This business is one that is the basis of many a milionaire’s fortunes, probably of several billionaire’s these days! If this is the case, you might wonder why this business manual does not devote its entire contents to such a potentially great money making system? The truth is that most ideas will make a lot of money for some people, an little or nothing for others. There are so many influences and variables involved in developing a profitable income stream, and without huge effort and sometimes a similar amount of luck, the results are always disappointing.

International trade is the fulcrum of the world’s economy,and in prosperous times as well as recessions, there are huge profits to be made in this multi trillion dollar business. Making the first million is the hardest – but making the first 100 dollars is even harder!

What is involved?

The cornerstone of world trade is sourcing sellers of goods and then appropriate buyers of these goods. This is the skill you need to develop, a skill that many find hard to acquire. So what is involved finding a suitable money making system involving international trade?

Choose your products

Some people will enter this business using the scatter gun method. They will sign up to various trade directories, browse the Internet and fire off hundreds of communications to manufacturers of all sorts of goods around the world. Then, as soon as they find a party willing to sell to them in small quantities, perhaps offering credit terms, they will snap the opportunity up and try to make a go of it. They are destined to failure!

When adding this chapter I was conscious of the fact that I earn my own living from writing. Therefore, I considered it an important section of the book to get right! Yet this is my first book, and the first time I have been published – so what do I mean by being a writer? If anybody close to me was asked what I did for a living, they would provide a few different replies I am sure, but none of them would include writing! Yet writing must fill most of my working day.

Because my business involves producing reports for use in legal matters, the writing is the most important skill that I use. I could be writing about anything, but my ability to present clear, concise and most importantly persuasive arguments allows me to market my actual “career” skills profitably.

Therefore writing can be used to create money from anything. You might not like your job and want to escape the rate race, so why not consider writing about what you do? Becoming self employed as a consultant, an expert witness or even an investigative journalist can be a rewarding and exciting business. This is despite your feelings for the job that may act as a springboard to start it.

The problem with dissatisfaction at work is that most just want escape the boring humdrum they associate with a job that they have done for years. Even if they have moved from post to post, this dissatisfaction remains – until in some cases the unhappy individual makes the break for a completely new career. This can include starting your own business, which is what many people yearn for. Unfortunately in many cases this move can be a mistake. The saying about the grass always being greener is very pertinent in such cases, and after the excitement of change, reality can often lead to a miserable working existence.

If challenged, I would say that you could turn any trade or profession into such self employment by becoming a consultant of some form. Your reaction is a wish to move on to the next chapter at this point. But before you do, consider a number of points:

• What are the real reasons you want to quit your job?
• Surely it is the job and not the type of work you dislike?
• A major driver for change must be to earn more money?

Unless you are doing work you really despise – for example you are an undertaker or a parking warden and feel that you would like to be more creative – you can usually turn it into a business that you can manage as your own boss and working in such a way that even the most uninteresting subject can become both profitable and bearable.

The first task that you must do is to browse round your local bookstore and have a look at the sort of books that are available surrounding your existing work. There could be a whole range of titles ranging from business start up guides, technical reviews, product biographies and many more – it will depend on the nature of the business that you are working in.

Ask yourself the question – could you write one of these books – even if it is a book entitle “a guide to the publications within XYZ industry”? If you can pick out a niche within your business and write a book about it – you will have to research enough information that would allow you to move ahead in the field and become a consultant or expert.

Before I start, I must explain the concept of “easy money making”. It is not actually possible to make large quantities of money easily, without a lot of effort and investing huge sums of money in the first place. No, what we are trying to achieve is an easy way to make just “some” money and, with care and diligence, potentially turn this little into a lot. It is actually very easy to earn something from working as a consultant, and is something everybody can do. The difficult part is developing a healthy business that provides the sort of income you are seeking.

Drawbacks

Consultancy is a term used to catch all the service businesses that involves a person providing their knowledge and understanding of a particular field to somebody who needs that information or service providing. If you have specialist knowledge you can use this to undertake work for a client, receiving a payment in return.

The business you are conducting is restricted by the amount of time you have to perform the work requested. Thus if you are asked to write a report about the feasibility of importing cheese from Iceland into Canada you will be providing a number of hours or days that are needed to undertake that work. Because it is your specialised area of expertise – Icelandic Cheese exports – clients are prepared to pay you a certain hourly or daily rate to do that work.

However, there are only so many hours in a day or weeks in a year – thus restricting the amount of work you can do and money you can earn. The concept of “gearing” your business is much harder to apply to consultancy. That is not to say it is not possible. There are many very large multi national consulting groups that each employ 100s or 1000s of consultants each charging many $100s or even $1000s per hour for their expertise. But whatever the rate, each consultant has a finite earning capability based on the hours he can work and the rate he can command. Therefore, as a business opportunity that you might be seeking, bear in mind the limitations imposed by these constraints. Having said this, setting 1,200 hours as a target for work to be carried out at say $100 to $200 dollars an hour – would not result in a particularly high annual consultant’s income!

What can you do?

There are many people who will skip this chapter. The word consultancy conjures up an image of a learned professor providing the benefit of his decades of study and research. This is wrong – consultants are employed in all walks of life to do a multitude of different tasks. In fact, there is a general trend to outsourcing by not only the bigger corporations but many smaller and medium sized businesses are also moving in this direction. So – in fact not many businesses will do their own cleaning. Would you consider becoming a cleaning consultant?

Anything that you know a little more about than the client can be sold as consultancy. Therefore, you must consider what you currently know as a starting point. Do not worry if you are not an expert – you can upgrade your skills as you develop your business. You just need to pick an area that you either know something about or you are keen to learn about.

Example 1

John worked as corporate banker for many years. His job was stressful and he hated travelling into work sometimes six days a week to sit in a glass box in front of several computer screens. He was desperate to run his own business but knew he could not set up a “bank” and really wanted to get away from the cut and thrust of the banking world.

He had always been reasonably numerate, working with money and figures demanded this. He fancied setting up a bookkeeping business in his neighbourhood. It was a respectable area and many of his wealthy bosses lived nearby. There were also a lot of smaller boutique businesses not far away that had chosen to set up outside the city where he used to work. He wondered if he could provide consulting services that provided basic accounting services to these people which would allow them to reduce their dependence on the larger accountancy firms and the exorbitant fees he knew they charged.

A two week bookkeeping and basic accountancy course was a good investment and introduced him to a number of the lecturers who were able to advise him on the accountancy market. In the process of this research and learning he discovered that there was a demand for somebody who understood business banking and was able to throw together draft business figures. He found that he was being asked to undertake pre-feasibility studies for small and medium sized businesses – which he could do at very attractive rates while still earning a relatively good income themselves. A typical job would involve a business asking him to look at the synergy between themselves and a target they wanted to buy – John would charge $3,000 for a weeks work and save the business $10,000 of their otherwise $30,000 bill when they came to raise the finance and do due diligence. Not only that, John found that he was picking up the odd retainer here and there with clients that had appreciated his direct and friendly approach – and unique mix of skills.

Example 2

Lydia had worked in a department store on and off for 20 years, while bringing up her two children and helping to add a reasonable wage to her husband’s salary. She always wanted something she could call her own, and being a keen amateur artist decided that her experience of household furnishings could be used to build an interior design consultancy. To start out she offered her services to a couple of friend who were remodelling. Using the experience she put together a package for a business that included a small brochure, a modest website and a corporate identity.

It was a struggle at first to find clients, and Lydia ended up helping another couple of friends for free. However, being busy helped with the momentum, and the word gradually got around that she listened to what her clients wanted who were very happy with the results. It was word of mouth that helped Lydia build her business, a very powerful marketing tool indeed.

Example 3

Jean loved horse riding but did not like her day job. She wondered if she could make a living teaching riding but decided that this would be too low paid to provide a reasonable income for her. However, she realised that stable and riding school design was extremely big business and often carried out by architects who had little experience in such specialised areas. She began advertising as an “equine infrastructure consultant” and prepared a catch leaflet that was circulated around all the riding schools, stables and race tracks around the country.

Jean also had a secret weapon. She spoke Polish fluently and could get by in a number of Eastern European languages including Russian. This little extra allowed her to get a foothold in a number of establishments that were owned by foreign nationals or employed a number of the same. She found that she was travelling far and wide, in Europe, the UK and around the United States and Canada. Her life changed and she did not look back.

