Launching a New Venture. Why the new

Why the New Year Is the Best Time to Start a Home-Based Business

By James Gilmer, Harbor Compliance

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked upward trends both in remote work arrangements and the number of startups registering in the United States. As individuals increasingly turn to entrepreneurship as a source of income in uncertain economic times, 2021 could be a record year for business formations in the United States.

Historically, the beginning of the year has always been a great time to start a new LLC. Whether you’re a new or seasoned entrepreneur, this article will discuss the benefits — and logistics — of starting a new venture at the beginning of the year. We’ll also connect you with resources to start your business from your own home.

Beating the Bureaucracy at the End of the Year

Most entrepreneurs know there’s paperwork involved to form their LLC. Starting a business is exciting, but don’t skimp on your homework here. Taking the right approach will save you lots of time and money down the road. The exact steps vary in each state and your unique situation. However, every business will generally go through a few key steps:

■ File articles of organization with the secretary of state to create your company and establish its name.

■ Appoint a registered agent to protect your privacy and avoid receiving legal documents at home or in front of clients.

■ File with the IRS to obtain an EIN for your new business. ■ Establish organizational record, such as your LLC operating agreement. ■ Apply for any state or local tax accounts or licenses needed to do business.

At the beginning of the year, new businesses face yet another factor: delayed processing times. With so many people rushing to start their new LLC in the new year, state agencies end up with mountains of paperwork on their desks. Offices that normally take a few days to approve business filings often take weeks until their staff catches up. For many entrepreneurs, the secret is to file in the last few weeks of the year, but to declare what is called a “future effective date.” This simply means that the state receives your business filing and processes it now, but the company won’t exist until the date you choose. By doing so, you beat the rush of paperwork and get your business up and running faster. Think of it like making a restaurant reservation, but with even more benefits! The only caveat is that a small handful of states do not allow businesses to choose a future effective date. If that applies to your state, you just may need to wait until January.

Tax Benefits of Forming a Home Business at the End of the Year

This time of year, many entrepreneurs will tell you they prefer starting their business with a “clean slate.” By this, they simply mean that a January or even February start date makes business bookkeeping easier. It can also result in conveniences and deductions when filing business and personal income tax returns. In general, businesses (and their owners) must report profits and losses on the tax return for the year in which that activity took place. By declaring a start date in the new year, the business is not required to file its first federal income tax return until the following year. At the same time, the business owner still may be able to deduct startup costs from the previous year. Those startup costs may include state filing fees and other legal or accounting expenses. If you are starting a business from your home office, you likely have other expenses, such as equipment, software, utilities, and supplies. You may have even dedicated a room or portion of your home (or rental) to doing business. Depending on your situation, you may be eligible for additional deductions on these home office expenses. Note, these deductions only apply to the self-employed. Employees working from home during the pandemic generally don’t qualify. One additional benefit of starting a business in the new year is simplified compliance obligations with the states where you have registered to do business. Once the LLC is formed, most states require that it file a secretary of state annual report to stay in good standing. Usually, the first annual report is due in the calendar year following the date of formation. By forming in January, the business can defer its first report and associated filing fee to the following year. For businesses that form and register in multiple states, the benefits of waiting tend to add up.

Charting a Course of Action

Whether it’s your New Year’s resolution, a way to create another stream of income, or a way to occupy your newfound free time, starting a business from your home is an exciting venture. By now, you should realize there are plenty of advantages to starting your business at the end of the year. Of course, every business is unique, and the date you choose to start has important legal and tax considerations. We encourage you to do your research proactively. Before you act, speak with an attorney or tax professional for guidance on your specific situation. Together, they will help you launch your business and start 2021 on the right foot.

The beginning of the year has always been a great time to start a new LLC.

James Gilmer is a Compliance Specialist at Harbor Compliance (https://www.harborcompliance.com/), a leading provider of compliance solutions for companies of all types and sizes. Founded by a team of government licensing specialists and technology trailblazers, Harbor Compliance has helped more than 25,000 organizations apply for, secure, and maintain licensing across all industries. James is passionate about helping nonprofit organizations leverage compliance to enhance their fundraising and program activities and educating the sector on compliance issues. James is also a Co-Founder of Berks Sinfonietta, Inc. (https://www. berkssinfonietta.org/), a nonprofit chamber orchestra located in Reading, Pennsylvania. Harbor Compliance does not provide tax, financial, or legal advice. Use of our services does not create an attorney-client relationship. Harbor Compliance is not acting as your attorney and does not review information you provide to us for legal accuracy or sufficiency.

