By Jerry Silberman

CEO and Founder of Corporate Turnaround

With the economy in turmoil and millions of people losing their jobs, small businesses are feeling the brunt of the blow. Business closings have reached epidemic proportions. While there’s no way to protect your business from every storm, many businesses can spare themselves from undue stress by responding faster to the unforeseen problems we all face in the months ahead. To quote Benjamin Franklin: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

1. Monitor your cash flow – Cash flow is not the same as profit. Your business may be profitable, yet you can still face a serious cash flow problem. Cash flow is the cycle going in and out of your company. You should be able to know at all times how much cash you have on hand and what the business needs to operate.

2. Collect what’s owed to you – Slow-paying customers can be a big part of a cash flow problem. Collecting from them can eat up your time and efforts that could better be spent making sales and growing your business. That is where a collection agency can truly help you.

3. Eliminate or reduce expenses - This is a tough, but necessary step, if your business is going to weather this economy. Here are some areas to look at:

¨ Negotiate lower prices with your existing vendors – First do your research. Find out who else offers the products and services you need. You’ll be surprised to find how many companies are willing to lower their prices to gain a new customer. This will provide you the leverage you need to stay with your current vendors. If they refuse, you’ll have found vendors that will sell to you for less.

¨ Purge excess inventory – Right now, you need cash. Spend the time boxing up and returning anything you don’t need or can’t sell.

¨ Stop using your credit cards wherever possible

– unless you have an extremely low interest rate and are carrying a low balance, every credit card you carry could spell trouble for you if you fall behind in payments.

¨ Pay yourself less – When you’re facing tough debts, you probably want to take more money out of the company and put it aside. Fight that temptation.

¨ Cut back benefits – As much as it may hurt, you need to ask your employees for higher contributions for health insurance or phase it out altogether.

¨ Cut back hours for your employees – You may need to work more hours to save more money. This could enable you to avoid laying off any of your employees. Relocate to a cheaper location – With a glut of unoccupied commercial real estate turning some areas into ghost towns, you should be able to find cheaper space nearby.

¨ Let some or all your employees go – As a last resort, letting employees go may be necessary for the business to survive.

4. Raise your prices now – Most small business owners undercharge for their services. Many are convinced it’s impossible to succeed unless they keep their prices low. But the days of undercutting everyone and turning your product or service into a commodity are over. Circuit City learned that lesson the hard way. Here’s the cold fact – it doesn’t matter how much you make. It matters how much you keep. If you have razor-thin margins, it’s time to change immediately. Just charging 10% more could make all the difference in the world. Test different prices. Look at other companies who are charging more for the same product or service.

5. Work your customer list – We’ve worked with thousands of struggling businesses. Here are some common traits: many don’t have a customer list; they barely market to their customers and when they do, they have no way of measuring the response. The worst part is, they have no idea which customers are profitable and which ones have stopped buying. If you don’t have a customer list, create one today.

I hope these tips help you through these tough times.

Copyright © The Top 5% Club.com All Rights Reserved

Scott Letourneau is the CEO of Fast Business Credit, Inc. When it comes to securing cash and vendor lines of credit and avoiding costly mistakes he is the expert. For further assistance regarding the development of business credit go to http://www.FastBusinessCredit.com or call FBC at 1-888-313-6333.

The #1 Reason Businesses FAIL is Lack of Cash Flow.

Does your Business have the Proper Lines of Trade Credit and Cash Lines Established?

Are You Losing Business Because of a Weak (or no) Business Credit Profile?

Introducing the Newly Improved Ultimate Business Credit Builder System and our
June Special (our Best Offer Ever):

One of the main reasons you incorporated or formed an LLC was to separate your business assets from your personal assets. This will help you limit your liability and have a better marketing advantage when it comes to joint ventures (the fastest way to grow your business-especially host beneciary relationships).

The key is to separate for success. The big mistake we see is that many entrepreneurs invest all their money to separate their personal and business assets but NEVER separate their personal and business credit (at least not properly).

4 Critical Reasons to Separate Business Credit (in your entity)
from Your Personal Credit:

1. It is how your business will be evaluated for business and joint ventures. You may be losing clients, bids, vendors and joint ventures without even knowing about it. Why? The best way to check out a company’s financials is to invest $40-$130 with Dun and Bradstreet® to pull a report. This will tell you everything you need to know about someone’s business. Most of you will NOT like what will be seen on your report. FYI, a 80 Paydex score will not cut it.

