Let us understand what exactly is asset based lending. In simple words asset based lending is any type of financial assistance you receive based on the value of your company assets. These assets could include, inventory, equipment, industrial machinery and accounts receivables. Different types of asset based lending includes, invoice factoring and equipment financing. Asset based lending arrangements enable you to receive cash depending upon the value of your assets.
The costs of asset based lending depend on a wide range of factors. Some lenders charge higher interest rates as compared to other lenders. So, it is wise to look around for the lender charging the lowest interest rate. Some lenders may ask for lower interest rates, if your business have creditworthy factors, such as customers who pay on time. However, it is important to know that the interest rates charged by asset based lenders is higher than the costs of traditional bank loans.

Asset based loans are easily accessible as compared to the traditional bank loans. Further, the companies with poor credit history, which cannot qualify for traditional bank loans can easily qualify for asset based lending. Also, this type of a lending arrangement does not require the borrower to pass credit check or pay a down payment. Asset based lending serves as an effective alternative for traditional bank loans.

Here are five most popular pricing strategies:

Cost-plus pricing: This is one of the simplest pricing methods. The company calculates the actual cost of manufacturing the product and adds on a fixed percentage to that cost to set the selling price. The cost is calculated by adding fixed costs and variable costs. For instance,  a company is engaged in manufacturing laboratory apparatuses. The cost of producing a single unit is $50. The company decides to operate at a 20% markup. So it adds $10 to the cost price to come up with a selling price of $60 per unit. However, this method have two flaws, the model takes no account of demand. There is no way of finding out if the prospects will purchase the products at the set price.

Market-oriented Pricing: In this type of pricing method the price is set on the basis of analysis and research compiled from target market. The marketers set the price of the product depending upon the results of the market research.

Loss Leader: In the loss leader pricing model a product or service is sold at a lower price ( at or below cost) to facilitate other profitable sales. This would enable the businesses to expand their market share as a whole.

Price Discrimination: Price discrimination includes setting different prices for the same product in different market segments. The market segments can be classified on basis of age, gender, income, social status, etc.

Premium Pricing: This method of pricing involves setting the price of product exceptionally high in order to encourage favorable perceptions among prospects, based on price. This practice intend to exploit people’s mindset to assume expensive items represent premium quality. Further, these items are more reliable and desirable.

Here are few tips for tracking the strength and activities of your competitors:

Visit Your Competitor’s Websites: Visit the websites of your competitors in order to know what they are offering the users. If the visitors are viewing your website, they are also likely to visit the websites of your competitors. So, it is important to thoroughly browse through their websites. View their online catalogs, product specifications, news-release archives, mission, vision and future objectives. Also, search for your competitor’s profile on rating and review sites.  This will enable you to learn what their customers and prospects like and dislike about them. This can give you valuable insights and information for developing better products and gaining competitive edge. For instance, if you are dealing in herbal medicines. View the review sites offering customer feedback on the products and  services of several herbal medicine dealers.

Google Adwords: You may use Google Adwords to find the keywords used by your competitors for online marketing. Find specific keywords and phrases that lead to frequent appearance in search results. This will enable you to understand the online marketing plans and strategies of your competitors.

Alexa: Alexa is one of the leading websites that indicates web traffic ranking. The site provides you valuable insights about webpage traffic, link numbers and load timings. Also, the website features search analytics to enable you to know about the keyword combination and placement of your competitors.

SEO Book: The SEO Book is an effective comparison tool, which enables you to identify your position amongst the rest of the crowd. It helps you to understand your competition in a better manner. The website displays useful information about the similar sites you are searching for. Also, the site enables you to compare page titles, meta descriptions and redundant phrases used on the WebPages.

A negative work culture can have adverse effect on productivity of your employees. It can result in employee illness, reduced productivity, presenteeism and absenteeism. This can result in hiked input costs. Today more and more businesses are focusing on creating a positive work culture. A positive work culture plays a vital role in retaining and extracting best out of the your employees. Creating a healthy workplace culture will result in reduced injuries, reduced presenteeism, reduced absenteeism, reduced employee attrition rate, increased productivity, improved efficiency and loyalty.

