Posts Tagged ‘investor finder’
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Are You Ready To Raise Capital for Your Company? Most Likely . . . You’re Not!
Whether you’re trying to raise debt or equity capital there are still certain unwritten rules that apply that cater to the mentality of today’s investor and funding community. Certainly there are scores of private placement memorandum and business plan chop shops that wouldn’t know how to properly consult with your company or write a fundable document even if they wanted to but they will gladly take your money to throw together a template and try to pass it off as custom work.
The issue is this, it’s not necessarily the consultant, though these fly-by-nights shoulder a large portion of the blame, but the client usually doesn’t even have the proper structure in place to attract a funding source even if they had the most incredible PPM and business ever to hit the venture capital marketplace. Here is a simple (very basic) way to evaluate your company to find out if you are properly structured to attract capital. Have a corporate meeting and ask yourselves the following questions: What type of corporate structure do you have and why did you choose that particular structure? Break down your executive infrastructure, where do your individual executives stand in your industry, do the unthinkable, Google everyone’s names; are the people running your company real industry players? Are all the basic positions accounted for (president, CFO, controller etc)? Next, look at your advisory board and board of directors. If by some miraculous act of God you actually have these two groups represented in your company, how did you qualify them? Sorry but if you have an attorney on your board because he’s, um…well, an attorney, that’s not good enough.
You need an industry specific legal guru who not only spells out the intricacies of your business genre’s regulation but they must also be actively qualifying potential strategic partnerships as alliances for your company. He should be reaching into his client base and actively picking companies that could enhance your company in distribution or in any other way that will have a profitable outcome for all involved. Each of the members must be serving a similar purpose.
Next, on what criteria are you basing your share price or loan amount? If you don’t have a clear cut ‘use of proceeds’ model, you need one. This and many, many other questions need to be asked before you are actually ready to raise capital and in all reality, until your corporate structure is in place you shouldn’t even attempt to write a business plan or a private placement memorandum. If you are serious about setting up your company to attract investors you need a turnaround consultant, you can’t do this on your own. There is an entire industry that centers around structuring companies for their first and ongoing capital raise.
Before you blackball your company by prematurely attempting to raise capital, the critical concepts you need to keep in mind are (precisely in this order): corporate structure, infrastructure, advisory board, board of directors, use of proceeds, business plan, private placement memorandum, investor finder, funding. Look at each aspect listed here as its own item, break it down and analyze every minute aspect of each element and look at everything objectively and eventually your company will evolve into a structure that is fundable and stabilized for years to come.
For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder services, james scott, private placement memorandum, take company public, take company public otcbb, take company public pink sheets, take company public reverse merger, take your company public
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Monday, December 14th, 2009
Why do people go to the movies or ride roller-coasters or watch romantic films or comedies? Why do people seek out the temporary release of alcohol or pharmaceutical and illegal barbiturates? People long for that ancient connection with their emotions.
People are desperate to ‘feel’ something, anything and as publicists it’s part of our employ to tangle with the emotions to trigger a response. We are trying to trigger a natural reaction from a willing candidate. Man has proven over and over again that they will buy anything so long as it hits on the emotional pressure points.
The public decides to buy cars, houses and cloths all based on emotion. How does the ad or article make you feel when your emotions become tangled with this content? What elements are missing in the target consumer psyche and how can we fill that void while simultaneously branding our client’s product and calling the candidate to action?
We play on the sadness, hopes, fears and aspirations for one reason, to slowly draw the target market in on behalf of our client so that when they feel sad, hopeless, desperate or in need, this ‘brand’ comes to mind as the automatic answer to all of these issues.
Online publicity marketers must have a solid understanding of the target buyers emotional make-up, what makes them happy, sad, stressed, angry etc. in order to reap the full rewards of a campaign.
The reader must pay close attention to the colors, voiceover tone, background music, video clip and image choice, vocabulary and on screen text with webmercials and take into consideration similar aspects when writing articles or creating ads.
These tactics lower the guard of the target which allows a message to be imbedded in their subconcious mind. This is done with music, film, political promotions and yes, even ads.
At the end of the day, results are what keep the clients coming back and if the advertising ingredients can cradle a sort of post hypnotic cue that calls a client to action, then the needs of the client are being met with branding and sale conversion and the emotional needs of the customer are being taken care of as well. This is one of the few times in life that there is truly a win/win relationship.
