Matt Meehan spent two decades on Wall Street, ran a $150M book of business, then rebuilt his career funding small businesses through PPP, EIDL, and ERC during COVID, only to realize most owners don't fail from bad luck, they fail because their books, credit, and cash flow aren't structured to be "bankable." In this episode, he breaks down what actually gets a business funded, why 80% of business listings never sell, and why the biggest growth hack in business is simply surrounding yourself with people you trust.
Episode 30: Building a Bankable, Sellable Business with Matthew Meehan
What makes a business fundable today and transferable tomorrow? For Matthew Meehan, the answer starts with clean financials, disciplined cash management, the right capital structure, and a company that can create value without depending entirely on its owner.
In this episode, Mike and Zach sit down with Wall Street veteran and business advisor Matthew Meehan to explore how small and midsize companies can access capital, scale responsibly, and prepare for an eventual exit. Matthew shares his unconventional path from barely graduating high school to spending nearly two decades on Wall Street and helping build a full-service investment bank.
We dig into his decision to leave the firm, move to Florida, and enter cash-flow-based small-business financing. When COVID threatened the businesses he had funded, Matthew began helping owners navigate PPP, EIDL, and ERC programs—an experience that evolved into a broader mission to help companies improve their books, become bankable, and build lasting enterprise value.
One of our biggest takeaways is that the right financing depends on the borrower, the purpose, and the lender’s appetite. Matthew explains the differences between traditional bank lending, SBA financing, alternative funding, private placements, and SPVs, along with the financial records and credit profile owners need before approaching capital providers.
You’ll also hear why a good exit strategy is simply good business strategy, what makes a company transferable, why preparation should begin 12 to 24 months before a sale, and how owners can design a life and business they will not need to escape from.
“Make sure you have everything on paper.”
“Treat everybody the same way, because you don’t know where somebody is gonna be.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think. Trade what you see, and pivot along the way.”
“A good exit strategy is just good business strategy.”
Matthew Meehan is the CEO of Shield Advisory Group, a full-service consulting firm that helps small and midsize businesses obtain access to credit and capital. Through a big-picture assessment, he helps clients understand financing options, market dynamics, and the steps required to support revenue growth and increased market share.
Before founding Shield Advisory Group, Matthew spent nearly two decades on Wall Street and held Series 7, 63, 24, and 99 registrations. He directed the East Coast expansion of multiple boutique investment-banking firms and later became an owner of a full-service investment bank.
Leveraging his network, outside-the-box thinking, and knowledge of traditional and alternative finance, Matthew has raised capital and contributed to the growth of private and publicly traded companies across numerous industries. His experience spans commercial and equipment financing, asset-based and SBA financing, credit lines, private placements, bridge and acquisition financing, SPVs, reverse mergers, PIPEs, and cash-flow financing.
Matthew is also a certified exit planner who helps owners improve operations, clarify their financial position, unlock transferable value, and prepare their companies for a future sale. He co-hosts The Liquid Lunch Project, a podcast focused on practical business growth, funding, and strategy.
Find Matthew Meehan on Instagram, listen to The Liquid Lunch Project, or email matt@mrmcapitalgroup.com
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0:00
How are you going to protect me if things fall apart? And guess what? They do fall apart, right? And more importantly, are you the how much skin do you have in the game? Because if you don't have skin in the game and things fall apart, why are you going to be around to fix it?
0:17
Most people think saving money is the answer. But the truth is, saving only gets you to zero. Join Mike and Zach as they flip the script. From saving to earning, from zero to unlimited potential. Welcome to Save to Zero.
0:35
>> All right. All right. All right. Hey everybody. Uh, welcome to episode number 30 of the Save to Zero podcast. Got my buddy and fellow mastermind member Matt Meehan with me. Uh, Matt and I connected right away in the mastermind because he's a Wall Street guy. He's a numbers guy. I'm a numbers guy. Zach connected with him, too. He's a numbers guy, so we're probably going to geek out a little bit today and uh go a little too deep possibly. And Matt also has my
1:03
heart because he is a traveler just like me. He loves to get up and go. Uh I think it was Thailand was the one that I most want to go to that I think you were at uh last year, the year before, and I've got that on my bucket list now. So Matt, welcome. Appreciate you taking some time out of what I know is a very busy schedule to uh to be on the podcast with us.
1:20
Well guys, thanks for having me
1:25
here. I truly do appreciate it and I'm so happy for you guys that you got this.
1:29
You're on episode 30, so you just didn't start. You stuck with it, man. That
1:32
takes a lot. Most people don't get past episode five, so give yourselves a pat
1:36
on the back.
1:37
>> Um,
1:38
>> yeah. So, like you said, Mike, real simple. Um, I spent the better part of
1:42
two decades on Wall Street, you know. Um, getting there was very unorthodox,
1:48
uh, as you could say. I barely graduated high school and I had nothing going on.
1:51
So academics was never really highly regarded in my household. So I thought I
1:57
was going to become a cop, a fireman, construction, you know, the typical ways
2:00
Staten Island guys go. Well, it didn't wind up that way. I called the ad out of
2:04
a newspaper. I got hired at a firm on Wall Street. Um, and I became a stock
2:08
broker trainee. Flash forward 6 months later, I passed my series 7 exam and I
2:14
thought I was going to make millions and millions of dollars. But guess what? I
2:18
didn't make a penny for over two years. Long story short, I spent the better
2:22
half of two and a half decades there on Wall Street. Finally ended up owning my
2:27
own firm. We bought it with four other individuals. We turned it into a
2:30
full-fledged investment bank. I was working 12 to 14 hours a day, 6 to 7
2:34
days a week. And I was fed up. I had my second kid on the way. It wasn't the
2:39
lifestyle that I wanted to live. So, I did what everybody does. I packed
2:42
everything up. I told my partners, "You need to buy me out." They agreed. and I
2:46
moved to the happiest place on earth, Orlando, Florida, right next to the
2:49
mouse.
