Let me ask you this… What makes a successful business owner?

Well for me, a successful business owner is someone that earns well into six figures or more each year from their business, working around 3 to 4 days (or less) per week.

I call this ‘successful’ because if they can make a few hundred thousand a year from their business, and only work a few days per week – they have to have a lot of great things in place…

Not just in their business – but in their personal life.

It tells me that in their business they have fabulous systems and staff members that are willing and able to work even when the owner isn’t there.

And the business would have great information systems so that the business owner would know everything that’s going on (even though they’re not there) – so they can still ‘control’ the business.

They’d have excellent marketing and sales systems that day in day out draw in ‘ideal’ customers that willingly buy from the business, at full price.

Plus because of the level of service and quality in the business the customers are loyal and enthusiastically refer other people to the business.

The business owner would also have a high level of trust in their staff to run the business – which shows me a couple of things.

Number 1, they’d have excellent staff recruitment and training programs to build their staff into competent team members.

And Number 2 – They’d have a high level emotional maturity to allow this to happen.

In their personal life, I’d consider these business owners successful because they would have enough free time during the week to spend on their own doing exercise or their favourite hobbies.

This recharges their ‘batteries’ and keeps them fresh. Thus they always seem to be ‘on-the-ball’.

Plus, they spend good quality time with their partner at home and their family.

And that’s crucial.

Just ask anyone whose business has caused a marriage break up, and/or illness through stress.

You see, growing a business that overtakes your life – is very, very easy. Most business owners achieve this within the first couple of weeks of starting!

Growing a business that also enhances your lifestyle – is a lot more difficult.

But it is possible.

And that’s what I do with the business owners I work with.

We create profitable business growth – that enhance their lifestyles

For me it’s about – Business and Life Harmony.

So what’s the underlying secret to achieving it?

Commit to becoming a better business person.

Every successful business owner will tell you this…

It’s not one single thing that will make the difference to your business growth.

It’s a lot of things.

You see most business owners are waiting for the ‘one big’ order or the ‘one great year’ or the ‘one great staff member’ that will make all the difference.

The successful business owners know differently.

The successful business owners know that to have an extraordinary business – they must be an extraordinary business person.

They know that if they want to grow to $2 Million… they have to learn how to become a $2 Million business owner. And this requires improving their business skills.

There are many skills to learn.

You’ve got to know how to make the product or deliver the service. You’ve got to know how to market your business How to sell, how to find suppliers, how to negotiate, how to hire people, how to train people, how to read and understand financial statements the list goes on and on.

Yet – it can be, and is simple… when you learn how to do it simply.

And that’s my role with you.

You see as a business coach my skill is making your business growth predictable, controllable and a hell of a lot easier.

All of my clients will tell you that.

So back to you.

If you want to grow your business – you may realize that you need to learn some new information and skills.

And that’s what Super successful business owners have done before you.

They realize that to really grow their business – they MUST become a better business person.

Most ‘unsuccessful’ business owners believe that the way to grow their business is by making a better product, or providing a better service.

They feel that if they have the ‘best’ product – the market will come to them.

Well the product or service is only one part of your business. It’s not enough.

Super successful business owners initially build their business on a good product or service. Then when it comes time to grow… they focus on areas that will grow their business.

Super successful business owners focus on areas that most unsuccessful business owner’s neglect or are too busy to focus on.

Areas like...

• Creating Vision, Mission and Values Statements
• Marketing
• Sales
• Customer Care
• Operations
• People
• Team building
• Financial statement
• Financial analysis
• Taxation
• Law
• Technology
• Key Performance Indicators
• Business/life balance
• And building their wealth through

All of these areas sound separate yet they are extremely interconnected and dependant on each other. And as we travel through each session you’ll hear how each topic is linked to, and how much each topic relies on the other topics for its success.

That’s what makes a great business person – using all the areas.

It may seem like a long list. If it does or doesn’t don’t worry. It’s a list that I’m absolutely passionate about helping you with.

Because that’s the first step to growing your business.

Become a better business person by working on your business, rather than just working in it.

