Business Loan Option Blog

The contact list is the most important tool in a marketer’s tool box. As a business owner, you probably have an offline contact list of prior customers who you can call and network with to find new work and new sales prospects. The same is true online, but each site can differ on how a list is created and how you can market it, depending on site restrictions. Social networking sites like Facebook, tend to be the most restrictive, as they don’t want anyone spamming their user base with marketing promotions. Twitter has recently added lists to their sites, and they can prove to be beneficial in marketing people there. However, the best way to create a contact list from multiple sites, is to gather the emails you have from various sites, and create master lists within services like Aweber.com that allow you send out automated email campaigns and track the responsiveness of your lists. You can categorize them by building multiple lists in Aweber for customers, subscribers, and even financial business loan contacts.

On Your Business Website

Use a free offer and a double opt-in form to harvest emails from traffic to your website. A double opt-in means that they will sign up and receive an email that asks for verification of that email address. Upon clicking the link in the email, they are verified and allowed to log into your site to retrieve their free offer, or you’ve automatically sent it to that email address upon verification. Either way, you want them to verify the email address to keep spammers and bots out of your lists. Grabbing emails from visitors to your site is a great place to start building your online lists. You do have some autoresponders available from your site, but eventually, you may want to centralize all your lists into a master list outside the website too.

On Facebook

Facebook is pretty sneaky about the emails on their site. They are stored as image files and are in the Info tab, not the main Wall area. They are not always visible as the person who owns the profile can hide this information. The emails are shown as an image file, so you can’t just cut and paste it into another file. You actually have to read it and then write it into another file or on a piece of paper, if you wanted to move it to a list off Facebook. Of course, spamming someone who has their email on Facebook is a direct violation of their terms of service and can get your own account banned. The other option is to make lists for different categories of friends in a list. Unfortunately, even when emailing within Facebook, you cannot select more than 20 people at a time to send an email to within the Inbox.
The easiest way to move people off your Facebook account is to offer them something free on your website and then post the offer on your status update for signing up their email on your double opt-in list.

Twitter

Twitter has just started promoting a list function. Right now, emails do not appear on Twitter profiles. You can use the same strategy with Twitter that you use with Facebook, by trying to get people off the site back to your double opt-in page to harvest the email. The list function is so new that there’s no real indication if you will be able to direct message multiple people in the future or not. Right now, you can only send a direct message to one person at a time. However, you can automate a direct message to be sent upon certain actions, like when someone first starts following you.

Aweber.com

This site provides an email marketing service that is affordable and very efficient. Once you have a master list of people who have agreed to let you market them, you can add them to your Aweber.com account and set up an email campaign that stays in contact every few days. You can add offers to those emails and track open rates of the emails too. You can even see who isn’t opening your email, and put those on a different campaign. You can see the clickthrough rates of your links and find out which are more effective than others. This will give you valuable insight into what triggers people in your audience to buy and which links are dead upon arrival. By establishing a professional email marketing campaign and categorized lists, you can generate sales even when you’re not actively online.

Are you aware that there are funds out there that can help a minority company get a business loan? The government and some business organizations have put aside money to loan to ethnic minorities and women. If you are looking for a federal agency to help with a business loan check out the Minority Business Development Agency. This agency was created to help minorities start and grow a business. Some of the money goes to different networks such as the Native American Business Development Centers, Business Resource Centers and Minority Business Development Centers around the country.

What can these centers do for your business? Many things, but the main points are providing assistance with a business plan, management, marketing skills, technical assistance and help with getting financing. Your company can expect personalized service with the various aspects of running and procuring a business loan.

Because applying for a business loan can be confusing help could be available for the application process. Local chapters of these organizations can often be instrumental in helping in the loan process. They have been known to give a minority business a loan when they have been turned down by mainstream lenders.

What will the lenders be looking for before they approve your business loan? It will depend on whether or not you are starting a business or have an existing one. If you have a business they will want to look at your financials. The length of time you have been in business will be important to them as will your projected sales. If you are looking to start a minority run business they are going to want a business plan. You will almost always need to provide personal information as well. They will be looking at your FICO score, liquid assets and any personal loans you might have.

