The event planning industry has grown tremendously in the last few years. If you have a passion about event planning or you’ve been working in the corporate industry and you want your own freedom, then this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Indeed, there are so many people who lack expertise or have no time to plan their own events and you could become a solution to their problems.

Event planning is about managing special events intended to achieve different purposes. Some of the most common types of events include:

• Celebrations – this may involve events such as weddings, birthdays, reunions, anniversaries and so on.
• Commemorations – involving events such as memorials and civic events
• Educational Events – such as conferences, graduations or school or college meetings
• Fairs and promotions – such as fashion shows, product launches etcetera

While being passionate about event planning or any other home based business is a great thing, being successful depends on number of factors. Here are some of the most important aspects that you’d need to have in place.

Event Planning Skills

To build a successful event planning business, you need to have a good grasp of the business. Your experience and skills will determine how far you can go.

• Communication

You need to build oral and written communication skills. You’ll be communicating a lot of stuff to your clients and audiences, both verbally and in written form.

• Organizational Skills

A good event planner ought to be a good manager. Make efforts to gain some management skills. You may want to take some management courses to perfect your organizational skills. Some of the elements you’d need to have a good grasp about include budget management and negotiation, marketing, public relations among others.

Determine your Clients

If you want to be successful in event planning, you’ve got to specialize on a particular category of events. Pick a category of event planning that you feel you’re strong in and run away with it. If for instance you’ve been a professional in the corporate scene, you may want to create a business through organizing corporate meetings and events. You may not be very successful by handling all manner of events such as weddings, corporate events, fund raising parties and so on.

Draw a Event Planning Business Plan

Like any other type of industry, event planning services require a good business plan. You don’t want to start advertising your services before you’ve developed a workable structure on how you want to accomplish your objectives.

Draw a clear network of who you want to work with. This may include your suppliers such as caterers, photographers or florists, depending on your market category. Make plans and structures on how to achieve administrative, marketing, accounting, legal and sales functions among others. You may want to have some staff to help you with handling some of the functions.

Business Insurance

Business insurance plays a major part in ensuring all your interests are well taken care of. There are various forms of insurance and you can always consult your insurance professional for the advice on which one best suits your needs.

Marketing an event planning business

Once you have everything in place, you’ll need to get your services out to the consumers. Develop the right means of marketing your business. Give your business a name, brand and use business cards, website, proposals and client agreements as well as other necessary literature

Transport services form part of the larger hospitality industry, tied together with other sectors such as hotel industry and golf resorts, tour business and convention as well as business administration. Running a taxi business is like operating a mobile office with you or your employees as full time attendants. It’s a demanding yet very lucrative and a rewarding business for those who are patient.

With US Bureau of labor statistics predicting that employment for taxi drivers and chauffeurs will rise to 20% by 2020, then starting your own taxi company is a great idea. The most important thing that you need from the outset is the right approach. To make sure that you get things right and consequently succeed in your taxi business, here are some of the things that you need to put into considerations.

Acquiring vehicles

Indeed, acquiring taxi cabs should be the first step towards starting your taxi business. You need to do a bit of research to establish whether there are specific types of cars required for taxi business in your city. Your insurance agencies should be able to advise you on these details.

Buying cars for taxi business is the single greatest startup cost, even where one would want to start with only one car. To cut the cost, you may want to start with used cars. This may help cut down the startup cost, especially where you want to begin with a fleet of cars.

Brand your cars

You’ll need to have the right trade mark for your taxi business. This may involve having your cars painted where you may have to include your personalized choices such as business name or attaching of logo, top lights for easier identification and so on. Remember to check with your licensing agency for what is allowed or not.

Meters and Electronic Dispatchers

Your car or fleet will have to be installed with meters. Apart from the cost of buying the meter, you’ll also need to have a professional approved by weights and measure department install them in each of your cabs. Other important equipments include communication gadgets such as cell phone or radio communication system.

Business Licensing

Depending on your county, city or town’s regulatory agencies, you may need to pay for business operating license. Some cities allow a limited number of companies to operate, where licenses are issued every year. In such a case you’ll have to apply and wait for consideration or alternatively, if you have enough cash and you don’t want to wait you can buy an existing medallion.

Insurance

Apart from the regular car insurance, there’s a special insurance for all cars involved in taxi business. In most cases the premium is higher than that of regular car insurance. Find out the premium required with your insurance professional or local taxi service licensing agencies.

Hiring Drivers and Dispatchers

If you have more than one cab or plan to have someone else operate tour taxi during the night then you’ll need to hire. You also need to hire experienced dispatchers to take care of your clients’ needs. You may want to conduct interviews and inquire about their conduct through reference from their previous employers.

