From Warehouse To Walmart: Financing Growth

Ever wonder how a distributor scales from a single pallet favor to pro seller status on a major marketplace? We sit down with Noslen Anaya of Great Deals 21 to unpack the real mechanics of financing growth in logistics and distribution—where Miami’s ports meet Latin American demand and e‑commerce velocity meets old‑school wholesale relationships.

We start with origin and place: how Miami became the perfect launchpad for bonded shipments, consolidated air and ocean freight, and fast transfers to the Caribbean and South America. From there, we dive into the operational core—what it means to turn “can you hold this pallet?” into a reliable 3PL service, then layer on distribution of electronics and household appliances. The conversation drills into the cash conversion cycle on Walmart: buying inventory, prepping to spec, shipping to fulfillment centers, biweekly payouts, and the realities of returns, reviews, and reserves. Along the way, we contrast that relative speed with the complexity of bonded logistics, where duties can be deferred but fees, documentation, and misdeclared dimensions can derail timelines and margins.

The throughline is financing. Noslen shares how disciplined personal credit habits—paying before statement close, managing utilization, and learning from a banker mentor—created a foundation for business credit with Dun & Bradstreet and Experian. That credibility paved the way for a conventional bank line of credit after profitable years, turning 500‑unit orders into multi‑thousand‑unit buys and effectively 5x‑ing annual inventory turns. We weigh interest cost against expanded buying power, better vendor pricing, and the chance to pursue semi‑exclusive distribution that deepens moats and accelerates growth. There’s also candor about lessons learned: the cost of personal splurges, selling a rental too soon, and how today’s maturity guides smarter reinvestment.

If you’re building a product company, wholesaling into retail, or expanding on marketplaces like Walmart and Amazon, this deep dive will sharpen how you think about cash flow, credit, and scale. Subscribe, share with a founder who needs a financing reset, and leave a review to tell us your toughest cash flow hurdle—we may tackle it next.

Connect with Keith on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithkohler1/

Transcript

Origin Story And Miami Roots

Keith Kohler 0:03

Hi everyone, it's Keith Kohler, your financing man, here with the latest episode of how I financed it. And again, by way of background, what I do as your financing man is I help you get the right financing at the right time. That's Transaction Me. And I meet you where you are and guide you along your financing journey, and that's Transformation Me. So again, transaction plus transformation equals financing in. Today's episode is going to take a bit of a new twist on a theme that we've had. It's in the consumer space. And yet I'm going to bring to the stage shortly someone who is in the distribution and wholesaling business, both domestically and in Latin America. So I can't wait to bring to the stage Noslena Naya from Great Deals 21.

Noslen Anaya 0:54

Good. Why are you?

Keith Kohler 0:56

I'm very good. Welcome to the How I Financed It stage. So so glad to have you here with us. Thank you. Thank you for the invite, by the way. Yeah, totally my pleasure. It's exciting to have you here because, again, a lot of the work I've done so far in this podcast is with consumer package goods companies, branded consumer package goods companies. And now I'm happy to bring you here because you work with manufacturers of consumer products in the distribution and wholesale areas. So can't wait to see what insights we're going to come up with. And really the way I always start up or start out on how I financed it is for you to share a bit in your voice about the origin story of great deals and how you got into business and what inspired you.

Noslen Anaya 1:37

Okay. Well, me as a person in the business field, it's being like a roller coaster, to be honest, because like everything in life, you know, you you start it with an idea and then you start to develop it. And during during the path, some things are good, others not that good. But at the same time, you you know you become a better, a better businessman, let's say in this way, through you know, all the knowledge either that that you that you acquire doing during the the activities that you do on your business, and also you know, during the years on your industry, you get mature, let's say it in that way, you know. So it already started because at the beginning, well, since I was a little kid, let's say a teenager, 16 years old, 17 years old, I always wanted to work with my dad, you know? And I truly believe that me as a person, you know, getting as a businessman, uh, uh, I was dreaming it in at that at that age of my life, you know, since I was like a teenager.

Keith Kohler 2:55

And that's interesting because many teenagers are feel can feel the opposite too, right? It's like yeah, yeah, even though I wouldn't consider that.

Noslen Anaya 3:04

Yeah, and even though that I that I that I needed and I and I knew it at that time that I needed to to study anything in life, I wanted to be involved in in my dad's business and my dad's activities as a businessman, you know. I found out like a like uh for me, him, like a superhero, you know, doing doing the business and all the activities that he was involved in. At that time, he used to have a cellular phones, uh wholesale company as well, through because we are originally from Venezuela, and he used to come to US. We were living in Venezuela, right? And he used to come to the US and buy products and take it to Venezuela, sell there, you know, as a wholesale, because he he had a warehouse there. And well, that's I think was like my path to follow in order for me to get into the into business. And now going back to great deals, I established the company uh just following the path. And you know, I wanted to incorporate you know wholesales and uh and at the same time logistics, which I've been involved for a long time, you know, doing logistics.

Keith Kohler 4:29

Was logistics part of your dad's original um company as well?

From Favors To A Logistics Business

Noslen Anaya 4:34

Or was it not that much, not that much, because he used to to all all the products that he used to buy at that time, he he he hired like a third-party company to to manage all the logistics for him, you know. But me living in in Miami was like, you know, at the beginning, everybody was like like asking you like for a favor. Because I remember that we used to have the warehouse, and everybody was starting, you know, asking you like, can you do me a favor and keep a palette in your warehouse and move it from a point A to point B? And then I saw the opportunity like with my business partners, like, let's make a business of it, you know, let's let's be in the logistics field as well. Here in Miami, as you know, there are millions of companies doing logistics, millions, but at the end, it it just depends on the service that you provide, the people that you provide, maybe maybe you focus more in in let's say in a country or in an industry, and and you become one of the best, not the best, but one of the best, you know, because you're responsible. And in the logistics uh industry, it it all relies on be responsible. Try to be on time with the logistics, because many times you don't control the logistics, you don't drive, you don't drive the the airplane, you don't you don't drive the the the boat, you know? So but if you keep it if you keep it as honest as possible and you provide a good service to your customer, your customers they're gonna be you know with you for a long time. We have customers with us for 13 years, 14 years already, you know, managing the logistics. So yeah, going back to my dad's roots, he he he didn't have that logistic that he can control at that time, you know. And and Miami was was not as big in the logistics as nowadays, you know.

