Business Reflections Podcast Bonus Episode - The American Rescue Plan

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. 

Hey podcast listeners! Today, we have a special episode. If you haven't already had a chance to listen to our Jack's Pizza episode, we have Kathleen again on with us. So Kathleen, I'm so excited to have you on here for this extra special episode that we're doing. That's super relevant right now.  

Kathleen Menegozzi: Definitely. Thanks Meredith. I'm excited to be here and talk about something that really has me pretty pumped up and for everyone to really take advantage of what's on the table right now with the American Rescue Plan. 

Meredith Matics: Yes. So let's give a little background. What is the American Rescue Act? Or is it act or plan?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: It's the plan. So this is the most recently approved source of relief funding for small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and also individuals in terms of helping with their healthcare childcare costs, it can help students to help with housing and mortgage rent and food. 

It has a pretty broad scope of things that it covers and it's going to be distributing relief funds for, and, you know, that's what really gets me really excited because I think as a company, we can really look out for our team and figure out if any of our team members can qualify for certain portions of this. 

And then also of course, ourselves as a business.  We are really excited to be talking about this.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. I think most of us are aware of like the PPP and the EIDL loan, but   let's specifically stay on the topics today. What is this going to mean for businesses? The American Rescue Plan did extend out some extra benefits for the PPP loans, that second round. But what else does it really covered? What are we looking at that we maybe haven't heard about with this?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: So it, it covers a number of things and unfortunately, a lot of the ways that is going to cover a number of things for small businesses, it's still making its way through the SBA. 

Rather than specifically talk about any of the particulars of any one particular source of funding or any one particular industry, I think it's really important to talk about how you approach getting the information on this. Because I know as a small business, one of the first things that came across our mind is where on earth are we going to find the time to be able to research now how to apply for PPP, how to apply for the second draw. 

And we did, we applied for PPP one. We decided not to apply for PPP two. We didn't quite meet that 25% threshold.  

Meredith Matics: I think that's where a lot of people are at is especially when it's in your gross receipts and not your net. I think a lot of us can meet it in our net, but we weren't quite there in our gross. 

Kathleen Menegozzi: Exactly. So definitely fell into that category but was able to acquire PPP one, the EIDL and the 10K loan advance and then a local state level source of relief funding in the state of New Hampshire. We were able to take full advantage of that, and I can tell you, a lot of what I spoke to other small business owners, at least in New Hampshire about, is about the fact that it takes a little bit of time. 

It takes a lot of effort to go through the paperwork, the times, sometimes you have to make phone calls and follow ups.  And if it's not intimidating, it's just a lot of tedious and laborsome work that I think small business owners just don't necessarily have the time for. 

So I think it's about really creating a strategy for how you want to receive the information and something that I've realized as a small businesses, really turning to the sources that will and already have done a lot of the research for you, so you don't have to go out of your way to be looking at a number of different resources. 

You can really go to one, two, or three really strategic resources and then get the bulk of your information from those one or two resources. Okay.  

Meredith Matics: Let's talk about what are those resources? Where's the number one place people should be looking right now if they want to utilize the American Rescue Plan? 

Kathleen Menegozzi: As everyone knows, all of it as far as I know is being released through the SBA. The SBA is obviously one of the primary sources to get information. I've actually been working with the SBA now for almost a full two and a half years. I've been working on this project with Jack's Pizza.  

You can get free consulting advice from professionals in a number of industries through the SBA. It's just absolutely phenomenal.  A similar organization or network of organizations I should say is the Score Network. Then obviously many States have Centers for Women and Enterprise. 

Really any one of those three sources in terms of business associations, I think have been so incredibly useful for us. I have definitely turned to each one of those sources and the SBA in particular. I have a specific advisor who I work with here in the state of New Hampshire, who's sending me the latest information, making sure that I stay tuned in with the things I need to stay tuned in on. 

In terms of business associations, those three are the major sources that I would recommend. Something that we often overlook, but I think is a really great way for, especially very small businesses, micro businesses, specifically in the restaurant industry, which is obviously our major concern, is to think about industry specific organizations that you can turn to as a small business. 

