Well, now that you took that initial step to your dream, it’s time to go hunting for the money to get started. Depending on the size of your dream, you now have to make a plan to fund it. Here’s a few idea’s, which you may have already thought of, but there are some extra’s to think about.
1. The not so popular….. Ask a family or friend. The risk of ruining a relationship exists with this plan. No one walks into their family’s house with the determination to have a rotten business, and lose their money. It comes with dreams and aspirations and hope for a great future. Of course, it also has a lot of work to get to that great future. So, if you have to, swallow your pride and ask away. If they can afford to help, they will.
2. The traditional loan at a bank…. Small business loans is not easy to get from a bank these days. After the crash of 2008, they themselves were bailed out of their problems, but they forgot those that funded that bail out. Now they have such stringent policies that if you don’t have a credit score above 700, you may not even get their attention from their waiting room.
3. Title loans…… if you don’t need hundreds of thousands of dollars, then you could take the title to your paid off vehicle and ask for some startup capital. Their interest rates will cause you to pass out, but if you pay them off quickly, you will have nothing to worry about. Just don’t leave your first born lying around.
4. A cash advance from your merchant servicer….. If you accept debit and credit card payments, then you have a merchant account. With a cash advance from the merchant servicer, you are less likely to worry about your credit report and least likely to worry about the repayment. It is set up to come out of your daily card sales. An amount of 1% to 9% a day is removed from your daily transactions. So if you were at a set amount of say 5%, and you had sales for the day of $500 dollars, your payment of $25.00 would be taken from your sales totals. Your loan is paid off quickly and the amount is not staggering enough to hurt the business.
The option of a monthly payment is also available. Whichever you choose to do, be certain it will not overdue what your business can handle. The reason for the advance was to help you, not hinder your progress.
Whatever you choose
Do it wisely. There really are a lot of options out there; it’s just a matter of doing an enormous amount of research and locating what will work for you. Take the time you need to forage for the information and just because one said ‘NO’, does not mean that they all will. Remember, Walt Disney went to 101 banks before he found one that would fund his business, and now look at it.
