Suzy Granger joins Richard Parker and Deb Curtis discuss the pros and cons of using your 401k to buy a business. Many entrepreneurs consider tapping into their retirement savings to fund their entrepreneurial dreams, but is it a wise decision?

We explore the risks and benefits of this strategy, including potential tax implications and long-term financial consequences.

If you're weighing the option of using your 401k to buy a business, this video is a must-watch!

Remember to consult with a financial advisor before making any major financial decisions.

#401k #business #entrepreneurship

Welcome, where business buying banter meets no BS reality. Get ready to dive into the world of buying and selling businesses without the fluff and fancy jargon. Whether you're a seasoned business buying pro or a curious aspiring entrepreneur, this is where the real talk happens. Because in business, there's no room for sugarcoating. Let's get down to the brass tax.

Hello, hello, hello, Richard. How are you? Can't believe Thursday becomes Monday becomes Thursday become Monday. Here we are. Beautiful. Nice to see you. You too. Bring out more Thursdays and welcome ladies and gentlemen from all the various platforms out there online. Let's just hope Facebook and LinkedIn, they don't shut down today. Right. Yeah, right. Good point. I'm still having trouble with the AT &T nonsense that went on 10 days ago.

taking them this long to get my phone fixed. I didn't have, can't get a text message. So technology is wonderful when it works. Yeah. When LinkedIn went down yesterday, Richard, I thought I was hacked. I really did. I thought, Oh my God, what happened? So I was messaging everybody and it was worldwide. So rented platforms, rented space. Yes. So moral to the story is create your email list, ladies and gentlemen, and do something off the platform. Right? Back it up. Well,

Thank you. If you're seeing us from search funder platform, from YouTube, from LinkedIn, Facebook, wherever you are, we're glad you're joining us. And we come here every Thursday, Richard Parker and I, to bring you some tips and tricks. And I could say the S -H -I -T word, it would rhyme, but I don't want to be beeped out here, of everything business buying. So...

Anyways, today we got a special show, don't we? We have a guest this time, Richard. Yeah, it's great. We're very excited because this is something that you, you know, leveraging your 401k for an acquisition. And it's something that not many people know about. And it probably an equal number of people who may know about it are not well informed about it and all of the potential ways to, to utilize it. And so this is going to be incredibly helpful because.

Um, getting money for down payments, financing, leveraging, et cetera, are always a challenge for a lot of buyers. So this is going to be great. Looking forward to it. I agree. And you nailed it on right on the hammer as always. Um, I nailed it right on the hammer. Oh my God. I said that wrong. I'm the hammer on the nail. Okay. Perfect. Thanks for directing me. Oh, no problem. Um, but yes, uh, eligibility of down payment when it comes to business buying.

It's not just about the liquid cash, right? And I think too many people out there try to be the professional expert in other people's professional expert lanes, right? Did I say that correctly? Oh, that part you got spot on. Yes, absolutely.

Good. And as part of this challenge, and we know from previous shows and what have you, is one of the biggest hindrances people going into this process. They don't know what they don't know. So the smarter ones find out and align themselves with good experts and believable parties. And the other ones just, you know, sputter along and never get to the finish line. So this will be a great help for people. Perfect. Awesome. Well, without further ado, let's introduce our guest and bring her into the room.

Ms. Susie Granger with Guidant Financial. Hey, Richard. Hello there. How you doing? I'm well, thank you. Great. Are you wearing your guidance t -shirt? I am. Thank you. I'm a cheerleader for my company. You should be. I'm proud. Yeah, that's great. You should be. And you know, I am not the Robs.

Some people call it robes. Now listen, Susie, Richard and I, last week's show, we were having discussions about tomato or tomato, wheelbarrow or wheel borrow. Is it robs or is it robes? It's robs just like robbing a bank. Thank you, Uncle Sam. What a great acronym. What does it stand for? It stands for Roll Over as Business Startup. Okay. Which is also misleading. We can use this structure.

to acquire an existing business, which is what most of my clients are doing. They're gonna access retirement funds without tax or penalty and use that to leverage with, in most cases, an SBA loan to acquire an existing business. You can start a business with the Robs. You can add funds to an existing business with the Robs. But the most common day -to -day guy is acquiring a business and gonna leverage these funds with an SBA loan. Love it. Can you...

Utilize this as an existing business owner to acquire another business. So my guy has a business and he wants to expand his existing business or he wants to buy a completely different expand his business by making an acquisition. Yes. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Perfect. Well, maybe tell us Susie, what uses of the Robs, which is basically your 401k, your IRAs.

that are sitting around for years, what uses for business purposes can be utilized, moving the money into the Rob's program. You're going to love this. Okay. You can use a hundred percent of your available retirement funds as working capital in your business. Wow. A hundred percent of whatever your business needs, be it to pay the franchise fee,

pay the down payment alone, to purchase the equipment, the furnitures, the fixtures, to pay salaries, whatever it is. Instead of investing in somebody else's company through your 401k, a Rob's gives people the opportunity to invest those same dollars in their own company where they have control of the outcome. I love that. Now, what about, so I'm familiar with guidance for 20 years, as we talked about briefly before the show, I know David, you're...

founder since he started and well aware of plenty of buyers who've used your services. Everyone's always thrilled in the early days and people were a little concerned as far as getting the legalities of it. And that was a little bit of a couple of years to that everybody started getting very comfortable with and there was no clawbacks and all of that. And I'm sure you get this question all the time. I have some familiarity with the answer, but individuals...

And it fits well with the entrepreneurial spirit when people say, well, you know, I'm a little concerned. You know, that money is for retirement, obviously. And does it make, why sense, even though you just said, you know, investing in yourself, the risks that may be involved in acquiring a business, and then you add on a layer of risk with using your retirement funds to complete that acquisition. So what do you say to people in those situations who...

who express some concern related to the risk piece. That's a fair statement. And maybe a Rob's isn't for everyone, but if somebody has access to those funds and wants to get their deal done, it's a great opportunity. But I think it's a great opportunity regardless because you're not depleting all your retirement funds. Your retirement plan is buying stock in your company. So if your company is successful,

That increase is going into your retirement plan. That's the return on your investment. I wouldn't set the table with a little example. He's going to help us today. Okay. Right. Meet pizza guy and pizza guy has 95 ,000 in an old IRA. Clearly he wants to buy a pizza shop. The fee for us to put this whole thing together and we haven't even talked about what it looks like, but the, to do the whole structure term key.

is right at $5 ,000. It's $49 .95. I'm bad at math. We're going to roll it up. And here's the first point of compliance from the IRS. Pizza guy's got to pay that five grand out of his own pocket. And it cannot be reimbursed in cash once it makes its way into the corporation. But he can and will receive an in -kind stock exchange. Pizza guy just got $5 ,000 of stock.

attributed to him individually. And then we're going to set the structure up and he's going to roll his money from his old IRA into the new 401k. And that's a qualified rollover, no tax, no penalty. And then through the 401k, he's going to invest not in somebody else's company, but in his own corporation. So the dollars are now into his corporate account. And in most cases as a throw down number,

we're going to use $10 a share. Right. Right. Well, what happens if eventually this stock is worth $20 a share?

that return on his investment is going to be within his 401k plan. Right. And when he sells his business, those dollars will roll out to an IRA away from the company. So let's keep pizza guy in mind. He's going to help us quite a bit. Okay. That 95 to 5 % split. It's not always a beautiful percentage like that, but it's something close for most of my clients. Most of my clients are only going to invest hard dollars, the amount of fee that they're paying us.

and the rest of the money will be coming from a retirement plan or multiple plans. So pizza guy is going to help us. So first is, could we get a pizza? That's question number one. Question number two, for example, when people go down the SBA road, it's highly encouraged. Obviously, they should be pre -qualified, in other words, and they should do that really early in the process so that they don't find out.

when it's way too late or they've engaged with a seller that they can't pre -qualify. How does individuals who want to explore this possibility, is there a pre -qualification? Obviously, if you have a retirement plan, pretty much it's going to qualify, sounds like, but, or is it that, or does someone have to go to a certain stage with you to find out if they pre -qualify before they spend five grand? Or is like, hey, if you have a retirement plan, you pre -qualify, you can use this. Let's talk about that for a minute.

Okay, so just about any type of qualified plan 401k IRA 403 B through saving plans 457 plans, pensions, annuities can be used in a Rob's the things that cannot be used in a Rob's is a Roth IRA taxes already been prepaid. So there's no benefit. And the other thing is an inherited IRA can't use that in the Rob's.

