Secrets to business financing

In my experience, there are three important ways to get a financiers to listen to your needs. Let review these three keys to business financing.
     First, look at your financing request from the lender's point of view. 
Lenders want to finance businesses with dependable means of repayment and clearly understood risks. Lenders especially favor applications that are clearly stated and free of internal contradictions. Make sure your request answers three important questions:

• How much money do you want?
• For what specific business purpose do you want this funding?
• Will you use this money in ways that improve your ability to repay the loan? 

     Second, teach your lender something that they don't already know.
Finance professionals work across industry sectors and most enjoy learning about business issues in their service area. A lender will take notice when you share a unique insight into your market, your industry or your customer base.
    Third, show an uncommon knowledge of your business operations.
In lender meetings I have attended, the owner who can speak eloquently about every dimension of the business operations is the owner who moves to the next level in loan consideration.

• Can you explain, in painful detail, your costs of goods or services sold? 
• Can you name your most profitable sales, your differential advantages and your critical market segments? 
• Do you know your competitors intimately? 
• Can you describe your daily sales numbers and tell why those numbers fluctuate?

Thinking about applying for financing, a lease option or a line of credit?  
      Sit down with your bookkeeper, top salesperson, operations assistant and other sources of business expertise - study your business inside and out.