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The Importance of Disaster Preparedness for a Small Business

Any business, whether small or big, faces many challenges and some of the biggest challenges are in the shape of disaster, especially the natural ones. It does not matter which part of the world your business operates in; natural disasters are possible in every part of the planet. Floods, storms, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. are among the most common types of natural disasters. This is why it is highly recommended that you have the right preparation for a natural disaster. According to Red Cross, major natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods are so damaging for small businesses that 40% of those that get hit by one of these shut down forever.

So, what is the importance of preparing for disasters for small businesses?

A Professional Impression

Disaster preparedness and disaster recovery plans are often associated with large enterprises and organizations. But are small businesses protected from disasters? Your small business needs a disaster plan just as much as any big business out there. Having a disaster plan integrated into your system and documented gives off a very professional impression of your business. When you become a big business, you can get audited for a hundred different things. Furthermore, your employees will also be happy that they are working with a company that thinks long-term.

Prevention of Various Disasters

While there is nothing much that can be done about natural disasters, you can do something about disasters caused by humans and their errors. A human can cause damage to your property on purpose as a result of jealousy, reaction to some unfair treatment or as a bad business tactic. When you have the right equipment and system in place, it is difficult to cause such damage to the business. In most cases, human-made disasters are in the form of a fire that can burn all the important documents for a company and any systems that store valuable customer information.

Safety of Employees

Preparing for a disaster does not always mean you have to maintain business continuity. In fact, another important part of disaster preparedness is the safety of your employees. At times, you can’t instantly tell what might go wrong. A storm or hurricane can cause damage to electric poles and wires. If not protected properly, this damage can result in the deaths of your employees. Furthermore, when you are not prepared to face a flood, you might end up calling your employees to work and getting their vehicles damaged.

Business Continuity

One of the reasons to be prepared for disasters is to maintain business continuity. If you reside in a region where certain types of natural disasters are common, you have to prepare for these first and then for other types of disasters. For example, a business in Japan will have to prepare for an earthquake and the Tsunami. In some parts of America, there are more tornadoes every year than there are storms in the entire country. When you have a plan for such disasters, you can ensure the continuity of your business even when the disaster strikes.

Continuing business operations can be as easy as asking your employees to work from home. To make this possible, you might want to have all your data and important business applications moved to cloud, so when your company servers are down, you can ask your employees to work. Another important aspect of continuing your business despite great disasters is backing up your data. When it comes to backup, you can’t back up the data in one location only. The idea is to back up your business data every day and move the backup to another location. If your budget allows, you can back up the data in even more locations than two.

Quick Response

An important aspect of disaster preparedness is to share this knowledge with your employees. You also have to update them with any changes you make to your disaster preparedness and recovery plan. For example, if a sudden fire breaks out inside your business premises, your employees must know what the first course of action has to be. You should also ask your employees to have all the important business applications, software tools, etc. installed on their devices if your response to a disaster is asking them to work from home. When your employees know exactly what to do in the case of a disaster, they can get a response to a bad situation instantly, so you face virtually no downtime.

Cost-efficiency

Disaster preparedness and recovery are not just about being ready to handle a disastrous situation. In fact, it is also about being able to operate the business and recover business operations after a disaster hit with as minimum resources as possible. A business without a disaster plan can also recover from a disaster. However, the huge difference here is that the unprepared business will have to spend a lot of money and resources to get back on its feet whereas a business with a plan will continue its operations with minimum efforts.

Improved B2B Relations

It is not just your customers but also your business partners that get affected when your business shuts down temporarily due to a disaster. They might be relying on you for their mission-critical processes, and your absence can cause them to either stop their operations or find another partner to make things work instantly. On the other hand, if your business is still running despite getting hit by a disaster, your business partners will take a very positive impression of you. This is going to help you retain your business partners as they can now trust your professionalism and seriousness with business.

Conclusion:

To prepare for disasters, the first thing you have to do is change your mind about the whole situation. Many small business owners think that things like disaster plans are better suited for large enterprises or when a business has grown big enough to have multiple branches. What they don’t realize is that it is much easier to recover from a disaster when you have multiple locations than it is when you have only one location. So, start assessing your risks today, create a sound communication plan and document your disaster preparation plan today.

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Small Business Should Invest in Big Data and Analytics

Data

Big data refers to huge volumes of structured and unstructured information; however, processing such massive volumes of facts via traditional information management tools is inefficient and impossible. To understand big figures, you have to realize the devices that are collecting it today e.g., bar code scanners, mobile cameras, CCTV cameras, motion sensors, smoke alarms, web analytical tools, CRMs, etc. From the examples, you can see that these devices collect a vast array of data types hence the structured and unstructured part in the definition. The sheer velocity at which the data is being produced cannot be controlled and processed using traditional methods and tools.

However, the use of big information and incorporation of big data analytical technology gives businesses the competitive edge over their competitors.

Big Data and Small Businesses

It is only a thing of the past when terms like big information and business intelligence were associated with large enterprises only. Today, small businesses have to leverage the facts they are collecting in order to remain a part of the competition. For years, cost has remained the main reason why small businesses did not adopt big data analytical technologies, but this has changed now. There are budget-friendly tools available for small businesses to take advantage of the data they are collecting today. According to some experts, small businesses can take better advantage of big information since they are able to make the necessary changes far more quickly than large enterprises i.e., real-time response to insights from available data.

