5 Steps to Supporting Your Community Through Small Business Ownership

Sam Marcum

Every community needs small businesses in order to thrive. If you’ve dreamed up a great business idea, it might be time to take the leap and open a small company in your area. This brings jobs as well as new products and services to your town. Also, you can partner up with organizations to create new opportunities for young people in your area! Here’s what you need to know in order to start your own small business, courtesy of Global Threads.

Why Small Businesses Matter

Perhaps you’ve always felt that it was important to support your local friends and neighbors in their business endeavors. If you try to shop local for the sake of your community’s economic health, your instincts are correct. Research indicates that three times more money goes back into your local economy for every dollar you spend at a small business in comparison to spending at a major chain retailer. This means more stability and better jobs in your area!

Getting Off the Ground

You’ve decided to embrace entrepreneurship and start taking steps towards becoming a business owner. But what do you need to do first? You’ll have to create a business plan and accompanying budget. FinImpact states that your business plan can encompass an executive summary, a description of your business, your management structure, your products and services, and even ideas for your marketing strategy. To outline your budget, you’ll need to come up with figures for your estimated revenue, fixed costs, variable costs, one-time costs, cash flow, and profit.

If you’re concerned about your own competence in launching a small business, it may be worthwhile to consider returning to school for an advanced degree such as an MBA. Attending an online program is flexible, making it easier to attend to life beyond school. Be sure to verify the accreditation of any school you’re interested in as well as checking on its tuition rates.

Choose a DBA Name

What if you already operate another business under your given name? If this is the case, you’ll need to choose a “Doing Business As” name, or a DBA name. Basically, this allows you to branch out and offer another line of products or services under a different name if you’re already running a business in your name.

Hire Local Employees

The easiest way to start helping people in your community through your business is by hiring them! You might be nervous about hiring your first employees and delegating tasks to them, but this is a process that every business owner adjusts to eventually. To hire your very first employees, Your Charisma recommends looking for passionate people who have the necessary experience and plenty of potential. It’s okay to hire someone who will need to learn a little on the job—they could end up becoming one of your best employees!

Ways to Engage

As a small business owner, you can be a positive influence in your town. One way to help change things for the better is by forming a partnership with a local charity or nonprofit organization. It can take a while to find the right partners, so be patient as you search. You’ll want to make sure that you share the values of any organization that you partner with.
Find out which causes they support and who they’re aiming to help, and consider where your business could play a role in their efforts. You could also donate a portion of your proceeds to a local charity. Alternatively, you could hold fundraising events and raise money to address issues in your area. Your business can definitely be a force for good in your community!

Obviously, advertising is crucial. If you’re on a tight budget, though, remember that you can advertise free of charge by posting your own promotional images via social media. As for the promotional images themselves, you can skip the graphic designer and make them yourself using this logo design program—and best of all, that’s free, too!

By starting a small business, you can help liven up your community and boost the local economy. Odds are you’ll have plenty of support, too. After all, people in your area could be looking for a company just like the one you have in mind to meet their needs!

This article is brought to you by Global Threads, a company of t-shirt enthusiasts, designers, innovators and problem solvers. From the start, we knew our focus would be on giving life to your visions. We go beyond creative designs. Collaboration has been, and continues to be, at the core of generating great ideas and visuals for our customers. For more information, please visit our website or contact us today!

5 Steps to Supporting Your Community Through Small Business Ownership

At Global Threads we put a relentless focus on our quality product, but our most important core value is our endless devotion for our customers. Let’s go beyond the threads.