And if we're using 401k or anything that's attached to an employer, for the most part, it's gotta be prior employer. So you've already been terminated from that position or you're gonna leave that job to purchase the business. So the funds have to be available and we're looking for a minimum of $50 ,000. Below 50, this process doesn't make a good economic impact for my client.

Okay, interesting. And one last question that Deb, you jump right in. I remember a number of years ago, you have to acquire or set up a C Corp. Is that still in place? It has to be done through a C Corp? Yes, that's right. And it has to do with the types of shareholders we need to support, right? We've got to be qualifying employer security. That's what the 401k plan is buying. And so a C Corp is our only option there. When the tax law changed in 2018, and that...

corporate tax rate went to a flat 21%, much less pushback on the C Corp than I used to get. Right. Right. Awesome. That was one of my questions. So thank you for bringing that up, Richard, about the C Corp. My pleasure. That's why I'm here. It's why you pay me the big bucks, Deb. We'll walk right into it. So, Suzy, I'm thinking back to my days when I was working at the banks as the direct SBA lender.

Now today I source all the different banks for my buyers, but back when I was working at the banks, there were banks that wanted to work with only Rob's companies known as guidance and maybe one other that's a big, big one. But there were a few small banks that had their own smaller Rob's providers.

I've heard a lot, just like in any industry, there are a lot of representatives that say they know how to deliver a Rob's just like other professionals say they know how to do an SBA loan, but they, they are not the expert. Um, how do you get around that? I mean, it seems to me today, cause I would talk to potential buyers and I still do today and they have who they believe is.

the provider they want to work with that's a far distance from a big company known as Guidant Financial. And I hear a lot of horror stories that because there are so many IRS compliance, annual audits that need to be done or handed into the IRS, and I'm not the expert there, but share with our listeners the importance of working with an experienced

incredible Rob's provider like you with the big guidance financial name that's been around for decades. The why, because it's so critical to the future of Uncle Sam maybe wanting to do an audit, right? So let's hear about that. Absolutely. And thank you for the opportunity. Guidance financial is the big dog in the space. We're the largest and have done more plans than any other.

And I was surprised when I came here that we are indeed the most conservative provider of this structure. And we have to be because we do so many. And maintaining compliance of these plans is such a critical piece that we're educating the client on that. We are constantly striving to make the clients experience and steps they have to take annually to update, you know, get their reporting and whatnot done easier and easier.

We've integrated a lot of things. I'm really impressed with the way Guidant uses technology. But the main thing is, is we're going to do it correctly the first time. So when we're using an SBA loan, there's a ton of documentation that has to be collected to keep the ROBS compliant with the SBA's rule book or the SOP. And as we go along our process, we're gathering this documentation.

Those documents collectively are called the SBA waiver packet. And Guidant produces that waiver packet with a beautiful bow. I'm so impressed that this information is as quickly as possible given to our lender. So they have everything they need to get this thing to go through underwriting quickly. We've got various channels here at Guidant. I really appreciate the way that we're structured. I'm in professional services like SBA lenders.

There's another account manager on that side with me. And then we've got a huge franchising vertical as well with account managers on that side. And then we have added a bookkeeping, accounting, and tax vertical. Very great pricing. I'm really impressed with how that's reachable for our entrepreneurs. But the whole idea there is to help get them on the right foot right from the very beginning. Super helpful for our entrepreneurs. So just that we can take this from a full.

holistic approach of not just this one transaction, this one point in time, but we're going to be partnering with you moving forward. Now you may not want to use this for your accounting and that's fine, but when it comes to the compliance component, not only are we going to handle all of that, but we're also going to provide you with IRS protection, audit protection on the plane itself. I love that. Do you go into, you know,

Any qualification process related to questions. One, do you go into any qualification process related to the business? I do. It's got to be something that's appropriate. So something that's appropriate for an SBA loan is appropriate for a Rob's. Got it. So no dispensaries, no strip clubs. Sorry. No churches. Nothing that the SBA wouldn't do. No churches?

