The Secret to Winning Millions in Business Grants (What Entrepreneurs Don’t Know) with Stormi Banks

On this week’s episode of Earn Your Leisure, we break down everything you need to know about business grants—the funding opportunities that too many entrepreneurs overlook. From the best time of year to apply for grants, to the states giving out the highest amounts, to why grants are still underutilized compared to other forms of financing—we cover it all.

Stormi Banks, founder of The Pink Print Firm, joins us to share her biggest success stories and insider knowledge on how to win grants. We discuss the mindset you need, the formula to winning, and why storytelling is 60% of the battle. We also highlight the biggest mistakes people make when applying, the difference between rolling and one-time grants, and why building strong relationships is the ultimate key to success.

Whether you’re a startup, small business, or nonprofit, there are millions of dollars in grants still available—even with government cutbacks. Applying can take time and effort, but the rewards can be life-changing. This episode will give you the tools, strategies, and clarity to start winning business grants and scaling your business the right way.

#EarnYourLeisure #StormiBanks #BusinessGrants #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #AccessToCapital #WealthGap #EYL

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This episode is brought to you by P and C Bank.
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(00:45):
by P and C Bank. A lot of people think
podcasts about work are boring, and sure they definitely can be,
but understanding of professionals routine shows us how they achieve
their success, little by little, day after day. Like banking
with P and C Bank, it might seem boring to save,
plan and make calculated decisions with your bank, but keeping

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your money boring is what helps you live or more
happily fulfilled life. P and C Bank Brilliantly Boring since
eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five is
a service mark of the PNC Financial Service Group, Inc.
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Speaker 2 (01:27):
Erners What's Up?

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Speaker 3 (02:34):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back and Alicia, we
got a special episode something that we haven't really talked
too much about.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
True.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
I think we touched on it at some point in
the past, but I know not recently. We haven't spoken
about it, like in the last couple of years. We
haven't had a conversation.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
About definitely haven't and not in depth like I feel
like we're going to get into today.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It's one of these topics that I.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Feel like we hear about it when we in high school,
but we don't really talk about it too much after that.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
And so I'm excited. I'm excited.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yeah for Shure. Stormy Banks from the pink Print Firm
teaches people how to get grant funding nineteen million dollars
you security million. Okay, So looking forward to this conversation, Sneeze.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
It's not a light conversation.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Listen, this is a heavy one like that.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
But first and Foremo, thank you for joining us, Appreciate
you for having me.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
I appreciate y'all in this a nice facility today.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
For sure, you came back up top. You know you
in Georgia, but you're from New York originally from Brooklyn. Okay,
we'll part best do it.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
Die vaulting Okay, okay, real dead style.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
I know what we're dealing with nowhere.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
So we anders right now? This is upstate to you or.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
No, definitely upstate.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
We was doing so good.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
I couldn't even put the address on uber. I was like,
where do you got.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Us going on?

Speaker 5 (03:50):
That?

Speaker 4 (03:50):
We was doing so good, like Matt, where we at?

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I will say this, Brooklyn is allowed to say that
this is upstate because it is an hour from y'all.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, I agree, that's crazy. The hour plus is substate.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
You know, it's right outside of New York City.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Right, That's why he's a joint right here. He's like
like fifteen minutes where Bronx.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Okay, Bronx, not from here. Five minutes to the Bronx, yeah, Bronx.
I mean we're closer to the George Washington in Brooklyn
is but you know.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
I don't even go to the Bronx.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
So oh man, yeah, that sounds like Brooklyn to me.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
Good old Brooklyn. Okay. So first, can you tell us,
like how you got into this space.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
I got into grant's really organic. It's not a crazy story, right.
I was a business owner. I didn't have credit.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
What kind of business.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
I had a salon, yeap, a mobile hair salon in
New York. So I didn't have good credit and I
didn't have a lot of cash flow. And I was like, okay,
but I still need money. And I went to I
was vending at this event in this lady she was
a product distributor, and she was like, oh, well, our
company has a corporate grant out right now, or Bay
has a grant for hairstylists. And I was like, okay,

(04:57):
how do I apply? She sent me the link. I applied.
I ain't win that one, but then I knew about grants, right,
and so then I was like, okay, well, if this
was a grant opportunity, I'm gonna try to find some
other ones. At the ten applications of getting denied, I
finally won. My first grunt was a fifty thousand dollars grant.
After that, I'm hooked. So that's how I initially got
into it.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
That brings it into a lot of questions.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Like I said, The last time we talked about grants,
we were talking to young adults about getting grants because
they didn't have to pay that back. But the even
applying for it is what is that process? Like, what
was it like for you after getting rejected nine times?
What were some of the things that you learned each
time to finally get successful one?

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, And that's that's really the whole formula, right is
because what people do is you're not gonna win every
grant you go for right now. Typically people are wanting
like ten percent of the grants that they're going for.
But the formula is like actually figuring out, Okay, get
the feedback from the funders. You're like, Okay, what did
I do that made you say no? Right? What can
I do better in the future. Getting that creates like

(05:57):
basically a proposal that is pretty much iron clad, like
you know exactly what messaging works for what funders that
you're going for. And so when you're going for the
application process, people will say, oh, Stormy, I tried to
ask them for a feedback, but they didn't get back
to me like, oh, we had an overwhelming amount of
people apply, We're not giving an individual feedback. I found
this site called unfunded right, it's unfunded dot com. This

(06:19):
is the site where you can become basically a judge
on different grant applications. Grant towards will be like, we
need more volunteers to become a judge to help us
go through. When you're a judge, you're on the back end.
You're learning the curriculum, you're learning the rubric that they're
using to actually grade the grant applications. So I'm getting
on those sites and I'm like, Okay, let me become
a judge and start learning what's the actual rubric? How

(06:40):
are you judging me? Because I don't know what you're
even looking at looking for? And so once I get
on that site and I became a judge on a
lot of different grants, now I'm like, oh, I know
the rubrics now, and so for my next applications, I'm
more so teering in towards what they were looking for.
I'm teering towards aligning to what they're what they're asking
us to be right. And now I'm starting to win
more consistently because I have the root break.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
So what kind of grant did you get?

