Johnnie Martinez: On today's episode of the Dig, I am joined by Jeffrey Elliott,
Johnnie Martinez: founder and CEO of Elevate Capital, and I'll let him introduce himself and go
Johnnie Martinez: into his background a bit.
Jeffry Elliott: Thanks Johnny.
Jeffry Elliott: Jeff Elliott here. Yeah.
Jeffry Elliott: Founder and CEO of Elbex Capital. You know,
Jeffry Elliott: we are a independent finance company focused on small business.
Jeffry Elliott: All the way up to large corporations and governments, local and federal.
Jeffry Elliott: We are journalists in equipment finance focused again on underserved markets, so.
Jeffry Elliott: Most companies that are challenged these days with banks pulling back in the
Jeffry Elliott: market.
Jeffry Elliott: Place and looking for equipment financing.
Jeffry Elliott: Especially true lease financing.
Jeffry Elliott: We're a good source of of funding for that.
Jeffry Elliott: You know our markets.
Jeffry Elliott: Are.
Jeffry Elliott: All different types, a lot of underserved markets,
Jeffry Elliott: energy markets, oil and gas, renewables, agriculture, transportation industries,
Jeffry Elliott: corporate aviation, marine rail.
Jeffry Elliott: But generally anything a business or government can use,
Jeffry Elliott: we'll look at financing and we think there's a big marketplace available right
Jeffry Elliott: now.
Jeffry Elliott: With.
Jeffry Elliott: Different things going on in the economy and the changes in in banking and focus
Jeffry Elliott: on.
Jeffry Elliott: Primary bank customers and lack of transactional funding capabilities.
Jeffry Elliott: Independents seem to be rising and and we're hoping to really take advantage of
Jeffry Elliott: that and and help our customers out.
Jeffry Elliott: We're also very digitally focused. So we're we're trying to implement the
Jeffry Elliott: latest and greatest technologies to create a more fast,
Jeffry Elliott: flexible and transparent process.
Jeffry Elliott: Enable transactions to happen digitally.
Jeffry Elliott: Utilize artificial intelligence.
Jeffry Elliott: Intelligence to to work with our customers in in ways they want to be
Jeffry Elliott: worked with.
Jeffry Elliott: We also pick up the phone and talk to people and go visit people just old
Jeffry Elliott: school way.
Jeffry Elliott: But we're utilizing technology where customers want to utilize it and making
Jeffry Elliott: the process better, taking friction out of the equipment
Jeffry Elliott: finance process.
Jeffry Elliott: So those are some of the things that we're focused on at at elevex.
Johnnie Martinez: Actually no.
Johnnie Martinez: That all sounds great, and I that was one of the things I picked
Johnnie Martinez: up when I was first reaching out is, you know,
Johnnie Martinez: beyond your experience in the industry as well as the the innovation side of it,
Johnnie Martinez: the technology side of it, the things you guys are working.
Johnnie Martinez: On to sort of bridge that work on that gap,
Johnnie Martinez: especially in today where we spent so much of last year especially talking
Johnnie Martinez: about artificial intelligence and what it can be and what it can do.
Johnnie Martinez: But translating into something usable for the equipment finance industry.
Johnnie Martinez: What has that process?
Johnnie Martinez: Been like for you?
Johnnie Martinez: You guys, especially over these first few months as
Johnnie Martinez: you've been getting going.
Jeffry Elliott: Really exciting.
Jeffry Elliott: We're we're not all the way where we want to be yet,
Jeffry Elliott: but we're we're implementing things, you know.
Jeffry Elliott: Like this meeting here? I've I've probably got a a.
Jeffry Elliott: A agent taking notes for me.
Jeffry Elliott: So I can review the the call.
Jeffry Elliott: We're implementing AI on our website.
Jeffry Elliott: We get, you know, as a new business, we're getting a lot of inbound inquiries,
Jeffry Elliott: right. And the AI agent will talk to the
Jeffry Elliott: customers and and it's not out there yet, but it will be out there soon to.
Jeffry Elliott: Really. Get them. Get more information for us to respond to
Johnnie Martinez: Oh.
Jeffry Elliott: them. Now we will call them back.
Jeffry Elliott: It's not that you're gonna deal with a computer,
Jeffry Elliott: but you're you at least can get the right information in to us so that we can start
Jeffry Elliott: out way ahead of the game and get back to you with what you're looking for and and
Jeffry Elliott: who's the best person to.
