September 8, 2021 • 44 mins
Taking the time to organize and understand the backend of your company is important to building a sustainable business. In this episode we cover a few essentials that can help you get your business in order. Tune in and checkout our list of key terms and links to helpful resources.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ray Mayfield (00:04):
Welcome to The Frontrunner Podcast with your
hosts Ray Mayfield and TiaraJones to engineers more from
coworkers to in laws. And nowbusiness partners, creating a
safe space to be open and honestabout what it really takes to
start or run a business.
Tiara Jones (00:17):
We know it's easier said than done. But you were
built for this and you are notalone. Join us each week to hear
stories, lessons learned andstrategies from trusted advisors
and new and seasonedentrepreneurs on how to endure
the marathon entrepreneurship.
Ray Mayfield (00:38):
Peace everybody Ray's here
Tiara Jones (00:40):
and this is Tiara
Ray Mayfield (00:41):
and welcome to another fantastic episode of The
Frontrunner Podcast we hopeeveryone is doing well. So T
tell us what we're talking abouttoday.
Tiara Jones (00:48):
Today, we're talking about back in Business
Essentials.
Ray Mayfield (00:54):
The back end,
Tiara Jones (00:55):
the back end, yeah, it's not a topic that usually
people want to talk about. Andthey usually avoid. But it's
important if it's veryimportant, actually.
Ray Mayfield (01:02):
Because a lot of work I think I think, you know,
it's a lot of work to legitimizeand your business is a lot of
work is grimy and grueling. Ithink it's it's not it's pretty
time intensive, too. So I thinkit's a step that people just
look beyond. Yeah. So yeah, it'sa very good topic of discussion
to have today. Yeah, I like it,I look forward to it. Awesome.
Let's
Tiara Jones (01:20):
get to it. So, first step, or first thing is
the paperwork. So of course,when you're registering your
business with your state,there's always paperwork that
comes with it that the statesends you. And certain
agreements and things that mayor may not be required about the
state, but is important for yourinternal processes and things
(01:42):
like that. And so we'll talkabout your operating agreement,
if like you're an LLC, orlooking at your bylaws, if
you're a corporate Corporation,I know sometimes people get a
template, and then just like,Okay, I'm gonna go with this
template, but you don't evenknow what the template says. Or
like what you're actuallyagreeing to. And so then that
could be problematic. If in theevent, you know, something
(02:03):
happens to you, for whateverreason, people are going to look
to those agreements to know, youknow, what to do with your
company. So, you know, who's whohas authority to make decisions,
you know, how do you dissolvethe company? How do people get,
you know, payouts, if you peoplehave a certain, you know,
interest in your company andthings like that, you know, how
do those investors get paid?
What are the percentages, youknow, all those details are all
(02:25):
in the operating agreement andin your bylaws. And so, it's
really important to set it tohow, you know, you want your
business to run, versus justsaying, Oh, yeah, this that
paperwork that I got, when Iregistered, and I'm just gonna,
you know, just put it in thisdrive or in this folder, just
let it sit there.
Ray Mayfield (02:45):
There. Yeah, no doubt about it, though, don't
bother when you look at, youknow, going through the process
of registering your company,and, you know, quote, unquote
legitimizing it for business inyour state, right? Um, we did
that were great for us that Ithink a lot of people, you know,
it costs a little bit of money,but we use a Registered Agent.
So when you have registeredagent, I think what that does is
(03:06):
that takes that burden off yourshoulders, and what you're
essentially doing is you'repaying and legitimize third
party to register an act on yourbehalf. That's cute, all those
wonderful things like gettingyour operating agreement, and
you know, all all administrativedocuments in place for you. So
you can just all you do is pastein one, given them your company,
and tell them tell them thepercentage breakdown and it's in
(03:28):
your everything. And that's whatwe use the word work pretty well
with us. So yeah, I know aRegistered Agent as well, it
will save you some time. But youknow what time is money. So you
have to pay a little bit for it.
I don't think it's thatexpensive. I think it was just
over 100 bucks. For us when wedid it. It just seemed easier as
I'm not a lawyer to without alawyer who was law and order but
we're not lawyers and none of itso I think it makes sense to put
(03:51):
your money where you don't wedon't have the knowledge to
execute certain things for yourbusiness. Right. So um,
definitely for those who arenot, you know, too in tune with
heavy paperwork and registeringfor the state it's very simple
task, I'm gonna be wrong. Butyou know, if you want to take
some of your paid your plate,you can pay a little bit of
money, and you can have aRegistered Agent execute that
stuff on your behalf right andwhat happens with your
(04:11):
registered agent is they fileyour your they legitimize your
LLC corporation or Inc with thestate that you're doing business
in. And then they act as kind ofan intermediary between you and
the state. So instead of thestate having your address to
other companies have youraddress and bombard you with
stuff it really go. You can goto your registered agent, your
registered agent, you can scanit and email it to you. you
(04:32):
communicate through email,something's come in the mail.
But I think having a RegisteredAgent helps initially we're
getting started right? Andthat's something you can do for
a year or two until you have thetime and you you have more
knowledge understanding aboutexecute registration yourself.
You know, registered agent is agood, a good segue, a good
intermediary. And again, theyhave all the templates for you.
(04:54):
You pay them they send you youryour state license. To the
business, and then they send youan outline or template of your
operating agreement, what youjust go in into and change and
make tweaks to, for the disabledveteran, small business owners
out there, pay close attentionto your operating agreement. And
if you're the veteran, if you'rea veteran, you know, it has to
(05:17):
be detailed, in there theveteran executes certain things
as the final say or authorities,yada, yada, yada, or else you
have you run into that, youknow, conundrum when you go to
register through the vet bizportal.
Tiara Jones (05:32):
Yeah, we learned that the hard way.
Ray Mayfield (05:33):
Yeah. You know, hard, hard, but easy, right,
hard, hard, but easy, I think itwas a matter of, because we're
fortunate where, you know, youcould just communicate through
email and world COVID. So like,Hey, you need to, you know,
break this down, and help usunderstand exactly who's running
the business here. And that'sall you have to do to take a
little bit of time, and becreative with your words, and
(05:53):
make sure that, you know, itmeans that the favorite the
veteran
Tiara Jones (05:58):
in that case,
Ray Mayfield (06:00):
yeah, in that case, when that's when that's
how you're structured, right.
Um, another thing to not lookbeyond is your registration with
your county to right, the cityor county that you live in too
each state, each county hascertain requirements. So as you
go forth to do business, youknow, just verify that you're
operating in accordance to whereyou be protected from, you know,
the back taxes from the county,if you've been operating in your
(06:21):
area for a couple of years, andthey originally the county
different you got a business,they got to come knocking for
their cut. So by all means, youknow, head down to your own, I
think it's the county governmentoffice, this will be live is
called the government office,and he's going there and
register your company, andyou're good to go into it and
protect it from a taxperspective. And you had, you
will also receive a certificateto operate your business within
(06:42):
that county that you live in aswell, too. So definitely don't
forget that part.
Tiara Jones (06:48):
Exactly in the kind of know where your paperwork is.
So I know, you know, the statewill send you documents and
things like that, but just scanit in, you know, put it on your
Google Drive Dropbox, orwhatever you use. So you could
always have access to it.
Especially when it comes to, youknow, some of these
certifications and grants andthings like that. Sometimes they
ask for these documents. And soit's better that, you know,
you'd be prepared and no onewhat the documents are what they
(07:11):
say, and to you know exactlywhere they are. Absolutely. So
it helps a lot. We've kind oflearned this with us as we've
gone through, you know, signingup for different certifications
with the veteran to vet biz andthings like that, and other ones
that we're working on throughthe state. We've kind of walked
through a few of these hurdles,and kind of, you know, worked
(07:33):
our way through it. And so wedon't want you all to have to go
through any of that as well. Wewant you all to learn from our
mistakes.
Ray Mayfield (07:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely a mean word where,
you know, no one's perfect,especially when starting a
business. So I think there's alot of, you know, bumps in the
road, and tons of red tape thatyou can cut through pretty easy
if you just do the research,right. So, you know, research
could be reaching out tosomebody who's gone Google, hey,
what I need to do in the stateof Georgia to start a business,
(08:01):
and it should lay out all thechecks and checks in the box,
you need to do the execute suchthing. So they have to do some
due diligence research to makesure you know, your, your, you
know, your foundation is solid.
Tiara Jones (08:11):
Right, exactly. And there's no we talked about local
resources a lot, but you know,your chamber of commerce in your
local county and things likethat, or even just calling your
state's office, usually, fromwhat I've, you know,
experienced, they're quitefriendly. And so, you know, if
you ask them a question aboutsomething, or there's something
you don't understand about aform or anything like that,
they'll take the time to explainit to you. And then you can get
(08:34):
it straight from the source. AndI know, the Chamber of Commerce,
at least in our area, they havedifferent workshops and things
like that, for new businesses toexplain, you know, some of this
back end stuff from you know,the paperwork and things that
you should look out for. Andthen in addition to that, I
think it's important to havejust certain business
professionals, you know, withinyour network and to start
(08:54):
building a relationship. Solike, when it comes to, you
know, your legal, you know,issues and things like that. So
like having a lawyer, you know,on standby, that, you know, that
you don't necessarily have to,you know, get a retainer with,
but at least start you know,kind of shopping around and kind
of seeing Okay, if somethinghappens in my business, or if I
need, you know, help withsomething Who can I go to so at
(09:15):
least start, you know, goingthrough and making those, you
know, introductions and youknow, kind of feeling them out
and seeing you know, who fitswell with you and your business
and what you're doing the samesense when it comes to an
accountant. I suggest with allbusinesses just go to an
accountant because there's,there's things that they can
they can do to help you as faras taxes and things like that.
(09:36):
And there's also can be thingsthat you may not know anything
about, or you know, that you maynot know to ask and things like
that, and they'll kind of havethat back at knowledge because
that's their job and they canhelp you out with that. And
then, you know, bookkeeping, Iknow with us, we've kind of been
doing a lot of the bookkeepingon our own. But I think we when
you get to, you know a certainpoint and you have a lot of
(09:56):
different transactions andthings going through, even a
bookkeeper could be You know,super helpful, and they have a
lot of virtual bookkeepers anddifferent programs out there
that you can use to help you,you know, keep track of your
money, because that isimportant. You want to make
money and then you want to keepas much of it as possible. And
so you want to have those, youknow, you want to start building
those relationships early onwith people that are experts,
(10:18):
you know, in those areas versus,you know, listening to the so
called experts on IG, becausethat's just this is not it.
Ray Mayfield (10:25):
Yeah. Ask questions, man. Like, you know,
they give you, you know, for forus, we're fortunate to have a
great a great CPA, right. Andlawyers and lawyer and a
phenomenal Lord. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, we have, we have docontacts and family friends, we
were able to put ourself in agreat position with great
people. were extremelyknowledgeable to help us right.
