That is why getting a new logo created for ProfessionalGFX was one of the first things I wanted to do. Now, ProfessionalGFX is a web development business also offering many graphic related services. But, I did not create my own logo. Mainly because I was tapped for ideas and wanted a fresh set of eyes (or in this case many sets) on the business and concept. So, I looked to outside sources.

My first thought was to hire a logo designer but I didn’t want to be strapped to using just one person and a limited number of revisions. So, the next obvious option in outsourcing design work is to hold a contest, which is one of my favorite things to do. Outsourcing design work when possible is such a time savor that you can not deny giving it a shot.

Yet, there are a lot of design competition websites out there. You’ve got 99designs, CrowdSpring, and many more smaller ones. 99designs is definitely the most popular one out there, but can be a bit expensive depending on the value of your competition. Through Twitter I found CrowdSpring and decided to give them a shot.

I laid out what I was looking for in a logo, what it was going to be used for (business cards, letterhead, etc) and also laid out some of my specifications. With that, it was up to the designs to come up with ideas and I provided the critique. There were over 70 entries in the contest which included unique designs and revisions.

In the end I decided on the logo below.

New ProfessionalGFX Logo

I wanted to keep the swoosh type look that was in my previous logo but wanted to switch the color up and wound up with a nice green (reminds me of money!). I also like the incorporation of the swoosh in the GFX lettering.

Up next in this series about rebranding a web development business, I’ll quickly discuss some business card design tips and reasons for having a business card.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I am basically going to completely rebrand the whole business and go the whole 9 years – new logo, business cards, lettehead, website, print materials, etc. Over the next few weeks as I wrap up this process I am going to be posting about it, the experiences I’ve had, and any issues I’ve come across.

Completely rebranding a business can be a tricky thing. Especially if you are a well established company, with a number of clients, and already successful. Well, ProfessionalGFX is on the way to that, but not there yet – which is why I have no issue with doing this sort of on the fly in a sense. Although my business has been around for a while, my core group of clients continues to stay small and my work focused on them. However, it is time to expand and branch out, helping more businesses, and developing more relationships. So, I’ll be blogging about that too!

Keep a look out either later today or tomorrow for the first post about the new logo for ProfessionalGFX!

So, right now, I am working on things for two clients. I am looking to wrap them up in the next week to two weeks and get paid. If I can do this, I will be happy! That will also allow for me to start slowly searching for new clients to work with and also try to get referrals from my current clients.

With that all being said, I have been looking up information on outsourcing design work to assistants in India, Canada, and other countries to free up my time with future clients. I have also been recommended the main different services out there that will convert your PSD files to valid code such as HTML, CSS, etc. This may be a good way to go too! I have also been talking with other bloggers and web developers out there such as Ellis Benus who has started using similar services and has had good results.

Besides, this, there is not a whole lot going on at this side of things. I just have not had as much time to focus on this venture as I would like because I know it is the one that can generate the most income for me in the least amount of time. My goal is reach $10,000 worth of income by the new year through web design related tasks (including designing, updating, hosting, etc). To reach this goal would prove the viability of the venture and also the opportunity to get out of the rat race and be on my own.

So, I wanted to learn more about my options, discuss my ventures, and see what may be the best idea for me as an entrepreneur. Now, before I go any further, I want to STRESS that this is advice that was given to ME and is specific to my case. That being said, it is always best to get your own advice from a certified professional such as an accountant or lawyer or both! So, with that, I am going to just talk about some of my different options, the answers to some of the questions that I asked, and what the future holds for how I do business.

We started off by just discussing the differences between setting up an LLC and a corporation such as an S corp or C corp. Besides the initial set up costs, another major difference was the tax filings that would have to be done. In my particular case and with my particular accountant, if I were to set up an S or C corp, the corporate tax filings would be an additional $600-$1200 on top of the standard $300 to file the normal state taxes. That’s a lot of money when I am only talking about generating say $10,000 over the next 7 months. However, I’ll save all the talk about the different types of entities for another day or for another blogger. Check out the SBA or SCORE for more related resources.

