Podcasts about sba

Adam Kenney is Chief Product Officer at Numerated, which helps banks and credit unions transform how they lend to businesses. Chad talks with Adam about what institutional banks and credit unions are like as a market and customers and what sales cycles look like, going from 17 to more than 130 customers quickly, and the scaling challenges they faced, and how the pandemic affected them as a company. Numerated (https://www.numerated.com/) Follow Numerated on Twitter (https://twitter.com/numeratedgt), YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4igz9AZqOXJlZxtXUBO-1Q), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/numerated/). Follow Adam on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ademski) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-kenney-ab-cmu/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel, and with me, today is Adam Kenney, Chief Product Officer at Numerated, which helps banks and credit unions transform how they lend to businesses. Adam, thanks so much for joining me. ADAM: Thank you, Chad. Thanks for having me. CHAD: Let's dive into Numerated a little bit more. How do you help banks and credit unions lend to businesses? ADAM: I think we're in the middle of what is a pretty meaningful transformation in terms of how businesses are expecting to get access to credit. Really what they want is something that is fast, easy, convenient, largely driven off of the change that has happened in the retail space over the last 10 to 15 years. And in many ways, business lending is still catching up to that, and so our focus is doing that. It's helping the banks and credit unions really change how they interact with their business customers. We use a combination of data and great experiences to make that process as seamless as possible. We've been noted to, using the combination of data and technology, help banks increase the number of loans that they can do with their existing staff by as much as fourfold. We are also noted for inventing what we like to refer to as the three-minute business loan. It's one of the things we were written up on in the Wall Street Journal back in our days in Eastern Labs, where we've been able to get businesses from the point of application all the way to a funded loan in less than three minutes. And that's a process that historically has taken as long as three weeks. And so really excited by the ways that we're able to really help change how banks themselves can look at their operations. But more than anything, it's how banks are able to rethink and change how they interact with businesses and help the businesses in your communities grow and get access to the credit that they need. CHAD: So from a digital product perspective, there's a piece of a product there that banks are actually taking on and white-labeling that provides a lending experience for their clients, right? ADAM: That's correct. I mean, we're a cloud-based SaaS system. But you're right; they branded as their own. And so if you're going to Eastern Bank's website and clicking through and ultimately going through the application process with us, it's going to look and feel like it's just Eastern's website. And all of the interactions that you have with Eastern or any of our customers are going to feel that way as well. So yes, it is a white-label solution that we sell to the banks, and they provide to their customers. CHAD: The actual banking industry is not one that I've had a lot of experience in. And so I'm curious what institutional banks, credit unions, that kind of thing what they're like as a market or as customers and what the sales cycle looks like and those kinds of things. ADAM: It's about as varied as an industry can get, I'll tell you that. [laughs] You have to remember that banks and credit unions can be as small as having a few hundred million dollars in assets, maybe as small as 100 million. And in some of our customers' cases, they're de novo banks, and they're just getting started. And they range up to multiple billions of dollars in assets. And so, these are organizations that scale dramatically. Each of them have their own problems. They're also going to be made up of very different tech-minded individuals. You're going to have some smaller institutions that are basically managing a book of business that's been a book of business for close to a century and are interested in how technology can make them more efficient. But they are not the technologists that you and I would be used to working with on a day-to-day basis. And then, of course, you have people like ourselves who are really trying to, from inside the bank, change what banking is to their customers. And so, it's a very diverse industry in terms of what they're looking to accomplish. We've even come up with recently this framework around how we think about and really talk to our customers about how they transform and the levels of transformation that they can go through. And for us, it's essentially a four-level transformation starting with very small and pointed technology innovations that allow them to drive innovation in very fragmented bits and pieces, for lack of a better term, up to and including they're going to transform everything or become a digital bank. And you can imagine there are lots of stops along the way in terms of where a bank is and where they want to end up as part of their strategy. CHAD: From a product perspective and managing change, do you get a lot of custom features from individual, either clients or potential clients? And how do you manage that if you do? ADAM: The way I think about it is that we certainly get a lot of requests from our customers, and every customer likes to think that they are different and unique. In reality, there's a strong theme to almost all of the requests that we get. And personally, I think that's part of what our job is as a product leader is to really understand how to create themes out of the individual requests and provide a platform back to the market that addresses as many of those in a more holistic way and drives value across not just the individual asks but across all of the customers. And so yeah, there's some uniqueness. And certainly, we need to provide a platform that allows for that. So as an example, every bank has a slightly different view into how they want their credit policy to work and be implemented, but the framework around how you make credit decisions, how I get data into the platform. How do I create a credit matrix? And how do I then decide the exact offer terms to drive out of that? Like, that's a standard capability. And so we're innovating on that based on the individual features, but it's really not with an eye towards providing a specific custom feature to individual customers. It's more providing a flexible platform that allows them to configure the nuance but in a general theme that's going to help them be a better business. CHAD: So in the U.S., we had a specific program launched, PPP loans, in the pandemic to help support businesses. And I know thoughtbot we participated in that and went through that process. I don't think our bank was using Numerated. But I know that the bank really maybe...because they weren't using Numerated, [laughs] they needed to bring together an entirely new application interface very, very quickly in order to be able to take our application to that. And I think that Numerated was right there at the start of that. ADAM: Yes. CHAD: Talk about something custom maybe quickly. ADAM: [laughs] CHAD: What did pulling that together look like? ADAM: So maybe to take a step back if I could first and just paint a picture for you because you're right, it was kind of a unique and incredible period of time. We were fortunate in our line of work because we are all about helping banks transform how they lend to businesses. We had the base platform already built and established that allowed businesses to apply for loans on our platform. Even before the pandemic, we were one of the leading technology platforms for processing SBA loans. So we were uniquely positioned for the opportunity as it results to PPP. At the start of the pandemic, we had approximately 17 customers using our platform. Fast forward six months later, we had 135. And so, to your point around there were a large number of institutions looking for a new application solution overnight, I think that shows you how aggressively banks needed a solution. And there was an opportunity for us to offer our platform to be that. I think the other thing to recognize as part of the backdrop anyway is this was a crazy time if you think back to where we were in the pandemic. No one knew what life was going to look like in a week. And most businesses, especially smaller ones, didn't know if they were going to have a business. And so for us, that also provided the opportunity and maybe a little bit of the confidence in saying, "You know, we have nothing to lose. We're well-positioned. And what else are we going to do? Because it's not like people are making other loans for the next couple of months. Let's just go own this". And so I think it was the combination of us making that recognition, having a really good base platform that had familiarity with the SBA, had familiarity with business lending, and with a team that then could really acutely focus on solving this one problem for as many customers as possible. And by the way, have the emotional impact of not only helping banks but knowing that we're basically helping hundreds of thousands of businesses stay afloat through probably the craziest time in our country's history. And so that's really what got us going. And then there was a ton of work to your point around customization around building out the platform. But the one thing we've tried to do from the beginning is hold true to some of the foundational vision that I mentioned earlier. Like, we don't want to be in the business of custom software. That's not a winning proposition for us or our customers. And so, as much as it was maybe hard at times, throughout PPP, we were always thinking about okay, so we have to make these changes to support this crazy never-before-seen lending program. But how can we do it in a way that's going to set us up to serve the businesses in a year or two when this whole pandemic thing is over? Because PPP is not going to last forever, but our customers are. The businesses are still going to need credit. So whatever we're doing as much as possible, let's be building a foundation that gets us well beyond PPP. And so we were using it as really a catalyst to build a bigger business even while we were helping customers through the pandemic. CHAD: One of the things that I really appreciated, and I have an outside perspective on it, but I really...and people can always do better. ADAM: Yes. [laughs] CHAD: But I thought it was one of the rare circumstances where everyone realized the urgency of the situation: government, banks, everybody. And there was a real willingness to realize, well, we've got to do something. If we try to figure it out all right now, it's going to take too long. So let's just do something, and we'll work out the details later. And so I think there was a willingness, and from a product perspective, my guess would be that allowed you to work iteratively too. ADAM: It did. It was [laughs], I think in some ways a blessing and a curse. CHAD: [laughs] ADAM: Because I can tell you that the number of times my team would get a set of new capabilities, which listen, were great for the customers. It made everything better for the businesses that needed help, so I would never want it any other way. But the number of times that those new capabilities were announced by the SBA on a Friday night and were expected to be live on Monday morning, let's just say it was more frequent than I would ever like to relive. [laughs] And I can remember, especially going into the second round of PPP, it just so happened that all that was happening between Thanksgiving and Christmas in a year where all families wanted to do was spend time with each other after a crazy year had gone by. But we didn't get that luxury, unfortunately. We had a job to do, and that was to make sure that we were ready for the next round. And so it did come with a lot of cost in terms of we had to work really hard to make it happen. But to your point, it allowed us to iterate. And I give the government credit, too, particularly the SBA. They could have, for example, just launched the program and then launched more money into it and stood still, but they didn't do that. To your comment, they had to get live as quick as possible. And so that first round of PPP, there were more technology hiccups. The SBA had some volume constraints. They couldn't really handle the performance. We ended up having to govern our application submissions because otherwise, the SBA couldn't handle it. There were other challenges in terms of how we were validating data. But that got better month by month. And certainly, by the time we got to the forgiveness part of the process and then the next round of PPP the following winter, they actually invested in completely ripping out their legacy API and providing us in the tech community a modern RESTful interface that was much easier, much more performant. And so, even though the volume got even crazier as we went through the program, it actually became easier for us to deliver. The first round, we were literally working around the clock because the SBA was having issues. We couldn't get enough documents through DocuSign and whatever else. We did, I want to say, close to 3 times the volume in the next round a year later but at about 15% of the energy because we had just improved that much in less than a year. And it wasn't just Numerated; it was Numerated working with our partners in government and elsewhere to just get the process that much smoother for our customers. CHAD: Were there things that you needed to do at Numerated? I mean, to go from 17 customers to more than 130 that quickly, I assume that there were some scaling challenges for you along the way. ADAM: There was. And I will say this: we were blessed to have a really good technical infrastructure in place that allowed us to scale on the infrastructure side without a ton of problems. We were able to essentially stand up new environments in our infrastructure relatively quickly and easily and even handle the peak volume of PPP, which was exponentially higher than anything we had ever done on the platform. That was not a problem for us. Where we had to scale is in two areas, one from a technical standpoint was how we were interacting with our technical partners. I mentioned already the need to govern how we were submitting applications to the SBA. We worked very closely with DocuSign to essentially put rate caps on how many documents we were generating at any given time and essentially spread the volume because none of us had dealt with that or dealt with that kind of volume before. And that's where we had technical challenges were in the interfaces and working with partners to make sure everything lined up well. So that was one area, got through it pretty well. And ultimately, like I said, for the second round, we were smooth sailing. The other area to your point around standing up all the banks was how we implemented the customers. Our typical implementation cycles going into the pandemic were multiple months. We had to stand up all over the PPP banks in less than two weeks. And so that took a combination of...I'll call it technical delivery. So we essentially created a cookie-cutter deployment and then used a deployment strategy to push that to all of the new customers all at once that we didn't have before. And we were able to create that relatively quickly. The other was we had to take a much harder stance with our customers than we had ever done around look; everyone's getting the same thing. It's government-mandated anyway, but it's going to be exactly the same. And other than the white-labeling that we, of course, gave everybody, you might want slightly different process around the workflow, around the approval. You're going to have to take the same thing that everybody else is because we just don't have time to configure the nuance across 100 banks. And so luckily, to your earlier comment around, everybody just realized we were in this unique time, we do what we have to do, and we got through it. Our banks were very willing to do that. But that was the other change we had to do to really see this scale through. Mid-Roll Ad: Now that you have funding, it's time to design, build and ship the most impactful MVP that wows customers now and can scale in the future. thoughtbot Lift Off brings you the most reliable cross-functional team of product experts to mitigate risk and set you up for long-term success. As your trusted, experienced technical partner, we'll help launch your new product and guide you into a future-forward business that takes advantage of today's new technologies and agile best practices. Make the right decisions for tomorrow, today. Get in touch at: thoughtbot.com/liftoff CHAD: If you're comfortable talking about architecture a little bit, do you have a shared sort of platform that everyone is on? Or, for each of the customers you have, do they have their own instance? ADAM: So we've made the decision, mostly because of our regulated industry; we felt like it was safer, so each customer gets their own database. We do keep everyone's data completely isolated to protect their information and give them the utmost confidence that it is protected. But we have a shared application layer. And so, our web servers are shared multi-tenant instances. And so it's essentially a combined environment where we're both sharing some resources but then also deploying individual databases and then the configuration because outside of PPP, it is unique bank by bank. And so, the configuration gets deployed within each bank's individual environment. CHAD: Cool. I've worked on systems like that before, and they can certainly present...especially when you need to scale them quickly, and you've got a lot of new customers being added. You better hope that it's been automated. [laughs] ADAM: Yes. And luckily, we had a good amount of automation in place during PPP or even going into it, I should say, but of course, PPP stretched that. And so we've just continued to get better and better as a couple of years have gone by. CHAD: So the second PPP came through. It's in the forgiveness period now, so that's winding down. So Numerated were at that point you alluded to earlier, which is when you were doing PPP, you realized it's not going to be around forever. Let's lay the groundwork now to help customers in the future. We're sort of at that point now, right? ADAM: Yes. CHAD: So what does that look like for you? ADAM: So it's essentially expanding the portfolio of loans that our customers can leverage our platform to execute. And maybe to say that better, if you look back prior to PPP, we got our start with small small business lending. And what I mean by that is loans under $250,000 that can be highly automated. That's where Numerated got its start working with Eastern first 15 customers, saw the value in getting extreme efficiency and delivering essentially capital to their businesses in a number of days instead of weeks. That's what we were great at, very similar to what PPP was, by the way, which was getting money to people in a number of hours in some cases. But we knew that that was never the vision for what we wanted to be or what our banks needed in the business banking segment. Ultimately, they want that same level of use efficiency experience for all of their business loans. But in order to support that, there are a number of capabilities that we needed to build into our platform to handle that. Underwriting gets increasingly complicated when you are underwriting loans at 500,000, a million, or $5 million. The businesses get more complicated. The collateral gets more complicated. The entire process just becomes more sophisticated. But that's what banks want, and by the way, that's what businesses want. They don't want to have a great experience when they're a little bit smaller, and they've taken out a $100,000 loan and then have the experience be crap two years later when they come back, and they've taken out a million-dollar loan. And so, that has always been our vision. We've had the fortune of being able to do really well on PPP and essentially just accelerate that vision. And so that's what we're working on right now is really building a loan origination system that allows our customers to transform how they lend to businesses in entirety. We have been building out all of the sophistication I mentioned around underwriting. We have recently acquired a company called Fincura based out of the Boston area. They automate spreading. If you're not familiar with what spreading is, it basically takes either paper or PDF versions of a bank's financial statements, and it turns them into really critical financial ratios that help banks understand the creditworthiness and the risk associated with the business. So you can imagine what that is. It's taking OCR, technology, AI, and basically taking what were PDFs and converting them into scores that can then be used to automate and drive efficiency in the credit decision, again, all part of being able to then really transform how banks are doing all of their business lending. But that's what we're working on now, converting all of the PPP customers to use the non-PPP, for lack of a better phrase, parts of the platform and really helping them change how their businesses look at them in terms of the opportunity to access credit. CHAD: So I think it's probably worth noting you made the decision to join Numerated right before the pandemic hit. ADAM: That's correct. CHAD: And so you joined when? ADAM: My last day at my previous company happened to be the day we closed the office due to the pandemic. I had obviously made the decision prior to that. But then, my first day on the job at Numerated was the second day of PPP. So essentially, you know, call it a week after everybody had gone home for what became the better part of the next year to two years. CHAD: So I assume making a decision to join a new company, you're going to be the chief product officer. You've had a lot of conversations about what the vision is and what you're going to do. And you're going into a business where hey, there are 17 customers, and we're going to scale. But you probably didn't guess what was going to happen ended up happening. ADAM: No. [laughs] CHAD: So I imagine like part of your vision for what you were going to do both as a company and as an individual must have gotten put on hold. ADAM: It's funny, yes and no. So I will say no to your lead in there. There were certainly times before I started where I was calling Dan our founder and CEO. And I was probing him and pushing him like, is this still a thing? [laughs] Are we really going to go do this? Not realizing what PPP was and really what it was going to mean for our business. So there was that period of time where I wasn't sure. I knew it was going to be different, but I didn't know what that meant yet. Once I understood what was happening and what we were doing, I actually never felt like it was putting anything on hold. And I can come back to the fact that it put some elements of our business on hold. But for me and why I joined and the vision I had, I was coming to help the team really expand what the platform could do for banks and their business customers and to accelerate the number of ways we could help. I have prior experience working at Capital One and Pegasystems with a lot of the systems and the processes that we were helping to reinvent at Numerated. And so, my vision was always to come and build off of those past experiences and accelerate what we were doing in this specific small business segment. PPP, in a lot of ways, just accelerated that. It took what would have probably been three to five years' worth of market adoption in terms of understanding what digital transformation was going to look like, getting customers fully comfortable with a more digital experience, getting comfortable with a more data-driven approach to decision-making. And the pandemic forced all of that to happen in weeks. CHAD: Well, people couldn't even go into the bank to turn in their paperwork. It had to be done remotely. The staff wasn't there either. ADAM: And the staff no longer could look at paper financial statements because they couldn't get paper financial statements. And so everything changed overnight. One of our customers has told us at multiple customer events since he's like, "You guys, you let the rabbit out of the hat, and it's not going back." It just changed overnight what was happening in the industry. And then, for us, it gave us all of this extra opportunity to invest and invest more in what we wanted to go do. Our team, when I joined, was about 40 to 45 people. Our team now is 145 people. And our engineering team went from a little over 20 to just under 60. So we have exponentially changed the rate in which we're innovating and going after things. And so, for me, it's just accelerated and made things more exciting. The one other comment I'll make in terms of putting things on hold it did put some elements of the business on hold because every one of our customers stopped thinking about what I'll call traditional business lending and focused 100% for the better part of 18 months on getting through the pandemic. And even once PPP was done, there was another six to nine months where banks were trying to figure out, are we really out of the pandemic? Are we ready to start lending the way we used to? Do we need to rethink risk? Because these businesses are all different now than they were two years ago. The things that made a business risky two years ago are different now. And so there was also a little bit of a hangover as our customers internalized within their own walls what it meant to get back into lending. And so, it did put some elements of that on hold. We were fortunate, though, that we grew so much through PPP. And we actually kept adding what I'll call core customers, not just PPP customers, during that period that our growth actually accelerated. And it's been really good for us. CHAD: That's great. You mentioned the team growth that you've had. Different companies are organized in different ways. As Chief Product Officer, where do you sit within the organization and relative to the engineering team? ADAM: So at Numerated, my responsibility includes all of the product management as well as the engineering organization. So I'm responsible with my teams for everything from initial product strategy, the product design. I have all of the UX and design team as well as then all of the execution, the delivery of the platform as well. CHAD: So does that mean that there's VP of engineering in your organization or some sort of person like that that's working closely with you? ADAM: Sort of. So I have...basically, it divides more at the director level. So I have a couple of VPs that work for me that have a combination of product and engineering, both experience, expertise, and responsibility. But then their teams have product managers, and then we have directors of engineering that then manage their individuals from teams. I also have a group of former bankers. They're product managers but act as consultants to those organizations. And that's where we get all of our industry expertise. They've worked with the SBA. They've worked in credit offices, and they really help to influence the product roadmap across those teams as well. CHAD: So the entire engineering structure also being under the chief Product Officer, I would say that and correct me if I'm wrong, I think that's probably not how the majority of companies organize it. Do you agree with that? ADAM: I have seen both, but I would agree that it is not the majority. CHAD: I would say if there is a majority, and I agree, I've seen both too, but you might have a CTO and then VP of engineering. And so, the engineering organization goes all the way up to the C-level. And then there's a Chief Product Officer. And here's the product management and product underneath them. Was this an intentional choice from the beginning as you scaled out the team for you to have it all live under you? ADAM: It was intentional. I will give my personal view on it. I think that as we continue to evolve as technology companies, one of the hardest things for us to achieve is alignment around vision and purpose. And that drives a level of focus that I think maximizes the ability to move the business forward. And based on that premise, the places where I've seen things work the best is when there is a focal point across product and engineering within specialization underneath. Because it drives, I think, the best alignment across the organization. I will acknowledge, however, that finding leaders that can actually operate effectively in that combined role is extremely difficult because you need people that have a high degree of engineering experience so that they actually know how to build for quality, build for scale, even for things that don't immediately impact the bottom line while having enough business acumen to understand the demands of the business and how to balance those priorities against what we need to grow the business at the same time. And so, it does create a little bit of a snowflake challenge. I cannot find or replace those roles as we grow and scale nearly as quickly as I can in a divided organization. But I have found that it does help me drive clarity of priorities and purpose and ultimately focus in the organization versus the places I've worked where that hasn't been the case. CHAD: So I guess given that, then I assume you're hiring. [laughs] ADAM: We are always hiring. [laughs] We are definitely in growth mode. And we are looking for great people that can help us to build a platform and really transform how our customers are thinking about how they lend to their businesses. CHAD: Well, I agree. I think there are different structures then that can achieve it. And also, a lot of it comes down to the people but that alignment and that understanding of design, and product, and development or engineering. And ideally, people and all of those skill sets and all those teams who get it and can balance those different priorities with the business is really important, and that alignment of vision. And so there are probably different structures to get it, but that's what you're aiming for. And I think that the structure that you've set up is one which is very helpful to getting that alignment. ADAM: Agreed. Agreed. I think that while we're on the topic of the team and the culture we're trying to build out, I'll maybe use that as a way to share a few more things that we're really driving towards. You can imagine a company that has scaled the way we have and continues to grow. That presents some other organizational challenges as well. One of my firm beliefs is the fastest way to scale is to create really strong, empowered, decentralized teams. That, again, gets back to the whole vision and focus thing. They have to be rowing in the same direction. But they have to be really independent in the day-to-day. And so we've really spent a lot of time over the last, I would say, year and a half shifting to that kind of a model to where each of the teams is really embracing what their individual accountabilities are. They are really focused on how they're delivering success for the business and are able to make a lot of the day-to-day decisions. But then it falls to management, leadership, myself to make sure that when they make those decisions, they understand the context in which we're trying to drive the business so that we can do as much as we can as fast as we can but in a way that's high quality and delivers value. CHAD: Awesome. Well, I sincerely wish you all the best in that. I really appreciate you stopping by and sharing. Thank you. ADAM: Yeah, my pleasure. I appreciate the time, and good to get to know you a little bit, Chad. CHAD: If folks want to find out more, maybe apply, follow along with you; where are all the places that they can do that? ADAM: Yeah, sure. So numerated.com is where they can go and learn more about the business, and they can learn more about where we're hiring. People should check me out on LinkedIn. That's probably where I'm the most active these days. And feel free to message me as well. I'll also give you my email address if anybody wants to reach out. It's pretty simple. It's adam@numerated.com. Whether it's opinions, thoughts, or reactions to anything that I've shared today, or you just want to build a relationship, I'd love to hear from people and get to know you a little bit better. CHAD: Wonderful. You can find links to all those things, probably not Adam's email address, in the show notes. ADAM: [laughs] CHAD: We want to protect him from those spam crawlers. But you can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Adam Kenney.