In our case we've turned to Toast, which Toast is our point of sale service that we use. Toast is a national brand that's extremely popular. Toast is really trying to be a hub of information for more than just the restaurant industry, but small business in general. 

A lot of the government applications are going to be going through point of sale software services, just like Toast.  

Meredith Matics: One of the things that I think has been brought up in this pandemic is really how much we, as small businesses, rely on other businesses and how we have this symbiotic relationship, like Toast or Gusto. 

Kathleen Menegozzi: When you have a shared interest like that, those are the people to turn to who have a lot more resources at their disposal perhaps to really have the time to invest in researching this information and it really serves them to do so. I think really turning to these kinds of organizations and letting them do a lot of the work is a really great way to save yourself time as a small business owner. 

Another really great organization that I would specifically recommend for restaurants is the Independent Restaurant Coalition, which is a national organization that actually came together at the start of the pandemic when they first started to realize that the restaurant industry was going to be in serious trouble. 

They've really been lobbying. They were directly involved with the drafting of the restaurant portion in the rescue plan. They're hustling, and lobbying, and doing all the things that they can to save restaurants. IRC just gives a wealth of information on their website, which is saverestaurants.com. 

You can sign up, get automatic emails. They're just incredibly helpful with the information that they can give, and they can also really teach you and your staff perhaps, a number of things about lobbying and getting involved with the writing of legislation and what that process looks like, which especially for us as a worker driven and empowerment organization. That's really important. We want our team to know about civics from start to finish so that when important matters come up, that affect our industry. We can stand up, we can have a voice and we know how to exercise that voice. And to build on what you were saying before, 175 million has been reserved for something called the community navigator program. I'm so excited to hear more about the details about the community navigator program. 

It's another grant opportunity for quote trusted local organizations that the SBA can turn to, provide some training to then work with other small businesses and other organizations in very, very small and rural communities. I imagine this going to be available in metropolitan areas as well. 

But the purpose of the program is to really branch out to these smaller companies who really might not have access to these resources as readily. This community navigator program is going to give these grants to smaller organizations that are willing to step up. I don't know if it's going to be available to restaurants in particular, but it's definitely going to be available to a number of other community organizations. Like if you have a chamber of commerce, if you have an economic development committee, nonprofits will be definitely eligible for this, small financial advisory firms will be eligible for this. 

Meredith Matics: What do you think are going to be very important things that business owners should be looking for funding within the American Rescue Plan for per se? Like, I mean, the PPP was very specific.  What are we looking at specifically in this one or do we know yet?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: A lot of those details are still being worked out and I can't speak for every sector that's covered in the American Rescue Plan because obviously it's super broad and pretty extensive. 

The IRC is really great to connect with from that level because they were had a direct hand in writing it. A lot of it's still has to be released, especially in terms of the the restaurant sector. They can provide a basic calculation, but they really don't have anything beyond that. 

They're still working a lot of the details. Right now, the best thing to do is to really to prepare is to start looking into specific grants and pieces of the American Rescue Plan that are going to be available in your particular state.  

Actually another great resource to get, literally, I think the report that I was able to get was like something like 23 pages. This guy Matthew Lesko, he's been around for like 30 or 40 years.  Really trying to get the word out about government resources and people being able to go and get subsidies from the government without any shame or guilt. 

And to understand that corporations and larger businesses do this all the time and individuals can and should be as well. You can sign up for his services, which he really provides so much content. I'd say every single day, he's got a video of some kind or he's releasing a new report, but he's really covering the rescue plan thoroughly to extensive details on a state by state basis. You can actually go to his website, which looks a little dated, I have to say. On his website, which I think is  Lescoreports.com for literally $10, you can download a state specific report that has like 20 or 30 pages - all of grants and opportunities that are available to everyone from freelancers to small business owners, to childcare operators. Everyone is covered in these reports.  I just love it because all of the information is there. And for me, in particular, what I can do with Jack's is I can easily see through his reports who on my team might be eligible for what. 

Meredith Matics: Let's talk to, like you said, a little bit about where we're at right now in this plan is the preparation stage. I know that we all want it to be happening now because we had bills due yesterday about what can businesses or even solopreneurs start doing to be prepared for this. What are the things we need to have ready?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: So really get your books in order. Get all of your numbers and figures ready. There's a limited range of acceptable ways that you can document your numbers that you provide. The application process, at least for the restaurant sector of this, and I really want to be specific about that, because that's what I'm really tuned in as a small business. 

