Author: mccbloom@gmail.com
Small Business Loans and Bad Credit?
While it’s true, a good personal credit score is an important metric small business lenders use to evaluate a business owners credit worthiness, a less-than-perfect credit score doesn’t rule out a loan provided other metrics look good. Before you start looking for loan, make sure you have a handle on these four things: 1. What…
4 Rules for Handling Conflicts With Your Business Partner
The one certainty with a business partnership, as with any close relationship, is that conflicts will arise. But when you’re working very closely with another person or group, it can be easy to get emotional and lose sight of the larger picture, particularly when the stakes are high and money is on the line. A…
When You Need to Get a Business Loan Fast
There are times when a small business owner doesn’t have the luxury of weeks or months to find a small business loan for his or her business. Sometimes an opportunity to purchase inventory at a discount, launch a marketing campaign, or even deal with a crisis happens so quickly they need access to capital right…
Getting a Small Business Loan—What You Need to Know
At OnDeck (learn more about our business loans here) we’ve delivered over $2 billion to businesses since we started making small business loans in 2007. After talking to all of those business owners—and countless others—many tell us they wish that had known how to better prepare for the search for a loan. With that in…
5 Rules for Conducting Killer Job Interviews
The interview is the meat in the sandwich of your hiring process. A huge amount rides on getting interviews right—you have maybe 30 minutes to determine whether someone is a fit to join your team, and to leave a good impression on them. But few small business owners are trained in how to ace interviews…
OnDeck is Expanding in Canada: Welcome to Our Canadian Neighbors
Since 2007 we’ve delivered over $2 billion to businesses all across the United States in more than 700 industries and have been lending in Canada since 2014. Today we’re announcing that OnDeck will now be offering loans up to $150,000 (CAD) to the approximately 1.1 million small businesses in Canada. Small business is the lifeblood…
How to Hire the Best Person For Your Small Business
Hiring is one of the most critical, and difficult, tasks for many small business owners. You may wind up with an urgent need to fill a position, but you don’t want to just hire anyone — finding the best possible person is critical. Still, how do you find that person, and still have time to…
Put Friends and Family Business Loans in Writing
According to the Pepperdine Graziadio School of Business Management’s most recent Private Capital Access Index for Q1 of 2015, small business financing success rates for loans from friends or family remain very high for business owners seeking financing. 68 percent of the business owners surveyed who sought funding from a friend or family member found…
Don’t Enter a Business Partnership Until You’ve Answered These Five Questions
In many ways, entering a business partnership can be compared to entering a marriage. There’s an intense level of trust and commitment required from the people involved, and the relationship takes ongoing work and attention in order to thrive. Which means that, just as you would consider many factors carefully before getting married, so should…
A “Fair” Personal Credit Score Can Cost You
We’ve talked before about how a low personal credit score makes it harder to get a small business loan—along with how a good personal credit score often leads to more favorable loan terms and lower interest rates. Credit.com has introduced a Lifetime Cost of Debt calculator that gives you visibility into what credit might cost…
These 6 Steps Will Help You Hire Salespeople Who Deliver
If you’re looking to hire a salesperson, there are many candidates out there. But if your goal is to impact your company’s bottom line through smart and strategic hires, you’ll need to find and hire only top performers—a much harder task. To create a recruiting process that weeds out average performers and gets you to…
Is a Business Debit Card a Good Idea?
San Francisco startup, Bento’s co-founders Farhan Ahmad and Sean Anderson, think their new prepaid MasterCard (that acts like a debit card) is just the ticket for startups whose employees purchase equipment, supplies, services, or company travel. The card is designed to help small business owners put limits on employee cards and manage their spending. The…
Where Do Startups Really Get the Money to Start?
If you’ve put your faith in what I call the “Myth of the Shark Tank,” you might be surprised at where most start-ups get the cash they need to start. “During an event in Austin on Monday, the Kauffman Foundation outlined research dispelling some of the most common myths that distort America’s idea of the…
3 Likely Reasons Your Business Loan Application Got Rejected
While the economy is improving and many small business owners feel optimistic about the future, it can still be a challenge to access the financing they need to fuel growth or fund working capital. Not all lenders look at the same criteria when evaluating whether or not they’ll approve a small business loan, but here…
The #1 Way to Up Productivity for Your Small Business that You’re Probably Not Doing
It’s a proven fact: employees who are engaged at work (meaning that they are motivated, committed, and satisfied) are more productive and better at their jobs. And more productive employees mean a stronger, healthier business. One study found that “companies with high employee engagement had a 19% increase in operating income and a 28% increase…