Business banking and funding your business can be intimidating. Luckily we have the help of business banking expert Anita Davis – Chief Funding Matchmaker, sharing her sage advise on how to access capital and fund your business growth through SBA and alternative loans. Join Karl Barham and Rico Figliolini on the latest episode.
Recorded at Atlanta Tech Park in the City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia.
Where in the podcast to find these topics:
[00:00:30] Intro [00:04:42] When to Reach Out to a Bank [00:05:31] Risk and Funding [00:06:52] Credit and Funding [00:11:28] Options for Funding an Acquisition [00:13:54] Loan and Funding Rates [00:16:09] What is SBA? [00:22:43] SBA Structures [00:24:39] Industries SBA doesn’t fund [00:26:18] SBA Requirements [00:29:15] Funding in 2020 [00:34:51] How to reach Anita
“So even with your good credit score, now they want to see not only your credit, they want to see your bank balances in their bank for over a period of time. And so what happens is people don’t know that, that the banks and all of these lending sources are already making the defense decisions about how they’re going to restructure and how that tightening up on that credit. And if you’re not prepared, you don’t have any projections, you don’t have any resources on your team to help you with that, then that’s that. That’s, that’s, this is the time to explore. Where can you get that support?”
Anita Davis
Podcast transcript
Karl: [00:00:30] Welcome to the Capitalist Sage podcast. We are here to bring you advice and tips from seasoned pros and experts to help you improve your business. I’m Karl Barham with Transworld Business Advisors, and my co-host is Rico Figliolini with Mighty Rockets Digital Marketing and the publisher of the Peachtree Corners Magazine. Hey, Rico. How’re you doing?
Rico: [00:00:45] Hey, Karl. Alright,
Karl: [00:00:47] Why don’t you introduce some of our sponsors today?
Rico: [00:00:50] Sure. I want to introduce our lead sponsor for the first time, Hargray Fiber. They are a business that is very unique to this area. The two piece is the city of Peachtree corners. Actually, they just moved in a little while ago. So they have philosophy is that every business is unique. That the, they craft customized solutions for our hundreds of businesses here in the Southeast that based out of Savannah, they’re looking to work with small businesses to create affordable bundle services on other, that level or even enterprise cause this level where they can talk about managed, bundled sites, full suite of managed IT services and all that. So they customize a solution. Every business that needs fiber cable in there. Our sponsor. Thank you for doing that. No matter what industry though, you run you should take a look at them. They can do internet, TV and phone solutions and they can meet your local need and be local so you’re not dealing with a cable company that then you have to call some service and they might or might not show up.
Karl: [00:01:52] Well, they’re in a perfect spot if they’re looking at growth for business. Peachtree Corners has a lot going there. Atlanta Tech Park and Curiosity Lab and all the businesses that are joining the community. So glad to have them onboard as a sponsor and also a member of the business community.
Rico: [00:02:07] And the other thing too, Atlanta TechPark, right? We’re here in the podcast studios, Atlanta Tech Park in the City of Peachtree Corners.
Karl: [00:02:14] Yup. Wonderful coworking space for folks that are building their business. There’s 70 plus companies here, events held here throughout. we have a network of resources available to entrepreneurs to be able to leverage, to grow their business. And Atlanta Tech Park are right here in Technology Park, in Peachtree Corners. Come check out Atlanta Tech Park. Well, today’s guest is Anita Davis. She is the founder, president of the chief funding matchmaker of Praxis Strategic Solutions. It’s a consulting firm that helps companies fund business expansion that, and also they’re able to help support corporate and government customers and training people on funding and business, et cetera. So really thankful to have you join us today. And today’s topic we want to talk about, it really relates to funding, funding your business growth. Anybody that knows and owns a business knows that to grow a business takes input of resources, both capital and people and time and strategies. But right now, if you’re looking at the beginning of 2020 it’s the time to look at what are the funding needs you’re going to need over the next year? And we’re here to talk about the different options that are available from
SBA to some alternatives, and some of the things you should be thinking about and misconceptions of seeking bank funding for your endeavors. So anyway, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got into this?
Anita: [00:03:49] Thank you so much for having me. First of all, it’s, it’s a pleasure to be here and always talking about money. I am the money lady, so I love money. I used to be a banker for 20 years. A business banker and a commercial lender. And so that is where my passion has come from. I started my own firm four years ago under the name Business To Banker Connection, because I connect people with money and I’ve navigate the funding process for my clients. My passion is to make sure that small businesses that are intimidated by the process of acquiring capital to grow their companies, have somebody to navigate that for them. Most of my companies that I work with, Karl and Rico, they are small companies and they don’t have a CFO in place to navigate that for them. So they hire me to take care of that process for them, and I make sure, let’s say I can direct them directly to the places that’s going to give them the capital that they need to grow.
Karl: [00:04:42] Oh, it’s fabulous. It’s, it’s interesting when, when you start thinking about, lending, what are some of the, when, when do, should people start considering whether or not they need to reach out to a bank to start funding, what would be your recommendation?
Anita: [00:04:57] So you need to know when you have expired your capacity to internally manage that growth. Then you have more clients than you can fund their needs. Or you’re expanding, you need equipment, or maybe you’re growing and you need to ask staff and space that that will require some outside funding solutions. So when you can no longer internally generate enough to run the business and or scale the company, then you need to start thinking about your capital structure and where are you going to go for that funding.
Karl: [00:05:31] The saying that, you know, every funding decision from a banker is a risk decision. Can you explain what that really means? When people start talking about risk and funding, what are, what are things looking at?
Anita: [00:05:43] So when I’m working with my clients, that’s the first thing that we talk about. Every decision, whether it’s bank funding or whether it’s any external nontraditional funding, every funding decision is really a risk. Decision and their risk decision. It’s around what is the likelihood that this company is going to default and not pay us back. And then the second question that’s always asked is, given a loss, what is the likelihood that we would be given a default? What is the likelihood that we’re going to take a loss on this funding opportunity? So most clients don’t think about funding from that perspective. They don’t think they know, I have a need. This is what I need, and this is what we can do. And they have, they’re clear about their position, but they’re not really clear that the bank is making a totally different view on it. The view is what is, what is their history of repayment? Are they stable and can they support this new funding requests that they’re making? And so they make that decision with a totally different set of eyes that I is on risk
Rico: [00:06:52] Relevant right perspective, I guess. So every business owner thinks they do it really well. Maybe, although not everyone’s credit report is pristine, you know, everyone looks at a certain rate and said, well, you know, it’s cheap money out there. It’s like whatever, 0% from the, from the money fund there, but you know, really you’re lending out at a certain rate, maybe four and a quarter or mortgage or more. But individual bankers, business owners, you know, their, their backgrounds may be different than credit reports may be different for a variety of reasons. How long would that affect the way you would approach something like that for, for them?
