Starting a Business - What do I do first?

Being in the logo design & branding field, we run into a lot of people who are starting up a small company and need to get their promotional items created (business cards, brochures, web site, etc.) A lot of the time it can be confusing knowing exactly what you need to do to start up a business right.

Here are a few tips to make sure you get everything set up right. This is by no means a complete list, or a sequential list, but just a set of recommendations based on some common problems we run into with clients and some lessons we've learned well from our own experiences:

1) Get Ready to Spend Money

It's true that you have to spend money to make money. It may be tempting to go the cheap route, but if you want your business to succeed, I've found that doing it right the first time is worth the money your spend up front. If you try to cut corners, you may not be real happy with the results. Get a loan and pay off these expenses later when you have money coming in. At least you can know that you are putting your best foot forward and you're not sabotaging your business's success over the relatively minimal amount of money you need to spend up front to develop a good image for your company.

2) Pick a good company name

It sounds simple, but it can be one of the hardest tasks you face. You want a name that reflects the services or products you offer, but you also want to be catchy. That's tough. A good trademark attorney will help you with this process, and this leads to a very valuable point: Trademark your company name! This is a painful (and sometimes costly) process, but a good idea because it keeps another company for taking you to court over your name and it keeps other companies from stealing glory from you by resembling your business. If you own a small bait & tackle shop on the edge of a lake in the middle of no where, trademarking your business may not be so important, but we're not all so.... err.... lucky.

There are two primary ways to trademark your business:

Text onlyStylized graphic logoThese are both necessary to protect your name and your logo. Your text trademark will be evaluated to make sure it doesn't resemble or sound like any other registered trademarks. Especially other companies that are similer to yours in what services or products they offer. The stylized trademark takes into account your font, colors and any other graphical elements in your logo. You can't change these things after you apply without resubmitting another application, so make sure you get it right the first time! It'll cost you around $325 to trademark each method. A trademark attorney will help you search for a clear name and logo and file the paperwork for you, although he'll charge you waaaay more than $325 each. You can search for trademarks online at the US Patent and Trademark website here. Then you can submit your application here. NOTE: It can take up to a YEAR to find out if your trademark was approved and you have to pay your filing fee regardless if you get the trademark or not.

At this point you will probably need to get a federal tax ID for your business, or EIN. You also need to file with your local secretary of state to register your business name. You may also be required to get a business license/permit. Here is a good website for people in NC. You'll need to figure out if you want to do business as a sole proprietor, LLC, S-Corp, etc. too. Your accountant can help you with that and you can file online or get an attorney to help you. Then you can get a bank account as a DBA or "Doing Business As" if you are a sole proprietor or get a bank account in the name of your corporation if you incorporate. Usually you need to do business for about 2 years before a bank will let you open a company bank account. DBAs are immediately available to you though. Also note that if you incorporate later, you'll need to get another tax ID and your bank account will have to be closed and reopened with the new ID. Fun!

3) Get your Logo and Branding Done

This step goes hand-in-hand with the second step. Find a graphic design company that does logos, corporate identity and branding and get a logo created that you really like and you feel represents your business well. They should work with your attorney to make sure your logo doesn't conflict with another logo that is already trademarked. This is the building point for all your marketing materials. To have a consistent corporate identity, you want to get your logo on everything you put out there: business cards, letterhead, website, etc. Why is corporate identity important? Why can't you just put out generic marketing materials? Well, you can, but studies show that people need to see (or hear about) your company up to seven times before company recognition occurs. Having consistent branding helps to build credibility and help people remember you. Think "The golden arches" or the Nike "Swoosh."

4) Market your Business

Whether you find a marketing agency or do this yourself, you need to figure out how you are going to promote your new business. Believe it or not, just getting some business cards and a website most likely won't bring a mass exodus of customers to knock down your door. You have to get the word out. There are many ways to do this, such as press releases, phonebook ads, online ads, TV and radio, ads, etc. A marketing company can help you determine where your money is best spent to get the most return on your investment. Your marketing agency will work with your designer to develop good marketing materials like postcards, flyers, brochures, etc. They can also help you figure out where postcards need to be sent and where you can send email promotions to get the best response. Note: Marketing companies, despite what they tell you, are not always the best equipped to design your marketing materials. Some marketing companies have good internal design teams or contract out with good design agencies, but often you can run into pretty unimpressive stuff if you don't get a designer involved.

There are also many other things you can do to get the word out like joining your local Chamber of Commerce, attend trade shows, etc. Networking in this way can prove to be very valuable and it's pretty inexpensive.

5) Run Your Business Well

Well, duh! If you don't do a good job of running your business, all of the above will be for naught. Sure, you'll make a few mistakes along the way, but don't let that keep you from forging ahead. Make sure you get a good attourney to take care of any legal concerns, get some insurance for your company - and you may want to look into disability and health insurance while you're at it. Your accountant can help advise you on setting up a retirement account too. Better safe than sorry!

One of the keys to running any business successfully is to provide friendly and prompt customer service. So establishing a way to handle that up front is important. Impersonal phone systems, busy signals and answering machine messages are usually going to send a cold message to your customers. People are starved for good customer service these days and most people don't mind spending a little extra money to know that they are being taken care of well.

Daniel Trimpey
President of Technigrafa, LLC
Print design, web design and web hosting in Raleigh, NC
919.374.3014
toll-free: 1.877.GRAFA.NC
http://www.technigrafa.com

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