(10:45):
And I think it's important inthe beginning, right? Everybody
wants to have all the answers,but we don't know everything
right. So it's okay to say, hey,tax guy, how do I stop paying so
many taxes? It's okay to get abreakdown understanding of you
know, how your payroll shouldwork, right? It's great to get
an understanding of, you know,all the all the essential
paperwork, paperwork that you'regoing to need in order for your
(11:06):
company to have a solidfoundation and execution is
fantastic. And know yourbookkeeping. Right? Our CPA
wanted to do bookkeeping, he waslike, yeah, it's fairly simple.
We can do it, but you really bewasting money for me to do it.
You could do it yourself. And Iwas like, oh, great Tiara, like,
Oh, yeah, I can do that, whichwe know T can do all things. So
high five to T. Thank you, ofcourse. So you know, don't don't
be afraid to ask a question,though, man. I mean, it's okay
(11:28):
with saying, hey, I want toprotect as much money as I can
with my business. How can I dothat legally, you know, without
putting myself in the bindlater, Uncle Sam. So definitely,
definitely take advantage of allthe opportunities, you have the
one on one counseling, even ifit costs a little bit of money,
or, you know, you got to go havea lunch, or you got to take
somebody a cake, you know, toopen the door, but then they
communicate with you. Takeadvantage of it, man. I mean,
(11:51):
you never know how far thoselittle things, those little
relationships you establishedcan go, Oh, you know what, one
of the most recent books I'mreading, The Laws of Spirit
talks about how, asprofessionals, we should make
every opportunity to meet peoplewho are subject matter experts
in various fields that you'regoing to need, right? A lawyer,
an attorney, someone working,you know, in the county Tax
(12:12):
Office, you know, all those skinessential pieces marketing
purposes, someone who has accessto, you know, basketball
tickets, or sporting eventstickets at last minute, you
know, there's all criticalpeople to know who can help you
as some shape form or fashionlaw, your path, you know, so you
know, don't don't don't forget,you know, you, you have to give
the gift. And it may be time, itmay be cake, it may be something
important. But you know whatyou're going to get in the back
(12:34):
end. That's that's key. Andhopefully that's a partner who
will want to work with you andhelp to see your company grow.
Tiara Jones (12:44):
Mine. So what book number is that? Right?
Ray Mayfield (12:47):
78..78?
Tiara Jones (12:49):
Almost there you go make this 100 goal.
Ray Mayfield (12:53):
shower, listen in the books.
Tiara Jones (12:56):
Yeah. What'd your co workers say about your books?
Ray Mayfield (12:58):
So yeah, off topic. But funny story. I was in
walking into the building. Oneday, I was grabbing coffee. And
I ran into a few guys how my airpods on like, Oh, what are you d
ing, walking with your airpos? Like listening to books,
an? And they were like, whatre you listening to? I think a
that point, at that time, itadn't been like a book about the
(13:19):
big oil. I think it's called BiOil conspiracy, right. And it t
lks about how, you know, the, duing the World War, the Nazis f
gured out how to make syntheticoil, and other forms of pet
oleum in the US took those ideasSo essentially saying that oil
ill never go away. They'lalways be able to easily repro
(13:39):
uce, reproduce it, and theylaughed like that sounds like
uch a lame book, and they were lke, man, like you just read
nything huh just to get througit. This book must be three h
urs, like No, it's two. They'relike, ahh it proves my poi
t next you'll be reading Dr. Seus. Like Yeah, real funny. But h
y, man, if I got to add th
Tiara Jones (13:55):
you can learn something from all books, Dr
Suess.
Ray Mayfield (14:00):
Coming off the top row with the elbow. I like it.
Tiara Jones (14:03):
But back to the topic. So we talk about
bookkeeping and kind of doing ityourself and keeping track it
really is just as simple ofknowing what's coming in and
what's going out. So what areyou spending your money on?
Well, first, let's talk aboutwhere the money is coming there.
You need to have a business bankaccount, there's no way around
it. Just go ahead and set it up.
Yes, with some banks, there maybe fees, some don't have fees,
(14:24):
or really do your research tosee, we're fortunate enough what
Ray being a veteran, thank youfor your service, sir. All of
our fees were waived in thatsense, but we still have to do
our research to see you know,you know which banks would do
that. So make sure you have abusiness bank account. And none
of these things are coming fromyour personal account and you're
(14:46):
not doing any type ofcommingling but really keeping
track of, you know, what you'respending how much you're
spending, because I know you cansign up for a lot of these
software subscriptions andthings like that. Sometimes you
can forget what you even signedup for. So really keeping track
of Do I really need this? Am Iusing this? Can I go to a
different plan that you know maywork better for me that may be a
little bit more affordable, youknow, keeping receipts of you
(15:08):
know, travel, when you're eatingout, things like that. Just keep
track of all of that stuff,because you don't know how it
can benefit you. So you justhave all the information is
better to have more informationthan less information and take
it to your know your accountant,your CPA, and then they'll know
what to do with it. So you don'thave to worry about you know,
all the details, behind the facton how is this going to benefit
(15:31):
me, but just make sure you atleast have a spreadsheet,
because that's where we started,you know, our accountants, it
starts simple. With an Excelspreadsheet, don't go to any of
that software first, because youneed to understand your numbers
first, before you put into asystem and it makes sense. So
like, you know, really knowingyour numbers to the point. So
when you do go to QuickBooks, oryou know, other software, you
understand the numbers comingback out of it. And so, and I
(15:52):
recommend doing this monthly, Iknow sometimes people will wait
until tax time and be like, oh,shoot, where did I go? Where's
that receipt, you just take picka day. So we do have I think its
the 15th of every month, justrandom day, but the 15th of
every month, I go through andlook at all of our finances, and
you know, anything that we'vespent, you know, looking to see
(16:13):
if there's anything we can cut,you know, all that stuff just
takes a couple hours, you know,but it'll save you a lot of time
and a lot of headache come taxtime, especially if you're
having to do quarterly taxes oranything like that. You
definitely want to keep up withit monthly.
Ray Mayfield (16:30):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, it's sofunny, right? Our accountant was
like, yo, like, he doesn'tbelieve in technology. Right? So
he comes to meetings withbinders of paper. And he's like,
Yeah, what do I need thecomputer for? I just write it
down and keep it in here it's soit's so funny to me. But it
really makes sense, right? Sowe're you look at, there's
multiple ways to backup and haveyour material available. There
(16:52):
is you know, of course, youknow, printing, writing your
notes, filing them away, takingpictures and uploading them
somewhere, especially yourreceipts. You know, if you if
you lose paper a lot, it takesup it takes five seconds to take
a picture of receipt after youorder some read something, buy
something right and just uploadit somewhere where you have a
tax folder somewhere where youcan just dump stuff into and
(17:13):
sort at some point. But yeah,definitely like to to like what
Tiara said right, you definitelytake time once a month to go
through and just touch yourfinances right? You want to look
at your your spend plan, makesure you know your money is
going where it needs to go makesure all your expenditures are
accounted for when you'retalking about what software
packages you're paying for, youknow the reoccurring fees,
things of that nature, yourlease, if those were have brick
and mortar shops who pay yourlease or mortgage every month,
(17:36):
you don't just want tounderstand where your money is
going. You want to understand,you know, hey, this is how much
money I have to spend for mycompany this month, this is how
much money this month budget forthis month is my budget for the
quarter. And then you'd setgoals quarterly, semi annually
annually for profit and revenue.
Right? So, you know, you want totake baby steps, you know,
crawl, walk, run, you know, soagain, you know, just to recap
(17:59):
things you touched on, right, wetalk about understand your
paperwork as you follow yourstuff with the state, and even
your local county government,the business bank account. And
then from there, what shouldthey do next T?
Tiara Jones (18:09):
So I think a lot of people just gloss over this
because it can be confusing, buttaxes. So when it comes to sales
tax, so y'all know, you gottayou know, pay taxes come tax
time for businesses to dependingon where your businesses,
different deadlines and thingslike that. But sales tax, and
it's not just for product basedbusinesses, there are a lot of
states who require sales tax fordigital products. So if you're a
(18:34):
virtual business, and you have,you know, certain digital
products and things that yousell, you may be, you know,
subject to sales tax, right. Andso, there's also, you know, when
you start talking about salestax, there's the Nexus, and
which kind of just breaks down,where are your customers coming
from where the majority of ourcustomers coming from. So for
example, we're in Virginia, sowe have a Nexus in Virginia, and
(18:57):
then say, if we have a lot ofcustomers in Georgia, depending
on the percentage, you can lookit up, it gets kind of
confusing, but depending on thepercentage of customers you
have, you may also have a Nexusin Georgia where you will have
to pay sales tax in Georgia aswell. And so there's a company I
think it's called of Avalara.
I'll link it in the show notes.
(19:17):
But their whole purpose is tohelp you kind of with that whole
sales tax, you know, thing orwhatever to understand, you
know, what your state requiresand how much and because it also
changes by county. So it's a lotof different numbers to have to
deal with. And what I've seen, Ihave some clients have some
friends, they'll be like, Oh,yeah, I'm not really paying
sales tax. I'll deal with itlater. Y'all you don't want to
(19:39):
mess with with taxes with theIRS with the state. You just
that's just one thing. You don'twant to get involved in
Ray Mayfield (19:46):
and get their money
Tiara Jones (19:46):
Exactly. One way or another news probably going to
end up being a whole lot morethan you to want pay. So just
take the time to you know, dosome quick research and then
talk to a professional. Look atsome of these companies like
Avalara that, you know, canprovide the service to you,
especially for product basedbusinesses, because you don't
(20:07):
want to have to end up payingthose taxes can mean you want to
be able to set it up, set your,your website and your e commerce
site up so it's charging theright amount of taxes to your
customers so then you're notstuck with paying that. And then
depending on, you know, thestate, there are certain
deadlines that you have to paythat by and they will start
(20:29):
tacting on penalties. Yeah,learn that the hard way too. So
don't be like us, make sure youunderstand all the details, read
all the things because then theyhave like weird dates, like,
like some one is due, like onthe 20th and things like that.
It's weird, and it's by acertain time, and if not, they
charge you $10 and then another$10. And it's just even if it's
$10, there's still money, Imean, that you could be using
(20:52):
elsewhere. So don't avoid taxes,if your service based, you know,
look into your state to see ifyou know digital products,
digital products, require salestax, and things like that. So
just make sure you do the duediligence, because in this
sense, ignorance is not bliss,okay. The state the, you know,
(21:13):
IRS, none of them are going tocare when you say, Oh, I didn't
know that. I don't care that youdidn't know you have a business.
And it's your job to know. Yeah.
