Intro:
Broadcasting live from the Business Radio X studios in Detroit, Michigan. It's time for Detroit Business Radio. Now, here's your host.
The Mag
Lee Cantor here, another episode of Detroit Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have with us Tina Williams with Qt Business Solutions. Welcome, Tina.
Tina Williams:
Hi. Thank you for having me, Lee.
The Mag
Well, before we get too far into things, tell us about Qt business solutions. How are you serving folks?
Tina Williams:
So we help businesses write their business plans and or their grant proposals. So we help for profits and nonprofit business owners looking for funding with their writing needs, and we actually get them their business funding.
The Mag
So how did you get into this line of work? What kind of drew you to the entrepreneur?
Tina Williams:
Well, I'm an ex-banker, I used to work at Chase and Fifth Third. And a lot of times, I saw that we had really great business owners. And sometimes they would come to the bank not prepared to apply for a business loan. And what people don't understand is bankers can't really help you get the loan, because then we would be liable. So you have to kind of come to the bank already prepared with what you're why you need the money, how you're going to spend the money, and how you're going to create those additional revenues to pay yourself, your employees and of course, the bank back already together.
The Mag
And isn't it? I don't want to say funny, but it's, it's kind of funny that they don't realize that, like they're like to get started business is a big deal. And it's complicated. There's a lot of moving parts and to not think you would need some paperwork, to get someone to give you money. It's a little bit of a disconnect, right?
Tina Williams:
It's a disconnect, you know, I would say, we have a lot of beautiful business owners, and we get out there and we put our nail our feet to the ground, we grind, we grind. And we might not be proficient in creating financial projections, performance, you know, those, those financial projections, putting PNL together, you know, putting your QuickBooks together, that might not be their strong suit. And so sometimes you just don't know what you don't know. And when you go into the bank, I used to get a lot of people coming in asking, Well, how much money can I get? And then I say, Well, you know, Can I see? What do you have? How do you make your money? What's your, what are your projections, they don't, you know, it's like a deer in headlights. And it's overwhelming, because, of course, they're doing excellent at their business, they just don't know how to put that paperwork together.
The Mag
Right. And that really, I mean, I talked to a lot of business folks. And that's not that uncommon. I mean, even if businesses of fairly large size, they don't have their books together as well, as you might expect.
Tina Williams:
That, you know, that that that happens a lot. Um, you know, I get a lot of truck drivers, I have a lot of truck drivers as clients, older gentlemen or guys is just doing their job. Those guys make good money, they make like $10,000 a week, sometimes by themselves in their own truck. However, in that, you know, in that industry, they may not be the ones that can put together a great written business plan. So for example, I had an older gentleman, he does a gravel hauling, he makes good money, you pick up the bricks at on this side of the construction site, and you drive like a minute or two over and they drop the bricks, and that's $280 a load. So he made he was making by himself about $10,000 a week, $40,000 a month, but he needed some more money to get another gravel haul tractor and also the trailers to go with that. The customer that was paying him he's a minority, actually asked him can he could he get 10 trucks because they needed another minority, they needed a minority provider to provide the services.
And he kind of declined that and I said, well, why are we declining? The more money and he says he only had one truck while I was helping him to get the second truck. But then we actually I said what do you have eight other friends that have trucks because then you can just Subcon attracted jobs out, you pay them 250. And then you get, you know, 220 to 250. And then you can just, you know, collect the 280 per load. And then just light bulbs went off in his head, and he immediately had, like, he was making 10,000 a week himself. Immediately, there were 10 other trucks under his contract. And they kind of put him into a different ballpark at that point. But sometimes you just need an extra, you know, helping hand to kind of like figure out some things, and we were able to help him get the funding for another truck so that he can hire another truck driver directly into his company. But you know, sometimes you just need a little bit more help, if you don't know what you don't know.
The Mag
Right. And that's a great testament to you to really kind of open his eyes and educate him about what was right in front of him, like for you, it was obvious, this is like, you know, you have this big pile of money in front of you. All you have to do is, you know, get some friends and do this. And, you know, that advice is, you know, could change that guy's life.
Tina Williams:
It did change his life. It did, yeah, he immediately got the contract. He wasn't, he was able to accept it. And so that's, that's some of the things that I love doing is just kind of tweaking things a little bit. But like he said, he was more bankable after that tweak. Because now we have this big contract, we have 10 trucks, they have to pay you. It was an MDOT contract. So you know, it was great. And he was getting paid a lot of money for, you know, helping a lot of people and that made the bank more lenient, and we were able to get him those trucks. I just had another gentleman I do a lot of, I have two truck drivers today. So I don't for some reason, I'm getting a lot of truck drivers. But he needed help with putting a balance sheet together. In a profit and loss statement, he asked me what's the profit and loss and balance sheet, the same thing, you know, and it's just, you know, he didn't understand that he knows trucking hauling, that I would be horrible at hauling, I would crash and burn. So he's an expert at what he's an expert at. And I'm an expert at what I'm an expert at, put us together and it makes a great team. So I always tell people, Hey, let's make a great team, we can do things together.
