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Home » Business And Finance Articles » 7 Steps To Starting A Business

7 Steps to Starting a Business

Here's a really simple way... to start your business.

If you are starting a business, you will need one or more business licenses and tax ids. After reading this article you will know what business licenses you need to start a business.

First, regardless of the business you are starting, you will need a business license.

There are some businesses that don't need one but that's only 1% or less compared to the percentage of businesses that need a business license. So, regardless of whether you business is a home-based business, an online internet business, a contractor's business, or a professional's business, such as a doctor's medical office, you need a business license. The business license requirement is a requirement in addition to a required license you might need from the state if you are a professional such as an attorney or hairdresser. Depending on the location of your business, or the type of business, the business is filed at the state, county or municipal level of government.

Second, if you using a business name that does not include your last name, you need to file a DBA (Doing Business As).

If your business name includes you last name but also includes a suffix such as "& CO" or "& Associates" or anything that denotes additional business owners, you need to file a DBA. You can also file a corporation or LLC instead of filing a DBA, but that may be a little more expensive. However, even if you file a Corporation or LLC, and the corporation name or LLC name is different from the business name you will use to conduct business, you need to file a DBA.

Third, if your business sells or leases taxable items or services, you will need to obtain a state sales tax id number (also called a seller's permit, wholesale license, retail license or resale permit).

You will need a sales tax id number to buy wholesale, or if you are a wholesaler, you will need it to sell wholesale. For example, if you have a toy store, you will be able to buy wholesale without paying any taxes for the toys to the wholesaler and, subsequently, charging taxes to your customers when you sell the toys.

Fourth, if you will hire employees, you will need to obtain a federal employer tax identification number as well as a state employer tax identification number.

These numbers are required if you are an employer. Employment taxes are paid both to the federal and to the state government.

Fifth, if you are planning to run a serious company, you need to perform a nationwide business name search.

If you become a nationwide company, you may need to insure that no one else is using the business name you are going to use for you company. The way to acquire rights to the use of a business name is by selling specific products or providing specific services and using a specific business name in a certain small region or large one, such as a nationwide area. For example, if you sell Scandinavian furniture in Minnesota under the business name "Fine Scandinavian Furniture," you acquire some rights to the business name in Minnesota. If another company in Minnesota decides to sell the same type of furniture with your business name, you can sue them to enjoin them from using your business name.

Sixth, get the cheapest business insurance available: incorporate your business or form a Limited Liability Company (LLC).

You are not required to incorporate or form an LLC but it is a very good idea to do so because a corporation or LLC is a separate "person" or legal entity. Filing a DBA, does not protect your personal assets. However, if you incorporate or form an LLC, and someone sues your corporation and obtains an unfavorable judgment against your corporation, he or she can only execute the judgment against the corporate assets -- not your personal assets such as your home. Incorporating or forming an LLC is the best way to protect your own personal assets.

The last step is to take your DBA or corporate certificate to a bank and use it to open a business checking account and a merchant account.

You will need these accounts to cash business checks written out to your company name as well as use the merchant account to run credit card transactions.

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You can hire an attorney to file your business documents, a less expensive legal service or you can do it alone. After obtaining the required business licenses discussed above, and opening your business accounts, you are legally able to start business operations. As an attorney, I have set-up quite a few small businesses and, invariably, they needed at least two or three of the above business licenses or tax id numbers. Having filed all the required business licenses will give you peace of mind to pursue other business activities such as promoting your business and providing customer support.

File all required business licenses for your business and start making money!

Copyright (c) 2006 Elias Stassinos

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Don't Get Caught With Your PR Down!

Why risk the embarassment when with a little basic PR training, you as a business, non-profit or association manager can always be ready for battle?

Never again will you fail to do something positive about the behaviors of those important outside audiences of yours that MOST affect your operation.

Never again will you fail to create external stakeholder behavior change leading directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

And never again will you fail to persuade those key outside folks to your way of thinking, or move them to take actions that allow your department, division or subsidiary to succeed.

In fact, once you digest the underlying premise of public relations, you'll understand how the right PR really CAN alter individual perception and lead to those changed behaviors you need. Here's how it goes: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

However â€" and this is a big however â€" it requires more than special events, brochures and news releases if you really want to get your PR money's worth.

For example, business, non-profit and association managers who employ this kind of public relations can benefit from results such as new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; rebounds in showroom visits; membership applications on the rise; community service and sponsorship opportunities; enhanced activist group relations, and expanded feedback channels, not to mention new thoughtleader and special event contacts.

As time passes, you should see customers making repeat purchases; prospects reappearing; stronger relationships with the educational, labor, financial and healthcare communities; improved relations with government agencies and legislative bodies, and even capital givers or specifying sources looking your way.

Obviously, you want your most important outside audiences to really perceive your operations, products or services in a positive light. So be certain that your PR staff has bought into the whole effort. Convince yourself that they accept the reality that perceptions almost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt your unit.

Get together and go over the PR blueprint carefully with your staff, especially regarding how you will gather and monitor perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Questions like these: how much do you know about our organization? How much do you know about our services or products and employees? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with the how things went? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?

You can depend on professional survey people to handle the perception monitoring phases of your program IF the budget is available. But luckily, your PR people are also in the perception and behavior business and can pursue the same objective: identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors, inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors.

Let's chat for a moment about your public relations goal. You need one that addresses the problems that cropped up during your key audience perception monitoring. Chances are, it will call for straightening out that dangerous misconception, or correcting that gross inaccuracy, or doing something about that damaging rumor.

But as you surely know, goals need strategies to show you how to get there. And you have just three strategic choices when it comes to handling a perception or opinion challenge: create perception where there may be none, change the perception, or reinforce it. Unfortunately, selecting a bad strategy will taste like peanut butter on your sea scallops, so be certain the new strategy fits well with your new public relations goal. For example, you don't want to select "change" when the facts dictate a "reinforce" strategy.

Here the right, corrective language must be created, because persuading an audience to your way of thinking is awfully hard work Especially when you're looking for words that are compelling, persuasive, believable AND clear and factual. This is a must if you are to correct a perception by shifting opinion towards your point of view, leading to the desired behaviors. So, meet again with your communications specialists and review your message for impact and persuasiveness.

In order to carry your words to the attention of your target audience, you need to select the communications tactics most likely to reach them. Happily there are dozens of available tactics. From speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters, personal meetings and many others. Just be sure that the tactics you pick are known to reach folks just like your audience members.

Occasionally, the credibility of your message can depend on its delivery method. So, consider introducing it to smaller gatherings rather than using higher-profile communications such as news releases or talk show appearances.

When you sense the need to provide a progress report, it's probably time for you and your PR folks to return to the field for a second perception monitoring session with members of your external audience. Using many of the same questions used in the first benchmark session, stay alert for signs that your communications tactics have worked and that the negative perception is being altered in your direction.

Should those around you wax impatient, things can always be accelerated with a broader selection of communications tactics AND increased frequencies.

You won't get caught with your PR down when you apply your budget to public relations activity that creates behavior change among your key outside audiences that leads directly to achieving your managerial objectives.

That's when it will become clear to you that the right PR really CAN alter individual perception and lead to changed behaviors that help you win.

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Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net. Word count is 1090 including guidelines and resource box.

Robert A. Kelly © 2004.