Speaker 4 (07:04):
So it was a New York state grant. It was
a local state grant that I was getting at that time.
And that's a good question because there's multiple different types
of grants. There's corporate grant opportunities, there's local state, and
there's federal grants, and like you have to understand which
grants you're going for to actually know the strategy behind
what you're doing and how you're applying to those grant
opportunities because each are very different in the process when

(07:25):
it comes to like applying is super duper different.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
But so they're all government grants, like because there's corporate
there's like nonprofit corporate grants that you can get as well.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
Right, Right, So nonprofit that's one type of grant. Corporate
grants that's corporations giving their own money. Corporations are typically
going like tax incentives, that's what they're trying to do.
They're giving money like fourth quarter to be able to
get tax breaks. But then you have state local grants,
which is funded by the federal government. The federal government
is getting their money from taxpayer dollars, right, so then
they're giving it to state local incentives or they're giving

(07:55):
it to different departments. So it's it's all very different.
It's not all government funded.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
But you specialize in government grants.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
I specialize in grants, corporate grants, local grants, state grants,
federal grants.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
So there's corporate grants, right, there's state grants, and there's
federal grants.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Those are the main three.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Okay, what about nonprofit that's not a main one.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
There's nonprofit grants, but for me, that's not a main
one because those can be looped into corporate grants as well,
dependent because you might have McDonald's who has McDonald's foundation,
So it's still throughout the corporation.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, I want to go back to this, this fifty thousand,
because again, nothing this needs that. You're somebody who says
like I don't have fun, then grants are important and
most people they should know. But that's money that you
do not have to pay back, right, you don't have
to pay that back. When you got the fifty walk
me through the emotions. How did this feel? What did

(08:48):
you do with it?

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Yeah? So you get the email, right and they're like, hey,
you've been chosen as the recipient for the twenty twenty
five such and such program And you're like what And
you have typically like three to seven days to respond
back to get whatever paperwork they need from you. And
then depending on the program you got, they get you know,
maybe seven days and the money's in your account. So
you wake up, you know, every day you're checking your account,

(09:10):
where's the money, Where there's the money, where's the money.
The one day you finally wake up and it's in there,
You're like, ooh, and this is this is one thing
that I touch on all the time now, is like
it really felt like financial freedom. Like that was like
my first time feeling true financial freedom because this was
not debt free, non dilute of capital that was infused
into my business. When I go down for the people capital,

(09:30):
no equity split, I didn't have to you know, no
strings attached, basically is how that works. So with that
type of funding, what I was able to do was,
you know, I hire staff in my business. I was
able to get more mobile locations and we expanded from
just being in Brooklyn to further into the Tri state area.
And it also helped me create a website that was
able to track like where my staff was at particular times,

(09:53):
so that I could get people to book into my
algorithm without me having to you know, take the call
and everything like that. So I was able to expand
really really quickly in that timeframe. So I feel like
the feeling that it gave me was like, all right,
this is my chance. Right, you don't even like you
only got one shot, Do not blow like that was

(10:14):
my opportunity. And I really feel like I took that
and never looked back.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
There is there a limitation to how many grants you
should be applying for at the same time. Do grant
writers look at that and say, oh, this person is
ten already, that's outstanding.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
How does that work?

Speaker 4 (10:29):
It depends on It really depends on the funding stores, right,
So federal will have like you can't apply to a
certain department if you're already working over here. So you
might have limitations. But this is when strategy comes into
play because with corporate grants, right, corporate grants is really
like a free for all. They don't have any real
reporting requirements that you have to uphold. You can apply

(10:50):
to as many as you want and you can win
as many as you want on the corporate side. So
let's say you're going for like a six figure grant
on the federal side, and that's going to take you
six months to be able to get it funded. But
you got these corporate grants that are funding within like
three to forty five days, so you can be able
to go for those really continuously and consistently to win
that funding to just operational support, operational support until you

(11:12):
win the big kahuna for whatever event or programming that
you're trying to do. So it's all about the strategy
and how you layer in, you know, the grant funding
that you're going for.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
So the grant that you got, what was the specific
grant it was for like women's business own like what
was it?

Speaker 4 (11:25):
It was called the Back to Black Initiative in New
York State, and it wasn't specific to women because I
think men won that one too. They had like ten winners.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
So filed for black entrepreneurs. Yeah, that was okay, So
you get the grant, but at what point do you
decide to do this full time and not the hair salon?

Speaker 4 (11:42):
So COVID hit and then you know, in New York
all non essential workers were shut down. So even though
I had won the grant, had built the business, I
kind of operate, and so I had moved down to
Tennessee where my mom was staying at the time, and
I ended up like working in the salon out there,
just trying to kind of make ends me type of thing.
And then I started seeing guys like you guys on

(12:02):
the internet talking about financial literacy, and then I've seen
other people talking about credit and all type of things.
I didn't know any of that type of stuff, but
what I did know is how to get grant funding.
So I started just getting on live because I needed
supplemental income. I'm on my Instagram Live like hey, y'all,
let's fill out these grant applications and get this money
for our businesses. And one thing turned to another. It
went from live to zoom, from zoom to in person,

(12:23):
So now can you do this for us? And I'm like, no,
what I can. So then that's when I went through
my certification program, got my actual grand certification, learned all
the real technical parts of the grant writing industry, and
then that's when I opened up the business, franchised it,
and it is what it is today.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
So grant certification what is that?

Speaker 4 (12:42):
It's about fifteen hundred hours of literally like proposal procurement,
budget planning, business development. You're learning everything there is to
know about the different departments and industries and how the
grants work time frames.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
That's kind of you write the grant proposal.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
I'm a grant writer, Certified grant writers, that's major, certified,
ground and business owner.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Found I got a lot of titles that a.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I wonder when you start, because there is a misconception, right,
we don't really see too many people applying for grants
number one, number two. I wonder why that is and
is there a misconception around grants that our community just
kind of can't seem to actually dive into this space.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
The main thing I hear is that they think as
only for nonprofits, right, and so a lot of us
have for profit companies and they think that they're already disqualified,
but there's grants for for profit and nonprofit companies. The
other thing is that people think it's a lottery ticket, right.
They're like, grants are like a lottery. I applied, I
don't win. And it's like, how do we educate you
on the strategy to grants right, the formula to actually

(13:46):
make grants a consistent part of your business's revenue in
order for you to consistently be winning and expanding in
your business. So that's pretty much what I think it is,
is just the miseducation or misinformation that's put out about
the process to how grants really work.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
Is there like a database, like if somebody is looking
for different type of grants, is there a database a
site that they can go to, Like somebody who has
completely is misinformed, has no education, this is a site
you should start with to see even if you qualify
to receive a grant.

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah, so the databases that they have, they're not going
to tell you like if you qualify for it. The
databases that they have are literally here's just all of
the grants that are currently out on a marketplace. Find
which ones you want to apply to? Right, So you
have sites like grantwatch, dot com, grants dot Gov, grant Station,
all those sites have grants on them. But if you

(14:37):
don't understand the process to it. Once again, now we're
going to be getting into that. Okay, I found the grant,
but now what do I do? So reading is fundamental
when it comes to grants, right, and on the grant
there's literally an eligibility requirement right that goes and shows
you like you have to be US based business. You
got to be eighteen years older, you have to have
military whatever it may be. Those qualifications is what showcases like, yes,

(14:59):
I'm eligible to a apply. But the other thing you
have to know too is are you in alignment with
the mission of the grant funder?

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Right?

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Because the Grand Tour might be like, Okay, let's just
say this is the research that I do. When I'm
writing a grant for somebody, I'm like, what projects has
this Grand Tour funded in the last six months? Because
I'm not going to go and pitch to you a
plan for an event when right now you're focused on
you know, podcasting, right, So I'm going to go to
you and I'm going to make sure that I have
the right messaging even if I'm eligible, I want to

(15:27):
have the right messaging to align with what you're currently
looking to fund because I know what you funded the
last six months. Now, this used to take me hours
to do, but now we're using AI. Right, We've created bots,
you know, for my team to be able to use
to do this deep research and like matters of seconds
to say, Okay, we got this funder, who have they
funded the last six months? We can see everybody they
funded how much they funded, and then now we're reaching

(15:47):
out to those people, Hey, do you mind you know,
sharing some insight on what your proposal was or what
you ask for in alignment, because we want to go
in to win. We don't want to go in and
just throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
We're trying to actually get the funding. So it's those
little tricks tip to the trade that we're doing to
actually make it not a lottery ticket in a strategy.

Speaker 3 (16:06):
So if somebody wants to get a grant, what's the
steps that they have to go through?

Speaker 4 (16:10):
I would say first steps first, Right, you gotta have
a business. If a lot of people, if they're operating
as an individual or like a DBA sole proprietorship. Right,
there's grants out there for that, but you're gonna get
more grants when you're actually your registered business or a nonprofit.
So that's your first step for sure. Once you get
to that point, what I do is we create a proposal. Right,
you create a grand proposal, and this is what you

(16:31):
use to create that messaging and alignment to grant funders.
Once you have your proposal down, what you want to
do is go on those sites I mentioned grant Watch
grant station, and you want to actually start finding grant
opportunities and then you apply to those grants with your
grand proposal, and from there you want to apply. I
tell people apply to one grant a day. That's typically
the strategy that I have one grant a day, because

(16:51):
if you're winning ten percent of the ones you apply to,
when you have thirty out there every month, you should
have three to four grants that you're winning for your business.
And a lot of people don't understand that, like I
said before, this could become a revenue stream in their
business where they're literally funding their operational costs with grants.
So the money that you're making your business now you're
able to invest and spand and other things that you

(17:13):
you know, be able to do.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
So those websites, well, just those websites, they have criterias
like okay, let's say you go to that what's the
name of the website.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Again, there's one called grant Watch.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
So if you go to grant Watch, right, you could
type in okay, I'm a woman, I live in New York,
like that's how it is. Or they just give you
a million ones and you just kind.

Speaker 4 (17:29):
Of have filters. Yeah, you can filter it out. You
can say, you know, I'm a for profit, I'm a
woman owned business. I live in New York area. And
now that site particularly, they have an AI search too,
so you could even go on there and say a prompted, Hey,
I'm in the you know, education sector in New York
and I'm trying to create a program for financial literacy.
Help me find grants around that topic.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
This is as you're talking, I'm hearing like the game
changing mentality here. Most people when they try to start
a business, either they try to capital right or they
get a loan. This is completely different. Talk about that
shift if we get this right, when we get this right,
from having money that doesn't have to be repaid as
to opposed to getting a loan. And the second part

(18:13):
of it is what type of businesses are you seeing
applying for grants? Are they like mom and pop shops
or do you see like what industry in particular?

Speaker 2 (18:21):
That has been the overwhelming theme when you're doing this, Earners,
what's up?

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Look?

Speaker 1 (18:26):
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Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
So for your first question, I think the shift that
could happen is I just think, right, most American families
have one hundred thousand dollars in debt, but how many
of them have one hundred thousand dollars in access to capital? Right?
Just money in the bank or assets, right? And so
I think, just as a community, imagine if we could
eliminate a lot of the debt in business and in

(20:26):
personal to actually be able to do other things and
to be able to expand and come together as a community.
I just really feel like that could be revolutionary if
we had less debt and more access to actual capital.
So when it comes to grants, I'm like, when was
the last time that you got a pre approval letter
for a grant and a mail?

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Right?

Speaker 4 (20:43):
But you always get a pre approval level for a
credit card in a mail because it's beneficial to the
people making money off of it. But they don't ever
educate on these other opportunities and how we can start
our businesses debt free and non dilutive. I'm looking at
the story of like with Fa and Weaver right with
what's going on with her company, and I'm like, imagine
if we can actually be on those levels but get
it debt free. So grants to me is definitely the

(21:06):
game changer. Definitely what can shift, to me the whole
wealth gap in our community, you know, not single handedly,
but it's a really big part of it. And then
I think when it comes to starting a business, we
have to really think on a mass scale, how can
we create businesses that are actually touching mass amounts of people.
Technology has been one, I know, me and you were

(21:27):
talking about that early earlier. Healthcare has been a really
really big one as well. In the mom and pop space,
a lot of beauty business owners get a lot of
funding as well. Transportation companies get a lot of funding
as well. So those are the main ones that I'm seeing,
like on a smaller scale, and then on a larger scale,
that are the industries that are really getting the funding
from grant tours. But anybody can win grants, right because

(21:47):
it's not only specifically based on industry, there's a lot
of qualifying factors that could allow you to win a
grant opportunity.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
So how much money can somebody typically get in the
grant Corporate.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
Grants can range from you know, five thousand to one
hundred thousand. State local grants can range from ten thousand
to a couple hundred thousand. Federal grants can range from
you know, low six figures to multimillion dollar projects.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
So, and what's some of the biggest mistakes that people
make in the grant process.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
I think the biggest mistake is the budget. Whenever I
review grand proposals for people, it's the budget is like
blown out, made up numbers, fictitious, and they have whole
departments that are literally going over just the budget to
see if it's realistic. So you actually have to know
your programming, how much does the equipment cost, how much
do people cost, how much is your salary, what is

(22:39):
it for? How many hours? Like they want it to
be broken down and the budgets will always be balanced
back at zero. So a lot of people don't have
like basic accounting skills to be able to like prepare
a really good budget. And that's one of the things
that get them easily. Deny is just a blown out budget,
So we.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Got to have everything detailed.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Love items got to be there trying to get If
we're doing thirty, we're trying to get three a month.
Take me through this process. We start at fifty, we
get to nineteen million. What are you learning? What is
this process like? From starting at that point becoming super
efficient at it almost to a mastery point to where
you're at now.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
Yeah, I became super obsessed, you know, from teaching it
to actually going through the certification program and just seeing
on a broad scale like what this could do and
what this could create and just everyday American homes. It
really allowed me to be like, Okay, what can I
do to create almost a guaranteed formula? Right As a

(23:41):
grant writer, I can't sit here and say, okay, I
can guarantee that you're going to win grant funding, but
I want to try to get as close as heavenly
possible to knowing that it's going to be a yes.
So in the formula, what I'm doing on a day
day basis is I'm trying to figure out a which
funders are currently funding and what's their budget? How much
do they actually have to give to the general public. Okay,

(24:02):
then I'm trying to figure out, like you said, which
industries or which particular things are they funding at this
current moment in this space. And that's when I'm getting
my clients together to say, Okay, we're going to focus
on this messaging right now, because you know, Trump administration
just changed di so now we're shifting. And then I'm
trying to also figure out the right perfect budgets and

(24:24):
messaging that actually aligns with grant tours consistently. And so
when you're creating that formula and your business through that
one grand proposal that you create, it starts to become
a really easy process to consistently apply and apply with
like pretty good accuracy.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Is there a time of year that works?

