VANNOY:
Grants for Small business. Mike Vannoy, vice President of Marketing here at Asure. Got a really cool show for you today. So most of the time we’re talking about payroll, hr, legalese, compliance topics. But our mission is to help small businesses grow, right? And now that the war for talent is no longer some just enterprise big company thing, the war for talent has hit Main Street. We’re all struggling to, to find talent, to get behind our mission, to grow Our companies have really cool guests that, that her business does the exact same thing though in a different way. I’m gonna introduce Elizabeth Gore. She serves as the co-founder and president of Hello Alice, which helps businesses launch and grow by providing access to funding, networks and services through a network of over a half million companies in all 50 states and across the globe.
Hello. S is building the largest community of business owners in the country, while tracking data and trends to increase owner success rate. Elizabeth pre previously served as entrepreneur residence at Dell Technologies. There, she drove initiatives to support Dell’s growth, Dell’s goals of helping small and medium-sized businesses, scale and prosper. She is Emeritus chair at United Nations Foundation, global Entrepreneurs Council, and previously served the UN for nearly a decade as the first ever entrepreneur in residence for the foundation, as well as Vice President of Global Partnerships. People Magazine has named her one of the top 100 extraordinary women. Fast Company called her one of the most creative people in business, and she was named one of Entrepreneur magazines Women to Watch. She has been covered in media outlets like a bbc, C B S C, nnn m, cnn, msnbc, Fox, business, fortune, glamor, and Time. Elizabeth Gore, welcome to the show.
GORE:
Oh, I’m so happy with dol, Heidi <laugh> how Mike, it’s great to be here and look forward to digging deep on how we can all bang better capital.
VANNOY:
Yeah, you bet. So so, so I know we’re gonna talk about grants. We’re gonna talk about funding for small businesses. We’re in some interesting right now, right? Lots of talk about recession obviously inflation fed rising raising rates to try to curb inflation, but that also impacts funding availability. Can we just maybe start, I’m just really curious, you bring a unique perspective. What, what’s your assessment like of the general small business economy right now And, and what are some of the unique challenges that these guys face?
GORE:
Yeah, Mike, I mean we’re all living it every day, right? We see, I think we, it hits home when we see the price of eggs and milk and things that we need every day. And I think that directly translates to small businesses that are the thread of our lives every day, right? From our coffee shops, to our childcare, to our accountants, to local doctors and commodities, and the price of them going up is, is really brutal, right? It’s hard. And no matter if we’re in a high times or low times, the toughest thing we always deal with is cashflow. Right? and I’ll never forget, I was working for Michael Dell, and I asked him, what keeps you up at night? And he said, cashflow. And that, you know, that was a billions of dollars. And I think it’s the same for any small business owner.
And when cash gets tight, you know, it, it’s even tougher. And so I think that small business owners do amazing in extreme tough times and extreme growth times. And so Covid was an era where we all, you know, had to button down. We might even had to close our doors file for bankruptcy. We had to, you know, stretch and, and owners knew what they had to do in growth times. We sprint, we run, we get as many customers as we can. This messy middle right now, I think is very unpredictable and difficult. You know, entrepreneurs and small business owners are planners. They have contingencies. But when you, when we’re going month to month right now with highs and lows, I think uncertainty is particularly hard for a small business owner. So that’s what I worry about right now.
VANNOY:
So we, we, it’s interesting, our, our world’s parallel so much. So we, we talk about the uncertainty in our world around like hr, right? So for right called the last 80, 90 years, about once a decade, you’d have some major piece of legislation from 1938 fair Labor Standards Act to the equality mm-hmm. <Affirmative> civil Rights Act in the sixties to osha the seventies, Americans with Disabilities in the nineties, et cetera, et cetera. But this last decade, and I’d say Covid and the pandemic has just thrown gasoline on it, this massive expansion of state, local counties, municipalities passing their own versions of these, whether it’s overtime or right, right. Just endless number of HR laws adding to the complexity. What are some of the, right, what are some of the layers of complexity in the, in this uncertainty that you’re seeing specifically in the finance world as it relates to small business owners?
GORE:
Yeah, I mean, and this is a great time to do this podcast because we even have had an upheaval in the last four weeks on our banking, right? And small business owners live and die through their banks, regional banks, national banks, and, you know, you say legislation, I think back to the Frank Dodd legislation after the 2008 collapse. And here we are re-looking at that legislation now on how do we, how are we protected and what is our financial hygiene around our banks? Right? Right, right. So, you know, we, yes, I understand the complexity of, you know, higher prices affecting our cashflow, but we shouldn’t be worried about the safety of our deposits, right? So that’s just added a whole nother level, I think, of anxiety for our small business owners. I would say with finance right now, on the good side of it, small business owners are really paying attention to, you know, lowering costs, but increasing their spend around software, increasing their spend, around how they’re capturing their own data.
