Start a Solar Power Business

Starting A Solar Power Installation Company is the perfect business to start. Factors such as rising energy prices and people wanting to take care of the environment have made this business a money maker. And, the government is offering tremendous incentives in many states to individuals looking to "Go Solar". You don't have to be an electrician or even an expert in this field to start a Solar Business. You will need to have some basic knowledge and also learn the proper licenses you will need.

There are a few items to consider when you are looking to start a Solar Power Installation Company. You will need to learn where to purchase the materials from, how to do the installations and what types of licensing is required. There are numerous outlets to purchase the materials both online and by contacting manufacturers directly. The installation process is somewhat difficult to learn, but by studying and talking to other individuals in the business, you can learn more about the process.

The licenses needed to start a Solar Power Company, vary from state to state. You will want to work with an electrician to make sure you don't have a problem when doing installations. The panels are easier to install on a new house or building although if you know what you are doing, they can be installed on an existing structure.

For more information about opening a Solar Power Installation Company, go to:

http://www.SolarPowerBusinessPlan.com

Best of luck to you in your endeavors.

Sincerely,

John Peyton
http://www.SolarPowerBusinessPlan.com

How to Budget Your Business Start-up to Avoid Painful Failure

The myth that nine out of ten small businesses close in their first year may or may not be completely true. According to more recent Dun and Bradstreet data, 76 percent of new companies were still in business after two years. But since these statistics are based solely on the number of business license applications forfeited, they may not be entirely accurate. Many business owners don't immediately contact their licensing office; some never do.

Studies show businesses that do survive longer had more cash up front to invest. Other survival factors include the owner's age, higher education, and previous experience in their field. The number one cause of small business failure is "lack of planning," and the most common mistake in planning falls with making poor financial choices right from the start.

Most people believe that to have a successful business you need to start with a large sum of money and acquire those start-up funds by taking risky business loans or mortgaging your home. That's simply not true. In fact, 25 percent of business owners needed no dollar amount to start up.

Reports show that only 27 percent of business owners have borrowed the money they needed to start their business and 36 percent of owners used their savings for their business start-up. It is always better to save the money you need up front if you are able. A total of 69 percent of new businesses were started or acquired without any need to borrow money.

So if it's that easy, why do so many businesses fail? It may be that new business owners spend more time planning a vacation than they do their new business venture. Many don't calculate into the equation how their personal financial responsibilities will be met while their new business is growing legs. They will still have rent or mortgage, electric bills, phone bills, and other household expenses. A new business just can't support home life for an estimated need of 1-2 years. This is where we fail to plan.

Starting a small business should be looked at as just that, a "small" business. The founder of Dell Computers was a college dropout. Starting small out of his garage, he managed to excel above all of the world's top computer manufacturers. One in three computers sold today is a Dell.

Just over 32 percent of new business owners needed less than $5,000 to start or acquire their business. Businesses opening without a huge financial debt show a much greater chance for success. If you have a business idea, you need to keep it in proportion to the amount of money you have to pursue it. Instead of building a $400,000 franchise store, you might need to look at buying a $15,000 coffee cart that you can drive around to local events. There's always a way to work out your idea without exceeding your means.

Successful businesses are started with proper planning. Spend the time needed to plan your business idea and do the research needed to ensure you have all your ducks in a row before you open up the pond for customers.

Learn more about starting a business at http://booksbydenbow.weebly.com/business-books.html

Carol Denbow is a business start-up expert and the author of several on-line publications and books including "Are You Ready to Be Your Own Boss?" See more about Carol at http://www.booksbydenbow.weebly.com

Nightclub & Party Promoters - A Dream Job

A nightclub promoter is a guy or girl who gets people to attend parties. These events can be at bars, nightclubs, concerts, festivals, or private parties. Club promoters are also called party promoters. Nightclub promoters advertise and promote their events in many different ways, to get as many people to show up as possible. I've been a party promoter for over 10 years, and these are some of my favorite promoting tips.

First off, the job of a club promoter is really one of the best jobs there is.

You meet all kinds of people, tell them about great parties, party with them all the time, and get paid well to do it. The job isn't for everyone though. It entails staying out late on the weekends while being the center of attention. But if you go out all the time with your friends anyway, why not make a living doing it?

Nightclub promoters normally get paid per person they bring to an event. Because of this, nightclub promoting can be a great way to earn some extra money if you can get a bunch of people to show up at events. For example, if a club is paying you $5 per person that you bring to their party, getting 20 people to show up will earn you a cool $100. If you are a friendly and outgoing person, it is pretty easy to get 20+ people to come to an event. If you are really good at it, you can make a great full time living doing it!

The best way to get into club promoting is to get hired on by a promotion company to start. The promotion company contracts out with certain nightclubs for certain nights of the week. So, maybe the company promotes Thursday night with club ABC, and Friday night with club XYZ. The clubs hire promotion companies to get people into their venues, so all they have to worry about is the alcohol sales. Often times, the cover charge that you pay to get in is not going to the nightclub, but the promotion company. The club is making it's money (and tons of it) from alcohol sales.

For Example:

Let's say the cover charge at a nightclub is $10 on a Saturday night. The promotion company gets this money in exchange for bringing people to the club. The promotion company hires "sub-promoters" to work for it as independent contractors, and may pay each promoter $5 per head that they get through the door, and the company keeps $5 for itself. Your job as a sub-promoter is to get as many people to come to the party as you can. If you can get 50 people to the club, you walk home that night with $250 cash. If you can do that 3 nights a week, you'll rake in $750 a week. Once you get the hang of it, 50 people per night is not that hard to do.

Club promoters use many different tools to get people to their events week after week. A combination of email lists, handing out glossy flyers, text messages, active networking, and other tools like MySpace & Facebook can really get the word out about your party. Nightclub Promoter Tips is a great free resource for Party Promoters.

Once you master working under a promotion company, the next step is to start your own company and hire sub-promoters to work for you. This is where the real money is. Using our same example, let's say you hire 10 promoters to work for you, and they each bring on average 50 people per night. While you are paying each of them $5 of the cover charge per person, you are keeping $5 for yourself. $5x500 people = $2500 per event. You can see what your income can be if you had 2 or 3 events per week. Many promotions companies clear well over $5000 a week in the right markets, with the right knowhow.

Nightclub promoting can be an extremely fun and rewarding career for certain people. It's not the type of job that is widely known about either. If you have good business sense, love to party with people, and have a creative side, it can be a dream job. It certainly has been for me.

Tips for Nightclub Promoters:

Tip #1: Customer Loyalty is Everything for a nightclub promoter. Once you've made a name for yourself and have a large group of people that come to your parties all the time, make sure you take care of them. If you take care of your customers, they will keep coming back. It is much easier to keep the same people coming back to your events than to spend money trying to attract new customers. One thing I do to keep my customers happy is to buy drinks for the people that come by my events the most. If you regularly see someone at your parties, and they always bring a bunch of people with them, make sure to take care of that person and frequently buy them drinks and get to know them. Keep that person loyal to your parties, and you'll get more great "word of mouth" advertising, which is the best kind.

Tip #2: As a nightclub promoter, do everything in your power to get girls to attend your events. Hire girls to hand out your fliers to other girls, play music that the girls in your area like, have a ladies night, whatever it takes. Once you have a large group of women coming to your parties, the men will follow automatically. One of the biggest mistakes I see new club promoters doing is catering to a niche music genre that only men listen to. These events never last too long, because no money can be made from a sausage fest.

Tip #3: Hire a good photographer to take nightclub photos of your parties. Do this at every event, and post the photos online for people to see later. Every nightclub promoter should be doing this all the time. Party people love to go online Monday morning after a crazy weekend and see themselves out having fun. They share the photos with friends, and this gets more people interested in your parties. Make sure your website or logo is on the photo as a watermark too. It's great advertising. Humans are very visual creatures. Feed their visual senses and personal egos and they will keep coming back again and again.

Are You A Worker Bee?

In my business, I am constantly redefining myself, my services and my products in order to stay ahead of or at least keep up with the ever changing industry of marketing. If I don't bring fresh new ideas and material to my clients and contacts on an ongoing basis, then someone else will.

To stay at the forefront, I spend a significant amount of my time working "on" my business, not just "in" it. That means, instead of always consulting with clients, I lock myself up with my computer and write up my ideas, products, figure out how to market them, get them on my website or decide how to offer them to my clients.

I wanted to bring this to your attention this week because I see hundreds of small business owners and entrepreneurs each month who are struggling to "get it all done".

You know what I mean.

What I've found is that most entrepreneurs are not taking the time to work "on" their businesses, only struggle and stress out "in" it.

These same entrepreneurs are not open to learning new techniques about marketing, learning new industry standards, keeping their website and marketing materials current or even get out and meet new people to build relationships with to further their business. Or it may be that they're open to it but they don't see it as a necessary enough thing to fit into their schedule.

