Everett K. Sands – Chief Executive Officer of Lendistry | Los Angeles Leaders - Los Angeles Leaders

Episode Transcript
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Narrator 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Los Angeles Leaders Podcast, where
we dive deep into the stories ofthe visionaries shaping the
future of our region.
Hosted by Christopher Luna,this podcast brings you
conversations with the moversand shakers driving innovation,
leadership and community impactacross Los Angeles.
Whether you're an entrepreneur,a community leader or simply

(00:21):
someone passionate about makinga difference, this podcast is
your gateway to the insights andinspiration you need to lead
and succeed.
Get ready to be inspired by theleaders making waves in Los
Angeles and beyond.

Narrator 2 (00:36):
In this episode we welcome Everett Sands.
A native of Washington DC, mrSands and his family reside in
Los Angeles.
A graduate of the University ofPennsylvania, mr Sands is an
advisory reside in Los Angeles.
A graduate of the University ofPennsylvania, mr Sands is an
advisory board member of thePenn Institute for Urban
Research and a member of theboard of directors at Goodwill
of Orange County and the Centerfor Strategic Economic Studies
and Institutional Development.

(00:56):
Mr Sands has more than 20 yearsof experience in lending,
including tenures at nationaland community banks.
He has served as a board memberand an executive for two
minority deposit institutions,where he helped guide the bank's
lending teams in executingexponential growth.
Everett K Sands leverages his20-plus years of experience in
banking to change the game forunderserved small business

(01:17):
owners who need access toresponsible capital to reach the
next level.
Mr Sands has shared hisrecommendations before
congressional committees and atconferences hosted by Fortune,
the National Urban League andseveral industry-related events.
He has appeared as a subjectmatter expert on national
business media, including CNBC,the Wall Street Journal and
Bloomberg.
For his leadership at Lendistry, mr Sands was named an

(01:39):
Entrepreneur of the Year GreaterLos Angeles Award winner in
2024.
When Mr Sands saw theaccelerating trend of capital
becoming less accessible andmore expensive for small
businesses owned by minorities,women, veterans and rural
dwellers, he recruited anexperienced team of fellow
banking professionals andfounded Lendistry.
Since 2015, lendistry hasprovided responsible lending to

(02:01):
small businesses directly andthrough partnerships with banks.
Please welcome Everett Sands.

Christopher Luna (02:07):
Welcome to Los Angeles leaders.
Everett.
Pleasure to have you here today.
Great to be here, it's an honor.
I met you almost three years agowhen I started working at the
Chamber.
You left an impact on me fromthe first time I saw you on a
panel it was a union bank panel,I'm not sure if you remember it
was during the holidays.
You're on a panel with my CEOand what really tied me to you

(02:32):
was your sense of community andand I come across a lot of great
leaders like you and I'm notsure if I ever told you why I
came up with this podcast orthis, this, these episodes, but
in um, in my line of work, Icome across a lot of great
leaders and I go to a lot ofseminars and conferences and
summits and you guys are alwayson a on a stage right, and when

(02:54):
you're on a stage on a panel ora keynote, you're always talking
about your organization for themost part, Um, it's very it's.
There's not a lot ofopportunities to get to know you
as a person Right, and I'm I'mstill growing my career and when
I see and hear things like thisand see you guys as leaders, I

(03:15):
always wonder, like, how did youget there?
Sure, and what's the backstory?
So I really appreciate youtaking the time to come here.
I know you're very influentialat the chamber.
You're just awarded this lastyear the Corporate Leadership
Award and then just recently,with the Hispanic Chamber of
Commerce in Orange County, yougot the Community Impact Award

(03:36):
as well.
So again, you're very communitydriven and but what I want to
know is how did you get there?
So tell me a little bit aboutyour history.
You've mentioned that you grewup in a family business that
always has a special meaning tome.

Everett K. Sands (03:50):
Yeah, so from Washington DC, ended up going to
boarding school in high schoolin New England, Went to Penn for
undergrad and got into business.
But the business journeystarted as a kid.
My grandfather in the 1930sowned a tailoring shop and the

(04:12):
tailoring shop at that time inthe 30s and 40s, was synonymous
at least in the black communitywas synonymous with what we
would call a barbershop orbeauty salon today.
So if you just think about it,you've got on a very nice suit
or a beauty salon today.
So if you just think about it,you've got on a very nice suit.
That experience has beenreduced in terms of the time,
but in the 30s and 40s not onlywere you getting the

(04:32):
measurements and everything,they were trying to make sure
everything fits.
You were like sitting there andwaiting for the pants to be made
or for the jacket to be made,so you can imagine you might
spend a couple hours.
And so, again, a tailoring shopwas synonymous with community,
because you and I might besitting in a lobby talking for a
couple hours while we'rewaiting for our shirt to be made
or waiting for something to betailored.

(04:52):
The convenience of tailoring,of going back and the week later
and things like that came alittle later, not that people
didn't do it, but it just wasn'tkind of quite the moment,
because tailoring is an artistry.
And so he had five differentlocations.
He had an apprenticeship school.
There were veterans who werecoming back from the war and

(05:16):
they didn't have a trade andthey didn't have jobs
Unfortunately, that still existssometimes today and so he would
teach them the trade oftailoring.
And as a kid I would go into theshop, I'd sweep the floors.
I'm not, I have no artisticbones in my body, so they
wouldn't let me anywhere nearthe clothes.
So I was allowed to iron and Iwas allowed to work the cash
register and I was allowed tosweep the floors, and most of

(05:36):
the time I was sweeping thefloors in the cash register.
But he had he.
He grew his business prettywell, but he got some bad
financial and tax advice and so,as you can imagine what might
happen in a small business whenthings go south financially, we
lost a lot and so we lost ourhome.
I didn't know it as a kid,didn't really understand what

(05:59):
happened, but as I became anadult I realized foreclosure was
what happened.
But as I became an adult Irealized foreclosure was what
happened.
We still have two of thelocations, but nothing near kind
of the prominence that he hadat that time.
And so I kind of grew up with awhat-if story.
You know, what if he had had abetter situation?
What if things happened?
And one of the pros of going toa boarding school and some of

(06:22):
the kind of upper echelon IvyLeague schools and things like
that is you meet people'sparents who were able to get
financing and and had adifferent trajectory, and so
again grew up as a kid with this, this what if?
What if he had a bettersituation?
And so part of what I see insmall businesses that we help

(06:42):
and the community at large thatwe help, because we also do home
mortgage now and we're dabblingdabbling in that we help and
the community at large that wehelp, because we also do home
mortgage now and we're dabblingin insurance.
It's all about the community,but it's all internally.
It's this I wish I was therefor my grandfather.

Wow, that's powerful.
And now I know why you are theway you are.
I mean, I grew up in a familybusiness.
My parents started in theirearly 80s.
They grew their business andmultimillion dollars they're
national.
They used to import a lot ofproduct and we had a fleet of
trucks that would go all overthe nation.
We used to distribute mostlyHispanic goods.

(07:17):
I took over the family businessand I managed it for about 12
years and I went through COVIDand that was a scary situation.
You know it was very difficultat that time.
I would import a lot of productfrom Turkey, china, germany,
mexico still, and you know whenyou're, when you're buying this
product overseas, you'reprepaying for a lot of that

(07:37):
merchandise and when COVIDhappened, we had a whole supply
chain issue Right.
So a lot of our money wasliterally sitting on the ocean,
yeah, and then it would take.
The lead time was a lot longer.
So you know we would have tobuy more of this merchandise and
by the time it got to us, youknow the forecast completely
changed.
The market was completelychanging.

