Hello!
Some of the best lessons come from the most unlikely places. This month I share my insights learned from a very special person in my life who brings a wealth of experience we can all benefit from.

Thanks, Grandma, for reminding me of these important business and personal lessons.

*  *  *

We just entered a new decade and I was thinking of the person in my life that inspired me the most during what Time Magazine called the “the decade from hell,” the first decade of 2000. There is only one person who really stands out, and she is the same person that has inspired me my entire life. Her name is Salvina Walls, and you won’t find her on Facebook or Twitter, nor does she have an e-mail address. It’s not because she could not figure It out, because believe me she continues driving, even as she turned 89 last month, and she loves her cell phone. The lessons I’ve learned over the past decades from her will undoubtedly carry me through this next decade, which I believe will be the decade of positive change. Here are a few.

Never Lose Faith
No matter how tough it gets or how difficult it seems, just keep believing it will get better, and it will. She is one of those people that truly understands that growth comes during difficult times. We seem to turn off our growth spurt when things are going good. I discovered enrollment is at an all time high for a lot of academic institutions as I spoke around the country at various colleges and universities the latter part of this past decade. As I begin this year, I’m thinking about ways I can retool and invest in my personal growth because I do believe opportunity comes to those that have skills and are prepared.

Always Help Others
We think about helping those in need around the holidays, but what can we do on a consistent basis?  I was very fortunate growing up to see Grandma Walls open her home to feed the children and families in her neighborhood. She gave them an inspirational message of hope every time.  That sounds like coaching to me! It’s awesome to meet the people whose life she impacted in a positive way. The pay-it-forward mentality is the inspiration I receive from hearing their stories.

Earn the Respect of Family and Friends
Grandma Walls is the nucleus of our family and her friends.  She garners the utmost respect from everyone and is known to tell it like it is. I wonder what she would say to Mr. Tiger Woods. In some cases she doesn’t respond right away, but chooses to think and pray on the situation first. When she does decide to respond, it is meaningful and reveals a profound solution. I think about the opportunities I have to tell it like it is as I kick off this decade of change. I will take what I’ve learned from Grandma to earn the respect of my audiences, telling the truth of what will make a difference for each of them and their organizations.

Make a game plan and stick with it
Every year, Grandma Walls makes a commitment to her church. She determines what she wants to do in giving her support and makes a plan. She knows that there will be challenges along the way, but she stays committed and focused on what it will take to achieve her goal. I remember one year she committed to raise a certain amount and decided the best way was to bake her famous sweet potato pies. She established a price and knew in advance how many she had to sell to achieve her goal.   Grandma was very confident she would achieve that goal.  Having a plan combined with commitment and confidence are the winning ingredient for this upcoming year. I started mine in December and I’m happy to say it’s the most exciting plan I’ve ever developed. I’ve decided to dig deeper into new opportunities with new added strategies.  The bottom line is I’ve expanded my global reach with innovative marketing approaches. Now all I have to do is commit, be confident and never give up.

I wish everyone a successful 2010 and please don’t forget the lessons from Grandma Walls.

Finding the tempo for your life is more important today than ever before.  Micheal Lane’s article is near and dear to my heart because he uses music to illustrate how to stay focused on what is important.

Micheal Lane is the author of the award-winning book The Wisdom of Yawdy Rum.  He is the principal of a speaking and consulting practice in Minneapolis, MN that specializes in helping others harness the power of paying attention.  He can be reached at 612-747-2560 or www.LaneSpeaks.com.
 

Enjoy!

 
Dynamics & Tempo: Directions for Life
  
A conductor steps up to the platform and makes eye contact with the members of the orchestra.  A few quick taps on the music stand brings the musicians to focus.  He begins a silent count, merely mouthing the numbers while flexing the slender baton in mid-air, or his count may be at a soft, barely audible tone–just enough to break the silence. One, two, three, four–he sets the tempo for the arrangement, the orchestra picks up the beat and music fills the air. 

