To put your vision-driven growth into action, y you need a corporate resume. Just like a concise, personal curriculum vita, a corporate resume is typically just 2 pages, but instead of documenting only the past, your corporate resume builds upon your company’s strengths and distinctions- like so many economic building blocks, so the reader can see your future- written in the universal language of business- in dollars and cents.
A corporate resume includes a set of financial projection based on 2 important assumptions: unlimited resources and unlimited time. It shares your goal, out 10 years from now, assuming all the money needed to build your business were your own.
Why is this important? Because if you don’t communicate to the world where you want to go, no one will know and no one can help you get there.
Daniel Burnham, Chicago’s famous urban planner who gave us the legacy of a beautiful lakefront city said “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood. Make big plans…”
Based on your 10 year revenue goal, declare your profit margins. As a double check, your profit margins should be bigger than they are today- by a factor of 2 or 3. Enhanced profit margins are a mathematical confirmation that you are building only upon what you do best- your competitive economic distinction. When your projections capture all your most attractive profit-making opportunities, you gain benefits of:
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Successfully penetrating new markets and preempting competition
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Winning premium prices for your innovative solutions
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Economic efficiency reflecting technology, optimized capacity and scale.
Together these elements contribute to a dramatically richer bottom line and stronger cash flow
Best of all, you just might notice this growth strategy, based on your company’s uniqueness, is much less risky than the strategy you might have pursued, constrained by the usual assumption of limed resources. I say this because I believe this optimum growth strategy is the one you would intuitively pursue if all the resources needed were your own. It’s the strategy with the highest return and the lowest risk, built upon your company’s uniqueness. That makes it the most exciting, safest and most profitable future possible.
True, to get there you might need some resources you don’t have. In fact you might not even know how to get there. That means you are limited in your ability to select others to help
Part of the magic of sharing your corporate resume is to attract resources that can help you address what you don’t know you don’t know. A corporate resume lets you reverse the process: share your vision and let resources “self select” themselves. This is how you attract resources that share your vision and want you in control.
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This works extremely well with top notch talent: while it’s hard for you to know the right skills, it’s easy for talent with hindsight and experience to see where you want to go and offer what you don’t know to ask for.
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Sharing your future also attracts your perfect customers who just might offer to underwrite financial costs to accelerate your ability to serve them. I’ve seen all kinds of resources offered, from 100% advance payment with order to outright gift –not equity, not debt- a gift- all because your product is important to your customer.
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Vendors too respond to big goals. They get excited about the new market you are building, and would like to share in it. I’ve seen generous payments terms as long as 270 days, on top of excellent preferential pricing
As entrepreneurs we have a unique ability to create a future that does not exist until we make it-that is our pain unless we make it our asset. A corporate resume is the key to communicating your vision-driven growth and putting it into action. A corporate resume attracts others who can fuel your passion and keep you in control of the future you want.
Stefania Aulicino is founder president of CapitalLInkUSA. For 20 years Stefania has helped business builders uncover the right capital for their optimum growth strategy so you get cash and keep control to build the business you really want. www.CapitalLinkUSA.com
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