CATERING FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S PARTIES

If you are a good cook and have tested recipes, you can make a good income by catering for other people's parties. The secret to this kind of business is in the cooking. You will have to create a reputation by cooking food of super delicious standards. This will create lots of word-of mouth customers and soon the whole town will be buzzing with your reputation and orders will flow in to the extent that you will not be able to handle them unless you expand the business and employ assistants. However, do not make the mistakes many others make. When you have established a reputation for your cooking, people definitely look forward to your personal cooking. Do not make the mistake by delegating others to do the cooking.

Under whatever circumstances, you must always do the cooking yourself if you want your customer stream to flow in your favour. If you delegate others to do the cooking, you will run the risk of experiencing a dwindling customer flow. You can get assistants to do the necessary preparations and also for serving but when it comes to the cooking proper, make sure you do it youself. That is the only way to do this business well. For additional incomes, you can rent tables and chairs and even tents to the host.

STEAMING AND REDYEING CARPETS

Carpets are replaced not necessarily because of wear and tear but also for many other reasons. You can help business and individuals save a lot of money by offering to steam clean and redye their carpets. This is a good business and involved a simple process if you have the necessary equipments. You can buy a steam cleaning equipment and dye applicator and start marketing your business in the yellow pages as well as the newspapers. Set up an office and let people know the business you are in. Do not forget to show your potential customers how much savings they will make by employing your services.

It is possible to dye 2000 square feet of carpet a day. An average room may take only a few hours to complete; steam clean and dye and retails for $100, most of it for labour and profits. Once the business is set up and, assuming you can do a professional job, do vigorous marketing and you will be surprised to find out that there are more business than you may have made it out to be.

Hotels, landlords and individuals are all your potential customers. The trick is, apart from rendering professional service, make sure you let customers know how much they will save by engaging your services.

SELLING DATING IDEAS TO YOUNG MEN.

Most of the young men dating for the first time will just emulate the standard stereotyped approach to dating. It is all dinner and a movie and then home. This stereotyped approach is already dull but maybe excusable for the first date but done repeatedly it becomes a big bore. When at a loss for ideas, the man usually fumbles and does things that make him look like a silly novice. It will take away much of the macho in the man. Sometimes it makes the girl wonder how in the world has she landed with this immature kid.

Under the circumstances, you will do these novice lovers a big favour if you can write a small book of ideas on how to make dating interesting. Expose that for the first date it is alright to go to the movies and dinner but there are other ways to make dating interesting to both parties. For example a boat ride to a nearby island and walk on the sandy beach in casual dress while eating ice-cream is definitely a departure from the ordinary and would be memorable and interesting. A weekend fishing trip is another. There are as many ideas available as you care to think and imagine. Write the book and sell. It would sell like hot cakes and there is a lot of money there.

REASSEMBLING KNOCKED-DOWN FURNITURE

There are importers who import exotically carved wooden furniture from Indonesia as knocked-down products. By importing on a knocked down basis, a lot of import taxes are waived and the products can be imported cheap as knocked-down furniture requires very much less container space than assembled ones. Transport costs can be considerably cut down.

Once they are imported into the country, they require reassembling before they are sold to customers at a higher price, sometimes four times the capital cost. If you have the skill of assembling or can engage people who can assemble knocked-down furniture, you can start a business in that direction. Buy the furniture cheap. Then you need to assemble the parts, smoothen the surface with sand paper and apply varnish and shellac to make it look expensive. Your also need to reupholster the chairs with the color tradition of the Indonesian and you will have yourself a perfect set of furniture that will fetch over a $2000 each. There is money in this and it is definitely worth exploring the possibilities.

REFINISHING WOODEN TABLES AND CHAIRS

There is a lot of wooden tables and chairs being sold cheap at a yard sale. You can get them for $10 for each table that has been painted or with fading varnish. Then buy the modern and fantastic refinishing chemicals and you can straightaway get to work refinishing the tables at the rate of one table per one afternoon. And sell the refinish table for ten times its cost.

There is a very big difference between a table that has been painted and one that is refinished with new varnish and shellac. A painted table is ugly but one that has its paint completely removed and has been refinished will reveal the beautiful original mahagony, oak or walnut underneath. Suddenly refinished tables become desirable and will fetch a high price.

You can do the same with chairs too and whatever that is made of wood for that matter.

YOUR OWN PSYCHIC HOTLINE.