To be successful at consultancy you must develop a service that people want. You start with skills that you have and then find directions “add on” skill will take the business. These add on services can be other areas of interest or experience you have, or you can specifically add them to your repertoire having identified their need and saleability. Remember, if you know a little bit more than your client, you can convince them that you know a lot more. The missing bits you can fill in as you go along!

Before I take a look at the pros and cons of various different types of new business opportunity in the coming chapters, I have included some information about how you can go about seeking a new venture. Problems arise if you simply launch yourself into Internet search mode – hoping to find inspiration from the web.

You already have some idea for your new income opportunity

Some people have a very good idea of what they want to do. Many others know the sort of new business opportunity idea that they would like to pursue. If you are one of these lucky persons then your task is much simpler – but you still have a lot of work to do. For example, you might know a friend who maintains a blog about his spare time interest – say golf. You know that he earns over $1000 every month from the blog and you would like to do the same with your own interest in high performance road cars.

You have to find out a lot of information before you also have a chance of earning this sort of money. Questions that will need answering will include (but are not limited to):

• How long has the blog site been running?
• How often must new information be added to the site?
• How do you set up a blog site?
• What sort of information would people be interested in?
• How do you get them to visit your site?
• How do you convert visitors to your site into earnings?
• How much competition will there be?

However, you have a good starting point – a new business idea that you can build on and develop. You will also need to establish whether or not you have the time and enthusiasm for this new business opportunity. You may be basing your income aspirations on your friend’s web site but it may be hard to match his success. Even if you do, will the income be enough in five years time, in ten years? Will you want to set up more sites to increase revenue? Will the venture become a general Internet Marketing business?

So you have started to identify variations within your chosen area, and need to build enough knowledge so that you can define your new income opportunity and prepare your business or marketing plan that will tell you whether or not you have a good chance of success.

If you do not have a good idea of your new business opportunity yet

For most of us that are keen to work for ourselves it is more of an overwhelming desire to “go it alone” than a clearly defined business path. We hate going into work every day and yearn to run our own business. At this stage I will say that the information in Chapter 5 should be considered seriously. If you start a consultancy based on your existing skills used in your current career and follow a sensible approach of business planning and research into your market – you have every chance of making a success of your new business. You will probably be basing your own business on a proven framework using tested skills – it will be your motivation and drive that is key to success. This is probably the easiest and quickest route into self employment.

However, you may be tired of your day job – including the field of work that you do. You may be bored and looking for something different to do – a change.

This is where there is a danger of logging onto your computer every evening (or even during the day at your current place of employment when you should be working) and browsing aimlessly for new businees opportunity ideas on the Internet. If you enter keywords into the search engines like “profitable business ideas” or “new business opportunities working from home” you will receive countless hits from people trying to sell you “get rich quick” schemes that will never work.

There are a few schemes and programs amongst the marketing hype and scams that do work – but even these do not work as well as described.

There are even fewer sites that will provide you with interesting and valuable information and which are not obviously trying to sell you anything. Even when you visit this site you are currently on I am hoping that you will click on an advertisement to earn a few cents for Business Opportunity Market!

So what is the best approach to discovering a new business opportunity idea that will interest you? I would suggest not starting with the Internet is the best approach. Leave the Internet until you have some subject areas that you have considered, know a little bit about, and now need to research in depth.

For example, I found out about Internet Marketing through a contact in my daily work. He informed me that he had given up his normal marketing job within industry to pursue a property development career. When this did not work out due to a depressed property market, he decided to set up an Internet Marketing business. He told me about it, showed me some of his web sites and gave me a “Search Engine Optimization – How to guide” that he had written after a lot of research and wasted expenditure. It sounded interesting so I also bought a book about Affiliate Marketing from my local bookstore.

Now I was getting to the stage where I knew that $billions are paid out every year to web sites that include adverts for companies involved in the massive and growing online industry. I also knew that it was very easy to waste a lot of money on programs that showed you how to make millions from this area. But I was in the process of building up knowledge and enthusiasm for a possible foray into Internet Marketing – and I hadn’t even browsed the subject on the Internet yet. However, now I was ready to do so and I was ready for all the very well written money grabbing ventures that came out top of my searches!

In this manual you will find information that tells you how to set up a blog site, how to “monetize” it so that visitors will earn you money, how to increase your traffic to your site so that your revenue will go up and how to develop such a business so that it will start to almost work on its own (an often used term is “auto pilot” – this does not work per se, but it is possible to remove yourself from the coal face to become a “hands off” manager of such a business). However, you will also learn that substantial work is required building traffic and maintaining such a blog – you could start spending your whole working life developing a business that paid you at most $12,000 a year!

So you need a starting point – such as the blogging idea. Once you find out more about it you can determine the best way to develop the idea in a way that suits you. Starting points include the various different businesses found within the next few chapters in this manual. You must use them as starting points and accept that it is up to you to delve deeper and create a detailed profile of any idea that interests you.

Research methods for new business ideas

• Reading the newspaper
• Watching the news
• Browsing through business directories
• Spend time in your local library
• Browse the business section of your bookstore
• Talking to business owners

A great starting point for your new business venture

As with the golf or fast car blogs mentioned above, look at your own interests. Whatever business type that you choose, if it has anything at all to do with your current passions you will find it all the easier to develop. Imagine writing a blog about something that you were not interested in!

For example, if you are a keen fisherman/woman you could start a business in a number of ways:

• Open a fishing tackle store
• Start an online fishing tackle store
• Start an eBay online fishing tackle store
• Write a blog about fishing tackle
• Write a blog about where to fish
• Start an online fishing holiday company
• Manufacture specialist fishing tackle
• Import fishing tackle or act as an “agent”
• Specialise in fishing clothing

There are always lots of different ways to start a business surrounding a specific subject area or business idea. It is great if you can find the idea first – then research ways of setting a business up around it. However, it is also possible to develop business opportunities the other way round. For example, you might be attracted to the idea of importing goods and selling via online auctions. This is a proven business method that has made many people into millionaires – it has also reaped very meagre rewards for others – as usual it is the way the business is developed and the effort put into business planning that is the key to success. Choice of items to buy and sell are also critical and selecting your subject area can be quite difficult.

A Marketing Plan or a Business Plan?

In Chapter 2 I looked briefly at the concept of the Business Plan and the Marketing Plan. This Chapter 3 is devoted to both these areas again. You might ask why we are bothering to plan or market our business before we have even chosen what sort of business opportunity to pursue? The reason is that “Planning” is the single most powerful tool that you will ever utilise if you are to become successful at business.

Even those people who seem to be successful in business who operate by the “seat of their pants” will plan their business strategy. A (very) few (extremely) lucky people can do this in their heads – I am assuming that my readers, like myself, are like the vast majority and will need to formally plan their business activities.

The simple difference between a marketing plan and a formal “business plan” is simply the first one focuses on answering the question “how are you going to make sales” whereas the latter is a comprehensive study of the business, and how it will grow and succeed.

A framework for the business opportunity

Planning tools are essential to provide a framework for the business.  It allows you to paint a picture of the sort of business that you feel would give you the satisfaction you seek – then allows you to analyse it fully, to find any flaws or any hidden opportunities to exploit. Areas that are absolutely necessary to consider within the planning process are:

Quality and motivation of the persons involved

If you are a plumber setting up a plumbing business, there is an obvious reason why you might want to set up such a business. However, if you are a plumber wishing to set up an accountancy business you will want to examine the reasons why you want to do this which are not so obvious. Another example might be the the bank employee, sick of working at the same counter every day facing irate customers. This person might year for the flexibility of working at home – and for that reason wants to turn a long term passion for writing into a business that is flexible in hours and can be run from a home based office or study.

Setting up a home based business usually indicates somebody wanting to quit their day job and to work for themselves. In this case the business plan must ask and find answers for the following questions:

Q: Is the business opportunity chosen a whim or what is the motivation behind choosing such a business?

Q: Do you have the requisite skills for running such a business?

Q: Do you have the motivation and drive to work for yourself, unsupervised?

Q: If there are any skills or attributes lacking – can these be acquired cost effectively?

