Financial Resources for Small Businesses [Mini Video]

For your convenience, we've included a transcript of this video below.

Hi everyone, it's Sharon again from the Sales department and fellow property owner. In this video I wanted to kind of succinctly put together a lot of the financial resource information that's floating out there. There's a ton of information floating about so I wanted to kind of bring it all together. The links I'm going to show you are all going to be placed in ThinkReservations COVID-19 Resource page. So no need to worry about jotting those down.

And before I share my screen. I just wanted to remind everyone we're all washing our hands but also practice safe computing. Be very careful about what you click on just like you normally would. I know we're all kind of rushing around a little frazzled. But pay attention to what you're clicking on make sure it's legitimate, so you don't have your computer catch a virus. It's the last thing any of us need right now.

So I'll go ahead and share my screen and then flip through a few websites to talk about here.

We're going to start actually here on the Association of Lodging Professionals website because I think they're doing a fantastic job combining a lot of really good legitimate resources. So if you also follow them on Facebook (you don't have to be a member), they're still making sure to get that information out there. So definitely this is a great first place for some really good resources, financial and otherwise.

I'd like to start from the top and talk about some federal resources. Keep an eye on the relief bills and proposed bills that are coming out on March 6th. The bill got passed for $8.3 billion dollars for lots of different categories and reasons.

Then on March 14th, there was another bill proposed and released for some assistance and now there's a phase 3 that they're working on right now, which is some other things some cold hard cash they're going to give to folks. The GOP and the Democrats are discussing and compromising on the amounts, and when that'll be released, in phases or all at once. So keep an eye on that because it will affect your business and maybe you personally and the important part about this is while they're talking about phase 3, they are talking about the next phase that they're going to look into, which is the hospitality and entertainment industries and helping them out.

Look for any forms you can fill out. This is the AMLA form where they are requesting any lodging facility to fill out this form and support their legislative efforts.

Maybe there are some things going on on your state level as well. And if you're the type of person who's a letter writer definitely reach out independently as well. So keep an eye out for those as well. A larger voice is always a better one, especially when we know that they're turning their attention to the hospitality and lodging industry next.

Go ahead to the next one, the Small Business Association Administration Disaster Loan Assistance Program. Your area has to be labeled officially available for disaster loan assistance, but it makes sense to go to the site to prepare. Look at some of these forms that need to be filled out so you can start preparing some information for that. If you are in an area where you've been listed officially as disaster loan assistance Facebook official, I guess then they prefer you to fill out the form online. They did have a warning that their online is catching up with the needs, but you know, bear with them. They've got us covered.

So in also speaking of the SBA, they did put out a notice here. You can see this here that there's a lot of different SBA loans, not to worry. If yours is SBA this is a really great notice to maybe go to your mortgage company, credit card companies, even your taxing authorities local and state to see if just like the SBA is doing some deferments for their loans if they can also do that for you as well. So it makes sense to have this form in hand and see what the SBA is doing for their loan rulers and see if you can't get some sort of compromise with some of your financial institutions.

Check your insurance policy as well. Look at your Business Interruption and Event Cancellation terms and see if there's something there that makes sense for you, as well. So make sure to dig deep into those fantastically exciting documents. Also not governmental, look for grants.

Facebook is doing a small business grants program here. There might be some corporations out there, like a Facebook that are doing that, have the liquidity, and are doing some really neat grant programs for folks. So take a peek at some non-traditional funding sources as well along with, you know, SBA Loans and the such,

Also in regards to data collection, and I did mention that earlier I would definitely keep track right now of data loss, this is a link to actually one of the local Chambers of Commerce near me, where our property is. They actually listed out a lot of the baseline data they expect they will need not only as a business trying to get relief in the future but some of your Chambers of Commerce or Economic Development authorities may be collecting all business information as a whole after everything kind of calms down and normalizes, whatever that will be, coming up next. That'll help them, and maybe even state government authorities, reach out to the federal government for relief.

So collect that data now, get yourself organized right now. Don't burden yourself with keeping track and going back and keeping track of this finding this data later when maybe fingers crossed this blows over and you're super busy with customers. So do it now. It's something that you can do that you can control, which is for me really nice feeling.

For more information reach out to some national organizations along with ALP, the Association of Lodging Professionals, but you've got organizations like Destination Development Association where they're clearly focused on the tourism industry and also SCORE. They're a free business help organization and regardless of whether your area has signed up to be a SCORE certified, they've got some really great resources here in their library, not only for Coronavirus but for lots of business help needs. This is also a really great national organization to take a peek at.

So, I'll stop there Just keep it nice and simple and sweet trying to deliver some information to you for maybe over the where you can sit with a good cup of coffee and start understanding how financially you can shore yourself up after the spate of cancellations and re-bookings have slowed a little bit. So good luck out there. ThinkReservations has got you covered and we see you all soon.