The Ms. CEO Show

Dear Ms.CEO,

This has been a year of accomplishments for me. In the world of academia I completed my Masters Degree in Human Resources Management—and professionally, I completed my employer’s leadership/management program facilitated by a local university.  Now I am ready for another venture in my life.  I have talked in the past about starting my own company.  I would like to combine my law enforcement expertise with my HR background by starting a niche staffing company.
 
I need insight on how I can get started with a venture such as this.  I know I would probably start at home but what should I do first?  Thanks for any insight you can give.

Lisa
Atlanta, GA
12/23/08
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Dear Lisa,

Woooo! Congratulations on aggressively pursuing your goals, I love it! And you have the energy of the Energizer bunny because after all that you have already accomplished, you are ready to jump right in with a new business. Great! You are creating momentum and that will serve you well as you get your new venture off the ground. This is what it’s all about and this is why Ms.CEO exists!

I’ll share with you the first five things you should do and then you can always email for more insight. I have found this to be a less overwhelming approach than trying to give you a list of 20 things, for example, that you should do (smile)!  (By the way, you are exactly right to operate from home—low overhead!)

So, first five things:

1. Write a business plan and write it yourself.  I once hired a company to write a business plan for me.  That was a distrastous waste of money.  Hiring someone to read and carefully edit your business plan once you’ve put it together is fine but definitely write a business plan and definitely write it yourself.  This will help you get crystal clear about the size of your market (i.e. the number of customers available to you) and how you are going to roll out your company.  And please note the word “how”.  The most important parts of your business plan will be your sales and marketing section (what you are going to do to let potential customers know you exist and how you are going to make money from them once they know about you) and your business finances.  The U.S. Small Business Administration offers great tools to help you get this done. 
2. Form a legal business entity through your Secretary of State’s Office.  In your case, it’s the Georgia Secretary of State and you can file online for $100.
3. Next, get your Employer Identification Number from the IRS, which you can file online at no cost; and then open a business bank account, which you can usually open with $100 or less. 
4. Next, get a website address for less than $10 per year through 1and1.com, godaddy.com, or Register.com.  As far as the design, you can find someone to create a simple and clean design for you at the price you would like to pay on talent marketplaces like Guru, Elance, and ODesk, where you post your project and freelance professionals bid to do the work within the price range that you set.  A word of caution: Keep your website simple.  Avoid flash and all the bells and whistles.  Search engines like Google don’t read flash and usability tests have shown that web surfers actually prefer clean looking sites with crisp simple photos and well written content more than they care about your site looking like a blockbuster movie trailer.  You should also definitely post a profile for your business on LinkedIn, which is an accepted social networking tool for professionals and entrepreneurs.
5. Last but not least, order business cards, start marketing and go make money!  This is an important step but do you know it’s one that many entrepreneurs never take?  Many entrepreneurs spend a lot of time “getting ready to get ready”.  In other words, ordering supplies for their business.  Ordering print materials.  And doing alot of other things that may be helpful but that are not critically important.  To get money rolling into your business all you need is a way for people to contact you (phone and email) and you need as many people as possible in your target market (the people who would buy your service) to know about you. 

Take these five steps and you’ll be well on your way!  Drop us a line if you need more help and let me know how it’s going. 

Oh yeah, here’s a bonus step, go join the Make Mine A Million $ Business RACE where you can get help to build your business to a specific goal (all the way up to $1,000,000) and get a chance to win $100,000 and other great prizes!

Best to you,
Felicia Joy
A Business Woman’s Best Friend