Business with Heart

I WANT to be able to help anyone that needs help securing funding. Unfortunately, what I want and I what I can actually offer, are not one and the same.

I have recently been approached by a few small businesses looking for funding; I say recently because a few have stuck in my mind, but I am regularly approached by business that are too small for me to be able to help. I look over the information they provide me with and my heart sinks. With some of these deals, I immediately share that I would like to help but they do not fall within the parameters of my funders. With others, I try to push them in the right direction (if I know it).

Currently I am looking at a deal for a company based in Mexico. The financial statements I looked at were in pesos and the conversion to dollars did not look very appealing. The company did have something going for it in the form of potential contracts so I sent it to a mortgage loan correspondent that I work with who may be interested. I am pretty sure that he is going to pass on it, but I wanted to try rather than just assume.

I spoke with an entrepreneur last week who was looking for some sizable funds simply for research and development of a prototype. He needs angel investors interested in buying into his idea and helping to shepherd it through the prototype and to the next step of fundraising. This is not what I do, but I did try to talk it out with him and gave him some leads to follow up on.

Obviously, we need to create a balance of not trying to help everyone if we know that we cannot. With that being said, it also takes a lot of integrity and heart to try to help those who need our help. If it is just taking a phone call, or maybe a quick coffee meeting, then I try to help people on the right path if I can.

The awareness for today is to help when you can. Do not disregard your own business, but if a small amount of your available time can help someone else, then I say do it. We can all remember a time in our lives when we needed the help of others and someone helped us. Let us now help others in return.
~Paul