Torey Lee Brooks’ Amber Grant application for Granite Performance, her youth athlete coaching program, was strong in a lot of areas, but missed some information that would have made it a stronger contender.

The WomensNet advisory board went back through the application, line by line, to try and point out the strengths and weaknesses, in the hopes of helping Torey prepare a winning grant application for this and/or other grant programs.

Here is her application:

Tell us about your business

I grew up competing at a high level in Alpine ski racing. Though I loved the sport and competed internationally, there were a couple aspects I found very difficult to face.

The first, was the lack of women coaches in the sport- in my 14 years of competing, I believe I had 2 female coaches out of at least 40. This is especially shocking as there are an equal number of female and male competitors!

The second was the lack of affordable and local avenues available to athletes who did not have the financial background to travel great distances for “on-snow” training but who wanted to stay fit and prepare for the next season. I grew up in rural NH with a single mom who worked so hard to make sure she gave us everything we needed. With this said, my ski racing put a huge financial burden on her as she struggled to send me to expensive training camps across the country to allow me to reach my goals.

This is why I chose to start Granite Performance. Granite Performance is a program run by myself and 2 other female coaches to provide physical, mental, and nutritional coaching to athletes in the summer and fall off-seasons. We work hard to keep our programs affordable and accessible to local New Hampshire athletes including providing carpooling and payment plans as needed. We hope to act as mentors to all of our athletes and make sure that this sport is inclusive and that they can succeed no matter their financial background.

Tell us what you would do with the money if awarded a grant

This money would allow us to cover some of the legal and website costs (about $3000) of starting a business like our which requires release forms specific to children’s safety. It would also help us buy our own training equipment for our athletes to use and to start our own scholarship program which would grant athletes in need free sessions each year! We started this business in February and became and LLC this May. COVID-19 has made this stressful and we have been working hard to shift out programs to virtual as needed to keep our athletes safe. This grant would greatly help us stay afloat to see our program succeed!

Our critique

To start, Torey did a really good job of explaining what the business is and identifying the problem for many young female athletes, especially in skiing – a lack of female coaches.

Granite Performance as a business is also well-defined and specific. Torey’s not trying to do too much, like serving young women nationwide, or expanding too quickly from Alpine skiing into other sports.

Finally, her planned use of any grant funds makes a lot of sense. Since the business is newer, investing in marketing and equipment early on can certainly help to attract clients.

Opportunities for improvement

One area where the committee struggled a bit was in understanding the size of the market for this type of coaching service. How large is the potential customer base, especially within a 25- or 50-mile radius of your location in New Hampshire? Is there a large enough market to support the business? Are there similar operations in other parts of the country you can point to as proof that you have a viable business model?

If you need more market research, you might try and partner with a ski association or local mountain to see if, working together, you can survey their membership or client base. Online survey software like Survey Monkey can be useful and easy to set up. Using a survey, you could ask skiers, or parents of skiers, about their interest in such a program, including how far they’d be willing to travel.

That market data could then help you prepare financial projections, breaking down your pricing model, projected revenue, and expenses, which were missing in your first application. It’s always hard to create financial documents without historical data, but you can make some assumptions based on market size or using a competitor in another state for comparison.

Proving that your business is viable is important for any kind of grant or award program, so the more detail you can offer in that regard, the better your results.

This was a good start and we hope that these ideas help you get a little more specific about the business and how you’ll make money.

When you hear the term “business plan,” you probably picture a book-length document filled with pages and pages of financial statements. That’s what many of us picture, because that’s what many of us were taught a business plan should look like.

It had to be long and full of details regarding your idea, how you’ll market it, and who’s going to buy it, with sales projections down to the penny.

Fortunately, over time, the emphasis on length and detail of business plans has evolved. And where such plans previously were used primarily to pursue outside financing from banks or investors, today many entrepreneurs understand that a business plan is a useful exercise to map out a growth strategy, regardless of the funding situation.

