Capital is a hard thing to get when you’re trying to fund your business, even more so for people in the black community as well as those who don’t have a network of wealthy people around them. Addressing this issue, Solomon RC Ali—a self-made multi-millionaire, Private Equity Investor, and Tech and Energy CEO and consultant—created his own consultancy that is all about creating minority wealth. He sits down with Merrill Chandler to tell us all about it and how they are doing it. He also shares some insights about the Black-American community, the shift from consumers to creators, and guiding them to see the path to the top. Join Solomon in this conversation for the tools and wisdom to get that business up and running!

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Conversation With A Billionaire: An Interview With Solomon RC Ali

I am excited about this episode and my guest. We’re going to be talking to Solomon RC Ali. To say a self-made multi-zillionaire does not give him or his journey credit. We’re going to be talking to him about how to do it the hard way and what he is doing in his life to give disadvantaged communities an opportunity to do it a far easier way.

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My intro could be classified as hard-hitting. I’m saying a lot of big words and making a lot of big promises here but I want to introduce to my tribe and by extension, further to your tribe Solomon. Meet Solomon RC Ali a genius of a man who is solving, if we can call it an old-school way. Solomon, you have come in your life from an economic and cultural position where one could say that you might not have gotten the long stick in this thing. What I’d like you to do is introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you and how you became this Titan of industry available to help not just the black community but disadvantaged communities who never had capital access to yourself.

First, let me thank you for having me on to be able to share my story, everything that’s going on, how your audience and people that follow and why can do it without going through all the minefields. I started when I was extremely young and I’m working with various businesses. Of course, as anyone and everyone knows, capital is a hard thing to get when you’re trying to fund your business. If you don’t have savings, reserves, credit line, home equity line in your home, our family and friends that are well to do and have the disposable income to lend to you, it’s difficult especially for people who look like me to raise capital. What I found out, it just didn’t affect people that look like me, it also affected anyone who didn’t have a network of wealthy people around them where family and friends had assets and they were willing to put those assets up for you. I learned the hard way of how to get money by going to the banks and being told no more than I was ever told yes.

We didn’t comfortable with that term.

I’ve seen every way possible that it doesn’t work. I only learn a handful of ways that it did work and started many successful businesses. The last business that I had started ended in 2008. I had lost a little over $100,000 and something in real estate assets, commercial real estate assets. We have well over 500 and something employees. It was one of the lowest points of my life. I lived down the street from Holyfield, North Carolina and Pennville, Georgia. That turned around and I couldn’t pay my electric bills. $318 electric bill and living in an 18,000 square foot home. I was like, “Something is wrong with this picture.” Here I was, I had this business that was mature.

When I say mature, the business was 8 or 9 years old. You think, at that point, the business wasn’t going anywhere. Life was good. Millions of dollars were coming in. I could payroll, meet all my obligations, no struggles, no nothing. All of a sudden, one thing happened where we have no control and then you learn as a business owner, it’s not up to you and all you can do is the work. Doing the work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be successful.

I lost everything and had to start over. When I started over, I started with about $200 and something and I started the private equity company. By the end of twelve months, I was loaning out millions of dollars again to various companies. I picked the energy industry because a friend kept calling me and saying, “Can you help?” Another friend said, “Would you help this technology company?” I looked at them and when I say that I’m making it short but they bothered me for six months. You grow something and you lose confidence, you lose everything.

You said something there that I want to key into because this is where we share the fundamental belief. Share a little bit more about what you mean by success is not guaranteed, you got to do the work. You’d go to work to do the work. What do you mean by doing the work? Let’s explore that.

I have a philosophy that I live by. You don’t have to lie, cheat or steal in business. You have to do the work. If you don’t know what the work is, it’s your responsibility and the obligation that you have to learn all aspects of that job or what it is that you’re trying to do. That’s your responsibility. If it means to stay up late at night, that’s what you have to do. If it means going out, getting research and getting other people that know more than you in particular fields, that’s what you have to do and you have to learn it. You don’t have to be a master of what your CPA does or what your marketing people do but you have to have a working knowledge of all of it. That’s doing the work. You have to understand your industry and your competition. What’s taking place?

