Unbankable with Alex Shvarts

Welcome back to Unbankable, the podcast about entrepreneurs who see no boundaries and won't take no for an answer. My name is Alex Schwarz. I'm the CEO and founder of Funkite. And for over 10 years, I've worked with business owners, small business owners all across the country, helping them get the funding when banks said no. Um, I do this podcast to inspire entrepreneurs, small business owners to grow, hopefully share my experiences that I've seen so many times, mistakes repeated and repeated and help you cut past through that. Today, I have a very, very special guest, someone I've worked with but never met face to face, Kevin Richardson from a company called Splash Advance. Kevin, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having Um Kevin is the owner of Splash Advance and it's a funding company that's made waves in the revenue-based finance industry since 2019. In uh just six years, Kevin and his team has built Splash into Inc. 5000 company. Applaud you on that. And um for your very aggressive, but what I mean by aggressive tactics is to help businesses get their funding. That's where you're very very aggressive. So, um, again, thank you for joining. I hope this is a We're here to inspire, help, and push entrepreneurs to the finish line. We'll talk what it takes about getting to the finish. Absolutely. Right. Yep. So, Kevin, you speak to business owners every single day. Correct. A lot of them. Right. Correct. So tell me, what's the most uncomfortable conversation you have to have with a business owner? The most uncomfortable is probably when you're at the finish line, you got to get the deal done. They need the money to whether it's cover payroll, cover a job, whatever the case may be, and uh you know, the deal is not funded in time, so you're trying to stall on them. Maybe it's overnight, maybe it's for a couple more hours, or maybe it's a whole weekend. I think that's probably one of the most uncomfortable conversations to have cuz if you don't get it by that deadline, they're coming to you on Monday. You know, they need the money all weekend. They're bothering you. If you don't get it to them by end of day, they're going to be blowing you up all day trying to get the money. That's usually, I think, one of the most uncomfortable conversations. Now, that's obviously on the back end. I I would say, you know, on the front end of a of our sales process, one of the most uncomfortable conversations is just telling them they're not going to get the funds they're looking for. I would say, you know, that part of the sales process, knowing that, hey, like they need the money by this day, this time, but yet maybe they started late in the process and you got to try and get it done in that time period. Um, another uncomfortable conversation is just, you know, a guy that's not gonna get approved or or that's got to be the worst, right? Because they're they're they have their heart set. So, how do you set expectations from the get-go that cuz you know, you could pretty much you have enough experience where you've talked to this business owner ahead of time and um you kind of know whether they're going to get it or not. Do you have a way to set expectations that are real so that you're not going to break their heart at the end? Um, so what I like to do is typically, you know, I I like to say obviously we are not an institutional funer. We're not uh, you know, we're not providing bank loans, right? So, you know, I'd like to basically follow a a negative with two positives. So, meaning what I'll do is, you know, I'll tell them I'll give them a range of of what we think we can get approved, but also I I I want them to understand that, you know, they're getting approved based off of credentials along the lines of credit, revenue, you know, certain things. So, there's there's four or five factors. You know, if if one of those factors doesn't meet doesn't meet the criteria and they end up getting declined, well, at least I still have that one factor. like you know if if they have good credit but they don't keep enough cash in in their account. Yeah. And they get to declined for poor balances or something like that. Right. So an instant red flag that you know is going to kill this application. Instant red flag uh time in business. Okay. It's a very frequent one in in the revenue based finance industry. Right. In our industry, right? In our industry specific to that, you know, we're usually going to want to see at least six months in business and even Even that's going to be tough, right? Sure. Less than a year in business is tough. We get a lot of calls for startup funding, right? And that's not something that I specialize in. I try and connect them to people that do startup funding or or you know, credit card stacking, whatever type industry that is. Um, but I don't do that in-house. So, that's not something we provide. Um, so for our audience, what Kevin is referring to is called the revenuebased finance industry. And I I'd like to just clarify for