www.spotfund.com). Conversely, just Google “crowdsourcing” on your laptop, and you’ll instantly find numerous hits. Here are a few you might consult (chosen randomly with no endorsement implied or intended):
Traditional banks
If you do choose a traditional bank loan route (from so-called “Ce-Fi” or centralized finance firms), most of them are more than willing to lend money to local businesses, provided that they can present convincing business plans. The simplest arrangement: a standard commercial loan. In this case, the bank loans you the money, and you pay it back, usually in monthly installments and with interest. But you can find all sorts of variations on this theme, from real estate loans on commercial property to loans secured by your inventory or accounts receivable and even to your personal assets such as a home (see Chapter 11 for more info). If business assets secure the loan, you usually pay a lower interest rate.
If you don’t intend to use all the money at one time, consider applying for a commercial line of credit. A credit line allows you to draw on the funds when you happen to need the cash. Given a firm’s circumstances, banks don’t usually require collateral to secure small lines of credit. Larger lines (some banks loan up to $10 million or more) are typically secured against accounts receivable, inventory, machinery and equipment, or real estate.
www.fnb.co.za (and then click on “For My Business” on the top line menu bar). For a more comprehensive list of such opportunities, see www.kiva.org; this is a Silicon Valley–based nonprofit organization that connects worthy small-business entrepreneurs with lending resources both domestically and internationally.
Chapter 3
Setting Off in the Right Direction
IN THIS CHAPTER
You may ask yourself why on earth you’re reading a chapter on vision and values in a book on business planning. But if you are wondering, perhaps it’s only a reflection of the era in which you were born. Why is this? Because today we must acknowledge that the business firm is an entity that needs to be acutely aware of its societal surroundings if it wants to attract both loyal customers and skilled employees. As such, how an organization positions itself in its larger social domain is critical to not only the bottom line but also to its very survival. People the world over are realizing the need to hold firms accountable if we are to improve both the physical and human condition, and they are taking action to do just that — especially younger people who, let’s admit it, have a stronger stake in the future than some of us old fogeys. Lesson learned for the business planner: Today, social values count as much as an economic valuation of the enterprise.
Now, don’t get us wrong here — we have no quarrel either with profit or the economic system that encourages its accumulation. We devoutly believe in a consensual relationship with both, engaged with eyes wide open, of course, and we hope that you, too, dear reader, will earn your fair share of greenback gratification over time. But short-term profits aren’t the measure of business success. Truth be told, even the oldest tomes on business planning have noted that long-term profit is the best success metric of the capitalist firm.
Yet while all of this is true, we’ve also come to another realization as our complex new century unspools before us: The blind pursuit of profit only for its own sake is a death wish. It results not only in the depletion of the planet’s scarce resources but has also shown an unfortunate tendency to deepen the chasm between the haves and have nots (to say nothing of the haves and have yachts). This is not good, indeed it’s bad, and though it might take another book to explain why, suffice it to say that even a casual look around should prompt all of us to re-examine the role of the business firm in contemporary society.
In this chapter, we point out why values are so important in the first place. We help you identify your company’s