Starting a business is daunting. I speak with Dan Pope, a meteorologist, who has 40 years of Television weather experience (He's my dad) and we talk about how we started a business in less than 72 hours and soft launched it.
Checklist on what to do to get your business up (These are my actual notes that we followed, create a Google sheet and put everything you do in one place.):
Registered business federal, write ein tab 2. recommend S Corp or LLC. do not put inc or LLC on official business name. use same name for state and federal filing.
Buy Domain
Register business state, write registration info tab 2
Register business bank account.
Register for business credit card. Put all expenses here. Recommend capital one
Post digital contents of your weather book in return for email address on subscription page. (For you non-weather readers, put up your content that shows your expertise)
Create Updated BIO on google doc
Write social media post, linked/facebook with your business plan, ask for anyone who needs weather consulting.
Review weather consulting competition
Signup for zoom.
Signup for calendly
Select 3 business services.
Add contact form
Load videos of your cool weather stories
Build about me page with your TV background and past consulting
Homepage should be a video and top services and summarized credentials
Register PayPal
Connect PayPal to calendly
Add calendly page to 1 hour consulting call page.
Integrate calendly to your Gmail calendar
Put all logins tab 2
Get video testimonials from 3 people who can tout your weather experience. ideal if they hired your consulting.
Register your service on a dozen service sites and directories
Register Google analytics, add pixel to word press
Register Google web master
Open QuickBooks account. do not give to mom. do it yourself. connect credit card and bank. monthly sync expenses. create auto rules to categorize expenses
Register DocuSign. use free version to sign stuff
Create one page draft agreement for consulting retainer. write hours expire if not used within 6 months.
Sign up for jot form free version. use for your 2 service pages (not the consulting hour(
Signup buzzsprout. register podcast with Google apple etc. create daily podcast
Update your YouTube channel. switch name to business. link to business website. add 3 hashtags to all videos. Post daily video
Register Google voice number. put on website. forward to your phone during business hours.
Update all social media. LinkedIn. Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. pushing business. make daily posts.
After you get to $4000 monthly income hire assistant. Their job is to organize you
File Trademark https://myamazonguy.com/trademark-services/
Setup gsuite, make email
Build website
Create Google doc and write down a never ending note list of ideas. as they pop into head.
Use QuickBooks for invoicing. or Harvest
Cold email 100 law firms offering your weather expertise for cases
personally call 20 lawyers you know pitch them your legal services
service page for in person weather testimony.
Review onet
Review Ask the Public
Make it easy to understand what Dan Pope does, easy to know when you've done a good job, easy to refer. Simplify it to this level for business model.
Read Microfamous
How many clients do we need?
Service page: Train other meteorologist Coaching
Service page wedding day forecast
Created "Weatherman on Demand" for Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
---End checklist
Get Amazon Consul