Mobile Bev. Pros Podcast

E19 - Funding Your Mobile Bar Business with Sarry Ibrahim

• Sarah Murphy • Season 3 • Episode 3

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In this episode of the Mobile Bev. Pros podcast I'm chatting with Sarry Ibrahim  from Financial Asset Protection. Sarry is a financial professional and a member of the Bank on Yourself Organization. Sarry and I discuss creating your own sources of financing while also growing safe and predictable wealth...all at the same time.. with the same money.

Find him at:
https://finassetprotection.com/
Email him to receive the guide he mentions in the interview: sarry@finassetprotection.com

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Sarah Murphy:

Today we're talking to Sarry Ibrahim from Financial Asset Protection. They are a financial services company that helped clients start and grow their businesses, as well as just solve money problems. And I am so excited to talk to you today. We're talking specifically about financing businesses how to get the capital to even get things started. I'm excited.

Sarry Ibrahim:

Me too. Sarah, thank you so much for having me on here. Appreciate it.

Sarah Murphy:

Absolutely. So when I first talked to you, maybe about six weeks ago, you had never even heard about mobile bars. So that is not an unusual response. Oftentimes, I'm having to explain to people what I do what I teach. And you did a little bit of research. So you're prepared for today? What are some of your first thoughts about this, this little niche that we have going?

Sarry Ibrahim:

Yeah, definitely. It's a niche I never heard of to be transparent. I think it's a very creative thing to do. It sounds so from the research I've done, it looks like it's not it doesn't take, it's like you're starting an actual bar, right? Where you need probably hundreds of 1000s of dollars to start. It's a much minimal investment. But it's more people can do it. I think it's a great idea. I think it's, um, you know, I guess it will not to like, you know, make this to flip the question, but how did you call this idea?

Sarah Murphy:

It's not an original idea. Mobile bartending has been around for a really long time. So if you've ever been to a wedding, or any sort of event where there wasn't a restaurant or facilities on site, the caterers usually brought in what needed to be served from their catering kitchen somewhere. And then there was this popularization of things like barn weddings and festivals, and there's nothing on site, right? And so caterers historically, would be the ones to kind of bring those beverages and that experience on site. However, caterers are really experts at food, they can do some beverages. I'm married to a chef and like, he will tell you, he can cook but he'd prefer someone else make him a drink. And what was happening is that at events, oftentimes people who had an expertise in bar maybe they were bartenders, they realized that drinks just didn't match the level of the food. And so born was this little niche of mobile bartenders or liquid caterers or beverage caterers who would complement basically elevate the experience of the food so that the drinks kind of matched with craft cocktails, fresh ingredients, fresh garnishes, a little bit more experiential. And then time goes on. And people realize, well, I can renovate things like campers and horse trailers and air streams and Piaggio, op bays and all sorts of these other little rigs to further enhance the beverage experience. And we have like a little niche industry of 1000s of little mobile bar companies around the world that are kind of doing this. I think some of the original OG mobile bars you'd find in the UK or Australia. It kind of crossed the pond and is taken off like wildfire. And we have 1000s of members from around the country and Canada and Mexico as well. That this is what they do. They just lug around large amounts of liquid and ice and they serve beverages and food fields and all sorts of random places.

Sarry Ibrahim:

It's awesome. And I had a feeling I had a feeling this was really popular in other countries like UK, Australia. I don't know why what it is, um, I think it would be more of like, it would need to be kind of a nice requirement area where you can be outdoors. You could also do it indoors like I'm in Chicago, right, you can probably still have this business operate indoors, like going to weddings and other events indoors, like a lot of places are in Chicago.

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah, absolutely. Chicago has a very short outdoor season. Yeah. But you guys have because of that you have a very established indoor event scene. And yes, mobile bars that operate and thrive in the Chicago area are usually more in the urban area, they have satellite bars. So they may have like rates like campers and horse trailers and stuff. But they'll have more bars on wheels that can be rolled inside as well. And that's I think another distinguishing factor, mobile bar. Companies, mobile bartenders, they don't need a rig to be considered a mobile bar, they just have to be willing to lug all of the stuff necessary to have a bar to a location that doesn't already have them.