Keith Kohler 6:48

Yeah, just to share by way of background for our listeners and our viewers, the reason why Miami is a big logistics center is because yeah, it has the largest ports that service the entire region, right? The Caribbean, Central America, and Latin America, particularly northern Latin America. So between the airport and the seaport, a lot comes in and flows in and out of those ports. And so a lot in the United States gets shipped to Miami for further exports. Exactly. And then vice versa as well.

Noslen Anaya 7:19

We manage we manage a lot of operations doing like that, which is like bonded. So the the the goods are coming in transit, either by boat or by airplane. So Miami is is uh it's a really nice point on in the logistics to then go to the final destination, you know? So yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Miami has been growing a lot through the years.

Keith Kohler 7:46

Share with us a bit about the distribution services that you do.

Noslen Anaya 7:50

Okay, the distribution services is well, uh like I said, uh it's pretty much the old-fashioned way to sell products, but you know, including as well e-commerce and third-party logistics. So great deals started with the thoughts and the ideas to to be managing in the e-commerce uh platforms, you know. Nowadays we we we can be in in many platforms through e-commerce at the same time, for example. We sell also as a wholesaler through Walmart nowadays, at the present, right now. So maybe everybody thinks that Walmart just sells the products by their own, and and they not.

Keith Kohler 9:05

And again, you did that recently. So I'm gonna go back into the beginning years, right? So in those beginning years, you were offering traditional logistics services, right?

Noslen Anaya 9:14

Yeah, yeah, and the logistics services uh make the connection with the with the with the distribution as a wholesaler, because we started to find it out, you know, more vendors, vendors actually that that at the beginning we only we only manage the logistics, but then we saw the opportunities to buy from those vendors and to resell it domestic here in the US, you know, for for a small profit or a percentage of profits, like any any other business, because you work is to you know earn money. So we saw the big opportunity here in the US because thank god this is an excellent country, a big country where you know many people consume products every single day, as you know. You can be an example for uh you go to bed and you start you know browsing in in Amazon and in one night. You buy, yeah, nowadays you buy a lot.

Keith Kohler 10:21

The next day, it's like how did all this show up?

Noslen Anaya 10:23

Yeah, how many boxes? What happened, man? You know, so yeah, some weeks you said no, you know what? Hey, let's hold it now because we bought so many things. So this is a country that the people consume many, many products in different industries. So we saw that opportunity and we started, you know, contacting vendors, attending to conventions as well. And we started, you know, uh placing orders, making sales, growing a little bit by little, you know, breaking the ice. And nowadays we're we're managing, you know, many sales, you know, good vendors, always looking for new vendors, new customers, growing at the end, you know.

Keith Kohler 11:11

Yeah, and when you started again, you were putting you started again with what you knew from doing the business with your father. What was the original way you financed the business? How did you provide the initial capital?

Noslen Anaya 11:24

Well, on my my company was money that I save, of course. But at that time, I knew that keeping a good credit score, keeping a good credit history, you can you know get tools to finance your your business. And lately, well, we we we got approved for a line of credit to the business, uh by your help, yeah, right. And and yeah, but but at the beginning was most likely with own capital and the little sources that I had, like with personal credit cards, you know, but anyway, paying on time, because thank God I I know about the system, how the credit score and the credit reporting works here. So my credit history is being really, really good. And and I also, you know, try to get in improved like every single year, you know.

Why Miami Is A Logistics Hub

Keith Kohler 12:33

Let's explore that a bit further because what's an interesting insight, Noslen, is here you were born in Venezuela, you raised a lot a part a lot here with senior dad. How did you learn about or what was your influence, or where did you read about personal credit, and how did you come to understand the the importance of it and how it could help you start out your business?

Noslen Anaya 12:56

Well, at the beginning, nobody nobody told me like try to work in your personal uh credit score in this way. Nobody told me that, you know. Maybe maybe seeing you know bad situations to other family members made me realize because I'm one of my characteristics as a person is that uh I always like to be as much organized as possible, you know. Uh I want to be and me coming to the to the US at 17 years old, right, made me to be part in my thoughts as a thinking as an American and not as a Latino, right? But my other like have things or act as a Latino, right? So I have that mix up, but I clearly understood that here in in US, you need to follow the path and keep organized as much organized as possible in your personal uh credit report or your personal credit history. So that made me to uh to start you know investigating more details about how I could be you know improving my credit or leveling up the the credit. And I remember I used to have a banker in that I that that we ended up to be some uh friends for a long time. His name is Sandro. And at the beginning, I I asked him a lot of questions about credit report, and he and he actually, yeah, he was one of like, let's say, like a mentor that helped me to to to improve even my credit. Never never had any anything bad on my credit, but I wanted to, you know, be be be uh have a stronger credit history, you know. And he explained me some details of how to do it because as a banker, they know it, they study for yeah, because they get the credit reports printed out, and yeah, the importance of using utilization, on-time payments, all those different things. So again, they do they do that study to their customers, you know.

Keith Kohler 15:14

Yeah, and so so you knew early on using credit cards wisely, and again, you said it, you use them and then you paid them in full, right?

Noslen Anaya 15:22

Yeah, yeah.

Keith Kohler 15:23

Okay, you know how unique you are, right? With that.

Noslen Anaya 15:26

Yeah, yeah. We pay before the closing date to to avoid the interest rate, you know?

