Business Tips: Commercial Construction Loan

Over the past couple of years, more companies have been trying to apply for a commercial construction loan. This is a good sign.Indeed, commercial construction is once again fast gaining ground after the worldwide economic slump. But before getting those power tools like the diamond blade ready, you may want to be sure you will have no problem with funding.For starters, commercial construction loans are loans that are given to companies for the construction of their buildings either for their own use or to be sold or leased to others. This kind of loan is harder to obtain than the more common and standard real estate loans for the reason that the structure is yet to be built.Applying for a commercial construction loan is a long process and understandably can get a little complex… if you don’t know how it works. But if you have the necessary documents ready, then it’s not going to be as hard as it seems. Hopefully, these will get you on the right track.Business or personal credit?If you are just starting your business, then you may use your personal credit history since you don’t have an existing business yet. But if you already have a licensed business, then your business history will be used.Weigh your optionsTalk to as many banks or lenders as possible. Know about their terms, options and interest rates. For immediate information, you can search them online, and from there you can already decide which could be best for you. Better yet, go in person so you will be able to talk to them and your questions will be answered. It is best to approach lenders that specialize in commercial loans. Ask for quotes and study your choices. If in case you do not qualify, hard money loans should be an option.Prepare the supporting documentsFor this you will have to show them a detailed plan of the property which should be supported by diagrams and architectural design. You should also be ready with a comprehensive business plan which you will have to show them, too. The goal is to prove to them that the construction’s value can cover the cost of the loan.That’s about it! If you are able to do this and have the necessary documents ready, then you should be good. If you are just starting your business, be sure you bring that entrepreneurial spirit wherever you go. And for established businesses, good luck as well and here’s hoping for a more prosperous business!

Small Business Websites – Why A Small Business Website Does Not Produce Results

When a small business decides to take their business online there are usually several mistakes that they do. This is partially due to lack of experience and often lack of knowledge. There seems to be a trend that small businesses think of their website as an online business card instead of a marketing tool. That is where the majority of them go wrong. So let’s take a look at some of the most common mistakes done when a small business takes their business online.1. Order of linksSo many times you visit a small business website and they proudly flag the “about us” link as their first link. This is called the pride link because they often think that telling people about the company is the most important thing. The links should be in order of importance. Not in the order of the business owners EGO! If you use a website designer and he does consult you on the order of links, chances are you should be using someone else or at least make sure you educate yourself about online marketing because your website designer sure hasn’t!2. No focusMost small business websites lack focus. When you enter you are not sure where to go next which makes it hard for the user to understand exactly what he is supposed to do. The website should flow and the user should be able to make sense of the site within a few seconds of opening it up.3. No sale / No lead setupMany small businesses do not use their website to increase sales directly or capture leads. It is nothing more than an online brochure or business card. Sometimes the information is more confusing than it is helpful. If you competitors site is easier to navigate and captures either the sale or lead, you just lost a client. A small business websites needs to be even more on top of catching leads than a corporate website because every client lost counts more!4. No analyticsMost small business websites have no clue what people do when they enter their site. No clue what users are really looking at and where they are losing their potential sale or lead. If customers just walked in and out of their place of work eyebrows would be raised and something would be done. Shouldn’t the same thought process apply to the site? You need to know what is going on with your small business website and what users are doing.5. No marketing purposeThis is the biggest “Whammy” of them all. Small business websites tend to fail seeing the potential of using the website as a complete marketing tool. The fundamental reason to take a business online would be to do marketing. The lack of marketing vision explains the mistakes from above. If just this single piece was in place when a small business builds their website, many of the other things would be solved because they would educate themselves about what it means to have a marketing tool!6. No results!This is no surprise considering everything above. If there is no purpose, no focus, no vision and no marketing thought behind the site then there are probably no results from the site either. What is even worse is that most small business websites do not even measure results or understand how to measure results from their site. Once again it is a lack of understanding more than anything!So what can a small business do when they are ready to take their business online and setup their small business website? The most important thing is to educate themselves in a few areas. The most important ones being, what you need to consider before building or having someone build your website. How to use the website as a marketing tool and it would be extremely beneficial to you if you at least had some understanding of what SEO is and how it works. What is the difference between a website designer, website developer and an online marketing company? All of them do different things and have a different understanding of how to use the internet; the question is what purpose is your website supposed to serve? For most it should be a marketing tool, because the internet is the most effective marketing tool available!

So You Want to Be a Real Estate Agent? Good Luck!

CHAPTER 1: SOME QUICK BEGINNER’S TIPS• Tip 1: There is a ton of money being made in real estate. It’s just not going to be made by you. In truth, much of it is actually going to come FROM you. The real estate companies themselves make an obscene amount of money in part by churning people through their “programs” and spitting them out with emptier pockets.• Tip 2: There’s no salary. Make sure you have enough money in the bank to eat and pay your bills for six months. And start looking for a real job NOW. By the time you get it, you’ll be out of money. I landed a position at a company six months and 1 day from the day of my layoff. If it wasn’t for Unemployment, I would have been living in a cardboard box waiting for my real estate career to blossom.• Tip 3: Everyone you know will feign support while questioning the decision and making fun of you. I’m serious, and you know this already. You’ve hated every real estate agent you’ve dealt with, didn’t you?CHAPTER 2: THE INTERVIEWReal estate offices are constantly listing open positions, so it’s easy to get an interview. Don’t be too nervous, because guess what? You’re hired. This isn’t an interview, it’s a pep talk. You could walk in and urinate in the lobby, you’re probably still hired.Their ideal agent is someone who is divorced and miserable, sitting on a pile of alimony cash or an available line of credit, and just needs something to keep them busy. Next in line would be someone who is unhappily married, sitting on a pile of cash or an available line of credit, and just needs something to keep them out of the house and away from their spouse. If you’re not one of these two, that’s OK – they’ll take you.CHAPTER 3: LICENSINGHow do you make things better? You get the state involved!This company that “hired” you will now send you to a training “school” (these are companies that, for a price, teach you all about the real estate industry and help you pass the state required test). This is 2 weeks of classes that have very little to do with the actual career.There are laws that say that even though your licensing training is taking place in a Real Estate office, that no one from that office may “recruit” you. Expect to be recruited. One of the instructors was a Company X manager and took a special interest in me. He took me to open houses at expensive homes during the weeks of training, introduced me to everyone in the office, took me to lunches and took me out for beers after the training was over. The entire time, he talked about how Company Y (who had sent me to this training) was horrible, and why Company X was far superior, and definitely the place for me. Ethical? No. Fun? Yes. I still went with the company that sent me to the training because it was the right thing to do.CHAPTER 4: FEES, FEES and MORE FEESYou didn’t think anything was free, did you? Here’s the rundown on fees:• Licensing. If you talk to a real estate company before you take the class and get licensed, they’ll pay for the class. Well, sort of. They’ll pay for it, then take the fee back out of your first commission. Wait, who paid for it then? Yes, you did. You didn’t think that was free, did you?•The Multi-List System. You simply cannot be a real estate agent without access to the MLS. It must be free right? No.• Cardkey. You need this to get into any house that’s up for sale. Yes, you have to pay for it. And they can’t ship it; you need to drive 30 miles to pick it up.• Associations. The County Realtor Association. You have to join it. It costs money…every year. The State Realtor Association. You have to join it. It costs money…every year. The National Realtor Association. You have to join it. It costs money…every year. Join this organization. Join that organization. You’ll get a magazine, and maybe even a pin. It’s all mandatory, and it all costs money. Sometimes they have free cookies at the meetings though.• Signs. Small signs, big signs, plastic signs, metal signs, name signs, for sale signs, open house signs. You have to have them, you have to pay for them, and they cost hundreds of dollars.• Business cards. They’re free! Well, kind of. The basic, crappy versions are free, the ones that scream “I’m new to this!” To get nice ones, with a picture, you have to pay, and you have to pay for the picture.• Automobile. They’ll pay for your car! No, they won’t. If you’re one of the top 2 producers, and are willing to put a God-awful giant sticker on the sides and back of your (correctly colored) car, they’ll pay a nominal amount to you. Why shouldn’t they? It’s the cheapest advertising they could get.