Sarry Ibrahim:

Good. Okay. So I guess there'd be like, the, you know, the question comes now is how do we finance this? How do we start this business? You know, let's say, for example, I'm, you know, working at a company, you know, are working somewhere, I really want to do this idea, I want to start my own mobile bar, would I come up with the money? You know, and I think that, you know, we work with a lot of clients in all 50 states, we help them solve these financial, you know, problems and the things that they want to accomplish. And people are surprised where you can find liquidity from, it's not just your typical bank checking account, there are more places like your 401k or IRA, or mutual fund that you have, or cash, buy life insurance, there's so many different places you can find it. And that's something we kind of like help our clients like find different ways of acquiring that capital or getting financing.

Sarah Murphy:

Oh, my gosh, I love that. So you, you You did? You said the thing that I think a lot of financial experts would probably maybe cringe a little bit when we tap into the 401 K, like, we are generally raised to believe like that money is untouchable. Take it out. It's a huge mistake. And you'll always regret it. Talk to me a little bit more about that.

Sarry Ibrahim:

Yeah, you're so right. Yeah, so a lot of your right so a lot of financial experts are more of financial product salespeople, their job is to sell 401 K's IRAs mutual funds, that's how they get paid. Either whether it's a fee only structure or a commission structure. That's what they do for a living, they sell these financial products. So when you go to them, and you say, you want to take you know, $35,000 out to start your mobile bar business, they'll say, you know, why do that when you can have it working in the stock market. You know, that's that's, that's kind of the context. Most of this most of the time. However, we kind of take a different approach from this, like, I don't like the idea of convincing people who choose to follow a certain product. I we build our business more from, like an agile or nimble approach of we can do anything that you want to do, whether it's mobile bar business, whether it's starting a restaurant, whether it's whatever it is you want to do, we can help you do that. And one of those places, a lot of people have 401k, they have money. And something to that's interesting, Sarah is that there are a lot of tax laws that help people leverage their 401 Ks. Like, for example, if somebody is 40 years old, they have a 401k, they can't typically touch that money, because they're under the age of 15 and a half, they could roll it into an IRA, outside of their company when they leave your company, but still, their money is kind of tied up. However, there are certain things you can do. Like there's I actually did a podcast on this on my show thinking like a bank. Episode 49, we talked about Rob's 401k, how you could start a for how you can start a business using your 401k Without the 10% tax penalty. Well, yeah, I think and this is kind of advice for people out there that they want to work with financial experts make sure the person can help you actually solve your financial objectives, the financial issues you have, and not just sell you a product and convince you on why a product is beneficial. But yeah, definitely, you need an unbiased approach, kind of and to solve what it is that you want to solve. For sure. I think it's really important.

Sarah Murphy:

Oh my gosh, I love that you started with that I have always kind of secretly carried around the fact that I cashed out my 401k to start my first business. And it was a huge risk, no doubt. And I've constantly you know, share that with people and they're like, oh, my gosh, that is like that. But here's the thing, I bet on myself more than the stock market, and it has paid itself in dividends over and over and over again. And so yeah, it's not something that you're going to hear a lot of people suggest, but I'm living proof that it can work. It can be worth every every penny and the risk

Unknown:

of doing so. Yeah, so truly I think that you know, same thing being an entre The best business I've ever invested in is my business, you know, and continuing to do. So, when you're investing in the stock market, that's also good too, in certain ways, it's good, but you're investing in other companies, you know, I think we should, you know, put our businesses first invest in ourselves first. And you tend to get the highest ROI is rates of return when you invest in yourself and your business. And, and especially in your personal development, which is, you know, how you believe in yourself, how you trust yourself, and kind of furthering yourself in entrepreneurship.

Sarah Murphy:

Yes, amen. So aside from your 401k, let's pretend that we don't have a 401k. Because I think it's I've never looked at the ratio or the percentage, but I'm guessing not more than 50% of people actually carry around a 401k. So what options are available for those who don't have home equity that they could tap into? They don't have a 401k they don't have any sort of, you know, life insurance policy, they might be able to cash out or anything like that, what are some options for people who trying to get started, but they they aren't sitting on a mountain of cash? And, you know, yeah, what's, uh, what are some options?

