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By Laura Sands
Three Steps to Starting a New Business
- Educate yourself – What’s the current demand for your business? Who are your clients? Your competition? Your risks? Your local library, bookstore, the Internet and similar businesses are invaluable resources for gathering information.
- Plan - Business plan templates abound on the Internet. Yours doesn’t have to be professionally written, but you must clearly define your mission, your objectives and identify steps to obtaining your goals. Developing a business plan will also help you define weak areas and risks that you may be able to avoid if they’re identified early. Even if you never present your business plan to anyone else, it’s a wise business practice to at least craft one and use it as your blueprint.
- Incorporate – Unless you want to risk your personal assets, your personal credit and pay absurd taxes, you don’t want to do business as a sole proprietor (i.e. under your personal name). Instead, incorporate your business as an S-Corp, a Limited Partnership or a Limited Liability Company (LLC) so that your business can have its own federal tax identification number, its own credit file and its own banking identity. Doing business as a sole proprietor means that if an issue arises in your business, be it a simple credit dispute or a lawsuit, you are personally liable and your personal assets are at risk. However, if your business is incorporated (in most cases an LLC is the best option), it stands as its own legally, entirely separate entity.
These three steps are the fundamental first for any business model and will place you in a stronger position for success. For more advice, contact SCORE (www.score.com) where you can connect with small business counselors, workshops and other educational resources to help you launch a small business.
To read more pick up the current issue of Crunk Magazine
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