So I do think we have a kind of smart use generation right now of small business owners, whether they’re net new or they really had to do a lot of transitioning over the last three years. So I’m, I’m excited to see that the use of software, whether it’s accounting, whether it’s hr, whether it’s marketing software. Where I really would love to see is small business owners working weekly to diversify their cashflow. I think that is so critical right now. And so considering of course receipts are the most important thing we can get on cashflow, but are you applying for grants? Are you looking at lines of credit? Are you really using your operational credit cards and payments in a way that you’re making money as you’re paying? So I think really understanding how to diversify your cash flow right now is, is more important than ever, and it will really serve you for the life of your business.
VANNOY:
So Elizabeth, I think a lot of people when I, when I, when they hear diversify your cash flow, they probably think income streams, like whether it’s different products, different different markets that I’m serving. But I think you’re talking about something different here, right? You’re talking about the way in which the business gets funded.
GORE:
That’s exactly right. I, I would say gets funding and manages funding, Mike, both. So, you know, one of which is where, where you’re receiving, let’s just say either operational or growth capital, for example, I’m a huge fan of local banks. And even if you have your money at a tier one national bank, are you establishing a relationship with your bank in your community? That is an amazing place to get a line of credit, for example. Yeah. and just to be clear lines of credit are, you know, I take out a, let’s just say a $50,000 line of credit, it’s got 4% interest, but I don’t use it unless I need it in an emergency. Or maybe I need to I got a huge order in, so I have to buy 30,000 t-shirts before I get paid for them. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that line of credit sits there until you need it. And, and there’s no punishment as it sits there, right? It’s very different than a full loan that you’re paying interest are loans do have survey. Very strong purpose. I’m a big fan of SBA back loans, lower interest rates. But you have to be very judicious about where it pays back credit, as I mentioned earlier, Uhhuh <affirmative>. Yeah, please go ahead. So
VANNOY:
I’m curious, un unpack this for me. So I think the, a lot of small business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs there tendency would be, okay, let me lock in the most trustworthy, or, and or probably, or the lowest cost, easiest capital to access. So if I like mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I, I get a, I get a relationship with my local bank, boom, I’m good. I don’t explore other things. When you say they should be exploring, you know, more diversity in their, in their cashflow options. Yeah. Why? So if I’ve got a great relationship by my local bank, I’m getting great rates, you know, I don’t wanna explore factoring or some other things that may be more expensive access to capital. Why should I at least have those things in my bag of tricks kind of portfolio, if you will?
GORE:
You know, great question. And I think the hardest thing with all this is time, right? All our small business owners are time poor. So it takes time to go explore those other options, which is hard, right? Right. I think what we have learned the last three years, whether it’s covid, whether these banks are turning upside down, that fi I, I keep hearing the term financial hygiene, which I really like or diversification. And why that’s important is you, you can utilize those different tools or different rates or different relationships in at different times. And as you grow, if you can establish those early when you’re smaller or you’re not in the middle of emergency, that that is much better. So, for example, a couple of things at, at Hello Wallace, our own business we, we applied for a zillion grants in the beginning of our business.
And it was great cause we didn’t have to give up equity. It took time, yes. But it gave us a baseline to grow. What we didn’t do, which I wish we would’ve, is when we did have cash, we should have gone and applied for a line of credit based on that cash, so that if we ever had an emergency or we needed it, it was there. When you need the line of credit, when there’s very little cash in the bank, banks don’t like giving you that line of credit, right? So sometimes it’s hard to think about these different alternatives when you’re in a good place. Cause you’re fine, you have a great relationship. I’m focusing on my marketing, on my employees and others, but, but truly, that’s when you want to do this process.
VANNOY:
That makes, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. It’s, it’s the old paradox, right? Is when you need the money the most, there’s probably a reason, right? Right. And it’s, and it’s may in fact be the reason, may in fact be one of the reasons no one wants to give you the money at that time. So lining it up ahead of time.
GORE:
Right? That’s right. And Mike, I wanna spend just a second, if I may. I, yeah. On operational credit you know, any, any small business can get a credit card or credit, and that’s not good. I mean, there’s predatory credit rates that are extreme. But if you can get an equitable credit at a, at an appropriate rate, you know, let, you know, I, I don’t love giving specific advice here, but let’s just say, can you get a 15, 16, 17% right now? And as you’re spending, for example, are you getting cash back? Are you getting points and rewards? Most of the time we think of that as a consumer benefit, but it is a really strong benefit for small business owners if you can get a small business credit card. Additionally, they generally come with a lot of discounts. And so we also encourage people, A lot of people think about credit as receivables or payments but you can also with your weekly spending. So if I’m buying lumber every week, or eggs every week or so on, and that pattern spending, make sure that you’re getting rewarded for that spend. So that’s just another way to, to earn money while you’re operating.
