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Why a Prepaid Business Credit Card Almost Always is the Best Choice

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Prepaid Business Credit Card

What are some of the features of a business credit card that are ideal for your small business? Is it something that every card can offer?

While typical credit cards provide you an unsecured credit line and may offer special reward programs there are many other unique features that come with a prepaid business credit card that just might make it the best choice for your company.

Since the card itself is prepaid there are no late payments you need to worry about and more importantly you have much more control then a credit card or a charge card could ever hope to provide.

For example, here are some of the key features that prepaid business accounts offers:
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5 Simple Ways to Understand Your Business Credit Scores

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Business Credit Score

One of the most important things you should know creditors look at to determine your company’s creditworthiness is your business credit score.

Does your business have a positive credit file established with Small Business Equifax, Corporate Experian, and Dun and Bradstreet? The reason why this is so significant is because each creditor, lender, or supplier may pull a business credit report from one, two, or all three of these bureaus when you apply for credit.

So, here are 5 ways to understand your business credit score making it easier for you to grasp how the scoring process works.

1) Credit:

The number of trade experiences, balances outstanding, payment habits, credit utilization and trends over time all play a role in what makes up your scores.
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7 Mistakes to Avoid When You Apply for a Business Credit Card

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It’s time to review those costly errors that can damage our personal credit scores as well as put our personal assets at risk. Now I know applying for a business credit card may not be the most exciting thing to do but it’s necessary and requires your careful attention.

As with the last time we covered the six major types of business credit applications, I feel compelled to mention that there are certain mistakes that you should avoid before you sign the dotted line.

So, let’s take a look at seven mistakes that you never want to make that can cost you money, damage your personal credit and put your personal assets at risk.
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Top 25 Websites Offering Small Business Help

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Help for Small Business

With the vast amount of information and resources available online it can be quite a challenge for entrepreneurs and small business owners to find the small business help they need.

From deciding whether to start a business, setting up or acquiring a business, raising capital, acquiring credit, marketing, social media marketing, working with customers, growing your business, working online, selling online and much more it’s vital to have access to resources you can depend on.

Below are my top 25 all time favorite websites that provide small business owners the much needed support, news, information, resources, and tools needed to succeed in business today.

  1. AllBusiness.com -AllBusiness.com has a variety of small business resources, advice, and business ideas for entrepreneurs and small businesses to start, manage, finance, and build a business.
  2. Bplans.com -Bplans.com offers free sample business plans, business plan software, business calculators, and articles on writing a business plan, starting a business, and other small business topics.
  3. Business.com -Business.com provides an extensive and helpful business search engine and business directory designed to help its users find the companies, products, services, and information they need to make the right business decisions.
  4. Business.usa.gov -Business.usa.gov helps small businesses understand their legal requirements and locate government services from federal, state and local agencies.
  5. Businesscreditblogger.com -Businesscreditblogger.com has been the go-to source for business credit information providing expert information about building business credit, business credit scoring, business credit reporting and business credit cards.
  6. Copyblogger.com -Copyblogger.com is an invaluable source for business owners wanting to learn more about how to gain more traffic, links, and subscribers for their company website.
  7. Credit.com -Credit.com covers all aspects of personal credit and includes free interactive tools and unbiased product comparisons.
  8. Entrepreneur.com -Entrepreneur.com offers a comprehensive range of practical information for small business owners including articles, videos, tools, newsletters, and message boards.
  9. EntreWorld.org -Entreworld.org is a collection of resources for entrepreneurs designed to support and help build entrepreneurial economies. The content on the site focuses on starting, growing and locating support for your business.
  10. Franchise.com -Franchise.com serves the franchise community by serving both as a unique search tool for finding the right business for sale and a franchise industry resource that offers franchise information, franchise industry news, and resources.
  11. Frannet.com -Frannet.com provides an overview of franchising and provides helpful advice and guidance to determine if you are suited to being a franchise owner.
  12. Inc.com -Inc.com is the online version of the magazine Inc. It provides information, products, services, and online tool for entrepreneurs.
  13. IRS Small Business One Stop Resource -The IRS Small Business Resource covers a broad range of tax resources for entrepreneurs and small business owners including workshops, forms, and publications.
  14. Knowthis.com -Knowthis.com is a leading information and resource website in marketing, market research, advertising, selling, promotion, and other marketing-related areas.
  15. MoreBusiness.com -MoreBusiness.com is filled with sample business plans, marketing plans, templates, sample contracts and business agreements to help entrepreneurs start and grow a small business.
  16. Mashable.com -Mashable.com is the top source for news in social and digital media, technology and web culture. The business section offers tips, tools, social media resources and guides you will find extremely helpful.
  17. SBA.gov -SBA.gov is run by the U.S. government and it is dedicated to helping small business owners by giving a wide range of sources for technical, managerial, and financial help and assistance.
  18. Score.org -The SCORE Association is a nonprofit and resource partner with the SBA. It offers a wealth of free online and face-to-face business counseling, mentoring, and training for startups or for existing businesses hoping to grow.
  19. Smallbiztrends.com -Smallbiztrends.com is an award-winning online publication for small business owners and entrepreneurs. A great resource to track, explore and learn from trends affecting the small business market.
  20. Socialmediatoday.com -Socialmediatoday.com helps teach business owners how to leverage the power of social media with insightful information, tools, tips, and strategies.
  21. Startupnation.com -Startupnation.com is a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs with easy-to-follow, practical information to start and grow a successful business.
  22. Toolkit.com -Toolkit.com offers more than 5,000 pages of free cost-cutting tips, step-by-step checklists, real-life case studies, startup advice, and business templates to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
  23. Forbes – One of the most trusted resources for the world’s business and investment leaders, providing them the uncompromising commentary, concise analysis, relevant tools and real-time reporting they need to succeed at work, profit from investing and have fun with the rewards of winning. Forbes.com includes real-time original reporting on business, technology, investing and lifestyle.
  24. Veteran Entrepreneur Portal -VA OSDBU quickly connects Veteran entrepreneurs to relevant ‘best-practices’ and information. Collectively, VEP offers direct access to the resources necessary to guide every step of entrepreneurship.
  25. Youngentrepreneur.com -Youngentrepreneur.com is one of the largest online forum communities for entrepreneurs worldwide. Learn and network with business professionals including venture capitalists, private investors, industry experts, inventors, and successful entrepreneurs.

