If you’re just starting your business now, in 2009, where do you raise money?

Banks aren’t lending, venture capital firms are now effectively hedge funds, and American angels are about to be slammed by the crashing market and expected tax increases on capital gains, the source of angel investment power.

Money has never been easy to raise when you’re selling a dream… presented confidently as a vision — for the first time. If it were easy everyone would be doing it. The key to understanding and surviving this process is to realize that, “It isn’t SUPPOSED to be EASY!”

The lessons learned from REJECTION reveal the logic that eventually leads to long term SUCCESS. Others have described this as “having to learn to crawl before you can learn to walk”, but it’s not that elementary. It’s a simple reduction process, which allows only the most clever and detail-oriented to survive. The innovative, the committed, the determined and the clever each find that they must, in fact, be ALL of the foregoing to survive. Any single qualification would not be enough. The term “competition” provides inspiration as well as deep seeded fear. One learns that they must deliver competitively and that with every presentation excellence is expected.

In order to get money from an investor, you MUST ask them for the money and you need a presentation to ask an investor for money. The first presentation you give will be your last if you fail to impress. You must answer the usual investor questions up front, but primarily you should set your “vision” in the mind of the investor. Where are you going? Is the first question the investor wants to know after he understands what it is you want to do and how you plan to get it done.

Once you’re successful, you can reminisce with joy about the lucky breaks you got that lead to your success, and minimize the effort it took you to become successful — others will love you for it. But to BECOME successful, you need to work at it like the best professional athletes work out. Work is taken for granted. Amazing feats are taken for granted. Scoring continually is taken for granted. Even winning is taken for granted. The only effort that counts is EXTRA effort. If you can LOVE that, you’ll be successful during these tough times.