Dot Com Note » Business

Some Small Business Loans Explained

Dotcom Note — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:47:48 +0000

It can sometimes be a little bit daunting if you are either thinking of starting a new business or possibly expanding your present business; you realize that you need some sort of a small business loan but until you have a good idea of what the various loans are called and what they can be used for, how do you know who to approach for that loan and what to ask for? Here are some of the terms explained:

: Image by ShashiBellamkonda via Flickr

A business expansion loan

If a business is doing well and the owner is feeling restricted because the premises are too small or they need to take on more employees in order to get a bigger share of the business available, then the owner might well consider taking out a business expansion loan. This loan will probably be easier to get than a business start-up loan, providing the business is already profitable, as the lending company will have the company accounts to check over and give them confidence that the business owner will be able to repay the loan.

A bridging loan

A bridging loan is probably the least stable of all the loans that a small business owner might consider. This is where the business owner needs to sell something in order to release some finance and has perhaps a property for sale. Usually for a high APR %, the business owner will be able to arrange a bridging loan on a property but many things can go wrong in the house selling market and there is a distinct risk that the property will not sell and then the business owner would have the burden of the bridging loan on his shoulders, as well as the problems of starting up and running a business.

Bad credit business financing

If you have gotten stuck in a low-paying job and you’ve ended up racking up your credit card, you may find that you are being sucked into a bad credit black hole, where your committed outgoings exceed your income and the increased credit card charges are beginning to swamp you. Your credit rating will start to deteriorate and it will become more and more difficult to get credit.

If you are prepared to do all the work that is necessary to start a new business and you have a good business in mind, it is possible that you could get some sort of business financing; this is known as bad credit business financing and it will probably come with some helpful conditions which allow lesser initial payments while you get back on your feet but then the payments will increase significantly after perhaps 6 months or a year.

Business line of credit

Unlike most loans which make the agreed finance available straight away, a business line of credit is an agreed amount of credit that the borrower can draw on at any time up to the agreed limit; interest is only charged on money that has actually been drawn from the loan account, so this tends to be very convenient for a small business starting out and you are not having to pay interest on money that is just sitting in your account waiting for you to use it. The interest rate is less than the interest rate charged by credit cards but higher than a normal business loan; in addition there will be a fee involved in setting up the line of credit.

Sunday Reading: Affiliate Jump and Free Downloads

Dotcom Note — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 15:31:09 +0000

The emails on make money online and become a millionaire keeps on pouring into my inboxes. Of course, I don’t waste my time reading all these emails. I don’t even open all of them. I only open the one if the header grabs my attention. Today, the two emails that grabbed my attention are Affiliate Jump that I have already reviewed earlier and where to download boat loads of free online marketing ebooks and tools.

: Image by Zeetz Jones via Flickr

Affiliate Jump is now approving 100% into their CPA programs. I wonder why they would not when they are getting a monthly fee for each subscriber. People are lining up to pay them a monthly subscription fee with a dream to make millions promoting CPA offers. This is the call to action for the Affiliate Jump in their follow up email to me: Get your account set up right now and within minutes you too will be able to get your share of the huge CPA commission pie.

In their missions for the humanity to remove all the barriers to CPA promotions, it seems they have become very successful in filling their bank accounts. Other CPA networks will not approve all the affiliates and they’ll not charge you a monthly subscription fee if you’re approved. But these guys are ahead of the game and they will approve you into their network, 100% guaranteed, because they don’t care if you are able to make money promoting their CPA offers or not. They will always make money from your subscription.

Another joker sends me an email and tells me to go to this site where I can downloads free gifts, ebooks, online marketing tools and lots of other stuff. Who doesn’t want free stuff, right? So, I go to this web site and the landing page is a long list of free stuff that I can download. When I click on the first download link, I’m taken to another page to enter my email address. I thought, “well it is not that bad and everybody does it to collect opt-in email addresses to fill my inbox with worthless junk anyway.“

You think that my misery will be over as soon as I enter my name and email address in the opt-in form, right? I will be taken to the download page and I can happily download another useless ebook that I will never read and will sit in my hard drive till it dies.

Wait, my misery has only started. After I entered my email address, the auto-responder page instructed me to verify my email. I opened my Gmail account and clicked on a link.

I landed on another page that told me to check my email again for the download link. I went to my Gmail account and opened the newly arrived email with the download link, I assumed. As soon as I opened the link, one smarty pant in a loud voice started to tell me how he had made millions in the last two years using some super secrets.

