hi guys it’s Evan Carmichael welcome to
a special presentation now just over an
hour ago I was sitting in the offices of
Intuit and we were all getting ready to
have this awesome webinar on sharpening
your financial skills and then WebEx
died on us and people can see the screen
but they couldn’t hear the audio so I
ended up writing this message hi guys
everything iweapons is having major
problems I’m gonna go back to my office
and record this for you right now and
we’ll send the presentation I’ll answer
any questions afterwards so sorry we’ll
send by email stay tuned so I drove back
I’m at my office and I’m ready to record
so hopefully you get some good
information here and – thank you for all
your patience we had over 700 people
sign up for this webinar and I was
really excited to talk to you guys
because part of the the best part of my
job really that you know best part of my
business is being able to talk to you
guys and help answer your questions so I
was really excited and looking forward
to it and we did have over seven people
signed up I’m gonna include a couple of
free bonuses that weren’t initially
supposed to be included but I’m going to
put them in because of all the great
reaction that you guys have and your
patience and understanding so really
appreciate it and without further ado
let’s get started so this was something
that we wanted to put together as a
partnership between myself into it and
staples
just to give some more information
entrepreneurs and help them understand
that the numbers side better their
business it’s something that you know
entrepreneurs run away from we don’t
like talking about the numbers we’d
rather go out and make sales and run our
business but it is really important so
this is that was a part of the
presentation and we’re gonna have
another webinar later that I’ll tell you
about later on and stay tuned at the end
for all the free bonuses that we’re
going to talk about so just moving on so
quickly a little bit about me for those
of you who don’t know me I’m Evan
Carmichael I have entrepreneurs when I
was 19 I built and sold the biotech
software company 22 I became a venture
capitalist and was raising 1/2 million
to 15 million for companies and my goal
is to help a billion entrepreneurs so a
big goal I love helping entrepreneurs is
what I do a couple of miscellaneous
facts about me they you can read at your
leisure if you want but that’s a little
bit about me and I want to talk
about into it so into it is a partner
company that I’ve worked with for a
little bit
they have accounting software to help
entrepreneurs so the financial backbone
for a lot of businesses accounting
payroll tax basically that their idea
behind their company is to help save you
time and let you focus on what you do
best
you know I think accounting is one of
the things that entrepreneurs hate the
most we don’t want to do our books we
don’t you know and understand our
numbers we just want to go and run our
business and so instead of using Excel
or a shoebox or whatever you’re using
having a financial software to help you
run your business makes such a big
difference right now I spend about 20
minutes every quarter doing my
accounting net because of accounting
software and it’s so much easier and the
story is really cool and into it is an
awesome company started by a guy named
Scott could Scott cook and he started
the business because he was watching his
wife pay her bills at the kitchen table
and saw how time-consuming it was and
thought well I got to make some software
to help her do this better and I think
that’s a something a lot of
entrepreneurs can relate to you know you
saw it you see a need and you solve it
and so he’s a great entrepreneur it’s an
entrepreneurial company here are some of
the products that they have
so QuickBooks QuickBooks Online payroll
go payment turbo tax business a lot more
on the website but they help partner
with me for this webinar so wanted to
give them a quick shout out the three
things that I wanted to talk about in
this webinar understanding your balance
sheet so what is a balance sheet how can
you make business decisions from it how
you can quickly boost your cash flow for
short-term and long-term success and
then also how you can raise capital
now usually questions I like their
answer them as they come up this is now
I guess not a webinar more of a seminar
so there’s no questions you know
obviously during the presentation but I
do want to be able to take your
questions afterwards and I’m gonna do a
video mashup with all the answers so if
you have questions let me know and I’d
be happy to answer them for you so the
three things we’re going to talk about a
little bit of background information
let’s start and then the three things
your balance sheet boosting your cash
flow raising capital and at the end I’m
going to give you a model to evaluate
your business so if you’re looking at
raising capital and thinking about how
much is my business worth I’m gonna give
you the model that I use when I was in
the
Capital world and also a free worksheet
on how you can raise your first $50,000
for your business so some quick
background information into it’s awesome
because they put out a lot of studies
and reports and they’re really trying to
learn more about the entrepreneur market
and so they had two really cool reports
one was called the five thousand dollar
question and the other is bridging the
gap and basically just trying to figure
out what are the problems of
entrepreneurs and how can they help
solve them so the first one was I found
that 50% of entrepreneurs started with
less than 5,000 ducts so so we’re not
starting with a lot of money we’re
starting with a little bit of money
bootstrapping our way up and eventually
building successful companies half of
entrence take financial risk and that’s
getting you know line of credit we drain
out our savings we maxed out our credit
cards we pull out our rsps as much as we
can to you know take take our business
forward the number one regret and that a
lot of entrepreneurs have is they didn’t
spend more time learning and financial
management and if you look at why
businesses fail you’ll see that most
entrepreneurs don’t make it you know
it’s one of the sad truths you know we
we have great intentions we want to help
people but a lot of entrepreneurs just
don’t make it and a big reason is
because we don’t understand the number
side of our business and you know you
can be profitable and still go out of
business because you know you’re your
negative cash flow and you just run out
of money we struggle with financial
management you know 83% have a basic or
lower grasp of our fundamentals we know
that financial wrench is important we
want more help from resources and the
top food requests were spending time
with an accountant networking with other
entrepreneurs and on tutorials and we
get help when that we need by using
financial ninja software an accountant
those who do that are five times more
likely to feel confident about managing
our finances so the people who are
reaching out and who are learning about
the financial management side of their
business are having more success and
that was part of the reason behind
creating these webinars series was to
help educate you guys so that you
understand your numbers better you can
make better decisions and it increases
the chances of you being successful so
these are just some of the findings that
came out of those two reports you can
check it out off into its blog but a lot
more probably coming they do a lot of
great work with their research and so
let’s get started on the
patient to help you understand your
numbers better so the first one is your
balance sheet and I think a lot of
entrepreneurs you know if you use an
accountant or if you have a bookkeeper
you get your balance sheet at the end of
the year and you look it over and say
okay you know great but you don’t really
understand what it means or how to make
decisions from it right how do you know
if you’re okay or not how do you make a
important growth decision from your
balance sheet so I want to quickly touch
on what is a balance sheet and how you
can make decisions from it so the first
part of a balance sheet is your assets
and the assets are basically everything
that your company owns and it’s divided
into current assets and fixed assets and
what I did here is take a screen shot of
QuickBooks Online accounts so if you’re
using QuickBooks you’ll be able to find
this in your settings you can go to
assets and you can see what you have
under here the current assets are
basically assets that can be are either
cash or can be converted into cash
within one year a very short period of
time so it’s almost like cash so in this
case you’ve got various bank accounts
and that’s set up as their current
assets they have some accounts
receivables as well so hopefully those
are gonna get paid off pretty soon and
then the fixed assets are assets that
cannot be converted into cash very
easily so example here we’ve got truck
so that’s the main thing is a fixed
asset for this business so you know when
people are talking about current assets
or fixed assets that’s basically the
main difference current assets are cash
or cash equivalent something you can
easily turn into cash and fixed assets
are things that are you know buildings
land equipment trucks that kind of stuff
that is harder to sell harder to trade
for cash next is your liabilities so the
other side of the balance sheet is going
to be liabilities and here are gangs
divided the current and long-term so
your current liabilities are things that
you owe within the next year so again
things that are in a short term you have
to pay back it could be debts that you
have credit card statements that you
have things they have to pay back
quickly where long-term liabilities are
things that are old beyond one year so
if you have a loan
paid out over five years or ten years or
however many years you have it those
gonna be your long-term liabilities and
again I just quickly pulled up a
QuickBooks Online balance sheet here for
the company and you can quickly see what
kind of liabilities they have current
liabilities are here so it’s accounts
payable credit cards you know others
small loans sales tax payable and then
your long term liabilities they’ve got
one big loan for $25,000 that’s
long-term liabilities the last piece of
the puzzle here is your equity so it’s
called the balance sheet because it
needs the balance so your assets what
your company owns has to equal the
liabilities plus the equity so the
liabilities again or what your company
owes other people and the equity is what
you have left in the business so that’s
basically what you as the owner oh so
you have your assets which is how much
you know you own in the how many
long-term and current assets that you
have things that have value in the
business the liabilities are things that
you have to pay to other people and then
the equity what’s left is what you own
as you enter into business so everything
at the end of the day has to add up and
if you look at this example here we have
our assets in our total assets so it’s
gonna be here $26,000 684 is what the
assets are the liabilities total 30,000
so he’s got in this company not in a
great situation because got more
liabilities and assets and so his equity
is gonna be negative so he owns a
negative amount in this business which
is not a great situation to be in so
that’s the basics that’s what it means
that’s what assets and liabilities and
equity mean and it always has to equal
at the bottom if it doesn’t equal then
something went wrong and you got to do
it again or talk to cotton because it’s
always got to equal up that’s great a
lot of people will know this if you
don’t know it already hopefully that
helped but the big thing is now what
okay I get that but so my accountant
gives us to me at the end of the year
what does that mean how do I make
decisions from it and so there’s three
main things that I want to talk about of
how you can make important business
decisions from your balance sheet the
first one is look at your current assets
– current liabilities and I pulled in
our balance sheet here again from
QuickBooks and I’ve just highlighted
them with a red arrow current assets and
current liabilities again the current
assets are things like our cash or it
can be converted in the cash really
quickly and current liabilities are
things that you owe to other people
within a 1-year period so again very
quickly and what this does is tell you
the short term viability of your
business basically can you survive the
next year or not and if you look at this
one they have more current assets and
current liabilities so all the money
that they owe other people they can pay
back within that year so in the short
term this company is pretty healthy and
it’s a good idea just to run that quick
little ratio on your business to see how
are you gonna do in a short term because
if you have a lot of debts coming up and
not enough cash to be able to pay it
you’re gonna run into a problem the
second one I want to talk about is fixed
assets to long-term liabilities so again
I’m just pulling off our balance sheet
and what the arrows I’ve marked it off
and our fixed assets here are $13,000
and our long-term liabilities are
$25,000 this is a problem so the fixed
assets to long-term liabilities ratio
here will tell you the long-term
liability a long-term sustainability of
your business can you survive in the
long run and basically what it’s showing
here is I have more money that I have to
pay out that I have actually in my
business in my fixed assets so this is
gonna be a challenge for me I need to
find a way to make more money to my
business in my first year my next year
I’m gonna be okay because in my first
ratio the current assets the current
liabilities we have enough money to pay
our short-term debts but our long-term
debts are big so we got to find a way
within the next year to solve this
problem or we’re gonna be facing a major
cash crunch and it’s good to know this
in advance because you know otherwise
you may not plan for it and be stuck in
a year where now our complaint for it
and try to make sure I have the cash if
you will to support these debts that
I’ve taken on the last book thing I want
to talk about here we’re looking at the
balance sheet is about raising capital
and anytime you go to raise capital if
you’re looking at getting any kind of
debt from a bank or a lender or if
you’re trying to raise equity from an
investor
they’re gonna want to see your balance
sheet and so you better have it ready
and you better be able to explain every
item on that balance sheet when I was in
a venture capital business we could ask
about any line item on here and we’d
expect the entrepreneur be able to
answer it and know exactly what each
item was and if they didn’t it would
really reduce their chance of be able to
get the money from us
so you have to explain every single item
on your balance sheet before you go talk
to investor but one of the main things
are gonna look at is your equity they
want to see that you have a lot invested
in this business and that that there’s
there’s something here that you know if
you’ve put money in and you have a lot
into it then you know there’s some skin
in the game and they’re more likely to
invest as well here it looks like you
have negative equity which isn’t which
is not good it means your liabilities is
more than your assets you own more than
you own this is not a good business to
put money into so it’s gonna be really
hard for this company here to go out and
raise capital because they have negative
equity so something to think about is
you know thinking about how you can
raise your equity so that the next time
you are going out looking for capital
it’s gonna be easier to get a yes so
that’s about looking at the balance
sheet the next thing I want to talk
about is boosting your cash flow and a
big reason why entrepreneurs fales have
run out of money you know you may have a
great plan you have great ideas your
customers love you but you just run out
of money too soon you need to find ways
to keep it going and get that cash flow
coming in again you can be a profitable
company but still go out of business
because your cash flow sucks it means
basically that you’re you’re getting
you’re taking too long to get paid and
you’re paying out too quickly so with
cash flow we’re trying to figure out
ways to pay out other people less
quickly and also find ways to make more
money more quickly so I’m gonna look at
15 quick ways that you can boost your
cash flow that will help you both in the
short term and also the long term so the
first two one is hammer sale so if
you’re in a really big cash barn you
need money right away to pay off some
kind of debt have a sale you don’t want
in something where you’re gonna you know
lose money on it make it unprofitable
but if you have some kind of sale it’s a
great way to be able to quickly
in some money people who are already
customers know you like you you know can
potentially buy more from you and maybe
also tell their friends about you they
see a sale they’re gonna come into your
your website or your store hopefully buy
whatever is on sale and hopefully buy
some other stuff as well
number two is cross sale upsell and this
is great because anytime you have any
kind of customer base those are the
easiest guys to go back to and sell to
them again
you know people who’ve already bought
from you hopefully you’ve given them a
good experience and they know you they
like you they trust you they want to buy
from you again and that’s a great way to
be able to reach out to them and say hey
we’ve got either a new product or
service or try to sell them again and
what they’ve already purchased depending
on what you what you’re what you’re
selling but a great way to be able to
boost your cash flow in the short term
is to go out and talk to your existing
customers who’ve bought from you from
the past and also try to convince them
to buy from you again I love this
picture that I saw on the internet and I
wanted to find a way to incorporate it I
thought this was the best slide to put
it on this is a complaint jar at a store
and if you want to write a complaint you
have to write it on a bill that’s a
dollar or larger so another great way to
boost your cash flow is have a complaint
jar where they have to put in bills now
hopefully you’re not getting complaints
you’re only getting compliments and
people want to give you more money and
buy more products and services from you
okay number three and this is a big one
look at your accounts receivable so I
just pulled up again QuickBooks Online
and was able to pull up a collections
report and what this will basically show
you is who owes you money and are they
overdue or not so this is a list of
everybody who owes this company money
and how much money so they have almost
nine thousand dollars that’s owed to
them and it shows you the past due and
this is the important thing to look at
here this is number of days past due so
you know this person Alden
he owes me twenty two bucks and it’s
been 60 days past so that’s a long time
not a lot of money but a long time 68
days 38 days 126 days like these are
people you have to follow up on this one
customer here owes you know
half half of the money that is owed
total 4500 bucks and look how long it’s
taking them to pay one hundred and
twenty six days they seldom paid and
fifty days haven’t paid so you have to
get on your customers I mean you’re
ideally you want good customers who are
paying on time and who are buying Lots
from you but the ones who aren’t paying
on time you got to get after them and
make sure that you’re making the phone
calls and reaching out to them until
they do eventually pay their bills
that’s a it’s a great way to be able to
boost your cash flow short term because
that’s money that’s already owed to you
you’ve already made those sales now you
got to go out and collect next number
four give incentives to pay early and
this is something you can do depending
on what your margins are you know how
profitable you are with each sale that
you make but you can give them a
discount if they pay earlier or or in
advance and again if you work with
bigger companies they’ll typically
stretch you out
you know you’ll be 60 days 90 days 120
days before you get paid and a lot of
times you’re at their mercy that’s their
policy and if you want to work with them
that’s how it’s going to be but you may
really give incentives and especially
the smaller clients that you work with
if they pay in advance or if they pay
upfront that they pay right away they
get a certain percentage off the bill
and sometimes that’s gonna be good for
them and sometimes it’s not going to
work for them but you give them the
option and the benefit to you is you get
your money up front so something to
think about
the next thing number five is one that
is really important that a lot of
entrepreneurs make the mistake on make
sure you invoice on time you know a lot
of entrepreneur so busy figuring out how
to go and make sales and take care of
the customers and do all the crazy
things that we need to do to run our
business I know it’s hard you’re you’re
wearing every hot in the company and
even if you have a team it’s still a you
know 24 hour a day business almost and
one thing that you often forget to do is
invoice you know we heat invoicing
that’s not that’s not the fun part of
the job we’re not really servicing our
clients needs there and and you’re
getting a high from send out an invoice
but you got an invoice on time you know
as soon as you’re able to you want to
make sure you invoice because if they
have a 30 day or 60 day policy of pain
that doesn’t start until you invoice you
if you complete a job or you give
somebody a product and it’s a 60-day
period until you get paid it’s not from
when they give they get the product or
from when you finish the service it’s
from when you send the invoice out to
them so you got to make sure as soon as
you can
you invoice you don’t want to be this
guy was its license plate where you’re
always late you want to make sure always
invoicing on time that’s an easy fix
that can impact a lot of entrepreneurs
next change your billing structure and
this is where you basically try to get
it so that your clients have paying you
in advance and what I do with my clients
and I work with some some major clients
you know huge companies with long
periods of waiting I don’t do work until
we’ve got an agreement in place and I
have I work off a retainer system so I
get paid in advance
for the work that I’m going to do and
then every time I do a job that gets
deducted from the total and that’s not
how a lot of the companies will work but
I say to work with me that’s what I do
and you know also they’ll deliver good
results for them so they’re willing to
do that but you may want to think about
ways you could change your structure
just so that you make your money upfront
I need to deliver over a period of time
so think about ways you could have
bundles or ways that you can have
prepaid packages
maybe subscription services and give
them some kind of incentive so that they
pay all upfront in advance for a year or
a month or however long makes sense for
your business it gives you cash flow
right away that you can use to grow your
business and often it’s good for the
customer as well if they get some kind
of deal as a result of it so look at
ways you might be able to change your
structure so that you get more money
upfront in advance next one accept
credit cards a lot of companies don’t
accept credit cards because as a fee and
it’s true there is a fee to have credit
cards you know there’s a merchant
account you have to get set up and you
got to pay you know every time the
transaction goes through but studies
have shown that when you accept credit
cards when people are spending with a
credit card they’re gonna spend more you
know when they’re spending with cash
they see the cash going out and so
they’re they’re gonna be more hesitant
to spend it but with credit cards people
are more likely to be
purchases so you may be saving a few
pennies here and there but you’re
missing out on the big dollars so you
want to make sure you can accept credit
cards if you can and usually find a
credit card companies you get money
pretty quickly from them as well
so that leads to instant cash flow into
your business number eight factor your
receivables not a huge fan of this one
but basically when people owe you money
you could have brand-name clients that
owe you money that’s going to come 60
days or 90 days you can go to a
factoring company and they’ll pay you a
percentage of the total they won’t take
they won’t give you a hundred percent
they’ll give you a percentage and then
they’ll collect when that money comes in
so they’re basically taking a few points
off of your total so that you can get
the money upfront and quickly and
they’re gonna wait on the receivable to
come in I don’t really like that idea if
you can avoid it but it is a way that
you can get money and quickly if you
absolutely need to number nine sell
excess inventory so if you have
inventory that you bought that you don’t
need anymore or it’s seasonal it’s going
out of stock sell it out you know sell
have a sale sell that inventory if you
don’t need it to grow your business
anymore a great way to turn something
that might just be sitting at your
office or in your storage room in your
garage and turn it into money for your
business number ten negotiate supplier
terms and this one I want to put a
strong caveat on and so the idea here is
you want to slow down the amount of
money that you’re paying to other people
so if you can delay payments to other
people then that improves your cash flow
because you’re not spending as quickly
the challenge I have here with it is it
makes sense in theory but it depends on
who you’re doing it to and I usually
advise doing this against small
businesses I wouldn’t do it if your
suppliers are entrepreneurs the reason