Unknown:

Yeah, so a couple things. So depending on how and this is kind of something like when I started my business, I didn't have access to like the things you mentioned, I don't have a home equity, I didn't have a 401k. Now before I say it, don't go on do this, it is risky. But at the same time, it's better than not taking the risk at all. And that is I used a couple of credit cards that had like 0% interest for the first like 18 months. So I leveraged them, Lowe's, I made sure I was able to pay them back before the interest came due. Again, obviously, credit cards are risky, they are risky product. But if you had kind of two options, one option is Option A, take some risk to get the business you want or take option B and take no risk at all, stay where you're at, I think Option A is going to be option B. So that's kind of my mentality how to get about it. Another thing too, is there are ways that so in the real estate world, there's something called private money lending where you could, for example, if you can get financing from a bank to borrow your real estate property to either flip or rent out, you could go to some individual, some private person who has a 401k, or IRA or mutual fund or other assets and equity, and they could leverage those to loan to you to buy real estate. So in other words, you're kind of bypassing banks by going to private money lenders, I'm pretty I haven't heard yet for mobile, for mobile bar business, that you can just but I would I would think that you could, you could probably find some private lenders that will want to help you fund your business, again, do your research. If you whatever you want to look for, I think you could find if you if you put in the time looking for you probably find it. But those are some some couple things that came to my mind. And then yeah, you know, whatever cash. And then something, too is, I guess I would need to know more about the mobile bar business. But I wonder if there's a way that you can like lease some of the equipment or some of the things and then pay like monthly payment to set or paying for them cash upfront? I don't maybe that's more of your expertise. Yeah.

Sarah Murphy:

So real quick, just going back to credit. Yeah, I think this is a really great awkward. I think this is a really great option for those that qualify for cards with 0% APR, as long as you said, make sure you're paying it off, right, because it don't ask a lot of questions. And that's more approachable than going to a bank asking for a loan, they're going to require a full business plan. And oftentimes banks don't understand the mobile bar business. They're like, I'm sorry, you're doing what, like anything that has to do with alcohol, they're immediate. I don't know, this doesn't sound legal, are you like, you know, and so you have to do more convincing, you have to do more educating to get funding from traditional sources. And so a credit card, if you qualify, it cuts out all of that, that front end work and convincing. And it just gives you instant access to capital. Now again, as you mentioned, you take advantage of the free APR because the the interest rates on credit cards are going to be way higher than any get from a bank. So I think the SBA right now is somewhere between three and 4%. Credit cards are probably like 1921 cents wears off, and we want to make sure that we're paying attention to what we're spending to borrow money. So a lot of times people are like I can get $40,000 from you know, this lender if I qualify, but then you're paying 10% of that or you're paying a very high amount of that to borrow that money. Now if that's the only option you have like weigh the options obviously. However, we want to get money as cheap as possible. Yes. 0% for 18 months is great. I'm not sure what credit cards, if any are running those types of deals any longer but I know it's kind of intermittent as to when they offer them and then as to leasing. Okay, I think it's a really great conversation or topic to have because One of the big mistakes that I see a lot of mobile bar owners come into the scene with is they feel like they have to invest in everything all at once. And so they might be buying the $30,000 rig, they are the app, I'm raising my hand as being guilty. For the person who did this, I bought my camper bar, I invested$10,000 with a coffee equipment for my espresso machine, my grinders, my scales for weighing all my espresso, a lot of it was largely unnecessary straight out of the gate. So if if you can plan a more scaled and phased in approach for starting your mobile bar, what you can do is you can grow organically, and you can let the revenue that you're making as you make it, fund your growth and fund the equipment and fund the business itself. What we do is mobile bartenders, probably, you can get started in a standard mobile bar business for a couple$1,000. Maybe even less, I'm sure people are out there, I did it with $200 in a pack of gum in my back pocket, that's probably possible, right? But if we're going to invest in decent equipment, a uniform a website, that sort of thing, we really need a couple $1,000 To get started. But we don't need$30,000 Yes. So if you start small, my very first bar was$150 bar, that was a desk I found at the Restore, I just turned it around, I slapped a coat of paint on it, I did some framing on the front, which was actually the back of the desk. And then I use the drawers in the desk to like hold all my stuff for the actual bar experience. And that was $200 Total bar. And the first event that we did was like a $1,500 event. And so I got to take, you know, the profit there and funneling back into the business. And so one of the best ways in our, in our specific niche to fund the starting of mobile bar is to just get started, let yourself be your own lender organically. And the interest rate is free there. So

