There are many people out there who don’t like laundry or have no time at all, and starting a home based laundry service can turn out to be a huge profit making business. One of the best things about a home based laundry service is that one doesn’t require a lot of startup capital, and your job as a business owner is clearly cut. Essentially, you’ll be picking up clothes and washing them at home before dropping them off. You don’t even need a lot of prior preparations as most of laundry services require things that you already have. However, just like any other business, success is about being organized, and there are a number of things that you’ve got to put into consideration.

Work Location

Before you start, you’ll need to decide where you want to work from. You may want to design a special laundry area in your home, work from your clients’ homes or even collect and cart your stuff to the nearest location offering self-service laundry facilities. All of these options have pros and cons and you’ve got to decide which works best for you. Working from home for instance, gives you freedom to designate specific areas for different purposes such as drying during inclement weathers, a place for dirty laundry or for hanging stuff that can’t go into a dryer and so on. On the other hand, working from your client’s home could cut a lot of cost as there are a number of things you wouldn’t have to buy. If you plan to use commercial self-service facilities, you’ll need to have several options to avoid unnecessary delays, just in case some are overbooked.

Obtain Equipment and Licenses

Once you’ve decided where you want to work from, you should go ahead and acquire the necessary equipment and supplies such as irons, detergents, laundry bags and so on. You’ll also need to check with your state authorities to establish what licenses and registration or taxation plans you need to comply with.

Define Your Services

You’ll have to decide what services you want to offer your clients. These may range from washing and drying, ironing, pick up and drop off services, as well as folding and so on. You’ll also need to come up with prices of each service you offer. When deciding your price, remember to factor in your costs such as commuting, supplies and any other overhead outlays.

Advertise your Services

You’ll have to devise ways of taking your services to where consumers are. There are many marketing tools out there that you can use. You may want to start by marketing your services to your family and friends, neighbors and acquaintances. The other option would be promising to give free gifts such as laundry bags to a few of your prospects. Consider putting your contact details and other info such as your web address inside the laundry bags or baskets.

Decide on Payment Method

You’ll have to choose how you want your clients to pay you. Do you for instance want to be paid before or after performing the services? Would you want them to pay by check, cash or PayPal and so on? Choose methods that suit you best before getting into business.

While starting any home-based business may not be as easy as many people have thought, if well planned, it can make you huge profits and could just be what you’ve been waiting for to exit the rat race. If you like baking and everyone likes raving over your baked goods, starting your own home based bakery could get you to financial freedom. There’s nothing as pleasant as earning a living from what you like doing. However, to be successful in a home-based bakery business, there are a number of things that you’ll need to do.

Legal Requirement of a bakery business

When it comes to baking industry, whether home-based or otherwise, hygiene is the most essential obligation. Before anything else, it’s important that you check with your area’s health department, to find out whether home bakery businesses are allowed and what legal obligations you need to comply with. These may include permits, licenses, insurance and so on. Some states prohibit home-based bakeries altogether.

Bakery Business plan

Like all other businessess, a home based bakery business will require a a business plan. A business plan doesn’t have to be as detailed as those plans taught as business school, it can be as simple as list of expenses. On a piece of paper, draw to columns. on one side head it expenses and the opposite side head it projected income. Sum up all your expenses and the total should be written down at the top of projected income. The projected income should give you a target of monthly sales you need to make to break even.

Kitchen Modification

Before being handed the baking permit, the health and food inspector will have to come to your home personally to inspect your kitchen. Apart from cleanliness, sanitation and the way you store your food, it’s important to modify your kitchen area, creating a commercial area from where you’ll be distributing your baked goods.

Make a list of Goods you want to bake

You’ll need to identify the goods you want to be baking and selling to your consumers. There are so many types of events where you can sell your goods, including parties, birthdays, showers etc. Be as creative as you can. To be competitive in the market, you may want to offer new products or bake goods that are not commonly sold. The list of the items you want to bake and sell may also be a good description for pricing and marketing purposes.

Baking Equipments

You will have to buy bakery containers, which you can easily find at local stores. Alternatively, you can search online for food containers.

Website

Create a website dedicated to your home-based baking services. This will be useful for advertising your products and services, such as what you specialize in and how people can order for your baked goods. You may want to create an online store for ordering purposes. Alternatively, you can provide your consumers with a special phone number which they can use to place orders.

Marketing Bakery Products

Once you’re satisfied with all fundamental requirements such as paperwork, equipment and that everything is in place, you need to plan on how to get your products out to your consumers. To broaden your market, you can begin by utilizing locally available opportunities such as flea markets and farmers’ markets, where you can set up booths or promotional tables and give out freebies to your prospects. Make use of such forums and opportunities to distribute your marketing tools such as business cards and full info about your location and all your products. You may also want to give out order sheets to your prospective customers with ordering details and so on.

