Learning how to start an epoxy business will have its challenges when first launching. But learning how to do it right, perfecting the craft, and marketing is how you can make it super successful in a short amount of time. If you are considering the epoxy niche, we can tell you that this niche is experiencing rapid growth. For this reason alone, people are inquiring how to start an epoxy business in 2022.
Compared to other alternatives, this one can end up being a challenge because it goes with the usual traditional method of getting trained, buying equipment, and logistics overall can be more than most people can afford today.
However, it is indeed a good business option considering you can start working by yourself as long as you are qualified and get the minimum yet required equipment for it.
You need to question yourself if you really want to invest your time in the industry. However, we are confident that you already know this will take some hard work considering what epoxy and working in it is all about.
Focusing on the steps to get started, we mentioned the business follows a traditional structure, which means you still need the business plan, learn more about the industry and the basics, and some more details.
Look forward to the information we will be sharing and take notes of all the steps you can establish for your journey!
Take the Time to Investigate the Epoxy Business
Research is one of the most important things you can do before starting an epoxy business. Let’s look at three important factors to be aware of before you start it, so you don’t lose time and money:
- Learn the most about the industry before starting.
You need to be knowledgeable about epoxy and everything it involves—like flooring—before you can start your own business.
Let’s say you don’t have any experience in running any kind of business. You might be able to get a glimpse into the operation by looking for businesses for sale.
The facility will be open for you to visit and provide information only available to experienced owners of epoxy businesses. This knowledge is invaluable. This will allow you to look at profit and loss statements, see the business in action, and answer questions only experienced owners can answer.
This research can also benefit you as you might find an existing epoxy flooring company and decide to purchase it instead of starting your own.
You should also look into franchise opportunities. Contact representatives to get advice, insight, and information.
- Search within other sources.
Search for epoxy information in publications, blogs, trade journals, and videos. Also, look out for industry trends and news. You will make better decisions if you know more about the business before starting.
It is important to keep up-to-date with the current sector. You need to be aware of the industry when you start and as your business grows. By keeping up to date with the industry, you can stay on top of new technologies, marketing ideas, and other trends.
- Select a location for your epoxy flooring business.
Research is only as good as the location you choose. It is important to locate your company in a location that is near your target market. It doesn’t make sense to locate your business in a place where there aren’t customers.
The local demand for your services and products is another important factor. There is no need to open in the area if there isn’t demand.
You can’t choose a location that offers many epoxy services. Due to the competition, it will be difficult for you to get started.
It is best to find a location with high demand and little competition while you work in this whole research process.
Pick the Name for Your Epoxy Business
It is crucial that you choose a memorable name for your business that people can remember easily. Also, make sure the first name is the only one you decide to use, and it is a name that you will keep as long as your business exists ideally.
Make sure you check that the name you are interested in is available for registration.
Online name generators are a great way to come up with memorable names for your company. You can also find websites that offer hundreds of name suggestions.
These generators are great for sparking your creativity. These lists and generators can be used for brainstorming purposes only. Your epoxy flooring business name should be unique. A name taken from one of these public lists could be used by someone else.
Define The Legal Structure of Your Company
It is important to consider the legal structure you want to use when you register your company, as this will influence its future and the options you get as a commercial entity.
There are many types of structures you can use. One of the most popular ones is an LLC (or limited liability company).
The law recognizes that you are an owner of the business and independent of it when using it. Therefore, if you are sued, it will be against your company and not the shareholders. The liability protection that an LLC provides is a reason why it is so popular.
The other one is a sole proprietorship.
The simplest and fastest way to start a sole proprietorship is to do it yourself. Many small business owners will try to establish one in order to test the waters and see if it works.
If the company is successful over time, they can convert it to an LLC, partnership, or corporation.
It is important to note that partners cannot run sole proprietorships. If you have a partner, you might consider creating an LLC partnership right away.
Let’s say you are launching a business that isn’t sole proprietorship. To ensure everything runs smoothly and your needs are met, we recommend that you seek professional legal advice and have your company established by a professional.
