Managing Money In Your Business with Stephen Halasnik MUIYB Podcast

I mean, I'm in the business of providing nurses who don't really know me exactly. They're not gonna say okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. So I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna be $40,000 short on payroll. And so I'm like, oh no, and I don't— my family doesn't have the money. I ended up, so I called my payroll company and they, I told them what's gonna happen and they go, "We'll give you the money." What's it like to be a landlord in this fucking storm? It's been good. What? I know. I got lucky. Well, I mean, in some regards, I moved out of the space. And the two of the offices went super fast because people want to get out of their house.

Oh, your space was a standalone office one person could work on? Or could—

Yeah.

Okay.

Yep. And then my other tenant's been very reasonable. And, you know, I have a poker club that moved in downstairs just before the pandemic and they haven't been able to really—

Yeah.

But they've been paying the rent. So, I've been lucky, you know, the Pilates studio has been working with me a little bit and she's done a nice job and I've reduced her rent a little bit. Not much but, you know, enough.

You gotta help out because that business is totally affected.

I get it. I get it.

So, the poker club, like, what's that?

So, they're always downstairs. See, they took two rooms in the basement which are, they play poker. So, they just play poker. Yeah.

Good for them.

And then, I have a, and then this, I had a psychologist move in. In, uh, just before the pandemic, adjacent to the poker players. Yeah. And, and, and actually she deals with addiction. Um, and yeah, and but she's been unbelievable and she really fixed her place up and she took the vault that I had downstairs and converted it into a waiting room. And, and, and she, she found this little niche for me for downstairs, which is psychologists Because, because of the waiting room, I now can charge pretty reasonable rent. And so, I think I have a nice find for that downstairs which tended to be a little, you know, with the psychologist, tended to be a little bit of a challenge with the lower level. Yeah.

So, tell me about your contemporaries, other landlords. Is the same story?

I don't really know. I mean, I have a good, a close friend in my EO group who owns a very, very large building in Birmingham, not Birmingham, upstate New York, Binghamton.

Binghamton, yeah.

Huge, huge apartment building for college students. And he's 55% not rented right now when he's usually 95% rented because the people are holding off. So, he's a really smart guy. So, he, I think he has his bank on interest-only payments right now. And then, he owns another building in Queens, and that's on interest only. So, you know, you just kind of work with it.

Yeah, you got to be fluid. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand that a landlord is a business owner, and I think there's this, this perversion in perceptions, like, oh, Steve owns a building, he's got all his ducks in a row, the guy's a millionaire or a billionaire. If I don't pay rent, he's fine. I think that's what many entrepreneurs think. And then they look at themselves and say, but, you know, I got a real business. I have to support myself. So, I see a lot of landlords getting screwed in my mind, but I don't know if it's really happening. I just thought that would be—

No, you're right. And thank you for paying your rent on time and the full amount. I do appreciate it. The, you know, when I have to have those conversations with tenants, I make sure they're aware that I have a mortgage on the building. Yeah. And I have taxes that I have to pay. So, I educate them on that stuff. You know, I say, listen, you have to understand, I have mortgage, I got taxes, I pay for utilities in some of the spaces. I say is, I have to pay my bills. You know, and so, you know, and I said, but, you know, what can we do going forward? Let's talk about it. You know, I mean, It's a small building. Because I was there too, I got to know— I get to know my tenants really, really well.

Yeah.

So, um, it's a little more personal, which can be a good thing and a bad— I mean, the problem is, is like, I'm— I could be very, very reasonable with people. Like, I get to know them. So like, if a guy's business fails, I'm like, okay, you know, you know, well, I'm not gonna take them to court anyway, you know. And so I'm like, okay, just I'll keep your security deposit and you can move out. Or, you know, and I've done that a lot where I'll say like, all right, pay me half a month's rent, and in the meantime, I'm gonna start showing your space.

Right, right, right, right.

You know, right. So, um, that's kind of where we are.

