I consult in the turnaround sector with public companies on the Pinks, OTCBB, London Exchange, Frankfurt Exchange and every exchange in-between and everyone seems to have the same issue: there stock isn’t trading at the price they desire and they are dying to find a way to fix the problems that are hindering their trade. It usually comes down to a few basic elements. Use each of these elements with caution as this industry is full of predatory organizations and consultants and can be dangerous to amateurs. If you’re a newbie, that’s ok. Do what you can but know when you are in over your head and turn the remaining process over to people that swim with sharks for a living.

Public company structuring and turnaround strategies typically center around the elements of: corporate publicity, individual executive publicity, lack of an experienced publicist, lack of strategic alliances and lack of the proper promotion that is conducive to getting stock investors to pull the trigger.

Corporate publicity can be broken down into the immediate and ongoing use of: press releases, viral marketing video and article submission, corporate blogs, investor relations, market maker or broker dealer that is affective and of course the almighty strategic alliances that build hype and build power behind your brand.

Another major component that most companies are lacking is ‘Individual Executive Publicity’ by use of press release, viral market: video uploads with interviews and how to type material, article submission and personal blogs that center around the particular industry genre issues. It is important to make each executive stand out like a beacon in the industry and to press the reality or create the reality that your executive staff is composed of the who’s who of your industry.

Next you’ll need a corporate publicist with a focus on getting your CEO, CFO and/or corporate executives on TV and radio panel discussions as industry authority as well as newspaper and magazine articles and interviews about your company and its executives.

Don’t forget the importance of ‘Strategic Partnerships’. Announce new partnerships with multiple press releases, photo ops and articles. Pick strategic partners that have name recognition or are about to be in the public eye to piggy back off of the publicity they are receiving.

If you are an OTCBB or Pink Sheets company email campaigns to stock Investors are a quick way to get a nice bump in exposure and stock price but too many of these campaigns done the wrong way can hurt your company so be careful. Your investor relations consultant should have you listed on multiple stock alert services that run ongoing back to back. And the last but not least, the old fashion snail mail ‘Direct mail to stock investors’ can be the added bang to your stock price rising and stabilizing.

Turning around a company can and expensive proposition today but can increase your company’s value exponentially if done by an experienced professional. It’s a process that’s worth it to companies with an eye toward longevity.

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Bypassing the blistering reality that banks aren’t making small or medium size business loans. Lines of credit are deal. Hard money predators are out in full force and legitimate funding sources are at an all time low. Companies can take the tried and tested route in hiring a consultant, structuring their company, building strategic alliances, creating a solid board of directors and then authoring the business plan and PPM for the initial raise but why would they when they have so many scammers telling them that they can easily raise the capital with a shelf corporation or reverse merger into a pink sheets public shell.

People in need of capital don’t want to be bothered with the reality the capital is not as easy to obtain as it once was. Entrepreneurs are seeking the quick and easy way out which typically turns out to be the route that ruins their company and depletes their cash flow.

The truth is that your company has to be constructed on the success and failures of your executive staff. These individuals are the lifeblood of your company and their contacts and experience is what will drive your company forward into ongoing self-perpetuating growth.

Don’t believe the hype when it comes to raising fast capital in the corporate realm. Don’t believe that a shelf corporation will do anything but make you and your company look like idiots and don’t think for a minute that there is any way to initiate your first round of capital without an SEC regulated Private Placement Memorandum.

Big brother is always watching and those who try to raise money without the proper structure always get burned. Why not step back, take a breath and start off your campaign to raise your first round of capital the right way with a private placement memorandum, then a direct public offering then move onto the public offering on the OTCBB.

Why not for a change, do things the correct way, using the structures that are conducive to actually raising capital the legitimate way as opposed to the fast and easy way.

The fast an easy way is often the wrong way and in the end there is no capital being raised at all, only headaches and lawsuits. Find a consultant with the experience of taking startup companies and expansion mode companies public.

Don’t waste time with the scammers. Raise capital the right way and you’ll never have to redo the process.

