OK, you’re ready to take your company to the next level and your CFO and legal counsel have advised you to go public to raise capital as well as to retain some of those prize employees with stock options and to bait that new sales executive with a signing bonus made up of stock options. You’ve looked into everything from pink sheets to reverse mergers to OTCBB to IPO and you have come to the conclusion you’re going to need to take on investors so that you can afford to follow through with your plan. If you’re lacking the funds to dive right in and start creating your public structure, here is a way that just about any business can afford to go public.

First, get a real business plan. Your business plan needs to sizzle and reel in the investor and clearly paint a picture of your vision to the investor and their advisors. Next, you’ll want to raise an initial round of cash quickly so that you can afford to take your company public without hindering your current company structure with additional ancillary costs. You’re going to need something fast and affective; you should consider having a professionally authored private placement memorandum put together for your company.

If you are trying to go public via OTCBB a Regulation D Rule 504 exemption will suffice, if you are trying to achieve an IPO you’ll need to go with a Regulation D Rule 505 exemption (pink sheets and reverse mergers into shell corps are not very successful in immediate and long term success so I would suggest you stay away from these structures). Build into the PPM verbiage that you are raising an initial round of capital that will be used to take your company public. When savvy investors see that they are investing in a real, viable pre-IPO or pre-OTCBB formation you will see investors climbing out of the woodwork to give you cash if your business concept is sound.

Next you hire the consultants (usually the same firm that wrote your PPM) to start the process of taking you public. On the PPM your Mini/Maxi should allow you to use capital almost immediately to get the ball rolling on your public company. You can count on a solid OTCBB going for between $75k and $250k and an IPO going for $1M+ so have your PPM written accordingly. If you follow the path set forth above you will notice something extraordinary.

The only out of pocket expense you had was for your Private Placement Memorandum (and your business plan if you didn’t have one) and 100% of the capital needed to go public was supplied by greedy investors who are excited to invest because of the quick payoff of their investment when you go public. This process means you can literally take your company public for less than $5,000 (the typical cost of a strategic Private Placement Memorandum. This is a simple, strategic and inexpensive way to get the capital you need for your company quickly, without using your limited financial resources in the process.

If you’re seeking the services of a consultant you’re most likely in need of corporate structuring or a strategic company turnaround for a capital raise or to go public. Hiring the right consultant is crucial if you are going to succeed with your venture.

Your consultant should, obviously, have the knowhow and track record for succeeding in fine tuning companies to cater to what industry investors are seeking but they must also possess the contact base to streamline the process so that you don’t lose time to gain that stealthy edge over your competitors who are attempting to do the same thing.

Your consultant should maintain an active database that acts as his ‘special forces’ munitions arsenal of 10,000′s of real, viable contacts in scores of industries so that he can assist you in even the most mundane, minute aspects of your strategy with solid corporate alliances and contacts that will make your venture stand out like a beacon of light in your industry that beams its florescent light in the windows of potential clients, partners, contractors and anyone else that can assist your company in achieving its desired ambitions. Your consultant will structure and categorize parts of your company that you didn’t even know existed yet are crucial to its development.

The reality is that you should have a separate group of strategic partners for every individual product and ever individual service that your company offers. For example, when I consult with companies that have, say, 10 products, my goal would be five to seven strategic partners per product for a range of fifty to seventy strategic partners that my client will work with for co-op advertising and marketing efforts, branding strategies and sales initiatives. Most companies don’t even consider this aspect to their business but it is absolutely vital.

When you find a consultant or corporate strategist that you are ready to hire, after you have thoroughly evaluated them, have an in-depth conversation about their ideas for strategic partners and how they intend on facilitating this process to help you achieve your goals.

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Are you taking your company public? Here is what you need to know. Disclosure Obligations: “If my company becomes “public,” what are its disclosure obligations?”

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 requires a company to file certain periodic reports once its registration statement has been declared effective. This obligation continues indefinitely unless:

At the beginning of any subsequent fiscal year, the class of securities offered is held of record by less than 300 persons; or

At the beginning of any subsequent fiscal year (except the two fiscal years immediately succeeding the year the registration statement became effective), all securities offered are held of record by less than 500 persons and the issuer has had less than $5 million in total assets for each of its last three fiscal years.

In these cases, the reporting obligation may be suspended. Otherwise, a company must continuously disclose certain information about:

Its operations; Its officers, directors, and certain shareholders (including salary, various fringe benefits, and inside transactions between the company and management); The financial condition of the business (including audited financial statements by an independent certified public accountant); The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (or PCAOB) (sometimes called “Peekaboo”) is a private-sector, non-profit corporation created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a 2002 United States federal law, to oversee the auditors of public companies. Its competitive position, material terms of certain contracts or lease agreements; acquisitions and mergers, creation of certain financial obligations, and material impairment of assets; unregistered sales of equity securities; changes in its accountant; and changes in its board of directors and management;

In addition, a company must promptly disclose to the public any information that would be considered important to its present or prospective stockholders.

All companies with total assets exceeding $5 million and a class of equity securities held by 500 or more persons are required by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to file the same supplementary, periodic, and current reports as noted above. Companies with these characteristics must also comply with the Commission’s proxy rules if proxies are solicited from holders of its securities. In such a case, the company must furnish all shareholders proxy statements disclosing all material facts concerning matters on which they are being asked to vote. If the proxy solicitation by management relates to an annual meeting at which directors are to be elected, the Commission’s proxy rules also require the company to furnish each shareholder an annual report disclosing certain information about the company, including audited financial statements for its latest fiscal year.