Unknown:

you know, Sarah, you said so many things like I don't know where to start. So a couple things I love. So like the distinction between good debt and bad debt. So like, you know, good debt is leveraging cheap capital, low interest, money, sometimes 0% interest money. And then bad debt is obviously very expensive capital like in other words, ask yourself, if you love for just capital, can you make more money with this money, and what is the degree of risk that you see as an entrepreneur with that. So that would be the distinction between good debt and bad debt. So I love that you mentioned that. Another thing too is the word you're not some something as a financial planner with constant using his words, you know, funnel money back into your business. So kind of like to elaborate more on that. You mentioned you spent, you know, 200, you earn 1500, there was probably some other expenses in there, but you then turn around and you put that money back into your business. Now, that's really important, because you get tax deductions for that for both of us business expenses, going back into your business plus, you grow organically, you're not taking unnecessary risks, you're not borrowing like$50,000, and then seeing if it's gonna work or not. And the chances of you taking your sales and then putting it back into your business is going to have a much greater success rate. Because you're you're only doing things that you've tested, individually tested out and proven that you can put back into and then my last point that I went in for for this part is Be your own banker, or be your own lender. This is exactly this is one of our core services that we help our clients with, we help them become their own source of financing, using a method that's been around for like 40 years now. It was introduced in a book called becoming your own banker by Nelson Nash, I highly recommend that book for every entrepreneur out there. And if you stick around to the end of the episode, I'll send you I'll show you how you can get the book for free, I'll send you I'll give you the link for that. But you have to stick around to the end of the episode.

Sarah Murphy:

Love it. That's awesome. Let's see, you actually said a few things in their free gathering my thoughts here? Yes, and it was it was Be your own banker. So one of the things that I've found if you do, as I suggested earlier, and kind of familiar, early revenues back into your business, as well as being, you know, tax advantaged. What, especially if you're processing payments through some sort of stripe or paid or something like that, if you can demonstrate consistent revenue for long enough, they will actually offer you pretty inexpensive loans that met and they make the repayment of those loans super easy because they just take 20% of all future revenue that you've processed through them. It might vary, but I think I'm like most recently I saw stripe, they're like we'll give you X dollars, and I think it was less than 10% interest is a flat rate If you borrowed X dollars, you will pay X dollars. And we'll just take those x dollars out of your revenue, it 20% of each payment that's been processed. And that makes it so much easier for a business owner like myself who, you know, I know what's going to get paid, I know it's going to come out as much, I'm only going to pay it as I receive money. So I'm not paying every month or worried that my cash flow is going to be impacted. And that would be another benefit of doing what you can to make revenue as you get started. And then utilizing capital to grow and to, you know, grow faster than the capital that you might have going coming in.

Unknown:

Yeah, and it's a good point, I think it's all referred to sometimes as merchant cash advance where like, the merchant company gives you a loan and leverages your future sales as collateral. And that's actually a good way of financing because in a lot of situations, check the terms and conditions on the loans. But in a lot of situations, there is no personal guarantee, there is no time on your personal credit score, it's affecting your debt to income ratio, if you want to buy a house, it's just strictly your business, your business, your company, and the accounts tied to that. That's it. That's what the credit card company is looking for. They're not looking for other ways of you paying that back. They're just looking for simply taking out of the merchant account in the future. So I think that I'm glad you mentioned, then you could scale with that, right? If you're earning some money, and then you're able to leverage this is like thinking like a bank, you're able to take a $1 buy something that's worth $5 grow that borrow against and keep growing your business organically and predictably. Yeah,

Sarah Murphy:

absolutely. Because growth is hungry. And that's one thing that we have to as small business owners realize that sometimes we're like, you know, as soon as I get my business up and off the ground, then I can start keeping more of this money. Sure, absolutely. But many times if you ever want it to get bigger than it currently is, you need to feed the you need to feed it the money, right? And so if you can use someone else's money to feed that, then even better, right, and you can probably move a lot faster.

Unknown:

Absolutely love that. Yeah, feed your business for sure. Yeah. And another thing too, Sarah, that people like might be listening like a couple$1,000 to start a business. Like, I think most Americans spend a couple $1,000 on a minimal level per month just on basic necessity. So we're talking only like one month of your app, your average bills to start a whole business. So it's not that compared to how much people make and how much people have, it's not that dramatic of a jump to start your own business using the strategy.

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you're charging, what you're worth, the biggest thing people do is they undervalue their own efforts, or when they first start, so they're out there doing maybe 25 $35 an hour per, you know, per bartender, and there's no meat left in it. And so if you price yourself appropriately, with recognizing you don't, you're not just trying to pay yourself, you're trying to put money back in the business to grow. So you've got to make sure your profit margins are aligned, if you're going to utilize that

Unknown:

strategy. Absolutely. I agree.