Jeffry Elliott: Talk to you. Right. Not, you know, most people want.
Jeffry Elliott: They see me out as the face of the organization.
Jeffry Elliott: Well, it's hard for me to call every single
Jeffry Elliott: person back if someone's got a specific need.
Jeffry Elliott: Need and then I called him back and then I can bring the right person in to focus
Jeffry Elliott: on it.
Jeffry Elliott: AI can help me do that faster and I can get back to you quicker with the right
Jeffry Elliott: information.
Jeffry Elliott: So those are those are kind of cool things.
Jeffry Elliott: We'll have AI agents doing sales for us doing, you know, lead generation,
Jeffry Elliott: doing problem solving, analyzing documents,
Johnnie Martinez: Yeah.
Jeffry Elliott: comparing at least document against.
Jeffry Elliott: A specific one for a customer versus our base document.
Jeffry Elliott: What are the differences?
Jeffry Elliott: What was negotiated?
Jeffry Elliott: Those types of things, those things cost a lot.
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: When you hire lawyers to do it, and AI can do it in a much more fast and
Jeffry Elliott: low cost kind of way.
Jeffry Elliott: So there's all kinds of different things that we can do to speed up the process.
Jeffry Elliott: Using embedded finance approach.
Jeffry Elliott: So instead of the the old linear approach of, you know,
Jeffry Elliott: credit application compliance credit.
Jeffry Elliott: Proposal Doc prep. We're starting to work on all these
Jeffry Elliott: things.
Jeffry Elliott: At the same time, because we're taking an embedded finance
Jeffry Elliott: approach where we're gathering enough information that we can do more than one
Jeffry Elliott: thing at a time and bring it all together and service the customer faster and
Jeffry Elliott: quicker right when they want to be served.
Jeffry Elliott: So those those types of things are are really important to us from a technology
Jeffry Elliott: side, but we're still a people first business,
Jeffry Elliott: but we're still going to talk to people and when they want to be talked to,
Jeffry Elliott: if they want to be served digitally, we're going to be.
Jeffry Elliott: We're going to offer that.
Jeffry Elliott: And and that's important.
Jeffry Elliott: I know myself when I want to be served digitally,
Jeffry Elliott: I find it annoying that I can't do that with a lot of companies,
Jeffry Elliott: but sometimes I just want to talk to somebody and we're going to.
Jeffry Elliott: We're going to offer both, so we're going to be able to to do both
Jeffry Elliott: for for companies and hopefully that.
Jeffry Elliott: Mix of technology and people ends up in a better experience for for customers.
Johnnie Martinez: That makes a a ton of sense.
Johnnie Martinez: And yeah, you hit on the two of the very
Johnnie Martinez: interesting things there, the first one being the aspect of it
Johnnie Martinez: where you know it's about being able to to get everything done at a a speed
Johnnie Martinez: nowadays, especially in the modern consumer,
Johnnie Martinez: even though these businesses aren't necessarily the.
Johnnie Martinez: Consumers under themselves as like a, you know, AB to C.
Johnnie Martinez: It's AB to B.
Johnnie Martinez: But there's still a lot of that same mentality of this has to be done in an
Johnnie Martinez: instant.
Johnnie Martinez: This has to be done immediately because I need to be able to to be on my.
Johnnie Martinez: Way as a as a business just like I need to be on my way as a a customer and so
Johnnie Martinez: kind of balancing that.
Johnnie Martinez: We need this done efficiently, but we need to do things right on our end
Johnnie Martinez: as a lender.
Johnnie Martinez: So how do you kind of balance that when you're when you're thinking about when
Johnnie Martinez: you're putting it together, when you're having these conversations
Johnnie Martinez: with potential customers?
Jeffry Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of it is.
Jeffry Elliott: Think about some of the things that happen when you do.
Jeffry Elliott: Let's just take a $5,000,000 transaction.
Jeffry Elliott: So this is a larger transaction and a lot of people tell you well,
Jeffry Elliott: you don't need all this technology for that.
Jeffry Elliott: I I think you do and and the reason being is you know a $5,000,
Jeffry Elliott: 000 transaction in a typical bank can go into the bank and.
Jeffry Elliott: It could be like a black hole.