When figuring out if you are going to start a business and move from being a sole proprietorship to a more formal corporate structure, you need to determine how much money you think you would realistically make/earn. In my case, by the end of the year, by goal is to reach $10,000 through website development projects. That being said, in the scope of things, that is not really a lot. And IN MY CASE we decided that it would actually be better to stay a sole proprietorship for the time being rather than setting up a business such as an LLC in the middle of the year. So, come the first of the new year, I will be reevaluating and at the point, for sure, be registering a company to roll all my business assets, income, and expenses into. However, the nice thing that I liked about staying a sole proprietorship is that I can still obtain a DBA (doing business as) name. That way, I can do business as ProfessionalGFX and have clients make payments to ProfessionalGFX instead of me personally. This is nice to keep the income separate. Another nice thing with this set up is that it is very easy to move from one business structure to another. In my case, the progression will most likely be: sole proprietorship > LLC > C Corp.

Many of the questions I had for the accountant were focused on my business and the type of things that I am doing, including ebay and website development. So one thing we discussed was the legal protection that each structure offers and the suggestion was made to have a clause in my web development contracts that clearly states that any clients who decide to take legal action can only sue for up to the amount of the contract (say $1,000 or $2,000 as opposed to being able to sue and go after all my personal assets – car, money, etc.).

Another question I had was about different deductions that can be taken when operating the business. Even as a sole proprietorship, I will still be able to start taking different business deductions including travel, conference registrations, eduction (seminars, training, etc), meals, and entertainment. One major question I had was about deducting different meals or equipment if I were to write reviews on the restaurant or piece of camping equipment on one of my blogs such as Dorm Room Biz or TheGearHouse. The determination was made that if the meal is for entertaining purposes (such as a lunch or dinner meeting with a client) 50% of the total would be deductible because it falls under the category of meals and entertainment. However, the loop hole or catch to this is that if you were to provide a meal to your employees or contracts while working on a project (say you had to work late on something and worked through dinner time) you could deduct 100% of the total because it deals with the employees welfare. With purchasing different items and equipment for reviewing, it was my accountants belief that as long as the review that was written was publicly available (posted on a website) and was in depth and thorough then you should be able to deduct the full value of an item as a business expense. This is good news because that is something I am going to be looking to do in the near future

Isabella commented on my previous post:

I would add to that: as far as expansion thoughts go, is it better to add on new people as employees, or as 1099 independent contractors and b) does the answer change based on the business structure chosen.

These are also questions that I had and were answered for me as we discussed my future plans for my development business and how I thought it was going to expand. I mentioned that I would mostly be using contractors or outsourcing different work to others as opposed to hiring new employees. If you can get away with using independent contractors, this is a better option, because as long as you have a solid agreement/contract in place with that person, you can get away with out having to pay any health insurance, medical benefits, or workers compensation for that person. These are some of the biggest expenses that businesses face, so if you can avoid them, try to! You would just need to state in your contract with the independent contractor that you are in no way responsible for any insurance or benefits and you as the business are not liable for anything that may happen. This puts the responsibility on that contractor to find their own insurance, retirement accounts, etc, etc. Then, all you have to do is send them a 1099 for the amount of work that they performed and it becomes their responsibility to file that correctly. Also, that answer should not change based on the business structure you have set up. My suggestion is to avoid hiring employees for as long as you can to avoid all the added extra expenses. However, as you expand and grow your business, that may be hard to do and you will eventually need to bring on employees and incur those different expenses.

I think that pretty much sums up most of the meeting that I had. My accountant did pass along a business card of another local web development company that I am going to network with and see if there may be any possibilities for collaborations or outsourced work in the future! On top of that, he also gave me a copy of a version of Quick Books to start using to manage the income and expenses for my business.

So what’s the next step? I’ll be filing my DBA forms and then setting up a separate bank account to use for my income and expenses to keep everything a little better organized! After a few months, I’ll be able to evaluate where I am at and better gauge the need for a corporate entity.

