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In this episode, Barbara and Joshua discuss:
*How the SBA loan works
*Common Mistakes Business owners make in Financing
*The Seven Accelerator Company- Joshua Kim’s Company

Key Takeaway:
” The more organized you can be with your financials, the better.” –Joshua Kim.

Connect with Joshua Kim

Website: https://www.7accelerator.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaekim/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshuakim702/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshuakim702
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/7accelerator/

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter:   @DrBarbaraHales
Facebook:   facebook.com/theMedicalStrategist
Business website: www.TheMedicalStrategist.com
Show website:   www.MarketingTipsForDoctors.com
Email:   Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com
YouTube: TheMedicalStrategist
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/barbarahales

Books:
*Content Copy Made Easy
*14 Tactics to Triple Sales
*Power to the Patient: The Medical Strategist

TRANSCRIPTION (099)

Dr. Barbara Hales:    Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips For doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Today, I would like to welcome a great person to learn from, by the name of Joshua Kim.

Joshua started from nothing. He had a desire to purchase a small business. Even at a young age, he discovered the world of SBA financing and after much trial and error, he was able to finance his first business purchase with an SBA loan of $1.2 million at 19.  Without family, money, connections, or an insider at the bank approving the loan. Subsequently, he was able to get two more loans totaling another $1.3 million to purchase two more businesses.

Welcome to the show, Josh.

Joshua Kim: Hi, how are you? Glad to be here.

Start in Entrepreneurship

Dr. Barbara Hales: Before we get into a number of questions, I’m going to expose the elephant in the room. And that is $1.3 million to a 19-year-old, and he didn’t know anything. Wow, I need to sit up and listen to this. I mean, this seems really far-fetched, but I promise you, we will get into this. So, tell us how did you get your start in entrepreneurship.

Joshua Kim: So, I got my start in entrepreneurship, with small businesses and ventures that I had run, e-commerce, various online things prior to getting into the world of acquisitions and SBA financing.
I realized that while those businesses are nice, there are obviously limits on how much you can grow one of those. And so, I wanted to get into a business that I could do bigger stuff with, and just frankly, have a higher ceiling. That’s really what I found in the world of SBA financing and acquisitions. There’s a lot more upside. There are a lot bigger things you can get done with it. That’s what intrigued me, and that’s what got me into it.

Securing the Loan

Dr. Barbara Hales: How did you manage to secure that kind of money as a 19-year-old?

Joshua Kim: A lot of people, when they hear that, they’ll say, “that’s impossible, blah, blah, blah.” The way that I had the deal structured is, I had a business that was already operating for over 12 years. The business has been operating for that long, it’s a lot safer, the bank size, right? Because the business already has revenue, it already has customers, all those things.

The other thing that I did, is I brought on a partner, someone who had over 10 years of experience in that space. When it was going in front of the bank to get approved, they weren’t looking at it, it’s just a 19-year-old. There’s a 19-year-old who’s one of the owners of this.
But we have someone in the business who’s been doing this kind of business for several years. That’s really where we were able to get it approved. Hopefully, that provides some context. I feel like it’s important context, a lot of people hear one piece of it, and they just like, “oh, well, that’s crazy, right.” But once you have the full context, it makes a lot more sense.

Common Mistakes Business Owners Make in Financing

Dr. Barbara Hales: That certainly makes a lot more sense. But you’ve had experience with this for a while now. Tell us what are the common mistakes that business owners make when it comes to financing.

Joshua Kim: I’d say one of the biggest mistakes that I see business owners doing when they go out to get financing is they don’t have their docs in a row. They don’t have their documents ready. They don’t have their stuff organized, they don’t have a good CPA that they’re partnering with, that’s helping to get a lot of the work done.

They try to do it all themselves. The biggest mistake that you can make in trying to get financing is trying to do it all yourself. That’s really the biggest thing I would tell people. In your quest for financing, as a business owner, one of the key things that I would recommend for everyone is, make sure you have clean books.
You don’t have to have a good CPA that’s good at cleaning that kind of stuff up, and make sure you have it organized. Because if you have that organized, that’s half the battle.

Overview of SBA Financing

Dr. Barbara Hales: That certainly makes a lot of sense. Can you give us an overview about SBA financing? I know that you know, people write entire textbooks about that. Obviously, we can’t get into everything here. Perhaps you can give us an overview.

Joshua Kim: SBA financing is perhaps the biggest open secret out there. My opinion with business owners. The government has an incentive to make it as easy as possible for business owners to get capital to grow their businesses. That’s kind of the premise of why the SBA exists.