Foreign, Indian and Chinese Companies, Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

For many professionals, entrepreneurs and business owners the current reality of their intercompany and inter industry promotion and prominence is a far cry from where they originally envisioned themselves to be. What is the factor that thrusts some people and companies forward in the professional sense and why are some straggling behind like desperate, obsolete room size computers in a hand held PC world?

Its actually quite simple and it all comes down to a decision… a decision to step up and dominate in a no holds barred, bare knuckle fight to the finish. You need to understand and be comfortable with the reality that not everyone will make it. Most of your colleagues and professional friends are not psychologically or professionally built to last, meaning, they are not willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get to that next level.

Here is how it’s done: First, decide on what you want, who you want to be and where you want to go in your career. Second, surround yourself with people that have the above characteristics your are seeking to acquire. Chances are, most of these characteristics will be spread out over several different people as opposed to one or two professional who demonstrate your future self so find 10+ people to become well associated with and begin to pattern them. Don’t just pattern the outward and obvious characteristics but absorb the aura of their overall presents (calm, cool, collect and maybe even arrogant and rude at times).

What are their hobbies and extracurricular interests as these interests are a contributing factor to who they have become. Next, make a decision! Make a decision to overcome any obstacles that stand in your way. Dump friends and associates who are not supportive as they will only hold you back. You should quickly sever ties with any and all counterproductive individuals and interests that keep you from achieving your goal. Next, every morning as you’re getting dressed, brushing your teeth you should also be putting on your psychological garb as well. Slip into the mindset of that person you want to be.

Put blinders on your eyes so there are no distractions. What you will find is that opportunities will seem to fall into your lap because you are willingly submerging yourself into a subculture that has worked for all of those around you who are living the dream that you will soon be part of.

As for domination, you will find that stepping into this new code of conduct and professional character you will begin to steamroll forward, yes some people will be crushed under the wheel of your progress but this is a natural part of evolution. Use the element of arrogance, not in an artificial way that is used by insecure people but in a form of self promotion. Begin to state your opinion on industry specific blogs.

Put out industry niche information videos on viral media sites. Bring internet surfers to your blogs and videos with social and news bookmarking links scattered all over the web. Brand yourself as the ‘god’ of your industry. Your opinion matters and after others see you opinions and concepts enough they will begin to see these ideas as the norm. They will feel that up until now they have been misinformed and uninformed and you are the person on the cutting edge of your industry. As you build momentum, whatever you do, do not stop! As you build traction of growing your own personal ‘brand’ and ’subculture’ within the industry, this should only influence you to take it one step further with articles submitted to global, high PR article directories and press releases through various channels. This is just the beginning but you are on your way to absolute, industry domination!

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Business Owners: Build A Corporate Structure That Investors Love! Ok, you’ve decided to go after investment capital but you’re not sure where to start. Here are the basics that you should pay close attention to before putting your company in front of investors.

First and foremost you need to perform an industry analysis that answers the questions pertaining to where you are in the industry and who are your competitors. It doesn’t matter what product or service you offer. You could be selling underwater sock fitting kits and there is a competitor and industry leader somewhere in the world. Don’t be so naive in thinking that there is no competition or that you are at the pinnacle of your industry. Show your audience that you’ve done your research and that you’ve identified the players in your market.

Next get your executive team together and it better be the who’s who in your industry. If you can’t attract the upper echelon of your industry genre then you need to do some serious PR on behalf of your individual executive team to show the public what they are made of. Brand them as the up and coming powerhouse executives in the industry. Publish their articles and knowledge on industry blogs and article submission sites. When a funding source initiates general due diligence you need to shine like a lighthouse in the fog. Each and every executive team member needs to have an image that screams power, success and investor security.

The next thing you need to do is take a serious look at your board of directors. Who is on your board, what is their compensation and is there someone that is a better fit for formulating strategies and alliances than those who are currently populating your director staff.

One of the main reasons that investors turn down companies for funding is because they lack the backup of industry players in connection to strategic alliances. You need to identify and contractually reach out to companies that will enhance your overall business strategy. Your minimum goal should be 10 solid, aged companies that have already branded their names in the marketplace and are willing to add you to their mix of advertising and ongoing strategy and they will expect the same from you. Show investors that it’s not just you treading water in the industrial whirlpool and that you’ve built a life preserver of alliances.