Looking to find the best deal on Publicity Marketing, then visit www.princetoncorporatesolutions.com to find the best advice on Business Publicity.
Tags: DPO, finance, how to take your company public, invester finders, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, IPO, james scott, otcbb, pink sheets, princeton corporate solutions, princetoncorporatesolutions.com, reverse mergers, take your company public
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Are you a business owner raising capital with a Regulation D Rule exemption (504, 505 or 506) also referred to as a Private Placement Memorandum, PPM or Offering Memorandum? If you are using this mechanism to raise capital then you’ll, no doubt, have to have a solid comprehension of the most distinct and important part of the Private Placement Memorandum referred to as the ‘Offering Circular’.
When your consultant or attorney is asking you for details on everything from business location to management, from dividends to risk details, you need to make sure that this information is complete and accurate. You’ll need to audit the documents after they are completed. A solid Offering Circular has kept countless companies from being sued by investors that didn’t get the investment return they were anticipating.
While the business plan is meant to grab the initial attention of the investor or funding source, the Offering Memorandum is meant to spell out the down and dirty details of the venture so that you are protected from lawsuits down the road, while simultaneously exposing the various ins and outs of your venture to give a ‘reality check’ to the investor before they hand over the cash.
The offering circular needs to be powerful yet very compact without the redundancies of using space to say the same things over and over again to pull the investors attention from the negative to the potential profit margins or management’s impressive pedigree. With all this said, yes it’s true the offering circular is one of the parts of a PPM spells out the technical aspects of the enterprise with a focus on inherent risk of investing but this can be done in a balanced way to also demonstrate the positive aspects of your venture by giving solid descriptions of your management team and, in place, distribution centers and contracts in place ready for capitalization.
When authoring the offering circular demonstrate the risks with a well balanced demonstration of the system in place to overcome these risks and dominate your market niche.
Call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 if you would like to talk to someone about yourOffering Circular, Want to Take Your Company Public We Can Help!
Tags: finance, investor finder, james scott, princeton corporate solutions, princetoncorporatesolutions.com, private placement memorandum, private placement memorandums, rule 504, rule 505, rule 506, take company public, take company public otcbb
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
This article is nine years in the making. The concept is so simple but 99% of the clients I consult with have made identical errors in their effort to raise capital. They will have a business plan and they will have a Private Placement Memorandum and after one read of these two documents I have to deliver the bad news, “Sorry, but your business plan and PPM are completely worthless”.
They will then proceed to give me a story where the one consistent theme usually goes like this, “That can’t be…there was a guy…..he gave us a great deal on our business plan besides he wrote the business plans for my brothers sock sewing company and my friends underwater basket weaving video business and he really seemed to know what he was doing and then we bought a template online and just took the content from the business plan and used it to fill out the PPM template…blah..blah..blah…”.
Look, before you have a business plan written, test the author’s knowledge on your specific industry genre. There is no such thing as a one stop shop for business plans, the good consultants will cater to certain industries. Find an author with a solid comprehension of your goals and can translate your ideas into the fickle, skeptical language of the investors reading it.
Your business plan should include, at a minimum, financial projections/assumptions, growth and development analysis, market analysis, research analysis and implementation, competition analysis, management summary, marketing plan, risk analysis, capitalization analysis, market penetration analysis and SWOT analysis. Without these crucial elements your business plan is dead in the water and so is your future in fundraising.
Next, never… and I mean never buy a PPM template on the internet. There are certain aspects to your offering circular that can trigger the invest button or snooze button in the mind of investors. Your business plan’s job is to ’sell’ while the PPM is meant to spell out risk and other technical information that isn’t present in the business plan. The last thing you want to do is simply cut and paste information from the business plan over to the Offering Memorandum; it’s unprofessional and immediately loses legitimacy in the eyes of credible investors. Find a professional consultant, accountant or attorney who specializes in Regulation D to write your Offering Memorandum for you. A poorly written Private Placement Memo can destroy your ability to raise capital so fast it will shock you but a well written, professional PPM will make raising capital fast and easy.
Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, investor finders, james scott, offering memorandum, ppm, ppm offering, princeton corporate solutions, princetoncorporatesolutions.com, private placement memorandum, venture capital finder
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
There is a misconception that the process of taking your company public has to be costly and stressful. The truth is that it’s the ‘learning curve’ that makes it stressful. By learning curve, I mean dealing with industry sharks that will con your company and take every dime you have while simultaneously never having the ability to take you public in the first place.
