2. Borrow or buy products and services from companies that will report your credit history to the major business credit reporting agencies such as Dunn & Bradstreet and Experian.

Unlike personal credit ratings, where you can have a small income yet get a top FICO credit score, the best business credit scores are reserved for large stable businesses, those with several million dollars in sales a year and 25?50 or more employees.

But don?t let that stop you! By taking a few careful steps, you can start small and still build a decent business credit rating to get you the borrowing power your venture needs.

A few warnings:

1. Don?t try to ?buy? good credit! Some companies will offer to ?sell? trade references for a large sum of money. This is a rip off and if the credit reporting agencies find out, they will purge those references.

2. Don?t spend large sums of money on a shelf corporation from a company that ?guarantees? you will be able to use it to get loans. More often than not, the company won?t have the kind of credit rating you?ll need to be successful.

3. Don?t try to get business credit as a substitute for bad personal credit. If you have damaged personal credit, work on rebuilding it while you?re building business credit.

Entrepreneurs are usually hard-working, creative and willing to get the job done. Fortunately, those are the same qualities that will help you through the process of building strong business credit. Get started now! For more information about building business credit, visit www.BusinessCreditSuccess.com

Gerri Detweiler is considered one of the country?s top credit experts. She has been interviewed for thousands of radio, television and print newstories including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Dateline NBC and many others. She has testified before Congress several times and worked on reform of the national credit reporting laws.