4. Remember that you need them worse than they need you. It wasn't always that way. The subprime mortgage fiasco was derived partly from mortgage lenders awash in cash who needed to write mortgages as fast as they could. "They" needed someone, anyone, breathing to otherwise, who could apply for a mortgage. If we live to see another silly season like that, get money as fast as you can, and try to avoid being buried when things go bad.
5. Learn what funders will accept and do what you can to shape your needs to match their comfort zone. Different lenders have different styles. If you can conform your needs to match what a lender wants to do, you'll be ahead of the game already. Likewise, if you take the time to understand how a purchase order funder will operate, you will save yourself time when you want to get things done.
6. Realize that even if the process is new to you, it's not new to them.
7. Be honest and be especially aware of what a finance company would consider important. We had an experience several years ago where a mining company came to us seeking over $20 million to revive a dormant mine. Two months of due diligence by a hedge fund later, we were one week from closing. The fund analyst had one final mandatory call, wherein he asked the company owners if there was anything negative in their past that they wanted to disclose. The owners said no, there was nothing to disclose. When the background check turned up bankruptcy filings five years earlier by two of the company's owners, that was the end of the funding. One executive explained to me later that he had forgotten about it and hadn't realized its importance. The sad part (sad for us, considering the potential fee) is that this funding would have gone through if the bankruptcies had been properly disclosed. Instead, the background check led the fund to believe that the owners' representations could not be completely trusted.
8. Don't wait until the last minute to seek funding. There are generally two sorts of people who wait until the last minute. One type doesn't realize how critical the finance component of the business is. As a result, they regard it as an afterthought, and are surprised when the order they worked so hard to get vanishes because they weren't prepared to finance it. The second type really has a business, and the door opens to a newer, larger piece of business. If fortune smiles upon you in that way, maybe the finance gods will smile too. We'll help if we can.
9. Finance people want to lend. True, they also don't want to wake up in the morning trying to figure out where their money went. But certainly, you can bet that everyone is looking for good people and entrepreneurs to finance. Be that good entrepreneur.
10. The Golden Rule is also good business. Do unto thy finance company as thou would have thy finance company do unto you.
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