Many people may laugh when we talk about psychic hotline, dismissing it as simply stupid to believe in such things. The truth is that underneath those laughs, there is a strong urge to know what the future holds for them. Believe me, most believe in the power of the psychic. That is why fortune tellers still exist up to this day and a lot of people still look up the astrology column to see what the stars are saying about them for the week. The very fact almost everyone knows under what stars they are born is testimony to their belief in the stars and thus anything that is psychic. It is simply that they feel rather silly to admit it openly. They cover that with a laugh.

So, if you have genuine powers of clairvoyance you can start a �Psychic Hotline� and make plenty of money. In fact, if you work on this seriously, it would not be surprising if you make a few hundred thousand dollars a year operating your �psychic hotline' alone. People are willing to pay $29.95 for psychic reading. They like to hear insights into their romantic, financial and personal affairs. Even if you make it clear it is for entertainment purposes only, there are people who are willing to pay the $29.95. So if you are the first person to act, you will make a lot of money.

BUILDING A WELL EQUIPPED SEMINAR HALL

Seminars of different kinds are being held in almost every town and thus the need for seminar halls. At present the trend is to book hotel seminar halls in a package with the food and rooms that go in package. This is expensive. If the hall alone is required, the charges for the hall is high. As such only big organizations can afford to cruise on the charges and the small ones will have to sidestep the expensive arrangement. Since the hotels are the only options, small organizations will have to hold their seminars in small hotels on a shoe string budget.

Judging by the number of seminars held per year, you can start building a special seminar hall fully equipped with wide screen, video projectors and lap top for rent.

Since you are not operating a hotel, you can charge a low rental for the hall. This will attract all kinds of organizations that are looking to save unnecessary expenditures. For extra incomes you can offer to provide food at moderate prices well below those charged by hotels. If you are the first in your locality to start this business, you will prosper. Think about it.

HOSTING A COMPETITION WITH VOTING BY SMS

Think of something that can go on television and excite a big audience, maybe a folksong competition. Hold it once a week, covering the preliminary rounds, moving into the quarter finals, the semi finals and the finals. Have many preliminary rounds before you go to the quarter finals. Elimination is done through SMS counts (This is where you make the money). After deducting for prizes and a paraphernalia of other expenses, and sharing the income with the media,you may still find yourself a substantial profit of a few hundred thousand dollars per show season.

To embark on this project, you will have to make prior arrangement with the television company to put your program on show and then make arrangement with cellular phone companies regarding the percentage of income from SMS. Once that is ready, approach a few known folk singers and musicians to act as judges and chief judge for the competition. Discuss and finalise payment for their services. You will also need a good compere to steer the course of the competition on stage. Once that is set, advertise in the newspapers. The television company you will be working with will readily advertise too. If you do this properly, you will be in for a shock when you end up with a lot of money after the show. It is not difficult but involves some serious work on our part.

A MACHINE SHOP FOR METAL WORKING

This is a good business opportunity. Set up a shop and buy metal working machineries that can cut and mould steel into various designs. Most of your business will come from vehicle workshops that need replacement parts for vehicles. Not all vehicles replace their engine parts with the original. Even Mercedes Benz can use cloned parts especially those that has nothing to do with the engine block or pistons, rings and valves. For most vehicles, there are many parts that can be replaced by cloned creations. When you are in the industry, you will know this.

Workshop operators will always approach machine shop operators to get these cloned parts. With the advancement in technology, you don't have to be surprised to know how perfect the cloning can be done. Digital technology is fantastic.

If you laise with enough vehicle workshops you will have a lot of work on your hands. And you can never know what other organizations will enlist your services if you really have up-to-date metal working digital machineries. Be the first in your area to start one.

ROCK CLIMBING FACILITY

Rock climbing has become a popular sports activity. For that you need to build a structure about 20 to 30 feet high to simulate a man-made mountain with various hands and footholds. Anyone who desires to climb the facility as a sport will have to wear a safety harness. He will be suspended from a rope which passes through a pulley in the ceiling and controlled from the ground. As he climbs the rope is drawn in such a way that should he slip and fall, he will only dangle from the rope, after which he will then be lowered to the ground for another attempt. He can try to reach the top for as many times as he cares to attempt. He is charged by the hour at the rate of $10 per half hour. You can easily make $100 for a 5 hour session as there will be many youths who would like to try their climbing skills.

Alternatively, you can invite participants to a rock climbing competition and offer cash prizes. Each participant will have only one chance to attempt and the time to reach the top is recorded. The fastest wins the prize. You will find many youths joining in for the fun of the competition and also for the cash reward. You make money by charging an entrance fee.

