If you need to cut costs immediately, consider these nine tips:

1. Ditch the physical location.

“Unless you’re in a field that needs a storefront, ditch the office and save money on rent by working digitally. You’ll also open yourself up to hiring talent that may not be located in your immediate area.”

- Dale Galiniak, CEO of Txt2Teach.me: @txt2teachme

2. Outsource relentlessly.

“Entrepreneurs often think that ‘doing it themselves’ is an effective way to cut costs, but you’ll often waste tons and tons of time trying to learn enough to do something effectively. Elance is a great tool for outsourcing, but there are tons of others out there – spending all your time trying to get better at selecting great talent is much more cost-effective, time-effective, and, ultimately, it is scaleable.”

- Jayme Self, Founder of English Edits: @EnglishEdits

3. Monitor your office space needs and payroll costs.

“Most businesses spend more on rent/leasing and payroll costs more than any other expense. The best way to cut these costs and increase profits is regularly monitoring your office space needs and consistently reevaluating the number of employees necessary to carry out the business’s operations. Streamlining these large expenses will not only help to reduce monthly overhead costs, but if done right will also improve operational efficiency, leading to a larger bottom line.”

- Michael Raanan, Founder and President of Landmark Tax Group: @LandmarkTaxGrp

4. Hire independent contractors.

“I’ve worked with the same designers and programmers for 10 years now, but they have the freedom to do other work, and I only pay them for the work they do. We have a great relationship and low overhead. I pass the savings on to clients, and clients love working with me and my team!”

- Heidi Koontz Oleska, President and Branding/Marketing Strategist of Vintage Juice Brand Marketing: @VintageJuice

5. Operate like a startup and think “lean.”

“If you’re making profits or have raised a large investment round, it’s easy to feel that you can throw a few thousand dollars at a marketing campaign just to give it a shot. Before you make any decision, really think it through. Work out the benefits of the campaign and consider where the money could be better spent. A lot of cost-cutting will simply come from being constructive with your capital and ensuring that if you’re spending a lot of money, you’re spending it in the right way.”

- Anthony Ng Monica, CEO of Swogo: @AnthonyNgMonica

I can hear it now … the sounds of Frank Sinatra swooning … “Luck be a lady tonight,” and the thoughts of sugar plum VC fairy’s dancing in your head.

Often when an entrepreneur considers financing they think of OPM – “other people’s money.” In other words, their in search of the proverbial VC or angel “Daddy” Warbucks.

And why not? It appears easier than pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, operating on a shoestring budget, and finding creative ways to make it work. Who would blame them? Read the latest startup headlines and you’ll get a daily dose of: Bright young thing closes Series A funding round for $2 million, new VC-backed company claims it’s the match.com for your pet, high-risk friends-and-family investment hits pay dirt, etc.

But hidden beneath the headlines is the not so glamorous side of VC funding, in particular. You know – VCs not hesitating to fire the founder of the company if they find him/her incompetent, the realities of venture debt, or the fact that your business is not VC fundable at all.

Is OPM a spawn of all things evil — of course not. But the reality is this: many successful companies launched with an idea and a founders’ personal investment of time and money. Those not-so-sexy bootstraps have paved the way — and could do the same for you.

What keeps entrepreneurs from investing in their businesses?

As Peter Shallard, the shrink for entrepreneurs, suggests, “There is only one type of investment that can be made within a business: The kind that brings in revenue. That adds to the bottom line. That makes money. In other words, when we put money (or time!) into our own businesses, there needs to be a return.”

It’s often a hard decision to make, parting ways with your hard earned dollars to chase a dream, especially for new entrepreneurs who feel as though they’ll put everything on the line.

How can savvy entrepreneurs bootstrap their businesses?

Before you start hounding local VC’s or your local business banker, consider this: people want to invest in traction – proven success. Most people want to invest in a founder who is truly – emotionally and monetarily – invested in their vision. In practical terms, if you refuse to invest your own money into your business, why should anyone else?