According to an IDG study in 2016, 78% of the large enterprises agree that big data strategy has the power to change how businesses have always operated. This shows the acceptance of big data technology and strategies for large enterprises and strengthens the fact that small businesses could become irrelevant if they did not adopt the same strategies.

Benefits of Big Data Analytics

Big Data and Big Companies, a report by IIA Director of Research, Tom Davenport, reveals that businesses are benefitting greatly from big data analytics especially in improving their products, making business decisions faster and reducing costs. Here are some ways small businesses can benefit from big information.

·         Cost Savings

The upfront cost of implementing big information tools and strategies is high undoubtedly, but the long term benefits of doing so are matchless. The healthcare industry is a great example of how the use of big data can help businesses reduce their costs regardless of their size. Using predictive analytics, Medicare and Medicaid Services forestalled more than $210 million fraud in healthcare with just 2 years of utilizing the aforementioned technology.

In addition to preventing frauds, small businesses can also reduce their costs by steering clear of creating more inventory than needed, including better partners in the supply chain, etc.

·         Improved Decision Making

This is the biggest benefit of big data. It allows businesses to expedite decision making by processing the data fast and giving insights in timely manner. In the past, business decisions were reserved for future strategies in the light of available data and the trends that were observed in it. The amount of data that businesses are sitting on today is huge and thus more powerful insights are to be gained from it. This vast amount of information requires the use of modern big data hardware technologies. Once both the things are in place for a business, they can understand customers better, create products that are a closer reflection of what customers want and develop a brand based on most reverenced values.

·         Impenetrable Security

Businesses are more focused today on using big details to improve their core capabilities, but less attended to a more serious concerns i.e. cyber threats and security breaches. Almost every small, medium and large business is connected to the internet today. Moreover, the Internet of Things has broadened the attackable security surface for businesses making it easier for cyber criminals to attack networks and penetrate company databases.

The biggest concern for modern businesses is that they have to “respond” to cyber attacks that have already occurred rather than being able to prevent them from occurring. The use of big information and big data analytical tools can be a game changer in this area allowing businesses to prevent any security attacks way before they are executed.

Key Technologies Helping Businesses Make the Best of Big Data

As a small business, you will have to familiarize with various technologies that help you store, analyze and take action on big data. Here are some important ones:

·         Hadoop

It’s a framework supporting the storing of large amounts of information using an open-source approach. Once information is stored, Hadoop enables the use of a variety of applications using “clustered hardware” at its base. Due to the cluster of commodity hardware, it becomes possible and easy for businesses to process big data despite its increasing volume.

·         Data Mining

This is the technology that enables business owners to capture insights, patterns and trends from big information that otherwise cannot be obtained with a traditional approach. Data mining is what allows you to jump in a large sea of structured and unstructured data, make sense of it all and produce analytical insights that help businesses with real-time and future decisions.

·         Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics walk side by side with data mining. Artificial is at the heart of predictive analytics, enabling business owners to adjust their present strategies by giving predictions about what will transpire for the business based on existing details.

·         Text Analysis and Mining

One huge concern for modern business is to analyze the noise on various web platforms such as forums, blogs, social networks, etc. to understand what customers expect from a particular brand. Finding out about brand mentions and understanding customer’s impression of your brand can help you readjust your marketing approach to gain customer loyalty. Text mining helps small to large sized businesses go through text data from emails, blog posts, social networks, etc. and hear customers “voice”.

With the rise of smartphones, artificial intelligence and IoT (internet of things) it has become clearly visible that businesses will now have to handle mountains and mountains of data, and make use of big data analytical and processing technologies to have the competitive edge.

 

Who we are: Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Small Businesses Must Understand What Marketing Means

Small Business Marketing

The success of a small business depends greatly on how effectively it markets itself, its products and its services. The real challenge with marketing is that it is one of the broadest concepts that any businessperson and entrepreneur have to deal with. Every business has its specific marketing needs, and yours does too. If you have a business, you must understand marketing in its depths and the many techniques that will help your business grow and expand. A lot of the business owners believe that having a website and doing some seasonal material marketing is enough for them, but they are wrong.

Marketing has completely changed in the modern times with “digital” being the main focus. A conventional approach towards marketing will not help you achieve the goals you have set for your business.

Understand the Concept of Marketing Mix

Before you start marketing your business, you have to understand the concept of the marketing mix. Marketing mix consists of price, product, promotion, and place. While many other factors have been added to the mix recently, these four Ps remain the strongest ones to date. If you can understand the concept of the marketing mix, you will ensure allocating strict budgets and still getting the best ROIs from your marketing campaigns. You must bear in mind that spending too much on marketing does not mean you will always be successful.

Your successful marketing strategy has to be a mix of the four Ps. Before you start promoting a product, you must know the product is complete and in an acceptable form. Once the product is complete and you want to promote it, you have to make sure you promote it in the right place. You don’t want to be selling air conditioning units to the people of Siberia. Now, even if you created a great product and are promoting it in the right place, you won’t be able to sell it well if you haven’t priced it right.

You understand at this point that you have to pick every “P” of the marketing mix one by one and see if your strategy touches all of them. An important point to remember here is that the concept of the marketing mix is not limited to the “planning” phase of your marketing efforts. Even when you have executed your marketing plans, you have to keep measuring these four factors. If your efforts are not yielding any profits or positive ROIs, look at the four factors and try to find out which one has not been executed properly. Maybe you are promoting the right product at the right place but to the wrong people.

