There are many ways to use capital without using bank loans, lines of credit and other shady methods like shelf corps and bogus platform scams. If you are truly trying to raise capital for your company here are some simple breakdowns of your options with a quick definition for each one:

 PIPE: Private Investment In Public Equity this is used primarily by mutual funds and private investment firms where they buy discount stock in order to raise capital, there are two types of PIPEs traditional where common and preferred stock is issued at a set cap to raise money for the issuer and a structured pipe issues convertible debt.

 DPO: Direct Public Offering is when you sell equity shares directly to customers, suppliers and employees.

 PPM: Private Placement Memorandum is also known as an offering memorandum takes advantage of Regulation D rule exemptions 504, 505 and 506. This process came into existence with the’33 securities act and popularized in the late’80s, companies can raise money from the public via private placement; there is virtually zero interaction with the SEC after you file form d as long as you stay legal. (most popular form of fund raising).

 IPO: Initial Public Offering: extremely expensive, need SOX 404 audits, must have board of directors, quarterly financial reports to shareholders, report heavily to the SEC and 1 out of every 1000 companies that want an IPO actually qualify. I love participating in these but most companies just can’t qualify for one reason or the other.

 OTCBB: Over the Counter Bulletin Board is an electronic quote system that is the next best thing if you can’t go public via ipo, there is minimal red tape to startups and small businesses and is legitimized by the stringent ongoing reports to the SEC which keeps investor confidence high (these are extremely solid and I suggest this structure to companies when I am hired by their company or legal team as a consultant as a fast, easy way to raise big capital from the public otc)

 Pink Sheet: you can look at pink sheets as the Burger King, while the OTCBB is McDonalds, they are competing otc mechanisms. Pinks sheets are commonly referred to as penny stock and notorious for ‘pump em’ and dump em’ controversies and a lot of crooked people are involved with this platform. This is not a long term process that will allow one’s company to grow, pink sheets companies are typically short lived but it is cheap to set up but not a professional structure that could be upgraded in time to an IPO.

 Reverse Merger: a group funds the filing and creation of a public shell, they then sell that shell to a company that wants to go public, the established company merges it’s entity into the public shell. The sellers retain around 30% equity after they charge an upfront fee of 300k to 1m. 99% of reverse mergers are successful with the merger, but unsuccessful to bring them to trade and the entity basically just fizzles out.

Taking your company public is actually quite simple and inexpensive when you have the right consultant putting the structure together for you. There are countless ways to raise capital quickly and easily. It’s important that you understand your options before you waste time entering into the red tape infested banking system for a loan.

Going public, the ultimate in the evolution of companies who are seeking access to powerful global finance options for rapid expansion, deepening corporate roots and gaining industry prominence as a true powerhouse and player. The process of going public is technical yet pretty straight forward: business plan, Private Placement Memorandum, Direct Public Offering, Financial Audit, S-1 filing, SEC comments phase, SEC approval, FINRA approval, symbol and then you’re public.

Never price shop for consultants that take companies public and be weary of consultants that will start off a conversation by answering questions geared toward price and giving you quotes without understanding your business first; without the proper information a realistic quote can’t be given anyway.

When you’ve found a consultant that you’re comfortable with you’ll need to get a solid understanding of their full range of services. Of course you’ll want a consulting firm that will handle all of the above for your company but you’ll also need to consider the post IPO services. What happens after you’re public? The reality is, selling off stock in a rapid fashion to raise capital is the last thing you want to do, instead you need to approach your consultant and market maker on how to cross collateralize your securities to raise equity loan capital.

This can be done easily and quickly if you’ve brought on the right group of advisers to expand your company to the global public. When considering the idea of taking your company public it’s important to note that there are many ways to raise capital after you are public without selling off chunks of your company (consult your financial advisers for more information).

Next, when deciding on a consultant they should also have solid investor relationships to assist your company in raising the capital necessary to go public. A true turn-key consultant will have a database of investors seasoned in the process of pre-IPO finance and will often times jump at the chance of investing in the PPM and DPO phase at a discount for companies that are in the process of going public as this almost guarantees that the investor will double or triple their initial investment when the company achieves public status.