What are the changes in your industry? Last but not least, you have to understand finance. You have to understand why the investor’s loan, why banks will loan money, why private equity and bases will give you money and what that looks like. You got to understand it. That’s the other part of doing the work. Here’s the thing. Most people want to fake it until they make it. You’re not going to get there doing that. Most people want to lie, cheat or steal. You’re not going to make it. You got to be able to do the work. If you do the work, you’re going to get there. It may not be in the timeline that you have originally set but you will get there. When you get there, your foundation, your cornerstone is a lot stronger. You’re going to stay a lot longer.

I totally get that. That’s why we wanted you to expand on that because when I hear get the work, the philosophy is your business is a house. You’re going to build a house. You got to know how to build the house correctly. If your foundation is faulty, if you don’t have a crossbeam stabilizing the walls, you’re not going to have a solid house. That’s the metaphor that comes to me while you share. Also, when you do the work, as you’ve described, aren’t you building a toolkit of power tools rather than hands-off. You can build a house but if you’re using a hammer, a nail and a handsaw, you got a long road ahead of you compared to if you do the things you’re talking about, it’s going to be more power tools and you can build more, faster, better by changing the tools you use.

What’s you’re saying is I’m a strong believer in using the right tools for the job. Don’t go and use a screwdriver to try to hammer the nail. A lot of people want to use the wrong tools. I may equate that to this. I’m the business owner, I am not about to sit there and try to do all the CPA and accounting work. The CPA is my hammer. I got to break for me.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’d like to get into some of the details and further of your philosophy. In my research on you, there was a moment when you realized that there were over 30,000 publicly traded corporations in the United States but only thirteen were owned and run by Americans. I don’t know if it’s Black-Americans or minorities. That’s an unforgettable number of 0s, 1, 2. Tell me what happened for you when you came to that, especially you’re climbing this mountain of prosperity and building your own empire and then all of a sudden, you get there and nobody is there but thirteen of you in the sea of 30,000 publicly traded companies.

Here’s how I discovered that during the SEC investigation as they were looking into me and everything of that nature and stayed in, “Solomon, you didn’t disclose this and this information and proved it.” That being said, I realized there were only thirteen companies that look like me or people who are managing, controlling or the majority owners of that, which meant they only had access to the capital. If you have a private company, you can only go to the banks and you have to put up your own collateral. In other words, pain is coming home quickly. Typically, pain doesn’t come home to shareholders or investors.

The other thing was we learned that, “We don’t have access out.” We could spend our lives as a private business owner building a business and not have an exit strategy out. If we got sick or hurt, we’re not being able to pay our bills or meet our obligation because the business stopped. Come to look screeching your own when something happens or you simply want to send your kids to college or I have to pay medical bills. In other words, deal with life troubles that will come up unexpectedly. If you’re not in the marketing place, if you’re business, in my opinion, is not public, I use Amazon. Why did Amazon make it? We all know they started out selling books and being a server but they made it 14.5 years losing money.

I always say, “I don’t know when we’re going to make money. Basically, don’t ask me.” Since they were publicly traded, he always had access to capital to make up for the deficiencies or his negative cashflow. We look at him as one of the, if not the largest company in the United States, if not the world. That was because they were public and constantly having access to capital. I believe minorities need to start looking at the advantages of being public.

How do I get my credit in order? How do I get my business credit in order? How do I automatically understand what’s happening in the new economy? As we look at it, there are no underwriting guidelines that are taking place so that I can navigate first through those waters and then be able to access capital. Everyone is looking at you. Nobody wants to give them capital if you’re not credit-worthy and if you don’t have an understanding of the use of money. Again, doing the work, you have to do it.

What I came away from our last meeting as we are a one-two punch. If you’re looking for expansion capital, working capital, credit lines and business loans, a HELOC so that you can invest it in yourself and get to some level of a threshold but then there comes a time when you’ve built an enterprise that is valuable outside of you, the owner. That’s what you’ve built. “I’m out. Merrill and I are taking our loved ones. We’re going to Tahiti. We’re going to spend a month. I don’t need to talk to a soul.” Your enterprise is going to continue to prosper and thrive because it is independent of you.

