March 21, 2025 • 43 mins
Ryan Stewman never dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur. Yet his remarkable 15-year journey from reluctant business owner to financial strategist offers a raw, unfiltered look at what it truly takes to build a multimillion-dollar enterprise without venture capital or industry connections.
After losing his mortgage industry position due to regulatory changes, Stewman found himself pioneering what would become the podcast and social media influencer space. Rather than pursuing celebrity status, he focused on building legitimate businesses that have collectively generated over $100 million in verifiable sales. His authentic approach stands in stark contrast to the carefully curated success stories that dominate entrepreneurial content.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when Stewman reveals the financial strategies that major corporations use to optimize their positions. He explains how borrowing capital can actually provide more usable funds than earning the same amount due to tax implications – a concept many business owners fail to grasp until it's too late. Through his company Closer Capital, he's not just providing funding but educating entrepreneurs on how to use financing as a strategic tool rather than a last resort.
For seasonal business owners, particularly in industries like roofing and construction, Stewman offers invaluable insights into managing cash flow challenges. He details how securing lines of credit during peak revenue periods can provide the flexibility needed to pursue larger projects and weather slower seasons. His practical advice on timing loan applications and understanding interest rate structures provides a roadmap for business owners looking to leverage financial tools effectively.
Perhaps most compelling is Stewman's candid comparison between employee and owner perspectives. Having experienced both sides, he highlights how salespeople often fail to appreciate the immense pressures facing business owners – from unexpected tax bills to navigating sudden changes in payment terms from major clients. His stories serve as a sobering reminder that behind every successful company stands an entrepreneur who has weathered countless financial storms.
Ready to transform how you view business financing? This episode will challenge your thinking and provide actionable strategies for using capital to accelerate your growth rather than just keeping the lights on.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, thanks for listening to the Reckless CEO
podcast.
This is just a quick reminder.
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Well, if you'd like to listen,you're in the right place.
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Here we go.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, you're like, that buzzer ain't rang, that
game ain't over with.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So keep going.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven when I
have thrived, you know, in thatchaos I told god I'll be back in
a second man.
It's so hard.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
How could this be happening?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
did any of you guys pay attention to anything I said
like get arrested.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Guess, until they get the message.
Welcome back to the recklessCEO Podcast, where we keep it
real raw and reckless aboutbusiness and life.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
They ain't really got the sauce and I ain't got you
know what I mean it's like hereis your host, the Reckless CEO
himself, Michael McCudder.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, so welcome back to the Reckless CEO
Podcast.
I'm super excited for today'sguest, mr Ryan Steumann.
Let's see a podcast.
I'm super excited for today'sguest, mr Ryan Steumann.
It's a cool story because mycontent guy and your content guy
kind of facilitated and got usconnected and my guy didn't know
that I actually I followed youfor a long time and so when he
brought it up I was definitelyexcited to have you on man.
(01:19):
So I appreciate you stepping inand give me some time today,
ryan.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah that's awesome, man.
You know, like at this point inthe podcast media world the
alternative media world, we'llcall it like those.
What's cool is those guys arestarting to get to know each
other.
You know that if, like Cameronmy guy, he's been, you know, in
this industry for probably sevenor eight years, so you know
he's had to share with a lot ofother creators.
(01:45):
You know guys that work ontheir marketing team and stuff
like that.
So really what people don'trealize these days is some of
those dudes are the mostconnected dudes you can get in
all reality.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And especially if they're consistent, because
that's also the hard thing tofind when it comes to content
creators.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, man, you know, I've got a guy that works
for me that does events and so,dude, he knows everybody in the
event space.
So anytime I need a speaker oranything like that, he knows
everybody.
It's easy to get to, you know,and, yeah, that works out
perfect.
So that's really cool thatworked out that way.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, man, I didn't share with him but I was telling
him.
So you know my, my kind ofjourney goes back as well.
I got into sales probably aboutseven, seven, eight years ago
when I moved, when I moved toColumbus, ohio.
I'm originally from Wheeling,west Virginia, uh, but I moved
up here.
First job was door to doorsales.
My second job was doing acemetery sales, so I was selling
(02:40):
grave plots and headstones,started out with one location,
ended up running three or fourdifferent locations throughout
Ohio and used to make the tripfrom Columbus to Dayton every
day.
This was probably five, sixyears ago and I used to listen
to Hardcore Closer every day.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That was like my jam on the way to go sell some
people, some grave plots man, soI do appreciate all the wisdom
they were dying to buy from youman.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's it, bro.
That's my line.
I'm like they're dying to comesee me.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Man, I feel like I would have been good at selling
great stuff.
I've been like you're going topay for it now or later, and
later could be superinconvenient.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Let's go in and get this knocked out now 100% and
honestly, man, it really helpedwith my, you know I'm kind of a
loud voice, I'm very, you know,I'm type A for sure, and you
can't really be like that whenyou're sitting across from a
family that potentially at thehardest moment of their life,
right?
And so I had to learn how toslow down youth tonality, be
(03:35):
able to actually become asalesperson man, and it was, you
know, after that business iswhen I really started, started
my roofing company, and so Ialways say that it was like I
got the door-to-door so I justlearned how to go out and hit
the pavement and then I got intothat industry and it really
helped me to kind of learn howto actually sell things too yeah
, man, I dig it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know, um, it's funny like that.
That's very smart of you to belike okay, well, you know, I've
got the door-to-door thing down,but the thing I'm selling
doesn't pay that much.
So let me go figure out whatpays the most at the door and go
sell that thing.
Most people never draw thoseconclusions.
They're like I'm really good atselling funeral stuff, but you
know, shit, it five, 10 grand afuneral versus you know 10 to 20
(04:17):
grand a roof.
That's a, you know, double yourvalue and probably double your,
your commission.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So a hundred percent, double your commission.
So a hundred percent.
Yeah, my biggest ever sale inthe cemetery industry was a
$70,000 above ground mausoleum.
I sold it to a guy that ended adentist practice and it was
like probably my first weekendin the business of Memorial Day,
which is like a big cemeteryday, and this red Ferrari rolls
(04:45):
in and I just jumped in my golfcart and I followed the guy all
the way around and eventually hestopped and started
bullshitting and talking to himand next thing, you know, I
ended up talking him into one ofthe two things we had left
ground and above ground, and hegot it.
So it was, dude, it was fun, but, like you said, man, it was a
lot of reps, a lot of work foryou know, and it was painful.
You know what I mean it was.
(05:06):
After a while I'm like man,this is just killing my vibe,
for sure, but you know, dude.
So, ryan, man, again, Iappreciate you jumping on today.
Man, I obviously want to, youknow, hear a little bit of kind
of your story too, right, I knowthat you've got quite a story
mortgage industry and you know,business owner and all the
things.
So you know, if you kind ofgive the guy you know, give me a
little background on you, man,and just kind of catch us up to
(05:27):
where we are today.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, uh, you know I don't know, probably everything
you're not supposed to do.
I did it in life and uh, andprobably got in trouble for most
of it.
So you know I didn't have likea good life to start out with or
good parents or anything likethat, you know.
And if you, you know we couldsit here and tell my miserable
(05:52):
ass story for an hour.
So it's easy to find that onthe internet if you want to be
depressed or whatever.
The case may be man, but thereality is, you know it's funny
in life how what at the time canseem like a curse and
everything else in the end worksout to be a blessing.
You know I'm not supposed to behere and I really don't want to
(06:15):
be here to be honest with you,not like on the podcast or like
on this planet, but like I neverin my life was like one day I'm
going an entrepreneur, likethat shit is not a dream that I
had, like I get it.
Some people, you know, like Ilisten to Real AF and Andy's
like oh, my whole life I knewand I was like man my whole life
(06:35):
.
I just wanted to be a salesman.
Really, that was my callingno-transcript and you know, like
(07:03):
anybody else, you go whenyou're making good money and you
lose a job or that industrygoes out of business.
Like a couple of years ago, alot of people were making
millions of dollars a year withERTC stuff.
Now that industry's gone, youknow, and so I was kind of in a.
I was in the mortgage industryand the Dodd-Frank CPFB, which
is what, ironically, trump'sdismantling now took me out of
the game.
They took the licenses fromstate to federal and I was on
(07:24):
federal parole for a weaponscharge, guns charge, and so I
couldn't get a license and so Ibasically started.
What you know today is thepodcast social media influencer
world.
I started that, I pioneeredthat.
If you look and it's crazy tosay and and I'm like a lot of
(07:45):
people's dirty secret, but ifyou look into pretty much all of
your top guys that are in theindustry, they all started here
and I don't know how the fuck Ididn't wind up at the top.
You know what I mean, but again, it's probably because this
wasn't my thing.
I never was like, yeah, man, Iwant to be a celebrity, like
matter of fact, for there was atwo-year period where I was in
big demand and I'm flying aroundmeeting all these celebrities
(08:06):
and shit, and I had like youknow, you know I'm not.
I had this like, they're notlike me, I'm not like them.
Maybe that's a better way ofsaying I know Kendrick's like
they, not like us, but I'm likeI'm not like them.
You know, I, I'm 45 years oldnow, so let's say, in my 40s I
start traveling around and youknow, at first I'm smoking weed
with a couple rappers that I'velike looked, listened to my
(08:28):
whole life and then I realizedthat the more I got into that
world, it just wasn't for me.
And I know a lot of like and I'mnot a celebrity by any chance,
but I know a lot of people saythat about going to Hollywood.
They're like dude, I got thereand I wanted to be an actor and
then I met everybody and I waslike, fuck, now I live on a farm
in the middle of Oklahoma andthat's kind of like my situation
(08:49):
.
To be honest with you.
It's like I thought I wanted tobe around all this man and then
I'm like oh wait, those peopledon't have the same standards
and morals, and not some of them, all of them man and it kind of
created me to go into thislittle, you know, isolation
thing.
But I say that because during my15 years of being an
entrepreneur that I didn't wantto be, you know I managed to
(09:12):
build a business that'slegitimately done well over a
hundred million dollars in salesand verifiable with my Stripe
account, and it's not like thesefuckers that say I started a
business six years ago and donea hundred million.
That's funny.
It's taken me 15 years and Igot more shit than these guys.
I see, you know, it's funny.
Those guys you'd see that saythat it's like, bro, you don't
even have a couch in your livingroom.
(09:33):
What the fuck are you talkingabout, you know?
And so, um, but I really, Ireally have done that.
I've I've built a realbusinesses.
It's not a, you know, I neverwanted to be an influencer or
coach, so I never built likecoaching and influence business.
We built an events business anda business association, a
software business and a lendingbusiness, among other things,
(09:53):
and the cool thing, I think allof that forced me to have to do
it all alone.
I didn't do it with beingpromoted.
