Ep 356: How to Build a Portfolio of Online Businesses with Smart Financing & Systems with Glenn Giro

Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause. I'm the host of the Buying Online Businesses podcast. And today we're speaking with Glenn Jairo. He is a seasoned SBA business development officer and acquisition financing expert who helps entrepreneurs buy and grow businesses using the SBA-backed loans.

He hosts the SBA Universe YouTube channel, which is a training series for business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. And he really speaks about acquisition financing and how to scale your business using SBA.

In this podcast, Glen and I talk about how to build a portfolio of businesses using SBA financing to acquire these businesses. We talk about a bunch of things that you can get stuck on for your first deal with SBA, and information that you need to know to get past that and have a successful acquisition using SBA. Then we move on to talking about how to buy not just one business using financing through the SBA, but how to buy multiple and build a portfolio.

What are the things that can prevent you from doing that? And what are the things you need to have in place before you buy your second, third, fourth, or fifth business? We also talk about the limits of SBA financing with NAIS codes and things like that. And yeah, this is such a valuable podcast episode on what you need to know about building a portfolio of businesses using SBA financing. Of course, we do talk about acquisitions.

So if you haven't got my due diligence framework on how to acquire a great business, it takes the guesswork out of buying a business. It saved people millions of dollars and made people millions of dollars.

You can get that at a link in the description of the podcast, or go to buyingonlinebusiness.com and look in the resources section. For now, let's dive into the pod. You will enjoy it.

Glenn, welcome to the pod. Thanks for your time.

Absolutely, thanks. Thanks for having me, Jaryd.

Excited to be here. Yeah. I'm looking forward to this one. We came across your YouTube channel, and you definitely know a lot about acquisitions and SBA, and we'll share a link to that guy in the show notes as well.

But yeah, SBA, it's what a beautiful thing it is for people looking to buy businesses. Mostly today, I want to talk about building a portfolio through SBA, and what some of the things are that.

People struggle with going from one acquisition to the next. You like what, yeah, let's start there. Like, what's the biggest thing that holds people back in the first acquisition? Yeah. Know, I think.

I think the first thing is just really understanding the program, what the requirements are, and what's going to be asked of them. One thing that I know you do, which is kind of what I do on my channel, is really just the educational piece.

I think it's super important that the initial conversation I have with the person who says, I want to buy a business. I know an SBA loan is an option, but I have no idea where to begin. So the first thing is understanding.

First, what is the equity injection requirement? These are loan programs that require a down payment, and it's typically 10 % of the total project costs. And that total project cost is not just the business purchase price.

We can build a working capital, and then just the fees and due diligence, things like that. So the first thing is understanding how much money you want to put toward the loan, put toward the acquisition, and then kind of right-sizing that budget.

And it's also important that no lender wants you to go broke buying a business. So saying, hey, I've got a hundred thousand, and I want to put down 95,000 to buy a business, again, it kind of goes back to right-sizing. And then understanding the rules and the requirements.

The SBA is a 600-page rule book. It's full of nuance and gray areas and very specific things. And then things that certain lenders kind of have to do their best to interpret. And they tend to be conservative because the SBA will audit these deals.

And they're going to make sure the banks are following the rules, and they're not taking shortcuts. So where there might be some gray area, lenders tend to stay conservative, right?

They don't want to risk a deal kind of not honored by the SBA. Know, step one is just to educate yourself, understand the rules, understand your budget, and then kind of once you know that, that's when you can kind of start your search and feel confident, right?

That, hey, I found this business, it's in my price point, you know my experience, my background. These are things that are going to allow me to be successful in obtaining an SBA loan. So ultimately, that's the objective is to get a loan to buy the business.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, say somebody with 100K says, want to buy a million-dollar business, 10 % down, and their total savings they have, and they don't have any other assets, as 100K. It's going to be a hard push for SBA to go look, we can, we want to lend to you for this type of business because you might not have any other assets as backup or even funds, just, you know, in case needed.

So sometimes in that stage, I would have people scale back and be like, Hey, let's not go shoot for something a million. Let's shoot for something between 600 to 600 to 900, maybe, where it's a little bit easier for it to be approved and also less financial pressure on yourselves.

