Month: October 2014

Whether you are just starting your business from the ground up or you have been in business for years, you may understand how important it is to create loyal customers. After all, you can spend a small fortune constantly trying to bring new customers into your establishment. With new customers, you may need to compete against other companies for business, prove that you have the best product or service and take other efforts, and these efforts may be extremely costly.

Loyal customers, however, may know and love your products, services and team members from past experiences. They may even praise your company to their own friends and neighbors, providing you with free word-of-mouth advertising. There are a number of post-sale techniques that you can use to create loyal customers and to enjoy the many benefits they can provide to your company.

Read more

Growth is something that every small business owner dreams of, but it is also something that small business owners rarely plan for in an efficient way. The problem is that too many small business owners are focused on taking care of issues today, and they do not have time to worry about long-term goals. But there are ways that you can prepare your small business for growth and take the pressure off when that growth starts to occur.

Make Your Funding Scalable
Every small business works hard to have as many sources of funding available as possible. It is important to properly utilize your funding options so that you can have the cash you need as your company continues to grow.

Look to a finance company like Business Credit and Capital for your short-term operating cash needs. The combination of a short-term finance company like Business Credit and Capital, along with your bank funding, will provide you with the back-up funding you need to grow.

Read more

Small businesses that rely on holiday sales to generate a profit for the year generally rely on seasonal employees to help generate those profits. Good planning helps to insure that a company keeps its costs down during the holidays so it can maximize those profits. But how does a small business accurately project how many temporary employees it will need for the upcoming holiday season? As with any business projections, there is a lot of trial and error involved and there is also a lot at stake.

Get Your Funding In Place
The holiday season comes and goes in the span of a few months, which means that it may be difficult for you to be able to collect all of your holiday cash before the New Year. If you are involved in a business that invoices clients with credit terms, then you may have to wait to see your profits.

The problem is that your seasonal employees are not going to wait to get paid, so you need to have your funding in place before the holidays begin. A good financing option to make your holiday payroll is to do business with Business Credit and Capital. The financial experts at Business Credit and Capital will help you to establish a special line of credit that you can draw from to meet your payroll needs. It is the ideal solution when your cash flow is impaired.

Read more

Running your own business can be a challenge. There are a variety of expenses you have to pay for. You have plenty of customer and client relationships to maintain. There’s also the fact that you have to continue crafting new innovative ideas that serve your company well into the future.

Thankfully, there’s an abundance of tools that can make your everyday life as a business owner easier. Check out these applications below before you start up the next day.

1. Keep it in the cloud
You’ve got important documents to keep track of. When your employees need to access a report, manual or file to complete a task, you shouldn’t have to scramble around your computer to find it. Allowing particular team members to access documents in the cloud allows you to free up your own time. They’ll also help you keep your files safe in case anything happens to you or one of your employee’s devices. Services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and OneDrive are tools that you can use.

Read more

Early preparation is the key to a profitable holiday season for merchants. Review last year’s holiday season and then decide on a plan that will help you avoid the same hassles this year. Budget wisely and remember that it takes money to make money to make money in retail. Explore unique funding solutions to make this holiday season less stressful and more profitable.

Hire Extra Help Early
Hire temporary employees several weeks before the rush begins. You’ll have extra help to get holiday stock out, create eye-catching displays and decorate your business for the holidays. Make sure new employees are comfortable with the job before the rush begins. The last thing you need during your busiest season is an employee who keeps making mistakes at the cash register. Slow checkout lines discourage shoppers from coming back.

Read more

The goal for every business is not only to grow and attain new customers, but to also maintain a solid base. The way to do this is with a customer loyalty program – rewarding people for coming back.

This can be seen at small pizzerias like Gino’s in Babylon Village, NY, where customers gain points with each purchase and end up with a free or reduced order after so much money is spent. For those who were going to eat there anyway, it’s nice, but there are some customers who may have frequented another establishment just down the road had they not had this program in place.

With a restaurant the concept of how to build a customer loyalty reward program seems pretty simple, but what about other types of businesses?

Guaranteed Overnight Delivery – Kleer-Fax
A few years back the office products factory, Kleer-Fax, saw that the world was changing in its industry. The stores that sold their goods were trying to do their best to hold less and less inventory, but this led to challenges. How could they (the stores) sell goods for a profit if they weren’t going to buy them in large quantities?

This was when Lou Nigro devised a plan to solve this problem, rewarding the mom & pop stores who were being overtaken by behemoth stores by offering two programs that would allow them to sell Kleer-Fax for a profit and carry no stock.

Read more

When a small business prepares for the holidays, it needs to engage in a wide array of plans to accommodate the pending boom in business. One of the more critical elements of your business that needs attention as the holidays approach is your website. During the holidays, consumers will go to your website to check out why they should buy from you instead of one of your many competitors. That is why your website needs to be better than ever when the holidays roll around.

Have The Cash Ready To Improve Your Site
Everything in the business world costs money, and that includes maintaining and growing your website. You will have extra personnel costs for your holiday upgrades, extra services costs and you will also want to be able to invest in higher bandwidth and other upgrades to enhance your customers’ experience.

Business Credit and Capital can help get your funding together and make sure that you have the cash you need for holiday website maintenance. The financial experts at Business Credit and Capital will be able to provide your business with funding you can draw from to get the things you need done.

Read more

As a business owner, it is critical to know when your biggest sales days are. These are the days when the revenue generated could help make your entire year a profitable one. Therefore, it is critical that you prepare for them as far in advance as possible to ensure that every customer has the ability to purchase what they want and how much of what they want.

Order More Inventory Than You Think That You Need
On an ordinary day, you may carry only the inventory that you think that you will sell until your next shipment comes in. However, on one of your busiest days, you want to have more than you think that you will sell on hand. This ensures that your business will not run out of the high margin goods that will drive profits. More importantly, it will position your company as one of the places to shop during the busiest times of the year.

Put More Staff on the Floor Than Usual
As you will see more customers than usual on the busiest sales days, you are going to need to have more people on the floor. This may mean increasing the number of hours current employees receive or hiring new workers on a temporary basis. Depending on the number of people who can work at a given time, it may be necessary for managers to get on the sales floor to ensure that everything goes smoothly for employees and customers alike.

Read more

Whether you are a small shop that mainly services one town or a medium-sized business that draws customers from the whole country, you may very well wish to expand your business. Taking the next step and finding a bigger place to work, or having a stronger presence in the marketing world, requires some thoughtful planner.

Secure the Funds
When you want to leap into the bigger-business world, you need to have the money to do so. As you assess your current financial situation, you might find that your profits have been more than expected, so you are able to make that type of investment. On the other hand, you may feel that you need a bit of a boost to help you get started on the next step. Checking out Business Credit and Capital can lead you to a loan. Just make sure that you are able to agree to all of the terms and to pay it in full.

Read more