Raj Tulshan With Loan Mantra

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio brought to you by on pay Atlanta’s new standard in payroll. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:24] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one, but before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor on pay. Without them, we could not be sharing these important stories today on the Atlanta Business Radio. We have Raj Tulshan with loan mantra. Welcome Raj.

Raj Tulshan: [00:00:42] Hey Lee, thank you for having me on.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:44] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about loan mantra.

Raj Tulshan: [00:00:48] A loan mantra is a small business lending and advisory company. We have our online portal, which essentially allows small businesses to connect with lenders. One of the biggest problems that most small businesses have is essentially they when they reach out to a lender, a local lender or somebody they work with and they give them a whole bunch of paperwork, et cetera. And then the small business owner is like, Oh, great, I’m great at what I do, but I don’t know where to go, how to finish this paperwork. While loan mantra has made that entire process easy. We built out our entire portal loan mantra dot com and anybody can go in and use it for free. So it’s a way of thanking our small business community.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:26] So then how many small business people try to get loans where they would use this?

Raj Tulshan: [00:01:33] Oh, anybody, it’s opened nationwide, 48 states, you can pretty much go from any of the continental U.S. and apply for a loan. You can complete all your paperwork, either if you’re applying for a conventional loan and SBA loan. I mean, anybody who’s gone and taking a loan, they can imagine the amount of paperwork that’s required. And it’s never it never comes back. It’s like, Hey, here’s a list of things I need. Can you get this out to me now? It’s always like you give you give the lender paperwork, they’ll come back and ask for something else. Well, guess what? We have demystified the whole thing. Now a borrower can go in and start a small business. You can go in and just plug in the information at their own leisure, in the evenings or in between work. They can just be like, OK, let me fill up all my paperwork. And with the push of a button, they can essentially send everything to the lender from the portal itself.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:20] Now is that kind of a does that affect your credit by doing this?

Raj Tulshan: [00:02:26] No, actually, we don’t pull credit at all. This is just a way of organizing the small business owner to get to the lender. Now, when the lender, however, he or she goes and pulls the credit if they decide to move ahead with the transaction, that’s the time it will impact the credit. That’s the time they’re, you know, if the borrower’s credit is locked, they’ll be after, you know, unlock it. Otherwise, pretty much. I think it it notifies them that, yes, a credit has been pulled.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:52] Now does this the fees associated with this? Is this like a cost a lot of money when it’s time to actually do the loan? Or is that every kind of lender has their own rules?

Raj Tulshan: [00:03:05] Every set of Linda has their own rules, look, any kind of transaction, right, depends on the kind of industry you want, the kind of assets you have, you know what? And every lender, if you’re doing a conventional loan, was as an SBA loan. A conventional lender has their own set of fees, etc. and SBA loan. Generally, they have SBA guarantee fee besides a small SBA sorry lender origination fee. I believe that’s what they call it. It goes around $2500, but it varies from lender to lender, asset class, industry type, etc..

Lee Kantor: [00:03:38] Would this have been helpful, like during the PPP period?

Raj Tulshan: [00:03:42] Absolutely, our system, so we had a portal where we essentially had the form ready. So a lot of time, well, numerous borrowers of us came and said, Hey, you know what? My financial institution is a large institution. They are already buried. They have a thing on the website. And we saw this a lot that they said they have a thing on the website. Don’t contact us. We’ll get to you. We are buried. But somebody could have gone into our portal, essentially have filled in the PPP form and essentially taken it to a different lender of choice and applied through that. Initially, yes, during P.P.P one, it was a little bit of a problem because they want that many lenders. But eventually, as with time, these lenders got sophisticated. They were willing to work with other small business owners

Lee Kantor: [00:04:23] And is due to the loans require personal guarantee or is that kind of case by case?

Raj Tulshan: [00:04:30] Um, not the people I’m assuming you’re talking right, traditional loan. Correct. Correct, correct. The traditional loans, all traditional loans, I always say that look, the best way to look at a loan is you are a sole business owner. The same way you benefit from the business. You should be willing to almost be assured that there is a personal guarantee component built into it. But again, it varies transaction to transaction equipment. Loans are different from, you know, a 25 year business, business loan, etc. So but my whenever I talk to my borrowers, I’m like, You are going to benefit from your business. Be willing to to, you know, stand behind your business, which is essentially a personal guarantee.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:12] And then so when you put in all the information, how long does about does it take to kind of input the information?

Raj Tulshan: [00:05:19] So here’s the best part, right, if you do work with the traditional lender, it travel back and forth, back and forth, takes three weeks, four weeks. If you’re on loan mantra and if you’re willing to spend 25 30 minutes, you should be able to complete the entire process, start to finish and then essentially the forms are generated. You can doc you, sign it and send it to your lender.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:38] So then it becomes kind of a place where I can hold that those loan documents so that when I’m ready to apply, I can just send it out to whoever I want to look. I can send it out to more than one person if I wanted to.

Raj Tulshan: [00:05:50] Absolutely. And that’s a great point. I’m glad you brought it up. So yes, so you’re filling up. If you go into loan monitor right now, right? You log in. You’ll see that there are six types easy to use. They’ll you fill in all the information and the back end of it. There’s a document section. So low matter does. The document section is divided into two parts. One is what we call blue generated documents, where all the information you put in is nicely now put into forms that are generally required by a lender. We had an SBA lender or a conventional lender. Then below that, the system automatically generates a checklist of documents that are required by a business owner. It’s a generic checklist, but it pretty much fills in all the information that you need. You know, tax returns, bank statements. If you’re an equipment company, sorry, if you have an aging app, you can put all of that information in. And then whenever you’re ready, you can essentially select the documents you want to send to your lender and you forward it out to them so you can send it to one lender and or you can send it to multiple lenders.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:49] And then so I don’t have to really make a decision like I can see who’s offering me the best rates, the best deal.

Raj Tulshan: [00:06:57] Yeah, absolutely, I mean, that’s that’s the beauty of this. The system is built with a borrower in mind, right? This is literally the system can you can decide. We’re using blue. You can decide, essentially, Hey, this is what I want to do. This is I want to work with Bank of America. I want to work with a bank across the country. You can literally decide, Oh, you can call us at loan mantra and we’ll be like, Hey, guys, I want to work with, you know, this is what I need. This is what requirement. What do you recommend? And we have a network of lenders. We can go to them and essentially place a transaction with them. So the flexibility is there, the flexibility is built around one business. Look, I’m a small business owner. I know time is of essence and I’m very good at what I do, but I’m definitely not good at other things. And that’s what I think about when I think of my clients at a gas station owner. I know somebody who started a gas station by working in the cold days of New Jersey and literally pumping gas with his socks hand wrapped around his hand. That guy is exceptionally good at gas station today. He has four different gas stations, but when it comes to his loan application, et cetera, he trusts us. We have all his information in the system and any time he needs now into six years in the future, we can pretty much just refresh it and keep sending it to lenders. What it does is it’s easy, it’s convenient, it’s efficient and it’s it saves time.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:15] Do I connect like my QuickBooks to it? And it uses that to fill in the blanks? Or like, how does a

Raj Tulshan: [00:08:23] You got me on that one? Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. We will one of these days get there. For now, it is very simple. It’s like you pretty much fill in the queue with the system. It’s a decision tree based logic system, and it generates a whole bunch of documents that are required. Unfortunately, you’re required to upload the documents one of these days. We will reach out to our friends at QuickBooks and be like, Hey, guys, love to work with you guys and build an API.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:49] Now, do you have any tips you can share when people are trying to do this kind of, you know, trusting third party with all these, you know, kind of private information? I’m sure security is at the utmost care in your organization, but is there any kind of tips you can share regarding financial security, especially online?

Raj Tulshan: [00:09:14] Look, as far as let me first talk about the security of the US alone. I mean, we are we follow the NIST 800 Dash 53 version five controls what it means It’s a federal mandated technology security protocol, and we we adhere to that any time now. There are lots of systems out there, please. Before you go and submit your information, do your due diligence, just do a quick search. Hey, who has loaned Mantra? What is loan mantra or what is Company X, Y and Z? We have phone numbers that see where we are located. Pick up a phone and call us. Always have introductory call. Or, you know what? Create a portal. I mean, so in the portal, put in your basic information loan monitor. It doesn’t ask for a lot of information. We are asking for 10 basic information, just put in the basic information that is publicly available and see what comes back. If you start getting crazy calls that mean you probably just got spammed, you may want to block them, etc. But you know, if you get somebody you’re talking to, you’re working with on a regular basis who will reach out to you and you, you see that a little bit more organized. They probably have put in the time they’re not out there to get your money out there to work with you.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:25] Now say I go into your thing and like you said, I’m not an expert in all this stuff and I have a question is it all? Is there like online chat or is there help from that standpoint?