Base Your Marketing on Data

If you don’t know already, the more relevant and popular term than marketing is data-driven marketing among marketers. It is clear now that marketing without data is less effective and less practical in the modern times. Today, you have dozens of different tools to collect data about your target audience. You use these tools because the data you collect gives you deep insight into your market, what your customers want and what puts them off. In the online world, the process of data collection starts from your website. On your website, the data you can collect include the demographics of your visitors, their recent interests, their path to reach your website, etc.

There are other means of collecting data about your customers. The thing is that you will collect data from many different channels and in many different formats. Being able to view this data in one place and taking effective action on it is what the real challenge is. Companies are now looking for solutions to manage their digital marketing campaigns in one place, regardless of the nature of those campaigns. Data-driven marketing also allows you to create more personalized campaigns that are more effective in persuading your customers to use your products/services.

Look at the Right Numbers

One huge mistake that many small business owners make is focusing on the wrong numbers. You might have a great website, a strong marketing strategy and a lot of data to target your efforts in the right direction, but you can’t get any benefits until you look at the right numbers. Looking at the right numbers means that you measure the success of your marketing efforts by keeping up with the most important KPIs (key performance indicators). For you to measure the KPIs, you must set associate goals and targets with your marketing campaigns.

So, when creating a landing page for your product and get a lot of visitors on that page, it does not mean anything to you unless you are measuring some KPIs. In the case of a landing page, your most important KPIs will be the number of visitors, number of converted visitors and the sources from where the visitors are coming. Now, focusing on the wrong number would mean you are looking only at the number of visitors coming to your landing page every day. The number of visitors is only telling you that your marketing efforts have been successful enough to bring the visitors to the landing page. But how does that benefit you in any way if you don’t earn anything from those customers?

That’s where you have to measure the conversion rate. The conversion rate will tell you how much you are making from the visitors that are coming to your landing page. By focusing on conversion rates, you will put more money towards marketing campaigns that are bringing the most potential traffic, i.e., the traffic that’s converting the most.

Now, no matter how benefiting it is to focus on your conversion rates, it is still only one side of the picture. The right numbers here are your acquisition costs. If you spend on every acquired customer is $100 but you are obtaining a value of only $20 from that customer, this type of marketing is not good for you. You always have to look at positive ROI, i.e., your returns on the investments must always be higher than the amount of money you have invested in a marketing campaign.

Conclusion

So, you know at this point that marketing is a profound concept and you have to understand it in its depths to it successfully. Large companies spend millions of dollars every year on just marketing. They must find some value in this activity to spend that much money towards it. On the other hand, small business owners can often ignore the importance of marketing. They are always focusing on short-term progress and return. If they don’t see any significant results quickly, they stop spending on marketing and start looking for faults and shortcomings of their products/services.

It will pay off in the long-term to start using the right marketing tools right from today. Keep in mind that marketing tools are designed to handle different phases of marketing. While some tools help you market your products and services, others are more analytical. Another category is of tools that help simplify the use of both the types of tools. If you are thinking of starting a business or have set the foundation for a startup already, be sure to give marketing the attention that it deserves.  

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Making a Good First Pitch Impression

Good Pitch

It can be difficult path sometimes once you decide to set up a good pitch on a site platform. Whether it be crowdfunding or raising capital from accredited investors. You will find many of the same attributes that are similar to finding the right pitch to attract views to your posting or profile.

Posting

Your posting “tile” is the image that show the image  and the description in a rectangular box that is aligned with many other posting tiles. The top image can be from 1”-3” squared and the title is usually under or above the image. The describer or the short content that is directly below the image and title and is describer content box. Also on the posting tile will show what you are trying to raise, your industry, you location or other items of that might be specialized be each platform. Once the posting tile is clicked by user it will take you inside page(s) depending on the platform. It is important you use quality images and very catchy title with a description that is very to-the-point. Your capital raise price must make sense to how you have arrived at your capital asking level.

Your Inside Page

This is where your main image and other images of what you need to include. This has to also be very good images that shows your story, product or methodology. It can be actual photos of a process, or if the business is a fresh startup with no images, you can find advertised free images and art online, or purchase images from paid third-party websites to avoid any copyright infringements. Your content must be very clear and if lots of content to title each section and outline. Your inside page may have a section for a team bio. If it’s just you, it’s okay as lots of startups can be a one-man-show to start. If it allows you to post a photo of you, do so.

Support Documents

If you have a business plan, and the platform lets you include, do so. If you do not have a plan, then upload a cover letter about you and your company. It is always good if you are competing against other pitches and your pitch tile gets opened then next step is to show you have an attachment and have taken the time to put something together that the funder can take away or download.

Summary

It is always good when putting your best foot forward to have everything prepared to make the first impression by getting more traffic and interest to your posting and pitch. Making a good first pitch impression is really key and to rush to get initial interest would not be swapped out if it meant you lack on your Posting, Inside Page and Support Document material. Get a second opinion on how it looks and don’t be afraid to make changes earlier than later.

Who we are: Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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The Challenges You Must Overcome to Turn Your Small Business into a Big Business

Challenges

You might have a small business today, but you don’t want that label for the life of your business. When entrepreneurs make endeavors, they are looking to create a business that will rule the world one day. However, every business has to face some struggles in the beginning that it must overcome to become a big business. The way you handle these challenges decides the fate of your small business. Today, you will read about these challenges and the solutions to them, so if you are a small business, you can set the foundation for its success.

