The most important thing to remember when you are building a site for your business is that websites are now critical marketing tools. The days of static sites that simply present products or services are giving way to the Web 2.0 boom, and these types of sites are a critical sales vehicle for any type of business.

Finding a web professional who can build these interactive sites is essential for today’s competitive marketplace and they can help you build, develop and even market your business with ease. When you’re searching for the right web professional to join your team, here are the top ten questions to ask during the interview process:

1. Do they build for the search engines? Making sure your website is compliant with today’s SEO rules and regulations is a critical step for site construction. If a web professional isn’t keeping up to date with SEO guidelines you could be left with a less-than-stellar site that doesn’t get any exposure on the major search engines.
2. Do they check their work for W3C compliance? W3C compliance is another critical area for websites, and building a site with these rules and regulations in mind can also earn you high rankings on the search engines. This will save you coding work in the future, so make sure the candidate is aware of industry rules and can apply them to all of your projects.
3. Do they have Web 2.0 development skills? The days of static websites are long gone, and it’s essential that your web professional has the skills and experience to build a web 2.0-friendly site. Avoid getting left behind as the industry grows with the latest Web 2.0 developments; select someone who knows which direction the industry is growing and can help you build your business accordingly.
4. Do they understand your marketing concept? Building and designing a website in today’s competitive marketplace involves a thorough understanding of the market and sales. Your candidate should be able to understand your marketing goals and build something that attracts your target market appropriately. Remember, you need to build a site that sells to get the traffic and advertisers you need to build your business; can the web professional create a site with this goal in mind?
5. Do they have verifiable references? Checking work history is an important part of your interview process, and can help you learn more about the candidate’s work style, commitment to projects and deadlines, and the types of projects they’ve worked on.
6. Are they committed to ongoing education? Ongoing education is necessary for all professionals in your organization, especially with the rapidly changing world of the internet.
7. Will they provide you with the code of their projects? Even when you’re hiring a web professional permanently, you need to have access to their code and work at all times. If they end up leaving or are dismissed for any reason, you don’t want to have to start from scratch – make sure you back up all copies of their work and have access to their projects.
8. Can they sign a non-compete agreement? Making sure you don’t lose out on business opportunities is an important part of running a successful business; make sure they are willing to make a commitment to your company and sign a nondisclosure and non-compete agreement. It’s a simple step that can protect your business for the long-run.
9. Are they willing to train and lead a team? If you are planning on growing your business or outsource various projects, the web professional may be in charge of developing a system to allocate work. Are they willing to train and build a team, or will they only be working independently? Find out what type of commitment the candidate is willing to offer.
10. What type of programming experience do they have? While some web professionals do not need extensive programming experience, most will have basic programming knowledge that they can use to build and create a quality system, or even work with programmers and other designers. Check their qualifications for any certificates or other credentials to learn more about their educational experience.

Choosing the right web professional for your site can be challenging, but defining your goals and development plans can help you make a better decision. While every business needs a website, few business owners take the time to map out exactly how the site can help them build their business. Take the time to prioritize your goals, then set out to find the right web professional with these top ten questions.

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The Levels of Business Credit

Can Business Credit Make the Difference in Your Success?

Noreen King says, “I knew it was do or die” as she built her business, Evolve Manufacturing Technologies. In a recent article in the 25th anniversary issue of Inc. magazine (page 156) she talks about how stressful it was starting her own firm — and how she did it using her personal credit cards.

Clearly Noreen King had guts and good business sense to grow her company by 2,121% (yes, over two thousand percent) in the past three years. But she relied on her personal credit cards to get started, and perhaps it didn’t have to be that way.

One of the most frequent questions we hear from entrepreneurs who incorporate with us is, “How do I build business credit?”

While there is no single formula, there is a process that allows you to establish a solid business credit rating over time.

In our experience, we have found that small businesses are usually at one of three levels when it comes to building business credit:

Level One: Whatever It Takes

Many entrepreneurial businesses have no real business credit. They use whatever method of financing they can get. At Level One, they have bootstrapped it and used personal credit cards, loans from friends and family, equity from their home, etc. And they’ve taken some serious risks:

1. They are mixing business and personal credit which can create major headaches at tax time,
2. They have no asset protection whatsoever,
3. Their personal credit score may sink due to the level of debt they are carrying to fund their business. This can mean higher interest rates, even on existing credit card balances.

Level Two: Wising Up

At Level Two you begin separating your business credit from your personal credit. When you get credit cards, lines of credit or trade accounts, you apply for them in your business name. At Level Two, you still will likely have to personally guarantee those business loans or credit cards, but many will not be reported on your personal credit reports unless you default. Level Two Business Credit is still valuable, however, because it helps protect your own credit rating which can be affected by too much revolving debt.

Level Three: Established Business Credit

If you are serious about small business success, you will want to move to Level Three. That’s where your business establishes its own business credit, and as much as possible, keeps it completely separate from personal credit. At Level Three, you will have:

• Obtained credit with vendors and financial institutions that report to major commercial reporting agencies and paid them on time;
• Have an incorporated business for at least six months or, ideally, two years;
• Followed specific steps to ensure that your business appears stable and solid;
• Established strong credit profiles with the major business credit reporting agencies;
• Implemented accounting systems that allow you to generate financial statements as requested (preferably by a CPA);
• Have the ability to make a persuasive presentation to a lender or investor.
• Are using leases when appropriate to avoid debt that may make financing more difficult.

At Level Three you will find yourself with opportunities to borrow or lease without having to rely on your personal credit or provide personal guarantees. This, of course, is the level most business owners want to reach as quickly as possible. There is no magical formula or guaranteed shortcut for reaching Level Three, and some businesses may get there faster than others.

