Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), the world’s leading source of business information, provides the industry leading knowledge and expertise for entrepreneurs to establish, nurture, and grow their small businesses Copyright (c) 2006 D&B. All rights reserved. These materials are provided by D&B as a service to its customers, may not be copied or distributed, and may be used for informational purposes only.

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 2 Small Business Challenge UNCERTAINTY TO CONFIDENTLY *How do prospects, customers, suppliers, * Build and protect your partners, banks, creditors, and lenders view business’s reputation my business? *How do I avoid slow-paying customers? *Improve cash flow *How do I find the best customers, partners, *Make more money and markets to grow my business?

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 3 Small Business Needs Small businesses need to remove uncertainty using value-priced, easy-to-use solutions that help them: Get the best possible terms from suppliers Negotiate better terms with financial institutions Collect money owed faster and more efficiently Find new, reliable customers, partners, and markets

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 4 D&B Solutions for Small Businesses D&B has value-priced easy-to-use solutions designed for small businesses that help them: Get the best terms from suppliers and financial institutions Get a D-U-N-S® Number Build and manage a credit profile Monitor your credit profile Find new, reliable customers, partners, and markets Learn more about prospects, customers, partners, markets, and competitors Identify targeted leads Evaluate and monitor a customer’s or partner’s credit profile For those cases where customers are not paying on time, collect money faster and more efficiently

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 5 DUNSRight All D&B Small Business Solutions are backed by DUNSRight®. DUNSRight is the industry-leading process that collects, integrates, corrects, and evaluates business information from thousands of sources worldwide, giving small businesses: The ability to monitor and build an attractive business profile At-a-glance “scores” that provide financial status of a prospect, customer, partner, or supplier Information on more than 105 million businesses worldwide

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 6 High Level Benefit Packaged in value-priced, easy-to-use solutions designed for entrepreneurs, D&B’s Small Business Solutions help you build and protect your business’s reputation, improve cash flow, and make more money. Get paid on overdue accounts at least 10% faster. When using D&B solutions, small businesses experienced an 11.6% improvement in their accounts that were at least 60 days overdue, thereby improving cash flow and reducing the number of days of sales outstanding. Get the most favorable credit rates possible. Most financial institutions rely on D&B information and decision-ready insight when making decisions to extend credit. By improving your credit profile, you can avoid less-than-favorable rates. Businesses that pay later than 30 days can experience: - Business credit card rates as much as doubled - Equipment leasing and bank loan rates increased by 50

What do small business owners have to say about the value of D&B? Copyright (c) 2006 D&B. All rights reserved. These materials are provided by D&B as a service to its customers, may not be copied or distributed, and may be used for informational purposes only.

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 8 Financial Institutions How do you get financing when you need it? –Most loan decisions below $100K are automated How do you get the Best Rates? –For customers with lower credit ratings, top national banks increase credit card rates from 9 to 18% and loans from 8 to 12% “Now I leverage my bank and insurance company to get the best rates. When I need to apply for a loan or renew my insurance, I say to several banks and insurance companies, check my credit rating! Give me your best rates – and I play one off against the other – even if I have no intention of changing – I get better rates.”

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 9 Why suppliers matter: Manufacturers, Wholesalers and Business Service companies are D&B’s largest customers and use D&B for credit decisions on small businesses such as yourself  Get the credit you need to get the supply you need to meet customer demand –Suppliers check you out without you knowing it – a $30K credit line could have been $60K if your D&B profile was stronger “I refer my suppliers that have critical goods I need to my PAYDEX score and I say – I’m a good customer! I’ll pay you on time! Move my order to the top of the list! Ship to me first! And that improves THEIR cash flow too!”  Get best terms and level of service –75% of revenue in a typical customer portfolio is considered moderate to high risk- suppliers want to make sure they’ll be paid –After a few months, 50% of a typical suppliers’ customer profile will show a decline in the way they are being paid – making it likely they’ll check you out more than once over time “D&B helps me improve my credit rating, and that helps me get better terms from suppliers – and that makes it worth at least 10 times what I pay for it.” “Not only am I getting better terms from suppliers, but their pricing got better! I didn’t realize that I was paying a risk premium on the goods I was ordering from suppliers because of my credit rating.”

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 10 Protect Yourself From Fraud 15-30% of all commercial credit losses are due to fraudulent activity Last year alone, lenders lost more than $20 billion due to fraud, most occurring during the initial credit application process A customer recently spun off a division, yet that division’s negative credit information was still being entered into their profile “I manage my credit report just like any other important business function. I need to see what is impacting my PAYDEX; my suits and liens, my UCC filings – if that’s not right, I’m the one that is impacted the most!”

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 11 Benchmarking for Planning “I need reliable industry information to compare my company to and D&B gives me that. Do you know how long it would take me to gather that information on my own? They save me literally hours and hours of work!” “It’s my benchmark. I sit down with my accountant and compare my numbers to the industry – am I paying too fast? Carrying too much inventory? Letting customers go too long before demanding payment? Tolerating harsh terms from suppliers that I shouldn’t have to??? We adjust our business strategy based on this.”

Leveraging the Most Trusted Supplier Information to Achieve your Supplier Diversity Goals 12 Seizing Growth Opportunities A customer who was a supplier had a chance to grow a piece of business with WalMart. However WalMart found an old suit in their profile that had been settled but not yet removed, but the customer did not know that this was impacting WalMart’s willingness to do business. The customer could not seize the growth opportunity and lost revenue while they took the time to figure out what the issue was and get it resolved “… I knew that as the new guy moving into town I was going to be scrutinized by suppliers, banks and customers – your D&B report is the first thing they usually see about you – you need to make sure your D&B report is always ready to make a good first impression!