As you’re addressing, the credit lines that we help people get, the business loans and the fundability™ we help establish is only going to go so far. It’s like, “We helped you launch your idea, now, where do we go?” Address that your consultancy is all about creating minority wealth. If I give them a right jab, where does the left come in for the kill? How do you create or leverage their enterprise now and help them?

I would tell them to go to SolomonRCAli.info. We focus on three primary areas like arranging funds. We arrange the funds and then we try to match everyone else. The other thing we focus on is when we consult trying to prep their package together, understanding if I’m taking it to a bank, what the banks are looking for. Why are the banks looking for this? Let’s look at it. If I’m taking it to private equity or a VC company, what are they looking for? If it’s got to go to the capital markets and they have to go early, what is the capital market is looking for and your company and to make it profitable to build wealth for not only yourself but the people who are investing it. Last, we tried to teach and show investors who are looking for great opportunities, where to look, why to look into those particular companies within a particular industry where they can make the greatest wealth.

We all know the stories. If you’re invested in Facebook or Amazon and all these companies at an early age, you made a great deal of money if you’re holding onto the stock now. We tried to teach people also how to do that as investors. According to the SEC, they wanted their write-ups when they were doing the report of me. Here’s what they said, “You made the stock go up over 30,000% but we don’t believe your case.” You cause the stock to go from an average trading volume of $3 million or $4 million to over $300 million in trading. They weren’t sure how I did that. Here’s what I said to them, “You don’t have to lie, cheat or steal in business. You have to do the work.” Most people out there want pie in the sky.

They don’t want to do the work. They want to make-up something by osmosis. If you do the work, you get there, you get the results. It’s not necessarily that all the work is going to pay tomorrow. Sometimes, you got to keep doing the work and keep repeating the same process over and over and don’t give up and then you will be able to see what’s taking place. One of the things that we created was the Minority Business Access platform. All those little minefields I stepped in, people don’t have to step in. We save them from that. I didn’t have anyone that I could turn to except my attorneys, a few CPAs and accountants who believed in me. Of course, my parents who got me started on this road that believed in me that I’ve had more failures than I have success.

Billionaire: As a business owner, it’s not up to you. All you can do is work. However, doing the work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be successful.

I have to avoid all those failures when you come out of the gate to be successful. People who look at me, you have black women or the highest educated who are coming fast as the educated elite, graduating from college and who are also starting most of the businesses. They’re starting more businesses than anyone else, whether it’s a black man, white man, any other nationalities. Black women are starting more business. They are also the primary provider at home. That’s important. If I can help them to understand, “What does credit mean. What do you have to look at?” That’s where you come in.

One of the things that I was looking up, that person right there, that black woman, ambitious, beautiful and madly intelligent. She started, it’s called the Real Estate Investor Goddesses, Monick Halm is a genius and built this tribe of other females. A lot of black women have found a home and being able to say, “You get to do it all. You get to rule in the business community. You get to rule at home and have a prosperous relationship or prosperous relationship with your children.” Monick has inspired me. We’ve shared stages before and been on each other’s shows. I adore her.

I want to use that as an example. I’ve shared with you 35% to 40% of my students and clientele to use your term, look like you, they have beards and they have a crew cut. I’ve been doing this for many years but this phenomenon of building fundability™ is speaking to the black community in years more than ever before. A spike has gone up in the belief that it’s possible in the ambitions. This acceleration in believing that it’s possible. What would you say is happening over the last decade that gave Black America a green light to say, “Stop right there. It’s my turn now?” Remember, you climb the face of the cliff to the top and there seem to be a few more roads available to get to the same place that you took the hard path. What’s going on that you can point to that is seeing this community flourish?