Get Your Tax ID
The type of business you are and the number of employees you have will determine which tax ID you need.
It is essential to getting your business legal since it serves as your tax identifier instead of using your individual one.
A professional will help you set up your company registration. They will also advise you if you need a tax ID.
Register For Permits, Licenses & All Documentation
The process of applying for a regular license for business is almost the same for all types of businesses. Some enterprises may need additional permits or be subject to strict safety standards.
It is important to be familiar with the laws in your locality. Every state, each city, and every municipality has its own set of laws and regulations.
Begin by contacting your local municipality for information about the rules and regulations that you need to follow. If there are any provincial or state requirements, they might be able to inform you.
Design Your Corporate Identity
Your company’s corporate image is the artwork your customers can identify. It also includes your logo and all promotional products that you create—this includes services as well.
Your corporate ID is essential for launching a company. It allows customers to identify you. Therefore, it is important to craft the right phrasing, style, and tone carefully.
If you don’t have the skills to design great graphics, we recommend hiring someone to create your company identity.
Poor design can make a bad first impression with clients, especially new ones. Individuals may lose faith in your business as a result.
However, corporate IDs can be expensive.
You don’t have to spend a lot on a corporate identity whatsoever. Instead, start with business cards or your logo.
As your business grows, you will be able to invest in other components of your corporate identity.
Start Your Business Plan for the Business
Now that you have chosen a name and place for your epoxy business, we can move to the next step.
A business plan serves another important purpose and is where you should be moving to. It is required when applying for a loan, and without a detailed business plan, a financial institution will not approve it no matter how much you ask for the money.
But remember: a business plan is a roadmap for your business.
There are many ways to create a business plan. Either you can buy software or hire a professional to do the whole process. Or you can use a template and work on it yourself.
Regardless of whether you use a professional template or software, you need to answer questions.
You must consider which direction you want to go based on your completed areas. You decide how you will proceed, where you want it to lead, and set goals.
How would you attract customers, for example? What products and services are you offering? Which markets will your company target? What makes you unique?
It’s something you should look forward to, as it forces you to think about where you are going and how you will get there.
It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is; it’s important to ensure that your operation is legal before you open your doors to the public.
Estimating Startup Prices
Before you look for funding options, you will need to estimate how much money your company will need.
It can be hard to estimate startup costs because you don’t know what you’re missing.
Start by creating a list with the most important items that you will need, and then ask for estimates. You will notice that there are some concerns you haven’t considered. These can be added to your list.
Some problems may not be obvious until the startup phase is complete. Let’s say your estimate includes equipment. You find out after closer inspection that the equipment isn’t the right match and that you have to replace it.
You can increase your estimate by five to ten percent to account for unexpected complications.
Make sure that you have sufficient operating funds to sustain the business for at most 3 to 6 months. It will take time to get clients and make an income during the launch phase.
Start Looking for Funding
It is obvious that money will be needed to operate your business, particularly during the startup phase. If you have completed the previous steps, you will already have invested some money.
You have now chosen a place and a business name. In addition to your business plan, you have also created your corporate identity. Now that your company has been registered, you know how much it will cost to start.
Then, you can finally move to fund.
Many businesses fail due to a lack of funds before they are able to support themselves.
It is important to consider how you will get the money you need to start. For example, will you take out a loan from a bank, remortgage the house or have enough savings to pay for the cost of starting?
You must understand that there is always a risk when running a business. If you take out a mortgage, borrow money from your savings or use your personal funds to finance your business, you may lose your investment and have to repay the loan.
Now is the time to make copies of your business plan and set up meetings to raise funding. Most people will start with their bank.
Banks may not approve of you because they consider startups high-risk. In those cases, learn why the loan was denied and address them so that you are ready to apply for the next lender.
You can also rely on different lenders like your family, private lenders, or the easiest funding options in your area.