Jeffry Elliott: You could go two months not hear anything back.
Jeffry Elliott: And the bank will tell you? Well, we're waiting on this information and if
Jeffry Elliott: the salesperson isn't really if they're busy and they're not really on top of it
Jeffry Elliott: and they think everybody's communicated properly,
Jeffry Elliott: everybody's sitting there on their hands, waiting for somebody else to do somet.
Jeffry Elliott: One of the things with technology.
Jeffry Elliott: Can be constant contact on these things.
Jeffry Elliott: Here's here's what we need to process this transaction.
Jeffry Elliott: Hey, by the way, it'll reach out and say we're still
Jeffry Elliott: looking for this invoice.
Jeffry Elliott: Voice or this information on the equipment or this financial statement or
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: whatever it is that we're looking for, are these questions answered?
Jeffry Elliott: And so our systems will communicate with our customers and with our with our sales
Jeffry Elliott: people and everybody communicating consistently and at the speed of of
Jeffry Elliott: what's appropriate for the transaction at the time to move that transaction forward
Jeffry Elliott: quicker, I don't need.
Jeffry Elliott: The credit score of $5,000, 000 deal in 1/2 an hour now.
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: $30,000 deal.
Jeffry Elliott: We're gonna do that in in less than half an hour, but on a $5,000,
Jeffry Elliott: 000 deal I just need to be organized and keep things in communication and reach
Jeffry Elliott: out to the different parties.
Jeffry Elliott: Sometimes there's lots of different parties involved.
Jeffry Elliott: We've got appraisers or inspections or all kinds of different things, you know,
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: residual value insurance or some something going on in that transaction.
Jeffry Elliott: They're complex, right?
Jeffry Elliott: Well, the technology can help manage that whole
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: process.
Jeffry Elliott: You know can help you speed up your asset management process so you can analyze
Jeffry Elliott: those assets.
Jeffry Elliott: A lot of times, that's one of the things you're doing
Jeffry Elliott: when you're doing a $5,000, 000 deal is you're you're analyzing not
Jeffry Elliott: just the financial statements, but the asset itself.
Jeffry Elliott: Well, you need that information.
Jeffry Elliott: Technology can help you get that information faster and organized better.
Jeffry Elliott: You only have so much time in the day to do everything so.
Jeffry Elliott: Bringing those technology assets to bear in the big transactions are gonna make
Jeffry Elliott: them more fast and flexible and a better experience for the customer and meet
Jeffry Elliott: their deadlines.
Jeffry Elliott: And and we can manage our risk.
Jeffry Elliott: It also helps us in terms of risk on concentration risk.
Jeffry Elliott: So it let's just say we have $5,000, 000 transaction and we're only
Johnnie Martinez: Hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: comfortable with 2 1/2. Well, we didn't sell the other side of that
Jeffry Elliott: transaction, right?
Jeffry Elliott: So our technology is connected to our capital Markets group,
Jeffry Elliott: which can immediately start going to the market saying, hey,
Jeffry Elliott: we want to do this deal.
Jeffry Elliott: Do you want to take 50% of it or 25% of it?
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: And we'll find other players behind the scenes that will add us up to five.
Jeffry Elliott: $1,000, 000 and let us finish that transaction
Jeffry Elliott: off the old school way of doing that is you kind of finished the deal.
Jeffry Elliott: You take it down.
Jeffry Elliott: You start putting together an underwriting package.
Jeffry Elliott: It takes six months to do that.
Jeffry Elliott: Or you gotta.
Jeffry Elliott: It's just a lot of time to go talk to a lot of people,
Jeffry Elliott: use technology to connect with more people quicker and get a quick know or or
Jeffry Elliott: maybe then you focus on the maybes and not the no's.
Jeffry Elliott: Then you can get to that answer quicker and.
Jeffry Elliott: Serve your customers so there's a whole bunch of things that that really improve
Jeffry Elliott: the process when you utilize technology because you simply are trying to be in
Jeffry Elliott: too many places at one time and you you can only do so much so that technology
Jeffry Elliott: can can make some of.
Jeffry Elliott: Those phone calls for you or could make some of those communications for you
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: really speed up the process. And and it's not just about delivering
Jeffry Elliott: that credit approval.
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: It.
Jeffry Elliott: Doing all the things behind the scenes to enable you to deliver that credit
Jeffry Elliott: approval and close that deal.
Jeffry Elliott: So it's it's different from the small ticket process,
Jeffry Elliott: which is is just kind of systematically driven and quick,
Jeffry Elliott: you're taking a bigger process and bringing the timelines down between all
Jeffry Elliott: those little jobs that are built on each other and can be done at the same time as
Johnnie Martinez: No.
Jeffry Elliott: OPP.
Jeffry Elliott: To linear again, you know some of those things.
Jeffry Elliott: Asset management was down the list of things that you did.
Jeffry Elliott: You know, on a on a deal, you ate a few weeks right before.
Jeffry Elliott: Got started.
Jeffry Elliott: We start right away on that.
Jeffry Elliott: So it's it's a different approach.
Jeffry Elliott: You'll you'll see it work better for customers because they just they they
Jeffry Elliott: wanna know what's going on and you just consistently touch base with them.
Jeffry Elliott: So they they know what they need to be doing.
Jeffry Elliott: We know we need to be doing and everyone's connected.
Johnnie Martinez: Right. No. Yeah, that makes sense.
Johnnie Martinez: How old that would would fit together, especially just, you know,
Johnnie Martinez: condensing that timeline, smoothing that timeline out,
Johnnie Martinez: making it easier for everyone, and then the the communication
Johnnie Martinez: transparency part, which I do want to get into a little
Johnnie Martinez: later. But there's one thing you brought up that
Johnnie Martinez: I want.
Johnnie Martinez: To touch on because for me, as someone who kind of came into the
Johnnie Martinez: industry fairly recently, it's been fascinating to discover just
Johnnie Martinez: how many moving parts there are in the average transaction, right?
Johnnie Martinez: You think about it from almost an outside perspective.
Johnnie Martinez: You know, it's a deal.
Johnnie Martinez: Selling piece of equipment that a lender's got to finance,
Johnnie Martinez: but there's actually so many other moving parts to it. And so I, you know,
Johnnie Martinez: kind of getting into that and sort of how you manage that process and make sure
Jeffry Elliott: No.
Johnnie Martinez: that kind of everything's running smoothly for.
Johnnie Martinez: The stuff that's not necessarily your hands on directly.
Jeffry Elliott: Well, yeah, that that is.
Jeffry Elliott: It's critical because.
Jeffry Elliott: Equipment finance is made-up of a whole bunch of many businesses in many
Jeffry Elliott: industries, right?
Jeffry Elliott: And so a trucking deal is not the same as a construction deal and not the same as a
Jeffry Elliott: corporate aircraft deal and and so forth.
Jeffry Elliott: So all those industries and equipment types,
Jeffry Elliott: they all have nuances that are different. And so in dealing with dealers is
Jeffry Elliott: different and dealing with dealer A and dealer B,
Jeffry Elliott: you might have a total different program set up with both of them or no program
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: whatsoever.
Jeffry Elliott: And is it new equipment or is it used equipment?
Johnnie Martinez: Mm hmm.
Jeffry Elliott: There's so many variables to to deal with.
Jeffry Elliott: We all know what to do with those, but sometimes we we only got so much time
Jeffry Elliott: in the day, so having systems in place to facilitate
Jeffry Elliott: what you already know you need to do on certain transactions and have that taught
Jeffry Elliott: to AI.
Jeffry Elliott: So it starts doing it for you, and then you're you're still reviewing
Jeffry Elliott: everything. They're not making decisions necessarily.
Jeffry Elliott: That are final.
Jeffry Elliott: They're doing some of the work so that you can.
Jeffry Elliott: Review it and make final decisions on transactions.
Jeffry Elliott: I mean, we'll get to things where their auto
Jeffry Elliott: scored or auto decision and and doing things where IAI will make some decisions,
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: but it's really not about the decision making as much as it is about
Jeffry Elliott: facilitating making the process happen to go through all those different things
Jeffry Elliott: that.
Jeffry Elliott: Need to happen, you know. Are you?
Jeffry Elliott: Are you looking at a A used equipment piece?
Jeffry Elliott: What's the valuation there?
Jeffry Elliott: Who should we be talking to?
Jeffry Elliott: What are the comps in the marketplace?
Jeffry Elliott: Well, our systems can do that a lot faster.
