like exiting the corporate world and finding this space. I, I found that the franchise world is a really nice balance of, I. The billion dollar headquarters and backings of these great brands. And then the, you know, the mom and pop that are looking, mom and pop that are looking to, you know, open one, two locations locally in their community. So, I mean, I kind of fell into it by accident. I wish I was doing it the first you know, stage of my career. But, you know, we all have a different path and. I've moved up in several roles at Benetrends and now I get to lead the sales team and, you know, work with people like you and different franchise concepts. And it's exciting, man. I never get bored and it's great to let people know that they have options out there, right? When it comes to lending. That's awesome. Yeah. And congrats on the recent promotion. That's that's awesome. It's well, well deserved. You definitely put the the time in there. Thank and yeah, there, there is, there's so many different options. And you know, for example I got it to franchising 20 years ago. I. No one ever told me that you can use retirement assets. And looking back, I'm like, I had to, I got denied from a bank. I had to get a personal loan from my grandparents, and I don't remember my coach ever telling me o of this option. Let alone speaking with with Benetrends or any company I didn't even know I had those options, so. Yeah. And you and honestly, Giuseppe, you shouldn't. Right, right. Like, it's not a mainstream product that most of us are familiar with. And you know, to your point, like we're all pretty conditioned early on in your professional career. Hey, don't, you know, don't touch retirement funds, right? Put money away, you know, stock it away pre-tax. Let your companies match it, but don't access it because if you do, you're gonna be hit with some pretty substantial taxes and penalties, sometimes up to 30 to 40% of the, that total amount. And, you know, we all don't work so hard in our daily jobs to, to lose that money. However, through the Roth plan, you can literally. Access to that dollar for dollar. And to your point you know, a lot of people that are exiting the corporate world or have spent, you know, 15, 20 years in a specific career, not everybody's got money sitting in checkings and savings, right. But they do have substantial amount of their assets. In retirement accounts IRAs, 4 0 1 Ks. So, it, I, you're not the only person to say I had no idea that this existed when I started a decade ago. And I had the privilege of, you know, talking to the creator of this had Benetrends and kind of explain how it came about. So yeah, it's still a hidden gem out there for most people. It is. I would say most people, I would say. Nine, not even nine, outta 10, I would say 9.9 outta 10. I have no idea. Have no idea. Which yeah it's the value we could bring to the table. I wanna come back to the to the Robs because I wanna dive a little bit deeper and I wanna dive into, you know, the common, what you're seeing. But one thing I like to I wanna note is. When you're looking to work with a company like Benetrends, my recommendation, the way I look at it, is kind of like buying a home. You don't just start looking at, well, I'm gonna look at million a hundred thousand dollars home and$5 million homes. You wanna make sure that, you know, what are my options and up to what can I get afford? What can I afford? Excuse me. You know, kind of get that pre-approval. So I recommend. After having an intro call and having someone say, yeah let's move forward. Let's, what are the next steps? I think that is, is the perfect time start, because it's not like this thing, you snap your fingers and it's done. It's a conversation. It may be some time gathering financials. Would you agree that the sooner the better just to have Yeah. An idea of kind of what the expectation is, what the options are. Would you agree there? I, a hundred percent. I mean, I have the privilege of working with. Hundreds, if not thousands of different franchise concepts, networks, people that are, refer their clients to us. And a lot of them ask that question. Giuseppe, when should somebody look at funding? And to your point, I usually recommend after that first call, right? Because, you know, a, you wanna make sure they're serious and you want to give them a little bit light education. But b the funding and the financial side of it. Arguably is the most important part of it, right? Right. You could be sitting across from the best suited candidate for a specific brand, but if they don't have the financial wherewithal or profile to move forward, then you could be wasting both people's time, right? So letting them know they have options, letting them get educated and more comfortable with the process about funding, getting them pre-qualified early on in the process is better for the candidate. It's better for the consultant, the brand, everybody along the process. And I use the same analogy as you do.'cause I, you know, most of us that we speak with have went through the real estate home purchasing process, but not necessarily I. You know, purchasing a business and it's not terribly different, right? You do want, just like you go look for homes, right? You speak to a mortgage broker, you get prequalified, you wanna see what you're comfortable with spending, and then you look for homes that fit in that range, right? The last thing you're gonna do is, you know, get prequalified for$300,000 and then start looking at million dollar homes or vice versa. So, the more. Education the candidate has around options. And they were like, oh, wow. Because again, to your point, hey, they didn't know Rob's existed, right? They might not know that they can utilize equity in home. There's all these different things people don't realize. And all of a sudden they thought this was a pipe dream and they're like, oh, wow, I can do this reality. Yeah. Yeah. It's a reality man. So the earlier they realize that the better for everybody involved in the process. I, yeah. And that's it. And then and it really helps to. Narrow the search based off of what you can get approved for. And just because you're getting approved for a larger amount doesn't mean you have to max it out. It could be obviously be much less, but it's good. You know, some people will send financials and say, well, I have this much cash and this much equity in the home. And it's like, no, I need, you need the whole picture because there, there's so many other options. So, all right. So let's, one thing I like about your organization is that you're able to really, it's a holistic approach. You're looking at all aspects. It may make sense to, and I'm, we're gonna dive deep on the Rob's plan. Maybe a combination of Robs, maybe there's a home equity line of credit. Makes sense as well. Yeah. Not that you offer, you know, the line of credit or in that, you know, you would go back to the to the loan to the to the bank, excuse me the mortgage company. Yeah. But you would, you can make those suggestions, even though that's not a product that, or service, I should say, that you offer. So that's one of the things I like it, it's, let's look at all the options. Maybe, you know, option B makes better sense. Maybe it's a combination. So, with that being said you know, top ways that you're seeing today. Funding loans. The Robs is number one. So for everyone listening and first time listeners, rollover business startup, right? ROBS. So y the first thing I hear is, you know, is that legal? Which, why the hell would I even be bringing it up? But I just find that kind of funny. But it was actually a Benetrends that developed this, I believe, was it the late seventies directly with the IRS? Yeah. 40, 45 years ago our founder, Len Fisher. Who was an ERISA attorney by trade came up with this process. He was working with one of his clients who had most of his assets in a retirement account, and Len utilized the IRS code and you know, tax. You know, all the information that the IRS lays out and realize, Hey, you can do this if it's done properly. So it kind of happened by accident and he created this this process and 45 years later, you know, 50,000 plus clients later, we've really created a whole industry around that product. So, yeah, it's very much, legal, it's very much blessed by the IRS, I think Giuseppe the first 15 years of us kind of in business, it was a lot more, you know, lobbying, you know, with the IRS to get their blessing on this. Right. But you know, they have since giving us the kind of green light and nod that, you know, what Robs is, something that's gonna be here and here to stay. And you have our blessing as long as you have an organization like Benetrends or some of our competitors that are doing it properly and managing those accounts. So, yeah man it's again, just an option. Most people don't realize it's at their fingertips. And honestly, man, it's not very complicated. I think a lot of people, to your point, like. I think it's like, I've never heard of this. So it gives them a natural kind of, hesitation. But it's really no different Giuseppe of the rollovers most of us have done in our corporate life. Right, right. So I had very, I was kind when I sat across Len 10 years ago when he explained this to me. He explained it to me in a way that it made sense to me. And I do that a lot with our candidates because they do come from corporate backgrounds, right? So we're both New Jersey guys, right? We got a, you know, hundreds of different pharmaceutical companies here, right? So let's just say I'm, you know, an analyst at Johnson and Johnson, right? And I have a 401k with j and j. Let's say there's$300,000 in there. And I get an opportunity to go work for Pfizer. Right. Typically what we do in scenarios like that is I'll take my j and j 401k with$300,000. I'll roll that out into an IRA, or I can just roll that into Pfizer's new 401k, right? And going from one qualified retirement plan, you never pay taxes and penalties on that transaction. All of us have done that in corporate life, right? You have 300, you move 300. Super simple. When I'm at Pfizer and I'm going through all my onboarding and training and they're setting me up with my benefits and, you know, fidelity 401k or Schwab, whatever they set me up with, and I'm going through investment options within that 401k Giuseppe. A lot of times one of those investment options is purchas purchasing company stock. Right. So again, something I know I did in my technology career, you've probably done it. Most of the people that we work with have done it. At the time I didn't realize it was kind of setting off a chain of events, right? So if I look at that 300 k and I say, you know what, I'll take a hundred of it and invest it in Pfizer, I can do that. Then what happens is my 401k just now owns the amount of shares that I just purchased for Pfizer, and that a hundred thousand dollars that I used to purchase it. It doesn't remain in my Fidelity account. It doesn't float. In financial purgatory somewhere. It goes to Pfizer in one of their many corporate checking accounts that company could now use for whatever legitimate business expense that they want. Right? R and d product, salaries, real estate, anything. So what Len figured out and what we do at Benetrends is literally that same exact chain of events, but instead of doing it for Johnson or Pfizer or Amazon, we set up Minitelli Enterprises, right within Minitelli Enterprises. We set up a qualified customized retirement plan, and then we can take that same$300,000 for my old j and j, 401k. We roll it into Minitelli Enterprises. New qualified retirement plan, and just like before going from one qualified plan to the next, no taxes and penalties. And then what happens is. The retirement account that Benetrends created for me is now just gonna purchase privately held stock in that Minitelli Enterprises, and then through that privately held stock purchase. Giuseppe the retirement accounts, gonna own privately held shares$300,000. Now goes to Mike Minnelli's corporate checking account that I could now use for any legitimate business expense. So that can be the franchise fees. That can be a build out of my location if I'm having a brick and mortar trucks equipment. It can also be used to pay yourself a salary, which is a lot of times very hard to get from a loan. And it can also be combined with SBA or another form of. Funding to get additional funds to help secure you know, your investment. So yeah, again, that, that helped make sense to me 10 years ago. And when I try to explain it that way, Giuseppe, it does seem to resonate. It does actually, with the people that have done it in their corporate life, right? It absolutely does when you kind of say it that way. And that explanation actually is really helpful because people start getting into the weeds on this, and I go I'm not the expert in this area. You know, we work with Berend, we work at Jade. We work with Jade every single day, you know, back and forth. We, there's always this you've probably never heard of this scenario. It's always one of those conversation starters, but she's been really helpful in, in, in starting that. So, so that is, I guess a benefit there is, I'm looking at it, it seems like it's your money, so you get access to the funding quicker and you don't have to worry about note payments every month, right. It's just you got a new business, right. Yeah. Yeah there's a lot of advantages to it. It is, to your point, a very quick way to get, you know, funding right from start to finish. You're looking at usually three to four weeks from engagement to that money sitting in your corporate checking account. Even Giuseppe for the people that have cash and liquidity and they learn that this is an option they quickly say to themselves. Well, if it's sitting in cash, that means I've probably already paid my taxes on it, right? Cash is good to have for your day-to-day life, right? You know, Becky needs braces. Johnny's going to college. Tree trees fell down on my house. You know, cash is always good to have. So once they realize I can access my pre-tax dollars in sometimes an underperforming retirement account. I'd rather keep my cash here, right? And then access these pre-tax dollars to, to help fund the business. So, you have the aspect of using prevo versus post-tax. Some people like the diversification of it, right? If you have somebody that has substantial amount of money within the IRAs and retirement accounts, if they have a million dollars and they can just pull 200 of it. Take it out of Wall Street and the market and say, Hey, now I'm investing it in Giuseppe and my business. It's diversified, right? So it's not tied to Wall Street. It's tied to me. And then you have the individual Giuseppe that just likes control, right. Maybe there's some distrust about Wall Street and you know, the market and they say, you know what? I want to have control over my money and my destiny. God forbid it doesn't work out. There's nobody to blame but me and myself, I want to invest and bet on me, which is another thing that people, you know, like to do. So it, there's a lot of different ways that, that people view this. And again, to, to our point, most people go into this conversation not even knowing or realizing that this is an option. Awesome. No, that's that, that is really helpful and, for anyone that wants to learn a little bit about, about, about the Robs or any, anything we're talking about today, we're definitely sharing this episode since you do a much better job in explaining it. Yeah, especially when the question started started popping up. So this is one avenue of many talk to us about, you know, another, product or service is the SBA loan. So what is that? What does SBA stand for? For someone that's listening for the first time and you know, what does that process look like? And maybe even, you know, compare the two, maybe some differences, obviously one's alone, but if there are differences is what you can use the funds for. Yeah. SBA Giuseppe is small business administration. It's our government backed entity supporting small business and entrepreneurship in the us Right? You know, at the end of the day, I. These are just banks lending the money. What the SBA does is incentivize banks to lend to Michael, to Giuseppe, to anybody out there by guaranteeing a certain percentage of that loan. I talk to people all day, every day, and sometimes I ask, Hey, why do you wanna look at A an SBA loan? And they say, well, it's guaranteed. Yeah. While that's true, it's not guaranteed to the borrower, it's guaranteed by the bank that's lending it. Right. So, you know, I also get the question pretty frequently of, well, why do I need an SBA loan? Why can't I just get something, you know, traditional or conventional? And the short answer is they're just harder to come by. Banks like to follow the SBA processing guidelines because they know at the end of the day. Up to 75% of that loan can be guaranteed by the federal government, right? So the banks have protection. Knowing that they have the backing of the US government, right? If they do something conventional or traditional, that risk is entirely on them, right? So they like to follow this process because again, it gives the banks a level of protection and it's kind of a safety net, right? And, you know, it's still a very popular way people get into business. All of these banks are very different in the types of loans they have appetites for, and those appetites change as they become you know, you know, in different industries and different thresholds once they hit. So what Berend does is we partner with 60, about 60 lenders across the country, and. We take 45 years of experience and we're gonna walk a client through from prequalification to going directly to those lenders that we know, love, fitness, or we know love, service based or health and wellness or quick food service, and then try to get the best potential rate that's out there for the client, right. Because these are government backed loans, though, gi, that the banks do have to follow specific guidelines and criteria. So, if you don't mind, I'd love to kind of just give you the basis of what they look for, right? Yeah. They wanna know that the individuals, you know, just to outstanding, you know, US citizen, right? Clean record, you know, things like that. Then they look into the credit profile. Usually anything from a six 70 or above from a credit score perspective will qualify. And then the banks start to go through the the numbers, right? So, regardless of the investment range that a client may be looking at, typically what the banks would like to see come from the borrower. Is anywhere from 10 to 20% of that total investment come from them. Right? That's gonna be their skin in the game. And then the bank lends the remaining portion of the loan, right? The bank wants to know that again, you know, Joe or Mary Smith you know, have funds going towards the project. Gotcha. Other things the banks want to see is something we call post-closing liquidity and real simple GI epie. What that means is, hey, after I come to that table with 20%, do I have sufficient? Cash reserves and assets to continue to support my debt to income ratio and living expenses, right? They wanna make sure somebody's not over leveraged, just coming up with that 20%, right? So they're gonna wanna see a little bit of a runway, right? I. Sometimes the banks want personal collateral, not all the time, but as the investments get larger, sometimes the banks do wanna, you know, see collateral nine times outta 10, that's gonna be a second position lien on a primary or investment property. Not always the case, it's always done on a lender decision. But those are the typical sort of requirements that the banks look for. When lending money to an individual or a partners. So that's a huge advantage. I didn't realize you work with, you said 60 lenders. Yeah, 60 lenders across the country. Yeah. So I hear are people saying, well, I, I'm, can I just call the lender directly? And yes, I'm assuming you can, but you know, you have a company like Benares number one, looking at the whole picture to see which products Yeah. And services make sense, but also to shop the lenders and see which. Who has the best terms, who has the best rates lines of credits. I've heard I, if I understood correctly, have also been added as opposed to getting a separate product on an SBA loan if I understood that correctly. Yeah. And if I'm wrong correctly, but I thought I heard that, that one of the someone got an a line of credit, which was one less thing they had to worry about. Is that Yeah. Well, we see that very frequently where they'll go to us or our lender directly. Get an SBA loan and in addition to that SBA loan, they have a line of credit that they can utilize, right? They don't have to utilize it, but it's there for working capital for break glass in case of emergency. So, yeah. A lot of times lenders will offer a line of credit for one of their borrowers as well on, on top of the SBA loan. Gotcha. The rates are typically variable, is that correct on? Yeah. Yeah. Great question. It's obviously a, you know, something that a lot of people wanna know about the terms of these SBA loans. GI sete, relatively standard, right? Typical SBA loan is going to be a 10 year term. They're not gonna be any prepayment penalties though. And really what that means. cause sometimes people don't realize pre prepayment penalties are a thing, but banks and lenders and funding make money on interest. Right. And sometimes there's banks and lenders out there that if you choose to pay off that loan. Early. You have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars on prepayment penalties. However, through an SBA loan, you can pay a loan off early at any point with zero prepayment penalties. Huge advantage for some people. Yeah. When borrowing, even for the people that can use cash, because they can borrow it, they can see if this thing has legs, if it takes off, and then when they realize, oh wow. I have something here, they can pay off that loan early and limit their interest exposure. Gotcha. From an interest standpoint. They're not technically fixed. Okay. SBA loans are always gonna be tied to the prime rate. So wherever the Fed dictates prime is essentially where your rate would go. The maximum that one of these lenders would be able to charge would be Prime plus two and three quarters. Perfect. And it's not like Prime cha people ask me, does that mean my every month, my interest and my payment's gonna change? Not by any means, right? Typically the Fed will look at, you know, prime quarterly. Sometimes there's no change at all. And then usually it's a quarter or a half a point, you know, difference from an adjustment perspective. So you're not gonna see these massive fluctuations, GI, epie, I mean, again in 2023. It didn't change at all, right? So there was no change. The last 12 months we've seen three rate reductions. So everybody has saw their payments go down. So I just tell people and preface, Hey, no matter what, it's gonna be tied to that prime rate right now. That was really really helpful. And obviously, you know, kind of comparing the Robs to the SBA the SBA is gonna be alone, but. What are maybe some differences or maybe limitations, I dunno if limitations is the right word, but you can't just, as you mentioned with the Rob, since it is your money, you're able to pay yourself a salary. Yeah. Maybe you bought multiple territories. And what would be differences as far or restrictions in the in the SBA loan? SBA doesn't have a ton of restrictions as long as it's going towards the business, okay? Usually paying yourself a reasonable salary is okay? But sometimes people transitioning out of a corporate job that need a little bit more, you know, they're limited to what they can pay themselves, right? And that's where the Robs can really come into play, where they can, you know, pay themselves a salary even prior to them opening, right? If you're, if you have a year long build out. You're still working in the business, we're meeting with contractors, meeting with architects, making, you know, doing goodwill through the community to spread the word about your business. You know, with the SBA it's very limited when it comes to that, right? You know, a huge advantage, which quite frankly, it all depends on how you view money and debt. It's not your money, right? You're borrowing it, right? So some people just like, you know what? I want my money here. And everybody views finances and debt and interest different. So some people just have this like, Hey, I wanna borrow money and. And do that and, you know, not utilize my, my you know, my own. I will say this very commonly, robs and SBA are combined. Most people use Robs for that 15 to 20% equity injection, and then they borrow the rest. So one of the things I always like to tell people is. Again, if you never looked at this you don't really realize it, but you could combine funding strategies, right? I've seen people combine 2, 3, 4 different ways and kind of piecemeal, I kind of call it like Frankenstein funding, right? You take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you kind of put it all together. You know, sometimes you don't wanna see one asset completely kind of deteriorate. So maybe I take a little bit from retirement. Maybe I borrow some money from the SBA, maybe I use a little bit of cash. I'm a home equity line of credit that I can use as an emergency. So there's so many different ways that people can leverage their assets. But, you know, again, some people just like to borrow and I, I understand why, right? They want to utilize it. So, but they're always gonna have that interest payment as long as that SBA loan is in place. Gotcha. Yeah, it's not what's the best option. It's what you're, you need to be educated. You need to figure out what's the best fit for you, and more importantly, if you are using I learned this years ago if you're gonna use a strategy, robs and SBA, sometimes it makes a difference the order that you do things in, depending on if you're leaving the employer or not, if you've just been with maybe one employer. So, that's one of the other benefits is like, let's put together a plan. Start off with the SBA Robs or vice versa. Let's fi let's figure out what that, that plan looks like. So I do like that because it is there, there's some strategy planning in there as well. Sometimes the best plan and this is one of the, you know, the reasons why I love how we approach this. Sometimes the best plan is not to utilize us at all. Right. Like our job as funding consultants is to educate the individual on their options. Sometimes the best option for them, GI Epi. Isn't in Rob's plan. It isn't an SBA loan, right? It's leveraging other assets that we don't offer products for, right? So whether it's utilizing home equity, right in their, in a line of credit through an eloc, whether it's utilizing cash, right? Sometimes people just have a ton of liquidity that they can leverage another strong option that a lot of people don't realize. Is leveraging a investment account, right? Most people's initial reaction is, Hey, I can sell off some of my investments, create some liquidity, and use that towards the venture, which is very true, right? You always have that option. But you're then creating a taxable event, right? And you're paying taxes and capital gains on any of the increases that you've seen. But a lot of times, Giuseppe, those financial institutions. Offer portfolio loans, right? Or securities backed line of credit, which I compare to an eloc. But instead of using the equity in your home is collateral you're using, the value of your portfolio is collateral. And the beauty of that is you're not selling off those investments in those stocks for these Fortune 50. 500 companies, wherever it's invested in, you still hold those and you're able to borrow at a pretty competitive interest rate sometimes, you know, you know, and leverage your portfolio. So there's a lot of times where I see what somebody can get from a an interest rate on a portfolio loan. And I say, you know what, man? That could be, if you're comfortable with it. It could be a better option than going SBA. So, you know, sometimes the best candidate is the one I kind of guide away from using Benares because it makes more sense for them. I like the idea of just having and having that kind of full review of everything and the portfolio loan. I haven't seen many people actually move forward with that, which is actually surprising. But to your point, yeah, no broker or financial advisor commissions, you're taking a loan on your own on your own money. Keep in mind if you're fully invested in one company and that company I'm not gonna name names, but it has been a company in the news that maybe has just shot down, of course. And value, you know, you always risk a margin call. But yeah, it is it is a quick way to get funding. But yeah I haven't seen many people actually move forward with that idea. So we got portfolio loans, we got SBA, we got Rob's, what else do we have? Home? Home equity, lines of credit, home equity. I mean, you know, we've seen, you know, people listen, home values are crazy right now, right? So a lot of the people that we work with do have some substantial equity in their homes, right? And again, sometimes they wanna leverage that equity in their home to help themselves get into business. So. You know, again as logical as it seems, sometimes people don't realize they can use that towards, you know, getting into business. And you know, the, again, the only silly question is the one that's not asked, but you know, again, if you haven't looked at it, then why would you know that? But we certainly have seen a lot of people leverage that in some capacity to help themselves get into business, or at least have. An open line through their, through, through their home equity as again, working capital is expansion, you know, things like that. So, you know, I think one of the biggest mistakes Giuseppe people make is going into this undercapitalized. A lot of times, you know, the, in, especially in franchising, there could be a big. Gap and what that range can look like depending on how many territories, geographical areas, construction, all these different things. And people always want to come to that left side and the lower, which I get. You never wanna spend more than than you need to. But you can't predict everything, right? So it's always, I always tell people, get more than you need. And if you don't use it, great, you can throw it back to the principal of the loan or put it back into retirement, however. But, you know, sometimes these things don't work out and it's not because the phone's not ringing or people aren't walking through the door. Sometimes they don't have sufficient capital to support that growth. So, I, again, everybody views money differently and nobody wants to spend more than they need, but I always recommend trying to get a little bit more than you think you need. For that rainy day fund. I agree. It's the buffer. The business may take it, you know, the cost, it costs more than anticipated, right? The expenses are high took a little bit longer. Something personal came up, you ended up getting laid off, and you expect it to have that job. So, yeah, you know, in the event you do leave the job, just say to run the business, who's paying your mortgage? Who's paying your student loans and everything else, yep. Utility bills and things like that. So you need to have that buffer. Yeah. Take, you know, take as big of a loan not the largest loan you, yeah. You can get, but have that buffer. Because the reality is that if you are short you know, business is okay, but you need to double down on, on marketing and you need extra funds. This is not an overnight thing. Like, all right, you know what? I need an extra 25,000. I'm just gonna pull it from, well, there's nowhere to pull it from. There's a separate, I don't even know, actually, I don't know how that would even work. I guess there's options. Maybe it's. Pulling from equity to the home. I don't know if the SBA, you know, if you want to go back to the SBA and you need an extra. 20 or 30,000. You know what, I guess where would, what, what would happen in that case? You could always go back to the bank where your loan is with and see if you can get additional funds. Again, some banks will offer a line of credit on top of that loan. Sometimes people come back to us after they get their s, they just did an SBA loan and they say, you know what? I do want to utilize my retirement funds to as like a capital injection. That's certainly good. Sometimes if for the person that's continuing their W2 job, which a lot of people are I can, I recommend doing a loan, a distribution loan on their retirement account, right? If they're employed with the company that holds their retirement and they wanna borrow up to$50,000 if their employer allows it. A lot of times people can do that. Right? Right. So even for somebody that sells Rob's plans, sometimes I tell them, Hey, you can borrow up to$50,000 from your existing, your current 401k. And the beauty of that is you pay yourself back the interest. Not a bank, not a lender. So sometimes people utilize that. So there's all different ways people can inject capital. Sometimes it's family, friends, partners or different lines of credit that are out there. Love it. And that, and the moral of the story is you have options and the best thing you could do, obviously. You wanna find the type of business, but you know, not limit yourself. Let's see what that the funding landscape looks like. What are your options? Do you qualify for the Robs at this point? If you've worked for a one employer, one retirement do you have all traditional IRAs? These are the questions. That way you can put that all together and you can plan accordingly. So when you do leave the job, you know that Rob's option's gonna open up. Maybe you wanna expand. Buy equipment, buy another franchise, buy another another territory. So, there's a lot here, but get your financials in order, you know, get all those accounts. I, I create a. A spreadsheet that I literally update monthly. Just your cash and all and, and all the savings and checkings account. Your, all your investments. Quick value of the home update on the mortgage. I do that actually on a monthly basis. I'm a finance geek yeah, Google spreadsheet. I just so I know where I'm at on a monthly basis. And if you can get into that habit, it's gonna make business ownership a little bit easier as well.'cause you need to have all your financials in order. What didn't we. Talk about any other options. Obviously we talked about best practice and how to go about this, but any other options you can think of? I mean, that really covers quite a bit. I mean, there, there's unsecured lending that, that you know, Benetrends offers outside of the SBA. You know, this is, you know, not through again the SBA process usually a pretty quick. Quick process compared to SBA, but a much higher interest rate. You know, so if somebody might not qualify for SBA or, you know, there's unsecured lending options. Again, higher interest, but could be potential for people to utilize. There's good old fashioned cash and liquidity. There's people borrowing from. Friends and family, rich, uncle, mom and dad, whomever. But the moral of the story, Giuseppe, is honestly like, do your research, understand your options and just figure out, you know, what's at your disposal and what you can utilize. And honestly, sometimes we have to have the tough conversation is, Hey, you don't qualify right now, and that's fine. Like, you know, but this is what we try to do is give them a roadmap to, you're here today. If you can get here, you're good. Right. And I'm sure you've seen this in your line of work. I know I have. I have seen people come by, come back 10 years later and say, you know what, now's the time. Right. So the more you can just educate yourself on options and you know, leveraging your personal assets and financial situation. I think the better off it is, whether it's today, whether it's next year or five years down the road. It's always good to educate yourself on what's out there. Yep. I like that. And the proactiveness is big because, you know, you've been denied for the SBA Great, why was I denied and what's the plan? Is it. We, I had someone get denied years ago when I first started, and no explanation. Working with a small I forget the name of the company. Not to mention on the show, but yeah. Yeah, they got denied. And I'm like, well, did you find out why? They said No, we just got denied. So we called back and it was simply the credit score. I. The credit score need, need, needed to increase. There was actually something on there that actually was a mistake that happens all time. And it's just like they didn't run their scores. They had no idea they had, everything else was fine. So, okay. You know what? They made some recommendations. Maybe call credit repair company, make these changes, contact the credit bureau. Let's get that back up to speed and. I forget how many months, three to six months that score got back up and they were approved. But, you know, being proactive about it as well, because everything has to line up. You know, you have to, the expectation on the business, but on the financials, you know, if the timing isn't right, okay what's missing? Credit score is great, but you have, your liquidity's a little bit light. If you get it up to, you know, another 20 or 30,000, we can probably get you approved. And that goes a long way.'cause now I have a map, I have something to work off of instead of just saying, okay, do I just call you in a year and cross my fingers? So I. And that, that's also the benefit of working with a Benetrends or a company like us, right? We do soft credit polls, we do background checks. We can help the client with business plan writing if they are doing an SBA loan, right? There's a big package that goes into putting together, you know, an SBA loan. And that includes a business plan. It includes, you know, financials. Sometimes the client can do it on their own. Sometimes they don't have the bandwidth or knowledge to do it, so we can help them with it, right? So. When I do talk to somebody that says, Hey, I'm gonna go to my local bank. I recommend that all the time. Fine, go talk to somebody. But they're not gonna get the handholding that they will from us or somebody in our space that's gonna walk them through every stage of the lending process. So it's good to have, I tell people all the time, surround yourself with experts, right? To, you know, when you talk to your clients, you say, Hey, I know enough to be dangerous. But talk to Beran, talk to Mike and having a resource with you. It certainly helps because stuff pops up. Yeah. And not everybody can, is capable of doing it on their own, and it needs some handholding and there's nothing wrong with that. I agree. You you know, take advantage of the resources. Best part is that there's no cost for the initial consultation, so. You get a review you're gonna learn something, you're gonna get some options. There's no cost unless you move forward with any of the of the services that Benares has to offer. Even get the benefit of a credit check, a soft credit check. This is something that, that comes up. Well, what does that even mean? So sometimes I have to take a step back'cause people are like, you talk about soft credit checks. What's the difference between a soft check and a hard check? Yeah. Well, a soft check is, it won't hit your credit score. It won't affect it in any way. So, you know, those are questions that come up. So I realize I, I have to get into, explain things a little bit more for first time business owners, but you take advantage. You say, okay, you know what's in line. Sometimes the credit score I, you know, this is another thing maybe doesn't match up with the credit score at home. And there's a difference that you get maybe from TransUnion and the banks use, I guess a different system. So. You have an all-inclusive you get a plan, you get a roadmap. So timing isn't right. This is what you need. The timing is right. Okay. These are, you know, some of the plans and are some of the options that that you qualify for. And now you're like, oh, wait a second. I can get a loan up to four or 500,000. I may wanna look at brick and mortar. I may wanna look at a physical location with a build out. So, this has been awesome. This has been, truly helpful. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put you on the spot now. I ask this to all my guests. Fun fact, if you can off the top of your head, fun fact about Mike and we'll wrap up the keep it clean too. So, as I jokingly say, fun facts about Mike. We've had some interesting we've had some interesting, you know, it was related to this person we just had kit Higgs on the show. He was in a movie with De Niro recorded the whole day and he said he got about one second on the movie. So listen man, one second. Sometimes all it takes to, I thought that was kind of cool. So. I don't have anything fun. I'm a boring guy, but I mean, I play, you know, I was a college basketball player. I a lot of people see this short Italian from New Jersey like I did when I was, you know, 18. But, you know, I. Played, played college basketball. You know, I'm just kind of a normal guy. I'm blessed with two beautiful children, gi, lovely wife Larissa, who works at ey and you know, Michael and James, my, my two and 7-year-old. But no man, I wish I had a little bit more excitement. I fun to, to tell you, but that's a little bit bas the basketball thing was cool because you're not a tall guy as I am. No. I certainly don't look like a basketball player, that's for sure. And especially at 42, you get. You get that dad belly and that dad bot and you know, that's why we keep the cameras here up, you know, we don't go anywhere. Exactly. Yeah. I could pull my hamstring just jumping out of bed in the morning. So, tho those days are far behind me, man. But No, this is great and I appreciate you having me Giuseppe. Again, you know, we're really lucky at what we do and working in this industry, and I love the fact that I get to educate people and. Helps people get into business very much like you do. And you know, for a lot of people that come talk to us with Benetrends, they go into this thinking this, Hey, this is a long shot, this is a shot in the dark. And then they have that free consultation. They're like, oh my God, I have more options than I thought. So, you know, what's better than that than helping somebody kind of chase their dreams of business ownership. So thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. And if I could ever be a resource for any of your candidates or anybody out there. Feel free to reach out. Appreciate that. Yeah. All it takes is an investment of an hour of your time to, to get a better picture of where you financially stand. So Awesome. I appreciate it. I know it's been this has been one of the, in, in the works in the making for a while, but I appreciate the insights. We got into a lot more detail, so I. Anyone that, you know, some of the comments were, I want a little bit more detail. Or how do the plans compare? You know, what's the difference if I go direct or with Benetrends? We covered it all and, and if you wanna revisit we'll definitely make the introduction. We work with Jade you know, we have a great relationship with, and. I partner with Jade on anyone that we start working with. She's usually the second call and she'll go through that full review, everything we talked about today to help you figure out what are all your finance and funding options. So thanks again, buddy. It was it's been fun and we'll definitely have you back on the show hopefully with some, maybe some cool updates or products or services. So, appreciate it. Again, we have some stuff in the works that hopefully I'll be able to talk about on the next time I visit your show, man. I didn't know that. So, all right. Well, I wanna know before, but yes we'll definitely discuss it on the show, but again, sounds good, man. Thanks for tuning in if you want to learn how to make the transition from corporate to owning your franchise. Join Giuseppe on the next episode. You can also follow on all social media platforms and achieve financial and time freedom today.