I’m going to direct that as you already know, we own a technology company. As a technology company, we control and license out a smart way technology. We licensed to companies like Amazon’s Ring, SkyBell and some of the largest companies in the United States. We also had one of the largest minority energy companies in the United States. We were excited about that but here’s what I feel that change, technology, artificial intelligence and social media, things became where people had an opportunity where I had to go to the library and do research and it would take me months to do that research.

Now, you can get all that information from your telephone where I have to go compare and look at the industry. I look at the top five companies in that industry, see what they were doing, what was working and looking, try to gather newspaper articles, anything I can find about those companies and piece it together to do my due diligence. People have access to everything through the internet. With artificial intelligence, I can put in there, “Who’s the competition for Amazon? Who’s the competition for these various companies and look at what they’re doing in the differences?” It cuts everything down in half and that can change my business model. This again, we’re doing the work is. You got to know what other people are doing, “What are they doing well? What’s making them successful? How can I tweak that and make it even better?”

A pivot to meet whatever your research bears out.

Here’s the thing. Everyone wants to have the best. What you want to do is be able to over-deliver. I’m going to use a poor analogy but as an analogy nevertheless. If I told you where to buy a Mercedes or where to get a brand new Mercedes but the price was the same price of a regular Toyota, you would sit back and say, “I’m going to buy the Mercedes over the Toyota for the same price,” but you have to know about it. The only way about it is when you do on your due diligence, your research and you see and it’s like, “Let me pack more in so if company A is the leader and they’re giving ten things, maybe I need to give 12 to 13 things that create more value that I can see for my customers.”

Along that line, creating value in the pivot of the entire black community because I’ve noticed it in years, it is striking how many people come up to me after a presentation where we were doing in public and how many people attend my bootcamps. They are like, “What do I need to do? I want this money because my idea is going to rock many of our real estate investors, business entrepreneurs, etc.” I have a quote here that I’m paraphrasing where it says, “Black-Americans are mostly consumers so far, not creators. Their buying power is growing every year.” If they’re consumers and not creators, what is that wall? What’s in the way of them flipping to the other side of the wealth model?

We have a GDP that’s roughly $27 trillion in the United States. People that look like me are the consumers and we’re spending 3% to 7%. That’s how much we spend. That’s a lot of wealth. If we redirected that, that affects the economy, not just the United States but globally. How you have to change it now and say, “We are saving less money than any other race out there.” I need to save more money and stop looking at the other side and I need to be investing my money rather than buying something new.

I need to join and pull my money together to buy the local laundry mat, buy the local car dealership or to buy something. I formed first a legal entity and I get all the people in my neighborhood and friends. I’m going to speak to college kids because they are looking at everything in our world totally different than you and I have ever looked at it and seen. If I’m a college kid or anyone else, I am going to get a group of my friends together. I’m going to look for those friends who can put a few dollars together, maybe we buy a self-storage unit.

We’re going to have good credit. We’re going to work on our credit. Each of us is going to volunteer many hours per year or month, so we don’t have to have other additional labor costs to run that storage unit. The value of that storage unit is going to go up because when you make an investment in the business, the equity in the business appreciates a lot faster than the equity in a piece of property. My generation and prior to have been always told this, “Go buy your piece of land and buy your house that isn’t building anymore.”

However, real estate only grows in value by so much per year and based on the economic conditions, that may take place within that region. That affects it. If I took the same money that I was buying for real estate, I bought a business, I bust my butt, I did the work and I increased the value of that business, it ends up growing, doubling or tripling in value in the same amount of time that my real estate could see the 7% growth of the rate.

I am on board with you because one of the other things that you and I talked about, we’re even using the same words or the same language. You talk that wealth is about financial behavior, not about earnings. My entire framework is borrower behaviors. The ability to attract lenders to where they’re saying, “I want to lend you as much money as I possibly can because I can measure behind your back, I can see those behaviors and I will give money to that behavior set.” It’s not how much money we make, it’s about how we do it so that the people who have cash now, not just the banks that I work with but equity partners and VCs, those borrower behaviors are everything. Speak to me about that from your space.

