Planning and Projections for Your EIDL Loan

The request for a business plan can pop up at any time. We saw this before and during COVID. 
SBA was asking many EIDL applicants for Business Plans and Revenue Projections. Frankly, this is something you should have AT ALL TIMES if you consider yourself a Small Business Owner, even if you’re a “gig economy” Schedule-C Sole Proprietor. You can’t truly measure your success without a plan.

When Trevor was a 100% commissioned Loan Officer at a Mortgage Banking company, he had a 22 page Business Plan with Revenue Projections, and he was an EMPLOYEE.

We put together a list of questions for our clients so we can prepare the necessary information for their SBA EIDL applications.

We’ve developed questions to assist in preparing a 2021 Business Plan Summary and Revenue Projection:
SBA recently is asking many EIDL applicants for Business Plans and Revenue Projections. Frankly, this is something you should have AT ALL TIMES if you consider yourself a Small Business Owner, even if you’re a “gig economy” Schedule-C Sole Proprietor. You can’t truly measure your success without a plan.

When Trevor was a 100% commissioned Loan Officer at a Mortgage Banking company, he had a 22 page Business Plan with Revenue Projections, and he was an EMPLOYEE.

We put together a list of questions for our clients so we can prepare the necessary information for their SBA EIDL applications.

We are happy to share it with you here. Wishing you all SUCCESS in everything you DO!

We’ve developed questions to assist in preparing a 2021 Business Plan Summary and Revenue Projection:

QUESTIONS

  • What actions did you take in MARCH 2020 to adjust or “pivot” your business to survive the COVID-19 pandemic?
  • How did those actions help: have you maintained a steady flow of business, did your business decline?
  • Are you continuing those actions into 2021?
  • Have you originated new business concepts to continue your business productivity into 2021?
  • If yes, what are these new concepts?
  • How will the EIDL program assist you to maintain the continuity of your business?
  • How will the EIDL program assist you to support the “pivot” concepts you’ve created?
  • IF you never created any “pivot” concepts, would the EIDL program assist you/encourage you to do that? How?

REVENUE

  • What is the percentage decline in 2020 to your Gross Revenue from 2019?
  • What is the percentage decline in 2020 to your NET INCOME from 2019?
  • If your net income is lower, is that due to the pandemic? If so, how?
  • Without EIDL assistance, what do you anticipate to be your Gross Revenue in 2021 for EACH QUARTER?
  • With EIDL assistance, what do you project to be your Gross Revenue in 2021 for EACH QUARTER?
  • Will you incur new, different expenses in 2021 than you’ve had in 2019?
  • If so, what specific expenses and how much in dollars?

If you want more information about untangling how a business plan works, especially for financing purposes, click below for our business plan outline guide.

If any of our videos or blogs have been helpful, useful and productive, please leave us a positive review on our GOOGLE PAGE. It helps other business owners seeking vital SBA information for their business, not to mention, it’s a kind exchange of information.

PROACTIVE & PREPARED   Get a simple, easy to follow guideline on what you can include in your business plan to keep you focused on growing your business.

6 Podcast Episodes That Stopped Me in My Tracks


With COVID 19 hanging around longer than what anyone expected with no eradication in sight, it’s a mistake to think you should stop marketing for your business. I know how difficult it is to market a product or service that you may not or cannot offer right now.

My business is (was) a commercial financing brokerage. Banks aren’t lending right now due to the “all hands on deck” disaster relief financing efforts to help small businesses survive. Given our resources in lending, we pivoted quickly to stay connected to know how the banks and lenders were receiving (or not receiving) guidance from the Small Business Administration (SBA).

This gave us an opportunity to share information and insight. This provided an opportunity to create and share content. One of the ways to grab people’s attention is to share what you know. How you share that information and insight is through the various platforms available to you. There are different ways to broadcast your message:

  1. Written word such as emails and blogs
  2. Audio such as podcasts
  3. Video such as long-form, short-form or live video.

On March 15th of this year, the tough and undeniable realization was that we were going to have to dramatically pivot how we do business in order to earn an income.