Most artists consider themselves and artist first and a businessperson second. However, the two must go hand in hand in order for artists to make their living from their artwork. There is nothing saying that you can’t get help with the business part of the enterprise, and more and more artists are working with consultants and agents to free themselves up for their first love, “Creating works of art.”

Producing art for sale is a business enterprise. Producing art for the pure pleasure of creating with no intent or plan for the sale of what you are creating is not considered a business enterprise. If you intend to market and sell the product you make you are entitled to all the benefits of being in business. But, if you are not really serious about generating income from your creative efforts, you are considered by the I.R.S. and the art world to be a hobbyist. A hobbyist is not entitled to business tax benefits.

Here are the basics “Benefit and Tax Deductions” of which you need to be aware:

Education

Anything related to furthering your skills and your craft are fully tax deductible – workshops, college or university courses, seminars, etc.

Promotional Materials

Includes all printed items such as brochures, stationary, mailing costs, slides, photographs and your website.

Travel

When you travel be sure to keep a record of all your travel expenses. They are fully tax deductible if they are business related. Most travel expenses such as auto and airline are deductible when you are presenting your work to galleries, collectors, and consultants, etc. When you travel take business cards with you. Contact galleries on your trips. Give them your card and get theirs.

Art Supplies

Paint, paintbrushes, canvas, paper and all materials used to create your product.

Your Studio

Your studio may be fully or partially deductible. If your studio is in your home you can deduct a portion. If it is a stand alone, take a full deduction including utilities, telephone, etc.

Entertainment

Related to your art business can be fully or partially deducted.

Record Keeping

Record all of your expenses by keeping receipts, a diary and notations in your checkbook.

Copyrights

All that is required to protect your original work is the placement of a “C” in a prominent place in the lower portion of your image with the year of completion and your signature.

Legal-Contracts

Contracts are usually designed and written by attorneys in legal language. Most people find contracts difficult to understand, especially, the fine print and terminology.

If you receive a contract from a gallery, print publisher or art agent, be sure you fully understand everything the contract means. Have an attorney review the contract so that you will be sure to understand and agree to all terms and conditions.

Your Social Security Account

As a self-employed business person the first portion of any federal taxes you pay will go directly into your social security account.

Joint Filing

If you are married and your spouse is employed by a company that automatically deducts taxes from his/her salary, you are entitled to deduct all of your business expenses from your joint tax liability.

Your Accountant

I have given you the basic tax and business benefits and deductions you can be entitled to, but you should consult with your accountant to verify your own legitimate deductions. It is important to understand that most businesses do not show a profit for the first three years. Business losses are part of doing business, but losses are deductible.

Budget

It is also extremely important that you establish a yearly advertising and promotional budget for your art business. At least 10% of all your sales should be set aside for this purpose.

You have heard the saying, “…that it takes money to make money.” This is so true. All businesses require capital (money) to get started and remain operational. As an artist your investment will be smaller than that required by most other kinds of business enterprises. Nevertheless, you must be fully committed financially to your business if it is to succeed.

Successful artists must have a passion for what they create. However, it is necessary to take care of or, at least, oversee the successfully marketing of your work. Again, remember that you can hire help for some of those business tasks. That’s what consultants and agents are for. Organize your budget to free yourself up to do what you do best…create art.

Wouldn't it be great to have thoroughly trained experts handle every issue and solve every problem in your organization? Imagine what a perfect world it would be if, after hiring bright and eager people, you could provide them with a limitless amount of training to help make each person become a rote expert in his or her job domain. Likewise, imagine being able to educate customers to become experts in every facet of using your offerings, regardless of how complex they are.

If this sounds like a perfect world, perhaps it is, but it's also expensive and time-consuming. It places tremendous emphasis on "installing knowledge" into the brains of employees and consumers to handle complexity in products, services, and internal procedures. This article discusses alternatives to that approach, which include electronic support systems.

Either Simplify -- Or Offer Electronic Support!

We know that one way to reduce the need for both personnel and customer training is to simplify, simplify, simplify. This refers to everything from system interfaces, setup tasks, and procedures to anything else related to what you offer to your customers or require your personnel to do.

