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Here’s an excerpt from a good article on raising money written by Roxanne Allaire, of Roxx Consulting Service, Inc. You can find the original at her blog, Grow a Prosperous Enterprise. Yes…money is tight, investors are being highly selective with their funds, and they are interested in a return on their investment in the form of [...] If you have read some of my other posts, you will know that I often caution against confusing profits with cash. Too often, business managers assume that, because they have earned profits, they will be able to pay for operational expenses. However, you cannot pay for anything with profits—you need cash, which means you [...] When you stop and think about it, it is amazing how many different choices we have to pay for the products and services we can buy. We can pay in person, over the phone or on the internet. We can pay by American Express, Discover, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, store credit card, debit card, check [...] Ever have one of those moments when you unexpectedly find a little bit of cash? Maybe it happened when you were taking clothes out of the wash and saw a few coins lying on the bottom. Or maybe it happened when you were looking for the remote control for the TV and when you put your [...] You Don’t Have the Cash Until You Have the Cash There is a direct relationship between a sale and the cash in your pocket. If you have the cash, you have a sale. If you don’t have the cash, you don’t have the sale. So many things can occur to prevent you from getting cash when [...] To Raise Money You Must Prove Performance Raising money is a selling process. Think about it. When you try to sell a product or service, your ultimate goal is to have someone give you money that you can use in your business to hire employees, pay bills, buy assets and so forth. And when [...] Don’t Try to Solve a Problem That Doesn’t Exist
It is critical that you are very clear and specific about the problem that you are trying to solve. This is especially true if you are trying to raise money to start or expand your business. Unfortunately, over the years, I have been witness to too many instances where my client thinks they have the perfect solution, the very thing the market must have, only to have absolutely no success at all. Why does this happen? Continue reading «Are You Pushing a String Uphill?» Presentation is Essential When Asking for Money
Now, everything we buy at the store has a nutrition label that tells us the ingredients, how much fat, carbs, protein, etc. That label tells us everything we need to know about what is in the package. But when you are hungry and just want to get something to eat, is the nutrition label the first thing you look at? Of course not. You look at the picture on the front because it shows you exactly what the product looks like and, to encourage you to buy that package, the picture is designed to get you salivating over the salisbury steak, pizza, lasagna, or whatever else in the box. You need to apply the same principle when you prepare a financing request for presentation to lenders or investors. Continue reading «Are You a Nutrition Label or a Picture?» Financial management is about your performance, the results you produce, and the numbers you use to quantify your activities. As the financial manager of your company—whether you are the CEO, the CFO, the VP-Finance or Treasurer—you are going to interact with all other areas of the business: operations, personnel, marketing, production, and administration. You will play a key role in setting goals and measuring progress towards achieving those goals. If the company fails to meet its corporate objectives, you will be called upon to help understand what went wrong and to suggest solutions to fix the problem. Continue reading «The Financial 14 Checklist» Imagine for a moment that your car is really dirty, so you’ve decided to wash your car, and you’re going to do it by hand. You gather everything you need–soap, bucket, sponge, chamois cloth–and head out to the hose. You squirt some soap into the bucket, turn on the hose and start to [...] |
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