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Annie Payton spent hours in the kitchen growing up, cooking authentic Italian food with her mother. Friends and family would tell Annie that she ought to start her own restaurant. So when she lost her corporate job in 2009, she scraped together what resources she had and started Annie’s Gourmet Italian. She hasn’t looked back since.

“There’s a certain sense of pride when you wake up every morning and you’re coming to a place that’s your business, rather than going to a place where you’re working for somebody else.”

“Don’t ever let anyone tell you you can’t do something, because anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it.”

“When I found Lendio… I was searching for companies that would help finance my dream. Jared was very helpful and very encouraging and I explained my personal situation to him. He basically became kind of a friend that would say ‘Hey you can do this! Let’s make this work, I believe in you.’ And he really came through for us.”

Here at Lendio, we are passionate about helping small business owners fuel their American Dream. If you’re interested in seeing your loan matches, sign up with Lendio today.

Welcome to another American Dream Launchpad. This week, we sat down with Cary Peterson of Kohala Burger and Taco and talked about his move from Lake Tahoe to Hawaii, and his longtime dream of owning a restaurant fulfilled.

You can learn more about Kohala Burger and Taco at http://www.kohalaburgerandtaco.com/

TRANSCRIPT:

BURKE ALDER: Welcome to the American Dream LaunchPad. I’m Burke Alder and we have another great story in Lendio Success Story. Today with me from the big island of Hawaii, Cary Peterson and his company Kohala Burger and Taco. Welcome.

CARY PETERSON: Hi, good morning Burke. Thanks for having me here, and we’ll start off just by saying aloha!

BURKE ALDER: Aloha! That’s the way we kick it off. I wish I was where you were. Hey, let’s get this thing started. Tell us a little bit about how you started your business and why you started it?

CARY PETERSON: Well, I grew up in the restaurant business. My family owned a small chain of Mexican restaurants which I worked in as a teenager. Eventually, I went to work at a large national Mexican restaurant company and worked my way up through the corporate ladder; and eventually became a restaurant executive. And I realized that as a restaurant executive, I had gotten really far away from things I had loved about the restaurant business which was cooking food and you know, working with people and being down in the trenches. That’s what helped my day go by. So I eventually just opened my own place, and I bought a place in Lake Tahoe which is where I’m from, and it was a little hamburger place, and I worked that for about nine years, and eventually I got tired of the winter times and so I moved to Hawaii. And while I was in Hawaii, I moved back to work in corporate restaurants and it took me a shorter period of time to remember why I had gotten out of corporate restaurants. And so, then I scraped together every penny that I have and I put together Kohala Burger and Taco. And ultimately the reason why, Burke, is that I’ve been wanting to do the food that I want to do. I want to take care of the people the way I want to take care of them, and I and to take care of my people and my facility the way that I want to do it. Not the way that somebody else tells me that it should be or needs to be done. So ultimately, that’s how I’m here today.

BURKE ALDER: What a great story. I love to hear your passion behind taking care of the customer, and the food, and your love.

CARY PETERSON: Thank you.

BURKE ALDER: It’s really important to really find those things we’re passionate about, and then really move forward and then really help people. Now let’s talk a little bit about, is there anything that you would say is your favorite part of the day as a restaurant owner?

CARY PETERSON: Well my favorite part of the day is that I get work pretty early in the morning. We have a – primarily we’re a lunch business here where our location in our facility is we do primarily lunch. We cater to not only tourist but a lot of the local work guys that are, you know, in our area here. And my favorite part of the day is just in the morning, I’m typically here by myself or with one other employee and we’re planning up the specials for the day. We’re doing our preparation for the day and trying to spend as much time just getting totally ready. For when that person – that first person walks through the door; and then you know it’s game on. So I would say that’s my favorite part of the day because there’s also some creativity that goes in there. You know, I get a new piece of fish in. “How am I going to sell this today?” You know, I get some new vegetables and you know, “What kind of a burger am I going to put that on today?” so that’s my favorite part.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s really great. So let’s talk a little bit about your need for financing. What kind of set you on this journey to find a small business owner or business financing?