Knowing the Target Market

One of the biggest issues with most small businesses is that they don’t know their exact target market. Sometimes, they don’t know how to narrow down to the target market. This is a huge issue because you could have a perfect product, but you might pitch it to the people who don’t need it. Keep in mind that people who don’t need your product won’t buy it even if you try to give it to them for free. On the other hand, people who need your product will be willing to buy it even if it is priced high. For your business to survive, it needs to start selling as quickly as possible, and that’s why it is important to find your target market before launching your product.

Solution

The first step of identifying your target market is to know your product well enough. You have to ask yourself some important questions about the product and write the answers down. For example, you have to ask yourself “what existing problem does my product solve?” You also have to know if there are any other solutions available in the market for the same problem. If yes then you have to see how your product is better than them or how you can make it better. Conduct surveys on the street and social media to know the personas of the best buyers of your product.

The Right Type of Marketing

Businesses, small and big, have huge parts of their budgets allocated only for marketing purposes. However, the modern technological advancements have proven that a big marketing budget does not translate to successful marketing. So, you might have done a great job in identifying your target market, but if you approach them in the wrong way or through the wrong channel, you will not be able to reap any benefits from even the most potential market for your product or service.

Solution

Identifying your target market should help you identify your marketing methods and channels too. For example, if your product is for people aged over 50, you would not want to make Instagram the prioritized marketing channel because only 18% of the users on Instagram are aged above 50. Similarly, any product that targets executives, marketing officers and professional people should be promoted on LinkedIn before any other platform. After knowing the buyer personas, you should also select the type of marketing that best suits your potential audience. If you are creating a hip-hop music video for marketing to retired individuals or an opera video for 18-year olds, you are doing it wrong. Use website analytical tools to know what appeals or does not appeal to your website, visitors. Base your digital marketing campaigns on data—this is the era of data-driven marketing.

The Funding Problem

If there were no funding problem, every person who thinks of a unique idea would have a business. In the real world, funding is always a problem, and it is exactly the point where the journey ends for many aspiring people in business. However, it is not always the lack of funds that kill many small businesses before they even start. In fact, the important part is how much dedication you show in arranging those funds. Sometimes, people have the options available, but they do not knock on all the doors.

Solution

First, you have to know all the options you have available for arranging the funds. If you are not okay with arranging funds through the bank or in the form of a loan, take a look around at your family and relatives. You will be surprised to know how many of the people in your circle will be ready not only to give you the investment you need but become a part of the endeavor. The crowdfunding options are also there. You don’t even have to go to the investors personally today as you can visit a platform like funded.com and arrange funds online. Places like Credit Karma can be one of many free options to monitor a couple credit reports that business credit might be attached to a personally signed business account.

The Right Leadership

You can’t make a business successful unless you have the right leader in place. It is not completely untrue that the attitude of the leader sets the attitude of the rest of the employees at a company. If you lack confidence in your leadership, you will end up hiring people who lack confidence in themselves. One of the biggest problems with most small business owners is that they can’t convince themselves to delegate responsibilities. They believe in their skill so much that their mind never accepts that someone else can handle the responsibilities too. They end up taking the responsibility of everything on their shoulders and mismanaging things at the end of the day.

Solution

The first thing that needs to be fixed here is how you think. If you find it hard to delegate responsibilities, get rid of this habit as soon as possible. You can’t handle everything as the business grows and so you have to create a team right from day one. Do not hire people just because they can do the job—hire people who share the same vision as you. Do not settle for good employees because finding the best ones is taking time. Do not try to take matters into your hands all the times. Listen to everyone that’s part of the team and the decision making process. Have a great relationship with your employees.

Setting the Price

One of the most difficult decisions for a small business owner is to set the price of its service or product. When you are a small business, you can’t afford to have a full-fledged marketing department. Of course, when you have a marketing department, they can set the price of your products, but when there is no marketing department, you are the one to take this decision. Price your solutions too low, and you might not make any profit at all. Price your solution too high, and customers might never buy your product.

Solution

It will be tremendously helpful in this scenario to take a look at your competitors and how they have priced their products. Secondly, you have to know a simple rule to set the prices of your products and services. You first set the price to cover your costs. Once you have started covering your costs, you set the price to cover the costs and make a profit. Once you have done that successfully, you start adding your “value” to the price. You should also know the buying power of your target market so you can keep the price within their comfort zone.

These points cover pretty much every big challenge that a small business comes across. Keep in mind that some of the challenges might be exclusive to your business and industry too, but if you can overcome these common challenges, you can cover the industry-specific difficulties as well.

 

Who we are: Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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Business Credit Card vs. Business Loan for Funds

Funds

If you have long been looking for business funds, the multiple business financing options must have overwhelmed you. Many entrepreneurs don’t want to involve outside investors to raise capital for their lean startups to avoid entailing risks such as misaligned structure and timeline.

If you are one of them, business credit cards and business loans are some of the readily available options for you. Plus, these financing options are widely accessible for the entrepreneurs who want to self-finance their business.

Regardless of what options you choose, understanding their pros and cons is essential. But before we plunge into the details, let’s quickly split the difference between business credit cards and business loan to help you choose the most appropriate option for your business.