is they’re facing a cash crunch – right
and you know what it’s like being an
entrepreneur you you love working with
clients who are on time who pay well and
who you know kind of respect your time
where you don’t like work with the guys
who try to stretch you out haggle over
every single penny and want to pay you
in 90 days right those are not great
clients for you so why would you want to
be that client for somebody else right
do you think you’re going to get
best service do you think you’re gonna
be on call for you and do their very
best to help you if you’ve negotiated
every last penny of profit out of the
deal and you’re paying them in 90 days
probably not you know when I work with
entrepreneurs as suppliers
I usually don’t negotiate too much and I
usually try to pay them right on time
and that makes sure that when I need
something they’re there for me you know
if there’s some kind of emergency I need
their help they’ve got my back and so I
hate doing you know big negotiations on
terms when it’s working with smaller
companies when you’re working with the
bigger guys go for it you know they have
a budget but a lot of times it’s not
going to make a big difference in their
own business and the quality of service
you’re gonna get from isn’t gonna make a
difference from the person you’re
dealing with
so get the best deal you can out of them
but for the smaller guys that really
watch out and I think it’s worth
investing in the relationship to make
sure that you always get really good
service from them so that’s my rant on
negotiating supplier terms number 11
Creed referral program so again if
customers love you they like what
they’re buying from you then chances are
they’re gonna have people who they know
who they can refer to your business as
well who can also hopefully help grow
your business so if you create a program
give them either an incentive to do it
it could be points it could be dollars
it could be products services something
think of ways that you may be able to
entice your current customers to tell
their friends about you number twelve
refinance short-term debt and the idea
here is remember when we look back at
our balance sheet and we saw current
liabilities and long-term liabilities
the current liabilities are what’s due
within the next year and that’s really
critical because if we have a lot of
money owed in the next year we don’t
have a lot of money coming in we could
go under right this could be our last
year so the idea here is to refinance
some of your short-term debt and turn it
into long-term debt so you talk to the
people who you owe money to and maybe
you add a few more years on to the deal
basically they get that short term that
lowered even though it may increase your
long-term debt but it proves your
situation for the next
year so something to think about if you
find that your current assets are a lot
less than your current liabilities
number thirteen cell and leaseback the
idea here is if you have any fixed
assets so if you own a building or you
have equipment or you have land that
isn’t really making you money you could
sell it to somebody and then rent it
back from them so you get a big cash in
infusion into your business so if you
have an office that you own you could
sell the office to somebody and make
money right away and then you make an
agreement to rent the office from them
so it adds to the expenses on a regular
basis but you get that big cash influx
that can boost your cash flow short-term
you can only do that once because once
it’s giving up your ownership that’s it
you can’t do it again fourteen convert
debt to equity the idea here is you look
at who you owe money to and if you can
convince your supplier or your lender
that you have a really good business
opportunity then you can potentially
convert that debt and have it become
equity where they become a partner in
your business so instead of owing you
so-sorry instead of you owning join them
ten thousand dollars as an example you
could give them a certain percentage of
your business and so they become a
smaller partner in your company very
dangerous one you know very dangerous
method to go after you want to make sure
that you want that supplier on board
with your business you know do you want
this person who’s always gonna have a
percentage of your company ongoing do
you want to make them part of your
management team or not there’s a lot of
things to think about but it is an
option and I won’t let you guys know
about number 15 bootstrap this is my
favorite one basically you’re not
spending money until you’re making money
I really hate spending money until I
found a way to make money and I’ll
invest my time energy efforts into
trying to make something work and then
if I see that I can get even a little
bit of money out of it then I start
investing a little bit of money back in
and a lot of the best businesses in the
world have been built by bootstrapping
basically find ways to make money by
hustle and you know blood sweat and
tears goes into it and then as you start
making money you pour back into the
business and you can see the growth and
that way you’re making sure that your
spending money on things that you know
are gonna make you money back so those
are my quick 15 tips on how to raise
cash flow if you need to and bind and I
want to move on to the third topic now
which is raising capital and this is a
common question I get you know how do I
raise money for my business it could be
startup funds it could be expansion
funds it could be trying to get a loan
or could be trying to get an equity
investor into the business and I’m going
to give you some quick tips to help you
with all of those scenarios the first
thing I want to quickly look at is small
businesses and say SMEs small and medium
enterprises are typically under financed
it’s it’s usually the high you know high
growth but young companies that have the
hardest time getting money because
there’s no track record the more
established you are in business easier
it is to get money because they can make
some kind of prediction if all you have
is a business plan and kind of a dream
it’s a lot harder to get money and a lot
of people are gonna say no if you’re
looking at debt financing and debt
financing is basically where you are
borrowing money and you have to pay
interest typically and give that money
back at some point
so if you’re looking any kind of loan
from a bank or friends or family as an
example that’s debt financing and here
are some of the most common types of
debt financing so line of credit
business loan commercial mortgage credit
cards loan from family or friends if you
look at the top ones line of credit
business loan and commercial mortgage
these are usually for older companies
right in order to to qualify for a line
of credit you have to have some business
success already built in so you have to
have you know at least three years
typically of being in business before a
bank will look at giving you a line of
credit on your business it could be a
personal line of credit but that’s a
different way to finance it it’s not
just off your business where the younger
companies are typically looking for
credit card balances loans from friends
and family
other ways basically to be able to
borrow money one thing you want to look
at if you are going to get any kind of
debt financing is make sure you find out
what’s going on and why you you get
rejected or not this is a quick study
that shows why banks are
achtung people for for their loans so
you go to a bank and they say no the
biggest reasons too much outstanding
debt lack of owner equity insufficient
cash flow if you look at the first two
too much outstanding debt lack of one or
equity you can find that out from the
balance sheet how they make that
decision from your balance sheet they’re
gonna see how much debt you have which
is going to be your liabilities and how
much equity you have and so the company
that we showed an example of they had a
lot of long-term liabilities a lot
long-term debt and they had negative
owner’s equity so this guy is gonna get
rejected for sure and the top two
reasons can you can pull right off your
balance sheet
the third is insufficient cash flow so
the topic we just talked about was how
to raise more cash flow and again with
your QuickBooks software you’ll be able
to figure out a cash flow statement that
again your banks are gonna want to look
at one thing that was really surprising
to me on this was almost 12% had no
reason so if you get rejected from a
banker from an investor from anybody who
you who’s you’re trying to get money
from even for customers partner
suppliers if you get rejected you want
to find out why right you wanna be able
to go back ideally and hopefully sell
that same person on the idea but if not
just take that feedback and to take it
so you can improve yourself and go back
on another time so if you’re going to a
bank and you’re asking for a loan and
they say no figure out why you know if
it’s because you have insufficient cash
flow then use those tips boost your cash
flow and go back right make sure you
really know why you’re getting rejected
and not just letting the goal as a no
the next few tips I want to give then
this is for raising money in general if
it’s gonna be debt equity sorry debt
financing or equity financing we’ve
talked about debt where it’s basically
you’re borrowing money and you have to
pay it back usually with interest equity
is where you bring somebody on as a
partner in your company so they’re
paying you a certain amount of money and
then they own a piece of your business
and there’s usually not a component to
it so you’re not paying them every month
but they own a piece of your business so
when you sell your company they’re
taking a chunk of that and there’s
usually some decision-making that they
get as well so things to think about
when you’re pitching investors or
lenders number one it’s easier to lose
and
anybody can spend money it’s not hard to
spend money if I gave you a million
dollars you can find a million different
ways to use it and that’s the fear that
a lot of investors and lenders have is
that you’re gonna go out and spend their
money what you need to show is you have
a solid plan in place to make money and
show that you’ve already made a little
bit of money they’re not expect me to
have made tons of money yet because
you’re going to them asking for help but
you have to be able to demonstrate that
you have a way to make money right
that’s why if it’s just coming in with a
plan on paper it’s really hard to get
them to say yes because you haven’t
shown anything even if you go and get
one customer you’ve already separated
yourself from most of the business plans
that are coming in so show that you’re
able to make money and not just spend
the money next look at what you’re going
to spend the money on
so it’s called use of proceeds whenever
you go and you’re looking for money from
an investor or from a lender they’re
gonna ask your use of proceeds which is
basically looking at how are you
spending the money and it better not be
to pay yourself a huge salary
I remember one business plan that we had
come in when I was in the venture
capital world they wanted $500,000 there
were four of them they wanted to pay
each of them a hundred thousand dollars
a year and then they have a hundred
thousand dollars to grow the business
that’s not something people are gonna
finance right they’re expecting you to
pour everything you have into this
business and take out a minimal amount
of salary because the money that you’re
gonna get as a salary is it should be
tiny compared to the money you’re gonna
get when you build a huge business and
sell it or take it public all right so
that’s what they that’s what they want
to see is that you’re not spending a
huge amount of money on yourself yeah
you have to make enough you know pay the
bills but it shouldn’t be a huge amount
of money you want they want to see the
money’s going to be used to grow the
business next never say no competition
there’s always competition you know
whatever business you’re in there’s
always always always going to be
competition there may not be direct
competition but there’s always an option
for people right there’s always some
kind of option for people to spend their
money if it’s not going to be with you
it’ll be with someone else so you never
want to say that there’s no competition
because it looks like you’re a child
playing and adults game anytime we said
we we had a business plan come in
and the the people said they had no
competition they got rejected right away
because there’s always a competition so
as an entrepreneur you should be
different right if you want to stand out
if you want to make money you want to
you want to be a company worth investing
in you should be doing something
different if you’re doing the same thing
as everybody else then how are you going
to be successful right you have to be
doing something different so from that
point of view you are standing up with
your competition but you have to
recognize who your competition is you
