Creating Your Business

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Small Business Marketing

Marketing a small business in today's economy can be challenging. However, with a sound small business marketing strategy, even new businesses can get a jump on the competition. Whether you're just starting a small business, putting together you marketing plan or are an established business looking to grow, laying out an actionable small business marketing plan is a key to success.

Make Plans to Grow Your Business

When you’re the boss, getting motivated and quickly seeing how more customers can increase your profits isn’t hard. Think big, just make sure your expectations can be met. It’s a lot easier to feel good about a 2 percent increase if your initial goal isn’t to double your revenue.

Do I Need a Database Web Site?

A database is a great way to organize Web sites with a lot of regularly updated content. Databases power dynamic Web sites, meaning pages are created each time someone requests them. The pages are made by pulling information from the database into a Web page template upon request.

How To Find a Web Hosting Plan

Choosing the right Web hosting plan can be a daunting task with an enormous number of products and features available. Deciphering specifications and making sense of the jargon is only the first step. Finding a company you trust is equally important.

Name Your Web Site

Visitors will type your domain name into a browser or lick on it a search engine results page before you have a chance to wow them with your Web site. It's your first impression, so make it good. Your domain name should fit the style and tone of your Web s

How to Choose a Business Partner

If your business is going to be owned by more than one owner, the simplest business form to create and operate is a general partnership. Forming a partnership entails an agreement between two or more prospective partners. Whomever you choose to be a partner in any given business venture lies solely in what skills, attributes, or responsibilities this person will be contributing. A partner can be an individual, a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, or a trust.

Tips on Starting a Corporation

One of the best-known and most widely used business entity forms is the corporation. The main advantage of a corporation is the liability protection it provides the owners or shareholders of the business. Liability is limited because the corporation is a legal entity that is separate from its shareholder owners. Forming a corporation is more complicated and more expensive than forming a sole proprietorship or a simple partnership. However, the formation process is not that difficult.

Delaware Fee Schedule for Incorporation and Other Business Entities

The state of Delaware is a popular place to incorporate for a variety of reasons. The state combines flexibility, low cost and other favorable characteristics to make it a desirable place to incorporate, even if you don't do business there. This fee schedule sets forth the cost of forming a business entity in Delaware, as well as the ongoing costs of managing a Delaware corporation.

DBA (Doing Business As) Filings

In some situations, you may want to operate your business under a different name than the one on your articles of formation or other filings. Typically, this is most true for sole proprietorships that may want to distinguish between business and personal activities, but other entity forms may do this as well to highlight different activities within an organization.

Starting Tax-Exempt Organizations

Most people start a business because they want to accomplish something or make money for themselves (usually both). But what if you want to do this for someone or some thing other than yourself? What if you want to start a successful charitable enterprise? This requires more than just choosing a form of organization.

Starting Nonprofit Corporations

A nonprofit corporation is an organization formed as a corporation for purposes other than generating a profit, and in which no part of the organization's income is distributed to its directors or officers. Nonprofits are formed pursuant to state law, often under the Revised Model Non-Profit Corporation Act of 1986.

Selecting a Registered Agent for Your Business

When forming your business as a corporation or limited liability company (LLC), you will need to select a registered agent. Virtually all states require corporations and LLCs that are formed or foreign qualified (registered to transact business there) to have a registered agent in that state; however, many business owners have no idea what a registered agent is or does.

The Foreign Qualification Process

When a corporation or a limited liability company (LLC) is transacting business in a state or states other than its state of formation, the company is required to foreign qualify in those states. This serves as notice to a state that the corporation or LLC, which was not formed in that state, is transacting business within its borders.

Doing Business Out-of-State: Foreign Qualification

When considering whether to form a corporation or a limited liability company (LLC), don't be confused by the term foreign qualification. Most of us, when we hear "foreign," think of something outside the United States; however, in the world of U.S. corporations and LLCs, the word foreign has a different meaning.