Hopefully this doesn't sound familiar to you. But if it does....

I'm here to tell you I've seen a large percentage of those businesses go OUT OF BUSINESS by not focusing on the BIG PICTURE.

We all know the stats on how many businesses go out of business these days but with all the great info out there now (including my own resources - some paid, some FR.EE), it boggles my mind why they don't do something about this.

Here are some action steps you can take to work more "ON" your business, easily and immediately:

1. Schedule 1 day each month as "Creative" Day

This day you will do nothing but sit and write down all the ideas that come to mind about how you can update or increase your business, who you know that you can work with on joint ventures, etc.

2. Schedule another day each month as "Implement" Day

This day you will do nothing but put those ideas into action - updating the text on your websites, writing and sending out a press release, planning your next workshop with flyer development, etc.

3. Contact 2-5 other professionals

These are people that you trust and ask them their perception of your business and ask them for ideas or feedback on what you could do to update it, freshen it up, revise it, change it or add to it

There is a pretty good article I recently read on Entrepreneur.com that might also help with your time management (this is my biggest challenge as well, you're not alone). It's "8 Ways to Keep Your Homebased Business Running Smoothly - If you're well on your way to home based business success, these management tips will help you stay on top of your game." Read the article now. http://www.entrepreneur.com/homebasedbiz/worklifebalance/article76888.html

10 Easy Steps To Start A Cleaning Business

In this age, a cleaning business is active and continuously grows. This is because this business is the simplest form of business chance or opportunity. As a matter of fact, this is an easy to learn business. Although you will get dirt in cleaning your assured that you get high income. In planning for this business make sure that you have enough information to succeed in this business. In any business you need to be knowledgeable. Take a look at these steps and learn more things to start a successful cleaning business.

1. To start a cleaning business you have to consider first if you really like this business. It is important that you know what you really want, for you to not end up wasting your time in starting for this business.

2. You should have enough knowledge and information in this kind of business. To make sure that you done the way to open and start this cleaning business.

3. Make a research to get more details before you start for this kind of business. You have gain more knowledge before you builds any kind of business.

4. Surf in the internet or ask for somebody that already handling their own cleaning business to make your business plan perfect before you start.

5. You should set up a small area to do your paper works. Learn how you can find regular customers while working out of home.

6. Once you get more customers you must hire staff to do cleaning and you are the one who will do the managerial work.

7. Buy all the cleaning supplies that you need to start this cleaning business. Choose for the cheapest tools but high in quality and durable. You don't need to buy expensive tools for cleaning just to make sure that you purchase for the durable tools.

8. Make sure that you hire staff that is physically fit. Remember that this business is truly a depression proof business because the cleaning needs to get done by someone.

9. You can also hire independent cleaning services to keep your offices looking neat and clean.

10. Always consider the work quality to have regular customers and be friendly.

Starting a cleaning business is not hard if you have enough information and enough knowledge. You have to know more about the things that you need to consider in this kind of business. Search for information to avoid failures. A successful cleaning business is the key to fulfill your dreams for yourself and for your family.

How To Start A T-Shirt Business

Many entrepreneurs have discovered the opportunities that abound within the T-Shirt Industry, and therefore the market is becoming increasingly saturated. These days, in order to differentiate yourself from the masses, it has become extremely important to find out what will make your t-shirt business unique. Before you even think about starting on production, take a look at the list below and think very seriously about each of these points. If you are aware of these things before you start your plans, you will already have a head start and a competitive edge over the sea of t-shirt businesses within the market today.

1) WILL YOUR DESIGNS EVEN SELL?

So you've thought up a great design and you're busting to get it onto some t-shirts and to start bringing in the cash? But how do you know if people are going to be as excited about your designs as you are? It's easy to get caught up in your own little world, thinking that your tee shirts are going to sell like hot cakes. This may be true, but it's extremely important to know for sure before you start spending your hard earned dollars on production.

One of the methods I suggest to aspiring t-shirt entrepreneurs is to do a little bit of market research. There are plenty of websites that accept designs and allow users to comment and vote on their favorites. By visiting such sites, you are able to see which designs are the most popular and can get a very good idea of whether your own designs will have appeal or not. Another method is to visit sites that sell t-shirts and find out which are the best sellers. Of course you don't want to copy them, but you will begin to see the types of designs that people are willing to fork out money for. Remember, that if your designs don't sell, it will be extremely hard to continue doing what you love - so do a little bit of homework first!

