I have found that you can easily become overwhelmed by the amount and scope of the tasks that need to be performed. Starting a business or managing a small business is a never-ending to-do list. It is especially difficult during start up and the first couple of years (if the business makes it that far) that the business is operating. Often in the early stages of your business, you are in it alone. Few people see your vision and of those that grasp your vision, no one will be as dedicated as you are with your company (be weary of a person you consider a partner if your dedication is clearly greater than the partner). With so much to do and so many ideas of new things to do, it becomes a chore to stay focused and keep things moving.

Tips for keeping your focus

1. Prioritize your To-Do List
2. Figure out your most productive times – tackle more difficult tasks during those times
3. Choose certain days for tasks – example:
   
   1. Tuesday = Invoices, bill reconciliation, budgeting
   2. Wednesday = Website maintenance, internet marketing
   3. Thursday = Make sale calls, meet new potential customers
4. Analyze your tasks to see if your processes and your procedures can be altered and simplified, or if there is a tool  to complete multiple task at one time (software, automation equipment, communication tools).
5. Discipline yourself – take brief breaks between tasks. The key is discipline, it can be hard to get back to work.
6. Frequently remind yourself of your goal- motivate yourself with notes, pictures, quotes or the quest for cash.
7. Get rest – working while really tired is a recipe for mistakes…. mistakes that you will have to go back and fix.
8. Get Help – find people that are naturally interested in your business or understands your vision for the business and sees opportunity for themselves within the business. These people will be a bit more motivated and willing to ‘go hard’ for the business. These people will usually work for little or no money, because they believe in the business and are willing to defer for the opportunity to grow the business and really get paid. Be careful not to abuse people and remember you will most likely, always be the most excited about your company.

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Personal Growth

by Kevin Potts

If you’re like thousands of other designers, programmers and other creative professionals out there, at one point in time you’ve considered starting your own business. Unlike most, you’ve gone against common sense and decided to open shop for yourself. And not just freelance full-time, mind you, but file for the company name, get some stationery, and wade through the legal mumbo-jumbo. Maybe even get a real office with a water cooler.

This article offers real-world advice from the trenches of a small start-up, and is applicable to designers, web developers, copywriters, usability experts and all manner of service providers. Freelancers take heed: there are several items that are just as pertinent to your profession.

Write a Business Plan

The most important thing you can do to prepare for starting and operating your own business. Developing a business plan requires a lot of time and energy, but it’s invaluable for one primary reason — it forces you to come to terms with your business idea. You must decide how you will generate income, what your expenses will be, who your competitors are, and most important, WHAT YOUR BUSINESS DOES. This may seem obvious to you now, but write it down. Think about it. What sets your business apart? What service do you offer that is superior or unique? What’s going to put you ahead of the competition?

Beyond the mental exercises, a good business plan will give you a much better chance of getting a small business loan from a bank than walking in and saying, “I like Photoshop and maybe a can do some websites or something. Gimme money.”

A few years ago, new age business rhetoric said forget the business plan and just run with it. Obviously, that didn’t work out so well, so if you go that route, God bless you. The business plan exists for a reason. There are libraries of books written on them and huge websites devoted to developing good ones. Some resources:

• SBA
• Scott Kramer’s articles on A List Apart
• Businessplans.org
• Business Plan Archive

Take a few weeks and develop a strong and thought-out plan. Give it to friends, co-workers, even family to read. Your business will be immeasurably stronger because you took the time for this step.

File for a Fictitious Name

A fictitious name (called a doing-business-as or DBA in some states) is the government’s term for your company name. If you choose HyperGlobalMegaSoft as the start-up’s name, it has to be registered with the state to ensure no one else is using it. This will cost about $100, but prevents you from accidentally using someone else’s registered name, or from someone else using YOUR name. Also note that two companies can usually register the same name for different industries. For instance, Luigi’s (design studio) and Luigi’s (pizza joint).

Note the fictitious name is not the same thing as a registered trademark. A trademark involves a whole separate process, more paperwork and additional fees. Unlike a fictitious name, however, a trademark is not required.