There are no grants available from the Small Business Association to start or grow your business, but they will guarantee a business loan for as much as two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. If you get approved for this SBA loan you need to find a bank or lending institution that has SBA approval.

This isn’t as difficult as it seems since many banks are generally approved lenders. The only thing that could be different between the banks is the qualifications for the loan. It pays to research the different banks and their terms and conditions because some work more often with minorities.

One major bank that has a good working relationship with minorities asks that you have been in business for two years, show a profit, possess good business and personal credit records and be free from a bankruptcy for at least ten years. They have been making business loans for amounts that span five thousand to one hundred thousand dollars.

If you are looking for more options for a minority business loan you can also check out the Small Business Investment Companies. These companies aren’t federally funded, however. The SBIC’s as they are known rely on private or managed investment firms to provide the funds. These companies will loan money for start up costs as well as venture capital for your small minority run business. You can feel comfortable using the small business investment companies because the Small Business Association licenses and regulates them. Your company can find out more about these business loans at the SBA website under SBIC’s.

Some things to remember if you decide to apply for an SBA business loan are what the requirements are. The first one is that you must have been turned down by a commercial bank or lending institution. The second provision is that you will need to have a guaranty which includes both business and personal. The third stipulation is that you are not a non - profit organization as well as operating your business in the United States. There must be some form of owner equity that you will invest and if you have any personal finances or assets you will use them first.

The normal repayment period for an SBA business loan is anywhere from five to twenty five years. This will be determined on the assets being financed and the other needs of your business. A working capital business loan is another possibility and they generally have to be repaid in five to ten years.

Outsourcing has gotten very popular as the global economy has become more viable with technologies like the Internet that makes a distant country your next door neighbor. When businesses become cash-strapped, they might try to increase cash with small business loans, or cut expenses by hiring outsourced staff, or both. There have been some major lessons learned in the race to outsource, and one of the greatest is that not all industries can be outsourced. If you require proficiency in a particular language, face-to-face interaction, and a location-specific place to do business, it can be more difficult to outsource a job. In addition, managing a remote workforce comes with a number of risks. How do you know they are working when they say they are? Who is doing the supervising? How can you establish some protocol for measuring productivity when you can’t even tell if someone has walked into the office yet? That’s why, if you outsource, it’s important to understand how to manage your staff remotely, before you turn over work that may or may not get done to your standards.

Locating Quality Talent

Obviously, you can’t travel half-way around the world to meet someone face-to-face every time you want to outsource a portion of your work. That’s why it’s important to find talent through freelance boards or outsourcing companies, but how long will they be available to you? Working with a company is usually preferable to hiring an outsourced freelancer, as there is someone actually supervising their work and able to provide a replacement, if they don’t work out. It’s their job to locate the talent. All you have to do is tell them what you need. Be as explicit as possible with all the tasks you expect to have this person do, so there are no surprises later. It’s possible to get workers who have a passing proficiency in English, can do website coding, answer emails, and Internet research. If you can plan out a week of work to show what a typical set of tasks might look like, you’re likely to get a better match. The more vague you are, the more you’re likely to not get what you want. Think your requirements through as if you were hiring someone locally and they were going to have to go through a rigorous interview and hiring process. Even though this arrangement may be temporary, if you find it works for you, you can continue it for as long as it works for you and your company.

Ask Them How They Supervise Their Employees

These days you can hire a virtual assistant over the Internet on a part-time or full-time basis via online outsourcing companies. Get a good idea how they are managing and supervising their employees. While you may not like the idea of web cams or keystroke counting software, these are some technological tools that these cultures use to ascertain their workers are on the job. At the very least, you should know when your employee is logging in and getting offline. You can pay per task, when using freelance boards, but it’s often easier to allot a salary then to negotiate the price for each contract job as it comes along.

Establish A Set Communication Schedule

Even with the outsourcing company doing some remote supervision, it’s up to you to establish a set communication schedule to make sure the work is getting done. The schedule is up to you, and can be as frequent as three times a day to once a day or once a week. At first, communications will be more frequent as the relationship between the two of you is new and will need time to cement. Once you have a set routine, you won’t need to communicate as often as the worker will have demonstrated their skills and the ability to work on their own.