On a daily basis I hear one tragic story after another about how a pink sheets facilitator took them public and then dropped them without passing them to a broker dealer or market maker or someone to sell their stock to the public so they were left to fend for themselves. Another reoccurring story I hear is how a company sold a small start-up a shell company for a reverse merger but the shell had liens and shareholders that were ready to dump the stock as soon as the transaction was completed.
All this said, after the sharks and the scumbags there are many good consulting firms that love the industry and take joy out of helping a corporation fulfill the ultimate dream of a public offering through IPO or OTCBB or legitimate reverse merger (oh, the money is a nice benefit as well haha). The boutique firm is your best bet, if you can’t find one then find a small securities lawyer.
These people are in this for the love of the industry and the massive plethora of industries they get to work with. Personally, I love hearing from an executive that owns a company and is completely stressed, he’s been lied to, conned and feels helpless. It is an amazing feeling when I can calm his nerves and say, “All this is in the past, let’s talk about how we are going to make this work!” The relief in their voice after a statement like that is such a reward for me its difficult to put into words. I will customize a public offering strategy that falls within their affordability capacity of their company and put together a path to get them trading as quickly and efficiently as possible. I am happy to say that there are many consultants and attorneys that do the exact same thing.
If you are trying to figure out a quick, affordable way to take your company public here are some ideas to consider: most likely you won’t qualify for an IPO (that’s ok, most companies don’t) but you will qualify for an OTCBB offering which is just as rewarding and you can evolve that structure into the IPO phase if you so desire in the future. If you lack the capital for a public offering, consider raising a quick round with a Regulation D 504 (Private Placement Memorandum), its fast, easy and cheap. Raise the capital you need to pay your fees for going public and allow a group of eager investors to flip the bill. If you want to grow your company and take it into the ‘public’ arena this should be an exciting time, don’t ruin it by being stressed. Find a consultant that you feel comfortable with who will take the burden off of your shoulders and carry it for you; this is the job of the professional public offering consultant!
Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, investor finders, james scott, otcbb, princeton corporate solutions, princetoncorporatesolutions.com, take a company public, take company public, take my company public, take your company public
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
If you own or run a company that is trying to raise capital in the current economic conditions you’ve undoubtedly been challenged by the limited funds available. Investors are more difficult to find and the individuals that are actually willing to part with their cash are even tougher to find. You’ve talked to friends, family members, your cpa and your attorney but trying to get them to invest is like drawing blood from a stone, it’s just not happening.
There is an easier way. Most broker dealers and market makers have an emergency number in their Rolodex that reads “Investor Finder”, these specialist consultants are brought in when there is nowhere else to turn for cash. A true Investor Finder has 1,000’s of investor contacts that they can call on to get funding for their clients and are constantly using online viral strategies to attract more investors to their database.
An investor finder usually is not a licensed securities broker/agent or attorney; instead they are traditionally consultants that are active in the investment banking facilitation aspect of the industry. Being that they are not licensed they do not accept equity payments or percentages; instead they work on a flat fee basis.
A good consultant in this genre can bring in 30 to 70 real investors per day and it’s up to the client to sell the opportunity from there. A typical lead from an investor finder will be an investor or investment firm that is responding to the consultant’s opportunity introduction email or snail mail mailing, they have read about the opportunity and they respond one of two ways, either they are calling into a phone room to be screened and qualified or they are contacting the client directly.
Many times the investor doesn’t know that they are part of the “finder’s” database but do recall signing up to receive investment opportunity updates, so either way the investor is solid and active. If you are trying to raise capital and need real results quickly and can’t afford to waste time begging for cash, you need to seek out a qualified Investor Finder consultant and make your fundraising efforts fast and easy.
Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, find accredited investors, find angel investors, find investors, how to find investors, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, investor finders, james scott, princeton corporate solutions, venture capital finder, where to find investors
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Whether you’re trying to raise debt or equity capital there are still certain unwritten rules that apply that cater to the mentality of today’s investor and funding community. Certainly there are scores of private placement memorandum and business plan chop shops that wouldn’t know how to properly consult with your company or write a fundable document even if they wanted to but they will gladly take your money to throw together a template and try to pass it off as custom work.