2:53
>> That's fantastic. So, I gotta ask because I've had two exits and one was
2:56
with a partner. What was it like to leave your partners? What was the what
3:00
was their reaction when you said, "Boys, I'm done."
3:03
>> Literally, they told me they'd see me back in 3 months. I wasn't going to make
3:07
it. And then it was a kick down, drag out
3:12
fight. you know, guys that you work with for a really long time, they become your
3:15
best friends. Especially when you're working, you know, six, seven days a
3:18
week, 12 to 14 hours a day, side by side, you're going through battles,
3:21
you're in the trenches, we went through 2008 together. We went through the end
3:25
of the dot crisis, right?
3:28
>> You think at the end of the day, that agreement between you guys, you don't
3:34
really need it. Handshake works. Well, guess what? I will tell everybody on
3:37
this. I can't go into details, but make sure you have everything on paper.
3:42
Exactly. So, tell us what you're doing down there
3:46
in uh Orlando.
3:48
>> So, after after they wound up buying me out, I was kind of lost. I didn't know
3:52
what I had to do. I was only um so I'm 45 now. So, I was 34 at the time since
3:58
I've been down here 11 years. Um I had to do something. So, I called up an old
4:03
mentor of mine and he was in the lending space, right? But not like you guys,
4:07
real estate. it was a fast and upcoming industry where you're lending to small
4:11
businesses, right? Based strictly upon cash flow. So, I said, "All right, I'll
4:16
give it a shot." Gave it a shot. I liked it. Um, next thing you know, all that
4:20
money that I was making and all that money that I made from Wall Street was
4:25
out on the street everywhere. I was lending it to every business you could
4:28
possibly imagine. So, this is circa 2015 2016. And I'm doing well. I'm having
4:35
fun. It's just me, small team, nothing crazy. And I liked it this way because
4:39
when we built the investment bank, we went from four of us to 80 registered
4:44
reps. And if you know anything about Wall Street, getting somebody to pass a
4:47
series 7, every 10 people you hire, only one's going to do it. So we ran through
4:52
800 people just to get 80 people.
4:55
>> Now, it sounds great. It sounds amazing, right? Big office. Well, I had to get in
5:01
to m I was managing my own book of business. When I left, I was managing
5:04
150 million. So, for me to get anything done, talk to my
5:09
clients, or get, you know, just peace and quiet. I literally had to get to the
5:14
office at 5:30 in the morning cuz 7:30 our guys got in and then it was one
5:18
knock after another. You're somebody's daddy. You're their bank. You're their
5:22
guidance counselor. You're talking somebody off a ledge. You're asking why
5:25
this guy didn't show up at work last night? Did he get arrested? You have no
5:28
idea what's going on. So, I had my own my own my own kid at
5:34
that time. I had another one on the way and I'm like, I'm done with this. So, I
5:38
went with the idea of I never really want to have that large of a team again.
5:42
I want a players across the board that I bring on and I want it to be manageable,
5:47
right? Meaning, everybody is kind of siloed out. We have an office in Long
5:50
Island right now. I think I think we're up to 18 or 20 people right now, but um
5:55
that's still very small. But everybody works remote and everybody on my team
5:59
now knows exactly what their role is, what they have to do and when they have
6:04
to deliver something by I'm not here to watch over you, see see give you busy
6:08
work cuz you're sitting on the clock. It's not what we do over here. Everybody
6:11
has a vested interest in what we do. And if you if you're not doing your job,
6:15
you're going to get cut. Now, with that being said, you know, things were going
6:20
great. Team was a lot smaller back then. It was only me and three other people,
6:23
right? Um, and it was basically all my money that we were lending. So, funny
6:28
thing happens. I don't know if you guys heard of it. Co COVID 19.
6:32
>> All my money is out in the street. Yeah. All my money is out in the street. Every
6:36
business is getting shut down. People are panicking now. I I get paid back
6:41
through receivables. If companies aren't making money, they can't work. They
6:44
can't bring in money. I can't get paid back. I didn't know what I was going to
6:48
do. So, I had to make money cuz I'm an earner. I just I can't sit still. I have
6:52
to do something always. So, I reverted back to what I used to do. I started
6:56
trading, right? Told my wife I'd never start trading again. That was a lie.
7:00
Took 50,000. I turned it into probably a couple hundred,000 over a short period
7:04
of time. Um, but I still had to figure out how I could help these business
7:09
owners. So, we wound up um doing a lot of webinars, right? And we did them for
7:16
free. We had about 15,000 people on one on one webinar. And all I was using was
7:21
my contacts at the banks that I had relationships with, finding out what was
7:25
going on with PPP was the first one, right? PPP. Um, and telling people and
7:31
helping them apply for it. We didn't charge a dime. We were just giving out
7:34
information because it was twofold. I know that I know that if I was going to
7:40
help them out and get them money, I had a better shot of getting my money back,
7:43
too, right? So,
7:45
>> cool.
7:46
>> Then EIDL comes out. We help them get E IDL. Oh, same thing, right? Not charging
7:50
anybody, not charging anybody. People are thanking us. People are coming back
7:53
to us. Lending still slowed down. At this time, I'm starting to get some
7:57
money back from the states that weren't shut down. Thank goodness. I live in
8:01
Florida. Um, there are a lot of Texas wasn't really affected, but states like
8:05
New York and California, we took a lot of big losses from them because quite
8:09
frankly, it's not the business owner's fault. It's really the fault of the
8:12
government for shutting them down. Then ERC came around, right? And since we had
8:17
already helped everybody with PPP and EIDL, a light bulb went off. I said, you
8:22
know, we have no problem writing these clients checks. We write them a check
8:26
and we walk away. What if we Well, it seems so simple that I say it now. What
8:31
if we actually help them along the way, right? Not just with PPP, not just with
8:35
EIDL. What if we help them with their books, their accounting, we show them
8:39
how to become bankable, get rid of this high-risk money that they're there,
8:43
right? and structure their business properly from day one in case they want
8:48
to sell it later on. You know, truth of the matter is every business owner in
8:52
America right now, every small business owner, they're wearing multiple hats,
8:55
right?