the audience what that is. So revenue-based finance is when a funding company buys your future receivables for a lumpsum payment today and they collect those receivables based on your revenue, right? So as your revenue goes up and down, so will those repayments. So it it's a it's a great way to get funding without getting tied down to fixed payment, fixed term. So, in revenue-based financing, there is no term, there is no minimum payment. It's all it all works against the sale. So, the better you do, the the faster you're going to repay it. And if you have a slowdown in the business, you're going to pay less. I just wanted to clarify that for our audience. Okay. Um, so again, you've built Splash into an Inc. 500 company in just six uh six years, but you're competing against players who've been in the game for decades, deeper pockets. What's your unfair advantage that lets you win deals? They can't relationships. You know, I I would think that's a that's a big that's a big advantage. I mean, we we definitely have solid relationships with a lot of funding partners across the space. I feel like we have access to better offers than a lot of people. Um, you know, we're also not we're not afraid to lose a deal. You know what I mean? I'm not going to sit there and spend all day and night on a deal if there's six other brokers on it. I'm going to give them the offer or g give them and that's a I I that's a good point because what a lot of um small business owners do is because they're they're really hungry to get that capital right away. They go online and they start to apply with multiple brokers, right? And the reality is that while this business has grown significantly, there's only a handful of companies like Funkai that will actually provide the capital to these business owners. Correct. But by going to so many brokers and applying online in different places, all you're going to do is get yourself 20 phone calls with the same noise. So, it really makes it worse. Okay. By the way, if you're enjoying this conversation, please leave some comments below. Um, great if you will subscribe. I'm going to continue bringing on industry leaders, business owners, entrepreneurs, and hopefully you'll get the insight that you need to to get to the finish line. Um, definitely drop some comments about some questions or topics that you'd like me to discuss. So, Kevin, so tell us about yourself. Give us a little bit about what you do every day, what drives you. Absolutely. Um, yeah. So, uh, we started, uh, my company, Splash Advance, uh, in 2019. Uh, I've been in the merchant cash advance financing space for probably about 10 years now. Um, as far as as what drives me on a on a daily basis, my family, friends, uh, my fiance, a beautiful fiance, I'm looking to marry in about 9 months. So, I'm excited about that. Would you marry a not beautiful fiance? Uh, I don't think so. No, I think my fian no matter what uh, she's going to be beautiful, but and beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. So I think everybody's beautiful. That is correct. And somebody will always find you beautiful. Not everybody. Correct. But somebody always will. So I I think that everybody's beautiful in this world. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um as far as um as far as what drives me on a daily basis. Um I would say just uh connect connections with people, right? I want to build and establish stronger relationships with the people around me. I want to see them grow uh while while in turn that helps me grow. uh if I see, you know, those around me that I can help impact on a daily basis, um it's going to make me feel better about what I'm doing and uh I feel like, you know, that's my job in sales every day, right? My job is to to read people, to understand people, and um you know, to help them grow within within our business, which is revenue-based financing, as I said. Um so, yeah, that's that's a big driver. You know, let's touch on connections. Sure. And impacting your ability to connect with people has certainly had a serious impact on me. You've taken my chief revenue officer and now he's golfing every day on Friday with you. Okay? So, your connections are having a direct direct impact on me cuz when he's not working, that means I have to take over. So, knock it down. and he thinks he's the next Tiger Woods. That just means I got to I got to give you more business, right? That's it. That's it. All right. That's very good. So, Kevin, Mhm. if tomorrow every major competitor offered the same terms you do, same terms, same rates, same approvals, what would be your next move to stay ahead?

