Funding Options
Purchasing a franchise is a big-ticket item. But even if you aren’t able to pay for the franchise in cash, several financial assistance programs, including both traditional and non-traditional options, are available to those who qualify. Programs include grants, loans, financial aid, and even retirement rollovers — which offer a tax-free option on the purchase of your business.
For a complete listing of lenders and programs, please Contact Us today.
Lance Hood: Hi, this is Lance Hood with ARC Franchising and today our conversation is about new and better options to help you fund your business. I'm talking with Larry Carnell, the VP of Benetrends and as you're about to find out, Larry is not just an expert. He's one of the nicest and most genuine people you'll meet. Larry, can you take a minute and just tell everyone a little bit about yourself and why Benetrends is unique?
Larry Carnell: Well, that's very nice of you to say, Lance it's a pleasure to chat with you. I've had a long passion of helping people live the dream of owning their own business. In today's environment to be quite direct. There is no job security on the j.o.b. anymore. I've lectured across the country to people that had been downsized or considering business ownership. I've been where many of you are considering going. I've owned several businesses myself. I'm actually a former recipient of an entrepreneur of the year award by the National Association of Entrepreneurship. I've lectured across the countries that universities have done seminars for people like Donald Trump, Susie Orman, some of the top business and franchise organizations across the country have asked me to come out and speak to prospective business owners. Unfortunately, once you've passed your mid forties, the fastest growing erosion of wealth and the biggest risk to business owners are healthcare costs. For that reason, we're seeing a dramatic rise in people being downsized once they start moving into their mid to late forties.
The reason is healthcare. Healthcare costs for somebody in their late forties and fifties can be four to eight times greater than somebody in their thirties. And if you don't think business owners are aware of that, then you're not being realistic. The fact of the matter is, you're a potential liability for a business owner as you move into your mid to late forties and fifties. And because of the cost, it's often cheaper to hire somebody younger and replace you. Now this is absolutely ageism, but if you sign any type of severance agreement, you lose 100 percent recourse of doing that. So, I've lectured across the country at organizations like light management, who's the world's largest outplacement firm. 10 years ago, fifty percent of my audience were people past their mid forties. Now, over 90 percent of the audience is people past their mid forties. Folks, it's not going to get better. It's gonna get worse.
There's numerous states studies show that if you're, as you progress in age, not only are you more likely to be downsized, but if you find the job, it's taking people twice as long to find a replacement. That's often a year or longer. The problem with that is that you're burning through savings and people are often having no other choice after close to a year looking for a job to take any type of job. This is resulting in 20 to 30 percent decreases in compensation and if you find the job, chances are you're going to find the job, you're going to take any type of job, not necessarily one that you enjoy, but just something to pay the bills. As a result of that, a lot of people are dissatisfied with the jobs that they end up with. If they get a job, they're keeping it on average, about two point four years and then they're back on the hamster wheel, so to speak, burning through savings again and at that point they're often not in a position to start another business. So my recommendation to people, is work with experts like lance who has expertise to help you filter the good from the bad. Lance works with one of the nation's most respected research firms that help you filter the good from the bad and the key is finding the right business. And there's one point, people think of franchises is McDonalds or what have you, but there are franchises now well under $100,000, even close to $50,000, sometimes less that you can get into and build wealth for yourself rather than being dependent on somebody else.
The question is, how do you fund the business? Funding a business is often the first step in the search process. It's no different than buying a house. You want to get prequalified first, so Benetrends has become the nation's number one, one-stop funding resource in the franchise community. We're the only provider that the international franchise association, who has never publicly endorsed a funding resource, publicly came out several years ago to publicly endorse us, for our services. We do all kinds of funding, SBA; small business administration; microloans; unsecured security; back lending; leasing. We also pioneered an innovative program that forces the government to assume as much as 50 percent of the financial risk of using your retirement funds or starting a business. This has become the nation's fastest growing form of funding compared to traditional methodologies where there's as much as a 50 percent failure rate in people that ball money to start businesses.
