Entrepreneur Business Advice - Finding Business Capital

Hi everyone, it's Bernadette. How you doing? I am going to see about just making sure that I'm going to be able to see you and all that kind of good stuff. We are going to be talking business, career, and life questions that you have. All right, if you should have your, um, if you should have your career, business, or life questions and you want to post them right out on our Shedding the Bitch Facebook page, please do so. I also have a boatload that we're gonna also, um, go over that we touched on yesterday, but we'll go over it since we can do more interactive today. All right, um, we're here. We're happy, and let's just make this a fun interactive activity, shall we? All right, so typically I just do this on our Shedding the Bitch radio show every— well, not every Tuesday. Shedding the Bitch radio is every Tuesday at noon Eastern time, but one Tuesday a month I want to always gather your career, business, and life questions and get them addressed right here. And then I thought, okay, let's leverage Facebook Live. Video is always a good way to interact and for us to, you know, kind of engage with one another. Even though you might not be visible, you can always make some comments in the comment section. And at the same time, I do get people who say, what is it? What do you look like? You know, like, is there a way for us to engage? I mean, I do speaking and I do webinars and whatnot but not necessarily visibly. Now I'll digress a minute and say that I was really hesitating to do any of it because of the fact that my eyes drooping, and yet nothing a little makeup and confidence and boldness can't resolve, right? Because we all are gonna have those challenges and strife in our lives, and we need to just know that regardless of the physical, mental, spiritual emotional beauty, uh, that we possess, and whether or not we have some scars to go along with it, that we make sure the beauty overcomes the scars and the blemishes and the warts and all that, or the drooping eye in this case. Uh, but anyway, so I, I did put on some makeup since, uh, the last test video you might have seen a few, like about half hour ago, and, uh, try to make myself a little bit more presentable for you. But you guys loved, and that's why I was attempting to do this yesterday with our show. You love the fact that I broadcasted Shedding the Bitch Radio on Facebook Live with Jessica Potts last week, and she talked to you all about creating buzz regarding your brand. Now, I would even have you thinking about that your brand, it could be even a personal brand. I mean, I personally have a brand for myself which would be around being a ball of fire, but yet my business has a brand, Ball of Fire or Shedding the Bitch, and your products and services might have a brand. So whether you're in business for yourself or not, whether you work for a corporate organization or another company-size organization or not, or if it's just you as an individual, maybe you have a lifestyle brand— branding is commonplace nowadays for individuals, professionals, and for businesses. It really is just that image, that perception people have of you. And with social media these days, with selfies, with, you know, just the exposure that we each get, whether we're a 20-year-old college student or we're a seasoned 60-year-old professional, we all have a brand. And some people might call that a reputation, some people might call that, uh, one's perception. It doesn't matter, a judgment even. You can kind of turn that around and feel comfortable in understanding that that's really your brand, that's what it's saying. So what Jessica spoke about is what you could do to create buzz around your brand, get people talking about you. If you are someone like myself, a lifestyle or an entertainment or product/service company, you do want people talking about yourself. In good ways, in good ways, in good ways, in good ways, in good ways. So, um, the question that we got after— it might have come during the show with Jessica, but we didn't say it until afterwards— was really the fact that last week you and Jessica talked about what to do to get my business out there, um, and I don't know where to start. And Jessica did a fabulous job in laying that out for you. Basically what she did was she said, "All right, start with the first 5 words that come to mind when you think about your brand." Again, that could be yourself individually, that could be your business, that could be your product or service, whatever the case might be. But what are the first 5 words that would come to you regarding your brand? Understanding that, understanding what it— what meaning, what purpose, what mission, what feeling, what experience. You ever heard the term customer experience? So what experience do you want your customers, vendors, partners, investors, friends, community to think about your brand, whichever one, you know, you're kind of thinking about. So I had talked about with her and then even yesterday on the program that I kinda used Shed the Bitch as an example. So, Shed the Bitch, for me, if you had asked me what are my 5 words, I wrote down that it might mean transformation, it might mean shed, bold or boldness, freedom, achievement. Those were the first 5 when I did what I call popcorn brainstorming. That means give yourself a very short period of time, even seconds, to have the very first things that come to your mind, which is often the truth, which is often your honesty, which is often your heart and your spirit comes through