Financial Resources
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Bank and Micro-loans
America One Unsecured can help you with your small business lending needs. America One Unsecured is a member of the BBB.
Business Finance.com you can search over 2100 sources for small business loans.
Business Loan Option – business loans can help your company with expansion and growth.
Express Funding Group – discover the answers to your questions regarding business loans in the state of Tennessee and the rest of the country.
Franchise Funding offers funding, information, analysis and consultation for Franchise Businesses.
Noble Funding offers unsecured business loans ($30,000 – $400,000) and unsecured business lines of credit ($400,000 – $10,000,000). Noble Funding is a member of the BBB.
Unsecured Solutions is a member of the BBB. They can give you professional assistance through your entire loan process.
Government Funding / Grants
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance allows you to search the government database of all Federal programs available.
Grants.Gov is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Is a great source to find and apply for government grants.
Small Business Funding Tips and Ideas
When you’re ready to start a small business, the best first step you can take is to find funding for that business. One of the biggest reason 95% of businesses fail in the first one to five years is due to lack of funding. So getting funds from somewhere can be critical to your small business success.
Thankfully there are many ways to fund a small business. Due to its very nature, the smallness of a small business makes it much easier to fund. The downside of course, is that many traditional funding sources won’t often be interested, because there’s no much return on the investment for them. So this article will look at some practical, everyday ways to get small business funding.
1. Credit – If you have a line of personal credit at your local bank, or you have credit cards with enough available funds on them, an easy way to get small business funding is to simply use these. The credit cards are a very expensive way to get funding for your small business though, so many people leave this as a last resort.
2. Family – Many small businesses get their initial funding from friends and family. Whether it’s given as a loan, a gift, or as an investment will be up to how you’d like to structure the agreement. When you get small business funding from friends or family, it’s just as important to have a written agreement in place with them as it is if you get your funding from other sources. This will lessen the potential for any problems down the road.
3. Clean House – An excellent way may people get their first small business funding is by simply cleaning their house. Instead of throwing things away though, they have a giant yard sale, take everything to a local flea market, or sell it at an online auction site such as Ebay. Sometimes you can make several thousand dollars from a weekend yard sale or flea market visit, and this is often more than enough funding to get a lot of small businesses started.
4. Lifestyle Changes – A more drastic move which works for many people, is to simply change their lifestyle. If for instance, you have several cars you’re paying $300 a month for, you can scale down to just one and have an extra $600 a month to use for funding your small business. The same applies for your living quarters. If you’re living in a home or apartment which costs $1500 each month, but are willing to scale down to something more along the lines of $900 or $1000 per month, you’ll have several hundred dollars more each month to use for funding your business.
Another way to incorporate lifestyle changes without scaling down is to simply get a second job. Whether part time or full time, getting a second job, and putting all of those earnings away into savings for one year is often an excellent source of small business funding.
There are a variety of other small business funding options available though, and you’ll find many of them by visiting right here: http://www.gbexchange.net/
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
6 Ways to Fund Your New Business
I’m often asked: what is the best way to finance a new business venture. This question is usually followed by “So, do you ever invest in new business ventures?”
The answers, respectively, are: 1. there is no “best” way to fund a new business; and 2. I do invest in new business ventures, but darn it I can’t today because I left my checkbook in my other suit.
The truth is there are a variety of ways to finance a new business and which way is best for you depends totally on your product, your market, your financial requirements, your burn rate, and most importantly, your personal and financial situation.
So with that in mind, here are a few of the most common ways to finance a new business without hitting old Tim up for a loan. Keep in mind that all methods have pros and cons and some (or most) may not work for your specific situation. No matter what financing method you choose thoroughly investigate the ups and downs and don’t jump in with both feet until you’re sure you’ll land on solid ground.
Savings and Investments
The first source you should consider tapping is your own savings and investments. I’m a huge fan of self-financing when it comes to business because it doesn’t make you responsible to others should the business fail. The bad thing is that it if things do go under, it will be your money that goes down with the ship. If you’re not willing to risk your own capital you certainly shouldn’t be willing to risk anyone else’s.
Friends and Family
After tapping their own savings and investments, many entrepreneurs turn to friends and family for help. This works well for some, but here’s the creed I live by: NEVER borrow money from anyone you have to eat Thanksgiving dinner with. Nothing causes tension in a family like lending money that is never paid back. And notice I say “lending money” rather than investing money. Venture capitalists invest money. Your relatives lend you money. They will expect it back someday even if they say they won’t. Remember, when a loved one invests in your business they are emotionally investing in you. It would be tough to tell mom and dad that their favorite son lost their life savings because his business went down the drain.