REBUILDING CARBURETTORS

If you are familiar with car engines, you will know that car carburetors can be built by replacing certain parts and fixing them. Carburettors that have been used for many years can be renewed and made to perform like new again. There is no need to discard these carburetors and replace them with new ones. If you start a business renewing worn out carburetors you will save car owners the money for buying new carburetors which will be costly. You can sell the rebuilt carburetors for half the price of a new one and make money. Both you and the car owner will end up on the winning end.

Set up an office and advertise your services. You can also insert an advertisement in the newspapers and distribute flyers to car owners. If you could and have done a few good jobs, word-of-mouth advertisements will work in your favour and you will have more work than you anticipate.

RENTING MOSQUITO MAGNETS FOR EVENING AND NIGHT OPEN AIR PARTIES

You can easily buy a couple of mosquito magnets that draws mosquitoes to the instruments instead of to people in the vicinity. These mosquito magnets emit a smell that simulate that of human beings. The smell will draw the mosquitoes towards the instrument and when they are close enough, these mosquitoes will be sucked into a tank. As much as 20,000 to 30,000 can be sucked in leaving the area free of mosquitoes.

You can rent your mosquito magnets to groups that have garden parties in the evening or at night where there are plenty of mosquitoes that will disrupt the parties. Charge a reasonable rental and customers will thank you for the service.

People who live in mosquito infested areas may approach you to buy the mosquito magnets. You can arrange to sell them the product and make an extra income.

PHOTOCOPY PICKUP AND DELIVERY SERVICE

Usually photocopy shops wait for customers to come to do the photocopying for them irrespective of whether the customers want to duplicate one single copy or a set of 100 copies and more. This requires the customer to drive to the shop, and that involves time and transport costs. If the amount to be duplicated runs into hundreds of copies, customers will be required to wait for the service to be ready. Should the customer leaves the job to be done and then collect at a later time, more time and transport cost is involved, and everybody knows that time is a valuable commodity.You can start a photocopy service of a different kind��pick up and deliver service.

For customers that require more than a hundred copies to be duplicated, you can arrange to pick up the master copy, do the duplicating and then deliver the duplicated materials to the customers. You can calculate and add in charges for delivery and come up with a slightly higher charge per copy. Customers will not mind the extra charge since it would still be cheaper than if they are to go to the shop personally. Time cost would be erased and so will the extra travel inconvenience and the waiting.

TAKING CHARGE OF PETS

Nowadays almost everybody has at least a pet animal, either a cat or a dog. People with a soft spot for animals will not leave their pets alone whenever they want to go on a holiday. They will have difficulty feeding the animals while they are away. They may try to leave some food behind but there is no telling what may transpire. Many are worried to death to leave the animals for a long spell of time and will look around for facilities that would take care of the animals while they are away.

If you are a pet lover yourself and find great affinity for animals, you can start a pet care centre. You can advertise through the newspaper or send flyers to residents in your vicinity telling them of your service. That would provide a great relief for people who want to leave their pets when they are away for a holiday . Charge a reasonable fee, taking into account the food to be provided and the duration of the service. Handle the animals professionally and you will not find yourself without clients.

SELLING CHILDREN'S CLOTHES

The baby boom and changing trends in children's wear have given rise to a lucrative business selling baby clothes. You can go into this business and make a good income.

Find out about the latest in baby's fashion wear and deal along those lines, apart from dealing in ordinary everyday wear for babies and small children.

There is a lot of money there because parents really go all out to shower their affection on babies and also to accommodate the whims of their small boys and girls.

Apart from mothers and fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers also have a special kind of affection towards their grandchildren. They will also be looking for clothes to buy for their grandchildren. That adds to the customer pool.

Children grow very fast and outgrow their clothes just as fast. You can offer to buy used babies clothes and resell them. That would be an extra income for you.

MODEL MAKING

If you have a flair at model making and can make good models of various kinds, you have architects, engineers and developers as your clients. These people deal in businesses that require them to demonstrate in three dimensions the products they are designing. They require good models of buildings, rooms, trees and landscape for this. They will appreciate your services and will be your regular customers should you be able to come up with the type of models that they require.

These people realize that drawings and photographs of the intending finished product is not giving the impact they desire anymore. House buyers especially wants to have a good idea of what they are buying. Models do the trick here.

Sometimes models are required to simulate a whole township on the table. Plenty of models are required here and would provide you with a good business. There is money for you if you can really create good models as required by these architects, engineers and developers.

COLLECTING ROCKS FOR AQUARIUMS

This business does not require any special skills. Anyone can do it. Gathering various specimens of rocks and stones for use in aquariums is interesting. You may not have realized that there are many kinds of rocks and stones out there that have taken interesting shapes and sizes due to erosion by weather and wind. In the rivers with fast flowing waters, you will find even more interesting rocks and stones of various sizes and species. These stone will greatly enhance the attractiveness of aquariums and would provide an interesting environment for the fish to swim by and hide. Using these stones, corals and sand, you can simulate an ocean bed in a reasonably sized aquarium.