So absolutely. If you don'tknow, that's why we said it's
important to start buildingrelationships with other
business professionals so theycan help you, you know,
understand. And so we all know,the purpose of you know, this
topic was to at least, you know,help people get to the point
(21:34):
where they'll know whatquestions to ask, or you know,
where to go. And of course, youguys can always dm us, we're an
open book. So you what we didwrong, what we learned, that,
you know, to help you out, soplease feel free to, you know,
email us send us a DM any ofthat. We'll put all the
information in the show notes,but please reach out to us if
you have any questions.
Ray Mayfield (21:55):
Yeah, for sure.
May each one teach one man, and,you know, don't play with your
taxes, you played a whole lot ofstuff, but your money's not one
of them in taxes is definitelynot one of them. I think
everyone knows stories of, youknow, these movie stars and
musicians and you know, whodon't pay taxes on, you know,
$40,000, they got somewhere andIRS shows up and they show up
with the police unit to arrestyou know, like a criminal. So,
(22:18):
you know, you just want to makesure you know, you do the simple
things through these things upfront, the hard things on front
to right, I mean, you don't wantto cut any corners, you're
getting, you know, T hit aroundthe head, if you are solid
professionals in your corner whoare helping you IE a CPA,
they'll let you know, and makesure you don't get caught
slipping with your taxes. But inthe event that you have a
question, ask, you know, Google,you know, research know, hit us
(22:40):
up here, another entrepreneur upon, you know, someone in your
family who may have someknowledge on the subject, you
know, definitely take advantageto to build that, that winning
circle to put those peoplearound you who are going to
help, you know, point you in theright direction, you know, when
you run into one of those toughquestions or problems. That's
Tiara Jones (22:57):
right, that's right. And then so let's move
along to a professional kind ofrepresentation. And so you know,
representation matters, youknow, first impressions, all of
that. And so, it's another thingthat I think is often overlooked
is your email, are quick to justgo and get a Gmail account.
However, with a business, Imean, with the job you work for,
(23:21):
I mean, think about the emailaccount there, it's not your
name@gmail.com So then whyshould the business you're doing
be any different, you shouldtake it just as serious, as you
know, the, the nine to five thatyou work for now, or that you
once worked for, or any of that.
And so I mean, it's aboutdepending on the plan you get
could be as low as six bucks amonth. With a Google workspace,
I think they changed their namefrom G Suite. But that's what we
(23:43):
use. It was simple and easy.
Like, if you have questions, youknow, hit us up, we can, we can
help you with that, all you haveto do is get a domain. domain
name. So domain is pretty muchwhen you go to a website, that
website name What comes afterthe www and before the.com
that's your domain, pretty muchsure what you're going to be
(24:04):
using. So you could set that upto kind of whatever you want.
Sometimes you have to becreative, because I think it's
like a business to go and likejust buy domains.
Ray Mayfield (24:14):
People buy domains and you have to buy back from
them. Right? You know, probablyfour times a price. So Exactly.
Tiara Jones (24:20):
So that's you don't want to first things you want to
consider as kind of okay, whatis my domain name going to be
because I'm going to get myemail set up, but you don't have
to, you know, immediately go toa website, but you can use it
for the purposes of getting yourprofessional email set up
because of mean having thebusiness Google workspace also
gives you added you know,security protection when it
comes to your documents and youremail and things like that the
(24:43):
free version of Google and Gmaildon't give you and so you know,
your business is important, youknow, it's your baby so want to
protect it and show up.
Definitely like how you want tobe seen cuz I mean, I mean,
think about it. How would youfeel working with a company does
that a Gmail account, you'd belike oh, He's kind of like,
Okay, why i don't i don't getit,
Ray Mayfield (25:03):
it's not just the coverage of like, it's like to
you like, like salt shaker123 four@gmail.com, or it's
always something like, you know,I've seen, I've seen that a
couple of times a time or two inthe past couple of months, you
know, it takes nothing up front,if you know the name of your
company, you can startresearching the domains
immediately right in lot one in,be creative as you want to be
without, you know, being as lazyas you can be, you know what I
(25:26):
mean? Just Just pick a solidone, claim it and then get back
to when did when the time comes.
But definitely, definitely youdon't, you know, just want to be
a little more professional. Andyou want to approach your
business, because that's arepresentation of you. And now,
you know, when you hit me in myGmail at soso, gmail.com, you
know, it doesn't really ringprofessional. So you know, just
keep that in mind.
Tiara Jones (25:48):
Yep, absolutely.
And then thinking about, like,representation wise, addresses,
I know, we kind of get caught upin this, too, is having
different addresses and thingslike that. And so we had a
mailing address, and then we hadkind of our, you know, virtual
home base address that, youknow, we were using or whatever.
And we kind of get caught upwith, you know, different
(26:08):
certifications and differentthings that we were using,
especially with the governmentside of our work, because we had
the two different, you know,addresses and things weren't
matching up and all that type ofstuff. So I said all that to
say, make sure you're using thesame addresses on like your,
with your bank account, whenyou're doing certifications,
like all that type of stuff,make sure you're using the same
(26:30):
address and don't kind of mixand match. Because it can be
very confusing, especially ifyou use something different than
what you registered, you know,what the state with the county
and things like that. And so youknow, it's okay to have, you
know, virtual addresses andthings like that, but just be
mindful of what you put down.
Because I know a lot of timeswhat will happen is you'll start
(26:50):
your business, and you'll kindof put your, your house or
somewhere down and you're like,Okay, I want to change it to
somewhere that's, you know, notmy personal, you know, residence
or whatever. But then sometimesyou can forget to change it in
all the respective places. Andthen things can get a little
messy. And so you just want topay close attention to that and
make sure that your addressesare all matching the way that
(27:13):
they should. And it's it's clearthat one may just be a mailing
address, versus one may be theplace where you're actually, you
know, putting in work and thingslike that. And so I know, it's
kind of it seems trivial, but
Ray Mayfield (27:27):
important, though, it is very important. I mean,
when you're when you're lookingat certifications, and
maintaining certain abilitiesfor your company to qualify for
certain contracts, whetheryou're minority company,
whatnot, all this stuff matterswhen you move through the
certification and verificationprocess for your company. So
yeah, without a doubt, I know weuse a we have a physical
address, and we have a mailingaddress, right. So it's nothing
(27:49):
wrong with using both, or youjust want to make sure that it's
everywhere. It's the same, usedcorrectly. Yeah, yeah. So very
important, very important.
Tiara Jones (27:57):
You know, speaking of the certification, and things
like that, you know, a lot ofthese things that we're talking
about is to prepare you to takeadvantage of the funding
opportunities that come out. Soyou know, with the pandemic,
they had the PPP loan, andthere's other funding
opportunities in the forms ofgrants and different things like
that. And because there were somany people that were trying to,
(28:20):
you know, scam the system,they're really looking at all
your paperwork, requesting allyour paperwork to make sure, but
when you're legit, like you'reserious, like you really need
this money, and that's why it'simportant to you know, keep
track of, you know, yourfinances and things like that,
because they want to know, Howmuch have you spent, how much
have you made, you know, what'sin your payroll, so they can
(28:40):
make sure they give you youknow, the right amount. And so
you just want to make sure thatyou're in the position to take
advantage of thoseopportunities. And, you know,
you know, your business like theback of your hand, so you don't
miss out.
Ray Mayfield (28:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, you know, one one, youknow, nugget I'll drop is you
should have like a quickbook,right, you should have a file or
whether it is you know, hardcopysoft copy digital or, or in your
hands that you can refer to thathas all the necessary documents
you need for any fundingopportunities, you know, pitch
going to be with a partner, youknow, you should have all those
(29:14):
things readily available at yourdisposal to check out the Wim
monitor on my phone. I also havea soft copy tool that I can grab
out of a file cabinet if I needit, but you memorize after a
while, but we're looking at thefunding opportunities, a lot of
them have deadlines, andsometimes they'll drop and you
have like 24 hours or 48 hoursso platform so you really want
to have like a cheat sheet ofall this information that
(29:37):
they're going to require fromyou so you can quickly you know,
make yourself competitive forthose opportunities when they
present themselves. few and farbetween what you know, within TT
around here right with sinceCOVID has come out or since
COVID, you know, impacted theeconomic and job sector. There
are a lot of opportunities forother businesses and people
starting businesses to takeadvantage. Get some free money.
(29:58):
Free money is something that'salways out there, whether you go
through the SBA, but some of theventure capitalists who put
money together, did they pumpinto, you know, other funded
programs for, you know,disenfranchised, disenfranchised
companies, minority ownedcompanies, veteran known
companies, black women ownedcompanies, minority women owned
companies to take advantage of.
(30:19):
So yeah, you know, do your duediligence, but but have all your
stuff in a place you can findit, you can quickly take
advantage of those opportunitieswhen they present themselves for
sure.
Tiara Jones (30:27):
Yes, absolutely. We actually did a newsletter on
this a couple weeks back. Andwhen we talked about like having
your digital folder, and youknow, the things that should
have in it. So we kind of walkedthrough, you know, the business
formation documents that you canhave and other licenses and
certifications. And then whatRay talked about is kind of
(30:48):
having like that, you know, thatone pager that quick sheet of
all your information. So thinkabout it, like your contact
information. And I know it seemslike Oh, I know my contact
information. But if you have a24 hour, you have 24 hours or
whatever to get in anapplication, it's easier for you
to just copy and paste, right?
So like having your contactinformation, your, your
business, ein your like yourDUNS number, if you have one,
(31:10):
you know, those types of thingsthey'll ask for, you know,
social media profile links,
Ray Mayfield (31:18):
websites,
Tiara Jones (31:18):
right, exactly.
Your website, just having thoselinks ready, like what's your
mission statement? What's a, youknow, a quick two to three
sentence, you know, pitch aboutyour business, a biography,
because a lot of them ask for a,you know, a biography, so
writing up, you know, aprofessional biography for you
on different things like that,and having descriptions of your
products and services. And so,I've seen in a lot of different
(31:42):
applications and things likethat will they'll ask, okay,
what do you sell, you know,describe it, who's the target
market, like that ton of stuff,they want to know, because they
want to make sure that the moneythat that they're giving out is
in line and with what theirorganization is and what their
values are, and things likethat. And so they're going to
(32:02):
ask you these details about yourbusiness, because they're not
going to be giving money to acompany that they either don't
believe in or feel completelyagainst, you know, things like
that happen. And so if you justkind of have this high level,
you know, document whether sentyour phone, whether it's a
Google document or whatever, thekind of just has these points.
So all you have to do is copyand paste, because I mean, you
(32:24):
never know who you meet, either.
You may meet someone, you know,when you're out at the metro on
a bus, I mean, anywhere at arestaurant, they be like, Hey,
can you just can you send mesomething real quick? Can you do
it right now. And you don't wantto be fumbling trying to figure
out oh, why don't have thattogether, have it already.
Ray Mayfield (32:41):
So and you know, really essentially what you can
do because what I do Tiara did afantastic job of taking our old
capability statement andupdating it in is literally like
a front and back page. Right.
