Why Successful Entrepreneurs Invest in Employees

Employees are the lifeblood of any successful company or organization regardless of size. So whether you are running a multibillion-dollar company or are a tech start-up, your performance comes down to the people employed by your company and whether they are fully aligned with your company’s ethos and vision for the future.

Alan Safahi is a successful entrepreneur and start-up founder based in San Francisco. And with over 30 years’ experience in business development in the tech industry, he believes that investing in employees is crucially important at all steps of your company’s development.

This investment begins at the hiring stage.

Hiring new employees

Hiring the right candidates is an important step that needs to be carried out very carefully. However many new startups fail to gather the right people because they stick too rigidly to a tick box criteria such as academic and social background and are in a rush to get started.

By contrast, a successful company, such as Google, has a more open policy that will favor talented candidates who demonstrate they have the right qualities rather than the right background. If a candidate already displays a willingness to develop and learn, this growth mindset can be developed to benefit your company.

Scouting and hiring the right employees takes time but is a crucial factor in the development of your company.

To ensure that your recruitment program is on the right track, calling in the services of start-up expert and entrepreneur Alan Safahi will help establish a sound foundation for your company’s growth and development.

Investing in staff training is crucial

Investing time and money in training is paramount. Too many start-ups run into problems because they fail to provide adequate onboarding for new candidates. But you can’t expect new employees to perform like fully integrated team members unless you invest time and training in their development.

By contrast, a successful company will invest time and training in an onboarding and mentoring process so that new employees can quickly become fully integrated members of your team and are fully aligned with your company’s culture. This may require more time than you would like, but it will pay off in the long run.

Staff training and career development should be offered to employees throughout their careers so that as your company grows your employees can grow and develop equally.

Investing in employees is as important for start-up companies as it is for multinationals

If you are a startup company with a vision for the future, it is crucial to invest in obtaining the best and most talented employees for your team from the get-go.

Your company’s reputation is formed by the service you provide and in a highly competitive market, even small issues can make the difference between success and failure.

For example, if you get too many online reviews or negative social media posts complaining about your company’s performance it reflects badly on your whole company. This reputation can be hard to shake off yet can be caused by just one badly trained individual in your customer service department.

Alan Safahi is the founder of Safahi Global Advisors; an online reputation management company that will help you maintain a good reputation online and will prevent a bad review from ruining the credibility of your company.

In the early days of any company, teething troubles can lead to mistakes but a negative impression online can ruin your future chances of success. All this could have been so easily avoided with more investment in your employees.

Investing in your employees improves performance and reduces costs

When you invest in your employees it not only improves company morale it reduces costs.

Offering benefits such as health care cover, gym membership, subsidized meals or free breakfasts are a few ways of helping your employees feel valued. Offering added incentives such as performance-driven bonuses and awards and investing in ongoing staff training helps employees see that they have a long-term future with your company.

Staff turnover is a major expense. According to statistics, it can cost as much as six months salary to fully train a new staff member so even if investing in your employees seems initially expensive it is the only way to guarantee the success and the future growth of your company.

Originally Posted: https://www.allperfectstories.com/successful-entrepreneurs-invest-employees/

7 Tips for an Investment Pitch That Gets Funded

If you have an excellent startup idea and require financing, you must prepare properly to obtain your first investor. Once you have the financial support of an investor, getting others will be much easier.

In this article, San Francisco Entrepreneur Alan Safahi, The principal at Safahi Global Advisor shares with you a little of his experience as a 6X startup founder and entrepreneur, detailing 7 tips for an investment launch that will be better positioned to get financed.

1. Select the right audience

One of the key aspects is to know very well the audience to whom you must address. The type of investors you should target will be determined by the phase your business is in, and by the amount of money you want to raise.

Make sure you know your audience and design a presentation accordingly. Use your own language for them and detail each aspect of interest about your venture.

2. Tell a success story

You must have total confidence about the success of your business, and transmit it to your potential investors. Tell your audience what a the reasons why your venture will be a success, and how you will achieve that.

Focus your story on the future, on the profits your company will bring, and how the investment the round will drive the valuation of your business.

3. Pass on your passion

The passion you feel for your new project is the same that you should make the group of potential investors feel.

Let them know in detail all the potential that your company has, how it will change the world, how you will do things in an original way, and what is your secret recipe.

Explain to them how their investment will allow you to revolutionize the market, and how it will help you take your company to the top of success.

4. Keep it simple and understandable

According to Safahi’s experience as an advisor, a good technique to transmit information is to do it in the simplest way possible.

Regardless of the level of mastery or knowledge of your investors, you should present the information about your startup in the simplest possible way. Design your content in such a way that any primary school child can understand it.

Avoid using extremely technical language. Design your presentation to explain the essence of your company in a matter of seconds. This is the most effective way to do it.

