the bossbabe podcast - 280. BBS: Breaking The Funding Barrier: Unconventional Ways To Grow Your Business with Natalie Madeira Cofield

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

On this week’s episode, Danielle sits down with award-winning entrepreneur, Fortune 500 small business advisor, philanthropist and economic activist, Natalie Madeira Cofield, to unveil some non-trad...itional ways you can secure funding for your business (at any stage). Natalie Madeira Cofield is a presidentially appointed expert on small business and has been named one of the most powerful women in business by Entrepreneur Magazine. Natalie has provided some of the nation's most prominent CEOs of billion-dollar organizations, executives of global brands, senior advisors to the White House, mayors of leading national cities, and community activists and leaders with inspiration, insight and advisement. Her efforts have been responsible for supporting the deployment of more than $200 million in funding to eco-systems and entrepreneurs throughout the country. Highlights: The secret to accessing capital to fund your business without venture capitalists. How to reduce the number of no’s you hear from investors. The real, behind-the-scenes of getting government funding for your business. Links: Natalie’s website: www.nataliecofield.com Check out the Small Business Administration (SBA) Mastercard Digital Doors Program Mastercard Strive Program Find a SBA Women’s Business Center Follow: bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty Natalie Madeira Cofield: @nmcofield Mentioned in this episode: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try and get 10% off your first month of therapy at betterhelp.com/bossbabe and get on your way to being your best self. Join our private, online community of female entrepreneurs where you can connect, build and grow.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going, and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Natalie, welcome to the Boss Babe Business School episode. You are an absolute huge advocate for women entrepreneurship. And so it is such an honor to have you on here today. I'm excited to be here with you. Hi boss babe. Yes I love it. I was so impressed like it's funny because I actually saw you at
Starting point is 00:00:52 speak at Create and Cultivate and I was so impressed by what you were sharing that I literally stalked you afterwards and came up to you and I was like can you come on the show please? This is true. It is true. Exactly. So everyone listening, you have to put yourselves out there. And the reason I did was because you were talking about a topic that I feel is really not well known in the industry that I was coming from as an entrepreneur. You were talking about things that I didn't know a lot about, talking about different ways to get funding. And traditionally, I think we think about funding coming from VCs and private equity, and you were really sharing a different way and what government initiatives were actually doing.
Starting point is 00:01:35 So before we dive in, I just want to share a little bit about your background with our audience, so that they know where you're coming from and your expertise, because you were the former head of the Office of Women's Business Ownership at the US Small Business Administration. You actively funded the largest expansion of the Women's Business Center network in the history of the SBA. You were also presidentially appointed assistant administrator for the US Small Business Administration. And you also advised on the deployment of 1.2 trillion in funding. And we're responsible for architecting programs, distributing 200 million in funding in various ecosystems. And now I know that you're with MasterCard as their executive in residence. But this puts you in such a unique position to really share the different ways that women can leverage government and corporations to finance their businesses in the early and the late stages.
Starting point is 00:02:33 Absolutely. So, you know, first and foremost, happy Women's History Month, right? And so this conversation is so timely, even around the fact that the fastest growing entrepreneurial segment in this country is women. And to your point, you know, I think we've spent a lot of energy and time, understandably, because there's continued to be gaps around access to venture backed funding for women entrepreneurs, less than I think it's about 2%, or now 7% of VC funds actually go to women business owners. But the reality of the fact is that nearly 99.9% of all businesses in the United States of America will never receive venture funding and they're still going to do well, right? And so I think
Starting point is 00:03:21 it's very important as we learn about and hear about VC and private equity and angel investment and understand that model that we also honor and understand the traditional ways in which businesses can attain access to capital and even monetize their their endeavors to reach the million dollar plus mark. Right. So you can get there many, many different ways. So if I could just take kind of a couple of chunks of wisdom that I have from experiences, both from being in the government space, but also in nearly 15 years of my own entrepreneurial pursuits, where I started and led a multi-million dollar business that I actually put in a trust and transferred when I went into the administration. And it's this. The first thing around accessing capital is to have an awareness and understanding of how and when you will be monetizing your small business and its services and or products.