The issue is this, it’s not necessarily the consultant, though these fly-by-nights shoulder a large portion of the blame, but the client usually doesn’t even have the proper structure in place to attract a funding source even if they had the most incredible PPM and business ever to hit the venture capital marketplace. Here is a simple (very basic) way to evaluate your company to find out if you are properly structured to attract capital. Have a corporate meeting and ask yourselves the following questions: What type of corporate structure do you have and why did you choose that particular structure? Break down your executive infrastructure, where do your individual executives stand in your industry, do the unthinkable, Google everyone’s names; are the people running your company real industry players? Are all the basic positions accounted for (president, CFO, controller etc)? Next, look at your advisory board and board of directors. If by some miraculous act of God you actually have these two groups represented in your company, how did you qualify them? Sorry but if you have an attorney on your board because he’s, um…well, an attorney, that’s not good enough.
You need an industry specific legal guru who not only spells out the intricacies of your business genre’s regulation but they must also be actively qualifying potential strategic partnerships as alliances for your company. He should be reaching into his client base and actively picking companies that could enhance your company in distribution or in any other way that will have a profitable outcome for all involved. Each of the members must be serving a similar purpose.
Next, on what criteria are you basing your share price or loan amount? If you don’t have a clear cut ‘use of proceeds’ model, you need one. This and many, many other questions need to be asked before you are actually ready to raise capital and in all reality, until your corporate structure is in place you shouldn’t even attempt to write a business plan or a private placement memorandum. If you are serious about setting up your company to attract investors you need a turnaround consultant, you can’t do this on your own. There is an entire industry that centers around structuring companies for their first and ongoing capital raise.
Before you blackball your company by prematurely attempting to raise capital, the critical concepts you need to keep in mind are (precisely in this order): corporate structure, infrastructure, advisory board, board of directors, use of proceeds, business plan, private placement memorandum, investor finder, funding. Look at each aspect listed here as its own item, break it down and analyze every minute aspect of each element and look at everything objectively and eventually your company will evolve into a structure that is fundable and stabilized for years to come.
For Corporate Consulting or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder services, james scott, private placement memorandum, take company public, take company public otcbb, take company public pink sheets, take company public reverse merger, take your company public
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
The psychological profile of business proprietors and entrepreneurs in general boasts the critical ‘Risk Taker’ element which allows one to take the leap from the financial security of a 9 – 5 job to the dicey waters of action based, success based income generation meaning: No Sales = No Money and No Food.
Many of these risk takers function within the realm of right brain communicative as opposed to left brain analytical which passes over the critical detail oriented solutions that are mandatory for raising capital. It is crucial for someone of this profile to hire a professional to come in and cross the t’s and dot the i’s in preparation for corporate fundraising efforts. After this is facilitated the entrepreneur needs to prepare mentally and emotionally for the turbulent road ahead.
Raising capital is no easy task and after the company is properly structured and you have an investor finder service, market maker or broker dealer in place to sell or promote your funding cause, you must step back, take a deep breath and prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. This preparation should start with the concept of ‘objectivity’ when you talk to investors, some will love your business model while others see an investment in your company as a waste of time. You must take these critiques, good and bad with a grain of salt. Don’t get caught up in the habit of emotionally reacting to these ideas from outside sources, don’t allow your mind to attach itself to an investor’s idea of your company or it will drive you insane and you’ll find that these emotional ups and downs will find their way home as your family will quickly be affected by your emotional fluctuation.
The second thing you must do is read and absorb the knowledge in such books as “The 48 Laws of Power” and “The 33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene and of course “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. These books deal with strategy that can easily be translated into the business world and can help you prepare mentally for the art of fundraising. Read these books cover to cover and then read them again. Absorb the intricacies and strategies that these books offer and make it a point to use these concepts in your daily professional life; believe me, you’ll be glad you did.
The next thing you want to do is to study great strategists like Napoleon and Machiavelli. One thing that you will realize almost instantly is that these investors are out for their own gain, period (Why wouldn’t they?). They will try to attract your attention with the right hand while their left hand is reaching in your financial records looking for chinks in your corporate armor to make their case for more equity for less investment. You need to be able to analyze, not just the words of the investor but also all the other elements of their expression such as: intonation, facial gestures, eye movement, standing and sitting positions and other ‘tells’ that can give you an insight to what they are truly trying to communicate so you can anticipate their next move. These are just a few things to consider before entering the world of venture capital. Raising money for a business is a daunting task only to the unprepared.
Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, investor finders, james scott, otcbb, princeton corporate solutions, take a company public, take my company public, take your company public
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
If you are trying to raise capital with a PPM or public entity like OTCBB you need to understand the mind of the investor. After the business plan sells the investor on the business concept you need to sell them on you and your executive staff. You need to stack your executive positions with professionals with a proven track record of success and possess a solid reputation in the industry. You must paint the picture for investors that your business is run by the who’s who in your industry and this pedigree is demonstrated by your education, degree, grades in college, professional organizations of which you have been and are currently a member, advisory board positions with other corporate organizations, a track record of setting up and maintaining strategic alliances, networking contacts and more.
When an investor looks at your human resource list on your PPM, business plan or public offering docs it needs to scream power, authority and confidence. Each individual that you place on your advisory board must have a massive contribution other than ‘advice’. Advisors should be able to prove their ability to assist in crucial decisions, connect your company with strategic partners and help you get to the next level.
Your legal counsel and CPA should be well known organizations with a long list of successful, well known organizations on their client roster and they should have a lot more to offer your company than just their fee based services. Again, these organizations should be able to set you up with partnerships that will help grow your business. As far as corporate awareness you must include a publicist. The publicist that you choose must be well versed in their comprehension of your industry genre.
They must be able to take your company and get you in front of the proper audience that is conducive to enhancing your growth potential. They must be able to demonstrate their knowledge of viral online marketing as well as traditional means of radio, TV and article promotion. They should be able to reach into their contact list and set you up with one interview after another targeting your specific audience.
These are just a few things to take into consideration when you jump on the fund raising trail. Every individual you have listed on your docs must be able to pass due diligence and have the appeal that reaches into the ‘comfort’ zone portion of the investor’s mind.
Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!
Tags: finance, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finder services, investor finders, james scott, offering memorandum, offering memorandums, otcbb, ppm, ppms, princeton corporate solutions, private placement memorandum, private placement memorandums
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Sunday, December 13th, 2009
As a corporate publicist I’m constantly beat over the head with the latest and greatest way to get my client’s brand out to the public in an orderly yet expedient manner. Fly-by-night methods and organizations come and go, yet the original promotional concepts that yield that greatest results are still at the forefront of the publicity industry, they’ve just evolved and taken a different shape.
Catering to the emotional triggers of the populace while weaving a web of information and post hypnotic cues through the cynical conscious minds to the unconscious faculty of legions of oblivious targets (oops! I mean ‘potential customers’) is still the name of the game. Television, the visual stimulus that fed exhausted, lackluster minds with a temporary, emotional escape from reality has been replaced by web-mercials and the fast pace of viral media.
The intellectuals that would gather facts on industry, politics and special interest concepts once supplied by the New Yorker and the New York Times is now replaced by the 24/7 information tornado of Web 2.0. Those colorful ads in Time and the Sunday paper have been overshadowed by interactive flash ads that cater to the senses of sight and sound. And of course the idiot radio DJ that would spit out grotesque and perverted one-liners while simultaneously converting the listeners mind matter to mush has been replaced by special interest audio and video Podcasts.
The reactions and actions of the population have kept the same structure, but the adaptability and ability to absorb messages has evolved. When marketing to the masses the path to the decision making sector of the mind is still initiated with a single stimulus such as an image, sound or scent. When the attention is attracted, keep that initial stimuli active like the hypnotic dance of the cobra, then use the other senses to input messages for instant or future action, in most cases this action is a purchase.
Using radio and TV to promote a business on a shoestring or unlimited budget is like passing up a brand new luxury sedan for a’85 Hyundai. These methods are out of date and should only be used as modest forms of passive branding while the heavy lifting of promotional branding and call to action publicity marketing should be done with online video, social and news bookmarking, press release distribution, blogging, unique article distribution, Podcasts and other innovative white-hat methods that cater to habits of modern man.
Want to find out more about Publicity Marketing, then visit Princeton Corporate Solutions website at Princeton Corporate Solutions
Tags: finance, go public, investor finder, investor finder service, investor finders, james scott, market maker, otcbb, pink sheets, ppm, princeton corporate solutions, princetoncorporatesolutions.com, private placement memorandum, take your company public
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