5. Describe the sales you have obtained

If your startup is already making a profit from sales, you should mention this point to investors.

One of the techniques that, like Alan Safahi, has used in the business world, is to present sales on a timeline. That is, indicate the amount of dollars you obtained from sales in a certain period of time. This gives investors a clear view of what you have accomplished.

Another important aspect is that you are prepared to explain how you can continue to sell and increase your profits. This is extremely important to potential investors.

6. Design a plan with well-defined deadlines

You must design a schedule indicating a well-defined and not very long term, to raise the money you require.

This period can be of great advantage to you in several aspects. On the one hand, having a deadline can encourage investors to seal a deal with you. It can also help you facilitate the contract process by reaching an agreement with multiple investors.

Remember to clarify to potential investors that you have a maximum term to reach an agreement.

7. Create and explain an exit and profit strategy for investors

Even if you are not thinking of leaving your business, investors have another point of view. It is very important for them to know what will happen in the event that their business relationship with your company ends.

You must explain precisely and concretely how they will recover their investment. How they will get their reward multiplied or compounded. Let them know that your goal is to achieve your success and theirs.

These tips have always been very effective in everything related to the startups that Alan Safahi and his partners at Safahi Global Advisors have advised in the past which should work just as well for any startup.

Originally Posted: https://vocal.media/journal/7-tips-for-an-investment-pitch-that-gets-funded

How Invest With A Small Budget

A very widespread myth about investing is that you need a massive sum of money just to get started, when in reality the process of building a solid portfolio/investment account can, and often does, begin with just a few thousand — or even a few hundred — dollars.

In this guide below we offer specific advice, from both our research partners and from industry tech titans like Alan Safahi, all with the aim of helping you get started and dive into the world of investing.

Starting Strategies

Regardless of whether you plan to invest a small or hefty amount, in safe bets or high-risk trades, these tips will help you get your plans off to a great start.

Automate Your Savings

If you’re able to reliably and consistently set aside funds every month into your investment accounts, you will reap large rewards over time. If you’re unable to do this, due to a lack of organization or willpower etc, but still want to reap these benefits, then set up automated systems that manage this for you.

There are apps on the app store that make it relatively straight-forward and painless to automatically set aside money for investments. Acors, Chime, Qapital, are some apps that all round up transactions from your debit/credit card and sends the difference towards your investments.

Other options are to check with your bank about its own apps and other ways you can automatically transfer funds from your spendings accounts towards your investments accounts and/or portfolio.

Pay down your debts

Before you start investing, evaluate what it costs you to hold onto debts that you already have, and begin to calculate how easily you can pay them off. High-interest credit cards have rates of 20% or more, after all, and some student loans have interest rates of over 10% . Those rates outweigh the average annual earnings of 7% or so that over time the U.S. stock market has returned over time.

If you have a lot of high-interest debt, it’s smarter to pay off at least a portion of it before you begin to invest. While you can’t predict the exact return on most of your investments, you can be certain that retiring debt with a 20% interest rate one year early is as good as earning a 20% return on your money.

Make sure you contribute the maximum amount of money to your 401(k) as well.

Consider Your Retirement

A key objective of saving and investing, even at an early age, should be to help ensure that after you stop working, you have enough money to support yourself. Your main objective when you prepare to plan for retirement should be to take full advantage of the government and employer benefits that they offer to facilitate retirement protection. Don’t overlook it if your business offers a 401(k) retirement plan. Alan Safahi, a Fintech CEO and industry titan, recommends that nearly everyone tap into their retirement plan benefits, and start paying into it as soon as possible. “Living in Orinda, located east of San Francisco, California, I’ve noticed a lot of people here take advantage of the multitude of retirement benefits offered by their employers, and that’s a welcome and optimistic sight to behold.” Alan said in a brief comment to us.

How to Invest $500

While it may seem small, $500 can go a lot farther than you’d expect. For a safe choice, put it into a CD from a bank or other lenders, or use it to purchase short-term Treasury bills. These can be purchased through online brokers as well. For both of these options growth isn’t high, but the risks are almost zero. Great way to start your nest egg.

For those seeking more growth potential in exchange for a little more risk, check out a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP). You buy shares of stock, and your dividends are automatically used to purchase additional shares or even fractional shares. This is a great choice for smaller investors because the shares are purchased at a discount and without paying a sales commission to a broker. Buying just one share of a company’s stock will get you started. Alan Safahi recommends this as well, as a safe way to grow your investment over time, with the benefit of compounding.

Summary

The investment basics are simple: Maximize your growth and minimize your risk. Minimize taxes, fees, commissions. Make intelligent choices with your limited resources.

The hardest part of investing is when you’re getting started, but the sooner you do so, the more you can potentially make. Simple as that.