LLC or Sole Proprietorship

    Businessman working hard at office

    There are many benefits to having an LLC company for your business.
    First off, I’m not a lawyer and you should consult a lawyer in your local area to find out all the pros and cons of having an LLC business.

    It was not even a question for our Structural Engineering firm to start with a LTD (limited company in Canada). The benefits outwayed the challenges to having a LLC.

    The LLC exists as a separate entity from any of the shareholders of the business. So, other than (in Canada) the Taxman who can get what they are owed regardless, the company is liable instead of the shareholders for any claims against it whether it be general comprehensive liability (someone drives the company car and injures another) or errors and omission liability for any errors done in the commission of the work. Of course, as a business (whether sole proprietorship or LLC) you should have general comprehensive liability and errors and omissions liability so this way the claim is against the company and any liability claims are against the company rather than you personally.

    As well in order to have a business bank account for more than one person to have access to as shareholders it is best to have an LLC entity. Of course, you have to make sure you need two signatures of shareholders on cheques so there isn’t any possibility of improprierty by one of the shareholders.
    You will need to “create” the LLC documents with the rules of the company and shareholders etc. but there are plenty of free LLC agreements you can see if they work for your business.

    As a LLC, you can probably also write off many expenses to the company and our accountant can do many things like carrying over liabilities to the next year and he is worth the investment to do the end of year taxes as LLC have many write-offs that a sole proprietor does not have in business.

    For the future, you can sell the business to another person much easier if you retire as the company is separate from your personal assets and liabilities.

    One or more persons can be employees of the company with the tax advantages of being employees to get money out of the LLC company. Of course, you could still be independent consultants and bill the company for your services.

    LLC company has so many advantages that once you get beyond a certain revenue that you personally claim on your personal income tax, everyone who is in business should have a LLC as a consultant for the benefits and write-offs. However, once again, I will say I am not a lawyer so you should consult one in your local area. Our structural engineering firm has been a LTD (LLC) since 1992 and the company has been healthy in its growth and it provides us with salaries take home as employees as well as a hired bookkeeper.

    For more on starting a home business you can check out Members | The Business of At Home Business  for anyone interested in being in business!

    Categories: Legal Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Will The New Business Fail?

    As the phrase goes, “there is no guarantee in life” but there are certain steps you can take to make sure your new business doesn’t fail.

    Step 1. Research research research

    Do your research before you even start your new business as to whether there is a market out there for your business. There are many ways to research whether anyone wants your new business by looking at your ideal customer and the demographics of the audience.

    You can check if there are any competitors in your market which can be a good thing because it means there are people buying but dig deep to make sure they are a viable business or holding it all together with smoke and mirrors. There are many Internet marketers who “make a million” one year and crash the next because they don’t put in the foundations of a good business.

    Now, if there are competitors and they have a sustainable business, what makes your business unique from their business so you can stand out from your competitors. For example, when this auto repair shop fixes a repair, they also wash the car whereas you could be the auto repair shop that fixes repair, washes car, rotates tires and installs new window wiper blades. Who doesn’t love free window wiper blades!

    Whether you want to or not, it is good practice to do a business plan for your new business before you start because once you look at the expenses vs. income, market research, marketing plan and obstacles to your success, you will be able to see before you spend a penny whether your business will fail.

    Step 2. Start your new business part-time

    I’m not a believer in quitting your job without knowing whether your new business is going to be successful so you should do it part-time while you are working at your job. Any business whether it is internet-based, production or offline , you can do it part-time. Steve Jobs worked in his parent’s garage while creating the Mac. So, even a cleaning company you could start part-time and clean in evening offices that are closed. You could go to weekend trade shows or events to display your product to see whether people will buy or they are interested enough to invest. You can join your local Chamber of Commerce and talk about your business to see what feedback might be from other local business entrepreneurs. You could create a Meet-up with the title “Internet Marketing Success” or if you are an artisan, “
    Crafting Business made Easy” and share free information and make connections with others to form collaborations on a part-time basis. With your first sale, celebrate but don’t quit your job until you are getting enough money to replace your monthly expenses. You could be a part-time consultant for other companies and work from contract to contract.