Yeah, it's been a great experience for us. I, uh, you know, I want to talk about your business, but before that, I think a lot of businesses are formed from childhood, and you sound like you've got kind of a tough childhood. I don't really know much about it. Picked on, bullied. Where'd you go to school? Where'd you grow up?

I went to Watchung Hills Regional High School in New Jersey. Yeah.

Why were you picked on?

I let people get away with it. It's hard to believe because, you know, Mike, I'm not a small guy.

I wouldn't eff with you, dude.

I know. Well, I don't know, you're tough. I know. Listen, but at this point, I'd, I'd, I'd go after you. But, uh, what happened was, uh, I, um, I was always been a big guy. And what happened was, up into fourth, fifth grade— I, I sound silly, but up to fifth grade, I, uh, I, I used to be a bully. And I would—

I used to be a bully.

Yes. And I would pick on kids. And then one of the kids came up to me and said, you know, you get in a lot of fights, and if you keep doing that, you're not going to get any friends. And so I had this crazy notion in my head, so I stopped getting in fights. I stopped doing that. And then all of a sudden, between 6th grade and junior year in high school, people found out that they could pick on me and I wouldn't respond. And it was terrible. And then in my senior year, once I got into college, I said, I am— and I really got picked on. I really got, uh, really got, you know, people— it's terrible story.

Kids are vicious.

They're really vicious. Really terrible story. And I'm a really good-hearted person. And, um, so by the time I was a senior in high school, I said— I made a— I said, I am never ever gonna let anybody do that to me again.

Yeah.

And I now— and that at the next couple years, 10 years, I went to the extreme where I was like, you know, if you're gonna piss on me, I'm coming at you.

Yeah.

And, um, you know, I'm, I'm a fiery guy and, uh, you And you know what I needed? I'm gonna be honest with you. What I needed was a big brother who said, hey, what are you doing? Because my father, a great guy, but my father worked two jobs his whole life. He was a professional musician and he worked during the day, and a great guy, but he didn't know what was going on. I was good at keeping a secret, and it went on for a really long period of time.

Okay, um, did that form your— so right now you, you offer credit financing for small business. Does that— does your lineage— not lineage, but your experience as a kid growing up, does that define why you're in this business or how you serve clients or how you serve— nothing. It has nothing to do—

what I'll tell you, what one of the reasons why I'm passionate about the— and actually, so right now I have 4 companies that I own.

Yeah. Okay, lay them out. What are the 4?

Financing Solutions is a $25 million company. We provide lines of credit to businesses, uh, small businesses and nonprofits. Okay, then we have, uh, then I own Elite Funeral Funding. Uh, it buys life insurance policies. I have some— we have— I have somebody running it for me. Again, I have a partner that's my business partner in both of these businesses, and then we have two, uh, ladies who are partners in that business, and they run the business, and we provide the financing and the advice. That's a $25 million business. We buy life insurance policies when someone passes away. Yes, uh, because you usually have to wait about 45 to 60 days to get paid.

Oh, so you'll fund it immediately? Yes, minus a little interest or whatever.

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And then, um, it's a great business. We're really happy with it. It's going to hit the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies this year. Yeah, it'll be my second company that will be on that. Um, not Financing Solutions. I had another one that was on that. And, um, so that's another business. I, I own the building, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Business in itself. And then I own a very— I own a company that's been going on for years. It's called Credential Agent. It's software that's in the cloud that helps companies store and manage employee credentials. Um, I don't do a lot with that business anymore, but it's still produces revenue and, you know, do those things. So also, going back to financing solutions, let me answer your question because I think it's important. Um, when I had, um, healthcareseeker.com, which is my company's travel nurse business, um, we, uh, we went from $1 million to $3 million to $5 million to $7 million, right? No, in, in what was it, 5 5 years or something like that.

What time frame was this?

Uh, so that was, um, I wish I should memorize these notes. It was like 2000, uh, these years, it was like 2000 and, uh, no, wait, when I originally met you, you were running 2003.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like around that. Yeah, yeah, around that. 2003. And, um, so, uh, I had this huge jump in revenue. Well, anyway, I had a $650,000 line of credit with the bank.