Speaker 1 (24:42):
I know you spoke about taxes, and so a lot
of corporate, well people in corporate at the end of
the year, they're looking for tax incentives and so they
tried to donat or they create grants or is it
like April or March fifteenth where it's like this is
the deadline for us to file. Is there specific time
of year or every month is equal fourth.

Speaker 4 (25:04):
Quarter for corporate grants? First and second quarter for federal
state grants because new fiscal year budgets is coming out
and now they're spending money. So third quarter is still good,
but it's a little bit lighter than any other you
know quarter, gotcha? So yes, there are times.

Speaker 3 (25:20):
So you write grants to people, right, do you recommend?
Like what do you think about people that use that
are using artificial intelligence to write the grant?

Speaker 4 (25:29):
Yeah, that's a great question. So I think AI is
an amazing tool, Like we use it mostly for like
deep research purposes. Because what they're doing right now, as
I've seen, like the National Science Foundation, they actually just
banned using AI for federal and state level programming. So
what they're doing is creating tools. There's a tool like

(25:50):
zero GPT that they're using to say, Okay, if you're
using AI and it's eighty percent of your proposal, we're
kicking it out at this point because again, people are
coming up with number and programming projects that they haven't
read through, they don't understand, and they're like, how are
we going to be able to determine that this money's
going to be used properly if you're just coming away anything, right,
So that's one thing they're doing right now. I think

(26:11):
that it could be a good tool for grammar prompting ideas,
helping you with messaging, helping you connect in the line
with funders. But I still think that human righting aspect
does change the game in terms of being able to
connect with the funder and what they're trying to do.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
If I use AI to write it, does it come
on fast fraudulent? Is that a red flag that can
follow me.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Throughout that process? Right?

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Like, if I'm applying for one corporate grant, they might
put me in a database like, hey, this guy us
AI to help write as.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
No, it's not gonna work like that. Yeah, all the
departments are separate.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Perfect, Yeah, yeah, Yeah. What's a hack that people might
not know that can help the chances of getting a grant?

Speaker 4 (26:52):
Building relationships? Building relationships is a super duper hack. And
I'm talking about literally, you know, you can get it
involved with your chamber of commerce, but also like your
local communities, your local state projects that are funding opportunities.
Building those relationships with the people who are the treasures,
the people who are creating the programming, the program developers.

(27:14):
And this is like going on event bright and finding
community events and then looking on LinkedIn and finding hey,
they so and so has a grant that's out right now.
How can I connect to the project manager, How can
I connect to the treasure, How can I connect to
you know, the people who are overseeing this grant opportunity?
Get on the call build relationships, because this is what

(27:34):
people don't understand. Just because I have a grant that's
front facing right now, doesn't mean I don't have other
money in the reserves. Right they have full budgets, they
might have a million dollars that they're given out for
the whole year, but right now they're just offering this
one hundred thousand dollars grant. So now, if you start
building those relationships, they're like, oh, we saw that you
had that program for the kids. We got some opportunities

(27:56):
on the back end for that stick around, or hey,
i'll save your application. That's really how it works because
what they're trying to find too is you have to remember,
especially state local programs, they're giving that money from the
federal government, so they have to do a certain you know,
they have to also do right with the money. They
have to give it to people. In showcase, what they've
done over the course of the year in order to
get funded the next time. So they're looking for reliable

(28:19):
relationships that can also help them get funded next year too.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
One of those things to alleviate that, especially this time
is on an individual basis is student loans right, and
getting grants obviously helps with that. A lot of kids
have just going back to college. Some kids are starting
their senior years in high school. What is the advice
for them in the process of trying to get grants right?
Imagine a high school kid trying to figure out how

(28:45):
to get money, so they don't go into that. What
should they know going into this college applying process.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
So I focus on grants for businesses and nonprofits. On
the college side of grants. You know, I'm not in
tune with what the college side of grants are even
doing at this point in time. My expertise is on
the business side.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Got you, got You?

Speaker 3 (29:04):
So what's a success story that just comes out to
you that one of your clients had as far as
you know working with you and getting funding for the grant.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
I mean, I have a lot that come up to mind.
I think one that was probably sticks out the most
over the years is this lady from Houston. She has
a child care facility. She had one facility and it
was twenty four hours and she just was like super
passionate when she was talking to me over the call
about her messaging, and we ended up getting her a

(29:35):
three hundred thousand dollars grant that Houston was given out
through the state because they wanted more child care facilities.
She has seven locations now and she's killing it, and
she's debt free and she owns one hundred percent and
it's all because she was able to get into that
program through Houston. And so it's just the legacy that
it creates, the freedom that it creates for her, and

(29:56):
just the possibility that it creates in people's mind. And
it's the validation that happens that says, like, my business
is worth it, my business is worthy, My idea was
good enough for somebody to see it and not, you know,
want to actually invest and not have to take a
part of what I'm doing to say yes.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
The location obviously is important in terms of grants. All
I'm assuming is important. You talked about Houston. I know
you're doing stuff in the Atlanta region. Theip Municipality obviously
plays a role in the grants because how much money
the state can talk about the location process when you're doing.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Grants one hundred percent. So of course, because there's state
local grants where your register, where your business register matters.
This is why, like on a higher level, when you're
really going for grants consistently, you know you want to
create those those foreign entities in other states to be
able to access that grant funding opportunity. Of course you
got to know like all the implications that come with that,

(30:50):
but that becomes a higher level strategy that you can utilize.
But the major cities are going to have the most grants, right,
major cities are getting the most funding. New York, Georgia, Illinois,
like Chicago, areas, all those states are getting the most.
Funny because they have the most population, so they have
the most taxpayer dollars. So it just makes sense. But
you know, any state, any no matter where you're located,

(31:12):
you can get grant opportunities because remember there's still like
corporate grants too, So even if your state isn't heavy
on giving grants for businesses, you still got corporate grants.
And corporate grants is typically US and Canada base is there.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
I mean, obviously New York made sense in my mind,
Florida makes sense, Texas, California. But then you said, should
people actually, like, when I'm listening to you talk now,
I'm thinking, like, let me figure out where some of
these corporate headquarters are because this might be an opportunity
for me as well. Should people do deep dives and
be really intentional about that type of research.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
Where they're building their relationships at one hundred percent? One
hundred percent like I said before, is if you know
who's over the funding and who's over the budgets, like
it becomes a point where you don't even have to
apply for grants. One of my grants asked Jubert, she
just got connected. She got connected this year with invest Atlanta, right,

(32:06):
And I don't know if you guys know that that project,
but she got it, she got it in tune with them,
and she was able to win a ten thousand dollars
a month grant for the next twelve twelve months. Right,
So now she has a guaranteed one hundred and twenty
thousand coming into her business to be able to help
her do all the things that she has to do. Consistently,
and that was based on relationship, that wasn't based on

(32:28):
applying to the grant.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
So and like you said earlier, you know you talked
about funding a lot of times, it's like Venti Capital.
People go at the Vini Capital, or they go after
angel investors, or they try to get a loan from
the bank. Why do you think that grant funding is
not as popular as those other forms of funding.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Because you have to wait. Everybody wants the incident, go
on the line. Okay, you put your information in and
it pops up. You're preapproved, right or twenty four hours,
you've been approved for X amount of dollars. Grants is
not like that, right, Grants is going to be a
longer process from start to finish. You might be looking
at thirty to sixty days until funds in the bank account.

