Category Archives: Articles

Hard Times Are No Time to Stop Marketing

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Julianna Barbee, Director, New Mexico Small Business Development Center at Northern New Mexico College

Julianna Barbee, Director, New Mexico Small Business Development Center at Northern New Mexico College

Marketing is essential to the growth and success of any business, yet it seems to be the first part of the operating budget that managers slash when revenues dwindle and the economy gets unpredictable. Understanding and appreciating the role of marketing can prevent business owners from making the mistake of viewing this type of outreach as a dispensable luxury.

Whether you conduct business in a small, rural area or the global market, some principles are universal:

Marketing is all about the customer. To meet your customers’ needs you have to know those needs and know how your products or services will help them. Figure out ways to communicate with customers and persuade them to choose your services or products through creative marketing.

Standing out amid the information-overload din. On any given day, people are exposed to thousands of marketing messages through advertisements on TV, radio, billboards, newspapers, magazines and the Internet. To win the competition for your customers’ overtaxed eyes, ears and wallets, your message has to stand out amid all these appeals, and that requires creativity, a marketing budget and careful consideration of your target market and the best media channels to reach it.

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Wanted: Business Leaders Who Inspire Others to Lead

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Julianna Barbee, Director, NM Small Business Development Center at NNMC

Julianna Barbee, Director, NM Small Business Development Center at NNMC

Few things are as effective as a global economic crisis for identifying the qualities of leadership most likely to inspire optimism and involvement. Whether it’s in the world of politics or business, the most effective leaders exude both confidence and pragmatism and are inclusive and decisive.

Leadership in business means creating an environment in which people’s strengths are reinforced and their weaknesses offset, which is why the most effective leaders surround themselves with other leaders, not just experts in their chosen field.

Studies show that when something negative happens within the workplace, blaming the individual or individuals involved can often hinder our ability to see the larger context in which it happened.  Recognizing the fallibilities and possibilities of being human allows business leaders to unlock the energies of every team member and increase collective excellence and performance. A united team can focus on all areas at once rather than succumbing to the natural tendency to pay attention to one problem or opportunity at a time and get lost in the details.

Whether you are a business owner or an employee of a large or small organization, these leadership traits can help you and your business become more efficient and more productive.

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Staying Cool When the Market’s Blowing Hot and Cold

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Gena Wilimitis, PR Coordinator, Securities Division, New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department

Gena Wilimitis, PR Coordinator, Securities Division, New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department

The Securities Division of the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department is cautioning investors to avoid making impulsive and uninformed decisions about their long-term financial holdings in response to the unprecedented volatility on Wall Street.

“Investors should resist the temptation to make hasty decisions about their investments or finances,” division director Bruce Kohl said. “And now is the time to be especially wary of unsolicited financial advice offering new investment opportunities. We know from past experience that con artists follow the headlines to exploit the worries of everyday investors. In times of confusion and uncertainty, there are always those who will try to prey on the investing public.”

Turmoil in the home-mortgage market creates opportunities for crooks to peddle phony real-estate investments that promise enormous returns, Kohl said, and soaring energy costs have inspired scams disguised as oil and gas partnerships and alternative-energy projects. The Internet has given a global grasp to con artists who disguise themselves as online “friends” eager for your partnership in money-making ventures.
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Selling Your Product Means Selling Yourself

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Leslie Hoffman, Director of Lending, ACCION New Mexico

Leslie Hoffman, Director of Lending, ACCION New Mexico

Remember your favorite first date? Think about what made it special for you.  Maybe it was the way your date listened and took an active interest in you and the things you care about. It could have been the extra care your date put into looking just right for the occasion or the bouquet of flowers that greeted you at the door.

Making a good and lasting first impression in business is a lot like a memorable first date. In a competitive marketplace where consumers, companies and government institutions have multiple choices about where and how to spend money, it’s vital for small-business owners to remember that selling yourself can help you sell your product or service.

A common mistake of business owners is failure to make a positive and lasting first impression, but it’s a mistake that’s simple to correct by following a few simple steps.

Be prepared. Begin building a lasting first impression even before your meeting starts. Know everything you can about your product or service. This might include having a portfolio of work or product samples or other promotional or marketing materials. Be prepared to answer commonly asked questions. Remember the adage: Failure to prepare is preparation for failure.

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Money Is Tight, but It’s There for the Lending

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F. Leroy Pacheco

F. Leroy Pacheco, CEO, The Loan Fund

The credit crunch is a new nightmare for some borrowers, but entrepreneurs and start-ups of modest means were only too familiar with being turned down for traditional financing even before the economy went sour.

Private alternative lenders such as The Loan Fund have helped such borrowers build self-sufficient businesses for years. Since the Wall Street meltdown, we’ve been getting more referrals from loan officers at local banks who know we have more flexibility than they do and can make a loan or authorize a line of credit of up to $1 million.

Bankers aren’t bad people; our board of directors includes several of them. They want to help business owners, but their hands are often tied by federal regulations and mandates from above — and those restrictions have only increased recently. One banker told me applicants must now have a minimum credit score of 650 and three years of profitable financial reports before the bank even considers making a loan.