We're thinking about restaurants. We're in the restaurant sector, so in our case they're able to give us a sense of what the equation is going to be to figure out what our grant amount is going to be based on the program that's available to restaurants. 

Then from there, we have to have documentation that we use to self-certify, whether we're a member of one of the marginalized groups that are getting priority in the first 21 days that the funding is going to be made available, which is not quite yet. From there, we provide the documentation. There is a series of preferred and then acceptable documentation that you want to be considering. 

The ideal documentation that you're going to need is going to come directly from your income statements. Your 2019 gross sales in the form of your income statements is the ideal documentation that a small business owner or freelancer or whatever category you fall under would have to provide in order to verify the numbers that you're applying with. 

If you don't have those, then having information from your point of sale service or from your QuickBooks is also acceptable. You need to be able to document any piece of what it is that you apply with any bit of information that's there. For a lot of small businesses, I know we did ourselves, we've had to file a business extension for this year or tax extension, I should say. We don't have all the numbers sorted out in like in terms of our tax documentation, but we definitely can pull some numbers out of our POS system. We can pull some numbers out of our QuickBooks, even though we haven't filed yet. Those are the numbers that you're going to need and you're going to need to document.  

A couple of weeks ago I heard some news that as a small business, we were going to have to get something called a DUNS number, and we were going to have to register with the government website called sam.gov. Thankfully we had that set up, but you were going to have to register your entity through sam.gov and it's a bit of a process because you have to get every last dot and period exactly as you had in your original documents or else you don't get it accepted. I actually rushed to do that, went through this whole process and then found out literally today, earlier today that none of that's going to be required. The SBA has scrapped all of that from their requirements, just to remove that barrier.  

Meredith Matics: I will say if you ever plan on utilizing grants in the future, or especially like when it's federal money, It's good to have that number. That is something that does show some verification to your business. 

I deal with a lot of providers that when they want to apply for some kind of mental health grants or whatever, that's usually part of it and people are like, why do I have to show this? Because I have an EIN. I have my tax returns. I have my business license. I have my entity registered with my secretary of state. 

Now here's a whole other one, but it is just something good to just have an interest. One of the things is if your business has been around for quite a while, sometimes they do already have one assigned to you and you can search it and see if you already have one assigned to you.  

Kathleen Menegozzi: Exactly. Yeah. I felt I found their system, even though it was old school to be pretty self-explanatory. I think making sure that you have this basic information and covering the base, just like you're saying, it's, it's useful to be in their system and to be set up in their database for a number of reasons. Future funding, that might not have anything to do with the American Rescue Plan, will be available to us if we're set up in these ways. 

Meredith Matics: That's something that we've talked about on this podcast many, many times about how important it is to keep your books. If you have not been keeping your books in 2020, that is something that I don't think really any of us can afford to slack on lately is, keeping up with what are you making and what are you losing? Because you do have to show that at some point.  

Making sure that you have all your applicable, whatever, as far as your entity goes. Having all these little pieces in order. Maybe you need a business license in your city, depending on where you are and what kind of business you're in, having all those ready. I would even say as far as having them scanned in a nice little folder on your desktop would be perfect. 

Kathleen Menegozzi: Yeah. I literally have all of this, just the basic documentation together with all of my applications in a completely separate file. When these funding rounds open up and all the information is really clear and SBA is fully trained up, the money is going to move fast.  

What I think my parting advice would be for other small businesses is to keep in mind that the funding that's available right now through the American Rescue Plan is awesome and great, but it's also not going to be enough. In the case of the restaurant industry, 120 billion was lobbied for, and we received 28.6 billion, so we know that it's going to run out. It's just a matter of when is it going to run out and how many people is 28.6 billion going to help. 

For that reason as well, no matter what industry you're involved with, it's so important to just take five minutes and look up who your local representatives are and call them to say two things: to thank them for the American Rescue Plan and for getting it passed. And the second thing is to tell them that, in your specific industry, whatever that is, that we're going to need more funding and we're hoping that they can get that approved as well.  

