Lorinda Snyder, President of The Local Marketers Association, announced a new partnership that will give Association clients access to business funding through an alliance with several traditional and non-traditional lenders. “One of the biggest problems we see out there is businesses that have all the right elements for growth, but they lack the financial resources to accomplish it.” Snyder said in an interview today, “Our funding partners hold the final piece of the puzzle for these businesses and we’re thrilled to have them on board with us.”
The partnership has created a variety of lending options that can be customized to a business owner’s needs. It offers everything from traditional bank loans to peer-to-peer loans and lines of credit. Peer-to-peer lending, or crowd-funding, has become the fastest route to cash for many businesses in recent years and it’s becoming a favorite among investors as well.
Snyder explains, “With peer-to-peer lending, investors’ money is put into a loan pool which is then used to fund the loans to borrowers. This mitigates risk by spreading the individual investments across several borrowers, rather than putting it all into one loan that could go bad. It’s great for investors, it’s great for borrowers and it builds communities. It also gives us the ability to fund things like startups and working capital, things that have traditionally been excluded from most business lending.”
Tracy A. Hanes, Vice President of The Local Marketers Association and Director of the Association’s Vetpreneur Business Startup Program says, “Our program helps military veterans start businesses which in turn create jobs and stimulate the local economy, it makes a huge impact across the board, but none of it happens if the businesses don’t get beyond the “Great Idea” stage. Funding for startups is extremely hard to come by so this partnership is a game-changer for us. This gives us the ability to expand our program nationwide; there’s no limit to what we can accomplish now.”
The creation of the partnership came about as the result of a happy coincidence. Snyder recalls, “I was talking with a banker at a networking event and explaining the Four Pillars Growth System, which is the foundation of The Association and the ‘secret sauce’ that creates the growth we guarantee our clients will experience. It turned out that his bank was one of the top ten SBA lenders in the country.”
She adds, “He put me in touch with several other lenders of all types and we began chiseling out an alliance. The peer-to-peer piece was the last part to come together, we needed something that would fill the funding gaps, particularly for things like startups, microloans, working capital, and short-term loans. Crowd-funding is perfect for things like that. The expectation from the partners is that since money and a system are both essential to the growth and success of a business, the combination of our Four Pillars Growth System and their financial backing will be the fuel businesses need to become solid, wealth-building assets and economic anchors for their communities.”
For more information or to apply for funding, contact The Local Marketers Association at: http://www.tlmaonline.org.