CARY PETERSON: Well you know, I have a very small facility here. My restaurant is only 600 square feet and we only have 16 tables inside. And basically there’s 16 seats inside, and what has happened is that in four years that I’ve been opened, we just really kind of grown out in the facility in and of itself. With that being said, we are very seasonal here. And we’re also in a resort area so even though at 12:30, we’re packed to the gills with people; at 3:30 there’s nobody in here. And so I don’t know that I necessarily want to pay a bunch more rent at 3:30. So my need has come about to better equip my facility to handle the business load when it’s here. And I’ve just continued to kind of you know reinvest in the facility. And doing the type of business that I do, in restaurants, we’re in a very narrow profit margin. If we could put about 10% or 11% on the bottomline, we’re really doing well. Most restaurants lose money and they lose it slowly over the course of time. So to make 10% or 11% is very good. But at that rate, even a busy restaurant, to put some capital together to make improvements, it’s a very very long process. And in that long process, by the time you get that capital saved up, you probably have more things that needs to be fixed, repaired, replaced so on and so forth. So that’s kind of where my need for capital has come about and I was unsuccessful with my local bank. The bank that I put all my money into, give them all my credit card money, all my cash money, cash all my employees paychecks; they told me no.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah. We wish that story wasn’t so much like that but that is you know one of the stories we typically hear sometimes. So you’re at that stage where may be they give you the answer that you were unexpected to hear. Talk to us about your Lendio experience and how that experience went in finding a loan?

CARY PETERSON: Well I – Lendio came on one of my Facebook pages. That’s how I originally got turned on to it. And so I filled out the – it was just a real short application that was online. Just basically my name and you know my business, and how long I’ve been in business. It probably just took me a couple of minutes. And then at that point, I was contacted by a Lendio representative. And of course you know, being that it was on the internet, I was suspicious of course and so I did some research. I looked up Lendio. I looked up the person that I was working with. I asked for a couple of references from that person to be, you know, to be sure that I wasn’t going to be loaning you money, right. Because that can happen on the internet as well. And so as things started to like, “Okay, well this is a legitimate company that’s helping small businesses” and you know and that was how it got started off. And so there was some financing that was available in the beginning for me right off the bat but it wasn’t financing that I thought was going to work for my business. And so what was great about working Brett at Lendio is that you know he said “Okay, here’s another option. All right, you don’t like that? Let’s try this option.” And ultimately, we found somebody that was a match for what I needed and you know and the way that I needed to be able to use the money.

BURKE ALDER: What a great story. That’s what our mission is, is to put all these options in one place so that you have the best loan and way to finance your business there in Hawaii. And so we really want to make sure that those – every adviser that you get like Bret you know steps, gives all he has to really help you succeed. Well that’s our passion  here at Lendio. So thanks for telling that story

CARY PETERSON: I really appreciate it that you know I’m a small guy, a small business; I understand that. And I wasn’t you know, I don’t know that we talk about but it’s not a gigantic loan that I’m getting. So I’m sure that you know it would’ve been easy for Bret to work on bigger fish and bigger loans and things like that but you know, he and I communicated through text and you know I was able to get the stuff done that he needed. I sent all my stuff one time and then he was able to manage it from there which was one of my concerns in finding financing to begin with which is cool about Lendio is that you know “Okay, this isn’t going to work. Get all the stuff together and send it again. Oh, this isn’t going to work so get all the stuff together and send it again.” I’m a cook. I’m a chef. I run a restaurant. I don’t have time for all of that. So having somebody that was on my team to help me with that was that was awesome.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s great to hear. Thanks. We appreciate that, those compliments. And it’s been awesome to have you on this Lendio Success Story in the American Dream LaunchPad. We appreciate your time today. Is there any advice especially you would say during Valentine’s Day? Is there anything you would give to small business owners about how to take care of your customers during the day of love?

CARY PETERSON: Well, the first thing that I would recommend is that I utilize what we call a ‘tomorrow principle’ with our business. And basically we’re working with everything that we’re doing today, we understand is going to affect us tomorrow. So the way we treat our customers today is going to determine whether we have customers tomorrow. The way we treat our employees today will be determined whether we have employees tomorrow. And then ultimately here on an island, we especially learn that your vendors they’re your partners. Because when you’re out on an island and you need bread, you’ve got work with your bread guy. And so there are some challenges for both my business and his. We have to work together on that. So utilize the ‘tomorrow principle’ and you know, take care of people today so that they’ll be here tomorrow.

BURKE ALDER: I think that is awesome advice and I can see why you’ve been so successful through your career of bringing really good food wherever you are especially in the beautiful island of Hawaii. So we appreciate your time today. This has been another American Dream LaunchPad with the success story of Kohala Burger and Taco. We have Cary Peterson on today. Cary one again, thanks a lot for joining us and continue success with your business and as they say in the islands aloha.

CARY PETERSON: Thanks Burke. And Mahalo and one little thing is Shaka.

BURKE ALDER: All right, thanks.

CARY PETERSON: Have a good day.

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To see your loan options in one minute or less for free, click here to get started with Lendio.

I recently sat down with Chef Mike Gayon of Four Seasons Catering in Covington, Kentucky to discuss how he started his catering business and how Lendio helped him get the financing he needed to fund his new expansion. Chef Mike has built a high end catering business with moderate prices in the Cincinnati Market.

One of my favorite quotes from the interview is “Julie was absolutely phenomenal. She bent over backwards to make sure that everything got taken care of.”

You can watch my Google+ Hangout interview with Coach Greg above and read the transcript below.

For more information about Four Seasons Catering, visit https://www.4seasons4you.com/

TRANSCRIPT

BURKE ALDER: Welcome to the American LaunchPad powered by Lendio. Today, we have our guest Mike Gayon from Covington, Kentucky with his business Four Seasons Catering. Thanks for joining us Mike. Glad to have you here with us.

MIKE GAYON: And pleasure to meet you here today.

BURKE ALDER: So tell everyone a little bit about your business, how you got Four Seasons Catering started, we’ll start there.

MIKE GAYON: Well, we started Four Seasons about 2 1/2 years ago. And we started in a small shared kitchen over here in Florence, Kentucky. Our idea was to bring a high end catering business that was moderately priced but had a little flash to it to the Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati market; and we’ve been doing that. We’ve been having a good time with it. We’ve grown. We’re now in our own space. We actually have a small breakfast-lunch cafe in downtown Covington; and we’ve got our big large kitchen in the back. And we’re just pumping out more and more great food and we’ve got neighborhood accessibility here now so we have people that walk in the door in the morning and get their cinnamon rolls and get their breakfast sandwiches and all that stuff. It’s kind of nice than doing the kitchen that we were doing before because we really didn’t have anybody besides other big businesses in there and we didn’t have a license that allowed us for people that walk in the door so it’s a nice change.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s great. To see the progression of great food, great location; from catering to now having people to stop by; and if you’ll save me a cinnamon roll next time, for tomorrow, that’ll be great.

MIKE GAYON: Probably could overnight one now to you if you’d like…

BURKE ALDER: That’s awesome. You guys are great. What kind of really drives you in your business?

MIKE GAYON: Well again, we came up here from Florida. We had some restaurants in Florida and we got out of the restaurants there and came up here because my wife’s mother who’s in Cincinnati got sick and I needed something to do. And I’ve been working like 90 to 100 hours a week down there running restaurants. And I decided although I loved doing it, I’m getting a little older, and I decided that I need to find something where we could actually still do what we love to do but not have to work quite work so many hours and not to have quite somebody, a burden on us. Like a dining room, servers and all that kind of stuff provided. So we ended up doing the catering and the thing is it has been really successful. We’ve had great support from the city of Covington and Cincinnati and we’re members of all the organizations down here. Some of the businesses that helped us out like K&P Law that regularly ordered from us, and Duke Energy, and Procter & Gamble who were big folks here. They’ve just been great about ordering from us because we’re smaller business and they’re giving us the opportunity. And given the opportunity, we’ve excelled every time.

BURKE ALDER: That’s awesome. It’s great to really hear your success and to see all the people you’re actually influencing, all the businesses there and so that’s really awesome. Tell me a little about your – why you’re looking for financing?

MIKE GAYON: Well when we started this, we wanted to try and keep to where we didn’t borrow too much money from anyone, so we have grown the businesses. However, we just got to the point where Gateway Community and Technical College has picked us up to do their food service for them; and I didn’t have the cash to buy the equipment that I needed to be able to get the operations going there. And while they helped out and I do, you know, in saving us out, I still didn’t just- I was that little bit short that I needed to have to be able to making it function without getting into my operation capital because I don’t want to make – put myself in a situation to where I’m short of cash flow. That kills businesses.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah.

MIKE GAYON: And so we got a hold of you and you guys were phenomenal. You came with the money quick. You know, everything was exactly right.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s great. How was your experience with Lendio? You kind of offered some insights into that. How did Lendio helped you achieve that?

MIKE GAYON: Well again, the process with Lendio was actually quite simple. Went online and got the information. Faxed you guys a few little things like our business license and some of our information or banking and stuff like that and you guys had an offer for us within 24 hours. Julie who is our agent with you guys is absolutely phenomenal. She bent over backwards to make sure that everything got taken care of. I even think she stayed over late one day to make sure that we got everything done, what needed to be done.

