Every business needs capital to get off the ground, but they also need a consistent influx of money to stay afloat, to grow, and even just to have on hand in case of slow times or some type of emergency. For the small business owner, these funds often come from their own pocket, checkbook or savings account. Such funds can also come in the form of personal loans, credit cards, or family loans. But when the money starts to wear thin and profits are not yet enough to give the business the boom that it needs, where else can you turn?
If you have an online business – whether an informational website, a blog or an online commercial endeavor – there are additional ways that you may not yet have considered building a little nest egg to protect your business or to get the extra cash that you need to raise your business up to the next level. Following are four ways that you might want to consider as you look to raise a little liquid green to push your organization into the future:
1: Sell banner advertisements on your blog to generate more income.
Perhaps one of the most lucrative and easy ways to generate extra income from your blog or website is to post banner advertisements on your website. This is really is simple in concept and execution. Let’s look at some pros and cons posting banner advertisements on your website has the benefits of generating income without you having to do anything other than initially posting the banner ads. With banner ads you do not even have to sell an advertisement; instead, you find companies that pay for each click that comes from your website. Then, you put the banners on your website and wait for the clicks (and income) to come in.
Of course, there are some negatives, but some of these can be mitigated. One negative is that web surfers do not like being inundated with advertising, particularly advertising that is not pertinent to their interests. You can mitigate this, though, by not posting too many banner ads on your site, by ensuring that the ads do not contain media that can slow down the surfing experience, and by posting only banner ads that are related to your website content and thus likely to interest your reader.
2: Sell structured settlements, if you have them, to create a nest egg.
If you happen to have a personally structured settlement, that is you are receiving structured payments from some previous insurance settlement, you may be able to create that emergency or growth fund for your business by selling off some or all of your structured settlement payments. It’s actually pretty easy to do and you can get the cash in your hand in just a few weeks. Just remember to sell only the payments that you need, keeping as many payments as you can save for your future.
3: Sell off any liquid assets, such as bonds and annuities.
If you do not have structured settlement payments to sell then consider what you do have to sell. Do you have some stocks, bonds, or annuities that you can liquidate? Be sure to consider any taxes or penalties of cashing these in. What about any certificate of deposits (CDs)? Maybe you have some property that you inherited that is sitting empty and could be sold to make a little extra money. Take some time to sit quietly and really take mental stock of your assets and consider which ones you might be able to liquefy in order to get that extra cash that you need. Been depositing money into a Roth IRA? Sometimes you can take distributions of your contributions (not your earnings or interest, just the contributions) out tax and penalty free, so it may be something to look into.
4: Look for companies who may want to sponsor your website.
Similar to the idea of posting click-through banner ads is the concept of selling advertising space to sponsors. This is, essentially, like selling any advertising space: a company pays you to put an advertisement on your website. While pay-per-click banner ads can generally be posted by anyone (because you only get paid if a reader clicks on the ad) sponsor advertisements are paid for in advance. Usually, you base the rates on how much web traffic your website already gets, which means that this is a good choice for a website that already has an established reputation and a lot of clicks. It also requires that you do the work of “selling” the advertising space.
The negatives here are similar to those with banner ads. Remember, you do not want to slow down the surfing experience, you do not want to inundate your audience with ads, and you want to choose ads that you believe are relevant or interesting to at least some of your existing users.
Find the Funds that You Need
Being a small business owner, particularly a web-based business owner sometimes required some creative thinking. But with a little ingenuity and effort, you can find ways to fund your business.
This article is written by Strategic Capital. They are committed to superior customer service in the secondary structured settlement market. Their experienced and knowledgeable experts understand the value of structured settlement payment arrangements and we always perform in the best interests of our clients.