My people tell me, “You always talk about being a lender, not a borrower.” What I do is I have to remind them, “Yes, I like loaning out money but I also like loaning out money to those who borrow money, who understand how to arbitrage it, turn around and leverage it.” That’s important to me. What I’m looking for is, what is your credit looked like? We all heard of the five C’s but I’m not going to go over there. That’s going to give me a good indication of whether or not you’re going to pay me back. Your heart will be looking for something that’s pie in the sky. Are you willing to do the work? I’m looking at your credibility. Are you lying to me or are you lying to yourself?

A lot of times, they may not lie to me. They may be lying to themselves and be delusional because everyone thinks what they have for their business is the greatest thing. That is much more under the sun, they may have been some new ingredients added to it. When you’re out borrowing money, if I’m loaning you the money, what I’m looking at is your business. What is the probability of your business making it within the industry that you’re in? You have a management team, whether you are a one-person manager or five managers deep.

Can your management team scale this business? What is the industry look like? If I get in there start doing the due diligence and, Merrill, they didn’t do the due diligence and don’t understand their industry, I’m going to end up asking them questions that they don’t even know within their industry, they don’t know who their competition is and what makes number 1, 2 and 3, in the industry successful. When I took over the technology company, our previous CEO wanted to build a smart technology camera. I said, “How are you going to compete with Sony? How are you going to compete with Panasonic? How are you going to compete with all these other people who have been doing it well or well-capitalized?”

That’s the key. They are well-capitalized. When you are well-capitalized, you have the advantage to make mistakes after mistakes and recover. When you are under-capitalized, you don’t have the affordability to make as many mistakes. Normally, the barriers to entry are higher because it’s costly. I look at that and then I look at whether or not it’s well-listed. One of the things that SolomonRCAli.info that we try to share with people and go over is, “Here’s some consulting strategies to help you to grow your business within your industry. Here’s where we can help you to arrange capital.” Investors who follow us and look at us who want to invest in these companies because they know we’ve done the due diligence and homework. They know what’s going to happen is like, “We take a private company that may be worth $2 million and we might have to merge it or suggested merged with a public company who may have a stock price of $3 a share.”

When the merger is complete, the stock prices were $6 to$7 a share. That intrinsic value, that synergy that was created between the two companies now created more value so the investors can make a great deal of money. Your private owners who went public have an exit strategy out of their businesses. The only negative about it is this. You’re having to be transparent. Everyone is able to see your mistakes. You’re always being graded but if you’re accustomed to doing the work, that shouldn’t bother you.

The whole point is no lie, no cheat, no steal and be transparent. Even if you’re there with your spouse, we want to be transparent regardless. Hopefully, it’s not a new set of behaviors.

If you have that mindset, it doesn’t matter when you go to get your credit because you’re accustomed to paying your bills and do your obligation. When in business, you understand, “I got to lie, cheat or steal. I got to do the work.” I’m accustomed to providing my customers a great value and service. I’m a customer on treating my employees, people around me and my vendors extremely well. I’m thankful and grateful for those who have invested with me and took the ride along the side. When you put all that together, you typically have a recipe for success.

What will contribute to the financial liberation of minorities, black women to use specific accounts because they got, at least, in the culture value we live in, they’re both female and black? They’re the ones who seem to be prospering or at least an ambition that is amazing to watch. How do you see us financially liberating Black America? How do we get them to believe that there is a road to the top? You don’t have to scale the face of El Capitan in Yosemite as you did.

One of the things I would say is this and I’m going to be a little bias because I have a book coming out in 2021. It’s going to share a lot of the stories, what those pitfalls have been and what to avoid whether you’re talking to a VC or a bank. How to avoid it and what does a good deal look like? A lot of people like to start a business from scratch. I don’t believe in that anymore. After many years of being in business, I don’t believe in that anymore. What I do believe in is this. Let me first improve my creditworthiness, first and foremost.

Billionaire: Real estate only grows in value by so much per year and based on the economic conditions that may take place within that region.