(33:10):
So when you're looking at a lot of times business
owners hardly have a plan for how they're going to
start their business, a business plan months before. I tell
people my clients, you need to be whatever programming you're
looking to do, you need to be going for grants
the quarter before. Like we're not doing this a month before,
and then we're trying to get the funds, and now
we're rushing through the processes. We're trying to plan a
whole three months in advance, six months in advance. So

(33:34):
I think the reason why people go for loans is
because it's quicker. A lot of times people are in
those those tight situations because they're failing to plan. You know,
where their business is going the next year, next two years.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
So should the business be operating for a few months
before we try to apply for a grant, Like we
shouldn't come out the gate applying for the grant.

Speaker 4 (33:52):
You can apply immediately for grants immediately.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Because in terms of the numbers, I would be I
would think that I need to show some that the
business is up and running, we're making money, here's where
our projections are. But you're saying like I can have
those things as estimates, as future guidance of where I'm headed,
And the.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Thing is too grants and based on revenue. So you
can also show traction in other ways. Do you have
a wait list, do you have people who are interested
in what you're doing? Did you do a beta test
to see you know this works?

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Right?

Speaker 4 (34:20):
I could show traction in multiple other ways more than
just revenue. So it's important to know, like, even if
you're like, Okay, I'm ready to start this business, can
you three months ahead of time? Can we open up
an email list where we can get three hundred subscribers
to show that people want what you have to offer?
And now when we're going for the grant, we're using
that as the traction instead of having revenue.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
You know what businesses are most likely to get grand funding.

Speaker 4 (34:43):
In terms of industry? Yeah, you know, I think it's
it's trendy. It depends on the trends, it depends on
the season. Right now, I've been seeing anybody who's focused
on in bettering their operational support through tech initiative have
been winning pretty consistently. But any business can do that.

(35:04):
So and I say it like that to say a
lot of times people will set themselves out because they're like, oh,
this is a grant for you know, podcasting. I don't
own a podcast, And it's like, well, do you have
a message that can be delivered through podcasting that would
help generate revenue for your business? Create the messaging for it, right,
create the alignment for it. Don't just go for grants

(35:26):
because it's industry based. Go for grants because your business
could utilize whatever that grant is giving as a tool
to grow.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Have you seen increased Obviously we've been doing this and
you've seen some administration changes right from the president, from
the federal side, obviously, from the local side, and the
state side as well. Have you seen a swing as
we saw some programs could close, more people coming into
the space, or has it swayed in a different direction.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
Yeah. You know, with Trump's administration being in office, he
canceled a lot of grant programs, you know, based on
whatever reasons, and then he also killed a lot of
the budgets because he was like, we were spending a
lot of money on things that he felt were a
waste or whatever he felt like it was. Yeah, he
was like, you know what, no, we ain't doing that
no more. So there has been shifts, but there's still

(36:15):
a lot of funding out there. A lot of people
were reading the headlines, They're like, there's gonna be no
more grants. There's millions of dollars of grants still on
the table, one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
So as far as you right, your company helps people
streamline the process, like do you actually file the grant
for them.

Speaker 4 (36:32):
We do the whole end to end process, from finding
to writing to applying. So basically, we want to take
this off your hand because we want you to be
able to do this consistently, and if you're not doing
grants consistently, it's going to be hard to really win.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
And then the conversation, do you get compensated regardless? Do
you get a piece of the grant if they get it?
How does that work?

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, So as a certified grant writer, it's unethical to
do any like percentages. Typically what people do when they
do peres they write themselves into the grant as like
an employee or something like that. That's seen that's unethical.
So we take just a flat upfront fee for the
process that it takes us to write and research and
apply and find. But we have a pretty high percentage rate,
so we're pretty confident in what we can do. Of course,

(37:17):
we can't guarantee that we're going to win you every
single grant, but we have happy clients.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
How important I mean, I'm just imagining how important the
storytelling part of the business is. Right if I'm listening
or I'm reading a bunch of applicants as a funder,
I want to make sure that I have the most compelling,
the most endearing story. How part how much of that
do you guys implement inside of the people that you're
working with? And again, how important is that to people

(37:45):
who are trying to get into this.

Speaker 4 (37:47):
I will say that's probably sixty percent of it is
the connection, the story connection, because especially right now with
AI being so popular and a lot of people being
able to generate, you know, proposals pretty quickly, what's being
lost is the authenticity. What's being lost is the story
of the founder and the connection. So a lot of
funders are wanting to really connect deeply to what's your story,

(38:07):
Why did you start this coffee company? How are you
using this to propel your community? How are you connected
to this in a deeper way? Like how sustainable will
this be long term? Because if you're giving somebody money,
the goal is that you see them three years from
now and they've grown and you can be a part
of their whole journey, right, And that's how you get
that consistent yearly annual funding from funders is being able

(38:29):
to showcase sustainability. So I think that the storytelling part
of it is really the big piece it's really the connection.
And now, like I was telling before, they're coming up
with different AI bots and tools to be able to
kick different applications out off the rip. They're like, okay,
then't follow the rules, didn't apply on time, don't have
this uploaded? You the AI out of here? Okay, now

(38:52):
we down to ten percent of the applications. So what
makes it quicker for them? So the best way to
do is do it right?

Speaker 1 (38:58):
If I win a grant, say that the grant is
for ten twenty thousand for the year twelve months is up?
Am I eligible to apply for that grant again?

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Like? How often can I apply for the same grant
even if I win?

Speaker 4 (39:10):
Yeah, you can so. But so that would be basically
what's called either a rolling grant, which means there's really
no deadline. And typically with rolling grants you can reapply. Now,
they may not choose you every single month for it,
but you can reapply to a rolling grant opportunity, or
if there's a grant, they'll let you know right the grant,
it'll shift depending on who it is and who's coming from.
But yes, you can reapply to a grant opportunity for sure.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Is there a thing that you can have, but so
many grants at one time, Like, can you have NOE
ten grants running simultaneously.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
Yep, you can. But this is what I also tell
people is don't get grant happy, right because grants are
debt free, but they're not tax free. So grants goes
on your taxes as additional income. And so you have
to be able to uphold the standard of how to
utilize that actual grant. So if you're like, okay, cool storm,
we said one gran to day, we balling. Now are
you reporting back? Are you, you know, handling the funds how

(40:01):
you said you would on that application? It takes a
really organized, you know, operation to be able to handle
that many grants at a time.