VANNOY:
Yeah. And maybe if I could and I’m going outside of traditional, even, this isn’t even financing, but a way to generate your own financing. A topic we’ve, we’ve talked about on this show before is you can create your own financing just through your own management of your contracts and terms with vendors and customers.
GORE:
Absolutely. Mike.
VANNOY:
Yeah, I, I feel like this is one of the biggest missed opportunities for, for business owners. Maybe, maybe I’m, maybe I’m great at my craft. I’m an architect. I’m a, I’m a hairdresser opening the salon. I’m a carpenter doing home remodeling. And it, it doesn’t occur to a lot of people that the terms your vendors give you are in fact negotiable. The terms you set with your customer are in fact, negotiable. Can you speak into that? So my,
GORE:
One of my biggest pet pees on the planet is when a corporation says that they will pay an invoice within 120 days. I mean, that’s a, they make money. They’re making money off what they owe you. If you can go back, you can’t do this all the time, but you can say, Hey, ID like to change this to payment within 30 days. I like to pay this back within 90 days. Or excuse me, they owe you within 30 to 90 days. Yes. And I completely agree with you, Mike, on that. The second thing, really critical, I just talked to actually in an architecture firm out of friends with Texas on this, you need to put a late fee in your invoicing. So if someone is late paying you, that costs you money, cuz maybe you are having to pay back another loan or bank or an employee. So that’s right. Putting that 10 to 20% late fee in there is critical to your business. And it’s fair, by the way, a lot of small business owners, these are your friends, they are your neighbor contractors. But it is just good business.
VANNOY:
That’s right. And I, I wanna walk through, I’m gonna do the math for folks. So cuz you, you might be thinking, sure, oh, we’re a small business. This doesn’t apply to us. If you are a 1.2 million business and lets you pretend you’re running break even just to make the math easy, it’s a hundred thousand dollars a month. If you can turn your clients from a net 30 paying you to a due upon receipt, you just bought yourself a hundred grand in, in financing. And if you do the same on the other end of that equation, you pay your, your vendors net 60 instead of net 30. You literally as a 1.2 million company just got 200 grand in financing without talking to a bank or anybody else. I mean,
GORE:
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Mike. one more thing on that, if I may. If you’ve been in business over two years, especially if you’ve been in business over five years, again, it takes time. I highly encourage you to spend a little bit of time assessing all your costs and making sure you’re getting the best deal. A lot of folks, for example, maybe they’ll sign up for Comcast, internet and QuickBooks and so on three to five years ago. Yeah. And then they just have a monthly fee. Right? Go back, check the rates. Can you’ve been the customer a long time? Can you lower that monthly fee? Is there a better alternative out there? Again, I know it takes time, but if you can put, you know, an hour every other day on your calendar for two weeks to just look at your core costs and see if you can pull those down. Or do you even need all the services that you’re using? Cuz things evolve and change, that is another way to bring cash back to yourself.
VANNOY:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So first and foremost, I think our recommendation, both of us create your own financing through better terms with both vendors and customers. Number two, yes, diversify your sources of financing that diversified. Maybe you should, maybe you shouldn’t. Different, but it’s a different thing than diversifying income streams. This geography versus this product line, versus this industry, whatever. But truly diversify your sources to capital. So you may be joining just fine and your line of credit is more than enough, but have one or two or five other things lined up so that when the time arises that you might need it, it’s there at the ready. Let’s maybe pivot to, I think where, where we probably spend most of our conversation today, and certainly where you and your company kind of come into play and have expertise is around grants.
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I think this is an area that people just have no idea how much money is actually out there available for them. And just as the word implies, it’s a grant, it’s not a loan, it’s free. And when I think about how hard people, business owners are willing to just grind and sweat to work, to make a buck the amount of profit out of coming out of the top line and what’s left, right, do they, if they actually did the math on the, the amount of effort it would take to apply for, search for and apply for grants, they would realize, oh my God, that’s, that’s better money that I should be pursuing. Take it away. So I, from there,
GORE:
Oh, Mike, I am a huge fan of grants, as I said before, from personal experience. So let me just start there. So Carolyn Rods, my co-founder and I, we, we bootstrapped and built Hello Wallace. We both had two babies each. We moved in together, shared, shared a babysitter. And I mean, ma don’t do this, but we maxed out credit cards. I mean, we tried everything, you know? Yeah. So one of, we got a tip from someone that was like, you know, there, and this is, this is 2016, by the way. Grants are completely evolved and way more ready, readily available now. But we got a tip of like, have you heard of grants? And so on and so forth. So we just dug in and would like stay up all night looking for, for grants to support our business, which supports small businesses.
