The metropolitan area of Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington in the state of Texas saw population growth of 146,000 in 2017, the largest throughout America. That and a franchise tax typically lower than 1 percent should be more than enough reasons for you to build your small business in the Lone Star State. But of course, you’ll need to secure some Texas small business funding first – especially if you fell short of your self-financing goals. Even if you eventually decide to borrow money and set up shop somewhere other than Texas, you’ll need to get your small business funding application approved by your chosen lender but only after you do the following tips:
Pay your bills on or before their respective due dates.
All the utility bills can severely influence the outcome of your application for small business lending from your preferred lender. For instance, when they see that you recently failed to pay a handful bills on or before their due dates, they can reject your application even before you can explain yourself to them.
So if you can afford it, make advance payments of more than one month on all your bills. But if you don’t earn enough to do so, you should make sure to pay them all on or a few days before their respective due dates so you can rest easy – at least until your next billing statements arrive at your doorstep.
Lessen any existing debt.
The small business funding that you’ll borrow from your preferred lender is technically yet another form of debt. But if you can prove to them that you can repay any debts you’ve incurred before, they can consider approving the small business funding application that you submitted to them.
You may have been incurring debt by way of your credit card – especially if you love to shop online. While it can be small at first, it might eventually pile up until you can no longer afford to repay it. So before your credit card debt gets insurmountable, pay it off and have it closed immediately. Consider using a debit card instead whenever shopping online as you can more closely monitor your expenses with it and avoid falling into a debt trap at the same time.
Come up with a highly organized business plan.
Your chosen lender will want to know from you how you plan to use the small business funding you’re borrowing from them. Instead of giving them vague answers that would lead them to fish for further details about the venture you want to put up, you should take the initiative of providing them all the information they need by presenting them your business plan which should contain the following:
- Executive summary or a brief overview of your entire business plan.
- Business description which details what your small business is about.
- Marketing strategies wherein you have to research your target market and come up with pricing, distribution, promotion, and sales tactics for whatever products or services you plan to offer.
- Competitive analysis which would require you to snoop into how your competitors are doing so far and identify any weaknesses on their end that you plan to address with your small business
- Design and development plan wherein you have to clearly state what your product or service would look like and how much money you need for it to materialize.
- Organizational structure which would entail you to come up with a hierarchical chart of you and anyone you want to hire for your venture.
- Financial statements that should provide near-realistic projections of your small business to turn a profit for you to be able to repay the funding that you want to secure for it to take shape
Identify early on which asset of yours you want to use as collateral.
You’ll want to hope for the best but expect the worst for your small business. There’s no telling after all if your little venture would suddenly pan out due to low demand for your products or services which can affect your ability to repay the funding that you plan to get from your chosen lender. If ever you become financially incapacitated, they’ll have to seize any assets of yours you decided to use as collateral and sell them via public bidding so that they can get back the money that they lent you.
So even before you fill out your small business funding application, you should start choosing which among your assets you want to use as collateral. Just make sure that your house, car, plot of land, manufacturing or packaging equipment, or anything else you decide to designate as collateral has roughly the same current market value as the amount of money you want to secure for putting up your small business.
Conclusion
You might urgently need the money to set up your small business in Texas or elsewhere which is why you want to borrow some from a lending institution. However, they can’t just lend you your money right away despite having filled up all required small business funding application details as they have an approval process to follow afterward. To increase your chances of getting approved for funding, you should do the above-listed tips even before you head over to your lender of choice. You’ll want to secure that small business funding as hassle-free as possible after all.
