Friday, August 15, 2008
Instant Moneymaking Part-Time Businesses
Introduction
You're on the road to success - Congratulations! You bought this report because you want information on starting a business, part-time at first, without investing a lot of money, yet one that will quickly be a money-maker. You'll find a number of
them here.
In each one we give the basic concept of the business, what product or service it provides to your customers, and how it is operated, and (if any are necessary) what equipment or facilities or help will be needed.
But whatever business you choose, remember that no business can succeed without your effort. remember that determination and hard work are the mother and father of success. If you supply those, and use the information we supply, you can't miss. Good luck!
1. Television Computer Pictures
Lease a computer printer and a video camera and a monitor screen that produces large-size, high contrast portraits of customers in 30 seconds, while they wait. You will find this a sure-fire crowd attracter, as the printer chatters away. Set upin a crowded resort are. Charge at least $4 a picture, framed in a simple mat, almost all of which is gross profit. Net cost of all materials, about 8 cents.
Hot source: The equipment to do this is available from
Sketch Division, 140 Wood Road, Braintree, Mass. 02184
2. Badge-Making
Rent a small multilith printing machine and a badge sealing machine, and using self-adhesive Presstype for typesetting, design and set cut sayings for the badges. Sell as a custom service, making slogans to order, or make a wide range of far-out sayings in bulk quantities and sell them to local gift and novelty shops for resale.
3. Run a "Consignment Shop"
It requires very little capital and accepts goods for sale from members of the public and sells these items for them on a commission basis. You might try a wide variety of items at first, to see what sells best and most regularly.
4. Picture Framing, In Your Own Home
Relatively inexpensive materials with a good sense of color and style and a reasonable ability with carpentry tools, will build a large custom-framing business, since people who spend money on art won't skimp on the frames either, if they want a good-looking result.
5. Rental Equipment
Be the source of supplies for do-it-yourselfers. Working only Saturdays and Sundays, when they do, you rent out power tools, such as circular saws, jigsaws, reciprocating saws, gasoline chain saws, electric drills, electric planers, belt and orbital sanders, routers, paint sprayers, wallpaper-removal steamers, staple guns, pumps, home cleaning machines, Roto-tillers, and other equipment for daily fees. Operate out of your garage.
6. Talent Bureau, For Kid's or Adults' Parties
Using local ads, or your own contacts, line up 10 to 20 local entertainers, magicians, comics, puppeteers and other talents, and supply them for parties, club meetings and other functions. Have a list of films you can also supply for the same, or other groups, which they can project themselves, if they wish, or you will supply an operator.
7. Throwing Parties for Profit
Everyone loves to go to a party, and nowadays some smart operators make a mint running them for everybody who wants to attend. You can too! Hire a hall and a band, plan to set up a bar (if you can get a temporary liquor permit), and promote the hell out of it with ads, handbills, bumper stickers and lamp-post posters. Special parties aimed at a particular group do best, such as singles, or under-thirties, or over-forties. This idea is especially good in college towns.
8. Start a Hobby Center
Make money on your unused space (and maybe the power tools you've already paid for!) Turn your basement into a woodworking center, your spare bedroom into a photo darkroom, and your garage into a pottery workshop with a wheel and a small kiln. Rent the space and equipment by the hour, expand into more hobbies as time and money permit, and charge additional fees for instruction in any of those fields you're good at.
9. Organize a Babysitting Service
One of the troubles most people find is that their babysitter is always busy just the night they want to go out. You set up a service, finding good reliable teenage girls and boys, middle-aged or older women, and act as a go-between, providing sitters whenever your customers want them, collecting the fees, and paying the sitters. Advertise your service, and handbills house-to-house locally being a good way.
10. Make Money From Your Hobbies
Are you an expert at something that you do at home for fun? Then make it pay off for you! If you're a gourmet cook, give cooking lessons in the haut cuisine. If you're an accomplished painter in oils or water-color, offer a portrait-painting service. If you're a skilled carpenter, design and make custom cabinets to order. Almost any hobby you're good at can be turned to making a profit if you think about it carefully, and decide who could use your expertise - as a consultant in that field, if nothing else. All you really have to do to get started is to place an ad!
11. Publish a Buy/Swap Paper in Your Town
Get money from both ends in this sweetheart deal. Publish the weekly paper with classified ads from the public offering stuff for sale, arranged according to category, and charge the people for their ads (some operators let them pay only if and when they sell, but in that case charge them a percentage of the selling price, 5% for smaller items, 2% or 3% for automobiles), and then sell the newspaper (suggest price is 25 cents) as well, through local newsstands and by subscription (in the mail). Once you have a fairly decent circulation, local merchants will also pay you for display ads, because they know people really read buy and swap newspapers religiously cover-to-cover.
12. Do Custom Photo Developing
Quality is essential, and speed is generally also required, although you can charge a premium for rush service. If you already have an elaborate dark-room set-up in your home, so much the better, but if not it can be fitted in anywhere you have room, the basement being ideal, since windows are not a requirement. You must be able not only to develop and print every normal size of film from 35 mm to 8" x 10" but handle enlargements up to a minimum of 30" x 40", and preferably 5" 8*" or more, and do copying both of opaque material and slides. An ability to offer retouching, restoration and coloring as well is helpful, even if you have to send that specialized work out.
13. Publish a Part-Time Jobs Directory
Make this a newsstand book, as well as offering it, with small ads, by mail order. List all the possible jobs people can get part-time, especially angling it at college kids on vacation, teachers after school hours, housewives with time on their hands, and moonlighters looking for part-time second jobs.
14. Run a Children's "Explorer Club"
Take kids on Saturday and Sunday outings. Ten kids each day, to zoos, farms, theaters, children's shows and sports events. A small micro-bus (rented and, or eventually bought) can be used to travel in. Many parents are delighted to have weekend days to themselves, even though it costs them some dough.
15. Be an Instructor
Teach whatever you know. Your trade, profession, cooking skills, a second language, woodworking, chess, photography, knitting, karate, bridge, auto repair, etc. People will pay for good lessons in these useful and enjoyable skills.
16. Run a Floor Scraping/Polishing Service
You buy or (at first) rent, a heavy-duty machine, and do the cleaning and waxing of fine, hardwood floors. If the floors are in very bad condition, machine sand them and them completely refinish them with modern super-durable polyurethane finishes.
17. Operate a Children's Hotel
This is sort of a "boarding house" for kids while their parent go away for a week-end or two-week vacation. Requires a large house, and preferably, a large yard or grounds, swings, slides, and facilities useful for kids. Must be done very responsibly and carefully. Also, don't take very young children (less than 9 or 10 say) because they may require too much dressing, feeding, etc.
18. Start a Mail-Order Business
Write a booklet about something people really want to know about, print a few hundred copies, and place some small ads. You'd be surprised how much money you can make. Sell modern copies of out-of-print uncopyrighted material or books. Or sell something unusual you make at home, providing that it is something really useful to your prospective customers. Or sell some of your ideas such as #2 badges, #37 genealogy, and others.
19. Operate a Xerox Copy Center
The secret of this is not just selling one or two copies of each original (although on a 300-page original manuscript, that can add up too), but using one of the latest high-speed high-quality mass-production Xeroxes so that you can compete with the guys operating those quick printing services, by turning out 100 or 200 resumes, letters, or circulars just as fast, and probably a great deal faster, for the same (or potentially less if you want to be competitive) money as they charge. This way you have two kinds of work, giving you twice as many customers, and twice the profit opportunity, and with the right location, a chance to clean up.
If you want to offer even more services, and have the space in your shop, as well as the potential customers, you can offer Xerox reductions (New York Times-size page down to 8-1/2"x11"), and Xerox copies in full-color, which are remarkably good. The color machine will also make color copies directly from 35 mm. color slides in one quick step.
Of course, you can consider using other brands of xerographic copiers, such as IBM, Kodak, Savin, Canon, Minolta or others, but although you may theoretically save money, make sure of their service policies, and that they have field servicemen in your locality, or you may find yourself stuck with a copier on the fritz for a week, which could ruin your business.
20. Be a Local News Correspondent
For big city papers some distance from your town. When an event occurs in your area you write the story for those papers (they have correspondents in many big places but not in most small towns or isolated areas) and they pay you for it. This is known as being a "stringer". If you're good with a camera, take photos to accompany the story.
21. Campground Store-On-Wheels
Use either a panel truck or a camper body on a pick-up truck chassis. Go to public park areas and campgrounds selling charcoal, paper plates, water-melon, ice cream, eggs, milk, bread, insect repellent, sunglasses, newspapers, etc.
22. Create a New Tour-Bus Service
Even in affluent America, not everyone has a car, and even those who do often prefer to leave long trips to a professional bus driver. and although there are bus tours offered to some familiar places, there are still so many interesting, even exciting, places people would like to go to, if they were offered the chance. Here's where you come in. You must be creative about it, and study all the six-State areas around your hometown, to discover some original and different places to travel to on day trips which will "turn on" your prospective customers, and get them to sign up.
The rest is easy. You get competitive quotes (from commercial bus companies) for a quality bus to do the round-trip, with a suitable stopover at the destination point (enough to do the sights, shop and maybe eat as well). Then you figure you tour price per person so you can make a profit even if the bus is only half full or so. Then you have a safety margin - and if you sell every seat you will do very well indeed.
