Your Questions About Business Online Services

Jere answers:

Request from your regular customers to fill out the survey so that you could better improve your services to them. If you have a strong repeat-customer base, you can possibly get atleast 1/10 people you ask to take the survey.

The key for surveys is to have a strong and justified purpose for having one being done. Most people don’t like doing surveys, thus when conducting a survey you need to ensure that it is going to deliver vital data for performance improval.

Apart from getting loyal/repeat customers, the other way is to have a raffle/draw type of survey, where you give away a few prizes to a lucky few participants for taking the survey. Giving some type of incentive wil likely draw a bigger crowd to take the survey.

Jere answers:

Go to http://www.score.org/mentors and enter your zip code. On the next screen, you will get information on the nearest SCORE chapter. Call them and arrange for a free meeting with a volunteer SCORE counselor. They will guide you through the process.

SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide and is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

SCORE has 350 chapters in locations throughout the United States and its territories, with 13,000 volunteers nationwide. Both working and retired executives and business owners donate time and expertise as business counselors.

Jere answers:

I don’t use the bank of my brokerage either, they always try to give me reasons but i haven’t done it yet. Their big pitch to me is that it will be easier to have access to my money but i haven’t encountered any problems so i cant be bothered to switch. That being said if they are willing to offer you something to switch maybe it is in your best interest.

Jere answers:

Given the potential legal liabilities that could be tied to an illustration company, copyright infringement being one of them, it would be prudent for you to incorporate your business. Incorporating your business will afford you some measure of protection to your personal assets if someone should sue your business. You will need to file a certificate of incorporation or you can incorporate online with New Jersey at https://www.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/treasury/revenue/dcr/filing/page1.cgi

After incorporating, the next step is to get a federal tax ID number for the corporation (called an Employer Identification Number) from the IRS by applying at https://sa2.www4.irs.gov/modiein/individual/index.jsp

After that you are going to want to make what is known as an S-election for your corporation with the IRS within 75 days of your incorporation. The form to make the election can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f2553.pdf and the instructions can be found at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i2553.pdf

You will want to make a corresponding election with New Jersey. The form and instructions can be found at http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/revenue/sub-s.pdf

What these elections do is prevent you from having your income taxed twice, once as corporate income and a second time as personal income and/or dividend income when you transfer income from the corporation to you. Instead it gets treated as a disregarded entity and your income is only taxed once on your personal income tax return.

Even with this general outline, it may be confusing for you to navigate the entire process on your own. You may want to consider having an attorney handle the process for you.

Good luck.

Jere answers:

You are absolutely correct. It is really difficult to send paper fax. That is why there are internet fax / email fax services out there. I know one of the leading services related to internet fax is Ring Central at Canada, US and UK.