Out of the hundreds of consulting firms that offer the ‘take your company public’ service, there are only a dozen or so that actually offer the complete full range of services needed to successfully accomplish public status in a way that maintains investor confidence and corporate longevity. Do your research and find a firm that is well seasoned in the turbulent waters of this industry.

How To Find All The Angel Investors And Venture Capital Financing You’ll Ever Need! The once definitive line that would separate hard money and private/angel financing has merged into a hybrid of sorts in the past few years. As the economy has taken a dive and structured private lending firms have felt the crunch we are finding many of these lending solutions closing its doors and re-opening as privately owned and managed funding options with an interest in both lending and seed investment.

Approval decisions that were once made by a group are not being made by an individual or duo with an eye toward optimal capitalization with both short term and long term agendas. As investors are, now more than ever, trying to get as much bang out of their buck, entrepreneurs are in the precarious position of accepting funding from virtually any and every enterprise that is making an offering. That said, it is more important now than ever to swing open your mind to the possibilities of mass exposure of your opportunity to the investment world.

The best way to do this is to simply put your business in constant and automated ‘introduction’ mode so that you can be found by the moneymen. The best way to do this is to heavily investigate the venture capital industry for executives who have created offshoot programs that have deviated their process from the traditional path of simply approving or declining a transaction.

There are many VC professionals who want to capitalize off of the projects that their firm cannot accept due to underwriting criteria and industrial genre specialization so they are starting these small but well managed financial source databases where members can place their transaction directly in front of thousands upon thousands of angel investors, private investors, hard money lenders, venture capital firms, private equity firms and other alternative finance solutions.

These websites are now the hottest thing in the capital markets and will continue to grow because of the high success rate of individual executives and entrepreneurs who are able to find multiple streams of financing options with the click of a button.

If your company is about to start taking steps for a public offering you will most likely want to bring in employees that will help season your business plan and private placement memorandum for your initial rounds of capital. The human resources section of your PPM is crucial and on your business plan your ‘key executives’ portion is critical.

You must be able to justify, many times over, the reason for the existence of this executive in your business. Let’s start with pedigree: This employee must have a traceable track record of success working with similar corporations at the same stage your company is in now, they must be able to prove that they played a key role in their previous employers growth. Next their education; if we lived in a perfect world, college education wouldn’t matter but in the mind of the investor, a university level education is a period of maturing and intellectually achieving the capacity to translate ideas into empirical strategies.

Your employees must have a 4 year degree if they are acting as anything other than administrative support. Community colleges and associates degrees don’t count and it’s better not to include these individuals as key players in your business model as it could bring into question your qualifications to run the company. The employee must also have a portfolio of ongoing education certifications and/or certificates of program completion. A university education is one thing but continuous professional growth is another element that is crucial to demonstrating an individual’s desire to stay on top of growing trends and contribute to their employers overall strategy.

Now, for the most important part; your executive must have a strong portfolio of industry specific contacts that will contribute to setting up and maintaining strategic alliances and partnerships on behalf of your company.

At corporate meetings, after you go over the plan for the day or the week you need to be able to assign each of your executives goals for setting up quality and qualified partnerships that enhance distribution, intellectual capital, publicity exposure etc. Without a powerful contact base one goes from being a excellent executive with VP level horizons to a general employee that needs to be micromanaged by a management team member.

Look at each executive in your company as a light bulb on a Christmas tree. When you roll out your small or medium size business to raise capital you want your tree blazing with blinding lights making you stand out in your industry.

If you are trying to raise capital with a PPM or public entity like OTCBB you need to understand the mind of the investor. After the business plan sells the investor on the business concept you need to sell them on you and your executive staff. You need to stack your executive positions with professionals with a proven track record of success and possess a solid reputation in the industry. You must paint the picture for investors that your business is run by the who’s who in your industry and this pedigree is demonstrated by your education, degree, grades in college, professional organizations of which you have been and are currently a member, advisory board positions with other corporate organizations, a track record of setting up and maintaining strategic alliances, networking contacts and more.