Simplifying your offerings makes it easier for your customers to use them, and also makes them much more straightforward to market, document, test, and maintain. If your business could be made this uncomplicated, imagine how much less effort you'd need to exert to pump information into your employees and customers!

But what if total simplification isn't possible, and neither is perpetual training? Some domains of knowledge are constantly in a state of flux as they shift to reflect changing industry standards, government rules, and other dynamic forces. If your offerings revolve around such domains, even the best attempts at training people to become cutting-edge specialists will fall behind the curve eventually. An alternative would be to embed wisdom in your systems and offerings so that you won't need to plant it in the minds of customers and employees.

Electronic support systems can help greatly in these situations. These systems are integrated environments that are easily accessible by each employee, or if they are embodied in your offerings, by your customers. They can provide immediate, individualized admission to a full range of advice, guidance, assistance, information, software, data, images, tools, assessments, decision support, and monitoring aids. They thereby help people evaluate options and accomplish their work with minimal support and intervention by others.

More "People Power" with Less Know-How

Electronic support systems enable people to perform with a greater level of expertise than they actually have, with greater speed than they could otherwise, or when the knowledge they deal with is so dynamic that no one can reasonably keep up with it.

By supplying intelligent task assistance, these systems can provide just-in-time information, instruction, and the ability to do calculations; answer complex questions on the fly; and guide relatively difficult procedures. They are not necessarily cheap to develop, however, so they might not be within easy reach of an organization with a small budget. However, they have the potential to reduce training and customer support costs dramatically.

Example #1: Consumer Lending

When applying for a loan over the telephone, you may have wondered, "Gosh, how have things speeded up so much these days so that in the course of one call, I can find out within ten or fifteen minutes whether I'm qualified?" The personnel on the other end of the call are probably using electronic support systems to guide them in completing the queries and calculations from beginning to end.

So, instead of having to acquire and maintain "rote knowledge" of their subject, such personnel may be depending heavily on a system, which is where much of the up-to-date information, calculation speed, and decision-making rules reside.

Example #2: Income Tax Preparation

If you've ever prepared your own income tax return, you probably know exactly how challenging it is to struggle through the tax preparation guides. Just staring at the forms, which seem to change radically every year, can be quite intimidating. You might have thrown up your hands, as many people do, and sought out a tax preparation software package such as Intuit's TurboTax.

TurboTax is an excellent example of an electronic support system that's available to the public. Its step-by-step process guides users through a series of inquiries that helps them perform each task correctly, even if they don't know the first thing about the U.S. tax code. It greatly reduces or eliminates customer training, which is one reason why it's so commercially successful.

Example #3: Technical Support

Technical support personnel always need quick access to a knowledgebase of problems described by customers, and the resolutions that were developed to solve those problems. It's ideal for the staff to be able to troubleshoot problems quickly over the telephone, using some kind of electronic support system, rather than having to go off and research the same problem every time they get a call. Customers are much happier with the quick response, and personnel aren't tying up their time hunting around for answers.

In conclusion, wherever simplification leaves off, electronic support can help facilitate the remaining tasks. Such guidance can come in the form of interviews, tightly interwoven tips and hints, overviews, demonstrations, wizards, decision guidance, calculation tools, and other systematic interactions that intelligently aid people in achieving their goals.

If your organization aims to invest in an electronic support system, the indicators that could be factored into a payback analysis include customer satisfaction, the speed and volume of customer transactions, and reductions in average support call resolution time. These improvements could generate impressive savings and benefits over time, which might justify the costs of developing a system.

What if you knew some skills that could help grow your business faster? One may say it’s all about customer service and how happy your customers are, but there is more to it than that.

There are certain skills sets that will help you in growing your business faster. What are they? How can you grow your business faster? How can you spend less time in your business?

Do you spend a lot of hours in your business? Do you wish you had employees that did just a portion of the amount of work that you did? Why is it so hard to find staff that will stay in your company and not leave just because of greater pay elsewhere?

