Today we are going to learn about loans for small businesses.  When should you, how should you and the pitfalls to look for. Joining us Buck Harris, he has spent a lifetime helping small businesses find the right loan. A very informative 30 minutes for anyone in a small business. Listen in...

WESA Retail Roundup August 26, 2025:

• Host: Glenn the Geek, Host of Horses in the Morning
• Facebook: Retail Roundup Facebook group
• Guest: Buck Harris
• Presented By: Western English Sales Association

Chapters:

00:58 - Understanding Small Business Loans

14:00 - Understanding Business Financing: Good Debt vs Bad Debt

21:44 - Understanding Loans and Financial Management for Small Businesses

29:21 - Navigating Small Business Loans and Financial Strategies

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of understanding loans for small businesses, focusing on when and how to seek financing.
• It highlights that credit scores are significant, yet they are not the sole determinant of loan eligibility for small business owners.
• The discussion reveals that having outside income can significantly improve a small business owner's chances of securing a loan.
• Listeners are advised to prepare their financial documentation meticulously to ensure a smoother loan application process.
• The podcast underscores the critical distinction between good debt and bad debt in the context of business financing.
• It is noted that small business owners should begin the loan process proactively rather than waiting for the last minute before critical financial needs arise.

Foreign.

You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network family.

Well, hey everybody.

Glenn the Geek, back with you.

Founder of the Horse Radio Network and host of Horses in the Morning, the longest running daily podcast for the horse world at 15 years.

Welcome to the WESA retail roundup.

The Retail Roundup is your go to virtual hub for all things retail.

Joining join panel discussions, learn from webinars, share your thoughts, ask questions and connect with your community.

We host a virtual event or share educational content every Monday via the Retail Roundup Facebook group.

Just a note before we get started.

Jen and I attended WESA in Dallas two weeks ago and recorded some interviews for a special episode that is now out on the Wisdom by WESA podcast feed.

They are all new products or companies to WESA and I think you'll enjoy the variety and you might even get an idea or two for your store.

So check that out.

If you haven't listened to it yet, it's out.

It's the last episode out on the podcast feed.

So today we're going to learn about loans for small businesses.

When should you.

How should you and the pitfalls to look for?

It's something that as a small business owner, over the years I've had to debate and we've done it a couple times and a couple times we decided we weren't going to.

So we're going to discuss all of that today.

And joining us is a friend of mine who spent a lifetime helping small businesses find the right loan.

And, and that's Buck Harris, who's sitting out in his very pretty scenery there at the farm in Aiken, South Carolina.

How.

How are you?

It's in North Carolina.

Is Aiken.

I can.

South Carolina.

I always get that mixed up which one it's in.

We're almost in Georgia, for crying out loud.

Yeah.

This is not an AI backdrop.

This is our little, our little farm in the background.

And I'm on my front porch and anytime I can be outside, I'm happy.

And when I'm elbow to elbow with you, Glenn, I'm even happier.

So it's great.

It's great to be here to talk about this stuff.

You might hear a little bit of wind kicking up there, but just know that he's got a beautiful barn and horses behind him.

So it's a pretty scene.

It really is.

So, Buck, thanks for doing this.

Can you quickly tell us about your experience in the small business loan world?

Absolutely.

I started off having my own business and borrowing money to do that.

And I did that for 15 years.

Ended up moving on from that for a variety of reasons.

And then I went back to school and I got an MBA and I became an intern at a company called Community Investment Corporation in Hamden, Connecticut.

And they're a small Business Administration, an SBA intermediary.

So I was learning about, started off with microloans, and it was just a great fit because I had my own business for so long.

I got this MBA and then I was able to look at business plans and talk to small business owners and tell them about the process of, you know, how you get an SBA loan, how much you can qualify for, and, and, you know, whether or not it's a good idea to even take out a loan and really become an advisor.

And I did that for all different loan sizes for 15 years, I think.

All the time I've known you, which is probably close to 12 years, I would think, or somewhere around there.

Yeah, you've been doing this.

That's what you did.

And now you're a professor, right?

Now I teach at University of South Carolina Aiken.

And I teach.

I started off with finance and accounting, and then they put me in some entrepreneurship classes and I'm teaching principles of entrepreneurship, strategic entrepreneurship.