Okay. Nonprofit. Nonprofit. Now, how long is this process from beginning to end? You bypass a lot of the challenges related to an SBA loan because by and large you've outlined it. People, people qualify if they're the plan that they have in place is qualified, but from the beginning to end for you to get this done application done funded, et cetera. How long does, how long is a buyer facing? It's a 30 day timeline for most states. Okay. That's great. From engagement to dollars in hand.

If you're in California, it's going to take a little longer, maybe two weeks longer. If your funds are coming out of something easy like an IRA or an available 401k, 30 days on nine day. If it's coming out of a thrift savings plan, I like to give this warning, dollars come out of there very slowly. I like to add six weeks to that process. So for military folks coming back in, the earlier the better. But as far as timing the appropriate time for somebody,

to engage for their robs. It's never too early to explore and to get the education, understand how this would look in your deal. But once you've got a deal targeted and somewhat of a nod from your lender, then it's time to begin with the robs. How do you deal with, how do you deal with, unfortunately, in the lower end, lower market, 50 % of the deals that go into the due, go into due diligence fall apart. And so,

What does someone do to mitigate that where they want, you know, they want to go down this road, leverage the retirement plan and ultimately the deal doesn't go through this. Do you, because they can't start putting the money back in, of course. So does this something that once everything's signed off, done closing data set, and then the wheels start turning and then this is just going to be another 30 days? No, no, no, not at all. So, um,

We all know in the 11th hour deal can fall apart. I'm sure we've all experienced that certain kind of hell that you go through when that happens, but way too often. But so what happens next is up to my client. Some people are like, skip it. I'm going back to corporate America. I tried, I was scared. It didn't happen. I'm going back. Scurry, scurry. And my super entrepreneurs, what I like to call them. They're like, I'm just going to buy another business. I'm going to target another deal.

So even if they've executed their robs, they can continue to, you know, develop a business for them to purchase and buy. And they've got, you know, some grace there, 12 months. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. And we're going to take a break in this show right now for our loyal listeners on all the platforms. This is our who's the Dupa segment. Are you ready? I'm ready.

All right, here we go. I have a story here and we will get back to Susie and the Robs as in Rob a bank is the right way to pronounce the acronym, but we will have an all of our futures episodes, a who's the Dupa? Am I the Dupa segment talking about small businesses in general? And I find stories or we take stories that Richard, I, Susie,

We've, we've got stories, right? Both of you, we could tell you lots of stories. We've got stories coming out of our stories. You got it. That's where we learn. So listen up listeners, Richard, Susie, I have, I'm going to read this to you and we're going to just collaborate afterwards. My grandfather's business, a family legacy, a small business was near collapse when he retired due to health and financial struggles. Despite reluctance from my father,

my siblings and other relatives in the family, they doubted my efforts and they favored grandpa selling the business that was struggling. He invested the fella writing here, his story, the son, he invested his retirement savings, go figure, he should have got a Rob's back then. Absolutely. Right. 1 -800 -CallSusie. So he invested his retirement savings to keep

Grandpa's business afloat. Ignoring his family's skepticism, he not only revived the business, but expanded it to three locations, paying off his grandfather for the sale of the business within three years. Woo. I know. Now the business is successful. The business's growth changed his frugal lifestyle because he was a penny pincher prior, probably why he had savings to help grandpa during the tough times.

So after years of modest living, he built a dream home and he unveiled his home at a recent family gathering. Bad move. I know he should have never done that. Surprised by our success, his relatives speculated on his earnings from grandpa's now former small business, leading to demands for a share and or payout from family members of grandpa's former business.

He insisted that he took the risk to invest and turn around the business back in the day when no one else in the family would step up. He further explained his responsibilities of past and present are his immediate family and the continued success of what is now his business. This situation sparked backlash and accusations from my family of selfishness. Despite their criticism,

He stood firm, valuing his efforts and the right to decide on his business's dividends. Who is the dupe in this situation? Easy, lay up a gimme. Certainly not him. You know, it's like, it reminds me when these situations very similar, cause I've seen it repeatedly where you go to family members to borrow money and ultimately. So.

