Ask for the umbrella while the sun is out
Written by Mike Burke, Originally shared in NZ Business Magazine Oct/Nov 2026
Most funding applications are still for survival money. Owners who ask early, ask honestly and treat their lender like a valued customer get a very different answer.
“Cautiously optimistic.” I heard it twice in 10 minutes on stage at the NZBusiness’ event at the Icehouse last Thursday, and a few hundred times before that.
The term has been thrashed as a catch-all business confidence mood, and I think it has lost its substance. That stage I refer to was a panel discussing Funding That Accelerates Your Business and I went last, so I got to disagree.
Truth is there isn’t one catch-all mood out there. A builder with a full forward-work book and a clothing retailer watching their store stay quiet are not sharing a feeling, no matter how oxy-moron-ish it sounds. The businesses I work with are either extremely cautious or excitedly optimistic, not a blend of both. They are either in survive mode or thrive mode.
Which mode you’re in changes what kind of money you should be chasing, but how you chase it has a similar approach and that was what we shared.
Here are the outcomes of the evening, mixed with my personal opinion on working with the outfits who can help you with that funding.
Do not mistake my insights for financial advice: I’m not qualified for that.
Two different conversations, same approach
The lenders beside me were refreshingly candid. Most of the applications crossing their desks are still survival money: tax debt, overdue creditors, a gap to bridge. Growth applications are starting to come through, but they are still the minority.
Survival funding buys time. Accelerating funding buys momentum. Both are legitimate and both work easier if you arrange it before it’s too late.
My line on the night, which the other panellists kindly kept borrowing: it is far easier to ask for an umbrella when it’s sunny than when it’s raining. Walk into a lender’s office soaking wet and every question feels tough. Walk in dry, with a plan that shows where the money goes and how it comes back, and that chat goes very differently.
The calendar is shorter than you think
Lindsay Fisher from ScotPac made an insightful note, it’s like he has been doing this for a while. The election is on 7 November. Christmas will follow that fast, then the summer holidays, Waitangi Day and Chinese New Year. Four months magically disappear, and before you know it is a new financial year.
If you want money working for you in the first calendar quarter of 2027, the conversation should start in October. Not in February, when everyone is back and you’re one of 50 in the queue.
Business is simple, and so is funding
Finance feels hard, but it isn’t because of the math. It is because of the English. Financiers and accountants have their own language and rules. This makes finance, and funding, appear hard to approach. It turns up as owners typically avoiding or misunderstanding the funding conversations, not realising what funding tools are out there.
Keeping it simple for you, there are three types of jobs funding can help with, and funding tools that are right for each job.
Money to smooth the cash cycle. You’ve done the work, sent the invoice and you’re waiting 60 days to be paid. Look for invoice financing, trade financing, temporary or permanent overdraft facilities to fill that gap. Short money for a short need.
Money to buy things that earn. A new machine, a second van, a factory fit-out. Term loans or asset finance, paid back over the life of the thing you bought. Long money for a long need.
Money to change the shape of the business. A new market, an acquisition, a leadership team you can’t afford, yet. This is where equity, or a very patient lender, comes in.
Most funding pain comes from mismatching these. Fund a five-year asset out of the overdraft and you’ll feel squeezed every single month, however well the business is going.
Be your lender’s best customer
Lenders are a business too, and loans are their product.
Stay with me. If you’re a business owner, how do you judge your favourite customer? The one who tells you early when a job is moving, the one who pays on time, answers the phone and doesn’t pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. You go the extra mile for that customer. Lenders are no different. Be a great customer and you’ll get a great supplier.
That means dropping the “everything is rosy” act. Funders read hundreds of forecasts a year, and they can spot a fictional hockey stick from the car park. Tell them what’s hard, what you’re doing about it and what the money will change. Honest earns trust, and trust is what gets the second facility approved.
The best customers also stay in touch when they don’t need anything. Send them a short update every quarter: what went well, what didn’t, what’s coming. It takes an hour, max. When you do need to ask, they already know your story, and you’re a name they recognise rather than a file they have to read.
Capital is easy. Capability is scarce.
Selling a slice of your business for investment has its place. Equity funding is the most expensive money you’ll ever raise, and you gain a business partner.
Not all capital weighs the same. Consider taking it when the right investor brings something another investor or bank can’t lend you: connections into a market, capability you can’t hire yet, or experience of the road ahead.
Money is abundant. The right people are scarce. Pick an investor the way you’d pick a co-founder.
Fund the cliff before you reach it
I started Point16 because I hit a business growth cliff twice in businesses I started decades ago. Two profitable businesses both got stuck at the same invisible ceiling, no matter how much effort I put in.
Around $1 million, $8 million and $20 million in revenue, most businesses stall unless their structure and systems grow up first.
What got you here won’t get you there. The people, processes and technology that carry you through a growth cliff have to be paid for before the extra revenue arrives. That’s what funding that accelerates your business is for. It buys the next version of your business. The operations manager you hire six months before not having one hurts your business. The system that replaces the spreadsheet everyone is scared to mess with. None of it shows up in revenue straight away, which is exactly why owners hesitate but exactly why it works.
Kiwis are bashful about money. We’d rather say “she’ll be right, I’ll look after it” than ask for help. That instinct has cost more good businesses their growth than any interest rate.
There is more capital in New Zealand looking for good businesses than there was two years ago, and more buyers of businesses too. The lenders on the stage told a room full of owners they want the conversation, and investors and buyers are circling too. The owners who take them up on it will be the ones who show up early, show up honest, and treat their funder like a customer worth keeping.
Cautious or optimistic, the forecast is the same. Get your umbrella now.
Mike Burke is a multi-company owner / director, the founder of Point16, its Business Growth School and really loves eggs benedict.
