How to Finance Your Longarm: Real Advice for Starting a Quilting Business

0:00 Okay, as we're waiting for people that have been waiting out in the hallway to file an

0:29 loan in, we're going to begin this very special presentation of Quilting Business Success.

0:38 We have our American Financial Partners personnel with us, Jackie Paulson and Kerry Radloff.

0:48 We are very glad to have them with us.

0:52 We're going to give just a minute to make sure everybody gets into the meeting right

0:57 now.

0:58 We also have Holly Zuber joining us.

1:03 And Holly, you just feel free to jump in whenever you want.

1:08 I'll just jump right in.

1:11 Jackie and Kerry, whichever of you wants to answer the question is fine.

1:18 We, we're, I have my first question, but I almost wanted to, Bobby had introduced you

1:30 guys, but I just wanted to say AFP is American Financial Partners.

1:35 And I've known you guys quite a while.

1:39 When I first became a gamble dealer, there was a, like a week long training where I was

1:45 supposed to learn everything that I needed to know, which was completely impossible,

1:50 but we tried.

1:51 And Kerry, I, I remember that I met you then, and, and even at that time, you guys had quite

2:00 a lengthy history with, with gamble.

2:04 So I'll start off with the first question, where, where are you guys from?

2:08 Where is home for you?

2:09 AFP is Bayside of Gary, South Dakota.

2:14 Very tidy little town, population 240, same state as Holly.

2:21 We're over on the East side, Central South Dakota.

2:24 All right, interesting.

2:27 So definitely not like one of these big bank corporation type deals.

2:34 Right.

2:35 And can you guys tell us a little bit about, I'm going to play the part in this interview

2:42 as the person who does not know as nearly as much as anybody else on this screen, but

2:49 can you tell us a little bit about your background in this financing business?

2:53 Yeah, absolutely.

2:54 I'll, I'll start out first and then I'll let Jackie go.

2:57 So I started my career when I was still in college back in 1998, where I worked with

3:06 U.S. Bank.

3:07 They have an equipment finance division in Marshall, Minnesota, which is where I went

3:11 to college.

3:12 And I started working there then I ended up spending 10 years at U.S. Bank and then left

3:18 to join AFP in 2008.

3:21 And I've been with AFP ever since.

3:23 So I've been in the business about 26 years.

3:25 It's kind of all I know.

3:28 And I love every minute of it.

3:31 I started with AFP about seven and a half years ago, give or take.

3:37 And the first, first kind of delve into the finance world was, was with AFP.

3:44 But Carrie has taught me everything that I know.

3:46 She's a very fast learner.

3:52 And how did you guys come about to connecting with, with Gammill?

3:57 How did you get affiliated with us?

3:59 Tell us that story.

4:00 Yeah, so it was, it was actually kind of by accident.

4:04 So one of our employees went to a trade show up in the cities, and there happened to be

4:11 a Gammill booth there.

4:12 At that time, it was the Gammill dealer that covered that area.

4:16 And they got to talking with one another and hit it off and decided to put together a finance

4:24 plan for people that were purchasing their Gammills to go into business or to use them

4:29 for income generation.

4:31 And so we started working with that dealer initially.

4:34 And then that developed into a relationship with Gammill as a manufacturer.

4:39 And at that time, there was a dealer network.

4:41 So with all the dealers of Gammill, so we started financing Gammill machines in 2006.

4:47 So 18 years, we've been financing Gammill machines now, which is pretty amazing.

4:52 We've been in business 20 years.

4:55 So almost our whole AFP life, we've been financing Gammills.

5:00 Awesome.

5:01 So, so when people contact you or get in touch with you, how do you help the person who's

5:13 thinking about buying a machine, weigh their different options?

5:17 Because obviously, there's a lot of different ways people could choose to pay for a machine.

5:23 How do you help them weigh their options out?

5:29 So I think, you know, because we have quite a long history of working with Gammill customers,

5:35 we really understand, you know, the different concerns every customer has.

5:41 And we understand that there are different ways to pay for the machine.

5:45 So we do typically have that conversation with the customer and talk through those concerns

5:51 and talk about the differences between financing with a company like AFP versus financing through

5:57 their bank or through other sources of financing means.

6:06 So yeah, because people do, I guess everybody's financial situation is a little bit unique to

6:15 them.

6:16 And I think sometimes people get confronted with, you know, a credit application and they're

6:21 looking at it and they're thinking, you know, this is a big form for me to fill out and

6:26 I'm not even sure that they're going to say yes.

6:29 And even if they do, I'm not even sure that I'm going to like what they offer me.

6:34 And I don't know, I felt that way before.

6:38 Is that something that you're, that's one of the things I think as a, because I've directed

6:47 a lot of people to go talk to you guys several times over the years, many times over the

6:51 years.

6:52 And I feel like that's one of the things that you guys do really well is rather than, oh,

6:58 here, fill out this big thing with all of your information.

7:01 Eventually there'll be an application, but you start by just being human with people.

7:08 Having a conversation.

7:09 Yeah.

7:09 And one of the big things we'll talk with them about is, you know, typically when we

7:13 talk with a new customer, especially if they are going to be new into potentially doing

7:18 this as a business, you know, we're going to talk through, here's some of the benefits

7:22 of maybe doing it as a business.

7:24 You know, you have your tax deductions for your business.

7:28 It'll, you know, build some business credit.

7:31 It won't report to your personal credit.

7:32 I mean, there's a number of benefits to financing under a business versus personally.

7:37 So we try to at least make them understand all of those so that they can make the best

7:41 decision for them.

7:43 You know, another big one is, you know, if they finance with their bank, in a lot of

7:48 cases, they may make them put up additional collateral, like their house or their car.

7:53 And, you know, whether they're comfortable putting up that type of an asset to start

8:00 their business, whereas we're just taking a lean on their gamble machine, you know,

8:05 when we're financing them.

8:09 I think, go ahead.

8:13 We really do try to, you know, have that initial conversation really be thorough as well and

8:19 try and quote payments initially before even taking that step on filling out an application.

8:24 You know, we can talk through every potential scenario and work through, you know, those

8:31 concerns up front before making any step towards submitting an application.

8:38 I think one of the questions that I have, and Holly, you may you may jump in on this

8:43 one, is specifically somebody who is listening to this podcast or watching us, how would

8:52 they specifically, the individual, get more information about the financing that's available

9:00 for them through AFP, for them specifically, and what do they need to go to do if they

9:08 want to, what kind of steps to begin the process of doing this?

9:18 Well, with the sales team, you contact sales at Gammill, we'll be glad to assist you any

9:24 way we can, but I usually refer my people directly to Jackie and Carrie for them to

9:31 reach out as long as they say it's okay.

9:35 Having that personal connection has really helped them feel more comfortable, and that's

9:39 what Gammill is more about, is that personal connection. So again, it's not them submitting

9:44 some application into Cyberworld, they reach out to them directly, answer all those questions,

9:52 you guys have no pressure on them, you're simply answering the questions that they ask,

9:57 giving them the best advice, and you know, from there, it's strictly on you guys, we

10:02 kind of take a step out of the picture until things kind of settle, we're there to assist,

10:08 and you guys do your own thing.

10:10 Well, they get to talk to the real people.

10:14 Yes.

10:16 So, this is, I think, a question that comes up from time to time, and I don't always

10:24 know how to answer it when somebody asks me, and that would be whether, are there any

10:30 particular financing plans or features that you have on your loans that makes it

10:38 specifically easier for small businesses to get started?

10:45 Yeah, I would say one of the most important things of how I think we differ from other,

10:51 maybe, finance options is we understand quilting, we understand the quilting machine,

10:57 we understand how people make money using the machine, and so just having that advantage is

11:01 nice. Customers are relieved to talk to somebody who actually understands what this machine does

11:07 and how it can make them money. We will offer 100% financing on the invoice, which is huge.

11:16 We don't typically require a huge down payment like a bank may ask for.

11:20 We can also roll in some of the ancillary items, such as, you know, if you need a bobbin case,

11:26 or you have sales tax, or you have installation or training, a lot of that can be rolled into

11:32 the financing, which is nice, so they have less out-of-pocket up front. We don't require

11:39 a business plan. We don't typically require anything other than a simple application.

11:46 We don't require the tax returns and all of that. We call that customer once we have

11:52 the application, and like Jackie says, we have a conversation with them. Tell us about your

11:56 background. How long have you been quilting? What are you looking to do with the machine?

12:00 You know, and just find out a little bit about them, and that's how we underwrite our

12:07 customers in finding out, you know, more about them and how they're going to use their machine.

12:14 Sorry, well,

12:19 I was just with what you just said, I smiled because you said we don't require a business

12:27 plan, which is absolutely true. I've been a fly on the wall during a few of these conversations,

12:34 because I was standing there with the customer, and she had the speakerphone on, and I heard you

12:40 guys having that conversation, and I thought it was amazing, because did she need to, did she have

12:48 a business plan? No, she did not. I mean, she didn't have an MBA. She was a regular Gammill

12:55 customer, you know, but you asked her questions, like how long had she been quilting, and you know,

13:03 was she involved with the Quilt Guild? I don't remember what the questions were, but you were

13:09 actually asking her those everyday questions that were easy for her to answer, so that you knew that

13:15 she actually did have a business plan. It just wasn't written down, and she would never have

13:20 called it that. Right, and I think you're, one of your comments to me that I really enjoyed was the

13:27 fact that you're, it's the intent to do it as a business, and that's kind of where it all starts,

