Do you need to be able to connect to access to finance?

We had a meeting yesterday with a company which deals in corporate and investment finance for SME’s, although recently set up their past and current experience is in a number of fields whereby their newly formed company would certainly be of benefit.

The purpose of the meeting was to allow us all to explain and introduce our business models to each other so that hopefully it could be identified that some reciprocal business could be achieved. “On this note, have you ever noticed how easy your business sounds in your own head when you’re trying to explain your business to someone because of your involvement and excitement, yet in reality....... it’s really hard when you blurt everything out all at once”.

The main purpose for us ‘Connect WM’ bods was to gain some understanding at what used to be available for West Midlands based businesses in regard to finance help for SME’s, such help could be in the form of Grants, Loans, and/or Investment.

Due to what’s happened over the last few years, you know....first with the economic downturn, then the recession, and now with the cuts being imposed by the coalition government as well as the local authorities. It’s now even harder than what was previously considered to be normal for businesses to be able to access finance in order to help them gain cashflow stability, expand, or develop.

It’s through our own experiences coupled with what’s happening currently that we realise that ‘Connect WM’ should be in a position to help connect west midlands regional businesses to finance.

So with this in mind one area for a proposed development on the ‘Connect WM’ site is to have finance related sections. It is through these sections that we will endeavour to help local small businesses by helping them to connect to finance (Finance WM) and connect to grants (Grants WM).

Now to do this will take time, as we cannot just click our fingers.....but we are now actively looking at sifting through, creating and compiling introductions to financial services and products to help local west midlands based businesses.

Like all finance applications, there’s is no real guarantee of acceptance or success; however, we’re looking only to access finance models that do not waste people’s time or offer a false sense of hope, as well as offer and provide constructive help and feedback on applications which are both successful and unsuccessful.