Aspiring entrepreneurs

Students from Cope Middle School and Caddo Career and Technology School participated in EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, which began Feb. 24 and ends Saturday.
The students worked with Junior Achievement of North Louisiana and submitted questions to local business owners.
Here’s one question and the business owner’s answer:
Question: “What steps did you take in the process of beginning your business?”
— Brandon Walker, Caddo Career and Technology School
Answer: “I first came up with the idea to create a company in the service sector that would fill a needed niche in business. Then I took the steps to have a company incorporated, the company name registered with the state of Louisiana, secured a federal tax ID number so the company could legally conduct financial banking transactions, and begin to sell the service concept to potential clients. This may seem like a large task, but each is easily and inexpensively done by obtaining corporate documents from the Louisiana Secretary of State Web site, completing them, searching the Louisiana corporate names Web site to find out if your company name is available, then filing the documents with the state of Louisiana. Opening a business checking account is simple and can be completed easily at any local bank. All this is just the beginning, however, for the critical element is to “sell” your service (or product) to your potential customers to create business cash flow.”
— Dan Newman, The Newman Companies