13:33 and with Gammill, we also offer an Accelerate program, which is more of a, on the business end of

13:39 starting your business, so when you say that those things can be rolled into your payment plans, that

13:45 is one thing that some of our customers have done, as they have put that wrapped up into their machine

13:52 purchase, too, so that's been a great asset as well, and this is fantastic. Listen, I'm actually

13:58 learning as I listen to you guys, and I've talked to a lot of our

14:05 machine owners and things like that, that have sought in just random places out there for

14:13 financing and stuff, and so many times I've heard people say they've gone to somebody to get to see

14:20 about getting financing for purchasing a Gammill, and the response they got was, you want to finance

14:28 a sewing machine, and which, I mean, that statement in itself just reflects that they have no idea

14:34 what the person is talking about, so just hearing you guys talking, the way you're talking, I can

14:41 tell that you have a knowledge of what these, what our customers are looking for, and that's

14:49 encouraging. And what a difference it makes in people's financial picture over the next five or

14:55 10 years. I mean, you take a everyday situation where somebody's adding, I'll take a real small

15:04 number, you add $15,000 to your annual income for your family household, you do that for 10 years,

15:12 that's $150,000 that would not have been there if it wasn't for your small business, and a lot

15:19 of people, the number's a lot bigger than $15,000, but I just thought I would point out a small number

15:26 like that, a very modest, you know, a little bit here and there on the weekends, and pretty soon

15:31 over the span of 10 years or 20 years, you've got a completely different financial picture for your

15:36 family. Yeah, one of the things that we do that's really unique also is that we've put together

15:43 a flyer specific to Longarm where the customer can look at all the different GAML machine options

15:50 with an, you know, an average cost of them, what the average payment would be, and see how many

15:55 quilts would they have to Longarm a month to pay for that equipment. And that's a really neat way

16:01 to look at it because you can go back to that customer and say, okay, you know, maybe you're

16:06 not able to do this full-time, you're doing it on the side while you raise your kids, or maybe you

16:10 have a job and you do this on the side trying to build your business. How many quilts can you do,

16:16 you know, a week or a month? If you can do one quilt a month, that's four quilts,

16:21 or one quilt a week, that's four quilts a month, and you can afford that machine.

16:29 Yeah, let the machine pay for itself.

16:31 We need to think a little bit more about how important it is to build your business credit

16:36 compared to your personal credit, and that's why, I mean, you touched on it a little bit.

16:41 Can you just expand on it a little bit, that portion of it?

16:46 So our programs, you know, because of, because we're writing it as a commercial contract,

16:52 we don't report to personal credit, so it's not going to impact a customer's personal credit

16:59 score as a new trade line. It's also not going to affect their personal debt to income if they have

17:05 future personal financing needs, like a new mortgage or a new auto loan, because it's

17:09 written in the business name. Even if, even if there isn't like an LLC or a corporation,

17:15 and they aren't doing it full-time, it's still beneficial that way. But then at the same time,

17:21 it is building up business credit. We're able to, you know, provide a credit reference if,

17:26 you know, five years from now they want to add a second machine,

17:29 and then we have that credit reference to help build, you know, additional

17:37 sources of financing down the road. So if they want to maybe do construction,

17:44 or as they're expanding their full business, it's already a reference already in place that

17:48 they've been paying on out of their home that allows them to grow that, and who knows where

17:53 it will take them, right? Yes, absolutely. We do have a question from one of our viewers

18:00 right now, and this may be for Holly or Andrew. What is the Accelerate program? Can you expand on

18:09 that? Andrew, do you want to talk about that? I'll take it, sure. So the Accelerate program

18:17 is something that we've put together that is designed to basically come as close as possible to

18:26 guaranteeing your success in your longarm quilting business. And we have a ton of free resources,

18:33 like all the back episodes of this podcast. And of course, you know, these days you can get lots

18:40 of information for free on the internet if you just know where to go look. Now, it can be a

18:45 little hard to tease out between the good information and the bad information, but there's

18:50 a lot of information out there. The Accelerate program, what it is, is it's very much structured

18:56 like our new owner training program. You go to the same GAML online training program on the website,

19:02 and there's all the different sections and the different modules in it. And it handles a lot of

19:08 the simple questions that come up for people all the time, like, you know, do I need an LLC

19:15 or, you know, can I just run it as a sole prop? Well, what do I need to know about taxes in my

19:20 local jurisdiction? And how about insurance? And there's a lot of different topics, pricing,

19:28 your business, all sorts of things. But in addition to that, it is a 12-month-long

19:35 coaching program. So we put you with one of our business coaches. And so from the very first

19:43 day that you get your machine and that you open your business, you have access to that

19:48 professional help to make sure that you don't bumble your way through starting your business.

19:54 So everybody who's done the Accelerate program

20:00 them just a few simple mistakes that they would have made that they avoid.

