A private-label ice cream manufacturer on the Texas Riviera—Lucky Licks—had a solid few years of sales, but its profits are rapidly melting away. The $5 million business is no Ben & Jerry’s, and the owners, a married couple named Jack and Jessie, are cash broke.

When the couple started the business more than 10 years ago it was their dream to sell a homemade product they loved and believed in. That enthusiastic approach is a good start for any company, but it has nothing to do with whether a business fails or succeeds. That’s a mistake thousands of business owners make: They think having a passion or a dream is the only recipe for success. But they’re missing key ingredients, like financial controls and a disciplined plan for profit.

Because Lucky Licks’ product is good, sales are good. The husband-and-wife team are meticulous when it comes to quality control. They take pride in what they do every step of the way, from using the finest ingredients to making sure the product is fresh. Although their top-line sales are in the millions, they are still losing money. Why? Because they didn’t want to face the day-to-day financial realities that go into making a profit.

Complete article on businessweek.com

Denial About Financials Leads to Failure is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Just ask day-spa owner Eva Sztupka-Kerschbaumer, who says she recently raised $30,000 in a single day. Her Pittsburgh,-Pa. spa, ESSpa Kozmetika Organic SkinCare, needed a quick cash infusion when a $12,000 microdermabrasion machine and two $1,000 facial steamers conked out in April. However, the last thing she wanted to accrue was interest charges, so she didn’t go to a bank to raise funds. And to avoid missing out on future profits, she also didn’t tap a factoring company, which provides cash up front in return for a cut of her company’s future receipts.

Here are four other ways to raise (and save) cash quickly:

1. Offer upfront pricing
2. Discount items, sometimes
3. Consider purchase money financing
4. Switch from fixed to variable costs

wsj.com

Innovative Ways to Reel in Cash is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Explore The Insurance Marketplace For Competitive Proposals
2. Provide Your Employees With Multiple Health Plan Options At Various Cost Levels
3. Review Alternative Contribution Strategies
4. Extend Your Plan’s Waiting Period And To Bridge The Gap, Add A Lower Cost Plan Option
5. Investigate Adding A Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA)
6. Consider Utilizing A Professional Employer Organization Or Co-Employment Arrangement
7. Separate Your Prescription Plan And Investigate Self-insuring Through A Third-Party Vendor.
8. Educate Your Employees On Becoming Wise Healthcare Consumers And Healthier People
9. Shift A Portion Of The Plan Costs To The Members Through Benefit Changes

By proactively identifying ways to reduce the overall cost of your benefits program and potentially enhancing the overages offered, both you and your employees will be rewarded.

hispanicbusiness.com

9 Ways to Decrease a Company’s Employee Benefits Cost is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The government’s SBA program introduced the America’s Recovery Capital, or ARC, loan designed to give small businesses suffering financial hardship temporary relief.

ARC loans are a deferred payment loan of up to $35,000 that can be used for principal and interest payments on existing, qualifying debt or loans. They are 100 percent guaranteed and there are no interest charges to the borrower. SBA will pay the current prime rate (3.25 percent) plus 2 percent to the lender on behalf of the borrower.

Under the ARC loan, the borrower has 18 months to make the first payment and pays back only the principal over five years.

SBA even has tailored a loan to help the beleaguered auto industry. Starting July 1, loans for between $500,000 and $2 million will be offered to finance inventory for eligible auto dealers. The program also is available to RV and boat dealers.

redding.com

Do your homework before applying for federal business loan is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Borrowers, however, may find it difficult to find a bank that is providing the “America’s Recovery Capital” interest-free loans.

Some big lenders including Bank of America Corp., KeyCorp’s Key Bank unit and Toronto-Dominion Bank, or TD Bank Financial Group, are still on the fence about participating, citing concerns about heavy paperwork and strict rules on applicant eligibility.

wsj.com

SBA Offers Aid to Cash-Strapped is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The nonprofit Bikestation reached a crossroads in late 2007. Founded in Long Beach, Calif., in 1996 to design, build, and manage bike transit centers, the 10-employee organization couldn’t handle all the calls coming in on its $300,000 budget, funded mostly through earned income. With little grant funding available, the board determined that the best way to meet demand was to raise money from private investors­—which meant turning Bikestation into a for-profit social venture. “We just didn’t have the resources to expand the mission and the vision further,” says Andréa White-Kjoss, who joined the nonprofit as CEO in 2004.

CORPORATE CONSTITUENCY STATUTES
For now, however, social ventures must find creative ways to straddle the line between nonprofit and for-profit. At Bikestation, the board decided to form a new for-profit company called Mobis Transportation Alternatives. They incorporated Mobis in mid-2008 and raised $500,000 from angel investors, including the Tech Coast Angels, late last year. Staff members switched to work for the new business, and Mobis licensed the intellectual property from the nonprofit, including the Bikestation name and other proprietary information for creating transit centers. The nonprofit remains essentially a holding company for the intellectual property, though Bikestation plans to use the licensing revenue to make grants. As part of the agreement, the nonprofit got a small ownership stake in the new Bikestation and controls a seat on the board.

For Bikestation, the for-profit model is paying off as well. The new company has increased staff from 10 to 14 and is helping to open four new transit hubs this year, bringing the total to 16. Bikestation won’t disclose revenue, but White-Kjoss says it has raised projections for 2009. The company is expanding beyond its traditional customers—cities and transit agencies—to market to universities, corporate campuses, and other developments. “We’re able to do what we’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” says White-Kjoss.

businessweek.com

Turning Nonprofits into For-Profits is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

For Darren Hammond, co-owner of Chile Blossoms, a Concord, Calif., importer of peonies from Chile, the winter was particularly harsh as clients stopped paying or fell behind in payments. Sales are down 60% from last season, Mr. Hammond says.

Last year, he had to stop taking a salary so that he could continue paying business expenses.

To manage personal expenses, such as cellphone bills and car payments, Mr. Hammond found a part-time job working two to three days a week as a customer-service representative and weekend guide for All-Outdoors California Whitewater Rafting in Walnut Creek. “Everybody has bills to pay,” he says. “It’d be nice if I could sit back and collect money from Chile Blossoms and live a very comfortable life. At this stage, that’s not the case.”

Small-business owners like Mr. Hammond are looking for alternate sources of income to make ends meet and to fund their troubled companies. Some 18% of owners surveyed in April said they are working a second job, according to the latest findings from the American Express Open Small Business Monitor. Many of them have sacrificed their personal finances and have stopped taking a salary to deal with the current economic reality.

wsj.com

Entrepreneurs Take Second Jobs to Stay Afloat is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

American Profit Recovery suggests making sure that the qualities are factors when deciding to retain a third-party collection agency:

• Member of ACA International; The Association of Credit and Collection Professionals. Make sure the collection agency you are talking to is a member and that they subscribe to and follow their Code of Ethics. www.acainternational.org.
• Personal Referrals: As with anyone looking for someone to do business with, always ask around. Talk with other business owners or members of your local Chamber of commerce to find an agency that others you know may have used.
• Educated Workforce: When interviewing the representative from a collection agency, ask them their philosophy of who they hire. Do they hire college educated people or do they just bring in anyone to fill a position?
• Different Approaches: Does the agency you are talking to have several methods of collecting on past due debt? The agency should offer a low cost flat-fee structure along with other proven methods.
• Record of Community Service: make sure the collection agency you are hiring has a record of community service. The agency should have a track record of giving back to the community in some way.
• Background Check: It is imperative that the agency you are dealing with and may be calling on your customers pursues background check as part of their normal hiring practices. Anything less is not acceptable.

AllBusiness.com also recommends that:

• Choose members of the American Collectors Association or the Commercial Law League of America., as both associations require that their members adhere to a code of ethics and are familiar with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Both associations also provide ongoing education for their members.
• Ask for proof of insurance. Most licensed collection agencies are required to carry bonds for their particular state and Errors and Omissions insurance, which protects both the agency and client for any errors made by the collection agency.
• Ask about the recovery rate of an agency. Ask for references to verify the percentage.
• Check to see how long it took the agency to collect and if they collected the whole debt or just a portion of what was owed

How to Select the Right Collection Agency is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Time is running out for California residents wanting to take advantage of a $10,000 tax credit. The state set aside $100 million to help home buyers purchasing newly built homes, hoping to jump start the moribund residential-construction market. But only about 20% of the pot is left.

“We’re less than four months into it, and all the tax credits authorized are gone, or practically gone,” said Tim Coyle, a senior VP with the California Building Industry Association (CBIA).

The program launched in March and by June 3 nearly $24 million in tax credit certificates had already been issued, according to the state’s Franchise Tax Board.

That leaves nearly $76 million in credit available – but there are already numerous claims on that money. In fact, if all the submitted applications are approved, only $17.5 million will be left in the fund. And it has a run rate of about $10 million per week.

“The program is working better than intended,” said Coyle. “It’s really pushing people off the fence.”

The credit is available on a first-come first-served basis and was supposed to last through March 2010. Almost any newly built home qualifies, as long as it’s an owner-occupied, principal residence on which property tax is paid. It could be a single-family home, a condo, a coop, a manufactured home or mobile home — even a houseboat. Only owner-built housing does not qualify. There is no cap on the home price or buyer’s income.

cnnmoney.com

California running out of $10,000 tax credits is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

For an e-commerce novice, an all-inclusive service may be most sensible. Yahoo Inc.’s Merchant Solutions, for instance, lets users get a domain name and choose one of 12 predesigned Web-site templates.