8:56
>> They are the marketing team. They are the sales team. They are everything.
9:00
They can't go away on vacation like us for a month and go to an exotic local
9:05
without worrying about something in their business and if it's going to
9:07
break. So, I became a certified exit planner in order to help people do that.
9:12
So right now I maintain that designation. So we have Shield Advisory
9:16
Group which is my consulting company which actually helps people scale their
9:20
business and exit their business and also we work with a lot of great CPAs
9:26
and tax strategists to help them mitigate their tax risk. Right. The
9:31
second company that I have is Credit Bank where we actually fund these
9:34
businesses. I fund them off my own balance sheet or I have 125 traditional
9:38
and institutional relationships that I work with to get them funded. Well, next
9:42
thing that happened was ERC came out and since we helped everybody anyway, we
9:47
were putting them on our consulting platform, we started charging for ERC
9:50
and we did we we helped almost 5,000 businesses with that.
9:54
>> Wow, that's fantastic, man. Good for you. So, what is it that makes you want
10:00
to focus on the small business versus a medium to large size business?
10:07
>> Couple things, right? Small businesses need a lot of help. medium to largesiz
10:12
businesses, people show up after they've already made it, right? I like helping
10:17
people get there. Once you've already made it, you have more advisors than you
10:20
need to know. Where were they along the way that didn't want to help you? We
10:23
only have $150,000 minimums to start. Well, I only I'm 25 years old. I have
10:28
$5,000 in my account. You can't help me. No, we don't work with anybody that
10:32
small. [ __ ] that. I don't like that. Treat everybody the same way because you
10:36
don't know where somebody is going to be because I was that 25-year-old kid,
10:40
>> right? Sure.
10:41
>> So, I love helping people with the things that I know I can help them with.
10:46
Now, remember, I don't know everything, right? But I can teach you to the level
10:50
that I got at, right? So, if I'm running an 8 figure business, I can teach you to
10:54
get to eight figures, okay? But I can't get you to nine. That's not I haven't
10:58
done it myself. But can we get you from 1 million to 10 million? Yeah, we can.
11:03
>> Right. So, I stick in my lane.
11:05
>> Are there certain Go ahead,
11:07
>> Mike. Go ahead. Are there certain industries that you focus on or any that
11:11
you know avoid or how do you approach that?
11:14
>> In what in consulting or lending?
11:16
>> Either one.
11:17
>> Okay. Lending. There's a lot of industries we tend to avoid. Anything
11:21
that you would consider a vice industry, bail bonds, strip clubs, right? Um then
11:28
then you have other industries that raise red flags like construction
11:32
always, right? Uh trucking companies raise red flags. You have staffing
11:38
companies that raise red flags because a lot of the revenue that flows through
11:41
that company is not actually their revenue.
11:44
>> It's just a pass through entity almost.
11:45
>> Yep.
11:46
>> So those those are the big ones that everybody looks out for.
11:50
>> Interesting.
11:52
>> So when you when you're helping somebody go
11:56
to uh eight figures, is there somebody that you have in your
12:01
circle that you can hand them off to uh as a warm handoff when they're ready to
12:04
go to nine figures? Is your circle?
12:06
>> I do that type.
12:07
>> I do. I do. Right. And it all depends on what they want to do and where they want
12:12
to bring the business. Right. If you can get a company doing 25 million, right?
12:18
If they're And listen,
12:20
>> revenue doesn't mean anything, right? Let's talk about profitability, right?
12:25
Because you can be making 25 million and losing 30 million, right?
12:29
>> Like we say, you'd make more money if you just went fishing and didn't go to
12:33
work.
12:33
>> Exactly. It's like all these all these ecom guys. We did a hundred million last
12:39
year with a 0.00001% margin,
12:42
>> right?
12:44
>> You know, why do all that work for that? But uh I'm sorry. So, is there somebody
12:51
in my network that I can hand them off to? Yes. The question is, what do they
12:56
need? Do they need an in-house CFO? Do they need a fractional to come in? Are
13:01
they looking for private equity to come in? because I work hand in hand with a
13:04
lot of private equity companies too. Is it just more capital that they need or
13:08
do they need more direction?
13:10
>> Fair enough.
13:10
>> Gotcha.
13:12
>> So, what do you think when it comes to to
13:15
lending and I know you do it on the uh the cash flow. What is it that a
13:20
business can do to prepare themselves to be ready to be bankable to a lender?
13:25
>> To a like an alternative lender like us, a private lender to a lender or an
13:30
investor.
13:31
>> Okay. either a lender, an investor, a bank.
13:34
>> Okay, there there's a couple things and we actually help put lend lend lend
13:39
excuse me, lending decks together and pitch decks for equity, which are two
13:42
totally different things, but so first of all, you have to have your tees
13:46
crossed and your eyes dotted when you're going to a bank. The bank is going to
13:50
look at what you did in the past and judge your character and your business
13:54
upon that. And you have to have your financials in order. Okay? If you don't
13:59
have your financials in order, no bank is going to lend to you. Your word
14:05
doesn't mean anything. Okay? So, when it comes down to it, and when I mean
14:10
financials, you really want to have, first of all, most banks aren't going to
14:13
lend to you unless you have 2 years time in business, right? You actually have
14:17
and protect your credit score. Okay? Credit score needs to be 680 and above.
14:21
It's more like 700. I know we hear banks say that they're going to fund 650. They
14:26
give you the lowest minimum and they try not to fund you, right? So 3 years,
14:32
profit and loss, balance sheet, tax returns, bank statements, that tells the
14:37
financial picture to the bank of how you manage your business. If you're making
14:41
all this money, but your bank accounts are negative on a daily basis, right?