know where will people spend their money
if they’re not going to spend it on you
so never say no competition a little bit
of financial wisdom that might help you
save some money when you are getting
equity investment is try to stretch the
time period so if you ask for all the
money you need right away upfront that’s
gonna cost you a big chunk of your
company because it’s the riskiest time
for the investor so upfront financing
always cost you the most amount of your
business so here’s a quick example if I
needed to raise half a million dollars
and you could fudge these numbers to
whatever fits your business but say I
want to raise half a million dollars if
I wanted that up front
I might have to settle for evaluation of
a million dollars which means I’m giving
up half of my business because it’s the
riskiest time for the investor right if
I’m right at the beginning of my
business I haven’t built a lot of
momentum it’s riskier for them to come
in then if I already have some momentum
built in so the optional way here they
say I need half a million dollars but I
don’t need it all up front I want
$150,000 now and I’ll take that million
dollar valuation and then I want
$150,000 in three months and I want a
better valuation because I’m gonna go
out and get momentum I’m gonna go and
get sales I’m gonna show you that can
build a business and then in six months
I want another $200,000 at a two million
dollar valuation so I’m still getting my
half a million dollars but I’m
stretching that the time periods and I’m
I’m basing it on goals so I’m gonna say
and three months and in six months I’m
gonna reach these sales targets I’m
going to show you that I can build a
better business and that reduces the
risk for the investor so they’re more
likely to say yes if you go and hit
those goals because it’s a it’s an
easier bet for them to make now your
challenge is on because you got to go
and hit those numbers that you said
you’re gonna hit
that’s a good challenge you’re betting
on yourself and hopefully you don’t make
the number so unrealistic that you can’t
go out and hit those numbers but they
didn’t here is I’m still getting the
same amount of money there’s half a
million dollars but I’m only giving up
35% of my company instead of half of my
company so as much as you can stretch
that time period
next thing write your plan in plain
English I can’t tell you how many
business plans we got and this applies
to getting debt equity or or I’m sorry
that the lending or equity financing in
your business where the business plan
was too complicated to read and if they
can’t understand it quickly they’re not
going to say yes and it all starts with
your executive summary the executive
summary is usually one the three pages
the beginning of your business plan that
explains what it is that you do in a
very high level and if the people like
it and they think it’s interesting
they’re gonna read on if you can’t sell
them an executive summary they’re gonna
throw away your business plan so here’s
an example of one that came in this is a
real executive summary that came in to
me when I was at the venture capital
business XYZ company I left their name
out has developed collaboration
applications that are based on a
flexible modular and extensive and sorry
extensible software framework our
products are ideally suited to cross
enterprise cross-platform applications
our system architecture gives us a
strategic advantage for deploying
collaboration and writing platforms
including the latest generation of
wireless handheld devices while
providing organization with a strongly
encrypted collaboration capabilities
fine-grained security and access control
who let me breathe now this is crazy
this is the first paragraph of their
executive summary and I came from a
software background I had to read that
five times before I even got a sense of
what they did I found myself reading it
and drifting off and when you’re kind of
reading something you start thinking
about something else and you have to
come back to it that’s what I get from
here these guys got to know and
absolutely they’re gonna get a note
because this is something that does not
imply English a lot of them a lot of
entrepreneurs if you read it yourself
you say yeah that’s what we do it makes
sense this how does this not make sense
this is exactly what we do but you got
to step out of your zone and remember
that any investor lender they’re not
experts at what you do they don’t
understand all these terminology and
jargon that you know make sense to you
so you have to dumb it down and write it
in plain English and one test
that we see often the VC world is called
a grandmother test and basically the
thought here is show your executive
summary to your grandmother if she can
understand the opportunity then you’ve
done a good job and these basically you
show it to somebody who doesn’t know
your business right show it to a family
member a stranger you know a colleague
somebody who you know kind of
understands a little bit maybe but what
you do but doesn’t really understand so
if they can understand the opportunity
and see that this is something that has
potential then you’ve done a good job
and you’re able to start serving it to
investors and I would do that before you
start sending your business plan out to
people have somebody who you know you
trust a little bit and have them look at
it and see if they understand what you
do and see an opportunity or not make
sure you pass the grandmother test okay
next valuation so the last main thing I
want to talk about in this presentation
and thank you for staying with me
through the whole thing is the valuation
and how do you evaluate your business
and so how do you come up with a number
if you’re looking at raising any kind of
equity financing you’re gonna have to
say my business is worth X amount of
dollars a hundred thousand dollars ten
thousand dollars a million dollars
whatever it is so I want to share with
you the valuation model that we use when
we were when I was in the venture
capital business now from here you can
adjust the numbers to make make it make
sense for what you’re doing but
basically what I would do is project
five years out so five years down the
line what do my earnings look like so
how much am I going to be making with my
business so in this example the
projections of the company was almost
six million dollars you take out the tax
rate and you have your net earnings you
think about how much he’s seeking to
raise today so that’s what I’m going to
be making in five years what am I
looking for now and the company at this
time was looking to raise three and a
half million dollars next money in the
future is worth less the money today
right you’d rather have money right now
the money in the future so you have to
discount that money back so if you see
what here we have a 30% discount rate
applied to the valuation of the business
the valuation is associated with a p/e
ratio so the price to earnings ratio so
you times your your earnings by 15
un okay 51 million and then you discount
it by 30% every year
back next we look at the companies I’m
assuming we’re starting in in 2014
that’s our year right now
so we have our valuation at 12 and a hat
well villian dollars in change we take
out the three and a half million that we
are looking to get from investors and
we’re left with eight point seven
million dollars we take an additional
discount of 40% because it’s a private
company there’s a lot of risk associated
with the startup and so it takes us down
to five point two five million dollars
and basically that’s what we end up with
so the the business is worth eight point
seven five million dollars five and five
and change is what we get to keep as the
owner and three and a half is what the
investor gets the key so if you work
through the numbers you can apply to you
know whatever situation you’re looking
at basically the two things you want to
figure out is how much money you going
to be making in five years you have some
kind of projection and it has to be a
realistic projection right you’re not
going to be the next Microsoft in five
years so what’s a realistic number for
you what kind of earnings are going to
be making in five years and then the
next thing is how much you’re seeking to
raise so if you can figure out this top
number of how much your earnings are
going to be and then this number of how
much you want to raise from investors or
lenders others who are investors for
equity investors right here then you can
just apply all the numbers and you’ll
work out to how much your business is
worth so that’s how we did it very quick
overview but if you have questions on
this I’d be happy to answer it more in
detail with another video or with emails
the last thing is oh there’s a worksheet
that I want include for you guys it’s
how to raise your first fifty thousand
dollars for your business and it’s often
called love money so this is coming from
people you know or people within your
network and sucia the people on the
outer edges of your network that are the
ones that end up investing into your
business it can surprise you so it’s a
worksheet that I usually charge for on
my website but I’m going to give it to
you guys for free and if you have any
questions let me know normally around
this time it’s question time and that’s
my favorite part of any time
doing a webinar I love hearing what you
guys have to have to think and answering
those questions for you obviously since
this is a presentation now I can’t
answer your questions but what I want to
do is answer them in another video so if
you have a question about anything we’ve
talked about here or anything else for
your business I’d love to hear from you
if you want to leave a comment below or
email us back and I’m gonna do a video
afterwards of answering all the
questions that have come in and
hopefully be able to help you guys out
with what’s next so final slide I
promised you some extra bonuses and
here’s what I’m gonna do along with the
video responses I have a series of
worksheets that I sell and these are
usually for sale off my site and what
I’m gonna do is give one worksheet for
free to anybody within the next week who
is you know sign up for the call and
wasn’t able to make it on or who was on
the was on the call and struggled there
for half an hour as we tried to figure
out the technical issues with WebEx I’m
gonna give you any single worksheet for
free so the website here let me load it
up quickly if I go to my home page and
you click on any of these these are our
worksheets so we click here and then at
the top there’s a link this is
worksheets these are all the worksheets
and these are all different things that
can help you grow your business that
we’re currently selling if you pick any
individual worksheet that you want if
you scroll down pick the one that you
like the most I’m gonna send it to you
for free there’s gonna be a lot of
manual work for me but I’m really I’m
really apologetic for what happened with
WebEx it was completely out of our
control but I know you guys took the
time out of your day to spend it with me
and to try to learn about something to
help you grow your business and I know
how frustrating it can be when people
don’t deliver on things that they said
they were gonna do I know that that
bothers me a lot and so I really want to
make sure you get the help that you need
hopefully the webinar the presentation
today was helpful you learn something
new that you didn’t know before I want
to throw one of these free worksheets as
a bonus to again help you out pick any
one you want there’s 30 or so on here
how many do we have thirty thirty-two
pick the one that the most resonates
with you I’ll send it you for free and
again I’d love to hear your question
if you have one about this video about
you know raising money or about the
financial side of your business or
anything else to help you grow your
business let me know and I’ll do a video
to answer those questions for you and
then finally we’re going to be doing
another webinar on March 12th and and
hopefully all our technology will work
its financial literacy part two so today
was part one and we’re gonna do part two
and watch 12 staples has a promo where
you can get up to $140 off of QuickBooks
if you want to check it out the staples
out see a slash into a promo with this
bonus code here 7 for 239 and we’ll be
sending these slides and worksheets out
as well to help you as you try to grow
your business so thank you again for
tuning in again my deepest apologies for
everybody who was frustrated and we’ve
received nothing but great comments from
everybody saying and we realized this
happened you know sharing their stories
of how it’s happened to them in the past
and I know it does happen
it’s embarrassing and it sucks when it
does happen but we’ve really appreciated
all your support and I look forward to
hearing from you with those questions I
hope you enjoyed this video and I hope
we’ll see you on the 12th for the next
webinar thank you and we’ll see you soon