Anita: [00:07:29] Credit is very important in the funding process because even if it’s a nontraditional solution, credit is going to come into play. Most clients that I, that I work with, actually, most people think about it from their experience with their home mortgage, that everybody can understand buying a car or purchasing their home and they, and they think about funding from that perspective. But business funding is totally different from that. They’re not looking at that. Again, they’re looking at the risk and the process and one of the things, one of the qualifiers that determines whether or not you are a good risk is your credit history because that’s a standardized process that’s standard for everybody. In the United States you have a credit score. If that credit score is certain, a certain level, and that means you’re a good risk decision. If it’s below a certain level, then you’re probably not as strong about above decision, I mean, good risk for that institution. It could be a bank and it may not be a bank. So even when they are not looking at, say your performance in your company to determine the qualifications for a lending decision, they’re going to look at credit. So that’s why I always encourage people, if you’re going into business or if you are in business, make sure that that part of your business growth strategy is intact. And then if it’s not intact that you’re putting in some processes and plans to strengthen that because it’s always going to put you in a better position. So I always encourage my clients, get in the 700 club and try and stay there. The 700 club is a good place to be because it really is a differentiator between whether you’re going to get a good pricing on whatever that funding solution is, or you’re going to pay a premium. And when you start to pay premiums, that takes out money from your bottom line that you can take home to feed your family and put your kids in school and do all the things that you really want to do.
Rico: [00:09:17] So it doesn’t necessarily negate you from getting a loan. It’s just the guys shoot from getting the best rate for the loan.
Anita: [00:09:23] And that depends on how unhealthy that credit score is because they can, the gate, you can’t prevent you from acquiring capital, but if it’s not, so 680 is considered a decent and good credit score, 700 is safer and you’re, you’re on the road to being really great. And, so that determines really what they’re going to, determine the right that you’re going to pay for your, whatever it is that you need.
Karl: [00:09:46] You’re highlighting something that I think a lot of people don’t think when they’re thinking of starting a business, they start thinking of the idea. They may start looking at a plan and how they’re going to market it and how they’re going to sell. But they never look at their personal financial situation. And if I were to advise anyone looking to start a business, or even someone who has an that owns a business today, it’s maybe talking with your financial planner or your people that advise you and make sure that part is solid. So if you know you’ve got some hits on your credit. If your debt ratio is off balance before you ask someone else to lend and invest in you in your business, show that you’re able to get control of your own finances and drive your credit score. And that might take two or three years before you do it. But it’s something that everyone could start working on. Know what their score is today, understand what it takes to get into 700 club and make those adjustments to their personal lives, budgets, whatever their situation is. So they could be a good risk for lenders.
Anita: [00:10:52] That is such a, that’s just an accurate way to capture that, capsulize that because it’s really important for you to plan for, your business funding your business. Because even if it’s going to be self funded to a degree, you’re going to have to buy something outside of what you do to make your business run. If every decision is going to cost you money. And so if you don’t understand what that cost of capital is, then you’re going to end up paying more. Or if your credit is not in a position to get you to the best rates that you can, then it’s just going to take you longer to pay it off or cost you more in the long run.
Karl: [00:11:28] So I know, I know in my world, most businesses that we look to find buyers for are funded through some kind of lending. And it’s, it’s, it’s a high in the 75 to 80% are, especially if they get into a larger value. Can you share, the various options people have for funding growth or funding an acquisition?
Anita: [00:11:53] So most people fund acquisitions that I know of and have experienced with through bank funding of some sort and bank funding. You have two different kinds of options with the bank funding. If you are a strong solid and have a really strong savings account or some kind of investment vehicle, then you can find that traditionally. Through a conventionally through our traditional wall. But most lenders like to add a SBA guarantee on to that process. So the SBA guarantee does a couple of things. It guarantees that the bank will, if they invest in your bright idea, in your company that if there is a default, again, the risk process, if there’s a default, then the gate, the bank is guaranteed that they’ll get back 75 to 90% of the monies that they lent. The other benefit of looking at it through SBA guarantee, even from the bank’s perspective and from the buyer’s perspective, is that your cash injection in terms of long, it’s less. So your requirement that you have to come up with, for a conventional loan, it’s typically going to be 20% of that acquisition. If you are in a riskier business, sometimes they want more than 20% for that acquisition. However, SBA guarantee tacked on to that loan requests will minimize that, bring that cash injection down to 10% and for a riskier business, another 5% that may be 15% and say a riskier business would be maybe a gas station, a convenience store, car washes, things like that, that they have a special use. Those kinds of business acquisitions really require some additional risk from the lender’s standpoint and from the SBA standpoint. So they have a
higher cash injection requirement. But if you are solid enough to get a bank acquisition and you have the extra funding, then your rates are probably going to be a little bit lower because with that additional SBA guarantee comes a little bit of a price hike.
Karl: [00:13:54] When you, when you think about people buying, their experience with bank lending, it comes with buying a house and mortgage and you often see people making that mortgage decision a lot around what is the rate they’re getting for that long? They’re looking quarter points and half point. If you’re looking at a commercial loan for business, is it the same thing? Is the rate the biggest sole determination of who you should lead with and who you should work with or well, the other factor that they should consider?
Anita: [00:14:21] So rate is very important in terms of just, you know, how much it’s going to cost you to maintain it and pay the loan over time. However, the biggest thing you want to do when you want to make an acquisition is know am I able to able to make this business profitable and what would the little profitable profits look like over time. So you may pay a different rate. So again, the rate structure that you will pay for personal loan or mortgage loan, that is not going to be the way they process and review and analyze a decision to make a business acquisition. So the whole process is completely different. They’re going to be looking at the cashflow of the business and is it, is it likely to be stable? And if you’re making an acquisition, there’s your background and your history in that industry. Right? Inland to you. I’m having more success in the business. And so those factors, your, your historical performance and knowledge in that industry is going to be an important factor when you’re making an acquisition. The, the, and sometimes that can determine your rate and then the money that you have to invest in. So you are your resources that you have after you’ve made that investment is very, very important because people are like, okay, I can come up with my 10% now, but it’s going to suck up every resource that I have in order to be able to do that. So if that’s the case, what a, the bank wants to know is that you’re going to have some kind of reserves. Is there something to fall back on in the event that all of those cash flows that that came to the business came to bear when you just purchased the business, is that going to automatically transition over time? Because there’s usually a difference than a ramp up. When you change management, you change only shifts, different styles, different plans, different strategies. All of those things come into play, and so those are some of the factors that you should consider when you’re making an acquisition. That’s where the lender is going to be looking at when you’re making an acquisition as well.
Karl: [00:16:09] Okay. So you think about, we’ve been using this term SBA and, and it should be fair. Some people may not be familiar with what that is, the small business administration and loan. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of that and what that is and how it’s helped people get into small businesses?
Anita: [00:16:27] Yeah. The small business administration is, a government entity. And that government entity is designed to help small businesses prosper, to, to start to prosper and to grow and scale. Cause really small businesses really make up the bulk of the economy and, and in jobs resources available. So since this small businesses are run in the country, it is
vested in, the government has a vested interest in making sure that small businesses succeed. So what they do, the small business administration is not a direct lender. They use outside resources like banks and some other non-bank, funding resources to you to guarantee that indeed that there is a loss. Again, the risk and all, I was going back to that risk. If there is a loss that the bank will not have to bear that whole burden or whoever that funding source is, they won’t have to bear the full burden of that loss. The government will come in and back up that loan, and that’s a very, very strong mitigant right. For a lender to, to, to have as a resource in the event that there is there, there’s a challenge with that loan.
Rico: [00:17:40] Cause the, does the sba then provide a better chance of getting a loan? Like if I went to the bank, normally obviously the rules would be a little bit more stringent on a, on a direct loan from a bank without the SBA. Does this guarantee? Sort of makes it less trenchant.
Anita: [00:17:59] It’s considered a mitigant. It mitigates the risk involved with taking on a newer, younger business that may not have been established or is not well established in that.
