101: Start Your Own House Cleaning Business

We have all got chores that we hate doing, and it’s not nice thinking that we have to do most of them when we could be out enjoying themselves. So if you quite enjoy cleaning the house on a regular basis, then why not offer that same service to someone else?

Most people hate cleaning the house and would be more than happy to pay someone else to do it for them. If you are responsible and trustworthy, then why not set up a business doing just that? You might get more clients than you think…

This is the type of business where you will get a lot of clients via word of mouth. Trust counts for a lot when you start cleaning people’s houses, as you may sometimes do it when they aren’t around. A good way to start is to offer your services to people you know – however remote that connection may be. It gives you the opportunity to build up some experience and you may even be able to obtain references from people to vouch for you when you approach people you don’t know in the future.

The best way to charge for your services is to negotiate a flat fee for a specific time slot. You will have a fair idea of how long certain tasks will take you, and based on that you can come up with a price and a time slot that will suit the client. Make sure you don’t under price your services though – people are prepared to pay to have someone clean their home for them, and you don’t want to be working for a tiny amount of money.

You can also promote your services by distributing leaflets door to door, but it’s well worth making sure that they are good quality ones. You might even be able to get glossy paper and color printing if they aren’t too expensive. Another good idea is to use quotes from satisfied customers to help reassure people that you aren’t just any old person touting for work, and that you can be relied on to do a good job.

You should also remember to get some business cards printed up with your details on them. Encourage people to recommend you to their friends and family too – you could even offer them a discount if they manage to refer someone to you who takes up your service. How about a free house clean the next time you are due to visit them? This is a worthwhile offer to make since you stand to get another long term client from the effort, so you should reward the person who brought you the new business.

While it is a good idea to supply your own cleaning items if required, make sure you talk to each individual client to see whether they would prefer you to use their items or your own. Make sure you know where everything is prior to your first visit, and agree a time and day with each person so you can fit it into your schedule.

After a while you will find that you don’t need to have too many clients to fill up your book with orders, and you can enjoy a regular supply of cash from people that will make a big difference to your earnings each week.

Like this idea? Then why not leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes for you?

100: Start Your Own Grass Cutting Service

Starting your own gardening service might not be practical if you can’t tell a weed from a flower. But that doesn’t mean you can’t offer to help people with their gardens.

One of the jobs that a lot of people don’t enjoy is mowing the lawn. It can take some time to do if the garden is a large one, and many people simply don’t have the time to do it themselves. Even if they do, a lot of them would rather be doing something else instead.

So why not solve that problem for them? One of the best ways to make money is by helping other people out, and this particular opportunity has a lot of potential.

Not only does a grass cutting service have the potential to net a lot of clients, it is also one of the easiest businesses to promote. All your customers will be in your local area, so the best thing to do is design a simple flyer on your computer (you can use some clip art to make it look more impressive) and get a lot of them printed up cheaply by a local printer. Make sure you get your cell phone number printed on them too.

All you need to do then is distribute them door to door to get them in front of those people who might take you up on your service. You should start to get a few calls almost immediately.

The best way to offer a competitive price is to phone up other similar services in your neighborhood and ask for a quote from them. You can then position your own service in a similar price range.

Rather than offering a set schedule when you meet a new customer, ask them how often they would like their grass cut and what day and time would be convenient for them. Buy yourself a big diary with time slots and book people in as and when you get appointments. That way you won’t double book anyone and you won’t forget to turn up anywhere either! You should also make sure you get a contact phone number from them, just in case you need to contact them for any reason.

Some people may be happy for you to use their own mower, but it goes without saying that you should always have your own one to use. Make sure you carry spares for any parts which may need replacing, and make sure you clear up after yourself as well. Don’t leave any grass cuttings behind unless the customer wants you to put them in a compost bin.

One of the dangers with this business is that you could become too successful. If you aren’t careful you could end up working seven days a week, so always make sure you book the weekends off, or whatever days are best for you. You should also have a contingency plan in mind in case it rains on a day when you should be visiting clients’ homes, so that you can return when there is better weather.

In short this is a fantastic chance to build a worthwhile business by doing something for people that they don’t want to do themselves. You will also get a lot of exercise and it’s certainly an enjoyable experience to be out cutting grass in all kinds of different gardens, so make the most of it!

If you start this business and achieve some success with it, make sure you come back here and tell us all about it by leaving a comment using the form below.

99: Start Your Own Franchise Business

You’ve probably heard the saying that you shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel, and that applies just as much to a business as anything else in life.

If you are looking for a business which already has a proven template for you to follow – enabling you to set up your own business and taking away a lot of the worry about whether or not it will work in the first place – check out the many different franchises that are available. It could be just what you are looking for.

Franchising is one of the best routes to fast business success if you want the reliability of a name that is already known. You’ll also benefit from not having to worry about creating a business plan, deciding what to stock, and all the other headaches that come from creating your own business from scratch.