BURKE ALDER: That’s great to hear. Yeah, Julie is awesome and she kind of represents just this hope that we have when we built this business which is helping you feel like you have someone who’s your partner on our end, so that’s great to hear. Any advice you would give to future restaurant owners out there? Any advice you can give them on starting a business?

MIKE GAYON: Well, the important thing is make sure that you do your research well. Knowing the nature you’re going to fit in. Knowing if there’s an agent for you there is huge. And number two, don’t go into a situation undercapitalized. If you have to borrow money, that’s okay. Make sure that you got a way to pay it back though and keep multiple lines of income working for you. We’ve got the catering business. We’ve got our old Deli Sandwich thing. We’ve now got the thing we’re doing over at Gateway Community College. So you know, we’ve got three pretty strong lines of income  coming into the business and what that ensures is that if we have a slack for couple of months in one area, we have two to cover.

BURKE ALDER: Great, well I heard your friends out there call you Chef Mike. So Chef Mike, we really appreciate your time today on Lendio’s American Dream LaunchPad. So thank you for all that you’re doing for your community there in Covington, Kentucky. And thanks for never giving up and making things happen. We appreciate having you on the show today.

MIKE GAYON: Thank you for having me on and thank you folks in Lendio for making it possible for me grow.

BURKE ALDER: Thank you. Have a great day and we’ll talk soon.

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If you’re interested in finding a loan for your business, get started here with Lendio’s free loan matching service.

Today on the American Dream Launchpad, we’ve got Maiden Dixie, a country music band from St. Paul, Minnesota. Drew and Jon needed a loan to pay their producer, allowing them to release their next album. You can watch their story or read the transcript below.

If you’d like to start your own Lendio Success Story, click here to see your business loan options.

TRANSCRIPT

BURKE ALDER: Welcome to the American Dream Launchpad. I’m Burke Alder and today I have Maiden Dixie from St. Paul, Minnesota. We have Drew Sherman and Jon Krentz, welcome to the Launchpad.

JON KRENTZ: Thanks Burke. How’s it going?

BURKE ALDER: It’s great to have you guys here. Tell us a little bit about your business and it’s actually a band this time. So tell us about your band; and how you got started.

JON KRENTZ: Yeah, we got started in 2009. I met Drew. We were actually in the service together, the army; and we were part of the military band. A lot of people think the military band are trumpets and bugle calls; but the army also has popular music. And so our job when were deployed in 2009 was to travel from base to base and to entertain troops. So we play Aerosmith and Stevie Wonder; and that’s how Drew and I formed our relationship both as friends and you know clicking as musicians as well. And when we returned back stateside, that was something that we wanted to keep going.

BURKE ALDER: What a great idea. Tell us about your music type and why you named yourself Maiden Dixie?

DREW SHERMAN: Well, the name came around because  we originally had two girls in the group. But we’ve since gone down to one for travel reasons. So we wanted to have something – originally our booking agency suggested the name Maiden America but we thought that was a little cheesy. So Dixie is where our music is from. I mean, we take (trips nationally?) where we write music, so that’s in Dixie; and so we’re making our music in Dixie. So that’s kind of how we decided on the name.

BURKE ALDER: That’s great. What would you say as you’ve gone through this experience as your biggest win?

JON KRENTZ: Our biggest win? That’s a hard thing to put a finger on. I think as small business owners and especially in the music business, those milestones are not often apparent. You kind of look back, maybe even after the New Year, you look back in 2014 and you don’t necessarily see one big giant step but you see all the little steps you need to go to get you where you are. Which is one of the coolest things, I think as small business owners, to look back and see all those small steps added up into one giant leap.

DREW SHERMAN: I think being able to pay ourselves is one of the biggest steps; making money you know, and you know sharing our music to a wider crowd. We’ve done several large country music festivals like WE Fest up in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. That’s about sixty thousand people filled unannounced. And we got plenty stage there which is really cool and they are expecting it this year.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s great. We love the American dream and the music dream and creating a small business. So, you get to this point where you need some financing. Why did you go out and look for financing for your band and your small business?

DREW SHERMAN: We were reaching at a deadline where we need to pay our producer for our new album. And our pre-sale got delayed because of some part of the work and other reasons, so we needed the quick money to reach the gap between our pre-sale and when we actually have the money. So Lendio is – was so fast. I think I contacted Chris in mid-December and last week, we got the money already. I mean it was that fast, and it helped us pay our producers, and now we’re in the process of recording our new album.

