Business Loan Cocoa, Florida

As a prerequisite to meeting with lenders for a loan, you will need to determine exactly what size loan you will be asking for.

You need to be able to clearly introduce your business to the banker, explain how much you want to borrow, define how the money will be used, and show how you intend to to pay the money back to the lender.

Being able to present a well-written business plan is an important prerequisite. If the bank loan is to for an existing business, you should also have financial statements covering the last three years. In addition, you should itemize what collateral you have available to guarantee the loan. Collateral is relevant because banks always want to be prepared for a worst-case scenario in which you cannot repay the loan .

If the business has few assets, the bank may ask you to to to guarantee the loan with your personal assets, such as stocks and bonds that you might own or life insurance policies. The banks will check on your personal credit history in any case, so hopefully you have good credit history -- you may want to get a copy of your credit history prior to meeting with the banker.

Many of these banks participate in the financial assistance programs available through the SBA. Prior to visiting local banks, you may want to get up to speed on SBA loans programs to see if you qualify. SBA 7(a) loans, SBA 504 loans and SBA disaster assistance loans may be available to you.

To assist you in finding a small business banker, here's our list of small business banks in Cocoa.

This is a list of banks outside of Cocoa, Florida that have provided SBA loans to Cocoa businesses. Some of these may be national banks with local branch locations.

More Advice on Raising Money

If you are planning on Raising Money, you need to learn as much as you can. If you haven't read it already, we recommend you review How Equity Dilution Works.