Monthly Archives: November 2013

How to Build a Successful Event Planning Business

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

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

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

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

Event Planning Skills

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

  • Communication

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

  • Organizational Skills

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

Determine your Clients

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

Draw a Event Planning Business Plan

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

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

Business Insurance

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

Marketing an event planning business

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

How to Start a Profitable Taxi Business

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

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

Acquiring vehicles

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

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

Brand your cars

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

Meters and Electronic Dispatchers

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

Business Licensing

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

Insurance

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

Hiring Drivers and Dispatchers

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

Home Based Business Ideas for Christians

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

Starting your Business

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

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

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

Business Plan

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

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

Suggestions for Home-based Business

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

Selling Ornaments and Crafts

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

Wedding Planning

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

Make products and sell Online

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

Join Christian based Affiliate Programs such as:

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

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

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

Benefits of Using Small Business Credit Cards

Many small business owners find it easy to pay using their personal credit cards during the initial stages of their businesses. While there’s nothing wrong with paying for stuff from your own checking account or personal credit cards when your business is still young, you’ll get to appreciate numerous benefits associated with using a business credit card. Indeed, with budding of new business opportunities, there has equally been a growing popularity of small business credit cards. If effectively managed, especially during these times of ever changing interest rates, a business card can be an important tool for any small business owner. Here are some of the benefits of using a business credit card.

Avoids Mixing up Other Accounts

Using a credit card dedicated to your small business helps to avoid mixing your business account with your personal accounts. You don’t want your business to have accounting or tax problems and this is indeed a good way to prove to Internal Revenue Service that you are committed in the management of your business accounts.

Tracking your Business Expenses

Using business credit cards gives small business owners a better way of tracking their expenses. You don’t want a situation where it comes to year end and you can’t reconcile your transactions. At the end of the year, your credit card company will provide you with a summary of a well itemized statement of all your transactions, averting the nightmare of saving your receipts for tax time.

Accessing Business Loans

Use of a business credit card helps your small business to build trust and increase credibility. A well built business credit makes it easy for banks to go through your account and advance you the money you may need for business expansion.

Separation of Business Credit and Personal Credit

The other good thing about using small business credit cards is that your business credit is rated differently and your business transactions do not have any bearing on your personal credit ratings.

Building Special Rewards

Following high competition in credit card market, many credit cards have developed different rewards and discount programs. These include programs such as business and supply discounts, cash back on all purchases or airline miles among others.

Developing Employee relationship

If you have employed some staff and you allow them to use your business credit cards, you develop a good relationship with your workers as that increases the level of trust between you and them. You may want to be covered by employee misuse insurance for protection against misuse of business finances.

Limiting Employee Spending

Using small business credit card gives you the ability to control how much your workers can spend on business purchases. You can simply do this by giving them cards with preset limits and monitor their spending separately using the statements you receive.

In a nutshell, using small business credit cards presents great benefits to business owners, helping them to streamline their operations, control business spending, increase efficiency of transactions as well as enhancing fraud protection. If you’ve not been using a credit card for your small business operations, then there is a worthy cause to start doing so.

Insurance for a Home Based Business

There’s no doubt that establishing a home business presents huge benefits and countless returns. Apart from being a hassle-free opportunity to earn or supplement your family income, working from home brings about other benefits such as independence, more time for kids, family and so on. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that a home based business is not different from any other and it equally requires to be insured.

Indeed, a home based business has similar frameworks and parallel concerns with other types of business. All businesses, be they large corporations, partnerships or those owned by individuals are faced with the same liabilities and other unforeseen crisis and that’s why insuring a home run business should not be overlooked.

One of the most common misconceptions home business owners have is that their homeowners’ and renters’ policies would also be sufficient to cover their businesses. The truth is that a home insurance doesn’t include coverage for a home run business or even business property such as your computer and other office equipment. Similarly, personal auto policies are not meant to cover autos you use to run your business.

If you run a home based business and you want to be on the safe side, it’s important that you inquire from your insurance provider on the policy that applies to your business operations. This is because there are many business operations that are categorized as “illegal” and may not be eligible for insurance coverage. Let your insurance manager know all your current business operations and those you intend to introduce in the future. They may want to know whether you’ll be manufacturing and supplying products or foodstuff and so on. Discuss with them if you intend to use your personal vehicle for business purposes.

Here are different types of insurance coverage that you’d need for your home based business.

Liability Coverage

This is the type of insurance that covers your business against liability for damages caused to someone else or their property. Should a visitor to your home office, such as a courier or a delivery person gets injured, they would be covered by liability insurance and not your homeowners’ policy.

Business Auto Coverage

Since your personal auto doesn’t apply to covering your vehicle when being used for business purposes, you will require business auto coverage. You don’t want to get into trouble in case you’re involved in an accident when visiting a client or making a delivery using your car.

Product Liability Cover

Product liability covers your business against liability incase a product manufactured or supplied by your company causes damages to another person or their property.

Business Property Coverage

This is the type of insurance that covers your business equipment such as computers, printers etc against damage such as fires or other forms or destructions.

Other Considerations:-

Insurance cost

The major factor that determines the cost of your home based business insurance is they type of the company you run. For a basic policy that covers, say loss of computer data and a few other liabilities it may cost you between $300 and $500 per year.

Calculation factors

Some of the factors that determine the cost of your insurance premium include the type of your business, how long it’s been in existence, your credit history and home location. Enhance your home security through having in place a security system, installing fire alarm and so on.