In fact, the process of thinking through exactly what your business is, what you sell, to whom, how, and for how much is extremely useful at any stage. It can help assess how viable a new idea is or point out new opportunities for profit that recently emerged for an existing venture.

A Simple Business Plan

So what does a short-but-effective business plan contain?

Actually, it contains a lot of the same information older business plans did, but communicated more efficiently. Meaning, with fewer words.

The Big Idea. In a paragraph or two, explain what problem currently exists in the market, how large your potential market is, and what your solution to that problem is. Why is it better than what’s currently available – what’s your competitive advantage? What proof do you have that there is demand for what you’re offering – any recent statistics that have been reported, for example?

For example, have you invented a new facial mask that signals when you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus? Have you developed a strategy for buying Facebook ads that has a huge conversion rate? Or are you opening a grocery store in a town where the closest supermarket is 50 miles away? What opportunity are you pursuing?

Target customers. Who is most likely to buy what you’re selling, such as soccer moms, the Fortune 500, or employees working from a home office, to name just a few? Who are you trying to sell to and how many of those individuals or companies are there? Also, where are your customers based? That is, will you sell locally, nationally, or internationally?

If you’re selling goods online, you could theoretically serve an international market, but if you’ve opened a catering business, you may have found that serving customers farther than 30 miles could be problematic. So who are your customers and where will you find them?

Business model. How will you make money at this new venture – that’s really what a business model is. How profitable will it be, exactly? You may need to describe the average costs of production and retail price to explain the profits generated. How will you distribute your product or service? How will you scale the business?

For example, if you’re launching a new magazine, you’ll make money through advertisers and paid subscriptions – unless you plan to mail it out free. If you’re a fashion vlogger on YouTube, you may make money through online ads and affiliate relationships from the companies you showcase. Or if you’re a graphic designer, you probably sell your services to companies and individuals on an as-needed basis.

Your management team. One of the most important sections to investors has to do with the people who are involved in running your company. Who are they, what kind of experience do they have, and why are they the absolute best people to help grow your company? Plus, what are your short-term hiring plans, if any, to fill key positions. Briefly talk about your great team and where you hope to add to your team’s skillsets in the near future.

Ideally, you have people working with you who have work experience at successful companies, or at companies in your industry, so they can bring that expertise to help your company grow faster. And having a plan for who you need to hire, and in what order, helps you plan ahead, to avoid getting overwhelmed and overworked because you’re understaffed.

Your marketing plan. What kinds of tools are you going to use to spread the word of your company’s products and services and what is your key message? What major benefit will you emphasize in your promotional materials? For example, do you have a feature no other product does? Are you the lowest cost? Will you save the customer money?

Your marketing plan is driven by how much money you have to invest in marketing, so you’ll want to lead with that information, and then break down how you’ll spend it. How much will go to advertising – print or online, for example, how much will go to social media, how much to printed marketing or packaging materials, signage, publicity, public speaking, freebies, trade shows, and other marketing tactics?

Your financial plan. Use a spreadsheet to lay out your cash flow statement for at least one year, though two or three years is better. Then use those monthly projections to create an annual profit and loss statement. And build a simple balance sheet that breaks down what you own and what you owe. If you’re looking for a loan or investors, explain how much you need, what you’ll use that money on, and how that investment will help grow the company faster than it’s currently growing.

There are templates you can use to lay out your expected revenue by month and then match it up with your expected expenses, to ensure you’re always profitable. Your profit and loss is pulled from your monthly projections and your balance sheet based on what you’ve purchased for the business, such as equipment, real estate, raw materials, and supplies, and what you may still owe for those expenses.

How to Use a Business Plan

Although many entrepreneurs work hard to draft a well-written business plan during startup, not enough existing business owners work through the process once their company is up-and-running. And in both cases, too few businesses actually refer back to their plans once drafted.

Don’t do that.

Refer back regularly to your plan and update it regularly to reflect your company as it exists today. Revise it as needed, such as if you discovered a new, more profitable market segment; you uncovered you could automate part of your production process and reduce expenses; or if you found an effective marketing tool that you want to add to your promotional plan.