Then all you have to do is sell. You put little ads in your local papers, paste up flyers wherever you can (supermarkets are good), contact local travel agents (of course you give them a percentage on what they sell for you), local hotel clerks, etc., and you also contact women's clubs, religious groups, fraternal societies, factory social organizations, and so on (they may take a whole bus, or even two, and you give them a special price, naturally).
23. Run a Pet Hotel Service
For dogs or cats or both. People will pay high fees to ensure high-quality care of the animal they love. Separate kennels for each animal are essential. Good food and adequate care and attention must be assured also. You can hire responsible teenagers to help you. Advertise with posters in pet shops, veterinarians' offices; and if they're cheaply available, get the mailing lists of local ASPCA groups and other animal welfare groups, as well as membership lists of dog and cat clubs.
25. Sell Second-Hand Kids Clothing
Children usually outgrow their clothes rather than wearing them out. So many families have such clothing left around. You collect it, paying nothing or as little as possible. Then you resell it; you can do the selling by ads, handbills or through your church or community groups.
25. Breed Tropical Fish
This requires only a moderate amount of space and a small investment in equipment. Properly done, it needs only a small amount of your time yet can make you a good profit. You can obtain your beginning stock from the large wholesale dealers. You can sell direct to consumers (the hobbyists) or to stores in your area.
Hot Sources:
Betta Tropicals Inc., 1310 Unionport Rd., Bronx, NY
Tropa Co., 1685 3rd Ave., New York, NY
26. Make Plastic Engraved Signs
All you need is a simple-to-operate machine that engraves lettering in various types onto sheets of plastic of many colors, finishes and sizes. Perfect for signs for merchants, banks, doctors, dentists, schools and colleges, private front doors, and many other uses.
Hot Source for the Machine:
New Hermes Engravograph from New Hermes Inc., 20 Cooper Square,
New York, NY 10003.
27. Sell Christmas Trees
Seasonal, but if you have the time in the few weeks before Christmas, can be a good money maker. Find a vacant storefront or lot, or space inside a larger building, where people pass by. But be sure to order a supply of trees enough in advance. And if you own country land that is not being used, consider growing the trees yourself. Your first crop can be ready in four years, with steady crops from then on.
28. Open a Rubber Stamp Business
Manufacture them in your basement. The materials needed are cheap. And the finished stamps can be sold to many people, storeowners, offices, individuals. You can market them by mail and through local merchants.
Hot Source: The machine and a financing plan to buy it are
available from: Rubber Stamp Division, 1512 Jarvis Ave., Chicago,
IL 60626
29. Camper's Equipment Rental Service
With urban living, the back-to-nature movement is growing and camping is becoming very popular. Rent out tents, sleeping bags, portable propane stoves, chairs, etc. Demand identification from customers and reliable security (keeping one of their credit cards is good).
30. Operate a Key-Safety Service
Each customer is sold a special tag to put on his or her key ring. It says "Drop in any mailbox" and has the address of a post office box that you rent (Don't use your home address for the same reason your customers shouldn't have their home address on their keys - dishonest people finding the keys will come prowling around). You assign each customer's tag a code number from a list that you keep. When someone's keys arrive at your post office box, you return them to him, for another fee.
31. Be a Used Car Buying Consultant
With a knowledge of cars, plus the proper test equipment (for checking the engine, transmission, brakes, font-end alignment, and chassis), you go with your customer to check out the used car he is thinking of buying. Advertise your service next to the ads offering used cars for sale. After a while you will get to know people in this field and you can pick up more money by acting as a middleman in sales between private individuals.
32. Sell "Loss Leaders" for Profit
This may sound contradictory but it isn't. Supermarkets aren't the only ones who use loss leaders. A good mail-order idea is offering a cute item (worth much more) for $1 in women's magazines, giving prompt delivery and including with it stuffers (ads with order blanks) for half a dozen more expensive items. The repeat business on the other items makes the $1 offer profitable.
33. Baby Items Rental Service
You rent everything needed for a baby's care - stroller, playpen, high chair, etc. When the customer's baby outgrows them you rent to the next couple. Of course, you must advertise, and also send direct mail pieces to all couples with new births (get their names from hospitals and newspapers and list brokers).
34. Operate a "Give a Party" Service
You rent out everything needed for a party: tables, chairs, punch bowls, table cloths, cutlery, and napkins. You can also supply waitresses and bartenders, finding them through agencies that supply temporary help such as Manpower. But if you can find good workers yourself, you can save the agency fee and make more money.
35. Operate a Miniature Slot Car Racing Track
In your basement (or wherever you can fit it) build a large and elaborate miniature slot car racing track (with a least 6 or 8 slots). Local kids, and often adults, pay you by the hour to race, using either your cars or theirs. To boost interest you can hold monthly contests with trophies.
36. All-Service Service
You line up the specialists in fixing almost anything, and take care of getting them customers by delivering handbills to homes and placing ads in supermarkets and local papers. They pay you 5% of every job refer to them, which can soon add up.
37. Genealogy for People Who Want Roots
You seek out the records in public or university libraries, county courthouses and elsewhere, as necessary, for a sliding fee, depending on the size of family, difficulties in getting information, geographic dispersion, and other factors.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
How To Start Your Own Day Care Center
There's a definite need for day care centers as more and more mothers of pre-school age children are forced to find jobs outside the home. This is due in part to the current economy, and unfortunately, to the high divorce rate, which means mothers who might ordinarily stay at home and care for their own children must seek income to help make ends meet.
Many experts expect the demand to increase through the turn of the century, and the popularity of this type of business to continue growing from there. They base their forecasts on the fact that more and more young parents have happy memories of the time they spent in day care centers, and the learning experiences they enjoyed. And again, there is the continuing need or desire of young mothers to work outside the home.
Profitable day care centers are much more than glorified baby-sitting services. Social researchers have found that the most important years in a child's development are those from one to six. Thus, the exposure to the world in which he lives, the instruction he receives, and the habits he forms during those years, definitely affect his ability to learn and properly ad just as he progresses on through his years of formal education.
For mothers of today - usually better educated than their mothers - are more aware of these factors and wanting the best for their children, are demanding the structured pre-school education and learning stimulation offered by modern day care centers. This is an honest desire of the mothers of pre-school age children - even those who aren't forced to work outside the home.
Another thing in your favor: Even though there seems to be a trend for many large companies to finance and operate day care centers for their employees in or close by their factories or office buildings, studies show that most working parents prefer to leave their children closer to home than where they work. Thus, privately operated day care centers in residential neighborhood areas should not be worried too much about competition from the few company operated day care centers.
The first step toward start-up of a profitable day care center is to understand what makes them profitable.
There are a lot of day care centers operating with full enrollments of 35 to 65 children, but just barely breaking even. This is generally the result of regulations imposed by the state government, causing exorbitant overhead costs of operation. Basically, you'll need facilities to handle 150 to 200 children in order to realize annual profits in the "before taxes" bracket of $100,000.
Check with your state and local government regulatory agencies. Many states require day care centers to provide a minimum area per child, both inside and outside the building, plus at least one hot meal per day. A licensed teacher for every 15 to 20 children, and even a licensed nurse on the premises may be required. Be sure to know the regulations in your area, and then design your business plan to meet these regulations.
Actually, you can begin by operating a baby-sitting service, by learning and expanding from your profits, and of course, through the long-term benefits of establishing a quality image. In fact, we recommend that you do start small - with a baby sitting service - and build upon your progressive successes. Unless, of course, you have half a million dollars to invest.
Once you're beyond the baby-sitting stage, out of your home and backyard, beginning to build a real day care facility, you might try locating in your church or one of your area's civic club facilities. Also, you should check out the possibilities of renting or buying a vacant house. A large ranch-style home with a large backyard would probably suit your needs at this stage. But be sure you have zoning approval from your city council before signing a rent lease and finalizing your plans.
You might find, if you have your business plan in order, that a church or labor union will sponsor your business, or even offer financial backing. Arranging some sort of partnership or sponsorship agreement with an established local organization will solve a lot of problems for you, not only in the area of space but in assistance with start-up costs and city-father approval.
Incidentally, a day care center is perhaps the ideal business for absentee ownership or a group of professional investors. Keep this fact in mind as you organize your plan and seek financing. See our business report, How To Raise Money For Starting Your Own Business.
Generally, a "shoestring entrepreneur" in this business will do very well to locate in a vacant convenience store, or even a vacant grocery store in a larger shopping center. The zoning will be in your favor, plus you'll have adequate parking space, and less expense in partitioning or remodeling the building to suit your needs.
Ideally, your day care center should be located on a main thoroughfare, with the building set back from the street. You should be on the right hand side of the street as the traffic heads towards the major business or industrial areas of your community. In larger metropolitan areas, this would be on the city-side of the "bedroom" communities. In smaller communities, you can locate just about anywhere except in the downtown area.
If at all possible, you should plan your facility similar to a hospital or motel entrance. This would be a driveway from the street to your door, usually under a covered drive-thru, with the driveway continuing back out to the street. Your long-term parking space would then be located in the center of the "U" or between the driveway and the street. You want to strive for the convenience for the parent in being able to drive right up to your door. She can drop off the child with only a few steps into your facility and easy access back onto the main thoroughfare.
