Eighty Innovative Ideas For Self-employment
Silvio Famularo
Copyright 2011 by Silvio Famularo
Smashwords Edition
This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or if it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the entitlements of the author.
Most of he ideas suggested in this book require very little skill and only a small amount of investment. Whether they are practical for you depends on where your talents, aptitudes and inclinations lie. Some have the potential to earn a lot of money, while some may only be beneficial as part time work or for earning supplementary income. Others may be little more than a way of earning money to cover the expenses of an interesting hobby. A number of the suggestions are more likely to be successful if they are done together with others. A lot will depend on the goals you set for yourself. However, I believe that all of the ideas are feasible and based on integrity. As the saying goes, “Honesty is the best policy.” Even if most of the ideas don’t appeal to you, bear in mind that you only need one good idea in order to start your own business. If that good idea is found in this book, you will have received good value for your purchase.
Bookkeeping and tax consultancy.
Carpet and upholstery cleaning.
Children’s indoor playground, or club.
Convert coloured slides to compact disks.
Duplicating, Cassette Tapes, CDs, videos and DVDS.
Face painting at parties and galas.
Grow and sell your own houseplants.
Panel beating and spray painting.
Pet caring while owners are away.
Photograph meals for restaurant menus.
Photographic sightseeing tours.
Pitching and putting ground for golfers.
Placing registration numbers on car windows.
Postal agent for overseas traders.
Self-service photocopying centre.
Sell second-hand musical instruments and sheet music.
Talent Agency for parties. conventions and special occasions.
Buy up original paintings at garage sales and opportunity shops and, if necessary, reframe them and resell them. Paintings that would normally sell for hundreds of dollars new can frequently be found at garage sales and op shops for only a few dollars. It is often quite astonishing what an appropriate good frame can do to transform the appearance of an otherwise unappealing work of art. If the paintings are really good they will appreciate in value while they are not selling.
Most artists sell their paintings through galleries, where the gallery owners retain about 30-40% commission on each sale. If you are an accomplished artist, why not team up with some other talented artists, say six others, and run your own gallery selling only your own paintings. You could each agree to mind the gallery one day a week - or perhaps two half days - without payment and share the running costs, but keep all the money for each of your paintings that were sold. Alternatively, a small percentage, say 10% of the price of each painting sold could go into the kitty to offset general expenses. Being artists, you would not need to take a day off to mind the gallery, since you could paint while you were minding the shop. Naturally, you would also share a web site from which you could also sell your works.
You could consider baby-sitting and minding children after school for working parents. This could include collecting children from school and preparing meals for them. Kindergartens may be willing to help you to find people who would appreciate your services.
As a part time business, you could try selling barbequed sausages and steak sandwiches at fairs and beach resorts. You will probably need to have a van or trailer to transport your barbeque and your food, but the money you can make is likely to make it worthwhile. People will find you easily by following the aroma of the sizzling sausages and onions.
Perhaps you have written a good book or two that has been turned down by agents. This is certainly not uncommon. There is hardly a successful writer who has not had his, or her, first written works turned down several times before they were accepted for publication. These days it’s just as easy to publish your own work as it is to get it published through an established publisher. What’s more you will get much more money for each book, since you will be bi-passing the fees of both the publishers and the agents, who normally get paid before the writer does. Most of the tasks involved in self-publishing can be achieved using a home computer, which has a spell check that cuts down on a lot of proof reading. You can choose from a number of fonts, and insert the images yourself. Once you have got someone to proof read it for you, you can put the book on a CD Rom and get a printer to print it for you from the disk. It is absolutely necessary to get someone else to proof read your works, because no matter how good a writer you are and no matter how good your English is, writers seldom notice every error they have made. You could, if you wanted to, print and bind your books yourself using a modern printer and binder. But although this type of book might be acceptable for selling by mail order, for truly professional results it would be better to use the services of a good printer. If you had thousands printed, the cost per book would not be too great, and it would be likely to be cheaper for the second run of printing since the set up costs might not have to be repeated.