With so many uncertainties in the job market such as growing unemployment, layoffs and curtailed freedoms in traditional office settings, many people desire to work from home. Christians too wish to have independence, financial freedom and time in order to serve God and attend to their families. If you are like many Christians, you might have thought of starting a home based business. But you may be wondering which one wouldn’t get in the way of your faith or compromise your devotion to God, especially when there are so many scams disguised as money making opportunities. Here are some of the most dignified ideas and strategies of starting and running a home based business.

Starting your Business

The first step towards starting your business is to conceptualize the idea. There isn’t really any difference on how Christians and other people start their business. The distinction lies in how you choose your idea and how you plan to execute it.

In your preliminary planning there are a number of things that you need to have in mind.

Business Idea – after making the choice of business you want to start, you may want to share your idea with family members and your closest Christian friends, such as your prayer partners or cell group leaders. Those who own small business owners may be of greater help to you. Your aim is to get their feedback or any additional suggestions. They don’t all have to like your idea. Some may even criticize or doubt your assessment. But remember this is your plan and you don’t have to be discouraged if they don’t seem to be as excited.

Business Plan

With your business idea in place, the next thing you want to do is to draw a plan. You need to know who’ll be your customer and why you think they need your product or service. The cost of your product or service, startups, business registration, insurance costs and so on. Then you’ve got to plan how you intend to deliver your goods or services to the consumers.

Will your product or service be distributed to the local stores, community or on the internet? For web-based products, you’ll have to set up your website or use online marketplace such as Etsy or eBay.

Suggestions for Home-based Business

Some of the ideas for a home based business for a Christian include:

Selling Ornaments and Crafts

If you are creative, you can make some handicrafts such as baskets, gift items, jewelry and so on and personalize them with inspirational messages or Christian symbols. You can also design and make other items such as greeting cards or even church cookbooks for fundraising.

Wedding Planning

Every girl dreams to have a wedding and people are always getting married. Being a wedding planner can be a great opportunity and you can even begin by helping those getting married in your local church plan their weddings

Make products and sell Online

There are many Christians all over the country and across the world looking for specific products. You can either create your own online store or sell through affiliate programs.

Join Christian based Affiliate Programs such as:

Disciples Cross – a Christian home based company where you can buy supplies and use them to make necklaces and sell back to the company or anywhere you want at a profit.

My Precious Kid – become a sales rep of a Christian owned company selling child ID safety kits.

Premium Designs – this is a biblically based direct sales company dealing with jewelry.

Many women have been turning to home based business businesses, not only for the purpose of gaining financial freedom but also to have more time with their children or family. If you are keen to find an ideal home business opportunity that can give you all these privileges then there’s a wide range of them, and new ideas are being developed all the time. Whether you are a professional and prefer running your business from a home office or you simply want to turn your hobbies, skills or talents in to an enterprise, the bottom line is that working from home has countless advantages.

Businesses based on Interests or Hobbies

If you are like many other women out there then you must have a couple of interests or hobbies – stuff that you enjoy doing for long duration, without easily getting bored. You can turn those interests into money making ideas. Some of the ideas based on hobbies or interests that you may want to explore include Handicrafts and Art creations.

Many women are gifted with high skills of fashioning art and craft items such as, cookie making, cake making and decorating, candy making, knitting, painting, photography, jewelry and crochet making and so on. If you have interest or some skills and feel that you fit the bill in one or more of these territories, then you can turn them into a home based profit making business.

Profession Based ideas

There are very many women professionals who are turning to part time jobs or home based businesses, citing numerous benefits and privileges that go with being ones’ boss. If you are a professional such as a computer programmer, tax advisor, accountant, apps and software creator or a business consultant, just to mention a few, then you can turn your skills into a profit making opportunity. You just need to set up a home office, begin to advertise your services and you’ll be surprised to know how many small businesses that may be in a dire need of your professional skills. You can provide your services from the comfort of your home and charge hourly, per project or even a monthly fee.

Entrepreneurial Based Ideas

If you are entrepreneurial inclined and you can create and market new ideas, product or services, then you fit into this category. You only need to look around and see what new ideas you can develop into a marketable product or service. It could be yoga, fitness or a bilingual class for kids or adults. Look around and find out what product or service is in demand. Think about a new idea that you can market to your neighborhood and the larger community and turn it into an entrepreneurship.

Online Based Business ideas

There are so many internet based business ideas that women can turn into profitable opportunities. These are jobs that you get to entirely work online such as blogging, freelance writing, technical and business writing, providing college essays, web designing and so on. There are several online platforms where you can sign up and start bidding for contracts, such as elance.com, odesk among others.