It is possible that some elements of the business can be subcontracted – you might even be planning to take on staff.  In this case the availability of such resouces and standards or experience required must be examined. It would be no use setting up a business that required daily interaction with several bookkeeping staff if you lived ten miles out in the countryside. However, if a key resource was somebody to maintain a web site on a daily basis then this could be done by an outworker living anywhere in the world!

The size of the market you will be operating within

You will need to do some market research as part of your business planning. Even if you are a plumber planning to set up your own business just because you know that plenty of work comes in to your existing employers, you need to understand the size of the market you wish to tap into.

Market research involves surfing the web, reading available literature and speaking to potential clients. It also means researching the competition!

Your competition is going to be the best guide to the market you are looking to enter. If there are countless of businesses operating in the same way as you intend doing – do not be put off. This indicates that the market is big enough for a new player to take a small slice – and you will need to find ways of being better than your competitors.

If the competition is low – this might mean that you have a relatively untapped market – or it might mean that the market is depressed or the interest is low. These questions need answering by your market research.

On very good way of carrying out market research within your chosen business opportunity area is by carrying out a test run. Testing the market can be carried out for a number of businesses but is not always suitable for some. One very large area with a lot of potential for a home based business is selling items over the Internet – either through an online auction site or through your own shopping site (or both). It is very easy, and a very low risk activity, to buy a few samples of your chosen product and set up some test sales. Forget about the administration of the business, all you are looking to do is see what interest there is in a certain product and what prices are paid. At worst – you will likely get your money back eventually. At best you will gain the information you need to allow a moderate investment in the stock you need – or you might be able to sell as agent thus involving much less capital outlay.

Price and volume

Two very important statistics that may need some guesswork on your part are the price of the product or service that you are going to sell and the amount that you will sell over a period of time. For example, you might plan to charge your plumbing time at $40 per hour and expect to work 1,200 hours every year. This would allow you to envisage a gross income of $48,000 per year. However, a number of finer details would need to be quantified if your business was to be a success:

Q: Does the number of hours planned allow for travel to the client – you might not be able to charge this and if you live in an area of low poipulation – most of your time might be spent travelling!

Q: Does the number of hours worked represent a smooth working pattern i.e. 100 hours a month or 25 hours a week? What if all your work is in the winter months?

Q: Can you charge more for weekends or emergency call-outs? Can you offer a discount in periods of low work?

Q: Have you allowed time for holidays, sickness, further training?

Q: Do you need time to train and supervise staff?

Projected finances

Preparing a few spreadsheets that describe the first months and years of your business may seem like something the bank would ask yor for if you wanted to borrow money for your new income opportunity. This is true but even if you are not seeking a loan the excercise of preparing projections is an essential part of business planning, and an essential part of the process that tells you if you have a viavble business or not. It also provides an invaluable measure against which you can measure the business over time.

At the very least you should prepare a simple cash flow projection for the first two years of the business. This should be prepared on a monthly basis and you should be very clear about your understanding of the meaning of “cash flow”.

Cash comes in – only when it has been received into the bank and is available for paying out or spending in some way.

Cash goes out – immediately you have decided that the money is to be spent.

In this way you can only spend what you have got – and simply because ypou have made some sales does not mean that the money has come in and is available for use!

Strengths of the business opportunity

You should analyse your business for any strengths it may have. These will give you the edge when attempting to carve out a share of an existing market. If you can’t think of any strengths relative to your competitors then you know that your business development will struggle.

Weaknesses that might let you down

Additional Business Opportunities

Are there threats to your business

Many people dream of an income opportunity that provides substantial wealth but only demands a little of their time. In a later chapter I pursue the potential reality of doing this and show that there are ways to make a living by doing very little hands on work. However, there are barriers to this type of business and it would be sensless making a start in this vein. Some businesses lend themselves to automation, but getting to that stage needs a lot of experience of how the processes involved work and if this is your goal at stage one, it demonstrates a lack of commitment to succeed.

Do not get me wrong, a full time income from part time work is possible and I am in the process of attempting to establish this myself. I am hoping that the fruits of my current labours will provide me with a residual income in the future when I decide to wind down heading towards retirement! This is not for some time yet and if I reduced my hourly input now I would not earn enough in the future.

