Home Business Ideas

Discounted Office Supplies

2011-04-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Whatever your small or home business, you will want to check out this article on how to buy discounted office supplies.

Home Business Idea: Selling Books Online

2010-09-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I stumbled across an interesting New Orleans restaurant cookbook at an estate sale and bought it for the princely sum of $1. I was selling some books on eBay and thought it might make an interesting title to list. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when it sold for $167.

Finding cheap books and turning them into gold online isn't always that easy, but my story illustrates why many are so intrigued with the idea of selling books online as a business idea.

While I've never turned selling used books online into a regular business, I do dabble in it and will look for books when I'm at garage sales or thrift stores that I think might make a good online listing at either eBay or Amazon. The advantages of selling books online are many. Among them are:

There are several places to sell books online. eBay and Amazon are, of course, the most well-known, but I've even sold vintage books in Etsy.com.
Books are readily available at places like garage sales, thrift stores, and library sales.
Books are easy to store and to ship.
If you're a book lover, there is nothing more fun than scouting for books.

While I'm certainly no expert, my best piece of advice when it comes to selling books online is to start by picking a niche. I love to look for cookbooks and it's fairly easy for me to know if a cookbook will sell well or not. Other people are passionate about children's books or have a knack for text books. Once you have a niche under your belt, you can expand into other areas.

In learning about online bookselling I read any resource I could find. The two most helpful resources I have found are ones that I have on my bookshelf to this day:

How to Sell Used Books on Amazon: The Stay-at-Home Mom’s Secret Guide to Selling Used Books on Amazon by Christine Miller
The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay, or Your Own Web Site by Steve Weber.

I've written full-blown reviews of these books here:

Review of How to Sell Used Books on Amazon by Christine Miller.

Review of The Home-Based Bookstore by Steve Weber.

If you're at all interested in pursing this fun and potentially profitable business, I encourage you to learn from these two, who are already doing it successfully.

For more information see: How To Sell Books Online and Make Good Money Doing It.

High School Senior Photography Business

2010-04-18T10:34:00.000-07:00

If you've ever had a high school senior then you've probably had a mailbox flooded with advertisements for senior photos. High school senior photos have come a looooong way and photographing these kids is big business. Fortunately, it can be a fun and profitable business as well.

If you've ever dreamed of starting your own photography business, it is smart to consider specializing in what you photograph. It's easier to market your photography business and the business is also easier to run. That's not to say you can't branch out into other forms of photography, but having a place to focus your marketing efforts is a huge head start and taking pictures of other peoples' kids is a great way to begin. People are willing to spend money on photos of their children and, next to babies perhaps, high school seniors are the most photographed group of kids.

Here are some of the advantages of starting a high school senior photography business:

High school seniors are a relatively easy group with which to work. They are old enough to be cooperative and, for the most part, enjoy being photographed.
High school graduation is a significant milestone and in many markets, you'll find parents willing to spend significant amounts of money having their high school seniors photographed and buying prints.
Once you've established yourself as a high school senior photographer, you are likely to have families asking you to do other kinds of photography as well (family photos, weddings, etc.)
This kind of photography lends itself well to word of mouth marketing as well as online social networking (Facebook, etc.)
Photographing high school seniors can be very creative work. Location photography is big with this bunch. They also being photographed in ways that reflect their interests and activities.

For more information see:

The Art and Business of High School Senior Portrait Photography
Master Guide for Photographing High School Seniors
Special Discount Offer: Save $10 on books to help you start your own business

Residual Income Business

2010-04-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

Having a residual income business: this is something about which I am passionate! I was first introduced to residual income when I began writing articles at eHow.com. I quickly learned the difference between an upfront payment for work and earning a residual income stream instead. And I found I liked the residual income option a lot.

So what is a residual income business? There are many different definitions of residual income (sometimes called passive income) but a pretty popular definition is a business where the work is done upfront but the income stream continues for some time, with very little additional work performed.