20:05 I mean, it's it.

20:08 It's it's oftentimes people don't want

20:11 to spend a little bit of money to get that training and that help.

20:14 And I shake my head at it because that was me, too, 25 years ago.

20:20 And I was a little bit too cheap to to buy good advice.

20:24 And having the advice of a lawyer,

20:27 the advice of the accountant, the advice of a physician,

20:30 the advice of a business coach, I mean, these are people that can steer you

20:34 the right way, personal trainers, come on, people.

20:38 So these people are there's people out there to help you.

20:41 You don't have to make mistakes yourself.

20:45 I wanted to ask maybe, Jackie, can you explain we didn't really talk about this

20:51 yet, but can you explain the difference between a lease and a loan?

20:55 What does that

20:57 what what does that matter to people?

21:02 So for the most part, we do offer both lease and loan options,

21:07 at least in the

21:10 version that we would see is different than what you think of for a traditional

21:15 like car lease, you know, with a car lease at the end of

21:19 a certain amount of time, you're going to trade that car in or get

21:22 a different car and keep your payment commercial finance wise.

21:26 A lease is going to be a lease to own.

21:28 So at the end of the contract, regardless of whether it's a lease or a finance

21:33 option, you're going to own the equipment.

21:35 A lease typically has some sort of residual at the end of it.

21:39 So most of our lease options are going to be what's called a dollar out lease option.

21:45 So at the end of the contract, you you pay an additional dollar to own the equipment

21:51 in our case or in our

21:54 with within AFP.

21:55 Most of our contracts are written on what's

21:58 called a finance agreement, equipment finance agreement.

22:02 It's.

22:04 For the most part, going to be very similar as far as how it's written,

22:08 the positives as far as the finance agreement goes, as you own the equipment

22:12 from the start, there is a lien placed on the machine

22:16 with the serial number, but you are the owner of the equipment.

22:19 A lease is going to be different where

22:21 the bank or whoever we fund our transaction with is going to own

22:26 the equipment until you pay that residual at the end.

22:30 Gotcha.

22:33 I'm going to question

22:35 what it I mean, if you had to follow up on that.

22:40 OK, if someone

22:44 is considering financing versus purchasing out of their savings or,

22:50 you know, whatever.

22:52 Sometimes I hear people pulling out of their husband's

22:56 retirement or, you know, whatever.

22:58 What what are the pros and cons?

23:00 Do you have any feedback on that?

23:04 Yeah, I would say we usually would would tell someone to hold on to their cash or

23:11 at least hold on to some of their cash, because as you start your business,

23:14 you're going to run into expenses for things that you cannot finance.

23:19 And you may run into emergencies and you may run into things you don't think about.

23:24 And it's important to have a cash reserve

23:27 to be able to finance those things as they come up.

23:31 Customers can certainly pay part of their equipment costs down,

23:36 but financing really lets the machine pay for itself.

23:41 Take the cash value,

23:43 the cash flow of it where you know how much you can make every month

23:47 with the machine minus what your payment is and you know what you're going to net

23:51 out each month from a revenue standpoint.

23:55 I had I had a customer that I was working

23:58 with many years ago, and she was sure glad that she had

24:02 financed her machine to keep the cash available, because what she didn't know is

24:09 that a lady in her town who was running a pretty good business with her fabric shop,

24:16 her life circumstances changed and she put the business up for sale.

24:22 And because she had the cash available,

24:26 she was able to purchase all that inventory, all that fabric on bolts at a fire sale

24:32 price, but she would never have been able to do it if she didn't have the money

24:36 available. And that really that was a huge.

24:42 Steal of a deal for her

24:44 to be able to take advantage of that opportunity.

24:47 And she couldn't have done it if if she had bought her machine with cash

24:51 and then been cash poor at that moment.

24:56 Absolutely.

24:57 And then everyone has to look at their own situations, but a lot of times

25:01 it depends on your age and other factors.

25:03 But if you're pulling money out of a retirement account,

25:06 there's usually going to be tax implications with that.

25:11 And that may be more expensive than your financing, you know.

25:14 So there's a lot of things that people need to look into when they're considering all

25:18 of their options.

25:20 Another aspect that we explain is that if they do end up financing it,

25:25 there's tax deductions and write offs you can take under your business

25:30 with financing, which is a nice additional boost.

25:35 Mm hmm.

25:36 So, Jackie, could you explain a little bit

25:39 about what type of equipment that you could finance with it?

25:44 Yeah.

25:45 So basically anything that is invoiced

25:49 through Gammill, so, you know, any package that you put together

25:54 through Gammill, whatever accessories are attached and included,

25:59 any training, anything like that, even like a retrofit for your current

26:03 machine, it's not it doesn't have to be a new machine.

26:06 It could be a right that I don't think people

26:09 realize that they could finance a retrofit to their machine.

