Good Websites to Help Grow Your Business!

Today, we’ve all had lengthy one-way phone dates with elevator music on loop, waiting to feel as if we matter, at least for long enough to plead our case or demand a refund. But there are also some businesspeople out there who have discovered how to use new online tools to their advantage when dealing with customers. Here are a few examples that are worth noting — you may be able to save some time and money for not only your customers, but your business as well.
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1. ZocDoc: Getting Ahead of Complaints

 

ZocDoc, a startup that allows users to book appointments online with doctors based on insurance carrier and location, has the added challenge of interfacing with a dauntingly complex industry — health care. Even if they execute their part of the process flawlessly, doctors can still cancel or move appointments, and the end user’s experience suffers. Rather than making excuses, though, ZocDoc takes proactive steps to maintain customer satisfaction. If an appointment is changed on a patient, ZocDoc makes a phone call to that patient to apologize and offers a $10 Amazon.com gift card, no strings attached.

 

Online businesses don’t have the luxury of face-to-face interaction when building relationships with customers. But this kind of unanticipated extra attention is a good step towards making the user feel cared for before he or she has an opportunity to develop a negative opinion of the experience. “Be proactive, not reactive,” says Anna Elwood, director of operations for ZocDoc. “Don’t wait for problems to occur, find them before they do.”

 

2. Square: Adding a Personal Touch

 

Square, a service that helps users process payments using their mobile devices, is expanding, according to a spokesperson for the company. But at a healthy 140 employees, they seem to have maintained something that many smaller companies have lost: a personal touch.

 

It’s crucial for Square’s customers to know that support is available when they need it, since the ability to accept payments is something a small business can hardly do without, even for a short time. When that moment came for food truck marketing director Angus Gorberg, Square was ready with support that made him feel he was in good hands. “I’m not sure how large their team is over in San Francisco, but my feeling has always been like it was small in the best way possible,” Gorberg says. “And the kicker? All of this conversation was through email. What else would you expect from a tech startup?”

 

3. Dell: Pointing People in the Right Direction

 

For companies that get a lot of different service requests that vary in urgency and topic, it can be difficult to effectively direct customers to the department or representative best suited to fix the problem. But there’s nothing more frustrating to a consumer trying to get an answer than being bounced around from person to person to no avail. This is one of the (somewhat diverse and numerous) ways Twitter can be useful in a customer service context — as a first point of contact that helps funnel users in the right direction. Dell, a large company that might very well have you wait on hold for several minutes if you were to call, has a team on Twitter that replies promptly. Then, if necessary, a social media outreach team member reaches out to follow up. Not only does this approach help to minimize the number of angry, frustrated people venting publicly on Twitter, it also helps people with quick questions to skip the phone altogether, freeing up a representative to speak with someone who has a more detailed request.

 

4. Bimo Marketing: . Top Pay-per click

 

Rarely do we think a marketing company can really help our bottom line. Most business owners view marketing as a way to get more exposure and if they get business out of it, it is an added bonus.

The guys at Bimo Marketing have delivered over 300,000 qualified leads for their clients. These guys are good, they start you off with converting web pages and mobile pages. Their prices start at around $1,500. But for the price you can see well over 90 qualified leads a month.
www.Bimomarketing.com

 

More Attractive Financing Options Than Traditional Lending Methods

Asset based lending, in particular, accounts receivables and/or purchase order funding, is can be a more attractive financing options than more traditional lending methods. A traditional banking facility of $50k that is fully deployed is not a benefit to a growing business, rather a hindrance.
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With an accounts receivable line a company can better sustain growth, because the receivables line will grow with the sales of the business and effectively increasing the cash flow to meet payroll, make payments to suppliers and cover operating expenses, the business can focus on generating new customers and increase profits. The end result being a business that is more attractive to a bank, thereby, achieving the desired result. A traditional banking facility large enough to handle the financing needs of the business.  

However, this is becoming a more “accepted” and useful method to inject cash flow for a business. Many small to medium sized businesses that have survived this economic downturn, are finding access to cash and traditional banking lines of credit are not enough to support growth. A traditional facility is capped or has a hard limit, whereas a receivables/factoring facility can grow in parallel to the sales of the company, provided the credit of the debtors support the sales.