And we ended up with a grant from the sba sba. The small Business administration has millions and millions of dollars of grants. Going to sba.gov. It’s not the easiest thing to navigate, but you can, we got a, a $50,000 S B I R grant that changed our lives. I mean, it was, it was a huge amount of money. There’s no equity taken out. Lot of paperwork at first. It then led us to, we found a grant out of Kansas City from a foundation called the Kaufman Foundation. We got a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation specifically from Melinda Gates. And so it really allowed us to, you know, we were, we were unemployed. We had to pay childcare, we had to build this business. And it was just life changing for us. So, you know, fast forward to now to 2023 and in small business grants have become part of the populace used to be mostly they were government based.
Now, the private sector has them excuse me, federal government private sector, also your local municipalities, counties, state have small business grants. And also a little fact for all of you, depending what industry you’re in, every department at the federal government gives impact investments, a k a grants. So Health and Human Services has grants. The Department of Transportation has grants, the Smithsonian has grants around the arts. We got grants from the sba. So also there are these really unique grants that are based on benefiting the industry or the outcome you’re in. Yeah. So how do you approach grants? Because Mike, it can be overwhelming. Yeah. But again, taking time, maybe, maybe two hours outta your week to, to research and then apply is incredibly helpful. And the reason why I say this, Mike, is you’re, you’re gonna get told no a lot. I’m just gonna be really honest, cuz there’s always thousands of people applying more than there is space.
Sure. The law of averages, if you apply for enough, you’ll probably get it. And they’re not taking equity, you’re not paying interest, it’s not a loan. And generally a lot of grant programs provide more. They open doors, they’ll provide mentorship. Maybe you’re put in a cohort with other small business owners. So it is, it is a great opportunity for your business. The other thing I’ll just say for the new majority women, people of color, US veterans people with disabilities there are a lot of grants based on you as a founder in your own demographic. Right. So I would say the search areas you wanna do is start@sba.gov on Hello Alice. We have a whole grants facility that both, we have grants from our company, but we also help you search for grants from the private sector. And then finally, look at your state, your county, and your city. So go to the.gov. I’m sitting in California of california.gov. I’m in Sonoma County and I’m in the city of Santa Rosa. They will also potentially have grants for your business. So I, I, Mike, I could go on and on, but let me, let me pause there.
VANNOY:
Yeah. So, man, I got, I got a million questions. How has grants evolved? Because it’s so, like, I’m, I’m assuming there’s this pretty strong parallel, you know, I talk about you used to have once a decade major federal HR oriented laws. Right. And now there’s this explosion of state local municipality versions of those same laws. And, and it’s part of this trend that is accelerating where, you know, a hundred years ago, the all the power was with the employer. Right? Right. And it’s not that employers were bad people and capitalists were terrible human beings, but the fact of the matter is laws supply and demand there were more workers than there were jobs and people were taken advantage of. And so you start passing some laws on the federal basis to protect people. And now the continuum is really shifted to the more and more protections of the employee, not the employer.
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And it seems to me that so many of these protections, they go kind of go back to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in the sixties government agencies, not just federal, but state, county, local municipality and certainly nonprofits, they’re looking for ways to help people in protected classes. Yeah. And, and they’re looking for ways to help that employee break out from underneath the employer. In, I, I’m assuming you’re seeing this same thing happen in this, what I’ll call this continuum of a power shift to support mm-hmm. <Affirmative> individuals. Can, can, can you I’d be curious for your thoughts on how you see that playing out in the grant world.
GORE:
Yeah, I, I, it’s interesting because I think there’s been a transition of an understanding both by the general public and by government, that small, well, first of all, that small business owners are the, the largest employer in, in the country. A lot of people think it’s big corporate, but collectively they employ the most people. Yeah. Second is they are, they live and die for the first five years on an individual, and that is the b small business owner. Yep. Right. It is such a personal rollercoaster for that individual. Amen. And everything around that individual there are barriers. There’s isolation, there’s difficulty. I, I, I work with a lot of farmers in very rural environments who there’s no, there’s not a bank within, you know, a hundred miles of them, for example. They don’t have wifi. I mean, so people are starting to understand that if there are barriers maybe it’s based on bias or on ethnicity, maybe it’s based on, you know, it’s, it’s a white male farmer who’s in an extreme rural environment maybe, and they don’t have access to the internet.
