Discovering Business Acquisitions for Financial Freedom - Episode 103
In today's episode, I talk to Sesealy Owens, a mom, entrepreneur, and trailblazer who turned a tough pandemic experience into an amazing success story. Sesealy shares how she and her husband learned to buy existing businesses instead of starting from scratch, giving them cash flow and stability right away. She explains what it takes to buy a business, why now is the best time to look into this space, and how you can make it happen too.
About our guest
Sesealy Owens is the Owner and Co-CEO of Decatur Montessori School, an AMI-certified school serving children from six weeks to six years old. With a background in sales and marketing and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Talladega College, Sesealy brings over eight years of business expertise to her role. She oversees key operations, including client satisfaction, business growth, management, and financial planning.
Inspired by her family’s legacy in education—particularly her grandmother’s impactful teaching career—Sesealy found her passion in creating opportunities for young minds to thrive. In a bold move, she became the first Black owner of the Montessori school in over 30 years, seamlessly blending her love for education with her business acumen.
Sesealy’s entrepreneurial spirit doesn’t stop there; she also owns several other businesses, showcasing her dedication to building generational impact and inspiring others to pursue their dreams. Guided by the belief that "if your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough," she continues to make strides in both education and business.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema: [00:00:00] Today, we're talking about the power of stepping outside your comfort zone and creating generational impact through business ownership. Meet Cecily Owens, owner and co CEO of Decatur Monastery School, an AMI certified program serving kids from 6 weeks to 6 years old, with a background in sales and marketing, and a BA in marketing from Talladega College, Cecily combined her business acumen and passion for education to take over a Montessori school in Metro Atlanta, the first black owner in 30 years inspired by her family's legacy in education and fueled by the mantra.
If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough. Cecily dove into this venture while working full time in tech, proving that you can pivot and succeed with purpose and strategy. She's also the owner of several other businesses, making her a shiny example of how entrepreneurship can lead to fulfillment and impact.
Stay tuned to [00:01:00] hear Cecily's journey.
Lessons learned and why owning a business might be the move for you.
What's up, my financially intentional people. I am excited to be joined by Cecily Owens. We're going to talk about the business acquisition space and learn more about that and why we need to look at this as a path to entrepreneurship. So welcome, Cecily. I'm excited to have you on.
Sesealy Owens: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Naseema: So let's start from the beginning. Did you ever think that you were going to be an entrepreneur and how did you enter this space?
Sesealy Owens: I was always lost, you feel that there's something different about you. I think that's the one thing that I was sure of. I just didn't know. You know what I was going to do naturally.
As a kid, right? I was like, I had the big dreams. Like I wanted to be this big singer.
Naseema: Ha ha ha! Okay, see? Ha ha ha!
Sesealy Owens: ain't even going there.
Naseema: That's hilarious! Ha ha
Sesealy Owens: We're not even gonna go there.
Naseema: ha!
Sesealy Owens: Yeah I have [00:02:00] these, huge aspirations as a kid, but, as you get older and life starts happening, I'm like, that ain't working. So I got to figure out something else. So I ended up going into corporate get my degree, going into corporate marketing and sales, did that for some time. And then the pandemic is what really changed our life. Yeah, my husband and I, due to the pandemic, we lost our jobs, had to end up being a full time mom and help my kids go all of a sudden, get into homeschool, I'm not the only one who has that story. I know. Me and my husband, we also did real estate on the side for a very long time, and we were active real estate investors, but.
We'll have that right now. We were things were tight. We were dwindling very quickly. So we had to pivot and my husband was very interested in acquisition and, how are we going to get money in, learning about he had been recently learning about [00:03:00] buying companies and such.
We, my family had been in the education space in the past and as well as my mother in law. We ended up finding this. School, he decided to go with the 1st, I'm like, nah, I don't know what this is. I'm not with it at all. So it took a lot of convincing for me to get on board.
But, once I finally did, the rest is history. We're able to purchase our 1st business and, we've been growing ever since then growing and scaling. And, we've had our times where we tried to start business before we all, a lot of us have, maybe not all, but a lot of us had those dreams to go off, start a business and grow from ground zero.
And I failed every time I was not successful.
Naseema: to us what a business acquisition is because most people are just like, what? What is the difference between a business acquisition versus just you just said, starting your own business. Mm hmm,
Sesealy Owens: I love that. Love that. Thank you for asking. When you start a business, obviously it's all you, it's your [00:04:00] idea. You create this, LLC and you literally start the business from scratch. Literally from nothing, no customers, anything like that. And you're building everything from the ground up, no employees.
When you buy a business, what you're doing, put it in the mindset of a real estate transaction. You're pretty much what you're doing is you're taking a company that already exists. And you're saying I'll buy that from you. So what you're doing is you're buying employees You're buying a reputation
Naseema: hmm,
Sesealy Owens: And my favorite is you're buying a cash flow.
Naseema: mm
Sesealy Owens: So you're walking into a business. I walked into a business with a salary
Naseema: hmm.
Sesealy Owens: So I went from having nothing and now I have a salary And then the business it already has customers It already has profit. It already has, an established name for itself. Typically the business I like to buy have been around for a long time and that [00:05:00] means it has stability.
So that's the difference between Buying or starting something from the ground up when you're literally building it block by block from scratch versus Walking into something that's already existed and already running
Own money to sustain itself.
Naseema: So in the acquisition space, though, like when you're looking to acquire something, what are some things you already talked about? Already has cashflow. It's been in business for a while, but first of all, how do you even learn about businesses to acquire? And then what criteria do you use outside of those two things you talked about?
And then I'm wondering like, what entices people to want to sell these businesses?
