Empowering Small Businesses: LISC, Kevin Hart’s Gran Coramino, and Minority Business Grants

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to Paychex THRIVE, a Business Podcast, where you'll hear timely insights to help you navigate marketplace dynamics and propel your business forward. Here's your host, Gene Marks.

Gene Marks (00:19):

Hey everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Paychex THRIVE podcast. My name is Gene Marks. Thank you so much for joining me, whether you're just listening or you are watching us on YouTube. My guest today is Steve Hall. Steve is the National Director... Steve, I got to get all this right. National Director, EOCF Initiative, Vice President of Small Business and Economic Development Lending for LISC, which is the Local Initiative Support Corporation. Did I get all those words right and in the right order, Steve?

Steve Hall (00:50):

Gene, you nailed it.

Gene Marks (00:51):

Okay, that's great. It took years of practice, but we finally get there. Thanks so much for coming on. First of all, where am I talking to you from? Where are you at right now?

Steve Hall (00:59):

Today I'm in Chicago, Illinois, so that's where I live, but I actually travel all over the country and I have to check in every now and then to figure out where I am at any given time.

Gene Marks (01:08):

Yeah, I believe it. How long have you been with LISC?

Steve Hall (01:11):

Eight years now.

Gene Marks (01:11):

No kidding, geez, okay. That's a long time to be anywhere. Well, that's great. So, first of all, we're going to talk about this grant program that you guys have for minority businesses and I think it's in partnership, as well, with Kevin Hart's tequila company as well. Before we even get there, let's talk a little bit about LISC and what it does. The organization supports a lot of different initiatives, so give it all.

Steve Hall (01:40):

Sure, well, I'm excited to be with you and your audience today to talk about Local Initiative Support Corporation, also known as LISC. We are a 44-year-old community development financial institution and we are the largest not-for-profit community development financial institution in the country. We have about 30 billion in assets under management. We primarily do community development lending, which includes everything from housing to commercial to small business. As a part of that size and scope of our organization, we work with countless government organizations, public and private foundations, and we have great opportunities to work with organizations, like Kevin Hart's Gran Coramino, to give out small business grants, so we also offer that as well.

Gene Marks (02:23):

So, is the organization based in Chicago where you are, or where they headquartered?

Steve Hall (02:28):

Our headquarters is in New York. We have 38 offices across the country. I visit a number of those offices throughout the year to make sure some of the program offerings we have are going over effectively in the communities that we serve. But for the most part I lead the small business division, which is primarily in lending and some of the grant programs.

Gene Marks (02:47):

Got it, okay. Before we dig into the whole grant program itself, you said you lead the small business division. Tell me about your job description.

Steve Hall (02:59):

Great question, so at the beginning of the day, it is primarily investing in small businesses. That can be anywhere from a loan from 100,000 to 10 million. I have a whole underwriting team, business development team, much like a commercial bank would have in a business banking or middle market structure. We work with accounting partners and partners like Paychex and other payroll providers to identify leads and we're usually doing leads that a bank wouldn't do. And those leads could be anything from commercial real estate acquisition to working capital to tenant improvement or equipment.

Gene Marks (03:37):

Got it, you provide mostly lending, so as if a bank. How are you funded? Are you an SBA lender or are you separate?

Steve Hall (03:49):

We do have an SBA lending arm and just like most financial institutions, they may have an SBA arm and they still do a lot conventionally on their balance sheet. Remember, I said we have 30 billion in assets invested under management, so we get a lot of capital from public and private foundations. We've built up a significant net worth over the past 44 years. Sometimes we can lend our own assets just to have higher impact, but because of Community Reinvestment Act opportunities, banks find us as a stable partner. We have AA- S&P rating, which is higher than most bank quality, so we're pretty strong when it comes to our financial incentives for people wanting to invest and partner with us.

Gene Marks (04:32):

Got it, and I'm assuming these... You said you have offices all around the country, so you provide these financing opportunities anywhere in the U.S. wherever business is located, correct?

Steve Hall (04:43):

That is correct, yes.

Gene Marks (04:46)

Again, we're going to get to the grant in a minute, which is really focused on BIPOC and minority-owned businesses, but do you consider yourself to be an institution that lends primarily to minority-owned businesses as opposed to non-minority-owned businesses?

