Category Archives: Articles

Names Matter to Business Identity

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Mike Mykris

Mike Mykris, Director, NMSBDC at Santa Fe Community College

A business’s legal name is usually that of its owner, though businesses often assume a made-up moniker that says more about what the business does than who runs it.

When the business is a sole proprietorship, its legal name is the owner’s full name, even if it does business under something else. A partnership’s legal name consists of the partners’ surnames or whatever name is assumed in the partnership agreement. Corporations and limited liability companies have a little more latitude to register a legal name with the state; their legal name doesn’t need to mention the individual owners’ names.

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Identify Specialty Before Looking for Investors

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Holly Bradshaw Eakes

Holly Bradshaw Eakes, Principal, The Holly Company Business Consultants

The greatest challenge an entrepreneur may face is finding capital to launch a business, especially when the business idea is related to high-cost startup such as that found in the technology sector. For an entrepreneur with realistic plans for rapid business growth and the potential to scale to larger markets, trading partial ownership for capital may be the only option.

Venture capitalists currently fund about one out of every thousand startups. With the odds stacked against obtaining equity capital, an entrepreneur must identify the investors most likely to invest in his business. Determining which source to pursue depends largely on industry focus, business stage and the amount of money needed. A handful of equity investors have offices in New Mexico and actively pursue investments in the state.

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Venture Capital: It’s More Than Money

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Kim Sanchez Rael

Kim Sanchez Rael, General Partner, Flywheel Ventures

Jim Collins, author of Built to Last and Good to Great, and an old friend of mine, has written that the critical questions in life are who-decisions, not what-decisions.  “The primary question is not what mountains to climb but who should be your climbing partner,” he writes.  As professional investors, our evaluation of each potential investment opportunity emphasizes the entrepreneurial team more than market strategy, technology or financial projections. When evaluating the pros and cons of bringing on an investor as a partner in your business, your considerations should be similarly weighted toward who-decisions.  Professional investors should provide assistance and value in many areas beyond financial resources.  Here are some key areas to consider when selecting an investment partner:

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Truck Puts Chef on Road to Prosperity

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, CEO, The Loan Fund

Kimberley Calvo relishes creativity. The former executive chef at Intel and UNM introduced healthy cuisine to employees and students before starting The Seasonal Palate, a catering company. While looking for a restaurant location to expand her business, Calvo realized that her business model could be just as creative as her cooking.

“It was going to be a small fortune,” she said about the cost of renting and equipping the building she was considering in the small town ofPlacitas. She also wondered if there were enough residents to support a full-time restaurant. “So instead of trying to bring them to me,” she said, “I would bring me to them.”

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Get Insight from a Debt Schedule

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Leslie Hoffman

Leslie Hoffman, V.P. of Lending and Client Service, ACCIÓN New Mexico ∙ Arizona ∙ Colorado

The last few years have been a bumpy ride for many small businesses. Sales may have slumped. Costs could have gone up. Small business owners have weathered this economic storm with a courageous combination of resilience, creativity, clarity and passion. Those who have been able to keep their doors open understand that important fundamentals about how to manage money in a small business are as true today as they’ve ever been.

Financial institutions do not want saddle people with loan payments they cannot afford. Community-based lending organizations, such as ACCION New Mexico •Arizona •Colorado, are in the business of helping people understand their financial health and providing access to healthy business credit.

That credit is a tool, and like all tools, performance must support its cost. Lenders do not want credit to become overwhelming and prevent a small business from reaching its goals. Continue reading →

Budgets Matter to Business

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Bobbi Hayes

R.A. Bobbi Hayes, CPA, CITP, CFE, CFF, CCIFP, Partner, Accounting & Consulting Group LLP

Business owners striving to make it through the tough economy need to know how cash flows in and out of their business. A good place to start is with a budget – a basic tool used to forecast when cash will be collected and when expenses must be paid.

Many owners of small and midsize businesses don’t take the time to create a budget, or they neglect to update the one they have. In this slow economic recovery, every dollar is precious and it’s more important than ever to know where money is going. Financial institutions also want to know; banks are beginning to require that borrowers include a budget with their loan requests.

Since a business budget is such a valuable tool, understanding how to create a good one is vital to obtaining successful results and improving a business’s chance of survival.

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Veterans Get Help in Business

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Lloyd Calderon, Director, New Mexico Veterans’ Business Resource Center, and Director, VBOC

When Freedom Construction of Edgewood was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade the electrical system at Conchas Dam, the job was the first federal contract the company had been awarded. One of the reasons Freedom’s owners, Mark Beasley and Steven Tenorio, got the $1.1 million job is because they know what many veteran-owners of businesses do not: Federal laws set aside 3 percent of federal contracts for businesses owned by veterans who were disabled during the course of their military service.

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Investments Nurture Businesses to Create Jobs

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Paul Goblet

Paul F. Goblet, Financial Advisor, NM SBIC

As financial markets gyrate, legislators argue about the national debt ceiling, and people lose homes to foreclosure, it’s hard to believe the economy is improving. Few words can convince those unlucky enough to remain jobless; but numbers are beginning to tell a slightly better story, at least in New Mexico. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that New Mexico made strides in improving its July jobless rate over the same month last year – second only to Nevada, a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.  New Mexico’s July, 2011, unemployment rate was about two and a half points lower than the national average, as it has been throughout the recession.
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Associations Take Members Beyond Networking

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Carol Wight

Carol Wight, CEO, NM Restaurant Assn.

Professionals sometimes make a critical mistake in their careers: they neglect to join their industry associations. After investing time and money in a university education or training program, they disregard the value of continued education, advocacy and other assistance that associations provide. With so much at stake in these difficult times, why would anyone want to go it alone?

Associations were created by people who saw the need for banding together to fight for common values and interests affecting their industry. While this is still the primary reason most people join, modern associations provide much more than they did in their early days.

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Entrepreneurs Beware the Valley of Death

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Richard T. Meyer

Richard T. Meyer, SCORE

Business owners know it takes money to make money; production expenses must be paid before products are sold and revenue is received. Entrepreneurs with a business idea have an even greater need for up-front cash. They must have enough capital to cover negative cash flow in the early months or years of new business creation and growth. Without adequate initial investment, they risk falling into the so-called valley of death – the deep and wide gulf that separates a company’s need for capital and investors’ willingness to supply it.

Also known as the grand canyon of capital need vs. availability, the valley can be shallow or deep depending on the amount of money needed to develop the idea or product. Continue reading →