This is because the small business and renovation loans are usually made to a person and it's their ability to repay which is important to the bank rather than the collateral they could seize. Only people with cash flow and a good history with the bank can get these kinds of loans. If you'd like to chat about a strategy to finance your business just give me a call. Cheers www.DavidCBarnett.com

The first step is measurement. Do you have a gauge as to how long people are engaging with you app? Typically companies use Appsflyer or Kovchava to measure app installs and behavior. Once you can see where and when people are dropping off you can get a good understanding of what dev changes you need to make.

The first thing you're going to want to do is to make an export file from the destination CRM, in your case it's SuiteCRM, and pull it into Excel. What I mean is when you export from the new CRM you will have a comma delimited or Excel file with all of the fields required as column heads on a spreadsheet

This is a very hard question because the experience of each entrepreneur will be different based on what they are seeking to gain as well as what they contribute. Develop a list for yourself of what you seek from a mastermind and then start looking. House of Genius is one I have worked with that is hugely collaborative, though not officially labeled a mastermind group. Meetup has lot of groups with specific targets but again, it's best if you know what you seek to gain, also how you wish to contribute, before searching for a mastermind.

I'd suggest first joining a local Toastmasters club. There you'll be able to practice, receive feedback and more. Then work with a coach one on one. If you'd like specific recommendations, I'd be happy to offer coaches I know on a short call.

You have some useful elements available here for positioning. First thing to understand is you will not "put out your shingle and they will come." There are many tax accountants and most business owners couldn't tell a good one from a bad one. So you must Stand Out. You must also develop a source of inbound leads. My advice is to begin at the end, how much money you want to make over a year, and work backwards to how many sales that needs to be (using an average engagement price) and then to how many people you need to be talking to that will result in those sales. This right here--or the lack of it, really--is why most businesses fail. They think just because they're there they will attract customers...and they don't know what they should be doing every day. They do not define their money target and consequently cannot figure out an activity level. So they sit there, play with their website, and wonder why the phone isn't ringing. In your case once people get to you or your marketing platform you have a couple things to talk about. First, scarcity. You're retiring and so you only have the time to help a few fortunate people Second, you have all this experience with the city. You know who to talk to there. That's not directly applicable to the IRS but it might be useful to building contractors and other types of clients who interact with the municipality. If you can use that knowledge and those relationships to help your clients lower their taxes payable, that's valuable. You've also seen administrative process in action so that'll be helpful in your IRS interactions. IMO you'll benefit most from starting to build proto-client relationships now, rather than waiting. Position yourself to get affluent clients and you'll earn more serving fewer clients. How to do that? Get this book and apply what it says: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Selling-Affluent-Attract-Customers-ebook/dp/B00HTKWMBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513859984&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+selling+to+the+affluent I don't want to come off as preachy, but this is one-way communication right now so I have to say what I believe needs to be said: most professionals who have never run their own business (and I don't know whether you have or haven't before) are gobsmacked by the fact that they must actually market and sell their services. The world does not line up at the door to buy just because the open sign is up. Resist the urge to "dumb it down". This is a tough concept and I struggle with it, too; however, every time I see an expert try to dumb down their ideas when talking to a marketplace they attract the wrong people. For instance there's a super cool investment banker I'm friends with who at the very lowest level should be talking about the subtleties of why an s-corp election can screw you up. But he forgets, and starts talking to an audience at a lower level...and soon enough, surprise surprise, he's rolling in the mud with the pigs and the pigs like it! Yet if he marketed with an opener about ways to monetize "dead" assets or some other higher level money concept, nobody could argue with him...and the "spider sense" of business owners like me would tingle and we'd pay attention. We might not interact, but we'd learn and start respecting his opinion. The loudest people in a marketplace are not necessarily doing the best--it's no indication of anything other than they like to talk, actually. Sometimes I've seen wealthy people interact a lot; sometimes it's been the broke people with nothing else to do. So stick to your higher level message and attract the people you can serve the best...and can not only afford your rates but *want* to pay them. As an employee you have been receiving the benefit of the organization bringing in the need for your work. If it was a private company someone would be selling something, and that would justify the expense of having you there. In the city they have figured out staffing and expertise levels required to handle the amount of work required, and you're a line item in a budget paid for by parking fines, property taxes, and a surprisingly small list of other ways the municipality brings in revenue. On your own, you no longer have these benefits. It's completely up to you to bring in the work. And that means you'll have to be doing different things than you were before. Actual accounting work will take a back seat: you'll be marketing most of the time in the early years. Maybe after a year and a half you'll build up enough referrals to back it off to say 50/50 marketing vs work activities. But the big takeaway is this: don't think you'll be doing accounting work most of the time.

