We put together a video that breaks down, step-by-step, the entire process for applying for the SBA Disaster Loan Application. Watch the video to learn everything you need to know. We also provided the full video transcript below.

The Video Transcript

In this video, I’m going to show you how to fill out the SBA Disaster Loan Application. This is a step-by-step video on how to get a $10,000 grant from the federal government if you’re a small business owner, an independent contractor, sole proprietor, 1099, or a gig economy worker. Now, that is $10,000 that you don’t have to pay back. Now, I’m going to go over who qualifies, what the rules are, but most importantly, I’m going to go over the application so you can fill this thing out and hopefully get this money really quickly. But before we do, if this is your first time at our channel or you haven’t subscribed, click on the subscribe button at the bottom. My name is Scott Johnson, Owner of Mack Media Group and host of The Mack Talks Podcast, and i’m going to help you and your business apply for this 10,000 grant.

Now, this grant is part of the CARES Act that was just signed into law on Friday, March 27th by President Trump, and this is the EIDL Loan Program. The EIDL stands for economic injury disaster loan, and you can get it through the SBA, Small Business Administration. I’ll leave a link in the description at the bottom directly to the site, so you can see the exact page that I’m going through. Also, I’m going to put a link to the CARES Act so you can also read along because I’m going to pull it up on the screen as we go through the rules. And then, I’m going to go over into the application. I’m going to walk you through the application as well, so by the end of this video, you’ll be on your way to getting that $10,000 grant.

Understanding the CARES Act

So, let’s start with the CARES Act. I’m going to pull it up on the screen. Now, this is the CARES Act, and we’re going to scroll down to section 1110, which is the emergency EIDL grant. I’m going to go ahead and zip right down to the EIDL grant, and it starts on page 66. You can see right there, I highlighted some of the major points. The emergency EIDL grant, EIDL stands for economic injury disaster loan. Now, to qualify for this loan, you have to be a small business with 500 or fewer employees, and you can see right there in section B, it outlines any individual who operates under a sole proprietorship with or without employees, or an independent contractor. So, if you’re a gig employee, you will qualify for this. If you’re a 1099, you would qualify. If you’re a small business owner with 500 or fewer employees, then you would qualify.

They’re waiving a lot of the red tape in order to get some of these loans. We can see here: the administrator shall waive any rules related to the personal guarantee on an advance of a loan, not more than $200,000 during the covered period. Now, it also says that you have to be in business for one year, but it looks like they’re also waiving that as long as you were in business by January 31st of 2020 then you would qualify. In addition to that, the administrator may, basically, not look at any of your documents. They’re just going to look at solely on the credit score, so they’re not even requesting the tax documents.

 The Needed Tax Documents

Now, here’s what we know so far about those tax documents. The website has changed since March 29th, and on March 29th, they were asking for the paper versions of all of these forms and including your tax documents. Now as of April 7th, when I went through it, there were no tax documents being requested at all when we were going through the loan application. Now, not only are they not asking for your tax documents and they’re just going to go off your credit score, but it’s a self-certification process. Look at the verification section here. Verification. I highlighted it for you. Self-certification. They’re streamlining and totally eliminating the red tape in order to get access to this money.

Now, whether or not they can produce it as fast as they say they will, that’s still yet to be determined. But according to this, it says it right here, it says: within three days after the administrator receives an application from such applicant. That’s how fast you should be able to get this money. So, it should be relatively quick, with very little red tape and not filling out a whole lot. Because you’re going to see at the end when we’re going to go through the application, it is very easy to fill out and it will take you all of about five minutes.

The Amount of the Advance

And the amount, you can see right there, the amount: the amount of the advance provided under this subsection shall not be more than $10,000. That doesn’t mean you can’t get a loan greater than 10,000, because you absolutely can, but they’re willing to advance that $10,000 right away. To get the $10,000 grant, this is the repayment section: an applicant shall not be required to repay any amounts of an advance provided under this subsection, even if subsequently denied a loan. So, even if they deny your loan, according to this, it’s saying that you don’t have to repay it, so if you get a loan greater than the $10,000, that can also, possibly, be forgiven.

Scroll back up and we can see what these five areas are. A. It’s saying: providing sick leave to employees who are affected by COVID-19. B. Maintaining payroll to retain employees. And, c. Let’s see what C says: meeting the increased cost of obtaining materials unavailable from the applicant’s original source. So, if costs were increased, that can be counted as a qualifying grant. Making the rent or mortgage payments, so if you have rent or mortgage payments, those expenses would qualify. And the last one is: repaying obligations that cannot be met due to revenue losses. So, if you meet one or more of these criteria, all of the money that you use for this criteria will be forgiven, so it is possible that what we just went through took us longer than it will to go through this application to get $10,000.

Beginning the Online Application Process

Let’s go ahead and pull it up on the screen and walk through it together. It’s sba.gov. Right on the homepage of sba.gov, we can see that there’s a Learn More button right there in the middle. We’re going to click on it and it’s going to bring us to this coronavirus small business guidance and loan resources page. Now we’re going to scroll down the page to the first section that says “coronavirus funding options”. Below that, you will see a link that says “click here to learn more about available SBA loan and debt relief options” . Then you will be brought to a page called Coronavirus relief options. Scroll down to the funding options, find the EIDL Loan Advance and click the link that says “learn more”.  Finally, you’re going to scroll down to the section of the page that says “Eligibility”, and at the very bottom of that section, there will be a link that says “to apply for a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan and loan advance, click here.” Click that link, and finally, you will be brought to Economic Injury Disaster Loan Application.

You have to meet one of these criteria in order to qualify for this loan. For this one we’re going to check off “applicant is a business with no more than 500 employees.” Now, that second one is an applicant is an individual who operates under a sole proprietorship with or without employees or as an independent contractor. Those are the two main ones. The other ones are different scenarios, but if any of these apply to you, check off that one. Now, if none of them apply to you, that means you’re not qualifying for this loan, you’re not a small business owner, or a 1099, or an independent contractor, but most likely it’s going to be one of those top two.

We’re going to scroll down. Now, this is the certification to make sure that you can actually apply for this loan: applicant is not engaged in any illegal activity. You’re going to end up checking off all of these boxes if you qualify. If you don’t qualify, you can see at the very bottom, the Continue button will not turn a darker color so you can go to the next page. So, you’re clicking on all of these checkboxes, assuming they’re all true for you. We’re going to go ahead and click Continue. Go to the next page. The business legal name, we can put This Company. You want to put whatever inc or LLC, if whatever is applicable to you.

Trade name would be just This Company. EIN, put it in the EIN, two digits, dash. Where’s my dash? There we go. Dash. Just put it all in there. And then, we can choose the business type. I’ll choose S Corp. Is this applicant a nonprofit? No. Is this applicant a franchise? I’m going to choose no. Gross revenues. Put your gross revenues for the 12 months prior to January 31st of 2020. So, $100,000. Cost of goods sold, if you have costs of goods sold, otherwise put zero.

If you are a small business owner that rents properties on Airbnb, booking.com or longterm rentals, then you could put lost rents due to the disaster. I’m going to put zero for this walkthrough. And nonprofit cost of operation … That’s optional. Combined annual operating expenses for the faith-based entity. I’m just going to skip that and. You don’t need any of that information. Primary business address. 123 This Street. Pick a state. I’ll pick Connecticut. It’s where I’m at. And we’ll put 06804. Then, put the date of the business established. So, January 1st, 2000. If you’re still the same owner, January 1st, 2000. Obviously, put whatever the date your business started. If there was an ownership change, put the date you were the owner. If it hasn’t changed, you’ve owned the business from the beginning, then just put the same date. Business activity, you can put whatever is relevant for your particular business.

The number of employees would include yourself if you’re a W-2 employee, so you’re paying yourself as a W-2, then you’re considered an employee. If that’s the case, then add one for yourself. Otherwise, put zero. If you don’t have any employees and you’re sole proprietor, then you would just put zero here. Let’s go ahead and click on Next and go to the next page. Is your business owned by a business entity? No. Then, put all of your basic information here. If you have additional owners, go ahead and add an additional owner. I’m just going to choose Next. Now, these pages are the additional information. Just go ahead and read the questions and check off what applies to you. It is, no. If you haven’t done any of these things, it’s no.

