A note before we begin

This is the page
I wish my dad could have read.

If you've ever sat across from a banker, watched the air leave the room, and walked out without an answer that helped — this page is for you. We built SLG because no one built it for him in time.

SLG Advisers · Founded on what we couldn't fix before
i.

The system isn't broken
by accident.

In 2025, 22% of small business loan applicants received nothing. Another 32% got partial funding. More than half of all the business owners who walked into a lender's office last year did not get what they came for. The Federal Reserve confirms it. The Small Business Credit Survey confirms it. Every loan officer who has ever taken a meeting with a self-employed contractor confirms it.

But the headline numbers don't capture the worst part. Most of those denials were preventable. Low credit utilization, undocumented add-backs, the wrong DSCR calculation, a Schedule C optimized for taxes that now reads as poverty to a lender. Fixable, every one of them — if someone had looked at the numbers before the application went in.

The math behind the gap A consultant earns $150,000 in revenue and writes off $55,000 in legitimate business expenses. Their tax return shows $95,000. The lender qualifies them at $95,000. The $55,000 in real money they actually generated, the money that pays their mortgage and feeds their family, is invisible to underwriting. That gap closes loans. That gap is why people get denied.

There are players in the lending funnel who could close that gap. None of them have an incentive to. Brokers earn commissions only when loans close, so they push paper instead of preparing borrowers. CPAs minimize taxes; that's their job, but it's the opposite of preparing for a lender. Banks evaluate the file in front of them; their job isn't to coach you on how to build a better one. The gap is the gap because it pays nobody to fix it.

Until SLG.

22%
Full denial rate
2025 Federal Reserve SBCS
45%
SBA loan denial rate
2025 Federal Reserve SBCS
13.5%
Large bank approval rate
2025 industry data
36.2M
Small businesses in America
SBA Office of Advocacy 2025
Founder's letter · the moment

My father was the first
business owner I watched get declined.

My dad ran a business. He was good at the work. He was bad at translating the work into the language a banker needed to hear.

He applied for a business loan. He got declined. He didn't know why. Not really. He got the standard denial letter, the kind that gives you a vague reason and no path forward. Insufficient cash flow. Debt-to-income. Generic language that tells you nothing about what to fix.

So he applied somewhere else. Same answer. And somewhere else after that. Same answer. Each application was weeks of paperwork, hope, and waiting. Each denial was another stretch of operating the business under-capitalized, scraping to make payroll, watching opportunities pass because the cash wasn't there to take them.

The thing that ate at me — the thing I couldn't shake then and still can't now — is that someone could have just looked at his numbers. Someone could have run the actual underwriting math, told him exactly what was wrong, and given him a path to fix it. The information existed. The methodology existed. The framework existed. None of it was ever offered to him.

"He didn't need a loan. He needed someone to look at his numbers and tell him the truth."

I spent years working in financial advisory — helping clients navigate SBA loans, government funding, Employee Retention Credits, R&D tax credits, hardship accommodation programs, tax resolution. I watched the same pattern happen over and over. Smart business owners. Real revenue. Legitimate businesses. Walking into the wrong conversations with the wrong numbers, getting answers that didn't help them.

The clients who got the best outcomes were the ones who came to me before they applied anywhere — before the denial, before the wasted months, before the damage to their confidence. They got the outcome because someone showed them the math first. That's it. That's the whole secret.

I love problem solving. I love a hard situation that everyone else has called impossible, and finding the angle that turns it around. I love hearing a client tell me their business survived because we found the strategy. If there is a will, there is a way. But you have to know what you're working with first. You have to see the numbers the way the lender sees them.

SLG exists because my dad never got that conversation in time. It exists so that nobody else has to operate blind, get rejected, and wonder why. You walk in knowing your DSCR, your adjusted cash flow, your global cash flow position, your 5C scoring, the exact issues weighing your file down, and the fastest path to fixing them. Then you walk into the lender meeting prepared.

That's what I built. That's what I wish someone had built for him.

— With every report we deliver, we're paying it forward.

Dakel Little
Founder, SLG Advisers
What we've seen up close

Six conversations
that built this company.

These are the patterns we watched repeat across years of capital advisory, tax resolution, and SBA work. Real situations, paraphrased — the kind of thing every business owner has either lived or feared.

No. 01

"I applied at four banks. Got declined at all four. Nobody told me what to fix."

A contractor running $1.8M in revenue. His DSCR was 0.94x. He needed it above 1.20x to qualify. Once we showed him the math, he paid down a credit line, restructured one obligation, and qualified at his next bank in 60 days.

No. 02

"My CPA says I need to make more money. I make plenty. I just write off too much."

A self-employed consultant. $200K in real cash flow. $89K on her tax return. The right add-backs, properly documented, closed the gap. She qualified for a line of credit at 2.5x what her tax return suggested.

No. 03

"The broker put me into a loan I couldn't afford. He got his commission. I got the payments."

A restaurant owner. 5% commission was baked into the loan terms forever. Brokers earn when loans close. Their incentive ends there. We charge a flat fee and never recommend a specific lender, so this can't happen with us.

No. 04

"I haven't told my wife I got declined. I don't know how to tell her."

Loan denial is humiliating in a way most professionals don't understand. Business owners don't tell their families. They don't tell their teams. They sit with it alone. We deliver a Banker Report so the next conversation is a documented dialogue, not a pitch you might lose again.

No. 05

"I have three businesses and the underwriter couldn't follow my structure."