How is the restaurant industry dealing with the difficult operating environment? This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features an interview with Michelle Korsmo, who took over as CEO of the National Restaurant Association in May. Korsmo discusses her career to date. She has worked in public policy at the state and federal levels and most recently was chief executive of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America before taking over the top post at the association. Korsmo discusses the state of the industry at the moment. And she talks about the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, and why the U.S. Small Business Administration is sitting on $180 million in leftover funding. The SBA may release those funds. She also talks about balancing the needs of those small restaurants with those of large chains. There is also a discussion on so-called “shrinkflation.”

What can a founder do if their startup is considered not fundable or bankable?Kedma Ough, MBA is dubbed the Small Business Superhero. A nationally recognized business development and business funding expert, she loves breaking down the barriers to big capital for small businesses!As one of today's most respected authorities on Small Business Funding, Kedma has advised more than 10,000 businesses leveraging $100 million in funding access. For two decades, Kedma worked in SBA leadership roles with the Women's Business Center Program and Small Business Development Centers. Her best-selling book Target Funding® through McGraw-Hill is a navigation system to identify targeted grants and funds for business owners. From a credit score of 450 to 820, Kedma has helped thousands of business owners gamify the business funding path towards success. She's a proud fifth-generation entrepreneur and her great-great grandfather peddled various products throughout Ireland. You can learn more about Kedma here: https://kedmaough.com/Follow Kedma everywhere she glows on social media here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kedmaough/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kedmaoughpo...Twitter: https://twitter.com/kedmaoughThank you for carving out time to improve your Founder Game - when you do better, your business will do better - cheers!Ande ♥https://andelyons.com#targetfunding #bestyoutubechannelforstartups #smallbusinessfunding Psst: If you're thinking “Wow – that Andelicious Advice really helped me,” please feel free to buy me a cup of coffee – a breve cappuccino will make my heart and mind sing with joy and keep me powered to serve more founders – thank you! ♥https://www.buymeacoffee.com/andelyonsCONNECT WITH ME ONLINE: https://andelyons.com https://twitter.com/AndeLyonshttps://www.facebook.com/StartupLifew... https://www.linkedin.com/in/andelyons/ https://www.instagram.com/ande_lyons/ https://www.pinterest.com/andelyons/ https://angel.co/andelyons TikTok: @andelyonsANDELICIOUS ANNOUNCEMENTSArlan's Academy: https://arlansacademy.com/Scroobious - use Ande15 discount code: https://www.scroobious.com/Founder University: https://course.founder.universityhttps://bit.ly/AAElizabethYinTune in to Mia Voss' Shit We Don't Talk About podcast here: https://shitwedonttalkaboutpodcast.com/ANDELICIOUS RESOURCES:JOIN STARTUP LIFE LIVE MEETUP GROUPGet an alert whenever I post a new show!https://bit.ly/StartupLifeLIVEAGORAPULSEMy favorite digital marketing dashboard is AGORAPULSE – it's the best platform to manage your social media posts and presence! Learn more here: http://www.agorapulse.com?via=ande17STARTUP DOX Do you need attorney reviewed legal documents for your startup? I'm a proud community partner of Startup Dox, a new service provided by Selvarajah Law PC which helps you draw out all the essential paperwork needed to kickstart your business in a super cost-effective way. All the legal you're looking for… only without confusion or frustration. EVERY filing and document comes with an attorney review. You will never do it alone. Visit https://www.thestartupdox.com/ and use my discount code ANDE10 to receive 10% off your order.SPONSORSHIPIf you resonate with the show's mission of amplifying diverse founder voices while serving first-time founders around the world, please reach out to me to learn more about making an impact through sponsoring the Startup Life LIVE Show! ande@andelyons.com.STREAMYARD OVERLAYS AND GRAPHIC DESIGNNicky Pasquierhttps://www.virtuosoassistant.co.uk/

Jason Cline left corporate at age 50 to buy a flower distribution business (in cash). SDE is up 3x after just one year. Topics in Jason's interview: Pivoting from 20+ years in corporate to SMB ownership 3 criteria for what business to buy Buying a business in cash (no SBA loan) The business of flower distribution Selling to big retailers like 7-Eleven & Circle K How to detect growth potential in a distribution business 2 ways to retain drivers in distribution/route businesses Distribution businesses are really car businesses Scan-based trading 2 key techniques Jason used to transition successfully into the business Working "in" the business for the first 6 months Testing changes The numbers behind flower distribution Ideal size of SDE for target business What's more important than SDE Jason's growth since acquisition and plans for expansion Reach Jason at:LinkedInGet complimentary due diligence on your acquisition's insurance & benefits program:Oberle Risk Strategies - Search Fund TeamLearn more about Walker Deibel's done-with-you buy-side advisory:The Acquisition LabConnect with Acquiring Minds: Connect with host Will Smith on LinkedIn Follow Will on Twitter

About Today's GuestUmar Latif, MD is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology with board certification in General Psychiatry, Geriatric Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He was selected as a George W. Bush Institute Scholar as part of the 2021 Stand-To Veteran Leadership program in service of improving veteran outcomes.Dr. Latif currently serves as the National Medical Director of Help for Heroes, a multisite specialty program he helped design as co-founder, to meet the clinical needs of active-duty service members, veterans and first responders who are dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues. He also works as the Medical Director of Carrollton Springs Hospital and has a private practice at The Noesis Clinic: an adult and geriatric outpatient private practice that specializes in early detection of Alzheimer's dementia and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation).For a decade prior to this, Dr. Latif co-founded and served as the Medical Director of Freedom Care at UBH Denton, which he helped develop. Under his leadership, this program grew into a multi-location inpatient psychiatry program specializing in PTSD and dual diagnosis treatment for active duty military members and veterans referred from 120 plus national & international installations.His other professional roles in the past have included the position of Medical Director of the Telepsychiatry program at Dallas VA Medical Center, and faculty appointment as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center.Dr. Latif completed his residency training at Wayne State University in Michigan and postgraduate fellowship training at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He also earned a certificate in “Executive Healthcare Leadership” from Cornell University. Links Mentioned In This EpisodeHelp for Heroes ProgramPsychArmor Resource of the WeekThe PsychArmor Resource of the Week is the PsychArmor course Barriers to Treatment. In this course, you will learn how differences in military culture affect mental health and how to help service members or veterans overcome barriers to seeking treatment.  You can find a link to the resource here: https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/barriers-to-treatment   This Episode Sponsored By:This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory with custom training options for organizations.Contact Us and Join Us on Social Media Email PsychArmorPsychArmor on TwitterPsychArmor on FacebookPsychArmor on YouTubePsychArmor on LinkedInPsychArmor on InstagramTheme MusicOur theme music Don't Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families.  You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com  

Today on the Intentional Disruption podcast I am taking you behind the scenes on not only the massive growth that has occured inside my company, The Delta Enhancement Group, LLC, but teh why behind it.  The conversation is related to entrepreneurship, small business incubators, government programs and re-establishing the small community connection to business.  There is more to say in future episodes but I am sharing some of the reasons I have committed to growing small businesses rapidly, sustainably and responsibly.  If you want to know more my website is up, You can also reach me on the social platforms:   Please rate and review the podcast. We are currently a top 2500 podcast globally. That may not seem like much but we are top 10% globally and we want to expand the message further. Your help is appreciated!

In today's podcast, we're going to talk about what SBA approved or eligible means. The Small Business Administration (SBA) offers a variety of loan programs for small businesses. One of the things that SBA does is approve or certify businesses as being eligible for their loans. We will discuss what it means to be SBA approved or certified, and how it can benefit your business. Stay tuned! SBA Search Page: https://www.vettedbiz.com/sba-search-page/ Tired of your job? Thinking of starting or buying a business? Take our Biz Quiz to filter through over 10,000 business opportunities today! https://www.vettedbiz.com/quiz-test/ Need help finding the right franchise? Click here: https://www.vettedbiz.com/franchise-search/ 00:00 Introduction 00:48 What the SBA looks at 02:31 The 7(a) Loan 02:43 SBA 504 Loan 03:18 Other SBA Lending 03:32 Vetted Biz Directory 04:00 Conclusion #SBALoan #FranchiseFindings If you are looking for more information, you can connect with us through our networks: https://www.vettedbiz.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/vettedbiz/ https://www.facebook.com/vettedbiz https://www.tiktok.com/@businessandfranchiseinus

This week's episode covers the Cyber AB's recently released pre-decisional draft CMMC Assessment Process, an SBA final rule that implements new methods for evaluating expanded sources of small business past performance, a GSA OIG Alert about the Transactional Data Reporting rule, and Senate passage of an amended version of the Preventing Organizational Conflicts of Interest in Federal Acquisition Act, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Yuan Zhou. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.

Way back in 2020, we recorded an episode with Shirley Kefgen from FranFund. Not only is it one of our most downloaded episodes, but the information is still as pertinent today as it was two years ago. They cover all the different types of loan options available to franchisees from SBA loans to lines on brokerage accounts. The episode closes with a discussion on the five most common franchise funding mistakes Shirley sees and how to avoid them.

(8/5/22) In today's Federal Newscast: The Federal Labor Relations Authority has issued a complaint against EEOC over office-reentry policies. The Capitol riot has got the Pentagon rethinking its rules on saving data on mobile devices. And the Air Force is embracing privacy during pregnancy.

This week, we discuss the news that the SBA has yet to distribute a reported $180 million from the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, and what it means.

