Your Questions About Business Online Services Group

Nancy asks…

What happens when you can’t pay your small business loan?

I am looking to form an LLC to buy an existing business. I am looking to secure a loan. My biggest fear, as anyone’s would be, if the business fails, what happens to the loan? Its a retail business so there will be assets that can be sold but what if its not enough? can they come after my personal assets? Even if they are not put up as collatteral? also, will my personal credit history be ruined if my LLC goes bankrupt and defaults on a loan?

Jere answers:

A true business credit card is a line of credit that is taken in the name of the business, under the business’ credit. Activity, whether good or bad, is reflected on your business’ credit report through D&B and other financial institutions, and the liability for any debts incurred and bills owed is with the business.

However, some companies out there offer “business” credit cards which they require a person guarantee for. These institutions will often ask for a personal guarantee, and will almost always ask for a social security number from the person applying for the card. If this is the case, the credit card is not a business credit card, but is simply a personal credit card which is used for the business. The business is not liable for bills and debts – you are.

When applying for a credit card for your business, watch out for areas asking for your SSN (and not your TaxID or EIN) and be wary of any credit card that asks for a personal guarantee. By ensuring that your credit card is in the name of your business, you can help to build your business’ credit, while avoiding creating problems with your own.

Many companies offer a list of credit cards that are issued under the business name only. Those lists typically run $300-$900, depending on the quality of the information inquiring. I would suggest starting your search online via google or yahoo. Search for “strong business credit” (just like that in quotes) to find services that sell the information.

Good luck,

Ilya Bodner
Small Business Owner
Initial Underwriting Group

Mark asks…

What do you think about advertising in social networks?

For a small business , do you think advertising in social network like orkut help to reap profits?
How does advertising in social networks work ?

Jere answers:

Hey,

(Bare with me on this one, I’ll answer your questions and share some damn good techniques)

I own my own marketing company and have been involved in the internet industry for a long time now so am quite clued up/experienced in pretty much all forms of web promotion and marketing.

The answer to the question is your profit depends on what you’re selling, how well your selling it and who to. Social network advertising can see you reap profits or sew losses due to high advertising costs and low conversions, but they are fantastic sources for traffic!!

The reason social network advertising is so effective is that they are places where countless amounts of millions of people go on a daily basis, like everyone watching MTV at the same time, it’s maximum exposure for your brand services. The other major benefit of advertising on social networking sites is that you can highly target the ads you place there.

Rather than traditional advertising, which will be viewed by a random audience, advertisers can use these networks to target their ads at a very specific audience; you can target it in many ways such as geographic location, sex, age range, gender, single, married etc.

This way the adds are most successful and if it is an online business/service you’re promoting then it’s a good idea if you use these services, although be warned, it can be very expensive (Depending on the size and popularity of the network).

They generally run off what’s called a CPM system (Cost per thousand impressions). This means that for every time your advert pops up on a web page it’s classed as one impression, for every time it reaches 1000 impressions the site will charge you the CPM premium (Again the cost will depend on the size and popularity of the network).

This can be a very costly approach if you are a small business as most of the major web 2.0 sites have so many members thus having many millions of pages for your advert to pop up on, they also generally have a minimum spend which can be quite high (Facebook currently has a $50,000 monthly minimum investment for add banners).

I’d look at starting a page/fake profile on the social networks and drive the traffic to your site, it’s called SMO (Social media optimization) and it works a f*****g treat, believe you me!!

I am a keen user of social networks and have utilized their power for my own SEO and revenue generating benefit. Create a fake profile and invite as many of your target audience as you can, you’ll be surprised how many people will accept the request!

You can do this very well on sites like Facebook using their ‘Groups’ feature. If you’re selling games consoles, for example, do a search within the social network for ‘PS3/Xbox 360/Play Station’ etc and then click on the ‘Groups’ tab to seclude the results to groups only. Have a look at the groups that you’re left with.

The members of these groups, often hundreds of thousands, are the people who you know know that are interested in your product/niche. Go through the members and request a ton of them to be your friends, this is called building a list and is where most online services make over half of their sales (Using backend sales).

All you need to do then is create a group of your own about your service/product (The name of the group needs to be eye catching and inventive), in your fake profile, then invite all of your ‘Friends list’ (Prospective buyers) to the group (When I say friends list, by the way, I’m talking about 2,000+ friends in your list, send as many friends requests as you possibly can).

This will then trigger a viral reaction in the form of ‘the butterfly effect’ and spread your brand/service/website through the network where the members view your site through a third party referral (The group invitation).

