Thanks, Charlie. I certainly have been looking forward to our interview today, so thanks for having me.

Transcription

1 Welcome to The Boomer Business Owner. My guest today is Bill Seagraves. Bill is a Baby Boomer, President and Founder of CatchFire Funding, and the author of the newlyreleased book, Be Your Best Boss: Reinvent Yourself from Employee to Entrepreneur. He is a serial entrepreneur who coaches mid-career Americans on the best route to successful entrepreneurship. Hey, Bill. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Charlie. I certainly have been looking forward to our interview today, so thanks for having me. All right, in preparation for interviews, I like to learn a little bit, but not too much, because I want my questions to be genuine as possible. I was actually really intrigued, looking at your website, and looking at some of your materials about what you do. So, maybe in your own words, tell us about CatchFire Funding. CatchFire Funding, we re a business funding solutions provider, but our targeted niche are You could call them Boomers. I don t know if I have that as my mental avatar when I m having a conversation, but it tends to be mid-career to even postretirement folks that are now looking to pivot in life. That pivot has to do with not playing golf, or travelling the world, but executing a business ownership model. Okay. Business funding solutions provider. Are you helping me with the business choice, if you will? Our primary flagship project is not a business choice, and I m going to come back to that in just a second. Our primary product is funding for a business, and in the context of: How do you fund a startup business at mid-career? One of your greatest resources in life happens to be retirement dollars, so we provide a product called a self-directed 401k where people can direct those dollars Page 1 of 12

2 as an investment with their business, they re capitalizing their business with the money they need from the retirement dollars without a distribution, without taxes and penalties. In the context of your question, certainly in the six to eight phone calls I have a day and the thousands of people I ve consulted with over the last 12 years, people do come to the table, or come to the call with the question of: How much of a business can I afford? So they re prequalifying themselves before they actually search for a business. In that context, the conversation invariably does come around to: What is the best business for them? It could be an online business, it could be a consulting business. The book itself really walks people through the context of a business continuum. You can start as a company of one, graduate to a boss of a few, and then business of many. I ve watched my clients graduate through that as their business matures. Okay. Just to be clear, I come to you, I find out about you somehow, and I say: Hey, Bill, I understand that you can help me fund my new business, but I m not really quite sure what I want to do. I ve thought about starting a drycleaner, I ve thought about starting a carpet-cleaning business, I ve thought about maybe buying a franchise. Do you have that conversation with me? Is that part of your service to help me decide pre-funding? It is for a subset of our clients, absolutely. The context I coach them or advise them on is all about the day in the life of the business owner. I say people put too much value on what they re going to sell or what service they re going to offer. That s usually the easy thing. You really want to focus in: What do you want from the business owner experience? What s going to motivate you when you get up in the morning? What s going to keep you going with energy Page 2 of 12

3 day-in and day-out? What is going to allow you to be out in front of people to build brand awareness? All of those things are important aspects of selecting the right business. Okay. I have come to you and said: You know what, Bill? I want to start a drycleaner. You re going to help me fund my new business venture through my retirement funds, is that correct? That s correct. We don t need to get into a whole lot of the details, but I guess just conceptually, if I Charlie wanted to take money out of retirement funds now, I have to pay taxes on that, I have to pay a penalty, which is not the case if we do what you suggested, which is set up a self-directed IRA. Is that correct? Well, our tool is actually a 401k product, so it s a self-directed 401k. The context is: As a business owner, you are going to be a new employer, with a minimum, yourself, as employee number one. Most business owners want to save for their retirement through normal retirement plan contribution salary deferral company match profit share. The 401k gives them that avenue through the future. The 401k rules also allow employee participants to direct an investment back in employer s stock. The analogy is at a large corporate level, if you work for a company like Apple Computer, Apple Computer 401k, you re a participant in that plan, you have an account balance, you can then direct an investment in Apple Computer stock, so you re effectively providing part of the working capital that your employer requires through the purchase of their respective stock. At an entrepreneurial level, it s the same process, you re just capitalizing your business, versus having your retirement dollars Page 3 of 12

4 invested through Wall Street sources, and invested in somebody else s business. Does it matter whether I am starting a dry-cleaning business myself, or I am starting a dry-cleaning franchise? It does not. Okay. How about purchasing a business? If I say: You know what, Bill? There s a drycleaner down the street, I ve been going to them for 10 years, and something personal has happened and they want to sell their business. I want to buy that business. Can I do that through my retirement funds? Yes, absolutely. I m going to take it one step further. Many times in a business acquisition setting, retirement dollars are not only It certainly can be the sole source of capital, but in a business acquisition, it could be a drycleaner or maybe it s three dry-cleaning units that have been set up, and the asking price is 800,000. We help people unlock the monies that are required for a down payment. In our world, we would call it a cash injection, but our clients would then couple that with a small business administration loan, or couple it with a sell or carry to provide the rest of the funding. You would help me perhaps get some external funding, whether it s negotiating with the seller to provide that, or maybe a small business administration loan, or maybe some other funding. Absolutely. Okay. What is your revenue model? Are you charging me a fee, is it a one-time fee, is there an ongoing fee, is it consulting? How do you generate revenue for your business? Page 4 of 12