(07:58):
So we did have a cash flowissue during COVID.
Yeah, that's what drove me tothe chamber.
You, during a COVID, that'swhat drove me to the chamber.
I was always around the chamberworld when I was in banking.
I would go to a lot of theevents in the early 2000s when I
was with JP Morgan and thechamber is really influential on
the global trade, so I wasalways involved in that, and
then through my parents'business, I would always go to

(08:19):
the global events as well.
So it's funny, because thenthey offered me a job.

Narrator 2 (08:25):
I'm like sure Cause it was like almost perfect
timing.

But knowing that background and and knowing
what I know now too causethere's so much resources out
there and your company providesa lot of those resources to
small businesses If I would haveknown what I know now when I
had the business, I probablywould have done things
differently.
So you know it's very impactfulwhat you've done, but tell me a

(08:51):
little bit more about, asyou're growing up, what kind of
kept you in line in thefinancial space?

Yeah, so it was interesting the beauty of me
going to boarding school.
So I'm a DC kid, to say so youhave some perspective.
I'm going to New Hampshire, uh,and so what that means is a
long drive eight to 10 hours ora flight from DC to Boston Logan
airport and then jump on a busfor two hours.

(09:17):
Uh, I didn't have the money togo back home.
So what would happen is I wouldinevitably stay at a friend's
house.
Um, I don't know how you grewup, chris, but the way I grew up
, like my mom was very strict onrules, and so, as you can
imagine, I'd go to some friend'shouse and the parents would be
there and they'd be talking andthese are generally fairly well
to do, uh, and the kid would belike whatever, I'm out, but

(09:42):
we're sitting at a table andadults talking, and I'm so
afraid that they would call mymom that I just sit there and
what.
And so what comes from that isa lot of lessons from people who
have failed and succeeded mostrecently succeeded because of
where they're at.
But it started to teach meabout finances, started to teach
me about business.
So now I've kind of got thefamily experience of having

(10:04):
worked in one and seeing what'sgoing on in my family dynamics
and literally the completeopposite in terms of how they've
weathered a storm or leveragedfinance and different things
like that.
And so I then, in high school,ended up going to Japan for two
and a half months, which is acompletely different kind of
financial structure In highschool.
In high school it's effectivelya half months, which is a

(10:24):
completely different kind offinancial structure In high
school.
In high school it's effectivelya social structure where you're
born really dictates whatyou're going to do.
But my host family happened towork in the US and then come
back.
So, just interestingperspective my host father
worked at Mitsubishi and so nowI'm getting this kind of worldly
example of how finance doneagain completely different than

(10:47):
the US system.
I ended up going to Penn, andPenn, as most people know,
because it has, you know, one ofthe best business school, if
not the best, and Wharton.
Inevitably that trickles intothe undergrad school.
So I was actually pre med, butI threw parties because I needed
money and so I had three jobs Iworked cleaning fish tanks, I

(11:08):
worked at banana republic andthen I also was the kid in the
cafeteria so I hustled cereal.
Hopefully that doesn't get mein trouble later in life, but um
, so you can imagine I had thiskind of entrepreneurial spirit,
uh, but mixed with, um, you know, needing to pay for school and
different things like that andand so these lessons that, if

(11:29):
I'm being honest, in high schoolI didn't really understand are
starting to slowly materializeas I'm understanding money
better and understanding needfor money, so always pretty much
a saver, but I started to.
One of the things that was veryinteresting to me when I was a
kid was that everybody was in areal estate that I had met, that
had money, and so I started totry to buy real estate very

(11:50):
early, at like 21 years old,then started to get into
financing and the first thing Ilearned was actually the
economics of financing relatedto home buying and real estate.
That then led me into trying tounderstand kind of the finance
of business and how businesseswork, which is much more
complicated than real estate.
Real estate, generally speakingno offense to anyone is fairly

(12:12):
easy, but at the end of the dayyou generally have you know you
have the revenue side is theincome from the tenants.
And then the expense side, againfairly easy in terms of
utilities.

Narrator 2 (12:23):
Very straightforward .

Yeah, pretty straightforward, um, but it was
a good entry point for someonewho was a novice at finance to
start in real estate, uh, andand since that time I continue
to invest in real estate to thisday.
I've been an investor in realestate 20-25 years, um, but
really I like complex problemsand I like to solve things.

(12:47):
On kind of the professionalside and on this personal side,
I still had this kind of likething that was kind of you know,
twisting kind of at me in theside.
My parents are alsoentrepreneurs and different
things.
So I've grown up aroundentrepreneurs my whole life, but
that kind of going back to thefamily history and the legacy of
the family history kept beingthat thing that drew me into

(13:09):
finance.
What do your parents do?
So mom's a lawyer at her ownfirm uh, entrepreneurship, yeah,
entrepreneurs.
Or dad's a doctor got anentrepreneurship, probably a
better doctor, uh but they'reself-employed a lot.

a lot of doctors and attorneys are small
business owners.

That's right, and my dad I think probably
should get some credit in termsof leading me into my shift
academically.
So I was pre-med and then endedup majoring in Japanese and
then getting into econ andentrepreneurship and all these
other classes that I had taken,but it was my dad who was like
get an MD MBA that I'm taking.

(13:46):
But it was my dad who was likeget an MD MBA.
And what happened is, you know,one night I'm studying organic
chemistry and and the friendsthat are in the business classes
are like hanging out and I'mlike that's pretty, that's much
cooler than orga um.
So again, he, he kind of.
I think the thing that my daddid is he gave me that freedom
to explore and then curiosityand everything else took me the
other way.

Yeah, there's um, I had the privilege of
bringing my son here today.
Yeah, Um, he's sitting behindthe cameras, but I grew up in a
family business and weexperience a lot of things that
other kids don't experience.
You're mentioning sweeping thefloors, my son when he would go
to the store.
I mean, we have a warehouse,the warehouse is, and then the

(14:27):
storefront in downtown, la,right near the road.
Okay, so if you, if you drivedown olympic and you see, all
the candy and pinatas okay,that's all ours to this day real
estate.
my parents were able to acquirea lot of that.
Yeah, so he would go to thestore and he would just start
opening up boxes and restockingthe shelves and helping
customers and and and chargingcustomers.
And it's funny, cause you seethis kid and that's exactly how

(14:50):
I was growing up.
And then when I sold thebusiness, um, recently, I felt
like I, I I let go of a legacy,right, and I'm I'm trying to
provide that experience to myson.
Yeah, so having him come heretoday, it's just a different
opening now, right, there'sstill ways to incorporate our
kids into what we're doing now,absolutely so I mean, yeah, I

(15:13):
mean I think of the same thing.

My kids are in school and they're.
They're like, dad, I want youto.
I want to take like biology andSpanish and Spanish.
I'm like, yes, biology.
I'm like maybe should take likean Excel class or maybe you
should learn about AI orsomething else.
Because I constantly thinkabout what are the things
they're going to need inbusiness, what are the
industries that they're going tobe exposed to?

