Why Get a Start-up Loan to Buy Your Franchise?
During this long slog through the pandemic, many people have taken time to reassess what they are doing with their lives. Are you passionate about what you do? Do you look forward to what each day brings? Are you spending your time on what you love?
It seems to have caused what is being called ‘the Great Resign’, where many people are quitting jobs to follow their dreams. And you could too!
Don’t Let Lack of Funds Stop You
We have written before about RISE being one of the best fitness franchises to buy but one of the major barriers people come up against when wanting to change and start their own business is money. If you have not a lot of cash in the bank, and lets face it who does, sometimes a boost is required to get you going. The UK government is keen to get more people starting their own businesses and have set up a loan scheme to help.
This is called a Start-Up Loan and this has some distinct advantages versus borrowing from a bank. And you may not want to borrow from family as that brings its own pressures.
What is the Start-Up Loan?
This is a loan scheme that is back by the government to encourage people to launch their own businesses. The main advantage is that it is unsecured, this is financial speak to say that the lender does not require you have security, like a house, to put against the loan. This is done to protect the lender against people defaulting, i.e. not paying back their loans. Not paying a loan back is serious and you should not take borrowing money lightly.
However this approach does give people access to loans who might not otherwise be able to borrow money. The terms of the loan are also good, they are better than a bank would charge you with an interest rate of 6% and you can repay over 1 to 5 years. There are no penalties for early repayment, and you can borrow any amount between £500 to £25,000.
There are some qualifying criteria:
- you must live in the UK
- you have to be 18 or over
- you have (or plan to start) a UK-based business that’s been fully trading for less than 24 months
The Process
There is a link to start applying on the government website but here at RISE we have a partner that can guide you through the whole process and its all part of the service. Our partner is Origin Finance and they specialise in getting these loans through as efficiently as possible. They will handhold you through the process and ensure that business plan and financial forecast are in the right format to get through testing and help answer any queries or issues that come up.
How Much to Borrow?
This means thinking about a couple of major points. One is your own cost of living and managing to live through the first 2 -3 months while you build revenues; can you slim down living expenses at this time? The other is the cost of buying the franchise and associates tart up costs. Your forecast will show how much cash you need to launch the business and then add to that if you do need some living expenses. Add a small contingency amount and there you have the ££££’s needed.
Here at RISE we focus on a short lead in time and try to get to break even as soon as possible. What this means is that you should stop draining cash out of your account by the fourth month of operation.
Please talk to us about starting a franchise and we will support and guide you through the whole process, from business plan to successful boss!
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