High Street Headache

May 29, 2010

Expansion Consultants – Taking Your Company Public

Global finance is a convergence of polar opposites. It’s a hybrid element that is the result of merging bankruptcy and profitability and the infusion of the ethically inclined and the ethically obscene.

The obtuse minded institutional banking system and the endless motivational depth of the prototypical entrepreneur clash and a give and take, debt and debtor mentality evolves. This evolution results in the crisis of indentured servitude where the banks will give but will take much more.

The entrepreneur is often stranded without the means for economic defense in difficult times and the FDIC backed lender moves in to take assets whose value are derived by number crunchers in a backroom and the bank’s corporate headquarters.

Business owners will often sign their lives away in order to obtain modest loans and lines of credit, the financial equivalent to signing your soul away to the devil in blood. As a globalization consultant I am constantly hearing from small and medium size companies who have proprietary patents and technology and will put them up as collateral for financing.

I must admit, at times its tempting to facilitate a merger between them and an existing client that will result in instantaneous profitability and distribution for my client and the end for this uninformed startup.

If you are an upstart you need to evaluate your options before signing on that dotted line and giving up a pound of flesh. Banks should only be used as a last resort. Venture capital funds should only be considered if all else fails.

Your key to raising capital is to go directly to the public via vehicles such as a Private Placement Memorandum (Regulation D Rule 504, 505 and 506) which will allow you to sell stock in your company in return for capital and the ultimate in maximum capitalization would be to go public on the OTCBB (Over The Counter Bulletin Board), NASDAQ or NYSE. Even the London Exchange or Frankfurt Exchange are better options then institutional lending sources.

Taking your company public, growth through acquisition and merger and solidifying your public position with a hefty amount of corporate publicity and hardcore investor relations, this is what will get you to the next level.

Do You Need Massive Investor Relations that will put your stock price through the roof? Call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 Taking Your Company Public and Stock awareness was never so easy.

May 21, 2010

Over The Counter Bulletin Board – Take Your Company Public – OTCBB

So many companies dream of going public both as a growth and exit strategy but unfortunately few succeed with this process. The third party audit, sponsoring of the S1 and 211 by a market maker and SEC comments stage is just one of the obstacles involved with taking a company public. The attempt at going public and actually achieving a symbol are two entirely different things and if you are lucky enough to achieve a symbol there’s a completely separate area of expertise needed to keep your stock trading and to preserve a company’s longevity in the marketplace.

Here are some things you need to keep in mind when gearing up to take your company public. Forget everything that you’ve read and heard and pay attention to what you’re about to read because this is the straight forward, objective reality of the process. First, do not hire an attorney to take you public as they will take you on a long drawn out process to get as many billable hours as possible, instead, hire a consulting firm whose sole business model is to take companies public and take advantage of the relationships that they have with attorneys. This is the first rule: hire a consulting firm that offers a complete A to Z turn-key solution for taking a company through the process of going public, achieving a symbol and preserving the trade with a solid, ongoing post public investor relations strategy.

Next, when you’ve decided on a consulting firm evaluate their team, don’t ask for references to call to research their track record, better yet, ask for symbols of previous clients and links to the Edgar database to check out current deals in the comments stage. The proof is in the empirical track record, not potentially fraudulent phone references that are easily engineered and BS.

Now look at their team. Make sure that the consulting group has a solid legal team, market makers, investor relations team, auditing group and someone well versed in the comments stage response as this can be one of the major hang-ups in achieving your symbol in a timely manner. Also, most important, they absolutely MUST have a solid group of investors to fund the process for equity and to sell their shares into the marketplace post public to create a market for your stock as well as a network of market makers familiar with your deal to piggyback off of the sponsoring market maker’s 211.

About one month away from symbol achievement you’ll want to meet with your consultants to get a solid IR strategy together for a big offering dbut. You will want to set up a strategy for 30 day IR intensives every other month with general corporate publicity strategies in between. I suggest changing your IR firm each quarter to keep it fresh and open up your trade to a new network of investors.

One special note to consider is that when you are raising your initial round of capital from seed investors, the fastest way to do this is to have a fist full of contracts and purchase orders in hand to strengthen your position and publicize this reality with an arsenal of press releases. Its 100 times easier to raise capital if you are showing seed investors a handful of ‘soon to be’ cash than to solicit them empty handed.

Obviously there are a multitude of other issues that you need to take into consideration when going public so find a consulting firm that can help you make it happen. Don’t try to venture out into these waters on your own as you’ll be diving into shark infested waters and you’ll almost certainly fail.

Get Informed with the industry’s Top Financial Blog where the industry’s power players meet. Call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183 if you’re interested in Taking Your Company Public or Global Expansion we can make it happen.

December 27, 2009

Take Your Company Public: The Machiavellian Method of Fund Raising…Get Ready!

The psychological profile of business proprietors and entrepreneurs in general boasts the critical ‘Risk Taker’ element which allows one to take the leap from the financial security of a 9 – 5 job to the dicey waters of action based, success based income generation meaning: No Sales = No Money and No Food.

