Work at home business opportunities - the top five ideas

Seek more "work at home" opportunities online - UK - USA

A small-scale work at home business opportunity can be handled with the minimum of investment. For example, if you're making birthday cakes to order, you don't need to invest much beyond the cost of ingredients. Small, low-investment work at home businesses can be fitted more easily around your other commitments, so you often have the option of keeping your regular job, or at least a part-time job, until your new business takes off. However, if you do have the money and time to invest in a work at home business opportunity, there is greater scope for profit as well as greater scope for creativity. Here are some ideas for people who have capital to invest in a business opportunity.

Career coaching

The competitive jobs market has helped to make a growing industry of careers assistance. Most people understand that getting a job isn't just about responding to advertisements; it's about being pro-active and marketing yourself. However, a lot of people aren't sure how to go about it, which is where the career coach steps in. When you're setting up as a career coach, think about your target market. Will you be helping recent graduates get a foot in the door, or will you be advising mid-career professionals on their choices? You should also consider which services to offer; you might be drafting clients' resumés, advising them on time management or even giving workshops on interview techniques.

Data conversion

Information is vital to the success of a business, so it is essential that as little as possible gets lost. A data converter might help a business switch to new software with minimum loss of data. Other tasks might include converting data so that it is suitable for back-up on CD-ROM, or converting it to be suitable for publishing on the Web. You will need a good technical background for this, as well as a lot of computer equipment and software. It's a great work at home business opportunity if you know exactly what you're doing, but it's not something to dabble in, as mistakes can be costly.

Financial advice

It's difficult to get complete and unbiased financial advice from banks and building societies - after all, they have their own products to promote. As a financial advisor, you will find that your target market are people who want advice based on their own interests, not the agendas of other people. Trust is the biggest issue in setting up as a financial advisor. Unless you have a large marketing budget, most of your clients will come from word-of-mouth referrals. You need to be careful about staying within the law and protecting your reputation for integrity. Useful resources are the American Academy of Financial Management (www.financialcertified.com) and the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (www.napfa.org).

Creating videos

The initial investment for the recording equipment is high, but videoing events can be very profitable. Weddings are the bread and butter of many professional video-makers, but there are other opportunities too. For example, perhaps large corporations would like you to video their training days so they can watch the videos and see where to improve.

Event planning

If you want to work at home providing an event-planning service, you will need to market yourself well. This means investing in quality business cards and an informative website. Getting your first contract is hard, because people are reluctant to hand over the planning of a big event to someone who isn't yet established in the field. You'll have to be your own salesperson, making plenty of phone calls for leads. Offering free samples of your work when you're first starting out will help you compete.

© The Pink Fridge Online Magazine 2008 - Home Business Opportunities