Raising finance can be a difficult task. Entrepreneurs and experienced businessmen alike are talking about 'the banks not lending'. This is also a common headline used in the press when writing about the economy and recession. When faced with such a statement, you often have to ask "So where have you looked? What lenders have you approached? Who else?”
Access to credit is vital for businesses to expand, develop new products and, ultimately, contribute to economic growth. Business West's Quarterly Economic Survey - part of the British Chambers of Commerce national survey, which is a highly respected snapshot of economic conditions for business - asks "What barriers to growth have you experienced?" And consistently one of the top answers is always access to finance.
Yes, lending has reduced since before the recession, but could this statistic potentially be somewhat due to a lack of knowledge of the different sources available? 71% of small business owners, in an AXA survey, said they had not heard of crowd funding and 54% were unaware of the existence of peer-to-peer lending.
In these tough economic times, alternative sources of funding can offer a huge boost to small businesses and are an increasingly viable option for growth. Some people may say traditional methods of raising finance, such as banks, aren't what they used to be, even though banks were never meant to be the 'be all and end all' when it comes to investment. It is important for business owners to understand the wealth of other opportunities out there, some which come with greater control. For example, Self Directed Pension Schemes are under used and arguably under rated for the purposes of assisting business growth. Pension-led funding is a type of commercial finance which offers an alternative to traditional business funding, such as bank loans or overdrafts, and involves using business owners’ accrued pension funds to invest in their own companies. Pension-led funding doesn't require personal guarantees and enables you to use Intellectual Property (IP) as a legitimate asset class, which broadens the opportunity further. More than 1,300 businesses in the UK have successfully used this type of funding.
Other options including equity crowdfunding have become much more popular in the last few years, but it can be much tougher to pitch successfully online than clients anticipate - seeking advice beforehand is highly recommended. Angel investor funding can also offer mentoring support alongside investment, but valuations can be tight in some sectors and the process can be time consuming, so it's definitely worth speaking to an expert to look at all the options available, then weighing up the pros and cons.
There are also other forms of finance such as grants. Grants are pots of funding for a specific purpose and are usually match funded. To find out if there are any grants to suit your purpose and to check eligibility criteria, visit the Gov Support Finder.
What businesses need to understand is that there are other ways to access funding and different solutions can be found. But, it’s important to ask, why should someone lend to you or your business?
The answer is they shouldn’t, unless you can prove to them that you are worth investing in. So, how will you do this?
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