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Understanding The Emotions of Private Investors: An Absolute Must Read

James Scott — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:53:28 +0000

Discovering the ‘thumbscrews’ of investors is crucial to getting them to take action. In over a decade of dealing with global investors there are several elements that I’ve discovered to be universal truths about the mind of the private investor (angel investor, accredited investor).

When talking to an investor for the first time, it’s more important to listen than to speak. It’s more important to ask questions than answer them. It’s more important to discover their needs and wants than to exclaim your own. Your first conversation with an investor should be all about piercing the armor and finding the trigger points that prompt a reaction that gets to the center of their ‘childlike’ state.

What I mean by this is, investors, just like anyone else, has insecurities that are rooted in their childhood and what they are outwardly today, is typically a polar opposite of what they are on the inside. For example, an arrogant, chest beater seems proud and obnoxious on the outside but the reality is that they are over compensating for an insecurity that is rooted in an individual or collection of childhood incidents.

Maybe they were made fun of as a child, maybe they’re father was verbally abusive, maybe their teachers would single them out in class opening them up to playground mockery. When talking to these individuals it’s important to listen to their voice and intonation when the conversation topic changes. Take notes on their psychological adjustments to the conversation. After you feel you have discovered the triggers that induce the ‘pleasurable’ responses, end the call, and set your second phone appointment with them.

On that second call, you want to have your conversation ready to go using the triggers you found in the first conversation. Play off of those insecurities that you found, become their best friend without being chummy but it is your mission on this call to be the “guy that understand me” to the investor. You want the overall tone of this conversation to have the response from your target along the theme of, “wow, this guy gets me” , “I can see investing in this company”.

By using this method and not coming across as ‘fake’, you have become an investment opportunity and a shrink all rolled into one. You want to be the one person that this investor can lower his guard to because everything he says, you seem to be the one person who understands him at his deepest level. You seem to naturally be tuned into his insecurities, emotions, needs and wants. Sound strange? Try this out on the next investor you talk to, I guaranty you will be shocked with the results.

For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

How To Find a Consultant To Take Your Company Public

James Scott — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 08:40:14 +0000

So many companies dream of going public to raise massive amounts of capital, as set up for an exit strategy, to make acquisitions with stock and for many other reasons. While your intentions may be pure and with genuine motives, you’re entering shark infested waters of boiler rooms, crooked attorneys and underbelly consultants who have made careers off of taking well intentioned executives just like you for a 24 month rollercoaster ride while they take every penny you have as your company shrivels up like week old road kill.

Just and honest consultants in the ‘public offering’ industry are as rare as the illusive white elephant. This industry exists in a cesspool surrounded by rose gardens; from afar it looks amazing and an image of a dreamland but get up and close and the sludge and odor are enough to make you run and hide. So what do you look for in a consultant? The best consulting firms are the ’boutique firms’ with minimal overhead that keep a low profile and are made up of 3 or 4 ‘partner’ consultants.

These firms typically have the experience of working with the large consulting groups but for one reason or another have decided to leave and go out on their own. The great thing is, these small groups typically have massive contacts and process your entire public offering in-house. Offering a complete turn-key solution that is managed in-house offers a huge advantage because there is accountability and you can actually build a relationship with the people that are making your dream of a public offering come true.

These ’boutique’ consultants will usually stay onboard as growth consultants for the life of the company in exchange for modest fees and a pre-IPO or pre-OTCBB equity position. The large firms will hack you out at the knees and gouge you with fees while they take massive amounts of equity in your company which takes away your bartering chip when you need to offer more stock to the public to raise capital.

The small firms will also work one on one with you to show you how to use your stock to grow through acquisition and other nifty ways to use stock to grow. Seek out the boutique consulting firm and save the attorney for spot audits. Hold on to your cash. Why pay outrageous fees to lawyers when you can pay 60% less with a small consulting firm that will add all the bells and whistles for free and actually get your stock trading, usually in half the time?

Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Private Placement Memorandum (PPM): An Art of War Approach To Raising Capital

James Scott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:48:15 +0000

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 fund-raising. 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.

Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Taking Your Company Public Or Raising Capital? Strategy Is Crucial

James Scott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:43:30 +0000

Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Private Placement Memorandums and OTCBB: How Are You Raising Capital?

James Scott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:41:41 +0000

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!