You can share the individual song by grabbing the Embed code in Spotify. To do this, find the song in Spotify and click on the ellipsis, aka the three dots (...) to display more options. Select Share --> Copy Embed Code and place this code where you want the song to display on your website. You will also see other options available. If you choose "Song Link" it will open the song in Spotify. Another option is to create a playlist of the songs you want to suggest and embed the entire playlist. If you aren't restricted to using Spotify, you can also embed songs from YouTube or create a YouTube playlist of the songs you want to share. Hope this helps!

The challnege here is that not too many people really understand branding, similar to the way people understand marketing. It does not have a consistent meaning. You will have to educate your csuite or key personnel on the value of developing their brand. Use examples of other companies in your industry that are brand focused, and call out things they do. Using a SWOT analysis can help as well. Another way is to start with the purpose of the organization. Is the purpose aligned with everything decision made in the organization? If not this is a good indirect way to start your branding campaign. Hope this helps! I'm available for followups if needed!

1. Talk to a lawyer who can write you a proper licensing agreement. 2. Charging should be around $10,000 per year or $50,000 one-off fee if you are scarce for money. It could also be $50,000 per year though, but this depends on how big of a budget you think the licensee has. Try to find that out indirectly in a call with them. 3. If someone can only pay you $5,000 per year or less, I wouldn't do it, since your rebranding, bugfixing costs are higher than the $5,000.

Sorry to answer a question with a question, but why do you want to strengthen the relationship, rather than going your separate ways? A business partnership is similar to a marriage or other very intimate relationship. If you can't have open and honest communication, the relationship will suffer. In my opinion, once you start to hit the point where you need counseling, it's difficult to pick up the pieces of the relationship - more so than in a marriage, even. With that said, if you have no option other than to work on the relationship, you need to start at the beginning and work on communication skills. Learn how to listen to each other, and talk to each other. Get vulnerable. Understand each other's feelings, motivations and goals in life. If you can't start there, then "splitting up the work" is nothing but a band-aid on your relationship that will ultimately hurt or kill your business. In a startup, any sort of work-splitting will be temporary. As the company grows and the business matures and/or flounders, you will need to re-evaluated the work split, your individual roles, and the company's goals. All of that requires rock solid communication and vulnerability. If the co-founders are serious about making it work, they will commit to improving the relationship together. That may mean attending events like Landmark Forum or Tony Robbins together. It may mean going through group counseling. More likely, someone will leave the team - if not now, then in the future - either by choice or by force.

The best networking is slow-cooked, not microwaved. Find events where you can have some kind of regular presence. Got nothing to lose by going to one-time events as they're good practice for meeting people, but you won't really cultivate long-term professional relationships that way. It takes time which relies on that regularity aspect. Build trust and don't look at networking as a transactional thing.

Hearty Congratulations on the Global Success of Your Worldwide (Social Networking) App. However : You Do Urgently Need to Get Yourself an American Immigration Attorney ; so that your F1 Visa Status in the USA will not Adversely Affect your Apparently (Rather) Successful Social Media Venture. Owning an American Company may not necessarily (or automatically) translate into getting a (Full-Fledged) American Investors Visa ; most especially if the USA Visa Officer did not see anything about a Profitable American Company on your F1 Visa Application Form. Find an Experienced USA Immigration Attorney (Quite Quickly). If you are able to get American (or International) Investors to Loan You about One Million Dollars (US$1,000,000), then perhaps the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Programme may (actually) be a Far Much Better Option for You ; most especially if you can employ at least Ten American Citizens in (certain) Economically Deprived Areas. (In Fact) As At Today : US$500,000 could possibly get you an EB-5 Investors Visa ; provided that you Employ about 10 (Ten) American Citizens from Targeted Employment Area (TEA) Zones. Good Luck.

This idea is very intriguing. I believe the product is very doable if you have the appropriate tech resources and the right team. I'm unsure of what the target market may be for this application? Middle-aged individuals? And are you planning to make this free because I'm not too sure people will be willing to pay for this unless it has more attractive features. I would love to talk further about this and help you brainstorm some concepts + viable business models. Ping me!