Many of these risk takers function within the realm of right brain communicative as opposed to left brain analytical which passes over the critical detail oriented solutions that are mandatory for raising capital. It is crucial for someone of this profile to hire a professional to come in and cross the t’s and dot the i’s in preparation for corporate fundraising efforts. After this is facilitated the entrepreneur needs to prepare mentally and emotionally for the turbulent road ahead.

Raising capital is no easy task and after the company is properly structured and you have an investor finder service, market maker or broker dealer in place to sell or promote your funding cause, you must step back, take a deep breath and prepare yourself mentally and emotionally. This preparation should start with the concept of ‘objectivity’ when you talk to investors, some will love your business model while others see an investment in your company as a waste of time. You must take these critiques, good and bad with a grain of salt. Don’t get caught up in the habit of emotionally reacting to these ideas from outside sources, don’t allow your mind to attach itself to an investor’s idea of your company or it will drive you insane and you’ll find that these emotional ups and downs will find their way home as your family will quickly be affected by your emotional fluctuation.

The second thing you must do is read and absorb the knowledge in such books as “The 48 Laws of Power” and “The 33 Strategies of War” by Robert Greene and of course “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. These books deal with strategy that can easily be translated into the business world and can help you prepare mentally for the art of fundraising. Read these books cover to cover and then read them again. Absorb the intricacies and strategies that these books offer and make it a point to use these concepts in your daily professional life; believe me, you’ll be glad you did.

The next thing you want to do is to study great strategists like Napoleon and Machiavelli. One thing that you will realize almost instantly is that these investors are out for their own gain, period (Why wouldn’t they?). They will try to attract your attention with the right hand while their left hand is reaching in your financial records looking for chinks in your corporate armor to make their case for more equity for less investment. You need to be able to analyze, not just the words of the investor but also all the other elements of their expression such as: intonation, facial gestures, eye movement, standing and sitting positions and other ‘tells’ that can give you an insight to what they are truly trying to communicate so you can anticipate their next move. These are just a few things to consider before entering the world of venture capital. Raising money for a business is a daunting task only to the unprepared.

Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

December 24, 2009

Is Your Company Going Public? Grow Quicker With Good Publicity

As a publicist that has been in the game for around 11 years I laugh when I turn on the television to see an author on a talk show telling the audience about their book or flip on the radio in my car and hear the morning DJ interviewing a self proclaimed expert of some new weight loss program where you can lose 500 pounds in 48 hours.

I don’t laugh because of the content but because I know how much they had to pay a publicist to get that interview. I know that all the questions are predetermined and that the publicist who convinced this individual that TV and radio were the only way to get in front of the public is living in the’70′s and can’t seem to adjust to the new concepts of massive publicity for pennies and the young, hip publicists that have transformed the process of ga

The last thing I’m trying to offend any publicists out there but I’m going to tell the public a little secret. If you are seeking massive explosions of publicity for your business, book, musical act or future celebrity, there is a process that will blast your ‘brand’ to 10,000,000′s overnight. There is a process that will put your brand in front of your target market in hours, not weeks. There is no waiting on approval from a television network or radio channel.

That secret caveat is a combination on online video distribution, press releases, article marketing, social book marketing, blogs and a few other online media distribution combination that will take your brand campaign from 0 mph to 100mph overnight. When you are interviewing publicists or brand recognition marketing specialist keep this in mind, any publicist can get you on TV or the radio with a couple calls since both of these media genres are constantly in need of content and truth be told, the results you’ll get are very minimal from these to publicity mediums.

The core of your interview should be quizzing them on their online media campaigns and viral media expertise. Don’t spend a dime until they’ve convinced you that their online strategies are on the cutting edge and cost effective. Online marketing strategies can literally have the internet screaming your name in hours.

Want Publicity, that works? Check out Princeton Corporate Solutions. Call 267-233-0183 for a Publicity Marketing firm that can deliver.

December 21, 2009

Take Your Company Public: Take Your Small Business Public

Are you trying to raise capital for your business? Have you been turned down by institutional lenders for loans and corporate lines of credit? Why deal with the hassle and embarrassment of perpetual declines and risk losing your business because of lack of cash? Wouldn’t it be great to raise capital quickly and easily for your company without constantly having to fill out scores of credit applications to stay afloat?

The important thing to realize is that if you are a small or medium size business and even if you are a start-up you can take your company public on OTCBB. When going public you really have two viable options: first, most people consider the IPO, but very few qualify because of the necessity of massive amounts of capital in reserve, SOX 404, extensive time in business and finding a broker dealer to take you through the process; the second option is taking your company public OTCBB (over the counter bulletin boards), this process is inexpensive, lightning fast, minimal qualifications and offers start-ups and small/medium size business the ability to raise gargantuan amounts of capital from investors worldwide.

There is no other way to go public on a legitimate platform. With Pink Sheets and Reverse Mergers you’ll only get burned so buyer beware! Are you short on cash? A popular mechanism for raising the initial capital to go public via OTCBB is by using a Private Placement Memorandum (Regulation D Rule 504) with a built in mini/maxi.

Right when you hit that minimum you can start using capital to grow your company while simultaneously initiating the ‘going public’ process.

The moral of this story…even if you’re a startup or small business owner you can raise capital by going public! Get informed and get funded.

Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

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