Where Do Small Businesses Go For Resources? | B2B Vault | Episode 143

Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Steve Jobs of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about fintech, business payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, we're going to be talking about, you know, where do small businesses go for advice, help, mentorship, um, you know, what to do after they start a business. A lot of times, you know, We don't really even have a—

Yeah, like what resources are available? You know, what are the resources?

Yeah, but you know, there's a lot to touch on that, and, uh, you know, we got a quite a, quite a, quite a list of resources that, uh, Allen and I came up with. But you know, how are you doing, sir?

I'm doing pretty good. It's been, you know, a little bit of a start of the month. We've got to get tax time. Time to file, you know, corporate taxes and gather up all the data and work with my bookkeeper. Got the QuickBooks all up to date now, uploading all the documents so my CPA can get everything together. That's always a task for us. Yeah, well, you know, you just got to get— I'm like in the early part, so like I try to get it done early. That way it's out of the way, and then you can start on your personal return before, you know, everybody does like the whole, all the rushing, you know. It's better to like get it done early, then if you got to pay some tax, which always ends up to be the case, got to pay some tax, at least then you got some time to plan out where you're coming up with the, with the, with the cash. Yeah, for that. But if you wait till the last minute Right, and then you got to file an extension. You can still file an extension, but at least you know what the damage is. Oh, for saying— yeah, so you gotta just kind of plan out, you know, what your, you know, what your game plan is from the tax standpoint. Yeah, but that's the time of the year we're in.

What else you got new, man?

The other thing that's a little crazy is the Fed raised the rate again this week. It's up to 7.75%. I mean, let me tell you, that's not good for—

that's the highest it's been since—

oh yeah, it's the highest '60s, I think it was. Yeah, it's the highest like it's been. So, you know, the prime rate is the base rate. So, you know, when you're borrowing below the prime rate, I mean, that— you got that primo credit, right? I mean, so like a car loan, I mean, I think I I don't even know, I haven't looked into car loans or mortgages, but sometimes because there's an asset involved, the rate can be lower. But if you're a business and you have a line of credit, your rate just went up. I mean, if you have really good credit on a line of credit, Prime Plus, you could be like at 9.95%, could be at 10%. It could be higher. You know, that's a time when you got to rethink how much, what the terms are that you're giving your customers. And for yourself. Well, the terms, you know, how much money you want to— No, no, I'm talking about how much money you want to lay out in invoices, outstanding invoices, because if you're using a line of credit to finance your purchases. Oh, you're talking about the— Yeah, it's a little crazy. Yeah, with taxes, whatever, that's a whole nother— you gotta do your taxes and just get it done. Yeah, I mean, we talked about the IRS backing off the $600 thing, but I think there was some self-policing with that. Yeah, and there's all, you know, that's, there's all, you know, that's a lot that's going on. My daughter enjoyed her stay here.

Well, that's good.

Yeah. You know?

Yeah, man, I ain't got much going on. My wife has COVID. I mean, uh, well, she's feeling better now. Well, she had COVID. Yes, she had a negative test today. I think, you know, the COVID gods— all praises due to the COVID gods. Uh, and, uh, yeah, so the past couple weeks has been kind of, kind of crappy in my house. I'll say that everyone is kind kind of got an attitude and was worried about mom. You know, I'm sure you can relate.

Yeah.

But other than that, my, you know, my, uh, my grandson is coming down this weekend.

Nice.

So I'm excited about that.

Sometimes. Yeah.

He hasn't been, I mean, he's, he was down here when he was a little, like a little baby. So he's about to be 3. So that'll be interesting to watch him run around and Hopefully not get hurt. I have the— I'm the worst grandpa ever. I don't— I watch the kids, but I'm the same, like, as a parent. Like, I'll let my kids fall on their face.

Like, listen, it's got to happen.

Certain dangerous stuff, of course I would stop them from doing, but I mean, hey, you want to be a silly goose and hop off the top of the playground structure, be my guest. Now, you break your leg in the process of doing so, don't be mad when I say I told you so. Exactly.

I remember my kids getting hurt, bumps on the head, putting an ice pack on, all that good stuff.

I had to remind my 16-year-old, my dad actually reminded her, 3 years ago, she said that she wasn't doing anything, but she broke a porcelain sink.

Wow.

How do you break a porcelain sink off the wall? There's literally water was flying everywhere, jumping on it. Well, it's just doing something, some sort of dance or TikTok or whatever. No, I mean, there was no evidence, uh, besides— well, it was tragic because one, I was out of town, um, and back home in Milwaukee And so she had really cut herself really bad.

Uh-oh.

And like really close to one of her arteries in her legs.

Well, lucky that—

So she was very lucky, man. And you know, I was just— that was just a funny little conversation that my dad brought up with my daughter this weekend. Other than that, I got nothing going on. I was supposed to be in Hawaii this past weekend. I didn't make that.

You could have went and visited Jay.

Yeah, man, I told you I wanted to get out there, but it just wasn't, wasn't meant to be.

One day we'll all go to Hawaii.

Yes, I was looking forward to that. I really want to go.

We have a sales office there.

Got no reason not to go.

Right off the trip. So let's dive into where do small businesses go for advice? So I remember, you know, starting my first business.

Yes.

And I went to SCORE, you know, through the Small Business Administration.

I've been through one of their programs.

I would rate it about a 5. I think that—

How long ago was it?

No, it was 20-something years ago.

I don't think you can rate it.

No, no, I don't think I can rate it. I'm saying my experience.

20 years ago.

20-something years ago. Go.

We gave it a 5.

I gave it, I gave, I gave it a 5. They didn't really—

a 5 what? A 5 out of what?