You’ll need to part with some cash though if you want to get involved; every franchise incurs a franchise fee to get you started, so be sure you look into all the requirements and the small print before you sign anything. You might also consider how well the franchise model you are thinking of will fit in to your local area. Getting the answers to all these questions and more is essential to make sure you know what to expect right from the start.

The good news is that there are lots of different types of franchise you can get involved with, so regardless of what your best skills and abilities are, you should be able to find something that will suit you.

At the most visible end there are the shop franchises. McDonald’s is one of the most famous examples of this, though you might not be thinking of running a franchise on that scale. Perhaps the better choice for many entrepreneurs is the smaller franchise which allows you to sell products of a certain type. An example of this would be a book publisher or distributor that allows you to sell their books yourself – perhaps door to door, or by organizing parties or get togethers. Some people buy into book franchises that are purely aimed at children, and they visit schools to generate interest and encourage ordering.

The best way to pick a franchise opportunity is to select a product or service area that suits you and who you are. Remember that you will be running this as a business, so you need to make sure you can do that successfully every day. Don’t choose something just because the profits you are promised will be huge – if you have no interest in the products then you won’t be putting in the required effort to get the results anyway.

Finally, do your research before opting for any one franchise in particular. A few extra days or weeks of effort here will pay dividends in the long run.

If the idea of a franchise appeals to you, now is the best time to start looking into it. But why not leave us a comment first in the box below?

98: Start Your Own Email Newsletter Service

Email gets into all our lives, and while we may sometimes wish we didn’t have it – as the deluge of junk mail gets ever larger – it is still one of the best ways to get information that we want sent directly to us.

And this is where you come in. There are plenty of possibilities for running an email newsletter service which is either free or fee paying, and you can make a decent profit from either option.

The key to success is to pick a topic that will attract the attention of a lot of people. If you can do that you could be sitting on a goldmine…

Let’s start at the beginning here. A free newsletter? How can you make money with that?

The answer is to provide something that is worthwhile and has plenty of unique content in it. You need to be reliable as well. A weekly or monthly newsletter is the best option, although weekly will certainly keep you in the mind of the subscriber more easily than a monthly one. A month can be a very long time online.

If you already have a website then you could create a newsletter to tie in with that. If you don’t, and you have thought of a good and popular topic to create a newsletter on, then it’s a good idea to create a simple website around it as well, as this can help you net more subscribers. You may even have a product – let’s say an e-book for example – that has its own sales page. If you create a newsletter based on that same subject you can promote it as a bonus to everyone who orders the book. Alternatively it could be a freebie to entice them to order at a later date.

What you don’t want to do is populate every newsletter with lots of affiliate links. It’s okay to include them but you don’t want to overdo it. You need to provide a newsletter that has plenty in it that can’t be found elsewhere. If you don’t do this you’ll get a high drop out rate.

But what about charging for a newsletter?

You can only do this if you provide something truly unique. Some newsletters that charge a fee to receive them are based in the financial and money market arena for example, and you are getting specific financial information on stocks and shares that you can use to help make you some money.

The bottom line is that you need to be able to save or make your subscribers some money in return for asking them for a subscription fee. It is well worth taking the time to think about whether or not you can do this, as well as researching other similar newsletters online before you design your own.

The best shot you have of charging money for your newsletter is if you can create something unique that fills a gap in the market and answers a specific need. You also need to have a real enthusiasm for your subject – otherwise the weekly work of writing the newsletter will soon wear thin.

One final tip – plan a few issues out in advance, long before you send out the first newsletter to your first handful of subscribers. This will give you the time to start promoting the newsletter right from the beginning, as well as doing away with the possibility of panicking when you can’t think of anything to put in the next issue!

Like the idea? Leave a comment using the form below.

97: Start A Pet Services Company

If you love pets then this is a great way to meet more of them! There are lots of ways you could reap the rewards by setting up a business to help people with their pets. Depending on what you like doing you could provide one service in particular or a whole range of them.

Your choice of pet business will also depend on what skills you have. After all if you are good at painting pictures of animals then you will no doubt earn more money doing that than you would taking dogs for a walk!

If you are an animal lover then there is no better job than spending all day surrounded by them. The great part about setting up a pet services company is that you can work whatever hours you like, fitting it in around your existing commitments to suit you.

Before you start, think about what kind of services you would like to offer. If you like going out for walks then a dog walking service would be a good bet. If you don’t mind having a change of scene from time to time then you might consider offering a pet sitting service for all kinds of animals.

On the other hand you might be good with a camera and enjoy photography as a hobby. A lot of pet owners would pay a considerable amount of money to get a nice picture of their pet or pets taken and framed for them. You could either set up a mini studio in a spare room of your home, getting people to visit you, or you could take everything with you and take the photos at their home. The second option is probably better since the animal will be in its own natural habitat, giving you more opportunities to get good pictures.