Small Business Administration.

The way it works is, you’re not really getting a loan directly from the government through the SBA, you’re getting a loan through a bank. The SBA is guaranteeing a portion of it, meaning if the loan goes bad, the government will come in and the government will step in and pay.
Basically, an insurance policy, right? 75% alone is guaranteed by the government. The bank makes a loan of a million dollars, the bank is really only risking $250,000, because the SBA guarantees the difference.

Anyway, that’s a little bit about how the program works. You can use it for a business acquisition, obviously, since that’s what I did. You can use it for real estate purchases, you can use it for working capital, a partner buyout, refinancing debt, just getting extra money in your business for growth and expansion, marketing, hiring. As long as it’s got some semblance of a legitimate business need, you can qualify for SBA financing.

Requirements for an SBA loan

Dr. Barbara Hales: Who can apply for an SBA loan? Is it just anybody that is looking to start a venture? Or are there certain requirements before a person could consider doing that?

Joshua Kim: As long as your business is incorporated in the US and for profit, it will qualify. What I would tell people is that it’s easier to get money for an existing business, whether it be to buy one or to expand one that you already own, than it is to get financing for a start-up. There’s kind of a misconception that SBA financing, is a golden goose option for any kind of financing for a start-up. It’s really not. I tell people more often than not, it’s not a great resource for startups, because there are usually quicker and easier ways to accomplish getting financing for a start-up. But, again, It really just depends on what you have going on.

Steps in SBA Loan Application

Dr. Barbara Hales: What steps are there to apply for this loan? Let’s say you say, “I am starting a new practice, as a medical practice, it’s new, what would be considered a small business?” “Being that it is less than, like three or four professionals, and obviously, to start, we’re going to have huge, overhead. And being that it’s a business, I would like to apply for a loan.” What are the steps that I would need to take?

Joshua Kim: The steps that you would need to take would be initially collecting and making sure all your finances are organized profit-loss statements, tax turns all that.
Then another big mistake that I see people make is, they don’t really have a clear plan of what they’re going to do with the money. Or how much they need.

They think, oh, well, “I need this much”. The bank is going to ask you for a breakdown, what are you going to do with that? Just make sure you have all that ready to go.
The next step would be to contact multiple banks. Figure out who’s going to be a good lender. “Hey, I want to talk to someone in your small business lending department,” Can you give me a point of contact? “

Then once you’re able to talk to them, say, “Hey, this is what I need the money for, I’m a physician, I’m opening up another practice of buying a building or buying a partner”. Just give them a high-level explanation of what your loan request looks like.

They can tell you pretty quickly like, “Hey, this is something that I think our bank can get done, or this is something that is outside the scope of what our bank is going to be able to help with.” It’s always better to get a quick decline versus, a long air, long drawn out one. That’s one of the things, that’s just “a quick no is much better than a long drawn out No. ” Because of the amount of time you would otherwise waste.

Role of Bank Advisors

Dr. Barbara Hales: Do departments in these banks have advisors that could help walk you through it?

Joshua Kim: Yes. That’s the whole point of the vice-presidents at the bank. They basically are salespeople for these types of loans, so they understand the nuances and the intricacies of applications and underwriting and credit analysis.
When you get put in touch with them, they’re going to be the person who helps guide you through the process.

Tell you what we still need, identify possible friction points, help you figure out how to best mitigate for it. That’s the job of people at the bank. That’s what they’re there to do. They’re there to help you as a business owner navigate the otherwise confusing process

How to improve chances of securing a loan

Dr. Barbara Hales: If I were to go in and say “I’m setting up a new health facility, and I need a loan to do that”. ”What can I do to improve my chances of succeeding in getting this loan?

Joshua Kim: One of the things that I think gives people the highest chance of succeeding is frankly, just knowing your battle. Like, what are the possible friction points that you’re going to run into for the loan request? What are the areas of weakness? Is it a lack of collateral, like you don’t own a house or something that gives the bank extra collateral? Is it just identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the deal, and then understanding how to best navigate which banks are going to be useful for. Because not all banks are equal, just because it’s the same SBA government program, doesn’t mean every bank is going to operate it and look at it the same way.

Just keep that in mind. The biggest way to maximize your chances of success is looking at what the strengths or weaknesses are of your deal, or getting feedback from bankers on what the strengths and weaknesses are of your deal.

