Quick Start Workbook

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2 Disclosure - This book contains affiliate links. When you click on these links and make a purchase, I will receive a small payment from the company at no cost to you. Thank you for your support! Copyright 2017 Emma Bates - All rights reserved.

Welcome! What do you do when you want to stay home with your kids but need to bring in some income for your family? I have been tackling this issue for the last few years.

3 Welcome! What do you do when you want to stay home with your kids but need to bring in some income for your family? I have been tackling this issue for the last few years. I have done a variety of jobs, some from home and some out of the home. I have found that working for myself gives me the most flexibility. It sounds intimidating and difficult but really it is easy. If you can take care of your kids all day, you can definitely start your own business! A Little About Me After I had my second child I started baking from home and selling muffins, cookies and granola at the local farmers market. I would bake on Fridays and spend Saturday morning talking to people and selling my goods. The granola took off and started I had to start baking out of a commercial kitchen so I could sell in stores. I built up quite a following, started doing multiple markets a week and got my granola into over a dozen stores. This was a great business but for me it was too much time out of the house. I was spending two nights a week making and packaging granola, then most weekends I was at markets and events both days. My children were still little and I felt I was missing out on raising them. So I decided to try something else and was lucky enough to find a buyer for the business. After I sold my granola business I decided to open an online store. That was a learning experience! I worked with a website designer and created an ecommerce store in Wordpress, contacted wholesalers and set up accounts, I even started a blog as part of the site. PAGE 3

4 After I opened I quickly learned just how hard online sales could be. I limped along for a few months, making a few sales and getting some followers but not really making any money. That fall I was diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer and then found out I was pregnant and I let go of my business. Looking back it was a great learning experience, but not a great business experience. Two years ago, after the birth of my third child, I started working as a Virtual Assistant. I had learned a ton about online marketing from my granola business and figured I should put it to good use. I read some ebooks and took a few online courses. I built a simple website and posted on Facebook that I was looking for work. My first two jobs came from that post and then word spread from there. I concentrated on local businesses that wanted to expand their online presence and relied mostly on word of mouth to get my clients. Pretty soon I had almost more than I could handle! Last year I finally started my own blog, Kids Cash and Chaos. I write about business and balance for busy moms. I ve really loved the challenge, writing does not come naturally to me and it is fun to see how much I have improved in the last few months. I am also starting to offer coaching services to help other mother s start their own business. It is a fun and rewarding job. I love helping other people bring their business dreams to life. So you can see I have had quite the varied career! This doesn t even include the retail jobs, working as a legal secretary, or as a bank teller. They have all been learning experiences and I still use many of these skills. Now, I am sharing all this experience with you! Use the Small Business Quick Start Checklist and this Quick Start Workbook to get your own business ready and launched. Good luck! PAGE 4

5 Small Business Quick Start Checklist Get Legal Decide on a business Choose a name Make sure the name is available from your state s Secretary of State office Choose a tagline Speak with a tax preparer to see if you should incorporate Register your business with your State and/or local government Brand Choose your brand colors and fonts Optional: Create a moodboard in Canva Create a logo in Canva Set up a website Set up social media pages - choose 2 to start Set up a pricing structure including both retail and wholesale prices Plan Write a One Page Business Plan Create a marketing plan Create a social media plan Create an exit plan for the future Launch Tell everyone you know that you re in business! PAGE 5

6 Step One: Get Legal Decide on a business Don t have a business idea? Ask yourself these four questions to get started. First, what do you enjoy doing? It could be writing, a creative hobby, or cleaning the toilet (there must be someone out there who likes to do that, right??) Write down a list, make it long, at least 10 things. Second, think about what you are good at doing. These things might not overlap. I am good at cleaning the toilet, but I don t enjoy it! If you have trouble coming up with things, ask your partner or a close friend what you are good at, you might be surprised by the answer. Third, what do others ask you for help with? It could be that you always get asked for advice on a particular subject, or people ask you to help with a certain task. These are the things that other people view you as an expert on, and something to consider highly when you are trying to come up with a business idea. The last question to consider is what makes you happy. You already thought about what things you enjoy doing, but what else makes you happy? A feeling? Being alone? PAGE 6

7 Business Idea Worksheet What Do You Enjoy Doing? What Are You Good At? What Makes You Happy? What Do People Ask Your Help With? Business Ideas PAGE 7

8 Choose a name and make sure it s available What Not To Do When Choosing a Name 1. Don t Be Cute It might seem like choosing a funny spelling or using a word like shoppe is cute but it will make it harder for people to search you out. Don t replace a Q with a K or an F with a PH or you risk sending customers to the wrong business when they try to do a search for you. 2. Don t Be Generic Choose something that has personality! Don t use too many generic words that don t evoke a feeling in your customers. Choose words that are descriptive and bold, then you can mix in a few words that are more general. 3. Don t Copy It is good to get inspiration from business names you like, but don t choose anything too close. The number of blogs that use a combination of smart, mom, business and blog is overwhelming and I am constantly getting them mixed up. I am sure it was unintentional but make sure to Google your choice to make sure there is nothing too close. Google mixed up versions of your name too so you don t miss anything. Make a List of Words You Love Brainstorm a list of words you use to describe your business. Use adjectives, nouns, place names, colors, verbs, anything that gives a sense of what your business is about. Add words that you want to be associated with how your business makes customers feel. Add synonyms to those words using a Thesaurus. Narrow your list down to around 10 words you love. PAGE 8

9 Helpful Tools»» Bustaname.com - an awesome site that will let you put in a list of words, combined them and show you which domains are available.»» Your Secretary of States Office - use their search feature to see if your business name is already taken.»» US Trademark Office - a place to check for any business that already uses a name or is pretty close.»» Namechk.com - a quick and easy way to check many sites at once and make sure a name is not taken on social media. Choose a tagline Your tagline should tell people in one phrase what you do and who you do it for. For example, my blog tagline is Business and Balance for Busy Moms. It tells you that my site is for busy moms who need help balancing their many roles in life. Start with the words that you brainstormed when you were creating your business name. Now rewrite this focusing on the benefit that you provide. Make sure to edit it down to a single, concise sentence. BRAINSTORMING AREA PAGE 9

10 Speak with a tax preparer to see if you should incorporate It is a hard truth that just by having a business, you are opening yourself and your family to a lot of risk. If you have not formed a legal entity and someone sues you and wins, you could lose your personal assets such as your car or home. Since you are both an entrepreneur and a mother, the stakes are high. Fortunately, there is a way to protect your personal assets and family form a legal entity. A legal entity operates outside of your personal assets and thereby acts as a shield. The optimal time to form a legal entity is before you have started doing business. However, if you are already an established business owner, it is not too late and you can still get all of the protection for yourself and your family. Common legal entities include limited liability companies (LLC s), C Corporations and S Corporations. You can read about all three in this post - Register your business with your State and/or local government You will want to register your business name with your state or county. It is usually pretty inexpensive and provides you with some protection that no one else will try to use that name. There are a few places that don t require your to register DBA names, you will have to check your local laws. If you are going to be a national company you will have to take some more steps, but if you will just be local, registering your name is enough. The Small Business Association has a great article with information about how to register in every state. - business-guide/launch/choose-your-business-name-register PAGE 10

11 Step Two: Create a Brand Choose your brand colors and fonts If you need some inspiration check out ColorPalettes.net. There are tons of ideas for colors that work together and a photo that goes along with each palette. Color Palettes also lists the HTML codes for each color so you can easily use the color in your graphics program. (Place to list color codes) Next choose your fonts. Canva has a great tool for finding fonts that work together. You will want two to three fonts, at least simple one and a fancier one. Play around, try some fonts out in different sizes. Try a script font with a serif, a serif with a sans-serif, or a cursive with a sans-serif. - BRAINSTORMING AREA Create a logo A good logo should be distinctive but simple. It should be easily identifiable, different from similar businesses, easy to read and understand. Make sure your logo... ~Uses no more than three colors. ~Uses an easy to read font. ~Looks good big or small, in color or black and white. ~Will stand the test of time. If you need some help with suggestions on how to make your own logo, check out this post - PAGE 11

