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I am dreaming of a tropical Christmas

Being a predominantly Christian country Christmas is a big occasion in the Philippines. It is also still a religious occasion, which of course it should be. Only a tiny percentage of people can afford gifts, so the emphasis is on family holidays, time together, and for many going to church. Very few families have anything special for Christmas lunch they just don’t have the money. They do make up for it, though, as Filipinos certainly know how to enjoy themselves.

Despite the lack of money in most families, Christmas starts early in the stores, around August. One thing they go in for in a big way here is Christmas lights. Sometimes even the poorest homes will be adorned with fairy lights, some having quite spectacular displays. Even in early November last year, as I travelled back from the jungle’s edge about 90km south, it was quite magical to see the Christmas lights as we got near the city.

My first Christmas in the country was memorable. I was invited to a girlfriend’s house Christmas Eve, a very poor but very friendly neighbourhood with mostly small timber houses cramped next to each other intimate to say the least. Outside in the garden there were lights everywhere, set up for the party that would last all evening and into the night. I remember sitting there as they got everything organised around me, how magical and special it all was. Just a few months earlier I had been a resident in England and had only experienced Christmas in England. Now, I was sitting outside on a hot Christmas Eve, the sound of tropical insects a prelude to the modern disco music that was to follow later. I loved it.

As with most occasions in the Philippines, there were lots of children. Neighbours came and went, people moved from one party to another, and there was a constant flow of people and especially children. Children’s games were followed later by adult versions of children’s games, most of which have come from Western influence, but Filipinos always put their own stamp on the foreign habits they adopt. Alcohol would not have been a part of the occasion, but the adults were delighted when I offered to buy beer and rum.

At midnight, I was advised to go inside. I soon saw why. All hell broke loose with fireworks as midnight approached, exploding from every tightly packed, confined little garden in the neighbourhood. Fireworks that would have been banned in the UK, but I have to admit they were very loud and impressive. I was amazed, as nobody had warned me of this tradition beforehand.

Now, all my Christmases are tropical, and very different from those in England. I sometimes wonder how much Christmas would change here if it ever became a wealthy country. The major differences between here and England are the profligate spending and materialism in England, and the normal subdued spending in the Philippines. Yet, it is the Filipinos who seem more able to enjoy it that the English.

While the body of the business plan should be 15 to 25 pages, the Appendix can be used for supplemental information. The Appendix should include a full set of financial projections, and as appropriate, technical and or operational drawings, partnership and or customer agreements, expanded competitor reviews, and lists of key customers among others.

If the Appendix is long, a divider should be used to separate it from the body of the plan, or a separate Appendix document should be prepared. These techniques ensure that the investor is not handed a thick business plan, which will make them queasy before even opening it up.

To summarize, the goal of the business plan is to create interest not to have an investor write you a check. In creating interest, the full story of your company need not be told. Rather, the plan should include the essential elements regarding why an investor should invest and spend more time examining the business opportunity. The shorter length does not mean that your business plan should take less time to prepare. Rather, it will take more time. As Mark Twain once said, If I had more time, I would write a shorter story. Likewise, condensing your business plan to a concise, compelling document is challenging and time consuming. Fortunately the rewards are significant.
When raising capital for a business venture, a company can either raise debt capital, equity capital or a combination of the two. Debt capital is money loaned to the company at an agreed interest rate for a fixed time period. Conversely, equity capital is money invested by owners shareholders for use in business operations that need not be repaid. Combinations include convertible securities which may be debt that can be converted into equity at some point in the future.

The simplest form of equity capital is common stock. Common stock has many distinguishing factors as follows:

Common stock is not convertible into another type of security
Each share enjoys one vote
Dividends are payable without limit but only when declared by the board of directors
In liquidation, common stock holders are the last priority to which to distribute assets

In venture capital transactions, there may be two types of common stock which are issued. The first is Class A common stock, which is like preferred stock without the special voting rights which some statutes require in shares labeled preferred. A second type of common stock is junior common stock. While this type of stock is not used very frequently, it allows companies to get cheap stock into the hands of key employees at minimal tax cost.

Determining what type of capital to raise and how to structure the financing transaction is of critical importance to growing ventures. As such, it is crucial to understand the key terms and consult the appropriate legal and business advisors when embarking on the capital raising process.

How to Launch Your Business Success Anew

Copyright (c) 2009 Linda Feinholz

In a meeting last week with one of my Platinum clients, Brian, reviewing the goals he had achieved since we began work in January, he shared an «Ah Ha!» he’s had.

«Linda, when you kept steering me to simplify my Vision, I didn’t want to hear it. I wasn’t ready to. But, wow! Once I heard you, once I followed your process and created that simple vision — it’s all taken off like a rocket!»

Now, prior to this, Brian had been having difficulty getting his team on board. He couldn’t get all their activities pulling in the same direction towards the same goals. When we took a look at the reasons for the weak results, the confusion behind it became apparent. Everyone on his team had a different understanding of what the objectives were.