Speaker 3 (40:10):
Is there any oversight to see, Okay, you act for
a grant because you say you needed a truck, you
have to like, do they check to see if you
actually purchase the truck?

Speaker 4 (40:18):
Depends on the funding stores. Of course, you should always
do what you said you're going to do on a
grant opportunity, but federal, state, local grants, yeah, they're going
to be checking. Now. You know. Let's just say that
you you budgeted thirty thousand in a truck and the
being twenty five. You can you know, talk to them,
let them know, Hey, we have this overage of five thousand,
we're going to reallocate it to these areas.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Is that money tax at the Is it tax as
additional income? Right?

Speaker 1 (40:40):
If I made one hundred thousand, I got a grant
for one hundred thousand, I've made two hundred correct, Okay,
good to know. Yeah, so that's interesting because I wouldn't
even think about the tax implication.

Speaker 2 (40:51):
Definitely have a CPA, oh yeah involved in us.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
But see this, this is when you when you're doing
on a high level, this is when the real strategy
really comes into play, right because a, now you have
a two hundred thousand dollars business right on the for
profit side. So one thing that always to my clients
is like, every for profit have a nonprofit foundation, right,
because now we can be able to take thirty percent

(41:15):
of what our for profit is making and put it
over into our for profit side. And now we've be
creating that tax free money that we could have, you know,
that we got from that grant funding. So it's really
important to just I'm not a CPA, but it's really
important to understand the implications of grants, and it's important
to be able to have strategy when you're going for

(41:35):
grants because you can get in trouble. And I've seen
a client, you know, get tax dollars taken back because
they didn't do what they were supposed to do with
the funding. They didn't report on time. They told them
that they were going to do, you know, help five
hundred people in at the deadline mark, they helped fifty. Right,
So there are definitely times where they can be like, oh,
taking that back.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Are you in a database of like grant so it's like, Okay,
this person already has three open, so they might need
the money. Like if somebody else is going to give
you a grant, they see how many grants you already
have or we're given in the past, and that might
make the decision like, Okay, they might not be in
dire need because they already have a grant.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Yeah, the departments are pretty separated, but what they will
do is they'll make you, you know, tell them. Yeah,
They'll make you say like what funding sources have you
gotten all year? But sometimes that can also be a help, right,
especially on the nonprofit side of grant opportunities. Nonprofits give
their money to people that can showcase they have other
ways of funding, Like they don't want to be the
only funder on the nonprofit side. They're like, do you

(42:35):
have anybody else willing to help? Do you have anything
else going on? So they'll make you tell them on
the application in.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Terms of you from a personal standpoint, ping Print is
the brand, Yeah, congratulations, thank you. I guess we should
get the orders of storry of the name and all that.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
But when you're building this team, do they all have
to go through the certification process? Talk to us about
how Print reformed and where it stands internally.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Yeah, so asolutely we all go through the same certification
process for sure, But then we also have our internal
methodology that we utilize in our own internal formula. So
then of course they're trained on what we do that
makes us different in our information more proprietary. So it's
a couple weeks of training and typically they can get
it done in like three four weeks.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
How many people on the team seventeen right now? Seventeen
seventeen and.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Those are all reps that work with people individually.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
So there's different departments. So you have your grant writing department,
you have your grant applications specialist department, and then we
have just our operations and stuff.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
So how have you been able to market your company?

Speaker 4 (43:36):
Market it through our get grand Ready summits. So our
summits are really where a lot of people find us
because at the basis of being a grant writer, I
think we're it started off as education first, right, and
that's kind of where we keep it for the most part.
It's like, hey, even if you don't hire us, we
want you to know that this is possible. We want
you to know that you're eligible and how it works,

(43:57):
and we want you to go and do it and
be excellent, regardless whether they're us or not. So when
we educate people, we do like three day five day
virtual summits to educate people on literally the full process
of like the mindset you need, the where to find grants,
how to write the proposal, how to apply to it,
and then also how to scale with the tax code
because that's a really important part of it too.

Speaker 1 (44:17):
How liberating is this process for you? I know a
lot of times we run into people and they like,
you change my life. You change my life. I wonder
as you're going through this journey yourself. How has that
been when people understand this is something that can really
elevate their business number one, but also from a personal standpoint,
help them and their and their their journey when it
comes to financial education and death.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
At first, it was really scary because like when it
comes to money, it's like people really look at you
like they lifeline. And at first I was like, hold
on now, hold on now, and you know, as.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Time has again, hold on now, you're still from Brooklyn.

Speaker 4 (44:51):
But that was Georgia.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
I had on hold on still from Brooklyn.

Speaker 4 (44:58):
You know, as I've built my com confidence and like
really seeing that a proof of concept more and more
over the years, of course, I've just gotten more comfortable
with understanding like we can't change people's lives, like we
really do have access information and skill set to do that.
Thirteen of you guys's vendors were there because they won
pink print grants, you know, working with us, and I

(45:18):
was going around, I was like, oh my god, it
was like, yeah, a grant that we want to fifteen
thousand we got, we paid for our booth. We hear
we rebranded out of out of life, selling out you
know what I'm saying. So it's like seeing it in
real life, like real business owners staying debt free, building
their business, expanding, getting these different opportunities because of grant funding,
whether they came to a class or whether they work
with us for their grant writing. It's just it is.

(45:39):
It's surreal, it really is. It's humbling.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
That's crazy. We got to get that number up.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
We do.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
So thirteen people at investments vendors work with your company.
You knew that because you just ran into them or
they have reached out to you before.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
Yeah, when I had said I was coming, they were
like dming me, like stop by my move stop by
my booth. And then I know my clients too. You know,
if I'm walking around, I'll be like, oh, what's going on?
How are you? How's the grant been going?

Speaker 3 (46:03):
Nice? So what is the mindset you said you mentioned mindset.
What is the mindset that somebody needs to have.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
It's the shift. Is the shift in the process, right,
Because like we talked about before, loans is quick, credit
is quick. I'll say it like this. A lot of
people they'll upload, you know, fifty resumes to different employers
in order to be able to get a job that's
going to pay them a set amount of hourly wage.