next move. If everybody offered similar terms or same terms, you're saying yeah, everybody's offering the same product as you tomorrow, how are you going to stay ahead? And this is a good question for, you know, business owners, right? Right. Because, you know, you open a store, you know, again, for lack of a for a good example, you know, you open a coffee spot, right? You're making coffee. Guy opens up three doors down making the same offering the same coffee, same price and everything. How are you gonna stay ahead? Uh, I'd have to create my own product, I think. Right. Or or create a um That's a good question. Well, it's a good question, right? It is. And so I I say that in that case, what wins is going back to what you said, relationship. Relationships, right? It's the relationships and the communication. And so, you know, we're all dealing with customers. Finance, we have customers. Our customers have customers. Most of the people that are they're watching this podcast right now are dealing with customers, right? And a lot of times a lot of times it's the relationship that brings the customers back. It's how you deal with a customer, right? So a lot of people offer the same thing. Y world is full of it. That's what competition is about. But not everybody can find a unique approach with a smile to make that customer happy. Correct. Correct. Right. So, which leads me to the next thing. Um, and this is going to be again good for the people watching. How do you deal with No, there's there's a number of different ways to deal with no. I mean, listen, depending on uh, you know, depending on who the caller is, is I I'm going to obviously want to build and establish a relationship with the person that's saying no. Um, you know, I I think it depends. Like I I can rebuttle that person a few times and if they're still saying no, I'm going to deal with it pleasantly. I'm not going to be upset about the no. I'm not going to hound them, right? I don't want to come off I don't want to come off desperate. So, I think the the best way sometimes is, you know, going back to to what I mentioned earlier is kind of being away being able to step away from the deal. That's okay. If if they say no or a customer, yeah. Hey, hey, no problem. If anything changes, you have my number. I'm going to shoot you over an email. You give me a shout back if anything changes, you know. So, I don't think, and I think that this is where people get caught up because it's an emotion. We don't like to hear no, right? I don't think that no is a rejection. I don't think when people say no, they're rejecting you, your product, or whatever you're doing. They just don't know. No. Or it just might not be a good fit for them. And that's okay. That's fine. The the the thing to know is to smile when they say no. Because when somebody says no to you, say, "Okay, thank you." And thank you for the time. Yeah. That's not an answer that someone is usually getting. What do you mean no? Why no? You know, people get confrontational. I don't know. I don't you know people say no. I said okay thank you for your time. Something changes let me know that will stick with a customer longer cuz oh wow I I basically told this guy to you know take a walk and he said thank you very much. I agree. So I take a no as a yes with caution. Yeah. And and and in business Mhm. probably the first three things you need to learn is that you're going to get a lot of nos. For sure. you're going to get no, no, no, no, no. In fact, get up in the morning before you go to work and keep saying no to yourself, right? So, like you already beat yourself up. Nobody else can. All right, cool. Um, step one of sales, right? As soon as you walk in, you know, you're cold calling whatever you're doing. People are going to hang up on you. They're going to tell you no all the time. You know, it's it's a daily going to go back to your beautiful new wife. Did she say yes the first time? I bet she didn't. Absolutely not. No, you can't. You got to get used to a little denial, right? You got you got to be able to take it a little bit. No. Makes you stronger. It makes you It also for business owners that that deal with customers constantly. Look, a lot of people deal with, you know, customers online today. Online is a major economy. Sure. But, you know, people who have stores or or you know, services business and you're dealing with customers, you better get used to no. Right. Right. And by the way, the more nos you hear, the more the more the nos, unless you're selling crap and nobody wants it, but um you know, people are going to get used to it. Um you're going to get used to the nos, and those nos are slowly going to become yeses, right? It's it it was worked like that. Kevin, so we just had a really good question come from our instudio audience, right? And the question was, how do you flip the switch? The question is, okay, you're having a bad day, everything's going wrong, and you're about to get on a call and you need to close this deal or speak to this customer. How are you able to, as as the person in the audience said, put on the Disney effect and just switch your face, turn it on, and be able to not let the past affect the moment. Sure. So, I think this is like kind of like the next step of the sales process, right? like the first step which we just kind of referred to and dealing with no and a cold calling process, right? The next step to me is establishing or