This program has had up to a 90 percent success rate after five years of people still being in business. Anytime you reduce or eliminate debt, you increase your potential for success. With this program, called The Rainmaker Plan, there are no loan payments, no interest payments. But more importantly, unlike traditional bank financing options, it provides a variety of wealth and income opportunities that you don't get with traditional bank financing options. But an important issue is, it's not how much wealth you accumulate in life. It's how much you keep. As an award winning entrepreneur, somebody that lectures across the country at universities and conferences, training people, experts that provide advisory services, building wealth and unprotected vehicle becomes very important, especially in light of what's happening in healthcare. There is no longer any concern about surviving a major illness or injury. The major concern today is surviving the cost of surviving.
If properly structured, we can help structure a business where the business assets income are protected for the rest of your life. This is regardless of whether you're incorporating or not. Incorporation only protects you from business liability issues, but doesn't protect you against the fastest growing erosion of wealth, which are healthcare related issues, that don't have to be healthcare. It could be an auto accident or some other personal liability issue. The big issue is protecting the accumulation of wealth. If you buy a business for $100,000, a few years from now the business ends up generating 150 $200,000 in profit. You now have a business that's worth over a half a million dollars for most people when they go to sell the business. That appreciation would be subjected to an immediate taxation issue. The government would come in and often take years of work in the form of taxes away from you, but with this program we can show you ways to take that wealth, move it into a vehicle that allows you to go buy a bigger, better business before any taxes are paid or move all that money into a retirement plan where that wealth is protected oftentimes for the rest of your life.
But the key thing is getting pre-qualified on the front end, finding out what options are available, or what combination of options are available. We help people with anywhere from a few thousand dollars up to $5,000,000 of investment opportunities. Oftentimes it's a combination of funding options to help you get to the financial reach that you'll have, so my recommendation is always have a free pre-assessment done. For anybody working with Lance Hood and his organization, we provide free consulting services, a pre-assessment at no charge and we're happy to do that. It'll take about 30 minutes of your time depending on how many questions you have and the resources that you have. I always encourage that you first get access to your credit score. You can go to Credit Karma.com and get it free of charge, literally in less than five minutes. But with that being said, either contact Lance directly to have you have you formally registered with us or there's a link. Hopefully there'll be a link on the screen. You can click on it and that information will come directly to me. I'm actually the vice president of Benetrends, but I specifically work with Lance and some other experts in the industry helping them live that dream of owning their own business.
Lance Hood: You'd talked about some pretty exciting things where the government was taking on some of your risk and some of the ways that people were able to get access to funds, without even a credit check.
Larry Carnell: Well, when we use retirement funds, it doesn't matter whether or not you've got a good credit score or not. You can have the worst credit score in the world and still be able to use retirement funds. However, if you're going to borrow money, then the lender's always concerned about your risk. So they typically want the credit scores no less than 680. The better, the higher, the better, the higher your credit score, the more money you can borrow. So that's part of the reason to do an assessment. To determined those issues, find out what options are available to you. Just like buying a house, there's no sense in going out and looking at a million dollar house if you only want to invest enough money to buy a $300,000 house. So, the purpose of the initial assessment is to let you know what the reach is.
Now you may qualify for a million dollars, but you may not want to look at that large of an investment. But knowing on the front end, it's better to have the ability to afford more and go look at a business and find out you can only afford half of it. So that's the reason it's so critically important to have these assessments done on the first part. This is not a process where you go find a franchise and then try to go get funding. It's actually the better way in light of challenges with funding right now and rising interest rates to find out what your reach is first, and again, we provide that for Lance and his team at no cost.
One other final component, especially for a lot of people that have spouses. In this day and age, it's not enough to have a good income? The average husband in the United States is two years older than the average spouse, but women are outliving men by an additional four years.
So it's not enough just to protect yourself. You have to make sure that that wealth is protected or surviving spouse and children so that you can leave a legacy for your children. We can talk about ways that are included in our programs to show you how to do that. The thing I always recommend is people be sure that you work with experts. Review the credentials of anybody giving you financial advice. To be quite direct, homeless people will give you financial advice, but that may not be the best place to get it. But working with people that are trained to help you filter the good from the bad makes a lot of sense.
To be quite honest, there are 4,000 franchise opportunities, tens of thousands of business opportunities out there. The key is finding somebody that can help filter the good from the bad. That's the reason using a consultant or a broker or similar to what Lance does is an excellent way to help avoid some very common mistakes. And with that being said, if you work with experts, you'll often reduce the risk of making costly mistakes for you and your family. But thank you for your time.
