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Keys
To Private Placement Venture Investing
[Business:Venture-Capital] Private Placement
venture investing can kick start your retirement fund
like no other tool on the planet. Private Placement venture
investing can trap your money for 3-10 years before you
get out those returns of 5, 10, 40, or 200 times your
original investment. Or, over that same 3-10 years, just
as has happened to certain mutual funds, you can watch
its value go to zero with no way to get out. The best
way to make the really big money in venture investing
is portfolio investing, just like the venture and investment
banks do. Pick one and it is gambling, invest in 10 or
30 and you have a portfolio strategy that can net 30%
to 300% or more per year, year after year after year. |
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A
Start-up Starting Place Process For the Beginning Entrepreneur
[Business:Entrepreneurialism] Taking
an idea to a viable business is the heart and soul of
an entrepreneur, but the path is full of failure points
and blind alleys. Some 90% or more fail in the first three
years. A major help is to follow a proven process with
experienced advice that can lead to success in the best
possible manner. There are many books on start-ups and
much discussion, but what most people need is a good starting
place. While this is a list, the exact sequence is not
as important as covering all the points in this initial
process. |
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Board
of Directors - Key Duties of Care, Loyalty and Fairness
[Business:Management] The acts and decisions
of the board of directors for all types of corporations
must be performed in good faith and for the corporation's,
the shareholders, benefit, and not for the officers or
employees. This requires diligence on the part of all
directors to understand the issues and ensure that decisions
improve shareholder value. Some of these responsibilities
include Duty of Care, Duty of Loyalty and Duty of Fairness. |
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Board
of Directors - Getting Added Value
[Business:Change-Management]
Corporate Board of Directors can add significant value
to companies, especially for start-ups and hyper growth
companies. The expertise and contacts that Directors can
bring add significantly to the financial and intellectual
power available to a growing company. In fact many experts
recommend that board members should be chosen both for
the skills and business experience they bring. |
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Board
of Directors - How Many Days a Year?
[Business:Management] Boards of Director
Duties include the quarterly meetings and often the annual
shareholders meeting in public companies. Directors in
companies under $50 million in annual sales often can
extend this to as many as 30 or 60 days of effort a year.
Often the board meeting agenda is dictated by Sarbanes-Oxley
compliance issues, even if the company is currently private.
Director effort can even be consumed in answering inquires
for interested or unhappy shareholders. |
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Managing
in Tough Times - Those Without a Vision Get Flipped
[Business:Management] The ability to
paint a coherent future when there is little direct evidence
is one of the attributes of good leadership. Often leadership
is so focused on the day to day challenges that they miss
the bigger picture and other opportunities. Add the pressures
of an economic downturn and thoughts can run inward and
not look outward for new solutions. By keeping your mind
nimble and open to new ideas your ability to envision
possibilities and exploit opportunities increases. Those
with no vision will lose the opportunities to those who
do. |
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Managing
in Tough Times - Keep Your Eye on the Future
[Business:Management] When tough economic
times hit, and they will, the problems can be sluggishness
or a major leak in your profits. In either case the leaks
have to be stopped and repairs made. Those with a vision
for the future will make the repairs for a better outcome.
Open honest communication to your employees will go a
long way to having them help you get your business back
on course. |
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Managing
In Tough Times - Communication Is Key
[Business:Management] Change is guaranteed,
yet even if you plan for it, economic stress seems to
often slip in and catch us unawares. A key tool is to
communicate, communicate and communicate. Communicate
with your employees; they often see if coming before management
does. |
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Innovation
Keys - Effective R&D Partnering
[Business:Management]
Joints efforts to co-develop products and services
can be a way to leverage limited resources for increasing
profitability for the collaboration partners. Key is to
have confidence, risk tolerance and appropriate legal
structures in place to make the partnership work. Then
assign teams from both companies to work on the project.
The focus should be on tasks to be accomplished, along
with costs. As with all projects, continued executive
management visibility and support for innovation can help
drive these efforts to produce significant results. |
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Innovation
in Small Steps
[Business:Management]
Innovation is defined as the introduction of
something new, a new idea, method, or device. The word
new has several different meanings: a thing that never
existed before or an old thing refurbished and made as
if it were brand new, or new to you but old somewhere
else. Innovation is the source of competitive advantage
in increased market share and profits. But innovation
also means more risk that includes potential failures.
Without risk there no growth. Innovation is like a muscle,
it grows with exercise. Start with small managed steps
in your personal life and then extend them to your business
life. |
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Successful
Sales Strategies - Hunters and Farmers
[Business:Sales-Management] Sales Hunters
look for prospects that are fully qualified and ready
to buy. Sales Farmers may start even before a buyer had
a need and will develop a relationship so that when the
prospects are ready to buy, these sales can be harvested.
Smart sales managers use hunter strategies for buyers
who have a need and are well educated on their offerings,
and to use farmer strategies to develop prospects for
later sales. This is obviously more important for major
or complex sales than for small sales. |
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Successful
Sales Strategies - Reaping and Sowing
[Business:Sales-Management] Many sales
people are frustrated when they expect limited sales efforts
to produce more sales. Few buyers are ready to make a
decision in one or two contacts, especially if the offering
is of major importance to them. Integrated marketing and
sales strategies can produce immediate and long term results
in sales. The key is to recognize that most major sales
prospects, even when they have a qualifying need will
not make a final buying decision on large sales until
there have been enough contacts. These contacts provide
education and build confidence in a particular solution
to that need. |
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Funding
Growth With Accounts Receivable Factoring
[Business:Accounting] Factoring accounts
receivable can be a powerful way to fund growth, especially
when bank loans and other sources are not readily available.
With factoring, instead of waiting until the customer
pays, the supplier can get immediate cash for invoices
to fund new work and free up cash flow. |
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Factoring
Receivables - The Real Cost
[Business:Accounting]
A factoring discount rate of 5% is not an annual
equivalent interest rate of 60% but 5%. When this is understood
businesses can have a powerful tool to fund growth with
accounts receivables. See how to calculate the factoring
effective annual interest rate. |
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Making
a Business Out of Why Boys Do Not Like to Read Or What
Happened to Gender-Specific Education?
[Book-Reviews:Childrens-Books] John
Hechinger's article in The Wall Street Journal, "Problem:
Boys Don't Like to Read. Solution: Books That Are Really
Gross," really raised a powerful business opportunity.
The article describes the growth of toilet paper-wrapped,
potty-humor and dehumanization to entice boys to read
as a major marketing trust for young male books. The
implication is that this is what it takes to get modern
American boys to read. And part of the problem is that
the only other alternative the public education seems
to support is "girly" books that bore boys
to tears.
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