Sesealy Owens: Yes. I'm gonna start with your last question What entices people to sell you know, the funny thing is guess what retirement people have been running businesses for a very long time They don't want to you know, their kids don't want them,
Naseema: Mm.
Sesealy Owens: you think about it we're in a really great space right now, which is why I feel compelled to [00:06:00] share this knowledge, especially to our community because What we're starting to see is a pickup on baby boomers that started businesses years ago, and they're not being passed on down to their kids, but they built something and they want it to be passed down.
They wanted to continue
Naseema: Mm-hmm
Sesealy Owens: and similar again. I'm always going to go back to the real estate transaction because it makes a lot of sense, right? You want to get some sort of equity for how long you maintain the business. So when you, if you sell up, if you sell a house you want to get some money from it.
Same exact concept when you're buying a business. You get money from it that those are those sellers. So that's number one. Another thing. How do you even get into? Business acquisition or how do you find out you find out by word of mouth? i'm the word of mouth today Because I think it's bizarre that not enough people know about it right now.
All they know about is business startup or get in a real estate holds that all of these different things like that. But this is the strategy that not too many [00:07:00] people are talking about, so the best way I would say right now is just starting word of mouth. And then there are really great reputable sites that you can go on and just like realtor.
com there's business sites that have businesses listed for sale. Some of the criteria I was saying that I, that we try to look at, as we look at, obviously, businesses has been around for a long time. We look at businesses that are sustainable. Some businesses you can look at a lot of people are looking at car washes.
Now, a lot of people are looking at laundry mats. These are dry clean. These are businesses that have been in existence for a long time. There are restaurants, different things like that. But you want to look for a business and I say, I'm going to reiterate has been around for some time because it has an established customer base.
Naseema: Yes.
Sesealy Owens: And that's very important. If it has a customer base, and it has. Good, what I call profit and loss statements or certain statements that you [00:08:00] want to look at to see consistent amount of cash flow every single year, meaning that the business is able to financially take care of itself, take care of its employees, and then take care of you at the end of the year when you get profit.
Naseema: And you mentioned with one of the businesses that you acquire, you walked into a salary. How does that work?
Sesealy Owens: It works because the previous owners were working in the business.
Naseema: Mm-hmm
Sesealy Owens: So they're working in the business and now and they're getting themselves a salary. Guess what? When I buy. That company from you. I also bought your salary. So that belongs to me now
Naseema: But do you actually manage and run the business itself? 'cause you bought it you don't hire people to run the business.
Sesealy Owens: It depends I personally like to be very hands on I like to be hands on at least in the beginning, because you want to know your business. I would never recommend someone going into a business and then hiring someone else to run it because you don't know what to ask. You don't [00:09:00] know what's working and what's not working and you never know what another person could be doing or taking from your business.
So you always want to be able to go in and know your company. Just same thing is, your business as a startup. You need to know your business, even if it's already existing. So I 100 percent go in and I'm very involved in the initial. Transition and probably like the first year or two of the business.
It's not until that time I start to say, okay, I know what's going on in my company. I know what the numbers are looking like in my company. I know what I should expect and be predicting different things like that. We went through the challenges and went through those waves so you can learn. And then at that point I can bring someone else in because I know what I want and I know what I'm looking for.
So yeah, We do have people that are running our businesses but I'm still extremely hands on. I'm still extremely, I still need to know everything, and then eventually you get to a point where one of my businesses is way more efficient. They don't need me as much But I still always know what's going on[00:10:00]
Naseema: love that. But take us back because when you did your first acquisition, like you said, you and your husband had been laid off. Like, how did you fund these things? And then when you talk about acquisitions and you talk about like them being underrated and automatically not underrated, but like just not commonly thought about I think it's because automatically buying a business seems like it'll be hella expensive.
Like you need so much money, but you're saying that you did that. Out of a pandemic out of you and your husband, not working, talk to us about the financing of these things. Yes.
Sesealy Owens: You got to have the will to do it.
And I'll tell you what my story is when my husband decided that he wanted to get into this business that we wanted to move forward. And I decided, okay, I'm going to get on [00:11:00] board. Again, our account was dwindling and at this point, my only focus was paying my mortgage.
That was it. So I went and I my husband said, okay, we're going to buy this business, but. We're going to go through financing. It's very similar going back to real estate, right? Very similar to getting a loan That's the first thing you can get a loan on the business that way you don't have to put so much Down out of pocket.
You don't have ever have to pay full cash. I wouldn't even do that. That's never a strategy for me paying all cash what I did was my husband came to me and said, hey, you know what? We're going to buy this business, but we're going to go to the bank. We're going to go to SBA.
Small business association, but they need us to put 50, 000 dollars down. you, all I want to do is pay my mortgage. So it's a really hard time, but luckily I was still I was looking for a job in the meantime, right? So I was able to secure a really good job and i've been working in the corporate space for a while [00:12:00] So what I decided to do was instead of going for just a typical marketing job I went and got a sales job main reason why I got sales job because not only do I get my salary But I get commission and I need to get those what's the way that I can get some big checks So that's what I did and I bootstrapped myself.
I literally it was a pandemic Anyway, I stayed in my house probably about a good You Seven to eight months and I saved that was my strategy. I literally saved 50, 000 in eight months by literally saving every single one of my check. I put everything away if it wasn't groceries or if it didn't need to be spent.
I did not spend it. I did not buy anything for myself. I didn't do nothing literally I
Naseema: but you have kids and all this stuff. I just want to like, put that out there. Yeah,
Sesealy Owens: no, no, no, no, absolutely So that's what i'm saying again. I have kids and yeah, we needed groceries But you know at a time, at the time for a while. I wasn't working So what I did was I had to do food stamps at the time [00:13:00] keep it real real with y'all So I collected so I stocked up so I stocked up but I mean I would cook all the time again, my kids were at home, too You My kids were at home during the pandemic.