Steve Hall (05:02):

I think there's two approaches. I think our SBA approaches to be inclusive. We do have an SBA division that will more than likely be spending off of lists soon. I can't share any additional details on that, unfortunately, right now at this particular time.

Gene Marks (05:19):

It's okay.

Steve Hall (05:19):

But on balance sheet, we lend to things primarily in low to moderate income census areas. In low to moderate income census areas are businesses of all types, gender, races, or whatever. Predominantly the smaller ones tend to be minority-owned or women-owned.

Gene Marks (05:37):

And the people that are getting the loans from you, I'm assuming would have more challenges getting a loan from a traditional bank, so you can provide that source of capital to that?

Steve Hall (05:46):

Yes.

Gene Marks (05:47):

When you do that, is the selling pitch... Again, that you've got more of a chance of getting a loan from us because we're here to help you in the community? Are your loans competitive from a market interest rate, terms and all of that or is there any kind of a premium for people to get financing from you?

Steve Hall (06:08):

No, that's a great question. We're a not-for-profit mission-based lenders, so unfortunately, our rates are at market or sometimes below, because we're really trying to go after populations that have little to no access to capital. So prime example, if you're in rural America and you're looking for a partner, it takes a long time for a lender to build trust, so we can't have a higher rate or a predatory rate because you lose trust at that particular time.

Steve Hall (06:34):

So, as I mentioned earlier, we work with foundations to really blend down that rate to give that population an opportunity to say, "Well. I'll try them. I'm not sure, but let's see if this works for me and my family." And we look at small business units as families that are first or second-generation looking to be a going concern, regardless of what market they're in or what their ethnicity or gender, we want to make sure that they have access to capital that's fair. And then over time we want them to repatriate back to the financial institutions in their community. So whether it's a small community bank or one of the larger national players, we want to make sure that they're on the right path so they can have success for years to come and not just totally borrow from us.

Gene Marks (07:20):

Okay, that is great. One other question, and if you don't know this, that's completely fine. So, some local areas, are you aware that if your organization is participating in the whole state small business credit initiative, the $10 billion coming from treasury, I mean I'm assuming you guys have got your-

Steve Hall (07:37):

That's part of my job description. So you asked what is the job description. So in various states across the United States, we are a partner in SSBCI programs. I'll be honest, let me give a shout out to California. I don't know if anybody's listening. I always say they have the Cadillac program. New York has a phenomenal program also, but a lot of states are creating programs or rebooting because this is SSBCI 2.0 and they're just realizing that the first initiative people tried to attract tech and they use it as economic development tools, which are great, but that meant a number of the businesses in market were being left behind. So I think more people are doing the California model, which is very similar to the SBA model with just a lower threshold for success in securing that guarantee and it really gets lenders excited.

Steve Hall (08:31):

So, right now we're expanding probably to two or three other states within the coming months and we hope to do more and we actually sometimes sit with states and consult over, excuse me, what would be the best path forward for leveraging the SSBCI dollars to make investments?

Gene Marks (08:47):

All right, that is great. All right, let's turn to this grant program. So this grant program, I'm kind of reading this off, it's with Kevin Hart's Gran Coramino tequila and LISC. You're giving out grants to 50 bike pop businesses. So, many questions here. First of all, have you ever met Kevin Hart? That's the most important question.

Steve Hall (09:05):

Yes.

Gene Marks (09:05):

You have met parents, is he as small as he seems to be? He's not a very tall guy. Correct?

Steve Hall (09:11):

He's not a very tall guy. So if you actually go to our annual port on lisc.org, the CEO and myself are standing there posing with Kevin

Gene Marks (09:21):

How tall is he?

Steve Hall (09:21):

And 6'4s yeah, so Kevin-

Gene Marks (09:27):

I got to imagine, it's quite a difference.

Steve Hall (09:29):

It's quite a difference but I will tell you he has the energy of a giant. So he just came in the room when we met and it was about, let's say about a hundred other people in the room and he spoke to everybody in the room and his passion is in creating opportunities. So I don't want to say he's just business or whatever, he even thinks with his comedy, he creates opportunities for go out people to become a better version of themselves or learn something from him. So he actually gave us a pretty good speech. It made wanting to partner with him a little bit more impactful because we got to know the person. But this picture speaks for itself, it's kind of funny seeing us together and our CEO Lisa and we had a good time, but he's been a great partner. We're really thankful.