The Mag
And that's important, because that requires, like sometimes the entrepreneur, like you said, they're grinding and they're working and they're so deep into their business. They don't it requires a little bit of humility and humbleness to say, I don't know this part of the business. And I need help.
Tina Williams:
Right? Right. That is sometimes, you know, the hardest part, recognizing that you need help. It's amazing, you know, you can get yourself you can make some good money, but you can make some bad decisions. Another truck driver had another young gentleman, he hired some people into his company, he had a Penske, a Penske fleet lease, and a lot of the drivers kind of, you know, broke up his trucks. And you know, he didn't have the proper insurance in place. And those are things that you find out that you need right while you're writing your business plan. So we got to kind of know, we're gonna have this insurance before we let anyone step on the inside. And sometimes you might not know that, because if you haven't been in business for a while, these are things that could blindside you. So it's very important that you talk to experts before you do things, and sometimes that's the hardest thing because we might not, we might know, we might not want to admit that we might need a little bit of help. But I promise you a lot of times it's cheaper to ask for the help upfront than it is to try to fix some things after things have happened.
The Mag
Yeah, amen to that. Now, another benefit I would think from having good books and a business plan is that it opens up other opportunities like you might be able to get loans or I mean, even during this disaster, there were certain programs you could qualify for, but you had to show some, you know, books of some kind, you had to show some numbers about what you're doing and how you're doing it.
Tina Williams:
Yes. So we got a lot of our clients that economic injury disaster loans. Some of them are qualified for the grant IPs that were available prior to them discontinuing. And then we got a lot of people the paycheck Protection Program loans. Now we're actually helping people fill out their paycheck Protection Program, and loan forgiveness applications because they're coming up due shortly. So, so though the economic injury disaster loans, those were mega easy to get, as long as you had any type of, we were requiring Schedule C. So you could have just had 1099, you could have not even had a business registered as long as you can show that you had 1099, or some sort of revenues, that you were able to apply for the economic injury, disaster loan, as long as you had a 570 credit score, and you didn't have they had some knockout questions, background questions.
So as long as you have the 570 credit score, you can prove that you had income last year, and in 2019, prior to February 15, 2020, you are able to get that economic injury disaster loan. Now, the paycheck Protection Program was a little bit more challenging to get, because you actually have to turn in your schedule C, or your 1120 s or you're moving 20 You had to turn those things in, along with some bank statements and other things that they required, those who were in. So if you didn't have that documentation, you weren't able to get the paycheck Protection Program, the EIDL you were able to do without documentation. But sometimes they did come back and ask for tax returns. So it always helps to make sure that you have that stuff together.
The Mag
So now when you look back at your career, and you spent a lot of time you said as a personal banker and in banking, and now you're working kind of arm in arm with these entrepreneurs, how different is it, it sounds like you're doing some work that's kind of similar. But this must be I would think more personal and you're more kind of emotionally more invested in these folks that are your clients now.
Tina Williams:
Yes, even when I was a banker, I've always been a person that cared, I, you know, I would be a little bit upset when I know a person deserves to get a loan. But you know, and I can see something on the application at the bank that would cause them to, you know, get declined. But you know, I'm not able to help them fix their application, you know, what I'm saying? This is actually way better because I get to prepare you before you go to the bank, or, you know, the lender. And then this in some cases, too, we help with grant writing as well. And so I get to help with causes and purposes that are near and dear to my heart and help my community that way as well. When I do this, when I help someone get a loan or a business loan, or grant, I'm changing my community. And I'm changing lives. And I think that's important to me, that I make my mark on the earth because I I believe I was put here for a reason, everybody, I believe everybody was put here for a reason. And I think I'm living in my purpose right now.
The Mag
Yeah, it must be so rewarding when you really, I mean, like you said, these folks are grinding. They're the, you know, the heartbeat of most communities are these unsung heroes who are out there battling everyday kind of anonymously, and probably aren't appreciated by the community as much as they should be for the amount of risk they're taking and sacrifice they're making. And then here you are kind of behind the scenes, helping them kind of maximize their cash flow, helping them get funding, helping them build a business that you know, can be a legacy and can really get more jobs and help more folks. I mean, it must be so rewarding.