As you spot opportunities for refining and improving your business plan, make changes. Then make sure your financial projections mirror the changes you’ve made in other parts of your plan.

Consider printing out and putting the pages of your plan up publicly, so that everyone in the company understands what you’re trying to accomplish.

The most effective business plans aren’t hidden away or kept secret. They’re shared internally so that everyone in the company recognizes how they can play a role in making the company more successful.

A course in assistive technology changed Kelly Twichel’s and Eric Packard’s career paths. The two were in graduate school in 2016 at the University of St. Augustine studying to become occupational therapists. As part of their coursework, the class teammates were challenged to invent a product that would assist individuals with disabilities in their daily lives.

Their resulting invention was a portable pathway for people who use wheelchairs and other mobility devices, which they dubbed Access Trax.

Converting an Idea into a Business

Twichel and Packard were so passionate about their product that they decided to explore producing and selling it, but, as students, they had no income to start product manufacturing, Twichel explains. So they turned to their university to ask if there were any grant opportunities for which they might qualify.

After some research, they were told that the James McGuire Global Business Plan Competition was an event for which they qualified, but the grant application was due in March, only six weeks away. Many teams at other schools had been preparing their applications for months. Despite feeling stressed about the looming due date, Twichel and Packard got to work.

“We studied the requirements and went step-by-step through [the grant application instructions],” Twichel recalls, taking special care to answer every question as completely as possible. They got it in on time and then waited.

On May 3, they received an email announcing that Access Trax had been chosen as one of six finalists. (It turns out that Twichel had missed the previous email alerting them they had made the semi-finals.) That year, Access Trax was the only finalist from the US.

And, as a finalist, the company won a grant of $7,500. It wasn’t the grand prize, but this funding, paired with a surprise award of $5,000 from their school’s board of directors, was enough to cover the cost of creating prototypes required for manufacturing.

Most recently, the company was the grand prize winner of $50,000 in the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest, following on the heels of its Amber Grant win in December 2018.

In all, Access Trax has won grants totaling $75,750. Since 2017, the company has entered 11 different grant competitions and won 4, achieving a staggering 36% success rate.

Photo by Access Trax

Success Tips

As part of the process for developing the first grant application, Access Trax’s founders asked their grad school for feedback, to help improve their odds of winning. What they heard from administrators there and from other grant programs they entered confirmed they’ve done a number of things well.

Fortunately, almost any entrepreneur or business owner can replicate Twichel’s and Packard’s tactics. Twichel recommends that you:

1. Read the application instructions carefully. Understand from the start what the grant committee is looking for, or hoping to read in your application.

And if you’re not clear about a particular question, email the grant sponsor to ask, Twichel says. “Don’t reduce your odds of winning by guessing.”

(You can find tips for writing a solid Amber Grant application here.)

2. Focus on the problem your product or service solves. How does your offering change someone else’s life, by solving a nagging problem, improving a process, or creating new opportunities? In your application, emphasize how much of an impact your invention or development can have on the lives of a group of people, whatever their challenge.

Although Access Trax focused on individuals that could benefit from assistive technologies, your product or service might be as simple as providing healthy pre-packaged meals, reducing a family’s cell phone bill, or tracking wayward pets. Or it could address larger issues, like providing clean water, reducing plastic in the ocean, or creating a fast coronavirus test.

3. Personalize the issue. “Bring people in to what the problem is,” says Twichel, by putting your audience in the shoes of the people you are trying to serve. Have a person at the center of the story, she says.

Access Trax started its application by setting the stage for the problem its product solves. “Imagine you’re a surfer. One morning, you’re surfing some great waves, fall off a wave, and hit the sandy ocean bottom. You know something’s very wrong instantly. You’ve suffered a spinal cord injury that changes your life forever.”

4. Look at winning examples. If you can get access to successful grant submissions, read them carefully to understand what the applicant did well. But even if you can’t see past submissions for the program you’re applying to, search for winning grant applications for other programs, to get an idea of how you might present your story and request for support.