So I have.

Small business is my world and I know it well.

And I'm, it's, you know, I'm very comfortable there and it's.

So it's always fun to talk about it.

For me, I think that's a perfect thing for you to teach too.

And it's so important now.

I'm glad they're teaching that in college today because a lot of us are entrepreneurs.

I mean, I've been a lifetime entrepreneur.

Right.

A serial entrepreneur is what we're called.

There are almost 35 million small businesses.

So we in, in a, in a school of business, you spend a lot of time focused on companies that trade on the stock market, bonds, stocks, and they teach finance.

But the reality is 99.99% of all, all businesses are small.

And if you don't have your own small business, you're probably going to work for somebody that has a small business.

And that's, you know, so I can bring that to a classroom and really create some real life experience.

For students, it's a.

It's really rewarding.

Well, I'm glad we're doing this today, because loans is.

It's one of the.

It's one of the things that as a small business, you're scared to do.

Right.

But yet, you know, you might have to.

And that's my first question.

Let's start at the beginning.

How, as a small business owner, do you know when it's time that I should save?

Seek out a loan.

If you're thinking that you might need to seek out a loan at some point, start.

Okay, just do it.

Just do it.

Just seek out the loan.

Because there's a whole education process that has to happen.

And you're going to talk to banks.

If you're, if you have any inkling of doing it, talk to your SBA regional office.

There's an sba, or, excuse me, district officers, an SBA office in every state in the country.

And it usually sits at one of the universities or sometimes it sits at the.

In the capital.

But talk to them, Talk to banks, talk to credit unions, find out, get the lay of the land before you.

It's like dating.

You know, you don't marry the first girl you meet.

You gotta.

You gotta find out what's going on out there.

And there's a.

And then once you have an education around it, you can start to understand where you fit in the landscape and whether or not you're going to qualify and what the rates are going to be.

But I always tell people, if you're not sure if you should take out a loan, take out the loan.

Because I've never had come, ever, in 15 years, hundreds and hundreds of loans, no one ever came back to me and said, I'm really sorry I borrowed this money.

It never, ever happened.

People come back to me and said, I should have borrowed more.

You.

But they never said, I'm really sorry I borrowed this money because.

Because leverage is power, and when you borrow money, you're creating leverage.

And just like the tool where you're.

You're leveraging something, it's powerful to have cash.

You can make decisions, you can be creative.

And when you're always, like, right here, I don't really have the cash.

I wish I. I'm going to make payroll.

You don't have the ability to be creative and take advantages of the opportunities, opportunities that you see in the marketplace.

So do it well when dealing with somebody like you who's helping them get the loan, whose whole mission is to help them get a loan.

Right?

Yeah.

What are the top two or three factors that have the biggest impact beside credit score?

We always hear about credit score.

Is credit score the only factor or are there other factors too?

No, there are many factors, but credit score is always kind of the starting point.

If your credit score is below 600, you really need to get your credit fixed before you can go forward.

And even if it's.

I was going to ask you if that was a magic number.

Well, 650 and under is still really hard to finance, especially as a small business owner.

And it kind of depends on some factors, but.

And that's your personal credit score.

That's your personal credit score.

One of the big factors is do you have some outside income?

So believe it or not, you know, if you're married to someone who's making a living and can pay your personal expenses, you have a much, much better chance of getting a loan.

If your credit scores, you know, 625 or 650 because you got dinged for something.

You know, if you have a lot of outstanding charge card debt, that's a problem.

But if you have low charge card debt and maybe your credit score is low because you missed a couple car payments or something weird happened, that shouldn't matter if you've got some supporting income.

But, but credit scores is, is important.

But the real, the most important thing is profitability.

What are you showing as profitability for your company and that.

Are you looking for a specific factor there?

Does it depend on the niche?

It depends on how much money you need to cover all your personal stuff.

So if you're making $35,000 a year in your business and you've got a, you're married to someone who makes $120,000 a year that covers your personal expenses, then you can probably get a loan because you've got available cash.

So cash flow is what it comes down to.

At $35,000 a year, you don't need to cover any personal stuff.

You've got cash flow to pay the loan back even if your business doesn't go up.