a special presentation now just over an
hour ago I was sitting in the offices of
Intuit and we were all getting ready to
have this awesome webinar on sharpening
your financial skills and then WebEx
died on us and people can see the screen
but they couldn’t hear the audio so I
ended up writing this message hi guys
everything iweapons is having major
problems I’m gonna go back to my office
and record this for you right now and
we’ll send the presentation I’ll answer
any questions afterwards so sorry we’ll
send by email stay tuned so I drove back
I’m at my office and I’m ready to record
so hopefully you get some good
information here and – thank you for all
your patience we had over 700 people
sign up for this webinar and I was
really excited to talk to you guys
because part of the the best part of my
job really that you know best part of my
business is being able to talk to you
guys and help answer your questions so I
was really excited and looking forward
to it and we did have over seven people
signed up I’m gonna include a couple of
free bonuses that weren’t initially
supposed to be included but I’m going to
put them in because of all the great
reaction that you guys have and your
patience and understanding so really
appreciate it and without further ado
let’s get started so this was something
that we wanted to put together as a
partnership between myself into it and
staples
just to give some more information
entrepreneurs and help them understand
that the numbers side better their
business it’s something that you know
entrepreneurs run away from we don’t
like talking about the numbers we’d
rather go out and make sales and run our
business but it is really important so
this is that was a part of the
presentation and we’re gonna have
another webinar later that I’ll tell you
about later on and stay tuned at the end
for all the free bonuses that we’re
going to talk about so just moving on so
quickly a little bit about me for those
of you who don’t know me I’m Evan
Carmichael I have entrepreneurs when I
was 19 I built and sold the biotech
software company 22 I became a venture
capitalist and was raising 1/2 million
to 15 million for companies and my goal
is to help a billion entrepreneurs so a
big goal I love helping entrepreneurs is
what I do a couple of miscellaneous
facts about me they you can read at your
leisure if you want but that’s a little
bit about me and I want to talk
about into it so into it is a partner
company that I’ve worked with for a
little bit
they have accounting software to help
entrepreneurs so the financial backbone
for a lot of businesses accounting
payroll tax basically that their idea
behind their company is to help save you
time and let you focus on what you do
best
you know I think accounting is one of
the things that entrepreneurs hate the
most we don’t want to do our books we
don’t you know and understand our
numbers we just want to go and run our
business and so instead of using Excel
or a shoebox or whatever you’re using
having a financial software to help you
run your business makes such a big
difference right now I spend about 20
minutes every quarter doing my
accounting net because of accounting
software and it’s so much easier and the
story is really cool and into it is an
awesome company started by a guy named
Scott could Scott cook and he started
the business because he was watching his
wife pay her bills at the kitchen table
and saw how time-consuming it was and
thought well I got to make some software
to help her do this better and I think
that’s a something a lot of
entrepreneurs can relate to you know you
saw it you see a need and you solve it
and so he’s a great entrepreneur it’s an
entrepreneurial company here are some of
the products that they have
so QuickBooks QuickBooks Online payroll
go payment turbo tax business a lot more
on the website but they help partner
with me for this webinar so wanted to
give them a quick shout out the three
things that I wanted to talk about in
this webinar understanding your balance
sheet so what is a balance sheet how can
you make business decisions from it how
you can quickly boost your cash flow for
short-term and long-term success and
then also how you can raise capital
now usually questions I like their
answer them as they come up this is now
I guess not a webinar more of a seminar
so there’s no questions you know
obviously during the presentation but I
do want to be able to take your
questions afterwards and I’m gonna do a
video mashup with all the answers so if
you have questions let me know and I’d
be happy to answer them for you so the
three things we’re going to talk about a
little bit of background information
let’s start and then the three things
your balance sheet boosting your cash
flow raising capital and at the end I’m
going to give you a model to evaluate
your business so if you’re looking at
raising capital and thinking about how
much is my business worth I’m gonna give
you the model that I use when I was in
the
Capital world and also a free worksheet
on how you can raise your first $50,000
for your business so some quick
background information into it’s awesome
because they put out a lot of studies
and reports and they’re really trying to
learn more about the entrepreneur market
and so they had two really cool reports
one was called the five thousand dollar
question and the other is bridging the
gap and basically just trying to figure
out what are the problems of
entrepreneurs and how can they help
solve them so the first one was I found
that 50% of entrepreneurs started with
less than 5,000 ducts so so we’re not
starting with a lot of money we’re
starting with a little bit of money
bootstrapping our way up and eventually
building successful companies half of
entrence take financial risk and that’s
getting you know line of credit we drain
out our savings we maxed out our credit
cards we pull out our rsps as much as we
can to you know take take our business
forward the number one regret and that a
lot of entrepreneurs have is they didn’t
spend more time learning and financial
management and if you look at why
businesses fail you’ll see that most
entrepreneurs don’t make it you know
it’s one of the sad truths you know we
we have great intentions we want to help
people but a lot of entrepreneurs just
don’t make it and a big reason is
because we don’t understand the number
side of our business and you know you
can be profitable and still go out of
business because you know you’re your
negative cash flow and you just run out
of money we struggle with financial
management you know 83% have a basic or
lower grasp of our fundamentals we know
that financial wrench is important we
want more help from resources and the
top food requests were spending time
with an accountant networking with other
entrepreneurs and on tutorials and we
get help when that we need by using
financial ninja software an accountant
those who do that are five times more
likely to feel confident about managing
our finances so the people who are
reaching out and who are learning about
the financial management side of their
business are having more success and
that was part of the reason behind
creating these webinars series was to
help educate you guys so that you
understand your numbers better you can
make better decisions and it increases
the chances of you being successful so
these are just some of the findings that
came out of those two reports you can
check it out off into its blog but a lot
more probably coming they do a lot of
great work with their research and so
let’s get started on the
patient to help you understand your
numbers better so the first one is your
balance sheet and I think a lot of
entrepreneurs you know if you use an
accountant or if you have a bookkeeper
you get your balance sheet at the end of
the year and you look it over and say
okay you know great but you don’t really
understand what it means or how to make
decisions from it right how do you know
if you’re okay or not how do you make a
important growth decision from your
balance sheet so I want to quickly touch
on what is a balance sheet and how you
can make decisions from it so the first
part of a balance sheet is your assets
and the assets are basically everything
that your company owns and it’s divided
into current assets and fixed assets and
what I did here is take a screen shot of
QuickBooks Online accounts so if you’re
using QuickBooks you’ll be able to find
this in your settings you can go to
assets and you can see what you have
under here the current assets are
basically assets that can be are either
cash or can be converted into cash
within one year a very short period of
time so it’s almost like cash so in this
case you’ve got various bank accounts
and that’s set up as their current
assets they have some accounts
receivables as well so hopefully those
are gonna get paid off pretty soon and
then the fixed assets are assets that
cannot be converted into cash very
easily so example here we’ve got truck
so that’s the main thing is a fixed
asset for this business so you know when
people are talking about current assets
or fixed assets that’s basically the
main difference current assets are cash
or cash equivalent something you can
easily turn into cash and fixed assets
are things that are you know buildings
land equipment trucks that kind of stuff
that is harder to sell harder to trade
for cash next is your liabilities so the
other side of the balance sheet is going
to be liabilities and here are gangs
divided the current and long-term so
your current liabilities are things that
you owe within the next year so again
things that are in a short term you have
to pay back it could be debts that you
have credit card statements that you
have things they have to pay back
quickly where long-term liabilities are
things that are old beyond one year so
if you have a loan
paid out over five years or ten years or
however many years you have it those
gonna be your long-term liabilities and
again I just quickly pulled up a
QuickBooks Online balance sheet here for
the company and you can quickly see what
kind of liabilities they have current
liabilities are here so it’s accounts
payable credit cards you know others
small loans sales tax payable and then
your long term liabilities they’ve got
one big loan for $25,000 that’s
long-term liabilities the last piece of
the puzzle here is your equity so it’s
called the balance sheet because it
needs the balance so your assets what
your company owns has to equal the
liabilities plus the equity so the
liabilities again or what your company
owes other people and the equity is what
you have left in the business so that’s
basically what you as the owner oh so
you have your assets which is how much
you know you own in the how many
long-term and current assets that you
have things that have value in the
business the liabilities are things that
you have to pay to other people and then
the equity what’s left is what you own
as you enter into business so everything
at the end of the day has to add up and
if you look at this example here we have
our assets in our total assets so it’s
gonna be here $26,000 684 is what the
assets are the liabilities total 30,000
so he’s got in this company not in a
great situation because got more
liabilities and assets and so his equity
is gonna be negative so he owns a
negative amount in this business which
is not a great situation to be in so
that’s the basics that’s what it means
that’s what assets and liabilities and
equity mean and it always has to equal
at the bottom if it doesn’t equal then
something went wrong and you got to do
it again or talk to cotton because it’s
always got to equal up that’s great a
lot of people will know this if you
don’t know it already hopefully that
helped but the big thing is now what
okay I get that but so my accountant
gives us to me at the end of the year
what does that mean how do I make
decisions from it and so there’s three
main things that I want to talk about of
how you can make important business
decisions from your balance sheet the
first one is look at your current assets
– current liabilities and I pulled in
our balance sheet here again from
QuickBooks and I’ve just highlighted
them with a red arrow current assets and
current liabilities again the current
assets are things like our cash or it
can be converted in the cash really
quickly and current liabilities are
things that you owe to other people
within a 1-year period so again very
quickly and what this does is tell you
the short term viability of your
business basically can you survive the
next year or not and if you look at this
one they have more current assets and
current liabilities so all the money
that they owe other people they can pay
back within that year so in the short
term this company is pretty healthy and
it’s a good idea just to run that quick
little ratio on your business to see how
are you gonna do in a short term because
if you have a lot of debts coming up and
not enough cash to be able to pay it
you’re gonna run into a problem the
second one I want to talk about is fixed
