Coastal Dreams Business Solutions

I just read the Yellow Pages Press Release on the MC site.   I congratulate MC for taking a stand and pointing out that traditionally useful organizations such as teh SBA are weak in assisting existing businesses and do not project realistic views of the economic crisis and varyong other factors affecting business.

Although traditionally a fan of the SBA - especially for the new business owner, I find that in the last year with the challenges we face, they are falling short.

I attended several months back a SBA event to discuss the Monmouth County, BRAC relocation.  For those reading outside Monmouth County, NJ the BRAC is the relocation of Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen Maryland.  Needless to say this relocation will negatively impact the local economy.

In this meeting they discussed that only 2,000 people throughout the county would be relocated and affected by this move.  This was the biggest misconception to come down the pike.  I am disppointed in the lac of planning because the BRAC team with the military base was not involved in this event.

I discussed with Brenda Hopper, the NJ Director of the SBDC.  I informed her I knew that the 2,000 was the total soldiers moving including ROTC students at the Fort.  What is not included in that total is the Government Civilian Employees (about 8,000),  the DefenseContractors that work on post (5,000) plus the defense contractors who have offices and support staff throughout the Eatontown/Red Bank area (10,000). 

With the "going out of business" signs going on the doors, rentals surrounding the base quickly becoming run down and vacant.  Monmouth County property values have not decreased, the foreclosures have increased, and the unrealistic expectations are about to hit home as the base starts kicking the relocation in high gear from March 1 - July 1.  By end of summer once the tourist go home for the season, businesses are going to feel the full impact and it will only get worse as more business associated with the base move to Maryland.

In my conversation, I asked what was going to happen with the folks who did not want to relocate.  They do have a plan for "job retraining" but there is no plan to put these people into jobs when the training is complete.  There is no plan in place to attract new business to the county to replace the businesses that will be moving closer to their client.

The excuse for not attracting new business was your ususal "pass the buck" mentality blaming the State for not giving them money to attract new businesses.  These people obviously have never started a gradd roots organization.  They have no interest in creating a weekly marketing strategy group as suggested by many during this conference to create an attractive networking business community and to have the top business people get together to get businesses in the county.  If there are no jobs, the people won't move here.  If people won't move here, people won't be buying products and services here.  It's that simple.

As for CDBS, a family member is employed at the Fort and as much as we did not want to relocate, I will be moving my consulting business to the central Maryland area following many of my existing customers.  Not because I want to relocate, but because I want my business to continue to grow and thrive.

We are moving just off West Park Avenue on Ocean effective Monday! 

25% off on all Level 1 Incentive Travel Programs through January 15, 2009.  

Your cost $971.25 for unlimited lifetime incentive travel programs (+ $25 S&H).

Call today for details!  732-542-2161

We've just published a new edition of our newsletter! You can check it out on our website and get the latest information from Coastal Dreams Business Solutions. Let us know what you think!

Read It Now Here

My initial intent through Merchant Circle was to promote the RETAIL end of my business.  The retail end is specifically promotional trave/advertising services and products as well as retail travel.

Because I do have a significant number of distributors and travel agents working underneath me, I find that often my blogging has been directed to those who want to know the truth about running a home business. 

In addition to that, I am a business developer and I am looking at various businesses in the credit repair industry vs. the Identity Theft Recovery Industry, a personal fight I have had and wish to put my resources into helping victims of this type of crime from being railroaded by the system that is broken.

I realize to be more effective, my business should be more focused and utilzization of various sites should be designed to develop the type of response and feedback specific to the target audience rather than trying to lump it all into one resource. 

What I don't like about my accomplishments is that it appears to be unstructured, unfocused and coul d be much more effective.

Going forward all articles and references to the Home Business Industry and Business Building will be hosted at http://www.yuwie.com/coastaltravel/. 

Yuwie is a FREE service much like the structure of Merchant Circle, but they attracting people that are looking for an extra income, or to learn specifically about how to make money on line, where this site is for B2B Services and more of a internal referral directory.  Yuwie has a proven and successful track record attracting folks who are looking to earn money from home.   The users earn money as a dividend of Yuwie's monthly advertising profts. 

As a business owner (although not involved in MLM), this is ideal for the recruiting in any business for  independent distributors.  These are warm leads for recruiting.  You can see the users motivation, you can see how willing they are to learn before you hire them or bring them on board with your organization.  There is very little in the way of content outside of the MLM/Internet Home Business industry at this time. 