(15:35):
And to your point too, I mean Igo through that kind of legacy
battle twofold One what are thethings that I should be
investing in to propel them inthe future?
Twofold one what are the thingsthat I should be investing in
to propel them in the future?
And then, two, should there bea family business that they
could take over While at thesame time, as you know, giving
them the freedom to explore andbe their own person, which you
know is kind of somewhatconflicting to the leg?

there was six of us in our family, so we know
one, one of the business for me.
Yeah, I mean, so you kind ofzoom that?

exactly, exactly.
And, and my kids have talkedabout everything from being a
veterinarian to be a businessowner.
So you know, I don't know ifthey're going to own the
veterinarian hospital orsomething like that, or what
they're going to do, but I thinkall of us, as entrepreneurs, go
through a little bit of that,that struggle of struggle, slash
, hope of where.
Where do the kids want to beand how do we help propel them
forward?

You have a strong background in fintech and
technology, Knowing the waythings are changing I mean,
every year something new iscoming.
What are your thoughts ongiving our children that
experience right and kind ofleaning them towards a certain
way, Because a lot of times youcan't really have them study?
A topic right Because it'sgoing to change.

(16:44):
So what do you think about that?

You know.
So let's just talk about whyfintech for a second as well.
There's a lot, and you knowthis as a banker.
A previous banker, same with me, like you get all these studies
about the FDIC study, theunderbank study, and said that
what was always interesting tome one because I'm a nerd was
like, okay, we keep saying likewe should meet the customer nine

(17:08):
to five or doing traditionalbusiness hours, but there was
always inside of the study this,this concept of the underserved
population was monitoring theirbank account, and and so let's
translate that just a little bitmonitoring your bank account
means they're living check tocheck and it's extremely
important that that check comesin so that they can pay their

(17:30):
bills.
So, naturally, my curiosityjust went to well, how are they
checking their bank account?
And I think we did a very goodjob on the consumer banking side
of developing apps and givingpeople that opportunity to be
able to see their bank in realtime, whatever that meant
Automatic bill pay, to be ableto see their bank in real time.
Whatever that meant Automaticbill pay, being able to pay
bills, being able to send money,different things like that.

(17:51):
But on the commercial lendingside, we didn't really adopt it
right.
So the business owner it's kindof hard for them to track their
finances without an accountant,a financial professional, a CFO
Cash flow report, exactly LikeI mean they're pulling 100
reports where the customer Imean the individual just says

(18:11):
let me just log in, right.
And so that was one thing.
The second thing was the badguys were showing up in a really
high quality way, right, andmaybe I shouldn't say high
quality, but in a really likethey were meeting the customer
where they were at.
So the predatory lenders werethere and you know they were
quick, they were fast, and Idon't know that they always gave

(18:33):
people money fast as much asthey gave them hope fast, like
answers.
And so that was that wastroubling me too, like why can't
the good guys show up in a highquality way?
Why can't we meet the customerwhere they're at?
And so that's what led me intoFinTech saying look, it's not a
silver bullet.
There are some people who stillwant to sit down with people and
there are some people who wantthat financial guidance, but

(18:54):
there's a lot of people who justdon't have the time doing
business hours, and my classicexample is nine to five.
She's running her business Fiveto nine.
Five she's running her businessfive to nine.
She's taking care of her family.
When is she supposed to playfor a loan, apply for a loan,
except for a 10 pm right orthrough the night?
And technology does two things.
Number one it gives you thedata to actually see that.

(19:15):
I'll give you an example.
We were running a program forthe state of california and
contractually, we were allowedto do our updates, our
technology updates, from 12 amto 6 am.
The data was coming in and theamount of people, chris, that
were online applying oruploading things from 10 pm to 2
am.
We had to literally go back tothe state and say, could we

(19:39):
alter this contract?
And they let us because, ofcourse, they wanted to help
people out as much as they could.
And they let us because, ofcourse, they wanted to help
people out as much as they could.
Now, circling back to yourquestion about our kids, I think
our kids have to understand,like, exactly where the
opportunities are, and I thinkthey got to understand where to
meet the customer at.
And I think what they're goingto see and where to meet the
customer at, especially in theirgeneration, is there is no way
you don't embrace technology.

(20:00):
There's no way you don'tembrace technology.
There is no way you don't thinkabout the speed of deliverance,
and that doesn't matter whatindustry you're in.
Two things, because now thecustomer can go around you.
I mean, we talk about there'sall these conversations right
now about tariffs.
What are people saying?
Could we just buy direct?
Or could one country buy fromanother country and then ship it

(20:20):
over?
Yeah, that's what they're doing.
Businesses are resilient, theywill figure that stuff out, and
so if you want to be a servantto the business, in whatever
category you are a seller, b2b,b2c, whatever you're going to
have to figure out how nimblethey are and how your customer
really is thinking about things,and I don't know how they avoid
that without thinking aboutartificial intelligence and

(20:41):
other things that are going tobe prevalent by the time they're
in business but I think a lothas to do with you as a
character too.

I mean you have your mission front and
center.
I mean you found you saw thatearly on, right, and I think
that a lot of people may notembrace technology as a whole,
right, but at the end of the day, it's who you are and who you
become.
So how do you teach that to ouryounger generation?
Because you're a leader, I meanwhat you've, what you've grown

(21:12):
with your company, I mean I'mjust thinking of the, the
magnitude of your staff, right,like how do you manage that and
how do you experience thatleadership?
Like how do we teach that?

yeah, I think you always have to think about
the with them.
What's in it for me?
And so when I'm teaching, Iteach a couple classes a year
where I just try to go in as aguest speaker.
So it could be a university,like I've done barely a
university.
It could be a local prep school, like I've done a couple here,
and I try to put it into there.

(21:42):
It's like what are you trying toget to?
Or what do you like and and itcould be a conversation on
marvel and how marvel usestechnology to.
They want to be rich one day,and and so we start breaking out
rich and we start talking abouthow to get there.
Um, I said, do you want to playfor the team or you want to own
the team?
Because those are two differentconversations we should have
right now about and and and someof those things are already

(22:03):
helped by society, like youthink about the way lebron jane
takes care of his body, and I'mlike we you know we could, we
could build a tool that couldtell him right away like you
should sleep this time, or youshould do this.
I mean that's tech, right?
I mean uh, or you know, we talkabout the different ways that
money is moved and and howeverybody needs it.
I mean, sometimes I'm literallysitting there to the kids I I'm
like, look, I sell somethingthat everybody needs.

(22:24):
Tell me what you want to sell.
And they're like, well, Ididn't think about it like that.
I'm like, yeah, everybody needsmoney, like everybody.
Fine, like it could be on anindividual level, it could be a
country and everything inbetween.
Everybody needs it.

(22:46):
And so I think the other part ofthat is just opening their eyes
up to obviously differentfields and different industries
and how money works as opposedto, which I think is very, very
valuable as well, obviouslyteaching them the consumer
tactics that they need ofsavings and applying for credit
and different things.
How big is your team now atlendistry?
Yeah, so lendistry, right nowwe're carrying about 280 people,
not including contractorsnationally.
Nationally, we have seven We'vetaken.
We're about to hit 1.9 millionapplications.

(23:07):
So I'm excited, over $10billion deployed, so excited to
see that get to its next levelLendistry was founded in what
year?

2015.
Okay, think about that.

So we're not quite at 10 years yet.

That's only 10 years.

I know.

It's like how did you grow it so fast and how
do you assemble the right team?
Because a lot of issues in acompany, any company is team and
managing a good staff.