Like I like to share with people. It's like, if you're going to buy a business, why are you buying a business? The goal isn't to buy a business. Who cares about that? Nobody really wants to run a business; what we want is the benefits. And one of the benefits typically provided is less financial stress, because it allows us to get ahead.

So don't forget, the main goal is less stress. And if you're just going in with like, I'm scraping, you know, scraping everything from the bottom of the barrel to put it into this, and it's going to be a stressful time. What's the point? Right?

And that's real life example, right? I found this business a million dollars. I've got a hundred thousand, right? So, you know, one direction or one piece of advice is, it's out of your budget, right?

Let's kind of find something that fits, so that you can put some money down and have some leftover. Or you can find another business partner, right? Somebody who can bring some additional cash to the deal. You know, that could be a business partner. That can be maybe a family member or somebody with experience.

You know, I want to buy an HVAC company, but I've never done anything with HVAC for e-commerce. I've got a partner who has some experience in e-commerce. He'd be a great business partner, can bring some financial strength. Or you could potentially get a gift, tagift from the family member. That has to be a true gift, right?

That parent who's giving you money, they can't expect repayment. A lot of times, we want a document that says it is a true gift with no expected repayment, right? So that's true equity, it's not a loan. So that's another avenue, raise some money in a gift form.

Or, know, seller financing, right? Seller financing is still a part of these SBA loans. So, for that example, technically, the seller can finance up to 5 % of that 10 % required equity injection.

That example of, let's say,t he 10 % down payment is 100 grand. Well, technically, a seller can finance 50,000 of that. Now, the SBA now requires, this is a rule change of June 1st of 2025, that kind of timestamp this that seller note has to be on full standby for the life of the SBA loan.

So most of these SBA loans are 10-year terms when there's no real estate. So they can kick in that $50,000 seller's, but they also have to be okay. It's going to be 10 years until they start seeing payments on that.

That'ss a deal breaker for some business owners. Some business owners might be okay, right? Because on a potential million-dollar transaction, you have to wait for 50,000. Maybe that's not a deal breaker, right? Maybe you're the top offer.

Maybe the business is a little bit undervalued, and you're maybe getting a good deal, maybe you can go above the purchase price. So there are ways to negotiate. And that's what I tell people.

You know, when you find a business at the top of your budget, it's kind of, you know, making it tight. See if they can help kick in some of that equity injection for the sellers. No, just, you know, bring it up. It's a negotiation. Think people underestimate the negotiation that goes into buying a business.

And like you said, you're not, you know, the good thing about these SBA loans, they're cashflow loans, right? The business has to be profitable. It has to be performing well. These aren't turnaround projects.

So you're buying a profitable cash-flowing business, and we're doing the calculations to make sure this loan is not going to sink you. As long as you continue the trajectory, you don't sink this thing. This should be a really good opportunity for you.

Yeah. No, lenders are going to lend to an asset that needs to be a turnaround. Yeah. Even for somebody who has experienced doing a turnaround, it's very, very difficult because, like, there are so many things that can happen along the way to get a turnaround done. Right.

But I also want to note, like you mentioned, like the seller being involved with their 50 K, but for 10 years, I'm very cautious that when we say these things and you say this with complete consciousness of like, is not an, this is not an expectation of every, every seller is going to do this.

When you listen to this, yes, it's a possibility, and yes, it can be done, but you need to put yourself in the shoes of a seller and do they want to be tied to that loan for the 10 years? And a lot of the time it's a no. They don't, so don't come into the, like the expectation of like, okay, it can be done, but that's if, it can be done.

That's what I'm going to do. Every seller is going to want to do that. So if you've got a hundred K and you're like, okay, cool. I can get 50 K from the seller. Don't be riding on that happening because your, your dream can be squashed very quickly and very easily with most sellers, because I know for myself, if I'm selling a business, typically don't want to be tied to a loan.

And it's very competitive right now. You've got a lot of people wanting to buy businesses.