I will also be moving the blogging with regard to ID theft recovery efforts to that arena due to the high response rate in Yuwie.  Because users have an added incentive to participate,  there is a significant BLOG response rate vs. the feedback content here at Merchant Circle. 

Again, Merchant Circle is awesome on the Retail end of the business and I want to keep this active and open as a Retail Advertising Source.  So if you are reading the articles and blogs specific to developing and managing a home business, you will need to find new material as it is published at Yuwie. 

To quickly recap, before I became a business consultant, I used to work for a bank in the Executive offices. Security wasn’t paramount in that day and age, it was before 9/11 and we didn't have money on the premsis in the business offices and people didn't think much about ID Theft.   Memorial Day Weekend 2001 laptop computers were stolen from all the senior executives who left their PC in their office over the weekend.  On one of those laptops was my social security number, home address, and corporate credit card information.  Being I was a bank employee, it was easy to obtain my bank account numbers and other personal information from within the organization. 

Bank security took depositions, affidavits and everyone’s corporate card was canceled and new ones issued.  I thought, mistakenly, it was resolved and a non-issue. 

About three years later in 2004 when I was looking to buy out a former investment partner out of a beautiful piece of property, I learned from the mortgage broker about my credit reports being trashed and well over $750,000 of unsecured debt reported as charge offs, defaults, and even a repossession of a vehicle I never owned.  That piece of property had more attachments than I could count on one hand.

You can visit my Google Credit Repair Forum to read the full length saga and individual updates on specific credit issues I am still battling to this day from that original 2001 theft. 

Here is the SCARY Part.  I received a call at 6:30AM yesterday morning (Sunday) waking me out of bed from my bank asking about some charges that were detected as potential fraud.  (Kudos to Bank of for Being on Top Of This).  

It seems that www.elitediscountsavings.com charged $2.95 on my OLD disabled card number (part of the 2001 fraud) recently on August 10.  They had used my OLD mailing address too by the way.  The second charge they attempted to put through was for $499.  For those of you who know Federal Trade Commission rulings and commerce laws, the minimum dollar amount to investigate these issues is $500 for these Federal Agencies.  The address of the company is in a KNOWN HOTBED for money laundering and fraudulent activity () and of course all contact information (email and telephone number) has been disabled/disconnected.

Thankfully, I have Lifelock as my insurance policy against any future claims.  After having been a victim once, I know how life altering and EXPENSIVE a hit like this can be.  I also know first hand how the  credit reporting agencies and even some of the disreputable creditors and overzealous collection agecnies manipulate the consumer and the situation to extort funds. 

I immediately contacted Lifelock about the potential theft and now have third party evidence of the ongoing static and negligence of the credit reporting agencies.  Lifelock is able to attest to the fact that two of the three credit reporting agencies have refused to supply copies of credit reports to circumvent the laws associated with obtaining an annual free report.  They are able to validate these two agencies have refused to allow me the opporutnity to detect potential fraud and avoid any harm.  Lifelock is also able to attest that they have received outright refusals to place fraud alerts on my profile with all agencies, which again, if there are new trade lines (as I suspect based upon a recent denial of credit last month indicating I had "too many newly opened lines of credit") it is the negligence of these agencies that allowed me to become a second time victim. 

Whether you take an additional ID Theft Endorsement on your insurance policy or contract through a third party service such as Lifelock, you should consider some type of coverage to protect yourself.  I learned the hard way.

My last time around in 2001, the out of pocket costs are at around $50,000 and still growing with no resolution any time soon. 

At least this time around, the insurance through Lifelock is already working on my behalf and springing into action at NO OUT OF POCKET COST to me.

The truth of the matter is, victims of identity theft have very little rights, unless they have enough money saved or assets to liquidate to ensure their rights are upheld under the law.

The sad reality is that once your identity has been compromised, it can happen OVER AND OVER again.  It can be a devastating and life altering experience costing you your job, your home, and countless opportunity.  To make matters worse, once you get on that "high risk" list even though it is no fault of your own - be prepared for the predators out there ready to pounce on your desperation.

Memorial Day, 2001, someone entered my place of employment and stole laptop computers.  They were able to access my personal information and although the police were involved, we had a police report, and all the recommended steps for rectifying stolen identity was taken, here in the summer of 2008, I am still fighting this lifelong battle at my expense.