You could save money by picking an all-inclusive service without sales-transaction fees. GoDaddy.com, owned by the Go Daddy Group, offers an e-commerce site-building and hosting service called Quick Shopping Cart, which has plans starting at $9.99 a month for sites with up to 20 product listings.

The Wall Street Journal

Keeping Costs Low For an Internet Business is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Number 4: You’ve won every job you’ve ever pitched for.

Number 3: New clients are always asking what “the catch” is.

Number 2: You never run out of work, yet you are subsisting on beans and ramen noodles.

Number 1 sign you may be charging too little: Companies are calling from India wanting to outsource their work to you.

freelanceswitch.com

Top 5 Signs You May Be Charging Too Little is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Here are three tips for those seeking loans to fund a franchise purchase.

1. Get to know your banker.
2. Find out if an expedited approval process is possible.
3. Don’t give up after one rejection.

Read complete article on startupjournal.com

Three Tips for Financing Your Franchise Purchase is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The bill was more than $60,000, due in 30 days, and I had no idea how I’d cover it. There was no way the contract was going to pay off by then, but there was also no way I could turn that contract down.

Read the story of Mascara Plus.

A cosmetics company’s creative cash flow is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Originally intended as a way to fight poverty by lending small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in developing countries, microlending is becoming a popular source of capital for startups launched by middle-class entrepreneurs in the U.S.

Since 1994, the U.S. Accion Network–a nonprofit organization founded in part by Accion International, one of the world’s largest microlenders–has loaned more than $154 million to more than 16,000 businesses nationwide, including caterers, florists, hair salons, day-care centers, even online publishers.

First-time loans range from $500 to $25,000, with terms of up to 60 months, filling a void for startups that may not have access to traditional bank credit. The maximum loan amount for new businesses is $10,000 and generally requires a business plan.

Accion charges an annual interest rate of 12 percent to 16 percent on its loans (plus a 5 percent origination fee) and tries to help its clients qualify for traditional bank financing after building their businesses and credit track records. Accion looks at the borrower’s character and business experience, not just the credit score.

Entrepreneur.com

Look To Microlenders For Funding is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Many entrepreneurs overlook perfectly justifiable — and legal — tax deductions simply because they are unaware of them. So before the 2006 tax season begins, take the time to review the deductions to which you are fully entitled. To help you get started, here are the top five tax deductions that most small business owners often overlook:

1. Equipment expensing | Buying computers, telephone systems, furniture or other equipment instead of leasing it entitles a business to write-off their cost, usually over a fixed number of years using depreciation. However, small businesses that are profitable can benefit from a so-called Sec. 179 deduction. This means a business can deduct up to $108,000 of cost for a single piece of equipment or in various items as long as equipment is placed in service before the end of the year. This deduction limit will rise to $112,000 in 2007.
2. Commercial buildings that go green | New for 2006 is a deduction for commercial building owners whose buildings meet certain energy standards. The deduction is as much as $1.80 per square foot for buildings that achieve a 50 percent energy savings target.
3. Domestic production activities | This deduction enables businesses to lop off 3 percent of their net profits from domestic production activities from their income — resulting in significant tax savings for owners without spending a single additional penny to receive the write-off.
4. Accelerated depreciation for building components. | The cost of commercial buildings (exclusive of land) usually can be depreciated over 39 years using the straight line method (i.e., ratable depreciation). However, parts of the building that are not viewed as structurally integral can be separately depreciated over much shorter periods (typically five or seven years) using an accelerated depreciation method. The more rapid the write-off, the greater the up-front savings to the building owner due to the time value of money.
5. Vehicle use | Business use of an owner’s personal car can be deducted using the IRS standard mileage rate (44.5¢ per mile in 2006) or the actual expenses related to this use. Dollar limits cap annual depreciation write-offs. Higher dollar limits apply to light trucks and vans.

   SUVs weighing more than 6,000 pounds are not subject to the usual dollar limits on depreciation. The top limit on the Sec. 179 deduction for these vehicles is $25,000; additional cost can be depreciated under usual depreciation rules.

Barbara Weltman at Inc.com

Top Five Overlooked Tax Deductions is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Prosper, based in San Francisco, offers unsecured loans of up to $25,000 at a fixed rate for three years. Anyone with money can lend on Prosper, in increments as small as $50.

The system works a little like eBay, except that the bidding is to lend money at lower interest rates.

Since last year when it went live, Prosper has grown to more than 140,000 members and has originated about $33 million in loans.

