Start a small business at as early an age as possible. Success is all on the shoulders of the individual, but there’s more.

It teaches respect of others: competitors, business owners, customers, and market conditions. It trains the mind to establish priorities and responsibility.
Will any business do?

It doesn't matter the business type when you are very young, it just makes sense to create an enterprise and generate some activity in a bank; a lender may be important later on and developing a good relationship with the lender is always an advantage.

If a young person in their teens can provide lawn care services or shrub trimming or snow shoveling or babysitting or something that they can get paid for, they should put that cash into a bank account under a business name. Names such as Joe Smith Enterprises are vague enough (for a future business that can be a subsidiary or similar connection under a totally different name, in a different account). It’s all for the purpose of establishing a business entity.

Go to the county courthouse or online at their website, and output the necessary documents for an assumed name license known as a DBA for “doing business as.” You can complete the documents in about 10 minutes, and with about $15 or so submitted to the county courthouse and wait for an assumed name license to be mailed to you, unless you do this in person in which it takes only a day. The document will have to be notarized, but that can usually be done at your local bank, most of the time free of charge.

When you have your assumed name, open up a bank account under that assumed name. There are many stories like the one I'm about to share.
I knew a young guitarist who had a part time job and saved his money in an account and when he joined some other musicians to start a rock band he had a prepared avenue to get a loan for some more equipment when the time came. Eventually the first small loan was repaid and his credit was established to a point where he proved his credit worthiness and he received larger loans for more equipment, lighting, vehicles, and so on as time went by.

That entrepreneurial spirit carried him further than he expected when one day he bought a house, then another. Eventually he sold the houses and relocated to another city and opened a bank account and started a sideline business doing small maintenance repairs and painting under a business name and soon had another enterprise to continue his credit-building efforts.

With credit established and a good banking relationship working for you, you have an advantage over the new business person who has neither. In business, chance favors the prepared. With a history of repaying loans over a long enough period of time, better loan terms and at more advantageous interest rates, can save your business money and afford more working capital – cash – which will keep your business growing.

Eventually you will want to advertise your business and budget a certain amount for marketing expenses, just as paying taxes, or rent on a building, or equipment leases, or any other expenses for doing business. Your banker may also have accounting contacts that can help you with bookkeeping and tax preparation and documentation.

As your entrepreneurial mind creates more ideas, you will see the value of preparing a business plan, which can help you prepare and execute plans before they are needed: equipment purchases; advertising expenditures; insurance costs; additional personnel; payroll increases; etc. It would also be a good idea to create a mission statement as to why you want to be in the business you chose.

Jim Angel
www.jhowardco.com

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