GoFaxer Blog

If you’re in the process of starting a new small business, you are all too aware of the money involved in doing so. Keeping as much cash available as possible can be critical in getting your business off the ground. One way of freeing up some of your cash is by leasing some of your office equipment versus buying it.

I’m not talking about renting equipment. In the long run, renting is too expensive to be seen as practical. Leasing on the other hand can be an affordable solution. It is generally much easier to qualify for a lease than it is to get financing to purchase your equipment. Typically you only have to provide 6 month of credit history to lease equipment, unlike the three year financial history a bank will require for a capital equipment loan.

You may not be able to afford all of the equipment you’ll need to get your company going, but you can probably afford to lease it all. Leasing is especially attractive to those businesses that require having the latest in technology. Leasing your equipment allows you to upgrade to the latest technology at the end of your lease.

Leasing your equipment can have some positive aspects on your balance sheet as well. You may be able to exclude some leased assets and related obligations from your balance sheet. Such moves might improve financial indicators such as your firm’s debt-to-equity ratio or earnings-to-fixed-assets ratio. Bear in mind, however, that accounting rules do require your balance sheet to report assets leased under certain types of agreements.

One piece of equipment you won’t have to worry about purchasing or leasing is a fax machine. Why is that? Because GoFaxer can provide you with all of your faxing needs. Sign up with GoFaxer today and take advantage of all of the conveniences of Internet faxing!

I’m sure that Carolyn Kepcher, the famous star of the Donal Trump’s “The Office,” would never be caught waiting at a fax machine. Such antiquated practices have been replaced by Internet faxing; I’m sure she’d be the

She’s got some great advice to those of you creating a startup. She’s a strong proponent of networking and creating relationships. But she gives a caution.

Like dating you don’t want to go in too strong, scaring away the potential relationship. You want to give the relationship time to grow before approaching the person with serious commitments. She says:

“When introduced to somebody who might be able to help you, start a dialogue, get to know the person and help him or her get to know you a bit. Only when a relationship is formed should you begin to talk about your business ideas, pose questions or ask for help. If you jump in too quickly, you may turn the person off and lose his/her help altogether.”

She also points out that this person might in fact be a potential competitor. You don’t want to reveal information that they could use to their benefit, leaving you out of the loop.

From time to time, aside from info about Internet faxing, I’ve discussed various small business news and advice here. As I was looking for useful info to relate, I found this incredible article by Carolyn Kepcher on starting your own new business.

You may remember this writer as one of the three menacing business executives on Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice.”  She is now the co-founder and CEO of Carolyn & Co. Media.

She outlines 10 basic things that you must have in your business. They are:

1. Passion
2. Network
3. Knowledge
4. Strategic partners
5. Raising money
6. Contribute what you can afford
7. Relationships
8. Take it slow
9. Informal board of directors
10. Computer and Internet savvy

For the next ten days I’ll be expounding on her advice on each of the ten topics. As I read through her explanations of each, they sounded really basic and in many cases really obvious. I mean, of course you need to have passion for your business idea.

But then I remember back to one of my very first entrepreneurial experience where some friends of mine and I started a window cleaning business. It seemed like a good opportunity. But as we got into the regular struggles of running a business we realized that we kind of hated washing windows.

So it was a rookie mistake, but I know that a lot of you are passionate about starting a business, yet need Kepcher’s advice. I hope it’s useful.

Gasoline prices are going up, incase you didn’t notice. The Business Journal reports: “Regular grade gasoline retail prices are projected to peak at just over $3.60 per gallon in June, according to the Federal Energy Information Administration.”

This is expensive for your business and expensive for your employees. It’s going to affect your employees’ costs to commute to work. And the general operating costs of your business are going to go up.

Gas prices affect everything in the market place. Every physical good must be shipped at some point or another. Shipping prices have gone up dramatically.

I heard a report that gas prices have gone up so much that many private truckers are driving to keep from losing money rather than make money. We can’t afford for our whole trucking industry to die, so we’ll have to support them with higher prices for shipping.

So what can you do? For one thing, you might want to encourage your employees to work from home. By cutting down on gas expenditure, your staff will be able to survive the recession. Services like Internet faxing and email will allow them to work from home, are relatively inexpensive, and will only be going down in price.

In terms of your business, you’re going to want to cut costs even more dramatically in the coming quarter to prepare for the increase in overall prices that will be coming.