I’m going to scroll down. If anyone assisted you in completing this application, put this information. Do not put my information. I did not assist you in completing this application. We’re going to scroll down a little bit further. Would I like to be considered for an advance of up to $10,000? Check off yes. Put your banking information. Whatever bank that you bank at, your account number. There we go, and the routing number. I’m just going to type it in until it goes green there. Scroll down, and under penalty of perjury, check that off. Then click Next, and then you can see a summary of everything that you filled out. Click the box that you’re not a robot, and then click Submit.

Submitting the Form and Saving Your Confirmation Number

I’m not going to click submit because this is a fictitious application, but that is that quick and easy to fill this thing out. Now, on the next page, you’re going to get a confirmation number, print it out. Print it out in a PDF, keep it on your computer. Print it out and keep it with you, so you have a record that you filled it out. If you want to get in contact with the SBA, good luck. It’s been really difficult. In fact, if you call them and you get in contact with somebody, let me know in the comments down below. There were 350 people on the phone queue when I called in this morning., After about 30 or 40 minutes, I got disconnected. I tried it two or three other times, and the same thing happened. It was really, really frustrating. I kept on trying to call back and you get a frontline staff member who puts you into a phone queue for their tier two once you tell them that you have an application and you’re just trying to follow up on it.

So, it’s a complete disaster trying to follow up with this information, but hopefully, the money gets distributed a little bit quicker and you can move on with your life and hopefully keep your business afloat.

Like many of you, my business has been impacted by Coronavirus and I could definitely use the extra 10 grand to help cover some of those losses. In fact, some  of our clients are senior living homes, medical groups and doctor’s offices, which are particularly at-risk groups in terms of likelihood of contracting the disease. They’ve had to focus 100% of their resources on combating the virus, and marketing is probably one of the last things on their minds at this moment. As a result, a significant portion of our business is particularly vulnerable during this time. So I’ve sought out ways to help supplement my business while we wait for this all to end, and while doing so, I’m hoping to document some of my process so that you, the viewer, can benefit.

Follow the Mack Talks and the Mack Media Group

I am the owner and founder of Mack Media Group, a full service digital marketing agency located here in Fairfield County Connecticut, just outside of New York City. We specialize in website and mobile application design, video production, seo, ppc and social media marketing. We also have a podcast about business and entrepreneurship, called the Mack Talks, which I am the host of, where we cover business news topics, and have on incredible guests like Kevin O’Leary, AJ Vaynerchuck, Evan Hafer and Jack Maxwell, who help give us and our audience insight into the life of an Entrepreneur, Business Owner, or Community Leader. In the description below, I will leave links to our podcast, and digital marketing agency websites, so if you guys want to check out any of our other work you can do that.

When our country and economy was first struck by COVID-19, and I saw all of these local and small businesses start to close their doors, I knew I had to do something to help. So I decided to create a video series on social media called the COVID-19 Small Business Survival Guide, to help other small businesses like mine survive and thrive during the coronavirus pandemic. In the description below, I will leave a link to our LinkedIn group, the COVID-19 Small Business Survival Guide where you can find helpful information, tips and tricks for business owners to get through this pandemic TOGETHER.

The goal is to build a communal resource covering topics like the ones we covered in this video. Some of those topics include:

  • 4 Categories of Payments your business should defer during the COVID-19 Crisis
  • 6 Ways to Protect your business during the COVID-19 Pandemic
  • And 5 things you need to know about the SBA’s COVID-19 Disaster Relief Program

Our members are also encouraged to post videos, articles and blog posts that might help other small business owners save time, money, and resources while their business is under the pressure of the coronavirus.

We will also be leaving marketing tips in this group, since we’re a digital marketing company, suggesting ways of improving and expanding your digital footprint during the coronavirus pandemic.

  • We’ll be giving you a checklist for posting on social media
  • 4 ways to boost your online presence during the COVID-19 crisis
  • And more

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments down below. If you have any questions about going through this application or going through the process, go ahead and leave those comments down below. If you’ve enjoyed this video, be sure to subscribe and leave your comments down at the bottom.