A national mentoring programme aimed at educating small business owners on the requirements for getting bank finance will be launched on Monday.

The initiative – backed by the British Bankers’ Association and the Prince’s Trust, among others – is the latest plan to help create meaningful change in the area of access to finance. Around 200 mentors will initially be made available to guide company owners through the process of applying for a loan, although the plan is to increase this number to 1,000 eventually. Access to finance remains a highly contentious issue in spite of banking industry claims that the main high street lenders are meeting their targets for making money available.

Borrowing by small businesses continues to fall. Figures released by the Bank of England this week showed that, in May alone, the amount banks lent to non-financial corporations fell another £4.9bn. The Bank of England’s agents report, published earlier in June, suggested that small businesses are putting off borrowing – not because they do not need funds but because they fear that asking for additional cash will mean they will be made to pay more for their total debt. The findings also suggest that companies may be stockpiling cash as a security against having to borrow.

Deposits in May rose by £4.7bn, 11 per cent higher than three months earlier. Lending through alternative funders – such as building societies, invoice financing businesses and asset-based lenders – last year rose to £10bn from £7.5bn 12 months earlier, according to the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers (NACFB). However, this was still about 47 per cent down on the amounts lent in 2007.

Adam Tyler, NACFB chief executive, said banking industry claims that most loans are approved exclude the large numbers of applications that fail to get as far as a credit committee and so are not officially turned down. NACFB’s members want to lend but struggle to gain the attention of would be business customers because they are not on the high street, Tyler added.

John Anderson, chief executive of The Entrepreneurial Exchange, the networking club for ambitious fast growing companies in Scotland, welcomed the new mentoring scheme, but added that a lot of information to help companies secure loans is already available on websites and not being used. “There is no doubt that there is still a lot of naivety on what is required,” he said.

First published via The Financial Times

Brief video showing a selection of my favourite mentors such as Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins, Jack Cranfield Jim Rohn, and Ryan Lee

For those of you who are old enough to remember, the film tells the story of a teenage boy, Daniel, who moves from the east coast to the palm fringed roads and blue skies of Los Angeles when his mother gets a new job.

Here he meets Mr Miyagi, the handyman at a complex. Mr Miyagi who is also a martial arts master agrees to teach Daniel after being bullied. In the film There are some great scences and lessons that are learned.  The four most important ones being:

1. Karate Kid Lesson 1 (Wax on Wax off)
2. Karate Kid Lesson 2 (Sand the Floor)
3. Karate Kid Lesson 3 (catch fly)
4. Karate Kid Lesson 4 (Paint the Fence)

After recently watching the film, I  realized that there are similarities  that can be linked to you and your business.  I would argue as much as to say, that in business I believe that we all need our own Mr Miyagi. This can either be your current boss, parent, or even good friend. The key is to have someone who you can continue to learn from and guide you towards your goals.