How to Get a Fist Full of Dollars to Fund Your Bussiness

THREE WEEKS AGO THREE DETROIT AUTO MOGULS CAME TO THE U. S. CONGRESS FOR A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS TO TIE THEMSELVES OVER ‘TIL BETTER MONEY TIMES COME ALONG.

As it should be, the Congress was highly impressed. Damn near gave them the 25BBD, but for the lack of a Business Plan. They came back 10 days later with yet another presentation, less the Lear Jets and what might have been misinterpreted as feigned remorse in exchange for a deemed more adequately assessed financial needs the good Congress persons had insinuated indispensable, only now up ticked to $34 Billion.

One Senator, quite possibly ex-banker or friends to one, flat out told the Detroit visitors that an application as theirs – with no P & L, no Proforma Income Statement, no Use of Proceeds, no visible ample collateral and no Business Plan, if presented to their most friendly of bankers, would have been summarily dismissed as unworthy of merit.

The gentlemen from Detroit were preceded at the Congress by one Hank Paulson and his able assistant, one Mr. KashnKeri just a few weeks back. It appeared obvious that writing business plans is not these fellows’ banana split. They had it all figured out already. They didn’t need to write themselves a letter about it! It was only $25Bs. Besides, with limos on the way and Lear Jets waiting on the tarmac, who’s got time for writing, anyway?

They could have just clicked on my Web Site Marketing That Works web page, followed the text links to Tim Berry at Palo Alto and in five minutes prepare a great Business Plan in PowerPoint to dazzle the U. S. Congress and get a sack full of money fast. But when you are a mogul, I suppose it is hard to be modest.

So, if any of you out there in the Blogosphere need a fist full of dollars for your business, my advice is: Take the 3Cs to heart and answer the few pesky questions all lenders and investors always ask when asked for money:

A.-CHARACTER – good character is never too much when asking for money.

B.-CREDIT - FICO notwithstanding, paying on time can carry you a long way.

C.-COLLATERAL – when character and/or credit is less than stellar, good and ample collateral could sure make up for it.

And now for a few questions:

1.-How much money do you need and when do you need it?

2.-Why do you need this money – like you do have a P and L Statement?

3.-What precisely do you plan to do with it – like Use of Proceeds Statement?

4.-How long do you need the money for – like 3, 5 or 7 years?

5.-How will you generate the funds to pay it back – that old P & L again?

6.-Who are you anyway - have you successfully done anything like this before, like a Resume of the Principals, the job at Home Depot and things?

7.-What can you pledge – for me to appropriate in case you can’t pay it back, Like the 3rd C above – GOOD AND AMPLE COLLATERAL?

8.-Do You Have A Business Plan for financial analysis and judicial review?

Reasonable modesty aside, but as I tell you in my Home Page, I have been some 50+ years in the advice and counsel business helping entrepreneurs, business and professional persons create new or expand existing businesses.

IT MIGHT BE JUST ME, but I do not ever remember any one of my clients showing up at the Congress or at their favorite banker’s desk, asking for a fist full of dollars with NO BUSINESS PLAN.

With Tim Berry and Palo Alto Software around, there just is NO EXCUSE for it, Messrs: Paulson, Kashnkari and the gentlemen from Detroit notwithstanding.

Now, you just go ahead over to my Web Site Marketing That Works listed at the end of this Blog. Read the explanation of Business PlanPro or even the Duck Tape Marketing Plan the aforementioned applicants could have got. Follow the text links to Tim Berry and Palo Alto and work the capital sources for your capital needs.

Palo Alto Software gives you the easiest step-by-step process, built-in market research data, powerful forecasting tools and even a No Risk 60-day money back guarantee. This stuff is even approved by the U. S. Small Business Administration-SBA whom you may already know.

Palo Alto has a stunning live demo and over 500 sample business plans online you can look over to get your ideas percolating before you decide what and when to get your software. When you have decided, you can download online and be on your way fast.

In fact PCWorld, Inc. Magazine, PC Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur.com and even one Guy Kawasaki have glowingly endorsed the software. Go ahead click my Web Site Marketing That Works page where you will find everything you need to know about Business PlanPro which could have saved those fellows from Detroit from the perils of your standard U.S. Congress put-downs we saw on TV twice in three weeks.

You could well be tempted to think that Bankers already know all that objectives, priorities, deadlines, management team, projected profit/loss, cash-flow, sales and marketing plans stuff. You may think that all is banker’s guru stuff taking time from useful work running the business! And, what about that mission statement stuff? Or, keys to success babble? Any one wasting time on all this stuff wouldn’t have time to run the business, would he?