Let me improve my personal financial position, that’s the second thing. Third, let me partner with a group of like-minded people. I don’t care what color they are or mastermind, they must be like-minded. If I want to go into manufacturing, rather than starting a manufacturing business from start, let me find a manufacturing company or something right along with that, that I can approach purchase so I can leverage my credit. My friends can pull land and own a piece of the business and we can leverage that and own something that we can create value in. That is what I would try to teach and share with people.

The things that black women are being educated and are getting their education are extremely helpful because they have a huge network. Let me say this about women. Women unlike men, do a lot more communicating. They will collaborate and communicate with one another. Men, we sometimes look at the big picture and say, “That’s it. Let’s go for it.” While women will say, “Let’s cut all the I’s and cross all the T’s and let’s go as a community.” That’s what I would say that move as a community.

Grab a group of people that have good credit some like-minded and let’s buy a business. Before you know it, that business has created income and revenue and it will help you buy the houses and the car that you want, the other things and still provide you with a tax write off which is your biggest investment. That’s the advantage that we’re trying to teach and tell people to do and understand so that they can get there. It takes a lot of hard work. None of it is easy but it’s a lot of fun.

Thank you for that. One of the things that I do want to shout out for both of our mission is that this shift from manual underwriting where you had to sit with the banker and be subject to a set of beliefs that the banker would have. They had no idea how to measure who the borrower is. They looked at the borrower and filled out some paperwork. If it all matched up, you got a loan but it was all filtered by who the borrower was and was filtered by the beliefs of the lender. That is disappearing fast and the lenders do not make money when they do manual underwriting. In a small business Solomon, it’s got to be a minimum of $1 million loan for it to even be worthwhile for a branch officer to do a manually underwritten small business loan.

I am glad that it’s moving to a computer approved system because for many years, when they sit there and they talked to me, racism never played a part but it played every part. They looked at me and they judged me. If they couldn’t relate to me or they didn’t understand me, everything played a part from how I spoke to what they saw or where I live. Now, in our little society, a computer approved system where they’re plugging in numbers, it’s important, it’s no longer the old system, it’s the new system, you got to understand what they’re looking for and what that system is looking for. That system is not looking at his skin color anymore.

The biggest one in there is we’ve had these centuries of deep-rooted racism, sexism, genderism, all of the -isms. The issue was they couldn’t relate to me, which I believe is the root of all of the -isms. I can’t relate to that other person, belief system, other race and neighborhood, whatever it was. You nailed it when you said that. When you put into a computer a bunch of data that they can measure what you do and not who you are, we remove all those impediments and all lending blockages because ultimately, the computer doesn’t care. It relates to your behavior.

It doesn’t relate to who you are sitting in the chair across from the lender. That is key. For my tribe and Solomon’s tribe, it is a new dawning day. Moving into 2021, we have an opportunity. Though COVID has been a tragedy for many people’s lives but one of the great blessings of everybody having to shelter in place, isolate. Not go to bank branches and not do business out in the world is that lenders finally have the financial incentive to complete the transition, to open a checking account remotely, open a credit card and open a credit line remotely.

Bank branches closed four Wells Fargo branches in Salt Lake City because of the shift in the model. Their pivot is our profit. I want you to realize that we need to shape our borrower profile and our borrower behaviors. When we shift those, they do not care what car you drive, even though they can look at the amount you paid for the car. They don’t care about the clothes you wear, the skin you have or your gender. They care, can they make money off of those behaviors? I wanted to broadcast that out there because that’s my passion. I’m done with any ism that doesn’t allow us to make money and our partner lenders to make money. You only invest in a business, Solomon, when you can make money, too.

Everyone does. One of the unique things about what you’re saying is that. As society continues to change, everything is computer-generated and we get away from tolerance. People not understanding, “Why would this person do that?” This was one of the things I found with the SEC. I’m a black man. You never experienced someone like me doing what I have done. You never see. You’ve seen a lot of white men do a bunch of different things but they had a different mindset because they came from a different place.

My mindset was totally different but you didn’t understand it and your tolerance was lower because all you saw was someone in front of you and automatically, people of color are not given the benefit of the doubt. Not less than too, they’re automatically accused of doing something wrong. That’s why it’s important to anyone that looks like me in business. You do not have to lie, cheat or steal, do the work.