building a relationship, right? And you know, you have all this stuff going on and then you got to get on the phone with a big client or or potential uh you know, potential client, right? And you're you're on the phone. My my way of dealing with that is is by asking questions and listening, right? So, you know, I'll have a few questions I'll ask the the client or customer that I'm speaking with and and I want to know and learn all about them and what their needs are and what what what interests them, right? So, I'm going to ask them a few questions. I'm going to find out what they're what they're looking to do or how much they're looking for, if it's, you know, merchant cash advance related or if it's a money question. Right. So, you engage in a lot I hear you. Yeah. and you you engage in a lot of back and forth conversation. I think and I I'm going to give you my my outlook on it. At the end of the day, we're all human. Yep. Right. Everybody listening to this podcast is human. Mhm. We are going to have moments where we're having a really crappy day. It happens. Yeah. Right. For a million different reasons. Mhm. Okay. How do you tune out the bad day and close that next deal? Cuz you need to cuz that next deal is paying for like your your future mother-in-law's table at the wedding. Okay, there you go. How do you flip the switch and turn? Are you able to do that or do you just need to walk away for the rest of the day? Um, not for the rest of the day, but walk away is is a good way to put it because uh, you know, in my office, what I like to do is walk around the building. Okay. So, I'll do So, like you left work and come back. Correct. I'll do a quick, you know, a quick circle around the building. I might pop on a song, put in the headphones. Right. And then come right back in, shut the door. You're a big vinyl fan also. Exactly. I love the vinyls behind me. And And you know, I might just pop pop open the door, close the door. or I want all silence on that call. Kind of get in my zen moment and then go to what I said before asking very good. There was a moment a long time ago because I'm so old I'm ancient but whatever. There was a moment you don't look there was a there was a time when I worked from home Uhhuh. at a a home office and you know I was getting so I you know went from the top floor to the bottom floor to the home office and you know I was losing it for a minute right and so somebody told me they said listen even though you work from home you should go outside walk around the block and go to the office right and when you're done with work leave the office walk around the block and go create a routine right so there's a little separation so there is something about breaking the mood you're in, right? And by the way, if you like this podcast, very soon I'm going to have a business coach on in the next few weeks and she's incredible. She trains entrepreneurs on how to how to actually stay focused with what's at hand. So, that's going to be she's amazing. She's coming on soon. Anyway, so you're right. You have to have a way to tune out of what's bringing you back. That was a really good question for the studio audience. Okay, let's go back to your success, right? What's the one thing that you wish someone had warned you about in 2019 that you had to learn the hard way now being a business owner? I mean, I would say, you know, the es and flows of of sales and and the market, right? like the the you know the industry I'm in is is I feel like we're all based off the stock market kind of how the economy is going right and I think since we've started our company right nobody could pre-warn us for co and co was was a huge marker for a lot of businesses right and for for us in particular it kind of put us at a standstill for a little while right and uh we we started right before co so we just got the ball rolling. Everything was going in the right direction. We were we were just projecting up and up and up and then COVID hit and we flatlined, right? And we went through, I don't know, six to nine months, almost a year of just kind of stagnant. So, you can't you can't warn yourself for COVID, but then right after, you know, the market kind of took a dive upwards and it's just the es and flows, you know, the es and flows of market. It goes hand inhand with sales. It's like a roller coaster and I don't think anybody can really prepare you for that. Right. You have to experience it. You have to experience it, right? And and I've experienced it in sales. Never like the last 5 years. I would say with with co that was a big marker for us, but um yeah, I feel like the es and flows of uh of the industry and and the market are a huge uh a huge one. All right. So, let's get into some really specific help for business owners. Okay. All right. So, there's three things that I think I I always like to talk about with every almost every guest. Um, so it's the S plan, which is the staffing plan, the F plan, which is the funding plan, and the G plan, which is the growth plan. So, let's