An investment implies giving money to acquire a cash flow. Crypto coins have no cash flow. You're betting on their value increasing over time. This is called speculation. I made this video a few years ago discussing the two words: https://youtu.be/QEACN_QVEvE If you'd like to discuss a business investment, please arrange a call. Cheers www.DavidCBarnett.com

I will give you 4 ways to monetize and sell your plugin. First of all, I need to say that you are using social media and Adwords which is fine, but getting the traffic to your plugin page is the challenge. And if you are using social media, are those people in your target market to even want the plugin? They must be WordPress site owners and developers, or otherwise all the Adwords and Facebook advertising will not work. First Way: What has worked for some of my clients is to offer a LIMITED version of the plugin for free and then offer an upgraded version for your price on the WordPress repository. That is what the most popular plugins do. WooCommerce is free, but they charge extra for the add-ons, so that is one way you can go: Offer your plugin for free and limit its functionality and then offer paid upgrades for extra services. Second Way: Another way to monetize your plugin is to do what most of the free plugins do: Offer about 50% of its functionality for free and then the other 50% is available through a paid upgrade which is your regular price. Third Way: Offer the full plugin for free and ask for donations. Fourth Way: This is what I do. Attend as many WordCamps as you can around the country and hand out a flyer or business card with your paid plugin address on it. I have seen all 4 of these suggestions work for various plugins. I hope one of these works well for you. If you have any other questions about this, please let me know. Bruce

Hello! This is a great question. I have been helping startups and small business owners with their funnels for quite some time now. My name is Humberto Valle, I'm an MBA strategist with Unthink and actually recently completed another Sales Funnel Marketing Guide, you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2j4XPid With that said, I will be as helpful as possible to you in this response. 1) Define Your Brand What makes you remarkable? The first step toward answering this question is conducting a self-audit to identify your purpose, strengths, values and passion. In a fiercely competitive cleaning maid service environment, it’s essential to crystallize your competitive advantage. Some cleaning professionals differentiate themselves through their individual achievements (e.g., well-known clients, endorsements) while others boast added value (e.g., JD, MBA, Successful exits, number of employees, etc.). - Understand Your Audience Define your target audience — and arm yourself with intelligence about what drives them to take action. Determine who you’re talking to: consider age, gender, personality, and profession. Then, identify your clients’ pain points: how can you solve their needs better than your competitors? What is their preferred channel of communication? Answering each of these questions thoroughly is imperative. Just like when networking, building rapport is what makes a brand good. - Know Your Competition With rising confidence in the real estate market, there are many new cleaning companies popping up every day - which means more and more competition. In order to stand out, gather intelligence on who you’re up against and go for an opposite plethora of efforts and experiences that will help you build a different brand from the rest. Then, be better than them. One key question to answer in this process: what niches within my city and industry are not being exploited by the largest cleaning companies? Once you figure it out, you’re ready to put your stake in the ground - copy their efforts for managerial to get started, promote where they are and they are aren't. Subscribe to our newsletter and I will follow up later with ways on doing this. 2) Live Where Your Customers Live (not - literally) In order to get customers’ attention, you have to live where your customers live. And today more than ever before, where customers live is on social media. But, if you want to multiply your success opportunity, you must be where your competitors aren't. That isn't social media, per se. You can choose to avoid Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube on purpose, assume they don't exist and use that are a rule of thumb forcing you to find alternate platforms that would be potentially favored by your prospect clients but not used by competitors to reach them. Create beautiful sales funnel marketing campaigns that consider the acquisition as more than cookie cutter reach. Lead Generation Is About Anticipating A Buyer's Needs: When you create a funnel, as you are sketching it out you should aim to address each phase of their buyer journey from awareness, consideration and decision because chances are your audience will be at various interest levels when they first encounter your ad/service. My first approach would be optimizing the website for SEO, making sure all pieces are coherent across all platforms, then address occasionally a major competitor and its key differences. Using linkedin and google ads I would generate awareness and traffic to the site to kickstart Google Analytics for retargeting purposes, then follow them through other platforms via ads offering stories, case studies, guides, best practices, and data they can use with their own clients in exchange for lead information, then nurture them through email marketing. If all this is set up on a platform like Hubspot, you could essentially invest the time upfront and then let it run on auto-pilot. To learn more you can read more about lead generation on my blog post: http://blog.unthink.me/lead-generation-best-practices-for-top-of-the-sales-funnel-marketing

I've written numerous IMs for UK companies and have put together some detailed advice on what to say and not say in IMs. Have a look here: http://ukbusinessbrokers.com/how-to-impress-investors-to-finance-or-buy-your-business/

Being as collaborative as you can be is a good start. Outside of that, being honest and transparent about why the changes are happening is a good way to build trust with the new team. Keeping a positive attitude and energy around it will also help to soften the blow. Most importantly, continually ask the new team for their feedback along the way. This will help them to understand that while you are implementing new procedures to help things run "your way," you still respect and value their opinion. Best of luck!

