How to Start a Distillery: The Step-By-Step Guide

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |how to start a distillery |How to Start a Distillery: The Step-By-Step GuideEntrepreneurs come in many different shapes, sizes, and interests. They all have different passions that they’re looking to pursue.

That’s good! It’s what makes the corporate world go round. If they won’t provide a certain service to customers, who will?

One of the business ventures you might be interested in is starting a distillery. It gives you a company that you can pour (pun intended) your heart and soul into to receive a substantial profit.

There are however certain guidelines that every potential distiller should follow. Here are some pointers on how to start a distillery that can grow for years to come.

1. Create a Business Plan

No successful business ever started without a business plan in place. Granted, some of them may not be super elaborate, but you don’t want to follow that trend. The more detail, the better!

There are certain factors you’ll want to perform heavy research on for your business plans. These are things such as the costs for your startup, production process, when can you break even, the name of your business, and what you’ll distill to name a few.

What does your target customer look like? How much will you charge them for your liquor? What return do you expect to see?

Assuming you don’t have thousands of dollars laying around, you’ll want to seek a funding group to help with your startup. Having an organized and strategic plan in place goes a long way with them.

2. Establish an Entity and Register for Taxes

Now that you’re a legitimate business, you need to get everything in place with federal business requirements.
That means forming a legal entity for your company and registering for your state and federal taxes.

For forming a legal entity, you can choose from such structures as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) or a Doing Business As (DBA). Either will help protect your personal assets if the business gets sued.

As you’re registering for your state and federal taxes, be sure to apply for and obtain an Employer Identification Number (EIN).

3. Start Considering Your Equipment

It’s never too early to start planning and budgeting for the equipment you’ll need to properly distill your liquor.
Such equipment includes water supply, a mill, cooker, still, transfer hoses, receiving tank, and fermenters. All of that can add up quickly and should be purchased in waves leading up to opening up your distillery.

However, the sooner you save up for it and purchase it, the sooner that you can start with your distilling process. Thus, the sooner you can start making a profit off of your liquor!

4. Open a Business Account with the Bank

One mistake that many people make when starting a business is not separating their personal bank account from their business bank account.

Not doing so can risk all of your personal funding and assets that you’ve accrued. Be sure to set up a business account to protect them.

Heaven forbid if you were to get sued, and you didn’t have a business account, things such as your house, checking account, jewelry, car, or retirement savings could be at risk.

While you’re doing that, be sure to request a business credit card so that you can control the expenses and pay them off in one single place.

5. Attend Distilling Workshops

While you or your business partner might be exceptionally knowledgeable on distilling, there will always be more to learn. It’s good for you and your business to educate yourself.

Because of that, you should attend a distilling workshop or two to see what you can learn about the process.
This will also help you build a network of knowledgeable distillers with years of experience under their belt.

They’ll be more than happy to point you in the right direction and help out in any way that they can. Who knows? Maybe your distillery will hire them one day!

While the classes might be a bit pricey, they’re well worth the investment. You’ll receive new ways of thinking that you can reiterate to all of your business partners.

6. Get All Permits/Licenses Taken Care of

Your distillery isn’t a legal business until you’ve properly acquired all licenses and permits required by your state. Be sure to find out what your specific state requires and seek them out.

The two mainstays among all states are a proper liquor license and a certificate of occupancy for your business.
Be sure to look up what role each of them plays in your distillery and how you can correctly go about obtaining them.

7. Invest in Insurance for Your Distillery

There are two types of coverage that you’ll need in your distillery insurance: property coverage and liability coverage.

Property coverage is exactly what the name would imply. It protects all incidents that might happen with the property your distillery conducts its business on.

Such things as fires, faulty parts, or even flooding can be a major catastrophe that results in your company going out of business. You may lose your entire distillery before it even gets up and running.

Property coverage is made to protect things such as the products you’ve made, the machinery you use, and the building that you use.

Liability coverage, on the other hand, protects you from the actions of their users. For example, if someone gets drunk on your premises and then is involved in a drunk driving accident, you’ll be protected.

As you can see, distillery insurance is vitally important. Learn more here for more details on this subject.

How to Start a Distillery: Set It up for Success!

As you can see, there’s a lot of factors on how to start a distillery initially, but they’re all vitally important.
Once you get them all out of the way, you’ll be reeling in a profit in no time!

Be sure to read our other articles that pertain to both this topic and other topics just like it.

5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | 5 Ways to Convert Your Garage Into a Home Office

If you work from home or if run your own business, a garage conversion could be a great way to add a home office to your property, saving yourself the added expenses of rent or overhead.

