There are many reasons why you might need a solicitor, lawyer or professional legal representative during the course of business. You may need these services for advice on how to structure your business, to draw up contracts and legally binding documents, to help form business partnerships, or to resolve issues with clients and/or government agencies.
Whatever your reason for needing one, it’s important to choose the right one.
Solicitors, lawyers and attorneys are highly specialised professionals. The laws of the modern world are so complex that it is difficult for one person to see to all legal matters, and so they normally will choose one area of law to focus on. A solicitor might specialise in family law, business, criminal law, or any of a number of other areas of specialty.
So for your business you need to find a legal professional who is an expert in business law. Even then, you may find some professionals that specialise in various areas within business law, such as patent or intellectual property protection.
The first step to choosing the right professional is in narrowing the list down by their specialty.
That short list still will be quite long though, and so you will need a way to really close the field. For this, determine your specific needs and the type of solicitor you want representing you.
Consider factors such as:
Expertise
Experience
Personality
Philosophy
Legal interpretation
In addition, it’s a good idea to:
Ask other business associates for referrals
Check with legal societies
Ask for referrals from trade, commerce or industry associations you belong to
Once you’ve narrowed this down to a few prospective representatives, it’s time to ask for some specific details, such as:
Their area of expertise and experience dealing with cases such as yours
Quotes, rates and additional service fees
What is and isn’t included in quotes provided, and how the cost may alter depending on various factors
By now, you should have one or more prospectives that you feel comfortable working with; if not, continue your search until you do.
One thing I noticed when starting this business back in 1998 was that when you’re shopping around to find the best bank account for your business, as soon as you mention ‘business’ most of the fees suddenly increase. It doesn’t seem to matter whether you’re a sole operator with less business transactions than some personal accounts or a major company with numerous daily transactions. As soon as you mention ‘business’, that indicates more money for the banks.
So in choosing the best business bank account it’s extremely important that you shop around with various banks and credit unions. In addition to your current requirements, consider your plans for business growth and how they may affect your future banking needs. It’s much easier to set up the right banking structure now rather than changing in a year or two.
For example, you may not need a merchant account to allow you to accept credit card payments now, but you may want to add this service later. If so, make sure you consider merchant account provisions, costs and requirements when making the initial decision on which bank to choose.
What about convenience … much of today’s banking can be done online but there may be times when you need to visit the branch. Do they have a branch that’s convenient for you to get to?
What’s their service like? This includes general teller service, online service (e.g. site security, ease of navigation around their site and reliability). Can you easily make an appointment to speak with the bank manager or business manager if required?
Over on the Habit Breaking Facts blog, Andrea Jordan shares 17 Everyday Tips For Saving On Bank Fees. There are some great suggestions that are sure to help you manage fees on your personal bank account as well as your business bank account.
Most importantly, compare different accounts with different banks and don’t be afraid to ask questions. The time you spend doing this now will no doubt save you a lot of time, hassle and fees over the years to come.
Brett McFall is an Australian marketing expert who has a particular skill for using a simple 10 minute process to help turn businesses around.
In this video you’ll see Brett demonstrate this process – one he performs all around the world, getting the end result he’s looking for every single time … without fail.
It truly is amazing to watch as the process evolves.
If so, it’s time to organise your email system before it takes over your life!
Email is an extremely convenient mode of communication; perhaps too easy, as it seems to invite people to contact you for sometimes barely any reason at all. With all that email coming in needing attention, it can be hard to get anything else done. So how can you get a grip on your business emails before it gets its grip on you?
Gaining Control Of Email
Success in small business relies on discipline and good time management. Often, however, necessary tasks like checking, reading and responding to emails can start to overtake productive work time and decrease your productivity – and in turn, your profitability. That is why it’s important for you to be managing emails, rather than letting emails manage you. Here are some pointers from the experts:
Schedule time for checking emails; this can be once, twice, or three times daily at times that fit into your schedule. Block out time and when the time is up, move on to other pressing matters.
Do not use email for emergency contacts; inform clients and business associates that you are not available immediately via email, and that they should phone or contact you via instant message, etc, for pressing matters. This makes it possible for you to handle emails in chunks rather than constantly dealing with them throughout the day. Be careful who you give emergency contact information to, though, so that it is used for its intended purpose.