To put it in terms with which more people are familiar: its like an actor taking a cut of movie profits in addition to or instead of an upfront salary. While working for residual income can be something of a gamble, the rewards can be great.

Since for most people getting paid movie profits isn't an option, we need to identify real-world examples of residual income business opportunities:

Insurance agents are often paid renewal commissions, which can be a form of residual income.
Real estate properties that create cashflow.
Artists of all kinds (actors, singers, writers, etc.) can be paid for their commercials, tv shows, records, and books long after the original work was created.
Some investors create residual income by investing in stocks that pay dividends.
There are several ways to create residual income online, such as affiliate marketing and writing content for revenue sharing sites (like my eHow example).

Creating a residual income business will require something of a shift in thinking for most people. We are all much more familiar with exchanging our time for money. And residual income businesses won't be for everyone. It takes something of an entrepreneurial spirit to embrace it. Often the payout in the beginning is much less than the time invested and can find people becoming frustrated by working for what is sometimes less than minimum wage. For those who persist, however, the payout in the end can be very rewarding. For those who understand and embrace residual income it can be hard to work any other way!

For more information on residual income businesses see the following:

How to Earn Residual Income During a Recession
How to Create Passive Income with Online Rebate Sites
How to Start a Passive Income Business
Another Great Source of Passive Income: Mr. Rebates Referrals

Starting a Bookkeeping Business

2010-04-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

Because I've worked with and for a lot of small businesses, I've done my fair share of bookkeeping. And it always strikes me how important a good bookkeeper is to any small business. Also, because many small business owners are entrepreneurs at heart they often don't want to be burdened with bookkeeping tasks on a day to day basis.

What that means for you is that if you are good with numbers and enjoy administrative work, you would likely make an excellent bookkeeper. And excellent bookkeepers are always in demand.

One of the most attractive parts of starting a bookkeeping business is that it can be done in a variety of ways. Bookkeepers with their own small businesses can work from home, from an outside office, or even at times at their clients' places of business. In addition, bookkeeping businesses can be run on a part-time or full-time basis, creating lots of flexibility for the owner.

If you are looking to start a bookkeeping business, it helps to get some training, especially if you don't have a lot of experience in the field. It is probably a good idea to become a certified bookkeeper at some point. And since many small businesses uses Quickbooks software, it is probably advisable to get training in that as well.

When I was getting some of my bookkeeping training, I took a class from Michelle Long, a CPA who I thought had a very novel idea: becoming a Quickbooks consultant. This is a great business model for someone who doesn't necessarily want to do the bookkeeping works of others, but would enjoy teaching them how to do it themselves. Quickbooks is a wonderful, user-friendly program but it is often used by lots of small business people who don't have financial backgrounds and need some assistance. There can be lots of demand for this type of a service. Becoming a Quickbooks consultant would also be a great sideline to someone who is running their own bookkeeping business. Michelle wrote an excellent book on the topic, which I found to be useful and interesting. It's listed in the related info below.

Below you will find several additional articles with information about becoming a certified bookkeeper, finding bookkeeping trainings, and starting your own bookkeeping business.

Related info:

Bookkeeping Certification
How to Become a Certified Bookkeeper
How to Take Online Bookkeeping Classes
How to Find Online Bookkeeping Courses
How to Work From Home as a Bookkeeper
How to Market Your Bookkeeping Services
Successful QuickBooks Consulting: The Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Growing a QuickBooks Consulting Business

Snow Cone Carts: A Fun Business

2010-02-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Recently I read an article in The Kansas City Star about the operator of a snow cone business. (The article is no longer live on the Star's website so I can't link to it here, but the owner does have a blog that you should check out.) This particular snow cone business operates out of a vintage trailer and has another twist that makes it unique: the snow cones are all natural and include some pretty unusual flavors.

After I read the article I became interested in the idea of snow cone businesses and discovered that they are popular businesses. A little more research prompted me to write this article about How to Start a Snow Cone Cart Business.