But if you've got a $35,000 income and it costs you $40,000 a year to live, and you don't have any support, then you don't showing any margin in there that has available cash to pay your loan back.

So cash is king.

And that's the reason why.

And this is the problem that Jennifer and I always had because we were always in business together.

So we never had that outside income that, that they were looking for.

Yeah, and it's important because banks, remember, banks don't take risk.

At least they don't want to.

They want a sure bet.

And if you're, if you've got a job, someone that's got a job, and they've been there 10 years and they make enough to cover your personal expenses, lending money to that, even a startup then becomes a lot more possible because startups are hard to finance, but you can, you can get money for a startup if you're in that situation.

I want to talk about startups in a second, but how's the environment right now?

Are they tightening up or they, you know, I don't know if this year things have tightened up in the loan.

Do you know?

I do know.

I think things have tightened up.

I know that the.

So.

So banks are kind of the first place you go to.

Big banks, then regional banks, then local banks, then credit unions, and then the SBA has options.

And when SBA is busy, that usually means that the banks have tightened up and they're referring people to the SBA intermediary lenders like Community Investment Corporation, where I worked.

So we could always tell.

And I did have a conversation with one of my former colleagues from there, and they're tightening up on restaurants, they're tightening up on gyms, small retail.

Some of the things that are a little harder to finance, even in good times, they've pulled back on.

So.

So maybe some of those loans I wrote before I left are suffering.

That's on them.

They're blaming you.

Yeah, so.

So you have a brand new startup with like no financial history.

What do they have to go through to, to get a loan?

So the first and foremost, supporting income, like we mentioned, is going to be really important.

But then a solid business plan that demonstrates, number one, you understand the business that you're getting into.

You know, you really can demonstrate your target market and you have a marketing plan that's going to bridge the gap between your product or service and the target market.

And if you've really clearly identified your target market and you know how to reach that market, then your financial plan needs to demonstrate that you've got the cash available to market to that target market.

And when you have the cash available to market to your target market and you and you and you speak their language, you are the brand.

I mean, horse people are pretty much always the brand.

The people that own tax shops probably have a horse, you know.

Right, right.

And people that do lesson programs, that own a training barn are probably showing and competing and they are the Brand.

So if you.

If you bring those things to the table, then asking for a loan is really a lot more feasible for a startup.

The.

The other thing is, do you have some cash to put in so that becomes important.

How about collateral?

Is that a thing anymore?

Oh, yeah.

Collateral is a big deal.

Like, I have a lot of equity in my building or whatever.

Yes, yes.

So if you already own the.

The barn and it's paid for and you can pledge that as collateral against the startup that you're going to begin in your barn, which would be a pretty unusual circumstance, but then the bank's happy because they're going to put a lien on that barn.

And if your business goes bust, you lose your.

The money you put in and you lose the barn.

And that's kind of the tough nut to swallow.

But remember, banks don't want to take risk.

They want to have.

What they really want to do is give you the cash against the equity that you already have.

So that's collateral and inventory.

Does inventory count as that?

No, it doesn't really, because the bank.

What's the bank going to do with your inventory?

Yeah, that's true.

They're going to sell it on pennies on a dollar and.

Yeah, it's a half.

Yeah.

I mean, we.

I once loan money to a guy who had a company called Ohm Pillow.

And it was.

It was a pillow that was.

That he had made in China.

And it had these herb packs that you put in.

So it was.

Oh, I'm like, oh, okay.

Herb packs that went in the bottom.

So if you had allergies, you put a different herb in there.

If you had Ed, you put a different herb in there.

You know, so all these.

And he went under and we.

We inherited all of his collateral, which was like a thousand home pillows.

And I think we sold the whole lot for like 50 bucks.

Probably the big lots or somebody like that that bought them, I don't know.

All right.

We just had Buck move in because of the wind was getting bad there in Aiken.

So thanks for doing that, Buck.

And I can see your pretty kitchen now.

So welcome to the cottage.

It's beautiful.

All right, so let's get back to small business owners.

Some are hesitant to take on debt.

So what's your philos on good debt and bad debt?

You know, there's different reasons for taking debt.

Right.

And does that matter?

Let me ask that first.

Does it matter my intention for the debt?

It matters a lot.

So anytime you go for financing, you have to be able to.

You have to be very specific about what you're going to spend the money on.

