Investors are waiting for the next great business idea

Investors Are Waiting For the Next Great Business Idea

What they may not realize is there are many people in the business world waiting for people just like them. They are looking for people with both passion and a solidified plan, who are without funds to make their dream a reality. People who are already successful will often provide startup capital or venture capital to someone to help them begin their dream of owning and operating their small business.

Venture capital, or VC, is money provided by a person or business to another person or business to help them start their business. It is typically provided to businesses that are in the early stages of growth and have a high potential for growth. The providers of venture capital will often exchange their money for shares in the company. Although they may believe greatly in the company or business, most venture capital investments are not made for entirely altruistic reasons.

The person providing the money, the venture capitalist, expects to have a substantial return on their investment. The person or company that goes looking for VC is often a young company without an established history. They are far too small to raise the money they are looking for through IPO’s, stock issuance, or other standard ways larger companies raise cash. Neither are they able to secure a loan from a bank.

Venture capitalists are constantly approached by people with new business ideas. However they will typically reject the large majority of opportunities that are shown to them. Most simply do not have the combination of rare qualities and potential for growth. A good business model and an excellent management team are also important requirements.

Venture capitalists do not make a living by throwing money at every person who approaches them. They evaluate every opportunity critically and those that do not match their unique criteria will be rejected. Several key things need to be in place before a venture capitalist will invest in a business. A solid business strategy is one of the first keys to securing VC.

Without it, most people will be rejected before their first meeting. Succession planning is also quite important to a venture capitalist. Pumping money into a business without a backup person who knows how to run the company is a bad idea at best. Finally, a group who has a mentor on their team will greatly increase their chances at securing VC.

Although a new company may have a great idea, their lack of experience can be the single greatest inhibiting factor in their pursuit of VC. Finding a mentor with established and successful business experience who will help guide them will greatly increase their chances of securing VC. It will practically ensure the future success of their business. Mentors are also valuable for helping to determine a real value for the business so that one doesn’t ask for too much, or worse, too little when the time comes.

Venture capital comes from a variety of sources. They make their living by providing both capital as well as marketing, small business consultants, and in some cases, mentors. Family and friends are a tried and true source of venture capital. Turning to them can be a last resort because things can get messy, especially if the business fails.

The oft-searched for but not often found angel investor, or someone who can provide the seed money is an option too. They will determine whether a new idea is viable or not, however finding such an investor can be next to impossible. While nothing can ever be certain, making sure a budding small business has a solid business plan is a very basic requirement. A good marketing plan, potential for growth, and realistic expectations are good steps in the path to securing venture capital.

Improving business performance by creating high performance teams

Improving Business Performance by Creating High Performance Teams

As a manager, executive or business owner your top priority today is exceeding company goals. You can’t do it yourself, so the best way to exceed your goals is to have what we call «High Performance Teams» working for you.

Your goals may include growing your business, increasing revenue, improving business efficiency, doing more with less, creating competitive advantage, improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs or leveraging intellectual assets.

Your team, which may include (sales, marketing, finance, strategy, HR, IT, operations, shop floor, etc.) represents a very powerful mechanism for getting significant results in organizations today.

High performance teams are a special class of team that has the ability to easily adapt in a rapidly changing environment and is an essential element for highly successful organizations.

The first step in building a high performance team is understanding the essential team ingredients that create a recipe for success.

Building high performance teams is a top priority for many executives. The benefits and value produced by these teams are very clear and being viewed as essential tools in their business strategy.

High performance teams produce many benefits.

1. Increased sales revenue
2. Increased productivity
3. Improved customer service
4. Ability to do more with less
5. Increased innovation
6. Ability to quickly adapt to change
7. Ability to solve difficult, critical problems

Sales Team Essentials — The Ingredients

So where do you begin? Like a great chef making the perfect soufflé, you must follow a recipe that will deliver the best possible outcome. This recipe includes the ingredients, preparation and the process for making the perfect soufflé. If you forget an ingredient, add too much, eliminate preparation steps, or change the process you will not end up with the results you are expecting. For business executives, this translates into ineffective teams that cannot meet critical business goals.

Let’s look at the ingredients necessary for building a high performance team.

1. Trust

Trust in your team, their trust in you and the trust between the team members is the core ingredient that holds everything together. You develop trust by setting guidelines for team behavior and decision making, where the people have certain freedoms to make decisions, take risks and speak their minds. They will also have certain obligations to always speak the truth, work with other teams, be accountable for decisions and actions and to learn from the their mistakes.

Business executives who have rules and policies for everything create an environment of bureaucracy and stifle team performance. The environment is orderly and structured, but leaves little room for team members to use their own judgment, take ownership or be motivated to complete tasks quickly. On the other hand, executives who have no guidelines for the team run the risk of leading a team in chaos. Neither of these work.

Implementing guidelines where people are trusted, promotes an environment where team members will give their best, produce more and with improved quality.

