Idea for business at home

Earn Money from Your Hobby

2012-03-30T08:56:00.001-07:00

Earn Money from Your Hobby

Many of us have hobbies that we are passionate about. But wouldn't it be great if our hobbies also earn for us some money? Here are profiles of three women who turned their hobbies into successful home business.

It's great to delve into an interesting hobby such as artwork, photography, or crafting paper jewelry. It's even more exciting (and financially rewarding) to turn your special talents into a successful home-based business. That's exactly what Mary Maturi of Cleveland Ohio, Leslie Croyle of Bay Village, Ohio, and Marlene Stephenson of Virginia, Minnesota, did. Each turned her hobby into a cash-generating business complete with paying customers and a bank account.

These aren't isolated stories. Men and women across the country are joining the ranks of entrepreneurs converting hobbies into money-paying propositions. It's important to note that none of these women originally planned to start a business. On the contrary, interest by others in their hobbies convinced them to sell their work.

Mary Maturi's Killer Whales

Mary Maturi markets a line of "Killer Whale" petroglyph tee-shirts, sweat shirts, and note cards both in Alaskan gift shops and in natural history museums in the lower forty-eight states.

It all started when Mary and her family spent a year living in Wrangell, a small town located on Wrangell Island in southeast Alaska. One day Mary ventured down to Petroglyph Beach on the island. Petroglyphs are ancient rock carvings left by an unknown people. Using rice paper and different colored ferns, Mary "rubbed" the petroglyphs to capture their images on paper. When others saw her rubbings, they offered to buy them.

"Peoples interest really surprised me, so I thought of other ways to share the uniqueness of the petroglyphs with out having to deal with their awkward size (some were several feet in length). That's how the "Killer Whale" notecards were born," Mary says. Using her rubbings as a guide, she created smaller scale pen and ink drawings which she took to a printer to get price quotes for paper, printing and envelopes."

The major cost of printing is making the plates. Therefore, it's wise to get price quotes for different runs of 1,000," says Mary. For example, a run of 3,000 cards might cost around 10 cents per card while a run of 6,000 note cards could drop that per unit cost below 8 cents per card. That decreases your card cost by more than 20 percent - quite a savings. Mary also recommends getting bids from several suppliers or even splitting up the order.

While printers know how to price their printing competitively, they don't make their own envelopes. Mary uses the least costly printer that can deliver the quality of paper stock she desires, but buys her envelopes from a warehouse specialist at a savings of nearly 35 percent from prices quoted by printers and other envelope suppliers. It pays to let your fingers do the walking and get competitive quotes.

Once Mary obtained the cost estimates, she visited several gift stores and museums to gather pricing information on competing notecards. She also talked to store owners and museum managers to determine their interest in ordering. After all, it would make no sense to have the notecards printed unless buyers would purchase at prices that can generate a profit.

Leslie Croyle's Photo Finish

Leslie Croyle converted her love of photography and knack for framing into a full-fledged photo decorating business.

Leslie and two friends offered for sale enlarged photos of popular Cleveland events such as the start of the Revco-Cleveland Marathon & 10K, and a spectacular shot of the United Way Kickoff's release of thousands of colored balloons in Public Square.

"We hired several photographers to cover the events and used the best photographs of the bunch," say Leslie. Advertisements for photo promotion proved popular. The trio sold 600 photos at prices ranging from $8 to $10 a piece, gathering a bit less than $5,400 in revenues. Not bad for the first venture. Unfortunately, the combined costs of ads, fees for the photographers ate up the $5,400 and more. "Although we ended up with a loss, it gave us a lot of market exposure and a proven track record," says Leslie.

Next, Leslie and her friends put together a portfolio of photographs and contacted local businesses. This marketing move landed them a job of photo decorating PJ McIntyre's Restaurant in a Cleveland shopping center. "We tied in the nostalgia theme of the restaurant by contacting area historical societies and arranging to have their vintage photographs copied. It's important to make sure you have the right to reuse the prints. Ask for proper releases and permission to use whatever photos you have copied," advises Leslie.