Based on my background in insurance, marketing and financing and my partner’s experience with mortgage banking, financing and marketing, we began strategizing the avenues we could possibly earn income.

One thing we have in common is our love and success with marketing. Ultimately, marketing is the way we can get our brand and our business out to the world.

About a year ago, I stumbled upon a popular podcast hosted by Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner. it’s called Social Media Marketing. As I worked in the yard (almost every day), I would get my exercise in, stress out and learn a few lessons along the way.

I put together a list of the six Social Media Marketing podcast episodes in 2019 that stopped me in my tracks. They prompted me to put into immediate action various tips and techniques to make marketing not only more effective but more fun.

There are so many more episodes that this podcast offers depending on your hot button with what you enjoy (or don’t enjoy) with marketing. Maybe it’s advertising strategies on a specific platform. It’s there. Maybe it’s online traffic vs. foot traffic. It’s there.

The six I chose happen to be evergreen so you can hear their stories and apply their suggestions even during a pandemic. Stelzner has over 400 episodes in the Social Media Examiner library. I encourage you to check out the library of episodes to see what catches your eye and rings your ear.

Six of my favorite episodes are;

Narrative Storytelling: How to Weave Stories Into Your Marketing – Ep. 336 with Melissa Cassera of https://melissacassera.com

I listened to this one twice. Everyone loves stories, but some of us may not be good storytellers when it comes to creating content. You will increase the attention of your reader, viewer, listener if you employ solid story structure.

Find the episode here: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/narrative-storytelling-how-to-weave-stories-marketing-melissa-cassera/

Phrases That Sell: 8 Copywriting Tips – Ep. 337 with Ray Edwards of https://rayedwards.com

This was the first episode I heard Stelzner use the term “solid gold” when it came to preparing us for what would be included in this episode. Ray Edwards has done copywriting for some of the top influencers in the marketplace. You can find this impressive list on his website.

Find the episode here: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/phrases-sell-8-copywriting-tips-ray-edwards/

How to Create Long-Form Videos That Sell – Ep. 342 with Daniel Harmon of https://harmonbrothers.com/home

This was fascinating to hear the success of these two brothers in creating videos for companies that no one heard of but had incredible, almost unicorn success with the content they created for their clients.

It’s inspiring to think of the ways you can create video content, if this is a format you feel comfortable engaging. Video is inarguably the most valuable platforms to leverage your “top of mind” factor.

Find the episode here: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-long-form-videos-sell-daniel-harmon/

Instagram Stories for Business: How to Create Engaging Stories – Ep. 369 with Alex Beadon of https://www.alexbeadon.com

This episode caused me to break out in a sweat because it was something completely new and I was already overwhelmed with all the new ways I could make marketing more effective.

It was compelling to switch how I was looking at Instagram stories as a viable platform. I hadn’t embraced snapchat or live video person so I didn’t think this platform or method would work for me. Instagram has been soaring in its popularity and effectiveness to build fan and brand loyalty.

Alex made me realize the important of consistency when it comes to showing up for your clients, colleagues and future clients.

Find the episode here: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/instagram-stories-for-business-how-to-create-engaging-stories-alex-beadon/

How to Create Content That Attracts Customers – Ep. 356 with Melanie Deziel of https://www.storyfuel.co

Melanie used to be a journalist and her experience included training her fellow journalists how to create a framework for content. This was fascinating to learn how far you can stretch and repurpose content from one platform. For example, with one podcast episode, you can then create a blog. From the blog, you can extract “snackables” for social media posts.

Melanie’s book Content Fuel will help ease the pain of what to create (“focus”) and where to publish (“format”).

Find the episode here: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-content-that-attracts-customers-melanie-deziel/

Magical Words That Sell: How to Build Trust in Your Marketing – Episode 391 with Marcus Sheridan of https://marcussheridan.com

Now, this one was a little extra special for me because I met Marcus Sheridan in Cleveland at an insurance seminar and literally stopped him in HIS TRACKS to take a picture. I didn’t know Marcus then, but it wasn’t the last time I would hear of him and learn from him.

His magical words will help you generate your own magical words for your magical marketing message. He focuses on how your website is likely not appealing to the visitors in the way you think it is.

Find the episode here:

Those are the six that helped me prepare for the biggest pivot of all: The coronavirus lockdown.

As I mentioned, there are over 400 episodes. Please do not mistake my choosing only six episodes as means to dilute the library of informative content that will help you too and keep your readers, viewers and listeners coming back from more.

You can find our musings and madness here:

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Stay safe, stay well.

Who’s Not Afraid to Say “I Don’t Know”?

Who else is an avid fan of Warren Buffett? The “Oracle of Utah” presided this weekend over the annual—virtual—Shareholders meeting for Berkshire Hathaway. Mr. Buffett was a stout, granite-like, believer in the recovery of the American economy after the crash of 2008. This time, not so much.

Much of his ideas, though overall optimistic, were tempered with uncertainty for the future of the American economy in particular and the Global economy as a whole. “Nothing can basically stop America” and “You can bet on America” are two optimistic quotes in an article about the Berkshire Hathaway meeting and Mr. Buffett in today’s NYTimes.com. But he tempered much of his positivity with more than a few “I don’t knows” when queried by the audience and journalists on the uncertain future of a continuing COVID-19 world.

Not that he was necessarily espousing “doom and gloom” as much as he was following a traditional line of thinking for himself and his company: Cautious optimism. Warren Buffett would rather lose out on an opportunity for an investment than to have acted to quickly, without the due consideration such a decision deserves. You can clearly see this as a bedrock concept of his success as a stock investor. He’s not sure which way the economy is headed, but he’s hoping for the best.

Warren Buffett is a student of economic history, and he presented his analysis at the meeting of the American economy from 1789, up to and past The Great Depression. He pointed out that the stock market took 22 years to recover to its highs between 1929 and 1951. His realistic assessments are important for us at Aurora Consulting as we determine ways to continue our Brokerage and find working capital for businesses.

We’ve spent the past six weeks working feverishly—including more than a few all-nighters—to help our clients obtain SBA Disaster Relief financing, in particular the EIDL program and PPP loans. We’re happy to report we’ve been quite successful with that project. But now we find ourselves casting about to see what our horizon looks like, and how to continue helping our clients.

To take two of Mr. Buffett’s phrases into our context seems appropriate today. “I don’t know” is the first. We have some good ideas and you will see those concepts unfolding in the coming days and weeks. Already this week we’ve scheduled conferences with different types of Lenders as part of our deep-dive into lending availability for our clients. We’ve also created basic strategies for Aurora Consulting on the best ways to move forward and help Small Business during the ongoing pandemic and its attendant economic challenges.

The second of Mr. Buffett’s quotes, and the inspiration for this blog, seems most appropriate to what we do here at Aurora Consulting, we find working capital from Banks and Lenders for our Small Business clients. Warren Buffett, as quoted in today’s NYTimes.com: “This is a very good time to borrow money, which means it may not be such a great time to lend money.” Realistic words, a realistic assessment from The Oracle of Utah.

Here at Aurora Consulting, we’re going to embed the Oracle’s words into our strategic thinking so as to best serve our Small Business Clients. If you want to know more about how we help business owners, please email Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.

 

Bankers and Artists

background abstract art with gold dollar sign in center“When bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art.
When artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.”
~ Oscar Wilde

Bankers have the money, control the money, determine where the money will go and who will get it.  In the vernacular, those decisions are called “loan approvals.”  Do Banks skew to the conservative when making lending decisions?  Depends on the Bank, but overall, the answer is probably “YES.”  Sure, riskier credit scenarios can find a home, along with commensurate difficult terms including higher interest rate and other factors.

That leaves the Artists, or, you, the Business Owner, out in the cold and wondering about how to obtain the capital you need to grow your business.

At Aurora Consulting, we believe the path to success for your business credit financing request lies in three factors.