According to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there has been a growing demand for carpet cleaning services for both residential and commercial settings, a trend that’s expected to continue through 2016 and beyond. Every day foot passage, spills and common household or office accidents lead to dirty carpets after every short while. If you are looking for a home based business idea, then carpet cleaning services can pretty much fit the bill.

Advantages of running a carpet cleaning services business

One good thing about starting a carpet cleaning services is that you don’t need to have prior skills or experience. This is a business that almost everyone can do – men and women alike as long as you are reasonably in good physical shape.

Once you establish good relationship with your clients, you can be guaranteed to enjoy plenty of cleaning opportunities as most of them would require their carpets to be cleaned at least once every year.

What you need to know before starting carpet cleaning services

Gain some carpet cleaning experience

Although you don’t necessarily need to be an experienced carpet cleaner, it’s important to get used especially if you haven’t done it anywhere before. You can simply learn carpet cleaning techniques through working in a carpet cleaning company or taking some training programs. Don’t worry if getting such opportunities becomes difficult. You can still learn skills on job by first cleaning your family and friends carpets. If they’re happy with your job, then you’re good to hit the road marketing your business.

Draw a Carpet cleaning business Plan

You need to have strategic plan about your business requirements such as startups, estimates of what you require for your business and the projections for the future of your business such as expansions and marketing strategies as well as new opportunities.

Business Name Registration and other Logistics

Put in place all the logistics including legal requirements such as licensing, registration of business name – should you choose a fictitious name, and insurance. You may want to check with your local county administration on business licensing where applicable.

Branding

You may also need to set aside some money for advertising your business and other promotional material such as business cards, branding your vehicle, logos, website for marketing your services and so on.

Obtain Carpet Cleaning Equipment

Having done your scouting on all your requirements, your next thing should be acquiring your carpet cleaning machine and other necessary equipments such as brushes, detergents, stain removers, chemicals etc. If you are well organized and budget is not a big issue, you can acquire a powerful industrial machine and make arrangements for a vehicle for transportation. But you don’t have to start with heavy equipments. It depends on your budget. If you want to move gradually, you can start by renting carpet cleaners and plan for your own equipments later after your business has fully established. You can still use your current vehicle to transport your equipment. However if your business grows and you decide to have a team of staff and more equipments then you might require a company service van.

Expanding your carpet cleaning Business

To expand your clients’ base you need a good marketing strategy. You can make efforts to acquire a mailing list for home and business owners to advertisement with details about your services. Additionally make use your website to reach your potential clients online.

For those living in cities, urban farming is an exciting home based business idea. Urban farming is a lucrative enterprise, which, with good planning can provide you with an income of up to $100,000 per every acre farmed.

Before you get down to farming here are a number of things you need to consider:

• General knowledge on Agribusiness – understand the basics of farming as an enterprise
• Have a strategy – you need to know what, how much and how best to achieve it
• Choose the crop or type of farming carefully
• Market – do a market survey to understand what commodities are in high demand

Making profit with urban farming, just like with any other type of industry, you’ve got to be passionate, brave all types of weather and be prepared to work out for longer hours. Whether you have a big residential farm or a fairly small plot of land, you can turn it into profitable farming. According to a recent Census of Agriculture analysis, the farms with the highest production, based on cash value of crops per acre are either found in or around urban areas.

Although farming on small plots such as below one acre can still fetch a livable profit, many urban farmers using this method fail to make much out of it apparently for doing it the wrong way.

One of the best ways of utilizing small plots of below one acre is through a system known as sub-acre scale design. According to proponents of intensive small plot farming known as SPIN – Small Plot Intensive, to succeed in this kind of farming, you’ve got to allocate your land to different areas of production intensity. Ideally, this system requires that you have three different layouts – one area is referred to as the least intensive and set apart for one of the lower value crops per season. The second area is set apart for sequentially growing two crops of higher value per season while the third area is left for a sequence of intensive relays of 3 or more types of high valued crops per bed per season. The idea is meant to have the different zones fetch you various levels of income.

Depending on where you live and the type of urban farming you’d want to engage in, there are a number of options that you can adapt. You can use a backyard farm, a community managed garden plot or even where possible rooftop green houses. You can choose to acquire your own land, rent or even lease, based on the size your farming specialty requires.

If you are able to get a huge chunk of land, you can use it for different specialties of farming, based on the market availability. You can even turn some of your hobbies into profitable opportunities. Some of the areas you can try your hand in include Vegetables, flowers, mushrooms, fruits, herbs, ornamentals, fish, chicken and goat farming among many others.

The good news about urban farming is that there’s ready market as there are so many metropolitan consumers who have ready money, looking for what to spend money on, including farm produce. You can indeed tap this market and make a good profit working at home. Some of the places you can supply your farm produce include restaurants, farmers markets, supermarkets and food stores as well as selling directly at the farm.