Turn off automatic alerts – both audio and visual – so that you are not tempted to immediately respond every time a new message comes in. This breaks into your productive work time.
Deal with emails during your ‘down time’; do not schedule your most creative and productive times of day for organising emails. Put email management into your schedule where it makes sense – those times of day when you need to slow down, or that do not take away from more complex activities.
Use tools for organising emails; get to know the features of your email client and use them to prioritise emails. For instance, use the ‘rules’ or ‘labels’ function to automatically separate emails into folders according to priority levels, clients, or subjects.
Respond to emails when read; many people will read all emails before responding, and then go back and start with the most important ones. But this only multiplies the time it takes to get through the lot. espond to emails as they are read, and you will not have to begin all over again sifting through them.
Separate business and personal emails; do not give out business email addresses to friends and family that do not have a business reason to contact you.
Email is a very useful and important business tool, but if you don’t learn how to efficiently manage your emails they will begin to take over your life.
Of course, everyone’s situation is going to be different and it may take a little while to find what works best for you, but if you start putting some of these tips into practise you’ll soon get control over your email. If not, perhaps it’s time to consider getting an assistant to help you respond to emails.
An important part of running a successful business is having a plan.
You may need a business plan to obtain finance and for contracts or agreements. Most importantly, you need it to determine your business’ viability, what you hope to achieve and how you will do so. You can also plan for challenges.
Preparing a business plan is something that scares or confuses a lot of small and micro-business owners, but it doesn’t need to be this way.
To help you out, I’ve decided to give away a comprehensive Business Plan Template to guide you through the planning process. Consider this my Welcome to 2010, special New Year’s gift to you.
The way you package your business will have a direct impact on your success in small business. But packaging for small business goes way beyond the look and feel of a given product; packaging of your small business includes imaging of all aspects of it — everything that the outside world will see lends to the image you create, and so you need to pay attention to all details, large and small, when creating your business image.
What Will Your Image Say About You?
Before you can apply your packaging, imaging, and concepts across your business you need to decide what that image will be. For this, you need to first answer this question: “How do you want your business to be seen?”
Decide how you want people to perceive your business, services, personality and products. Will you be…
Funky?
Trendy?
Modern?
Arty?
Corporate?
Professional?
Relaxed?
Busy?
Exciting?
Old-fashioned?
Traditional?
Sophisticated?
Whatever it is you choose to portray, you need to keep that image as the focus of everything you produce.
Full-Business Packaging And Imaging
A business image is created through consistent packaging and communication. our overall business image and packaging should be giving out the same messages. As you move to create your image and possibly branding, you need to review every aspect of business to make sure that message is consistent. This means looking at everything from product or service invoices to the cars you drive and the clothing you and your employees wear. It means developing marketing that is consistent with your image and drafting policies for staff and representatives that dictate the presentation of your company to the world.
Think of everything that your clients see, and every interaction, and then formulate a plan for portraying your business’s image. Look at major and seemingly minor details, like:
Building and office décor
Website design
Website content
Product description
Communicating with clients
Marketing materials
Ads
Letterheads
Dress codes
The most important considerations when creating your business image are message and consistency. You must focus the message you send, and then take steps to make sure it remains consistent. Make your business recognizable and predictable and give clients the confidence of knowing who and what they are buying into when they do business with you. Target your business by sending the messages that your clientele are receptive to, and that shows that you are committed to them.
Sometimes you are not your own best employee.
Sometimes you are not the most cost-effective choice for handling certain aspects of your business.
Sometimes success in small business relies on recognizing where you could use some help and investing in the things that really make a difference to your productivity and profitability.
Sometimes, small business outsourcing is just [...]
What Should You Charge?
It’s one of the most basic, yet most elusive questions asked in all types of businesses. Of course you want to make money, but you also want to set prices at a reasonable rate so that you will not lose business.
So how do you strike that balance? How do you [...]
There are a lot of agencies, departments and organisations around the world that are there to help small businesses – from planning and setting up your business, managing and growing it, through to closing or selling your business. But sometimes it’s hard to know where to look when you don’t really know what you’re looking [...]
If you want to run a successful business, it’s a good idea to learn from those who have gone before you and look at the skills and traits that they have (or had).
Look to your role models… what made them successful? What traits are common amongst successful people and high-achievers?
One thing that I picked up [...]
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FREE Business Plan Template
