business finance

As I’m working on various financing engagements, I’ve noticed a trend of behaviors and am using this avenue as a therapeutic sounding board.  This article is dual fold.  It’s a chance for me to rant and get some things off my chest while providing constructive feedback to you as to what NOT to do when searching for business financing.There are ways to present yourself and ways NOT to present yourself.  Today, I’m going to focus on my top 5 ways to kill your financing chances in hopes that you can avoid them.1) Not Answering Questions Completely or Honestly – Nothing will ruin your credibility faster than being evasive with your answers; or worse, not being truthful.  If you’re hiding information that is later caught, it makes me wonder what else you’re hiding.  Your credibility is shot.  Some people want to put a rosy face on a less than ideal situation…well don’t.  In order to find you the best financing for your business, it’s important to disclose the good, the bad and the ugly.  No business is perfect and these flaws WILL come out in underwriting.  So be upfront…show everything, warts and all.2) Not Following Through on Your Commitments – If you commit to providing information by a certain date, call back at a specific time, or meet at a certain time, etc. and don’t follow through as promised, you’re viewed as undependable and unprofessional…and nobody wants to deal with that.  Say what you mean and mean what you say.  If you follow through on your commitments, your clout goes up dramatically because of all the mediocrity in the world.3) Radio Silence – If you think being late with your commitments is bad, going underground and ceasing communications is equivalent to you saying that you don’t want your deal done.  Aside from a family emergency or something life threatening, I can’t think of any other reasons that are acceptable to just stop communicating.  “But I’ve been soooo busy”, you might say.  SO WHAT!  I’m swamped and put in 14-16 hour days and don’t need or want to hear excuses like that.  Please remember to stay in constant contact.4) Sloppy and Unprofessional – When information presented is sloppy and unprofessional, it shows little care was used when preparing it.  Many conclusions can be drawn, whether true or not.  Maybe they’re not smart; maybe they don’t care; maybe they’re not serious.  Whatever the conclusion, it will not help you get your financing.  Make certain to prepare as if you’re providing the financing and ask yourself what you would want to see.5) Form Over Substance – If you find that funding sources are cutting meetings short or they don’t want to have them at all, chances are you’re providing form and no substance.  What’s this?  It’s when you talk a good game and it ends there.  You might get lucky and schedule a meeting or two, but when they catch on that the magic ends there, so will your meetings.  Don’t discuss business philosophy or high-level theory.  Have specific, concrete information about your company, why you need financing, how you’ll pay it back, etc.BONUS:  Here is a sixth way to kill your chances to get business financing…6) Not Saying “I don’t know” – It seems simple but so many time people will stumble their way through trying to answer a question instead of just saying “I don’t know”.  We’re all human.  It’s OK to say “I don’t know; I’ll have to get back to you with an answer”.  Don’t guess, or worse, make something up.  Trust with others is always easier to build when you’re honest.

Business finance is customarily a main detail when it comes to starting a brand new business, growing an established business, or maybe purely up holding the particular quality of business. Business loans are regularly made out to be a negative action from the business owner though if operating right it may in fact become a salvation of the business along with its repeated development along with its productivity.Any business owner may well come up with a numerous inspired visions as well as strategies although if your lacking the correct business financing, it is possible that even the finest laid strategies can, and generally will, go skewed. When a business owner is dealing with the situation of whether there is acceptable money obtainable to complete the vital practices accurately operate for the business on a daily basis, it will simply generate havoc over the future.It is most important that the business owner possesses the capacity to access sufficient funds to be able to be at ease so they can set up certain systems as well as operations crucial to becoming a promising entrepreneur. Fairly often, it is the business loan which delivers such clarity for a entrepreneur so as to permit you to continue on focusing with the elemental factors of the beneficial commerce operation.Options of loans intended for business loans involve the secured business loan or the unsecured business loan. The secured business loan it is required that the business is able and willing to offer collateral against such finance. Such collateral may be in the way of land, buildings, and/or machinery. Offering collateral automatically makes it easier for the business in gaining favor in the eyes of a loan agency. This customarily results in certain rewards for a business owner. Those rewards could be in the form of length of duration of your loan, interest rates, penalties along with postponement requirements, furthermore a variety of added terms and conditions. Keep in mind, if choose longer loan period the repayments will be of smaller amount thus there are certain rewards to it.Alternatively, a unsecured loan can have various benefits for the recipient of the loan. Such rewards can include a smaller amount of paperwork, quicker decisions by the finance agency, in addition to support for a business owner that is incapable of offering collateral of any kind. Regularly, in spite of this, the settlement time for this style of business loans is shorter also pretty often, interest rates possibly will be greater.Prior to applying for a business loan of some type, the entrepreneur wants to be ready as well as prearranged. It includes arranging every one of business finance paperwork such as tax returns, profit and loss statements, balance statements, and also a few added items that could be called for from a financial organization. If you are more prepared you can be, the better your impression to the lender. Loaning agencies enjoy thinking the people they are loaning money to can be reliable and prepared. Your ability to submit the lending agency with all paperwork that is required in a well-timed manner plus in a prepared fashion will certainly aid in enhancing the view to a lender.Hence, borrower’s needs to keep in mind that business loans are proposed to earn you money, instead of cost the business funds. Which means that all the funds that you borrow have to be spent sensibly with the purpose that every single cent is spent in increasing your earnings exponentially? Thus, an organized filing practice plus frequent analysis of the outflow in addition to earnings can be fundamental in making sure that the loan is going towards correct use within several areas business.The old motto of it takes money to make money is really isn’t so far-fetched and also actually applies to business loans as well. As well as, a thinking process of spending other people’s funds to produce your personal cash might too be exceptionally beneficial to a business owner.Lenders are keen to produce business loans to entities that can establish themselves to be trustworthy as well as a beneficial risk. Which is done as a result of having an attractive business design in place in addition to ordered, helpful commerce finance papers obtainable for scrutiny of the loaning representative(s)? In the situation you is willing to provide your loaning organization all necessary documents, furthermore if you have thought out the effect that the extra income may cause to your previous income, in that case most likely, you are a serious contender for the business loan.Thus, business loans are able to in reality put riches in your pocket – a lot additional if they are used in a way which increases the drive in the business and improving profits. Therefore, every business owner that desires to steadily foresee progress and advancement within their own business must not hesitate in moving forward in acquiring commerce financing.