Funding

This is a pretty involved topic, and enough books and articles have been written about it to make for years of boring bathroom reading. Advice in a nutshell: start the business with your own savings or borrow from a bank. I highly recommend the former or a combination that includes it, since it makes you pinch your pennies a little more. If you go the bank route, make sure the business plan is polished to a high shine. This may be a good time to hire a professional business plan writer/editor.

There is one Golden Rule: Don’t borrow money from family or friends. 99% of the time, you won’t be able to pay them back, and on the off-chance you are, it won’t be for months or years. The amount is irrelevant; $1,000 or $100,000 can quickly create bad blood.

Get an Accountant

In starting your business and maintaining its future financial health, there is no greater ally than an accountant. He or she (or they if you go with a firm) will be able to give advice on innumerable aspects of your new venture. They can advise on what type of business entity to start with, setting up bank accounts, a means of invoicing and collecting, and more. Most importantly, they also guide you on paying taxes properly and punctually.

Brief advice on accountants:

• Go with an accountant or a firm in your state. Each state has different laws.
• Make sure the accountant knows business taxes. Do not hire a family-oriented accountant.
• Unless, you are really, really strapped for cash, hire an accountant who is not a family member. While it may be tempting to get a family discount, it is better to have an unbiased viewpoint about your finances, and also better to keep your family’s nose out of your funds in general.
• Try to trade services! Maybe your accountant wants a new logo, website, or brochure.

Start with a Partner

If you can, start the business with a partner. This person should be another designer or programmer with a level of experience equal to or greater than your own, but with a different skill set. If you’re the God of Annual Reports, your partner can be the Overlord of Identity Design. Having two Annual Report Gods will make for some lacking identity work when the client requests it. And for the record, once again, it will be better if this person isn’t family.

“But why a partner?” you ask. “I’m a darn good designer, and I’m really really gonna do this right.”

A partner will keep you on your toes. When you want to buy that $2,000 scanner, he or she should question why. If you want to design a promotional piece, it should be a group effort to get the best results. If you start to slack off, he or she will be there to remind you of business priorities. No one can do everything, and two complementary skill sets create an asset that cannot be reproduced when flying solo.

About Your New Office

When you start a business, the option of setting up an office outside your home has dramatic pros and cons that must be weighed carefully.

Good:

• You have a place for clients to visit if they are local.
• Reinforces good image (see below). Proper presentation goes a long way, and making your office appear as if you’ve been in business for years (you didn’t tell them you were a start-up, did you?) helps build client trust.
• You can write off all office expenses (rent, repairs, phone, etc). This will affect your bottom line drastically.
• Gets you out of the house. Having a real place to go to work makes the business more real, and forces you to take it that more seriously.

Not-So-Good:

• Money out the window. Renting an office costs $250-$10,000 a month, not including the initial deposit. This is a lot of money if you have a thin or inconsistent client base.
• Requires additional expense. You will need to get a fire inspection and a certificate of occupancy, not to mention additional phone lines, Internet connection, furniture, etc.

Setting up an outside office for a new business is a case-by-case situation, and depends almost entirely on start-up money and cash flow. Some businesses truly require a place to host clients (ad agencies),and for others it’s not as important (web development). Weigh the advantages carefully against capital, because being locked into a lease without a means to pay is no fun.

Retain a Good Paper Trail

Make sure to keep a solid paper trail with clients, and that means a real, physical file with hardcopies of proposals, contracts, invoices, time sheets and anything else you can think of that relates to the project. This also includes all financial records, bank statements, receipts, deposit slips, etc.

Before beginning your business, establish several important things. First, design a consistent and scalable filing system for all the forms. Whether you organize by client or project is irrelevant, but make sure you can find the information when you need it. Second, make sure to have airtight contracts. I advise against writing them yourself. There are many places on the net where you can get generic forms, such as www.creativepro.com. You will also need to look for NDAs (non-disclosure agreements, for contracting work out to other freelancers), RFP (request for proposal) templates for clients to fill out, expense reports, invoices, and time sheets. Every project is different, so be prepared to make changes on these forms.

And please, when you sign a contract with a client, make sure you have a copy with BOTH signatures. Seems like an obvious thing, but you’d be surprised. Don’t do any work without one, because legally, you will have a very hard time forcing a delinquent client to pay without one.