I'm just saying, like, I was here, here I was, a young man opening a restaurant for the first time, and you felt like you didn't get a lot of guidance out of there. Yeah, well, I don't— I feel like, well, first of all, nobody there really had any relevant restaurant experience.

I was gonna ask, was there anybody who even opened a restaurant?

No, no one that ever opened a restaurant there. And I went to a couple of the different offices.

Yeah.

And you know what, they, you know, whatever. It was what it was. I had the restaurant for over 3 years, achieved a lot of success in the end, you know.

I mean, a 3-year business, uh, you know, it seems successful to me.

Yeah. I mean, in the end, I really wanted to move to a bigger location and get a liquor license. That didn't pan out. Then I'm in the payments business. And here we are on a podcast, you know, 20-something years later.

When I first started my business, I went to, uh, there was a, uh, what is that called? I forget what it is. Something when you get hurt and, uh, oh, for rehabilitation. Nah, it's not rehabilitation. That's not the word.

I know, but I'm saying it's similar.

It's like getting you back in the workforce, right?

Yeah. I don't know, I don't know what word they call— they call that. Like, it's sort of like, you know, you go to learn a new skill.

Yeah, right, right. So yeah, so I went there and I told them like, yeah, I want to start a web design business. And immediately all the people, they were all— I mean, back this, I was you know, in my early 30s. This is about 12 years, 11, 12 years ago, right? And so even then they were looking at me like, what?

You know what I mean?

Like, that's a business?

Yeah, like I see that all the time. People look at this business, payment processing, like that's an actual business? Like that's what you guys do? Like how do you do that?

Yeah, so I could totally relate when like you don't necessarily feel like you have that support or even someone to ask, you know, what to do.

Now, when I started this business, I got a little, you know, I got like a lot of advice. I didn't know anything about sales, okay? Yeah, but I found out that I did really know about sales because when I was a chef, I worked in the hotels, and even when I was a chef working for myself, and I would be, you know, someone would be coming to the restaurant or they would want to have a party or catering or whatever that— or whatever it is, right? The, the, um, the, you know, you got to make a sale. So I found out, yeah, I do know something about sales for sure. And then, you know, my mom was in sales.

I mean, I feel like if you started a business, you gotta— one, you have to have a gift of gab, and then one, you know, two is a hustle about yourself. So you got to be— something about you had the confidence to believe that you had the capability of making some money doing what you're doing.

So, and the thing is, like, sales is like— I feel like they should teach that in school, okay? I feel like they should teach people like public speaking. They should teach people about, you know, sales, the print. Like, I remember learning about sales, like taking some classes, you know, like at a sales institute, you know, after I was already like doing it.

Right.

And then I went to some courses and you learned about like the Ben Franklin sale and you learn—

well, what was that? You got to enlighten someone.

So the Ben Franklin sale is when you do like a comparison.

Okay. And there's a comparison like given between two products.

Oh, you could get this. Machine.

I got alkaline water and then I got spring water, right?

So you would give them the benefits of each one and kind of let— I, I took the menu approach, right? When I would go make some sale with somebody, they go, oh, which credit card machine is the best, right? Because when Burks would go out, you'd have these different credit card machines. I go, well, you know, you can have this one, it's two pieces. You get this one, it's all in one piece. And then we were selling one called the Talento.

Okay.

And it actually had the PIN pad built into it for the debit, which was, you know, people want to do the PIN debit back then, was very popular.

Man, anytime Allen starts talking about these things, he starts nerding out a trillion, dude. Like, he, he's like, you could just see it in his eyes. He's so excited.

Like, it's funny because, like, when I started in the business, you had a little box for the terminal, right? Then you had a little, a printer next to it, and then you had a pen pad. So you had 3 pieces. So take all 3 pieces and put it in one, and then have thermal paper with no ribbons. That was like amazing. Yeah, like people don't understand, we used to have paperwork that was like 4 pieces of paper, a fold-out folder of 4, right? Yeah, white, yellow, green, pink, and you had to press hard and write everything. I mean, it was crazy. Those days. I know what we had to do. You know, today guys can go out, they do a sale, electronic application, boom boom boom, and they're done, you know.

And so where else would you have gone?

No, you get advice, you know. I got great— so I got good advice about sales from my stepdad and my mom, you know, about sales. And, you know, I already had like good organizational skills from running my restaurant, running hotels, Yeah. And, and the other thing was, is, you know, one thing you have to learn about in a business, because your business will never grow, you know. I was talking to a guy yesterday, right, having, you know, starting a business.

Yes.

So I told him, I said, the key to growing your business is your duplication, right? And also doing, you know, you're, you know, taking your tasks that you have, the things you want to do in your business, and obviously that comes down to money, right? You might not have money in the beginning, but when you do have money, that, you know, that when you hire your first employee, when you hire the second employee, you got to learn how to delegate. Because if you don't delegate and you don't look at ways to duplicate what you're doing, your efforts, and get those people tuned in to the whole, you you know, so you can expand what you're doing. Like, I can't come in here and do graphic designing of a brochure, make a sale, try to make a website, right, post stuff on TikTok, right, and Instagram and Facebook, and make memes and— or memos, or, you know, memes, right, which is the right word. I was joking around. I remember my daughter was showing me Twitter I was like, oh, what is it? What's up with that hat, uh, pound sign thing? What is that pound sign? She's like, oh, it's a hashtag. Hey, I didn't even know what a hashtag was, but I'm just saying, like, you know, I try to stay up to date and into the latest technologies all the time. Like, what's going on with technology? Love technology.

Gotta love technology, man.

No, but I'm just saying, so when you get it, you know, duplication, right? Is important because—

what do you mean by that?

So duplication is, you can, you know, sales can come in many different ways, right? You can attract sales through your social media, through your website, through phone calling, through going to a trade show. But if you go to a trade show, right, here's where people fall apart. You go to a trade show, right?

Does that have to do with duplication?

Yeah. Okay, go to the trade show, you collect a bunch of leads, you talk to a bunch of people. Now you got a pile of business cards. I wish these guys would stop backing the truck up.

Yeah, Allen's getting the delivery of money, man. Don't worry about it. Yeah, sorry, pardon the interruption.

No, no, I wish it was a delivery of money. The, the, uh, you know, you go to the trade show or you go to a networking event, right? You've got to have a system. What are you doing with all these business cards when you're done? So part of—

you talk about this a lot, right?

So part of duplication is that you have a person on your staff, or you go get a virtual assistant. You know, if you can't afford a real employee, get a virtual assistant. Give them the data.

Yep.

Give them all the business cards. Say, hey, call— here's 10 people. These were the 10 best people. Call these people on the phone. Set me up an appointment. Now, today, you know, back in the day, it was, you know, oh, get an appointment, go to the— oh, what time am I coming over to your business? Right now, people don't care. They don't want you to— they don't care. Come to my business, talk to them on the phone, do a Zoom, right? Do a Teams meeting.

There's so much way more— many more efficient ways.

And what's funny is when COVID started, I was like in heaven because I was trying to get people to do these team meetings and screen share meetings and show them like techno— technology demos of, you know, these billing systems and invoicing and all that stuff for like 5 or 6 years already. No, it was like, it was like, I had no choice. No, but it would say it was like pulling teeth. But then when I would say somebody, oh, I'm going to send you this link, you click on it and then we're going to see this vid, you're going to see, see me, and then I'm going to show you how it works. And then, you know, people's got really used to it and they got used to it fast because it got shoved down their throat.

They got choices..

But for me, it was like, what is that, forced adoption? Yeah, forced adoption.

Oh no, forced act.

Okay, whatever, whatever. It was basically like whatever, forced indoctrination. Things just moved along quickly, right? So you got, you know, those are the things that you have to learn. You have to adapt. I always talk to you about the book Who Moved My Cheese? The cheese moved, you got to go get the new cheese. But we talk about, you know, like, where can you get the business, you know, and then my brothers were accountants, you know, they were just—

so it sounds like you had a lot of personal advice in hell, right, to start a business.

Right, but a lot of times you don't get that from your family.

Yeah, I definitely didn't have that, and a lot of— I had nobody to ask. Like, my dad, he, you know, he started a few, uh, home remodeling businesses and stuff like that. So I mean, entrepreneurship ran heavily through our family, you know what I mean? Like, all my uncles had their own businesses— concrete businesses, carpentry, blah blah blah, uh, painting, roofing— all mostly stuff to do with homes. But, uh, none of them— I don't know if they just didn't care to talk about it or they just didn't feel like, you know, it would relate to the business that I would in, so they didn't really offer any, you know, major help. I will say my Uncle Randy— shout out to you, bro— Allen Kopelman, he's probably one of the more successful out of the family, and he does lower-level remodeling. So he turns your basement into a man cave. Okay, so yeah, so he did a real, you know, he's done some major whatever. So he would offer some advice, and his main, obviously his main thing would be pay your business taxes, set up your, don't commingle funds, you You know, something I learned a long time ago, don't have your personal and your business money mixing. That's just setting yourself up for disaster. Other than that, you know, they don't— the older generation, I would say, really didn't even care about technology, right? So when I'm trying to tell them, like, I'm building websites for small businesses, this is already going over their head like, you know, spaceship. They're like, whoa, like you're gonna make money doing this? Same thing, you know, like, so, um, yeah, when it came to family, I, I didn't have much. Um, shout out to the incubators, startup incubators in Milwaukee. Um, that's where I really, I would say, got— what is it, how's the expression— got my bones. Is that, is that how you say it?

I don't know, you'd say whatever. You got a lot of information.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I helped a startup, you know, get going, launch, Twicketer. Shout out to A-Sun. How you doing, brother? I love you. I hope your family's well in DC and staying warm and all that. But yeah, so like, through them, I got so much guidance. Right. By a guy named Ted Lasser, a few other guys. I can't remember all their names. So many names, so many guys who are really standup guys who wanted to see us succeed. And so they would give us these, you know, like they would point us in a direction. We'll go to the Small Business Administration, hit up the local SCORE, you know, nonprofits and the local chambers of commerce. We had no idea we could do all this.

Right.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, exactly. People don't know and they don't. And I think like They don't realize that the amount of information that's out there, you just got to find like the right group that has people involved in your industry at the right place or like-minded individuals, right?

Like if you know that there's a meetup going on and it's for entrepreneurs, well then that's perfect for you, right?

You want to go there and meet people.

Exactly. You know, because there's people who, I mean, I learned, I learned more about my business from people in my business than I could have from anyone else, right?

Right.

Like, I learned about invoicing, when I should invoice, how to pitch projects, when we should be taking draws, you know, so on and so forth. Um, so like, a lot of stuff you're going to learn on the job, right?

Yeah, that's the job training.

But yeah, I mean there are places that, like we're going to mention, that you can actually go to. And you know, there's now, there's like dozens and dozens of boot camps, programs, mentorships, so many, so many things.

One of the things, like, one of my advices, advice, like someone comes in, they ask me about a business, one of the things my— and this is just a big thing with me, right? And I tell them, I go You can really mess yourself up when you're naming your corporation something super specific.

Oh yeah.

Or the wrong type of name, or you put something in there like, let's say you're opening a whatever, a strip club. You don't call it—

this is on topic, but look, so I'm on my way home the other day from the office, and you know what a Baker Act is?

