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Archive for January, 2009

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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.