I'll never forget man.
In 2021, I threw in a no sorry.
In 2020, I threw a digitalvirtual event while everybody
was locked down and we had30,000 people watching live.
(10:14):
And I remember, like two, threeweeks later, tony Robbins team
calls me and they're like hey,man, you know, tony likes what
you're doing.
He wants you to promote hislatest product.
I'm like, man, fuck you, thefuck.
You mean, you like what I'mdoing so I can sell your shit.
Bitch, you're a billionairemotherfucker, come sell my shit.
I'm on the fucking way up.
Get the fuck out of here, bro.
But that's how this fuckingwhole industry is Right.
(10:36):
As soon as I start coming upall these assholes instead of
going, hey, dude, we want tohelp you.
They like, dude, now that youfucking beat the odds and you're
better than us, how about youhelp us?
Like bitch, get the fuck.
So I say that because I did whatnone of these other guys did.
I built this shit withoutborrowing money from a bank,
without being an affiliatesyndicate, without kissing these
(10:57):
guys ass or any of that stuff.
I built a real business likereal people, just like you.
Michael probably built yourbusiness in the same way.
The SRS and ABC gods probablydidn't kiss your ass in the
beginning, but they probably donow, right?
So it's kind of the same thing,you know, and it's taken me
longer, to be honest, you know,I don't really play well with
others, obviously if you haven'tcaught that from what I'm
(11:19):
saying here but so it's taken mea little bit longer, but I feel
like I've done it the right way, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, man, and I love all of that, bro.
And you know, I think one ofthe you know I've also built on
myself bootstrapped it right,just started out knocking doors.
You know, when I started thecompany I'd actually never sold
a roof before I had got intoreal estate investing, got a
group of partners thing, wentbelly up.
They basically pulled all themoney out when I had all my
(11:45):
resources inside of it and kindof was left with nothing, right.
And it's like what do you do?
And a mentor of mine was likeyou start a roofing company.
I'm like, bro, I don't knowanything about roofing.
And he's like, dude, you likesales, you like you know I
played hockey growing up andwhatnot.
So he's like you know how tobuild a culture.
He's like I'm telling you, bro,you should get into roofing.
And that day I literally filedthe LLC and got on YouTube and
(12:06):
it was just researching how doyou start a roofing company?
What's everything you need toknow?
And then you know, now we'reheading into our fourth season,
you know we've got 40 employeesand you know, and.
But what I love with all of that, just like you're saying, is
that without having thoseresources and the connections
and you know, when I moved toColumbus, I was sleeping in my
truck.
I didn't, I didn't have anybodyRight and but it's forced me.
(12:27):
The development that I've hadof a human, as a human being and
as a leader is the best partabout all of that right, because
real people know real peopleand when you get people that are
you know, working in yourbusiness and they want to like,
I've always led by example orI'm never going to ask you to do
something that I wouldn't doI've.
If I've done it and fucked itup, I'm going to save you from
having to do it yourself, and Ithink that you know a good
(12:50):
culture.
It's like becomes glue, it'slike sticky.
It brings the right people inwhen you're leading it the right
way.
And so you know no differentthan what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
You know the businesses, the things that you
you know, in your industry, Ithink this should be a good PSA,
my man, because, like in yourindustry, people will hear your
story or Kurt Lenington story orBrandon James or any of these
(13:20):
other guys that I've known overthe years that have amazing
stories and they're like, yeah,I'm going to go start my own
business.
And you know, let's say, a guyworks.
For I hear this story from theguys that I talk to a lot, that
are my friends, that are inroofings, like you know, hey,
raise this guy up, man.
He made 300 grand a year and nowhe's competing against me and
fucking blah, blah, blah and allthis other shit.
(13:42):
Right, let me tell you guys astory of an entrepreneur versus
a salesman.
As a salesman, I was ungrateful.
Now that I own a business, Iwas ungrateful for the stress,
the owner of the companies Ionly had like three jobs in my
life because I'm pretty loyalbut the stress for those
(14:02):
companies' owners I can'timagine.
I worked for a mortgage companyin 2010 when Dodd-Frank was
taking place and we weren't sure.
First of all, they had pulledour warehouse line, which meant
we didn't have money to loananymore because the world was,
the country was uncertain ofwhat documents to draw in order
to close a mortgage.
(14:23):
So there was a three week timeperiod where motherfuckers just
couldn't.
No matter how rich and powerful, most businesses can't go three
weeks without income.
No Right, like I didn'tunderstand that at the time, I'm
like you know, you know, shit,man, fuck, we've been able to
close nothing in three weeks,not realizing that my ceo's
fucking bills like I might add acar payment and a house payment
(14:43):
.
He's got everything payment.
You know what I mean for threeweeks where he's used to.
You know, probably in thatcompany, a million bucks a day
came into that thing.
So so three weeks goes by,you're $21 million fucking
dollars light, and it might havebeen $2 million a day.
That's the size company it wasright and you think, oh well, he
should have had all that moneysaved up.
It's like fuck.
You're growing a company andpaying taxes right, yeah 100%,
(15:05):
100%.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You put everything into it man, you know what I
mean.
And and then I mean youcouldn't hit the nail more on
the head, right?
Is that?
That's the.
I think, as an owner, that'sone of the most stressful things
, because you can't.
you can't show it either, right,it's like you got to have the
grounds crumbling underneath ofyou and you got to walk in and
cause the second that they it'slike sharks in the water, right,
(15:26):
they smell blood and all of asudden it's just panic.
And so it's like you can never.
You always got to be betweenthat four and a seven all the
time.
You get too low or you get toohigh, man, everything starts to
shake.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, and on the flip side, in
2005, I became an entrepreneurfor the first time and it was a
(16:02):
side hustle, but I had an LLCand was doing my thing, you know
.
So I'm originating mortgagesand then I'm flipping houses on
the sides, where a lot, of, alot of entrepreneurs find their
entry into the world right.
And I remember, like a TuesdayI went and I broke.
I had like a jar that I'd beenputting quarters of nickels in.
You remember, back in the early2000s and nineties I had a jar
that I've been putting quartersof nickels and shit in and in
order to get into that jar youhad to break it right.
That was like the way they usedto make piggy banks.
So I, you know, I probably hadthis thing for a few years and I
break it and there's, like Idon't know, 40 fucking dollars
in it.
That's how broke I am.
(16:22):
I went out there and I gotearnest money on like five or
six properties at two or fivegrand a piece.
So like every dollar that I'veever made and saved up in my
career is now floating out thereand earnest money to flip these
houses right and and it'snon-refundable earnest money.
And if these houses don't closewithin the next week, by that
friday, so tuesday, I'm countingpennies by that, but not that
(16:46):
friday, but the next friday, ifthe shit don't close, then I'm
just like bankrupt for real.
And I remember, man, gettingdown to my I went and bought a
bunch of totino's pizzas that Icould put in the oven and and
you know, they were like 99cents a piece.
So if I got 40 bucks I could gobuy like 20 or 30 of them and
at least have those and I've gota few days worth of pizzas I
can like.
That's that like.
(17:08):
I didn't ever have to do that asa sales guy, but I've had to do
that as an entrepreneurmultiple times.
You know what I mean.
There was a time when we weregrowing so fast that I spent 12
million dollars in 60 days justto keep the motherfucking our
head above water to be able tokeep up with the volume that was
coming in.
I never had to deal with thosekind of shit as a salesman.
(17:28):
It's like, hey, we got moreleads, good for us, that's just
more, just more sales, right.
So you know, and again, I don'tlike I'm not trying to deter
anybody from it, but you know,with the point of the show being
the CEO, a lot of people don'trealize what CEOs go through.
You know me being a businesslender.
I loan money to every industryman, from guns to roots, to
(17:49):
construction to real estate.
We loan all things money,business, dude and man.
I could tell you some stories,especially the situations that a
lot of people come to us to geta line of credit when things
are going good and they'regrowing and stuff.
And then some people come to uswhen someone ripped them off or
the IRS surprised them with anumber or some shit like that.
(18:09):
A job went bad, a customerdidn't pay, that, oh, it's up
two hundred thousand dollars.
Or I one time loaned a guy uh,a couple hundred thousand
dollars so you can make payroll.
Because verizon went from 30 to60 day payout time, so it's like
out of nowhere he's thinkinghe's gonna get paid.
They're like, nope, we justchanged it to 60.
You've got another 30 dayswhere you're not getting six
figures worth the fuckingpayments we owe you good luck.
(18:31):
Luck with your payroll.
You know what I mean.
Like people don't see this sideof of being a CEO and I think
if they did, then peoplewouldn't be like hey, we should
tax the rich and we should taxthe CEOs.
You should be like we shouldpray for those motherfuckers.
Well, I think that's what youknow social media.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It makes it look a lot sweeter than it is.
A lot of times you know what Imean.
It's the, you know the cars andthis and that, and it's, you
know, no different than like yousaid.
It's like you know I've been.
You know I found in my businesswork one of that fourth year
Right and that's a.
There's a lot of businessesthat you know.
You hit that two, three yearmarkets that you know you don't
really learn.
(19:12):
Anyone can sell, anyone cancreate an idea right.
My biggest bottleneck orstruggle in growing a business
is learning cash flow right andlearning how to manage that.
And then you've got.
You can't oversee it all.
So then you hire people thatyou know have a title and
they've done it before, and thenyou realize that you know more
(19:32):
about it than most of the peoplethat have the titles Right.
And so it's like you.
You take all these you knowlicks along the way and so much
of it is like you're you're justlucky to survive and people
want to.
They see how great it is, theywant to start this business and
it's like and the other side ofit is that most people don't
realize that if you're, you know, as a CEO, the key is to build
an asset right, build somethingyou can sell, build something
(19:55):
that's got some value to it,because if not, you're just.
You might as well just beselling and go sell somewhere
else.
Because if you're not buildingan asset, then you're just
creating a job that you're goingto have forever right, and it
takes a lot of time to learn howto make something sellable,
make something be an asset,actually have a value of the
business.
That's not just a get a client,build a product right.
(20:15):
It's like there's a lot ofpieces to that.
That's gotta be, you know,that's gotta be there.
That is hard to build whenyou're also trying to keep it up
and moving at the same time.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, absolutely, man .
And and you know, for those ofyou thinking about being an
entrepreneur, wait until youfire somebody because they
didn't do their job correctly.
And then they like, maybe gogive your business a one-star
review, or maybe they say someshit that's not true online, and
then, after doing all that,they go to the unemployment
(20:45):
office and you still got to paythem, even though you finally
talk shit about you.
Yeah, man, and I mean, peoplehave no idea, or?
Or how about this?
How about paying 12 percent ofyour payroll every month just
because the government says, inorder to pay employees, you have
to pay us taxes on the moneythat you pay your employees,
that pay taxes by the way.
