By Jason Chan: Ecommerce Entrepreneur & Strategist Expert// Learn how to crush your launch, get sales and grow from other online business owners
The podcast currently has 55 episodes available.
No one ever told me that you have to do all these things before you start your business... well you don't have to at first. Some people like to make a small investment, test their product with real customers and make some money to prove they have a viable business before incorporating.
When you are ready, I outlined my COMPLETE dummy proof process on how I got started. Even though these links are specific to California (where I live now), the steps and process to which you go about incorporating are typically the same, but please note that your state might have a different terminology for the same thing. For example, some states call the Articles of Incorporation, the Certificate of Formation. Also, different state office can be called something different, ie Secretary of State, State Department of Taxation or Corporation Commission. Before I start, read my disclaimer below.
Disclaimer: This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any action.
Check out this podcast where I interviewed Nellie Akalp from Corpnet where she shared some of her experience with incorporation.
Here is what I'm going over, step by step and the specific order you need to do them in because there are instances where you need to wait for one organization to approve and provide you an id before you can continue to the next.
If you have any questions on incorporating in the state of California, go to http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/contact. Every state should have their own Secretary of State website for you to find more information on entities and incorporating. If you need help, just give them a call and ask away, they are usually very helpful.
Search For Company Name, make sure it's not taken, https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/. You don't want to fill out all the paperwork to have it returned because you didn't take 2 minutes to make sure the name is not taken.
Prepare Articles of Organization with your Secretary of State. Based on your entity, you'll need to select the appropriate forms, http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/forms. Please note that when you speak to different state/city entities, the proper terms to use with a LLC is organization and forming. For corporations, it's called incorporating. Just a little FYI here to help facilitate your conversation. I confused the heck out of them when I say I want to incorporate a LLC.
Entities you can choose:
Click here for more entity and structure information from the IRS.
Since most small businesses start off as a single-member LLC, you will initially be classified as a disregarded entity for the purposes of filing a federal tax return.
After you receive your confirmation of your state registration letter, for LLC, you are required to keep your public record updated by filing (within 90 days of filing the Articles of Organization) a Statement of Information with the State of California Secretary of State. Here's a link to the LLC-12 form, http://bpd.cdn.sos.ca.gov/llc/forms/llc-12.pdf
One thing to note, you might have heard of Resident Agents (RA). The term registered agent or statutory agent is defined as any individual or business that is assigned to receive service of process during which such an individual or business is part of a summons, lawsuit or similar legal action. Also, some people uses an RA to add an additional layer of privacy to hide the owner information, but in my opinion, if you really want to know who owns a business, it's not that much harder to find.
**[Optional] File for a Fictitious Business Name (FBN) or Doing Business As (DBA)** statement is required when the business name does not include the surname of the individual owner(s) and each of the partners; or the business name suggests the existence of additional owners; or the nature of the business in not clearly evident by the name of the business.
If your business is already set up and you want to do business under a name other than your existing corporation or LLC name, you will need to register a DBA. Here's a clear example, if you own a couple of brands selling on Amazon and would like to keep them separate, you can have one incorporation/entity with two DBA's. Or you can always have two corporations, which would mean two separate books and returns at year end.
Registering your DBA is done either with your county clerk’s office or with your state government, depending on where your business is located. There are a few states that do not require the registering of fictitious business names.
If you need to FBN or DBA in San Diego, go to https://arcc.sdcounty.ca.gov/Pages/all-forms.aspx#fbn, otherwise, you can skip this step.
After receiving a written confirmation on registering your DBA, you'll need to put a newspaper publication. State laws generally require a business to publish a fictitious name statement to connect the business name and the owner. The statement allows consumers to get information about the owner of the company. The published notice must run at a certain frequency and for a number of weeks, 4-weeks in San Diego. This usually runs about $25 to $65. You can call around based on an approved list of publications included from the DBA registration.
Obtain EIN number from the Internal Revenue Service (Federal Tax Identification Number). ** This number is used to set up bank account and is your businesses id, just like a Social Security Number to a person.
Click here to get your EIN
Next thing is to get your **Seller's permit and/or resale certificate**. You have to wait for your LLC ID from Secretary of State before you can submit your application online.
What is the difference between a sellers permit and a resale certificate?
Seller's Permit - required for all persons selling tangible property. You will need this to sell your products, apply for your Seller's Permit by clicking here, http://www.boe.ca.gov/elecsrv/ereg/. Here are some additional information on Seller's Permit, http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/pub73.pdf. Again, you can check your states respectable organization to obtain your seller's permit.