Okay, right.

And we were— we're doing great, you know, we really are. But I had to use my line of credit because I had 108, something like that, employees. And, um, we had nurses out on payroll and stuff like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I was at $550 on my line, and I knew at some point I was gonna have to go and ask for it to get increased. And, um, so my team goes out and they place a whole bunch of nurses all at once.

Okay.

And my payroll goes over— is going to go over the $650. And I call up my bank, my— talk to my mentor. He goes, oh, don't worry, just call your bank. You're doing great. They're going to give you the money, blah blah blah. So I called the bank and I go, I need to increase my line of credit and I have payroll coming up in 2 weeks. And I called them up and they go, well, we're gonna be able to let you know, but it's gonna take about 2 months. And I'm like, I mean, I'm in the business of providing nurses who don't really know me exactly. They're not gonna say okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna be $40,000 short on payroll. And so I'm like, oh no, and I don't— my family doesn't have the money. Um, I, I ended up, uh, so I called my payroll company and they— I told them what's going to happen and they go, we'll give you the money, right?

Your payroll company?

My payroll company gave me the money. The guy was like a— he, he was actually a competitor to me, but he let me put my nurses on his payroll too. So he kind of like was running the separate business on the side, which was real smart. And, uh, yeah, and, and so he gave me the money. Um, I, I, I paid him back in, um, I think 9 days, you know, or something like that. So like, and he charged me, like, he goes, just charge me prime, whatever, whatever you want. I don't care.

Wow, that's great money.

Nice guy.

Why would he do that favor to you?

Um, well, he, I think he wanted to keep me. I think he saw his, that me as one of his first clients for a business model. He wanted to make sure I was staying on top, but he knew me for a lot of years.

Yeah.

Um, so he did that, I think, you know. And, um, so anyway, the reason why I bring that story up, because I know what it's like to not have a cash backup plan.

Oh yeah.

And that's what I think I do for a living. I provide a cash backup plan. And if you haven't worked with banks They are impossible to work with. They want 100% collateral. They want a 700 or greater credit score, or 680 or greater credit score. They want everything, and they take their, their time. And it, it, you know, for a small business, you don't have collateral. You don't have all this other stuff, right? If you did, in some cases you'd be using it.

Yeah, no, it's totally true. But what about the flip side? If people get access to easy money Like, what if that guy didn't give you the $40 grand? What if— yeah, would you run your business differently? I just find there's always a flip side, and I see some people get easy money and they, they have no control and actually worsen their situation. Well, I think it's wonderful what you're doing. I'm just saying there's a flip side.

Well, I think I— you're right. Um, I, I just haven't seen— I mean, I haven't seen the idea. Do people use my line of credit to expand their businesses. I don't— I haven't seen it.

What's a good use of the line? When you give a line of credit, what's a good use of it?

Emergency situations.

Okay.

Yeah, it really is. It's, I'm gonna miss payroll, I have to— you know, we do a lot of business with nonprofits, so, you know, they have issues with funding coming in late. So a roof on their place needs to be— it has an emergency, there's a leak. They don't have the money. So, it really is for emergency type of uses. Gotcha. Yeah.

Where do you get the money? Like, you as the financier, where'd that money come from?

I, you know, over the years, I just, there's a couple things I did really smartly. I not only bought that, the building that, you know, 10,000 square foot building, and I bought it for $150,000.

Dude, if people saw that building, it is gorgeous. I think you have one of the marquee buildings in our little town of Booton.

Yeah.

That one and the Maxfields up the street a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, so that brought me assets to that I could leverage. And then also, I really, as beautiful as that building is, you've never seen my home. My home is gorgeous. And I renovated the, like, we completely renovated.

I'm gonna invite myself over now.

Yeah, you're invited after coronavirus. So yeah, yeah. It was, it's, it is a, it has 162 windows in it.

What?

