Back in February, publishing articles on LinkedIn was the hot topic. LinkedIn had finally opened up their publishing platform to all users, which would help them showcase content and improve their credibility. Unfortunately, many are still having trouble making this option really work and getting that visibility that every article needs to thrive.

LinkedIn is a great place to publish articles, it just isn’t a great place to publish any old article you have lying around. You should have a strategy and consider what types of content work best for LinkedIn if you really want to find success.

The first step is to test what your followers are truly interested in. As my followers know we have been testing to see how we can best serve you and your businesses.

Testing to establish the proper strategy is a must for all who publish on LinkedIn.This seems be be one of the hardest steps in the entire process. That is why we have requested your comments on each and every article we post.

Once the proper area of interest is determined for your following it is then necessary to determine the best way to write your LinkedIn articles for your fun and profit.

How to Write Articles that Will Succeed on LinkedIn

LinkedIn sends nearly four times more people to your homepage than Twitter and Facebook, according to a report on Buffer App. It doesn’t necessarily win when it comes to the social sharing of your stories, but it does when talking about direct traffic to your site. In other words, the benefits of publishing here are worth your while.

A few tips for writing for LinkedIn include:

1. Pick Topics the LinkedIn Audience Wants to Read

It’s a good rule of thumb to write what you know, but people tend to forget that sometimes what they “know” doesn’t quite fit in with the LinkedIn demographics. If you have a very successful gossip blog, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your great story about Lindsay Lohan’s move to London is going to succeed. For some, LinkedIn actually isn’t the right platform.

The same can be said for those who are trying to simply copy and paste a blog post that they have already written. Although LinkedIn’s algorithm won’t hurt you just yet, this could hurt you if the voice and tone of the post isn’t right for social. LinkedIn’s audience is typically professionals (which is why a gossip column might not be your best bet), but it’s still a social network where people want an opportunity to engage and learn something as opposed to reading the news.

2. Publish Posts Once Per Week and Be Consistent

There is no evidence yet if the frequency that you post articles has anything to do with your chances of being displayed on someone’s network updates, but most are following past influencers’ once-per-week routine.

You want to make sure you’re consistently publishing in order to build a following, but putting too much out there could be overwhelming and hurt your chances of success. Again this isn’t proven, but based on the success of past influencers the once-per-week rule seems to be a good one to follow.

3. Try to Limit Your Posts to 800+ Words

Again, remembering the platform where you’re publishing is key. People who are reading articles on LinkedIn are usually looking for something quick, informative and/or entertaining. If they wanted a long-form article or were trying to research something thoroughly, LinkedIn probably wouldn’t be the first place they would check.

4. Internal Linking is Still Relevant

Internal linking is something many make a point to do when publishing on other platforms, but for some reason it’s forgotten when it comes to LinkedIn. You should link to your other LinkedIn posts whenever relevant to help keep people on your page and reading your stuff. Linking out to other LinkedIn articles or even other sources on the web is also a great way to build up your connections and improve a piece of content.

5. Always Respond to Comments

This is something that will certainly help make you more popular and make your articles more valuable, but with LinkedIn it actually goes a step beyond that. LinkedIn has admitted that the more you engage and interact through comments, both on your own articles as well as others, the more authority and influence you will gain with the site:

The more you engage with the platform the more reputation you’ll build, and the more likely members will follow you and your posts. Liking and commenting on other posts are good ways to engage.

6. Check the Analytics

LinkedIn gives you great analytics to show you the success of your articles. This gives you a great opportunity to pay attention to which types of articles are getting the most views, comments, and social shares. Is it a particular topic or subject matter that people are reading, or is it the way you write (such as a “how to” style)?

LinkedIn will actually send you an occasional email letting you know how your posts are doing along with tips to keep in mind for the future. The screenshot below shows the email and the type of information you can get from your posts:

Extra Tip

Promote your article both inside and outside of LinkedIn. Building external links to your posts and sharing the post on your different social channels is going to help your article gain visibility, which is a huge part of content success, no matter where that content was published.

Your Tips?

If you want more information about how to publish on the LinkedIn platform, how LinkedIn ranks articles, or why it matters, see LinkedIn Expands Business Blogging Platform from ClickZ.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article by Amanda DiSilvestro, from Search Engine Watch. Do you have any tips for writing something that will really succeed on LinkedIn? Leave a comment to let us know what has worked for you in the past.

Dedicated to Multiplying Your Income.
Please let me know what I can do for you.

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor
Business Development Director
Profit Builders Inc.
Phone 415-678-9965
Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com
Please join us on the following social media sites. Thank you.
URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

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In a Free Coaching Session we’ll show you how to increase your profits 25% or more without increase in your overhead in as little as 30-60-90 days!

We implement our systems in your business by giving you a 100% personal satisfaction guarantee. If we don’t deliver you don’t pay.

About Michael Kissinger, the Consultant, Coach, Mentor Speaker, Author and Entrepreneur: I spent the last 20+ years of my life creating fascinating Client and Profit Doubling programs that have helped thousands of small businesses across America. I am a former 20+ year business professor at three leading California Universities , and a small business analyst and consultant. I have taught more than 10,000 students people around the country & around the world. I am an experienced Off-line and On-Line marketer business developer, public speaker and a popular Bay Area professional. I work with many of the top small businesses in America. I am the author of over 850 top rated business and marketing articles. Contact me and get ready to discover this amazing gold mine of experience and information!

Businesses that run through operating cycles, on and off seasons in the summer or winter for example may find from time to time that a loan is needed to keep up normal operation until the positive flow season hits. Business owners looking to obtain small amount of funds for working capital to help operate their business have to consider getting a business line of credit loan or a small business loan. The choice between the two depends on a lot of factors.

Banks will extend a secured line of credit to most start-up ventures. The line may be unsecured if the business can demonstrate consistent earnings, an excellent capital position, and multiple sources of repayment. Traditionally, banks will commit a specified maximum amount of funds from which you are permitted to draw on as needed. You have the right to repay and re-borrow during the agreed-on time, which usually will not exceed a year. You pay interest only on the outstanding principal.

In addition, the bank needs to know how you will repay the line when your first source of repayment does not come through. Bankers look for enough elasticity in your operations to accommodate temporary reversals in adverse situations. What happens when you discover that your inventory is not selling as projected? What secondary sources of repayment are available?

Banks may also require you to pay down your line of credit when you have not followed your payment schedule, even though the total amount of money that you borrowed is not due for several more months. Banks do not like to approve lines of credit for use in managing cash flow. Instead, lines of credit are intended for cyclical borrowing needs at identified pay-down intervals. A failure to pay back the money on schedule indicates a potential problem in your ability to manage cash.

Which Is Right for You…

Line of Credit or Traditional Bank Business Loan or an Alternative Funding Source?

What is a Business Line of Credit?

According to the SBA, business line of credit loan helps small businesses grow and operate. This type of loan is designed to finance short-term working capital needs, such as inventory purchases or to pay operating expenses. These loans are given by financial institutions to operating businesses that meet certain criteria.

To receive a line of credit loan, profitable operating businesses must demonstrate a positive cash flow. The amount of the loan depends on your business revenue performance. The financial institution will look at revenue and cash flow-past, present and future-to determine the maximum line of credit your business will be allowed to borrow.

These records will help the business owner prove that the loan debt can be repaid during the term of the loan. Similar to the concept of credit cards, owners are approved for a maximum amount for lines of credit loans, and then they are allowed continuous borrowing and repaying during the term of the loan. For this matter the loan is also called revolving line of credit.

When to Use a Business Line of Credit?

This type of program is appropriate for businesses that have seasonal operating expenses or variable working capital demands. In other words, normal operating expenses that your business is able to cover during a regular business cycle. For example, you would use this type of loan to purchase supplies and inventory. A line of credit loan allows the owner to borrow the money needed to help meet the demand. You would not use this type of loan for large long term investments such as buying property, new equipment, or fixed assets.

How to Get a Small Business Line of Credit

If you’ve had trouble getting a small business loan or other types of bank credit or financing for your business or startup, here’s something that might work: Apply for an unsecured small business line of credit.

Start small – basically with whatever size line a lender is willing to provide. The important thing is to get a foot into the bank financing door. Even if the credit line is small, put it to immediate use and pay it off diligently and always on time.

Once you’ve established a track record, you can seek to expand the credit line in small steps. Many major banks that serve small business offer unsecured business credit lines of $5,000 to $100,000 for firms that have been around at least 2 years.

A Flexible Financial Tool

A business credit line is a flexible financial tool that can help you grow if you use it right. And even if you don’t have an immediate need for credit, it’s handy to have in your hip pocket if business conditions change. Establishing the revolving credit line is cheap, you only pay interest on what you borrow and you can use the line for almost anything.

Six things a credit line can be used for:

1. Remodel, expand or upgrade your store, offices or other facilities.
2. Buy new computers, servers, office technology or other equipment.
3. Purchase extra inventory for upcoming promotions or seasonal spikes.
4. Launch a new online marketing campaign.
5. Create a new product prototype, pursue a promising business opportunity.
6. Cover unexpected expenses.

Banks can be a good place to look for credit lines. Sure, bankers are being more tight-fisted these days, but they do have money to lend – especially for established businesses – and credit lines are one way they are doing it.

Credit lines are also appealing because of their low costs. Interest rates will vary with prevailing market rates, but many lenders allow you to tap the line – via paper check, online, check card or other method – for no fee. However, you can expect to pay a modest fee to open the account once you’ve been approved.

Ask about interest rate protection

You should also ask if the lender offers some kind of interest rate protection or lock-in feature to protect you against rising rates in the future. Some lenders will let you lock in an interest rate on your business line of credit for a year.

Beware of using a credit line for cash advances however, as many banks charge a cash advance fee that can run 3% or more (on top of any interest you’d pay).

How to Apply for a Business Line of Credit

To obtain a credit line, you will probably need to supply some financial information about your business as well as yourself, so be prepared with income and other statements or tax returns.

Sources of small business credit lines are numerous. To find the perfect fit and absolute best terms, you should plan to comparison shop among several lenders.

Some banks also offer unsecured revolving lines of credit backed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA’s CAPLines program helps business owners meet short-term and working capital needs and can be a great option for newer businesses less than four years old.

Different types of CAPLines

1. Seasonal Line. Loan proceeds can only be used to finance seasonal increases of accounts receivable and inventory (or in some cases associated increased labor costs), but can be revolving or non-revolving.
2. Contract Line. This line finances the direct labor and material cost associated with performing an assignable contract and can be revolving or non-revolving.
3. Builders Line. If you are a small general contractor or builder constructing or renovating commercial or residential buildings, this can finance direct labor and material costs. The building project serves as the collateral and loans can be revolving or non-revolving.
4. Standard Asset-Based Line. This is an asset-based revolving line of credit for businesses unable to meet credit standards associated with long-term credit. It provides financing for cyclical growth, recurring and/or short-term needs. Repayment comes from converting short-term assets into cash, which is used to pay back the lender. Your business can continually draw from this line of credit, based on existing assets. This line is generally used by businesses that provide credit to other businesses.
5. Small Asset-Based Line. This is an asset-based revolving line of credit of up to $200,000. It operates like a standard asset-based line except that some of the stricter servicing requirements are waived, as long as your business can show repayment ability from cash flow for the full amount.

When should a business not use a Line of Credit?

Small businesses should be careful to avoid using a Line Of Credit for longer-term financing. Companies that top out their credit line quickly and can only make minimum monthly payments may find that a Line Of Credit can be a drain on cash flow as they are unable to reduce the Line Of Credit‘s principal. This can both stress the company’s balance sheet, and potentially hurt its ability to acquire other types of credit.

4 Credit Line Tips and Warnings

• Avoid carrying a constant balance on your credit line. Periodically paying down the debt completely will keep the credit in place and your lender happy.
• One key factor in obtaining a credit line will be your business cash flow.
• If your business doesn’t quality for a standard credit line, ask for an “asset-based” line.
• Remember, the best time to set up a business line of credit is before your business actually needs it.

Bank Loan vs. Line of Credit

What to Consider When Seeking a Traditional Business Loan

According to the SBA, it is not your only source for small business loans. State and local economic development agencies as well as numerous nonprofit organizations provide low-interest loans to small business owners who may not qualify for traditional commercial loans. This page will help to ensure that you are prepared when you decide to apply for a small business loan.

Documentation Needed for Small Business Typical Bank Loan Application

While every loan program has specific forms you need to fill out and documents you need to submit, you will likely need to submit much of the same information for different loan packages.

Before you start applying for traditional bank loans, you should get some basic documentation together. The following are typical items that will be required for any small business loan application:

• Personal Background: Either as part of the loan application or as a separate document, you will probably be asked to provide some personal background information, including previous addresses, names used, criminal record, educational background, etc.
• Resumes: Some lenders require evidence of management or business experience, particularly for loans that are intended to be used to start a new business.
• Business Plan: All loan programs require a sound business plan to be submitted with the loan application. The business plan should include a complete set of projected financial statements, including profit and loss, cash flow and a balance sheet.
• Personal Credit Report: Your lender will obtain your personal credit report as part of the application process. However, you should obtain a credit report from all three major consumer credit rating agencies before submitting a loan application to the lender. Inaccuracies and blemishes on your credit report can hurt your chances of getting a loan approved. It’s critical you try to clear these up before beginning the application process.
• Business Credit Report: If you are already in business, you should be prepared to submit a credit report for your business. As with the personal credit report, it is important to review your business’ credit report before beginning the application process.
• Income Tax Returns: Most loan programs require applicants to submit personal and business income tax returns for the previous 3 years.
• Financial Statements: Many loan programs require owners with more than a 20 percent stake in your business to submit signed personal financial statements. You may also be required to provide projected financial statements either as part of, or separate from, your business plan. It is a good idea to have these prepared and ready in case a program for which you are applying requires these documents to be submitted individually.
• Bank Statements: Many loan programs require one year of personal and business bank statements to be submitted as part of a loan package.
• Collateral: Collateral requirements vary greatly. Some loan programs do not require collateral. Loans involving higher risk factors for default require substantial collateral. Strong business plans and financial statements can help you avoid putting up collateral. In any case, it is a good idea to prepare a collateral document that describes cost/value of personal or business property that will be used to secure a loan.
• Legal Documents: Depending on a loan’s specific requirements, your lender may require you to submit one or more legal documents. Make sure you have the following items in order, if applicable:
  • Business licenses and registrations required for you to conduct business
  • Articles of Incorporation
  • Copies of contracts you have with any third parties
  • Franchise agreements
  • Commercial leases

Business Loan vs. Business Line of Credit

1. Business loans are used one time whereas lines of credit can be used multiple times.

2. “When” you get a loan is different from “when” you get a line of credit. A loan is normally not something you would get until you need it because it’s normally for one specific purpose. A line of credit is something you obtain before you need it. Remember the line of credit, unlike a loan, is not for one specific purpose.

3. With a loan you have a monthly payment that, although there are a few exceptions, doesn’t change from month to month and those monthly payments begin right away. Whether you’re using all the money or not your monthly payment does not change. With a line of credit you only make payments on the amount of money you’ve borrowed so if your balance is zero your payment is zero.

4. The closing costs are higher for a loan than a line of credit. There are always exceptions to every rule but most loans carry closing costs anywhere from 2-7% whereas lines of credit have very minimal or no closing costs.

5. Loans carry with them fixed terms or amortization periods. Because of this the monthly payments on loans are usually higher than the monthly payments on lines of credit. Think about it like this. If you were to get a loan for $50,000 your monthly payment will likely be $400-700/month more than it would be if you owed $50,000 on a line or lines of credit.

6. Loans are usually best for long-term debt that gets paid off over 2 to 6 years. Lines of credit, however, are best for short-term purposes such as financing receivables, marketing, and making payroll. We acknowledge that lines of credit are great for unexpected cash-flow issues but make sure you don’t exhaust your lines of credit on surprises. Use as much of your line of credit for Revenue Generating Activities.

If you use some of your funds for a marketing initiative (or several of them) then you’ll likely be able to justify the new debt you’ve incurred because you’ve also generated additional revenue and grown your organization.

7. Business loans have higher interest rates but they are normally fixed rates.Business lines of credit normally have lower interest rates but are variable. This simply means that if you manage your lines of credit poorly by making late payments or going over the credit line then — from an interest rate perspective — you would have been better off getting a loan. Whereas with a line of credit the rate can actually get better with good credit management.

8. Loans are usually somewhat interest-rate driven, whereas lines of credit are not as rate-sensitive. With a line of credit, that is used primarily for short-term purposes, it’s more important to have a monthly payment that is “cash-flow friendly” and, even though the rates are normally quite good, it’s more important that the line can be used repeatedly and the monthly payment is as low as possible in relation to the balance. The various products, lenders, guidelines, and constantly changing standards have made the credit and lending landscape for small businesses a rather delicate, perilous, and formidable one.

Alternative MICRO Loan Funding As A Solution

If you have a business that won’t qualify for a “Line of Credit or a Traditional Bank Loan you may want to consider alternative funding. Let look at the for Construction Industry as an example.

Because Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Your Construction Industry Business You Can Now Get Micro Loan and Business Funding that is Based On the Health of Your Company and Cash Flow, NOT on Your Credit Scores

Having working capital and general purpose funds on hand to cover day to day your operating expenses is critical. While many construction industry business owners need capital for specific items or projects, some don’t. Instead of defining a specific capital need, a working capital MICRO loan is intended to be versatile and nonspecific.