And I think it's fantastic tohave something like that readily
available on your capabilitystatement has all that in there,
you know, your NAICS code, youryour DUNS number, your
(33:02):
certifications, contactinformation, and then a blurb, a
couple paragraphs about yourcompany and what you do. And I
think it's important if you can,if everyone can take advantage
of creating a capabilitystatement that outlines who you
are, what you are, and whatdifferentiates your company from
those who are maybe operating inthe same sector as you, I think
it's very critical to have thatand have it available to share
(33:25):
at a moment's notice my mind ison my phone, I can email it to
somebody, once I meet him.
Typically, I've met severalindividuals here in the past,
you know, month or two, and youknow, handshake, get the email
address, as soon as I step outof the office I'm already
pulling up their email, shootingthem a copy of their of our
capability statement. And just,you know, reminding them that we
just met who I am, and lookingforward to, you know, continued
(33:46):
development for some type ofbusiness relationship. So take
advantage of those opportunitieswhen they present themselves,
man, you know, you don't want tobe caught with your back against
the wall. Another thing too,that I'll add real quick, we're
looking at the essentials ofyour company, a website, most
places will not do business withyou should you not have a
legitimate website for yourcompany operate out of. So it's
(34:07):
very important not even thinkit's a requirement by some
states that you have a websitefor your company, a lot of the
programs that you may look toapply for to get funding
required to have a companywebsite, for those operating in
the government contractingworkspace mandatory to have a
website. So take time to notgloss over that as well, too.
(34:27):
You know, you want to havesomething that's, you know, that
you can show that gives content.
It doesn't have to be a completeproduct, but you do if you're
just starting and you'rebuilding a website, that's all
Yeah, Titi did our whole websitewith no input from me, which is
fantastic. Maybe a coupleparagraphs here and there and
she just created it all. Butit's important because we're
going to go to that right.
(34:49):
That's a marketing tool for youand your company as well too. So
you know, where you may justcreate a landing page initially,
that's fine, but don't forget togo back and add the actual
content to it. You know, don'tforget to keep building it as
your company continues to grow,you continue to move down
different paths, you know,update your website and make
sure that it's current, right?
Because people are going to goresearch you. And believe me, we
see the metric reports how manypeople visit, visit the website,
(35:10):
it's important, even when youthink people aren't looking,
they're looking, they're goingto come across you some way some
shape, form or fashion. And whatyou don't want them to see is u
finished or a lazy or not, wellput together product, right,
because I represent, you know,people may look at your company
as a form of research beforethey reach out to you for
something. And if that'shaphazard, then they're more
(35:31):
prone to go look elsewhere. Youknow, it's just for someone else
who can do what they need to bedone. So definitely take
advantage of that opportunity aswell.
Tiara Jones (35:40):
Absolutely, you got to look at it as your kind of
digital storefront. So you maynot have a brick and mortar, but
you still I mean, you own yourwebsite. And so you know, you
own your domain name, you ownyour website, like that's your
kind of, what do you call yourvirtual real estate? Yeah. So
you really want to, you know,take advantage of that. So you
will have a place for people togo, you know, and see about you,
(36:03):
right, and I mean, then that'sthe place where you will conduct
business, because that's whatpeople you know, can look to get
in touch with you fill outforms, how they can, you know,
actually buy something for you,whether you have an e commerce
site, or if you know, a servicebased businesses, they putting
down a payment for, you know, aconsulting session or anything
like that, like that all you gotto have a website, you got to
(36:24):
have somewhere for them to go tobill that. And so you want to
keep that in mind. It doesn'thave to be, you know, crazy
fancy, you know, first, youknow, starting out and things
like that, just put theessentials up there, who you
are, how to get in touch withyou what you do, make sure it's
very clear. And you know, whatyou do front page above the
fold, you know, so it's clear.
So you know, what to catchpeople's attention, you know,
(36:46):
right off the bat, but yes, Ray.
Great point.
Ray Mayfield (36:50):
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So yeah, so I know, we
gave everybody quite a bit, youknow, we're looking at things we
have learned through our goinginto our third year of
entrepreneurship, looking at thefoundation for your company, you
know, registering with the stateand county, making sure all the
operating agreements and bylawsare in place. You know,
(37:13):
establish relationships withthose professionals who can help
you go and protect you frommaking mistakes, lawyer, CPA,
advisors, mentors, you know,people from from that nature,
and making sure your bookkeepingis up to date, your taxes are in
check, your professionalrepresentation, again, is
critical and important. Youknow, and then the value of
(37:34):
having that you know, thatvirtual storage place for all
your documents, and you can havea file cabinet as well, too. But
you usually want to have backupsto the backup, sometimes I'm
going to capability statement,you know that that, you know
that that quick marketing toolyou can whip out and send to
somebody who, who that's goingto tell them everything about
what your company is and whatthey do. And you know why they
should do business with you overanybody else. So definitely take
(37:57):
advantage of of that too. Anddon't forget that website.
Tiara Jones (38:01):
Important will link our capability statement, you'll
see that ours is tide more tothe government side of our
business, but you can have acapability statement, even if
you're not in government isstill a great marketing tool.
And so, you know, look at oursas just a template on how to lay
things out. But you can stillbenefit from it, whether you're
a product or service basedbusiness, that's not necessarily
(38:22):
doing things with thegovernment, because we found out
through some other programs thatwe're working with that Amazon,
a lot of programs that theyhave, they require a capability
statement. And so you just wantto make sure that you kind of
look at that and see how you canmake it or apply it to your
business. And then one lastthing before we go now SOPs now
(38:46):
I'm kind of a stickler when itkind of comes to this funny
story. When me and Ray were Ithink it was like the second
podcast we were recording. LikeI'm the type where I'm going to
write down what was the firstone, I would write down
everything like cuz I'm justlike, if something was to happen
to me, or something like that,how will someone else know kind
(39:06):
of like what I do and so like,um, I don't know, I'm real
particular about writing downdifferent steps. Like I go to
this website, I click thisbutton I do this I do that
because you know, just kind oflike as I fail safe, like I've
always kind of I'm trying to getout of this but I'm like, worst
case scenario thinking type ofpersons. I'm like, anything
happens everything Ray, go tothis folder and everything is
(39:27):
right there. So anyways, when wewere doing our first podcast, we
were looking at, we use a zoomh6 some recording device, I
don't know, Ray is used to be asound engineer. So he's really
good at all this stuff. Butanyways, I was writing down like
literally the volume settings.
Click this button, turnmicrophone on. And he was I
(39:48):
mean, he would not stop jokingme about all of it. And I'm
like, Are you kidding me? Sothen the next time was
Ray Mayfield (39:57):
Tiara Tiara is like okay, Typing volumes at
seven. I'm like come on man, itsnot that serious.
Tiara Jones (40:03):
If you get a sweet spot where it works to me, you
want to have something that'sconsistent has the same sound.
So it makes sense to me. Butthen the next time we record it,
we couldn't figure out whynothing was working. And y'all
guess what it was? We didn'tturn the mics on. But we would
have looked at the list I made,we would have said turn it to
this turn the mic on. Am I goingto like that checklist checks
(40:23):
and balances? But anyway, I'mgonna keep doing what I do,
right? Don't have to read it orlook at it.
Ray Mayfield (40:27):
Oh, yeah, no, bommies. I mean, read the world,
these people like you for thosewho are familiar, standard
operating procedures? Oh, yes.
All right. So this is a documentthat says, This is how I do my
process. And it's the same everytime they could be replicated.
If you follow these, theseinstructions on this paper,
you'll get to the end result inwhatever timely manner you need
to now you know, I'm all forSOPs, don't me wrong. I just
(40:49):
don't take the time to write thewrite down stuff to the detail
that Tiara does, but that's whatmakes us great, I focus on other
things and Tiara focus on otherthings. And then they meet
together in the middle, in thehandshake. And that's a high
five and everybody's happy. Thisis turn the volume to seven.
That's so funny. I was like,Man, you're so you're so funny
T, but I appreciate that.
Tiara Jones (41:11):
Thank you. I mean, it works, we work. So whatever.
But the importance of SOPs arewhen it gets to the when it gets
to the point where you're not,it's not just you, you know, I
know when you first startingout, it's just you, you're doing
all the work, but you want toget to a place where you can
easily hand it off to someoneelse. And so when you're ready
to hire an assistant or to hire,you know, employee number two,
(41:34):
you don't have to scramble on,you know, trying to figure out a
training plan and everythinglike that, because what's going
to happen is you're going tohave as you go through, you
know, your processes and yourback end your operations, if you
just start taking notes that ofcourse, they don't have to be to
the level of detail that I dowith that. But just quick notes
on kind of what you do and howyou do it. And why you do it
that way, will help you when youbring someone else on because
(41:56):
they can use that, you know,material to reference and to
bring them up to speed. And so Iknow, you know, first starting
out, you're like, I don't needto deal with that now. But trust
me, it really will make adifference once you're ready,
because you know, anything canhappen. You can meet someone
tomorrow, go viral, and you havea whole bunch of people at your
door ready to buy your products,buy your services, and you're
(42:19):
going to need help quick andyou're not going to have time to
be like, Oh, now I got to trainthem. But I showed them how to
do this. If you just take alittle bit of time, you know, a
month, like pick a day, eachmonth and be like, Okay, let me
just write a couple of notes onhow I do this, or how to do
that. And then just put it in adigital folder where you know,
someone else can get to, yeah,for sure.
Ray Mayfield (42:37):
And you know, plus enough as you plus your staff up
and your business grows. Butthose SOPs come in handy. If
you're fortunate enough to haveyour business bought out by
somebody, you know, you have youhave documented procedures in
place. And I think that helpsthe transition and the purchase
process go a lot smoother, too.
So, you know, I think a lot alot of entrepreneurs are out
there or in this worldd. I'm dothis for five to 10 years and
(42:59):
sell it to somebody else and goretire and live on the beach. I
just do what I want to do globetrot for us my life. But you
know, putting putting those SOPsas a important, you know, it's a
very important proceduraldocument to have and establish
as you're looking at yourcompany. You know, you can't
really do anything without nothaving standard operate standard
operations for how you do yourprocedures. So definitely
(43:22):
establish those SOPs. Yeah,great, great valid point. Great
point.
Tiara Jones (43:27):
Yeah, so what we'll do I know we talked about a lot,
but we'll kind of the thingsthat we reference, we'll link it
in the show notes. Sodefinitely, you know, look at
that or you can go straight toour website at
thefrontrunnerpodcast.com
Ray Mayfield (43:39):
for sure. If you guys have any questions, we're
always available through socialmedia. For those who have our
emails or phone numbers hit usup if you guys have questions,
you know, we'd love to help outif we had the opportunity to do
so. You know, with that beingsaid, we love you guys and we
appreciate everybody taking timeout to listen. So you guys hold
it down. Peace
Tiara Jones (43:58):
Peace stay solid
Welcome to The Frontrunner Podcast with your
hosts Ray Mayfield and TiaraJones to engineers more from
coworkers to in laws. And nowbusiness partners, creating a
safe space to be open and honestabout what it really takes to
start or run a business.