assets to long-term liabilities so again
I’m just pulling off our balance sheet
and what the arrows I’ve marked it off
and our fixed assets here are $13,000
and our long-term liabilities are
$25,000 this is a problem so the fixed
assets to long-term liabilities ratio
here will tell you the long-term
liability a long-term sustainability of
your business can you survive in the
long run and basically what it’s showing
here is I have more money that I have to
pay out that I have actually in my
business in my fixed assets so this is
gonna be a challenge for me I need to
find a way to make more money to my
business in my first year my next year
I’m gonna be okay because in my first
ratio the current assets the current
liabilities we have enough money to pay
our short-term debts but our long-term
debts are big so we got to find a way
within the next year to solve this
problem or we’re gonna be facing a major
cash crunch and it’s good to know this
in advance because you know otherwise
you may not plan for it and be stuck in
a year where now our complaint for it
and try to make sure I have the cash if
you will to support these debts that
I’ve taken on the last book thing I want
to talk about here we’re looking at the
balance sheet is about raising capital
and anytime you go to raise capital if
you’re looking at getting any kind of
debt from a bank or a lender or if
you’re trying to raise equity from an
investor
they’re gonna want to see your balance
sheet and so you better have it ready
and you better be able to explain every
item on that balance sheet when I was in
a venture capital business we could ask
about any line item on here and we’d
expect the entrepreneur be able to
answer it and know exactly what each
item was and if they didn’t it would
really reduce their chance of be able to
get the money from us
so you have to explain every single item
on your balance sheet before you go talk
to investor but one of the main things
are gonna look at is your equity they
want to see that you have a lot invested
in this business and that that there’s
there’s something here that you know if
you’ve put money in and you have a lot
into it then you know there’s some skin
in the game and they’re more likely to
invest as well here it looks like you
have negative equity which isn’t which
is not good it means your liabilities is
more than your assets you own more than
you own this is not a good business to
put money into so it’s gonna be really
hard for this company here to go out and
raise capital because they have negative
equity so something to think about is
you know thinking about how you can
raise your equity so that the next time
you are going out looking for capital
it’s gonna be easier to get a yes so
that’s about looking at the balance
sheet the next thing I want to talk
about is boosting your cash flow and a
big reason why entrepreneurs fales have
run out of money you know you may have a
great plan you have great ideas your
customers love you but you just run out
of money too soon you need to find ways
to keep it going and get that cash flow
coming in again you can be a profitable
company but still go out of business
because your cash flow sucks it means
basically that you’re you’re getting
you’re taking too long to get paid and
you’re paying out too quickly so with
cash flow we’re trying to figure out
ways to pay out other people less
quickly and also find ways to make more
money more quickly so I’m gonna look at
15 quick ways that you can boost your
cash flow that will help you both in the
short term and also the long term so the
first two one is hammer sale so if
you’re in a really big cash barn you
need money right away to pay off some
kind of debt have a sale you don’t want
in something where you’re gonna you know
lose money on it make it unprofitable
but if you have some kind of sale it’s a
great way to be able to quickly
in some money people who are already
customers know you like you you know can
potentially buy more from you and maybe
also tell their friends about you they
see a sale they’re gonna come into your
your website or your store hopefully buy
whatever is on sale and hopefully buy
some other stuff as well
number two is cross sale upsell and this
is great because anytime you have any
kind of customer base those are the
easiest guys to go back to and sell to
them again
you know people who’ve already bought
from you hopefully you’ve given them a
good experience and they know you they
like you they trust you they want to buy
from you again and that’s a great way to
be able to reach out to them and say hey
we’ve got either a new product or
service or try to sell them again and
what they’ve already purchased depending
on what you what you’re what you’re
selling but a great way to be able to
boost your cash flow in the short term
is to go out and talk to your existing
customers who’ve bought from you from
the past and also try to convince them
to buy from you again I love this
picture that I saw on the internet and I
wanted to find a way to incorporate it I
thought this was the best slide to put
it on this is a complaint jar at a store
and if you want to write a complaint you
have to write it on a bill that’s a
dollar or larger so another great way to
boost your cash flow is have a complaint
jar where they have to put in bills now
hopefully you’re not getting complaints
you’re only getting compliments and
people want to give you more money and
buy more products and services from you
okay number three and this is a big one
look at your accounts receivable so I
just pulled up again QuickBooks Online
and was able to pull up a collections
report and what this will basically show
you is who owes you money and are they
overdue or not so this is a list of
everybody who owes this company money
and how much money so they have almost
nine thousand dollars that’s owed to
them and it shows you the past due and
this is the important thing to look at
here this is number of days past due so
you know this person Alden
he owes me twenty two bucks and it’s
been 60 days past so that’s a long time
not a lot of money but a long time 68
days 38 days 126 days like these are
people you have to follow up on this one
customer here owes you know
half half of the money that is owed
total 4500 bucks and look how long it’s
taking them to pay one hundred and
twenty six days they seldom paid and
fifty days haven’t paid so you have to
get on your customers I mean you’re
ideally you want good customers who are
paying on time and who are buying Lots
from you but the ones who aren’t paying
on time you got to get after them and
make sure that you’re making the phone
calls and reaching out to them until
they do eventually pay their bills
that’s a it’s a great way to be able to
boost your cash flow short term because
that’s money that’s already owed to you
you’ve already made those sales now you
got to go out and collect next number
four give incentives to pay early and
this is something you can do depending
on what your margins are you know how
profitable you are with each sale that
you make but you can give them a
discount if they pay earlier or or in
advance and again if you work with
bigger companies they’ll typically
stretch you out
you know you’ll be 60 days 90 days 120
days before you get paid and a lot of
times you’re at their mercy that’s their
policy and if you want to work with them
that’s how it’s going to be but you may
really give incentives and especially
the smaller clients that you work with
if they pay in advance or if they pay
upfront that they pay right away they
get a certain percentage off the bill
and sometimes that’s gonna be good for
them and sometimes it’s not going to
work for them but you give them the
option and the benefit to you is you get
your money up front so something to
think about
the next thing number five is one that
is really important that a lot of
entrepreneurs make the mistake on make
sure you invoice on time you know a lot
of entrepreneur so busy figuring out how
to go and make sales and take care of
the customers and do all the crazy
things that we need to do to run our
business I know it’s hard you’re you’re
wearing every hot in the company and
even if you have a team it’s still a you
know 24 hour a day business almost and
one thing that you often forget to do is
invoice you know we heat invoicing
that’s not that’s not the fun part of
the job we’re not really servicing our
clients needs there and and you’re
getting a high from send out an invoice
but you got an invoice on time you know
as soon as you’re able to you want to
make sure you invoice because if they
have a 30 day or 60 day policy of pain
that doesn’t start until you invoice you
if you complete a job or you give
somebody a product and it’s a 60-day
period until you get paid it’s not from
when they give they get the product or
from when you finish the service it’s
from when you send the invoice out to
them so you got to make sure as soon as
you can
you invoice you don’t want to be this
guy was its license plate where you’re
always late you want to make sure always
invoicing on time that’s an easy fix
that can impact a lot of entrepreneurs
next change your billing structure and
this is where you basically try to get
it so that your clients have paying you
in advance and what I do with my clients
and I work with some some major clients
you know huge companies with long
periods of waiting I don’t do work until
we’ve got an agreement in place and I
have I work off a retainer system so I
get paid in advance
for the work that I’m going to do and
then every time I do a job that gets
deducted from the total and that’s not
how a lot of the companies will work but
I say to work with me that’s what I do
and you know also they’ll deliver good
results for them so they’re willing to
do that but you may want to think about
ways you could change your structure
just so that you make your money upfront
I need to deliver over a period of time
so think about ways you could have
bundles or ways that you can have
prepaid packages
maybe subscription services and give
them some kind of incentive so that they
pay all upfront in advance for a year or
a month or however long makes sense for
your business it gives you cash flow
right away that you can use to grow your
business and often it’s good for the
customer as well if they get some kind
of deal as a result of it so look at
ways you might be able to change your
structure so that you get more money
upfront in advance next one accept
credit cards a lot of companies don’t
accept credit cards because as a fee and
it’s true there is a fee to have credit
cards you know there’s a merchant
account you have to get set up and you
got to pay you know every time the
transaction goes through but studies
have shown that when you accept credit
cards when people are spending with a
credit card they’re gonna spend more you
know when they’re spending with cash
they see the cash going out and so
they’re they’re gonna be more hesitant
to spend it but with credit cards people
are more likely to be
purchases so you may be saving a few
pennies here and there but you’re
missing out on the big dollars so you
want to make sure you can accept credit
cards if you can and usually find a
credit card companies you get money
pretty quickly from them as well
so that leads to instant cash flow into
your business number eight factor your
receivables not a huge fan of this one
but basically when people owe you money
you could have brand-name clients that
owe you money that’s going to come 60
days or 90 days you can go to a
factoring company and they’ll pay you a
percentage of the total they won’t take
they won’t give you a hundred percent
they’ll give you a percentage and then
they’ll collect when that money comes in
so they’re basically taking a few points
off of your total so that you can get
the money upfront and quickly and
they’re gonna wait on the receivable to
come in I don’t really like that idea if
you can avoid it but it is a way that
you can get money and quickly if you
absolutely need to number nine sell
excess inventory so if you have
inventory that you bought that you don’t
need anymore or it’s seasonal it’s going
out of stock sell it out you know sell
have a sale sell that inventory if you
don’t need it to grow your business
anymore a great way to turn something
that might just be sitting at your
office or in your storage room in your
garage and turn it into money for your
business number ten negotiate supplier
terms and this one I want to put a
strong caveat on and so the idea here is
you want to slow down the amount of
money that you’re paying to other people
so if you can delay payments to other
people then that improves your cash flow
because you’re not spending as quickly
the challenge I have here with it is it
makes sense in theory but it depends on
who you’re doing it to and I usually
advise doing this against small
businesses I wouldn’t do it if your
suppliers are entrepreneurs the reason
is they’re facing a cash crunch – right
and you know what it’s like being an
