Leo Kanell

Category: Uncategorized

  • How Sam Walton Built Walmart with Smart Financing

    How Sam Walton Built Walmart with Smart Financing

    Over the last year I have read a significant amount of books from successful business magnates and icons.  My most recent book is one of the best I have read it is, “Made In America” Sam Walton.”  It is 2018 and it has been 26 years since Sam Walton passed away, but not before he left a legacy by building up Walmart the largest retailer in the world.  Sam Walton was 100% self made and due to incredible vision and an obsession of testing new and innovative ideas was able to grow Walmart into the incredible organization it has become.  What most people don’t know is that Sam Walton was able to establish hundreds of Walmart stores due to his ability to smartly finance the growth of his business, without the astute financing he would never have grown Walmart to the business it has become today.

    Sam began his retail career by working a sales job at JC Penny’s and that was his first job right out of college.  At that point he began to envision setting up his own store to manage.  He was interrupted by world war 2 and served in the military for a few years and when the war was finished he knew exactly what he was going to do, he was going to set up a variety store in Newport, Arkansas.  He had saved $5,000 himself and was able to secure a loan of $20,000 in order to start his business.  The business began to grow immediately thanks to the innovative actions that Sam took.  At that time Sam was building his first stores in smaller populated areas of Arkansas and in order to generate interested customers he needed to do new things.  So what he did was discover that soft ice cream was going to help attract a lot of customers to his store, so he immediately secured a bank loan for $1,800 and set up the ice cream machine out in front of his store.  It was unprecedented at the time and the machine led to significant growth in his store.

    Over the next several years Sam Walton borrowed to the “hilt” as he described it in order to set up more stores and grow the business, at first he set up a couple of stores and later he began to set up dozens of stores each year, all while carrying significant personal risk to himself and his family by ultimately personally guaranteeing millions of dollars in loans and this was back in the 1950’s and 60’s when a million dollars was a decent amount of money.  The point I’m making is that without his intelligence in securing significant funding from multiple banks and lenders all across the country Walmart would never have become the most dominant retailer in the world that it is now.  So while some people like Mark Cuban may have said it is “stupid” to start a business on a loan, in reality most successful businesses are started by securing affordable financing and the majority of businesses are able to grow with capital secured by smart financing.  Well, when Sam passed away he was far and away the wealthiest man in the world, and if he were alive today his wealth would total $160 Billion dollars which is more than what the current richest person in the world is worth although Jeff Bezos is on his way to breaking that mark.

    Indeed, smart financing is a vital key for most businesses to get off the ground and grow into a long term sustainable business.

  • The New American Dream

    The New American Dream

    Decades ago, the American dream was to get to the middle class, have a good job, build up some retirement and the crowning achievement was to own your own property and home.  In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the dream was to have your own land that you could work, build up some crops, become self sufficient and raise a good family.  For millions of immigrants leaving Europe and other parts of the world this was so much more than they could hope for when compared to the feudal system type life in their own country.

    Fast forward a few decades and owning your home is  far from the American dream, in fact owning a home is not really the investment that so many believe it is.  If you pay cash for your home, you may feel great about owning your home free and clear, on the other hand if you were making 10% on that same money then you’d actually be making real progress and position yourself to build wealth and in that same time you’d “own your home free and clear,” then you’d be in a position to own 3 to 4 homes of the same value, that is the power of compounding investment income.

    So stop doing something you hate, quit that job, and take action, the first step is to become an expert in a field that you know well and can provide a unique product or service for.  Avoid trying to start a business or venture in an area that you do not have strong expertise in.  One of the biggest mistakes I see is when people go start a restaurant and they have absolutely no experience in the realities of the restaurant industry.

    All that said, it is not necessary to be the main business owner, maybe you should partner up with someone who brings different strengths and skills to the table or sometimes it is better to find an opportunity that you can join up in within the confines of a new startup and grow with that business.  Bottom line, get started now and build your business or join a new business now!

  • Introducing the BUSINESS FUNDING FORMULA book

    Introducing the BUSINESS FUNDING FORMULA book

    CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS THE BUSINESS FUNDING FORMULA?