She stresses the importance of networking industry contacts. A decorating firm they worked with on one project led to additional work when that firm recommended Leslie and her partners to some of their other clients.

Since 1987, the photo decorating business has progressed well since its initial unprofitable photo event ventures. Major projects include photo decorating the guest rooms and suites for the historic Glidden House, which has been made into a unique bed and breakfast, and an all-sports photo motif for the Grand Slam Bar & Restaurant in the refurbished Cleveland Flats night spot area.

"From our humble beginnings, we're now getting into some pretty good sized jobs," says Leslie. "Just keep bumbling along - don't give up."

Marlene Stephenson's Paper Products

Marlene Stephenson makes her money tearing paper. Actually, her unique sculptured jewelry draws rave reviews wherever she wears it. In fact, people routinely ask to buy her unique designs right off her dress when she appears at public functions.

Marlene is a medical technician by trade, and her paper profits grew out of a coffee get-together group of friends that met once a week to try their hands at new craft ideas. One day one of the ladies brought a book on making paper jewelry. "I just fell in love with it and made a pin and some earrings to wear to a business meeting. Lots of the women at the meeting asked me to make some for them also," says Marlene.

As with any fashion item, Marlene pays attention to color schemes and design. Even though she makes several copies of different designs, each is unique in color, shading, size, and even texture. Marlene crafts her one-a-kind jewelry to match her customers special outfits.

"With any small business, it's important to link up with other small businesses," stresses Marlene. For example, her local hairdresser lets Marlene display her paper jewelry at her shop. Local gift stores either buy the pins and earrings outright or take them on consignment, which means they pay for the items after they sell. Marlene also teamed up with several other artists to display their work at trade shows.

"Try to tailor your product to the particular market. With the loon as the state bird of Minnesota, my loon pins always do well at local craft shows," she says. Likewise, when Marlene sent samples of her pins to trade show in Anchorage, Alaska, she made some new designs to capture the wilds of Alaska, These pins included a polar bear, Alaska wild flowers, whales, and fish.

What ever your own hobby pursuits, you may be over looking an opportunity to turn personal interests into money-making enterprises. Investigate the possibilities, calculate the costs, analyze the market, and move forward with your plan of action. Take your lead from these three women who have turned hobbies into profits.

Small business ideas for small towns

2012-03-19T02:36:00.000-07:00

Local pride clothing

Create clothing that promotes local pride, and your place in state or the region. Go beyond the usual high school mascot items, and promote your own local flavor. Get some ideas from Neighborhoodies (http://www.neighborhoodies.com). Expand this idea with related local pride items, like totel bags, kids' wear, hats and visors.

Local jewelry

Customize jewelry to your state or city. State of Mine uses state shapes with stones marking home towns. Extend this concept to keychains and other jewelry items. Look for local jewelers to help with manufacturing.

Local photos

Make local photos into postcards, posters, or mounted and framed art, as suggested by the Photopreneur photography business blog (http://blogs.photopreneur.com/ marketing-local/). You can target tourists, students or other part-time residents and visitors. The photos can be your own, or licensed from local photographers. You can market in existing local stores, or even create a roadside photo stand!

Add value through local and organic foods

Local food and organic food are two ways to make a more profitable small farm, restaurant, cafe, food market, or other food business. Food borne illnesses have made headlines from huge commercial production and from imported foods. It's better for the environment because of the lower transportation distances.
Local food producers of all kinds should capitalize on this opportunity. If you grow produce, get certified as organic or dedicate more acres to organic items. Focus on local markets, promoting your local advantage. Develop direct marketing methods to go direct to consumers or consumer groups. Restaurants can seek out local partners and organic sources. If you serve local and organic items, promote it in all your marketing.

ADVERTISING (Start a office in your Home) Business

2012-03-19T00:36:00.000-07:00

AD CLIPPIN

This is a very simple business to run in your home. Merely clip all the best advertising pertaining to specific product (such as TV sets) from leading newspapers and magazines each month. Collect them by category and then sell each package of clippings to advertising agencies. These agencies specialize in promotional campaigns and advertising, and they will pay you well for your work. Get these agencies to subscribe to your service on a monthly basis. Charge by month, or accept prepaid annual subscriptions.