Yes.

This guy decided that he named his bakery— no, a pressure washing company—

The Baker Act.

Baker Act Pressure— Baker Act Cleaning Service or something like that.

No, that doesn't sound good.

I don't want you crazy.

Yeah, that's—

no, you gotta— so this is an example of thinking about what you're gonna name your business.

Yeah, like you're not gonna call it Justin Strip Club Incorporated. You're not gonna— don't call your dispensary Justin's, Justin and Allen's, you know, Weed Shop.

Yeah, it's just terrible with an E on the end, you know, S-H-O-P-P-E.

Yeah, you know, Rocky's Hemp Farm Harvest.

Well, Rocky's Hemp Farm is kind of— that kind of is cool, but right.

But I'm just saying, like, those words— the banks, see, what people don't understand is the bank doesn't really care right, exactly what you do, right? They might in some businesses, right, but they don't really care. They just don't want to see those names popping up in the— when they run, you know, look through their register, they don't want to see all that. So that you have to be really— pick a generic name.

Like Digital 1380 never had a problem with that type of thing because it'd be like, okay, this is a tech company. Whatever, right? Yeah, I'm saying like it was cut and dry. There's no—

we get crap for our business. Nationwide Payment Systems. Oh, what do you do? You process payments? Uh-oh, whoa, hold a minute. Are you processing payments, right? Are you doing, you know, are you funding people's bank accounts? Oh, you have ATM machines? Oh, what's going on with that? Blah blah blah blah blah. Uh, you know that we had a lot of issues with banks.

I can imagine.

You know, in the beginning, you know, we had banking for a while at one bank and then that bank got bought and they were like, oh, you guys are doing ATMs. No, we don't want you. You have to get out of the bank. And we got another bank, right? And we went to that bank. Now we've been— that's— it's kind of funny because we went to Bank Atlantic and Bank Atlantic changed to BB&T. We had a little road bump with them, but it got smoothed over. And then now it's merged with SunTrust and it's Truist. And everything seems to be copacetic.

Nice.

But you don't know, you know, if you have some kind of—

Speaking of banks, there's another place they definitely have resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs alike, for sure.

Yeah, a lot of times, but you have to inquire about it.

You gotta ask. Because it's not readily available. It's just not— it's not going to be in your face like, hey, we got this special program for startups.

Yeah, they might have a special pricing for your bank account, a special deal.

You might be a veteran-owned business. There's just so many different things, man.

Yeah, you got to really like use that to your advantage.

And my number one, I would say like before we go into the rest, my number one resource was Google.

Yeah, well, I didn't have Google, right?

I mean, obviously you can only, you know, don't believe everything you read.

Exactly.

You know what I'm saying? And half of what you see, blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, you know, it boiled down to me doing a lot of research, asking questions. Yeah. You know, when you come to an answer or you think you've come to an answer, you have to dive in, you know.

That's where I always tell you, like, we don't know about a subject, like We're getting— we bought a new camera.

Yes.

Right. So what do we do? We ask people about the camera. We read the reviews. Yeah. We looked at 2, 3, 4, 5 different cameras. We educated ourselves.

Yeah.

Then we made an educated decision, and we're happy. Right.

And this is actually the first podcast that we're recording on the new camera, so we'll see how it goes.

Right. So I'm just saying that I always have that rule. If If you don't— if you're buying something for the first time, call 3 people.

Absolutely.

And then you'll learn about that product. Yeah, like you'll learn, you'll learn from the vendors. The 3 vendors, they're all going to tell you something different, maybe. Hopefully it's a good way to— hopefully. But I'm saying it's a good way to learn about something that you don't know. Like, I remember when I was a chef, I had to buy an oven. So my boss said, oh, what kind of oven do you want to buy? I said, I don't know. So yeah, I called 3 companies. I asked them, I said, oh, we need to replace this oven, these 2 ovens in the kitchen. What kind of oven can we get? What are the different kinds of ovens? So I said, oh, gotta come look at the kitchen and see what you have in there, like electric, gas, is there any steam available? So it's pretty cool. One of the ovens, we actually, we had steam lines in this hotel because it was old.

And Steve— sorry, sir, huh?

I told this on the podcast.

Yes.

Okay, but steam is cool. Whatever. We're able to put steam in the oven because we hooked up one of the ovens to the steam pipe. So like you could make stuff in there and then inject some steam, hit the button, and steam stuff in the oven, like breaking bread. You have to buy like— so it was, you know, yeah, when you when you're baking bread, you want to add—

this seems like it's a state-of-the-art stove.

Yeah, it was state-of-the-art. But it was funny because if you wanted to do that, and then there was— you would— you didn't have like the steam things there, you'd have to run water lines and all kinds of crazy stuff. So it was like, because it was available, it was easy to do.

Otherwise, research, man.

Otherwise it could have turned into like a $2,000 expense of running lines and all that stuff. Yeah, so we talked about banks, you know, accountants. A lot of people discount having an accountant and a bookkeeper as you have like QuickBooks and Xero and FreshBooks and all of those different things. But you need to have— you gotta have like an accountant, and it's always good like have a bookkeeper that looks things over every month.

Not your uncle and not your cousin, someone that knows what they're doing. I would definitely stay away from I mean, this is another one. I don't know, a tip, I guess. I always say is don't do business with family.

Yeah, that's—

stay away from it.

It's a good idea in most cases.

Before you go move on, is when— with banks as well. I know everyone has a relationship with their bank, right? Oh, I love my bank. Or, you know, some people, they despise their bank, right?

Yeah.