Keith Kohler 15:33

Yeah, because we know that for a lot of our founders out there, particularly in the early stages, they run up the credit card balance and then they're almost always maxed out because that's they didn't have savings. And again, it's not a bad thing, yeah, but it's it's one way of financing your business. And for some, it's often the only way, um, because they may or may not have access to additional resources. And yet the advantage of if you're able to pay in full is they're being rotating, you go in and out of it, you get more, you get more, you pay it down.

Noslen Anaya 16:07

Your credit score goes up.

Keith Kohler 16:09

Yeah, because more activity, right? And then a question for you at that time, so that's on the personal credit side. Yeah. Um, at that time that you started, were you aware of anything, or did you look into business credit scores or anything like that? Such as Drag Street?

Noslen Anaya 16:27

Well, that that was like let's say after opening my own businesses, like five to six years later, that I find out that you actually built uh business credit as well. I did a research on on that company. And yeah, little by little growing by by me, you know, because I didn't study my my career, it was not involved with let's say financial, you know. So yeah, but I it took me like like five to six years later that you can build a business credit uh history for the company, and actually you can get more benefits from from the personal side, you know.

Keith Kohler 17:14

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that with us because that's a typical path for a lot of founders, is inevitably we either understand or we don't personal credit, and yet we're all gonna have experience with it, right? Yeah, what I loved about what you did is you had a natural curiosity, yeah. And happily you also had a mentor through banking. And so I want to encourage all our viewers and listeners to know out there that um no one expects a founder to be an expert on the credit side themselves, right? But the great news, there's lots of resources such as in NerdWallet, Investopedia, but also the personal one. Bankers, importantly, are very critical because in conventional lending and SBA lending, anything that touches a bank, personal credit score is so critical.

Noslen Anaya 18:03

Oh, yeah.

Keith Kohler 18:03

In addition to cash flow and ability to pay. So the fact that that banker said, hey, this is the way credit needs to be for it to work for me, right?

Noslen Anaya 18:13

And then that's a valuable tip. That's a valuable tip, you know.

Keith Kohler 18:17

That's right. That's an incredibly valuable tip. And I think let's just follow that all the way through. Is for everybody watching and listening, really, really encourage you early on, even if you're far away from a bank loan, to establish a relationship with a commercial banker or someone at your local bank, whether it's a big banner bank or a community bank or anywhere in between, who can explain to you this is the way we look at credit.

Noslen Anaya 18:42

Right.

Keith Kohler 18:42

And that's the personal credit side to start.

Noslen Anaya 18:45

Yeah.

Funding The Start With Personal Credit

Keith Kohler 18:45

The reason I talked to you and asked you about business credit is because in the last few years, I've been observing, again, for anyone doing a bank loan or a bank line of credit, okay. Some banks place a bigger, a bigger emphasis also on business credit. And for nearly all of our founders out there, right? We never look at it. Or, you know, we've been aware of Dun and Brad Street, and oh, I don't want to pay the fee. And what's the use of this? Does it really work? Does it say anything? Well, I think again, I'm gonna keep talking about this for just a second more, I promise. And that's it. No, that's okay.

Noslen Anaya 19:22

Reason the reason why this is important, you know, and and no one can explain you anything about it.

Keith Kohler 19:27

Yeah, it's you're right, it's not as available. People sometimes resist it because, oh, I have to pay for this service, and why am I doing that? What's the benefit of it? And yet, what a business credit report actually does is it is kind of like a report card of how much credit you have available through the business and how you're doing it. And for a lot of companies, they miss out on a understanding it, or oftentimes the only time they first hear of it is if someone tells them that there's a problem. An example could be for a lot of again, no son, you were in a great position, right? You paid your credit cards in full, but some people get business credit cards, and just like in the personal world, they might have missed payments or they might be overdrawn, and that's you're gonna pay a price for that. The other area where people tend to get or overlook things is payments with their vendors, right? The importance of hey, you know, if someone's manufacturing your product or no slend, if you have a uh logistics provider that you use, and if those bills aren't paid on time, they might report to credit.

Noslen Anaya 20:36

They might report it in your credit, yeah.

Keith Kohler 20:38

And that's the key thing. So thank you for allowing me to share a little bit more on this topic because on all the podcasts so far, we've not talked about business credit. And so I'm really going to encourage everybody out there to at least get familiar whether it's done in Brad Street, and I think Experian and Equifax also have business credit.

Noslen Anaya 20:58

I did it with one of my companies in the in the past with the through Esperian. Brilliant. And it's cheaper than done the the other company.

Keith Kohler 21:08

Yeah, done in Brad Street. Yeah, which is the one that recognizes it's the highest uh awareness. So this is a great segment, and I appreciate that. But again, in conclusion, y'all, personal credit, almost everybody gets it. Please look into business credit. And probably I should do a course or some very focused uh tutorial just on that.

Noslen Anaya 21:28

That would be nice.

Keith Kohler 21:29

That would be nice because yeah, we don't know until we know, right?

Personal Credit Habits And Mentorship

Noslen Anaya 21:32

No, and and it is frustrated when when you go, let's say let's say that let's say that that that you go to a bank to either apply for a credit card or for a line of credit. Let's let's say that you don't have um uh a broker or a banker directly, and for one day you decide to go to your bank and you you deal with a big bank. Yeah, uh recognized. Bank and you go there, and you know that your personal credit score and your credit history is really good, but you don't know anything about the business uh history on the or the business uh credit report, right? So when when you when you sit down with the banker, right, he he starts you know checking everything on it, and they say, like, no, you don't qualify for anything, not even a credit card under the business, and you might not know why, and you don't understand why, you know, and that's because the business might not have any credit history at all, not in reporting under the business, yeah. And that's that's that's the thing, you know. That's the thing.

Keith Kohler 22:47

Oh, brilliant. That's really helpful, Nelson. And then I appreciate your perspective too on how you got to know about it and how you're seeing it and understanding it through your lens as well.

