How a Career SBA Underwriter Built a Lending Desk That Makes Banks Compete

Meet Jordan: He Can Save You Thousands On Your Loan

Jordan has spent his entire career inside the SBA machine.

• Credit union

• Loan packager

• Legacy underwriting team at a bank

• A CDC doing 504 loans

• 7(a), 504, express, and even micro loans.

If the SBA funds it, Jordan has underwritten it.

Then he saw what most SBA veterans never see: a community full of buyers who were serious, educated, and hungry to close.

So he joined Contrarian Thinking to build our lending desk from scratch. Most communities point you to a broker and wish you luck. We hired one.

He's on a mission to help our Academy and Boardroom members learn how to buy a business with the best terms possible, so you can build your dream without sacrificing your whole paycheck every month.

You don't get this anywhere else.

If you’re part of the Academy or Boardroom, you automatically get access to a guy who could save you $75K over the life of your loan (more on that later) without you having to do any of the work.

Our community loves this guy:

45 days in, he's got 402 applicants in his pipeline, and he's about to start funding deals.

Here's what he's learned about helping people secure SBA loans, and what he wants you to know before you ever sign a loan doc.

FREE EVENT

Wednesday, July 15th at 11am CST, Codie is hosting a FREE webinar to teach you how to scale your business without adding employees or hours.

She's walking you through the 5 levers you can pull to accelerate growth without adding more stress.

In only 90 minutes, you’ll:

1. Diagnose What's Actually Holding You Back

Most owners guess at their bottleneck and fix the wrong thing. We'll show you how to find the real constraint before you waste another quarter on it.

2. Find Your Highest-Leverage Move

Codie walks you through the 12-P analysis and the Owner Scorecard, the same tools she uses to find the one move that matters most. Not twenty things. One.

3. Optimize the Money You Already Make

You don't need more revenue to make more profit. We'll show you where the cash is leaking and how to stop it.

4. Move Faster With a Real Plan

Speed beats your competition. You'll leave with a plan you can run Monday morning, not a someday wish list.

5. Surround Yourself With the Best People

The fastest way to grow is to stop doing it alone. See what changes when you're in a room with owners a few steps ahead of you.

So if you want to scale without burning out, click the link below and snag your free seat.

Click HERE to save your spot

(Heads up, this is your LAST CHANCE to register.)

- Don’t miss out!

1. One quote isn't a rate. It's an opening bid.

Banks are like hagglers at the bazaar.

They don’t give you their best rate, they give you the rate they think you’ll accept.

So most buyers just walk into their bank and take the first number that comes back.

Jordan says that’s a great way to leave money on the table.

His desk sends every package to 15 bank partners who know they're competing for your business.

And they want to give you the best possible terms, because the more they fund, the more deals come their way.

It's a win-win.

One member came to Jordan with terms already in hand, just asking for some guidance.

Jordan thought he could help and asked for 2 days to shop around, coming back with a rate roughly 1% lower.

Meaning, when the deal gets funded, this member will save about $75K over the life of the loan.

For a small business owner, that's HUGE.

The lesson: banks don't give you their best rate. They give you the rate you'll accept. Make them bid. (Or let us make them bid for you.)

2. Watch out for the 10-to-4 Tax

Your average banker responds Monday through Thursday, 10am to 4pm. Miss that window and you just lost a day.

Compound that over a 4-week process and your "slow SBA loan" isn't slow because of the SBA.

It's slow because of dead air.

Jordan answers messages pretty much 24/7 because half our members have day jobs and can only talk before or after work.

Every after-hours reply claws a day back, and he can handle communicating when you can't.

The lesson: loan speed is a game of ping-pong. If you serve with no one on the other side, that ball isn't coming back. Make sure you aren't hitting into empty space.

3. The scariest part of an SBA loan is also the reason it exists

Yes, there's a personal guarantee. Yes, sometimes your personal property backs the loan. Jordan won't sugarcoat that.

But here's the reframe: without that structure, no bank would lend to a first-time buyer at all. The SBA program bridges a gap the market couldn't fill on its own.

You're getting acquisition financing with minimal cash down, on a 10-year note, at rates that would be unheard of for what's essentially an unsecured loan.