So again, that's it. I'm spending money on food. You're right about that. I'm spending, my money on built here and there, but I still was able to get a lot of commission checks. that was the key for me personally. that's my story.
Naseema: The reason why I said that is because. People always make an excuse for things like, Oh, I have kids. I can't do that. I have to take care of them. It's the pandemic. You know what I'm saying? So the reason why I said you have kids not to, it's not because I was saying like, people really think that having kids is like, Oh, I can't do
it.
Sesealy Owens: That ain't no excuse that's
Naseema: Exactly. But I love it. I gotta give you your flowers girl. Cause you buckle down. you knew what you had to do. You was in a position where you could have just been like, woe is me, and wallow, but you was just like, let me figure this out strategically. [00:14:00] How am I going to get 50, 000? And you made a plan and you stuck to it.
And a lot of people were like, 50, 000. Like, how can I save 50, 000? That's just too much. But you did that. And it only took you eight months. That is extraordinary. So I just wanted to give you your flowers
Sesealy Owens: I appreciate and I like what you said and that's and that's what I said first where there's a will there's a way I made myself I was like, you know what if we got to do this 50, 000, let's create a budget How much money do I need to make bring in every single month once I made that budget? I was like, all right.
Cool. This is how much money I need to make in commissions this time This is how many sales I need to make this is what I got to do I'm, like you there are no excuses and here's another thing to be practical. Every business is not as expensive as the one that I bought, the business that I bought, they have businesses that are 200, 000 or businesses that are, maybe four or five, there are businesses out there.
There's something out there that's going to work for you. You just have to be [00:15:00] willing to find it and that's it.
Naseema: Why do you think that. This time more than ever, it's like a good time for us to start getting into the acquisition space.
Sesealy Owens: I mentioned there's a lot of baby boomers that are out there and they're retiring,
Naseema: huh.
Sesealy Owens: Retiring and their kids don't want the business, so that puts us in a really good space to, we're starting to see a lot more businesses that are popping up. And another thing is, if almost, if not now, then when?
How many more and I'm just going to keep it real for me. I can ask myself, how many more startups am I going to do before I realize that strategy does not work for me. So I think now is a. An amazing time to look at businesses because there are and there are so many resources that are out there's grants that are you know, coming up left and right that will help you secure financing.
There's you know, so there's investors. There's capitalists. Like I said, there's sba [00:16:00] There's a phenomenal amount of ways that you can purchase the business Another thing is there's seller financing. A lot of people now are like, oh, I don't want to You Get into something because of or say I don't want to take a loan because of interest rates.
Okay here's a strategy i'm gonna tell you it's called seller financing where the Current owner or the seller of the business will give you A part of their money to help you finance. It's simple. You're able to negotiate better rates different there's so many different strategies out there, but I don't think it's a good I don't think we should be waiting on trying to figure out what we're gonna do with our life when you just I'm giving you the answers right here.
Naseema: I love that you talked about different ways to get into the acquisition space because yeah, you can do. Traditional financing, just like in buying a house, you can do seller financing, which is, I think, appealing to sellers too, because they get a fixed income every month, especially if [00:17:00] they're looking at going into retirement, like that's people's.
Like dream, right? You have a fixed monthly income, you know what you're getting. So I love that. But I want to talk about like the day to day of running these businesses because now you have multiple of them. You're a busy mom, like, how are you doing all of these things
Sesealy Owens: Ooh, girl. It's called balance. But,
Naseema: or
Sesealy Owens: and, and,
Naseema: thereof?
Sesealy Owens: okay, exactly. Or the, or the lack thereof. No, but Again, I have a team, so that's 1 of the good things about owning a business is when you have employees, you already have a team that's there to help you run the day to day. Essentially. What I do is I don't have to work on every single business, every single each business, every single day.
That's 1, but I do try to make sure that we're organized. I know what's going on. The month, maybe a [00:18:00] few months in advance down to the weeks down to the days. So I always, set up Mondays are like, really busy days. Obviously, for me, that's the 1 day I focus on every single 1 of them and I'll have meetings and say, okay, what's going on?
What needs to be done? But, you What I'm also doing is I'm delegating and I have a team that knows what their job is.
Naseema: hmm.
Sesealy Owens: I'm always getting an update on what's going on. If there's things that I need to partake in specifically. All right, then I'll, then I'll do that. If I have to know, whatever I have to do to work on the business, I'll do that.
But otherwise things are also being delegated, which allows me to spread myself a little bit.
Naseema: That's cool, but, like, when you were talking about buying a business, and I'm thinking about so you're buying a business, you're buying something that physically already exists, so you're buying only the physical building, but now you're dealing with schools, so you're dealing with staff, administrators, all that kind of stuff.
It's a lot of people to deal with,
Sesealy Owens: Oh,
Naseema: what do you, [00:19:00] and a lot of times people are scared of just like owning homes because they're like are renting out their homes and they're like, I don't want to deal with tenants. Right but you're talking about buying businesses now where you're like HR all of a sudden.
So you're like, dealing with all of these people, like, how have you found that part of business ownership?
Sesealy Owens: I think you have to have it in you, and here's the thing
You do you want to be an entrepreneur?
I think you have to ask yourself. What kind of business do you see yourself in? What do you like? What do you see yourself doing? Because guess what I actually take pride in having that type of leadership.
I thrive in that so I think it's a personality thing. Where I all together, I feel like my business to have about 60 employees, give or take that I, that we have to manage. But then I'm managing that, but then I'm delegating, so I have a leadership team. That's also working with my other employees.