Tina Williams:
It is I know that I'm feeding millions. Well, I think I'm feeding millions of babies. Because I get to I get to give these businesses their first big loan, and they usually don't a lot of my customers grow and expand. You know, I got customers that have hundreds of employees. And I actually helped start that and I get to think about all the children that are eating because I help that business owner, get that first business loan.
The Mag
Now you mentioned the trucking industry, but to you, it sounds like you can work in any industries but certain groups are kind of finding you. Was that happy? accident or was that by design?
Tina Williams:
Actually, they're tracking. I've always had trucking. And they generally trucking guys generally find me. I have a lot of hair salons that I funded in the city of Detroit. You guys might recognize the living room hair lounge, you might recognize shears and shaves. Those are, uh, ones that I actually started, you know, they went to my business plan start starting the course, like my business building course. So we don't just like write a business plan, we actually kind of build a business. And so if you ask those two ladies, we actually dreamed what it would actually be that now we got the funding, shares, and shaves we funded to $281,000. And she was booth renting for 30 years, and her revenues prior to the loan was under $25,000.
So you know, it was a life-changing, life-altering, you know, loan and we got that through the help of a motor city match in Detroit. And in some other lenders, we provided the business plan and the business consulting in order and helped her kind of build-out her dream. And now she has a spa Med Spa on one side and a women's Spa on the other side, a very beautiful location, living room heroine which is in Ferndale, and she's opening up some other things, but they're growing and expanding. I do a lot of restaurants. So you might have heard of Tijuana Mexican kitchen. That's one of our clients as well. I have, you know, some big names, as on our client list, Motor City, [------] and Detroit, both locations. So just helping a lot of people.
The Mag
Yeah, this is it's so important to have folks like you and your team out there working on the behalf of these entrepreneurs doing something that is so critically important, but it's something that may not be their expertise. And to have somebody like you watching their back is really, you know, that makes or break, if they don't have the right advice in this side of their business, they can easily go out of business.
Tina Williams:
And in this during this age, too, with COVID. You know what happened during COVID. A lot of people I just kept going on, like Facebook Live and going through the applications, and just showing people how to do it because we were getting hit hard. And then I just kept asking people to just call we, we didn't even charge our normal fees. I mean, we charged $250 for these applications. Where you know, we were used to charging like, you know, 1000s of dollars for our business plans. But we were just out there, if you came in and you needed help and we didn't even charge I was taking a loss to pay my employees to help the community. So we were getting hit hard. But I'm so proud to say a lot of our people got PPP, a lot of our people got EIDL A lot of people we hit got to help them apply for a lot of those grants that were available to Michigan restart grant there was there were just a bunch of different grants locally, that we help people apply for. And a lot of our people are doing just fine.
The Mag
So now, what is kind of the pain that that client is having a prospective client is having right before they call you like what is the symptom that they can say, hey, that I'm going through that maybe I should call Tina and her team.
Tina Williams:
So most of the time we get a call when a banker has asked them for a business plan. So a formal business plan is a symptom if you know you don't have one, and you want to get one you don't want to try to figure out how to do it yourself. That's when you call us. And then we generally can help you through everything else. But even if you don't need a business plan, business plan, we have customers that have really great business plans, but they just need some structure. You know where to go, how do I set up my QuickBooks? How do I set up payroll so that I can pay my employees you know, those types of deals will be able to assist? So we just asked just call We give free consultations. They're free and when I say it educational, I mean educational. I actually don't care if the person doesn't buy, what I care about is changing their life with some knowledge that I may have for them. So that's what I'm asking for when they call in. And then hey, if you do business with us, that's great as well.
The Mag
Yeah, well, you can see that your heart is so into this and that you really care about people and care about making a difference. Congratulations on all your success.
Tina Williams:
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having us out. You know, today, we really appreciate this.
The Mag
Now, if somebody wants to learn more about some of the services you offer, and maybe some of the consulting and coaching you do, what is the website and social media kind of coordinates to find you?
Tina Williams:
Okay, so they can text if they want to just get some information sent to them, they can text COVID loan no spaces. 233444 They can also visit us at qtbizsolutions.com. That's Queen tom, boy igloo zebra solutions.com or they can just you know, go on our YouTube just Google Qt business solutions, YouTube, and you'll see a lot of stuff pop up. And you know, just look at I give a lot of free information, a lot of videos on that YouTube channel that's just there for their enjoyment.
The Mag
Well, again, thank you for sharing your story today. You're doing important work and we appreciate you.
Tina Williams:
Thank you so much.
The Mag
All right, this is Lee Cantor we will see y'all next time on Detroit Business Radio.
Image source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/qtbizsolutions/
