In this post we will talk about
- Why is it difficult to find money to finance your business?
- Who is a financial broker and how can they help you?
- How to evaluate and choose the right financial broker for you?
A business needs money at different times and in different situations. It may be that you are starting a company. Or maybe you plan to expand your business to other countries. Or even perhaps your business have faced temporary market difficulties so you need extra money to pay for your business expenses. Finding money can be difficult but it is not impossible. As an entrepreneur you have many options (As we have talked about it previously https://www.ponture.com/financing-a-business-is-a-challenge-but-not-impossible/)
Often the quest to find a right financing solution, evaluate all your options, negotiate, and choose the best offer that suites your business needs takes a lot of time. It would involve many hours of researching, preparing, meeting and negotiating. You would also need a good knowledge of finance rules and regulations. Besides, you would need to have a good financial expertise to be able to compare banks offers, terms and conditions … and you would have to do all these over and over again. Can you afford to spend so much time on this? Wouldn’t your time be better spent focusing on your core business?
Entrepreneurs who realize finding financing takes a lot of time and requires a good expertise they get help from a Financial Broker.
What is a Financial Broker?
A finance broker is simply a person or a company that acts on behalf of a client to search and find a financing solution that meets their client’s needs. In this case, you as an entrepreneur are the client.
Financial broker is a specialist.They have the right knowledge, expertise and experience from the financial market. They also have a relationship with different banks, financial institutes, and other financial service providers and have a detailed knowledge of their services.
Financial brokers are well suited to assist entrepreneurs in finding and comparing various financing solutions and advising the entrepreneur to make the right choice.
How does a financial broker help?
A respected and knowledgeable financial broker can save your business. Such a financial broker helps an entrepreneur/a business person, not just in terms of saving time and effort, but in more tangible ways too such as the followings:
- Getting the best terms:Reputable financial brokers will look for money from various sources. For instance, they can submit loan application on your behalf to several banks so that they can find the loan with the best interest rate possible for your business. If you would instead go straight to one bank you’d never know if you could have get a better deal somewhere else.
- Explore alternative options: Even if your loan request gets denied by a bank or other financial institutes a broker will be able to help you look into other financing solutions such as Invoice Factoring, leasing, etc.
- Access to financial network:The best brokers have relationships with an extensive network of banks, financial investors, and investors. They depend on good relationship building, and getting good deals is often all about having the right contacts.
- Market knowledge: There are a number of international and local financial regulations that a financial broker is familiar with. They can help and explain to you so you can understand better. Besides, an expert financial broker will help you get an in-depth understanding of financing activities. During a financing activity, i.e. when you would like to take out a bridge loan, they ideally would be able to explain all the jargon and acronyms to you without a problem and help your assess all your available financing options to save you time and money.
- Impact and cost assessment: Often every financing involves a certain amount of risks and costs associated to it. A financial broker can help you assess the impact of choosing a financing options vs another one. It will help you understand how the financial situation of your business would look like in the future if you choose any of the available financing options.
How to evaluate and choose a right financial broker?
Choosing a financial broker is an important decision therefore you must spend a good time evaluating them. There are several criteria to look for when you have decided to get a financial broker. Some of these criteria are related directly to your business, branch, market, customers, and needs. On the other hand some the criteria are common across various businesses and industries.
Cost of a financial broker, expertise in your business, experience in your market are the most common criteria.
Finding the right financial broker is not always easy. So to help entrepreneurs we have written a list of recommend questions that you need to ask your financial broker candidates in advance:
- Does the financial broker understand your business?
- Does the financial broker have experience from your market?
- How many banks or financial institutes they know already?
- Is the financial broker committed to help you?
- How will the financial broker search for financing for you?
- Is the financial broker recommended by other businesses owners?
- Does the financial broker speak in a way and language you understand?
- Will the financial broker work on your behalf or on behalf of banks?
- What is the cost of their broker service? How do they charge you?
- Is your financial broker putting more cost on you or not?
To make sure that you get yourself the best possible financial help these questions will help you identify your financial broker and be confident they will help you find the best financing solution.
Ponture is an independent financial broker firm and has all the permissions required by Finansinspektionen to assist you.
We at Ponture are committed to our customers. We speak different languages. We have a long experience working in various fields as entrepreneurs. We understand your business challenges. We have a team of experts with over 30 years of experience from financial market. We have a vast network of contacts and partners from financial market in Sweden. We promise to our customers that we will never compromise their needs for our financial gains.
Last but not least, we do not charge any fee for our brokering services from our customers and we are committed to help entrepreneurs finding financial solutions that costs lowest in the market with best terms that fits their business needs.
If you are interested that we help you please do not hesitate to contact us.