You Want to Repair Your Credit

We want you to have peace of mind that, should you need to apply for business financing, you’ll be prepared to keep your business going through this or any unexpected crisis.

If you are considering business financing in the future, or simply want to know what to do and how to go about applying for business financing, Aurora Consulting offers a flat fee consultation to help navigate the bumpy road, the treacherous waters of financing.

We review all aspects of what’s required in a loan application including your credit report, financial statements, business plan and marketing plan. We review with you items in your credit report and what happens when you try to repair your credit.

Our consultation includes a credit report with real credit scores from Equifax and Experian.  These are the “Classic FICO” scores only available to financial services institutions.  These scores can be radically different from the scores available to consumers.

When we run the credit report, we assess any challenges that could affect your loan application in the future.  More importantly, we’ll give you the correct advice, based on decades of experience in lending and based on current experience working successfully with Lenders on business loan applications, to address any challenges on your credit report.

What makes us crazy is when a new prospective client says, “I’m holding off for now because I want to take care of my credit report.”

There is no way a business owner can know what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to a Bank for business financing.
We can, and we do know.

Worse, in our experience, more often than not, people take actions to “take care” of their credit that actually does not help them in the business loan process. Sometimes, what they think they’re doing to help, makes their credit worse!

4 things NOT to do with your credit report:

  1. Don’t pay off Collection or Charge Offs or Judgments. Many times these accounts don’t affect a loan approval depending on type of account and amount.  Plus paying these accounts off can lower your credit score dramatically.
  2. Don’t pay down credit card balances.  You may pay down the balance to a level that seems worthy, but actually could have a negative effect on your score.
  3. Don’t pay credit card balances to zero.  If an account has a zero balance, the credit scoring system has nothing to score!
  4. NEVER pay anyone to “repair” or “restore” your credit. According to the Federal Trade Commission, you’re paying for something you can do yourself. And the “guarantees” these companies offer often fail to materialize. Read this article for credit repair scams.

Download our EBOOK on how to rebuild your credit. This information was curated after 30 years of reading thousands of credit reports.

We Anticipate Problems to Create Solutions

Our Process Anticipates Problems, Creates Solutions

The good news is that Banks are lending again on a limited basis for non-disaster loan requests.  The bad news is that the loan products are limited and the underwriting guidelines are very, very restrictive.

Many industries/businesses are excluded from loan programs.  Banks simply cannot determine yet the viability of the businesses to survive the pandemic. Risk is too high and thus doors to the lending vault are tightly shut.

Today we spoke to a Bank on four different loan scenarios. Each of these businesses has challenges on their loan applications of different sorts, whether it’s credit, cashflow, type of business, COVID-19 impact on the ability of the business to earn income.

In the hour-long conference call with the Bank, thanks to our qualification process here at Aurora Consulting, we easily addressed the Bank’s concerns and answered their (often) difficult questions as they assessed the risk on each loan scenario. In three out of the four scenarios, we received positive feedback of interest from the Bank. While this interest does not guarantee a loan approval, this, in our experience is a giant hurdle we overcame. 

The rest of it is the loan process.

We also spoke today with a prospective new client in a follow up to our initial call last week.  This client seeks over $4Million in funding for a unique business, a business for which many Banks and Lenders do not provide funding due to their lack of understanding of how this business operates.

We had already identified a Lender for this financing request.

In our follow up call today, the prospective client indicated they would soon make a final decision on moving forward with Aurora Consulting to secure the financing. They also indicated they were working on their credit.

STOP. RIGHT. THERE….BEFORE we go any further. (Meatloaf medley playing).

A client should not “work on their credit” without proper guidance. Luckily, we provide that kind of guidance here at Aurora Consulting. While we don’t believe in credit repair/restoration, we do have decades of expertise with credit and we also know the appetite of commercial lenders when it comes to credit. Note: We have not yet seen this person’s credit.

Our process at Aurora Consulting includes running a credit report as soon as we sign a consulting agreement with a new client. We do this so that we can anticipate any issues that could slow down or prohibit the lending process. We do this upfront so that we can provide advice that leads to a positive result for our clients.

The same holds true for our entire process. We review all financial statements, business plans, marketing plans and any other pertinent items in the early days of working with a new client.  

We do this to anticipate and resolve problems a Bank or Lender may have in the future.

When you apply directly to a Bank/Lender for commercial financing, these items, credit reports, financial statements and the like, are not seriously reviewed until the very late stages of the loan application process. By then the applicant has spent time collecting and submitting documents and spent money on application fees, appraisal fees and other associated costs.

Literally most Banks/Lenders do not run a credit report until the very final stage of the application process, weeks or months after the initial application. At that point, if a credit issue arises on the credit report, all those weeks and months of work are quite literally flushed down the toilet and the loan is declined.