Multi-entity LLCs, holding companies, related-party transactions. Standard underwriting falls apart on these files. Our global cash flow analysis stacks income properly — the way a sophisticated commercial credit analyst would — and documents the structure so any lender can read it cold.

No. 06

"I don't know if I'd qualify for $200K or $1.5M. I'm operating blind."

This is the most common position business owners are in — and the most fixable. The Snapshot answers it for $149 in 48 hours. Most of our clients start here, and most of them upgrade once they see what's possible.

The thesis · what we believe

Ten beliefs that
built this company.

Not aspirational language. Not value-statement filler. The actual operating principles every report and every client conversation runs through.

i.
A loan denial is a math problem, not a moral one.
Getting declined doesn't mean your business is bad. It means specific numbers in your file fell short of specific underwriting criteria. Math problems have solutions. We find them.
ii.
You should never pay for advice from someone whose income depends on what you decide.
Brokers earn commissions on closed loans. Banks earn interest on borrowed money. CPAs earn fees on returns. Every party in your funnel has a structural conflict. We don't.
iii.
The truth about your numbers should arrive before the lender meeting, not after.
Most business owners learn what's wrong with their file from a denial letter. By then it's too late. Capital readiness reports flip the order — you find out before you apply, when you can still do something about it.
iv.
If there's a will, there's a way. We just have to find the strategy.
Almost every situation we see has a path forward. Sometimes it's a 60-day fix. Sometimes it's a 12-month plan. Sometimes it's a different lender category. But there's almost always a path. Our job is to find it.
v.
A flat fee is the only honest fee.
Anything tied to your decision is structurally biased. We charge once, before any loan, regardless of outcome. If you take a loan, we earn the same. If you walk away, we earn the same. If you take a different lender, we earn the same.
vi.
Self-employed America deserves the same underwriting view a public company gets.
Big companies have CFOs, treasury teams, and capital advisors. Small business owners get a CPA who optimizes their taxes and a broker pitching their loans. We're the missing piece — the capital readiness analyst working only for you.
vii.
Tax preparation and capital readiness are different jobs.
Your CPA optimizes for the IRS. We optimize for the lender. Their work understates your real income to minimize taxes. Our work documents your real income to qualify you for capital. Both are legitimate; neither replaces the other.
viii.
Embarrassment is the silent cost of denial. We end it.
Business owners don't tell their families when they get declined. They don't tell their teams. They carry it alone. The Banker Report you get from us turns the next conversation into a documented dialogue — one where you arrive prepared, not pitching.
ix.
A tough economy is exactly when this work matters most.
When approval rates collapse and lenders tighten, the cost of being unprepared multiplies. The businesses that survive a tight credit cycle are the ones that walked in with the right numbers. We make sure that's you.
x.
Nobody fights harder for your business than you do. We make sure that fight is fair.
You built it. You've sacrificed for it. You know what it can do. The lender doesn't — not yet. Our job is to translate what you know into what they need to see. That's it. That's the whole company.
The mission

Help 20,000 business owners
over the next 5 years.

Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand contractors, restaurant operators, self-employed consultants, multi-entity owners, and small business operators who walk into a lender meeting with a Banker Report in their hand and the right numbers in their head. Twenty thousand outcomes that don't end with a denial letter and a question mark.

And to be the trusted name in capital readiness while we do it. Not the loudest. Not the biggest. The most trusted. The name a CPA gives to a client when their tax return is done and they need the next step. The name a lender quietly recommends to an applicant who isn't quite ready. The name passed between contractors over coffee, between restaurant owners after a bad meeting at the bank.

20,000
Business owners served by 2030
$3.3B
In capital strategically positioned
0
Lender commissions ever accepted
1
Trusted name in capital readiness
How we operate

Six commitments
we never break.

i. Independence by structure

Zero compensation from any lender, broker, or financial institution.

Not a tagline. A structural fact. We have no contracts, agreements, or financial relationships with any lender, broker, or referral partner. Our entire revenue comes from the flat fee you pay for your report, before any loan decision is made.

ii. Honesty over revenue

If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you upfront.

Some situations need a different solution — a CPA, an attorney, a turnaround specialist, an SBA resource center. If your situation is outside what a Capital Readiness Report can solve, we'll say so before we take your money, and we'll tell you who to talk to instead.

iii. Transparency over polish

Real prices, real deliverables, real timelines posted publicly.

Two products. Two prices. Both posted on the homepage. No "contact us for pricing." No hidden upsells. No bait-and-switch consultations. What you see is what you get, and what you get is exactly what we promised.

iv. Professional rigor

Lender-grade methodology on every file we touch.

Every report uses the same analytical framework a sophisticated commercial credit analyst would apply: DSCR analysis, adjusted cash flow with documented add-backs, global cash flow stacking, 5C Framework scoring, stress testing. No shortcuts. No templates pretending to be analysis.

v. Speed without sacrifice

48-hour Snapshot. 5-day Full Report. No corners cut.

A trained credit analyst — not a chatbot, not software — rebuilds your numbers personally and signs the report. Quick because we know what we're doing, not because we cut corners. If your situation needs more time, we tell you upfront before we charge you.

vi. Client over conversion

Refund-backed quality on every deliverable.

If we deliver work that materially fails the description, contact us and we'll make it right — up to and including a full refund. We'd rather lose a fee than have an unhappy client telling their friends. One reputation, built one report at a time.

The work continues

Twenty thousand owners.
One report at a time.

If you're operating a business and considering financing — or you've already been declined and don't know what to do next — we built this for you. Start where it makes sense. We'll meet you there.