This is why savvy entrepreneurs will invest in their future by first investing and then re-investing into their business early on. In fact, there are numerous companies that are bootstrapped, profitable and proud. You can be one of them. Here’s how:

1. Focus on cash flow – not profitability.

Launch your small business with a creative outlook – bootstrap it all the way to success, or at least cash flow. Guy Kawasaki notes how important it is for startup to focus on cash flow instead of profitability. Kawasaki suggests, “the theory is that profits are the key to survival. If you could pay the bills with theories, this would be fine. The reality is that you pay bills with cash, so focus on cash flow. If you know you are going to bootstrap, you should start a business with a small up-front capital requirement, short sales cycles, short payment terms, and recurring revenue. It means passing up the big sale that take twelve months to close, deliver, and collect. Cash is not only king, it’s queen and prince too for a bootstrapper.”

The truth is, bootstrapping makes you a better businessperson. When your business is bootstrapped — or self-sustaining — you have to actually make money from your business, rather than simply find creative ways to spend someone else’s money. This forces you to hone certain business skills other entrepreneurs with well-funded businesses don’t get to build:

Resourcefulness. If you’re going to turn a profit fast, you can’t afford to have a fancy office, large staff, or ineffective marketing campaign. Going virtual isn’t just a trend; it’s a necessity for bootstrapped startups.

Marketing Accountability. You don’t have money to waste on marketing campaigns that can’t be measured, no matter what “branding” benefits they promise. Instead, you quickly learn that every marketing dollar that goes out must come back with a new customer or profit (or, ideally, both).

Focus. When you’re building a bootstrapped business, you can’t pursue a plethora of business ideas, regardless of how many or how quickly your entrepreneurial-minded brain is churning them out.

Clearly, bootstrapping builds skills invaluable to any business owner. But it’s not an easy journey. Here are a few tips to help you pull yourself up by your bootstraps when the road to success gets rough.

1. Sell high-margin products and services.

Small business or not, there’s no reason to waste time with small margins. Large profit margins allow a small business to thrive and do what small businesses do best — out-service the competition. You get the opportunity to serve a customer and truly do whatever it takes to make him happy. Larger profit margins also allow you to spend more on advertising than your competition and pay more for each customer, while still making a profit. Then, you can quickly scale your small business through marketing.

2. Build partnerships.

Starting now, begin building partnerships for your business. You’ll be able to grow your business much faster if you’re not reinventing the wheel when it comes to resources.

Joint Venture partnerships: Cross-promote with similar businesses to acquire customers faster — and for free.

Performance-based partnerships: Pay people — or other businesses — when they send you referrals. Once again, you’re gaining more customers for a low acquisition cost.

Content-marketing publishers: Partner with targeted magazines, blog owners, and other experts to provide free advice or training to their audience. You’ll build your business’ brand with just a little work.

3. Build recurring revenue into your business.

As entrepreneurs, we fight incredibly hard to get customers in the door with the initial sale. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs stop there. It’s imperative that you build a recurring revenue component into your business from the very beginning. As you bring in more customers, that base will continue building and provide financial stability and flexibility.

Recurring revenue doesn’t mean you literally need to have your customers’ credit cards on auto-bill each month (though that might be ideal). It just means your customers should have something to come back and buy from you on a regular basis.

Here are nine of the most important business metrics for startups to watch:

1. Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC)

Your CAC is a critical metric in the early stages of growing your business. You need customers in order to make money, but in order to acquire customers you will likely need to invest resources into marketing. Your CAC is the amount of money you need to spend in marketing, on average, to gain a new customer. It is simple to calculate, but the result might not be what you expect.

Use Panalysis to determine your customer acquisition cost. You need two numbers: the amount your business spent over a given period of time on sales, marketing, and related expenses, and the number of customers you picked up during the same period.

Your CAC is equal to your expenses divided by the number of customers. It will show you how expensive a single customer is to acquire. If your customer acquisition cost is too high, examine your expenses, cut back in non-performing areas and optimize. Your company website is a start, as many people spend too much on their business site without optimizing it for maximum conversion.

2. Customer Retention

Acquiring more customers is incredibly important. What’s more important is what you do with them once you have them. Too many startups fail because they spend more time, money, and effort on getting new customers and neglect the ones they already have. In fact, while new customers are valuable, current customers are far more so. It costs much more to obtain a new customer than to sell to or upsell a current customer.

