I’m Dana Kramarenko, founder of NexStep Innovations, LLC and a business consultant with strong expertise in the area of corporate structuring. I work with clients to design and implement business strategies to reach their goals.
I welcome this opportunity to tell you a bit about myself.
I currently live in Las Vegas, NV with my husband and four children, along with our dogs and parakeets. I grew up in the Dallas area and went on to attend college at Texas A & M University, and to all of you ole Aggies out there, Whoop!
At A & M I studied Horticulture and Business. After graduating, I dedicated several years to my family’s business in the industry of cable and wire harness manufacturing and sales. Our product was a price-competitive product, meaning that the area was full of manufacturers that could produce the product at very competitive prices. So the way to attract and keep customers was by servicing them and making sure that all of their wants and needs were met. We operated from a Texas corporation.
Learning About Being a Business Owner
Although as a kid growing up I had witnessed my parents’ entrepreneurial spirit, this was the first time I had experienced being a real part of the business as a young adult. I learned first-hand the pressures that can come with owning your own business. We struggled with the things many business owners face: we had ongoing problems with cash flow, liability, employee relations issues, and customer retention and loyalty issues.
Eventually, the family sold the business, and my parents and siblings moved from the great nation of Texas to the great city of Las Vegas. I decided to stay in Texas for a number of years, where I took on a job in sales and management and eventually moved into the regional management position for an accounting firm in East Texas.
Business Management and Taxes
At the accounting firm I had my first taste of advising clients on how to structure their businesses, all from the tax standpoint of things. Small business owners wanted to know how they could save the most money on taxes, and how they could make the most of the dollars they were out there working so hard to earn.
They trusted me to show them how to make their choice of business structure work for them. While most small businesses open up shop as a sole proprietor, it is the worst choice for a business structure. My job was to study and learn what other options they had and then to teach the business owners how to benefit from these choices.
Jumping into the Incorporating World
Years later I made the move to Las Vegas. I spent years saying I would never want to live in Sin City, so I guess that the move to Vegas was like fate reminding me that I’m not in charge!
Nevada has become a top state to file a formal entity because Nevada has very strong asset protection laws and an extremely business-friendly atmosphere. Because of that, Nevada has an active market for businesses in the field of incorporating. I really liked working with business structuring and opted to take a job as a corporate consultant in the field and continue learning the how’s and why’s of business structuring.
Why I stayed in Corporate Coaching
Through my years as a corporate consultant, I focused on the asset protection side of structuring. With the steady stream of frivolous lawsuits and outlandish judgments being awarded, the importance of good structuring is even more important now.
Not only can you save money on taxes, you can protect your business and personal assets and protect your privacy against the sharks swimming around looking for a good lawsuit target. The best way to keep anyone from wanting to sue you is to keep your assets out of the public eye.
To Help a Client
The longer I worked with other companies in the incorporating field, the more I realized that clients were not getting the service they were looking for. I was spending more and more time helping clients learn what to do with their expensive structures and how to make their businesses more successful, the very things that the support staff was supposed to be doing for the clients.
My clients were unhappy with the follow-through from the companies, and they were feeling like they had wasted lots of money with companies that weren’t taking care of them.*
Going Out on My Own and Helping Clients My Way
That’s when I decided to stop doing the same things over and over again and take matters into my own hands. NexStep Innovations, LLC was born from the desire to take care of these same kinds of clients.
I researched and planned and started a business that is built on what clients want and expect and need out of their business services firm.
What Can I Do for My Clients?
My goal is to help individual business owners develop and implement a plan for success. Those goals are going to be as different and varied as the businesses the clients own.
People come to me with questions on which structure is best for their business, on how to protect their life’s assets, on how to build their company image, on how to look for creative funding, on how to work retirement investments into their structures, on how to take care of their loved ones, on how to build a philanthropic mission, on how to make their own customers happy, on how to keep their receipts and other records for their accountants, on how to write a mission statement, on how to build business credit, on how to apply for and maintain their business licenses, on how to hold a seminar, on how to design a website and blog…the list goes on and on…and it continues to grow in unexpected and exciting ways.
I take a personal responsibility for helping my clients reach their goals. I treat their goals and businesses as I treat my own. When I help a client build a strategy to reach some goal or set of goals, I take that strategy on as my own goal.
My business is other people’s businesses.
It’s my job and the job of my team of experts to do our part in each client’s success. Because I take that job seriously, I have made many great associates and friends and learned about businesses that I didn’t know existed heretofore.
*Any corporate structure has maintenance obligations that go along with it. Many business owners fail to recognize the importance of being in compliance, or keeping up with those details, like corporate records and licenses. Without proper maintenance, a formal business entity can be a false sense of security. Please contact us if you have questions.