And then another thing for me, I love, my term that I use a servant [00:20:00] leadership. It's very simple to me as long as i'm taking care of my people They will take care of me. So that's how I do it I mean you don't have to get a business that has all these employees, you know Get a business that has two or three, or get a business maybe that you just kind of run yourself It's all according to you can find something that specifically fits You just have to know what you want or and what you can handle.
I would definitely say in the beginning It's not easy. It's not meant for it's not meant for the week at all, but With time it always gets a little bit easier and then on top of that if You do get into a challenge to me I always tell myself when i'm entering a space or entering a situation that I haven't seen myself in before Okay, great.
This is opportunity for me to learn something new. I'm gonna grit my teeth. I'm gonna go through it. I'm gonna Accept the challenge i'ma go in headstrong, but guess what i'ma learn something I would never be new with [00:21:00] that ever again, and that just adds something to my tool belt.
Naseema: I love that. But what I also love is the fact that, you knew nothing about this space. You trusted your husband. He was like, I'm going to go ahead and dive in. And what I tell people is a lot of people feel like they need to know everything about everything before they even take the first steps.
And most things that in life. That you do, you have to learn along the way. Like I'm
Sesealy Owens: Mm
Naseema: like just simple stuff, like just opening an investment account. They have to know like what size of it, what is this too risky? Did it how to do X, Y, and Z start with just opening the account. And so I love that you just did that.
And like, how did you learn to even vet these businesses? Like, how did you learn to even know? On paper, because people can say their business is profitable all day, but you have to actually have the acumen to go in and look at their finances and say yes, not only is this business profitable, but it's going to make me a profit.
[00:22:00] Like, how did you learn those things?
Sesealy Owens: Yeah. So I'm gonna be honest with you. One, my husband is, and I, one credit I give my husband, he's insane at finance. That's just, that's when, that's one of his specialties, right? However, if you don't have that, you still have resources. we're not just,
Naseema: Mm
Sesealy Owens: to not, I don't know finance.
And so a few things. One, you do need to understand the numbers of the business, but you have people in there. If you're buying a business, the first thing that I would advise you to do is get a broker, right? If you don't know anything about buying a house, what are you going to do?
You're going to hire a realtor and they're going to help you through the process. That's the same thing a broker is going to do for a business. So that's number one, you get a broker. And I think you do need to take your time to learn finances, YouTube university, because that's exactly what I did. I under, I appreciate that my husband knew, but they ain't got nothing to do with me.
I need to know
Naseema: Exactly.
Sesealy Owens: I need to know so I took the time to learn myself what I needed to be looking at And you know what I need to [00:23:00] understand to make sure that if i'm putting my 50 000 into something I don't care what my husband knows. I need to make sure I know for myself and that's how I learn. Another thing Is when you go through a business I used sba And I love using SBA, Small Business Associations, to help me secure a loan through them because I look at them as a second partner, right?
if the bank is going to finance, it means give you money to purchase this business, they're assuming risk themselves. So guess what? They also want to see those profit and loss statements. And they want to see those expenses because they want to make sure the business is just as viable.
It's a risk to them too. So they're another partner. And those are some of the ways that was able to push us to say okay. This is good going through SBA, learning yourself and then, excuse me again, just constantly working with your broker and asking those [00:24:00] questions. Because again, another thing, typically, when you work with a broker, they're not going to put you into a business.
That's not viable. They won't even take a deal like that.
Naseema: And then, is it the same, like, when you work with a broker that they get the commission off of the end at the sale, at the point of sale? Yeah.
Sesealy Owens: yeah, they get a commission.
Naseema: Somebody wants, is listening to this podcast, wants to get into the acquisition space what would you recommend their first step be?
Sesealy Owens: I'm gonna say this. I think first step is, one, start following me. Ha ha ha. following me, hashtag at Cecily Owens on Instagram. But here's the thing, I want to urge people don't go buying any type of product, any type of course. Don't do that. There's free resources everywhere.
Start reading, start doing your research. Google a bunch of research. There's chat CPT now. There's YouTube. Start looking up all the information about what it takes to buy a business. [00:25:00] Start writing down some ideas of type of businesses that you feel like would best serve you. Because once the business is yours, it's yours.
It's your baby. So you're going to be responsible for it. So you better like it you better enjoy what you're doing. And then i'm really gonna help you out there's websites out there All you gotta do is go on google and search businesses for sale in your area That's obviously where you want to start and
you'll get a couple of websites. One is bizquest. com That's one another one is biz by sale. Those are two huge Huge websites that showcase businesses for sale all day every day. They're being posted So those are some good first steps, but first step is if you want to run a business you better find out why Okay
Naseema: in general going into entrepreneurial space and I feel especially since the pandemic everybody wants to be an entrepreneur all of a [00:26:00] sudden, because they think that, the sky's the limit on my money. It's not capped. I'm not traded time for dollars.
If I'm working in a 9 to 5. Okay. Entrepreneurship is not for the weak of heart. Like you don't automatically just become an entrepreneur and start generating income. Like you have to understand why you want to do it and actually have a plan to build a strong business. Let me tell you something.
I'm an accidental entrepreneur, right? I'm a full time nurse and an accidental entrepreneur. And as hard as people say, nursing is entrepreneurship is a million times harder. So I am always reluctant to be like, we will lie. I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm like, but wait,
Sesealy Owens: do you
Naseema: No, but, but. But, and I love that there's so many alternatives. there's so many options, I should say, to [00:27:00] entrepreneurship, because like you said, like people are like if I'm an entrepreneur, I got to build it from the ground up. I got to start from scratch. No, there's an opportunity to buy existing businesses that are successful and go ahead and shimmy into that.