You Need to Pick a Bank Regardless of Funding
The success of your business depends on the bank you choose. While the right bank will help you run your business smoothly, the wrong one could cause problems or do nothing, which is as bad as the first fact.
Most likely, you will choose the bank that grants you initial funding. They might allow you to stay with them in the startup phase. It’s great if it goes well. If not, you can always change later.
It is about your relationship with your banker and not the bank. After all, an industry expert can help you manage your finances to grow your company.
Your primary supplier might offer you a great deal. Your banker will approve a short-term loan to allow you to buy the supplies and make a profit while also allowing you enough time to repay the loan.
If you don’t have a relationship with a banker, you might not be able to raise funds or take advantage of the deal.
Acquiring a Merchant account
Establishing a merchant account is crucial if you don’t deal in cash. To accept credit card payments, a merchant account is necessary.
Merchant accounts require approval as customers who use credit cards have 30 days to return items or dispute charges if they are services.
The merchant services provider may take a chance if your company receives high volumes of refunds. It is not like you just walk in the door, and your merchant account will be approved immediately.
Get the Required Insurance Policies to Feel Safe
Before you start your epoxy business, it is important to have the right insurance. You must have sufficient coverage before you engage in any type of physical activity.
Insurance that covers your business, property, and, most importantly, your customers is what you want. You want to make sure you are fully covered in this area, as you never know what could happen.
Any number of events could lead to the demise of your business without proper insurance. To ensure that you have sufficient coverage, we recommend consulting an experienced broker.
You should also think about interruption insurance.
Insurance that covers interruption keeps your average revenue flowing, even if you are closed for any reason, such as a fire, flood, or other events. It could end in disaster, and you will have to find work.
Selecting Suppliers that Won’t Let You Down
Your company’s success depends on the success of your suppliers. They may be more powerful than you realize, and although you’re the one delivering the service, you won’t get too far if you don’t work around the materials and equipment you use.
You are at their mercy if, for instance, you have a supplier that provides you with a product and they have the greatest market power.
Because they can only provide the product, they have some control over your business as you want to work with what they offer.
There are many suppliers on the market who can supply the majority of the products and services needed by a variety of businesses. The preceding example shows the importance of suppliers.
Establish strong relationships with suppliers. Treat them as team members and pay them on time.
Sometimes they might be able to help you. They might give you more than one customer if the product you depend on is out of stock. This is because they have a strong relationship with you.
When it comes to selecting vendors, make smart decisions. They are an integral part of your business. Many business owners don’t realize how important suppliers can have to their company.
Hiring Staff Could Be Last but Not Less Important
Are you unsure if your business can be run as a solo operation, or will you need help?
While it may seem possible to do everything yourself at first, it will become more difficult as your business grows.
There are only so many hours in a day, and you are one person. It is impossible to be in two places at once. If you feel like you are falling behind or finding it difficult to keep up with the pace, it might be time to hire employees.
An entry-level job can run you between $30.000 and $40.000 per annum, which is quite a lot for one job. You want to ensure that you only hire those who are necessary and the right people you hire.
You may need to fill the positions if your company expands, but if you have too many employees, payroll can cause you to go out of business.
Think, Are You Really Able to Run This Business?
The beauty of this industry is that you can either learn the skills yourself or hire someone who does. But managing a business is more than just getting the job done.
First, it is important to understand how your business works before you hire anyone. This could relate to business management or the skills needed to provide the services and products you offer.
The more information you have, naturally, the more power and decisions you can make.
You can start your business without any prior knowledge and then increase your understanding and experience.
But we want you to take the time to ask this yourself and come up with the right answer by being honest so you can identify what you need to do: get started or learn more.
The Local Lead Generation Process for Your Epoxy Business
All right! So, everything is about building properties and generating leads. But how does the process actually take place? Are there other steps I need to know?
The steps I mention below are what students from our local lead generation program follow to generate leads for businesses like yourself. So I’ll help you see what we do. And how if you join our program, you can simply generate leads for your own business (unless you want to start a side hustle and build a laptop lifestyle business).
