Category Archives: Business Ideas

How to Build a Successful Soap Making Business from Home

One way of being successful in any business is through invention, finding something that works for you and capitalizing on the market gaps or existing opportunities. Making soap can be full of fun, and if you are creative enough, you can turn it around into a thriving home based business. And the good thing about it is that it doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg to begin. Indeed this is one of the most hassle-free businesses, which you can even start from your kitchen. Here are some of the most important steps towards building a successful soap making business from home.

Specialize to satisfy your target Market

Before you start the hunt for raw material and putting in place other logistics, you need to think about your target market. If for instance you want to provide an inexpensive alternative to luxury or a classic gift sharing idea, you may want to plan in terms of using organic ingredients and cozy designs. The type of the market you choose will dictate your soap’s scent, color, oil base and other ingredients. Do you for instance intend to have a special design for children? In that case you may want to use natural ingredients to produce gentle soap specifically for babies. Ideally, you want to make soap that appeals to your target market.

Choose your Soap Making Process

The type of process you choose will among other things determine how much soap you can make within a certain period. You can decide to use hot process – melt and pour method or cold process, both of which require mixing lye with oils. Melt and pour method is the easiest process and requires less time to make your soap for it involves buying pre-manufactured soap in bulk, where you can later add your choice of scent, fragrance and other additives.

For cold process, you have to make your soap from the scratch and it can take you up to three weeks before your soap is ready for sale. The advantage is that you have full control of your soap making process. You should consider having reliable suppliers of oils, lye, organic ingredients, molds, colorants and fragrances.

Plan for Equipment

To set up a successful soap making business from home, you’ll need to have the right equipment. This will largely be informed by your choice of soap making process. The types of equipment you need to plan for include blenders, mixers, pots and a microwave.

Marketing Your Soap

Before you start selling your soap, it’s important to make sure that you have complied with your local government trade requirements such as licenses, insurance and so on. To sell your product online, you should also consider having your own website, a merchant’s account or even selling on other famous online stores such as eBay among others.

To test the market, you should start selling to the local shops and craft booths. You may also want to organize promotional drives such as setting up a hand washing stand at fairs, festivals, farmers’ markets and so on.

Make use of such opportunities to advertize your business to your potential customers. Unleash your brand through giving out catalogs bearing your logo, website and any other information about ordering your home made soap.

Tips for Starting an Internet Home Based Business

The internet has levelled the playing field for commerce. A person no longer has to have a store front or a commercial office to run a business. The internet has allowed many people to build an internet home based business.

Basic Advantages of an Internet Home Based Business

Setting up an internet home based business has become an easy and popular way to run a home based business. One advantages of running a business online is the opportunity to serve a huge marketplace, there are millions of people using the internet on daily basis. A business getting just 10 buyers a day can do very well.

Another advantage of running an internet home based business is a well designed website can give the illusion of of a big business. The internet creates a false sense of reality. One person can run what seems like a large business, but is actually an internet home based business.

Before you can begin to build an internet home based business it is important to gain some knowledge about the internet. Teaching yourself a little bit about how a web page is built or how to perform certain tasks can go a long way. However, you do not need to know a lot about web programming. There are a lot of web site builders that make building a website simple and easy.

The biggest difficulty with beginning an internet home based business is deciding what type of internet home based business you want to run. There are many options and deciding which one is right for you can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. The easiest way to decide is to build a business around what interests you (your hobbies).

Types of Internet Home Based Businesses

There are different types of internet home based businesses, but they all fall into a combination of four categories (selling, offering services, offering information, and advertising).

Category 1: Selling – An internet home based business can sell any type of product or service. Some businesses chose to sell products from their own website by using a shopping cart program. Whereas others chose to sell off of websites designed to sell products (like Ebay). Another method people use to sell items is through classifieds. All methods can be used to offer a more widespread plan.

Category 2: Offering Services – An internet home based business can either offer a service that another person may need (like web design or programming) or can offer a service that brings the “have’s” and the “have not’s” together. Depending on the service the internet can be an excellent place to work from, because of the instant communication and immediate gratification it offers. However, if a service that is offered requires you to travel to a specific location your service market will be greatly reduced.

Category 3: Offering Information – The internet holds volumes of information. An internet home based business can offer information to teach others about what they know. Depending on the information offered it can be sold for a price or the information can be used to generate traffic to a website. Some highlights of offering information include forums which offer information and a place for people to interact with other people who are giving and seeking information, web articles offer information by allowing people to read and learn, and blogs offer information by offering an insiders opinion on any topic.

