Archive for the ‘Getting Started’ Category

What do you think of…Inc.?

One of the first and most important legal steps you’ll need to take in setting up your small business is choosing the business structure you want.

There are three main legally recognized businesses:

1. A sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business owned and operated by one individual, under his or her name or a trade name, and where there’s no legal distinction between the owner and the business. That means all assets are owned and debts must be paid by the individual. A sole proprietorship is the easiest kind of business to set up; the owner has full decision-making power, keeps all profits from the business and pays only personal taxes, not corporate taxes.

2. A partnership is similar to a proprietorship, though more than one person shares control of the business. Again, all assets are owned and all personal taxes and debts are paid by the individual partners who, together, have full decision-making power. A partnership can be easy to set up but like a sole proprietorship, partners can be exposed to high levels of personal liability if financial problems arise.

3. A corporation offers the most safety from liability because it exists as a legally separate entity from the people who own shares in it. Incorporation also ensures the business can continue to operate if any members of the business leave.

STAPLES and CorporationCentre.ca, which has registered over 10,000 businesses since 2001, make it easy and affordable to register your sole proprietorship or partnership or incorporate your business online.

Questions? You can learn more here about which type of business makes the most sense for you – or send us your questions. We’ll do our best to answer them.

Which type of business makes the most sense to you?

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on March 8th, 2010

Business, business structure, business/finance, choosing the right business structure, Corporation, Partnerships, setting up your small business, Small business, Sole proprietorship, Staples Canada, Types of companies

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Your business plan: excelling at the executive summary.

In a recent post, I gave you a rundown of the five most common types of business plans you might be called upon to write.

The shortest plan – the executive summary – is sometimes all that investors use to evaluate whether they’re interested in your company. Sometimes it’s a stand-alone document, but more often than not, it’s a short introduction or synopsis to a larger business plan. Don’t let its position at the front or its length fool you. An executive summary has been likened to a movie trailer: it may not give your audience the whole story, but it better have enough to catch their attention and get them to pay for the full-length feature.

Entrepreneur magazine suggests your executive summary be no longer than one page. If it’s longer:

“…nobody’s going to read it because it’ll be very clear … the principals are indecisive and don’t really know what they want.”

And the summary should clearly convey to the reader – in other words, the investor – exactly what you’re looking for:

“This is very important. All too often, what the business owner desires is buried on page eight. Clearly state what you’re asking for…”

The five key elements to writing an executive summary are:

1. What’s the business concept? Describe exactly what will be sold, who your target is and why your business will have a competitive advantage.

2. What are the financial features? Highlight sales, profit, cash flow and ROI details.

3. What do you want? Outline the capital you’re looking for to start or expand your business and what equity you may be providing for funding.

4. Who’s in charge? Provide information about when your company started and who the owners and other team members are.

5. What have you done lately? Offer up any details about recent achievements like patents or prototypes, test-marketing results, as well as any contracts for product development that investors might want to know about.

Click here for examples of some useful executive summaries.

Unsure about what information to include in the summary? Send us your question!

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on March 1st, 2010

Business plan, business/finance, executive summary, writing an executive plan

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Top Seven Business Tips for Women Entrepreneurs

By Jan Marie Dore

Canada is a global leader in women’s entrepreneurship. More women are starting small businesses than ever before. In the past ten years, the number of self-employed women in Canada has grown by more than twenty percent. Female entrepreneurial activity is higher in Canada than in many other leading countries, including Germany, France, U.K., Italy and Japan, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2005).

Over the past fourteen years, I have worked with hundreds of women entrepreneurs as their business coach. I’ve noticed that many women small business owners experience similar challenges in growing and running their businesses, such as feeling overwhelmed and isolated, having difficulty keeping focused and productive, not enrolling enough support, and not planning for growth.

I’m often asked what my best business tips are for small business owners. I’ve compiled a list of my top seven tips for women entrepreneurs. Here’s a summary of my best advice for any woman running a small business:

1. Focus on your strengths

There’s an old saying – ‘Do what you do best and delegate the rest.’ Know what your top strengths are. Delegate or drop anything that you’re not exceptionally skilled at, and focus at least 80% of your time on using your key strengths and talents that bring you income.

2. Put yourself first

Your growing business needs a lot of time and attention. Many women in business put themselves third or fourth on their list of priorities. Put you and your business first and everything else will fall into place.

3. Learn to say ‘no’

I often ask women who have started a business to drop at least 25% of their time commitments when we start working together. Most women are too over-committed with non-business related activities. Be strategic about what you say yes to, especially in the first few years of your business. Guard your precious time as the valuable asset that it is.

4. Plan for success

Lack of planning causes more businesses to fail than anything else. Planning is very valuable because it causes you to think ahead to your vision and to consider next steps to reach your goals. You can create a simple one or two page business and marketing plan that outlines your business objectives and how you will achieve them. It doesn’t have to be complex or time consuming to do this.