What Is the Difference between Business Credit Card and Business Loans

No doubt, it is one of the common questions that come to mind when it is about funding your startup. Typically, a business loan refers to a lump sum amount you are paid out that you need to pay back in the form of monthly installment over a specified period. A business credit card, on the other hand, is a credit line that allows you access to money or funds to a certain limit on a recurring basis. This credit line, like another credit amount, can be paid off through monthly payments or over any period of your choice unless you meet the credit limit of each month.

Business loans are generally installment debts; however, business credit cards are revolving debts. Although neither of these options hurt your personal credit scores in the long term if you pay them on time, it is worth noting that business credit card has more potential to affect your credit card scores.  If not paid on time, revolving debt may decrease debt to credit ratio.

Moreover, business loans undeniably offer large sums of funds and may have a lower interest rate as compared to business credit cards. However, qualifying for them is nerve-wrecking since the lending process is unnecessarily long and can take months.

Alternatively, business credit cards can offer you immediate access to funds or cash you need to invest in yours.  While their interest rate tends to be higher, you have an option to pay off your full bill each month. Besides this, the best business credit cards provide a slew of other reimbursements such as credit rewards, purchase protections, and perks that can particularly benefit business owners.

Business Credit Card or Business Loan- Which Can You Get Easily?

Having good credit card scores are necessary to qualify for both business credit cards and business loans.   In addition to that, to initiate the funding process, you will be asked to apply, along with the documentation showing your revenues. However, documentation for business loans tends to be more extensive and hectic. Not only this, you may find requirements for business loans stricter in terms of business profitability and length of time.

Overall, qualifying for business loans is more difficult than getting funds through business credit cards. The requirements become even more challenging to meet if your credit scores are low or you are a startup.

Luckily, Small Business Administration offers loans for startups. Although traditional lenders invest in these government-backed loans, guarantees up to 50% percent of the loan to make the process easier.

Business Credit Card or Business Loan- Which Can You Get Easily?

There is no easy answer to the question of whether one should opt for a business credit card or business loans. As mentioned earlier, to choose the best funding option, you need to compare the best features of each alternative.

Features Business Credit
Cards 		Business Loans  
Loan amount Up to $50,000 Up to $5million
Loan type Revolving credit line Installment loan
Repayment Monthly payments to the minimum credit limit to pay off a debt to avoid high interest Set payments to be paid monthly over a specified time that can go up to 25 years
Average APR 13 to 20 percent 8 to 10 percent
Eligibility Steady income and personal credit history Good  business revenue model and credit
Approval Time Seven days Weeks or a minimum of six months
Benefits Sign up bonuses, reward programs,  purchase protection, trip insurance Government-backed loans

Business Credit Card or Business Loan: What is the best Option for You?

You have compared the features of both options; it is the right time to decide which works best for you.

Business loans are Ideal for your business if you;

  • Need large sums of funds
  • Want investment for profit-generating projects that include purchasing equipment hiring staff or renting new locations
  • Want to expand an established business that generates revenues up to 100,000

Business Credit Cards are ideal for your business if you

  • are looking for options to separate finances  or sole proprietor
  • Want to use the payment option that comes with big rewards
  • Need to access cash immediately
  • Do not want to borrow money and need a payment option that allows you to pay in a month
  • Want to invest in a project that has 0 percent introductory APR and plans to make payments before its promotional period deadline

Factors to consider while Choosing Business Credit Cards and Business Loans

Your job is not done after you decide which option you want to choose and why.  There are certain factors you need to consider to make a safe choice.

  • Interest Rate–   it is important to choose the option that has a low-interest rate. The interest rate in loans and credit cards are compounding, and you will end up wasting a lot of money if you are not diligent.
  • Other fees–   choosing a business credit card means you will have to pay annual fees, foreign transaction charges, and late payment charges
  • Eligibility– applying for consecutive loans or credit cards may ding your personal credit scores by resulting in the new inquiry.  

Final Thoughts

Overall, both financing options come with their perks and downsides. Given that, it is up to you when it comes to making the decision that meets the requirement of your small business.

Who we are:  Funded.com is a platform that is A+ BBB rated over 10+ years. Access our network of Investors, get instantly matched with a Lender, or get a business plan by visiting us Funded.com

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4 Ways to Protect Your System from Malware

malwareFor a business, the benefits of going digital are immense and hard to miss out on, especially if it intends to surpass competitors. However, every business is susceptible to a few drawbacks that come with going digital, like ransomware and malware. Within the last decade, the number and risk of cyber-attacks have grown significantly.

This means that businesses need to improve their countermeasure strategy to prevent huge losses and high-risk security breaches. An attack from malware can disrupt daily operations, damage your hardware, and gain access to confidential data, putting business plans and customer security at risk. Well-renowned companies like Uber, Yahoo, and Twitter have been on the receiving end of malware, which means bad news for small businesses and companies.

Here’s how you can protect your Business Systems from Malware

Although there’s no way to avoid malware attacks completely, you can always take preventative measures that significantly reduce the risk. By implementing a well-planned strategy, you’ll be able to avoid future attacks and boost your company’s reputation.

Tread with Caution

For starters, you and your employees need to act with caution, which comes first before implementing any anti-malware software. If you’re careful about what emails you open and what websites you visit, the risk of falling victim to a malware attack becomes much larger.

