Get Cash Keep Control BLOG

By Stefania Aulicino

Do you spend your time focused on growing your company’s best future? Or are you really relegated to just focusing on today’s immediate needs? Is there a tug of war between short term cash flow and long term big profits? Between survival today and quantum leap success tomorrow? It’s the business builders’ challenge.

What is your passion-driven growth? Consider your revenue today; what is your profit margin on your current level of sales? Now, project out 5 years capturing all your best profit making opportunities. What is your revenue out 5 years from now? What is your new profit margin? Is it 1.5x, 2x or more bigger than today? So, what’s holding you back?

3 Stages of growth. You are a successful business owner with a passion to make a difference in the world. You had a salaried job, but you saw a better way to serve your clients. Your commitment to excellence drove you to break out. You are a special breed- a business owner, ready and willing to build a future only you could see. Your reputation, integrity and laser focus is paying off. Your innovative products or services delivered better than you promised and word of mouth has resulted in raving fans who encourage others to buy, because your solution is that important to them; sales and profits followed. You remember with fondness stage 1 of the passionate entrepreneurs’ growth stage: Passion dictated every decision. The team culture was cohesive. Such a pure message and experience in the marketplace fueled the early years of the company’s growth. Instinctively, at stage 1 you pursued a passion-driven growth strategy.

Then came the terrible 2’s- the 2nd growth stage. continue reading…

By Stefania Aulicino

“I knew when I started my business it was to build a significant player in the market. Many entrepreneurs are small business people and their goals are modest. Not me: I started with a big end in mind: to be a valued partner to my clients, attract a team to help me grow to our full potential, be recognized for innovation and performance in our niche rewarded with premium prices for our unique solution, and to channel my passion to deliver solutions in an area where I am uniquely suited to contribute. In short: make a big difference in the world.That was and is my goal, but reality falls a bit short. When we began, everything was on track. We built upon our unique perspective and insights. We attracted our ideal clients and our proprietary solutions began to sell. Word of mouth and trade press followed and sales grow.
Early on we used our limited resources very carefully, balancing innovation and talent investments matched with internal resources. As we attracted more and bigger customers we had to bite the bullet. We started to seek financing to put infrastructure in place to support these larger customers. As an expert in my industry I am very comfortable with analyzing decisions related to product and service, but I was a new-be about finance.
The bank seemed like the conservative thing to do so we selected a relationship. But the bank has not been as I had hoped. The bank was willing to finance a building, or extend credit as a percentage against selected accounts receivable or inventory that met their criteria, but the bank offered no help with what I really needed—growth capital, to fuel tomorrow; the bank offered only working capital based on what I have today.
Now I am getting scared. If I want to grow and I can’t use debt from the bank that means I have to seek out investors who want equity ownership and control. I feel confronted with a terrible reality: stay small or take on equity partners who expect to have a say in the future I want to build and let others control my destiny. I’d have everything riding; my family’s security would be at risk of decisions I don’t control. What a terrible choice.”
If this is you, do you resonate with these growth stages of your company? continue reading…

By Stefania Aulicino

“I wanted to grow, but I was afraid to grow. Didn’t want to add more staff to manage.
My time is scacre as it is. Don’t know I can handle any more.
Sure I know there is opportunity out there, but financing is always a struggle and I just don’t have the energy to fight so many battles
Wonder if I would be better off with a corporate job again”.
On our worst days as Entrepreneurs, do you ever have secret fears like those shared by Bill, above?
When Bill shared this with me I offered him a solution, in the form of a question:
Are you pursing your OPTIMUM GROWTH STRATEGY?
“Growth?! Our growth is what I can finance.”

That is the beginning of the problem for too many Entrepreneurs.

What is at stake is your Optimum Growth Strategy: the one that delivers the highest return with the lowest risk.
As entrepreneurs, we all know that Growth does not occur without Finance to fuel it.
But too many entrepreneurs link these strategies in the wrong way.
The right way is to insist that GROWTH strategy dictate FINANCE strategy, never the reverse.
If you try to address FINANCE first, you end up reaching out to the wrong types of sources and you don’t get full value so you end up paying more than you should. continue reading…