Get Reliable Workers

After a few weeks, if you’re still not getting the results you need, you can contact the outsourcing company and ask for a re-assignment, in most cases. If you’re not sure you can do this because you’ve paid upfront, then read your contract carefully. What you want to do is locate and hire reliable workers who will eventually work on their own, with limited supervision. Even if a job is slotted to take four hours, if you get a worker that can shoot it out with great quality in two hours, they’re a keeper. If you get one that can’t finish in a day, move on to the next person.

As an entrepreneur you may have a business in mind.  Your strengths based on your experience will help you choose what type of business you may want to own.  However, you may be in a situation where starting your own business is less attractive than the alternative.  A franchise or franchising is when you use someone else’s business model.  You will be granted the right to distribute business products and use the techniques and trademarks to own a business.  You will pay a licensing fee and royalties for the franchise rights.

Part of a franchise means you obtain advertising, training, and support from the franchisor to help you set up the business.  The support will last for six months to a year depending on the franchisor.  You will always have the advertising and marketing support as well as the trademark and logo to use in the franchise even after the support has ended.  With a franchise you will be responsible for paying an upfront fee.  The fee will give you the rights to use the trademark and obtain the materials and business model.  To purchase these rights you may need to look at a business loan, but more on that a little later.

After the initial fee is paid you will be responsible for paying royalties every year or even every month.  It will depend on the franchisor as to how often the royalties are paid.  Royalties are a portion of the revenue your franchise earns.  This payment can be 1 to over 50 percent of the revenue you generate.  When you look for a franchise you want to find the lowest royalty payment, so that you have enough revenue to make the opportunity worthwhile.  Often a lower royalty payment will mean a larger initial investment.

There are advantages and disadvantages of franchises which will help you decide if franchising is a viable option for you.  Disadvantages are a limited amount of franchises are available and control limitations.  There are franchises such as restaurants, hair salons, retail businesses, services, and other industries, but not every business is a franchise.  You have to search out a viable franchise that is affordable to you and this is where a limit on franchises comes in.  Based on your financial strengths there may be very few franchises available to you.

You will also be limiting your control.  You have to stay with the business model you purchase.  You are little more than a manager when it comes to a franchise.  While you gain revenue directly you must stick to the rules of the franchisor.  The advertising, marketing, and even the hiring of employees are part of the franchisors control.

A franchise does not guarantee success financially.  It is up to you to make the franchise a success by choosing the right market for the business.  This can be both an advantage and disadvantage.  The instant success is not there, however a brand typically means you have a better chance of being a success than starting from scratch.

The advantages are also all about getting a proven business model, marketing, and the support you need to get started.  When you begin your own business that is not a franchise you are dependent solely on your experience and desire to succeed.  With a franchise you get a little more.

Now is where you have to decide if a franchise is right for you.  Do you want someone else controlling how you run the business?  What happens if you find there is something not working in the business model and a slight change could increase your revenue?  Typically in a franchise you cannot change the business model without permission from the franchisor and they may not grant it.  Your business could suffer as a result.

The best way to determine if a franchise you are looking at is successful and does not require changes is to look at the books.  The accounts will show you the success a franchise has experienced and if there are flaws.  You can then choose a different franchise or open your own business.

We mentioned a business loan above.  You may have to obtain a business loan to purchase the franchise.  You will still require collateral and money to start the franchise outside of the loan.  Basically to get the loan you need some savings and collateral to prove you are responsible and that the loan will be used appropriately. Without these two items you may not get the loan, which can impact your decision.

In these rough economic times it can be more difficult for a small business to secure new business loan rates and thus a new business loan.  Some banks are unwilling to lend money in difficult economic situations to a new business or one that is struggling.  There are ten tips offered here that could help you get the bank loan approval you need.

