Many investors are only interested in investing money into an enterprise for a limited amount of time. They want to know when they will get their money back and what sort of return they will be receiving at that time. Both issues are closely linked. Therefore, when preparing your business plan, to pitch to potential investors, you will need to make sure that you have outlined your long term plans and a sound exit strategy.

In order to do this properly you will have to ask yourself a few questions about your own personal plans regarding the business. Do you wish to stay involved in this business in the long run, or are you more interested in getting it off the ground and letting someone else take over then? These are the kinds of questions you should deal with in your exit strategy.

You will also want to know a little about the investors you are pitching to and what their expectations are regarding the future of the investment:

• If you are dealing with venture capitalists you have to be aware that they are looking for a high return. They will generally be expecting the business to go public at the end of the period or make some other high profit move. The period they are willing to invest is about three to seven years so you will need some sort of high return exit strategy at the end of that period. However, you should not opt for going public unless you are confident that it is a realistic goal for your company. Public offerings are very rare for small businesses and the investors you are speaking to will be all too aware of that fact.
• If you are considering an angel investor then again they will be looking for a high return but will not be overly concerned with the type of exit strategy under consideration, as long as it seems sound. They will be less sophisticated than the venture capitalists or institutional investors you may deal with and are more likely to be involved because of a personal relationship to you or the business.

There are some exit strategies you can consider:

• The most basic exit strategy would be to simply bleed the business dry. This can be done by giving yourself a huge salary or other remuneration, regardless of the performance of the business. While it is not appropriate in most cases, there is no doubt that it can get a lot of your investment back out of the company in a short time.
• Another simple option is liquidation. Simply close the doors and wait for the company to be wound up. All debts will be paid off, and then whatever is left over will be clear to the shareholders.

While these two options above are quite practical and effective, they are professionally frowned upon and you may wish to propose a more sophisticated exit strategy if you wish to impress potential investors.

• Another option could be selling to a friendly buyer. While you may have come to the end of your relationship with the business, there may be many people who would be saddened to see it end and may well be willing to step in to take over. This might include passing it on to another member of the family, or selling it to employees or customers. There are many businesses where this will be a realistic option, however it is difficult to predict it at the beginning of the venture.
• Another option is acquisition. This is when a rival firm, usually one wishing to expand, agrees to buy you out. You can negotiate the price and terms with the buyer and there is a good chance that both of you can come up with a very attractive price. You will get a good price because together with your assets, the buyer will be willing to pay for good will, market share, client contacts etc. This means you can get a very good price for the business.
• The IPOs that we previously talked about are the final option. These are potentially the most lucrative of all, but when reality kicks in, they might not seem like the dream you thought they were. In reality, a minuscule percent of companies manage to make it through an IPO. The process costs millions, includes lawyers, analysts, publicity agents and a lot of other costly professionals. The odds are against you ever making it. And if you do, you will probably be left with only a fraction share of the company you used to own.

Eva Irwing shows you how to write a winning business plan at http://www.businessplanning.ws where you will learn about the business plan outline and content, how to present your business plan to investors and bankers and what business plan software to use to insure your success.

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How do I assess my true office accommodation costs?

We have been asked by a number of clients to help them identify the true cost of an office or location. Here is a guide to the factors you should consider to assess total accommodation costs.

The UK Department of Trade and Industry commissioned a report into remote working in 2005 and found that a significant operational cost reduction was achieved.

In a recent report the following figures were published from a study of 13 large corporations, spanning some 30 teams (1.0)

86% of managers and 74% of staff spend time out of the office during any month.

An average office worker spends 10-20% of time away from their desk.

Taking the above we can calculate, in rough terms, the expected usage of accommodation to staff ratio. (This is only a guide and further study of any organisation will be required.)

Total cost of location In order to calculate the exact costs of providing a desk, a number of factors need to be considered. A recent report from The City University Business School calculated the average desk cost as follows;

Central London - 20K per desk per year

Other major UK cities - 13k to 8k per desk per year

The above is inclusive of all service costs to the desk and space such as corridors or larger personal enclosed office space. We can use these figure to show wastage costs per office or team.

Example:

100 staff with 10 managers

100 staff of which 74 are out of the office 10% of the time = 7.4 empty desks

10 managers of which 8 are out of the office 10% of the time = 0.8 of an empty desk.

Total yearly cost = 8.2 desks at 8k per year 65.6k

(This does not include sickness or holidays)

(Remember that unless you maximise the space left, savings will not be made in direct accommodation costs.)

