Seriously, sometimes I have to step back and laugh when I see company owners trying to pre-qualify consulting firms to take them public. I just stand there and scratch my head in disbelief when they think they are asking all the ‘right’ questions when all they are doing is setting themselves up for failure.

I recently had a company who claimed to have investors who wanted to invest in pre ipo deals. For a few weeks these guys called with a million questions and demands, most of which were contrary to basic SEC regulations and compliance. I tried to set them straight but they just didn’t get it. These guys who called themselves consultants really had no clue as to what they were doing and the questions they were asking me about my firm in order to qualify our firm were completely off base and were actually laughable. It was irritating at the time, now I just sit back and laugh as I chalk it up as another lesson learned and another relationship that fortunately did not come to fruition.

In his second fight in just over a month, Frank Trigg dominated tough veteran Falaniko Vitale wire to wire en route to a unanimous decision victory at Strikeforce: Payback. Trigg looked very sharp in easily handling Makoto Takimoto in Tokyo at Sengoku 4 on August 28th, and his victory here was every bit as impressive. Trigg essentially dictated where and when the fight occurred, and Vitale had no response whatsoever. Aside from a 2nd round takedown, Vitale mustered precious little offense and spent most of the fight trying to counter Triggs sharp striking and takedown attempts. The CompuStrike stats clearly underscored Triggs superiority in the fight, giving him a lopsided 41 to 7 edge in strikes landed.

In the co-main event, Duane Bang Ludwig earned an explosive TKO win over Sam Morgan. After an evenly contested first minute, Ludwig quickly took control with a series of Muay Thai knee strikes which set up a perfectly placed bodyshot to the liver that floored his opponent. Ludwig quickly pressed his advantage and never gave Morgan a chance to recover. Still feeling the effects of the liver shot, Morgan ate another hard punch to the solar plexus and gasping for breath was forced to tap out under the barrage of strikes.

If you are right now trying to find ways on how to save a marriage, you probably need to do so and need to do so badly. If that is the case, it is important that you should read through the rest of this article. First of all, you should realize what it is you are trying to steer away from rocky waters.

Marriage is not a lover’s fling. Lovers may live in a Paradise of their own but married people need to get down and address the many sad and distressing realities of life. It therefore requires something stronger than affection to survive. Marriage needs self-sacrificing love from both parties to develop into the lasting and fruitful relationship that they wanted when they made their vows to each other.

In relation to how to save a marriage, you need to choose the right approach towards your partner. Before attempting to address the issues that have cropped up between you, you should take the time to reflect first on how you yourself have failed to do your part in the relationship.

Then you should think about how you are going to word your apologies, always bearing in mind the character of your partner.

Are you a business owner raising capital with a Regulation D Rule exemption (504, 505 or 506) also referred to as a Private Placement Memorandum, PPM or Offering Memorandum? If you are using this mechanism to raise capital then you’ll, no doubt, have to have a solid comprehension of the most distinct and important part of the Private Placement Memorandum referred to as the ‘Offering Circular’.

When your consultant or attorney is asking you for details on everything from business location to management, from dividends to risk details, you need to make sure that this information is complete and accurate. You’ll need to audit the documents after they are completed. A solid Offering Circular has kept countless companies from being sued by investors that didn’t get the investment return they were anticipating.

While the business plan is meant to grab the initial attention of the investor or funding source, the Offering Memorandum is meant to spell out the down and dirty details of the venture so that you are protected from lawsuits down the road, while simultaneously exposing the various ins and outs of your venture to give a ‘reality check’ to the investor before they hand over the cash.

Whether you’re trying to raise debt or equity capital there are still certain unwritten rules that apply that cater to the mentality of today’s investor and funding community. Certainly there are scores of private placement memorandum and business plan chop shops that wouldn’t know how to properly consult with your company or write a fundable document even if they wanted to but they will gladly take your money to throw together a template and try to pass it off as custom work.

The issue is this, it’s not necessarily the consultant, though these fly-by-nights shoulder a large portion of the blame, but the client usually doesn’t even have the proper structure in place to attract a funding source even if they had the most incredible PPM and business ever to hit the venture capital marketplace. Here is a simple (very basic) way to evaluate your company to find out if you are properly structured to attract capital. Have a corporate meeting and ask yourselves the following questions: What type of corporate structure do you have and why did you choose that particular structure? Break down your executive infrastructure, where do your individual executives stand in your industry, do the unthinkable, Google everyone’s names; are the people running your company real industry players? Are all the basic positions accounted for (president, CFO, controller etc)? Next, look at your advisory board and board of directors. If by some miraculous act of God you actually have these two groups represented in your company, how did you qualify them? Sorry but if you have an attorney on your board because he’s, um…well, an attorney, that’s not good enough.

For real estate investors, there are two things that are always in short supply regardless of the ups and downs in the economy: capital and quality inventory. Most investors that I have worked with not only need capital but strategies to go after capital that is not issued based solely on a credit score. Even if a real estate investor has good credit they still have the obstacle of too many inquires and too many open loans on their credit report and funding sources are spooked by these distractions and turn the applicant down even though all of their loans are current and they have a solid FICO.

If the above describes you or if you have limited or poor credit and you’re a serious real estate investor, here is how to get all the capital you’ll ever need. First put a solid strategy together. Start with your company infrastructure. Organize your company with a CEO, CFO, Board of Directors etc. After you’ve done this you want to set up your inter-industry strategic alliances which should be composed of other investors, bird dogs, electricians, roofers, general contractors etc. You want each of these alliances to have a purpose. They should be a portal for industry niche knowledge and consultation and also referral hubs. Let each of your alliances know exactly what type of investments you’re looking for and as they are sending you referrals, reciprocate by issuing them work in whatever specialty they are in.

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.

Here’s a word of advice to future opponents of Bobby Lashley–don’t make fun of his background in professional wrestling. Mike Cook found that out the hard way in the co-main event of the Maximum Fighting Championships MFC 21: Hard Knocks event. After spending the run up to fight week making fun of Lashley’s tenure in the WWE, Cook lasted a mere :24 seconds before being choked unconscious via a guillotine choke.

In prefight interviews, Cook had suggested that Lashley would soil himself once he entered the ring (though in not so erudite terms). That clearly incensed the massive 64 250 pound Lashley, who despite his inexperience in MMA is hardly the sort of individual prone to losing bowel control at the prospect of a fight.

A smirking Cook attempted to tap gloves with Lashley before the fight, but his obviously insulted opponent would have none of it. Even after the opening bell rang, Cooks arrogant approach to the fight continued as he immediately clinched with his opponent as if he had no regard whatsoever for Lashley’s strength. Lashley immediately locked in a guillotine choke and basically yanked Cook down to the mat by his head. Cook didnt even get the chance to tap out as veteran referee Big John McCarthy recognized he was out cold and pulled Lashley off of him.

If you’re looking for one of the best ways to earn money at home, have you thought about blogging? It’s one of the best Internet marketing opportunities available today because people are reading more blogs than ever.

You may think I’m saying this just because I’m a blogger but the fact is, people are far more likely to bookmark, come back to a blog, and send the link to their friends. This is because blogs contain dynamic content that interests a lot of people.

To put this to work for you, so that you can start to earn passive income from home, you will need to discover a niche that others are passionate about or interested in. If people are desperate for certain information, such as a health issue, this can also be a good niche.

Not just any niche will do, you want to be sure the people in the niche are used to spending money so you can earn income from advertisers.

You will want a niche that is a good performer. Some to consider are:

Weight Loss Pets Health issues Dating

These topics are very broad and you would need to research each of them to see how you could break it into a smaller niche topic.

The UFC is of borderline relevance in “The Land of the Rising Sun”. This isn’t to disparage the UFC, which has done a great job growing MMA in North America and parts of Europe. Simply stated, the UFC is well below at least a dozen MMA, kickboxing, boxing, sumo and pro wrestling promotions in terms of importance to Japanese fight fans.

Here are the three essential qualities for doing business in Japan, along with an analysis of what they mean to Zuffa’s efforts to build the UFC brand there:

Group Orientation/Collaboration: Japanese businessmen are notorious for sublimating their individual talents and personalities to the greater good of the group. For US businesses seeking to enter the market, a certain degree of partnership with existing Japanese firms is almost mandatory. The UFC worked with Germany s largest concert promoter (MLK) to enter that market with a fair degree of success. Even if the UFC didn’t want to go promote with one of the major players in Japanese fight sports, they’d be well advised to seek some sort of a partnership similar to their German initiative to help smooth their way.

Now more than ever public shell predators are out in full force taking advantage of CEOs and corporate executives who need to go public in order to gain more influence in the marketplace, raise capital, grow through acquisition and bring on prize executives with share ownership.

Many uninformed board members and ‘C’ level executives who take the route of a reverse merger fall prey to shell selling hoodlums who retain a sizable portion of the company after transfer as well as cover up liens, free trading shares and other issues that will have a tragic effect on the new owners of this shell that will soon crumble after the merger is complete.

Another issue that reverse mergers have is that the original investors in the entity want out and the second the stock price achieves even the most modest of gains it will virtually immediately plummet due to the original shareholders liquidation of their shares. This liquidation will typically take the company into the black hole of no return as the share price will never rebound and the once profitable company is now a tumbling house of cards.