Because we’re a private group that balances social benefits and fiscal responsibility, The Loan Fund has more flexibility when it comes to helping our clients get (and keep) going. One such client, Carley Preusch of Silver City, was turned down by four banks that considered her profit margin “too low.” We loaned her $125,000 in July to expand her assisted-living center.
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Finding Venture Capital in a Time of Crisis

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Scott Caruso, Partner, Flywheel Ventures

Scott Caruso, Partner, Flywheel Ventures

In the wake of a financial crisis that spread quickly from Wall Street to the rest of the world, many small businesses are finding traditional funding sources, including debt financing, harder to secure. Many entrepreneurs are consequently turning to venture capitalists to finance the growth of their businesses.

The decision to seek venture capital is a strategic one that requires thought and planning. Venture capitalists generally invest in high-growth companies that have potential to create a sizable return. Venture capital isn’t for everyone, but it’s ideal for companies aiming to acquire a large market share in their industries until they can be acquired by a bigger player or go public.

When looking for venture capital, it’s critical to target a firm whose mission and goals align with your own and to understand the firm’s economics and investment patterns. Doing this important legwork before seeking venture-capital funding will allow you to be more efficient and successful in achieving your funding goals.

Sizing up the venture-capital alternatives: The first step is to qualify the firms you plan to approach, beginning with fund size, the clearest indicator of a firm’s investment strategy. A firm that operates a $50 million fund might make investments between $2 million and $5 million, while a $500 million fund might make investments in the range of $15 million to $20 million. Understanding the amount of capital a firm is willing to invest helps you determine if it can meet your funding needs.
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Public Funds Back New Mexico Businesses

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Paul Goblet

Paul F. Goblet, Financial Advisor, NM SBIC

There’s no doubt that the foresight of current and past legislatures and governors has attracted equity capital to New Mexico businesses, especially in the technology sector.

While more companies could probably benefit from having additional equity capital on their balance sheets, outside equity investments are not for every business. Investors can be difficult to attract, and dealing with them can be time consuming and expensive.

So how does a small company obtain the capital it needs to grow, even at a modest pace?

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Inside New Mexico’s Private Equity Funds

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Paul Goblet

Paul F. Goblet, Financial Advisor, NM SBIC

Mention professional equity capital in New Mexico, and technology start-ups typically come to mind. That’s because most private equity investments target technology-transfer opportunities emerging from universities and national laboratories based in the state.

With the support of the New Mexico Private Equity Investment Program, more than $350 million in capital has been committed to 22 funds that directly benefit New Mexico businesses, typically in the technology sector in the Albuquerque area. But how do non-technology entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs outside of Albuquerque get their businesses going, especially in an unstable and unpredictable economy?

Help begins at home

Realizing that business ideas exist outside of Albuquerque and the technology sector, the New Mexico legislature in 2000 created the New Mexico Small Business Investment Corporation to focus on financing small businesses. Originally funded with $10 million from the Severance Tax Permanent Fund, it has swelled to more than $87 million thanks to subsequent commitments.

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Two Federal Programs Offer Money With Few Strings Attached

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The next-best thing to free money is available through two federal programs for small businesses involved in technology and innovation.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) is the larger of the two programs, and it will provide about $2.5 billion this year in grants and contracts to small and start-up businesses to develop products, technology or services that solve pressing problems in agriculture, defense, education, energy, transportation, the environment, space exploration, health and other areas. Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) requires the small or start-up business to team with a nonprofit research entity, such as a university or federal laboratory, and generally involves a transfer of technology, know-how or expertise from that institution to the company’s project.

Eleven federal agencies — including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, NASA and National Science Foundation — offer SBIR grants, and five offer STTR grants. Both programs provide money that doesn’t have to be repaid, and the business doesn’t have to surrender equity. But, as federal programs, the grants are subject to federal procurement regulations.
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Obtaining Credit – Even When Lenders Are Leery

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Les Mathews, Mesa Capital Partners

Les Mathews, Mesa Capital Partners

The worldwide credit crunch has tightened credit availability for even the largest companies, and that has also made it more difficult for smaller companies to obtain credit for expansion and working capital. Banks, the traditional sources of loans for smaller businesses, have been forced to raise credit standards and make more cautious loans to smaller businesses, which causes a significant reduction in credit availability, higher borrowing costs and more restrictive credit terms.

As a result, smaller companies, the mainstay of New Mexico’s economy, are seeking more innovative ways to finance their operations and growth. This is particularly true for the state’s early-stage businesses: Most have no history of generating positive cash flows, and most have few unencumbered assets and minimal or negative net worth — all of which make them seem too risky in the eyes of loan officers at traditional banks.

Many owners of early-stage businesses have tried to overcome this problem by offering their personal residences as collateral for business loans. But with the mortgage market meltdown and stagnancy in the residential real-estate market, banks are getting more cautious about hedging bets even on this traditionally most stable and secure form of collateral.

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