Sarah Murphy:

So alternative ways of funding a business grants. Those are nice options. They're slow to pay. I've off, I have multiple times had people ask me, Well, what grants do you know of that are available out there for either women owned businesses, minority owned businesses, there are lots of them out there, probably more than I can even find. And a great source for people would be to reach out to their local, you know, Chamber of Commerce, or their minority Chamber of Commerce if they have one of those. But they're very arduous to get, like, literally people have full time jobs, just writing grant applications. And they're very competitive, because everybody wants that free money. So not that I'm saying, like, don't try for them. But have a plan B, if you're really, you know, interested in getting started sooner rather than later, I would be hesitant to say grants are the way the way to go. Do you have a similar experience there?

Unknown:

Yeah, for sure. I was gonna, as you were saying, grants, I was gonna say there are third party companies that can write the grants for you. And to kind of give a little bit more like feedback on that. I think that so click what could be, as you know, grants from the government from the state or federal government or your local city or county, and like, why do they do that? Right. So in the eyes of the government, entrepreneurship is really good and generates jobs increases production, it raises the GDP, the size of our economy. So the government wants entrepreneurs, they want to feed entrepreneurs and grow them. So that's why kind of grants one of the foundations of grants why they exist is to keep the economy going to keep jobs going, you know, we're buying and selling products that keeps the economy flowing, you know, merchant accounts, that's the key I guess, to running a government is money has to keep flowing. So that's why the government would want Give out grants for people just in case you're wondering like, why would the government give me money to start a business? Well, because they're going to get that back in the future in different ways, in multiple ways.

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think the grant application process should be utilized in parallel with another funding option, if possible.

Unknown:

And I think that so, like companies have CFOs, right, like chief financial officers, and like, some of the roles are, depending on the company is to manage these different financial sources, or like they might have the CFO dealing with the bank trying to get constantly trying to get funding, plus dealing with investors to raise capital plus dealing with a grant company that writes grants, plus, you know, their customer, you know, trying to leverage different different sources of funding. So gets How can I kind of thing you want to be as a small business owner, you want to be like the CFO of your company, where you're, you have like, multiple avenues of financing. So you have and that's one of the services we do, we can help you find different avenues of financing, not just rely on one source, it's the same thing with like, marketing, like, you don't just use only like some people specialize in one areas, but it's not like, I'm only on Facebook, it's like, I'm on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, I have a website, I read blogs, I'm on podcasts, like you're everywhere, like you have multiple avenues. And I think financing is the kind of thing where you have multiple enemies.

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah. What about asking friends and family?

Unknown:

Yeah, I. So I like that. And there's pros and cons to that. So some of the pros of doing that, it's, it's easier to get to right there, you know, typically, like banks, they have like a over 90% chance of like denying you a loan, whereas your friends or family might want to see you succeed. So they will be willing to help you plus, you can kind of diversify their risk. So it's not like let's just say you needed a total of$10,000. Not necessarily like you need one person to give you 10,000, you could probably split that up amongst three or four people. And then plus, you can depending on how you structure your business, let's say you planning on going like much bigger, you can incentivize them for giving you that money, like interest, or a percentage of your business or future sales or some sort of, you know, strategic thing or like let's say like, I don't know, where, where the wholesalers come in, but let's say you know, somebody who's a wholesaler, and then you say, or if you loan me my business, then I promise to buy from you for the next couple of years. So you can you can get really, you know, I think this is where personal development comes in, right for entrepreneurs, because the more you learn, the more you earn, the more you learn about different ways of leveraging yourself, leverage other people, you can figure out these things. So yeah, you might know somebody who's a wholesaler, you might know somebody who's a web developer, and you can kind of trade services and then kind of find more capital that way. But I do yeah, I think that if you are going to borrow from friends and family, be as transparent as possible, have everything in writing. Include start with the risks, like there's a risk, you could lose everything, just get that out of the way. Never over promise. Like there's absolutely no way you're going to lose money, people, especially people who are comfortable with investing and loaning out their money, they want to hear that there is risk involved, because it's true. That's why they want to hear that. So they want to hear there's risk involved, and kinda just have everything in writing all your emails in writing, have monthly meetings with them, where you're showing them everything in writing the numbers, things like that. It keeps people at ease when they're investing and loaning out their money.

