BMG Research conducted a survey in September 2012 to explore the steps that SMEs go through when considering the need to raise external finance, and the specific processes they go through to obtain this finance. The findings of the survey will be useful to inform Government policy in this area to enable Government finance schemes to be better promoted and tailored to the needs of SMEs. Fieldwork consisted of 1,508 quantitative telephone interviews, and 30 qualitative telephone depths with SMEs in the UK.