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Is Equipment Financing an Option for You.
Is Equipment Financing an Option For You?
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Every small business owner will agree that running a business is very exciting and challenging. From managing an office filled with computers and printers, break rooms and vending machines to purchasing on-the-ground supplies for transportation services or construction businesses, every piece of equipment matters. That is why equipment financing can be exceptionally beneficial in easing some of the burden associated with these tasks.

To keep your business operating seamlessly, everything must be planned. However new opportunities seldom present themselves with a clean plan. Business owners may often find themselves in need of purchasing new equipment to make the most of a new lucrative opportunity.

Equipment financing eases these worries and bolsters your growth by catering to the needs of your business without any down-payment. Equipment financing is ideal for small businesses who have vehicle fleets, towing companies, construction contractors, medical practices, and those that have a large warehouse.

5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT EQUIPMENT FINANCING

1. It’s a great way to get a leg up on your competition

With equipment financing, you can have the most advanced equipment in your sector without adversely impacting the financial health of your small business.

2. Do your homework

Ensuring the right quality of equipment financing is a top priority for any small business owner. Carefully consider some basic parameters before entering into an agreement for equipment financing, including the amount of cash required, fees and alternate equipment upgrade options.

3. Questions to consider before pursuing new equipment

How will the new equipment add revenue or reduce costs for your business? How essential is it to supplement the growth of your business, cash flow, and profits? Then choose a lender whose terms suit your requirements.

4. Balance your cost and cash flow

While the approval process for equipment financing is fast and hassle-free, things can get quite tricky if you don’t balance your cost and cash flow. For example, the cash flow is impacted if you repay over a short term. If you select a long-term repayment, then you end up paying a lot of money on the lure of low payments. Therefore, choose a repayment term that is in sync with your cash flow and what you can do easily on a monthly basis.

5. Be aware of associated costs

These costs can include insurance and maintenance. Many businesses forget to factor in these costs when looking for equipment financing. Don’t let yourself be one of them!

Should I Use Equipment Financing for My Next Purchase?

Equipment financing may be a good option when:

  • The cost of purchasing the equipment is too high to sustain on current cash flow.
  • You want to maintain the option of changing the equipment in some time to keep up with the latest technology.
  • The new equipment will give you an edge on the competition.
  • The new equipment will open up a new market or new line of business.

Equipment financing may not be an option when:

  • The total cost of ownership of the equipment, along with the associated fees, maintenance and insurance costs will introduce too much risk in the business.
  • There are cheaper options for used / re-traded equipment that would provide the same benefit to the business.

Planned equipment financing not only saves money but also helps small businesses to pursue other business goals. Used wisely, it is a great way to fuel growth in the business.

Get Your Complete Guide

This guide will cover even more than just equipment financing, but the many other options you may have!

Here’s whats covered:

  • Top 5 Fundamentals of Small Business Financing
  • The Most Popular Business Financing Options
  • Tips for Maintaining Strong Financial Health
  • How to Choose the Right Business Loan for You
4 Smart Strategies for Restaurant Partnerships
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How do you create a restaurant partnership?

People like to be social — and they like food even more. Consider the local buzz created around the opening of a new restaurant: features in the local paper, social media chatter and word-of- mouth from excited customers who all like to be the first to try the latest and greatest.

This type of buzz provides maximum impact during the launch of a business, but the local community can also sustain a business through its growth stages and attract enthusiastic investors. All it takes is establishing the right local partnerships.

For hospitality businesses, partnering with local suppliers yields huge benefits. The results of any marketing effect can be exponential because businesses can cross-promote. Also, a successful business that is deeply embedded in the local community is one that is sustainable.

With partners from local farmers to local banks, a well-established business is a beacon for investors. Here are some examples of partnerships in local communities that produce a win-win for all involved.

1. Team Up With Local Food Suppliers

Increasingly, eateries are partnering with local farms to promote the popular “Buy fresh, buy local” trend. For example, a restaurant might use grass-fed beef or locally raised chicken from farmers in the area, and they make sure to promote the supplier on the menu. In turn, the farmer promotes the local restaurants it supplies. All partners benefit from cross-marketing and increased visibility on partners’ websites and in local media.

