Good things are happening in the business blogosphere, and we want to share them with you! Below are five standout posts we’ve noticed this week, and we believe they can help you and your small business. Perfect light reading for the weekend!

• “The Power of the One-Page Strategy” by Michele Welsh of Young Entrepreneur

Somewhere between the formal business plan and the cocktail napkin to-do list is the one-page strategy, an excellent way to make sure your business is headed in the right direction. (Spoiler alert: Without a plan, your business is going in no direction.)

• “Free Online Tax Resources for Small Business Owners & The Self-Employed” by Adam Gottlieb of The Frugal Entrepreneur

Just like the title indicates, Mr. Gottlieb has brought together an excellent list of helpful links, including IRS-provided assistance, tax-preparation tools, and other resources. Bookmark it, and be happy.

• “How Gordon Ramsay Can Increase Your “Expert” Value by 23,900%” by Amy Harrison, guest blogger on ProBlogger.com

Ms. Harrison breaks down the five stages of blogging into restaurant terms, from generalist/fry cook to expert authority/food critic, explaining how to push your blog to the next level! You’ll be red-faced and screaming at people in no time.

• “How to Get the Sales You Want” by Diane Helbig of Small Business Trends

In this article, Ms. Helbig shows us by example how not to run a business, then explains where your business’s focus should be: your customers. Ask not what your customers can do for you; ask what your business can do for them.

• “Pitching In The Big Leagues: Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch” by Matthew Toren of Young Entrepreneur

You might not be literally pitching your business to a potential investor in an elevator, but pretend you are—you should be able to explain your business concisely and succinctly in about as long as an elevator ride might take. Baseball fans will appreciate the metaphors; everyone will appreciate the sound business advice.

Have a great weekend!

• Doing Business
• Comments (0)

“Going green” is all the fad—but for many businesses, it’s a fad reminiscent of the food industry’s obsession with “natural” marketing, where the term was bandied about as a marketing chip and any meaningful connection with health was essentially lost.

Similarly, a barrage of corporate “green” marketing terminology does not a truly green company make, and it’s easy to become numb to the idea that there really are good businesses out there doing really good things for the environment in ways that transcend marketing and self-promotion altogether.

But in business, the ability to assign value is king, and perhaps the problem with ecocommerce is that there’s no standard for really quantifying it. But thanks to Tim Gieseke and EcoCommerce 101, now we can.

According to Gieseke, “EcoCommerce . . . provides the framework to build an ecological intelligence system that allows the public arena of commerce to define sustainability.”

Gieseke shows us that economic development and bio-ecological preservation are more inherently connected than you might think, and that the  two goals can be met (and, in fact, are one and the same) with coordinated effort and a renewed dedication to seeing economy and ecology through the same lens.

Gieseke points out that “sustainability” is defined by us, the participants in the economy. EcoCommerce 101 is a roadmap for reshaping the market to support a sustainable future we can all be proud of.

Comment to win!

We’ve got three copies of EcoCommerce 101 to give away, and we want you to have one of them! Simply leave a comment explaining how your business has contributed to a greener economy (or plans to in the near future). We’ll select three comments at random one week from now, on Tuesday, February 21st, and we’ll contact you for your shipping details if you win. Or, order your own copy from Amazon now!

 

***Congratulations to our winners! We will contact you for your shipping information. The rest of you—don’t miss Click&Inc’s next Business Book Giveaway!

• Books
• Comments (2)

When you’re starting a small business, time is of the essence. The sooner you file your Articles of Incorporation, the closer you are to opening your doors and sharing your business with the world—so it’s important to fully understand your incorporation requirements from the beginning to avoid any lengthy delays or rejections.

In most states, having a registered agent on file is one of those requirements. This Q&A is designed to better understand your registered agent requirements as well as highlight potential concerns involved in acting as registered agent yourself.

What is a registered agent?

When a business is incorporated, it becomes a legal entity—a legal person—just like you and me. (Of course, a corporation has limited rights and powers; a corporation cannot vote or be married, for example.) But for practical reasons, a corporation must have an individual as the point person for the business, someone to whom correspondence may be sent or legal papers may be served. (It’s hard to have a face-to-face interaction with something as abstract as a business entity.)

A registered agent is that point person. If the state needs to send a notice to your company regarding any compliance news or filing deadlines, they send the notice to the registered agent. If someone sues your small business, the registered agent is served on behalf of the corporation. Or if another company needs your permission in order to register a name similar to yours, the contact information available to them is the registered agent’s.

What types of businesses need a registered agent?

Any business that has been organized at the state level and is a separate legal entity from its owners is required to have a registered agent on file: corporations, limited liability companies, and nonprofit organization, for example, are all required to provide a registered agent in their Articles of Incorporation (or Organization, in the case of an LLC). Foreign corporations—businesses that first incorporated in one state and then expanded into and registered with another—are also required to list a registered agent in each state.

[Note: there are a few states, such as Minnesota and New York, that do not require a registered agent, though they do allow businesses to list them in their records.]