Garages are enclosed spaces where cars or other items are stored, so they can be ideally repurposed for other uses. And because you are not actually building from scratch, you may not need to apply for planning permission, but you should confirm with your local council to be safe.

Below are some important tips to keep in mind when creating a home office out of your garage.

1. Clear the space

To create your dream office, clean and remove everything you currently have in the garage.

Find new storage options for bicycles, garden tools, car accessories, and Christmas decorations, or store them carefully in boxes that you can discreetly store elsewhere.

You should also thoroughly clean the garage before you do anything else. Make sure that there are no cobwebs or car lubricants left when setting up your new office space.

Part of clearing the space may include clearing land. You may be surprised at how much room you have in your backyard when you use a Forestry Mulching service. You may even find that you have the space to install an outbuilding for your office space. 

2. Be creative with lighting

When you change your garage space into a home office, you should be as creative as possible. Consider your garage a blank canvas to repurpose it as best as possible.

Garages are typically have the worst lighting, so make sure that your new home office is well lit.

I strongly recommend buying inexpensive lighting fixtures if your garage is not exposed to direct sunlight during business hours.

A creative way to add light into your office is to paint it with bright colours and/or use creative bright patterns. This alone gives the office a colourful and uplifting mood.

3. Make it comfortable and secure

As you are repurposing your garage into a home office, remember to make it as comfortable and as secure as possible. This means making it less susceptible to outside weather conditions. For example, you may want to replace the existing garage door with a modern insulated garage door, so that your office remains warm and cosy during cold months.

As an added advantage, a modern insulated garage door will provide extra security for your tools and equipment when you are not at the office. On the plus side, this type of door will be a strong deterrent to thieves.

Finally, you should also invest in a good heater and fan to be comfortable during all seasons.

4. Design your new space

Even though one of the reasons for repurposing a garage into a home office is to reduce the cost of overhead and rent, you still want your new office to be a great space to work in, and to reflect your personal taste.

Of course, you can simply invest in an ergonomic chair and desk, but why not take the opportunity to design a really nice home office?

Personalise your new workspace with a workstation, relaxation sofa, and an entertainment system. You can also add some practical details such as rugs, framed pictures, and throw pillows.

5. Setup and work

Make sure you have reliable and effective technologies that will make it easy to do your work.

Many households now have wireless networks, but often the wireless signal is weak or absent. To solve this problem, buy additional routers or wireless signal amplifiers to boost the network environment in your new home office.

If necessary, invest in higher-quality data storage, processing and printing technologies.

Furthermore, wire everything to keep cables clean and to have minimal interference.

Finally, converting your garage into a home office is both doable and easy. Try the tips in the article and see if you can put your garage to good use.

Ready To Work In Your Own Office?

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Starting Your Own Business|Ready To Work In Your Own Office?If you feel you’re ready for an office of your own, to take your home business or new business idea into, put a brake on the process for a moment. You need to stop and think a little more about what you’re getting into, and whether or not it makes sense for you and your career goals at this point in time.

So, why not take the questions listed below and apply them to your situation? It’s much better to be cautious when spending capital like this, rather than accept the risk and let things fall through much faster than you ever thought possible.

How Long Have You Been in Business?

The amount of time you’ve been in business is key to knowing whether you’re ready for your own office or not. If you’ve got a business that’s at least a year old, and better yet, you’ve been operating for at least 5 years, you’ll have an advantage over someone just starting out and trying to build their brand. You’ll already have done all of the necessary foundation work, and now you’re simply expanding to something bigger and better.

How Many Offices Are Around You?

The amount of offices in the same area as you is a good indicator of the kind of competition you’ll come up against. It’s one of the main reasons why businesses fail in the first year; if you’ve got an overwhelming amount of competition to try and beat out of the water, you won’t have the time or resources to focus on your customers. You’ll be constantly trying to innovate, and do better than the company just down the road, and who knows if you’ll be able to pull that off?

At the same time, you need to be sure there’s enough office space for you to move into as well. You need to look into private office rentals in your area, if you don’t have the capital to outright buy an office of your own (as many small businesses don’t).

Why Would You Need an Office?

And of course, ask yourself why you’d be in need of an office for the future. How many bullet points can you jot down on paper to answer this question? You’ll need at least 3 to ensure you’ve got a viable strategy to work off of in order to pay for your expansion; you may need an office to house more employees, which means you have more customers to service, which means you’re making more profit overall.

And do these kind of profits outweigh the costs of moving into a commercial space? If not, your expansion plans may need a bit of refining before you go any further.

Your own office is something you often dream of, of course. But you need to be sure you’re ready to take it on; you need to ensure that you’ve got the funds and the need behind you for such a space. Don’t rush your expansion process.

