4 Minimum Requirements for your Business Startup

When you're starting your business, it's easy to get stuck in nonsense that doesn't really matter.

I meet people who create long lists of things they "need to do" when getting their business up and running, and i want to cut through the clutter.

I've started 2 super successful service businesses, and I've consulted hundreds on how to get going.

I'm gonna share with you the 4 minimum requirements for getting started so you can get unstuck, and head in the direction of sales, profits and momentum.

Movement creates momentum, and momentum is king

Entrepreneurship is quite different from a corporate job, you don't need meetings and working for the sake of working.

Time in, doesn't generate value.

You need to actually produce results in your business, and I'm going to tell you this right now, getting any movement is king.

What do I mean by momentum?

Momentum is created when you start to get sales, get meetings, create prospective, or find any amount of work.

I could drone on about this for a long time, but for now, I just want to encourage you to stop messing around in stuff that doesn't generate meetings, sales, or get work done.

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The first thing you've got to do is make sure that you register with the state and make an LLC. The LLC is for two things. One, you want to make sure that you get this limited liability, particularly so that people can't come after you for financial ruin. Usually your insurance is going to take care of that, but you do want to get an LLC set up, but it's not necessarily because you're going to protect yourself so much. Some industries have more risk than others, but this is so that you can open up an actual business checking account.

Step 1: Setting up your Business Bank Account

This is the first point that I want to bring up. After you have your LLC setup, the first and most basic thing that you need to do is make sure that you have all of your income from your business go into a separate business bank account, and then pay yourself over into your personal account or through a payroll system if you need to, only if you're an S-Corp.

Just put money all into one side. Have all your expenses that are for doing business, so your actual write offs that are legal, have those come out of that business bank account. And then when you need money, just transfer money over into your regular account and mark it as a transfer or a payment.

That's so important because when you commingle funds, you start making a mess of everything, but this is basically your accounting 101. You don't even necessarily need to get a complicated bookkeeping system, as long as you make sure that your income always goes into that separate business account. It is a business account.

Once you register as your LLC and you get that registration with the state, you can go down to a local bank and say, "Hey, I need a business bank account." And that's number one. So make sure you do that. It makes life really easy right off the bat.

And then you get a check card. So whenever you're going to pay for something for the business, just use that check card. The moment you start commingling back and forth, life gets much more complicated. So that's the first thing, is get your LLC with the state. Go register. And the reason why is so that you can get a real business bank account, which is the foundation of good accounting and making sure that you're going to be all right.

Step 2: Establishing an Online Footprint‍

‍The second thing I want you to do is I want you to make sure that you go in and get your Google My Business and facebook page setup, and then you need to start at least a basic website.

Websites and the basic social media footprint will help you land clients and begin building momentum for inbound marketing.

Without the website and the simple social media, people won't find you even if they hear about you.

We help businesses, small, medium, and large businesses set up great websites. Head to my website, feedbackwrench.com, and we can make sure that we give you a good, well thought out website.

People get sidetracked, so hear me out: Google My Business and your website are going to be the primary drivers of your digital marketing, and will serve as the best sales people for your entire organization if you do it right.

So if you're just getting started, make sure you go to google.com/business and get your Google My Business set up. You'll need to verify it and make that represent reality. Make sure that you put in your keywords, or your service that you actually provide. Another very important thing to remember is to make sure that your business name is identical between your website, your Google My Business, and your Facebook. Consistency is key here.

Once you get that basic setup, it's operation GET REVIEWS

Reviews Show Credibility & Trustworthiness

Now, if you're just getting started, the best way to get reviews may be that you get some of the people that you have helped in a  previous job or business to give you a review and that review might be more of a character review.

It could be reviews from people that trust you and are willing to say that you're a trustworthy person, because when you're first starting, that's really all you have.

You need to work diligently to get reviews, this is basically showing that you're credible & worthy of trust.

A review is someone willing to "vouch" for you essentially.

You need to follow up with every job you complete, and work to ask them and follow up with them, so they actually give you a review.

The best way to do that is to personally engage with them via text or a phone call, and then text and email them the link.

