Tag: Follow

Follow the Smart Business Timeline for Credit

Your Smart Business Timeline for Building Business Credit Starts NOW

You’ve heard of business credit, right? It’s credit in the name of a business and not its owner. It is an ongoing process and you must do it proactively. That is, it won’t just happen – you have to make it happen. But did you know that you can hit the ground running and build business credit? You can start your business timeline for credit right now!

Your Business Credit Building Timeline

Any business can build credit, even nonprofits. This timeline is designed to work in order

It takes advantage of the passage of time, so you don’t pursue options that require a certain amount of time in business before that time has elapsed.

Get Started by Getting Fundable

There are a number of things you can do to make your business more fundable. That is, more likely to get funding. Here are some acts you can take which are fast. They will give you quick bang for your buck.

Getting Fundable Goes Beyond Building Business Credit

These tasks also have the added bonus of being helpful in other areas of your business

Building fundability bakes credibility right into your business. This will help you attract prospects, and it will help you convert more of them into customers.

Getting fundable helps your business to get money. And it will do so for years to come. It’s worth the time and effort to get it right the first time, this also saves you any lost ground from having to undo older mistakes.

A lot of these steps will require a phone call to a provider or chatting online. To expedite matters, get someone to help you, so you can get the preliminaries done faster, if absolute speed is your objective.

Start Your Business Credit Building Timeline With a Great Business Name

Does your business, or the business name you want to use,  contain the name of its industry?

That can be problematic if you’re in what is considered to be a risky industry.

Risk is usually defined as:

  • A higher chance of injury on the job and/or
  • Businesses which perform more cash transactions than most other companies

To become more fundable, don’t add the name of a risky industry to your business name

There’s nothing underhanded, immoral, or illegal about doing this

Start Your Business Timeline With Consistent Information

Just copy/paste business information – name, address, and everything else. Why? Because retyping opens up opportunities for error. Differences will be interpreted as fraud by lenders and credit providers. Keep records of where your business name is, so, you can be sure you catch everything. These are records both online and offline.

You want an exact match across the board. This means deciding between spelling a word out or abbreviating. It also means choosing between an ampersand (&) and the word ‘and’. Pick one and stick with it.

Get our business credit building checklist and build business credit the fast and easy way.

Continue Your Business Timeline With Your Business Phone Number

A cell phone or home phone number can harm your business in your quest for fundability. But you can use VOIP (voice over internet protocol). This enables any phone number to ring any device. So you can still use your cell phone.

Toll-free numbers are often best. That is, 800 or an equivalent exchange. You can get a toll-free number fast through a provider like RingCentral. But if your business is purely local, you may be able to go with just a local number.

You also want to have a 411 listing for your business phone number(s). You can get one via ListYourself.net. Lenders and credit providers will be looking for your phone numbers, so make them findable.

Do you really need a separate business phone number? It’s not a complete, 100% dealbreaker if you don’t. But if you don’t want clients to ring your home phone all day long, or have your toddler pick up (!), then a separate business phone number is the best way to go.

Continue Your Business Credit Building Timeline With Your Business Address

Working from a residence can be a problem to lenders and credit providers if your business is a retail establishment like a clothing store. They will check your business address on Google Street View, and you could be denied business credit. A separate address fixes this issue.

A separate business address is also better for your family as no customers will be coming and going in your home, and taking up parking spaces on your street. But what if an office just isn’t in the financial cards right now? A virtual business address is a terrific solution. It can address all these issues.

Virtual Business Addresses

With a virtual business address, you get a deliverable address – not a PO box or UPS box, which would be flagged and generate a denial. This means an actual brick and mortar address.

Some plans give you access to clerical help, conference rooms, mail forwarding, and more.

Three we really like are:

  • Alliance Virtual Offices
  • Da Vinci
  • Regus

But recognize that there are some lenders and credit providers that will not work with virtual addresses.

Continue Your Business Timeline With Your Business Website

Lenders and credit providers will be looking for your business online. It would be a lot better if they got their information directly from you, and not a competitor. As a result, you must have a professional-looking website and email address. Your domain needs to be yourcompany.com or .net if you can get that.

Never use Wix or Weebly, so your domain is yourdomain.com versus yourdomain.wix.com. You will need hosting through a hosting company like GoDaddy or HostGator. You can buy a domain and set up a website. Larger hosting companies will provide services to help if you’re inexperienced with this.