    Now that you’ve come across this book you’re probably wondering what exactly is the business funding formula and how will it help me? If you’re reading this, then you are either an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur and you have realized that if you simply had access to capital and funding you would have a real chance at building not only the business of your dreams, but the life of your dreams as well. The ability to secure capital can be the difference between success and failure in business, it is absolutely that important.
    Before the recession of 2008 & 2009 it was not complicated to secure funding at your bank to launch or grow your business, but since then it has taken incredible creativity and knowledge to secure funding especially for a new business with unproven financials. Even for businesses with history and financials it is still difficult and even though several years have passed since the recession of 2008-09, banks and lenders still mostly lend to the top 5 to 10% of businesses and largely ignore the other 90% of small businesses who desperately need access to capital to have a chance to bring their products and services to market. To make matters worse the proliferation of many different high rate finance products and expensive lenders has made it even more confusing to find the best funding options to launch and grow your business.
    The Business Funding Formula was created to give all business owners a step by step process to follow in order to secure the best funding possible to turn your entrepreneurial pursuits into the truth. The funding formula has existed for decades and has had tremendous effect on some well known businesses that you recognize and probably use on a weekly or even daily basis. Without these business owners’ understanding of the funding formula it is very likely that their businesses would not exist any where near the level they do or may not even have survived without the funding formula.
    The business funding formula is the holy grail for jump starting your new or existing business. You’ve probably seen some studies done by ivy league schools and other organizations and many times one of the top reasons that new businesses fail is due to undercapitalization, a complicated term to describe running out of money. I don’t care if you are selling lemonade on a table outside of your house or a more complicated business model, it takes money to buy the cups, the lemonade, the table and the signs in the front yard to market your lemonade; so although it is popular to talk about starting a business without any type of up front money it is simply for the most part not part of the capitalistic world we live in. The business funding formula will break down the top funding options available for entrepreneurs including: SBA, unsecured loans, lines of credit, merchant cash advances, corporate credit, income and every funding option available on the planet today. Most importantly it will take all of this seemingly complicated BS and break it down into easily understandable steps to guide you to the best funding that you can possibly qualify for. It will also provide you with hacks and tactics to save thousands on any financing you need for the rest of your life. This book will also pull back the curtain to how your credit score is calculated and how lenders make lending decisions. The business funding formula is a tool that every entrepreneur needs in order to achieve massive growth for a business.

    Buy the Book here!

  • Scarcity vs Abundance Mindset

    Scarcity vs Abundance Mindset

    So there is a mindset in the world that dominates most people it is known as the scarcity mindset vs the abundance mindset, unfortunately this type of thinking is what keeps us from starting or growing a business or from investing money into improving ourselves, it also leads us to believe that because someone else we know has succeeded that it is now less likely for me to succeed.

    Probably 90% of the world subscribe to the scarcity mindset, while the other 10% believe in an abundant mindset, this video is all about finding those differences and becoming part of the abundant mindset. The 10% of those that believe in the abundant mindset oddly have these incredibly positive experiences that come their way. when they confront challenges or problems they do not allow those hurdles to keep them down for long, let’s look at why this is.

    Unfortunately most of us were raised on a scarcity mindset. There isn’t enough success to go around if someone wins, then you have to lose, if the Jones are doing well financially then many people are not and therefore we are not doing well. Terms like we can’t afford it, just be grateful for what you have become the norm and this is downright depressing because we fight the thought of being ungrateful and also at the same time being satisfied with mediocrity. Neither of which is what we want. The good news is it is so possible to be grateful and yet not subscribe to accepting mediocrity, but believing in an abundant planet where there is infinite success. You’ve probably heard more people say we can’t afford it before. This terminology goes direct to the problem of scarcity mindset. Yes, right now you might not want to purchase that $50 steak, however when you focus on creating abundance in your life and realize it is possible and if you focus on doing so by starting a business or working at a startup with incredible opportunities now your mindset begins to change and so does your ability to create an abundant life. Enjoy the video and live an abundant life.

  • The Power of Belief

    The Power of Belief

    The last 6 months has been simply ludicrous in terms of the hoopla surrounding the 2016 presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and I think we can all agree that the results have been even more shocking. Even for those that supported Trump they were incredibly shocked at the results of the election on November 8th. That said and regardless of whether you support Trump or not there are some very important lessons to learn about the power of Belief.