Rico: [00:18:12] Are there specific things though that SBA will forgive or look over, if you will? The specific guidelines that someone can look at and say, Oh, okay, well, if I went this SBA route, maybe I need one year less financial information, maybe, you know, is there, aside from money going down maybe?
Anita: [00:18:31] So you talked about a little bit about their investment. Their capital investment is, it’s usually less, but also the credit score requirement may be a little bit more flexible. If you have a SBA guarantee that industry may, maybe, they may not like that industry, but they would lend in the event that there is a SBA guarantee. To shore up that long. It could be, your, just your background, you don’t have, the lender may not be comfortable enough to lend you a conventionally because you don’t have enough history in that industry. So a SBA guarantee can be a mitigate. And so usually what I think, from my history as a banker when a bank is, is looking at a mitigation, they will mitigate maybe one one shortfall. They’re not going to mitigate, you know, you can’t be, had bad credit. No, you’re no bad idea. No history, cause they’re not going to mitigate all of them. But say for instance, if, if most, if you have most of the requirements and there’s one short fall, that would, would not allow a bank to be comfortable enough to make a conventional loan to you, then they all say. This SBA can come in and mitigate that risk. Typically, one of the other things that we haven’t talked about is collateral. So you know the business, the lender’s decision, again, we talked about the likelihood of a default and then the probability of a loss given a default. That is what the SBA guarantee is really designed to help shore up that short falling collateral because most people when they start a business, they may have some of the resources that they need, but they don’t have a lot of collateral to support that. So if you are a business that you’re not buying equipment where the equipment is going to be in the collateral, you’re not buying a building where the building would be the collateral. I’m buying a business, right? I’m buying a business and you’re getting good wheel for that. The name of that business, and maybe their client list. There’s nothing for a bank
to say that we can fall back on what? Nothing. There’s nothing there. So, right. So the SBA guarantee becomes that mitigate.
Karl: [00:20:33] So if you think about it, and when I also think about that as well. Some business historically had a lot of assets. Maybe it was a building, and the business was sort of building other value that the bank could lend on. If something happened, they could take the building and sell it to someone else. It could be the equipment. But if you think about it in the last 40 years, the shift to service industries, what is a software company? Someone that’s generating software, e-commerce habits, assets. What does anybody that owns that, a medical practice or things that delivering service, beauty salons or these service oriented, you would think the economy expanded in the service industry so much. How would banks fund those types when they don’t have assets? The SBA allows working, cashflow for the business to make up some of that, to look, this business is good. It has got a track record, and if people are able to, to fund and pay off the loan, but a traditional bank would say, but I want assets. I want something. And I think that’s what the SBA is, is created to help close the gap.
Rico: [00:21:36] They might even look at, let’s say a hair salon or, or a medical practice and said, well, you know, those patients. Like the practitioner practitioners gone with those 80% of that business disappear or melt away. You know, over a year. I can see issues like that.
Anita: [00:21:53] Yeah. Those are very, very real issues when you are making a decision to make an acquisition. So they want to know what, what’s going to still be there to stabilize the company. And that’s why it’s so important that the new owner, the purchaser of that business to have some background in it. And so, or if they don’t have background themselves, that they hire talent that has the background to manage the day to day operations.
Rico: [00:22:16] And this goes back to what you’ve taught me, is that you want a business where there’s a manager managing the business. You essentially, that you’re not coming in to do that part of it necessarily. You’re coming in there to do the other parts of it.
Karl: [00:22:30] Yeah. I mean, the infrastructure and the leadership team in place in the business insurance, better continuity. So it’s not all relying on just the owner of the business that’s generating all of, all of the value in the business, is key.
Rico: [00:22:43] I did have another question too. I mean, it’s been a loan sounds, like it’s an SBA loan, but all the different, various SBA loans, different levels or different, products or structures?
Anita: [00:22:56] Structures. Probably structures would be, or products could, you could use either one, but, there are several different SBA products that are out here on the market that are available. So if you want to a traditional working capital loan, if you’re a small business looking for something under $350,000 and some bangs, $250,000 they’ll end up the SBA express product. And that’s a product that doesn’t require as much collateral. Usually for younger companies or companies that don’t need a great deal of capital. Once you get over and get over
that $350,000 mark, then you’re probably moving into a larger loan category. That 350 up to $5 million, will allow you to get a SBA 7(a) Loan. And that loan is designed a lot around working capital, but you can do quite a few other things with it. You can purchase equipment, you can also get real estate with that loan, and it’ll allow you to get the working capital needs as well as, say a building and the equipment that you might need to run a building inside that inside the building with a 7(a) loan, and then the other product that’s very, very attractive. One of my favorites for commercial real estate purchases, the SBA 504 loan and that loan allows you to have a lower cash injection in it, and it’s strictly for business and maybe heavy equipment that might go inside. There’s a building that would be maybe attached to the building as opposed to small pieces of computers. You wouldn’t buy that on the real estate.
Rico: [00:24:21] Commercial real estate? Not residential necessarily.
Anita: [00:24:26] Absolutely not residential. So the SBA does not fund residential use, and it does not fund any residential products. It is, SBA is for commercial acquisitions, commercial purchases, commercial, commercial activity only.
Karl: [00:24:39] There’s some industries that they do not fund, some financials. And what are some of the industries?
Anita: [00:24:46] Well, some of the ones that, so the SBA does have a little bit more flexibility than maybe your average bank that you would see on the corner. They, they will fund, they will not fund typically, if you are in business to lend money to somebody else, they don’t fund that. They don’t find any, what’s the right word? Sexual kinds… Thank you. That was the word that would come to my brain. But adult entertainment, they don’t find some of those. And those are restricted and prohibited. They don’t find any businesses if you are renting, so say for instance, in Atlanta tech park, if they want it because they lease space out to another tenant. They don’t fund those kinds of business. They consider that investment real estate and they won’t fund those. So those are some, some a few that come to mind.
Rico: [00:25:38] Just to kind of piggyback off that. So if I wanted to buy a commercial building, put my business in it. It also rent maybe a couple of spaces out of the to help with the mortgage payments.
Anita: [00:25:47] That’s a good differentiator. So if you are going to operate 51% of the business with your company, that will be the difference where you can lease out the space. As a matter of fact, I just, we’re closing on a loan for $1 million, an acquisition of a building and she is going to be written now 49%. Oh, that too, to another tenant. So they will allow that. But you have to maintain the majority of that they’re building for your own business. Square footage Is the differentiator.
Karl: [00:26:18] Are there things that when you work with clients and they go through the best pay process and now they’re, well, they’re in underwriting. Things that they, they, that they find
out or learn that that, may cause them pause. Things that they could be aware that they may be asked to do or, or things that they may have to account for that the SBA requires. is there, are there any things like that, that you’ve seen people have paused with.
Anita: [00:26:43] Absolutely. In this process, the SBA process is, it’s beneficial that in ways that will allow you to get access to the capital. But it is a very stringent process. So the government is, it does a lot of due diligence around making sure that your business is viable and legitimate in order to, to grow so credit. I can tell you that, for instance, recently I’ve experienced, companies that have a really good business model and good cash flow, but bad credit from the owners, they will pass, they will pass, or they will make you go through a credit repair process so it can delay the process. Some of the other things that you said they, they do look at, all of your business, all of your resources when they, when you’re looking at an SBA loan. So if you have a house that has equity, because they are going to be gaming at 90 or 70 to 90% guarantee, they’re going to take all of their global assets that you have, as, as a lien, they’re going to put a lien on it. So that’s something that people, sometimes that gives them heartburn. But it’s a true thing and it’s a very real thing that you need to know on the front end. I would hate to somebody about getting in the middle of that process and didn’t know that. Yeah, you should know that on from the first conversation that you really have.