Your Business Email

Your business email address needs to be on the same domain as your website. Generic professional names work well, something like admin@yourwebsite.com or gethelp@yourwebsite.com. Do not use Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, or the like. But don’t worry about checking yet another email address; you can have any email forward to any other email. You can set all of this up at the same time you set up hosting.

Get our business credit building checklist and build business credit the fast and easy way.

Follow Your Business Timeline to The Secretary of State’s Office

The first steps already outlined will probably take you between a month to three months at the least. Now it’s time to move onto the Secretary of State for your state.

The Secretary of State’s office has info on every license needed to run your business

They also have helpful information, like if you need to take continuing education to maintain your license. Processing time varies.

You may need to register your business. It’s possible that the SOS will require that your business name be unique. And they may want corporations to be defined with a term like ‘Inc.’ at the end of their names. For anything you need to pay for at the SOS, be sure to print and keep copies of receipts and forms.

Continue Your Business Credit Building Timeline With Your Business Bank Account

Many business credit providers will insist that you have a business bank account. It must be devoted to your business. This will also help to keep you from accidentally commingling funds. This will make tax time a lot easier. You can apply for a business bank online at many banks, even if the bank has brick and mortar locations.

In particular if you have a personal account with a bank, and you’ve managed it well, you can get a business bank account fast. You can often be approved in as little as 15 minutes online. For some more risky industries like cannabis, it may pay to look online for a bank to work with

Continue Your Business Timeline With Your EIN and Business Entity

Visit the IRS website and get a free EIN for your business. Choose a business entity like corporation, LLC, etc. It’s best to choose a type of corporation. This is to minimize risk and maximize tax benefits. It also creates an entity separate from you, the business owner.

Doing these things at this stage of the game means you’ve got a set business address, phone numbers, etc. So you wouldn’t have to change them later.

Note: a DBA is not a separate business entity.

Proper NAICS Codes

You also choose NAICS codes at IRS.gov. SIC and NAICS codes classify your business and show what it does. The IRS works with NAICS codes. But D&B still works with both. If your business can fit under one or more code, choose the less risky code. There’s nothing illegal, immoral, or underhanded about doing this.

Get our business credit building checklist and build business credit the fast and easy way.

Continue Your Business Credit Building Timeline By Incorporating Your Business

Even incorporating online may take a few business days. In general, you will need Articles of Incorporation. If you want them drafted quickly and correctly, you’ll probably need to hire a corporate attorney to get this done. At the very least, it’s best practices to have a lawyer look over your completed documents.

Get Your D-U-N-S Number

Business Timeline Credit SuiteTo build business credit, you will need a D-U-N-S number from Dun & Bradstreet. A D-U-N-S number + 3 or more reported payment experiences will generate a business credit report with a PAYDEX score. And, therefore, you’ll have built business credit. The free product will send you a D-U-N-S number within around 30 days. Don’t let them upsell you!

By now, you’re about one to two quarters into your business credit building timeline

Continue Your Business Timeline By Establishing Positive Payment Experiences

Lenders consider credit history as one of the chief factors when determining creditworthiness. Making timely payments will demonstrate to anyone looking to do business with your company that you’re low risk. Work with vendors that will report positive payment experiences to the business credit reporting agencies. That way, you won’t waste your time.

Most vendors don’t report positive experiences, but have no problem reporting if you default. But here are three that will report positive experiences:

We don’t just recommend these vendors because they report, we also recommend them because they have great products and service.

Continue Your Business Credit Building Timeline By Working With Vendors Which Report

Even vendors that report may need you to reach a certain minimum before they will report. They may also want some time in business. So check the fine print and call or chat online with a representative to get information, which you know will be correct. And keep in mind, it can take over 30 days for reported purchases to show up on your business credit report. By now, your timeline has stretched to three-quarters of a year to a year, AND you’ve got good business credit!

A Smart Business Timeline for Credit: Takeaways

Following the steps in order assures that you take the shortest distance between the point of startup, and the point of having good business credit. You don’t meander, you get straight there, in a year or less. For more guidance, and to extend your timeline into getting more credit and funding as your business grows, contact us.

The post Follow the Smart Business Timeline for Credit appeared first on Credit Suite.

11 Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow

Are you tired of scrolling your Instagram feed for digital inspiration and are coming up short?

We know the feeling. 

That’s why we sought out the best digital marketing accounts to follow and added them to our feed. 

Whether you’re looking for actionable tips to enact in your classic campaigns, inspiring stories of grass-roots marketing, or posts that will change your perspective, our diverse list of 11 digital marketing Instagram accounts to follow has something for everyone. 