• A simple lending process

• Flexibility in collateral requirements

• Flexibility in revenue requirements

• Flexibility with your time in business

• A paperless application

Why This Construction Industry Funding is Available:

This construction industry funding is offered because banks won’t fund construction companies. The 10 Reasons Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund the Construction Industry are: (1): No Clear Access to Receivables; (2): Lien Rights; (3): Excess Owner or GC Retainage;(4): Warranty Issues Regarding Performance; (5): “Firing” of Contractors Can Result in Freezing of Payments; (6): Joint Check Arrangements Reduces Availability; (7): Cumbersome, Time Consuming, Expensive Underwriting; (8): Possibility of Project Funds Running Out; (9): Poor Estimates; and (10): Margins Too Thin. See: Get Your Part of the $700 Billion Construction Pie

Now Your Construction Business Can Get Construction Industry Business Funding Quickly & Easily:

Micro loan approval is made in as little as 2 to 3 days so you can focus on what you do best, running and growing your business. Easy application available: A simple one page application, and 4-6 months bank statements plus your profit & loss statement. No hassles and no long waits for a response.

Features:

Loans from $5,000 to $250,000+

Terms 3 to 18 months

Fixed interest and fixed payments

Easy daily ACH repayment

Approval in 2 to 3 days

Funding in as little as 7 to 10 days

Other Construction Industry Funding Programs Available:

SBA 7(a), SBA Express, Equipment Financing, Business Credit Cards (an option for start-ups), Short-term Working Capital, Accounts Receivables (factoring) and Commercial Real Estate, etc. Please about these other programs.

By Using this Construction Industry Funding Services you can:

• Take advantage of the additional credit often unavailable
• Minimize, and often eliminate, additional credit control requirements
• Streamline in house accounting functions
• Evaluate the financial status of a project through the reports provided with each draw
• Negotiate prompt payment discounts with your suppliers, directly increasing your bottom-line

With this Construction Industry Funding You Are Able to Coordinate a Host of Related Contractor Services such as:

• Bonding
• Estimating
• Project Management
• Construction Mentoring

Why this Construction Industry Funding Programs Are Good for Your Business:

• Increase approvals up to 40% more than traditional bank funding.
• One system with National lenders
• One easy online application, only one credit report required
• Several Funding-Credit Options: Term, Revolving and Low interest
• Fixed Interest / Fixed Payments/Easy ACH Repayment

This Construction Industry Funding is Available for most Construction Businesses even with situations such as:

• Short time in business (usually 1+ years)/ project start-ups
• Poor credit history
• Bankruptcy
• Tax liens
• Under-capitalization

This Construction Industry Funding is Available to All Associations and Small Businesses such as:

1. Associated Builders & Contractors – Associated General Contractors – Subcontractors Associations
2. American Architects Associations – Construction Financial Management AssociationsIndividual Construction Contractors & Subcontractors: Architects, Asphalt Contractors, Cable Companies, Carpenters, Ceiling/Drywall Contractors, Electrical Contractors, Engineers, Excavators, Expediters, Fire Sprinkler Contractors, Flooring Contractors, HVAC Contractors, Landscape Contractors, Paving Contractors, Plumbing Contractors, Roofing Contractors, Tile Contractors, Solar Contractors, Underground Utility Contractors, Construction Inspection Companies, Security Firms, Space Planners, Steel Fabricators, Supply houses, Manufacturers, Material Suppliers, Public project construction Management Companies, etc

Get Fast and Easy Access to Working Capital with New Online Application!

You get small business loans are offered at affordable, business-friendly rates and require no personal guarantee, no collateral, and have no prepayment penalty. You get short-term, renewable business loans of up to $250,000 to qualified applicants within a few business days and have recently added an extended working capital loan to $2,000,000. Our speed and transparency make us a trusted alternative to banks.

Online Application & Approvals:

• Gives your small to mid-sized construction business fast and easy access to loans and working capital. Also, you get a process simpler and easier to access affordable business credit.

• Your small to mid-sized business owners (SMBO) can receive decisions in 24 hours or less upon completing an application online and get access to working capital within 3 to 5 days. In addition to avoiding the time consuming process of the traditional bank loan process and providing information over the phone, they have eliminated most of the standard paperwork associated with the small business loan process.”

• This is for small business owners, who need quick access to working capital to make time sensitive inventory purchases, add or replace equipment, or finance their business needs. Using the latest technology and intuitive processes, we can now process your requests more efficiently than ever before, and reduce the completion time of the entire application process from weeks, or even months, to a matter of hours and receive funding within a couple of days.

Which Is Right for You – Business Loan vs. Line of Credit?

Timing. Some contractors will look for a line of credit before they actually need money. They simply want to have the opportunity to get money if they ever get low on funds. Those who look for loans already have that need in place. They are used for a specific reason at a specific time. A line of credit is slightly more flexible.

Usage. You can use a line of credit several times over, but you can only use a loan once. Of course, you can always get a secondary loan in the future to cover your new expenses, but you will not be able to use your loan like a credit card.

Terms. Traditional bank loans typically take longer to pay back than lines of credit, depending on the debt that has accumulated. For instance, it may only take you a few months to pay back a small credit card balance, but it will take you a few years to pay back a loan. If you only pay the minimums on the line of credit though, you will carry the debt much longer than you would with a loan. It’s all about how you pay.

Along this same line, you have to remember that traditional bank loans are going to have a fixed term – 24 months, 48 months, 60 months, etc. Lines of credit will not. That means that you could pay off a line of credit over a decade or more if you felt inclined to. Of course, you can pay either option early to reduce your costs and term length, but you don’t have to.

Carrying Costs. It’s hard to say whether a traditional bank loan is cheaper than a line of credit because that will vary on a case by case basis. If you get a low interest line of credit with no annual fee, you’ll pay less in carrying costs than you would with a loan. However, a high interest line of credit will often lead to more out-of-pocket expenses in the long run.

Payments. With a traditional bank loan, you have a fixed monthly payment to make. This can be great for predictability, but it may not always be budget friendly. In the case of a line of credit, you only have to pay whatever your minimum payments are set out to be. This could be 2% of the balance or it could even be nothing at all. You will have to review your credit terms to find that out.

Interest Rates. Traditional bank business loans have fixed interest rates, whereas most lines of credit have variable interest rates. The initial interest on a line of credit may be low, but it could skyrocket in a few short years. If you’re looking for guarantees, get a loan, not a credit line.

Now that you know the differences between lines of credit and business loans, you can determine which one you want to go with. Think about your situation and the road ahead, and you’re sure to figure something out. If you need help please get back to me for a Free coaching session.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Do you have any tips for writing something that will really succeed on LinkedIn? Leave a comment to let us know what has worked for you in the past.

Dedicated to Multiplying Your Income.
Please let me know what I can do for you.

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor
Business Development Director
Profit Builders Inc.
Phone
Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com
Please join us on the following social media sites. Thank you.
URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

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Consider a Free Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session. FREE Construction Management & Loan Coaching Sessions Available for the Construction Industry Small Businesses to Get Their Piece of the $700 Billion Construction Pie.

For a limited time as an introductory offer, for $1 for one month we’ll work with your business and make you $10,000. Ask for a free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1+ million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL:www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

About Michael Kissinger, the Consultant, Coach, Mentor Speaker, Author and Entrepreneur: I spent the last 20+ years of my life creating fascinating Client and Profit Doubling programs that have helped thousands of small businesses across America. I am a former 20+ year business professor at three leading California Universities , and a small business analyst and consultant. I have taught more than 10,000 students people around the country & around the world. I am an experienced Off-line and On-Line marketer business developer, public speaker and a popular Bay Area professional. I work with many of the top small businesses in America. I am the author of over 850 top rated business and marketing articles. Contact me and get ready to discover this amazing gold mine of experience and information!

Prepare your business’s and family’s energy future. Reduce or eliminate your utility bill.

A local energy company anticipates a 33.4% PG&E rate increases. With Pacific Gas & Electric rates expected to rise 33.4 percent in the next three years — increases recently requested from the California Public Utilities Commission by PG&E — companies are bidding for opportunities to help energy users to sidestep or avoid the financial consequences.

The Property Owner’s Solar Investment

A solar power system is one of the biggest investments a property owner will make, so it’s important to make sure that you fully understand all your funding options. Once you’re sold on the idea of solar power, the biggest hurdle is typically financing.

A $10,000-$15,000 up front purchase price can be a little difficult to swallow, particularly when many Americans are in a situation where they have very little, if any, equity in their homes.

The way to think about financing your solar power system is that it’s an investment that will ultimately save you money. Consider that the average electricity bill for a home is over $100. This means that if you transition to solar power, your system will pay itself off in roughly 8 years.

Couple this with SREC sales, which can be as much as $600/month and that number drops to as little as a year and half. Install a large system that provides more energy than you need, and in some situations, you can sell that additional power to the utility, meaning that your system could be profitable within a year or two.

Now, that’s all well and good, but you still have to take the first step of actually purchasing and installing the system.

Fortunately there are plenty of good financing options available for solar power systems.

Contractors’ List of Solar Funding Options

Way #1: Cash

Paying in cash is a great way to go. It lets you maximize your return on investment by avoiding any interest or administrative fees associated with other financing methods.

Pros: Paying in cash is the cheapest option since you do not have to pay interest on a loan. This allows the system to pay for itself sooner, saving you money. Additionally, you own the solar photovoltaic system outright, adding considerable value to the value of your home.

Cons: By owning the system, you are responsible for system upkeep. If an inverter or panel needs to be replaced it is going to come out of your wallet.

Way #2: Home equity line of credit (HELOC):

A low-interest, variable rate HELOC is likely the best financing choice if you have equity in your home. A HELOC uses your home as collateral for the loan and allows you to borrow a certain percentage of your home equity.

You will be able to borrow up to your credit limit for the full term period and interest rates, which are tied to prime rate, are generally much lower than alternatives. Unfortunately, plummeting home values means only those who put in significant down payments or have lived in their homes for a long time are likely able to qualify. It’s also important to note that obtaining a HELOC can take one to two months and may require you to pay for a home inspection.

Way #3: Solar Home Equity Loans

Solar power is an abundant source of free energy, but to harness that energy, it can be quite expensive. A typical solar power system for an average American home will cost between $10,000-$25,000, which when compared to saving around $100-$150/month on your electricity bill, may not seem worth it. There’s always the option of leasing the equipment, but there’s another alternative if you have equity in your home.

Anyone who got burned during the mortgage crisis may cringe at the sound of a home equity loan, but the traditional usage of this type of loan, before the mortgage crisis, was to improve or repair your home using the equity you had built up, with the goal of keeping your home livable and actually adding equity to your home by making the upgrades. Using this type of loan for a solar power system is exactly this type of upgrade, and depending on your particular situation, you may actually save money by going this route, and add additional equity to your home.

How is this possible?

Let’s take a look at the numbers. Let’s say Bob has a home worth $250,000. Bob has owned his home for 10 years and has built up around $75,000 in equity in the home. Bob’s monthly electricity bill is $125 on average and he has a good credit score. Let’s assume Bob gets a great rate on his HELOC at 3.74% (which is the prime rate as of this writing) and his solar power system costs $12,000. Here’s how the math will work out for Bob over the course of 25 years.

Electricity Bill – $37,500 ($125 x 12months x 25years)
HELOC payoff amt – $14,276 (assuming $125/month)
Savings – $23,224

These figures don’t even include the tax incentives currently available to users of solar power, which can reduce the cost of the systems and increase the savings over the life of the system by thousands.

You can see how with the warranted life of most solar systems (25 years) a solar power system will pay itself off in less than half the guaranteed life of the panels. Everyone’s situation will be a little different, but before you think solar power is too expensive, run the numbers for yourself and see if you could get into a solar power system for the same price, or less than you’re paying now on your energy bill.

Home Equity Loan: A home equity loan (HEL) is a loan in which a homeowner is able to borrow money by using the equity in their home as collateral. Equity in this case refers to the portion of the home that the person owns, or the difference between the home’s fair market value and the outstanding balance of all loans on the property.

Home equity loans are very common and require a good credit history. They are secured loans as collateral, in this case the equity in your home, ensures that the bank will be able to regain some of their loses in case you end up defaulting.

Pros: Home equity loans are available to people in all geographic locations. In some cases it is possible to deduct the interest from one’s personal income taxes, thereby reducing the interest or making the loan interest free. Additionally, the loan pays cash upfront in one lump sum, allowing you to buy the solar photovoltaic system outright. Owning the system adds considerable value to your home.

Cons: There can be many administrative fees associated with securing a home equity loan. Additionally, you have to use the equity you have secured in your home as collateral. By owning the system, you are responsible for system upkeep. If an inverter or panel needs to be replaced it is going to come out of your wallet.

Way #4: Refinancing Your Mortgage

Refinancing your mortgage is a process in which the outstanding debt on your current mortgage is paid off by a new mortgage loan, typically at more desirable terms. Better terms may become available due to changes in the economy or increases in your credit score. In our case refinancing is done to raise additional money to buy a solar photovoltaic system, but can be done for many other reasons: altering the duration of the mortgage, reducing payment size, or consolidating debt.

Refinancing your mortgage is common and needs be carefully planned out. In certain instances, fees can wipe out any potential savings. Typically it is only used as a means to raise money if other benefits can be gained from altering the terms of your mortgage.

Pros: Refinancing your mortgage is an option that is available to people in all geographic locations. By raising money through a mortgage, the borrower can take advantage of tax breaks that are not available for other types of loans. Additionally, the loan pays cash upfront in one lump sum, allowing you to buy the solar photovoltaic system outright. Owning the system adds considerable value to your home.

Cons: There are many administrative fees associated with refinancing your mortgage. Additionally, you have to use your home as collateral. By owning the solar system, you are responsible for system upkeep. If an inverter or panel needs to be replaced it is going to come out of your wallet.

Way #5: Government solar energy incentive programs:

If you are looking to make your home more eco-friendly, the government may be willing to give you a tax credit to lighten the financial burden. Uncle Sam offers $1,500 in tax credits for upgrading to Energy Star appliances, and additional credits for solar-energy systems like solar panels or solar water heaters. State or local programs may offer additional rebates: In Minnesota for example, homeowners who make qualifying energy-efficient home improvements can save an additional 35% on costs in addition to federal tax credits.

Way #6: Personal Loans:

If you were considering financing your project with a credit card, consider a personal loan instead. Compared to credit cards, personal loans often have lower, fixed (not variable) interest rates that enable you to properly budget your repayment and still leave available credit on your cards for day-to-day conveniences. Not all banks offer personal loans, but there are options online that provide credit-worthy borrowers a fast, easy and automated way to borrow money at rates that can be 20-30% below traditional banks.

Way #7: Title 1 Home Improvement Loans:

The government provides private lenders with insurance to provide loans for up to $25,000 for home improvements for terms as long as 20 years. Borrowers do not need to have equity in their homes to be eligible for these loans, and they can use the funds for any home improvements except for luxury items like hot tubs. Interest rates are generally between 10 and 14%—often half of what private lenders charge. A property owner can apply at any lender (bank, mortgage company, savings and loan association, credit union) that is approved to make Title I loan.

Way #8: Contractor Loans:

Large contracting services often offer their own financing options. This may be a good route to take, but do some research to make sure the contractor’s rates are competitive and that he or she is not getting kickbacks from the lending agency.

Way #9: Solar Leasing

If you’re like most Americans, you like the idea of solar power, but much like early adopters of electric vehicles and fuel cell technology, the upfront cost is often enough to keep the average consumer from seriously considering a solar power system.

The government has generous incentives to get Americans to hop on the solar panel bandwagon, but even after any of the applicable tax incentives and rebates, for an average sized home, you’re still looking at $20,000-$40,000 for a full solar power system.

With an unstable housing market and a recovering economy, spending this kind of money on anything on your house may seem unreasonable, and that’s where the concept of solar leasing comes into play; and this innovative idea can get you into a solar solution without breaking the bank.

How Does Solar Leasing Work?: Most people understand the concept of leasing a car or leasing an apartment, but when you’re installing solar panels onto your house, the concept of leasing may raise a few questions. Most utilities (and more coming online all the time) support a type of energy metering called “net metering” which essentially means that if you normally use let’s say 10kwH of electricity per day and your solar panels provide 12kwH, you just “gave” 2kwH back to the grid, then on a day where you use 14kwH, you would “take” 2kWh from the grid and be at a net of 0. Remember that at this point there are no solar leasing firms that support areas that do not have net metering, so check with your utility before you head too much further down the road of leasing.

How Much Does Solar Leasing Cost? The main question on everyone’s mind is going to be, “how much?” and that’s the good news. Solar leases are setup to end up costing you less than you currently pay on your energy bill. The way this works is the solar leasing company will look at how many panels you would need to meet your current energy needs and then charge you a fixed rate that on average is about 5% lower than your current bill. 5% may not seem like a lot, but consider that this is a fixed rate, so while electricity is projected to rise by neural 400% in the next 30 years, your solar lease price will stay the same for as long as you lease the equipment.

Whether you’re looking to go green, or simply insulate yourself from the rising energy costs around the corner, solar leasing is a solid choice for anyone who believe in the concept and the technology, but either can’t afford or isn’t comfortable putting a significant amount of money up front to purchase the panels.