So it's easier to, to finance fixed assets than it is like, like if you're a brewery, it's easier to finance your, your equipment for your brewery than to try to finance marketing.

Because marketing, you're just throwing money in the wind hoping that it's going to work.

And I'm buying new tanks and equipment.

That's easier.

Yeah, we can't meet demand right now.

We need new tanks.

Okay, got it.

Or but marketing is always like, well, we're really not that busy and so we need.

Right.

To spend $50,000 on marketing.

And you know, no one knows if that's going to work.

So that's always a little, a little less risky.

And remember, from the collateral perspective, if you're buying fixed assets, then you, then the bank is going to attach that just like a car, a car loan.

The bank's going to attach that as collateral to the loan.

So they have some recourse there.

All right, so if you're going to look at the, at a list and the good reasons to borrow and the bad reasons to borrow, give us a couple of each.

Well, I don't know that there's.

Well, the biggest, we'll start with a bad reason.

I mean, the worst reason is we've fallen behind and we need to get caught up.

We've fallen behind in our bills or things are just, we're struggling and we need to borrow money because, you know, we think that's going to help us get it turned around.

That is often throwing good money after bad.

And no one likes to lend under those circumstances.

So if you've gotten yourself in that position, a lot of times it consider cutting bait and moving on before going deeper in the hole.

A good reason to borrow is I, I've got $250,000.

I want to buy a piece of property that has a barn on it.

And I'm going to open a commercial facility and I'm going to go to the bank and get what's called an SBA504 loan, which is a very low rate loan.

I only have to put 10% down.

The intermediary for the SBA will get a bank partner.

And at the end of the day, you've got the facility you want, you've got the money to fix it up because that can be included in the loan.

And if the business doesn't do well, everybody's happy because you still have the, you still have the asset.

And if you, if you can Hang it in there for five years, chances are that asset is worth a lot more.

And if you have to close up shop and sell the thing, the banks are made whole.

You walk out with a little bit of cash and it's, it's a, you know, and you're good to go.

So that's a good reason.

I would say the, the, another good reason would be if you have a retail store and you need inventory for Christmas and you, you're profitable and you can demonstrate that you've got demand, then banks will, will often kind of fight for your business.

And that's a, that's another good place to, to be in.

Is that the most common retailer?

Because most of our listeners are retailers or small manufacturers.

Is that the most common reason for a loan is, or is it people too?

I don't think so.

I mean, I think the, the most common.

I mean, it's, it's a common reason, but it's probably not any more common than any other.

I think, you know, for small manufacturing.

Again, SBA504 loans for equipment are fantastic.

You typically putting 10 down and then you get a low rate on the SBA piece and you have a bank partner, super powerful loan production for inventory.

Typically a line of credit is more appropriate.

So you get a $200,000 line of credit in the spring.

You get all your orders placed over the summer.

You're paying interest only on your outstanding balance.

So as your balance goes up, because you're placing your orders and you're putting deposits on things, you're paying interest on it, all this stuff comes in, you've exhausted your line of credit, Christmas is over, you, you're flush with cash, you pay off your line of credit to zero and you start over.

And that's a great way to grow a retail business because banks love that.

They love to get made whole at the end.

And then you, you know, I got 200 this year, next year I need 400.

Boom, you're in.

You know, and they, they see that trend and that they salivate over those kind of, those kind of deals.

So that's another, another loan product that's a good one for small business.

But those can be a little dangerous too, because you're banking on the fact that you're going to be able to pay that off.

And if you can't, you may be able to pay down some of it and then maybe, you know, turn it into the rest of it into a term loan or work it out with the bank.

But those can be incredibly helpful for growing Business, growing retail businesses.

So most small businesses now in retail have had to do some kind of online.

Right.

I mean, they've had to go to selling and shipping, and a lot of them have done that.

Does that matter when it comes to a loan?

How much is brick and mortar and how much is shipping?

Or don't you care as long as the sales are there?

I don't think anybody cares as long as the, the dollars make sense.

At the end of the day.

I think that one of the things that I've seen is people pouring tons of money into Google.

Google search.

You know, what's the word?

Ads and stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, you've, you've got all that SEO, search engine optimization stuff, and it works, but it's also a little bit risky because you can spend $25,000 to get $50,000 or $100,000 worth of business, which is great.

But when the SEO parameters change, sometimes you're left holding the bag and you've gone three months and all of a sudden you're not in the search, you're not coming up anymore.

And the company that's running this SEO thing for you has to rejigger all their arithmetic to get you back on top of.

I've seen some companies that come to me and say, you know, we just totally got hammered with that, so, you know, everything's a risk.

But I think that's a, that's a, that's a tricky one.

SEO especially is tricky because there's a lot of shysters in that market.

That's a market where they seem to, you know, flood to.

My brother's in the sign business and he all online.

Right.

So.

And he's done very well over the years, but he's had an SEO company for like 10 years that has done what you just talked about, made all those changes when they need to be made, but it was on a guaranteed monthly rate, so there wasn't any surprises.

And it's worked out very well because he was dealing with a good one, you know, and I think you gotta, you gotta be careful when you're dealing with SEO companies because there's good and even marketing companies, there's good ones and bad ones.

And you do your research.

Yeah, I think, you know, it comes down to, to finding somebody that understands your brand and understands your goals.

And if you, you're looking for a marketing person or company, they should be asking you lots of questions so that they, they don't assume that they understand your brand or understand your goals.

And then you Know, rebranding a little bit around some of their advice is often a good thing.

It's hard to take your company that maybe is kind of breaking even or doing, doing okay and just layering on a bunch of advertising and thinking that that's actually going to change it.

And I think that sometimes stepping back with a good advisor and really looking at the whole picture again, redefining your target market and how that brand is going to reach your market, maybe taking a look at your pricing.

I think pricing is one of the most challenging things for a small business.

And a lot of small businesses try to compete on price.

It's just a bad idea, especially for retail, really.

You're competing on service at the end of the day, and if you can, if you can provide better service, you're going to attract the customer that's got money to spend, ample money to spend.

And if you're competing on price, your margins are going to be smaller and you've got to get volume and.

And then suddenly your small business needs more money to become a bigger business and it kind of takes on a whole life of its own that a road you might not want to go down.

So let's talk about common misconceptions people have about the loan process.

So, you know, are there some, are there some common misconceptions people have that you have to overcome?

Like the conversation you have with everybody you ever gave a loan to?

Well, number one, it's going to take longer than you think.

A lot longer.

A lot longer than you think.

Number two, you've got to have your numbers in order.

So if someone came to, you want.

Do you want that from an accountant or you take it, do you want to see those?

Well, you can tell immediately when I've done my own numbers and an accountant's done my numbers.

Right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, yes, you should have professional services in the background.

There is no amount of money you save by not having a bookkeeper at some level is worth it.

And I can attest to that.

We've had not had bookkeepers over the years.

And we've had bookkeepers over the years.

The times we had bookkeepers and spent the money for them and it was always worth it.

Always, always, always.

And if I ever have I ever had you talk to someone who's got a bookkeeper that they like.

And you said, and we asked them, could you do this without a bookkeeper?

There's not a single person that said, you know, I'm considering dropping bookkeeping.

No one.

But somehow it feels like Something people can do themselves, and it's just a really bad idea.

So what, what most lenders are going to look for is a professionally prepared tax return from the most recent year.

So someone came to me now and said, I'm looking for a loan.

I'd say, well, do you have your.

Oh, we're on extension.

They're not due for another two weeks.

Is that, you know, the extension gets you to September 15th.

Come on.

I got nothing.

I know.

I got 18 months of no information from you except what you've produced internally.

Come back to me in a month when you do your taxes.

Come back or why.

You know, if you really want to make a good impression on the bank, get your taxes done on time.

I mean, that makes a big difference.

You immediately.

Because the, because the, the commercial bankers are always swamped with people that aren't going to get a loan that are, you know, they're casting nets and doing what they can.

They don't want to spend time with someone who's not organized or who's not committed to the process and who doesn't know their numbers.

Someone.

I would ask someone, well, how.

What was your profitability last year?

And they'd be like, I don't know.

Like, how do you not know?

Like, if you don't know that, I don't want to give you a loan, you know, like that.

I know.

You're a good point, though.

I think that's probably the best point you made all day, is know your stuff.

