What Business Should I Start?. Rhonda Abrams

Carve out a niche. While finding a specialty can give virtually every business a competitive advantage, it’s especially true when it comes to Advisor/Counselor businesses. For instance, a therapist who specializes in troubled teens will have an easier time marketing their practice than will a general therapist.

       Watch out for . . .

      

Getting paid for your time instead of your value. Most Advisor/Counselors charge on an hourly basis, but how do you price your services to appropriately reward you for the value of the advice you provide? After all, you may spend only a short time with a client, yet, because of your expertise, provide highly valuable insight and direction. It’s almost impossible to charge based on your years of education and experience rather than just how many hours you spend with a client. One way is to consider flat-rate or project fees.

       Obvious (and Not-So-Obvious) Business Choices for This E-Type

      

Management consultant

      

Clinical social worker/therapist

      

Home inspection service

      

Education selection advisor (college, boarding school, troubled teens, etc.)

      

Employee assistance resource advisor

      

Attorney

      

Financial planner

      

Public relations consultant

      

Substance abuse counselor

      

Personal or business “coach”

      

Mediator

      

Diet counselor

      

Accountant

      

It’s difficult to know the going rates. This is especially true when you’re first starting out. Unless there are established industry standards for prices, your prices can turn out to be way too high or way too low. You’re going to have to be very competitively priced until you establish a positive reputation. Remember, most Advisor/Counselor businesses are built by word of mouth.

      

How quickly bad economic conditions can affect your business. When times get tough, many clients find it easy to cut back, or cut out, spending on Advisor/Counselors. After all, they still have to pay the rent, but they can quit going to a therapist or eliminate the marketing specialist. Of course, some Advisors (management consultants specializing in company turn-arounds, for example) may actually have more work when times are hard.

      

You sell your time. When you’re an Advisor/Counselor, you often charge by the hour. But even when you charge on a per-project basis, once a job is done or a client has left, you’ll have no continual ongoing source of income. You are the company’s “product.” Once you’re gone, so is your method of generating income, and it’s difficult to build—and sell—a company of any worth without work.

       E-Type: Builder/Creator

       Overview

      As soon as we make our first mark with a crayon, even before we build our first house in our sand box, we begin to create. We all have some need, some desire to create—it’s something we’re born with. But for people who fall into this E-Type the inclination to create becomes an overwhelming need.

      Builder/Creator E-Types encompass a diverse range of entrepreneurs—from artists to bakers to carpenters to designers to electricians, and on and on. Whether they work with brick or bytes, paint or pie crusts, the key is that those who fall in this E-Type are driven to create something tangible where it did not exist before.

      Surprisingly, this category has room for both a Picasso and a house painter. Why? Because the Builder/Creator E-Type includes both those have their own unique vision (an artist, for example) and those who have the skill to produce something that is someone else’s unique vision (a house painter, for example).

       The Builder/Creator excels at making things, whether it’s paintings, wedding cakes, or skyscrapers. Starting out can be slow—it takes time to become established in this E-Type. But long-term rewards can be great.

      Most often, however, businesses that suit this E-Type require a combination of one’s own unique vision and the client’s vision or needs. Think of an architect. Architects design buildings to suit their client’s desires, but they also have to bring their own talent and vision to the project.

      Most businesses for this E-Type are a combination of art and craft, invention and skill. Consider some of the traditional words used for people who fall into this E-Type: artisans, craftspeople, designers, developers, visionaries, innovators.

      Note: many Technologists (see page 63) may fit into this E-Type too, especially if they are creating new technology.

       Options for this E-Type

      The creative process—and impulse—is alive and well in virtually every industry and field. Within this E-Type, the available options fall in to a few main categories:

      Designer: “Designer” is a catch-all phrase that covers a broad range of business opportunities. Of the various definitions of “design,” the one I think fits what this E-Type does best is:

      “The act of working out the form of something (as by making a sketch or outline or plan)” WordNet^® 1.6, ©1997 Princeton University

      One way to think of those who are “designers” is that they are able to take existing elements and arrange them in a way to achieve something new that has a new purpose.

      Just a few of the business opportunities suited for Designers are: graphic design, interior decorator, art design (e.g., photo layouts or advertising materials), space (office) planner, event designer/decorator, website design, theatrical set design, and many more.

      Being a designer generally seems less risky than being an artist (see below) because what you are selling is your talent, rather than a product. After all, the customer—your client—already knows they have a need to have something designed (a brochure, a home, a computer program). You just