The ones that are willing to lend you money, if the business is successful, they'll, they want all the credit. And the ones that said they don't want to lend you money are the ones who, if the business doesn't go well, they're the ones who had said, I told you so if it failed. And so it's just, it's very typical. They are entitled to less than zero. Actually, they're entitled to one thing, a good smack in the mouth, as far as I'm concerned. Really, they've done nothing. It's very easy to sit back as a Monday morning quarterback. I understand his family, but if I'm sitting in his shoes,

It was done to stimulate economy. So companies didn't have to save for people's pensions anymore. Put the hands of retirement savings in us, the employee and not the employer. So there's a specific section of ERISA that allows you to through your 401k invest not only in publicly traded stock, which is what we all typically do, but also in privately held stock of an active business that you're an owner operator in. So David.

to turn this into a business. So to me, there's two parts of this conversation. One, all the fabulous things that you can deliver to people through the programs that you have at Guyden. But we have a lot of entrepreneurs on the show. I'm just fascinated that this is a beautiful tale of someone who recognized an opportunity that's been sitting there for 27, 28 years and nobody took advantage of it. He saw this and built us into a monster. I mean, that's...

That alone is a great story. I don't even know if he uses, I wonder if he uses 401k to finance the original startup, but the whole story is phenomenal. No, David, we have a co -founder, Jeremy Ames. They started off with a self -directed IRA. Yep. And they moved into what we do now, which is, is the Rob's plans. And I'm just really happy to be a part of this team. It's a, it's a great group of people. It's a wonderful company to work for. And.

They've been very good to me, given me all the opportunity to reach out to folks like we're doing today, which education is key surrounding ROBS. People don't know about it. You know, we're always taught you cannot touch your 401k. You cannot touch your IRA. You're going to have big tax, big penalty. And that's true if you just cash it out or take the money, right? But using a ROBS gives you access to 100 % of those retirement funds. And I think we talked earlier that there's a minimum of $50 ,000.

It doesn't have to be one account. Maybe the husband has 25 in his and the wife has 25 in hers or maybe two unrelated people. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how many people are rolling their plans into this Rob structure and investing in the company and having people invest hard dollars into the corporation if that's part of the deal. Any combination that's fine and it doesn't affect the fee or the time.

I can't help but think of how many corporate employees out there that were seasoned for years and then they left and went to another employer and left their 401k still sitting behind at the old employer. How often do you see that, Susie? A lot. And this is the other thing I see. So I told you, you know, 401k has to be available, but there's some questions to ask. It doesn't always have to be prior employer. Let's say I worked for bank A for 10 years and participated in their 401k. And then I moved to bank B and I rolled bank A's 401k.

and to bank these, the portion I rolled in can come out in a ROPS. There you go. And look at that. I know. Wealth of information. You're great. Really. It's a very helpful and really, really, really interesting. I'd like you to give us some feedback regarding CPAs and it's similar to what some people think about SBA. Some can't stand it. Some love it. And it really depends upon.

who you're working with as your front end lender. That's only because they haven't met you yet, Deb. That's right. Those are the ones that'll love it. There you go. When you talk, Rob's, I've spoken to some CPAs who just don't even want to talk about it. It's like, okay, well, I'm not the expert, but I know of one and her name is Susie and she has done many transactions, at least with my referrals that were successful and they are operating.

a business and earning a salary and adding income to their new business balance sheet and growing because of the benefits of the Rob's program. So how, how do we get around CPAs? Some, not all that have their own opinion, right? What I have found in my experience is that they're not familiar with it and just on the face of it, they say no. Okay. And then the next thing, if they consider it at all,

No C corps, no C corps. There are CPAs out there that are still forgetting that 21 % tax rate. Absolutely. If I'm in an LLC, everything's flowing onto my tax return, which is fine if you're losing money, but what happens if you're making profit? You're going to pay your personal tax rate on any dime of profit. If you're in an S corp or an LLC in a C corp, 21 % flat tax. Most of my clients individually are in a higher tax bracket.

than 21%. For C Corp, for most people that I deal with, that's a 19 % tax savings just alone for being in a different entity type as corporate LLC. Could you give us maybe one or two recent funded transactions that involve the robs specific to purchase financing and established business? Because most of our listeners from SearchFunder and all the other platforms, they're aspiring to buy a business that's profitable.

Give us a story or two before we close out the show. Sure, sure. So I love pets and anything related to pets is a great business. So I've got a recent transaction where the people were acquiring a cash flowing non -franchise bougie dog daycare grooming, you know, the whole thing. They bought the real estate and the business. It was a fairly large transaction. I think it was 3 .5.

