Business and Finance

This business financing guide shows the items that you will need to prepare if you are planning to get loan from financial institution when you buy business for sale. Getting financing can be easier with knowledge about the financing and with complete preparation of documents and statements in process of buying business for sale

Step 1. Find a Business for sale at BusiMarket.com site for businesses for sale and commercial property for sale on the market. As soon as a property is found, make any necessary contacts to sellers.

Step 2. Get Purchase and Sale AgreementGet the sale agreement from Brokers, attorneys, or Escrow companies.

Step 3. Find a LenderFind a Loan Officer that will take care of your financing needs.

Step 4. Prepare Required Documents – Purchase and Sale Agreement for the Business or Commercial Property,
– Personal Financial Statement provided by the lender,
– Income tax returns from both buyer and seller from the last three years
– an up-to-date income statement,
– Resume from the buyer,
– Lease Agreement(if applies),
– Assignment for Lease (if applies),

Step 5. Finally, wait for the loan approval (usually takes 2-4 weeks)

Since the financing process can be different on type of business, location, and buyer’s situation. The information above is for information only and BusiMarket.com does not guarantee accuracy of information.

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A credit score is primarily based on credit report information, typically from one of the three major credit bureaus, Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Since lenders or banks lend only against your creditworthiness, it does makes sense for you to know what factors determine your credit score.

What Is A Credit Score?
Based on the snapshots of your credit report, credit score is the number arrived to summarize your credit risk. It ranges from 300 to 850 and helps a lender to determine the risk level. Or we can put it like this, “if I give this person a loan, how likely is it that I will get paid on time?”

There are different methods of calculating credit scores. FICO is one of the most popular credit scores developed by Fair Isaac & Co. The higher is the FICO score the lower is the risk for lender.

What Affects Credit Score?
Your credit reports contains many pieces of information that reveals certain important aspects of your borrowing activities mainly focusing on:

? Late payments
? The amount of time credit has been established
? The amount of credit used versus the amount of credit available
? Length of time at present residence
? Negative credit information such as bankruptcies, charge-offs, collections, etc.

Bad Credit Small Business Loans
Seeking loans with low or bad credit score can drive you up the wall. The mainline lenders may simply reject your loan application while the others from subprime market may charge you extortionate rate of interest on your bad credit small business loan.

In case you are an entrepreneur and need new business loan for growth or expansion, bad credit can put you in pickles. In such a scenario, it’s better to go for cash advance option that is provided irrespective of you credit history. Such cash advance is given against your future credit and debit card sales.

What Is Cash Advance Option?
Cash advance is a small business loan approved against the monthly amount you process through credit card sales. Cash advance lenders do not ask you for your credit rating and can pre-approve your loan within 24 hours. A mutually agreed upon percentage from your daily sales through credit card processing goes to the lender automatically as repayment of the loan.

How To Increase Your Credit Score?
Your credit score cannot be improved in short run but a few steps can help you improving your credit rating over a period of time. Here are a few tips:

? Pay your bills on time. Late payments and collections can have a serious impact on your score.
? Do not apply for credit frequently. Having a large number of inquiries on your credit report can worsen your score.
? Reduce your credit-card balances. If you are “maxed” out on your credit cards, this will affect your credit score negatively.
? If you have limited credit, obtain additional credit. Not having sufficient credit can negatively impact your score.

Small businesses have many challenges to stay afloat. Many budding entrepreneurs think that all they need is an idea or product, a name for their small business, and a bit of work and the product will sell itself and money will come rolling in. If you have ever run a small business – even a home based business – you will know there’s much more to it than that!

The first thing you, as a potential small business owner must always do, is research your market. Then research your competition, then the available supply for your product or service, and find your unique selling position. This alone can take weeks often months.

Once you are satisfied that there is a market for your product or service then you need to sort out your business plan and cash flow projections.

Small businesses may appear low cost but many suck up substantial capital before they turn a profit so now, unless you are very fortunate, you must sort out how to finance your small business. Do you remortgage your house? look for investment partners? borrow from friends or family? or approach the bank? Whichever you choose you need to convince others that your small business will be profitable and they will get a return on their money.

