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With the challenges of raising capital higher than in the past, many people are looking for alternative sources of financing to bridge some money gaps or even launch a new business. Many of you know that if you withdraw retirement funds prematurely and don’t pay it back by the end of the year, you will get hit with big penalties on your tax return.

The WSJ has these tips to watch out for:

• Do this wrong and you risk paying taxes on your retirement savings as well as facing hefty penalties.
• Be very cautious about using your nest egg for a business start-up.
• Such investments fall into a gray area of the law, according to tax experts.

The Gray Area to Make This Work if You Want To

From the same WSJ article -

“There are ways to use IRA and 401(k) funds to finance your start-up business. But it isn’t simply a choice of writing yourself a check. There are significant legal steps. The key is rolling over the money into a corporate retirement account that permits you to invest in the business.

A nonexpert would likely need the help of a financial planner or third-party retirement-plan administrator. These professionals set up a C corporation and establish a corporate retirement account. A person can then roll outside retirement accounts into the corporate plan and invest the money in the company’s stock. Since the person is buying shares of his or her own business, he or she is effectively feeding it money.”

If You Do Decide to Fund Your Business this Way, Get an Expert

If you do decide to go this route, the only thing I can say without question is to hire a professional firm that does this sort of thing so your paperwork and filings are proper. The WSJ article points out “Advisers are likely to charge several thousand dollars to help set up a plan and levy hefty annual fees. So this strategy makes financial sense only if a person is investing a big chunk of their retirement money in a business.” I still would do this since the money you spend would probably outstrip the money you would lose if you do this wrong.

You Should Look for Other Sources First

Now I am not saying you will fail but there is a high likelihood you might and you will be out of your retirement savings which can be devastating. If I could give an advice from personal experience is to look at non-retirement assets first. This includes savings and brokerage accounts. You should also stay at your day job and put away six months of savings so you can work to get the revenues up and not tap into long term savings. The other obvious choice is friends, families and acquaintances if you want to go that route and that is a whole other blog post there.

Lastly, a few good resources to read up this some more and make your own decision:

From SCORE: Funding a Business with Your Own Retirement Funds (pdf)

From the Wall Street Journal: Funding a Start-up – How to Tap an IRA or 401(k) – Small Business …

Small business owners interested in finding out how to start using social media should join the Tweet Chat #sbbuzz on Feb 23^rd, 8-10PM (EST).

Tweet Chat on Small Business Success

Anita Campbell, Editor of Small Business Trends, will moderate the discussion to provide additional insight on how to effectively use social networks to generate results.

SBBuzz is a Twitter Chat that allows people to follow a group conversation across Twitter using the hashtag #sbbuzz for search filtering and adding their comments using the hashtag to create a stream of conversation.

For instructions on how to participate in the SBBuzz Tweet Chat, you can go to http://sbbuzz.wordpress.com/instructions/

Pre-tweet Radio Show with Anita Campbell

Prior to the Tweet Chat, Anita will be interviewing Shashi Bellamkonda, “Social Media Swami” (Director of Social Media) here at Network Solutions and Founder of Happenings, Advice and Technology Thoughts, and small business owner, Dr. Alan Glazier, join Anita Campbell for an in-depth discussion on the results of the Small Business Success Index. This special episode will be followed up with a TweetChat at 8:00PM EST including @ShashiB and @smallbiztrends using the hashtag #SBBuzz@SBBuzz.

If you haven’t heard of the Small Business Success Index or SBSI, the SBSI Index measures how they are doing in six key areas of business: capital access, marketing and innovation, workforce, customer service, computer technology and compliance.

To download a copy of the Small Business Success Index and also find out how your business scores on the six key dimensions of small business success, visit www.growsmartbusiness.com.

And of course, don’t forget to join us and Anita on the #sbbuzz chat on Tuesday, Feb 23 from 8-10pm EST!

The Superbowl Shuffle

Originally posted over at Solutions Are Power:

I remember when I was a kid the Bears won the Superbowl and everyone was crazy for the Chicago Bears. So much was the love for “da Bears” across the country that they made a record that immortalized the team and made household names of Mike Ditka and William “Refrigerator” Perry.

This record was called “The Superbowl Shuffle“.

