All In A Days Work

Is Debt Consolidation the Right Choice For You ? If so, try Dutchess Partners

You’ve wracked up some debt – credit cards, student loans, medical bills,a car you can’t afford – and now you can’t see to keep up. What are your choices what do you do?
Debt consolidation can help roll your high-interest debts, such as your credit card bills, medical bills, etc, into one single lower interest payment each month. It can help reduce your total debt and reorganize it so you can pay it off faster.

Whether consolidating your debt is a good idea ALL depends on your personal financial situation and the type of debt you have – and the consolidation you are  considering. Consolidating debt with a loan could help reduce your monthly payments as I mentioned, but could mean paying more in total interest. You need to investigate and decide what is right for you.

If you have quite a bit of debt it may be best to get it to a point that its manageable. But is it the right choice for you?

For many people, consolidation is a light at the end of a tunnel – if you set it up and know that as long as you make payments on time, and it will be paid off in a few years, imagine the freedom that offers. That’s the hard part with credit cards – you are always accruing interest, and even other fees, making your pay off date seem further and further away. You can be successful with a debt consolidation if you debt doesn’t exceed 50% of your income, your credit is good enough to qualify for 0% credit card or no interest debt consolidation loans, your cash flow can cover your payments for these debts, and you have a plan to prevent getting into this debt problem again. (try this debt consolidation calculator to see where you come up!)

Consolidation isn’t a solve all problem – you have to address excessive spending, and it is not the solution if you are so overwhelmed that even lower payments won’t help get it paid off – when you can hardly tread water – it’s silly to make yourself think a consolidation will help. Or if you have a small debt load, where you could pay it off yourself in a year or 2, it doesn’t make sense to consolidate then either.

Check out services like Dutchess Partners – where you can pay one easy payment, with lower interest rates, and cut your payments down by up to 50%! They will help you understand your limits, and help you get to a place where you can start handling things on your own. They will also give you tips on how to cut down expenses and save on daily items – it is a great place to start.

Running a business in today’s world is definitely not an easy task; in fact, up to 80% of  all small businesses fail within the first 2 years. But that doesn’t mean YOUR business has to be a failure – you just need to know what practices you need to implement to be successful. How do you set yourself apart?

Know Your Customer
The biggest part of being successful in your business is KNOWING YOUR  CUSTOMER. Challenge yourself and your team to learn everything you can about your target audience and your ideal customer. This will help you develop and group customers with similar wants and needs and with this insight, you can recognize challenges or problems  and help find solutions. Know what makes your customers ‘tick’ and build a strong relationship with them.

Keep Your Standards High
Keeping your standards high is how you get to be where other big companies are – that is how a lot of them have made it to where they are. Each time you interact with a customer, it is an opportunity to demonstrate your standards. If a problem or issue arises it is even more important to make sure that you deliver on your promises. A lot of times those troubles and issues being resolved, can help really build your brand for you – word of mouth travels fast.

Use the Internet to Your Advantage
One of the most important -and sometimes overlooked aspect – is the internet and its potential . There are tens of millions of people who turn to the internet when they are looking for local goods and services, and having a awesome website or page is a absolute must. I have for one, completely disregarded a company that I found to be interesting because I couldn’t find a page or even a social media site for their business – and that’s just bad business.

Fine Tune Your Site and Make it User Friendly
The right customer success software lets you be proactive about customer success by helping users develop an immediate understanding of and connection with your product from the start. They help you do  that in a data-driven, scalable and customizable way.

Create Engaged Employees
Employees are the KEY to your successful business. You have to keep an environment that recognizes your employees hard work, and make them feel appreciated for it. You also need to let them know that you are invested in the progression of them within the company.

Be Willing to Adapt and Change
Being willing to adapt and change can mean the difference of the life and death of your business. No matter what your thought process is and how great your idea may be, you need to be willing to adapt, tweak, or even completely change in order to meet your customers needs. Don’t be afraid to change to become – or remain- successful. It is challenging but you can do it! If you consider all of the above steps in your business, your success will be higher in the long run

We all know that building a business takes a lot of hard work and vision – but if you want to take your business to the next level, here are some things you need to do:

Know SEO
Sometimes success can just be about showing up on the first page of the search results – ‘google’ searches are a great way to reach potential customers; and you can do it organically without spending a dime! You just need to make sure that you have top-quality content on your site. You also can invest money in PPC ads. But either way in the long run, knowing SEO will be worth it.

