How to Get a Business Loan - A Deeper Look into the Proper Method

How to get a business loan is one of the many questions that a prospective business owner or entrepreneur must answer in order to move forward on the road to business success. It may often seem like an exercise in patience and perseverance instead of a business transaction but the fact is that every business must go through this exercise if they want to survive, grow and prosper.

There is no one correct answer to the question of how to get a business loan but there is a lot of advice that anyone who has been to the process can offer and many successful business people who have navigated these troubled waters. The best way to find out how to get a business loan is to ask one of them for their advice and guidance. Another source of valuable information on how to get a business loan is the offices of the Small Business Administration.

The Small Business Administration (SBA), an agency of the Executive Branch of the federal government, was established specifically to assist small businesses get access to the funding and expertise they need in order to be successful. You can visit the Small Business Administration website or drop in to one of the many local offices located all over the country for advice, assistance and information on how to get a business loan and how the SBA can help you do that.

Another source of information about how to get a business loan is from the banks, credit unions, and other lending institutions themselves. Every financial institution will have their own criteria for lending to business but almost all of them have great difficulty providing an initial start up loan to businesses, especially small businesses. That's because in their view the risks are too great for a small business to succeed in its early days of operation and the fact is that many small businesses fail in their first two years of business. They will consider start up funding in some situations but their conditions are not very flexible and usually require a personal guarantee to secure that type of business loan.
Tip! (u)Your Investment(/u) Business loan applicants should have a reasonable amount of their own money invested in their business. Lenders want to know that you will be motivated to work hard to make your business a success.

But after a business has been in operation for a period of time the answer to how to get a business loan becomes a very simple one. It involves having good business credit, a solid record of meeting all business expenses and payments, and a good business case for the use of the monies to be borrowed. Banks and other lenders use business reporting agencies to check on the business creditworthiness and ability to pay of all businesses that they lend money to. This will often include a reference to the business's Paydex Score which keeps track of the payment record of businesses and a check on the personal credit records of the business owners themselves. If they are satisfied that the business is in good operating shape they will almost always consider positively a request from an established business.

The very short answer to how to get a business loan is to run a good business and pay all your bills on time.

David Gass is President of Business Credit Services, Inc. His company publishes a weekly e-newsletter on Starting and Growing a Small Business at http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com. You can sign up for their free newsletter by visiting http://www.smallbusinessconsulting.com.