start with the staffing plan. And I keep saying this, I'm going to hammer it every single time. I say, "Pace your hires and accelerate your fires." Right? So, tell me your hiring process. What goes into hiring and making good decisions? I'm sure you hired a lot of the wrong people or people that didn't fit. So, today you you've got experience to share. What do you look at now when you hire people that pretty much guarantees a good result? Well, I think when we first started, like any other business, you know, we go out on um you know, recruiting sites, any type of Craigslist, uh you know, whatever, uh Facebook, you know, types to to get the word out there. Hey, sales job, you know, we'll interview guys, we'll bring them in, uh like any normal company, right? And we'll bring guys off the street. And I think what what we've realized over time is when we bring them in, it's like I'd rather have the guy that works his ass off, comes in every day on time, works overtime, not the sharpest between the ears, right? Not the guy that's the sharpest between the ears, but he works hard than the guy that's really smart and lazy. I don't want any lazy guys, right? So, it's like I've gone through that process to this point. I would say where we get our best hires are usually referrals, you know. So, you want a smart, hardworking guy who's always on time. I mean, like everybody, I would, but that's normal. You should want that, right? And very normal, but it's also But you're saying that you find that you find that some people are just too smart for their own good to succeed. So, exactly right. So, there's, you know, smart guys that that don't always necessarily have the work ethic. There's guys that have the work ethic, but they don't work the smartest, you know. Yeah, of course you want the guy that's that's super smart and works hard. A guy straight out of college or something like that, but or maybe maybe he doesn't even need college. Maybe he's out of high school and and he's just got, you know, he's got the drive, right? He's got the hunger. Tell me about your fires. How quick do you fire? How quick do you realize it? Do you give people second chances? So, we we try not to fire, right? We try not to, but um it depends, right? So like we if if someone's not doing good in a certain role, let's say they came in for sales and they're not cutting it, what we'll try and do is then put them under somebody else. We'll put them under somebody's wing, maybe they can learn a little bit, maybe they can train, um or we'll put them in another role. We're not super quick to fire. Now, if they do something where it's, you know, they steal or or No, that's a that's a different situation, right? But if it's if it's a a work related thing, the only, you know, the the one situation where I feel like we're going to fire somebody pretty quickly is work ethic, right? They're not showing up on time. They don't want to be there. We don't want them there. We don't want them in our office, right? Um, so I would say like as a company, we're not as quick to pull the trigger on firing somebody as maybe the next guy. Uh, we we'll give them a second chance. we'll give them maybe a third chance depending. Uh I think that's I'm I'm guilty of that too. I'm I mean I'm like Mr. Chance over here. I have a hard time. But what I've realized and learned from very successful entrepreneurs is time is a luxury we don't have for sure. And if somebody's not performing, they're not a good fit for you. Right. And and you have to cut ties as soon as possible. Yeah. Right. So we just got another great question from our studio audience. How do I deal with employees who piss me off? Oh, wow. What a question, right? You know what I got to say to that? I piss them off right back. Look, it, you know, you got to always realize we're all humans, right? And um people look, it's always easier to ask your boss to do something or, you know, find the answer, find the sol. Isn't that the best easiest way? Cuz nobody wants to be accountable, right? It's just easier. Oh, let my boss handle this. And people fail to um to realize that, you know, your boss is handling a thousand things. And um and so that's a boundary and tone which I think is important for the business owner leader to set with his employees so that they are responsible for their actions. Yeah. And and also listen sometimes, you know, you you got to lose it. You got like what you you're here to make this decision. Why are you wasting my time, right? Um so Kevin, what is best the best way to scale and when is the best time to do that? Oh, I got to say that that's probably in my opinion the hardest aspect of being a business owner, right? Is scaling. you know, we can be doing something exceptional for for a long time. You know, we could have years of where we're we're hitting good numbers, everybody's doing well, and eventually you're like you don't want to feel stagnant, right? So, I feel like with scaling, I always look at the marketing side and and putting money towards marketing. But