Re: Intro and question

On Friday, Feb 28, 2003, at 07:13 America/Los_Angeles, Faber Fedor 
wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 12:18:22PM -0800, DV Henkel-Wallace wrote:
>
>> You have several potential sources of money: Different people use
>> different schemes; personally I like the last two best [your customers
>> and your time].
>
> I agree with you.  But I don't see how I can use my customers to grow 
> my
> business.  (Even asking for referrals hasn't gotten any bites!)

Referrals is one way.  References is another.  But do you have repeat 
business?  The second-easiest way to get your customers to fund your 
business is to ask them to pay enough up front for you to bring someone 
aboard right away.  This of course works better if you've already done 
one project for that same customer.  Perhaps I should have phrased this 
as "fund it out of cash flow" but that's a term that's somewhat obscure 
to many people.

If you're not getting many referrals nor much followon business, 
perhaps you should specialise vertically (Medical offices, print shops, 
insurance agents, whatever).  People talk to each other about business 
within their own industry (as evidenced by this list) rather than 
geographically, in my experience.

So see: you're getting your SCORE advice without the government being 
involved!

-g

PS: The easiest way to get your customers to fund your business is to 
do it out of profits.  It is the essence of a bootstrap business.  If 
you go the bootstrap route all the rest is at the margins.  If you