• Free trips! 5 years from now, if you beat ALL the odds, work ridiculous hours and sell everything you get near, you might get a free trip. Don’t hold your breath.• Name tag. Good news, the name tag is free. The bad news, you have to wear a name tag. Back when I had a real job, I knew a gentleman who always said “If a man has to wear a name tag during his job, he’s not very successful.”• Realtor fees get you the “Realtor” pin. This is the most expensive pin you’ll ever hate wearing.CHAPTER 5: THE “OLD-TIMERS”They hate you.When I say “old-timers”, I’m referring to the agents that have been working in the office for more than a year. They will rarely make eye contact at first because they expect you to be gone in a few months and they don’t want to waste their time. Once you’ve been there for 2 weeks, they’ll start offering you the “opportunity” to sit in their open houses for them. What they’re actually asking you to do is sit in a house for three hours that no one will visit, and basically sell it for them, on the off-chance that you could get a client out of it.When there aren’t enough newbies in the office, they’ll fight over your house-sitting efforts, and may even offer you cash (don’t get excited, I’m talking about $20.) Get paid FIRST, I never did get paid for helping someone out.And remember, top producers use exclamation points! Lots of them! In everything they do! Just an FYI. I mean: Just an FYI!!!!CHAPTER 6: THE CLIENTSThey hate you.You will be asked to basically alienate everyone you know and make social situations incredibly awkward by begging for referrals. Parties, church, school, the gym – anywhere…you need to be fishing for house buyers or house sellers. It is painfully awkward for all concerned. Don’t forget to wear the little R pin everywhere you go!If you’re lucky enough to get someone to say they’ll use you to sell their house, you should know now that their house is worth much more than the one three doors down that is exactly the same. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they’re delusional. Maybe they’re dumb. Maybe they’re greedy. Maybe they’re upside-down on the house. Maybe they just need the money. It’s probably all of the above.It’s weird to be involved in such a significant financial project for someone you know. They will use you to buy or sell a house, but no one wants you to know their personal financial business, so it’s difficult. Your friends and family might want little favors, like….they’ll want all their money back. Yes, seriously. I had a relative ask if I would give them back all of my commission if they used me to buy a house. I declined, and the request was probably the nail that sealed my real estate coffin shut.CHAPTER 7: YOUR LIFE AS AN AGENTSay goodbye to fun and leisure. Here’s your week:• Monday. Mandatory meetings and house tours, all day. The meeting is useless, which is why you’ll rarely see old-timers there, they veer off after the first house and end up God-knows-where. They’re probably at the bar. The tour is fun, though. You get to hear everyone complain about everyone they work with and everything in the houses. You get to walk through a stranger’s house and hear your co-workers (proudly displaying their name badges) criticize the homeowner’s choices in everything. Examples: What were thinking with this carpet? Have they ever cleaned this room? Wow, those are some ugly kids in that picture. I can’t believe they left Prozac AND Paxil on the sink, what a basket case.• Tuesday. In-house training, or “how to waste 3 solid hours of prime work time.”• Wednesday. “Twilight” open houses. This means your night is shot.• Thursday. Nothing is required. This is your weekend, enjoy. Don’t spend money though, you don’t have it.• Friday. Mailings, client hunting, sitting around.• Saturday. Mandatory training…all freaking day. Done with the mandatory 15 week training? Start ongoing training that repeats what they taught you in the 15 week training!