Pick one: Your business or your house
When cash flow gets tight, small business owners pay their business bills first, mortgages second, a new study finds. How is your business faring?
From Mike Lawson, Gilbertsville PA My business is booming! My income is not affected! I own a marketing company that markets cutting edge technology…Voip & Video Phones! 30-50% less than landline phones and you can see friends and family all over the U.S. and the world. We market daily necessaties that people will not give up no matter how bad it gets, cell phones and TV. Cable and phone company's are not affected, and either are we. Video phones will be a household device in the next 3-5 years and you will see us on national TV in the next six months.
From Guru, West Chester, PA I have two Gas stations with Convenience Stores. On a short term basis, I use cash generated from one to complete the payments of the other and vice-versa. These are like short term loans with 0% interest. In 2006, I took $50,000 LOC on one of these business from the bank. This year in Feb, the bank put freeze on it. I got to make my monthly payment but cannot access it.
It is difficult at times but things are rolling.
From Ana, Bradenton, Fl yes, my only choice to have cash flow for my business is being late in my other payments – I am trying to cover 1 year of my deficit budget to be able to work until thinks get better -
From Gary, Akron, Ohio I remember several years ago when my wife and I started to see the economy going south, when this happened we decided it would be better to have as little debt as possible so we sold some of our assets so that our business could have as little debt as possible. Today I am glad we did as the last couple of years have gone completely south and we wandered if we were the only ones feeling it, now I see that we are not.
We have been extremely slow these last few years though this summer our business is moving forward again.
What did we do to make it to better times? Sell off assets you do not need to pay down or pay off your business and loans, in this economy you need to be as debt free as possible.
When making purchases ask yourself if you really need it? If it is not essential do not buy it and definately do not buy it if it requires financing.
Do you have a web-site Years ago when we saw the business market going south we put up a web site, as a result of my site I have become a professional at web site optimization so now our site ranks on top for everything that might bring us business. Our web business now has become our best investment providing us with more that 25 percent of your business.
Understand though simply having a website will not bring you business as if it is not properly optimized you will again be spending money advertising your website where when optimized you can build your business through organic searches.
Additionally you need to cut out all of the fat and I do mean all of the fat. To succeed in this market you need to be lean, when we thought we were lean enough we found ways to become leaner.
Another item you can cut on is your phone bill, you will need one standard phone line so you can accept credit cards and you can obtain DSL through this line also, opt for high speed DSL then use voip for your other phone lines.
We were getting nickeled and dimed from the major phone companies but and our bill for 5 lines was in excess of 400. now with voip we spending $200. and the phone quality is just as good.
If you have people who are on the road, make them stay budget your customer do not see where they stay only who presents the product.
Remember it is survival, our country has grown to a country where people say they deserve the best, well you only deserve what you can afford and if you cannot afford to pay cash for a product or pay off that credit card at the end of the month then you cannot afford what you think you deserve.
From jim martin 8180 thornapple river dr caledonia mi 49316 I own a small up-scale automobile dealership in Gand Rpids Mchigan. I
had to make the choice of my home or my business reicently and chose my busness. After seven years and thousands of dollars in renovations I fell into forclosure, my home 5260 sq
ft. built for over $650,000 in 1998 could not pull in an offer for over 290,000. The problem is one can not get credit for their small business unless one has good credit and " co-signes" for their business how can you obtain credit for a business with out prsonaly graunteing it it seems to be a catch twenty two
From Gayle Walsh, New Egypt, NJ I am a women owned staffing agency that specializes in the Travel Industry providing both temporary and peramnent staffing. My business is down about 60% from last year. I have been in business for 19 years. This ecomonic down turn is worse than what happened to the travel industry after 9-11.
I have a dog services shop with three separate revenue streams. We started up during the 2001-2002 recession and piled up debt. Now most of that debt is paid off (mainly from my personal funds. Now our cash flow is finally in the black and I'm delighted to have so little debt. However, I would have to say that if it came to a choice between my home and my shop, it would be a no-brainer: the house comes first. I'd bag groceries before I'd lose my home!