Noslen Anaya 22:56

So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keith Kohler 22:57

Awesome. That was a great rabbit hole to go down through. So again, so you did the personal credit cards, and then you find that that was enough cash flow to get you to a certain point, right? Yes, and then you kept growing the business. And then, so again, you you originally had said to us that a lot of it was, hey, you were doing favors or people were asking you for favors to do add those logistic services, and that came as a result of trust, right? And loyalty. And I wonder if you could share a bit about how that has built your business, the importance of trust and the relationships. You mean with the customers? Yes, with the customers, uh-huh.

Business Credit 101 And Reporting

Noslen Anaya 23:38

Yeah, well, it's it's it's really tough because I uh I have a like a thought that I always say that the relationship with your customers is like like a relationship with a marriage, you know. So you gotta be careful how to treat your customer and at the same time the feedback from the customer because sometimes you feel like you give a hundred percent to your customers and you don't receive the same the same way from your customers, you know, and so that relationship is like no balance at all. And at the end, you guys ended up like breaking up, or either the customers go to another route, or you maybe one day say, I'm not gonna deal with you anymore, you know. So, like everything in life, we have we've we've been having good customers for a long time, like the one that I told you before 13 years, 14 years, you know, relationship in logistics. And we have others that might not work at all as we expected at the beginning, you know, because for some reason, maybe it changed the whole thoughts that this customer had in the beginning, or the projections that he has on his business, and everything changed. Maybe his vendor is not you know delivering the the goods at the time. For example, right now we have a customer, she is involved, she has 10 stores for clothing in South America. 10 she's big, she's big because each store is really big, it's not a small store, it's not a pop-up store, they're really big stores, right? Clothing store. She buys products from Europe and from Turkey, but all the goods that she buys has to come to Miami, what we mentioned before. We do we do like uh the bonded uh process for her, we put it on the containers and we chip it down to South America, right? She's been good with us, and we've been plenty, plenty, you know, uh transparent to her through through the logistic. But uh she's uh she lives in in South America and the way she deals, she's hard dealing. When I say hard, she's like she wants to do it like this, and everything is done, you know? And as we all know, in business, not everything is like that, you know, because we don't it's it's not on it's not dependent just between me and her, or let's say in in in business, in my company and her company. No, we have many people involved, airbender, yeah. The company who chips the goods from either Europe or Turkey, the one of the companies is disorganized in all the documents and makes everything else harder to work.

Keith Kohler 27:09

And it only takes one problem in the whole system to make everybody experience problems.

Noslen Anaya 27:15

She doesn't understand when you explain to her that the documentation coming into the US for the goods are not in this in the right way. She doesn't understand that. She thinks that we are making a mistake, you know. And we have had, you know, like like many conversations recently and hard conversations that we ended up not breaking the the relationship in business, but slowing down a little bit. For example, the process in the bonded, maybe we're gonna put it in hulk right now, and we're not gonna do it. And we're gonna keep work working with her with the goods that she buys in the in US, and the and the goods that the she needs to do logistics within the US, you know. Yeah, because she she works also, she she buys also from California, she needs to bring it into into Miami, you know, move it around. So that part of the logistic is working good. So, like I said, you're gonna have like like customers in different ways, in different shapes, you know. So everything is not perfect at all.

Keith Kohler 28:30

Well, yeah, and these are real challenges because as you indicated, if you're selling a consumer product direct to your customer, well, that's a direct thing. That's that's a thing in logistics. You have the customs broker, you have the actual transport company, who else is there, right? So you have all these people, and as you said, it's just one person that can make one person not doing their job that can make you look bad. Nice that you're the project manager, but you can't control every other outcome. So, and I that's an illustration of of how challenging it can be, particularly in recent years with supply chain issues coming up and tariffs. Um, actually, of the day of this recording, for everybody to be aware of, the Supreme Court ruling talked about the tariffs were not legal that were imposed by the current administration. I'm not being political, I'm simply saying tariffs now are where everybody's top of mind. And now what's going to happen now that these tariffs might go away or there might be shifts and changes, it's gonna be a super dynamic environment. Yeah, and that uncertainty and the way that things have been, both macro and in many cases political, has had to be challenging for you.

Noslen Anaya 29:45

Of course, of course, of course. And that's just an example in the logistic field, because what what you what you just mentioned is that I try to control what I what I sell going directly to the customer, or for example, let's let's let's talk about uh right now e-commerce on Walmart. I prepare all my my products either from my warehouses or from my vendors, and we ship it directly to to Walmart fulfillment centers. That's just one point A to B, right? And then Walmart is in charge to make the final delivery once every single product is being sold, right? When when they sold it, they are the one in charge to make the shipping and to get the product delivered. It's not my responsibility anymore, you know? Walmart's responsibility. So I try to I do it by doing that, I try to minimize my risk of having like issues through the path, you know, in order to to sell, let's say, this product, uh a cellular phone, you know, an electronic phone, which is some of the fields that I that I'm that I manage, household appliances and electronics, you know. So yeah.

Keith Kohler 31:08

As I listen to you, Noslean, I have an idea that I think could be also helpful for our viewers and listeners. And what we're gonna go through together is a cash conversion cycle for a minute.

Noslen Anaya 31:19

Okay.

Keith Kohler 31:20

So let's start with the easy one with e-commerce, right? So if you're selling on Walmart.com and then you you're selling specific products, tell me how those cash flows work. How does it start? Do you lay out the initial money for in order to get the product?

Noslen Anaya 31:35

Oh, yeah.

Keith Kohler 31:37

How does that all work?

Noslen Anaya 31:38

Yeah, I have to buy the product, right? Prepare the product according to to the to the rules of Walmart, right? Ship it to Walmart. Walmart starts selling the product as a retail, right? Through their name and through their inventory, right? And then I get pay. That's the whole the the whole cycle, right? You know, put it in simple in a simple process, you know. I buy, I ship, Walmart sells, I get paid. That's but like every business, it has you know the benefits and you know the downsides, returns, because the returns has to be handled by me, you know.