Tell us a little bit about your book and where people could find it. When they’re done and they close that last page, what’s the take-home message for that book of yours?

I can’t give the name now. When the book comes out in late 2021, you’ll be able to go to my website SolomonRCAli.info. It will be in all of the stores and everything according to the publisher. What they will take from it is I’ve already chopped the role in the path in the forest. All you have to do is go to the forest and follow a path that’s already been cut to get to the wait you’re trying to. What business or industry you’re in will be able to lead you to access to capital that you need to be able to fund your business, to continue to grow and be successful.

That’s perfect because that plays right into what you said. You were talking about tolerance. If you have a low tolerance or a high tolerance but think of a word, “I’m tolerating something.” That means it’s a bitter pill to swallow. It’s an unpleasant experience to even use the word tolerate. “I have a high tolerance for other human beings.” That’s insane but it’s what our culture has been. Imagine, any lender, the word tolerance doesn’t go with fundability™ or profit and you’re like, “I’m going to tolerate a 10% ROI.” You don’t speak in those terms when it comes to profit and numbers. The variability that you’re talking about, they would tolerate you when you sat in front of them to see, “I’m going to do my best to be a good citizen and look at everything this guy’s presenting me.” Think of automatic underwriting software that does not tolerate.

It’s looking for an opportunity to invest. In fact, if you look at the FICO algorithms as they measure scores, everybody starts out at an 850 perfect score. What takes away from it? You’re perfect. You’re doing behaviors that don’t make you fundable where somebody doesn’t want to lend to you. I’m glad you brought up the tolerance thing because human beings are sometimes dumb asses but that software program is looking for investment opportunities and it wants to measure again, I say, “What we do not who we are.” That’s what I’m all about here. There’s the SolomonRCAli.info if individuals want to explore what you do in the world and what you offer for small businesses which is your site.

It’s the SolomonRCAli.info and the podcast for Minority Business Access. It’s not strictly for minorities. It’s for anyone who’s been under-capitalized. I don’t care if your business is a $1 million company or a $100 million company. If it’s under-capitalized, you’re got to get some help to show what you do.

That’s being the true minority. It’s being undercapitalized. The Fortune 2500, we want to be in the majority. We want to be highly capitalized. Anything you’d like to say to your tribe or mine from your heart space about what’s possible if they do the work.

To both of our tribes, learn your industry, understand who you are and it’s not when you get capital, it’s how you get capital. Access capital is early in your career, entrepreneurship is possible, which means get your credit and everything lined up. Get your finances and everything in order. A lot of people don’t know, if you buy a business, that target acquisition will help you to acquire it. A lot of people don’t know that. If a business is going to cost me $10 million, I might only have to raise $3 million. I’m bringing a bunch of family and friends together to raise that $3 million. I may be able to utilize some of our personal credit to be able to come up with that $3 million as a down payment. The banks will help you to fund that 70% using the business cashflow from the company you’re looking to acquire and a lot of people don’t know that.

It took me years to learn rather than starting a business from scratch, let me find a business that has a similar or doing what I’m looking to do or wanting to do and build and ground that. That gets me to the place where I want to be and that will get them to the place they want to be quicker whether, “I want to buy a house.” Let’s put that buy the house off for 1 or 2 years. Let me buy the business first. Now, I got enough cashflow to be able to purchase that house and then painting a certain lifestyle. What most people do is come out of college or find a job and we know a job is over broke, that’s what it is.

They go to work barely being able to make ends meet and wonder why they can’t live the American dream because you made a bad choice and where you chose to apply all your talents. Apply your talent, trust in yourself, believe in yourself and bring good people around you to help you. You need the consultants, you need the people like what you do, Merrill, who can help them to build a strong credit profile so that when that computer hit, it’s always going to say approved. Meet Solomon RC Ali Corporation to help you to understand, “Here are the strategies for acquiring a company and for raising capital. Here’s the strategy if you want to sit on the sidelines and invest your money into these news companies. Why it makes sense and how you can grow?” Get the professionals that you need around you.