I would say this from my personal experience. First right to popularise your domain name. Here are the top 12 tips they've shared that you have to consider when fundraising for your social enterprise. 1. DON’T ACCEPT EVERY CHECK YOU’RE OFFERED. When you’re running a cash-strapped business, it can be tempting to take every investment deal you’re offered. However, early on, you should develop a clear-eyed, strategic vision for the type of capital your business needs. “Too many companies bob and weave based on the investors they meet,” says Greg Neichin, Director of Ceniarth LLC, “It can be a problem for social enterprises when you try to blend all different kinds of investments, or when companies get financed in bizarre ways to meet the needs of the investor.” Instead, he says, entrepreneurs should think through what type of financing strategy makes the most sense to them, and then be vigilant about sticking to that fundraising plan. “You’ll end up with better financing structures in the long run,” Neichin says. 2. WHEN YOU’RE TRYING TO RAISE FUNDS, PAY ATTENTION TO 2 THINGS: STORY AND DATA. Phin Barnes, a Partner at First Round Capital, says that good fundraising boils down to two things: being able to tell a compelling story about your company, and the ability to back up that story with data. As a VC, he views every round of funding as an opportunity for companies to create a bigger story and gather more data. “You should be thinking about the different hypotheses you want to test in order to generate that data to support the larger story,” Barnes says, “And then you have to be deliberate about driving those tests to conclusion, being purposeful about capturing all that data, and then being intentional about creating a narrative to get you to that next round of funding.” 3. CULTIVATING AN INVESTMENT IS ABOUT BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP, BOTH WITH THE INVESTOR AND THE INVESTOR’S NETWORK. “The investment process really looks different for every deal,” says Morgan Simon, a consultant for Pi Investments, “However, our preference is to have as much time as possible to get to know how an entrepreneur operates before we invest in them.” Barnes from First Round echoes this, saying, “The typical process is that we get to know people over a long period of time.” Although they try to make the actual investment decision quickly once a company has pitched to partners, First Round typically gets acquainted with an entrepreneur long before that pitch happens, often through his or her involvement with another First Round company. 4. TRY TO RAISE MONEY IN CHUNKS, RATHER THAN INCREMENTS. Neichin of Ceniarth says that he frequently sees social entrepreneurs getting stuck in a vicious cycle of constant fundraising, where they raise money very incrementally instead of closing the rounds that are needed to take them to the next level of scale. This means that a CEO’s attention is constantly diverted by raising capital and she or he cannot focus on other strategic priorities. "Raise money in chunks, rather than increments." Barnes of First Round takes this point a step further, encouraging entrepreneurs to plan ahead so that they have enough money in the bank when they achieve true product-market fit. “We see that entrepreneurs might not be optimistic enough,” he says, “People work and work and then something clicks. When that thing “clicks,” the first thing the team has to do is run and talk to investors. However, when something really starts to work, you have to be able to pour the gas on.” 5. THINK ABOUT YOUR NEXT ROUND OF FUNDING AS SOON AS YOU CLOSE THE CURRENT ONE. So you just received a round of funding. Congrats! Now is also the time you should start thinking about the next round and who you want to approach. “Start the conversation with those future investors the day after you close a round,” Justina Lai of Sonen Capital says, “You can say, ‘Here’s what we’re doing. We’d like to keep you apprised of our progress. We know we’re too early for you now, but when we do hit those milestones (which we know we will!), we’d like to talk to you.” 6. WHEN TRYING TO CLOSE A ROUND, THE SEQUENCE OF INVESTMENTS IS CRITICAL. “The whole goal as a founder is to move investors from a fear of failure to a fear of missing out,” says Barnes of First Round. “As you narrow in that funnel, the most important thing is to sequence all of your investments. You want to keep everyone in lockstep as much as you can so that you can get investors on the same page. The sequence is the most important piece to getting rounds closed.” That said, Neichin of Ceniarth notes that, “In emerging markets, there might not be as much of an ecosystem to generate that competition.” To prevent potential investors from feeling like your company is becoming “stale,” you should do as much as possible to create a sense of urgency around the investment, says Lai of Sonen Capital. 7. LEADING A ROUND MIGHT ACTUALLY BE ABOUT PUTTING IN THE MOST LEGWORK RATHER THAN PUTTING IN THE MOST MONEY. “We need to look at what ‘leading a round’ actually means,” says Simon of Pi Investments, “In a lot of cases, it actually means putting together the legal terms and there is no reason that the company can’t take that role on. We’re seeing some entrepreneurs really taking the lead and making a very direct ask of the investor.” In some cases, she says, you should come to the table with a very specific and well-researched case for what your business needs and then be willing to take the lead to draw up the terms for that deal to expedite the entire process. A smaller impact investing firm or the company itself can “lead” the round in that regard, even if they aren’t writing the biggest check. 8. INVESTORS CAN OFFER MORE THAN FINANCING. Although providing access to capital is certainly their main appeal, investors are eager to be recognized for the other skills and resources they can bring to your business. “We can provide you with introductions to other potential investors, and a bird’s eye view of the market as a whole,” says Lai, Director of Sonen Capital. Simon of Pi Investments echoes that, saying, “As investors, our job is to know people.” Aside from that, investors can often sit with entrepreneurs and help them figure out alternative deal structures, or determine the type of capital they should be raising. Neichin from Ceniarth LLC agrees that investors are well-positioned to offer input on deal structuring, “We are beginning to get access to enough deals that we can learn how to put together different finance vehicles for different situations,” he says. If you have further queries then you can consult me.

