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The Lender Ready Program – becoming Lender Ready to assist in accessing money to support business operations and expansion

Page published: March 16, 2021 | Page reviewed: April 28, 2022

Engaging with your preferred Lender(s) and becoming ‘Lender Ready’ can be – at times – a daunting prospect.

But it doesn’t have to be this way…

Successfully applying the 6 Golden Rules or Must Do’s is critical to accessing money from lenders. And this money might be what allows you to create the high performing business you’ve always dreamt about. It might be to support that extra property – or part of a business growth or succession plan. What’s more, applying those Must Do’s can also save you money and time. Imagine if in getting a loan for $5M you were able to save $200-300k into the bargain! Just by being Lender Ready.

Join Gordon Stone (ABDI Director, Business Mentor and Strategist) and other guest presenters in this 5-part (recorded) webinar series when they discuss:

  1. The Lender Ready Program – how to engage with lenders: an introduction to the new purpose-built Lender Ready Program explaining how to become ‘Lender Ready’.

2. Understanding a lender’s perspective: hearing direct from a lender about their wants, needs and drivers.

3. A producer perspective on accessing finance: a real experience in shortlisting and approval of a finance application.

4. Becoming Lender Ready – Your Questions Answered: The Team re-caps the Lender Ready series and finishes with a Q & A session involving all topics covered during in the webinar series.

5. Thinking of getting more money from banks?… there are more changes in 2022: hear about the significant changes to the lending landscape since 2018.

These recordings are a guide towards you getting a greater understanding of how to manage these business challenges and the opportunities of becoming ‘Lender Ready’.

You can use the tabs below to select and watch a full recording or use the playlists (below each recording) to jump to the start of a particular section within the recording.

Additional resources:

This webinar recording is an introduction to the new purpose-built Lender Ready Program explaining how to become ‘Lender Ready’.

This Program has been created to support how you finance your ‘better business management’ on a daily basis, plus your business growth plans. It is a collaboration between the Agri-Business Development Institute (ABDI) and Meat & Livestock Australia, and part of the continuing ‘ABDI-MLA Agri-Business Management Program’.

In this recording, Gordon Stone discusses the 6 Golden Rules or Must-Do’s to become Lender Ready:

  1. Understand – the (changing) lending environment
  2. Clarity (on your plan of attack) – to match it to lender requirements for success
  3. Commitment – applying your time, effort and discipline effectively
  4. Insights – so you understand lender needs and put your best case forward
  5. Engagement – between you and your Lender(s)
  6. Assess – the (Lender) offer(s) in detail.

Download a copy of the presentation: The Lender Ready Program – how to engage with lenders (PDF; 0.4 MB)

Full recording

Playlist

  1. Becoming Lender Ready
  2. Context: The Lender Ready Program
  3. Why a Lender Ready Program?
  4. Frustrations on ‘getting money’
  5. Dealing with ‘getting money’ frustrations
  6. Getting an optimum (Lender) result
  7. Understanding the lending environment
  8. What Lenders want…
  9. Key elements for engaging with Lenders
  10. A program to help you develop your own lender application structure
  11. Assessing the proposition
  12. Making this ‘real’
  13. The pointy end – is this program for you?
  14. Questions to consider…
  15. Are you interested in getting Lender Ready?
  16. Disclaimer

The Lender Ready Program describes the importance for a borrower of getting an optimum result through the application of six key principles of becoming lender ready.

An aspiring borrower has the responsibility of preparing suitable documents to convince a lender that they, their business and the business proposition represent a good lending risk.

Lenders have internal processes to assess the level of risk, with this assessment being undertaken objectively, based on how the business proposition is described for review by a lender.

The key elements of that assessment are:

• a business plan – describing future plans
• the financials – past, present and future figures and data (to validate the plan)
• an application – with supporting documents (that are fit for purpose to the plan and financials).

This webinar recording provides the opportunity to hear from a representative of the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority (QRIDA) that administers Queensland Government loans and grants.

Ultimately, both parties will arrive at a Finance Proposition – ideally, after the borrower proposes what suits them, and while this sounds simple, it’s important for an aspiring borrower to put themselves in the shoes of the lender.

Download a copy of the presentation: Becoming Lender Ready – what do Lenders want and need (PDF; 0.64 MB)

Full recording

Playlist

  1. Becoming Lender Ready: What do Lenders want and need?
  2. The Lender Ready Program – a re-cap
  3. Agenda
  4. What’s on a Lender’s mind?
  5. Analyse and assess (in the Lender’s shoes) – your resources, your financials, your available security and your ‘best case’
  6. ABDI Business Plan templates
  7. Financial management and planning
  8. Financial mutual obligation
  9. Your financial application
  10. Take-home messages (from a Lender’s perspective)
  11. Disclaimer and final comments

Since 2016, Kahmoo Pastoral Company has developed defined growth plans to move into higher value and niche markets that comprise part of their 15-year plan. During 2020, ‘Kahmoo’ developed a finance application to purchase another property and access sufficient funds to support its initial 5-year business growth plans.