Our role as your financing Broker is to review all relevant documents, including a credit report, in the early stages of your request, before the application, before we’ve even considered conversing, in depth, with a Bank/Lender.

That’s why today, we hit the mark with 3 out 4 of our loan scenarios getting the green light from a Bank to move forward to the application process.  

We were prepared for every question and concern the Bank had because we’d reviewed credit and documents. We anticipated problems in advance and could converse honestly with the Bank on possible workarounds for those problems.

It’s what we do, because we are the business-owner’s advocate. We work for the business-owner. We would be remiss if we didn’t share with you that banks call us when they can’t underwrite the loan. So we understand their process.

Ask us any questions when it comes to business loans. If you want your business to survive, and THRIVE despite the worst crisis we’ve seen in our lifetime, please call us with your questions.

Email Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz

Proposed vs Passed Legislation

We’re often very blunt about things, especially Trevor as he is Scottish.  “Right between the eyes” is a favorite expression of his.  We don’t like to dance around the truth and we certainly despise getting someone’s hopes up about something that’s not reality.

These principles served both Linda Rey and Trevor very well during their respective careers in Insurance and Banking.

At Aurora Consulting, we embrace and continue to follow those principles to assist our business financing clients.

We’re going to give it to you now right between the eyes: We refuse to discuss proposed legislation about COVID-related stimulus and disaster financing until and at such time as, that legislation has passed the House of Representatives, the US Senate, and has been signed into law by the President. Period.

Passed gets our attention; proposed stays on our “pay no mind” list.

We relied on this attitude in the early days of the pandemic lockdowns when so much was complete chaos, speculation, despair and distress.  We fielded calls, texts, and emails from our friends, colleagues and clients, each of them despairing for any kind of positive news about Government assistance to help them survive the pandemic lockdown, whether about the EIDL program or the proposed CARES Act and the Paycheck Protection Program.

In every instance, we patiently listened to and carefully counselled folks.  We emphasized the word “patience” time and again and coined our phrase for the pandemic, “Ever-Evolving.”

Based on our guiding principles, we waited for concrete information.  The SBA website provided skimpy information at best for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.  We charged forward and submitted applications, spoke to several trusted and experienced colleagues, and submitted our clients’ applications, utilizing our decades’ of experience completing successful applications for loans and insurance.

We pivoted with each new challenge that came up, apprised our clients of the situation, and continued hammering at the wall until we achieved positive results.

We used the same methods for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). We opted to wait to submit applications until there was more cogent guidance from Lenders and SBA on the functionality of the program.  When we finally submitted our clients’ applications we achieved positive results again.

There’s a lot of talk on the internet, especially on YouTube with glamourous videos, purporting to provide definitive knowledge of what’s in store for extended stimulus and disaster financing legislation.  We call that “static.” PLEASE subscribe to our channel for updates especially for our WTF Wednesday videos.

At Aurora Consulting, we seek results based on reality.  We don’t search for self-inflation of our professional egos by providing incomplete or inaccurate information to the general public at large or our clients in particular.

We know you’re impatient and desperate to hear there is more assistance on the way.  We know that we will wait until that proposed legislation becomes passed legislation.  Only then will we dive into the details to find results-based financing solutions for our clients.

Tough Questions from Lenders

The good news is that Banks and Lenders are opening up their coffers to provide business credit financing. The other news, that’s more anticipated than “bad,” is these Banks want business owners to answer some tough questions about preparedness for further pandemic-related challenges.

If you are applying for business financing—a loan or line of credit—that’s not Disaster Relief-related, here’s a sample from one of our Bankers on what to expect:

  • How has your business been impacted throughout the crisis?
  • How have you and your employees been affected? Your suppliers? Your customers?
  • What are your key priorities over the next 30/60/90 days?
  • How do you anticipate accomplishing these goals? What hurdles do you anticipate?

To achieve a successful response to your application, you should answer these questions with all appropriate gravitas and extreme detail.

  • The Bank wants to know that, should the pandemic-related lockdowns get tighter:
  • How have you planned to get through that?
  • Do you have cash reserves?
  • An employee-furlough action plan?
  • Do you have the ability to provide your services or products with a serious downturn in customer traffic (think early days of lockdown)?

Banks make loan decisions by assessing the risk on the credit profile of the Borrower. As with any aspect of a loan application, the COVID-19 pandemic has created another layer of risk for Banks. Your successful loan application will take that risk assessment into account as you prepare your application for submission by anticipating how to make a Bank/Lender get into a “comfort zone” about your ability to make payments on the loan as other challenges from the pandemic arise.

Download our documents checklist so you’re properly prepared. You have to be better than the lender because they’re trained to say “NO THANK YOU”.

Subscribe to our Financing Fodder playlist on Youtube.

Download “Homework”! You’ll thank us later!