And if you go in with the offer of like, I want you to finance Elwin, by the way, I want to wait 10 years to start paying you. It's just, you're probably not going to be the most competitive offer. Right?

So you kind of, and again, it goes back to that budget. And that's why I tell people, like if you find that business that's kind of at the type, you know, if you've got that a hundred thousand and you're looking for that million dollar business, you're going to have to go in and negotiate a seller's loan unless you can get the gift or a partner or, know, so it's all about putting yourself in the, best possible position to have your offer accepted.

And if you're going in with the cell or not on full standby, because they're going to help you with the Eclene injection, it's just, it's going to be a tough sell right off.

That. Absolutely. And then you've got fees as well, right? Like, the SBA fee, what are the typical SBA fees? Are we looking at three and a half percent for a million? Yeah.

It's a sliding range. It's a sliding range, and it basically is the percentage of the guaranteed portion of the loan. The guaranteed portion is 75%. So if it's a million-dollar loan, it's the percentage of the $750,000.

Actually, I was looking at a deal earlier today, and for a million, I think it was around like $24,000 was the SBA fee. So, as a point, and then obviously, the higher the fee gets.

Can you just explain, like for the SBA loan, it's a million-dollar loan, then you just said 750K. Where'd you get the 750K from?

Yeah. Because the SBA, why this loan program, why banks like this loan program is that they offer a 75 % guarantee of the loan, right? So, for a million-dollar loan, $750,000 is actually guaranteed by the SBA. So in a scenario where that deal defaults, the bank is technically only responsible for the 25%, right? And so they kind of get to collect on the assets to try to get back.

It's a great loan program for the banks, because you think about it, that's basically, that 750 is not their responsibility. So even for some of the requirements from a bank, from a liquidity test standpoint and all that, they're really only accounting for 25%.

So, like a conventional loan, the bank is on the hook for the entire amount. And so that's why collateral, collateral is huge. For conventional lending, they typically want a hard asset attached to the deal, right?

Or it's a business that is probably doing well, it's been around, generating revenue of 10, 20, 30 million, where you don't necessarily need a personal guarantee of an established business.

But for these loans, for these-sized businesses, I'm typically in that kind of one to $10 million revenue range, which is typically what I see. You're buying a multiple of cash flow most of the time, right? There's very little collateral. And so from that standpoint, that government guarantee is basically what makes these for the bank, can be profitable, right? Some banks package these loans, and they sell them on a secondary market as an investment tool.

That makes money for the bank and some portfolio. And these interest rates are prime. Prime's currently seven and a quarter. They put a fixed spread. It's a profitable lending program or product just from an interest fee standpoint.

So it's a great program all around. It's a self-subsidizing program because of the SBA fee. So it pays for itself when it's done properly. The bank likes it's a profitable program with the government guarantee.

And then for the lender, you get attractive rates, right? Or you get attractive loan rates, or not loan rates, but loan details, 90 % financing, stretch out the term, no prepayment penalty, those types of things. So I like to think it's a good program.

Yeah. And with, you know, a program like that, that fee can be like, it can be put into the loan. Also, legal fees. If you've got a receipt or an invoice or buy-side fees, like my fee, if I'm working as an advisor for you, it can be put in as under the loan versus having to have that cash come out of your own pocket, or you might pay for it.

And then the loan will cover that. So it gets embedded into the loan, that's why it's, it is an amazing product, and it's changed the game of acquisitions, especially digital acquisitions,s significantly. It's helped people buy larger assets and then also helped the industry increase its multiple because of funding and finance as well, which is good for everybody.

You know, on the buy side, sell side, everybody, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. So when let's just say we, we get somebody through, and they purchased a business with SBA, let's just say they bought something for 1 million.

And they like, this is really good. Like I want to build a portfolio of businesses now, or they might have bought an e-commerce brand, and they go, I want to build out a holding company where with this e-commerce brand, we want to buy our manufacturer.

Or we want to buy a digital marketing tool, likewhat additional marketing agencies are doing really well for the business. Want to buy that digital marketing agency. What options do they have? Because I've already got an SBA loan, probably with a personal guarantee. What options do they have to go buy again for the same price or larger? How do we, where do people get hung up?

