You’ve Started Your Business…Now What?

I know when I started my business, I had a lot of questions. Family and friends were telling me what I should do like create a website when I had no content. Or go out and start selling and I didn’t even have a way to process the money. Sound familiar?

If you’re in a similar boat, I’m here for you. This series will give you concrete steps to get your business started on solid ground. So you can go out and do what you do best, which is provide the service or product to your customers and clients.

Here are our first three tips on what you should do next.

3 Pro Tips When Starting Your Business

Get a UPS Mailing Address

The first thing you want to do is get a UPS mailing box. You are going to need a street address at some point for your business. And a P.O. Box from the USPS will not work.

So, if you don’t plan on having a physical location, getting a UPS mailbox is the next best thing. UPS allows you to use their street address, with your box number as the suite number. This gives you a legitimate street address. It also means you don’t have to put your home address on all your legal documents.

If you’ve already done that, you can go back and update all your documents to your new address. However, if you’re like me, you are already cringing at the thought. Get a box now, and use this address moving forward.

Register Your Business Name

The last thing you want to do is jump in feet first with your business, create a community, go all in, only to find out later that some else was already doing business with your name. Save yourself the headache and heartache by registering your business name first. It’s simple to do through LegalZoom: https://www.legalzoom.com/business/business-formation/

Part of the process of registering your business is that LegalZoom will check to see if anyone is using your business name. In your industry and generally. If the name is already registered, then they will go to your second option.

And you shouldn’t stress too much on your business name. It is important. But if you figure out a better name later, then all you have to do is file a DBA (Doing Business As) and you’ll be fine. After all, Google’s parent name is Alphabet and they seem to be doing fine 😏

Get Your Business Website URL

Secure all your digital properties. The title says website to keep it simple but it’s all your digital properties. You want to make sure you have your URLs. I would recommend purchasing at least .com and .net for your business name. .org if you are nonprofit.

Then you want you to get all the handles (the name after the @sign e.g. @ladyjewelevents) on the different social media sites:

Facebook
Instagram
Pinterest
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn

The reason you want to do this is so someone else doesn’t take your web address, social media handle. If they do that, they will most likely try to sell them to you for a higher price, in the case of a website address. Or you have to think of another social media handle to use that isn’t your business name. Which is going to make it harder for people to remember your social media names.

There it is. Our first three tips. To recap, you want to:

Get a UPS mailing address
Register your business name
Get your business website address and social media handles

And remember, we are here for you. So if you have any questions, do not hesitate to text us, send us an email, schedule a video chat. Want to help you launch your brand well so you save time and money growing your business.

Until next time…

Graciously serving ~
Pearl W. Filani