(21:08):
a crazy system, man and withyour business in the roofing
cash flows hard because, likeyou know, a lot of that's
dependent on storm season whenthe insurance pays out.
You know what time of seasonthe year is.
Like you know you guys could be.
I see it all the time.
You know we just did a loan forsomebody last month that you
know shit.
In, uh, september, october,some motherfuckers were doing
(21:30):
five, six million dollars amonth but their area snows so
you can't get on a roof allwinter.
So for four months they'remaking payroll just trying to
keep people fucked.
So one month before the seasonstarts again they're fucking out
of money.
But then they're rich for sevenmonths again.
You know what I mean.
It's a crazy manageablecashflow business.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You're in it is and business you're in it is, and so
much of it.
And that's where you know, onour side we're, you know
Columbus, ohio, same thing,right, we get we're just
starting.
It's stunning, that right.
So it's just starting to turnthat a little bit now and you
know that's one of the big.
And then you've got yourreceivables and your fight with
insurance companies to collectthe receivables.
And so that you know, for us oras a CEO, my goal right now is
(22:08):
kind of scaling out our retailmodel right, selling more
standing seam metal, stonecoated metal roofs.
Like getting into a more of avalue product, because if not,
you've got no predictability inthe business.
Like right, even if you'rerunning ads and social media,
it's like all right, it stilltakes three months to close a
deal or 60 days to close a deal.
So it's like you have to inorder to create the machine of
(22:30):
it.
You've got to almost build alane.
That isn't the low hangingfruit is the insurance, right,
anybody can start a roofingcompany.
I say the greatest thing aboutit is low barrier to entry.
The worst thing about it is lowbarrier to entry, right,
anybody can get into it.
And that's the difference ofthe businesses that can sustain
and grow.
And if you look at the oldestaround our area, you got 20, 30
(22:50):
year old companies.
Dude, they're all retail right,they focus, they, they get out
of the insurance thing becausethey realize that the biggest
constraint and bottleneck insidethe business is all through the
one thing that everyone runsthe business on, which is
insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, you know, uh, some of these guys that I do
business with, like inCalifornia, is not an insurance
state, for example, and theirapproach to roofing and stuff
out there is completelydifferent.
It's a lot of like what yousaid cosmetic and you know,
upgrade on the house to make itmaybe more efficient and green
and shit like that.
So it's like a totallydifferent sales pitch versus you
(23:25):
own a free roof insurance topay for it.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Totally different and so many people are waiting on
that too right they're like, hey, I'll just wait till a storm
comes through and you start thebusiness and you're selling how
great insurance is.
Four years in I'm like, fuckinsurance, it sucks.
No one wants to get out of it.
Right, it's like you gottachange everything With the
capital companies.
That closer capital then is itcan you share a little bit about
(23:49):
kind of?
I know you said you guys kindof you know, serve a lot of
different niches and whatnot,but is there, is it more of like
cash, advanced funding, or isit, you know, more of a
short-term, long-term, likewhat's?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
that all look like.
Yeah, you know, I started thisbusiness because I'm I and I've
been in business.
This is our 17th month.
So although I've been a lendermy whole career as an adult,
since I was like 24 years old,I've always done it for someone
else and I never started my ownbusiness and I took some.
I took about seven years out ofthe game to where I did my own
(24:21):
deals, but in private moneystuff, but I wasn't offering
stuff to the public.
But about a year ago, a littleover a year ago, let's say two
years ago, I noticed everybodyon the Internet and it starts
like asking for money.
So you have all these seeminglyrich people raising money.
Hey, put money in my fund and Iget it.
(24:43):
Cardone started that, right,and he had the right thing.
He's smart.
He's like dude, I got acommunity and I want to buy real
estate and fucking crowdsourcethis shit Brilliant, right.
But everybody, they can fuckingcrowdsource this shit brilliant
, right.
But but everybody else now, allof a sudden, is raising money
and blah, blah, blah.
So like, every time you turnaround, somebody's got a fund or
they're buying businesses andlike that's.
It's like, you know, ifeverybody is a drunk and you
(25:05):
stay sober you like.
You gotta have a big advantageover everybody else, right?
so kind of.
So everybody's drunk on raisingmoney from their community,
which we watched a lot of thosepeople ruin their reputation
over that.
I've never borrowed money frompeople because I never had a for
sure plan that I could pay themback with right.
Like, and I don't want to bethe bearer of, I lost your life
(25:26):
savings, like I don't want tofucking be that guy.
So I thought, okay, well, whatis nobody else in this industry
doing?
They sell, there's guys thatsell insurance, there's guys
that raise money.
It's like nobody's helpingbusiness owners with what they
truly need the most, which ismoney.
And so it's crazy, because Ioriginally partnered with one of
my clients and they were are alender and I, man, I put like
(25:50):
$20 million in the pipelinewithin like the first couple of
weeks and then, dude, theystarted calling my people behind
my back, offering themdifferent deals, and they were
offering us.
It was like you could justoffer that deal to me and I
would have offered it to them.
I don't know what the fuckyou're doing here.
Like some people, man, theycan't see the forest for the
trees.
So you know they, you know thatshit would have quadrupled
their monthly volume, but nowthey get zero.
(26:11):
So I had to like pivot after amonth of figuring some shit out
there.
And then you know, we what Irealized was that a lot of these
banks have one lane, like yousaid cash advance or SBA or
whatever.
So over the last year, me andmy team went out and set up
alliances with hundreds of banksand lenders.
So we do capital infusion, cashadvance lines of credit, buying
(26:34):
commercial property, investingin investment, corporate owned
real estate, we do bridge loans,we do SBA loans, we do huge
development loans like anythinga business would borrow money
for.
That's what we do.
And so I wanted to become thisresource because, like, there's
been times where you know I'venever borrowed money for my
business, but there's damn surebeen nights where I've looked
(26:56):
into it, right, and so you know,but there's, there wasn't one
place I could go that would giveme.
Like last year, for example, II took a hit on a fucking event,
bro, and lost a half a milliondollars on it first time in my
career and I had just got donewith paying an unexpected
(27:16):
additional seven-figure tax bill, like three or four months
prior to that.
So this should just wipe me thefuck out, right.
So I'm looking at mayberefinancing my house or my
building and pulling some cashout of it.
And again, I hate to go furtherinto debt, but I'm like maybe
that's my only choice and dudeeven at that point it was so
convoluted just to get a homeequity loan on either my house
or my building and I'm like dude, we got to fucking nail this.
(27:38):
So what we did was we created asmooth process that makes us
different than other banks forthe following reasons you can
come to us and we can find youthe money.
You tell us what you need.
And if you're like, noteverybody's bankable, if you got
shit credit, no income comingin, we can't fucking help you,
right.
But if you got your shittogether and you got a good plan
and you got money, like we have, people come to us and they're
(27:59):
like yeah, I want to borrow $10million.
Okay, how much money do youhave in the bank?
Well, I got like 50 grand.
That's not going to work, right, you need to really qualify for
it.
But will find it for you.
And on top of that, we educateour people.
I've been, you know, in themastermind apex game for 15
fucking years.
So our people that borrow ahundred thousand dollars or more
(28:21):
for us.
We give them access to ourtraining, our marketing, all
that stuff because we want themto go to the next level and our
training will help them.
Then we do consults with them.
So we talk like once we loanyou the money, we're like, hey,
what are you going to spend iton?
And a lot of times people like,oh, I got to pay this debt or
this bill and like that'sfucking stupid here, set this
funnel up, go run ads to this,get the leads and use the money
(28:42):
from the leads.
You're getting to pay off thefucking debt, but use the money
from us to invest into somethingthat's going to actually
cashflow you capital.
So we just change theconversation, educate the person
.
Plus, we put people that borrowover a hundred grand with us.
We put them in a privatecommunity to where you're in
there with other business owners.
It didn't cost you nothing,there's no mastermind membership
fee.
But you know, everybody in thatfucking group at least could
(29:04):
borrow six figures from a bankwith their business.
So they've got to have it goingon to some level, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
dude.
That's awesome man, and I lovethat because it's like you said,
you're not so much with mostlenders as they handcuff you.
Right, and you know, I meaneven with our business right now
.
I mean I got Huntington comingin here to me after I get off
this call Right, talking aboutdifferent lines of credit, debt
(29:29):
consolidation.
Right, you're coming out of acold season.
You know you borrow on otherlenders or cash, like all these
things to, like you say, sort ofkeep the business afloat and
keep it surviving.
But then what they do as wellis that then they handcuff you
too, because then it's then youget in this position where it's
like, all right, well, now wecan help you, but it's going to
cost you 20%.
It's going to cost you, youknow, a six month cash advance
that you got to take until youcan then bridge it with an SBA,
(29:51):
but then the SBA loan now that'sa whole nother and you just get
in the position to where it's.
You know they, you just getstuck in the system, and so what
I love with what you're doingis that you're you're not only
being the resource andsupporting it, but educating the
people, because I think that'swhat the biggest struggle in
business is is that you don'tknow how to manage the money,
you don't know how to manage thecashflow, and a lot of times
(30:13):
when you're ready to learn, it'stoo late because you're getting
forced to learn, right?
I mean, I know that in myself.
I look at our business yearover year.
I wasn't a financial guy.
That was never my.
You know, I can get a roomfired up, I can recruit, I can
sell, I can build the dream, Ican sell the vision, but I
didn't know anything aboutfinances, right, and so you
ignore those things, right, you,you, you say in your lane, you
(30:35):
say what you're good at becauseyou know you're good at that.
But unfortunately, a businesscycle, you're never going to
break the cycle until you startto address the things that your
weak points are right being ableto understand a P and L, know
what a balance sheet is right,these things that if you're not
educated and taught, you'reeither forced into it when it's
dire need or you know, and thatmakes it the hardest thing.
(30:57):
And so what's awesome what youguys are doing, that you're not
only helping and supporting butyou're actually helping people
to know, like financial literacyand where most banks they don't
care.
All right, yeah, we'll let itto you.
Good luck.
We actually hope you probablydefault on it.
You know what I mean, and it's.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It is, man.
People forget, especially whenthey're up there in the age.
They forget what it was like tostart their credit journey.
When you bought your first car,when I went and financed my
first vehicle, I was probably 21.
Because I didn't have anycredit history, you know, and,
(31:40):
and my first house, the interestrate was a lot higher than the
house that I'm in right now.
It's the same way in thebusiness world.
If you've not, you know, everhad any money loaned to you and
proof that it can be paid back,then you start in the private
money world.
What we try to do, man, is iswe're like.
Another thing everybody's doingright now in my industry is they
(32:00):
, they will take equity.