Does it matter who is the registered agent?

In terms of state filing requirements, no, it doesn’t matter—anyone can act as registered agent, provided that person is a resident of the state of incorporation and has a physical address there. This person can certainly be involved in the company in other ways (and in many single-owner businesses, the owner frequently acts as registered agent as a matter of course), but he or she is not required to have any other connection to the corporation at all. The important part is that the registered agent’s address is listed as the registered office address of the business. (The registered office can be, and quite frequently is, different from the principal office address—where the corporation is physically located.)

Of course, there are other factors to take into account. Since a registered agent’s information is a matter of public record, a small business owner may want to think twice before putting his family’s residence address down in a freely searchable government database in connection to the company. And you can’t just put a friend of yours down as agent and plan to tell him later—acting as registered agent means having a legal responsibility to be available during business hours, and it is the registered agent’s legal duty to pass on state and other correspondence and notices to the business principals.

Can registered agents be hired?

Yes: registered agents can be either individuals or business entities themselves, called “commercial registered agents.” While available to any corporation, commercial agents are especially useful for three types of business owners:

1. The home business owner who wants to secure the privacy of his family;
2. The entrepreneur who wants to incorporate in a state in which he does not live;
3. The business owner looking to expand into neighboring states by filing as a foreign corporation in these new states.

It’s not difficult to find a good commercial registered agent—there are many national companies that have offices in all fifty states, so it’s simple to locate one for whatever state your business requires.

Last note on registered agents: when searching for a commercial agent, it’s worth your while to compare terms and conditions—many registered agents offer perks, such as document scanning, compliance newsletters and reminders, and updates on new state regulations and legislation that affect your industry. Registered Agent Solutions, inc. is a great one that we’ve worked with quite a bit, but however you go about it, you should be able to find a commercial agent for somewhere between $100 and $150.

• Doing Business
• Comments (2)

A business, like any team, is only as good as the people making it up, and your small business will only succeed if you’ve got employees onboard who can facilitate success.

Here are a few tips on how to build the best team for your small business.

Hire people with the talents you don’t have.

Most small business owners, even those who want to keep their eyes on all of the moving pieces, know when it’s time to ask for help. If you can build a team with a wide array of talents, you’ll always have somebody nearby who can fill your experience gap and move things along.

If accounting isn’t your strong suit, hire an accountant. Or maybe you’re a number wiz, but social media leaves you baffled—hire someone who can help you where help is needed, and take care of the things that align with your own personal strong suits so that you can focus on running a successful business.

Embrace diversity.

If you’re running a small business, the last thing you want is a team made up of cookie-cutter versions of yourself.

Branch out in your hiring. A small business depends heavily on the innovation and ideas of its employees—your employee team, while small, should be dynamic, able to bring new and exciting ideas to the table. You can facilitate diversity by using out-of-the-box hiring techniques to build the strongest team possible.

A small business’s greatest strength is in its flexibility. If your customers are asking for something, you’re in a better position than some of your big-business competitors to neatly shift your business’s focus to where it needs to be in order to capitalize. And your employees should be the type of people who can pick up on their customer’s needs and bring these needs to your attention in creative ways.

Foster an enthusiastic business culture.

Like many of my peers, I spent my early days of employment in the food service industry—and I gained a valuable education in what not to do for a successful business.

Management continually belittled the clientele during staff meetings, which lead to a terrible attitude among the servers and kitchen staff—and, ultimately, the restaurant going out of business. No one wants their food served by servers whose facial expressions and attitude show in no uncertain terms that they’d rather be anywhere else but here delivering your food to you.

During your interviews, pay attention to your potential hires’ level of enthusiasm—for your company, for the industry itself, for an opportunity to shine, for a chance to be involved, or for anything else. If you can build an enthusiastic team and leverage that enthusiasm to help your business succeed, you’ll be in about the best position you can be.

• Doing Business
• Comments (0)

When you’re a small business owner, to say that you have your hands full is an understatement. But study after study has shown that taking a vacation will, in the end, make you healthier (read: better able to work productively and consistently), and it’s important that you treat yourself like a human, not a machine.

Here are a few tips to help you rationalize your vacation. You deserve it!

Set your vacation responder.

It’s tempting to “forget” to do this, but it’s important.

There are two reasons small business owners tend not to set a vacation responder:

1. They don’t want to make people feel like they have to wait for a response.
2. They fully intend on checking in every day.

Of course, the logic here is flawed:

1. The world will not implode without you in your absence.
2. The whole point of a vacation is to be task-free for a few days.

The people likely to send you emails either need your direct attention, or they need immediate attention. Let them know when you’ll be back and ready to address their concerns, and give them the contact info of someone prepared to handle things in your absence. Nothing kills the magic of “getting away from it all” like giving yourself the extra pressure of needing to check in throughout the day.

Plan a good strategy for your absence.

With careful planning, you can minimize the degree to which your business depends on your every word. Sure, it feels great to be needed. But it feels even better to unplug and tune out—even though your ego might take a slight hit when you realize your team can get along without you for a few days.

