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Johny Fernandez: Located just
north of Central Florida Elevate

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Funding has its headquarters in
Gainesville deBanked took a trip

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there to chat with CEO Heather
Francis.

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Heather Francis: So we are a
merchant cash advance provider

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to small businesses. We are a
boutique type shop. So we're, I

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say boutique because we like
quality over quantity. We're not

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a big powerhouse in a space. But
we are, I think one of the

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funders in the space that are
really more conscientious to the

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small business owners and you
know, the product that we're

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providing. And the services that
we're giving them.

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Johny Fernandez: Francis has
been in the alternative finance

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business world for more than a
decade. She says her company's

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location away from big cities
like Miami or Manhattan is an

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Heather Francis: Gainesville is
always had that college feel,

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advantage.

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but it's starting to adjust a
little bit to more of family and

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young professionals. So we're
seeing a big growth in that now.

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Most of its medical I mean US is
Shands US. And that's a big,

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huge medical facility there. So
a lot of that is, you know, what

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is here is medically based, you
know, health based. So there's

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not always a lot of finance to
go from, but I think it makes

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Elevate stronger, in the sense
that when we bring on people,

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they're not from this industry,
they're from other areas,

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they're from other backgrounds.
And they make us as a whole

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better because they're bringing
in different ideas, different

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ways to handle things. And I
find that just makes us stand

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out and different, you know, in
the alternative finance space.

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Johny Fernandez: Her business
approach is unique and

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Heather Francis: You know,
embarked on my own, I wanted to

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meaningful.

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provide a product, again, at
time, high risk being a credit

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profile, not high risk on
stacking, but high risk with

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credit profile, I wanted to
provide them something that made

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them feel of worth, something
that said, you know, yes, this

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is my credit score, this is
where I'm at. I know that and

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most business owners, I think
what we fail to, to think about

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when we're underwriting and
we're looking at files is that

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they didn't pay their car
payment. So they keep the doors

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open. They didn't pay that
credit card bill so that they

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could do payroll. And so when
you look at a credit score, I

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don't think it's the true value
of a business owner. And I

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wanted to have a product and a
company that represented that

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and provided a path forward for
those business owners to have

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financing that was meaningful,
that was going to provide an

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opportunity to grow.

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Johny Fernandez: With the space
changing constantly, Francis

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says she's always adjusting. So
how does a company like yours

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compete with technology giants
like Square and Paypall. And

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just companies and businesses
that offer similar types of

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technologies.

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Heather Francis: Oh, it's very
difficult to compete in that

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market. It's not easy at all,
and we're constantly having to

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adjust and I would say, more, so
keep looking to what the future

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like I said, you know, being
proactive versus reactive from,

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you know, our IT guys, which you
know, with our proprietary

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What do you think about having a
direct sales?

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software, which is a huge
benefit for us to be able to

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compete in that market, we're
able to really quickly change

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things, we're really quickly
able to have merchants who

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interact with our we call it
Elevate view, who interact with

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that, have different looks when
they come in, we're working with

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Um, it's something that we're,
prior to this I didn't think was

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our marketing, you know, doing
more information and training

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for our small business owners.
We have a new thing that's

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coming out. It's a blog post
that we're doing with our

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accounting company that we
actually use. And they worked

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out some automation for elevate
in ourselves in our accounting

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department. I was like man, if
small businesses knew of this,

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a good fit for Elevate prior to
COVID we were referral based,

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and could get away from you
know, the day to day of

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accounting procedures and have
this automation available, it'd

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be very beneficial for them to
the business. So partnering with

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things like that and doing the
education, I think kind of sets

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us apart.

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the type of product that we have
was was very necessary for

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referral base, going forward,
and what we noticed in COVID, is

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that you know, people's
marketing dollars were very

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affective, which obviously
affects applications we receive

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and it felt that it would be
beneficial for Elevate itself to

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start working some direct.
However, for us direct isn't

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going to be like a dialer. It's
not going to be that on the

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phone. You know calling leads
buying leads. Direct for us is

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SEO.

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Johny Fernandez: Francis says
2020 was a big year for the

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company. So let's talk about
2020. I mean, it was a big year

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for you guys, you guys
rebranded, you guys had a

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million dollar in contracts,
introduced new programs to help

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during small businesses. You
know, in this time when things

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were just a lot of unknowns were
going on. So explain how you

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guys did so well.

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Heather Francis: So that goes
to, I think a little bit of the

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philosophy for me and our
company is to be proactive, not

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reactive, we adjusted for our
underwriters, they were able to,

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through our proprietary system,
see what was restricted, we were

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able to change it on the back
end, and they're like, oh, nope,

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we can't do that anymore. This
is what it falls under. Now,

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this is the we call them tears.
This is a tear that they're

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eligible for at this time. So we
kind of we're really just trying

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to be like, in the now. And we
would have weekly meetings on

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it, go over what we felt
comfortable with, we created a

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new program, called it abound,
it was for restaurants. And we

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were able to give them it was
very small amount of money, it

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was to really help them just for
immediate needs, whether it was

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reopening and having to get
things stocked back into the

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restaurant. And it was very
short term, but it was very low

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cost. And so we would do what we
call a bound. And once we had

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that payment history and saw how
they were performing, we were

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able to say okay, like, we know
how you're going to behave, we

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know how you know your customers
are behaving in this pandemic,

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will go ahead and throw more
funds at you put you in one of

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our tier products and build it
out that way.

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Johny Fernandez: She said
businesses also had to adjust to

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get by and will continue to have
to get creative.

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Heather Francis: So I think PPP
was was huge. I think it did

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have a positive effect for the
true and legitimate businesses

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that applied for and got it. So
we would see that from our

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clients. But when COVID
happened, we allowed for payment

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holds for those that were
affected by COVID. We actually

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we had our software, we had our
IT guy set up a software part of

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it that where we would label
them as COVID effective

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affected. And then we would do
payment holds and we would you

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know have them monitored and
work with them on that. And a

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lot of them would be like, oh,
you know, as soon as I get my

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PPP, we'll, we'll take that off.
So we actually got paid off by a

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lot of people through the PPP.
They just, you know, took care

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of their outstanding balance. We
did see that it was beneficial.

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Johny Fernandez: Her advice to
ISOs business owners and people

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in the MCA space.

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Heather Francis: Study, learn,
know. There is a lot of

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misinformation in this space and
a lot of misinformation on the

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products provided. And I've said
this a couple of times I'm sure

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people who know me or have heard
me talk and have heard this

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where it's like telephone in our
space. Don't just try and learn

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how do I get to sell. How do I
you know, convince this person

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take the money understand the
product, understand what you're giving.

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Johny Fernandez: In Gainesville,
I'm Johny Fernandez with

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deBanked News.