Applying for a line of credit, like any financing, can be a stressful waiting game. After a series of rejections from my existing corporate bank and a few more from my potential new bank, I was feeling incredibly discouraged. I knew I had a booming business. Why couldn’t a bank see that?

Wednesday Update

Cindie Harrington, Relationship Manager Key4Women promptly contacted me on Wednesday, a day after the most recent rejection. I had been approved for a line of credit of $15,000.

I was floored. Speechless. I think I stammered for a few minutes. After all of headaches and heartaches I had gone through trying to provide my corporation with a cash flow cushion, I couldn’t believe a bank was actually going to help me. I knew I wasn’t a bad financial risk, but my financial past had seemed too checkered for me to be given any credit. Read the rest of this entry »

Taking a chance on a new bank, I first met with Cindie Harrington, Relationship Manager Key4Women at the midtown branch in Anchorage on a Friday afternoon. I brought a pile of folders with all of my financials - the same materials I had provided my current bank - including three years of corporation federal income tax returns and three years of personal income tax returns.

First, I briefed Cindie about the details of my financial situation and recent experiences with my corporate bank of three years. Then I explained what I wanted for my business - a line of credit and NOT business credit cards - and what I thought I needed to help me through the occasional cash flow crunch - $15,000.

Cindie proceeded to fill out a loan application form for me. She then mentioned that Key Bank would love to have my business if I’d like to open a business checking account with them. I thought about it for a moment. At that moment, I had a checking and savings account with my existing bank with my husband’s name on it and then another checking and savings account that I was told to open up with only my name on it. I hadn’t started using the new checking or savings account yet. Did I want to open up yet another account? Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve been making more and more presentations about social media and because it is all still so new to everyone - including the “experts” - I’m refining my spiel as I go along. Here are some topics that are trending as some of the most important points I try to make about social media along with what I hope are concise, clear explanations about the technical stuff.

1. A Blog is Your Social Media Hub
When I say this, many people gasp, especially those who finally got a web site up after all these years or just spent a bucketload of money to redesign their existing web site. I’m not saying that a web site is now obsolete because of social media and Web 2.0 tools, however, blog publishing tools tend to integrate these tools so that embedding social functionality is incredibly easy. Many web sites and custom or older web site content management systems don’t even support javascript code, literally stripping out widgets and embedded social features. Blogs, by the nature of comments, encourage social interaction from the get go. Web sites struggle to be interactive and these days are turned to by consumers more for evergreen or background information or an online store, not the most current news or conversation. Read the rest of this entry »

In my previous post, I talked about how I was recently unable to get a line of credit with the bank I’d been using for my corporation for the last three years. I had obtained the original corporate credit cards under my husband’s name and his credit rating while he was an officer of the corporation.

In order to use my husband’s credit rating - which I had to do while working to build up my own credit - we had to make him the majority shareholder of the company even though it was my company and revolved completely around my work.

More recently, we agreed he should no longer be involved in the company because he just wasn’t entrepreneurial and was uncomfortable with irregular payments from clients and juggling things to manage cashflow. As a serial entrepreneur and freelancer, I’ve had plenty of experience with handling finances without a regular paycheck, and it doesn’t freak me out anymore.

Read the rest of this entry »

What do they say about best laid plans?

My plan was that after three years of running a successful business that has experienced phenomenal growth, I’d get a line of credit and new bank accounts entirely under my own name.

You see, as of a month ago, I am now a 100% woman-owned company. The truth of the matter is that my husband had originally co-signed all the financial paperwork for me because a few years back, I was still working on rebuilding my credit rating.

My husband and I recently agreed that he did not have the stomach for entrepreneurial risk and the cash flow juggle so we removed him from the corporate papers. Next order of business: set up all the accounts in my own name.

One week after meeting with my corporate bank of three years, I learned that I could not get a line of credit for my corporation. I also could not get a corporate credit card in my name. I suddenly began to feel like a woman who had recently divorced her husband only to realize that everything was in his name and all those years of her own hard work and high earnings counted for nothing. Nada. Zippo.

Only I’m not divorced and not getting one. So what’s my excuse? Read the rest of this entry »

Startup Nation, along with Microsoft, is conducting its 2nd annual-Home-Based 100 Award (HB 100) to highlight unique stories of home-based entrepreneurs. This year, there will be a showcase of women business owners with successful, innovative home-based businesses. Here are short interviews with several women entrepreneurs from last year’s contest.