Karl: [00:28:00] Is when you, in most cases, when you go down that path. They most likely will ask for a personal guarantee that would be secured against your all your personal assets in the business.
Anita: [00:28:12] Absolutely personal guarantee is required. And typically almost every business loan, whether it’s conventional, well, I shouldn’t say every conventional and SBA funding, some of the outside nontraditional lenders may not require your personal guarantee. But if you’re going to look at conventional SBA funding that you do have to guarantee it personally, anybody who has 20% or more ownership in the business will have to guarantee. So if you have partners, everybody who owns 20% or more. So I used to tell people, if you’re going to get partners, make sure you cut them off at 19% you know, or give them, you know, under 20% so that they won’t have to go through that funding process. And they look at any additional businesses that you may have. So some people are going into a second or third business there. They’re going to look at everything that you have to make sure that your capacity to pay that obligation back is met.
Rico: [00:29:03] And it doesn’t matter the corporate structure, it could be LLC or C corporation. There’s no, no?
Anita: [00:29:09] There is no differentiation in that in terms of whether you guarantee the loan. Yeah, the structure doesn’t matter.
Karl: [00:29:15] Okay. I’m wondering about if you’re going into 2020 anything that’s trending in the SBA world and lending world that you see coming. What should business owners know. About over the next say, year or so that they should, that should impact their decision on when and how and why they should seek funding.
Anita: [00:29:34] Thank you for asking that question because I think it’s when I’m telling my clients and anybody that I’m in front of and speaking opportunities, I’m asking them to pay close attention to our economy. The recession that has been teeter tottering over the last year. We’re in a good economy today, but economic cycles happen. So we are, we are due for another economic downturn, economic cycles. We’re in a 10th year of a, a progressive, robust economic cycle. But it is going to end and it will probably end soon. And typically, when we have an economic downturn in the country, what happens is credit titans. So if your company is healthy, like you mentioned earlier, if a customer or is thinking about getting capital and they’re healthy enough to get capital, they haven’t done it yet, this is the time to do it. And also rates are really, really good right now, but I don’t think it’s going to be sustained for, you know, indefinite years. So you need to start thinking about that and you should never wait to get funding until you desperately need it because you desperately will not get it. So you have to be in a healthy position in order to acquire capital. So I think the recession and the economic conditions, the election will impact what’s, what, what rates and what the, what’s happening in our economy. Obviously, it always does. And one of the things that I’m particularly an advocate of is for people to understand when you’re looking at easy capital, easy money, some of the online lending, some of those quick and easy resources that you know you get in the mail. The cost of that capital can be very, very expensive. And I, people come to me saying, you know, I’ve got a couple of these loans and if it really, really easy for me to give, but now they’re in my checking account every day, every week, every month. And those kinds of, capital funding solutions sometimes they’re not sustainable. I tell people, the only time that I would recommend one of those kinds of solutions for funding is if you, for instance, maybe had an opportunity to buy some books, inventory, and you knew that you can turn that inventory in a short period of time and get in and out of that obligation. Obligations are designed to just be 12 months long, so they’re so short term that the payment repayment structure on them is so difficult for most people to maintain that as one of the, that’s the second thing that I would say, you shouldn’t look at as an outside of the Academy.
Karl: [00:32:05] Yeah. That you, you mentioned those, those loans and that short term, they were originally designed for someone that received a PO for a big order from some big company and you had to outlay for inventory or get things built and bring in, but you have certainty that you’re going to sell them, so you have to fund it. It’s expanded to, you know, I need money and you may not, yeah, I got this hip product, I’m going to buy all this inventory. It’s going to sell, and if it doesn’t sell, you still owe for that money and now you’ve got inventory that you get a discount. So really being careful, and that’s where I think planning. Is if, if, if there’s one thing that business owner can do is develop a robust planning process that includes understanding projection of financials of their business. Because through that process, they’ll start to discover where they might have cash flow short needs or growth and how to fund it
efficiently at the right time so they’re not in desperate measures and they can do scenario testing. What if it’s 20% more, 20% less, and having those discussions and having a lender, somebody that’s expert in finding sourcing funding. On their team advising them on, here are your options. If you decide now, these are your options and these are the potential pros and cons. If you wait, that’s, this isn’t later, your options shrink to these fewer options. And at least when people have that information, they can make better informed decisions.
Anita: [00:33:36] And, and I agree with that. I’ll give you a quick example because I work with lots of lenders, lots of banks, lots of non bank lenders across the country. And one of my lending sources that I had that, that was just three months ago. I’m doing unsecure working capital to those, 700 club, clients that I work with often too. They were doing unsecured credit lines based on, on your good credit score. Now, because they know that the economic conditions in this country are about to change now they don’t offer that solution. You now you have to bank with them for over 12 months. And then after 12 months, they’ll let you look at a, a secure vehicle. So even with your good credit score, now they want to see not only your, your credit, they want to see your bank balances in their bank for over a period of time. And so what happens is people don’t know that, that the banks and all of these lending sources are already making the defense decisions about how they’re going to restructure and how that tightening up on that credit. And if you’re not prepared, you don’t have any projections, you don’t have any resources on your team to help you with that, then that’s that. That’s, that’s, this is the time to explore. Where can you get that support?
Karl: [00:34:51] I like the, a little bit about, you know, if folks wanted to learn more about, what you do and how you help client navigate these waters, what’s the best way they can reach you?
Anita: [00:35:03] The best way to reach me, LinkedIn is a great way to reach me at Anita Davis on LinkedIn because I’m in the process of rebranding, but you can also give me a call at the company (770) 365-0858. That is a good number to reach me and look for Praxstra.com. That is my new website as we rebrand.
Karl: [00:35:28] So I’m wondering, what do you have coming up? Do you have anything coming up? over the next few weeks and months?
Anita: [00:35:34] I have lots of things coming up Karl. I’m, I’m teaching a class. Who are on tomorrow, here in Atlanta tech park. And we’re talking about funding and we’re going to go into a deeper dive conversation over all of the different funding solutions that are available. But I also have other, workshops and conversations on podcasts from being invited to speak. And then this summer I’m working with the WE bank, which is the women’s enterprise business national council that, certifies women business owners that are having a national conference here this summer. And I am on the host committee for that. So it allows me and other women business owners to get an app access to corporate and government contracting. Great things going all for Praxis.
Karl: [00:36:18] Well, absolutely. Well, well, I want to thank you very much. Anita Davis, chief funding matchmaker for Praxis Strategic Solutions, for your time and, and helping to begin to unravel. I think we’re going to have to have you come back a little bit and we can peel back the onion on some more topics around, around funding. You provided some great kind of advice and things for people to think about and I just say to anyone out there that’s, that’s thinking about their 2020, if they think they might need funding, and if they don’t know, they can reach out to their advisors, they can contact me, Karl Barham at Transworld Business Advisors, we tell business owners help navigate, their, their business strategy and including, you know, when they’re ready to exit their business. Well, it’s really important to have that discussion, put a plan down on paper, and have these conversations with people that can help get you funding for, for, for the businesses that they, that they have. I also want to thank Atlanta Tech Park, for hosting the Capitalist Sage Podcast. And, and, and if you’re interested in starting a business, having access to folks like, Anita and others here through various forum gives you knowledge and information to be more successful and build networks around that and also a few here you can meet. Rico, who’s also here doing a fantastic job with the Peachtree Corner Magazine. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’ve got coming up?
