Financing Growth For Small Businesses with Roberta McCullough

0:02Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the Epic Entrepreneurs podcast where we are all about helping business owners just like you achieve success. So we don't do fancy smancy. We don't do flashing lights. We don't do a lot of things that a lot of podcasts will do. These are just real stories about real people and their entrepreneurial and business experiences. We go into their wins, their challenges, and their learnings. So we hope you enjoy it.

0:41All right. Welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Cliff McRae, filling in for Bill Gilliland with your local business training and coaching firm, Action Coach Business Growth Partners. I'm excited to have Roberta, is that McCullough? McCullough. How do you say that? McCullough. Okay. Just want to make sure I say that. McCullough with Institute NC on as the focus for our Epic Entrepreneurs podcast today. So Roberta, please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and your company and what primary products or services you offer the community. All right. Thank you so much, Cliff, for having me.

1:14I'm very excited and waiting on this moment. So my name again is Roberta McCullough, and I work for an organization called the National Institute of Minority and Economic Development. Institute Capital, which is what we'll focus on this morning, is the lending affiliate of the organization. As for me personally, I was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina. I I still have a lot of friends there and associates. So I'm very excited to be able to share just more of what I'm doing. Some people know, some don't. So in terms of Insta Capital or ICAP, as we call ourselves, we are what's called a Community Development Financial Institution or a CDFI for short.

1:57There's a lot of acronyms in the nonprofit world. We are a nonprofit organization. And our focus is lending and providing some grants to small businesses across our particular footprint, which we'll just focus on, obviously, Western North Carolina this morning. But we actually lend in five states. And we also lend to affordable housing developers to help them get started with new projects. So have a lot to offer in the space that we are going to be talking about this morning, which is economic recovery, economic development, community development. It's what I want to focus on this morning. So that's a tidbit of what we're going to talk about.

2:38Perfect. Perfect. I love that. That's a great intro. All right. So if you had to start, you know, from square one in your business, what would you do differently? So for someone that's starting a business, I mean, businesses start different ways. Some of them start literally as a hobby and they realize, hey, this is gaining traction. This is what I love. This is my passion. And they translate that to a revenue-generated opportunity. Others may buy a business that's already existing. But no matter where your entree point is, you want to make sure that you understand what the mechanics of the financial mechanics of it, not just focus on the revenue.

3:17But yes, you want to know how much you're going to make, but you also want to know how much it's going to cost you to make that money. So it's really great to put things on paper and not just keep everything in your head. But as a lender, we find that a lot of times some businesses that have been in business for some time or a short time, they keep everything in their head and they don't do their financials to get a visual of where they are. You have to look at your financials more than once a year, not just in tax time, but you really need to do it at least quarterly. for putting a simple spreadsheet, putting down what you've earned and what you've spent.

3:56Because how will you know if you're making a profit, if you're not visually looking at, you might be making$100 ,000 a month, but if you're spending$150 ,000 a month, then you're losing money. So that's what we see a lot is that you have to really track your income and your expenses. And it doesn't have to be an elaborate process, but you definitely need to do that. Okay. Yeah, love it. Love it. So what have your biggest learnings been as an owner and employer since you started your business? Well, I don't own it. No one owns a nonprofit, right? But we certainly run it as a chief operating officer.

4:33But, you know, even in that field, you have to have an ownership because I do run it as a business. So in terms of employees, if you have them, is getting the right people in position. Sometimes with small businesses, we kind of go to people that we know, maybe hiring friends and family. That's not always the best idea, unless they have the skill set that you need. So you want to make sure that you really screen those employees for the skill sets that you're looking for. Some things you can teach, but some things people need to walk in the door with that particular skill to help your business grow.

5:14And one thing that business owners don't ever think that you have to know it all, I certainly don't. Even though I have the role as COO, I have people on my team that can do things better than me. You know, because that's what you want to fill those gaps of things that either you need help with or that you're not the strongest in. So that way, your team, you have everything covered instead of having everybody that can do one thing. Yeah, yeah. And then you can also delegate, right? Oh, yes. Delegation is the key. It is absolutely the key. That's another, and thank you for bringing that up, Cliff.

5:48That's another point that as business owners, you don't have to do everything. As a matter of fact, it's best that you don't do everything because number one, if you're doing everything, you can't be sick. You can never have a day off. You can never have downtime, but you have to kind of delegate. You have to start small because some companies may only have a couple of employees, and that's fine. But you can always get a contracted person just to cover something for a shorter period of time and not necessarily put them on payroll, but you can still get the job done. Yeah, love it. Love it. So what are some common misconceptions about running a business and how do you address them?

6:30Common misconceptions is that even though your business hours may be nine to five, as a business owner, you are always on. And, you know, I know some may say, well, she's an employee. How would she know? Well, I happen to be married to a business owner. So, so I live, breathe and work it every single moment of my life. So, and, and he's never off. It's always, you're always thinking about the next thing and doing the next thing. So you're never, you're never off. So the reality, set your hours, you know, whatever your operational hours are, but know that there's going to be some times where, you know, you're working around the clock.

7:13You know, you get some sleep, get rest, rejuvenate. But, you know, that's a misconception that people think, oh, when I close my doors at five, then I can go to the park or whatever. Maybe you can. But sometimes there's some work to do after that. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, those that are listening. Everyone's probably shaking their head like, right, right. Right. Because it's a but, you know, you have to give yourself some grace and not try to do it all at once. Yeah. And take vacations. Right. Take vacations. It is absolutely OK. Turn everything off there, too. And we'll try your best to turn everything off on those vacations.

7:47That's hard. It's tricky. I know just as a sidebar, when we do go on vacation, I'm like, OK. I'm giving you the first day and a half to wind down and make your calls and do whatever, because it's hard to turn that faucet off. But you got to have a couple of days where you just unplug. Yeah, love it. Love it. So what do you attribute your growth to so far? I attribute it to going back to the employees having the right team, having it as a as has been said, having the right folks on the bus. and the right seats on the bus. And sometimes it takes time. I mean, our organization has been around for 26 years.

8:31We actually acquired it through a merger in 2020, right at the very tip of the pandemic. And so I had to build my team from scratch. And it's taken from that point to now to get the right team members. And so now we have a solid team. I have 10 people on the team that we cover five states. And so because I have the right people, we can do that. Okay, great, great. And I know you kind of, we just kind of actually just covered this a little bit, but how do you properly balance your personal life with the demands of running a business? That's a great question. You have to really have a cutout point.

9:10I've known, I know a lot of entrepreneurs because I'm clearly in that space from a lending and from a personal life. And I have learned from them in that you have to literally block time off on your calendar and have and it's really good to have a cutoff at the end of the day. Say, you know, after eight o 'clock or after nine o 'clock, I'm not going to do anything else because you have to to to wind down. And, you know, some people have spouses or children or caring for parents or whatever the case may be. So it's really about balancing and it's okay if you don't get everything done that day because there's tomorrow.

9:51Not that that sounds like it's not procrastinating. It's just being realistic. Then what can I get done today? And just refresh that list every day. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah. And we talked about a little bit about this earlier, but let's dive into it a little bit more. What qualities do you look for in employees and how do you foster a positive and productive work environment? Yeah, I've been fortunate, Cliff, to I've been in management for for some decades. And I have learned along the way at first I was always looking for just skill, skill, skill and not really paying attention to personality and a cultural fit.

10:28I mean, like a work culture. So I've learned over the years to to pay more attention to make sure that with the current team that I have, that is this person a cultural fit, a work cultural fit for the organization, knowing what we do? Because sometimes people have excellent skills, but they might not really like to honestly be around people. I mean, I've seen that. Would they rather be in their office with the door shut and just work, work, work? Well, that's not a cultural fit for how we operate. It may work in other places, but it doesn't work for us. So it's really a matter of just understanding their working styles.

11:08So I pay a lot of attention to that. And that has proven to be the best approach, at least for our organization. Because even though it's a nonprofit organization, we wear a lot of hats. And so you have to be, you know, there's some flexibility that has to be part of that person's culture. You know, if they're just like, no, that's not my job, then this is not the job for you. because sometimes we have to pivot and do things that may not be part of that description. Yeah, no, no, I agree with you on that. Like I had a prior position, prior job I was at actually where there were people that I was actually managing.

11:46And some of them I had big problems with. They would come into the office and as soon as they come into the office, they close their door and stay in their door closed all day. And I'm very much a people person. Like I like to have people come into my office. Let's sit down. Let's chat. What are things that are going well in the company? What are things that aren't going well? You know, I want to have these discussions. When you have people that come into the office and they just want to be just shut off, that's not a good fit for me. It's not a great fit at all. No, no. And it's actually kind of, it affects morale, you know, because, you know, the team may be like, well, what's going on?

12:20You know, why is this person, you know, not engaging? I mean, we all have jobs to do, but there has to be a camaraderie among your team and among your employees. but there's a problem. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. All right. So let's go ahead. Yeah. That's all the questions. So let's go to the quick fire round. So I'm just going to bring the energy real quick. I'm going to give you a couple of quick little words and you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind when I tell you this about the business. So education. Necessary. Necessary. Okay. All right. Planning. Paramount. Planning is key.

12:58Okay. Inspiration.