I think for leaders, you got to first train
your brain.
You got to recognize that yourbrain is a muscle, so similar to
how we might work out or wemight jog or we might go on a
marathon.
We really have to startthinking about our brain.
That way, the brain neversleeps.
I'm going to get a littlescientific on you on my pre-med,
but there's something called areticular activating system and

(23:55):
you can literally train it, goodor bad, to do what you want to
do.
I'll give you an example youbuy a car and all of a sudden
you see that car everywhere.
Well, that car was alreadythere, but all of a sudden you
see it now and that is actuallya part of your brain called the
reticular activating system.
So the reason why you want tolisten to positive messaging,
you want to think about whatyour feet in the brain is,

(24:17):
because it literally is alwayson and it literally is a
trainable muscle, no differentthan if we were trying to be an
amazing marathon runner.
We might jog every day or wemight do a half marathon or 10K,
5k, whatever, beforehand.
So the first thing I wouldshare is to start, as a leader,

(24:37):
thinking about what is thetraining exercise you're putting
your brain through, and I thinkpositivity is really really
important, just because of theworld we live in.
And I think the other thingthat's really really important
is listening to other people whohave overcome big challenges.
Now that's going to take me tomy next thing Add a zero.
So, whatever you want to do,just add a zero.
What do you mean?
Just keep it simple.
Like, I want to make thisamount of money, add a zero to

(24:58):
it.
I want this revenue, add a zeroto it.
And believe it or not and yousee me say it casually so when
I'm asking for a million dollars, it's just, that's for 10
million.
I I just, I firmly believe itbecause one, as minority
individuals, we have been taughtto go completely the opposite
way.
It's true, and we have torecognize that, like someone has

(25:18):
taught us historically that weare lesser than and and and if
you are a minority woman, ittakes to a whole another level.
But with someone constantlyteaching you that you're not
qualified, what are you doing tobalance your brain to say you
are qualified?
And then what are you doing tobalance your brain to say
completely the other way.
And so I try to keep it realsimple.
Again, I just say add a zero.

(25:40):
And then people just, you knowthey'll freak out like when.
I remember when I was talking toteams like, oh, we're gonna do
a billion dollars, and they saidwhoa, whoa, whoa, you just
skipped over 100 million.
I was like, well, honestly, Iwas thinking 100, man, I just
added zero, right.
But I think it's importantbecause, again now let's go back
to the brain if you teach thebrain to look for something
similar to what you do when youget that car, it starts looking

(26:02):
for opportunities and it startsto think about that.
And I literally do that,whether it be the team member,
I'm looking for the opportunity,I'm looking for the location
we're thinking about.
I put it to my brain and sayyou start working on it first,
this is, this is what I'mlooking for.
And then, you know, some peoplewill say the universe opens up.

(26:24):
Some people say, god, I justthink honestly, just train your
brain.
And your brain starts to sayjust like, oh, I just bought
that new Honda Accord and yousee a hundred Honda Accords.
Your brain starts to say, oh,that person you're looking for
is right here.
You just didn't see them or youdidn't notice the skill set or
you didn't notice theopportunity.
Um and and I think that'sreally fundamental to leadership
and how?

(26:44):
How do you.

How do you convey this to your team, though
?
Because you have 200 pluspeople right, so you can't have
these relationships witheveryone on your team.
So tell me about your growth,though, when you're in the early
stages of your company, likehow did you build that right
team to allow you to?

propel.
Yeah, I think the first thingyou do sorry about that I think
the first thing you do is you.
You, as a leader, you have torealize that what makes you
great is what makes you scary.
Leaders have vision and, moreimportantly, they see things in
the future.
And you have to kind ofrecognize that.
And it's not like a fable orwise thing, like that is

(27:23):
literally what a vision is.
A vision is that you seesomething before it happens, and
so what I try to share withleaders is you have to
understand that.
And now you have to think abouthow to convey that Right.
And when I talk to a team, sothere's a couple of disciplines.
The first is team structure.
So a leader should only manageeight to 10 people and you

(27:44):
should hire another leader Okay,another eight to 10.
And so that's corporatestructure for me, okay.
And then, when I think aboutthe corporate structure for me,
I want leaders to providesolutions.
So I give them the vision theygo out and their job is to
execute, and then I'm askingthem for solutions.
So I try to include them inthat thought process.
So right now, literally, I'mtalking to a team about

(28:06):
something we're going to dothree years from now and I'm
saying this is how I think weshould execute it.
Now you start to go and youprocess it and you bring it back
, and leaders are in differentforms.
I mean, I have some leadersthat are like, if it is not
blueprinted A to Z, theyliterally freak out.
And so I'll sit down with themand say I'm about to freak out

(28:27):
and we have like this, but theywe've done it enough times.

The first couple times it takes a while,
but you're you're.
You trust them.
I trust them, right?
I mean, I think a lot ofleaders have a hard time
trusting.

Yeah well, I do a couple things.
I try to find people who'vebeen there before.
I'm not afraid to hireconsultants who've been there
before to support my leaders andthen I try to hire leaders that
are better than me at anindividual craft.
So if I think I'm really reallygood at sales, our sales
leaders generally almost all ofthem were had a higher position

(28:54):
at a bank than me.
They were higher up in terms oftitle and in terms of number of
people that they manage.
Because I'm trying to projectwhere the company is going as
opposed to where we're at rightnow, same thing that that I do
with our CFOs or anyone that'sinside of the company.
I'm saying look, your job is toput us in the right place two
to three years from now and if,for any reason, you have kind of

(29:18):
outlasted yourself, then you'vegot to go hire the people
underneath you who are alsofarther along.
Another way to say it isbusiness is actually very simple
if it's growing.
So let me put it in commonterms.
Let's take an individual.
A business that is growing isan organism.
It will eat you alive if youlet it.
So.

(29:39):
And I tell people this and Isay okay, let's just treat it as
if we're just like we're people.
Would you wear the same clothesthat you would wear when you
were three years old?
When you're 10?
And they're like no way.
And I'm like when you're 10,when you're 20?
They're like no, I'm like okay.
Well, that's the business.
The clothes are theinfrastructure, the tools and
the leadership.
Good metaphor.
So if we don't figure out a wayto change those, those clothes,

(30:01):
the business is going to eatyour life.
And then what happens is youhave to move on Now.
I think business leaders haveto have this conversation up
front, because there are goodpeople who only feel comfortable
in a certain segment.
Said differently, you'rebuilding your business to $100
million, so from zero to 20,that could be an amazing person,

(30:22):
but as soon as it gets from 20to, say, 50, they're
uncomfortable.

They're outgrown.

Yeah, cause they feel very, very good.

How do you have those conversations with
them, though?
Have it as upfront.

This is where I'm headed.
This is what my plan is.

Where do you think you fit and some people,
okay, I mean you're, you're,you're a're loyal to them at the
same time, because they've beenloyal to you yeah you just
reposition them or realign them,or I think it starts with you.

first, as an individual, I'm very, very
comfortable change management.
Now, when I was a little bitmore junior in my leadership
journey, I would take my watchand I put it on the other wrist,
like I try to do little simplethings that make me super
uncomfortable and like if mylegs are folded, I'll fold the
other way and it will be like Igot to sit there for five
minutes with my leg the otherway.
And it's not natural for meright.
Change my routine, change how Itry to work.