(46:30):
But when you tell them that there's grants out there,
they're not willing to do the same process. Create a proposal,
a resume, find grant tours employers, and submit that grant
application or that grand proposal in order to get amount
of money that can actually build their legacy. The mindset
shift that has to change is genuinely the feeling like
you're worthy. What you're worth is because if you're willing

(46:53):
to sit down and apply for fifteen dollars an hour,
thirty dollars an hour, fifty dollars an hour, why aren't
you willing to sit down and apply for fifty thousand
that could actually keep you debt free and build your
business and create your legacy that you saw fit in
your own vision. So that's really the shift that needs
to happen.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Is the worth we talked about shift. We talked about
scale of businesses prior to starting this. I wonder when
you look at it the businesses that are applying for grants,
how many are in the tech space. We talk about growth,
and we can see where the economy is at it,
we see what the market looks like in terms of
what is actually moving the market. We know what it

(47:30):
is obviously what we do from an investment standpoint, but
we need creatives, We need people that are innovating. How
many people or how much do you stress that we're
looking for businesses in the technology.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
Sector from as US as a company, we don't really
stress what industries that we try to work for in particular.
We more so you know, help who's in need. But
I will say that, like for instance, Web three, they
just want a five million dollar grant, you know, a
blockchain grant. And I keep telling people that if you're

(48:02):
not utilizing artificial intelligence to increase your operations or you know,
creating employees or to decrease the amount of overhead that
you have in your company, you're definitely going to be behind.
And there's a lot of grants that are out right
now for innovation, especially sustainability and environmental and innovation that

(48:23):
they're wanting you to get this money. They're wanting you
to get these grant funds because they need more businesses
that are in that space one hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (48:31):
So what's some of the challenges that you had as
far as scaling of your business?

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Challenges that I had was talent. Right, Talent is always
a thing people come to that interview bright eye, bushytail,
raady to work and two months saying You're like, hold on,
what's going on here? You know? So talent acquisition has
always been something because what we do is very technical
and you have to just be excellent at it, period.
So that's been something that has always been a struggle

(48:57):
with with growing our companies.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
So have you used it? I know you said that
you don't really encourage people to use AI to write
to write, but inside of your business, are you using AI?

Speaker 4 (49:08):
We do. We have We've created literal bots for customer service.
Right phones, people always try to call and ask a
thousand questions, so we have you know, AI that does that.
Then we also have AI that we use for like
I said on the grant writing side, deep research alignment,
understanding funders from different standpoints. That's really how we're using
it for the most part. Now I use it. I

(49:30):
was just telling Troy, I'm like, I'm ready to write
a book, Like man, I write that book. But you know,
so it's it's we're using it daily.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
One of the things you said the challenges is having
the talent. Retaining the talent, I'm sure is an issue
when you have it. I want to know, like, from
a competitive standpoint, I'm sure there's people in your industry
who are watching what you're doing and saying, oh, we
can do that or we can be better. What what
gives you that mo that competitive advantage of against people
that are doing similar things to what pink Print does.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
I think really is because we have a data driven
approach a lot of times with grant tours, they're not
looking at it from a business owner perspective. They're grant writers.
I'm also a business owner, so I'm looking at, Okay,
how do we create For instance, when we first started
pink print, but we did with every single client, we
created two proposals, only two, and those two proposals we

(50:21):
will apply to every single grant that we applied to.
I was doing an ab split test. So what I'm
doing is I'm saying, Okay, if we send b proposal
to these corporate grants, and we send a proposal to
these corporate grants, which one has the best result. So
now we're understanding from a data driven perspective, what messaging works,
what type of sentence structure works the best, what type

(50:42):
of budget alignment works the best, Like, it's really the
data driven approach that we have, and that comes from
entrepreneur mindset, not just a grant writer mindset. A grant
writer is going to be good for helping you create messaging,
helping you follow the rules of the grant opportunity, but
you need somebody who's looking at it as a business
owner too, because you're running a business and you really
do need that data driven approach. That's what makes us different.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
So from a standpoint of investments, how was your experience
that investments.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
I had a good time. I was there with Miss Business.
We was giving out grants on the stage, you know,
in the vendors marketplace. That's what That's what my contribution was.
I had a great time. I think also, you know
when I Miss Business had the I forget what she
called a boardroom that she did on the university stage,
and when I went up there, she gave me five

(51:32):
minutes to talk about grants and so many people were like,
I didn't even know I could get grants for my
for profit business, and I'm like, man, we got so
much work to do. So that's what I left investments
for I was, I got so much work to do.
I gotta I gotta make this thing shake.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Yeah, I know you're doing some stuff for us.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Talk about the summer you kind of alluded to it earlier,
but this is a way that you network talk about
what that entails, what people get when they actually come
to the summers.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
Yeah. So it's the get Grind Ready Summit. And this
is literally to be able to position for profit and
nonprofit business owners with everything that they're gonna need in
terms of business structure, grant mindset, where to find grants,
how to line create messaging, and how to handle them
with the tax code and report properly. These are five
days summits that we host. Sometime it's three days, and
this next one that we're doing in September twenty two

(52:18):
through the twenty six all virtual. And guess how much
we charge for it.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
How much?

Speaker 4 (52:23):
It's five dollars five five dollars. And the reason why
we've done that, We've done that consistently for the last
three years is because of access. I'm like, I want
you to show up, pay the ad and fees so
that we can you know, host it, host it on
Zoom but I want you to show up and I
want you to actually get the information to be able
to grow the business. I want you to actually take
this and share this with a family member. I've had

(52:45):
mothers come and say, hey, I'm not I don't have
a business, but I'm gonna give this to my young
daughter who wants to start a business. Right. This is
like the legacy approach that will be able to be
created just from hosting these webinars. So I'm like, as
long as we can give the information that will spark
a mind, show up. It's not about the making money
part on that side. I'm like, we just want you all.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
In the room and it's fine, Like how many hours per.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Day shoot, depending on how many questions we get, we
be in there, We be in there. We be in
there sometimes and go two three hours.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
That's incredible.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
We got fouled. There's no excuse. I think we were
talking about that. There really is an excuse. When you
talk about the amount of information and access to the
information the professionals that look like you that are doing it.
I wonder when as you're paving this pathway, are you
seeing more especially young girls and even men that are
like wait, this is something. This is a pathway that

(53:37):
I've now inspired and you're seeing people do it.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
We've seen this in the podcast space, right. There was
prior to twenty nineteen how many people were talking about
financial occasion, financial education. You look at the landscape now
is different. Are you starting to see that change in
your space?

Speaker 4 (53:51):
One hundred percent. I have people that you were talking
about credit They're like, oh, I'm about to get into
grants because what they'll tell me is, like their clients,
let's say they get them a a loan or a
credit card or something, they use the money on their business,
but then it just doesn't make money. Right, Everything you
put your money into is not going to always generate income.
So now their clients are like, oh, well we don't
have you know, you know, we got to pay this

(54:11):
money back and we're using our own money to do it.
And they're like, I want to just get people grants
because I don't want them to be in that financial hardship.
So they're definitely shifting and they're being inspired by like
what we're doing with our company and in the lives
that we're we're changing. So it is it's super monumental
and I'm encouraging them, come do it. Ping Print is
a franchise. You can franchise ping Print. You don't even
got to do it on your own. We'll get you
the formula, the data, everything will set you up right.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
So how does that work as far as it being
a franchise?

