iMark Interactive

We have a list of 10 checklist items that every Small Business needs to think about.  While we did create a more detailed version of each, we are going to put them all in this post for easy access and readability.  This is for anyone looking to start a business in the new year or for anyone that has just started a business and wants more information on how to keep it going.  Below is our Small Business Checklist.  Click each item for the full article.

Small Business Checklist Item #1 – Business Name

Choose a business name that suits what you want to do and plan to do in the future.  Many entrepreneurs try to pick a name that they like, but sometimes it does not encompass what your company is going to do.  A word of advice that many people do not think about is that you should not have a company name that has your name in it.  The main reason for this is because if you ever have a chance to sell the business, there is less likelyhood that someone will purchase your business because of the name.  Business Investors and purchasers want a name that can keep people interested and is memorable.  Using your name is an easy way to create a company name, but not the most effective in the long run.

Small Business Checklist Item #2 – Research

We need to expand a little further on the Business name from yesterday. Please make sure that after you pick a business name, make sure you have the right to use it in your state. You can usually check this out with your Secretary of State website. Once you verify that you can get it, go to the register of deeds and fill out a DBA form to secure the name and then do it with the Secretary of State (depending on your business form, which we will discuss a little later)

Small Business Checklist Item #3 – Business Structure

Ok, so you have done your research and realize that your business idea is a viable one.  Now you need to look into how you want to structure your business.  There are 4 basic structures to choose from with variations within each structure.  The main thing that you need to think about are covered with the following points.

Small Business Checklist Item #4 – Business Plan

This is a step that many small businesses forget to do.  While a business plan is not really required to run your business, it is a very helpful tool.  If you do not know what a business plan is, it is simply a written format of how you want to run the business and what the business stands for, as well as the mission of the company.  These can take time to create, but they will help you in the future to keep your company on track with your original goals.

Small Business Checklist Item #5 – Proper Forms and IDs

We know that it can be exciting to start up a new company and get selling or have your ideas become reality.  The one thing that we ask is that you make sure that you have all the proper forms and certificates in order to sell properly.  Each state require a certain set of forms in order to be a legal business, most require business license and sales tax ID’s.

Small Business Checklist Item #6 – Take Inventory or Dropship

We are asked about this more times than we can count.  Please note that this tip is really only dealing with companies that sell online, not really traditional retailers with brick and mortar stores.  This is an important discussion because it lays the foundation to how success you can be either online.  We will go through some quick pros and cons of each, so you can make a little more informed decision.

Small Business Checklist Item #7 – Insurance

To insure or Not to Insure?  This is a good question, but the answer is simple……Get insurance!  There are many of you out there that have not taken the time to look into good business insurance for whatever company you run.  This is a very important part of business to protect your investment.  We will not go into detail about all the insurance types out there for businesses, but we will show you some points to think about.

Small Business Checklist Item #8 – Calculate Profit Margins

This is a simple task to accomplish, but we have spoken to many people that have started a business that never really looked into creating prices for their products or services that gave them a positive net margin.  We are sure that many of you have probably done this as your started your business, so this tip is really for those thinking about starting one or just starting one.  Please take the time to properly calculate your profit margins on your products or services.

Small Business Checklist Item #9 – Employees

If your company is at the stage where it needs to hire employees, you better take this stage very seriously.  You are going to be trusting people with the company that you build from the ground up, so you need to make sure that you take the proper steps in hiring the right individuals.

Small Business Checklist Item #10 – Social Media

As the internet ages and online marketing gets harder, companies need to now think about using social media as a marketing medium.  If your company is not using social media as a way to attract new customers, then you really need to think about starting.  Social Media outlets include blogs, twitter, facebook, you tube, and more.  These are great venues to build your brand online.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 6 – Take Inventory or Dropship
• Small Business Checklist Item # 5 – Proper Forms and IDs
• Small Business Checklist Item # 4 – Business Plan

As the internet ages and online marketing gets harder, companies need to now think about using social media as a marketing medium.  If your company is not using social media as a way to attract new customers, then you really need to think about starting.  Social Media outlets include blogs, twitter, facebook, you tube, and more.  These are great venues to build your brand online.

One of the most important things about online marketing is building your brand and keeping your brand awareness with your customers.  The easiest way to do so is with social media.  Not only good to build brand awareness, but you can also use it to solve any customer service issues or any negative feedback that you might find online.  It makes it easy to stop negative feedback when it starts, so it gives you a better reason to fight negative comments.

Twitter is an easy way to tell your customers what you are doing right when you are doing it along with giving your followers deals that no one else can get.  You can also use twitter to answer customer questions and provide information about your business and products.

Facebook is also a good way to build your brand and keep your customers up to date with what you are doing and what products/services you are now carrying.  It is easy to setup an account and build your own company page.