According to Wikipedia, “The idea for “The Super Bowl Shuffle” came from record producer Randy Weigand, who was a friend of Willie Gault‘s. They had met through Randy’s girlfriend, Courtney Larson, who was a cheerleader for the team. Weigand had noticed a dance routine on the Amos & Andy television show called “The Kingfish Shuffle” and thought that a similar performance by the Bears players would be good for marketing.”

They filmed it to raise money for needy Chicago families and with the music video it became a phenomenon. If you have ever seen the video, which I have included below, two things come to mind for me – great marketing and not taking yourself too seriously.

We put together a special “Superbowl Shuffle Domain and Hosting Offer” for the 2010 Superbowl. More on that at the end of this post.

Big Game Shuffle for Your Business – Shuffling to Renew or Transfer Your Domains

For this 2010 Superbowl, Network Solutions has put together a special offer for Sunday and Monday. $6.99 domain names and 25% off hosting packages so you can “shuffle” on over to start or keep using Network Solutions as your small business solutions provider. Check these out:

25% 35% off hosting – Use code HOSTSOC001

New Domains $9.99 – Use code SUPERDOM06

Domain Transfers for $6.99 – Use code DOMSOCIAL3

REMEMBER: This is only for 2010 Superbowl Sunday and Monday

We all need to get by with a little help from our friends. When you have a small business you get by with help from advisors and helpers. Advisors have a certain expertise and wisdom that you can rely on for guidance and mentorship. Helpers are those that can help with various tasks you don’t like doing or don’t have time for with your schedule. You might have a few already but you should always be on the look out for smart people to advise and help your business.

Entrepreneur.com sums up the challenge well “The good news is that there are many ways to get access to the expertise you may need. The bad news is that just the process of managing your advisors and advice can be a challenge, especially when the advice you get from one expert conflicts with that given by another. However, the most critical mark of a good advisor is his or her ability to provide essential information that enables you to make a qualified decision.”

The article goes on to say “Learn to recognize when you are facing a decision that you feel insufficiently informed to make, then find and contact advisors. There are experts in practically every field. Make your decision only after you feel confident in your grasp of the information.”

So your next question is probably, where do I find great advisors and helpers? We did some research and came up with some great resources.

Where Do You Find Great Advisors and Helpers?

Keeping it Local

There are great local resources and development agencies that can help you with your business. There are two that come to mind – SBDC and SCORE. SBDC stands for Small business Development Center and SCORE stands for Service Corps of Retired Executives. These offices have resources and people that are experiences in startup issues and small business challenges.

Getting Your Temp On

Getting temporary help is great and you can get it from agencies like Kelly Services and Manpower but you can also get them from universities in the form of internships. I personally worked with some of the local business schools to hire MBA students looking for great consulting projects to build their resume and affordable labor for me that can do complex analyst level work.

Finding Help Online

Granted, there are many great online resources for information on small business (like the one you are reading now) there are some web sites to find people with specific skills that would work remotely. Sites like elance.com and AssistU are great for specific task based help. I also love sites like Advisor.com and PartnerUp for searching for advisors

Parting Advice on When to Know You Need Advisors and Helpers

Closing this post, I would offer this from the same Entrepreneur.com article and sums it up nicely:

“There is one other point worth making here: Experts and advisors all have limitations, and differing sets of experiences and perspectives. Your job is to factor these elements into your decision-making process. For example, if you ask a patent attorney whether you should file a patent, there’s a pretty good chance he’ll say yes. On the other hand, a business advisor may suggest you forego the cost of a patent and get to market as quickly as possible, putting your available resources into marketing rather than intellectual property.

When it comes to conflicting advice, be willing to listen to what you may not want to hear. Ultimately, you’re the one who will be dealing with the consequences of your decisions. The most important thing to remember is that the decision is yours alone. If your advisor is unable to support your independence in this way, you may want to find another advisor.”

If you are just starting your business or have been in business for a little while you are probably thinking about where you might expand to or relocate your business. Businessweek.com says that “even with the highest quality products and services, friendliest staff and best prices, a poor location can significantly hamper your business’ success”. Many people when they start out use their kitchen table which is one of the worst places to set up shop. Here are five quick tips on what you should consider when choosing a location for your business:

Tip #1 – If You Work from Home, check all the rules – While working from home can save costs and be incredibly convenient, the unique situation of working from home presents its own challenges. You should definitely have a separate space for work away from kids and other distractions. This is helpful for tax time when you are going for the home office deduction. Also check your zoning rules in case it is illegal and there might be business licenses required.