Starting point is 00:04:27 Essentially, what you're doing when you're, quote, accessing capital is asking someone to provide you with funding. And the only way they're going to do that. And this is even in your real life. Right. So let's not make this more difficult than it needs to be. No one's going to lend or give you money if they do not think that they're going to get their money back. These are just like fundamental one-on-ones. And the question of when are you going to pay me back is one that you'll get from your girlfriend. And it's also one that you're going to get from a bank
Starting point is 00:05:01 and it's one that you're going to receive from a VC investor. You have to be in a position to understand how you are going to be able to repay that money. And in order for you to do that, you have to be able to monetize your business services or offerings. Monetizing means that you're producing revenue for your company. And I honestly will say one of the biggest challenges, and again, before we even get to going and talking to an investor or before we get to talking to a bank, it's do you understand how you can turn a profit with this company? And one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making
Starting point is 00:05:46 is that they do not properly assess the totality of the inputs that are required to produce X, Y, or Z, a widget or a service. And oftentimes the most overlooked thing is your own time. I love that. I think you're actually really hitting some really core points that are so important, like you say, with regards to that time. So carry on. I was just- Yeah. And so it's like, okay, you like baking. You want to open a bakery. Fantastic. Let's do it. You know how much the ingredients cost. You have the price per unit of the cupcake. Fantastic. But it's not finished until you've actually put in labor and you start with your labor hours. And then you can also build in a buffer.
Starting point is 00:06:33 And a lot of women are building service-based businesses, which is why this particular conversation that I'm having is very important. You also need to build in a buffer in funding and financing that allows for you to be able to grow and scale the company. Because if you can only pay for yourself, then that means that you are not in a position to start saving money to bring on someone else. So true. Service businesses have this challenge and retail businesses have this challenge. Once you come up with that real true price, now we can actually start talking about accessing capital. And I say this because I personally feel so many people start that access to capital conversation the other way. They go talk to
Starting point is 00:07:19 people before they understand what it actually costs them to do what they're doing. They go ask for money before they have a true understanding of how much they actually need. And on both ends, no one is giving you money for free. See, the difference between the friendship example that I gave you and a corporate America and or venture example is that there is an expectation of a return on this investment. So you're not just paying a loan back or paying the investor back. You're giving the investor and or the bank back interest and or gains. So how can you monetize your business in untraditional ways? And this takes us to talking about contracting in the government and private sector space. And before we start on that, I think this
Starting point is 00:08:13 is going to be a real eye opener for a lot of people, because again, this is what I saw you speak about a lot. And I had never, I had never even actually, you know, being from the UK as well, I hadn't even heard of the SBA or really understood what they did or even how the government actually did support small businesses. So I think this is going to be some really insightful information for a lot of people, particularly when, you know, over and over again, we had these conversations about raising from VC is being so traditionally much more difficult for women, particularly women of color as well. So these untraditional ways are not being discussed in the circles that I'm in enough. So I would love for you to share what you've learned from working at the SBA
Starting point is 00:08:56 and with the government and give those insights to people who maybe have been rejected. One of the stories I hear so often was like, women going to VCs and the men being like oh let me ask my wife because they don't understand the products that you know if they're particularly creating a product that's going to service women like they they're not the avid the people in control of the money and not the avatars so they don't get it they're not the demographics they don't appreciate it so when people are coming up against this over
Starting point is 00:09:23 and over again, I think it's good to have this conversation around like what is available untraditionally that might help you get your business off the ground when perhaps you don't have people who really understand the product just yet. Exactly. Or maybe you just don't want to receive their funding anymore, right? Because that's, you know, and I'm going to get to your question, but the truth of the matter is receiving venture is receiving investment and it's an establishment of a relationship with someone. And I think sometimes when we're again in positions where we are so in need of the funds, we don't give consideration to who we're receiving the funding from. And all money is not good money because all partners are not the right partners for you. I always say money isn't actually equal. Like a dollar from one person is actually a different
Starting point is 00:10:18 value from a dollar from the other person. So all money is not equal is what I say. Absolutely. And it's also about wise capital. Wise capital is partners who can actually bring additional value outside of the investment, the just dollar value, because they are wise. They have experience, industry knowledge. They have relationships. They bring social capital. These are things that you should be looking for when you go talk to your VCs, your angels, and your other investors. You want wise capital, not just capital. You want wise capital because they have everything to gain from your success. You need more than just their money in order for you to be successful for them. But let's go back to, and this is such a great conversation because, again, I think accessing capital can take you in so many different directions.
