Daryl La Fountain and the rise of a CFO expert? There often comes a time when companies need to raise some form of capital, and it will probably happen sooner than you think — especially if you’re focused on growth. While you’re likely to bring someone on board to help with this process, there are things you can do now to prepare. Setting up your financial infrastructure, as discussed earlier, is a great start. But it would also be a good idea to: Familiarize yourself with the various sources of capital. When the time comes, you will need to make decisions about the type of capital that’s right for you, but the options can be dizzying. Will you be looking for a simple debt arrangement? A strategic partner? A hands-off investor? And what would you be willing to give up in return? Exploring your options ahead of time can help you get comfortable with the lingo and trade-offs so the choices won’t be so overwhelming. Formalize your business and marketing plans. Any reputable lender or investor will expect to see your plans for running and monetizing your business. If none of your plans are in writing, or if they only exist on the back of cocktail napkins, consider drafting something more formal well before you start down the capital-raising path.
Daryl LaFountain‘s advices on improving your firm financial situation: Separate Your Business and Personal Finances: One of the best ways to organize your business finances is to separate them from the personal ones. By splitting these things up, it’s much easier and faster to keep track of business expenses for tax purposes and other related uses. Remember, when you mix your business and personal funds, you may lose track of all your finances. This will jeopardize your organization in the long run. Thus, in order to ensure the separation of your personal and business finances, consider opening a distinct bank account. If you have credit cards, it’s best to designate one of them for business expenses. By doing this, you can keep everything organized, especially in terms of the financial aspect of your company.
One of personal finance’s most-repeated mantras is “pay yourself first.” No matter how much you owe in student loans or credit card debt, and no matter how low your salary may seem, it’s wise to find some amount—any amount—of money in your budget to sock away in an emergency fund every month. Having money in savings to use for emergencies can keep you out of trouble financially and help you sleep better at night. Also, if you get into the habit of saving money and treating it as a nonnegotiable monthly expense, pretty soon you’ll have more than just emergency money saved up: You’ll have retirement money, vacation money, or even money for a down payment on a home. It’s easy to put your fund a standard savings account, but these earns almost no interest. Put your fund in a high-interest online savings account, short-term certificate of deposit (CD), or money market account. Otherwise, inflation will erode the value of your savings. Just make sure the rules of your savings vehicle permit you to get to your money quickly in an emergency.
Having financial goals is the foundation for your financial success. After all, you have to know what you want to accomplish in order to actually accomplish it. However, when it comes to setting goals, you want to make sure your goals are well defined and prioritized accordingly. It’s great to have big, lofty goals! But be sure to break them down into smaller chunks. That way, you’re not overwhelmed trying to accomplish them and you can easily measure your progress. It’s also really important that one of your goals includes a plan to deal with emergencies. You want to make sure you are prepared to weather a storm. Otherwise, you’ll just end up in debt again.
About Daryl La Fountain: Daryl is an energetic professional CFO with a background in politics. Daryl has done fundraising, been a candidate, and worked in politically appointed positions in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia. Daryl has worked for Democratic candidates and nominees in 18 additional states. Reach out to Daryl about his CFO work if you: Need help in your nonprofit Finance department. Have a need for an Interim role. Would like some offsite audit preparation work.