14:46
And you have a lot of overdress coming in and you're waiting for that next
14:50
invoice to be paid, that's saying you're not you're not projecting out properly,
14:54
right? Um so credit bank uh managing your bank account properly and having
15:01
your taxes and financials in place is the bankable side. Now on the
15:05
alternative side, what we care about is we care about the way you manage your
15:09
bank account because we're not actually giving you a loan. We're buying a part
15:13
of your future receivables. Meaning, let's say, Mike, you know, I'm buying a
15:17
part of your business for a period of time. Let's say you need to borrow,
15:21
let's say you need $100,000. Maybe I'll borrow 125,000.
15:26
I'll buy $125,000 of your future receivables in exchange for $100,000
15:31
today.
15:33
>> Okay.
15:33
>> Okay.
15:34
>> Does that make sense?
15:36
>> It's technically not a loan.
15:37
>> So, do you take like a portion of their receivables as they come in or how do
15:41
you usually structure that?
15:43
>> Well, we can structure it various ways. The most common way most people
15:48
structure it is either on a daily or a weekly draw of what comes in, right? The
15:52
proper way to do it, and I'm not saying most people do it the right way, the
15:56
proper way is to say you're buying a percentage of those receivables. So, for
16:00
example, if you're doing $100,000 a month and I give you $100,000 and I'm
16:05
buying 10 10% of those that $100,000, I should only be taking $10,000 a month
16:10
from you. Does that make sense?
16:12
>> Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Cuz you're not you're not going to take a 100% of
16:14
their receivables till you get paid back. They're not going to be able to
16:18
run their business.
16:19
>> Yeah. But there there's there's a lot of lenders out there that are shady and
16:22
that that 10,000 very quickly becomes 14 and 15,000 that they're taking so they
16:28
can get their money back in a shorter period of time,
16:30
>> you know. But a lot of people have to say things about the the interest rate
16:36
even though it's not really an interest rate. We're buying stuff at a discount
16:39
rate
16:39
>> of the cost of capital that it comes down to. But the truth of the matter is
16:46
is that a lot of these business owners can't go into a bank. They can't get
16:50
money, right? And they put themselves in a position of where they are. I'll give
16:54
you an example. A guy that has a pizzeria down the block. He needs
16:58
$10,000. We'll use easy numbers here, right? He needs $10,000 today because
17:03
his pizza oven just broke. He's got his staff. He's got
17:08
he's got his mortgage he has to pay that month. He's got product that's going bad
17:13
every single day. If he doesn't get that money for that pizza oven, he's screwed.
17:17
And the longer it takes, he could be out of business. Right. Right.
17:21
>> So, if he goes to a bank, a bank may not give him an answer for 30 days or so.
17:25
Right. Cuz especially if he goes to his bank, cuz what the bank doesn't want to
17:29
do is lose their depository relationship with him. True.
17:33
>> Right. So, the banker that he normally works with doesn't want to tell him,
17:37
"No, we can't do it." So, they just drag him along. every day that goes by is
17:41
costing this guy money, right? So, he'll go to an alternative lender and they'll
17:46
give him, let's say, the $10,000 he needs for $12,500 over five or 6 months,
17:52
right? Um, and he'll pay $120 per day, right? Monday through Friday until
17:59
that's paid off. So, if he's making $1,000 a day in the business, he can
18:03
afford to pay that $120 of the receivables that come in.
18:06
>> Yeah. problem is there's a lot of predatory lending in the space. So once
18:11
this happens, a UCC is filed on the company, right? A UTC is uniform
18:17
commercial code, right? It's a it's a filing that you make with this with the
18:22
federal government that when I look up the business, it tells me if you have a
18:27
position on it, kind of like in title with you guys, right? You guys, somebody
18:31
knows that you're a lender, you're in first position, right? Once it's filed
18:35
at UCCC, it's public knowledge. So they see if they see I went to him, they're
18:39
going to call him up and try to give more money and give them more money and
18:41
give him more money and they give them the hard sell and they give them the
18:44
pitch. And a lot of people wind up having three or four of these loans or
18:47
five of these loans. Right. It's a big difference if you're bringing in $1,000
18:51
a day and paying $120 to where you're paying four or five $600 a day. That's
18:56
what's going to destroy your business.
18:58
>> Right. Right. Huh.
19:00
>> So, when it comes to raising capital, we'll switch to that a little bit. When
19:05
it comes to raising capital, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see uh
19:09
entrepreneurs make?
19:12
>> Um, going on the internet and asking everybody without having all their
19:15
documents in order, doing it illegally essentially.
19:20
>> That's a good one.
19:24
>> Biggest mistake.
19:25
>> Yeah,
19:25
>> that is definitely the biggest mistake. Right. Um, but like when you're pitching
19:30
when you're pitching an institutional size investor, right?
19:35
Don't go through the PowerPoint, the pitch deck that you have. They really
19:38
don't care about it, right? They're going to work with you if they know,
19:41
like, and trust you. You have to know your topline numbers. You need to know
19:44
your numbers inside and out. All they really care about is A, can I trust this
19:48
guy? B, where is my money going? How long will
19:54
it be there for? What's my downside risk? and what could my return be? They
19:59
don't want to sit there with you for five hours, right, and make a decision.
20:03
If you're there that long, it's probably over. So, if you get in front of a big
20:06
institutional investor, you want to tell them those five things immediately.
20:11
>> Yep. And I don't know if you said it on purpose, but the last thing you said was
20:15
what their return's going to be, right? And that's what we found as well, that
20:18
people want to know, how do you protect my money? How does it work? What's the
20:21
risk? And then once I'm comfortable with all that, okay, then tell me what the
20:25
return can be. Because if the return's great, but you're not going to protect
20:28
my money, who cares?
20:30
>> Exactly. 100%. You know what is how are you going to protect me if things fall
20:34
apart? And guess what?
20:36
>> They do fall apart, right? And more importantly, are you the How much skin
20:40
do you have in the game? Because if you don't have skin in the game and things
20:44
fall apart, why are you going to be around to fix it?
20:47
>> Yeah, excellent point.
