The best business loans are the loans you get when your business really needs it. They are timely. They help you through a difficult financial period, helping you survive, easing cash flow and allowing you to become bigger and better.
The best business loans are often unsecured business loans, because they are short-term and easy to arrange. But this won’t be the case for everyone. Whatever your situation, however unique, will require a tailored approach to finance.
The Best Business Loans For Start-Ups
When your business is starting out the most important commodity you can get your hands on, with the exception of a great business plan and a bagful of enthusiasm, is money. It helps you buy the materials you need and the equipment to start making your product. Without money, marketing efforts are limited and attracting employees is impossible; your chances of success is severely limited.
One of the key statistics in business remains that half of all start-ups in the UK fail within the first five years. The failure rate for tech start-ups is around three times higher than other business types. The biggest reason why they fail is not having enough cash to survive or grow beyond infancy. Getting early funding is so important for young businesses to be able to survive in their competitive marketplaces.
Key to getting timely funding is getting your application in as early as possible. Start-up finance might be the most important business loan you’ll ever apply for. So where should you be looking for small business loans, unsecured business loans and start-up finance?
- Self funding – By far this is still the most popular funding method. You can get another mortgage, sell your car and offer up all your personal assets as security, just like most other entrepreneurs have done before you.
- Government grants – make sure you look at every possible opportunity. Often there is only a limited amount of funding available and they come with plenty of paperwork to fill in. So apply as early as possible. Different regions have different grants available so check with your local government authority.
- Loans for the bank – Good luck with this. Banks loans are notoriously difficult to get approval from if you have a limited or poor credit history and can have a lengthy application process.
- Start-up finance – Secured and unsecured business loans offering both short and medium-term finance.
Access offers start-up finance and unsecured business loans for new businesses and start-ups that cover a large range of business sectors and can help not only with financial support but also with entrepreneurial expertise and experience:
- A network of funding (and mentoring) with experience in a wide range of sectors
- Help with business planning
- Financial support and access to alternative grant schemes.
The Best Business Loans To Help You Through Difficulty
Every business hits a shallow reef at one point in its journey, and while it can sink many a ship, it can often make them stronger too. Getting the right kind of finance when the going gets tough can help establish your business and give it the opportunity to grow.
Periods of hardship, whether because of uncontrollable economic conditions or through bad luck can often be a precursor to periods of prosperity. But only if you first survive the bad times. And the bad times can arrive frequently with devastating effects:
- Cash flow management
- Unable to pay staff wages
- Suffering a bad debt
- Product recall
- Not enough capital
- Tax bills
- Machinery breakdown
- Poor sales
- Customer numbers
- Unable to keep up with the competition
- Using old technology
- Legal problems
- Regulatory changes.
Getting finance at this time is all about ensuring that the difficulty is addressed and putting plans into place that ensures the same situation doesn’t repeat itself and helping the company return to a secure footing.
For instance, are you currently in debt or operating at a loss? Because both situations require remedial finances to ensure continuity of the business. And neither should be considered lightly.
Four questions you should be asking of your business is:
- What do we need finance for?
- How much finance do we need?
- When do we need the finance in place?
- How long are we going to need the finance for?
These questions should help you assess what kind of difficulty your business is in and ensure there is enough scope for formulating a strategy (through finance) to overcome it.
Utilising an unsecured business loan helps a business identify where the problems lie, and using short-term loan payments to remove imminent business failure, ensures a robust plan is adopted to turn the business in the right direction.
Access offers a number of financial solutions that can facilitate essential cash boosts to businesses that are in difficulty. However, it isn’t always a case of throwing more bad money into a business. Every application needs to be considered on its merits and often all it takes is a helping hand from our experienced team to help your business focus on its priorities.
- Ability to identify whether a company has potential
- Entrepreneurial experience in building profitable enterprises
- Access to a network of private investors with expertise from a wide range of business sectors.
The Best Business Loans For Expansion
Not every reason is a reason to borrow more money, but if that reason brings with it the opportunity to either save you or make more money in the future then it might be time to look at what might be the best way of funding it.
Growth is difficult if you don’t first have money to invest. A growing company on its own won’t always be able to self-finance further growth and expansion. After all, your existing premises, staff, machinery and marketing budget can only help you achieve so much.
In order to increase sales you have to increase your assets. That means more people, more stock, increased inventory, better equipment and bigger premises.
This brings about a sort of catch-22; you are ready to do more, but first, you need to get more of what you have to do it. And your current sales turnover probably isn’t going to provide it.
The answer is finance.
Because of this funding gap and the obvious realisation that your business is a good one, using unsecured business loans to help seems like a prudent decision to make.
Business expansion is one of the biggest reasons for a business to approach lenders.
- Expansion
- Office removal
- Credit building
- Equipment purchases
- Property development
- Take advantage of bulk purchase
- Employing new talent
- Funding marketing campaigns both outbound and inbound.
Expansion financing comes in a variety of forms and depending on the purpose, and how much you need, can dictate your finance decisions.
One of the main advantages of using short-term unsecured business loans, is the access to quick funding and also that you will pay less interest on your borrowing.
Access offers a number of ready solutions to growing businesses that are looking to expand or take advantage of growth opportunities, without having to undertake lengthy application processes forced by the banks.
- Short to medium term cash boost
- Finance for unpopular sectors
- Finance for companies without a solid trading history or poor credit record
- Repayment plans structured in the most affordable way.
But not all finance is best offered in an unsecured package. There are times when you are looking to grow in ways that requires a different form of finance. Redeveloping property, buying land, purchasing a new business or redeveloping derelict property comes with its own unique set of regulations and difficulties.
Commercial property finance is one of the most asked for types of business finance for companies looking to expand, develop new premises or to purchase another business. We have products that include:
- Property Development Finance
- Portfolio Finance
- Mezzanine Finance
- Commercial Mortgages.
With this type finance, often the most obvious lenders aren’t the best ones to approach. Many alternative lenders, including us, have extensive experience of developing property and financing complete office refurbishments, including derelict sites and difficult or sensitive planning sites. We also have access to lenders who are prepared to offer 100% property development finance. Not always something you can rely on when approaching the bank.
All of our property development financial packages are tailored to suit your unique set of circumstances and often they are financed directly by Access – no third party involvement.
Even when a business is succeeding on most levels, just one hiccup can sometimes be too much to cope with and cause major financial hardship.
The best business loans are usually the ones that help you at the right time. If you are at the start of your business journey you may want capital for very different reasons than that needed for a more established business. However both will need a strong business plan to ensure that funding works as efficiently as possible.
To be one of the survivors you need to have strategic financial planning supporting you all the way through your business.
If you are looking for the best business loans for your business, talk to Access Commercial Finance to see how our solutions can assist you.