Depending on your city sign ordinances and your finances, go all out with your sign. Advertise the name of your day care center, the hours you're open, whether you accept drop-ins, overnighters, or weekenders, and of course, your phone number .
The sign makers and advertising people may strongly advise you against so much wording on your sign, but in this instance, don't listen to them. Your sign should state all essential information, and serve to convince passers-by that you can handle their child-care problems whenever the need arises.
If you initially locate in, or through the sponsorship of a church or labor union, these people can assist you tremendously by including a mention of your services in their membership bulletins, and by passing out circulars or flyers.
You'll need to decide on your regular day care hours. Generally, these are from 6 a.m. through 6 p.m. You'll also need to decide whether you want to offer breakfast for the children. If so, you'll have to plan for a cook and food supplies for morning meals. We'll discuss kitchen facilities and kitchen help later, but the first decision must be if you will include breakfast. You'll already be set up with kitchen facilities and a cook because you will be serving a noon meal. If you do decide to offer breakfast for those parents not wanting to feed their children at home, you'll be able to add $8 to $12 per week to their billing. By buying your food supplies in bulk, you'll probably be able to realize some savings in overall food costs.
Mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks are required in some states, but even where they're not required, they are pretty much standard fare in most day care centers. Fresh fruit, cookies, and juice are the usual snack foods served in most day care centers.
As mentioned earlier, you'll definitely be providing a hot meal for the children at noon. This entails a cook, dishes, planned menus, food supplies in bulk, and perhaps even small size table and chairs. You'll also have to have kitchen help and facilities for washing the dishes.
These are just some of the important overhead costs you must plan for, and of course you will work to keep them as low as possible. As you should know by now, the greater your overhead, the more children you're going to have to take in, and the more children you take in, the greater your space requirements.
All profitable day care centers operate according to planned routines. The day is broken down into one-hour segments, with pre-planned curriculum, much the same as classes at a public school.
A typical day begins with a play period from whenever the children arrive until about 9 o'clock. For this, you'll need indoor sand boxes, toys and perhaps a family-sized television set. From 9 to 10, the children are separated into groups - generally by ages - and you hold a reading or story-telling session. The mid-morning snack time is scheduled sometime between 10 to 11. For the younger children, this might include a mid-morning nap. After snack time, a learning session is usually held. Typically, this is the time when guests are invited in to speak or entertain the children.
Work with your Chamber of Commerce, civic clubs, and city administration for guests. Children will especially enjoy visits by policemen, firemen and others who talk to them about citizenship, show films, and teach them about the things they do in the community.
You can also get upperclassmen at your local colleges to visit and demonstrate such things as drawing, working with clay, building with wood, making things out of paper, and hundreds of other talents or skills they might be learning. The important thing is to bring "outsiders" in to talk to the kids about what goes on in their world.
Noon to 1 o'clock is generally lunch time, and from 1 until 2 is another learning session. During this afternoon learning session, you might offer the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. These teaching chores can be handled by college students studying to be teachers, retired teachers, or unemployed persons with teaching certificates. It's not so much a session to teach proficiency as a time to stimulate interest in formal education. The basic goal of most day care centers is to instill within each child a desire to learn more about the world in which he lives. Thus, each child should be full of plans for "when I get to be six years old and start school, I'm going to..."
About once a week, your afternoon learning session should be a tour or a trip to some place that might be interesting as well as educational for the children. Again, you're making the idea of learning not only interesting, but an exciting ad venture as well.
These trips can be anything from a walk in your immediate neighborhood to loading all the kids into cars or onto buses and taking them to the zoo. Check it out first, but on the whole, you'll find most businesses in your area will welcome opportunities to show the children around their offices or factories. The same thing quite naturally applies to your city offices, fire department, police department, and radio or television stations.
On days when you don't have a trip scheduled, your "learning session" might be a film or program related to nature, particularly animals. The advent of the Video Cassette Recorder has opened endless possibilities in this area. Nap time and snack time will fill a period for younger ones, and books and quiet games will occupy older children who do not take a nap. When the nap period is over, they're allowed to play until their parents come by to pick them up.
Whenever possible, you should encourage the children to be outside during play periods. If you have lots of playground equipment, you won't necessarily always have to have organized games, but you will have to have a playground supervisor - someone to watch the children and see that they don't get hurt as they play. You can hire part-time help for this chore, perhaps from the local colleges, for minimum wage. If your city ordinances do not cover the specific age requirements of a playground supervisor, you might be able to hire students from your neighborhood high school. Select all the people you hire relative to their affinity with children and their dependability. Be aware of today's climate of extreme concern in protecting children in day care situations.
Your playground will require a fenced-in area. Drive around and look at the playground equipment in the playyards of your public schools and at day care centers in your area. You should have the basic sandboxes, swings, slides and jungle gyms but in this area you can be creative and original, provided your equipment meets safety standards.
Some states require that you have a registered nurse on the premises, but generally, the main things needed are medical information from the parents and a written procedure to follow in case of accident or illness. Basically, when a child is injured or be comes ill, you should take him to the nearest medical center, while another staff person gets in touch with the parents, and explains what happened. If the parent cannot be present at the medical center, all information should be passed on to him/her immediately it is available.
It's a good idea to have all your helpers indoctrinated with basic Red Cross first aid knowledge, and have a well-equipped first aid kit on the premises. As for any requirements relative to a full-time nurse, you should be able to hire registered nurses who are either not working or looking for extra income. You might be able to "hire the license" of a registered nurse. You pay a small fee to hang her license in your office, and she agrees to be available to serve your needs when you call.
Most day care centers are currently charging from $35 to $65 per child for a five day week, plus $5 to $10 more for the inclusion of breakfast, with another $l per meal when they serve an evening meal to the child. If you do not receive pay in advance, you can very quickly get "in the red." We strong suggest setting up your financial structure and clients' payment schedules with this in mind.
By having your customers pay in advance, you'll eliminate a lot of bookkeeping chores and time, the problems of collections, and you'll have operating funds with which to run the business. A point to stress when asking for payment by the month, in advance, is that because monthly payments are based on only four weeks of day care, they'll be getting a week of free service every three months.
Every profitable day care center requires a sharp manager or director. This person might be yourself, or someone you hire for the job. Regardless, this person will be the key to your success. The director should have an empathy with people, be an excellent judge of people, be sales oriented, and have an outgoing personality. As much as anything else, this person must have the ability to listen to, and really hear what other people are saying without the influence of preconceived opinions, or making snap decisions. This person has to have the success of yourbusiness in mind at all times, which means building and maintaining an impeccable reputation.
Your director will be responsible for the hiring and supervision of your other help and the budgeting, scheduling and overall day-to-day operation of the business. It is imperative to the success of your business that you have the very best person you can get in this position, regardless of the cost. A good director for a day care center will command a salary equal to teachers in your public schools, plus fringe benefit allowances such as free enrollment for their children and perhaps medical and dental insurance if you choose to provide group coverage.
When a prospective client calls to ask you about your services, you should explain how you operate, and emphasize your invitation for them to bring their child in so that the two of them can be taken for a tour of your facilities.
Once in the center, your manager or director takes the parent and child on a tour, all the while explaining to parent the advantages of the center's structured learning and play program as compared with everyday run-of-the-mill baby-sitting services. It's important to have the child along, because as he sees the other children at play, he will be drawn to them, and this will greatly influence the parent in deciding that your center is the right place for his child.
After the tour, steer the parent back into your administrative offices and propose enrollment of the child. Begin by asking where the parent works, what hours and if he or she ever has to work overtime. You then ascertain the hours they'll want to drop off and pick up their child.
Strict procedures are absolutely essential regarding the pick- up of any child. Frightening as it may be to contemplate, we have all read accounts of strangers (or non-custodial parent) kidnapping a child. Printed forms must be provided, and authorization signatures must be compared when anyone other than the legal guardian takes a child from your care. You will learn these requirements from your licensing office. Our advice to you is to follow them meticulously.
You should have a slickly printed, quality brochure showing your rates, your services, an outline of the curriculum, and a statement of your benefit goals for the children.
Check with a legally qualified person about the need for a contract. The parent will probably simply fill out a questionnaire-file card giving address, place of employment, medical information about the child, and place he or she may be reached in case of emergency.
Most day care centers accept all children between two and six years of age. And there are many nowadays who take infants from six weeks. Of course, your personnel in this situation will be thoroughly oriented in infant care, and you must ascertain if these babies are well when brought in to you. Otherwise, you put yourself in the position of "hospital" care instead of day care.
Generally, children aren't allowed to bring toys from home. You may want to allow the children to bring their own blanket from home for nap time, but if you allowed toys from home you would be opening "Pandora's box" of possible problems relating to sharing and ownership. In light of this, you will want a full complement of appropriate toys and play items in your center.
If you decide to include short-term baby-sitting services, a good idea would be to include within the layout of your facilities a small one-bedroom apartment for a live-in or couple. An older retired couple would be ideal, with the husband serving also as maintenance and handy-man.
Around-the-clock baby-sitting services, in addition to your regular day care center, can add tremendous and immediate cash-flow profits to your business, but correspondingly increase your payroll for qualified personnel. Such services would enable the parents to drop their children off in the evening, and leave them around the clock or over the weekend. There will generally be no need for any planned program because these children will be sleeping during most of the time they're in your care.