Yeah. So, and every window, like a lot of the windows are different shapes. So, I live in a, you know, a community with, I live on a small lake. And, you know, we bought the house for $378,000 and then we put in like $600,000 into it. Wow. And, um, And we, you know, and so every window has a view of the idea. The vision was to bring the outside in.

I love it.

Yeah, and so every window in the place is, is like a little piece of artwork, and it's beautiful. It's a different— a lot of different shapes. And, you know, and I have— it looks like a modern ski lodge because the way it looks. It looks like a Stickley museum, really. Anyway, What I learned at the age of 40, yeah, was that I have— I wish. I'm 55 now. What I learned was that I have a photographic memory with visual images, and I can take an image in my head and I can turn it around like a CAD drawing and see all the possibilities. Oh, and it was— I didn't know I had it. I have I had severe dyslexia when I was a kid.

Okay.

And, and one of the outcomes, the benefits of many people with dyslexia is that they're visual learners. Okay. And I didn't know that was a super, a super— my kids would say not super skill, a superhero, superhero power, superpower. That's how old we are.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Oh, me anyway. So yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, what I've seen, in fact, I tried to make a business out of what I, that skill set, because I believe as an entrepreneur, if you can take something that you are naturally good at, good at, a gift, yeah, and combine that into a business, you have a leg up.

Boom.

Yeah, like, so the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to start making real, I'm going to start growing really big pumpkins.

Yeah, and I suck at that. So tell me about— so, so you have the asset of the building, you have your, your home. So is it— this is your actual money that you're lending? You're—

see, that's my money and my business partner's money. So, so both of us institute—

for the lender, for me, it feels like, oh, it's institutional, like it's some bank, it's some no-name credit card company, but it's actually your personal cash.

Yeah, yeah, that's—

I I don't know why I never understood that. Yeah.

Well, we— I just happen to do a nice job of making money and saving it. I mean, I, I wouldn't say I'm a very great saver, but why? The assets have helped. The ability to leverage assets have helped.

Yeah.

And then the other thing is I, I don't have a super, super expensive personal life, you know. I don't buy expensive diamonds, expensive cars, you know.

I do renovate your house for $600 grand though.

Yeah, but you know what, that— but that was an asset.

So, yeah, yeah, sure. What's it mean to leverage an asset?

So, it allows me to go to a bank, okay, and say, I have this asset, it's worth $1.2 million, the equity in it is worth, you know, uh, uh, $500,000. It means that's the mortgage minus the value of the home or whatever the building. And you— and the bank says, oh, well, okay, well, we'll give you either this loan or we'll give you this line of credit.

Okay, and I left to $500,000 or whatever to protect themselves.

Correct.

So when you— your company lends out money to businesses, what size tranches are you lending out?

Uh, so it's, uh, the average line of credit we put out is $50,000.

Okay.

And, and it can go up as high as $100,000. But, but— and they're not taking out $50,000, they're taking out— well, they can, but they're taking out $20,000 or $30,000 or something like that, and they're paying. They pay back Yeah, the reason the business works is because they don't keep it out for a very, very long period of time. They keep it out for, you know, 6 weeks and then they pay it back. And so, you know, I'm able to continue to leverage, um, keeping to giving it to other people.

Okay.

Yeah.

So how does that line of credit work? If I get a line of credit for your— through your company, do I have a an actual bank account, or I have to call the company and you guys wire me?

You log into a customer portal, or you can call us, or you can email us. You'll say, I need $10,000, I need, I need it today. We wire it right into your account, you have it. And then you, um, every week there's a minimum payment, very small, that yet that you make, which basically is the interest it maintains. Well, yeah, well, the first 4 weeks there's no the— there's no fees. So, so, and what I mean by that is, so we take the— so let's say you want $5,000, I will wire you $4,750, and then there's no fees for 4 weeks.

And then I gotta pay you back $5,000, correct?

And then after that, after money, right, after 4 weeks, then we charge you $97 a week for every week that it's still out. And, um, You know, I really like— it sounds expensive. Yeah, if you run the numbers, but you, you know, it really— there's no fees to get it, the line set up. There's no fees to—

yeah, so time, there's no time, which is a big expense, right?