Conclusion - It is recommended that a short study is commissioned to look at potential within the organisation and identify an appropriate project that will bring cost savings and increased productivity.

Did you find this article helpful? Visit (http://www.computer-assets.co.uk)\r to claim your FREE remote working white papers, articles and other\r information to help you adopt successful remote teams.

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Have you ever wished that you could:

• See the big picture?
• Be able to potentially anticipate future problems?
• Observe the impact on all decisions on your business?

Congratulations! You are not alone. As a business coach, I have discovered that many other small business owners and executives feel exactly the same way.

One of my key strategies as a business coach in assisting small business owners and executives to build their businesses faster than they ever imagined is to tell stories. Stories allow us to hear the message without defining it.

The Story Begins.

Imagine standing on a beach at sea level and seeing all the trees, the beach even the mountain in the far distant reaching high for the sky. But, you are unable to see the forest, the other smaller mountains, the island outside of your viewing, not to mention the river and local town. You are stuck at \”sea level\” where you cant see the forest for the trees.

All of a sudden you see a bridge that may possibly connect you to that distant mountain. You start to climb the bridge and slowly, very slowly, you reach the 30,000 foot summit. Suddenly, you are able to see so much more. Now, you can see:

• The forest
• The rivers
• The local town
• The roadways
• The people
• The island beyond your sight

Your ability to see has truly transformed your beliefs about where you were and where you wish to be. You feel more control in your destiny. Now you are at \”see level\”.

Running a business is very much like this story. When we are at sea level, we are working in the business where we cannot see the forest for the trees. However, when we change our filter and take the time to work on the business, we are catapulted to \”see level\” or the 30,000 foot viewpoint.

Strategic planning is the bridge that allows us to walk between sea level and see level. Without this bridge of strategic planning, we condemn ourselves to stay isolated on the beach without hope and vision. To grow each business demands that the executive team build the bridge to the 30,000 foot viewpoint to show everyone within the organization the bigger picture.

Leanne Hoagland-Smith, M.S. is a business coach and executive coach with offices in Indianapolis and near Chicago. She writes, speaks and coaches people in businesses to quickly double or triple results through the creation of an executable strategic plan along with the necessary leadership skills \”to pull it off.\”

One quick question,if you could secure one new client or breakthrough that one roadblock holding you back from success, what would that mean to you? Then, take a risk and give me, Leanne, a call at 219.759.5601 to experience incredible results.

Visit http://www.processspecialist.com/ and explore everything from free articles to connecting with Leanne.

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Obviously, there will never be an actual water shortage since two-thirds of our earths surface is water. The problem is distribution. One problem is getting water to the desert before it evaporates. And why do people plant lawns in Las Vegas? Another problem is that people and plants and animals need fresh water not salt water. Fresh water comes from rain and salt water comes from our oceans. So how do we separate out the salt from the ocean water? The method called desalinization works best. But this isnt free. It costs an average of $3.33 per unit of water. Almost double what you pay from your tap at home. As Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Riverside, etc. expand, we will get into a supply and demand situation. When the price per unit of water reaches $3.00 plus, we will then be able to afford to build adequate infrastructure to handle our water needs through desalinization. The cost of the new infrastructure can be amortized and paid for by us on a unit of water level.

It takes 743 gallons to make one unit of water. If you use 200 gallons per day washing cars, $3.33 will last approximately two and one-half days. Lets say you wash eighty cars per day. That would be two hundred cars in two and one-half days. If your average ticket price is $8.88 per car, you would have made $1,760.00. You would have spent $3.33. Your water cost is $.001875 of gross sales up from $.00105113636. Almost double. Another way to look at it is this. It used to cost $.0925 or nine cents worth of water per car and it will now cost sixteen cents per car. Yeah. Thats what we said. So what. After all, even if it costs you $1.50 per car, you could still make money. So, if you went to Vons and bought one gallon containers of water and poured them into your water tank, you would still make money.

Sewer treatment plants sell gray water. You cant drink it because of the biological contaminants in it. However, you could use it to wash cars with the right filtration system. And guess what. Its free.

In the event of a water shortage, we will start heavy Save Water campaigns since we are the most efficient car wash in the world using only 2.4 gallons of water per car. We can help the citizenry save water by washing their cars. Of course, we will make more money due to the increased volume.