Tiara Jones (00:17):
We know it's easier said than done. But you were
built for this and you are notalone. Join us each week to hear
stories, lessons learned andstrategies from trusted advisors
and new and seasonedentrepreneurs on how to endure
the marathon entrepreneurship.
Ray Mayfield (00:38):
Peace everybody Ray's here
Tiara Jones (00:40):
and this is Tiara
Ray Mayfield (00:41):
and welcome to another fantastic episode of The
Frontrunner Podcast we hopeeveryone is doing well. So T
tell us what we're talking abouttoday.
Tiara Jones (00:48):
Today, we're talking about back in Business
Essentials.
Ray Mayfield (00:54):
The back end,
Tiara Jones (00:55):
the back end, yeah, it's not a topic that usually
people want to talk about. Andthey usually avoid. But it's
important if it's veryimportant, actually.
Ray Mayfield (01:02):
Because a lot of work I think I think, you know,
it's a lot of work to legitimizeand your business is a lot of
work is grimy and grueling. Ithink it's it's not it's pretty
time intensive, too. So I thinkit's a step that people just
look beyond. Yeah. So yeah, it'sa very good topic of discussion
to have today. Yeah, I like it,I look forward to it. Awesome.
Let's
Tiara Jones (01:20):
get to it. So, first step, or first thing is
the paperwork. So of course,when you're registering your
business with your state,there's always paperwork that
comes with it that the statesends you. And certain
agreements and things that mayor may not be required about the
state, but is important for yourinternal processes and things
(01:42):
like that. And so we'll talkabout your operating agreement,
if like you're an LLC, orlooking at your bylaws, if
you're a corporate Corporation,I know sometimes people get a
template, and then just like,Okay, I'm gonna go with this
template, but you don't evenknow what the template says. Or
like what you're actuallyagreeing to. And so then that
could be problematic. If in theevent, you know, something
(02:03):
happens to you, for whateverreason, people are going to look
to those agreements to know, youknow, what to do with your
company. So, you know, who's whohas authority to make decisions,
you know, how do you dissolvethe company? How do people get,
you know, payouts, if you peoplehave a certain, you know,
interest in your company andthings like that, you know, how
do those investors get paid?
What are the percentages, youknow, all those details are all
(02:25):
in the operating agreement andin your bylaws. And so, it's
really important to set it tohow, you know, you want your
business to run, versus justsaying, Oh, yeah, this that
paperwork that I got, when Iregistered, and I'm just gonna,
you know, just put it in thisdrive or in this folder, just
let it sit there.
Ray Mayfield (02:45):
There. Yeah, no doubt about it, though, don't
bother when you look at, youknow, going through the process
of registering your company,and, you know, quote, unquote
legitimizing it for business inyour state, right? Um, we did
that were great for us that Ithink a lot of people, you know,
it costs a little bit of money,but we use a Registered Agent.
So when you have registeredagent, I think what that does is
(03:06):
that takes that burden off yourshoulders, and what you're
essentially doing is you'repaying and legitimize third
party to register an act on yourbehalf. That's cute, all those
wonderful things like gettingyour operating agreement, and
you know, all all administrativedocuments in place for you. So
you can just all you do is pastein one, given them your company,
and tell them tell them thepercentage breakdown and it's in
(03:28):
your everything. And that's whatwe use the word work pretty well
with us. So yeah, I know aRegistered Agent as well, it
will save you some time. But youknow what time is money. So you
have to pay a little bit for it.
I don't think it's thatexpensive. I think it was just
over 100 bucks. For us when wedid it. It just seemed easier as
I'm not a lawyer to without alawyer who was law and order but
we're not lawyers and none of itso I think it makes sense to put
(03:51):
your money where you don't wedon't have the knowledge to
execute certain things for yourbusiness. Right. So um,
definitely for those who arenot, you know, too in tune with
heavy paperwork and registeringfor the state it's very simple
task, I'm gonna be wrong. Butyou know, if you want to take
some of your paid your plate,you can pay a little bit of
money, and you can have aRegistered Agent execute that
stuff on your behalf right andwhat happens with your
(04:11):
registered agent is they fileyour your they legitimize your
LLC corporation or Inc with thestate that you're doing business
in. And then they act as kind ofan intermediary between you and
the state. So instead of thestate having your address to
other companies have youraddress and bombard you with
stuff it really go. You can goto your registered agent, your
registered agent, you can scanit and email it to you. you
(04:32):
communicate through email,something's come in the mail.
But I think having a RegisteredAgent helps initially we're
getting started right? Andthat's something you can do for
a year or two until you have thetime and you you have more
knowledge understanding aboutexecute registration yourself.
You know, registered agent is agood, a good segue, a good
intermediary. And again, theyhave all the templates for you.
(04:54):
You pay them they send you youryour state license. To the
business, and then they send youan outline or template of your
operating agreement, what youjust go in into and change and
make tweaks to, for the disabledveteran, small business owners
out there, pay close attentionto your operating agreement. And
if you're the veteran, if you'rea veteran, you know, it has to
(05:17):
be detailed, in there theveteran executes certain things
as the final say or authorities,yada, yada, yada, or else you
have you run into that, youknow, conundrum when you go to
register through the vet bizportal.
Tiara Jones (05:32):
Yeah, we learned that the hard way.
Ray Mayfield (05:33):
Yeah. You know, hard, hard, but easy, right,
hard, hard, but easy, I think itwas a matter of, because we're
fortunate where, you know, youcould just communicate through
email and world COVID. So like,Hey, you need to, you know,
break this down, and help usunderstand exactly who's running
the business here. And that'sall you have to do to take a
little bit of time, and becreative with your words, and
(05:53):
make sure that, you know, itmeans that the favorite the
veteran
Tiara Jones (05:58):
in that case,
Ray Mayfield (06:00):
yeah, in that case, when that's when that's
how you're structured, right.
Um, another thing to not lookbeyond is your registration with
your county to right, the cityor county that you live in too
each state, each county hascertain requirements. So as you
go forth to do business, youknow, just verify that you're
operating in accordance to whereyou be protected from, you know,
the back taxes from the county,if you've been operating in your
(06:21):
area for a couple of years, andthey originally the county
different you got a business,they got to come knocking for
their cut. So by all means, youknow, head down to your own, I
think it's the county governmentoffice, this will be live is
called the government office,and he's going there and
register your company, andyou're good to go into it and
protect it from a taxperspective. And you had, you
will also receive a certificateto operate your business within
(06:42):
that county that you live in aswell, too. So definitely don't
forget that part.
Tiara Jones (06:48):
Exactly in the kind of know where your paperwork is.
So I know, you know, the statewill send you documents and
things like that, but just scanit in, you know, put it on your
Google Drive Dropbox, orwhatever you use. So you could
always have access to it.
Especially when it comes to, youknow, some of these
certifications and grants andthings like that. Sometimes they
ask for these documents. And soit's better that, you know,
you'd be prepared and no onewhat the documents are what they
(07:11):
say, and to you know exactlywhere they are. Absolutely. So
it helps a lot. We've kind oflearned this with us as we've
gone through, you know, signingup for different certifications
with the veteran to vet biz andthings like that, and other ones
that we're working on throughthe state. We've kind of walked
through a few of these hurdles,and kind of, you know, worked
(07:33):
our way through it. And so wedon't want you all to have to go
through any of that as well. Wewant you all to learn from our
mistakes.
Ray Mayfield (07:41):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely a mean word where,
you know, no one's perfect,especially when starting a
business. So I think there's alot of, you know, bumps in the
road, and tons of red tape thatyou can cut through pretty easy
if you just do the research,right. So, you know, research
could be reaching out tosomebody who's gone Google, hey,
what I need to do in the stateof Georgia to start a business,
(08:01):
and it should lay out all thechecks and checks in the box,
you need to do the execute suchthing. So they have to do some
due diligence research to makesure you know, your, your, you
know, your foundation is solid.
Tiara Jones (08:11):
Right, exactly. And there's no we talked about local
resources a lot, but you know,your chamber of commerce in your
local county and things likethat, or even just calling your
state's office, usually, fromwhat I've, you know,
experienced, they're quitefriendly. And so, you know, if
you ask them a question aboutsomething, or there's something
you don't understand about aform or anything like that,
they'll take the time to explainit to you. And then you can get
(08:34):
it straight from the source. AndI know, the Chamber of Commerce,
at least in our area, they havedifferent workshops and things
like that, for new businesses toexplain, you know, some of this
back end stuff from you know,the paperwork and things that
you should look out for. Andthen in addition to that, I
think it's important to havejust certain business
professionals, you know, withinyour network and to start
(08:54):
building a relationship. Solike, when it comes to, you
know, your legal, you know,issues and things like that. So
like having a lawyer, you know,on standby, that, you know, that
you don't necessarily have to,you know, get a retainer with,
but at least start you know,kind of shopping around and kind
of seeing Okay, if somethinghappens in my business, or if I
need, you know, help withsomething Who can I go to so at
(09:15):
least start, you know, goingthrough and making those, you
know, introductions and youknow, kind of feeling them out
and seeing you know, who fitswell with you and your business
and what you're doing the samesense when it comes to an
accountant. I suggest with allbusinesses just go to an
accountant because there's,there's things that they can
they can do to help you as faras taxes and things like that.
(09:36):
And there's also can be thingsthat you may not know anything
about, or you know, that you maynot know to ask and things like
that, and they'll kind of havethat back at knowledge because
that's their job and they canhelp you out with that. And
then, you know, bookkeeping, Iknow with us, we've kind of been
doing a lot of the bookkeepingon our own. But I think we when
you get to, you know a certainpoint and you have a lot of
(09:56):
different transactions andthings going through, even a
bookkeeper could be You know,super helpful, and they have a
lot of virtual bookkeepers anddifferent programs out there
that you can use to help you,you know, keep track of your
money, because that isimportant. You want to make
money and then you want to keepas much of it as possible. And
so you want to have those, youknow, you want to start building
those relationships early onwith people that are experts,
(10:18):
you know, in those areas versus,you know, listening to the so
called experts on IG, becausethat's just this is not it.
Ray Mayfield (10:25):
Yeah. Ask questions, man. Like, you know,
they give you, you know, for forus, we're fortunate to have a
great a great CPA, right. Andlawyers and lawyer and a
phenomenal Lord. Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, we have, we have docontacts and family friends, we
were able to put ourself in agreat position with great
people. were extremelyknowledgeable to help us right.