entrepreneur you you love working with
clients who are on time who pay well and
who you know kind of respect your time
where you don’t like work with the guys
who try to stretch you out haggle over
every single penny and want to pay you
in 90 days right those are not great
clients for you so why would you want to
be that client for somebody else right
do you think you’re going to get
best service do you think you’re gonna
be on call for you and do their very
best to help you if you’ve negotiated
every last penny of profit out of the
deal and you’re paying them in 90 days
probably not you know when I work with
entrepreneurs as suppliers
I usually don’t negotiate too much and I
usually try to pay them right on time
and that makes sure that when I need
something they’re there for me you know
if there’s some kind of emergency I need
their help they’ve got my back and so I
hate doing you know big negotiations on
terms when it’s working with smaller
companies when you’re working with the
bigger guys go for it you know they have
a budget but a lot of times it’s not
going to make a big difference in their
own business and the quality of service
you’re gonna get from isn’t gonna make a
difference from the person you’re
dealing with
so get the best deal you can out of them
but for the smaller guys that really
watch out and I think it’s worth
investing in the relationship to make
sure that you always get really good
service from them so that’s my rant on
negotiating supplier terms number 11
Creed referral program so again if
customers love you they like what
they’re buying from you then chances are
they’re gonna have people who they know
who they can refer to your business as
well who can also hopefully help grow
your business so if you create a program
give them either an incentive to do it
it could be points it could be dollars
it could be products services something
think of ways that you may be able to
entice your current customers to tell
their friends about you number twelve
refinance short-term debt and the idea
here is remember when we look back at
our balance sheet and we saw current
liabilities and long-term liabilities
the current liabilities are what’s due
within the next year and that’s really
critical because if we have a lot of
money owed in the next year we don’t
have a lot of money coming in we could
go under right this could be our last
year so the idea here is to refinance
some of your short-term debt and turn it
into long-term debt so you talk to the
people who you owe money to and maybe
you add a few more years on to the deal
basically they get that short term that
lowered even though it may increase your
long-term debt but it proves your
situation for the next
year so something to think about if you
find that your current assets are a lot
less than your current liabilities
number thirteen cell and leaseback the
idea here is if you have any fixed
assets so if you own a building or you
have equipment or you have land that
isn’t really making you money you could
sell it to somebody and then rent it
back from them so you get a big cash in
infusion into your business so if you
have an office that you own you could
sell the office to somebody and make
money right away and then you make an
agreement to rent the office from them
so it adds to the expenses on a regular
basis but you get that big cash influx
that can boost your cash flow short-term
you can only do that once because once
it’s giving up your ownership that’s it
you can’t do it again fourteen convert
debt to equity the idea here is you look
at who you owe money to and if you can
convince your supplier or your lender
that you have a really good business
opportunity then you can potentially
convert that debt and have it become
equity where they become a partner in
your business so instead of owing you
so-sorry instead of you owning join them
ten thousand dollars as an example you
could give them a certain percentage of
your business and so they become a
smaller partner in your company very
dangerous one you know very dangerous
method to go after you want to make sure
that you want that supplier on board
with your business you know do you want
this person who’s always gonna have a
percentage of your company ongoing do
you want to make them part of your
management team or not there’s a lot of
things to think about but it is an
option and I won’t let you guys know
about number 15 bootstrap this is my
favorite one basically you’re not
spending money until you’re making money
I really hate spending money until I
found a way to make money and I’ll
invest my time energy efforts into
trying to make something work and then
if I see that I can get even a little
bit of money out of it then I start
investing a little bit of money back in
and a lot of the best businesses in the
world have been built by bootstrapping
basically find ways to make money by
hustle and you know blood sweat and
tears goes into it and then as you start
making money you pour back into the
business and you can see the growth and
that way you’re making sure that your
spending money on things that you know
are gonna make you money back so those
are my quick 15 tips on how to raise
cash flow if you need to and bind and I
want to move on to the third topic now
which is raising capital and this is a
common question I get you know how do I
raise money for my business it could be
startup funds it could be expansion
funds it could be trying to get a loan
or could be trying to get an equity
investor into the business and I’m going
to give you some quick tips to help you
with all of those scenarios the first
thing I want to quickly look at is small
businesses and say SMEs small and medium
enterprises are typically under financed
it’s it’s usually the high you know high
growth but young companies that have the
hardest time getting money because
there’s no track record the more
established you are in business easier
it is to get money because they can make
some kind of prediction if all you have
is a business plan and kind of a dream
it’s a lot harder to get money and a lot
of people are gonna say no if you’re
looking at debt financing and debt
financing is basically where you are
borrowing money and you have to pay
interest typically and give that money
back at some point
so if you’re looking any kind of loan
from a bank or friends or family as an
example that’s debt financing and here
are some of the most common types of
debt financing so line of credit
business loan commercial mortgage credit
cards loan from family or friends if you
look at the top ones line of credit
business loan and commercial mortgage
these are usually for older companies
right in order to to qualify for a line
of credit you have to have some business
success already built in so you have to
have you know at least three years
typically of being in business before a
bank will look at giving you a line of
credit on your business it could be a
personal line of credit but that’s a
different way to finance it it’s not
just off your business where the younger
companies are typically looking for
credit card balances loans from friends
and family
other ways basically to be able to
borrow money one thing you want to look
at if you are going to get any kind of
debt financing is make sure you find out
what’s going on and why you you get
rejected or not this is a quick study
that shows why banks are
achtung people for for their loans so
you go to a bank and they say no the
biggest reasons too much outstanding
debt lack of owner equity insufficient
cash flow if you look at the first two
too much outstanding debt lack of one or
equity you can find that out from the
balance sheet how they make that
decision from your balance sheet they’re
gonna see how much debt you have which
is going to be your liabilities and how
much equity you have and so the company
that we showed an example of they had a
lot of long-term liabilities a lot
long-term debt and they had negative
owner’s equity so this guy is gonna get
rejected for sure and the top two
reasons can you can pull right off your
balance sheet
the third is insufficient cash flow so
the topic we just talked about was how
to raise more cash flow and again with
your QuickBooks software you’ll be able
to figure out a cash flow statement that
again your banks are gonna want to look
at one thing that was really surprising
to me on this was almost 12% had no
reason so if you get rejected from a
banker from an investor from anybody who
you who’s you’re trying to get money
from even for customers partner
suppliers if you get rejected you want
to find out why right you wanna be able
to go back ideally and hopefully sell
that same person on the idea but if not
just take that feedback and to take it
so you can improve yourself and go back
on another time so if you’re going to a
bank and you’re asking for a loan and
they say no figure out why you know if
it’s because you have insufficient cash
flow then use those tips boost your cash
flow and go back right make sure you
really know why you’re getting rejected
and not just letting the goal as a no
the next few tips I want to give then
this is for raising money in general if
it’s gonna be debt equity sorry debt
financing or equity financing we’ve
talked about debt where it’s basically
you’re borrowing money and you have to
pay it back usually with interest equity
is where you bring somebody on as a
partner in your company so they’re
paying you a certain amount of money and
then they own a piece of your business
and there’s usually not a component to
it so you’re not paying them every month
but they own a piece of your business so
when you sell your company they’re
taking a chunk of that and there’s
usually some decision-making that they
get as well so things to think about
when you’re pitching investors or
lenders number one it’s easier to lose
and
anybody can spend money it’s not hard to
spend money if I gave you a million
dollars you can find a million different
ways to use it and that’s the fear that
a lot of investors and lenders have is
that you’re gonna go out and spend their
money what you need to show is you have
a solid plan in place to make money and
show that you’ve already made a little
bit of money they’re not expect me to
have made tons of money yet because
you’re going to them asking for help but
you have to be able to demonstrate that
you have a way to make money right
that’s why if it’s just coming in with a
plan on paper it’s really hard to get
them to say yes because you haven’t
shown anything even if you go and get
one customer you’ve already separated
yourself from most of the business plans
that are coming in so show that you’re
able to make money and not just spend
the money next look at what you’re going
to spend the money on
so it’s called use of proceeds whenever
you go and you’re looking for money from
an investor or from a lender they’re
gonna ask your use of proceeds which is
basically looking at how are you
spending the money and it better not be
to pay yourself a huge salary
I remember one business plan that we had
come in when I was in the venture
capital world they wanted $500,000 there
were four of them they wanted to pay
each of them a hundred thousand dollars
a year and then they have a hundred
thousand dollars to grow the business
that’s not something people are gonna
finance right they’re expecting you to
pour everything you have into this
business and take out a minimal amount
of salary because the money that you’re
gonna get as a salary is it should be
tiny compared to the money you’re gonna
get when you build a huge business and
sell it or take it public all right so
that’s what they that’s what they want
to see is that you’re not spending a
huge amount of money on yourself yeah
you have to make enough you know pay the
bills but it shouldn’t be a huge amount
of money you want they want to see the
money’s going to be used to grow the
business next never say no competition
there’s always competition you know
whatever business you’re in there’s
always always always going to be
competition there may not be direct
competition but there’s always an option
for people right there’s always some
kind of option for people to spend their
money if it’s not going to be with you
it’ll be with someone else so you never
want to say that there’s no competition
because it looks like you’re a child
playing and adults game anytime we said
we we had a business plan come in
and the the people said they had no
competition they got rejected right away
because there’s always a competition so
as an entrepreneur you should be
different right if you want to stand out
if you want to make money you want to
you want to be a company worth investing
in you should be doing something
different if you’re doing the same thing
as everybody else then how are you going
to be successful right you have to be
doing something different so from that
point of view you are standing up with
your competition but you have to
recognize who your competition is you
know where will people spend their money