20:49
>> That's true. That's funny that uh I in our private lending business, we run
20:54
into that where people want to buy a house and they want to flip it and they
20:57
want 100% financing and they don't understand why they need to have skin in
21:01
the game. And when you try and explain to them when you try to explain to them
21:05
that um there's a difference between sweat econ sweat equity and economic ent
21:10
uh uh equity and when you have money in the game, you're going to stay longer.
21:15
>> Yes.
21:16
>> Um it's overwhelming. It
21:18
>> Okay. So, you buy a house, you're going to flip it, everything looks good, you
21:21
walk in, and then you realize, "Oh [ __ ] it needs a new roof. Oh [ __ ] there's
21:26
lead in the pipes. Oh [ __ ] what happens now?
21:29
>> I'm better off walking away."
21:31
>> And if you don't have a track record or a reputation with somebody, most people
21:34
would do that.
21:35
>> Yep.
21:35
>> Right.
21:35
>> It's also why we don't give the rehab money up front.
21:41
>> Yeah. Why can't you give me $100,000 of rehab money up front? No. No. No.
21:45
>> No way, man. Nope.
21:48
>> Because once I give you that rehab money, you're going back to Tommy,
21:51
Peter, and Paul who you're still doing construction jobs with them while you're
21:55
doing this flip as a side hustle.
21:56
>> Yep. You got it. Absolutely.
21:59
>> Says the man of experience. You know, man, you know.
22:04
>> So, I know that uh we've had some changes. We had changes with um you
22:10
know, going from Democrat to Republican. I know that we've recently changed the
22:14
head of the Fed. So, what are some of the changes that you've seen in the
22:18
business financing environment over the last 12 to 24 months?
22:22
>> So, it's definitely gotten it's definitely gotten um it's harder to get
22:26
qualified out there. Okay. Um there's been more rule changes with the SBA in
22:32
the last 18 months than there have been in the last 18 years.
22:35
>> Really?
22:36
>> Wow. So
22:39
before Trump came back in um you didn't have to what they call your DSCR your
22:46
debt service didn't matter if you were losing money they would still lend to
22:49
you right they were using an easier underwriting guidance system your SPSS
22:54
score right which is what with the pre-qualif is the real score but what
22:59
every bank qualifies you on is SPSS and it's a combination of your personal
23:03
credit and your business credit right used to be um at 150 there is that 155
23:09
or 165 now. So a lot of people don't qualify on credit there. Um and this
23:15
goes back to what we were saying before about getting money and being bankable
23:19
your tax returns, right? You know, everybody in America eats out of their
23:25
business and I'm okay with that. Okay? I have multiple businesses. Certain ones
23:29
make money, but those are the ones those are the entities I lend on that I I I
23:33
borrow on. Right? Um, problem is nobody ever wants to pay taxes. Nobody ever
23:39
wants to show a profit in their business, right? And accountants and
23:43
CPAs don't push this because the average accountant has about 500 clients. They
23:49
came from a big Price Waterhouse Coopers. They said, "I'm going to go out
23:52
on my own business and be on my own." They got their 500 clients. They got
23:56
comfortable. Last thing they want to do is go back out and start selling again,
23:59
right? So, they pretty much do whatever the client tells them to do. And if if
24:05
they say, "Hey, Jim, we got to show a profit this year." The client's going to
24:08
say, "I have no money." All right, let me see what I can do. They go get their
24:11
pencil out again and they show a loss. If you're constantly showing losses,
24:15
you're not going to be bankable. Now, we were able to get away with it with a
24:18
threshold where Biden was in office, but now, if the company is not profitable,
24:22
you're not going to get any type of SBA term loan lending. Okay? Now, that's
24:27
just on the SBA front. um term loans, term loans and bank
24:32
loans. Let's talk about that for a second. You know, when the SBA started,
24:37
the SBA loans were meant to be for businesses that could not get a
24:42
traditional bank loan. Okay, so you go, Chase, Chase denies you. Okay, cool.
24:48
Let's go to the SBA. Well, somewhere along the line that switched in the last
24:52
5 to seven years. Um, now the bank will not write you a loan unless it's an SBA.
25:00
And the reason for that is because the SBA ensures 90% of that loan.
25:06
>> Right. There you go.
25:07
>> So the SBA, the banks want to lay off the insurance on the SBA in case it goes
25:12
bad. And the banks will only do SBA loans where SBA loans were never derived
25:17
for this. They were never created for this. They were created if a bank
25:21
wouldn't lend to you. So the banks are making up all these rules why we can't
25:24
lend to you, but we can go the SBA route. So it's harder to actually get a
25:28
term loan than it is to get a SBA loan.
25:32
>> Interesting. Now you as with your experience, you do SBA lending as well,
25:39
correct?
25:40
>> Correct.
25:41
>> So how do you do it? Um obviously you're doing it differently than the bank. How
25:46
do you do it? What's it makes it more attractive for people to come to you?
25:50
Well, okay. So, here here's where here's where it gets really interesting, right?
25:55
So, I don't do it in-house internally, okay? We work with different banks that
26:00
write SBA loans.
26:02
>> Now, the SBA sets the standard for the loan,
26:05
>> right? They say, you know, you have to have a 680 credit score. You got to be
26:10
profitable with a 1.25 DSCR, right? um you have to not have any marks, tax
26:20
leans, bankruptcies in a certain amount of time, right?
26:23
>> That's the floor standard. Each bank once they clear the SBA, each bank has
26:29
their own standards on top of that, right? Like Celtic Bank, I just told you
26:34
guys about the SB uh SPSS score. It's 155 is what the SBA says it needs to be,
26:41
but they say no, I'm not lending to you unless it's 180, right? So, each bank
26:45
gets to set their own guidelines. So, the benefit of coming to us is we know
26:50
the guidelines of each and every bank and depending on what industry you're
26:54
in, where you are, and what you're looking to do, because not every 7A is
26:58
the same. Are we looking for working capital? Are we looking to acquire
27:01
another business? are we just looking to, you know, buy your first business,
27:06
right? Um, we know which bank has an appetite for what. And another thing is
27:11
you can go to a bank depending on what industry you're in. Let's say you're in
27:15
trucking, right? You go everything, you fit the bank's box, you fit the SBA's
27:20
box, and the bank comes back and they say, "No." And we say, "Why?" Well, our
27:24
portfolio is saturated in trucking right now, so we're not doing anything. And
27:28
they have the right to do that.