• Sunday. No more football games, family picnics, etc., because you need to sit in Open Houses.At various times during the week, you’ll get a few 2 hour stints answering the phone. The idea is that clients will call in looking for an agent because they have a house they want to buy. I would guess that this has happened once, ever, in the history of real estate. Most of the time you’re sending calls to the old-timers.I had a gorgeous Ford Mustang GT when I got this “job”. I sold it because I was told that you have to take your clients all over the place to view houses. Out with the sports car, in with the Volvo station wagon (in the horrid corporate color, of course.) As it turns out, no one wants to ride with their real estate agent; they want to follow you around in their car. This is for many reasons: so they can escape you when they want, so they can talk about the houses without you hearing them (even though you are their trusted advisor)…oh, and they hate you. I really miss that Mustang.CHAPTER 8: “SUPPORT” (note quotation marks)• Computers. Don’t know a computer from a toaster? Don’t worry, no one else does. I don’t know why, but everyone I worked with was horrible with any technology-related tool. They constantly needed help with the computer, and the PC’s were always down with a virus of some sort.• Your web site. The company has set up a page for you on their website, you need to fill it with useless things that no one cares about, like “resident of (our general area) for umpteen years” and Realtor and “Member of (Our County) Real Estate Club. None of this helps them or you, but it does fill the page, even though no one will look at it. You can put a picture up there too, unless you’re ugly or hideously disfigured.• Mailings. I lucked out with Company Y, they pay for mailings. This means they provide the marketing materials and they pay the postage for a certain amount to be mailed out. The database of addresses that you could send mail to was protected by a Rottweiler in our office, a man I’ll call Travis. Travis was tremendously tan year-round, with slicked-back hair, and he was dressed like a 1970′s JC Penny mannequin every day. I don’t know if he was gay, but I bet his boyfriend was.• Office Help. They hate you. The first day I met Travis, he was in the middle of a full-fledged hissy fit because someone had stolen his Cross pen. This is understandable, as it’s not like they sell them at drug stores for a few dollars. Yes, they do indeed sell them at drug stores for a few dollars. The hissy fit lasted an hour, and included our manager sending a phone message to every agent in the office to please return the pen if they had it. Travis also kept a much-needed eye on the labels that one would use to send out these mailings. To get them, you had to request the exact number of sheets you needed. There were 25 on a sheet and if you were printing 68 labels, you would not get 3 sheets.CHAPTER 9: “ETHICS” (note quote marks)Ethics rule #1 is “just get the listing.”This means that if you have a person that wants to sell their house for $330,000 but you and everyone know it won’t fetch $250,000, you tell them that you will list it for their price, and then slowly let the price drop when people laugh at the house.CHAPTER 10: AFTERTHOUGHTSI am one man. The Realtor’s Association is a huge conglomerate which no doubt has numerous lawyers on the payroll. My brother-in-law is a lawyer….but I still feel outnumbered. So you’ll notice I only refer to real estate agents, not Realtors.Keep in mind though, that you have two choices here: you can either become a Realtor or you can become a Realtor. Yes, you read that right. I’ll make no judgments on the value of the organization, except to say that sitting through the most boring training ever nets you a tiny R pin. Nothing says I’m a success better than a pin with an R on it…right next to your name tag.Referral Status means that you’ve quit the day-to-day grind of trying to sell/buy houses. You become inactive, but now if you point someone who is looking to buy or sell a house to your real estate company, you get a percentage of the commission.All you have to do is pick up the phone, tell the company their name and telephone number and where they’re looking. The irony? NOW it’s payday. I know people who made more on referrals than I did as a real estate agent, many times over. Of course, there’s a fee to be in the program, but you didn’t think that was free, did you? And to stay in “referral status” you need to take ongoing training.This is just my story. Don’t let it change your mind if you want to enter the world of residential real estate. Heck, I had a former real estate agent tell me what a horrible idea it was and I still went forward with my stupid plan.I’m sure it’s completely different in YOUR area though, and they’re telling you the truth when they say so…