    Be Unreasonable

    Whenever the media would ask Trump about the polls which showed he was losing substantially if he was worried or concerned his response would always be unreasonable in that he would not even entertain the thought, but would instead say things like we are doing very well in the polls or we’re going to win in Florida, Pennsylvania and make history.  Even the most ardent of Trump supporters had a tough time agreeing with those predictions because nearly all of the news and polling showed Trump losing nationally and in each of those states.  Due to the power of belief that Trump had in his mission to become president and the fact that he was completely unreasonable and nonobjective about his chances for winning there is no doubt that this connected with his voters in those rust belt states of Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

    Feed the Belief

    Take an honest evaluation of your own belief in the goals and things you want to achieve with your life, when doubt creeps in to your mind or comes from those that love you and let’s be honest often times those that love us are the biggest naysayers and doubters of our goals and missions in life, so ask yourself do you entertain those doubts or are you unreasonable and do you feed your belief with consistently positive assertions that you WILL accomplish your goals?  The power of belief becomes powerful when each day we review our goals and write them down and continue throughout every day for weeks, months and years we feed in to those beliefs with constant positive affirmation and of course massive action towards those goals.  If you are a whiner, negative in any way or entertain doubt you will lose, if you refuse to give in to those doubts regardless of where they come from then success has a chance to enter your life!

  • To be Self Aware is to Be Successful

    To be Self Aware is to Be Successful

    One of the biggest epidemics is that we constantly lie to ourselves. ‘Excucitis’  is a little disease that lives inside each of us. 90 percent of the country are not making six figures.  Being self aware is being honest with your shortcomings.

    Be aware of your weaknesses and bring in other experts that fill the gap in those areas and always be learning from those around you. Don’t be afraid to take honest constructive criticism. The majority of the population live with excuses to make themselves feel better.

    Being self aware is vital to having a successful business. Find the weak areas and make them strong! Remember, it’s okay to fail and make mistakes. Pick yourself up and learn from what went wrong. You really only ever fail if you give up.

    Look for mentors and those who have already crossed the peaks that you are looking to climb.  Be self aware of new skills that you must learn.  We often have this idea that being humble is about staying quiet and acting somewhat introverted and from what I have constantly seen from incredibly successful people is that they were bold in looking for mentors and books to teach them to accomplish what they want to do.  Yet they were humble enough to look for the answers by digging deep to find mentors and in particular information online and hidden in key books that will guide them to success.  That means you must be self aware of your strengths and the knowledge you are missing so that you can find it in a mentor or books.

    For example, let’s say you have a teenager or two that is becoming difficult for you to manage and guide to success.  IF you are humble that means you will dig into great books of experts who have figured out some simple keys that lead to success with raising teenagers.  This is true really with any topic that you wish to gain mastery over so don’t hold back, go for it, make it happen, be aggressive in searching for others who have succeeded where you want to.  Be opportunistic in looking for mentors.  Today in church I came across a big time real estate developer and you can bet that I will bring value to his life so that I can earn time and wisdom from him.  Life is that simple, find mentors, tell yourself the truth and know your strengths and weaknesses and you will rise above it all!

  • Who are the top 1% in the US?

    Who are the top 1% in the US?

    So when we think of wealth (the top 1%)  in this country often we think of movie stars and professional athletes, sometimes we think of tech founders and often we think of wall street.  Wikipedia and government reports show that the top 1.5% of US households earn about $250,000 per year which according to many politicians is supposedly rich or on a path towards wealth.  So with that as the backdrop to the definition let’s jump in to what the top 1% of earners in the US are doing in order to earn that amount of income so as to join the well known 1%.

    An article from the Wall Street states this about the top 1%, “We know from other research that, by rough estimates, 90 out of 100 men and women reaching this income level are self-made with little to no inheritance.  Almost all have college degrees.  Men dominate the field, and almost all own or started their own business or work as an executive for a large business.”  So 90% of them are self made and almost all own or started their own business which of course is no surprise to me, often we think of celebrities and others well known in the media, but the vast majority of the top 1% of earners in this country are entrepreneurial business owners.

    In this world of value creation we are all compensated fairly or unfairly on how big of a problem we solve, for example:  if I’m hungry and go to a restaurant to find food, the restaurant employees may be compensated a small hourly wage because many people are able to solve that problem.  On the other hand if I need hernia surgery there are many fewer humans capable and instructed to be able to successfully perform such a surgery.  So if we want to join the top 1% then we need to be able to solve big problems.  The good news is that there are plenty of problems that you can solve without having to go to 8 to 10 years of college and another 4 years of 80 hour per week residency training.  In fact with the technology and spread of the internet it has never been easier to create a product or service that can be sold online to 1,000’s of potential customers and earn sufficient income to join the top 1% of earners in America.

    Bottom line if you wish to join the top 1% of earners in the US you need to create businesses that solve problems, those businesses can provide a product or service that solves problems, just to give you an idea of how easy it can be, a few years ago, in the early 2,000’s a guy was asked by his best friend who was getting married, to give a best man speech at his wedding celebration.  He had no idea what he was going to say, so he read some books and did a lot of thinking on the subject and gave an incredible speech.  Then he took everything he learned and put together an e-book for $19.99 and put it on a simple website.  He literally sold 1,000’s of that e-book, then he did one for the bride’s maids, mom’s, dad’s and others who had to give speeches at weddings, he did all of this with very little technical knowledge and even today continues to earn incredible money from this one e-book.  That one creation put him in the top 1% of earners.  So go and create!

  • Why Your Ultimate Desires Can Make or Break Your Success.

    Why Your Ultimate Desires Can Make or Break Your Success.

    As an entrepreneur, father, and someone who wants to truly make a difference and leave a lasting impact with those I interact with I usually feel about once a week that I am simply not living any where near my potential and am under achieving to a significant degree which ultimately pisses me off incredibly.  Perhaps you too have felt that way, just bothered by your lack of getting the job done.  I have learned from a lot of mentors who are much more successful than I am 3 keys that lead you to success.  Before I jump in to those 3 keys I think it’s important to understand that your ultimate desires or aspirations will have much to say about your ultimate success as well.  For example one of my mentors has a goal of owning $500 Million in real estate and having a net worth of at least $100 million and so all of his daily decisions are ultimately guided and driven by his long term goals.  Another well known entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk has an ultimate goal to buy the New York Jets, a feat that will certainly require that he be worth several hundred million if not a billion dollars and so again his daily decisions are based on his roadmap of whether that particular decision will take him to that end game.

    #1:  Write Down Your Goals Daily

    Several very successful people I have studied are incredibly consistent at writing down their goals every morning and making decisions each day on whether those decisions will lead them to these goals.  We are all bombarded with negativity and challenges on a daily basis and having those positive goals there to reinforce our mind frame to push forward through the crap that we constantly face is vital and frankly extremely important if we wish to get where we want to get to.

    #2  Control Your Thoughts

    At certain times in our lives we may confront especially difficult problems whether they are problems that arise in our family, with health, or of course financial burdens and to overcome these issues that are smacking us in the face each day we have to get good at quickly shifting from those negatives to the solutions and the steps to follow to get to the solutions.  This sounds simple, and frankly it’s not that difficult, it just requires remembering to shift back to solutions and back to #1 our goals that we are focused on.  For me, nothing helps me control my thoughts and help me overcome those depths of despair thoughts that drag me down to a hellish existence like reviewing my goals, I literally feel a million times better when I review those goals and then can lose myself in the tasks required to make my dreams and goals reality!

    #3  Manage Your Time

    In today’s electronic world it has really never been easier to waste your entire life away by flushing your most valuable asset down the drain each day which is time.  I know a lot of parents that don’t want their kids on social media and spending time on the xbox.  Yet, those same parents may spend 3 hours a day being mesmerized by tv shows that consume valuable time that could be spent teaching their kids or learning new skills or building a business that truly matters that could provide financial freedom for generations to come, but they are not willing to sacrifice their time on netflix or on amazon.

    So to recap, write down your goals daily, control your thoughts and manage your time and do each of these each day and you will accomplish your goals and tasks with greater efficiency!