27:30
>> Interesting. Okay. So when it comes to things such as uh
27:38
private placements, bridge financing, acquisition financing, etc., what role
27:44
to S do SB SPVS play in that?
27:48
>> SPVS with as far as what
27:52
>> uh special purpose vehicles where they're setting it up.
27:55
>> Private Yeah. So private placements, SPVS, SBA financing are a lot. There's a
28:01
lot going on there. So I think you're hinting at something. So what is it? Cuz
28:06
a special a special purpose uh vehicle is just essentially a fund where you get
28:11
a bunch of in it's a GPL piece structure, right? Where you get a bunch
28:15
of investors to come in, right? And it's only for one sole purpose. So to give
28:20
you an example, you guys just see how uh SpaceX went public, right?
28:24
>> Yeah. So SpaceX just went public. However, my old firm and my old
28:29
partners, they've been buying the stock for three or four years because when we
28:33
were circa, I don't know, 200 9 10, we put together an SPV with all our
28:40
clients, right? We were the lead and we went to Facebook and went to their cap
28:45
table and bought stock from the employees cuz the employees that needed
28:50
capital now were willing to sell us their stock.
28:52
>> Okay?
28:52
>> Right. So that's an SPV, right? As far as I know. Now it's it's only for a
28:58
special SPV can do a lot of different things, right? But it's only for one
29:01
special purpose. Okay? It's not a fund that allows you to do multiple things.
29:06
Private placements, on the other hand, are completely different animal, right?
29:11
Private placements are where people are selling equity inside of a company.
29:14
>> Okay?
29:15
>> And that those are more like a regggd D.
29:17
>> Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. What I've seen people do, and I haven't done
29:21
it, is you said acquisition, so I have a
29:24
feeling this is probably what you were asking. So, and I've seen people get a
29:30
group of investors, put him in an SPV, the SPV make the down payment for the
29:35
SBA, right? And then the operator runs the company and they pay the SPV back.
29:44
Now, that was very popular 18 months ago. I haven't seen anybody do it yet
29:49
because one of the new rule changes with the SBA is anybody that's on the that
29:54
has anything to do with the company and puts money in has to be on the loan,
29:58
>> right?
29:59
>> It also used to be and people used to get away with only putting a 10 10% down
30:03
payment on there because the owner of the company didn't have to be on the
30:09
loan either. That changed recently, too. So, the owner can hold back some stock,
30:14
but the owner also has to guarantee the loan. So that's why you see a lot of
30:17
deal flow falling apart.
30:20
>> Gotcha.
30:22
>> So how do you see the outlook for business
30:26
credit private capital say in the next 12 months or so with the with where the
30:33
economy is going with the change at the Fed who's and he seems to have a little
30:37
different outlook than J. Paul did. What do you see coming down the road in your
30:41
crystal ball?
30:43
>> I I don't have a crystal ball, man. You know, one thing you learn, one thing,
30:48
one thing you learn on Wall Street is it doesn't matter what you think, trade
30:52
what you see, and you pivot along the way,
30:55
>> right? You can tell we can think a lot, but it doesn't mean we're right. But
30:59
here's what I see right now, so let's make that move and not predict the
31:01
future with a crystal ball. Um, but personally,
31:08
I do think, look, stock market's still almost at all-time highs right now. we
31:13
have more companies going public. Um, I think you'll get the anthropics. I think
31:18
you'll get the AI companies that start to go public. We'll have a little bit of
31:21
IPO race and then I think we're going to we're going to see and listen, a 20 to
31:26
30% decline would be healthy right now.
31:29
>> Sure.
31:30
>> Right. I think it would be very very healthy.
31:33
>> Um, people are going to freak out because when's the last time they saw a
31:36
20% drop? Hasn't been a long time. So, people are going to freak out. Um,
31:42
I'm trading the market. I'm not investing in anything heavily, and any
31:48
long-term positions I have, I plan on adding to when this does occur. Um, but
31:54
I mean, as you guys know, I've been very public about it on social media. I'm
31:57
taking all my chips off the table in the stock market and I'm going more into
32:00
real estate right now. You know, I'm very bullish on Florida. Florida and the
32:04
whole We're developing a ton of projects here right now.
32:08
Oh, I didn't know you did development as well.
32:11
>> Yeah, I mean I'm a white belt when it comes to it. I got a really good
32:14
business partner. You know, I put up the capital, he's showing me the ropes kind
32:18
of thing.
32:19
>> But, uh, what kind of project?
32:20
>> We also have multiple people there. Yeah. So, we actually in we have a
32:24
couple rag defunds set up. Okay.
32:26
>> As well, um, new construction. We got nine homes going up right now
32:30
>> that should be on the market. The first one should be on the market in 15 days,
32:34
>> right? We started these projects 12 months ago. Yeah. And are they entry
32:39
level homes or are they more higherend?
32:41
>> No, they're higherend homes. They're multi-million dollar homes. So,
32:44
essentially what they are is they're infills, right? So, for anybody that
32:47
doesn't know, an infill is when you're buying a vintage home, we go in, we rip
32:50
it down, right? Get the permits, and then we build up. I mean, these these
32:55
are going to be 2.2 to 2.3 million homes.
32:59
>> Okay. And is that all in the Orlando area?
33:01
>> Yeah, it's all in actually one town in Orlando right now. with the park. But
33:06
then we have another development that we're looking at doing right now. It's
33:09
going to be 236 town homes. Have you guys ever heard of The Villages before?
33:13
>> Yeah, I have not.