So if you are looking for a full time income to replace your current employment you need to establish two facts first in order that you can create a business plan to get you started.

• How long are you prepared to wait, working at your current job, while your new business opportunity becomes a reality? How long are you prepared to develop your new business hand in hand with your existing employment? How much additional time to work are you prepared to commit each day or week?
• How much money are you prepared to commit to your new business?

These two items are linked. The longer period you are prepared to spend a few hours each week working on setting up your new full time income opportunity, the less demand you will have on investment – primarily because you will continue to work at your day job for a living. Anything you earn from your new business will be a bonus – as in the case of a part time income.

You will undoubtably have to invest some money into your business, in addition to your time. Even if you are setting up your replacement business alongside your day job you will need to pay for things like computer and web hosting, print and postage and other sundry items. If you are trading you may need to invest in stock, or at least buy samples if you are acting as an agent.

Come up with a compromise

You will need to decide upon your time/money committment up front so that you can begin to establish a business plan for your new venture. I am going to suggest the following as a typical approach for the average business opportunity seeker:

“…I am prepared to invest an hour or two each day, perhaps more on some weekends, for the next one to two years while I continue to work at my current job. I will be happy to incur around $1000 up front costs from my savings and perhaps about $100 every month thererafter. As I begin to make money, this will be reinvested completely in the first year. As the revenue increases I will begin to save some in reserve for when I decide that it is possible to leave my full time employment…”

This does not sound like a lot of time and money, but for somebody who is starting from scratch without a clear plan, believe me it is quite some committment! However, it is achievable if you have a little savings you wish to invest, and the time comes from your existing free time.

So what can you do with a few $ and a few hours every month?

Rather than attempting to enthuse you with ways to make money (we will examine the merits of different business models in later chapters) I would first like to provide some more essential information and tools that you will need if you are every to start a business that will continue to grow and provide you with a full time income.

Business structure

When you set up in business you might want to research the best business structure for you. Starting a corporation immediately may give your business profile a boost, but will dump a whole lot of administrative duties on you when you have little business to show. Do not underestimate the time needed to fill out statutory returns and keep the authorities from your door. For the small business, wherever you are situated, there are dispensations that allow simplification of these obligations.

Get the tax bit right

You do not need to study to become an accountant – but you do need to be aware of your responsibilities. You cannot run a business without informing the revenue that you have done so. There are penalties for failing to declare. However, if you get the business structure right you should have little to worry about as your business takes off for at least a year – after which time employing the services of a competent small business accounts might assist you (at surprisingly little cost for the first year – the fees will go up as your earnings do) if you simply find the subject of finance too dry!

Get your family on side

You must have the support of your family. They may even provide a valuable free resource for you – helping with mailshots or carrying out market research. What you do not want is for any resistance to your plans. The worst thing to do is to start secretively. Some people are a little embarrassed when they start up, possibly because of the fear of failure and the resulting ridicule.

Use your existing resources

As with your family, try to get your friends on side. Some free help from your CPA friend would be worth a fortune compared to the dubious benefit of keeping your venture a secret in the hope of eventually surprising them with your new found wealth.

Re-visit your reasons for wanting to start in business

This suggestion is important. You may be unhappy with your current employment – the daily grind? Ask yourself what makes you unhappy with your work – it might not be the actual work itself, rather the fact that you are not your own boss. If this is the case, it would be much better to consider starting a consultancy or similar business to what you already do for a number of reasons:

• You are already an expert in the field – no need to research new business opportunities
• You may already be recognised in the market place – a simple announcement may bring you a lot of custom
• Depending on your field, you will most likely be able to make a lot more working for yourself
• There is less risk starting up as you already know some of the pitfalls

I can’t urge you strongly enough – unless there is a good reason not to, you would be best placed continuing your current career but working for yourself.

WARNING – If you do set up on your own take care not to contravene your current terms of employment. Poaching clients and business can be an offence.

The business plan

You might still be wondering why I am not discussing the merits of the different income opportunities that may be available? Be patient – first we are going to practice setting up a business plan using your current area of work to get the hang of what is probably the single most important part of starting a new business – the business plan.