Or you may be asked to provide documentation that you’ve never heard of, such as a business model canvas or pitch deck. Before starting to draft a response that you think may hit the mark, research what these successful materials contain and look like. Find great templates to use as models. Twichel recommends Slidebean for well-designed slide deck templates.

To find more grant programs, Twichel advises joining groups where like-minded business owners congregate. She suggests Startupschool as one example, which is free online training for startup founders.

Odds are you may find resources specific to your city, college, or industry. It’s there you’re likely to hear about helpful resources and opportunities for funding.

While grants that you don’t have to pay back are certainly a preferred means of getting the money needed to start a business, securing a low interest loan is a potential Plan B. As long as the interest rate is reasonable and payment term longer than a couple of years, financing your business’ growth through a loan isn’t a bad strategy.

However, with banks becoming more stringent about qualification requirements, it’s becoming more difficult to be approved for a loan. You frequently need a combination of a solid credit score, low existing debt, and collateral to secure the loan in order to be approved. That’s often challenging for newer entrepreneurs.

Fortunately, non-bank lenders are often willing to work with startup businesses, to provide the capital needed to get started. One such lending platform is Kiva.org.

“When typical lenders will look at collateral, credit, and other sometimes prohibitive factors for early stage businesses or financially excluded business owners, Kiva sets its criteria to be as inclusive as possible, so more can get a foothold on what we call the ‘capital ladder,” says Katherine Lynch, senior manager, Kiva US. For example, 46 percent of Kiva borrowers have credits scores below 650.

Women Make Up the Majority of Borrowers at Kiva

In fact, women account for 68 percent of Kiva’s lending clients, with the average US loan size around $7,000. Of businesses funded, 29 percent are in the food industry, 28 percent are service businesses, and 18 percent are retail.

The most common uses of the funding are: purchasing equipment, inventory, and remodeling or expansion, Lynch says.

Kiva Loans

Kiva has two loan products: a crowdfunded microloan and a microlending tool used by economic development departments.

The crowdfunded microloan offers loans of $1,000 to $10,000, with 0 percent interest, and repayment terms of 12 to 42 months. Many borrowers frequently excluded from qualification at other lending programs are able to apply through Kiva.

However, in response to the coronavirus, Kiva now offers loans of up to $15,000, with repayment periods up to 36 months, but with a 6-month grace period before repayment starts.

It’s clear access to capital is needed now more than ever, as Kiva has seen the number of loan applications increase 800 percent between March and May 2020 during the pandemic. The average loan size has risen to $8,500 and the time required to fund them averages seven days.

Application Tips

As with many other lenders, Kiva wants to see the following basic information in loan applications:

• Where the borrower is from and where they live now
• Why they became an entrepreneur
• Their business’s mission
• A detailed loan use plan

Lynch offers another tip: provide great photos. “Lenders gravitate toward photos of business owners at work — in whatever way that means for that business — that clearly displays their face and their smile!”

Kiva lends business funds to women entrepreneurs around the world, providing much-needed capital to female entrepreneurs who might have few other options.

“Though Kiva’s US lending accounts for about 5 percent of the overall portfolio, borrowers do find that the international community is eager to support their loan. With fundraising times lasting about a 1-2 weeks and 150+ lenders per loan, borrowers often feel nervous at the start of the process (which is totally fair – crowdfunding is a vulnerable experience!), but supported and more connected by the end,” says Lynch.

Note: This is the beginning of a weekly WomensNet Wednesday series where we’ll tackle topics relevant to entrepreneurs. Any content ideas/requests can be submitted via our Contact Us form.

If there’s one business-related thing we’ve learned from the pandemic, it’s how critical it is to have an online presence. With access restricted to physical stores, salons, restaurants, and other businesses, many companies have survived by making their products and services available through a website.

Whether you’re a local brick-and-mortar retailer, consultant, personal service provider, real estate agent, hair stylist, child care provider – you need a website. But not just any website. You need one that is designed and developed to attract more business.