Three things to know today More automation investments than you might have guessed    The SBA shows both SMB growth and shrinkage in federal contracting AND Let's learn about protestware   Do you want to get the show on your podcast app or the written versions of the stories? Subscribe to the Business of Tech: https://www.businessof.tech/   Support the show on Patreon:  https://patreon.com/mspradio/   Want our stuff?  Cool Merch?  Wear “Why Do We Care?” - Visit https://mspradio.myspreadshop.com   Follow us on: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mspradionews/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mspradionews/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mspradio/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/28908079/      

Ep. #4 [THEME THREE] In this last episode of the series, “Demystifying Business Valuations,” we have Chris Yates, the owner of Rhodium Weekend, a community of online entrepreneurs, on the show to share the story of how he sold his business, Centurica. Chris received two offers from different buyers that were wildly different. In this episode, we hammer home the concept of intrinsic financial value vs. strategic transaction value by unpacking the differences in Chris’s offers. In the first half of this episode, Chris goes in-depth with the first offer he got from a strategic buyer–an Amazon aggregator–that wanted to do an “acquihire” (essentially wanting to purchase the company for the people and processes). Chris describes how the purpose of the deal drove the deal structure and terms and how it eventually blew the deal up. In the second half, Chris walks us through how he doubled down and focused on the intrinsic financial value of the company by getting a bank to pre-approve an SBA loan (ultimately determining the intrinsic financial value of the company based on the risk of the cash flow). Getting clear on the intrinsic financial valuation helped Chris during the second negotiation for a few reasons. First, he knew what his valuation was regardless of the specific buyer. Second, Chris was able to clearly negotiate the terms and deal structure efficiently because he knew what the company’s intrinsic value was worth. In addition, there are limitations to “creative” deal structures when an SBA is used. Being approached by a buyer can cause a rush of emotions for you as the business owner. However, in this series, we have consistently discussed how getting clarity on the intrinsic financial value is crucial so you can weigh all your options against what you know the company is worth. //WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE: Intentional Growth™ Podcast What You Will Learn How to structure an LOI so a buyer can’t steal your clients, processes, and systems. Why Chris decided to exit even though he was getting fed opportunity from old and existing clients. What was driving the acquihire buyer to want Centurica so badly. How Chris got into the mind of the acquihire buyer to really understand why they wanted his company. Why understanding what he wanted and why helped Chris negotiate with a buyer that initially had an unappealing offer. How Chris realized that ALL of the decision makers need to be sitting at the deal table. The uncertainties Chris had in the first deal and why he wished he had set the terms instead of reacting to each offer (and pulled away at the beginning knowing it wouldn't work). Chris’s thought process after the first deal fell apa

Vice President of Construction Lending Eugene James with Quantum National Bank joins the Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio podcast to talk about the economic health of our country, current market concerns and the controversy surrounding the build-to-rent market. James joins host Carol Morgan on the All About Real Estate segment. A highly qualified and respected member of the industry,  James has over 30 years of experience working in the real estate and home building industries. Twenty of those years are as a real estate appraiser and consultant. James also has experience working directly with builders, in real estate brokerage and as a building advisor. James said, “Now, the best gig of all is I'm in banking! I literally get to give money away to people.” James joined the Quantum National Bank team in May of this year. Prior to that he worked in land acquisition for a premier Atlanta home builder. Quantum National Bank is a locally owned and operated community bank that has been a fundamental player in the Atlanta market for the past 27 years. Click here to learn more about his switch to the Quantum National Bank team! Offering most of the same services as larger banks, the customer service delivered by the smaller banking institution is unsurpassed, treating clients with love and respect. The bank offers its clientele several custom services for small businesses and merchants as well as individuals through its branches in North Fulton, Gwinnett and Buckhead.  Quantum National Bank also serves as a top SBA lender in Georgia with a talented commercial construction lending team. James' unit, the residential real estate construction division, serves as one of the top 10 residential construction lenders in the state of Georgia. Despite being a smaller bank, the company does quite a bit of construction financing! James said, “[My favorite part of the job] is being able to help a lot of builders succeed. I love working with builders and giving them points, tips, suggestions and advice as well as giving them the funding they need so they can build houses and new subdivisions.” A trend that market watchers have grown used to, national new construction and resale housing inventories continue to be alarmingly low. This market condition presents an opportunity for builders to construct more housing to meet the present demand. According to James, even with rising interest rates and inflation, the housing market still stands strong despite what national media headlines portray. After experiencing historically low rates for the last decade, James believes it is safe to say that the days of 3% mortgage rates are gone. Before the current market shift, it was typical for listings to sell 20% above the asking price. Now, sales agents often see offers matching the listed price. Tune in to the full interview above to learn more about Quantum National Bank or visit www.QuantumBank.com.  Never miss an episode of Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio! Subscribe to the podcast here. You can also get a recap of any past episode on the Radio page. Listen to the full interview above! A special thank you to Denim Marketing for sponsoring Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio. A comfortable fit for companies of all shapes and sizes, Denim Marketing understands marketing strategies are not one-size-fits-all. The agency works with your company to create a perfectly tailored marketing strategy that will adhere to your specific needs and niche. Try Denim Marketing on for size by calling 770-383-3360 or by visiting www.DenimMarketing.com. Quantum National Bank and Denim Marketing are not affiliated. (August 2022) The Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio “All About Real Estate” segment, presented by Denim Marketing, highlights the movers and shakers in the Atlanta real estate industry – the home builders, developers, Realtors and suppliers working to provide the American dream for Atlantans.

Juan García is the CEO of Boopos, a revenue-based financing facility.  He has a history as an entrepreneur and experience working with investments, transactions, and equity. He was previously the Chief Financial Officer at Cabify, a Private Equity Associate at Portobello Capital, and an Investment Banking Analyst at Merrill Lynch. Juan graduated from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid with a degree in telecommunications.  In this episode… Where can you turn when a typical SBA loan is not the right fit for your brand? Are you using the best approach to fund your business loan? Juan García had entrepreneurs in mind when he founded Boopos. Creating revenue-based financing is an alternative for entrepreneurs who want to maximize their lending amount for acquiring a business without long waiting periods. If you want to be a better buyer without risking your personal growth, this episode is for you! In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe Valley sits down with Juan García, CEO of Boopos, to discuss acquiring a business through asset purchase funding. Juan talks about the due diligence process of acquiring a loan, why revenue-based financing can be the best option, and how to maximize your lending amount to purchase a business. Stay tuned!

Do you experience a lot of pressure and noise in your business? Have you had the same tasks on your to-do list for months? Every business owner benefits from having time set aside for strategic planning. Property management growth expert, Jason Hull shares the secrets to strategically planning out your daily tasks to lower your stress and tackle to-do list items effectively. You'll Learn… [02:03] Setting Aside Strategic Time and Why it Matters [03:26] Setting Intentions for Events in Your Day [05:15] Feeling the Negative Feelings to Lower Pressure and Noise [08:24] Why Celebrating and Appreciating the Good Matters [11:23] Finishing up Your Schedule [14:02] The Secret Final Step: Offloading Tweetables “The king or queen needs to eat first, otherwise you're going to have a starving kingdom.” “One of the simplest daily things you can do to get more juice out of your day, more momentum will be to do daily planning.” “When you make a decision about what your intention is like, what outcome that you desire to have from this interaction or this event, you are more likely to have that happen.” “I want you to remember that the only thing you can do with negative emotions is to feel them.” Resources DoorGrow and Scale Mastermind DoorGrow Academy DoorGrow on YouTube DoorGrowClub DoorGrowLive TalkRoute Referral Link Transcript [00:00:00] If your baseline stress level is higher and higher and higher because you're just adapting to things and you're tolerating things, you are going to feel more anxious and more preloaded and more stressed, and it's gonna catch up with you. [00:00:12] Welcome DoorGrow Hackers to the #DoorGrowShow. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase your revenue, help others, impact lives, and you're interested in growing in your business and in life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently then you are a DoorGrow Hacker. DoorGrow Hackers, love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate. Think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate, high-trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. [00:00:48] At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. I'm your host property management growth expert, Jason Hull, the founder and CEO of DoorGrow. Now, let's get into the show. [00:01:10] So today's conversation topic for today's show is going to be daily planning. And so what I wanted to go over today with you is daily planning and how I plan my day. A lot of these ideas I learned from one of my mentors and coaches, Alex Charfen, with my own adaptation to this. And so this is my way of doing daily planning. And if you're wanting to follow along or try this or do this, you can go to doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, and you can fill out this form and go through this process. I've built a really cool form to take you through this process. It asks for your email address and it will email you your to-do list of everything that you filled out on this. [00:02:01] So I'm gonna take you through this. So first step in doing your planning, and you wanna do this either at night, which was recommended by Thanh Pham, one of my friends, who runs asianefficiency.com, and he recommends that you do it the night before. I usually will do it in the mornings early. I like to get up early before the kids, pets, work, phone calls, et cetera, and use that sacred time in the morning, but whatever time that you do this, map out some strategic time, and I want you to be clear on this principle, that strategic time is really where a business owner is best spending their time rather than tactical day to day work, right? [00:02:42] Tactical stuff needs to get done, but anything that's tactical usually can be done by somebody else. You can offload that you can hire somebody to do that, eventually is the goal. But you spending your time-- somebody needs to be spending their time doing strategic work on the business instead of in the business. Somebody needs to be the general in the tent, you know, making the strategy for the army. The king or queen needs to eat first. Otherwise, you're going to have a starving kingdom. This is where you kind of place yourself at the head of this company and get to be the visionary during strategic time. One of the simplest daily things you can do to get more juice out of your day, more momentum will be to do daily planning. [00:03:21] So, first thing we want to do is take a look at your schedule for the upcoming day. So the first step is: schedule an intention attracting what you want. So what scheduled events do you have today or for the next day? And what is your intention for each. So for those of you that are a little bit new agey, or those of you that have followed, you know, different gurus or coaches out there, intention is a very powerful thing. You've probably heard them talk about it. What I have found is when I set my intention for what I want to occur or happen, unconsciously something-- it happens differently. Like, I don't know. Some will say the universe like makes it come true, or maybe your unconscious mind starts working on that challenge. [00:04:03] But when you make a decision about what your intention is like, what outcome that you desire to have from this interaction or this event, you are more likely to have that happen. And so my recommendation is that you go through your schedule, and in the example you'll see on the daily planning form that you'll be filling out, you put some sort of timestamp, like "at 9:00 AM I'm meeting Fred Smith, and my goal is to inspire him to hit his sales goals", for example, or "at 10:00 AM, I'm meeting with Fred Savage from The Wonder Years-- just kidding-- and I'm gonna negotiate a win-win deal." Right? That's my intention. So you're gonna have certain appointments, certain interactions meetings with your team, different. [00:04:44] What's your intention for each of those and just by consciously setting an intention for each, what I find is I get a lot more of what I really want out of those instead of just kind of stumbling into them. I know what my intention is. And so make sure you have your intention set. You're gonna get much greater results. If your intention is to close the deal, you're far more likely to close the deal just by putting it out there and to your mind, your unconscious mind, to the universe, to God, whatever you believe in-- by setting the intention, you're far more likely to get that result. [00:05:15] So the next step after you do that is avoiding and discomfort, emotional health, and lowering your pressure and noise. So what uncomfortable feelings did you not want to experience in the previous day? What made you uncomfortable recently? State related actions that you can take. And so as a reminder, I want you to remember that the only thing you can do with negative emotions is to feel them. And usually thinkers like myself, logical people, we try to find ways to not have to feel those uncomfortable feelings in the future. But the only thing you really can do with the feeling is to feel it. And so rather than just analyze about the feeling or analyze it, or just think about, "how can I avoid this in the future and how can I escape this feeling?" [00:06:00] One thing I would recommend that you set an intention to do as a to-do item is to spend time feeling that feeling. So as an example, these are different action items or to-do items related to discomfort. I find that a lot of these things are simply solved by an Amazon order or something like that. Like I was uncomfortable maybe because I ran outta toothpaste or I ran outta soap or I didn't have this. Cool. Those are easy. I can make those to-do items, "order toothpaste," "order, you know, this," right. Place an Instacart order, get some groceries. Right? So example: upset at partner, fear, I fear an uncomfortable conversation. Have the conversation. [00:06:38] Another example: feeling anxious. Sit for five minutes and feel through that emotion, that anxiety and feel through it. Lawn, not being mowed, bothering me, research and find a gardener, right? Like these type of things. Right. So figure out what-- because as entrepreneurs, we tend to just keep more and more on our plate. We tend to cause more and more challenges, and we're really adaptable and we get really good at these painful things and these uncomfortable things just becoming white noise. I don't want these to be white noise for you because the more white noise you have, the harder it is to hear everything else, and so if we're talking about emotions and stress, if your baseline stress level is higher and higher and higher because you're just adapting to things and you're tolerating things, you are going to feel more anxious and more preloaded and more stressed, and it's gonna catch up with you. [00:07:27] And stress is the number one killer, like it eats at you. Your body eventually starts to break down if stress is high enough. It starts to kind of cannibalize itself. So cortisol is released. Cortisol is a stress hormone, cortisol, negates all of the effects of testosterone, which, whether you're a guy or a girl, testosterone is what motivates you to have sex drive. It's what motivates you to accomplish things to some degree, it also can sap other chemicals in your brain, so I want you to be healthy as possible. So we want to lower that baseline pressure and noise. That means clearing out all these really easy, sometimes, things to solve. Right? And sometimes you just need to feel through something and just experience the feeling cuz you cannot feel it forever, and then it will go away. [00:08:12] So that's the next step. What things could you do that day to solve, you know, discomfort or things that made you uncomfortable in the previous day and just getting clear on which things are causing you discomfort. The third step is celebration. It's celebrate things you wanna reinforce more of. The things you celebrate, tend to grow, and so what wins do you need to celebrate? What wins have you had? What accomplishments do you have? This sends a powerful message to your subconscious, that, "Hey, these wins mattered. A lot of times we make the mistakes as entrepreneurs that we achieve an accomplishment, and then we send a powerful signal to our unconscious that it didn't matter. [00:08:50] So celebrating those wins, but also celebrate the work. If you are celebrating the work and the effort to achieve certain things, you're going to be much better at achieving those things. That wires your dopamine to be more effective for winning. So celebrate the actions. Celebrate, "Hey, I made 300 phone calls this week of outreach," or Hey, "I did..." whatever it is that you accomplished. Celebrate those type of things you wanna reinforce more of just celebrating the end results sometimes can demoralize us because sometimes we don't have control over the end result, but we can control the actions leading up to it. So celebrate the actions. So example: the team hit 80% of our commitments this week. Post to the team about it and celebrate right. Or highlight them in our meeting today and celebrate with them. Where I worked out three days in a row, brag to somebody. Right. You know, so figure out some action items you can take to reinforce this. [00:09:48] The next step is appreciate. This is powerful. Now, I used to use the word gratitude, and I love the idea of gratitude, but ' appreciate' is a more effective word. And I like this, especially being here, kind of in the real estate sort of industry, when things appreciate, it has a double meaning. When you want to appreciate something, you are recognizing its value, but not only that, when you appreciate things, you also are taking an asset or something valuable and you're increasing its value. And so the things you want to grow, appreciate them, and they will grow. They're going to appreciate in value as well. So who do you need to appreciate, you know, this day? What are you grateful for today? State related actions that you can take. [00:10:33] So an example: Adam reached out to all of our clients. I want to appreciate him during our morning huddle or Sarah helped me sort out some ideas. I want to make sure I appreciate her in our morning huddle as a team. Right? So appreciation will give you some action items that will benefit and bless you and your team, right. Putting some appreciation, some gratitude out lets your team know that they get to feel appreciated, and so appreciation helps me grow my team members and helps improve the relationship that I have with my team and improves the culture of the team. So appreciation is powerful. Appreciation helps your relationships. Appreciation helps you with your kids, right? Recognizing things and seeing the good in others, appreciation is the next step and then ideas and inspiration. [00:11:23] So this is step five: capture your inner genius or other tasks. So throughout the day, I'm usually writing down ideas, taking notes on things, so I wanna go back through those and say, "What ideas did I have? What sparks did I have? Do I want to add these to maybe an idea board or an idea list? Or is there something that I want the team to do? I just got this great idea talking to a client. Maybe we should do that for everybody." [00:11:47] Anything else? This is basically the, 'anything else category.' What ideas, books, videos, actions you need to take, add to your to-do list. State them as related actions. So for example: read It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried. It's a good book by the way. Or “create sales script for Referral Secrets training,” you know, or stuff like this, right, for my clients. So as you get ideas, you can feed these in your daily planning as well and capture those ideas, so you have them as action items. So if you have, you know, appreciation, gratitude, and these type of things, they should be converted into actionable items, because otherwise they're not really useful, right? Because feelings don't really exist to other people, unless they're expressed, right. Love is an action. Right? Love is an action that creates the feeling of love, so take the action and it will create these things. So I want you to convert these into actions. [00:12:42] So number six is your to-do list. Like anything else you haven't listed before? Maybe it's not ideas. Maybe it's not other things, but you're just like, "I know these other things need to get done." This is kind of that miscellaneous catchall at the end. Like "I need to email my accountant about that SBA loan thing," or "I need to cancel that unused Hulu account" or, you know, whatever. Right. So anything else on your to-do list? You. Put that stuff in there and you click 'okay.' And then I added this question. This is a very powerful question. This is number seven. This is, I think the last thing, besides it asking for your email address: what is the one thing or your next right thing, right? [00:13:23] What is the one thing in your business or personal life that if you could do this day, that by doing it will make everything else easier or unnecessary? What's the earliest or first step or next action towards that, the next right thing that you can do to accomplish that one thing. This would make the day a win if you could just get this one thing done. So, and I have an example, like: make money= do four hours of outbound prospecting this day and get some cash in. Right? If that's that's my one focus today, if I could just accomplish that. That allows you to take this big to-do list and boil it down. [00:14:02] Now, the secret next step in this, that is not mentioned on this daily planning-- I think it's mentioned on the output screen at the end. The last step that you, I want you to take is that if you have any team members, if you have an assistant-- which everybody should have an assistant-- if you have an assistant or team members is to take this output, you plug in your email address, it will then send you an email with your big to-do list of all the stuff that you want to accomplish, and then you take this list and you give this to your assistant or you delegate all these things to your team, so you can cross them off your list. A really good leader has a really good team, and a really good leader knows to delegate. What I do is I take this list-- and if you're handwriting this out, what I used to do when I would hand write it is I would just write somebody's name next to each of these things. [00:14:53] I'd write some initials for team members. I'm like, " This is Adam's. This is gonna go to Sarah. This is going to go to Kyle on my team. These team members can take these things off my plate." That's why they exist is to support you as an entrepreneur. "And this can go to my assistant, Mar..." so I just as assign these things out. And so that's how I do daily planning. So then my to-do list doesn't continually grow every day. I'm able to delegate and assign, and it gets smaller and smaller every day. My discomfort gets smaller and smaller every day, or I'm tackling something in it every day. I'm appreciating people every day. Right? And when we're grateful, we attract more abundance into our life and better things come to us. Right? So psychologically it rewires our brain for more positivity. I'm starting to notice things that I didn't notice before. So this is really effective. There's a lot of psychology that goes into this planning process. [00:15:43] I encourage you to use it. I would love to hear from you. So wherever you're seeing this video, comment below, if you start using this or let, let me know, I'd love to get your feedback. What is working for you? What do you do differently in your daily planning, if you have anything else that you do? But this covers most of the things that I've heard regarding plans for the day and will help you have a really clear-- you'll have your agenda for time with your intention, you'll have the things that you're grateful for, you'll have the things that you wanna celebrate, you'll have all your ideas, and you will have the stresses and the discomforts, you'll become more conscious of those so you can get rid of them and offload them to lower your baseline pressure and noise, and you'll have clarity on your one main thing that you need to accomplish that day so you can give yourself permission to have a win, right. And feel like you did something right. So that is daily planning. So I hope this is really helpful. Again, you can check that out by going to doorgrow.com/dailyplanning, one word, and you can go through this daily planning. [00:16:47] Normally, I only gave this out to clients. It's a super effective way of creating momentum right away for new clients. And I wanna share that with everybody. I hope you find it beneficial. And if you're wanting to get in momentum and get signed up for our upcoming Rapid Revamp program, I highly recommend you check out this new program. It's gonna be really, really awesome. Some of you may have heard about or experienced our Seed Program. Some of you heard about maybe our Grow and Scale Mastermind. We've got this new program called Build to Sell. So you can build a new business, build your business so that you can sell this business in the next three to five years for a seven-figure exit. [00:17:26] Even if you're starting from scratch, I've helped people scale their business up to this level, or you'll have a business that is built to sell, but you'll realize that when you build a business to sell, it's a great asset and you're gonna want to keep it. So you may want to stay in that business and keep it, but you won't be miserable in it anymore because you've built it effectively, so you're not involved in it the way that you would have to be, and you wouldn't be able to be if you were gonna sell it. Right. And so this is going to create really effective businesses built to sell. The first three-month 90-day program we have is called the Rapid Revamp. We're gonna clean up your pricing, clean up your branding, clean up your website, optimize your entire sales pipeline, clean up your sales process, and give you three of our top acquisition strategies so you're adding doors without spending a dime on marketing, and we're gonna do all that in a 90 day period. It's rapid, it's a training program you're gonna be moving through on a weekly basis with your class with a group. [00:18:23] Our first class is already starting. By the time you see and hear this, it will have already started, so you are too late for this. We only wanna allow 30 people in. We open this up to our existing mastermind clients. We have over 40 signed up already... already right now. But our next cycle is gonna start in October right after rent week, which is the first week of the month. It's gonna be the week after that on Tuesday. So get in. It's first, come first serve. We're only opening up for a certain number of slots that we feel like we can confidently take through in a course in a class over the next 90 days after that. So make sure you get in early. So if you're interested in this, reach out to our team, you can check us out at doorgrow.com and get on a call. [00:19:08] So until next time everybody to our mutual growth. And I'm out. Bye everyone. [00:19:13] You just listened to the #DoorGrowShow. We are building a community of the savviest property management entrepreneurs on the planet in the DoorGrowClub. Join your fellow DoorGrow Hackers at doorgrowclub.com. Listen, everyone is doing the same stuff. SEO, PPC, pay per lead content, social direct mail, and they still struggle to grow! [00:19:40] At DoorGrow, we solve your biggest challenge: getting deals and growing your business. Find out more at doorgrow.com. Find any show notes or links from today's episode on our blog doorgrow.com, and to get notified of future events and news subscribe to our newsletter at doorgrow.com/subscribe. Until next time, take what you learn and start DoorGrow Hacking your business and your life.