The fixed site car washes will do the same. They will claim they save water and they may save a little water. That is, they may save water compared to someone who uses a garden hose with 90 PSI pressure and ten gallons per minute water flow rate. If the person washing their car fills up suds in a five gallon bucket and then sprays their car for five minutes, thats fifty-five gallons. After this individual rinses their car for five minutes and refills the soap bucket, thats another fifty-five gallons for a total of one hundred ten gallons. In this case a car wash would actually save a little water compared to the citizen washing his own car in the driveway.

A car wash with a tunnel uses approximately seventy-seven gallons of water. It then recycles nearly two-thirds of that. That two-thirds is dirty water and that water is reused over and over again for up to two days when it becomes basically 10% sludge. Big car washes have a 10,000 plus gallon holding tank for the water they reuse. That 10,000 gallons is flushed periodically, but never often enough. Its smelly and gross. If you do smell it, it makes you want to vomit! Sometimes they put bacteria in to the water to eat the sludge because the sludge costs so much to haul away. Whats in the sludge? Grease, grime and chemicals. Ok, enough car wash reality.

The other one-third of the water or twenty-five gallons is used to wash the cars. Five gallons is used to pre-rinse the car, sometimes with pressure washers. Twenty gallons is used in the rinse cycle and sometimes five gallons of that is recycled but usually not. The rest drips off the car while drying and about six gallons drips off the car after it leaves the car washing facility. If you own a black car, you can attest to that because its all water spotted from the drips before you even go one mile.

The six gallons that drips off after leaving the car wash drips from cracks in the body, the molding and the undercarriage. Thats right the undercarriage, where the grease and oil are. Now, six gallons of this undercarriage oil is now on our streets. Multiply this by the twenty billion dollars made annually by fixed location car washes. Divide this by the average national ticket price of $7.50 per car. That equals $2,666,666,666. Wow! Lots of sixes. I guess that figures from a group of self-serving water monsters. These beasts not only waste water but cause massive pollution everywhere. 2.6 billion car washes times lets say three gallons of the six gallons dripped from the bottom of the car is 7,999,999,999 gallons of polluted water full of grease and oil and probably one hundred times over the legal limit for those types of contaminates spread throughout our great country.

I dont believe this saves water, but remember perception is the rule and if its written in the newspaper, people believe it. We will keep you advised of changing perceptions in the market place as long as you keep us appraised of your local markets as they change. By doing this, we can track new trends in buying behavior and always be on the leading edge.

\”Lance Winslow\” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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In the marketplace, different firms take different strategy stances. This is but natural. As long as their situational designs and consequently their specific requirements of strategy differ from each other, they will evidently follow different strategy stances. One firm may find it appropriate to have a direct confrontation with the market leader; another may find it appropriate to keep aloof for some time from the heat of competition; the third may find it relevant to chalk out a strategy of sheer survival. It is essential to understand that there is no universally valid strategy stance. It is so because the various firms do not share the same situational design.

Companies draw relevant elements and forge unique strategies to suit their unique situational design and relative position in the industry. Broadly, these strategy stances can be classified under three heads- offensive/ confrontation strategy, defensive strategy and niche strategy.

Offensive strategy, also known as confrontation strategy, is as the name indicates a strategy of aggression/confrontation. A firm that is not presently the leader, but aspires to leadership position in the industry, usually employs an offensive strategy. The crux is that the firm adopting an offensive strategy automatically assumes the position of the challenger; the leader, mostly, is its target of attack.

A defensive strategy is usually employed by the leader who has the compulsion to defend his position against the confrontation of powerful existing competitors or strong new entrants trying to dislodge the leader from his topmost position. The leaders concern is, how best can I defend my position? The leader cannot assume that its position in the industry is safe and its job easy. It has to maintain constant vigilance and defend its position against the attack of the challengers, because in any industry challengers keep appearing.

A firm practicing the niche strategy neither confronts others nor defends itself. It cultivates a small market segment for itself with unique products/services supported by a unique marketing mix. These segments will be too small to attract big competitors. Normally, smaller firms with distinctive capabilities adopt a niche strategy.

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Writing a business plan is no easy task, sure you can whip something together in a day or so, but without proper planning you are setting yourself up to fail. Many first time entrepreneurs have a bit of trouble writing a business plan, which will be acceptable to bankers and investors. One easy place to fall down on is the understanding of the daily operations of your chosen business model.

In the operations section of the business plan you will need to address many important factors and these must coincide with your proformas and financial projections. For instance hours of operation, labor costs and over time. Also with regards to inventory, turnover and purchasing. Service businesses must also have procedures of operations.