26:13 Yep, absolutely.

26:14 One hundred percent. We do a lot of retrofit customers.

26:18 In fact, a lot of our customers who start

26:20 with just the long arm itself will come back to us and say, hey,

26:23 I'm ready for that automation system.

26:25 Let's let's go ahead and add it.

26:28 We do a lot of that.

26:29 Something to keep in mind with retrofits is we may ask for the machine that's being

26:34 attached to as collateral, normally with with all of our other

26:39 agreements, the machine itself is the collateral.

26:41 So with the retrofits, because a lot of that value is in the machine itself,

26:45 we may ask for the serial number of that machine just as kind of an additional piece

26:50 of collateral and again, so that's just easy peasy as well, too, right?

26:54 Yep, yep.

26:55 And usually it's a follow up item that we

26:57 just attach at the end, so.

27:00 On those same lines, Andrew, you might know the answer to this.

27:04 If somebody

27:06 retrofits like a hand guided machine to a Statler or an Ascend,

27:12 is there generally a significant change

27:16 in the income that they're able to make from that machine?

27:20 Yeah, yeah, there is.

27:23 So there's a couple of limitations with hand guided quilting we have,

27:28 and if a person goes back and listens to all the episodes of this podcast,

27:32 you'll come across people who make a really good income with hand

27:36 guided quilting on their machine, so I don't want anybody to think

27:40 that you can't do that because loads of people do.

27:44 But what I will say is that

27:47 a lot of times we're limited by our physical stamina, right?

27:51 So that hand guided quilting,

27:54 especially the more expensive custom types of hand guided quilting,

28:00 can be very physically taxing.

28:03 And so you may

28:06 I remember the first lady that I paid to quilt a quilt for me, one of my first

28:11 quilts, and most people didn't know this.

28:14 She had a backlog of like nine months long.

28:17 So when I brought her the quilt, I had to wait a long time to get it back.

28:21 But here's what people didn't know.

28:23 She only quilted eight to 10 hours a week because that's all she could quilt.

28:28 Right, she could never catch up on her

28:31 backlog because it's, you know, it's so physically demanding

28:34 to do that quilting that she was limited by her own ability.

28:39 When a person has a Statler or a Statler Ascend,

28:42 it takes the physicality out of it.

28:46 And people can do, you know, three, four, five queen size quilts in a day,

28:51 depending on what you think of a work day.

28:54 I remember Calvin in Brooklyn that we interviewed on an earlier podcast.

28:59 We asked him how many hours they were working.

29:01 And I think Calvin said all of them,

29:06 you know, but they had they had little kids to feed, too.

29:09 So

29:10 well, and we see a lot of our customers

29:12 who will come back for a second machine, which that's something important to note

29:16 is we can do multiple machines.

29:18 You don't have to pay off your first

29:20 contract to finance another machine if your business is ready for that.

29:24 But we have a lot of customers who will use their automated Statler's for their

29:28 edge to edge, and they're pushing through a lot of quilts with that.

29:31 And then maybe they're doing more custom work on their hand guided.

29:35 So we see that a lot as well.

29:39 Question, if somebody

29:42 gets a machine for their business, but they say they want to also do their

29:48 own quilts and so they do some charity quilts, not for profit.

29:52 Is there any restrictions with that?

29:54 Is that allowed?

29:55 Does that throw a monkey wrench into the works?

29:59 Absolutely not.

30:01 You know, again, we are a commercial lender.

30:04 We need to know that the goal, the intent is to to generate some income on the

30:10 machine, but we really understand that this is a passion for most of our customers.

30:17 You know, we understand that you're going to

30:19 utilize the machine for yourself and for, you know, your passion as well.

30:23 And we won't do any, you know, follow up after the fact to make sure

30:28 that the only thing you're doing is generating income on that machine.

30:33 Matter of fact, I think we would all be

30:36 disappointed in you if all you ever did was quote for money.

30:39 You really should.

30:41 You really should do good in the world with your machine.

30:45 Right.

30:48 Are there any specific challenges or maybe

30:53 concerns that are fairly common that you hear all the time

30:57 from your different clients that you work with?

31:03 You know, I would say most of them are

31:05 wrestling with whether they file for a business or not.

31:09 And the nice thing about our program is

31:13 we don't necessarily require them to have anything filed.

31:17 You know, again, we have that conversation up front and their intent is to use it for

31:23 income generation and do it as a business.

31:26 They don't necessarily have to verify that they filed something in most cases.

31:33 If that's something that's required,

31:35 we have that conversation with them, but typically it's not.

31:38 So we usually recommend them to talk

31:42 with other quilters or talk with their attorney or their accountant or someone

31:47 that can help them make the best decision for them and what their future goals are.

31:53 The only other thing I can think of is

31:56 just concerned about being able to make the payment.