Once finances are in place the hard work starts. You may have premises to arrange, suppliers to sort out, staff to recruit and mangage, accounts to keep, products to design or source, lawyers to consult, accountants to hire and we must not forget in all of this market and get the all important customers to look at and purchase your products.

To do that you have to advertise your small business, but where and at what cost? Don’t forget you have to provide customer support and accept returns. Then there’s waste disposal … and on and on.

Who’s paying for all of this – in simple terms you, and your friends, investors and/or your bank are paying, until you are selling sufficient product or service to cover the costs – usually many months or even years away.

New small businesses rarely return a profit in the first year and frequently not for two or three years. Make sure you can finance it properly.

Is it worth doing it? That’s your decision but every year tens of thousands of people do start their own business and many are succesful and reap the rewards of all that hard work. But many also fail, and all too often it’s due to lack of preparation

If you’re about to set off on your new business venture prepare well and Good Luck. With good planning, persistence and a lot of hard work you too can build a profitable small business.

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logo design, print design, web design, illustration, graphic designer, web designer, logo designer, layout designer, stationery designer, flyer designer, brochure designer

As with any service, the costs involved in hiring a graphic design company will vary depending on your needs and the graphic design company quoting you.

Factors influencing the fees charged by each graphic designer can include;

- Whether they are insured or not (it’s common for some freelancers to not bother with insurance to protect you against issues such as copyright infringement for instance.

- Value added services such as online payment of your invoice with a trusted provider.

- Standard of design; it stands to reason that the better the designs created compared to others in their industry, the more a designer is likely to charge for them.

- Experience; a more experienced designer will charge more for their knowledge and experience; this represents value for the customer still as a more experienced designer is less likely to struggle with meeting timescales, understand how to compile a design brief without relying on you to do it by yourself, and not get tripped up by issues such as print colours, printing bleeds and file compatability with the printing firm.

A standard graphic design company will be able to meet your web and print graphic design needs and cover at least minimum design services such as logo design, stationery design, and web site design.

Some firms may in addition offer more creatively orientated design work such as graphic illustrations which can be incorporated into your website design, stationery and branding.

Using illustrations as part of your business branding can be a powerful way of setting yourself apart from your competition.

Budgeting for your project

It can be difficult to assess which graphic company offers the best value service when each graphic design company charges vary so much, however the following pointers may help you to focus on some of the important considerations:

- What is the reputation of the graphic design company you are considering; have you ever heard of them before, have they been recommended to you by someone you trust, do they appear to have an existing client base you can potentially contact, or any client recommendations/testimonials you can view?

- Are there any ‘red flags’ in evidence that should make you wary of using a particular graphic design company such as a lack of contact details for the firm (address, telephone numbers and so on), poor customer service from the outset of your initial communication with them, or an unprofessional manner in their telephone or email conversations with you?

- Does the graphic design company have a portfolio for you to view; ideally you should steer away from using a firm that does not have a portfolio as without a portfolio you have no evidence that they can provide the level of professional design work required, whether they have experience of working with other clients on similar projects, or even if their particular design style (most firms lean towards a particular style) meets your needs.

- What support are they willing to offer you? A high quality graphic design company will offer ongoing support with the graphic designs they have completed for you ? ideally for free. This support is invaluable over the long term as in many cases you will use your graphic designs over and over for several years.

There are over 2,500 different franchises for sale right now. Trying to choose the right one might seem like an impossible task. If you are a first time franchise purchaser, where should you begin? The answer is not easy; every franchise is unique and there are hundreds of characteristics to review. That said, certain characteristics keep popping up when we examine the best franchises.

Here are SmarterFranchises three keys to a great franchise:

1. Multi-unit Ownership
The proof is in the pudding. The best indication that a franchisee is happy with his business is if he spends more money to purchase another unit or an additional territory. The logic is the same as why Honda has such a strong reputation in the car market. If your uncle Jeff has bought three Accords in a row, Honda must be doing something right.

For the most part, multi-unit owners start with one store which becomes so successful that the want a second and so on. In order to finance a second store, a lender will examine the first store’s cash flow. If a franchise wasn’t financially viable, it would be nearly impossible to open additional units.

Multi-unit ownership is also an indication of operational efficiency in a concept. With some franchises, there is so much work that is impossible for the franchise owner to focus on anything but day to day operations. The book, “The E Myth” talks extensively about this trap of getting stuck “working in your business” vs. “working on your business.” Even if you never plan to open multiple units, this is an important characteristic, because more likely than not, you would eventually like to retire or at least take a vacation one day.

Be wary of franchise owners who explain low multi-unit ownership by suggesting franchisees make enough money with just one unit. If there is one thing history has shown, people rarely decide they have “enough” money.

2. Proven Franchisor Track Record
There are three items to think about when examining the franchisor’s track record. The first is an understanding of how much risk there is that the franchisor might go out of business. Unfortunately, many of the 2,500 franchise concepts available just won’t make it as sustainable businesses. If you purchase one of these concepts, you may lose much of your investment.

Second, the franchisor’s track record should give you an indication about the quality of the concept. Did the franchisor own several successful stores for many years before deciding to franchise his concept or did he just decide one day that there was good money in franchising so he better come up with a concept.

Third, franchisors with longer track records have more established training and support programs. While you might save a few thousand dollars buy getting into a franchise early, chances are you won’t get much for your investment. New franchisees haven’t had the time to put together development support or training programs or marketing campaigns. Also, if you are one of the first buyers, you are the guinea pig which often means more risk. Maybe a new food concept works great in a mall food court or maybe it doesn’t? Wouldn’t be nice if you weren’t the one who had to run the experiment?

3. Strong, independent franchisee association
Unfortunately, the unspoken reality is that the franchisor’s and franchisee’s interests aren’t always aligned. Eventually, there will be disagreements over finances, marketing programs or development issues. Knowing that issues are sure to arise, it is helpful to know that you will have an organized group of franchisees who can relate to your situation. Independent associations have many benefits. In addition to creating leverage for the purpose of negotiating with the franchisor, an association also can improve communication among franchisees. Independent associations also allow members to pool resources to hire competent professionals such as lawyers or financial advisors or marketing consultants. Finally, like with any organization, a collective, institutional memory is created. The AFA has an excellent article on associations on its site

It is also a negative sign if the franchisor goes out of its way to discourage an association. It usually means that the franchisor does not have the franchisees best interests in mind and is afraid of having to deal fairly with franchisees.

In addition to independent associations, franchisees may also develop a co-op to purchase goods at a discount or control a portion of the system’s advertising budget or develop a lobby group for a specific issue. All of these our good signs.

Catalog retail is a world all it’s own. Many considerations that other retailers don’t have to deal with are of utmost importance to a catalog retailer. To name a few, the ordering process, warehousing and shipping must be streamlined for maximum efficiency. Maintaining a top notch inventory control and receiving department is also very crucial to business success. Above all, however, a catalog retailer must have a quality business phone system.

Considering the fact that the majority of customers will reach you over the phone, it is paramount to be able to not only handle call volume during peak times, but also to provide your customers service representatives with the features they need to do their job well. Business phone systems should be capable of not only putting your customers in touch with you, but also offer routing flexibility, voicemail and forwarding options for the administrative side of your company. Often, the difference maker for catalog retailers is not the products they sell, but the service behind those products. People who want to buy will have questions regarding an item that a simple picture and brief description will not answer. Most companies have service reps who take orders and product specialists who are familiar with the inventory.

It is essential for the product specialists to have access to a phone system that will accurately and easily allow them to receive and transfer calls between departments. After the initial contact by the sales representatives, the most common transfer of waiting customers will be to product specialists and hopefully back to the sales reps. A customer who is dropped accidentally during this transfer is likely to not call back. Additionally, customers who are made to hold for extended periods of time without an automated message thanking them for their patience are a primary example of lost revenue that could be curtailed by the proper business phone system. All in all, a well thought out business phone system is an integral necessity for any company, but it is especially important for catalog retailers.