Steve Hall (10:14):

He's not just a brand ambassador, he's a part owner in this particular line. So, he's really putting his all into making it impactful. And one of the things with the partnership is kind of linking it to the grant program is he wanted to inspire other diverse entrepreneurs around the country that you too can grow a business and be successful. And guess what you could say you did it with Kevin Hart. So he's cracking jokes with the people he's even given grants to because he'll pop up at their business or ask him to come to a reception and they're sitting there, they're going, is that really Kevin Hart? And he's like, yeah, who else would it be?

Gene Marks (10:49):

All right, that is great to hear. He is a guy I've been wanting to talk to for a while. We actually spent a year or two ago on this podcast to his trainer. So I'm talking to you and now I'm talking to his trainer. So we're kind of bringing that circle closer.

Steve Hall (11:04):

We're working your way around.

Gene Marks (11:04):

Yeah, right. So yeah, he's from Philly and I live in Philly so I got to go and find if he have any family here. Let's talk about the actual grant program. So there's 50 BIPAC business. So first let's talk to me like I'm a business owner, that I'm listening to this right now and okay, I'm interested in getting a grant for my business. Tell me who qualifies for this program and how do I go about applying?

Steve Hall (11:30):

Sure, so if you can imagine what these programs in the past three years, we have dispersed 200 million in small business grants through various programs, not specifically to Kevin Harts but another other programs also.

Gene Marks (11:45):

Yeah, which is awesome.

Steve Hall (11:46):

And the need for small business assistance has been great, primarily due to the pandemic and businesses not having the resources to maintain their staff. And if you could imagine our SBA arm is doing PP loans and all the other stuff that came with that. So we received probably over a million requests a year for various grant programs. So that just speaks to the need. And the challenge is these programs, the intake is more like a lottery and then we validate, is the business... is it operating, is it legit business? Are they doing what they say they do? And that process takes us a couple of weeks because we're pretty efficient with how we turn it around. But ideally we look for people in low- to moderate-income census track, which kind of sticks with our mission. We have a preference for people of color.

Steve Hall (12:47):

So, it's not exclusive, you could still be a white male and probably be in a low- to moderate-income citizens track could be a veteran or something that, or be in a rural community where you would actually qualify. But that's how we go about the process. So it's a lottery, there're waiting factors within the lottery. Those come up with a pool of applicants and then we just start trying to validate from that top tier who's eligible. And like I said, with 50 some odd grants and the number of leads we have, we kind of run through eligibility real fast.

Gene Marks (13:22):

How do I improve my chances of being eligible?

Steve Hall (13:27):

Well, that particular program's closed.

Gene Marks (13:29):

Oh, okay. Well there it is. Wait, this whole program with his tequila company is closed right now?

Steve Hall (13:38):

Well right now it is closed and it potentially will reopen later on this year. But the various applicants, what they would do is they go to lisc.org, so L-I-S-C. O-R-G, they would look for our small business offering and we will have the available grant programs, national programs always listed on the main page. And then sometimes we have end market programs. We'll have one in Philly, we'll have one in D.C. or Richmond. So sometimes we have localized programs. But the goal is to identify first when they're open, join the link at WWW.lisc.org and then second get us the paperwork to prove that you're actually a business. So, we're asking for where are your articles incorporation because we can't do grants to individuals. Tell us about your banking relationship. Do you have financials? Where are you located? Do you have a social media presence? All of these things are important especially for businesses in this day of age just to validate your concern.

Gene Marks (14:45):

So, putting aside this specific program, I mean you have a number of grant programs that are running at any given time and even outside of the grant programs, you still have all of your programs that are providing the financing as well for businesses in formal loans that we talked about a little bit earlier. So Steve, give me some advice as a business owner, on the lowest bar just so that... How can I formulate this question? I will be disqualified if I can't show you these things. Because you said you get a lot of applications in and I'm sure there are plenty of them, we just can't work with these people, we can't work with these people because for various reasons and I don't want to hear that as an applicant for any of these programs, what would you expect to see? You named a few things like articles of incorporation. Bank accounts? I should have a business bank account as well as opposed to just a personal bank account? What else? Give me some more things that I should be looking for.

Steve Hall (15:48):

Something that's powerful and I think people discount the value of a payroll provider.

Gene Marks (15:56):

Okay, that's interesting.