In addition to general knowledge-sharing, all 11 individuals have unique voices and styles, bringing a welcome break to marketing content that looks identical to all of its contemporaries. 

Read on to learn more about the 11 individuals who topped our most-follow list (in no particular order 😉 ). 

1. Neil Patel

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Neil Patel

Handle: @NeilPatel 

Follower Count: 269k

Niche: Digital marketing 

Why Neil is Successful: A top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35, Neil makes the complexities of digital marketing easy for the average reader.

What Neil is Known For: A massive figure in the digital world, Neil is known for entrepreneurial disruption of the digital marketing field, as well as his agency. 

Why You Should Follow Neil: If you’re looking to sharpen your digital arsenal, Neil is a must-follow. His posts range from landing page hacks to the transformative power of color. Even though we may seem a little biased, his other 267k followers definitely aren’t. 

2. Gary Vaynerchuk 

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Gary Vaynerchuk

Handle: @garyvee

Follower Count: 9.1m followers

Niche: Entrepreneurship, investment, mindset

Why Gary is Successful: Credited with turning his family’s brick-and-mortar liquor business into the first online booze provider, Gary has an entrepreneurial mindset and a unique understanding of the demands of the digital world. 

What Gary is Known For: While Gary may have found his footing in booze, he is now a huge figure in the entrepreneurial space. He covers all sorts of topics, from NFTs to how to deal with failure. 

Why You Should Follow Gary: With video content that delivers day after day, Gary sounds off on the latest trends, serving as a weathervane for the digital community, as well as informational videos about leadership and self-care. 

3. Jay Baer

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Jay Baer

Handle: @jaybaer

Follower Count: 17.6k 

Niche: Digital marketing with a side of entrepreneurship

Why Jay is Successful: As a seventh-generation entrepreneur, Jay knows a thing or two about starting businesses. Founder of five multi-million dollar companies, his latest venture is Convince and Convert, a highly sought-after digital marketing firm. 

What Jay is Known For: Working with high-profile brands on innovative marketing campaigns, including Kindred Healthcare, Arizona State University, and Hilton.  

Why You Should Follow Jay: Jay made our Instagram accounts to follow list for incredible podcasts featuring notable figures discussing digital marketing strategies their companies have utilized, as well as daily industry takeaways. 

4. Lilach Bullock

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Lilach Bullock

Handle: @lilachbullock

Follower Count: 2,672

Niche: Business and mindset for female entrepreneurs

Why Lilach is Successful: More than business strategy, Lilach draws on the power of a positive mindset as a force to supercharge entrepreneurial success. 

What Lilach is Known For: As a coach who believes in the power of positive thinking, Lilach is known for helping businesses go from zero to 60 through her unique strategies and exercises.  

Why You Should Follow Lilach: Follow Lilach if you need inspirational content, as well as practical tips for overall marketing strategy. 

5. Ann Handley 

ann handley instagram accounts to follow

Handle: @annhandley

Follower Count: 24.1k

Niche: Writing for every medium

Why Ann is Successful: Named one of seven people influencing modern marketing, Ann is a digital maverick, leading the pack with her company MarketingProfs.

What Ann is Known For: Known for her inventive tactics and compelling writing ability, Ann has worked on campaigns for household names like Adobe and the Mayo Clinic. 

Why You Should Follow Ann: Follow Ann if you’re looking for tips and tricks to master writing on any platform or form.  

6. Eric Siu

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Eric Siu

Handle: @ericosiu

Follower Count: 26.7k

Niche: Personal and professional transformation

Why Eric is Successful: An active gamer in his youth, Eric translated his on-screen skills in gaming into a highly successful digital marketing career. 

What Eric is Known For: His book, Leveling Up, gives readers advice for living the life they’ve always dreamed of leading. 

Why You Should Follow Eric: If you have a background in gaming, Eric should top your list of digital marketing Instagram accounts to follow. Most of his posts use video game imagery and share advice for succeeding in both life and marketing. 

7. Rand Fishkin

rand instagram accounts to follow

Handle: @randderuiter

Follower Count: 9,700

Niche: Market research

Why Rand is Successful: Rand speaks frankly and with humor, as shown in his book Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Guide to the Startup World. His communication style is one of the keys to his success.

What Rand is Known For: Co-founder of Moz, Rand knows all there is to know about search engine optimization (SEO). Today he heads up SparkToro, a market search and audience intelligence platform. 