5 The context is there is a front organizational process that takes about three weeks to complete. It s on the order of $5,000 to get the strategy set up. Once you have the business structure and the retirement plan structure, there are operational and compliance concerns. There s government reports called an IRS Form 5500 that retirement plans have to do every year. Our role tends to be much like an accountant s role. We re here as an advisor, you re not under any service agreement, but you can delegate compliance, management, and reporting tasks. We d be very happy to assist our clients in those ongoing activities. Are you a broker dealer, or are you working with my broker dealer to set up this new account, self-directed account? That s a great question. We re not a broker dealer. We do not handle our clients retirement plan assets in any way. Going back to the accountant analogy, we re an advisor, we re looking over your shoulder, and we re suggesting to you: You can do this or you can do that, as it relates to options for investment purposes. Outside of company stock, many of the Wall Street financial companies offer access to investment options for corporate retirement accounts, so much like going back to the Apple example, Apple Computers got their own 401k plan, but they ve sent out an RFP to the financial services companies, they got a long-term relationship with one of those companies, and those companies provide access to very traditional Wall Street investment options; mutual funds, stocks, bonds, whatever, for the retirement plan so that there s a diversity and a breadth of options within the plan. Are there any statistics that you have that show the percentage of people who want to do something entrepreneurial, people who are mid-career as you Page 5 of 12

6 mentioned, they want to do something entrepreneurial, the percentage who succeed versus not succeed? The number that everybody points to is the Small Business Administration says at the five-year point, 50% of businesses are no longer in business. People use that number, I believe, incorrectly. They point to that and use it to say: Well, 50% of businesses fail in the first five years. I disagree with that. One of the corollary pieces of data, I just went to the Department of Labor, looked at 10-year statistics for employees in America today, and people can expect to be with their employer 4.6 years is the median number. I find that a very intriguing number. You can be in a job, and you have a 50/50 chance of making it to the five-year point, or you can be in business, and get to the 50/50 at the five-year point. But the context is that both of those examples or both of those statistics are really exits. You can exit a career by getting a promotion or changing employers. You could get laid off. There s negatives on both sides. The SBA s number is clearly identified when you read it, it s about exits. I suggest to folks that there s many reasons why your business may not be existing in its current form at the five-year point; you may merge, you may sell, you may reorganize. There s any number of reasons. One of the real values I get out of operating my business is helping people to that exit point, and then they have that opportunity to then revision their life. It could be business number two, it could be retirement, it could be people who go back into the career path. But 50% failure at the five-year point is not an accurate statement, but that s what s out there. All right. Let s use the dry-cleaning example. I always thought that by purchasing a franchise, you re kind of mitigating your risk. Is it your opinion or do you agree Page 6 of 12

7 that if I said: I want to be in the dry-cleaning business, Bill, that if I were to purchase a dry-cleaning franchise, versus starting one from scratch that I might have a better chance of succeeding over the long-haul? I certainly concur with that statement, but I coach people that there s a continuum. You can do a pure startup business, vision a product or a service yourself, go through the effort and the toiling, the blood, sweat, and tears to get your business and product launched to a mature phase. The other end of the continuum is buy an existing business, somebody else has already put their blood, sweat, and tears into it, and you re buying their business and just stepping in. I see franchising as kind of in the middle. You can minimize the startup pain, have an established business, an established brand. One of the big benefits of a franchise is you re entering into a community of likeminded independent business owners, so you re not doing it alone. I think that s really what is appealing to somebody who is considering franchises. From the perspective of a Boomer-aged person making a business decision, the ability to effectively minimize the time to startup One of the things I talk about in the book is that there s really a short timeframe. Somebody that s 50 now looking to be a business owner, they re not looking at a 25-year experience. They re really looking at a 5-, 10-, or 15-year experience, and being able to get a business off the ground in franchising and do so in quick order is something that appeals to the Boomer folks. Okay. I mentioned the book in the interview, and you ve referenced it a couple times. Tell us about the book. What benefit am I, Charlie, as a mid-career person who s perhaps looking to do something entrepreneurial going to get out of reading your book? Page 7 of 12

