Business Credit and Alternative Data
How are you doing Brian Howard here at BKH Credit Group and bkhcreditgroup.com, coming back with a video, with this video, and this is an important video. I did a video I believe yesterday or two days ago where I talked about this paradigm shift in the world of business credit and funding and how, you know, things are changing and how we need to be aware of those changes, so we can make the proper adjustments and properly prepare our business to be funded and to be able to build business credit. So what I want to talk about today is I want to talk about Alternative Data and alternative lending. Now I got a couple of notes here on my screen, so if you kind of see me look over and look away, it’s because I got some notes or some important points talking points that I wanted to ensure that I covered in this video so that you have the best information, and like I said, I didn’t want to leave anything out, so I’ll do my best to cover as much as this as possible, but I do want to try to keep this video short. I try to keep these videos ten to twelve minutes max, at best, because I know your time is valuable, and so I don’t want to waste your time with a lot of basically what a lot of bullshit, you know, because people get you on the social media platforms and channels with the videos and they talk for forty-five minutes and forty-five minutes you don’t learn shit. And then just to be honest, I hate to be so blunt, but you sit there and listen to them for forty-five minutes and you don’t learn shit, you know.
So now with that being said, I apologize for my profanity, my apologies, but let’s talk about, you know, building our business, building our business credit, getting funding, and let’s talk about Alternative Data. So what is Alternative Data? Alternative Data is data that’s not on your credit report that is being used in the lending decision. So what that means is you go in, you apply for credit, you apply for funding, they’re not just looking at what’s on your business credit reports. They’re looking at your business credit reports in conjunction with Alternative Data, okay. So what is Alternative Data? Well, the 800-pound gorilla as it relates to Alternative Data is social media. So they’re looking at your Facebook, your LinkedIn, your Twitter, your Instagram, for both you and your business. They are factoring it in what they see and the lending decision. They’re also looking at web data, like your website, testimonials, reviews, different things like that. And they’re using that information to weigh in on whether or not they’re going to lend you the credit or give you the funding that you want.
They’re looking at payroll solutions like Quickens and QuickBooks, you know, they want to look at your payment service gateways, like your merchant gateways, like they want to log into your PayPal, your Square accounts, your Stripe account, you know, these different merchant providers that we’re using. So they’re using data from all of these different sources along with what’s on your business credit reports to make a decision. So that’s the Alternative Data, I mean, now more than ever, it is essential that you maintain and expand, you know, all of these talking points or data points that I just mentioned so that when your company is being evaluated for credit or financing, you can get the highest, you know, evaluation, from, you know you know, from that company. And that’s what you want because that’s going to determine, you know, whether or not they’re going to be able to lend to you or extend you any credit.
Now we are going to talk about Alternative Lenders. Now, a lot of you are familiar with Alternative Lenders, but you may have not even thought about it in that sense, you just saw them as a lender. So, you know, you got Alternative Lenders that are offering lines of credit, offering business loans, cash advances. These are non-traditional things that you don’t necessarily get at traditional banks, you know, like the cash advance etcetera. So you got to be careful when you’re dealing with Alternative Lenders and Alternative Lenders have a lot of different criteria that they use outside of the business credit report, to evaluate your business for, again, credit lines, loans, lines of credit etcetera. Some require a personal guarantee that would be like OnDeck. Some have revenue requirements, like Kabbage, OnDeck being another one, they have, revenue requirements.
For those of you who don’t know who I’m talking about, I’m talking about Kabbage, Kabbage they’re an Alternative Lender, you can check those out. That’s Kabbage with the K, OnDeck, ONDECK. Those are some Alternative Lenders that, you know, you may have seen online that, you know, offer funding for business. Some are requiring a certain, FICO score, some have minimum revenue requirements. So these are your Alternative Lenders that are lenders that are different from, you know, your traditional banks. So again, just to recap, moving into 2020 and beyond Alternative Data and alternative lending is going to be a crucial part of your business credit and your business financing and funding overall picture, I guess that is the best way to put it.
So you have to make sure that you are doing the absolute best to manage these particular points as it relates to your business. Again, it’s not just about your business credit report anymore, you know, it’s not about that alone in itself. Obviously, you want to have the best business credit report that you can, I mean, that goes without saying, but understand they have Alternative Data that they’re looking at, like I said, your social media, your website, your testimonials, your reviews, your LinkedIn, you know, your Google business pages, your Facebook, et cetera, you know. They’re looking at your payroll solutions, like your square, your, I mean, I’m sorry, your payroll solutions like your Quicken Books and different things like that to collect data on your business and see what type of transactions you’re doing on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, a yearly basis.
All those things are coming into play and, you know, the alternative lending market is getting bigger and bigger. The majority of the lending that’s done in this country, as it related to businesses is through Alternative Lenders anyway. And so you need to be aware of the requirements and the different things that some of these, Alternative Lenders are looking for; like I said, I mentioned two of the really big ones. That’s Kabbage, Kabbage with the K and OnDeck, they’re two huge Alternative Lenders. So I hope you got something good out of this video, just wanted to drop that on you guys real quick. Remember your Alternative Data credit points that we talked about, you know, your Alternative Data points, rather I should say that we talked about all those things that I have listed already in this video.
Okay, alright. Sorry If I got off on a little ramble too much, but you know, most of this stuff is just stuff straight off the top of my head or based on questions that I get in my inbox and on the phone or different things like that. And so, when the spirit hits me to come to video, I come straight to you. I rarely ever even write anything down, I did write down a couple of notes this time. But nonetheless, I hope you got the gist of what I’m, what I’m trying to say and what I’m trying to convey in this video is that it’s not just about your business credit report, pay attention to your Alternative Data sources and pay attention to Alternative Lenders. Okay, alright. This is Brian Howard signing out BKH Credit Group.
Recent Comments