In recent years, solo entrepreneurship has become a hot topic among modern workers. With modern technology, it’s easier than ever to build a personal brand and start your own business. Are you ready for the adventure of solo entrepreneurship? These tips will help you make your dreams a reality!
Learn Your Local Laws
For legal and tax purposes, one-person businesses are typically treated as a sole proprietorship. You will want to do some research about your local business laws to see if a sole proprietorship is right for you. Many solo entrepreneurs find that a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) is more beneficial than a sole proprietorship because an LLC can protect personal assets.
If a lawsuit or claim against your business upsets your cash flow assets, an LLC will keep your personal assets protected. LLC holders can also claim business profits and losses on personal tax returns, nullifying the nightmare of paperwork faced by people forming a regular corporation. Check with your local government to see if an LLC is right for you or not. There are many LLC registration services available like ZenBusiness that you can outsource easily.
Create a Business Roadmap
For the solo entrepreneur, a business plan is crucial. Because there is only one of you, your time is your most valuable resource. Take time to envision not only your goals but how you intend to get there. Drafting a business plan at the beginning will save you time and headaches when you need to make decisions down the road. Drafting a thorough business plan can help you foresee problems and anticipate solutions.
Build Your Website
Gone are the days of the brick-and-mortar storefront. These days, your webpage is the face of your business. It is crucial for the solo entrepreneur to have the right professional image. Prospective clients will choose whether or not to work with you based on your website, so it is important to have an operable website that looks professional. Above all, potential customers need to be able to easily purchase whatever product or service you are selling from your website.
If your website is not easy to navigate, then your website is not an effective cash flow asset. If you intend to expand and are trying to give the impression that this is more than a startup you can add multiple departments, such as customer service, sales, and accounting, to give customers and potential new hires a sense of confidence in your new business.
Acquire a Business Bank Account
It seems a little backward as a solo entrepreneur since there’s only one of you. But it is absolutely crucial to have a business bank account. You cannot use your personal account for business expenses unless you want a huge headache at tax time. Not having a business bank account could even threaten the legal status of your LLC. Go to your local bank, open a separate account for your business, order some business checks, and acquire a business credit card. This way, all business and personal expenses are separate, both making record-keeping much easier and preventing future trouble with the IRS.
Effective Time Management
As a solar entrepreneur, your most important cash flow asset is your time. There are only twenty-four hours in a day and no other employees to share your duties, so time management is crucial. If you are struggling with time management, go back to your business plan. Take out your business plan, look at your goals, and break them down into small steps. Keeping things broken into small, actionable steps can help mitigate the sense of overwhelm that can come with starting a new business.
Keep your focus on steady progress rather than lofty goals. If you still find the to-do list mostly unchecked, take a week to track how you spend your time each day. Oftentimes people find that there are times when they could be more productive, so bringing a sense of mindfulness to your time can make you a more effective business owner. Also bear in mind, as a solo entrepreneur, you are not bound to a nine-to-five schedule.
If you find that you are more of a night owl, feel free to work well into the night and sleep until noon. Schedule your working hours for when you are most energetic and productive.
Technology is Your Friend
Currently, there are a plethora of apps available to help small business owners run their businesses more smoothly. If you don’t have all of your business documents in cloud storage already, put them on a cloud. You need to have your documents available on all devices. Need to track expenses? There’s an app for that. Need a way for customers to make payments?
There’s an app for that. Need to make an urgent purchase. It’s the twenty-first century, of course, there’s an app for that! There is almost nothing you cannot do with your smartphone nowadays, from generating invoices with FreshBooks to learning how to short a stock on Robinhood, or even finding a new member of the team on Linkedin.
Learn to Delegate
Remember that part where you only have 24 hours in a day? As soon as you can afford professional help, get it. There are two types of duties to delegate: gruntwork you hate, like scheduling meetings and scanning documents; and things you aren’t good at, like SEO optimization and bookkeeping. You as a solo entrepreneur know what your time is worth, so delegating tasks that you are less effective at can optimize your working time, which is your number one cash flow asset.
Starting a business alone isn’t easy, but for many, it is the most rewarding career path. These strategies will help you conquer challenges and become a successful business owner.
Check this guide to be an entrepreneur with no money.
Danis Woods in Businessman, investment banker and stock exchange traders. On the same time he loves writing financial blogs to shed lights on different aspects that new and existing businessman are not aware of.
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