Failing To Plan Your Business Financing Can Be A Death Sentence For Your Business
Most businesses start out thinking the first thing they need is a great business plan. The popular myth is that potential lenders will place great stock in your business plan as a major consideration for approving the financing you need.
While a well written business plan will assist you when you are seeking financing, it is far down on the lender’s list behind things such as your business management team’s experience, your past business successes and your “lending character “. Having a plan for accessing the business capital you need to execute your business plan is what is required to bring your business success. Not having a viable business financing plan is the direct cause of why 90% of all new businesses fail.
Your lending character means the lender sees you having the ability and stability to repay the loan. They also ask how far they believe you can take the business to maximize the potential earnings and therefore their chances of getting repaid.
The first thing a lender is going to look at is how did you structure the business and were you responsible and knowledgeable in that. Are you Incorporated or an LLC? If not you are declined for a business loan and everything becomes based solely on you as an individual. Did you do your EIN, State, business licenses and bank filings correctly? If not, you are declined because lender’s require attention to detail.
A simple business credit report check by a lender will quickly show whether or not you are even in the ballpark for getting approved for financing. If the lender finds that you haven’t bothered to insure that your business has active reports with all three major business credit reporting agencies, then of course you are immediately declined.
Next, the lender will look at the character of your business credit reports. What do they say about your business? What kind of payment histories have you had with debts that are easy to get