Got any accounting related questions? We also discussed other deductions like home office space and similar items. Leave a comment and maybe I can pass along some more information that was brought up during my meeting!

Best of luck everyone! Now get out there and make some money!

I am happy to announce that my web design business, ProfessionalGFX, has secured a new client in the Ellicott City, MD area. This is a great accomplishment for ProfessionalGFX because this is the first time that I have heard from a potential client that they found my website through the search engines. And the other good news is that apparently out of all the companies that he contacted, I was the quickest to respond – and yet it took me two days to get back to him. So, it sounds like to me, even though there are other companies and businesses in the immediate area that are offering the same services as I, I seem to have the upper hand on them just by being able to respond semi quickly.

The scope of services are going to be pretty basic by outfitting the current website with a completely new design, a couple more pages, and some new images. I will also work in some keywords and a few other SEO strategies. My client is in the industrial chemical cleaning business, so most of his clients are from referrals and not finding him directly on the internet. The business is very face to face as far as interaction goes, so displaying basic information about the business, the industry, and his niches will be enough to get someone interested in picking up the phone – rather than displaying a full line of products or having the opportunity to purchase online.

I am waiting to get the contract and down payment from the client and we should be getting started next week. With luck, I will be able to wrap everything up in the middle of June.

This new client will definitely be a boost to my new method of savings that I wrote about the other day!

As we go along with the process more and move towards wrapping it up, I will be posting more about what different tactics are implemented to help his business out.

If you are looking for a low cost and effective web design service in the Ellicott City, MD, Baltimore, MD or Washington D.C. area, feel free to get in touch with me to discuss your project!

Spring break is finally here! I leave tomorrow for a cruise and am super excited. So, to catch up things over the last week or so, here are some updates of what I have been up to and doing.

eBay Business
January and February were pretty decent months for my eBay venture – I did about $500 in sales each month. I don’t know the exact profit right now, but it should turn out pretty decent. I am looking to continue to expanding my product offering through a drop shipper that I am linked with. When I return from my break, I am going to be trying to list at least 5 new items in my eBay store a day so that I can get up to around 150 items just in my store and then continue to list items in the regular auction format. Increasing my product offering the in store will hopefully generate more sales. I have the ability to make a pretty decent profit off of the products offered by the drop shipping company that I use, so if I can start moving them more and more, sales will shoot right up. I also surpassed the 550 mark with positive feedbacks which is a great accomplishment. My ultimate goal is to reach 1200 by the end of 2008. Once I move home from school, I don’t think that will take too long.

ProfessionalGFX Website Development
After finishing up my latest project this week with Main Street Radford, I am going to be taking a break from accepting any new clients for my website development business. Basically, I do not have the time to currently focus on it and I need to be able to focus more energy and time on my last couple months of college. Without taking a new clients, that leaves me with about 6 current clients that I help out every now and then with small things and then also have one project that is going on right now. Look out for some more updates about that later on.

New Outdoor Gear Website Coming Soon!
As many of you know, I am very much into the outdoors and outdoor activities – camping, hiking, rock climbing, canoing, etc. With that, I am going to be relaunching a site I had created a couple years back into a new and better format. The site will be launching when I return from my stint without a constant internet connection this week. Already without much information on it and very little advertising, it is seeing some traffic and some AdSesnce revenue. This site just being active and live is what pushed me over to getting another AdSense check.

Spring Break Cruise!
Like I mentioned, I will be leaving for a week long cruise Saturday and won’t be back until the following Saturday. I am going to probably have my laptop with me on the cruise, yet we will not have any internet unless we use the ships internet cafe. I am going to attempt to write a couple posts in the evenings or something while sailing and try to get on a computer to post them during the week. We depart from Charleston, SC and will be headed to Cozumel, Grand Cayman Islands, and Key West, FL; then back to South Carolina to come back home. I will definitely have a follow up post as well as a bunch of pictures to share when I return!

For all of you other students and entrepreneurs that are going to be going on Spring Break this week, whatever you are doing, be safe and have fun!

Talk to all of you in a week!