Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
The Harvard Business Review says your marketing should focus on answering customer questions.
Millennials looking to avoid the AI job apocalypse are buying blue-collar businesses.
Your overly ambitious job descriptions may be turning off potential candidates.
This year’s hot summer trend is renting out swimming pools Airbnb-style.
FINANCE
Ami Kassar says there are six stages of borrower denial: “Last month, I received a call that should have come nearly two years earlier. A long-established borrower with solid collateral spent 21 months in a workout with a major multinational bank but never developed a meaningful turnaround plan. When the borrower finally contacted me asking for financing or banking alternatives, I had good news and difficult news. The good news: financing solutions were still available, though they had gotten more expensive. The difficult news: because there was still no turnaround plan—no document explaining past issues, corrective actions, or why the business should be seen differently now—we couldn’t take the opportunity to the lending market.”
“The first stage is, ‘My bank will work with me.’ This is the loyalty trap. You’ve known your banker for years and always paid on time—until recently. It’s natural to believe your relationship will have weight when problems arise. And it will. To an extent. But not as much as most borrowers think.”
“The second stage is, ‘This is temporary.’ Every business has ups and downs, and it’s easy to see a rough time as just another cycle. But there’s a big difference between a short downturn and a structural problem.”
“The third stage is, ‘I have collateral, so I’m fine.’ Collateral matters, but it doesn’t fix an unbankable situation. I recently received a call from another entrepreneur who has substantial receivables but also ongoing litigation and an inadequate credit line. The owner wanted a larger facility, but despite his collateral, he wasn’t bankable.” READ MORE
