Resources

Here is a list of some KEY resources that should help you in your new business start-up.  All of these products I believe are very useful and valuable.  There are piles of junk on the internet you can waste your money on, but these I feel are of solid value.  If you find this is all to overwhelming, be sure to check my consulting services.

Legal Structure
Depending on how you have decided to set up your business, you might need some legal advice or documents.  Over the years I have spent a small fortune on lawyers.  While I think they are great in certain circumstances, I would use one of these services for setting up your company. These services are very cool.  They allow you to fill in a few blanks, answer some questions and will kick out a generated legal document.  Tip: you might want to subscribe to a monthly package when you are just starting and get all kinds of forms done at the start vs buying individual one here and there.

Legalzoom: This company offers a number of packages and document from incorporation, LLC’s, Partnership agreement, joint ventures, you get the idea.  These are all US based.

Lawdepot.ca Same as legalzoom, but they have Canadian, UK, US, and Australian forms.  All the incorporation documents you need, along with the other useful business forms.  Never hurts to get your wills and other family finances in order too, and they have great forms as well.

Website

This can be a very large area to cover, but I’ll put a few key resources you should look to leverage when you are setting up a website.  Remember, you NEED a website, but it doesn’t have to be anything too complex or crazy, but make sure you get it done.

Bluehost.com

Great, cheap dedicated hosting. Don’t get stuck with a slow loading website. That will kill your business so quickly and no one will stick around to read your site.

Aweber: This is the #1 tool you need to have on your company website.  You want to get customers to leave you their email address when they visit so you can send them updates, coupons, newsletters, etc to they keep coming back.  They charge a monthly fee, but its so worth it.  I could go on and on as to all the reasons why you should use their service (like not getting your promo emails deleted in spam, the automated messages that can be sent), but I won’t.  Once you get your website up, get this service!!

Promotional Tools

Hummingbird for Twitter
This is a very cool program that will automatically follow people based on criteria you set, as in what they are saying or “tweeting”.  The angle is if you follow people they will automatically follow you back.  If you don’t, it will un-follow them.  A good technique is to search and add people who are tweeting about a product you might sell, or a competitor’s name.  That way you can add them, they check you out and see what you are up too.  Its a great tool for automation of your twitter marketing strategy.

MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plug In for WordPress
Automatically convert keywords on your blog into money making affiliate links. Also manage, track, cloak and shorten unlimited number of affiliate links from one central location of Maxblogpress Ninja Affiliate.

Make Things Easier!

Burn Your To Do List
I’m a huge fan of outsourcing but sometimes its so hard to find the right people. This is a pretty cool service that allows you to purchase credits. They have a list of tasks that cost credits, so you know exactly how much an activity will cost you and not an hourly fee. Most of their tasks are website related.
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