2. Vision

High performance teams share and support a «Vision» of what the team will accomplish. Team members are highly focused on meeting their goals and objectives. Business executives work with the team to develop a vision that brings real meaning to the work that is being performed. The vision defines the future state and is clear, defined and concrete. The team needs a winning, inspirational vision that will motivate them to go above and beyond when the effort is required.

3. Optimism

The next key ingredient is «Optimism». High performance team members have dreams of achievement. These dreams are fueled by the executives optimism. It is true that team members will flourish when they have hope and they will give up when they don’t. High performing team members thrive on accomplishment and recognition they get when working through difficult problems and persevering. This perseverance requires optimism.

The responsibility of a business executive in an optimistic environment is to be realistic and optimistic at the same time. Realism is important because it acknowledges the facts of the situation no matter how unpleasant they are. An optimistic environment dictates that given the facts of the situation, the team will continue to work toward their goals. When teams lose optimism, it is the responsibility of the executive to coach the team to get them back on track. Together the team acknowledges the situation and begins to generate ideas for solving the current problem.

4. Enjoyment

A business executive must make the environment enjoyable to work in. Team members perform at their peak when they enjoy what they do and with whom they do it with. Enjoyment doesn’t mean you play cards all day long. Real enjoyment comes when the executive and team are deeply involved in working a critical problem and they persevere together as a complete unit.

The executive sets the tone for the team. Setting the tone for an enjoyable work environment is accomplished by showing that you enjoy your job, that you like the people you work with and that you appreciate their hard work. Thank team members for working through the weekend. Let them take a long lunch if they worked 12 hours the previous day. Praise them for new ideas. Never blame team members for mistakes, laugh and learn from their mistakes. Keep the team focused on winning instead of failing.

5. Empowerment

High performance teams are self directed. When empowered to accomplish a goal, these teams take ownership of their responsibilities and are committed to succeed. Business executives leading high performance teams work to focus the team on «what» needs to be achieved. The «What» is defined as the vision, goals, objectives and milestones for the team. The «How» work is to be accomplished must remain the sole responsibility of the team. When executives start telling their teams how the work is to be done, the team becomes de-motivated and performance drops dramatically.

6. Opportunity

The final ingredient for a high performance team is developing an environment where team members can grow. Team members need to learn new skills and be permitted to develop and implement new ideas to work at their peak. Creating an environment where team members can experience different roles, cross train, work with diverse teams and learn new specialties will develop team members who are more self assured, who listen, and are more open to new ideas. This strategy of continuous learning will keep the team energized and motivated to perform at the highest levels.

A Final Word

As a business manager or executive, you have the power to influence the people and performance of your teams. If you truly believe in creating an environment where Trust, Vision, Optimism, Enjoyment, Empowerment and Opportunity are encouraged, then you will build a solid, sustainable and high performing team.

© Copyrighted by Dennis Sommer — CEO, Executive Business Advisers. All rights reserved.

Dennis Sommer provides the guidance you need to take your business to the next level. His specialty is improving business performance. Delivering quick, dramatic results has made Dennis a highly sought after business consultant, CEO and executive adviser.

Dennis works with a wide range of clients from small growth start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, helping them find new strategies for stimulating sales revenue growth, attracting new customers, increasing profits and reducing costs without sacrificing service.

Dennis is also highly sought after keynote, seminar speaker and author. His latest bestselling book is «Adviser Secrets — How to Become a Top Performer».

Currently, Dennis is the founder and CEO of Executive Business Advisers, a business and management consulting firm.

Company: http://www.executivebusinessadvisers.com/
Author: http://www.dennissommer.com/

Contact Dennis Sommer at 800-627-6512.

It’s too early to be pompous

It’s Too Early To Be Pompous

Copyright (c) 2009 Lucille Uttermohlen

I was on the phone this morning. This fact in itself isn’t especially interesting. It was the hour of the phone call that interrupted my morning coffee, and it was more than annoying.

The call was from a judge in conference with opposing counsel. It seems that my opposition objected to my filing a brief in what he considered to be an untimely manner. I would have to agree with him. I was late, but as the judge pointed out, there was no statute of limitations, and I wasn’t alone in my tardiness. Other attorneys have filed things late, and unless someone’s rights are prejudiced, its no big deal.

I won’t try to justify my actions. I had the darn thing done in plenty of time, but my secretary was looking at the court order which said «within 30 days,» and she assumed it meant from the date the order was entered, rather than the date the hearing was held. Although my final argument was brilliant, I’m still puzzled as to why opposing counsel didn’t want the judge to read it. After all, final arguments are only one attorney’s take on the case and have no evidentiary value on their own.

My point in telling this story is more general. I will never understand why people take themselves so seriously. This particular man is more self-righteous than the Pope, and his approach to his cases seems to be that he is personally justified in taking his position. It isn’t a function of whether his case is meritorious, it is more that because he took the case, it must be.

This attitude is far too common in this profession. It seems that some of my colleagues forget what they are supposed to be doing and focus solely on the fact that they are the ones doing it. They trade explaining and pursuing their client’s interests for grandstanding and posturing. The consequence is that the other side digs in its heels and fights back. Negotiation then becomes a distant dream.