Finding money is always difficult when starting a new business.  There are numerous obstacles you will face.  The best way to begin your new business is through savings.  Many business owners worked for a few years to save up enough capital to appear financially solvent to a bank or other lending institution.  If you have savings to be used as collateral on a business loan you are already in great shape to approach the banks.  However, there are still a few things to consider:

1. Banks need to lend money.  A bank makes money making loans because they earn interest on the money borrowed.  Approaching the right bank is paramount to obtaining the best business loan and business loan rates. You and your small business plan should approach a bank that is familiar with your industry. A bank more comfortable with your type of business is more likely to offer you better loan rates and the loan.  Keep in mind the bank will still require a high collateral if you are just starting the business.

2. Be Prepared.  Bank loan officers are looking for several things in a lender.  They want to know you are professional, that you take the loan you are asking for seriously and above all that you can afford it.  You need to show your banker a low risk business plan.  The loan application, copies of cash flow reports, and business financial statements should be with you during the meeting.  A cover letter will also help.

3. Anticipate the Questions.  The bank loan officer will ask you a series of questions: How much money are you asking for, how long do you need the loan, what will the loan be for, when and how can you repay the debt, and what happens if you do not get the loan?  You should know these questions will be asked and what answers you can give in response.  The paperwork you have from tip 2 will help you answer the questions.

4. Be Positive.  It is amazing how many individuals attempt to obtain great business loan rates and the money they need without keeping their attitude in check.  You may have been turned down for a loan before.  You may feel your business has a few faults; however, you cannot show any of this.  You must remain positive. Never be negative or apologetic.  Confidence and a professional dress code will go a long way towards success.

5. Be Honest.  There is a difference between being honest and being negative.  When you fill out the loan application you must accurately portray your business and financial situation.  The lender can easily check on the information you provide on the loan application.  Lying or fudging the truth to look a little better gives a bad impression and is grounds for loan termination.

6. Take Your Time.  Typewriters may be old fashioned, but they still have some use in them.  If you cannot scan the loan application into your computer or download it on to your computer for modification then consider finding a typewriter.  You want to make sure all of your loan documents are neat, legible and of course, organized.  If you do have to print, take your time to print clearly and form a typed cover letter.

7. Allow the Loan Officer Time.  Just as you needed time to prepare your documents, your financial history, and yourself for asking for the loan, the loan officer will need time.  Do not push for the loan officer to get back with a decision.  Allow the person handling your information to get what they need.  It may take a day or two to get a decision, but that just means the banker is considering everything you have to offer.

8. Consider Going to Another Lender.  You do not have to approach one bank.  You can ask for a referral from an entrepreneur you know to help you approach another bank.  If you are going to try two or three lenders do so in the same time period.  You do not want any of the lenders you approach to see a former rejection.

9. Discuss Risk.  Business means there is risk.  When you approach a banker make sure you have assessed the risks of your business appropriately. Failure to do so could have them thinking you are not aware of the risk.

10. The First Loan Is Always the Hardest.

You almost need to be a banker to compute the many parts of a business loan. That is why using a business loan calculator is a good choice.  The loan calculator can help with estimating your monthly payment so that you will know just how much you need to sell to make that regular obligation.  Using this device will also let you see how much money you will actually be repaying if you keep it for the life of the loan.

Some business loan calculators cannot only tell you how much you will repay altogether. They can show you how much you could save in interest rates if you made extra payments.  Even if you can’t make extra payments ,but only send a little extra each month the loan calculator still can tell you this information.

By finding out what the exact costs to your business would be with a loan calculator, you can write a better business plan to take to the bank or lending institution.  It will help you manage your finances because you have something concrete to view instead of an abstract figure.

You can find a business loan calculator online and most banks have their own that you can use as well.  If you are searching out the best lending institution for your business loan you can use one loan calculator to see which one has the best business arrangement for you.  If your business already has a loan and you are looking to refinance, using a calculator will allow you to see if there are any better loans available.  You may find that the business loan you already have is still the best one for you.

Small businesses especially need to have the interest and monthly loan payments calculated as they don’t usually have the same volume of sales to help in the repayment process.  By using a loan calculator you can have all the pertinent information at your fingertips.