Jeffry Elliott: Than an asset manager having to make a bunch of phone calls or go through a
Jeffry Elliott: bunch of old guides, you know, let's get real market information from
Jeffry Elliott: the Internet.
Jeffry Elliott: Let's find the right players to talk to on current valuation,
Jeffry Elliott: and then let's have those conversations and put that those comments into an
Jeffry Elliott: already populated equipment finance evaluation grid that AI did.
Jeffry Elliott: Right, 'cause AI can take all that data. Put it grid together.
Jeffry Elliott: Right then, asset management can come together,
Jeffry Elliott: come in and say, well, I spoke to Joe Smith at, you know,
Jeffry Elliott: Crane rentals and it. And he said these cranes are really in
Jeffry Elliott: demand because of XY and Z.
Jeffry Elliott: And then put those comments in there, and here's what we found.
Jeffry Elliott: And here's what we think the valuation is based on our conversation in the industry
Jeffry Elliott: and the data that we gathered from all these various sources.
Johnnie Martinez: OK.
Jeffry Elliott: So it it takes a lot of friction out of it. In the old days,
Jeffry Elliott: that's all done with spreadsheets and books and guides and and it's just it's
Jeffry Elliott: hard to document it and you know.
Jeffry Elliott: Asset managers are really smart people that know a lot about assets.
Jeffry Elliott: They're not necessarily.
Jeffry Elliott: You know authors and the best writers and organizers of that data, right?
Jeffry Elliott: And so having better organization for them to access the information that they
Jeffry Elliott: have and get the intelligence that they have in their brain really improves the
Jeffry Elliott: process.
Jeffry Elliott: So that's where we're going with everything.
Johnnie Martinez: Got you know that that seems like the best way to be be doing.
Johnnie Martinez: Especially you know that you've talked about so many times during this call is
Johnnie Martinez: as much of this technology as a tool and an asset for you guys.
Johnnie Martinez: There's always going to be the people element, right?
Johnnie Martinez: The the human aspect to it, being involved in it, and so I just,
Johnnie Martinez: I think that's one of the things that's important to note,
Johnnie Martinez: talking with people and finding industry who are on this tech side.
Johnnie Martinez: I'm trying to be so tech forward is it's not removing the human.
Johnnie Martinez: Element which is maybe what some of the other industries have done that have been
Johnnie Martinez: on the front end.
Johnnie Martinez: Of technology.
Jeffry Elliott: Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to really push that point
Jeffry Elliott: because I don't.
Jeffry Elliott: First of all, I don't want it to be that way and I
Jeffry Elliott: don't believe that's that. You could take us out of it.
Jeffry Elliott: 'cause there's it's. It's really more of an art than a science,
Jeffry Elliott: but there are pieces of it that are science, right?
Jeffry Elliott: There are pieces of it that are boring, like following up on insurance
Jeffry Elliott: certificates.
Jeffry Elliott: We can have AI do that, right?
Jeffry Elliott: Filing UCCS or doing searching for certain data elements.
Jeffry Elliott: There are things that technology can do for us that we.
Jeffry Elliott: We don't need to do and so moves everybody's job up a level to higher
Jeffry Elliott: level task. So while I might not need as many people
Jeffry Elliott: as I used to to do the same jobs, I can have fewer people pay them more and
Jeffry Elliott: they have a better work.
Jeffry Elliott: Life balance because they're making better decisions on better information
Jeffry Elliott: and doing less work. But more important work.
Jeffry Elliott: And that's really the goal.
Johnnie Martinez: Gotcha. No, I'm. I'm sure that that work life balance
Johnnie Martinez: element as well as an attractive thing for people who are,
Johnnie Martinez: you know trying to get into this industry as well as people who have been in here
Johnnie Martinez: for years.
Johnnie Martinez: And I think it's an interesting point, as someone who's been around for as long
Johnnie Martinez: as you're having the equipment finance space.
Johnnie Martinez: So and now you're in this position as someone who's the founder and CEO at Elev
Johnnie Martinez: X, running your own shop.
Johnnie Martinez: So what is the advice that you would pass on to someone who wants to be in your
Johnnie Martinez: shoes one day, or someone who's just now kind of getting
Johnnie Martinez: started in the space?
Jeffry Elliott: Yeah. So my number one thing we haven't talked
Jeffry Elliott: about it today is networking. You know in this, in this industry.