Rico: [00:37:49] Sure. So Peachtree Corners Magazine, we’re working on the next issue, the first week of February, it’s February/March issue. The Major feature in that issue is innovative companies in Peachtree Corners. So that’ll be, we’ll be discussing half a dozen companies. We’ve interviewed already about four or five, tech firms, and there’ll be an article about some of the other innovative companies here in Peachtree Corners and a few other good stories in there. So, you should pick up a copy. It will go to our Facebook page, if you’re watching the live stream, there would be Peachtree Corners Life, Facebook and like us on that page. If you’re listening to the podcast, go to LivingInPeachtreeCorners.com. You can find out all sorts of new things going on in the city and they’ll associate the digital edition on there. And if you’re looking to, because I do other things. If you’re looking to do online content, brandings, social media, video, product, product videos, and such, go to MightyRockets.com and maybe I can help you there.
Karl: [00:38:50] Oh, fabulous. I’d also mention iTunes, iHeartRadio, Spotify, spreaker. If you’re a business owner, I get it, You’re busy. I get it. You don’t have time to show up at every, lecture or workshop and so on, but you do have time in your car if you’re in Atlanta to listen to a podcast and, and learn stuff that could help you improve your business. So with that I want to thank, thank you for tuning in. I’m Karl Barham and Rico Figliolini for Capitalist Sage podcast. Thank you.
Rico: [00:39:24] Thank you guys. Thanks.
Anita: [00:39:26] Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Join UrbanEBB host Rico Figliolini for a conversation with Gabrielle Mills, co-founder and CEO of Sourced, a full-service back-office firm supporting small to mid-market businesses. She shares how she and her mother built a company that provides accounting, marketing, HR, staffing, and administrative support—all under one brand.
Learn about the challenges entrepreneurs face with business operations and how outsourcing can provide the help they need. Gabrielle also discusses:
A $12M business that never checked its financials
The importance of trust in outsourcing key business functions
The balance between people, technology, and business success
Sourced’s commitment to giving back to local charities
Timestamp: 00:02:20 – Sourcing Solutions for Entrepreneurs 00:07:26 – Building Trust and Expertise to Serve Clients 00:14:53 – Fixing Broken Books for Business Owners 00:18:18 – Encouraging Diversity in Talent Acquisition 00:19:57 – Embracing Mistakes and Developing Processes 00:23:12 – Giving Back to Local Charities 00:25:34 – Leveraging Technology to Enhance People-Centric Services
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:01 – Rico Figliolini
Hey, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEbb here based in Peachtree Corners, Georgia. I appreciate you joining us. We’re a little smart city just north of Atlanta. I have a great guest here, Gabrielle Mills. She’s the founder and CEO of Sourced. Hey, Gabrielle. Thanks for joining us.
00:00:20 – Gabrielle Mills
Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me.
00:00:22 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no, I appreciate you being here. We’re going to learn a lot from you, I’m sure, this morning. And this is one of those freezing mornings here in Georgia that really never happens, like down to 20.
00:00:32 – Gabrielle Mills
It is so cold. I’m very cranky about it.
00:00:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yes, it’s amazing. But it’ll warm up in a week. But before we get to our interview, I just want to say thank you to two sponsors we have that have been with us. Appreciate the support of our journalism, these podcasts, of the magazines as well. One of them is EV Remodeling, Inc. They’re a company that has done work from design to build. whole house renovation, as well as just redoing your kitchen, your bathrooms and such. They’ve worked with over 260 families. They’re based in Peachtree Corners. Eli, the owner of the company, is a really great guy. I think you should check out their website. You could do a virtual consultation with them as well and check out their portfolio. So go to evremodelinginc.com and find out a little bit more about them. Also, our second sponsor is Vox Pop Uli, also based here at Peachtree Corners. They’re a company that takes your brand and brings it to life, essentially. They’re a family business, father, son, other family members in there, another daughter in there handling marketing. And even members of their employees are considered part of the family. It’s just a great, well-run company. We just did a podcast with them recently. You should check that out. But they try to bring your brand awareness out there. They can do anything from truck wraps to print on any object, just come to them, give them a challenge, and they will actually step up to that challenge. You might think they can’t print on it, but God knows they’ll find a way to do what you need to bring to that trade show and to make your business stand out as a retail operation or whatever. So check them out, vox-pop-uli.com, and it’s V-O-X-P-O-P-U-L-I.com. So now that we’ve gotten our sponsorships out of the way, Gabrielle, appreciate you staying with me like that. So tell us a little bit about how you started the business, why you chose the word sourced, and what the business is.
00:02:39 – Gabrielle Mills
Good morning. Thank you so much for having me. So I can’t tell you the answer to that question without acknowledging my business partner, Chrissy Strohmeyer, who is also my mother. So we are a mom and daughter team. We have just enjoyed the heck out of building this company together, but really my stories are her stories and vice versa. We started the business because we wanted to be entrepreneurs and we wanted to help other businesses grow and be successful. We think entrepreneurs are the salt of the earth people. They’re the reason for our economy. They create jobs. They’ve got so many great ideas. And they are the last people that get a helping hand because they don’t always have enough cash, right? That’s why we started Sourced. We actually went to business owners and asked them, because we didn’t have this idea. We asked business owners what they need, where they were underserved and how, if they were to do it all over again, kind of what they would do. And we put all of their answers up on a whiteboard that’s currently in our office. In fact, you saw it when you came over to our office the other day. If that whiteboard could talk, man. And we looked at all of their problems, all of their suggestions, all of the things they were struggling with. And our services came out of that. So Sourced is a back office services company serving small to mid-market companies. And the easiest way to describe what it is that we do is we basically have five businesses under one brand name. So on the fractional side of our business, we are a full accounting firm, full service accounting firm, a full service marketing agency, outsourced HR, administrative support. And then not fractionally, we do direct hire full time placement. So all of those ideas came from entrepreneurs that we spoke to that they needed help. And we said, we’ll do it.
00:04:38 – Rico Figliolini
It’s amazing. All under one roof.
00:04:42 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, we didn’t mean exactly to create five businesses at the same time. That was more of God’s plan. But, you know, here we are.
00:04:51 – Rico Figliolini
No, no, I can appreciate that. I’ve come across a lot of people in different businesses doing different things. So you do look at where your services can expand into. So it makes sense for where you guys are coming from.
00:05:04 – Gabrielle Mills
So you asked me where the name comes from. And I don’t get that question a lot. And it’s actually a really funny story. When I was working my big girl corporate job at IHG, Intercontinental Hotels Group, I had a relative that worked in the company. And she was the only person that knew that I was thinking about leaving and starting my own thing. So I floated the concept to her. And she loved the concept. At this time, we didn’t have talent acquisition. We only had a fractional client or fractional services. And our name was the Atlanta Assistance Group. And we were going to go by TAAG, T-A-A-G. And she was in branding for IHG. And she goes, I have to tell you, that name isn’t scalable. It’s easily forgettable. And you also have TAG, the Technology Association.
00:05:57 – Rico Figliolini
That’s right.