 
Every musician knows his or her part.  They have practiced the piece for months.  It’s now a matter of following the conductor, stepping in time, and contributing to the cacophony of sound.  The dynamics and tempo of facial expression, a snapping white baton blurring against brilliant overhead stage lights, and physical movement of the maestro leading the arrangement from coda to al fine.
But what happens when there is no conductor?  What happens when we look around and we are the only musician on stage and everyone is watching us? What happens when we are in the business environment, leading an initiative, and we find ourselves exposed and alone?  Where does the inspiration come from?  Where does our sense of timing and movement begin?  How can we find our pace, our voice and our sense of understanding?  How do we find the guidance to move forward with confidence knowing we have a sense of the timing that’s needed to make meaningful progress?  Where do we find the passion needed to move towards a goal, change directions, motivate others to follow, motivate others to lead, motivate others to make a difference?  Or maybe, we are trying to make sense of a personal issue–something infinitely more internal and life-changing than anything that happens to us in our professional roles.
The guidance we need can come from deep within us.  While a musical arrangement will have specific instructions in the form of dynamics and tempo to provide direction as to how loud or soft a particular piece is to be played, or the proper rate at which the song is to be performed, a significant degree of interpretation is given to the musician.  Dynamics and tempo are the signposts in sheet music that tell us to play louder, softer, faster, or slower.  Dynamics and tempo are like our five senses.  Our senses act as signposts in our lives, but we have to listen them.  We have to be paying attention. What are our senses telling us? Where’s the harmony and the disharmony?  Paying attention to our senses and listening to what they are saying to us is critical.
Sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell, and sometimes something more.  A feeling we get about how we’re doing, whether we’re making any progress or not.  We receive all the information we need to be successful if we will only pay attention to the dynamics and tempo of our lives.  Each one of the relationships in our lives has its own dynamics and tempo as well.  To be successful, we have to pay attention to the information coming at us.
If we were to try to play “When the Saints Go Marching In” and we gave no attention to the dynamics and tempo, there certainly wouldn’t be any marching going on.  If we want to be successful, if we want to be happy, if we want to live in harmony with others, we have to learn to listen to our senses: ignore them, and we’ll suffer the consequences.  When we connect with the dynamics and tempo of our lives and sense the movement that comes from within our collective wisdom, we’ve found a constant well of inspiration ever ready to give us a sense of how loud or soft to play, how forceful or subtle to be in our actions, how quickly we should move and react or how slowly and thoughtfully we should contemplate the opportunities that intersect with our lives.  And, when we find ourselves without a conductor to set the pace and direction for our lives, we can do it successfully ourselves by learning to rely on our own dynamics and tempo.

 
 
Next Issue
  
In 2 weeks we will hear from Laura Francis on the topic of Mentoring for the 21st Century.  Laura is the Director of Triple Creek Associates, an organization that builds cultures of learning and development through web-based mentoring programs.

For the past 6 weeks, I have not sent out any newsletters, blogs or videos intentionally, so I could focus on my next reinvention. I also decided to reflect more on my reconnection with my father whom I had not seen for 40 years. Change is a good thing, and you can control your own changes.

I will return to my expert series next week, but I want to inject what I believe will be the most important message I can share with my audience at this time: Reinvent Yourself.
 

Reinvent Yourself!
  
 
Our economic challenges present a ripe oasis to create new opportunities for ourselves. You have to decide what is truly important and what you want to accomplish.

 
What is truly important these days is family. Once you learn this, then you need to figure out your own personal quest of what you want to accomplish while you’re on this earth. Now is the best time to take control and determine if what you are doing is what you truly want to do. You should have a clear understanding of this before someone or something else comes along and forces you to make a change.

 
Organizations today cannot afford to have slackers. The stakes are too high. If you work for an organization, you should think about your role and how valuable it is to the business. If you’re not enthusiastic about your job, you need to take a moment to figure out what type of work will get you excited. Value is everything, and it’s a two way street. You have to demonstrate your value to the organization, and you need to feel valuable to yourself.

 
Control your Transition

Don’t be afraid to transition–just stay cool and keep your mind on the prize. The best ideas, concepts and trends often develop during challenging times.

 
Difficulty can also bring people closer together. If you think your job is at risk, start networking now with individuals who are doing what you want to do.  Unleash your creativity–you might be able to transition your creative skills into an income. If you know your job is on the line, make sure you can specifically quantify your value and worth in writing…because you may have to. Demonstrate how you help your company grow through the resources, skills and experience you provide.

 
Everybody is Selling

I thoroughly believe that everyone needs to look at him or herself as a commission-based sales person.  If you’ve ever been on commission or owned a business, you know that if you don’t sell, you don’t eat.  Confidence in selling your value will come in your ability to communicate your worth, and if you transition to a new career, you need to keep that sales attitude at all times. In challenging times, CEO, Directors and Managers must sell themselves and their organization to grow business. The bottom line is that if you want to be successful in today’s down market you need to demonstrate your commitment and accountability.
Take the Leap

If you’ve ever had the itch to go into business for yourself, now’s the time do it. There are multiple ways to earn an income from home with little investment. If you have the discipline and drive you can make it. Opportunity is everywhere. Just be sure you do your research in advance. There are innumerable work-at-home scammers that are waiting to take money from the naive and uninformed. Know the risks, research any opportunities thoroughly, prepare a plan and then go for it. (Some good places to research are www.ripoffreport.com, www.ftc.gov, www.ic3.gov plus your local BBB, and it’s always a good idea to research company names on Google).

 
Keep the Faith

No matter what happens, don’t digress into a fear-based mode. Stay tuned up and ready to receive any new opportunities that come your way. Remember attitude is everything and your music is playing every day. It’s your life’s song, and now could be the time to change your music.
 