Maybe it’s a US veteran who has been deployed. So they don’t have a credit history at all when they come home. So they wanna start a business, but it’s impossible to get a loan. So I do think there is an understanding that if we don’t support these people as individuals, as business owners, that we’re not gonna have a strong economy. And there are systemic barriers, whether intentional or, and I think most of ’em are not intentional, actually. They’re just, they have not evolved with the times. Yeah. We have to figure out how to get funding to these individuals for them to get off the ground. And I, and I do think the world has woken is waking up to, we’ve got, there’s strong infrastructure change that needs to be happening, but in the meantime, we need to get cash flow to these small business owners so they can start being capitalists and making money and hiring people in our communities.
VANNOY:
Elizabeth, are, are there like categories of, of these sources of funding? So like how much of this is what I would say the standard title VII protected classes, like a minority owned business, woman owned business mm-hmm. <Affirmative> a business that’s in a faith category versus mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, maybe just specific industries, you know, there are, there, you know, a Yeah. A local, local city might be really trying to rev revitalize a tech sector, for example. But how mm-hmm. <Affirmative> how would, how would entrepreneurs find these and should be, think they’d be thinking, I guess, according to the buckets that they may be organized in?
GORE:
Yeah. Actually, Mike, the top two approaches on grants are geography and industry. Okay. So the first thing you’re gonna wanna look at is your geography. And this, this, this goes back to your state, your county, and your city. Most of those really are just looking at, you know, writ large. The small businesses that serve their community. And they’re not even cutting by industry. They’re really about, you know, homegrown. The, the second thing about that, on, on geography, by the way, is there are private sector corporations now who are giving back to small businesses where their employees live and work. So yeah, Maryland BGE is the power company there. They’re doing millions of dollars to small businesses in the state of Maryland. So don’t just think when we say geography and regional, it’s government based. There are a lot of private sector. Yeah.
There might be a community foundation in your area that is also doing small business grants. So that’s really what I mean by geography. Yeah. The second category, Mike, is industry. So particularly post covid, there are industry grants that are coming from everywhere. So the National Restaurant Association you know, look at their grants programs for food services and restaurants DoorDash the food delivery company, they’re giving grants to restaurants. Then you have the Federal Restaurant Revitalization program. So they’re giving to restaurants. So whatever you in industry is, you’re also gonna search, you know, private sector. Oh, PepsiCo a big one on, more so on food services and food commodities, for example. So so you’re really gonna wanna look in your industry at specific opportunities as well.
VANNOY:
Do you have, and and, and forgive me if for not knowing this, but do you have like an inventorying a catalog of yes. All available grants or in, but is it even possible to, are there so many that it’s even really possible to catalog all of them?
GORE:
Yeah, Mike, I’ll do it both end. There’s no way that we keep up and capture with everything out there, but we try. Yeah. so yes, you can on hello else.com, you can go on and search find grants. You can find ones appropriate to your stage of growth, your physical location, your industry, maybe gender, ethnicity, veteran status. And then what we don’t do is the.gov. So again, go to sba.gov and do that same search Okay. As well as your state. And but we try to keep up with it. And we we release grant, new grant programs every quarter as well. So you’re always gonna wanna come back and see what’s next and what’s new. And again, I wanna stress Mike whether you’re applying or you receive a grant, make sure to look at the other benefits around that, that grant.
Sometimes if you just apply, you might get discounts, you might get mentorship opportunities not just if you get the grant. And so then if you, can you give an example the grant? Oh, sure. Let me think of some good ones. Bunker Lab, actually I’ll do the US Hispanic Chamber right now has grants out for Latino and Latino entrepreneurs. And they’re gonna give you free membership to, to us Chamber. They have classes, they have mentorship programs. So that’s a great idea. Opportunity. Bunker Labs for Veterans, one of my absolute favorite organizations for vets. They’re gonna pull you into their whole system of mentorship, connection, local corporate partnerships, whether you get that grant or not. Hello. Hello Alice. We’ve just launched a business health score to where as you’re applying for grants, we actually help you with your financial and business health, making sure that you’re, we’ll just use that word hygiene again, Mike is getting strengthened. So you, and, and here’s the other thing, Mike, that took me a while to learn, cuz every time I heard No, I got so pissed. But you can also ask for feedback with different programs. And if you hear three times, you know, you were declined for the same reason. It’s, it’s an important way to learn about your business. Right. There’s obviously a gap there. There’s something you need to strengthen. So, you know, there’s a lot of knowledge in the nos as well as the yeses.