As long as you understand that you are going to be working for that business. You're going to be employed by somebody. I think that people like, like when they think about
Sesealy Owens: you think that you're just not going to work?
this
Naseema: you become the boss and you probably not a great boss because I'm sure you didn't have, you don't have no leadership skills. You ain't got no time management skills. You don't have no budgeting skills. You don't have all those things, not saying that you can't acquire them and you will acquire them if you successfully run a business, but you have to understand that those are the skills that take to run a successful business.
So anyway, ran over.
Sesealy Owens: No everything that you are saying is 100 true and there's nothing I was thinking I was like, you know what's funny is that? It's the [00:28:00] same thing if you want to start a business and you decide that i'm not doing it no more. i'm tired of this then, you know You find another way to pivot a thing about with me specifically.
I never gave up on trying to find You Something that worked for me. That's how I knew I was built for, to be an entrepreneur. And then, to your point. You're going to be working for somebody. And who do I work for? I work for all those 60 employees that are under me. That's who I work for. I'm not the boss of nobody.
I get it. I lead them. I own the companies. I'm the CEO of the companies, but I, I, I'm here to serve my employees. My employees are here to serve our customers. That's who you work for. On top of that, like you said, you think you're replacing a 95 9 to five. Oh no, you can be working 24 hours.
Believe that you're gonna be working 24 hours on that business. Believe it. But it is life changing. It's a hundred percent life changing because I went from, I wasn't happy. [00:29:00] I wasn't fulfilled with what I was doing because yeah, I did feel like I was working for, I was working for somebody else, making them tons of money.
But now guess what I'm doing. I'm not only am I walking into a business that already has cash flow that I don't have to build from the ground up and I'm walking into a salary, but then not only do I get a salary, but then I get a large ton of money at the end of the year. I take my profit. And it changes your life.
It changes your perspective. I am in a position now where I can create my own schedule. You're right, I'm a mother. I want to be there for my kids. I don't want to miss things. I don't have to miss any events for my kids anymore. So, we all know the benefits of being an entrepreneur.
But you also got to be willing to make those sacrifices. And I think maybe that is what people probably don't talk about enough. You got to be built to run a business. Yeah.
Naseema: Yes. So I wanna talk about like financially, like how things have improved in your life. What things have you been able to do from [00:30:00] acquiring these businesses?
Sesealy Owens: A lot. Yeah, we're not struggling no more.
Naseema: Mm-hmm
Sesealy Owens: I would definitely say that. We've been able to buy a bigger house. That's 1 of the dreams that I've had, we've been able, at the time and another thing I didn't talk about, we sold one of our cars during that time. So now, we have really nice cars that, you know, that we like that we rewarded ourselves with.
Again, I would say to me, the biggest reward that we've been able to do financial and it's financial. We've been able to buy our time back.
Naseema: Mm-hmm
Sesealy Owens: And again, that's just something time. Is this that 1 asset that you can't, it's the most expensive because, once you can't you can't buy it again.
That's it. Once your time is up, it's up. Obviously, we've been able to do a lot. Within our personal life, if I want to go out and if I want to take a vacation or go somewhere, yeah, we can do those things now. I would say this, though, we are very, blessed financially.
We're [00:31:00] not out here balling out of control, though. I'm just, I'm not that kind of person. I like to be very responsible with my money because the thing about it is I'm also creating generational wealth for my kids and for my grandkids, that are coming. Yeah. A dream of ours is to be able to scale and we've been able to buy even bigger companies.
So we bought a small business and now that small business we bought another one that was a little bit bigger and then a little bit bigger, so we're being able to scale up and really able to make our dreams come true and really be able to start to prepare to pass down and create a legacy for our family.
Naseema: How did you know that you have gotten to the point where you can go from owning this small business to now scaling to the next business like what were you at a certain financial point or did just an opportunity come up that you just couldn't miss?
Sesealy Owens: That's a good question. I think I would probably say that We were really secure. it was that moment where I felt like, okay, this business was running itself
Naseema: Mm hmm. [00:32:00] Mm
Sesealy Owens: to, you just start to want more. Again, depending on the type of person that you are, we want a lot. Our dreams are huge. So we know that, okay, now that we got this, we feel like it's time to move to the next step. You just know, when it's time and we said we wanted to do something, we want something a little bit bigger. So we started searching and we started to gather partners. We don't have to do every single thing by ourselves.
Now once we are able to get partners and realize we didn't have to be spread so thin. Okay, now is a good chance. You have to know what you need first and once you're able to secure what you need, then you're able to take that next step and grow.
Naseema: Love that. I love that. Now you said you went from owning one business and now you're, you own how many businesses?
Sesealy Owens: four.
Naseema: Okay, and then you have some stuff in the works as well. Yeah,
Sesealy Owens: Always always
Naseema: the background. Right
Sesealy Owens: Always
Naseema: when with these businesses cash flow wise, how does it work? Do you get, do you take a monthly income or do you have to wait to [00:33:00] the end of the year for profit sharing or like, how does it work?
Cash flow wise.
Sesealy Owens: yeah, it depends on what you want to do. You know what I like to do is I I take a style I don't try you don't try to take salaries from every Single business because you have to think about it if you're taking all of that income in guess what you're gonna have to pay at the end of the year
Naseema: lot of texas. Yeah.
Sesealy Owens: Exactly exactly. So what I like to do is you know for one business is my Where I do my base salary, and then we just like to hold our money until the end of the year, or we'll, roll it over or we'll try to put it away. But it's all about being able to grow 1. it's always about having what you need and think about it is the more money you make.