I think you got to be willing to take risks, right? Okay. You got to be willing to fail. Oh, I love that. So I think success is a is is many failures. I totally agree with that. I always say this, you know, and keep repeating the same thing. I'm not an AI 23-year-old kid that created some AI and is going to sell out for $2 billion. I wish I I wasn't born so lucky, right? So I I got to do it the hard way. And the hard way is doing things, learning from your mistakes, learning from your failures until you succeed. Absolutely. That's good. Okay. So let's talk about scale. Sure. Um so how many employees are at your company now? So we we have uh about 25 employees. We actually speaking of uh we scaling and and you know the last subject where we talked about uh staffing being quick to fire we actually got rid of about eight processors right and and the only reason we and these are processes are are just for people who don't know the lingo. Sure. There are people in the operations department that handle applications and paperwork. Correct. Correct. So you got rid of eight, but let me let me let me stay with my question. So you were at 33, but at some point you were at two or five. Yep. What was the decision then? What were the factors that you said, "Oh, I got to get to 10. I got to get to 20." That's that's my question. Well, supply and demand, right? We were, you know, we were getting a lot of leads. We had to hire sales guys, right? We needed sales guys. we didn't have enough uh enough people on the phones, enough people managing these clients, getting to these leads. So, first things first was we we we had the marketing aspect at the beginning. We had the leads, we had, you know, plenty of business coming in. Now, we had to have the people in the seats to handle that business. And that's kind of how we started, right? It was just me and one other guy. We were able to get the business. Now, we had to get sales reps. And so, you know, we started bringing in sales reps. We started working all day and night. Uh we trained them and uh from there, you know, we we kind of picked out the guys that were able to handle more and we would get them admins and and so on and so forth, right? So, you know, I I think for for pretty much any industry, right? Marketing is always going to be like number one, right? marketing yourself, knowing, you know, where you're going to get your business or or how to get that business. That was kind of our our number one aspect. And then, you know, we reeled in the sales guys from there. When was the first moment that you said to yourself, "Wow, this is a real business now." I mean, it was for for for this company, I would say it was pretty early on, you know. Um, I would say within probably about 3 months of starting our company, we we knew we had something. Uh, we knew that, you know, I I started this company with um a friend of mine that worked at the previous we worked together at the previous company, right? And I think we realized very early that we had some great sales experience, some great experience in particular for our industry and we knew how to flip that experience and create something of our own, right? And I feel like we had the relationships, we knew the product. Um, I felt like very early on we had all the keys needed to to build and grow um, you know, a very successful business. And I would say within probably 3 months of starting the business, I said, you know, we're going to have something successful here. You know, this is this is not going to go away. And trust me, I've started and and failed on many other companies before this. So, um, you know, we were lucky in that aspect. One expense you regret? I think I could probably name about 20 25 expenses. Um I would say uh you know I mean there was definitely let's see sales managers here and there that I regret. Um so it's more staffing related. It would probably be uh probably be staffing related or CRM related or something like that. You know something to manage uh whether it was people or the data. Um we've made our mistakes in in you know in that department for sure. So, I would say that would probably be, you know, two two big uh big mistakes that I regret. You know, I I don't really have regrets that much. Um maybe a little remorse, learning experiences more so, you know, I don't really regret because I, you know, I I can't change it. So, I don't regret it, right? Um I just learn from it. Like I say, okay, you know, I did this. You know, if I had to go back, I wouldn't do it again. Yeah. And but it's okay to make those mistakes. So you know people are learned behavior and habits. So tell me a habit that you had to break once your business became successful. Sleeping number one for me. You stopped sleeping. No, I mean I'm asking what what happened did you have to Oh, you used to sleep during the day. Uh I used to I'm a nighthawk. I'm a I'm a night owl. I mean, even to this day to some extent, but you know, back when I first started the company, I would be up until 1 2 3 in the