VANNOY:
Can you give an example of, and I I’m sure it’s a gigantic range, but like average run the mill grant for a small business owner. I’m, I’m a, I’m a, I’m a small business here. I’m in the greater St. Louis area. I do $2 million a year, you know what I mean? Yeah. Because I think some people probably have this, I think it’s a misconception. This is just a few hundred dollars a year, maybe a thousand dollars there. Oh. That, that’s just not worth my time. What kind of money are we talking about?
GORE:
Yeah, the, the average US grant for small business is $10,000. Yeah. and, and that include, you know, that’s coming from a very local municipal 200 all the way up to an SBA S B I R at 50,000. And so and you can, you know, look, if you’re a little later down, down the line and you, you think you, you know, wanna make sure it’s a, a larger grant for the time you’re spending, you, you can look at there are those $25,000 grants out there. UBS has K K R Tiger Global. I’m just thinking of grants programs that I know are higher at that 25,000 mark. Those federal grants that I was mentioning that are inside each department, those tend to be much higher. Those are a hundred thousand and up. And so so I, I would say, you know, you have to make the judgment call when you’re applying if it’s worth your time, but they generally are on average 10,000 and up.
VANNOY:
So maybe, again, maybe not a totally fair question cuz I’m sure there’s huge var variety, but like, what kind of effort, how many, and I’m really trying to almost like, quantify for folks what the ROI of your time is on these things. So if the average grant is 10 grand, how many hours does that take? Cause what’s going through my head is 10 grand. If I’m, if I’ve got if I’ve got a product that operates on, call it a, a a 20% gross margin for me to put 10 grand in my pocket, I’ve gotta go sell $50,000. Right. And how much right time am I willing to, how mu how much broken glass would I walk across to sell $50,000 as an entrepreneur? Yeah. But yet I’m walking by these opportunities. Can you, can you help us quantify that?
GORE:
I think it’s a fair question, Mike. I I’m gonna put a little asterisk. Your first application is gonna take you longer, right? Sure. You’re, and I actually love that first applica application for business owners cuz it makes you get your shit together, you know, it, it asks you, you know, cash flow, business planning, who’s your team, what’s your future? So that first one I, I’ll admit, might take longer because if you’ve never applied for anything like a pitch competition or a grant or a loan, you know, it’s gonna cause quite a bit of discipline and digging into documents and so on. Sure. So let’s just go to our second one if that’s okay. Yeah. you know, I would say after that, you know, I don’t see why a grant application would ever take you more than an hour. I mean, just to be really honest. And, and man, is that worth your time? Now if you get up that, that’s a general $10,000. So just to be clear, once you get up to those 25, 50, a hundred thousand, those should take you longer. They’re probably gonna ask you a lot more information, which is fair, I think. But you know, I would say the smaller grants, the municipal even up to the state ones, once you have everything documented and you’re going in your second and third applications, I don’t think it should take you that much time.
VANNOY:
Elizabeth, I, I, I’m like you I’m a I’m an entrepreneur myself. I’ve been involved in many, many businesses, grew up in natural oil business, so have my day job at, at Asure. But I just know, I know how hard folks work for $10,000 and I, and I see people, I see business owners, you know, this is my business and they will kill themselves trying to grow their company in that avenue. But the ROI is just so much higher in some areas like this that you, you gotta, you gotta really stop and just do the math, right? Like, how many, how many bathrooms would you have to remodel and how many hours would it take right? To put 10 grand in your pocket net versus who care, forget an hour. What if it took 20 hours? You, you’re not putting 10 grand in your pocket for 20 pocket for 20 hours worth of labor. I mean, right. There is, it’s hard to find anything that would be a better roi, I think.
GORE:
Right. I I agree. And again, I I sympathize with stopping your, what you might think is your core business to go apply or do something like this. And even Mike, the things we talked about before, you know, assessing all your costs or going to get, you know, a line of credit, anything that pulls you from the core business, it’s hard. I I’m a venture backed company now. We weren’t in the early days, and when I go out to raise a round of funding, it pulls me from my employees, from my core business. Yeah. From my family. But the amount of money, you know, is substantial and it’s important. So, so I would, I that’s, it seems so simple, Mike, but I go back to like, put it on your calendar that, you know, on Monday morning from 10 to 12, I’m gonna search and apply for grants every week. And so, because if, if you, if it’s catches catch can, oh, maybe I’ll do it Saturday night or when, when my bakery closes, you know, it it, it’ll make it more frustrating.
