Does anyone here own their own business?

[sonti]

Can you recommend any websites/books that give information on starting your own business? I'm getting ready to start in the next 3 months once my boy is old enough for daycare (here in Canada, it's 6 months minimum for most places). But I am sooooooooo clueless.

I'm wondering things like-
- How much for advertising? What is worth it? Flyers to homes? Newspaper ads? How much does a professional graphic designer cost??? Accounting? Taxes?? Insurance if someone falls down my stairs? LOL

I would appreciate any help. I plan on private teaching from my home.

[Lucky_ROA]

I do ! Have you tried the Business Plan Wizard ? It sounds/looks like a kids tool in the beginning but trust me that's how I started with mine ! Depends what your overall budget is to be honest and what your priorities/goals are. Flyers to home cost a lot if your are choosing a partner such as Canada Post but on the other hand can cost dirt cheap if you opt for those private companies. ALTHOUGH going with Canada Post, they will give you access to information such as high concentration areas with your desired demographics etc.

Again depends on what you want. How professionally you want it done. A graphic designer can cost you from $500-$7000.

[GreekyBeth]

I wish I could direct you to the right place or resources. I run my own pest control biz here in Florida, (owner/operator) and it's a ton of work. Besides initial purchase of equipment on startup, my advertising and marketing costs were and still are a bigger chunk of $$ than I expected. I do rely heavily on word of mouth too. I also don't use any door hangers as most people are apt to pitch it without looking at it. Customer discount for referrals has worked well for me.

Do you plan on having a website? If so, have you looked into domain names? Maybe you can find a kid from uni to help you with graphics and design.

I do my own accounting/taxes, but I know my brother (he owns large pest control company) pays roughly $200-250 for quarterlies and I'm sure end of year runs a few grand or more.

I'm kind of babbling here, but the main thing is to be extremely organized and stick to your budget, and put aside some $$ for unexpected expenses.

[Keltron]

Since you're opening roughly the same kind of business as me, I'll tell you what I did. Honestly, it wasn't that complicated.

First thing I did was go to the city hall to get a business license and register a business name.
Then I went to my bank and opened up a business bank account.
Then I got my insurance. I used insurepersonaltrainers.com. I pay about $150/year. Since your business is going to be in your own home as opposed to a Personal training studio like me, it might be a little different in terms of price but I dont think it'll be too much more.
Then I got my credit card processing account through Intuit.

That's really it. I'm sure you don't need much equipment because you've already got a home gym right?

Oh and get ********** or something so you can track all of your business expenses.

As far as the other stuff, I studied graphic design so I did all of that stuff myself but here are the essentials:
logo, website, ******** page, forms (par-q, session logs, contract).

You can hire a designer to do all of that but I would recommend if you at least have a logo, you can use wordpress or another blog and just upload your logo and then select a template who's colors match your logo. Once business picks up and you've got some money saved, you can then shell some out and make it look really nice. Oh and purchase your url as soon as you can... There are assh0les who look up new registered businesses and then purchase URL's that the new business would probably want and then try to sell it to you for a ridiculous amount. So instead of www.Sonti.com, you might be stuck with www.SontiTrainerQuebec.com or something.

Also, don't sell packages like 5 sessions, 10 sessions, 30 sessions. Set them up on an automatic credit card debit for 8 sessions at the first of the month. That way if they miss a session, they have to squeeze it in before the end of the month. If they are reserving a 2x/week time slot on your schedule, they need to pay you for 8 sessions every month. You can't let them buy a package of 10 and then stretch it out over the course of two months. You get what I'm saying?