(31:14):
I was really focused on likehow to get myself comfortable
with change.
Then I go to the leaders and Iliterally kind of practice the
same thing.
So we have the conversation.
I've told them up front, theyunderstand where we're headed,
and then I try to get themcomfortable with change and what
I have found is that for someleaders it works.
They are very comfortable.

(31:35):
I mean, many of our leadershave people technically
underneath them that are rockstars and and as we grow the
business, that rock star ends uprunning a department they end
up running, so they're underonly for a short period of time.
But we've also communicated tothem where we're headed.

But a lot of management is afraid to embrace
that right.
They don't want to beoutshining Absolutely, but the
way I look at it is like look,you recruited this person.
That's right.
You should be proud of thatright.
Let's now lift them up and putthem in the right position.
So it's hard to convey that asa leader, because a lot of
people want to be and continueto be your right-hand person and
they feel that need to be closeto you.

Yeah, and I think the leader's job is to
create a path or to say there'snot a path, right, and so not a
path there's.
Sometimes we will take on aninitiative and it doesn't pan
out.
I mean, you know right nowwhere we're sitting at in terms
of administration changes andthings like that.
Every administration has a paththey want to go, and so we have

(32:35):
a tendency at lenders to kindof follow the money because we
know the small business is goingto follow the money.
But if an administration shifts, the money will shift right.
And so generally we're we'regearing up a department or we're
gearing up something.
We're saying, look, we're goingto go this way, and then it
shifts right, uh, and so we alsorecognize that now we do try to
save the team members and say,look, you can go over here, but

(32:56):
it does.
Sometimes people have a veryunique specialty and you know
we're building a building and wedecide we're not building
anymore and they're going to sayI'm not doing that anymore.
Right, trying to give you likea traditional example building a
house versus building andbuilding two different
specialties.
Both are really really good atwhat they can do.
But what are we doing right now?
Are we building a house or arewe building a commercial
building?
So you're not afraid of fire, Iam not afraid at all, as over

(33:23):
their team pretty regularly.
And changeover again doesn'tnecessarily mean firing.
A lot of times it does becausewe're helping that leader get
another position somewhere else.
That could be internal orexternal, but I would say the
changing of the team or changingof the guard extremely
important because you havedifferent market conditions, you
have a different environmentand you have different growth

(33:45):
strategies.
That should be a play in everybusiness.
So, for example, in yourbusiness you talked about
wholesale and you talked abouttrading overseas.
That's completely different inretail, right, and the leader
that's great at wholesale isprobably not the leader that's
great at retail or vice versa.
And so wherever that strategymight have been at the moment,
that's where a lot of the energyis going to be spent.

Yeah, it's incredible.
I think a lot of thesecompanies have such a hard time
being agile.
They have such a hard timemaking quick decisions and I
feel like, as you grow, thebigger your team is, the harder
it is to implement these changesright.

That's right.

So making sure that you're leading this,
you're able to supply them withthe ability to make these
changes right.
That's right.
So I think it's good that youcontinue with that mindset,
because you know, I think we'veall worked for these large
companies and it just takesforever to implement something.

You're like an aircraft carrier versus a
speedboat.

You're like an aircraft carrier versus a
speedboat and having that smallbusiness mentality, family-owned
business mentality, you're veryaction-driven, you're very
actionable and you're not goingto wait for things to happen.
You're just going to call theshots and make it happen, and
you need a good leader, yourgood VPs, to be able to do the
same thing as you and followthat.
That's right.

And you have to decide what type of business
you want to have.
Look, if you want a reallysmall mom and pop, this is
probably not the lesson you haveto worry about.
But assuming you want to havekind of a mid-sized, large-sized
growth company, you have aresponsibility to constantly
think about growth, toconstantly think about pivots
and where your leaders fit.
And I've had leaders where Isaid, look, I think you should

(35:22):
take a step down, you know, totake a step forward later,
Because there's this skill setwe're going to need and you've
got to be up under someone tolearn this particular one.
And some leaders say yes, someleaders say no.
But it's not my job to paint arosy picture and not tell them
the truth.

When you're like how do you step away from
the industry personally?
How do you I mean the industrypersonally?
How do you I mean because Imean when I had the family
business, I was never able toturn off my phone.
You know we're on vacation,we're in the pool and my phone's
right there and then I'll havethe damn public health
department show up somethingalways happens, right, you're
always putting out fires.
So how?
How do you step away from thatright?

now.
So I think you have tounderstand what you like.
And then you got to have smalland large bites.
So I love football.
Um, that's my small bite, rightI can I?
If it's a saturday or sunday,I'll step away.
I'll watch a game at a bar, athome, wherever I'm at, just
recognizing that I need a littlebit of that.
Um, football is now on tv everyday so it used to just be a

(36:20):
saturday.
I guess now it's thursdaythrough monday, but you know I
try to take those moments.
And then to your point aboutthe larger kind of travel and
vacation which I love to do.
I just make sure that I'm setup for a couple hours a day, as
opposed to saying I'm going toturn off all the way.
To your point, I'm not a turnoff all the way guy and the
business won't let me.
So I embrace them and just saythis is what we're going to do,

(36:42):
we're going to structure the day, say, okay, this is what we're
gonna do, we're gonna structurethe day.
This is when I'm available.
Tell the team the same thing.
Team does a very good job ofsaying no, go away, go away, but
inevitably there's somethingthey gotta pick up the phone on.
I try my best to say look, fromthis couple hours I'm gonna be
online every single day and ofcourse I try my best to go
places that allow for that.
I just went, just uh, to kenyaand just did a uh, a uh safari

(37:06):
nice, and so that was a littlechallenging the first couple
days you have no, no reception.
I'm about to get eaten by lionsyou take a satellite phone I
didn't, but a friend had one, sothankfully, um but, uh, um, but
you know.
So again there's.

I try my best to do that on like a friday,
saturday, sunday or saturday,sunday, monday holiday I mean,
but when you go on those tripsit kind of reminds you what life
is really about.
Right, Of course I mean you'renot.

I mean, Africa is just one of those places to
me, and I'm not saying the whole, but the places I went, where
you kind of see Mother Nature ather best right, and you're like
, oh, this is the.

This is a different jungle behind us, but
you know, you roll with it.
You're pivoting right now.
I mean, how do you see yourself, or what do you see Lendistry
in the next 10 years?
Because I mean man, 10 years isa long time for you.

But I mean just comparing what you've done
in the last 10 years.
What do you see for the next 10years for the industry?
Yeah, so my journey right nowis to simplify it first is I
really think about productprocess and policy.
Historically, minoritiesspecifically and underserved and
undercapitalized communitieshave not really had that
opportunity to really benefitfrom credit to the full extent.
And so when we think aboutstructured credit and we think
about the different things thathave happened with structured
credit that have put us on theoutskirts of access to capital,

(38:35):
I kind of have put those, putthe solution that we're working
towards and there are manytowards those three.
So so, having the rightproducts, they meet the moment.
So when I think about thingslike world Cup, olympics, super
Bowl and all these differentopportunities, construction and
different things like that, whatwe're really talking about is a
short-term financing situationwhere you need money to execute

(38:57):
and you need it to be flexibleenough or adaptable enough for
it to allow you to take on morecontracts.