When an investor looks at your human resource list on your PPM, business plan or public offering docs it needs to scream power, authority and confidence. Each individual that you place on your advisory board must have a massive contribution other than ‘advice’. Advisors should be able to prove their ability to assist in crucial decisions, connect your company with strategic partners and help you get to the next level.

Your legal counsel and CPA should be well known organizations with a long list of successful, well known organizations on their client roster and they should have a lot more to offer your company than just their fee based services. Again, these organizations should be able to set you up with partnerships that will help grow your business. As far as corporate awareness you must include a publicist. The publicist that you choose must be well versed in their comprehension of your industry genre.

They must be able to take your company and get you in front of the proper audience that is conducive to enhancing your growth potential. They must be able to demonstrate their knowledge of viral online marketing as well as traditional means of radio, TV and article promotion. They should be able to reach into their contact list and set you up with one interview after another targeting your specific audience.

These are just a few things to take into consideration when you jump on the fund raising trail. Every individual you have listed on your docs must be able to pass due diligence and have the appeal that reaches into the ‘comfort’ zone portion of the investor’s mind.

Are you trying to raise capital for your start-up or corporation in expansion? Have you exhausted your traditional institutional sources and hedge fund contacts? Don’t lose hope just yet! First of all, take all those pamphlets and brochures from banks and other traditional lenders that are lying all over your desk and toss them in the trash…they are absolutely useless.

Banks don’t have your company’s best interest in mind as they are hardly even staying afloat in this economy. Today’s institutional financier isn’t qualified to run a bath let alone a bank. Don’t put your future in the untested hands of a 20 something knucklehead. After you’ve tossed all that useless info in the trash, clear your head and then look at your company and ask yourself a few tough questions: Is your company invest-able? Do you and your executive staff have a pedigree that investors deem as seasoned enough to take their money and make affective use of it and not lose it? What proprietary concepts/technology/patents do you have that give you a larger market share with the proper cash infusion? What is your current capital/debt situation?

If, after pondering these questions you’ve come to the conclusion you honestly, truly have something worth pursuing then the next step is to look at the reality that your company is worthy of a public offering. Stay away from Pink Sheets and be weary of reverse mergers and in reality your company won’t qualify for the NASDAQ so the quickest way to raise public capital is the OTCBB (over the counter bulletin boards).

OTCBB is an SEC regulated platform that has a solid investor following and market makers that can effectively promote your stock to rapidly raise capital. Don’t let these difficult economic times steal your dreams of corporate prosperity and personal growth.

If you have a solid business concept, there is a way to fund it. Look into the OTCBB, it’s your best bet for an inexpensive public offering with a direct path to long term funding.

If you’re seeking the services of a consultant you’re most likely in need of corporate structuring or a strategic company turnaround for a capital raise or to go public. Hiring the right consultant is crucial if you are going to succeed with your venture.

Your consultant should, obviously, have the knowhow and track record for succeeding in fine tuning companies to cater to what industry investors are seeking but they must also possess the contact base to streamline the process so that you don’t lose time to gain that stealthy edge over your competitors who are attempting to do the same thing.

Your consultant should maintain an active database that acts as his ’special forces’ munitions arsenal of 10,000’s of real, viable contacts in scores of industries so that he can assist you in even the most mundane, minute aspects of your strategy with solid corporate alliances and contacts that will make your venture stand out like a beacon of light in your industry that beams its florescent light in the windows of potential clients, partners, contractors and anyone else that can assist your company in achieving its desired ambitions. Your consultant will structure and categorize parts of your company that you didn’t even know existed yet are crucial to its development.

The reality is that you should have a separate group of strategic partners for every individual product and ever individual service that your company offers. For example, when I consult with companies that have, say, 10 products, my goal would be five to seven strategic partners per product for a range of fifty to seventy strategic partners that my client will work with for co-op advertising and marketing efforts, branding strategies and sales initiatives. Most companies don’t even consider this aspect to their business but it is absolutely vital.