Below I have included for you a very simple example of an operations section of a business plan, which was written for a mobile car wash business, which was part of a larger franchise organization. Feel free to print this article and then work thru each item and modify it to fit your business. Then put pen to paper on a legal pad and write additional paragraphs to your business model. Then you will have a really good understanding of what you will need complete your own operational strategic plan to insert into your award winning business plan. Think on this.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Operations

In this operations segment we will cover inventory, equipment, distribution and hours of all basic operations.

Inventory:

We are required to buy all of our supplies from Car Wash Guys International, Inc. There are no set guidelines as to how much product we must buy. We are only required to purchase enough supplies to service customer demand.

We will stock all supplies on the truck locked up in toolboxes below the truck bed. We will spend approximately $40.00-$60.00 per week per truck in supplies. Our initial supply inventory is provided with our franchise package. It consists of:

2GD2USE Rubber Conditioner (1 Gallon)

Blitz Wax (1 Can)

BST4U White Wall Magic (5 Gallons)

Car Wash Guys Bumper Magic (1 Pint)

Carpet Express (1 Pint)

Carpet Machine Cleaner (2 Gallons)

Crystal Clear Window Cleaner (1 Case)

GR-8 Wax (1 Gallon)

Hot Wheel Tires (5 Gallons)

Resource 5000 (1/2 Gallon)

Sparkle Shine Soap (1 Gallon)

Super Blitz Wax (1 Gallon)

Super Clay (1 Package)

The most important products to stock are: Crystal Clear Window Cleaner, BST4U White Wall Magic, Hot Wheel Tires and GR-8 Wax. We will order one months supply of these in advance. Other products will be ordered on Thursdays. We do a product check on Wednesdays after completing the route. We will use the franchisors on-line computer ordering system with UPS next day or following day service.

Equipment:

We are required to buy the truck and all car washing equipment through the franchisor or through a list of approved vendors.

We will check all equipment for fluid levels each week as prescribed in our operations manual. We will fix any problems with the equipment as soon as detected, provided that all customers are serviced for that day. In case of accidental breakage, we will immediately call the franchisor for a spare truck, alert the manufacturer for an appointment or on-site service visit or repair or replace the worn or defective items.

Hours:

It is our intention to run our trucks as many hours of the day and night as possible. We will use the truck to wash cars during the day. At night we might clean:

Concrete

Graffiti

Heavy Equipment

Truck Fleets

Etc.

Our standard car wash day will be from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm. Truck fleets will be done from 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm weekdays and all day on weekends. Concrete, graffiti and heavy equipment will be done the rest of the night until 6:00 am or until all work is completed.

On rainy days we will provide the following services:

Heavy Equipment

Holiday Store Front Window Paint Removal

Horse Stables

House Paint Prepping

Interior Deep Cleaning (Automobiles)

Special Detailing Discount Services

\”Lance Winslow\” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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There are dreams, there are goals, and there are MIBAGs. Whats a MIBAG? Its an acronym for Magnificent, Inspiring, Bold, and Audacious Goals. In other words, it isnt your normal everyday, dull, yawn-inducing goal.

Example lets say your company has a problem with staff members continually arriving late, leaving the company short staffed at the start of many business days. Not only is this annoying personally, but it limits productivity, customer satisfaction, and morale. The typical way to address this problem would be to talk to those who are the primary offenders and see whether that will eliminate or reduce the problem. But, using the MIBAG process you would introduce a Magnificent, Inspiring, Bold, and Audacious Goal by announcing that the company would be 100% staffed at opening every day and would work hard to eliminate the problem then talking to the offenders and putting them on notice.

Normal Goal Increase 2006 Sales 12%

MIBAG Increase 2006 Sales 50%

Normal Goal Decrease Shipping Errors

MIBAG Eliminate Shipping Errors

Normal Goal Introduce a new product

MIBAG Introduce a new LINE of products

MIBAGs shift company focus and light fires under it by committing new resources, in fact, committing the whole company to extraordinary achievement. MIBAGs are not for the faint of heart because they create quantum change and I am certainly not advocating them for every company or every business owner. But for those companies that have large ambitions and appetites for achievement, using the MIBAG process can be the spark that thrusts the enterprise into hyperspeed.

