What Business Should I Start?. Rhonda Abrams

got an itch to make things. You spend your spare time in hardware, art, or crafts stores. You’re constantly finding new projects. You’ve built your own patio, rewired your own home, and completely landscaped your yard—three times. You’ve made all your holiday gifts for years.

       This E-Type’s secrets & strategies

      

Look for corporate, as well as consumer, clients. While many of your artistic/creative activities may be best suited to serving customers’ personal (rather than business) needs or desires, business customers generally pay better. For instance, if you want to be an interior designer, you will most likely find better-paying work—and fewer competitors—for office interior design than for residential design. Of course, corporate clients may be more demanding than consumers, expecting vendors to have more experience or higher credentials (as in the case of interior design). Even so, you might want to start developing your business to eventually serve a corporate market.

      

Licenses. Many of the businesses for this E-Type do not necessarily require certification or licensing. If you’re very talented or able to start small with relatively little income, you can just plunge in.

      

Take care of the business side of your business. You’ve got to make sure you can eat. So price your work accordingly, and don’t forget to send out those invoices!

       Watch out for . . .

      

Believing that “if you create it, they will come.” While this E-Type includes those who are artistic, most people don’t make a living selling their own original work. If you want to be an artist (selling your own work rather than working on clients’ projects), you’d better have sales ability or hook up with someone who does.

      

Licensing/permit requirements for some building/construction businesses and projects. Don’t just run an ad and start fixing customers’ kitchen sinks or rewiring their electrical outlets. Make sure you’re following all applicable laws.

       E-Type: Caregiver/Maintainer

       Overview

      Our society has a great need for maintenance. Whether for a person, animal, thing, or plant, the need to be tended to creates many opportunities for entrepreneurs who are able to provide ongoing assistance and care. If you’re a person who sees yourself as a helping, supportive, or nurturing personality, or someone who can provide ongoing attention to something consistently over time, you may be a Caregiver/Maintainer E-Type.

      People who fall in this category may provide care to a person, a thing, an animal, or plant life. While regular upkeep of lawns may seem very different than providing physical therapy to an elderly individual, both call on similar personality traits. And both face related business issues.

      If you’re a Caretaker/Maintainer E-Type, you’ll find your business can be very satisfying. Others might find your work repetitive; after all, caretakers/maintainers typically perform the same tasks over and over again. Not you. You derive satisfaction knowing that it’s your E-Type that keeps the world running. You know how much others depend on you and know that you can be depended upon. That’s satisfaction, indeed.

       The Caregiver/Maintainer is capable of providing consistent, reliable, nurturing care to others. Often, the work is hard and the pay is low, but for this special type of person, job satisfaction is what matters.

      One advantage for those in this E-Type is that there are many opportunities that do not require certification or advanced education to start.

      Unfortunately, many of the businesses suitable for this E-Type can be exhausting. They’re almost all time-demanding. After all, your purpose is to maintain things or people. That takes continual, regular time commitment. Whether a client depends on you for home health care for an elderly relative or for maintenance of the heating system of their skyscraper, you have to be physically present where you need to be, when you need to be, or the consequences can be dire.

       Options for this E-Type

      Caring for people: Young people, old people, sick people, well people, people who need to go places, people who are disabled. Lots of people need assistance and care. The most obvious opportunities are in providing services to people who can’t fully take care of themselves, typically because of physical limitations (due to illness or disability) or age (children or the elderly).

      But there are also opportunities in providing services for those who can’t—or don’t want to—take care of things entirely on their own, perhaps because of their schedules (such as executives or overworked moms) or personal preference (not wanting to do housecleaning or needing advice from a personal shopper).

      Some groups that need assistance and opportunities include:

      

Children (e.g., child care, nanny, taxi/driving service, tutoring)

      

Sick, Injured, and Disabled (e.g., home health care, personal assistance, physical therapy)

      

Elderly (e.g., personal assistance, personal driver, shopping services)

      

Overscheduled, busy people, such as executives, housewives (e.g., errand-running, personal assistance, shopping, cleaning services)

      Maintaining things: Most things need regular maintenance and occasional repair to be able to continue to stay in decent condition.

      Certainly most machines need regular service. These can be large machines, such as automobiles, heating/air conditioning systems, irrigation systems, ship engines. Or they can be smaller machines such as computers, appliances, cameras, photocopiers.

      But virtually every other kind of “thing” also needs regular maintenance and repair. Just think about the “things” around homes that need maintenance and repair, such as wiring, pavement, awnings, roofs, gutters, pools, windows and so much more. Similarly, most things in business or industrial settings need maintenance.

      Tending to animals: Americans, as well as many other nationalities, love their pets. As the number of pets has increased—and Baby Boomers have more money to spend on their pets—pet care has exploded as a source of business opportunities.

      These business opportunities include some obvious options such as dog-walking or dog-sitting or pet grooming, which have the added benefit of being very inexpensive to launch. But they also include less obvious choices (such as pet therapist) or more expensive start-up options (such as opening a full-service pet boarding/treatment “spa”). Pet ownership—and spending on pets—has continually increased, and this is a fruitful area of entrepreneurial expansion.

      Animals other than pets also need tending. These may be in stables, on farms, or in veterinary settings. Opportunities also exist in treating or caring for those animals.

      Sustaining plants/lawns: All kinds of plant life