Home based business ideas for women

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

Businesses based on Interests or Hobbies

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

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

Profession Based ideas

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

Entrepreneurial Based Ideas

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

Online Based Business ideas

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

Home based Business Ideas for Teenagers

If you’re still young and you can’t find a part-time job, there are yet so many business opportunities that can earn you a good income. You don’t have to be part of statistics about teenagers being lynched or condemned for engaging in drugs or crime. There are numerous opportunities of owning your own business and becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Before making your choice on the best type of business to start, there are a few things you need to consider. Indeed, there are so many business ideas out there and not every one of them would be suitable for you.

Do you for instance like being independent? Do you have the entrepreneurial mind or do you prefer an office job? Do you like indoor or outdoor activities? What are your hobbies? Do you for instance prefer tending animals, repairing stuff, working on the computer or in the field? Your answers to some of these questions can provide a lead on what type of home based business would be best suited for you.

Here are some great ideas on how you can start a home based business, make money and be your own boss.

Become a social media Manager

If you love spending time on your computer, and most teens do, then becoming a social media manager can be a great entrepreneurial idea. There are so many company executives, politicians, celebrities and other people in the society who are too busy to find time for creating or running their own blogs, websites and social media accounts. Depending on your skills, you can design, develop websites and blogs, update Facebook and Twitter accounts for a fee.

Retail stuff Online

Many teenagers are gifted in arts and crafts. If you can make your own stuff such as ornaments, elegant paintings, take good photos and so on, then you can earn a good income selling them on online marketplaces such as eBay or Etsy among others. You’ll not only make good money but will also feel happy to sell your own jewelry and crafts online right from the comfort of your home. You can choose to sell either new or used products. For more on how to get started, there are so many books and online materials on how to sell online.

Start Bicycle repair services

If you are into bikes and you have some mechanical skills, then you can operate a simple cycle garage from home and repair bicycles for people within neighborhood and the community. You may want to take a short course to add your skills. Indeed there are many of them and it will only take you a couple of weeks to get certified.

Errands

Running errands can be a great idea, especially now that there are so many people with busy schedules and they would like to have someone help with errand services. If you can help someone transport their pet for check up or fetch groceries for a fee then why not? The good thing about running errand services is that you don’t need to incur a lot of initial cost, apart from on few promotional materials, means of transportation and your phone.

Other home based ideas for teens include baby sitting services, lawn and gardening services, window washing, car washing and dog walking services among others.

How to start a Home-based Carpet Cleaning Business

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

Advantages of running a carpet cleaning services business

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

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

What you need to know before starting carpet cleaning services

Gain some carpet cleaning experience

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

Draw a Carpet cleaning business Plan

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

Business Name Registration and other Logistics

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

Branding

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

Obtain Carpet Cleaning Equipment

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

Expanding your carpet cleaning Business

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

Hassle Free Websites that Will help you sell stuff online

The biggest challenge of any small business, especially those based at home is how to sell stuff. The first solution to this problem is advertising in local dailies. This strategy has been effective over the years but it is becoming less effective today. The emergence of internet has decimated traditional newspapers as more people rely on internet for news and information.

If you run a home based business or just a regular joe interested in flipping any product, the best solutions for selling your stuff is using online websites that let you list the item and sit back and wait for leads.

Here is a collection of websites that will assist you bootstrap your business idea of selling stuff online

1. Places to sell old electronics

a. Ebay

Ebay has been around since the birth of internet. Ebay is synonymous with best deals and that has made it a magnet for people looking to buy second hand items that are still in great working condition.

b. Amazon

Amazon.com is not just about books. They are the biggest ecommerce store in the internet selling all manner of goods. Amazon have a partner program where you can upload your products (second hand and new) and have them displayed for sale. They will handle the payment collection but it is your responsibility to handle storage, shipping and any returns.

3. Place to sell your old phone

The need for disposing old phone as never been greater as phone giants continue to launch new smartphones every year. A good place to sell that old iphone model of yours is Myphoneexchange.

4. Place to sell Furniture

craig list is the place for selling that old furniture you have nowhere to take when you need to move towns or just want to upgrade your diggz. The reason why it is a great for selling large furniture is because the website is hyper local and your able to target people near location and that makes transportation easy.

5. Selling homemade jewellery

If you are artistic person and enjoy making your own jewellery the best place to sell your artworks is etsy.com. The website allows you to set up a shop and showcase your creations. The website is used by millions of jewellery lovers who are on a look out for unique home made products.

6. Sell to your friends using facebook and twitter

Facebook and twitters are another outlets for reaching more buyers. When you post your items on your wall, your friends are likely to share the post which means more people will see your stuff.

7. Online place to sell your car

Car daddy is a convenient site for selling your car if you cant find a dealer who is not interested in trade in for your old car.

8. Place to sell your inventions.

Quirky is the place for inventors to sell there inventions. The way it works is, you submit your invention and the staff of quirky will vote on your idea if it is viable. If your product is selected they will do the product development and do the selling. You will collect royalties and continue doing what your love, inventing!

9. Best place to sell artworks

If you are a designer of posters, logos, book covers, t-shirts etc, there are two places where you can do that and be paid. Cafepress and 99 design cater to designers. You upload your designs on their website and wait for customers to make orders. They will handle payment and shipping.

Ideas on Profitable Urban Farming

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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