A strong organization culture ensures that company’s policies, rules and regulations are strongly implemented and followed. This results in an united workforce that works actively towards achieving organization’s goals and objectives.

Here are few characteristics of a healthy work culture:

Co-operation: Employees and workers must be cordial and co-operate with each other. Also, the employees must respect their fellow employees. Backbiting about fellow workers is considered highly unprofessional. Backbiting must be avoided in order to create a positive and healthy work environment. Backbiting and nasty politics can result in conflicts leading to negativity.

Fair Treatment: Each and every employee should be treated equally and fairly. Partiality, biasness and favoritism can demotivate your employees and create an unhealthy work culture. Employees should be judged only on the basis of their work performance and nothing else. Do not favor an employee just because you are fond of him or her.

Rewards and Recognition: It is important to recognize the hard work of your employees and reward them for it. Make your employees feel that they are a vital part of the organization. Appreciating and praising your employees will encourage them to perform better. For instance, your company deals in insurance, reward your salesperson if he is able to meet his targets.

Here are few important things to consider before sampling your products:

Determine the Reason for Sampling: Whatever your product is, you need to identify why sampling is an important part of your marketing strategy. Before you plan a sampling strategy, review your company’s mission, vision, core values and marketing objectives to remind yourself why the product is worth a try. Distributing free samples can help new companies to give their customers a chance to experience an unknown product for free. Customers will be able to know whether or not they are comfortable using your products.

Pick Your Product: Once you know why you want to go free sample distribution, it is important to determine which product you want to distribute. For start-up companies with a single product, such as tea, coffee or toys, the decision is easy. However, for more established companies with a number of product lines, the decision of choosing a single product may not be so easy.  One option is varying your product samples. For businesses with a potentially large and diverse market, distributing differing samples will enable the companies to reach out a wider target audience.

Find a Target Audience: Like any other marketing technique, targeting the right target market is vital for the success of this marketing tactics. Once you have identified your target audience you can start distributing your product sample to them. You may attach a business card, coupon, flier or other marketing materials to the samples in order to promote your products. This will encourage your customers to come back to you and buy a full-version of your offerings.

Positive online reviews play an important role in attracting new customers towards your business. Reports suggest that online reviews strongly influence the buying behavior of the consumers. Nearly half of the American consumers stated that positive online reviews encourage them to visit a new business and try out its offerings.

Here are few tips for managing your online reviews:

Pay Attention to Your Customers: Keep monitoring the review websites by using Google Alerts, which is a free service. Or you may register with an professional reputation management service to monitor and keep a track of all mentions of your organization across the Internet. Some of the online review sites also notify you via email when a new review is posted.

Ask for Reviews: Most of your satisfied customers would not take much pain to post positive reviews unless you ask them to do so. You may send emails to your customers or sign up for an online service, which automatically sends emails to your customers requesting them to submit a review. This simple technique has drastically increased the number of positive reviews that can be generated.

Promote Your Reputation: Merely collecting reviews is not enough. It is important to make your prospects read them. Make sure that your site features a ‘read my reviews’ button. The button should be prominently displayed on your website and business profiles on social media sites, so that it is easily visible. The button should be linked to a web page that lists your online reviews. You may also include the links to your business profiles on various review sites in your online newsletters and other marketing materials. According to Jim Lankes, the Divine Skin Spa, including links to more than 500 customer reviews has helped him to sell more than 10,000 daily deals in two years.

Industry researches show that nearly one-fifth of small businesses do not even use antivirus software. Nearly 60% SMEs do not use any encryption on their links. Further, two-third of the SMEs do not have a proper security plan. Cyber attacks can lead to irreversible damages. In case your business is hit by an attack, you may face a loss of up to $10,000 or more. Further, if your website goes down you may lose a large number of potential clients. Here are few tips for protecting your small business against cyber attacks:

Implement Strong Password Policies: One of the most cost effective and simplest moves that small businesses can take is to use strong passwords. Hackers often get into your system through weak passwords. Using strong passwords will enable you to protect data stored on your desktops and laptops. So, what exactly creates a strong password? Experts say that your password should be of at least eight characters. Further, it should be highly complex. Hackers usually find it difficult to crack strong passwords. You may use a combination of symbols, letters and numbers, such as ‘ deJ1s4qFDAS’ is a better option than ‘superman’. Further, keep on changing your password frequently, at least once in every 90 days.