Resale Certificate - called BOE230 General Resale Certificate in California. If you purchase tangible personal property for resale, the transaction is not subject to sales or use tax provided the sale is properly documented. As a result, your supplier will ask you to provide a resale certificate as proof that the property was purchased for resale. You normally get your Seller's Permit first then your Resale Certificate if you need one. You can fill out this form and provide it to your supplier upon request, http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/boe230.pdf.
Contact the California State Board of Equalization:
The jurisdiction where your home is located is likely to require a general business license. This license serves a two-fold purpose. First, licensing protects the residents of the city or county by identifying businesses operating in its jurisdiction.
Second, licensing raises revenue for the local government. For this reason, most general business licenses must be renewed annually. My local fee is about $20 a year.
California law requires all corporations and limited liability companies to update the records of the California Secretary of State either every year or every two years based on year of registration by filing a statement. Annual Report or Statement of Information (for CA) Click here http://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/statements and see which forms you need.
Obtain an EDD number from the Employment Development Department, which is required if you employ and pay anyone (including yourself). When you first start out, you might not immediately need this because you're probably not going to necessarily make a profit your first few months or year. Ask your CPA for advice on when to start filing.
So here you go, a complete "How to incorporate your business guide" for dummies. If you have any questions, please contact your lawyer and accountant and hopefully, you can find someone knowledgable in your area of focus.
See how Mark DiMuzio help co-found Vestige by using his contacts in wholesale with about a dozen graphic t-shirt designs and start selling to retail shops like Nordstrom and Bloomingdales.
Tweet this Listen to Mark DiMuzio as he shares his journey of realizing his graphic t-shirt apparel company, click to listen.
Sujan Patel is the co-founder of Web Profits, a growth marketing agency helping companies leverage the latest and greatest marketing strategy to fuel their businesses. Sujan has over 13 years of internet marketing experience and has led the digital marketing strategy for companies like Sales Force, Mint, Intuit and many other Fortune 500 caliber companies.
Check out these simple but valuable growth strategies for your Ecommerce business. If you're stuck or simply out of ideas to grow your online business, take a listen and try one of these now.
Tweet this Sujan Patel shares his Ecommerce growth hacks to grow your online business, click to listen.
Listen to our guest, Shaun Buck as he talks about why this method is the single easiest and most effective way to increase retention rates, increase referrals and instantly build long-lasting relationships with your clients.
Tweet this Shaun Buck shares his incredible offline strategy to using newsletters and direct mail, click to listen.
Strategy 1 for warm leads: Use an existing email campaign and follow up using direct mail to customers who did not buy
Strategy 2 for cold leads: Buy a list with both emails and address and run Facebook campaigns in parallel with your offline marketing so that they can see both ads. This will keep you top of mind and allow the users to take action.
Checkout Newsletterpro with this special link that introduces some strategies, tactics and download a copy of his book.
Listen to our guest, Shaun Buck as he talks about why this method is the single easiest and most effective way to increase retention rates, increase referrals and instantly build long-lasting relationships with your clients.
Tweet this Shaun Buck shares his incredible offline strategy to using newsletters and direct mail, click to listen.
Strategy 1 for warm leads: Use an existing email campaign and follow up using direct mail to customers who did not buy
Strategy 2 for cold leads: Buy a list with both emails and address and run Facebook campaigns in parallel with your offline marketing so that they can see both ads. This will keep you top of mind and allow the users to take action.
Checkout Newsletterpro with this special link that introduces some strategies, tactics and download a copy of his book.
Pat, if you can pick only one business model, knowing everything you know today to move forward with for the rest of your entrepreneur life, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Listen to what Pat says here...
Tweet this #patflynn on starting a passive income today. Click to listen http://podcast.estorecoaching.com/48 #ecommerce
Perfection stops people in their tracks.
Using Convertkit, Pat segmented his launch using these 3 types of audiences. By segmenting your audience, you can get specific and write emails that pertain to where the subscriber originated from.
What's stopping some people from starting their own business? Pat used the analogy of skydiving.
Just get started...
Laura Petersen has taken lessons learned from a successful tutoring and test prep company to grow her businesses in a new passion: podcasting. [And an old one too: writing!]