(10:45):
And I think it's important inthe beginning, right? Everybody
wants to have all the answers,but we don't know everything
right. So it's okay to say, hey,tax guy, how do I stop paying so
many taxes? It's okay to get abreakdown understanding of you
know, how your payroll shouldwork, right? It's great to get
an understanding of, you know,all the all the essential
paperwork, paperwork that you'regoing to need in order for your
(11:06):
company to have a solidfoundation and execution is
fantastic. And know yourbookkeeping. Right? Our CPA
wanted to do bookkeeping, he waslike, yeah, it's fairly simple.
We can do it, but you really bewasting money for me to do it.
You could do it yourself. And Iwas like, oh, great Tiara, like,
Oh, yeah, I can do that, whichwe know T can do all things. So
high five to T. Thank you, ofcourse. So you know, don't don't
be afraid to ask a question,though, man. I mean, it's okay
(11:28):
with saying, hey, I want toprotect as much money as I can
with my business. How can I dothat legally, you know, without
putting myself in the bindlater, Uncle Sam. So definitely,
definitely take advantage of allthe opportunities, you have the
one on one counseling, even ifit costs a little bit of money,
or, you know, you got to go havea lunch, or you got to take
somebody a cake, you know, toopen the door, but then they
communicate with you. Takeadvantage of it, man. I mean,
(11:51):
you never know how far thoselittle things, those little
relationships you establishedcan go, Oh, you know what, one
of the most recent books I'mreading, The Laws of Spirit
talks about how, asprofessionals, we should make
every opportunity to meet peoplewho are subject matter experts
in various fields that you'regoing to need, right? A lawyer,
an attorney, someone working,you know, in the county Tax
(12:12):
Office, you know, all those skinessential pieces marketing
purposes, someone who has accessto, you know, basketball
tickets, or sporting eventstickets at last minute, you
know, there's all criticalpeople to know who can help you
as some shape form or fashionlaw, your path, you know, so you
know, don't don't don't forget,you know, you, you have to give
the gift. And it may be time, itmay be cake, it may be something
important. But you know whatyou're going to get in the back
(12:34):
end. That's that's key. Andhopefully that's a partner who
will want to work with you andhelp to see your company grow.
Tiara Jones (12:44):
Mine. So what book number is that? Right?
Ray Mayfield (12:47):
78..78?
Tiara Jones (12:49):
Almost there you go make this 100 goal.
Ray Mayfield (12:53):
shower, listen in the books.
Tiara Jones (12:56):
Yeah. What'd your co workers say about your books?
Ray Mayfield (12:58):
So yeah, off topic. But funny story. I was in
walking into the building. Oneday, I was grabbing coffee. And
I ran into a few guys how my airpods on like, Oh, what are you d
ing, walking with your airpos? Like listening to books,
an? And they were like, whatre you listening to? I think a
that point, at that time, itadn't been like a book about the
(13:19):
big oil. I think it's called BiOil conspiracy, right. And it t
lks about how, you know, the, duing the World War, the Nazis f
gured out how to make syntheticoil, and other forms of pet
oleum in the US took those ideasSo essentially saying that oil
ill never go away. They'lalways be able to easily repro
(13:39):
uce, reproduce it, and theylaughed like that sounds like
uch a lame book, and they were lke, man, like you just read
nything huh just to get througit. This book must be three h
urs, like No, it's two. They'relike, ahh it proves my poi
t next you'll be reading Dr. Seus. Like Yeah, real funny. But h
y, man, if I got to add th
Tiara Jones (13:55):
you can learn something from all books, Dr
Suess.
Ray Mayfield (14:00):
Coming off the top row with the elbow. I like it.
Tiara Jones (14:03):
But back to the topic. So we talk about
bookkeeping and kind of doing ityourself and keeping track it
really is just as simple ofknowing what's coming in and
what's going out. So what areyou spending your money on?
Well, first, let's talk aboutwhere the money is coming there.
You need to have a business bankaccount, there's no way around
it. Just go ahead and set it up.
Yes, with some banks, there maybe fees, some don't have fees,
(14:24):
or really do your research tosee, we're fortunate enough what
Ray being a veteran, thank youfor your service, sir. All of
our fees were waived in thatsense, but we still have to do
our research to see you know,you know which banks would do
that. So make sure you have abusiness bank account. And none
of these things are coming fromyour personal account and you're
(14:46):
not doing any type ofcommingling but really keeping
track of, you know, what you'respending how much you're
spending, because I know you cansign up for a lot of these
software subscriptions andthings like that. Sometimes you
can forget what you even signedup for. So really keeping track
of Do I really need this? Am Iusing this? Can I go to a
different plan that you know maywork better for me that may be a
little bit more affordable, youknow, keeping receipts of you
(15:08):
know, travel, when you're eatingout, things like that. Just keep
track of all of that stuff,because you don't know how it
can benefit you. So you justhave all the information is
better to have more informationthan less information and take
it to your know your accountant,your CPA, and then they'll know
what to do with it. So you don'thave to worry about you know,
all the details, behind the facton how is this going to benefit
(15:31):
me, but just make sure you atleast have a spreadsheet,
because that's where we started,you know, our accountants, it
starts simple. With an Excelspreadsheet, don't go to any of
that software first, because youneed to understand your numbers
first, before you put into asystem and it makes sense. So
like, you know, really knowingyour numbers to the point. So
when you do go to QuickBooks, oryou know, other software, you
understand the numbers comingback out of it. And so, and I
(15:52):
recommend doing this monthly, Iknow sometimes people will wait
until tax time and be like, oh,shoot, where did I go? Where's
that receipt, you just take picka day. So we do have I think its
the 15th of every month, justrandom day, but the 15th of
every month, I go through andlook at all of our finances, and
you know, anything that we'vespent, you know, looking to see
(16:13):
if there's anything we can cut,you know, all that stuff just
takes a couple hours, you know,but it'll save you a lot of time
and a lot of headache come taxtime, especially if you're
having to do quarterly taxes oranything like that. You
definitely want to keep up withit monthly.
Ray Mayfield (16:30):
Absolutely.
Absolutely. You know, it's sofunny, right? Our accountant was
like, yo, like, he doesn'tbelieve in technology. Right? So
he comes to meetings withbinders of paper. And he's like,
Yeah, what do I need thecomputer for? I just write it
down and keep it in here it's soit's so funny to me. But it
really makes sense, right? Sowe're you look at, there's
multiple ways to backup and haveyour material available. There
(16:52):
is you know, of course, youknow, printing, writing your
notes, filing them away, takingpictures and uploading them
somewhere, especially yourreceipts. You know, if you if
you lose paper a lot, it takesup it takes five seconds to take
a picture of receipt after youorder some read something, buy
something right and just uploadit somewhere where you have a
tax folder somewhere where youcan just dump stuff into and
(17:13):
sort at some point. But yeah,definitely like to to like what
Tiara said right, you definitelytake time once a month to go
through and just touch yourfinances right? You want to look
at your your spend plan, makesure you know your money is
going where it needs to go makesure all your expenditures are
accounted for when you'retalking about what software
packages you're paying for, youknow the reoccurring fees,
things of that nature, yourlease, if those were have brick
and mortar shops who pay yourlease or mortgage every month,
(17:36):
you don't just want tounderstand where your money is
going. You want to understand,you know, hey, this is how much
money I have to spend for mycompany this month, this is how
much money this month budget forthis month is my budget for the
quarter. And then you'd setgoals quarterly, semi annually
annually for profit and revenue.
Right? So, you know, you want totake baby steps, you know,
crawl, walk, run, you know, soagain, you know, just to recap
(17:59):
things you touched on, right, wetalk about understand your
paperwork as you follow yourstuff with the state, and even
your local county government,the business bank account. And
then from there, what shouldthey do next T?
Tiara Jones (18:09):
So I think a lot of people just gloss over this
because it can be confusing, buttaxes. So when it comes to sales
tax, so y'all know, you gottayou know, pay taxes come tax
time for businesses to dependingon where your businesses,
different deadlines and thingslike that. But sales tax, and
it's not just for product basedbusinesses, there are a lot of
states who require sales tax fordigital products. So if you're a
(18:34):
virtual business, and you have,you know, certain digital
products and things that yousell, you may be, you know,
subject to sales tax, right. Andso, there's also, you know, when
you start talking about salestax, there's the Nexus, and
which kind of just breaks down,where are your customers coming
from where the majority of ourcustomers coming from. So for
example, we're in Virginia, sowe have a Nexus in Virginia, and
(18:57):
then say, if we have a lot ofcustomers in Georgia, depending
on the percentage, you can lookit up, it gets kind of
confusing, but depending on thepercentage of customers you
have, you may also have a Nexusin Georgia where you will have
to pay sales tax in Georgia aswell. And so there's a company I
think it's called of Avalara.
I'll link it in the show notes.
(19:17):
But their whole purpose is tohelp you kind of with that whole
sales tax, you know, thing orwhatever to understand, you
know, what your state requiresand how much and because it also
changes by county. So it's a lotof different numbers to have to
deal with. And what I've seen, Ihave some clients have some
friends, they'll be like, Oh,yeah, I'm not really paying
sales tax. I'll deal with itlater. Y'all you don't want to
(19:39):
mess with with taxes with theIRS with the state. You just
that's just one thing. You don'twant to get involved in
Ray Mayfield (19:46):
and get their money
Tiara Jones (19:46):
Exactly. One way or another news probably going to
end up being a whole lot morethan you to want pay. So just
take the time to you know, dosome quick research and then
talk to a professional. Look atsome of these companies like
Avalara that, you know, canprovide the service to you,
especially for product basedbusinesses, because you don't
(20:07):
want to have to end up payingthose taxes can mean you want to
be able to set it up, set your,your website and your e commerce
site up so it's charging theright amount of taxes to your
customers so then you're notstuck with paying that. And then
depending on, you know, thestate, there are certain
deadlines that you have to paythat by and they will start
(20:29):
tacting on penalties. Yeah,learn that the hard way too. So
don't be like us, make sure youunderstand all the details, read
all the things because then theyhave like weird dates, like,
like some one is due, like onthe 20th and things like that.
It's weird, and it's by acertain time, and if not, they
charge you $10 and then another$10. And it's just even if it's
$10, there's still money, Imean, that you could be using
(20:52):
elsewhere. So don't avoid taxes,if your service based, you know,
look into your state to see ifyou know digital products,
digital products, require salestax, and things like that. So
just make sure you do the duediligence, because in this
sense, ignorance is not bliss,okay. The state the, you know,
(21:13):
IRS, none of them are going tocare when you say, Oh, I didn't
know that. I don't care that youdidn't know you have a business.
And it's your job to know. Yeah.
So absolutely. If you don'tknow, that's why we said it's
important to start buildingrelationships with other
business professionals so theycan help you, you know,
understand. And so we all know,the purpose of you know, this
topic was to at least, you know,help people get to the point
(21:34):
where they'll know whatquestions to ask, or you know,
where to go. And of course, youguys can always dm us, we're an
open book. So you what we didwrong, what we learned, that,
you know, to help you out, soplease feel free to, you know,
email us send us a DM any ofthat. We'll put all the
information in the show notes,but please reach out to us if
you have any questions.
