CapitalRaisingBlog

Business insurance is crucial to protecting your business.

A simple, obvious statement, we know, but when people are trying to save a few bucks, they sometimes make the very large mistake of foregoing business insurance. To put it plainly, business insurance may save your company someday. Buy it. Business owners think that they can be extra careful about providing customers a safe environment or making their products safer, and thus avoid the need for liability insurance.Don’t risk it.  You cannot cover every possible risk; it would be too time-consuming and too expensive. 
Some common types of insurance policies that smaller companies should purchase are:

Liability Insurance: We do not need to explain to any American why you need liability insurance against the standard  “slip-and-fall” lawsuit–in America, lawsuits are as ubiquitous as lawyers and hamburgers.

Besides general liability insurance, business insurance comes in more narrowly-defined versions so businesses can get coverage for specific risks. For instance, automobile insurance is required for all trucks or other vehicles operated by a business. Product liability insurance is another especially important type of insurance if a business is going to sell manufatured or assembled products.
Workers’ Compensation Insurance: Typically, workers’ compensation insurance is required by state, local or federal law, so you have no choice but to buy it. The fact of the matter is that if one of your employees gets hurt on the job, you can expect a lawsuit and the employee will probably win.
Property Insurance: Property insurance protects the building, office machines, office furniture, inventory (maybe) and other property owned by a business. Losses arising from flood, fire, theft, vandalism, storms, and other causes of damage will be covered by this type of policy.
Business Interruption Insurance: Natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, floods, and severe weather can cause a business to close temporarily. But just becasue your business cannot make deliveries, take orders, or perform its other basic functions does not mean that the business will not have to pay taxes, salaries, and other expenses.
Surety Bonds: Surety bonds guarantee to other businesses that your business will fulfill the contracts you sign with those other businesses. This is a way for your small business to get other businesses to take a chance and go with your small, unknown company, a company which would otherwise be too unproven for other businesses to rely on.

The U.S. Census Bureau recently issued a report on the number of minority-owned businesses across the U.S. New York state had the highest number of black-owned firms, with 129,324 companies generating $7.53 billion in revenues. Last month, the Census Bureau reported the number of Hispanic-owned businesses grew 31%.

For people interested in launching a business, there are a number of resources dedicated to helping women and minority entrepreneurs.
Determine what type of venture might best suit your interests and strengths. Look into business ideas that serve a need as well as industries and fields lacking women and minority business owners such as construction.

You might also want to consider buying a franchise. See the National Minority Franchising Initiative.

You can gain valuable insight from business mentors through groups such as the SCORE Counselors to America’s Small Business.

Secure your initial clients by attending business-matchmaking events for minority entrepreneurs and contacting groups that connect minority start-ups with corporate suppliers.
Need inspiration? Learn about the achievements of women and minority entrepreneurs to gain inspiration and insight into challenges.

 Photo by Purprin @ Flickr

We always find really useful articles at Anita Campbells Small Business Trends.

This week she was talking about business podcasts.

“If you are interested in podcasts that are specifically about small business topics or recorded by small businesses, you might be interested in reading our Podcast Reviews.

Over at my Radio show site, we have been running a series reviewing small business podcasts. So far there are reviews of 21 different small business podcasts.

The Podcast Reviews are similar to book reviews, except that they are written about podcast recordings instead of books. The idea is to help you find new business audio and help you decide if you want to listen.
Each Podcast Review is written by Steve Rucinski, the Executive Producer of Small Business Trends Radio.

It’s all part of our strategy to be an indispensable resource to you. When you think of small business podcasts, we want you to think of us first. Whether it is for the pithy interviews we provide each week, or whether it is for identifying other business podcasts for you to explore, we hope the Small Business Trends Radio website will be top of mind.

I did something similar with my PowerBlog Review series a few years ago. Each week I reviewed a different small business blog. That was back in the days when blogs were still a novelty for businesses. That series was one of the key ways that I built traffic to this site early on. And I did it by providing visibility for other younger blogs at the time.”

The Small Business Podcasts is another great resource directory.

Photo by Jacob Krejci @ Flickr

TO LEASE OR TO BUY? That is always a tough question….

Define and understand your needs. Make sure the decision to buy a building fits in with your business plan.

Allow flexibility for growth or contraction.

Evaluate the opportunity as an investment as well as how the property fits your needs. Do a lease vs. buy analysis as a part of your financial analysis.

Know the market and your alternatives.

Do space planning and costing prior to removing conditions to purchase.

Evaluate your opportunity costs. Is the investment return comparable to the additional return you could get from investing the money in your business?

Compare value with a build to suit option. How much more would it cost to build your own building if this option is feasible.

Have an exit strategy. Know how you will divest yourself should the need arise.
 
Obtain the services of a professional representative to avoid costly mistakes. They do this for a living and can help make sure your decisions are sound.

Location, Location, Location is an important key for appreciation and resale.
For more information about buying and leasing go to the Entrepreneurs Help Pages

Zeromillion.com is The Top Entrepreneurship Resource Online by young entrepreneur and author Ryan Allis.

This site was founded in June 2002 by Ryan Allis and a team of young entrepreneurs with the goal of becoming the top resource online for all things related to entrepreneurship and business. Today, zeromillion.com has become a collaborative effort of over four hundred persons through the world who are working to create and add content, energize our discussion forums, add interviews, and build an international network. The site today has grown to receive over 80,000 unique visitors each month and has been featured in national and international news media such as Investors’ Business Daily, Entrepreneur Magazine, Young Money Magazine, and CosmoGIRL magazine.

This site currently contains over 4000 articles under the eight section of business, ebusiness, economics and policy, entrepreneurship, marketing, personal development, web marketing, young entrepreneurship. Within the business section alone they have over two hundred articles on topics ranging from finance to management, interviews with over ninety business owners, audio content, and a selection of related PDFs and ebooks. It’s a welath of information.

Whether you’re a fifteen year old aspiring entrepreneur with a vision, a Nigerian youth tired of repression and lack of access to opportunity, a thirty-five year old MarCom executive from Britain who wants to learn best practices for product positioning, a fifty-five year old refuge from Corporate America now venturing out on your own, or a successful entrepreneur who just wants to give back, you’ll find a home here.

What is their mission? Quite simply, it is to bring together in one place a top quality resource and a top quality community in which aspiring and current business leaders from all countries can collaborate and learn from each other.

On a final note, this site has been developed around a book that was written between June 2002 and October 2003 by the name of Zero to One Million: How to Build a Company to One Million Dollars in Sales. If you have not yet had a chance to read this book and are a current or aspiring entrepreneur or business owner, I would very much recommend it. I hope you will join the growing numbers of members of the zeromillion.com community that have read the book behind it all.Ryan also has a blog worth checking out.

 Raising Capital     Capital Raising

As you may be aware, submitting business plans and/or securities offering documents, for substantial amounts of funding, to institutions, such as; venture capital firms, commercial banks, investment banks, and private equity groups, simply doesn’t work for most start-up, early-stage and some seasoned companies. When it does work for the few, there are often too many “strings” attached to make the funding worth it.

Your answer could be in selling securities. Selling securities to raise capital is like selling anything else, except you are doing so in a highly regulated environment. It takes time, money, and effort. We (Commonwealth Capital Advisors) have streamlined the process to save you time, money, and effort, while further assuring that you keep in compliance with the regulations.

For most start-up and early stage companies the process begins with conducting a “Seed” capital round, for $200,000 to $500,000, using a private placement securities offering. Producing the deal structure and the securities offering document is relatively quick and inexpensive. It enables the management team to raise capital from personal and professional contacts, as well as, from friends and family.

We can provide you with the tools to produce security offering documents, with marketable deal structures, on your own or you can hire us to do it. The Financial Architect® System  can accomplish the goal of either selling your company to the masses privately or publicly. Generally, most owners simply hire Commonwealth Capital Advisors to “Shepherd” their company through the process. See Capital Raising Services or call  (231) 526-7292.

SETH GODIN is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and agent of change. He has an amazing blog and the other day was discussing trademarks. - 

If you Google “generic trademarks“, you’ll find a list on Wikipedia that includes, “aspirin, bikini, brassiere, crock pot, dry ice, escalator, granola, heroin, hula hoop, jungle gym, pilates exercise system, videotape, Webster’s dictionary, yo-yo, and zipper”. Each of these trademarks was worth many millions of dollars, and then, poof, it belonged to everyone.

