Another Thing I Wish I Knew, Before Starting My Business

Another Thing I Wish I Knew, Before Starting My Business

by | Aug 23, 2020 | Business, Entrepreneurship

There are many lessons that business owners and entrepreneurs learn through their early, rookie mistakes. I’ve made many of my own mistakes. 

This first one, which I’m going to share with you, is kind of embarrassing for me. Perhaps you already know this, but I didn’t know it at the time. The physical address that we provide, when submitting our business’ articles of organization, becomes publicly available information.

Can you believe that I used my home mailing address?

When I realized it, it was already too late. It meant that anyone looking up my company, would know where I lived, until I corrected it with the secretary of state. I was certainly not happy about it. 

Below are other rookie mistakes I made.

  • I used my personal phone number on the application
  • I had to stop and restart the online application, because I didn’t already have a registered agent 
  • I allowed my business to operate with out its own operating agreement
  • I used my personal email address, instead of establishing a domain for my business
  • And on, and on, and on

You’re right, If you are thinking that establishing a business, must be done in a specific sequence. I wish I had an easy to read business-launch-guide, when I started. If you’re interested, I’ve created one that you can download. It’s free.

The guide includes a general sequence that you can follow. It includes solutions to some of my early oversights.

Lesson – You Have to Think About Your Privacy in Business, Before Your Even Start Your Business

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One Thing I Wish I Knew, Before Starting My First Business

One Thing I Wish I Knew, Before Starting My First Business

by | Aug 20, 2020 | Business, Entrepreneurship

I started my first business in March of 2016. I remember the long 12 to 15 hour days of hard work. I also remember the trials, and the errors. Although it might sound odd, I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot and still value those experiences. 

It didn’t take me long though to generate significant income. I managed to earn six figures in my first year of business. I can still remember how excited I felt about being able to produce income outside of a job.

Little did I know, that I was making a costly rookie mistake. One that would catch up with me soon.

So this is how I learned about my mistake. I had been in business one year. I usually grabbed my mail every day. However, in the spring of 2017, I was swamped with customers. I didn’t have the time to do simple things like get the mail. 

I allowed my business mail to accumulate for several days. So when I finally decided that it was time to get the mail, I was already anxious to go through it. As I went half way through it, I saw an envelop from the IRS! I tossed the rest of my mail on to the kitchen counter and quickly opened the IRS envelope.

I couldn’t believe it! I owed a few thousand dollars in penalties.

My immediate thought was, “Why did this happen?” Then my next thoughts was, “this must be a mistake!”

I called the number on the notice to find out more. I waited 47 minutes, before someone was finally able to help me. My call was routed to a rude agent having a bad day. She didn’t even seem like she wanted to be on the phone, or have her job for that matter. I wondered to myself how someone like that managed to keep their job.

Anyhow, I was told that I had failed to submit a quarterly form. Since I didn’t submit the form for each of the last 4 quarters, the penalty had accumulated over that time.

That was not cool! I was both frustrated and mad! There were no notices mailed to me, at all, the prior year. It was a painful lesson to learn.

Lesson – You Have to Hire Competent Professionals

Good professionals can save us more money than the money we pay them. For me, I quickly learned that I needed to actually have an accountant, an attorney, and a tax professional.

My primary goal was to identify which tax professionals, attorneys, and accountants were the best fit for my business!

The interview and hiring process turned out to be a good learning experience. 

Within each of those disciplines, there is a high degree of specialization. So, it’s critical to find the right professional. The right professional is someone who knows your business. They have clients like you. When you find the right professional, they can answer most of your questions, almost immediately.

However, in my case, the initial experience was frustrating. As I interviewed potential candidates, I learned that most were not a good fit for my business. Many of the early candidates couldn’t answer half of my questions.

I can remember thinking, “it’s okay if some of my questions need to be researched. But it’s not okay for someone to get back to me on most of my questions!” These were professionals who wanted to bill their time at hundreds of dollars per hour.

Because of where I lived and operated my business, it made the most sense for me to work with larger firms. They had sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge to provide me with the level of service my business needed.

For most business owners, it is really up to them to determine if its better to work with larger or smaller firms.

I hope that you don’t start your first business venture alone or without the support of a professional team that can help you avoid common rookie mistakes.

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