Grow Your Business with Marketing Automation

Marketing a business is a critical component of raising brand awareness, providing information on products and services, and winning new business. However, between strategizing and executing tasks like sending emails, a successful approach to marketing can take up time and resources. Instead, streamlining and automating the marketing lifecycle can give back some of that time to focus on other important tasks crucial to the success of the overall business, such as ensuring better service. Digital marketing automation can help drive business growth through prospects, sales, customer satisfaction, and advocacy.

The Role of an Automated Process

Marketing automation helps companies with their marketing initiatives and efforts by streamlining everyday, tedious processes. For example, companies no longer need to carve out time in their days to send follow-up emails to clients and prospective customers. Instead, automated outreach can send pre-crafted emails at a set time after initial outreach. Email marketing is still the most efficient way to reach out and interact with both current and prospective customers. With automated email outreach, businesses can increase productivity and generate leads in less time. For companies thinking about automation but are not quite sure where or when to begin, here are some factors to consider:

■ Prioritize and automatically send messages to highly targeted audiences, including both existing and prospective customers. ■ Continue to nurture and connect with leads and prospects. ■ Remain relevant to customers and maintain or even increase your touchpoints. ■ Emphasize personalized communication, especially when mass communication is required in outreach. ■ Optimize opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. ■ Manage the success of marketing campaigns.

Dynamics of Marketing Automation

Marketing strategies are made up of campaigns that promote businesses and reach prospects. Within the campaigns, there are

Streamlining and automating the marketing lifecycle can give back time to focus on other important tasks crucial to the success of the business.

breakdowns on what companies will do when moving forward with their initiative. There are also factors such as how they will reach their customers and potential customers, what they will do to reach these audiences, and why they are doing it. When it comes to choosing the right campaign and what to do, a common first step is choosing between digital or traditional methods of outreach.

As new tools and technologies are continually evolving, digital marketing outreach has become a primary source for marketing initiatives. Everything from email campaigns to social media campaigns all require effort in getting the word out there about businesses. Since emails provide direct outreach to targeted individuals, they can help drive communication and grow businesses. There are two ways that emails can be optimized for outreach strategies and initiatives: ■ Blast or One-time Emails. Blast or onetime emails can be sent to pre-existing contacts already in communication with a company. These emails could include anything from sales announcements to new services provided. Automation tactics with these email outreach strategies can help with scheduling in advance the communication expected to go out, eliminating the need to plan a day around this message while also hitting all the targeted audiences without having to copy and paste a message over and over again. ■ Drip Campaigns. Drip campaigns are multiple, time-based emails that are used to hit touchpoints along a workflow. These could include education material such as how-to’s to show expertise in a field or provide more targeted information in order to help guide customers on the next steps. Automation tactics with these emails include scheduling a pipeline of information for guided emails as the process continues. These emails can be sent every day, every week, or whenever companies see fit to distribute the necessary information.

Self-manage vs. Co-manage Efforts

When it comes to marketing automation, sometimes it is necessary to ask for a little help. As business owners have a lot on their plate, software tools aren’t the only option when it comes to marketing efforts. This is where seeking out a co-managed solution, like an agency, can actually be more efficient and effective for businesses. When deciding between self-managed and co-managed marketing solutions best suited for a business, it is important to consider factors like budget, experience in creating marketing materials like emails, and time available for marketing campaign management.

For companies implementing digital marketing automation, there are many benefits such as a decrease in stress and time commitment, with an increase in outreach and productivity. On top of the benefits, successful marketing automation can and will include necessary components for a company, such as goal metrics, a defined target audience, educational materials, workflow structure, ongoing optimization, overall reporting and analytics, and so much more. With these factors, digital marketing automation can engage customers and drive the growth of a business.

By Heath Bertini

Heath Bertini is Product Manager of WorkWave’s WorkWave Marketing solution. For nearly 40 years, WorkWave has been building best practices into its market-leading field service and last mile software solutions to help companies increase revenue and profit and become best-in-class operators who can outpace their competition. Its solutions empower service-oriented companies to reach their full potential through scalable, cloud-based software solutions that support every stage of a business life cycle, including marketing, sales, service delivery, customer interaction, and financial transactions. WorkWave is a trusted partner for thousands of customers across a wide variety of industries, including pest control, lawn care, cleaning, HVAC, plumbing and electrical, and last mile delivery. WorkWave’s award-winning culture and solutions have been recognized in the SaaS Awards, the Cloud Awards, the American Business Awards, the NJBIZ Best Places to Work Awards, and the Stevie Awards for Great Employers. WorkWave is a division of global enterprise applications provider IFS. For more information, visit https://www.workwave.com.