11-27-2017, Life Insurance for SBA Loans -- There’s no doubt about it: growing a small business is no small challenge. No matter how amazing your idea or product, you’re bound to encounter some serious mountains. According to aTD bank 2017 Business Survey, some of the key challenges that small US-based businesses face today are rising interest rates and rising healthcare costs, both of which can be at least partly attributed to uncertainty surrounding the state of political leadership. And these days, more and more small businesses like startups areturning to credit cards and other forms of financing over bank loans than ever before. This is partly because someone in four businesses applying for credit were denied, and the ones who received financing did not get as much as they needed. According to theFederal Reserve Bank of New York: “… although many employer small businesses were profitable and optimistic, a significant majority faced financial challenges, experienced funding gaps and relied on personal finances. These issues were even more pronounced for the smallest firms, which were less likely to receive necessary funding and more likely to rely on personal finances to operate.” Despite the fact that the vast majority of businesses in the United…

11-22-2017 -- From its modest beginnings in Cleveland, Ohio as a vehicle security company to its leadership position today in the connected car world, Directed has grown tremendously while keeping a sharp focus on consumer service, tech support, and dealer relations. According to James Turner, senior vice president of product and technical services, who will mark his 16th anniversary with the company this month, it was about a year ago when Directed made a critical change to fuse back together several departments—namely tech support and product development—that had been operating independently of one another. “It made sense because product design depends so much on the voice of our customer and the techs have the closest relationship to the installers,” Turner said. “I view installers as our first customer and the end-consumer as the second one.” Today, there are three legs of support to address dealers, consumers, and installers. Directed’s dealer customer service department handles dealers and sales reps. “This group addresses warranties, processes orders, sets up new dealers with our reps, gives reporting information on different customers, and follows up on satisfaction issues,” Turner said. Consumer service handles calls from end users. “We get contacted about SmartStart—maybe a consumer has…