And their equity injection or their down payment requirement was 10 % on this deal. So that means they had to bring $350 ,000 to the table. Now that deal included about six months of ongoing working capital. So there was going to be money left in the bank account after the deal closed, right, to support that business. But the husband and his mother.

The wife didn't have, no, she wasn't leaving her day job. So she's a teacher, that's a 403B. So her husband and the wife's mother had retirement funds. They came together in the Robs, came up with the 350. So the C -court becomes the borrower in this case. And my shareholders in this instance were the husband and the mom through their 401Ks. And then the...

husband and the wife through splitting that $5 ,000 fee, right? That gives them a small percentage of ownership. Now that's creative. That was a very successful deal. That's great. I have an older deal that happened last year. When you're doing a ROBS, if your deal includes real estate, the real estate has to be an asset of the C Corp, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not traditional or historic way to do a deal with real estate.

and his business is so successful, now he wants to buy real estate and put a warehouse on it. Does he still have to keep it in the C Corp? Like, yep, as long as it's still, the 401k is still a shareholder in that business, we've got to keep the real estate in the C Corp. He said, how, what do we do? How can we get it out? I said, well, for somebody to exit a Rob's, you've got to eliminate the 401k plan as a shareholder. And most of my clients,

will use post -tax dollars. So he's run his business, he's estimated his taxes, what's left over he can put up into the plan for his own future retirement benefit, and that retires those shares down to corporate treasury. Once the plan doesn't only share the stock in the company, we can roll those dollars out into IRAs, away from the company, and get out of our robs. Eliminate the C -Corp, no restriction for an EPCOC.

So I told my lender friend, I said, ask him how much does the 401k dollar wise still owe in the corporation? And it was only $48 ,000. So what this partner did was loan him enough to exit his robs and to do the project, which included the real estate. But he was able at that point to split the real estate out. And so when I look at my clients over time, and Deb, there's been about 6 ,000 of them, me personally, I just dig what we do. I dig what I do for a small business, I really do.

Did I hear that right? You've funded 6 ,000 of these transactions, you yourself. Now that's called experience. And that's who you want on your side. Listeners. Absolutely. Amen to that. I'm proud of it. I'm polypicturatic about Main Street. I really am. Love it. Wow. That's a great way to end the show on a high note. Yeah. 6 ,000 transactions to keep small business alive and thriving in our country.

That's what it's all about, right, Richard? Oh, absolutely. Phenomenal. It's a great story all the way around the whole company, things that you're able to do. There's nothing more gratifying when you're able to do something good for good people, right? I mean, that's the world that we live in. And if everybody would do that in the same way or good way, it makes all of small business, helps all the small business, makes it more interesting. So great story. And we really appreciate having you today. I know everybody's going to find it really, really helpful.

So Deb, we have some good questions. Let her rip. You know, let's take a look here. I'm just going through. I think we were doing all right. We don't have any questions. That's good because obviously, Suzy maybe answered all the questions or everybody needs a little bit of time to process it. So here's a thought. If we put up her QR code one more time, if they have a question, they need to reach out to Suzy. Exactly.

There it is. Connect with Susie Granger with Guidant Financial. Honestly, I've known her and I highly recommend her. There are so many other providers out there practicing this program, but they're not 6 ,000 funded transactions ready like Susie is. Yeah, and they've been doing this for 20 years. So,

You know, it's all the way around. I mean, you guys have a terrific reputation. You obviously really know what you're doing. You're a wealth of information for everybody listening. So thank you. Of course, thank you for that. And absolutely you want to, you want to align yourself with the smartest people in the room. And then you're going to your hope when you do that with your team, it's just going to make your whole deal better. And so, um, you definitely want, uh, someone like Susie on your team and, uh, really, really very, very helpful. I learned a ton today. So thank you for that. That's my pleasure. Enjoyed it. You guys are who?

Oh, yes. Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for stopping by this Thursday. We're here every Thursday on your favorite streaming platform, including searchfunder .com. This is Business Buying Banter, Deb Curtis, Richard Parker, our guest, Suzy Granger. Thank you, and we will see you next Thursday. Thanks, Deb. Ciao. See you later. Bye.