This joker wants me to buy his super secrets for only $27. But he is honest. He tells me that he cannot guarantee any income for me because he does not know how I am going to implement his super secret. It all depends on my implementation. I wonder why the hell I am paying him $27 if he is not going to tell me the right way to implement his super secret.

Anyway, I could not find a way to stop his nonsense and there was no donwload link that was immediately obvious. So, my quest for a free download ended up in 20 minutes of wasted time.

The Jedi Master has taught his apprentices very well and these Internet Marketers are really becoming very good at doing whatever they are doing to fill their bank account.

A Motivation Technique To Make Money Online

Dotcom Note — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:22:12 +0000

In the last week, I saw some great product launches that promised you easy money for less work and super secret formulas to riches. Some of these programs will definitely put you, the aspiring online marketer, in more debts if you’re struggling for money and need some quick money to pay your bills. Some of the highlights of last week’s launches are: a Post Card Mailing System for $2,995, an unbelievable system of Copy and Paste to Make Money Online if you join some Affiliate Classroom, another high priced course called CPA Tsunami, and much more. Today, I will talk about a motivation technique to make money online. And it is free. You don’t have to join any program.

: Image by cuellar via Flickr

You see, I believe in making money online idea because I do make money online. But I don’t believe that you can start making money online simply because you join a program that promises pie in the sky; and unfortunately most of them do. One of the most important ingredient of making money online is the motivation.

The Internet Marketers believe that you are motivated and inspired when you see people driving fast cars, enjoying expensive vacations, or living in beach front houses. If you are motivated by these factors and wasting your time watching these type of videos, then I am sorry to tell you that the Internet Marketer has found the right person to hawk their products.

I sign up to receive information about many product launches. There is no other way. I have to give them my email address because the Internet Marketers want to fill my inbox with sales pitches, disguised as valuable information, inspirational stories, etc. Sometimes I have to also give my phone number. I don’t lie. I give my real phone number.

Many times I get calls from Internet Marketing companies and their first question is, “why do want to start a business? why do you want to make money?” These type of questions are extremely moronic for me. As soon as I hear it, I know that they are looking for people whom they can offer motivational speeches to sell their products. Often I reply, “I want to make money for the same reason you want to make money by selling your stuff to me.“

When they ask these type of questions, they are trying to find your weakness and exploit it. For example, if you say “I want to start a business because I want to quit my job.” Now they can tailor their sales pitches and make you feel good that you can easily quit your job if you join their programs. This is exactly how it works. So, be aware of what you are getting into when you are confronted with these types of questions.

You definitely need motivation to succeed in any business and online business is no different. But the real question is how do you know if you have the true motivation that will lead you to success? Or how do you develop that motivation? The first test is the time you are spending in acquiring free or low cost information and digesting it to knowledge.

If you believe that you can make millions by joining a program, specially an expensive program, then you are trying to take the easy path which may not lead to your success.

Lots of information that you typically get when you join a program is already there in the Web for free. You have to just find it. You may counter my argument by saying that, “what if I don’t want to spend my time in finding free information which I can buy it for a price and save my time.“

In that case, you have to first put a value to your time. Let’s say some information costs you $20 but you can get that same information for free if you spend one hour searching for it. What do you do? You need to ask yourself, “can I make $21 doing something else in the same amount of time I am going to spend searching for the free information?” If you can make $21, go buy that information. Otherwise, get motivated to find that information for free.

So, get yourself motivated by searching for free information that you need today.

Post Card Profit Review: Making Money With Post Cards – WTF?

Dotcom Note — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:47:56 +0000

I got this email about some program called Post Card Profit from somebody who addressed me as a loser. I think I’m a loser because I’m not making as much money as the email sender is raking in by selling worthless stuff and dreams to others.

: Image via Wikipedia

May be I’m a loser because I’m not sending emails to others and asking them to waste their time by watching boring videos. May be I’m a loser because I’m not luring people with one $1 sign up and then billing their credit cards after seven days for subscriptions to some worthless website. May be I’m a loser because I’m not calling people and asking them to join super secret programs to make millions.

The joker wants me to watch an incredibly lengthy, boring, worhtless, and time wasting video on how to Make Money With Post Card Profit.

But as you all who read my blogs know that my hobby is to waste my time by checking out this kind of stuff and telling you the truth as it is. So, the loser, i.e. me, clicks on the link and lands on a web page with just one video.

Here is a request to all those Internet Marketers. Please, for God’s sake, use an embedded video player or make your video in such a way that I can fast forward it. I don’t have patience to watch your worthless stuff in its entirety. I can get the gist of your incredible secrets if I fast forward it and get some bits and pieces. Why do you want us to watch your long and boring video in its entirety?