There are cases that can’t be settled. If the clients feel that diametrical opposed outcomes are necessary, the judge simply has to decide between them. Many times, the decisions are close calls at best. In fact, more than one judge has told me that if the parties don’t reach an agreement, there’s a good chance that the judge will make a ruling that neither of them like.

It is a simple proposition. If you want the other side to understand your point, you treat it with courtesy and respect. You don’t have to agree. You just have to resist the urge to tell them how stupid you think they and their ideas are. Actually, if you can stay calm and try to be objective, you will do better for your client than you will if you act like the other side is wrong just by virtue of the fact that they are the other side. You are always better off negotiating settlement if you can. Sometimes you can’t, and you have to take your chances with the judge. When you do that, you want to make sure the judge knows what you think the evidence showed, and why you think your interpretation is the right one. Finally, and this is most important, you don’t want to harass me before I’ve had my morning coffee.

Information on multiple streams of extra income

Information on Multiple Streams of Extra Income

A steady monthly extra income is a dream for many internet marketing professionals. The main reason behind this is their ignorance of sustaining regular streams of extra income and their total focus on singular product or program promotion, which may or may not yield income as per their needs and targets.

Let’s analyze the basic strategies and secrets of earning a steady extra income month after month.

1. It is very important to have multiple streams of extra income — following our age old idiom and coming from experience «Don’t put all your eggs in one basket». This applies to all spheres of life, even to online businesses.

2. Extra income from more than one source will put you in the secure bracket. If one stream fails in a particular month, the others will cushion the fall. Imagine not getting your paycheck for one month on a regular job, the plight needless to say would be unimaginable.

3. All online businesses are capable of having multiple sources of income. For example, if you have a commercial website that sells products you promote. You can earn by the regular promoting and sales of products, at the same time you can also earn by selling advertising space on your site. You can use the same site to promote affiliate programs; this would add another stream of income and so on. Working 2 o 3 jobs at a time might be strenuous and illegal in some countries, but in case of online businesses it is absolutely possible to work more than a few jobs at a time to have multiple streams of extra income. This is not really difficult if you put your mind into it, although you may have a little more time online. You are actually milking the same amount of resources and costs to get more out of it.

4. Multiple streams of extra income is a requirement to get a consistent result (dollar wise) month after month. Having multiple streams of extra income will only increase your income and will never hurt the bottom lines.

This does not mean that you have to overburden yourself creating these multiple lines of extra income. Take it at your own pace, one after another. Work on one stream; streamline it for say 2 or 3 months, move on to the next, when the first has settled at a particular level.

Being secure is the most important objective of creating multiple streams of extra income. Over stressing or fretting over them will yield below average results and ultimately do not work out because you will be prone to making more mistakes.

Be careful in choosing your multiple streams of extra income. I t is always advisable to have them interrelated to each other, all of them culminating at your core competence to achieve better and fruitful results.

John beck real estate program gives the opportunity to get wildest dream come true

John Beck Real Estate program gives the opportunity to get wildest dream come true

John Beck real estate program is the first step in achieving your dreams as you invest in houses having high demand with cost benefit returns and which can be sold giving mark profit margins and return on investment. The investment into john beck real estate turns pennies into hundred of dollars, the investment is low and the receivable multiplies with it. This pure and real investment enchanter its worth as the demand is maintained with time.

The main benefit of the John Beck real estate  is it help you enter in the financial world, which allow you to make easy money, you can earn a lot with little spending. The houses are purchased but they can be further sold, mortgage or can be given on rent. These systems are working on tax sale foreclosure arena.

The John Beck real estate is using marketing product promotion and advertisement strategies to give the best possible picture of the real estate in the eyes of the consumers and the ongoing benefits chain is marked through the promotion activities to make the idea of investment into john beck real estate publicly known. The idea is marketed on the presentation and DVD with books used to educate people on how to purchase these real estate property-giving list on how to sell the respective property with it.

John Beck uses the coaching and consulting programs to educate people on the available real estate opportunities under the status symbol of clear and fair system .The promotion strategies of real estate business by John Beck consider the program as clear and fair as the business, The clear states deal as the promise bringing justice to the investment which will bring the profit on small amount and the available options are as clear as crystal and fair as the input truly doubles the outcome.

The issue is difficulty in building trust factor in real estate business and John Beck experience helps him getting the goodwill factor of audience as he had been investing in this field since thirty years and with it he had found ups and down and he knows the dark and light sides of the investing segment in the real estate.

Individual can purchase real estate under the name of John Beck as the experience gives the matured thinking about the future of the market and the upcoming trends and profits with respect to the economical condition.

The true focus oriented person is one who think for the achievement in future and taking right decision is important to get best possible results in future .the money if spend on right direction gives the result more effectively, likewise spending on John Beck real estate program will not only get you financial freedom but will help you follow the rack to success and it will give comfort to you and your family more then your desire, implication and thinking. So if right way to success has to be followed so investing in real estate is going to be the right decision.