Way #10: Solar Power Purchase Agreements (SPPAs)

Way #11: SRECs: Solar Renewable Energy Credits:

You may have heard about companies purchasing so-called carbon credits over the years in order to offset their greenhouse gas emissions. This is a popular way to improve the image of a company or to be able to print a “carbon neutral” badge on a particular product, but green energy is more than just a trend, it can mean big profits and, in some cases, it’s the law.

A Solar Renewable Energy Credit (or SREC) is similar in concept to the idea of a carbon credit, but varies in a few distinct and important areas. An SREC is created by a business or individual producing solar energy and the typical equivalent value is 1 SREC for every one megawatt-hour (MWh) produced. To put this into perspective, a typical home solar power system with an average of 5 hours of sunlight each day will generate between 400-1600 kWh of energy per month, depending on the size of the system, so best case scenario that’s .053 SRECs generated per day. Keep in mind that you’re not handing over your precious solar energy in exchange for an SREC, it’s simply generated by the fact that you’re producing green energy.

Let’s back up a bit and talk about the reason SRECs are so important. Many utilities are now required to have a certain percentage of their energy be created by solar power, so in many cases, a utility will simply purchase the required amount in the form of buying SRECs, rather than purchasing and installing a large amount of solar panels and tying it into their grid. This works out well for owners of solar power equipment because, in addition to saving money on an electric bill and potentially earning money by giving energy back into the grid, sales of SRECs to a utility can provide an alternative source of income that can be quite high and ultimately cover the cost of the solar equipment itself.

There’s no set value of an SREC, and it fluctuates depending on market demand and time of year, but typical prices of an SREC range from $200-$600 each. Think about the implications here for a homeowner with a solar energy system. Taking an average solar power output of 1000 kWh/day and an average price per SREC of $400, you’re looking at an extra $400 per month in your pocket.

This financial benefit alone should be enough to sway you if you’re on the fence about a solar power system, especially considering if you have an average electric bill currently of $150/month and you purchase a 1kWh/month system that lasts for 25 years (which is the typical warrantee period) you’ll earn approximately $144,000 over the life of your solar power system, and it will be much more as the price of SRECs and the cost of electricity continue to rise.

If you’re interested in selling SRECs or finding out more information about how the trade process works, srectrade.com is a great resource for information and they also offer a brokerage service to help you get certified to start generating SRECs and then to help you sell those SRECs in bulk to utilities and other SREC buyers.

Where you can redeem SRECs: SRECs are currently only available in states where a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) exists with a specification for solar power. In other words, it only exists in states which have made solar energy an option to meet renewable energy requirements. 30 US states have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, but not all of those have a provision for solar power

Way #12: PACE Municipal Financing

PACE (which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy) is a government program that takes the cost of a solar energy system and installation and rolls that cost into your property taxes for the next 20 years. Learn how PACE can help finance your solar system.

The Pros and Cons Of PACE: If you haven’t figured it out by now, there are a lot of unique ways to finance the purchase and installation of a solar energy system, but PACE Municipal Financing may just be the most unique and ingenious idea we’ve come across. In a nutshell, PACE (which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy) is a government program that takes the cost of a solar energy system and installation and rolls that cost into your property taxes for the next 20 years.

This is a truly smart way to get into a solar energy system because you will typically be saving more money each month on your electricity bill that will be reflected in the rise in your property taxes. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of PACE programs.

PACE Pros:

1. There is little or no up-front cost
2. The homeowner will usually not feel any negative financial impact
3. Jobs are created by the city for installation and logistics
4. Funding comes from the homeowner, so no other government programs are adversely affected
5. The improvements will generally up the resale value of the home
6. SRECs will be available to provide additional income from the solar power system

PACE Cons:

1. Not available in many states
2. Tax liability rolls over if home is sold; could make selling more difficult
3. Approval by the city is needed prior to installation

PACE offers a fresh idea that will hopefully allow many more people to be able to get into solar energy. These programs have already done very well in California and a handful of other states, so hopefully programs like this will come to your state soon, if they aren’t yet available. A few additional things to keep in mind if you’re considering PACE financing is that you may not be able to customize your system or choose your individual components, since the packages, vendors and installation companies will generally be hired by the state to do all the jobs covered by the program. This will typically not be a big problem, however if you had your heart set on solar shingles, you may get disappointed.

Way #13: Peer to Peer Lending (P2P)

P2P lending is essentially a loan where instead of a bank, there are a group of tens, if not hundreds of lenders all contributing small amounts to add up to the requested amount. A middleman broker (usually a web site) will allow users to request money or loan money through the site and will generally post the anticipated rate of return for the lender.

Perhaps the only thing more creative about solar power than the technology itself is the vast number of ways that people are financing the purchase and installation. This is likely due to the fact that it’s a fairly large chuck of change up front ($10,000-$25,000) and the initial return on investment is usually no more than $100/month in electricity savings.

This equates to a scenario that won’t be appealing for most consumers, unless they’re already gung-ho for the green movement. Most people who purchase and use solar power like the ancillary benefit of reducing their carbon footprint, but it’s often not the highest on the priority list; rather, it’s a modern form of alchemy, and if tomorrow a technology came out that turned water to gasoline with no emissions, we’d all likely pay whatever price necessary to get a hold of it. This is generally the reason that solar power purchasers are savvy enough to find some unique and sometimes peculiar funding sources, which brings us to peer-to-peer funding.

P2P funding is not exclusive to the solar power community by any means, but solar is a perfect use case for this new form of lending. If you haven’t heard of it, P2P lending is essentially a loan where instead of a bank, there are a group of tens, if not hundreds of lenders all contributing small amounts to add up to the requested amount. A middleman broker (usually a web site) will allow users to request money or loan money through the site and will generally post the anticipated rate of return for the lender. If this sounds a little familiar, it’s a very similar concept to the micro loans that have become so popular in the third world, but with P2P lending, you generally get involved as an investor to make money and as an applicant in order to purchase something or to absolve some outstanding debts.

Solar power systems can be quite costly; a good system for an average sized home will routinely cost around $15,000, so a loan will be a great way to offload some of this cost on the front end. Keep in mind that you don’t have to request the full amount; you may wish to pay for half with cash and do a P2P loan for the remainder. Check out all of the sites, read the reviews and decide which one seems safe, fair and easy for you to use.

Make sure that the interest rate is reasonable and calculate your total cost of the loan of the life of the loan compared to the savings you’ll receive from the reduced electricity bills. Ultimately, its one choice out of many to fund your solar power system, but it may fit the bill for a good portion of folks looking to get into solar power.

Way #14: Feed-In Tariffs (FIT)

FIT is essentially a program whereby the government or utility running the program (the California Public Utilities Commission in California for example) guarantees the purchase of excess energy generated by the, in this case, solar panels tied into the grid. The result is people with solar energy systems, generating more power than they use, can sell back this excess power to offset their investment, or in some cases, to earn money from the solar power system.

Looking for another way to fund your solar energy system, take a look at a program being adopted all over the world, including some states in the US, called FIT (Feed-In Tariffs). FIT is essentially a program whereby the government or utility running the program (the California Public Utilities Commission in California for example) guarantees the purchase of excess energy generated by the, in this case, solar panels tied into the grid. The result is people with solar energy systems, generating more power than they use, can sell back this excess power to offset their investment, or in some cases, to earn money from the solar power system. For the purpose of this article, I’ll focus on the details pertaining to these types of programs in the United States, for more specific information on your country; refer to the Wikipedia entry for FITs.

First off, one caveat is that the program is only open to those not currently participating in net metering. Net metering, as you may know, is the program where you are tied into your local utility’s grid and you are compensated for any energy you contribute back to the grid in the form of a reduction on your bill, however, once your bill is reduced to $0, you are not compensated any further.

What FITs offer, by contrast, is that for those who are consistently producing more energy than they use, they will actually be paid each month for the energy generated. This rate varies greatly depending on the time of day and time of year the energy is produced and a slew of other factors. In California, for example, the rate ranges from 5 cents per kilowatt hour to as much as 30 on a hot summer day when electricity is particularly expensive. The purchase of your excess solar power is guaranteed, so you don’t have to continually negotiate the sale as you would need to with SRECs.

For a real world example for the amount of money you could generate, let’s suppose you calculate your energy consumption at around 45kWh/day and you purchase a 2000kWh/month system. This will leave you with an excess of around 1350 kWh/month, so at an average selling rate of 12 cents/kWh, that’s $162/month.

That’s not too shabby considering that you’ll be covering your own energy consumption and still be eligible for many other government subsidies and could still qualify for the generation and sale of SRECs.

For more info on FITs in your area, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_tariff

We hope you enjoyed reading this article on the “14 Unique Ways Contractors’ Fund Solar Projects.”. Information was provided by SolarMash.com is a comprehensive source of information about solar energy, solar power and solar technologies including solar panels.

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Are Major Revenue Killing Mistakes Killing Your Small Business?

It’s a certain fact that business these days is more competitive than it has ever been and that most small businesses are losing millions of dollars because they have not eliminated their “Revenue Killing Mistakes”.

“Revenue Killing Mistakes” aren’t confined to a singular industry. They apply across the board to every business… construction companies, computer software companies, food companies; cable sales companies, real estate brokers, financial consultants, architects, engineer, doctors, lawyers, and many more. All of these companies have most, if not all of these greatest business killing mistakes present in their operations.

To stay alive these days, you just can’t just offer a quality product at a fair price. You have to know how to stop your “Business Killing Mistakes”. You need to know and apply the time-tested secrets of tycoons, titans, and billionaires, to explode your business in 90 days!

This report reveals the extraordinary, unusual methods of people who attracted the most money and attention to themselves and their businesses with the least amount of effort and time.

It reveals how to attract profitable new customers! How to make your business insanely profitable on a shoestring budget! It shows you how to dominate your market, snatch business away from your competition and out-think, outmaneuver, outwit, outpace, outsell, and outperform every competitor in your field – large or small!

Revenue Killing Mistake # 1: Your business focuses on itself, and not on your prospects and customers’ needs.

Does this seem too obvious? Look through your website or marketing information pages. Check them right now and glance through.

Answer this question:

Are most of the ads telling you what benefits you get if you if you become a customer? Or are the ads telling you about the vendors, where they are, how wonderful they are, what they do, how great their quality is, how great their service is, and all about them?

95% of the ads are totally focused on the business and not on what the business can do for YOU, the prospect!

Take a look at the ads in the newspapers, on the TV, and listen to the radio. You’ll find the same thing happening there, consistently, every day. This type of selfish advertising falls into the terribly wasteful category of institutional advertising. Institutional advertising produces, at best, little or no results.

It worst, institutional advertising is ineffective, unproductive, and a wasteful expense that accomplishes no profitable purpose whatsoever. You know when it’s institutional advertising because institutional advertising tells you how great the company is, or how old and stable they are, or some other frilly, fancy, cutesy and other non-compelling foolishness.

Selfishness is what kills your business. From brochures to flyers, and sales letters to advertisements, marketing messages should let your prospects know that you are concerned ONLY WITH WHAT THEY WANT!

Anything about you should always come last. Your clients, customers, patrons, patients… whatever you choose to call them, should always come first.

Any marketing documents you create should start out by focusing on the prospects wants and needs. Every sentence should show that you understand the prospects wants and needs. Until your marketing efforts focus on the prospects wants, you’re killing your business.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 2: Failure to Use the Power Parthenon Strategy Revenue Generation

According to Jay Abraham, there are two kinds of business models: TheDiving Board Theory of business and the Parthenon theory of business.

Diving Board Method (1): Almost every business that we look at operates using the diving board model. This method has one primary method which is generating 90 or 100% of the revenue.

Parthenon Method (2): The Parthenon method has different pillars each of which is a revenue generating activity.

If you can move your business from the Diving Board Model to the Parthenon Model, you will no longer be dependent on that one primary activity to generate revenue. Ironically, that one activity to generate revenue will actually improve as all the other activities of generating revenue will reach out and impact that activity.

If each revenue generating pillar adds a mere 10% to your business, the overall effect will be geometric profit growth.

After you have added those profit generating pillars, you can then add a sub-Parthenon under each profit generating pillar.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 3: Failure to Have a Detailed Marketing Plan.

90% are flying by the seat of their pants, with no direction for tomorrow, no idea how much they’re going to make in the next 365 days, and no written plan whatsoever.

Your business will never succeed on any type of a large scale unless you commit to writing a plan that guides you to success. This is a fact that all too many businesses will never accept, to their own demise. If you don’t have a marketing plan and business plan you will kill your business. You’ll never reach any truly substantial objectives.

Your plan must include the following:

(1) A specific, clear, precise, dollar objective for each year, for each of your products or services. Break this dollar amount down into how many widgets you must sell to reach that amount. Next, figure out how many sales that means you need to make. Next, figure out how many prospects you must connect with in order to sell XXX amount of widgets, based on your past experience. If you have no past experience, use a 20% closing ratio to figure with.

(2) A specific dollar amount for each month, for each of your products or services. Do the same things as above, except figure the totals on a monthly basis.

(3) An objective evaluation of all of the different marketing alternatives that will help you reach your monthly and yearly goals.

(4) An exact indication of which marketing alternatives you have decided to use, why, in what ways, and how often, and how much these alternatives will cost you in money, time and materials.

(5) Techniques to use that will help you capture and keep track of your customers and prospects.

(6) Techniques to use to help you sell the back-end to a new customer.

These are the bare bones basics that you need in your plan.

With this information alone, you’ll probably perform head and shoulders above your competition. If you want to take the plan further, make sure you include precise deadlines for each step. Then take each of these steps and break them down into the action steps that you can take on a daily basis to reach your monthly and yearly goals. The key words here are daily basis.

Marketing should be a daily activity for you, like eating and drinking. It’s not a difficult thing to draw up a simple marketing plan like this.

Realize the power of this simple, easy to do marketing plan. It’s so easy! And it will bring you success! Without a specific marketing plan ON PAPER, you cannot expect your business to live.

Yes, you do need to put it on paper. Why? On paper you have focus. If you keep your ideas in your mind, you’ll lose focus on your objectives.

Get your plan on paper. Even though it’s on paper, doesn’t mean you can’t change it. Be flexible. Understand that as your business grows and succeeds, you’ll want to update your marketing plan. Re-evaluate your plan on a weekly basis.

Ask yourself: a) Is this plan taking me where I want to go? b) Is there any part of the plan that isn’t focused on the desired end objective? c) What can I do to update my plan to gain more focus on my end objective? Questions like these on a weekly basis will help you reach your objectives quicker, and in a smoother way. Remember, without a written plan, your success is highly unlikely.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 4: Failure to Have and Complete Marketing Plan Strategies.

Marketing Plan Basics

1. Market Research: Collect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. Some areas to consider:

• Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality

• Customers – demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions

• Product – what’s out there now, what’s the competition offering

• Current sales in the industry

• Benchmarks in the industry

• Suppliers – vendors that you will need to rely on

2. Target Market; Find niche or target markets for your product and describe them.

3. Product: Describe your product. How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?

4. Competition: Describe your competition. Develop your “unique selling proposition.” What makes you stand apart from your competition? What is your competition doing about branding?

5. Mission Statement: Write a few sentences that state:

• “Key market” – who you’re selling to

• “Contribution” – what you’re selling

• “Distinction” – your unique selling proposition

6. Market Strategies: Write down the marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider:

• Networking – go where your market is

• Direct marketing – sales letters, brochures, flyers

• Advertising – print media, directories

• Training programs – to increase awareness

• Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert

• Direct/personal selling

• Publicity/press releases

• Trade shows

• Web site

7. Pricing, Positioning and Branding: From the information you’ve collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.

8. Budget: Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? What can you do in house, what do you need to outsource.

9. Marketing Goals: Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goals might be to gain at least 30 new clients or to sell 10 products per week, or to increase your income by 30% this year. Your goals might include sales, profits, or customer’s satisfaction.

10. Monitor Your Results: Test and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working.

• Survey customers

• Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions

By researching your markets, your competition, and determining your unique positioning, you are in a much better position to promote and sell your product or service. By establishing goals for your marketing campaign, you can better understand whether or not your efforts are generating results through ongoing review and evaluation of results.

As mentioned earlier in this article, be sure to use your plan as a living document. Successful marketers continually review the status of their campaigns against their set objectives. This ensures ongoing improvements to your marketing initiatives and helps with future planning.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 5: Failure to Have and Work an Effective Sales Plan

In order to achieve sales success, a company or salesperson needs to develop and implement a sales plan. The successful plan will contain components relating to identifying prospects as well uncovering a potential need. Once the sale is made, a methodology should be employed that paves the way for repeat and spin-off business.

(1): Targeting: It’s important to establish a target market for your product or service so that you are only approaching those who have a need for your product.

(2): Qualifying:A sales plan should also include the component of pre-qualifying prospects to see if they are able to actually purchase the product or service. A health insurance agent needs to ask general questions about a prospect’s health, to uncover any disqualifying health conditions, before launching into a full-scale presentation.

(3): Finding a Need: A sales plan should contain a needs analysis component where salespeople determine the needs of a prospect by asking a series of questions. Once the need is uncovered, the salesperson can then determine which product best meets the need and explain how the product’s features and benefits provide the solution.

(4): Closing the Sale: The sales plan needs to contain a process or processes for closing the deal. A variety of techniques can be employed, such as giving the prospect a choice of two or three options, demonstrating how the advantages of purchasing the product outweigh the disadvantages or asking an assumptive question like, “How many would you like?” or “When would you like this delivered?”