Not every business can use You Tube, but if you sell products and you can provide video reviews of these products, then youtube is a great venue to be at.  Anyone can sign up and post videos, so provide your customers a great way to see who you are and what information you can give them.

Creating your own company blog is a great way to voice your opinion about your industry and to let customers know what you are doing in your company.  They are easy to setup and can be a very good asset when trying to convince customers to do business with you.  Most hosting platforms include wordpress, which is one or the most popular blogging platforms.

No matter which social media outlet you choose, or all of them (this is preferred), you can keep your brand well protected and keep your customers happy as well.  Many companies are creating positions in their marketing teams that is for people to runt their twitter, youtube, facebook, etc accounts to make sure that they are looking good in the eyes of their customers.  Social media is not going away anytime soon, so make sure your company is utilizing it.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 9 – Employees
• Small Business Checklist Item # 8 – Proper Profit Margins
• Small Business Checklist Item # 7 – Insurance

If your company is at the stage where it needs to hire employees, you better take this stage very seriously.  You are going to be trusting people with the company that you build from the ground up, so you need to make sure that you take the proper steps in hiring the right individuals.

First, you should probably think to see if you actually will need full time employees or just part time.  If you only need part time, then think about a staffing agency as they already do the background checks on individuals and they have a pretty extensive talent pool to look at.  You can also skip the hiring of employees and just outsource the work that needs to be done to freelancers.  There are sites like Elance.com and GetaFreelancer.com that can help you choose someone or another company to do work for you when you need it.  This is a very popular method to use because you can choose where you want to your freelancer to be from and what skills they possess along with what you pay them.  If gives you all the options and the power to choose the right freelancer to meet your needs.

If you are going to hire a full time employee, then you need to make sure that you have all the proper forms and documentation that enables you to hire individuals.  You want to make sure that if you have a technology or service that you make sure your employee signs something that doesn’t allow them to copy or compete with you once they leave your company for x amount of time.  This is a standard practice because the employee will know the inner workings of your company when they leave.  There have been many companies burned out there that did not provide this documentation to the new employee.  You have to think about benefits, pay, insurance, time off, sick leave, and all the things that go into hiring a full time employee.

We suggest that if you do not need a full time employee, but just need someone to pick up that slack, that you just hire a free lancer, or maybe even get an intern from a local college.  A lot of times, they get college credit and you don’t have to pay them, so it is good all around for you and the intern.  Please make your choices wisely because this can affect your company in many ways.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 8 – Proper Profit Margins
• Small Business Checklist Item # 7 – Insurance

This is a simple task to accomplish, but we have spoken to many people that have started a business that never really looked into creating prices for their products or services that gave them a positive net margin.  We are sure that many of you have probably done this as your started your business, so this tip is really for those thinking about starting one or just starting one.  Please take the time to properly calculate your profit margins on your products or services.

You have to take in account everything that goes into the sale of the product or service.  How much did it cost to produce, how long did it take you to drive to the location to provide a service, so forth and so on.  Everything needs to be taken into account in order to create a proper profit margin.  You want to cover your costs and make sure that you can still make a profit to continue your business into the future.  If you take the time to do this simple task, then it pay off in the end, really it will actually pay off in the end.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 9 – Employees
• Small Business Checklist Item # 7 – Insurance

To insure or Not to Insure?  This is a good question, but the answer is simple……Get insurance!  There are many of you out there that have not taken the time to look into good business insurance for whatever company you run.  This is a very important part of business to protect your investment.  We will not go into detail about all the insurance types out there for businesses, but we will show you some points to think about.

If you run a home-based business, which many people do now, you need to think about business insurance.  Many people ask us if their home owners insurance will cover them, we tell them a flat out no.  Most insurance policies are not geared toward home based businesses.  If you have a loss of any kind and they find out that one room was for business purposes, they could deny that part of the claim.  It has happened before.  If you run a home based business, please check with your insurance company to see if they can add some more insurance to your business part.  Many insurers will do so if they provide that type of coverage.  While this is not the ideal situation, it helps.  The best thing to do is to just go out and get an insurance plan just for your business.  Most home based businesses can get coverage for around $200+/year.  This depends on what you do and what type of products you are selling or making.  While there are not many insurance companies out there that insure home based businesses, State Farm is one of them.

Our next point has to deal with people that are selling products from distributors or manufacturers, whether you are selling from inventory or dropshipping, you need to think about insurance.  There is a notion going around that if you do not make the product, but only sell it, then you cannot be responsible for lawsuits.  This is completely wrong.  If you are part of the supply chain that provides goods to the end customer, then you can be brought into a lawsuit.  The best way to protect yourself is to get product liability coverage as part of your general insurance coverage.  This will cover you up to a certain amount if someone is injured by a product that you sold to them, even if you did not manufacturer it.  So don’t think that since it is not your product, you are not held accountable, please think again.

