Step 1
From the Secretary of State to your merchant account, we have developed the roadmap to what's missing
We have created a step-by-step roadmap that can help you become fully fundable, even ahead of your established competitors. Our map starts by guiding you to check the information provided by your state’s Secretary of State office. We then provide a logical progression to help you establish all the necessary components for a fully fundable business. We have listed our favorite solutions, some of which are affiliate links. These links do not cost you anything extra, but they do reward us for sharing the great solutions we have found. Once you complete all the steps, you will be fully prepared to build business credit with the best of them. If you already have a solution in place for a particular step, you’re good to go. If you have questions about the quality of a solution, click here for guidance.
Step 2
Don’t run your business from a home address
Next, we can talk about address. Once you have your Business Name from the Secretary of State from the state that you have set up shop in, where will your shop be located? Your house or a P.O. Box is NOT the answer. You need something with a dedicated meeting space, a lobby, and original address (Suite numbers can work) Even a virtual office with the right setup can work – check out Alliance if you need a separate address to operate from.
Step 3
LLC Formation to establish an EIN #
You may have used the letters LLC in your name with the Secretary of State but now you need to make it official with the IRS. This is the part that sets up your EIN #. You do NOT need to pay anyone to do this for you. You can definitely do it yourself…but do you trust yourself to get it right on your own? NOLO can be used for –
Starting and Running Your Business, Employment and HR, Intellectual Property, Non-Profit, Debt and Credit Repair, and Willmaker.com to round out the legal startup without the huge costs!
Step 4
Get your office working together with IP phones
Web hosting can be the glue that holds all the pieces together or the thing that makes you hate coming to work every day. Best to get this right the first time with Turnkey Internet. They have a 99.99% uptime guarantee, automatic backup, and 24/7 customer support to make sure your data is never left in the dark.
Reach out to them by clicking on the link but not before you touch base with Step 6.
Step 5
IT framework needs to be established and mapped
Okay, you are setup and have an EIN – you are probably ready to take calls! But wait, does the Secretary of State need my phone number? Address, yes (you need to make sure that all this info matches everywhere) but phone can be established now without a lot of backtracking. Phone.com does a good job of giving you all of the things you need without costing too much or giving you a bunch of extras that your small business will never use. Easy setup too.
Step 6
Number one resource we know to personalize your IT
Tyler’s Computers has been instrumental in several phases of our business. Phone implementation, website build, all the way down to our email signatures…this guy takes care of it all remotely for us to save money but still gets us the expertise.
He can also make sure the virus and malware stuff that you think your software is keeping away from your computer locked up and you will never need to have that freak out moment. Let me know personally if you have any other questions… this is not an affiliate link rather Tyler has become a personal friend of the family.
Step 7
Get your Domain, Website, and branded Email right here
GoDaddy knocks out quite a few criteria all in one feld swoop – typically for less! These guys have $9.99 .coms, step-by-step website builders, and will make sure that your email is @yourwebsite.com.
This is an easy way to do it so that doesn’t cost a lot to pull off. Make sure your business.com is available early on and secure it here at this point.
Step 8
Keep your income accessible and pay your bills quickly
We will have a little more back office to do in a minute but how are you gonna make all of that money without a way to receive it. That merchant processor needs to be accessible and work hard to provide options that can keep your cost to do business down to a bare minimum. Kastenberry does that for you. We have great contacts there and they will have all the great ways that we do to make sure you get the sales income you have created in a timeline that works for you. Very helpful to be able to pay the bills on time.
Step 9
Track everything and find the customers you can work best with
Ok guys – all of the previous stuff is crazy important and really in that order so you don’t have to keep going back and forth fixing things to stay fundable along the way. However, a functional CRM is vital to keeping all of your info straight and the fortune is in the follow-up.
Close allows you to maintain client records, calendar sync, email sync, schedule follow-up reminders and track read correspondence so you can casually check in on them later that day. Close will help you win the marginal customers when you could have easily lost them in the chaos. And will not cost you $14,000 a year per seat like some of the others!
Step 10
A little data entry now makes tax time a whole lot nicer
You have for sure heard of the next suggestion but when you are first starting out – you do not need to hire a bookkeeper and you do not have enough transactions to be bookkept. Let’s consider QuickBooks as the starter for bridging the gap between the beginning and needing a full time office staff to cover internal accounting. It could not be easier to operate and your accountant will thank you at the end of the year as well.
Step 11
A little data entry now makes tax time a whole lot nicer
Now, we are getting to more of the fun stuff but this element can be so nebulous and a huge funds waster if you do not know what you are doing. Just like most of you do not know inherently how to build business credit, there are too many options for marketing and advertising. From the local T-ball team to huge billboard ads, what is best for you?
The team at Socialise Digital can break down exactly what you should be doing, help you develop it, and implement it for you as well.
Step 12
Be protected to keep this budding asset entact
Not near as much fun but there is a definite buzz about business insurance. I have a few connections and contacts that can get this policy out to you as a business owner fairly quickly if you don’t have one. Keep these things in mind – when you pick your own price, you cut insurance away from yourself to get to that price. Make sure you are working with an agent that asks you questions about your business that makes you think about your liability needs…not a cookie cutter policy because in the end you could be very sorry for saving $20. Enter your info in the form and choose business insurance and we can let you know who to work with.