Take Your Company Public: How To Find a Consultant That Can Make The Process Fast and Easy

James Scott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:53:07 +0000

So many companies dream of going public to raise massive amounts of capital, as set up for an exit strategy, to make acquisitions with stock and for many other reasons. While your intentions may be pure and with genuine motives, you’re entering shark infested waters of boiler rooms, crooked attorneys and underbelly consultants who have made careers off of taking well intentioned executives just like you for a 24 month roller-coaster ride while they take every penny you have as your company shrivels up like week old road kill.

These ’boutique’ consultants will usually stay on board as growth consultants for the life of the company in exchange for modest fees and a pre-IPO or pre-OTCBB equity position. The large firms will hack you out at the knees and gouge you with fees while they take massive amounts of equity in your company which takes away your bartering chip when you need to offer more stock to the public to raise capital.

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Company Going Public? Your First Call Should Be to A Corporate Publicist!

James Scott — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:08:43 +0000

With all the free article submission sites and social book marketing sites, there is no shortage of self proclaimed Publicity Marketing gurus out there. Sadly most of these companies are fly by nights seeking quick profits without the true experience and ability to actually perform the task they were hired for.

Most of the publicity marketing firms are simply affiliates and resellers for various vendors as well as back link and submission builder sites. The problem is, with a service that is 100% outsourced the company you’re hiring doesn’t have a real understanding of how to put a solid, long-term plan together that will reap fast and ongoing results that will raise name awareness, increase website traffic and brand you as an industry expert.

Before you contact with a publicity marketing firm, prequalify them by asking the following questions: First, What genres of online publicity marketing do they cover? Here is the information you need.

For a solid campaign that has both short and long-term affects they must cover online video submission to multiple video hosting sites using targeted long tail key phrases, press releases to a minimum of 20 sites that specifically brand you as an industry expert to gain legitimacy, keyword targeted links on social and news book marketing sites that provide good content to the online community an create a legion of back links to your site and photo marketing which is an ultra powerful yet highly ignored form of marketing by the inexperienced online publicity marketing fraternity.

These are the bare minimum characteristics of a solid branding and publicity marketing campaign that will yield both direct response results as well as long term publicity and branding results that will launch your company light years ahead of any other website or brick and mortar company in your industry niche.

Want to find out more about Real Publicity Marketing That Packs a Punch, then visit Princeton Corporate Solutions’ site on how to choose the best Publicist and more

How To Take Your Company Public (And How Not To)

James Scott — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:35:58 +0000

So, your company is ready for that next step and you’ve decided to take the dive into the world of public offerings and global fund raising. You imagine investors waiting with bated breath for your company to announce it’s share price and release shares for purchase. You’re imagining swarms of broker dealers clambering and falling all over themselves to promote your stock to their massive investor database while you sit back and fill your company’s coffers with millions in capital that will launch your corporation into the realm of superstardom and hemorrhaging expansion. You start to search the internet and come across ad after ad that promotes the idea that you could save $100,000′s if you buy a public shell and reverse merge your company with it, saving you time and money, resulting in achieving a public structure in only a few weeks. Buyer beware!

Reverse mergers into public shell companies is a process that rarely works and if, by some act of God, it is successful you still have countless issues to deal with that could crush your ability to succeed in an instant. Companies that sell shell companies and facilitate public offerings via reverse merger often have many fleas attached to the structure such as the fact that they retain 10% to 25%+ of the company’s shares that they can pump and dump anytime, resulting in a black eye to investors who see your stock plummet, resulting in almost certain bankruptcy and company failure.

Another prominent issue with this type of transaction is that usually the shell company has a complicated history of litigation and liens that you absorb when you merge and if this is the case you’ll spend all your time in ongoing legal battles as your company bankroll is spent on righting the wrongs of the previous owners. We could go on for days about the downside of reverse mergers into public shells but the moral of this story is, ‘do your homework’.

If you are trying to take your startup or small business public, take the extra steps (you’ll actually save money) and look into OTCBB, a legitimate, quick and long lasting way to take your company public without the drawbacks and definite complications of reverse mergers. You can take your company public via OTCBB for less than $100k and there are usually several ways to finance this process so you have minimal out of pocket expense.

Going public is easy when you team up with the right consultants that will help you bypass the dead ends and concepts that will take up your time and cripple your resources.

Want to find out more about Taking Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 Go Public easily, quickly and affordably.