Frederick Welk ⋅ Meriden, CT Community Economic Development Fund ⋅ 33 years experience

Jack,
Suppliers to your industry can generally help answer questions that you feel competitors would not. They know the practices of their better customers (the ones that order a lot and ergo have higher sales).
My general advice for start-up businesses.
-- Make sure you have solid financial controls in place. I consult with small businesses for a nonprofit lender and I find it very common that the basic bookkeeping is not in place or is of questionable quality. If bookkeeping is not inside your realm of expertise be sure you hire a competent bookkeeper. Do-it-yourself QuickBooks is fine but only if you have enough finance/accounting education to understand the processes.
-- Marketing is universally underfunded and understaffed. An owner of home-based business is often stuck in production and can't get into management (marketing or general) of their own operation because of lack of (allocated) time.
Hope this is use.

Ken Cameron-Weiser ⋅ Medina, WA Dynamic Results Catalyst™ ⋅ 30 years experience

Jack - I built one of the nation's largest promotional products companies about 10 years ago so I think I can assist you with industry specific questions. If you want to be a supplier it is vital for you to join ASI. PPAI and your local promotional products association. You will probably also want to reach out to the major distributors offering special pricing for their salespeople. Also make sure you have a good relationship with your wearables vendor because huge orders come out of the blue and you may need help when you have more orders than ready cash. I used SanMar almost exclusively myself. Please reach out with any questions you may have. I would be honored to help you in any way I can.

Jack Barnard ⋅ North Little Rock, AR U.S. Navy, Petty Officer Third Class ⋅ 5 years served

Thanks Frederick. I appreciate it. Finances will be a task that I take on. I am real detail oriented on things like that. One you need it to be right for Uncle Sam, but secondly its also a tracking system for orders in the next few months or next year. A nice little reminder of who ordered when and what, simply send out on email or make a friendly call and see if they are interested in placing another order.

Marketing is a big task when working alone in a home business. My wife will be doing the lion's share of the embroidery business, while I tackle the other business venture I am in, Real Estate. I think I am fairly comfortable with the different avenues to market, but it is very time consuming trying to get them all in. I did find one great site which helps for content management marketing. Scoop.it is the name and allows you to curate your content, then post to different social media sites. I am just now getting started with scoop.it, but its great because I can sit down on night and plan my whole week of blog post. Now I haven't done it yet, but I see it happening very soon.

Thanks for the input guys, I had assumed I wouldn't get much response on the topic, but we did get some. I had one last thing if anyone can answer this. Section 179 is a tax write of for businesses to purchase equipment. Since I am just starting my business, and probably won't have much as far as income within the business, would I still be able to use Sec.179 and get the tax break? Thanks

Jack

Jack Barnard ⋅ North Little Rock, AR U.S. Navy, Petty Officer Third Class ⋅ 5 years served

Thanks for the answers Tom & Ken. I have done all of these things that you have mentioned. I worked with score to develop my business plan. It took over 2 months and about 10 revisions, but its done. Niche, I believe I have. Reaching it, I can do. I have a value proposition and we will participate in "social entrepreneurship " or cause marketing is my word. I will check out the micromentor site. The few individuals that I have gotten to speak with in the industry have been helpful, but the majority of the owners, will not share with you. They are guarded. But, I can kind of understand where they are coming from. In Arkansas, where I live, there are over 118 businesses that offer a service that I will offer. But, that also tells me a lot of people get to eat and nobody has grabbed the lion's share of the market. So, thats what I am aiming to do.

Tom Cal, CFA ⋅ San Francisco, CA Army Veteran, Investment Manager ⋅ 25 years experience

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