Take your current primary goal and ask:

Is this goal Magnificent?
\r Can we make it the beacon of the companys focus?
\r Is this goal Inspiring?
\r Can we get everyone inspired to achieve it?
\r Is this goal Bold?
\r Can we make it bolder?
\r Is this goal Audacious?
\r Can we get everyone to understand what we all have to do to achieve it?
\r Do we have (or can we get) the resources to achieve it?
\r Do we really want to do this?

Then, if the company commits to the MIBAG - hold on to your hats it will be quite a ride!

Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, \”Front Lines with Larry Galler\” Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com Questions??? Send an email to larry@larrygaller.com

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Without a doubt the greatest loss to humanity is a product or service that can literally improve upon communication, profit, efficiency, production, create positive change and mental well-being.

But, it comes as no surprise that millions of ideas, products, services and companies die like apples falling off a tree and left routing on the ground. A good example is the dot-com boom in 2000 that blow in like a Herculean tornado and blow out in the same fashion, leaving in its wake human devastation and billions of lost dollars.

To see the scope of why companies, ideas, products and services fail today. We need to understand that we are at the tip of experiencing two major shifts that is and will continue to revolutionize the entire business globe.

The first and perhaps the most important one to recognize is competition. There has been an explosive rate of home-based, self-employed professionals and small businesses pop-up here at home and globally. We just have to look at the many technology, Internet, and service industries that have emerged from a garage, kitchen table, hotel lobby or bedroom, to realize that this is not a trend but is locked into the fabric of our new economy.

The Second major shift is information. It enables people at the click of a mouse or touch of a bottom to retrieve, read, view and listen to within nanoseconds. Resulting in better informed and will educated consumers.

Competition and information are in reality your biggest hurdles to contend with in your business and at the same time your greatest asset. So what does all this mean? It simple means that for a person or business to remain in business or start a new venture with some certainty of success — youll have to adopt a marketing and leadership mind set to position successfully in the mind of your customers and prospects.

The goal in business today is to position your company, yourself, your product and service in the mind of your customer. Youll want them to think of you as their 1st provider of choice.

When we closely examine the failure of companies its generally not a lack of money that brings them to their demise. Its more a combination of attitude and knowledge about marketing, selling and leadership skills.

Lets scan the \”Six Stealth Weapons to Kill any Company\” and their counter parts and how you can avoid falling victim to them — giving you some guarantee and certainty for your success.

Counter Part: To achieve and maintain high levels of performance growth and motivation - Set an example of embracing change, nurturing growth, provide training, communicate openly and honestly, walk your talk, delegate, resolve conflicts immediately and lead through inspiration.

Counter Part: Satisfied customers are just as likely as unsatisfied ones to switch to the competition. You need to always know whats on your customers mind? What are their attitudes regarding your products and services?\r How can your customers be reached? What precisely influences your customer to do business with you?

Counter Part: You market first and sell second. Marketing is a strategy. Selling is a tactic. If your marketing is poor — no matter how good your tactics are — you are not going to do well

Counter Part: \”Perceived truth is more powerful that truth itself.\” Marketing is all about perception in mind of the customer. When customers perceive you to have quality, whether your product is better than your competition or not — you will be their provider of choice.

Counter Part: The old paradigm in marketing: Focus primarily on your products and services and constantly market to the masses to find customers to buy them.

The new paradigm in marketing: Market to the mind of your customer. Focus on your customer, one customer at a time, and find more products or services for that customer.

Counter Part: The kiss of death to any business is when your customer never hears from you or about you. To keep you in the upper most part of their mind and provider of choice, there are literally hundreds of ways to make a powerful impression on your customers.

To survive in today excruciating fast-paced business environment you need to differentiate yourself from ever other competitor out there. You must find upwards of 10 to 14 ways to stay in the mindset of your customer. Its imperative.

Don L. Price: Author, Sales/Marketing & Positive Change Solution Provider, International Speaker & Mental Fitness Coach http://www.donlprice.com

Invite Don to speak at your next Convention, Meeting or Retreat. Optimize your Power to Succeed with Strategic Performance Marketing/Sales and Success Coaching, for Reaching Higher Performance in Your Personal and Business Life.

