Small Business Website

7 Steps on How to Start a Window Cleaning Business That is Successful!

photo credit: Francois Schnell

Before listing the 7 steps on how to start a window cleaning business below, I’d like to first say that I’m going to assume you know that you need to register a business name (preferably with the term “window cleaning service” or “window washing service” in the name). OK…let’s move on…

1. Image - In order to grow your window cleaning business the way you want to grow it, you MUST establish a high quality image. There are window cleaners all over the place that look “average”. They show up to do a window washing estimate and they look like they just rolled out of bed. Put yourself in a prospect’s shoes. 3 window cleaners show up to provide ‘em an estimate. Only one of them (hopefully you) is in company uniform (polo shirt/logo) and presents a nice estimate presentation package (references, cover letter, etc.) with a written estimate (most window cleaners provide verbal estimates with no references). Who do you think the prospect will choose to clean their windows. Um…let me think. YOU!

2. Market - Do some initial research into your target market of prospects and what subdivisions/areas where they live. My markets were generally higher income homeowners and retirees. Read the rest of this entry »

Franchise Financing - What You Really Need to Know

photo credit: powerbooktrance

Franchise financing for first-time franchisees

Some potential franchise financing sources include the following:

- Personal savings and investments
- Borrowing from friends and family members
- Taking out a small business loan from a local bank or credit union
- Obtaining a second mortgage on your home
- Working with outside investors or investment capital firms
- Obtaining a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA)
- Obtaining a loan from Canada Small Business Financing (CSBF

You must come up with the money to be in business!

The statistical truth is that the single most common reason new franchisees (and for that matter, all other types of new businesses) fail is that they did not have enough money going into the investment. Read the rest of this entry »

Small Business Webhosting

photo credit: eelke dekker

Small business webhosting is crucial for the business concerned. Get it wrong and it could cost a great deal in lost income opportunities and even customer complaints. You may well have considered all sorts of things to do with webhosting, but have you thought about one very important area - backing up your website?

Backing up your web host data is a very vital thing for website owners because so much is at stake if information is lost. You might think it will never happen but it can and does happen to businesses. There are a million and one ways that a web host server might crash and all the data be lost for ever. Not least, users can accidentally overwrite vital files when they are amending their website. This can be easy to do when carrying out such a technical task.

Perhaps you work with one computer only, as many businesses do. You could, quite simply, use the back up facility which I already on your PC. Just about every desktop computer comes with this option built so you could get to know how to use this facility and back up you website before you upload it.

Better still, create a separate file where you can download everything - absolutely everything - from your website to your PC. Then, again, use your back up facility to safely store the information on a disk of some sort. Read the rest of this entry »

Double Your Small Business’ Revenue by Using 11 Secrets

photo credit: nayrb7

I would like to talk to small business owners for a minute. Take some time out of your busy schedules to hear a few things that more than likely will catapult your business to the next level if you apply yourself. I have recently come across an online course that will teach you Step-by-Step How to DOUBLE Your Small Business’ Revenue by Using 11 Secrets that Your Competitors DON’T KNOW about the Power of the Internet to Attract a Stampede of New Customers to Your Business.

This is truly an amazing course. I have been involved in internet marketing for a few years now after
being tired of the same boring routine at my 9 to 5 working for crumbs. I decided to explore ways online
to get some extra cash. With having NO knowledge of using the tools of the internet such as youtube,
craigslist, article marketing, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Small Business Loan Advisor - Does Obama’s Economic Stimulus Bill Help Small Businesses?

photo credit: markhillary

If you are a small business owner that has toyed with the idea of a SBA loan, is there anything beneficial in the new economic recovery act (”The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009″) that will help me? It may surprise you to learn there is. No, I am not a paid spokesman for the U.S. government. Let me go one step further. What if there was a program paid by taxpayer dollars that actually reduced your cost of doing business in procuring a loan? You would probably think it was another chimerical attempt by Congress to bluff the American public. But it’s actually true.

Here is how it works. When you get a SBA loan from your local banker (come on now–it is possible in this economy), you have to pay at closing what is called a “SBA guarantee fee”. These fees are dutifully collected and sent off to Washington to create a war chest. If you have the misfortune of defaulting on your loan, the lender can tender this default to the U.S. government and receive between 50% and 85% (possibly 90% under new laws) of the loss as reimbursement. In fact, that is one the purposes of the SBA: to cover defaults through the SBA guarantee loan program. But as the applicant, you have always had to pay this out of pocket. And it wasn’t cheap. For a loan up to $150,000, the fee was 2% of 50% of the loan value (the 50% in this example is the guarantee amount). It was 3% for loans above that amount. For example, with a $150,000 loan, you would be paying approximately $1,500 ($150,000 X .02 X .50) just for the guarantee fee, in addition to additional costs such as the processing fee, appraisal, etc. This is money that would ordinarily have gone into your pockets for business use. For the hearty among us who like to read the actual provisions of the statute, here you go (15 U.S.C. 636(a)): Read the rest of this entry »

Starting a Small Business in Finance - Help People Repair Their Credit

photo credit: Pop!Tech

Starting a small business is not too difficult. One area that you can start a business is in the finance industry. Perhaps you are a finance guru in hiding and you need to let the world know about it so that you can help them in some way.

One way to really help people is to help them repair their credit. There are a lot of individuals with credit issues who need help. They are looking at doing things such as bankruptcy and we all know that bankruptcy can cause people to not be able to acquire credit for many years to come.

So what you need to do is help people repair their credit. You can assess their income, their expenses, and tell them where it is they can cut corners and fix their credit. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Reasons Why Small Business Owners Should Adopt Social Media Marketing

photo credit: martinvarsavsky

Social media and social media marketing seem to be the buzzwords since the past couple of years. We hear a lot about ways that companies can use to tap social media communities and the strategies involve in building a following on social media platforms. In this article, I will try my best to help you as a small business owner on why you should adopt social media marketing.

Reason #1 Huge Audience on Social Media Platforms

If you don’t know about it yet, Facebook, the largest social networking site on the Internet, is growing by 600,000 users per day, yes, per DAY! Twitter, the microblogging platform turned social interaction site, grew by 600% in just 2008 alone and currently house 6 million registered members. Imagine just 1% of the users of these platforms talking about your small business. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Apply For a Small Business Loan For a Franchise

photo credit: McPig

The American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or even the old adage of two cars in the garage and a chicken in every pot is often exemplified in the American small business. Too many people seem to focus on the ideal of “being your own boss” while overlooking one of the greatest benefits there is to owning your own business: financial independence. While it’s true that not every small business owner will become independently wealthy, and it’s also true that all of those late-night infomercials promising to make you a millionaire over night are promising more than they can deliver, it is entirely possible to achieve your financial goals and love what you do with a small business.

Whether you’ve always wanted to own your own business, or you’re simply curious to see what it entails, the hardest part of starting up is inevitably finding the right small business loan. Small business startups can often be risky, and in an unstable economy, it may be harder than ever to secure a loan, particularly if you’ve never owned your own business before. Read the rest of this entry »

Government Loans

photo credit: Christian Heindel

These days when there is so much of hue and cry amongst private loan agencies, each trying to downplay the merits and work of the other, the loans offered by government remain immaculate and selflessly benefiting the public.

Government loans are a cut above the rest in quite a few ways. Firstly every private agency offering loan does it with the purpose of making profits but in contrast to this government loans are meant only for the welfare of public. Since government is a body meant for the people, it does not seek any personal gains. Unlike the private banks and other such loan agencies, government also offers loans to those downtrodden people who can hardly pay it back. Government loans not just a great help to the destitute but also a big contribution in the smooth functioning of the economy of the country. Read the rest of this entry »

Merchant Loans For 2009

photo credit: papalars

There are many reasons why I feel the merchant loan will be one of the most sought-out methods of business financing for 2009. Many of those reasons stem from our current economic situation.

Fact: “We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” as stated many times by President Barack Obama. It is also a fact that the issues that tipped off the U.S.’s recession ultimately have a domino or ripple affect and in the worst cases can even result in a cycle of economic hardships that is difficult to break.

Example: Banks tighten their lending standards, making it more difficult for business owners to get loans. –> Business owners have to find other ways to finance, such as increasing prices. –> Read the rest of this entry »