32:00 And again, I'll go back to the flyer that we've created where they can kind of get

32:07 an idea how many quilts they think they can do a month and

32:11 make them know whether or not they can

32:13 afford that machine payment based on what they're doing in quilting.

32:18 And is that what you use to assess whether

32:22 somebody's financially ready to finance that long arm or is there any more to that

32:28 equation?

32:31 So I think Kerry mentioned it earlier, we don't

32:34 typically ask for tax returns or bank statements or financials or anything like

32:38 that, but what we do ask is, you know, just what is your annual income?

32:45 Sometimes we'll ask for a spouse to sign

32:48 just to help balance out any debt to income concerns,

32:52 you know, to help help make that that debt to income ratio within a reasonable range.

32:59 So that is a big part of our kind of underwriting criteria, I guess.

33:06 OK,

33:08 go ahead, Holly, go ahead.

33:09 I'll let this Bobby, I'm sorry, I'm not used to doing it.

33:13 I think one of the things that I really

33:15 like is the fact that when you have a good machine like a gamble, you're going

33:19 into it with you're not maybe you're not going to do it as a business.

33:22 But when you have such a good machine,

33:24 you're going to be some sort of business, whether you're paying

33:28 paying somebody for with a pound cake or if you're just, you know, whatever the

33:33 ratio trade off is going to be just friendship, you're going to nip me

33:36 something, I'll quote you something.

33:38 When you have a good machine like that,

33:40 it just really turns into something more than what you ever expected, I think.

33:47 Well, a lot of times,

33:50 I mean, it's hard to keep a machine like this a secret,

33:54 you know, because you let one person in your quilting group know that you're

33:59 excited because you've got a gamble on the way.

34:02 And pretty soon I remember one lady that I

34:05 had delivered and set up her machine and she had a 40 40.

34:10 That's a four and a zero.

34:12 She had 40 quilt tops that her friends from the Quilt Guild and everything.

34:18 They had all brought her all these quilts.

34:21 And she's like she's like, you know, a couple of them asked me how much I was

34:26 going to charge and I didn't even have it figured out yet.

34:28 I said, I'll have to call you.

34:30 You know,

34:31 she was completely unprepared to start her business because she thought it would

34:36 take a long time to find customers and all that.

34:40 But literally in the period of time

34:42 where she was waiting for the delivery of the machine, she had 40 quilts.

34:45 Thank goodness for our new owner training program that starts you out with a bang.

34:50 So she knew how to do the first quilt.

34:53 I actually did the first quilt with her.

34:56 So Jackie and Carrie, I've got a question from one of the viewers.

35:03 They said, so when coming back for another loan on another machine and the first one

35:09 is not paid off yet, is it set up as a separate loan or can

35:13 the first be rolled into the new one?

35:17 There's a couple of different scenarios.

35:20 For the most part, we don't typically refinance that first machine.

35:25 It would be separate.

35:26 It would be a second contract.

35:29 However, if it's a retrofit that we're adding,

35:33 sometimes we'll roll that that initial machine in,

35:36 especially because we're using that machine as collateral.

35:41 Carrie, do you have any more on that?

35:43 That's incredibly sensible.

35:50 One of the other things that I wanted to

35:52 bring up was to just kind of ask you guys about Section 179 and how that plays

35:58 into people's decision making, I know it's something at Gamble that we

36:02 try to make sure that everybody is aware of.

36:06 And yeah, absolutely.

36:08 What Section 179 is.

36:10 Yeah, so Section 179 is a code from the IRS tax service that allows a business

36:18 to write off any equipment that they buy for the calendar year.

36:22 So basically at the end of the year,

36:25 anything that was purchased throughout that year,

36:28 depending on what that business's income is,

36:33 they can write off up to what they've made in income in any equipment purchases.

36:39 So as an example,

36:41 let's say that the business made $100,000 and they bought $50,000 in equipment.

36:47 They can write off that full $50,000 and they're writing down their taxable income.

36:53 So basically,

36:55 you know, depending on what their tax rate is that they're paying,

36:59 if their tax rate is, let's just say, 25 percent, they're taking $50,000

37:06 and 25 percent of that is $12,000.

37:09 They just.

37:11 They just say save $12,500.

37:16 And paying taxes.

37:20 So and I think one thing that's important

37:22 to point out on that is that if they've financed that purchase,

37:28 they've just taken $12,500 off of their IRS bill for the year,

37:36 but they haven't even paid $12,500.

37:40 I mean, they might have made a few

37:41 monthly payments, but they're actually going to take all that money off their IRS

37:47 bill, but they haven't paid the $50,000 yet.

37:54 Did we lose Carrie?

37:57 I think we lost your video.

38:00 Well, I think she would be chiming in,

38:02 and unfortunately, she's the guru on Section 179.

38:07 OK, well, she gave us some good some good information on that.

