7 minute read
Finance/Children
Steps to turn your side hustle into a small business
Hi Taylor What’s the first step for becoming selfemployed? I’m ready to turn my side hustle into Taylor a full-time gig Kovar and want to make sure I’m handling things in the right order. - Deborah
Advertisement
Hey Deborah - Congratulations on the transition! You’re about to enter an exciting phase of your life, and I’m glad you’re taking the time to make sure you do it right.
Each business is a little different, so the order of affairs can change from one business owner to the next. I’ll lay out three of the early tasks and you can figure out the order in which you approach them.
Decide on a business structure. When your freelance business becomes your primary source of income, you need to decide what type of company you’re actually running. Since it sounds like you’ve been doing the side hustle for a while, you likely have a sole proprietorship and get 1099’d for all your work. There’s no reason why you can’t continue with this business model, but it’s worth considering forming an LLC in order to better protect yourself in the long run. Some people avoid registering businesses because they don’t want to pay the annual fees, but those who are already receiving steady income are usually better off with a more detailed business structure.
Secure your name and brand. As you take your self-employment from part-time to full-time, you want to make sure everyone can find you and communication is seamless. This requires an identifiable business name and a website attached to that name. Depending on what you do, your website can be as complex or simple as you want, but that initial landing page has to exist for clients searching for information. And, since your preferred web address might already be taken, this is an opportunity for you to figure out what you’ll call your business and how that name fits with your overall brand. The earlier you make these decisions, the easier it will be to promote and attract new customers.
Figure out finances. You don’t want to wait until tax time to think about tracking your spending and distinguishing between business and personal expenses. You might not need a business checking account - and might not yet be able to open one anyway - but you do need a clear system for keeping everything in order. It’s easy to let all your spending merge together when you run a sole proprietorship, but a clear delineation between work and everyday expenses will make your life much easier.
You can probably tackle each item on this list concurrently, as they’re all relatively intertwined. If you want more info, there’s a post at GoFarWithKovar.com discussing this very topic. Best of luck!
Taylor was raised by good ol' blue-collar workers and following in their footsteps led him to take on massive debt at a very young age. It didn't take him long to realize having debt wasn't his cup of tea, and he worked his tail off so he could enjoy financial freedom and independence. As an entrepreneur and financial professional, his work has been quoted and published in a variety of different media on topics such as financial management, budgeting, saving, business, investing, and more. Read more about Taylor at GoFarWithKovar.com
Legal Disclaimer: Information presented is for educational purposes only and is not an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. To submit a question to be answered in this column, please send it via email to Question@GoFarWithKovar.com or via USPS to Taylor Kovar, 415 S 1st St, Suite 300, Lufkin, TX 75901.
Does your business need to advertise? Make 2020 your year!
Q: Our daughter, our first and only, is just short of three-and-onehalf. She has recently started coming into our room in the middle of the night and making a request of one sort or another. She wants one of us to accompany her to the bathroom, get her a drink of water, listen to something she’s thought up or something she has apparently dreamed, read to her, or a combination thereof. She has asked to come in our bed, but that’s the one thing we haven’t cooperated with. She always goes back to bed, but only after we’ve done what she wants. At first, several months ago, we thought it was just a phase, but it seems to be more than that. Should we treat this like a behavior problem? If so, how? What punishment should we use and should we use it when she gets up or wait until morning? A: Hold on there, pardners! You’re jumping the gun here! This IS a phase (or stage), which in this context is a word meaning “things that happen for no seeming reason in the course of raising a child.” Almost all young kids go through a phase where they get up in the middle of the night, come into their parents’ room, and ask for various courtesies. This too, will pass…if you make no big deal of it. This is not a behavior problem! It is simply behavior. Yes, it can be a problem for the parents in question, who may need a good night’s sleep for various reasons. At the least, it is annoying to be awakened by a little person staring at you over the top of the mattress at two in the morning. It’s okay to be annoyed, by the way, but be the adult in the room, please, and keep it to yourself. She likely doesn’t remember any of this in the morning, right? Right – they rarely do – so cooperating with her is not corrupting her. It is not letting her “manipulate” you or some such nonsense. By cooperating in going with her to the bathroom, getting her a drink of water, listening to something incomprehensible but nodding your head anyway, whatever, you hasten the day when this phase will run its course and be replaced by the next perplexing challenge in line. Parents who react to little glitches of this sort with anger, who try to
punish this sort of stuff into oblivion almost always end up making mountains out of molehills and setting the stage for all manner of future discipline problems. You do not want to turn this into a conflict situation! John Conflicts with toddlers are Rosemond difficult enough to muddle through during daylight hours. Are you hearing me clearly? Good. The let’s move on. FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY: A certified play therapist and clinical social worker writes from somewhere in the Lower Forty-Eight to let me know her disappointment in my factual assessment of child therapy: to wit, no consistent body of research done by people with no dog in the hunt verifies the general efficacy of any form of psychological therapy with children. In fact, my experience –including trying to make it work –has led me to the conclusion that regardless of what name the therapy goes under, child therapy often makes a behavior problem worse, too often to justify it. My advice to therapists: Tell parents how to solve problems. That’s what they’re coming to you for –solutions, not analysis of their children. Said therapist describes her experience – positive, of course –of conducting play therapy with certain special needs children. Okay. I’m willing to concede that therapy with small, highly differentiated sub-populations of children may yield certain predictable benefits. It should have been obvious that I was referring to therapy with otherwise normal, functional kids who bring “normal” problems of behavior and emotion to the table. Within those parameters, I am unaware of any compelling evidence of reliable payoff regarding therapy with children. Note that my contender is a certified play therapist. I do not expect her to be objective about her chosen profession. I would simply say to her what I have come to grips with in my own professional life: thinking you are doing the right thing and doing the right thing are not necessarily congruent. Family psychologist John Rosemond: johnrosemond.com, p arentguru.com.