Qualifying for an accounts receivables line is based on the credit worthiness of the customer base and strength of the invoice trail. Because this is not characterized as a loan there is no debt shown on the balance sheet. This is a purchase of an asset or invoice at a discount and costs are calculated on the turn of the receivable.

The costs to a business can also be quantified by lost revenue and lost opportunities. How much do businesses lose each year to bad debt and write offs as well as lost sales or turning away of customer orders because of the operating capital the business has tied up in open receivables.

Many businesses utilizing a factor have decreased offsets and bad debt thanks to the attention paid to the debtors credit rating. Businesses are able to accelerate their cash flow, in turn, accelerating and increasing the number of orders/jobs fulfilled, directly increasing their bottom line and adding revenue to business. A banking line is not as quick or flexible enough to increase with the rapid growth a business may see. What is the cost to a business in missed opportunities.

Businesses today need access to cash when they receive the orders not when they have reaped the profits or have become profitable. Businesses today can become profitable with access to cash and financing. In transactions with 20% margins, what is more costly the 3-4% “cost” of financing or the loss of the 16% profit. Many businesses today are turning down opportunities, bids, purchase orders, new business because of the lack of available cash flow.

For more information visit NeeBoCapital.com. NeeBo Capital has a friendly staff to cover all of your funding needs. When you need funds they deliver. They are one of the most trusted cash flow providers in the United states.

 

Purchase Order Finance and Accounts Receivable Financing

Have you ever considered Purchase Order Financing or Accounts Receivable Financing , also known as factoring invoices?

In contrast to Purchase Order Financing, Accounts Receivable Financing focuses on advancing a large portion of the invoice immediately after the product is delivered to the customer. Instead of waiting Net 30 to up to net 90 days to get paid, an accounts receivable financing company is able to reduce the wait to virtually net zero by advancing 70-90 percent of the invoice amount. After the full payment has been received from the customer the accounts receivable financing company will transfer the remaining portion of the invoice, minus their cost (typically one to three percent).
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Get you Cash Fast!  As compared to the drawn out process of traditional financing, both Purchase Order Financing and Accounts Receivable Financing can be obtained in a matter of days, albeit Accounts Receivable financing can be faster than purchase order financing.

Credit Worthiness. Both methods focus on the credit worthiness of your client, not your balance sheet. Traditional lending look to your past history of managing your company’s finances and credit when deciding if a line of credit will be approved. Purchase Order Financing and Accounts Receivable Financing, on the other hand, will look to the future of your company and the creditworthiness of your clients.

These two funding strategies are  great for newer companies. Companies without a track record of at least 2-4 years,  you may  not have much of a shot at getting approved for business credit through a traditional lender. Since purchase order financing and accounts receivable financing companies put more weight on your clients creditworthiness, than on yours, young businesses are able to get the financing they need! Visit NeeBo Capital Today!
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Finance Trucking and Transportation Brokers (Factoring 101)

Finding business financing for a transportation company can be difficult. Even though the recession ended over a year ago and the economy is improving, most institutions are still reluctant to provide business financing to transportation companies. This is can be a serious problem because most transportation companies are cash flow intensive and need external financing to grow.


One of the most common cash flow problems for transportation companies happens because clients usually pay their freight bills on Net 30 or Net 60 day terms. On the other hand, the business needs immediate funds to cover driver payments, fuel, repairs and other business expenses. So the cash flow problem is created by having immediate expenses and delayed revenues. Initially, companies can cover that gap by using their own resources. Eventually these resources will run out, especially if the company is growing quickly.


One way to fix this problem is to use freight bill factoring, a form of financing that is designed to fix this specific cash flow problem. A freight factoring plan enables the transportation company to get the equivalent of a quick pay. The transaction works by using an intermediary, called a factoring company, who buys the freight bill from the transportation company and pays for it immediately. This enables the transportation company to get an immediate payment, while the factoring company holds the freight bill until it’s paid. The factoring fee for the service, varies based on how long it takes for the invoice to get paid, the financed volume and your customers commercial credit worthiness.