Starting point is 00:11:16 Government contracts and corporate contracts. This goes back to monetization, which is a fundamental component of accessing capital. So the federal government is the largest procurer of services and products in the world. I'll say it one more time. The federal government is the largest procurer, and that means purchaser, of products and services in the world. I oftentimes like to use an example of a woman that I met who used to make lingerie. And I think I may have used this example when I was at the Create and Cultivate conference. She made lingerie and we had her in a meeting with some government agencies. And it was like, well, excuse me, I make lingerie. Like, what am I doing here? There's no connection to the government space at all. But the reality is there is. In the army, they have to procure
Starting point is 00:12:11 undergarments. In some of the spaces where people are living or are housed, they have to procure undergarments. And so she went from doing business with Macy's to also doing business with the Department of Defense through all the different arms of the federal government that have to procure undergarments. And it was just like no one would imagine that you would be able to go from lingerie at Macy's to like providing undergarments. I'm calling them undergarments. I don't imagine that they want to be called a lingerie while they're doing active duty service, but it's the same thing, right? And so if you are in a position where you are offering marketing services, communication services, The federal government also does business with marketing agencies, ad agencies, communication agencies. Do you make food? The federal government procures food services for all of the spaces in which they're responsible and obligated to provide food for whomever it's
Starting point is 00:13:21 for, right? So I've also seen catering companies have government contracts to provide food services for anything from active duty military to schools and universities that have federal jurisdiction. So you have to think in your mind, anything that you buy to maintain your home is also something that the federal government would also be procuring from some type of business. Anything that a company, for example, like a MasterCard, would be procuring in order to keep their business alive and to keep their business operational is the same type of service that the federal government would be procuring. Now, this is an opportunity to gain access to contracting vehicles through certification. There is an opportunity for 5% of all federal contracts
Starting point is 00:14:14 are set aside for women. 5%. That represents billions of dollars of government contracting opportunity that is made available for women. In order to tap into that, you have to be certified. Now, what does certification require? It just requires that you have your paperwork and documentation. Same thing that you will need to go after a loan. Do you have your balance sheet? Are you incorporated? Can you share your articles of incorpor loan. Do you have your balance sheet? Are you incorporated? Can you share your articles of incorporation? Who's on your management team? And what is the
Starting point is 00:14:51 pricing that you have for the services that you are going to offer? Because that is the contract that you're going to enter into with the federal government. I'm taking this somewhere because this all connects to each other. The pricing matters to get a government contract. Your pricing and potential for revenue and monetization matters to get a loan. Your pricing and ability to go to market with your product matters to get access to venture capital. It is easier to obtain money when you have demonstrated that you can earn money for your business. And there is an entire white space that exists for many women entrepreneurs that is doing business in corporate and with government agencies.