VANNOY:
Well, and, and I, I can, I can detest both on the small business entrepreneur, cause I’ve been in that seat also at the, at the c-suite at a, you know, a hundred million dollar publicly trade company like I am at right now. There’s a difference between working on your business and in your business. And so many times, entrepreneurs, small businesses, you can’t help but get sucked into your day to day. Right. But
GORE:
Right, right.
VANNOY:
And, and so it’s no different. Like if, if we’re gonna do a raise, and we don’t do it often as a public company, but we do it, the amount of, it’s a huge distraction for the executive team. But it forces you to really sharpen your business strategy. If you can’t put it into a clear business plan and into a PowerPoint with spreadsheets that kind of back up your numbers and, and communicate that clearly. No one’s gonna give you the, the funding. Right. And so, right. It it, same thing for filling out these applications or bank up loan applications, anything that step back, it’s hard. It’s more work. It’s a distraction. It’s, but it will, but it will sharpen your business acumen and improve your business strategy just for having to go through the process.
GORE:
And Mike, I cannot share enough if you, when and if you do that, when the shit hits toan emergencies come, you will be more prepared. And I will tell you, two thirds of counties have had a natural disaster in this country in the last five years. Wow. You know, floods, fires, tornadoes. We’ve had covid, we’ve had bank disruption. So taking the time to get your, get your financial health together to diversify your, where you’re receiving your cash to get yourself what I would call application ready to apply for things will prove well when something happens in your business, which it will and it will be completely outta your control. So, you know, taking the time now will pay dividends. <Laugh> later.
VANNOY:
Elizabeth, what would be some of the major what would, what would be some of the top, I’d say mistakes or, or shortcomings that entrepreneurs make when they’re, when they’re applying for grants? Is that as simple as detail in the application? That’s a question. I mean, yeah,
GORE:
There, I would say particularly private sector grants, there’s two things that folks are gonna look for. That, you know, your numbers and your numbers are clear. And then your story, I cannot underscore your story. I I will say at the end of the day, if there’s 10 applications, we’re picking eight. And the last two both have a, their their numbers correct. You’re gonna pick the one with a compelling story about you as a founder about your business. How has it served the community, your passion for the business, why is it there? So and if your numbers aren’t right, you’re gonna, you’re, it doesn’t matter how good your story is, your application’s gone. Yeah. And so, you know, I think spending time on both of those things are, are very critical. And then this is, this is so silly, but I have been so mad at myself. I’m not a detail person on those government grants. If you go one sentence too long that they say you, you’re allowed to go or you don’t click one thing, it doesn’t matter. You’re out <laugh>. And so just be really careful there. If you’re not a detailed person, have someone just triple check Yeah. Those things because it, you know, they can’t break their rules and it, it can be frustrating. But anyways, I would say your numbers and your story are really important.
VANNOY:
Yeah. I think that’s really good advice. I mean, knowing your numbers, having, knowing the math of your business, that’s just like this baseline minimum requirement, right? Yeah. But I think people underestimate the, and I’m a marketer so I think about this kind of stuff every day, but the impact of story is just everything. If they don’t understand your why, then yeah. Then it’s just numbers on a spreadsheet and now you’ve left it up to a competition whose numbers are better if your numbers are at least as good. And they, if you explain your why in a compelling way, and I’m getting at a Simon Sinek world here, but that, that’s what people will get behind. And your numbers are just a validation of, oh, that’s something I wanna support. Right?
GORE:
Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Mike, one other thing I’d love to share is yeah. How you’re gonna utilize that money is really important. Yeah. most of these government and private sector grants, they very much care about what is the outcome of that money and, and, and how is it going to impact the future of your business. So I’ll just give a example of a great company called Soap Cauldron. Veteran owned woman, Latino woman. And she, she’s got a direct to consumer, but she also, her candles and soap serve thousands of other businesses who want to want to put their own marker on products. Sure. And she needed this one piece of equipment that cost $8,000. It’s very expensive. Think of a, a giant VAT that heats up soap if she bought that, it just got her own bottom line. But it served almost 300 other businesses in Sonoma County that need those products for their own small business.
So it was so clear that, wow, this one piece of equipment is isn’t just serving this business, it’s critical to all these other B2B environments. So I’d just be really clear, I’m a one other I love, I love small business owners. There was a woman during Covid in Atlanta who had a basic construction services company, but she really served shut-ins who maybe their dishwasher broke their heat, air broke, her truck broke down. She was one of very few contractors in Atlanta during the lockdown who was allowed to go to people’s homes because she served shut-ins. She couldn’t get there cuz of this truck. So her grant was purchasing this truck to serve probably 50 elderly shut-ins in her community. So, you know, make sure it’s not, oh, I need a truck for my business.
