If you own an existing business, or are planning to start one, there is one organization who really wants you to succeed.

In fact, this organization is even willing to loan you money to start or expand your business. And they will give you this money with favorable interest rates and payback terms.

That organization is the United States government.

The U.S. government has learned over time that giving capital to entrepreneurs creates more jobs, improves the economy, and expands the tax base. All the things they really want to achieve.

Many years ago the U.S. government set up the Small Business Administration (SBA) specifically to make loans to entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, the SBA currently has $45 billion in loans outstanding to entrepreneurs.

And, in addition to SBA loans, there are several kinds of debt capital that may be available to start or grow your business such as business lines of credit and traditional bank loans.

Each of these types of capital are covered in detail, including a step by step plan for getting these loans for your business, in our new report entitled "Growthink's Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Capital from Banks & SBA Lenders."

Among other things, the report covers:

* The differences between raising debt capital and equity capital that you need to understand (Page 2)

* The important elements of loans and what you need to know BEFORE you look for one (Page 7)

* Exactly what lenders are looking for when they consider whether or not to fund your business (Page 9)

* The biggest misconception about loans that keeps many entrepreneurs from getting funded (Page 11)

* One easy, but seldom used trick to maximize your chances of getting a loan on the best possible terms (Page 12)

* The key types of loans and what you need to know to make sure you get one that's right for your business (Page 13)

* The best way for startups to overcome a key SBA requirement and quickly get the perfect SBA loan (Page 19)

* Assessment of every type of SBA loan to allow you to quickly determine the optimum one for your business (Pages 19 to 24)

* The hands-down fastest way to get an SBA loan (Page 29)

* Growthink's proven 6-step formula for getting an SBA or bank loan (Pages 32 to 36)

* The 30 U.S. banks that are most likely to loan money to your business (Page 37)

To learn more, click here.

Over the past decade, I have written countless articles on how to raise capital. I have taught thousands of entrepreneurs how to create a great business plan, how to develop a strong financial model, and ways to devise a slide presentation that gets investors excited.

And then, I have written extensively about how to grow your company once you have raised capital. Discussing how to motivate your employees to maximize their effectiveness. And how to find partners that can take your business to the next level.

But there's one thing I haven't written about. One thing that I've totally neglected. And this one thing can increase your effectiveness at ALL of these activities - from raising capital to performing all the tasks needed to grow your successful business.

For this I apologize.

So what is this one thing?

The answer is public speaking, and your ability to communicate ideas to investors, partners, employees and others.

I realized that public speaking was the missing key when I recently reviewed a unique book called "The Power Presenter" by Jerry Weissman.

And, I might not have read the book if it had not received so much praise from venture capitalists. These VCs have relied on Weissman to prepare them to not only raise money for their own funds, but to teach their portfolio company CEOs so they could raise future funding and better grow their companies.

So, why are Weissman's teachings so important? Because, your ability to present effectively and be a great public speaker is critical to your ability to raise money for your business, attract and formalize relationships with key partners, and build a highly motivated team among other things.

And importantly, Weissman's research proves that the content of your presentations is less important than your body language (most important factor) and your voice (next most important factor).

Allow that to sink in for a minute.

What this means is that when you meet with a venture capitalist, angel investor or bank loan officer, your presentation skills are more important than the content of your presentation!

This fact is a bit bothersome to me.

Why? Because it means that an entrepreneur who has great public speaking skills but a poor investor presentation and business model has a superior chance of raising capital than an entrepreneur with a great investor presentation and business but poor communications skills.

But, rather than me pouting about this seemingly unfair reality, let me tell you some of Weissman's keys to making you a better public speaker and presenter.

First of all, to reiterate, the most important thing influencing your audience is visual (i.e., your body language), then vocal (your voice and speaking rhythm) and then verbal (the story you tell).

Secondly, when you present in front of a group, your natural "fight or flight" instincts kick in. Your adrenaline starts pumping and you often get anxious and fidgety. The way that you act as a result of this poorly impacts your audience's perception of you.

To decrease your anxiety, use the following techniques:

1. Practice, practice and practice some more. The more you practice your presentation, the more comfortable you will be when you give it.

2. Concentrate. Just like an elite athlete, you need to clear your mind before the presentation so  you can fully concentrate on the task at hand.

Important side note: many years ago, I had the pleasure of introducing entrepreneur and author Harvey McKay at an event. Before he went on, I saw him with his head against the wall talking to himself. I thought it was absolutely bizarre. But he used that technique to focus his mind and pump himself up. The result - he had the audience in the palm of his hand the whole time. It was truly amazing.

