This article is based on an interview originally recorded on Visa Franchise Youtube Channel.
P: Patrick Findaro here, co-founder and managing partner at Visa Franchise joining Marianella Manzur, who is the director of sales and marketing at Joorney Business Plans. We have been working with Joorney Business Plans basically since we started Visa Franchise back in 2015. I would like to say we have over 200 mutual clients together that you have done an E2 Visa business plan.
M: Thank you so much Patrick for having us!
P: You have been a huge ally for us, with the immigration attorney understanding how best present the case. You are helping us sell why this investor is going to be successful in the franchise business and why they should get an E2 Visa. Going above and beyond, all of us with the immigration attorney are working together for the client with the end goal of obtaining the Visa and having a successful business.
Contents
About Joorney’s Origins
P: Please tell me a little more about Joorney and the experience you have cultivated over the years with specifically the E2 Visa business plan.
M: Joorney started because our CEO Ben actually needed an E2 Visa business plan of his own. So 10 years ago, we started developing business plans for many purposes. Of course, immigration is our bread and butter. Right now we have more than 150 employees, and we are doing more than 6,000 business plans a year for visas in the US, Canada, and Australia.
Of course, the E-2 business plan has been one of our most popular business plans. We have done them for all the industries that you can imagine, and we have learned a lot by working hand in hand with you and also attorneys.
E2 Visa Business Plan
P: I think your firm has probably touched the most E-2 Visa investor cases. Siemens or these big Japanese banks are sponsoring employees, and you have attorneys that will do thousands of those cases, but you are much more focused on the investor space. I have never met anyone that has done so much, we are just 650 families today over the last eight years, but you must have done like 5,000 plus E2 Visa business plans.
M: Exactly. I count or at least estimate how many plans we have done in the past 10 years, and I would say over the course of 10 years we have done around 10,000 E2 business plans.
P: Wow!
M: It is a huge number. Many entrepreneurs come from all over the world and the great thing about the volume is that with the operation that we have, we get to know about the trends as soon as they are happening, so we can integrate anything we learn into our documents immediately.
E2 Visa Denials : Successful Ending
P: In 2016 we had a denial when our client applied for a real estate property management franchise, and he only invested $42,500 dollars. The attorney was not pushing hard on the client, the client was also pushing back not wanting to get back more funds, so it was denied. So, the first person I called was Joorney asking you to go through all your approved real estate property management business plans, to see how we can push this forward. Sure enough, you did. The client had invested then $90,000 which with another $20,000 in working capital goes back into the interview, and gets approved. Now he has 400 units under management and is doing really well, five years into his business on track to get a green card.
M: Wow, that is amazing
P: Yes… We want to avoid denials. I think today we probably have had 12 denials on the first attempt. All the clients that tried a second time had final approval, but there are of course people that pull back. We want to be as proactive as possible in working with you as well as top immigration attorneys to get approved the first time.
M: Amazing! I love to hear those stories. Real estate is very tricky, it is one of the industries that we do the most. It is very important to have the immigration lawyer determine an immigration strategy on the back end and also to make sure that we are in line with that.
E2 Visa Business Plan for Argentines
P: You had a lot of Argentines that went on with a business plan not working with Joorney, saying that they would do like 10 projects over a five-year period, but then they go on to renew the Visa, and they just did one. Buenos Aires constantly got really hard on real estate-related activities. We have seen that with other consulates around the world, where your fellow compatriots can really make it. There are certain industries that are definitely harder for the E2 Visa.
M: Exactly. We try to raise our hands sometimes when we see those red flags, and then bring the immigration lawyer to ask the client if they are sure they want to do this. We also try to stay neutral on the legal side and then focus on the business. From our experience, we try to contribute as much as we can with the expertise of the team. We are all here for the ultimate goal, to make sure that these families come to the US. The business is a small part of it, but the families are what we are here for.
P: Yes! We want the guy or the whole family to get the Visa approved and then have success in the US
M: Exactly, indeed.
Why Joorney Business Plans?
P: A frequent question is why to hire a third-party firm? Why not just do it yourself?
M: That is a great question, Patrick. Basically, the first thing would be the expertise: the fact that we really know what immigration is looking for with those business plans. The other thing is that immigration expects a document that is very thorough, and very comprehensive. That has a market research or analysis that is very up-to-date, so part of it is that we use sources like Ibis World, Statista, and different sources depending on the industry.
The third reason is saving time, some people say “I can do it by myself” and some of them can, but they will struggle maybe getting those sources. But we basically call them up seven or ten days after to see how have they done it, and they even haven’t had started. And with us, by now we would have had the first draft. So probably the lawyer is wanting to get that business plan very fast, they want they’re doing a ton of things at once, so saving time is also one of the reasons why.
P: We have worked with you with some attorneys, and some of our clients have gone with one of your competitors. And the turnaround is more like three months to get the final business plan completed.
M: Our E2 business plan turnaround is seven to ten business days. We even have Rush Services of five business days and even Super Fast services of three business days. We are very strict with the deadlines, and that is something that we have heard from lawyers that we used to work with. There is something that the competition does not do well, and they do not respect deadlines as much as we do.