Starting point is 00:15:41 Now, how do you get started in all of this with a contracting piece? You have to have, again, your DUNS, your EIN, you have to have all that, but you can go to grants.gov, gsa.gov, and start looking at contracts that are coming out or that have come out or that are out right now and put in your keywords, undergarments, apparel, food services, communication, and any contract that has that as something that is part of it will pop up. Now it can be laborious, right? But so too can going after and meeting with a hundred venture capitalists, trying to talk, getting on planes, trains, and automobiles to go have a sit down meeting with them for them to talk to you to say, Hey, let me, let me go talk to my wife about that. So no money, there's no fast way to success. So let's be very clear about that.
Starting point is 00:16:45 You're going to have to work for this on either side. But I humbly believe that it is important for businesses to diversify. Because when you have private sector partners, private sector funding, and you have generating revenue, you are the best and the healthiest position that any small business can be in. And you then have the leverage to go after whatever you want. It's easier to ask for money when you don't need it than it is when you do.
Starting point is 00:17:17 Amen to that. That is so, so true. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify
Starting point is 00:17:46 and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss babe i also i think what's really just interesting i think a lot of
Starting point is 00:18:26 people um will have listened to that and been like wait what the government you can do contracts but i love about that thinking outside the box like when you know when covid in 2020 really started like coming into full swing we always we had the saying like pivot don't pause and i feel like as we go into this next economic climate there's going to be a real shift in like how people are going to be doing business and where like that diversification of not relying on one marketing channel or not relying on one big customer or not relying on just this one thing I think that diversification of this is really really important I want to ask you like you spoke about like white
Starting point is 00:19:05 space and you spoke about let's just be grounded a little bit like how much competition is there with you know winning some of these contracts with the governments and realistically how long can they sometimes take to go through i hear what you're saying around like you know it's like choose choose your heart right none of it not building a business is not easy. So it's choose your heart. You can go and raise more VCs or you could literally go down that route. But I would love to kind of put a little bit more context into that. Absolutely. That's a great question.
Starting point is 00:19:34 Okay. So let's talk about timeframes. So one, to get your certification, you can expect that to take anywhere from three to six months. Okay. So that's going to require three to six months. Okay. So that's going to require three to six months. You have to have your documents. You have to submit your documents. They have to review them and they have to approve and say, I approve that this is a woman owned small business. So we'll be very clear and realistic about that. During that time, that
Starting point is 00:20:00 does not mean that you can't be trying to go after government contracts and corporate contracts, because I'm doing both of these at the same time. We're talking about the same processes that are used for one or used for the other. It's called corporate procurement. And just like in government, they have offices that are focused on engaging with women. The Women Business Enterprise Network, WeBankank has hundreds of thousands of women entrepreneurs that come to their national conference every year to do business with Fortune 500 companies. So the opportunities exist there. Once you get your license, it's just a license to hunt. It does not guarantee that you are going to enter into the wilderness and find your deer, right? And secure
Starting point is 00:20:46 your deer. It just means you now can enter into the open park space. It can take you anywhere from a month to more than a year to obtain a contract. And here are strategies to get you there faster. Number one, all contracting offices, government and for-profit, have a threshold for which money above that has to go through a different process. Money below that can be approved by the purchasing officer. Mm-hmm. communications consultant immediately. And I just, I have three people I know, I'm going to ask them to submit their information and I can make a determination based off who I want to go after just with those three responses. Or if you ask me for 101,000, now I've got to put it on the federal registrar, the state registrar, or the local government registrar or my corporate registrar. And now thousands of small businesses may have access to be able to apply if they're aware. I may have to keep it
Starting point is 00:22:13 open for three months so that everyone can get their materials together to have the equitable opportunity to apply. So a sweet spot is understanding what the purchasing power of a procurement officer is. And if you want to start dipping your foot in the water of contracting, you want to start below that threshold. Because the big key thing here is past performances. If you know that they have, again, $99,999, don't come to them with a $150,000 proposal. Come to them with up to $999, nine, because they make a decision faster. And then you get to say, Hey, I've done business with organization X, Y, and Z. So while your certification is being processed, you are now getting clients and past performances because the moment that you get out into the wilderness, what you're doing is baby
Starting point is 00:23:25 hunting. So now you get out into the real wilderness and you've already gotten something. So it's easier to form alliances. It's easier to have conversations. It's easier to begin relationships because you've already obtained a contract, which means that you already started to understand how the game is played and the rules of the game. Same thing in corporate America. Same thing with a bank. Let's say you go to talk to a financial officer. They have authority and jurisdiction to make loans up to half a million dollars. You want a million dollar loan. Why would you go in and jurisdiction to make loans up to half a million dollars. You want a million dollar loan. Why would you go in and talk to that person?