For current active customers, simply ask them what you can do to improve their experience. Customers love to share their opinions, so you will have plenty of information. For inactive customers, those who have slowed or stopped using your product, ask them why. Customer feedback can be valuable for fixing problems and increasing retention with minimum effort.

3. Attrition

Every business will lose customers. This is known as attrition, or churn. A 30-day measurement will give you an indication of customers who abandon your product for a short time, but may come back to it later. A 90-day measurement will give you a better idea of the people who permanently drop. Your goal is to contact the people who drop in order to find out why, and then fix the problem.

 4. Life Time Value (LTV)

LTV is an estimate of how much one customer is worth to your company. How much will a given customer spend over the course of their time using your product? If you charge a monthly fee for your product, you need to find out how long the average customer stays with you. Here is a good tool to help you estimate the LTV of your customers.

LTV is also important in comparison to your CAC — customer acquisition costs. If your CAC is higher than your LTV, you’re losing money. You need to do something to balance them out.

5. Product Metabolism

Product metabolism is a relatively new metric, coined in this blog post. The idea is that your product metabolism is a measure of how quickly your team makes decisions and rolls out updates to your products.

Too slow a product metabolism is obviously a bad thing because it means you’re slow to react and will lose customers when their issues go unaddressed. On the other hand, too fast a metabolism will keep both your team and your users in a constant state of insecurity. It can get frustrating to have to update constantly for minor changes. Striking the right balance is key.

As many small business owners now know, “Congress [has addressed] bills that would “level the playing field’ by allowing states to require all online merchants doing business in that state to collect sales tax. Web retailers have largely had a free ride since 1992 …”

Currently states generally can collect sales tax from retailers only if they have a physical presence, such as a store or a warehouse, within the state’s borders.

Senate Moves Forward on Internet Sales Tax Legislation

After winning an enthusiastic endorsement from President Obama, “the Senate on Monday moved forward on legislation giving states more authority to collect sales tax on transactions made over the Internet, which would level the playing field for online and offline businesses — but it could also pose major challenges for small merchants who sell across the state lines,” according to a recent Washington Post article.

Congressional newspaper, The Hill asserts that, “major retailers are putting all their lobbying muscle behind the legislation, arguing it would close an unfair loophole that benefits online merchants over brick-and-mortar stores. The National Retail Federation, which represents chains such as Macy’s, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), which counts Target and others among its membership, announced it would score lawmakers’ votes.”

Rachelle Bernstein, a vice president with the National Retail Federation asserts that “tax laws must be applied equally, whether a customer goes to a store, shops on their computer or orders from a catalog by telephone. Otherwise, she argues, the government is giving ‘a tax advantage’ to one type of business over another.”

Edward Hechter, President of PartyPail @partypail, an Internet-based retailer of baby showers, wedding showers, and birthday parties believes fair, is fair.

“I used to think that charging [online] sales tax was a bad thing, and have now changed my mind.  I now support a fair tax approach to Internet transactions.  As a small business owner who has worked on the Economic Development Taskforce of my hometown of Enumclaw, WA, I have seen first-hand how small cities and municipalities, the people who provide our first responder and most critical social services, are in need of predictable tax revenues,” said Hechter.

“Consumers should pay their fair share of taxes to ensure that the local governments have adequate resources to fund schools, police, fire departments, and more; the technology has caught up with the needs of e-commerce operators, so there shouldn’t be any reason why a savvy online retailer can’t easily implement a solution,” he further comments.

But is it really fair?

Internet Sales Tax, Unfair Burden

Deirdre Shesgreen, of the Gannett Washington Bureau writes, “Consumers used to saving money by not paying sales tax on online purchases may not have that advantage much longer as momentum grows for legislation allowing states to collect taxes on Internet sales.”

Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire argued during an earlier Senate debate, that “what this does is force the Internet marketplace and online businesses to become tax collectors … It is the long arm of the federal government punishing states such as mine that don’t have a sales tax.”

Well, you’ve survived the Great Recession and your outlook isn’t quite as glum as it once was.  The economy doesn’t look great but it doesn’t look like it’s going to get worse right now.  Maybe – just maybe – it’s time to invest a few shekels in your business.  A couple of new salespeople, some updated equipment, some new software…maybe you can get a jump on the competition.

But where will you get the money to invest in your business?  From a bank?  Not so fast.