Raj Tulshan: [00:10:35] There’s absolutely. So there is on the right hand side, we have an email system. If you put an even in your portal itself, if you go ahead and create an account for yourself, there’s a note section within the system built in. Go ahead and put in your question and somebody will generally get back to you within 24 hours would be like, Hey, Lee, I see that you had reached out. You had asked this question. And the best part about this, this entire interaction is sitting in the portal by itself. So tomorrow, if you have, you can go back and forth so you can be like, I know myself, I have 10000 things going on with my business, right? Things I forget. I’ll go back into my notes and be like, Oh yeah, on this day, I had a conversation with X Y and say, This is what is required. The best way to look at it is like, you me. We all are small business owners, literally the guy who makes a pencil, the guy who serves the coffee at a bodega. Everybody is a small business owner. We are extremely busy with our life, with our work, etc. So why not give them something which will work with them on their time? And that’s what blue and lawn mantra is.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:36] So now October is national financial planning month. Everybody should be kind of assessing their financial, doing a financial checkup, you know, pretty regularly, at least annually, and this is a good reminder to do that. Is there any kind of tips you can share about having someone do this kind of financial plan to see where they’re at?

Raj Tulshan: [00:11:59] Absolutely, look, we are end of the quarter, right? We have had a crazy twenty twenty an hour. And equally crazy twenty twenty one. This is a great time. You know, take just take stock of the situation. Where are we? A lot has changed since the financial crisis. What kind of industry you are in, etc.. Get your paperwork all in. Henry tax season is coming next year. Your accountant has just finished filing the business and personal tax extension tax returns for people so they may have five minutes in their hand. If there’s something you may want to talk to your accountant about, this would be a great time to do so. Even just look at your house, your business being take five minutes to think, Hey, what else was my cashflow like during this crisis? What is my cashflow going to look next year? Or, Hey, you know what? This code has changed business so much. What is it going to be like next year? There’s so much noise about supply chain. There’s so much noise about, you know, employee and all that rise above the noise and just be like, Okay, I can do this. I need to put everything on paper. This is where my businesses and 2022, which is going to be a fresh start, fresh calendar year, we can do this. We can get all of our paperwork and everything in order, and that’s the most important thing. Start talking to your clients. Holiday season’s coming. That’s another great way to connect with your clients and be like, Hey, thank you for your business. What can we do better next year?

Lee Kantor: [00:13:24] So now I imagine you partner with a lot of lenders. How many lenders are kind of working with you right now?

Raj Tulshan: [00:13:33] We currently have a base of 84 lenders that we work with on and off, and there’s always new ones joining, and the best thing about my business is what we do essentially is we are nationwide, all our clients are nationwide and our lenders also nationwide. And we buy what you offer our portal on Monster.com. We can essentially connect, as you can imagine with the lender, which is sitting in Kansas to over to a borrower who is in New Jersey and vice versa. So we we have that flexibility.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:01] How many lenders are there in the country?

Raj Tulshan: [00:14:04] Oh, boy. I wouldn’t be able to leave. You got me in that, I apologize. I wouldn’t be able to take a guess to what that is, but I’ll have to look that up now that you mention

Lee Kantor: [00:14:13] It’s got to be hundreds thousand lenders out

Raj Tulshan: [00:14:16] There. Oh, I’m pretty sure a couple like probably I have five or six hundred lenders out there who. National lenders, at least who do who do traditional loans and SBA loans. And then I apologize. I wouldn’t be able to venture a guess on that.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:33] What is the kind of what is the temperature of the lender nowadays? Are they looking to make these loans sometimes or, you know, it’s harder to get them than other times? What is the kind of the trend when it comes to loan availability right now? Are they open to kind of doing these kind of loans nowadays?

