Should You Start A Company

If you’re online with any part of your business, then you’re faced with constantly writing copy.  This includes sales letters, web pages, blogs, auto responder messages, e-mails, etc.

Many of my clients are start up company CEOs and entrepreneurs who have no background whatsoever in sales and marketing.  Many of my clients are startup entrepreneurs who have little or no cash to pay for copywriting talent (or any thing else.)

I’m certainly no expert on copywriting – and I’m currently working on learning more myself on how to improve my own copy.  However, a friend of mine, Trevor ‘Toe Cracker’ Crook, IS an expert.  He’s also offering 10 hours of downloadable audio MP3s of his “Copywriting Blueprint Formula” for free.

I know that you see a lot of this kind of stuff on the Internet – but I’ve listened to the audios and there is a huge amount of content with virtually none of the usual upsell.

Trevor’s concept on giving away his content for free is “Pay it forward.”  Just like in the novel and the movie by the same name, the idea is to give up front with no expectation of receiving in return.  Trevor’s goal is to “pay it forward” by giving this audio course to one million entrepreneurs.

I’m not an affiliate of Trevor.  I don’t get paid anything for this recommendation. He doesn’t even know that I’m posting this information on my blog or sending it to my list.  However, I strongly recommend you take advantage of this free download, listen to the audios and start applying what you discover to improve your own copy.

This is just my way of reciprocating by helping Trevor - with me “paying it forward” to help him reach his one million Entrepreneur goal.

Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
http://Virtual-Exec.com
http://DeviledDetails.com

You probably know you need a business plan – and I can help you with that if you need one – but do you also have an Action Plan for Implementation?

• Do you even know ALL the dots that go into “connecting the dots” for your new business?
• Do you know the W Cubed – W To The Third Power – for each action item and milestone required for your new company?  WHO?  Is going to do WHAT?  WHEN?
• Do you know all the major and semi-major milestones and “Deviled Details” to REALLY get from Point A, where you are now – To Point B, where you want to be?
• Have you taken into account the REAL costs that go with each of those “Deviled Details?”

My Action Planning Service is focused on helping you comprehensively answer ALL of those questions – so you REALLY know what is required for the success of your new company – including all the dots and all the deviled details.

The goal of the Action Plan is to collect, in one place, ALL the action items that will be required to realistically implement your vision for your company over the next 12 months.

With the optional Financial Business Model AND the Detailed Action Plan for the next 12 months showing all major and semi-major milestones, you will have a very comprehensive road map for your new company. You will also know what resources it will take, money-wise and people-wise, to get you from Point A to Point B.

We will go through up to three iterations as we brainstorm and revise items, priorities, dates and budgets.  As we fine tune your Action List, we will focus on available assets and personnel and the right timing for bringing more folks into the company or outsourcing some of the tasks.

We start with 10 hours of my one-on-one consulting and mentoring.  For most clients, this is all the time that is needed to generate an accurate and meaningful Action Plan for their business. The cost:  only $2,750.  Additional hours are available at my standard rate.  The incremental cost for the optional Financial Business Model is only $500.

To date, I’ve already helped the founders and CEOs of over 2,000 diverse companies in over three dozen countries with their business planning, fundraising and plan implementation – to realistically define & implement the right action plan for their business.

Isn’t this the kind of expertise you need for your company?

Isn’t it time you have a real game plan to get you to YOUR Point B?

Robert Lee Goodman, MBA
Ceo & Chief ImpleMENTOR
www.Virtual-Exec.com

This one mistake is so critical that it jeopardizes the immediate survivability of your start up company – even before you get started.

What is the second biggest mistake?

Many cost-sensitive entrepreneurs depend on number crunchers, bean counters and newly minted MBAs for their projections – just to save a few dollars.

New start up CEOs doom their new company by pinching pennies in the wrong place. Instead, what they need are pivotal insights from experienced consultants who can provide the guidance the entrepreneur needs for producing a realistic, genuinely implementable business plan.

Your business plan is not some academic document – instead, it is your crucial road map to successful implementation of your vision for your new company.

The most important part of any business plan is the detailed financial projections that are the basis for the entire business model of every new start up company. There are four sets of underlying assumptions that drive all the projections: (more…)

Do you still want to start that new company or home based business?

I’m pleased to tell you about my own new company – Start Up Company University – which is a division of Ceo Resource LLC. The first product offered by Start Up Company University might make all the difference to your own company’s future.

Funding Foreplay is a four module audio training course that teaches start up company CEOs like you – how to properly prepare and present the dozen documents you must have to successfully romance and seduce angel investors and VC to invest in your company.

I’ve condensed and distilled down the techniques that have taken me three decades to acquire and fine tune with my own real companies and my own real deals. Funding Foreplay includes over five hours of audio – and over 390 pages of real life, highly confidential, documents you can use as guides for your own dozen documents.

The introductory price of Funding Foreplay will double after the sale of the first 500 courses. You can learn to speak the language of investor love and grab Funding Foreplay at half the price…if you hurry. (more…)

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Fundraising: Can I Use Investor Money To Pay Me Back?”

Question:

Love the blog! Finally someone answering real life startup company questions! I want to raise $1.8 million for my computer business to take it to the next level. Can I use $250,000 of the $1.8 million to pay me back the money that I have already invested in getting my company started?

Thanks again!

Walt

Answer:

This is one of the most frequent questions I get from clients: Can I get back all of my money that I have invested so far in starting my company from the new investment dollars I get from angel investors or venture capital?

The short answer is almost never. (more…)

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Fundraising: Can I Spend The Investor Money As I Get It?”

Question:

Thanks for your comments about accredited angel investors. It was very helpful. We just finished your business plan and are starting to pitch our deal to angel investors and venture capital. Since we are already spending money on buying stuff for the company, can we start spending the investor money as we get it?

Steve

Answer:

The first thing you need to buy is a big sword – so you can fight off all the dragons that are getting ready to hatch! Firstly, you didn’t say – but I hope you have a Reg D PPM for a LOT of reasons. Please see FundRaisingDocuments.com

One of the things that should be covered in your Reg D PPM is how you handle (more…)

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Sales: How Do You Forecast Revenues For A Start Up Company?”

Question:

I am working on a quickie Excel spreadsheet I developed for a business plan for my internet startup company and am clueless how to even start getting a handle on my guessing my revenues for the first year, let alone the second and third years of my new company. I obviously need to hire you for a lot of what I’m doing since I am also clueless about a lot of things and how to implement them – and it looks like you really have already done it all! But I want to at least have a guess on revenues before I take the next step and start spending money. Help!

Dennis

Answer:

I haven’t done it “all”…but in three decades, I have done a LOT when it comes to start up companies! Working with 2,000 start up companies can do that for you!

In answer to your question, projecting future sales for ANY company can be challenging – but it can be especially difficult for a start up company with no history for guidance.

Without spending time, effort and money with validated market research, it will be hard knowing the real size of both your addressed market and your target market. For most small, start-up companies, their target market is substantially larger than the amount that will be actually captured in the first few years. That having been said, you are still faced with the challenge most start up companies have: predicting a realistic sales forecast.

Your sales forecast numbers are probably one of the most important assumptions you make in developing a business model for your new company. Your sales numbers will have an interrelationship on many of the other numbers in your plan: start up costs, personnel needs, advertising and marketing, support costs, how much space you lease, etc.

An excellent way to forecast sales is to (more…)

As I get questions from readers from my Ask The Chief Dragon Slayer Campaign, I will take some of the questions that I think might have a broad audience and post them here on the blog.

This one is filed under “Dragons – Personnel: How do you fire the indispensable person in your organization?”

Question:

We just moved and I have decided that even if you built an office across the street and moved in slowly, it is devastation to the routine. My staff all get their feathers ruffled despite the fact that their gain is significant in the work place. It just chaps me to no end to deal with WHINERS! Even though I am a woman CEO, I have to admit that I loathe women employees as a rule anyway – but whining women disturb me to my very core.

For the record, I employ 7 men to every woman – not by design but just the way it worked out. The women that I have (for the most part) think like men, behave like men and love men. However, I have one NAZI fem , the HR director, who is causing problems for the whole organization with her attitude and approach. Even though she is indispensable to my company, she is my biggest mistake. How do I rid myself of her since no one else knows what she knows in so many very critical areas?

Susan

Answer:

I remember all those hassles….during the 15 plus years I had my real estate companies and had hundreds of folks working for me, we moved the corporate offices (me, and about 50 other execs and corporate support people) about three or four times….into bigger and bigger…and nicer spaces….once into an elegant, brand new Class A, high rise next to the Galleria in Dallas with over 10,000 sq ft.

I got so tired of all the whining about space….who had the nicer office, who had more space for their division or subsidiary, who had nicer furniture, computers, view, ad nauseam…just like dealing with eight year old children….and those were my first reports – presidents and senior level VPs….not to mention the rank and file….all of which is just one of many reasons that I decided 14 years ago, it would just be me – and superstar contract labor!

With regard to Der Führer, my intuition is that you will fire her. That will be the probable bottom line. How much more time and energy (more…)

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If you are starting a company, are you REALLY ready to get started? Are you REALLY ready to develop a fully defined business plan? Are you REALLY ready to pull the trigger and start spending money, hiring people and REALLY invest your time, energy and emotion in your vision for the next several years of YOUR life?

Worried that you don’t have the diverse background to understand ALL the various critical components of forming, starting, funding and operating your new company? Concerned that you will be embarrassed by not knowing the answers to the questions that venture capitalists, angel investors and bankers may ask you when you pitch your deal?

Take a look at the 114 below questions that I cover with my Start Up Company Workshop clients. If you already know the answers to all or even most of these, then (more…)