BURKE ALDER: That is awesome, being able to take your passion and make it a reality through financing. You mentioned Chris, tell me about your Lendio experience. How did it go? How did you go through the process? Anything you would share there?

DREW SHERMAN: I just did a search on Google and Lendio was the first one that came up. So I started chatting with Chris actually on the little chat window that pops out and – he was just very informative and open about what they do, what you guys do. And I told them what we needed and he said, “Okay, let me get back to you in a couple of days and I’ll tell you what I can get.” And you know, he came back with exactly what we needed and it was great.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s kind of our vision, to make it simple with all the options in one place to give you guys the best deal. We try to make it really quick so you guys can get out producing your music, and selling your music, and playing to an even bigger audience around the country and the world. I appreciate your guys time today, Lendio is an American Dream Launchpad. It’s been inspiring to hear your story. Anything else you would say to your audience before you leave? Any advice you would give to entrepreneurs out there?

JON KRENTZ: I just wanted to say thanks to Lendio. It was so nice how quick and easy the process was. And one struggle I think especially when it comes to making money in the arts world is a lot of time, when you approach, you know a bigger bank, they kind of write you off. But in our minds, you know I’m filling my belly, I’m paying my bills with the arts and Lendio saw that and respected that; and running a band is just the same as you know running a restaurant. It’s no different and so I thank you guys for seeing that. It’s pretty awesome.

BURKE ALDER: Thank you for that compliment. We feel like we’re a partner with you. And we want to see you guys succeed. And so, we really appreciate your time again. Thanks again. A great interview here with Maiden Dixie. Thanks Drew. Thanks Jon and best of luck and we’re excited to buy your album when you have it.

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You can find out more about Maiden Dixie at www.maidendixie.com.

I’m Jake Fackrell. I’m the CEO of Humaneyezed. I started my company to live the American dream. Our business is to provide sales leads for a variety of industries. There’s two things that drive me:

• Number one, I want to make this company successful and profitable.
• Second, I want to help other companies find success — especially in this difficult economy and our company provides that.

Our company has set aggressive goals and in order to reach those goals we needed additional working capital. First, we went to banks and it just felt that there’s a lot of loops to jump through and no result. I talked to friends and family to see what options were available there and a friend of mine referred me to a company called Lendio. So I went to their website and found that their process is really easy. Filled out a few questions and pushed submit and sat back and waited. I thought I had to wait a couple of days but within minutes, I had offers already coming into my mailbox. It’s pretty impressive. It seemed too good to be true. We had a number of fantastic options and we were able to pick what worked best for our company. Lendio provided legitimate solutions. Now we have the ability to make our vision a reality.

Taryna Hanson of Salon De Cheveuxrecently sat down with us and talked about her story. Coming from the corporate world to the salon scene, she saw a need for a salon that treated it’s stylists well. Find out how she accomplished this dream in the video above or read the transcript below.

BURKE ALDER: Welcome to another Lendio Success Story. It’s my privilege today to be with Taryna Hanson from Temecula, California, and her business, Salon De Cheveux. Welcome to the program this morning.

TARYNA HANSON: Thank you, pleasure to be here.

BURE ALDER: It’s awesome to speak with you. This is always an inspiring part of the day for us, talking with business owners who are making a positive impact. Tell me a little bit about how you started your business.

TARYNA HANSON: Well, I was actually working in a salon here in Temecula. And I have always wanted to own my own salon. And so, it was one of those that I was just happened to be online at the same that a gentleman posted this salon for sale. And I was the first one to contact him. I met him on the 23rd of December 2011, and I bought the business January 23rd of 2012.

BURKE ALDER: Wow, talk about timing. You know, right before Christmas and everything. That’s great. Tell me why did you start your business? What’s the driving force behind wanting to do hair?

TARYNA HANSON: Well, I’ve always been in the corporate environment for years. I was CPA of corporations that my father and I owned. I didn’t really like the corporate environment, so I got into doing hair. I started with massage therapy and then went through and did the whole, you know, experience of doing hair, and barbering, and everything else. And then I was working for somebody else, doesn’t seem to work for me very well. I’m very much more an entrepreneur. And so, I wasn’t happy with the way that salon owners treated their stylists. They just basically treated them like dirt. I wanted to create an environment where my stylists could become part of a team, become part of a brand where they could excel at what they do best and be treated like humans, and enjoy what they want to do. And they come into the salon not because it’s their work, but because it’s their passion. I wanted to give them that environment. So, that’s my ‘why’. I wanted to make it better for them, and in turn, give me pleasure helping somebody else.

