I am the owner of a small business which I started in 2004. I am really struggling financially. I mortgaged my home for the start up financing and re-mortgaged in 2006 into a subprime adjustable loan and put all of my personal financing resources into the company to keep the business going, thinking that I would be able to obtain small business financing later. With the nation?s financial crisis, my credit rating decline, and the housing market crisis, my options for obtaining small business financing seem to be non-existent. I?ve gone to my bank asking for help but can?t really get anything tangible except to contact SBA which just refers me back to SBA Lenders.

The challenges seem to be that every business lender will only finance based on a personal guarantee. The problem with this is that I have poor credit?not necessarily because I haven?t been able to pay my obligations but because I owe so much money because I put every personal resource into the company, and can only show actual income from my regular job.

I am working on fixing my subprime mortgage and personal credit situation and am waiting to see what options are open to me with the new programs to help with mortgage, credit problems, and small business help but I am finding it very difficult to find any information.

Company Background: We roast coffee and market almost primarily to non-profit organizations. We giveback 20% of the net proceeds from our coffee to the farmers who grow, pick, and process our coffee. We giveback 10% of the net proceeds from our coffee to our Customer Organizations for Community Outreach and giving. We also create additional fundraising for our non-profits. In 2007 the company had over $250,000 in gross sales. In the current economic downtrend and without any operating cash to grow the business sales have dropped to an estimated $125,000 for 2008. We are a very small grassroots company, mostly volunteer based. Orders are internet based and our customers pay by check (30 day net) or via Paypal.

I?m looking for any information or advice that could help me continue my business.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my story.

Contact us at ajones@abcsolutions.cjb.net What you need is some business based credit and some tradelines as well as a USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to help you increase revenues. We can help you with all of that.

If I understand you correctly, you are overextended on your credit personally and as such do not wish to give a personal guarantee to your business creditors. Your business is in financial straits unable to get personal financing unless you personally co-sign...

Am I misunderstanding the situation. If so, set me straight.

If not... co-sign the loan.

If you are certain the business is going to continue generating the revenues it has been generating and you are certain that the drop in sales is temporary and recoverable, then you don't really seem to have a problem.

Thoughts I did have from a marketing standpoint...

Why aren't you supplying anyone but web customers and why to "mostly" non-profit organizations...

Are you fair trade certified? If not, why not?

Do you have an up to date business plan... I ask this loosely because if you did, you would not be wondering what to do, you'd have a ready road map in your plan. If your answer is that you have a business plan, it's obviously not working and my first suggestion is to update it.

You might want to consider sitting down with an operations and/or marketing consultant to tweak your business model so that it will work? If you ARE working with TransFair, I suggest sitting down with them and seeing if they can't help offer some solutions; $125,000 is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but when farmers are relying on you for their market, Transfair would have a vested interest in helping you stay in business... If you aren't with Fair trade, you might want to get with them, it will give you access to suppliers and purchasers as well as mentors, support etc.

Finally, my biggest niggling question is; why are your sales off 50%? If you don't know the answer to this question, you want to find out.

I have about a thousand other thoughts, but I think these comments are enough to chew on for one day.

T

Tina Brooks, VP Marketing
Brooks Pepperfire Foods, Inc.
Makers of Peppermaster Hot Sauces
http://www.peppermaster.com

Eat more peppers!