74: Find Your Financing Comfort Zone with Ami Kassar

Welcome to another episode of The Business of Meetings Podcast! We are delighted to have Ami Kassar joining us today! Ami is a knowledgeable finance expert. He is the Founder and CEO of MultiFunding, and he has also written a book called The Growth Dilemma: Determining Your Entrepreneurial Type to Find Your Financing Comfort Zone. 

In this episode, Ami shares his insights on the various aspects of buying and financing a business.

We hope you enjoy our conversation with Ami Kassar!

Ami Kassar’s short bio

Ami Kassar, the Founder, and CEO of MultiFunding and author of The Growth Dilemma, has earned a national reputation as a thought leader in business finance.  

An in-demand speaker and trusted advisor to growth-focused business leaders, Ami has helped thousands of business owners achieve ambitious growth goals through creative and personalized funding solutions. His work has helped create tens of thousands of jobs.

For more than 20 years, Ami has challenged executives to think differently about how they capitalize growth. Regularly featured in national media, including The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Fox Business News, Ami also writes a weekly column for Inc. Magazine. He has advised the White House, the Federal Reserve Bank, and the Treasury Department on credit markets. 

Ami regularly speaks at corporate, academic, and industry events on topics that include entrepreneurship and access to capital. 

Ami’s journey

Ami was the Chief Information Officer for a large issuer of credit cards to small businesses in the United States, which got completely wiped out in the great recession. After helping to let more than 900 employees go, Ami’s job also got terminated by the bankruptcy trustees. He started MultiFunding the very next day.

MultiFunding

It took a long time for Ami to learn the business and get good at it. There were many evolutionary hiccups along the way. The core principle behind starting the company was to build a service where entrepreneurs could get clear and transparent information and make good choices for their futures. The job of MultiFunding is to help entrepreneurs slow down before they speed up and figure out their best course of action.

Ami Kassar’s advice on making financing choices

When making financing choices, you have to look at what the numbers on the spreadsheet are telling you. You have to account for your emotions and your prior experiences with money, too, and be aware of what your hopes, dreams, and aspirations are telling you. Ami suggests that getting a good night’s sleep and some informed opinions can help you find the right balance and avoid making irrational decisions.

Risk profile 

Building a company is never a straight line. That’s why it is vital to find out what your risk profile is before you start a business. When going into a business partnership, it is critical to take the time to get a risk profile score and make sure that your partner’s goals are in alignment with your goals.

Building a business with no debt

You can build a business without debt, but it will probably go a bit slower. That would be a better option for those who might suffer anxiety as a result of having debt. If you decide to do that, you should understand what your limiting factor is. You will also need to look at what you would do differently if you had more working capital.

Tracking your investments

Ami encourages business owners to find a system to track how much money they used to speculate with and whether or not it paid off. 

Test your assumptions

Test your assumptions to check whether or not your investments have been worthwhile. 

Triple your investment

Have a goal for what you want your business to look like three years after investing in it. If your investment pays off, triple it.

Challenging the thinking of business owners

Ami challenges business owners to think about how quickly they want their businesses to grow and how fast they would like to do it.

Have a plan

Do not borrow money without a plan.

Ami Kassar’s thoughts on the SBA (Small Business Administration)

Ami encourages people who want to buy businesses to think seriously about the SBA. The SBA lends small business owners up to 90% of the business cost, or up to $5,000,000. In Ami’s opinion, the primary benefit of SBA lending is that they give you ten years to repay them. So, if you buy a business at 3x or even 5x, you will have some flexibility with your cash flow to cover your repayments.  

You can also use an SBA loan to invest in business infrastructure, working capital, growth capital, buy out your partner, and more.

There is an incentive to take out a loan from the SBA before September 30th, 2021.

Connect with Eric

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Connect with Ami Kassar

On MultiFunding Website

Ami’s book The Growth Dilemma