BURKE ALDER: How did you create that environment? Maybe give one story or two of how it’s been positive to them.

TARYNA HANSON: It’s definitely been positive for them. I’ve seen some of my stylists, they’ve really grown. A couple of my stylists are super young. They really didn’t know what they needed to do or how they needed to do it. So talking to the older stylists and then showing them the ropes and giving them the opportunity to grow. They’ve turned into pretty good little workers.

BURKE ALDER: That’s great. An inspiring story to go from; hey, this timing to – from the corporate world back to helping stylists and make people feel so good about their hair. I mean, I know a good hair cut makes you feel a hundred better in life. So, that’s great. Tell me, why were you looking for financing for your business?

TARYNA HANSON: Well, I needed to take my salon to the next level. And by doing that, I needed the capital to increase my presence with my stylists. And also, I needed to get some more inventory. I needed to redo the actual look of my salon. That’s why I needed it.

BURKE ALDER: Great. So just a quick update on the salon, using it to help improve the environment, probably some marketing, that’s great. Tell me how your experience was with Lendio?

TARYNA HANSON: It was fantastic. I actually will admit that when I first was contacted by Lendio, and I was explained how the whole process works, it sounded a little too good to be true, because it just seemed too simple. It was one-page that I filled out, sent six months of worth of bank statements, and I got a phone call at 3 o’clock in the afternoon saying, “Hey, I’ve submitted your application. I’m just waiting back to hear.” and I was actually picking up my daughter from school. In the time that I picked her up, I was talking to him on the phone. I got to my salon three minutes later, I got a phone call when I got to the salon and said, “Hey, guess what? I have an answer.” And I was like, are you for real right now? So it was the coolest thing ever. And then that was on Thursday, and the money was deposited on Monday.

BURKE ALDER: Wow, that’s great.

TARYNA HANSON: It was pretty cool.

BURKE ALDER: So, would you recommend this whole process? I love your smile and laugh. That’s why we do this. That’s what gets all of us here at Lendio at work is to make you smile at the speed and the way that we take care of you. So, would you recommend this to other business owners?

TARYNA HANSON: Oh, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. I mean, I do understand the parameters. And I know that being a start-up; I probably wouldn’t have been able to get it because you need to have that background. And so, it was perfect timing for me because I’m going into my third year coming up in January. And so it were – it was at the perfect timing for me. Exactly what I needed and it’s awesome.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, first of all I want congratulate you. That’s awesome to make it in three years. To take your passion and the positive impact you’re having there in Temecula, California. Appreciate your time today, on this Lendio Business Success Story here. I hope you have a great day. Thanks again for joining us.

TARYNA HANSON: You’re very very welcome, anytime.

To see all your small business loan options, just click here to get started with Lendio. Lendio, fueling the American Dream.

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Here at Lendio, we help thousands of people find the right small business loan for their company. We had the privilege of working with Rob Scott, the CEO of XSI. We interviewed him about his experience starting a business, and how Lendio helped him find the right business loan options. You can watch the video above or read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Rob Scott, CEO of XSI. I’ve been in sports my whole life. From the time I was a little kid playing football with my dad or friends or playing competitively at school. I  love boxing, fighting, football, basketball, you name it. I eat, drink and just love sports.

I got hurt one day practicing and that pretty much ended my dreams of becoming a professional football player. So I dropped out of high school and started working right away. When I was about eighteen, I got recruited and started selling insurance. I loved it because it was the same type of challenge that sports brought. It was exciting making sales, learning the business and it was tough but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the challenge.

It was – tough but I was never willing to give to give up. During that time, I maintained playing sports.  I competed in boxing with USA boxing. So I was training for a fight, sparring quite a bit and I didn’t wrap my hand correctly which I’ve done this a hundred times, thousands of times and I punched the wrong way and it broke my hand. So I was thinking I’m fine. I’ve got insurance. No big deal. And then I come to find out $2,000 or $3,000 later to get my hand fixed. The insurance I thought I had wasn’t actually there to pay all those extra costs.

So XSI was born shortly after.  In the process of creating XSI, I thought “what a great mix”. I love the challenge that insurance brought. I love the competitive nature of sports and I was able to take this product and put it together. There was just nothing out there that covered athletes and I thought athletes get hurt. They need insurance. They need things that cover them but they also needed it to be affordable. As XSI started to grow and expand, we wanted to invest in other areas and continue to grow the brand. And we thought what better place than to have a sports complex where we’re able to take the same passion that I have for sports and the passion for other people that love sports and keep growing.