Hence, the best way to avoid malware from spreading through your system is not to open emails or attachments that come from people and senders that you can’t recognize or haven’t added. Usually, hackers spread malware through a system by sending a zip file or PDF with malicious intent. They choose such files because computer users click on them unknowingly and don’t realize the mistake they’ve made until long after.

That’s why, make sure that your employees only open attachments that they’re expecting, and anything else should go to the junk folder.

Enforce Adequate Security Measures

You’ll need to bring in experts to equip your systems with top-notch security to prevent a potential attack. They’ll be able to analyze your system’s current security and evaluate whether there were any phishing attempts to eliminate the risk before it affects the computers.

They can put a firewall in place to regulate the kind of traffic that goes through your business’s network. Based on the security you’d prefer, this firewall can come equipped with an anti-malware feature that eliminates the threat and blocks malicious bugs from affecting your system.

However, some users can make the mistake of turning off the firewall which increases the risk of cyber attacks immediately. For this reason, remember to keep the firewall activated to receive news about incoming threats in real-time.

While you’ve called in a cybersecurity expert, make sure to improve the system browser’s privacy settings. This boosts computer security at a basic level and helps employees understand the effect of a single bug.

Keep Your firewall Strong, and Your passwords Stronger

Let’s not forget the importance of a strong password. Nowadays, it’s becoming effortless for hackers to guess a password right by entering strings of different combinations of letters and numbers. So, this makes it essential that employees regularly change the passwords for the email address accounts.

With each combination, a hacker grows closer to guessing your password correctly, so shortening the timeframe between your next password change can greatly reduce the risk. For a strong password, use a combination of different letters, numbers, and symbols. Don’t use your birthday, maiden name, or the name of a celebrity.

Have Backup on Standby

No matter how well you defend yourself, there’s always a chance that harmful malware can make its way into your system and breach your security protocol. In these cases, the worst-case scenario is that you’ll lose complete access to critical data and confidential customer information.

The only way to avoid losing critical data is to rely on a remote server that regularly updates itself with newly added data. It should work to create many backups based on your system multiple times throughout the day.

Not to mention, your backup data should hide in such a way that it can be re-accessed easily during an emergency. An efficient backup and recovery solution can mitigate the effects of a data breach or failure by recreating virtual servers and restoring data in a limited time to allow as minimum disruptions as possible. However, it would be best if you remembered how a local backup, as long as it’s connected to a computer, is also susceptible to malware, rendering it useless.

Assess Your Security Measures through a Professional IT Expert

It’s not enough to employ a firewall and expect your business’ system to be immune to malware attacks. To stay ahead of cybersecurity breaches, you should be consistent in upgrading your firewalls, anti-virus software, and detection applications. These applications go through updates quickly and often, making it crucial that you consistently improve your security approach with refined measures.

Each day, the requirements for robust cybersecurity change, and it’s impossible to keep up with them if you want to run a business. This calls for a professional’s work because even if it regards online security, you’ll have to make the biggest decisions. Calling in a professional IT expert can greatly benefit your business; you’ll be able to make well-informed security decisions, and they’ll give you better advice as to what you need to change.

As technology becomes more powerful, cyber-attacks become even more vicious and discreet. Now, hackers can use malicious files to breach into a system quietly and leave with important data. Although this takes a lot of preparation, the execution takes only a couple of hours. Yet, for a business, the disastrous aftermath of a breach lasts for years. Therefore, you must hire the right IT experts and employ high-performance firewall applications and security measures to avoid losing data.

 

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A Guide to Implement Digital Transformation for your Small Business

transformation

In this rapidly changing world, everything is shifting towards digitization, and businesses are also transforming their operations through technology to provide more reliable, timely, and convenient solutions to their customers. Digital transformation of small businesses will help provide better customer services, product development, and innovation in different aspects of the company.

Small businesses in their early phase can leverage this opportunity by implementing digital transformation as this will not require much effort compared to any established business. Transformation into the digital industry is not just about implementing the IT systems and installing applications; instead, it’s a cultural shift that completely changes things.

A recent example is the catastrophic disaster “COVID-19” that has changed all the ways of doing things and created the urgency to develop businesses that would operate digitally. Companies that will not adopt cutting-edge technology and transformation will risk losing their market share and will be left behind.

Before coming to the actual ways of transformation, let me first highlight the numerous benefits that small businesses can enjoy after digitization.

  • The transformation will help the organization in better decision-making by making available accurate and reliable data of every segment with the help of analytic tools. These tools also assist in collecting customers’ data that can help marketers make well-informed decisions. These valuable tools are also beneficial for both managerial and strategic level positions.
  • Large Organizations always put tremendous efforts into fulfilling customers’ expectations. Therefore, adopting or integrating technology into your business process will add immense value to the product that will fulfill customers’ needs and help small businesses to grab the market share before their competitors.
  • Companies that undergo the process of digitization improve profitability and reduce costs by cutting off their irrelevant expenditures. According to SAP, 80% of the businesses implementing digital transformation report increased profits. These profits can also be used for the future expansion of trade and more advancements in technology to have an edge on competitors.
  • Valuable tools and devices have reduced the hassle of maintaining employees’ attendance, salaries details, and stock management and increased the coordination between various units. Providing employees with the right tools can streamline workflow and improve productivity. Automating tasks using AI tools will integrate data throughout the business and promote a digital culture that increases collaboration and encourages transparency in the workplace.