(5): Planting the Seed: Once the sale is finalized, the sales plan should include a component to develop future sales. This can include obtaining referrals or testimonials from the client, or to set the stage for another meeting to discuss another need that may have been uncovered. A method of keeping in touch should also be implemented, such as an email newsletter or regularly scheduled follow-up calls.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 6: Failure to Choose a Niche or Specialty.

If you have many topics that you are knowledgeable about it can be difficult to narrow your focus on just one. However, if you concentrate on one main skill or specialized field it becomes much easier to create a marketing campaign and memorable business brand. Accentuate the part you really enjoy doing and love the most.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 7: Failure to Know your Target Audience.

Wanting to serve anyone and everyone is perfectly natural when you first start out in business. Don’t let that fool you. Knowing who you like and want to work with makes it easier to identify and meet their needs so that you can capture their attention.

Revenue Killing Mistake #8: Failure To Determine Specifically Who Your Market Is And What Their Wants And Needs Are.

Ninety percent of the businesses out there never precisely determine who their market is, and what the markets desire, needs, wants, and passions are. This is a grave mistake.

The successful business owner can tell you precisely who its market is, and what they want in a product or service; the age of his best prospect, who this person is, where this person is, educational and income levels and other critical information.

You must know why people buy from you. Why does your customer buy from you? What do your customers want or need most in the products or services you offer?

You must discover what the “why” so you can focus your marketing efforts to show your prospects that you can meet the “why” in the most satisfactory fashion.

Think about it…How can you expect to adequately fill someone’s needs if you never take the time to get involved and understand them?

Yet few companies ever bother to seek to meet their customer’s needs. Successful companies understand their customers’ needs and attempt to satisfy those needs better than the competition. Once you have this information you stop killing your business.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 9: Lack of Research and Testing

Market research and testing should be done to determine the performance of every marketing effort. This takes the guesswork out of what your potential customer or client wants. Always make sure you have done your due diligence when it comes to testing different offers, prices, and packages. Get the input of your customers

Revenue Killing Mistake # 10: Improper Focus and Positioning

Don’t market to build up the company, but approach marketing to demand an immediate response from the recipient. Improper focus and market positioning can be avoided by following the proper solution positioning of marketing.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 11: Failure to have an Effective USP

What is your unique selling proposition. It is the one single statement that will single you out amongst the competition. It should be used in every piece of marketing material. Think of your USP as the philosophical foundation of your business. Don’t market without it!

Revenue Killing Mistake # 12: You Fail To Capture Your Customers & Prospects Names And Addresses.

This has caused the loss of hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars every month. Yet it is by far the simplest mistake to correct!

Why a company would spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to get a customer in the door and them let them walk out without getting their name and address and any other information from them! 90% of the businesses in America don’t ever bother to keep track of their loyal customers, let alone any prospects! Your mailing list or customer database is your biggest source of lifetime profits!

Here’s why you should keep track of every customer and every prospect:

1) According to Fortune Magazine, it costs 5 times as much to generate a new customer than to resell an existing customer. Existing customers are almost as good as money in the bank!

2) Your existing customers already trust you and know you. They’ve bought from you and (hopefully) have had a positive experience with you. Sales resistance is low.

3) They know you’ll deliver on your promises, because you’ve delivered before with energy and promptness (haven’t you?). All you need to do is develop a systematic way of keeping track of them, and asking them to buy from you more often.

Computer databases are easy to come by, and more affordable than ever. If you don’t want to bother with computers, that’s OK. Just make up and hand-write on a customer index card that has your customers’ name, address, and phone number on it.

A simple 3 X 5 card would do nicely. You should also include vital information like: what they’ve bought in the past, what they’d like to buy from you, etc.

A list like this opens the door to developing a profitable, long-term relationship.

Do you see how valuable this list becomes?

Recent studies show that you should contact clients and prospects once every 21 days and a minimum of once a month.

Here are some ideas for staying in touch:

1) Sponsor some kind of information-based event…a workshop, seminar, luncheon with guest speaker, etc….anything that would be of interest to your customers and prospects.

2) Send a postcard announcing a private sale with special discounts or added services exclusively for your loyal customers.

3) If you work with businesses, send them information that will help them become more successful (for example, a copy of this report) along with a personal note…I thought you might benefit from this.

4) Send a postcard with problem-solving tips on it for easy, quick reference. By collecting names, addresses and phone numbers of your customers and prospects, you will be in a position to increase the profits earned from each customer anywhere from 35-200%.

Keep in mind that when marketing 80% of your business comes from existing customers and 20% comes from new customers. Failing to resell to your current customer base could have a detrimental effect on your profits. It will cost you 5 times the expense to sell to a new customer than to sell to an existing customer.

Revenue Killing Mistake #13: Failure to Sell Your Customers Something Else On the Back End.

Your hottest prospect is someone that has just bought from you. This is your best opportunity for another immediate sell. The key to successfully doing this is having products that offer solutions to problems that your prospects have.

Related problems and related solutions equals an increased opportunity for sales. The buyer that just bought from you offers you a prime opportunity to sell again.

Your products must be good, however, and you must prove to him that your back-end product will also solve his problem.

Here again we are talking about knowing your prospects wants and desires. Your job isn’t over once you’ve sold your customer his first product. You and your people should constantly be striving to ascertain what problems your prospects have, and then proposing the appropriate solution to it.

If you are focusing on what your customer wants, and are offering them another solution to a related problem, he will not be resistant as you try to up-sell him. He will be grateful for your desire to solve his problems. Just remember: your customers are never hotter than when they first order.

Immediately acknowledge their first purchase and tell them how appreciative you are. And then, offer them something else so they’ll have the chance to solve more of their problems and to spend even more money with you!

You should look for logical product or service extensions to offer your customers. Using the back-end will turn one-shot sales into repeat customers. Ironically, most businesses rarely try to sell their current or previous customers anything again.

Revenue Killing Mistake #14: Failure to Make Doing Business with You Convenient, Easy, Appealing, And You’re not Ready To Sell When Your Prospects Are Ready To Buy.

Most businesses almost make it difficult for a prospect or customer to buy from them. Most businesses do business from 9 to 5. You must be prepared to do business when your prospects are ready to do business.

With technologies that are now available, there is no excuse for business not to have a 24 hour phone service center.

You must be fanatical about servicing your customers and causing positive impact on your prospects. You must focus on their needs consistently. Think of how you want to be treated when you do business with someone. Really think how you’d like to be treated. Then, treat your customers in that way.

Most businesses never walk a mile in their prospects shoes. Why else would they make doing business with them so difficult?

If someone walks into your business, how well versed are the sales clerks? How much time have you spent in preparing dialogs, questions and advice for your people to ask or offer to customers?

If someone calls your company and your switchboard operator is their first contact, can your operator make a motivating, compelling response to the customer or prospects requests?

How willing are you or your people to answer questions and render truly informative advice, even if it sometimes may not directly result in an immediate sale? How easy is it for your customers to find things in your business?

How well do you keep customers updated on the status of their orders, or back orders?

These are questions that you must answer on a regular basis so you stop killing your business. By making it easy, appealing, and convenient to do business with you, you will attract more customers, and more customers will consistently return to your business.

Revenue Killing Mistake #15: Failure to be Persistent And Willing To Stick It Out Until You’ve Contacted Your Prospect Enough Times To Warrant Dropping Him, Constantly Testing And Trying New Approaches Until You Find The Hot Button That Sells.

Too many businesses rely entirely too much on the hoped success of one advertisement or one direct mailing. Marketing success is not an event…it is a process. Processes take time. Therefore you should never put your faith in one ad, one mailing campaign, or one TV spot. You must commit to connecting with your prospects a minimum of 7 times in 18 months.

If you are not willing to pay that price, then you shouldn’t even start to promote to those prospects.

You need to decide that you are willing to connect with your prospects time and time again and hit them with the same benefit packed points over and over again – from every conceivable angle – in a determined attempt to motivate your prospects to take action!

A single marketing event will not ordinarily produce outstanding results. It used to be true that a guy could make a fortune off of one ad, one promotion. But today, it’s just not going to happen very often, and you should NEVER plan on it.

You must resolve to connect with them again and again and again, until they either prove that they are not a prospect, or until they see that you have the best solution for their pressing problems. Marketing requires persistency to say the least. You must work at it on a daily basis.

Some days will be downright discouraging for you. But, you cannot give up. If you have done your homework, and you realize that you have the solution to your prospects problems, if you have focused precisely on your target, then you must not let discouragement get in your way. It can keep you from succeeding.

If your prospects are not responding then you need to refine your approach. You need to refine who you are trying to connect with. You may need to approach them from several different angles to find the approach that works the best…indeed; you will need to test constantly, always trying to improve your take.

In short, you must persist so that your prospects never have the opportunity to forget who you are, and what you can do for them. The only way to discover your prospects hot-buttons are to test and to test continually.

The way to find out what they want is to test one marketing approach against another, one ad concept against another, one headline against another, one TV or radio commercial against another, one price against another and the list goes on and on! Testing is an ongoing process.

You should always be trying to outdo your best results. Because you never know when results are at their best! The point is that you cannot guess what your market will buy. It is something to be discovered by testing one approach against another, and by carefully analyzing and tabulating the results.

Once you do this, you will be amazed to find that one approach always substantially out pulls all the others by a tremendous margin. Testing is what tells you where to demand more.

Remember, an ad costs you the same amount of space, production time, or air time whether it produces 10 prospects, 100 prospects or 1,000 prospects. It only makes sense that you should test different ad approaches to maximize your investment. You must not sleep at night until you know you’re getting better results than last week. Testing takes persistence. It will pay-off big if you do it. As I mentioned earlier, marketing is NEVER an event, it is always a process. Keep this in mind when you consider selling something to your market.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 16: Failure to Test

Very few companies ever test any aspect of their marketing, and compare it to something else. They bet their destiny on arbitrary, subjective decisions and conjecture. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

First, we don’t have the right or the power to predetermine what the marketplace wants and what the best price, package or approach will be. Rather, we have the obligation and the power to put every important marketing question to a vote by the only people whose ballot counts: customers and prospects. How do we put a marketing question to a vote?

By testing one sales thrust against another, one price against another, one ad concept against another, one headline against another, one TV or radio commercial against another, one follow-up or up-sell overture against another. I could go on and on.

The point is — and this is not guesswork —when you test one approach against another and carefully analyze and tabulate the results, you will be amazed that one approach always substantially out pulls all the others by a tremendous margin.

You’ll also be amazed at how many more sales or how much larger the average orders you can realize from the same effort. The purpose of testing is to demand maximum performance from every marketing effort.

If each of your field salespeople averages 15 calls a day doesn’t it make sense to find the one sales pitch or package that lets them close twice as many sales and increases their average order by 40%-100% with the same amount of effort?

You can easily achieve immediate increases in sales and profits merely by testing.

Tomorrow, have your salesmen try different pitches, different hot-button focuses, different packages, differently specially priced offers, different bumps or upgrades, different follow-up offers, etc. Each day review the specific performance of each test approach, then analyze the data.

If a specific new twist on your basic sales approach out-closes the old approach by 25-50%, doesn’t it make sense for every salesman to start using this new approach?

Test every sales variable. Any positive or negative data can help you to dramatically manipulate the effectiveness of your sales efforts. But don’t stop at merely finding those approaches, offers, prices, or packages that outperform the others.

Once you identify the most successful combination, your work has just begun. Now you should find out how high is high! Keep experimenting to come up with even better approaches that out pull your current control.

Your control is the concept, approach, offer, or sales pitch which has consistently proven, through comparative testing, to be the best performer. Until you establish your control concepts, techniques, and approaches, you can’t possibly maximize your marketing.

Once you find control concepts or approaches, keep testing to see if you can improve on their performance, thereby replacing one control with a better one. Test your prices. Different prices often outperform one another on the same product by an enormous margin. $19 has out-pulled $25 by 300%. $195 has out-pulled $245 by huge margins. $295 has out-pulled $195 on certain offers, which netted a cool $100 more per sale! Why does one price out-pull another? I don’t know. Probably for a lot of reasons: psychological image of value, perception of quality, etc. Every situation is unique, so I implore you to test several different prices.

You’ll be amazed at the difference in profit and total orders one price will produce over another. Testing applies not merely to prices, but to every aspect of marketing.

If you run ads in newspapers or magazines, test different approaches, different headlines, different hot-button emphasis, different packages, different rationales, different pricing, and different bonuses on top of the basic offer.

Test different directives to the reader or listener on how to respond and what action to take. Test positioning in the front, back, right, or left-hand side of the page. Test where your commercials run.

Make specific offers and analyze the number of responses, traffic, prospects, and resulting sales for each specific ad. Then compute the cost-per-prospect, cost-per-sale, the average sale-per-prospect, average conversion-per-prospect, and the average-profit-per-sale against your control. This reveals the obvious winner, the control that you will keep running until a better control beats it. Remember, salaried salesmen cost you the same fixed amount, whether they make one sale a day, three sales a day or more.

An ad costs you the same amount of space, production time, or air time whether it produces 100 prospects, 1,000 prospects, or 10,000 prospects. Therefore, it stands to reason that you should test different ad approaches and find those that out-pull all the others, and then use those approaches to maximize your investment.

The suggested order of testing is: 1) Headline 2) Price 3) Offer You must have a strong headline always!

Your headline is an ad for the ad. If people are not drawn into the copy by a strong, compelling headline, then you have wasted your effort. A headline is not just there to attract attention. It must talk in terms of benefits to the prospect along with a promised solution to a problem. Test everything starting right now.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 17: Failure to Attract New Clients.

Thinking that your current clients are keeping you busy is shortsighted. The situation can change without any warning and catch you off guard. Never stop marketing yourself! Keep you name out there in the marketplace by writing articles and press releases at the very least.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 18: Failure to Follow Up with Clients and Prospects.

The success of your business depends upon following up and building relationships with leads and prospects. Without an effective system to follow-up with clients and leads you can lose clients. The solution: create or purchase a contact management system.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 19: Failure to Have an Email Signature.

In today’s global economy, email communication has become essential for transacting business around the world: making the email signature a dynamic (and free!) marketing tool. An email signature lets your clients and prospects know how to get in touch with you, and it tells people who you are and what you do. An email signature can even be used to promote an event, special offer, or new product.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 20: Failure to Publish a Newsletter, or Not Consistently.

Publishing a weekly or monthly electronic newsletter is an easy way to regularly keep in contact with clients, and follow up and build relationships with prospects. There are plenty of inexpensive and easy to use electronic newsletter providers available on the internet.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 21: Failure to Use Low Cost or free Internet Marketing Strategies.

There are many ways to build a business platform, attract an audience and the media and drive traffic to your door. Four simple and inexpensive ways are article marketing, blogging, email campaigns and leading tele-classes.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 22: Failure to Have a Website Opt-in Box.

One of the most important goals of your website is to collect qualified leads. This is done by offering visitors the opportunity to sign up for a free newsletter or some other useful item. When the visitor signs up, you have their name and email address and permission to contact them again to inform them about your products and services.

Revenue Killing Mistake # 23: Failure to have a free promotional “gift” to give away.

I am not talking about t-shirts or fancy pens with your business logo on them. I am referring to intellectual property you create such as a report, tip sheet, newsletter or other relevant, practical and useful document(s) you want to share with your clients, and leads. You can give them away at speaking engagements or on your website in exchange for their name and email address.

Taking the time to put each of these simple strategies into place will go a long way toward creating the successful business you deserve.

Here are ten of the most common marketing errors that the majority of business owners and manager will make at some point – are you making them too?

Revenue Killing Mistake # 24: Failure to Write or Produce Persuasive Marketing Documents That Get Your Prospects to Buy NOW, Or To Get Your Customers to Buy Again.

If your car was having a problem, and you knew NOTHING about cars, (except where to put the gas in) would you open the hood and try to fix it? NO! Why then, do so many businesses try to write their own advertisements, their own brochures, their own flyers, and other marketing communication when they don’t know how to do it?

It doesn’t make sense. If you don’t know what you are doing then you shouldn’t be doing it, or else you’ll mess things up worse than they were before! The real problem comes; however, when someone thinks they know what they’re doing when in fact, their efforts are usually self-centered and unfocused on the needs and wants of their prospects and customers.

Larger companies have entire design and marketing departments that do nothing but put together and create their marketing documents. Though most of these Madison Avenue Types do terrible, institutional advertising… Because the majority of companies don’t know how to put together a persuasive marketing piece, most marketing documents:

1) Focus on the seller, instead of the buyer and the benefits that the buyer gets.

2) Are terribly boring, dull, and uninteresting.

3) Don’t excite the prospect to want to take action NOW!

4) Don’t ask for any action from the prospect.

5) Don’t tell the prospect what’s in it for him if he acts right away.

6) Assume that the prospect is as interested in the product or service as the seller is.

7) Brag on and on about product and service features, when all the prospect really cares about is the benefits hell get from the product or service.

8) Try to be creative and clever; thinking that clever sells when actually clever does nothing to motivate a prospect to buy NOW.

9) Try to be professional and not worry about their image.

The only thing that matters is relentlessly focusing on your prospects desires. You must focus on the benefits that your prospect wants you to tell him about. You need to worry about delivering on your promises, improving your product or service…and forget about the professional image.

These are just a few of the problems that you’ll see every day around you when you look at typical marketing communications going on. It’s terrible. It’s a waste of paper, money, time, energy and other valuable resources. Don’t fall prey to this game. Find yourself a professional copywriter and designer that can deliver what your prospect wants. Your investment in a good copywriter will be worth more than anything else you’d ever spend your marketing on.

Revenue Killing Mistake #25: Failure to Determine What It Is About You That Makes A Client Want To Buy From You Because He Can’t Get What You’re Offering Anywhere Else.

Failure to establish a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)! A USP is what the advantage is for your prospects or customers to do business with you? What makes you unique from your competition?

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is the unique advantage you hold out in all of your marketing, advertising and sales efforts. It’s something that a customer usually can’t get anywhere else. It’s the philosophical foundation of your business, and its essence should pervade everything you do. The formulation of your USP (unique selling proposition) depends on the specific market niche you have already carved, or wish to carve out.

Your USP may be that: you only sell the highest grade products in the industry. Your USP may be that: you sell your products at the lowest mark-up in the industry.

Your USP may be that: you maintain 24-hour, 7-days-a-week service for your customers.

Your USP may be that: you maintain 5 times more service personnel than anyone else in your industry, so you can respond in three hours instead of three days. Your USP may be that: you provide more information, education, and service than anyone else.

Your USP may be that: you have everything in stock at all time — no out-of-stock, waiting, or back orders.

Most companies are me-too companies. They look just like everyone else. They sell like everyone else. They carry the same products as everyone else. They develop nothing to make them unique that creates a desire in the prospect to have that special uniqueness.

Too many companies are just out there to sell. You need to commit to becoming a company that’s dedicated to solving a client’s problem. Don’t sell. Solve!

Perhaps that could be your USP! The USP can carve you out a market so quick you won’t believe it! So, figure out what your USP is and start promoting its benefits to your customers and prospects today!

Revenue Killing Mistake #26: Jay Abraham Business Killing Mistakes and How to Solve them.

Revenue Killing Mistake #1 – Not testing all of your marketing ideas.

Solution: Test all your marketing.

Revenue Killing Mistake #2 – Running Institutional Advertising.

Solution: Run Only Direct Response Advertising

Revenue Killing Mistake #3 – Not articulating and differentiating your Business.

Solution: Develop a powerful USP and use it in all your marketing.

Revenue Killing Mistake #4 – Not having back-end product or service.

Solution: Create a profitable and systematic back end.

Revenue Killing Mistake #5 – Not understanding your client and their needs and desires.

Solution: Always determine and address the real needs of your clients and prospects.

Revenue Killing Mistake #6 – You must ‘educate’ your way out of business problems…you can’t just cut the price.

Solution: Always recognize that you must educate your client as a part of the marketing and sales process.

Revenue Killing Mistake #7 – Not making doing business with your company easy, appealing and fun.

Solution: Make doing business with your business easy, appealing and fun.

Revenue Killing Mistake #8 – Not telling your clients the “Reason Why.”

Solution: Always tell your client the “reason why.”

Revenue Killing Mistake #9 – Terminating marketing campaigns that are still working.

Solution: Don’t stop marketing campaigns that are still working just because you are tired of them.

Revenue Killing Mistake #10 – Not specifically targeting your marketing.

Solution: When you prepare your marketing, focus on the intended prospect and no one else.

Revenue Killing Mistake #11 – Not capturing prospects name and addresses, email addresses as well as pertinent contact information.

Solution: Capture everything on a prospect or client that you can in an organized, retrievable system.

Revenue Killing Mistake #12 – Not being strategic.

Corollary: Always having a strategy which tactical actions and methods are integrated into.

Revenue Killing Mistake #13 – Not having a marketing or sales system.

Solution: Have a marketing and sales system in place and refine it continuously. Using letter/call/letter call or email/letter/call strategies.

Revenue Killing Mistake #14 – Not taking advantage and integrating the Internet into every aspect of you marketing and sales efforts.

Solution: Integrating the Internet into all your Marketing and sales activities.

Revenue Killing Mistake #15 – In sales situations, shooting from the hip.

Solution: Constantly using and refining a sales script.

Revenue Killing Mistake #16 – Being stuck doing “what works.”

Solution: Always be willing to change.

Revenue Killing Mistake #17 – Not reinvesting your profits.

Solution: Always parlay your success and momentum into greater achievement.

Revenue Killing Mistake #18 – Not knowing and leveraging the lifetime value of a client.

Solution: Always understand the lifetime value of your clients.

Revenue Killing Mistake #19 – Not maximizing your assets, relationships, opportunities, resources, etc.

Solution: Always explore and maximize your resources, assets and opportunities.

Revenue Killing Mistake #20 – Treating marketing and sales as operational “silos.”

Solution: Do your best to integrate marketing components into all your operational and back-end processes.

CONCLUSION: The Revenue Killing Mistakes in this report are real. They cause the loss of hundreds and millions of thousands of dollars every year for businesses. Now that you know what they are and in many cases how to solve them you’ll see your revenues go up higher than they’ve ever been!

We sincerely hope you enjoyed reading today’s message. If marketing, sales and business development is something you’d be interested in please let me know.

Consider a Free PBI Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session.

If you need help with your business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1 million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL:www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

To your higher profit and business success,

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor

Business Development Director

Profit Builders Inc.

1st Degree Tae Kwon Do Black Belt (Kukkiwon)

Former 10th Special Forces Member

Phone: 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com or profitbuilders@ymail.com

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

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What’s the best way to promote your business to build a business fortune? How can you advertise your business and get your name in front of potential prospects when money is tight or you’re just starting up? How can you get the word out about your business in the most affordable way?

Promoting a business is an ongoing challenge for architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors and every other small business. Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, these proven marketing strategies will help your business find new customers without spending a fortune.

The difference between merely getting by and making a large fortune in business is totally dependent upon a few key strategies and actions that you take that your competitors don’t recognize or act on!

Today we’ll show you how to take maximum advantage of the hidden opportunities, assets, and advantages you possess NOW, the advantages that all super-successful people capitalize on as a matter of principle.

You will discover a kaleidoscopic array of possibilities you can implement immediately to exponentially increase your success, income, and opportunity base. We uses time-tested strategies in a unique layered approach that will free you from business worries as they iron-clad your future success.

Hundreds of people have become millionaires or multimillionaires by following this advice. Thousands of people have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their sales or income.

The secret they know is this: 98 out of 100 people use tunnel vision in their own business endeavors, never looking beyond the traditional ways of doing business in their own field. Through our experience in over 400 different industries, you will expand your view of what is possible and learn a myriad of ways to keep your customers coming back for your product or service permanently.

You will discover how to bring a customer into your sphere of influence and never let him or her go, with strategies to optimize each business relationship. You will learn how to see opportunities differently than you have before, to remove obstacles and view things from a non-myopic standpoint. You will uncover the small distractions and adjustments you can easily make to them increase your business, not laterally, but exponentially.

34 low-cost, high-impact methods to advertise and promote your construction business for fun and profit.

1. The POWER PARTHENON STRATEGY of Geometric Business Growth.

How can you make your marketing and advertising programs so incredibly stable that they seem almost invincible? The basic premise of The Parthenon Philosophy is simple, because we now have a physical structure, The Parthenon, which is basically a diagram for the balance needed in achievement and success.

Jay Abraham, Marketing Guru, was the first to introduce this strategy in his report: THE POWER PARTHENON STRATEGY of Geometric Business Growth this concept.

THE PARTHENON resembles Balance and Perfection — the ratio 9:4 is all over the Parthenon, from the distance between columns to the number of inside and outside columns to the proportions of lots of different elements of the building. Mathematicians love the Parthenon and Greek architecture for the way structures strictly follow equations.

We now know that having a) multiple streams of income coming in from b) multiple pillars of support systems that hold up the business structure. If one income device becomes weak or fails to drive revenues, the business doesn’t fail because there are several other revenue sources bringing income into the business.

In his report, Jay begins by saying “Most businesses continuously rely on one marketing approach to grow and sustain their business… a philosophy he calls The Diving Board Philosophy. And by its very name is easy to see why we don’t want to do this.

If you’ve modeled your businesses marketing and advertising even remotely off of this “diving board” mentality, then you’re heading for trouble, because when the system channel that you’re in crumbles, you’ll need time to revamp your approach, but because you’re using just one channel, there will be nothing to continue the revenue stream and your business will quickly starve and die.

This raises the logical question:

“What happens when that one approach becomes less effective?” And then answers it with the logical answer: “Your business stream diminishes and you begin to lose market share.”

You see that when you only have one pole in the water, if the line gets tangled or breaks, you’re left with no lines in the water while you’re trying to fix the problem. This leaves you no chance of catching any fish during this time, and it leaves you zero chance of eating fresh caught fish for dinner that night…

“What would happen to your revenue level and profitability if you combined a wide array of marketing approaches?

The Parthenon Philosophy Review this 16 page report shows you what the Parthenon Philosophy is and how it works.http://www.spikehumer.com/membership/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ThePowerParthenon.pdf

2. Plan your attack.

Define who your best prospects are, and then determine the best way to reach them. Be as specific as possible. Is the decision maker the CTO of the company, the director of human resources, or a 37-year-old working mom?

Will you find them on Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest or Facebook? What about in-person networking at local business meetings? Will they be searching for your type of product on Google or Bing?

Do you want to start promoting your business to them at the start of their buying cycle, or when they’re about ready to pull out their credit card and make the purchase. Write your answers down, and refer to them before you start any new marketing tactic.

3. If you don’t have a website, get one set up.

If you can’t afford to have someone custom-design your website, put your site up using one of the companies like SiteSell.com or HomeStead.com that provide templates and tools that make it easy to create a basic website.

4. Set up a free listing for your business in search engine local directories.

You can do this at http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/local/,https://www.bingplaces.com/, and http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/. Be sure to include your website link and business description.

5. Set your business profile or page up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter.

Be sure your business profile includes a good description, keywords and a link to your website. Look for groups or conversations that talk about your type of products or services and participate in the conversations, but don’t spam them with constant promos for what you sell.

6. If you’re just starting out and don’t have a business card and business stationery, have them made up — immediately.

Your business card, letterhead and envelope tell prospective customers you are a professional who takes your business seriously. Be sure to list your website address on your business card and, letterhead and any handouts you create. Go to Vista Prints for your business cards.

7. Get your business cards into the hand of anyone who can help youin your search for new clients.

Call your friends and relatives and tell them you have started a business. Visit them and leave a small stack of business cards to hand out to their friends.

8. Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services.

Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know anyone who can. If they have bulletin boards where business cards are displayed (printers often do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board.

9. Attend meetings of professional groups, and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, or civic associations.

Have business cards in a pocket where they are easily reachable. Don’t forget to ask what the people you speak with do, and to really listen to them. They’ll be flattered by your interest, and better remember you because of it.

10. Pay for membership in those groups that attract your target customers.

If the group has a website and publishes a list of members on the site, make sure your name and website link get added. Once it is added double check to be sure your contact information is correct and your website link isn’t broken.

11. Become actively involved in 2 or 3 of these groups.

That will give you more opportunity to meet possible prospects. But remember: opportunists are quickly spotted for what they are, and get little business. While you won’t want to become involved in many organizations that require a lot of your time in, you can –and should– make real contributions to all of them by offering useful ideas and helping with projects when possible.

12. Look for something unusual about what you do, and publicize it.

Send out press releases to local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV stations, magazines whose audiences are likely to be interested in buying what you sell. Be sure to post the press releases on one or more online press release services, too, being sure to include links to your website. To increase your chance of having the material published, send along a photo (but not to radio stations) with your press release. Editors of printed publications are often in need of “art” (drawings or photos) to fill space and break up the gray look of a page of text.

13. Write an article that demonstrates your expertise in your field.

Send it to noncompeting newspapers, magazines, and websites in your field that accept submissions from experts. Be sure your name, business name, phone number, and a reference to your product or service is included at the end of the article. If the editor can use the article you get your name in print, and possibly get your contact information printed for free, too.

14. Publicize your publicity.

Whenever you do get publicity, get permission from the publisher to reprint the article containing the publicity. Make photocopies and mail the copies out with sales letters or any other literature you use to market your product or service. The publicity clips lend credibility to the claims you make for your products or services.

15. Ask for work or leads.

Contact nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges, and even other businesses that have customers who may need your services.

16. Network with others who are doing the same type of work you are.

Let them know you are available to handle their work overloads. (But don’t try to steal their customers. Word will get out, and will ruin your business reputation.)

17. Offer to be a speaker.

Industry conferences, volunteer organizations, libraries, and local business groups often need speakers for meetings. You’ll benefit from the name recognition, contacts and publicity.

18. If your product or service is appropriate, give demonstrations of it to whatever groups or individuals might be interested. Or, teach others how to use some tool you use in your work.

19. Put videos of your product or service on YouTube and other video-sharing and slide-sharing sites.

20. Find out what federal, state, and local government programs are in existence to help you get started in business.

Most offer free counseling and some can put you in touch with government agencies and large corporations that buy from small and woman-owned businesses

21. If you are a woman-owned or minority-owned business look into getting certified by private, state or federal organizations.

Many purchasing agents have quotas or guide for the amount of goods and services they need to buy from minority- and woman-owned businesses.

22. Send out sales letters to everyone you think might be able to use what you sell.

Be sure to describe your business in terms of how it can help the prospect. Learn to drop a business card in every letter you send out. Follow up periodically with postcard mailings.

23. If you use a car or truck in your business have your business name and contact information professionally painted on the side of the vehicle.

That way your means of transportation becomes a vehicle for advertising your business. If you don’t want the business name painted on the vehicle, consider using magnetic signs.

24. Get on the telephone and make “cold calls.”

These are calls to people who you would like to do business with. Briefly describe what you do and ask for an appointment to talk to them about ways you can help them meet a need or solve a problem.

25. Get samples of your product or your work into as many hands as possible.

26. Offer a free, no obligation consultation to people you think could use your services.

During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas–and before you leave ask for an “order” to implement the ideas.

27. Learn to ask for referrals.

Ask existing customers, prospects and casual acquaintances. When you get them, follow up on the leads.

28. Use other people to sell your product or service.

Instead of (or in addition to) selling your products yourself, look for affiliates, resellers or people who will generate leads for you in return for a commission on sales. Be sure your pricing structure allows for the fees or commissions you will have to pay on any sales that are made.

29. Get together with businesses that serve the same market, but sell different products and services. Make arrangements to pass leads back and forth, or share mailings.

30. Have sales letters, flyers and other pertinent information printed and ready to go.

Ask prospects who seem reluctant to buy from you: “Would you like me to send information?” Follow up promptly with a note and a letter that says, “Here is the information you asked me to send.

31. Run a contest.

Make the prize something desirable and related to your business — it could be a free gift basket of your products, for instance, or free services.

32. Test buying Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising on the search engines.

If you are not yet advertising on search engines search for offers that give you $50 or $75 in free advertising to start. Read the directions for the service you plan to use, and very carefully watch what you spend on a daily or more frequent basis until you are comfortable using PPC ads and see you are getting a return on your investment.

33. Consider getting a Short-Term Business Loan to Meet the Needs of Your Business

Get funding that helps your small business grow. Unlike traditional banks you’ll get funding based on the health of your business and cash flow, NOT on credit scores.

Our portfolio mix consist offers you a variety of funding…for example: SBA 7(a), SBA Express, Equipment Financing, Business Credit Cards (an option for start-ups), Short-term Working Capital, Accounts Receivables (factoring) and Commercial Real Estate, etc.

Existing Businesses and Start-ups

(1) Short-Term (Working Capital) Loans, cash flow loan for existing businesses.

• $5,000 to $ 2,000,000

• Term: 3 months to 2 year (Renewable Loan)

• No Collateral Required

• Credit Score: 500 to 599 Range

• Quick-Turnaround

(2) SBA Express Loan (For Qualified Borrower’s)

• Working Capital: (Quick-Turnaround) Low Documentation

• $5,000 to 150,000

• Term:10 Years or Pay Off early with no penalty

• Lower Interest Rate: 6 to 9% (Including APR less than 10%)

• No Collateral $25,000 or Less

• Collateral Required for $26,000 or more (personal guarantee)

• Credit Score: 600 to 640 Range and up.

(3) SBA 7(a) Loans

• Borrower’s that has good/excellent credit & strong profile (would be eligible for an SBA Loan)

• FICO Credit Scores starting @ roughly 650 in cases would be the minimum threshold for an SBA 7(a) Loan.

• Longer turnaround (High Docs)

(4) Start-Up Businesses: We can provide the option of a “Business Credit Card” (not personal)

• $50,000 to $250,000

• Borrower’s must have a Mid to High 700 Credit Score for this program

• Term: 12 Months

34. Consider a Free PBI Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session.

If you need help with your business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1 million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL:www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

To your higher profit and business success,

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor

Business Development Director

Profit Builders Inc.

1st Degree Tae Kwon Do Black Belt (Kukkiwon)

Former 10th Special Forces Member

Phone: 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com or profitbuilders@ymail.com

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

URL: https://www.facebook.com/michael.kissinger.35

Stealth Marketing for Your Construction Industry Business Fun and Profit.

The reasons are sometimes complicated and not always clear why a certain business fails? Upper management, lack of funding, or just the free market phasing out unwanted items or services. Typically, start-ups have a casual attitude to promote efficiency in the workplace, often needed to get their business off of the ground. See:http://www.statisticbrain.com/business/

Construction Industry Business Failure Rate

“33 High-Impact, Simple, Low-Cost Methods To Promote to Build a Business Fortune and Avoid Failure”

What’s the best way to promote your construction business?