3. Shift Your Focus from You to Them. If you give a presentation and your best friend happens to be in the room, chances are that after the presentation the first question you will ask your friend is "How did I do?"

It is this mentality of thinking about yourself that makes people nervous. Rather, focus on the audience. Look at them and think "how are they doing?"  This will allow you to present more effectively.

4. Focus on specific people in the audience. Whether there are three prospective investors or business partners in the room, or you are speaking to a room of 50 or 500, you need to visually focus on one person at a time. That is, pick one person to start and complete your first main point. Then you should shift to different people for each key point you make during the presentation. This helps you concentrate better and make sure you are focusing on the audience rather than on yourself.

5. Practice your hand gestures. Hand gestures often positively engage an audience. But, making hand gestures in front of an audience often feels awkward and uncomfortable. You must practice using them with "warmer" audiences (e.g., your friends, co-workers and/or employees) until they become second nature.


Like it or not, your public speaking ability and presentation skills are more important than the content of your presentations. As such, successful entrepreneurs need to master these skills. Use these tips to improve your skills, and remember to really practice all your presentations before the actual event. As you know, in most cases, you only get one shot at key presentations.

Every day I hear pitches from entrepreneurs about the great new product or company they are launching (or want to launch).

But unfortunately, more often than not, their ideas aren't that exciting.

Now, if you have great access to capital and are absolutely amazing at execution, then a "regular" idea is fine. In those cases, you simply go out and raise capital, launch your company, and then out-perform your competitors.

But, entrepreneurs who can do this are few and far between.

For the rest of us, we need an edge. Something that's different. Better than what's out there.

What I'm talking about is the kind of business idea that you look at and say, "That's really cool."

Now, these types of ideas typically feed off the wants and needs of consumers. That is, the entrepreneurs who conceive them have considered the true needs of the customer and modified existing products to satisfy those needs.

Importantly, in most cases, the customer hasn't even recognized the unmet need. But when they see the product or service, they realize its advantages and buy it.

I came across a couple examples of such "cool" products recently. The first was a pair of Reef brand sandals which has a bottle opener nestled in its sole making it "a mandatory accessory for a night out with the boys."

The second is Panasonic's BF-104 flashlight which operates with any combination of D-cell, AA OR AAA batteries. How cool is that...as long as you have 3 batteries, regardless of the type of each, it works (rather than all the time we've all spent searching for that last D-cell battery).

Neither of these innovations required years in the lab. Rather, they were both the result of the entrepreneurial mind coming up with creative solutions to the needs of their customers. (Note that the fact that these two innovations came out of corporations, rather than individual entrepreneurs, is even more impressive to me).

So, how can you maximize your creativity to come up with better ideas for your business?

Recently I created this video (http://www.growthink.com/content/breakthrough-business-idea-generator) that discusses one of my favorite brainstorming techniques called Assumption Reversal.

We have been using Assumption Reversal much more internally and coming up with some really neat ideas. I encourage you to watch the video and use Assumption Reversal for your business.

Finally, not long ago, I had the honor of interviewing Michael Michalko. Michael is the author of the book Thinkertoys which is known as one of the best books on creativity of all time. In fact, I learned about Assumption Reversal from this book.

I will be releasing more of Michalko's best creativity techniques in the coming months. In the meantime, try out the Assumption Reversal technique and keep brainstorming to come up with even better ideas.

Recently, I had the great fortune of interviewing Mark DiPaola, an extremely accomplished entrepreneur.

As the founder of Vantage Media Corp., Mark raised a $70 million Series A financing, which is still on record as one of the largest Series A raises in history. And in 2007, his company generated $68 million in revenues.

As president of D3 Ventures, Mark also functions as an investor.

As a person with such success on both sides of the table - investing in growing businesses, and actually founding and growing businesses himself, I couldn't wait to interview him about entrepreneurship and raising capital.

During the interview, Mark went into great detail as he recounted his own experiences on raising capital for Vantage Media. One thing he emphasized was how important it is to know your business inside and out, and how this knowledge impacts not only your ability to grow your business, but also to achieve sales breakthroughs and get the attention of investors.

Mark revealed one website for job postings which helped him assemble a 35 -person team that brought in $40 million/year in revenue -- and it's not the website you might think!  We discussed hiring strategies, the number one factor to look for in job candidates, and when it's time to bring in a highly-experienced management team.

Regarding his role as an angel investor, Mark shared the qualities he looks for in a company before making an angel investment, and why it's important that entrepreneurs are referred to investors.

Growthink University members can listen to the interview here:

http://www.growthinkuniversity.com/members/291.cfm

For those who have not yet joined, you can listen to the first five minutes by clicking the blue triangle below:

It is common knowledge that companies need business plans.