Starting point is 00:24:09 I think that's really powerful in the art of the game. It's like, know the rules of the game that you are going into play. Don't start on the game board when you don't know the rules. Go find it so you can put your best pieces down in the right places. Yes, absolutely. Because what that does is saves you your own resources. And when I say resources, I mean it in every capacity from your financial resources, again, planes, trains, and automobiles, tracking people down, trying to get in contact with them, labor hours spent trying to pitch people things that they're not ever going to be able to purchase from you, but also your
Starting point is 00:24:52 personal resources of your energy, your enthusiasm, your health, your wellness. I mean, hearing no is something that you have to get fully comfortable with, but it also does take a lot out of you. So if you can reduce the number of no's that you hear simply by doing more research on the front end, then let's do that and protect your own personal health and wellness. But that again goes back to something that I said which is there's no easy way to get here. It requires work on every end, but this allows you to start having the diversification that you need. That government contract may, in a time of peril, like we just went through, may stabilize you during a moment where you need to have a baseline of funding, a baseline of monetization, a baseline of revenue
Starting point is 00:25:47 so that you can start building on top of that. That's how you do this. A business is built just like a home, brick by brick by brick by brick. And sometimes what you don't do is drop all the bricks on the dump site and just think that someone is going to build the premier home. That's not how anyone does construction. You bring it with as much as you can handle at that time to protect both the products that you need to build the home, as well as the individuals who are building the home. And I think most people right now want to run to success and think that they are ready for a million dollar contract when they don't even have the operational infrastructure for a hundred thousand dollar contract. And that's the brick by brick by brick. I know we all want to feel the sense of validation of saying, yes, I've run a seven-figure business.
Starting point is 00:26:53 But hey, if you can manage $10, you can manage 100. 100, you can manage 10,000. 10,000, you can manage a million. But if you can't manage 100,000, you can't manage a million. And so which one do you want to lose? I'd rather you lose $100,000 and learn the lesson on business management and access to capital and financial management than for you to get a million dollars today and not know how to manage it and blow it. Completely. And I think that's such an important conversation to have. Don't take on more capital than you need. And sometimes you need to, like you say, building those blocks. I want to talk about the SBA and loans that are available via the SBA? Because I also, you know, I actually didn't even realize this
Starting point is 00:27:45 was like a government, you know, service that if your business does need loans, let's say you're buying out a business partner, or let's say you're looking for capital, there's actually SBA loans that you can apply for, correct? Yes. So SBA has billions of dollars in loans through a network of almost 5,000 financial partners that they provide. And they provide loans for everything from actual physical building and equipment. So anything from, you want to build a business, you want to outfit a business, you want to start that bakery and you need industrial size cooking equipment, you can get a loan for that. You're starting a beauty salon, you need industrial equipment for that, you can get a loan for that. That's a 504 loan. Two, you are just looking for working capital for your small business
Starting point is 00:28:37 to assist you as you continue to grow. That's a 7A loan. And these are all, and then also if you're looking for less than about 150,000, that would be considered a micro loan. And sometimes you start with the micro, then move to the 7A, then go to the 504. And how would that work? Well, you just got started. You're going after a micro loan to get you some initial working capital. You now, all of a sudden, you strike it big. You've done very well. You've got your six, seven-figure contract or your seven-figure clients or seven-figure revenues. Now you want more capital. You go after 7A. Oh, you want to buy a building now. You're ready. Then you go after the 504. These loans are offered at banks and you want to go into your bank and say, hey,
Starting point is 00:29:31 do you all have any SBA loan products? So where you don't get this is from SBA. Where you do get this is from a financial institution. But you have to know that these products exist to ask for them. And then what you can do is understand if this particular loan product that is made available by SBA through these financial institutions is more in alignment with what you're looking for than what maybe a bank may offer you. Because a bank will always offer you their products first. They're always going to tell you about their products first because that's actually where they make their profit. But they're also, if they're a partner with SBA, they're also prepared to offer you SBA products, but only if you ask for them. It's like going shopping at a
Starting point is 00:30:24 luxury boutique. You only know about the second floor if you ask about them. It's like going shopping at a luxury boutique. You only know about the second floor if you ask about the second floor. And that means somebody has to tell you that the second floor exists. But once you know the second floor exists, you can always walk into a store and say, hey, I'd like to go to the second floor. Oh my God, I love this. But that's so true.
