I always think about making money in two phases.
I used to be broke. I come from a long line of broke rednecks.
If you find yourself in that situation (NEED MONEY NOW), the first phase is to do
something!
There is some part time, flexible hours kind of job that you could pick up and increase your income in the next year by 50-100%.
It could be cutting grass, shoveling snow, delivering newspapers at 4 in the morning, or pizzas 5 nights a week.
It could be self employed, or working for somebody else.
Are you handy? Homeowners and real estate people always need a handy person for those little fixes. 300 business
cards, pass one out to every real estate office in town and drop one with a professional looking flyer in 200 mailboxes one evening. If you just show up when you say, fix their problem and charge a fair price that turns out to be the actual price, you will end up with more "part time" business than you can handle in 1 year.
Got a lawn mower? Print a nice flyer and business
cards. You're hungry. Call and get 3 or 4 estimates for what the big pro services charge to cut your yard, and how often they do it. You could triple your income by cutting grass and doing light landscaping. Give people a free cut if they refer somebody. Start very
local to you, so you don't need a truck. A 500 dollar trailer and a hitch will let you reach out to the whole
city.
Maybe that turns into a
permaculture landscaping business. Shamelessly promote organic/green/permaculture
lawn care.
Get a phone book with a yellow pages. Flip through it one night and look at every category of business. Ask yourself, could I start a business like that for less than a grand? What would that business look like with a
permaculture foundation and advertising?
Maybe it's pet sitting or dog walking. People spend ooodles of money on their pets boarding them while on vacation. Maybe you do it in their house, and visit 2 or 3 times a day. Again, call around ask what it costs to have this done. You will be shocked and amazed. Professional flyer and business cards. Maybe your twist is you also throw in basic obedience training while the owner is away so the dog sits on command, or comes on command. Ten minutes of clicker training a day is far more effective than a 3 hour obedience
class.
Maybe it's car detailing and oil changes, at the client's house so they don't have to go anywhere or do anything.
Maybe it's mobile grooming?
Maybe it's a lunch truck or lunch trailder that makes the rounds of construction sites. I promise you, construction workers are an underserved population in this regard, If you make tasty nutritious stuff that's not full of mystery meat and carcinogenic dyes and preservatives, you could sell that sandwich for a dollar more and they won't blink. You could call it FOOD THAT WON'T KILL YOU. The first rule of marketing is to be memorable.
Maybe it's cleaning houses. A year from now, you could be making double what you make now, just by showing up on time, being neatly dressed and profession and doing what you say you're going to do. The flyers could feature your enviro/permaculture/organic approach. You pledge to not use toxic crap to clean their house, YET you charge the same or less than the competition. Microfiber clothes and vinegar
water with a few drops of
soap fix almost anything. Just showing up on time and doing what you say you're going to do for them puts you head and shoulders above half of all the competition out there.
Start listening to what people gripe about. Every time you hear somebody bitch about a poor service or product, that's a big red flag that says they want something better and are willing pay more for and will tell their friends about to
boot. Those are all business opportunities.
I don't know what your angle is.
Go crazy. Try ten things, knowing that 9 will fail. AND knowing the one WILL succeed.
If you try ten things, and one works pretty good, and then you try ten more things, and two work out even better, that leads to phase 2.
It is hard to predict ahead of time, just by speculation and theory, what you will enjoy doing. The idea is hardly ever the problem. THere are a million ways to make money. By actually doing it and trying it, you may find a job or two or three that you really enjoy and want to do full time.
Trying it and finding out you hate it is a win! Try another one. Then another one.
Go throw a brick through your television. Every minute you spend watching tv or
facebook or twitter is a minute you didn't spend finding the dream job of your life.
The short term phase one plan will give you the money to fund the long term phase two plan, AND will give you the experience and opportunity to discover what you really want for a job.
This is just applying the
permaculture analysis and problem solving skills to, what do I want to do with the rest of my life.
Doing this
led me to quit my factory job, go back to school and end up as an optometrist who is self employed and loving it.
During that process, I rehabbed house and converted the basement to an apartment and rented it out. That was undergrad. The
profit from selling the house (and the rent) financed most of my optometry school and bought me a mobile home while I was in optometry school.
Working like crazy, for a time, is remarkably effective and getting the ball rolling.
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