Speaker 4 (54:35):
So basically we do all the fulfillment on the actual
writing and on the application side, and we just franchise
out you know, different territories.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
So how many franchises do you have?

Speaker 4 (54:47):
We don't have any yet.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
Okay, you started it correct, Okay, So what does that
take if somebody wants to be a franchise? Like, what's
that process?

Speaker 4 (54:54):
You know, you got to go through all your disclosures
and you see how the business works, and you pay
what you want to pay, and we kind of go
through For me initially starting, I want to kind of
date my franchisees for a little while because I want
to work with people who are genuine about the process
and how you know, grant writing actually works and not
just in terms of what you can make, but the
impact that you can have on people's lives and essentially

(55:16):
what I'm looking for right is someone who's of course
business minded, but they're in their community that they have
a reach to the business owners that are around them
or are willing to build that and that really want
to you know, touch those people's lives in that way.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
But yeah, so the franchise is up.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
Next franchise is up, it's ready.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
You talk to us about the book potentially, which is
going to come. Absolutely, I'm interested when it happens. Are
you putting a concise body of work from your entire
life experience or what we've done here now with the
pink print In terms of grant writing, I.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
Think it's going to be starting from pink print on forward. Yeah,
I think I'll probably touch on entrepreneur experience of why
this makes sense to just kind of to the purpose
into it. But it's not going to be a full
body of work, not yet. I gotta I gotta get
back on that.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
So what's your vision for the company, like you're doing
the franchise, Like where do you want to see this
goal as far as what you're doing.

Speaker 4 (56:17):
Yeah, I want to do so my goal we're launching
the franchise fully fully Q four, So my full goal
is to do four franchises this year and kind of
grow at that same rate for next year, and then
once we get to an evaluation about twenty million, I'll
be ready to sell.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
What's the multiple on this space? Right?

Speaker 1 (56:38):
So in order to get that twenty million evaluation, how
much do we have to actually having revenue for the year?
Is it like a two x three x three three
x yep? All right, and then you said nineteen million
we've done. Is there a goal number that you guys
have or it's you know what, we're just going to
try to keep doing as much as possible.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Yeah, when it comes to funding, we're just doing as
much as we possibly can. Ye, I want to get
this world record something. You know, We're just trying to
do as much as we possibly can and still, you know,
keep it fun like I'm not trying to be sick
over it.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
But yeah, who's the target market of people that work
with you?

Speaker 4 (57:14):
So we actually like to help small business owners and
nonprofits one of three years. That's that's what we like
because typically they're the ones that don't really get access
to the funding as much. So that's kind of our pocket.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
How as you just said, that made me think about
how time consuming this is. Is this something that consumes
your entire life or is there a balance that is
needed to actually do this? Like you said, if you're
applying to the thirty different grants avously, you have a team.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
But how time intense is it to be in this space?

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Depending on the grant you're working on, it could take
you sixty hours to read through an RFP and find
out what's really working, do the research on it, write
the grand opportunity, and actually apply right. So it can
be pretty time. Because me personally, I have a very
good balance with my life because I really look at
what I'm doing as a creative thing, and if I'm

(58:09):
constantly just in work mode, it suffocates my creativity. So
I like to get outside, take a breather, vibe, chill,
and then I'll have like a really consistent week of
just like crazy output.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
So sixty hours for one.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
It can. I mean it's decreased a lot with AI,
but man, some of those RFPs be sixty pages long.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
That was one of the things when we sat down
with Jack Dorsey, I was telling you he said the
first thing that he does is he wakes up and
figured out, how can I get my time back? So
if you go go to sixty hours of using AI.
You're getting your time back.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
That's good to know.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
So okay, so if people want to sign up for
the summit your services, what's the website? Instagram all that situation.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
So the website is Pinkprintfirm dot com, pink print Firm,
and that's the same.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
Across all socials, pink Print Firm.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
Pink print Firm dot com.

Speaker 3 (59:02):
So what about the summit, the summits.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
On pink print Firm dot com. It's literally the first.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Thing you see as soon as you're going to we
all information is there.

Speaker 4 (59:08):
It's there.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Five cast, let's stop playing five cast. Five casts.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
People they get to ask questions?

Speaker 4 (59:15):
Yeah, of course do people doing something but they don't
get to ask questions?

Speaker 3 (59:19):
Well, I don't. If it's a lot of people, sometimes,
you know, it's difficult to answer everybody's question.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
We might not be able to answer every single Our
last summer had fifteen hundred people in that summit.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
Yeah, and I'm talking about it was activated like the chat.

Speaker 3 (59:35):
Chat going just pick and choose just a random Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
Like you know, we had a chat box and we're
like what we try to pick the questions. Of course
that are going to incite more knowledge and more conversation
if you're just asking like those personal like where do
I start my LLC?

Speaker 1 (59:50):
You know, get us on the backs, hit us on
the indirection. Yeah, fifteen hundred people is a lot, but
that just tells you the app tech is it.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I mean it goes crazy every time every time, especially
on the for profit side, because they didn't know how
accessible grants were and how it could really like your
operational costs can be floated from grants. Just imagine that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
I got some ideas.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
It's needed, especially, like you said, a lot of businesses
struggle because they don't have funding. So you know, you're
trying to get venging capital, you're trying to get banged,
trying to use your credit cards. But it's another alternative
that you don't have to pay back and somebody's not
taking equity in your company. So if you can get
a grant, then that would be a blessing for most
people that actually have some level of boosts in there
and the engine as far as you know, having more

(01:00:41):
running capital available to them.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
And it's important too, right, the more grants that are created,
if they're not used, when that budget set comes back,
that gets crossed off. So we got to have more
people in the space that are actually applying for these grants,
winning these grants, so they can stay on that budget line,
so that every year after year more people can actually
have access.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
To it one hundred percent. The more you know and
the more people that are applying, they'll create more programming,
you know what I'm saying. So we got to speak
up for ourselves.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
Yeah, there you have it. Well, appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:14):
Appreciate y'all.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Thank you, Thank you, Stormy.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
It's been incredible. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 4 (01:01:18):
Appreciate this.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
You have the personal Instagram too that you want to.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
Say, yeah, I am Stormy Bank Stormy.

Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
With an I I am story Bank.

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
But I'll be over there chilling.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
Everything's earned and everything is earned everything.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Pink print is that Nicki Minaj inspired.

Speaker 4 (01:01:34):
No, you know a lot of people ask me that
and I should have did a little more research, but
it really I was on a walk with my mom
and I was like, what about the like the blueprint
for women because that was kind of my things. I
was like, I want the women to be able to
have some access and I was like, what about pink print.
She was like, yeah, do it, and I was just like,
all right, bet so, it's pink print, the blueprint for
women in business.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Okay, I was just thinking blueprint. Maybe the jade and
all that, all that greatness together we got to Brooklyn
in the summer.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
All right, God, thank you for rocks to see next week.

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(01:02:23):
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Trump's leadership.

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