Our List of How-To's to Get Your Business Off the Ground
More Money, Less Bacon
I'm a big fan of goals, planning and keeping focus when there is a project that needs to be done. Below is the is the beginning of a series of how-to's and tutorials for starting or improving your small business. These will help you sift through a checklist of items that you may or may not need to get your startup or existing small business off the ground. The most frequently requested topics will be created first, so they may not necessarily be in order. Just so you know, there will be more money than bacon or noise in these posts.
Meat and Potatoes vs Sausage and Ham
There will be no vague, substance free, business rhetoric from any the content that we provide. There will be specific step by step examples with real products, real vendors, real people, real businesses. This is very important because after looking for real how-to content myself, it irked me business experts and magazines that are supposed to help out the little guy, simply makes unsubstantial articles that are complete ripoffs from business 101 books on idealistic business conditions. I have proof should you require it! We want to be your fiduciary of business know-how. It feels good knowing that you don't have to pay high priced consultants like myself to come and teach you this personally, I mean I will come, but I don't want to have to. This is all fairly simple so long as you have time to invest in learning. I don't mean to pick on the pig, but it seems like such an apropos thing to do with the swine flu going around. Did I just say apropos, trust me, i'll never say that OUT LOUD!
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When Business, HowTo Article Agenda
Just starting out, Do you have an idea for a business?
- Finding a product/service niche
- Having a product based goods business
- Finding a unique market segment
- Social Graph
- Manufacturers
- Distributors
- Suppliers
- Aggregators
- Trends
- Magazines
- Is it easy to procure/manufacture the product or goods?
- Does it have a high margin?
- What is the cost of materials?
- Finding a unique market segment
- Considering Product/Service Delivery Channels
- Hub
- Brick & Mortar
- Home Business
- Online Service
- B2B
- Online Store
- 3rd party commerce sites
- eCommerce Store
- Integrated Sales
- Finding a goods distributor/Supplier
- Finding a drop shipping provider
- Cost
- Liabilities
- Products/Goods
- Creating a service based business?
- Find a unique market segment
- Find a niche with low cost of entry
- Equipment
- Franchises
- Having a product based goods business
- Finding and assessing your competition.
- Finding there's a need for this idea.
- Access to goods
- Distribution of goods
- Market distribution of brand
- Goal planning, short term goals, year term goals, long term goals
When you already have a business
- Does it have an identity?
- Does it have a business entity structure in place? (LLC, LLLP, LLP, Sole Proprietorship, C-Corp, S-Corp, General Partner)
- Are you hoping or planning on taking the company public?
- Individual states have specific benefits when going public, is this important to you?
- Checking your state for incorporating options
- What happens when you have more than 100 shareholders?
- Does your business have an established brand?
- Market Research
- Finding a domain. using search marketing tools when finding a new domain.
- Finding social communities corresponding to your niche.
- Have an online presence, brochure site or blog created
- Establish relationships within your niche on other community sites and engage in intelligent conversation
- Found a name?
Establishing your brand
- The new customer
- The new small business
- Discovering how to gain market saturation with your brand.
- Local Publications/Directories
- Industry Publications/Directories
- Social Media
- Web
- Partnerships
- Do you need Office Space?
- Renting in Retail Outlet
- Renting in a Mall
- Renting Office Building
- Renting Office Park
- Renting Cubicles
- All about your location
- Lease Terms
- Build Out
- Square Feet
- Plumbing
- Utilities
- Permits, City, State
- Parking
- Common Area
- Hours of Operation
- Security
- Cleaning
- Maintenance
- Internet options
- Phone, PBX, VOIP
- Using a virtual office space workspace
- Do you need a conference room?
- Answering Agent
- Toll Free - and local Phone Number
- Get an address and suite number
- Offsite mail
- Are you working from a home office?
- Virtual Phone number
- UPS Box, suite
- USPS PO Box
- Tax benefits
- Virtualized Workspaces
- Establishing Daily Business Operations
- Regulation
- Document Management/Digitization
- Security
- Expense Management
- Accounting/Revenue Pipelines
- Banking/Merchant Accounts
- Payment Processors
- Software
- Legal
- Contracts
- Partnerships
- Business processes
- HR
- Benefits
- In-house Vs Outsourcing
- Recruiting
- Employment Rights
- Right to work
- Benefits
- Having great customer service
- Dealing with new Vendors
- Dealing with new Clients
- Dealing with new Customers
- Customer Relationship Management
- Information Gathering
- Starting a conversation
- Social Building
- List Building
- Software/Hardware
- Operating Systems
- Printers/Computers
- Backup Systems
- Operational Equipments
- Field Equipment
- Sales
- Techniques
- Vendors
- Partners
- Furniture
- Renting
- Leasing
- Buying
- Re-purposing
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Word of Mouth
- CRM
- Signage
- Using Digital assets
- Logo
- Icons/Images
- Photos
- Letterhead/Cards
- Brand Saturation
- Product/Service Photos
- Sponsored Events
- Video
- Commercials
- Radio
- TV
- Podcasting
- Regulation
- Using Product/Goods Distribution Channels.
- Existing distribution channels
- Distributor Partnerships
- Finding a local Supplier
- Yearly Events and Tradeshows
- Getting your product/goods manufactured by a 3rd party?
- Product design
- Research and Development
- How do you use onshore manufacturing channels?
- How do you use continental manufacturing channels?
- Distributors
- Suppliers
- Shippers
- Import Compliance
- How to get overseas manufacturing?
- Receiving goods from Manufacturing/Distributors
- Vendor
- Purchase Orders
- High Number Units
- Defects
- Using a Purchasing Agent
- Making the Trip
- Having goals in mind, shortening the lead time
- Dealing with Samples vs the final set of Goods
- Vendor Contracts
- Why they notoriously difficult to enforce(non-binding).
- Using relationships and trust with overseas vendors
- Purchase Orders
- Vendor
- Getting your products to your store or warehouse (Shipping)
- What happens after a Purchase Order?
- What happens once the products have been shipped?
- What happens once the products have been landed?
- Ports
- Intermodal Freight/Drayage
- Clubbed
- Warehousing
- Dealing with transportation product damage.
- Choosing the right Carrier for you. (SteamShip, Rail, Truck, Air)
- Using a Customs Broker
- Bill of Lading
- Packing Lists
- Invoicing
- Freight Forwarding
- Customs Entry
- Import Compliance
- Consolidators
- Preparing your shop to sell goods
- Inventory Management
- Damaged goods
- Planning and allocation
- Satellite Distribution Techniques
- Point of sale machines (Register/POS)
- Store Fixtures, Hangers, Gridwall, Slatwall
- Tags/Labeling
- Storage
- Security
- Retail Displays & Supplies
- Visual Awareness
- Spacial Awareness
- Sales Techniques
- Customer Multivariate Testing, A/B testing
- All about the consumer credit
- Consumers Rights
- Merchants Rights
- Merchant Accounts
- Credit Card Accounts
- Credit Purchase Lifecycle
- Authorization
- Settle
- Capture
- Refund
- Void
- Getting custom software or website written
- Do you need digital assets?
- Logo
- Icons/Images
- Photos
- Do you need digital assets?
- Properly building a website
- Hosting Requirements
- Should you outsource this?
- Creating a brochure site?
- Finding the right Content Management system/Blogging platform
- Are you needing a custom web application?
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- Do you need developers?
- Finding local developers
- Programming language of choice
- Letting the developer pick the language of the application.
- Finding a software development firm.
- What makes a good development firm
- Clients/Portfolio
- Do you need an online eCommerce Store?
- Security
- site badges
- Payment Processor
- Donations
- Merchant Account
- Customer Service
- Company Vehicle
- Signage
- Insurance
- Liabilities
- Dealing with company field equipment
- Purchase and maintenance
- Scheduling and Logistics
