Bankers – do you
√ Have clients who are “Growing Broke” and Don’t know where to turn for help? ( My plea in this area is for bankers to help the small business at this critical point in time. It may result in taking a risk but.. if you require monthly reports from the borrower that are monitored by someone such as Prism so they are reasonably accurate accrual reports compared to a simple business plan, I think you can develop long term relationship clients who will be worthy of you lending them $).
√ Loosing clients as you reinstitute previous requirements on companies and they don’t understand why you need all the information? (Recently helped a new client that was unhappy with bank and was starting a relationship with a new bank because the old one wouldn’t help. Listened to client, talked to old bank representative, and my opinion was – the old bank was more capable of helping the client. Client agreed to give the old bank a fresh start. Positive change is good but change that is in the wrong direction is to be avoided if at all possible.)
√ Have clients who are mis-financed? This is a challenge for you to allow the client to get out of the box this creates for them as they need working capital to survive and grow. I can help but need your support to find a way to fix this trap that both you and the client got the client into.
√ You say you can handle the good, the bad and the ugly news but can you really? When the client starts to clean up their books generally the news goes from good to bad and perhaps to ugly. What do you do when the working capital goes negative and the debt to equity goes way up? If you want the truth – my thought is you want the client to be truthful – you need to be able to work through this with them and help them to understand how important good accurate reporting is for all concerned. Build responsible clients who can weather this storm and be stronger when the next storm comes with a good GPS system in place and a good view of the incoming weather. America needs small business and you bankers are an important piece of helping them shape up and maintain/grow new good jobs.
- √ Have clients who want to expand their operations but need the financial reporting & budgeting controls to manage a project, and you are reluctant to lend until they do? Prism can be a resource to make this a better experience for all concerned.