Oftentimes with people, you also see the more money they spend. we learned that early on. Goal is to try to secure as much funds because those funds are allow us to invest in the bigger projects. So that's what we do. We have our base salaries
Naseema: nice.
Sesealy Owens: at the end of the year.
But then there's also. A pretty big chunk that we [00:34:00] just say to the side we put it in different type of investments That way the money can start to grow it grow by itself. Yeah
Naseema: So you talk about having a broker, but it seems like you need an accountant. What people do you have on your team, on your personal team for your family to run these businesses?
Sesealy Owens: Yeah. Yeah, we have we have a broker and the broker that we have for our older businesses, we always. We keep them on standby. We have a really great relationship with them. So they help us. Analyze businesses, should we decide to move forward with them? They also present us with a lot of opportunities.
Another thing that we have as an accountant for my staff, personally, because right now, primarily right in the child care space, we have our directors and we have our on the other business. We have our other leaders. So we'll have we have a CMO or a C. O. O. that's also a part of the that really looks at the day to day of the business every day.
So That's what our team is. [00:35:00] I need an assistant. I don't have one. I'm too nosy. I'm too deep into my businesses To have an assistant so I personally don't have an assistant That's probably something that I need to look into but i'm not i'm personally not ready for that yet I don't want one. I'm good
Naseema: But because you're over all these businesses, right? They all have their own individual, financial thing, people in there that works in the business, but for you, when you do your taxes at the end of the year, how do you figure those things out? Because it's totally different filings. Who does all of that for you?
Sesealy Owens: Definitely an accountant. We have a family accountant for sure. So we have accountants that work specifically on the business But then we have a personal family accountant that handles our finances at the end of the year.
Naseema: you have to buy.
[00:36:00] Right,
Sesealy Owens: That's what the accountant is for
Naseema: Do you have to have a lawyer? Do you keep like a lawyer on retainer and to look at your deals or do you trust by our
Sesealy Owens: Not we have a lawyer not on retainer. Yeah, and the main reason why is because again, just like I said going back to You Making sure the deal is done right in the beginning, we're able to, not need that so much. Now, obviously, there are times where we'll need to advise an attorney for something 1 or the other, but otherwise the broker.
Is very interested. We have obviously SBA that's going into the deal. So that's why we personally don't necessarily have a lawyer. We don't have the way I'm sure eventually we'll get to that point, but not at the moment.
Naseema: Okay, so basically it's just you running the businesses. You already have your administrators in the business, and then you heavily rely on your broker and then your accountant to do all the rest of that, and then
Sesealy Owens: And the broker is only for the beginning part of the business [00:37:00] after that, you're relying on, your team, your staff to. Assist you with that day to day. That's what you pay them for. And, you obviously want to make sure that the people that you're hiring are into what they're doing.
They love what they're doing. And, again, if you support them, they will take care of you.
Naseema: How involved are you in hiring and firing?
Sesealy Owens: Extremely involved I, how about this? I'll say when it comes to the hiring, I do allow my leaders just to have the autonomy. If they're hiring someone, they say, okay, what do you need? Obviously. In charge of, what the budget is for who they're going to be hiring.
But I say this, I let them hire as much as they want, because typically you're not going to know who a person is until 90 days after they're into the job
anyway. Always like to do a strategy where we do the more of attempt to hire. And that's pretty much to determine whether this relationship this new relationship is a fit on both [00:38:00] sides. So hiring i'm Not as involved But when it comes to if we have to let someone go I handle that by myself and not necessarily by myself, but I take that one on personally
Naseema: Wow, that's interesting. I just thought about that because I know the child care space is one that has a little bit of higher turnover than other industries, so I can imagine that if you're taking that on, that could be a huge time suck. Yeah.
Sesealy Owens: Luckily. So in the child care space. Yes, specifically. I own Montessori schools and because there's a lot of training involved. They're a little more sticky. So people don't get let go often, but I will say. Yeah, that's. Obviously the worst part of my job when you have to bring someone on and then, you have to let them go.
You always want to try to make sure you're doing right by people, regardless of the situation. Which is why I try to be so involved. That's [00:39:00] the protection part of me to make sure I'm protecting my administration, my staff, and also the person that's being let go.
Naseema: That it seems like a lot, I'm just like, but that's
Sesealy Owens: Not my favorite
Naseema: say you have to learn. You have to love what the business that you own, you have to love what you're doing.
Sesealy Owens: Yeah. It's your, it has to be, it has to be your baby. It really does.
Naseema: All right. So just to walk us through again, like somebody that, it's like, all right entrepreneurship is my thing.
I haven't thought about the acquisition space. How do I get into the acquisition space like I know you mentioned sba Like you mentioned, you know searching everything not necessarily just jumping into buying courses and all of that But walk us through again, if you were to do it over start from scratch.
How would you walk through? From searching to the actual acquisition
Sesealy Owens: Yeah. So the first thing I would [00:40:00] do, I always say, it's just like a get yourself a vision board. And find your interest. What are you interested in? Once you know what you're interested in at that point Let's start searching some websites for businesses in your area that are for sale and then Start looking just start looking if you happen to stumble upon a business that oh my gosh I like this.
I think this is a good fit. I want to learn more reach out to the broker. That's listing the business After you do that, you're going to sign an NDA. And then they're going to send you a ton of information about the business. That's when you start doing your due diligence. That's when you're going to see how much the business makes how many employees there are.
Do you wanna manage that many people?
Naseema: hmm.
Sesealy Owens: you have partners that you're gonna split, your money with? If you have the money and you can buy a business on cash, good for you. But if you [00:41:00] need financing, I would say this, do similar to a mortgage calculator and say, okay if the business is a hundred thousand dollars and you look at their financing and says, okay, why if it's a, 10 year loan, you have to pay this much at a certain time, this much each month, , all that information up.