– Seminars, Keynotes, Retreats, Consulting — \r http://www.donlprice.com

Subscribe FREE to Price on Success e-Newsletter\r http://tinyurl.com/5bz7w\r 101 W. Alameda Ave., Burbank, CA 91502

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If you are a successful franchise of a large franchise brand or chain, chances are you will wish to expand. The most important thing to do is make sure you are on the most positive terms with your franchisor. You should tell your franchisor at the earliest point of your plan to expand. It is important that you ask the franchisor for help when you are expanding. Growing your business is not an easy task. It requires systematic checks of your business. The kind of checks your car does electronically such as sensors telling you:

Your alternator is charging

Your battery is good

Your seat belt is on

You have gas in your tank

Oil pressure

You are not overheating

Your speed is ok

Your RPMs are appropriate for the gear you are in

As long as the little warning lights are good, everything is ok. Right. Wrong. As you know, those are important indicators. However, what about the warning buzzer that says; Your door is ajar. Your door really isnt a jar. Its a door, not a jar. This sounds funny but think about it. There are warning lights in a car but they may mean more than they say or they may be a false alarm.

For instance, when you turn on your engine all the lights are on. Most modern cars display malfunctioning lights at least once during their life. These lights are great for idiots, as a matter of fact they are often called idiot lights, but they are bad for do-it-yourself mechanics. Some cars display lights automatically at a certain number of miles. The check engine light goes on. The dealership is the only one who can reset the lights. If you are a do-it-yourselfer and have maintained the car yourself, the light still goes on and stays on. Later, when something does go wrong, the do-it-yourselfer doesnt know because the light has always been on. Whoops.

Like a car, franchisors have built safety switches into there business models. They have out all the mistakes for you before they happen. These set of idiots lights will help you, but make sure you are interpreting them correctly. An erroneous reading of a warning light will create unnecessary hardship for you as a franchisee. An example of an erroneous reading would be:

Your sales are up 50% and you just signed a huge one year contract. You should expand because you are doing 1.5 times what a normal franchise does right.

Most would say yes, business is up, new contracts coming in, you are good as gold. On the surface this may look good. But any good franchisor will tell you this is a typical sign of a cash flow issue. Sales are up, but how are receivables? One year contract is good, but are they also net 90 days? If you do not have proper cash flow funding you could wind up waiting for a check in the mail the day the bank comes in and wants to repo your entire store? This is why you need to talk with your franchisor and have a game plan, pay attention and use their expert advice? After all that is why you bought a franchise in the first place. Think about it.

\”Lance Winslow\” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/. Lance is a guest writer for Our Spokane Magazine in Spokane, Washington

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The architecture of your corporate capital formation strategy should be engineered by design and not something that is evolved to by default over time. However all too common is the enterprise that organizes itself improperly out of the gate by making the wrong choice of entity, issuing the wrong type, class and amount of stock, seeking equity investments either from the wrong sources or at the wrong time, utilizing the wrong form of debt financing and the list goes on

I conducted an informal pole not too long ago with the goal being to try and understand how entrepreneurs choose to organize their companies. The following five questions were posed to a group of bright, successful and sophisticated entrepreneurs and the answers received ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, to the very enlightened. The answers displayed below are representative of the most common responses:

1. How did you select the your entity structure? I asked my accountant which form of entity to use and he said that a Sub S would be the best choice for minimizing my tax burden.

2. How did you organize your capital structure? My attorney just told me to issue 100 shares of common stock.

3. What was your capital formation plan? I had a little cash saved up and I figured once I had been in business for a while and established some revenue Id get a bank loan.

4. What was your valuation strategy? I didnt really have a valuation strategyI thought it would take care of itself at the right time.

5. What was your exit strategy? I didnt really have an exit plan per se, I just thought Id survey my options when the time was right and see what produced the best return.

The truth is Ive seen companies make all the wrong choices in their formative stages and yet still do well. However these companies that have succeeded in spite of themselves had the luxury of having the time and the money to reengineer their business at a later date. The sad reality is that most companies dont have the time or the capital to unwind critical mistakes in their strategic financial plans.

My advice is simple Do not fall into the trap of working with a small mom and pops accountant or attorney; rather seek out the highest caliber professional advisors when developing your corporate financial plan. Time spent in the development of a sound strategic financial strategy will help your company secure capital at the best terms, rates and conditions thereby allowing your company to scale by leveraging the lowest blended cost of capital into the best valuation resulting in the highest return on equity.

Mike Myatt is the Chief Strategy Officer at N2growth. N2growth is a leading venture growth consultancy providing a unique array of professional services to high growth companies on a venture based business model. The rare combination of branding and corporate identity services, capital formation assistance, market research and business intelligence, sales and product engineering, leadership development and talent management, as well as marketing, advertising and public relations services make N2growth the industry leader in strategic growth consulting. More information about the company can be found at http://www.N2growth.com

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