A Laundry List of To-Dos when Starting a Small Business

Recently I met up with an old friend who is contemplating starting up a small business. We had a great discussion and I didn't want to lose the notes, so I thought I would share them with my readers.  This discussion is divided into four sections:  business structure, physical/virtual storefront, social media channels, and getting the word out. I undoubtedly missed some items; will update as I see holes.

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Business Structure

• Identify an attorney, tax accountant, and insurance broker - you'll definitely need all three to some degree.
• Decide on whether your business will be an LLC, Subchapter S, or sole proprietorship.
• Set up your company with the state.
• You can name your company with a nondescript name, i.e. mine is "Consetta Group" and then add trade names which are more descriptive of your company.  My trade names include projectmanagementadvisor.com, Pacelli Publishing, and Growingupautistic.com.
• Set up your federal tax ID and any required state/city tax IDs.  Be diligent about doing this; you don't want to get in trouble with the government :-).
  
• To set up a bank account, you'll need a federal tax ID. You'll want to definitely set up a business checking account.  You don't specifically need a business credit card, you can use a personal credit card and just designate it for business use.
• Set up Quick Books, Quicken Home and Business or other record keeping software.  Keep good records and update information on a timely basis.  Don't wait until end of year to post transactions.

Physical/Virtual Storefront

• Set up a website.  I use Weebly.com and have done so successfully for a number of years.
• Set up a Paypal business account, including doing shipping from Paypal (which I highly recommend).
• If you intend to sell products, set up a point-of-sale (POS) system which allows you to take credit card payments through your Android or Iphone.  You can also use Square to do; I use Paypal Zettle.
  
• Get business cards; I use vistaprint.com. You can also put a JPEG of your business card on your phone and have people take a picture of your phone or you can text them a copy of the jpeg. I have both hardcopy and jpeg business cards.
• Get a good kitchen scale if you plan on shipping product so you don't overpay for shipping.

Social media channels

• Decide on the social media channels most relevant to you.  Click on hyperlink to see mine:
  • Facebook company page
    
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn personal and company pages
    
  • Pinterest
    
  • Vimeo
    
  • YouTube
    
  • Instagram
    
• Watermark any intellectual property that someone can lift from your site (i.e. pictures you take) and use for their own purposes
  
• Setup Youtube trailers.  I'm a huge fan of these.  See my trailers that I set up using only PowerPoint saving them as .MP4 files
  

Getting the word out

• Blog regularly and distribute to your social media channels.  I use Hootsuite to syndicate content.  Have interesting things to say and let people see you as a person, not a distant entity.
  
• Be mindful of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so your content can be found and prioritized on search engines
• Live where your target customers live.  As example, if you are a project management expert, set up an account on projectmanagement.com and be active in discussions. 

As mentioned above, these are pretty raw notes but hopefully notes that can be helpful.  I hope there is a nugget or two which you find beneficial.

Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.