    Step 3. Start your business

    So, you have been working part-time at your business and you’ve made the sales that have been consistent or got the contracts to fulfill that could give you the income per month to start your business. You have done your research and you have been marketing to your ideal customers who have given you repeat business. You have reviewed your business plan and made adjustments needed from doing the work part-time. You have done future projections of income and how you will increase it once you work at it full-time.

    For our structural engineering home office, we worked part-time weekends and evening doing design and putting in hours to finish work to deadline while commuting back and forth to a job. We had three to four regular clients who gave us regular work so when we got laid off from work, we could easily go full-time in our home office.

    You have all your government required licenses and you are set for making your business into a system with foundations to make the business grow. You are ready and there may not be any guarantees but you have done all you can to make your business a success!

    For more on starting a home business, go to The Business of At Home Business Community at http://boahbtips.com/member

    Categories: Start a Home Business Tags: Tags: , ,

    What is a Lifestyle Business?

    A Lifestyle Business is defined by what you want your lifestyle to be while you are in business.

    If you want to travel the world while running a business then there are certain requirements you need to take with you to run your business.

    You are going to have to have a laptop computer, Wi-Fi access and smartphone so you can communicate with your home office, Skype or check your email or create your product or service on the computer. You need to be flexible with your time but prioritize it so when bumps in the schedule from delayed ferries or power outage or no access to computer happens, it isn’t critical to your business.

    If you want to spend 80% of your time with your family and 20% on the business then it is a matter of prioritizing your time. The same requirements for tools like laptop, smartphone and Wi-Fi so while you wait for your child to finish soccer practice, you can write up that document you need to get done in the car.

    For these lifestyle businesses, you have to ask the important question “ How much money can I bring in from the business which makes it a viable lifestyle business?”

    If you want to only work at your business 2 hours per day x 5 days a week = 10 hours.

    What can you do in those 10 hours to get the business income you need?

    To make $100,000 a year, you need to make $8333 a month. So, 40 hours a month means you would have to make $208 an hour. There are professionals who make that hourly rate so it is possible if they decided to take a year off and only consult 40 hours a month. But what about you and your imagined revenue in your business.

    It depends on your skills, of course, as if you have computer programming skills working on software creation you are going to make higher income that a person who blogs about their adventures.

    For example, let’s say you are travelling the world and you want to blog about your adventures while making money. So, your blog is going to be making money by you getting commissions from any products you might promote on your blog. You won’t make millions but maybe you will make $50 or more a month to cover some expenses.

     

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss

    5 Reasons Your Business Should Have a Podcast

    Grow Your Captive Audience With Podcasts

    Developing a podcast that people want to hear and will take the time to download and listen to on a regular basis takes a little work.

    You’ll need to create a laser-targeted show that your audience gets value from, plus you’ll need to promote the show to your audience in multiple ways.

    Laser Target Your Audience

    You’ll need to create a laser-targeted show that your audience gets value from, plus you’ll need to promote the show to your audience in multiple ways.It’s imperative that you niche down your idea to a very narrow niche audience. This way you can show your passion and more easily identify the biggest pain points for your audience

    Networking

    The more ways you can find to network with your target audience as well as the movers and shakers within your industry, the more popular your podcast will become. Network with your audience, too. Remember that they’re the ones who will be listening.

    Outreach

    You need to let go of the fear and put yourself out there to gain a captive audience. Use email marketing, social media marketing, ads, and whatever else you can do to get out there. Put yourself out there and you’ll get more listeners. Make sure your website works, and that you’re on social media.

    Referrals

    When your audience listens to your broadcast they’ll love it, so it’s important to ask them to refer your podcast to other people they believe will love it. You can use incentives for your listeners to refer you by offering prizes and free gifts and even cash money if you want to have affiliates.

    List Building

    Always keep building your email list. The email list is an enormous key to getting repeat listeners and building a captive audience that sticks around a long time. Ensure that you send people to one of your lists whether they’re just curious or whether they’re listeners.