I had a huge a-ha. You’re saying that instead of picking up the consumer things, the house, the nice car and the things, invest in yourself. It’s almost like build the engine of a business or investment in business and investment in yourself as it pertains to business. Years later, you can drop it into a car and win the Daytona 500 because you’ve built the engine first and that will last you the rest of your life. That’s brilliant.

It also gives you an inheritance to pass along to your kids or family members rather than passing a house. Most people don’t get into taxes. The inheritance tax, you pass the house on to your kids and they’ll hear about a 40% tax inheritance. In business own, I can begin to transfer that business ownership and making them shareholders and equity owners in that business early so now I pass away and they pay no taxes on it. You’ll pass away and left them something but I don’t want to leave them with trying to figure out, “Do we have to sell the house to pay Uncle Sam?” That makes no sense.

I totally get that build the engine and it will spin off all these big wins.

Billionaire: Apply your talent, trust in yourself, and bring good people around you to help you.

Come to my website, SolomonRCAli.info. They’re well-trained and they know this well.

I’m honored to have you here share some time with me. Once again, that’s an easy natural, we’re looking at the market. You’re my big brother because you’re the capitalization. I’m getting these credit lines down here. It’s leveraging being able to if you’ve got a HELOC or you’ve got $300,000 to $500,000 in the ability loan that much, you can take it to a business and be part of one of those cooperatives. As men need to follow the women’s lead here, collaborate on some of these small and buy businesses rather than start businesses, that’s genius.

When you and I spoke on my podcast, you’re the man. You’ve been gone out there. You can figure out this credit thing. You’ve been one of the only people amongst the lenders that are sitting there understanding how and what it is that they’re trying to do to the average consumer so that we can have a stronger and a better impact. I am touched and humbled because of everything that you’ve gone out and done because you’ve had the shoulders to do it. I didn’t have the shoulders to do that. That’s the stuff that people need to know. What makes that important? That journey that you did when you sat there amongst those lenders and understood how the FICO scores were being arranged of what’s going into it. You sat there with the government and said, “What about this?” Those two are more important. You are the leader and the expert in this field.

Thank you. Between us, we’re a double threat. That was kind. Like you, this is my passion. It’s like saying, “Merrill, congratulations on gray hair.” I’m like, “You’re welcome and thank you,” because it’s who I am like it’s who you are. It’s a delight to be able to push these envelopes and knows that there are other generals in this erstwhile battle to create an opportunity for people who’ve never had an opportunity before. It’s an honor to be with you and share this time, Solomon.

You’re being totally modest because of the wealth of those journeys and they’re sitting up there in the government agents, I know what that feels like. You are the only one of your kind to sit there that are like, “How does that help the consumer?” People need to take advantage of your expertise and then you have done. The people that I recommend over to you because that will save them a lot of sense. They don’t have to cut down. You’ve already done that.

We’re built like it. We got the shoulders to prove it. Thank you, Solomon. It’s been a delight. Both tribes but my tribe, you know I always give you homework. Go check out SolomonRCAli.info. The second you hit that page, start tooling around because he has opportunities. He’s looking to capitalize companies but you got to be in a particular space. You’ve got to have done the work. This isn’t free money but it’s a free opportunity to leverage and go to the next level. Do your homework, make sure that you guys do the work to quote Solomon. Solomon, it’s a pleasure. It’s been wonderful spending the time with you and I’d love to have you on again. There’s way more for us to talk about. Fair enough?

Fair enough, Merrill. Thank you for allowing me to share my story.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Important Link:

• Solomon RC Ali
• Minority Business Access
• Real Estate Investor Goddesses

About Solomon RC Ali

Solomon RC Ali is a self-made multi-millionaire, Private Equity Investor, Tech and Energy CEO and Consultant to profitable startups. He is also an outspoken advocate for minority wealth. Since 2016, he has run his own Private Equity Investment and Business Consultancy, Solomon RC Ali Corporation.

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