SBA is typically a 10 year loan. Okay. So if you have a loan for 100, 000, how much is it going to be for 10 years? You just break it down by months. You do those mortgage calculators. Once you find out how much money you have to spend each month on that mortgage, subtract that from The money how much the business makes because you're not going to get that money.
You have to pay it back And then you'll start to see how much money you really can make, And so once you start to learn that and you say, okay, I think this is a fit then you reach out to the broker And you say hey i'm interested in the business I'm a first time, business be a first [00:42:00] for me, walk me through it Make sure you find the right broker too
Naseema: hmm.
Sesealy Owens: If the person that's listing the business is not right go find your own You
Naseema: Typically from signing that NDA Mm. To like taking over the business. What, I'm sure there's no typical timeline, but what is your timeline? What have your timelines been?
Sesealy Owens: Yeah, our timelines are pretty long. It can be as long or as short as you want, just all depending on what you go through. Typically, if you go through SBA, which has been 1 of our primary choices, the deal can take up to 6 months just because. There's so much information that SBA is going to ask for and then there's also so much that they're going to be, they're going to ask you as well.
So you're just going to have to be able to. There's going to be a lot of paperwork involved, but again, you'll learn along the way and that's goes back to my original statement. if you want it, you'll go through the process and you'll learn really quickly whether this [00:43:00] route is for you or not, because it's life changing and anybody can do it.
It's just not easy to get there.
Naseema: A hundred percent. And , because you've owned a home, and I know you've gone through the process of like home ownership versus taking on a loan from a business. How similar or dissimilar are those processes? Mm hmm.
Sesealy Owens: they're similar in terms of again, being having to work with a broker, them having to know and dig into your finances. And also dig into the finances of they only dig really into your finances when it comes to buying a home when it comes to buying a business.
They have to do both. So they want to know the viability of the business. And they also want to know the viability of you securing this loan, because the loan is pretty much. They're looking at you and they're also looking at the business. So those are the big key differences. And that's why it takes so long because they're not just looking at. You buy yourself and say, okay you can take on this long, and because it's [00:44:00] a real estate, guess what? It because it's a real estate deal. In the event you're not paying. Oh, we could just. We could take the house, you know with a business. It's a little more risky for the banks that's why they need a little more information a lot more information actually
Naseema: Interest rate wise what are the differences by a personal loan versus or a mortgage versus a business loan?
Sesealy Owens: surprising. They're not different at all Yep, they're they're not different at all. It all runs all on the same.
Naseema: Okay, okay. Yeah, I think like a business loans would be like halfway higher interest rates because, generating income and all that kind of stuff. Plus the risk because it's not a secured asset. Like you said there's a business there, but the bank is not about to come in and run that business.
Mm
Sesealy Owens: and I think the thing about it is it's what they call like What typically what businesses what loans or banks are looking for is they're looking for. Okay, we're gonna do this business Where's the [00:45:00] collateral? So our first business we purchased Just the business with no real estate. And what we did was we had to get some type of collateral So we used our home as a piece of the collateral
Naseema: Okay.
Sesealy Owens: and If you buy a business that has real estate on it, there's a bunch of different ways you can do that too, but that's the collateral and you're actually able to pay off the business 25 year loan, right?
With maybe a no prepayment penalty, so that makes your mortgage a lot less expensive because you're paying over 25 years. And guess what? The bank will probably be more likely to finance it because it has that real estate attached to it.
Naseema: So when you bought the first Montessori school, you said you didn't own the business. So you guys were leasing this building?
Sesealy Owens: That's correct. Yep. we leased the land.
Naseema: assumed the lease that that was currently in place, or did you have to renew everything as new owner?
Sesealy Owens: we assumed the lease, but then we, eventually we had our own contract.[00:46:00]
Naseema: Okay.
Sesealy Owens: Yeah
Naseema: It's a lot and in a bad way. A lot like fascinating to me because I'm a nerd and I'm just like thinking about all the little things that you learn and the skills that you acquire in like
Sesealy Owens: That's what's amazing about it, that's what's so amazing it just Man, it takes you to a whole nother level. It takes you to a whole nother level of intellect And the crazy thing is I think that's what's a little sexy about it It's everything that you learn in the process and now, you know this like I mean to me You This is about, four years ago, right?
Just the fact that I can look at myself and say, I had no idea for just four years. I had no idea. Now I'm able to sit down and have a conversation with, someone like yourself and we can just talk business and there's so many things that you learn in the process. Listen, I'm a nerd.
Learning is so sexy to me, and [00:47:00] on top of that, it just learning pays well, at least in my industry.
Naseema: Right.
And I just think about people always talk about failing. Okay, I don't wanna do this. What if I fail? If you fail, you have acquired so many skills that make you so much more marketable, period. Like your worst day is everybody else's. Every day you just go back to work and now you can say, I've done this and this and this and this and this.
And, it just baffles me like how many excuses people make, to not do the things all of the thing.
Sesealy Owens: you made such a good point. You made such a good point earlier because you had mentioned that. Oh, when people are getting into something, you're getting into investment, you're getting a startup is, oh, I need to know this. I need to know this. I have to know all this information. If you put yourself in analysis paralysis.
Naseema: 100%.
Sesealy Owens: exactly. So to me I love when you go all in my husband and I use a [00:48:00] model. We just said, we'll see how far we can go.
Naseema: Yeah.
Sesealy Owens: that's it. We see how far we can go. And, but that's just as taking on risk. If there's something that we don't know, somebody does go ask somebody. Do it. Go ask somebody.