VANNOY:
Right?
GORE:
Because I can’t get anywhere I need a truck for my business because I serve these 50 other shut-ins. I need the so cauldron because my B2B environment ensures that these 200 other businesses are able to sell. So make sure that it’s not just the commodity or equipment or that hire, but how is it going to impact a, a third, fourth ring outcome.
VANNOY:
That’s awesome. So to have, to have an application that really stands out. Is there anything other than, so know your numbers, make them crystal clear and simple as possible. I assume have a compelling story. What’s the why behind why you need it, how you’re gonna use the money any other way, any other advice? You’d have to have a standout application.
GORE:
Just follow the application guidelines. And it seems simple, but we’re all busy. We’re all move fast and it’s the easiest way to get kicked out. I know from experience,
VANNOY:
I, I’m having this childhood memory <laugh>, swear to God, it just popped into my head, I don’t know, maybe sixth, seventh grade, some public speaking contest. And I know that I crushed it. I was way better than these other dudes. But I went over on time and I was, I was eliminated cuz I didn’t follow the rules. Right.
GORE:
And so
VANNOY:
There, and, and so
GORE:
Course that’s <inaudible>,
VANNOY:
But it’s, but it’s, but it, it applies, right? So you, you have to demonstrate to people who are gonna give you money that you understand the rules of the game and you can follow ’em still. So that’s good. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
GORE:
We lost a, a 150,000 grant from treasury that we were ranked like the top to get it because we were paragraphed too long and there was no lobbying or anything to fix it. It was dead <laugh>. I was so mad at myself. I was like, no.
VANNOY:
Ouch. Ouch. Yeah. okay. How about, maybe last question I would have is what kind of reporting? So like you talked about how you use the money as important. Certainly you taught you, you shared it in a way that talks about how it is important from a storytelling perspective and from an application standout perspective. What about actual post grant requirements? I’m assuming it’s a little all over the board. Some people just write you a check. Others will probably require proof of how you’re spending this money over time.
GORE:
Yeah. So one interim step, when you apply, let’s say you get accepted, most states require proof of e i n proof of L L C. So you’re gonna have to do some diligence, documentation that’s required and it should be cuz there’s a lot of fraud out there. Yeah. So I would just say, you know, don’t get frustrated on that. That’s generally a requirement by the state. And then, you know, your wiring information, your transfer, all that kind of stuff. On the requirement side, most are gonna want some kind of, probably not three months, but six month and 12 month report back on did your business grow? Did it not, sometimes it’s technical, sometimes it’s just a video. On the government grants you’re gonna need, you will have time bound forms that you will fill out for sure. And then again, I wanna stress, even though you’re busy, if there is other things as offered with that grant, please take advantage of them. And again, I know, Mike, this is what you said, it take, you know, working on your business or in your business, but most of those programs are excellent. You’ll get a lot out of them. And most of all, you’ll grow your network and have new contacts. So I would just say in addition to the follow up and feedback loop and evaluation, really take advantage of whatever that organization is offering you.
VANNOY:
Right, right. Elizabeth really enjoyed our conversation. I know we’re at about at time here. The purpose of this show is to help entrepreneurs and business owners grow their business and give them the information to do so. Take, take 30 seconds. Just tell us about hello Alice and, and how you guys specifically help businesses.
GORE:
Absolutely. So hello else.com. We’re a free service for small business owners to provide equitable keyword, ac access to capital and to help you with your business health. So on hello s you can find grant opportunities. We have an equitable loan center with about 92 lenders. We have a small business MasterCard to help you with your operational credit. Most of all, there’s 1.2 million other small business owners that you can connect with. Whether you’re looking to talk to someone in your industry, maybe you wanna talk to another US veteran. And within that community there are thousands of nonprofits, resources and chambers. But make sure to fill out your whole business profile because then we will only pop things up to you that are specifically relevant to your industry, your stage of growth, your location, and then we really look at you as a founder. Whether you’re a male, female, your a military spouse. We have a huge military spouse small business community. So we’re glad to have y’all and we love most of all helping support you in telling your story. So come on over.
VANNOY:
All right, Elizabeth, really enjoyed meeting you today. Great, great content. Looking looking forward to sharing this with folks on the show. You can find this in the live show. We’ll also have a recording of it on our website and available on their YouTube channel. So anything else you’d wanna say in closing, Elizabeth,
GORE:
Mike, thank you for small business owners out there. Step outta your isolation. You know, use resources like Asure and hello Alice and everything we can do to support you. Thank you Riverside. So glad to be with y’all.
VANNOY:
Yeah, until next week, thanks all.