What Comes First – Finance Strategy or Business Strategy?

Everyone knows business strategy and finance strategy are interrelated. But which one should dictate?

If you are an entrepreneur, your future is your most valuable asset. Let’s face it- investors can only generate interest on their money. It takes an entrepreneur to generate profit! For an entrepreneur, business strategy must dictate finance – never the reverse. Everyone knows business strategy and finance strategy are interrelated. But which one should dictate?

The first place to start is to imagine the future you would want if you had unlimited resources.

When Wayne got turned down by the bank for the $1 million he needed to grow is business, he made an assumption that resources were scare and expensive. Wayne began to dwarf his vision of his company’s future. That’s what happens when you let finance strategy dictate business strategy. Wayne was not even aware of the assumption he had made or the devastating effect on his company- until I brought this to his attention. We worked with Wayne to re-vision his potential, assuming unlimited resources, built upon his deep and real passion and developed a strategy that resulted in him attracting $10mm for a minority stake of his company.

How did an entrepreneur who got turned down by the bank for $1 million get $10 million and keep control? Certainly not based on his past!! He shared his passion about the future he really wanted to build!

When you follow your passion you get the best outcomes: You easily attract customers, vendors, talent and finance. Pursuing your passion lets you capture your best opportunities- for profitable growth. Faster. Safer.

When you don’t follow your passion, you end up with a sub-optimal strategy. The result is extra risk making it much harder to attract customers, vendors, talent and especially financing.

When you follow your passion and harness it with a powerful, directed business strategy, better financing results. This is the right way to link passion and key strategic thinking and implementation to achie

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