Company name: preppymommy.com
Location: Berkeley Heights, NJ
URL: www.preppymommy.com
Your name: Nicole Quiroga
Your title: Owner and Lead Designer

Q: How many kids do you have and what are their ages?

A: I have 2 girls, 7 and 5.

Q: What is your business about and why did you start it?

A: My business is all about making things easier and chic-er (is that a word?!) for moms and really all women! I noticed a dearth of fashionable accessories for mom and baby, so I decided to fill a void with preppymommy.

Q: How did you become part of the Home-Based 100 Ranking (HB 100)?

A: I read about the contest on startupnation.com and saw it as a great opportunity to let people know about my company, as well as to reconnect with past clients.

Q: What are the greatest challenges for you in terms of running a Home-Based business? What are the greatest benefits?

A: There are several challenges. The greatest challenge is balancing work time with family time. This is probably a common answer from work-at-home moms. I haven’t met anyone who isn’t constantly trying to improve that balance. Hands-down the greatest benefit is the freedom to put my kids on the bus in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon! I never miss a ballet class or soccer game!

Q. What is your single most important piece of advice for another mom thinking about starting a business from their home?

A: Make sure you have a dedicated workspace and a supportive family! The rest is gravy. Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m just looking over the contract to hire an independent consultant whose official title will be Project Manager. She’ll work remotely as a virtual overseer of the projects I’m working on and help keep track of all the moving pieces including other consultants who come onto projects on an as-needed basis.

So now instead of having to spend a good portion of my time keeping track of the details and checking the status of tasks, I can let it all go and rely on her.

There are the operative words: Let Go. One of the biggest barriers to growing my company is my tendency to hoard tasks. But I’m at the breaking point. If I don’t let go of some of this load, something else will have to give - my sanity, my quality time with my family, my high standards in the quality of my work.

By hiring this person - who I’ve known for years and am looking forward to working with - I may be spending more money than I have in the past, but with her help, I’ll be able to bring on more projects without dropping any balls at all.

Read the rest of this entry »

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the fundamental challenges women in business face even in today’s business and political climate. Looking at the challenges I’ve faced over the last 5-10 years - as well as interviewing and writing about female entrepreneurs for the last decade - I’ve come up with 5 major challenges that I believe are unique to women in business.

Now before you think I’m being sexist or reviving stereotypes, I want to reiterate again that I’ve been through these things in recent years and am thinking I may not be alone. Also, I believe that talking about these issues - whether you agree with them or not - is healthy and useful.

This isn’t about attacking anyone. It is about bringing taboo topics to the forefront, to face them head on.

So with that preface, here are some challenges I believe women in business STILL face. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been living in Alaska for the last three years so have watched Sarah Palin’s move from Mayor of Wasilla to Governor of the State and now to John McCain’s running mate. I, too, have some of the same questions as many other Americans such as: Is Sarah Palin qualified to be Vice President of the United States?

While I think she is a relaxed and natural public speaker, delivering her acceptance and convention speeches as if she were addressing fellow parents at the PTA, I question the validity of most of what she says.

But my main concern isn’t if she is yet another pandering politician who I wish I could trust but simply can’t.

After watching her at 10pm Eastern Standard Time/9pm Central Time at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota and seeing her family pass 4-month-old Trig around like a football in front of the roaring crowd, I kept thinking, “If I were in that stadium, wouldn’t my baby be at home, with a sitter, sound asleep at her proper bedtime?”

I must admit that I probably would never have noticed the baby, much less the parade of her other 4 children, if I were still single, aggressively career-oriented, and child-free. But as an older mother of a 2-year-old, I was offended and appalled. Read the rest of this entry »

I received the following question from an Entrepreneur Mom reader:

How do I figure out how to market my business successfully?

Here are my 5 Basic Marketing Tips in response:

1. Know your business. Before you embark on marketing your business, you need to know your business well. You need to be able to summarize what you do in a single sentence that you can say to someone who doesn’t know your business, and they should be able to understand what you do without having to ask for further explanation.

2. Know your business goals. As important as knowing your business is knowing your business goals. What are you hoping to achieve through marketing? Are you trying to increase sales directly? Are you hoping for more traffic to your web site? Do you want people to hire you? Having specific and achievable goals helps to dictate how and where you’ll do your marketing. Read the rest of this entry »