Next Week
  
Next week Micheal Lane, author of the award-winning book, The Wisdom of Yawdy Rum, provides insight that is near and dear to my heart: “Dynamics and Tempo – Directions for Life.”

Robert Van Arlen Newsletter
Family & Friends: Avenues for Raising Capital

Need money to for your business? Gene King, managing partner of Sequence Investment Partners, explains how to get started.
 

Please enjoy!

 
Family & Friends: Avenues for Raising Capital for A Small Business
  
 
Raising capital for a small business can be an extremely difficult, complicated process.  Often, the process is fraught with stress and confusion because the soon-to-be business owner simply has no idea where to turn when attempting to acquire money.  You must know how to transform the vision you have into a reality–reality, however, can be expensive.  Reality involves finding funding for your initial costs.  This comes from four areas: your pocket, your bank’s pocket, your family’s pocket, a friend’s pocket and/or an outsider’s pocket.

1. Your Pocket

The obvious place to start when funding your new business would be your existing cash and/or credit. Cash would come from securities accounts, savings accounts and just plain cash on hand.  Credit can be in the form of using credit cards, lines of credits in equity on homes or property, or borrowing from retirement plans such as 401k’s or IRA’s.  Some consider cashing in retirement plans for ease of access to cash, but remember it is always much more cost effective to borrow from a retirement plan than to cash out the retirement plan.  In almost all cases, a 10% penalty will be incurred from the IRS upon cash out and you will also have to pay income tax on all of the money (at your current income tax rate, i.e. an exorbitant percentage much higher than the interest you would pay on a loan).  Instead, contact a bank and borrow against your retirement or possibly other securities you might own. (See # 2.)
2. Your Bank’s Pocket

Many start-up businesses receive loans from banks that serve as the majority of their initial capital. Unfortunately, the credit markets are currently tight and it’s very tough to obtain funding for start-up companies from banks unless you have excellent credit and extreme collateral.  The Small Business Administration of the US Government (SBA) can be a source, but again, credit and collateral are a must.  When you assess your collateral know that it can come from many sources such as your house, machinery (if you are starting a business that will have hard assets to be purchased or equipment you already own), land, and any property that has value. For many small business owners this is not an option-particularly if you are a service based company–so where should you go next? 

3. Your Family’s and Friend’s Pockets

Once you have exhausted the first two options, you should turn to family and friends.  Family and friends know you; they know your morals, character, ethics, and your ability to be successful; they understand your perseverance and determination to succeed better than anyone else. 

Family and friends can provide funding in two manners: debt or equity.  Debt is simply a loan that two parties agree to involving an amount, collateral (if any), and a repayment schedule.  It is very simple and you can download loan documents from the internet.  The equity/ownership piece is somewhat more difficult.  The investor (friend or family member) will now be an owner of your company.  You must first decide if you want other owners at this time as equity is the most cost effective way to start a business.  It usually has no payments attached and helps tremendously with cash flow. It does, however, involve assessing the value, or equity, of your company. 

What is your company worth?  What’s your idea or service or product you will sell? Is it a service company? Is it a manufacturing company?  How do you determine the value of your company?  These are difficult and very tricky questions.  There must be a value assigned to your company and there are hundreds of ways to determine the value.  A good place to start is to make an assessment of what you think your first year’s revenues would be, and present that number as the worth of your company.

Once you have negotiated the worth (equity) of your company, you would issue the family member or friend membership shares with their capital contribution.  This starts a capitalization table. Also, if you are using an LLC you will need an operating agreement so that the investor understands the rules of engagement with their new investment. If operating inside an LLC you will need to define the managing partner. 

4. An Outsider’s Pocket

Selling interest to someone outside the realm of family and friends essentially entails the same process as ‘Family and Friends’ except you are selling interest in your company to individuals you do not know-often referred to as angel investors.  Because you do not know these individuals this process will be much more formal and will entail using such investment devices as private placement memorandums (PPM).  You may opt to have a friend or family member adhere to the same document so that when your family and friends run short of capital contributions you are ready for an outsider.  A PPM type document is a document that outlines the terms of securities to be offered. Simply stated, a PPM is a formal description of the investment opportunity that includes certain federal securities regulations. It will usually contain the terms of sale, capital structure and historical financial statements, biographies of the management team, a description of the business, and potential risk factors associated with the business.
Gene King is a managing partner of Sequence Investment Partners in Charleston, SC. If you have questions or for media inquiries contact Mary Frash of Obviouslee Marketing at 843.225.5288 or mary@obviouslee.com.

 
Next Week  
Next week Micheal Lane, author of the award-winning book, The Wisdom of Yawdy Rum, provides insight that is near and dear to my heart: “Dynamics and Tempo – Directions for Life.”