33:15
>> The Villages. Yeah, I see you laughing. The Villages is one of the biggest
33:20
retirement communities in the country. Literally, it is it's their own city and
33:25
it's everybody drives around on golf carts. They're in their 50s and 60s.
33:28
Okay.
33:29
>> The bars close at 4:00 in the afternoon, but they get up at like 5 and start
33:33
partying. I mean, if you Google what goes on in the villages, you're not
33:36
going to believe it. There's different color sponges for everything.
33:42
>> That's funny. Okay. Yeah. I I lived in Arizona, so I'm familiar with what is
33:47
it? Uh, Sun City in Arizona. Is that what it is?
33:50
>> Uh,
33:50
>> but so so outside of the villages, everybody's moving to the villages, but
33:54
they're displacing and they they need about seven more hotels out there is the
33:59
way it's going right now. So, we're building workforce housing. Okay. out
34:03
there is the game plan.
34:04
>> Okay, gotcha. So, in a lead in your intro, you
34:10
indicated that you help people prep for sale, right?
34:13
>> Yep.
34:14
>> What are some of the things that people can do to prep themselves for sale and
34:18
an exit?
34:20
>> So, let me just say this the simplest way. Good exit strategy is just good
34:25
business strategy. If you do everything along the way properly, if somebody
34:30
comes knocking on your door with an offer, you're going to be able to sell
34:33
it. Unfortunately, you know, 80% of the listings that are on bis by sell never
34:39
gets sold,
34:40
>> right?
34:41
>> Um, and a lot of it comes back to financials. A lot of it comes back to
34:44
buyers when they want to buy a business, they don't want to buy a job,
34:47
>> right? They want to buy an asset that produces money.
34:50
>> Okay? And if you can't pro prove that asset produces money, it's not valuable.
34:57
But here's the sad part, and it's 80% again, which is crazy. 80% of um
35:04
of business owners, all their wealth is tied up in their business. Now, if they
35:09
can't transfer that wealth, what does that mean for them, right?
35:13
>> They have to unlock the transferability of that business. Now, how do you do
35:17
that? That's what we help them with. Okay? First thing everybody says, I want
35:23
to sell my business. I want to sell my business. I want to sell my business.
35:26
You need to prepare to sell your business. To do it properly, it's going
35:29
to take in 12 months, the least amount of time to
35:34
24 months before you even list it on the market, right? Because what you want to
35:38
do is you want to go in and you want to make sure that what we call them three
35:44
legs to the stool. You have your personal leg, your financial leg, and
35:49
the business leg. Now, personal basically is what do your personal
35:54
finances look like, right? This is where we bring in a financial adviser that
35:59
helps us. I used to be one, so I could actually do it, but I always bring
36:02
somebody in and we look at outside of the business, what is your net worth
36:07
today?
36:09
>> Okay.
36:10
>> Yep. Then we look at the business itself and we see what the value is on that
36:16
business. Okay? Then we figure out how much money
36:22
they're actually taking out of the business. Most business owners don't
36:25
know how much money they make. I just want to let you know, right? Somebody
36:28
say 100 grand, 150 grand, but they forget that car expense that comes out
36:32
of there. They forget, you know, these trips that they take, the dinners,
36:36
they're all getting expensed, right? So, we got to come out. There's a real
36:40
number in a tax number, right? The tax number means [ __ ] We got to see what
36:44
the real number is, right?
36:46
>> And then we want to see, do they want to work again? Do they want to retire? Do
36:49
they actually even have enough assets there to do what they want? But I will
36:54
tell you this, even the people that had enough assets and got offers and did
36:57
things properly, then within 12 months, everybody usually regrets selling their
37:02
business.
37:04
>> Interesting. Why do you think that is?
37:06
>> I don't know. Um, I think it's Well, I think I do know actually. I I think
37:10
because they never really had a good plan of what they were going to do next.
37:15
>> I'm going to go play golf all day. Sounds like a great plan until you're
37:18
doing it. It's like everything else, you know, something we can't have. I want to
37:22
play golf all day.
37:24
>> You could do it all the time. You're not going to want to do it,
37:26
>> right? And then you have the married couple. You know,
37:30
>> the husband was at the office all day every day. The wife was complaining, "I
37:33
never see you. You need to retire." He finally gives in and then next thing you
37:38
know, what did he do at the office? He fixed things all day, right? So now he's
37:43
at home. He's like, "Yeah, honey. First first week, it's great. He's fixing
37:46
things. Then 3 months later, he's fixing damn things that don't need to be fixed.
37:50
His wife is yelling at him for fixing things that didn't need to be fixed.
37:53
They can't stand each other and all he wants to do is go back to work."
37:58
>> That's interesting. Yeah. When I sold my first business, um, we sold to a public
38:03
company and I just knew myself I wanted out because I couldn't deal with my
38:07
partner anymore.
38:09
>> Um, and it was just time to leave or one of us was going to kill the other person
38:13
and then end up in an orange jumpsuit.
38:15
>> So, and you know my joke around the orange jumpsuit, but let's not do that
38:19
here. Um, so that uh I took five years off and my brain kind of went to mush.
38:27
And when I started my second business, I had an exit plan within 10 years. It
38:32
took 13 before I exited. Um, but I had a plan that I wasn't going to take time
38:36
off again. Uh, I took time off, but I didn't um I didn't take as much time
38:41
off. It was pretty quick that I went right back into uh my third business of
38:45
lending uh private.
38:46
>> Let me let me ask you a question.
38:48
>> I got be motivated.
38:50
>> Yeah. But now your life is different, right? I think me and you are very
38:55
similar. We we taking time off is one thing, right? We don't really take
39:00
vacations. I don't we travel. I call it traveling, right? We we've kind of built
39:05
a life that we don't need to take vacations from,
39:08
>> you know?
39:09
>> Yeah.
39:09
>> So, you know, I I think Zach, I'm sure you're probably similar. Like, we like
39:14
working in our business. We like going and meeting new people, going going to
39:18
events. To me, some people hate doing that stuff. To me, that's fun, you know?
