Yeah, But Can You Sweep The Floor?

One of the requirements of getting SBA loan financing is work experience and how it relates to the business you are purchasing. I often get individuals who call me with a corporate work background that can't understand how important this concept is.

For example, I just received a call from a potential buyer who is looking to purchase a small roofing business for $500K who has a background in food service. His response was, "hey I run a division with 450 people, have an operating budget of $40 million . . . . . ""you know how the rest of this goes.

Lenders can't stand this attitude & they know that most heavy corporate types don't make the best small business owners. My hint to you if you have this type of work background is don't come off like a big shot, because it doesn't go over well in small business financing circles.

After he told me how he has all this great responsibility, I joked with him and asked him if he ever swept the floors? My point to him was that lenders want to make sure that potential borrowers understand that it is very different owning and running a small business that a division of a large corporation & no secretaries, no assistants doing a lot of the work, no big budgets to cover all the angles & you get what I am driving at.

I told this potential borrower there are ways to package this SBA loan where his "work skills" translate to the business he is thinking of buying, and that the other factors lenders look at seem to be pretty strong with his other personal information.

Another key factor is picking the right lender for the loan. Most lenders would not do this deal because of the lack of related work experience & and would tie up the deal in underwriting until this decision would be provided and probably kill the deal because of the time delay.

Work experience and how it relates to the business you may be thinking of purchasing, and selecting the right lender is important, and you better be ready to sweep the floors!
•Technorati  •del.icio.us  •Digg It  •Furl  •ma.gnolia  •Spurl  •Yahoo MyWeb