Yeah, I know you're busy frying bacon in the back, but you gotta, you gotta stop and count the bacon at some point and see what you know, what you've got.

The best people know their numbers every day.

They know what their goal is each day, and their staff knows their numbers every day.

You know, we're trying to do a thousand dollars a day.

We did 500 today.

That's not so good, you know, and then what are we going to do to fix that?

And so that, that way everyone's kind of on board and everyone's playing on the same team and sharing your numbers with a small, with your small business employees I think is really important.

There really shouldn't be any secrets.

Okay.

You know, it's interesting because we've, we've When I sold.

This is another thing, this is another tangent, but if you plan on selling your company at some point and you have the opportunity to do that, and a lot of people, their get out strategy is selling, right, the retirement strategy.

And I went through that three years ago, selling horse radio network to equine network.

Thank God we had our, we had an accountant and we had our numbers in order because it was, it was almost 80 documents over six months that we had to provide.

And we had all of that.

If I hadn't had that, this sale would not have gone through.

It would.

And they knew that.

They, their lawyers who deal with merchants and acquisitions all the time.

They're not fooling them.

I mean, they do this for a living.

I fortunately had a good lawyer too.

If you're ever going to sell your company, get a good merchants and acquisitions lawyer.

Because I didn't understand, I've read thousand contracts over my career and I didn't understand half of what was in that contract.

That's a completely different language.

Get a good lawyer.

You pay them tens of thousands of dollars, it'll be worth every penny of it.

You're going to get swamped with referrals.

Oh God.

It was, it was, it was awful without that lawyer.

The other thing is, you know, don't stuff money under your mattress.

You know, a lot of people, especially in the horsey business, Venmo is, you know, cash is flying in and you're spending money, spending money there and you don.

Any idea what's going on.

You just know that you never have any money.

So, you know, put the money in the bank, pay your taxes and charge accordingly.

You will sleep better, you'll grow your company more effectively, you'll be way more profitable and you'll.

If you do ever want to sell your business, you'll have the numbers that Glenn had and you'll be able to say, here's exactly what we did.

Not well, Lincoln nod.

We kind of stuffed some over here and we spent a little over there.

Or don't run all your personal junk.

You know, we bought a boat and now we're paying for it through our, our horse business.

Because who knows?

You know, like that kind of stuff happens all the time and, and it, it just doesn't bode well for when the bank looks at it because bankers are straight up, you know, they, they, they want to.

Nobody wants to bring you to underwriting and all your stuff to underwriting and then have them turn over rocks and find a bunch of stuff that you're not reporting or issues with your numbers, and they will, that makes that banker look bad.

So, you know, if you've got everything in line, better to better have everything in line and not be able to get the loan right now, knowing that you're going to be able to do it in a year, because that's critical.

This has been fantastic, Buck.

So let me ask you one final question.

Looking ahead, what do you see as the trends in small business lending?

And I'm sure you talked to your friend about that over the next five years.

Where are we going here?

And obviously a lot of that's political.

It has to do with interest rates and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, there's a lot of variables here that can change tomorrow and probably will with the way things are going right now.

But what do you see?

Now's the time to get the loan.

Don't wait.

Never, never wait.

Never wait.

You know, people, people who really want to start a business, they don't care about the interest rates, they don't care about the, the climate out there right now or the what's happened, who's in, who's running the show, tariffs.

Covid, you know, every.

It's because it never ends, honestly.

Yeah, there's always something, right?

I, I can tell you that for the last 30 years, people are saying these are times that are unprecedented.

They've never happened before, but that's always the way it is.

So don't, don't wait, don't, don't.

You know, if you're ready to do it, begin and start the conversation and have a long time.

If someone called me today and said, I need a loan for the spring, I love you, you know, don't tell me you need a loan for Christmas merchandise.

You know, way too late.

So, you know, a quick example of this is the first house I bought, interest rates were 17.

I didn't know an interest rate from my elbow, but I bought the house, I had the money down, I got a 17 interest rate, and everybody said I was.

I paid $60,000 for the house.

Everybody said I was so stupid to buy a house.

Then two years later, interest rates went down to 8%.

I refinanced my mortgage, the value of my house doubled, and I became the smartest person in the room because when the interest rates went down, the values went up.

Totally unpredicted.

