Business cards are the staple of most advertising work, and a good business card is a great way to get your name and business out to individuals in your community. The reason that business cards work so well on a local level is simply due to the fact that they are so personal in nature. They usually have your name, phone number, address and company logo, but the best part about your business card is that they closely connect to you. Either you personally gave the card to your prospective customer, or they received the card from a friend who has used your company and have been pleased with your services. That intimacy is incredibly valuable in finding people who will not only show up at your business, but who will also continue to do business with you. Another way to use business cards is to post them in popular local restaurants and retail establishments. Many communities treasure their home grown locations for food and entertainment, and seeing your business card connected to such establishments can be wonderful press. Local success is all about building relationships within the community, and business cards can help to accomplish that goal.

Another way to promote your business well on a local level is with post cards and brochures. On the surface, brochures are distant and impersonal, but a well-established brochure can function as an extension of a personal meeting with an individual. The key to using brochures well is found in the method of distribution. Leaving them in a plastic container at your receptionist’s desk is going to do little for you. Instead, find a way to get those brochures out into the community. The same goes for post cards.

A few good ways to get post cards and brochures out into the community would be to attend your town’s community day parade and have a company float that connects your business’ services to the intimacy of the town. Have employees, friends, and family walk around the float handing out brochures with candy attached for the children, and you will have created a great marketing attraction. Town events are an excellent way to get your name and face out into the community. However, if all you ever do at these events is talk about your business, you may gain a reputation as something of a self-promoter. Be sure to take some time to let your guard down and enjoy the festivities. Do not just be a distant business person who sits aside watching the community while trying to get money from them. Become part of what is going on around you. Personal involvement in the community can become some of the best publicity.

A way to enhance your involvement in the local business community is by getting involved in your town’s chamber of commerce. The chamber of commerce, to an extent, has its finger on the pulse of the town’s economic activity. Becoming personally involved in the work that is done by your local chamber is a great way to establish yourself as trustworthy and credible. It also will help you stay up to date with what is going one with other businesses in the community. Using the chamber of commerce to your advantage can be invaluable to a small, local business owner.

While doing all of this to develop relationships out in the community, you need to also maintain the utmost in professionalism back at the office. Spend the money for customized stationary. A letter with your company’s letterhead on it looks a lot better than one on regular printing paper. Make sure you have a high quality sign printed at the front of your building as well. It is easy as a small business to neglect these kinds of details because the budget is usually limited. If your business does not give the impression of a well established, well financed operation, customers will usually stay away. Finding the right combination between professionalism at the office and intimacy in the community will help your small business flourish in the local sphere.

Establishing local roots for a company can be a daunting task. With the internet providing such easy access to consumers everywhere, it can be very challenging to show the people around you why they should stay close to home. In order to get them to notice that you are offering products and services that are significant, it is important to reach out to them on a personal, relational level, while also staying professional. Using business cards, brochures, and post cards well is a great way to establish you and your business as a part of the local community. At the office, using custom stationary and other custom printing will allow you to give the appearance of a professional institution. Maintaining both ideals is a great way to find your niche with local consumers.

About The Author

Nick Kakolowski is a freelance writer who writes about business and networking, often describing is specific aspect of networking such as utilizing business cards .

It is every American’s dream. To own and operate their own business, to be their own boss, to be in charge of their life! Every new business is started by someone who gets an ‘entrepreneurial seizure’. That is, they believe they have an idea for a service or product that is better than, faster than and of better quality than what some others can do. In a fury, they quit a job and start their own business haphazardly and end up getting in a jam because they didn’t follow the natural order of beginning their own business. This article will explore what those steps are, and how, if they are done correctly will greatly benefit the one taking them.

•I. Check your State’s Business Website for possible conflicts in naming your business.

When you choose a name for your business it should be unique, and yet say something about what you do. Some have chosen the route of using humor to get their point across. “The System’s Down” for a computer repair business, “He’s Not Here” for a bar infamous for refusing to tell wives where their husbands’ are. What you don’t want to do is give your business the same or almost the same name as another company. Check the local sites and make sure you can legally use the name you choose.

•II. Get your EIN number.