Essentially, our lead generation can be divided into four steps:
The first is prospecting. You need to take the time to do market research on a niche (industry) and determine how many phone-driven businesses are there.
Keep in mind that this is local research as you need to know how many companies need leads. For example, you may search for “plumbing services Youngstown OH.”
You will find dozens or even hundreds of businesses trying to get themselves in front of the customers by ranking on Map Listings, organic results, and even Ad.
The second step, building. When you find a niche (plumbing, tree services, a software company, real estate…), you will need to start building your digital properties. You don’t need to be an expert in HTML or coding. It can be easy with the right tools.
The third step is now taking time to rank your lead gen website. With the site done, you need to work on SEO strategies and start dominating those Google search results. If you’re new to SEO, it stands for Search Engine Optimization.
To keep it simple, it consists of the entire process of growing a company’s visibility on search engines like Google and generating organic traffic. And remember this, local lead generation is part of the strategies.
Moving on to step four, once you rank the site, you will start getting your ROI and profits. You only need to rent it out to a local business interested in the leads the site generates. You can offer a couple of free leads to their move on with the actual pay per lead.
To review steps 1-4 above, I described it to a normal student who is building a lead gen business to help local service providers generate more calls. But replace the student with you as the business owner. And replace sending the leads to a business to simply siphoning the leads to your personal business.
By the way, fun fact, about 20% of our students in our local lead gen program are actually business owners who went through the program. And they use the skillsets we teach to generate leads for their own business.
An Example of Lead Generation: Home Advisor
You must be thinking, “if lead generation sounds so good so far, how come I haven’t seen any company?” That’s the thing; there are many out there. You just don’t know they are dedicated to it.
HomeAdvisor is one of the best examples you can find on the Internet as it is a top lead generation company that has spent millions building its brand but also earned even more zeros for this same reason.
They started small as everyone else but invested in building their brand awareness to make people who are looking for home services go to their website and find what they need. They are over 75% of people’s first choice when they need those services.
If you don’t get HomeAdvisor that much or need a refresh, users need to submit their information to request a service and get a professional or expert who can provide it.
HomeAdvisor’s job is to share your information, which makes you a lead, with local companies so they can contact you and offer the service you’re requesting. For sharing this lead information, HomeAdvisor gets paid by the companies. This happens for every single lead they send to multiple businesses.
Business owners who don’t have marketing skills or don’t even know how to have any online presence will always rely on those pages to list their services. They will save time and effort, but companies like HomeAdvisor can make them spend lots of money as leads aren’t exclusive (one lead is sent to multiple companies after all).
Using Facebook Ads aka Paid Ad Platforms: Do They Generate Leads?
They DO generate leads. If not, no one would use them.
However, you need to remember two facts:
- Paid ads or platforms can be expensive.
- They don’t generate “natural” leads.
Whenever someone sees or clicks in one of those ads, over 80% of them did it by accident or are trying to close/report it.
Why? Because they aren’t looking for those services. At least not at the moment.
What those ads do instead is interrupt their time on the platforms. Users aren’t there to find companies or businesses unless they are searching for a specific company’s user, and for that, there’s a search bar. This is why it is hard to convert them to actual customers who will show interest in the companies’ services. Also, you’re limited by a budget.
When using lead generation, everything is organic. You aren’t forcing others to pay attention to your business but rather being there when they need you. This is why Google’s organic traffic will always beat paid ads, and the reason companies continue investing in it, which is a lot cheaper as well.
What Is Local SEO?
Don’t worry… I didn’t get it at first either. Following the short explanation, local SEO focuses on scaling businesses’ visibility on search engines. However, this is only for those who serve their communities face-to-face.
What does this mean?
Experts and professionals like painters, plumbers, and dentists (but not only them) offer their services to their local customers. Why? Because they can’t deliver them unless they are located in the same area of their customers.