There are many types of business loans that can benefit a business.  A Term Loan is probably the most common type as they are used to run a business providing the necessary capital.  Your business can find out what the repayment is on this type of loan by entering the pertinent information into the business loan calculator.   You would put in the term of the loan and the interest rate and go from there.

A Short term loan is one that doesn’t last for very long. It can be for six months or a year.  They can be paid back in one sum at the end of the loan cycle.  You would need to calculate how much would be owed on this type of loan even more than one that takes years to repay.  Since the time is shorter the amount could be more than your business could comfortably repay.

If your business is looking at establishing a line of credit the loan calculator again becomes invaluable.  Since you borrow money only when you need it the interest rate and terms could be different each time, depending on how the loan is structured.  Checking the repayment on this loan is important because if it isn’t paid off quickly the cost could be higher than a regular business loan.

A simple business loan calculator would allow you to put in the amount of the loan, the interest rate, how many years the loan is for and when the loan would begin.  In this simple scenario you would find out your monthly payment and how much goes to interest and principal.  It wouldn’t usually tell you how much you will be paying back for the life of the loan.

If you already have a loan and want to refinance the business loan calculator for refinancing will tell you what the new monthly payment would be, if you would be saving any money with a new loan, and the difference in interest.  You would find out the total cost and how many months it could take to recover any costs of the new business loan.  This type of loan calculator has a place for points, fees, attorney’s costs and any other fees associated with the loan.

That’s the cardinal rule of business. Hire talent for things that you don’t know yourself. A successful business owner is one who knows when they’re in over their heads, and calls in the experts. Is it likely that you, as the business owner, understand the fine points of law necessary in legal disputes that arise while operating your business? No! For that, you want to hire a competent lawyer to have on your team. The same is true with various other facets of the business that demand specific talents that are best left to others to oversee. This gives the business owner more time to create new business opportunities and market the company, to investors and customers, in a way that generates growth and value for everyone.

Accountants

Hire someone to keep the books in a way that you can supervise. You don’t want to give away too much power here as it can be a ripe area for fraud. You do want to understand what you’re signing, if you have to take out merchant cash advances or conventional loans. You may not have to do all financial research, but you can have someone else tell you what options are available and then make the decision which financial instrument is right for you. As always set up business procedures that are transparent to you. Having someone to manage taxes, business expenses, and payroll can significantly free up your time for running the business.

Lawyers

As mentioned, getting in contact with a lawyer is one of the first actions you should take, even before you get into business. You need to understand what business structures are going to help you succeed in business and how to set up agreements that won’t come back to bite you in the behind later. Fortunately, you can hire lawyers on retainer or through prepaid plans that will give you contact to lawyers when you need them at a reasonable price.

Human Resource Managers

The amount of time it takes to screen and hire an employee is astronomical. With so many people looking for jobs, you can find someone whose job it is to weed through a pile of resumes and hire the talent you need without taking more time out of your day. They can fine tune the process of keeping tabs on employee complaints and escalating only those that need your immediate attention. Human resource managers are great for understanding the labor laws and what practices you need to avoid to keep your business running within legal guidelines. They can help you put perks in place that retain talent and make your employees happy to work there. They can oversee programs that help employees that are in distress and keep them working by providing the support they need so they can keep their minds on their jobs. Human resource managers are a great addition to your team.

Technical Experts

You can hire people who have a technical expertise that you don’t. If you don’t want to hire a full-time employee, many technical people now do contract work. If you want someone to program some piece of software for you, you can even do it online, through places like Rentacoder.com. Maybe you want to set up an online presence through a e-commerce website. You can do that without knowing how to code yourself, just by detailing the specifications of the job and opening it up to bid. Anything technical that you don’t know how to do is now easily outsourced to someone else.

Content Writers and Publicity Managers

Another great way to outsource work is to hire content writers or publicity managers. These people can help put just the right words to paper in your promotional paper materials, and on your website too. If you either don’t want to spend the time writing your own copy or promoting yourself online or elsewhere, hire someone or some company to do it for you. Once they understand who you are and what your company does, it’s a simple matter of setting up creative copy to make you look good at the budget you desire. Some publicity managers will even write your speeches for you, if you have presentations you need to make online or to a live crowd. If the President does it, why can’t you, right? It just makes good sense to hire people who are knowledgeable in the art of swaying public opinion to help further your business goals.