An earlier article noted that business financing is effectively on life support based on recent reports of reduced business loans made by banks throughout the country. There are several reasons why intensive care comparisons might help to explain what is wrong with working capital financing and at the same time provide a healthy prognosis for impacted businesses. Because commercial financing is proving to be a serious challenge for most small business owners, this analysis should be reviewed by any borrower about to obtain or refinance commercial loans.During the past two years, banks have lost much credibility and good will. Until the federal government provided massive bailouts for many of them, most of these lenders were on life support themselves. While some of the banks have recovered, others are effectively still in the intensive care process. But whether we are reviewing the healthy banks or ones still recovering, working capital financing for most small businesses is predominantly in what appears to be long-term intensive care. Banks are generally reducing or eliminating a large portion of their business financing activities, as indicated from most ongoing public and private reports. For example, with little or no advance notice, most banks appear to be closing commercial line of credit programs for small businesses regardless of profitability or length of the lending relationship. This is apparently not a temporary move to the sidelines but rather a permanent reallocation of resources to more profitable activities based on the manner in which this is being accomplished.Lending activity has also decreased significantly for other forms of business financing such as commercial mortgage loans. Commercial loans have essentially been downsized or laid off just as many workers have. The realization that banks are rarely announcing publicly that these cutbacks have occurred is what makes this situation different. Perhaps bankers like to think that when they stop making small business loans nobody will notice. When it becomes public knowledge that their small business lending window is effectively closed, the bankers who placed commercial financing into intensive care are astute enough to realize that their public image will suffer even further damage.Before they realize that the business financing world has changed before their eyes, it is possible that small business owners might need to connect several dots. As this article and other reviews indicate, banks are simply no longer providing the commercial loan services that they once did. Commercial borrowers should primarily rely on extensive candid discussions with other small business customers of the bank to confirm whether their bank is one of the few exceptions to this new reality. Even in the rare instances in which banks are truly lending “normally” to small businesses, the prevailing trend of less working capital financing coming from traditional banks should not be ignored.While business financing patients (commercial borrowers) might be in serious condition when they find that their bank will not provide needed commercial loans, experienced small business finance specialists can frequently help in restoring financial health that will facilitate a business getting out of an intensive care situation. In some cases, this involves finding a healthy bank that is willing (and able) to provide “normal” commercial loans and working capital financing. For successful commercial funding it will be necessary to explore non-bank solutions in many other instances.

It is frequently a good idea to get back to basics, and this is particularly appropriate for small business owners when they are reviewing if they can increase their cash flow with business cash advances while reducing processing costs. Because many businesses have experienced both decreased sales and increased difficulty in obtaining bank financing, this review of basic working capital management processes should be helpful to most commercial borrowers. The possibility of reducing a significant business expense is likely to be appealing to even the most successful small businesses.While they will not be discussed here, there are other working capital financing options to consider for a business which does not accept bank cards from customers as a payment option. A minimum monthly volume of bank card sales which typically varies from $5000 to $10000 is needed in most cases to obtain business funding based upon credit card receivables factoring. A lump sum payment is received based on projected future credit card processing transactions when merchant cash advances are obtained by a business. As credit card purchases are processed, the business financing is repaid automatically and gradually (typically covering about seven to eight months). Because they do not have another reliable commercial funding source, this strategy for obtaining working capital is used by many diverse businesses. The need to consider this option has also increased because banks are routinely reducing or eliminating business lines of credit in almost all areas for small businesses.This might be the perfect opportunity to review the cost structure currently in place for a business because this approach to working capital management is tied so directly to credit card processing activity. Many small business owners chose their credit card processor based upon a recommendation from a colleague or banker. It is not unusual to hear that costs or terms were not reviewed thoroughly before signing a processing agreement.As indicated, future credit card processing activity is used to repay a business cash advance. A portion of each transaction is automatically allocated toward repayment. In order for this to happen, the processor must agree in advance to handle it properly. Not all credit card processing providers will agree to help with the merchant cash advance repayment process. When this occurs, alternative processors can usually be arranged with minimal impact on daily business operations. A common occurrence is for a small business to realize significant cost reductions when replacing one credit card processing provider with another because costs were often overlooked when the initial agreement was signed.One of the primary precautions to observe when a small business owner is considering a business cash advance is to ensure that the company providing the business financing does not rush to change credit card processors before determining if they can complete the desired working capital financing. Attempts to change processing arrangements immediately are a clear indication of one of the most serious abuses seen during recent years for companies appearing to offer merchant cash advances. An initial evaluation of whether they can provide financing and in what amount is a more normal and appropriate approach for the commercial funding provider to take. Checking with the existing processor to determine their ability to facilitate repayment of the working capital to be advanced to the business borrower would then be the next step if the initial findings were acceptable to the business. Even if their current processor is willing to work with the business cash advance provider, businesses should consider asking for a review of cost saving opportunities involving their credit card processing.