With Podtent Marketing, she helps mid-sized businesses with a high-touch, done-for-you service to launch a podcast and power a content marketing strategy. (PodtentMarketing.com)
She is the Executive Producer of Brandon T. Adams’ podcast Live to Grind, an award-winning, twice-weekly podcast for entrepreneurs. And his business partner in Accelerant Media Group that contains the Live to Grind brand under its umbrella as well as full-service branding, crowdfunding, and marketing for elite clients.
Her own podcast is called Copy That Pops and her #1 Amazon Best-Selling book Copywriting for Podcasters: How to Grow Your Podcast, Brand, and Business with Compelling Copy is available on Amazon (CopyThatPops.com/book).
She created an effective course to help solopreneurs and entrepreneurs with small teams to earn the “#1 Amazon Best-Seller” title without the need for an email list or marketing budget.
In addition to teaching, learning, and all things podcasting, Laura loves international travel (40 countries and counting!) with her husband and their dog Tuck, lots of garlic, and re-runs of the I.T. Crowd.
Tweet this @LaptopLaura shares her incredible Amazon Best Seller strategy on @eStoreCoaching podcast today!
Laura Petersen has taken lessons learned from a successful tutoring and test prep company to grow her businesses in a new passion: podcasting. [And an old one too: writing!]
With Podtent Marketing, she helps mid-sized businesses with a high-touch, done-for-you service to launch a podcast and power a content marketing strategy. (PodtentMarketing.com)
She is the Executive Producer of Brandon T. Adams’ podcast Live to Grind, an award-winning, twice-weekly podcast for entrepreneurs. And his business partner in Accelerant Media Group that contains the Live to Grind brand under its umbrella as well as full-service branding, crowdfunding, and marketing for elite clients.
Her own podcast is called Copy That Pops and her #1 Amazon Best-Selling book Copywriting for Podcasters: How to Grow Your Podcast, Brand, and Business with Compelling Copy is available on Amazon (CopyThatPops.com/book).
She created an effective course to help solopreneurs and entrepreneurs with small teams to earn the “#1 Amazon Best-Seller” title without the need for an email list or marketing budget.
In addition to teaching, learning, and all things podcasting, Laura loves international travel (40 countries and counting!) with her husband and their dog Tuck, lots of garlic, and re-runs of the I.T. Crowd.
Tweet this @LaptopLaura shares her incredible Amazon Best Seller strategy on @eStoreCoaching podcast today!
Ben is the Blog Manager at CoSchedule. His specialties include blogging, content strategy, SEO, social media, email marketing, and more. When he's not hard at work helping people create better content, he can be found playing bass guitar, drinking fine beer, and chasing his dog around the house.
Tweet this Ben Sailer shares the incredible Content Strategy that helped Coschedule build 180K. Click to listen.
As a single operating entrepreneur, you wear many hats and managing your time is always a challenge. Here's a simple process of you follow.
Here's a simple process of you follow.
Many times were under the impression that we must deliver long 4,000 to 5,000 word blog post that can take days to write and deliver. Instead of taking a deep dive, write 1,000 word post focusing on a specific topic or section of the bigger post and break that down into a series of post.
Use free or freemium image editing software to create the images and graphics for the post.
If you spend a lot of time and energy on your content, you need to repurpose your content. Don't write it and hope it will go viral. Write a simple introduction to the post to your list of subscribers and a link to your post for them to continue reading.
Here's the key to growing your subscribers - create a downloadable pdf or bundle of template specific to your post that people would want (just like I'm doing here, click here to download it) in exchange for their email, this is called gated content.
Some other stuff we created
How to decide on the type of resources and templates to create your gated material?
What type of material converts well, ie how to checklist, templates?
After AJ Wilcox began advertising on LinkedIn in 2011, he quickly discovered its powerful potential for business to business (B2B) advertisers. AJ was so passionate about the results he was seeing, he left his job to start B2Linked in 2014 and today's he shares his LinkedIn strategies so that you can get started!
Tweet this AJ Wilcox shares his incredible LinkedIn advertising strategy on eStoreCoaching podcast today! Click to listen.
Difference between LinkedIn vs. other social media ads?
Split testing between Linkedin vs Facebook on the same ads
How do you actually set up an account, do use your personal account or up a separate business account?
Discussed a basic LinkedIn advertising funnel for any beginners to start with.
What types of ads does LinkedIn support?
Can you drive traffic to your LI page, actually is there such thing as a business page similar to FB or is it only your personal profile?
LinkedIn tracking pixel
Retargeting ads
LinkedIn InMail ads
The podcast currently has 55 episodes available.