1. Attracting people that contribute to your company’s success.

This can be a big one. Not only do you have to find people that are willing to do the job and interested in today’s market but you have to find people that will grow with the company. How you attract these people can be tough to if the market is competitive. There are many things you can do to attract the right people but we will touch on three. See what the motivation is behind people wanting to work for your company. Secondly, what do they have to offer in terms of skills that are complementary or needed for your business? Thirdly, how successful have they been in the past in achieving goals in other businesses? Fourthly, they are helping you succeed, so how are you going to help them succeed? What are you going to offer them?

2. Comparing what your product is priced at to others.

What do you charge for your product or service? How did you come up with this price? Do others charge more or less for this product or service? Why do they charge more or less? What is different about their product or service then yours? These are all important questions that you must ask yourself in determining how to value your product in the marketplace. A study of a group of potential consumers asking these questions would be a good start. Also getting someone to do some research for your or finding similar research that has been done would be beneficial to your business and greater success.

3. How much value do you add for your service?

Not all companies are the same. For example say a lawn maintenance service. So you have someone that comes over and cuts the grass for a few dollars. Or do you have someone the cuts the grass in the proper manner in the proper amounts of time. As well they may add products to your lawn or repair portions of your lawn. Perhaps they may also do things to beautify your lawn. Perhaps this could also add to the value of your property. See where we are going with this? The sum is greater than the parts.

4. What is the demand for your product at this time? Why is it at that level?

At certain times in the year products and service are priced at a certain level. Why is that? Well there are certain different times of supply and demand. When your product is rare or scarce and well valued then it is perceived to be worth more than others. Makes sense! So perhaps you should see how people perceive your product, the quality and the price. This will only help benefit your business in the long run. Anyone can sell product X, but how they present product X is what determines some success from others. Some people use others to become successful; others are genuine about what they have to offer. Does it matter, maybe not in the short run, but that could change in the long run.

If you are like most notaries, you have been lured in by the promise of making $100,000 a year as a loan signing agent. Well, after you paid for your training, supplies, licensing fees, etc, you are left wondering how to even pay for the expenses you have accrued, let alone make a profit.

Unfortunately, this business is not a get-rich-quick industry. It is just like any small business. It requires lots of hard work and perserverence and a little bit of initial capital. So, how do you get this business started?

Business Cards
The first step is to get business cards. Every notary must have a stack of business cards ready to hand out to anyone who will take them. These are your best forms of advertising, accompanied with a warm smile and firm handshake. So who do you give these cards to? EVERYONE you know. All your friends, family, co-workers, hair dresser, real estate agent, landlord, etc. Make sure that you are enthusiastic and informative when people ask you what a notary is. Tell them that you help to identify the signer and verify signatures on important documents. Tell them that you are the first line of defense against fraud. If you are confident and enthusiastic, they will remember that and they will call you if they ever need a notary.

Web Site
It is a necessity to have a web presence if you are a serious notary. There are several different listing sites that specialize in helping users locate a notary. You should sign up for as many of these sites as you can afford. Some of the top sites you MUST join are www.NotaryRotary.com, www.123notary.com and www.Notary.net. They each offer something a little different, but these are the main sites that are used to find notaries throughout the country. If you want to get fancy, you can get your own website (www.YourName.com) at www.Notary.net, however, you should still be listed in the other sites in addition to having your own website. Make sure that you link back to your web site from the listing web sites to increase your Google Page Rank.

Your business will need to belong to certain fields in order to qualify for government finance. Moreover, you’ll need to present a business plan with market analysis and other provisions. Some government agencies offer loans but also grants which you won’t have to repay. You can contact the different agencies for more information or search the net to find out about the different programs.

Starting Business Loans

If you don’t fall into the categories required to obtain government funds, you will need to resort to private funding. This also has its tricks, there are different kinds of business loans and not all of them will provide a solution to your funding needs. Moreover, there are certain business’ loans not meant for starting businesses and thus, applying for such loans will only lower your credit score since you’ll get declined.