Right, hey, yeah, I'll coachyou for equity.
Or hey, you know, make me apartner and I'll take some of
your revenue.
I don't want to do that either.
I want to be your partner, butI want to be a partner that's
only there with benefits, not apartner with, uh, you know,
subtractions to your business.
So I'm going to treat you likewe have equity in your company,
even though I don't owe anything.
(32:20):
As a matter of fact, our loansare non-recourse anyway.
Right, like, so we, a lot ofour loans are non-recourse.
I mean, if you don't pay itback, then it's.
You know, there's nothing wecan do because we don't report
to your credit.
It's private money, but that'show we get you on base, right?
So let's say you did have totake a 20% interest rate your
first time.
Then, after three months ofpaying on it, you can refinance
(32:40):
out of that thing.
And let's say that it's 15%.
I don't know, I'm justspitballing here, right?
Because what people also don'trealize is that your mortgage
that's at 6% or 7% right now,that's the safest asset in
America.
The lowest interest rate you'regoing to get is going to be on
a house, right?
The next lowest interest rateis going to be a car.
Car is riskier because you canwreck a car, right, but it's got
(33:03):
insurance, but it's still alittle bit riskier than a house.
Everything on top of thatstarts double digits, like
everything.
You know what I mean.
Now, you might have fixedsingle digits for a short period
of time, like you might have acredit card that says a low APR
to go to this, or whatever thecase may be.
But even if you have an 800credit score with the SBA
getting a business loan rightnow and you got all your ducks
(33:26):
in a row.
You're looking at 12% if yourshit is perfect.
Just to put it in perspective,because it's not a house, it's a
business and if they comeforeclose on that business, if
the SBA forecloses on thatbusiness and you say fuck it and
walk away, then you're thebusiness is built around you the
culture, the SOPs, theknowledge, the IP.
They're fucked and they knowthat.
So they have to price that riskin there.
(33:49):
So it's oftentimes businessowners who like 15 percent.
That's fucking crazy.
My mortgage is three percent.
Yes, you got it in 2022.
It's 2025.
That's a safe asset that if itgets foreclosed on, it's
appreciated over the years.
Your business could go downover the years, like you know.
Your business could have peakedin 2019 and been steadily going
down ever since and and so if Iwrote you a loan in 2019 and I
(34:12):
gotta come foreclose on it in2026 and the shit's gone down 20
a year, I'm foreclosed onnothing.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Right so.
So it's important to educatepeople like that.
The other thing that a lot offolks don't understand is that
if and I give this scenario allthe time if you want to make a
hundred grand, right, like, youwant to go out and earn a
hundred grand, so you, as theCEO, in order for you to get a
true hundred grand, it has to benet right.
You've already paid taxes on itand everything else, and then,
(34:44):
or you've already paid yourexpenses on it and then you've
got what's left, your bottomline, that you'll be taxed on.
So, technically, not your net,but you're even at it you're
going to be taxed on, right.
So if I go make a hundred grandand then I wind up with a
hundred grand, I'm taxed on it.
It's really 65 grand.
If I go borrow 100 grand, Ireally get 100 grand.
So I've got $35,000 more.
And if I got to pay 20% ininterest, let's just say, using
(35:06):
your number, that's another 20grand.
It's still cheaper than taxes.
And guess what?
That 20 grand is tax deductiblethat I can write off towards my
tax.
That 100 grand is debt, so it'snot taxable at all.
So if I borrow $100,000, thenwhat actual smart business
owners do, and we have a couplethat do this with us and this is
(35:26):
how your Amazons, your Apples,your Goldman Sachs operate.
They take out an equal amountof debt to match their cash flow
to where they're always in.
So much debt based on theircash flow, they don't pay taxes.
So if I have my payroll andeverything, they don't pay taxes
, right?
So if I, if I have my payrolland everything come just think
about this for a minute If Iborrow money to cover my payroll
and everything else, and thenmy payments, my, my cashflow
(35:48):
coming in covers the interestand all of that, then I'm not
paying taxes.
I'm offsetting debt withcashflow.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And so there's so many ways that companies can use
financial assistance like whatwe offer at Closer Capital that
they've never thought about.
We had a guy the other day thatwas buying one of his
competitors for a couple millionbucks and the SBA wanted 20%
down for him to be able to buythat.
He had another couple SBA loans.
(36:16):
He's like shit I'm a littlelight on the money.
It was about a hundred grandshort.
We went and got him a capitalinfusion loan for a completely
separate one-off business thathe owned that he had as a side
hustle, got him a hundred grand.
He used that a hundred grand asdown payment to get in there
without using any money out ofpocket.
Probably in six months when therates go down because they're
going to, and six months therates go down we'll refinance
(36:37):
both of those loans into one.
And you know, he said and itdidn't cost him anything out of
pocket we actually loaned himall the money he was going to
need for the down payment anywayyeah, man, I mean, that's
incredible, bro, and and that'sthe shit you don't learn, right,
or?
you're not taught.
Yeah, yeah, the only way I'velearned is not from a book or
(36:58):
doing it myself.
41 years of doing probably10,000 transactions at this
point, you know realistically.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's unreal.
That's awesome, dude.
I mean I'm, I'm, I'm, actually,I'm, I'm.
I definitely want to follow upon that as well, because that's
something that you know, on ourend definitely is a valuable
thing.
Like you know, this, especiallyin this industry, it's very
cyclical.
You're always riding that andyou know, and I think that from
a company standpoint, like ittakes a couple of years to get
(37:29):
professionalized Right, like thethings that matter.
Year four you know you're notpaying attention to those year
one and two Right, and you knowthat's that's the.
You know you're not payingattention to those year one and
two Right, and, and you knowthat's that's the the.
You know, I I'd say for us, thedirection we're going now, where
it's like, all right, man,let's get more professional.
Now we're documenting SOPs andwe're creating things.
(37:50):
We've got, you know, aconsistent way of bringing
people on.
And you know, I remember when aguy come in two years ago, dude
, you got a pulse, you don'tneed experience.
Here's a ladder, here's someboots, you know, go Right.
And those guys would struggleto find success.
And a lot of times you losegood people because you can't
support them when they come inand they don't.
You know, not everybody is a isthat on?
That type of person that canjust jump in and go Right?
And so now it's really cool tosee we brought a hiring class of
(38:13):
10 guys, and you know, twoweeks ago and you know these
guys are already getting out.
They're already generatingleads.
Things are happening for themso fast.
Where it was like that was the1% before, now 50, 60, 70% of
the people that are coming in.
They actually have a successplan.
They've got a roadmap.
I've got leaders that arehelping them get there as well.
And so I think that that's oneof the most important things
(38:34):
just surviving that kind ofsurvival side of the business.
And then it's now youprofessionalize, now you learn
how to actually leverage thecapital.
I mean there was times whereyou're borrowing it and you're
like I don't know where it'sfucking going, it's just bring
it in here and now it's going tomake sure we're selling
something and you know just tojust to keep it up, man.
So I mean that's awesome.
What you guys roofing plumbingis we see it a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
And I always tell everybody to set this up
beforehand, because let's saythat you do a lot of residential
insurance stuff, but now all ofa sudden you've got a $300,000
commercial roof that you canpick up, but your line of credit
at SRS or ABC is not big enoughto float all that.
And so you can come to us, geta revolving line of credit, and
when you get those big jobs, ittakes you 90 days to finish the
(39:23):
job.
Man, you're not carrying.
Even if the interest rate onthat revolving line of credit
was 50% which it's not, but I'mjust saying, even if it was,
you're only.
If you broke that down monthly,that's like 4% monthly You're
only going to keep that thing 60to 90 days.
(39:43):
You don't need to pay 12% onthat anyway if it was a crazy
interest rate, right?
So the reason why I say that islike when and this is good
advice for all of your guysright, when you're at peak
production.
So this June, this July, thisAugust, when you motherfuckers
are putting up three or $4million a month and you have for
two or three months in a row,come see me.
Come see me now and we can getyou started, but come see me at
your peak at for sure, so that Ican take the last three to five
(40:07):
months worth of bad-ass bankstatements.
Get you the biggest line ofcredit then and you don't have
to draw on the line of credit.
That's the beautiful thing wemake.
You take $10,000 at closing butyou can pay it immediately back
.
Doesn't fucking matter.
But I get paid every time youdraw on it.
So there's no fee every time.
It just they deposit into myaccount, whatever the size draw
is.
(40:27):
So I want you to use that thingfor years obviously because I'm
very transparent about how weget paid but having that shit
set up the biggest possible withyou, the most successful peak
of your market.
So like, let's say that todayyou came in and got a loan and
it was your first loan and wegave you a high risk loan to get
you started.
Then, six months from now, atthe end of the roofing season,
you absolutely killed it.
(40:47):
Now you've paid that back.
We got you a loan for two 300,maybe $500,000 line of credit.
So what happens is the nexttime you get a big deal and
you're bidding against everybodyelse, you it.
So what happens is the nexttime you get a big deal and
you're bidding against everybodyelse.
You ain't got to be cashstrapped, then you can just draw
against my line of credit.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
go get your materials and you can sleep good at night
knowing your cash is stillsitting in the account.
Yeah, no, and I mean, I've seencompanies go out of business
because they get a big job likethat and right, don't, don't
have the capital, facilitate it.
You know it looks like it'sgoing to be this hash cow of a
job and then it gets drug outand things happen.
And next thing, you know, youknow what looks like, you know
50 percent profit.
Now, all of a sudden, you'reupside down because you can't
(41:26):
support it.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yeah, now you.
Now you got to get a secondmortgage to pay for a job you
did for free to somebody.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, man, dude, this is, this is awesome, brother.
I appreciate you jumping on andsharing you and sharing all the
wisdom and everything today,man.
I think that I know myself andthe listeners will definitely
find value of it.
Man, this has been a greatconversation, dude.
I appreciate you coming intoday, ryan.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah, absolutely man, and it's nice to hang out with
you and I'm glad that our peopletalk to each other and got us
connected on here.
Man, yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
What is the?
You know, obviously, what'syour.
You know what's the best wayfor people to reach out to you,
find you, if they listen to thisor interested.
I know you know closure capital, but what's what's kind of the
best way to to to get getconnected?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Uh, I'm on Facebook, ryan Stubman two profiles that
like they both have blue checks.
They're both like really me,those.
Anything else you might'vetalked to somebody on the
internet.
It's not fucking me right thatFacebook and Instagram only Um,
(42:29):
if you want to apply for a loan,you can go to closer capcom and
, uh, fill out the informationthere.
Someone on my team will reachout to you.
I have really really reallysharp people working for me in
the lending side.
They're not just random people.
I picked off the streets andsaid can you make phone calls
and talk to people that are allfrom a financial background.