Interestingly, most small business owners are making efforts to make digital transformation a vital component of their organizations. They need an excellent strategy to digitize their most critical business operations and start making huge profits.

Whether you are running a small business setup or just getting started and want to transform your business digitally, a well-established strategy and a well-designed plan can help you get the most out of your efforts and investment.

Here are the six steps to successfully implement digital transformation for your small business

Involve every level of the organization in the change process

To make digitization successful, it is vital to have a strong vision and the right culture in the organization that embraces digital initiatives and encourages employees in this transformation process.

It is also essential to consider your staff concerns since many employees feel threatened by the implementation of technology and automation. Many business owners have faced the challenging task of tackling employees resisting digital transformation change.

To get out of this resistance from employees towards change, demonstrate the benefits of the technology and provide necessary training to your team. Empower them to use technology to achieve their life goals.

Empower employees with the Data-Driven Decisions

Data recreates a vital role in the decision-making process. Hence, it must be accurate. Educate your team regarding how to extract data using different analytics tools and make decisions out of it.

Accurate insights regarding customers will help you understand exactly what the customer wants. Then, your product development team can design the relevant products and services to fulfill the customer’s expectations.

Ensure smooth integration of Business Systems

All business systems should communicate smoothly to streamline operations, automate workflows, and increase efficiency.

The actual point comes when you Integrate all business applications (e.g., Finance, Procurement, customer services, and operations). Then, it allows you to enhance collaborations between various departments and make a customer-centric organization.

Cloud computing makes it very smooth for small businesses to connect various applications simultaneously. It allows you to streamline workflow and manage different business functions simultaneously.

Approach and collaborate with IT Consultants

Mainly at the initial stage, businesses don’t have a large budget to hire a large IT team. Instead, you can outsource most IT tasks to maximize your resources. The first target would be to focus on areas that are the backbone of business and gradually increase investing more when your business starts to grow.

Try to work with consultants that provide in-budget solutions compatible with your company’s existing infrastructure. They should also help you identify areas that generate a high Return on Investment.

Customer Care must be the top priority

We always heard that the customer is always right. Take their views about your product and service because there is always room for improvement. Customer feedback is an essential element that encourages you to improve your product and add more features that help you to stand out.

Make a Website for your customers’ convenience, where they can view different products offered by you, make purchases and give feedback that ultimately persuades other customers to make a purchase.

The biggest challenge for business owners is to make sure the data management and security protocols remain in sync. Data protection requires IT solutions and strategic business initiatives due to the strict regulatory requirements and may face harmful consequences in a data breach.

In the end, evaluate and highlight areas where technology can help you make an impact. As a business leader, keep in mind your primary goal and create a culture for continuous learning, collaboration, advancement towards digitization, and innovation in every area that requires transformation. All of the above factors can make your goal of digital transformation achievable.

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Why the End of the Year Is the Perfect Time to Review Your Finances

Review

Whether you have a startup, a small business, or a large enterprise, chances are the year has passed at the speed of light for you. You were review and designing your marketing campaigns, availing growth opportunities, and looking through reports when the year-end arrived. While people dedicate this time of the year to holiday delights and festivities, this also happens to be the perfect time to do a review of your finances, whether you are just an individual with a 9 to 5 job or a small business.

Why should you spend your end of the year for a financial review? Here are the top reasons.

A Strong Visual of Your Financial Standing

The most important thing about a year-end financial review is that it gives you a complete visual of where your business is standing at the moment. Everything that has happened throughout the year is now on the reports before your eyes. You can look at the information and see what has performed and what has not performed. You must have put a lot of money into marketing your products, services, and the brand as a whole. You can now see which of those campaigns have yielded promising results and which of them have proved to be futile.

The same goes for your account receivables. Compare your account receivables with those from the previous years and see if there has been an increase or decrease. If there is an abnormal increase, it is a telltale sign that you might need to change your payment plan or push more to receive your pending payments faster. Every activity you have done in the past year has painted a picture now in front of you. Whether you grew as a business, stagnated, or receded is evident at the end of the year.

The Best Time to Set New Goals

Based on how you performed in the preceding year and whether you have achieved your set targets and goals, you can set goals for the coming year. Your previous year’s performance should clarify how you have to put your marks for the coming year. Keep them realistic yet motivating and challenging enough to leave room for hard work, struggle, and progress. Not only should you be looking at how successful you were in achieving the previous year’s goals, but you should also pay attention to your current financial standing.

Best Time to Apply for Loans and Credit Processing Services

Regardless of how long you have been in business, when you apply for certain services, the service providers look at your previous year’s performance. For example, let’s say that you want to apply for a merchant account (maybe a high-risk one), so you can start processing credit card requests for your customers. When you approach a merchant account provider, they will ask for some history of your business activities—at least three months. By the end of the year, you have enough data to show to lenders and credit processing services to convince them to do business with you.

Of course, a financial review will give you a good look at whether you have done enough to impress these service providers or not. You can apply for these services with a quarterly credit history, but it will not be considered sufficient in most cases.

Best Time to Get Your Tax Files in Sync

Yes, you have been extra careful about your tax filing and preparation the whole year, but the overall integrity of your records still has a question mark on it. You need to prepare your tax files at the end of the year and calculate your liability with utmost accuracy. While tax preparation software has made the job much more manageable, complex tax files still need your accountants’ attention to get everything in sync. The important thing here is that a review not only helps you escape penalties that you might attract by putting wrong information on your file. You want to update your information at the end of the year because you want to calculate your benefits too accurately, e.g., tax credits, exemptions, standard deductions, itemized deductions, etc.