Raj Tulshan: [00:14:52] Absolutely, look, there are two things happening since COVID, two things have happened. One is the government has become a direct line that the U.S. government has. The federal government has put in so much money to the economy to try to help small business, right? Brought in different programs. I mean, some successful, some not. I mean, there was PPP one PPP to the Vogue. The idea there was an ideal one, ideal two. And now there’s the ideal three. What I mean by that they started last year with 150000 increase it to half a million to two million. Besides that, there was the RAAF. I’m hoping and praying that Congress approves the $60 billion that’s outstanding, the bill, so that our restaurant clients can get the money. The restaurant owners are still hurting. And if anybody’s listening out there, please approve the bill. So I think it’s called HR 38 or seven, so the restaurant owners can get the much needed money. But those are all that’s the program in itself, the government and besides the government banks, banks are flushed with cash, right? If you think about it all, the everybody was saving this money in the banks, et cetera. So the banks are if there’s a good transaction to be had, if a borrower is organized, if all the paperwork stand, if there’s a good quality borrower, a bank is willing to lend. Plus, in addition to that, as the SBA program, the SBA seven eight as we have five or four and SBA Community Advantage program all of these programs. So there is a this is a great time for a small business owner. Most of the industries are doing pretty well, and there’s easy that if you are organized, there’s an easy way to get money right now in the market.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:29] Now where do you need more of right now? Do you need more people to be aware of loan mantra to, you know, put their application in? Do you need more lenders? Do you need more funding to grow? What do you need, right?

Raj Tulshan: [00:16:41] So what we are, we are a catalyst loan monitor sitting in the middle, and it is helping small businesses connect to lenders and same time connect lenders to good quality small business owners. Loan mantra has been built around the whole platform is built around to take a small business owner, a business owner period, and make them more efficient so that by the time they get in front of the lender, they’re shining. Everything is done. They’ll wow the lender. The lender will be like, Okay, this person knows they have the paperwork. So as far as we’re concerned, more the merrier. Please come the system’s already been built. Come as a small business owner. Help yourself as a lender. Help yourself to some small business owners who are willing to work with you. Any small business owner who goes and puts the information on loan mantra and any lender who is seriously seeking a small business. There is a match out there to be made

Lee Kantor: [00:17:31] And then the amounts of the loans. What’s the range of the loans?

Raj Tulshan: [00:17:35] So generally, a traditional lender is anywhere from $100000. There’s a small community lenders which do $100000 up to almost $15 million can easily be done alone. Mantra anything, not that it generally goes into a different section in the middle market section, and there’s a different group of lenders that get involved in it. But again, loan monitors available, you can always save your information, then even they can efficiently work with their lenders. I mean, think of it from a lender’s perspective. And any time you work with a lender, if you give him or her what they’re looking for after that, it’s just, you know, it just the process. But if you can make the entire thing easy for them, it just goes through it. It’s like a one to three,

Lee Kantor: [00:18:20] And it sounds like you’re trying to make it easy for both sides.

Raj Tulshan: [00:18:24] Absolutely, I mean, information is out there, it’s just a matter of organizing the information, so I always say it’s like, you know what? Talking the same language, the lenders have a language. The small business owners have a language. Small business owners languages. Their product, their their thing, the service, whatever they’re selling, they’re very good at. The lenders have a process which has been mandated by either their board, their team or the federal government somebody. So it’s essentially just matching it. And both of them want to get something right. The lender wants to do the loan because they have the money. That’s what their business is. The small business owner wants to grow their business. They need the money. So why not give them the same language and loan mantra is the same language for them?

Lee Kantor: [00:19:09] So if somebody wants to learn more, you know, take it for a ride. What’s the website?

Raj Tulshan: [00:19:15] Oh, it’s a w w w dot loan mantra dot com Alloa and M a n t r a dot com, please. It’s free. It’s literally go on the website on the top. It’s a start. You click on it and it takes you the next page and you can go through and through.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:31] Well, Raj, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Raj Tulshan: [00:19:36] Hey, Lee, I appreciate. Thank you for having me, and if anybody has any question, please reach out to us through our website.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:42] All right, this is Lee Kantor all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.