About Today's GuestElisa V. Borah, MSW, PhD is a research associate professor at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and Director of the Institute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness, a joint initiative of the Dell Medical School Department of Health Social Work and the Steve Hicks School of Social Work.Dr. Borah conducts research to identify, implement, and evaluate treatments, programming and community supports for military members, veterans, spouses and their families. Current research efforts include assessing the value of structured peer support for military spouses to improve their quality of life, access resources and increase social support. She also studies self-care practices among military spouses and how best to support their transition needs after military life. Dr. Borah's current research includes development of methods to engage concerned significant others in veteran suicide prevention practices and research as well as delivery of education and training to community-based organizations in suicide prevention.  Dr. Borah founded and directs the Veteran Spouse Network (VSN), originally launched through an Engagement Award from the Patient Centered Outcome Research Institute (PCORI). The VSN is designed to build and support communities of veteran spouses and to provide peer support programming with trained peers. Dr. Borah chairs the Military Social Work & Behavioral Health Conference at The University of Texas at Austin. She previously served as director of research at the Ft. Hood site of the STRONG STAR PTSD Research Consortium, a Department of Defense-funded research consortium at UT Health San Antonio.Links Mentioned In This EpisodeInstitute for Military and Veteran Family Wellness,Veteran Spouse NetworkMilitary Social Work & Behavioral Health ConferencePsychArmor Resource of the WeekThe PsychArmor Resource of the Week is the PsychArmor course Making Connections and Networking. This is one of the things that Dr. Borah and her group are doing, establishing connections between military and veteran spouses. Regardless of your military background or previous work experience, this course can help service members, Veterans, and their families learn how to network in their new communities. You can find a link to the resource here:  https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/Making-Connections-and-Networking This Episode Sponsored By:This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory with custom training options for organizations.Contact Us and Join Us on Social Media Email PsychArmorPsychArmor on TwitterPsychArmor on FacebookPsychArmor on YouTubePsychArmor on LinkedInPsychArmor on InstagramTheme MusicOur theme music Don't Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families.  You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com  

Welcome back global listenership. On this episode of Builders Build we have the one and only Chris Munn. Chris runs the Fairfield Company. It is a small, independent private investment firm. They are focused on acquiring and growing small businesses. We do a deep dive into buying and running small businesses with SBA debt. What's it like to own a holding company? Where is the opportunity? What regions are best to own in? And more Find Chris on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisxmunn Check out the Fairfield Company at https://fairfieldcompany.com/ Follow Us On Twitter! Listen to the pod, share it with your network, and follow along for more like this: @jamesoncamp @orenmeetsworld @landforce For great ideas on making and selling products, and where to source suppliers, head on over to Oren at https://www.productworld.xyz/ For expert tips on: buying a website to jump-start or expand your business, sign up with James at https://nanoflips.com/

In today's digital age, your company's success hinges on its ability to expand rapidly and consistently. Quantum Revenue Expansion means you're constantly growing through the acquisition of new customers and diversifying your reach into new markets. Both are essential for entrepreneurs who want to stay ahead of the curve in today's competitive landscape. Welcome my guest and digital marketing executive and strategist, Jessica Coenen. Join us to hear more about what it takes to run a business from a marketing standpoint and how important it all starts with taking care of ourselves first behind the scenes. Whether you're just starting out or you've been in business for a while, this episode is for you! Bring a pen and paper to not miss the valuable tips that can help your business take off! Ursula's Takeaways: Intro (00:00) Wrote A Textbook (4:43) Be Advocates (10:09) Annual Income Becomes Monthly (15:15) Distribution Diversity (21:24) Money As A Concept (24:24) Look At The Data (28:18) It's Not Always Taking Something Away (34:25) About Jessica Coenen Marketing executive and strategist with 20 years of experience helping organizations, from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies, understand performance analytics and create impact through data-driven insights. Her ability to distill and translate complex digital, SEO, and user experience strategies into dynamic campaigns and programs has helped numerous companies create connections, drive leads, and get results. Connect with Jessica Coenen Website: http://createlabelle.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jess.akin.3 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createlabelle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-coenen/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicamarie_writes/?hl=en About Ursula Mentjes  Ursula Mentjes is an award-winning Entrepreneur and Sales Expert. She will transform the way you think about selling so you can reach your revenue goals with less anxiety and less effort! Ursula specializes in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and other performance modalities to help clients double and triple their sales fast.   Honing her skills at an international technical training company, where she began her career in her early twenties, Ursula increased sales by 90% in just one year. Just 5 years later, when the company's annual revenue was in the tens of millions, Ursula advanced to the position of President at just 27.  Sales guru Brian Tracy endorsed her first book, Selling with Intention, saying, “This powerful, practical book shows you how to connect with customers by fully understanding the sales process from the inside out. It really works!” Ursula is also the author of One Great Goal, Selling with Synchronicity and The Belief Zone, which received the Beverly Hills President's Choice award.  Her Podcast, Double Your Sales NOW, is available on iTunes, iHeartRadio and other outlets.  Ursula also serves as Past Statewide Chairperson of the NAWBO-CA Education Fund and Past President of NAWBO-CA. She is the recipient of the SBA's Women in Business Champion and a recipient of the Willow Tree's Extraordinary Example and Extraordinary Entrepreneur Awards, the NAWBO-IE ANITA Award, chosen as PDP's Extraordinary Speaker, PDP's Business Woman of the Year, the Spirit of the Entrepreneur Awards Finalist and the President's Lifetime Achievement Award from two Presidents.  She has shared the stage with bestselling author Loral Langemeier, Les Brown, Tom Antion, Lisa Nichols, Giuliana Rancic and many others!  Her clients include Aflac, Ebenezer and Fairview Hospitals, New York Life, Paychex and more!  She holds a B.A. in Psychology and Communication from St. Olaf College and an M.S. in Counseling Psychology from California Baptist University. Social Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ursulamentjessalescoach/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ursulamentjessalescoach/) Facebook:...

The National Veterans Business Development Council (NVBDC.org) is the nation's leading Veteran-Owned Business Certification firm for veterans. In that capacity, it has forged a Strategic Alliance Memorandum with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Keith King, Founder and CEO, talks about this important agreement with host Jim Fausone.  

Bill D'Alessandro (@BillDA), Michael Girdley (@girdley), and Jake Wakely (@jakelywakely), who owns a moving business in Texas talk about his war story of acquiring a home services business in Vail, Colorado. Jake has an excellent rationale for choosing this business which is his getaway to spend more time in Vail. He also shares how he could figure things out as the deal was under LOI, an SBA bank, and financing fell apart two separate times within a week of closing.Subscribe to our channel!-----Thanks to our sponsors!CloudBookkeeping offers adaptable solutions to businesses that want to focus on growth with a “client service first” approach. They offer a full suite of accounting services, including sophisticated reporting, QuickBooks software solutions, and full-service payroll options.-----Show Notes:(00:00) - Introduction(00:50) - Our sponsor is Cloudbookkeeping.com(02:48) - Let's get to know Jake and his storage company.(03:52) - How did he find Vail Home Care? What does the company do?(08:01) - In what way was the business viable when it wasn't that huge financially?(14:58) - How was the financing of the Deal structured initially?(16:00) - What happened in the Due Diligence process?(23:32) - How did you go around in such a short time?(27:55) - What have you learned? What would you have done differently?(34:23) - When is SBA a good route?-----Do you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.-----Additional episodes you might enjoy:#108 A fireworks store and a ski rental business for sale#106 A Pet Product and Saas business for sale - Which one do we like?#105 How to Make Money in the E-Commerce Game - Bill D'Alessandro gives an e-Commerce masterclass - Part 1#79 What do Investors want? - Dig into an investor's mind with Bradford Hardin#75 SBA Loan Secrets with Heather Endresen, expertise from a Billion-Dollar Loaner

This week on Extra Serving, a Nation’s Restaurant News podcast, NRN editors Holly Petre, Sam Oches and Bret Thorn discussed the news that the Small Business Administration had $180 million in undistributed Restaurant Revitalization Fund money left. The National Restaurant Association revealed this money in a letter to the SBA asking for it to be distributed to restaurants after a June report released in July showed that the government agency still had money left to distribute. The team discussed what this could mean for restaurants. Also, the team discussed menu price hikes. Two of the largest chains — McDonald’s and Chipotle — announced they would be raising menu prices as part of their Q2 earnings. With inflation still on the rise, the team discussed what this impact could have on customers and how this will impact sales. This week’s interview is Anita Adams, CEO of Black Bear Diner, who spoke with Ron Ruggless about the chain’s growth plans.