Category 4: Advertising – Advertising can either generate revenue by others paying to advertise on your website or advertising can be an expense to an internet home based business. However, many internet home based businesses are utilizing advertising as both a means of generating revenue and as an expense to increase the traffic to their site. An internet home based business can make a location for others to advertise a good place to advertise by having a high amount of traffic. Additionally, there are many internet home based businesses that join affiliate programs offered by many large companies that offer a monetary reward for marketing their business.

After you decide which direction you want to focus your internet home based business the next best step is to start learning how others are making a profit. Participate in the many programs on the internet. If you are interested in selling items as an internet home based business take a look at the ways everyone is currently selling items. Learn the basics of buying and selling on Ebay. Learn about the different methods of payment offered on the web. If you are interested in making an internet home based business by offering services find others who are offering services that you are considering and investigate how they generate income. If you are interested in offering information as an internet home based business find out what information is out there and determine how you can make that information better. If you are interested in creating a business with advertisement generated income learn how people currently advertise and what type of location is needed for them to advertise at the locations you offer. The biggest step you can make is to research and know what others are doing then determine how to make your internet home based business bigger and better than the rest.

Building a Successful Home Based Photography Business

Photography Business is one of those business that are easy to start and operate from home. In fact the majority of world famous photographers like Steve Mccruy, Henry Cartier and James Natchey have built successful careers in photography while working from home. If you are planning to run a home based photography business, you are in great company.

The major disadvantage of running a home based photography business, rather than renting a place in town is you will miss out on walk in customers. In this article I will show you how to overcome that challenge and beat your competition.

10. Basics things to do before starting a Home based photography business

  1. Write a business plan
  2. Get a Physical address. It gives you credibility.
  3. Talk to your accountant. Just because you will be running your business from home does not exempt your from paying taxes.
  4. Have your hardware ready. You will require a camera, lighting and various other items.
  5. Get the right software.
  6. Study the local market and the competition.
  7. Pick a business name.
  8. Have a domain name and a website
  9. Have marketing materials. Flyers, Business cards and headed letter are important
  10. Advertise on local dailies and magazines.

Writing a Business Plan for a Home Based Photography Business

Photography business is a competitive industry and think the best way to have a good crack of it is not try and do everything but to specialize. Various niches are wedding photography, portrait photography, birth photography, pictures of young children or high school graduates. Your choice will depend on your market, competition, skills and passion.

Your written business plan doesn’t need to be fancy, a rough business plan with the basics will be more than enough to meet your goals for your business. A business plan can be drafted by a qualified business coach or you can do it yourself. Look online for templates/ samples to guide you in drafting  a workable business plan.

A business plan includes everything from what you will charge for your photographs, to your finances, and marketing strategies.

Setting up your Home Based studio or office

It is important to remember first impressions count. Prospective clients will judge you by the appearance of your home office. If it is sloppy they might think you are sloppy in your work. So make an effort to keep the work area sparkling clean at all times, even when you are alone, you never know when a client might decide to walk in.

The essential areas of home office is a reception area where you meet clients and your work station where you review prints and conduct other in image processing business. The reception area should include at least a large table and at minimum two extra seats for prospective customers.

Office Theme

When you set up your space to start a photography business, keep in mind the services you’re planning on offering. The reception area of someone who plans to work primarily with weddings will be very different for someone doing headshots for aspiring models and actors, for example.

Studio for a Home Based Photographer

Setting up a studio is not cheap but worry not. If you don’t have the funds to equip a studio, you can still shoot outside or on location.

Cost and Expenses of Setting up a Home Based Photography Business

The start up capital for a photo business is very little. You just need a basic camera and you are ready to go. But for you to have a thriving successful biz I will advice you to spend some money in furnishing a descent home office with a desk, chairs and most importantly spend money in setting a website, marketing materials and adverting. The cost of buying furniture can be reduced by buying from a yard sale or timing your purchase at a time when stores are having a clearance sale. As for adverting the business, don’t make a mistake of seeing it as unnecessary expense, it is what keeps the big companies like Nike and Coca cola as market leaders. Remember this quote “Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark”

Finding Customers & Marketing a Home Based Photography Business

When you have set up your office, equipment and you are ready for business, you’ll want to let the world know you are available for their photography needs.The trick in finding customers is to know where your potential customers hang out. Which magazine/newspapers do they read? which websites do they visit? answers to these question will help you razor target them.
To reach users of internet learn to use tools such as Google Adwords and Facebook Marketing.

Have you name included in the local business directory. You can never go wrong by advertising in the classified pages of your local paper. Other low-cost marketing strategies include, flyers, referral and press release

Setting up a Website for your business.

In the old days having a physical mailing addresses was a must because that was the only way to reach people. Today a lot of things happen online. People looking for photographers will use Google rather than flip through a businesses directory. A website will have your contact details and samples of your best work.

All the best