This is what I know..........
1. I want to start a business
2. I want to be able to start part time in order to maintain my
current job
3. I want it to have a minimal investment, probably service type
business
4. I want to be able to work from home, but still be able to get
out and about for my business as well.
5. I like working with people
6. I like investigating, researching, reading
7. I am detail oriented
8. I live in a small rural area with limited opportunity
9. I am still trying to find my niche, my right opportunity, my service that people will pay me for and for which I can sustain a suitable income for my family. I still have no idea what type of business to do and I am feeling like I am my own worst enemy in my quest for being self employed.

I am tired of searching for the right business because I wonder if such a thing exists, I have tossed around these ideas......
1. HR type services - but I do not have a degree, but I am willing
to learn and invest in broadening my knowledge.
2. Cleaning business, but then again I think I will bore of this
type of work and my house is not a stellar example either.
3. Errand business, but with having a fulltime job during the week,
I would not be able to do this in my spare time if I wish to
keep my job.
4. Virtual assistant, I worry that I would offer to broad of a
service and people would not be willing to pay me for these
services.
5. Research/Referral Service - this one I kinda like, but I am not
too sure what the demand would be and what areas I should
specialize in, in order to draw a client base.
6. Creating scrapbooks, memory boards, etc - I thought it would be
nice to be able to create memory boards from pictures for
memorials, graduations, weddings, anniversaries, etc. And
create specialize scrapbooks, but again I am not go familiar
with doing all of these things and I would need to learn and
practice on this. Plus I would need to upgrade some supplies
and equipment and I am not sure how much trial and error will
cost me. But I do like the idea.
7. Event planner - I worry about being able to generate enough
business to make this a profitable venture being that I live in
a smaller rural area.
As you can tell I have ideas but I keep holding myself back with the what if's and the fear of failure. I just wish I knew which avenue would best suit me and the area in which I live and what, if any of these ideas could be combined to determine what will or will not work. I am trying to give as much info as possible to ask for some advice here, any input would be GREAT!!!!!!

The best suggestion I can offer is to talk with a professional business coach. You need to speak with someone who can help you get past your confusion and determine what your lifelong aspirations and fears are and to help get past them.

I did this just under a year ago and it's been an amazing transformation for me. My income has easily grown by about 80% over the last year with a solid amount of passive income coming in (meaning if I stopped working tomorrow, I'd still be making enough to pay the bills), have been on television, got over my fear of public speaking and have moved from being uncertain and unsure of how to move forward to having a clear plan of action and can see myself moving in that direction.

I highly recommend Neworld Coaching - http://www.neworldcoaching.com/ for a few reasons

a) Out of all the coaching companies I looked at, they definately are top notch
b) They actually have significant success under their belt from other companies they've started and sold.
c) They're entire coaching plan is based on how to build a business, promote it and make sales while spending as little money as possible doing it (which seems to meet what you're looking for)
d) They're incredibly affordable.
e) They actively promote you and send you business. I've easily made 10x what it cost me to hire them in what they've directly sent me in new business, not to mention the business generated just from applying their strategies and techniques.

If you contact them and let them know Craig from Holibyte sent you they'll give you a free hour telephone consultation and will treat you right.

From one business owner to another who has been in the exact same situation as you, these people completely changed my life. Don't get me wrong, you will have to put in your own work into your business but your biggest issue is lack of direction and focus. They can help you find it.

Craig Vincent
Holibyte Online Solutions
http://www.holibyte.com/ - Triple your revenue and repeat sales

Just pursue the thing that you like most to do.. Don't be a pessimist and think negative of all things, you won't be able to start anything..
Everything has it's ups and downs.. But if you have the heart for it you will have no worries overcoming it.. Goodluc

Hi..

Two statements above stand out to me. Number 8, a rural area with limited opportunity, and number 9 regarding finding a niche. These are both telling statements. The first is the problem, the second is the solution.