2) FINDING A NICHE OR TARGET MARKET

Because of the quantity of t-shirt designs available and business competition these days, it's imperative that you find your own little subculture or niche to market to. By going after a specific target market, you can increase your chances of success dramatically. Some questions to ask yourself:

What does your target look like? What are some of the places that they like to hang out? How old are they?

By knowing the answers to these types of questions, you are limiting your target market down to a specific group of people. You will now have the advantage of being able to think like them. What are the types of designs that would appeal to these people? You can now tailor your designs specifically for you potential customers. It's a great truth that to be successful all you have to do is find out what a certain group of people want, and give it to them!

3) ONLINE MARKETING STRATEGY

This world has not seen a greater opportunity than that which exists today with the marketing power of the Internet. Without a strong Online Marketing plan, you will definitely not be working you t-shirt business to it's fullest potential. The Internet has made the sale of t-shirts extremely easy, so target your customers Online and lead them to your store. There are hundreds of creative ways to draw targeted traffic to your website, many of which are free. Start by looking into such things as:

- Blogging

- Forums

- Social Bookmarking

- eBay

- MySpace - Facebook

- Pay Per Click Advertising

- Search Engine Optimization

- Email Marketing

The list goes on and on!

4) OUTSOURCING

If you don't absolutely love a particular job within your business, then find someone who does! If you love graphic designing, then find someone to print for you! If you're a printer, then find someone who loves to design! Maybe you have no interest in Online Marketing - then leave it to an expert!

Granted, this will cost you a little bit more, but you can't always do everything yourself! Besides if you don't absolutely love what you are doing, you will eventually want to give up. If you hate your day-to-day activities - then you won't last long in this business.

5) CUSTOMER SERVICE

Your customers are the most valuable asset of your business. Treat them well and they might buy from you again, treat them like royalty and not only will they be your customer for life - they'll become a raging fan and do most of your advertising for you, by referring their friends and colleagues! Even if it means losing a little bit of money to keep your customer delighted - it will be well worth it in the long run. I've had instances where a t-shirt order was late, so I organized an employee to jump on a plane and fly the package out to the customer. Yes, it cost more than the profit I made - but I made my customer's day! This one truth has the power to turn your business into a thriving multi-million dollar company. A customer focused company.

Heath Sanchez has launched 2 successful T-Shirt Businesses from scratch. A Promotional T-Shirt Printing Company, and a Vintage-Style Designer T-Shirt Line.

Having developed many skills along the way, he has set up a blog to share his knowledge on how you can start and run your very own T-Shirt Business. For FREE T-Shirt Business Tips, Videos, Reports and Emails, visit his blog at: http://t-shirtbusiness.blogspot.com

6 Tips On How To Start A Power Washing Company

1. First of all make sure you will enjoy the work, and want to run your own business. Pressure washing isn't rocket science, but it does take common sense to run a business and communicate with potential clients. It also is hard work, but rewarding all the same. Make sure pressure washing is what you want to do before you get started otherwise you won't have the motivation to build your business.

2. Make sure you have some capital set aside for advertising and equipment expenses. Although a pressure washing business has low overhead, there are some costs involved such as business insurance and equipment maintenance.

3. Create a business plan detailing all of your expenses and advertising methods. You will need to create a systematic way of doing things if you want to see real results. Advertising is just as important as doing the pressure washing work itself. Without an advertising strategy in place your company will be dead in the water. It's a good idea to talk to other power washing business owners and get some advice on what type of advertising methods work for them.

4. Be professional from the start and you will receive repeat business. It's vital you have all the business forms such as the contract, bid form, waivers, etc. and have them available to give to your clients. This will help separate you from the part-timers that don't take their business seriously.

5. Make sure you have the taxes and legal issues take care of. It's easy to forget to send in a tax form and end up paying penalties later or be audited by the IRS because you failed to pay your taxes right. An accountant can be hired for an inexpensive price to handle all your tax issues for your business. Also be aware of what legalities are involved with operating your own pressure washing business in your area.

6. Last of all make sure your family and friends support you in your decision to start your own business. If they don't you can still be successful with your own business, but it always helps to have a support system in place if things get difficult or to bounce any ideas you'll have on how to improve your business.

For a step-by-step guide on how to start your own pressure washing business by a professional pressure washing business owner check out the Power Washing Business Guide & Forms.