morning some nights and then I'd be waking up at 7:30, 8 a.m. And what would happen is by the end of the week, I would just be crashing out. Right. Sure. So, I mean, I think it was just for me, uh, a big habit was just better sleep habits, right? I try and I try and get in bed by like 9:45, you know, 9:30 during the week. That doesn't mean that I'm sleeping, you know, all night. I'll try and wake up at 600 6:30 and and, you know, get going right before uh before anybody else is in, you know. So, sleep habits are huge for me. So, that was the G plan, the growth plan operation. So, let's talk about the last plan, which is the funding plan. Sure. Right. So, what would you say a business owner should look at when they choose a funding broker to get funding? Look, the industry is huge. There's bankers, they choosing the right bank, but you know, today I would say probably 80% of the merchants or business owners are aware of revenue- based finance, right? They're getting calls. Yeah. So, what what would you suggest they look at how to choose the right broker to represent them with funding companies? Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, I think number one is going to be trust, right? Like there's there's so many different brokers in our space. You never know like what what what they're really getting at. Um, you know, what what their objective is. Is it just for them to make money? You know, are they looking to get you on a bad deal? Um, you know, there's even, you know, obviously there's even guys that you don't know what what their agenda is, right? So, I think like the number one thing I would say is going to be trust, right? You you there's a likability factor for sure, but you know, you just want a guy you can trust. You You want a guy that you How do you know you can trust them? Uh, I mean, I think you can you know, you can trust people trust you, I believe. So, yeah. What What What And you've heard other brokers on the phones, right? Sure. What do you do different? I don't uh I don't tell don't tell the customer what they want to hear all the time. You know, I'm not afraid to tell the customer something negative or or something he doesn't want to hear. And listen, if he wants to walk away based off something I've said, then fine, it might not be a good fit, right? But at the end of the day, like I want to know. I want to go home at night and say, you know, I was honest. I told my customer, you know, that I told my customer what what I thought was the best plan for them, you know, and if if they disagreed, then that's fine. But I want them to trust me. I want them to trust that I'm going to get them the best deal, right? And that's I think that's a key to it, right? They sure first you got to trust them and then second you got to get them the best deal, right? You got to you got to try and get the best product for them. So yeah, I think trust is a big factor along with, you know, along with at least liking who you're speaking to on the other side of that call, on the other side of that phone. What would you like to ask me? Well, as far as um owning your own company, right? So I don't own Funkite. I'm just the CEO and founder. There's a group of people that own Okay. All right. So I I report to people. So you report to people. How long have you been doing this? This will be May will be 11 years. Okay. And have you always been in uh financing type world? I've been an entrepreneur all my life. Okay. Um I've had some big successes and I had some even bigger failures. Yeah. Um Yes. But I've been around finance for most of my life. What got you start as far as like in this business? No. as far as like being an entrepreneur, you know, let's say what kind of guy I started when I was n I've told this story before to uh our uh my the podcast audience. Sure. I started at 9 years old with my dad with flea markets at 4:00 in the morning selling stuff. Right. Right. So, I think that brought me into, you know, relationships with people right away. Um, you know, and I did that. But all through, uh, being a kid and growing up, I've I've I've had to hustle. I had to work. We immigrated to this country. We all worked hard. And so that's it's always been a part of my um DNA. Y um but I mean I definitely have ADHD, right? That's a good thing. But the good thing about ADHD is when you get older, it's probably dumm. You get dumb to ADHD. So you slow down and you're good way to put it, you know, like that's the truth about it. So, so I uh I can multitask and in fact sometimes I need to multitask. It's like this addiction I have to to that but I'm I can also focus on you know really important things at hand. So do I love what I do? I ask myself that question every day. Yes, I do. I think you know there's a lot of people that rely on me. So, it's not like I can just say I'm going to take, you know, today off because I, you know, I can't just call in a, you know, PTO today because it's like almost my days off. I have to be really strategically planned. And that's a a problem a lot of