at the surf— at the, you know, surface level. If you have to sit around and think and ponder and overanalyze, you're probably— you've gone too far. You've definitely gone too far. So you want to be able to make sure that you are getting what is top of mind to you. So for me, transform, shed, bold, freedom, and achievement. Now if I put that out on the, on the post and I said to you, would you agree that shedding the bitch means these things, that would be very telling for me. Though you might come back and say something and come up with different words, some of them I resonate with, some of them I don't, then it's up to me to decide, do I pick up on what it is that my fans, followers, listeners, audience members, readers of my books, whatever the case might be, do I want to go with that? Because obviously if that's what it means to them, or do I just stay true to the words or the evolution of those words? And then I have to re— configure branding or messaging or content or value propositions. Doesn't mean the words are wrong if other people don't resonate with it. You just might not be communicating them clearly. And, um, and I also kind of threw out this example of Google, or think of one or two of the brands that you are loyal to. Like I mentioned, Google and QT. Um, for those of you who aren't familiar with QT, it's a It's a gas station, basically. And I always know with QT, for instance, that they're clean, they're reliable, they're friendly, they're convenient, they're always in stock, I feel safe. I would say that's it. So that's like 7. But that's how you want to think about it, is what are those things. Now, if QT were to come and say, "Well, Bernadette, those aren't our brand statements or brand words, you know, we mean to do X, Y, and Z," well then, you know, they would want to hear from their consumers as to whether or not they're in line and congruent in their messaging and their processes and the way they serve their customers and the products and services they provide, make sure that they're all in line. Now, for those of you individuals out there, you can still do that for yourself. You know, if you were to be asked, "What do you think your friends and family and community would say about you?" And you think they're gonna say, "Well, outgoing and friendly and very people-oriented and service-giving and compassionate and empathetic," yet they come back and say, you know, not so much in the compassionate, empathetic way, You know, you just want to make sure they're in alignment with each other. And if you do feel— we talk a lot here on Shedding the Bitch about evolving. If you aren't where you want to be or don't like who you are right at this very moment in time, you have an opportunity to change that and to move that forward. Makes sense? Okay. So, Jessica talked about the 5 words. What I'm just going to suggest that you do, and I'm even going to put a little note out here to, you know, re-listen, listen to the replay of Shedding the Bitch Radio. Oops, I'm gonna have to get better at this. For more tips on branding your business. Oops. And I should have the link, but I don't. Okay, so see, this is all kind of like a guinea pig process of what it is that we're going to want to, to do to improve and to really provide you value. Because that's what I saw this Facebook live streaming to do, is to provide you a better or different or an additional value in how you want to interact with myself, my guests, and the community as a whole. Now, if you are out there and you're watching this live and you— we might not be completely in sync because I can tell that what I'm saying to you right now is not necessarily aligned with what's coming across that I can see on my Facebook stream. That's aggravating, I will have to tell you. But if you have any questions, you have any stories, you have any challenges regarding your career, your business, and your life, then just post them right there and I will see them and be able to address them over and above what I've already been, um, sent into me. Okay, now I want to answer one little question that I just thought about while I was saying that. People say to me, Bernadette, you always, um, bucket kind of what you talk about in career, business, and life. Isn't career and business the same? And I would say no, that's not my intention at all. Career is, um, should you work for a company, for someone other than yourself, and you are developing out your career for that company in that role, whatever the case might be, and you need some career advice, you need some help with your manager, you need some help with your performance reviews, which we're going to talk about in a minute, you need help with what training you should be taking on in order to advance yourself. That's what I mean by career. What I mean by business is if you are an entrepreneur, if you have your own business, if you're a partner or you work for a small business and you play a critical role in that business, more so from a leadership position or an owner or what— or what— can't think of anything else— owner or entrepreneur, then you have different challenges. Than people with their own career. You might ask me about, which we're also going to get to, how do I raise money for my business? How do I find board of advisors? How do I hire and what do I look for in the early stages? What if I'm 3 to 5 years into my business? Congratulations. And I need to kind of uplevel my staff in order to take us to the next level. What if I have to increase capacity within my business? How do I go about doing