Referrals from a third party (the friend who invited them to your group) or an expert in the field is always trusted by prospectives as they have no reason to lie.

There are three main objectives here:
1- To drive targeted traffic to your site
2- Create brand awareness for your website, free of charge
And the most important part
3- To get high PR/authority links back to your site (Bookmark the pages where you’ve left these backlinks, it will only increase the authority of the page that is pointing back to your site)

——————————————————————————–

You don’t need to advertise in social networks, if you’re willing to put some effort in you’ll reap the rewards, trust me. Utilize web 2.0 to work for you; use sites such as Squidoo, YouTube, Blogger, WordPress to name just a few and cover the internet with your content rather than spending on one add in one social network.

A little heads up if you do decide to use social networking advertising- Add banners are pretty much the worst form of web promotion, the CTR (Click through rate) is very low and not very cost effective at all, look for another form of advertising withing the network. HOT TIP: Text link ads are far more effective than premium banner ads!

If you are looking for a unique social network to advertise on I’d advise you to keep an eye out for the ‘Global Covenant’, a massive new UK project that has totally redesigned the social networking concept, a welcomed evolution of social networking; even the BBC and Sky are involved inside the project. Pretty exciting stuff!!

I’ve been helping a global client base increase their profits, traffic, conversions, performance etc for a long time now, if you want to talk to me through Skype and have a brainstorm or need help with marketing strategies feel free to add me (Skype username- Internet.Marketer, Marcus Hill, UK) and we’ll have a chat (free of charge by the way).

Hope this info gave you a little insight to web 2.0 advertising and has answered your questions.

All the best!!!

Laura asks…

What’s the best way to promote a new online business?

I’m planning on having a website, but would it also benefit me to join Facebook ??? Or would that just be waisted time and energy?? what does this social networks do that my website cannot do?? if that IS the way to go, suggest what a better way for a online business promotion ?

Jere answers:

“I think Facebook is a tremendous business promotion tool. It’s a effective way to promote. And virally expand the word about yr business. Use your personal profile, then make groups and share your input by sending messages about your bsuness, you will get the replies from your friend and groups,it will help your business to promote. But all it takes a lot time to customize.you may do all in a diffrent ways. So you may take services through the internet; companies may assist you in-place, One is magicsolv.com offering quality services for all your business needs. So don’t suffer out your business and ask them helping U!!”

John asks…

How do I set up my online homework business?

What is the best way to reach the most people online to offer homework assistance to students?

Jere answers:

The best (and incidentally cheapest) way of reaching students is through facebook. Create a group on facebook related to your service, include information about your service and send it to every student that you know on your facebook account. It’ll spread to more people than you can imagine. Quicker than in any other time in history.

You’re lucky. Social Networks are the quickest way to send spread information in history to date and your target clients are the largest users of Social Networks. It’s a golden opportunity.

Best of luck

James asks…

If I want to run multiple businesses using them as dba’s under the parent company, what do I need to do?

In other words, I want to run several companies. Do I need to file each one seperately or can I group them all under one name and give the other companies dba’s?

Jere answers:

The best thing to do would be to file the parent company first. You probably want to set this up as an LLC, or a Limited Liability Company so that your personal assets aren’t tied to the company.

Once you have your main LLC, you can literally set up as many DBAs as you want for the individual company branches. Keep in mind that everything will still be one company with this model. If you file an LLC for Tom’s Baking Supplies and then a DBA for Tom’s Crusts, another DBA for Tom’s Fillings and one for Tom’s Toppings, they are all still one company. And under that model, if Tom’s Toppings started losing money, that money would come from Tom’s Baking Supplies, LLC.

But the nice thing about DBAs is that if you have good business models and cash flow, you can certainly brand individual services or products under individual company names. I have a client that I work with who does construction. He has one LLC, but separate DBAs for his framing business, his roofing business and his home remodeling business. This works great for him because he can focus marketing materials on each business segment with a company name, logo, website etc. That is specific to each of those different lines of work.

There are several online resources for filing incorporations and DBAs. You will need to file the Incorporation first, before the DBAs. Depending on your state, that can take a few days or a few weeks. Www.clickandinc.com and www.dba-filings.com can walk you through the process and charge very reasonable rates. They also have good customer service and live support during the day to answer any questions.

You can also file DBAs without having a corporation behind them, but then they are tied to you as an individual and sole proprietor. Under this model, your personal financial assets WOULD be directly tied to your company, and all income would have to be taxed as self-employment income. This works great for people that have a consulting business and don’t want to put their social security number on tax forms (a personal DBA allows you to use a Federal Tax ID Number). It’s not as safe a bet for people that run businesses with employees.

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