The business plan is a mixture of words and numbers that shows that you have considered all apects of your proposed new business and have come to the conclusion that it works! The plan will form the backbone of a marketing plan going forward and by a template for measuring your degree of success. The plan will accompany your business as it grows, and be updated and corrected as you learn new  facts or forecast outcomes turn out to be different.

A business plan can be a lengthy document submited to a bank to obtain finance, printed in glossy papare and full of colour photographs. Your plan will be approximately four pages – each page covering a separate section of the business – in our example a brief summary of the contents would be:

• Summary of the business – The plan is to set up a carpentry business serving the Smithfield county area. It will take advantage of the healthy home construction business in the area and the tendency for many occupants to build extensions (this example is based on an employee of one of the constructions firms). The business will involve smaller assignments taking one to two days to complete (and therefore can be done in a weekend) in the first one to two years, after which time it is envisaged that a second employee will be taken on to assist with larger one to two week jobs.
• The Market – It is estimated that Smithfield county has 10,000 houses with planning for another 1,000 over the coming five years. The county is serviced by three local housebuilding firms with the occasional appearance of a national franchise on larger sites.
• Finances – this will require the use of a simple spreadsheet to produce monthly and annual cash flows for the business. Working with spreadsheets is not difficult and most people are able to find their way round Excel these days. Using it to plan your likely costs and income is an essential tool in for business opportunity.
• “S.W.O.T.” analysis – you must examine your business proposal and come up with at least three or four each of STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES and THREATS that your new business faces. Considering each of these areas will focus your mind on whether or not you think overall the business will succeed.

The marketing plan

Whereas the business plan is a formula for working through all apsects of a business idea, the marketing plan assumes the business is going ahead and is an attempt to answre the question – “how will I find customers for the business”.  It can form part of the business plan under the section describing the market – and, as can be seen in the next chapter, should be a “how to guide” to make money in the area that you have chosen.

I have decided to include the chapter on making an extra “part time” income at the start of this manual for a very good reason. Most of the ideas that are included in the manual are capable of earning a substantial amount of money in certain circumstances. Some are easier to start than others, some require more investment and some require more ongoing effort. Some provide an instantaneous return while some provide a small but recurring income. However, all of the ideas can produce a little part time income.

Therefore, if you have decided upon a part time income as opposed to a business opportunity that can replace your day job, this is far easier to achieve. It is also somewhat easier to achieve you goals, assuming that you set them realistically.

I have already said that setting a target for a part time income should be no more than 10% of what you currently earn from your day job. For most people this will set a limit of around $3,000 to $10,000. For most, a target of $6,000 per year (or $500 per month) is a sensible starting point. Remember, there is nothing to stop this part time business becoming a full time earner!  If you are on a low income, $6,000 will provide a substantial and welcome boost to your lifestyle.  If you are already reasonably remunerated, $6,000 will fund an extra luxury holiday or payments on a smart new car.

Keep an eye open for administrative niceties!

There are a number of considerations to think about when starting a new business. The main problem to avoid is upsetting the taxation authorities. If you are simply starting a small “hobby” business that turns over a small amount – you are not under the same pressure to register with the authorities immediately until it shows some form of regularity. However, it is important that you record every penny that you spend on the business and every penny that it earns. In all p;robability you will record a loss in the first few months anyway.

In the early years I set up a couple of new businesses. On one occasion I had stationery printed (before the days of quality colour inkjet printers) and on another I invested in several $100s of stock. Both businesses failed, not because they were bad ideas, but because I lacked the motivation to take them  forward. The business styles were not for me – I will look at this problem in some more depth.

In some residences there will be clauses in the deeds or lease agreements preventing the running of a business. This is to prevent problems arising such as customers visiting residential addresses (i.e. too many cars in the drive) or machinery being used in apartments! However, sometimes it is included as standard in some cases, and a nosey neighbour might just report your new business start up.

Assess the “self employed” lifestyle

One good thing about a part time business is that it allows you to “test the water” in business. I have used this to good results and as mentioned, have previously had two failures. These taught me that I needed to find a business that did not involve selling low value or dubious value goods by using expensive or outrageous marketing techniques – I needed to feel that I was supplying a valuable service or product line – not simply chasing a profit.

