How Daniela Cano and Nicole Paliobeis Originate More than $100 Million in Funded Deals a Year

Daniela Cano and Nicole Paliobeis account for $10 million in revenue-based financing volume every month at Spartan Capital. That’s $120 million annualized. As the top two ISO relationship managers in the company out of eight total, Cano and Paliobeis operate in one of the most pivotal roles in the industry.

“It’s extremely fast paced, not one day is ever the same,” says Paliobeis, whose official title is Business Development Manager. “It’s always different between the person that you’re speaking to at your broker shop or your partner.”

Dozens of stories have detailed the high-octane lifestyle of what it’s like to be a broker, but the deals they originate don’t get funded unless they’re in sync with the right people at the right funding shops. Funders know this, so whom they choose to handle this part of the business is among the most important decisions they can make. After all, a funder can’t fund anything without deals coming in the door.

Left: Daniela Cano | Right: Nicole Paliobeis
B2B Finance Expo 2024

“We’re the middleman between the deal going into the system, expediting the deal, getting that approval, the competing aspect of it, contracts, funding, going back and forth with the underwriter to get the deal done,” says Cano, who is the Director of Business Development.

“Our days do not end at 6pm eastern time, our days will end sometimes at 10 or 11 o’clock at night,” Cano adds. “We both have brokers that are on the West Coast, we have brokers that are traveling, just like we would be traveling. So I think part of it is we try to give them that customer service that they want.”

Cano also says that it’s not just late nights but also early mornings, when calls and texts can start rolling in at 7am, even before underwriters are in the office.

“Typically, I always have my laptop on me no matter the time of the day,” says Paliobeis. “And if somebody calls me or they need a contract or they need a bank verification and it’s like an SOS emergency. I’m like ‘Hang on, hold on, hot spot, sign on, send everything over to them. Your docs are in your Merchant’s inbox’ and then go from there.”

For Cano, her edge is that she’s worked in the industry for 14 years. Originally starting at a broker shop herself, she eventually switched sides and became an ISO relationship manager at a time when, she says, there were very few women in that role. That statistic, she adds, has changed significantly since. In the beginning, she was occasionally on the receiving end of comments that were less than kind, but that has become much less common over time.

“Eighty percent of my ISO partners are male, and then the rest are women,” says Cano. “And those women are going to be like the heads of strategic partnerships, funding managers, or they’re the ones that are moving a lot of the volume for the broker shop.”

Paliobeis puts her clientele in the 80–90% male range, at least as far as whom she interacts with at each company. Broker shop owners themselves still appear to be overwhelmingly male, though there is no precise research that nails down the percentage. Cano says she’s found the male-dominated aspect of the broker business surprising, but that it should not be viewed as intimidating to any woman considering entering the space.

“Don’t be scared of that male figure aspect of it,” she advises. “For any woman, just don’t be scared, just definitely go forward and do it.”

Paliobeis, who comes from a background in luxury home sales and luxury retail sales and is now in her fourth year of small business finance, has found joy in realizing that her past experience can open doors in this space. For more than five years, she was a connoisseur of high-end watches—an accessory that some brokers are very into. Rolexes, for example, are something she commonly sees on wrists at industry conferences, along with the occasional Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, or even a Richard Mille.

“Every once in a while I see a watch and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s really nice,'” says Paliobeis.

But relationship-building takes time in this industry, and to do it right, it can’t be surface level. Cano says that a good partnership effectively means making someone a personal friend—letting them into your personal life via Facebook or Instagram, knowing each other’s birthdays, or knowing when and whom they’re getting married to. Paliobeis offered her own example, saying she had recently been introduced to a partner’s family.

“At the end of the day we’re human,” says Paliobeis. “We’re talking to you every single day, like things are going to come up with your family, or day to day, life and so on.”

Having that bond comes in handy because sometimes the brokers themselves run into communication troubles with their merchants and get stuck. When that happens they can ask Cano or Paliobeis if they can step in and talk to the merchants to get over a hurdle, which they’ll do.

Though the two are essentially on the same team and are often seated next to each other in the office, they work with their own book of relationships and compete on deal volume.

“Always every day probably around noon, and then around 5:30 we’re like, ‘what’s your number?'” says Cano, as they try to beat each other out on units funded. They hope the competitive camaraderie will eventually propel them to doing a collective $40 million a month, or nearly half a billion dollars a year.

“We compete and it’s friendly competition, but we’re also rooting for each other,” Cano says. “So even if it’s not Nicole or myself, or it’s one of the ISO managers that are getting a big deal, or if they just started and they’re new in the industry and they did something, we have a gong, and we bang the gong.”

Coincidentally, one of the other Spartans is Cesar Valero, a business development executive who won the B2B Finance Expo poker tournament in 2024 in Las Vegas, got featured in a writeup last year, and is now the company’s Director of Revenue. Suffice it to say, the Spartan Capital team are familiar faces in the industry.

Beyond that, there are a couple of other ingredients that make what they do possible. One is the ability to stand on a brand with modern technology. Cano says that many brokers today are fintech-savvy and have certain expectations around the submission and approval process, including that deals be API’d into their system—something that accounts for most submissions at Spartan Capital. The other ingredient is strong leadership at the top.

When it comes to working for Frank Ebanks, the company’s CEO, Paliobeis says she “loves it.”

“[Frank’s] a very hands-on CEO,” she says. “He’s always available. If we need something and we’re here in the office, we can just go knock on his door and just say, ‘hey, need you for this, I want to pick your brain’ and so on. So it’s very nice to have that.”

Cano says that just as she and her colleague take calls early in the morning or late into the night, Ebanks does the same for them when they need him.

“He does give that role model aspect that this is how you grow a company, that this is how you do it,” Cano says. “And he’s crushing it.”

“I tell Frank, ‘I’m growing old here, so I’m gonna stay here,’ I actually really like my current role and the company I’m with and the partners we work with,” Cano adds. “We have the team, we have everything.”

And so while funders compete and do the dance to maximize deal flow, being among the top ISO relationship managers in the space is, overall, an enjoyable experience, they say.

“It’s the friendships that you’re building, everything that’s happening, I love it,” Cano says. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s chaos and it’s chaotic, and every day is different… I love that you’re able to see different businesses and help them out. So I truly, truly like this part of it.”

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.