In fact, there are 7 major elements that great websites – meaning websites that are successful at attracting, retaining, educating, and selling to customers – have. You’ll want to do all you can to make sure your website has these 7 things too. They include:

1. A design that reflects your company’s brand personality.

That is, when you come to a business’s home page, do you get a general sense of its culture and reputation? Great websites do that.

Some of the design elements that make up your website and influence your brand include the colors, the use of images, the typeface, and overall ease of use. More tech-focused companies are sleek and modern. Companies that serve young children might be more whimsical, with bright colors. Environmental-related companies might have a simplistic design, with lots of natural colors.

As soon as someone gets to your website, they should get an instant sense of what you’re like to do business with. Make sure the words, colors, and layout all convey the image you’re after.

2. Functionality that allows customers to get what they need.

Depending on what your website was designed to help customers accomplish, you should have functional capabilities – such as buttons and forms – to match. So if a customer heads to your website to make a purchase, it should be easy for them to do that. If they want to schedule an appointment, a calendar should be easily accessible. If they want to ask a question, you may have Live Chat enabled. Or if they want to sign up to be on a wait list for an upcoming event, you should have a form for that purpose.

Great websites anticipate what customers will want to do once they’re at the site, and provide functional capabilities that make that possible.

3. Backlinks from reputable sites.

One way that great websites stand out is in the number of other websites that link back to it – a.k.a. backlinks. The more that other authoritative websites point back to yours, the more credible yours appears.

SEMrush has a useful tool for finding out what your current backlinks are, as well as your competitors’.

You can get more backlinks by exploring guest blogging opportunities, for example, and by making sure that your company’s website is listed in advertising, directory listings, and publicity you earn for your business.

4. Keywords that reflect the content on the site.

Great websites make it clear what visitors will find once they land on the site. Keywords and key phrases help in that regard and also help improve your Google search rank.

The best strategy for improving your rank in search is picking one key word or phrase for each page and using it 1) in the title tag, 2) as part of the page’s URL, and 3) in the page’s headline. This reinforces for Google that your site, and each particular page, is providing the information that it promised.

5. Fresh, high quality content.

To continue to get better results from your website, in the form of higher traffic, higher conversions, and higher sales, you’ll want to regularly add new content.

Creating and posting new blog posts regularly confirms to Google that your site is active. You can also add new website pages, such as if you add a new product or service, or add a media page, where you post announcements and press releases. All of these types of materials are considered content. And if you post quality content that matches the keywords on your site, so much the better. You’ll be rewarded with more traffic sent your way. Plus, by supplying content that’s useful, you’ll build up trust and brand loyalty long-term.

6. A freebie.

Sometimes referred to as an “ethical bribe,” freebies are offers of free content in exchange for a visitor’s name and email address. They are usually digital downloads, such as a checklist, a recipe, how-to instructions, or a special report, but a freebie can also be a physical gift sent through the mail.

The presumption behind freebie offers is that if a visitor is willing to share their contact information in order to gain access to the free gift you’re offering, they may be a good prospect for your products and services.

A freebie doesn’t have to be long and involved either. In fact, shorter is better. Give your visitor exactly what you’ve promised, as efficiently as possible.

7. A way to contact you.

Surprisingly, some business owners make it difficult for website visitors to make contact. That’s not conducive to generating more revenue.

One of the simplest ways to encourage contact is to create a Contact Us tab on your site and provide a form or an email address there for people to use. Some entrepreneurs put their email address at the bottom of each webpage, so that visitors don’t have to click away to find their contact information.

Although not everyone includes a phone number, it’s a smart idea if you do business by phone or use it to make reservations or appointments.

A website is a powerful sales tool that can be made even more powerful if you have these 7 elements working for you.

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic is being felt far and wide, in homes and businesses small and large. With organizations from corporations to nonprofits to mom-and-pop shops now shut down temporarily, entrepreneurs and foundations are stepping up to offer support and some financial relief to small businesses.

Although new grant and loan programs are cropping up almost daily, we’ve pulled together a list of 7 that we believe are currently accepting applications, or will be soon. Many programs have been overwhelmed with applications and have already stopped accepting new entries.

