Whoever coined the phrase "easy money" never tried to get a business loan. That's what I set out to do late last year after experiencing one of those entrepreneurial moments at my four-year-old staffing business, Staff Writers Plus Inc. in Hauppauge, N.Y., which specializes in placing writers and editors.

Piled on my desk at home was a stack of unpaid bills that looked like the mountain Richard Dreyfuss was building in Close Encounters. There was an equally impressive stash in my office. "Raising capital" meant dipping into my IRA.

But this was a picture of a business taking shape, not one going under. My company was, in fact, doing very well, but I had reached that point where I needed more capital than I could supply myself. So I called the manager of North Fork Bank in Smithtown, Long Island. I was looking for $150,000 to use for some marketing, a New York City office, and one more hire, but would have settled for a modest $100,000. A venture-capital deal this wasn't.

I came prepared. In hand I had a PowerPoint presentation of my business plan that had all the nitty-gritty: what I do, my competitive edge, current and projected revenue, my Web site, and how I would use the money. That part of the meeting seemed to go well.

Then the slider came in over the plate: "Son, how will you guarantee this loan?" I explained that even though I was a bit overextended, I had a squeaky-clean credit history and that my projected revenues were way more than double the amount I was asking for. Besides, I naively said, doesn't a loan mean that the lending institution should also be taking some risk? They seemed upbeat about my business, and I walked out planning my expansion.

A few weeks later, they turned me down. Not their decision entirely, they said, but the underwriter was a bit uncomfortable with the arrangement. All loans of any nature go through an underwriter who makes the tough calls. "Can I meet the underwriter?" I asked. No, I was told, they usually don't meet people. For a moment, I felt betrayed, since this was the bank I had used faithfully since I launched my business. Then I started looking for a new one.

In a month or so, I had one. By now, I had to update my business plan and sit through a one-and-a-half-hour meeting with the loan rep, only to find out that she doesn't handle credit lines "as small as yours." Well, ex-cuuuse me -- perhaps I should have changed my request to a cool million. But she set up another meeting with the small-loan department for the following Monday.

That Sunday, the day before the big meeting, I decided to climb my roof to perform some manly repair duty. This entrepreneurial impulse cost me dearly when the ladder slid out and I fell, breaking my heel and tearing some vital tissue on my backside which caused a bruise the size of Texas.

I made the meeting anyway, crutches and all, grimacing through an hour of explaining my business model to three bankers. They listened sympathetically to my roof story and seemed genuinely impressed by my business. Then they handed me a quick form to fill out and said they would get back to me. Apparently, the crutches didn't sway them: They rejected me a week later. "Overextended," they said. Hell, I thought that was an asset. By their measure, Jeff Bezos should be packing up all his books and moving to the real Amazon. Still smarting from both setbacks about a month later, I read a magazine profile of the president of North Fork. A big part of the story was how it was expanding into New York City and focusing on helping small businesses. I fired off a letter pointing out the hypocrisy. "Part of the line I was seeking was to finance an office in Tribeca. Guess who would have been singing your praises if I had actually gotten a line from you?" I wrote.

It worked. My request went back to the original bank manager, who had been a great ally from the beginning, and just last month, I was granted a line of credit. It's not much at all -- $50,000 -- but it's just enough to build on and probably increase later.

In the meantime, out of the blue, I received two credit-card offers for a line of $15,000 each from somebody who wanted nothing more than my signature of approval. It was that easy. And I didn't even have to tell them the roof story.

By George Giokas in New York

George Giokas writes a weekly column called Dear Diaryfor frontier online. His Web site is located at www.staffwriters.com, and you can E-mail him at george@staffwriters.com.

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