If you didn’t want to travel round the country selling the books, you could find an agent to do it for you. You would naturally have to pay the agent, but you would still get more than you would if you dealt with an established publisher. You could also send your books to libraries on a sale or return at your expense basis. The cost of postage both ways is likely to be less than the cost of travel and time that would be taken up making personal calls.
With bookshops, you could allow the owners a couple of months to stock the books on trial before paying for them. If they haven’t sold by that time, they will have the option to return them. This way they can’t lose. If they do sell, then you should be able to sell them more on a sale or return basis.
Don’t forget that there are now many ways that you can sell books through the Internet. For some information on self-publishing on the Internet, try this web site: http://www.strategicbookmarketing.com/
If you have a very large enough house and you like meeting new people, a pleasant way to earn a decent income would be to turn it into a bed and breakfast house. Such places are able to offer visitors more personal hospitality than one normally gets staying overnight in hotels. The basic appeal of a Bed and Breakfast homes are "home style" living and genuine hospitality rather than the sterilised atmosphere and sameness of hotels and motels. If you treat your customers well, they will come again and tell others. The essential things to attend to will be comfort, cleanliness and a good breakfast. Each room should also have a washbasin, a television set, a telephone and perhaps a computer. A decent sized lounge with plenty of reading material, particularly a range of magazines, will help people to relax. Naturally, you should also provide lots of tourist information literature for good measure.
Advertise in various Bed & Breakfast guidebooks, the yellow pages and daily newspapers. Naturally, you should also have a suitable sign in front of the premises. If you were able to, you would benefit from advertising at airports and railway stations if they exist in the area. Be sure also to list your services with all the travel agencies in your area. A brochure or short synopsis of what you offer will most assuredly give the travel agents an idea for steering visitors your way.
Bookkeeping and tax consultancy.
Qualified accountants usually charge quite steeply for their services because they have to spend many years of study to qualify. They do this so that they are able to attend to complicated accountancy problems. Nevertheless, they are likely to charge the same hourly rates for handling uncomplicated tasks, such as entering cheque payments in a ledger book, which takes no skill at all, as they do for sorting out complicated tax requirements for large corporations. Yet most of the accountancy work for most small businesses is not complicated at all. Many people say that they hire accountants to do their bookwork because they can show them how to cut down on taxes, but the fact is that anyone can ask the Inland Revenue department to send them a booklet, which will inform them about what expenses are tax deductible and the rates of depreciation on equipment used. In fact, in most cases, one can download them from the Internet. I have been doing my own tax accounts for years without any problems. The important thing to keep in mind is to be completely honest. This would include letting your clients know that you are not a qualified accountant. You would also do well to inform your clients that your aim is to help them with their tax problems, it should not be to help them cheat on the Tax Department.
Nevertheless, many people are not good at figures and need the help of someone who is able to help them with their tax returns. If you are good at figures and have some computing knowledge, learning bookkeeping would not be hard. Your library will have plenty of books that will teach you how to do it, and the Inland Revenue Department will provide you with a wide range of books about how to deal with taxes. You could also ask the Inland Revenue Department to advise you on what courses in tax accounting are available for small businesses. On the Internet you will find lots of courses available, and you can also purchase software that will help you. For a starter, here is a link to a web site that provides very cheap books in the subject: http://www.booglesltd.com/Business_books.html?gclid=CLrGw_ys9agCFRJ1gwod_TnpRw
Before starting out in business you could offer to do the books free for some friends and relatives who usually pay someone to do the books for them.
For most small businesses, the year-to-year account details, such as recording sales and purchases, working out depreciation, deducting wages, rents, insurances and vehicle expenses etc. will hardly change. So each year the accounting for each client will become easier.
If they have the nerve, good musicians and singers can earn good money busking in the right areas at the right time. It would pay you to get some good backings recorded on a CD for accompaniment. If you are of a professional standard, you could produce and keep handy a stock of CDs that you could sell to passers by. Since the CDs don’t cost much to reproduce by computer, you don’t have to charge much for them. However, if you sell a lot, don’t forget to allow for any royalties you may have to pay. Some people might be happier to pay a few dollars for a CD they can listen to often rather than drop a couple of dollars in a hat and get nothing but the pleasure of listening to you for a few minutes. You might feel less embarrassed busking if you did it while on holiday in cities where you are not known. It is a very practical way to subsidise your holiday.