38:10 We may dig deeper if she's able to make it.

38:14 Reconnect.

38:15 Yes.

38:17 So, Jackie, can you.

38:20 Basically, can you tell us what a step process of somebody that's getting

38:25 with you guys, what kind of timeline is involved and the steps involved?

38:30 Yeah, so as we mentioned earlier, you know, once once you've connected

38:35 with Holly or the sales team at Gamble and you're ready to kind of see what

38:39 that option looks like, we encourage you to either give us a call or have Holly

38:43 provide us with your contact information and we'll call you

38:47 to kind of talk through the initial steps of the financing.

38:52 When a customer is ready to apply, we have them fill out our application.

38:57 Pretty, pretty simple online application.

39:00 Typically, we call the customer within about an hour of receiving the application.

39:06 We've got a small credit team that works

39:08 with Carrie and myself to there's two or three credit analysts that work with us

39:13 that'll call and go through those questions that we talked about earlier.

39:16 You know, what's your experience?

39:19 Do you belong to a guild?

39:21 We'll talk through any credit questions or any debt to income questions that we have.

39:26 And then we'll submit everything to our underwriters.

39:29 We try to have a credit decision back to a customer within a business day.

39:34 And then from there, you know, it's really in the hands of the customer

39:38 on how quick they're ready to make that decision on moving forward.

39:42 So I was listening really closely because

39:45 a lot of those banking and finance terms are hard for me to wrap my head around.

39:51 But what I heard you say is that it can take just a day or two

39:56 to get a thumbs up or thumbs down on that.

40:00 Yes. Okay, so it really doesn't add any delay at all to the process of ordering a machine.

40:08 We try to make it as simple as we can and as quick as as possible. There may be some

40:15 small delays, like I had mentioned, sometimes we'll ask for the spouse to sign along. So if

40:19 we receive the application with just the wife as an example, we may have to ask for a credit

40:25 release for that husband to balance things out. But again, we try to make that as quickly

40:32 and as simple as possible. Most of our process is all done electronically now as well.

40:36 So if the customer is ready to move quickly, we can make that happen.

40:42 I think one of the things that I really like is the fact that it takes me as a salesperson out

40:48 of the equation, that you all do your thing again and we do ours. A lot of the stuff that you're

40:54 telling me, I don't know that that's what the customer is dealing with. So that is between them

41:00 and you and we connect with the customer, you connect with the customer. We're not really

41:06 connecting here until the sale and the delivery and that end of it. So there's none of that.

41:12 I like that it is a separate entity for me. It gives the customer a whole lot more privacy.

41:19 Yeah, that's the bottom line. And I agree with Holly there too. It's nice for me to know if I'm

41:27 trying to help somebody get a machine. It's nice for me to know that if there's any possible way

41:32 that you guys will come up with the money for her for getting that machine. And I don't really

41:41 want to know if somebody has an overdue Netflix bill or something that's in collection.

41:50 I don't want to know the details. I think it's important too. We don't share that information.

41:57 So if for some reason we absolutely can't help a customer, that's a conversation we have with

42:02 the customer. That's not something that everybody needs. I don't want to know. Yeah, I don't want

42:09 to know. So Kerry, when your internet went out there for a minute, we were just finishing up the

42:17 section 179 question. And something that I tried to convey, or I was trying to ask a question,

42:27 because in your example that you gave, potentially somebody might be whacking $12,500 off of the

42:35 check they have to write to the IRS for a given year. And in that scenario, one of the things

42:43 that's real interesting is, okay, you've got an equipment purchase of $50,000 and you're using

42:48 that to offset your tax bill. But what's neat about it, as I understand it, and I do understand

42:54 it a little bit because I've used it myself on an equipment purchase, I had only made a few payments.

43:00 So my out-of-pocket on, it was a work truck that I bought, but my out-of-pocket on that truck was

43:06 only a few thousand dollars, and I got to take a lot off of my tax bill. Yes, absolutely. So I think

43:16 that's a good way to look at what the cost of the machine is, is taking what you can potentially save

43:23 in that section 179, and that really gives you what your net cost of your new machine is going

43:29 to be for you. Yep. Go ahead. All right, we have a big thing going on now with our preloved machines.

43:40 We've got, just released some from our Quilting with Confidence tour that just wrapped up, so we've

43:44 got some classroom machines. Now you guys do preloved financing too, right? Absolutely. Is there any

43:52 difference between financing new and preloved on your end? No, if it's coming from GAML

44:00 corporate or, you know, we don't like to do a lot in the private party, that's a little tougher,

44:06 but the preloved machines from GAML are absolutely perfect, and we run the same

44:11 programs and same pricing and everything like that.

44:15 Is it harder for you guys to finance people if they're just starting their quilting business? Like, I think a lot of times people might feel nervous because they're thinking, you know, okay, it would be easy to get a loan if I already, if I was buying my second or third machine, but I don't even have any customers yet. Can you address that?

