by Bold Growth Solutions | May 27, 2021 | Blog
Almost every industry has a business that finances its equipment. Whether you are a one-person operation or work for a large corporation, you can benefit from equipment financing. Here are some of the most noticeable benefits.
Get the Latest Technology
Equipment financing gives you the option to tap into the latest technology to enhance your rate of production. In other words, you can quickly outproduce your competitors and repay your loans. This gives you a competitive advantage and lets you increase your revenue.
Lower Your Risk
Whenever you spend cash on equipment, there is a risk. The more cash you spend on machinery, the greater the risk. Even with the latest technology and increased production rates, it will still take a while before you build your stash back up. However, financing your equipment will allow you to lower your risk by keeping more cash on hand.
Combat Inflation
When you pay a lot of money for a machine, you worry about the price of inflation. However, when you take out a loan for your equipment, you are locking in what you pay at an affordable price. This will be a cash-saving advantage in the long run.
Put Little Money Down
Financing your equipment allows you to keep larger amounts of cash on hand, so you can hire new employees, buy a new site, improve your advertising campaign, expand your product line, conduct market research, or do anything else you want. This is so because you only have to put a little money down on your new equipment. Sometimes, you don’t even have to put any money down. This means you can get the benefit of keeping your cash on hand and using brand-new equipment.
Conserve Your Lines of Credit
Equipment loans do not affect your other lines of credit. This means you will still be eligible for loans from banks and business credit cards in the future.
Reap Tax Breaks
Financing your equipment is a bonus because of the tax breaks. Most of the time, your payments will be tax-deductible. Certain companies will even work with you to find an optimized payment plan to get the most tax breaks.
Many businesses finance their equipment. Whether you work for a large corporation or own a small business, you can still use this option. When you do, you will tap into the many benefits that are associated with it. This list is just the most prominent benefits. Many others make financing your equipment a great option.
by Bold Growth Solutions | May 20, 2021 | Blog
Securing financing in the modern business landscape an uphill battle, full of obstacles. Here’s what businesses can do to make sure they have the best chance possible at small business loan approval.
Be Prepared & Organized
Preparation is key. Come with all of the required documents neatly organized and ready for inspection. Organization shows the lender that the applicant is serious about their money. Have essential documentation like bank statements, licenses and registrations, commercial leases, and articles of incorporation ready along with the business’s balance sheets, an accurate list of assets, and tax returns. Failure to provide documentation is almost a guaranteed failure for most applications.
Improve Cash Flow
Good cash flow indicates the business can produce enough cash to cover the loan payments. Improving cash flow doesn’t necessarily mean increasing sales; try collecting from customers by offering discounts for paying early on outstanding invoices. It’s a quick way to make the balance sheet look better.
Strengthening the Business Credit Score
Businesses have their own credit score and a report should include the company’s payment record, total debt, the number of loans recently applied for, along with the credit available. Make sure the info is correct and try not to add any further debt while making a loan application.
A Detailed Credit Plan
The credit plan is an outline of how much credit will be offered to specific customers and the plans for repayment. Customers that are creditworthy are what banks look for when making loans. Focus on the development of policies and procedures governing the company’s credit policy.
Build a Solid Relationship with the Lender
Some of the ways to cultivate a profitable relationship include applying for business credit cards through the lending institution, transferring checking/savings accounts to the banks, and making any payments on time.
by Bold Growth Solutions | May 20, 2021 | Blog
As a small business owner, you probably spend very little time actually sitting at your desk. That’s why having access to several mobile small business apps, such as the ones highlighted below, is essential.
Basecamp: When you work on projects as part of a group, it can disrupt the effort when others are out for the day or travelling on business. Basecamp provides an online meeting place for project participants to compare notes, check each person’s progress, and contribute your own work. A daily email recap lets everyone involved in the project know exactly where things stand. Basecamp is also an ideal application for people who work remotely from home.
Evernote: Have you ever had your best business ideas when you’re busy doing something else? With the Evernote small business app, you can input, organize, and tag your notes for easy access when you get back to the office.
Expensify: Although not too many business travelers enjoy creating expense reports, the Expensify mobile app makes it much easier. You can snap photos of receipts, convert to foreign currencies, import credit or debit card expenses, and have needed information at your fingertips come tax time. The program is fully integratable with Excel, QuickBooks, and other popular financial software.
Microsoft Remote Desktop: This small business app makes it possible to access information from your work computer regardless of your location. As soon as you install the application on your computer, it creates a link to your mobile device that allows video and audio streaming on a secure connection. You can repeat this process with multiple computers.
Outlook: The mobile version of Outlook offers the same calendar, email, and attachments as the full version. It’s more secure and ensures that your company always looks professional by sending messages from your business email account.
Square Register: Square Register on your mobile device allows you to accept credit card payments, track inventory, and send receipts by email.
With these small business applications, you can easily keep up with the goings-on of your business no matter where you are.
by Bold Growth Solutions | May 13, 2021 | Blog
Marketing your services on the internet requires a good amount of preliminary research. These days, there are countless businesses shouting for attention online. In order for your brand to make itself known in a way that yields results, you need to put thought behind every decision you make. A tried-and-true process like search engine optimization can prove invaluable at every step of your endeavor. To make the most out of SEO, there are a handful of points you should keep in mind. Use these tips to create a strategy that helps you get started.