5. Ask for support

Don’t try to figure it all out by yourself. Notice where you are stuck and could use some help, and ask for it. Ask colleagues or others who have been in business and could mentor you, hire a business coach, or form your own mastermind support team. Get peer support as well as administrative support.

6. Delegate or drop your weaknesses

Get clear on what you don’t enjoy doing or don’t do very well. Either stop trying to do it, or find someone who will do it for you. A perfect example is bookkeeping. Many business owners struggle to keep their own books and records. If you dislike it, give it to someone else to do, and free up your time to earn money doing what you do best.

7. Keep an eye on the bottom line

You don’t need to have complex financial statements, but setting targets and tracking some key indicators every month will help you understand how you are doing. You‘ll know sooner what’s working and what’s not working so that you can make strategic adjustments.

Implement at least three of these tips, and watch your business start to thrive!

Jan Marie Dore, MCC, is the Founder of Femalepreneurs.com, an online learning center for women worldwide who want to create a more profitable business and live a great life. Jan is an authority on small business whose passion is inspiring women to new levels of success and fulfillment through her coaching programs, teleseminars, workshops and retreats. She has made it her mission to teach women simple, effective marketing strategies to attract more customers and grow their profits substantially with much less effort.

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on February 11th, 2010

business coach, Business ethics, business tips, Femalepreneurs.com, Jan Marie Dore, self-employed, Small business, tips for women entrepreneurs, Women Entrepreneurs

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Security and the Small Business

By Jeff Williams

I get asked a lot about Security. Every day we hear stories about viruses, stolen data and private info getting in the wrong hands. All this tech-talk can make our new world seem like a very unsafe place….and in fact it is. Your security is a very big topic, but I broke some of it down to help simplify it and provide you with a quick overview.

Most people have an anti-virus program on their computer. McAfee Antivirus or Symantec/Norton Antivirus are two popular options. If you don’t have an antivirus program on your computer it is most likely already infected. (A typical warning sign that you have a virus is if your computer suddenly becomes very slow, or starts interrupting your work with pleas to purchase software – this most surely means you are infected.) Don’t worry about it, just bring it in to be cleaned. Staples Easy Tech services can help you. If you are tech savvy you can find free anti-virus software on the internet, but beware, because if you don’t know what you are doing you could download an infection by mistake. This leads me to an important point: if you are browsing on the internet, and are asked to download anything, be very, very careful. If you have any doubt, just play it safe and don’t do it.

Use a firewall. A firewall is a program that stops bad software from interacting with your computer. Most anti-virus programs (and later version of Windows) include one but make sure it is enabled.

Use a Spam filter and don’t click on links in Spam. Everyone gets Spam (80% of all e-mail on the internet is now Spam.) Asking to be removed from a Spammer’s distribution list only confirms that your e-mail address is valid, and you will get more Spam. If your e-mail reader doesn’t have a Spam filter built in then get one. Spam filters are included with most commercial anti-virus packages.

If you have a laptop there is a good chance you may lose it, or someone will steal it. If you have any sensitive data on that laptop then encrypt it (I use PGP desktop with full-disk encryption. If you have any data that you can’t afford to lose then back it up. A great product to make this easy is called ClickFree.

If you use wireless at home, then encrypt your connection. It is unlikely that someone is going to hack into your network to try to steal your data (unless you are a very big company) but protecting your wireless connection will stop your neighbors from freeloading and slowing down your connection.

I hope these tips and advice help you ensure safe business and computing practices. Feel free to comment or ask me questions. I am happy to respond.

Jeff Williams is VP of Information Systems at STAPLES Canada. Jeff has been with STAPLES for over 9 years and leads an IS team of over 50 people. From his history with Indigo, Nortel and IBM, Jeff brings STAPLES extensive experience in the high-tech field.

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on February 3rd, 2010

Antivirus software, Computing, Jeff Williams, Security, Spam filtering, System software, Technology/Internet

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Business Plan 202: Advice for startups

Happy Groundhog Day – have you written your business plan yet?

For years, my dental hygienist nudged me about the importance of flossing. It was just like Groundhog Day every time I visited. For years I nodded, flossed for the next couple of days then forgot again until just before the next visit. (BTW, after years of embarrassment, I finally learned my lesson and floss every day.)

If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you may have noticed a lot of nudging from us about putting together a business plan. The reason is, like flossing, even if it might seem like a bother, developing a plan is one of the most important things you can do for your enterprise’s long-term health – especially if you’re a startup.

Says Michael Eisenberg, an accountant who’s worked with small business owners for more than 30 years:

“When you’re building a business from the ground up, you’re taking a bigger risk than if you were buying an existing business or a franchise with some operating history… And if you’re trying to raise money from others, they’re going to want to see your business plan…”

But while everyone agrees about the importance of a plan, it turns out there are a lot of ways to write one. In fact, BusinessWeek’s David E Gumpert says there are five common ones to consider:

1. Executive summary: A cohesive and engaging two-page mini business plan that covers your business’s strategy, management team, market, product or service, sales plan and finances. (I’ll talk more in depth about an executive summary in an upcoming post.)