Just because you love your bank, that does not mean that you should use them for your merchant service account or your business bank account. I highly recommend you doing the research on that before you jumping in. I had some really bad experiences when I first started.

One thing to make—

I didn't know the fees. I didn't know I had to keep a certain amount of money in my account. Yeah, make sure you know how many times I could process. I didn't know how many times I could get a, you know, a wire to my account. I didn't know how much that was gonna cost every time. That I got that done.

Yeah.

So I mean, honestly, just, just be really, really, you know, tedious when you're picking out the bank you're going to choose for your business bank account.

Yeah. And sometimes it's not prudent to have your business and your personal at the same bank in the very beginning. Yeah. Maybe later when you become like successful and you're like, oh, now I need to get like a home loan and all this stuff, and then you want to say, okay, well, I've been been in business for like 7, 8 years, right? Now I'm gonna, you know, really establish this banking relationship so I can get a really good rate on my mortgage. And then see what your cash flow is.

You know, it's funny you say that. I did that, and I really— in the bank, it was just the bank that I was with was just really crappy, right? So nothing— I, you know, I tried for loans, business loans, blah, and it just was— it was a huge bank, and I wasn't a huge business, so it just didn't align.

Yeah, like one of the things I was, I was, um, reading about recently is, you know, we talked about one of the— we talked about one thing, like we had the podcast, 6 Things Businesses Need to Know About in 2023.

You snuck one in there, 7.

7, right, there's 7. So one of them was about expansion of the SBA and the SBA used using fintech companies to do funding. And then there was some other stuff that came out that kind of contradicted that because there's a bunch of fintech companies that got in trouble with all these SBA loans. But now there's a ton of— there's all these different SBA loans that people can get and people don't understand about them. And your bank or any bank or banks are the good resource for these. Yeah, you don't want to go to like some private person and then they're going to tell you they're going to charge you some fee.

Yeah, I would stay away from any SBA loan shark or out there.

Like, stay away from those people that say they're going to help you get an SBA loan. You don't need them.

No, you can do it yourself for free, right?

But the bank— you have to go to a bank to get the money. So yeah, you could go to a community bank, you could go to a credit union.

You don't need anybody's help for that though, right?

But I'm saying like they can help you. Like, because, you know, there's—

the bank can help you, not the people online, right?

The bank. Go to the bank.

Yes.

Or just talk to the SBA and they'll help you, right?

They'll definitely put you in the right direction.

Yeah, they'll say, oh, here's a list of banks in your area. Yes, that you can go to. And also, let's say you want a veteran loan, right? There's— Google the banks, see which banks are working with veterans because not every bank, you know, some banks are more— they're showing more whatever favoritism. Yeah, right. And then I saw there's actually a new SBA loan that's as low as like $50,000. Yes, that can help business. But what people don't understand about the SBA— the SBA, well, it's easy to get the money.

They're going to want their money back.

Well, it's not that. They're going to put a lien on your business. Yeah, they might put a lien on your house. So you got to be prepared, like, hey, this is a good decision.

If you have equipment for your business, they're going to put a lien on that, right?

So you got to make sure you're doing a good, a good, a good thing, you know, with that. You know, another thing is, you know, have a mentor. Like when I was a chef, I had a mentor. In this business, in the beginning, I had guys that were— when I worked at a company, I had guys that were mentoring me. I learned good things from from them and bad things. And, you know, one thing, you know, my dad always taught me was he used to tell me, goes, oh, Allen, when you have a job, treat— he used to tell me, he used to tell me, treat the job like it's your business. For sure. If you treat it like your business, the people that own the business are going to respect you. Sounds like good advice because you're respecting their business, you know, you respect their equipment, you respect their place of business.

Down there breaking stuff.

Right, you're on time.

Like Justin, I break things all the time.

I don't know if you've broken anything.

Nah, on accident. Broke that sign.

Oh, that was no big deal.

Stepped on a few things, but whatever.

We didn't like that sign anyway.

No.

So it didn't matter.

We did like that sign. It was the new sign for the events. Remember? The flew on the cement.

Oh, that was exactly right. Exactly your fault. You never used one of those.

No, I mean, I just moved it.

I didn't— I know, but I'm saying you never didn't have experience with that piece of that stuff. I told you it's very sensitive.

Yes, now I know, and knowing is half the battle. Shout out to GI Joes.

So it's— so, so, you know, you have to do that. My— the other thing my dad told me is, oh, oh, when you walk in a place, walk in like you own the place. So like, if you're gonna go do sales and you walk in somebody's business, you know, you just like walk in. Don't pussyfoot around.

Yeah, have the confidence, the self-confidence.

Yeah, have some self-confidence and you got to do that. And the other thing I learned when I was a chef, I went to, I used to go to meetings and they'd say, oh, how's everything going in the kitchen? I'd say, great, fantastic. Yeah, that's it. My boss said, uh-uh, no, you can't do that. So they sent me to Dale Carnegie. So the most important thing I learned in Dale Carnegie was I am the expert.

Yes.

I was the expert on the kitchen in that particular building, right? I was the man. So I had to remember that. And, you know, they make you give like speeches at Dale Carnegie.

Yeah.

And I had to get up and do all these like 1-minute, 2-minute, 3-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute.

I mean, that's self-esteem building. Right?

You start talking learn self-confidence, that you're the, you're the person that's, you know what you're talking about.

Absolutely.

And people need to know that when they're doing, when they're doing whatever, whatever you're doing. When I'm talking to someone about payment processing, listen, if they don't want to listen to me about how to do things and all that, I can't help you. Like, I just client with some chargebacks, I'm like, listen, you, your terms and conditions are counterproductive to what you want to do. And I have to explain to them, like, so what? The guy ordered whatever it was they ordered. If they didn't get it, you have to give them their money back. There's no— like, that's just basic business.