The purpose of a trademark is to help consumers by allowing them to be certain of the source of a good or service. When you go to the store and buy some Mentos, you know you’re getting real Mentos, the kind that fizz really well with Coke, not some sort of inferior of mento with a small ‘m’. The trademark doesn’t just help the Perfetti Van Melle company in Kentucky, it helps you too.

You can trademark just about any word or phrase, but that doesn’t mean it will hold up. The best trademarks are ‘fanciful’, words like Yahoo! or Verizon. Every trademark that turns generic does so for the same reason: because it’s the easiest way to describe something.

The best thing you can invent, as far as I can tell, is an idea that needs a name. When they invented the Jeep®, there was no such thing as the SUV. The Jeep became the name for that idea. The lawyers at Chrysler worked superhard to keep the brand from becoming generic. When the engineers cooked up the Xerox®, they had the same problem. Now, people are happy to call it a copier.

You can recover from impending genericide. What you can’t recover from is a clumsy name, or hindering your idea so it doesn’t spread or coming up with a slightly better idea for something that already has a quite good enough name and idea.

While doing some research online this week, I came across David Frey’s - Best Marketing Practices. He has lots of free things of interest to business owners and entrepreneurs, you can read and download at his site.
I found this great article comparing the sales-postcard vs. the salesletter.
Are you ever confused about what to send to your prospects to get the maximum response with the minimum cost?  Do you ever wonder whether you should be sending out a full salesletter or a humble postcard?

       vs.    

If so, you’ll find this case study interesting…

As any good consultant would answer, I say “it depends.” It depends on a number of things like…

1. Are you generating leads or going for the sale?

2. Are you selling something everyone is already
   familiar with or do you have to explain your offering?

3. Are you sending the piece to past customers or new
   prospects?
  
These are just a few of the questions that you need to ask yourself before you can decide which tool is better to use. I love a good, well-written salesletter, but they are more complex and expensive to send. I also love postcards and have had a LOT of success with them, but they have limitations.

The bottom line is that both methods of communicating with people can be extremely successful, if you use it for the right situation.

Yesterday, I received two promotions from local HVAC (heating and air conditioning) companies.  One was a postcard and the other, a letter.

The letter I received was from  a local reputable HVAC business.It’s probably one of the BEST two page salesletters that I’ve ever received from an HVAC company. 
It had everything…

1. A compelling headline and attention-getting photo.

2. A very strong first paragraph. (it gets right to the point)

3. Startling statistics that PROVE the bold promise in the first paragraph.

4. Testimonials that further prove what the letter is promising.

5. An IRRESISTABLE offer.
The same day I received the salesletter I also received a postcard from a local HVAC company. It was short and sweet. The postcard offer was for a special price/tune-up.  It didn’t need a lot of explaining.

Looking at the salesletter and the postcard just goes to prove one thing…

What You Say to Prospects and How You Say It,

                    Is More Important than What You Use to Say It With.

 Melissa Giovagnoli of Networlding 

Melissa Giovagnoli has written 11 business books. One of her early books,   “The Chicago Entrepreneur’s Sourcebook: Your Complete Guide to Starting Smart, Finding Resources for Growth & Creating Your Survival Network”   is a great resource for entrepreneurs in any market.

This comprehensive resource directory is essential for anyone starting a business or expanding an existing one. It lists hundreds of organizations, education opportunities, books, and kits that will help Chicago entrepreneurs attain their goals. She also provides an insider’s look at the Chicago business scene and explanation of Illinois requirements for start-ups. This easy-to-use handbook is the one resource that the entrepreneur can depend on to get his/her business up and running. Though it is Chicago specific, some of the information can be applied no matter where you live.

One of her more recent books, “Networlding” is another must for entrepreneurs. “It used to be that all you needed to network successfully was a set of business cards, an organizer, and a few promotional materials.” says Melissa. “Today, you need the ability to communicate your aspirations, a willingness to collaborate, and an understanding of the ways in which we’re all drawn together in the new networked society. The strategy is called  NETWORLDING. It’s the art of making meaningful connections and leveraging those connections in new and powerful ways.”