How do You Feel Standing Financially Naked in Front of Your Customers? Now it may be time to fix that and put your “financial clothes” on.

2. Whether you like it or not, Corporate Experian® is NOW creating profiles on companies through the SOS’s database on new filings. This means a profile is being created and you do not know what it will say to your potential customers (unless you know how to develop it properly).

3. Develop vendor lines of credit to protect your cash flow AND put your business in a better position to secure CASH LINES of credit to grow your business. As you know the banks have raised the bar dramatically on what is required to secure a bank line of credit (one key component is the amount of vendor credit granted to your business-not just an 80 Paydex score).

4. You will protect your personal credit (whether it is good or bad) from your new business. If your personal credit is strong, you will want to minimize personal guarantees with vendors that may jeopardize your personal credit plus develop cash lines of credit in the name of the entity under the EIN number (yes, it is personally guaranteed but the debt will not show up in your personal credit bureaus-which will help protect your personal credit score.

If you have a bad personal credit score, you MUST develop your business credit profile to put the business in a position to qualify for credit on its own!

The Biggest Mistake? Waiting to develop the business credit profile until you need the vendor or cash lines of credit. If your business is doing well and you feel you do NOT need the credit that is the best time to develop it.

This is what George Ross, the attorney for Donald Trump told me when I asked him the best time to develop relationship with banks. Develop the credit before you need it.

Are you an International Owner of a U.S. Company? What are your options? Will our program help you? Call and find out the options and adjusted fees for your U.S. Cash Machine!

Call NCP today at 1-888-627-7007 to find out the results your business can expect to achieve with our Newly Revised Ultimate Business Credit Builder System (there are many variables involved) and our June Special Offer (our best ever) expires on June 30th at 4 pm PDT, 2010.

Extra Special June Bonus (in addition to our biggest discount ever):

When you invest with our Ultimate Business Credit Builder Program in the month of June you will receive our complete Online Joint Venture Training on how to leverage joint ventures with all the videos from our 2010 Ultimate Joint Venture Boot Camp and training calls. This is your blueprint for success. You will receive this $997 value FREE when you invest with our Ultimate Business Credit Builder Program on or before June 30^th, 2010. Call NCP at 1-888-627-7007 for more details.

Call me today at 1-888-627-7007 to register for the Newly Improved Ultimate Business Credit Builder System or ask additional questions on how this tremendous service will help your business prosper in today’s economy.

Dedicated to Your Success,

Scott Letourneau

CEO

ncp@nvinc.com

Nevada Corporate Planners, Inc.

Fast Business Credit, Inc.
Fast Start to Profits™!
7477 W. Lake Mead Blvd. Ste. 170
Las Vegas, NV 89128
(888)627-7007; (702)367-7373
Fax: 702-220-6444
www.nvinc.com
www.FastBusinessCredit.com

Visit our Blogs at:
www.FastBusinessStartUp.com
www.FastBusinessCreditSecrets.com
www.ScottLetourneau.com

Follow our CEO Scott Letourneau on:
www.Facebook.com/ScottLetourneau
www.twitter.com/SJLetourneau
http://www.youtube.com/ScottJLetourneau

P.S. Extra Special June Bonus:

When you invest with our Ultimate Business Credit Builder Program in the month of June you will receive our complete Online Joint Venture Training on how to leverage joint ventures with all the videos from our 2010 Ultimate Joint Venture Boot Camp and training calls. This is your blueprint for success. You will receive this $997 value FREE when you invest with our Ultimate Business Credit Builder Program on or before June 30^th, 2010. Call NCP at 1-888-627-7007 for more details.

Does Your Business Need a Financial Rescue? Are you debt-ridden and unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel?

What if you could learn the steps to restructuring your business debt to give your business more cash flow and breathing room? Would that help you stay in business (or your clients) and on your way to success?

GREAT NEWS! Recently, I interviewed Jerry Silberman, CEO and Founder of Corporate Turnaround, the pioneer in the debt
restructuring industry and I want to give you that interview FREE to help your small business (or your clients who are small business owners).