Keith Kohler 32:28

Even that that for example you have to handle the returns off of the Walmart platform, yeah.

Trust, Customers, And Tough Logistics

Noslen Anaya 32:33

Walmart has an advantage through another e-commerce uh platform. Let's put it in this way. Amazon. Amazon doesn't have uh stores, you know, Walmart does. So you can buy something on Walmart.com, right? But if you don't like it, you just go to the closest store to your house and you just return it there. Once Walmart receives it either in a in a store or in their warehouses, they have to process it through a return center. When they process it, they ship it back to me. So I have to even inspect it because many of the of the returns they're just okay, they're just brand new, and I can ship it back to Walmart and resell it again. It all depends on their on their return centers, because sometimes they they do the process right and they put it in in restock in my in my store in Walmart, you know, so I don't I don't see it back physically with me in my warehouse. That's a big thing because that that would be the best because having the physical goods coming back, there's so much and I don't spend more shipping costs to Walmart again, you know. But many of them are coming from from Walmart to me, and then I have to inspect it and ship it back. So I I spend a little bit more money on shipping, you know. So that's like the downside of the business. The the the good thing of the of the business is that it's a 24-7 business selling, you're sleeping and it's selling if you have the right inventory, you know, if you have the right uh product.

Keith Kohler 34:31

Yeah, so I think as I listen to this, and uh the reason I asked you to illustrate that for us is when I've talked to other companies in the e-commerce sector, the key thing again is the cash conversion cycle, right? So you're buying that product at the beginning, and that's coming from your money.

Noslen Anaya 34:47

Yeah, right.

Keith Kohler 34:48

And before we worked on the line of credit, you were doing that from your own money operations and credit cards and other things, right? Yeah, and so you you're buying that, and you probably had minimum order quantities, right? Yes, yeah, you have to which again, for everybody's knowledge, you have to buy a certain amount of physical goods stored in your place, so all of that cost is on you, yeah, until Walmart starts paying you, right? Yes, and how do they pay you? Do they pay you like your product sells today? Okay how long does it take for you to get that money?

Noslen Anaya 35:24

They they pay bike weekly, they pay by bi weekly, so every 14 days, yeah. Every 14 days, same as Amazon. Yes, the same thing. And they put uh depending on the products that you're selling and depending on the returns being processed, they always hold a little bit of your money there just in case to you know to return the money to the customers when when when a customer's request a return, you know about what percentage of that is of reserves? Um yeah, around that, around that, yeah.

Keith Kohler 36:03

Okay, which is manageable, yeah, it's manageable.

Noslen Anaya 36:06

It doesn't hurt you at all, but well, who doesn't like to have the to be paid out completely, you know? Yeah, you'd rather have all the cash and that's but I'm working out on that one because actually, like two weeks ago, I had a really, really good meeting with a representative from Walmart in a Zoom meeting that we we had, my family and I, and she said that she's working on it to remove that 21-day haul on our on our store because we've been doing we've been doing good. Actually, we are pro seller in Walmart. And when you are pro seller, yeah, when you are pro seller, you you get more benefits. At the end of this month, I'm I'm going to do a webinar that is only an invite for pro sellers.

Keith Kohler 36:54

Brilliant. How long did it take you to get to be a pro seller?

Noslen Anaya 36:58

Well, I did it fast, and thank God, because the product that I saw at the beginning when we were like new to Walmer, it had a really fast rotation and and not even, I think, 2% of return. So it was really good. So it took me less than two months to be already a pro seller in Walmer. But then it comes like not the hard part, but like everything you gotta keep up. You gotta keep you the same level and not going down because they can remove you from pro seller. You can have pro seller in this month, but on the next month, maybe you lose it, and then maybe you get it back on two months two months after, you know. So it is like that.

Keith Kohler 37:48

Does that factor in seasonality? Meaning you might be slower in the summer, right? And you might be higher quality here. So yeah, it can be a the the the levels adjust a bit.

Noslen Anaya 38:00

The level adjust, but is most more likely with the fake back from the customers and the reviews that they that they done, that they that they put it on writing about the product. Many times are not your fault because if they make a review for the product, you're not the you're not the owner of the product. Let's say a ninja product, a brand, the the ninja brand, they put the review under the ninja brand. But if they put the review under your company name, it will be totally different, you know. But in this case, the logistics inside Walmart, Walmart is the responsible, like I said before. So is it's it is more likely like Walmart's fall, because an example is this one. I sell any any product, any electronic product, and Walmart ships it to you because you bought it, right? Let's make an example that you bought it last night, uh printer, right? But the printer is it is coming from my inventory, right? From my company, from great deals. When you receive it, the box is damaged. You report that as a damage. Walmart is responsible for the damage because they handle the handle the shipping, yeah. So it's not going into my fault, it's Walmart's fault. And actually, Walmart refunds the money to the to the customer, but it doesn't, you know, get the money from me. They say it's my fault. So it's good to go. But not all the cases are the same, you know. Many people change a change. Some people change the product and they send you the wrong product, you open a ticket, you know. It's like I said before, it has the the the good and the bad thing, as any other business, because there is not a perfect business in life.

Keith Kohler 40:06

No, there is not a perfect business in life. The minute you find one, you let me know. You do.

Noslen Anaya 40:14

If you want, if you if you find that one, let me know.

Keith Kohler 40:19

Yeah, we'll be waiting to find that one. I'm gonna come so this was helpful, Nos Lynn, because a lot of e-commerce companies, these nuances of what does it take to achieve the highest level? How do you stay there? And again, importantly, that cash conversion cycle from the moment you're putting your cash out there until you get paid. It seems like, and at least for you in e-commerce, it's pretty tight. Yeah, right. It happens, say what, within 45 days or so, or something like that.