(42:50):
They've all spent at least fiveyears in finance in their
career.
So the people you talk to overthere aren't just like
Steumann's homies that he put inover there.
They're very intelligent, smartfinancial people, because
that's what it takes to besuccessful in the financial
business.
We have to solve a puzzle forpeople and it takes somebody
who's got a lot of experience tobe able to solve those puzzles,
(43:12):
because if we solve it wrongfor you, it could cost you your
business, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, man.
Now that's awesome, brother.
Well, dude, ryan, I appreciateyou jumping on, man.
I hope I get to connect withyou in the future again someday,
man, and I'll definitely be intouch, and when this gets
released, I'll let you know aswell, man.
So thanks for jumping on today,bro.
Appreciate it, man.
Yes, sir, we'll see it.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Reckless CEO
podcast.
This is just a quick reminder.
In case you'd rather watch thefull episode, you can find it at
youtubecom.
Slash the reckless CEO.
Well, if you'd like to listen,you're in the right place.
If you find value in thiscontent, please like and
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Here we go.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Right, you're like, that buzzer ain't rang, that
game ain't over with.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So keep going.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven when I
have thrived, you know, in thatchaos I told god I'll be back in
a second man.
It's so hard.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
How could this be happening?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
did any of you guys pay attention to anything I said
like get arrested.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Guess, until they get the message.
Welcome back to the recklessCEO Podcast, where we keep it
real raw and reckless aboutbusiness and life.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
They ain't really got the sauce and I ain't got you
know what I mean it's like hereis your host, the Reckless CEO
himself, Michael McCudder.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
All right, so welcome back to the Reckless CEO
Podcast.
I'm super excited for today'sguest, mr Ryan Steumann.
Let's see a podcast.
I'm super excited for today'sguest, mr Ryan Steumann.
It's a cool story because mycontent guy and your content guy
kind of facilitated and got usconnected and my guy didn't know
that I actually I followed youfor a long time and so when he
brought it up I was definitelyexcited to have you on man.
(01:19):
So I appreciate you stepping inand give me some time today,
ryan.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah that's awesome, man.
You know, like at this point inthe podcast media world the
alternative media world, we'llcall it like those.
What's cool is those guys arestarting to get to know each
other.
You know that if, like Cameronmy guy, he's been, you know, in
this industry for probably sevenor eight years, so you know
he's had to share with a lot ofother creators.
(01:45):
You know guys that work ontheir marketing team and stuff
like that.
So really what people don'trealize these days is some of
those dudes are the mostconnected dudes you can get in
all reality.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
And especially if they're consistent, because
that's also the hard thing tofind when it comes to content
creators.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, yeah, man, you know, I've got a guy that works
for me that does events and so,dude, he knows everybody in the
event space.
So anytime I need a speaker oranything like that, he knows
everybody.
It's easy to get to, you know,and, yeah, that works out
perfect.
So that's really cool thatworked out that way.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, man, I didn't share with him but I was telling
him.
So you know my, my kind ofjourney goes back as well.
I got into sales probably aboutseven, seven, eight years ago
when I moved, when I moved toColumbus, ohio.
I'm originally from Wheeling,west Virginia, uh, but I moved
up here.
First job was door to doorsales.
My second job was doing acemetery sales, so I was selling
(02:40):
grave plots and headstones,started out with one location,
ended up running three or fourdifferent locations throughout
Ohio and used to make the tripfrom Columbus to Dayton every
day.
This was probably five, sixyears ago and I used to listen
to Hardcore Closer every day.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That was like my jam on the way to go sell some
people, some grave plots man, soI do appreciate all the wisdom
they were dying to buy from youman.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's it, bro.
That's my line.
I'm like they're dying to comesee me.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Man, I feel like I would have been good at selling
great stuff.
I've been like you're going topay for it now or later, and
later could be superinconvenient.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Let's go in and get this knocked out now 100% and
honestly, man, it really helpedwith my, you know I'm kind of a
loud voice, I'm very, you know,I'm type A for sure, and you
can't really be like that whenyou're sitting across from a
family that potentially at thehardest moment of their life,
right?
And so I had to learn how toslow down youth tonality, be
(03:35):
able to actually become asalesperson man, and it was, you
know, after that business iswhen I really started, started
my roofing company, and so Ialways say that it was like I
got the door-to-door so I justlearned how to go out and hit
the pavement and then I got intothat industry and it really
helped me to kind of learn howto actually sell things too yeah
, man, I dig it.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know, um, it's funny like that.
That's very smart of you to belike okay, well, you know, I've
got the door-to-door thing down,but the thing I'm selling
doesn't pay that much.
So let me go figure out whatpays the most at the door and go
sell that thing.
Most people never draw thoseconclusions.
They're like I'm really good atselling funeral stuff, but you
know, shit, it five, 10 grand afuneral versus you know 10 to 20
(04:17):
grand a roof.
That's a, you know, double yourvalue and probably double your,
your commission.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
So a hundred percent, double your commission.
So a hundred percent.
Yeah, my biggest ever sale inthe cemetery industry was a
$70,000 above ground mausoleum.
I sold it to a guy that ended adentist practice and it was
like probably my first weekendin the business of Memorial Day,
which is like a big cemeteryday, and this red Ferrari rolls
(04:45):
in and I just jumped in my golfcart and I followed the guy all
the way around and eventually hestopped and started
bullshitting and talking to himand next thing, you know, I
ended up talking him into one ofthe two things we had left
ground and above ground, and hegot it.
So it was, dude, it was fun, but, like you said, man, it was a
lot of reps, a lot of work foryou know, and it was painful.
You know what I mean it was.
(05:06):
After a while I'm like man,this is just killing my vibe,
for sure, but you know, dude.
So, ryan, man, again, Iappreciate you jumping on today.
Man, I obviously want to, youknow, hear a little bit of kind
of your story too, right, I knowthat you've got quite a story
mortgage industry and you know,business owner and all the
things.
So you know, if you kind ofgive the guy you know, give me a
little background on you, man,and just kind of catch us up to
(05:27):
where we are today.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, uh, you know I don't know, probably everything
you're not supposed to do.
I did it in life and uh, andprobably got in trouble for most
of it.
So you know I didn't have likea good life to start out with or
good parents or anything likethat, you know.
And if you, you know we couldsit here and tell my miserable
(05:52):
ass story for an hour.
So it's easy to find that onthe internet if you want to be
depressed or whatever.
The case may be man, but thereality is, you know it's funny
in life how what at the time canseem like a curse and
everything else in the end worksout to be a blessing.
You know I'm not supposed to behere and I really don't want to
(06:15):
be here to be honest with you,not like on the podcast or like
on this planet, but like I neverin my life was like one day I'm
going an entrepreneur, likethat shit is not a dream that I
had, like I get it.
Some people, you know, like Ilisten to Real AF and Andy's
like oh, my whole life I knewand I was like man my whole life
(06:35):
.
I just wanted to be a salesman.
Really, that was my callingno-transcript and you know, like
(07:03):
anybody else, you go whenyou're making good money and you
lose a job or that industrygoes out of business.
Like a couple of years ago, alot of people were making
millions of dollars a year withERTC stuff.
Now that industry's gone, youknow, and so I was kind of in a.
I was in the mortgage industryand the Dodd-Frank CPFB, which
is what, ironically, trump'sdismantling now took me out of
the game.
They took the licenses fromstate to federal and I was on
(07:24):
federal parole for a weaponscharge, guns charge, and so I
couldn't get a license and so Ibasically started.
What you know today is thepodcast social media influencer
world.
I started that, I pioneeredthat.
If you look and it's crazy tosay and and I'm like a lot of
(07:45):
people's dirty secret, but ifyou look into pretty much all of
your top guys that are in theindustry, they all started here
and I don't know how the fuck Ididn't wind up at the top.
You know what I mean, but again, it's probably because this
wasn't my thing.
I never was like, yeah, man, Iwant to be a celebrity, like
matter of fact, for there was atwo-year period where I was in
big demand and I'm flying aroundmeeting all these celebrities
(08:06):
and shit, and I had like youknow, you know I'm not.
I had this like, they're notlike me, I'm not like them.
Maybe that's a better way ofsaying I know Kendrick's like
they, not like us, but I'm likeI'm not like them.
You know, I, I'm 45 years oldnow, so let's say, in my 40s I
start traveling around and youknow, at first I'm smoking weed
with a couple rappers that I'velike looked, listened to my
(08:28):
whole life and then I realizedthat the more I got into that
world, it just wasn't for me.
And I know a lot of like and I'mnot a celebrity by any chance,
but I know a lot of people saythat about going to Hollywood.
They're like dude, I got thereand I wanted to be an actor and
then I met everybody and I waslike, fuck, now I live on a farm
in the middle of Oklahoma andthat's kind of like my situation
(08:49):
.
To be honest with you.
It's like I thought I wanted tobe around all this man and then
I'm like oh wait, those peopledon't have the same standards
and morals, and not some of them, all of them man and it kind of
created me to go into thislittle, you know, isolation
thing.
But I say that because during my15 years of being an
entrepreneur that I didn't wantto be, you know I managed to
(09:12):
build a business that'slegitimately done well over a
hundred million dollars in salesand verifiable with my Stripe
account, and it's not like thesefuckers that say I started a
business six years ago and donea hundred million.
That's funny.
It's taken me 15 years and Igot more shit than these guys.
I see, you know, it's funny.
Those guys you'd see that saythat it's like, bro, you don't
even have a couch in your livingroom.
(09:33):
What the fuck are you talkingabout, you know?
And so, um, but I really, Ireally have done that.
I've I've built a realbusinesses.
It's not a, you know, I neverwanted to be an influencer or
coach, so I never built likecoaching and influence business.
We built an events business anda business association, a
software business and a lendingbusiness, among other things,
(09:53):
and the cool thing, I think allof that forced me to have to do
it all alone.
I didn't do it with beingpromoted.
I'll never forget man.
In 2021, I threw in a no sorry.
In 2020, I threw a digitalvirtual event while everybody
was locked down and we had30,000 people watching live.
(10:14):
And I remember, like two, threeweeks later, tony Robbins team
calls me and they're like hey,man, you know, tony likes what
you're doing.
He wants you to promote hislatest product.
I'm like, man, fuck you, thefuck.
You mean, you like what I'mdoing so I can sell your shit.
Bitch, you're a billionairemotherfucker, come sell my shit.
I'm on the fucking way up.
Get the fuck out of here, bro.
But that's how this fuckingwhole industry is Right.
(10:36):
As soon as I start coming upall these assholes instead of
going, hey, dude, we want tohelp you.
They like, dude, now that youfucking beat the odds and you're
better than us, how about youhelp us?
Like bitch, get the fuck.
So I say that because I did whatnone of these other guys did.
I built this shit withoutborrowing money from a bank,
without being an affiliatesyndicate, without kissing these
(10:57):
guys ass or any of that stuff.
I built a real business likereal people, just like you.
Michael probably built yourbusiness in the same way.
The SRS and ABC gods probablydidn't kiss your ass in the
beginning, but they probably donow, right?
So it's kind of the same thing,you know, and it's taken me
longer, to be honest, you know,I don't really play well with
others, obviously if you haven'tcaught that from what I'm
(11:19):
saying here but so it's taken mea little bit longer, but I feel
like I've done it the right way, you know.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, man, and I love all of that, bro.
And you know, I think one ofthe you know I've also built on
myself bootstrapped it right,just started out knocking doors.
You know, when I started thecompany I'd actually never sold
a roof before I had got intoreal estate investing, got a
group of partners thing, wentbelly up.
They basically pulled all themoney out when I had all my
(11:45):
resources inside of it and kindof was left with nothing, right.
And it's like what do you do?
And a mentor of mine was likeyou start a roofing company.
I'm like, bro, I don't knowanything about roofing.
And he's like, dude, you likesales, you like you know I
played hockey growing up andwhatnot.
So he's like you know how tobuild a culture.
He's like I'm telling you, bro,you should get into roofing.
And that day I literally filedthe LLC and got on YouTube and
(12:06):
it was just researching how doyou start a roofing company?
What's everything you need toknow?
And then you know, now we'reheading into our fourth season,
you know we've got 40 employeesand you know, and.
But what I love with all of that, just like you're saying, is
that without having thoseresources and the connections
and you know, when I moved toColumbus, I was sleeping in my
truck.
I didn't, I didn't have anybodyRight and but it's forced me.
(12:27):
The development that I've hadof a human, as a human being and
as a leader is the best partabout all of that right, because
real people know real peopleand when you get people that are
you know, working in yourbusiness and they want to like,
I've always led by example orI'm never going to ask you to do
something that I wouldn't doI've.
If I've done it and fucked itup, I'm going to save you from
having to do it yourself, and Ithink that you know a good
(12:50):
culture.
It's like becomes glue, it'slike sticky.
It brings the right people inwhen you're leading it the right
way.
And so you know no differentthan what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
You know the businesses, the things that you
you know, in your industry, Ithink this should be a good PSA,
my man, because, like in yourindustry, people will hear your
story or Kurt Lenington story orBrandon James or any of these
(13:20):
other guys that I've known overthe years that have amazing
stories and they're like, yeah,I'm going to go start my own
business.
And you know, let's say, a guyworks.
For I hear this story from theguys that I talk to a lot, that
are my friends, that are inroofings, like you know, hey,
raise this guy up, man.
He made 300 grand a year and nowhe's competing against me and
fucking blah, blah, blah and allthis other shit.
(13:42):
Right, let me tell you guys astory of an entrepreneur versus
a salesman.
As a salesman, I was ungrateful.
Now that I own a business, Iwas ungrateful for the stress,
the owner of the companies Ionly had like three jobs in my
life because I'm pretty loyalbut the stress for those
(14:02):
companies' owners I can'timagine.
I worked for a mortgage companyin 2010 when Dodd-Frank was
taking place and we weren't sure.
First of all, they had pulledour warehouse line, which meant
we didn't have money to loananymore because the world was,
the country was uncertain ofwhat documents to draw in order
to close a mortgage.
(14:23):
So there was a three week timeperiod where motherfuckers just
couldn't.
No matter how rich and powerful, most businesses can't go three
weeks without income.
No Right, like I didn'tunderstand that at the time, I'm
like you know, you know, shit,man, fuck, we've been able to
close nothing in three weeks,not realizing that my ceo's
fucking bills like I might add acar payment and a house payment
(14:43):
.
He's got everything payment.
You know what I mean for threeweeks where he's used to.
You know, probably in thatcompany, a million bucks a day
came into that thing.
So so three weeks goes by,you're $21 million fucking
dollars light, and it might havebeen $2 million a day.
That's the size company it wasright and you think, oh well, he
should have had all that moneysaved up.
It's like fuck.
You're growing a company andpaying taxes right, yeah 100%,
(15:05):
100%.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You put everything into it man, you know what I
mean.
And and then I mean youcouldn't hit the nail more on
the head, right?
Is that?
That's the.
I think, as an owner, that'sone of the most stressful things
, because you can't.
you can't show it either, right,it's like you got to have the
grounds crumbling underneath ofyou and you got to walk in and
cause the second that they it'slike sharks in the water, right,
(15:26):
they smell blood and all of asudden it's just panic.
And so it's like you can never.
You always got to be betweenthat four and a seven all the
time.
You get too low or you get toohigh, man, everything starts to
shake.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, and on the flip side, in
2005, I became an entrepreneurfor the first time and it was a
(16:02):
side hustle, but I had an LLCand was doing my thing, you know
.
So I'm originating mortgagesand then I'm flipping houses on
the sides, where a lot, of, alot of entrepreneurs find their
entry into the world right.
And I remember, like a TuesdayI went and I broke.
I had like a jar that I'd beenputting quarters of nickels in.
You remember, back in the early2000s and nineties I had a jar
that I've been putting quartersof nickels and shit in and in
order to get into that jar youhad to break it right.
That was like the way they usedto make piggy banks.
So I, you know, I probably hadthis thing for a few years and I
break it and there's, like Idon't know, 40 fucking dollars
in it.
That's how broke I am.
(16:22):
I went out there and I gotearnest money on like five or
six properties at two or fivegrand a piece.
So like every dollar that I'veever made and saved up in my
career is now floating out thereand earnest money to flip these
houses right and and it'snon-refundable earnest money.
And if these houses don't closewithin the next week, by that
friday, so tuesday, I'm countingpennies by that, but not that
(16:46):
friday, but the next friday, ifthe shit don't close, then I'm
just like bankrupt for real.
And I remember, man, gettingdown to my I went and bought a
bunch of totino's pizzas that Icould put in the oven and and
you know, they were like 99cents a piece.
So if I got 40 bucks I could gobuy like 20 or 30 of them and
at least have those and I've gota few days worth of pizzas I
can like.
That's that like.
(17:08):
I didn't ever have to do that asa sales guy, but I've had to do
that as an entrepreneurmultiple times.
You know what I mean.
There was a time when we weregrowing so fast that I spent 12
million dollars in 60 days justto keep the motherfucking our
head above water to be able tokeep up with the volume that was
coming in.
I never had to deal with thosekind of shit as a salesman.
(17:28):
It's like, hey, we got moreleads, good for us, that's just
more, just more sales, right.
So you know, and again, I don'tlike I'm not trying to deter
anybody from it, but you know,with the point of the show being
the CEO, a lot of people don'trealize what CEOs go through.
You know me being a businesslender.
I loan money to every industryman, from guns to roots, to
(17:49):
construction to real estate.
We loan all things money,business, dude and man.
I could tell you some stories,especially the situations that a
lot of people come to us to geta line of credit when things
are going good and they'regrowing and stuff.
And then some people come to uswhen someone ripped them off or
the IRS surprised them with anumber or some shit like that.
(18:09):
A job went bad, a customerdidn't pay, that, oh, it's up
two hundred thousand dollars.
Or I one time loaned a guy uh,a couple hundred thousand
dollars so you can make payroll.
Because verizon went from 30 to60 day payout time, so it's like
out of nowhere he's thinkinghe's gonna get paid.
They're like, nope, we justchanged it to 60.
You've got another 30 dayswhere you're not getting six
figures worth the fuckingpayments we owe you good luck.
(18:31):
Luck with your payroll.
You know what I mean.
Like people don't see this sideof of being a CEO and I think
if they did, then peoplewouldn't be like hey, we should
tax the rich and we should taxthe CEOs.
You should be like we shouldpray for those motherfuckers.
Well, I think that's what youknow social media.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
It makes it look a lot sweeter than it is.
A lot of times you know what Imean.
It's the, you know the cars andthis and that, and it's, you
know, no different than like yousaid.
It's like you know I've been.
You know I found in my businesswork one of that fourth year
Right and that's a.
There's a lot of businessesthat you know.
You hit that two, three yearmarkets that you know you don't
really learn.
(19:12):
Anyone can sell, anyone cancreate an idea right.
My biggest bottleneck orstruggle in growing a business
is learning cash flow right andlearning how to manage that.
And then you've got.
You can't oversee it all.
So then you hire people thatyou know have a title and
they've done it before, and thenyou realize that you know more
(19:32):
about it than most of the peoplethat have the titles Right.
And so it's like you.
You take all these you knowlicks along the way and so much
of it is like you're you're justlucky to survive and people
want to.
They see how great it is, theywant to start this business and
it's like and the other side ofit is that most people don't
realize that if you're, you know, as a CEO, the key is to build
an asset right, build somethingyou can sell, build something
(19:55):
that's got some value to it,because if not, you're just.
You might as well just beselling and go sell somewhere
else.
Because if you're not buildingan asset, then you're just
creating a job that you're goingto have forever right, and it
takes a lot of time to learn howto make something sellable,
make something be an asset,actually have a value of the
business.
That's not just a get a client,build a product right.
(20:15):
It's like there's a lot ofpieces to that.
That's gotta be, you know,that's gotta be there.
That is hard to build whenyou're also trying to keep it up
and moving at the same time.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, absolutely, man .
And and you know, for those ofyou thinking about being an
entrepreneur, wait until youfire somebody because they
didn't do their job correctly.
And then they like, maybe gogive your business a one-star
review, or maybe they say someshit that's not true online, and
then, after doing all that,they go to the unemployment
(20:45):
office and you still got to paythem, even though you finally
talk shit about you.
Yeah, man, and I mean, peoplehave no idea, or?
Or how about this?
How about paying 12 percent ofyour payroll every month just
because the government says, inorder to pay employees, you have
to pay us taxes on the moneythat you pay your employees,
that pay taxes by the way.
(21:08):
a crazy system, man and withyour business in the roofing
cash flows hard because, likeyou know, a lot of that's
dependent on storm season whenthe insurance pays out.
You know what time of seasonthe year is.
Like you know you guys could be.
I see it all the time.
You know we just did a loan forsomebody last month that you
know shit.
In, uh, september, october,some motherfuckers were doing
(21:30):
five, six million dollars amonth but their area snows so
you can't get on a roof allwinter.
So for four months they'remaking payroll just trying to
keep people fucked.
So one month before the seasonstarts again they're fucking out
of money.
But then they're rich for sevenmonths again.
You know what I mean.
It's a crazy manageablecashflow business.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
You're in it is and business you're in it is, and so
much of it.