     

  • Live Events Can Change Your Life

    Live Events Can Change Your Life

    So I recently attended Brendon Burchard’s Expert’s Academy and I have to say it was an absolutely life changing experience.  Brendon Burchard is a New York #1 selling author of such books titled:  “the Millionaire Messenger,” “Life’s Golden Ticket,” “The Motivation Manifesto,” and several others.  Being around Brendon can truly change your life and the way you think.  He is essentially a Tony Robbins type with incredible ability to teach and engage an audience.  In reality I have not attended a lot of live seminar events and I have certainly never attended one that lasted 4 entire days.  I was definitely drinking the cool aide, we went all day from 9 am to 7 or 8 pm for 3 and a half days and I loved every minute of it.

    For all of you negative haters and cynics out there may I just say that the real “scam” nowadays is in the incredibly large corporate advertising by huge conglomerates that push their unhealthy, life killing foods on us, it is not those dynamic entrepreneurs who are trying to change lives for the better.  Brendon tells her personal story which is incredibly inspiring because he has not had an easy life at all.  In fact he grew up in a small town in Montana by the name of Butte, it is an old mining town from the glory days of copper and has scores of radioactive waste just a few miles from where he grew up.  His family was tight-knit and he recalls vividly one winter when the furnace died amid temperatures of -40 degrees and his family had to set up tents in their family room and huddle up together in order to avoid freezing through a terribly cold winter.  A few years later when he was a freshman in college his girlfriend discovered beer and boys all in the same night and he lost the woman he though was his one true love.

    Fast forward to that summer and he was busy trying to forget her a world away in the Dominican Republic where he had taken a job for the summer.  He and one of his fellow workers were involved in an accident on a poorly lit road at night and Brendon could have easily died, when he awoke with glass and blood all  over him and carefully got out of the car where the windshield had been he had 3 questions pop in to his mind, “did I really live?  did I openly love? and did I even matter?  At some point we will all become painfully aware of our mortality and have to come to grip with these types of questions.  Change your life now, don’t wait  for a moment like that, life is too short.  Brendon’s Experts Academy teaches that we all have a voice and a message like that can absolutely change people’s lives and when I first read that I didn’t really believe it, but after interacting with some of the best people I have ever met I truly do believe it.

  • Why the Top Realtors Succeed and How to Join Them

    Why the Top Realtors Succeed and How to Join Them

    Recently, we have helped a lot of real estate agents to build their businesses so they could become top realtors in their local market.  It surprised us to find that on average Realtors make about 55k per year and the top 10% of real estate agents make about 105k per year.  So the bottom line is less than 10% of agents average over 10k per month over a calendar year.  This was somewhat surprising as we know several top realtors and mistakenly assumed that many of them on average make over six figures per year.  So that said it led us to do some investigating.

    We found through research and surveys from reputable firms that the top 10% of agents take action in certain aspects of their business that the other 90% of less successful realtors do.  It breaks down in to about 4 categories for the top realtors.

    MARKETING

    The top realtors spend more on marketing each year, the top 10% spend at least 5k and the top 5% spend twice that amount in marketing each year.  Marketing can mean everything from nicer listing for sale signs, to brochures, online marketing like Google pay per click ads, zillow ads, trulia ads and other real estate themed marketing.  The surveys did not break down the exact type of marketing, but rather just the fact that they spent the money increased their success.

    TECHNOLOGY

    In addition to marketing, the top realtors consistently spend money on superior technology than their less successful counter parts.  On average they spend at least another 5k per year in technology and again the top 5% spend even more on tech.  Tech can be everything from toll free 800 numbers with free info about a house listed to sell to superior sales funnels built out online and working in conjunction with multiple listing services in their local markets.  Again the exact type of marketing will certainly be important, but more important than anything was investing in the tech whether that means better cell phone and tablet and computer technology or something as simple as a new cell phone battery.  The other day I went to look at a property and the realtor was not prepared with a phone charger and with a dead cell phone was unable to open a property so I could look at it.

    WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA

    The next two important factors for real estate agents to be successful center around essentially what is more marketing and technology spending and it is with the agent’s own website and social media pages.  The top realtors spend more on a better website and social media and they also update those sites and social media pages as well as share content multiple times each week and engage their audience of followers including having more friends on facebook and linkedin that often translate in to more clients.  It really is incredible.

    So for a lot of agents you look at these findings and say well duh if I had 25k to 50k I could be a successful realtor, here’s the good news, we have the ability to help you secure funding for your real estate business, so get in touch and we will help you!