When your business is doing well and you’ve started to turn a profit, you might start thinking about expansion. If you’re going to do that, you’ll need a bit of money to help you along the way. You’ve got two options here, you could either save up the money for yourself or you can look for investment. The only issue with waiting until you can put all of that money aside is that it’s going to take a while and you might miss a good opportunity while you’ve got a lot of momentum.
It’s often better to find investors and start expanding while things are going well. But that’s not an easy task because you’ve got to convince investors that your business is a safe place to put their money and they’re going to see good returns. If you’re thinking about finding investment to fund growth, here are some easy ways that you can convince investors that you’re the real deal.
Prove Your Financial Responsibility
The first thing that investors want to know about is how you handle your money because if they invest, you’ll be responsible for their money. If you’re not financially responsible, they’re likely to lose their investment, so they’ll want some proof that you know how to manage business finances properly. You’ll need to take copies of your books to show them exactly what you’re bringing in and what you’re spending. If your spending is out of control and there’s a lot of wastage, that’s going to put them off. It’s worth finding ways to reduce your spending in the early days of the business so you can give them some evidence to prove that you know how to keep costs under control. It’s also important that you’re upfront with them about your financial past because they are going to find out about it either way. If you admit your mistakes and demonstrate that you’re more responsible with your money now, they won’t worry too much. But if you try to hide it, that’s a big red flag for them.
Consider A Different Location For The Meeting
When you’re a small startup, you probably don’t have a very impressive office. It’s likely to be a small place that doesn’t exactly scream success. When they enter the building, they’ll already have a negative perception of the business before the pitch even gets started. That’s why it might be worth considering a virtual office (visit yourvirtualofficelondon.co.uk/mail-forwarding-address/ for more information) that you can meet them in. A virtual office service gives you a meeting room space in a big office block and you’ll also get a mail address and phone number that you can contact them on. Meeting with them in a flash office will help you to make sure that the pitch gets off to a good start.
Do Your Market Research
If investors are going to be confident that your plans for growth are going to work and they’re going to get their money back, you need to lay out your road map for them. The most important thing is that you do your market research so you can tell investors who your new customers are going to be when you start to expand and how you plan to reach them. You can find a great checklist at https://www.aranca.com/knowledge-library/articles/business-research/9-things-to-research which will give you some guidance on your market research.
If you do these 3 things, investors will be far more likely to give you the money that you need to fund your business growth.