Step 13
Print it and ship it all in one place – massively convenient
Not near as much fun but there is a definite buzz about business insurance. I have a few connections and contacts that can get this policy out to you as a business owner fairly quickly if you don’t have one. Keep these things in mind – when you pick your own price, you cut insurance away from yourself to get to that price. Make sure you are working with an agent that asks you questions about your business that makes you think about your liability needs…not a cookie cutter policy because in the end you could be very sorry for saving $20. Enter your info in the form and choose business insurance and we can let you know who to work with.
Step 14
Stay in the office and get more done with these guys
Not near as much fun but there is a definite buzz about business insurance. I have a few connections and contacts that can get this policy out to you as a business owner fairly quickly if you don’t have one. Keep these things in mind – when you pick your own price, you cut insurance away from yourself to get to that price. Make sure you are working with an agent that asks you questions about your business that makes you think about your liability needs…not a cookie cutter policy because in the end you could be very sorry for saving $20. Enter your info in the form and choose business insurance and we can let you know who to work with.
Step 15
Having an up-to-speed workforce doesn’t have to be a pain
You have a majority of the bigger points taken care of for fundability to this point but having great education for your business is never a bad thing. 360 Training has many business classes and coursework to supplement the training manuals that are specific to you. Safety, Respectful Workplace, and Manager Training are classes that every business can benefit from and follow up testing to ensure you have a knowledgeable staff.
Step 16
Have travel or additional travel insurance for the unknown
Again, we are getting past the necessities of your setup, but having the proper insurance when your employees travel and move around could end up saving the company before you even really get started. Great for digital nomads, remote workers & frequent travelers. Safety Wing creates mini policies for the times when needed instead of all the time out-of-pocket expensive. Take a look and see if this could work for your travelling sales folks.
Step 17
Let these guys recover for you so you can keep working
Business to business debt needs to be handled professionally and assertively to have success. Cash flow problems, not answering the phone, leaving the same message with accounts payable, and a plethora of other excuses as to why they haven’t paid are all common with all industries.
Step 18
Spending less on tech where you can could make all the difference in the world
The electronics in your office and how that tech works together could be huge delays in your workday if you do not have a great plan and the right IT cat & software like outlined above. The hardware is important as well, and here are three great solutions that I like to order my electronic hardware pieces so I can still compare prices while knowing that shipping and delivery will still be sound.
Step 19
Keep your calendar accessible and promotable with simplybook.me
These next three are all correlated around the idea of getting together. The first is a solid calendar solution to make sure you are setting and maintaining attendance at internal meetings, and more importantly, sales meetings to create income. SimplyBook.me is an excellent one that can integrate with the Close CRM that I mentioned earlier. But who can remember everything that gets talked about in an office meeting?
Step 20
Smartest member of the team in that meeting
Sembly AI not only can remember it all – it can type it all out, send it to all of the team members and get it ready to divide up into tasks for the crew. Super specific software but not letting meeting items slips through the cracks can keep the office running much more efficiently. Now, how to get more contacts and connection when we are networking.
Step 21
Get-Card is an easy way to get contacts all of your info fast
While at the networking meetings, you could hand out the cards that FedEx Office made for you OR you could use some cool tech to impress the kids. Get-Card has these awesome keyfob business card profiles that merely need to touch the back of the other persons phone. My personal one is https://card.get-card.com/john-norton and yeah, you can email it too.
Step 22
You will need signage and these guys are great plus save some coin
Are you going to need signs? Yes. Are you going to need banners? Yes. Are you going to need magnets? Maybe but these guys can do that too. Most of the time I would hold back ordering signs for fear that they would not have the impact and I would have wasted my money but I do not have that fear any longer. Get the sign, make the event better or more well attended, and enjoy the savings with Signs on the Cheap!
Step 23
Let someone else give that task a try so you can make money
And finally, what do you do when everyone lets you down at the office and you just need some help? Turn to some freelance help. Fiverr is a very good resource as long as you keep to the folks with a large number of 5 star reviews and the folks with multiple return customers. Also, make sure there is an offer of unlimited revisions to make sure that you come away with quality work in the end.
No more steps...
Everything else from here on out is really just a bonus of programs that I appreciate
Park N Fly can cut your time and effort down at your next terminal
Park N Fly is a convenient and inexpensive resource to be able to pay for all of the company’s travel parking (and ease to terminal) for all of your employees so there is no need for reimbursement or chasing down receipts. You will be glad you checked this one out if your employees move around the country/world for work.
Save time and money at your next destination with this
While the employees (or you) are in the major cities, utilizing the spare time you have to have some fun is difficult to organize and can get expensive quick. The Sightseeing Pass is a great way to help plan those quick trips and an even better way to save money on the excursions. What an awesome way to show your employees that they are valued or to reward yourself for doing such a great job building this infrastructure the right way.
Just read the caption. One of the best discount programs out there.
But where will you eat? While I’m sure you would figure it out before you expired, the main purpose of this post is to try and save you money (and your employees too) when the crew is out and about.
Being able to get big discounts on restaurants around the world is another awesome perk to be able to offer your employees while you save money on expenditures as well.
1800Florals to brighten up the office
Gift giving in a corporate setting sounds like a very easy thing to do. Have an event or a thank you to put out, figure out what would be the right gesture, find the time to run out and get it (or order it), etc, etc.
You know as well as I do that it just never goes like you want, the gesture misses the mark because it was late or never happened or worse…inappropriate. Could just be a waste of money in the end.
The wine basket gift can really say you are thinking of them
That is why I have several choices at my disposal so I can get the right gift, at the right time, for the right person. These sites do not cost a thing to make an account now so when the time comes – it is two clicks and you can keep moving with producing more income versus finding a gift that will simply do.
Hard to go wrong with a gift from here for your favorite golfer