Star-Telegram

Like eBay But With Loans is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Ask customer for fax verification. For suspect orders or large orders, ask the customer to fax the front and back of his credit card as well as a form of identification. This is better than a phone call.
2. Call your credit-card processor. Your credit-card processor has a staff to assist you with questionable orders. Rely on their expertise.
3. Analyze the order, and be skeptical. Why would a customer purchase, for example, 10 routers? Likewise, why would an overseas customer request overnight shipping?
4. Overseas banks are different. Many overseas banks don’t support the card-code verification system, and they can’t verify billing addresses. Be aware, therefore, that these fraud-prevention steps may not help you with cards that have been issued from such banks.
5. Do a BIN look-up. The first six digits of a credit card are called the bank identification number, or BIN. They tell you which bank has issued the credit card. Go to http://all-nettools.com/toolbox,financial, and enter these six digits. If the issuing bank is located in a country that is different from where the order is originating, you should investigate further.
6. Purchase fraud-detection tools. Many credit-card banks and payment gateways offer effective fraud detection tools that are incredibly inexpensive. Use these tools.

practicalecommerce.com

6 Steps To Prevent Credit Card Fraud is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Traffic on his site more than tripled, and best of all, he said, Google picked up the tab for the promotion.

“I think it’s fantastic,” he said. “I’m selling the product. Google is getting tons of customers to sign up for Checkout. Customers are happy because they are getting a monster deal.”

And Google is not charging merchants any processing fees through the end of 2007.

newyorktimes.com

Google Steps More Boldly Into PayPal’s Territory is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

This has never been more true than when you set out to choose an Internet payment systems.

It’s not so much that making a wrong decision can harm your business irreparably (although, it can); it’s that there is so much information to process before you commit to a payment gateway and merchant account provider.

John Bodine, the vice president of sales and marketing for Authorize.Net, says business owners should choose a provider in much the same way they would any other vendor.

“Get an understanding of who you’re dealing with,” he said.

We did just that and came up with a list of common criteria businesses use to make payment gateway/merchant account decisions:

1. Does the payment system require a conventional merchant account?
2. What type of fraud protection does the vendor offer?
3. Does the vendor make it easy for your business to brand the payment system interface to look like it fits on your website
4. Is it possible to integrate the payment system into an existing billing mechanism?
5. Can your payment systems provider handle global currency?

Practical Ecommerce

What you didn’t know about payment systems is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

As a member, your business may be eligible to receive:

• Dream Team Coaching. High Caliber advisors to consult on business hurdles.
• Business & Financial Management, expert consultation, education, training and resources from Intuit, Inc.
• Financing. Receive up to $45,000 in loans from Count Me In and a $10,000 unsecured line of credit from OPEN from American Express^SM.
• Exposure. Media opportunities to spotlight your business.
• Technology. Cisco Smart Business Communications network valued at up to $20,000. Smart Business Workshop & Technology Assessment from Cisco local partner.
• Networking. Access to a community of successful business women locally and nationally.
• Savings. Gift cards valued at $250 each to be applied toward select FedEx shipping services and FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print business services.

Visit Make Mine a $Million

Make Mine a $Million is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Like all business deductions, entertainment costs must be “ordinary and necessary” in order to qualify. If your business is a used furniture shop, it´s not very likely that the cost of taking one of your customers to dinner and a movie would be an ordinary and necessary business expense. On the other hand, it could be, if for example the customer you take out for the evening is furnishing a motel and is prepared to spend $45,000 on furniture.

Here is the information Sara needs to record in order for the cost of taking Emily to lunch to qualify as a deductible business expense:

• The location — Mavis´s Downtown Country Cooking
• Names of people entertained — Emily (in “real life” you would want to include the person´s last name), owner Clean as a Whistle
• Date — November 8, 2006
• Business purpose — Discuss flex plan with business owner
• Amount spent — $35

Treasury Regulations state that this information must be recorded in a timely manner — in other words, you should record the information soon after the entertainment event rather than waiting until the day before an IRS audit.

The location, date, and amount spent are already on the receipt Sara gets from the restaurant, so all Sara needs to do is write Emily´s name and the business purpose somewhere on the receipt and make sure the receipt is properly filed.

All Business

How to Deduct Entertainment Costs is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

1. Get Invoices Out Promptly
2. Raise Your Prices
3. Blame it on your accountant
4. Work on retainer
5. Watch check clearance times
6. Accept credit cards to speed up cash flow
7. Shift your receivables to a finance company
8. Get some or all of your money up-front
9. Check credit ratings before the sale
10. Catch credit problems early

Business Know How

10 Ways To Fix Cash Cash Flow Problems is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Here are the advantages of mobile commerce:

1. Improved cash flow.
2. Secure credit and debit transactions in seconds.
3. Reduced credit-card fraud and chargebacks.
4. The ability to conduct business without phone lines.
5. Here are the most popular forms of mobile credit-card processing and some of the add-ons you may need.

Here are the most popular forms of mobile credit-card processing and some of the add-ons you may need.

work.com

Guide to Mobile Credit Card Processing is a post from: Top Business Opportunities