44:40 Yeah, so I think one of the unique things about what we've done at AFP with our quilting customers, because we've taken the time to really understand that equipment and our customer base, we ask, you know, how long have you been quilting for? And for so many of you, it's 25 plus years or, you know, we don't,

45:03 although you might be new on paper, you've been doing this a long time and you have built in customers through your friends and through your guild mates and whatever. So for us, it's not really a hurdle that it may be for other traditional financing options.

45:22 My banker down the street has no idea what my long arm is, so I'm not even going to talk to him.

45:28 So guys, do you, are you able to do financing or do you have partners like in other places of the world? We have a bunch of people in Canada, a bunch of people in Australia, South America, everywhere. So, Dee, what about that?

45:48 So currently, we'll finance to all 50 states and then we also have a partner in Canada who handles all of our Canadian customers. So the customer can still come to Jackie and I, and we will get them in touch with that Canadian lender. But he has financed a lot of long arms in Canada for us and does a great job.

46:08 So, when people, let's see, are there any other questions in the group or in the chat? I guess I was going to ask. That's clear. Right. You know, I really, I want to thank you guys for coming on here and talking with us about this. It's something that I know I can speak, especially for Holly and myself with the number of people that are coming in and out of the group.

46:36 With the number of people that had a dream of kind of like taking back control of their own life, taking back control of their finances and not being at the whim of their employer or whatever other forces are in their life.

46:54 You guys have really changed a lot of people's lives, but just by doing what you do. And I just want to thank you guys for that. The work that you do is really important. And a round of applause. Thank you, Holly.

47:08 Yeah, thank you, Andrew. I just want to make a comment. So we had a customer come up to us at the Houston quilt market and said we just had to come over and meet you guys.

47:18 She said, you guys changed my life. Nobody else would believe in me. Nobody else would finance my machine for me. You guys believed in me. I was able to stay home, raise my kids, start my business, and I have a flourishing business now. And that's so cool. We love hearing those stories. And it makes us feel so wonderful being able to help those customers.

47:40 And I just want to say that this meeting to me has been eye opening. You know, I'm listening to these freaking finance people using terms like edge to edge and hand guided. These are finance people who know about the machines that they are financing. So that is very heartening and very encouraging.

48:00 Well, I also want to say that we're a group of people. I mean, I guess I'll speak about all of us on this screen and some of the people on our teams that are off the screen. We know what it takes for somebody to be successful in their quilting dream, in their quilting business. We know. I mean, I got to tell you, we also know what failure looks like.

48:25 We we ask people questions like, I mean, it's an uncomfortable question to ask. Like, does anybody in your household smoke and will smoke on the quilts affect your ability to find customers? Do you have pets that shed? How are you going to keep the pet hair off the quilts? I know in your guys's world, in the financing world, you also know how to screen out, basically screen out, you know, what's going on in the world.

48:54 Basically, just to make sure that you're not giving a loan to somebody where that loan is going to become a burden. And that's a big deal to us at Gammill. And I know it's something that you guys are expert at screening out.

49:09 You all align with our mission at Gammill to share comfort, joy and beauty with best machines, best products, best everything. So it is. You believe in what we believe in. And that's, I think, what makes it such a good partnership.

49:25 Yeah, we here at Gammill, we're just one big family and I consider these two girls part of the Gammill family.

49:35 Thank you. We love working with Gammill and your customers.

49:39 Absolutely.

49:41 So, Carrie and Jackie, if somebody wants to look into you guys more, obviously you have a website people can go to. Actually, is it financeyourgammill.com?

49:56 Yep.

49:58 Yep, financeyourgammill.com.

50:01 Yep, financeyourgammill.com. Or you can just be speaking with anybody on the Gammill sales team and we'll set up a phone call for you.

50:10 Okay.

50:13 Well, I'll tell you, this has been very, very enlightening, very encouraging. And I know that it's been extremely valuable information for all the people that are watching tonight and who will be watching in the coming days and weeks.

50:30 So, Jackie Paulson and Carrie Radloff, thank you so much for joining us tonight from AFP, American Financial Partners. We really appreciate you.

50:45 And I just want to tell all of our listeners and viewers, if you have any further questions, feel free to contact us. You can get us on Gammill.com and contact us through there, contact at Gammill.com.

51:00 And we would be glad to answer any further questions that you have. And once again, what's that website for you guys?

51:07 Financeyourgammill.com.

51:10 Financeyourgammill.com.

51:13 Okay. Andrew, are we ready to say goodbye for now?

51:17 Yep. Thank you guys so much. It was great. Thank you.

51:20 Thank you. It was so good. Thank you for having us.

51:23 Have a great night.

51:25 Bye-bye.

51:26 Bye-bye.