5 Best Home Based Businesses

In an economy that is still hustling to get back into a period of growth and out of a recession, more and more people are choosing to work from home. Starting up a home business may seem like a daunting task, but with the right set of skills, it’s a great way to establish a personalized career. As long as you work with other professionals that can help your business grow, such as website designers and marketing specialists, you’ll have no trouble finding the business that’s right for you. Listed below are some of the best options for home-based businesses that can prosper with a simple website, social media marketing, and can be run from home:

1. Health & Fitness:

If you lead an active lifestyle, why not lead by example? Taking some classes on nutrition and getting certified as a personal trainer or special activity class instructor can be extremely beneficial. Personal trainers make $15 an hour on average; The more specialized classes you can teach, the better, because it means you can charge more.Take into account some of the most popular trends in health and fitness such as yoga, crossfit, and zumba. Incorporate these trends into an at home business with an informative website that lists all your credentials and types of available classes. You can train your clients at home or make house calls. Offering body compositions and nutrition plans to your clients is an added bonus giving them not only physical activity but also encouraging them to alter their diet with healthy alternatives. You can even make customized meal plans for them and put them up on your website so that they are easy to access.

2. Child Care:

Initially this may sound like glorified baby-sitting, but the fact of the matter is, child-care professionals can earn anywhere between $150 – $250 a week per child. Of course, people aren’t just going to hand their kids over to anyone. You’ll need to take first aid classes, a licence, insurance, and some form of advertising. Not to mention endless patience, toys, activities,  and good organizational skills. Kids are like wild dogs – they can smell fear. Another way to contribute to this type of business venture is to include tutoring classes for the children you take care of. Offering a two-in-one deal for their parents will be a dream come true if you can help their kids get better grades in science, english, or math classes. And once one parents finds a child-care worker they like and trust, they’ll be sure to help you expand your business through word of mouth. That’s not enough though, make sure you have a parent friendly website that is informative and well organized.

3. Consulting

If you have a wealth of experience in a specific field – for example, marketing, finance, or sales – you can put that knowledge towards teaching and coaching others through consulting. Of course in order to do so you’ll need credentials to prove it. A master’s degree is the best way to ensure your clients that you know what you’re doing and actual experience in your specific area of consultation is essential as well. Surprisingly, a lot of businesses need help from outside their company walls, and consultants have become extremely valuable. This type of business involves excellent organizational and multitasking skills. The best part is, you can name your price. Do some research and find out what the average going rate per hour is for a consultant in your chosen field and then offer to do it for less, since you’re working alone and from home. Then, get the word out about your new business with a custom website that has a dynamic design and will capture the attention of potential clients.

4. Debt Collection and Repossession

Unfortunately, a bad economy means a lot of people going into debt or even going bankrupt. That’s where debt collection and repossession come into play. It’s not a fun job, but someone’s got to do it. If you have no qualms about making sure you are not the one in debt, then this may the home business for you. For debt collection, other than a phone and a computer, you’ll need to research the laws and regulations of your province/state and fully understand them. A degree in finance doesn’t hurt either. Your main clients will be retailers and credit card companies who need you to recover the money that they are owned, from which you will receive a percentage of the collected debt.  As for repossession, your customers will mainly be loan companies and banks that need to repossess vehicles from clients that have failed to make their payments. However, starting up this kind of business can be on the expensive side, seeing as you’ll need a towing vehicle, insurance, storage space, and a license just to name the basics. On the other hand it’s a job that is generally quick and can be very profitable with most repo agents making between $300-$500 for every vehicle successfully repossessed. With an easy to use website which your clients can contact you through and book jobs with you, business will be booming in no time.

5. Cleaning Services

It may not be the most glamorous job in the world but it certainly pays well! Charging $15 – $20 an hour, a cleaning service is easy and affordable to run. You can start off cleaning homes and small offices and gain enough capital to eventually move up to commercial cleaning. To do that you’ll need customers and a professionally designed website is your best advertisement. If your website is clean and well formed, you customers can be assured that you’ll do your job well. Of course, specialized cleaning services make more than just basic ones. If you can afford to invest in a pressure washer or a carpet cleaning machine, you’ll have a larger variety of customers. This kind of business also largely profits from social media, so don’t afraid to enter the world of Facebook and Twitter to get your company up and running.