hosted by: AskPat 542 Episode Transcript
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn, here, and welcome to Episode 542 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always I'm here to help you by answering your online business related questions, five days a week.
Alright, here's today's question from Collins.
Collins: Hey, Pat. How you doing? Today, I just had a question really, a quick question. I was wondering on why you got ConvertKit instead of AWeber, and then I saw your article that says why you switched from AWeber to Infusionsoft to ConvertKit. I couldn't help but notice that in the bill where your expenses from AWeber passed the $100 mark. There it was billed to Flynndustries, LLC and I was wondering why is it not your personal account or something like that?
So my question is, why is it that you decided to open an LLC company? Why isn't it just in a bank account? Has it grown to that point where you need a whole, where you need to put it all in their company because there's too many streams of income? What were the parameters? What happened? What made you decide to open up a company for everything you're doing? Is it a company? Is that how you consider it or something? Yeah, is it too many streams of income? Is it tax issues, like auditing and what not? Are there fees and other cost you're trying to avoid? Or has it always just been a company when you started from the get-go? Let me know what's up. Collins.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Collins, thanks so much for the question. Interestingly enough, this is one of the more common questions related to starting a business, which is: When do you or why would you open a LLC or start an actual company instead of just keeping it under your own sole proprietor self? There's a number of reasons for that, and for those of you who are listening, Colins was referencing an article I wrote where I talked about how I switched from AWeber as an email service provider to Infusionsoft to now ConvertKit, and I was sharing some of the bills and things I was paying because that was one factor of why I switched over among many. In the bill, it was billed to Flynndustries, LLC, which is my company. Flynndustries, LLC, and not just Pat Flynn, and there's a number of reasons why that company exists.
Yes, there are multiple streams of income. There are sub-businesses within that umbrella company, but more than that, there's a couple things, two. Let me start with one. One, is it's for legal purposes. If you have your business under your own sole proprietor self, and again, I'm not a legal professional, and I would make sure that before you make any decisions in what you do in your own business in your own situation, you talk to a professional. That's my disclaimer, there. I did it for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to make sure that I kept my business separate from my personal stuff, and the reason that's important and why you need to create a business to do that is because if for whatever reason your business were to get sued or something happen there, my personal assets, because they're completely separated, wouldn't be touched at all.
That's one thing, for the legal point of view, but also from a professional point of view. If you're doing business out there, you're trying to serve an audience, and you're building things, and you're creating products and you're just doing business out there, if you have a company, it's more professional. It's more professional from the view of the audience, but also in my own eyes, my own head, and that's really what has helped me more than anything. Creating this thing, it became serious. In my head, that was the (snaps) boom. I'm doing a business, now. I got to be focused. I got to be organized. I got to be CEO of my company. I'm not just playing around. I'm not a scrappy entrepreneur anymore. I got to actually build my business in a way that will grow and that will serve others even better.
Now, there's a lot that goes along with that. Of course, there's the legal stuff that goes along with creating a business, which is really important. There's also the tax benefits and the write-offs. I can write things off as a business that I couldn't doing personal stuff, like before. When did I open my business. I didn't start my LLC when I started my blogs. I started my LLC when I figured out that obviously this is what I want to do forever, be an entrepreneur, and when I started getting money coming in showing me that this was actually something that I was going to do forever.
I started Flynndustries, LLC, in December 2008. For those of you who might remember my story, my blog, my passive income, started in October of 2008, so a few months before that, and I started generating an income from GreenExamAcademy.com, the site that I use to teach people how to pass the LEED exam. That started monetizing in October 2008 as well. That, however, was around for a year and a half prior, building content, building relationships, and just being noticed. Again, for those of you who are new to my story, it wasn't an overnight success by far. That's why I have the business; for legal and tax purposes, for separation from my personal assets and protection, that's really what a business is there for, your protection, but also my mindset, to keep my focus on growing the business, to actually treating it in a way that I would be taking it seriously.
That's that. Of course, there's a lot of other things that go along with that, too. When you're dealing with other people, for example, or other people for partnerships, and other people for anything, book deals, whatever. The fact that you have a company is going to help you in your favor. Again, not just for the legal and stuff, but the mindset stuff that comes along with that, too, is really important.
Collins, I hope that answers your question. Thank you so much, and of course, I'm going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show, and for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. You can ask right there on that page.
Thank you again so much, and I also want to give you a final quote, like I always do at the end of every episode. This quote is from John J. Kennedy. He said, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”
Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.