Lastly, consider marketing your products to the local restaurants and eateries. It may be involving in the initial moments but soon customers will be looking for you to place orders.

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.

While being a stay-at-home mom presents a rare opportunity of taking care of your kids, having time to run your home and so on, you’d also want to earn an income and even contribute to your family finances. Whether you simply feel that you want to bring in some extra income or want to kick start a long awaited entrepreneurial dream, there are a number of inspiring opportunities befitting a stay-at-home or a wannabe mom. Indeed a huge number of US companies operate as home-based businesses and a fair number of the most famous brand names were started by stay-at-home moms.

I’m not trying to suggest that it’s easy to find a good idea for a home based business. I receive a lot of enquiries from stay-at-home and wannabe moms investigating about the most suitable home-based business ideas. The following are some of the most practical work from home business ideas suitable for a stay-at-home mom.

Offer Assistance in Events Planning

Helping people plan events such as weddings, parties or other community based events can be a good point of entry towards becoming a successful entrepreneur. You don’t need a lot of experience to start. You can begin by offering light services such as researching on the best pricing of venues, bookings, making phone calls and so on. You can charge hourly or a fixed amount per project, depending on the type of an event.

Operate a day care Center

If you have some experience and passion about this field, you can apply to be licensed as a day care operator. Some of the requirements to be approved as a day care operator include minimum space per child, provision of meals and the number of children per licensed day care worker and so on. Many parents prefer taking their children to day cares operated in a home environment and if you can do a good job then this can turn out to be a lifelong business opportunity.

Start Your Online Store

You can make an income through selling stuff online. You don’t need a lot of money to begin. There are so many online merchant stores such as eBay, Amazon, Etsy among others and you can even start with clutter of stuff you’d want to rid of your home. Alternatively, you can source some items that are in demand from junk or yard sales or even from charity shops and resell them at a profit.

Make and sell Gift Items

If you are good at some arts and crafts and you can make some items such as gift baskets and you can establish good relationship with your customers, then this could turn out to be a perfect idea for you. You only need to be creative and keen on design and you can begin by selling your products to the local stores.

Start a pet Services Business

If you love animals and you wouldn’t mind offering a service for pay then this could just be another great idea. You can provide pet sitting, grooming, and dog walking among other services.

Write your eBooks and sell online

Writing can be fun, especially if you are an expert on something and passionate about it. Think about a problem you can provide solution for and nail down a book about it. Amazon has one of the best eBooks stores and it’s pretty easy to upload your eBooks there.

If you are senior or nearing retirement, you’d want to investigate some of the home based business ideas or work–at-home opportunities. Working at home can be a great solution towards meeting your retirement needs, such as supplementing your social security benefits or even financing some of the extras you’d want to acquire during retirement. Most people who are retiring or nearing retirement find themselves in a difficult financial situation and that’s why it’s important to consider having a workable home based business idea. The following are some of the home based business opportunities that can earn you a stable supplemental income during retirement.

Start a Home based Consultancy

You can turn your wealth of knowledge into a regular flow of income during retirement. As an expert or an experienced senior, you can help the upcoming entrepreneurs on how to start or operate their business. You may also want to offer consultancy to firms or small businesses that might be interested in your expertise and long experience.

Become a trainer

Training others is another amazing way you can use to translate your experience into an income. The best way to do this is through conducting classrooms or practical training in the field of your expertise and earn from it. You can also offer tutoring lessons online where you can earn an hourly commission. What you need are credentials from a college or university in North America and experience in subjects such as English, math, social studies and science. With such credentials you can simply access online tutoring opportunities by logging in to a site such as tutor.com and make from $10 per hour or more from home.

Engage in Network Marketing

Bill Gates once said that if he’d be given a chance to start all over again, he would choose network marketing. Indeed, if done systematically, network marketing can earn you a good residue income that can support you throughout your retirement. What you need to do is to choose between online and offline setups, pick a reputable company and a good product and begin looking for prospects to grow your business.

Offer Catering Services

If you like cooking, you can make some stuff and supply them to offices, possibly starting with your former office. You can also make and supply confectionery products to schools since many Kids love biscuits, candies, chocolates and so on.

Start a Home Based Franchise Business

Although starting a home based franchise business is a bit challenging, the advantage is that you will be working with an established brand name. It is easier to market an established brand than starting and marketing your unknown brand from scratch.

To succeed in a home based franchise, you’d need to do some research on a number of things. Apart from putting your home office in place, there are a number of things that you need to do to get your business running – like a business plan, getting a client base, settling on the businesses you want to do business with and so on. It’s important that you get in touch with groups that deal with home businesses and franchisees for advice. Some of the resources include The American Franchisee Association (www.franchisee.org), The National Franchisee Association (www.nfabk.org), for legal assistance, product and service knowledge and advertising opportunities. You will also be able to compare different business models and know where franchisee events are held around the country.