As you establish the image and reputation of your day care center, the parents in your area will be much more inclined to leave their children with you for baby-sitting duties. And because you are considered tops in the area of responsibility , you'll be able to charge the very top rate of the baby-sitting fee structure. Keep current with fees charged by other quality businesses similar to yours.
The demand for unplanned or emergency baby-sitting services is very large. Not too many day care centers are aware of this potential for extra profits yet, but the ones that are find that their incomes can increase by 30 percent or more! We certainly recommend consideration of this idea for anyone involved in a day care service.
Another area that could mean enhanced profits for you is bus or van pick-up service for the children. Of course, this would increase your operating costs (and consequently your fees) but the convenience of pick-up is gaining in popularity. You'll need a custodian for indoor and outdoor cleanup, and if you have access to a bus or van, he could be assigned additional duties as the driver. Some day care centers offering pick-up service for their children contract with local transportation services to provide this service. Be certain of the driving experience of your driver if you contract for this transportation service.
Most day care centers open with very little fanfare or advertising. Generally, even without advertising most are reporting 90 percent capacity enrollment within six months.
With grand opening fanfare, and a strong advertising campaign, you should be able to be at 90 percent capacity within your first six weeks. In an area where a severe short age of day care facilities exists, and with the right advertising and promotion, even sooner.
Your first step should be the door-to-door, hand-out distribution of a quality informative brochure. To save on costs, you can hire students attending advertising classes in your area colleges or even a free lance advertising copywriter to help you with the design and writing of this brochure. However, the bottom line should be that you have a good commercial printer do the printing on the best paper you can afford. All of this has to do with the image you're wanting to create, and the quality of the service the "buyers" feel they're getting for the prices you are charging. Don't skimp on your brochure - you're aiming at people looking for the best place for their children.
You should place at least a two-column by four-inch grand opening display ad in your local newspapers. At the same time, you should place similar ads in the local magazines and other publications catering to the working mother. Send along a group picture of your staff, and a story about your services with your advertising order. Phone the editors at your local newspapers, radio and TV stations and invite them out to your grand opening.
Be sure to place a "service information" ad in the yellow pages of your telephone directory. This should be the largest size you can afford. And remember that you need to make contact for a yellow page ad well in advance of the release date of the directory.
After your grand opening, and until you attain full capacity, continue to hand out your brochures at the entrances to the office buildings which house companies employing working mothers. Continue to run ads in your local newspaper, although these ads needn't be quite as large or run as regularly as the grand opening ads. Run an ad in the classified section describing your baby-sitting services.
At your grand opening, offer free refreshments for everyone. Coffee and punch for the adults, with juice for the children, and cookies for everyone. You should have members of your staff circulating among the parents to answer any questions and hand out brochures about the center.
You can begin small, and expand in stages with your profits. However, you must draw up a long-range plan detailing exactly what you intend to do, and each milestone you'll have to pass before proceeding to your next goal. In this way, you c an succeed and attain not only the ultimate business, but also the kind of profits planned at the start.
The basic, and bottom line secret to success with your own day care center will be your ability to hold your costs in line while achieving maximum capacity enrollment. You've got the plan, and my best wishes for success!
Many experts expect the demand to increase through the turn of the century, and the popularity of this type of business to continue growing from there. They base their forecasts on the fact that more and more young parents have happy memories of the time they spent in day care centers, and the learning experiences they enjoyed. And again, there is the continuing need or desire of young mothers to work outside the home.
Profitable day care centers are much more than glorified baby-sitting services. Social researchers have found that the most important years in a child's development are those from one to six. Thus, the exposure to the world in which he lives, the instruction he receives, and the habits he forms during those years, definitely affect his ability to learn and properly ad just as he progresses on through his years of formal education.
For mothers of today - usually better educated than their mothers - are more aware of these factors and wanting the best for their children, are demanding the structured pre-school education and learning stimulation offered by modern day care centers. This is an honest desire of the mothers of pre-school age children - even those who aren't forced to work outside the home.
Another thing in your favor: Even though there seems to be a trend for many large companies to finance and operate day care centers for their employees in or close by their factories or office buildings, studies show that most working parents prefer to leave their children closer to home than where they work. Thus, privately operated day care centers in residential neighborhood areas should not be worried too much about competition from the few company operated day care centers.
The first step toward start-up of a profitable day care center is to understand what makes them profitable.
There are a lot of day care centers operating with full enrollments of 35 to 65 children, but just barely breaking even. This is generally the result of regulations imposed by the state government, causing exorbitant overhead costs of operation. Basically, you'll need facilities to handle 150 to 200 children in order to realize annual profits in the "before taxes" bracket of $100,000.
Check with your state and local government regulatory agencies. Many states require day care centers to provide a minimum area per child, both inside and outside the building, plus at least one hot meal per day. A licensed teacher for every 15 to 20 children, and even a licensed nurse on the premises may be required. Be sure to know the regulations in your area, and then design your business plan to meet these regulations.
Actually, you can begin by operating a baby-sitting service, by learning and expanding from your profits, and of course, through the long-term benefits of establishing a quality image. In fact, we recommend that you do start small - with a baby sitting service - and build upon your progressive successes. Unless, of course, you have half a million dollars to invest.
Once you're beyond the baby-sitting stage, out of your home and backyard, beginning to build a real day care facility, you might try locating in your church or one of your area's civic club facilities. Also, you should check out the possibilities of renting or buying a vacant house. A large ranch-style home with a large backyard would probably suit your needs at this stage. But be sure you have zoning approval from your city council before signing a rent lease and finalizing your plans.
You might find, if you have your business plan in order, that a church or labor union will sponsor your business, or even offer financial backing. Arranging some sort of partnership or sponsorship agreement with an established local organization will solve a lot of problems for you, not only in the area of space but in assistance with start-up costs and city-father approval.
Incidentally, a day care center is perhaps the ideal business for absentee ownership or a group of professional investors. Keep this fact in mind as you organize your plan and seek financing. See our business report, How To Raise Money For Starting Your Own Business.
Generally, a "shoestring entrepreneur" in this business will do very well to locate in a vacant convenience store, or even a vacant grocery store in a larger shopping center. The zoning will be in your favor, plus you'll have adequate parking space, and less expense in partitioning or remodeling the building to suit your needs.
Ideally, your day care center should be located on a main thoroughfare, with the building set back from the street. You should be on the right hand side of the street as the traffic heads towards the major business or industrial areas of your community. In larger metropolitan areas, this would be on the city-side of the "bedroom" communities. In smaller communities, you can locate just about anywhere except in the downtown area.
If at all possible, you should plan your facility similar to a hospital or motel entrance. This would be a driveway from the street to your door, usually under a covered drive-thru, with the driveway continuing back out to the street. Your long-term parking space would then be located in the center of the "U" or between the driveway and the street. You want to strive for the convenience for the parent in being able to drive right up to your door. She can drop off the child with only a few steps into your facility and easy access back onto the main thoroughfare.
Depending on your city sign ordinances and your finances, go all out with your sign. Advertise the name of your day care center, the hours you're open, whether you accept drop-ins, overnighters, or weekenders, and of course, your phone number .
The sign makers and advertising people may strongly advise you against so much wording on your sign, but in this instance, don't listen to them. Your sign should state all essential information, and serve to convince passers-by that you can handle their child-care problems whenever the need arises.
If you initially locate in, or through the sponsorship of a church or labor union, these people can assist you tremendously by including a mention of your services in their membership bulletins, and by passing out circulars or flyers.
You'll need to decide on your regular day care hours. Generally, these are from 6 a.m. through 6 p.m. You'll also need to decide whether you want to offer breakfast for the children. If so, you'll have to plan for a cook and food supplies for morning meals. We'll discuss kitchen facilities and kitchen help later, but the first decision must be if you will include breakfast. You'll already be set up with kitchen facilities and a cook because you will be serving a noon meal. If you do decide to offer breakfast for those parents not wanting to feed their children at home, you'll be able to add $8 to $12 per week to their billing. By buying your food supplies in bulk, you'll probably be able to realize some savings in overall food costs.
Mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks are required in some states, but even where they're not required, they are pretty much standard fare in most day care centers. Fresh fruit, cookies, and juice are the usual snack foods served in most day care centers.
As mentioned earlier, you'll definitely be providing a hot meal for the children at noon. This entails a cook, dishes, planned menus, food supplies in bulk, and perhaps even small size table and chairs. You'll also have to have kitchen help and facilities for washing the dishes.
These are just some of the important overhead costs you must plan for, and of course you will work to keep them as low as possible. As you should know by now, the greater your overhead, the more children you're going to have to take in, and the more children you take in, the greater your space requirements.
All profitable day care centers operate according to planned routines. The day is broken down into one-hour segments, with pre-planned curriculum, much the same as classes at a public school.
A typical day begins with a play period from whenever the children arrive until about 9 o'clock. For this, you'll need indoor sand boxes, toys and perhaps a family-sized television set. From 9 to 10, the children are separated into groups - generally by ages - and you hold a reading or story-telling session. The mid-morning snack time is scheduled sometime between 10 to 11. For the younger children, this might include a mid-morning nap. After snack time, a learning session is usually held. Typically, this is the time when guests are invited in to speak or entertain the children.
Work with your Chamber of Commerce, civic clubs, and city administration for guests. Children will especially enjoy visits by policemen, firemen and others who talk to them about citizenship, show films, and teach them about the things they do in the community.