A snow cone cart business can be about as simple, fun, and low-key as you can get. Relatively speaking they are simple to set up and, without permanent locations, offer the owners lots of flexibility as well. And the snow cone cart business model can be adapted to other things as well, i.e. popcorn and hotdogs.

Read more here:
Snow Cone Cart Businesses
How to Start a Snow Cone Cart Business
How to Open a Hot Dog Cart Business
How to Start a Popcorn Cart Business

Special Discount Offer: Save $10 on books to help you start your own business

Starting a Consignment Sale Business

2010-02-17T08:55:00.000-08:00

More reading on this subject:

Cash in the Closet. Your Guide to Consignment Store Ownership
Too Good to be Threw: The Complete Operations Manual for Resale & Consignment Shops

When my children were younger, I used to buy some of their clothes from consignment sales held in my area. Not to be confused with consignment stores, which are permanent retail businesses, consignment sales are held periodically in temporary locations.

One sale in particular always fascinated me because of its business model. This was not a sale held buy a manufacturer's sales rep. (Those were good sales too and far more common.) This, however, was a sale anyone could put together. In this case it was held by two moms.

The sale was held twice a year in Spring and Fall. The moms collected clothing from consigners and tagged them appropriately. The clothing always consisted of current styles and many popular brands were represented (Baby Gap,Gap for Kids, Gymboree, etc.) The clothing was in good shape and was clean, pressed, and hung on round department store-style racks. This was not your average garage sale and the prices reflected that. Because of the quality of items and the way they were displayed, the organizers could demand a premium price.

In addition to clothing, there were some other children's items such as baby equipment, quality toys, etc. But there was nothing that didn't realate to children. Again, it didn't look like your typical garage sale even though, in this case, it was held in someone's garage and on their driveway.

The marketing methods the organizers used were all very low-cost: namely newspaper ads and neighborhood signs. They also had a mailing list signup at the checkout where you could sign up to find out about future sales and about being a consigner. In this day and age of email addresses and online methods of marketing (websites, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) I believe it would be that much easier to build a big following.

Finally, the organizers of this sale would allow those who were consigners to shop early for their purchases. This group would get the best selection so they would have an incentive to offer some of their children's outgrown clothing for sale. I always thought that one of the best parts of this business model was that the suppliers of inventory were also the customers.

This type of consignment sale business is ideal for stay-at-home moms who have some organizational skills and would like a way to earn a chunk of money twice a year. If they did a good job of marketing it and building up a customer contact list, I would think it would even be a sellable business at some point. This business model could also be adapted to other niches: think a home decor consignment sale, a sports equipment consignment sale, etc.

Small Laundry Businesses

2010-02-14T11:47:00.000-08:00

One of the simplest, most basic, services you can offer someone is to help them do their laundry. I've known several people in my life who have taken in laundry and ironing as a home based business. It can be that simple and uncomplicated.

But if you're a bigger thinker it doesn't have to stop there. Laundromats (or coin laundries), dry cleaning, and diaper services come to mind. And in both of these cases you can choose to open up an independent small business or a franchise.

With anything other than a home based laundry service you may want to consider working in another's business if you don't have any laundry business experience. Even a short stint at a laundry or dry cleaner can let you know if you enjoy this type of work and have what you need to succeed.

Related info:

How to Start a Laundry Business
How to Open a Home Based Laundry Business
Start Your Own Coin-Operated Laundry

About Home Business Ideas

2010-02-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

Thanks for your interest in Home Business Ideas! My name is Julie and I have been involved in small businesses almost all of my life. When I was in high school and college I worked in my uncle's retail store. After college, where I majored in Business Administration, I worked in a small employee benefits firm and also helped my husband and father who run small businesses. Once I had children and opted to stay home, I ran several home-based businesses myself. So you could say I'm pretty passionate about small business.

I love talking to people I meet about their small businesses - home based businesses in particular. I'm fascinated by how people market their businesses and use social media to grow their small and home-based businesses in this new economy.

Again, thank you for stopping by. I hope you'll take the time to visit again!