It's huge. It's a big deal. Everybody should have one. I'm shocked when someone says, no, I'm not going to do it. I think, you know, my business partner thinks that, you know, Some people look at the money and they say, I don't want to get it because I'm afraid I might use it, right?

Well, that— okay, so that's my gut instinct. It's like I may use it the wrong way, is I think what they're saying.

Yeah, but I— we don't see that, you know. Yeah, you don't.

And it is quote-unquote expensive, but if it's managed well from my side, that being a client of yours, and it's, it's $200 for something that handles an emergency, that's a good investment. Yeah, if I live off of that And people do that with credit cards all the time, right? They have credit card debt that just lives on forever. It's burying them.

Yeah. Um, I'm not saying I don't have clients like that, but it's not a lot.

Okay. How do you know for you? Because, because you can get screwed. This is your personal money. You lend me money, I'm like, sorry Steve, I'm out of here.

How do you protect you? Well, we— by, by the amount that we charge, okay? Um, we could not do the business if we didn't charge what we charge. Okay, we're not sitting there making like unbelievable amounts of money. It's a good business, yeah, but it's not over the top. And so let me give you an example. My competitors are On Deck, Cabbage, Blue Vine. Those are some of my competitors. So they were out there charging, um, 20, between 19 and 28%, um, and we— and but they have the same default rates that we have. So what's happened now with the virus is we were just waiting for a recession because we knew the recession was going to knock those people out.

They're not making enough money or why they're—

they— so nobody— so OnDeck, Kabbage, Bluevine, all these other companies are not providing any loans now. They're done. Oh, okay. And the reason being is that they were funded by banks. Okay. And they were funded by investors, and now the investors are like, oh, wait a minute, uh, where's my money? Yeah. And, and wait, it's gonna really come to roost because not only do they stop getting funded But they, um, now they're going to lose all their— a lot of their capital.

Why is that?

Because Bezos is— I, I think the recession is good. This is going to be bad.

Yeah, talk to me. Okay, so, oh dude, this is the stuff I wanted to talk about. So what's coming our way? Why is it going to be bad? I think so too.

It's, um, for me it's because I've been through it before. Yeah. Um, you— it's, it's, you know, it's really— I I wish— I'm not a, I'm not a financial guru by any means, right? So it's, it's just, I've been through this before. It's gonna get really nasty. You're gonna have lots of businesses declare bankruptcies. Um, you're gonna have, you know, it's gonna— I was really happy when I heard the other day that the Feds are predicting only a 9% unemployment rate for the next couple years. I was like, Oh, that's not so bad. You know, 9% is not that bad. Oh my God, yes. You know, but it's just, you know, you're talking about just a lot of industries are just really, you know, people are not going to be spending tons of money anymore.

Yeah.

$4 out of $5 is consumer related. You know, people are going to be unemployed. They're not going to be spending a lot of money. The whole PPP program right now and the unemployment extra $600 is gonna be running out. Yeah, it's gonna get bad.

That's my thought too, is that we are running on fumes. We get this artificial injection of cash, PPP, uh, these different loans. I also think July 15th— now this is broadcasting, I think, before that, I'm not sure— but July 15th, I think, is D-Day for small business. July 15th is when taxes are due now. So The April 15th taxes got delayed till July 15th, federal. The June 15th got delayed to July 15th. And I think small businesses blown that money. Like, oh, it's free money, I don't pay my taxes this year. And then July 15th is going to come, the government's going to go, where the F is my money? And people are going to say, I, I— and then the government, in such a nice— oh, everyone thinks the government's nice handing out these PPP loans. The government is going to punch us in the face over and over. And it's— I think it's going to be —calamity. That's my fear.

