Your goal in submitting your business plan is to convince Venture Capitalist to meet with you. People invest in people. They don't invest in business plans. If you get an invitation to meet with VC staff, go to meeting with a soft sell strategy. Focus upon answering their questions and not hard selling them on your company. Unless asked to come with your management team, keep first meeting to no more than you and one key team member. Aim to build a business relationship with VC staff, based upon your company's credibility and your professional competence. If VC wants to meet a second time, odds are you will get your financing.

Should your business plan be professionally written? My advice is "no." Most professional business plan writers follow a set format that is easily recognized. They know less about your industry and plans than you do. Professionally written business plans lack conviction of those written by fund seeker. However, once you have your draft business plan, it is usually wise to have it edited for clarity, credibility and removal of padding, by a professional writer. A good business writer can focus your business plan, without making it appear to be written to a textbook format.

Be credible. Be honest. Be specific. Be qualified to make your company grow. Address needs of your potential investor and not try to feed your ego. Prove cashflow now. Be willing to sell your company when its assets justify it. At initial meeting, soft sell your proposal. Clearly and concisely answer investors questions. If you adopt this approach to raising risk capital, you will greatly improve odds of finding money of your dreams.

About Author: William Cate is Managing Director of Beowulf Investments [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/], a merchant bank doing multinational M&As. He is Executive Director of Global Village Investment Club [http://home.earthlink.net/~beowulfinvestments/globalvillageinvestmentclubwelcome/]. He reviews business plans for several Venture Capital firms. You can contact him at: Beowulfinvestments@Earthlink.net

Remember, people have been trading markets for a hundred and sixty years. The smart traders know there's going to be another trade. Cut your loses short and compound those winning positions.

RULE #2) ~ Thou Shall Not Trade FOREX Without Placing of a Stop Loss Order.

When you place a STOP order, right along with your ENTRY order, via your online trade station, you've just automatically prevented a potential loss from "running" too far.

Before initiating any trade, if you haven't already figured out at what point you would be wrong and would want to cut your loses or, at very least, reevaluate your position from sidelines, then you shouldn't be putting on trade in first place.

Show us a FOREX trader who doesn't use stop loss orders and we'll show you someone who loses a lot of money.

FOREX Trader and Freelance writer.

http://www.1-forex.com