The latest data from the FDIC reveals that it’s largely the big guys who are getting bank loans. Total commercial loans are up 12 percent year over year to $1.5 trillion. But, not for small businesses.

“Well, why not?” you might ask.

Haven’t you done everything right? You reduced expenses during the recession; you learned how to control your inventory. You may have even figured out which products or customers were unprofitable and eliminated them. What about your local blue-suited loan officers that keep button-holing you at business networking events?  Don’t they want to loan you money?

The questions might best be answered by looking at the other side of the coin.

The Fed’s zero interest rate policies have greatly benefited smart operators whose primary skill is financial engineering rather than job creation. But the real downside is that the policy also reduces banks’ profitability on loans. Low interest rates mean lower spreads for banks that make loans. Many bankers take the view that the profit opportunity is not sufficient to take the risk of making small business loans.

Why are big banks lending? Well, the new regulatory scheme outlined by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill is designed to ensure that Too Big to Fail (TBTF) banks do not fail. In other words, the management of those banks need not fear the consequences of decisions gone bad.  There is no threat of an FDIC takeover. No TBTF banks will be allowed to go bankrupt. After all, that’s what Too Big to Fail means.

In fact, it is not uncommon for small businesses to experience a variety of financial challenges as they navigate entrepreneurial growing pains which are often likened to a firm moving from childhood to adolescence and then adulthood.

Sponsored Post: This post is brought to you by Visa Business. Visit http://facebook.com/visasmallbiz to take a look at their reinvented Facebook Page: Well Sourced by Visa Business. The Page serves as a space where small business owners can access educational resources, read success stories from other business owners, engage with peers, and find tips to help businesses run more efficiently. Every month, Visa will introduce a new theme that will focus on a topic important to a small business owner’s success. For additional tips and advice, and information about Visa’s small business solutions, follow @VisaSmallBiz and visit http://visa.com/business.

From a lack of access to capital and underestimating cash needs to burning through existing cash reserves, financial knowledge and strategic planning are essential for long-term success. Most importantly, gaining straightforward answers can give you the courage to overcome common financial problems in business.

With this in mind, let’s empower your financial success in years to come with viable solutions to ten common financial challenges you may experience in business:

1. We don’t have enough cash to maintain daily operations.

As entrepreneurs we know first-hand, that it takes money to make money! Typical expenses range from marketing and merchant fees to payroll, rent and production costs. Ultimately, your cash position is a sign of financial strength and liquidity.

So, if you have been strapped for cash lately, look for new ways to maximize reserves. Start with streamlining payment collection processes to settle payments faster and then review payment disbursement schedules to optimize terms with vendors.

2. Our sales are good, but our profits are really low.

Generally, this indicates over-spending or hidden costs eating away at your bottom line — your expenses could be out of control. Reign in expenditures by proactively creating a purchasing policy and system to ensure that you are buying the right materials at competitive prices from vendors that add value.

Gain visibility into your expenses and clearly define purchasing (i.e. procurement) goals with a strict budget. Then ensure there is supervision of policies, ordering, receiving and reporting. Don’t hesitate to revisit vendor selection and old contracts to start price negotiations. Lastly, if you frequently make online purchases, use free apps like Slice to track spend, hunt bargains and streamline online purchasing.

3. We experience cash shortages on a regular basis; we weren’t ready for the seasonal sales slump that just hit.

According to venture capitalist Fred Destin, you should always keep your eye on cash – dynamically. Destin suggests, that “in startups the only real sin is running out of cash, and the cardinal sin is running out of cash unexpectedly. So whilst you may not need a CFO, you sure need someone who understands cash flow and can give you the confidence to know when it’s running out.”

One sure fire way to prevent unexpected cash shortages is to hire a CPA to regularly prepare key financial statements (e.g. balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement) to forecast cash needs. Most importantly, gain a working knowledge of your finances. If you prefer a DIY approach to financial education, take online courses via Coursera and Udemy.

This late payment excuse is so popular it has earned an entry in the Urban Dictionary and is pretty much synonymous with the frustration that overwhelms most entrepreneurs when customers start lying about their payments.

Most entrepreneurs have heard the gamut of late payment excuses. Understanding the excuses, separating fact from fiction, and responding properly is essential to accomplishing your primary goal: Getting paid.