Think about it, I started my business because I couldn't get any credit and I needed cash up front to buy a house, a car, get an education, and of course I have been under constant financial burden of increased insurance rates on car, homeowners, and self paid medical. 

Forget about continuing your education college without scholarships.  Student loans not affected by credit give you a maximum of $9,500 your first year.  Most annual tuition is in the neighborhood of $12,000, plus fees, plus books, and other expenses averaging about $5,000 annually.  Even with tuition reimbursement, you still need to put the money out up front.

How about being under the constant scruitiny of your employer.  If you drive for a living, they are pulling your credit.  For some reason if you are deemed "irresponsible" wiht your credit you are an "irresponsible" driver.  I don't understand that one, other than the fact it give the insurance carriers the right to charge higher rates.  If you work in the financial industry, or in security - bad credit can lead to termination because you are considered "at risk" for theft, extortion, and other similar crimes. 

Housing - here in New Jersey the average home runs $250,000 and up.  In my county, the range starts at around $350,000 and up.  Think about coming up with that amount of money - CASH UP FRONT. 

As a victim of identity theft, the credit reporting agencies initally appear to be fair, but when they fail to correct reports despite your efforts following their instruction to get documentation from the original creditor, they block you from ever receiving information. 

This has been an ongoing passion because it is the predators and injustices that have helped the economy tank.  It is the predatory lenders preying upon the uninformed.  It is the junk debt buyers violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and even in some remote cases a weary judge finds in favor of the creditor because only 1 out of every 100 cases brought are illegal.  That one is the one that damages the innocent. 

If you have been a victim, if you are concerned about the financial future of the United States, if you have thoughts on the exhorbitant debt crisis, I invite you to email us. 

I am looking to partner with people and discuss the viability of developing and organizing an entity (profit or not for profit TBD) designed specifically to assist consumers get past the stigma of "high risk", eliminating unjustified, random, and illegal "bills" from predators, developing a team of professionals to assist in locating affordable legal counsel, etc.

To jumpstart the process, I am seeking AFFILIATE MARKETERS to help promote Lifelock's identity theft insurance program and recovery.   Click here for more info on Lifelock's Mission - and link to existing or newly developed BLOGS/Forums for consumers to discuss issues to help us in this market research.

I would like to thank the efforts the many individuals who have hosted Maxed Out parties and have participated in many blogs/consumer reports letting the concerned know about the real life problems consumers are facing.  I beleive based upon my own story as well as the stories of thousands that this is a much needed resource in an untapped marketplace.

VOIP phones are definitely the wave of the future.  With a simple modem and network that even a NOT.COM like myself can set up independently.

VOIP Plans are coming out with UNLIMITED annual use at roughly $200 a year.  Now, how about UNLIMITED Cell Phone minutes $25 a month? 

Check it out! Is VOIP for your business?

The complex telephony systems that traditionally ran businesses in excess of $20,000 just 20 years ago, have surpassed wildest expectations of the business community and offer signifant discounts.

We've just published a new edition of our newsletter! You can check it out on our website and get the latest information from Coastal Dreams Business Solutions. Let us know what you think!

Read It Now Here

http://www.alreadyhosting.com/articles/business-trends.php

Unfortunately, I was limited to 500 words so this article is very brief and I beleive not my best work, but take a look at useful solutions of how to use the web to develop new business.

Don't forget to VOTE! 

You have to realize that a hotel or resort will be open and operating at full capacity whether or not their rooms are filled.

If you can position yourself to book a significant amount of travel at least $10-$15K annual (roughly 100 nights) with a specific hotel brand, you should consider having a single sales manager point of contact.  You can easily ask for the discount provided you can provide numbers to back up the business you are generating for the claim.

Often the successful agent will have an opportunity to travel for cost.  Most hotels and resorts already have agent incentive programs in place that will provide you a complimentary stay.

What I like to do is to use the buying power and get my clients better rates undercutting the store front agent.  Most of my small business clients are pleased at the combined buying power I have developed. 

Specifically, I have four clients who book about 10 nights annually for business travel.  Another two client s books about 25 – 30 nights annually.  I simply ran the numbers of total nights booked at a given chain and negotiated a 15% discount on behalf of my clients with the combined buying power.

This is what the Fortune 500’s do to get those insane discounts on Corporate Travel.  A well organized agent, can produce the same results with a little legwork and a detailed records.

Call to tap into our amazing system today!