Okay, but let's pretend I'm in one of your
leadership meetings.
How do you convey this to yourVPs and to your leadership?
What's your vision for the nextthree, five years?
Absolutely, what are myinstructions?

I say we're going to create two or three
products and this is the problemwe're trying to solve and then
we're going to take in our warroom.
We create the products first,optimization second, and then
marketing third.
Right Now, everybody's involvedand there's experimentation

(39:35):
that goes along with that, butwe're constantly working towards
that.
As an example and the reasonwhy I gave you the Olympics is
because I was trying to think ofsomething that was farther away
right, but that's generallywhat's happening inside of that
world.
Now that product might getdesigned right away, and then we
go through some experimentation.
There's a lot of differentthings you have to think about.

(39:57):
So we have to think about notonly how the simple things in my
mind how the products are goingto be marketed, who's the
audience, but what are thelittle tweaks that we need that
technology can provide.
So I'll give an example.
When we think about financingfor a contractor we had to build
, the risk issue was is thecontract truly collateral?

(40:19):
And the solution when we didour research was well, it is the
capture of the funds related tothe contract.
That is really the collateral.
Said differently, you don'tknow if the person is actually
going to complete the job, so ifyou can get inside of the flow
of the money, then all of asudden you de-risk the situation

(40:41):
.
Factoring guys have figuredthis out very well.
They say pay into a lockbox,you'll know that, as a banker
right Pay into.
Very well.
They say pay into a lockbox,you'll know that, as a banker,
right Pay into this bank.
We don't want a lockbox To us.
It's a lot of paperwork, it'sextra costs.
We're trying to benefit thesmall business with their
admission.
So what we did is we created avirtual wallet, virtual wallet.
You've seen it before in Venmoand PayPal and Cash App Said,

(41:03):
and Venmo and PayPal and CashApp said differently A business
is not sophisticated enoughsometimes or big enough to go
out and get like a depositaccount control agreement or
something like something thattakes a legal structure inside
of making you get what I mean.
So now, if you created right, ifyou created the opportunity for
a virtual account, like anaccount they can't see, but it

(41:23):
is separate, and you can controlthe money through that account,
and we're talking aboutcreating something in
milliseconds, not reallytransparent to the customer, but
what it allows us to do is nowhave a risk-based structure.
We can literally, in ourtechnology, we can create
500,000 accounts in an hour.

Well, so just I mean we're not there yet.
I mean in a digital, a digitalworld.
So I'm thinking to myself okay,so my payables if I'm giving
this Zelle account or whatever,and it's managed by Lendistry,
so they're able to secure thecollateral right.

That's right.

Whenever the loan is similar.
So I mean similar to like alockbox basically, that's
exactly right, just digital.

Wow, okay, that's cool, but again and again
.
I'm not necessarily expectingeverybody to understand it, but
the punchline is more access tocapital to those who but for
this little thought processwouldn't have had access.

I'm just thinking of Treasury.
Here in downtown we had a cashand carry right.

Narrator 2 (42:19):
Yeah, sure.

Narrator 1 (42:19):
It's a storefront where businesses would go.

usually C stores or small food trucks
would go and buy merchandisewholesale, and a lot of it was
cash-based.
Right, that's right.
So instead of running to thebank all the time, we would have
our treasury safe deposit box Iforget what they call it there,
but you would deposit the cashinto the vault and that's in the

(42:42):
store.
Back in the day you would haveto wait for, you know, the armor
truck to come pick it up, makethe deposit.
So you literally got thatconcept and digitalized that
that's right.

And then to the second thing process.
How do we make it easier on thebusiness so they don't have to
wait for the armor truck, sosomeone doesn't have to count
out the money, so we can put itin the digitized format.
But, more importantly, they canautomatically report it to us
and we could send them a textthat says you need more money,
boom.
Or or send them education thatsays your business is growing.

(43:15):
This is what you do when yourbusiness grows.
Your business is not doing well, your business is suffering or
equally catch it fast.

That's the thing is, you're catching those
issues fast, instantly, becauseI mean, like our business, you
know you're waiting to your taxreturns are coming due and
you're like man, this this yearwas horrible or this year was
good I mean, sometimes are goodyears but you know you're trying
to position yourself, so youryour liabilities and that's to
your taxes, to your point.

I mean that's that's part of to your question
of the 10-year roadmap.
I want to be at a certain pointwhere we have whether it be
apps or whatever the latesttechnology is we're delivering
this information in real time tothe business owner, so the
business owner can pivot.
That's not the best customerfor me.
That's not the best revenuesource.
That is the best revenue source.
We get paid more on Tuesdaysand Wednesdays than we do on
Thursdays and Fridays, so I needto shift how I'm doing

(44:05):
something.
I want to give them all thatdata and all those tools and
that information up front.

There's a lot of videos and interviews that
you've done that talks aboutyour partnerships with banks.
But if you can give me justlike a one minute for those who
haven't heard that, but you worka lot with banks.

So I think, as you know, when you're part of
the banking system, you start torealize the things that banks
don't do generally because ofoperational efficiency, right.
And so we have about 58different banks and financial
institution partnerships and ourreal role is to be there when
they can't be, and it's not thatthey don't want to.
And I'll give you an example.
One of our partners is GoldmanSachs.

(44:42):
No-transcript, thinking aboutthe community.

(45:11):
A lot of times the communitydoesn't understand the continuum
of capital.
Like if we were in school,you'd say junior high school,
high school, university,secondary degree, but when it's
when it's your business, you'relike well, what's my equivalent
of high school, what's myequivalent of university?
Let me go to this bank.
Well, the bank is like an mba,right, in terms of where you
should be going for yourfinancing and what are those

(45:33):
incremental steps before thatyou need to do to get to the mba
.

And that's where we think we feel we feel
that role do you, do you seelendistry ever having a place
like a branch where clients areable to visit and I mean, we, we
technically a client can comeinto our office.

I mean, ultimately, we will never
probably get into the bankingbusiness.
I'm scarred, um, from you knowwhat I think is kind of the
regulatory environment as awhole, regardless of you know
any politics, uh.
But, as you know, it's a verygood deposit source, and so one
of the things we're looking atwe've been studying private
credit.
Private credit, for those whodon't know, is basically

(46:12):
non-bank lending.
At the end of the day, thatmarket is supposed to be $7
trillion, and so we are lookingat insurance vehicles and other
ways that we can get into what Iwould call a cheaper source of
cost of capital.
We're looking at different waysthat we go into there outside
of banking.
But, that being said, I thinkwe're also thinking about how to

(46:34):
serve the customer better, andusing technology and apps is
really really good, but it isnot the silver bullet.
Some people do want to touch us, some people do want to talk to
us, so we're thinking throughother solutions.

And you work a lot with community partners.
I mean, that's a, that's a bigAvenue, absolutely.

I mean, I think, community.
I think we're give or takeabout a thousand of them now.

Wow, Nationally, nationally, yeah,
nationally.

Yeah and yeah.
And so we're thinking about howto help them deploy capital,
loans, grants, different thingslike that, how to help them
support their membership anddifferent things.
And then, because technically,a lot of them are better
technical assistants thanactually we are, and so when

(47:25):
you're thinking again about theecosystem, sometimes you want to
do it all, but sometimes youdon't because there's just a
partner who's doing it betterand we could just help give that
partner a little extra boost,and then we think it'll help the
community.
I also think about that interms of culture and languages.
I mean, you take the Spanishlanguage.
I mean think about thediasporas of the Latin American
community, right?
Like I'm not going to be ableto conquer that anytime soon, so
why not do it throughpartnership?
Same thing with the Asian diasdiaspora, right.