that? Blah, blah, blah. You get it? And then of course, Of course, there's life issues. Now, any of these topics I can cover, but when I can't, be assured, if I can't answer your question, maybe when it— when— if you were to ask me a life question about marriage, I'm going to touch on what I can when it comes to relationships, but I've never been married. So, if I feel that I'm not going to do you service, then I'm going to kind of take that question and I am going to make sure that someone within my network, and I have a vast network, can come on or can reach out to you and address your question. Now that brings me also to many of you. I often wonder why a lot of times you guys are quiet in regards to the questions that you have, and I was told by one individual that it's, you know, they're not necessarily looking to go on Facebook and post their question that might kind of be embarrassing, or, you know, they think somebody else— or yeah, they think somebody else is going to think that they should already know that, they should already have those answers, they shouldn't own a business if they don't know that information, whatever the case might be. Can you relate to that? It's almost like when you're in a boardroom or training class, you don't want to raise your hand because you don't want to embarrass yourself with all the people around you. And all I have to say to that is shame on you. No, I'm kidding. Um, ask, ask, ask, ask. That's why it's called Ask Bernadette. You need to ask. You need to not care about what everybody else thinks. You know, many of you could be like rolling your eyes going, oh, this is a, you know, waste of my time. Will I care? I will care because I would want to make sure that the, the content and the time and what I'm providing you is valuable. Can I control the fact that there's always going to be haters? Absolutely not. I'm not going to try to. Okay, I don't want to belabor all that because we have questions to get to. Um, so anyway, you get, you get my point. Ask. That's why we have the Ask Bernadette on Shedding the Bitch Radio, which you can always go anonymous, um, and you can always even on Facebook Live go anonymous if you want to even just send me a private message or a direct message. I don't know what Facebook calls them. And I can be looking at them as well, and then therefore you never have to put a comment in the comment box. However, um, everybody can learn from whatever questions or challenges or stories that you have. You could be helping somebody else. So I just offer you that opportunity. Okay, all right, let me see. Um, well, let's go to those questions that I had mentioned that we had. So, I need money for my business, where can I find it? Oh, it's out there. That's what I'll say, that it's out there. So let's bucket them, shall we? Where can you find money? I wish there was a way that I can kind of like type answers in on the, like, the screen to my right. See that white space over there? Um, I wish, you know, I can be so— and have a team that could do that for me. But anyway, I digress. Uh, so what can you do to find money? Bucket them. Your money. That's one place. Friends and family money, you can even separate that. Friends and family, you can even say friends, family, and community. Okay, then you have angel investment money, we'll talk about that in a second. Then you have venture capital money, you have banks' money, and then you even have what I'll call online, um, kind of FundMe type of, um, capital raising opportunity. That's what I guess— that's what I'll call it. So let's kind of go through them, and I'm going to do it relatively quickly, but we did go also into detail on our Shedding the Bitch program yesterday, so you can always go and listen to that. But, um, okay, so this especially goes to those who have their own business, and this is what this individual, um— was this MJ? Yeah. What she was looking for is she has her own business and needs money for the business, especially— she did say starting. I don't know what that means. Is it pre-start, like conception of the business, but you're still maybe working and generating income? Which I actually advise that if you have an idea to start a business, um, regardless of what kind of business it is, and you have the opportunity to work earn the income while you're ramping up or starting or building or, you know, knocking down walls of your business, then that is an optimal way to go because one, you are funding your business already and you don't have to start eating away at whatever savings or loans or whatever it is that you might gather, okay? So, keep your job. Start your work. Say you left your job, uh, and maybe that's why MJ is looking for money. Uh, I'm gonna say start using your own money, um, as much as you can, because as you go to these other people, other sources of money, they're going to want to know if you're putting the risk into your business that you're asking them to. And you don't want to say no. I mean, if you ever listen to Shark Tank, uh, you're, you're going to know that those Investors are looking for your commitment, your risk, your investment in your own business. So you want to be sure that you can say, yes, I've invested $10,000, $15,000, $100,000, whatever the number is. So, but say you are doing that, but yet you need another influx. The next place I would go is family and friends. Now, I mentioned this yesterday, but I learned a really critical lesson about 5 years ago. I was going out raising money. I was advised by many people that the Shedding the