Paula Groves is Main Street Launch’s Senior Vice President – Business Consulting. She offers tips and advice to entrepreneurs to help them start and grow their small businesses. This tip is about how to decide when a business loan is right for you.
To borrow or not to borrow, that is the question.
Deciding to borrow money is certainly a technical decision. We worry about things like:
- My credit score has gone down recently.
- I don’t have any collateral.
- I doubt I will qualify.
Borrowing money is also an emotional decision. Our stomach turns over at thoughts like:
- Why haven’t I been able to figure this out yet?
- I already borrowed money, why do I still need more?
- Everyone told me not to try running my own business.
These types of anxieties make many of the online options that show up in your inbox very tempting. They often allow you to borrow money without telling anyone.
But these solutions come at a high price and have hidden costs you might not be aware of. Many offer low “teaser” interest rates that can quickly jump over 30%. Worse yet, some have no interest rate at all but charge hidden fees that are difficult to calculate. In short, most offer you a band-aid when what you really need is an in-depth physical to figure out the right way to grow your business.
Here at Main Street Launch we not only offer a variety of loan options (some with fixed interest rates as low as 3.5%, depending on your location), but we also offer expert guidance to help you develop the right plan to grow your business. Our process helps ensure that each of the businesses we support gets the right type of loan at the right amount to help them achieve their individual goals.
So before you click that link in your inbox, call us at 510.830.3202 or shoot me an email at paula@mainstreetlaunch.org, and together we can do an assessment to determine both your funding and growth needs and a strategy for how to achieve your goals.