People are busy, and they don't really think about you much, so you need to make it personal and then actually ask them.

Yes, Facebook reviews are good too.

Bing places uses facebook reviews, and many businesses can THRIVE off of facebook.

Facebook reviews are good, and eventually you should use the facebook system in remarketing & advertising for various reasons, but make sure you consider getting reviews on facebook.

One of the main reasons why you should be getting facebook reviews is that Bing Places will actually aggregate reviews from facebook, and they basically don't pay attention to the Google reviews.  

Bing Places uses facebook reviews, and for windows users, they usually have NO idea they're using Bing rather than Google.

‍Step 3: QuickBooks Online and Intuit Payments

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The third thing that I would have you do is when you're first getting set up, I would go and set up QuickBooks Online and then I would hook up that business bank account to QuickBooks Online.

I would also set up Intuit payments to use as your billing system.

Using ACH Is Cheap and Easy for Payments

Remember Intuit is the company that makes QuickBooks. And what that'll do is give you the ability to accept ACH, or check payments for free, or credit card payments for pretty inexpensive.

People get so bent out of shape paying credit card fees. I understand it. I get it. But what you should get more excited about is making it easy for you to do more business.

When you get this Intuit payments set up, QuickBooks, means you send out an invoice and people can do an ACH. They can make the transfer right there. And that would be the major thing I would do. So hook up QuickBooks Online to that bank account, and then make sure that you just put things in the right bucket. You don't have to have a full fledged accountant right away, but if you keep track of things, you have all your income going into the one bank account and you use QuickBooks Online. And then I would do the Intuit Payments. That's a great payment vehicle. That's a phenomenal one. So accounting, Google My Business and Facebook with a website, get a website. I'm telling you it's more important than you think it is. And then get QuickBooks Online set up. That's really big.‍

‍Step 4: Consider becoming an S-Corp‍

‍‍Now the fourth one is, this is after you start going. If you're going to make more than $60,000 a year net, and you're going to continue to do this business for a long time moving forward, you're going to want to look at becoming an S-Corp. Now when you become an S-Corp, basically what you'll do is you'll file your LLC with the state and then you'll take some IRS paperwork and you'll go file as a corporation and become an official corporation. Here's why you want to look at that, is you will be able to reduce your Medicare and social security taxes drastically. Watch all my other videos on it, but it's a big deal. If you're just getting started out and you're not making very much money, that's one thing, but a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs, even if you're just getting started, they don't understand that you can save a ton in taxes.

And I would just add no matter what, remember that you have right now on your net, so when you're first getting started out, let's just say you made $100,000. Congratulations. That's a good first year. You're going to owe 15.3% on your net profits as your own social security payments.

So it's FICA, which is social security and Medicare. So you're going to owe 15.3%. That's right off the top. Then you pay your state and federal income taxes. So remember that you have those additional taxes. They can catch up with you if you're not careful. So make sure that you're saving that or paying those in. I would add as this fourth one, you want to look at being an S-Corp eventually, but make sure you're paying in those self-employment taxes.

A really easy way to do this is maybe sign up for Intuit Payroll. So Intuit also has a payroll that would connect to that. And then you can use the payroll system to basically file payroll for yourself. And what that'll do is it will ... If you're an S-Corp, you'll do this, not if you're an LLC. It's a good way to pay in your FICA taxes. So you might want to look at that if you're an S-Corp. If you're an LLC, I would call an accountant or pay your quarterlies. It's not that big of a deal.

So anyways, that's the first four steps, business bank account, get Facebook and Google set up, hook up QuickBooks Online, and then look at becoming an S-Corp if you're going to make more than about $50,000, $60,000, and then make sure you're paying those self-employment taxes.

Good luck, guys. If you need websites....and advertising. Boy, one of the wonders that we have out there is to use Google and Bing search ads to grab market share now. You can get market share almost immediately. That's incredibly powerful. We love doing that for businesses. And then we help you set up a marketing platform and a digital marketing platform that absolutely dominates. So, God bless, good luck. We'd love the opportunity to help you and have a good one.