The language is so close to what’s already written on every MCA firm’s home page and mission statement, that we wouldn’t be surprised if a few copyright lawsuits get thrown around. Hey AdvanceMe, time to whip out another patent lawsuit and sue the SBA!

“Many entrepreneurs and small business owners across the country have enormous potential to drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs in their local communities, but too often they face barriers in fulfilling that potential,” said Catherine Hughes, chairperson of the SBA’s new Advisory Council on Underserved Communities, in a written statement.

Leave it to the government to be behind the curve. But before we go ahead and add U.S. Government to our list of funders, it’s important to reflect on what it means to be behind the curve in this business.

“The SBA’s new Small Loan Advantage incentive cuts the paperwork burden. Larger banks that are already so-called “preferred” lenders can make loans through its flagship 7(a) lending program up to $250,000, and get them approved quickly by submitting a single-page credit memo, according to Jonathan Swain, assistant administrator for the SBA. Loans submitted electronically “will be approved in minutes,” according to the SBA. Other applications will be approved within one business day.”

Cutting the paperwork… Approval in minutes… While the actual applications are handled by participating banks, it sounds like the SBA should be taking another page from the MCA industry, their underwriting process. With government backed guarantees ranging up to 85%, one can’t help but think that a human should be approving the deals. If it’s any further indication that they are heading into dangerous territory here, the infamous SBA Asset Recovery Capital (ARC) Loan had a predicted borrower rate of default of 56%. Whether or not those projections have materialized into reality are unknown. It’s no surprise then that the SBA seems to be mum on the topic.

Many confuse this program with the Community Express Loans Program where lenders have the ability to make very small loans but they do not and cannot make credit available to the same group of potential borrowers that the microloan program does.

This target market includes entrepreneurs and businesses, that for a number of reasons, are unable to secure traditional bank financing. This includes things like no credit history or a poor credit history, no or little collateral, and little or no business experience. Traditional lenders who loan under The Community Express Program rely on FICO credit scoring to determine a borrowers creditworthiness, very few of these lenders would consider an entrepreneur with a FICO score below 680. SBA micro lendiers on the other hand are making loans to businesses with FICO credit scores in the low 500′s and even lower! As a Senior Consultant with Program Funding Consultants I am exposed to the company statistics which show we have had numerous clients get funding with credit scores in the low 500′s.

One of the first things one will need to get used to in even investigating the Microloan Program is that the lenders are called “intermediaries”. The SBA makes funds available to specially designated intermediary lenders, which are nonprofit community-based organizations with experience in lending as well as management and technical assistance; these intermediaries make loans to eligible borrowers. The maximum loan amount is $35,000; the average loan is about $13,000. With our company we see the average loan around $15,000.

Here is another advantage to SBA Microloans. Intermediaries who participate in the program provide personalized and ongoing technical assistance to borrowers. This provides them the flexibility to extend credit to start-up entrepreneurs with little or no formal business experience. As an added benefit the Intermediaries are able to continue to guide and support borrowers as their business grows and in many cases it also includes providing pre-loan assistance in the early stages of a business’ development as well as trouble-shooting and ongoing support throughout the life of the loan. This is a key area where the consulting staff of Program Funding Consultants assists the borrowers as well. The consultants work hand in hand with intermediaries on a daily basis and know exactly what needs to be done in order to submit an application with the highest likelyhood of success.

Anyone can get an application and list of intermediaries from the Small Business Administration and attempt to get approved for an SBA Microloan on their own. The difficulty becomes in understanding lender requirements, which ones provide technical assistance and how much, where to get access to additional resources with guidelines on how to properly submit an application in a way that has the highest chance of approval, how to get telephone support on a consistent basis to make sure you are on the right path. Try finding someone from the SBA or at an intermidiary that will take phone calls from you multiple times per day to help you develop your idea, secure a business entity or even assist you in building business credit for funding outside of the SBA, it’s not likely.

5 Ways to Market Your Small Business Online

Build a Website – You don’t have to pay for web hosting even if you’re running a commercial website just as long as your company can be properly categorized as a small business. Having a company website is the means for prospective customers to learn everything they have to know about the products or services you’re offering. Compared to other online media, a website allows your customers to see and hear about your offer and perhaps interact with you as well.

Know about SEO – Your work doesn’t start and end with building a website. To make your website work as a marketing tool for your business, you need to incorporate SEO – or search engine optimization – elements in it. SEO can help your website zoom to the top of search engine rankings and provide it with all the exposure you need.

In regard to SEO, make sure that you focus on your design and content. Besides needing your website layout to be visually attractive, it must also have easily located links to facilitate navigation. Use HTML as much as possible as this is more SEO friendly than, say, CSS. As for the content, refresh or update it as much as you can because new information will always encourage old and new readers to visit your website. Also, think about the appropriate keywords for your website and use them as much as possible – without committing grammatical errors or ruining the coherence of your content – to delight search engine spiders all the more.

Have a Blog – A blog is one of the most effective online marketing tools today, and if you don’t have one yet then you’re wasting a huge opportunity day after day. A blog allows you to directly interact with prospective customers and almost immediately update them with anything new about your company’s products or services.

To increase the marketing effectiveness of your blog, make sure that you’re writing about one topic alone. This topic must be directly related to your company’s products or services. Furthermore, it must be something that you know and love a lot to enable you to write in a convincing and interesting fashion.

Build Your Network Contacts – Although websites sometimes seem to be creatures of their own right, always remember that a website can’t really operate by itself. It gets updated and achieves success because of its webmaster or owner, and that person should be the one you’re concentrating on getting friendly with. Do your best to build your network by establishing good working relationships with other website owners. This is a give and take situation so be ready and willing to shell out as many favors as you hope to receive. As you become good buddies with these people, you’ll end up exchanging links, and this, by the way, is called affiliate marketing.

Join the Podcast Revolution – Although the popularity of blogs is certainly not waning, that doesn’t mean you have to completely rely on blog marketing alone. There are other marketing fishes in the Internet, and one of them goes by the name of podcasting. Make new podcasts regularly and insert your ads in between. You have to make them short and interesting enough to discourage your listeners from wasting energy just to press the fast forward button.