The first factor is the choice of Lender.  Different Lenders have different tolerances for risk.  And, different Banks have different perspectives to find a profitable return for their Depositors’ money. Any given Bank may create lending opportunities due to a strategic decision to lend more in certain credit profile areas.  In both these types of Banks/Lenders, though the credit risk may scare away a more conservative Bank, the terms of the loan don’t have to be onerous.

We believe the second, and maybe the most important factor in credit financing success is in presentation.  We recently watched the Will Smith movie “Hitch” where he plays a coach of sorts to lovelorn men seeking to get out of their own way to find success in love.  Much of the advice “Hitch” gives has to do with presentation, the manner in which a man listens to a woman, the way he honors her presence, and more.

We think that the Loan Application and the manner in which it is presented to a Lender is the fundamental key to success, combined with the other two success factors.  That’s why we strive to ask all the same zillion questions an Underwriter may ask, why we collect so much documentation up front from our clients, and why we carefully package our loan requests to present to Lenders.

The final factor for success in credit financing is the positivity of “The Close.”   Obstacles pop up along the way in every financing transaction.  Our aim is to overcome obstacles with positive attitudes and a sharp focus on getting to the closing.  We use positive language, we seek out positive solutions; we refuse to be waylaid by negative emotions, words, challenges.  This is our Closing Attitude at Aurora Consulting.

Bringing these three success factors together is what we do at Aurora Consulting.  It’s no secret to any experienced financial professional, but it certainly feels like it’s our own secret recipe for credit financing success.

Pages from a Salvador Dali notebook including doodles and calculations of income and expenses, the artist thinking about Money.  
Pages from a Salvador Dali notebook including doodles and calculations of income and expenses, the artist thinking about Money.

Whether you are an entrepreneurial “Artist” seeking to bring your vision for success to life with business credit financing, or a Business Owner searching for the best solution for your working capital needs, let us at Aurora Consulting be your concierge to guide your financing needs to the right conclusion, the one where the Bankers embrace your “art” and release the money to fund your continuing business success story.

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Getting Unstuck

Wall’s Ice Cream is a very popular ice cream brand in The United Kingdom.  The Wall’s logo is prominently displayed at convenience stores, groceries and restaurants and cafes all throughout England. Wall’s is apparently also famous for their “Stop me and Buy One” tricycles roaming the streets filled with ice cream treats.

I haven’t personally seen the logo there by visiting England.  No, I’ve seen the logo often when I watch my favorite British Detective mysteries.  But enough about me and my Brit-Binge.

Wall’s has been making ice cream for over 100 years, but Wall’s didn’t start out as an ice cream business.  No, Wall’s was a butcher shop!  T. Wall & Sons Ltd. was a sausage maker since 1786.  But in 1913, the owner, Thomas Wall, realized that his sausages weren’t very appealing to his customers during the warm Summer months.  He hit on the unique idea of selling ice cream during the Summer to increase sales and to save the jobs of his employees.

It didn’t hurt the bottom line, either. Now Wall’s survives over 100 years later, branded and thriving.  As an ice cream provider.

Would you make a similar choice in your business, a choice where you change your entire business model so that your employees are taken care of?

Do you have to make such a radical choice?

Maybe there is another way to demonstrate your sincere interest in the financial well-being of your employees.  In this economy of nearly full-employment, it is certainly in the best interest of businesses to hang on to valuable employees.  Time and again, successful companies have proven their success comes thanks to the people working for them, the people showing up every day eager to do their jobs and to see their employers achieve long-term success.  Surely it’s in the best interest of the employer to invest in those employees, whether that’s in small ways or in a radical way.

Like Wall’s, a company in business literally for centuries, but thriving in incredible ways for the past 100 years thanks to a small but ingenious investment on the part of its owner at the time.

Where will your business be in 100 years?

 
Visit our FINANCING FODDER YouTube Playlist for more info on how you can prepare a financing request that will knock the Lender’s socks off.

Streamline Your Financing Request

Want to become a priority with the banker?

Summarizing your financing package can help to prioritize how your banker reviews your financing request.

We recently submitted a client’s financing request to one of the Lenders on our lending matrix.  Our Lender Rep. said, “Holy cow, you guys are on top of it with your summary. Not many brokers make it this easy to review the package.”

