Advice for Starting a Business in the New Year
{ By Emily O’Connell, Editorial Coordinator }
Are you thinking about starting a business? There is no time like the present – especially when the vaccine is rolling out, more businesses are taking chances on opening their doors and women business owners are on the rise. In fact, it’s so important for women to have businesses. After all, we’re half the population with a unique skill set, ideas and visions for the future.
While any woman can start any type of business she has the knowledge and experience for it’s important to take note of what to have in place before starting a business!
Financially, to accurately track your business finances and avoid any issues, you need to completely separate personal from business finances. If you need to take out funds for business for personal use, plan to pay yourself a salary so these withdrawals can be tracked.
Most businesses also start out as sole proprietors, but as they grow, can transition into an LLC or corporation. This allows full separation between business finances and personal assets in the event of a liability issue. They can also have tax advantages. Also, if you want to build wealth, you need to stay especially organized, this means creating systems to track your business finances. Specifically, you should track transactions, financial documents and more. You can use waveapps.com, quickbooks.com etc to start getting finances organized, or even hire an accountant.
And if you’re stuck on ideas on industries – here are some suggestions:
If you love sharing knowledge and absorbing knowledge, try looking into educational services as it could be a great fit. Academic skills like tutoring and teaching are more popular as schooling transitions online and there are flexible programs where you can work anywhere. There’s plenty of demand for adults who want to learn and parents who want their kids to master new skills at any age. Also, if you’re an expert at anything, building your own course is one of the most efficient ways to teach it to others. Courses can be sold on Skillshare, Udemy and Coursera.
Remember when everybody was talking about Marie Kondo and how she illuminated the fact that so many people aren’t happy with the amount of clutter in their home? Well, us women have a knack for organization, and sometimes it takes an unbiased third-party to start the decluttering process. With a home organization business, you can charge an hourly fee to declutter any home and restructure them in a better way.
If you follow these tips and avoid some of the money traps you will be setting yourself up for a solid foundation for your business. At the end of the day, outside of the passion you have for your business, it’s important to stay on top of your finances and aligned with your goals!
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