you business owners that are, you know, listening to this are going to have like, you know, you can't afford to take a day off because you're just and eventually you do want to build your business to a point where you can take off. But a lot of the successful entrepreneurs that I know um yeah they're they're a slave to their business, right? They're they're a slave to their employees. I feel like I work for everybody in this company. So I do find a balance and you know in some sports and you know music I don't watch much TV. I don't not important to me right u just noise and gives me a headache. But look I worked till midnight last night. I was up at 5:30 today and that's it happens a lot to me. It does and sometimes I get burnt out like everybody else. So I I need to figure out a way how to you know jump back in. But you know as someone running a company Yeah. You don't have a choice. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have excuses. You can't say today I'm not showing up. Yeah. Right. Can't do it. Can't do it. You got to do it. Right. And so as a business owner and this is a choice. This is a choice we make. Right. Nobody forced us to do this. This is a choice. And so you are going to make that choice and you're going to say, "Okay, I want to own a business. I want to build a business. I'm going to try to help you with all the tools along the way, what you could learn, but the ultimate sacrifice you're going to make is your life. You're going to probably spend all of your time in your business, running your business, managing your people, neglecting your family, right? neglecting your loved ones because you know this is going to take over and uh eventually it's going to work and I hope it works for everyone and you're going to be able to make that balance right but there's going to be some tough times man your wife's going to say what are you doing working so late you just got married and you're going to say but baby I have to pay for the house I want to buy your house I want to buy your car the wedding the this that and then you know your mother-in-law is going to call and say my daughter is very disappointed in you. So now, by the way, by the way, this is this is another tough part for entrepreneurs, right? You've got all the headaches of a business and then you've got if you're married and you have kids, the personal life, right? And trying to manage all of this, right? And sometimes I come home and I'm I'm my wife is talking to me and I'm zoned out, right? Cuz I'm, you know, like and and she's getting upset and she thinks like I'm ignoring her. I'm not. I'm just I'm paralyzed. I'm paralyzed from the whole day. And so what I do need sometimes, and this is important, is some really really good downtime by myself. So in order to refocus on other people and listen to others, so maybe, you know, I like biking, I like raetball. Sure. I'm not like you. I I can't I can't lift weights. Let weights lift me. So, I'm kind of like um I need an active sport to unwind or or listening to vinyl m you know vinyl. So, and that little downtime gets me back to now I can, you know, talk to my wife, talk to my kids, talk to the family and stuff like that. So, Kevin, another wonderful question from our studio audience. And the question was, okay, if a genie came today and could offer you one wish to make your business perfect, whether it's one employee, one person, one wish to make your um um business perfect. What would that one wish be that you wanted granted? This has to be practical wish, right? We're not saying the genie can just drop it's probably got Yeah, because a billion dollars we don't have to work anymore. O, that's tough. Um, for for my my company, my business specifically, I would say an endless supply of leads. An endless supply of leads. Now, whether that's a database that that we can pull leads from for, you know, the rest of our company's existence or something like that or or a marketing strategy where we know how we're going to get those leads non-stop. I mean, you know, right off the the top of my head, something practical, I would say an endless supply of leads, customers. Yes. Endless supply of customers. So, I would say one to the genie, no more studio audience. And two, um, I don't believe there is one little thing that can fix everything. In your case, yes, it's just more customers, but that would create more problems anyway. Correct. But, uh, Kevin, hopefully no more studio audience questions today. No more, right? No more. We're just gonna ignore the studio audience. Thank you so much for stopping by. Um, I hope 26 is a fantastic year. I hope you grow more and we do more business together and you hire more people and give more people the opportunity to work in this wonderful industry that you're in. Thank you for joining. Pleasure. Pleasure to be here. And to you, thank you for listening to us. Rant a little bit about genies. Um, please comment, send questions, let us know how I can help you get to the finish line. Thanks so much for listening.