Build a Rock Solid Business

DRP*: The Most Important Thing You Aren’t Doing

I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m writing this while on vacation, so this will be short. But this message is so important that I had to share it. You see, my office flooded last week. A hot-water heater burst and rain fell from the ceiling for hours. By the time we got the [...]

Pricing Strategy: How to Beat Amazon and Build a Sales Channel

If you make a product, selling it on Amazon.com is a double edged sword. Sure, Amazon offers amazing exposure and great sales volume … but their relentless discounting takes sales away from other (higher margin) re-sellers. Worse, Amazon can steal sales from your own website. Too many business owners are stuck with a no-win decision: take Amazon’s volume [...]

When You Swim With Sharks, Take Your Calculator

You ought to have your calculator handy when you watch ABC’s Shark Tank, the TV show where wealthy angel investors make on-the-spot investments into small businesses. Last night a middle-aged company owner was offered 3 deals in rapid succession. For me, this was a simple math problem: Which offer gave the owner the best valuation [...]

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ACH: How to Avoid Credit Card Merchant Fees Forever

You earn your money. But if you get paid by credit card, you can’t keep it until you pay 3% to VISA and MasterCard. Do the math – you’re paying credit card merchant fees of about 20 cents for each dollar of profit you keep. Crazy, right? You have better uses for that much money. [...]

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Bridge Loans: How Angels Can Get You Cash When VC Can’t

Whether your business is growing rapidly or just getting started, you need cash. But negotiating equity investments can take a long time – time you don’t have. You need cash NOW… meanwhile, venture capitalists (VC) and other investors will spend months negotiating deal terms. And just when you think the terms are finally set, there’s [...]

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Negotiating with Angels: When to Rescue a Funding Deal – and When to Walk Away

You’ve been carefully nurturing an equity investor and now he’s threatening to walk away from the deal. Despite an endless number of presentations, term sheets, meetings with partners and expensive legal documents, it looks like the negotiation is going to unravel. And that could unravel your business too. What’s an entrepreneur to do? You might [...]

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How to Segment Your Customers for Higher Profits

Like it or not, customers are not all created equal. Are they all equally profitable? No. Can your business afford to service every customer? No. Shouldn’t you treat them all the same? No. No. No. If you don’t know one customer from the next, wake up and smell the segmentation. In almost every business, just [...]

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Making Sure Your Business Can Bounce Back: the Best Ways to Prepare for the Unexpected

The business environment is constantly changing. Even the most carefully conceived business plan cannot claim to be bullet proof in a dynamic setting in which there are too many unknown and unpredictable elements. The success and longevity of a business in any industry will depend on its agility to deal with change and unexpected events. [...]

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Cash, Credit or Phone: Get More Customers by Dialing Into Mobile Payments

Got Mobile? Two giant retail chains recently rolled out a mobile payment strategy and you can too. If you have any contact with consumers, you must. Why? Mobile helps you sell to more customers and — more important — know more about your customers. The pay-with-phone champion is… Starbucks. Did you know that all 6,600 Starbucks stores [...]

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Top 5 Pet Peeves of Venture Capitalists

Venture Capitalists can be a tough group to please. Because they hear hundreds of pitches every year, VC learn to sort the best from the B.S. I had a chance to discuss this topic with Mr. Ed Goodman, General Partner and Co-Founder of Milestone Venture Partners in New York City. During his VC career, Ed [...]

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3 Surprising Reasons to Sell Your Business Now

If you’ve been dreaming of the day you can sell your business and retire to that hammock in Waikiki, now might be the time to take the plunge. Yep, despite the slow recovery, 2012 is shaping up to be a great year to cash out and embark on a different kind of journey, one of leisure! [...]

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3.5 Places Where Angel Investors Hide

You’ve probably heard stories of Angel Investors swooping in to help fund a company. In today’s tight financial environment, it almost sounds like an urban myth. But wealthy individuals who invest in private companies do exist. And they are more plentiful than you might imagine. You might already know several. Now, I wouldn’t count on [...]

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2 Websites Every Business Planner Must Know

Whether you’re a launching a new product or a new startup, business planning and funding takes a huge amount of time. Now you can cut weeks – or maybe even months – off of the business planning and fundraising process of your new business idea. Before you do anything else, get to know these 2 [...]

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How to Clip the Wings of an Angel Investor

I almost don’t want to say it… “Do what you love, and the money will follow.” You’ve heard it a thousand times, but it has a whole new meaning if you are looking to raise money from angel investors. Angel investors — high net-worth individuals who make personal bets on small companies — like to [...]

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Don’t Grow Like Groupon: Why Growth is Bad for Your Business

In today’s hyper-fast business world, we watch startups like Groupon go from zero to billions seemingly overnight. It’s tempting to measure yourself by these examples and to feel wholly inadequate. Personally, I have to wonder: Why aren’t my businesses growing as fast as these new-age juggernauts? What am I doing wrong? Is hyper-growth the new “normal”? The truth is, Groupon-style [...]

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