Managing my business credit

By Sam Maropis • June 29th, 2010

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One of the businesses I own is a 50 unit apartment complex. We have owned it for over three years and all in all it has proven to be a great property. Today we are full, and I mean full, not a vacancy and when we do, I have them filled before the old tenants are moving out. But how I did it is another blog.

But for the last two times I have asked for extension or new credit I was turned down. So on my second turn down I asked why. Well the reason was that the business does not have or at least the companies that track businesses did not have our business in their systems.

I was told that there are two companies that rate small businesses. The first is Dunn and Bradstreet, (www.dnb.com). They are a 130-year-old company and of course they rate small businesses like mine. But if you are the owner of your small business and you want to clean up or improve your credit score, then there is a fee. The fee that I need will cost me $590 for the first year and the second year it should be cheaper. They were kind enough and did give me a copy of my report for free and yes it was missing a lot. And I will say their service was very good.

So I am going to spend the money and see what happens. I know that $590 is a lot but what choice do we have.

Now for the second company, Experian (www.experian.com) they seem to have a program that only costs $100 but as of now I am not sure about this. I tried to call in for help and was given a recording and to leave a message. Oh well, for the $500 at Dunn and Bradstreet I was given live help and our call was answered very fast. Experian I was to leave a message, which I have not done yet.

So I figured I would write about some of the things I find along the way in getting my active profitable business better credit.