Archive for the ‘Business Plan’ Category
Equipment Leasing: Getting A Quick Lease Approval
Are you thinking of leasing equipment for your business, but you are racing against time? Here are some tips to make sure your company’s lease is approved quickly: Guard Standing your company’s credit to establish a pattern of paying invoices and bills on time.
Are you thinking of leasing equipment for your business, but you are racing against time? Here are some tips to make sure your company’s lease is approved quickly:
Standing guard your company’s credit
Establish a pattern of paying invoices and bills on time. Be prepared to discuss the status and reasons for the dispute in detail with the leasing company. Because many leasing transactions requiring personal guarantees from directors, it is important that directors maintain good credit standing.
Prepare a package of lease
Include information in the concession package that the leasing company may require. You must include a background write to discuss your business. Discuss the history of your company, the fund business major and a detailed discussion about what your company does. Also include a discussion of competition and the achievements of your company. Company’s financial statements including tax returns and, if available. Include a list of trade references and credit. Also includes a list of equipment you intend to rent, along with some equipment literature. Finally, this is a summary of the conditions of lease that you are looking for.
Credit Enhancements Identify Ahead of Time
Although you might not need credit enhancements for your lease, it will not hurt to identify them in case they are needed. Possible credit enhancements include: a guarantee of additional equipment, cash equivalent securities, such as CDs, stocks, bonds and cash, other assets such as real estate, contracts revenue, rights of intellectual property, personal guarantees.
Have updated Financial Statements
Although the financial statements may not be necessary for transactions under $ 75,000, they are often needed for larger operations. Whenever possible, these statements should be prepared and audited by a CPA. Most landlords want to see financial, covering at least three years of operation and the most recent financial statements.
Have an updated business plan with projections. Show the anticipated revenues, expenses and profits. Include the lease payments as an expense item under the assumption that the lease is approved. Include key business assumptions used for the plan. Provide a summary of projections, comparing to historical performance.
Get bids from at least three leasing companies
If you want a competitive operating lease, it makes sense to get quotes from several leasing companies leasing of trust. Look to the leasing companies that specialize in the type of operation of accommodation you are looking for. There are landlords who specialize in rental transactions under $ 75.000 for example. Others specialize in certain types of equipment such as automobiles, medical equipment or copiers. Investigate thoroughly every landlord and reputation. Establish a deadline for all bids. Once the proposals are, compare them carefully and look for any terms or conditions that may prove problematic.
Offer to make lease payments using ACH debit
ACH debit is an automatic payment set by your company, the leasing company and the bank of your company. It allows the leasing company to receive the lease payments from the bank account of your company in payment dates specified. This set-up is attractive to leasing companies because it reduces the cost of billing and collection. Also helps alleviate the concerns ACH collection once that automatically creates the payments on time.
Provide credit references
Most landlords want to talk at least three or four suppliers or creditors on the performance of your company for payment and compliance with business rules. If you have done business with the leaser and other creditors, including one or two of these as references. Provide the name and address of each creditor, the contact person and phone number for each contact.
Getting the approval of their leases following should not remind you to see the grass grow. You can greatly accelerate the process by following these simple steps. Be prepared for rapid approval of the lease.
Achieve Sales Goals by Creating Sales Plan
It is possible that you have never considered writing a sales plan before; you are not alone. Most organizational leaders are not even aware that they need to create such a document. So that leaves the question hovering in the air: what is a sales plan? The answer is quite simple and extremely relevant to the modern company. A sales plan is an important piece of your marketing plan; it is the actionable portion. While marketing becomes increasingly important, getting the attention of your prospective consumer is only step one of many in the buying processes. Another very important component is actually getting customers to make a purchase or place an order for the product or service that has been so cleverly marketed. And that is what the sales plan outlines: sales goals and how to achieve them.
Some strategic planners choose to make the sales plan part of the overall business plan; sometimes tucked away in the operations section of the business plan. However, in order for the document to be effective, it needs to be very well thought out and easily attained by the person responsible for sales– most likely, the Sales Manager.
Like all well thought out strategic planning documents, the sales plan needs to have a summary that is written last but serves as an overall statement of the purpose and vision for the document and organization’s goals regarding sales. It should sight the company’s philosophy about sales and discuss the culture of the sales department.
The next section needs to include quantifiable objectives, outline any and all success factors as well as discuss sales avenues. This brief and typically bulletted overview serves as the overall sales plan & strategy.
Since customer relationship management [C.R.M.] is becoming a vital part of organizations, it is important to have a section outlining feasible customer retention & loyalty programs to track such interaction. This section does not outline the C.R.M. package itself but rather the programs that drive repeat and referral traffic.
The sales force organization section of the sales plan is as equally as important as discussing the customers, as this section discusses sales personnel. This portion answers such questions as:
1) How will the sales department be managed?
2) What territories will each sales person cover?
3) How will sales people be compensated and rewarded?
Prospect management & lead systems is the opportunity for companies to think about exactly what C.R.M. packages will be utilized and the best way to track leads and manage conversion rates. In this section, strategic planners can clearly outline the processes that new and prospect customers will go through and what sort of technology [if needed] will manage the transition.
Use the next section to create a detailed list of annual sales activity; called a sales activities timetable. A chart format or spreadsheet layout is easiest to maintain and update. The information should clearly identify the ROI as well as the overall expense of each activity.
When each sales effort, as recorded in the sales activity timetable, is complete it will become important to develop a sales effectiveness summary that monitors the success of each sales campaign. This can be a simple review by management or team members.
Create a tracking system for the sales plan as a final portion of the sales plan. This allows managers to meaningfully forecast business levels and allows for accountability among sales representatives.
The sales plan should be between approximately five to ten pages. The detailed plan will add action items to your marketing plan and give Sales Managers clear direction on how to lead the sales team. Such a document should be given as much time and attention as the marketing plan itself.
Are You Ready to Get Your Home Business Started? Get Your Business Plan is The Next Step
So you’ve reached that stage where you’re ready to get your home business started in every way except one: you need money. Whether it comes from a loan or from investors doesn’t really make too much difference, since there’s one thing that they all need to see before they’ll give you a cent. That thing is your business plan.
Think of your business plan as being like a list of answers to questions that people might have about your home business. You will not get outside funding without one, because the people giving you the funding want to know that you’ve thought through what you’re doing. A business plan says to them ‘I’ve considered this from every angle, and here’s what I’ve come up with’.
What is Your Service? This is the first question every business plan should answer. Just what is it that you plan to do? Tell them which industry you’re going to be in, and why you’ve chosen it.
Who are Your Customers? Once you know what you do, the next thing you need to know is who you’re going to be doing it for, and so that’s the next thing that should be written on the business plan. You should also include your area here.
What Makes You Different? You need to say what the ‘key factors’ are that make your business different to other businesses in its sector. What is it that you’re planning to do to make the business succeed?
What are Your Expenses? Your start-up expenses include any equipment that you need before you can get up-and-running, while your day-to-day expenses are staff costs and supplies.
To finish it all off, you should include a breakdown of projected profit and loss per month for the first year of the business, in the form of a graph. You would work this out by working out a reasonable repayment of any one-off expenses and adding this repayment to the day-to-day expenses, before graphing day-to-day expenses against projected sales.Your business plan should show you making enough of a profit each month to live – if you doesn’t, then it will be considered unfeasible by anyone you show it to.
The best way to figure out the dos and don’t of business plans is to find real ones – they’re out there on the internet. Once you’ve seen a few, you can start to get some idea of how much work is going to be involved to write one of your own. Remember, until your business exists for real, the business plan is the only tool you have to show anyone how great it’s going to be.