Yawn! Legislation Might Be Boring But It Can Make Or Break Your Business
It doesn’t matter whether your startup is a boutique hotel, a small construction company, a property development firm, legislation could affect your business. If you are striking out on your own legislation is something to pay attention to. You could even be an accountant providing audit services bespoke for IT contractors, you will need to heed legislation advice.
How legislation could affect your business
While it might seem like paperwork and legislation is only there to frustrate the small business owner, it is actually there to safeguard you and your customers.
If you refuse to heed legislative advice, at best you are showing a lack of professionalism, and at the very worst, you are breaking employment law. Every sector has its legislative hoops to jump through. And every business owner must make the commitment to tackle these as smoothly as possible.
Consider what sector you are aiming to launch your startup in and place enough emphasis on getting the boring paperwork sorted. It might seem tedious, but it is vitally important. Take a look at the sorts of legislative procedures you need to follow, depending on your industry sector.
Street Food
The on-trend food business to become part of at the moment is street food. Food festivals have captured the millennial attention worldwide. With vegan pop-ups, multicultural cuisine, and Caribbean jerk fests popping up all over the nation.
Tap into your niche, and you will soon have repeat customers flocking to your stall. However, in order to trade in the first place, you must make sure that all of your paperwork is in order.
To sell food, you must be inspected by a food safety regulatory body to assess the quality of your health and safety procedures. Do this to assess your paperwork and ensure that you are not working in unsanitary environments.
They will look at how you work, the food you produce and will try to see you in action. A food agency will grade you either numerically or with a letter grade system. You may be duty bound to publish this score as a legal requirement.
Obviously, the higher grade you achieve, the more confidence your clientele will have when they are trying your dirty fries or your incredible Trinidadian doubles.
Legislation that could affect promoting your business publicly
Being out in a public environment means that you will need to obtain public liability insurance. While it may eat into your overheads to secure this, the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. Covering you for up to ten million dollars, you won’t have to worry about the risk of being sued if someone trips over your generator cable.
If you are planning on creating your own food to package to be eaten off-site, there are other things to consider. If you market such as sauces, marinades or baked goods, you must make sure that you have listed all ingredients and made your customers aware of potential allergens.
Failing to do this could be a matter of life or death for your customers. You also need to have an appropriate ‘use by’ date on your product. You may need to send your food item to a lab, to have it tested to assess its longevity.
Starting a construction business
If you are tempted to make a foray into the world of construction, the chances are that you are good with your hands. Working on building sites is not usually a passion for someone fresh out of college. However, if you’ve worked as a tradesperson, you are practically minded and you want to branch out on your own, running a small construction company could be ideal.
At the very least, you need to secure public and professional indemnity insurance. You also need to make sure that any staff that you take on are suitably qualified to work on site. If you are planning to take on larger jobs or work at height, make sure that you have adequate safety railing systems in place.
It’s vital, that as a responsible foreman and employer, you can prove your ability to keep a safe working environment. You do not want a negligence claim to be made against you. This could happen because the site you were in charge of was unsafe, poorly managed or you didn’t follow protocol.
Being a business owner in any industry is very different from being a full-time employee. Forget your excellent promotion prospects, the fun, jovial camaraderie in the office and your regular wage. You don’t just have to worry a little more about where your next paycheck is coming from, but you also need to ensure that your business adheres to the law. Do your research, sort out your paperwork, and trade legally to see your business thrive.
Ditch the traditional business and start an online business
Another option to avoid some of the mountains of paperwork could be to start an online business, rather than a traditional business. Certainly, there are best practices to follow while building an online business, but there typically is a lot less legislation in place to interfere with building your business.
Also, you get to take advantage of many of the same kinds of tax breaks and deductions as a more traditional business owner. While I’m not a tax expert by any means, having a home business for many years has saved me thousands each year.
You may want to check out this book called Lower Your Taxes Big Time, as a great resource to learn about what kind of tax breaks you may be missing out on as a home business owner. Check out the current price on Amazon here.
Start an affiliate marketing business
A great option with low overheads could be starting an affiliate marketing business. As an affiliate marketer, you can simply sell another businesses products or services and get paid a commission every time you do.
Typically a business in this fashion, which you are an affiliate for, ends up dealing with the major investments and potential legislation issues of starting a traditional business.
If you are looking to venture into the home business space part time with many of the setup process taken care of for you, affiliate marketing could be a good option.
If starting an affiliate marketing business sounds like it could be a good fit for you and your goals, check out my beginners guide to affiliate marketing.
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