Thinking About Starting Your Own Business?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Have you been thinking about starting your own traditional business? Have you really sat down and thought about everything involved in starting your business? Working for yourself and building your own business can be very rewarding but it also can bring many hardships if not done right.

Every business is different but the foundation to any business is fairly the same. Let’s look at just some of the measures you must take when first starting your own business.

Steps to Starting Your Own Business

1 – First you have to decide what type of business your going to start. The most common businesses are either a brick and mortar type business or a service type business. Once you decide on what type of business you are going to start then you must come up with a name for your new business. That was the easy part, now the real fun begins.

2 – Now that you decided on a type of business and a name its time to decide what type of structure you want to operate your business under. Most common structures are Sole Proprietorship, Partnerships, Corporations, S Corporations and Limited Liability Company (LLC). Sole Proprietorship’s and Partnerships are the easiest business structure to start with minimal paperwork but there are some down sides as far as liability is concerned and how taxation is handled. All other business structures have SOME liability protection for the owners but is more involved to get started. It’s recommended to seek the services of a business attorney to setup all these structures.

3 – After all the above is taken care of it’s time to register your business with the federal and state governments for taxation and resale purposes. Once you have completed those registrations then you can apply for proper licenses required by your local government for your particular industry.

4 – Now that all those steps are taken care of we can go to our local bank and get our business checking account setup for the business.

5 – It’s time to contact your local insurance agent so you can get your required insurance policies taken care of. First you will need at a minimum a liability insurance policy but most likely, depending on the type of business, you will have to get property fire insurance, auto insurance and an inland marine policy.

6 – Next step depends on the type of business but now you have to find a location to operate your business out of. A brick and mortar type store would require you to rent a store front to showcase your products. A service type business could also require the same step unless you decide to operate your business out of your home which may or may not be legal depending on your local zoning and regulations. Always check with your local government for all regulations.

Is this all sounding overwhelming? We still got quite a bite to do to get your business started!

6 – We got the basic foundation built now we have to decide if we are going to operate this business alone or are we going to hire employees. If you are going to be a one man operation in this venture then move on to the next step. If not it’s time to hire some employees to help us operate our new business. You will also need to contact your local insurance agent again and add a Workman’s Compensation insurance policy and possibly health insurance policies.

7 – After all the time and money spent to build our operation we need to have products to sell or equipment to operate our business. If we are selling goods in a brick and mortar store then we need to buy stock to fill our shelves to sell to our potential customers. If we are running a service type business then we will probably need some company vehicles to get to the job sites and all the specialty equipment and tools to perform our services.

8 – We are now ready to start operating our new business but wait a minute we need customers to sell to right? Well time to starting marketing our business or hire a sales force to bring in potential customers. We can do some local radio or print advertising, build a website, start cold calling people, knock on doors, join local associations, etc….

As you can see there is a lot involved in starting a TRADITIONAL BUSINESS and we didn’t cover everything to legally operate a traditional business. The upfront costs can be substantial before you even make your first sale. Then you have to sustain your sales in order to cover the upfront costs, overhead and to grow your business. This isn’t a build it and they will come type scenario.

As a traditional business owner myself for 17 years I can assure you there will be MANY ups and downs. Many sleepless nights and headaches you never thought imaginable.

What if I told you there was another TYPE of BUSINESS that we didn’t discuss that doesn’t require all the upfront costs, the overhead and the headaches to get started? I discovered another way to start a business with minimal upfront costs and virtually NO OVERHEAD that can be operated full or part-time.

Rob Weltner – Prosperity Team

Rob@rwjventures.com

If you liked my blog on Thinking About Starting Your Own Business, then please “Like and Share”