Even if you don’t plan to borrow, it is essential that building business credit becomes a part of your business from the start. Planning ahead is crucial. As former president John F. Kennedy said, “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

About the Author
Gerri Detweiler is considered one of the country’s top credit experts. She has been interviewed for thousands of radio, television and print news stories including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dateline NBC and many others. She has testified before Congress several times and worked on reform of the national credit reporting laws. With attorney and Rich Dad’s® advisor Garrett Sutton, she is co-founder of BusinessCreditSuccess.com.

Small Business Mavericks
Melberg Marketing

A lot of times customers ask me about things that are WAY out of my league as far as knowledge goes. One of those things is building your business credit. While I know enough to be dangerous, I’m no expert. That’s why I was so excited to meet my new friend Gerri Detwieler. Gerri specializes in building business credit and finance for business, and she’s agreed to do a teleclass just for my readers - stay tuned for more info on that soon! Here’s an article she published about how to build your small business credit rating.

Enjoy!

Caroline

Small Business Mavericks

Melberg Marketing

Building Your Business Credit Rating
By Gerri Detweiler
BusinessCreditSuccess.com

While bootstrapping your business and taking on no debt may be ideal, the reality is that most small businesses will borrow at some point to grow their enterprise, or even to get through a tough time. If you are an entrepreneur, the question will probably not be whether you will borrow, but whether you will do it successfully.

Fact #1: Small business credit reports are not always completely separate from personal credit scores.

You may have heard that small business and personal credit are completely separate. They can be. Some of the business credit bureaus, such as D&B and Credit.net, for example, do not collect information on individuals’ personal credit histories, so that information will not become part of the businesses’ credit score. But agencies such as Experian and Equifax also collect and maintain consumer’s personal credit ratings, and they may blend that information with the business’s credit score to produce a combined score for a small business owner.

You may have also seen marketing hype about how a business credit profile can overcome a bad personal credit file. In most cases, however, it’s important that small businesses have both good business credit, as well as solid personal credit on the part of the owners. This is especially true in the current environment where investors and venture capitalists aren’t handing money out to anyone who can breathe and has a business idea! Even established businesses will find it necessary in some cases to provide the business owner’s personal guarantees on some loans or credit cards.

That means small business owners must be diligent about protecting and maintaining and optimizing their personal as well as business credit ratings.

Fact #2: The Paydex® Score isn’t the only score lenders use.

If you have researched business credit programs, you have probably seen them refer to the Paydex Score offered by D&B. While it is true that this is one important industry credit score, it is not the only game in town. In fact, there are lenders that will never use a Paydex score to evaluate your loan. They will rely on other credit reports and scores offered through Experian, SBFE, Equifax and other business credit bureaus. Some lenders report to one bureau, but not to others.

Knowing where you stand with each business credit agency is helpful if you are trying to borrow.

Fact #3: Paying your bills on time is not enough to guarantee strong business credit.

One company came to us after they had created a successful business, with over twenty employees. But they couldn’t get a business loan because they hadn’t taken the time to build a business credit profile and didn’t know where to start.

To build business credit, you must borrow or buy products and services from companies that will report your payments to the major business credit reporting agencies. If your payment history is not reported, it isn’t helping to build your business credit profile.

In addition, however, business owners should make sure they also have strong financial data about their company, for when it becomes necessary to ask a bank or financial institution for a loan. A business plan will also be helpful here.

If you understand what lenders are looking for, and approach a lender with a complete and well thought out proposal, you have a much stronger chance of getting approved.

Fact #4: When it comes to building business credit, you will want to get it right the first time.

Business credit reports are not covered by the federal law that governs personal credit reports. You do not have the same rights when it comes to disputing the accuracy of information in your file. Therefore, you want to make sure you start out on the right foot, or it can be difficult to get corrections or updates made to improve your rating.

And the sooner you start, the better. For example, one bank was recently offering “no documentation” loans to businesses that were at least two years old. A business that had a two -year history, regardless of how successful it was, would likely qualify. And the longer your business has been established, the stronger its chances of approval since so many fail in the first two years.

Even if your business will make no money the first year or two, it helps to set up the proper business structure and take basic steps to ensure your business appears legitimate and stable to the business credit bureaus. That means getting the proper occupational licenses, and a phone number that is listed with directory assistance in the businesses’ name, among other things. Your business will generally need some form of corporate structure to effectively build a business credit rating.

Your business credit plan should be part of your business planning from the beginning.

Fact #5: The small business owner is a sitting duck for scams, and expensive programs that may not be necessary or may even be harmful.

As a small business owner, you wear many hats and you probably don’t have the time or money to waste on programs that don’t work. But there are many expensive business credit-building programs out there that make exaggerated promises. Among some of the most egregious examples:

• Don’t try to “buy” good credit! Some companies will offer to “sell” trade references for a large sum of money. This is a rip off and if the credit reporting agencies find out, they will purge those references.
• Don’t spend large sums of money on a shelf corporation from a company that “guarantees” you will be able to use it to get loans. More often than not, the company won’t have the kind of credit rating you’ll need to be successful.
• Don’t try to get business credit as a substitute for bad personal credit. If you have damaged personal credit, work on rebuilding it while you’re building business credit.

Entrepreneurs are usually hard-working, creative and willing to get the job done. Fortunately, those are the same qualities that will help you through the process of building strong business credit. Get started now!

About the Author
Gerri Detweiler is considered one of the country’s top credit experts. She has been interviewed for thousands of radio, television and print news stories including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dateline NBC and many others. She has testified before Congress several times and worked on reform of the national credit reporting laws. With attorney and Rich Dad’s® Advisor Garrett Sutton, she is co-founder of BusinessCreditSuccess.com.