Exemptions

The Securities Act of 1933 provides several exemptions from the registration requirements; the most common are discussed below. Nonetheless, purchases or sales of securities (even in exempt transactions) are subject to the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws. This means that issuers are responsible for false or misleading statements (whether oral or written) which may be redressed through private or government legal action, including criminal sanctions. Also, if all conditions of the exemptions discussed below are not met, purchasers may seek to have their purchase price refunded. In addition, the fact that an offending may be exempt from certain provisions of the federal securities laws does not necessarily mean that it is exempt from the notice and filing obligations of various state laws.

So many companies dream of going public both as a growth and exit strategy but unfortunately few succeed with this process. The third party audit, sponsoring of the S1 and 211 by a market maker and SEC comments stage is just one of the obstacles involved with taking a company public. The attempt at going public and actually achieving a symbol are two entirely different things and if you are lucky enough to achieve a symbol there’s a completely separate area of expertise needed to keep your stock trading and to preserve a company’s longevity in the marketplace.

Here are some things you need to keep in mind when gearing up to take your company public. Forget everything that you’ve read and heard and pay attention to what you’re about to read because this is the straight forward, objective reality of the process. First, do not hire an attorney to take you public as they will take you on a long drawn out process to get as many billable hours as possible, instead, hire a consulting firm whose sole business model is to take companies public and take advantage of the relationships that they have with attorneys. This is the first rule: hire a consulting firm that offers a complete A to Z turn-key solution for taking a company through the process of going public, achieving a symbol and preserving the trade with a solid, ongoing post public investor relations strategy.

Next, when you’ve decided on a consulting firm evaluate their team, don’t ask for references to call to research their track record, better yet, ask for symbols of previous clients and links to the Edgar database to check out current deals in the comments stage. The proof is in the empirical track record, not potentially fraudulent phone references that are easily engineered and BS.

Now look at their team. Make sure that the consulting group has a solid legal team, market makers, investor relations team, auditing group and someone well versed in the comments stage response as this can be one of the major hang-ups in achieving your symbol in a timely manner. Also, most important, they absolutely MUST have a solid group of investors to fund the process for equity and to sell their shares into the marketplace post public to create a market for your stock as well as a network of market makers familiar with your deal to piggyback off of the sponsoring market maker’s 211.

About one month away from symbol achievement you’ll want to meet with your consultants to get a solid IR strategy together for a big offering dbut. You will want to set up a strategy for 30 day IR intensives every other month with general corporate publicity strategies in between. I suggest changing your IR firm each quarter to keep it fresh and open up your trade to a new network of investors.

One special note to consider is that when you are raising your initial round of capital from seed investors, the fastest way to do this is to have a fist full of contracts and purchase orders in hand to strengthen your position and publicize this reality with an arsenal of press releases. Its 100 times easier to raise capital if you are showing seed investors a handful of ‘soon to be’ cash than to solicit them empty handed.

Obviously there are a multitude of other issues that you need to take into consideration when going public so find a consulting firm that can help you make it happen. Don’t try to venture out into these waters on your own as you’ll be diving into shark infested waters and you’ll almost certainly fail.

Promotional key rings will be used almost every hour of the day and each day by recipients. Each time this promotional item is used, your logo will be viewed. Customised key rings can be used for more than just advertising your business. These can even be used for birthday or wedding parties.

Beside the brand recognition promotional key rings result in, they have a most unique benefit such as the fun you can get by choosing them. There is a great selection of promotional key rings that include hundreds of varieties. All of these varieties can be easily imprinted with your logo and message.

Promotional key rings are not only popular because of their variety, but in addition the promotional key rings are very much affordable. From a large variety of promotional key rings you can choose the right one to imprint with your logo and message so that will be suitable and affordable in cost within your campaign budget.

Promotional key rings are received with thanks and are remembered. One factor to take in to consideration with great importance for a promotional campaign is that the gift item must have a feature which will ensure the recipients are happy to get them and to make sure that they will use the item in their everyday life. No doubt that everyone will like to receive a good looking key ring and use this item frequently.

There are lots of affordable designs available. Key rings with a long message strap where you can imprint an advertising message. The long strap is easy for the key holder to keep around their wrist and the keys are always at the ready. More typical designs are still the post popular. Square, round, fun shapes, spring hook styles or even customised shapes are all very popular.

At your next show or conference, distribute customised key rings imprinted with your logo and message. Sports events, meetings, any kind of social or corporate gathering, all are suitable places for the giveaways of key rings with your logo and you can take full advantage to promote your business. Another point is that the key rings are durable. So your logo or company name will be seen every time the recipients use their keys. Nothing can be more important for a busy person than a nice key ring. Losing keys is such a problem that a key ring has turned out to be necessity. Having new key ring is always fun and this could be a great marketing choice.

There are Plastic key rings, Metal Key rings, Leather Key rings, Key chains with included light and recycled key rings, all available in different colors, different designs and in different shapes. Plastic and metal key rings are the longest lasting. Metal surface key rings offer an elegant advantage to engrave your logo and company name. This particular promotional item will keep your logo alive for a long time after you have given it away. Key rings are definitely a great way to promote your logo and brand name. They are practical, durable and their universal acceptance makes key rings the first-choice for promotional gifts. More importantly you can find any selection of promotional key rings fitted within your budget.