Credit Cards
I financed my first business on credit cards, which was an incredibly stupid thing to do given the fact that my business could have failed and left me with thousands of dollars in credit card debt that would have taken until the year 2099 to pay off. It worked out in the end for me, but if you decide to finance your business on plastic keep in mind that you will be paying extremely high interest rates on the money you’ve borrowed and unless you hit it big you will be paying for that money for many years to come.
Mortgage The Farm
Bank loans are next to impossible to get if you don’t have collateral and a track record of business success, which is why many entrepreneurs use the equity in their homes to finance their business after being turned down for a bank loan. While this makes more sense than building a business on a deck of credit cards, the financial risks are no less abundant. You must pay this money back whether your business succeeds or not, but it is a good source of low interest money to get you started and the interest may be tax deductible (check with your accountant to make sure).
Angel Investors
An angel investor is typically a wealthy individual who invests in start up ventures for a share of the ownership. Angel investors are usually the first formal investors in a business and provide the seed money to get the business up and running. Some angel investors will write you a check and leave you alone to run your business while others consider their investment a license to “help you” manage and make decisions. If you do accept angel money make sure the terms are clearly defined on both sides. Angel money always comes with strings. Make sure you know whether those strings come in the form of a bow or a noose before you accept an angel’s check.
Venture Capitalists
Venture capitalists are to angel investors as pit bulls are to Chihuahuas. That’s not to say all VC are big, bad dogs, but they do have powerful jaws that can chew up your business and spit it out if things don’t go their way. VC money doesn’t come with strings, it comes with chains and locks and lots of legal documents. VC always have the upper hand in any deal they invest in. That’s just how it works and that’s the price you pay to get access to VC money.
If your business gets to the level that VC money becomes a viable option, don’t jump at the first bone a VC dangles before your eyes. If one VC likes your idea, others will, too. Present to multiple VC and carefully consider each offer before you accept the check.
Just remember, no matter how you finance your business, use the money wisely. Don’t buy $1,500 plasma monitors and $1,000 Hermann Miller chairs.
Have a very clear plan of how the money will be used and how it will be paid back.
And remember this, the more you can shoestring the business, but more of the business you will own in the end.
Tim Knox, Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Radio Host Founder, The Insiders Club, Giving You The Power To Start Your Business Today www.theinsidersclub.com Bestselling Author of: Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My Mama www.timknox.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Small Business Grants – How to Get One
Every new entrepreneur dreams to take his business to huge heights but most of them fail to realize their goals. Lack of capital is a very important reason along with poor plans and marketing. But if the marketing ways are good enough, then it would be really unfair if their business fails only because of low funds. For this, many grants are available so as to boost their business.
It is necessary to realize which type of finance is most required and the extent to which funding is important. Then one can approach government grants, banks, big investors etc. for the capital.
Importance of business plans-
The business plan can be said as the key to small business grants. The plans give a clear idea of your goals and vision and the also the path and speed you intend to uptake to reach the target. The potential in your business is shown in your business plan and it is the plan itself, which increases the confidence of the grant distributors in you.
Presentation of the business plan-
The next important step is the presentation. Any small business grant distributor will be interested in how the money is planned to be used by you in the most efficient and economic manner, how much profit is expected with the input. Bank loaners will want to find how you intend to repay. So presentation and explanation of all these can improve the chances of grant sanction. Small business Grants are also available by rich investors. But they look out for your confidence your own business So it is important to invest one’s own personal money into the business for these investors to sanction the funding.
Eligibility for small business grants sanction-
• The location of the enterprise is one big reason for sanction of small business grants. The government wants decentralization of industries in order to avoid migration toward cities. So the small business grants are extended to those, preferably, who own a business in rural areas. Also, since it helps to raise the standard of living of the rural people, the government grant sanctioners are less rigid.
• Small business grants are readily extended to small business industries to help them grow, only if they have a potential.
• Small business grants bodies have their own objectives and give grants to those satisfying them in the best possible manner.
Reasons for failure of sanction-
If the grant bodies do not see potential in the business or if the field of research is nowhere connected to their objectives or if the business plan seems to be unreal, grant is not sanctioned to such small businesses.
It is said that help comes only if you look for it in the right place and only if you deserve one. And this is equally true for a grant to be sanctioned. State governments, trustee bodies etc. groups sanction grants from time to time to those who really need them. The only necessity is to prove one’s own potential to them. Sometimes these grants turn small aspirants into powerful, ruling businessmen.
James Copper is a writer for http://www.bigstrategies.co.uk
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