How can you advertise your business and get your name in front of potential prospects when money is tight or you’re just starting up?

How can you get the word out about your business in the most affordable way?

Promoting a business is an ongoing challenge for architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors and every other small business. Whether you’re just starting out or have been in business for years, these proven marketing strategies will help your business find new customers without spending a fortune.

The difference between merely getting by and making a large fortune in business is totally dependent upon a few key strategies and actions that you take that your competitors don’t recognize or act on!

Today we’ll show you how to take maximum advantage of the hidden opportunities, assets, and advantages you possess NOW, the advantages that all super-successful people capitalize on as a matter of principle.

You will discover a kaleidoscopic array of possibilities you can implement immediately to exponentially increase your success, income, and opportunity base. We uses time-tested strategies in a unique layered approach that will free you from business worries as they iron-clad your future success.

Hundreds of people have become millionaires or multimillionaires by following this advice. Thousands of people have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their sales or income.

The secret they know is this: 98 out of 100 people use tunnel vision in their own business endeavors, never looking beyond the traditional ways of doing business in their own field. Through our experience in over 400 different industries, you will expand your view of what is possible and learn a myriad of ways to keep your customers coming back for your product or service permanently.

You will discover how to bring a customer into your sphere of influence and never let him or her go, with strategies to optimize each business relationship. You will learn how to see opportunities differently than you have before, to remove obstacles and view things from a non-myopic standpoint. You will uncover the small distractions and adjustments you can easily make to them increase your business, not laterally, but exponentially.

Stealth Marketing Method #1: Learn and Apply the POWER PARTHENON STRATEGY of Geometric Business Growth.

How can you make your marketing and advertising programs so incredibly stable that they seem almost invincible? The basic premise of The Parthenon Philosophy is simple, because we now have a physical structure, The Parthenon, which is basically a diagram for the balance needed in achievement and success.

Jay Abraham, Marketing Guru, was the first to introduce this strategy in his report: THE POWER PARTHENON STRATEGY of Geometric Business Growth this concept.

THE PARTHENON resembles Balance and Perfection — the ratio 9:4 is all over the Parthenon, from the distance between columns to the number of inside and outside columns to the proportions of lots of different elements of the building. Mathematicians love the Parthenon and Greek architecture for the way structures strictly follow equations.

We now know that having a) multiple streams of income coming in from b) multiple pillars of support systems that hold up the business structure. If one income device becomes weak or fails to drive revenues, the business doesn’t fail because there are several other revenue sources bringing income into the business.

In his report, Jay begins by saying “Most businesses continuously rely on one marketing approach to grow and sustain their business… a philosophy he calls The Diving Board Philosophy. And by its very name is easy to see why we don’t want to do this.

If you’ve modeled your businesses marketing and advertising even remotely off of this “diving board” mentality, then you’re heading for trouble, because when the system channel that you’re in crumbles, you’ll need time to revamp your approach, but because you’re using just one channel, there will be nothing to continue the revenue stream and your business will quickly starve and die.

This raises the logical question:

“What happens when that one approach becomes less effective?” And then answers it with the logical answer: “Your business stream diminishes and you begin to lose market share.”

You see that when you only have one pole in the water, if the line gets tangled or breaks, you’re left with no lines in the water while you’re trying to fix the problem. This leaves you no chance of catching any fish during this time, and it leaves you zero chance of eating fresh caught fish for dinner that night…

“What would happen to your revenue level and profitability if you combined a wide array of marketing approaches?

The Parthenon Philosophy Review this 16 page report shows you what the Parthenon Philosophy is and how it works. http://www.spikehumer.com/membership/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ThePowerParthenon.pdf

Stealth Marketing Method #2: Plan your attack.

Define who your best prospects are, and then determine the best way to reach them. Be as specific as possible. Is the decision maker the CTO of the company, the director of human resources, or a 37-year-old working mom?

Will you find them on Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest or Facebook? What about in-person networking at local business meetings? Will they be searching for your type of product on Google or Bing?

Do you want to start promoting your business to them at the start of their buying cycle, or when they’re about ready to pull out their credit card and make the purchase. Write your answers down, and refer to them before you start any new marketing tactic.

Stealth Marketing Method #3: If you don’t have a website, get one set up.

If you can’t afford to have someone custom-design your website, put your site up using one of the companies like SiteSell.com or HomeStead.com that provide templates and tools that make it easy to create a basic website.

Stealth Marketing Method #4: Set up a free listing for your business in search engine local directories.

You can do this at http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/local/, https://www.bingplaces.com/, and http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/local-listings/. Be sure to include your website link and business description.

Stealth Marketing Method #4: Get your business profile or page up on LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter.

Be sure your business profile includes a good description, keywords and a link to your website. Look for groups or conversations that talk about your type of products or services and participate in the conversations, but don’t spam them with constant promos for what you sell.

Stealth Marketing Method #5: If you’re just starting out and don’t have a business card and business stationery, have them made up — immediately.

Your business card, letterhead and envelope tell prospective customers you are a professional who takes your business seriously. Be sure to list your website address on your business card and, letterhead and any handouts you create. Go to Vista Prints for your business cards.

Stealth Marketing Method #6: Get your business cards into the hand of anyone who can help you in your search for new clients.

Call your friends and relatives and tell them you have started a business. Visit them and leave a small stack of business cards to hand out to their friends.

Stealth Marketing Method #7: Talk to all the vendors from whom you buy products or services.

Give them your business card, and ask if they can use your products or service, or if they know anyone who can. If they have bulletin boards where business cards are displayed (printers often do, and so do some supermarkets, hairdressers, etc.), ask if yours can be added to the board.

Stealth Marketing Method #8: Attend meetings of professional groups, and groups such as the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Club, or civic associations.

Have business cards in a pocket where they are easily reachable. Don’t forget to ask what the people you speak with do, and to really listen to them. They’ll be flattered by your interest, and better remember you because of it.

Stealth Marketing Method #9: Pay for membership in those groups that attract your target customers.

If the group has a website and publishes a list of members on the site, make sure your name and website link get added. Once it is added double check to be sure your contact information is correct and your website link isn’t broken.

Stealth Marketing Method #10: Become actively involved in 2 or 3 of these groups.

That will give you more opportunity to meet possible prospects. But remember: opportunists are quickly spotted for what they are, and get little business. While you won’t want to become involved in many organizations that require a lot of your time in, you can –and should– make real contributions to all of them by offering useful ideas and helping with projects when possible.

Stealth Marketing Method #11: Look for something unusual about what you do, and publicize it.

Send out press releases to local newspapers, radio stations, cable TV stations, magazines whose audiences are likely to be interested in buying what you sell. Be sure to post the press releases on one or more online press release services, too, being sure to include links to your website. To increase your chance of having the material published, send along a photo (but not to radio stations) with your press release. Editors of printed publications are often in need of “art” (drawings or photos) to fill space and break up the gray look of a page of text.

Stealth Marketing Method #12: Write an article that demonstrates your expertise in your field.

Send it to noncompeting newspapers, magazines, and websites in your field that accept submissions from experts. Be sure your name, business name, phone number, and a reference to your product or service is included at the end of the article. If the editor can use the article you get your name in print, and possibly get your contact information printed for free, too.

Stealth Marketing Method #13: Publicize your publicity.

Whenever you do get publicity, get permission from the publisher to reprint the article containing the publicity. Make photocopies and mail the copies out with sales letters or any other literature you use to market your product or service. The publicity clips lend credibility to the claims you make for your products or services.

Stealth Marketing Method #14: Ask for work or leads.

Contact nonprofit organizations, schools and colleges, and even other businesses that have customers who may need your services.

Stealth Marketing Method #15: Network with others who are doing the same type of work you are.

Let them know you are available to handle their work overloads. (But don’t try to steal their customers. Word will get out, and will ruin your business reputation.)

Stealth Marketing Method #16: Offer to be a speaker.

Industry conferences, volunteer organizations, libraries, and local business groups often need speakers for meetings. You’ll benefit from the name recognition, contacts and publicity.

Stealth Marketing Method #17: If your product or service is appropriate, give demonstrations of it to whatever groups or individuals might be interested. Or, teach others how to use some tool you use in your work.

Stealth Marketing Method #18: Put videos of your product or service on YouTube and other video-sharing and slide-sharing sites.

Stealth Marketing Method #19: Find out what federal, state, and local government programs are in existence to help you get started in business.

Most offer free counseling and some can put you in touch with government agencies and large corporations that buy from small and woman-owned businesses

Stealth Marketing Method #20: If you are a woman-owned or minority-owned business look into getting certified by private, state or federal organizations.

Many purchasing agents have quotas or guide for the amount of goods and services they need to buy from minority- and woman-owned businesses.

Stealth Marketing Method #21: Send out sales letters to everyone you think might be able to use what you sell.

Be sure to describe your business in terms of how it can help the prospect. Learn to drop a business card in every letter you send out. Follow up periodically with postcard mailings.

Stealth Marketing Method #22: If you use a car or truck in your business have your business name and contact information professionally painted on the side of the vehicle.

That way your means of transportation becomes a vehicle for advertising your business. If you don’t want the business name painted on the vehicle, consider using magnetic signs.

Stealth Marketing Method #23: Get on the telephone and make “cold calls.”

These are calls to people who you would like to do business with. Briefly describe what you do and ask for an appointment to talk to them about ways you can help them meet a need or solve a problem.

Stealth Marketing Method #24: Get samples of your product or your work into as many hands as possible.

Stealth Marketing Method #25: Offer a free, no obligation consultation or estimate to people you think could use your services.

During such consultations offer some practical suggestions or ideas–and before you leave ask for an “order” to implement the ideas.

Stealth Marketing Method #26: Learn to ask for referrals.

Ask existing customers, prospects and casual acquaintances. When you get them, follow up on the leads.

Stealth Marketing Method #27: Use other people to sell your product or service.

Instead of (or in addition to) selling your products yourself, look for affiliates, resellers or people who will generate leads for you in return for a commission on sales. Be sure your pricing structure allows for the fees or commissions you will have to pay on any sales that are made.

Stealth Marketing Method #29: Get together with businesses that serve the same market, but sell different products and services. Make arrangements to pass leads back and forth, or share mailings.

Stealth Marketing Method #30: Have sales letters, flyers and other pertinent information printed and ready to go.

Ask prospects who seem reluctant to buy from you: “Would you like me to send information?” Follow up promptly with a note and a letter that says, “Here is the information you asked me to send.

Stealth Marketing Method #31: Run a contest.

Make the prize something desirable and related to your construction business — it could be a free gift basket of your products, for instance, or free inspection services.

Stealth Marketing Method #32: Test buying Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising on the search engines.

If you are not yet advertising on search engines search for offers that give you $50 or $75 in free advertising to start. Read the directions for the service you plan to use, and very carefully watch what you spend on a daily or more frequent basis until you are comfortable using PPC ads and see you are getting a return on your investment.

Stealth Marketing Method #33: Consider getting a Short-Term Construction Business Loan to Meet the Needs of Your Business

Get funding that helps your small business grow. Unlike traditional banks you’ll get funding based on the health of your business and cash flow, NOT on credit scores.

Our portfolio mix consist offers you a variety of funding…for example: SBA 7(a), SBA Express, Equipment Financing, Business Credit Cards (an option for start-ups), Short-term Working Capital, Accounts Receivables (factoring) and Commercial Real Estate, etc.

Notes: Existing Businesses and Start-ups

(1) Short-Term (Working Capital) Loans, cash flow loan for existing businesses.

• $5,000 to $ 2,000,000
• Term: 3 months to 2 year (Renewable Loan)
• No Collateral Required
• Credit Score: 500 to 599 Range
• Quick-Turnaround

(2) SBA Express Loan (For Qualified Borrower’s)

• Working Capital: (Quick-Turnaround) Low Documentation
• $5,000 to 150,000
• Term:10 Years or Pay Off early with no penalty
• Lower Interest Rate: 6 to 9% (Including APR less than 10%)
• No Collateral $25,000 or Less
• Collateral Required for $26,000 or more (personal guarantee)
• Credit Score: 600 to 640 Range and up.

(3) SBA 7(a) Loans

• Borrower’s that has good/excellent credit & strong profile (would be eligible for an SBA Loan)
• FICO Credit Scores starting @ roughly 650 in cases would be the minimum threshold for an SBA 7(a) Loan.
• Longer turnaround (High Docs)

(4) Start-Up Businesses: We can provide the option of a “Business Credit Card” (not personal)

• $50,000 to $250,000
• Borrower’s must have a Mid to High 700 Credit Score for this program
• Term: 12 Months

Stealth Marketing Method #34: Consider a Free PBI Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session.

If you need help with your business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1 million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

Here’s Why You Should Seek Expert and Competent Business, Loan and Financial Coaching!

The Business Failure Rate by Most Industries and the Reasons Why

Statistic Verification: Entrepreneur Weekly, Small Business Development Center, Bradley University, University of Tennessee Research. See: http://statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/

We hope you enjoyed this article and that it helps you decide to work with a competent business, loan and financial coach.

To your higher profit and business success,

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor

Business Development Director

Profit Builders Inc.

1st Degree Tae Kwon Do Black Belt (Kukkiwon)

Former 10th Special Forces Member

Phone: 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com or profitbuilders@ymail.com

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

URL: https://www.facebook.com/michael.kissinger.35

74% of all small business loan applications do not get approved. The approval rate is only 4%.

Banks are taking no risks in funding small businesses – only some doctors, lawyers and CPAs or companies gets qualified that have been around a long time with increasing gross income every year.

Probably, the reason behind the banks have put a tighter net on the money tree can be defined with two words – regulations and profit. The fact is there have been a number of traditional lenders came into existence recently. Banks are now facing competition and they only can add up a little percentage of interest which may be, they understand, of no use to them.

Here Are a Few Tips for Fighting the Small Business Loan Battle When Your Funding Source Says No Due To Bad Credit

Tip # (1): Take Action to Get a Loan While Your Credit is Good

If your small business has poor credit, then you may find yourself stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to securing the financing you need to run and grow your business.

Even if your business has been in operation for several years and you have a significant amount of revenue, you will meet few traditional lenders these days willing to extend financing.

Many small business owners in this situation simply settle for the growing population of alternative lenders offering bad credit business loans and financing. But these products are often characterized by excessively high interest rates and other hidden costs.

A poor credit loan for business, as its title indicates, is really a loan specifically made for those who have a poor credit background.

There are numerous explanations why you might have a poor credit ranking, from getting unsuccessful to keep track of obligations using a previous credit contract, to having a judgment against you

Regardless of whether you have by no means had a loan or credit card before you could end up with a poor credit score due to the fact that lenders cannot gain access to any information to exhibit that you could deal with your borrowing effectively.

Usually it is just about extremely hard to borrow from a traditional lender in case you have poor credit background, which explains why there are standard loans as well as credit cards intended for people who have poor credit records.

Tip # (2): Should You Apply to Get a Loan Whether You Need It or Not?

The failure rate of small business is high and a large portion of that failure rate is due to financial issues and not being or getting funding when it was available.

Business Failure Rate by Industries

Tip # (3): Pros and Cons of Poor Credit Loans

Benefit # (1): The most important benefit of a poor credit business loan is basically that you actually are in a position to take credit that you simply in any other case wouldn’t have the ability to do because of your poor credit background. This can give an authentic fiscal lifeline to those people who require financing either to cover up a significant purchase, as well as to pay off some other financial obligations.

Benefit # (2): An additional advantage is the fact that getting a loan can in fact assist people who have a poor credit ranking to help repair their credit standing. Due to the fact, presented you generally make obligations by the due date, you exhibit that you can handle your cash conscientiously.

Disadvantage # (1): The most important disadvantage with this particular type of loan is the fact that rates of interest are usually quite high when compared with regular loans. Since loan applicants for poor credit business loans have normally had complications taking care of their financial circumstances in the past, they consequently represent a much greater risk to lenders, and so the interest rates they are presented tend to be greater than they would be for an individual with an above average credit rating.

Tip # (4): What You Should Be Aware of When Trying To Obtain a Loan With Poor Credit

Borrowing products either can be unsecured, which suggests the lending company has no claim to your asset in case you are not able to keep up with your repayment schedules, or secured, which implies the loan is properly secured with regards to your property or some other resource.

In the event that you decide on a loan that is secured, then even though you might spend a reduced interest rate, your property could possibly be at risk in the event you can’t take care of the repayment schedules.

When contemplating just how long you need to pay back your loan, keep in mind that in the event you decide on a lengthier repayment term, you’ll end up paying a lot more interest rate compared to if you attempt and pay back what you are obligated to repay quickly.

It is likewise well worth taking into account that rates of interest on poor credit loans for business are generally tiered based on how much an individual borrow. Rates of interest normally get reduce the greater an individual borrow, therefore in case you are just about in a lower level, it might often be well worth borrowing somewhat more to gain from a lower interest rate. However don’t borrow greater than you really can afford to pay back!

Tip # (5): Find the Appropriate Borrowing Products for Your Business

There are numerous loans for those who have poor credit, therefore always carry out lots of research before you apply to ensure that you have discovered the most effective loan to meet your requirements. You can even evaluate debt consolidation loans if this sounds like ideal for you.