Ray Mayfield (21:55):
Yeah, for sure.
May each one teach one man, and,you know, don't play with your
taxes, you played a whole lot ofstuff, but your money's not one
of them in taxes is definitelynot one of them. I think
everyone knows stories of, youknow, these movie stars and
musicians and you know, whodon't pay taxes on, you know,
$40,000, they got somewhere andIRS shows up and they show up
with the police unit to arrestyou know, like a criminal. So,
(22:18):
you know, you just want to makesure you know, you do the simple
things through these things upfront, the hard things on front
to right, I mean, you don't wantto cut any corners, you're
getting, you know, T hit aroundthe head, if you are solid
professionals in your corner whoare helping you IE a CPA,
they'll let you know, and makesure you don't get caught
slipping with your taxes. But inthe event that you have a
question, ask, you know, Google,you know, research know, hit us
(22:40):
up here, another entrepreneur upon, you know, someone in your
family who may have someknowledge on the subject, you
know, definitely take advantageto to build that, that winning
circle to put those peoplearound you who are going to
help, you know, point you in theright direction, you know, when
you run into one of those toughquestions or problems. That's
Tiara Jones (22:57):
right, that's right. And then so let's move
along to a professional kind ofrepresentation. And so you know,
representation matters, youknow, first impressions, all of
that. And so, it's another thingthat I think is often overlooked
is your email, are quick to justgo and get a Gmail account.
However, with a business, Imean, with the job you work for,
(23:21):
I mean, think about the emailaccount there, it's not your
name@gmail.com So then whyshould the business you're doing
be any different, you shouldtake it just as serious, as you
know, the, the nine to five thatyou work for now, or that you
once worked for, or any of that.
And so I mean, it's aboutdepending on the plan you get
could be as low as six bucks amonth. With a Google workspace,
I think they changed their namefrom G Suite. But that's what we
(23:43):
use. It was simple and easy.
Like, if you have questions, youknow, hit us up, we can, we can
help you with that, all you haveto do is get a domain. domain
name. So domain is pretty muchwhen you go to a website, that
website name What comes afterthe www and before the.com
that's your domain, pretty muchsure what you're going to be
(24:04):
using. So you could set that upto kind of whatever you want.
Sometimes you have to becreative, because I think it's
like a business to go and likejust buy domains.
Ray Mayfield (24:14):
People buy domains and you have to buy back from
them. Right? You know, probablyfour times a price. So Exactly.
Tiara Jones (24:20):
So that's you don't want to first things you want to
consider as kind of okay, whatis my domain name going to be
because I'm going to get myemail set up, but you don't have
to, you know, immediately go toa website, but you can use it
for the purposes of getting yourprofessional email set up
because of mean having thebusiness Google workspace also
gives you added you know,security protection when it
comes to your documents and youremail and things like that the
(24:43):
free version of Google and Gmaildon't give you and so you know,
your business is important, youknow, it's your baby so want to
protect it and show up.
Definitely like how you want tobe seen cuz I mean, I mean,
think about it. How would youfeel working with a company does
that a Gmail account, you'd belike oh, He's kind of like,
Okay, why i don't i don't getit,
Ray Mayfield (25:03):
it's not just the coverage of like, it's like to
you like, like salt shaker123 four@gmail.com, or it's
always something like, you know,I've seen, I've seen that a
couple of times a time or two inthe past couple of months, you
know, it takes nothing up front,if you know the name of your
company, you can startresearching the domains
immediately right in lot one in,be creative as you want to be
without, you know, being as lazyas you can be, you know what I
(25:26):
mean? Just Just pick a solidone, claim it and then get back
to when did when the time comes.
But definitely, definitely youdon't, you know, just want to be
a little more professional. Andyou want to approach your
business, because that's arepresentation of you. And now,
you know, when you hit me in myGmail at soso, gmail.com, you
know, it doesn't really ringprofessional. So you know, just
keep that in mind.
Tiara Jones (25:48):
Yep, absolutely.
And then thinking about, like,representation wise, addresses,
I know, we kind of get caught upin this, too, is having
different addresses and thingslike that. And so we had a
mailing address, and then we hadkind of our, you know, virtual
home base address that, youknow, we were using or whatever.
And we kind of get caught upwith, you know, different
(26:08):
certifications and differentthings that we were using,
especially with the governmentside of our work, because we had
the two different, you know,addresses and things weren't
matching up and all that type ofstuff. So I said all that to
say, make sure you're using thesame addresses on like your,
with your bank account, whenyou're doing certifications,
like all that type of stuff,make sure you're using the same
(26:30):
address and don't kind of mixand match. Because it can be
very confusing, especially ifyou use something different than
what you registered, you know,what the state with the county
and things like that. And so youknow, it's okay to have, you
know, virtual addresses andthings like that, but just be
mindful of what you put down.
Because I know a lot of timeswhat will happen is you'll start
(26:50):
your business, and you'll kindof put your, your house or
somewhere down and you're like,Okay, I want to change it to
somewhere that's, you know, notmy personal, you know, residence
or whatever. But then sometimesyou can forget to change it in
all the respective places. Andthen things can get a little
messy. And so you just want topay close attention to that and
make sure that your addressesare all matching the way that
(27:13):
they should. And it's it's clearthat one may just be a mailing
address, versus one may be theplace where you're actually, you
know, putting in work and thingslike that. And so I know, it's
kind of it seems trivial, but
Ray Mayfield (27:27):
important, though, it is very important. I mean,
when you're when you're lookingat certifications, and
maintaining certain abilitiesfor your company to qualify for
certain contracts, whetheryou're minority company,
whatnot, all this stuff matterswhen you move through the
certification and verificationprocess for your company. So
yeah, without a doubt, I know weuse a we have a physical
address, and we have a mailingaddress, right. So it's nothing
(27:49):
wrong with using both, or youjust want to make sure that it's
everywhere. It's the same, usedcorrectly. Yeah, yeah. So very
important, very important.
Tiara Jones (27:57):
You know, speaking of the certification, and things
like that, you know, a lot ofthese things that we're talking
about is to prepare you to takeadvantage of the funding
opportunities that come out. Soyou know, with the pandemic,
they had the PPP loan, andthere's other funding
opportunities in the forms ofgrants and different things like
that. And because there were somany people that were trying to,
(28:20):
you know, scam the system,they're really looking at all
your paperwork, requesting allyour paperwork to make sure, but
when you're legit, like you'reserious, like you really need
this money, and that's why it'simportant to you know, keep
track of, you know, yourfinances and things like that,
because they want to know, Howmuch have you spent, how much
have you made, you know, what'sin your payroll, so they can
(28:40):
make sure they give you youknow, the right amount. And so
you just want to make sure thatyou're in the position to take
advantage of thoseopportunities. And, you know,
you know, your business like theback of your hand, so you don't
miss out.
Ray Mayfield (28:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think, you know, one one, youknow, nugget I'll drop is you
should have like a quickbook,right, you should have a file or
whether it is you know, hardcopysoft copy digital or, or in your
hands that you can refer to thathas all the necessary documents
you need for any fundingopportunities, you know, pitch
going to be with a partner, youknow, you should have all those
(29:14):
things readily available at yourdisposal to check out the Wim
monitor on my phone. I also havea soft copy tool that I can grab
out of a file cabinet if I needit, but you memorize after a
while, but we're looking at thefunding opportunities, a lot of
them have deadlines, andsometimes they'll drop and you
have like 24 hours or 48 hoursso platform so you really want
to have like a cheat sheet ofall this information that
(29:37):
they're going to require fromyou so you can quickly you know,
make yourself competitive forthose opportunities when they
present themselves. few and farbetween what you know, within TT
around here right with sinceCOVID has come out or since
COVID, you know, impacted theeconomic and job sector. There
are a lot of opportunities forother businesses and people
starting businesses to takeadvantage. Get some free money.
(29:58):
Free money is something that'salways out there, whether you go
through the SBA, but some of theventure capitalists who put
money together, did they pumpinto, you know, other funded
programs for, you know,disenfranchised, disenfranchised
companies, minority ownedcompanies, veteran known
companies, black women ownedcompanies, minority women owned
companies to take advantage of.
(30:19):
So yeah, you know, do your duediligence, but but have all your
stuff in a place you can findit, you can quickly take
advantage of those opportunitieswhen they present themselves for
sure.
Tiara Jones (30:27):
Yes, absolutely. We actually did a newsletter on
this a couple weeks back. Andwhen we talked about like having
your digital folder, and youknow, the things that should
have in it. So we kind of walkedthrough, you know, the business
formation documents that you canhave and other licenses and
certifications. And then whatRay talked about is kind of
(30:48):
having like that, you know, thatone pager that quick sheet of
all your information. So thinkabout it, like your contact
information. And I know it seemslike Oh, I know my contact
information. But if you have a24 hour, you have 24 hours or
whatever to get in anapplication, it's easier for you
to just copy and paste, right?
So like having your contactinformation, your, your
business, ein your like yourDUNS number, if you have one,
(31:10):
you know, those types of thingsthey'll ask for, you know,
social media profile links,
Ray Mayfield (31:18):
websites,
Tiara Jones (31:18):
right, exactly.
Your website, just having thoselinks ready, like what's your
mission statement? What's a, youknow, a quick two to three
sentence, you know, pitch aboutyour business, a biography,
because a lot of them ask for a,you know, a biography, so
writing up, you know, aprofessional biography for you
on different things like that,and having descriptions of your
products and services. And so,I've seen in a lot of different
(31:42):
applications and things likethat will they'll ask, okay,
what do you sell, you know,describe it, who's the target
market, like that ton of stuff,they want to know, because they
want to make sure that the moneythat that they're giving out is
in line and with what theirorganization is and what their
values are, and things likethat. And so they're going to
(32:02):
ask you these details about yourbusiness, because they're not
going to be giving money to acompany that they either don't
believe in or feel completelyagainst, you know, things like
that happen. And so if you justkind of have this high level,
you know, document whether sentyour phone, whether it's a
Google document or whatever, thekind of just has these points.
So all you have to do is copyand paste, because I mean, you
(32:24):
never know who you meet, either.
You may meet someone, you know,when you're out at the metro on
a bus, I mean, anywhere at arestaurant, they be like, Hey,
can you just can you send mesomething real quick? Can you do
it right now. And you don't wantto be fumbling trying to figure
out oh, why don't have thattogether, have it already.
Ray Mayfield (32:41):
So and you know, really essentially what you can
do because what I do Tiara did afantastic job of taking our old
capability statement andupdating it in is literally like
a front and back page. Right.
