5 Things to Remember When Starting a Business

From personal experience; starting your own business can be equal parts exciting, overwhelming, and scary. However, it is not something to shy away from. Owning your own company can enable you the quality of life you have struggled to find in regular employment and give you the freedom to operate your life on your own terms. This is especially useful if you are in an atypical living situation, have developmental or medical issues that make it difficult to fit into the usual employment structure or have unique and difficult responsibilities in your life. Even if none of these factors are a concern though, it can be extremely enriching and enabling if handled right. That’s why these are 5 things to remember when starting a business.

Understand Your Own Business

This sounds really obvious, but when starting a business it is easy to have bigger ideas than achievable initially and therefore fail to get the concept across clearly to potential business. If you’re not clear yourself, you stand the risk of coming across as vague to others.

The first thing you should know exactly what services you offer. Even as a freelancer, you cannot freelance everything and you will have more experience or confidence in certain areas, so be sure to have that in the front of your mind.

Where possible, it helps if your operation name gives some indication of what your business is all about but if not; the logo, slogan or marketing platforms should. For example, if you look at most fitting companies; you will notice even if their business name is their actual name, their vans, cards and websites will list examples of what they typically fit too.

The Right Tools for the Job

Whatever company you run; it will need tools of some kind. A writer without a word processor and something to use it on won’t get far and neither will a courier without a vehicle.

Do you need a van? Are processing services something you require of payments? What about: laptops/computers, power tools, software, an office and so on?

You will also want to consider marketing materials too. Are you going to need business cards? Or perhaps you can advertise your company with some eye-catching sublimation designs on t-shirts or other merchandise.

The list could continue indefinitely, but my point is thought will need to be put into getting everything required and how to do so. If the expense is too high, consider looking for used options where available.

Web Presence

Whatever your business, it benefits to have a web presence.

The stronger, the better.

Having a website saying who you are and what you do, goes a long way in building trust and establishing your service as professional.

One step further is including a blog; in including a blog you are sharing professional knowledge and who you or the people behind the business are. If your blog grows enough, it could even generate extra income itself.

The more web content and the better the web content, the more likely you’ll rank on Google searches and therefore the more potential business you can bring in.

What some businesses fail to realise is that search engines like Google are regionalised. Meaning, the search results you see in Ontario, Canada for example wouldn’t be the same as Ohio, USA or Sydney, Australia.  So, if you were based in the Ontario; you might want to ensure the best SEO In Mississauga (search engine optimisation) possible to rank highly for searches for your service in that city.

Sort Out the Legalities

The laws you are subject to vary not only from country-to-country but sometimes regionally within each country too. It’s important to be aware of this; not only do you need to know your legal rights and responsibilities in the country you are based in, but any that you operate in and potentially generate sales from. Some major corporations even have tripped up historically when they realised that refund rights vary geographically, and they are subject to meeting those rights if they wish to trade.

However, all this might be a little overwhelming or not relevant if you are looking to generate income in one specific location.

So, the main legality you need to think about is what type of business are you, how do you register and where do you fit in terms of tax and profit recognition. Again, the approach here changes based on where you are, but this is incredibly important and the best place to start is your local government’s website.

Base of Operations

Owning your own business gives you the freedom to choose where and how you operate. Some companies need a physical store front, some don’t. Depending on what you do; it’s at your discretion whether you have an office, work from home or are generally on the road. If it makes sense to do so, it is worth considering what options are affordable and would work for you.

Recent events have shown us that work from home culture is not only viable but the perfect option for many, it may well be for you too but if not and dedicated space is required; don’t do it alone. Services like https://www.mybekins.com/location/sarasota-fl-movers/ will make getting all the furniture where it needs to be, as easy as possible.

I hope this advice is useful for anyone starting up a new business.

*This is a collaborative post