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How Erica Bell of Tax Guard Won Second in The Poker Tournament

Left: Sean Murray. Right: Erica Bell, Tax Guard

When the final hand of the B2B Finance Expo’s official poker tournament had concluded, Erica Bell, a Business Development Account Executive for Tax Guard, walked away with 2nd place. Bell has enjoyed poker for a long time and knows the game well. She’s even played in tournaments at the Ameristar Casino in Blackhawk, Colorado and won 1st place in one of them.

“The game’s strategy is what I truly enjoy,” Bell told deBanked. “A couple of individuals came up to me and congratulated me [on coming in 2nd].”

Bell, who at least took home a small prize, has worked for Tax Guard for 5 and a half years. For those not familiar, “Tax Guard is a 3rd party due diligence company who provides real-time insights into hidden tax debt of individuals and businesses by retrieving and analyzing IRS data directly from the source, the IRS,” she says.

The company’s services are primarily used by commercial lenders and financial institutions to assess tax-related risks associated with borrowers. Tax Guard is widely known throughout the industry and has been frequently referenced on deBanked. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Hansen Rada, even did a Zoom interview with deBanked during the early lockdown era of Covid.

The company’s value is pretty straightforward, a lot of tax debt is not easily discoverable, and they’ll get the info you don’t even know you’re missing straight from the source.

“By offering earlier visibility into potential tax issues, liabilities, liens, & levies, we help our customers make more informed lending decisions and mitigate financial risks,” Bell explains.

And if there is a hidden tax issue, Tax Guard can proactively work to resolve it and even negotiate a payment plan. One downside of ignoring tax debt as a lender is having to compete with the IRS when they ultimately move to enforce collection.

Clients can use the Tax Guard portal to run reports or integrate their API right into a CRM. Other critical information can be obtained as well including a wage and income transcript from the IRS. “This includes data from W-2s, 1099s, and other income forms, as well as withholding details,” Bell says. “This data provides a comprehensive view of a taxpayer’s reported income and can be critical when assessing financial risks, resolving discrepancies and verifying financial details.”

Obviously, Bell says that anyone interested in learning more can reach out to her directly.

“My role is highly dynamic, being sales, strategic partnership and relationship focused,” Bell says. “I really enjoy working with extremely talented people at Tax Guard, meeting new folks in the finance industry and learning from their perspectives.”

She’s also apparently planning to host her own upcoming friendly poker tournament so it’s safe to say she has no intention of letting her skills get rusty.

How Cesar Valero Won The Tournament And Gets Deals Done

Left: Cesar Valero, Biz Dev at Spartan Capital. Right: Sean Murray

When Cesar Valero, Business Development Executive at Spartan Capital, sat down at one of the starting poker tables late last month to participate in the kick-off tournament for B2B Finance Expo, it had been almost exactly a year since he last played. His colleague Ryan Capella had finished second that time, which coincidentally had also been for a business event in Las Vegas. But here at B2B in 2024, the Spartan team was competing against a mix of players eager to show off their skills, some of whom play semi-professionally on the side.

According to Valero, they didn’t do any kind of practice ahead of time. “Frank [the CEO] just said ‘make sure you represent,'” he said. And after two and a half hours of impressive play that’s exactly what he did. The dealer and a hired pit boss keeping an eye on all the cards declared Valero the winner where he took home the grand prize gold bracelet and other goodies.

“We were actually really happy because we noticed that–obviously we celebrated a little bit–and then noticed after we’re like, ‘of the top four positions of the last two years, we [Spartan] have two’ that’s pretty good,” Valero said.

But more importantly, at the industry’s largest conference of the year, everyone suddenly knew who Valero was if they didn’t before.

“You can flat out tell them the best marketing at B2B was to win the poker tournament,” Valero said. People came up to him throughout the next two days calling him out by name. “Hey, Cesar!” they shouted, after having heard about his win.

And being the guy everybody wants to talk to is pretty much his job anyway. Spartan Capital provides revenue based financing and works with a large number of referral partners. Valero’s day-to-day is typically spent communicating with ISOs, whether it be phone calls or Zoom calls or in-office meetings, he is catering to what they need and trying to get deals funded. When asked if having a relationship with an ISO is an important part of the job, he said it’s the whole job.

“We’re a fair funder,” he said of Spartan. “We really don’t snub anybody out. Whether you’re the biggest guy in the space or the smallest guy in the space, we’re going to do our best to give you the best customer service we can. Our reps, pretty much nobody is a brand new rep. Everybody’s got experience. They know what they’re talking about.”

“Most deals are pretty straightforward,” he said, “but you always have that 10,15,20% that need a little more love…so it’s a fast paced environment and just try to keep up with it, make sure we’re doing the right service to our customers whether it be an ISO or a [merchant].”

Overall, Valero feels like the industry is on a strong trajectory, especially with tech and e-commerce platforms having rushed in to offer similar funding products to their customers.

“If they’re in it, they see the demand right?” he exclaimed, “and if they’re putting out billions of dollars like I see every quarter in press releases from Amazon or from PayPal or from one of the big players, they’re out there and they’re creating buzz… so better quality borrowers will be flowing in because the need is there across the board.”

Valero isn’t exaggerating about the fast pace. After having gone from the flow of deals to Vegas to even more deals, he couldn’t afford to let our interview about his big win go over the allotted time.

“I got about an hour and 15 minutes to the wire cut-off,” he said emphatically while thanking me for the call. “Let me see if I can do a couple more deals!”