Franchise Business Plan: Full Package
P: And I know you do some franchise business plans, some existing businesses and you do some startups.
M: For the franchise option, I would say that it is very important to get the information that you are receiving from the franchise itself, so we can use that information.
Sometimes people say they have the business plan that the franchise gave them, but lawyers always recommend the plan we do specifically tailor-made for immigration purposes. The agreement of acquiring the franchise is going to be very significant. We are going to include everything, from industry analysis, market analysis, what the strategy is going to be for sales, marketing, and the personnel plan. Job creation is going to be crucial, the initial investment that they are making, and also financial projections for the next five years. We are going to show what has happened in the business before, but also focus on what investments and strategies are going to happen in the next five years. And also how those jobs are going to be kept and what people are going to be hired.
Complex E2 Visa Business Plan Cases
P: We have worked on some pretty complex structures together with the mutual immigration attorney, where there is a holding company or a family office and the franchise is almost like the anchor. The job creation is really going to be there and the initial investment, but then they are going to go on and do consulting, and do our real estate Investments to really open up the type of work that they can be doing in the United States. Do you have any takeaways for those types of more complex cases where it is not just investing in an ice cream shop but creating a holding consulting company, and the first thing is the ice cream shop?
M: Yes, definitely those are very tricky, but the team actually craves those complex cases. The crucial thing in those scenarios is that it needs to be clear. Even if it is complicated, it needs to be a way that it is illustrated, so that everything can be shown in a way that the officer can understand, and basically anybody can understand. Sometimes those relationships may get tricky, so it is important to always clarify the relationship and always be able to show which company they are applying to. Then job creation can be considered within the financial projections, it is clear which companies are the ones bringing in the revenues for the jobs and that sort of detail is very significant for the business plan.
When should E-2 Visa investors start working with Joorney?
P: When should the E-2 Visa investors start working with Joorney? At what point in the process?
M: It happens very parallel to when they are reaching out to the immigration lawyer. I would say the location also is going to be important, but it is going to depend on the business, so if you are doing an e-commerce business that is going to serve all of the US, maybe the location is not going to be as important to have it before we start the business plan. But if you are doing a restaurant, location is going to be key, and we are going to need that before we even do the market analysis of the competition. I would say parallel to reaching out to the immigration lawyer once they have decided on the Visa type. Also, once they have decided on the business that they are going to either acquire or franchise, or establish.
P: Makes sense. Our mutual clients rarely renew the E-2 Visa, as they usually get the green card EB-2, EB-3 through the spouse, and EB-2 through the spouse. There are so many ways you can get a green card, especially if it is a five-year E2. If you want to continue on the E2 Visa for whatever reason, probably for tax purposes, when applying to renew an E2 Visa what are some of the most important points that you need to keep in mind?
E2 Visa Renewal
M: Great question. We actually get a lot of renewal requests, so I would say that for the renewal it is important to go back to what was planned before. Explain why certain things changed, why some were not accomplished, and what plans are being put in place for the next five years to make them happen. I would say we need to include additional business units and make sure that we explained that they came up in the business. If the team changed, what roles were hired additionally, and which ones are also planned to be hired?
The significant thing is to highlight what was accomplished from what was originally planned, and then project the next five years. There is a key thing here, which would be that we can not be overly optimistic in the original plan because then it becomes difficult to achieve but also not too conservative.
P: Yeah! Unless you are investing a lot of money, and you are going to hire a general manager, usually you will have to be working a lot of hours. 40, 50 to 60 hours a week at least for the first two years, and then you can hire a general manager, and maybe decelerate a bit or go on to open up that second unit. The US wants you to be active here, they want you to create jobs contributing to the US economy, so that's either going to be from your time and investment or a more significant investment.
E2 Visa Business Plan: What to do and what to avoid?
P: What dos and don’ts of the E-2 Visa business plan can you tell?
M: I would say first keep it simple, anybody should understand the business that you are going into. If it gets too complicated, it is a red flag. The second one would be things need to make sense, so make sure all the components of your business plan make sense and are coherent. The market with your strategy, the size of the team, and the projections must be reasonable according to what you’re building. Sometimes people are like “I am going to do everything myself, so I am going to be the salesperson, I am going to be the manager” So if you really want to sell to thrive and want to increase those revenues, throughout the years you need to establish a team. Depending on the industry that you are in, you are going to need different roles. So I would say that the second thing would be to make sure all components are coherent.
The other advice that I always give is to make sure it is in line with the immigration strategy. Always support yourself with your lawyer, and make sure that the number of jobs that are going to be created are enough considered by that immigration strategy. About the location, if you are going to have an office or not, if you’re going to have a warehouse or not… I would say it is important to have that in line with your immigration lawyer.
About don'ts: For immigration, do not try to do it yourself. We have the sources, we have the expertise, and we can save you time. Do not try to complicate things including too much information, it's better to be clear and concise, go straight to the point and as I was saying before, do not be overly optimistic but also do not be too conservative. Also, the most significant thing to have in mind is…
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Visa Franchise Youtube Channel