You can also get upperclassmen at your local colleges to visit and demonstrate such things as drawing, working with clay, building with wood, making things out of paper, and hundreds of other talents or skills they might be learning. The important thing is to bring "outsiders" in to talk to the kids about what goes on in their world.
Noon to 1 o'clock is generally lunch time, and from 1 until 2 is another learning session. During this afternoon learning session, you might offer the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. These teaching chores can be handled by college students studying to be teachers, retired teachers, or unemployed persons with teaching certificates. It's not so much a session to teach proficiency as a time to stimulate interest in formal education. The basic goal of most day care centers is to instill within each child a desire to learn more about the world in which he lives. Thus, each child should be full of plans for "when I get to be six years old and start school, I'm going to..."
About once a week, your afternoon learning session should be a tour or a trip to some place that might be interesting as well as educational for the children. Again, you're making the idea of learning not only interesting, but an exciting ad venture as well.
These trips can be anything from a walk in your immediate neighborhood to loading all the kids into cars or onto buses and taking them to the zoo. Check it out first, but on the whole, you'll find most businesses in your area will welcome opportunities to show the children around their offices or factories. The same thing quite naturally applies to your city offices, fire department, police department, and radio or television stations.
On days when you don't have a trip scheduled, your "learning session" might be a film or program related to nature, particularly animals. The advent of the Video Cassette Recorder has opened endless possibilities in this area. Nap time and snack time will fill a period for younger ones, and books and quiet games will occupy older children who do not take a nap. When the nap period is over, they're allowed to play until their parents come by to pick them up.
Whenever possible, you should encourage the children to be outside during play periods. If you have lots of playground equipment, you won't necessarily always have to have organized games, but you will have to have a playground supervisor - someone to watch the children and see that they don't get hurt as they play. You can hire part-time help for this chore, perhaps from the local colleges, for minimum wage. If your city ordinances do not cover the specific age requirements of a playground supervisor, you might be able to hire students from your neighborhood high school. Select all the people you hire relative to their affinity with children and their dependability. Be aware of today's climate of extreme concern in protecting children in day care situations.
Your playground will require a fenced-in area. Drive around and look at the playground equipment in the playyards of your public schools and at day care centers in your area. You should have the basic sandboxes, swings, slides and jungle gyms but in this area you can be creative and original, provided your equipment meets safety standards.
Some states require that you have a registered nurse on the premises, but generally, the main things needed are medical information from the parents and a written procedure to follow in case of accident or illness. Basically, when a child is injured or be comes ill, you should take him to the nearest medical center, while another staff person gets in touch with the parents, and explains what happened. If the parent cannot be present at the medical center, all information should be passed on to him/her immediately it is available.
It's a good idea to have all your helpers indoctrinated with basic Red Cross first aid knowledge, and have a well-equipped first aid kit on the premises. As for any requirements relative to a full-time nurse, you should be able to hire registered nurses who are either not working or looking for extra income. You might be able to "hire the license" of a registered nurse. You pay a small fee to hang her license in your office, and she agrees to be available to serve your needs when you call.
Most day care centers are currently charging from $35 to $65 per child for a five day week, plus $5 to $10 more for the inclusion of breakfast, with another $l per meal when they serve an evening meal to the child. If you do not receive pay in advance, you can very quickly get "in the red." We strong suggest setting up your financial structure and clients' payment schedules with this in mind.
By having your customers pay in advance, you'll eliminate a lot of bookkeeping chores and time, the problems of collections, and you'll have operating funds with which to run the business. A point to stress when asking for payment by the month, in advance, is that because monthly payments are based on only four weeks of day care, they'll be getting a week of free service every three months.
Every profitable day care center requires a sharp manager or director. This person might be yourself, or someone you hire for the job. Regardless, this person will be the key to your success. The director should have an empathy with people, be an excellent judge of people, be sales oriented, and have an outgoing personality. As much as anything else, this person must have the ability to listen to, and really hear what other people are saying without the influence of preconceived opinions, or making snap decisions. This person has to have the success of yourbusiness in mind at all times, which means building and maintaining an impeccable reputation.
Your director will be responsible for the hiring and supervision of your other help and the budgeting, scheduling and overall day-to-day operation of the business. It is imperative to the success of your business that you have the very best person you can get in this position, regardless of the cost. A good director for a day care center will command a salary equal to teachers in your public schools, plus fringe benefit allowances such as free enrollment for their children and perhaps medical and dental insurance if you choose to provide group coverage.
When a prospective client calls to ask you about your services, you should explain how you operate, and emphasize your invitation for them to bring their child in so that the two of them can be taken for a tour of your facilities.
Once in the center, your manager or director takes the parent and child on a tour, all the while explaining to parent the advantages of the center's structured learning and play program as compared with everyday run-of-the-mill baby-sitting services. It's important to have the child along, because as he sees the other children at play, he will be drawn to them, and this will greatly influence the parent in deciding that your center is the right place for his child.
After the tour, steer the parent back into your administrative offices and propose enrollment of the child. Begin by asking where the parent works, what hours and if he or she ever has to work overtime. You then ascertain the hours they'll want to drop off and pick up their child.
Strict procedures are absolutely essential regarding the pick- up of any child. Frightening as it may be to contemplate, we have all read accounts of strangers (or non-custodial parent) kidnapping a child. Printed forms must be provided, and authorization signatures must be compared when anyone other than the legal guardian takes a child from your care. You will learn these requirements from your licensing office. Our advice to you is to follow them meticulously.
You should have a slickly printed, quality brochure showing your rates, your services, an outline of the curriculum, and a statement of your benefit goals for the children.
Check with a legally qualified person about the need for a contract. The parent will probably simply fill out a questionnaire-file card giving address, place of employment, medical information about the child, and place he or she may be reached in case of emergency.
Most day care centers accept all children between two and six years of age. And there are many nowadays who take infants from six weeks. Of course, your personnel in this situation will be thoroughly oriented in infant care, and you must ascertain if these babies are well when brought in to you. Otherwise, you put yourself in the position of "hospital" care instead of day care.
Generally, children aren't allowed to bring toys from home. You may want to allow the children to bring their own blanket from home for nap time, but if you allowed toys from home you would be opening "Pandora's box" of possible problems relating to sharing and ownership. In light of this, you will want a full complement of appropriate toys and play items in your center.
If you decide to include short-term baby-sitting services, a good idea would be to include within the layout of your facilities a small one-bedroom apartment for a live-in or couple. An older retired couple would be ideal, with the husband serving also as maintenance and handy-man.
Around-the-clock baby-sitting services, in addition to your regular day care center, can add tremendous and immediate cash-flow profits to your business, but correspondingly increase your payroll for qualified personnel. Such services would enable the parents to drop their children off in the evening, and leave them around the clock or over the weekend. There will generally be no need for any planned program because these children will be sleeping during most of the time they're in your care.
As you establish the image and reputation of your day care center, the parents in your area will be much more inclined to leave their children with you for baby-sitting duties. And because you are considered tops in the area of responsibility , you'll be able to charge the very top rate of the baby-sitting fee structure. Keep current with fees charged by other quality businesses similar to yours.
The demand for unplanned or emergency baby-sitting services is very large. Not too many day care centers are aware of this potential for extra profits yet, but the ones that are find that their incomes can increase by 30 percent or more! We certainly recommend consideration of this idea for anyone involved in a day care service.
Another area that could mean enhanced profits for you is bus or van pick-up service for the children. Of course, this would increase your operating costs (and consequently your fees) but the convenience of pick-up is gaining in popularity. You'll need a custodian for indoor and outdoor cleanup, and if you have access to a bus or van, he could be assigned additional duties as the driver. Some day care centers offering pick-up service for their children contract with local transportation services to provide this service. Be certain of the driving experience of your driver if you contract for this transportation service.
Most day care centers open with very little fanfare or advertising. Generally, even without advertising most are reporting 90 percent capacity enrollment within six months.
With grand opening fanfare, and a strong advertising campaign, you should be able to be at 90 percent capacity within your first six weeks. In an area where a severe short age of day care facilities exists, and with the right advertising and promotion, even sooner.
Your first step should be the door-to-door, hand-out distribution of a quality informative brochure. To save on costs, you can hire students attending advertising classes in your area colleges or even a free lance advertising copywriter to help you with the design and writing of this brochure. However, the bottom line should be that you have a good commercial printer do the printing on the best paper you can afford. All of this has to do with the image you're wanting to create, and the quality of the service the "buyers" feel they're getting for the prices you are charging. Don't skimp on your brochure - you're aiming at people looking for the best place for their children.
You should place at least a two-column by four-inch grand opening display ad in your local newspapers. At the same time, you should place similar ads in the local magazines and other publications catering to the working mother. Send along a group picture of your staff, and a story about your services with your advertising order. Phone the editors at your local newspapers, radio and TV stations and invite them out to your grand opening.
Be sure to place a "service information" ad in the yellow pages of your telephone directory. This should be the largest size you can afford. And remember that you need to make contact for a yellow page ad well in advance of the release date of the directory.
After your grand opening, and until you attain full capacity, continue to hand out your brochures at the entrances to the office buildings which house companies employing working mothers. Continue to run ads in your local newspaper, although these ads needn't be quite as large or run as regularly as the grand opening ads. Run an ad in the classified section describing your baby-sitting services.