We made it easy because the client provided us with their financials. The financials were comprehensive. It’s a multi-million dollar corporation and we’re at the early stage of presenting to the lender. We want to show something that’s easily digestible. We want to ease  the process for the lender to give us a prompt review and tell us their interest in offering the financing.

Summarizing your financials is easy to do.  When you have a lot of line items that lead up to one, just one, type of deduction or one type of income source, simply summarize it. Drop it down to as few lines as possible so the lender can do a quick review and say,  “Okay, I see the picture here.”

The Lender doesn’t need to know the granular line by line details at this early stage; you want the Lender to give a fast review to gauge their interest. If the Lender expresses interest and offers a Letter of Intent for the financing, you can present the more detailed financials with your full loan application package.

For each financing request, present a one or two page statement describing the background of the business, the reason for their financing request, and, in bold, large font, the amount of our financing request.

Our presentation package for the initial Lender review is compact yet complete.  The “first glimpse” by a Lender is sufficient to tell us if that particular Lender is the right fit for our client’s request, or if we need to locate a different Lender.

Visit our Financing Fodder YouTube Playlist on how to prepare your business loan request.

The Dirt on Marketing, Like Literally

When I was younger, I loved city life. The hustle and bustle of people scurrying and vehicles hurrying was alluring and alive.

As I got older, I became more attracted to the quiet countryside. Ah…the fresh air, the sounds of birds chirping, the smell of grass … hold the “flower”, I mean phone. (Yes, i’ll be cultivating these deciduous puns.)

The smell of grass? Yes! It’s a refreshing reminder of spring and summer. So glorious, right?

WRONG! You know how you get the smell of grass? You have to cut it. It’s called landscaping.

There are two kinds of people:
* People that do it on their own
* People who hire someone to do it

But wait, there’s more! There is the third type of person. Those that outsource a portion of the work and do some themselves.

Sound familiar? Yup. That’s how marketing works too.

When I decided to move to the country, I bought a house in Roxbury, Connecticut. It’s a wonderful place. Many people, even Connecticut residents have never heard of it.

Think Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe, William Styron, Walter Matthau, Richard Widmark, Alexander Calder.

Ok, enough of this stardom, let’s get back to “grass roots”. 

When you’ve never owned 2.6 acres of land before, and now you have it, you have to decide how to approach this monumental groundskeeping mission.

The first thing I did was to hire a full service lawn maintenance and estate management company to handle every aspect of the property. That got to be too expensive. I then decided to manage some of the yard work myself. I paired working in the yard with the idea of working out in the yard to get some exercise.

I reviewed what equipment I needed, what I had and what outside services I could ”prune” away.

While I was planting shrubs and laying mulch, I got to thinking about how landscaping and marketing are very similar. Let’s take a “broad-leaf” look at how the two compare. 

Curb Appeal vs. Brand

First, you survey the property on how to maintain or improve your curb appeal. That takes an eye towards design.

In marketing, your curb appeal is your brand. It takes strategy to consider how to project your brand.

Equipment vs. Tools

Then you prepare your landscaping project by organizing your equipment needed for mowing, planting, pruning, weeding, etc.

In marketing, you have tools necessary to exercise and broadcast your brand such as your website, social media channels, direct mail, podcasts, etc. 

Maintenance

This is where the two meet and “thatch”, I mean match:
* Landscaping is not an event, it’s maintenance.
* Marketing is not an event, it’s a process.

If you’re looking to “till” through the marketing madness and cover more ground, email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz or call 860-759-9910. 

Our Comfort Zone is Unsafe

I’ve been skydiving, twice. Yes, it was terrifying, both times. I imagined all the worst case scenarios…and they all resulted in death. When you jump out of an airplane at 13,000 feet, there’s that first feeling of free falling. Queue Tom Petty, please.

This is not butterflies; this is sheer terror. For many split seconds, I wondered: “how did I get up here, jumping into this big blue sky that’s so high?” But I did it. I got out of my comfort zone. And I lived to tell this tale.