Use Social Media
You MUST have a presence on social media – it’s mandatory if you want to have a successful business. Find out which social networks work best for your type of business and content, and focus on that. Try to get an increase in followers by cross-promoting your social media accounts in your email signature, posts, newsletters ,etc. Engage with followers and share content that they want to share!

Get Affordable Data Management
Get a data management software like gartner mdm that enables you to have an affordable and accessible approach to data management that will accelerate your digital transformation – and user friendly.

Content Marketing
Establishing yourself as a leader in your industry is best done by creating quality content – experiment with content, and see what works best for you. Some eye catching content to share could be infographics, videos, case studies, blog post, and podcast. Create content to reach your target audience, and then broaden your horizons to target more people that could be possibly interested in your business.

Try Affiliate Marketing
A lot of small businesses don’t consider building an affiliate program, but it can be a major opportunity to bring in revenue. You can definitely help grow your business faster by having an affiliate network to help you! Choose a network that best fits your business and be sure to offer your affiliates whatever they need to promote your products.

A CRO Makes a Difference

When you are growing your business, you need to do what your customers do before making a purchase and what makes them ultimately choose to buy what they buy. Analyze your sales process and and check your funnel to see if visitors are getting distracted and remove an barriers they may encounter. Test your website features such as your landing page, product copy and action buttons to see what might help you improve sales. CRO will definitely help you see what is holding you back from making progress.

Be Mobile
Just like social media – you can’t ignore the fact that a lot of people do business on their cell phones. You must, absolutely MUST, have a website that is mobile optimized. Most online shoppers do their research on their phones before making purchases – and some just purchase right from their phones! If you want to have more customers you MUST let them shop you from the convenience of their cell phones

It takes years to build good credit, but unfortunately it can be ruined in no time at all. You may have fell on hard times, been young and uneducated about how credit works, or maybe gotten in over your head, it happens to the best of us! Either way, sometimes a situation comes up that you may need to try and get a loan with bad credit – thankfully, though it may be costly, t’s not entirely unachievable. Check out these tips for how to get a loan with bad credit.

Generally personal loans typically don’t need collateral (like a house or a car) they are just unsecured loans with a structured installment payment – you repay the amount you borrow, plus interest, over a certain amount of time. However, if you have bad credit your choice of loans may be quite limited and you will pay higher interest rates because of it. So if you do qualify, just be prepared and know that it will be more expensive to repay it.

Know Your Credit Score and What it Means

Lenders always know your credit score, and you always should too! When you are applying for a loan,  that score is going to be the final deciding factor on whether you will be approved or not. You can check your credit score for free at Freecreditreport.com or ask your bank if they provide a free credit score. (Just find the FREE sites, a lot of companies, like FICO itself, will make you pay for it!)

Stay Away From PayDay Loan Companies

These might sound like a good idea -especially if you are in a tight spot. But trust me – just don’t. Some of these companies will charge up to 350% interest! It will leave you in a cycle of getting these loans over and over again because it’s nearly impossible to climb your way out of their ridiculous fees.

If You Have Bad Credit, Fix It

Starting off you are going to pay more to get a loan – however, the nice thing is – that loan can help build your credit. Be sure to regularly check your credit score, pay all your bills on time, don’t use all of your credit limit, keep cards open to show you are capable, and pay down your debt. Stay focused, and you should be able to build your credit steadily.

Try a Secured Loan

If you own your vehicle or home, or other assets that hold value, some places will be more likely to give you the loan you need using those things as collateral. Just remember -if you don’t pay, they can claim stake on that property. So make sure it’s a loan you can afford before getting one.

Ask for a Co-Signer

Though I’m not a super fan of co-signing, this may be an only option for some. With a co-signer you get the interest rate that THEIR credit qualifies for. So if you know someone who trusts that you will repay the loan, that has  good credit – this could be the way to go. But remember, if you don’t pay – they are responsible. If you get behind, it affects their credit score as well.