7 Strategies for Building an Industrial Laundry Business

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Industrial Laundry|7 Strategies for Building an Industrial Laundry BusinessThinking of starting an industrial laundry business? While it is promising in terms of success, nothing can be certain. If you want to increase the chances that you will make it big in such a sector, keep on reading and we’ll talk about some of the best strategies to pursue.

Find the Right Equipment

One of the most important is to pick the best equipment possible. Even if it means spending more, this should not be an issue if this means being able to enjoy superior performance. If you are looking for the best industrial laundry equipment, make sure to check out what Continental Girbau has to offer.

Take Your Marketing Online

We are living in a digital era, and hence, online marketing strategies are promising. Do not rely on traditional mediums to promote your laundry services, especially if you are looking for cheap alternatives. Utilize a variety of online tools available, including social media and email marketing. If you need help executing successful digital marketing strategies for industrial and commercial laundry businesses, Continental Girbau has the best solutions.

Build Your Network

An industrial laundry is different from a traditional laundromat in terms of its customer base. You are not serving individual customers. Rather, you will be serving business clients, including hospitals, hotels, salons, and restaurants, among others. To get closer to your target market, find ways to build a strong network. By knowing the right people, you can forge strong relationships that can benefit the business in the long run.

Provide Innovative Service

One of the biggest challenges for an industrial laundry business is to set itself apart from the competition. To do this, you need to embrace innovation. This is possible by developing a mobile application to improve customer reach. You can also provide free pick-up and delivery services. Offering specialty cleaning services depending on the needs of the industrial clients will also help.

Go Green

Industrial laundry businesses need to operate their business while minimizing impacts on the environment. One of the best ways to do this is to choose energy-efficient equipment. Using solar panels and alternative sources of energy will also help. Recycling water is also a good solution to make the business more sustainable.

Find the Right People

While it is important to have tech-advanced equipment in an industrial laundry facility, this will not be enough. You also need to have the right people to maximize the benefits of the equipment. Invest in your human resources to deliver exceptional service to your customers.

Set the Right Price

To succeed in your industrial laundry business, keep your pricing competitive and timely. Pricing decisions require careful thought. Start by researching your customers to learn about the prices they find reasonable. It is also a must to consider the pricing strategies of your competitors. You can learn from their success or failure.

From using the right equipment to intelligent pricing decisions, consider our suggestions above to build a profitable industrial laundry business.

What to Consider When Buying a New Commercial Property

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article | Entrepreneurship | What to Consider When Buying a New Commercial PropertyLeasing a commercial property isn’t the best option for a lot of businesses. Therefore, if you have made the choice to buy your next business property, you are opening yourself up to more flexibility and more freedom to allow your business to grow.

That said, there are a lot of important areas to take into account when searching for the ideal commercial property.

The Maintenance Costs

Alongside your fixed monthly outgoings, you’re going to have to prepare for maintenance costs over time, and any unexpected issues that may arise. This means you should consider any commercial property that you view with the expected maintenance costs in mind.

For example, are there any structural features of the building which you see as having a high maintenance bill? Does the sheer size mean more maintenance should be expected?

Maintenance is always a must, no matter the building, so budgeting for it is essential. You should also seek out a dependable maintenance service such as urban-propertymaintenance.com.

The Need for a Survey

Having any new potential business property professionally surveyed is a must. You shouldn’t elect for the cheapest and quickest option, either. Although it’s preferable to save money, you will lose money in the long run if you fail to have a property survey in the first instance, resulting in your property running into problems further down the line. Ensure that you have a thorough survey carried out, which is specifically tailored for commercial properties.

The Location

Your location needs will vary depending on what your business entails, so you’ll need to think carefully about yours. Location can be a crucial factor in the successful running of your business.

Consider the following:

  • Do you have clients regularly visiting your business premises? If so, the property will need to be in an easily accessible location, and close to your main clients.
  • Do you have a large team of staff who will work on site? If so, the property will need to be easily accessible for them, and not difficult to travel to.

Also think about the impression that you want to give of your business; you need the property and location to reflect this in a positive light if you are going to have external individuals and clients visiting the commercial property on a regular basis.

Transport Links

This is an imperative consideration if you have people traveling to the premises on a daily basis, whether they are staff or clients. If your new commercial property is near plenty of public transport links, such as train stations and bus stops, then this is a huge positive.

If you can’t find a property which is close to public transport links, or if your commercial premises is in a very remote location, then you need to ensure that there is at least a car park for staff and visitors.

A commercial property in a remote location, without a car park, and far away from any public transport links, will be very problematic and may be seen as unprofessional if you are failing to provide these needs.