How to Target the Hidden Funds for your Business – in Just 7 Minutes with Kedma Ough

Related Links and Resources:

My resource is I want to provide 'no cost' review of your funding, which is very rare. So, they can go right to www.kedmaough.com or, you can just hop on to www.bit.ly/targetfunds. Fill-up the form, I receive it, we go right into the meeting.

Summary:

Kedma Ough, MBA is one of today’s most respected authorities on small business alternative funding and has advised more than 10,000 businesses to date leveraging $ 100 million in funds with the average business receiving $10,000 or more in resources and funding.  Previously, Ough worked on behalf of the Small Business Administration for more than a decade. In 2019, McGraw-Hill published Target Funding ®, a navigation system to identify targeted grants and funds for business owners. Ough is a proud fifth-generation entrepreneur and her great-great grandfather peddled various products throughout Ireland. Her favorite board game is Monopoly.

Here are the highlights of this episode:

1:36 Kedma’s ideal Client: My ideal client is an entrepreneur or a hobbyist or an inventor who is struggling to find financing. So, it could be anyone; a startup business who's looking for funds, it could be an existing company who's trying to get additional capital, I have a situation right now where a woman minority on firm just want a huge stay contract. First time ever, for 53 million dollars and they need some funding in order to execute on it. She only needs 30 million and she needs it very quickly. But these are the kind of things I work with. I work with very unique cases and navigate through grants and resources and alternative funds to get the people the money they need to be successful.

2:40 Problem Kedma helps solve: I can do that in one hour; if I've been given an hour, I can do that. The first 10 minutes is to identify the problem and often I go through a list of how much money they miss out on before they met me. Second 20 minutes I do a strategy, the next 20 minutes after that we actually go right into an action plan. Right on line I'm already identifying resources targeting only their business. And the last 10 minutes I wrap up and I actually send out an action plan, that's a road map just for them. So, I can do it in an hour.  

3:31 Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Kedma: They have had the door slammed ten or more times before they find me. The lenders have slammed the door, resources, they're out of lost, they don't know where to go next, they're frustrated. And all they want to do is to make money, but what happens is that it's not of savviness, it's lack of access. If you can't access something, you're not going to be successful. That's when I step in. So, I like to tell my clients it's super simple. We're on the same highway, I just happen to be an Uber driver so I can get there quicker than you can. You can keep driving, but I know where we need to go. 

4:34 What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Kedma and her solution: Well, first thing they do and I want to apologize in advance, they go right to their bank. As much as I love the banks, they're very regulated and very specific and either you fit in their box or you don't fit in their box. Sometimes they'll get news that doesn't fit and they think all banks are that way, which is not true. We can take an example like SBA (bank) and I can tell you 3 different lenders who do it 3 different ways. Whether it's underwriting policy, whether it's the amount that needs to be put down for collateral, whether it's the length of the term. First thing is to realize that there are other avenues to look at. Second thing I would say is they are in a sense of panic in a lot of times and they make forward decisions. I'm a chess player so if you ever see a decision I made, just know this; that decision was made weeks, days or months ago. I am very proactive, I am not a reactive person, and so that's the second issue. And the third is they don't have a team. They don't build a team, they don't outreach to a team and I like to tell my clients "if you want to do things alone, find an island, hook up your internet, check in with us" where everyone else has to work through people. Finding those team is going to help you where you want to be.

6:13 Kedma’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): Game changing progress is for you to realize that every single funding that I've ever identified is tied to your variable. That means you have to look at variables from geographic, your State, your city, your county all have funds. You want to look demographic; identifying as a woman of minority, a veteran, all have funds. So, if you go and look at my book, I identified probably 15 different variables. Startups, they all have variations, industry variations. The one thing you could take away is to realize that you probably have atleast 5 or more variables that we can target and look at funding from that perspective instead of 'hey, I just run a business'. So, that's really a game changer.

7:13 Kedma’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Super easy. My resource is I want to provide 'no cost' review of your funding, which is very rare. So, they can go right to kedmaough.com. There's only one Kedma in the world, so if you find another one-run (joking). or, you can just hop on to bit.ly/targetfunds. It's super easy and if you go in to bit.ly/targetfunds, that will be my form. Fill-up the form, I receive it, we go right into the meeting.

8:11 Why do you do what you do? The answer is, 30 years ago I've been given an opportunity, I wasn't where I am today. I was actually on the run; I was actually in hiding for 5 years because I have to leave a very difficult family environment and a group of strangers gave me an opportunity to get an education. And I promise them, that if they gave me this opportunity, I would spend the rest of my life opening doors to every single person I meet. And I've been doing and finding that contract now for 30 years.