Part of maintaining a solid paper trail is having a good invoice system ready to launch at a moment’s notice. Make sure your invoices arrive in the client’s mailbox while the project is still fresh. Every invoice should clearly mark the amount to be paid and terms of payment (30 days, etc.), and clearly indicate any additional fees resulting from delinquent recompense.

If payment is late, don’t be afraid to call the client. Sometimes they just misplaced the invoice. Other times they don’t have the money and are trying to slink away. Sometimes, “the check is in the mail.” Regardless, the business that does not call to get paid won’t get paid!

Start Small, Conserve Loot

Consider working from your house/apartment to start, especially if you have clients that will never visit you, or if you live in an expensive metropolis (NYC, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, etc). Keep your expenses down! Don’t buy a new quad Xeon workstation if your current machine can cut it, or a truckload of networking equipment for two computers. Be cheap! Look for sales at OfficeMax, clip coupons, and just shop smart. You’re going to need the start-up capital down the road, so don’t drain it on frivolous expenditures. (And yes, the folded die-cut business card with the metallic ink counts as a frivolous expenditure.)

Don’t Undercharge, but Be Flexible

If there’s one thing to remember from this article, it should be this point. Proper pricing is the one thing that keeps the business alive, on multiple levels. When you charge appropriate amounts for the work, the client will feel like they hired the right people; when you undercharge, the client will know this and take advantage of you by demanding similar rates in the future.

If you give every client a discount just to get the job (and this will be tempting, especially in the beginning), you’ll find yourself working twelve-hour days and not being able to pay the bills. Undercharging hurts the industry in general as well; undercharged clients come to expect and request absurdly low prices.

Legal Software

Make sure all the copies of your software are retail versions. Do not use “educational” or pirated software. This is very important, and should be part of the start-up budget.

Separate Personal and Business Finances

Nothing much else to say about this. It will save you innumerable headaches come tax season.

Marketing

Even the most reliable clients have dry spells, so make sure you are constantly putting your company’s name in the marketplace. Word of mouth is the best, but getting truly fresh work usually requires spending money.

The Importance of Image

The importance of maintaining a positive image in the eyes of your clients and potential clients cannot be overstated. Know your firm’s identity so you can project that identity to the customer.

The visual identity is critical. Get business cards, letterhead, and envelopes. Design a good logo or pay someone to do it if you’re not a design firm.

Dress the part. When meeting with a client, look like someone who’s come to do business, not some clichéd black-turtleneck half-shaven graphic designer who’s gracing them with your presence half an hour late. It sounds exaggerated, but it happens all too often.

Make the office welcoming. If you entertain clients, keep the office clean, organized and hospitable. Make good coffee. Purchase comfortable chairs. Make sure they have a place to park.

Use Outside Resources

Running a business takes long hours and a willingness to learn. However, there are many services that exist to help businesses succeed and get work. For instance:

• Your local Chamber of Commerce
• SCORE
• Attend business seminars. You can learn a lot and do some powerful networking. Many are free.
• Creativepro.com. Full of valuable resources like stock photos, business contracts, freebies and more. $29.99 / year.
• Elance.com. A cause of dissention among many designers for the ridiculously low rates you have to work for, but a good place to find work when the rest of the world has shut its doors.

If you still decide to start a business, there’s nothing more I can say except good luck.

You’ve got to have the “fire in your belly,” or you will fail. There are long hours, hard work, and incredibly frustrating and stressful times ahead. But the rewards — being your own boss, being able to work on a variety of projects, feeling that proverbial sense of accomplishment — these are all very real results.

Kevin Potts is the creator and author of graphicPUSH, a resource site for web and print designers.

Woman tend to be more social than men and this truth is also evident when it come to internet usage. Statistics suggest that woman are the primary users of social media of all types. Woman seem to follow blogs, post on blogs, stay up to date with Myspace, Facebook and Twitter, at a greater rate than men do. To an entrepreneur or business owner, this means that your ad dollars may go a bit further when marketing to  woman.

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The “2009 Social Media Study” from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners found that women are turning to all sorts of social media for fun, entertainment, community and connection.

More than one-half (53%) of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly.

Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs. Nearly 23 million of the social media users read blogs.

Many women went beyond merely reading: 12 million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.

In fact, women who used blogs were more than twice as likely to do so when they were seeking information, advice and recommendations than were women who participated in social networking.

