We have a domain. But let’s face it, in the eyes of the Government we are exactly nothing. We need to register the business with the Government.
Above you will have noticed that each of the names we talked about was suffixed with “LLC”. This stands for “Limited Liability Company”. What is means is that from a legal perspective if something happens and, for example, one of your customer’s sues the company, they can only come after the company and not your personal assets.
There are other legal structures out there, but most coaches settle on an LLC, including the founders of FiveWhyz LLC.
This part is a little tricky as how this works will vary based on where you are setting up the business. Each state has their own quirks and there are often different municipal considerations as well. I will not write about the details here as you can get help at How to Set Up a Limited Liability Company
Again, help is available if you want it. In the past I’ve used services like LegalZoom to help, but have to say that services cost a significant amount of money and the reality is that if you don’t mind filling in some forms usually straightforward to do it directly.
One note. Your organization requires the name and address of a “Registered Agent”. Your agent is the person designated to receive legal papers in any future lawsuit involving your LLC. There are organizations that provide this service for you, but the reality is that it can be you, and this is by far the cheapest way to go.
It usually takes some time for the government to validate and approve the name. You will need formal government approval, etc. to set up a business bank account, register with the IRS and so on, so while you are waiting on this there are other things that you can be doing. You will typically end up with a piece of paper or two showing that you have the name, and also have a State ID number which will be used for example when you want to pay state taxes. Make sure you keep these various papers around as there will be a number of situations where you need these. Cost for registration (at the time of writing) could be anywhere from $150 - $900 depending on where you set up.
By Way of Context ...
You are looking at a part of a series of blog posts. The series looks like:
And remember, I am not an accountant. I am not a lawyer. You will want to get help from these experts and should defer to their opinion in the event that what you read on this page differs from their opinion.
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