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10 Extra Income Businesses You Can Start from Home in 2020

10 Extra Income Businesses You Can Start from Home in 2020

By Medina Salihu

We just stepped into a new decade, and whether you are fresh out of school, between jobs, currently in a job or retired, you are possibly setting goals that may require additional financial support to achieve. If you are in that place, Roots TV has put together ten business ideas you can start from the comfort of your home with little or no capital to give you that extra income boost.

1. Errand & Delivery Service

– Make a list of your possible clients which could include other businesses around you that may need someone to manage their delivery and friends and family members that are too busy to run errands.
– Write a brief description that states how your errand service will run, pick up, delivery, prices and payment mode and contact details.
– Send out a description of your business to the list of possible clients you made via social media, email or text message every three days.
– Speak to friends and family personally.
– Ask for referrals from all new clients.

2. Online Store/Retailing

You could retail, clothing, jewellery, health and wellness items, technology accessories, cosmetics, children products, etc. You need to also decide whether you want to dropship or hold your own products.
– For drop shipping you do not need to have inventory, that is you do not need capital to purchase your items, you can list more items on your online store(Instagram or Facebook), no warehouse costs and no picking and packing activities. The disadvantage of this being that you do not control the customer experience.
– On the other hand, you can decide to hold inventory, which will involve you having to spend some money to buy your items of choice and market on your online store. This helps you control the customer experience and increase profit margin through discounts on wholesale prices.

3. Catering

Write down the items you will need to begin catering, what you have and what equipment you will need to purchase. For example, you will need dishes to transport the food, serving dishes, coolers and ways to keep food hot. You can focus on these types of food as you develop your catering business
– Lunch or brunch-style foods like finger foods(small chops).
– Wedding reception or special event meals.
– Desserts-only catering.
– Appetizers and cocktails.
You can also write a menu as a marketing tool to send to all prospective clients.

4. Book Keeping

If you love numbers, organization, and some financial grunt work, bookkeeping is the perfect business for you. You can provide a range of services from managing accounts receivable, accounts payable, reconciliation, payroll, reporting, income tax preparation, and more. You can get trained by taking free accounting courses online or master the listed bookkeeping applications. Charges can be up to N30,000 monthly.

5. Snail Farming(Heliciculture)

– In Nigeria, the prices of raw, matured snails go for between N250 – N600 depending on the size. However, the annual demand for snail in Nigeria is about 7.5million kg annually, higher than the current supply. You can start the business with N60,000 or N100,000 depending on how large you want your snail farm to be. Asides the amount of your investment, it is possible to produce 1,000,000 snails now worth more than N5 million twice a year.
The mandatory expenses you need to account for if you’re wondering how to set up a snail farm include: housing, buying fresh snails, feeding, handling and processing the snails, marketing, and transportation.
– When creating a snail farm, you’ll have to use a single species of snail. Research has shown that snail species such as Achatina are the best for warm climates like Africa.
– You can construct a small pen for your snail housing, which should be well spaced for free grazing and reduce the risk of disease outbreak, as overcrowding snails impedes their development. The snail pen should also be escape-proof as snails are good at climbing out from their confinement. The snail pen should have a soil base.
– Snails are vegetarians and can be fed with a wide variety of foods such as cabbage, cucumber, mango, banana, eggplant, pear, tomato, and paw-paw.
– Snails lay up to hundreds of eggs with about 20 – 50 hatching successfully.
– It is advisable to research more and highlight its nutritional benefits when marketing to prospective markets

 

6. Online Tutoring, E-Books, And Data Aggregation

You can create content on various fields of your expertise or topics of interest and sell content online from the comfort of your home. A wide range of content like video tutorials on lifestyle, business, photography, health and fitness, office productivity, personal development and academics, could be sold on online.
You can also sell digital content such as Videos, audio, codes, and pictures on other digital marketing platforms.

7. Consulting

If you know enough about a subject to advise others, but you don’t have the money to properly launch a consulting business. Start from home.
You can spend as little as N3,500 for business cards from a low-cost provider. Put up a website for the first year with a domain and website hosting package. Once you have a few customers who value your knowledge more than a fancy presentation, you can spend some of your profits to build a more professional organization. You can charge up to N5,000 per hour.

8. Home-Based Child Care/Day Care

This is advisable for “mompreneurs”, that is, stay-at-home moms who are looking for ways to make an extra buck around their existing lifestyles because most people are more likely to trust a parent with their child.
– First, consider what age range you would like to watch and the necessary facilities needed to cater to and keep the children safe and comfortable in your home. It is better to take in children who are in your children’s age range.
– Focus on your neighbourhood for starters, because parents are more likely to trust you with their children if they know you personally. This will not be an issue when you grow your business and institutionalize.
– You need to have toys, music and educational videos for entertainment. Also schedule recreational activities like singing, dancing, and sports to keep them occupied.
– A Daycare manager may earn up to N30,000 monthly per child. And depends on the space you have available and your capacity, you can take up to five children.

9. Freelance Writing

If you already have a writing skill or interested in taking up freelance writing, you should first develop your skill through practice. Most job ads you’ll apply for will ask to see your work. They want to see samples of published work, so you can create samples by starting a blog and write on various topics. You can also write and post your content on sites that accept guest writers.
Finally, create a portfolio and search for opportunities online, pitch to advertising companies, online and print magazines.

10. Virtual Assistant.

As a virtual assistant, you can streamline your services to include a number of these:
– Customer support
– Processing online orders and refunds
– Calendar management and travel arrangements
– Editing, Proofreading, and Transcription
– Content research
– Email management
– Data entry
– Social media management
You need to carry out research on the areas you would like to specialize in and get training where necessary. Virtual assistants may charge up to N30,000per client.

             What You Need To Make Your Business A Success:

Identify Your Niche

Do not go blindly into a niche you know nothing about, decide what you are going to do or sell, and who your customers will be. Your niche is broken into three parts: price, audience, and market opportunity.
– To ascertain your price, you have to consider the cost of your operations, warehousing, and marketing. Most e-commerce store owners end up with a 20-30% profit margin. So, if you’re selling an item for N5,000, you are only making N200 on that sale.

– Focus on the upper-middle-class who have more disposable cash and are not too careful with expenses.
– You also need to consider brand loyalty. You want to avoid niches that are already dominated by household names. When niches are dominated by a few brands, consumers don’t think about alternatives. Their brand loyalty kicks in and they head straight for the brands which occupy the top of their minds.
– You should also try to identify a niche or product that is slowly but steadily growing in popularity. To help you along, here’s a handy tool: Google Trends. Just plug your keyword in and you’ll be able to see how many people are searching for the term (either worldwide, or within a specific country).
– Finally, consider the longevity of your customers. Focus on a niche where you can continue to target existing clients rather than be caught in a loop of constant customer acquisition.

Business Naming and Registration

First, you need to name your business
– Choose a name that is original, easy to pronounce and has some significance. It could be something as simple as your initials, it is also advisable to do a name search with the CAC and have your business registered for as low as N12,000.

Book Keeping

Here are mobile applications that can help you manage your income and expenditure and invoice clients from your phone.
– FreshBooks
– FreeAgent
– SimpleAcccounting
– Nutcache

Marketing

For social media marketing, be sure to keep your social media pages updated and active! Come up with a content calendar, create and schedule your posts ahead of time and make sure you always have something planned for the major holidays. You can choose one social media platform for starters. Another key marketing means for small businesses is “word of mouth”. Tell everyone what you do and ask for referrals!

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