Noslen Anaya 40:44

Well, the the worst case scenario is 45 days, but I have had in the past, I think that I mentioned to you like like a month ago when we had a conversation, you know, about financials, that I had a a product back in December. Of course, the the the season helped me a lot, but that product was sold sold out the whole inventory in less than 24 hours.

Keith Kohler 41:16

Tremendous, yeah.

Walmart E‑Commerce Playbook

Noslen Anaya 41:17

Yeah, so you expect like everything is is like that, it will be like that, but it's not so the slowest product that I've been have at the store 30 to 35 days, which still is excellent, it's still incredibly fast. I bought back back in December some printers, some canon printers, really cheap. When I say cheap, it's because this is something really cool. It's a small printer that they come with black and color, right? That you can print in in all black on color. They're like 44 45 dollars printer. And if you need to replace uh the the the the colors and everything, uh it costs you more, you know. So it's better to buy a new printer than buying than buying the replaceable, you know?

Keith Kohler 42:17

Yeah, for sure.

Noslen Anaya 42:18

And a lot of people will do that. So I bought it, yeah. So I bought almost 800 units back on December, and I was a little bit like like afraid, like if it if uh if it was gonna be uh a product, a fast moving product or not, bro. It took 32 days, and I sold the 800 units. Amazing, yeah, amazing. So it depends, you know, it depends, but yeah, most likely what you say, 45 days.

Keith Kohler 42:51

Yeah, no, so I'm gonna go back a minute very quick, okay, super quick, to go back through the cash conversion cycle for the logistics from Europe, Turkey to Latin America, and we're gonna do that in one second because I have to go to the bathroom and I want to give a break. Okay, I'll be right back. Okay. First time for everything, right? Yeah, sounds good.

Noslen Anaya 43:24

What's that? How do you see everything? Our conversation. It's great, right? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, perfect, perfect. Perfect. No, I love the back and forth and the informality of it. Okay, I told I told you, bro, if you have if you need to hold me, hold me because I start talking and talking and talking, and I don't talk. He loves that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We always talk at night. And oh, sure. Talk at night, we go like one hour, two hours, and when when we say, oh my god, it's 11 a.m. It's 11 p.m. already. So let's finish and we'll keep tomorrow. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. That's good conversations. That's when that good conversation comes out. Yeah. And and where are you located? Here in Miami as well? I am not. I'm actually in Colorado. I'm just north of Denver. Okay. So cold right now. It is. It hasn't been, but it is cold right now. It is 27 degrees outside. Oh my God. No way. No way. We haven't had too cold of a hi. We haven't had too cold of a winter though thus far. I mean it's been 50s, dare I say we even get to the 60s every once in a while, which is so not normal. But yeah. No, no, no. Here we love our weather. I know. Not in August though. Correct. I know, not in not in July and August. Oh my god. And the humidity. I just don't do well in the humidity. I'm just so used to a dry environment that ugh. Crazy because I've been in Vegas in summertime. And in Vegas, we don't have humidity. And I think it's worse here in Miami than Vegas, even though that the Vegas goes up to one one, something like that. But the 89 here in Miami is worse. I agree with that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Any other bathroom breaks? Anything else?

Keith Kohler 45:32

Good.

Noslen Anaya 45:33

Okay.

Keith Kohler 45:34

Um, Danica, I can pick it up. Should I pick it up with again? No Slen, that was great. I wanted to go back quickly on is that where I should start?

Noslen Anaya 45:42

I think something very definitive like that is great. Yeah.

Keith Kohler 45:45

Okay. That's what I'll do.

Noslen Anaya 45:46

Perfect.

Keith Kohler 45:48

321 ready. You know, Noslin, that was really great. That was very helpful again for looking at that cash conversion cycle in the e-commerce space. I wanted to go back really briefly to uh talking about the cash conversion cycle and the cash flows that happen in the logistics business that we first started with, like and use the example of the customer with the clothing store. So from the time now she's asking you to do the work to get the goods from Europe to Miami and down there, tell me how that works. Do you put out the original money? Do you invoice them? Do they give you a deposit? How might that work?

Noslen Anaya 46:26

No, on her, she buys the product directly to Europe or Turkey, because actually she always traveling frequently to those countries. And what I finance to her is all the logistics. And what we haven't, you know, some issues with with her lately, is because she's seen that the logistics expenses here in Miami are high. And she thought at the beginning that we were charging her so much money, you know? And it's all what it what it what involves the logistics. Because when you go to bonded, many customers have the the idea that when you put a product on the bonded, yeah, you don't pay duties, right? But you gotta pay many other fees inside the bonded process, you know. So they think that it's gonna be just one fee and that's it. And no, you gotta pay an entry as well, you gotta pay storage for the days that you are in in the bonded. No, it cannot be a regular warehouse, it has to be a bonded warehouse, yeah.

Keith Kohler 47:48

Because it's a transfer of goods between yeah, a bonded talking, so everything has to be taken care of differently, you know. And can you predict what those fees are going to be, or sometimes do you get surprises?

Noslen Anaya 48:03

Sometimes you get surprises, sometimes you get surprises because whoever chips the the goods many times doesn't put like the right way or the dimensions, so they try to hide as much information. Let's say in the air where the goods are coming through air, and when you go and pick it up at the airport, you find out that the the the cheating is is larger, you know, or it's heavier.

Keith Kohler 48:37

Yeah, and that's your responsibility, that's your cash like charge customer, yeah. How many days do they have to pay you?

Noslen Anaya 48:47

Well, uh I don't give them more than 30 days. Okay, I can give them more than 30 days if the goods are going out of out of uh country, you know.

Keith Kohler 48:56

Sure.

Noslen Anaya 48:58

Is that common to give terms?

Keith Kohler 49:00

Is that common to give terms?

Noslen Anaya 49:03

No, not not at all. It most likely if the customer has like years working with you, you know? Yeah, because even though that we have like like terms with the chipping company directly, you know, that's that's my deal with the shipping company, right? But I don't have to to to give to my customer the same the same treatment that I that I'm getting from from the shipping company, you know.