Business loans are meant for running businesses. You have to own a business with at least 3 years of credit history in order to get approved. The only kind of loans that is specially tailored for those willing to start their own business is a starting business loan. These loans are customized for certain businesses that operate in specific fields or meet certain requirements in terms of collateral. If your business lacks those requirements you’ll need to request a personal loan.

Customized Loans & Personal Loans

Starting Business loans are loans customized for those who want to start a new business. In order to get these loans, the applicant has to present a business program, a market study and plenty of documentation backing up the project. There are certain fields that have more chances of approval due to the higher profit obtained.

But getting approved for starting business loans is rather complicated. Those with small projects, less ambitious ones, should consider applying for a personal loan and using the money for starting their own business. Later on, when the business is strong they’ll be able to request a business loan for running businesses that will provide all the finance needed to make a business grow to new heights.

Interest Rate & Securities

With the exception of certain business loans that are subsidized by government agencies and non profit organizations, the interest rate charged tends to be high compared with secured personal loans. However, it is possible to secure a business loan with the business’ equity or with a particular asset, thus reducing the risk and consequently the interest rate.

Wouldn't it be great to have thoroughly trained experts handle every issue and solve every problem in your organization? Imagine what a perfect world it would be if, after hiring bright and eager people, you could provide them with a limitless amount of training to help make each person become a rote expert in his or her job domain. Likewise, imagine being able to educate customers to become experts in every facet of using your offerings, regardless of how complex they are.

If this sounds like a perfect world, perhaps it is, but it's also expensive and time-consuming. It places tremendous emphasis on "installing knowledge" into the brains of employees and consumers to handle complexity in products, services, and internal procedures. This article discusses alternatives to that approach, which include electronic support systems.

Either Simplify -- Or Offer Electronic Support!

We know that one way to reduce the need for both personnel and customer training is to simplify, simplify, simplify. This refers to everything from system interfaces, setup tasks, and procedures to anything else related to what you offer to your customers or require your personnel to do.

Simplifying your offerings makes it easier for your customers to use them, and also makes them much more straightforward to market, document, test, and maintain. If your business could be made this uncomplicated, imagine how much less effort you'd need to exert to pump information into your employees and customers!

But what if total simplification isn't possible, and neither is perpetual training? Some domains of knowledge are constantly in a state of flux as they shift to reflect changing industry standards, government rules, and other dynamic forces. If your offerings revolve around such domains, even the best attempts at training people to become cutting-edge specialists will fall behind the curve eventually. An alternative would be to embed wisdom in your systems and offerings so that you won't need to plant it in the minds of customers and employees.

Electronic support systems can help greatly in these situations. These systems are integrated environments that are easily accessible by each employee, or if they are embodied in your offerings, by your customers. They can provide immediate, individualized admission to a full range of advice, guidance, assistance, information, software, data, images, tools, assessments, decision support, and monitoring aids. They thereby help people evaluate options and accomplish their work with minimal support and intervention by others.

More "People Power" with Less Know-How

Electronic support systems enable people to perform with a greater level of expertise than they actually have, with greater speed than they could otherwise, or when the knowledge they deal with is so dynamic that no one can reasonably keep up with it.

By supplying intelligent task assistance, these systems can provide just-in-time information, instruction, and the ability to do calculations; answer complex questions on the fly; and guide relatively difficult procedures. They are not necessarily cheap to develop, however, so they might not be within easy reach of an organization with a small budget. However, they have the potential to reduce training and customer support costs dramatically.

Example #1: Consumer Lending

When applying for a loan over the telephone, you may have wondered, "Gosh, how have things speeded up so much these days so that in the course of one call, I can find out within ten or fifteen minutes whether I'm qualified?" The personnel on the other end of the call are probably using electronic support systems to guide them in completing the queries and calculations from beginning to end.

So, instead of having to acquire and maintain "rote knowledge" of their subject, such personnel may be depending heavily on a system, which is where much of the up-to-date information, calculation speed, and decision-making rules reside.

Example #2: Income Tax Preparation

If you've ever prepared your own income tax return, you probably know exactly how challenging it is to struggle through the tax preparation guides. Just staring at the forms, which seem to change radically every year, can be quite intimidating. You might have thrown up your hands, as many people do, and sought out a tax preparation software package such as Intuit's TurboTax.