Starting point is 00:30:45 And like, that's why I really do this podcast. Cause I'm like, people are not taught. Like if you're not in the right circles, you don't know this stuff. I was like, wait, what about the SBA? Like I didn't even know this loan. And I don't know if I don't know this, like so many people don't know this. I also want to ask, like now you've transitioned, you've been at MasterCard for the last year. And you know, they also do a lot of support for small businesses what are things that corporate companies that you might not even think about like I know Amex have their like you know small business thing too like a lot of corporate companies do things that you might not even realize you could leverage as a small business owner yes so small business
Starting point is 00:31:21 and entrepreneurship is so important to our global economy right now. And it's a great day to be an entrepreneur. So let's just start and end there. Right. And with that being said, so many organizations and corporations have established even digital platforms to allow learning about these opportunities to be more accessible to a wider array of aspiring and existing entrepreneurs. At MasterCard, we have a product called Digital Doors, which is just digitaldoors.mastercard.com. And it's an entire portfolio of digital courses that allows you to learn about everything from access to capital to scaling your business. There are also credit cards that exist that have perks for your small business, everything from travel perks to other business offerings,
Starting point is 00:32:14 discounts on business products like Adobe, like MailChimp, all these different things and bundles that you need to be successful in your small business. It is important for you as a small business owner, as you go through your process to establish credit for your business. In addition to building your personal credit, your personal credit does matter when you begin the journey of starting a credit access for your small business. So I've seen a lot of people online talking about how you can just go file an EIN and then all of a sudden go get a loan. That's not how this works.
Starting point is 00:32:53 Your social security number is gonna be asked for because at the end of the day, if there's no credit history on the business, you're essentially kind of the person that's saying, hey, I validate that this is true. And they're going to look at you. So until you get to a point with your company where you're managing enough money and they see how you manage it in your entity, then they start establishing a score for your business, just like they start establishing one for you.
