I Applied For The COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. It Took 5 Minutes.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for 25 years. I’ve never applied for a government loan. In fact, other than for real estate, I’ve almost never applied for a loan, period. So it would require a disaster of epic proportions for me to even consider applying for assistance from the government. Well, guess what? We’ve got a disaster of epic proportions on our hands.

Today I applied for the COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. The whole process took 5 minutes. The site is well laid out, straightforward, and easy to navigate. The most challenging part of the whole process was locating and verifying direct deposit information so the loan can transfer directly to my business bank account. Have that info ready when you apply.

A week ago, I would have told you that I could never imagine myself applying for a government loan.

A week ago, I would have told you that I could never imagine myself applying for a government loan for my advertising business. Today, I applied for this loan, and I plan to apply for additional loans as the details come available.

There are three factors that convinced me to apply.

First, the goal of the assistance in the CARES act is to keep businesses intact. If businesses continue at nearly full staff and full salary, portions of the loan are eligible to be forgiven, making them, in effect, a grant.

Second, another goal is to keep companies and their employees spending so that the structure of the economy can stay relatively stable for the snapback that should occur once the crisis is mitigated. There’s no point to a resurgent economy if there are no businesses to spend money on.

Finally, while my company, like thousands of others, is scrambling to reposition and retool to serve the needs of a transformed world, making that shift will take time. There will be lots of failures along the way. Without a way to extend the financial runway, making this change would be too difficult for most businesses to pull off.

Government assistance is anathema to most entrepreneurs. We do what we do because we love to build, we’re willing to take some risk, and we feel a tremendous sense of pride and gratitude bringing outstanding teams together to serve the marketplace. The loan provisions of the CARES act do a good job of splitting the difference between a handout and a hand up. Take 5 minutes and apply. You’ll be glad you did.