Get Smart, Not Mad When Confronted Excuses

It’s your job to collect on an overdue invoice and you just heard an excuse you can see right through. Your natural inclination is to get upset or adversarial. Fight it!

I’m sure you’ve heard this argument before as it applies to nearly everything in life, and not just collecting debts. Does “you catch more flies with honey” ring a bell?  In fact, there is one agency completely centered around the mantra that nice people collect more.

There are certainly times when becoming adversarial and aggressive is warranted (i.e. although even then you should be nice), but responding to a non-payment excuse is not that time. The fact that the customer is making an excuse is actually a good sign.

It’s a sign that they agree with the underlying debt and are not making payment because of a specific reason. Working with them and understanding the specific reason is the key here. Getting nasty will just make the customer get nasty in return and turn their excuse into a grudge. That is much harder to overcome.

Kryptonite To Excuses, Real and Fake

There are tons of excuses for non-payment. However, don’t fixate on the truthfulness of your customer’s non-payment excuse.

Maybe they are being truthful or maybe they aren’t. Even if they are lying about the specific reason for not paying you, they are telling a little bit of truth: they can’t pay you right now.

When a customer makes an excuse for non-payment they are actually creating an opportunity for you to respond to that excuse and follow-up. This may not require you to respond right away, but schedule a follow-up call for later in the week or the next week.

Make your follow-up or response in proportion to their excuse. So if they say the check is in the mail, wait a couple of days and call about non-receipt. Ask them to provide you with the check number and mailing date.

They may make another excuse or two, but it can’t continue forever. They will need to come clean or push your debt to the top of the “get it paid” list.

Elevate your Debt Priority

Unless your customer is insolvent and preparing for bankruptcy, the reason why your company’s invoice is unpaid boils down to priority. The customer is simply prioritizing other debts ahead of yours.

Some may say … too close for comfort.

In fact, our personal money management skills impact our businesses in more ways than we may realize. However, learning to better manage finances (on and off the clock) is now easier than ever.

Whether you are looking for savvy ways to eliminate debt, save money, manage investments, improve cash flow, or master industry analysis, here are seven “money” blogs we found to be insightful and practical.

1. Dealbreaker

Dealbreaker is a witty and snarky blog run by Executive Editor, Bess Levin — a 25 year-old finance blogger known for her occasional “potty-mouth” and bold statements. Dealbreaker content provides an inside look into the way Wall Street thinks and operates; covering the personalities and culture that shape the financial industry. Known for their honesty and salacious accuracy, Dealbreaker has grown in popularity, despite the fact that many financial institutions have blocked the site.

2. Young Adult Money

Young Adult Money, created by David Carlson, focuses on helping people in their 20s and 30s tackle finance issues while juggling life: school, relationships, careers, children, travel, etc. Carlson’s posts provide personal, valuable content that aim to teach readers how to make, save, and manage their money wisely.

3. The Debt Movement

After observing his father struggle with debt for the majority of his life,  Jeff Rose vowed not to go down the same path, and thus created The Debt Movement. After accumulating credit card debt and student loans, Rose realized how difficult it was to pay it all off. However, he soon learned how to conquer his debt and then decided to team up with top finance bloggers to help others do the same and enjoy the financial freedom he obtained.

4. Thousandaire

Kevin McKee is the creator behind Thousandaire, a site dedicated to helping people develop at least $1,000 in total assets more than they owe in total debts, giving them a net worth of at least $1,000. Though McKee has no formal financial advisory credentials, his insights are underpinned with practical lessons (shared through the lens of personal experiences and mistakes) on how to improve your personal finances.

5. Money Under 30

The Money Under 30 blog is focused on providing “simple, honest financial advice for starting out.” Young adults leave college unsure of what to do next when it comes to managing finances. David Weliver created Money Under 30 as an outlet to write about money: his mistakes with it, but also how he eventually learned to manage it well.

6. Get Rich Slowly

Get Rich Slowly is a personal finance blog created by J.D. Roth, a self-proclaimed “accidental personal-finance expert.” Roth aims to share ideas on how to improve your financial life, based on the belief that “get rich quick schemes” don’t work, and that it takes time to not only eliminate debt, but increase your wealth. Get Rich Slowly promotes goal-setting, spending within your budget and establishing a savings account as small, doable ways to literally get rich slowly.