Yeah, it's a great question. That's when I do get a lot. And the tough part is, there's no like, you know, if you just wait eight months, we'll get, we got you again. No worries. Right. It's, it's such a case-by-case basis, but I will say this.

Most lenders, they want to see you with a full tax return for the year. Right. You've taken over the business. Need an appropriate amount of time to make sure that the business is still performing just as well or potentially better. Right. To me, a lot of what I do is I put together a package of information, right?

Analyze the business, the financials, analyze the buyer, their personal situation, and their background. And I kind of put together a narrative and the financial spreads. And then my job is to go to my credit team and say, hey, here's the deal. Here's what I like about it.

Here's what might kind of be considered weaknesses, but here are the mitigants of the weaknesses so that we can be comfortable with it. So if somebody just bought a business and wants to buy another one, and it's only been a few months, that's just a hard conversation to have.

Can show them the financial the business they just bought. You know, there's not a ton of time that's gone by. Know maybe that, you know, maybe that person has a really strong personal financial statement. Like I said, if you're, if you're, if you have a strong net worth, cash is king, right?

If you've got really good liquidity, you know, sometimes that can overcome, you know, some concerns. But there'salways going to be that, you know, they just took over. How's that business performing? Not enough time has gone by.

If I can say, Hey, they bought the business in August of 2023, 2024, now they've had a full year's worth of operations, business has grown, they found another business that would be a great compliment for it. By the way, they've got a good PFS.

To me, that is kind of the case I want to put together to try to convince the credit department, because so much of this, I always tell people, like the SBA sets the rules, they kind of provide the framework. Every SBA lender has its own discretion on its own credit preferences and policies. So what…

You know, I might say, Hey, we need a year of you operating the business. Another lender might be like, you know, it could be two months. You know, it truly is up to the lender, but the thought process pretty much across is going to be similar, right? Which is like, you just bought a business.

Like you've got that thing under control. Like it usually takes some time. Now maybe e-commerce is easier. You know, again, it all just depends on the business as well. This is kind of where you build the case of like, this is, you know, this is not like a brick and mortar with employees.

And, you know, this is kind of a business that's kind of been cruising; they did some tweaks, and you can kind of see revenues up over time. This would be a great compliment. So it's all kind of part of it. So I gave you a very long non-answer, which is discretionary.

It's case by case, but I always tell people when you buy a business, like give yourself some time to really understand the business, a track record that you've built or improved on top of it. And then when you feel like you're in a great spot, like let's go ahead. We can definitely go ahead and try again, but ultimately, we have to build a case as to why.

Yeah. Okay. So, as to why I've got clients that we just bought something for two mil, we closed at the start of July. And so to age this pod a couple of months later, the business has, you know, gone from 120K net profit a year SDE to one over a million now.

And we can, we've put that through to the SBA to get pre-approval to acquire something else. And my clients have another pretty great platform business where we're going for something between the six and eight million range. That's one example of how it can be done in a shorter period of time.

The business we bought, as you said, is an e-commerce brand or e-commerce business, and it has a team in place, they don't have to work in the business, and it's proof that it's done really well since the acquisition. It only adds a stronger case. But for most people, I would say if you're buying a million of the business and it's your first acquisition, it's worth having a good six months of work in the business, at least minimum, to get to that point or maybe another tax return where you show, okay, this acquisition was a success, which builds upon your buyer profile which needs to be submitted to the SBA to say, okay, they've acquired a business and this is the success they've had, which can help even like increase that prop that possible lending amount, right?

Yep.

Yeah, lenders love successful entrepreneurs, right? Successful business owners. Like, sometimes the biggest challenge I have is somebody who has kind of been doing corporate America stuff. And now they want to buy a small business that might be just a different industry altogether.

And there's always just that little bit of, is that person a good fit to run this business? Kind of, yeah, they've got corporate experience, but this is a blue-collar kind of business now, right?

And so, you almost kind of have to really try to highlight the things they did in corporate America that could be beneficial. And you got to make sure maybe the, maybe was the owner getting their hands dirty and doing, doing that stuff, or were they more kind of on a managerial kind of, you know, oversight role?

Like those little details matter, but when you're, Hey, I've been, I'm doing this, I'm successful at this. I've proven that. And I want to just do that again, but doing it this way, like that, means, to me, that is such a nice kind of feather in your cap when you're building your, and that's how you get a faster approval on the next deal, right?

When you've proven a concept, I can do this; I'm successful at it. To me, that's how you speed that process up, especially if you're, you know, you're buying an e-commerce business, and you're buying another on digital assets in a similar sector.

Where, so where that could be challenging is for people that they've, you know, they've done one acquisition, and it might be a year until they can, they can prove that they've gotten some results or it's done, it's done wel,l, or stay the same, and they haven't wrecked it, which is also a case. What other challenges come up that can get in the way of another acquisition using SBA?

Yeah, so with every deal, what's that to build a portfolio, and this might be like this, this might be for the second purchase, or the third or fourth purchase. Yeah. Yeah. What other things can get in the way?

You know, obviously, you know, looking at their personal profile, just from a personal income standpoint, you know, another thing is, is making sure, you know, if they're bringing in this other business, how's that going to impact the overall kind of debt, right? You've got this SBA loan packaging with another, you know, with obviously another SBA loan.

You want to make sure,e from a cashflow standpoint thatf they're each supporting it, you know, individually, right? Just because you have good cash flow here, it's not going to mitigate poor cash flow from the next e-commerce business, right?

So obviously that's one thing I look ou fort, know, if there's another required equity injection, know, you know, we kind of mentioned in an expansion, if the NAICS codes match, you potentially could get a hundred percent financing on that expansion. It's a great benefit of the SBA Loan Program, which is considered an expansion.

However, if you have to put some money down, what's that going to do to your liquidity, right? And again, kind of going back to it, just the optics of just from one business to another, how much is it going to spread out your time in terms of like, are you going to be able dedicate both?

I said, e-commerce is kind of a unique animal because, technically, it's not like you have a landscaping company in this side of town and you want to buy a landscaping company on the other side of town. Now you've got to get to know all their employees and their vehicles and all that.

So from that standpoint, it's a little bit more streamlined. But yeah, I would say, know, with every new request, you're kind of going through the same exercise, right? I've had a few people buy a business, come back to me like eight months later, and want to buy another. And I think in their mind, it's like you did one before.

This should be really easy. It's like we're going to jump through all the hoops of time and everything as well. It's going to be the same level of frustration, maybe more or less.

For sure. It's kind of the same thought, right? Obviously, we have some of your information; we know you, so that helps, but like we're going to need all updated information. That personal financial statement you gave me eight months ago is out of date.

Need a new, you know, so it's just kind of the idea of like, we're going to have to go through it again. It's going have to go through underwriting. It's going to have to go, you know, it's going to have to go through closing, or have to order all the same reports. So from that standpoint, it's kind of a lot of the same.

What about the nice codes? Let's just explain that a little bit more because you can tap out at a certain amount with one nice code, and then you may be able to put another acquisition or business in a different nice code. What is, what is this code? What does it mean? And how does the SBA use it?

Yeah. The acronym,m I believe, is the North American Industry Classification System. Right. So anybodywhot starts a business, and I've been dealing with this NAICS code for a long time. If you have ever kind of gone through the exercise, it is like category, then subcategory, and then sub-subcategory. Right.

And so a lot of times, and here's the challenge, because the SBA kind of defines expansion by matching NAICS codes. But a lot of times, you'll have two identical businesses, but their NAICS codes are different. Right. And it's kind of because they just because the differences are so little between some of the NAICS codes. It really is bizarre how that system works, but it's a system.

What the SBA says is you're tapped out at that $5 million max per NAICS code. If you get a $3 million loan for one NAICS code and then you see another business that's going to require a $4 million loan, then you're technically tapped out. You have to either put more equity down so that the loan amount drops much, just for the SBA, though.

That's just with SBA, correct?. So it's that $5 million cap that you could potentially hit if you, obviously, if you're stacking a few businesses over a few years. Just something you've got to keep in mind is that limit.

And with the code, there any way, there's no way of changing it. Like, how does this get applied to each business? Tax returns. The tax returns have the NAICS code on them, right? So that's what we have to go by. So you kind of like, if it's an expansion request and I'm like, first thing I do is say, let's look at your tax turn NAICS code. Let's look at their tax turn NAICS code,e and let's see if they line up. So that basically just comes down to that.

Cool. Now you said you can max out at the five mil with SBA per NAICS code, or maybe just one business acquisition at five mil. Say somebody is, they go, right, cool. We've bought a business for two million. I bought a $2 million business with one NAICS code, and then they find another business with a completely different NAICS code, and it's like an $8 million transaction, and SBA can get up to 5 million range.

What are their options to, say,y they've, you know, say to an $8 million business, they've got a million in cash they can put down. And say, for example, the first acquisition, it's just stayed the same, right? They've proven that they know how to run the business, and it's profitable, and it stayed the same. It hasn't had crazy growth or anything like that. It hasn't gone backwards, but it's stayed the same.

And this is just an example. There are going to be many variations. Guys, don't hold Glenn accountable as an example. What are their options in terms of going? Okay, we max out at five, five mil with SBA. How do we get that extra little bit? Are there different ways that you finance on top of SBAD, do what they call pair pursue, which is kind of an SBA conventional blend.

They might have a lending partner that'll do the conventional piece, or that bank itself might do it. It's not something that I do. I'm kind of hitting that $5 million cap. But some lenders do that type of lending, where you can go above it. But obviously,y you're still capped at the $5 million, but they'll bring in another lender or bring in a conventional option to kind of bridge that gap.

Yeah, got you. Cool. Okay. And is there a limit, like say somebody buys something for 2 million with one night's cod,e, and then they buy one for 5 million with it with another cod, e, and then two years later they buy another one for 5 million. Like, where does it start to become restrictive, or yeah.

Technically, you could do $25 million SBA loans if the NAICS codes are different, right? And it's funny, you would think, obviously, the SBA program is how I make my living, right? So don't want to be too critical of it, butthere ares certain things that you're kind of promoting people to get loans in different industries, right?

Which is more difficult? And think about it from a lender standpoint, you know, a guy, and I want to buy a restaurant, not, and then I want to buy a pool servicing company. You're kind of rewarding this idea of like, I'm going to just buy a bunch of stuff in different industries. And that's hard. know, a lender doesn't like that, right?

You know, especially, you know, think about it, you're the bank, you just want somebody to buy a business, right? And now they're coming back to youa ear later. Now they want to buy a business in a different industry. And it's a little bit like, okay, you know, maybe their profile is great.

Maybe you do that, but then they come back later and I want to buy another business in a completely different, you know, so just from a risk standpoint, it would make more sense if you were able to raise the limit when it's like an expansion through a, say Mexico, we should reward somebody for expanding within what they know best, right?

Business or money because they understand that category likes say it's a digital market. So you buy a digital marketing agency. Why wouldn't it grow? Why wouldn't you just keep buying 10 digital marketing agencies under the same code and just crush it and then have a big exit, pay off all the debt, a nd the banks are just stoked.

So for the SBA official watching this, if you want to just bump up forthe same NAICS codes, maybe to like, it's five, maybe seven anda half, maybe 10, reward people for getting loans in the industry that they know best and that obviously they're doing well, they're qualifying.

To me, that makes more sense than the NAICS codes in the different industries. That is just a little bit riskier because you're spreading yourself thin by buying businesses that might not be anything alike.

Yeah. Or even incentivize, you know, with the NAICS code, say you've, say you've bought something under that one, and you want to buy something again. Maybe you make the terms a little bit different and easier, and you incentivize them to acquire in that fashion, which is better for the SBA. It's better for the lenders is better for everybody. Show the right incentive.

It's like, if you're managing risk, every bank is always managing risk, right? They're looking at their portfolio of loans. They're seeing what's performing well. You know, what industries potentially might be hurt, might be hitting, you know, their classified lists. Um, to me, those expansion loans, they own this business, it's performing well.