An online business is one of the easiest types of businesses to begin.  There is very little that you need to actually have a successful internet company, and much of it will be free.  Often when starting up a brick and mortar business you have to seek out loans for business. If you have never owned a business before it can be difficult to get a loan. Furthermore, the bank will look at your personal history and credit scores to come to a decision regarding your loan.

For individuals who have struggled financially, this close examination of your personal history can make it almost impossible to begin a business.  Luckily the online world is a lot nicer to get started in for a new business.  This is not to say there are not struggles.  There certainly are issues with starting an online business due to the high amount of competition out there.  Everyone can start an online business, thus it requires a niche business to be truly successful.

An online business will require some start up capital.  The amount you need is significantly less, thus loans for business can be smaller and easier to obtain in most instances.  By the added benefit of using free services online you can market your website without a huge advertising budget.  Your website is going to be all about how well you market it for the consumer.  To make sales a potential buyer has to find you and then be converted into a buyer.  The 8 tactics in search engine optimization (SEO) we have here can help.

1. Content cannot be stressed enough.  Duplicate content is not a viable option for your site.  You have to provide original, meaningful content on your site and in other marketing places.  Any content you offer should be easy to read, helpful, and to the point.  It should also provide the “call to action.”  A call to action is a phrase or paragraph urging the potential buyer to make the purchase.  It should not be subtle but blaring in its design to get the potential buyer hooked.  Basically this section of your content tells the customer why they cannot pass up your deal.

2. Incoming Links will determine your placement in the page rankings. The more organic your links the better your rankings will be.  Also the more links you have the more often you will be crawled by the search bots.  Incoming links cannot be bought and they must be extremely relevant to the context of your site.

3. Heading Tags are different from website titles.  The heading tags are what you use for the article title, subheadings, and page headings. These tags should be a keyword.  You can have more than the keyword as the heading, but structurally the keyword should be in the first few words of the heading and be relevant to that specific page.  You should not mix your keywords on the pages.  In other words if a page is about cats then that should be reflected in the heading, and leave dogs out of it.

4. Website Domain will be about keywords. Your domain for the website should be your business name with the appropriate keyword.  In fact your business name should be the niche keyword or include it to help customers find your site.

5. Internal Linking is just as important as incoming links.  If your site pages do not link properly it will be hard for the search bots and the client to see what you have to offer. The bots can get lost and your clients will just leave.

6. Sitemaps will go a long way towards SEO.  With a sitemap you are showing the bot exactly how many pages you are, the links for the pages, and a navigation map to help them move through your site.

7. Meta Tags have a low impact on the actual ranking, but are nevertheless important.  While you are not awarded points for key tags you are going to appear in the search results in a higher position if you have the most relevant tags.  The meta tags are the best way for a person to search for a subject.

8. Density of Keywords helps determine where you are placed.  Too many keywords and your content will be considered spammy; not enough keywords and you could end up at the bottom for sheer irrelevance when a search is done.

These 8 tactics can help you minimize the loans for business you need since everything here is available for free.  You do not have to pay for the right density, content, etc. unless you want to.  Saving with SEO helps you promote your business.

Branding your company is important to create an identity that people easily associate with the qualities that make you stand out from the rest of your competition. Online, personal branding becomes even more important as these types of social networks rely on a “face-to-face”connection that is more genuine and less commercial. That means that the same techniques that you use to brand your business offline, may be considered to crass and commercial online. Branding yourself the wrong way online on social networks can actually drive customers away, instead of leading them back to your business. Be careful how you interact with people on your social networks, they need to trust you first as a person, before they will be willing to follow you back to your business website.

Your Profile

All social networks have their users create a personal profile where others can see who you are and what interests you. It’s very important to fill out these profiles as genuinely as possible. Don’t use every area to promote your business, try to project your personal identity that others can relate to, instead of only promoting business opportunities. The reasons for this are simple. No one wants to be marketed on a social network, and if you send out a friend request to someone and they come back to look at your profile and see only business advertisements, you can be sure they will rightly peg you as a business spammer and refuse it. There are other areas within social networks that you can promote your business, but your personal profile should not be one of them. In a sense, online your brand is your personal brand, not your company brand on social networks. That’s what gets your foot in the door.