1 (2s): Good morning, harvest church. We wanna invite you to come and come on in and take your seat and stand and worship with us. We worship the God who was, we worship the God who is we worship the God who ever more will be. 1 (43s): He opened the prison doors. He parted the rag agency. My God holds the big there's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't. We shout out your praise. There's joy in Lord. We shout out your, we sing to the God who eats. 1 (1m 30s): We sing to the God who saves. We sing to the God who always made away. Does he hung up on that cross? That he rolls up from that grave? My God still rolling stones away. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't be quiet. We shout out your there's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God is surely in this place and we won't be quiet. 1 (2m 11s): We shout out your prayer. We were the beggars. Now we are royalty. We were the prisoners. Now we're running free. We forgive and accepted, redeeming his praise. Let the house of the Lord were the, now the, the business. Now we're running free. 1 (2m 51s): We are forgive and accepted graves. The house of the Lord, praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. And we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. Our God surely in this place, then we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the Lord. There's joy in the house of the Lord today. 1 (3m 32s): And we won't be quiet. We shout out your praise. There's joy in the house of the 0 (3m 38s): Lord, 2 (4m 24s): Worthy of every song we could ever see worthy of all the praise we could ever breathe worthy of every breath we could ever agree. And we live for you. 1 (4m 45s): Oh, 2 (4m 45s): We live for 0 (4m 46s): You. 1 (4m 51s): Jesus. 2 (4m 52s): The name above every other name. 1 (4m 58s): Jesus. 2 (4m 59s): The 1 (4m 59s): Only one 2 (5m 0s): Who could ever say of 1 (5m 6s): Every breath 2 (5m 7s): We could ever breathe. And we live 1 (5m 10s): For you. Holy, we 2 (5m 13s): Live for you. 0 (5m 17s): Holy. 1 (5m 19s): There is no one. You, there is not beside you up 0 (5m 28s): Eyes and 1 (5m 29s): Wonder and show 0 (5m 32s): Me who, 1 (5m 41s): Oh, Jesus, the name above every Jesus. The only one who could, could, could pray live 0 (6m 19s): You. 1 (6m 21s): We live for you. There is no one. There is of my eyes and I will build, 0 (7m 22s): Put 1 (7m 23s): My trust in. 0 (8m 4s): No, my 1 (9m 13s): Trust Christ is my firm foundation. I stand when everything around me, shaking, 0 (10m 0s): I've never 1 (10m 2s): Been more glad that 0 (10m 4s): I put my faith 1 (10m 6s): In Jesus. He's never let, so he won't, he won't. I've got these. That makes no sense. So 0 (10m 58s): He's never, 1 (11m 21s): He 0 (11m 22s): Won't, 1 (11m 26s): He won't, he won't, 0 (11m 45s): You won't 1 (11m 49s): Christ is my firm foundation. He won't, he won't. 1 (13m 12s): And with 0 (13m 23s): You 1 (13m 25s): I'm 0 (13m 42s): You 1 (13m 44s): I'm gonna save 0 (14m 0s): With you. 1 (14m 3s): I'm gonna I'm make it. I'm strong on get is rock. 0 (14m 41s): I've never 1 (14m 42s): Been more glad 0 (14m 44s): That Jesus 1 (14m 50s): Cause he's so he won't won't won't 0 (15m 14s): He won't, 1 (15m 19s): He won't, he won't. So I throw up my hands and praise you again and again. Cause all that I have is a it's for king on don't you get me lift up son. 1 (16m 24s): Cause you've got lion. Get up and praise the Lord on my well don't you get shy on me. Lift up your song. Cause you've got on, on my oh don't you get on me. Lift up your soul you've 0 (17m 8s): And 1 (17m 9s): The don't you get shy on me. Lift up your soul. You gotta lion inside of those. Get 0 (17m 26s): Up and praise the Lord 1 (17m 35s): And praise you. And again, it's all that I have is a 0 (17m 52s): I it's not, but I have nothing except for singing hall. 3 (18m 19s): Jesus, we, we, we thank you Lord that you are our rock. Our firm foundation, Lord that we look around the world. We have nothing. We, we find chaos and trouble all around us. Lord yet in you Jesus, we find a piece that just passes all understanding. We thank you, Lord. We think that we could, we can find a piece in you Lord. That just does not comfort anywhere else, Lord. So thank you for this morning to be able to gather with other believers, to, to lift up your name, to praise who you are and what you've done for us. Lord, we look to you this morning, Lord in Jesus name, we pray. Amen. Good morning, everyone. 3 (18m 59s): Good morning. 0 (18m 60s): Welcome 4 (19m 0s): Harvest church. So today is family Sunday. And for those of you who don't know every fourth, Sunday of the month, we have the first graders and up stay in service with us and we have donuts and they're out in like the side area along with tea and coffee. So please help yourselves to that. 3 (19m 21s): Yeah. Hey my name's Jeremy. I'm the youth and family pastor. And this is Kylie. One of the high school students joining us, give an announcements today. That's what's fun about family Sundays. We wanna let you know that, Hey, we are devoted to prayer at harvest church. And one of the, the areas that we meet is 8:00 AM on Sunday mornings. And we meet in the vault, the old bank vault right behind this wall. And we gather up for prayer at 8:00 AM to pray for the service to pray for the day. So if you want to feel, if you wanna join us in that, in that war room to pray for the service, to pray over the message to pray for hearts, be touched by Lord. We would love to have you join us at eight o'clock. And if it fills up that vault room and we need to move it to another place, praise the Lord 4 (20m 0s): This week, we have a really exciting family movie night. It's gonna be on Friday the 29th from six to 9:00 PM and we're gonna have two movies. One of them starts at six and for it's for like the younger kids, it's gonna be a paws and tails. And those are super fun. I remember watching them when I was a kid. And then at seven we have like a big family movie. What was it? The blue blue miracle. Yes. That is what it is. And there's gonna be snacks available. It's gonna be in the worship center, which is here and we're gonna have a big screen this time, cuz we usually have it out in the patio patio. And that was really cold. But now we have, we have a big place for it to be. 3 (20m 41s): Yeah, sweet. So that's this Friday. And then coming up on August 7th, we're gonna be having our annual beach baptism bonfire. Wait, I've got those mixed up beach, baptism, barbecue and bonfire. Not in particular in that order, we're gonna be doing baptism down at the beach. So it's gonna be from five to seven it's a Sunday evening. And so if you have not been baptized yet, that's one of the things that Jesus asked of his followers to be baptized. So that's a great place to do that. You can sign up online or you know, through a website to, Hey, I wanna be baptized. We have four people already signed up, so there's gonna be people baptized. We're gonna have some worship. And then one of my favorite things too is we have some bonfires on the beach, give you some sticks, some skewers and you get to roast up your own hotdogs. 3 (21m 25s): And s'mores, it's really fun. So join us for that. That'll be August 7th, five to 7:00 PM. But lastly, before we have Steve come up, I wanted to bring up breaker Wade. And Kylie's up here already. So as you know, as you guys know, two weeks ago, you prayed us out. We went to summer camp first. The first week was high school week and then the second was a junior high week. So we've had some students come back and I just wanted to have 'em come up and share a little bit about what, what the Lord did up there. So if you guys could tell me a little bit about your time at, at camp challenge, it's you think about summer camps? You think about wild, crazy running around. Sometimes you think of Hume lake and like 2000 students going camp challenge is a little bit more smaller of a camp. 3 (22m 9s): It's a sweet place. This is my second year taking students there. So it was a great time. But tell me a little bit about your time Gregor. 5 (22m 17s): So it was just a great time just to spend a week with a bunch of people I knew. So I was in one of the guys cabins in the high school week. I was just friends. I've known for years. I've gotten to know over the years, this has been my second year. They've made it an amazing just second and last year as I am graduating. Now I, you just feel welcome when you go is always just an amazing experience just to connect with God and just hang out in fellowship with other believers, just like you and to learn and grow in him. 3 (22m 52s): Yeah. Thanks Kelly. Tell me about your time. 4 (22m 56s): What I like about it is it's very tight knit, super like you get to meet everyone. So you never, you never feel like you come back and you wish you met someone. You wish you grew closer, cuz like you don't really have a choice. And it, it feels a lot like youth group except for like an entire week. And I really like that and we had two amazing speakers. We had Dean der and we had Mr. Lib and we had them last year and so super great to hear them speak again. And they they're both very wise, not elderly. They are wise adults and it's, it's good to hear. 4 (23m 38s): It's good to hear people speak and like hear about their testimonies. And we got a lot of good stuff out of it. 3 (23m 44s): Yeah. What was, what was your, your favorite part? 4 (23m 46s): Oh, my favorite part. I feel like you have to say something Christiany no, you don't. That was one of them that one of them 3 (23m 54s): Water, balloon fight. Could've been one of them. 4 (23m 57s): My favorite part was definitely our night devotions because like we got to meet, we got to grow closer to a lot of our friends and like gotta hear about everything. We thought about what we talked about that day. And it was, it was a lot more intimate and it was really, yeah. I felt like I got a lot closer to everyone. 3 (24m 19s): Sweet break. You wanna tell me about yours? 5 (24m 22s): I gotta say it was cabin cleanup. 3 (24m 26s): A very Christianese 5 (24m 28s): No, that was a lot of fun. We had this whole story going along, but also I really enjoyed the night hike on the last night that we stayed there. We would all go up to the top of this, the hill and we would look out at the stars and we would kind of just share our experience. And that was really great. And on the way back down, I got to have a real big heart heart conversation with Jeremy and the owner of the camp. Mr. Stanley. So 3 (24m 58s): Yeah, 5 (24m 59s): Chris, that was really amazing. 3 (25m 1s): ER, I decided he's going off to college. He gonna Cal poly. So you're staying local. Yes, but we decided we're not gonna lose contact. 5 (25m 7s): You'll see. 3 (25m 8s): We're gonna stay friends. 5 (25m 8s): Yeah. You'll see me for another four years. At least. 3 (25m 10s): Yes. Okay. Good. All right. And then did God reveal anything to you? Did you, what would you learn? What was your kind of take home? 5 (25m 19s): He revealed to me that no matter how far I wander, he's always gonna be this beacon of hope that I can always turn and look to because I was looking out at the stars on the night hike and I saw the north star and it reminded me of like, if you get lost, you can always look up into the night sky. You can find the star Polaris. It's always gonna point north and you can always find your direction from there. And it just reminded me that if I ever wander, I will always, especially with the groundwork that Jeremy has laid in my life and just the, this church here, I will always be able to look and find Jesus and everything 4 (26m 4s): We watched at camp challenge. We watched this insane video about like this it's a whole star thing and you have to watch it. What is it? It's 3 (26m 12s): Louis GIGO. How great there are, I think. 4 (26m 13s): Yeah. Yeah. How great is our God or something? How that anyway, it was like, it was so crazy and it kind of put into perspective how like how huge God is and how powerful he is and that no matter what he can make and what he can do, he still cares for us. And he still wants like a personal relationship with all of us. Yeah. So I feel like that was really meaningful. 3 (26m 37s): That was, that was an awesome video. I don't think it's easy to be a youth in this, this generation this time. How can we as a church be praying for the youth group for, for y'all, 5 (26m 49s): Especially this year, we've got a lot of new graduates that are going to be going off to college. And the college, I, I just came back from the slow days. If you get days ago for Cal poly. And I was kind of like a few days just in the life of a Cal poly student and you just get bombarded with the world. It's like, they're trying to shove stuff down your throat and just pray for the strength of all of our students that are gonna go off to college and have to endure this. Just pray that God stays strong in their lives. 4 (27m 23s): I'm yeah. I would agree with you about all the college students leaving, cuz there's a lot of close friends of ours that are leaving for college and my brother, he's going across the country to go to college. Dunno why I did that. But I think, I think we just need prayer that cuz it's literally youth group is just a bunch of kids. And so I feel like we need to pray about being welcoming to people and just very open to new people coming in because kids, especially high schoolers can like foreign little groups and it can make people feel like unwelcome and that's not what, what we want our youth group. 4 (28m 3s): Yeah. 3 (28m 3s): Yeah. Well let's pray real fast for the youth group. For, for our youth heavenly father, we lift up the youth in this generation, this world that's just, just forcing, pressing their own worldview on them. Lord, keep our students strong in, in all that you're doing in their lives or keep them strong in, in, in, in your word and in a close abiding relationship with you. Lord Jesus, thank you for the, the summer camp experience this this a couple weeks ago and, and just pray that that would remain and they would go out and they would be lights and witnesses and missionaries to their fellow students. Lord just thank you so much, Lord and Jesus. Name me pray. Amen. Amen. 3 (28m 43s): Amen. A break. Just say meet and greet time. So get up and say hi to someone around you. 8 (29m 2s): You sent your son down, set me 0 (29m 4s): Free. Everything happens 8 (29m 7s): World will 0 (29m 27s): You, you are get cue up to up you 10 (31m 27s): A break of day and hoping rise. We speak your name, lift our rise to our hearts into your beat. 9 (31m 38s): Alrighty, good morning. 10 (31m 40s): They 9 (31m 41s): Come on back. Grab your chair. Glad you got to say hello to a neighbor. It's kind of a testimony weekend. You know, yesterday we had an amazing men's breakfast and Joe Deleon gave his testimony. And man, I I've heard Joe's story before, but when he spoke yesterday, man, it was, it was powerful. He held us all kind of captive for about 30 minutes as he shared his story in just the best possible way we were all just so blessed and encouraged to hear his story. I think, I think it's important for us to know each other's story. And so I love hearing the young people up here sharing what God is doing in their lives. 9 (32m 26s): And it reminds us to be praying for them. I mean, can we remember back when we were in high school, it was, it was a little bit different than it is now and just saw my brother back here. Larry Kabong he, we were in campus for Christ ministry. Larry was the leader when we were in high school and we've known each other for all of these years. And so it's just those formative years where God is doing good stuff, wonderful stuff, eternal stuff. And, and where the enemy's working overtime to try to get us distracted and hindered and all that kind of stuff. So we just need to be remembered to praying for those guys. If you miss the breakfast, man, catch it next time. We're gonna do another one in the fall. And everybody, we had just a great team. 9 (33m 8s): Rick, our coffee guy, Rick was there at five 30 this morning on Saturday morning brewing coffee. I got there at six thinking. I'd be the first guy there. And Rick always beats everybody there so he can get the coffee brewing. And my brother was there early and Ron D was there early and Brian Healy was there early and people were setting up and you know, cooking and all kinds of stuff. And some people got there at, you know, five 30 or six and stayed till about 11 o'clock until we were all wrapped up. It was just a glorious glorious day, had a really good time. And so if you missed it yesterday, we'll do another one in the fall. It's really, really worthwhile to come out for that. It was really well attended and just really, really fun. So it was good. 9 (33m 49s): Hey, real quick announcement, Ron D pastor Ron D where's Ron D is he in the house? There he is. Pastor Ron D is retiring. Can you believe right? Whoa. Yeah, he's been threatening to retire for years. So when he came to my office, I don't know, a few months ago or six months ago or whatever it was, I don't know. He is like, Hey, I think I'm finally gonna retire. I'm like, well, duh, you've been talking about it for years. So he, Ron is go going to be and DJ they'll still be here at the church. DJ was up here helping to lead worship this morning. In fact, Ron will still be an elder. 9 (34m 29s): He'll still be preaching from time to time. In fact, he preaches in August. He's gonna retire at the end of this month, but I've already got him scheduled to preach in August and just trying to make sure the hook is still in him, you know? And so he can't get away. And then, so he'll be just still be an elder, still be serving, just won't have office hours and that sort of thing, but he'll still be available for stuff. And so we'll get a chance to bless him on August 7th. So a couple weeks from now, we'll, we'll bring him up front and pray over him and bless him as he transitions. And also Christy SWO is transitioning. So Ron's been with us for 14 years on staff and Christie's been on staff probably about the same amount of time. 9 (35m 9s): I mean just a good long stretch. And so Christie SWOS done everything from children's ministry to small group stuff to you name it. And so she's actually started, started her own company. And so she's been slowly trying to kind of transition as well. Just feeling like, man, I, I want to stay connected to harvest, but I feel like this other stuff has kind of drawn me as well. So I wouldn't let her quit for months for year. I think it's been a couple years. I just said, no, you cannot leave. You cannot leave. And so she's been super gracious and patient with me as I've just said no. And then finally she's like, no, I really need to now. So I'm like, whatever. Okay. So she's wrapping up at the end of this month as well. 9 (35m 49s): And so we're gonna honor both of them on August 7th. So if you'd like to write letters or send them a note, we'd like to, you know, give them a little love on their way out. And again, the SWOS are staying, the DS are staying. No one's leaving. They're just not gonna be like on staff anymore. So we'll be blessing them as they head out and, and it'll be really, really good. Hey, just as a, a note, some people have asked, Hey, how do we pay for all this? Cuz we initially said it was gonna be, you know, a couple hundred thousand. And it swelled when I say this, this worship center, we took over a year renovating this space and we went into it kind of ignorantly about what it was gonna take. 9 (36m 30s): And if we do it again and we will do it again, we'll do another project down the road because I think we'll always be about projects, but we'll actually get some better information before we actually jump into it. And so you kinda learn things along the way. We've always been renovating buildings, you know, from the beginning. And so you kind of think, you know what to expect, but then you get into a, you know, a project like this that's and we were just, we had no idea what to expect. And, and so the, the price went from like a couple, two or 300,000 up to 700, we've got $750,000 into this place. And so a boatload of money. So along the way we raised like, I don't know, a few hundred thousand. And so we got an SBA alone to, to pay for the rest of it. So it's a two and three quarter percent SBA loan. 9 (37m 13s): That's paid back over 20 years and 30 years, something like that. And we get, you know, two years before we even start paying for it. So people have been asking, that's how we paid, made up the like $450,000 lack that was there. So, you know, we just, we did what we felt like we needed to do by God's grace. And we, we calculated the risk as elders. I gotta get rid of this mint, you know, it's, it's like making my throat grab, I'll put that in the back pocket. I'll save that for second service. If you need a mint, I got, I got in my throat's like grabbing, all right, get a comic relief there. 9 (37m 57s): Here we go. All right. Anyway. So as elders, you know, we don't make any decisions unless there's like agreements unanimous agreement with our elder team. And so if anybody on the team says, Hey, I just don't feel like that's a good decision. We just shelve it or table it or never come back to it or come back to it later. And so just so you know, that's kind of, that's how decisions are made, whether it's, you know, staff decisions or building decisions, any kind of financial decisions like that, as well as spiritual decisions. So that's kind of, what's been going on behind the scenes to get, get this project done. And so anyway, people have been wondering, and I just like to be completely candid about everything that's going on. 9 (38m 46s): So if you've got any questions about anything, you know, don't all come to me because I can't answer everybody's questions, but it's a, we really have an open door policy. Like if you have questions, ask an elder, ask a staff member, ask somebody to get your questions answered. I, some people have been kind of frustrated that we haven't come forward with that information, but nobody's been asking. And so maybe we should have just proactively just done that. But anyway, so yeah, now we're being, you know, if you've been here at any for any length of time, you know that we'll tell you whatever you want to know, and we try to be proactive about information everything's, you know, available to everybody. 9 (39m 34s): So anyway, so that's just kind of the deal. And so don't don't if you got any questions, just pull us aside and ask and I've heard some people say I'm not gonna tithe until I get those answers. And somebody says, well, have you asked the question? They say, Nope, I'm just not gonna, you know, that's just silly. Let's just, you know, so first of all, tithing is a or giving is an of worship to the Lord. So you're saying I'm not gonna give because I don't have the answers. Well then you're just saying, I'm not gonna honor the Lord with my resources. I'm choosing not to do that. Some people say I'm not gonna serve until I get answers. Well then, you know, with service is just an of worship to the Lord, you know? So God has given us gifts and talents and so use your gifts and talents. 9 (40m 17s): And if you get the answers that you're seeking and you don't like the answers, you know, you can do two of, one of two things. You can, you know, have conversation with us and we can agree to, to disagree, or you can just extend grace to us because boy, we, we need, we need grace or you can go to another imperfect church cuz there's imperfect churches everywhere. And we're at the front of that line of imperfect, imperfect churches. And so, but don't do that, just, you know, just extend grace where we needed grace. And that's just the kingdom thing that God's called us to do and love us. And we'll love you, you know, just that kind of thing. Don't, don't withhold your giving, not be, I mean, honestly, if you don't want to give, don't give, don't give cuz God wants a joyful cheerful giver. 9 (41m 8s): And so as the song we were singing says, you know, our hope is in Jesus, our, we, we never planted a church or anything based on, you know, how many dollars we can get in the offing box or anything like that. We just say, Hey, we feel like the Lord's leading us. And so we're gonna do this by faith and everything we do is, is by faith. And so if you want to give greats, if you don't want to give don't because God wants its cheerful giver. So don't give under compulsion, just give because you feel like your heart's full and you want to honor the Lord with your resources. And then if you don't wanna do that, hold on it, please just hold onto it. And cuz God's, God's in charge of this whole deal. 9 (41m 51s): You can't go 19 years. And of all the stuff that we've gone through without God being at the helm, you know? So, so we love you no matter what you do, because that's just what we do by God's grace. We try to love people and serve people. And so do whatever you want to do. As long as the Lord is leading you. And, and you know, that's kind of my little soap box there and we'll get into James chapter four and we'll just see what the Lord does as we get into James chapter four, happy family Sunday. So because it's family Sunday, as you know, we typically do a joke or something, but I've got some statements. So when asked some kids when asked, you know about stories in the old and the new Testament, kids offered these answers and these are unedited answers and statements. 9 (42m 44s): So the first one is Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. So that's the kids' perspective. Noah's wife was Joan of art, right? Noah built in arc and the animals came on in PS, PE a R S. They came, they pairs kids, you know, unedited the greatest miracle in the Bibles when Joshua told his son to stand still and he obeyed him, kids kinda get the stories, a little big stuff. David was a Hebrew king who was skilled at playing the liar. He fought the Finklestein, a race of people who lived in biblical times, right? 9 (43m 28s): Solomon, one of David's son had 300 wives and 700 porcupines. Yeah. Feels a uncomfortable. I dunno Jesus was born because Mary had an immaculate contraption, Saint John, the blacksmith dumped water on his head and Jesus, unsedated the golden rule which says to do unto others before they do one to you. He also explained to man death not live by sweat alone. So kid's perspective on the Bible, the old and the new Testament. 9 (44m 8s): It's good stuff. Funny stuff. Let's jump into Hebrew chapter or excuse me, James chapter four. We're asking the question. How do we align our lives with God? And it's important that we align our lives with God. When I think about alignment, I think about my truck. You know, if my truck is out of alignment, what happens? My tires begin to wear unevenly. I don't break as effectively. The steering can sometimes shake and get all wobbly. Everything just kind of begins to go south. When your alignment on your car is not right. What happens when your alignment in your life is not right? Well, it's a lot of the same things happen. Our life begins to get a little crazy unnecessary wear and tear on our lives from well from resisting God, because if we're choosing not to align our lives with God, with his word, then there's stress and unnecessary wear and tear. 9 (45m 6s): There's an inability for, for, in our lives, from not having a, a clear direction. There's an inability to make wise choices because we just don't have a lot of clarity about, well, about who we are about who we're trusting and the direction of life that we're taking. But when we're aligning our lives with God, we're saying, God, my life is all yours. All, all parts of it. Every part of it, my life is yours. When we're not aligned though, there's a constant movement to the right. And then to the left, due to a double-minded approach to life and decision making. So we're kind of all over the road. 9 (45m 47s): There's a general sense of IRRI irritability due to an internal conflict concerning life. So you just, you can't, there's just this wrestling match inside. When we haven't decided like I've talked about this the last couple weeks, we have to decide who we are and who we're going to serve. We have to make this decision. And when we haven't fully made the decision, there's this battle inside of us. And the result is just some kind of irritability because we're not fully committed to the Lord, but we're not fully committed to the world. And so we're just kind of tossed to and throw double minded unstable in all our ways. 9 (46m 27s): And James chapter four, I love James because he just kind of nails his points and speaks directly, which I really appreciate it. And James chapter four versus 11 through 17 and our opening verse this morning, James is addressing the way in which beliefs are speaking to and about one another. So he's addressing the tongue again. Remember James chapter three, we talked about this a few weeks ago. James was addressing the tongue, the power of the tongue, the impact of the way that we use the words and the way that we speak to people, let's say go James, four 11. He says, don't speak evil. 9 (47m 8s): Don't so he speaking of the, the tongue, he's addressing the tongue again. So there must have been an issue there as it is probably in this culture and in this century and in this community and in this church, there's probably just things that we need to get under control in the way that we address people. And the way that that we speak to people, James is saying, don't speak evil against each other. Dear brothers and sisters. What does that mean? Who is he speaking to? He's speaking to the church, right? Brothers and sisters and the Lord. So he's not speaking to the world. He's speaking to us, to believers. People who say, Hey, I'm a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. 9 (47m 50s): I am, I am God's kid. And I'm following him. He's saying, Hey, dear brothers and sisters, don't, don't speak evil against each other. He says, if you criticize and judge each other, then you're criticizing and judging God's law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge, whether it applies to you. So this verse is actually speaking to any form of speaking against someone else. You say, well, that person deserves it. Well, this verse is actually addressing it. We there's plenty of things that we can complain about and critique people about and they deserve it and blah, blah. 9 (48m 31s): And, but James is challenging us to approach things differently in life that we might speak the truth and love everything that God has called us to do. And we, when we confront people so that they might be edified. So they might, they might be built up when Jesus was challenging, the religious leaders, it was to call them out of their darkness, into his glorious light. So it wasn't to condemn them, but to pull them out of darkness. And so when our, when we're complaining and grumbling about people, we're often we're doing it to the wrong person. We're not doing it directly to the person like we're supposed to. We're supposed to go directly. 9 (49m 10s): So Perry, if I have issue with you, what do I do? I go directly to you. I don't talk to David about her Mary about it, because that won't do any good. It just pollutes their perspective about Perry. So what do I do? I just go to Perry. Hey, Perry, let's talk. And as brothers in the Lord, we talk. And usually when there's issues, it's been just a big, old fat misunderstanding. And when we extend grace to one another and our heart is to reconcile and to be building our brother and sister up and the Lord, we can speak with a tender heart, with compassion, with grace, with kindness, with an expectation of good and not evil. 9 (49m 51s): So we've got a responsibility. It's a hard road because it's so much easier to talk to David about Perry than to talk about Perry with Perry. And I got no issues with Perry Perry's my brother has been for decades and we'll be forever and ever amen into eternity. Right? Right. We'll be celebrating forever and ever. So the idea is, Hey, let's just extend grace to one another. And if you need to talk to get things, some things cleared up, just go directly to that person. Don't come to me complaining about somebody else. Don't go to somebody else complaining about me, just come directly, directly and talk to us. Don't speak evil. 9 (50m 32s): Don't speak evil. When a person breaks this, we'll call it the law of love or any law for that matter. That person, places themselves above the law. When we disobey the laws of God, we're actually placing ourselves above that law. And we're actually judging that law as unimportant and unnecessary. What law, what might we be talking about? Well, Leviticus, 1918 in part says, love your neighbor as yourself. So we can't love our neighbor if we're speaking evil about our neighbor. And so I say this almost every week, everything that God requires of us expects of us, asks of us, requires his supernatural power and grace to get it done. 9 (51m 22s): So, man, when you're struggling with somebody, you just need to say, Lord, I, I either need to extend grace and just forgive this person, forgive this offense. Or I just need to go to them with grace and humility and try to work it out with the expectation that we're gonna work this thing out because it's clearly a misunderstanding, there's something going on. But when someone decides to speak evil of a brother or sister, that person has essentially judged that that law is irrelevant and declares that he or she is above the law, that kind of puts things in a whole different perspective. When we're disobedient, when we're rebelling against God's word, we're actually dis we're saying in our heart, Hey, this law, it's this way. 9 (52m 10s): It's irrelevant. And I'm actually above it. I can do kind of whatever I want to do. Theologians agree. The specific grammatical construction use here usually forbids the continuation of a practice already in progress. So James, his readers had fallen into the habit of criticizing one another. And so he says, stop speaking against one another there's these things are habitual. I mean, we can fall into this habit of just kind of grumbling and complaining about people and, and kind of speaking harshly about people, judging people. And, and this became kind of the pattern within the early church. 9 (52m 52s): And so James addresses, it says, stop, stop, stop speaking, evil against one another. Those who do so place themselves again, above the law and by their actions, declare that, that law to be a bad and unnecessary statute. So rather than submitting and keeping it, they pass judgements judgment on its validity and set it aside. Whoa, ah, I don't stick in your crawl because as we read the word, we sometimes read it and ignore it. We pass judgment on it. We say, it's not valid for me, valid for everybody else, but it's not valid for me. 9 (53m 33s): I'm not gonna do it. I, I'm not interested in doing it. Listen, our job is not to decide if we will obey the law, the laws of God, our job is plain and simple to obey the laws of God, the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Now there are three different, at least three different types of law, especially in the old Testament. There is ceremonial law, civil law, and then there's moral law. And so the Bible's broken down and we see different types of law. And so we're gonna ask the question today. 9 (54m 13s): What laws in the Bible are we still required to follow? Are we still required to follow the ceremonial laws we're gonna find out? Are we still required to follow the civil laws? What we're gonna find out? What about the moral laws? Are we still required to follow the moral laws? Let's find out ceremonial civil moral. So the ceremonial laws con gov concerned gov Israel's worship of God. Ceremonial laws were ways in which God outlined a path forward. So that sinners, the Bible says that all have sin and fall short of God's glorious standard. 9 (54m 56s): So ceremonial laws were instituted so that the people of God could have their sins forgiven covered. So that's where the sacrificial came. Sacrificial system came into place. God said, well is told us though, wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our Lord, we see in the old Testament and the new Testament that, that, that the wages of Senate's death, we see it in Genesis two 17. It says, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. 9 (55m 39s): Where are we talking? We're in the garden, right? The beginning, right? For in that day, you eat of it. You shall Shirley die, ultimate physical death, but spiritual death separation from God. That's the result of sin. Proverbs 11, 19 says whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live, but he pursues evil will die. The wages of sin is death. We see that in Romans 6 23 in the king James version for the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our Lord. So the SAC sacrificial system was God's way of dealing with sin in the world. 9 (56m 22s): God allowed sacrifices to be made to atone for the sins of people. The atonement was sufficient for a season, but this system, these ceremonial laws ended when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, for all humanity, Jesus became the final sacrifice. He became the final sacrifice, making atonement for the sins of humanity, all the ceremonial and sacrificial laws pointed to and were fulfilled by Christ on the cross. How did we know? Because we, what we just talked about this in Hebrews nine, a little bit, Hebrews nine, 11 through 14 says, so Christ has now become the high priest over all the good things that have come. 9 (57m 11s): He has entered that greater, more perfect tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world with his own blood, with his own blood, not the blood of goats and calves. He entered the most holy place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. Under the old system, the blood of goats and bowls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people's bodies from ceremonial impurities. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deed so that we can worship the living God for, by the power of the eternal spirit. 9 (57m 53s): Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sin. So now when Jesus declared it is finished on the cross, it is finished. All the ceremonial laws were rendered null and void. So as we look at the old Testament and we read about ceremonial laws, null, and void, because of Jesus, he offered himself as the final sacrifice, the atonement for us, for the world, so that we might know the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. So we don't follow the ceremonial laws because Jesus followed and fulfilled all of them for us. So anybody, anytime, any place can come to God through Jesus Christ. 9 (58m 37s): That's the beauty of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So ceremonial civil, the civil laws brought order to the nation of Israel. There were guidelines for the people of Israel to live in Palestine in that day, in that nation, the civil law deals mainly with relationships between individuals, the settling of disputes and the description of proper behavior. There is now there's value in the civil laws, but we're not obligated to obey the civil laws of God. There's value in really all of, all of the laws. And if we understand the deeper meanings of these laws, they typically point us to Jesus or cause us, or call us to a place of greater purity and sanctification that we might be set apart as followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. 9 (59m 32s): So there's, there's value in, in a lot of these laws, but we're not required or obligated to obey the civil laws of God. So here's couple examples of civil law. Deuteronomy 22, 1 through four says, if you see your neighbor's ox or sheep or goat wandering away, don't ignore your responsibility. Take it back to its owner. Who's got a ox, who's got a sheep. I've got, I've got goats. Who's got goats. A lot of us have goats, right? We can see how in this culture, a lot of this stuff doesn't make sense. If it's owner does not live nearby, or you don't know who the owner is, take it to your place and keep it until the owner comes looking for it. 9 (1h 0m 18s): Then you must return it. Do the same. If you find your neighbor's donkey, who's got a donkey. Somebody's gotta have a donkey, right? No donkeys represented in the whole. So, so do the same. If you find your neighbor's donkey or clothing or anything else, your neighbor loses. Don't ignore your responsibility. If you see that your neighbor's donkey or ox has collapsed on the road, do not look the other way, go and help your neighbor, get it back on its feet. So these are some of the civil laws that were spoken about in the old Testament. These are civil laws that might also be considered moral laws. There's some morality that we see in some of these laws. Like if your friend is kind of broken down on the side of the road, what do you do? 9 (1h 1m 1s): Or if anybody's broken down on the side of the road, what do you do? You stop? Like, it's a, it's the story of the good Samaritan, right? You stop, right? So may not be, you know, as animal that's broken down, but it's cars, bike or whatever. So there's a deeper sense of understanding when we really think about these laws, got us calling us to love one another and serve one another and be considerate of one another. So one more example, example of a civil law Leviticus, 1935 through 36, do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or volume. How are things sold based on their measurements, length, weight, or volume, your scales and weights must be accurate. 9 (1h 1m 47s): Your containers for measuring dry materials or liquids must be accurate. I'm I'm the Lord, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt. So God is declaring his Lordship and his leadership and their lives. And you saying, Hey, be fair with one another. So this is a civil law. That's got some morality behind it. Don't cheat one another, don't be a liar and cheat. So it's perfect for the civil laws for the people of God, but it's also so applicable. Now God wants us to, to love one another. We don't demonstrate love for one another when we're cheating one another, when we're being scoundrels and lying. 9 (1h 2m 29s): So there's ceremonial and civil, and then there's moral laws, the moral laws based on the character of God and extends from old, from the old and into the new Testament, therefore, as it was wrong to lie in the old Testament, is it still wrong to lie in the new Testament? Absolutely. Yeah, it's a no-brainer right. So if you see a law repeated in the new Testament, it's usually a moral law that we're required to walk in and to obey. So we've got these responsibilities recorded for us in scripture. And sometimes it's confusing because we look at the ceremonial laws or the civil laws, and we think, are we still, are we still obligated and responsible? 9 (1h 3m 14s): We're not. There's value in all of the word of God from Genesis to revel, there's value there, but we need to be careful in understanding what we are responsible to. OHEY like many of the 10 commandments prohibitions against stealing an adultery and coveting transcend time and space, right? Jesus fulfills the moral law by his perfect righteousness. Every he boy, he lives, sinlessly fulfilling the law of God. And then he was sacrificed for us crucified for us as the perfect lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. 9 (1h 3m 56s): Jesus fulfilled the moral law by his perfect righteousness. Every commandment, he obeyed every requirement he met. He lived up to every standard. He lived perfectly there by satisfying the law of God. The law of God is written so that we might realize our desperate need for the grace of God sounds that we can work harder so that we can understand the character of God. And so that in understanding the character of God, we can see our own flawed lives and recognize that no matter how hard we try, because the Bible says, if you break one part of the law, you're guilty of breaking all of the law and we're all born into sin. 9 (1h 4m 39s): We're, we're sinners by nature and we're sinner by choice. And so we need the grace and the mercy of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Jesus was asked about the law and he made a very clear point when he answered Matthew 2236 through 40, he said, teacher says teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses religious leaders. Trying to find a loophole, trying to trick Jesus, trying to trip him up. And Jesus replied, you must love the Lord, your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Hmm. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself, the entire law, the entire law, and all the demands of the profits are based on these two commandments, the entire law and all of the requirements of the profits, the demands of the profit. 9 (1h 5m 30s): They hang here. If we do this, if we love each other and love Jesus will do great, will do great. Jesus declared that the two most important laws are clear. Love God and love others. This moral law transcends time. Doesn't matter if we're a hundred years from now, or if we go back in time, a thousand or 5,000 years, the law is the same. We are obligated to obey the moral laws of God. There's value again, some of the other laws, but the new Testament requires that we simply obey the law of Christ, which is love God and love others. 9 (1h 6m 12s): It's all encompassing love. God love others. Again, the entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. So when James writes, don't speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters, is this a direct, is this directive consistent with what Jesus said are the two most important commandments? Is it consistent? Of course it is speaking evil of each other. Why? Because that's not the loving gracious way. Now we're called to speak the truth in love. Meaning again, that our heart in speaking the truth is for redemption redemptive purposes for reconciliation purposes, to build somebody up, to help them come along and come in their faith as followers of Lord Jesus, to, to express love and grace to them so that they might come out of their place of deception, evil. 9 (1h 7m 12s): What's evil. Let's just speak to speak against someone. So let's unpack that word incriminate or to charge with a crime to introduce or to criticize disparage or malign. None of these words describe a positive exchange, but only negative and hurtful. So James three, seven and 10, as a reminder, James had said this earlier, and he's kind of touching on it again. He said, people contain all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but no one contain the tongue. It's a restless and it's a restless and evil full of deadly poison. Sometimes it praises our Lord and father. And sometimes it curses. Those who have been made in the image of God. 9 (1h 7m 54s): And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely my brothers and sisters, this is not right. So he is nailing us about how we're speaking. It's an indication out of the abundance of the heart. The mouth speaks what's going on in our hearts begins to spill out of our mouths. And so we need to make sure that our hearts are set apart, consecrated pure. So that means we're just always making the choice to extend grace to one another, to expect the best from people to love people, to pray for people. When you wanna get angry about somebody, just begin to pray for them. 9 (1h 8m 36s): Just pray. God's grace and blessing and peace upon them. Somebody cut you off on the road. You say Jesus name. I bless that person. I ask that you would cover them and fill them with your goodness. And with your love when you're fighting with your spouse, Jesus bless them, right? When there's disagreement, Lord bless them. Everything that God calls us to do is direct its indirect contrast to the world. The world will tell you, go after 'em be angry. You got a right to be angry. They, they did you wrong. Who cares? Right? Jesus is being executed. 9 (1h 9m 21s): Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Lord help that person. They're obviously hurting. They're they're they're lashing out at me. They gotta be hurting inside. Lord help me to be gracious with them and be patient with them. I've done it Lord. And I, I feel like that's what's happening here. I just want to extend grace. Lord. I want to grow in my ability to love that person, Lord and, and serve that person and be humble with that person. Lord, show me what that looks like. God, I don't boy, anger just causes a cancer within our souls, man. It just tears us up from the inside out. 9 (1h 10m 2s): And we're just our accountant shows it. You know, my BA when my grand babies are born, they're they're helpless. Right? And so I love to take their little brow and push it down and it makes em look angry, right? And I say, why are you so angry? Little guy. I did it yesterday with Theo. I do with all the kids as they get older, you can't do it as much. You know, because they resist. I don't know why they resist, but so you play. But our accountants as Christian sometimes looks like somebody's going, you know, pushing our, our foreheads down. We look just all constipated or something. It's not good. It's not good, man. Relax in Jesus name, extend grace in Jesus name and watch what God will do to set your life free, to free up in your heart and your mind. 9 (1h 10m 51s): And man, you'll just all of a sudden have just this fresh unexplainable, joy and peace. It's contrary to what the world will tell you to do. Don't do what the world tells you to do. It'll lead you yesterday every time. Do what the Bible says to do, do what God's called you to do. James four 12 got alone who gave the law is the judge. He alone has the power to saver to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor? Everything that makes us angry is it's based in judgment, right? Like that person should be living differently. I don't like what that person is doing or how that person spends his time or her time. I don't like it. 9 (1h 11m 31s): So I'm judging right? Judging their lives. I, I, I have a hard enough time just get my own life. Right? When I start trying to judge and figure out somebody's somebody else's life. I mean, everybody's going through such hard stuff. So we don't know why they're doing what they're doing. People, people are getting diagnosed with sick cancer and sickness and all kinds of stuff. Chronic stuff is con people are people's. Marriages are struggling. People's relationships are tough. People with this economy, everybody's strap financially. There's just so many hard things going on. If we can just extend grace to one another, our job is not to judge our neighbor. 9 (1h 12m 15s): Now, sometimes we speak the truth in love. If we see a brother going off and say, man, I, I see that you're making this bad decision, but it's not a not meant to be condemning. It's meant, meant to be like, I'm throwing you a lifeline. I love you so much. I want you to come out of this mess that you're making of your life. It's it's, it's meant to be done in love. You will be able to love your neighbor. As you love God with all your heart, soul strength and mind. This is how you begin to love your neighbor. When you decide I'm gonna love God with everything, heart, soul, strength, mind when God becomes your priority and you make him your priority in every area of your life, you will figure out how to then love others effectively. 9 (1h 13m 0s): So how, how do we align our lives with God? Number one, we must love God. And we must love our neighbor. You want to align your life with God. You gotta start loving people. You have to, you gotta start loving God wholeheartedly with everything that is within you. How do we align our lives with God? Number one, we must love God. And we must love others. This is God's moral law for his follower. So you're wondering what laws to obey do this. And you're you're you're you're gonna be good, James, four 13. Let's continue. Look here. You who say today or tomorrow, we're going to a certain town and we'll stay there a year. 9 (1h 13m 40s): We will do business there and make a profit. How do you know? How do you know, how do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog. It's here a little while. And then it's gone. What you ought to say is if the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that. Otherwise you're boasting about your own pretentious plans and all such boasting is evil. How do we align our lives with God? We gotta, we gotta love God. We gotta love others. Number one, number two, we must submit all of our plans to God. We gotta submit all of our plans to God. 9 (1h 14m 21s): We are born again, followers of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And we're born into a new life with new priorities, new perspective, new Lordship, new leadership in our lives. And so that means everything is at the altar at the foot of the cross. And so we're saying, Lord, whatever you want to do with all my life, it's totally up to you. And so you just begin to be prayerful about everything, not about the color of socks that you wear. Cause I've got some really cool socks on today. These are Lexus socks. These are a gift for my son. Where is he? Right there. Gave me Lexus socks. Maybe I'll get a Lexus. Someday reminds me of my, my mother-in-law her husband Marv was asking for a Rolex. You know, he was like, I just want a Rolex. 9 (1h 15m 1s): And he's like, you know, 75 or 70 or whatever he was. And so she thinks it's funny. She gets in a Rolex box, wraps it up and there's no Rolex inside. So its this box and she thinks it's funny, but it's not funny for anybody. Right. It's funny for her, but there's an empty Rolex box, right? You're like all my dreams have go. No. So a few years later she bought 'em a Rolex and there we go. What does that have to do with, I don't know what that has to do. Oh, you don't have to pray about the color of your socks. Right. But man, you're praying about most everything about financial investments, about where do I put my money, Lord, what do I do? 9 (1h 15m 43s): I move? Do I buy this? Do I, how do I treat my, my wife? How do I live in relationship with my coworkers? And you know, the Bible says pray without ceasing. So you're just praying without ceasing. You're just always prayerful. And so even when up, up here preaching, I'm praying. I'm like, Lord, help me to get this across. Lord help me to be humble when I'm preaching, Lord help me to be clear in my preaching. So we're just praying all of the time when I'm in a counseling session, Lord, I have no idea what to say, but you do. So give me words, Lord. Like when we're in any given scenario or situation, we're just prayerful and asking for the Lord to direct us. And he'll direct us by the peace that we have as we open our hearts and avail our plans to him, which Lord lead me. 9 (1h 16m 27s): I, I need peace and wisdom about this direction. So about everything. You're just praying about it. You're just asking the Lord. You're just bringing him into the fat middle of your whole life. And there's nothing excluded your relationship. Should I date this person? Should I marry this person? You really need to be asking God about those things, right? You know, whatever the case is, God will speak grace and wisdom and truth into your life. Not because he's trying to keep something good from you, but he is trying to give you the best possible life that you can have in him. And so he wants to give you wise counsel, he wants to help you understand the right path. And so you open up the word and say, Lord, how do I apply this in this situation? It's very difficult. 9 (1h 17m 7s): Well, you won't be able to apply it unless you just allow the holy spirit to fill your life and to give you the wisdom that you need. We gotta submit all of our plans to God, all of them like everything. Again, not this God doesn't care about your socks. I don't think, but he cares about most everything else in your life. Like how many kids should we have? You know, you know, should we take this vacation or is this really a good time to do that? Should we spend the money? Is it wise? Is it gonna be good for our family? What's you know, just asking the Lord for wisdom, like, like having the faith of a little child, believing that when we ask God is actually listening and he's wanting to direct us. 9 (1h 17m 52s): And so we need to get childlike in our faith. Sometimes we, we feel all grown up and we, we can make our own decisions. Don't buy into that lie of the world. Man, don't buy into that. You need the grace of God. We all do. We need the, the wisdom of God, the word of God to direct our path. So if you want to align your life properly with God, you've gotta bring him into the fat middle of your life. We, we gotta submit all of our plans to God. And so that means we do what he asks us to do. James four 17, the last verse in our day, our study here today, James four 17 says, remember it is sin. Do you know what you ought to do? And then not do it. 9 (1h 18m 32s): It's sin to know what yacht to do and then not do it. So loving God, loving your neighbor, no law against that. No sin in that, just do that. Submitting our, all of our plans to the Lord, meanings, listening and obey, doing what he's asked you to do. It's a sin to know what you ought to do, and then don't do it. So that's a sin that's gonna contaminate your life. And so number three, we must repent of our disobedience. We must repent of our disobedience. Remember in second King's chapter 22, we talked about it a couple weeks ago with Josiah king Josiah. He's eight years old when he becomes king and he's rebuilding the temple, refurbishing the temple and they come upon the word of the Lord and the, the word of the Lord is read to him. 9 (1h 19m 22s): And he's distraught. Second King's 2211. When the king heard what was written in the book of the law, he tore his clothes in despair. He tore his clothes, despair. He responded with repentance second King's 2213. This is why he responded. We have not, this is what he said. We have not been doing everything. It says we must do. So he is looking at the law and saying, I'm not aligning my life as a leader. And as a nation, we're not aligning our lives with everything that God asked us to do. And so he's renting his clothes. He's ripping his clothes, a sign of brokenness and contrition. 9 (1h 20m 2s): But Joel, two 13, I was reading Joel this week and it says, don't tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead. Oh, like we're talking deep work of God in our lives needs to happen, right? No, just tear your clothes. You know, that's his first step, but man, let your heart break open. When you hear the, the word of the Lord and let him do what he wants to do. He don't tear your clothing and your grief, but tear your hearts instead return to the Lord. You're God, this is real repentance. Repentance means I'm. I was doing that, heading that direction. Now I'm heading the opposite direction. It's like, I've changed my mind. It's not like, I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep doing it. It's like, I'm sorry. I'm never doing that again. 9 (1h 20m 43s): That's repentance. It's not repentance. If it's like, ah, I got caught, busted. Forgive me, Lord. And the next day you keep going after it. That's not repentance return to the Lord. Your God for he is me merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfeeling love. He's eager to relent and not punish. Isn't that the goodness of God, man, it's fun to align your life with God because the grace and mercy and the, the adventure of doing that, trusting him. It's a faith journey. Everything we do in this life as believers is a faith journey showed up early yesterday morning. And Rick's like, how many guys are we gonna show up for breakfast? How many guys are showing up? I said, Rick, I, I have no idea. It's always a faith journey. 9 (1h 21m 24s): Whenever we do anything, we're just gonna get ready, put out a spread and bless whoever shows up. That's the deal. It's just all by faith. You know, let your life be marked by faith. Joy filled faith, obedience, the love of God for others and for the Lord, just keep short accounts to the Lord. Just keep repenting of anything that you're made aware of. You say something you shouldn't have said, Lord, I'm sorry. You said it's your spouse. Ah, I'm sorry, babe. Right? Whatever the case may be. Just keep short accounts, align your life with God. And then the unnecessary wear and tear in your life will just begin to dissipate. 9 (1h 22m 4s): There'll be peace. You know the shaking of the steering wheel from a bad alignment and that your life will just begin to smooth out, man. Not perfect. Not without issues, but man, there's peace and joy because you know, you've made, you made God the Lord, the leader of your life. And so with that, let's go ahead and stand up. We're gonna worship and bite the team up and, and then we'll get outta here. Lord. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. As the team comes up, who got something out of this message today? Good. Tell me what you got Jim. What'd you get outta the message. Speak it loud so everybody can hear you. 9 (1h 22m 44s): Oh, 11 (1h 22m 45s): Praise the Lord. Just 9 (1h 22m 47s): What I'm do. Okay. Okay. Who else? Who wants to who? Who's got something like a nugget, a nugget, a nugget. Go ahead, Marilyn. Forgive and move on. Forgive and move on. Marilyn. Say I'm I'm I'm forgiven and moving on. Get, move on. Shut your mouth about other people. All right. Forget. Move on. Shut your mouth about other people. What else? What else? That's good wisdom. I think that might yes. Yeah. Just the 12 (1h 23m 11s): Simplicity of 13 (1h 23m 13s): Love. God 9 (1h 23m 13s): And love others. Yeah. That's all. It's the simplicity of love God and love others. We want to complicate things and try to know everything. And under what else? 12 (1h 23m 24s): Guard 9 (1h 23m 25s): Your tongue. Right? What else? Brian? What'd you learn? Same thing. Same thing. Yeah. Chris, what'd you get 12 (1h 23m 35s): Two short 9 (1h 23m 36s): Accounts. Short accounts. There we go. Mike what'd you get 12 (1h 23m 39s): Two 9 (1h 23m 39s): Commandments. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's let's remember. Let's let's grab, hold of the truth. That is communicated on a Sunday morning. No matter who's doing it. And just maybe write it down in your Bible or your journal and say I'm doing this slogan. What'd you get? 12 (1h 23m 55s): I got the love like loving the, your neighbor and loving, loving the Lord. Like we know to do that. Yeah. And that we can't just go home and sit on the couch and not do that. 9 (1h 24m 8s): Right. Have to 12 (1h 24m 9s): Be proactively loving 9 (1h 24m 12s): Others. Yeah. Not 12 (1h 24m 13s): To 9 (1h 24m 14s): Do it. Yeah. Doug what'd you get 14 (1h 24m 18s): Listening to God and obey what he says. Like when you're angry, God will speak to you at that moment. And he just, you need to repent. Yeah. Turn around at 9 (1h 24m 30s): That time. Yeah. Listening to God in obey, repent, turn around. Do some business with the Lord Linda in the back. What'd you get? I knew. Well it's because you're my family and I'm gonna Linda's my sister's mother-in-law so there we go. Extended family. Go ahead. Linda, speak loud. So we can all hear you. 13 (1h 24m 51s): The secret to joy in the Lord is to follow that 9 (1h 24m 55s): Command. Yes. You 13 (1h 24m 57s): Can't have joy. 2 (1h 24m 58s): If you're holding onto other things, 12 (1h 25m 0s): You have 13 (1h 25m 1s): To move forward in 9 (1h 25m 2s): Business. The secret to joy in the Lord is honoring that command. You gotta love God. I love others. You got joy. That follows joys. That is part of that decision. Lord. Thank you. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for teaching us. We love you. Let's worship and spirit in truth. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. 2 (1h 25m 45s): I just want the name of Jesus. Oh, every heart and every mind. Cause I know there is peace within your presence. I speak Jesus. I just want to speak the name of Jesus to every dog. Addiction starts to pray. Declaring. There is hope and there is free. 2 (1h 26m 29s): I Jesus, 0 (1h 26m 35s): Your 2 (1h 26m 36s): Name 0 (1h 26m 36s): Is, 2 (1h 26m 39s): Is your 0 (1h 27m 3s): Just wanna 2 (1h 27m 4s): Speak the name of Jesus 0 (1h 27m 9s): Over anxiety. 2 (1h 27m 16s): Every soul, 0 (1h 27m 30s): Your name drive 2 (1h 27m 44s): Through 0 (1h 27m 44s): T