Now you are ready to write a business plan and private placement memorandum that takes all the essential elements above and puts them in two well authored and to the point documents that will make an interesting and informative read for investors who have a track record of investment in your particular industry. If you’ve written your own business plan, toss it. If investors are going to take you seriously you need a professionally written business plan that touches on all the triggers that investors are currently looking for.

Next, it’s best to use the Regulation D, Private Placement Memorandum as the vehicle for staying within SEC guidelines for raising capital and you should use a Direct Public Offering as the process for raising the actual capital. Reaching out to friends, family, industrial counterparts and alliances should be the first place you go for funding. If you are lucky the consultant you hire to assist you with the above processes will have a solid database of investors to assist you in your initial, first round raise via DPO.

Last but not least you should consider, even though it’s not a mandatory requirement for a PPM or DPO, getting an independent audit done on your company to demonstrate an objective analysis of your financial reality so that investors can find their comfort level quicker without a prolonged comments stage.

There you have it. These are the basics to what it takes to achieve equity investment in this current market. Get out there and raise some money!

Foreign, Indian and Chinese Companies, Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Where Are The Best Investor Finders?

Where Are All The Good Investor Finder Services? Companies raising capital whether trying to get a loan, raise equity capital with a private placement memorandum or go public on the Pink Sheets, OTCBB or any other platform has no doubt been told to find a good investor finder. Sure there are multitudes of membership databases like ‘Angel Funding Project’, one of the industry’s largest and many others but where are the ‘investor finders’ that everyone’s CPA and CFO are talking about?

I’ll tell you where, they’ve discovered how valuable their portfolio of active investors actually is and they’ve teamed up with consultants that take companies public and they provide the 40 initial investors needed to qualify for a public offering and they also help supply the capital that the consultants need in order to facilitate the ‘going public’ process. They have gone from making $2,000 here and $10,000 there, to making $100,000 here and $500,000 there by getting involved in the ultra lucrative world of pre-IPO finance and technical facilitation.

They are going from the headaches of trying to get investors interested in placing money with a goofball who doesn’t think he needs a business plan or PPM to raise capital to getting the red carpet rolled out for them at every term by investment bankers, global broker dealers and companies that desperately want to go public but are working with minimal liquidity.

Quality investor finders are becoming more and more valuable as the economy declines in some regions and remains stagnant in others. Good investor finders no longer sell their services, instead clients and strategic partners must sell them on why they should break open their contact base on their behalf. As the global economy changes, new opportunities are popping up everywhere. Investor finders are being heavily lobbied by Chinese and Indian companies who want to merge their foreign corporation with a public American entity.

Any solid consulting firm can take a company public but few have the contacts to be truly considered full service. If you are interested in taking your company public and have a solid business model, find an IR consultant and sell them on your corporate strategy and if they take you on you’ll be raising capital with lightning speed.

Need Investor Finder Services?Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

A direct public offering is when a company raises capital by selling its shares directly to what is referred to as affinity groups, unlike an IPO which are sold by a broker dealer to its customers and the general public through other broker dealers who have customers interested in buying shares in the company.

In IPO’s you have a firm commitment underwriting, where the underwriters promise to purchase the securities for their own account if they can not sell them to customers.

Best-effort underwriting: The underwriters do not guarantee any specific number of shares to be sold, they merely act as brokers.

In an IPO the lead underwriter is referred to as the syndicate manager, he keeps the book and invites other broker dealers to join the syndicate. In a firm commitment underwriting, an underwriter’s agreement makes members liable for any unsold securities, regardless of how much of their allotment they sold. .

In a direct public offering the company sells the shares to affinity groups; who falls in this category? Customers, suppliers, distributors, friends, family, employees and other members of the community. In a direct public offering (DPO) the company places its shares in the hands of those people who are familiar with the company and know the company’s product and management, and are most likely to hold the shares longer because they feel comfortable with the company’s prospects for the future.

