Jumpstart Your Business

You need to plan carefully and once the plan is in place, you need to begin to execute vigorously. Remember however, sometime even with the best of plans, you need to change course and here is why.

Running a business is so much serious work that we often forget to enjoy the business and have some fun. Your place of business should be a place where people are relaxed enough to be creative and ready to solve problems.

I always tell my clients that the reason for a business plan is not to go looking for financing. You develop the business plan for you. So that you can peel back the onion and really convince yourself that you understand every aspect of what you are setting out to do.

Your advertising message should be geared to address the following 5 questions on your customer’s mind:
What is it for?
Why do I need it?
What will you do to fix my need?
Why should I choose you?
Why should I not choose the others?

People-to-people lending is the new game in town. It is a unique way of borrowing/lending money where no banks are involved but rather people deal directly with each other. If you want to borrow money, you post your request for a loan with the amount needed and the maximum interest rate you are willing to pay.

A loan is a debt incurred by a company or organization, over a fixed period of time, and needs to be repaid with interest. The loan appears on the balance sheet as a liability. Loans can be made from family and friends; from financial institutions (Banks & Credit Unions) and from investors (Angels and Venture Capitalists). Regardless of the source of the funds, the loan should be treated the same way and interested should be charged and paid by the respective parties.

A grant is a gift from either a government or private organization and is given for a specific purpose for the “public benefit”. To a company or organization, a grant appears on their balance sheet as an asset and does not need to be repaid. Applicants need to prove that they can fulfill the specific purposes of the grant.

Unlike what you see on late night television or published in some of the newspapers and magazines, there are no government grants for private companies unless they are involved in very technical research in the military or health arenas or they do business in certain designated geographical areas and contribute to the economic and job growth of the residents of that area.

Banks typically make loans between $2,500 to $100.000 with an interest rate up to 5% above prime. Applicants need a well written Business Plan and stellar personal credit ratings for the principals. For companies that appear risky, the banks may request that the SBA guarantee the loans and if the companies meet the requirements an added 2% is needed for the guarantee.

Another method of financing would be to obtain a “Personal Equity Line of Credit” or “Personal Equity Loan” from a bank for the business.

I saw this YouTube video and had to share it with you. There are some very good tips here. Your business runs on converting prospects to customers and it all begins with the offer. The focus is on using the right words like [tag-tec]guarantees[/tag-tec] and [tag-tec]testimonials[/tag-tec]. Avoid multitasking and use technology to automate the conversion of your prospects to customers.

The following video “How To Raise Money From VC’s” comes from 5min.com, an instructional video site we covered in May, and is currently getting a lot of attention in Israel.

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First thing to do is try to protect your invention by filing a patent. You can go up on http://www.uspto.gov and there are step by step instructions on filing a patent. There are also searches you can perform to see if the patent already exists.

A lease is an agreement by which the owner of a property (the “lessor”) grants the right of possession to a tenant (the “lessee”) for a specific period of time (the “term”) for a predetermined amount of money (the “rent”). A “leasehold estate” is the space occupied by the tenant.

Common types of leases include: