Raizor's Edge

It is important to understand that a spray-and-pray approach to finding an investor does not work. It’s important to create a profile of what you are looking for in an investor and what you want from them before putting yourself out there. Join Allon in episode nine of The Successful Pitch to find out how to research and choose the ideal investor for your business.

No matter what business you’re in, a potential investor will want to know how you make money. Can you explain this process in detail from start to finish? Do you understand where you could push to make money and where you might be losing money? In episode eight, Allon explains why your answer to this question could make or break your pitch.

Anyone who has started a business recently or is about to start a business should ask themselves the serious question: Am I really an entrepreneur? At its core the question does not refer to the skills of an entrepreneur but rather to their characteristics. Statistics show that 96% of businesses do not see their tenth year (in fact, most do not even see their third year) but 100% of people who sta...

Investors are more likely to invest into a business with high margins. Why? Because higher margins provide a buffer for the mistakes a startup is bound to make. A business with low margins poses a higher risk because new businesses can’t always offset low margins with higher volumes. In this scenario, how do you mitigate your risk and entice your investor? Allon Raiz explains how in episode seven...

As the business owner, choosing what to pay yourself is no easy decision. And what you do decide to pay yourself speaks volumes to your potential investors. Join Allon in episode six of the Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch, to find out what you’re communicating about your balance of risk.

When entering the market, no competitor is going to roll over and let you take their market share. Do you know who your competition is and how they will respond to your arrival or growth? How you will respond is crucial to an investor’s decision to invest in your business or not. Join Allon Raiz in episode five of his Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch, where he expands on this tra...

The job of an investor is to look out for all possible risks associated with a potential investment. If you are not upfront about the risks your business may have, the investor assumes you haven’t thought about your business realistically – nothing is risk free. www.raizcorp.com

In episode three of the Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch, Allon stresses the importance of making sure you can show the investor that you and your team understand the risks associated with actually executing your business model.

Episode two of the Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch, is about gaining insight from questions investors ask you, and the subconscious messaging you give off when you pay attention and take notes. Raizor's Edge Podcast

Bombarding your investors with numbers straight off the bat is a sure-fire way to lose their interest. In the first episode of the Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch, Allon chats about the importance of starting your pitch the right way. Explore more

The world is a chaotic place, a paradox of beauty and pain. The happy parts are easy and don’t require much thought, but when a bad situation comes along (and it will), are you ready to face the turmoil? It’s in the tough situations that we have to make the decision as to whether or not we’re going to take control of the situation or let the situation take control of us. An entrepreneur who blames...

As the CEO of an organisation, you will at some point need to hand over some of the reigns to other leaders within your business. Sharing the load can be scary, but it is a necessary step in scaling your business. These leaders come with their own personality, own ideas, may be more experienced than you, or perhaps just starting on their own leadership journey. How do you manage these relationship...

Congratulations! Your business is doing well and you’re growing every day. You’ve decided to employ more people to fill in competency gaps, but . . . are you about to hit the ‘valley of death’? Every growing business hits three tripwires as it begins to scale – three points when a leader will realise he or she has bitten off more than they can chew. At each of these points, a leader has a very imp...

As a small business leader do you know your why, your purpose for existence? Do you have a vision? Do you have a distinct strategy to reach that vision? Many entrepreneurs start out with grand visions for their business but as time goes on this vision gets lost as the focus shifts to short-term monthly survival. Without purpose in your business, your why is hard to answer. Without your why, your v...

In episode 3, Allon discusses the importance of self-leadership as a successful entrepreneurial leader. He details four focus areas that one needs to understand before trying to lead others. One – Self-awareness: understand your own biases and what clouds your judgement. Understand your strengths and weaknesses and surround yourself with people you trust to fill the gaps. Two – Self-improvement: G...

In this episode, Allon discusses the difference between leadership and management and what each of the two roles entails. He explains why, as an entrepreneur, you should always be leading and managing simultaneously. Allon offers practical examples to illustrate how to differentiate between the two, and discusses the other side of leadership and management – criticism. Listen to more >>

Do you know how to make good decisions when the systems you rely on for help become unstable or unreliable? During extreme change, entrepreneurs are often faced with making quick decisions with little information. In this episode of the Navigating Extreme Change podcast series, Allon Raiz explores how you can take a step back and focus on asking the right questions to help make these critical deci...

As your business grows and faces more and more challenges, you should grow and learn with it. In this introductory episode of the Small Business Leadership podcast series, Allon Raiz offers context around leadership in a small business and sets the stages for the episodes to follow. Explore our series ->

The first time you experience anything new it could be seen as extreme change – it’s the first time you are dealing with all the consequences of that experience. In zooming out of a situation, cycles of change can be identified. Join Allon Raiz as he discusses anticipating these cycles to prepare for change, and in doing so, looking for ways we can view and understand these situations and behaviou...

The word “pivot” has been one of the most widely used – and perhaps abused – business words during the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone these days seems to be “pivoting”. But are they really pivoting or are they just starting again? Episode three of our #DeepDive series unpacks whether businesses should be pivoting, starting again or continuing their current businesses with minor modifications. And, wh...

Scenario planning is an effective tool to bring order to a chaotic situation and gives the entrepreneur a rational basis on which to make high quality decisions when others are panicking. More Podcasts Here → · Join The Community →

In times of crisis, it’s even more important for entrepreneurs to make business decisions that are measured and considered, and to prime their businesses to both take advantage of opportunities and mitigate risks. During this #NavigatingExtremeChange podcast episode, Allon Raiz discusses how entrepreneurs can build a decision-making matrix to help them assess all potential opportunities clearly an...

Now that you have your employee, how do you get them up to speed and effective as quickly as possible? During this seventh and final episode of our #AvoidingHiringMistakes podcast series, Allon shares how he and the team at Raizcorp deploy 90 days of intensive training to do exactly this. He also shares insights into how we can structure our training in a way that will yield similar results. Don’t...

Hiring does not have to be such a guessing game. As an entrepreneur, you can put metrics into place to help you make better decisions. In this #AvoidingHiringMistakes podcast episode, Allon Raiz talks through hiring and management metrics you can easily implement in your business to get better results from your hiring process. More Podcasts Here →

Less experienced entrepreneurs who haven’t had the privilege of being burned by previous mistakes tend to make very common recruitment errors, says Raizcorp CEO Allon Raiz in this episode of our #AvoidingHiringMistakes podcast series. By deliberately designing a recruitment process, you are less likely to make some of these mistakes and more likely to be successful in hiring suitable staff while a...