Direct public offerings are considerably less expensive than IPO’s and most effective for smaller offerings, for large offerings the sales staff and customer base of a broker dealer are usually necessary.

Since the affinity group is already familiar with the company and its practices it doesn’t put pressure on the company to change the way it does business, and will remain loyal to the company because of it’s presence in the community.

DPO’s are preferable to venture capital financing because it allows the present management to execute its business plan without outside interference. When a small company turns to a single large investor they tend to surrender the freedom to make all the decisions.

In a DPO like other methods of going public today audited financial statements are required. Unlike a reverse merger you choose your shareholders and you don’t have to deal with shady, unscrupulous shell owners.

Shell owners usually keep between 5-15% of the shares outstanding and are quick to liquidate, and they do not have an interest in the well being of the company’s share price. Even if you insert a stipulation in the contract that they can not sell for a year they will find a way of shorting the stock and destroying the share price.

This makes the DPO a preferable option even for companies that don’t need financing but would like to go public.

A DPO does not always require audited financials but if you plan on going public you will need them. So you must hire an auditing firm that is “peer review” or PCAOB.

If you wish to take your company public then you must file a form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a form 211 must be filed with FINRA.

A DPO is an alternative to an IPO or Reverse Merger for a company wishing to go public or obtain financing; it allows the company owner(s) to call the shots instead of an underwriter or a shell owner.

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

How To Go Public: The Process

Becoming a publicly traded company is an exciting and rewarding experience. The following sets forth the method, steps, fees and estimated timetable to go public on the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB) ‘from scratch’, or through a self-filing and discusses the 1934 Exchange Act responsibilities after a company’s registration statement has gone effective (after the company has become publicly traded):

Prior to filing the registration statement, a company that wishes to go public must first obtain an audit of the Company’s financial statements for the past two fiscal years. For most companies, the financial audit can be completed in about a month and costs typically range between $5,000 and $25,000, depending on the complexity of the company financials.

A public company will also need shareholders. To that end, if additional shareholders are needed, the company going public will need to complete a self-underwritten Regulation D, Rule 506 offering in which the company sells shares of its stock to investors for real consideration. This is not a difficult task, so long as you have a properly prepared private placement memorandum (PPM) and you follow the relatively simple rules of Rule 506. The price per share and number of shares offered can be determined by the Company, but most registered broker-dealers that will eventually submit a Form 211 for an OTC Bulletin Board quotation prefer to have a minimum of 400,000 shares distributed among the investors.

In addition to the minimum number of shareholders requirement, a company must have free-trading shares, called the ‘float’, in order to go public. Upon completion of the private offering and the financial audit for the prior two fiscal years, an S-1 Registration Statement must be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (”SEC”) to register the shares sold in the private placement, thus creating the free trading shares. The completion of the S-1 process with the SEC will make the Company a 1934 Exchange Act reporting company, which is required in order to obtain a quotation on the OTC Bulletin Board. The SEC will review the S-1 and provide comments within 30 days from the filing date. Comments from the SEC typically relate to the terms of the offering, the Company’s business and its financial statements. It usually takes between 2 to 3 months for the SEC to approve a registration statement on Form S-1 and for the S-1 to become effective. However, the actual amount of time will depend on the level of review and number of comments given by the SEC and the corresponding response time by the Company in filing its amendments.

Shortly after filing the S-1 registration statement with the SEC, a market maker must be ‘engaged’ to file a Form 211 application with FINRA for the purposes of obtaining a quotation of its common shares on the OTC Bulletin Board. It is important to note that market makers cannot receive compensation for making a market in a stock, thus typically you must have connections to accomplish this. The timetable for approval of the Form 211 process is approximately 3 weeks to 5 weeks. However, the Form 211 will not be approved until the S-1 is approved by the SEC since the approval of the S-1 provides the “free trading” shares necessary to obtain the OTC Bulletin Board quotation.

The completion of the entire process to become a public company typically takes approximately 3 to 4 months from completion of the private offering and financial audit, however, the actual time could vary based on the factors discussed herein. If done right, with planning, hard work, the proper foresight, and a good firm guiding you through the process, going public is a truly exciting and rewarding experience.