if they’re not going to spend it on you
so never say no competition a little bit
of financial wisdom that might help you
save some money when you are getting
equity investment is try to stretch the
time period so if you ask for all the
money you need right away upfront that’s
gonna cost you a big chunk of your
company because it’s the riskiest time
for the investor so upfront financing
always cost you the most amount of your
business so here’s a quick example if I
needed to raise half a million dollars
and you could fudge these numbers to
whatever fits your business but say I
want to raise half a million dollars if
I wanted that up front
I might have to settle for evaluation of
a million dollars which means I’m giving
up half of my business because it’s the
riskiest time for the investor right if
I’m right at the beginning of my
business I haven’t built a lot of
momentum it’s riskier for them to come
in then if I already have some momentum
built in so the optional way here they
say I need half a million dollars but I
don’t need it all up front I want
$150,000 now and I’ll take that million
dollar valuation and then I want
$150,000 in three months and I want a
better valuation because I’m gonna go
out and get momentum I’m gonna go and
get sales I’m gonna show you that can
build a business and then in six months
I want another $200,000 at a two million
dollar valuation so I’m still getting my
half a million dollars but I’m
stretching that the time periods and I’m
I’m basing it on goals so I’m gonna say
and three months and in six months I’m
gonna reach these sales targets I’m
going to show you that I can build a
better business and that reduces the
risk for the investor so they’re more
likely to say yes if you go and hit
those goals because it’s a it’s an
easier bet for them to make now your
challenge is on because you got to go
and hit those numbers that you said
you’re gonna hit
that’s a good challenge you’re betting
on yourself and hopefully you don’t make
the number so unrealistic that you can’t
go out and hit those numbers but they
didn’t here is I’m still getting the
same amount of money there’s half a
million dollars but I’m only giving up
35% of my company instead of half of my
company so as much as you can stretch
that time period
next thing write your plan in plain
English I can’t tell you how many
business plans we got and this applies
to getting debt equity or or I’m sorry
that the lending or equity financing in
your business where the business plan
was too complicated to read and if they
can’t understand it quickly they’re not
going to say yes and it all starts with
your executive summary the executive
summary is usually one the three pages
the beginning of your business plan that
explains what it is that you do in a
very high level and if the people like
it and they think it’s interesting
they’re gonna read on if you can’t sell
them an executive summary they’re gonna
throw away your business plan so here’s
an example of one that came in this is a
real executive summary that came in to
me when I was at the venture capital
business XYZ company I left their name
out has developed collaboration
applications that are based on a
flexible modular and extensive and sorry
extensible software framework our
products are ideally suited to cross
enterprise cross-platform applications
our system architecture gives us a
strategic advantage for deploying
collaboration and writing platforms
including the latest generation of
wireless handheld devices while
providing organization with a strongly
encrypted collaboration capabilities
fine-grained security and access control
who let me breathe now this is crazy
this is the first paragraph of their
executive summary and I came from a
software background I had to read that
five times before I even got a sense of
what they did I found myself reading it
and drifting off and when you’re kind of
reading something you start thinking
about something else and you have to
come back to it that’s what I get from
here these guys got to know and
absolutely they’re gonna get a note
because this is something that does not
imply English a lot of them a lot of
entrepreneurs if you read it yourself
you say yeah that’s what we do it makes
sense this how does this not make sense
this is exactly what we do but you got
to step out of your zone and remember
that any investor lender they’re not
experts at what you do they don’t
understand all these terminology and
jargon that you know make sense to you
so you have to dumb it down and write it
in plain English and one test
that we see often the VC world is called
a grandmother test and basically the
thought here is show your executive
summary to your grandmother if she can
understand the opportunity then you’ve
done a good job and these basically you
show it to somebody who doesn’t know
your business right show it to a family
member a stranger you know a colleague
somebody who you know kind of
understands a little bit maybe but what
you do but doesn’t really understand so
if they can understand the opportunity
and see that this is something that has
potential then you’ve done a good job
and you’re able to start serving it to
investors and I would do that before you
start sending your business plan out to
people have somebody who you know you
trust a little bit and have them look at
it and see if they understand what you
do and see an opportunity or not make
sure you pass the grandmother test okay
next valuation so the last main thing I
want to talk about in this presentation
and thank you for staying with me
through the whole thing is the valuation
and how do you evaluate your business
and so how do you come up with a number
if you’re looking at raising any kind of
equity financing you’re gonna have to
say my business is worth X amount of
dollars a hundred thousand dollars ten
thousand dollars a million dollars
whatever it is so I want to share with
you the valuation model that we use when
we were when I was in the venture
capital business now from here you can
adjust the numbers to make make it make
sense for what you’re doing but
basically what I would do is project
five years out so five years down the
line what do my earnings look like so
how much am I going to be making with my
business so in this example the
projections of the company was almost
six million dollars you take out the tax
rate and you have your net earnings you
think about how much he’s seeking to
raise today so that’s what I’m going to
be making in five years what am I
looking for now and the company at this
time was looking to raise three and a
half million dollars next money in the
future is worth less the money today
right you’d rather have money right now
the money in the future so you have to
discount that money back so if you see
what here we have a 30% discount rate
applied to the valuation of the business
the valuation is associated with a p/e
ratio so the price to earnings ratio so
you times your your earnings by 15
un okay 51 million and then you discount
it by 30% every year
back next we look at the companies I’m
assuming we’re starting in in 2014
that’s our year right now
so we have our valuation at 12 and a hat
well villian dollars in change we take
out the three and a half million that we
are looking to get from investors and
we’re left with eight point seven
million dollars we take an additional
discount of 40% because it’s a private
company there’s a lot of risk associated
with the startup and so it takes us down
to five point two five million dollars
and basically that’s what we end up with
so the the business is worth eight point
seven five million dollars five and five
and change is what we get to keep as the
owner and three and a half is what the
investor gets the key so if you work
through the numbers you can apply to you
know whatever situation you’re looking
at basically the two things you want to
figure out is how much money you going
to be making in five years you have some
kind of projection and it has to be a
realistic projection right you’re not
going to be the next Microsoft in five
years so what’s a realistic number for
you what kind of earnings are going to
be making in five years and then the
next thing is how much you’re seeking to
raise so if you can figure out this top
number of how much your earnings are
going to be and then this number of how
much you want to raise from investors or
lenders others who are investors for
equity investors right here then you can
just apply all the numbers and you’ll
work out to how much your business is
worth so that’s how we did it very quick
overview but if you have questions on
this I’d be happy to answer it more in
detail with another video or with emails
the last thing is oh there’s a worksheet
that I want include for you guys it’s
how to raise your first fifty thousand
dollars for your business and it’s often
called love money so this is coming from
people you know or people within your
network and sucia the people on the
outer edges of your network that are the
ones that end up investing into your
business it can surprise you so it’s a
worksheet that I usually charge for on
my website but I’m going to give it to
you guys for free and if you have any
questions let me know normally around
this time it’s question time and that’s
my favorite part of any time
doing a webinar I love hearing what you
guys have to have to think and answering
those questions for you obviously since
this is a presentation now I can’t
answer your questions but what I want to
do is answer them in another video so if
you have a question about anything we’ve
talked about here or anything else for
your business I’d love to hear from you
if you want to leave a comment below or
email us back and I’m gonna do a video
afterwards of answering all the
questions that have come in and
hopefully be able to help you guys out
with what’s next so final slide I
promised you some extra bonuses and
here’s what I’m gonna do along with the
video responses I have a series of
worksheets that I sell and these are
usually for sale off my site and what
I’m gonna do is give one worksheet for
free to anybody within the next week who
is you know sign up for the call and
wasn’t able to make it on or who was on
the was on the call and struggled there
for half an hour as we tried to figure
out the technical issues with WebEx I’m
gonna give you any single worksheet for
free so the website here let me load it
up quickly if I go to my home page and
you click on any of these these are our
worksheets so we click here and then at
the top there’s a link this is
worksheets these are all the worksheets
and these are all different things that
can help you grow your business that
we’re currently selling if you pick any
individual worksheet that you want if
you scroll down pick the one that you
like the most I’m gonna send it to you
for free there’s gonna be a lot of
manual work for me but I’m really I’m
really apologetic for what happened with
WebEx it was completely out of our
control but I know you guys took the
time out of your day to spend it with me
and to try to learn about something to
help you grow your business and I know
how frustrating it can be when people
don’t deliver on things that they said
they were gonna do I know that that
bothers me a lot and so I really want to
make sure you get the help that you need
hopefully the webinar the presentation
today was helpful you learn something
new that you didn’t know before I want
to throw one of these free worksheets as
a bonus to again help you out pick any
one you want there’s 30 or so on here
how many do we have thirty thirty-two
pick the one that the most resonates
with you I’ll send it you for free and
again I’d love to hear your question
if you have one about this video about
you know raising money or about the
financial side of your business or
anything else to help you grow your
business let me know and I’ll do a video
to answer those questions for you and
then finally we’re going to be doing
another webinar on March 12th and and
hopefully all our technology will work
its financial literacy part two so today
was part one and we’re gonna do part two
and watch 12 staples has a promo where
you can get up to $140 off of QuickBooks
if you want to check it out the staples
out see a slash into a promo with this
bonus code here 7 for 239 and we’ll be
sending these slides and worksheets out
as well to help you as you try to grow
your business so thank you again for
tuning in again my deepest apologies for
everybody who was frustrated and we’ve
received nothing but great comments from
everybody saying and we realized this
happened you know sharing their stories
of how it’s happened to them in the past
and I know it does happen
it’s embarrassing and it sucks when it
does happen but we’ve really appreciated
all your support and I look forward to
hearing from you with those questions I
hope you enjoyed this video and I hope
we’ll see you on the 12th for the next
webinar thank you and we’ll see you soon
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