It's just the way the rules go, man.

Well, I'm just saying, because I told them, I said, you have to remember there's the merchant acceptance rules And there's the cardholder rules. Like, we have a whole big thing. There's all these posts all of a sudden all over LinkedIn about open banking and real-time payments and P2P, you know, peer-to-peer payments, right? Even if it's for personal to business or business to business, right? So what's the pros? What's the cons of that payment system, right? So the pros are it's cheaper for the business. Right? But the cons are there's very little consumer protection. In fact, there's pretty much none, which we found out when— if you like, let— I, I give an example. Somebody, Zelle— not, not me personally. Yeah. So one of my friends has a business. Somebody owed him $2,000.

Okay.

The person said, oh, I want to send you a Zelle. My friend said, I don't use Zelle. But the person didn't listen and they put Zelle in. They put in the phone number, turned— you know, you can only send it to a cell phone. They messed up one of the numbers.

Well, they got the email too, but—

right, but they didn't do it whatever way they did it.

They messed up.

They messed it up. They sent out the $2,000 and that went to somebody else for sure. So my friend goes, that's not my problem, that's your problem. You're gonna have to go find out who that is or talk to your bank and find out where it went. You have the phone number. They were like, oh, we called the phone number, nobody answered. Yeah, they're probably not gonna answer.

I wouldn't answer. I got $2,000.

Yes, hey kids, we're going for dinner. I mean, what if some kid got it? They're not going to give it back.

He might not even know, like, right?

They might not even know they got it, right? Because they don't check their bank account, right? They don't realize. And then they might realize that they got the money, right? Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, my friend's like, how am I going to get my money? I says, tell those people that's not your problem. And, you know, they're—

I agree. So I made a small list of some small business—

yeah, let's talk about these, um, it's important.

Like the SDC, the Small Business Development Center.

Yeah, yeah, that's at Florida Atlantic University. They have a campus in, uh, Boca Yeah, and then one in Davie.

Yep. The Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. Fort Lauderdale Alliance. I personally haven't really heard of them, but they popped up a lot.

Yeah, they've been around for a while. I'm not sure what kind of, what kind of help they score.

Fort Lauderdale, we mentioned they're great. I mean, they got all kinds of things for businesses.

Yeah, they always have stuff. Even that pitch conference, now they have like online classes you can take and things things like that.

Of course, you know, Google your local accountants and lawyers. That's always a resource.

You have Chamber of Commerce.

Yeah.

And wherever your Chamber of Commerce is, you can go there. That's a place you could find a mentor. You could find somebody that maybe is in your business, maybe even some retired people, you know, because they hang out, they like to hang out at the gym.

And last but not least, the Urban League of Broward County. I actually have experience with them myself. They have endless amounts of programs for entrepreneurship, whether it's for, you know, whatever it is— you, education, you know, getting certified for certain, you know, getting you, uh, you know, set up in your local community, whatever licenses you need. They have tons of resources for you.

So, and Nova Southeastern University has that entrepreneur center over there.

Yes, they do.

And they have different things going on.

That's where I was. I was connected through SCORE through them. Oh, okay. They're, they're in Broward College, Nova, and I don't know. Yeah, they're everywhere.

Yeah, they're even at the library.

I was taking a— yeah, they had us going to the class right down the street from the office, right?

You know, yeah, they have offices everywhere. And there's other like incubators that are out there. There's tons of like these incubators all around town that are—

I couldn't verify these, but there is tons of incubators.

Uh, oh yeah, we saw a bunch of them like down in Miami. Yeah, we saw tons of them down in, uh, what's that area? Wynwood.

Wynwood.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a bunch of them. Yeah, like you have over here, there's one in Delray. You have Florida Atlantic University has the Tech Runway. There's a ton of these, um, yeah, like I said, I, I feel like there was a lot, but I myself didn't really know if they're still around.

I know COVID shut a lot of these places down. Um, there is one honorable mention, um, darn it, I just had it on the tip of my tongue. It's the co-working space. I'll have to put it— figure it out. But yeah, no, there's a co-working space downtown in Fort Lauderdale that Is that the one connected to the library? No.

Okay, because they have one down at the library.

That one's cool too, the Innovation Center. Yeah, that's a cool place if you want to learn about 3D printing. Darn it, what's it called?

It was funny, some guy was commenting in one of my—

General Provisions. General Provisions, that's it. Yeah, no, it's the— I've met the owner of it, it's a really cool guy. Um, yeah, there's— that's another— co-working places, that's another great opportunity opportunity for you to learn, get advice and mentors.

Yeah, you can find a lot of information out today. We have LinkedIn, you got Facebook groups. You got to be careful on Facebook, people trying to sell you stuff. Yeah, business opportunities, stay away from that.

LinkedIn is the same.

LinkedIn, yeah, but LinkedIn people are doing like webinars.

I feel like you kind of filter a little bit easier in LinkedIn because you hope that— well, nah, I don't know. Well, you might constantly getting selling stuff.

I know, but you could see if someone's having a webinar that's not trying to sell you something. It's a real—

yeah, I guess you're right.

You know, it's a real webinar.

Those— I'm so tired of— become an influencer, pay us $222.

Yeah, there's too many. Like, become a coach. Oh my God, become a life coach. Don't— you got to be careful with those kind of things, you know. You You know, there's also, you know, there's also tons of information like on Alignable, Meetup.com where they have different meetup groups, networking opportunities. Like we went to Biz to Biz Networking. There's one called Network After Work, the Network Beasts, the Rockstar Networking. There's like tons and tons of that. And then another thing I would say. One of the things that helped me with networking that was really good was BNI.

