Sources of Extra Cash Your Business (You May Not Have Known About)
by Danny Brown on December 13th, 2007
With a lack of funds being one of the major reasons for any business failing, small or otherwise, finding any extra ways of adding to your capital are well worth considering. This doesn’t always have to be a loan, either, although a small business loan can offer some excellent rates.
From inviting your family to invest to online resources, you’ll find that there is quite a bit of choice when it comes to finding extra cash for your business.
Contests for Businesses
Although it might sound an alien concept, entering your business into a contest can offer a very effective way of getting a cash injection into your company. Many large companies are now looking for “the next big thing”, and run numerous contests to find it. For example, Richard Branson (owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways) has given large sums of prize money to the Best Entrepreneurs in the past.
Additionally, if your business is chosen as a winner of one of these competitions, you might even find that the sponsor gives you a manufacturing deal, or similar incentive. For more details and examples, just do a quick search on Google or similar for “business competitions”.
Get Sponsored
This is becoming a highly lucrative and popular method for bringing in extra revenue. With advertising costs continuing to rise, companies are now looking at alternate methods of getting their brand known. One of these is via corporate sponsorship, where you advertise a company’s services in return for payment. This can come in a variety of ways as well.
For example, if your business is a bathroom accessory supplier and your website is getting a lot of traffic, you might find that a tiling company wants to pay to advertise on your website. Or if you manufacture flowerpots for gardens, you could advertise a certain brand’s fertilizer or similar. There’s a host of options available here, so look at what business complements yours, and consider sponsorship or even an affiliate partnership.
Line of Credit
This can really help raise extra capital for your business, as it allows you to spread out your payments to suppliers, for purchase of goods and equipment and more. By setting up a line of credit with your suppliers, for example, they may give you 90 days to pay for your order as opposed to immediately.
Or arranging a line of credit with your bank could see them take care of the monthly payments, bills, etc, in return for one small payment to the bank each month. As well as offering a lower interest rate than normal, having a line of credit means you will have more free cash to invest in improving your company.
These are just some of the ways you can bring extra cash into your company. You could also have a clearance sale of old stock, or offer family members shares in the company for investment. Take the time to make some inquiries, or speak to your financial advisor, and you could soon see your company stay in the black as opposed to hovering around the red each month.