Why You Should Follow Rand: Self-proclaimed pasta-based life form, Rand’s account features pasta content, as well as findings from his marketing surveys and research.

8. Sorav Jain

sorav instagram accounts to follow

Handle: @soravjain 

Follower Count: 223k

Niche: Teaching digital 

Why Sorav is Successful: One of India’s top digital marketing experts, Sorav started his career at just 17 as an SEO executive. Committed to the art of teaching, Sorav makes complex content simple through his courses and instructionals. 

What Sorav is Known For: Sorav leads echoVME, where he works with the best digital marketers in the country. His notable clients include CashKaro.com and XCode Life Sciences. 

Why You Should Follow Sorav: Dedicated to teaching, Sorav’s Instagram feed is brimming with content that can help you get answers to your most challenging digital marketing questions. Follow him for everything from Canva updates to Instagram Reel strategies. 

9. Larry Kim

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Larry Kim

Handle: @kim_larry

Follower Count: 45.5k

Niche: Automation 

Why Larry is Successful: Founder and former CTO of WordStream, Larry has tenured experience in the digital realm. In addition, Larry has a deep understanding of PPC marketing, AdWords, and SEO, born from his continuous industry success. 

What Larry is Known For: Best known for founding MobileMonkey, the chatbot messaging platform used by Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, and SMS. 

Why You Should Follow Larry: Follow Larry for easily accessible graphics that share information on everything from Twitter design tips for more engagement to tools for AI-based copywriting.

10. Jasmine Star

Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow - Jasmine Star

Handle: @jasminestar

Follower Count: 450k

Niche: Photography and branding 

Why Jasmine is Successful: Jasmine melded her passion for photography with a canny understanding of branding and brand marketing. After achieving personal success as a photographer, she set out to share her strategies with the world. 

What Jasmine is Known For: Helping business owners turn their dreams into reality through strategic planning and savvy digital marketing.  

Why You Should Follow Jasmine: Outside of the fact that her Instagram feed is gorgeous, Jasmine serves up content (a lot of it video) that shares tips and tricks for marketers navigating the digital sphere. 

11. Mari Smith

mari instagram accounts to follow

Handle: @mari_smith

Follower Count: 40.4k

Niche: Facebook marketing 

Why Mari is Successful: With a deep understanding of the inner workings of Facebook marketing, Mari can create immersive strategies for brands to help them increase reach and capitalize on their spending. 

What Mari is Known For: Often referred to as the Queen of Facebook, Mari is considered one of the world’s true Facebook marketing experts. She has worked with notable clients and earned Forbes’ title of One of the Top Ten Social Media Power Influencers several years in a row. 

Why You Should Follow Mari: If you’re looking to up your Facebook marketing game, look no further. Her account offers helpful tips and tricks for unpacking marketing trends, among a ton of other insightful topics.  

Frequently Asked Questions About Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow

What Are the Best Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow?

A few of our favorite digital marketing figures include:

  • Jasmine Star @jasminestar
  • Sorav Jain @soravjain
  • Jay Baer @jaybaer

These are just three of a list of eleven who are must-follows.

What kinds of content do marketing influencers share?

Marketing influencers share all sorts of content. Among our diverse list of 11 marketing Instagram accounts to follow, you can find everything from videos on NFTs to tips for creating a mood board for your next photo shoot. 

How can I find new marketing Instagram accounts to follow?

While we’ve compiled a list of 11 inspiring marketing figures, this list is only the tip of the iceberg. To find even more inspiration, explore who these individuals are following, as well as hashtags like #digitalmarketing, #SEO, #FacebookMarketing, and any other tags that are relevant to your goals.

Where can I find marketing inspiration?

Instagram is a perfect venue for finding marketing inspiration. Given the multi-photo format, reels, and stories, marketing figures are better equipped than ever before with tools to share their best practices with their followers.

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Instagram Accounts to Follow: Conclusion

Whether you’re looking for a feed that makes excellent use of aesthetics and color that happens to come with marketing tips or a more financially minded approach, these 11 accounts have something for every marketer. 

As you explore the topics that are most aligned with your marketing goals, be sure not to limit yourself to the highlighted profiles. 

To engage further with the marketing Instagram community, explore hashtags that are relevant to your interests. Then, as you become more familiar with the community, start using your #digitalmarketing hashtags to involve yourself even more in the conversation.

Who knows? Maybe you’ll land on our next Marketing Instagram Accounts to Follow list!

Who is your favorite marketing influencer on Instagram?