Working from home can be lonely – do you want to be on your own? There are ways of overcoming this but it pays to be aware of the problem. Are you motivated enough on your own to keep at the business. A part time business can be a great tester, but if it doesn’t hold your interest you might be less inclined to pursue it diligently. Will you attention wander – after all you are chasing an additional income – you don’t actually need it like your full time  employment. When you come home from a full day of working it is easy to switch on the TV and forget the need to put a couple of hours into your part time business.

Can you allocate a set time to deal with you business every day or every week? If you can do this you are past the first hurdle.

Decide on self employment

If you are reading this you have a desire to set up a business. You are seeking a profitable business opportunity and are hoping to hit upon that idea or formula that will allow you to earn money working from a home base.  I have looked for the same for many years, and have learned a few things along the way. I have now been self employed for over three years, with my own business that I run from home together with a couple of side businesses that supplement my main income. I find that some diversification provides additional security in these turbulent times, but equally main efforts should not be spread too thinly!

Many people are looking for the same thing – the business opportunity market is one of the largest markets on the Internet – ranking alongside gambling, travel and pornography! In fact, if you add the business opportunities offered by these three areas to other programs for money making you will have the largest business on the web. Millions of hopeful business seekers spend a fortune chasing the desire to make money easily – almost all are destined to fail and of those few that do succeed, many will start selling worthless business opportunity leads to the ones that will fail!

So what track should you take to set up your business?

Very few people get rich quickly – those that are able to make money quickly will already have cash to invest and will know what they are doing. Even so, making money will present huge risks – the bigger the risk the larger the reward. Why believe the email that you receive telling you about a sure fire way to make $100,000 every month when you ignore the scams asking for help with moving funds from Nigeria? As soon as you accept that the business you are seeking will involve hard work and take time to develop you will be in with a chance.

It is assumed that you wish to be successful? A measure of success will be different for different people. One person might want to earn millions working one hour every week. Another might be happy earning $100,000 per year working six days a week. Yet another might want a second income of $1000 every month working a couple of extra hours in the evening three or four days each week.

Whatever your goal is to be successful in your business search – you must decide early on what it is – not to simply have a vague wish to make some money. Forget the wish to make millions for little work. It could be done – it could be a goal of a successful stockbroker who already earns that sort of sum each year but is sick of the daily grind. Yes, they could probably invest money in some business that would allow them to start building the sort of income base we are talking about. Yes, they would have to have a solid idea and be prepared to invest time up front in order to create a managed enterprise. But it could be done if that is what is desired. Are you in that position – the anwer is probably no if you are reading this. You are seeking honest answers to finding a business opportunity.

The business seeking goal must fit the person.

Therefore the professional who earns $100,000 a year already would be looking at creating a business that paid much the same, and very likely require a lot more work than they are used to. Do not discount the value of many years of experience and effort it takes to get to a certain position.

In your case the desire to be your own boss would be the prime motivator.

The person who wants a respectable second income perhaps to fund an extra holiday every year, will be able to find a business but will have to accept that for a long time the effort needed to earn some money will be proportionately greater than the effort needed for their current day job. They will have to get past both the learning curve of a new business and the barriers to starting up their operation. Again it is the goal to own a business that entices people, having full control over an albeit secondary income.

Set your goals early on

As you can see, goals can be diverse. How do you know you are setting the right ones for your circumstances? If you dream about millions you will probably become demotivated and fail. Only a few will eventually succeed at this scale. Setting your goals too low will not help. Again you will succeed, perhaps, but again become demotivated. The best goals are the ones that you can almost reach, and therefore are constantly trying to reach just a little bit further. You will reach your goals, just as you set the bar a bit higher and have to strive again!

Failing to set a suitable goal will prevent your long term success. So how do you know your goal is right. You have to be prepared to adjust your goal quickly “on the hoof” as you go – start with the following guide:

(a) If you are seeking to set up a business that will replace your current employment aim for an annual income half (yes half) of what you are earning now.

(b) If you are seeking to set up a secondary income stream, set your goal at 10% of your current income.

Your goals will form the basis of your business plan. Fail to plan your business means you are planning to fail! The next section of this series of business start up guides will cover how aspects of the part time or secondary business opportunity.