Now you can get funding that helps your small business grow. Unlike traditional banks you’ll get funding based on the health of your business and cash flow, NOT on credit scores.

You can a variety of funding…for example: SBA 7(a), SBA Express, Equipment Financing, Business Credit Cards (an option for start-ups), Short-term Working Capital, Accounts Receivables (factoring) and Commercial Real Estate, etc

For instance you can get specialize small businesses funding quickly, that is most affordable, short-term financing possible that emphasizes cash flow and business health, not credit scores.

Tip # (6): Consider a Variety of Bad Credit Loans

Bad Credit Loan # (1): Bad Credit Business Loans that are Quick and Affordable

You can get bad credit business loans from $5,000 to $250,000 to small businesses for a period of 3 to 18 months. Repayment is made seamless through daily ACH withdrawals.

These bad credit business loans are up to 45% less expensive than a merchant cash advance!

Who is Eligible?

• Businesses located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico.
• Businesses that have been generating revenue for at least 1 year, and typically have $100,000 + in annual revenue.
• More than 350 industries qualify, including retailers, service providers, contractors, and restaurants.
• More weight is placed on cash flow and business health rather than personal credit scores.
• The threshold for funding is a credit score of at least 500.
• Typical small business applicants are those with a steady base of clients and credit card transactions or checks for services. They include: restaurants, plumbers, contractors, auto repair, beauty salons, grocery stores, retail shops, veterinarians and hotels.

Our Approval Process is Simple!

To be considered for a bad credit business loan, just fill out our quick one page application and send in 4 months of bank statements and merchant credit card statements (if your business accepts credit card payments).

If you may want to include an annual Profit & Loss statement or additional bank statements (if your business is seasonal, for instance), you certainly can. In addition, business tax statements may be required based on the type of loan you select.

Approvals are typically made within 24 hours, and you can receive financing in as little as 3 to 4 business days.

Bad Credit Loan # (2) Short-Term (Working Capital) Loans, cash flow loan for existing businesses.

• $5,000 to $ 2,000,000
• Term: 3 months to 2 year (Renewable Loan)
• No Collateral Required
• Credit Score: 500 to 599 Range
• Quick-Turnaround

Bad Credit Loan # (3) SBA Express Loan (For Qualified Borrower’s)

• Working Capital: (Quick-Turnaround) Low Documentation
• $5,000 to 150,000
• Term:10 Years or Pay Off early with no penalty
• Lower Interest Rate: 6 to 9% (Including APR less than 10%)
• No Collateral $25,000 or Less
• Collateral Required for $26,000 or more (personal guarantee)
• Credit Score: 600 to 640 Range and up.

Bad Credit Loan # (4) SBA 7(a) Loans

• Borrower’s that has good/excellent credit & strong profile (would be eligible for an SBA Loan)
• FICO Credit Scores starting @ roughly 650 in cases would be the minimum threshold for an SBA 7(a) Loan.
• Longer turnaround (High Docs)

Bad Credit Loan # (5): Equipment Financing Loans:

* Businesses located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico.

* Businesses revenue for at least 1 year, and typically have $100,000 + in annual revenue.

* More than 350 industries qualify, including retailers, service providers, contractors, and restaurants.

* The threshold for funding is a credit score of at least 500.

Bad Credit Loan # (6): Invoice Factoring Loans:

* Because accounts receivables financing depends on the credit worthiness of your customers and the details of your invoices.

* Business is located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico,

* Generating revenue for at least 1 year.

* Fill out our quick one page application and send us

* 4 months of bank statements

* Approvals are typically made within 24 hours,

* Receive financing in as little as 3 to 4 business days.

Bad Credit Loan # (7):Purchase Order Financing Loans:

Your business receives a short-term line of credit to pay your vendors upfront for products or inventory so you don’t have to drain your available working capital.

* Products or inventory then serve as collateral for the financing.

* Business is located in the U.S. or Puerto Rico,

* Have been generating revenue for at least 1 year.

• 4 months of bank statements.
• Approvals are typically made within 24 hours
• Receive financing in as little as 3 to 4 business days

Tip # (7): Consider a Free PBI Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session.

If you can dream it, you can accomplish it.

Everyone has ambitions and goals. Picture yourself where
you want to be and let us help you get there.

What is the #1 behavior that drives life,

small business sales, growth, revenue and profitability to unbelievable levels?

What Can Almost Over Night Give You More Money-Making Power Principles for Your Business Success and Geometrically Boost Your Revenue? Margin? Profit?

The difference between merely getting by and making a large fortune in business is totally dependent upon a few key Marketing & Sales, Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and Consulting strategies and actions that you take that your competitors don’t recognize or act on!

What Can Attract More Top Paying Clients, Greater Cash Flow

And Bigger Profits with More Fun, Less Stress and Wasted Time

Using Simple Strategies in Your Business?

Discovering how to take maximum advantage of the hidden opportunities, assets, and advantages you possess NOW, the advantages that all super-successful people capitalize on as a matter of principle. Discovering a kaleidoscopic array of possibilities you can implement immediately to exponentially increase your success, income, and opportunity base. Discovering time-tested Marketing & Sales,

Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and Consulting strategies in a unique layered approach that will free you from business worries as they iron-clad your future success.

What Can Give You the Life, Business and Finances

You and Your Family Deserve?

Doing it all with very little effort on your part?

And a Guarantee Up to a 500% Return on Your Investment?

Well if that’s what you want, this may be the most exciting message you will ever read…Hundreds of people have become millionaires or multimillionaires by discovering the #1 behavior that drives life, small business sales, growth and profitability to unbelievable levels and following our Marketing & Sales, Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and Consulting advice.

Thousands of people have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled their sales or income or or revenue or profit discovering the #1 behavior that drives life, small business sales, growth and profitability to unbelievable levels.

The secret they know is this: 98 out of 100 people use tunnel vision in their own business endeavors, never looking beyond the traditional ways of doing business in their own field. Through our experience in over 400 different industries, you will expand your view of what is possible and learn a myriad of ways to keep your customers coming back for your product or service permanently.

Now you can discover what thousands of small business owners just like you have learned about not just surviving in today’s economy, but thriving in today’s economy…

You have a vision. And as a small business owner, you’re tasked with taking that dream and turning it into a reality; it’s up to you to connect vision, values and results. But in the midst of constant change and rapid growth, how do you balance business and people development and systems design, so you can empower your team to achieve clear results? How do you think about managing change? Where do you start?

When you started your business, there was room to dream about the future and the impact you would make. Now, do you often wonder where the day goes? Are they filled with distractions, frustrations, interruptions? Do you need a set of clear guidelines for what to do next, why you’re doing it, and how to make sure it achieves the results you want?

Meet the Business Coaches and Consultants Who Makes Sure…

You Get Paid First, Who Help You to Geometrically Increase Sales, Profit and Cash Flow…Who Give You a 500% Return on Your Investment and Who Get You Working Capital and Funding for Your Business in a Matter of Days!

Now you can discover how to bring a customer into your sphere of influence and never let him or her go, with strategies to optimize each business relationship. You will learn how to see opportunities differently than you have before, to remove obstacles and view things from a non-myopic standpoint. You will uncover the small distractions and adjustments you can easily make to them increase your business, not laterally, but exponentially.

Now you can make elegant solutions evident to you so that you can start looking at making important connections: project connections, business connections, and money connections.

You’ll look at things differently and gain the ability to think outside the box and look outside your normal range of business applications to find solutions – solutions that mean big profits to you. You’ll be able to look at your business and personal life as a series of connected skills, each skill, each element building and bringing you an even greater competitive advantage.

When you’re implementing the techniques outlined for you in our personal Marketing & Sales,

Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and Consulting and programs,you’ll soon realize that the scales have become tipped in your favor. You’ve leveled the playing field for everyone else and exalted yourself. Your business has become your clients’ only choice. You’re having fun. You’ve dominated, redefined the rules. You’ll soon set the pace for what others in your industry will try to do.

When you’ve got things clicking with our Marketing & Sales, Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and Consulting Systems, there’s no limit to what you and your business can do.

We know what matters is the results you achieve and not the time that we put into helping you. That’s why we offer a guaranteed of up to 500% return on your investment on our coaching and consulting fees – if you can’t see that you’re going to get up to five times what you pay us back as profit for your business in the foreseeable future, we’ll refund your money.

For $1 for the First 30 Days We’ Will Help You

Generate an Extra $10,000 of Bottom Line Profit!

We’ve Help More Than 400 San Francisco Bay Area Business and California Businesses Industries Make More Money with Marketing & Sales, Management, Capital Funding, Executive and Life Coaching and

Here’s Why You May Want to Consider Coaching!

If you need help with your business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1 million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

FREE Construction Management & Loan Coaching Sessions Available for the Construction Industry Small Businesses to Get Their Piece of the $32.0 Billion Construction Pie

If you need help with your construction business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1+ million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL:www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

We hope you enjoyed this article and that it helps you decide to work with a competent business, loan and financial coach.

To your higher profit and business success,

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor

Business Development Director

Profit Builders Inc.

1st Degree Tae Kwon Do Black Belt (Kukkiwon)

Former 10th Special Forces Member

Phone: 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com or profitbuilders@ymail.com

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

URL: https://www.facebook.com/michael.kissinger.35

You Won the Bid…How Will You Finance Your Part of the $700 Billion Construction Pie?

Throughout the United States our entire infrastructure and every other aspect of the industry is under construction: Schools at all levels are being built and renovated in every city; government facilities are being built; highways, roads, and bridges are under construction; and small, medium, and large commercial projects are going up everywhere.

Each project has at least one thing in common: A bulk of the over $700+ billion of construction annually is being performed by undercapitalized general and sub-contractors struggling to make payroll and find the cash they need for essential materials and services.

There are two primary reasons for this situation:

1. Contractors are hamstrung by both retainage and delays of 45 to 60 days or more in getting paid.

2. Contractors are challenged with the accounting systems they must use to manage their projects financially.

Providing access to capital for these contractors requires a thorough understanding of the underwriting process that includes a review of the contractor’s brief business plan, checking personal and corporate credit and tax records, reviewing current and the past three years’ personal and corporate financials, evaluating the contractor’s performance on previous projects, and checking business and bank references.

Throughout this process, the underwriter is evaluating the contractor against the three Cs of credit: capability, character, and collateral.

Additionally, the underwriter must evaluate the project for which the contractor is applying for receivables financing.

Areas of concern for getting funding include:

(1): Is the contractor capable of doing the work, and is his estimate accurate?

(2): Does the owner have the ability to pay for the project, which is not always the case in municipal or large, private projects?

(3): Is the construction schedule mandated by the owner or GC reasonable and within the capability of the contractor to complete successfully?

(4): Once the underwriting is complete, a final step in the process is establishing the control mechanism of a funds disbursement program for each project to be financed. A properly executed funds disbursement program that provides the financial administration for the project provides a high level of assurance to an owner and lender that fund advances made against project receivables pay project-related expenses (specific job costs and job-specific overhead) before they pay anything else (non-specific corporate overhead and profit).

(5): The funds disbursement program must start with the contract, a project budget, production schedule that is created from the original estimate, and a schedule of values and cost code for each cost item associated with the project. As funds are disbursed and receivables are paid, the system continually calculates each transaction against projected expenses and ensures that the budget is being followed. A state-of-the-art construction accounting system to facilitate this control mechanism will also provide all of the financial administration required for the contractor in a Web-based format.

The construction market is a great market for “Contractor and Subcontractor Customer Financing”, provided the proper risk-management tools are used effectively.

Once in place, however, growth of the line of credit available to the clients takes place concurrently with their increased work capacity, and retention of client contractors as funding clients is as high as any in the industry, providing a steady and increasing stream of commission and fee revenue from a very stable and growing clientele.

Accounts receivable financing program works well for contractors doing commercial or government projects to get the cash needed to help fund their business and take on larger contracts.

Contractors can get a quick influx of cash by factoring the contractor’s current accounts receivable. This provides debt free working capital to help meet some of the many challenges a contractor faces such as paying employees and suppliers on time.

What this means is that as a contractor you no longer have to wait 30 to 60 days or more to get paid. Contractor factoring is a great way to improve cash flow by eliminating long payment delays.

If you are a sub-contractor waiting to get paid by the general or a general waiting to get paid by a customer (developer or owner), you can expect payment in as little as 2 days once the invoices are verified. Contractor factoring when compared to bank financing is easy to obtain and can be set up in a matter of days.

If you are a new or growing construction company, sometimes getting the proper financing can be a problem. Quite often, for many companies, bank financing is either unavailable or too slow to help take advantage of an opportunity. The bottom line is contractor factoring is a financing solution that can provide funding quickly and effectively. This type of funding can help you meet current expenses and take on larger jobs to increase your bottom line.

How it works
If you have completed work or performed a service for a creditworthy general contractor, sub-contractor or owner on a government project, then you can qualify for contractor factoring financing.

As soon you receive confirmation that the service has been rendered or job completed and approved, then you can get advance up to 80% of the invoice amount.

Traditional Bank Funding for Contractors and Subcontractors

74% of all small business loan applications do not get approved. The approval rate is only 4%.

Banks are taking no risks in funding small businesses – only some doctors, lawyers and CPAs or companies gets qualified that have been around a long time with increasing gross income every year.

Probably, the reason behind the banks have put a tighter net on the money tree can be defined with two words – regulations and profit. The fact is there have been a number of traditional lenders came into existence recently. Banks are now facing competition and they only can add up a little percentage of interest which may be, they understand, of no use to them.

Traditional Bank Underwriting Premise:

“A contractor that runs a well managed, profitable enterprise, keeps promises, deals fairly with others and performs obligations in a timely manner……..will qualify for financing.”

Just a Few of the Many Possible Reasons Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors

Reason #1: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

•No Clear Access to Receivables.

•Lien Rights.

•Excess Owner or GC Retainage.

•Warranty Issues Regarding Performance.

•“Firing” of Contractors Can Result in Freezing of Payments.

•Joint Check Arrangements Reduces Availability.

•Cumbersome, Time Consuming, Expensive Underwriting.

•Possibility of Project Funds Running Out.

•Poor Estimates.

•Margins Too Thin

Reason #2: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet the Traditional Bank Financing Steps For Approval Process

1. Pre-Qualification

2. Application

3. Underwriting

4. Setting Up Of Resource Monitoring Services

5. Initial Funding

6. Revolving Credit Cycle

Reason #2: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet the Traditional Bank Construction Project Cash Ownership

Project Owner Contract Rights

General Contractor “Lien Rights”

Subcontractor “Lien Rights”

Suppliers “Lien Rights”

Reason #3: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet the Traditional Bank Prequalification Process

•Type of Industry:

– Construction

– Service Contractor

• Type of Contracts:

– Government (City, State, Federal)

– Large, Financially Stable Corporations

• Bankable Invoices

• Pass Preliminary Review of: Character, Capacity, Credit and Collateral

Reason #4: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet the Traditional Bank 4 C’s of Construction Financing Underwriting

Character: What one does when nobody is looking?

Capacity: The ability to perform the work.

Credit: Evidence you paid others back on time from whom you have borrowed or been extended credit.

Collateral: The property, invoices or other assets that will guarantee repayment to the lender

Reason #5: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet or Won’t Meet the Traditional Bank Application Process

1. Application:

•Company Information: Name, Address, Type of Business, Date of Inc., Fed. Tax. ID,

Specialty, Accounting History, History of Tax Filings, Credit History Questions, etc.

•Line of Credit Requested

•Principal Officer and Shareholder Information

•Current Borrowing Relationships

•Assets Assigned or Pledged as Collateral for Present Loans

•Signatures Authorizing Corporate and Personal Credit Checks

2. Brief Executive Summary of Business Plan

3. Fact Finder A/R Information and Summary of Business Financial Information

Reason #5: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet or Won’t Meet the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Review

Review Application Part 1

• Review Summary Business Plan and Fact Finder

• Run Personal Credit Checks on all Principals and Guarantors If Underwriting Requirements are Met, Issue Proposal Containing:

• Proposed Line of Credit

•Terms

• Conditions

• Request for Due Diligence Fee and Additional Information and Documents

Reason #6: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Meet or Won’t Meet the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Part 2 Review

Corporate Financial Information & Explanation

• Bonding Relationships, If Appropriate

• Brief Explanation of largest Contracts to Date

• Subcontractor References

• Key Personnel

• Insurance Summary

• Subsidiaries and Affiliates

• Professional Advisers

Reason #7: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items

Must Be Forward with the Application, Part 2

• Current Corporate Financial Statements Including Balance Sheet & Income Statements (3 mo.)

• Current A/R and A/P Aging.

• Current Work in Progress Report

• Corporate Tax Returns for the Past Three (3) Years (Full Copies).

• Certificate of Incorporation

•Personal Tax Returns (Each Guarantor) for the Past Three (3) Years (Full Copies).

•Current Personal Financial Statements (Each Guarantor) – dated less than three (3) months prior.

•Certificate of Insurance showing General Liability and Workers Compensation Coverage.

•Copy of Contract (s) to be financed, with bid, complete estimate and project schedule.

Reason #8: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Approval

– Business Plan, including:

– Company Description, Current Status, Goals & Objectives

– Resumes of Principals and Key Employees

•Trade Letters of Reference (Owners, GC’s, Suppliers, A&E’s, etc.)

•Letters of Reference from Banks or other lending institutions, with current documents of any outstanding loans.

