Small Business Bank Accounts

Lapolla Receives $12.5 Million Asset-Based Loan From Bank of America Business Capital

Lapolla Receives $12.5 Million Asset-Based Loan From Bank of America Business Capital
Financing Adds Working Capital and Strengthens Balance Sheet

Read more on Marketwire

Ecommerce solutions for small business owners

You are running a small business. Or You may have a web site but
has not been generating a good income. Or You may have a web
site, which is generating a good income, but you want to
increase your income. Or You do not have a web site, but
thinking of launching one.

If you fit in to any of above categories then this article is
for you. The purpose of this article is to educate small
business owners of how to launch and operate a successful
e-business. Many technical jargons that you don’t want to know
but YOU MUST KNOW are explained in layman’s words in this
article.

Remember, web sites are not to stand still and collect E-dust.
They should generate good income.

If you believe that having an attractive and a colourful web
site is e-commerce or ebusiness, then I am afraid you are wrong.
A good e-business solution should include the following.

1. Identify who are your visitors.

2. Identify and present clearly the benefits those visitors of
your web site are going to get.

3. Visitors should achieve the purpose of visiting your web site
fast (easy navigation). It can vary from find some information
to purchasing goods or services. The rule of thumb is that a
visitor should fulfil the purpose of visiting your site in
maximum three clicks.

4. Information should be clean and easy to read.

5. Web site should be fast and should not take long time to load
pages.

6. Web site should get a good Search Engine ranking. Also should
get lot of visitors who are interested on your products or
services (targeted traffic).

Now you have two options.

Option 1: Develop an e-business solution by yourself.

Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution
for you.

Irrespective of which option you are going to select, you should
know few important steps/terms used in the process.

1. E-commerce web site designing:

This is the development part of your web site. You should
concentrate on the content of your web site, user friendliness,
speed and the structure of your web site. Also it is important
to use keywords related to your business properly in order to
get high rankings on Search Engines.

Don’t worry about this now. I will show you how easy this is.
Keep on reading.

2. Domain name registration:

Domain name is the name of your web site Ex:

http://www.preventiveguru.com

Domain name is unique for you and nobody is able to use your
domain name when it is registered for you (for the period that
you purchased). This is done through a web hosting company.

3. E-commerce web hosting:

This is where you store your web pages, so everybody can access
your web site. This is done through a web hosting company.

4. Ecommerce Shopping Cart:

Similar to actual shopping carts at Supermarkets, you can use a
virtual shopping cart in your web site. So Customers can
purchase items online, put them in the cart and pay for the
whole lot. Ebusiness software is used to develop digital
shopping carts.

5. Credit card processing:

You need to talk to your bank and get a merchant account to
process credit cards online. Alternatively, there are companies
who do credit card processing for your web site. They charge a
small processing fee for each transaction.

5. Shipping:

If you are going to sell hard goods, then shipping is one of the
main tasks. Shipping can be done by yourself or there are
fulfilment companies who do shipping for a nominal charge. You
should sign an agreement with them and configure your web site
to notify them about shipping details automatically.

OK, lets consider your options of developing profitable
e-business solutions.

Option 1: Do it yourself.

I hear your questions. But it is not a very difficult task.
Because there are good tools to automate most of above tasks.
Thanks to these tools, business owners don’t have to depend on
others to run a successful e-business.

Your next step

1. Download FREE e-books for an A to Z explanation on how to do
this from below web page.

http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html

2. Study details about ecommerce automation tools described in
the same web page.

Done? Fantastic. You are ready to start your journey.

Option 2: Get a third-party to develop an e-commerce solution
for you.

If you decided to go for a third party then you should know what
to ask from them and what to look for. Most of ecommerce website
developers concentrate on the look and feel of web sites. That
along will never make you money.

Below are few important tips that you should discuss with your
vendor.

Keywords: What are the main words related to your business and
how are they going to use them efficiently?

Navigation: Structure of the web site and how easy to navigate
and find information.

Search Engine Optimisation: How are they going to optimise your
web site so that it will get good rankings?

Web hosting space: How much of space are they going to allocate
for your web site.

Web statistics: Will they provide online statistics about
visitors of your web site. Statistics are very important to
analyse the performances of each page in your web site. Below
statistics are vital.