Amazon Neighborhood Small Business Relief Fund

Amazon has established a grant fund of $5 million for Seattle-area small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or less than $7 million in revenue, with a physical presence within a few blocks of Amazon’s Regrade, South Lake Union, and Bellevue office buildings, that are open to the general public, and that are reliant on foot traffic for customers.

Apply Here

Denver Small Business Emergency Relief program

The Denver Small Business Emergency Relief program consists of $4 million, to provide cash grants of up to $7,500 to businesses in industries particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus. If you run a Denver, Colorado-based small business that has lost the ability to operate during the pandemic, apply to be considered for financial support.

View the Form

Facebook Small Business Grants Program

Facebook has created a grant fund of $100 million in grants and Facebook ad credits for up to 30,000 small businesses in more than 30 countries where Facebook operates. To be eligible, you must run a for-profit business with between 2 and 50 employees. You must have been in operation at least one year and been negatively impacted by the coronavirus. You also need to be in or near a location where Facebook operates.

View More Information

Google Ad Credits

Google is offering $340 million in Google ad credits to small and medium-sized businesses with active ad accounts that have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The ad grants can be used until the end of the year across the company’s advertising platforms.” Credit notifications will appear in the Google user’s account.

Hello Alice Business For All

Grants of $10,000 to small businesses impacted by COVID-19 are being awarded on a rolling basis through Alice. The official deadline to apply is September 25, 2020.

Start the Application Process

Save Small Business Fund

The US Chamber of Commerce Foundation created the Save Small Business Fund to help small companies impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

To qualify you must: 1) Employ between 3 and 20 people 2) Be located in an economically vulnerable community and 3) Have been harmed financially by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Grants of up to $5,000 will be made to “as many small employers as we can.”
Applications will open April 20, 2020 at 3:00 EDT.

Get Notified When You Can Apply

Topeka and Shawnee County, Kansas – HOST Relief

Small businesses in Topeka and Shawnee County, Kansas can apply for grants of up to $5,000. “Priority will be given, but not limited, to those businesses affected most by COVID-19 such as the food, restaurant, personal services, mall retail, small manufacturing, small distributors, and other unique types of businesses.”

Applications will be accepted until June 1, 2020, or until funds have been disseminated.

View the Application

Apply quickly for any program for which you believe you are eligible, because many stop accepting applications when they get close to running out of funds.

As the United States hunkers down to prevent the continued spread of COVID-19, many companies and government agencies are ramping up efforts to reduce the financial impact of the near-nationwide mandate to shelter in place.

Facebook is one of them.

Said Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg on a post on her Facebook page, “In recent weeks, we have seen inspiring examples of individuals and groups helping each other. People across the globe are stepping up, rising to the enormous challenge in front of us. We want to do our part too. Small businesses are the heartbeat of our communities, and many of the people who run these businesses are heavily affected by the crisis – especially as more and more people sensibly stay home. The longer the crisis goes on, the greater the risk to small businesses and to the livelihoods of their owners and employees.”

In response, on March 17, the company announced a $100 million grant program for small businesses negatively affected by COVID-19. Facebook will give away money and/or ad credits to 30,000 businesses worldwide – in the 30 countries in which Facebook operates.

Facebook says the funds granted can be used to get caught up on rent, pay operational expenses, pay labor, or invest in marketing.

Sandberg explained, “We’ve listened to small businesses to understand how we can best help them. We’ve heard loud and clear that financial support could enable them to keep the lights on and pay people who can’t come to work. That’s why today I’m announcing that Facebook is investing $100 million to help 30,000 small businesses in over 30 countries where our employees live and work.”

Although details are still being worked out, you can sign up for updates on the Facebook Small Business Grant program site.

Sandberg says, “That’s just the start. We also want to make it easier for businesses everywhere to find help and receive training and support from our teams. We’ve made our Business Hub —a resource for Facebook employees and health experts—readily available for all. We are also creating new virtual training to support businesses operating in this new and unsettling environment.”