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“Deep-pocketed investors often set aside money to buy into private equity funds.  Such investments tend to be riskier but can generate higher returns than stocks or bonds.  Here are some of the key players and terms in the world of private equity investments.

• Private equity firms: A broad category.  It includes venture capitalists and buyout specialists who raise money from limited partners and use it to help companies develop products and markets.

• Limited partners: Investors in venture capital or buyout funds.  These are typically pension funds, foundations, university endowments, insurance companies, or wealthy individuals.

• Venture capital firms: Firms that use their investment funds to finance start-ups, often in their early stages and typically in the technology, life sciences, or telecommunications fields.

• Buyout firms: They usually raise larger funds and invest them in more mature, later-stage companies of all kinds, often taking controlling interests and sometimes buying the companies outright.  (The terms “private equity” and “buyouts” are often used interchangeably.)”

Source: Robert Weisman, in an article from The Boston Globe

The telephone rings, the caller receives a message welcoming them, then she is asked to dial the extension of the person she wants to talk to. Since she doesn’t know the extension, she has to wait and listen to the office directory; then presses the extension number only to discover that the person being called is not there.

Most Americans have called a credit card company, their bank or any other large company only to get lost in the maze with no way of talking to an actual person. Then there is the “hold music,” the commercial while you wait, with more “amusements” popping up all the time. Who knows what the future holds in telephone communication.

While it used to be that the telephone was a visitor’s first contact with your business, that tradition is changing. Now it is your Web site. Today’s busy buyer now goes to the Internet to look for whatever he or she is considering purchasing. It is even easier for potential clients or customers to find your telephone number from your Web site rather than the telephone book. They can even get directions to your place of business.

In business every call or Web site visitor is a potential customer or client. You can’t afford to lose even one. After all, if someone goes to the trouble of finding your telephone number or locating you on the Web, they must be at least half-serious.

Make sure your telephone system is as user-friendly as you can make it. If it isn’t, change it. One sale or new client will more than pay for this improvement.  What is the status of your Web site? Pay a little extra to insure that it is also user-friendly. Your Web site should provide interesting and useful information on your company, your products or services, your personnel (including contact information), and anything else that will make you look like the well-established professional that you are. The more user-friendly and informative the site, the more business you will get.

Understand that the first contact potential customers or clients have with your business is either the telephone or your Web site – and probably both.

The following appeared in a study, Financial Difficulties of Small Businesses and Reasons for Their Failure, prepared for the Small Business Administration (SBA). They are statements made by individuals whose business was in financial difficulty and subsequently failed. Their comments are listed under the stated reason for failure.

Tax Troubles

• IRS stepped in and took over the bank account.
• The IRS threatened to repossess [our] tools of trade if [we] did not pay the $20,000 back taxes immediately.
• When the IRS agent told us that they will put padlocks on our doors if we can’t come up with the money in one month.
• Pressure from IRS. The IRS is “merciless.”
• IRS was attempting to reach the non-debtors wife’s income (i.e., levy) for the tax liabilities, which all preceded her marriage to the debtor.
• The IRS changed the locks on the business, and the business had to declare bankruptcy in order for the owners to be able to even get into the building.

Personal Profiles

• Bank was not going to refinance her business because of divorce settlement.
• Inability to control blood glucose level, cholesterol, etc. due to stress of dealing with creditors.
• His wife has a nervous breakdown. He just knew they couldn’t handle their bills.
• The injury to his arm.
• She could not pay her medical bills. She had filed bankruptcy as soon as she couldn’t pay her bills, rather than get behind in payments.
• Creditors were hounding him to pay his wife’s credit card. He had not canceled the cards after the divorce. He returned his but never closed the accounts.
• “I had lost court case in trying to settle child support but lost. Was given 48 hours to settle $36,000 of debt which was impossible.”
• And, finally, some comments regarding those who suffered a calamity that pushed them into failure, and subsequent bankruptcy.
• The engine blew in the truck and they couldn’t afford to buy another one.
• His van was stolen and he could no longer transport the equipment necessary to carry on his business.
• The organization they were linked with sold out and was taken over by another organization that was hard to work with.
• The gas explosion.
• Death of foreman.
• The State came in and tore up the road.

Despite the above comments, the study also suggests that entrepreneurs are often not the callow amateurs they are portrayed as being, but business veterans who have the gumption to take the risks inherent in starting a new enterprise. They are people who are often prepared to shrug off the effects of a business failure and try again; a process made possible by the “fresh start” philosophy of U.S. bankruptcy laws. Failure does not always have to be viewed negatively. It can offer an opportunity for the entrepreneur to learn and gain from the experience in order to do a better job next time.