How many unique visitors per day. How many visits (page wise).
Listing of entry pages. Listing of exit pages. Source of the
visitor (search engine, web directory etc). What are the
keywords that are been used to find your web site?

OK, What’s next?

Download FREE e-books from

http://www.preventiveguru.com/ecommerce-website-designers.html

Read them carefully and understand the process in detail.

Then go and see your vendor.

3 Ways To Uncover Cash For Your Small Business

Every small business needs cash. It’s the reason most small businesses fail. They simply don’t have the resources to get through a cash deficit period. Here are 3 ways you may not have thought of to get funding for your business.

1. Advertising Pay Per Response (PPR) and Pay Per Order (PPO)

If you have a product, usually a consumer product, that requires heavy advertising to reach customers, try to convince advertising mediums such as magazines, newspapers, radio, and TV, to accept payment based on the orders generated in their publications, radio or TV broadcasts.

Let’s use Metro Newspaper as an example. You place a display ad for your product that says please call 123-4567 to order or for further information. That phone number goes to an answering service that tracks the number of incoming calls. The only place that particular 123-4567 phone number appears is in the Metro Newspaper ad. For every caller (Pay Per Response) you then pay Metro Newspaper a $1.00, or whatever the agreed to rate is.

You can also pay per order rather than per response.

You benefit because you don’t have to find the cash to pay for the ad before it runs. You pay only when it produces results. Metro Newspaper sells space it wouldn’t have and has the opportunity to get more for that space than the regular ad rates if it’s successful.

We used a newspaper as an example, but you can use the PPR or PPO with TV and radio as well. You can also use a coupon with a code on it as the response mechanism rather than a telephone number. Make sure you can track and identify the responses/orders generated by the ad placement. Usually the advertising medium will demand independent verification, or that the responses/orders go through an independent third party or fulfillment house. Occasionally, the advertising medium will handle the orders, receive payment from the customers and then forward the payment (less their charge) and the order to you to be fulfilled.

2. Investor Advertising

No, this isn’t advertising for an investor. Again, this works better with consumer products that require substantial advertising, such as infomercials. You have the investor pay for the advertising and in return they receive a share of the revenues generated from the advertising. The orders have to be independently verified. Often the investor will demand that all the money generated from the orders be placed in a separate bank account, the investor’s share is deducted first and the remainder sent to you. The share to the investor can be substantial from 20 to 50% of the sales generated.

3. Friends, Family And Yourself

This is probably the most widely used source of capital for small and start-up businesses. Any capital provided by friends, or your family, should be treated in a businesslike manner. If they’re buying equity in your company, then provide your business plan and disclose all the risks. Have them sign a statement that says they’ve received the business plan and recognize this is a risky investment. If they’re lending money to you personally to put in the company or lending directly to the company, have a loan agreement prepared with market rate interest and a repayment schedule. You can defer the interest for a year or make interest only payments if cash is tight.

Realize that an outside investor most likely will not recognize that debt and allow it to be paid off with funds they provide. This is especially true if you’ve loaned your company money — an investor most likely will not pay you off or allow the company to pay you off until the company has reached positive cash flow.

Don’t let your small business fail because you’ve run out of cash.

How the Stock Market and Economy Really Work

How the Stock Market and Economy Really Work
The stock market does not work the way most people think, writes Kel Kelly. One commonly held belief is that a stock-market boom is the reflection of a progressing economy. Not so: it mostly reflects money creation.

Read more on Ludwig von Mises Institute

Small Business Legal Issues

Running a small business can be a legal mine field, and without appropriate knowledge and understanding of the relevant risks involved, you can quickly find yourself in some difficulties. Running a business without consideration for the law can be dangerous, particularly when considering the potential financial and even criminal risks you may be running. That’s why it’s a good idea to have an idea of the relevant legal provisions that may apply to particular circumstances in order to understand where you might be personally liable, and how you can avoid incurring such liability when managing a small business.

The first thing to bear in mind is that a business has its own legal formalities relating to the particular business form you choose. For example, running your business as a sole trader will require very little in the way of natural legal formalities, other than that you file appropriate tax returns annually and keep appropriate records of your financial transactions on a daily basis. This burden is far stricter if you choose to operate as a limited company. If you do decide to go down this route, it may be worth investing in a book on basic company law for reference. Don’t take the risk and try to muddle through; it’s better to know what is expected of you and what the penalties are by getting some form of expert opinion.