8 The book is an outcome of the thousands of conversations I ve had over the last 12 years, getting to learn what people s goals and aspirations are. Where do they want to be the next 5, 10 or 15 years? Overlaying that, my own personal experience. I was a corporate employee in early career. I leapt out earlier than maybe many. I was 35 when I decided: I do want to be a business owner. But the context of: Where do you start once you ve completed your corporate career? Do you go all the way to the far end of the scale, and buy a rather substantial large business with lots of employees, or do you start with a franchise, or do you start building confidence and business acumen, entrepreneurial acumen through consulting or small business? The book is really designed to help people insert themselves in that continuum, and it provides a roadmap, illustrated with some of my clients stories, where people jumped on at different points, and helps them through their early six-month startup phase, the most critical aspect, helps them understand what it takes to get to some level of maturity over the first two years. Once you ve got comfortable with the deal, you might be considering: How do you duplicate this? Duplicate it either through diversification or diversification by multiplying your stores or adding new products to grow the cash flow of a business. For lack of a better term, do you offer ongoing business consulting services? I get that you can help me on the frontend, perhaps decide me what I want to do, maybe give me some things to think about. I totally understand that you can help me get the financing in place to get things started. Now that I m started, I m sure I have some questions or issues, and things like that. Is there any consulting-type services that you might provide to me? Both on an informal and a formal way, yes. I do find myself just wanting to catch up with my clients, so there s calls that are scheduled on a regular basis for the purposes of just maintaining Page 8 of 12

9 compliance and making sure they re on the right track. Those, invariably, end with: How is business going? What challenges are you facing? As a serial entrepreneur, my current is really my fourth generation business. I ve seen a lot, I m always happy to provide my opinion if that s the right context. From time to time, I m very happy to make introductions to folks within the marketing or other business coaching communities so if people face specific challenges. For a limited number of folks, I do offer some formal mentor/mastermind opportunities. I certainly couldn t take all of my clients on, but if someone wants to have a one-on-one relationship, I certainly offer that also. Is there some overarching mission or vision of what you re trying to accomplish, big-picture-wise, with your work at this time? The big picture is I want to inspire, and once I ve inspired somebody, I want to give somebody the roadmap to business success. I feel that s my mission statement. It s something I fulfill day-in and day-out through my calls and my advisement services. Got it, got it. I kind of asked this question before, but if I just said to you: Hey, Bill. I m at the really early stages, I m working for somebody else, and I m just starting to think about this. Do you offer any one-on-one coaching, like, can I buy some hours of your time to help me start thinking about this process? Because I m really not sure I want to make that leap into entrepreneurship. I don t have a formal program to address that. I think the book is really the core tool, but if someone wants to have a one-on-one conversation, I don t mind having that conversation. Page 9 of 12

10 Got it. I want to shift for a second into online. You have a nice online presence. Yes. How do you, Bill, market yourself online, or provide information products and services online, if you will? Sure. I have a pretty sophisticated marketing operation, so I can t go into all of those details, but I want to mentally rewind back to 2009, my current version of my business really came out of the recent depression situation. I was doing a very similar business to the one I m doing today, but it was a partnership arrangement. So two individuals started a business in 2004, business funding solutions offering the self-directed 401k. We were very successful to get a business off the ground, and we were growing, and we were on plan to be where we wanted to be. But as the dynamic of the economy changed, then the dynamic of the partnership changed. It wasn t truly a negative situation. We just no longer saw the business as it was. Our marketing revenue in those days was very much referralbased; relationships with business brokers, franchise companies, franchise consultants to channel folks for us to help. As part as my partner and I unwinding our partnership, I made the election that I wanted to go in a completely different direction from a marketing perspective, and broaden my ability to get my message out. I thought online was the right way to do that. In that context, I went in depth, trying to understand how online marketing worked, made an investment in a sophisticated CRM system that When I committed to the large startup cost and the monthly obligations I was a bit nervous in doing that because I was re-starting my business that whole context was an invaluable process. It s all about building relationships, and you need to try to do it in an automatic way. So building Page 10 of 12

11 relationships without actually having to be on the phone call is really part of that success. My biggest challenge in the day was: How do I get my first 10 autoresponders? I hired a copywriter to help me through that process. He hit it right on the nose for about three of them, so it wasn t a home run out of the park, but I got three as the foundation, I could kind of sense what the strategy was for writing autoresponders, and trying to build a rapport and a relationship with a reader. Took those and grew them by either revamping some of the other ones, or writing completely new ones. Over the course over the last 8+ years, a very sophisticated maze, so to speak, that allows me to segment folks by what their interests are, focus in on building that specific relationship wherever they re at on the business selection and business funding continuum. Bill, this has been a great value-add. I can think of a number of more questions I want to ask you, but I always like to be respectful of people s time. Sure. What is the best way for our listeners to reach out, connect with you, find out more about your products and services, and even your book? Sure. A couple of resources. My company is CatchFire Funding, is the primary business website. The book Be Your Best Boss is available in regular brick and mortar bookstores, online. is the book website. There is a special offer, penny plus shipping if you want a copy of it. It is available there. Twitter, I m really enjoying my experience on twitter, is my Twitter handle. Any number of ways to contact me. Page 11 of 12

12 To make sure I understood, if I want a copy of your book, for a penny plus shipping I can get a copy of your book? Yes. Wowsy, okay. Great. All of the great resources we mentioned in today s episode, along with a full transcript of today s episode will be available on the show notes page at We really, really appreciate your help, here, Bill. Thanks. No problem. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Page 12 of 12