It’s as easy as logging on to the IRS.gov website and filling out the online form to receive your EIN instantly, don’t check the box to wait for it to come in the mail, you want to get started ASAP, so make sure you get the number and print the page it appears on. You will need that number before you finish any of the next steps.

•III. Incorporate your business. (What forms you will need.)

In order to incorporate correctly, a lot of people have used online help. It’s not cheap, but it is far cheaper than the possibility of making a mistake and having to dissolve a new corporation and begin again. Unless you have done this before, you can leave it to the experts and skip a few of the next steps entirely. The next question is what kind of incorporation do you need? You have two choices for an incorporated business. There is the S-Corp, by far, the most popular option because of the taxation advantages. And then there is the C-Corp, which does have its own advantages which the double taxation drawback can sometimes more than makes up for. The other option is not incorporating at all and sticking with either a sole proprietorship or partnership. Both are easier to deal with at year end and cheaper to get taxes prepared but can leave the business owner open to getting personal property taken if there were a bankruptcy or lawsuit. In my humble opinion, the form of business with the most headaches is a partnership and the best form is the S-Corp. But that’s just my opinion.

•IV. Create your Article’s of Incorporation.

The cheap way to do this is to cut and paste another corporations’ Article’s of Incorporation and replace their name with yours. You can do this legally, but as I am not a lawyer, I would take the safe road mentioned previously and get an expert to do it for me.

•V. Create your company’s Charter.

Let’s face it; before I started my own business, I wasn’t sure what someone would be looking for in a Charter. It basically spells out the days for board meetings and who will succeed who should there ever be a vacancy. Again, I would prefer to put something like this in the hands of someone who does it regularly as they will know who to ask what and put it together for you professionally. A lot of online services have popped up; make sure you deal with a reliable one if you go that route.

•VI. Open your business bank account.

his is the step that most people START with. Then they learn that the business name they chose is taken, or that now they are incorporated, they need a different kind of bank account. The most important thing to remember with the business bank account is that it is supposed to forever be separate from your personal accounts. This is to protect the corporate veil, i.e. that layer of protection afforded to you in a potential lawsuit.

•VII. Register with the state to pay for unemployment taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Each state will have its own site to pay taxes online, in Florida; before you register you are given a brief quiz about the kind of collecting you will do in your business. Are there vending machines involved or fuel subsidies? Etc. Most businesses will only have to worry about the SUTA or State Unemployment Tax. Paying online is important as the states are usually stricter than the federal in collections. Fines and penalties are what build a lot of bridges in this state.

•VIII. Register with EFTPS to pay payroll taxes online.

Every pay day you have, you must set aside half of your employees’ payroll taxes out of your account and half deducted from your employee’s pay, along with the Federal Withholding. Using the online payment option at the EFTPS site means you won’t have to be sending checks that could get lost or late. Register now even if you don’t have employees yet and get your internet passwords written down.

•IX. Build your company’s website.

These days a company without a website is not a company. Simply put, if you cannot point potential customers to a site featuring your work and some information about your business, those potential customers will go elsewhere. The internet today is what the Yellow Pages were 20 years ago. Often, if you get email, your internet provider will give you internet space for free. For example, EarthLink will give you a certain amount of space for free, and using the Trellis builder allows you to build, change, and update your site easily. Go to a hosting site, such as Go Daddy and pay for a redirect to your email free site. (Don’t pay for the hosting, just the redirect!)

•X. READ articles on promoting your site through QuickBooks, Google, and Yahoo search engines.

I don’t know about you but my Yellow pages books are under my old couch, holding it up where the legs are uneven. When people are looking for services today, they use Google, Yahoo, or Craigslist. A lot of advertising can be done through your QuickBooks software by clicking on the Google Marketing Tools icon. Read all you can about successful people using these sites. It is not necessary to pay for a pay per click campaign when you use some FREE common sense steps to market your business to your clientele.

•XI. Start your marketing campaign. (Business cards, postcards, etc)

If you are struggling to put together the green after paying to incorporate, etc you may not exactly have the ability to market your business with essentials. (Business Cards, Post Cards, Brochures, etc.) All of these can be found for reasonable prices online, I use Vistaprint as the specials they have with 250 free cards, 500 free postcards, etc have filled out my marketing ammo for nothing but shipping. I prefer not to use the Office big box stores as they don’t sell quantities less than 5000 and I took a while to find a professional design that worked for me, you will too, don’t worry about that.

