Starting a business at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic might seem like a gamble, but Brandon and Todd Avila have beaten the odds.
The brothers launched Priority Plus Financial in 2020 with a scant $90,000, drawing on money from their retirement accounts with some extra cash from a third-party investor.
The operation began in a modest, 300-square-foot WeWork office in Newport Beach, but the company recently moved into a 20,000-square-foot space in Irvine Co’s Pacific Arts Plaza in Costa Mesa. Priority Plus now employs 100 workers who have helped sales skyrocket.
Employees in the anonymous Top Workplaces survey hailed the company, a first-time honoree the program, for allowing the staff to “dictate their own paycheck.”
“I come into the office with a smile on my face and leave with a smile on my face,” wrote one employee.
“It allows me to have a balanced life which makes me want to give it my all at work,” said another.
“We generated $5 million in sales the first year, and we’ll be at $40 million this year,” said Brandon Avila, the company’s CEO. “We have the entire fourth floor at Pacific Arts Plaza and we hope to lease another floor.”
The brothers attribute the lending company’s success to a variety of factors.
“We put all of our faith, knowledge and ability as salespeople into this,” Brandon said. “Plus, we drew on guidance from previous employers and our family, which owns the Avila’s El Ranchito restaurant chain.”
The family has 14 restaurants in Southern California.
Priority Plus offers loans with fixed rates, as opposed to credit card companies that can change rates monthly. Their loans of $5,000 to $100,000, range from 5.49% to 29.99% annual percentage rate for first-time borrowers.
Todd Avila, Priority Plus’s chief operating officer, said one of the biggest challenges the company has faced is finding the most effective marketing channels to promote the business.
“It’s really been trial and error,…
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