Try this: instead of handing your cellphone number out willy-nilly and telling your team to contact you whenever they need to, if it’s really not possible to completely disconnect yourself, consider scheduling a fifteen-minute daily phone call—strictly for matters that absolutely require your input (nothing that can wait until your return). In most cases, that phone call might take only 30 seconds. (“Everything good? Alright? OK, keep up the good work!”)

Tell everyone about your trip.

Customers, vendors, employees, affiliates—anyone you might expect to try to contact you in the time that you’re gone, give them a call or send them an email alerting them to your vacation plans.

While many small business owners are hesitant to do this, thinking it sends the wrong message, this is a win-win-win situation: your customers and affiliates know what to expect, and they’re given ample opportunity to wrap up any immediate business with you; your team won’t be crushing anyone’s hopes and dreams of speaking with you immediately, thus avoiding potential frustration on the part of your customers; and you’ll be rewarded for your careful planning by a thinner inbox than you might have otherwise expected.

Empower your team.

If a typical workday finds you scurrying from one desk to the other authorizing every little discount your sales team offers and making all of the smaller decisions yourself, it’s possible that you’re shooting yourself in the foot in more ways than one. Not only are you creating work for yourself by giving yourself all of the responsibility, but you could be micromanaging your sales team right out of any genuine enthusiasm they might have for the job itself—and nothing sucks away sales like an unenthusiastic team!

If you’ve got great employees, trust them to make good decisions, both in your absence and when you are around. (And if you don’t, what are they doing there?) You’ll save yourself time making decisions, and your team will appreciate the vote of confidence and the opportunity to gain your approval by doing a great job all on their own!

Come back a day early.

Or, more accurately, tell everyone you’ll be gone for longer than you really are. This gives you an opportunity to get home, collect your bearings, and start digging through your inbox and memos without anyone expecting an immediate response. (The last thing you want at 9:00 a.m. on your first official day back in the office is to be bombarded with phone calls and voicemails from people expecting you to be available rightnow.)

While the workaholic in you may find vacations acceptable for other people, but not necessarily you, it’s important for you to give yourself these mental breaks. Think of it as a benefit, not a detriment, to your focus on your business: when you’re able to turn your mind off, you’re open to new ideas and fresh perspectives. You’ll likely come back to the office rejuvenated, refreshed, and more ready than ever to push your business forward.

So turn off that laptop, get your shades, and spend your vacation focusing on your family and loved ones. And try the fresh lobster—I hear it’s delicious!

• Doing Business
• Comments (0)

If you’re looking for funding for your small business, you know how important it is to have a solid business plan. But inspiring someone to invest in your startup—yes, even your friends and family—goes beyond good research and projections.

Very few people are going to just hand over money. Your business plan is your supporting document, and it definitely helps that your friends and family already respect you as a person, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have to actually ask someone for money. Here’s how.

Anticipate the questions, and have answers.

Expect your potential investors—professionals and family members alike—to poke and prod at your claims. What if your projections fail? What if your business partner flakes out? What if the world ends in 2012?

Play Devil’s Advocate with yourself and prepare yourself with good (and honest) answers to the questions your friends and family will undoubtedly ask before handing over the cash. Impressing them with your foresight is far more effective than fumbling around and saying you know, I hadn’t thought of that.

Be considerate of everyone’s financial situation.

Your business hopes and dreams are not necessarily your friends’. Give them your pitch, tell them that you’d appreciate their financial support, and tell them how that support will benefit your business and your investor. If your friend is loaded and has the money to spare, great. But if they’re not in the best financial situation themselves, they’re not going to be able to help you with yours.

Be respectful. If someone can’t help you, accept it and move on—you don’t want to be “that guy” who keeps pushing the issue, or you’ll suddenly find that your friends and family are bailing on lunch dates and screening your calls. Was it something I said?

Give them what they need to invest with confidence.

If you can show possible contributors a prototype you’ve created that they can hold in their hands, you’re much more likely to receive funding than if you try to sell them on an idea alone.

If you can show that you’ve put in the work and done what you can on your own, you’ll be proving that you have the dedication and perseverance to follow through with your business—much more confidence-inspiring than shopping around what might look to be a brand new idea that could easily be abandoned.

Explain how their support will help.

Be concrete. If you have enough money on your own to get your product off the line but you’re short on marketing funds, tell them this.

Think of a wedding registry. If you tell people you need money, that’s great, and people will support you. But if you tell people you’re going on a honeymoon and you’d like assistance with specific, itemized things (meals, spa services, travel expenses), people are more likely to help you fund those things. When your family knows exactly to what use you will be putting their generous contributions toward, it helps make the gift/loan more personal and a little easier to swallow.

 

The bottom line? Do your research, present a well-thought-out proposal, explain exactly how they can help—and then back off. And don’t let anyone give you what they can’t afford to give. Remember, there’s always Kickstarter.

• Start a Business
• Comments (0)