Checklist for Starting a New Business

The attached file contains a checklist for all the steps you should take before you start a new business. It's a "to do" list for starting a new business in much the same way that a grocery list is a "to do" for grocery shopping.

Evaluating Your Personal Strengths and Weaknesses

The attached document will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses by asking you to rate yourself in several areas that are important to small business ownership. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important because (1) it can tell you whether you're ready to start a small business, (2) in choosing a new business, it can help you match your skills to the right business, and (3) it can tell you whether you need to consider adding a partner who can bring skills to the business that you lack.

Projected Staffing Schedule

This worksheet will enable you to compute the number of employees you will need to start your new business. The worksheet is set up to be used for projecting and completing your new business staffing arrangements for a weekly time period. All you have to do is put in your employee names and the hours to be worked and it will show you and your employees at a glance the weekly staffing arrangements. This tool provides an example and a template for a weekly staffing schedule.

Checklist of Basic Franchise Agreement Terms

Franchise agreements are tailored to specific situations. Thus, it is impossible to identify every term and issue that should be considered in every situation. However, the Checklist of Basic Franchise Agreement Terms will provide you with a comprehensive listing of the basic terms that may be included in a franchise agreement. It also identifies many of the issues surrounding those terms that should be addressed. If you are considering the purchase of a franchise, use the checklist to help you understand the terms typically included in a franchise agreement and to review the agreement provided by the franchisor.

Real Property Lease Checklist

The real property lease checklist addresses the most common issues that you need to consider when you negotiate a real property lease. This comprehensive checklist identifies the terms and clauses that need to be addressed in a real property lease. It also contains questions under each term or clause that flush out the most important issues pertaining to that term or clause. It's a good tool to use when you have a real property lease in hand from the property owner and you want to know whether the lease covers all that it should cover so that you're properly protected. Of course, you should also have your attorney review the lease.

Family Budget Worksheet

This worksheet is set up to be used for projecting your family monthly budget schedule for 12 individual months. The monthly schedule is easier to understand than an annual family budgeting tool. We've formatted the worksheet and put in most of the income and expense descriptions. All you have to do is put in your numbers and print it.

Equipment Leasing Checklist

The equipment lease checklist is a detailed listing of the terms and issues that you should consider when you need to negotiate an equipment lease. This comprehensive checklist is designed to identify the terms that should be addressed in an equipment lease and to alert you to specific issues pertaining to the terms in an equipment lease.

Cash Flow Sensitivity Analysis Worksheet

This worksheet is set up to be used for forecasting changes in your receipts and disbursements and the effects the changes will have on your cash requirements of your start-up new business. This worksheet will show you what will happen to your cash flow when your forecast is off by 5 percent. We've formatted the worksheet and put in most of the inflows (income) and outflows (disbursements) categories for you. All you have to do is put in your numbers and print it.

Initial Cash Requirements

This worksheet will enable you to compute the amount of cash you will need to start your new business. The worksheet is broken down into two parts. The first part computes the amount of cash you will need from day one of planning your business to day one of opening the business for customers. The second part of the worksheet computes the cash needs for the first three months you're in business.

Business Selection Checklist

Those who are interested in starting a new business are often told that they should select a business that takes advantage of their skills and experience. But that often leaves them perplexed because they don't really know how to go about doing that. The attached file will clarify some of the confusion by allowing you to rate your interests and compare them to various business possibilities. Once you've completed the "test," you should be well on your way to choosing the business that's right for you.

Case Study: Retailer's Business Plan

Joe's Enterprises for Fast Food, Inc. operates a chain of indoor/outdoor food service carts, primarily in the downtown Chicago area. Its customers are the people who work in the city's many high-rise office buildings. The carts are operated under the name Joe's Redhots. Joe's has been in business since late 1992, when it began as a single cart operation. All of the stock of Joe's is held by its founder, Joe Hirasawa, and members of his family.