00:05:58 – Gabrielle Mills
And she’s like, I really think that you need to rethink your name. This was seven days before I was going to quit my job and do this and tell them I was going out. In which case they would want to know what the company is, what our name is, all the things. And so the next seven days, Chrissy and I were just on fire trying to think of everything. The amount of hours we spent digging through the thesaurus was crazy. And one day we were, I was driving and I was playing around with the word outsourced, resource, I was trying to come up with a play on words there and Sourced just came about and I called her and I was like, what do you think of this? And she’s like, I love it. And I think we came up with it two days before I quit.
00:06:48 – Rico Figliolini
Wow. And I love the website name though, getsourced.com. I mean, it just like makes sense to be able to do that. So, you know, you’ve been dealing with a lot of businesses, helping them and stuff. Sourcing is an issue sometimes, especially if you’re doing financial fractional work like that. And small business owners, maybe the larger ones like 10 million plus different, or even let’s say 5 million plus different, right? And I’m not sure what your sweet spot is, but the trust process to get a business to trust you to do their work because they’re sourcing it out to you. You’re not in the office. How do you do that? How do you gain traction with that? How do you gain their confidence to be able to provide the services that will make their business better?
00:07:37 – Gabrielle Mills
I think there’s a lot of ways that we do that naturally. First and most importantly, we have an amazing, amazing team of people and they really do the selling for us. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and referral because the people that work with us have such a great experience with our team and our people that that trust is kind of transferred already over because the referrer has had a great experience. That helps. Chrissy and I are involved in every single sale at this point before we pass it off to our team. We obviously have been through the entrepreneurial journey. We’re in our ninth year. We’ve done all the bumps and bruises, made all the mistakes. We’ve seen a lot of other people’s mistakes. We can kind of provide a lot of guidance during the sales process. So I think that builds trust. And not to be understated, the processes and the standards that we’ve built over time, we know how to fall back to the level of our training, regardless of the situation at hand. So we really lean into that when we’re talking to clients or prospects because they want to know how things are going to go. You can have a really good person who’s really friendly, but they may not know what they’re doing. That’s where the processes and our training comes in. We don’t have to do a lot of training because our people are already very experienced. But the way that we do things, we want that to be standardized. So we train on how the Sourced way is. So the client is experiencing something consistent.
00:09:14 – Rico Figliolini
So when you’re training, obviously, that’s an internal thing that you’re doing. There’s always industry trends, right? I mean, taxes is one thing where there’s always an update every year, different things going on. God knows probably this year will be a lot of things going on, accounting and stuff. But how do you keep ahead of some of the trends then or adapting to the needs of the entrepreneurs that you’re reaching out to? Because I’m sure that changes and evolves too.
00:09:42 – Gabrielle Mills
It does. I mean, you keep up with current events. We listen to our clients. Our clients know a lot. Our clients are very, very smart and we’re industry agnostic. So we get the benefit of seeing lots of different things from lots of different people and lots of different industries. So we just kind of like by osmosis learn things. But I think any good leader, regardless of if you own the business or you’re just working in the business or you have some kind of your stakeholder somewhere, I think anybody that is worth their salt is kind of always keeping up with. What’s going on and how does the business need to adapt and how does my department need to adapt and how do we grow and how do we improve? And I think just by having a regular practice like that, where you’re always kind of investigating it and looking at ways of improving, it’s more natural than it is forced to grow and change as the world changes.
00:10:37 – Rico Figliolini
Do you find going through the things you’re going through that, I mean, obviously, The day-to-day work is never-ending, right? It’s a process. Some days, some weeks, it’ll be the same as other weeks. But every once in a while, you get a challenge. You find something that you have to overcome within a business maybe, within your own business. Do you have any success stories that you can share that relates to that?
00:11:06 – Gabrielle Mills
Yes, I’ll tell you my favorite one. And it’s one of the more recent ones too. In our nine years of business, we have seen a lot come through our doors. We always tell people, especially those coming in for accounting. Accounting and talent acquisition are our two most popular services. And we started in accounting. That’s kind of our bread and butter. And people are always very vulnerable about like, oh, my books are bad. I had a bad accountant. I don’t know what I’m doing. We always tell them we’re like doctors. We just want to, give us the real, real, we’ll fix it. Like accounting is not a human body. So like we can actually fix it because it’s just numbers. But we’ve seen a lot of horror stories. You cannot scare us. You cannot surprise us. We’ve seen a lot in nine years. Recently, I think this client came on board early last year. And it was a $12 million construction client. And they have been in business for like 20 years or something. And when we were working on, we got referred into this client and we went and we talked to them and they were having an issue with their accountant that was internal. And they wanted to let that person go, but she knew way too much in the business. So they were like, we need somebody that can fix the craziness that’s happening in the books. And you can imagine they’re large books, $12 million company. We need to create some kind of redundancy in a situation where we need to let somebody go and we can’t, we’re beholden to them. And we just don’t know anything about our books. We’ve never seen them. And the best part of that meeting was that Chrissy asked, or she was talking about the financials, the financial reports. And the client stops her and she goes, wait, why do I need to look at my financial reports? And our jaws just dropped because this is a $12 million company. They’ve been in business for like 20 years. They have done a phenomenal job building their company. They had no idea the importance of their numbers. They didn’t know what their, like how their money was transacting. They, I don’t know how they were running it. And so that was a lot to overcome. It was probably one of our longer onboarding processes, but we got that client off of QuickBooks desktop and onto QuickBooks online so they could see their numbers, right. Their books were done and I’m not blaming this person that ended up leaving. There was reasons why this was, but the books were entirely backwards. So where there were things that should have been a positive, they were showing a negative and a negative should have been a positive. So all their numbers were backwards and then nothing was set up properly. So we had to do a whole setup. We had to clean the whole thing and we just had a meeting with them yesterday just talking about our usual check-in, how things are going. We’re constantly looking at improving this account. And they were just saying they have never felt more secure in an accounting firm. They said, regardless of how our team changes, you guys are our people. You’ve taught us, you’ve changed everything, you’ve done everything. And we just, they were showering us with lovely things and it just warmed our hearts so much because this was one heck of a undertaking. But I also, give them a lot of credit too, because that one, it was not a cheap project. And two, that took a lot of trust in them too, to be like, I don’t know you guys and you have to fix all of these problems at once. And it was a lot of work that they had to do and we had to do. And so they put a lot into the relationship as well. And it was, they’re probably one of my favorite clients now. And it’s, will probably be my biggest success story for a while, just from the scale.
00:15:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I have a friend, Karl Barham, who owns Transworld Business. He consults, he buys and sells business for people. And it’s constantly amazing how many, not just half a million dollar companies, but $10 million companies, sometimes their books are so bad that they have to like step away and say, you know what, let’s fix this up. You may have to wait a year before you can sell this business just because the books are so bad. You know, it’s just like, there’s that.
00:15:31 – Gabrielle Mills
We don’t like to see it. Obviously it breaks our hearts and we can, we can fix it. We have the, we can fix anything at this point. But it’s unfortunate because they didn’t get bad because of that person. They got bad because that person didn’t have the support that they needed. Likely that the entrepreneur was not an accountant. They shouldn’t be. They should be building their business, doing whatever it is that they’re doing. Accounting is important, but this is why we went into businesses. You need to go do your dream. We’ve got the stuff that, yes, you need to keep up with, but you don’t need to know how to do it. We can show you, but you don’t need to know how to do this. You just need to know what your numbers look like.
00:16:19 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah, I’m surprised that when their accountant did their work at the end of the year, I can’t imagine it was the same person doing it. It had to be someone else doing it. And no one figured it out.
00:16:33 – Gabrielle Mills
Well, with this particular client, there was a couple migrations in systems that caused that reversal. So they started on one system and moved to QuickBooks Desktop. which reversed everything. And then the person that was working in the office, she would do a lot of things right. But there’s a lot of different ways to do accounting right, quote unquote. But she continued the backwardness because that’s how it had to be done. It was very complicated.
00:17:02 – Rico Figliolini
And I’m sure. And sometimes you’re down a path and you don’t want to leave that path. You just keep going and just figure it’ll work itself out at some point.
00:17:11 – Gabrielle Mills
That happens in accounting of like, we just start fresh. Like right now we’re getting a lot of clients that need cleanups and we only have to go back a month and a half because it’s the 21st today. When we’re in July, we’re like, okay, how far back do you want to go? Or not July, but more like October. They’re like, we can clean up from January or we can just hold off and start fresh in the next January.
00:17:36 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s a tough decision. You said before you’re agnostic business-wise a little bit, but are there types of businesses that may benefit most from what you all do or that you target or that you’d prefer working with? Or have strength in those industries.
00:17:53 – Gabrielle Mills
We have developed patterns of clients that tend to come to us. So on the accounting side, we do a lot of construction. That’s the example that I gave. We have a couple of YouTube clients, which is kind of neat. We do a lot of work for attorneys. Accounting for law is very specialized. So we do that. On the marketing side, they’re completely across the board. There is no consistency whatsoever. Same with administrative support. HR gets thrown into any monthly recurring service that we have. So again, there’s no consistency. On the talent acquisition side, we have quite a bit of consistency. Although there’s randomness throughout. We do a lot in, we still do a lot in law. We get a lot of financial roles. So we do anything from accountants, tax managers, tax seniors. We do a lot in IT, particularly in the cybersecurity market. A lot in finance, some in construction, not really all that much. Did I say finance? Property management in talent acquisition. Yeah, those are about the consistent ones in talent acquisition. But again, we kind of see it all. At this point in our business, we actually get really excited when we see a business or an industry that we’ve never worked in before. So for marketing, I was just pitching a client yesterday who’s opening a shooting sports facility and gun range. I have never done that before. And I was like, oh, this is different. This is unique. We’ve got research. Same with anything in our talent acquisition department. If it’s different, we’re like, okay, this is exciting. Because usually, I mean, we just see a lot of businesses come through here.
00:19:48 – Rico Figliolini
Well, that’s cool. Yeah, especially when you see a lot of different businesses like that. We talked about success stories. As a business person, I think any business person, if they’re honest with themselves, will say, yes, we make mistakes every once in a while. New situations arise that they’ve never seen before and it’s a problem that they have to overcome. Have there been any mistakes in your business journey or that you’ve seen in other businesses besides, obviously, the accounting issue? But anything that you’ve overcome as an entrepreneur, as a business person?
00:20:27 – Gabrielle Mills
No, Rico, we’re absolutely perfect. We’ve never made a mistake.
00:20:30 – Rico Figliolini
I could see that.
00:20:34 – Gabrielle Mills
Oh gosh no. I tell people, people ask me about our journey a lot. They’re just curious about our story and how we came to be. And we love telling it. I always tell people, Chrissy and I didn’t have experience in any of these things before we started. We just had a dream and wanted to be, help businesses and build a business ourselves. All of this we have learned from the ground up, having no experience with the exception of like general business acumen and general sales acumen. But we’re not accountants. We are not recruiters. I did start in marketing, but not tactically. So I always say that I went to the school of hard knocks, got a couple of degrees from there. And that’s how I got to where I’m at because we’ve made every mistake in the book. We’ve had clients that have trusted us and loved us through some mistakes that we’ve made to get us to where we are. I would say the biggest piece of advice or mistake that I made that I learned from was Chrissy came into the business from day one. And she was telling me and our director of account management, Maureen, she was like, we’ve got to focus on our processes. We’ve got to focus on our processes. Maureen and I were focused on the people and just serving the people. And in year three, which was our hardest year yet, we got so many different challenges and scenarios that were really, really difficult. And what Chrissy was telling us from day one finally got through to Maureen and I of like, oh, this is why we need processes and standards. This makes sense now. So it took a lot of heartache to really understand why those are important. But now it has been the secret sauce to our business because we know how to hire off of them. So if people aren’t already operating or have experience with that certain frame of mind, we know that they’re likely not a fit or they have to be at least willing to be coached into that direction. We’ve developed consistency because our process is our standard. We’re always making our processes better. We’re always looking to make them beefier. We never would have gotten there if we didn’t learn that lesson.
00:22:53 – Rico Figliolini
And sometimes you do. I mean, you have to learn your lesson. It’s like bringing up kids. They want to do their own mistakes. They don’t want to be told to watch out for that step. And they’ll do their own mistakes.
00:23:04 – Gabrielle Mills
She was a broken record there for a few years. And then the light bulb finally went off. And Maureen and I were like, oh, okay. Now it took us some tears to learn it. But we got there. Now we’re on there.
00:23:19 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. So you’re a local business. Obviously, coming out to meet with you and your mom and the rest of the team was nice to take a tour and find out what you’re doing there. You do give back. I know you’re good people. You’re giving back to the community. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about some of the local charities that you’ve given back to?
00:23:45 – Gabrielle Mills
So early in our business, we decided that we’re not in business, we’re in business for the joy of being in business. We’re not in business to make a gazillion dollars and cash out. While that would be lovely, we would totally not turn our noses up at that. We wanted to at least serve our clients and then serve people that never really came into contact with Sourced and use the business as an opportunity to give back because we believe that if we’re successful, we have been giving blessings and so we should be giving blessings out. So we committed from day one that we were going to donate 10% of our monthly profits to charity. And those charities would be selected by our team of people. So every year, in December, we put out a survey to our team. And our team can nominate a charity that is important to them. And we decided in January, up to three charities that we’re going to give to that year, and every quarter we look at each month that we’ve made profit, take that pool of money, cut it by, divide it out equally across however many charities we have that year and give them out. We have served, some of those have been large organizations, but our favorite ones are the ones that are smaller and local. We started the first couple of years working with an organization called Connections Homes, which is out of Suwanee. They help kids who are aging out of foster care really like with support to become adults, but also they’re not really adults. They’re 17, 18, 19, and they still don’t know how to do the world. That’s an organization that we’ve supported. We’ve supported an organization called Ignite Hope, which is another foster care association. We’ve done neighborhood cooperative ministries, which is a, for those who are local, you guys know that it’s a very large nominal nonprofit here in Norcross. And this year we’re partnering with an organization called Because One Matters, which ironically is another foster care organization. I just realized that there seems to be a pattern. So we tend to give to the kids.
00:26:08 – Rico Figliolini
No, I like that. I like the fact that you’re giving locally and it’s 10% of your profit each month is what you split up, which is great. It’s almost like tithing in a way.
00:26:18 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. And that’s how it came about. We wanted to tithe using the business. We give once a quarter based on the months because what we didn’t want to do is we would have one month go to one charity and that was a particularly good month. But then the next month maybe wasn’t that good of a month. So we wanted to balance it out. So we look at all the profits that come in from the quarter and then equally disperse it.
00:26:39 – Rico Figliolini
That is cool. Alright. We’ve gotten sort of to the end of our interview time, but I’m sure that there’s things that we could talk a lot more about. Is there anything that I’ve left out? Anything you’d like to share? Maybe services that you may be looking at expanding into the coming year or anything along those lines?