39:22
But that's the way I designed this business and I designed my life to
39:25
interweave.
39:27
>> Oh yeah.
39:28
>> Yeah.
39:28
>> Absolutely. I have a policy. I want peace.
39:32
>> And if someone's going to just be a hassle to deal with, I don't care what
39:35
the final financial outcome is. I'm at a point now where the money isn't the
39:40
primary goal. It's I want peace. I want to work with people that I like. I want
39:44
a a tight circle. Zach and I are partners. I want a partner that I can
39:48
trust. uh go away and not worry about what's going on with the bank account.
39:53
Um yeah, and I want to join, you know, masterminds and go to events and hang
39:58
out with people that I like.
40:00
>> Yeah.
40:00
>> Life's too short, man.
40:02
>> Yeah. No, I agree with you. You know,
40:04
>> and you can make a lot more or more money just by surrounding yourself with
40:09
those kind of people, too, you know, people that are easy to work with and
40:13
share your values and Yeah.
40:16
>> 100%. And I I think joining a group, a mastermind, a network, an association,
40:21
something where you're around people you know, like, and trust, that is the
40:25
biggest growth hack to any business there is.
40:27
>> And business goes so much faster. A couple years ago, I had a guy that I had
40:31
known for 3 years, and we had never done business together, but we liked each
40:36
other. We saw each other at masterminds. We had multiple conversations. Well, he
40:40
got into a cash crunch and he was closing on a multif family and he had a
40:44
hundred uh no, he had a million dollars that had gone hard and 24 hours before
40:49
closing uh $4 million evaporated. Uh somebody was unable to perform. He they
40:55
had a sale that was supposed to happen, they were going to use the proceeds
40:58
towards this other project and the sale didn't happen. It got put off by the
41:03
buyer. Uh so he raised $2 million that night. He called me the next day and I
41:09
remember it at 7:05 in the morning and I was able to lend him $2 million in six
41:14
hours.
41:15
>> That's awesome.
41:16
>> Now, that only happened because we had a three-year runup in the relationship and
41:21
I was able to see him in multiple different situations and how he
41:26
interacted with people. We talked about how his business was going and he was
41:30
talking to me about his business at to another business owner to get advice and
41:35
have general questions. So, I was able to get a real feel for him. So, when he
41:39
came for the loan, it was just a matter of, "Wait, let me check my cash flow."
41:43
Yeah, I've got $2 million. Let's get the attorneys on it. And the funny part is
41:48
my attorney said, "Yeah, don't do this loan."
41:51
And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because I can't do the proper the the proper due
41:55
diligence on this guy." And I said, "Well, I know him." He said, "Okay,
41:58
that's fine. I've heard this before. What I'm going to do is I'm going to
42:01
send you a document. I want you to execute it that says that I highly
42:04
advised against doing this loan and you won't sue me. Right?
42:09
>> So I said, "Okay, that's fine." And I lent him the money. He paid me a nice
42:12
rate of interest. It was for 90 days. He paid it back in uh instead of 12 weeks,
42:16
he paid it back in 10.
42:18
>> That's awesome.
42:19
>> Um Yeah.
42:20
>> You know, I I've had the opposite side of that experience, too, though.
42:24
>> Oh, sure.
42:25
>> Where it's like, I know you, I like you, I trust you. Yeah. I never thought you'd
42:29
do this to me, and this is where we're at today. Yeah. Oh, no. When we docked
42:33
it up, we docked it up.
42:35
>> I mean, I'm not I'm I'm going to trust but verify and I'm going to make sure
42:39
that everything's taken care of. So, when we docked it up, we had um UCCC's
42:44
on He has multiple businesses.
42:46
>> Okay.
42:46
>> And he agreed to let us drop a UCCC on each of his businesses. The guy's worth
42:51
35 million bucks.
42:52
>> Yeah.
42:53
>> So, to give him a $2 million loan because he was in a cash crunch for 90
42:56
days was really easy.
42:59
>> It's funny though, right? And I tell this to everybody. People that are worth
43:03
30, 40, 50 million, you think they have a lot of money. Not they're not liquid.
43:09
>> They're not liquid.
43:10
>> If they have if they have one to two% of that liquid at any given time. It's the
43:16
craziest thing because things are tied up. It's they're tied up with
43:20
investments like we have going on, like you have going on. Private placements
43:23
that I like like this. I told you my friends were buying SpaceX stock, right?
43:29
Yeah,
43:29
>> that [ __ ] was tied up for four years. That's not a liquid investment, right?
43:32
You know?
43:33
>> Oh, no. I hear you. But even for me, even as a lender, when I have when I
43:37
have cash sitting somewhere, it's like fish. It starts to stink after 3 days.
43:40
I'm not making any money on this. I got to get it out the door. I don't want
43:44
cash. And then you're like, well, I'm broke. There's no I've got no money.
43:48
Yeah, it's all lent out.
43:50
>> Well, I've done that, too.
43:52
>> I My wife is like, let it sit in the bank. I'm like, we're in the moving
43:55
business. We're not in the storage business.
43:56
>> Yeah.
43:58
>> There you go. I like that.
43:59
>> Love it. Love it.
44:00
>> All right, man. Well, we're pulling up on 45 minutes. We told you we wouldn't
44:04
go over that. Really appreciate your time, man. Um, can you uh tell people
44:09
how they can get a hold of you and everybody, it will be in the show notes
44:12
as well.
44:13
>> Absolutely. First of all, guys, thank you so much for having me. I really,
44:16
really do appreciate it. Again, um, you guys can find me on any of the socials
44:21
at Matthew RMAN. You can check out our podcast I do with my partner, The Liquid
44:25
Lunch Project. You can find that on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else. If you
44:30
have any questions, feel free. Shoot me a DM. Happy to help you any way I can.
44:34
>> Awesome. Well, this was a blast, Matt. Thank you very much for your time.
44:37
>> This was great.
44:39
>> Thanks.