Yeah, well, listen, let me tell you some insider information, okay? So I don't know what— I don't know what you're gonna think of this yet. I mean, you tell me what you think of this, but so our clients that have our lines of credit, yeah, they're not using— they're not using their line of credit at all. Our— yeah, like for the last 2 months because they all got PPP money. Oh yeah, that's one thing. And then the second thing is, um, I think the decisions that we made in certain verticals that we're in heavily in, they are very— it goes back to what I was saying before. People use the money smartly. Yeah. And I really think that a lot of the people that have our line of credit are making the right decision to not use their line of credit now. And I, and I think it's because they're just— we picked the right type of businesses. We had some business, yes, that are essential, that are doing very, very well. Yeah. We have other clients that were, we're right in due diligence. We were like, you know, that's— we're not going into this area because it's too risky. Like, for example, we don't work with transportation companies, like trucking companies. Too risky. That's too risky. Very risky. Why is it so risky? They, they there's a history in trucking companies where they think paying bills is optional. Yeah. Yeah. And we have— there's a couple of verticals like that, right? Um, and they just think, oh well, you know, I'm just not gonna pay that bill. I don't care. Yeah. Um, so, uh, anyway, we've— we seem to have been— the verticals that we picked were very, very smart. Whereas like, for example, going back to OnDeck, they were heavily involved in a restaurant business. Oh yeah, done. They're done, right? I mean, you know, I think they said 1 out of every 4 restaurants is going to be going— is out of business within 12— is within 12 months, which sounds awfully low to me. 1 out of 12.

In Butin here, uh, I think half of them are gonna be shuttered. Here's that one right across from our building— your building— our building, um, which is the new taco place.

They're done. Yeah, they were doing— but they were done before though.

They were done beforehand, but this is And maybe it's a— actually, maybe it's a blessing. Yeah. Um, Budin's overstaffed with it, but with restaurants, I think Sharky's, which is a popular restaurant, is going to struggle. So I'm really concerned about that industry. I'm concerned for my business about my clients' business. So, you know, in one of my— in Profit First Professionals, which we have in your building, we service accounts. We have 450 accountants. I am talking with my accountants regularly saying, how are your clients doing? Because my sense is they lose their clients, 60 days later or 30 days later they're not getting paid. That means 30 days after that I'm not getting paid. That's how I'm trying to predict it. And right now it's starting to get a little shaky. The thing with accountants is everyone has to get PPP loans, or trying to still, so that gave a lot of work. And taxes aren't due till July 15th, so there's all this tax work that's still happening. But then July 16th, all the tax work's done. I'm, I'm just super scared about that time.

It depends on your— I, the only thing I would be worried about with your business would be is, do the people who use Profit First, that your, your clients, yeah, do they feel that your service is, is invaluable to them? Yeah, right. What do you think?

The people— here's what I think. The people who've done Profit First think it's invaluable. The people who haven't done Profit First can't see the value.

Oh yeah, well, you're not going to get any new clients.

I'm not getting new clients. Oh, so we get emails in saying, this, this has saved my business, this has saved my business. Um, I don't know if there's enough. So we've got— we estimate 350,000 companies have implemented Profit First. A portion of them then hire my accountants, that keeps me going. I, I don't know if there's— we need the active new demand, and that's my fear.

Well, let me tell you, uh, something that I learned with Healthcare Seeker, okay? So Expert Seeker was a great company, really made very profitable for me, um, and You know, I, I wrote, I wrote a book and I wrote this— I'm sorry, I wrote a chapter in this book which is— I'm very proud of the chapter I wrote. Talks about all the business I did and when I, you know, some situations. I don't make that— I don't make this long. Expert Seeker, I— when the Trade Towers fell, which I was in your office, I know, I saw the smoke in the sky from the towers I remember to this day, crystal clear, beautiful sky and smoke going right across the horizon, right?

What did you feel like when you saw that?