TurboTax is an excellent example of an electronic support system that's available to the public. Its step-by-step process guides users through a series of inquiries that helps them perform each task correctly, even if they don't know the first thing about the U.S. tax code. It greatly reduces or eliminates customer training, which is one reason why it's so commercially successful.

Example #3: Technical Support

Technical support personnel always need quick access to a knowledgebase of problems described by customers, and the resolutions that were developed to solve those problems. It's ideal for the staff to be able to troubleshoot problems quickly over the telephone, using some kind of electronic support system, rather than having to go off and research the same problem every time they get a call. Customers are much happier with the quick response, and personnel aren't tying up their time hunting around for answers.

In conclusion, wherever simplification leaves off, electronic support can help facilitate the remaining tasks. Such guidance can come in the form of interviews, tightly interwoven tips and hints, overviews, demonstrations, wizards, decision guidance, calculation tools, and other systematic interactions that intelligently aid people in achieving their goals.

If your organization aims to invest in an electronic support system, the indicators that could be factored into a payback analysis include customer satisfaction, the speed and volume of customer transactions, and reductions in average support call resolution time. These improvements could generate impressive savings and benefits over time, which might justify the costs of developing a system.

With the holiday season fast approaching, more and more businesspeople are considering getting an Australian business visa for a different taste of winter.

The Australian winter is actually the friendly reversal of Europe's and the U.S.'s version of deep frost and snowstorm, which is why the Land Down Under is always a top pick for holiday business travels and for business people who'd like to extend their work well into winter.

Businesspeople are wising up on the extended opportunities Australia's holiday can give their businesses. Even before harsh winter sets in and forces them out of their own countries, investors, senior executives, businesspeople of all kinds are readying their Australian business visas, planning their trips to sunny Down Under to tend their branch offices, perhaps do some marketing research, or set-up possibilities.

The warm Australian winter is also luring thousands of backpackers who are getting working visas. Under the working holiday maker scheme, backpackers of member countries http://www.nationalvisas.com.au/working/visarequirements.htm can travel Australia and find temporary work opportunities with equal pay as any Australian employee so as to supplement their return travel funds.

Australia's favorable winter for business has, for a time, been unfairly unrecognized; most people equate Australia with vacation. But Australia's brisk economy is soaring higher than ever before. What tourists and businesspeople alike are discovering is that, in Australia, they can actually mix business with pleasure.

Does writing a proposal seem confusing? Not sure what format to use or what information to include? This is a simple guide to writing a great proposal that will increase your new business and sales.

The key to securing new business is in building a relationship with your prospective clients and showing them you can delivery exactly what they want. A well-constructed proposal can do this for you and can dramatically increase sales and business. Don’t miss the sample proposal at the end!

FIRST STEPS

The first step of the process to securing new business is of course making the contact. Once you have the contact or you must build the business relationship. This can easily be done through a simple meeting, whether in person or on the phone, to figure out your clients needs and wants. The next key step to the processes of securing new business is to take the needs and wants of the client and detail out how your can deliver exactly what they are looking for and become there “GO TO” for the job!

A detailed proposal should be sent to the client within 24 business hours of the “needs and wants” conversation with your prospective client, if not sooner. If the project they are looking for is needed immediately the quicker your response time the better. This may mean they need the proposal within an hour or two. A quick response time to the client will do many things to increase the relationship and potential for securing business:

Quick Response Time in Delivering Proposal Will:

1. Show your interest in their company and doing business

2. Present your company as efficient and responsive, which is a key in business and shows you provide quality customer service

3. Place you in the forefront of the race for the new business, if the client is accepting multiple proposals

4. Deter the company from reaching out for other proposals and contacting your competitor

5. Begin the process of the business cycle and make it easy for the company to deliver a YES on contracting you for the project

DRAFTING THE PROPOSAL

This will be a guide for the format and content of drafting an excellent proposal. Your will need to modify the proposal for your client and business, of course.