Starting point is 00:33:31 Okay. So I just had to throw that out as a misnomer. And so there are accelerator programs that exist, entrepreneurship incubator programs that many companies have. There are small business discounts that companies have, for example, Meta and others have social media package bundles that they have partnerships with organizations focused on specific communities. In this instance, women entrepreneurs that they may offer discounts on how you could go about engaging on social media and using advertisements. Same thing with other companies. So I would really, again, I would do as much due diligence. I would type in the name of the company, woman entrepreneur plus opportunity and see what pops up. If you can't have a conversation with someone, have the conversation with Google. Or chat GPT too now. Oh my goodness. This was so good Natalie. And I feel like,
Starting point is 00:34:28 you know, there's been a lot of, I think you just told everybody that there was a level two. And my guess is most people listening to this didn't know what was on level two or that there was level two, because just going back to like, you know, how I tiptoed up to you after your talk at Create and Cultivate. Cause I felt like that. I was like, wait, what? Like, I had no idea these things existed. And, you know, just having this conversation, hopefully you might not necessarily by listening to it, have all your answers, but now you're like, wait, I want to know more about level two, like take me to level two and let me poke around a little bit more. Let me ask the questions because I didn't even know I could ask these questions. And I think
Starting point is 00:35:08 that's where there's power in one, this community and power of women sharing this, this knowledge, because this knowledge equates to wealth. This knowledge equates to more women getting their businesses out there, growing their businesses, understanding how to leverage business to get the loans that they need to grow it. So I'm just so, so grateful for you sharing these things with us today. Um, I would love for you to share like where people can follow up with you, like where can people find you, um, social media handles, et cetera. Yes. So, so you can find me, uh, you can go online and find me on Instagram at nmcofield, C-O-F-I-E-L-D, or on my website, nataliecofield.com. You can check out the MasterCard Digital Doors program at digitaldoors.mastercard.com.
Starting point is 00:36:00 And look at all the kind of different initiatives that are there. At MasterCard, we also have a $25 million fund called Strive, which is providing grants and resources to entrepreneurial ecosystem partners. So you might also want to check out some of the organizations that they have funded and we have funded there to walk into their centers and spaces and ask these questions, right? And the last thing I'll say is, you know, having created the largest expansion in the history of SBA of women's business centers, I will forever be remiss if I don't mention the power of the Women's Business Center Network with the SBA, which is now located every state in the United States of America and in Puerto Rico.
Starting point is 00:36:45 And you can walk into a women's business center and sit down, have a one-on-one conversation for free with someone to talk about everything from putting together your profitability models and pricing, which goes back to the beginning of the conversation about access to capital, to how do you get access to these government contracts and ways in which you can start positioning yourself best for that. And then I want to say one other thing, which is what you just said too, which is this is the moment to use this time to get as much information as you can. Again, I go back to it's easier to ask someone for something when you don't need it.
Starting point is 00:37:26 For example, it's easier to ask, how does the process for XYZ work when you're not pitching to get a contract for XYZ? You're just inquisitive about how it works. People are more willing to give you their time in those instances. Use this time to understand the rules of the game, because there is a game and a rule structure for every single way in which we operate, specifically in the space of small business. And ask people for moments of their time, do your due diligence on them, do your due diligence on what you're asking them about. And then the best compliment you could ever give, because many women ask, how can I get mentored, mentored, mentored, is to follow up, but follow up not on just saying, hey, thank you for your time,
Starting point is 00:38:15 but follow up because you took the advice that you received from the person. That makes them then feel that their time was valuable investing in you. I love that. Thank you so much for that note. I think there's an olive wisdom in that last, that last sentence too, which I hope people hear and take, you know, action on. We're also going to put all of the links that you've mentioned, because I feel like there's a ton in the show notes. It's just going to be like all of these places that you can mentioned because I feel like there's a ton in the show notes it's just gonna be like right now of all of these places that you can go to but honestly Natalie I really appreciate you sharing it and I 100% know that businesses and women's businesses will be impact not only from this podcast but for the work that you're doing because you're such a huge
Starting point is 00:38:59 advocate for women entrepreneurship and you know from one woman entrepreneur to another I'm like extremely grateful for everything you do for us because your impact is across the country and on a huge scale. And you're such an advocate. And I don't think that goes amiss. So thank you so much. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:39:15 I'm excited to be a Boss Babe. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode on the boss babe podcast then i'd absolutely love it if you leave us a review as a thank you we'll send you our side hustle success kit your simple no bs guide to keeping track of everything that you need to do to start and grow your business to access this freebie all you need to do is leave us a review, then share a screenshot of your review with contact at bossbabe.com and we'll send this
Starting point is 00:39:51 must-have kit straight to your inbox. Bye.

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