Time to Start Afresh

Your business might not have been a very successful venture. Many companies don’t make the best start, and it seems in the beginning that it would be difficult for the business to survive. However, small changes in strategies and cuts in costs can prove to be incredibly beneficial for companies. The best time to start afresh and renew all your reports and files is the end of the year. While you can change your strategies and plans midway, too, it is natural for most humans to feel the need for a new start at the start of a new year. For example, people can decide to lose weight at any time of the year, but it seems it makes the most sense to them when they do it at the start of a new year.

If you think your business has not performed well, but you still want to give it a shot, the end of year financial review can clear the path for you by telling you if you can afford to give it another try or not.

Bottom Line

There is no restriction on when you want to make changes to your business plans and strategies. However, people find it natural and more motivating to set new goals, learn from past mistakes, and make new moves when a new year starts. Throughout the year, your main goal is to keep the ball rolling.

However, at the end of the year, you have enough data collected from all your business operations and activities to know how fruitful your efforts were, which actions you should consider in the future, and the expenses that have kept you from progressing. In short, a financial review at the end of the year helps you make new and important decisions for your business.

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What Normally Causes Banks to Reject Small Business Loans?

Whether you are a small or a large one, you will need a loan at the start to finance your marketing efforts and operations. It is not that difficult for large businesses to get loans from banks because most lending institutions are more than willing to invest in large corporations due to their dominant position in their market and industry. On the other hand, small businesses do not occupy a key position in the industry, and that’s why banks and other lending entities aren’t intrinsically interested in financing them. However, there can be several different reasons why banks rejecting small business loans. Here are the most common ones.

Reasons for Banks to Refuse Loans to Small Businesses

Short History of Operations

The period a business has been in operation is the number one factor banks consider when deciding on approving a loan or not. Small business owners have to finance their ventures right from the beginning. They might not have even completed six months before they start looking for loan options.

Bank want to see how well or poorly a business has been performing, and it can judge the performance based on the tax filing record for your business or maybe even the record of your sales. What if the loan amount you are asking for is much larger than what the bank deems is easily repayable for you?

The lenders will look at your cash flow reports and decide how much your business is capable of returning based on the amount you have asked for. The bank would often refuse to approve a loan after realizing that your demand is much bigger than your strength to repay the loan.

Loan Size

The bank is a business, and it has to find ways to maximize its profits. Bankers make most of their money from loans they approve for large corporations. Small businesses, on the other hand, are at a disadvantage in this area. They don’t require huge loans, and thus they are not the best prospects for a bank.

The underwriting process is quite costly for a bank, and it only makes sense for them to approve loans from which they can cover that cost. Most small business loans do not go above the $500,000 mark, and that amount is not what the banks will call “big.”

Personal Credit Score

Several online sources will tell you that your credit score will not have any impact when you ask a bank for a business loan. It makes sense from one perspective that the bank should not look into a person’s personal life while giving them a business loan. However, your credit score can affect your business loan application negatively. Yes, it is true that not all lenders will give the same weight to your credit score, but there are many that will.

For lenders that look into your credit score, they are doing this to know how good you are when it comes to managing money. If you can’t manage your finances, the chances of you mismanaging your business finances will be pretty high too.

Missing Collateral

Again, you have to remember that banks are businesses—giving money to people and getting it back with a profit is their business. Banks require collateral to motivate (or compel) a business owner to return the loan amount. In most cases, collateral is not a problem for large businesses.

The collateral serves as a security for the bank and a way to ensure that they get the loan amount back should the business owner default. On the other hand, small businesses don’t have enough assets to put down as collateral to secure a loan from a bank. The missing collateral is often the reason why banks reject loan applications for small businesses.

Reason for the Loan

The bank won’t approve your loan just because you need it. Lending institutions want you to give them solid reasons for why you need the loan. You would want to show them that your loan amount is going to be an investment in your business and not just an expense.

If you are going to buy new furniture for your office with the loan amount, the chances are that the bank will refuse to give you the loan. However, if you have a strong business plan and a pre-planned marketing campaign that you want to support the loan, a bank will be more than willing to help you out.

But Banks Aren’t the Only Option

The detail that’s crucial for small business owners here is that banks are not the only institutions that can lend to small businesses. You have other lending entities from which you can seek help. For instance, there are online platforms where small business and startup owners can get in touch with investors to get the investment they need.

Small business owners can use such a platform to showcase their idea, business plan, the marketing strategies and the team behind the project to get the attention of the investors. They can get the type of loan that best suits their needs.

If an investor likes your idea and is passionate about it, they might even forward the loan at extremely flexible terms. Keep in mind that such a network gives you access to angel investors—the type of investors that can help a startup turn into an established business without demanding too much equity share in the company. However, you have to be sure that you create a powerful business plan, have a strong team and a compelling pitch to win their trust.

Yes, there can be a variety of reasons why banks reject loan applications from small businesses, but that should not mean the end of everything. With online platforms helping business owners connect with investors, obtaining the right loan is not such a challenging task after all. If your business is in its starting phase, be sure to make obtaining the right loan a priority. Last but not least, it is how you manage your funds that decide the fate of your business, not just the loan itself.

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