We have boxing, and we have track, and we have football, and we have basketball, and we have weight lifting, and volleyball and any type of sports that you can think of.  This facility is just the combination of all things we started. As we were trying to grow our business, we were looking at different types of financing options. There’s a lot of different things that we were unaware of and we came across Lendio. It was such a simple way to get funding and easy to understand. And they were able to point us in the right direction.

“With Lendio’s great options, we were able to take some of these ideas and where we wanted to end up and actually go to the next level.”

What I love now is that I’m able to do all of these things, all the stuff that I love, the passions and I have the time and the financial freedom to be able to go and do it. What I found, business is a lot like boxing. When you’re training for a match, there’s going to be days that are hard and you don’t want to get out of bed, and you don’t want to run, and you don’t want to hit bags, and you don’t want to keep training, and you’re dying and all those things, and you’ve got these things stocked up against you. But you know that if you work hard, you train hard, you focus hard, you’re going to have the best chance of success in the ring just like in business. My name is Rob Scott, CEO of XSI Incorporated and I live the American dream.

Click here to find a small business loan.

I had the chance to sit down with Coach Greg of Tennis Time in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss how he started his business and how Lendio helped him get the financing he needed to expand. Coach Greg has built a business that combines his passion for tennis and his love for an active lifestyle. Coach Greg helps kids in Atlanta, Georgia stay active, set goals, and learn to play the sport of tennis.

One of my favorite quotes from the interview is “I mean it was really that simple. It wasn’t complicated. It happened quickly. And the nice thing for me as I’ve been able to look at this relationship with the lender going forward is this is a relationship, honestly, we can keep in place for years to come if we need it.”

You can watch my Google+ Hangout interview with Coach Greg below.

Tennis Time, Atlanta, Georgia Small Business Loan Success Story Transcription:

BURKE ALDER: Today I’m here with Tennis Time, Coach Greg from Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome.

GREG: Thank you very much. Great to be with you guys.

BURKE ALDER: I have a love for tennis so it’s cool to talk with a tennis pro out there that is making a big impact. So, why don’t you tell us about why you started your business?

GREG: Absolutely. You know, I have been playing tennis since I was 13. Growing up in New York, I’m in Atlanta now of course, but we used to play every sport imaginable. I got into tennis at age 13 and I ended up playing on a NCAA Division 1 scholarship in college and taught tennis from a very young age too. Since I was 19 or 20 I’ve also been teaching tennis. I have been what most people know as a traditional tennis coach or tennis pro for a number of years., and had kids, two older girls who I got involved with the sport as well.

Atlanta is actually the number one tennis town in the country so it’s really exciting to be part of tennis in this town. But one of the ladies I was coaching asked me if I could coach her son and I coach a lot of kids and that was a great idea but we could never quite coordinate schedules. And one day she said I think you should talk to my son’s preschool director. And I said, “Great! Why?” And she said, well they run a soccer program there for after school kids and I think they would really like a tennis program. You should go run one there. I thought it was a pretty cool concept. Her son was about the same age as my son. I went and talked to the director. She was really excited about it. She thought the parents would be really into it. And I thought, you know, this is kind of cool. I love working with kids. I coach a lot of them in my private life but here’s an opportunity to coach them at school.

It just so happens that the USTA a number years back created what they call A Quick Start Tennis Program which in short essentially enables kids to learn with age appropriate kid friendly equipments. Smaller rackets, lightweight low compression foam balls and miniature nets. And I thought this was really cool. So initially I thought this could be a great opportunity to teach her son. And I went and talked to the director and she was all about it and we set it up and before I knew it I had over 35 kids at that school that wanted to take the kids tennis class for me. And I thought, huh. So then I went and talk to my son’s preschool director. She loved the idea. And before I knew it, I had those two schools and one other school that somehow heard about me already and wanted to have the kids’ tennis program in their school. So I had three schools that I was managing. And that was sort of the beginning stage of tennis time back about 5 years ago.

The business concept has exploded not only here but we got over 60 schools now here in the Atlanta market. About a year ago, we also added kid’s golf. So we have tennis time and golf time now. We’ve opened up a school in Southern California and one in Orlando Florida and it’s just taken off all over because of the love of the sport that these kids have. The ability to teach them on site at their school so that their parents don’t have to slip out of work and rush and take their kids to a facility is great. The cool thing is we could start with the kids really young. We actually started age 3 and we could go up to age 12 but that’s kind of how it started.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, just to hear about your growth and hear your story those are always inspiring. Was there something that really kind of inspires you as you run your business?