AD FOLIOS

Collect newspaper advertising on big-ticket items such as appliances, cars, furniture, and clothing. Print ten-page folios showing the ads you have collected. Then sell these sample ads by category at nominal cost to dozens of advertising agencies. If the response to your sample folios is satisfying, proceed to solicit subscriptions from these advertising agencies for your advertising ideas service, in which you send out new folios each month to the subscribers. This can be a most satisfying home business.

TRAFFIC STOPPERS

People will stop at roadside stands and elsewhere if they can see something that is unusual and eye-catching. You can start a specialty business in which you build or arrange for these spectacular traffic stoppers for your clients. Imagination suggests no end of them-huge balloons tethered at the place of business, zoo animals, huge replica dinosaurs, a discarded plane, an old passenger railcar, or a full-size spacecraft. Work on a cost-plus contract with the required working capital up front.

About Home Business

2012-03-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

About Home Business

Home based business is the business that would provide you the best of the both worlds you enjoy being your own boss and at the same time you also give your full effort in your work while taking all the important decisions relating to your work. Though it is quite easy to start a home based business, however, it always requires proper planning, monitoring, and hard working for becoming successful in your business. However, the home based business ideas only help you in planning your activities. It will guide you through your journey, but it's entirely up to your capability and hard work, which will lead you to the success.

Before You Start

Before you start your home based business, you need to consider a lot of things. Your business may be very small in size; you may also have lesser capitals. Hence you may have to fight against all the odds. So, the biggest question that you may have to look for answer is how would you overcome the hurdles? You need to have some good ideas for home based business that would help you to make a difference. You have to manage a lot, you need to sale your products and services. Also at the same time, you need to ensure that your products remain in demand. Various home based business ideas would help you to chalk out your plan accordingly.

Various Home Based Business Ideas

Online Business

The rapid growth of Internet has made it a fruitful medium to do business and earn some money. Different kinds of works are available online. You can start your own office at your home, get projects through online marketing and bidding and deliver the job to the client – all through the Internet. You may also recruit some employees to work for.

Various types of online jobs are available. Online data entry, form fill up and content development etc. are some of the most prominent ones. Several companies also offload online marketing jobs. You can also procure those projects.

Photography

If you know the art of photography, you can easily start the business of photography. In this age of digital photography, you have a lot of scopes in this field. Besides, you may offer video photography services as well.

Bridal and Wedding Consulting Service

Bridal and wedding consulting service is another good home based business idea. Here you will arrange meetings with vendors, plan the wedding schedule, rehearsal dinner etc. You will also prepare a budget for the clients. You may also provide other services like bridal registry etc.

Desktop Publishing

Desktop Publishing is another profitable business. The low overhead and start-up cost may also encourage one to start this business. There is a great demand of DTP as every business house needs DTP services at some point of time. You just need at least a computer, printer and the required software to start this business. You can create letterheads, business cards, fliers, posters, brochures, banners, newsletters, catalogues, spreadsheets, calendars and greeting cards etc.

Web Design

You can start web designing from your home. If you have the required knowledge, you can start the business just with a single computer, internet connection and the required software. Many small-scale companies offer web designing jobs to the freelancers and other small companies. You can procure projects from them and develop websites for your clients.

Some Useful Tips

Start your business in the area that you love most and understand the business process as well as the sector in detail.

The next biggest thing is the financial planning. A systematic measurement process and a planned budget help the new business at a great extent and also prove to be helpful in the long run.
Knowing your industry and competitors is very important. Do relevant researches regularly to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
It is also important to identify your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Once you have identified your USP, try to leverage it to its fullest.
Building networks is extremely important for the growth of business. Always try to extend your business network. It'll bring more clients to your business.
It is always good to have a trustworthy mentor who will continuously provide you various home based business ideas and will also guide your business through.
Always remember the adage “The only constant thing in this world is the Change”. So, always be prepared for change. Always evaluate your business, competitions and you may need to change your business plans accordingly.
Discipline is another success mantra for business. Proper discipline and motivation can help you to implement your business plans successfully.