Like everyone feels like right now, a deer in a headlight. Yeah. You don't really know, but in fact, that was different. Like, I didn't really know what was going on. Like, I had people starting to walk in. I had like 20 people working for me at the time, right? And I had people coming in, they're like, they came in, they were like, oh, the a plane flew into the towers. I'm like, all right, all right, whatever, get to work, right? I thought it was a passenger plane, right? Yeah, a little Cessna or something, right? And then, and then they keep dropping in. I'm getting more and more— if we— I'm like, you know, so another person, and I say that, I go, is it a— it was a passenger jet, just, you know, don't worry about it, it's no big deal. She goes, no, it was a 747. I go, a 747? Yeah. And I look and I see, you know, I'm seeing the smoke and I And so everybody's like starting to really mull around and really, you know, and I said, all right, stop everybody, let's go to Heavenly Temptations. She had like, you know, 4 TVs. Yeah, yeah, all went down there, we were all watching it, and we watched the first tower fall together. Yeah, and you know, girls were crying, people were crying because, right, yeah, well, and it was like that. Anyway, at that point I knew it was over for my business. For that business because we had gone from $1 million to $3 million to $5 million to $6 million. But then it was the year 2000, and the business I was in was placing consultants partly to address the year 2000 problem, and work was starting to go over overseas. So we went from $6 million the year before— for the first time ever, I went down to $5 million in revenue. And I was like, uh-oh, this is it. And when those planes hit, I said, that's it, they're not gonna be using consultants anymore, because they— I knew that we were gonna go into a recession. So a month later, I let go 95% of my staff. My gosh. Yeah, and I just blew up the company. It still went on for 5 years. Really? Yeah, and then I started looking for another business, which was Healthcare Seeker. Yeah, Healthcare Seeker, same growth path, incredible. Inc. 500, fast-growing, went way up, and I really loved the company. I really had gathered this team. Yeah, yeah, I just really knew what I was doing, you know. I was a much better business owner at this point. Yeah, and I was hiring the right people. I built the right culture. I loved my team, and, um, we've gone up to $7 million, and we're on our way to doing over $10 million. And at that point, I was gonna sell. Okay. Have you sold a business before? For peanuts. Okay. Yeah, not— that's the biggest—

that's the fact you sold a company.

That's awesome. Yeah, it was— believe me, it was like $200,000 or $300,000, which is a—

dude, I'll take it. I bet you half people listening to this would take it in a heartbeat.

Well, anyway, it's the one thing I haven't done. I would like to do it. I don't know if it'll ever happen, but anyway, we'll see. But anyway, Healthcare Seeker, I did the complete opposite. Yeah, I did let go like a few people, but I really, really liked the business. And I said, hey, if I can keep getting better at what I'm doing, keep my team together on the back end— a recession typically lasts 18 months. I said, okay, I have, I have the runway, I have the money, I can make this. Okay, no big deal. Let me tell you what happened. Two things. The first thing is that recession, as we all know, went on for, you know, 3, 4 years, right? But this is another thing, Mike. The recession in my business and my industry went on for 6 years. So there's a, there's a global recession, and then there's a recession in your business. Interesting. And so I don't think that there's going to be The people get rid of their accountants. The last thing you do is you get rid of your accountant. That's true, right? And the first thing you do is bring on an accountant later on when— right, right, right, when you're coming back. Yeah, so you're— I, you know, you— it's going to be tough, but you know, but this is my lesson in this: a recession lasts 2 to 3 times longer than you think it does. So right now in your head, Mike, and everybody else out there, is you need to say to yourself, what happens to me if this lasts 2 or 3 times longer than I think it does? Because I, I tell you the truth, that wasn't what I thought. And, um, what, you know, I, I thought, okay, I just need to handle this for another maybe, uh, 18 months, 2 years. Sure, sure. Right. So in my own business, Financing Solutions, we let people go 3 weeks ago.

Because you had— you actually noticed the impact. People stopped taking loans. Yes. And you think this is going to last for your business 3 years longer than—

yeah. And there's a lot of things going on right now that we think is really gonna hurt. Um, people aren't gonna— because we're not gonna be able to— like, we're still providing lines of credit, but you go, you know, you got to be a good business.

Yeah, you gotta be, you gotta be real careful now. Yeah, because someone borrows money and then they go down.