You can collect these stones and rocks and sell them to commercial as well as home aquariums and collect a good income. You can cultivate this as a hobby to earn a good partime income. As you move on and many commercial aquariums get to know what you are doing, you may find your hobby develop into a lucrative business. Do not hesitate and go for it.

OPERATE A POOL SALOON

There is a good demand for good pool tables especially by young budding pool players. You can start operating a pool saloon if you can rent an area where you can place at least two pool tables comfortably. Space in a shopping complex is most suitable for this purpose. It would be good if you yourself is a pool player and know the rules of the game of pool in and out.

Start renting the tables by the hour. You do not have to attend to the pool table because all pool players know the rules of the game and can take care of the score themselves.

To keep the tables busy, promote a competition with cash prizes. Charge an entrance fee for the competition and get some big companies to sponsor prizes. You will attract many pool players and make money in the process. To operate this business, you need a license from the authorities and buy two good pool tables. It would be easy to advertise if you operate in a shopping coplex.

PARK AND RIDE

In certain countries, there are restrictions for vehicles to enter the city with only one passenger during peak hours of 7.00 am to 6.00 pm. This is to avoid an intolerable traffic jam in the city. You need a full car load to qualify. A lot of people on the way to work have to pass through the city and with ordinary commuters also going to the city, the roads will be completely jammed and traveling will be at a snail's pace.

Once in the city, then there is the problem of finding a parking space. All this adds to a high cost of commuting apart from all the attendant inconveniences involved if one is to drive into the city in his own car.

You can start a badly needed service to help solve part of the problem. Find an open space outside the city and operate a parking area. You will need also a medium-sized van with an efficient driver to complete the scenario. People need not drive into the city. They drive up to your parking area, park their cars and from there they take a ride to the city in your van. Your van will also take them back to the their cars once they have finished whatever they need to do in the city. Customers only pay for the parking and the ride to and from the city. You will make a good income this way and in the process help to ease the traffic jams and eradicate the inconveniences of driving and finding parking spaces in the city.

OPERATE A MODELLING SCHOOL

With so many beautiful and versatile ladies around who want to go into the limelight, there is no reason why you cannot operate a modeling school. This business becomes even the more viable if you can team up with a professional model trainer and if you have wide and close contacts with advertising agencies that need models for their advertising slots. If you go into this business then, you will not only make money but you may run into a big contract with establisehed advertising agency.

While your professional partner trains the ladies, you do the laison work and scout around for talents. Charge an entry and monthly fee to be trained at your school and collect a commission for every model that is hired for advertisement. You will find this business a very interesting and fulfilling enterprise. Apart from making money, you will get to know the big guns of the film industry and big business corporations that hire models for advertising.

GOLDEN AGE EXCELLENCE ORGANIZATION

If you have excellent organizing abilities and know a lot of �big guns' in society you can start an organization for people of the golden age and harness individual capabilities to serve the public. Make it a non-profit organization that can solicit private and public donations for its operations. Arrange for government grants in areas of the possible. As an organizer, create yourself a job as manager of the organization with a steady handsome salary and you are guaranteed of a good income.

Go about it legally by consulting lawyers on the legal aspects of the organization.

Since most people who are retired will not be active, you can take the reins and do all the planning and organizing; of course through consultations with the organization's committee. If you are successful in convincing ex-top executives to join the organization, the organization will grow and you will not only earn a good salary, but will be able to establish your name as a charity organizer. Who knows, you might even receive a medal for your services.

HOME TUTORING

With education as it is and classrooms crowded, it is rather difficult for the average student to excel in his studies. For one reason, it is because teaching can only be done on the �skim the surface' basis with no special emphasis on driving home the salient points to each and everybody. It is simply not possible to do due to time restrictions and the race to complete the study syllabus. Bright students may catch up, the average a little and the mediocre left stranded.

Parents are becoming more aware of this scenario and many are worried about their children not making the grade expected. Parents will have to do something positive immediately. Now the trend is to look for qualified good teachers to tutor the children at home. Parents are not fussy about tuition fees as long as the tutors deliver the goods.

You can start home tutoring if you have the capabilities. The demand for the service is excellent and the payment satisfying. You can tutor each student for 90 minutes a day at the rate of $ 30 for twice a week per subject. If you work 6 hours a day and 6 days a week, you can easily tutor 10 students. That is a small number and will not be difficult to find especially soon as your reputation is tops. You can collect a cool $300 a week and that is good income while doing a good service to students and parents alike.