Want To Go Public With Your Company, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Many companies have a unique service or product but either lacks the capital or know-how to go public. Going public slams open the doors to massive global capital possibilities and massive partnering and strategic growth capabilities. A financially broke company should never try to go public to raise money to stay afloat as you’ll only attract the fee based predatory consultants who make their money on individual fee oriented services without the ability to bring it all together in a turn-key solution so in the end there is no accountability.

The prototypical company that will succeed in going public is either a profitable and mature company or a start-up with contracts in place for capitalization and patented and/or proprietary technology or systems that give it a massive edge over competitors. The decision to go public should be based in the desire for rapid growth and capitalization. The qualities of a company that will succeed on the public forum is one with a solid executive staff, experienced board of directors and a service that is recession proof (Yeah I know, what business is recession proof?), and finished with the actual developmental stage with a solid product or service and identified partners and distribution sources.

If you realistically have a chance at going and staying public you’ll attract consulting firms and/or broker dealers and market makers and many times law firms that focus on taking companies public in return for minor upfront fees and a solid equity position. Be careful not to sign on with a company that does not offer a ‘one stop shop’ or turn-key solutions which includes everything if you are going to be paying an upfront fee and equity. Many solid firms will ask for both fee and equity compensation and it’s worth it if they are truly capable of delivering a full range of services.

You should have a polite yet rigorous interview process with the firm before signing on. The ideal situation for a company going public is to partner with a consulting firm or broker dealer who offers absolutely everything you will need to succeed in the pre-IPO and post-IPO market. Expect to pay a fee for corporate structuring, business plan, private placement memorandum and Direct Public Offering to the firms database of investors (if they do not offer an introduction service to investors you should not take them seriously as a full service consulting firm as they are only offering you a sandwich without the bread).

Parts that a consulting firm will partner on if they can truly take your company public from A to Z is the initial Direct Public Offering to an in house group of investors who will invest the capital needed to pay for the audit (though many times this will have to come out of your pocket even if you team of with the best firms in the business), S1 filing and comments, SEC and FINRA approval and ultimately to the point where a market maker or broker dealer is selling your securities to the public. Sometimes it’s good to just hire a company that is strictly fee based for your ‘going public’ ambitions but be prepared to pay hefty fees. If you are a solid corporation with a realistic chance at going public, you’ll be able to tell by the tone that consulting firms have with you when you engage them in the initial phone consultation. If you’re ready to go public, a proper consultant will be able to identify your position in the market place to fill in the blanks.

Foreign, Indian and Chinese Companies, Take Your Company Public, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

With legions of halfwit, template loving business plan wannabe writers polluting the web it’s no mystery that companies are having a tough time getting funding. It use to be that when a company was ready to get down to business for serious expansion they would call a consultant that would help them bring all the pieces together in a strategic fashion and then this consultant would take their extended industry knowledge in combination with the unique concepts of the client’s business and he would author a business plan.

This business plan would include everything that the venture capital firms, angel investors, private investors and institutional lenders would need in order to make a quick, no nonsense decision about whether to fund the company and how much equity they would get in return.

Today with the cancerous cloud of predatory consultants seeking out startup business prey to suck dry that businesses are too broke and exhausted to move forward with a solid consultant after they have been through the costly obstacle course and fun house of mirrors set up by wannabe consultants who reel in their prey with a few big words and industry terms and at the end of the day, they are going to put your business plan together with some cracked template software that spits out overly generalized business plans that receive laughs and snickers before being tossed in the trash by investors and venture capital firms.

If you want a real business plan, call a consultant that is completely submerged in the venture capital industry and has experience with plugging businesses into the capital machine. An consultant will first give you a consultation so he can assist in any corporate structuring or turnaround issues that need attention before the business plan is together. After the company’s structure is complete with executives, solid management, strategic partners, advisory board and board of directors, there is still one more thing to do before the business plan. You must decide what mechanism you’re going to use to raise capital. Are you seeking debt or equity investment or both, how much equity you will give away for the amount of cash you’re seeking. How many shares does your corporation currently have and so on. You’ll most likely need to put together a private placement or consider taking your company public on the otcbb. After all this is done then it’s time to write the business plan.

Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, don’t write the business plan yourself, when you’ve found a consultant, here are the topics that should be covered in the business plan (this knowledge will help you audit their work before you even hire them). The table of contents should read, at a minimum, like this: executive summary with objectives, keys to success and strategic advantages; Market, Market: Growth and Development Analysis with Industry Analysis and Location Based Services; Current company position with Company overview and vision, key successes to date, technical achievements and commercial position, include info about your technology platform. Talk about your management team, product and services offering, competition, market entry/ Five Forces Analysis, barriers to market entry, comparable business model, target market needs, target market characteristics, market demand drivers, PEST analysis, SWOT analysis, marketing implementation and strategy overview and tactical components, process development map, financial model and projections.

There you have it, the process to follow before the business plan is written and the concepts to be covered in the business plan so that you get the attention you need from investors and the money you deserve for your business.

For Corporate Turnaround Services or Investor Finder Services, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183Take Your Company Public the easy way!

Corporate strategies’ consulting is, in its truest essence, a dirty business. Few understand this tiny, yet elite genre of consulting and even fewer are masters of its concepts. The same principles applied by this select faction of specialist should be applied by CEO’s and company executives in all industries.

First and foremost, executives must understand the idea of power. There are certain unbreakable laws necessary for the ascension of professionals to positions of influence and power within an organization or industry. Here are a few of the concepts applied by serious corporate strategies consultants that are mandatory prerequisites for the rise and maintenance of power in the corporate world.

The individual seeking to take a position of power must possess the ability to customize and facilitate a turn-key solution to transform the fate of a crumbling company. They must have the ability to construct an infrastructure that perpetuates growth and stimulates longevity and stability. Power, in a corporate sense, is purely economic without excuses of any kind that is driven by greed, self assured stamina and the inability to accept anything but a number one position in their specific industry genre.

The ability of an individual to prompt a capable executive group to ‘die hard’ action and a no holds barred mentality is what will save a company from being a statistic. The unrelenting passion to win and the tactical action of this executive to strap the burdens of a company and its employees to his back and take responsibility for all that is to come, good and bad, to absorb the stress, anguish and deprivation of sleep due to mission focus are characteristics of a leader that will step into any company in any situation and deliver them from failure to profitability and growth.

This individual will assimilate into a battle while forcing the war to transfer its current to his terms. He can break through industrial and bureaucratic chaos and capture the essence of the obstacle and create multiple synergetic strategies to inject the corporate growth engine with rocket fuel. An executive primed for corporate power wears a velvet glove over an iron fist and is quiet and calm yet calculating in demeanor. He can step into negotiations composed and cool while simultaneously eying up the jugular of everyone in the room, scanning those present for weakness and chinks in their armor, preparing for psychological attack at the perfect time to press the mission of his agenda that much further adding security to his company.

This individual will not fall for the false lore of friendship from potential competition but will reciprocate like a gentleman to those initiating camaraderie while keeping them at arm’s length and will always release enough rope to allow those around him to hang themselves if it means strengthening his company and position in his industry. The executive who has achieved the art of power will be able to prick the underlying wound of his target to find weakness then step back and watch them self-destruct as it is easier to do this then verbally pointing out the individual on the executive team who is the weakest link.

Most professionals who have mastered the above find themselves in consulting positions and are hated by their client’s employees but loved by the shareholders. If you own a business or are in a senior position at a corporation, try applying some of these characteristics to your daily repertoire and watch the response of those around you. You’ll find that you will naturally fall into a position of power because of the strength that these characteristics hold in the psyche of those around you. You’ll become the problem solver and the ‘go to’ guy who has a reputation for being able to structure any situation so that your company lands on top. Get ready for rapid promotion, real leaders are hard to find and will usually take a bidding war to keep.

Need A Corporate Consultant?, call Princeton Corporate Solutions at 267-233-0183We Can Transform Your Business