In this episode, we welcome Angad Guglani, Founder and Principal at Cooper Square Acquisitions. He built his portfolio by utilizing the BRRRR method and was making 6 figures before he even hit 20 years old. Today, he reveals his strategies for success, how he's taking on bigger value-add deals with an in-house construction team, and why it's his goal to buy small businesses. He also digs deep into the impact of inflation on real estate and the opportunities in the horizon for the industry.   [00:01 - 03:23] An Early Start in Real Estate   Angad on buying his first house at 16 Succeeding with the BRRRR method   [03:24 - 15:14] Building A Vertically Integrated Company Why he's acquiring boutique multifamily buildings They require less rehabs than single-family homes Forming a construction team in-house  Handling historic rehabs with a 23-people team The challenge now is finding labor Angad's goal for his company: organic growth Is the BRRRR method dying? His perspective on the current market Rents may keep pace or exceed inflation The tenants are still the most important thing   [15:15 - 18:10] Investing in Businesses What are businesses worth investing in according to Angad Real estate vs. business investment   [18:11 - 19:21] Closing Segment Reach out to Angad!  Links Below Final Words Tweetable Quotes   “If inflation keeps ripping the way it is, the rents… hopefully they keep pace with inflation.  In the past have exceeded inflation, right?” - Angad Guglani   “I like to review all the applications myself before approving them… A great tenant can make a terrible property an amazing deal.” - Angad Guglani   “That's a beautiful thing about real estate is, at the end of the day,  people need a place to live.” - Angad Guglani   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Angad! Visit the Cooper Square Acquisitions website or email him at ag@cooperacq.com.     Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on.  Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Angad Guglani: When you're buying a piece of real estate, you're underwriting it, your competition, everyone's underwriting the deal. Everyone knows kind of where this deal's going to go. You're going to spend this much on the rehab. Your rent's going to be this much per foot or this much per year, this much per month, whatever it is, you figure out what your NOI is going to be. You figure out what your, the term loan is going to be at. And you know, you basically know, day one, what it's going to be now, granted you have to execute and you have to find the deal and the numbers could change depending on the market, but you kind of know that going forward. Versus if you buy a business, you can get in there and really say, oh wow. I had no idea we could take this company, in this vertical that we weren't even playing in.  [00:00:46] Sam Wilson: Angad Guglani started in 2016 with one single-family house. Now he runs a vertically integrated real estate investment company owning and managing 150 residential units without raising outside equity. Angad, welcome to the show.  [00:01:00] Angad Guglani: Hi, thanks for having me, Sam.  [00:01:01] Sam Wilson: Hey, man. The pleasure's mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes from the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me, where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?  [00:01:09] Angad Guglani: Sure, let's do it. So I started in, well, I grew up in Pittsburgh, but really started my real estate career in New York City, on the brokerage side, mostly residential rentals. Then I started investing in Camden, New Jersey and I've kind of expanded out to the general South Jersey, Greater Philadelphia Metro area, like the suburbs, and I live in Philadelphia now. [00:01:28] Sam Wilson: Gotcha.  [00:01:29] Angad Guglani: How did I get there? I guess a lot of, lot of BRRRR deals.  [00:01:32] Sam Wilson: Yeah. Talk to us about that. I mean, that's kind of what you said there, you know, in your intro was that, you know, you started in 2016 doing a lot of BRRRR deals. What was that process like? Can you tell us how did you do it so that somebody else who listened to this show may think about this as a potential strategy? [00:01:47] Angad Guglani: Yeah. The first thing I did is I started out in brokerage and I think it's a great way to start. I started, I got my real estate license. I was like 18 or 19 years old. And I was going to undergrad in New York at NYU. And I realized a lot of students were moving and they needed apartment. So they were paying rental, brokerage commissions. And I was like, wow, that's pretty cool. They're paying 3, 4, 5, 6, $7,000 in commissions. Each time they would move. And I'm like, wow, I could do that. So I got my license. I started doing that and started a company around that basically. And that was kind of my first foray into real estate. I mean, I learned a lot through that. But the number one thing that gave me was kind of the capital to start doing deals, really, and the capital to support myself. So my first, my first,, really year into it, I was already clearing mid six-figure like, you know, over 130, 140,000 bucks. And I was like 19 years old. [00:02:37] Angad Guglani: So I was like, wow, this is great. And that was kind of my jump into real estate. So I basically did that for all throughout college and for a few years after, and that money that I'd been saving up is what I used to start buying real estate. So I bought my first house at 16. I actually had two friends that I had partnered with at the time, just 'cause, you know, I'd never done any buying real estate before, I said, might as well have some friends help me. And so we did the first house together. I ended up buying them out, you know, at the end of that, And then 2017, I bought five single-family homes. These are all rehab, significant rehab, then rental, and then, you know, refi type deals. And at the end of 2017, I believe was when I first, you know, was able to, to refi, refinance all the equity out, plus some, and then I got all that cash back and was able to then just kind of snowball the, the equity from there. [00:03:23] Sam Wilson: Gotcha. And that's really the way that you've built your portfolio is just continuing that BRRRR method. What are you buying right now? Have you moved into any bigger assets or is it all single-family?  [00:03:35] Angad Guglani: No. So yeah, I haven't done any big communities the way a lot of people do. They do like, you know, the big apartment communities, but what I really like buying now, what we really like focusing on is I call them boutique multifamily buildings, like anywhere between like 3 and 15 or 20 units. I think those are really cool because. They sell for significantly higher cap rates than, like, a big multifamily building. And you can go in there, a lot of times they're owned by mom and pops and there's two types of mom and pop investors, right? One is just basically, like, just this family business. And maybe they're not as sharp to the current market conditions as, you know, someone like yourself or myself in the industry. [00:04:17] Angad Guglani: And then there's kind of like the slum lord variant. So we like to buy from the prior, someone that's, you know, kept up with the property, taking good care of it, but now it's just kind of wants to retire. They're in over their head, 'cause you know, all these, a lot of landlord-tenant issues arose during COVID that drove people crazy. So if you're a small mom and pop, it's tough for you to navigate those. So we like to buy from those types of people and then we, you know, fix the units up, getting the current market and operate them pretty well. I think that strategy's a lot more scalable in single-family. Not because I think single family's unbelievable business because you, your loan tendency is great. The amount of equity can create because you'll get really good pricing on them, that's awesome. The fact that you could sell it to a homeowner or hold it, whatever. It's cool to have all that multiple exit strategies. The issue that we run into with the single-family strategy is not lack of deals, it's not lack of capital. It's construction labor, we just have 23 people in our construction team in-house, and we just cannot find enough people, even third-party contractors to help rehab these homes. So, you know, these boutique multifamily buildings, they need a lot less work per unit than buying a whole house, right? So that's kind of what we've moved the strategy into. [00:05:27] Sam Wilson: Do you feel like those particular sizes of units are what is just available in your area? Like, is that just common... [00:05:36] Angad Guglani: Correct. Yeah. So there, I mean, I wish there were like 10, 15, 20, 30 unit buildings. Just not many of those in South Jersey, it's an old, an old area, right? So a lot of those types of, like, 30, 40 unit buildings, I think those were built in the fifties and sixties. And there wasn't that much building over here then. And it was mostly single-family stuff that was built around that timeframe. So we have these small, like, under 10 unit buildings all over the place. And there were generally just big houses that were like mansions that were chopped up over the years. So we have that type of product and we do have some purpose-built multifamily, and then we have some big communities and stuff too. But those, those I stay away from just because they're trading at like, you know, 4, 5, 6 cap rate stuff and those are, you know, not the stuff we buy.  [00:06:19] Sam Wilson: Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, 'cause the, what you're describing there that, what did you say 8 to 20 unit that's, I would think that's a very specific asset type, you know, for your location. Tell me about this. You said you have 23 people on your construction team right now, correct? [00:06:36] Angad Guglani: Correct. And then the number fluctuates. We hire people. There's some attrition but, yeah, so we have a head of construction and to him report our whole construction team, which they're all W2, we pay for their worker's comp and do everything the right way. And, they're experienced or mostly experienced people. We have teams like, you know, teams that help, you know, do the sheetrock, teams that do the framing, teams that, you know, in conjunction with the licensed electrician, will do some of the basic electric work, teams that'll help do the plumbing work in conjunction with the licensed plumber. You know, that's, we have basically specializations within the team, within the company of, of people that do everything. [00:07:09] Sam Wilson: And that's, that's your own in house construction crew.  [00:07:12] Angad Guglani: Correct. Yeah. In-house construction.  [00:07:14] Sam Wilson: Are you guys doing, I mean, 23 people, you, at this point, you said you have 160 units. I wouldn't think that's enough units to support a 23-person construction team. Are you doing outside work for other people as well? [00:07:26] Angad Guglani: So you're right on the fact that the 160 units is not enough to support staff outside, but the reason we have that many people and we could hire, if you could, if you told me had 20 more people tomorrow, I would hire them tomorrow is because we're rehabbing so many units. We buy distressed, fix up, and then, you know, rent out long term. So right now in our pipeline, I can tell you how many we have, just homes that are, or homes and units that are just sitting, waiting to be worked on. We have seven that are construction-ready, seven that are permit backlogged, and seven that are waiting to put in the permit. So about 21 units that are, that are waiting. So then that makes sense why we have as many people as we have and how we could afford to double and triple our size if we could get the people.  [00:08:09] Sam Wilson: Yeah, shoot, man. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, so an eighth of your portfolio is in construction phase right now. [00:08:17] Angad Guglani: Correct. And frankly, that's, that's actually good. I mean, there have been times 30, 35 units out of a hundred that are getting rehab. 'Cause these rehabs are big deals, man. They take two months plus.  [00:08:30] Sam Wilson: Oh, wow.  [00:08:30] Angad Guglani: And they're no joke. They're no joke. Most of the products we buy, everything's average age is built in the early 1900. Some are even in the late 1800. So we're talking full gut rehab, like full-on gut. We're taking the house down to the studs, you know, looking at the framing, making sure it's okay. Putting in new plumbing, putting in new electrical, whole nine.  [00:08:48] Sam Wilson: That makes a lot more sense. I'm sitting here, you know, thinking. Okay. You know, 21 units, like that shouldn't take that long, but this is a whole different, a whole different ballgame on the construction side that you're describing. You know, when you're doing historic rehabs like that, I mean, we always sat on a historic project. It's like, Hey, whatever, whatever your budget is just double it. And you might be close if you're lucky.  [00:09:12] Angad Guglani: Yeah. Tell me about it, man. It's no joke. And, you know, thankfully we haven't really, I know a lot of bigger developers have issues with, you know, I guess the materials that they're buying in bulk and stuff. Haven't really run into many materials issues. It's just been finding labor.  [00:09:26] Sam Wilson: Right.  [00:09:27] Angad Guglani: And I wish we had, you know, a ton of subcontractors we could turn to, we just haven't been able to find many that are, you know, most of the subcontractors nowadays want to, want to do residential work, like, you know, homeowner work 'cause it pays better.  [00:09:40] Sam Wilson: Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. When you think about your company and you want to fast forward four or five years, where do you want to take it?  [00:09:47] Angad Guglani: So personally, what I really want to do with my, you know, business career is I want to set this business up in a way where I can kind of leave the reigns the next, next year or so. And this business will be like a regionally focused real estate investment company. 'Cause I really feel, I feel like you have to be focused on one region, and the way we're vertically integrated, it kind of makes sense where we do all our management, all the construction, all the maintenance, everything in-house, under one roof and one office. [00:10:14] Angad Guglani: So I want to kind of create this business, so it runs like a machine here. And it grows organically, you know, whatever the available deals in the market are that meet our criteria, we buy them. We're not trying to set the world on fire and triple our size in one year. At one point I was trying to do that because the deals were so good in the market. Now it's kind of like a needle in the haystack strategy where you have to look at, you know, a fair bit of stop to find the good deals. And, you know, if we could put on 30, 40, 50 units a year BRRRR method, I would be thrilled and, and, and just want to pass the reins off to the team and let them kind of take over. And personally myself, my goal is to buy businesses rather than real estate. would love to buy small businesses and turn them around versus just being a real estate.  [00:11:00] Sam Wilson: I want to hear more about that. 'Cause I think there's the, I'm with you on that, in that there is great value in buying businesses. Someone else that I interviewed earlier today, and I don't remember who it was. So I can't even tell you what episode will be on when this goes out. But they said this is their conclusion, is that BRRRR is dead. They said that, you know, not being able to predict where interest rates are going, not being able to predict the cost of financing, like, they said, I think BRRRR is, if it's not dead, it's dying. Do you agree with that?  [00:11:30] Angad Guglani: I would, I would disagree with that based, and I think it's a lot based on your market, right? So South Jersey really is a sleepy kind of quiet market. We never had institutional capital come here. I don't know, from this area at all, it just kind of came out, came out as a good opportunity living in New York. I figured this was a good place to go. Because, you know, north Jersey is very competitive. It's like a derivative of New York, South Jersey is kind of sleepy. So we have plenty of deals here that you could do as a BRRRR. Now, as I'm facing. And I'm sure a lot of other people in our market that I speak to are facing the shortage of labor and not being able to turn units that way, but it's not like we can't predict interest rates. [00:12:12] Angad Guglani: I was on a call with a banker this morning that we've worked with extensively last year, doing some term refinances. And he was saying, okay, you know, you're going to be seeing rates. The last deal we called 400, 4%. Unbelievable. And he's like, okay, now just underwrite for five, 5.75%, or like worst case 600. And keep in mind, our yield on cost on these things is like in the high, you know, 900 to sometimes even 1100 to 1200. So we have a nice wide spread, so I'm not too worried about that. I'm not too worried about interest rates going up in our market at least.  [00:12:51] Sam Wilson: Gotcha.  [00:12:52] Angad Guglani: And, and keep in mind, like, rents are rising quite fast. So even if you take a deal and you're paying five and a half, 6% interest rate that straight is these are five-year fixed terms, right? Where do you think your rents are going to be in five years? If inflation keeps ripping the way it is, the rents are going to go all, hopefully, they keep pace with inflation. In the past have exceeded inflation, right? If you look at the last couple of years, if they keep in pace with inflation or exceeding inflation, even if you're paying 5 or 6% interest rate, you know, your cash flow year two, year three is super generous, right? If your rents keep rising 6, 7, 8% a year.  [00:13:26] Sam Wilson: Yeah. I hear you on that. I would not challenge it, but I guess the other side of that is at some point, you know, the renter, no matter where inflation is going, the tenant just can't afford the increases. If the economy takes a dive and jobs go away and suddenly there's, you know, a glut, like, you're, we're, we're at a labor shortage right now. I think that tide unfortunately may turn. And if it turns, suddenly people don't have the income to support the rent increases. It's going to be a very interesting way that that plays out. But I do, I do understand that historically speaking, yes, rents have outpaced inflation.  [00:13:57] Angad Guglani: A hundred percent, I mean, and that, and that goes down to unit type, right? And unit mix and how you underwrite your tenants. So like, we like to see, you know, I just signed a lease yesterday in one of the units. And I like to review all the applications myself before approving them, which I know it sounds a little bit micromanaging, but, you know, I found, I almost have a phrase that we say, which is like a great tenant can make a terrible property an amazing deal. Not to say terrible properties are probably great, but the tenant is the most important thing. [00:14:24] Angad Guglani: Or you could have a great property that you spent hundreds of thousand dollars rehabbing, put a bad tenant in, and you now have a terrible investment. So anyway, it's very important the tenants you put in, but now these tenants that we're putting in, the rent is $995. It's a small, like, one-bedroom apartment. [00:14:38] Angad Guglani: The tenants are making, I think, just making minimum wage. They're making like, it's a couple, they're making $4,500, $5,000 a month. They're four times coverage, four and a half, five times coverage over the rent. So and these are minimum wage jobs. They're just over minimum wage jobs and one's at a hospital and one's at, one's at a school. So, like, these are pretty stable and that's what a lot of our tenant base they're, they're not working at these high flying jobs that, you know, that you can really fire people from. So that's why I feel personally feel comfortable with the environment going forward on the macro side.  [00:15:14] Sam Wilson: Got it. I love it. I love it. Tell me, lastly, last, last topic here, buying businesses versus real estate, what type of business are, or businesses are of interest to you? I know you said. You a year or so, you'd like to leave the reins of your company in, in, in other hands. So there's got to be something on the horizon you say, Hey, here's some businesses I think that are out there that are worth investing in.  [00:15:37] Angad Guglani: That's a good question. And frankly, I haven't really looked at many deals on the business. I looked at a handful, but I really think it's deal-specific and market-specific, right? And I think it comes down to really, like, I want to move to a different area where I would love to live somewhere warm. I love golf. It would be great to live in an area where you could play more golf and I would want to get in that area, get in the community and figure out what's for sale. And as long as the business has legs where you can figure out a way where you can grow it, I mean, most of these businesses are trading anywhere from four to seven times EBITDA on the high end, really and you can get some sort of SBA financing on the debt side. So your return on equities going to be much higher than it is in real estate, as long as you don't screw it up. Not to say that I'm going to have the expertise to run it, great, but I'm just saying, like, if you really buckle down and try to figure out how to, how to work this business. [00:16:24] Angad Guglani: I think you could really do something with it. So, I'm finishing up my MBA at the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton school. And there are a handful of kids every year that graduate from that program that does this, which is called a search fund where they mostly go out and raise capital from institutional investors and high net worth. And they go out and buy businesses. And personally been, you know, fortunate enough for the real estate to, to have the capital to do that myself, but it's not unheard of path. And that's really what, what I find to be quite exciting. [00:16:51] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It is amazing in the business side of things, how they do trade at different multiples than what your real estate plays do.  [00:17:02] Angad Guglani: And you can grow it, right? Like when you're buying a piece of real estate, you're underwriting it, your competition everyone's underwriting the deal. Everyone knows kind of where this deal's going to go. You're going to spend this much on the rehab, your rent's going to be this much per foot or this much per year, this much per month, whatever it is, you figure out what your NOI is going to be. You figure out what your term loan is going to be at. And you know, you basically know day one, what it's going to be now, granted you have to execute and you have to find the deal and the numbers could change depending on the market, but you kind of know that going forward. Versus if you buy a business, you can get in there and really say, oh wow. I had no idea we could take this company. And this vertical that we weren't even playing in. Or maybe the previous owner didn't have much of a sales staff. We could put in a sales staff. And instead of, you know, day one, knowing what your income could be. Once you get in and operate this thing, you could see, you could really turn the income of that business a lot more than you could turn the income of a real estate property. [00:17:53] Angad Guglani: That being said, it's overly simplified. It could be really tough too. I mean, that's a beautiful thing about real estate is, you know, at the end of the day, like people need a place to live. There's always going to be some sort of demand than you could be at a company that has no demand, like your product go obsolete. So there is risk as well.  [00:18:10] Sam Wilson: Certainly. I love it. I love. Angad, thank you for taking the time to come on today and share with us your story of how you've built a real estate firm, you know, without outside equity, how you've done it via the BRRRR method, what you guys are looking at right now, and just what you see opportunity on the horizon for you personally, but also just in your real estate investments as well. Certainly feel like I've learned a lot from you today. So thank you for taking the time to come on. If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?  [00:18:38] Angad Guglani: Sure, they could just go on our website. We actually just redesigned it. cooperacq.com. C O O P E R A C Q, our company's Cooper Square Acquisitions. You could email me at ag@cooperacq.com and, yeah, look forward to connecting.  [00:18:52] Sam Wilson: Awesome. Thank you again for your time. Certainly appreciate it.  [00:18:54] Angad Guglani: Thanks Sam. Have a good one. 

Data-driven decisions are a key factor in the success of any modern business. Although larger businesses tend to be very good at making data-driven decisions, this isn't always the case for small business owners. This week on Grow Money Business, we speak with a professional who helps small businesses use the financial data that they can have at their fingertips to make better decisions. Anne Gannon, the principal and the founder of The Largo Group, shares her wisdom on how and why business owners should utilize the power of data to grow their businesses. [02:06] Anne's Story – We start the conversation with a brief look at Anne's career and what her firm, The Largo Group, offers to small businesses. [06:00] Cashflow – Anne shares some trategies for small business owners to analyze the cash flow and review business transactions. [09:56] Budgeting – Anne explains why it's a good exercise for small business owners to create a budget and analyze their business expenses. [15:19] Paying Yourself – Anne dives deep into how and when small business owners should pay themselves. [21:06] Surviving the Pandemic – Anne explains how The Largo Group helped its clients survive through the pandemic. [26:00] SBA Loans – Anne shares her thoughts on the SBA loan program with some pros and cons. [33:33] Growth – Anne explains what small business owners should consider when planning for growth. [36:06] Tax Strategies – Anne shares some tax strategies restaurants and other similar businesses can utilize to minimize their tax liabilities. [43:47] Mindset – Why mindset is a key factor in the success of a business owner and some other business lessons from Anne's career in professional golf.   Resources Connect with Anne: Website: www.thelargogroup.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anne-gannon-529107148

Jerry Flanagan is an Army Veteran and entrepreneur who, along with his wife Tracy, have created a national brand, dedicated to empowering Veterans through entrepreneurship. Rooted in the Military values of Respect, Integrity, and Trust, the JDog®️ Junk Removal & Hauling and JDog®️ Carpet Cleaning & Floor Care franchise systems have become a nationwide movement, creating business and employment opportunities for Veterans and Veteran families.  Jerry launched the JDog Junk Removal business in 2011. It was a two-person operation – Jerry hauled junk and Tracy managed the back office. As a Veteran, Jerry gained trust and credibility with customers quickly, and referrals came easy. Within a year, he had more business than one person could handle and began hiring local Veterans who embodied the brand's values. Through Jerry's vision and leadership, JDog has since grown to hundreds of locations, 90 percent of which are Veteran owned. To date, the company has created thousands of job opportunities across the country. Jerry served in the Army  and then the National Guard, from 1987-1993 and finished at the top of his class, the recipient of the Army Achievement Medal. Since transitioning back to the civilian world, Jerry has committed himself to helping Veterans be successful in business. He teaches an entrepreneurial boot camp for Veterans at St. Joseph's University, and at Boots to Business for Veterans, an entrepreneurial program offered through the SBA. He is also a Strategic Advisor for Grunt Style, a Patriotic apparel company committed to creating a quality products while supporting the Military and First Responder communities. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the Grunt Style Foundation and founded the JDog Foundation, whose mission is to support Military Veterans and Military Veteran-related causes – with a particular focus on preventing Veteran suicide and PTSD.