SELLING R.O.DRINKING WATER

For this business you only need to buy a few drinking water dispensing machines and place them at strategic places where a lot of people visit. Some of the suitable places you can opt for are bookshops where many people visit to conduct all kinds of transactions. The water dispensing machines are self serviced machines and customers can opt to buy the amount of water they need from 1 litre to 1 gallon just by insert coins in the coins insertion opening. Customers bring along their own plastic bottles. You can also arrange to sell plastic bottles in the event the customers need them. That would be an additional income.

On your part, you will only have to pay frequent visits to these water dispensing machines to see that they are working perfectly and take care of any breakdowns should that happen to occur. Otherwise, there is nothing much to do. I know of a number of people who cut themselves a steady good income doing this business.

HOME FOR ELDERLY BOARDERS

I happen to know of many people who have passed the age of sixty finding it difficult to stay with their married children under the same roof. The generation gap and different cultural tastes have always become a problem. Most of these people who are rather wealthy prefer to live away from their children who incidently have their own family to take care of. It has become a tuism that the main and the extended family cannot live like a hand in glove. In some cases, the artificial relationship is killing. Thus many residents of the golden age look elsewhere to spend their dwindling years in style and saviour the last nector of the gift of life.

If you can bring yourself to be of service to the veterans of life and provide an interesting and fulfilling life for these people, you can start a home for elderly boarders. You can charge $1000 a month, inclusive of food and if you advertise your services, you will find enough people who will take your offer and maybe more than you expect. Be creative and think up activities that run parallel to their tastes. In fact you can consult them and work along those lines. If you are courteous, sincere and professional, more elderly boarders will join you.

BE A PROFESSINAL PHOTOGRAPHER

If your hobby is photography, you can upgrade your skills by enrolling into one of the professional photography course in town. Then with a good camera and armed with new knowledge on photography,you can create yourself a steady income by operating as a mobile photographer.

Visit zoos and bird park and places of interest where people go especially on weekends. Introduce yourself by distributing business cards to visitors to these places and offer to take their pictures or pictures of their children. Most people would be willing to oblige especially when they do not bring their own camera along.

You can either collect payments in advance and sent the photographs later or invite the clients to collect the photographs at your shop. Let the clients make their own decisions. But whatever it is, make sure you record the names and addresses of your clients.

Do not confine your operations to the weekends only. Find out when and where a wedding is to take place. Make arrangements with the host to allow you to take photographs of the occasion. You develop the photographs and sell them to the host. If you can bring along a video camera so much the better. You can record the wedding and sell CDs to the host and others present especially those who request their presence to be recorded on video.

START A MINI PROVISIONS SHOP

You can reserve the front portion of your house to start a mini provisions shop. Start small and keep growing, Start by selling rice, sugar, flour, cooking oil , tea dust, coffee dust and the daily necessities which may include mosquito coils, biscuits and bottled drinks. I feel the list is good enough for a start. Of course you can add to the list as your business picks up.

The secret to success is to be always on the look out for newcomers to the vicinity. These people have not yet built any loyalty to any specific place to get their daily supplies. Be the first to get to know these people and offer them a �welcome wagon�.

Offer to take their orders and deliver the orders to their front door. Offer them some gift items and special introductory discounts to make them really know you and establish customer loyalty to you.

Establish rapport with them and visit their houses. Do not forget to bring along a welcoming gift. Since they have not known anybody yet, you will have an edge over the others. If you work along this line and provide good service to your clients, there is no reason why you cannot be successful in this venture.

START AN EXCLUSIVE PRIVATE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION

There may be a number of private institutions already in the vicinity. Never mind that because you are not going to emulate them. You must start a private institution of a different kind --- a specialist private institution specializing in the teaching of languages, science and mathematics only. By and large, students are not proficient in these three subjects of which they must excel to be in the top elite group.

Set an entry requirement to show that you mean business and thus pass on the confidence to parents. Set a high standard of descipline and let this be known in the prospectus and in your discussions with parents.

Employ experienced and specialist facilitators either from graduates or ex-educationists. For a start, don't go for quantity but emphasise on quality. You may start with only three facilitators specialized in their different fields. Make sure you deliver the goods as promised. Make sure you walk your talk and you will have no difficulty getting students and charging a high fee for learning at your institution.

HOLD MOTIVATIONAL SEMINARS ON EDUCATION

If you plan it right and the timing is also right, you can hold a series of seminars a year and that will earn you an income good enough for a year. The target participants