At your grand opening, offer free refreshments for everyone. Coffee and punch for the adults, with juice for the children, and cookies for everyone. You should have members of your staff circulating among the parents to answer any questions and hand out brochures about the center.
You can begin small, and expand in stages with your profits. However, you must draw up a long-range plan detailing exactly what you intend to do, and each milestone you'll have to pass before proceeding to your next goal. In this way, you c an succeed and attain not only the ultimate business, but also the kind of profits planned at the start.
The basic, and bottom line secret to success with your own day care center will be your ability to hold your costs in line while achieving maximum capacity enrollment. You've got the plan, and my best wishes for success!
99 Ways For A Photographer To Make Money
SPECIAL EVENTS
1. Photograph vocational school graduates
2. Wedding photographer
3. Photograph large parties
4. Photograph at banquets
5. Prom and graduation photos
6. Photograph fashion shows
7. Photograph trade shows
8. Wedding movies
9. Photograph new stores' grand openings
10. Photograph local performances
11. Commencement day photographs
PEOPLE
12. Take pictures of people mounted on ha horse
13. Make Polaroid pictures of seamen going abroad
14. Take pictures of people wearing special costumes
15. Photograph people on a fancy motorcycle
16. Take pictures of people in nightclubs
17. Take pictures on the beach
18. Antique photo shop - produce 1890's type portraits for the "nostalgic crazy"
19. Take ID photos
20. Take passport photos
21. Specialize in legal photography
22. Produce community yearbooks
23. Produce company year books
24. Produce composites for models, actors and actresses
25. Photo fund raising
26. Take slow-motion sports film for athletes
27. Take executive portraits
28. Photograph children on a pony
29. Take portraits of children in department stores or malls
30. A day in a child's life - an album of 30 pictures
31. School photography
32. Santa Claus portraits
33. Traveling industrial photographer
34. Illustrate manufacturers' sales manuals and catalogs
35. Illustrate manufacturers' sales manuals and catalogs
36. Public relation photos for business
37. Photograph store fronts
38. Produce progress photos on construction sites
39. Real estate photography
40. Produce illustrated promotional brochures for business firms, hotels, etc.
41. Interior decorator's photographer
42. Photograph in-store merchandise displays
ON THE ROAD
43. Foreign fashion photography for textile and fashion manufacturers
44. Photograph tourists in famous places
45. Summer camp photographer
46. Roving festival photographer
47. Sell scenic prints to gift shops and hotels
48. Offer personalized vacation photo packages to resort clients
49. Sell slide shows of interesting places or subjects
50. Build a mobile portrait studio in a trailer or van
51. Be a slide-show lecturer on different subjects and geographic locations
MAKING NOVELTIES
52. Candid keychain photos
53. Photo stamps
54. Color postcards for hotels or resorts
55. Exceptional color scenes for calendar printers
56. Personalized Christmas cards - with family portraits or photos of family home
57. Photo buttons
58. Photographs on coffee mugs
59. Photographs on shirts
60. Imprint a photograph of a child on the face of her doll
61. Photo sculptures
62. Bookends adorned with any desired photographic subject
63. Decorative photo plaques
64. Personalized photo matchbooks
65. Instant personal postcards by gluing Polaroid shots to blank postcards
66. Stationery imprinted with personal portraits
67. Custom calendars
SERVICES
68. A microfilming service
69. Photo duplicating service
70. Slide duplicating service
71. Restoring old photos
72. Producing filmstrips
73. Duplicating negatives to sell
74. Slide-titling service
75. Making offset negatives and plates
76. Collecting old photos to make into books
77. Making photomurals
78. Retouching service
79. Custom photo lab
80. Blowing up photos, on the spot
81. Photo oil portraits
82. Selling prints to photo agencies
83. Camera rental
84. Camera exchange
85. Repairing cameras
86. Teaching photography
MISCELLANEOUS
87. Making postcards
88. Publicity photography
89. Photographic essays for various publications
90. TV news freelancing
91. Selling news photos
92. Taking and selling peculiar photos
93. Selling local photos for travel magazines
94. Aerial photography
95. Documentary film making
96. Photos of human interest
97. Composing photo guides for tourists
98. Photographing accidents for lawyers and insurance companies
99. Photographing parades
Friday, August 8, 2008
Never Worry About High Gas Prices Again
By Nicholas Breen
Starting an online business can benefit you in more ways than one.
The economy is changing, things that used to work do not anymore.
Gas prices are continually on the rise and you have no choice but to pay for it, or do you?
If you never had to leave your house to make money or travel to work again, how much would you save?
If there was a way to make this possible within the next three months would you seize the opportunity?
Believe it or not, there are some people in the world today that would just let the opportunity breeze right on by.
These same people who fail to act on opportunities are also the people who often use the phrase " I wish I had more money" the most.
You can sit around and wish for something a million times, but until you begin to take action and start seizing opportunities, you will never have more money.
In this changing economy it is either change with it or suffer through it.
You can either make a difference, or complain about how you wish that things were different.
Who do you think will make a bigger impact, action takers or wish makers?
When you start a home business or a work at home opportunity you are doing your part to help the economy, and the world.
If you are reading this article you have been brought here for a reason.
Do not let this information go to waste! Either act on it right away or pass it on to someone who will use it.
It is time to make a change! Turn off the reality shows, stop complaining about not having enough money and become an action taker.
Inspire others to take action.
If you want a better life, go out and get a better life.
Wealth and success is a decision you will have to make. You have to choose to be wealthy and successful.
Successful people are not lucky, their passionate and driven action takers who will not stop until they become who they want to be.
To learn how to start making serious money online Click Here! and discover the secrets needed to create massive wealth and success right from home.
Starting an online business can benefit you in more ways than one.
The economy is changing, things that used to work do not anymore.
Gas prices are continually on the rise and you have no choice but to pay for it, or do you?
If you never had to leave your house to make money or travel to work again, how much would you save?
If there was a way to make this possible within the next three months would you seize the opportunity?
Believe it or not, there are some people in the world today that would just let the opportunity breeze right on by.
These same people who fail to act on opportunities are also the people who often use the phrase " I wish I had more money" the most.
You can sit around and wish for something a million times, but until you begin to take action and start seizing opportunities, you will never have more money.
In this changing economy it is either change with it or suffer through it.
You can either make a difference, or complain about how you wish that things were different.
Who do you think will make a bigger impact, action takers or wish makers?
When you start a home business or a work at home opportunity you are doing your part to help the economy, and the world.
If you are reading this article you have been brought here for a reason.
Do not let this information go to waste! Either act on it right away or pass it on to someone who will use it.
It is time to make a change! Turn off the reality shows, stop complaining about not having enough money and become an action taker.
Inspire others to take action.
If you want a better life, go out and get a better life.
Wealth and success is a decision you will have to make. You have to choose to be wealthy and successful.
Successful people are not lucky, their passionate and driven action takers who will not stop until they become who they want to be.
To learn how to start making serious money online Click Here! and discover the secrets needed to create massive wealth and success right from home.
How to Make Income From Home - Legitimately
By Truby Johnson
A lot of people are trying to make income from home, mostly via the internet. Of course there are thousands of legitimate ways to make income online, and then there are the not so legitimate ways. These scam artists who rip people off are no better than an everyday thief. We are here today to discuss the legitimate ways to make income from home, online. It's tough to pinpoint where I should begin!
Let's go with affiliate marketing. You can easily put up a website and/or a blog and be set up, promoting products as an affiliate and earning commissions in literally under an hour. A website costs under $10 to get and you can use many templates that have been pre-designed and are quite easy to set up to get your business up and running. Then, you can tweak your design more and more as you progress (and start to make money!).
A blog on the other hand, is FREE and you get your own web address and everything! Both Google, Yahoo and other search engines alike have advertising revenue opportunities for ANYONE with a website and/or blog. This means you can advertise your website with them if you want, but more importantly, make money from putting their ads on your site/blog. You don't have to be a popular website with millions or even hundreds of visitors, you can put up a blog five minutes from now and then sign up for a Google AdSense account and start earning money for clicks on the ads from your site. They give you a special HTML code to copy and paste into your site or blog and then ads that are relevant to your site will show up automatically. If your site is about weight loss, there will be ads for weight loss programs and you will earn money everytime someone just clicks on one of them. I know, it's too easy. This is just another way you can make income from home.
Finally,this is my favorite. "Writing articles." This is also a free method of marketing. It only takes a little time to write an article. All you need to do is do some research within your particular niche, and take some notes.Just write about the things that you've learned and put them in your own words. This will make your article unique. At the end of your article is what is called a resource box. Inside this box you will have the opportunity to promote whatever you have. As stated above, whether it is an affiliate product,website,or blog you are directing your visitors to go, the end result could very well be a way to make income from home. I hope this inspires you to look into starting an online business or a money making website/blog. I wish you the best!
A lot of people are trying to make income from home, mostly via the internet. Of course there are thousands of legitimate ways to make income online, and then there are the not so legitimate ways. These scam artists who rip people off are no better than an everyday thief. We are here today to discuss the legitimate ways to make income from home, online. It's tough to pinpoint where I should begin!
Let's go with affiliate marketing. You can easily put up a website and/or a blog and be set up, promoting products as an affiliate and earning commissions in literally under an hour. A website costs under $10 to get and you can use many templates that have been pre-designed and are quite easy to set up to get your business up and running. Then, you can tweak your design more and more as you progress (and start to make money!).