•Copies of all MBE, DBE, HUB, 8a, etc., certifications.

•Payment and Performance Bonds, if applicable

Reason #9: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Final Underwriting Approval

• Credit Checks Reviewed on all Principals and Guarantors.

• Credit Check Performed on the Corporation.

• References are Contacted.

• Financial and Tax Information Verified.

• Initial Plan Review Performed on Project to be Financed.

• Credit Memorandum Prepared

Reason #10: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Final Underwriting Approval of Loan pr Line of Credit

• Credit Checks Reviewed on all Principals and Guarantors.

• Credit Check Performed on the Corporation.

• References are Contacted.

• Financial and Tax Information Verified.

• Initial Plan Review Performed on Project to be Financed.

• Credit Memorandum Prepared

Reason #11: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Final Underwriting Approval of Final Underwriting Requirements

• Credit Memorandum Evaluated By Lender

• Loan Documents Prepared and Signed by All Parties (Lender, Administrator, Contractor)

• Resource Monitoring Services Agreement

Reason #12: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Final Underwriting Approval of Initial Funding

1. Credit Line Approved for Applied For Amount

2. RMS Program in Place and All Documents Signed

3. Loan Documents are Signed

4. A/R Invoices and/or Pay Applications Have Been Submitted and are Approved, Establishing Availability of Loan Funds Against the Line of Credit

5. A/P Invoices are Submitted to RMS for Approval Against Budget and Prepared for Payment

6. Funds Disbursed to RMS for Payment of Approved A/P Invoices and Credit Line is reduced Accordingly.

7. RMS Pays A/P Invoices.

Reason #13: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t Submit or Won’t Submit the Traditional Bank Preliminary Underwriting Application Review – Required Items Required Prior to Final Final Underwriting Approval of Revolving Line of Credit

•Credit Line Established.

•Funds become available based on eligible invoices and/or pay applications.

•Funds are disbursed through RMS program, reducing Credit Line.

•Funds are received by lender in payment of eligible invoices and/or pay application, replenishing Credit Line.

•Fees and interest are paid as funds are received and disbursed.

•As project requirements dictate and cycles are completed successfully, the Credit Line may be increased.

• The Revolving Credit Cycle continue

Reason #14: Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund Contractors and Subcontractors:

Contractors and Subcontractors Can’t or Won’t Be Able to Pay for the Funding

Would the Contractor be able to perform the project without the financing?

If the answer is “No!” then there is no “Cost” for financing, only “Profit” gained from completing the project. If the Contractor is able to negotiate discounts from subcontractors and suppliers due to paying them in a more timely fashion…..then the financing and administration become a “Profitable Subcontractor.”

Red Tape

That is a lot of red tape that Traditional Banks Require Contractors and Subcontractors to participate in order to get funding.

THERE ARE OTHER SPECIALIZED PROGRAM

FOR CONTRACTOR AND SUBCONTRACTOR FINANCING

Now Contractors and Subcontractors can get business funding from association with a nationally recognized providers of contractor financing programs are specially designed to finance contractors and subcontractors. Some of the typical construction clients this funding is available to are:

This Contractor and Subcontractor funding is also available:

• Lenders who do not do Contractor Financing
• CPA’s who specialize in Construction
• Business Development Agencies
• Construction Material Suppliers
• Public Project Construction Management Companies
• Associations such as:

1. Associated Builders & Contractors
2. Associated General Contractors
3. Subcontractors Association
4. Regional Surety Associations
5. Construction Financial Management Associations

General Contractors and Subcontractors now you can finance your customers for repairs or new construction without taking a penny from your pocket on small construction projects

Introducing: Contractor and Subcontractor Customer Financing

General Contractors now you can get customer financing for all home repair and renovations, remodeling , room additions, kitchen additions and bathrooms and more.

Subcontractors and specialty contractors now you can get customer financing for all painting, roofing, home maintenance, pest control, septic, HVAC & Heating, closets, mold remediation, pest control, landscaping and more.

These Contractor & Subcontractor Customer Financing Options including:

• Term Loans and Revolving Lines of Credit
• “No-interest” Options for 6-18 months
• Low merchant costs, one-time setup fee / fixed monthly fee
• “No Discount Fees”- flat fee per approved transaction (charged to customer)
• “Non-Recourse” means your payment is guaranteed (no collections)

Benefits to Your Customers

• Easy, online application
• Apply OR pre-qualify via online application / your website
• Single application & credit report for multiple nationwide lenders
• No pre-payment penalties or accelerated default interest rates to customers
• Approvals within 30 minutes (max 24 ” hours for difficult credit)

Why Use These Programs?

• Your customer fills out a standard qualified credit application

• Use your “online calculator” to pre-qualify the customer and payment / terms
• The customer submits the application and it is sent to multiple lenders simultaneously
• Your customer accepts one or more offers for their loan
• The lender sends documents to the customer by email
• Customers can scan or fax back documents, business receives full funding within 72-hrs

Why These Programs:

• Increase approvals up to 40% more than traditional bank funding.
• One system – National lenders
• One easy online application, one credit report
• Several credit options up to $25,000: Term, Revolving and zero interest
• Low monthly subscription / Annual Agreement
• No “discount Fees” or percentages deducted from you
• No “Default Rates” to your clients

The Highlights

• Easy to use, web application includes your custom page and loan calculators

• Lenient financing for 600 FICO score and up to prime / $25,000 Maximum

Why This Funding is available

Alternative lenders offer this construction financing because they utilize the good credit of the entity ordering the products or services to finance the contractor or vendor who otherwise cannot take on the contract. Once the contract has been awarded they can provide a line of credit that will help the contractor and subcontractor to properly execute the project contracts. The contractor wins by accepting and executing new business opportunities that will take them to the next level. Financing is available from $100,000 to $1,000,000 and more.

This Funding is available for businesses and can work with situations such as:

• Short time in business/ project start-ups
• Poor credit history
• Bankruptcy
• Tax liens
• Undercapitalization

With this Funding alternative lenders are able to coordinate a host of related contractor services such as:

• Bonding
• Estimating
• Project Management
• Construction Mentoring

By using these alternative lenders services, you can:

• Take advantage of the additional credit often unavailable
• Minimize, and often eliminate, additional credit control requirements
• Streamline in house accounting functions
• Evaluate the financial status of a project through the reports provided with each draw
• Negotiate prompt payment discounts with your suppliers, directly increasing your bottom-line

Consider a Free PBI Business, Loan, and Financial Coaching Session.

FREE Construction Management & Loan Coaching Sessions Available for the Construction Industry Small Businesses to Get Their Piece of the $700 Billion Construction Pie

If you need help with your construction business growth or funding please get back to me for a Free coaching session that can add from $10,000 to $1+ million in additional sales and profits almost overnight. Click on URL:www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com to learn more.

We hope you enjoyed this article and that it helps you decide to work with a competent business, loan and financial coach.

To your higher profit and business success,

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor

Business Development Director

Profit Builders Inc.

1st Degree Tae Kwon Do Black Belt (Kukkiwon)

Former 10th Special Forces Member

Phone: 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com or profitbuilders@ymail.com

URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

URL: https://www.facebook.com/michael.kissinger.35

Looking to boost working capital and free up cash flow to grow your business and turn it into a cash cow? Unable to obtain a credit line from a traditional lender? Stressed because you need cash to pay suppliers, payroll or taxes?

A Business Optimization and Funding Plan and coaching may be your answer that turn your business into a cash cow. Here’s How!

Part (1): Business Optimization Plan

Business Optimization Plans are much more than a tool to obtain financing. A Business Optimization Plan is a description in full detail of any business enterprise covering operational business structure, required resources, authority, responsibilities, abilities, aptitudes, temperaments, equity, remuneration, products and services, market research and marketing strategy, complete budget and financial projections with expenses and revenue for up to five years.

A Business Optimization Plan helps clarify your company’s direction, and can give birth to a corporate philosophy.

A Business Optimization Plan provides a blueprint, describing your company, its products, the business model, management team, competition, and business risks.

A Business Optimization Plan includes: Executive Summary; Vision, Mission and Goals; Company Overview; Product Strategy; Operations Plan; Market Analysis; Marketing Plan; Financial Plan; Financial Statements, Supporting Documents and Exit/Payback Strategies. Both startups and existing businesses require business plans. Hence, developing such documents generally requires a great deal of research and number-crunching.

Elements of a Business Optimization Plan

Your Identity and Personnel

What is your company, and who are the key players? You must identify your business’ legal name and status. You must also identify key personnel – their backgrounds, their fields of expertise, and any proposed additions to the team.

Your Physical Plant

This is a description of your business location, your rent/mortgage expenses, plus your maintenance and insurance costs. You need to determine if you will require more space, and if your location gives you a competitive advantage. You need analyze current and projected machinery, equipment, product, service, etc., to see what expenses you can anticipate.

Your Business

What exactly do you do? You need to examine each of your products and/or services in terms of percentage of your business and opportunities for growth. You need to formulate company milestones, including upcoming products and services in development. You need to describe your current product or service and what makes it unique and competitive.

Your Marketing Strategy

You need to examine market conditions – the nature of your customers, as well as your competitors, sales potential, and what promotional steps you plan to take to develop your business.

Your Bottom Line

This is a financial analysis – a listing of information for prior years, and projections for your future. By identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your company, certain patterns begin to emerge.

Perhaps you can identify new opportunities for growth – or areas where you can affect savings – changes that will make your company more efficient. You might effectively predict upcoming problems, or prevent them. In other words, the perspective gained through your Business Optimization Plan can make a significant contribution to your company’s success, and help you get the funding you require. In fact, most lending institutions and private investors will not even talk to you without a Business Optimization Plan.

Raising Capital

You need to look at the loan officer or venture capital investor as someone who would write you the check you need if only he or she could see beyond your balance sheet.

One of the most important elements for business success is a detailed, well-written Business Optimization and Funding Plan. The investor’s mind is open and needs to be filled with a generous amount of knowledge about what really makes your company tick, and how they are going to get paid back (exit/payback strategy).

Part (2): Business Funding Plan.

This is the second part of your Business Optimization and Funding Plan. You need to be able to expose you to various funding resources and options and be able to communicate precisely how viable your business is before you need funding for your business.

Sometimes it is difficult to pat oneself on the back and appear credible. This should sound familiar, because you have already had these thoughts, “Even if I do find sources for venture capital, who will listen to me?

They will want more than numbers, a solid written plan, and sound reasoning, all with some sizzle. But that’s not what I do best. And if I ever need to be at my best, this is it”.

Not all companies that are good investments obtain the capital they need to succeed. That is usually because they fail to communicate precisely how good an investment they truly are. They fail in their capital quest not because of what they are, but because of what they are not. They’re just not professional communicators.

You Are the Star

For the most part, lenders want to deal directly with the owner or principal officer of the company seeking capital.

Most of the lender’s or investor’s want a good presentation and will ask you questions that will be directed at you. Every detail of your presentation must be as familiar to you as your own name. At that critical moment, there must be no hesitation in your answer to any question that is asked. You must be cool, calm and thoroughly prepared. You will obtain the capital you seek because you will have shown exactly why your company deserves it.

First, spending the time researching and fleshing out such details clarifies thinking, generating information previously not considered and a workable strategy to follow for the period covered by the plan.

A sound Business Optimization and Funding Plan is a blueprint to success, outlining the steps to move from idea to success. Should due diligence reveal that an idea isn’t destined for success, then better to know now than a year later and thousands of dollars poorer. Indeed, the time saved may be invested in planning another better idea with any better chance.

Secondly, in any hope to raise funds through business loans, venture capitalists, even an angel or an incubator; never even consider approaching any sort of lender or investor without a thoroughly researched business plan in hand!

Here is a reason why a Business Optimization and Funding Plan is required for the Construction Industry.

There are 10 Reasons Why Traditional Banks Won’t Fund

Contractors and Subcontractors or the Construction Industry:

•No Clear Access to Receivables.

•Lien Rights.

•Excess Owner or GC Retainage.

•Warranty Issues Regarding Performance.

•“Firing” of Contractors Can Result in Freezing of Payments.

•Joint Check Arrangements Reduces Availability.

•Cumbersome, Time Consuming, Expensive Underwriting.

•Possibility of Project Funds Running Out.

•Poor Estimates.

•Margins Too Thin

What if your business had these types of challenges when it comes to bank funding?

These are things you need to know before you waste time and effort trying to get funding in the traditional way for your business in your industry.

Contractors and Subcontractors Turn Your Business into a Cash Cow

Eliminate Your Funding Problems

Micro Loans: You can eliminate funding problems with Micro Loans. Approval is made in as little as 2 to 3 days so you can focus on what you do best, running your business. You must understand that bank loans are tough to get, even for healthy small businesses. There is an easy application process. A simple one page application, 4-6 months bank statements are required plus your profit and loss statement. There are no hassles and no long waits for a response.

Features of the Micro Loan are:
1. Loans from $5,000 to $250,000
2. Terms from 3 to 18 months
3. Fixed interest and fixed payments
4. Easy daily ACH repayment
5. Approval in 2 to 3 days
6. Funding in as little as 7 to 10 days

7. Qualifying credit scores 500+

The Benefits You Receive are Immediate Cash That Allows You to Compete.

1. Unlike conventional lending sources, you get money when you need it. As a result, you have the funds needed to finance your next project immediately – not 30 to 60 days later – and/or to take advantage of vendor discounts (by paying earlier or buying larger quantities). This way you can increase your sales and revenue, accelerate your growth and lower your costs, increasing your profitability. Moreover, our solution allows you to compete on the basis of payment terms (and not just price) – a particularly profitable strategy as you can build in some of the costs of our solution into your pricing structure.

2. You get a funding solution for your business that has sales and generates accounts receivable from other businesses and from governmental authorities. Unlike many banks or factors, we do not flatly reject you as a potential client merely because you have not been in business for at least two years.

3. You get review and approval process does not focus exclusively on your credit history. We do not flatly reject you because you have a weak balance sheet or because you have experienced a negative credit event in your recent past. We focus more on the financial strength of your customers.

4. You get experienced executives who respond to the needs of their clients personally. There are no layers of bureaucracy or lengthy review and approval processes. We are interested in our client and your business, so expect us to call and meet with you to create a personal relationship.

Construction Industry is only an example.

Bernard Samuel says, “We do business with only those proven owners of exceptional reputation and we have long standing relationships that confirms how we conduct business. Your client is our client! We only deal with the most reputable investors in the market. Our relationship with our contractors and their clients depends on it. The one feature that is an absolute is that we say it the way it is. In most cases, if we cannot finance a transaction, no one can. If you are interested in a risk-free, no obligation pre-approval, please contact me. I look forward to getting you the best loan with the best possible rate. I can send an application and discuss how we can help you.”

Contractors and Subcontractors Turn Your Browsers into Your Buyers

Customer Funding Construction Program:

According to Mr. Samuel, “this financing is to help you fund your construction projects through your clients. Turn browsers into buyers by offering installment payment plans. Affordable monthly payment options combined with interest-free term promotions. This will not only help to increase the first purchase amount but will bring your customers back for repeat purchases. These customer financing solutions are designed to drive more traffic to your business, improve sales and build customer loyalty.”

You’ll get a network of lenders we work with to obtain the best solutions for you. We finance residential and commercial construction projects with flexible financing options. Our program is not a “home equity line of credit” or a loan secured by property. We give unsecured loans up to $30,000+ for residential projects and much higher for commercial projects.

Customer Funding Construction Program benefits include: (1): Maximized customer credit limits; (2): Financing options for prime, near-prime and sub-prime applicants; (3): Interest-free term promotions; (4): Online merchant center that provides instant decisions* and document generation; (5): Collection of innovative e- tools such as price calculator and payment estimator; (6): Excellent customer support and training.

According to Barnard Samuel, his company offers a variety of funding programs to help any business turn into a “Cash Cow.” The funding from his company is not only limited to the Construction Industry. He can be reached by phone at 415-678-9965

We hope you enjoyed this article on “How to Turn Your Business into a Cash Cow.”

If you are in need of “Business Optimization and Funding Planning please know that we provide construction small business coaching and consulting to assure your business is growing so the loan gets repaid quickly. For $1 for one month we’ll work with you and your business to generate at least $10,000 so you know we are cable to do all that we say. This is a limited time offer.

What is the single most important problem facing your business today?

Tell me and we will help you solve it. I am a Consultant, Coach, Mentor Speaker, Author and Entrepreneur. I started working as an apprentice carpenter, journeyman, foreman, superintendent and contractor. I spent the last 20+ years of his life creating fascinating Client and Profit Doubling programs that have helped thousands of small businesses across America.

I am a former 20+ year business professor at three leading California Universities, and a small business analyst, coach and consultant. I have taught more than 10,000 students around the country.

I am an experienced Off-line and On-Line marketer business developer, public speaker and a popular Bay Area professional. I work with many of the top small businesses in America. I am the author of over 850 top rated business and marketing articles. Contact me and get ready to discover this amazing gold mine!

Check me out on LinkedIn. URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66 I have posted many articles on getting working capital and funding on LinkedIn. I am sure they will also help you fund and grow your business. Give me a call if you would like to discuss how we can work together.
Please let me know what I can do for you.

Michael Kissinger

The Business Doctor
Business Development Director
Profit Builders Inc.
Phone 415-678-9965

Email: mjkissinger@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-kissinger/4/b21/a66

URL: www.prosperitybreakthroughs4u.com

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