Get Your Business Credit Ready

Get Your Business Credit Ready
Photo by Alesia Kazantceva / Unsplash

You have your business registered, now what?

You have your business registered. Now, you want to put things in place to make your company look more professional to lenders.

When you are signing up for new services use your business address and business phone number.

Getting Business Credit Ready

Get Business Phone Number

You will need a business phone number for your business. Don’t use your personal number. You can use another number that rings to your personal number. That’s what I did. 

Here are a couple of companies you can use to get a virtual number for your business that you can have forwarded to your personal number. I got a local number, toll-free number and fax number. 
I am now hearing the fax is not as important anymore as it was before. I still

Freedom Voice

RingCentral

Get EIN Number

Next you will want to get is an EIN number. EIN stands for Employer Identification Number. This identifies businesses and individuals for tax purposes. Like a social security number for your business. There are companies that will happily charge you to do this but this is something that takes no more than 10 minutes and can be done online. Very easy process.

Here is the link to get your EIN.

https://sa.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp

Get a Logo For Your Business

One part to looking like a professional company is to have a logo. This will also help with making your social media, letter heads and website have some consistency.

When I want to get a quick logo done I just go to Fiverr. Quick, easy and cheap. 

The best way to pick someone one Fiverr to do a logo for you is to do a search for logo. And on the top right make sure to “Sort By” “Best Selling”.

Have video showing how to search and to look for reviews and number of reviews

People who have done a lot of sales should have completed a lot of gigs, so their work should be of good quality. Make sure to read the reviews as well.

You can even type in the kind of business and logo. For example, I have a trucking business. I search for a “trucking logo” on Fiverr. And this works with most businesses. Cleaning service logo, credit repair logo, and so on.

Another way to search is to search “logos” and try to find someone that has a similar style of logos that you like. If a person like to make cartoony logos, they will most likely be not as good as doing a minimalist style logo.

What can also help you communicate with the artist of what you want is to get some examples.

Give 3 examples of logos you like and send them to the artist on Fiverr and see if they can do them.

Here is the link to Fiverr.

http://www.fiverr.com/s2/3d748ad162

Get a Professional Website

Second part to looking professional is to have a professional website and domain. You want to make sure you have a professional online presence for your company. When lenders are looking you up they want to see that your business is consistent on all platforms and you don’t look like a fly by night operation. A professional looking website will do that.

The site can also be one page. Just make sure to have your company name, logo, what service or product your business provides, your business address and contact information.

I use Bluehost for all my website needs. They have a great tech support that can answer any question and they have a way to automatically install a WordPress site for you.

Get Your DUNs Number

Now that you have your EIN, business phone, business address, website and business email. You can sign up to get a Data Universal Numbering System number or DUNS number. DUNS number is a unique number used by Dun and Bradstreet or D&B to report credit.

When you register for your number it will take a few days to get it. Before you get the number they will call you to ask to you to buy certain services to get the number faster or help build your credit.

DO NOT SIGN UP TO ANYTHING THEY PITCH ON THE PHONE.

You just want a DUNS number. Thats it. Don’t waste your money. And this is something else people would love to charge you for. This is very easy to do yourself. And it’s free.

Here is the link to get your DUNS number.

https://www.dnb.com/duns-number/get-a-duns.html

Get Your Business List on 411

You will need your business listed in the 411 directory. You can do this for free on your own.

ListYourself.net

Yp.com

In 30 days you want to go to  411.com to see if your company has been listed.

411.com

Sign up to Nav.com to monitor your credit and report

Nav.com is a great site that helps with business credit. What is also good about Nav is they started reporting to the credit bureaus if you sign up to their service. Go ahead and sign up to Nav so you can see when see your credit scores with D&B, Experian and Equifax. 

Great job! Now you wait until your company shows up on 411

Before you start applying for anything you want to make sure your company is being seen on 411.com. It should take about 30 days so just set an alarm on your phone to check it next month or mark it on your calendar. Then you can proceed to the next step.

Click here to get a reminder email and a link to the page to start the next part of the process.