**********************************************************************************
Access the powerful MP3 on how to negotiate with business creditors and save your business (or one of your clients):

Copy and paste the URL below into your browser and select
your entry key
http://budurl.com/BusinessDefender
**********************************************************************************

Separately, You may call Corporate Turnaround directly at 1-800-588-1330 or go to www.BusinessDefender.com. Ask them for their free report: “How to Pay Business Debts You Can’t Afford.”

Jerry is considered THE PRE-EMINENT AUTHORITY in helping small business owners emerge from overwhelming debt to operating within their means and a budget that will work for the business. He has co-authored “Small Business Survival Book”, which has been endorsed by Steve Forbes.

You will get a chance to hear from the absolute expert with tips to negotiate debt with your vendors and business credit cards to get your business in a position to survive and to help avoid being another statistic (over 40,000 businesses close their doors or file for bankruptcy each month).

Here are the essential strategies and insights you will learn on this powerful interview to help your business properly restructure its debts to save your business!

• What is debt restructuring? How is it different from debt settlement?
• When should you negotiate on your own?
• In your guide, “How To Pay Business Debts You Can’t Afford”, you mention 8% as the dividing line for negotiating on your own. What does that mean?

• Which creditors should be restructured and which ones SHOULD NOT?
• What’s the formula for determining an affordable monthly budget?
• How should a small business structure a repayment plan with vendors and creditors?
• When a business owner goes to Google looking for help with debt, there are a ton of different solutions out there – debt consolidation, credit counseling, debt restructuring, debt settlement, debt management, debt counseling.. Where do you begin? How do you make sense of it all?
• How has the economy affected your negotiations with creditors?
• What advice would you give a small business owner trying to make it right now?
• A lot of business owners are trying to negotiate their debts on their own.  What are the biggest mistakes they tend to make?
• Why are so many small businesses falling through the cracks and not getting the money they need to survive?

**********************************************************************************
Access the powerful MP3 on how to negotiate with business creditors and save your business (or one of your clients):

Copy and paste the URL below into your browser and select
your entry key
http://budurl.com/BusinessDefender
**********************************************************************************

My Guest that I interviewed: Jerry Silberman has pioneered the debt restructuring industry for small businesses as well as revolutionizing the debt collection industry.

In 1990 he started a nationwide collection agency. He went on to found Corporate Turnaround in 1998. For 20 years, he has helped thousands of small businesses renegotiate affordable terms with their creditors.  Corporate Turnaround has resolved over 25,000 debts.

He is considered the pre-eminent authority on helping small businesses emerge from overwhelming debt to operating within their means.

Corporate Turnaround’s success stories have been profiled in both The NY Times and Business Week. Mr. Silberman has lectured across the country and has been a featured expert for: Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, The Wall St. Journal, US News and World Report, Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur, Bloomberg TV, The CBS Evening News, WABC-TV, News 12 New Jersey and on numerous radio shows.

He co-authored “Small Business Survival Book”, which is endorsed by Steve Forbes. He has written numerous articles for magazines including The US Chamber of Commerce Magazine.

Download the MP3 now and burn it to a CD to listen to this week in your car and discover what options you have to help your small business survive!

Dedicated to your success!

Scott Letourneau
CEO

P.S. Need help? You may call Corporate Turnaround directly at 1-800-588-1330 or go to www.BusinessDefender.com. Ask them for their free report: “How to Pay Business Debts You Can’t Afford.”
Nevada Corporate Planners, Inc.
Fast Start to Profits™!

7477 W. Lake Mead Blvd. Ste. 170
Las Vegas, NV 89128
(888)627-7007; (702)367-7373 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting
(702)367-7373      end_of_the_skype_highlighting Ext. 1103
Fax: 702-220-6444
www.nvinc.com
www.FastBusinessCredit.com

Visit our Blogs at:
www.FastBusinessStartUp.com
www.FastBusinessCreditSecrets.com
www.ScottLetourneau.com

Follow me on:
www.Facebook.com/ScottLetourneau
www.twitter.com/SJLetourneau
http://www.youtube.com/ScottJLetourneau

I’ve seen made by hopeful, yet sadly uninformed individuals over the years.