Tip #2 – If you are a retail business, research traffic counts – Your county’s Department of Transportation (DOT) tracks traffic counts for major intersections in your area which is great when you are evaluating different commercial retail sites for your business.

Tip #3 – Make sure there is a dedicated space to meet with clients – Even if you do work from home, having access to an executive suite building will give you a commercial address and you will look professional. Meeting people in coffee shops can be fine once and a while but there will be times where you need the quiet and privacy of a dedicate meeting space. I used to work out of a large coffee chain virtually for about a year

Tip #4 – If you are open to it, look for SBA HUBZones to locate your business -HUBZones are designated as a historically underutilized business area by the Small Business Administraton. There is federal contracting assistance available to companies that apply for it and get approved for HUBZone status.

Are You Ready to Look for Office Space? What have been your experiences and preparation steps?

We want to hear from you if you have been through this process and if there are any things we missed and lesson you can pass on to fellow entrepreneurs. Leave a comment. We would love to hear from you.

I am assuming you already know what your business is and what you want to do to change the world, put your kids through college and have a lot of fun. So here are a few things you will need to do to establish your business.

First You Need a Name

One of the team writers, Ken Yeung, just wrote a great post on creating good brand names. Here is an excerpt that sums it up nicely:

Consider the logo and the sound - while you have a brand, remember that it’s not just a word. There’s a logo that is your “symbol” of your company. Don’t forget the graphical element of your brand. If you have a greatsounding brand, you can’t rely on that. Make sure your graphic of your brand (aka logo) is equally as impressive.

Got Trademarks? – don’t forget that just because you have a name in mind, everything will be fine. You should check on trademarks and make sure you’re not violating any patent or trademark laws in choosing a brand name.

Find domain name – in the Internet age, you should make sure that you have the right web address. Using a domain registrar like Network Solutions, you should be able to find out whether a web address that matches your brand name is available. If it isn’t available, using a WHOIS directory on Network Solutions should help you find out who owns that domain.

Check company names – If you’re planning to incorporate, check with the Secretary of State (or other appropriate office outside the US) of the state you’re planning to incorporate in.

Protect your brand – A US trademark or service mark costs $325. While it may not be important for small businesses, this may be something that is advantageous to check out.

Now You Need A Corporate Structure

After you have your name, you need to figure you a specify your business structure. As explained in an earlier post on Unintentional Entrepreneur, there are several different kinds: sole proprietorship, partnerships, corporations and limited liability corporations. You can read more about these different structures by clicking here.

Next Thing, Register Your Business

This means that in order for you to exist as a business you need to register with the IRS and the state you are operating in. You file your corporate docs with your state to acknowledge you are a valid business. After that you need to register your business with the IRS. Another important thing you should do is register with Dun and Bradstreet which tracks business activity and is a sort of credit bureau for companies. It helps establish your business so that when it comes time for a company to do a search and background on you and ask for your “D&B DUNS number” you will have it.

Permits and Licenses

Every business needs one or more federal, state or local licenses or permits to operate. Licenses can range from a basic operating license to very specific permits, (e.g., environmental permits).

Regulations vary by industry, state and locality, so it’s very important to understand the licensing rules where your business is located. Not complying with licensing and permitting regulations can lead to expensive fines and put your business at serious risk.

You should check out Business.gov’s “Permit Me” tool. It asks for your zip and your type of business and gives you the list of things you definitely need to do and might need to do but require further research.

Bank Accounts

It would be safe to say that if you are reading this and looking at starting a business you probably have a personal bank account. When you start a business one of the most important things is opening a bank account for the business. There is a great post on About.com on the Five Reasons Not to Mix Personal and Small Business Banking. I made this mistake early on in my first business with using personal credit cards which is the worst thing you can do.

The other thing you need to consider with banking is what kind of bank do you prefer? Sure you will work with some one at a local branch but do you prefer something more community based or a larger entity with greater reach and programs? Since I travel quite a bit I needed a bank with branches all over the place. If you are a non-profit there are certain banks that have programs best suited for that so the bottom line is to go with your personal feeling and then research the services that match your needs.

Wow, that was a lot and we haven’t even opened our doors yet. So what are you waiting for? Get started and if you have any questions, leave a comment. We would love to help.

