With a strong community focus on creating jobs and strengthening small businesses, the conversation often steers toward increasing business leads, sales, profits and other elements of business expansion. However, business owners also have an opportunity to support company growth by streamlining operations and processes.

Since 1988, local banks and credit unions have partnered with the Clark County Skills Center, to give high school juniors and seniors the knowledge and abilities for success in professional banking, through the Financial Customer Services (FCS) program.

Q:What do I need to know about financing business growth?

A:First, let’s define growth. Most people agree that growing a business means increasing sales. However, the flipside of that is increasing sales costs money. The place to start is to assess current capacity. If you have excess capacity right now, that means you are getting a very low return on your business investment. You can rectify that by attracting more customers and selling what you have to sell.

You need money to get the word out in a way that resonates with prospective customers and encourages repeat purchases. Next, you need money to replenish the inventory you sell and pay for labor. If you sell on credit, you need money to fill the gap when your customer doesn’t pay you right away. This is an example of the cash cycle and the use of working capital. Insufficient working capital means you cannot support business growth.