    For more on growing your audience for your Busines get How to Grow Your Captive Audience with Podcasts.

    Categories: podcasting Tags: Tags: , , ,

    Writing Content for your Business

    The content of your site tells a whole lot about your website. They will basically describe what your site is about and also tell people what your site has to offer. Articles and website content makes a whole lot of difference in your site because they can catch the attention of your website visitors and keep them in there.

    With good website content you get the benefit of clearly depicting what it is you want to share with people. Also, good content and articles can lead people to your site. With more traffic, you get to earn more from your site making it profitable. A sites success, be it for profit or not, is the number of the flow of traffic in your site.

    SEO Enhanced Website

    So how does good content and great articles get you traffic? Well, many search engines rely on the keyword and keyword phrases of a site to put it in their results list. If your content contains a good number of keywords and keywords phrases, it may be chosen to be a part of the top listed sites in the search result pages.

    But before you think of just plastering your site with all the keywords and keyword phrases it could hold, search engines also filter out that abuse. You must have good well written articles that incorporate the keywords and keyword phrases properly in their content and articles.

    There are many of those who cannot afford the time to write their own website contents and articles. While writing content and articles specifically designed for the internet may take some getting used to and some researching and learning, there are many writers that can be found all over the world who could do it for you.

    Outsourcing your Web Content

    Many of us do not have the time to learn web content writing and article writing designed for the internet. There are writers who have great experience in doing this and charge only a minimal fee for such work. Writers like this can be regarded as experts in this style of writing and can greatly help your website to get that coveted spot in the search engine rankings.

    Other than getting your site in the web results page of search engines, they can also provide your site with meaningful articles and content that can impress your website visitors and entice others to view your site. Every website could use the extra traffic website visitors could invite.

    Outsourcing your Writing in Your Business

    Then there are those who need papers to be done either for their school or office work. Top writers around the world are very knowledgeable and do extreme researching to get a job done right. They are also very adept in many writing styles that are needed to best suit the client’s need.

    Many writers around the world charge a minimal fee depending on the type of writing job needed and the number of words needed in the content. Usually, a two hundred fifty worded article would cost from 4 to 8 dollars depending on the writers experience and ability. This is a small price to pay for having a content rich site or for a well researched and written paper.

    Finding a Good Writer

    There are also many sites that can offer you these services with their team of well trained and experienced writers. They offer many writing services to cover any writing needs. A writer can be based anywhere in the world and are guaranteed to offer good contents and articles. Each one are doubly checked, edited and proofread so that you would get your money’s worth.

    Finding a good writer or a site that offers these kinds of services is simply done by searching for them in search engines. Type down your keyword or keyword phrase (e.g. Content Writers, Article Writers) and you will see a long list of sites that offer these services.

    The services site include:

    Upwork.com

    Freelancer.com 

    The top sites would probably be the best since they have done a good job of keeping their content at a high quality to get them high rankings. But you may also want to shop around and read some of their sample work to get an idea of how much it will cost you.

    Writing content is a skill that can reflect well your business or not reflect well if the content is less than grammatically correct or it is not easy to read. So, make sure you get samples of someone’s work from them before you hire them to write your content. They should be able to give you a $ per page or $ per 1000 words rate so you can budget your money for outsourcing some writing.

    Categories: Content, Grow a Home Business, Outsourcing, SEO, Website Tags: Tags: , , , , , , ,

    Free Website Promotion…Why Not?

    Can you ever avail of free website promotion? Is that even feasible?

    Of course yes! Nowadays, your baby website can amass huge traffic in no time thanks to free website promotion.

    How does this free website promotion go anyway? What are things to be done?

    1. Enlist your website.

    Look for the hottest Internet directories and enlist your site there. This is the easiest and most effective free website promotion tactic. Start with this step and the rest of the good things will follow.

    The easiest way to find free website directories is to search in Google for “free website directories” in quotes.

    There are many including lists of directories in their article for example “Free Directory Submissions 2018″

    Just don’t forget to prep your website and make it all spruced up for a higher chance to get accepted in your directory of choice.

