An opinion published in the Telegraph newspaper on the 7th of October 2018 argues that many small businesses in the UK are struggling to grow.
A recent study by the British Business Bank, said the newspaper, found that whilst a third of businesses want to expand and grow, they did not know how to achieve that target. A key lack of understanding appears to be about the need for and the availability of finance.
Additional finance is invariably needed for a whole host of reasons involved in building and growing your business. It might be needed:
- to gear up your company so that it is in a position to seize new business opportunities at short notice;
- it might be required to launch projects to capture new markets;
- it may be used to launch a marketing campaign;
- it might be needed to re-equip and re-stock your premises or to install new IT systems; or
- it might be required to plug a temporary shortfall in your current working capital or cashflow.
There is an article on http://www.wcvedfund.org/ which goes through three forms of financial help for businesses in depth if you want further information. But for this post, we are just going to focus on business loans.
Business loans
Business loans offer a way of financing those very activities required for you to build and grow your company.
And it might all be a lot more straightforward than you imagined.
Gone are the days when a business loan meant an appointment with your local bank manager – who was almost certain to ask for a wealth of information, including business plans and cash flow projections, before considering any application for a loan.
Gone are the days when you then had to wait weeks for the decision to be considered and – hopefully – approved. Now, you can simply reach out to merchant funding platforms like L3 Funding (https://l3funding.com/business-loans) who can ensure that the loan amount reaches your hand sooner than expected, provided you submit required documents.
Online business loans
Instead, there are providers of business loans where you may simply make your initial enquiry online and a decision in principle on your proposed borrowing is returned within just a minute or so.
If you are happy with that, simply make a formal application, which is considered by the lender, together with an evaluation of the standing of your company and your ability to repay the loan. If approval is then given, the requested funds may be transferred directly to your company bank account within the next 48 hours or so (depending on the provider).
Choose how much you want to borrow
Funding for building and growing your business depends, of course, on just what you have in mind, your starting point and where you want to end up.
Online providers of business loans typically offer an especially wide choice – allowing you to borrow any sum from around 5,000 right up to 100,000.
In the majority of cases, however, experience has shown that loans of some 50,000 or less are likely to serve most purposes.
Choose your repayment terms
These types of business loan represent unsecured, short-term borrowing – that way, none of your personal or company assets are at risk through any need for security and there is little time for large amounts of interest to accumulate.
Typically, therefore, although you may choose the most convenient repayment terms, these are likely to be within a period of 3 to 12 months.