Bitch brand and the franchise and entity was extremely valuable and I should go and raise money. And so I said, okay. So I started running around Atlanta and talking to everybody around the country and pitching and doing the things you do when you want to raise money. And all of a sudden I had actually a couple colleagues and some family members say, hey, whoa, whoa, Jack, what about us? And I thought, what about you? Now, prior to this period, I did have a couple of colleagues/family members who have made investments in the business, and they certainly, you know, were given the opportunity to do so again, yet I wasn't going to go constantly going back to them. So I went to the angel investors, and yet they were even saying to me, Bernadette, If you know and other people are investing to where they know that your business opportunity is going to make a lot of money, then why would you cheat your family and friends out of that opportunity to do— to invest and get that same reward? And I thought to myself, cheat them out? And they didn't mean cheat, but they said, you know, why would you not give them that opportunity to be prosperous and to have a good investment opportunity presented to them? And I thought, that makes a lot of sense. So take my lesson, learn from it, and if you do have a business and you do— I would hope that if you are going in business, you know that you're gonna be looking to make a profit one day, and it's enough of a profit to where someone can make a return on their investment. So they give you $5,000, you give them back $6,000, for instance. Then you owe it to yourself to exhaust you know, your own, but your family and friends, and give them that opportunity to do so. And we're gonna come kind of come back to that because how do you do that? How do you ask for that? And it wasn't what MJ asked, but I'll give you some clues on that. So then after that, I would even say to go and if it's a small amount or a decent amount, if it's a certain segment of the industry or a industry, then you might want to look into the Kickstarters, Indiegogos, GoFundMe. There are— there's numerous, a number of online— I don't know what they call them anymore, but online individual contribution ways of raising money. So again, I did that 4 years ago. I, you know, kind of initiated the process of creating the screenplay for Confessions of a Corporate Bitch, and I need, you know, I wanted $5,000, $10,000 to where I could go and get professionals to help me. With the process. And so I initiated a Kickstarter program. That was an op— you know, that was a good way and a valuable way for projects, for businesses, for films to get funded. So you can always take a look at that as a way for raising money as well. What else? Um, oh, I was gonna say— okay, so I don't want to go back to that question yet, but I don't want to forget it. So then you have angel investors. Angel investors are those people that make it a living, um, and/or it's a side hobby. They have money and they look for opportunities, they look for projects, they look for products, they look for technologies, they look for services, they look for things that are new and maybe even disruptive in an industry, but even one of those things that, you know, may not be new, but your product, service, technology application is different and adds value that has not been brought onto the market. So angel investors are out there. They'll give as little as $5,000, $10,000. They'll give as much as up to $500,000 to $1 million. Uh, depends upon the group or the individual angel investor groups. So you can start Googling those sources. And then venture capitalists are those that also do all the above, and yet their limit is normally higher than angel investors. The reason why angel investors are called what they are, the little angels that come and pepper a small amount of money on a company, whereas venture capital, there's normally a group behind them and it's a big sum. Now, over the years, especially since 2008, that number's come down. So where they wouldn't have invested less than a couple million dollars, now that, you know, they've lowered that number. Now the economy is doing pretty well and opportunities are flourishing, so they're kind of creeping back up there again. But again, you just need to start kind of researching venture capitalists and groups, individuals. There's summits, there's conferences, there's pitchathons. I'm taking a client to a pitchathon tomorrow. So there's all kinds of ways to, to identify and get in front of those individuals. They'll cost you some money at times, they won't cost you money at times to do that. And if you ever have a question about, you know, you having an opportunity to get in front of someone to raise money and you are being asked to spend money then email me and I need more details about that because some of those are legitimate and some of those are not, or they're not fair to an entrepreneur to be putting up funds that they're just looking to raise and you're immediately taking money out of those funds to pay that fee, right? So anyway, you can email me more on that. Now, I wanted to go back and say, okay, so How do you go, especially to family and friends? And to the MJ, I would say, if you haven't hit up family and friends, start there. But how do you go to them? And is it different to go to them, because I'm asked this a lot, than if you were to go to your angel investors or your venture capitalists? Because, and even your online FundMe type of, um, uh, sources, they require a certain messaging, a certain