The Contrarian Bet on a Digital Agency

To them, growth, even though it's in the right direction, is still doesn't tell a story of stability. So how did the, the lender market react to this deal?

Yeah, and you've got to add one factor to that will, because you're 100% right on growth. Also, agencies have zero tangible assets. They, they are nothing more than a team and a client list which if the company goes belly up, the bank can't collect on a team and a client list.

I reached out to all 10. I never heard back from five. They wanted nothing to do with this deal.

I got the other five on the phone. Three of them rejected me in the first 10 minutes after I gave them some of the details and it was before they even heard the growth story. It a, you're an agency.

This is the, and given the purchase price and the fact that you have no tangible assets, it's too much of an airball for us. Not a chance. So I had two banks left. One was a small regional Colorado bank and one was a large national SBA specific lender that I started moving forward with.

And to, to cut this story short, the, the SBA national lender ended up up ultimately rejecting me. They, you know, claiming that the boss's boss had rejected it for being too much of an airball felt terrible because they told me that they were going to get it done and so set me up with a another national SBA lender who was a little bit more risk tolerant because they were trying to grow quickly…

And both of those guys throughout and in. When I got desperate, when I started getting rejected by everyone, I started reaching out to, you know, some of the, the SBA matchmakers who many of the listeners to you show talk to and know their, their Common names in the ETA space and to, you know, anyone else I could, I could get to get me potential lenders. And they were all saying to me, you've got…

You've got to go with the big bank. You got to go with the big bank. One of them did, I know he does this for everyone so I'm giving it away a little bit, but he pulls up the list of SBA loans by volume that the banks have done and says, look, you want someone up here, you're talking to the small regional bank who's 300 or something, they're going to flop it, they're not going to be able to get…

And so I'm meanwhile, this small bank is, you know, taking me deliberately through their process, get through underwriting, get me to their scheduled with their, they call their pre flight committee and these big banks are saying, you can't go small, can't go small. And I say all right, well like work with me then. And you know, they're rejecting me and ghosting me.

And one finally says, look, we want to do this deal with you, but you got to, you can't do that small bank. I'll put you in touch with 10 clients of ours who will tell you that they regretted working with a small bank after. And then, you know, came to us and I said please do.

And, and it, I didn't hear anything for nine days. And eventually after nine days they put me in touch with one person who I got on the phone with the next day who said I loved working with this big bank, but frankly I think I could have done it with a small bank as well. And meanwhile, in those nine days of silence, this small regional bank. Can I shout them out?