Lauren Cohen works with foreign investors to find the right business opportunities, make the right investments, and get and keep their visas. She discovered along the way that many of these people didn’t pay a lot of attention to their business structures and that the same was true of American business people.
7 Steps Scale Up Success Strategy
Lauren characterizes her role as creating a GPS for your business, but you have to have a destination. You can’t tell your GPS that you don’t know where you’re going.
These 7 areas of a business’ foundation can result in disaster if they are overlooked.
- Funding in capitalization. Without the right capital, or if you’re under-funded or under-capitalized, it doesn’t matter how great your business idea is, you’re going to fall apart.
- Business planning. If you don’t have a business plan and an exit strategy, you don’t begin with the end in mind.
- Branding and marketing. Building your brand is part of your foundation but it doesn’t exist independent of all these other elements, and marketing is part of branding.
- Legal and compliance. Without a legal structure in place, which so many business owners don’t have, you’re risking your family and everything you have.
- Financial and taxes. Everyone knows what that is all about.
- Operations and systems. Without systems, you can’t repeat your success.
- Insurance and licensing. If you don’t have insurance and someone sues you, you’ve got nothing to protect you. Without the right licenses, you can be shut down.
Know your area
You cannot be an expert in every area, so Lauren’s number one tip is to stay in your lane. You don’t know what you don’t know. Figure out where your gaps are and then allow someone who is an expert to oversee the process.
She suggests a 3-step process to assess your company.
- Assess
- Diagnose
- Deliver
Diagnose the issues and then fill the gaps you identified in the process.
Exit strategy
Lauren related the story of a client who wanted to exit her business within five years so she needed an exit strategy. She needed a strategy to get from where she is to where she needs to be.
She wants to sell to one of four parties but she doesn’t want to sell at a discount on her dollar. Rather, she wants to sell at the highest possible dollar amount. In order to do that, she needs to increase the profits.
That’s where the various elements of branding, compliance, taxes, operations, and all these other components become important because they will help the business owner get more value at the time of exit.
Funding and capitalization
It sounds crazy, but if you ask someone to invest $100,000 in your business, they are going to laugh at you. If, on the other hand, you ask for $5 million, they’ll suddenly believe that you’re serious. The problem is that there’s no ROI for $100K.
The cost of obtaining the money is so high that it’s not even worth it for them to pursue it.
Financial and taxes
This one is easy. If the IRS is after you because you haven’t paid your taxes, get them filed. You may pay penalties but at least you’ll be up-to-date.
Legal and compliance
Legal and compliance include your corporate record books, which everyone should have. Some companies don’t even have the corporate entity which is a whole other story.
Make sure you have a corporate record book that’s affiliated or associated with that entity. Hold a meeting each year and record the minutes in that record book.
Reflect all the changes to shareholders and bank accounts in your records.
She estimates that 70 percent of businesses don’t keep their record books up to date. If you try to sell your business or you end up in litigation, you’ll need that book.
Building and scaling
It’s vitally important to have all of these considerations in mind as you’re building and scaling your business. If you find a potential strategic partner who wants to help you build your business but he discovers that you don’t have all your contracts in place, the deal will fall apart.
If you have the wrong documents, you’re potentially setting yourself up for liability.
Don’t try to do this alone. Consult with a professional. Everybody avoids hiring a lawyer or a professional for fear of getting the bill at the end. But it’s better to get the bill now than to get a larger bill later.
“Scale UP Success Strategies” episode resources
Grab a copy of Lauren’s book Finding Your Silver Lining In the Business Immigration.
You can take a copy of her quiz at showmethemoneyquiz.com. It’s quick, free, and fun and it will give you access to schedule a call with her. You can also find her on Facebook @scaleupcheckup or on LinkedIn @scaleupcheckup. You can also reach her directly at (866) 724-0085 or info@scaleupcheckup.com.
Connect with me at donald@donaldk4.sg-host.com.
Try the first module of the TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free.
This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance.
TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump.
If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us.
Tools for sellers
This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link.
Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out.
I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility.
If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more.
Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS