Why do some companies get showered with financing offers to create success NOW and business acceleration and others end up empty-handed and stuck in quicksand? It’s all about due diligence.

Before you get a loan, an investment, a client, an acquisition offer, or an investment banker to take you public, you’ll need to prove you have a solid business and that you’re READY for business acceleration. This is why we love to hate the due diligence (DD) process: it’s ridiculously time-consuming, and yet it’s required if we want to raise cash. Good DD prep enables a company to fly through the process and extract more cash for their company with less dilution. Here’s how to make the process work for you.

The DD Mind Game
On one side of the table is you, eager to close the deal. On the other side of the table is the funding source, who has at least as many reasons to nix the deal as to ink it. This is why DD is key: your goal is to reduce the fear of loss and increase the greed for gain in the funding source’s heart and mind.

First, be open and cooperative, as the funding source will note your reaction (verbal and body language) to their information requests. Assign one person to be the contact for the DD process, otherwise the operations of your company will be seriously impacted. This person should be detail-oriented, such as someone in finance or operations. Do not assign someone from sales or marketing.

All areas of your business will be scrutinized before a deal is done. Some funding sources will obsess over every item you give, others will focus on the potential deal breakers within each category. The process will generally take 3-12 weeks, depending on the transaction, with the least amount of a time for a loan, and the most for an acquisition. Investments from VCs or angels will land in the middle.

This is just the BASIC info – Due Diligence 101 – if you’re ready for real FUNDING avenues, business acceleration and CEO freedom (plus the 1-2-3 down and dirty info on creating financial freedom), you really need to do more than read my blog – but hey, this is still a good place to start. To your ROCKIN’, no-holds-barred, no excuses allowed, SUCCESS.

Christine Comaford, CEO Freedom Fighter
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Time Best Selling Author
http://www.mightyventures.com/bai

PS: My BAI weekend is the fastest way to ramp revenue and your company’s growth because it’s so intimate (I only take 20 participants) http://www.mightyventures.com/bai – I still have two spots left, and I would love to have you guys there to learn from me, firsthand, how to create MASSIVE growth and avoid HUGE mistakes.

I really want you guys to take a few minutes and think about your life, your business and how it all should support each another. Think about priorities, balance, fostering relationships and more. Your life is full of choices and Choices = Freedom.  You have the choice to build a business that SERVES YOU, not that YOU SERVE. Think about THAT. There’s a huge difference between the two. When your business serves you, you choose the life you want and build your business around it. When your business serves you, you experience a level of happiness, inner peace, fulfillment and FUN that few people ever equate with work.  There are 3 key relationships in your life: Your relationship to yourself, Your relationship to others, Your relationship to your business. Yes, your business is like a living, breathing relationship—it can be supportive and progressive, or it can be draining and destructive. One of the most important aspects of building a business, and a life, is being accountable to yourself and others. This is why I love having an accountability partner and strongly recommend this to everyone I mentor.http://www.mightyventures.com/baiPS: If you’re ready to REALLY become accountable and create the massive success you want and deserve, I hope you’ll join me at my upcoming weekend-long Business Acceleration Intensive Workshop.  For that entire weekend I’ll be personally mentoring a very small group of business. Only twenty participants will get to work with there. If you’re up to the challenge and ready to make the investment of both the time and the funds to attend ($1,997 early bird special), go to http://www.mightyventures.com/bai/ and reserve your spot. http://www.bit.ly/5SxlYE

An accountability partner is a friend or colleague that you call weekly or twice monthly at a set time to set goals and to report the status of the goals you set during the previous call. You’ll discuss any challenges you’re having and seek your partner’s input, and you’ll commit to additional goals to be achieved by your next call. Similarly, you’ll check to see whether your accountability partner has honored the commitments he or she made during your last conversation. If not, the two of you can brainstorm as to how to achieve these goals by your next call.

Schedule your accountability check-ins for an entire month in advance. Put them on your calendar in ink, or program them into your PDA. These are now officially unbreakable dates. I find that simply knowing that I’m going to have to talk about what I did or didn’t do with my partner gives me the extra boost to get stuff done. You can use accountability partners for business or personal goals. I talk with my accountability partner every Friday at 10am. We split the time evenly between us on each call, 15 minutes each + 5 minutes for random stuff. We follow up as needed between calls via e-mail. It’s fun, you build a strong bond with your partner, and you help one another succeed. I commit to 3-5 goals per call, depending on how time-consuming each goal is. I always have a mix of personal and professional goals.

Christine Comaford, CEO Freedom Fighter!

CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.

NY Times Best Selling Author

PPS: If you’re tied up either financially or logistically, join my exclusive membership website with video mentoring instead – only $97 / month. 

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Hi gang! I posted this as a tool to my Facebook Group, but I thought that my blog followers would definitely appreciate it as well.  Last week was an amazing week – and a challenging one!  Planning a 3-day event for 200 people is a huge undertaking.  Colleagues, friends, fans and team members flew in from all over the globe, literally!  We had one guest from Viet Nam and another from New Zealand!!!!  What I was left with is experiencing something I’ve ALWAYS known:  RELEASE in order to FOCUS.

PS: If you want to get all of my rockin’ biz building tools, join my Facebook Group!  http://bit.ly/AsTxL

One thing we know about starting a business – the start-up expenses can feel never ending.  Like most “roadblocks” however, this is not the truth.  There IS a limit to your start-up fees – but don’t forget to include them ALL when your fundraising.  One strategy for success is to keep your employee salaries to a minimum by hiring performance-based salespeople and offering stock in your company, where appropriate.  This will help you to have employees who are tied to, and invested in, your company’s success.

Here’s a list of startup expenses.  Be sure to calculate an initial investment of AT LEAST four months when you’re fundraising to give you some breathing room to get off the ground.  (You can copy this list to an excel sheet to make your life super easy!)

To your continued success, Christine Comaford
Biz Accelerator and CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author

Estimating Your Start-up Investment

Monthly Costs
Your Salary
Other Salaries
Rent / Mortgage
Advertising / Marketing / Social Networking Fees
Delivery and Warehousing
Supplies
Cell Phones
Other Utilities
Liability Insurance
Medical Insurance
Income Taxes, Including Social Security
Legal and Accounting Fees
IT Expenses
Miscellaneous

One-Time Costs
Equipment and Software
Furniture and Fixtures
Computers
Inventory
Utility Deposits
Legal and Accounting Retainers
Permits
Incorporation Fees
Cash on Hand
Other

Twitter Tip #6,999.02 (kidding) – But there are a lot of them out there! 

Here’s one that’s actually a strategy for success and biz-building useful!  Twitter only allows you to FOLLOW 2,000 Tweeters.  (After you have 2,000 FOLLOWERS, however, you can grow in equal proportion to them.)  SO, if you’re nearing the 2,000 mark, get into a routine where you FOLLOW on Monday and then REMOVE those who don’t follow you back by Friday.  Here are the instructions for removing without too much pain|

Log into Twitter.
On the top right, under your photo, you will see Following, Followers, and Updates.
Click on Following.

Now, if you look carefully, you’ll see that each person either has a note in their “box” that says Direct Message — or they don’t.  The one’s that DO NOT have the Direct Message note need to be removed.

So you can just go through that list for an hour and hit remove, remove, remove.

|Christine Comaford, Biz Accelerator
CEO of Mighty Ventures, Inc.
NY Times Best Selling Author

http://tinyurl.com/b3gogm