Guidant Financial Group Blog

Guidant CEO and Co-founder David Nilssen has published an article noting the Top 5 Reasons to Buy a Business Right Now.

Read it here.

Follow Guidant on Twitter at @guidant.

Congratulations to authors David Nilssen and Jeff Levy! Their business book, Making the Jump Into Small Business Ownership was recently nominated for the Best Small Business Book Award in the Startup category on SmallBizTrends.com.
Voting will begin on Feb. 1 via the SmallBizTrends website and ends on Feb. 16. We'll post a link to vote once that becomes available.

Be sure to watch this blog, our Facebook page and Twitter account for announcements of upcoming webinars.

Magic Johnson with David Nilssen

During the meetup, they heard from such notable speakers as star athlete Magic Johnson and Twitter founder Biz Stone.

He asked what Johnson considers to be his greatest failure. 

Johnson replied that successfully overcoming the "dumb jock" persona was tough, but ultimately making sure that what the customer wants vs. what he personally likes was something he had to learn to put into practice.

A great reminder for anyone who owns a business and offers services or products to consumers.

Click here to read the full article (scroll down to just above no. 38 to see David's portion).

Congratulations to all, and thanks again to all who entered and voted for Dave!

Yesterday the office was buzzing with chatter as a camera crew arrived to film Cofounders David Nilssen and Jeremy Ames hosting a tour of the new office.

Shot in the style of the MTV show Cribs, the leaders took the audience on an informal journey, stopping in all of the office hotspots to share what things are like in our new space.

The video will debut in a few weeks.

Christian and David Enjoying Lunch

Voting concludes on Aug. 9; winners will be announced the following week.

Click here to cast your vote and feel free to pass along the link!

By: David Nilssen, Cofounder of Guidant Financial

I had the pleasure of attending the International Franchise Associations Annual Conference in Las Vegas this past week. One of the highlights was listening to Mitt Romney, former (and probably future) Republican presidential candidate. Mr. Romney impressed me with his remarks.

As a top contributor to the IFA, I was given an opportunity for a quick meeting and photo-op with him. Mr. Romney seemed to really care about small business. As a champion for small business myself, we instantly connected.

While I knew he founded a very successful company in Bain Capital, I was unaware of some of the impressive changes he made in Boston to balance their budget. Common sense is often missing in Washington, D.C. and I found Mr. Romney to be refreshing. My favorite quote from him was:

"The best and the brightest are in small business... and they have to be. Small business is remarkably unforgiving. If a politician makes a mistake they use their PR team, lobbyists and supporters to earn quick forgiveness. If you make a mistake, it could mean the end of your job - and others."

The rest of the convention was a huge success. On the morning of the expo we announced that Doug Smith, former VP of Business Development for Benetrends, had tendered his resignation and joined the Guidant family. This came shortly after we announced former Benetrends Sr. Vice President, Jerry Darnell, and Lori Kiser-Block (who owns Rapid Refill and is the former President of FranChoice) also joined our growing team. Our booth was buzzing the entire conference. We became acquainted with many new potential partners and reconnected with others.

Overall, it was a tremendous event. While the economy continues to struggle, our business is still growing and we feel that with the added momentum we will gain from this event, we'll have a very successful year helping even more people pursue small business as a catalyst to create the life they want.

Could this be the year?  For the third year in a row, one of Guidant's cofounders is a semifinalist for the “Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year”.  This year they were nominated as a package deal.

David Nilssen and Jeremy Ames been selected by Ernst & Young as a Pacific Northwest semifinalist in one of the nation’s most prestigious business award programs for entrepreneurs.

Recognizing business leaders in over 135 cities in 50 countries, the Entrepreneur of the Year awards, according to Ernst & Young, “are given to entrepreneurs who demonstrate extraordinary success in the areas of innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.”

We couldn’t be happier for David and Jeremy. They have kept Guidant not only afloat but full steam ahead in this last year’s tough economy—a remarkable feat for the men we call our leaders and friends.

We’ll learn whether David and Jeremy is crowned the award winner at a June 18 ceremony in Seattle. We’ll keep you posted!

Meanwhile, we’ve all got our fingers crossed and we’re hoping that, as the old expression goes, “The third time is the charm.”

Guidant Financial Group co-founder, David Nilssen, has started his own facebook to interact directly with self-directed IRA investors. If you facebook, and want to learn more about self-directed IRAs - become his friend!

You can also become a member of the official Real Estate IRA Group and get up-to-date information on news that can affect real estate investors.