Keith Kohler 49:28

Yeah, so again, it's it is a bit of a dance, right? You're managing all these different relationships, there can be surprises. Again, the world of tariffs, which has gone up and down and all around, and and the difference in fuel prices and and pricing for shipping can change in a second, right? And all that.

Noslen Anaya 49:46

So but I have other customers, uh, but I have other customers that that are I that I buy the products, but it's most likely the the domestic uh because again, and that's so much easier because it's less yeah, less less people touching the whole process, yeah.

Keith Kohler 50:04

Yeah, yeah. So thank you for that. I really again, since you're my first guest that is doing this type of work, okay. Give our viewers and listeners an opportunity to understand a little bit more about how it works. Because even though they might not ever do shipping and logistics, many of them might be exporting and might fail to understand. Well, wait a minute, why does it work this way? And what what are my responsibilities? What could happen well, what could go wrong, et cetera. So that was an interesting exercise. So going back a little bit, so again, you grew the business over all these years really with your income from operations, right? Yeah, the core shipping and logistics. And then we got introduced, and you said, okay, now it's time to expand because I have more opportunities, not just Walmart.com, but um in the core business as well. So here we work together on getting a line of credit, right? And I would love for you to share. Obviously, I have my way of thinking about it and talking about it, but I'd love for you to share briefly with our viewers and listeners is what did that line of credit really mean to you? What what do you think you were trying to achieve in the way you understood how it worked?

Noslen Anaya 51:11

Well, the line of credit that we already uh have on the business through you represents a lot for my business because it's uh a relief and uh and a good and an excellent tool to grow the business, you know, in every aspect. Because financially, of course, you have more power to to to buy. Uh, for example, right now I'm I'm trying to close a deal with a with a vendor that let's say last year before the line of credit, I could buy 500 units of the product that I'm that I'm dealing with him. And right now we are talking about 2,000 units, 3,000 units, you know. So the buying power for me already increased a lot, you know. And perfect illustration.

Keith Kohler 52:05

If I can if I can go, if I can dig in on that. So no sana, prior to the line of credit, 500 units, right? Yeah, now with the line of credit, let's call it five times that, right?

Noslen Anaya 52:16

Yeah, easy.

Keith Kohler 52:17

So how many times can you do that five times over the course of a year versus before? Like if you did not, if you had no line of credit, you do 500 how many times a year? 800, eight times, maybe six, seven times? Six, six between six to eight times. Okay, let's call it six, right? So you had 500 times six, three thousand. Yeah, now you're saying 2500 times six, right? 15,000. So here's a multiplier of five times.

Noslen Anaya 52:46

Yeah.

Keith Kohler 52:47

And the reason I brought that up is because often in my work, a lot of people will look at a term sheet and they look at a line of credit, and what they naturally gravitate towards is saying, well, wait a minute, the interest rate, right?

Noslen Anaya 53:00

Yeah.

Keith Kohler 53:00

And yet I'm really glad that you, the first thing you said is you shared about wait, this gives me capacity to buy more and sell more and rotate more.

Noslen Anaya 53:11

Yeah, and error more money.

Keith Kohler 53:13

Right. So a good way to think about it is okay, this is my interest rate, but that's a small cost for what I get, of course. Which is infinite more revenue and a lot more profitability, and the return on investment is magnified.

Noslen Anaya 53:28

Yeah. Yeah. So no, and the idea, in the idea, for example, in my industry, like I told you before, my my goal is to become uh a big distributor of brands, and you know, by by increasing my my my buying power, it also allows me to make maybe not partnerships, but to be uh a distributor for a brand, you know, to have that exclusive, you know, a little bit exclusive, or maybe a different treatment, better prices, more auctions to to more products, you know. So so yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely the line of credit makes my business uh to go to another level, you know.

Keith Kohler 54:21

Yeah, and and thank you again for that. Without me prompting you that you and you've understood it that way, is yeah, it it's a it's a leveling up, it allows you to go to the next level of growth for your business, yeah. Right, and that's the way to think of it with the opportunity that it uncovers, and great, here's the cost of it. A lot of people will just focus on the cost of it and think and not under well, may not fully grasp or choose to even express what opportunity it could bring.

Noslen Anaya 54:52

Well, they kind of accomplish, yeah.

Keith Kohler 54:54

That's right. And so for a lot of our viewers and listeners here, of course, a bank line of credit comes way down when it's a company like yours that has been profitable over several over a couple of years. Normally, again, for everybody, you need to have two years of profitability on a filed tax return to get a line of credit, and that's what NoZelet had, right? So even the importance of if you're one year profitable on your business and you can you were profit in 25 and you're looking at putting your uh tax return together and saying, hey, you know, maybe I'm closer to break-even, maybe there's more profit. There could be an advantage to reporting that profit and making sure that yes, that that would allow the access here.

Noslen Anaya 55:36

Yeah, because it is the lowest cost of capital out there in the institutional world.

Keith Kohler 55:43

That's the best package at the moment, the best package, and yet you'll get to figure out, right? Hey, maybe I go this far, but maybe there's other things to supplement it because I need to buy more goods, and this is as far as it can take.

Returns, Reviews, And Pro Seller Status

Noslen Anaya 55:56

No, and maybe because, like I said, my buying power, you know, increase. Yeah. But maybe I I say, kid, you know what? You as a fine as my financial advisor, right? With the line of credit, I had to buy this product to this brand because I'm starting with them and they made me to purchase I don't know, triple or double the quantity that I wanted to purchase at the beginning. And maybe that that inventory is not gonna be moving in 30 days, maybe it takes me 60 days. But at the same time, there are strategies that we can keep working financially with the company and the bank as well, because now I have, I don't know, half a million in inventory that I can prove that I have it, you know, sitting a little bit around in the company, but I do have it, you know. So yeah, it's the growing in the in the business and the company is not easy. That's why it's really important to have like a financial advisor to you know keep working together to level up, you know.