I think it's easy, especially right now, as we go through this to feel a little jaded and cynical and think like, Oh, I'm not going to bother. I'm not going to get it. But it's so important to go on record with your need, because that might result in leaning the scales in our direction in terms of another round of funding that might get approved later on. 

The more of a need that can be shown now, the better off your specific sector will be at the end of the day.  

Meredith Matics: And, you just never know. When the PPP first came out, I was one of the first people to jump on it probably earlier than I should have because they made some changes and I probably would have qualified for more.  But with that being said, as far as employees go, I had only really grown my business with employees not that far before the pandemic hit. I didn't have two or three years of rate, like look at how much we've employed but every little penny counted. 

And when I was able to get some, even though it wasn't like a grand number, it was better than nothing. It was definitely better than nothing.  You never know what you're able to get. And then, I got the EIDL advance. I didn't think I was going to get that. 

And that was really big because we used it for like a lot of things to keep things going, but also just to have like that reserve cash for during the pandemic, when people simply couldn't pay their bills was huge.  

Kathleen Menegozzi: Did you have that moment of just absolute shock when like the money just appeared in your bank account? Like three days later, it was a really fast turnaround for us here in New Hampshire. 

Meredith Matics: They were like still showing my application is processing. I like logged into my bank account and I was like, Whoa, what is this?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: That's exactly what happened on our end. 

Meredith Matics: Am I allowed to spend it? Or do I have to keep it there? Was this a mistake? 

Kathleen Menegozzi: That was exactly what I thought, like, am I gonna have to pay this back if we start spending this on bills?  

Meredith Matics: Oh my gosh, it freaked me out and yeah, it, I was not prepared for it. You just never know what you're going to qualify for. I was very thankful that, I knew where my reports were and it could just be like, boom, boom, boom. And just get it done. 

I'm glad that you came on in and I'm glad we can talk about this. Do you have any last thoughts? Anything we missed talking about today that we need to talk about with the American Rescue Plan?  

Kathleen Menegozzi: No, I think just like really making the calls to your local representatives, putting in that word of thanks and making the request for more support from here is going to be really important for the future and really just streamlining how you're getting your information and letting others do the work. 

Meredith Matics: This is one of those one things where you can't get time back, but you need to put the time into it to just fill out the application if you can. If your business is in need and is struggling, ask for the help.  

Kathleen Menegozzi: Right. There's just so much help right now for the application process, for what to do to follow up, how to set yourself up for success, the SBA and Score just really great resources for that. 

Meredith Matics: Yeah. Do we have any additional resources that we should talk about for grants? 

Kathleen Menegozzi: So a couple of other ones that I wanted to mention just for anyone who might prefer to work with somebody by phone -  it's two, one, one and three, one, one. Two, one, one is great for community services. You have free and confidential services that help people across the United States with things like human trafficking, disaster assistance, food, health housing utilities, and also some job and career development through 211. 

And then of course there's three, one, one, where you can work with some of the municipal government services, but the two, one, one is a really great source right now that whether you're on their websites or you're on the phone. 

Meredith Matics: And then I've also found that there's a website called I Fund Women, and that has been a great for women owned businesses. They usually have really specific grants. The qualifications will be pretty obvious whether or not you qualify for something, but that's a great resource to check out some smaller grants that may be available to your specific industry. 

Recently they just partnered with Neutrogena and had like a $10,000 grant to anybody who made like beauty products or something. They're really specific, but they're for women entrepreneurs and there's a lot of us out there. I know a lot of women were greatly affected by the pandemic. 

Kathleen Menegozzi: Absolutely. And I think a big part of that is building back stronger. That's been a theme that I've been hearing in a number of circles about what's going on right now and what will continue to be made available in the future. It's not just about recovering to where we were, because we all know that this, the systems around us and a number of ways are really quite unjust. 

And in that way we really need to recover, rebuild and come back stronger and better than before and with more equity in all sectors. Yeah, it was it's really, this is where we really need to do a lot of serious work in this country.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for coming back on. We always would love to have you back. 

Kathleen Menegozzi: Awesome. Sounds good, Meredith, and thanks for having me once again.  

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