When you find a consultant or corporate strategist that you are ready to hire, after you have thoroughly evaluated them, have an in-depth conversation about their ideas for strategic partners and how they intend on facilitating this process to help you achieve your goals.

There could be a range of reasons why you have found yourself facing foreclosure. You fell behind on your payments after a job loss or major illness within the family. Regardless, you now have the worry of foreclosure and you are now trying to avoid that from happening. Although you’ll not see any means of doing that, the actual fact that you are reading this is enough proof that you are willing to think about different options. You are attempting to find assistance that will provide valid, different solutions for you to consider.

First, you have to be hones with yourself. You already understand the economy has sunk and might sink even lower. The jobless rate is climbing fast and if you’re one of those without a job, you most likely have realized that finding that replacement job won’t be therefore easy. Thus you need to ask yourself how that is going to affect your ability to create your mortgage payment.

Before you receive a notice of default from your lender, you need to see if you are close to the point where you cannot pay your mortgage at all. Once you have received a notice of default, the foreclosure process has already begun.

You would like to understand what sort of loan you’ve got and also who is your lender. Whether or not you went through a local place to apply for your loan, the loan was in all probability financed elsewhere. Contact your lender once you know you are in trouble, and document that call by writing down the person’s name you spoke with together with the day, date, time and phone number and additionally, the person’s position or title.

It is attainable to weigh down the process of foreclosure even after being sent the notice of default. There are completely different programs such as loan modification that may help you stop foreclosure. There is no guarantee that the amount of your loan payment will be reduced, however it’s worth looking into if you want to save your home.

If possible, move in with family or friends for a short time while you rent your house out permitting you to use the deposit paid to atone for your back payments and the monthly rent to make your payments whereas you restructure your finances and get back on your feet. This can be definitely a major adjustment, but it might help you avoid the credit injury caused by foreclosure.

If you’ve got set that moving from your home would be devastating, but you still don’t want a foreclosure on your records, you must think about selling to a real estate investor. Selling to a real estate investor is quicker than selling on the conventional real estate market with a realtor. Working with real estate investors is quicker and can be hassle-free. You won’t have to create repairs to your home, you won’t have to pay fees and the real estate investor can handle all the paper work. You may get a fair money provide and will then move on to get your life and finances back in order and relish living again. However, most significantly, you may have the ability to purchase another property in your price range.

Your company is growing. Now you are ready to start raising serious capital and you here the public fund raising markets. Here are the basics of your S-1 filing. Know the lingo before you hire a consultant. Because companies must adhere strictly to SEC regulations, initial prospectuses are similar in their organization. Each S-1 generally consists of the following sections:

Front Section — An S-1 contains a small amount of information not available in a prospectus. In this first section, you can quickly find the issuing company’s phone number and get a vague sense of the future offering price.

Cover/Inside Cover — The prospectus cover outlines the general terms of the offering, including names of the underwriters, number of shares offered, and pricing information. The actual share price is absent from a prospectus until the day of the offering.

Prospectus Summary — Here you will find a brief synopsis of the company’s business and history, a modest discussion of the change in capitalization to occur as a result of the offering, and a useful summary of financial information covering the last five years, if available. If you are screening prospectuses for investment ideas, start here.

Risk Factors — After you have read a few prospectuses, you will become familiar with the “usual suspects” in this section, including “Possible Volatility of Stock,” “Limited History of operations,” “Dilution,” and “Dependence on Key Personnel.” Nevertheless, this section is a worthwhile read to be sure that you understand the challenges facing the company’s management. The discussion of competition can be sobering, but it can also provide a means to compare the value of the issuer against the financial performance and market valuation of its competitors.

Taking your company public should be an exciting and revitalizing time. Don’t take unnecessary risks, hire a consulting firm who can streamline this process and deliver the results you’ll need for success!

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.