Successful Business Bank Consulting for Small Businesses

The commercial lending process has grown more challenging for small business owners, and business bank consulting might prove to be the most successful strategy for achieving commercial loan and working capital management improvements. Selecting a business loan expert is easily the most important step in hiring a qualified commercial bank consultant. This task must be pursued until a business owner is satisfied no matter how difficult it might seem.

It is essential to include non-bank programs such as business cash advances in the overall evaluation of practical commercial loan options, so a business finance services expert selected must not only be familiar with banks but also equally capable of evaluating sources of non-bank financing. The business bank consultant will need to have a working knowledge of what distinguishes bad banks from good banks as well as identifying effective non-bank sources that can provide small business financing services which are increasingly unavailable even from the good banks.

If their current bank ends up in the bad bank category by any definition used in the business bank consulting review, a borrower will be left with the uncomfortable chore of firing their banker. This is obviously what can be an excruciating portion of the process for virtually any small business owner. It will usually help to realize that the analysis of new business finance alternatives would not have been necessary if the existing banker had been performing as expected and needed.

If it becomes necessary to replace a bank, it should be realized in advance that based upon specialized small business finance criteria, only a few banks can pass the stringent tests to be viewed as a good bank. If a small business is currently using what is deemed to be a bad bank but still needs an ongoing banking relationship, a vital part of commercial bank consulting will be the identification of at least one good bank candidate. Even though many financial experts will debate whether there are any good banks left standing, the search for them must realistically continue.

Most small business owners have a sufficiently good memory to easily remember that banks were rarely credible sources of accurate information during the recent banking chaos, so it should come as no surprise to hear any bank referred to as a bad bank quickly denying the possibility. But fortunately there is objective data available to help confirm if small business financing is demonstrating a sharp downward trend.

With widespread public reports showing business financing at the lowest levels in many years, banks are simultaneously boasting about the supposedly robust level of their business loan activity. In one possible explanation for the disparity, banks might be offsetting a clear decrease in small business lending with an increase of commercial loans to large corporations.

Before completing any new financial agreements, borrowers should benefit by calling upon the business bank consultant to help them make a final call or to serve as a commercial finance expert providing them with a candid second opinion. This report is strongly encouraging small business owners to take aggressive action when determining which commercial real estate financing and working capital financing options are realistic for their business circumstances. Glaring differences such as those discussed above seem to make a compelling case for efforts to improve business financing options with the strategic use of commercial bank consulting.