Have you just started a new business and have no idea what tools are out there to use? Well, many people have asked the same thing and these last few years have brought us some great hosted web applications that serve various purposes like invoicing, accounting, project management, lead generation, email marketing, etc. The only problem is that these applications were usually built by different companies and didn’t talk to each other. This slowly was solved by those companies opening up their API (programming interface) so other applications could integrate. For example, you add a client to a project management system and track time there, it would be great to pull in the client info, project data and import the time data for billing and generating an invoice. You get the picture.

Still there was a problem with so many applications, some integration and no real place to find them. Well five companies founded an coalition called “The Small Business Web” and here are the founding members:

1. Michelle Riggen-Ransom of BatchBlue Software
2. Sunir Shah of FreshBooks
3. Ben Chestnut of Mailchimp
4. Sonny Byrd of Shoeboxed
5. Paul O’Brien of Outright

Here is what they mission is straight from their web site:

The Small Business Web is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses. While there are many products available for small business owners on the Web, the approach we’re taking is to use each others APIs to provide a high-level of integration between these applications and create a more seamless experience for our customers.

Pretty cool.

They launched last year at SXSW and now there are like 30 other companies in this coalition. So if you are looking for good low cost applications to power your business and that will integrate with one another in some fashion making your life easier, you can find more info about the small business web and all the companies that are part of it at http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com/

In future posts we will profile the companies in the small business web and talk about how they can help your new business, how they integrate and how that helps you.

This was originally posted on GrowSmartBusiness.com and is from the GrowSmartBiz Conference held September 29, 2009:

At the GrowSmartBiz conference, Randy Windsor of Network Solutions gave a great small business tip presentation onf SEO and SEM. Check out the video below:

This was originally posted on GrowSmartBusiness.com and is from the GrowSmartBiz Conference held September 29, 2009:

At the GrowSmartBiz conference, Anthony Pappas of the Pappas Group gave a great 10 minute presentation on the power of brands. To see the full presentation, check out the video below:

About Anthony Pappas
As the founder of the Pappas Group, Anthony Pappas defines the overall creative direction for the company’s clients, most recently leading the rebranding initiatives of Blackboard, Inc, Discovery Education, Network Solutions, and Destination DC.

Prior to starting Pappas Group in 2003, Anthony held the position of Senior Vice President/Executive Creative Director of Proxicom’s Brand & Experience Group from 1996-2003. During this tenure, he was responsible for leading, developing and executing creative strategy and interactive marketing/design initiatives for Proxicom’s global client roster.

His accomplishments at Proxicom included being appointed Executive Creative Director after the company was named “interactive agency of record” for Mazda North America; producing the interactive campaign for the launch of MCI’s national “IP Telephony over the Web” initiative; and leading the concept creation, identity development, information design and multimedia work for more than 50 Fortune 500 clients such as NIKE, General Electric, Timberland, Merrill Lynch, Mercedes-Benz Credit Corporation, Cole Haan, Liz Claiborne, PepsiCo, MCI, Marriott, Gap Inc, Intel, Microsoft, Marriott, Quikbook.com and the Intel Travel prototype.
Prior to Proxicom, Anthony spent seven years in the “traditional advertising arena,” working with organizations such as Saatchi & Saatchi and Grey Advertising. He also did extensive art direction work in film, television and commercial industries. Clients included: McDonalds, Pepsi, Mellow Yellow, Warner Bros (Batman).

This was originally posted on GrowSmartBusiness.com and is from the GrowSmartBiz Conference held September 29, 2009:

Rieva Lesonsky is CEO of GrowBiz Media, a communications company offering custom content and expert insight designed to help entrepreneurs build their businesses and achieve success. Lesonsky spent 26 years at Entrepreneur magazine, where she started off as a research assistant and worked her way up to editorial director. Lesonsky is also one of the only women to ever hold a top spot at a business publication.

A native of New York, Ms. Lesonsky is the author of Get Smart and the best-selling Start Your Own Business, and co-author of the books Young Millionaires, Ultimate Book of Franchising and 303 Marketing Tips. She served on the Small Business Administration’s National Advisory Council for six years. The SBA also honored her as a Small Business Media Advocate and a Woman in Business Advocate. She is a nationally recognized speaker and expert on entrepreneurship and small business ownership, and is a regular on MSNBC’s “Your Business” program.