That's right. It's hard to recover. Yeah, it's really hard.

I presume your business actually thrives in a booming economy because businesses are on an uptick, they borrow money, and maybe they can't— maybe they're not running it prudently, but they can handle the cash flow. And hopefully they are running it prudently. Yes. But even if they're running really smart and we're in a recession, uh, so what's your next move?

Well, yeah, so we So, we did the right, we did the smart decision. We really cut our expenses huge down, right? Like, I, you know, everybody's now working out of their house. I moved out of the building because I was paying myself rent out of my own building.

If nothing else, it's an asset you're not utilizing.

So, we really cut everything back. We had, we, now, keep in mind that we really think that our competitors are not going to provide funding. Yeah, that's good. All right, so that's good. And a huge line item for me is the cost of acquiring clients. So yeah, advertising is, is really a huge expense for us. It's very expensive for me to acquire a client. So if, you know, with my competitors out there, it's going— it's going to bring it down. So, you know, my guess really, I, I think, um, a year from now, we will start really growing again. And, uh, and so, I mean, I, Mike, I'm honestly the busiest I've ever been in, in my life right now. And part of it has to do, yes, with the idea of moving everybody out of their— the offices, and me moving and setting up in my house and getting everything. It's— yeah, it's It's been challenging, but, um, I'm spending all my time right now making sure that our website and our articles and everything that we're doing for what's called search engine optimization, which is how Google finds you. Yeah, yeah. I'm— I, I have one year to really build our company up so that Google allows people when they're typing something into Google, they can find us easily. And it's— and I used to say the Google.

Did you say when people type?

It's like the monopoly. Yes, the Google. Yeah, that's SEO 101. Yeah, but the Google's been, uh, I've been a the Google guy for like 15 years. I, you know, my skill set is lead generation, the ability to get people coming to us. That's my skill set.

Yeah, you know, I, I think when people listen to this, some people will come to you just because it's refreshing to hear there's a real guy. It's not cabbage to me as a bank or whatever, but you're a real guy. And I never— I don't know why it didn't click. I knew it was your money, but I didn't— like, you're actually invested in these businesses. I don't know, to me there's something different there. It's—

well, it is, especially, especially because, like, we'll listen to a story Yeah, you know, we'll listen to, you know, okay, so, you know, kind of tell me what— now listen, don't, don't get me wrong, we're gonna— you need to have a 650 or better credit score. Yeah, okay, you need to have that, right? On some businesses, we'll go down to 620, but it's a certain vertical that we picked and stuff like that, right? You know, listen, you need to be for a business over $400,000 in revenue, all right? I'm not— we're not putting money into startups and stuff like that. I mean, that's $400,000, not much really. Um, but yeah, I mean, but you know, we're looking at other things and we're making a determination based on 25 years of our experience. My business partner's super smart and, and, and we're looking at a business saying, you know, that's a good business. Yeah, yeah.

And that's what other companies don't do. I think that's cool. Uh, Stephen, the last thing, where can our listeners find out more about Financing Solutions?

So go to fscreditline.com. And that's FS— is in Financing Solutions— fscreditline.com. You can go there, you can find out tons of, uh, you know, good information. We will give you a free quote. We don't check your— we do not check your credit score. Oh, that's good. Yeah, so you'll get a quote, it'll be in writing, you know, someone will call you and go over, um, the, you know, the quote with you. Um, if you want to move forward, then what we ask for is bank statements, tax returns, or 990s if you're, you're a nonprofit, a driver's license, voided check.

And, and you're a smart marketer. Do— should people use a code or something from listening to this podcast? Yeah, put Mike in, put Mike in there.

Um, M-I-K-E, Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'll, we'll kind of know it's from, from you.

Yeah, that's great. So you'll know, and I don't know if that'll afford you besides that they came from the show, and you'll be like, uh, we can't, we can't lend money to friends.

What's the website one more time? It's fscreditline.com.

Stephen, thank you so much.

Thanks, Mike. Good luck to you. You too. Be well. I'll see you.