Cheap Businesses That Can Make Money Now!

By Bob Wagner

This inspirational and motivational book by author and entrepreneur Bob Wagner provides the “how to” for starting your own business inexpensively with an eye toward generating income quickly. Wagner explains the keys and mindset to attracting wealth, what it takes to start your own successful business, and outlines 62 mostly home based businesses that can be started quickly and cheaply.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Wagner
• Release date: Nov 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458007865

Bob Wagner

Bob Wagner is an author, broadcaster and entrepreneur.

Book preview

Introduction to the Revised 2010 Edition

It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since I first published this book. Times have changed, the economy is worse, and there are more people looking to make a living for themselves. The principles in this book remain sound, which makes this book more important now than ever. It is still possible to start a new, home based business, and make a fine living doing it.

I have been gainfully unemployed for most of the last two decades. Since making the leap to self employment, I experience less stress, am healthier than I have ever been, and am more fulfilled than ever.

This version contains some additions and a few more business ideas.

I am proud that I can offer this ebook to you at a very affordable price, and I truly believe with all my heart that if you apply what you learn here, and don’t give up, you too can become gainfully unemployed.

Introduction

(Or, the Big Rah-rah!)

This is a great time to be alive! (I have a friend that says any day above ground is a good day, and yep, it’s the truth!)

There are many different ways to make money! I’m someone who has started up several of my own businesses. If I can do it, you can do it too! The most important ingredient to success in any of the businesses I outline in this book is this:

Start!

Yes, I said start! That is the best piece of advice I can give you. I’ve seen so many people with great ideas sit on their hands so to speak and never get started. They talk about their great idea but they never DO anything with it! Instead they grumble on and on about having to stay in a job they hate and never take any action to change their situation!

"The Greatest Risk

In Life

Is

Not Taking One"

(Sign above Bob’s desk)

I have to admit that getting started is the hardest part. There are so many questions! The biggest one is probably how do I start a business when there is no time? Between working 40 plus hours a week, paying bills, doing yard work and all of the other things that you need to do, I know that there can be precious few hours in a day to start a business. (Take it from someone who has an ever-growing honey-do list!)

Then there are all of the other questions. How do I manage a business? What about book keeping? Should I incorporate? And the list goes on and on.

I am going to try to address most of the common questions that people have when starting their own business. I am also going to give you a lot of common sense stuff based on my own successes and failures.

I have not personally done all of these businesses. Some I have done. Some friends or acquaintances have done. Some are just good ideas I heard about and filed away for future reference. This book is not designed to give you all the details about running each business. It is an idea book.

This is going to be a nuts and bolts book only to a point. For the most part, it will give you some good ideas. My intent is for you to grab one of these ideas and run with it! Most of these ideas will work anywhere. But you are going to have to mold and tailor each business to suit your personal style and tastes.

There are a few suggestions here that can be easily tailored to other types of businesses. For example, I outline a senior citizen video delivery business. That could easily be changed to any number of other delivery businesses. A handyman business might evolve into a drywall business. You get the point. I personally had a home bakery that evolved into a restaurant.

Some of these businesses will produce income immediately. Others will take a while to build. No matter how long it takes, you have to make the commitment to start and the commitment to see it through to success. Form the attitude now that you will succeed no matter what! Don’t let anyone talk you out of it! Not even yourself! Some of us have to really do some convincing to get our brains in line with that one!

What will you do when friends or even family members don’t approve of what you are doing? They may tear down your idea or think you are silly or stupid for trying to better yourself! Don’t succumb to that attack! (Believe me, it’s going to happen!) They really don’t mean to be negative; they are just looking out for what they think are your best interests, but all that negativity can knock the wind out of your sails!

You must steel yourself against the negative. You have to convince yourself you are worth it. Don’t even consider the possibility of failure. Imagine yourself prospering in your new business. Imagine the size your bank account will be. Picture yourself getting the things you want! You have to visualize yourself winning! Imagine yourself taking the picture. See the picture and let the image develop. Then see yourself permanently gluing it into your brain! That’s a good start, but we’ll get into more of this later.

Another big mistake I see people make is they start throwing too much money into their business. I believe you simply cannot do this! You have to give your new business the time and the room to grow. It is going to take a small monetary investment in some cases. But, you don’t need the latest and greatest piece of equipment to start out. You can probably get started with something used or something you already own.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to start a house painting business. Do you need a compressor and sprayer to start, or can you accomplish the same thing with brushes and rollers? While the compressor and sprayer would be nice to have and a great time saver, you don’t really need them to start out.

After you begin making money, let the business buy equipment for you. I started a VCR cleaning and repair business, which I’ll tell you about later in this book. I started out with things I already owned. I didn’t buy my first piece of equipment for the business until I had made my first money. And there sure was a lot of stuff I could have used! But I disciplined myself and let my business grow. As I made money I bought more and more equipment.

The equipment you buy can also be tax deductible. Make sure you see a qualified tax professional to help you. It can literally save you thousands of dollars.

In many ways a business is like a plant. You cannot do anything to make a plant grow no matter how hard you try. All you can do is take care of things like planting, watering, feeding and making sure it gets plenty of sun. But too much plant food can be toxic.

A business is similar. If you force-feed it by throwing too much money into it, it can collapse under the weight of the debt.

What if your mom thought when you grew up, you’d need size 80 waist pants? You might never grow into them! So you’d be stuck with pants too big for you your whole life. New business owners many times do that same thing.

Get just what you need to start and let the business grow. When you grow out of a particular item or piece of equipment, then replace it as needed.

That reminds me of a true story…

Don’t Make This Same Mistake

I once had a friend that poured over $100,000 into a business to start it up. He rented a prime mall location and hired managers and assistant managers, and bought all the very best equipment.

It never had a chance.

It languished for a couple of years until it went out of business. The problem wasn’t the idea. It was a good one.

The location was fine, but was too expensive and too large for what he was doing. Since it was in a mall, he had to stick to mall hours and therefore had to have a set amount of employees. And it was also costly to maintain.

Malls very often have charges beyond what the rent per square foot is. There can be common area maintenance fees, trash removal charges, etc. Another thing that most people don’t realize is when a mall has to have any painting done, or structural repairs or spruce ups, the owners divide the cost among all of the stores in the mall! This happened twice to my friend and cost him several thousand dollars each time!

My friend ended up selling the equipment and fixtures for around $10,000.

Please don’t make that same mistake. The stress alone might