Ami Kassar - Amisights: How to Keep your Entrepreneurial Flame Lit

Praise from Our Readers

Ami- Ive received tons and tons of emails I could have followed. Ive unsubscribed to nearly all. However, yours is at the top of my daily read and wi ll be.

• Relevant, cut to the chase.
• It comes from purpose, which is us, not yo urself
• Personal- we got to know you a bit
• Modeled lead ership

As a small business owner, I have very few role models and even less knowledge about the navigation of a company and team through pandemics. We made it. We grew.

- David Johnson, evergreenpt.net, Pasade na, CA

Thank you, Ami- I so appreciate your honesty and expertise as well as your willingness to share in humility. Entrepreneurship and business building are challenging- difficult and frustrating as well as awesome and exhilarating! Reading your blog is a bite-sized morsel of reality and insight as to what is going on and how you are navigating it. I like the insights and wisdom you share, as well as some of the useful resources to help us on our entrepreneurial journeys. From one entrepreneur to another Blessings to you and your team and your fa mily.

- Frank Lunn, kahunaworld.com, Bloomingt on, IL

Ami, you and your team have been the beacon of information and reasonableness for so many of us throughout the pandemic. Your blog provided timely information to guide business owners through the darkness and shutdown. You were proactive in sharing information on the various financial solutions to help us all take advantage of them to keep our businesses surviving and, for so many now, thriving. Whether the topic was business or personal, your insight is inspirational and valuable! Blog on! Thank you!

- Jean Strickland, signature-source.com, St. Petersbu rg, Fl

Your knowledge helped us negotiate the SBA aid process and ultimately helped save our company after 15 months of a government shutdown with no reopening guidance. Your inspiration refreshes me as an entrepreneur and business owner and helps me stay the course in the continued uncertainty. Keep up the good work!

- Julia Kendrick Conway, assaggiare.com, Fort Bra gg, CA

Ami, as many others have said, I too read your blog every day as part of my morning rituals. Being an entrepreneur and an owner of a small business can be very isolating. However, all of the decisions I make, both bad and good, are owned by me, and your blog has helped me make more informed choices. I do not always do as you recommend, yet I have more of an understanding of the challenges I will face having made my deci sion.

- Bob Deasy, leaditconsulting.net, Portl and OR

Copyright 2021 MultiFunding LLC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book r eview.

Print ISBN: 978-1-09839 -877-4
eBook ISBN: 978-1-09839 -878-1

This book is in honor of all small business owners and entrepre neurs.

About the Author

Ami Kassar, founder and CEO of MultiFunding and author of The Growth Dilemma, has earned a national reputation as a thought leader in business fina nce.

An in-demand speaker and trusted advisor to growth-focused business leaders, Ami has helped thousands of business owners achieve ambitious growth goals through creative and personalized funding solutions. His work has helped create tens of thousands of jobs.

For more than 20 years, Ami has challenged executives to think differently about how they capitalize growth. Regularly featured in national media including The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Forbes and Fox Business News, Ami also writes a weekly column for Inc. Magazine. He has advised the White House, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Treasury Department on credit mar kets.

Ami regularly speaks at corporate, academic and industry events on topics including entrepreneurship and access to capital. Ami is a member of both Vistage and Entrepreneurs Organization, where he volunteers his time as the Learning Chair for the Philadelphia ch apter.

Foreword

When COVID-19 hit the world, it impacted everybody differently. For myself and our team, the immediate orbit was around what we could do to help business owners and entrepreneurs in America survive the crisis. We had spent a significant part of the past decade advising business owners and entrepreneurs through their funding needs. At the time, we were a small seven-person company that managed about fifteen or twenty inbound leads a week. Suddenly, we were getting fifteen or twenty inbound leads a mi nute.

We quickly realized that it was our responsibility to do everything we could to help. We had the daunting task of learning about all the new government programs and figuring out how to get the information out there in a way that people would understand. We immediately started a blog and daily webinars that became known as Aminars. For the first one, we bought a Zoom license for 1,000 and blew through it. For the second one, we upgraded to 3,000, and people still could not get in. Through countless sleepless nights and the dedication of my team, we did our share in helping tens of thousands of businesses through the pan demic.

As part of our work, I published a daily blog that became dubbed Amisights. While the posts had tactical tools on many days, I realized that people also needed inspirational help and emotional support to keep going. On some days, I chose to write about these in the hope that I could share an idea, nugget, or story that would make someone smile or give them enough energy to keep moving for ward.

While most of the emergency government programs have now expired, when I look back at the softer posts, I think there are lessons in there that are timeless. I have decided to share some of these Amisights in this book, hoping that we can learn from them and never forget what this pandemic taught us. In an emergency, we must find a way to keep our entrepreneurial flames lit. For our company, we are back to the good old-fashioned loan advising, but the experience of COVID-19 and the honor of helping so many will be a part of us fo rever.

A Mega Speed Bump

In my first book, The Growth Dilemma , I talk about speed bumps and planning for the unexpected. I try to encourage everyone to think about their financing strategy as both offense and defense; try to set yourself up to have some extra cash and the capacity to plan for the unexpected. In my pre-Zoom speeches, I used to talk about the unexpected as events like waking up and finding out we had blown up North Korea or gone to war with Iran. I never dreamed in a million years about a speed bump that would shut our entire country down. If your business is suddenly hurting during a speed bump, it is often too late to get extra cash on your balance sheet to help you through. Plus, there are often opportunities hidden inside those speed bumps that may pass you by if you are not prepared. That is why everyone who plans and wants their business to live to fight another day needs to consider all available programs. (4/20)