Do Business Well

You will usually need a business license. This is a requirement of the city or county where the enterprise will be located. You will almost certainly need this license if you plan to operate out of a commercial facility such as a storefront, office building, or warehouse. You may not need a business license if you have a home-based business that provides professional services, such as a manufacturers’ representative or business consultant, or if you are part of a multilevel organization.

When you begin to research your location, you’ll see the major disparity in business climate from city to city or county to county. Some are very eager to have businesses of your type locate in their area. You may be bringing jobs for their citizens and additional tax revenues for their coffers. In these cities you may find that getting a license is a ten-minute exercise in filling out a form and paying a small (under one hundred dollars) fee.

Other cities exhibit an antibusiness attitude. In these jurisdictions you may find yourself wading through a substantial bureaucracy before being issued your license. This might include a site inspection by the building department and/or the fire department. You may be required to prove financial standing. You may be provided with a list of dos and don’ts concerning signs, parking, carpooling, hours of operation, and much more. You may also find the initial fee to be abnormally high.

The hoops through which you may have to jump at the city or county level also depend on the type of business you plan to open. Most retailers, wholesalers, and service providers won’t be faced with major red tape.

However, if you intend to open a restaurant, manufacturing company, or auto repair business, the story will be quite different. You will find legal requirements and restrictions on everything from the type of materials and equipment you can use to the number and size of rest rooms you must provide. These rules and regulations may affect your decision on location. Therefore, you should check out the requirements of likely cities for your type of business before you begin to seek a location.

Because of the endless list of regulations, their common appearance of arbitrariness, and the low likelihood of enforcement, it is common for business owners to press forward with their plans without carefully evaluating those parts of the local laws that may apply to them.

Clearly, there are plenty of small business owners who know the laws and interpret them in the most favorable light given what they want to accomplish. While not taking a position on the ethics involved at this juncture, I’ll simply say that it is good business practice to make such decisions carefully.

For example, a major retail headache today is sign rules. You are paying a great deal of money for a great location, and you want to be able to shout your store name or other message from your walls, window, and rooftop. Most cities now have lists of rules concerning what you can and cannot do in this regard.

The most practical approach to planning your signage in this environment would be to read a copy of the local sign code before you begin thinking about a possible design. Hopefully, you or your sign maker will be able to conceive of a sign that will accomplish your goals within the rules of your city.

If not, you are faced with a choice. You can go to the city with your plan and ask for a variance. Depending upon the city and the type of variance you are seeking, you may or may not be successful. Your other option is to go ahead with your sign and see what happens. This is dangerous because you risk trashing an expensive sign. On the other hand, the violation may go unnoticed or unenforced for years.

If you know that you will be operating in a gray area where it is unclear how the ordinance is intended, and you feel it is very important to your company to push into this gray area, you should probably do so without asking the city first. Bureaucrats are predisposed to say no. They also like to bog you down in endless paperwork and commission meetings. If you are truly operating in a gray area, try to avoid this messy and expensive process.

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