Fast Business Credit Secrets » Small Business

Americans’ Credit Scores Sink to New Lows – Now Your Solutions…

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:42:37 +0000

Low personal credit scores make it very difficult for most Americans to take advantage of low mortgage interest rates and to qualify for any financing to start a business.

In fact, figures provided by FICO ® show that 25.5% of consumers — nearly 43.4 million people — now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders.

This is due to several important reasons:

1. The banks are taking over 2 TRILLION dollars out of the consumer credit markets last year and this year. That means they are cutting off your personal credit card limits (just like they did two years ago on HELOCs (Home Equity Lines of Credit) to protect their risk). That very move will increase your personal revolving debt ratios, and therefore drop your personal credit score dramatically.

2. Consumers are making the mistake of paying their minimum balance on their credit cards. You must pay at least $1 over the minimum balance to get any increase in personal credit score.

3. Consumers who have a small or home-based business are operating as a sole proprietorship. That means they are using their personal credit cards to finance their business start up (a huge mistake). This typically is a result of their accountant recommending to “keep things simple” if the small business owner is unsure how much in profits they will generate the first year.

Solutions to improve your personal credit score:

1. Pay at least $1 over the minimum payments each month.

2. Set a goal to reduce your personal revolving debt (credit cards) to 5-20% the best ratio. First, develop a personal emergency fund equal to 6-8 months of your personal monthly expenses.

3. Avoid major derogatories like a personal bankruptcy or large credit settlement that can destroy your personal credit score.

3. If you are operating a business or looking to start a business to increase your income (a good idea), form a separate legal entity first, from the start. Now work on separating your personal and business credit so if you have a low personal credit score you can develop a strong business credit score.

4. Separate your personal and business credit. Your business must develop a track record with Dun & Bradstreet ®, Corporate Experian ® and Equifax Small Business to put your business in a position to receive more financing support from the banks, better joint venture opportunities and prevent losing business from other business partners because your business is “financiallynaked” with no business credit profile properly built! This can be very expensive if you do not set this up properly.

Resources:

Listen to this powerful 1 hour recording on how banks work and how to secure capital for your small business: http://budurl.com/BizCreditTeleseminar

Costly mistakes to avoid with Dun & Bradstreet®. Listen now: http://tinyurl.com/JosephFacchianoDnB

Call Fast Business Credit, Inc. today at 1-888-313-6333 for a free consultation to see how we can help your small business secure business credit to grow.

Go to www.FastBusinessCreditSecrets.com and to the “Find a Lender” box in the upper right hand corner. You will be contacted within 24 hours from lenders around the country to help you out.

About the Author:

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.

Media contacts:

Go to http://fastbusinesscredit.com/pressroom/index.htm#contact

5 Steps to Managing Business Debt

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:29:17 +0000

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.

Build Business Credit -Secure Your Financial Future -June Special Offer

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:14:17 +0000

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
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P.S. Extra Special June Bonus:

Survival Tips for Securing Credit for Your Small Business

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:07:36 +0000

Today, the stock market plunged and may continue to do so with the heavy debt loads in Europe and other countries around the world. There may be another 1,000 bank failures in the U.S. over the next couple of years. Let’s be honest, it is only going to become more difficult to secure credit for your small business.

This is the ideal time (before it is too late) to really develop a business credit profile with your business. Hopefully, you have formed a separate legal entity and are not operating as a sole proprietorship. If you want to be in a position to secure credit, properly building your business credit over the next 4-6 months may be key to your small business survival.

You can now obtain an incredible resource for free, go to www.FastBusinessCredit.com and download the 41 page report that will help your small business secure credit. Questions? Call Fast Business Credit, Inc. today at 1-888-313-6333.

How can You Avoid Costly Mistakes when Developing Business Credit!

admin — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:09:48 +0000

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.