A blog on the other hand, is FREE and you get your own web address and everything! Both Google, Yahoo and other search engines alike have advertising revenue opportunities for ANYONE with a website and/or blog. This means you can advertise your website with them if you want, but more importantly, make money from putting their ads on your site/blog. You don't have to be a popular website with millions or even hundreds of visitors, you can put up a blog five minutes from now and then sign up for a Google AdSense account and start earning money for clicks on the ads from your site. They give you a special HTML code to copy and paste into your site or blog and then ads that are relevant to your site will show up automatically. If your site is about weight loss, there will be ads for weight loss programs and you will earn money everytime someone just clicks on one of them. I know, it's too easy. This is just another way you can make income from home.
Finally,this is my favorite. "Writing articles." This is also a free method of marketing. It only takes a little time to write an article. All you need to do is do some research within your particular niche, and take some notes.Just write about the things that you've learned and put them in your own words. This will make your article unique. At the end of your article is what is called a resource box. Inside this box you will have the opportunity to promote whatever you have. As stated above, whether it is an affiliate product,website,or blog you are directing your visitors to go, the end result could very well be a way to make income from home. I hope this inspires you to look into starting an online business or a money making website/blog. I wish you the best!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Want A Fair Shot At a Home-Based Business?
I have found the company on the web that will tell you without lying how you can become a successful advertiser. The neat thing about this home-based business is that you learn how to advertise for a web site that you don't even have to create! This web site provides income for the company that is teaching you how to advertise, but at the same time, you get a pretty good commission from the income that your site generates. To see what I'm talking about, visit my home-based business online at www.24cash.ws or www.24cashsite.com. You will not be disappointed in this business opportunity because you are guaranteed to get back your start-up costs as long as you complete the 14-point checklist that is easy enough for an 8 year old to complete.
Make Money Working From Home!
How many times have you heard that phrase, pitch, advertisement, or whatever? Lots, I'm sure. It is used so much because marketers know that staying home and making money is the fondest dream of millions of people.
And why not? Did you know that the majority of fatal heart attacks happen at 9 a.m. Monday morning? It's true. It seems a lot of people would rather die than get back to the old grind after a weekend of freedom.
So when someone offers an opportunity or plan for you to take your job and shove it, yet still make enough money to live and pay all your bills, it sounds blissfully irresistible.
Of course, bliss and reality are always two different things. Is it really possible to run a business from your own home that is more than a hobby or source of part-time income? Can you get rich working out of your own home? Can you really trade your cubical and necktie for blue jeans and the comfort of your own den?
Well, for your information, home-based businesses are one of the fastest growing kinds of enterprises in America today. As this is being written, some 40 million Americans are doing at least some form of work out of their homes, and the numbers are rising rapidly. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, as many as 70 million people will be working out of their homes by the year 2005. Government studies have indicated that as much as 75% of all work done in this country could eventually be moved home.
The overwhelming majority of home workers, however, are not exactly getting rich. The average work-at-home American earns less than $15,000 per year. That may not be bad as a supplement to a spouse's full-time income, but let's face it, fifteen grand in and of itself is not much better than poverty.
As master marketer and author Dr. Jeffrey Lant said: "Frankly, I never saw any benefit to staying home and being poor."
Lant, without so much as a business card, became a work-at-home millionaire, and is a perfect example of what truly can be achieved if you are serious about chucking your day job, staying home, and not settling for peanuts in exchange for your freedom. You can have it all -- you can stay home and make as much -- and more -- money than your current job provides you.
In this report, we are going to outline and discuss five key rules on how
to work at home and make big bucks, no matter where you live. After these
five rules, we'll talk about the most important aspect of any business,
whether it be home-based or a giant factory -- cash flow. Starting your
own business out of your home is all about attitude and inspiration, but
all the attitude in the world won't help you without money!
1. It Takes Commitment
Is it any secret in America that most people detest their jobs? Study after study proves that most people simply dread going to work Monday morning, and they live for the freedom of the weekend. But even that freedom is not pure because we know that it is only temporary. It's hard to enjoy a Sunday evening when the Monday morning alarm clock is just a few hours away.
It makes sense that people hate their jobs. Everyday, there is a lot of butt kissing that needs to be done. There are endless meetings which usually accomplish nothing. There are pointless interruptions, a lot of drifting this way and that, and lot of idiot supervisors who do nothing but waste your time and then dog you for not accomplishing your share of work. There are co-workers you hate, and who would stab you in the back in a minute if it meant a raise for them instead of you.
When you work for someone else, you live a regimented life. Your body may not want to get up at 7 a.m., but you have to be at work by 8 a.m. so you lurch out of bed with a head full of sleep.
People who choose to work at home are doing more than just escaping the yoke of their master; they have made a deep, firm, life-altering decision which says that health, happiness and prosperity depend vitally on the freedom to work for ourselves, and in doing so in the comfort of the home.
We want to really emphasize that fact that to be successful in a work-at-home situation, you have to be nothing less than a fanatic; a zealot, who is utterly committed to making work-at-home not only a successful venture, but a profound commitment for life. You must be convinced that a return to an outside office job would be the equivalent of a spiritual death sentence.
Many people hate their office jobs, but they have made an inner compromise with themselves. They have convinced themselves that their job is "not so bad," pays the bills, and that they can stick out because they have to.
If you want to be truly successful at quitting your day job, there cannot be any room for such compromises in your soul. You have to take the attitude that to work any longer at your hateful job is akin to fouling your inner being with a spiritual cancer the will sicken and kill you.
2. Eliminating the Home-Office Mentality
To move our work home, however, does not mean we eliminate every single thing about the traditional American office. Rather, we should select what is useful and what is not.
It's a mistake to quit your job and go home with a "home-office" mentality. By this we mean thinking small, and believing that you will automatically sacrifice a decent income in exchange for your freedom. Please! Do not think small!
To quote Jeffrey Lant again: "Too many home-based practitioners fail to understand the benefits that accrue because of the professional style they have selected. They focus on the "home" part of the business rather than the "business" portion, and as a result are doomed to small incomes." Working at home provides many benefits. We can save a lot of time because we don't need to commute and we have more control over our schedule. We can save a lot of costs because we don't have the overhead requirements of larger businesses. We can cut our stress -- and so have more energy -- because we avoid many of the characteristic problems of life in the late 20th-Century office. We must work these advantages to our profit.
3. Your International Headquarters
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant said that if you sit at home alone at your empty kitchen table, eventually, the "whole world will come to you."
Well, today you don't need the great mind of a philosopher to make the entire world come into your living room. What you need is a phone jack.
We live in a unique time in history. Satellites, fiber optics, the integrated circuit and other communications miracles means that you can be just about anywhere in the developed world and establish communication with anyone.
The telephone, the fax machine, the computer, the modem -- all of these are not only affordable by any middle-class citizen; they are the key to eliminating your need to drive a hectic freeway everyday to get to a place of business outside your home.
With these devices at our disposal, we should allow ourselves to "think globally." Too often, home-based businesses focus on the narrowest market, the neighborhood, the county, the city or state. This is fine if you are providing a local service and are content with a certain moderate level of income. But if you want the big bucks, you should not think small. Also, you should not believe that, just because you are home-based, you cannot compete with the big guys.
The purpose of any business is to seek assess and seek out every possible market for its products and services, to ascertain whether these markets have the ability to buy these products/services, to determine whether there is sufficient profit in these markets to warrant approaching them, and, once positive assessment has been made, to launch a sustained marketing campaign that gets a significant percentage of this market to purchase the product or service in question.
Your home telecommunications machines will not only enable you to do this, but they can also help you overwhelm larger, more cumbersome traditional businesses that are your competition.
As a home-based entrepreneur, you will not have all of the disadvantages of your more traditional competitors: no office rent, equipment or expense; no employees to pay salaries and fringe benefits for; no time wasted on meetings, employee problems, paid sick leave, etc.
All the money your competitors spend on heating the office and buying furniture could better be spent on the actual marketing itself.
As a home-based business, you will be already positioned where the traditional business is currently struggling to move: toward the lowest possible overhead and the greatest possible concentration of dollars on products/service development and product/service marketing.
So, a home-based business takes full advantage of three major goals of modern business success:
(1) Vastly reduced overhead
(2) Easy access to a global market
(3) Full advantage of telecommunications.
To not have the basic telecommunications toys -- computer, modem, fax, and telephones is impossibly stupid. Still, even in this day and age, many of people strongly resist the one element that is undoubtedly the heart and brain of any successful home business -- the computer. The computer is so important in fact, we have made it a category all itself.
And remember, learning to use a modern computer is easier than learning to drive a car, so you have no excuse not to plunge forward.
4. The Computer
You should pay close attention to what computers can do for you in your plans to escape your job and make your work-at-home dreams come true.
People who want to run a home business usually have a very small staff -- in fact, a staff of one -- yourself! The rest of your needs are handled by independent contractors, depending on the kind of business you are in and the services you need.
To run a serious, truly global home business, a computer is as necessary as oxygen is to life on earth. Those who try to fool themselves into thinking they will ever make a serious go of their home-based business without a computer are sadly mistaken.
