Legal To-do’s, Virtual Restaurants, and Chick-Fil-A Love
Ready to Start a Business? 5 Legal To-Dos You Can’t Skip
There’s so much to get done when starting a new business. And, while making a website and getting your branding nailed down is important, there are other subtler yet equally important tasks you have to accomplish. Specifically, there are legal to-dos that every new business owner needs to complete before they can officially open the doors to their business, whether online or brick-and-mortar.
Register Your Business Name. If you don’t want to go through the process of incorporating, the easiest thing to do is register a DBA (Doing Business As) or FBN (Fictitious Business Name). Both of these allow your local government to know who you are and what your business is. While your business name won’t be trademarked, you can still use it for branding and marketing.
Federal Tax Requirements. If your business is going to work as a corporation or if you have employees, then you have to request an EIN (Employer Identification number) from the IRS. This number is essential for opening a business bank account, filing your tax returns, and receiving appropriate business licenses.
State + Local Tax Requirements. Your business is required to pay both state and local taxes, which include things like payroll, self-employment and property taxes. Depending on where your business is located and the type of business you have, these taxes will vary.
Business Permits + Licenses. The type of permits and licenses you need depend on your business’s location and the type of industry you’re in. For some businesses, you also need to receive federal licensing in order to legally operate.
Laws + Regulations. No matter how small your business is, there are laws and regulations that you must follow - the same that the largest corporations must adhere to. Some of the laws you definitely need to look into regard advertising, privacy, and intellectual property.
How Virtual Restaurants are Becoming the Next Big Thing
Thanks to the rising popularity of food delivery apps, like Grubhub and Uber Eats, new virtual restaurants are popping up across the country. With more and more people wanting to eat outside of the restaurant atmosphere, savvy restaurant owners and restauranteurs are changing the way they do business by scaling back their establishments - or opening new ones without any dining rooms or waiters whatsoever.
These newest “virtual” restaurants not only lack physical storefronts, but many of them don’t even have a need for tables and chairs. Some restaurants are taking an even more minimal approach by creating “ghost kitchens”, which have zero retail presence (and are sometimes even shared by other chefs) and that take 100% of all of their orders via apps.
While delivery orders used to make up just a small portion of restaurant revenue, the latest food delivery apps have changed that completely, especially in large cities and urban areas. Today, many restaurants are discovering that nearly 75% of all of their orders are coming in via mobile food delivery apps, and they’re evolving to keep up.
For a lot of restaurant owners and chefs, the future of food is exciting. Not only are mobile apps making it easier to take orders, but they’re dramatically reducing the overhead required to operate, allowing for opportunities that were previously non-existent in the massive restaurant industry.
Why Do So Many People Love Chick-fil-A? And What Can Your Business Learn from It
People love Chick-fil-A. In fact, there’s a good chance that you are one of the brand’s many followers. In a recent study about brand intimacy by MBLM, the fast-food restaurant came in at the very top, ranking #1 for brand attachment with its customers. (Dunkin’ and Starbucks came in second and third place respectively.) The survey, which used a diverse cross-section of consumers, reported that Chick-fil-A “has extremely high rates of fusing and price resilience, which demonstrates the attachment users have to the brand.”
Just how do they do it?
Here are a few branding tips Chick-fil-A implements that you can use with your business, too.
Logo. Chick-fil-A’s logo doesn’t leave you to do any guessing - you know exactly what they're serving. By being transparent, people know exactly what to expect and what they're getting, which builds almost instant trust.
Evolution. Chick-fil-A has been around for a long time, but they haven’t allowed their brad identity to stay stagnant. The restaurant has changed and updated their logo specifically several times, never fearing that it will disrupt their business. Recognizing that your business is a living, breathing organism - and that the world around it is constantly changing - helps you to allow your business and its branding to evolve over the years.
Identity. While the logo and branding has changed for Chick-fil-A in order to keep up with the times, what the brand stands for and believes in hasn’t wavered. This built-in belief system is what helps to build such a fiercely loyal community - and exactly what allows the other types of evolution to be met with acceptance.