Doesn’t it make you nervous to get out of your comfort zone? It makes me nervous. For instance, I didn’t want to write this blog for fear of having to take my own advice.

I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone in my business, too. I had no choice. I had a deliberate plan to build my business to a certain level. The only way to get to that level was to get out of my comfort zone, jump out of the metaphorical airplane and do things that were uncomfortable but necessary.

Why would you get out of your comfort zone if  you know something works? Getting out of your comfort zone implies pain. Who wants pain?

There’s a reason we do things that scare us. When we do something scary, we put ourselves in a situation and/or surround ourselves with circumstances that we wouldn’t otherwise experience. But, the real problem with staying in our comfort zone is missing out on opportunities.

Skydiving and/or public speaking provide opportunities to learn about ourselves by getting out of our comfort zone and trying something new, and potentially scary. I survived both skydiving jumps and I managed to leverage the two experiences into successful marketing campaigns for my business. This opened up opportunities to win clients. The bonus was also being featured in a book, Make What You Say Pay, by Anne Miller, Sales and Presentation Coach.

Sometimes, doing what we know feels productive. When we want something done, we do it ourselves. Like marketing. Or fixing a leaky faucet. We’re in our comfort zone; we believe we know what to do, and we believe it’ll get done faster. But sometimes getting it done faster isn’t the most efficient use of our time. And sometimes, we actually fail. Sometimes, that leaky faucet repair we tried to fix ourselves turns out to be a disaster.

How do you move from being set in your ways to getting out of your comfort zone?

First, if you have a doubt or fear about doing something you’ve never done before, realize that could be a trigger that there’s experience and growth waiting for you. The fear of jumping out of the airplane is replaced by positive anticipation of the experience. Sheer joy is so much better than sheer terror.

How else can you execute on this trigger?

Decide how you want to grow. Is it personally or professionally? Or both?

  • Do you want to grow your business to the next level?
  • Do you want to have more adventure in your life?
  • Do you want to date more suitable companions?

Be specific in setting your goal so you can know how to proceed with the following task which is to research activities necessary to perform the fearful task. Taking on small challenges will lead to the ultimate goal if you break it down into mini deadlines.

Speaking of public speaking, if you fear public speaking, join a Toastmasters Club. This practice will hone your skills while in
front of a group. This will begin to build good habits around this activity.

As part of achieving my previous business goals, I wanted to get over my fear of public speaking. Not only did I join a Toastmasters Club, I also enrolled in an Improv Acting class. This practice of being in front of people diminished the feeling of embarrassment while performing “think on your feet” acts.

You can discuss with a friend or colleague how to bring life to your thought. Then make the bold move and announce it to the world. To assist with staying accountable to the task, calendar each progression so you know how far out of your comfort zone you’ve come.

All of these activities assist you to imagine your outcome of success. Trish Tagle is an expert in leadership training and troubleshooting organization efficiency in order to evolve businesses. Trish is famous for saying, “imagine the outcome.”

Here’s a great example of a business owner who challenged her team to get out of their comfort zone.

My friend and colleague, Kelly Piro, owner of  Agency Performance Partners invited me to judge a “Sales Showdown” for her company. Twice a year, the APP consultants undergo role-playing exercises in order to practice how they interact with prospects. The objective is to convert prospects to clients faster.

ROLE-PLAYING? Yes!

The APP team had various scenarios such as being at a trade show, being on a sales call or in an initial sales meeting. There were several of us observing while the team role-played their scenarios. By critiquing their performance, the judges and the fellow team members pushed everyone out of their comfort zones. It was easy to do in the role-playing scenarios because it was practice, it was imaginary, and no one actually jumped out of an airplane.

Outsourcing important tasks is another way to get out of your comfort zone. Like hiring a plumber to fix that faucet. Cost tends to be the primary impediment before people make the call to the plumber. It’s “comfortable” to think we can save money by doing it ourselves.

But we have other things to do with our time and we’re not actually plumbers, are we?

Interesting in marketing, email us at Curious@AuroraConsulting.biz.