Category Archives: Small Business

Factoring: A Viable Alternative to Venture Capital

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In today’s difficult credit environment, companies are turning over every stone and looking in every nook and cranny in their efforts to obtain the financing they need to grow and prosper.

Skip Green sees it first-hand. The founder and president of Alden Green, Associates in Oakville, Ontario, has been helping companies obtain financing for nearly two decades. The primary financing tools Green recommends are venture capital, private or angel financing, government guaranteed loans and grants—and factoring.
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Outsource Your Accounts Receivable Management With Factoring

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One of the biggest business trends of the past 20 to 30 years has been the move toward outsourcing.

There was a time not so many years ago when most companies handled almost all business functions internally themselves: payroll, hiring, human resources, financials, accounting, IT, etc. Well, do the names ADP, Paychex, Randstad, or Tatum ring a bell? Each has become a leader in providing specialized business services for companies on an outsourced basis.

Companies usually decide to outsource functions that aren’t part of their core competencies—or in other words, those that don’t lie at the heart of their ability to manufacture a product or deliver a service. Doing so enables them to focus more of their time, attention and resources on doing things that help differentiate themselves from their competitors and make a real difference for their customers.

It stands to reason that if your company wants to get the most useful productivity out of your employees possible, you should try to ensure that most, if not all, employees are working on tasks related to your core competencies, not on peripheral activities that don’t contribute directly to the bottom line.

Gaining Back Hours

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The Credit Crunch Myth: Financing Options You May Not Have Considered

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Over the past couple of years, the term “credit crunch” has taken its place in the popular vernacular alongside other now-common phrases like “mortgage meltdown” and “bank bailout.”

But is the supposed credit crunch that we keep hearing so much about (go ahead and Google it—I did and got more than 12 million results!) real? While most of the media would have us believe it is, from my perspective, I’m not so sure.
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The Dollar Store to Dollar Plus Store Conversion Challenge

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Whether you are just opening a dollar store for the first time or you already own a dollar store one of the biggest challenges is determining the right format. Your store format helps to determine projected sales, projected costs, projected profits, dollar store suppliers for the dollar store merchandise your business depends on, and much more. If you are just opening a dollar store all that’s required is to carefully examine the pros and cons associated with different formats, and then make the right decision for your soon to open business. However if your store is open and operating and the right format has changed over time, there is much more work to be done.
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What to do with Extra Sales Floor Space

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Many who are starting a dollar store are faced with the challenge of finding the perfect location. Finally after many hours of hard work they find a great location. There is only one problem; it is too big for their current funding. So they are faced with several options. First they could just walk away and find a right-sized location. Second they could open the larger space and just keep it under-stocked until profits cover the missing dollar store merchandise inventory. Finally they could partition the location so just the right amount of sales floor space is open to the public. In this article I will examine each of these options.
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Success Tactic for Dollar Store Merchandise Buying

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Most dollar store customers are bargain hunters who seek quality products at great prices. Dollar store owners are no different. They must continually seek the best possible wholesale pricing on the dollar store merchandise they bring into their store for resale. If you are about to start a dollar store you are faced with the challenge of keeping the merchandise in your store selling quickly. Achieving this goal demands there be something new arriving at your store all the time. The new arrivals must be unique. Shoppers will lose interest if you simply bring in more of the same items they have seen time and again in your store. They want new items at great low pricing.
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