Take that feedback and use it to figure out,” we’re looking for a bank that doesn’t care about collateral as much we’re looking for a bank that is okay with, startups and new locations, stuff like that.” That’s what I would tell people. If you are going out there to open up another practice, what I would do if I was in that position?
As far as I think the easiest way to accomplish your goal of getting a loan.

Dr. Barbara Hales: A loan would also be applicable if I already had the business for a while, but I needed an influx due to less patience during the pandemic, let’s say?
Joshua Kim: Yes. If you’re looking for a sector working capital to get through, kind of a slow period of working capital is great for that. If your practice has seasonality to it, I guess some practices might or might not have a seasonality to them.
But you can use the word, “bank financing” pretty much whatever you need. Uf you need it for just growth, and working capital, you need it for buying a building, whatever you need it for in the business, that is totally up to you, for how you use it, and what you use it for.

The Seven A Accelerator Company

Dr. Barbara Hales: I understand that you have a company called Seven A Accelerator. Can you tell us about that?

Joshua Kim: I have a financial consulting business. We work with business owners in across all industries. We do work with a decent number of physicians, dentists, veterinarians, medical professionals, and we help navigate the SPLM process.
What we do is, help the clients collect all their financial documents. We help provide analysis of strengths, weaknesses, and deals. Then most importantly, we make sure they get paired up with a bank that’s going to get them approved.

We’ve been able to do, to date, I started this consulting business earlier because I’ve been doing it formally for people for quite a while. They’ve reached out to me. “Hey, are you good with these loans?” “Can you help me navigate it?”

I would be doing that today because I started this business earlier this year. We’ve already been able to close about eight figures worth of SBA loans. We have close to nine figures of total loans in the pipeline, almost $100 million in loans in the pipeline that we’re working on for clients all across the country. All industries, medical, and otherwise, we’ve got businesses and transportation, hospitality.

Even the guy who owns a franchise chain of hair salons. Any business out there is gonna be able to qualify for these. That’s what we help do. Figure out where the best bank is going to be. Identify all the strengths, weaknesses, and friction points in the deal, so that they can ultimately, get their financing to get approved.

General Advice for business owners

Dr. Barbara Hales: Wow, this is such a valuable service that you provide. Do you have some general advice for business owners based on your personal experience?

Joshua Kim: It depends on what you know. General advice is generally difficult with SBA financing. Because everything is so different. Every deal is different. Every situation is different for every client. It’s hard to provide specific advice. But the more organized you can be with your financials, the better.

As much as it might be nice to write off everything on your business, to minimize your taxes, that’s the other big thing I see people doing wrong. Is that they write everything off.
It’s great for taxes, but it’s bad for borrowing money, because when you go to the bank, they say, “okay, great, show us how much money you made on paper” but you never make any money right. There’s this kind of fundamental problem that a lot of business owners will run into with that because they’re like, “Hey, well, I want to borrow money”. They don’t have any profits that are shown. Those are two pieces of general advice. Be organized and show a profit if you do intend on trying to raise money down the road for your business.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Would you say then, to simplify things that if, “I were considering applying for a loan in two years’ time, that I better start paying my taxes for the next two years and show as a profit.”

Joshua Kim: That is generally my input for people. If you do want to go the route of leveraging capital through an SBA channel or otherwise, you will be best served by showing a profit on your taxes, it’ll just make life a lot easier.

Dr. Barbara Hales: Well, that’s really a catch 22.

Joshua Kim: It is. A lot of people that don’t want to, that they’re like, “oh, I don’t want to deal with taxes.” And I said, “Yeah, you know, I get it. But, if you really want to borrow money, the bank has to see that you’re turning a profit. “

Connect with Joshua Kim

Dr. Barbara Hales: It’s a conundrum, for sure. How can our listeners reach you to hear more about these services that you provide?

Joshua Kim: If you are a business owner in any industry, doesn’t have to be a medical professional, like I said, and you’re interested in learning more about getting financing, feel free to reach out to us just on the website. Just https://www.7accelerator.com/, that’s the number seven and then accelerator.com. We can fill out a quick questionnaire, get a call scheduled with either myself or my other consultants.

We can just do a quick intake process to evaluate how much money we think you’d be eligible for. What strengths, weaknesses, and friction points might be in getting an SBA, through the website. The quickest, easiest way to reach us, if you want to reach me directly, is my email is pretty simple, just josh@7accelerator.com if you ever want to reach me directly for anything.

Dr. Barbara Hales: I’m sure our listeners have learned a lot today. Thank you so much for being with us.

Joshua Kim: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Barbara Hales: This is another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors, with your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Until next time.