7. The Simple Dollar

The Simple Dollar, created by Trent Hamm, is a financial website “for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two.” Hamm went through a financial crisis in 2006 that led him to research everything he could find on how to help him eliminate debt. In eight months, he paid off all his debt and established an emergency fund. His experiences (and love for writing) moved him to create a site to share what he had learned and help others in similar situations.

What is your favorite personal (or business) finance blog? Let us know in the comments section below.

Connect with YFS Magazine on Twitter.

Did you enjoy this article? If so, subscribe to YFS Magazine and never miss an update. Don’t forget to make our friendship official and join Young, Fabulous, and Self-Employed entrepreneurs on Facebook.

Photo: Jegman

Furthermore, the report asserts that many businesses wouldn’t even attempt to seek funding because they believed their request would be rejected.

So, what can you do if your business credit application has been denied?

First, find out why your business credit application was denied. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an applicant should submit a written request for the reasons of the denial within sixty days, and the creditor must give the applicant the specifics in writing within thirty days of the request. Therefore, if you approach your lender, they may be able to resolve any issues.

Moreover, the FTC explains that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits creditors from denying a loan based on reasons that have nothing to do with an applicant’s creditworthiness.

Predict What Lenders Want to Avoid

In the aforementioned Pepperdine study, banks and asset-based lenders only rarely cited a company’s size or economic concerns as the reasons for declined loans. The top reasons instead were tied to the quality of the business’s earnings or cash flow, or to the fact that a company had insufficient collateral.

So, if your application for business credit was denied it is a good time to take a good look at your business and how it rates on the financial metrics that can best predict default – the exact scenario lenders want to avoid. One way to see how their firm stacks up against peers is through a business credit report.

Below are five financial metrics that Sageworks Inc., a financial information company, has identified as the best predictors of default. If you were denied business credit, highlight these metrics as areas for improvement.

1. Cash to assets.

This is a key measure of liquidity that provides an indication of how much flexibility a firm has to deploy cash or access liquid accounts in order to make good investments, according to Lawrence Litowitz, a partner at strategic advisory firm The SCA Group LLC. To improve this metric, manage your accounts receivable to ensure you’re getting paid as quickly as possible and manage inventory to avoid tying up cash.

2. EBITDA to assets.

Comparing EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) to a company’s assets helps to illustrate your company’s efficiency. Improving this metric often involves either raising revenues (without a similar increase in expenses) or cutting costs.

Utilizing customer suggestions and improved planning are a few ways to boost revenues. Also, review overhead expenses, such as telephone and equipment, or revisit vendor contracts to seek cost savings.

3. Debt service coverage ratio.

This is measured by comparing EBITDA to a firm’s current portion of long-term debt and interest expense, so boosting EBITDA with some of the suggestions above could yield improvement in the ratio. One effective way to tackle the debt and interest is to cut expenses and apply the savings toward paying principal on your debt.

4. Liabilities to assets.

This ratio indicates how much of your company’s assets are financed through debt, as opposed to through profits.

Improve this metric by reducing debt. The Better Business Bureau recommends making the biggest debt payment possible each month, especially for credit cards, which typically carry high interest rates that otherwise accrue interest payable, another liability account.

5. Net income to sales.

This is a fundamental measure of business profitability. In the short-term, cut operating expenses to boost this ratio, however this can backfire, so tread carefully. For example, skimping on equipment maintenance could lead to more expensive repairs or replacements. Longer-term goals required to improve profitability involve lowering production costs and increasing higher-profit sales.

Running a successful business isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. In the same way, addressing issues that contributed to business credit denial may take months or even years. But in the long run, the efforts should help you win not only a loan, but also create a more lucrative business.

This article originally appeared in AccountingWEB.

Connect with Sageworks on Twitter.

Photo: Business Credit Application

Mary Ellen Biery is a research specialist at Sageworks, a financial information company and provider of the Business Credit Report by Sageworks. She is a veteran financial reporter whose works have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and on Dow Jones Newswires, CNN.com, MarketWatch.com, CNBC.com, and other sites.