Computers give you two primary advantages:
(1) They enable you to store large amounts of data and to sort by data field so that you can easily get the information you need.
(2) They enable you to develop a pattern document for every situation you'll ever be in in your business. To run a home-based business successfully, you must anticipate just what situation will emerge and prepare accordingly.
A business is based on a characteristic series of situations and a characteristic set of things that happen -- or that do not happen. You must be prepared with the proper document for each situation. Once you have established all the protocols, and have experienced all the situations associated with your kind of business, the time will come when running your business is, in large part, a repetition of certain key tasks. Computers are all about handling repetition swiftly and efficiently.
But the computer is much more. Today, by connecting a computer to the phone line with a modem, your machine becomes more than a data storage system and repetitive task handler. It becomes a multi-task, multi-level communications processing center that connects you to the globe.
Such things as e-mail, on-line services, the Internet, the Web and more can't help but revolutionize the way business is done. If you do not become a part of it today, you certainly are going to suffer for it greatly in the near future.
If there is an effective way to market products on the Internet or any other on-line venue, no one has truly discovered it yet. The only people making money on Internet marketing are the people who are selling the concept of doing it. If you have a product or a service and expect to reach millions of buyers through computer screens, you are sadly mistaken.
The Internet is definitely where a lot of innovative things are happening. It's a great place to exchange ideas, find out what hot, what's not, and stay on the cutting edge whatever your particular business is.
5. Your Business Hours
If you've been paying attention to the first four points, you're well on your way to becoming a successful home-based business owner. Now we don't want you to blow it by thinking you can keep banker's hours.
The global market is a 24-hour per day market, and a 365-day per year market. Let the others sleep late on Saturdays and take Sundays off. Those times could be your day to move and corner loads of customers that the others miss.
You should get up earlier and quit work later. You should be open for business on holidays and be available 24-hours a day either personally or through your answering service.
"But wait a minute!" you might be thinking at this point! "I thought that working at home was all about freedom and an end to drudgery. This sounds like nothing but endless work!"
Well, here's the thing. For most of you who quit your regular jobs to go to work for yourself, you'll discover something magical. You'll discover that when you are working for yourself, when you are building your own business, a lot of what you does not seem like work at all.
The great writer Jane Roberts said, "Inspiration is its own motivator."
Running your own business is all about being inspired 24-hours-a-day. When yo stop selling your body and soul to some company or corporation and start giving your energy to yourself, work has a way of turning into inspiration and play.
The perfect work for you is that which you don't think of as work, yet doing it makes money and provides you with the bread and shelter of life. You'll see what it's like if you make a true commitment to being self employed, put all your energy into it, and stick with it for the long run.
69 Ways to Make Money Without Leaving Home
1. Service Businesses: Things you do for others; repairs, cleaning, child care, etc.
2. Products You Sell to Others; Business cards, names, shoes (715-723-1871).
3. Products You Can Make and Sell to Others: handicrafts, ceramics, jewelry.
4. Advertising Representative: sell ad space in publications of others, charge % fee.
5. Alternations, Sewing, Cleaning: Sewing, cleaning, anything to do with clothing and what people wear.
6. Auto Work: Repairs, cleaning, polishing, tune-ups, etc.
7. Baking: Cakes, cookies, candies, etc.
8. Baking, Cooking Classes: Teach people what you know about baking, cooking, etc.
9. Bookkeeping, Accounting: Help others keep their books, accounting (800-223-4542)
10. Broker Services: Offer products and services of others to YOUR customers as a broker.
11. Business Consultant: Help others in running their businesses, guidance, etc.
12. Business Skills Class: Teach others how to run a business, how to make and save money.
13. Childbirth Classes: teach new parents all they need to know, what to do and how.
14. Closeout and Odd Lot Items:Locate items that are not moving, buy at a discount.
15. Computer Services:Secretarial; services, typing, resumes, reports, manuscripts, etc.
16. Computer Training: Teach people what you know about computers.
17. Craft Instruction: Teach people what you know about craft-making.
18. Dancing Lessons: Aerobic classes;popular dances, teach in your home, etc.
19. Dealerships: Sell programs and plans of others, sell their products, etc.
20. Discount Printing: Contact small printers offer their services to others.
21. Distribution of Flyers, Circulars: Do it by mail for clients, charge a fee.
22. Editing Advisor:Read manuscripts, reports. Edit them, re-word sections before publications.
23. Equipment Repair: Take in all kinds of appliances and equipment. Service and repair them.
24. Financial Services: Take in all kinds of appliances and equipment. Service and repair them.
25. Freelance Writing: Articles, Dramas, Poems,etc.
26. Garden Goods for Sale: Sell corn, potatoes, flowers, melons, etc.
27. Ghost Writing: Sell your "way with words" to others; help them to get it in print!
28. Gift Ideas, Wrapping: People need help in these areas and will pay for that help.
29. Hair Salon: Washing, Cutting, Styling, Coloring, Perms, etc.
30. Hair and Beauty Classes: Teach make-up techniques, hair styling; cutting,cutting, etc.
31. Hobby, Gift Ideas: There are thousands of different items you can sell.
32. How-to and Money-Making Books/Plans.
33. Import/Export: Learn from the pros; give it a try; buy low there, sell high here!
34. Issue Your Own Publication or Newsletter: Charge ad rates, Subscriptions, etc.
35. List People for a Fee: Offer to list their name as wanting something, charge a fee; etc.
36. Laundry Service: Washing, Ironing, folding, etc.
37. Locator Service: Locate Jobs, Bargains, sources, discounts, buyers, etc.
38. Mail Forwarding Service: Offer to forward mail, receive it at you address for others.
39. Mailing List Service: Compile and sell your customer names; rent and sell their names.
40. Mail-order Classes: teach people how to make money; save money; get rich, etc.
41. Multi-Level Opportunities: It's possible to make money this way, if you get enough people.
42. Parties in Your Home: Help others plan and hold them, charge a fee, be a clown, etc.
43. Pet Care: Training, Grooming, Boarding. Pets inn, (800-248-PETS)
44. Phone and Answering Machine: Telephone Soliciting; Answering.
45. Photo Studio in Your Home: If you like photography; have camera; dark room, etc.
46. Piano & Music Instruction: Teach pupils in your home; teach what you know.
47. Plant Care; Rental: Take in plants, care for them. Gardener's Supply, (802-863-4798)
48. Publicity Service: Help others get the publicity they need, news releases.
49. Publish a Cook Book: Get help from cooks; offer to list their recipes. Charge per book.
50. Reminder Service: Remind people about important dates, events, using cards, phone, etc.
51. Rental Service: If you got it, rent it!. A backyard, a patio, shrubs, tools.
52. Reading, Reviewer: People are too busy to read all they need to; charge them for summary.
53. Researcher: Charge a fee to research a subject; charge for a written report.
54. Scholarship Assistance: Help students get financing. School Services (609-727-1700).
55. Self-Improvement Classes: Teach people what you know about losing weight; etc.
56. Sell By Mail Order: Ad specialties; Booklets; Reports, etc.
57. Sharpening Service: Take in saws, knives to be sharpened, etc.
58. Speaking, Reading, Recording: Sell your talents as speaker, reader, on tapes for the blind.
59. Start a Club: Sell Memberships in it; Charge monthly dues, issue a newsletter, etc.
60. Tapes - Videos: Buy in lots; sell; re-buy; resell.
61. Teach Various Subjects: Classes can be on How to do something, How to stop smoking, etc.
62. Tutoring: In-home Teaching; help students to catch-up; improve skills, etc.
63. Used whatever Store: Have used items for sale, take in; sell, re-buy, re-sell.
64. Wedding Planner: Help young couples to plan theirs; what to order, when, etc.
65. Weight Loss Classes: How to lose weight; exercise; Diet, weight loss (313-553-2626).
66. Wholesalers; Sources of Supply: Publishers: Get their names, contact them for info.
67. Woodworking: Carpentry; Antique rebuilding; Repairs.
68. Write and Sell Books and Reports: Type up, copy and sell your own; sell works of others.
69. Yard, Garage Sales: Sell what you no longer need or want; people will buy your junk!
Best Business Opportunities On The Web
Learn how to make money with the Global Cash Flow Network team! You will be coached by the best and can become the best businessman or businesswoman all from home. Start making money from home now. Learn how it's done the real way--THIS NOT A SCAM. Visit my 24 Hour Web Cash Site located at the easy-to-remember website www.24cash.ws or call 1-800-719-8268 Extension 22857 today!
One of the neat things about the Global Cash Flow Network program is the We-Pay-You-Back Program. All you do is complete the checklist of actions enclosed in the program materials. After doing this, you can receive a check or credit for the full amount of your tuition! Sign up today.
Market to customers of the internet's biggest companies (Google, Amazon, and eBay), you can make money around the clock - GUARANTEED!
Click here to visit the site where you can fill out a simple form and take the first step to becoming a Certified Media Placement Specialist.
One of the neat things about the Global Cash Flow Network program is the We-Pay-You-Back Program. All you do is complete the checklist of actions enclosed in the program materials. After doing this, you can receive a check or credit for the full amount of your tuition! Sign up today.
Market to customers of the internet's biggest companies (Google, Amazon, and eBay), you can make money around the clock - GUARANTEED!
Click here to visit the site where you can fill out a simple form and take the first step to becoming a Certified Media Placement Specialist.
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