Blog of Frank Knapp, President/CEO of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce
Be proactive!
That is the advice of financing professionals about what small business owners should do if they foresee problems in making loan payments.
Lenders can and want to help their customers get through rough times.
They have the authority to defer loan payments—principal, interest or both—to help small businesses get through this national health crisis that is causing consumer demand to drop.
The debt doesn’t go away but having smaller or no payments now can allow a small business to survive to make payments later.
DO NOT miss a loan payment and wait for the lender to call. That puts the loan in a delinquent status and makes it much harder for the lender to work with the small business.
Small business owners are resilient, and lenders want to help.