Being in a rural area does offer limtied opportunity because in many cases you'll need a nearly 100% market share to succeed. Short of businesses that will require a lot of startup capital there aren't many I can think of that will bear minimal risk, low start-up costs, and will allow you to do it part-time until you can grow it to a point that it will replace your current employment income. To accomplish what you're trying too I see two choices. You'll either have to go to a larger market, or you can bring the market to you.

Look to the internet...it's the biggest market on the planet and you never need to leave home.

My companies are brick & mortar but 2yrs ago after 19yrs I finally decided to put up a website. Because we manufacture about 80 items and distribute about 8,000 more, the requirements for our site were both extensive and expensive. This need not be the case with you.

Find a handful of related products that you and maybe family and friends personally like alot and that aren't found on every local retailers shelf. Contact the manufacturer or distributor of these products and find out if you can buy them wholesale. (Don't mention you are going to sell them on the internet) Now you have enough information to be able to establish your margins. Now find out how much it will cost you to ship them to the most distant location in the lower 48. Check FedEx Ground, UPS, and USPS for current rates...you can do this online at their websites.

Now comes the hard part...coming up with a name that is both available locally, and on the internet...this will likely take a few tries as there are millions of business names registered for the internet so finding one that someone else hasn't already thought of might be tough.

Now that you have a name, and a product it's time to learn. First...don't sign up with any of the companies promising to bring you business or make your site #1 in 3 days etc. There's nothing you can't do yourself, you'll just have to take the time to learn. Start by learning all you can about SEO..Search Engine Optimization. In short, this is designing your site and tailoring it for the search engines...so they can find it. The next thing you want to learn about is pay-per-click advertising. These two things are your keys to success in internet marketing. Once your confident you've learned what you need to know about these subjects it time to build your site. You have a number of options here. There are tons of people doing website design...you can go to Craigs List and find one, or there may be some on this site. I'd recommend setting up your own full service site with marketbasket...the whole works. From there you can open a Yahoo store or and Ebay store...these are very cheap to open and you can have them redirect to your base site.

Two years ago with few exceptions I pretty much panned internet businesses...mostly because I'm suspect of most companies short of site designers that feed off the businesses doing business online. Since that time I've majored in SEO and minored in PPC and now our site does fine. An antecdotal story here to show you how it works.

We had a product on our site that we'd never had an order for. The well-known manufacturer discontinued it and I removed it from the site. However, it remained in Googles cache and someone queried it and placed an order. My partner contacted them to let them know the mgfr had discontinued it and we had none in stock. The customer told her that the mfgr had referred him to us. Feeling guilty, my partner went out in search of any remaining in the marketplace. She found someone on Ebay and contacted them...they made her a deal if she'd take it all...she paid about $3 for like 80 of them. Within about a week, we had several more orders for it...within two weeks we'd sold out of what we had. We sell it for just under $20 so with margins like that, my partner went in search of more. Ironically, her search put us in touch with the company that made it for the big well-known company. Needless to say, they were more than happy to sell to us and offered to private label it for is at no additional cost. We've only been carrying the product for about a month and we're already selling more than the company that makes it. There are several reasons for this...one...because of our SEO and PPC work...we're the only game in town...second, the company that makes it...doesn't even have a marketbasket on their website. As it stands now...if someone does a search for the product...our site is the only one that comes up that actually has the product. This means I pay nearly nothing for PPC. Since we started with it, the profit from this one product alone pays the entire overhead for the site...which is alot. There was no genius on our part...just a willingness by my partner to help out a customer and then one thing leading to another. How long will our monopoly last? I have no idea...I suspect probably a year or two, maybe longer because most companies wouldn't have much interest in it, as we never did simply because the sales at the other companies probably wasn't much better than ours were, but when we became the only game in town all those searches and sales got funneled to us and in aggregate are quite substantial.

I hope this affords you some insight in your search for a successful business...good luck in whatever you do.
Denny

Denny