Life Of E's

Not long ago, one of the women in my mentoring group posted this question on our blog:

In addition to your main company, you created Pumpernickel Publishing, LLC.  I recall you mentioning that you separated your publishing company from Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. from a business perspective. I see myself creating a lot of my own products in the long term. What is necessary for me to do something similar?

My answer(s) to her questions are shared here:

I learned about the idea (and was excited about the possibilities) of creating my own publishing company through a speaker I heard from the National Speakers Association. I got quite energized about the idea, talked to my accountant who encouraged me to go ahead and start a separate company rather than doing a “sub” division of my company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. So, I figured, ‘OK! Let’s do it.’

Here are some of the positives of doing so that you can consider for yourself:

1. I have a separate entity that all of my publishing can go through.
2. I can publish others’ work through my company and it has its own specific publishing company name.
3. I have a separate entity that should eventually help me out tax-wise (and I’ll say why I use the word “eventually” below).
4. I love my logo! That may sound funny, but I do. It’s the little things that can make us happy each day, right?!
5. I am learning a lot through this process.
6. Since the publishing really is a separate phase/aspect of the rest of my business, it is going to be smart to have that designated under a different name (albeit not necessary to do so).

And here are some of the downsides (not really negatives, though) that I just hadn’t thought through well enough ahead of time:

1. I have a whole second set of books to keep.           
2. I have a whole second set of forms to fill out for taxes, business license, etc. (and the fees that go with all of these things).           
3. I have to have a separate credit card agreement and a separate shopping cart system to go with that credit card agreement if I want all the purchases that go with Pumpernickel Publishing, LLC to go straight from the shopping cart to the checking account that is set up for the company. So far, I haven’t done a second credit card and shopping cart. I just manage it through QuickBooks Pro, but I may have to make that change before long. We’ll see. I’m fine now because I keep good records, but it involves some additional steps to move the money from one account to another (not that there are large sums yet!)           
4. And this is the eventually part from #3 above….Because I’ve been so focused on Emphasis on Excellence, Inc. and all of its various components, I have not focused much on the publishing company. Therefore, there hasn’t been much income generated yet, although I know there will be. That’s one of my goals for the next year: to really get that company fired up. So there will be some tax benefits of having a second company but you can’t have many of those benefits until you’re making some money first!

My recommendation is to take all of these ideas into consideration….I know the first list looks shorter, however it’s only because I wanted to explain more about the second list. I’m not making a recommendation either way, just trying to put the information out there for you and others who want to consider several sides of creating a second business. Remember, it is quite possible that keeping all of your business running through one company will serve you well.

To find out what has been published through Pumpernickel Publishing, LLC  (so far), the website will give you an indication (and you can see the logo I like so much!)

(c) 2008 by Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D., “The Ph.D. of Productivity”(tm). Through her company, Emphasis on Excellence, Inc., Meggin McIntosh changes what people know, feel, dream, and do. Sound interesting? It is!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Meggin_McIntosh

Tags: Books, business license, Business-Set Up, credit cards, QuickBooksPro, shopping cart