What's that?

Business Network International. So one of my friends introduced me to it, right? And, you know, so we started a chapter in Boca. So you had to— we had to go through this whole process. We got about 10 people. We launched our chapter and we had a nice chapter of business people, like-minded business people. And in the beginning of having my business, it was very helpful because one of the things you learn is each week you have to get up and do a 1-minute commercial on your business. Cool. So you learn like, hey, that's my elevator pitch when I walk in somewhere or I'm telling somebody. It's usually you have 1 minute.

Now they say you got 30 seconds.

But I know Justin seen me at the trade show when I— when people come up, oh, what do you do? Oh, You know, you just gotta let it out.

You got it when you want to, but otherwise sometimes, like I say, you're long-winded.

I know, but that's when I get them engaged. True. But I'm just saying, you have to spit it out. Oh, we do payment processing and this is how we do it, blah blah blah. This is what makes us great. And that's what you gotta do.

I think for like small businesses, like for starting a business, I think that my main things were like getting a mentor, you know, making sure that I was happy with the name of my company, and then, you know, setting up all the other stuff that we talked about.

Yeah.

And then, because the mentorship is so crucial, man. Shout out to Gerald. Thank you, Allen Fueling, uh, A-Sun, and of course this guy Allen Kopelman. You know, he's been teaching me a lot about payment processing in business, the other side of just operations, right? So I think that is like, if I had any advice that I could give to a small business guy who's going to start a business tomorrow, find someone that is, you know, that you can really like, a successful business owner, and get good with them. You know, Gerald, when I first started my Digital 1380, that guy, he He helped me in so many different ways that I probably would have never got my business going if he wouldn't have helped me, you know, because I would just—

Good morning.

Yeah, you know, so, but you got any super tips? I got a few tips. I don't know if you want to—

you want to read? Those are good. Yeah, you need to look at competition. You know, I tell people like pricing, you got to price things the way you want to price it and competitively. Yeah, but don't cheapen yourself.

No, never do that. I did that so much when I first started and I didn't know my worth. Believe in yourself and know your worth.

Yeah. And business plans, you know, you got to really, when you look at a business plan, one of the things—

There's reasons for business plans.

Right. But I'm going to say a couple of things. One of the things you got to understand about your business right? It's got to understand what is your overhead, okay? And that's the number one thing, especially like— but today it's so much— it's so— it's very acceptable, right, to have a home-based business. Yeah, nobody frowns upon it. Years ago, people frowned upon, oh, it's a home-based business, it might be shady, right?

Well, you know, even as one, like, people still weren't coming to my houses. No, no, but I'm just saying it took a couple meetings for them to come my home office.

But I'm saying it's, it's now more acceptable. More, it's more acceptable. Plus, people don't expect you to show up, so it's become, it's a different world. But you know, you need to understand your overhead. Like, if you're gonna have an, if you're gonna have a store or a warehouse or whatever, you're gonna have an office, or you're gonna go to WeWork or someplace similar to that, you need to understand like, oh, this is my overhead, my over And your overhead is everything. What does it cost for the office? Are there utilities involved? Is there— what's your phone bill going to be? You know, how much is internet every month? How much money do you need to spend on gas? Then you got to have a budget for food. Yeah. Or whatever it is. And you need to understand—

feed yourself.

No, no, but I'm saying you have to understand, like, what I'm just saying. Like, let's say you're out all day, right?

You got to have some food.

Right, gotta have some food. So you gotta have a plan. When I didn't have much money, I made sure I had like one of those coolers in my car and I made the sandwich or whatever and snacks because I didn't have a lot of money.

Yeah, so you gotta feeding yourself and like doing for self is like a lost art. I don't know, like the kids—

self-care.

Yeah, self-care. There's self-care has gone into so much other things. It's like we've forgotten the necessities like Uh, water.

Yeah, drink water.

That's really important.

Yeah, drink water, eat healthy food, take a walk, enjoy your shower, get some quiet time, read a book. Like me, like, I talk all day, right? So at the end of the day, after I'm done talking for 8, 9, 10 hours, right, and doing a podcast.

Yeah.

And everything all involving talking.

I do not want to talk, right?

I get home, I'm like, yeah, let's on some music, let's put on the TV. I need like an hour of, you know, just like chill time.

It's funny that you feel like I do that before work.

No, I do it before work too.

I really, really, really do not like being disturbed in the morning time. Like, I didn't mean to be grouchy with you.

That's okay.

This early this morning, but I just— I, after I got off the phone with you, I realized that I didn't have my, my time, right? I didn't have my me time, and I didn't have my cup of tea. I didn't have— I watched YouTube nature videos of like really serene things, yeah, like calm me down. So I didn't have that. And then I realized, like, Justina, my wife, was like, yeah, you gotta relax. You need to figure— you gotta learn. So that's something else, like, you know, I guess there's one thing, you know, you got to expect your day to be broken always too. Like, you never— there Nothing will ever go as planned.

If you get pissed at somebody or whatever, you just got to say, okay, maybe that person's having a bad time right now, right? Like, whatever, dude. Yeah, and move on, you know. Don't, don't, you know, get all hung up on stuff with people. But, you know, like in the morning for me, like Rocky wakes me up at— he's over here passed out.

Good for him.

He wakes me up early, so we're usually up at 6. Put on my sneakers.

He loves to walk.

They were laughing at me today. I said, yeah, I'm already up to 14,000.

Yeah, man, I'm breaking— I'm barely breaking 7,000 and he's, he's doubling me, man.

Rocky's a fucking machine. Yes, he just loves to walk. He'll bug me while he's here and he'll come hit me with his paw and he wants to go outside and make a lap around the office complex. In the morning we make a— we make a lap around the golf course, you know.

