Business Registration Is Done. What Next?

Podcast Transcript

Hello, hello, my name is Joshua Adeyemo. I'm one of the co-founders of builtforsmallbusiness.com, and in today's episode, I wanted to talk about something that has really been on my mind for a while, and that is getting your business registered and getting it official. I mean, um, what is the important? Why should it be done? And what is the purpose? I mean, um, as a business owner, getting your business registered, it's cool. Wherever you are in the world.

Either you're in Africa, Europe, South America, or wherever you are in the world, the process that legitimises your business, it gives us that instance of saying, okay, this person or this individual knows what in the name of what they're doing. However, you have to ask yourself a very simple question.

What is the motive behind it? I mean, the requirement and the documentation required takes a while to get facilitated and accepted based on wherever you are in the world. But nonetheless, you have to pick a name for the business. You have to check if it's available, you have to pay the appropriate money, upload the required documents, and then get it done.

But after getting it done, what is next? I mean, that's one of the questions that I am trying to answer. I mean, to get the name and the documentation registered, and that's fine. I mean, as a business, you know, okay, I have to get this done because it's mandatory. But now that you registered the business, and you have the very beautiful certificate that has your business name, your RC number, and maybe, depending on wherever you are, you might have an EIN number or a TIN number.

Which is for your taxes, but now… what's the next base? And that is where I'm going with this episode. And that next place is: what sort of policies are you going to set up for your business to ensure that you don't get taken advantage of? Because to be honest with you, as a business owner, some individuals are just looking for the right person to take advantage of — not because it seems like a fair thing to do, it just seems, well, since you didn't do the right thing, then we will take advantage of you.

So that's why I want to say some couple of things that I think every small business owner should put in place the moment they have their registration process done. And one of those things is this: set up a policy about how your invoice is going to be generated. You don't have to use any fancy tool. I mean, it doesn't matter. You can use Microsoft Word. You can use Excel to generate your invoice. It doesn't matter what tool you use.

But set it up there and put on a thousand conditions: every invoice is due at this particular date, and this is how time is going to be paid for, is the time it's required to be paid for, and late payment attracts this amount of fee. Now, wherever you're sending any documentation to, they can read it and realise, okay, this person is telling me that my invoice is due on this date. And if I'm late for payment, this is what is required. That saves you a lot of time in terms of chasing late payment.

You said too, um, make sure the bank account you have is not your personal account because I can't stress this enough. You are going to be surprised whereby someone that has their business incorporated is sending you a payment detail that has their personal information on it. It creates a bit of an ups and down because as the other party, you are asking a simple question: are they really a registered business or is that just a name for the show?

Because I get it. In some aspects, wherever you are, the documentation and the requirement to open a business bank account can take a while. And it can be very frustrating. So you're thinking, I don't want to lose the client, and the client is asking you, oh, we need to maybe pay 30% on the invoice to get business started, and you're thinking, I'm not… I don't want to keep them waiting, so I am going to, you know, send in my personal account. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, it's doable and it's likeable, but I will propose not doing that.

I mean, um, you could use tools that allow you to take payment but not your personal bank account. So if you have the chance to have a payment system like Stripe, you can use that. If you're in Nigeria, you can use Paystack, which I want to believe allows a share link, but they just got acquired by a bank now, so I think the process is going to be a little bit easy. Well, it just depends, but sending out your personal account, I don't think that is a fair deal to use. But, you know, sometimes people are looking not to lose clients and they are trying very hard to chase leads. So it is what it is.

Lastly, understand what are your do’s and don’ts as a business owner. Because clients are going to try and push you to do more than they pay for because everybody's trying to get as much as they can for how much they're paying you for. So if you are rendering a service, you're in consultancy, and you're consulting for a business, and now, you've all agreed on your documentation to say, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, and this timeline is what I'm going to take. This is how long it's going to take me to get the X, Y, and Z done.

And then three weeks down the line, the client is getting back to you saying, oh, we're gonna need X, Y, Z more — added to what we kind of agreed on — and you're like, oh, okay, not a problem, get it done. In my own opinion, I would say to you: don’t do that.

Because one of the things you are trying to do is that now you are taking a free job, which is not paying for your time. And now, that 3–4–5–6–7 things you just agreed to might take you another 4 to 5 hours to get completed. And then it might delay the entire project that you are saying you are going to do for the client.

So in my own opinion, I will say to you, reply to them saying this: you might help and you might lose the client, but at least you already know that you set up a principle and a standard that everybody doing business with you understands. And that thing is this: “Hi, thank you so much for the message. We appreciate that. We will send a quote for the required details that you proposed, however, the timeline for X and Y to be done still stands, and we will send you the final brief or the final completion when it's done. Expecting payments to be paid on X hour. If you still want us to go ahead with that, not a problem. We’ll get it done.”

So everybody gets back on the same page: oh, this is additional payment that I have to get done for what they're asking for. I mean, it depends on what the process is, because if they're asking for something that's going to take about 20 minutes, that's fair. But if they're asking for something that's going to take you about 3 to 4 hours, I wouldn't advise it because if you look at it from that angle, it takes more of your time. Another business… everybody’s trying to take a piece out of you because they believe that they can and they know, well, the magic word is no. If you don't say it, they'll keep shoving.

So what I would say to you is this: once you get your business registered, once you get your whole documentation solved, have your policy in place to understand what is the process of your do’s and don’ts — just so that your business can run smoothly and you don't have to ask questions that touch after 6 to 7 months when you are chasing invoices of a client you've done a job for and they end up not paying you. And you're saying, oh, wow, are they not paying? Well, the reason they are not paying is because you don't have a policy that enforces how you get paid.

And then once you enforce how you get paid, things are a little bit easier because everybody's on the same page. And clients treat you with a lot of respect once they know you know your stuff. And, uh, it's quite more important because knowing your stuff sets you different from everybody else. Because if they are dealing with you, then okay, this is how those guys operate. This is what they do and this is how they do it. We don't have to beat around the bush telling them this is what we want. They understand, we understand each other and we're on the same page.

But if you're saying not a problem, I will do it, and you are just packing up more loads than you can take, that becomes a problem. I hope you have a beautiful Monday, and I will catch you guys soon. Have a good one. Bye bye.