Lance Hood: Thank you, Larry, I really appreciate it and if you're listening today, you can absolutely click on the link and Larry will make you a priority. Thank you, Larry. I really appreciate you.
Larry Carnell: I look forward to working with you and your clients. Have a great day in which you all the best and much success and living your dream of owning your own business and building wealth for yourself.
Larry Carnell: Well, that's very nice of you to say, Lance it's a pleasure to chat with you. I've had a long passion of helping people live the dream of owning their own business. In today's environment to be quite direct. There is no job security on the j.o.b. anymore. I've lectured across the country to people that had been downsized or considering business ownership. I've been where many of you are considering going. I've owned several businesses myself. I'm actually a former recipient of an entrepreneur of the year award by the National Association of Entrepreneurship. I've lectured across the countries that universities have done seminars for people like Donald Trump, Susie Orman, some of the top business and franchise organizations across the country have asked me to come out and speak to prospective business owners. Unfortunately, once you've passed your mid forties, the fastest growing erosion of wealth and the biggest risk to business owners are healthcare costs. For that reason, we're seeing a dramatic rise in people being downsized once they start moving into their mid to late forties.
The reason is healthcare. Healthcare costs for somebody in their late forties and fifties can be four to eight times greater than somebody in their thirties. And if you don't think business owners are aware of that, then you're not being realistic. The fact of the matter is, you're a potential liability for a business owner as you move into your mid to late forties and fifties. And because of the cost, it's often cheaper to hire somebody younger and replace you. Now this is absolutely ageism, but if you sign any type of severance agreement, you lose 100 percent recourse of doing that. So, I've lectured across the country at organizations like light management, who's the world's largest outplacement firm. 10 years ago, fifty percent of my audience were people past their mid forties. Now, over 90 percent of the audience is people past their mid forties. Folks, it's not going to get better. It's gonna get worse.
There's numerous states studies show that if you're, as you progress in age, not only are you more likely to be downsized, but if you find the job, it's taking people twice as long to find a replacement. That's often a year or longer. The problem with that is that you're burning through savings and people are often having no other choice after close to a year looking for a job to take any type of job. This is resulting in 20 to 30 percent decreases in compensation and if you find the job, chances are you're going to find the job, you're going to take any type of job, not necessarily one that you enjoy, but just something to pay the bills. As a result of that, a lot of people are dissatisfied with the jobs that they end up with. If they get a job, they're keeping it on average, about two point four years and then they're back on the hamster wheel, so to speak, burning through savings again and at that point they're often not in a position to start another business. So my recommendation to people, is work with experts like lance who has expertise to help you filter the good from the bad. Lance works with one of the nation's most respected research firms that help you filter the good from the bad and the key is finding the right business. And there's one point, people think of franchises is McDonalds or what have you, but there are franchises now well under $100,000, even close to $50,000, sometimes less that you can get into and build wealth for yourself rather than being dependent on somebody else.
The question is, how do you fund the business? Funding a business is often the first step in the search process. It's no different than buying a house. You want to get prequalified first, so Benetrends has become the nation's number one, one-stop funding resource in the franchise community. We're the only provider that the international franchise association, who has never publicly endorsed a funding resource, publicly came out several years ago to publicly endorse us, for our services. We do all kinds of funding, SBA; small business administration; microloans; unsecured security; back lending; leasing. We also pioneered an innovative program that forces the government to assume as much as 50 percent of the financial risk of using your retirement funds or starting a business. This has become the nation's fastest growing form of funding compared to traditional methodologies where there's as much as a 50 percent failure rate in people that ball money to start businesses.
This program has had up to a 90 percent success rate after five years of people still being in business. Anytime you reduce or eliminate debt, you increase your potential for success. With this program, called The Rainmaker Plan, there are no loan payments, no interest payments. But more importantly, unlike traditional bank financing options, it provides a variety of wealth and income opportunities that you don't get with traditional bank financing options. But an important issue is, it's not how much wealth you accumulate in life. It's how much you keep. As an award winning entrepreneur, somebody that lectures across the country at universities and conferences, training people, experts that provide advisory services, building wealth and unprotected vehicle becomes very important, especially in light of what's happening in healthcare. There is no longer any concern about surviving a major illness or injury. The major concern today is surviving the cost of surviving.