When providing advice or contributing to a community, more women also turned to blogs than social networks.

excerpt from article by ©2009 eMarketer Inc.

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Promoting your business is a full time job by itself. Entrepreneurs have many tasks to complete when running a business of any size and smart entrepreneurs make good use of all available tools. The press release is a great tool to use when you need some low-cost or free advertising.

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As a handy reminder of some of the most important points in press-release
writing, the following 12-step-summary can be printed out and posted on your
computer or your wall or anywhere you can access it easily. Use it as your press
release primer.

1. Keep the length a maximum of one page unless absolutely necessary.

2. Tell about your products or services in one or two clear sentences.

3. Create an angle of interest.

4. Attract your reader with your title.

5. Use active verbs to enliven your release.

6. Follow rules of grammar and style as you would for any piece of writing.

7. Use timely information, preferably related to current events or trends.

8. Make every word count and count every word.

9. Make sure your releases get broad coverage with national and regional
publications, radio and television stations, Internet publications, and all potential
clients.

10. Include ample contact information: name, address, phone, after-hours phone,
fax, email, Web site.

11. Deal with the facts; avoid fluff.

12. Avoid excessive use of adjectives, adverbs and fancy language.

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Developing a solid marketing plan is essential in any business, of any size, but it is especially important for start-up and small businesses. Developing a marketing plan forces you to look at your business in a detailed way. It makes you look closely at your customers, your product or service and how you want to sell your products or services.

Just before we get into the article…
will often need a clear guide to avoid being over-whelmed by the amount of things on the to-do list. I have noticed that many Most of all a marketing plan gives you a guide which helps you stay focused. An entrepreneur will begin a task, get half completed and start something new (many times a task that is a little easier to complete or the newest idea they have). A clear plan helps us fight our natural urges and though multi-tasking is an essential skill for any entrepreneur, your multiple tasks need to be prioritized and executed accordingly.

Small Business Marketing Plan

The Basics of a Small Business Marketing Plan

By Charen Smith

Even among the high gas prices and failed mortgages of the economy, it is still a viable time to start a small business. One of the first tasks to take care of when starting a small business is to create a marketing plan.

Here are the basics needed in a marketing plan for new entrepreneurs:

A core message

A great logo and brand

A Web site

Business cards

Exposure

First, you need to decide what your core message will be. If you don’t focus your message about your product, service or business, your customers will most likely be confused by your marketing materials. There’s no way you can get a clear message across if you don’t even know what that message is.

Part of knowing your core message is knowing your audience. Who are they? Where do they live? How much money do they make? And most importantly, what do they want? Why do they need your product? Your message needs to serve your customers’ needs, not yours. Your business’ survival depends on your customers’ opinions and knowledge of your business, not yours.

You also need to create a great, memorable logo and brand next. Your logo should show your business’ personality. When people take one glance at your logo, they should know what you are about and remember you. Your logo is part of your brand. A brand is not only your logo and it’s not only your advertising. It’s the combination of all your marketing materials, including these two elements, that creates a relationship with your customers.

To be successful today, you need to create a Web site. You need to plan for at least a basic Web site that shows a few of your products, and the benefits of your products. You should explain who you (as a business) are, what your business does and how your business can help your customers. You can add more functionality to your Web site as your business grows – like answering questions and ordering online.

Print some business cards. Be sure to leave room in your budget for business card printing. Even though a lot of marketing and advertising is done online, if you don’t have a business card, you’ll look unprofessional. You should print at least 500 at first and give them out to everyone you know. Give out a few to friends and family, and really anyone you think might pass them along to other potential customers.

Finally, you need some exposure. Contact your local media – many newspapers and local magazines like to profile new businesses and it’s a great way to get free advertising. You should also advertise in local media and hang up flyers and posters around your community. This can be done relatively cheaply – many places like libraries and grocery stores have bulletin boards on which you can hang advertising materials. These are great for the beginning entrepreneur who might not have a huge marketing budget. Also, word-of-mouth marketing works wonders for a new business – ask for referrals and ask your current customers to tout your benefits to others. Many times word of mouth works better than most of your other marketing techniques!

Charen Smith writes articles about Internet Marketing. She has an extensive knowledge and experience when it comes to business strategies, techniques and business solutions.
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