Firstly, you should seek out solving a problem that you are passionate about and have useful expertise in. Building a business with the sole intent on making it appealing to investors will often have the opposite effect. With that out of the way, markets that are getting a lot of attention from VCs tend to be areas that are ripe for disruption by hot technology trends. At the moment, two of those are AI and Blockchain technologies. AI is opening up new opportunities in lots of areas: eCommerce, cybersecurity, marketing automation,, business intelligence / analytics (and the interpretation of that data), healthcare, and finance. If you can find things that can be made cheaper, high quality, more personalized or faster through the application of AI, there's potential for VCs to be interested. Blockchain technology has the potential of disrupting many markets. Just be careful not to use it simply as a buzzword; investors are wising up to shallow uses of Blockchain that are designed merely to attract investment. Some markets that Blockchain will disrupt is finance, cybersecurity, transactions that need to be secure such as real-estate, supply chain management, voting and elections. AI and Blockchain technology can also be paired up in a complimentary way, so there's ample room for innovation that is also interesting to investors here. But in the end, the main thing is finding a problem that needs a solution, rather than building a solution then looking for a problem. If you're looking for advice on evaluating and vetting startup ideas that investors can get excited about, I'd be happy to dig into it with you on a call.

Before you do any surveys, I'd strongly recommend talking to 5-7 prospective customers first - either in person or on a phone/video call. During that, I'd ask questions to learn what you're competing against - what other educational toys would they consider instead of yours? What would yours need to do to be different enough for them to buy? How much are they willing to pay? Once you've talked to a handful of folks, then it's OK to do a broader survey with a tool like SurveyMonkey Audience: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/audience/. You can think of the qualitative research as a way of informing what options you present to survey takers on the pricing question.

I highly recommend reading the book "Blue Ocean Strategy" that is the best and simplest way to map out the landscape of the marketplace and identify opportunities or methods of differentiation. If you don't have time to read the book I'm sure there videos out there summarizing and explaining the core principles. We walk our clients through the Blue Ocean Strategy mapping and simply follow the process in the book, and it's quite powerful and valuable. I don't know of any other process that VISUALLY REVEALS the opportunity in your market. The other way is to look at your past clients: Is there a majority of clients that you worked with that fall into a niche demographic? Is there a subset of your clients that you enjoyed working with more so than others? Is there an area of your expertise that you're more passionate about that would lead you to dive deeper into a niche? (IE: career transition, executives in healthcare, women in tech startups, Female executives for 7-figure startups, etc.) Hope this info helps!

Successful SEO depends on two things: The amount of time the SEO has to invest (which often correlates to your budget) and the skills of the SEO doing the work. Without those two things, it's difficult to answer question number one. SEO, and digital marketing, in general, require a lot of skillsets that most people don't have. They have some, but not all. They should, however, be letting you know what activities they are doing and explaining why they are important and what the results should be. As for the second question, there is a lot to do and it's a matter of prioritizing. Ten SEOs will tackle the same project ten different ways, but that doesn't necessarily make any of them wrong. A great resource you can use to understand what an SEO can/should be doing is webmarketingchecklist.com (disclosure: I wrote it.) This will at least give you a place to start an intelligent conversation and set priorities. As for milestones, you need to determine what your goals are. Are you going for sales, leads, traffic or conversions? What are you getting now and what do you hope to achieve. Then have a conversation with your SEO to determine if your expectations are realistic with the time they have to invest.

I would consider every product page on your site a landing page worth driving traffic to. Almost everything you would do to optimize a landing page for performance can be done to your internal site pages. This will 1) help you get better results from your existing pages and 2) save you time from having to optimize multiple pages for the same thing.