A major advantage of factoring over other solutions is that it’s much easier to obtain than other forms of business financing. Since the factoring company is buying the invoice from your company, the most important requirement to qualify is to have solid customers. Apart from that, your company needs to be free of legal and tax problems.

NeeBo Capital Launches First Mobile Factoring App!

NeeBo Capital’s Team
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After weeks the team at NeeBo Capital launches their mobile factoring app. The basic factoring mobile site is the first app from the series, which is freely available. Users will be able to sign-up and access information on the go.

Bill Holiday, one of NeeBo capital’s founders has said they plan on releasing apps in the near future that will give clients the ability to log-in and track invoice payments. The company is looking to position itself as one of the leading mobile cash flow lenders.

Good Job Team!

What is Asset Based Lending | How it Works

For business people reading this post we congratulate you. It actually is important to know the essentials of asset based lending. Asset Based Lending is a type of revolving commercial financing that permits a business to borrower against a discounted value of their assets. Asset based lenders concentrate on the worth of the collateral during the underwriting process a lot more than the credit history of your organization.


Asset based loans
typically have several different collateral pools and advance rates as part of the structure.
Below are the basics of an asset based loan:
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Pricing
Because Asset based lending is applied for businesses with revenue from $1,000,000 to well over a Billion, pricing differs greatly. Large, strong borrowers can borrow at close to commercial paper rates but most asset based loans are created to companies with revenue less than $100,000,000. The “all in rate” for these loans is typically between LIBOR + 8% and LIBOR Plus 20%. Rate depends on the size of the loan and the financial strength of the borrower.


Structure
Accounts Receivable –
Average advance rates between 80% and 90%. Most asset based loans have got the majority of the loans towards the accounts receivable.

Inventory – Traditional advance rates between 35% and 65%. Advance rates depend on the salability of the inventory in a liquidation. The more specialized the inventory, the low the advance rate

Machinery and Equipment – Advance rates for asset based loans are typically 60% of the orderly liquidation value. A large amount of lenders will require the Machinery and Equipment to be reappraised every year.

Real Estate – Advance rates are ordinarily 50% of the appraised value.
Asset based loans
characteristically demand the borrower to revalue the assets whenever they take an advance. This is often made by submitting what’s called a “borrowing base” to the asset based lender which is quite simply a spreadsheet that gives the current value of the assets. Since the value of accounts receivable and inventory change often, the borrowing base calculations focus on these assets.
For the most part asset based lenders require a personal guaranty from the majority owners of the business.

Typical asset based loans require that all customers of the borrower remit payment for invoices to a lockbox controlled by the lender.

All asset based loans have loan covenants. These may very well be very restricted financial covenants depending on the cash flow and balance sheet of the organization.

Underwriting
Underwriting an asset based loan can take between 30 and 60 days. The lender will quite often send a field examiner into the business to examin the books and records. Be expecting to have most of your assets appraised. The cost of the due diligence will be the responsibility of the borrower. Which include legal costs it is not unusual for the total expenses to exceed $100,000 and could be as much as $1,000,000.

At NeeBo Capital we focus on lending against accounts receivable to companies with revenue less than $10,000,000. We don’t charge our clients for due diligence and because we only lend against accounts receivable the entire process is generally done in under a week.
Our system is completely electronic so we are able to keep overhead down and pass that cost savings along to our clients by eliminating line fees, wire fees and monthly maintenance fees. With NeeBo Capital you only pay for what you use.
For more information about our electronic, online financing program please click the button below.

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Why Factoring Beats a Bank Line of Credit

Factoring is not for every business. For example, if you have a bank line of credit adequate to handle your company’s operations (lets say 80% or greater of your monthly accounts receivable), then factoring probably isn’t beneficial to your business. If it is any less than that amount, your business may be suffering.