This represented Stage 1 of the 15-year plan wherein Kahmoo applied the principles of the Lender Ready Program using ABDI as its business adviser to support their loan application process.

In this webinar, Kym Thomas (CEO, Kahmoo Pastoral Company) tells her story of developing their plans, the financials, the finance proposition and then seeking funding, which includes the expected and unexpected twists and turns in the process.

Join Kym and Gordon (ABDI) when they discuss:

• the importance of self-understanding – “how we (Kahmoo) managed our ‘head space’
• our process for ‘getting all the information together’ – in a family setting
• the complexity of the ‘lending moving target’ – as Kahmoo sought the best possible financing proposition.

Kym will also explain:
• the importance of a ‘clear plan’ (how it was developed)
• the importance of professionalism (all aspects of the loan process)
• managing financials and accessing advisory support.

Download a copy of the presentation: The Lender Ready Program – a producer’s perspective on accessing finance (PDF; 0.43 MB)

Full recording

Playlist

  1. Becoming Lender Ready – a producer’s perspective to accessing money from Lenders
  2. The Lender Ready Program
  3. Core Program Principle
  4. Who are Gordon Stone and Kym Thomas?
  5. The problem: frustrations on ‘getting money’
  6. Getting an optimum result
  7. Kym’s experience in becoming Lender Ready
  8. How did we tackle it – what was the plan?
  9. What did we find out?
  10. A suggestion to others – items to consider
  11. In summary (the Lender Ready Program)
  12. Kym’s ‘take home’ messages
  13. Drawing things to a close…
  14. Information and contact details
  15. Disclaimer

Three engaging webinars have been delivered so far that have covered:

  1. The 6 Key Principles of becoming Lender Ready – how you can ease the frustrations around lender engagement
  2. What do Lenders Want and Need – a direct discussion with a lender
  3. A Producer Business Owner Perspective – on accessing finance, warts and all.

During each webinar, participants asked us a series of questions but time available was a limiting constraint…

This is the final webinar in the Lender Ready series: Becoming Lender Ready – Your Questions Answered

 In this webinar recording, join Gordon Stone (ABDI), Vern Ezzy (QRIDI Lender),  Kym Thomas (business owner and ABDI lender ready client) and Damian Street (ABDI – Lender Ready Program Co-Presenter) for an open discussion session. The Team will re-cap the Lender Ready series and complete with a Q & A session involving all topics covered during in the webinar series.

The webinars in this series outline the new purpose-built Lender Ready Program – developed by the Agri-Business Development Institute – as part of the joint MLA and ABDI Business Mentoring Program.

Download a copy of the presentation: The Lender Ready Program – Your Questions Answered (PDF 0.73 MB)

Full recording

Playlist

  1. Becoming Lender Ready – Your Questions Answered
  2. The Q&A Panel
  3. Context: The Lender Ready Program
  4. Agenda
  5. i. Why a Lender Ready Program?
  6. Frustrations on ‘getting money’
  7. Dealing with ‘getting money’ frustrations
  8. ii. Getting an optimum result
  9. iii. My experience (why the Lender Ready Program)
  10. Key Questions from the Lender Ready webinars to the Panel (and their comments)
  11. Q&A session – the audience questions
  12. Online Lender Ready Program
  13. Kym’s Take Home Messages
  14. Further information…

Thinking of getting more money from banks?

If so, there have been some significant changes to the lending landscape since 2018 and there’s more to come in 2022.

So what’s changed?

In this webinar recording, join Gordon Stone, developer of the agri-sector’s joint MLA-ABDI Lender Ready Program and Kylie Morrow (Bank of Queensland – Dubbo) when they discuss:

  1. Your responsibility to put forward the best possible proposition (as lender representatives must stay at arm’s length)
  2. All your Paperwork that must be in order – to put forward a convincing case, so that all parts of the decision-making chain in a bank can clearly, simply and easily understand the lending proposal
  3. You put forward your best proposition(s) to a bank to get the best deal.

Gordon’s underlying message is that a borrower must be 100% clear on what the proposition is that they’re putting forward. Then, put forward the best proposal in the form of a business plan (with financials). Any proposal must demonstrate an understanding of risk (in all its forms, plus from the borrower and bank’s perspectives), and  also demonstrate business best practice (both in your plans and how you run your business).

What’s coming?

Industry regulators have already made it clear that banks must manage their climate risk. It’s inevitable that a borrower will have to demonstrate how they manage/intend to manage climate risk. This will also have to be built into the lending proposition being put to the bank. Managing environmental sustainability (natural capital) is already appearing as part of risk assessment.

Download a copy of the presentation: The Lender Ready Program – Thinking of getting more money from banks (PDF 0.4 MB)

Full recording

Playlist

  1. Becoming Lender Ready – What’s important to Lenders
  2. Context: A Lender Ready Program
  3. A key question from Lenders to Borrowers
  4. Agenda
  5. 12 Pillars of Business Best practice
  6. What’s important to Lenders?
  7. What is Business Risk?
  8. What’s coming in 2022 and beyond…
  9. Take Home Messages
  10. Further information
  11. Disclaimer

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Topics Webinars Business tools Producer capacity building