The lesson: the guarantee isn't a trap. It's the price of admission to financing that otherwise wouldn't exist.

🛑 STOP RIGHT THERE

Jordan's lending desk is built into Contrarian Academy.

Loan guidance from day 1, not after you've already fallen in love with a deal.

And if you already own a business, the Growth Boardroom coaches can route your financials straight to him for review.

4. Buy the business you qualify for

Jordan pre-qualifies members early, on paper, before they go shopping.

The members who win take that number and adjust their deal box, while the members who struggle get PQ'd a couple million short of their dream deal and ask, "how do I make this work?"

His answer: you don't.

If you qualify for a $1.2M business, buy that one.  

Run it well, then do acquisition 2 and acquisition 3. That’s the Stair-Step Method, and it’s how you go from first time buyer to business mogul.  

The lesson: sometimes a bigger business equals a smaller life. Buy at your number and stack from there.

5. If you already own a business, your debt is a hidden lever

Jordan's desk isn't just for buyers.

Boardroom members are sending in their P&Ls and debt schedules and getting great results.

One owner had 4 separate high-interest debts…

So Jordan packaged them into a single SBA working capital loan that could save the owner 30% in interest and drop monthly payments from $10,000 down to just $2,000.

As of right now, the consolidation is approved and heading toward close.

That's cash flow an owner can point at expansion, a rainy-day fund, or even a new market.

The lesson: sometimes the fastest way to grow a business is to stop overpaying for the money already in it.

6. Check who pays your advisor before you take their advice

Here's the part that separates our loan desk from every other broker.

Jordan doesn't get paid by the bank. He’s on salary.

As he puts it: "Codie pays my salary. Your loans don't."

Full disclosure, Contrarian Thinking does take a commission from funded loans, but Jordan is NOT incentivized to increase your loan size or use specific lenders.

Case in point, when a member came in with strong terms from her own bank and Jordan beat them, only for her bank to come back and beat him…

He told her to take her own bank's offer over our partner.

Our #1 concern is YOU.

If what we do doesn't serve our members first, we stop doing it.

Period.

When Jordan floated a way the company could make a little more money on a deal, Codie’s answered, “No.”

We’re member-first.

Always.

The lesson: incentives write the advice. Find the advisor whose paycheck doesn't change based on your deal size.

The SBA Shoe-hound with a Heart

Named after Michael Jordan and obsessed with sneakers, Jordan learned supply and demand at 12 when his best friend charged him double retail for a pair of KDs.

He lives and breathes numbers.

But ask him what makes the job worth it and the spreadsheets disappear.

"In lending, you get so caught up looking at numbers. But in reality, that's someone's baby. That's their small business. That's what they put their whole life into."

The banks just see a file.

Jordan sees YOU.

- Team Contrarian

FROM THE COMMUNITY

Businesses is hard. That's why we love celebrating our members when they make progress.

Here’s a recent favorite:

This DJ built a $700K entertainment company from $0.

Here’s how you can steal his homework…

In 2016, Stephen “Stir Fry” Rice hit rock bottom:

-Marketing agency failed
-401k cashed out
-House sold
-Marriage over

He needed a reason to get off the couch, so he started hosting karaoke at what he calls the diviest dive bar in Alabama.

No professional gear or real plan. Just a mic and a Sunday night slot.

Within a few months, he booked another gig, then another, and another.

Then his first wedding.

Things snowballed, and pretty soon he was working burning out working 5 to 6 venues a week.

He was a victim of the owner bottleneck.

Trying to grow the business and be the service provider at the same time meant he was leaving tons of money on the table…

So when he joined the Growth Boardroom, we helped him with hiring, systems, and negotiating with vendors.

Now he owns one of the largest, fastest growing event entertainment companies in the area, and he’s on track to break $1M in revenue.

If you want to learn how Stephen scaled karaoke night to a high-six-figure business...

I'm breaking it all down in our free scaling bootcamp, today at 11am CST:

Save your seat here → CLAIM MY FREE SPOT

Want to join our groups of thousands of smart business builders and buyers?

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The information contained here is educational, may not be typical, and does not guarantee returns. Background, education, effort, and application will affect your experience and the profitability of any business. Individual results may vary.