If you are on the fence about business insurance, please take the time to learn about your liabilities and how you can be affected by your business practices.  You do not want to end up losing everything because you did not want to get insurance for your business.  If you have questions about insurance, please let us know and we will be happy to guide you in the right direction.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 9 – Employees
• Small Business Checklist Item # 8 – Proper Profit Margins

We are asked about this more times than we can count.  Please note that this tip is really only dealing with companies that sell online, not really traditional retailers with brick and mortar stores.  This is an important discussion because it lays the foundation to how success you can be either online.  We will go through some quick pros and cons of each, so you can make a little more informed decision.

Inventory: This is the most traditional method of selling items, where you purchase a large quantity of items from a manufacturer or a distributor for the items you plan on selling.  Doing this allows you to manage your profit margins a little more along with a tighter inventory control system.  You know that you dislike when you order something online just to find out that it is out of stock.  With taking on inventory, you can deal with this in a more efficient manner.  The largest issue of taking on inventory is the initial cost of doing so.  If you are planning on selling a lot of different items, then your costs can be in the millions and you have to be sure that you can sell them successfully.  If not, then you are responsible for all the items that you do not sell.  This can pose a large problem for small businesses because most do not have the cash to put into inventory or the right insurance that will keep them safe when being stored.  Another issue is shipping and storing the items.  You would probably need a storage facility in order to keep them safe, but a way to ship them out fast and efficiently, not to mention the costs of such things.  If you plan on only selling a few items, then a lot of times this option is great, but take the time to find the items at a great wholesale price that you can actually make a decent profit on.

DropShipping: This is a relatively new way to deal with selling online, but it is becoming widely used.  There are many manufacturers as well as distributors that will do this for you, but most charge a fee, like $1.50 per shipment or more.  There are some distributors that do not charge a fee, but you have to reach a certain amount of shipments per month or year.  The main thing you need to take into account is if the dropship company is legitimate.  There are many out there that say that they will provide you a wholesale price, but in turn do not.  Most searches that you do online will not help you.  Most distributors do not have their sites listed well in search engines because they do not want people just trying to sell goods.  You have to have the proper licenses in order to get setup with these companies.  If they charge you a setup fee, then it is probably not a good company to work with.  Most reputable distributors will not charge you a setup fee, but if they do it will be minuscule.   Dropshipping can save you the upfront capital needed to inventory items, but you will have some problems with inventory management because there are many other companies using the same distributor.  Please check with them to see if they will provide you with up to date inventory so you can work that into your backend shopping cart with your online store.  This will help reduce the out of stock emails that you have to send to customers after ordering.

If you are just starting up, you can definitely try out dropshipping because it is becoming very popular and much more efficient than it used to be.  If you start out doing well, then you can most likely change over to inventory and deal with your inventory they way that you want to.  Both methods are good for different businesses, but make sure you take the time to research each one and find out which will work with you and will be good for future growth.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 9 – Employees
• Small Business Checklist Item # 8 – Proper Profit Margins

We know that it can be exciting to start up a new company and get selling or have your ideas become reality.  The one thing that we ask is that you make sure that you have all the proper forms and certificates in order to sell properly.  Each state require a certain set of forms in order to be a legal business, most require business license and sales tax ID’s.

The business license can differ from where you live in your state.  Some cities require you to have a business license, but if you live outside the city limits, you might not have to.  Please check with your city or county to find out if you are required to have a business license.  This is just a simple form that shows you are a legitimate business, but remember it might not be required.

One certificate or ID that is widely used within selling and business is a resale tax ID, or sales tax ID.  This is an identification number that the state uses for your business.  You use this ID often when trying to setup wholesale accounts or business accounts.  Most wholesale or distribution companies will ask for your business license or sales tax ID, whichever you have.  Make sure that you take the time to get this ID.  Please note that if you plan on selling online, many state’s are now requiring any company that has a distribution facility or office in their state to pay sales tax on any sales shipped in their state.  This comes into play at most when you are dropshipping or having the manufacturer ship products and they are in another state.  This can cause you to have multiple tax ID’s in each state.  Check out your state’s department of revenue for the form.

It can be wise and is sometimes required to get a EIN number or Employer Identification number.  This is a federal number that lets the government know that you are an employer, so you have more people than yourself working at the business.  If you do not plan on hiring at first, you can still get this number in order to get a business checking account without using your social security number.  It is a wise decision and a very easy ID to get.  You can actually do it over the phone or online.  This ID is only required if you plan on hiring employees.

While these are just a few ID’s and certificates, they are some of the most common and used.  You might have to get more ID’s or certificates, but it depends on what you are doing with your business and what state you are in.  Please check with your state regulation body for all the information you need to succeed in launching your business.

Related Posts:

• Small Business Checklist Summary
• Small Business Checklist Item # 4 – Business Plan
• Small Business Checklist Item # 10 – Social Media
• Small Business Checklist Item # 9 – Employees