    2. Know your forums.

    One reason why forums are created is for free website promotion for everyone. Log in, post actively, let them know about your site in every post and you attract instant visitors right there.

    3. Write a press release.

    Release your writing prowess and start up a press release that advertises your site! This is a free website promotion tactic that you can do anytime. Type a brief paragraph or two and email it to your friends, colleagues, internet e-zines, newspapers and other media and massive traffic will come to you pronto!

    4. Be friendly online.

    Free website promotion means you need to be friendly to other webmasters. Why, you ask? So they can link you immediately! Establish contacts and never tire of link requests and exchanges.

    5. Write an article.

    Say, your website is about your travel agency. Write an article about the perks of traveling or the hottest travel spots in the world. On the concluding paragraph, mention your website in passing. This article works as an advertorial and doubles as a free website promotion approach.

    6. Just let the whole world know about your site.

    What is free website promotion without the word of mouth? Insert your website, its URL and features in daily conversations and let the good news spread from one mouth to another!

    7. Make a banner ad.

    Make a banner ad for your site and ask another webmaster to do the same for his site. Then swap!

    8. Take up a free website promotion course online.

    Yes, there are free website promotion tutorials. But don’t you know that you can actually take a free website promotion course that can help you out further? Part of the free website promotion program is signing up for newsletters.

    When you make a website, you need not pay anything to promote it. You just read it — there is such a thing as free website promotion!

    For more on advertising your home-based business website join The Business of At Home Business here!

    Categories: Grow a Home Business

    Entrepreneurship can be overwhelming

    Often, people set out to be entrepreneurs because they have grown tired of making money for someone else. They love the idea of being their own boss, setting their own hours, and not having to share a portion of the financial gains in the end.

    People who take the leap and decide they can do this on their own must have unwavering self-discipline and an excellent work ethic for the best chances at a successful enterprise. Once you choose to go it alone, you must be all in. Many of us tend to bounce back and forth, wondering if it is a good idea or not.

    This may be the first of many paradoxes you will face as a self-employed business owner!

    The cautious part of us doesn’t want to take the leap until a plan is in place and you are 100% invested in the decision. However, we often stand in our own way, over-analyzing every single aspect of a plan. The fact is, you’ll never be able to plan every single step because you aren’t yet aware of all possible variables.

    Entrepreneurship can be overwhelming. You aren’t going to be able to handle everything all at once, by yourself. Trying to take care of everything at one time leaves you pulled in every direction and tasks left incomplete. The things that we do manage to complete are often not done to our standards because we aren’t focused or able to commit as much time as we would like.

    Our mind wanders, and we end up thinking about all the other duties we should be taking care of right this minute. It’s important to remember to take a single bite from the elephant; don’t try to swallow it all at once.

    Erase any thought of failure from your head as well. We become our own worst enemy when we allow thoughts of failure to creep in and take over. It can stop us right in our tracks! As mentioned before, you cannot think of failing with every decision you make and expect to move forward. If you are second guessing yourself, you are slowing down the process of building your business.

    A good support system is a must! Make sure the people you have around you offer a balance of support and constructive criticism. There is no room for doomsayers or people who have not bought into your way of thinking. This is your business, idea, and future you’re building. Keep your eye on the prize, push through doubt and don’t be afraid of making mistakes.

    As your own boss, you need to employ the same work ethic and devotion you once gave to your employer. If something doesn’t seem to be working as planned, step back and reanalyze your process. Don’t think of it as starting over; it’s merely altering the plan, so you aren’t stalling out. When you get out of your own way, nothing can stop you!

    Don’t get overwhelmed by everything you need to know to start your business, take the training “Start  your Own Home Business Step by Step” and get started!

    Categories: Be Your Own Boss Tags: Tags: , ,

    What Home Business can a College Graduate start out of College?

    1 Comment


    As the question is from a college graduate then whatever you have learned in college, you should be able to share with the world part-time while working fulltime in a job. Being a Freelance sharing your skills should be fairly economical.

