Posted by Samantha Martinez on July 1st, 2011
Experian has announced that starting this year, it will be reporting “positive” rental data from its RentBureau® division into the traditional credit files. Starting in 2012, Experian will start reporting negative rental payment information.
Experian claims this will help the 50 million underbanked consumers, such as college students and recent immigrants, to build credit with on-time rental payments. What it will mostly do is lower renters’ credit scores if, as frequently happens, they are late on a rental payment. The ding on their credit will follow them around for seven years. There really should be some restrictions on reporting someone who is, say, 7 days late on a rental payment.
Posted by Christina Lopez on June 30th, 2011
How to achieve your goals is a guest post by Jaime Tardy.
“By setting goals and measuring their achievement, you can focus on what is most important, waste less energy on noncritical tasks, and achieve greater results. “ – Harvard Business Essentials
Most of us have heard the statistic: People who set goals are more successful. You know how to set goals. But do you know how to achieve them?
As a entrepreneurial coach I have seen a lot! I’ve used my clients’ successes and failures to set up a system for actually achieving goals.
Pick one main goal. We get WAY too caught up in wanting everything now. Yes, I want everything now too! But if we don’t put a laser focus on our goals, we will water things down. Choose
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Posted by Samantha Martinez on June 29th, 2011
The FTC reports that identity theft was the number one consumer complaint it and other federal agencies it and they receive from consumers in 2010. The agency annually publishes what it calls the Sentinel Network of consumer complaints. Last year, 6,460 California residents reported they were the victims of identity theft, which was 17% of all consumer complaints. Younger consumers were victims more often than older persons. California was # 3 in the U.S. in terms of complaints of identity theft among the states adjusted for population.
Posted by Paul Thompson on June 29th, 2011
One of the best ways to get your ideal clients interested in your solutions is very simple – talk to them about how you can solve their problems. You may already be telling people you know about what you do, but there is a lot more to talking to your target market than that. There are networking opportunities all around you, you just have
Posted by Samantha Martinez on June 27th, 2011
SmartMoney reports there are now seven different credit scores for sale available on more than 20 websites inevitably leading to confusion among consumers. Experian, Trans Union, and Equifax each sell their own credit scores. The FICO traditional score is the one used by the great majority of lenders.
A class action recently filed in a federal court in San Diego alleges that Experian’s subsidiary Consumerinfo.com that operates www.freecreditscore.com is deceiving customers in selling Experina’s PLUS credit score. The lawsuit alleges the score is not one typically used by lenders.
Posted by Paul Thompson on June 27th, 2011
The registration deadline for the 11th Small Business Grant, sponsored by Liquid Web Inc., is now behind us. The first grant campaign for this year is going very strong. Over two thousand small business owners registered for the grant competition. We are thrilled that Idea Cafe’s Small Business Grant Program continues to attract so many creative entrepreneurs who are designing their own worklife on their own terms and approaching business and life with zeal.
The selection process has started. The team at Idea Cafe is taking into consideration several factors: how viable or interesting the business idea is; how well the entrepreneur describes her plans for the future; and what she is willing to give back to the local community.
A total of 150 finalists will be selected for the voting round. We will be presenting a group of 50 finalists each month for the next three months starting on July 1st .
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Posted by Christina Lopez on June 26th, 2011
Have you ever done the “perfect day” exercise? Jack Canfield writes about it in his book The Success Principles. It goes like this:
Imagine your perfect day in great detail. Then write it down. Where do you live? When do you wake up? What do you do when you wake up?
Then go through each hour of your day. What projects are you working on? Who are you with? What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And when do you go to bed? What are you wearing?
This is well worth it to do, and here’s why.
I did this exercise in January, 2009–I typed my perfect day into a text file on my computer. And then I put the file away and mostly forgot about it.
Last week I found it again–when I was looking for another file, actually. I pulled it out and read it. And I felt overwhelmed. I felt li
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