I promise you, you'll figure it out. Look at, look at everything that we've done in life. Life happens, there's so many things that personal happens in our lives. You literally can take those personal experiences and the fact that you, if you can go through something and get through it, then you can do the same thing in business.
It's the same thing.
Naseema: Yes. I love that. I love that. Everything is transferable. And I think we undervalue how, like our worth just in general. And so I love this conversation because it just opens. It opened my eyes and I know it'll open my listeners eyes up to just more possibilities. And that's the whole reason why I have this podcast is because I feel like, especially for us opportunities are apt, right?
We're not told about these things, like all we're, Told [00:49:00] is go to school, get a good job, work there for 30, 40 years, 50 years, and then retire. But there are so many different paths that you can take in life, but until those paths are opened up to you, you won't know what's possible. And then you also, if you don't see people that look like us or look like you in those roles, you don't think it's for you in those positions and doing those things, you don't think it's for you.
Everything is for you. Everything is for you. But yes, it is important for you to see people that look like you in those spaces. And it's important to hear the voices of people in those spaces. I am like. Super grateful for you being here to share your story and it's definitely if you always have a rags to riches, I hate that term because honey, we was never in rags.
Okay. But you would
have to,
Sesealy Owens: You know what? That's
the 1st
Naseema: you did have.
Sesealy Owens: that. I'm going to use that.
Naseema: Because, but you did have to overcome a lot. [00:50:00] Unemployment food stamps to owning multiple businesses. That's. aspirational, a lot of people are scared to go through the trials and if you don't have the trials, you don't have the testimony. If you don't have the test, you don't have the testimony.
I'm just grateful for you sharing this with my audience, because people need to know people need to know there's so many opportunities for them, limitless opportunities and it's for them. It's for us. It's for uses,
Sesealy Owens: exactly. Hey, listen, and that's the thing is just I feel like it's my obligation. Literally, it's my obligation because I keep hearing, oh, starting businesses, starting business. That's not the only way, sis, bro. That's not the only way. It's not the only way. And it's just, I know, I love how you mentioned that.
People come up with so many different excuses as to why they can't do something or, Oh my God, they tried and tried and tried it and it's not working, I get it. I was, I was tired. I was tired of working corporate life. And then I tried to start, [00:51:00] start a business to call myself an entrepreneur and I couldn't do it.
I kept failing, but the thing about it, I had to choose my tired. Okay, so if i'm tired of starting businesses and i'm not going nowhere, but I know I don't want to work corporate I got to figure something else out. So yeah what i'm doing every single day. It may be hard, but I would choose this Any day of the week over what I had before
Naseema: Yes. Yes, yes,
Sesealy Owens: so you gotta you know what they say you gotta pick your poison I don't like poison, I don't like that term, but But yeah, you know you gotta you know pick what you want your what you want your struggle to be And I think again, this is something that I had to learn how to do on the go, but I started just once you learn one thing I think it's once you go through a challenge that's really hard.
Like I bought a school during pandemic. One of my, one of my first challenges was, someone got COVID and I had to shut a classroom down. What? [00:52:00] How? How? Now what am I supposed to do? I didn't have an answer, but I kept having conversations and talking and looking upstairs and researching until I found one. And then you find an answer, and guess what? You get through it. And everything is okay. And then once you grasp that concept, be like, Oh but then it happens again. And I'm like, Oh God, here we go again. But guess what, I got a little bit more information on what to do now. I'm not as, I'm not as stressed as I was before.
And you get better, and you get better, and you go through stuff. Come on keep bringing stuff. Keep bringing now that's where I'm at now i'm ready for a challenge bring it to me so I can figure it out So I go that's another tool belt. That's another tool in my tool belt And i'm gonna get better and better and you really ain't gonna be able to mess with us then that's why i'm Like I can't that's i'm it's my duty to tell y'all about what's going on because come on We can't I can't do that.
We can't mean we can't do this by ourselves [00:53:00] know on, let's go. Get on the train. i'm giving away this information, I keep telling i'm not making no course I don't want nobody to pay for this information because this is something that you need to know
Naseema: I love that. I love that. So how can people get in contact with you and learn more about you? I'll
Sesealy Owens: can find me on my instagram at cecily owens. Yeah, that's it on instagram
Naseema: put the link in the show notes so people just click through it. I love that. I love people who are just genuinely interested and Helping the next person I've, grew up with the philosophy of each one, teach one. So anytime I'm learning something new that I know we can benefit from and that's how actually this platform was started, I can't keep that information to myself because I feel like, shit, if I would have known about this earlier, I would have been doing this,
Sesealy Owens: Thank you because guess what i'm gonna get the information y'all [00:54:00] because i'm gonna need somebody else to give me some information
Naseema: You Yeah, exactly.
Sesealy Owens: You we go, we always want to be a blessing to someone else and we'll be keeping secrets For what? Why you holding something to yourself?
Mm mm. Spread We got to help
each other.
Naseema: thing is, I found that the more that I share and the more that I help other people, the more that opportunities that I have, the more blessings that I get. let's
Sesealy Owens: Listen, preach to the choir, girl. Exactly. We're doing what we are doing, what we are meant to do. We spread the message and I'm very grateful for your platform. I'm immensely grateful because there's not enough platforms with people like us that are ready to spread the knowledge and spread the wealth to help our people.
And that's why I'm here and I'm grateful to be able to speak on your platform today.
Naseema: Well, I'm grateful for having
you because I learned a lot and I know my listeners have learned a lot as well. But yeah, it's all about. Showing people what's possible [00:55:00] and thank you for opening up this whole new Avenue of entrepreneurship. So I
Sesealy Owens: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, girl.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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