Keith Kohler 57:11

I really appreciate this wide-ranging conversation, Rosalind, because I think again, a lot of people who sell products may not have as much of an understanding about what you do and distribution and logistics and all those areas. And I think that was important. And also it's true that a lot of people, their default thinking is Amazon.com in the e-commerce space, which is great. But here you've said Walmart has been very viable and helpful for you, right? And so for anyone out there that's selling on Amazon, probably they should look into Walmart. And again, this is not me necessarily endorsing them, but saying spread your wings. Like there are lots of ways to attack the e-commerce channel.

Noslen Anaya 57:50

Many other platforms.

Keith Kohler 57:52

That's right, not just the most well-known one. Yeah, yeah. That's it. So, you know, as we conclude our conversation, I have a tradition here at how I financed it. And it really is we get to close with um two questions. And the first one is okay, when you reflect upon all that you've done, what are you most proud of?

Noslen Anaya 58:12

Being a businessman, man, I don't regret it. Even though, even though that you know, some nights, as every other human being, you go to sleep, you know, worry about it, that you you have so much responsibility on your on your shoulders, you know, pay vendors, getting paid. Um you know, like I said a long time ago, business are not easy because that's that's one of the things that not everyone wants that responsibility, you know, be a business owner. So what I feel more proud of, yeah, be a businessman, a hundred percent. I don't regret it. I don't regret it.

Keith Kohler 59:02

And again, especially versus having other choices that you could have made. Yeah, this was the choice that was to be a pilot.

Noslen Anaya 59:10

I wanted to be a pilot, and we can still do that too. And who knows? Who knows?

Keith Kohler 59:16

You know, but and then the second question to conclude our time together is when you think of who you are today, no slan, what would you tell No Slen 13, 14 years ago when he was just starting out?

Noslen Anaya 59:33

Bro, well, maybe the the errors or the not the right decisions that uh that uh that uh that I made 14 years ago spending you know more money personally and maybe reinvesting in other in other things that will be profitable. For example, when I was 20 24 years old, me and my wife bought the first house that uh we had in the same area that we live. We don't have that house anymore, and I regret it to to sell that house. And I remember when I bought my current house, we started renting it, the small house, right? The first uh property, and I didn't have like that mature on me and the knowledge, and I was so afraid, and I saw the house because the people that I had at that time renting the house, they were on they were always you know making excuses to pay the rent, like every single month, you know. And I was a little a little kid, let's say 24 years old, already with two properties, you know, and I was scared about it and I saw the house. And I and I regret it because if I had the house right now, I will be collecting rent money, the house already paid off, and I had a third property, no, a fourth property on my belt, you know, free, getting getting rent. So so yeah, going going going back to your question will be like spending more money personally and and making you know not the right decisions, like the example that I told you on that property, and many other decisions personally, most involving in you know, spending extra money as a as a kid, you know. I'm a car guy and uh and I spend money on the cars. I used to have a truck, a peacock truck that I spent to that truck like $25,000. And when I sold the truck, I I sold the truck for $8,000.

Logistics Cash Cycle And Bonded Fees

Keith Kohler 1:02:20

So yeah, so what you would tell yourself now is you you understand the value of the investments and return on investment, of course, spending versus saving and investing versus but I should have took I should have taken the $25,000 that I put on the truck and buy that property, yeah. You know? Well, I think what's cool about what you're saying is that there's a lot of universality to that, right? Yeah, um, and it's just you know, I think I hope you don't judge yourself harshly, but just realize hey, that's where you were then, that's what you knew. Yeah, and um like a lot of us, I was a car guy too. I had to have the latest, fastest car, and that was then, right?

Noslen Anaya 1:03:02

That was that time, but now no the monthly payment was so high, and you say, No, I don't care, I can pay, you know.

Keith Kohler 1:03:13

It was actually guess what? It was higher than my mortgage. That's happening. It's happening in my mortgage. Don't no no no, don't judge me. Promise.

Noslen Anaya 1:03:25

No, no, no, no, no. I I I totally get it because uh uh I haven't been like in a in a high payment car payment like that, but I have friends in my community, in my car community, that they're like that, they pay for a porch three thousand dollars, and they live in a house uh with their parents, for example. I don't judge it, but my god, if you if you can invest that money and maybe get a property and the property give you two thousand dollars, and you just spend those two thousand dollars from your pocket that you receiving from the property, the property is increasing the value, and you can get the porch, you know. But that's that's the maturity that I have right now financially, and you know, uh I I try to avoid doing those mistakes, you know.

Keith Kohler 1:04:17

No, I and I can appreciate that, and it illustrates for a lot of us the dance when you're an entrepreneur and a businessman, the dance between how you show up and act with finance and financing in your business versus how you do it personally, yeah. And you'll buy it. Yeah, and they it can be balanced, it can be imbalanced, you can have one preference or another, and that's a great topic for another time, too, as well. Of course, of course. But you know, Noslan, really want to thank you for sharing your thoughts and helping to educate our viewers and listeners a bit about the logistics world, a bit of a different point on e-com, and then also I think um sharing your journey from really I think really that pivotal moment of by you understanding personal credit early on, how that was super critical because you got to grow your business organically for such a long time. Yeah, and then recognizing and the reward for that was the profitability that led to the lowest cost of capital. And then, you know, we'll we'll just wait to see what's next. And I can't wait to see what that looks like. So for me, me too, man. Thank you so much again for joining us. Gracias por todo.

Noslen Anaya 1:05:25

Thank you, thank you for having me here in your podcast. Hope to be not the first and the last one. I hope to be, you know, in other ones and really happy for our conversation, man.

Keith Kohler 1:05:37

Yeah, thank you so much.

Noslen Anaya 1:05:39

Thank you.

Keith Kohler 1:05:40

Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of How I Financed It. I encourage you to reach out to me on LinkedIn at Keith Kohler1, and I look forward to connecting there.