Steve Hall (16:00):

In my years of working in the financial services industry, I've always had a team of people who've been partnered with payroll providers primarily because payroll providers make sure you have your financials together. So, if you think about it, this is a Paychex sponsored podcast. But when a Paychex rep goes to your office, they're saying you got to have that business bank account. You may have to segregate your payroll from your operator, you can't dip into your personal... They really give you some great technical assistance and stop you from some of the bad behaviors that even from a grant program, we start to see. Like, oh wow, this person has a good financial team that supports them. They have a balance sheet, they have an income statement, they have segregated accounts. Well that's not accidental. That's either the CPA or finance accounting company that supporting them or it's their payroll provider who's supporting them.

Steve Hall (16:57):

So, we can catch it right away. And I'll be honest, in the past three years, whether it was through SBA opportunities or even with the grant opportunities, a lot of people pretended they had businesses that didn't. But the way we were able to mitigate that real fast was like, send us this, send us that, and send us a copy of your bank statement. And they were like, oh, I didn't make up a bank statement yet.

Steve Hall (17:20):

So, that was the big difference. But we see the value when people have payroll provider partnerships, especially those who look for grants. And we do have some big grant programs. We look for audits, we look for compiled or management prepared financials. We just can't give you a quarter of a million dollar grant for some of our programs and then you don't have any of that information. So some of our programs that start real estate development in certain municipalities states to kind of trigger development, but even to get those grants, you got to have financial resources. So, without balance sheets, income statements, bank accounts, AP agent, we can't validate what you're saying you're doing you're actually doing.

Gene Marks (18:10):

Yeah, people have to remember that if somebody's going to be financing your company, regardless of the organization, they have to be basic and based on financial statements, tax returns. I like the fact that you're saying about a payroll company, it's nothing to do with Paychex sponsoring this podcast, it really does make sense that if you do have a payroll company, they have to get certain types of documentation from you to make sure they can verify your payroll tax returns and that they're getting the payroll out in the right way.

Gene Marks (18:38):

And to your employees, there's a lot of regulations in involved. And so they are a first line of defense I guess for somebody like yourself that's looking to lend money out to say if they're working with a payroll company, they're legit. Same thing, having an accountant on board, having external financial statements, obviously tax returns, that stuff is important. Do you ask for budgets very often? I mean if you're lending money, a lot of times banks will do... They'll ask you to do proforma debt maintenance, how are you going to pay back this loan? That kind of thing. Again, because you're lending to very small businesses, I'm assuming a lot of these businesses are not that financially astute, so they probably don't have budgets. I have companies do $30 million, $40 million a year, still don't have budgets, you know what I mean? But is that something you ask for?

Steve Hall  (19:29):

That is something we ask for. So what's interesting, I'm glad you said that. We have two major supplier diversity initiatives that we're doing with Abbott and JPMorgan Chase. And what's interesting is even some of their top suppliers, because they are operators of color, they may not have the same financial team. So they may have compiled statements, but they never asked their CPA to... Can you give me a two- year performer for what I think the business will look like for the next two years? So, what's interesting for me is especially when diverse suppliers now have a greater time than ever to grow their business and acquire additional assets, that performance is so important for us to try to figure out how do we move forward? And even if you're a small mom and pop shop, always love a mom and pop shop.

Steve Hall (20:21):

They do 300,000 a year revenue and they just say we're going to always do 300,000. And then that one year somebody puts a similar business right across the street and they do 180 and I say, well what happened? "Well, we didn't think ourselves were going to drop." But yeah, they're right across the street. What did you think? And what are you going to do to grow that market share back? So projections really kind of help us try to get an understanding of the landscape because all lending is local.

Steve Hall (20:46):

I don't want to pretend that what happens in New York happens in Anaheim, California, or in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Those nuances, they happen block by block, business by business, owner by owner. And then how attractive is the opportunity to competitors? So we bake all that into the cake, whether it's a performer, an environmental kind of assessment through a site visit, especially for our bigger investments. I mean not the hundred thousands, but it is important for us to really have a really keen understanding because a lot of CFIs do microlending and we don't do microlending. We're doing that gap between when that person is ready for the bank or trying to strive to the bank, but not quite there yet. But they're bigger than most what a microlender could offer them.

Gene Marks (21:35):

Steve, what are the biggest challenges you have with... And you know, supervise people that are all around the country, that are trying to lend money out to businesses that would need it. And yet you guys must hit your own stumbling blocks with some of these business owners that you just... I guess driving home at night, banging your head against the driving... I mean the steering wheel saying why don't these people do this? You know what I mean? Or why are they like that? And I'm just curious what your biggest challenges are that you've had with some of your customers over the years that we can learn from.