So I mean, yeah, man, you gotta have that stuff in your life. Definitely need to make sure you take—

gotta make time for that, make time for your family.

So the business plan thing, I mean, and your business plan is always going to change, right?

Right, your business plan changes, but you got to understand your budget.

Yeah, right. You gotta understand what's your—

oh yeah, but I'm saying like your overhead.

Oh yeah, you know, that's what you got. How much does your business operate? Like how How much is the office going to cost, your electricity?

You got to know that number.

The basic, basic monthly cost is what you got to understand. I agree 100%.

You got— how many— I don't know how many people like I talked to and they were like, tell me, man, I opened up this store, I didn't realize how much money it was going to be every month. And the other thing is know what's licensing, what you have to deal with with licensing.

That's okay. That's what I was thinking about this.

Business licenses, Urban League helps with that for sure. Some cities are a pain in the butt. So I'll give you, like here, like we're here in Fort Lauderdale. So we have to deal with the city of Fort Lauderdale has a license, Broward County has a license, and then several years ago the fire department decided that they get to charge $65 a year to come do their fire inspection. It always didn't cost money. It used to be free. Yeah, I don't remember. But now they started charging, right?

I never had a—

So I'm saying you have to deal with that. Then you got to renew your corporation every year. Sales tax license.

Now, same thing. Don't forget about the sales tax.

That's what I'm talking about, your corporation.

There's another one. What's the other one that you got to pay for? No, just taxes. No, when you're first signing up, there's another one.

Oh, you got to— Oh, you're talking about your sales tax paper?

I don't remember.

They used to charge yearly. For sales tax. They stopped doing that.

Let's just know, yeah, know your fees.

You gotta know. So then we have another, we went, we were looking at another office in Miami, right? So they want the North Miami, the city of North Miami, Dade County. I'm like, man, you guys, I said, you want to know why no one's opening a business in your city? I told the lady, I said, you guys are crazy. How can somebody afford, they're going to open an office And you want like $700 a year upfront for licenses.

There's no payment plans, no nothing either.

No, you got just for licenses. Yeah, I know, right?

I help my friends.

And then also, let's say, let's say you want to be on the BBB, Better Business Bureau.

That's another one.

No, it's like $400 a year.

That's crazy. And there's no payment plan for that either, right?

No, they don't have a monthly fee.

That's just nuts, man. Well, we should wrap this up before— because we could keep Yeah, obviously is one of those subjects that means a lot and touches home, right?

Yeah, it touches on a lot of things when you're opening a business.

You know, I don't know if you— raising capital, that's something that you gotta, you know, do a whole podcast on.

Yeah, you know, choosing the right legal structure, whether it's an LLC or an S-corp, or if it's just single-member LLC, or make sure you got a federal tax ID.

Yeah, but anyway, You gotta have a federal tax ID number and register your business, and it's free. Register your business with the relevant government agencies and obtain any necessary licenses and permits, and your tax ID as well.

Imagine you're a restaurant, there's a million licenses you need.

Yeah, so like with your finances, you know, you got to get your, your bank, your bookkeeping, you know what I mean, your EIN we just mentioned. And then this is tough, you know, I know, like marketing your business, right?

Yeah, well, that's all— we're not gonna get into marketing.

I mean, but that's something that you got to do for yourself.

And that's something when you go to— when you— when you go to— when you go to like networking meetings, ask people, how do you market your business? How do you do it?

Listen, study your competition. That's gonna be your number one way. And today, listen, I think real quick, if you study your competition, right, and then study what they're doing online, mimic what they're doing. Don't do exactly what they're doing, figure out how to, you know, manipulate it and mold it into your business. But study your competition.

But also now, like, we're out of COVID yeah, right? So it's time to get out there, do some face-to-face networking, right? Especially if you're you're starting a new business, that's gonna help you get more business a lot faster.

Because I'm outside smiling and dying. Be outside with it. Yes, sir. Yeah, seek advice. Consider seeking advice from experienced entrepreneurs, business advisors, and mentoring programs. Of course, man, remember to start a local trade shows. I have one last final quote. Remember, starting a business requires hard work, persistence, and a willingness to learn and adjust as you go.

And my saying, my favorite saying about starting a business: no guts, no glory.

Never quit.

Many people told me, oh, how can you do payment processing? You were a chef.

You know what?

I did it. Really? That's it. And I like it, and it's just, it's almost as much fun as being a chef.

I mean, it's a lot less work.

It's a lot less work.

I'm sure it's a lot less stressful.

Yes, it's a lot less stressful and a lot less work.

Well, this was a great podcast.

All right, so B2B Vault, catch us everywhere. Follow us on all our social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter. We're all over the place. And listen or watch on Spotify, Anchor, YouTube, and listen on all the podcast networks.

Apple Podcasts. Yeah, I mean, yeah, good pods. I mean, by now, if you don't know where to stream the podcasts, I can't help you.

Every— the podcast is everywhere, literally. It's on over 20-something networks that we know about. Yeah, that we— that we're aware of.

Indeed. Well, I hope everyone has a good day.

Everybody have a great week. And, uh, if you're going to start a business, let us know. Want to find out more information about how to get a merchant account for your new business? We can help you with that. And you go to b2bvault.info and get more info on the podcast and on what we do to help people with businesses.

Indeed. Thank you.

Peace out. Barf ADM.

So that was the best podcast we've done in a long time.

Know what's good about this podcast? Because we didn't talk about it beforehand, and when we had a conversation, so it was more conversational. A more conversational podcast than just a lot of talking.

Oh shit, it didn't record. What? No, I'm just fucking with you.