Businesses making a pitch for capital to investors need to map out their strategies, Andre Bryan says — but the real key is they have to paint a picture.
“They have got to be able to see it,” says Bryan, explaining the metaphor.
A 62 percent growth rate demonstrates that Bryan, president of APB & Associates, has been effective at describing his vision.
His firm has been honored by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City as one of the 100 fastest-growing inner city businesses in the nation. The Inner City 100 program recognizes successful inner city companies and their CEOs as role models for entrepreneurship, innovative business practices and job creation in America’s urban communities.
APB & Associates, a project management firm, consults with Fortune 500 companies on compliance issues and offers customizable software to support the solutions.
Bryan used to think that the way to run a business was with conventional bank loans and lines of credit. Now he knows those are not the only options — and he gives credit in part to having attended the ICIC program designed to help small businesses in economically distressed areas access capital and achieve sustainable growth.
The ICIC and Bank of America sponsored this year’s program in Cleveland.
Those looking to raise capital, Bryan says, need to know their industry, their sector and how they are going to use the money.
“Be very specific about how you are going to use the capital that you are going to obtain, and be able to demonstrate how it is going to benefit the company,” he says. “Being able to demonstrate you know the market, you know the industry and you can forecast is critical.”
Avenues along the journey
Among the other financial avenues Bryan suggests:
- Purchase order financing, a funding option for businesses that need cash to fill single or multiple customer orders.
- Factoring, the sale of receivables to a third party.
- Mezzanine financing, a blend of debt and equity financing usually used to finance the expansion of existing companies.
“Our insurance company has a financial tool that we now have taken advantage of,” Bryan says. “It is a form of mezzanine financing that we’re actually using and leveraging against our insurance policy that we didn’t know about before.”
In addition, Bryan says smaller companies often can do joint ventures with larger firms if they have a proven track record.
But no matter how numbers are thrown about, Bryan says businesses also need to show how the people in it will help sustain long-term growth.
Sustaining long-term growth in the economically distressed areas may be more challenging but it can be done, Bryan says.
“It’s beyond assets and capital,” he says. “It’s assets and opportunities.”
But whether it is suburbia or the inner city the aim is the same: “Ultimately, the goal is to create jobs and start to grow wealth,” he says.