Steve Hall (22:12):

The customers specifically. I think the biggest challenge, most businesses don't know when they have a challenge that's precluding them from financing and precluded them from safe, stable financing, bank financing or bank life financing. A lot of entrepreneurs, they believe in themselves wholeheartedly. They built the business to whatever level it is and they think that they could take on predatory debt or really risky capital if the bank is not responding. And sometimes it's real simple stuff. We talked about financials earlier, we talked about a clear strategy. A lot of people, they approach us and they say, "well I'm buying these three companies" and I'm like, you're buying those three companies to do what? "Because I could buy them, I want to buy three companies." And "Give us this asset." So I think it's the financial and strategic connection for what they're trying to accomplish. And always tell people, it's always good to run deals by bankers because even if we don't finance the deal, the feedback is priceless.

Gene Marks (23:21):

A hundred percent.

Steve Hall (23:22):

And people sometimes they don't want to hear it, they'll take MES debt or they'll just take predatory debt. I've seen people buy commercial real estate with a 20% interest rate.

Gene Marks (23:33):

Yeah, it is something and my smartest clients, Steve, over the years, I mean, first of all, they don't like to get financing. If they can avoid getting financing, they avoid getting it. If they can pay for it themselves, why pay interest? And secondly, if they are going to get financing, they make sure there's return on investment for what they're trying to do. Which is why I've talked to plenty of bankers, we're in an environment now where interest rates are high relative to the way they've been over the past really 20 years. And they say, okay, that's had an impact on us lending money out but at the same time, we have customers coming to us because they know, even though interest rates are higher, they know that if they borrow this money to get this piece of equipment, they can have that piece of equipment running and they're going to make X dollars over it and they'll still going to make money.

Gene Marks (24:18):

You know what I mean? And so to them it's worth it over the long term. So I guess you it is a matter of teaching people to do that. Which really, I have two final questions and I'll let you go. Question number one is, I just mentioned teaching. So trying to make this sound like you put this in the right way, but you're lending to minority owned businesses, immigrants, people from different parts of the world, people that might not even speak English as their first language. So you must come across a lot of businesses that need more education. Do you know what I mean? I'm kind of curious where that education you think is most needed.

Steve Hall (25:03):

Wow, so Gene, you've touched on a spot where I'm evolving too as a leader and a manager. So I lead an initiative called the Entrepreneur of Color Fund and we just expanded in our 10th market. We were in Miami, Florida and it was the first time we did a commercial, it was bilingual. And we did this launch, I want to say I guess it was last Monday, Monday before last. And literally everybody who presented other than myself, they spoke in English and they translated it into Spanish. And I had to apologize, I said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish, so I'm doing mine in English. Somebody if they could help, that would be great." So I think as we look at the small business landscape, we have to understand that we're still the greatest economy in the world. We're the greatest melting pot. I mean, we get the best of the best workers, the best of the best talent educational wise, whether they are people of color or people who are from Europe or Russia, it doesn't matter.

Steve Hall (26:17):

But how do we teach them American industry and some of the ropes to skip and ropes to know? Those are the challenges that I see that are great because one of the challenges, I used to always see this in the Polish community in Chicago, the people you trust in an immigrant community is very small and they have to have a positive experience with somebody in your organization, whether through translation, whether through common experience or values. And it's really hard to reach those populations without those skillset. So I've learned a lot over the years, bridging the gap between certain communities in the bank or certain communities and now lists. And the biggest challenge is going to be not only understanding the language, but then teaching how to do business here and how you don't have to pay somebody. A lot of small countries, they have brokers for everything.

Steve Hall (27:19):

So, can you imagine telling an immigrant, you don't have to pay this other guy, they're not part of the institution. We want to have a unique relationship with you. And those are the type of, technical assistance is what we call it, that we extended these communities. And I'll be honest with you Gene, it takes a long time. I mean, these are loans, let's say the bank, they just don't have the time or the resources dedicated to do it because it's just not the mission of the bank. Well it's our mission, so we take the time, it's taken three years to close simple loans that should have closed in six weeks, but there's this educational opportunity, especially when they're doing development or talking about getting permits and all that stuff. And like I said, there's this big dependence on, especially for immigrants, that somebody else can handle it for me and I should trust them because they help so-and-so. But if they're charging you 50, 60, $70,000, you don't need that kind of help. You just need to learn it for yourself.