    For example, if you graduated with a Liberal Arts Degree, I believe you have training in English, literature and other liberal arts. Well, there is always a demand for writing for the internet whether it is for blogging, sales pages, white pages or any english skill. There is Upwork or Fiver where you can write up your skills for others to hire. The demand for people who can narrate video or do audio in good clear English is always in demand. You work as the proposals come in so you don’t have to take work if you are too busy in your job. You are hiring yourself out and your skills so there would be small commission for the internet platform but it wouldn’t require much time or money as all you would need is a mobile phone video skills to make your bio etc.

    To learn more about starting a home business go to The Business of AT Home Business membership and check it out!

    Categories: Home Business Ideas

    Just WHO is your Competition?

    The first step of the competitive analysis is to determine who is your local competition whether offline or online.  This can be done quite simply by driving around and observing and by searching through a telephone directory or searching in Google for similar businesses.

    The main question will be one of range and determining just how far customers are prepared to travel to obtain your competitors goods and services. As well as local competitors some businesses also have non-local competitors such as in the form of mail order companies for example.

    To analyze the competition, it is necessary to determine what market or market segments they serve and what benefits they offer. It is necessary to determine why customers buy from them and also to gather information about their products and or services, their pricing and promotion.

    Gathering information could be done by physically visiting a business or checking their website. Several physical visits to a business will enable a person to determine information about their product and the company’s treatment of customers. Invest in a course or product of your competition to see how they deliver their goods and how is their customer service.

    Good sources of information about a company come from the company’s vendors, suppliers and employees. Attending a trade fair where the competitors are exhibiting is another excellent way of gathering information.

    Once the information has been gathered it needs to be analyzed. By analyzing what a competitor does offer it is then possible to determine a niche market that can be targeted by offering something that the competitor does not.

    The goal of the analysis is to identify and expand your competitive advantage by focusing on the benefits your business can offer that the competitor can’t or won’t offer.

    Categories: Business plan

    What is #1 Priority when starting a home business?

    The #1 Priority for any business whether home based or brick and mortar is Cash Flow!

    The biggest concern with any business is cash flow.
    At all times you have to be marketing, selling and
    fulfilling the service of your home business.

    You need a minimum cash flow every month just to cover your business
    expenses and living expenses.
    You can start by looking at your own bank account and
    see what are your expenses to live every month.
    Then do an analysis of the expenses needed in order to do your business
    (by doing a business plan).
    Add all the expenses together and that will be the income minimum
    you need to make just to cover your expenses.

    In most businesses you don’t make a profit which is income above
    what you need for expenses for a few months or more.
    So, you need to have some startup funding (whether savings or family support etc.) in the first year.

    At all times, it is cash flow which can make a business profitable or a loss.
    At all times as an owner you have to have three hats on:

    The Marketer Cat

    Cat wearing felt hat with feather

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Marketer Hat where you go out and make people aware of your business. Okay, yes, I am not a cat but doesn’t he look like a marketer cat! 🙂

     

    The Seller Cat

    Portrait of cat wearing straw hat

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Seller Hat where you close the sale when you have someone asking about your business. This is where you are serious and know what you want to say just like the Seller Cat.

     

    The Business Cat

    Cat wearing red hat

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    The Business Hat where you fulfill the promise of the sale that you made
    whether to fulfill a service or produce a product. The Business Cat is professional at all times in fullfilling the promise!

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    My husband and I have had a home based business for 20 years.
    Just like any business, we have to have cash flow.
    In one day, you can be meeting a potential client to fulfill a service
    by a deadline while fulfilling another promised service
    in the 8 hour time period
    and responding to enquires with quotes over the internet.
    At all times, you have to be a marketer, salesperson and service provider.
    That is common to any business, homebased or otherwise,
    if you don’t have the cashflow needed for your business,
    you will get into serious trouble.

    #1 Priority for Any Business is Creating the Cash Flow!
    For more go to http://boahb.com on how to start run and grow a home business!

    Categories: Run a Home Business Tags: Tags: , , , ,