Jeffry Elliott: Understanding your your competition, being friends with your your competition,
Jeffry Elliott: you need partners.
Jeffry Elliott: We can all work together.
Jeffry Elliott: There's plenty of business out there for all of us.
Jeffry Elliott: Yeah. And any given time you might be competing
Jeffry Elliott: against somebody else and that's fine.
Jeffry Elliott: But understanding the marketplace, understanding what's going on,
Jeffry Elliott: knowing who the players are in the industry.
Jeffry Elliott: You know, knowing that somebody's better at,
Jeffry Elliott: you know, a crane deal than you are is a good thing
Jeffry Elliott: because you can take that to them and either split that deal or just sell them
Jeffry Elliott: that deal. And then you you can learn either how to
Jeffry Elliott: do that trans.
Jeffry Elliott: Maybe for the future, or just know that I've got a source to
Jeffry Elliott: place that transaction and make fee income off of it, right?
Jeffry Elliott: You don't have to do every deal on your balance sheet to to hold it.
Jeffry Elliott: You might be less of a balance sheet holder and and more of a.
Jeffry Elliott: A broker player and that's fine. I think you need to have a little bit of
Jeffry Elliott: a a trading aspect where you do take some risk somewhere.
Jeffry Elliott: If you're just pure brokerage that that can be a tough way to to go.
Jeffry Elliott: But the people do it that way. I think that that's more challenging in
Jeffry Elliott: today's model, but.
Jeffry Elliott: Really, networking with people is is critical.
Johnnie Martinez: Well, with all that in mind, the last question I would have for you is
Johnnie Martinez: there anything else you think listeners of the Digg podcast or readers of
Johnnie Martinez: equipment finance news should know about elevx capital or the the state of the
Johnnie Martinez: equipment finance space?
Jeffry Elliott: I would say you know that the state of the equipment finance space is, is,
Jeffry Elliott: is good, you know in in choppy markets equipment
Jeffry Elliott: finance usually does.
Jeffry Elliott: Well, we're we're we do well when things are
Jeffry Elliott: good and we do well when things are bad.
Jeffry Elliott: There's kind of chaos going on right now with the economy and tariffs and all
Jeffry Elliott: these things going on. You know, equipment still going to be needed.
Johnnie Martinez: Anywhere.
Jeffry Elliott: Market valuation on assets is kind of all over the place depending on what sector
Jeffry Elliott: you're in.
Jeffry Elliott: My advice to people is to to stay diversified in your your your plans.
Jeffry Elliott: If you're. If you're a leasing company that is
Jeffry Elliott: focused on one industry, you know how to, how can you diversify that,
Jeffry Elliott: at least within that industry or add a second industry. So you got some.
Jeffry Elliott: Diversification. You know, a lot of people have been hurt over the
Jeffry Elliott: last few years that were trucking focused and especially brokerage freight focused.
Jeffry Elliott: And you know, they really needed to to diversify that.
Jeffry Elliott: That in, you know, syndicate some of their portfolios and
Jeffry Elliott: have a a good plan.
Jeffry Elliott: But yeah, a diversified plan in choppy markets is a
Jeffry Elliott: is a good strategy to have and so.
Jeffry Elliott: We're we're positioned well to do well in this economy with more business being
Jeffry Elliott: built or products being built in the United States.
Jeffry Elliott: A lot of equipment needed for that.
Jeffry Elliott: So you know that that type of stuff works towards.
Jeffry Elliott: Our business doing well.
Jeffry Elliott: We'll see how the banks operate going forward.
Jeffry Elliott: I still think they're gonna merge and and pull back more in the equipment finance
Jeffry Elliott: space.
Jeffry Elliott: So I think there's gonna be more and more opportunity for independence,
Jeffry Elliott: but banks are just gonna.
Jeffry Elliott: They're always gonna play a role, but probably just a little bit different
Jeffry Elliott: role. And I think that changing landscape is
Jeffry Elliott: good, good for our industry overall.
Johnnie Martinez: Got you know that makes.
Johnnie Martinez: A ton of sense, you know, being an interesting time to to watch,
Johnnie Martinez: and I wish you the best of luck in it. And I thank you so much for your time
Johnnie Martinez: today.
Jeffry Elliott: Thanks, Johnnie.
Jeffry Elliott: Take care.
Johnnie Martinez: You too.