And I think it's fantastic tohave something like that readily
available on your capabilitystatement has all that in there,
you know, your NAICS code, youryour DUNS number, your
(33:02):
certifications, contactinformation, and then a blurb, a
couple paragraphs about yourcompany and what you do. And I
think it's important if you can,if everyone can take advantage
of creating a capabilitystatement that outlines who you
are, what you are, and whatdifferentiates your company from
those who are maybe operating inthe same sector as you, I think
it's very critical to have thatand have it available to share
(33:25):
at a moment's notice my mind ison my phone, I can email it to
somebody, once I meet him.
Typically, I've met severalindividuals here in the past,
you know, month or two, and youknow, handshake, get the email
address, as soon as I step outof the office I'm already
pulling up their email, shootingthem a copy of their of our
capability statement. And just,you know, reminding them that we
just met who I am, and lookingforward to, you know, continued
(33:46):
development for some type ofbusiness relationship. So take
advantage of those opportunitieswhen they present themselves,
man, you know, you don't want tobe caught with your back against
the wall. Another thing too,that I'll add real quick, we're
looking at the essentials ofyour company, a website, most
places will not do business withyou should you not have a
legitimate website for yourcompany operate out of. So it's
(34:07):
very important not even thinkit's a requirement by some
states that you have a websitefor your company, a lot of the
programs that you may look toapply for to get funding
required to have a companywebsite, for those operating in
the government contractingworkspace mandatory to have a
website. So take time to notgloss over that as well, too.
(34:27):
You know, you want to havesomething that's, you know, that
you can show that gives content.
It doesn't have to be a completeproduct, but you do if you're
just starting and you'rebuilding a website, that's all
Yeah, Titi did our whole websitewith no input from me, which is
fantastic. Maybe a coupleparagraphs here and there and
she just created it all. Butit's important because we're
going to go to that right.
(34:49):
That's a marketing tool for youand your company as well too. So
you know, where you may justcreate a landing page initially,
that's fine, but don't forget togo back and add the actual
content to it. You know, don'tforget to keep building it as
your company continues to grow,you continue to move down
different paths, you know,update your website and make
sure that it's current, right?
Because people are going to goresearch you. And believe me, we
see the metric reports how manypeople visit, visit the website,
(35:10):
it's important, even when youthink people aren't looking,
they're looking, they're goingto come across you some way some
shape, form or fashion. And whatyou don't want them to see is u
finished or a lazy or not, wellput together product, right,
because I represent, you know,people may look at your company
as a form of research beforethey reach out to you for
something. And if that'shaphazard, then they're more
(35:31):
prone to go look elsewhere. Youknow, it's just for someone else
who can do what they need to bedone. So definitely take
advantage of that opportunity aswell.
Tiara Jones (35:40):
Absolutely, you got to look at it as your kind of
digital storefront. So you maynot have a brick and mortar, but
you still I mean, you own yourwebsite. And so you know, you
own your domain name, you ownyour website, like that's your
kind of, what do you call yourvirtual real estate? Yeah. So
you really want to, you know,take advantage of that. So you
will have a place for people togo, you know, and see about you,
(36:03):
right, and I mean, then that'sthe place where you will conduct
business, because that's whatpeople you know, can look to get
in touch with you fill outforms, how they can, you know,
actually buy something for you,whether you have an e commerce
site, or if you know, a servicebased businesses, they putting
down a payment for, you know, aconsulting session or anything
like that, like that all you gotto have a website, you got to
(36:24):
have somewhere for them to go tobill that. And so you want to
keep that in mind. It doesn'thave to be, you know, crazy
fancy, you know, first, youknow, starting out and things
like that, just put theessentials up there, who you
are, how to get in touch withyou what you do, make sure it's
very clear. And you know, whatyou do front page above the
fold, you know, so it's clear.
So you know, what to catchpeople's attention, you know,
(36:46):
right off the bat, but yes, Ray.
Great point.
Ray Mayfield (36:50):
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So yeah, so I know, we
gave everybody quite a bit, youknow, we're looking at things we
have learned through our goinginto our third year of
entrepreneurship, looking at thefoundation for your company, you
know, registering with the stateand county, making sure all the
operating agreements and bylawsare in place. You know,
(37:13):
establish relationships withthose professionals who can help
you go and protect you frommaking mistakes, lawyer, CPA,
advisors, mentors, you know,people from from that nature,
and making sure your bookkeepingis up to date, your taxes are in
check, your professionalrepresentation, again, is
critical and important. Youknow, and then the value of
(37:34):
having that you know, thatvirtual storage place for all
your documents, and you can havea file cabinet as well, too. But
you usually want to have backupsto the backup, sometimes I'm
going to capability statement,you know that that, you know
that that quick marketing toolyou can whip out and send to
somebody who, who that's goingto tell them everything about
what your company is and whatthey do. And you know why they
should do business with you overanybody else. So definitely take
(37:57):
advantage of of that too. Anddon't forget that website.
Tiara Jones (38:01):
Important will link our capability statement, you'll
see that ours is tide more tothe government side of our
business, but you can have acapability statement, even if
you're not in government isstill a great marketing tool.
And so, you know, look at oursas just a template on how to lay
things out. But you can stillbenefit from it, whether you're
a product or service basedbusiness, that's not necessarily
(38:22):
doing things with thegovernment, because we found out
through some other programs thatwe're working with that Amazon,
a lot of programs that theyhave, they require a capability
statement. And so you just wantto make sure that you kind of
look at that and see how you canmake it or apply it to your
business. And then one lastthing before we go now SOPs now
(38:46):
I'm kind of a stickler when itkind of comes to this funny
story. When me and Ray were Ithink it was like the second
podcast we were recording. LikeI'm the type where I'm going to
write down what was the firstone, I would write down
everything like cuz I'm justlike, if something was to happen
to me, or something like that,how will someone else know kind
(39:06):
of like what I do and so like,um, I don't know, I'm real
particular about writing downdifferent steps. Like I go to
this website, I click thisbutton I do this I do that
because you know, just kind oflike as I fail safe, like I've
always kind of I'm trying to getout of this but I'm like, worst
case scenario thinking type ofpersons. I'm like, anything
happens everything Ray, go tothis folder and everything is
(39:27):
right there. So anyways, when wewere doing our first podcast, we
were looking at, we use a zoomh6 some recording device, I
don't know, Ray is used to be asound engineer. So he's really
good at all this stuff. Butanyways, I was writing down like
literally the volume settings.
Click this button, turnmicrophone on. And he was I
(39:48):
mean, he would not stop jokingme about all of it. And I'm
like, Are you kidding me? Sothen the next time was
Ray Mayfield (39:57):
Tiara Tiara is like okay, Typing volumes at
seven. I'm like come on man, itsnot that serious.
Tiara Jones (40:03):
If you get a sweet spot where it works to me, you
want to have something that'sconsistent has the same sound.
So it makes sense to me. Butthen the next time we record it,
we couldn't figure out whynothing was working. And y'all
guess what it was? We didn'tturn the mics on. But we would
have looked at the list I made,we would have said turn it to
this turn the mic on. Am I goingto like that checklist checks
(40:23):
and balances? But anyway, I'mgonna keep doing what I do,
right? Don't have to read it orlook at it.
Ray Mayfield (40:27):
Oh, yeah, no, bommies. I mean, read the world,
these people like you for thosewho are familiar, standard
operating procedures? Oh, yes.
All right. So this is a documentthat says, This is how I do my
process. And it's the same everytime they could be replicated.
If you follow these, theseinstructions on this paper,
you'll get to the end result inwhatever timely manner you need
to now you know, I'm all forSOPs, don't me wrong. I just
(40:49):
don't take the time to write thewrite down stuff to the detail
that Tiara does, but that's whatmakes us great, I focus on other
things and Tiara focus on otherthings. And then they meet
together in the middle, in thehandshake. And that's a high
five and everybody's happy. Thisis turn the volume to seven.
That's so funny. I was like,Man, you're so you're so funny
T, but I appreciate that.
Tiara Jones (41:11):
Thank you. I mean, it works, we work. So whatever.
But the importance of SOPs arewhen it gets to the when it gets
to the point where you're not,it's not just you, you know, I
know when you first startingout, it's just you, you're doing
all the work, but you want toget to a place where you can
easily hand it off to someoneelse. And so when you're ready
to hire an assistant or to hire,you know, employee number two,
(41:34):
you don't have to scramble on,you know, trying to figure out a
training plan and everythinglike that, because what's going
to happen is you're going tohave as you go through, you
know, your processes and yourback end your operations, if you
just start taking notes that ofcourse, they don't have to be to
the level of detail that I dowith that. But just quick notes
on kind of what you do and howyou do it. And why you do it
that way, will help you when youbring someone else on because
(41:56):
they can use that, you know,material to reference and to
bring them up to speed. And so Iknow, you know, first starting
out, you're like, I don't needto deal with that now. But trust
me, it really will make adifference once you're ready,
because you know, anything canhappen. You can meet someone
tomorrow, go viral, and you havea whole bunch of people at your
door ready to buy your products,buy your services, and you're
(42:19):
going to need help quick andyou're not going to have time to
be like, Oh, now I got to trainthem. But I showed them how to
do this. If you just take alittle bit of time, you know, a
month, like pick a day, eachmonth and be like, Okay, let me
just write a couple of notes onhow I do this, or how to do
that. And then just put it in adigital folder where you know,
someone else can get to, yeah,for sure.
Ray Mayfield (42:37):
And you know, plus enough as you plus your staff up
and your business grows. Butthose SOPs come in handy. If
you're fortunate enough to haveyour business bought out by
somebody, you know, you have youhave documented procedures in
place. And I think that helpsthe transition and the purchase
process go a lot smoother, too.
So, you know, I think a lot alot of entrepreneurs are out
there or in this worldd. I'm dothis for five to 10 years and
(42:59):
sell it to somebody else and goretire and live on the beach. I
just do what I want to do globetrot for us my life. But you
know, putting putting those SOPsas a important, you know, it's a
very important proceduraldocument to have and establish
as you're looking at yourcompany. You know, you can't
really do anything without nothaving standard operate standard
operations for how you do yourprocedures. So definitely
(43:22):
establish those SOPs. Yeah,great, great valid point. Great
point.
Tiara Jones (43:27):
Yeah, so what we'll do I know we talked about a lot,
but we'll kind of the thingsthat we reference, we'll link it
in the show notes. Sodefinitely, you know, look at
that or you can go straight toour website at
thefrontrunnerpodcast.com
Ray Mayfield (43:39):
for sure. If you guys have any questions, we're
always available through socialmedia. For those who have our
emails or phone numbers hit usup if you guys have questions,
you know, we'd love to help outif we had the opportunity to do
so. You know, with that beingsaid, we love you guys and we
appreciate everybody taking timeout to listen. So you guys hold
it down. Peace
Tiara Jones (43:58):
Peace stay solid
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