Business plans are critical for setting goals and mapping out your plan to achieve those goals. They are also critical in order to raise capital. Whether you are seeking a bank loan, or capital from angel investors, venture capitalists or corporate investors, a formal business plan is simply a requirement.

However, there are some investors that say they don’t need a business plan. Rather, they just want to see a company slide presentation and/or a 1-3 page Executive Summary.

So, at this point you are probably asking yourself, “So, do I, or do I not, need a business plan?”

The answer is a resounding “YES.” Let me explain.

To begin, the types of investors that typically do not want to see a formal business plan are an extremely unique bunch. They are typically the top 1% of angel investors or venture capitalists. These are the investors that see so many deals that they don’t have the time to read through business plans.

Perhaps more importantly, these are the investors that focus on investments that could be worth billions of dollars within a few short years.

They invest in companies like Facebook or Twitter; companies that have massive potential but which may not even have a real revenue model in place yet. For companies like these, that are potential “game-changers,” creating financial projections or analyzing the current marketplace are much less important than for other businesses. As such, formal business plans with this information is less important.

Another key reason for creating a formal business plan is the knowledge that comes out of it. Specifically, the business plan process forces you to make a lot of key decisions about your business. For instance, writing down your marketing plan forces you to determine the marketing tactics you will employ.

Likewise, the business plan development process forces you to assess your market, identify customer segments and customer needs, and determine the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. This is all critical information that you need to successfully operate your business.

The U.S. Small Business Administration, in a study called “The Small Business Economy,” found a direct correlation between a business’ success and its creation of a formal business plan. That’s because the business plan development process forces you to really think through the business and make informed decisions.

Likewise, the business plan development process gives you the information that you need to include in your investor slide presentation and Executive Summary. For example, one slide needs to include your financial projections and uses of funding. Another slide must talk about your marketing plan. All of this information comes directly from your business plan.

And what about information that is in your business plan, but which you omit from your slide presentation -- is that wasted information? NO. Before they invest, investors will bombard you with questions about your business, your market, your customers, your competition and so on.

Having completed, read and re-read your business plan, you will be able to quickly and correctly answer all of these questions.

So, when investors say they don’t need a business plan, they are NOT saying that they don’t want you to create a formal business plan. Rather, they are saying that the way they want you to communicate your vision and concept to them is not through a long written document, but via another format, mainly a slide presentation and/or 1-3 page Executive Summary.

So, learn the format of business plan and complete your formal business plan. It will give you the information you need to create a winning business strategy and attract investors. And, in addition to your full business plan, create an Executive Summary (which should be the first section of your full business plan anyway) and a slide presentation, since these documents will be required in the capital-raising process.

Have you ever heard of ZipSkinny.com?

If you go to the homepage of their site, you'll see a box that asks you to "enter your zip code to see U.S. Census data and comparisons with neighboring ZIPs."

Unless you're one of those people who gets excited about miscellaneous facts and figures, at first glance this might seem like an uneventful site.

But for those of you who provide products or services to local customers, the information available is *invaluable* in conducting market research for your business.

Once you type in your zip code and press enter, you'll see tons of great data on your local market. Such as the percentage of local residents who have graduate degrees or who are married. And, you’ll see economic indicators such as household income, and demographic information on race, age, and gender.  

As an example, I've just typed in 10549, the zip code of our office here in Mount Kisco, a suburban town  just outside of NYC. One fact that stands out to me right away is that 62.3% of residents have lived in the same home for 5+ years. Another is that the median household income is $75,761. Put these two statistics together, and you can deduce that this town is a fertile location for a business where both an affluent demographic and high customer retention are essential, such as a landscaping or cleaning business.

Whether you're looking to conduct preliminary market research before delving into a business, or examining markets into which you can expand your current venture, ZipSkinny is one of many tools that can help you with the process.

And in our recent report, "How to Quickly, Easily, & Expertly Conduct ZERO-COST Market Research For Your Business" I lay out this and several other tools to help you conduct the market research online at a level that is comparable the way it's done by experts with decades of experience.

As you might recall, I released this report at a STEEPLY discounted rate of one cent for each year of my wife's age, in honor of her birthday in March.  And that discount is about to disappear forever.  

On Thursday at midnight, the price is going up more than 100x, so as the subject of this blog post suggests, this is your last chance to get the information of market research experts for literally pennies.

If you are a Growthink University member, you can click here to grab your free copy of the report if you haven't done so already.

Otherwise to order now, click here. Or for more information, you can watch the brief video below: