We often get calls with the question, "How do I incorporate?" and while most of these questions mean the person would like an explanation on how our process works. While anyone can incorporate their own business (most states do not require an attorney), a lot of clients come to us so they don't have to deal with the fuss of drawing up or preparing their own articles of incorporation. Our process is one of the easiest online, and it also gives you a chance to review what we're filing on your behalf, which not many companies do. How it works is, once you place your order one of our staff members does a name search and if the name appears available, they will prepare the documents for you to sign. You are then able to log in to our website, review the information you either put in online, or gave us over the phone, and download your articles of organization. Most states allow us to accept faxed or emailed copies of your signed articles, though some will require you to mail these documents to us with original signatures. We do one last review prior to sending your documents out to the state. Once the documents are sent to the state we monitor the filing daily to ensure you're notified by email as soon as they're approved. It is a pretty simple process when you have us file your documents, as we take responsibility for making sure the state is paid their fees and you are notified upon approval. If you have any questions regarding forming a corporation, call us at 866-999-8200.

In this edition of Successful Small Business Tips we're going to discuss the importance of having a set of policies. Obviously every client is different, and we've talked about having an attitude that allows you to sway a bit when it comes to your standard practices, but it's important to set that standard as a foundation of what others will look upon as your company grows. When your company gets bigger, you will have bigger responsibilities, which leaves everyone under you to take care of dealing with clients. There may never be a day that you transition out of the customer service part of your business, but you may be gone one day and your company should have a policy that everyone follows. Having policies in place will ensure that there is no panicking when a problem arises and that you can rely on your staff to carry out tasks just as you would like them to. It's important to set up these policies prior to doing business so that all your policies will be in the same vein as each other.

For example, if you run a book store, most book stores do not allow book exchanges, but they do allow exchanges for other items they may sell, such as book lights. If your general store policy is no exchanges, it may upset someone if they try to return an item that is not a book, like the book light, and they are turned away. If you had a policy set up where there is no book exchanges, but anything else can be exchanged for up to 7 days, that could resolve a problem before it even occurs. Think of problems that could arise, and be sure to write your policies down, have an easy to find area on your website with your policies listed.

If you have any questions about business policies or starting a business, call us at 866-999-8200.

Here at IncorporateFast we get a lot of calls with questions regarding how to make sure that the state shows the business as a woman-owned or minority-owned business. In most cases the state does not ask for the ownership percentage, and minority & woman owned businesses are for the most part, required to be 51% owned by minority or women. With LLCs, members are the owners of the LLC, and with corporations, ownership is shown by who holds shares of stock in the corporation. While the state might not request this information, in order for you business to be registered as a minority owned or woman owned business, you must apply with the Small Business Administration. There are a lot of benefits to having your business registered as minority or woman owned, a big advantage is that there are special loans and grants that your business can apply for. If you have questions about forming your own business, please don't hesitate to call us at 866-999-8200.

If you ever watch NBC's The Office, you've noticed that the Dunder Mifflin employees generally seem to be happy, regardless of office hijinx or their boss's unconventional way of running the office. We all want to work at an office that is exciting and always has something going on, but that's not the reality for most work environments. In a professional office there are lines you have to draw, but just as important as employees keeping their boss happy, the boss should also be keeping his employees happy. There are a few tips you can use in order to increase happiness in the office, and in turn, increase productivity:

Music, if an office is too quiet time seems to drag, allow employees to wear their iPods or play their music at their desk at a low volume, just be sure that they have a quick mute button in case they need to take a call, or if someone comes to speak to them.

Potlucks, a good idea to bring up office cheerfulness is to have a potluck, maybe every month or every other week. This gives employees something to look forward to when they come in for the day, other than the probably stressful tasks they have at hand. A potluck is also good because it's one less thing the employee has to think about doing for the day, lunch.

Award gift cards, if someone is excelling in their position, they should be rewarded. People love recognition and who doesn't love gift cards, they don't have to be expensive gift cards, but a $25 gift card out to one employee at least a once a month can boost performance as well as employee happiness, because the employees will actually feel like you notice them.

Host a softball game with a vendor you work with, if you have enough employees, ask them to participate in a softball game for your company against one of your vendors. This will not only lead to happiness but it will also show the sense of pride your employees have for being a part of your company.

If you have any questions about starting your own business, please don't hesitate to call us at 866-999-8200.

So many people out there have hobbies that they enjoy doing, on weekends or time off from work, and some of them even dream about doing their hobby full time. We've worked with several clients who have turned their hobby into a business, and sometimes it might not be a full time business at first, but who wouldn't like being paid for what you love to do anyway. Look at businesses like fishing guides or skydiving businesses, the people who run those businesses aren't your everyday business people, they are people who loved something so much, they decided to make it their business, and since work takes a big chunk of your time, why not do something you love.