approach, a certain dialogue. Around your opportunity. So that said, I would get into your head right now when it comes to raising money from any source out there is to treat it all the same. And what I mean by that is, um, this isn't like, oh, hi Grandpop, I want to do this, can you give me $5,000? You really want to treat it as if you're going to an angel investor. You're presenting what the business opportunity is, what the what the business problem is that your opportunity is solving, what the environment or the industry marketplace looks like for that particular business opportunity. You want to give them the risks. I mean, even if it's Grandpa for $5,000, you may never be able to pay him back based on certain risks that apply. The point being is Do research on the, the top key points, the top key data, you know, information that angel investors or venture capitalists are looking for when it comes to giving out money, and use that to then go and sit down with Grandpa and start from scratch and say, all right, this is what I'm looking to do, this is the problem that we're solving, this is the opportunity that we have, and which the opportunity is kind of how big of a pot of gold can you be creating, not only in revenue but also the profit. And therefore, they can expect their money to be returned to them with a profit, with a return on investment, as they call it, of X in a certain amount of time. So treat your family and friends in the same manner that you would treat angel investors, venture capitalists, because And quite honestly, GoFundMe, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, they ask for and recommend that you provide that same type of information. Even though they're individuals sitting at home on their computer that might give you $5, they still deserve to know what is the opportunity, what's the problem that you're solving, you know, what are they going to get in return for their donation in that case or their investment. So get educated on all the different ways to get sourcing for your business, and you'll be pleasantly surprised if you do. Okay, I'm watching myself on the screen and I can look awfully goofy. You can't hear it because I actually muted it, and I'm hoping to God that I didn't mute you, or I'm doing all this for no reason at all. But I am going to type in here, anyone out there, do you have questions? So we'll work out all the kinks in regards to this, but I definitely wanted to take a risk, take a chance, see if it actually, you know, works and operates. And yes, I could be sitting here blah blah blah blah for, you know, an hour, maybe it didn't come across. But I I wanted to do it and make sure that this was something that I can continue to practice and work through. And you know what? I'm not ashamed to say that because there was no other way for me to be able to do this without exposing whether, you know, all the technical issues that might occur. I could do it in the middle of the night, but you know what? I like my beauty sleep, so no. That wasn't gonna happen anyway. Um, all right, so I'm gonna jump to a more of a social, uh, personal life question that I was, um, that I was given. Um, I have a friend who is constantly stating how pretty she is and how her boyfriend's friends must be jealous and that other girls are jealous of her, blah blah blah blah blah. Um, and it's really coming off and really, um, not presenting herself in the best light to other people, whether that be me, a good friend, or that, what, that, you know, are strangers when we're out and about meeting new people and that kind of thing. So let's see, um, now I did want to know from this individual, which I don't, but I did want to know, um, is she a friend let you, you know, because I kind of elaborate on that good friend. Is she truly a friend or is she an acquaintance? Is she somebody within your circle but you're not necessarily, um, you're not necessarily really close to? I'm going to check my notifications for a second just in case. Okay, so, um, so one, I don't know, so let's break it down. Um, let's, let's assume that she's your friend and she's even a good friend. I would expect, if you know, to however you define a good friend, I would expect if you are a good friend, then you have no problem telling her, uh, straight up. Now, do you have to do it straight up to where you hurt her or offend her? Absolutely not. And that, that's a whole other, um, topic of conversation we can have. But I'll just say that as a friend you just need to be direct and honest, but yet at the same time sympathetic. You're not looking to hurt her. You might even say that, I have a concern I want to share with you because it's, you know, it's painting you in a bad light, and I don't think that's how you want other people perceiving you. But when you come off with, you know, always saying how pretty you are and that other people might— must be jealous of you and so forth, or even like I— she did provide me a little bit of detail around the guy. She said something to the effect of the— she was questioning whether or not his— her friends thought, why is, you know, how did he get her because she's so pretty? And I don't know these people, but I'm gonna take a stab that he's probably not too bad-looking himself. And this really sounds actually, you know, It is conceited, it is a little bit arrogant on her part because you never know if he could be, you know, dating the model next door and that he attracts, you know, good-looking people all the time. So she does need a little bit of a reality check.