My guess is that you think you are peddling worthless videos to stupid people only who will love to hear your f*cking inspirational stories of people making millions. If I want to read inspirational stories, I can buy some books for $20 a piece from Amazon authored by world famous writers. I don’t need f*cking inspirational stories from you.

This guy who calls himself as the Post Card guy starts his video by listing names of people who are making millions using his super secret Post Card mailing system. You mail post cards to targeted customers and the recipients call a toll free number and listen to your marketing pitch.

You follow up with them from a call center to sell stuff that they really don’t need. What a brilliant idea! This guy should be awarded the World’s Greatest Innovator award. He has also given a name to his brilliant method. It is called Push One Method.

This Post Card guy used to coach one-on-one and now he has decided to jump into the mass training program like everybody else. He has put together an apprentice program where he will hold your hand and teach you his Post Card mailing system. His apprentice program includes

Personal coach with phone, email, and IM access
Online curriculum. He is very excited about it. He has 60 boring videos for you to watch and feel good
Home study Post Card Profit course
Master Resale Rights to 27 ready to go products

He claims it would cost $10,000 if you want to buy them individually. I don’t know where I can buy this stuff and how did he come up with that estimate.

To join his program as an apprentice, you have to meet three criteria.

You must be financially solvent because he may sell you more stuff down the road.
Must be willing and be able to follow directions. You may not be able to follow his directions down the road due to several reasons and mostly due to the financial reason because of all the up-sales he has planned for you. If that happens, you cannot blame him and his super genius idea to make you rich.
You must be cool. You cannot be angry and ask too many pertinent questions. You must follow his instructions and get into more debts.

People pay him $40,000 plus royalty for his incredible system. But he has suddenly become very generous and he is offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity to enroll in his program for $2,995.

So, if you can borrow close to $5,000 from your credit card and want to hand over him $2,995 immediately for his Post Card Profit system, go for it. He also tells you that you may earn nothing by enrolling in his program and spending all the money. In that case, you may be lazy or stupid, or both.

Make Billion Dollars Online Using Health Business Confidential

Dotcom Note — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:35:10 +0000

Not content with million dollar promises, marketers are now ratcheting up their voices towards the big B – yes, you heard it right – the billion dollar. I don’t know who sent me this email, and I really don’t care, but this one is about running a 7-figure health related business from the comfort of your home and it is Health Business Confidential

: Image by seiuhealthcare775nw via Flickr

“Remember – unlike many niche markets, health is virtually unlimited – and there’s no end to the potential customers, or moneymaking opportunities.”, the email proclaimed.

And no one knows about how to make money from health business better than the two Gurus featured in the video on the landing page of the website where the email directed me to. These two guys used to give live seminar type lectures on making money for $10,000 a per person. And now they have become extremely generous and are willing to give you a DVD about the health industry and how to make money from it for FREE.

Why are they giving it for FREE? Because all those people who attended those seminars (and went into $10,000 credit card debts) are urging them to continue the seminars so that more people will meet the same fate.

But they have decided not to continue with the seminar. Instead, they choose to give the whole course for free. May be they got the idea after enrolling in some mind control Jedi training.

This exclusive secret information is all about your own branded information and nutritional products. But you need customers to sell those products. So, you will also learn how to use tele-seminars and social media to drive traffic to your sites where you sell these products.

There is another video that you can watch as soon as you enter your email address on the landing page. This video shows a red Ferrari. And it tells you that you should call a dermatologist and interview him/her and put it in your blog to sell acne products. The video also talks about how lucrative is the weight loss market. Now you know what kind of people these guys are targeting.

They claim to have done a lot of research on

Contract manufacturing and nutritional supplements
Fulfillment companies
Call center
Web site design
Copy writing
Direct mail
Internet marketing
… and much more

And they will present you that information, nicely packaged, for a monthly subscription fee to their membership site. But wait. I said that it was all free. Sorry, I was wrong. What you get for free is hours and hours of video that will show you expensive vacations, luxury cars, large beach front houses, etc. that are waiting for you as soon as you sign up for their membership site.

Darn it, I am wrong again. Even those videos are not free.You have to pay $9.97 for shipping and handling to cover their video production and pre-launch costs. And here is the surprising part. As soon as you order those feel good videos, you are automatically enrolled in a $97 monthly membership site where you will learn all about health industry, internet marketing and how to make money from health industry using internet marketing.

I think these guys got tired of delivering their $10,000 seminars and settled for a membership site. Before you sign up for the membership site, I urge you to read the earning disclaimer that basically tells you that the information you will receive may be totally useless for generating any money. If you cannot make any money using the information they provide, you are a stupid person. So, good luck with making billions using Health Business Confidential program.