Secondly, you may face liability if you cause injury, either financially or physically to another party in the course of running your business. It is advisable therefore to opt for decent insurance coverage to protect against eventualities of this nature. Another good idea is to include an exemption clause or disclaimer whenever you can, although it’s important to understand these are not watertight. What they can do is limit your liability in damage to physical property where it is reasonable to do so, and in no way can they limit any liability you may have for anything deemed unreasonable or anything relating to a physical injury or death.

It’s a criminal offense as a business director to trade when you are aware that your business is insolvent. This is a general rule, and there are obviously intricacies involved, still this must be protected against. You could receive a criminal record if you breach these laws so take expert advice at an early stage if you face financial difficulties.

Similarly it is a criminal offense not to take records of your finances and to hold on to those records for three years. You are open to inspection of those records by the relevant authorities as and when they have a need to examine your business dealings. This is also compounded by legal requirements under the VAT regime, where you will be required to keep more rigorous accounts and are with almost certainty, likely to be subjected to periodical inspections.

There are a number of key legal provisions you should be aware of as a small business owner, and they are far too numerous to list here. Rather than spending fortunes on legal advice regarding simple matters, a better option is to purchase a beginners’ guide to company law. This will give you a quick insight into the practical requirements of running your business on a day to day basis and you can top up your knowledge bank with legal advice as and when required.

Cartel violence worse now, Rogue Valley grad says

Cartel violence worse now, Rogue Valley grad says
Susana Montalvo has traveled the world, attended graduate school in the Rogue Valley, worked as banker here and now plies her trade in Guanajuato, Guanajuato — as in New York, N.Y.

Read more on The Mail Tribune

Small Business Loans: Provides a Good Platform to Capitalize

The topmost priority while starting a new business or meeting any other business needs is to ensure the availability of finance. It is the money that keeps your business moving and is considered to be of the primary component. In case, you are running short on finances, then simply consider availing small business loans. These loans are designed to take care of all your business needs which might crop up at any moment.

In fact to help you out, these loans are offered to you in secured and unsecured form. In order to avail the secured option of the loans, you have to pledge one of the valuable assets as collateral. The collateral placed can be your home, real estate or any of your business interest. The presence of collateral cuts down the risk factor and in turn you get affordable lower interest rates. Moreover the amount is approved is large and is largely based on the equity value present in the collateral.

On the contrary, unsecured option of the loans can be derived without pledging any collateral. This loan option is beneficial for borrowers who do not want to pledge any collateral or do not have any. A small amount in the range of £1000-£25000 is made available for short repayment tenure of 6 months – 10 years. The rate of interest for the loans is slightly higher.

Before availing the loans, you have to provide a loan proposal plan to the borrower. Along with it, your financial situation, credit profile and repaying capacity is also taken in to account. If everything goes well, then you are approved these loans with feasible terms and conditions.

The amount obtained can be used for acquiring plots for expansion, purchasing raw materials, arranging transportation, advertising, paying salary and wages etc.

These loans can be sourced from traditional lenders such as banks, financial institutions etc. You can also access the loans from online lenders. Due to stiff competition among the online lenders, by taking a proper research you can avail these loans at convenient rates.

Small business loans provide a good platform from where you can make a good progress in your business. These loans virtually take care of all your needs.

West Bank high school football preview: West Jefferson

West Bank high school football preview: West Jefferson
Another district title not enough for Buccaneers

Read more on New Orleans Times-Picayune

Plaza Bank Announces 2nd Quarter Results

Plaza Bank Announces 2nd Quarter Results
IRVINE, CA–(Marketwire – August 24, 2010) – Plaza Bank ( OTCBB : PLZB ) today announced financial results for the quarter and six months ended June 30, 2010, showing strong growth in assets, deposits and loan activity.

Read more on Marketwire

John Mellencamp talks career, new album and Robert Johnson

John Mellencamp talks career, new album and Robert Johnson
Calmly and carefully, even apologizing for being frank, John Mellencamp [ tickets ] decried the Internet, the state of music today and problems with education — while also providing details about his new album — during an interview session Tuesday (8/18) at the Grammy Museum. He also reiterated his call for Willie Nelson to be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize. …continued More news: John …

Read more on LiveDaily