It has often occurred to me that if one were able to hire a yard cheaply, a good business with lots of potential would be dismantling and selling parts for particular makes of used vehicles. There are lots of wreckers that stock parts for all kinds of makes of vehicles but I tend to think that such a business would be run more efficiently and economically if they restricted their business to one make only, such as Toyotas, Fords or Fiats, but covered all models. If you did this, and built up your reputation, the owners of such makes of vehicles would know exactly where to go when looking for parts. These days you can pick up older model vehicles and wrecked cars for next to nothing. In fact, my experience is that in many cases wreckers won’t pay anything for older cars, but they will come and take them away from you if you give the vehicles to them. One can understand this because there is a lot of work in dismantling vehicles and not all parts sell. On the other hand a lot of money can be made from selling off unwanted parts as scrap metal. This, I believe, is where wreckers gain most of their income.
Fortunately, with a large amount of used parts now being sold over the Internet, it is not necessary to have a yard in an area where the rent is expensive. The Internet opens up your clientele to people from all over the country. If customers are too far away to collect the parts they want, you can always arrange for the parts to be couriered to them, at their expense.
The reason I believe that specialising is the way to go, is because once your business is well known, yours will be the first place that people, especially garage owners, needing parts for the vehicles you specialise in will call first.
To get known, you should notify every motor garage and panel beater within a hundred miles or so from you with details of your address, phone number, mail and email addresses, fax number and web site if you have one. You should also have thousand of leaflets printed so that you could place them under the windscreen wipers of the makes of vehicles that you specialise in. You could start doing this in supermarket car parks and parking buildings. Naturally, you should also advertise in the yellow pages.
If you are a handyman, or handywoman, carpet and vinyl laying is not a particularly difficult trade to learn, yet the people who do this kind of work generally charge quite a lot for their services. You will need a few special tools and a van, but not much more. If you look on the Internet you will find lots of advice on how to go about it. Your local library is also sure to have a number of books that will instruct you how to go about it. Look in the Do-it-yourself books. But I would suggest that you practice in your own home before you start doing it professionally. To get the work, advertise in the yellow pages and contact the businesses that sell carpets.
Carpet and upholstery cleaning.
This is another trade that doesn’t need a lot of skill. To test whether it appeals to you, hire a machine and start cleaning your own carpets and lounge suites. To get more experience, you can offer to clean carpets and lounge suites for friends. Getting work in this field is easy. Just knock on doors and offer to give people a quote for the cost of whatever needs cleaning. If the quote is reasonable, many people will accept it. If you don’t have the money to buy a decent carpet cleaner, hire one until you make enough to buy your own. Of course you will need to have a vehicle, but you will probably already own one. If the one you own does not have enough space at the back to carry all the equipment, buy or hire a trailer until you can afford to buy a more suitable vehicle.
Buy up old furniture from garage sales and auctions. Strip off the old varnish or paint, and then re-paint it in bright colours adding transfers which are sprayed over. You can then either sell the furniture to shops, or get the shops to sell the items on commission. Don’t forget, you can also sell over the Internet.
Children’s indoors playground, or club.
Start an indoor recreation place for parents to take their children to. Make the place colourful with lots of murals. Decorate it with lots of balloons. Be sure there is a large variety of games the children can play. Make sure there is a great range of apparatus they can play on, including swings and slides. Let the children dress up, let them paint and let them make things. Have a wet sandpit where they can build castles. If there is space, you could have a small skating rink. Have a separate room for showing videos and DVDs. Make sure you have a tuck shop for selling food and drinks, and perhaps also stock toys and children’s books for sale. Staff could dress as clowns or be costumed as animals or large birds. You would also want to have lively music playing overhead. Use your own imagination. Promote it as a place for children to have their birthday parties.