Educate Your Employees: It is important to explain the importance of cyber security to your employees. This is even more important, if your employees are not technology savvy or if your company allows the employees to connect with the internal network via personal mobile devices, such as iPad or laptop. Make sure that data allowed to go on these devices are appropriately encrypted. Further, you may organize training sessions, workshops and seminars to train your employees on cyber security. Train your employees about internet safety, latest threats, links from unknown sources, email attachments and unusual software update requests. Cyber crimes can be prevented by adhering to security policies and exercising caution.

Asking Scripted Questions: Most of the sales training seminars focus on ‘sales scripts’. However, you will be surprised to know that scripted questions are very irritating. Asking scripted questions will put an impression that you are not interested in providing a solution to the problems of the customers. It will create an impression that you are solely interested in making a sale.  Scripted questions are usually intrusive by nature. Asking such questions can alienate your prospects from you. So, instead of asking scripted questions, it is preferable to learn about your prospects and prepare a brief agenda to discuss with them. This will establish exchange of information. Also, this will enable you to interact with your customers on a personal level.

Being a ‘Know-It-All’: ‘The Challenger Sale’ is one of the most popular books on selling. Basically the book is the revised version of ‘ Solution Selling’. The book advices the sellers to challenge the customers. Some of the sales professionals tend to challenge their customers by giving a lecture to them. They feel that the customer might get impressed with their expertise. No one likes getting a lecture. Further, giving a lecture to your clients might make you sound like you think you know better than the client about his business. No one would appreciate that. It is preferable to do adequate research about the client’s business and identify how your offerings can help him to run his business in a more effective manner. Also, listen to the problems that your customers are facing and offer them a solution.

According to a survey conducted by the Exhibition & Event Association of Australia, an average investment of 9 percent of the total marketing budget spent on participation in a trade exhibition helps to increase profit returns by 23 percent. Trade exhibitions are a vital part of a company’s marketing mix. If you are a small business owner, participating in business trade fairs is one of the most effective marketing techniques you have at your disposal.

A trade exhibition allows you to demonstrate your products live. The traditional print advertising is not interactive enough. Further, demonstrating your products through television advertisements can be really very expensive. A trade show offers a comprehensive platform that compiles all the marketing activities, including advertising, promotion, networking, face to face contact, public relations, market research, study activities of competitors and selling actions. Reports suggest that most of the leading industry players spend approximately 10 percent of their total advertising budget on trade exhibitions. The figure for the companies operating in the B2B sector is as high as 40 percent.

Trade fairs offers a genuine opportunity for making a great first impression on your clients. Generation of qualified sales leads is the most important benefit of participating in a business trade show. Whether your small business is local or international or service or product based, participating in trade fairs is a great way to get noticed as an industry leader. Trade shows are also an effective means for increase the visibility of your products,  gather market intelligence and know about the recent market trends. Further, trade shows also provides an opportunity for improving your business network.

You just need to find few good affiliate partners, sign up and implement few effective affiliate marketing programs. Here are two different types of affiliate marketing programs:

Pay Per Click: In the pay per click program the affiliates are paid for each and every click. The payout is comparatively less. This type of program is perfect if you have huge amount of traffic visiting your website. However, getting your company accepted in this type of affiliate networks is a bit difficult. The approval of your application depends on various aspects of your website and your traffic sources. Making money from this type of a program is comparatively easier because you get paid if the visitors just click on the displayed ads or links.

Pay Per Sale: This is one the most popular affiliate marketing programs. In this type of program the affiliate gets paid for every sale made by him. It enables you to earn high commission for every sale. However, it not that easy to succeed in this type of program. The pay per sale program is suitable for you, if you have made your place in a particular niche or marketplace. Several vendors pay their partners a high percent of commission for selling their products and services. You need to put in some sincere efforts and be patient to get the desired results.