Well - maybe not, or not necessarily, but there might just be more than enough time to create a business plan; and, run the business better and know what your doing! Let’s just see this Blog may help you along:

Let’s work up a simple guide, a track to run on and some good coaching to keep you on track. Keep it simple! Because left to an entrepreneur’s own designs and proclivities, a business plan can:

1.-become a mega project,

2.-left un written beyond what is best for the business

3.-mistake cash from sales with profits

4.-stamp everything ’priority’ that deprioritizes everything

5.-overvalue the ’idea’ over the ability to sell, produce and profit

6.-mistake the business plan with planning for the business

7.-detailed data like cash-flow, profit/loss, datelines, sales goals, management team, real analysis of the competition, market feasibility and business ratios can be easily overstated and create a false sense of potential achievement.

8.-‘forecasts’ or projection for future years can become another mega project and the results unrealistic.

9.-Over-optimism can become a mindset to the extent that even when sales are flat, management can easily assume that if only investors would see the greatness of the idea and put their money at risk, sales would quickly explode like “dot.coms” did some years ago.

10.-when the entrepreneur finally starts writing the business plan, man o man, he can’t stop.

11.-he writes too much, over states the case which generally results in a voluminous work, but real content clouded.

12.-oh, yes—and watch the ’formatting’! Keep it simple. Keep it neat.

13.-And, don’t overdress the case.

WHOA NOW! This is already getting too complicated! Unless you are a business college professor, an economist or an MBA, who does this stuff?

For an entrepreneur more confused about business after he got out of business school than when he went in, this stuff can be disturbingly overwhelming.

That could have been what got those Detroit fellows laughed out of the Halls of Congress. Writing themselves a long letter on how they plan to use the money, rebuild a business, setting goals, setting objectives, making financial statements balance, listing the priorities; and, writing that mission statement and listing the keys to success was not what they appear to have had in mind for 25BBD from Congress.

WHOA IS RIGHT, PARTNER!

But it is not that complicated. Help is on the way, the cavalry will soon arrive!

A good search of the Web shows over 20 such packages. Most are ‘reactive’ in that they ask the writer specific questions whose answer will create a whole block of business plan detail that would otherwise take even a professor, an economist or an MBA much time to write from scratch.

The plan software follows an orderly outline, putting first things first and in proper sequence in relation to the complete enterprise. You know – like bankers and money people and possible Congress persons like to see it.

It provides tables and formatted concepts to tabulate financial data and automatically calculates the results, generating graphs to accompany the printed figures. All this makes the finished document both appealing to read and gives it better perspective.

Business PlanPro by Tim Berry is tops. I personally like Tim Berry’s Business PlanPro published by Palo Alto Software headquartered in Eugene, Oregon. I have personally used it on all the businesses I have created for myself and clients. That is why I have it in my Affiliate Web Site That Works. It is one of the oldest in the business, founded in 1983.

Business PlanPro is simple to understand and to write with. Tim Berry is an MBA from Stanford, co-founded Borland International and has a long history of work in the technology sector in the Silicon Valley.

Palo Alto Software core business is to develop and sell products that help people succeed in business. It has hundreds of thousands of real world successes and growing every day. I am sure even Detroit could impress Congress with it.

After reading this Blog, all of you out there in the Blogosphere know how to get a fist full of dollars for your business. My advice still is: Take the 3Cs to heart and answer the pesky questions all lenders and investors always ask when asked for money:

A.-CHARACTER – good character is never too much when asking for money.

B.-CREDIT - Fico notwithstanding, paying on time can carry you a long way.

C.-COLLATERAL – when character and/or credit is less than stellar, good and ample collateral could sure make up for it.

And about those pesky questions:

1.-How much money do you need and when do you need it?
2.-Why do you need this money – like do have a P and L Statement?
3.-What precisely do you plan to do with it – like Use of Proceeds Statement?
4.-How long do you need the money for – like 3, 5 or 7 years?
5.-How will you generate the funds to pay it back – that old P & L again?
6.-Who are you anyway - have you done anything like this successfully before, like a Resume of the Principals, the job at Home Depot and things?
7.-What can you pledge – for me to appropriate in case you can’t pay it back, Like the 3rd C above – GOOD AND AMPLE COLLATERAL?
8.-Do You Have A Business Plan for financial analysis and judicial review?

That about pretty well covers everybody, doesn’t it? And, before you go off asking for money, get over to my Web Site Marketing That Works page. Look at one or more of the 500+ sample business plans available to you.

See a video demonstration on site. Read the testimonials from business persons who attribute a large part of their success in getting capital to Business Plan Pro. Read the mighty convincing experts on the matter as well.

CREATE A GREAT BUSINESS PLAN FOR YOUR BUSINESS And When You Are Asked, Give It To Them And Watch The Expression In Their Faces! Or, make yourself a DUCK TAPE MARKETING PLAN. You need to see it to believe it!

Here is to your Business Plan and Capital Search success,

Felix C. Guerrero
Consultant to Management
Affiliate Marketing Consultant
International Platform Speaker