25 Raising the money Raising money needs careful planning, like a military campaign. You should regard it as the biggest sale you are ever likely to make. You need to get your act together to present your case. You need to know how much money you want, who to approach, how long you want the money for, and what security you can offer backers. You also need to know the business plan, the financial figures and the marketplace inside out. But that is not all. You should expect indifference, lack of interest, disbelief and doubt. You have to convince, persuade and excite sober, serious busi- ness people about the prospects for your business. This cannot be achieved by overstatement or rash predictions about success. Demonstrations of competence and skill are what is required. Of course, a few strike lucky. There may be the odd story about bank managers agreeing overdrafts over the telephone, or someone being able to pick and choose from a variety of backers who all want to put up the funds. But for most it is a hard, hard job ­ and never more so than in the current climate. Following the global financial crisis, banks seem to have retrenched. They are concerned to restore the strength of their own balance sheets and appear very cautious about lending to small and medium-sized businesses. To help the economy get back to normal growth levels, the government has carved out a deal with the five largest UK banks called Project Merlin. It requires the banks to meet targets for lending to busi- ness. So far, lending has fallen short of these targets. The banks claim that this is not their fault: they have made the lending available but there is a lack of demand from businesses. The Federation of Small Businesses does not disagree but claims that the high cost of bank lending is putting small firms off and that greater competition is needed in the banking sector. The