00:27:00 – Gabrielle Mills
So we’re likely not expanding into other services because we have five already and that’s enough. We are finding that there’s a lot of growth to be had in our talent acquisition department. So we’re eager to see what that ends up looking like through the year. What we really want to focus on in terms of like diversification or innovation, which I think is really where your question comes from, is how we utilize technology to make our services more streamlined and more advanced. We will never not have the support of our people. We are a people business. We will go under before computers take over our jobs. However, there’s a lot of really great technology that if you use it right and smartly, we can make profit margins better, save our clients money, be able to reach more people. So we’re going to try to figure out how we can lean into that a little bit.
00:28:02 – Rico Figliolini
So that’s a great path to go down for a quick minute, maybe. Because AI technology is something that everyone, every business is tackling and using in a variety of ways, right? ChatGPT, Grok3, there’s a bunch of them. Claude, I mean, there’s a whole bunch. DeepSeek, I mean, you could just go on and on with these things. And every business, every industry is trying to figure out how they can use that, right? And some use it badly and others use it better. Sometimes it’s used for support or for research versus making decisions. So are you finding that you have to also look at that to augment or to add a complexity to the service you provide?
00:28:52 – Gabrielle Mills
So what stands out in your question to me is the have to. I think that nobody really has to, but I’m in an industry that if I don’t look at it, my industry will die because it is based on people. And if you don’t lean into the technology, you run the risk of the world thinking they don’t need people anymore. And then you’re obsolete. So we don’t have to do anything. But if we want to stay in business, we should be looking at how to utilize it better. The beauty of our business is these are things that people are always going to need. And computers can’t replace entirely. You always need a person overseeing or creating or some version of managing what the computer does. So we always have a people element to it. What we’re looking at with technology is how do we make ourselves and our processes and how we do things better and faster using technology and use the human brain where the human brain needs to interject.
00:30:01 – Rico Figliolini
Yeah. Okay. Great explanation. Well, we’ve reached the end of our time together. Where can people find out more about your company? Of course, we’ll have it in the show notes as well, but how can they reach out to you?
00:30:14 – Gabrielle Mills
Yeah. So if you’re local, just come and see us. We are off of Scientific Drive in Technology Park, down by the Forum. If you want to check us out online, we are at getsourced.com. We’re on all the socials under SourcedATL, or you can always just look at my name, Gabrielle Mills. Unfortunately, very easy to find out on the web.
00:30:39 – Rico Figliolini
I’m sure. Check her out on LinkedIn. It’d be easy to find her there. I want to say thank you again to EV Remodeling and to Vox Pop Uli for supporting us. Everyone else, you have comments, leave them in the comment section below, depending where you’re watching this, whether it’s Facebook, YouTube. If you’re listening to this on Apple or any of the audio podcast places, Spotify, leave a review, like, share. We’d love if you would support us that way. Gabrielle, thank you for being with us. Appreciate it.
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) celebrated the opening of Fifth Third Bank’s new branch in Peachtree Corners with a ribbon cutting on February 20.
Located at 3210 Holcomb Bridge Road, the new location features lobby and drive-thru hours, regular banking, investment services, loans and more.
“We are growing [and] proud to open up our new financial center at Peachtree Corners,” said Randy Koporc, EVP, regional president GA/AL Fifth Third Bank. “Congratulations to Financial Center Manager Jasmine Youngblood and her team, Retail Executive Dewayne King and all involved in getting us to this day.”
photo credit: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
“Thank you, Lisa Proctor of the Peachtree Corners Business Association, for helping us celebrate at our ribbon cutting,” Koporc continued.
Fifth Third plans to build more than 60 financial centers in Georgia and Alabama over the next five years and looks forward to strengthening the communities that they join.
“We love welcoming new businesses into Peachtree Corners,” said Lisa Proctor, president of the Peachtree Corners Business Association. “Fifth Third Bank will be a great addition to our banking community. We can’t wait to watch them grow.”
photos: Keri Zampano; courtesy of Peachtree Corners Business Association
About Peachtree Corners Business Association
The Peachtree Corners Business Association (PCBA) is a business membership organization that focuses on innovative approaches, programs, shared resources, community outreach and opportunities for member businesses and professionals to connect, develop, grow, and prosper.
The PCBA is made up of businesses of all sizes and types who want to expand their reach and grow their business within Peachtree Corners and the greater metro-Atlanta area.
Sequel Coffee Co., a new specialty coffee brand, is set to open its flagship location in Peachtree Corners in the summer of 2025.
The new coffee shop will open alongside shared workspace provider, Roam, at Town Center and will feature a convenient drive-thru complemented by an inviting in-shop experience.
Premium coffee and locally sourced offerings
Committed to delivering an elevated coffee experience, Sequel Coffee Co. will serve freshly brewed coffee and handcrafted espresso beverages with responsibly sourced beans from Valor, a local metro Atlanta roaster.
Interior rendering courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
The food menu will feature a curated selection of locally sourced café favorites and convenient grab-and-go options from local vendors Two Chefs and A Seasonal Affair.
Guests can expect a variety of delicious offerings, including breakfast sandwiches, quiche and freshly baked pastries, as well as yogurt parfaits, homemade granola bars and protein-packed power bites for on-the-go fuel.
In addition, rotating seasonal flavors and limited-time menu items will offer new and exciting food and beverage options throughout the year.
Strengthening community connections in Peachtree Corners
A concept created by Roam, the hospitality-focused work and meeting space, Sequel Coffee Co. is built on the belief that coffee is more than just a morning ritual — it’s a catalyst for creativity, productivity, community and connection.
Image courtesy of Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel’s tagline, “start your story strong,” reflects its mission to inspire the potential in every day by championing stories, embracing moments and thoughtfully crafting coffee.
Sequel seeks to become an integral part of the Peachtree Corners community by fostering meaningful interactions through hospitality-driven experiences. With a brand philosophy centered on people, purpose and belonging, the company aims to inspire customers through delicious coffee and intentional service.
Bringing Sequel Coffee Co. to you
Ahead of its brick-and-mortar opening this summer, Sequel Coffee Co. is currently serving the community through its mobile coffee cart, offering a full-service espresso bar and trained baristas for offsite events.
Ideal for corporate offices, networking events, school functions and private gatherings, the mobile cart provides an opportunity to enjoy Sequel’s signature coffee experience in any setting — before the shop even opens its doors.
Sequel is also currently hiring a Shop Manager to lead daily operations and cultivate an inviting experience for customers. Interested applicants can learn more about the position and apply at sequelcoffeeco.com/shop-manager-job-listing.
About Sequel Coffee Co.
Sequel Coffee Co. is dedicated to inspiring potential in every day through thoughtfully crafted coffee and warm hospitality.
Offering handcrafted espresso beverages, freshly brewed coffee and a curated menu of café favorites — along with a convenient drive-thru and cozy café space — Sequel aims to create a welcoming spot for guests to fuel their day and transform the daily coffee routine.
Roam is a comprehensive workplace solution offering co-working memberships, private offices and meeting space for professionals and businesses of sizes.
Opening in Peachtree Corners at 3847 Medlock Bridge Road in summer 2025, Roam provides flexible and inspiring environments to help individuals and teams accomplish their best work. Now leasing private offices and pre-booking meetings and events.
Food & Drink11 hours ago