If properly structured, we can help structure a business where the business assets income are protected for the rest of your life. This is regardless of whether you're incorporating or not. Incorporation only protects you from business liability issues, but doesn't protect you against the fastest growing erosion of wealth, which are healthcare related issues, that don't have to be healthcare. It could be an auto accident or some other personal liability issue. The big issue is protecting the accumulation of wealth. If you buy a business for $100,000, a few years from now the business ends up generating 150 $200,000 in profit. You now have a business that's worth over a half a million dollars for most people when they go to sell the business. That appreciation would be subjected to an immediate taxation issue. The government would come in and often take years of work in the form of taxes away from you, but with this program we can show you ways to take that wealth, move it into a vehicle that allows you to go buy a bigger, better business before any taxes are paid or move all that money into a retirement plan where that wealth is protected oftentimes for the rest of your life.
But the key thing is getting pre-qualified on the front end, finding out what options are available, or what combination of options are available. We help people with anywhere from a few thousand dollars up to $5,000,000 of investment opportunities. Oftentimes it's a combination of funding options to help you get to the financial reach that you'll have, so my recommendation is always have a free pre-assessment done. For anybody working with Lance Hood and his organization, we provide free consulting services, a pre-assessment at no charge and we're happy to do that. It'll take about 30 minutes of your time depending on how many questions you have and the resources that you have. I always encourage that you first get access to your credit score. You can go to Credit Karma.com and get it free of charge, literally in less than five minutes. But with that being said, either contact Lance directly to have you have you formally registered with us or there's a link. Hopefully there'll be a link on the screen. You can click on it and that information will come directly to me. I'm actually the vice president of Benetrends, but I specifically work with Lance and some other experts in the industry helping them live that dream of owning their own business.
Lance Hood: You'd talked about some pretty exciting things where the government was taking on some of your risk and some of the ways that people were able to get access to funds, without even a credit check.
Larry Carnell: Well, when we use retirement funds, it doesn't matter whether or not you've got a good credit score or not. You can have the worst credit score in the world and still be able to use retirement funds. However, if you're going to borrow money, then the lender's always concerned about your risk. So they typically want the credit scores no less than 680. The better, the higher, the better, the higher your credit score, the more money you can borrow. So that's part of the reason to do an assessment. To determined those issues, find out what options are available to you. Just like buying a house, there's no sense in going out and looking at a million dollar house if you only want to invest enough money to buy a $300,000 house. So, the purpose of the initial assessment is to let you know what the reach is.
Now you may qualify for a million dollars, but you may not want to look at that large of an investment. But knowing on the front end, it's better to have the ability to afford more and go look at a business and find out you can only afford half of it. So that's the reason it's so critically important to have these assessments done on the first part. This is not a process where you go find a franchise and then try to go get funding. It's actually the better way in light of challenges with funding right now and rising interest rates to find out what your reach is first, and again, we provide that for Lance and his team at no cost.
One other final component, especially for a lot of people that have spouses. In this day and age, it's not enough to have a good income? The average husband in the United States is two years older than the average spouse, but women are outliving men by an additional four years.
So it's not enough just to protect yourself. You have to make sure that that wealth is protected or surviving spouse and children so that you can leave a legacy for your children. We can talk about ways that are included in our programs to show you how to do that. The thing I always recommend is people be sure that you work with experts. Review the credentials of anybody giving you financial advice. To be quite direct, homeless people will give you financial advice, but that may not be the best place to get it. But working with people that are trained to help you filter the good from the bad makes a lot of sense.
To be quite honest, there are 4,000 franchise opportunities, tens of thousands of business opportunities out there. The key is finding somebody that can help filter the good from the bad. That's the reason using a consultant or a broker or similar to what Lance does is an excellent way to help avoid some very common mistakes. And with that being said, if you work with experts, you'll often reduce the risk of making costly mistakes for you and your family. But thank you for your time.
Lance Hood: Thank you, Larry, I really appreciate it and if you're listening today, you can absolutely click on the link and Larry will make you a priority. Thank you, Larry. I really appreciate you.
Larry Carnell: I look forward to working with you and your clients. Have a great day in which you all the best and much success and living your dream of owning your own business and building wealth for yourself.
- Are you financing the amount for the acquisition of your business?
- Do you have a retirement account in a 401 (k), personal IRA, or some other retirement savings account?
- If you could finance your business using these funds, and avoid paying taxes on the distribution, would you?