12 BRAINSTORMING AREA Set up a website Weebly ( is a simple to use, drag and drop website builder. They have beautiful, fully responsive, themes to choose from and a integrated ecommerce platform. You can create a simple to manage store, portfolio or blog in minutes. Weebly also has added marketing to their site. This allows you to do all your customer relations in one place. You won t need an account with MailChimp or Mad Mimi to do an newsletter. It is one less fee to pay and account to manage. One of the other nice things about Weebly is that you can get started for free. Simply create an account and start building your website right away. If you like it, you can upgrade and get a free custom domain! You can see how I set up an entire website by watching the videos in this post - Set up social media pages - choose two to start Grab all the social media pages now. You don t want to lose out on a page because you waited and someone else took the name. Start with setting up a Facebook page and Google+ account, those are the most important. Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram will depend on your niche. Pinterest is good for creative or online businesses. Twitter is good for the tech sector or online businesses. Instagram is where all product based businesses should be. These will allow you to do some simple advertising when you are ready to promote your PAGE 12

13 business. It is important to get a Google+ page set up and then claim your business at Google My Business ( This gives you some authority, plus will make sure you business shows up online. For more information on setting up a Facebook page, read this post Set up a pricing structure - including both retail and wholesale prices Pricing is a complicated issue and can cause even experience business people problems. Start with doing some research into what your competition charges for similar goods or services. Next, figure out your price using a formula: materials + time + overhead = base price Figure out how much the materials for one item cost. Then figure out how much time it takes to make one item. This can be hard as a Mompreneur since we are often fitting creating in around so many other things, but give it your best guess. Give yourself $15-20 a hour, don t under pay yourself! Overhead should be about 10-15% of the total of materials + time. When you are starting out your overhead should be pretty low. If you start to add things like rent or production help that will go up. Your base price is what you need to charge in order to break even. This is not the price you should charge customers or you will never make money. Take the base price and multiply by 3-4, this is your retail price. You are going to want to consider any fees you have to pay a credit card processor, Paypal or Stripe. If your product will be sold wholesale at some point then you need to work that price into your pricing structure. For more complete directions see this post: PAGE 13

14 Pricing for Profit: How to Set the Best Price for Handmade Items Average of Competition Pricing Competition Product Price Add all prices together and divide by number of items. = average price Formula Pricing Cost of supplies one item: Number of hours spend making one item x $15 Add together Add 10% for overhead = Base Price Base Price x 4 = Retail Price Retail Price / 2 = Wholesale Price Fees (may want to add to retail price) Etsy Fees: Credit Card Fees: Paypal or Stripe Fees: Taxes: Base Price: Retail Price: Wholesale Price: PAGE 14

15 Step Three: Make a Plan Write a One Page Business Plan Planning for the future of your business is an important step. Consider taking the time to sit down and writing a One Page Business Plan. You can watch a step by step video here: BRAINSTORMING AREA PAGE 15

16 One Page Business Plan Business Name: Website: Phone: Problem: What is my business trying to solve? Solution: How by business is solving the problem. Money: How will my business make money? Competition: Who is my competition? How am I different? Customers: Who are my customers? Marketing: How will my customers find my business? Action Plan: PAGE 16

17 Create a marketing plan How will you market your business to start with? Make a plan with ways you are going to get your business seen. It should be a mixture of online and offline methods. You can read 15 ways to market for free here: Make sure you create some business cards BRAINSTORMING AREA Create a social media plan This is part of your overall marketing but think about how you will utilize social media in your business. Will you use Facebook ads? Or start posting photos on Instagram? Create an exit plan for the future This may seems like a funny thing to think about at the beginning of your business but it is important. Take some time to think about why and how you might leave or end your business in the future. If I had thought about this before my granola company started I would have not included my last name as part of the company name so I could have sold it easier. It s good to think about what happens if you shut the business down or transfer it to a new owner. It might never happen, or it might happen sooner than you think. This can all be part of your goal for building a business too. PAGE 17

Step Four: Launch Market your business Tell everyone you know! Pass out business cards! Launch that marketing plan you worked so hard on! Now is the time to get your name out.

18 Step Four: Launch Market your business Tell everyone you know! Pass out business cards! Launch that marketing plan you worked so hard on! Now is the time to get your name out. Don t be shy, be proud of all the work you have done! Next steps? Need more help with branding and marketing your business? Check out my ecourses: Brand Your Small Business - Simple Small Business Marketing - Weebly Website in a Weekend - PAGE 18

Website Planning Questionnaire

Website Planning Questionnaire Learn about their business. Find a problem. Develop a solution. Below we have compiled a very long list of questions that you may want to ask yourself - or your clients -