To make sure those businesses get more leads, you need to rank them locally by claiming the business listing on Google to place them on Map Listings. Local SEO also involves online reviews, citation management, and how you manage your entire online presence in the local area.
If you are going to bet on lead gen, you need to adapt yourself to today’s world: The Internet.
Keep in mind that although traditional channels and methods like billboards, warm calls, and pamphlets still work, they aren’t part of your tools. Whenever someone needs a service, they go to Google and search for it.
“Dentist in Miami” or “plumbing services in Orlando,” etc. And you can keep coming up with services or professionals people need and look for. Thus, you need to make sure you’re using Google to get the companies in front of their clients.
Users will always click on the first search results (those near the top), and many of them will be either Ad links (people paid to place their websites there), Map Listing, and then you get websites. Almost all of them are your goal and where you should always aim to place yourself.
Can My Epoxy Business Utilize a Local Lead Generation Strategy?
If you want customers, you better know you need it. Following the previous explanation, lead gen is all about placing businesses in front of their customers, choosing them over their competitors.
Put it simply – it’s all about closing deals and having clients for those companies to make money. The main difference with the usual methods companies use for this is how lead generation approaches different channels to get them in the right place of the market to get customers.
Those channels are all focused on the Internet as most people are searching for products but also services across the net. The issue is that the Internet is way too broad, and businesses don’t know how to place themselves. They usually try, but they get one common result: losing money and time.
How Powerful Are Organic Epoxy Leads from Google?
For companies looking for customers, it’s everything. For you? Pretty much the same. When you build a business with digital properties, you get to make thousands of dollars a month.
This isn’t a “get started today and get rich tomorrow” thing, but it is HIGHLY scalable, and ROI + positive results are guaranteed. Learning a fairly decent and very needed set of skills to create your digital properties and start ranking them on Google is required.
I have invested in several online businesses over the years, and if there’s something uncertain, whether you will get your ROI or not, even more than the actual profit.
However, this business moved my earnings from five figures a year to a month in ONLY passive income while sitting comfortably at home.
On my laptop. Anywhere. Anytime.
You can look at one of the first sites I built back in 2016, and it continues making me over $1.000+ every month. The best part is that I don’t need to touch it or the rest I’ve built over the years, just like this digital property.
What Makes Lead Generation SO Alluring?
Here it goes: you can work from home.
The main issue with regular business opportunities is how much you need to invest in staff, equipment, or rent to have a place to sell your products or offer your services.
We all know the hassles of traditional businesses that involve regular expenses, which are extremely high. Can you afford it? I don’t think so, and even if you can, is it worth it? Now, it isn’t only about the money. You also need to put in a lot of work, and it isn’t only during the first couple of months or years. Usually, it is as long as you continue running it.
You can save yourself those headaches and bone-breaking tasks and expenses with lead gen since it is more about generating leads with digital channels—mainly websites.
Websites can be VERY cheap to build, and with many tools online, you get to do it in a couple of hours instead of days. Any virtual or digital business is scalable and won’t need constant maintenance.
So, let’s summarize this:
- You save money in regular expenses with traditional and most online businesses as what you need is yourself and digital properties (websites).
- You can bet on passive income.
- There’s no need to hire more people to get started.
- You can generate leads in multiple industries, which allows you to work on any niche you want.
How Can I Get Started in the Local Lead Generation Program?
Anyone can start and learn. That’s the beauty of this business model. I knew nothing about SEO, Map Listing, and everything I’ve mentioned so far. It is all about learning the skills, gaining experience, and deciding to take the step.
Remember that this business model will never get old as business owners are always looking for leads. They need to do business and scale their companies. Why not do the same while helping others and still making money?
You can start with this local lead generation course highly recommended for anyone wanting to grow in the business. It is a close training that will take you through each step and make sure you are able to get your ROI, profits and take control of your life.
You will be added to an incredible lead generation family ready to help you 24/7 when asking questions on the group. Anyone is welcome who’s willing to put in the work. Click here to watch the lead gen webinar.