13:03useful useful in the future you have to be inspired or you're stuck and commitment number one requirement above all if you committed everything else will come beautiful beautiful yeah i love that all right so yeah that's a quick fire round so what words of advice would you offer other business owners or other people in top you know i know you're not necessarily a business owner but people in the top positions who are looking to grow further? I would say, to be clear, if someone's owning a business and they want to expand, is that what you're asking? Yeah, they're looking to grow their business even more.

13:46Let's say they're looking to double the revenue in the next three years or whatever the case may be. Yes. Okay, excellent. I would say, obviously, I'll put my lender hat on for a moment. I would say that consider the fact that if your growth requires additional capital, talk to a lender. It doesn't have to be us. So talk to a lender and see if that is what you need to grow your business. People think that debt is not a good thing. Well, there's good debt and there's bad debt. And if you have a plan for that debt that you're acquiring as to how it's going to make money for you, then that's a very good thing.

14:24because sometimes businesses think, okay, I'm going to take money from what I have to do this next thing. And that can work in some cases, but sometimes it requires an infusion of capital to grow. So I would say just determine if that growth, if you need capital to make that happen, if you need equipment to make it happen or whatever your, if it's a product or service, just what it is that you need to get to that next level. It may be a second location. Well, that more than likely will require some capital. So I would say that. And I'll add something in the end, too. OK. All right. Perfect. Perfect.

15:01Yeah. Now, this is a highlight portion. So anything you want to you want to say to anybody listening? I would say as a business owner, whether you're in business for a long time or fairly new, is please look into the resources that are available in your community. I mean, there is a lot of free resources for you that if you're looking to grow or start your business through organizations like ours, through CDFIs that we offer technical assistance, through small business centers, through small business technology and development centers that are on university campus, small business centers on community college campuses.

15:42But there are all these kinds of organizations that can provide technical assistance at no cost to a business. Doesn't matter where you are on the stage. So look into those resources. And probably the best place to start to get a full list of that is with the Secretary of State Office for the state of North Carolina. They are incredible. We have a very close relationship with Secretary Marshall and her team. They provide so many resources, and they have a list of everybody that I'm talking about, so you can know kind of where to go. But I would say utilize what's available to you because your tax dollars have already paid for it.

16:21Yeah, that's for sure. All right. And then, yeah, what's the next big thing for the Institute of NC? Well, for ICAP, the next big thing we – oh, and I should say, and don't let me leave this out, Cliff, that we actually are located in downtown Asheville at 46 South Market Street. We have an office right in the heart of downtown, right across from the foundry, diagonally across from YMI Cultural Center. So stop by and see us. Aaron Soto is my team member that man's at office. He is a great guy, and he is more than willing to help any business at any level. We are hoping to deepen our relationship in Asheville to help with the recovery from Hurricane Helene, the city has grant funding that they are looking for sub-recipients like us.

17:10So we're going to apply. So y 'all wishes well, because if we're approved as a sub-recipient, then we'll be providing additional grants to small businesses. So you all stay tuned and make sure you come and check us out. Yeah, no, no. And shouts out to Aaron Soto. I actually met him at the Asheville Business Summit. He's actually the one who got me in touch with Roberta here today. And he's he's awesome. Yes, he's a great guy. Yeah, he's a great guy. If you go and stop by, you know, there on Market Street, you'll have a good time. And he's a great guy. He's really, really easy to talk to. Yes. And when you talk about right seat, right bus.

17:47He's the guy. And just for the record, for those I don't know who the listening audience is, but Aaron is bilingual in English and Spanish. So he can help a broad selection of people. Very nice. Very nice to throw out there. All right, perfect. And lastly, what's the best way for someone to find and get in touch with you? You kind of already put physically out there, but any other ways to get in touch with you? Yes, you can reach out to me. My email is a little bit long, but I'll give it to you anyway. It's rmccullough at theinstitutenc.org. That's rmccullough at theinstitutenc.org. My number is 919-423-1025.

18:41Perfect. And any social media? Yes, we are on LinkedIn and we're on Facebook. If you just look up Institute Capital, we'll pop right up and feel free to give us a call. I should give everyone Aaron's number. I told Aaron I still don't have his number memorized. It's terrible. I'm normally better at that. but his number is 828-329-5446. Perfect, perfect. And what was that address again on Market Street? It's 46 South Market Street, and that's right in downtown Asheville. Can't miss it. Perfect, fantastic. Yeah, thank you so much for being a part of the community and for all you're doing. We certainly wish you continued success.

19:24Thank you so much, Cliff. I appreciate it, and have me back anytime. I love this. This is amazing. I love it. Yeah, this is great. This is great. Yeah, well, appreciate you coming on. I'll go ahead and end it. Thank you. Thank you, Cliff. Have a great day.

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