Small Business Coaching on
How Much It Would Cost to Start a Business
By Allison Babb
Marketing:
Your business cannot survive without marketing efforts. This may be
offline where you mail out sales letters, postcards, or having your
marketing materials and ads etc. online
Registering Your Business Name: Getting an employer ID and registering as a solo proprietor, or
getting incorporated as an LLC or Inc.
Registering Domain Names:
A domain name is simply the name of your web site.
Business Email:
Having a free service like AOL, Hotmail, and Yahoo makes your
business come across far less professional. Yourname@yourbusiness.com
is much more professional and it is very inexpensive to do.
Email usually comes free with the purchase of your domain name.
Setting up your web site
– hiring a web designer or purchasing the software to do it
yourself, purchasing domain names, and web hosting.
Business Cards
– You can get those very inexpensively at
www.vistaprint.com
Phone/Fax -
I rarely ever get faxes but I still have an eFax account at
www.efax.com so that faxes come to my email.
Online purchasing software:
If you are planning to allow your customers to make purchases and
payments online, you will need something like
1ShoppingCart
which is the most powerful system I know of out there.
Software/Hardware:
Microsoft Office software, a computer, a printer, etc.
Business checking account -
You want to keep your business finances separate from your personal
finances. It makes it much easier come tax preparation time.
Accountant:
to manage your finances and do your taxes.
Associations/Memberships/Business
Coaching: Being disconnected and on your own is a recipe for
failure. Join an organization or group where you’re connecting with
like-minded people at least monthly. I had a business coach when I
first started and I have one even today and I'm in a few different
coaching groups and organizations as well. Without a doubt, it
is part of my success recipe.
With the above
list, you can begin to get estimates on what it would cost you to
start your business. But first, connect with someone who is in a
business like the one you one you’d like to start. Preferably
someone who is successful at it. As I said earlier, what you need
to start depends on what type of business you are starting.
I started my
first business (teaching leadership workshops) with nothing more
than the knowledge in my head, PowerPoint slides and $20 to make
copies of handouts each time I did a workshop. My marketing was
public speaking which didn't cost me anything. In fact, it was
pretty cool to actually get paid to market myself by speaking at
association meetings.
You want to be
sure you have at least 6 months worth of business expenses saved
up. Twelve months is more appropriate and that is aside from your
living expenses. Most people start their own businesses while they
are still employed. I started my first business long before I quit
my job as well. My job funded my dream. When my dream took off, so
did I. :-)
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