Take Barrel 21, for example. This popular Pennsylvania distillery and restaurant features local suppliers on its website. The eatery relies on grass-fed beef, milk and corn from local farmers; bread from a local baker; and chocolate from a local chocolate maker. In fact, even “Dan the Fish Man” who line-catches the restaurant’s Alaskan and smoked salmon gets a mention on the site.

2. Partner With Craft Beer Brewers

Many restaurants boost brand visibility by teaming up with local craft beer brewers. There is great demand for new and unique products, and with creative names such as Dogfish Head Romantic Chemistry and Hoppy Ending Pale Ale, you may attract potential investors from around the country.

Often, a one-off beer gets pushed into the main restaurant so that customers can sample a new beer on a regular or rotational basis. Craft beer drinkers tend to spend more and become loyal customers who visit more frequently.

3. Collaborate With Food Cooperatives

In addition to local farms, local agricultural cooperatives can offer valuable relationships in terms of cost benefits and marketing opportunities. Fueled in part by the local food movement, cooperatives are on the rise.

These types of organizations host educational events, informal farm tours, annual meetings and social events for all members and the public. Partnering with a cooperative can also give a restaurant statewide reach that extends to supply chain stakeholders, not just patrons of local restaurants.

4. Get Involved in Community Events

Sponsoring popular local festivities such as holiday festivals, sporting events and cuisine- or culture-oriented markets can be ideal opportunities to increase visibility and goodwill towards and among the public and local businesses.

Restaurants can serve a sampling of their fare, sell products and have their name printed on merchandise for a more permanent reminder of their contribution to the social good. Consumers are demanding more responsibility by businesses, and Millennials in particular gravitate toward businesses that practice corporate social responsibility by giving back to the local community.

Food for Thought

The opportunities for partnerships go much deeper than simply promoting a beer or touting local grass-fed beef. In fact, the possibilities for partnership activities are limited only by the imagination.

Outreach to local communities and businesses is a smart growth strategy with a great deal of potential. Investors know that the restaurant business is a competitive industry with narrow margins. Pursuing ROI from local partnerships can benefit everyone involved.

Have the USPS Clean Up Your Mailing List
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Before you send out your next direct mail pieces, make sure your mailing lists are 100% accurate. It’s awful to have to pay for postage, only to find out later that you had incorrect addresses or duplicates in your list. Going through a 1,000+ contact list can be tedious and time consuming. However, there are ways to make this process easier.

The USPS actually offers and suggests various verified tools to clean up your list before it gets mailed out. You can submit a printout to the postal service and they will make note of any required changes. While there is a fee associated with this service, the money you save clearing out incorrect addresses in advance can cover that cost and then some. There are also other USPS verified sources that you can use to check and maintain your mailing lists, such as NCOALink. This licensed vendor will run your mailing list through their software and will update the addresses of people who filed a change of address through USPS.

 

Consistently utilize these services and you’ll never waste money on an undeliverable mail piece again.

How One Woman Bucked the Publishing Trend and Built a New Media Brand in Just 6 Years
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Like many veteran journalists, Laura Rich found herself blindsided by the 2008 financial crisis. Many publications began cutting staff and instituting severe cost-saving measures. But rather than move into public relations or to another corporate job, she took a gamble and grew a publication from scratch. Now after six years, she just sold the business and is staying on with the company to help grow it further.

In 2008 Rich was working at Conde Nast‘s ill-fated business magazine, Portfolio. It was the latest in a slew of high-profile publications that she worked at including Inc., Fast Company, The Industry Standard, and AdWeek. But early in 2009, like so many other people, she was out on her own after Portfolio folded. Media chiefs around the world watched in horror as advertising revenues dropped precipitously.

Along with two other women, she launched RecessionWire in December 2008. It was a website aimed at helping people deal with the new economic reality of mass unemployment and reduced access to credit. “We saw there was a whole group of people who needed to understand what was going on,” says Rich. Given that recessions, even bad ones, don’t last forever the website was always going to have a limited shelf life. The site shuttered in 2010.

