“We’re a friendly, family business with a traditional old-fashioned forecourt,” is how Frankie Collins proudly describes his car sales company, Crossways Cars. “We are small but we’re continuing a family tradition: my grandad started in this industry and my dad now works with me. We got these premises five years ago and it’s great having a space on the main road because people can actually walk down and view our cars.”
When Frankie started the business, Crossways Cars was selling small ‘first-time’ cars with low engines. That all changed with the pandemic. Frankie explains, “The first day that COVID hit I did something a bit shrewd and thought: if people are still going to buy cars through this pandemic, it’s not going to be small cars. It’s going to be well-off people who are still making these big purchases.” So, Crossways Cars pivoted away from small to higher value vehicles and started realising much larger profit margins on each sale.
It was around this time that Frankie started looking for a new small business loan lender. “Things can go quiet sometimes so additional funding is always useful. But the balance with our lender back then just wasn’t coming down. Their interest rates were really high.” Then Frankie discovered MaxCap. “The first time we applied for funding, they asked for certain information, such as our bank statements and turnover. Once we’d established a relationship, renewing with them was easy peasy. Most of the time, from application to funding, it takes no more than two days. So they’re very quick.”
Crossways Cars has taken out several loans with MaxCap, initially small but progressing to much larger funding.
Frankie continues, “When we need money, we go directly to them. We have a lot of conversations, and they’ve got a good personal touch as well. It feels like they’re really working with us. Although we borrowed money during the pandemic, it wasn’t because we were suffering. MaxCap’s loan gave us a much bigger budget to work with and actually shot us forward. In terms of profit, we actually grew 200% in that time.”
Alex Littner, CEO of MaxCap emphasises the simplicity and ease of this application process, and his company’s focus on supporting small businesses. “We require minimal paperwork and can offer instant working capital with flexible repayment plans. At MaxCap we understand that small businesses like Crossways Cars still have big goals and sometimes need quick access to finance to make these a reality, whether it’s expanding, buying stock, purchasing equipment or managing cash flow.”
Frankie has more short- and long-term goals in his sights for Crossways Cars. “We bought two recovery trucks to enable us to do contactless delivery during the pandemic, ensuring the cars were still sanitised when the customers got them. Prior to COVID we didn’t do any delivery. Now we’re offering it free across the UK. We do get a lot of praise for that in customer feedback. So what I’m currently working on with MaxCap is funding for two or three brand new delivery trucks because we’re so busy now.”
And longer term, although Frankie is happy with the current size of Crossways Cars, he does have expansion in mind. “What I’ve been trying to do for a long time is move premises to somewhere we can hold more cars because we can only hold about 40 at the moment. I’d like to double that. And because we’ve got MaxCap there, I know we could still borrow money to ensure we can always fill that forecourt. Plus, we’ll be able to offer a mixture of stock, with cars suitable for different types of customers and budgets. It’s fantastic knowing there’s a company out there like MaxCap that you can rely on.”
Click here to find out more about Crossways Cars.