Business Financing Documents Checklist

Stop worrying about what's required when pursuing a business loan for your small business. This list will indicate what a lender, bank, SBA, etc. will want to know about you and your small business if you're looking for a business loan. These are prudent documents that help tell your small business story. Without them, it's difficult for lenders to assess you as a risk when it comes to lending your small business money. This is NOT SPECIFIC to the SBA EIDL loan.

How To Shop Financial Services Products While Black

We have worked in Insurance and Banking for three decades.  We have seen how our White colleagues behave when discussing internally, or when working directly with persons of color.

This video is difficult to present because we don’t dare presume that we know what life is like to be Black in America. We can only empathize and attempt to put ourselves in your shoes.

We share some advice on how you should expect a financial services professional to behave if they are treating you with the equal respect they provide to their white clients.  We created this advice based on how we have behaved with clients, knowing that we have standards that are severely Anti-Racist, and how we have observed other professionals with less savory standards behave.

  • Language.  An Anti-Racist uses language that is respectful at all times, not only the words used, but the tone of voice used.
  • Education.  The quality professional, treating all customers equally, seeks to educate clients. They bring to the presentation deep reserves of patience and empathy.  They never behave in a way that disrespects the client’s lack of knowledge about the service or product.
  • On-Time. Your Professional should be on time and prepared for the meeting/call.  This demonstrates their ability to take you seriously.
  • Respect. The Anti-Racist professional never speaks down to a client.  The Anti-Racist professional asks questions with a patient demeanor or explains things in plain English with a respectful tone.  For example, “I’m asking for your Identification because I’m required to do so for every client when we will run their credit report.”  That’s respectful and seeks to demonstrate a patient educational tone.  The opposite is, “I need to see your ID.”
  • Polite. Language and words truly demonstrate how a person thinks.  When a person is polite to a customer, they use the appropriate words such as “Please” “Excuse me” and “Thank You.”

We recommend that you, as a Black American, or a person of ethnicity or different gender, absorb these key points of behavior and, most importantly, act on the points with the best action you as a consumer of financial service products can take: Walk away.

Too often, we’ve seen an African American customer being treated badly by a white professional but that customer stays in the meeting.  Walk away.

The best way to demonstrate your requirement that you be treated equally is to walk away from, or hang up the phone on, any financial services professional who you feel is not sufficiently Anti-Racist. There are plenty of us out here in the world who know how to treat our fellow human being equally and with respect.

Walk away from the racists and find those of us who are Anti-Racist.

We’re here and we’re waiting for you.

The Dreadful Disorganized Document Disaster

Our resident Chief Financing Rock Star, Trevor Curran, was a Mortgage Banker for 30 years. His specialty was helping first time homebuyers with low down payments to achieve the American Dream of Home Ownership. From the early days, with no computers, no internet, no email nor a beeper on his belt—until the day of his retirement in 2018, a mortgage loan application was all about the paper. Documents to support the application needed to be submitted, reviewed, dissected, parsed, and collated. Trevor’s clients submitted their documents in many and varied ways, including coffee-stained tax returns, crumpled paystubs pulled out of an old wallet, and badly-scanned PDFs. Considerable time was spent by Trevor and his loan processing team to put these documents into a manner acceptable for review by an Underwriter. And of course there was the pushback from clients. “Why do you need that (document)?” “I can’t find my tax return.” “The dog ate my homework.” Oh, wait, wrong story. Trevor’s response, time and time again, including in the early days when he would literally drive to the clients’ home, workplace, a McDonald’s parking lot, or the real estate office, to pickup their required documents, was, “We need these documents because the bank requires it since you’re asking the bank to lend you several hundred thousand dollars.” This obvious message was delivered in a kind and patient but firm manner. Still, it always seemed incredible, time and time again, how people could be so cavalier about their loan application requirements. “Don’t they want the house?” he would often ponder in the moments of extreme frustration. Now, as the primary processor for Aurora Consulting, Trevor’s manages the document flow and the loan applications for our business clients. When we launched this business we remember discussing how this document issue is going to be so much better because we’re dealing with serious business people. Unfortunately, we were mistaken. Especially over the past eight weeks as we have assisted over 30 businesses to apply for and receive Government Disaster Relief financing, the poor quality of document management is mind-blowing. Especially at a time like this, when the desperation of keeping a business alive requires this emergency infusion of cash. You’d think business owners and their representatives (CPA’s, mostly) would be sharper than ever to get documents submitted in an organized and prompt fashion. Again, mistaken. Moral of the story for anyone thinking they want to ask a Bank or Lender for money—whether you’re buying a house or financing a business—it’s all about the paper. Organize your documents, submit them in a clean, efficient manner, and submit them promptly. Rant over. Send us a message with how you’ve successfully managed your team to understand your high level of standard when it comes to managing your documents.