Planting a new seed

Around that time, with her newly acquired knowledge of running an independent website, Rich saw a new potential opportunity. It was one she thought might have some legs.

“In early 2010 I started noticing that Foursquare, Groupon, and other similar companies were disrupting hyperlocal marketing, and that industry had no name and no center,” she says. “I thought it was interesting and a great opportunity.”

Specifically, such companies were disrupting the way local businesses were interacting with local consumers. The past ways of using local newspapers and the Yellow Pages were now being supplanted.

So with $50,000 raised from family and friends, she launched Street Fight in February 2011 with her as CEO and publisher. The content in Street Fight was about best practices for hyperlocal marketing; and their conference-style events brought this community of people together to meet each other and share stories and ideas. “Street Fight was the place that brought that all together,” Rich says.

The hardest thing?

She says the most difficult part was finding the right people. In Street Fight’s case that would mean employees would need to be comfortable working in remote locations as part of a tiny workforce. It was quite different from the world of glossy magazines where she had worked for so long.

“Many of the people who worked in my past offices would not have survived,” she says, pointing out that her partner in the business worked in Providence while she was located in Boulder. She says, initially, there were some problems in finding the people to fit into the team culture, but eventually it worked out. “We have five people who have been with us since the start,” she says. Such employees were able to work independently without constant supervision.

Moving on and up

In 2016, she had a thought: “We’ve been doing this five years and we need to take it to the next level,” she says. “We needed to juice it, so we went looking for a buyer who would understand our business.”

She had previously developed materials to help raise capital when the company first started.

“So we updated our deck with our current financials and made a list of companies we wanted to approach,” she says, and details that there was a “dream list” of acquirers, a “middle list” and a “if nothing works out list.”

“Then we started going through our contact list and told them we wanted a buyer and a home for Street Fight,” she says. The result was a lot of meetings.

Brandify, a digital marketing company, was not on on the list because the main idea was to find a media company rather than a marketing one. But because the process was under way we mentioned it to them.

“They came back to us and said why don’t you talk to us,” says Rich. The rest is history. Brandify bought Street Fight. The deal closed on February 9, 2017. She won’t disclose the amount but says she’s staying on to help build the brand further.

Book More Tables at Your Restaurant
How to Book More Tables Online
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To give customers what they want, traditional brick and mortar retail is rapidly morphing into e-tailing, or electronic retailing. Providing customers a seamless omni-channel experience across multiple platforms requires technology to manage everything from online ads to checkout and payments.  But how do restaurants book more tables?

Many restaurant owners haven’t made the leap to e-tailing, either because they don’t see the benefits, or because they find it a challenge to adapt; however, effective tools for online booking with up-sell capabilities can turn a restaurant’s website into a robust online marketplace.

Online Booking Systems

Different than reservation systems, online booking systems manage venue rentals for events, accommodations and tours. Most booking systems use software that seamlessly integrates into your existing website using modules or plug-ins, unlike a third-party reservations sites like OpenTable. These systems feature calendar management, photo galleries, payment management, contract execution, and cancellation processes.

Additionally, these systems give you the ability to create alternative revenue streams.

Up-Sell Using Add-Ons

Seek a booking software provider that includes the “add-on” feature. It’s an extension that allows for the customization of add-ons during the online checkout stage. An add-on is the inclusion of additional products or services. This unique up-sell tool is a great way to maximize revenue generated through space rentals and special events.

Why stop at holiday parties when you can host year-around events? For instance, what about booking professional networking events, social mixers, wine classes, cooking classes, or selling online gift certificates? Bar owners might offer advanced seats when broadcasting sporting events.

Cost-Efficiency

Depending on your web platform, you may be able to use a free or a low-cost cloud-based service provider. Check out providers like Event Compass, Skeeda, Zozi Advance, or Checkfront.

And don’t panic if you’re not tech savvy. Most website management systems permit module and plug-in installs using “one-click install” from website control panels. If yours doesn’t, most providers offer tech support and easy to follow guides to get you up and running.

Read Attracting Holiday Business This Year for tips on booking more parties and creative add-on ideas to book more tables.

 

The Next Wave of Medicine: When Transactional Medicine Becomes Personal
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After spending over 20 years in traditional fee-for-service medicine, Dr. Alex Lickerman knew there had to be a better way. During that time, he worked with patients and in healthcare administration equally, providing him with a unique perspective. He saw our health care system from both the patient and the profit side.

Physicians usually spend around 20 minutes per patient and profits could only increase if a physician saw more patients. This snowballed into overworked physicians and underserved patients, prompting him to seek ways to practice medicine while putting the patient at the forefront of care — as a true partner in their lives, in both health and wellness. “I was curious about how I could engage the patient and understand his or her values,” says Lickerman. “How a patient’s disease impacts his or her life is much more interesting to me than the disease alone.”

In 2015, Dr. Lickerman left the hospital system and went into private practice. He was committed to creating a practice that profited both patient and physician.  ImagineMD was born as a direct primary care model, often referred to as concierge medicine. His patients pay a simple fee of $135 per month. This covers all of a patient’s office visits, no matter the number each month. It also covers access to same-day and next-day appointments, visits that last an hour or more, and 24/7 access every day of the year directly to Dr. Lickerman himself — even after hours. Since making this move, his practice has grown. He credits his growth to simplifying the patient experience while also improving the quality of care he’s able to provide.

Q: Why did you decide to establish your practice as direct primary care instead of the traditional fee-for-service model?

Lickerman: After spending 20 years in both patient care and administration, I’d gotten a strong grip on what patient frustrations were with our current fee-for-service healthcare system. I didn’t want to see more patients to earn a living practicing medicine. That would mean I’d have less time to spend with each of those patients. Direct primary care allows me to build my practice on a simple fee model and get money out of the way of building a relationship between my patients and the care I can provide.

Q: How has your current business model allowed your practice to grow financially?

L: Well, there are a few answers to this. They all work together to create the growth in my practice.

First, I don’t accept insurance. In traditional fee-for-service practices, I’d estimate that approximately 30% of both time and revenue go towards the complicated process of insurance billing. Involving insurance makes a project much more complicated. There’s intricate software and the staff you have to hire to manage billing. It’s also complicated to track where and when all of your revenue is coming in when it’s divided up between a myriad of insurance companies.

By taking insurance billing out of the equation, my direct primary care model allows me to operate with a very lean, patient-centric staff. I also don’t have to spend time on physician-to-insurer conversations. It takes up a fair amount of time in a fee-for-service model. This frees me up to spend more time with my patients.

Secondly, I have less administrative weight on each visit I have with a patient. In a fee-for-service model, I had to make sure that chart notes for each patient’s diagnosis were “insurance-ready.” I had to prioritize documenting their medical issues over their care. My current model, since insurance isn’t involved, means my notes are for the benefit of myself, the patient, and any future physician we might have to interact with for their care. Again, it translates to less administration and more time to spend on patient-centric activities.

Finally, because I am able to increase both the time and care that I am able to give to all of my patients, they’re incredibly happy with their relationship with my practice. The majority of our new patients come by referral from existing patients. When we keep our patients well taken care of, they send us more people who want that level of service.

Q: Did patient satisfaction increase with your direct primary care model?

L:When you’re a physician seeing 20 patients a day for 20 minutes maximum each, the patient feels that. There’s a disincentive to see a doctor when you’re not feeling well. This is because of time spent, an impersonal experience, and the co-pay. My practice model and flat fee structure lets patients access me when they need me without worrying about the cost.

This means my patients see me more frequently and reach out to me as a partner in their health. I have the time to spend answering their questions — in the office, via email, or via phone. I can build relationships instead of receivables, yet still operate a profitable business that grows each month. Most importantly, the patients are happy with the kind of care they receive and the level of interest I take in their overall health and lifestyles. It’s an attractive feature for patients to feel they can reach out or go see their doctor whenever they have to.

 

Strategic Funding provides needed operating funds to small businesses. Strategic Funding has helped business in hundreds of industries.  Industries served include: restaurants, personal services, construction, medical, manufacturing, agriculture, retail stores, automotive, and food stores.

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