If you can paint good pictures then you may want to visit the owner and their pet and perhaps take some photos to give you an idea of how to paint the animal when you return home to do your work.

There are plenty of opportunities online as well; you could set up a website selling pet toys and items such as collars, squeaky toys, name tags and all kinds of other items. If you haven’t got the room to stock these yourself find a company that will dropship them for you.

Promoting your business is important both on and offline. If you have a dog walking or photography business then get some leaflets or postcards printed up and advertise them in local shop windows. If you can persuade the local pet shops to display your cards so much the better, as you will receive a lot of business from this direction.

This is the kind of business that will also develop via word of mouth. Start small and you will soon find new clients as you get more established. Ask your friends and family to spread the word for you as well, and you will soon be making plenty of furry friends!

96: Start A Local Restaurant Delivery Service

If you like getting out and about, this might be the opportunity you’ve been looking for. You’ll need your own transport and it can take a bit of creativity to set everything up, but in the end you can offer a great service to a lot of local people.

A bit of creative thinking goes a long way here, and it can really set you apart from any competition as well. There are countless ways you can approach this business, but you’ll need to keep on reading to find out what they are.

So you want to deliver food from local restaurants? Here is your first option. Some restaurants already offer takeaway options, but the customer has to come and get their food rather than relying on the restaurant to deliver it for them. If this is the case then you could step in and offer your services to people in your local area. Instead of them having to go out and collect their food, you will do it for them in return for a small payment.

Logistically speaking you could soon become quite busy with this, and you might even find yourself picking up more than one order at a time. You will also need a reliable car to use, since you will need to be quick and efficient at getting the food to the customer as quickly as you can (as far as safety allows of course).

But there are also plenty of restaurants that don’t currently have a takeaway option. Could you persuade one of these to provide that option if you were to provide the delivery service?

There is no doubt that good promotion will get you a long way here. You are offering convenience to the customer, but you can also offer one point of contact. If you can get a phone number that is really memorable and get it printed onto a number of leaflets that you can deliver round your local area, all you need to do is urge people to call that one number whenever they want take out food. They will tell you what they want and where from, and you will get it and deliver it to them for an additional charge. The big advantage of this for the customer is if they want food items from more than one place. All they do is call you and you do the rest.

Good advertising will help here. If you can, get some good quality posters printed with your details and that phone number on and get them displayed in all the outlets you are offering a delivery service for. People will then start to see the number and realize that they don’t need to go out themselves to get what they need.

Does this sound like the kind of thing you’d like to do? One of the biggest advantages is that it’s an evening job, so you can do whatever you like during the day. It could be an ideal time to distribute some promotional leaflets perhaps?

Don’t forget to leave a comment using the form below before you start thinking about this idea in more depth.

95: Start A Local Grocery Delivery Service

Would you consider paying someone to do the jobs you hate doing? You would certainly pay someone to do the jobs you cannot do yourself or find difficult to do, wouldn’t you?

While you may find it easy to get your own groceries there are plenty of people who aren’t so lucky. In these situations they would gladly pay a little extra to have someone do their shopping for them and deliver it all to their home. Essentially you would be providing a smaller, more local and arguably friendlier version of the large scale services offered by some of the bigger stores.

While you can certainly deliver groceries for people who find it hard to get out and about and carry heavy shopping home, you’ll also find a ready market in younger people who are pushed for time.

This can influence how you promote your services as well, since you will want to be visible to the people who are most likely to use your delivery service. For example, younger people are far more likely to be connected to the internet, so it’s worth investing the money to get a website up and running that people can see.

Incidentally there are also a number of organizations in the US that offer to help you in this respect, and for a fee they will provide a fully customized website and lots of help and advice on getting started in this business. The website allows people to actually order their groceries online, and you then deliver them to the customer. This is grocery delivery on a much larger scale though, as it could really take off – so make sure you are prepared to go the whole hog if you go for this particular option.

If running things on a smaller scale appeals to you, you could always start off on by promoting your services via word of mouth and professionally designed business cards stating what you do. For example you could focus just on your elderly neighbors to begin with, speaking to people you know and generally spreading the word to get your first few clients. Once you have got underway you can then start to develop your business gradually.

What are the requirements? Well as we’ve seen you can do without a website if you want to start small, but you may find a car is a virtual necessity if you are doing a lot of shopping for one or more people in a single day. You don’t want to be spending all your profits on taxi cabs!

As for personal traits you’ll need to enjoy getting out and about and meeting people – and you’ll certainly get plenty of exercise. This isn’t for everyone but if you aren’t afraid of a bit of hard work then it could suit you right down to the ground.

If you’re thinking about giving this a try, leave us a comment by using the form below. We are always pleased to hear from you.