SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS Information about the broad and diverse tasks that are essential to starting and maintaining a business.

PLANNING AND STRATEGY  A small business owner must understand their business and the necessary resources and strategies.  You need to start by writing a business plan and a marketing plan.  You’ll need to do research, planning and writing to develop those plans. As time goes by, the plans may change and the plans be rewritten or changed.

FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING  You`ll need a business loan to start off with.  As a business owner you will need to maintain:  Business bank accounts  Payment processing  Accounts payable  Accounts receivable  Taxes  A small business owner named Patty, who runs a small town Veterinary clinic does the daily paperwork, daily deposits, insert money into the right cost centers/ bank accounts, and maintains the farm clientele accounts.  Most of her day is taken up by figuring and maintaining the finances.

LEGAL  Small business owners must comply with federal and state business licensing laws. The need:  Create legal contracts  Know basics of the law  Have access to an attorney if legal problems with customers or employees arise.  As a business owner you will need to write, review and sign legal contracts and sales agreements.  At Patty’s Veterinary clinic, when someone does not pay on their account after 90 days they are sent to their Lawyer. The lawyer then contacts them, if they still do not pay on their account, the clients will be sent to court.  Patty also wrote the entire handbook for employees with legal help.

MARKETING AND SALES  You need to create a marketing plan and sales strategies.  Some mediums that can be used are :  print advertising  public relations  online marketing  Networking  cold calling  commissioned salespeople.  Patty creates her own advertisements to go out in the various newspapers around central Ohio.  As a small business owner, she maintains the clinic’s website.  Also, she maintains the clinic’s social media accounts and keeps in contact with the clients.

CUSTOMER SERVICE  Many small business owners are responsible for providing all the customer service duties.  These include:  Phone calls  messages  Post cards  Letters  Patty creates the reminders for clients who are overdue for appointments.  There are also thank-you notes for new clients.  Patty also writes letters to business partners and businesses we do business for.

THE NEXT STEP  To be a business owner, schooling is most important in knowing the basics of business.  Then you’ll need to find a business you love and want to get into.