For the lack of a clear vision, all their time, intelligence and energy was having minimal results. Instead, the was lots of wasted time every day, by well-intentioned professionals…

A real shame to have all those resources wasted. But that didn’t have to be the way they operated for the long-term.

What do I mean by ‘simplify’ your vision?

The reason this is so helpful is that simplicity and clarity at the beginning, from the top, becomes the starting point for every activity in your business. ‘Simplify’ your vision.. and you can make it easier to identify your ideal target market. Simplify your ideal target market… and you can focus all your marketing efforts so that you’re easier for them to find. Simplify your marketing… rather than trying to be all things to all people… and you make yourself easier to understand and an easier solution to buy.

Moreover, while it becomes easy to see the impact that your Vision’s simplicity has on your external presence in your chosen market, it’s as important inside your company.

Why?

Because you can simplify your operations. Simplify the solution you’re trying to offer and you can simplify your delivery of that solution. Your time and that of your entire team, gets used doing the right things at the right time, without needing to spend time straightening out confusion, conflicts, and plain old inefficient time wasting by everyone.

That in turn means you can simplify your systems, the processes you use to get work done, which leads to simpler results, that are simpler to measure and track, and simpler train new people to produce. And so on.

That doesn’t mean thinking flies out the door. On the contrary, it means each person can ask «Is this in line with our Vision?» for themselves, to help keep the entire company’s efforts pulling in the same direction towards the same goals.

Each person becomes a Visionary and Brilliant Problem Solver for your business.

Whether you are heading a major organization, or a division, or your own small business, the result is the same.

As you set a clear vision, it becomes apparent what is out-of alignment, wasted time and effort, busy work for busy sake rather than the best path to deliver solutions to your customers.

Of course, setting a new Vision, or a cleaned up Vision, or your first one ever, often makes people fearful. The most common reason I hear from my program participants is that «I’ll have to stop doing a lot of what we’re doing here.»

Indeed, that is the exact choice that Brian faced, that I face, and that you will face.

But I ask you, in this economy, do you want to be putting all that time, energy and intelligence into doing things that are expensive busy work, or put them into focused, high payoff activities that are simpler, targeted, lower cost, more highly profitable?

You have the opportunity, right now, to step back. Step out of the business of habit and ongoing activity and take ten to fifteen minutes and look for the simplest vision you can hold, that humms and excites you.

Or, you can keep yourself very busy, and delay achieving the goals you say you want.

My vote? SIMPLIFY your Vision.

India Paves the Way for Fast-Track Growth

The results of the recent Lok Sabha national elections in India are likely to have long lasting implications for the development of the country.

With the Congress Party winning all but an 11-seat majority, India finally has, for the first time in 20 years, a democratically elected government that has essentially a mandate to govern. With 261 seats, the Congress Party requires just another 11 seats to form a majority, and with plenty of allied parties wanting to lend a hand for the opportunity to govern, it can grab the chance to push through much-needed reform on its own terms.

This is in stark contrast to the previous two decades, where national political divisions resulted in a succession of often deeply divided coalition governments, and the consequent major adjustments, compromises or abandonment of many necessary reforms. The re-election of Manmohan Singh as prime minister as well is a sure sign that Indians require a strong government with a strong leadership to guide them. Dr. Singh’s reappointment marks the first time since 1961 that a sitting PM has been reinstated.

The importance of this victory by the Congress Party cannot be underestimated. With India in a literal state of emergency in 1991, the country has gradually clawed its way back from the brink of bankruptcy and economic chaos and into the 21st century. And who was the architects of all this? The Gandhi family – now with Sonia Gandhi as head of the Congress Party – who realized the need to bring into power respected economists and lawyers to drive the country away from its failed Soviet-era structures and into a more modern state. And who was charged with overseeing the economic redevelopment of the country at the time? Dr. Sing – then a respected international economist rather than a traditional politician, now a man on his second term as prime minister.

The Congress Party win is likely to accelerate India further along the pace of reform and redevelopment, and the election has also done much to clean out the old guard of “gangster” politicians, many of whom held seats while being held on convictions from murder to large scale fraud. In their place comes in a new breed of Indian politician, educated, increasingly in-tune with globalization, and willing to sacrifice to a life of struggle while helping shift the country along a new course.

Pro-business, pro-reform, many of the battles the Congress Party faces in its drive to upgrade and modernize India and its infrastructure will be hard fought. Old, minority interests, such as dealing with land reform in Mumbai, will be hard to win. However, India has voted, and how. A government mandate, and a unified party directed by economists and lawyers bent on legal reform are likely to have a huge impact in getting through legislation to open up to competition within India’s domestic markets, encourage foreign direct investment, deal with the legal and investment issues concerning infrastructure development, and place the nation on a fast track to reform much as China was able to achieve in the 1990s.

The implications are going to be huge.
 
This article was written by Chris Devonshire-Ellis for the blog 2point6billion.com.