A proposal should be specific to your client and there needs and wants. It should reflect your company’s ability to delivery a superior product/service in a timely manner.

CONTENT

Introduction

The introduction should speak directly to your contact and refer to him/her by name to create a personal relationship with the proposal.

After your personal introduction, provide and introduction to your company. Include the following:

• What you do (describe your product(s) or service(s) including those the client may not be aware of so they understand the scope of your work)

• How long you have done this and/or who your other clients are (this will be a resume of sorts and show your stability, qualifications and track record for your work and references)

• List specific clients that you have worked for and providing similar work to. This may be company’s in their same industry or companies that you have provided the same work to. (Listing these clients will further your qualifications to provide work for the new client)

The Work or The Product

The next section will describe the work or the product you will be delivering to the client.

The work or product should be described in great detail. The more details the better. If it is a step by step process explain the steps the will be done.

Sell your service/product here in this section.

Methodology

The “Methodology” is “ particular procedure or set of procedures" or "the analysis of the principles or procedures of inquiry in a particular field". The common idea here is the collection, the comparative study, and the critique of the individual methods that are used in your field.

If applicable to your service or product, this section will be used to provide explanation of your methods and procedures of work. It will give the client insight into your reasoning and methods for execution of project.

Costs

Write out the bottom line. It will simply be “this work will be $____”.

This section will be as detailed as needed for your service/product. If you are unsure of the scope of service or products desired by the client you may include options or separate out costs so the client may “pick and choose” what is needed and within budget.

Timeline

In delivering to a client it is essential to maintain professionalism. This of course includes, delivering what is promised. The client should be given a timeline or deadline for when the product or service will be delivered. DO NOT PROMISE WHAT YOU CANNOT DELIVER. It is better to overestimate the time you need to complete your work than underestimate and break your promise to a client.

If the timeline and deadline are dependent somewhat on the client detail out what the client must provide and when you will need it. Or you can make your timeline based on when they deliver what is needed. (See example below under “Timeline” in sample proposal.)

Closing

Include instructions on the next step:

How to getting started or move forward from here
How to accept this proposal
How to send payment
What is needed next?

In closing thank your client for the acceptance of the proposal and/or for their consideration.

Make sure to include your name, your title, your company’s name, and contact information. The more contact information the better. Give them as many ways to contact you as possible and let them choose which is most convenient. It is a good idea to include success stories at the end of your proposal to further the trust in your company and superiority of your product/service.

When you go on to legally form your own business, you will in many cases be faced with a few options: registering an llc, a corporation, a partnership or just be self employed. The option of forming an llc is the one discussed in this article, as it is probably the best one in many situations.

LLC stands for Limited Liability Company. That means that the company is a separate legal entity from the person who founded it. The meaning is that the person cannot be personally responsible for the losses the company accumulates (except for his personal investment in the company). It also means that the company itself can be sued legally for matters that concern it's activity, and again, the person who owns and/or controls the company is not responsible (with a few exceptions).

LLC's also enjoy several tax benefits. The person who controls the LLC is required to pay tax only once on the LLC's profits. He is than exempt from paying any personal tax on the profits he gains from his LLC company.

Other advantages LLC's have are that there is less paperwork and hassle to operate an LLC in compared with an incorporation. There is no need for board and annual meetings, less files and reports to submit to the authorities and regulatory bodies. All this leads to the LLC being a very attractive alternative for small and medium sized business, as a form of incorporation that has many benefits and few disadvantages.

Forming a limited liability company is a fast and easy process. All you need to do is decide on a company name and location. You need to pay a fee and submit the papers to the Secretary of State in the state where the LLC is to be registered. All US states permit registering an LLC, so you'll have no problem completing the process in your own state. Each LLC should have a Registered Agent with a street address in the state where the LLC was registered. The Secretary of State office will provide assistance to anyone who wants to register an LLC, and the process will be done in a few days.

The choice of business structure and the incorporation of it are important. LLC is a great fit for many businesses, but not all of them. So, you'll probably be best to consult with a lawyer before deciding on an incorporation that is best suited to your needs.