Marco Lucioni, founder of Confianza, Inc., expresses the importance of developing a business plan at the business seminar.
Los Angeles, CA- December 6, 2010- In today’s environment of tightened credit, knowing where to go and how to present a solvent business plan seems essential for the survival and progress of many businesses. These items proved to be invaluable for a select group of local entrepreneurs who listened to Marco Lucioni, founder of Confianza, the first US company offering microcredit to consumers, discuss how one of the pillars of obtaining credit is manifested through a robust business plan.
Lucioni was the featured speaker of the final breakfast series arranged by El Clasificado for SuSociodeNegocios.com, who host various expos and series dedicated to educating Latino entrepreneurs throughout the year. The Peruvian entrepreneur delivered his message through a “Mexican/Korean Fusion Lunch Truck” case study, detailing the importance of developing all aspects of a business plan.
“The life of a company should revolve around a well-developed business plan,” said Lucioni, further emphasizing a plan as being the key to later obtaining a credit. According to Lucioni, it is vital that a lender understand the financials, assumptions, and projections of companies in order to consider extending capital for its development.
Lucioni introduced concepts to the entrepreneurs such as budgeting, working capital, and balance reconciliation, “because it is essential to know how much one has invested to maintain a business and to monitor losses”.
Lucioni gave way to Matt Camps, Vice President of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) – an organization that supports small businesses throughout the country – to discuss the 10,000 Small Businesses initiative launched by Goldman Sachs, who has been helping with small businesses lending in United States for years.
Camps explained the conditions to apply to the program, which includes being the owner of the company, having a minimum of four employees, annual sales between $150,000 and $4 million dollars, and at least two years in business.
With all that information, entrepreneurs such as Hugo Bishop, a partner of Cosmos Installation, was very satisfied with the event. Bishop contended that “these kinds of seminars are very good to be able to take the next step. Sometimes we simply lack training and guidance to able to succeed”.
Bishop recognizes that the recession affected his business and left it a bit disoriented “so knowing where go is critical to the future growth of our company”.
The event, held at the corporate offices of El Clasificado, was sponsored by Wells Fargo, Social Security Administration, Verizon, Staples, Sage and SBDC.
“Su Socio de Negocios” is a series of events and expos in Spanish which El Clasificado began to offer in 2006. El Clasificado is a Hispanic multiplatform media company that provides a marketplace for Spanish speaking Latinos in grassroots communities. With over 18,000 online classified ads, 4.5 million monthly page views and over 200,000 unique visitors ElClasificado.com is the leading online classifieds portal connecting buyers and sellers in the U.S. Latino market. El Clasificado print is a verified publication with a weekly circulation of 410,000 and is distributed to more than 200 cities in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Ventura and Kern Counties.