And that's where you know, onour side we're, you know
Columbus, ohio, same thing,right, we get we're just
starting.
It's stunning, that right.
So it's just starting to turnthat a little bit now and you
know that's one of the big.
And then you've got yourreceivables and your fight with
insurance companies to collectthe receivables.
And so that you know, for us oras a CEO, my goal right now is
(22:08):
kind of scaling out our retailmodel right, selling more
standing seam metal, stonecoated metal roofs.
Like getting into a more of avalue product, because if not,
you've got no predictability inthe business.
Like right, even if you'rerunning ads and social media,
it's like all right, it stilltakes three months to close a
deal or 60 days to close a deal.
So it's like you have to inorder to create the machine of
(22:30):
it.
You've got to almost build alane.
That isn't the low hangingfruit is the insurance, right,
anybody can start a roofingcompany.
I say the greatest thing aboutit is low barrier to entry.
The worst thing about it is lowbarrier to entry, right,
anybody can get into it.
And that's the difference ofthe businesses that can sustain
and grow.
And if you look at the oldestaround our area, you got 20, 30
(22:50):
year old companies.
Dude, they're all retail right,they focus, they, they get out
of the insurance thing becausethey realize that the biggest
constraint and bottleneck insidethe business is all through the
one thing that everyone runsthe business on, which is
insurance.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, you know, uh, some of these guys that I do
business with, like inCalifornia, is not an insurance
state, for example, and theirapproach to roofing and stuff
out there is completelydifferent.
It's a lot of like what yousaid cosmetic and you know,
upgrade on the house to make itmaybe more efficient and green
and shit like that.
So it's like a totallydifferent sales pitch versus you
(23:25):
own a free roof insurance topay for it.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Totally different and so many people are waiting on
that too right they're like, hey, I'll just wait till a storm
comes through and you start thebusiness and you're selling how
great insurance is.
Four years in I'm like, fuckinsurance, it sucks.
No one wants to get out of it.
Right, it's like you gottachange everything With the
capital companies.
That closer capital then is itcan you share a little bit about
(23:49):
kind of?
I know you said you guys kindof you know, serve a lot of
different niches and whatnot,but is there, is it more of like
cash, advanced funding, or isit, you know, more of a
short-term, long-term, likewhat's?
Speaker 3 (23:59):
that all look like.
Yeah, you know, I started thisbusiness because I'm I and I've
been in business.
This is our 17th month.
So although I've been a lendermy whole career as an adult,
since I was like 24 years old,I've always done it for someone
else and I never started my ownbusiness and I took some.
I took about seven years out ofthe game to where I did my own
(24:21):
deals, but in private moneystuff, but I wasn't offering
stuff to the public.
But about a year ago, a littleover a year ago, let's say two
years ago, I noticed everybodyon the Internet and it starts
like asking for money.
So you have all these seeminglyrich people raising money.
Hey, put money in my fund and Iget it.
(24:43):
Cardone started that, right,and he had the right thing.
He's smart.
He's like dude, I got acommunity and I want to buy real
estate and fucking crowdsourcethis shit Brilliant, right.
But everybody, they can fuckingcrowdsource this shit brilliant
, right.
But but everybody else now, allof a sudden, is raising money
and blah, blah, blah.
So like, every time you turnaround, somebody's got a fund or
they're buying businesses andlike that's.
It's like, you know, ifeverybody is a drunk and you
(25:05):
stay sober you like.
You gotta have a big advantageover everybody else, right?
so kind of.
So everybody's drunk on raisingmoney from their community,
which we watched a lot of thosepeople ruin their reputation
over that.
I've never borrowed money frompeople because I never had a for
sure plan that I could pay themback with right.
Like, and I don't want to bethe bearer of, I lost your life
(25:26):
savings, like I don't want tofucking be that guy.
So I thought, okay, well, whatis nobody else in this industry
doing?
They sell, there's guys thatsell insurance, there's guys
that raise money.
It's like nobody's helpingbusiness owners with what they
truly need the most, which ismoney.
And so it's crazy, because Ioriginally partnered with one of
my clients and they were are alender and I, man, I put like
(25:50):
$20 million in the pipelinewithin like the first couple of
weeks and then, dude, theystarted calling my people behind
my back, offering themdifferent deals, and they were
offering us.
It was like you could justoffer that deal to me and I
would have offered it to them.
I don't know what the fuckyou're doing here.
Like some people, man, theycan't see the forest for the
trees.
So you know they, you know thatshit would have quadrupled
their monthly volume, but nowthey get zero.
(26:11):
So I had to like pivot after amonth of figuring some shit out
there.
And then you know, we what Irealized was that a lot of these
banks have one lane, like yousaid cash advance or SBA or
whatever.
So over the last year, me andmy team went out and set up
alliances with hundreds of banksand lenders.
So we do capital infusion, cashadvance lines of credit, buying
(26:34):
commercial property, investingin investment, corporate owned
real estate, we do bridge loans,we do SBA loans, we do huge
development loans like anythinga business would borrow money
for.
That's what we do.
And so I wanted to become thisresource because, like, there's
been times where you know I'venever borrowed money for my
business, but there's damn surebeen nights where I've looked
(26:56):
into it, right, and so you know,but there's, there wasn't one
place I could go that would giveme.
Like last year, for example, II took a hit on a fucking event,
bro, and lost a half a milliondollars on it first time in my
career and I had just got donewith paying an unexpected
(27:16):
additional seven-figure tax bill, like three or four months
prior to that.
So this should just wipe me thefuck out, right.
So I'm looking at mayberefinancing my house or my
building and pulling some cashout of it.
And again, I hate to go furtherinto debt, but I'm like maybe
that's my only choice and dudeeven at that point it was so
convoluted just to get a homeequity loan on either my house
or my building and I'm like dude, we got to fucking nail this.
(27:38):
So what we did was we created asmooth process that makes us
different than other banks forthe following reasons you can
come to us and we can find youthe money.
You tell us what you need.
And if you're like, noteverybody's bankable, if you got
shit credit, no income comingin, we can't fucking help you,
right.
But if you got your shittogether and you got a good plan
and you got money, like we have, people come to us and they're
(27:59):
like yeah, I want to borrow $10million.
Okay, how much money do youhave in the bank?
Well, I got like 50 grand.
That's not going to work, right, you need to really qualify for
it.
But will find it for you.
And on top of that, we educateour people.
I've been, you know, in themastermind apex game for 15
fucking years.
So our people that borrow ahundred thousand dollars or more
(28:21):
for us.
We give them access to ourtraining, our marketing, all
that stuff because we want themto go to the next level and our
training will help them.
Then we do consults with them.
So we talk like once we loanyou the money, we're like, hey,
what are you going to spend iton?
And a lot of times people like,oh, I got to pay this debt or
this bill and like that'sfucking stupid here, set this
funnel up, go run ads to this,get the leads and use the money
(28:42):
from the leads.
You're getting to pay off thefucking debt, but use the money
from us to invest into somethingthat's going to actually
cashflow you capital.
So we just change theconversation, educate the person
.
Plus, we put people that borrowover a hundred grand with us.
We put them in a privatecommunity to where you're in
there with other business owners.
It didn't cost you nothing,there's no mastermind membership
fee.
But you know, everybody in thatfucking group at least could
(29:04):
borrow six figures from a bankwith their business.
So they've got to have it goingon to some level, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
dude.
That's awesome man, and I lovethat because it's like you said,
you're not so much with mostlenders as they handcuff you.
Right, and you know, I meaneven with our business right now
.
I mean I got Huntington comingin here to me after I get off
this call Right, talking aboutdifferent lines of credit, debt
(29:29):
consolidation.
Right, you're coming out of acold season.
You know you borrow on otherlenders or cash, like all these
things to, like you say, sort ofkeep the business afloat and
keep it surviving.
But then what they do as wellis that then they handcuff you
too, because then it's then youget in this position where it's
like, all right, well, now wecan help you, but it's going to
cost you 20%.
It's going to cost you, youknow, a six month cash advance
that you got to take until youcan then bridge it with an SBA,
(29:51):
but then the SBA loan now that'sa whole nother and you just get
in the position to where it's.
You know they, you just getstuck in the system, and so what
I love with what you're doingis that you're you're not only
being the resource andsupporting it, but educating the
people, because I think that'swhat the biggest struggle in
business is is that you don'tknow how to manage the money,
you don't know how to manage thecashflow, and a lot of times
(30:13):
when you're ready to learn, it'stoo late because you're getting
forced to learn, right?
I mean, I know that in myself.
I look at our business yearover year.
I wasn't a financial guy.
That was never my.
You know, I can get a roomfired up, I can recruit, I can
sell, I can build the dream, Ican sell the vision, but I
didn't know anything aboutfinances, right, and so you
ignore those things, right, you,you, you say in your lane, you
(30:35):
say what you're good at becauseyou know you're good at that.
But unfortunately, a businesscycle, you're never going to
break the cycle until you startto address the things that your
weak points are right being ableto understand a P and L, know
what a balance sheet is right,these things that if you're not
educated and taught, you'reeither forced into it when it's
dire need or you know, and thatmakes it the hardest thing.
(30:57):
And so what's awesome what youguys are doing, that you're not
only helping and supporting butyou're actually helping people
to know, like financial literacyand where most banks they don't
care.
All right, yeah, we'll let itto you.
Good luck.
We actually hope you probablydefault on it.
You know what I mean, and it's.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It is, man.
People forget, especially whenthey're up there in the age.
They forget what it was like tostart their credit journey.
When you bought your first car,when I went and financed my
first vehicle, I was probably 21.
Because I didn't have anycredit history, you know, and,
(31:40):
and my first house, the interestrate was a lot higher than the
house that I'm in right now.
It's the same way in thebusiness world.
If you've not, you know, everhad any money loaned to you and
proof that it can be paid back,then you start in the private
money world.
What we try to do, man, is iswe're like.
Another thing everybody's doingright now in my industry is they
(32:00):
, they will take equity.
Right, hey, yeah, I'll coachyou for equity.
Or hey, you know, make me apartner and I'll take some of
your revenue.
I don't want to do that either.
I want to be your partner, butI want to be a partner that's
only there with benefits, not apartner with, uh, you know,
subtractions to your business.
So I'm going to treat you likewe have equity in your company,
even though I don't owe anything.
(32:20):
As a matter of fact, our loansare non-recourse anyway.
Right, like, so we, a lot ofour loans are non-recourse.
I mean, if you don't pay itback, then it's.
You know, there's nothing wecan do because we don't report
to your credit.
It's private money, but that'show we get you on base, right?
So let's say you did have totake a 20% interest rate your
first time.
Then, after three months ofpaying on it, you can refinance
(32:40):
out of that thing.
And let's say that it's 15%.
I don't know, I'm justspitballing here, right?
Because what people also don'trealize is that your mortgage
that's at 6% or 7% right now,that's the safest asset in
America.
The lowest interest rate you'regoing to get is going to be on
a house, right?
The next lowest interest rateis going to be a car.
Car is riskier because you canwreck a car, right, but it's got
(33:03):
insurance, but it's still alittle bit riskier than a house.
Everything on top of thatstarts double digits, like
everything.
You know what I mean.
Now, you might have fixedsingle digits for a short period
of time, like you might have acredit card that says a low APR
to go to this, or whatever thecase may be.
But even if you have an 800credit score with the SBA
getting a business loan rightnow and you got all your ducks
(33:26):
in a row.
You're looking at 12% if yourshit is perfect.
Just to put it in perspective,because it's not a house, it's a
business and if they comeforeclose on that business, if
the SBA forecloses on thatbusiness and you say fuck it and
walk away, then you're thebusiness is built around you the
culture, the SOPs, theknowledge, the IP.
They're fucked and they knowthat.
So they have to price that riskin there.
(33:49):
So it's oftentimes businessowners who like 15 percent.
That's fucking crazy.
My mortgage is three percent.
Yes, you got it in 2022.
It's 2025.
That's a safe asset that if itgets foreclosed on, it's
appreciated over the years.
Your business could go downover the years, like you know.
Your business could have peakedin 2019 and been steadily going
down ever since and and so if Iwrote you a loan in 2019 and I
(34:12):
gotta come foreclose on it in2026 and the shit's gone down 20
a year, I'm foreclosed onnothing.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Right so.
So it's important to educatepeople like that.
The other thing that a lot offolks don't understand is that
if and I give this scenario allthe time if you want to make a
hundred grand, right, like, youwant to go out and earn a
hundred grand, so you, as theCEO, in order for you to get a
true hundred grand, it has to benet right.
You've already paid taxes on itand everything else, and then,
(34:44):
or you've already paid yourexpenses on it and then you've
got what's left, your bottomline, that you'll be taxed on.
So, technically, not your net,but you're even at it you're
going to be taxed on, right.
So if I go make a hundred grandand then I wind up with a
hundred grand, I'm taxed on it.
It's really 65 grand.
If I go borrow 100 grand, Ireally get 100 grand.
So I've got $35,000 more.
And if I got to pay 20% ininterest, let's just say, using
(35:06):
your number, that's another 20grand.
It's still cheaper than taxes.
And guess what?
That 20 grand is tax deductiblethat I can write off towards my
tax.
That 100 grand is debt, so it'snot taxable at all.
So if I borrow $100,000, thenwhat actual smart business
owners do, and we have a couplethat do this with us and this is
(35:26):
how your Amazons, your Apples,your Goldman Sachs operate.
They take out an equal amountof debt to match their cash flow
to where they're always in.
So much debt based on theircash flow, they don't pay taxes.
So if I have my payroll andeverything, they don't pay taxes
, right?
So if I, if I have my payrolland everything come just think
about this for a minute If Iborrow money to cover my payroll
and everything else, and thenmy payments, my, my cashflow
(35:48):
coming in covers the interestand all of that, then I'm not
paying taxes.
I'm offsetting debt withcashflow.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And so there's so many ways that companies can use
financial assistance like whatwe offer at Closer Capital that
they've never thought about.
We had a guy the other day thatwas buying one of his
competitors for a couple millionbucks and the SBA wanted 20%
down for him to be able to buythat.
He had another couple SBA loans.
(36:16):
He's like shit I'm a littlelight on the money.
It was about a hundred grandshort.
We went and got him a capitalinfusion loan for a completely
separate one-off business thathe owned that he had as a side
hustle, got him a hundred grand.
He used that a hundred grand asdown payment to get in there
without using any money out ofpocket.
Probably in six months when therates go down because they're
going to, and six months therates go down we'll refinance
(36:37):
both of those loans into one.
And you know, he said and itdidn't cost him anything out of
pocket we actually loaned himall the money he was going to
need for the down payment anywayyeah, man, I mean, that's
incredible, bro, and and that'sthe shit you don't learn, right,
or?
you're not taught.
Yeah, yeah, the only way I'velearned is not from a book or
(36:58):
doing it myself.
41 years of doing probably10,000 transactions at this
point, you know realistically.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
That's unreal.
That's awesome, dude.
I mean I'm, I'm, I'm, actually,I'm, I'm.
I definitely want to follow upon that as well, because that's
something that you know, on ourend definitely is a valuable
thing.
Like you know, this, especiallyin this industry, it's very
cyclical.
You're always riding that andyou know, and I think that from
a company standpoint, like ittakes a couple of years to get
(37:29):
professionalized Right, like thethings that matter.
Year four you know you're notpaying attention to those year
one and two Right, and you knowthat's that's the.
You know you're not payingattention to those year one and
two Right, and, and you knowthat's that's the the.
You know, I I'd say for us, thedirection we're going now, where
it's like, all right, man,let's get more professional.
Now we're documenting SOPs andwe're creating things.
(37:50):
We've got, you know, aconsistent way of bringing
people on.
And you know, I remember when aguy come in two years ago, dude
, you got a pulse, you don'tneed experience.
Here's a ladder, here's someboots, you know, go Right.
And those guys would struggleto find success.
And a lot of times you losegood people because you can't
support them when they come inand they don't.
You know, not everybody is a isthat on?
That type of person that canjust jump in and go Right?
And so now it's really cool tosee we brought a hiring class of
(38:13):
10 guys, and you know, twoweeks ago and you know these
guys are already getting out.
They're already generatingleads.
Things are happening for themso fast.
Where it was like that was the1% before, now 50, 60, 70% of
the people that are coming in.
They actually have a successplan.
They've got a roadmap.
I've got leaders that arehelping them get there as well.
And so I think that that's oneof the most important things
(38:34):
just surviving that kind ofsurvival side of the business.
And then it's now youprofessionalize, now you learn
how to actually leverage thecapital.
I mean there was times whereyou're borrowing it and you're
like I don't know where it'sfucking going, it's just bring
it in here and now it's going tomake sure we're selling
something and you know just tojust to keep it up, man.
So I mean that's awesome.
What you guys roofing plumbingis we see it a lot.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
And I always tell everybody to set this up
beforehand, because let's saythat you do a lot of residential
insurance stuff, but now all ofa sudden you've got a $300,000
commercial roof that you canpick up, but your line of credit
at SRS or ABC is not big enoughto float all that.
And so you can come to us, geta revolving line of credit, and
when you get those big jobs, ittakes you 90 days to finish the
(39:23):
job.
Man, you're not carrying.
Even if the interest rate onthat revolving line of credit
was 50% which it's not, but I'mjust saying, even if it was,
you're only.
If you broke that down monthly,that's like 4% monthly You're
only going to keep that thing 60to 90 days.
(39:43):
You don't need to pay 12% onthat anyway if it was a crazy
interest rate, right?
So the reason why I say that islike when and this is good
advice for all of your guysright, when you're at peak
production.
So this June, this July, thisAugust, when you motherfuckers
are putting up three or $4million a month and you have for
two or three months in a row,come see me.
Come see me now and we can getyou started, but come see me at
your peak at for sure, so that Ican take the last three to five
(40:07):
months worth of bad-ass bankstatements.
Get you the biggest line ofcredit then and you don't have
to draw on the line of credit.
That's the beautiful thing wemake.
You take $10,000 at closing butyou can pay it immediately back
.
Doesn't fucking matter.
But I get paid every time youdraw on it.
So there's no fee every time.
It just they deposit into myaccount, whatever the size draw
is.
(40:27):
So I want you to use that thingfor years obviously because I'm
very transparent about how weget paid but having that shit
set up the biggest possible withyou, the most successful peak
of your market.
So like, let's say that todayyou came in and got a loan and
it was your first loan and wegave you a high risk loan to get
you started.
Then, six months from now, atthe end of the roofing season,
you absolutely killed it.
(40:47):
Now you've paid that back.
We got you a loan for two 300,maybe $500,000 line of credit.
So what happens is the nexttime you get a big deal and
you're bidding against everybodyelse, you it.
So what happens is the nexttime you get a big deal and
you're bidding against everybodyelse.
You ain't got to be cashstrapped, then you can just draw
against my line of credit.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
go get your materials and you can sleep good at night
knowing your cash is stillsitting in the account.
Yeah, no, and I mean, I've seencompanies go out of business
because they get a big job likethat and right, don't, don't
have the capital, facilitate it.
You know it looks like it'sgoing to be this hash cow of a
job and then it gets drug outand things happen.
And next thing, you know, youknow what looks like, you know
50 percent profit.
Now, all of a sudden, you'reupside down because you can't
(41:26):
support it.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yeah, now you.
Now you got to get a secondmortgage to pay for a job you
did for free to somebody.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, man, dude, this is, this is awesome, brother.
I appreciate you jumping on andsharing you and sharing all the
wisdom and everything today,man.
I think that I know myself andthe listeners will definitely
find value of it.
Man, this has been a greatconversation, dude.
I appreciate you coming intoday, ryan.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Yeah, absolutely man, and it's nice to hang out with
you and I'm glad that our peopletalk to each other and got us
connected on here.
Man, yeah, man.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
What is the?
You know, obviously, what'syour.
You know what's the best wayfor people to reach out to you,
find you, if they listen to thisor interested.
I know you know closure capital, but what's what's kind of the
best way to to to get getconnected?
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Uh, I'm on Facebook, ryan Stubman two profiles that
like they both have blue checks.
They're both like really me,those.
Anything else you might'vetalked to somebody on the
internet.
It's not fucking me right thatFacebook and Instagram only Um,
(42:29):
if you want to apply for a loan,you can go to closer capcom and
, uh, fill out the informationthere.
Someone on my team will reachout to you.
I have really really reallysharp people working for me in
the lending side.
They're not just random people.
I picked off the streets andsaid can you make phone calls
and talk to people that are allfrom a financial background.
(42:50):
They've all spent at least fiveyears in finance in their
career.
So the people you talk to overthere aren't just like
Steumann's homies that he put inover there.
They're very intelligent, smartfinancial people, because
that's what it takes to besuccessful in the financial
business.
We have to solve a puzzle forpeople and it takes somebody
who's got a lot of experience tobe able to solve those puzzles,
(43:12):
because if we solve it wrongfor you, it could cost you your
business, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, man.
Now that's awesome, brother.
Well, dude, ryan, I appreciateyou jumping on, man.
I hope I get to connect withyou in the future again someday,
man, and I'll definitely be intouch, and when this gets
released, I'll let you know aswell, man.
So thanks for jumping on today,bro.
Appreciate it, man.
Yes, sir, we'll see it.
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