The first step in making your hobby your business is to write a business plan. It might not be a detailed business plan, but you need an outline of what needs to be done and how you plan to accomplish these tasks.

Including in that plan should be whether you're going to form an LLC, form a corporation or simply file for a DBA; your marketing plan, which these days has a lot to do with your online presence. Once your business plan is in place, you can hire a company, such as ours, to take care of a lot of the parts of getting the business up and running, or do it yourself. If you're going to be doing any of the tasks yourself, be sure to set up deadlines for every task. Too many times people will start something, only to leave it sitting forever, unfinished, where if they just gave themselves some sort of deadline, they could make it work. If you have any questions about making your personal hobby a business, give us a call at 866-999-8200.

Small businesses are still struggling, all around the world, with bringing in steady business, but in order to have a positive impact on the economy, it's important to keep it moving, as this not only helps you, but the economy as a whole. Small businesses employee more people than big corporations, so whenever you get a chance to help a small business out, you should take it. Obviously there are factors that play into whether you shop with a small business or not, price as well as convenience. The advantage big businesses have over small businesses is that they are more convenient, there are more Walmarts around so consumers usually have to be looking for something very specific in order to come across small businesses that specializes in a product, industry or service. Small businesses have to make an extra effort to be seen, and sometimes a part of that is cold calling.

There are many businesses that run fine without cold calling, and sometimes it's looked at as a last resort to gain more sales. There are some things you can do to keep your cold calling experience a positive one. First of all, cold calling should be mostly reserved for those selling a tangible product, if you're cold calling to sell a service, it's often hard to close the sale. A good tip is to keep it in mind that you're not trying to sell, introduce yourself and be natural, rarely do scripts work, as the caller can hear in your voice that you are not sincere. If you do happen to be offering services rather than tangible products, instead of calling to sell these products, tell the person how a your service can help them out. Something else to consider, when leaving messages, do not be too vague but trust that if you sound like you're selling something, rarely are you going to get a call back. Be natural is the key to keeping the lines of communication between you and a potential client.

Many business owners, especially new business owners want to have their hands in everything, and that's fine, but there is a line between having a hand in everything and doing everything yourself. As a small business owner it's important to accept help when available. Sometimes you may think it's easier to do something yourself or because you have a specific way of getting things done. If that's the case, take a few moments to show someone how you'd like a task completed, from then on they should pick up on how you like things done, so when the task comes up again, you can rely on that same person to take care of things the way you like them to be taken care of. If you take the time to teach someone how to do something, they will continue doing that something the way they were taught, if you do not teach them, there will be trial and error. Some business owners are OK with their employees figuring out their own way of doing things and will step back when it comes to teaching something, but some business owners do not have that luxury. Regardless of how things are getting done, you have to take time for yourself, and if there is help available, take it.

When speaking to potential clients, it's important to be professional, but it's also important to be natural. If you're going to ask how someone's day is going, be sure that you're asking just as you would ask a friend, rather than with a tone that implies that you're asking out of habit. Also it's OK to talk about other things outside of the business, for example, if you're in someone's office and they have a certain sports team's memorabilia up, if you're a fan of the same team, you can bring it up, even if you're not a fan of that team, and say you're a fan of the team's rivals, you can mention that, it'll mean more than lying to get the sale. People in general can tell when someone is genuine or not, there are exceptions, there are people who have practiced their sales craft so much that they're able to persuade a lot of people so that they can close sales. Most of us do not have the gift that some sales people have, so it's important to stay genuine when talking to potential clients, they'll appreciate it.

We've touched on the subject before, but now we want to stress the importance of creating a website for your small business, regardless of your business type. As this generation gets older and the new generations are more tech savvy, ways of marketing your business are going almost completely digital. It's probably been quite a while since you opened up a big yellow phone book to look up any type of business, are they even in production anymore? These days everyone takes to the internet to search for what they're finding, and if your business doesn't have a presence on the internet, chances are your business will not be found other than by means of word of mouth. Because we're expanding our services to include all aspects of small business, along with our regular LLC and corporation filings as well as DBA filings, we're also now providing design services through our sister company, LogoBang. Should you need a website built, a logo design or questions about any type of design services, we're here to help, contact us at 866-999-8200.

When you first get the idea to start your own business, it's important to set aside time to work on your new start up. There are so many people out there who take the first step in starting an LLC or forming a corporation and never continue with their dream because they don't set aside time to push the business forward. While it's great to see people starting things, you should make it an important part of your day to push things forward, if you need help doing this, set up a calendar and write small tasks down each day. Because so many people are starting their own business on the side of their regular job, it's often an afterthought. In this day, it's important to work for what you want, and if you want to be your own boss eventually, you're going to  have to work for it.