3 Useful Tips to Develop a Strategic Financing Plan for Your Business

If you want to start a business, you need to develop a plan to secure the right financing.

After all, even if you can start a business with zero dollars in the bank, you still need funds to foster growth, achieve sustainable profits, expand your operations, and increase your company’s chances of long-term success.

While creating a solid financing plan is no easy feat, there are ways to help you get started — from assessing your company’s current financial health to determining the best-fitting financing options for your business.

Continue reading to learn tips and tricks to develop a strategic financial plan for your business.

Common pitfalls when looking for business financing

While every business has unique needs, models, strategies, etc., there are common missteps company owners might make when looking for financing, including:

• Setting unrealistic financial expectations. As a business owner, you’ll need to put in the time, energy, resources, and even outside assistance to secure all the financing you need for your operations and gain profit.
• Failing to follow a plan. Not following a plan while starting to source capital without conducting research and keeping your financial statements in order can spell disaster for your financing efforts and business operations.

Whether you choose secured or unsecured finance for small businesses, failing to have a financing plan can lead to issues such as defaulting or missing out on payments. This can ruin your credit score and company’s reputation and potentially put your business in serious debt.

The key to avoiding the common pitfalls of securing financing for your business is to create a well-developed financing plan.
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3 factors to consider to create a solid financing plan

Developing your financing plan requires in-depth research and assessing your company’s needs.

However, while we can’t cover everything in this guide, you can start creating your strategic financing plan by considering these crucial aspects.

1. The amount of money you need

Having a clear understanding of your company’s financing needs can give you a good idea about the type of credit that would best meet those requirements.

For example, a line of credit or business credit card line can be an excellent option if you need to set up quickly and cover your daily company-related expenses since you can procure funding within hours or days.

The catch is, a line of credit or business credit card lines often include high-interest rates, especially for companies with lower total income levels and new businesses.

Another option is equipment financing and microloans if you need to pay for in-store improvements or specific machinery.

However, this financing method can take longer and often requires weeks (or months) of evaluations and moving paperwork to get funding.

One way of understanding how much money you need and streamlining getting financing is to consult financial advisers, accountants, and fellow business owners.

Get the necessary information and build your financing plan around that before taking on financial obligations.

You can also ask help from reliable and professional networking groups in your industry or niche, join online events, and reach out directly to financing institutions to get the information you need to develop your plan.
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2. Assess your current financial standing

A critical part of developing your financing plan is examining your company’s current financial standing.

Will your business qualify for a credit? What is your company’s current credit score?

Knowing the answers to these questions can help shape and inform your planning process, and in turn, your financing efforts and strategies.

For instance, lenders generally implement credit qualifiers such as the number of years a business has been operating, the annual revenue, available collaterals, and cash flow. These can give financial institutions a good idea about your company’s eligibility for credit.

Other credit options, such as a line of credit, require your business to be in operation for at least one to two years to qualify, and the conditions can also vary from lender to lender.

New companies are considered a more risky investment, increasing the interest rates within the two to five-year window.

As such, you’ll need to plan accordingly and maybe wait until your company is more mature and your finances in better health before applying for a line of credit.

Determine your company’s financial standing first, build up your credit score, and develop your financing plan to supercharge your efforts and help you gain more positive outcomes.
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3. Establish a timeline to obtain and pay back the money

While it’s critical and even necessary to take on new financial obligations to expand and grow your business, it’s always crucial to go into it with a clear plan.

After all, hasty decisions, especially when it comes to financing, can have serious implications on your business.

To avoid being at the mercy of lenders with high-interest rates out of your company’s need to get capital quickly, plan and secure your financing channels in advance.

Essentially, don’t borrow more than what your business can pay in reality. Develop a carefully thought-out repayment plan that can address your company’s needs and ability to pay.

Assess your company’s financial needs and look for the best-fitting financing plans, institutions, etc., without biting off more than you can chew and end up drowning in debt.

For example, if you only need a little extra to keep your head above the water, opt for a business credit card.

When done right, you can leverage this to defer your payments until your next billing cycle and raise your company’s cash flow without the hassles of mountains of paperwork.

Additionally, learn about the various ways to secure financing for your business to determine the best option for your company.

Some of the most popular ways to get financing include:

• Business or merchant cash advance
• Microloans
• Secured and unsecured loans
• Small Business Administration Loans (SBAs)

Create a solid financing plan today

Securing financing requires planning, research, and learning about the ins and outs of getting funding for your business.

Learn from the tips in this guide to develop a solid financing plan. Combine it with real-world advice from the experts to help you determine the best financing options for your small business.