As a savvy solo or small practice professional, you know you can t do everything yourself. Whether you are capable or not, you understand that your time is most intelligently focused on activities that grow your business and make you money.

These days, outsourcing your administrative work to a Virtual Assistant (or VA) makes it very easy to get just the amount of support you need without the expense of costly in-house staff. But how do you find a highly skilled, truly qualified Virtual Assistant? Below are some practical points to consider and questions to ask as you go about the selection process. Read the rest of this entry »

When money is so tight your wallet squeaks if you pull out a dollar; you’re struggling to make mortgage payments; you’re worried about foreclosure; you can’t see an end to the chaos and worry, you start looking for ways to avoid foreclosure.

First, take a deep breath and don’t despair. Although you may be struggling to make payments, you haven’t missed one yet. There’s still time to avoid foreclosure; it is not yet looming on the horizon.

Instead, read the following ways on how to avoid foreclosure:
Read the rest of this entry »

According to data that was compiled by, ‘McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac’, the average rate for a thirty year fixed-mortgage dropped to 5.07% for the week ending Feb. 26th, from 6.63% for the one ending July 24, 2008.

At the same time however, the ‘Mortgage Bankers Association’ reported that the percentage of mortgage applications that led to closings, fell nationwide to 59 % in the first half of 2008, from 66.3 percent in 2006, which is the most recent period for which data is presently available.

Read the rest of this entry »

We are bombarded daily with banks on the radio, television, newspapers, and the Internet of promises to be “small business friendly”, “small business oriented”, wanting to be your “personal small business advisor” and a panoply of packages taking care of all your business needs. What small businesses really need in this credit crunch since the mid 2008 is money, not personal hand caring services. So is there anyone out there really making small business loans? Very few.

But if you know where to look you can find one…

Read the rest of this entry »

It was formerly the case that the area of online marketing was thought to be its own distinct specialty. That has now evolved with the merging of on-line and off-line domains.

Sophisticated marketers know that best practices in communication and collaboration technology are just as applicable to online marketing as other marketing domains. This article highlights four time tested techniques to enhance your online marketing…

Read the rest of this entry »

The steps below clearly explain how to create a realistic budget; how to consolidate your credit cards; how to reduce the amount of interest that you’re paying; and how to make fewer payments.

Step one involves creating a realistic monthly budget, with “realistic” being the keyword, because just like a diet, if you can’t maintain it, then it’s not only worthless, but it can in fact be damaging.

Before we get underway, you’ll need are your last 3 months of bank statements and if you don’t have them, you should be able to download them, or get them from your bank within a day or two.

Now that you have the three bank statements, Read the rest of this entry »

he Economy is bad, very bad. GDP was just reported at close to a -4% for the last quarter of 2008. Unemployment is above 7% and could hit the, previously unimaginable, double digits in 2009. We are hearing of massive layoffs everyday and 5 million Americans are on the roles of government unemployment, the highest in almost 30 years. Just last week, there were more than a half million first time unemployment claims.

Corporate Earnings have been dismal as in January more than 65% of the S&P 500 corporations reported. While Banking and Finance were the worst reporting massive losses for Q4-2008, earnings have plummeted or even disappeared across a broad sector of the economy.
Read the rest of this entry »

With gasoline and just about every consumer product prices at record highs, the average working person with a poor credit score in today’s economy has two major concerns on their mind: how to fulfill their short-term cash needs and how to preserve their long-term financial wellfair.

It’s hard to find someone with poor credit that has not contemplated on taking out a bad credit loan. Poor credit impacts many people today, and the result of poor credit has contributed to many becoming homeless. Rejections on even simple things that we often take for granted such as housing, and transportation can easily rear their head and leave you helpless.

Regardless of your financial condition and credit status, you can go for loans, which are meant solely for the purpose of providing you the monetary assistance so as to help you realize the needs and demands. If you are afflicted with bad credit problems and looking towards applying for a loan without involving any sort of collateral, then you can opt for poor credit unsecured loans. These loans are easy to get and your bad credit is hardly an obstacle, while applying for the loans. The loans further are beneficial for those applicants who either do not want to attach any collateral or do not have any asset that can be pledged as collateral. In the absence of collateral, the approval of the loans comes instantly, as the task of evaluating the equity value present in the collateral does not take place.
Read the rest of this entry »

A major goal of asset protection planning is to substantially diminish and reduce your financial profile. If you can restructure your assets in such a way so as to place them beyond the reach of future potential creditors, while at the same time maintaining a beneficial interest in those assets, you have succeeded in substantially reducing your financial profile. Accordingly, you are a far less attractive target for litigation because of issues of doubt of collectability, thusly reducing the likelihood that you will be sued; or if you are sued, increasing the likelihood of a favorable settlement.

A trust can be an effective foundation for your asset protection planning. Trusts have been utilized for centuries as a means of conserving and protecting property for the beneficiaries of the trust. However, most domestic trusts do not provide protection from creditors. The typical revocable living trust, wherein the trustors are the lifetime beneficiaries and retain the power to revoke, amend and invade the principal of the trust, provides no protection whatsoever against the creditors of the trustors. Accordingly, absent specific legislation to the contrary, self created or self settled trusts are ineffective for asset protection planning purposes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Although recent discussions using the colorful terms “Dead Banks Walking” and “Zombie Banks” contain some humor and have entertainment value, there is also a more serious and practical aspect. For most business finance funding situations, it is not likely to be in the best interest of prudent business owners to be involved with a bank which can be accurately described as a zombie bank or dead bank walking.

The impact for commercial financing can be extensive because the descriptions increasingly appear to apply to a significant number of banks. If they are dealing with a dead bank walking, it should be helpful for commercial borrowers to discover their practical options for eliminating zombie banks from their working capital loan review process.
Read the rest of this entry »