Take A More Casual Approach

Once you have a profile and you start to get friends, you will have to interact with people to get them interested in you. If you immediately direct message each new friend about your great business opportunity or a product you are trying to sell, they will quickly unfriend you. Instead, take a more casual approach. Join in the fun. Download some applications that relate to your products and services, to give you a jumping off point for talking about your business later. Try to provide value to the community, instead of just seeking to market things. Use the status updates to relay when you post new content on your website, or a press release about your business. You can promote your business and offerings, just add value and content that draws people in and gives them something worthwhile, instead of just a sales pitch. Try to engage new friends in small talk and learn what they are about too. Add them to lists to help you categorize what their interests are and what products and services they might buy later. All in all, it may seem a much more gradual process of selling, and it is! The key is to offer promotions and links back to your website where they might be willing to hand over their email for one of your freebies. Once you’ve engaged them personally, then you can start to look at marketing them a little more.

The Soft Sell

Everyone has asked themselves, how do you sell on a site where people are hyper-sensitive to being marketed outright? It certainly is trickier than doing it on your website, where people expect to get sold on something. The trick is to engage people in a casual way that gets them interested enough to follow you back to your website. One technique is to use an event to help you generate interest. If you’re selling business software, for instance, you can schedule an event where multiple experts will be discussing how they got successful in business. You can then advertise this online event on the social network and be listed as a sponsor, instead of a guest.

Offer them a link back to the free seminar, and give them a reason to register for the event, by either providing a freebie, or not allowing them into the area where it will take place unless they register their email address. Now, you’ve not only got their email address, but you should also have gotten permission to contact them. You can promote your products as a sponsor of the online event to the audience who attends your online seminar, and you can also market them afterwards via email.

This recession has been a paradigm changer due to the demographics of the unemployed. More men than women have been laid off, just because the men were in the most impacted industries of finance, construction, and real estate. These areas of commerce will start to rebound when the economy turns around, but most experts agree that job gains will be slow. That means that more women than men are holding on to their jobs, have more disposable income, and are influencing the retail markets. They may even have better credit and be able to get business loans for women to finance business ventures more. As a niche, who better to sell to women than other women? It’s a perfect time for any woman to start a business!

Micro-Lending To Women Is Available

Micro-lenders have been around for third world countries for years. Recently, due to the recession, they have become more prevalent in the United States. Either way, organizations like Grameen, who specialize in micro financing for new entrepreneurs, prefer to lend to women as they feel it benefits the community most and they have better repayment rates when lending to women.

The Small Business Administration also has received additional monies to help fund micro lending for small businesses. You can check with your local bankers who work with the SBA to see if you qualify for these programs. The funds may be limited, in comparison to commercial loans, but they can be sufficient to get you started. Once that loan is repaid, you build up a good credit history that will allow you to tap larger funds and grow your business more.

Niches That Are Women-Centered

The fundamentals of life, and caring for them, have typically been managed by women. From the time that she was stuck in the home caring for the hearth and family, to today when she is more likely to be represented in professions like nursing, food, and clothing. As a woman business owner, she stands to gain much from her identification with these niches, as they are the ones that have survived and thrived in this recession. Health services, food establishments, and casual wear from clothing to shoes are excellent niches that women already understand and can profit from.

Help Is Available

Even for women who have never attempted to go into business, there is help. Most states have a quota of state contract jobs that have to go to minority and women-owned businesses. They have a department usually designated as the Minority Women’s Business Enterprise (MWBE) programs. Check online for the words “MWBE and your state name” to see what information each state has for their programs. Much of it is online.

Training programs are available locally in many cities, through the states, for women who want to start their own businesses. They can go as far as to direct women on the ways to set up a business plan, how to obtain financing, and how to register as a MWBE so that you can qualify to bid on state contracts. For those women looking to get information on starting a business, it’s as simple as getting in touch with your state program to get started.