GREG: You know when it started initially, it was really about her son and my son and giving them the opportunity. I have three myself. And so as it’s grown, it’s amazing to see. We have about I’d say 18 full time coaches that work with us and these are people that come from all different walks of life. I’m talking about doctors, lawyers, actors, white collar, blue collar and they’ve given up so that they could put on their shorts and work with us and with the kids.

You should see how being around the kids transform these otherwise “professional men and women.” It’s really all about the kids being able to instill in them you know good work habits if you will. The ability to fall in love with the sport. I believe that you can play for you know tennis and golf, two of our main sports are the ones that you could really play for a lifetime. And the other thing that’s really a motivation factor is that, you know, I have experienced this with my own kids. If you notice – most people notice with if they’re seeing kids or they have kids. A lot of kids these days are addicted to these smartphones right and the tablets and then they’d rather just sit around and not rather be active. And as a result, we do have unfortunately the child obesity epidemic. Now we have both these two great sports where we’re able to get kids moving and active and busy and enjoying something even at an early age. We’re really indirectly helping to fight child obesity. That’s become a driving motivation for all of us, all the coaches and myself. As we grow this thing, it’s keeping kids moving and active, fighting that unfortunate epidemic. Getting their brains and their bodies involved and moving and staying active and also learning these great sports. Building the muscle memory to know how to swing, a forehand, a backhand, or a volley or a chip at such an early age and then hopefully instill in them the love of the sport are all motivating factors for us in this really cool fun business. But I think the biggest one is just getting to put on our shorts every day. That’s kind of how I want to live, that’s really kind of fun.

BURKE ALDER: Yeah. You know, it’ll be cool you know when some of us are on our shirts and ties and you’re out there in your shorts. Very inspiring. I love what you’re doing there. Tell me about why you went out to look for financing.

GREG: Yeah. You know there’s so much demand for what we’re doing and a lot of it was really unexpected. I mean, people just really love this and the schools wanted it. So in order to help us sort of keep up with the demand and continue to grow and add more coaches and have more schools and put it in different locations, and so to be able to have all the cool equipment that we need for the classes. You know, it came to the point where we were like, you know we need to get some funding and do this the right way. And you know we’ve been blessed and fortunate to be able to hook up with you guys and get funding to enable us to facilitate that growth. It’s been an amazing experience number one. But – that’s sort of the driving force behind it. We don’t want to leave kids at the school that wanted the class but we can’t come do it because of the equipment. We want to be able to keep up with the demand and the ability to expand this thing.

BURKE ALDER: Like you mentioned earlier, those small businesses out there, they’re making an impact. And you know want to hire more coaches, you know the equipment, so that’s a great reason why. So tell me a little bit about your experience with Lendio as you went through that process.

GREG: I mean it was – I literally was blown away. I mean it was so simple. All I did really was I started out with an internet search. I found Lendio. I was able to input some data. Next thing I know, I was put in touch with the lenders, and I honestly believe that it was probably about a 2 or 3-day process. It was really fast. You know, I was able to get some paperwork and some documents on the business that the lender needed. And next thing we know, we have the funds. I mean it was really that simple. It wasn’t complicated. It happened quickly. And the nice thing for me as I’ve been able to look at this relationship with the lender going forward is this is a relationship, honestly, we can keep in place for years to come if we need it. That started obviously at a certain initial level. As you show them that you are able to in a traditional sense I suppose you know continue to work with them and make payments and they’re happy to continue expanding the ability to fund your business. So the process was fantastic, simple, not complicated. If there are small business owners out there, they’re looking for capital, for whatever their reasons are for their business, I highly recommend day-to-day partnering with Lendio and the related services because it’s been phenomenal for us.

BURKE ALDER: That’s great. Thanks for giving us a little insight into our experience. We love that we make it simple and we were helping you grow your business, helping you achieve all those things. So I really appreciate your time today that we had here with Tennis Time. Coach Greg, he’s making a huge impact on the United States. Thank you very much for your time today.

GREG: Absolutely. My pleasure and for everyone out there looking to get these great program in your schools, check out the website tennistime.biz. We’d love to work with you.

BURKE ALDER: Thank you very much. Have a great day.

GREG: Thanks.

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