But, you know, don't wait.

Dive in.

Make it happen.

So I'm going to ask one more question, actually, that I got, just came to mind.

Excuse me.

So if you.

A lot of people will take out loans when they're in business from friends and family.

Right.

That's how a lot of small businesses do it.

And sometimes those small businesses can't get loans elsewhere or they haven't even tried.

Right.

They just decide, I'm going to do it that way.

If you're going to compare the two, obviously taking a loan from a friend and family does not help you as far as your credit's concerned, as far as a lender in the future is concerned.

So are you better off going to a lender for the future in that?

I went to a lender, I took out this loan, I paid it back.

Now that looks good to the next time I have to go.

Because we're always borrowing money to expand or at least that's the goal.

If you're growing.

Yeah, you can't get away from risk.

Keep taking risk, keep borrowing money, keep growing your business.

No one really cares where you got the money.

This is Jack, he's come to visit us.

I see that.

Yeah, no one really cares.

For those listening, the cat has made an appearance.

No one really cares where you got the money from originally.

Even if you know, no one cares.

Like so commercial credit is not.

The credit scores are not really as powerful as personal credit scores.

So it's kind of in my experience banks are a little bit indifferent to some of that.

But the important thing would be to, to get the money to get started if you're going to borrow.

I could never borrow from friends and family.

Never.

I had my business for 15 years was a food business.

I couldn't do it because I couldn't bear the feeling of losing their money and not being able to pay them back, losing the bank's money.

So I think if you're going to borrow money from friends and family, that's fine.

Have it documented.

Haven't, you know, create a note with an agreement, make it official and assign.

And include in there all the stipulations, what happens if I die, what all.

That stuff, everything in there, make it a real.

If you go to an attorney, have it drawn up, make it a real agreement, have a conversation with that person that says, can you afford to lose this money?

I've had like 45 year old guys come to me and say, I'm going to borrow $250,000 from my mom.

And I'm like, can she afford to lose that money?

And they were like, well, that's pretty much all the money she has.

But you know, it's going to be fine.

I'm like, this is a really bad idea.

Why would you do that?

But if it's $20,000 and your parents can afford to lose it, you know, then they're, you know, they're doing what they need to do.

I'm all for staying out of the emotional side of it and trying to do everything you can to get the money from a bank.

That said, do not expand your business using charge cards.

That is the kiss of death.

Can't tell you how many people I've seen come to me with $80,000 in charge card debt.

They keep racking it up, and then they want to refinance it.

And no bank wants to refinance your charge card debt.

So if.

If growing or not growing depends on putting something, you know, you got a $25,000 charge card.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

It's a.

It's.

You're.

You'll never get out from under it.

It's.

It's horrible.

So better to wait.

Well, we're going to leave it on that.

There's the best piece of advice all day.

Buck, thanks for doing this.

We really appreciate it.

Absolutely.

My pleasure, Glenn, anytime.

And thank you for joining us today on the WESA retail roundup.

If you missed part of this, it'll be available on the WESA the Wisdom by Wesa podcast on the podcast player if you want to listen to the audio version, and Also on the WESA Trade Show YouTube channel and on the WESA website at wesatradeshow.com the Next Retail roundup will be in a couple of weeks because we have a holiday next week.

I cannot believe the summer's, like, coming to an end here.

You know, we're happy about that.

In Florida, it's been 100,000 degrees with 1,000% humidity.

I will be happy to get into fall.

So hopefully I know the rest of the country is kind of the same way, too.

We're all looking forward to that.

Be sure to sign up to join us live at the retail Roundup Facebook group.

That's where you can find all the details about which one is coming up next.

And I'll be back in a couple of weeks.

This has been terrific.

It's a topic we never discussed before, and I'm glad we did, Buck, because it's important to all of us.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Happy to dig deeper some point.

If you want to do it again, let me know.

And as a side note, because the listeners of this show won't know it, Buck's wife Helena was my first co host.

And Helena was my first co host.

Worked with her for what, 12, 13 years.

Yeah, and without Helena, the Horse Radio network wouldn't be here.

So kudos to your wife as well.

I'll let her know you said that.

It will mean the world to her.

And big hug to her too, of course.

Thanks everybody.

In a couple of weeks, Happy selling.