Don’t Forget the Basics
Plenty of business owners use optimization tactics to improve the way their websites and social media pages rank on search engines. The practice has become quite standard for digital marketing. However, optimization trends change regularly. In order to keep up with the shifts in consumer search habits, business owners forget the basics. Keywords are the heart and soul of optimizing your web assets. As long as you always have an ear to the ground about this cornerstone of optimization, you will be able to keep yourself in a good position with your strategy.
Location Is Vital
With so many competitors on the internet, you want to take time to cultivate a marketing campaign that targets people in whatever unique ways you can imagine. One angle that has yielded fantastic results for smaller businesses is geo-specific SEO. By using words and phrases associated with the region where your business is located, you will have a much easier time getting your website and other assets to appear on the first page of search results for potential customers in your area. Work in location and see how it can change your success rate.
Understand Bad Practices
Since search engine optimization is a strategy that has existed for a good amount of time now, there are endless practices within the field that no longer prove fruitful. In fact, some outdated tactics can run the risk of getting you flagged by Google and other engines. The approach of “stuffing” keywords into content without relevance or context has become a huge strike against websites. Make sure you’re familiar with the “bad” practices so you can avoid any marks against you or your company.
Getting the most out of SEO is all about following the most sensible practices. Do some research on the basics, get to know current trends, and see how a little research can help you find lasting success online.
by Bold Growth Solutions | May 6, 2021 | Blog
Franchising is a great way to break into the world of business ownership, because the brand is already established, and all of your business acumen can go to ensuring proper operation. Unlike with a company that you’ve built from the ground-up, the franchise is already well-known, and has general tried-and-true business operation procedures that will be made available to you. More often than not, running a successful one boils down to your dedication to implementing these sage practices, as well as your capacity to expand on them in novel ways.
Support Right Out-of-the-Box
Franchising entails a full suite of support tools and options right from the start. Any entrepreneur will tell you that the most difficult part of starting a business is the marketing program – you have to make it profitable very soon, because the first installment of the monthly payments on the loan is due right away.
When dealing with a franchise, the bulk of that initial work has already been done – and it’s been done quite successfully. They’re already in the media (otherwise it wouldn’t be a franchise in the first place), pricing issues are established and the brand is solidified. Instead of having to build a customer base from the ground up, all that’s left for you to do is add to it. There are many methods available to help; such as the local marketing potential of the online space.
Established Leadership with Franchising
One of the most powerful attributes of business leadership is wisdom. To have someone you can turn to for help is invaluable; franchising gives you this with the often outstanding back support. You can turn to successful owners in other locations for help; your common bond is strong enough to get this help. Furthermore, these people often make it easy for you to reach out; they’ve already built the traffic-generating websites, optimized the pay-per-click and SEO programs, and employed offline techniques to great effect.
In sum, with franchising, you’ve got a program of promotion, senior help and a customer base. This allows you to take the helm and focus on extending the company brand, without worrying about all the many things that derail most start-ups. The base considerations have already been taking care of, leaving you to extend the company’s reach as far as your abilities and dedication allows.
by Bold Growth Solutions | Apr 8, 2021 | Blog
With so many options for marketing your business, which should you select? The answer depends on a few things. The size of your business matters because that dictates how many customers you can serve without sacrificing service. The type of business you have matters because some goods and services are not very mobile; other can be marketed worldwide from your home office. Once you have these variables nailed down, it should be a little easier to create a marketing strategy. One avenue you should definitely consider, though, is Facebook. The social media giant has a variety of both paid and free options from which you can choose to enhance your chances of reeling in new customers while you retain the ones you have.
Freebies
It’s free to create a Facebook page. You should have one for your business. It should include all the things your customers may need. If you’re a restaurant, you absolutely must have pictures of your menu posted. You can then post about your daily specials to keep yourself fresh on the homepages and feeds of your followers. If your business serves your local community, your address, hours of operation, website and phone number should be in the designated locations so people can find them. Be sure to remind your clients to ‘check in’ at your location when they visit, too. This is free advertising because then all their friends get to see that they’ve been at your location. There’s nothing like a recommendation from friends to encourage people to check you out. Be careful about what you post from your business’ site, however. You want everything that goes out from there to reflect positively on you so that you don’t inadvertently chase away potential customers.
Pay to Play
Some companies need to take it a step further. Facebook has you covered there, too. They offer multiple kinds of advertising spots. You can choose a single picture ad. Do so with catchy graphics to snag your potential customer’s eye. Sometimes a short video ad will be a better choice. Did you turn your garden shop into a magical fairyland to host a wedding? Putting up a Facebook video ad can show that off best. Use a Facebook poll ad to engage your customers and learn their favorites at the same time so you can more effectively market to them. Do you have more than one picture? Try the carousel ad option. You can have up to ten different pictures of your product or service displayed. There are others, too. Facebook, with its 1+ billion daily users, can help you connect with your customer base.