Gene Marks (28:18):

Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I mean it all starts with language because you have to communicate in the same language to build that trust. You've got people that... Imagine, they come over, they look at you, you're a nice guy, but you look different, you're just different than them. You know what I mean? And you're telling them to do different thing, put your money in a bank. Whereas some people are like, "I don't trust banks because the country I came from, banks were corrupt" And do need these permits so that way you have to... And then also even if they're applying for a loan, you need to give us some of the information so we can make the judgment whether you qualify and people are very like, "I don't want you to share any information about my business. That's my business."

Gene Marks (28:57):

Or There's a challenge and I just think for anybody who's listening to this that is trying to grow their business, I guess the fact is that is you're in America and so in this country there're just ways of doing things and it'd be same thing if you're in France or Italy or any other country, but if you're here in America, you've got to be more open. And I do think it is on the business owner themselves, they have to learn the languages as much as they can.

Gene Marks (29:26):

And maybe there's some halfway point that they could be met at. Before I let you go, and we've been out of time because you've been so great and this is great information, but just very quickly, just your take on the overall economy, Steve, as far as the financing environment, prime rate now is like 8.9%. It's not great, so it seems like an opportunity though for you guys because you can offer something maybe at below market rates or with credit becoming that much more tight. It just seems like LISC is an organization that might really be sort of like a savior here in these days, what are your thoughts on that?

Steve Hall (30:06):

Well, I think when you start talking about the US economy, I mean we do have some considerable headwinds and 29 billion of our portfolio is in affordable housing. And there's not enough housing in America. But all of a sudden because of the pandemic, nobody goes into our central businesses anymore. So those assets, fortunately or unfortunately will become targets for housing. I mean, you have to repurpose those buildings if you are a lender who holds commercial real estate assets that focus on business. You have to think about what the path forward is not only for this year but for years to come. So, with that being the case, it will be a really testing market in the bare bones of the banking industry. We lend on real estate, we're all kind of focused on real estate and we really want to say there will not be another real estate kerfuffle, but there's no guarantee that it won't, right? I mean, right now I'm working from my home instead of in our downtown office in Chicago.

Steve Hall (31:22):

It's just faster to get here. I just walk down the stairs and I'm in my office and I'm being able to do my job remotely in a number of markets and when I actually have to go to markets, I jump on a plane. But it's a big headwind. We haven't gotten there yet. I think the greatest opportunity for LISC is to continue to invest in the communities that we're investing in because what's happening is if more people are staying in their homes, that means more people want to be located in communities that have vibrant assets, restaurants, grocery stores, dry cleaners, coffee shops, everybody has to have four coffee shops in the neighborhood now for some reason.

Gene Marks (32:01):

And 16 nail salons.

Steve Hall (32:03):

Nail salons, there you go. So, we are investing primarily in those community assets. So we have unique opportunity there to really help a lot of small businesses who want to be there. I think the challenge where we're not going to be able to save people is we're not going to be able to stand up urban markets. We don't have enough capital to do it. I don't know who's going to do it. I've had an interesting conversation with a business owner word about his 15-year lease in a central business district being invalidated because he doesn't know what the long term viability of the market. So when there is a downfall, there is an opportunity for others to step in the gap and create new opportunities and we hope that LISC will be a partner to create new opportunities in several of our markets.

Gene Marks (32:47):

I've been speaking with Steven Hall. Steve is the national director and a vice president at the Local Initiative Support Corporation, LISC, that's lisc.org L-I-S-C .org. Steve, thank you so much for joining me. I want to wish best success with you and your organization and keep doing great things.

Steve Hall (33:04):

Gene, thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity having me on today.

Gene Marks (33:07):

Do you have a topic or a guest that you would like to hear on THRIVE? Please let us know. Visit Payx.me/thrive topics and send us your ideas or matters of interest. Also, if your business is looking to simplify your HR, payroll, benefits, or insurance services, see how Paychex can help. Visit the resource hub at paychex.com/worx. That's W-O-R-X. Paychex can help manage those complexities while you focus on all the ways you want your business to thrive. I'm your host, Gene Marks, and thanks for joining us. Till next time, take care.

Speaker 1 (33:44):

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