Here are a few more secrets to give you the ability to avoid common mistakes.  When it comes to developing business credit you need every secret you can get.

Avoid Costly Mistakes when Developing Business Credit!

What are some of the other mistakes business owners make if they were going to do it themselves,
in regards to a business license, phone number, and some of those things that they don’t know about?

If you’re not listed in 411, then that business number is unverifiable.  A lot of people we deal
with say they don’t have to be listed in 411.  They don’t need that. If you’re not listed in 411.

Is your address on your business license is different than the address with the Secretary of
State, if your officers don’t match what they call the company representative and ask them who those officers are.

Sometimes if you don’t have a website, they’ll note that.

Business ownership, if they have more than one answer to a question come from either businesses,
a licensing department, state, company representative, or public information, a negative comment will be
put on that credit file.

There’s a number of things that people can do before they go to Dun and Bradstreet, to make sure that they’re in corporate compliance and a number of things that they can do not properly that will get a negative comment put on that file.

D & B Secret!

Even if You Have Been in Business for Six Years Your Company May Have NO Profile with D & B!
They’ve paid all their bills on time.  They still may not have any type of business credit file developed.

The main reason is that they have vendors that do NOT report their good payment activity to D & B. Most business owners think since they pay their bills on time that is enough and vendors report.

That is NOT what happens.

Think about it. All the vendors that own you money do you take the time, labor and effort to report to D & B? Probably not!

Now that you know more secrets, take the next step to see if you business will qualify for business credit (cash and vendor credit) and call Fast Business Credit at 1-888-313-6333 and together we can tailor-fit the perfect solutions for your situation.

Secret #1: Banks and Other Financial Institutions Prefer you Have Low Credit Scores.

Financial institutions make more money on people who have what we would consider to be low credit score.  Not necessarily a bad credit report just miss any payment and your score can lower as much as 100 points.  The lower your score the higher the rates they charge you.

Secret #2: One 30-Day Late Payment Can Lower Your Score by as Much as 100 points!

When you find yourself in a compromised position, or just forget to make one payment, your credit score can drop as much as 100 points. That pristine credit score you had is now ruined.

Secret #3: One Late Payment Can be Far Worse Than Being Habitually Late. One person missed 10 payments and another missed just one, you would easily think, “My goodness, the impact should be cumulative”.  And that person, who obviously is demonstrating a pattern, should be the one who’s really beaten up the most; when, in fact, in contrast, people who’ve never missed a payment before will see the greatest negative impact for missing one.

Take a person who has a 780 credit score down to a 680, we just took them from A+ paper financing into an alt-A lending program, and we can justify charging them anywhere from a quarter of a point to a full point more in interest, knowing full well that in 30 years of payment history they’ve only missed one payment in their lives.

The Real Function of the Credit Bureaus:

Secret #4: Credit Bureaus Are in Business to Make Money. Every one of the major credit reporting agencies or credit bureaus; TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, are independent businesses.  They are, at their core, the largest list broker services in the nation; which means that they sell consumer information, and not just in the case of credit reports.  They sell qualified lists.  They’re the largest list brokers in the nation.

Isn’t it amazing that you can call up any one of the 3 credit bureaus and request that documentation?  They will sell you that information that qualified list.  And nobody whose name is on that list needs to be asked if it’s okay with them, because that’s the business that they’re really in.

A credit report is nothing more than taking the same information they already have on all of us and putting it into a package that we call a credit report, and then selling it.

Secret #5: The Credit Bureaus Are in Business to Make Money! Another way credit bureaus make money and one that most people don’t realize is, they get paid by the creditors.  The creditors actually pay to report information.

Not only does it cost them money to compile it, but they also have to purchase the software system that integrates with the credit scoring companies or the credit bureaus themselves, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, they have to pay for that and they have to pay to report every line that they report on consumers.

Why Banks Do NOT Always Report Your Information to the Credit Bureaus!

Secret #6: How Much can Your Credit Scored Be Lowered Each Time it is Pulled? Every time your credit’s being pulled, whether you know it or not, each time it has the capacity to be lowered by as much as 18 points!

Ask the person who’s pulling your credit the right questions; to determine if you even have a reasonably good shot at the loan would probably be the best way to go.