Affiliate Jump Reviewed – CPA Marketing Could Never Be Easier

Dotcom Note — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:00:19 +0000

: Image by affiliatesummit via Flickr

I get this email in my inbox that delighted in my ignorance about CPA (cost per action) marketing. He wants me to watch his video at Affiliate Jump site and to sign up with my email so that he can give more sales pitches about some kind of CPA course, guranteed enrollment in CPA programs, instant landing page creation, webinars and more. These webinars and interviews with people who talk about how they are making millions are a sure way to waste lots of your time.

Affiliate Jump would give me all the tools I need to rake in unimaginable profits from CPA marketing as long as I subscribe to the membership site for a monthly fee. I can make six-figure income from the comfort of my home. Who can resist?

I sure cannot resist. So I rushed to the site where I can take my affiliate marketing to the next level, as they claimed. No surprise there. Like hundreds of other sites, this one also has a video and an opt-in form with some nice graphics on the right hand side. He promises to give me instant free access to a $97 value “CPA Profits Revealed” video and ebook.

For his kind generosity, I have to only enter my email in the opt-in box. I was wondering why this guy wants my email again. He already has it. He has already sent me an invitation to watch his video. Why he wants it again?

Any way I wanted to watch the video. I get very impatient while watching long internet marketing videos. I looked at the length of the video. It was 2:43 minutes. I said to myself, “good, it is short and I can watch it without going crazy.” The guy in a t-shirt announces his name and tells me that Affiliate Jump is my ticket to CPA marketing.

He again reiterated that my ignorance about CPA is good and that only the “big boys” should know about CPA. He will help me, for a monthly fee, put myself in the same league with that small previelged group of people who are destined to know CPA and profit from it.

Ok, it confirmed my earlier belief that there is a membership to Affiliate Jump. You have to pay every month and you will be able to create web sites just by clicking a button. I was intrigued. This the the holy grail of internet marketing. Web sites at the click of a button? These instantly created sites will be designed to promote CPA programs. All you have to do is bring traffic to these sites. It is that simple.

As it peaked my curiosity about the instant website creation, I entered my email and went inside the protected area to watch another video. This is a f*cking long video (44 minutes). I had to fast forward it to skip the craps and see only the part where a website was built just by clicking a button.

What I saw in the video made me fell off my chair. I am may be wrong and if so, please correct me by posting a comment. But this is what I believe is one click site creation solution. You create the site using as a sub-domain in one of their main domains. Your site is a sub-domain of a main domain owned by Affiliate Jump. And the site has a bunch of banners pointing to CPA merchant sites. What a genius idea!

You promote the site and send traffic to it but to create the site and enroll in the CPA program, you pay a monthly subscription fee to Affiliate Jump. Even if you cannot bring in real customers, Affiliate Jump will always make money from your subscription fee. What a wonderful business model.

Now sign up and start making money online.

Join Niche Profit Classroom 2.0 and Make Upto $100,000 Per Month

Dotcom Note — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:00:44 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that is close to what the creator of the course Niche Profit Class Room 2.0 claims to be making. The creator of this course “Adam Short” has already raking millions. Now he will show you his super duper secret strategy that he has been using to funnel cash into his bank account on auto pilot. It is also called Silent Sales Machine.

You listen to a 15 minute video before you sign up. This is program that was offered earlier(I don’t know when) and it is an upgraded version. Like every thing else for the second generation in the Web, it is called Niche Profit Classroom 2.0.

The video starts with a talk about niche marketing. If you don’t know what heck is niche marketing, you should pack up and go back to web surfing, instead of dreaming about making millions from your autopilot online business. According to the video, your cell phone company is also engaged in niche marketing. Go figure.

According to Adam, the old techniques don’t work. Only the new techniques that he is going to teach you work. According to him the four criteria for the auto pilot business he is offering are:

1. Easy to setup
2. Generate income quickly and the thing is on auto pilot
3. It is long-term strategy
4. The business benefits people.

Now that is what I call a true business. He has combined the unique sales proposition of all the internet marketers and have come up with some thing that you cannot resist.

The process works like this. You build 10 to 100 page websites with articles written by someone from Philippines or Kenya or other similar countries where educated people can write good English but the wage is extremely low. Each site makes $250-$5,000 a month. And build hundreds of these sites. How sweet.

He call it Silent Sales Machine. It generates traffic and profits. You get all the traffic for free from search engines. You can launch one of these site for $30.

He has identified more than 50,000 niche markets. It is not possible to tap into all the markets so he has set up his teaching program.