How to Leverage Your Value with Stephanie Sims

Are you looking for investors in your business and unsure where to start? Let’s take a walk with Stephanie Sims, founder of Finance-Ability®, former investment banker and finance expert. Stephanie gives her advice and strategies on moving from “shiny object syndrome” to prioritizing your growth strategies. This conversation with host Natalie Benamou and Stephanie Sims shows you how you can start leveraging your value today. 

Evaluate Your Business:

1. Take a step back and understand what you want the business to be. 
2. Develop your “credible milestone ask” based on what the next goal/objective is for your business. 
3. Focus on your strengths and recognize your weaknesses when expanding your team. Hire people who will balance you out. 
4. Think early about your path to profitability instead of only focusing on growth.

The Ask:

• Things don’t have to be perfect when asking for money for your business.
• Be open with investors about your experiments (what worked and what didn’t work). 
• Watch out for “shiny object syndrome”. Is it going to add value to your business? 
• Know Your Worth
• Giving equity away for your business: If someone wants to invest in exchange for 5%, you need to know if that’s $50,000 or $500,000. It’s important to have a sense of the dollar value for what you’re giving away. 
• Receiving equity as partial payment at a new job opportunity: What does the deal look like if the equity doesn’t materialize vs. if it does happen.  Are you comfortable with the balance of risk and reward that you’ve agreed to take to make that deal work. 

Thank you, Stephanie Sims, for this conversation, your expertise and helping entrepreneurs understand how to leverage their value. 

Stephanie Sims has more than two decades in finance, quality & IT management and valuation of public and private entities. Stephanie’s experience with large transactions and her knowledge of how due diligence works made it easy to spot one of the key reasons that entrepreneurs face such difficulty getting financing: they don’t understand the fundamentals of evaluating risks versus rewards. Developing this knowledge base led her to see that everyone has the ability to manage their finances successfully, but they don’t always realize it. And that’s where the notion of Finance-Ability was born.

LinkedIn: Stephanie Sims  

Website: stephaniesims.com  

Podcast: What’s Your Ask? 

Natalie Benamou is the CEO of HerPower2 Lead and HerCsuite™ an online platform for Executive Women.

HerCsuite™ is an online membership platform transforming the way women meet, engage and thrive together. Close The Promotion Gap Inside Peer-to-Peer Curated Mentoring Circles and Level-Up Your Results. 

Reach out to Natalie Benamou at HerCsuite™.

LinkedIn: Natalie Benamou HerPower2 Lead HerCsuite™

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Credits: Thanks to Julie Deem and the Business Podcast Editor for editing our podcast!