With that said, even with an adequate bank line of credit, ask yourself what happens when you begin to grow?
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For Example, let’s say you are writing approximately $100k per month in sales. Let’s also assume you have a bank line of $80k. Your business runs well. But, (always a but) what happens if you grow too quickly? This month $100k, next month $140k, the following month $150k. Simply put, your bank line is inadequate. Right?

For a bank line of credit and needed additional capital, you must jump through hoops to prove to the bank you need it’s money. With factoring 80% of your receivables are available to you immediately. This month $80k, next month $112k, the following month $120k, and all on the day you invoice your client (presuming the work is done or the product delivered) wired immediately into your account.

No more waiting on payment. Bank lines of credit also come with hidden fees that factoring does not. For example if you use less than the $80k bank line of credit some banks will hit you with fees. So although the banks may have lower rates to draw you in they make their money on FEES!

How to Sell Accounts Receivable for Liquid Cash

Companies are constantly looking to improve the bottom line. Many top fortune 500 companies sell their accounts receivables to show cash on their statements. Medium and smaller sized businesses sell accounts receivable for cash to manage cash flow.
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Accounts receivable funding or factoring is the sale of invoices at a discount. A method of financing that is used by businesses to raise capital quickly and improve cash flow without going into debt.

As your business sells a product or service to a customer, it creates an invoice. Usually, an invoice would itemize the unit sold, the price, and the terms of the sale. The invoice can either serve as a receipt if it acknowledges that payment has been received or as a bill if payment is due. An outstanding invoice may also be called an account receivable. Instead of waiting to collect payment, a business may elect to sell the invoice to a factor and receive an immediate cash advance. A factoring company is engaged in the buying of accounts receivable.

After receiving your invoices paid in full you will be charged a small “factoring fee” by the factoring company. Your customer will be notified of where to send their payments. The fee for the factored invoice will be deducted after payment is received from your customer. You do not have to factor all your invoices or change your billing process except for the payment address, and in some cases, the factor will have to submit the original invoices to your customer.

The factor will wait to collect from your customer. When the invoice is paid, the factor will retain a sum equal to initial cash advance plus applicable fees. The balance is then refunded to you along with any account statements. The exact factoring fee will depend on volume and time of payment.

Picking a Local Factoring Company?

Management will tell you local business accounts for a portion of their larger clients. Why? Because we feel more comfortable handling business in person, face to face. A key benefit of local business is regular meetings. This is why we position our offices close to a major international airport, because we encourage meet-ups with our clients.
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Location is important, so on the subject of picking a factoring company is it best to go with a local provider?
Without complicating things the answer is no. You need to pick a factoring company who will offer you the services you need at the rate you want. Nothing is worse than doing business with a factoring company just because they are local, and soon finding out you over paid and they are an unorganized company.
Your invoice factoring and purchase order financing can take place via fax, email, or phone. So clearly location is only a minor part of the equation. At NeeBo Capital we frequently fly to our clients offices in order to solidify our relationship as your choice factoring invoice firm.

5 Tips For Picking a Factoring Company

Below we have included some points to consider when picking a factoring company. However keep in mind you must make the best decision in regards to your industry. These tips will greatly help your decision, post a comment on the bottom is you would like to add something we may have missed:

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1. Ask the size of their clients/ client base – you do not want to be the factoring companies largest or smallest client. Simply because they may not have the ability to handle a firm of your size, or you may be too small of a factor for them to focus on.

2. Find out what industry they specialize in- Many factoring companies have experts in specific fields. If you are an aircraft parts broker, what can a freight bill factoring expert know about your industry? At NeeBo Capital we pair you with a professional in your field.

3. Know the terms- Many business owners overlook contracts because they need the cash flow immediately and like the rates offered. However all factoring companies have different terms. Be aware of credit limit charges, and miscellaneous fees.

4. Location- Know the location & hours of operation of your choice factoring company. If you do business on the east coast you have to understand a factoring companies staff on the west coast won’t be in the office until noon your time. Especially if your factoring company is dealing directly with your customers.

5. Do they work with you- before you start a factoring invoices agreement make sure they are willing to work with you. Ask the company for references, and trust your gut whether they are working with you or just want more business.
Please feel free to add to the list…