Start a Home Business Part 2 of 3
Thousands of Americans every year follow their dreams
and start a home business. You can too, and you won't believe
just how easy it can be.
By Jon
Deragon, Visca Consulting
Wednesday, July 30, 2003; 5:00pm EST
In part 2 of our article on starting a home business, we will continue
to look at crucial first steps and considerations you need to make,
when starting a home business...
5. Trade Marking
Branding of your company is an important first step. Equally important
is the long term protection of this branding which you will work so
hard to build and cultivate into something that has mindshare. You can
trademark your company name, the logo, specific products, product
lines, names of services, pretty much anything you want to protect.
However, it must be something that has not already been trademarked
for your category of business, and a proper filing with your
government is required. That is why it may be advisable to have an
incorporation specialist company or individual. The specialist will
handle the initial search for possible trademarks that could prohibit
you to register the trademark, and secondly to handle the form filling
and submission of the appropriate documents to the government. It will
then most likely go through a review process and the government will
provide an opportunity for other trademark holders to protest having
your trademark instated. After a specified time frame, and no
objections have been raised, you then make a final trademark
registration payment to the government and a certificate will be
issued to your company. In the event there is protest against your
filing, you may file an appeal and state your reasons as to why it
should be accepted. Trademarks, depending on the one you have chosen,
can be a difficult to register if there are other companies that
believe yours closely resembles theirs, even if it is not the same.
Typically, once registered, trademarks have a validity period of
between 7 and 10 years, and are renewable for basically an infinite
number of times. Although registering your trademark does not entitle
you to automatic government protection and representation, it gives
you legal grounds for you yourself to pursue companies that infringe
your trademark ownership.
6. Copyrighting
When developing any documentation, images, marketing materials, etc,
get into the habit of copyrighting it. Copyright is something that
protects your intellectual material from being copied by other
companies or individuals for their own profit. Copyrighting can be as
simple as writing on the original document a copyright notice with
date and company name, to as difficult as actual registering with a
copyright organization - depending on your country and the level of
protection you feel fit for your material. For a majority of material,
a simple copyright notice is sufficient protection. However, if there
is for an example a piece of highly valuable computer programming
language that was developed by your company and you wish to protect
it, you may wish to take additional measures to make a more "formal"
copyright claim. Note, as with trade marking, it is up to you to
police and pursue and copyright infringements.
7. Advertising and Marketing
Nobody will know you exist until you let them know you are there. A
popular myth for example is that if you simply put a web site on the
Internet, swarms of people will be knocking on your door, since there
are millions of people online. In reality that is completely and
utterly false. It is like saying because you open up a store on a side
street, people will just somehow miraculously know you are there and
be banging down your door. You need to "send the word out", that you
exist, where you are, what you offer, and some sort of enticing reason
for people to visit you (whether in person, on the net, or other means
of getting in contact with you) rather than your competitors or
someone they already deal with. Fortunately, there are countless ways
you can advertise or get the word out about your company - ranging
from free methods, to methods that involve significant time and
financial investments. Advertising is the classic example of "you have
to spend money to make money". Although advertising money at first may
seem like its just disappearing and is not worth spending, without it,
there is little point of having the business.
So what methods can
you investigate? Newspapers, magazines, local papers, radio,
television, internet, bulletin boards, billboards, flyers, public
transit, the list goes on and on. Typically when you are starting a
business, you want to first try out methods that cost less or nothing,
and that require creativity and a bit of leg work. Later when your
first revenues are generated or you have exhausted your initial
methods - you can try some that require a financial injection. You
would be surprised how the lost cost options can drive business if
done correctly.
Never underestimate
the power of networking. Networking involves all of the people that
touch your life in some way or another. By compiling a COMPLETE list
of every single individual you know, and who they know and sorting
them by their likelihood of interest in your company products or
services - start contacting them and pitching your offerings. You will
most likely have family members, co-workers from the past, friends, a
dentist, buddies at a local club or social activity, etc. All of these
people, and the people they are connected to, have the potential to be
interested in your business. And the great thing is - since you
already know them, the cost of getting to them through advertising is
eliminated. And you would be surprised how many people, the people you
know, know! If you are trying to sell them something, and they don't
have interest, in many cases they WILL know someone who may. It's just
like when you are trying to sell your old stereo and you ask around to
your friends and suddenly one of them says "Well, I'm not interested,
but I know my friend Steve is looking for an inexpensive stereo to buy
for his cottage." The emphasis here is exploiting the contacts you
already have, and to develop more. You are literally attempting to
grow branches out from the tree that represents the people in your
life. And that, is networking!
Another
important advertising method is to have a web site, and make sure that
it is properly search engine optimized and submitted to all the major
search engines, directories and other related web sites. We will get
into that at a later point in this article.
8. Software and Licensing
For many businesses, software is a critical factor in its operation.
Documentation, accounting, graphic design, all is typically done
through the use of computers. So what kinds of software will your
small business need to get going? This certainly is influenced by the
type of company you are starting - however there is a typical set of
base applications that are most likely going to be needed. A required
piece of software would be the operating system your workstations and
possibly server would run. Make sure the one you select is well
supported with the software you see being important to your business,
and that will let you be compatible with a large client base. Most
importantly after the operating system would be some sort of business
applications suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation software and email application. Possibly a small database
program would be recommended to store certain company information such
as clients, accounting data and other important records. Luckily it is
quite easy (although sometimes expensive) to purchase packages from
companies such as Corel and Microsoft that contain literally all of
this software in one box, saving you from having to buy multiple
products from multiple vendors. Be sure to shop around as prices vary
depending on the retailer. Online vendors sometimes offer inventory
wide discounts that can be applied to software. You may also want to
try large software retailers targeted to business rather than
consumers as they can sometimes offer some discounting or competitive
price drops.
Once you have
purchased your software, it is worth the time to manage your software
licenses right from the beginning. Create a spreadsheet or database
containing all the information about what software titles you own, the
number of copies, where they are installed physically and the codes
you use to unlock them. That way you can prevent any licensing issues
that may arise from poorly managed licenses once your company grows
and additional software licenses are required. Piracy (unlicensed /
paid for copies of software) can have hefty fines that would certainly
put a dent in any companies profits - it is well worth keeping a
legitimate software library. Not only that, but obtaining pirated
copies or "cracked" copies of business software from the Internet can
be prone to major security risks such as containing viruses, trojan
horses, and lack of support in the event you have problems with the
software.
Go Directly to Part << [
1 ] [ 2 ] [
3 ]
>>
In the final part of
this article, we will examine the following:
About The Author
Jon Deragon is president and founder of Visca Consulting, a firm
specializing in web site design, development and usability for
businesses of all sizes. He welcomes any questions or comments you may
have regarding this article or interest in the services available from
Visca Consulting.
info@viscaconsulting.com
http://www.viscaconsulting.com/
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