•XII. Build your clientele.

Remember that if you are following this step by step, you are still gainfully employed somewhere. You have to build a clientele slowly, possibly spending your first year as a part time corporate president, until you have enough regular clientele that you can comfortably ease up on your day job. Your clientele are more than just a source of immediate income, they have friends, relatives and neighbors that you don’t have. So on to the next step.

•XIII. Ask your satisfied clientele for referrals.

A satisfied client can gloat on you; just make sure that you deliver the goods when they do. Then, you have two satisfied clients. Ask them to fill out referral forms so you can tap into their market and do the same for them as well.

•XIV. Finally, as soon as the money is rolling in regularly quit your day job.

You didn’t start this business thinking that you want two jobs forever. As soon as you can pay your bills comfortably, and perhaps have somewhat of a surplus in your business account, fire your boss! Use the spare time you have now to promote your business and its’ services with the following tips.

•1. Join a local chamber of commerce. – My membership at the Kissimmee chamber has paid for itself a hundredfold and more. Become an active participant and join a leads group. You will get more clients out of the relationships you make than you will in making a hundred sales pitches.

•2. Join a BNI – like a chamber of commerce, just less formal.

•3. Volunteer time (or services) at the local YMCA; sponsor a team with shirts or equipment.

•4. Spend that extra time you have with family, because as busy as you may get, you want to have the joy of watching your kids grow. And if you don’t have any kids, spend that extra time in making yourself more successful by taking time OUT of business and reinvigorating yourself. Take classes, go to seminars and LEARN!

Conclusion

Success is not a goal for the future. It is a journey, doing something you love doing and getting paid for it. I’ve met many a wealthy person who would trade it all to take that risk they never took and enjoy their lives and work all the more. Good luck all of you.

About The Author

Homesoon Accounting, ten years experience in tax prep, bookkeeping and fraud prevention, located in Kissimmee and servicing St. Cloud and Orlando areas. Call David Roberts for help in Quickbooks, tax preparation or fraud prevention at 407-968-5241

At the chamber show there were booths ranging from home improvement to local banks. There were SEO companies, restaurants, technology based companies, and cell phone companies. All there with the same purpose and for the most part the same strategy of networking.

From my study of the folks at the show here is how it works and why it works. First of all, everyone there for the most part was a member of the Chamber and they all had a booth. Second, each booth would send sales people out to go around to other booths and repeat a pretty simple pitch.

“Hi Marty”, (everyone had name tags), “What do you and your company do?”

That’s it! With that simple question people would share what they do and why they do it. Then the wandering rep would just have to decide if THEY could help that booth with their business. I couldn’t believe it! I would think that your booth was set up to draw business while in reality the booth was just a place for others to pitch their service to you!

While wandering myself I spoke with a few local companies that perform SEO services and web services more or less to see what others in my industry where up to but I noticed the real use of the selling to booth strategy when I walked up to a booth that stages homes before sale.

As a strategic person I understand the importance of staging a home and I am planning on selling my house in the next 5 years so I approached the TBJ Home Staging Impressions booth. As I chatted with Gayle she told me that this is a new adventure for her and that she was having a website created as we speak. CHA-CHING! Now she was talking my language and I knew how I could help her. I explained that I am into that type of work and that I offer web hosting all the while I grabbed one of her business cards and slipped it into my wallet right next to my own business card which I handed to her.

Now, I might not hear from Gayle about hosting but the importance of networking is still there. I may need to stage my house and I only know one person who does that and she may need to host her site still, where I am sure I will be fresh on her mind.

Think of networking like lottery tickets. The more tickets you pick up the greater chance you will have of winning! Even though the chance is minimal, the reward is worth it.

Join online social groups, go to shows and conferences, and talk to anyone that will listen. You’re only helping your business when you do!

About The Author

DJL has offered web solutions for a number of years that include everything from printing to programming. In 2007 DJL shifted their main focus into web hosting and hosting education to teach others the in’s and out’s of an ever changing industry.

http://www.djlsolution.com -   http://www.how-2-host.com