2. Synopsis: Gumpert calls this an executive summary on steroids – “the emphasis here is less on the particulars of the idea and more on why the idea is especially relevant to the investor.”

3. Summary business plan: 10 pages or less, it will include an executive summary plus a page each on components such as your product, market, competition, marketing and finances. Gumpert says this is the most common type of plan requested by prospective investors.

4. Full business plan: A traditional 25- to 35-page document with full marketing data, financial projects and more.

5. Operational business plan: The Godzilla of business plans, this type of plan can be 50 pages or more and is usually developed not just to raise money, but to plan how your business will operate.

Here is a fantastic resource on writing your business plan – you’ll want to check it out.

And, of course, speak to your accountant, possibly the best person to turn to before you get started.

Any questions about writing your startup’s business plan? We’d love to help if we can.

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on February 2nd, 2010

Business, Business plan, business/finance, Strategic management, venture capital

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Don’t just do it – yet.

The last time I blogged about business plans, I explained why planning is a roadmap to success. But if it’s so important, why do so few entrepreneurs take time to draft one?

Scott Shane at Case Western has a few interesting theories, but I think he’s hit on something with what he calls the “Just Do It theory”:

“The Nike motto is very appealing to people eager to get their businesses started. Writing a business plan doesn’t have the action-oriented appeal of hiring employees or setting up shop and is skipped by those in a hurry to get their dreams under way. That action orientation, combined with a heavy dose of optimism, leads many entrepreneurs to skip the writing step.”

Which reminds me of an adorable TV commercial from Ally Bank, in which a smarmy banker gives a girl a bike then tells her she can only ride it within a tiny outlined area on the ground.

For many entrepreneurs who want to just hop on their bikes and share their big ideas with the world, a business plan can feel like that confining rectangle.

Nevertheless, as I mentioned previously and as most business professionals insist, drafting a business plan is a step to seriously consider. Even if your business is well under way, take a step back and write up a plan.

And what should go into your business plan? To start, BizLaunch suggests you should

Prepare a professional-looking Title Page and Table of Contents.
Prepare an Executive Summary. (Makes space for it, but fill it in last.) It highlights the “who, what, where and why” of your small business.
Write a Business Description. Tell your readers about your product(s)/services(s), your industry, what makes your business unique and why you believe it will succeed. Write a Mission Statement and include yourBusiness Vision.
Draft a Marketing Plan. The most important section of your plan presents your sales objectives, strategies to achieve them and tactics to be engaged. It should also include your Market.

The vital steps to developing your business plan continue here.

You’ll find more great resources for writing your plan here and here.

If you’ve already written a plan, why not leave a comment and let other readers know why you believe it’s important.

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on December 7th, 2009

Ally Bank, BizLaunch, Business plan, business/finance, Entrepreneurship, NIKE Inc., Scott Shane, Staples Canada

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Catching on to identity theft

Each year businesses pay about $74 billion to handle identity theft and data loss crises – and that’s just in the US. The figure is more than $200 billion worldwide.

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in North America,” says Frank Abagnale, an expert on identity theft and fraud and the subject of Steven Spielberg’s movie “Catch Me if You Can.”

Add to that the alarming fact that 70% of Canadians have had some personal data stolen, and Abagnale believes we have an epidemic on our hands.

For its part, the Canadian government is trying to stem the tide. In October, Bill S-4, which targets early stages of identity theft crimes, became law.

For entrepreneurs whose personal identities often overlap with their business’s, the risks can be even more disturbing and devastating. Having company data fall into the wrong hands can’t just lead to financial losses, but to lost time repairing the damage.

Be smart. Be prepared.

The key, of course, is a little common sense. And a lot of homework.

More than ever, security threats exist in the most unexpected places, creating opportunities for identities to be stolen from carelessly discarded mail and unauthorized access to computers.

What can you do to protect yourself and your business?

1. Protect your identity. Shredders are a smart way to eliminate documents or mail that have your name, personal or business information on it.

2. Protect your PC. Security software like Norton 360 and Webroot Spy Sweeper can provide protection from viruses and spyware, fraudulent websites, phishing scams, hackers and more.

3. Protect against cheque washing. That’s when criminals erase details from cheques to allow them to be rewritten. Special pens like the Uni-ball 207 lock down ink, helping what you write stay permanent.

4. Protect your home or office. Fifty percent of identity thefts are committed by people you know. An electronic safe can keep your papers and other valuables off-limits.

Abagnale offers some more great suggestions here.

What are you doing to protect your identity and business data from being stolen?

Posted by Lynnette in Getting Started on November 26th, 2009

Canadian government, Frank Abagnale, Fraud, Identity, Identity theft, Personal identification, Security software, Theft

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