Download our Documents checklist

Quick Access to Working Capital

If you are aware of factor financing, you may know that you can leverage your Accounts Receivables with a Factoring Lender to get quick access to working capital. However, you may be concerned what your Customers will think when they have to send their payments to a different address.

  • Lending aspect aside, it is not unusual for Businesses to create a different location to receive payments on Invoices, whether a physical location or an electronic ACH location.
  • The Factoring Lender works hand in hand with you to ease the transition for payment destination on your Invoices.
  • Many of your Customers are already sending their Invoice payments for other B2B purchases to Factor Lenders whether they know it or not.
  • Factor Lending, while a niche financing solution, has been utilized by businesses in need of quick capital for 30 years.
  • Businesses frequently leverage Assets, Property, Income and other collateral to obtain working capital whether it’s a traditional Bank loan or other financing solution; leveraging your Invoices is no different.
  • The fact your business is borrowing money demonstrates strength, not weakness.  You’re demonstrating your faith in your business by borrowing money to continue to grow your business.

Factor Financing is an affordable, fast, financing solution to help you leverage important aspects of your business–in this case your Accounts Receivable–to obtain the working capital you need.  It’s easier to qualify for Factor Financing than traditional Bank Loans, especially during the pandemic paradigm when Banks are making loans difficult to obtain.

Factor Financing Qualifying Criteria:

  • You must sell your Product/Service B2B
  • Your Customers must pass muster for basic creditworthiness on their ability to pay Invoices
  • Non-Progressive Billing
  • Startups Acceptable
  • Consistent Accounts Receivable practice

Let us ease your worry about what your customers will think. Learn more to see how this could be a solution to keep your business going during this pandemic. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

Optimize Cashflow During This Pandemic

In this difficult time, normal Bank lending criteria has tightened up.  Banks, always risk-averse, have become even more so during the pandemic. If a Bank is lending at all to businesses, they are only doing so to their existing business customers, and those customers must have demonstrated ridiculously healthy financials before the pandemic and more so now.

In other words: for businesses that are booming during the pandemic paradigm, in need of working capital to keep up with demand, the purse-strings at traditional Banks are pulled super tight.

Let’s discuss the fortunate scenario that your products are flying out the door or your services are in high demand right now due to the new pandemic paradigm. However, you find yourself in need of working capital, here’s a unique solution for your business:

Convert your Accounts Receivables to instant cash.

If your Customers have a good history of on-time payments within 40-60 days of Invoice issuance, and you’re selling B2B products or services, then you’re positioned to take advantage of this quick, affordable, working capital solution.  Lean into your Receivables and get the cash you need today to better service the orders for your Products and Services with Accounts Receivables Factor Financing.

Criteria:

  • You must sell your Product/Service B2B
  • Your Customers must pass muster for basic creditworthiness on their ability to pay Invoices
  • Non-Progressive Billing
  • Startups Acceptable
  • Consistent Accounts Receivable practice

Contact us to learn more about how Factor Financing could be an incredibly efficient and cost-effective way for you to have capital flowing to your business. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

Short-Term Solutions for Long-Term Goals

There are two scenarios that some business owners take when starting and maintaining their business.

First, no debt.  These businesses were started with savings and/or investments from the business owners.  These businesses fund daily and annual operations costs with money generated from the profits of the business.  These business owners most often do not like the concept of credit debt, or, worse, have a severe anxiety about the idea of borrowing money to run their business.

Second, belief in debt.  Using debt in the form of credit financing is a reliable source of capital for starting and running a business when the concept is applied with smart planning. These business owners understand that obtaining capital to start or grow a business from a bank loan or other financing source can be a great way to preserve existing profits and working capital, and also a viable option to find the money needed on a larger scale.

Pandemic Panic financing such as disaster relief loans, SBA economic injury disaster loans (EIDL) and paycheck protection program (PPP) loans due to the COVID-19 crisis is a type of credit financing that, in most all cases, could be a band-aid on a gaping wound.

Longer term financial considerations, as your business strives to come through the crisis and survive on the other side, it’s important to consider other types of credit financing to help you obtain the working capital you need.  We’re exploring many different options for our clients.  One of those options is Asset-Based Lending, specifically, .

This is an excellent option for a business with valuable and well-performing Accounts Receivable to obtain quick sources of working capital to assist through this crisis.  The Factor Financing Lender works hand in hand with you and your business team to create a system where your customers invoices are assigned to the Lender.

For a very reasonable cost, you can obtain immediate access to the cash value of that invoice practically as soon as you send it out to your customer.  This quick access to capital dramatically improves your Cash Flow situation, helping to make you stronger on a daily basis to survive and thrive through this crisis.

Factor Financing Lenders vary in their criteria for the types of businesses and types of receivables they prefer.  We’ve assembled a healthy matrix of different types of Factor Financing Lenders to provide you with an array of financing options for your business to help you through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Curious? We are here to answer your questions about this type of financing. Email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.