Sarah Murphy:

Oh, that was those are, those are great tips. I think it can get messy when you ask family, especially don't go in with things in writing, you don't go in with any level of expectation of like, this is how I'm going to demonstrate on a regular basis as to like what I'm doing with your money and how it's going. I think that that very helpful, very helpful information. You also mentioned, one thing that I probably would not have mentioned, but is fantastic is trade. A lot of times we know people who have things or talents that would benefit our business, and that we could also return that favor. You know, you mentioned web developer, you know, if a web developer is willing to do your website, and they're turning like, you know, a big birthday, or if they're getting married or like, Absolutely, like I can help and trade is, as I think often overlooked, but for similar reasons. You definitely want things in writing, you want to make sure that everyone's in agreement as to what you know, what's being provided by both parties so that everyone could energetically but you know, you've demonstrated again, that we can get creative in how we start a business and we you know, get off the ground. It doesn't have to necessarily be you know, super cash forward. Exactly. What has been in So, would you ever recommend to one of your clients,

Unknown:

the crowd funding route? Yeah, I like that. Actually. Again, it's back to diversifying. It's spreading it out amongst a lot of people. You're spreading the risk out i i liked it a lot. The only thing I haven't I haven't done that much research on it. So kind of like you have like, for example, you need a $10,000 you would crowdfunding you might raise it from like 100 people, so you're diversifying that. And then you might even give them some exchange Like, I don't know yet what the regulations are, as far as getting a percentage of your business, you might need to be like registered with the SEC for that. But you can kind of give some gifts, like if you invest, I'll give you I don't know, like a free event or whatever. So that way they look forward to something in the future. And it's also nice, too, because a lot of people out there want to support like, I think we're reaching this new year after COVID, where it's like people want to support small businesses. It's also one of the reasons like it's a huge factor into the great resignation, right, like millions of people have quit their jobs, start their own businesses. So a lot of people want to see small business owners succeed, it's good for the economy, it's good for society to have a lot of small business owners. So yeah, I think crowdfunding is a nice way to spread it out and ask for, you know, hundreds of people to invest in your business, in exchange for some incentives, or gifts or things like that.

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah, and one of the things I love about it, I'll give you what I love and what I hate, I one of the things I love about it is that nobody really has the expectation of getting that money back in like, monetary form, right? So if you're getting money from, you know, your cousin, your cousin is probably going to want you to repay that, and probably probably with interest, maybe not, maybe it'll be nice, and they'll just let you keep the money or keep the interest. But there's, there's an expectation that you're going to succeed, and I'm going to see that money again. But with crowdfunding, it's not really that like, maybe I'll give you 10 bucks, maybe I'll give you 50 bucks. I know, I think what another Bev pro member started a brick and mortar shop and I provided I think was like 250 bucks, I was not going to get any of that back. It was like I am supporting you, you're doing your thing you're going chasing your dream feels good to me, right. And so it's I think, I appreciate that about crowdfunding is that people aren't necessarily expecting anything, but like, maybe a t shirt or whatever it is, or right. So there's, but but the thing I hate about it, I'm not going to take so much is that I think people should go in recognizing, it's, it's a full time social media barrage, you know, to get visibility for your crowdfunding. And I think a lot of times people start it, and they're like, well, I'll just send it around my friends and family, I'll share it on Facebook a bunch. And that almost always leads to like, almost nobody participating, it has to be like this continuous thing, you have to like, build a whole lot of momentum behind it, you, you basically have to do the whole song advances to like, look at me, this is so fun, you're going to benefit from this too, please help me out. And I think that only a small portion of people actually really thrive in those environments, the only time I've seen it not be something that you really have to like, convince people to invest in is if it's super new, different unique, or like something that people are inherently excited for. So like once I saw a Kickstarter for like a rooftop camping, you know, do product. And I was like, Oh my God, that would be amazing. I would love to have one of those, right, because, like, there are other alternatives out there. But this one was different, was more improved lighter, it was, you know, whatever it was. Whereas with a lot of small hospitality based businesses, it's just another food truck, it's just another restaurant, it's just another ice cream shop. It's just not right. And so I think it's a harder sell unless they know, you know, if they don't know, you then like really just hoping and praying that they find value and, you know, helping out a stranger start their little like passion project. But I don't know that crowdsourcing is as beneficial, I think for hospitality based businesses as it is for some products were like, here's a prototype, but we need funding, if we're gonna make more of these, if you ever actually want to use one of these things, then you know, you need to put your money where your mouth is.