Care to share a website or free resource that has provided small business help for your startup or existing business?

Ready to build your business credit? Become a member of my Business Credit Insiders Circle and gain access to a proven step-by-step business credit building system. A system that provides you access to vendor lines of credit, fleet cards, business credit cards with and without a PG, funding sources and lenders that report to all the major business credit bureaus. Submit your name and email below for details and receive a free business credit building audio seminar ($597 value) =>

To Your Success In Business and in Life!

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About the author

Marco CarbajoMarco Carbajo is a business credit expert, author, speaker, and founder of the Business Credit Insiders Circle. He is a business credit blogger for Dun and Bradstreet Credibility Corp, the SBA.gov Community, About.com and All Business.com. His articles and blog; Business Credit Blogger.com,  have been featured in ‘Fox Small Business’,’American Express Small Business’, ‘Business Week’, ‘The Washington Post’, ‘The New York Times’, ‘The San Francisco Tribune’,‘Alltop’, and ‘Entrepreneur Connect’.

Why Improving Your Personal Credit Score is Good for Business

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Improving Your Credit Score

 

Small business owners are becoming acutely aware of the importance of establishing business credit scores that are completely separate from their personal credit scores.

In addition, many have found this to be a viable solution to overcome personal credit challenges that prevent them from obtaining credit.

While strong company credit files and scores can open the doors for various types of financing business owners should continue to work on improving personal credit scores as well.

This can benefit their business in several ways:

First, with good credit scores you have more choices for obtaining funding simply from the fact that certain lenders require a personal credit check as part of their approval process.

Secondly, it strengthens the credit picture of your business overall as many lenders will consider your personal credit scores as a strong indicator to how you will handle your company’s financial obligations.

Finally, a potential business partner or investor will look at your personal credit scores as a factor for determining how financially responsible you are.

This alone should bring you to the conclusion that raising credit scores is not only good for your business today but it’s also vital to its long term growth as well.

Here are several strategies that you can apply for increasing your scores:

*Become an Authorized User – If your spouse has an existing aged credit card account then add yourself as an authorized user on that account. As an Authorized User you gain all the credit history of that particular account as if you had been on the account since it originally opened.

Keep in mind your credit history does not affect your spouse’s account, but any activity, negative or positive from the Main Account Holder (your spouse) will affect you the Authorized User.

*Pay More than the Minimum – Add $10.00 or more on top of your minimum monthly payment and make three payments a month with each payment received ten days apart from one another.

By making a payment higher than your minimum payment and increasing the frequency of payments triggers the positive action or activity on your account. The system will automatically report “More than Minimum Payment Made “to the credit agencies.

The frequency of your payment lets the creditor know you can afford MORE than your current credit line. This triggers two things.

  1. It triggers the internal system of the creditor to offer you a higher credit limit automatically in about 6 months. Credit Card companies do not like receiving more than one payment a month so since the best customer to a creditor is one that’s always in debt they will entice you to use more credit by increasing the limit.
  2. The credit scoring system (FICO) will calculate more positive action in one month rather than just once a month and give you points for every payment you do make.

While there are many more strategies for improving credit scores pay close attention to some of the more obvious ones. This includes maintaining a 30% debt to credit limit ratio on credit card accounts as well as correcting any errors or obsolete information you uncover on your reports.

Even though every business owner has a unique file with all types of factors that make up their scores these simple yet powerful strategies can give you that extra boost you need so your business can reap all the benefits.

Looking for ways to improve your credit score while obtaining business credit? Become a member of my Business Credit Insiders Circle and gain access to a proven step-by-step business credit building system. A system that provides you access to credit building services, vendor lines of credit, fleet cards, business credit cards with and without a PG, funding sources and lenders that report to all the major business credit bureaus. Submit your name and email below for details and receive a free audio seminar ($597 value) =>

Marco Carbajo is a business credit expert, author, speaker, and founder of the Business Credit Insiders Circle. A business credit solutions membership helping business owners build small business credit. He is a business credit blogger for AllBusiness.com, a subsidiary of Dun and Bradstreet and author of “Eight Steps to Ultimate Business Credit” and “How to Build Business Credit with No Personal Guarantee.” His articles and blogs have also been featured in American Express Small Business, Business Week, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Tribune, Scotsman Guide, Alltop, Entrepreneur Connect, and Active Rain. 

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