With a huge variety of support now available, how does a small business find finance that fits their needs.
Where would you start?
Keep it simple and start with the basics…
Create a plan on how you intend to grow the business, what/where are your markets; what are your overheads and costs and how do you intend to cover them… and try to think about how this impacts on the business.
When you’re looking for funding support, most people start within their own networks. Approaching peers and trusted intermediaries like your accountant is a sensible place to start.
Find someone like Insight FD who can offer useful suggestions.
Google is your friend – try an online search, but again, before you start your search, keep those goals at the forefront of your mind – what do you want to achieve and what will give you the best value?
What would you do?
Before approaching potential SME/small business funders, make sure that you’re very clear on what your business’ objectives and expectations are. This is especially important when planning more than one business improvement project.
Once again, be clear on what your priorities are and what sort of return on investment you’re expecting – something funders will want to know too.
Why would you need grant funding support?
You might not, but that shouldn’t stop you exploring what options are out there.
Grant funding programmes exist to encourage businesses to invest and stimulate business growth. As funders, we hope that this leads to job creation, which is obviously beneficial to the local economy.
Grant funding aims to de-risk the decision to invest. The idea being that this encourages more businesses to take the plunge and push forward with growth plans.
Most projects using external expertise can be supported via the Fund, but the most common tend to be website development, process improvement, video and animation production, growth consultancy and supply chain development.
How do you do it?
Our approach to grant funding is all about making it as easy as possible for the client.
Business owners want to spend as little time as possible form-filling, so lean on us to help you both to find appropriate grant funding and to apply for it.
Best advice
Do your research – if you’re a small business trying to find finance options, or looking for grant funding, make sure to investigate all of the support that might be available. There are more support options than most people realise and it doesn’t cost anything to find out what’s available.
But be quick… funding pots tend to be over-subscribed and can rapidly run out.
Reach out to us now and we’ll do everything we can to help you.