And so we think about some of these things
, like the cultural competencythat's needed to build that
rapport, and the thing is thatyou're able to do this even
faster because a lot there's alot of compliance behind the
scenes in a financialinstitution where it takes some
years to print out one aone-page sheet in another
language, so I'll I'll figureout how to create the
application in a differentlanguage.

let them figure out how to continue to
build community rapport and thentogether, you know, the
community really gets servedwell.

Yeah, you're in a really great position.
Like I said, you have thatsmall business mentality.
You've grown this business, youknow, in a short amount of time
, but you're as big as a bank,right.
So, again, I think it's nicethat you're able to compete but
at the same time change, if youhave to, in a flip of a dime.

(48:35):
Not everyone's in that position.
It's very hard to be in thatposition, but that goes to your
leadership skills and to thisprogram, la Leaders.
How do you continue to buildthis?
What is your legacy?
How do you plan for yoursuccession?
You know like, how does thatlook like as a leader?

You know, it's hard for me to think about it
because somewhat it's morbid.
Right On one side you're like Iwant to be here forever and I
want to be young and I want tokeep going, but on the other
side, you're absolutely right, Iand what I'm hoping, through
our partnerships and through ourfuture leaders, is that we
create more LendustriesObviously that person's version
of it, but there's no way oneLendustry is going to be able to

(49:13):
solve what I would argue isabout a trillion dollar issue,
and so I'm hoping that throughthe different things that we're
doing, the last one that Imentioned to you was policy.
I mean we have to have partnersin policy that say this is how
we do it.
And I don't blame anypolitician or anything like that
, because I think thatpoliticians job is to create the

(49:34):
legislation.
The, the kind of mainstream jobis to help them think about how
the execution of thelegislation goes about.
So sometimes you need to haveconversations in the front to
say, hey, design it this way.
And sometimes you need to haveconversations in the front to
say, hey, design it this way.
And sometimes you need to haveconversations afterwards to say
this did and did not work.
But I think, when I think aboutlegacy, it's things like that,
like how do we make changes tostructural credit?

(49:57):
Historically has been a badthing.
Let's make it a good thing,right, because we're not going
to change the way the US runslaws, or the state runs laws, or
even the city, but we can thinkabout the structures that could
be influential to a tremendousamount of capital flowing.

Have you?
Have you've gotten into policy?
I know you're from DC.
I mean how you have close ties,because you have to keep track
of all policies federally stateand locally Right.

So we have, we have a couple lobbyists, both
federal and state, and couple isprobably the wrong word, but
that's OK.
And and the pandemic reallybrought me into the forefront I
think I've now spoken toCongress four times.
I've been four or fivecongressional hearings.
And you can catch those videosonline.
You can catch those videosonline.
Hopefully I didn't say anythingtoo crazy and I think I go
through what a lot of leaders gothrough in my state, which is a
bit of imposter syndrome whenyou're going through that,

(50:47):
Because you're realizing thatyou're influencing not only the
individuals that are sitting infront of you but literally
lawmakers and I never signed upto be anyone that would
influence law at all, Like thatwas not that was farthest from
what I wanted to do.

(51:10):
But I think it is really, reallyimportant that those of us that
are leaders take not only thatwe vote that's, that's to me
kind of the obvious but we dotake the time to sit down with
politicians and say here'sanother way of doing something,
that benefits.

The thing ever is you are the voice for small
businesses like you.
You carry such a stronginfluence and weight because of
your business and what you'vedone so far and your leadership
and your voice is verymeaningful.
So you being a part of thatconversation and representing
such a community is veryimpactful, because businesses
like ours we don't even thinkthat way.

(51:37):
Like we don't, we don't havethe time, the energy or the
money to to be out in the frontof those of those communities
and those politicians.
So it's nice to have you as apartner in that sense because, I
mean, most of our city is builtby small businesses right
always, and you being in theforefront is is important.
so thank you for everything youdo when it comes to that,

(51:58):
because, yeah, and definitelycontinue doing it, because we
need that voice, I appreciate it.
We in in every level.
Right, I mean, yeah, totally.
I mean, look at Los Angelesright now.
We're going through a lot, yeah, but that's what drove me to
work for this organization isjust the impact and what we do
as a whole, as a community,because, at the end of the day,

(52:19):
it's not about big business, butit's about bettering our
community.
It's about making it easier tohire, making it easier to open a
restaurant or whatever it is so.
I think that if you continue tolead our community, it's greatly
appreciated.
Yeah, no thanks for that, Iplan to.
Yeah, definitely, going back toyou, kind of the horizon, you

(52:43):
mentioned that you're thinkingor I'm not sure how close you
are about doing a podcast andyou're calling it small business
, unscripted.
Tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah Well, I mean to your point with leaders.
I think when we think aboutthings like cultural competency,
I think leaders need to hearfrom other leaders that go
through the same things as them,right?
So I'm a restaurateur, I shouldhear from a restaurateur.
I'm a woman owned businessthat's a restaurateur.
I should hear from anotherwoman that's run a restaurant.

(53:11):
And so the thought processbehind the MOP podcasts and,
quite frankly, any marketing ishow do we get into the fabrics
of society?
For example, we're partnerswith la sparks.
We're the small businesslending partner.
Well, that deals with women,inequality and pay.
That deals with trying to helpathletes be able to get into
small business and feelcomfortable that they could talk

(53:33):
to someone that's going to givethem, you know, advice, without
trying to charge them or takeadvantage of them or different
things like that.
Because if we solve the payissue, guess what?
They're going to make a bunchof money and so now they got to
make sure they invest itcorrectly and do those things
correctly.
So we're trying to be reallyintentional, both in the
messaging and then the marketingand then, obviously, how we
deliver on the mission.

Yeah.

Cause.

I mean, it's it's true, as a small business
owner, you're, or any, anyorganization, you're kind of
alone at a lot of thoseconversations and it's hard to
find someone that can relate,right Um.
So if you're, you create thisplatform where you're able to
discuss kind of openly, likethose situations and what we're
going through.
I mean talking about my familybusiness and what we went
through with COVID.
I mean, man, if I had you totalk to during that time, you

(54:20):
could have advised me ofsomething different, because in
reality, we became a bank.
This is our business, becauseour receivables are so high.
You know, we're waiting for ourvendors to pay us and a lot of
our merchandise is in the ocean.

So there's a there's a lot that I could have
learned and kind of you know,yeah, and if you think about a
small business owner the otherside of that, some of what I
kind of described in anapplication, when you have the
free time to even think about itor study it or talk to someone
a lot of times it's really lateat night or really early in the
morning, maybe.
Maybe you're lucky enough tolisten to someone you drive to
work, um, and so trying to givethat small business owner access

(54:53):
on their time, which I thinkpodcasts are very fortunate in
giving them, that it's really,really important to me too,
because the data is saying theyneed it to be off hours, they
need a YouTube university-likescenario where they could just
listen whenever they want, andso that's really important to us
.

That's how I am.
I'm at home late at night, 11or midnight or whatnot, and I'm
listening to something and justlearning.
I'm constantly learning and mywife's like when are you going
to bed?
You know, but that's to me.
I'm like I'd rather listen tothese interviews and kind of
learn from one another thanwatching a TV show.
So you know, it's good thatyou're creating this platform

(55:30):
for the community again, that'sright.
So it's just some finalthoughts.
I mean, if you were teaching aleadership course right now
because I'm in the works rightnow I'm not sure if you ever met
Rick Gibson.
He's a retired senior vicechancellor of Pepperdine
University.
He was there for 30 plus years,or about 30 years, and he used

(55:50):
to sit on our board and herecently retired and I came to
him with this idea.
I'm like, hey, with youreducational background and with
emerging leaders like myself andyou know we're wanting to learn
let's create this workshop,sure, so we're in the process of
doing that right now.
But if you're a special gueston this workshop, what are like
three to five things that youwould think these leaders need

(56:13):
to know as they're growing intheir careers?

I mean, of course I'm probably going to
lean a little bit more towardsfinance, growing in their
careers.
I mean, of course I'm probablygoing to lean a little bit more
towards finance.
And I think it's reallyunderstanding kind of when to
borrow, how to borrow and thevarious stages and elements of
borrowing, right.
So sometimes we use words verycavalier angel investor, more PE
, private equity, more banks,and just understanding.
I mean you'll know this becauseyou're a banker.

(56:37):
But there's some banks thatfinance boats, right.
And so you, you three things Itell people is you gotta make
sure that when you go to a bankyou ask do you finance my loan
amount, do you finance my use ofproceeds?
And do you finance me?
And it's not literally me, it'snot like a black man or
anything like it's.
I'm a c-corp, I'm a non-profit,I'm this, this is my nasus code

(56:59):
or my industry, that's thefinance me.
But as you know from bankingbanks are all unique.
There are banks that financeboats.
So you walk in there, you wanta home loan or you want a small
business loan and thenunfortunately, because of
federal law, they have toactually give you an answer,
because you applied and you geta decline and you're like oh,
it's not me, it is me and it'snot you, it's because they

(57:20):
finance boats, but there's nosign on the door that says we
finance boats only, right.
And so I think, when you'rethinking about education, that's
still a foundational misconceptfor us in terms of running our
businesses.
Then I think, from there it'sthe leverage and how to take
your business and grow to thenext level capital reserves and
different things like that.
I still think that that'ssomething that, if we can get

(57:42):
that right, I think, one, it'llcreate a lot more R&D, said
differently, a lot more growth.
And two, I think it'll takeaway some of those pains and
headaches that the businessowners go through as they're
managing finance.
I was describing it to my teamthe other day.
You have someone that is the pro.
I mean, if you think about the,the executive, they're saying

(58:02):
yes, they're saying no, they'redoing everything.
I mean, they are the pro attheir job, they are the main
person, and then there's thisobscure thing called financing,
and this is where they have 100potential for rejection.
So you take the pro in theirnormal element all day long
they're the best, they're theamazing, they're the one that's

(58:23):
answering all the questions, andthen all of a sudden they go
into this place where it's likefear, rejection and all that,
and so I think it's reallyimportant that we start to break
some of that down.

Yeah, yeah.
No, I think there's definitelya lot that we can learn from you
.
I really do appreciate youcoming over here and taking the
time to sit down with me.
I think that if anyone wants tocontinue learning from you,
just follow you onLenderstreetcom.
You do a lot for the community.

(58:53):
Just before I let you go, whatis Everett before work like?
What's your morning routine?

look like like I'm trying to capture um, the
personal side from yeah sure,about 4 30 in the morning.
I wake up naturally between 4and 4 30.
I do have an alarm clock justin case, but I work out.
I think it's really reallyimportant, as I mentioned before
, kind of that brain trainingand obviously the physical
trainer really really important.
So something positive in myears mixed with the training um,

(59:24):
generally 30 to are youlistening to motivational
podcasts?

motivational podcast.
Are you listening to music?
Motivational podcast.

Well, well, I give myself flexibility, okay,
uh, because sometimes I need tohear like classical music,
because I'm like I need thisbrain to stop with the ideas and
kind of to kind of slow it down.
Sometimes it's like hip hop,because I'm like I want to dance
and I want to do something, andsometimes it is some type of
motivational speaker, maybeindustry concentrated or not,
that's what amazed me with youis you're that leader, but

(59:53):
you're still listening to someother leaders too.
That's right.
So this morning it wasmotivational speaking.
I believe it was Tony Robbins,carrie Wood I think it's Carrie
Water Chopwood was the book Ilistened to for 10, 15 minutes
and then I had to put on alittle Kendrick Lamar.
So it was like all three thingswere going on at the same time.

(01:00:14):
And then I'm trying to get intomy day pretty early so I try to
do emails kind of right away.
I call it the fluff of emails.
Like there's just a group ofemails that you kind of get rid
of like in the first hour so youcan start to get to the meat of
the emails.
So I get rid of the fluff, thenI get into meetings.
First meeting this morning was6.30, and then just rolls from
there.
Do you get your emails scrubbed?
I do sometimes, but I like tojust touch them just because you

(01:00:39):
know the scrub.
Sometimes you never know what'smarketing versus what's
something real, and nowadaysbecause of chat, gpt and other
things, they can kind of lookthe same, so to speak, to some
of the tools out there.
So I do it.
I do a good 15, 30 minutes.
I can do it really quickly.
I've gotten that down prettywell.

Christopher Luna (01:00:58):
Do you have a special email for some of your
VAPs that need a quick answer?
It's.

Everett K. Sands (01:01:06):
Everett at Lendistry.
Don't say it out loud.
No, it's all good.
I can't imagine how your inboxlooks.
I got a lot of protectors atLendistry that do different
things and then hello atLendistry.
If you really want to get tothe team, that's the better one.

Sounds good.
Well, thank you again forsharing the insights.
Again, visit Lendistrycom.
Keep an eye on your podcast.
You're coming up Small BusinessUnscripted.
Again, I really value your time.
I know it's not easy to get youfor an hour or two from your
day, so thank you again.
I appreciate everything you dofor the small business community
.
Um, I look forward to workingwith you and growing with you

(01:01:41):
more.
All right, um, I was at themexican consulate just this past
week and I met this company whorepresents a lot of alcohol
brands.
Okay, and they're going to beum supporting an event of ours.
But they she gave me thisbottle.
It's called the solo.
Um, it's from a very famousHispanic artist.
You'll find him, but there hewas all over the news and Costco

(01:02:03):
, whatnot.
His name is Marcantonio Solis.
So they gave it to me becausethey knew I was going to meet
with you and they wanted me togive it to you.

Everett K. Sands (01:02:09):
Okay, I appreciate it.

So a little thank you gift for for showing
up.
That's nice.
And for being with us today.
So thank you, I'm curious tosee how it tastes, so maybe one
day we'll drink it together, butif not, we'll get another one.
I appreciate that.
Thank you so much.

Narrator 1 (01:02:34):
Thank you again, inspiring as we did.
Don't forget to subscribe andleave us a review on your
favorite podcast platform.
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And be sure to follow us onsocial media for updates behind
the scenes content and to jointhe conversation.
Until next time, keep leading,keep innovating and keep making

(01:02:54):
a difference.

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Everett K. Sands – Chief Executive Officer of Lendistry | Los Angeles Leaders

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Everett K. Sands – Chief Executive Officer of Lendistry | Los Angeles Leaders