Unknown:

Exactly. And going back to like the grant writing, I'm pretty sure that right there are companies or companies and people out there that will write for you, they'll do the ads and writing the content for you for crowdfunding. And that's what they're kind of trained on is how to make it stand out. So if that's something you really wanted to take action on, I would I would recommend that you can go to Upwork or Fiverr and then just search for like crowdfunding writing and you'll find somebody and and check the reviews to make sure they've actually written a lot of so they might have their work actually posted and how much funding they were able to get. That'd be a good way if that's what you want to specialize in. But I agree I think that I think the key or not the one of the one of the keys of crowdfunding is like making a difference, which you could make a difference right with mobile bars because it's creating more entrepreneurship, which is going to back to you know, helping, but yeah, it's um, I guess it doesn't hurt to try and everybody's gonna have different avenues and I think that really there is you're not going to know which avenue is the right answer until you actually implement it. So I think you know, if one thing want to takeaway from this episode is always take action, just don't really worry about the result right away. You're gonna know the result of it. You can't really tell what's gonna happen in the future, but just take action and like try out different things and that's one of the so like, whatever Have you know not to kind of brag one of the reasons why we've been successful is you trying different things and trying different areas until like one thing works very well. And then you, you run with that?

Sarah Murphy:

Yeah. So the business owners that you've helped get, in fact, what would you say is maybe the most reliable source of of money that has consistently delivered for your small businesses? And which, which one would you say is the easiest to source?

Unknown:

Yeah, so this is kind of dependent. So in theory, technically, the the best, fastest easiest way is to leverage something called the bank on yourself strategy, also known as infinite banking. So that's the fastest way to come across your capital. It's easy, it's a it's the most predictable way. However, the problem with this is that there has, it's something that you implement for the future, something you start now for the future so that when you do need it, you can access it. But as far as today, somebody comes to me today, they don't have any 401k, or checking account, or IRA, or any equity, it's going to be very difficult other than going back to the organic things we talked about, and possibly the credit card route, which is risky, but it's better than nothing. But as far as like, let's say, they've already implemented it, for sure. It's gonna be bank on yourself for infinite banking. And the book becoming your own banker by Nelson Nash talks way more in depth about that we won't have enough episode, we won't have enough time on this episode to talk more about the details of that. But if you reach out to us, I'll send you a free copy of that book. And it talks about how to leverage predictable money in the future. And yeah, you can always reach out to us today, I can explain more about how the details

Sarah Murphy:

of that work. Yeah, amazing. Well, all of your information is going to be in the show notes here. So if someone's wanting to get a hold, and be like, be my banker, or help me figure out how to launch my business, find the capital and to do so all that information will be down there. This has been so educational and so fun for me, what would be the takeaway that you would like people to take away? Regarding funding funding their business?

Unknown:

Yeah, so really, in business, like there are two main segments that could from a small business perspective, you have your subject matter expertise, the things you know, the reasons why you're getting into business, your primary product or service. And then you also have another segment, which is often overlooked. And that is the money part, the money subject part of your business, and this is money coming in money going out. And I think that, you know, that's something you don't want to neglect, like, sometimes the money part of your business is gonna be the most important part because it'll be even more important than your product and service. Like, if you look at, for example, like, who has a better burger, you know, McDonald's or someplace that, you know, has like the, you know, the best burgers in town, you know, probably the best burgers, the town's gonna have a better burger, but McDonald's sells way more because of their business mindset. You know what I mean? So, like the business part of it, the money part of it could be far more important than that subject matter. So kind of focus on that think like a bank, you know, check out our podcast and do like a bank to learn more about how you could do that. But yeah, don't neglect the money thinking part of your business.

Sarah Murphy:

Oh, that is such great advice. Because oftentimes, especially in our industry, people get into it because it looks fun. You're like, it's a sexy business, like cocktails look delicious. Our mobile bars are beautiful. And so people get into it because they're creative. They're visionary, and they want to do beautiful things. And the business side of it, the money side of it is always like the unsexy part. Yes. But as you mentioned, it is 50% of the success here. So yeah. eautiful and financially sound. Yes, exactly. Advice. This has been lovely. I've

Unknown:

enjoyed every second of it. Thank

Sarah Murphy:

you so much for coming on the show.

Unknown:

Thank you, Sarah is a pleasure being here.