I want to buy my competitor. I want to expand. Those are great deals. We should, we should incentivize, we should reward business owners for doing well by allowing them to grow their business through expansion. So yeah, would love to see that.

Yeah, absolutely. Where do you find it difficult with digital assets where businesses aren't lendable? In terms of maybe software businesses, because the multiples are too high and you can't afford the repayments, and what other areas become difficult for lending with digital assets?

Yeah. Well, you know, the first one is the multiple, right? Mean, it's such a desirable space to be in, you know, this idea, these kinds of, you know, e-commerce businesses that are successful. And a lot of times, you know, if you're running one, not a lot of people want to let go of it, right?

Especially if you got that thing kind of, you know, kind of going on cruise control. And so yeah, the multiple tends to be higher. You know, I get a lot of requests on e-commerce, where it doesn't have the longevity, right? Maybe just a couple of years old.

There are a lot of really smart people who fire up an e-commerce business, a nd that thing ramps up, and they want to sell it. That can be tough because they're evaluating. Maybe they launched it in 2023.

Maybe you only had half a year of business in 2023. 2024 was like a rocket ship. 2025 is still doing well, but there's no amount of like, are they going to sell this thing, and that's their parachute out? Then they can just turn around and do it again.

Longevity tends to help. You want this thing to show that it's... I always tell people, if you think about a business that's been around for the last 10 years, how much economic stuff it's been through. Economists say we're on an eight to 10-year economic cycle where things go up, and they go down over that period of time. If you can show that you've been able to survive that…

And you can kind of seepre-COVIDD, you can seepost-COVIDD. So some of these were far enough away. One of the big things that was tough coming off COVIDwase the businesses that benefited right from people sitting, being stuck inside all day. You know, some businesses ramped u,p and a lot of questions that we had to kind of get answers to were like, is this thing going to start to tail off as we get away from it?

It's far enough away. Now, 2025 is almost over. We know, we've got a whole other year, and that's another thing, right? Year-to-date financials are, I mean, they make or break deals. Breaks my heart that a really strong business, the owner took his foot off the gas in 2025, maybe thinking he was going to sell at the beginning of the year. Get the financials through August or September,r and the things falling off a cliff.

They stopped investing. They stopped advertising. They didn't make hires. Those deals are dead. The lender's not going to, like we said at the beginning, these should be strong, positive, trending, cash-flowing deals. You don't want to buy a business that's all of a sudden going backwards.

And so longevity is important, you know? Obviously, these are fulfilled by Amazon businesses; there are a lot of those out there as well. A lot of people like those. Those are risks. I mean, I can tell by your reaction that those are risky.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a shame though, right? Cause if you look back at the SBA, those assets are more stable, like those assets with a higher multiple, like a software or a membership business, or recurring revenue business, I should say, are typically more stable than an e-commerce business. And that's why they have a higher multiple. So it should be easier to lend to those.

But it's justcash floww. Like they just want to see that they can be paid off with cash flow. So, yeah, I don't know whether they open up as well,l and they think about, yeah, it's just the interest rates. They want these specific interest rates to be able to pay the loans.

And I'm sure there's a way they could do it with assets that are just far more stable. Like if you're looking at something that's like a seven multiple for a recurring revenue business, like those guys that buy them for cash, they're sitting pretty already, but they just, it's the richer getting richer because they're buying these more stable assets and less workers required to run them. You know, it's a shame that we can't be buying these with SBA.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it can be done. Those acquisitions can be done withthe SBA. It doesn't have to be all cash, but you might be looking at like a 40 % injection or more,e or whatever it can work.

And I know with my clients, we typically want to buy something with as much debt as possible without putting us into some financial hardship because, know, it's debt, but it's on a great asset. It's good debt if you buy a better asset.

Absolutely. Glenn, what a world of information you've shared with us. Thank you so much. If you want to know more, link to your YouTube channel. Where else can we send people to check out what you're up to?

Absolutely. Thanks so much for coming on. Everybody is listening. Thank you for listening, and chat to you guys soon.