WORCESTER – At the Woostapreneurs Forum, Patrick Royce, vice president and small business banking manager at UniBank, and lli Spahiu from SBA lender relations teamed up to explain the types of financing available to new or very young businesses. Below are a few highlights from that discussion.
“The SBA program is a guarantee program, which means we can not directly loan to an individual.”
“Mass Tax Connect found at http://www.mass.gov/dor/e-services/masstaxconnect/mtc-go-paperless.html” makes it so much easier to file your taxes and to pay for old admissions of debt.”
“You want to think this through before you get started, which is why you want to have a business plan and having everything in writing.”
“If you have high personal debt, your debt-service ratio is going to be a lot lower on a global scale. You could hit it really big or have zero [for money] in the first month. Living on less and sacrifices are decisions you will have to make.”
“The preference of the business plan is getting on the disparate parts moving together: you’ve considered what the target market is, what the competition is, and overall marketing strategy.”
“In terms of what the bank is ultimately concerned with, I’ve seen dozens of beautiful business plans, but at the end of the day the bank does not care about the flash in the business plan. In that hour-long meeting, the banker is going to know if this is something they want to get behind. And that comes out of the personal interaction and interview component. The most influential factor is the financial projections showing you put together a budget on a month-to-month basis.”
“Anyone who is looking to start-up [a business] should look at the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center regional office located at Clark University [http://www2.clarku.edu/offices/sbdc/] first.”
“At the SBA, we do have resource partners that can be part of your personnel, but they don’t have to be paid staff.”
“We [the SBA] are your small business advocate.”
“The city of Worcester not only has a micro-loan program, but also an economic development office that is phenomenal.”
