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If You Want To Start Your Own Catering Business, You Will Love This Guide! Are you passionate about working with food? Do you live to help others? Now you can realize your dream by Starting Your Own Catering Business! The Starting a Catering Business Start-Up Guide Kit includes all of the necessary forms that are needed to operate a catering business including many financial forms, example business letters and a complete business plan.
Home Business Recipe for starting your own catering business.
BED AND BREAKFAST
THE EASIEST HOME-BASED BUSINESS
There's an exciting new "down-home" kind of business springing up among homeowners all across the country. It's called Bed and Breakfast.
Basically, this is a transplant of European Hospitality, adapted and refined to the American way of doing things. To foreign visitors, it's the comfort and hospitality of home - staying overnight "with people of the land" and enjoying a hearty breakfast - without the traditional gaudiness and plastic feelings visitors get from most big cities in the United States. To U.S. citizens, it is a welcome alternative to the same old hotel/motel circuit.
Now, all it takes is a spare bedroom, a good cook and an outgoing personality. Prices per night range from a low of $25 to $100 or more.
If you have an extra bedroom, a large home, or extra space in your farm house, you have the necessary beginnings to start making extra income as a Bed and Break fast Inn. One of the beautiful aspects of this idea is that so long as you're hosting "over night visitors" on a small scale, no licenses will be required. It's always best, however, to check with your local authorities just to be sure.
Naturally, your "visitors" will expect a clean, neat and comfortable home. So assuming that your home meets these prerequisites, and you have a spare bedroom, simply "doll it up" a bit. Make sure it's painted brightly, there's an outside window, lots of room, closet space and bureau, and perhaps a small writing desk, and a large comfortable bed, or twin beds.
Most foreign visitors will expect and appreciate a "quick tour" of the interesting sights in your area. However, as your particular popularity as a B & B Host grows, you'll find that a lot of American tourists and business people on the road will begin availing themselves of your hospitality. Certainly with these people, it won't always be necessary to give the "Red Carpet" visitors' treatment.
Which brings us to the basic appeal of a Bed and Breakfast Inn. Travelers seem to be looking for, and appreciate a quiet "home-style" place to stay. Generally, they enjoy visiting with the people off the superhighway and want to get away from the sterilized atmosphere and sameness of hotels and motels.
Most people will either write to you ahead of time, inquiring about the possibilities of staying at your home while in your town or city. This means a bit of advertising on your part, or listing your availability with a B & B broker. Some people will check the local telephone listings, and the newspaper advertisements when they arrive in a strange town. And some people will just be driving across the country, come to a town or city they think is interesting, and start driving through the residential areas looking for Bed and Breakfast Inns.
Thus, you should have a small sign posted either in your front yard or on the front of your house. This sign needn't be much more than about two feet wide by about ten inches deep. It need only state: BED AND BREAKFAST - Inquire Within or Call 123-4567.
For newspaper advertising, a similar listing in the personal column of your local paper, particularly on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, will be all you'll need. But when it comes to the yellow pages of your telephone and business directories, go with a small display ad that describes in greater detail the comforts and pleasures of your services.
Be sure to list your services with all the travel agencies in your area. A brochure or a short synopsis of what you offer will most assuredly give the travel agents an idea for steering visitors your way. At the same time, listing your services in a number of national travel magazines - particularly those that cater to women - will bring customers in for you.
Listing your services with a broker usually won't cost you anything up front, but they will expect a certain percentage - usually about 25% of the total bill. This same arrangement applies with travel agents.
Now, suppose you're organized and ready to receive your first customers. You greet them as host or hostess and offer to assist them in getting situated in the room or rooms you have for them. If they'd like to take a drive around your area and see the points of interest, you do that. And then in the morning, serve them a big, delicious breakfast.
You'll probably find that foreign visitors will want to stay several days. With most people of this country who are just traveling through your area, it'll be a one-night stopover. Whatever, if they want to sleep comfortably through the night, eat breakfast and be on their way, so be it. If they want to sit around after breakfast and plan an itinerary for a complete visit of your area, your assistance and help will be greatly appreciated. (Remember those recommendations)!
That's it! The complete how and why of this tremendously profitable business that's becoming more and more popular. It's called Bed & Breakfast, and it's very definitely a low investment idea. And you can parlay it into a very interesting and comfortable income producing business - all from the comforts of your own home!
Home Business Recipe For Starting a Bed &Breakfast
Start Your Own Cleaning Service On A Shoestring Budget
House and apartment cleaning services are gaining in popularity. These are business services that are growing in demand as a result of more and more women seeking jobs outside the home. Their need to supplement the family income creates the opportunity for you to set up a lucrative business.
Ten years ago, businesses of this kind were serving only the affluent - homes of the wealthy people where women didn't want to be bothered with the drudgery of house hold cleaning, and had the money to pay someone to do it for them. But times have changed, and today the market includes many middle income families in every residential area across the entire country. The potential market among apartment dwellers is great also. All in all this is a business that has grown fast, and has as much real wealth building potential as any we can think of.
This is a cleaning service generally associated with women; however, men are finding that they can organize, start, and operate very profitable home and apartment cleaning businesses just as well as women. It's an ideal business for any truly ambitious person wanting a business of his or her own, especially for those who must begin with limited funds. Actually, you can start this business right in your own neighborhood, using your own equipment, and begin making a profit from the first day.
Many enterprising homemakers are already doing this kind of work on a small scale as an extra income producing endeavor. There's a growing need for this service. Organizing your efforts into a business producing $50,000 to $100,00 a year is quite possible, and you can get started for $100 or so, always using your profits to expand and in crease your business.
Absolutely no experience is required. Everyone knows how to dust the furniture, vacuum carpets, make the beds and carry out the trash. But you must ask yourself if making a house clean and bright is important and uplifting work. If you look on it as degrading or as drudgery, don't involve yourself in this business.
Starting from scratch, you'll need a telephone and an appointment book. You also need an advertising flyer, such as the following:
HOME OR APARTMENT CLEANING
We do the work - You relax and take it easy.
You get the best job in town, at rates you can
afford. Your satisfaction is always guaranteed!
For more details, Call Sandy: 123-4567 - at
Sandy's Cleaning Services!
You can either type this notice out or write it in longhand with a pen. Either way, it's going to be your first advertising endeavor, and bring in that first customer for you.
It would be a good idea to visit your stationery store to pick up a pad of "fade out" graph paper, a couple of sets of transfer (rub-on) letters, a glue stick, and if they have one, a Clip Art book.
Take these materials home and clear off your kitchen table. Take a sheet of graph paper, and temporarily tape the corners down on the table. Then take a pencil and a ruler, and mark a rectangle five inches wide by six inches long along the lines of the graph paper. This will be the overall size of your flyer when it's finished.
Look for a Clip Art piece depicting a harried housewife engrossed with either cleaning tools or in the act of running a vacuum cleaner, or some other household chore. Cut this piece out, and with your glue stick paste it in the upper left-hand corner of your rectangle. Then take your transfer letters and make the headline: HOME OR APARTMENT CLEANING.
Next, type out the body of the message on ordinary white typing paper. Be sure to use a relatively new ribbon, preferably a black carbon ribbon, and upper case letters. Cut this strip out, and paste it onto the graph paper, centered just below your headline. Then use some transfer letters that are about twice as large as your typewriter type, and paste up the action part of your message: For details, call Sandy: 123-4567. Cut out a couple of border flourishes from your Clip Art book, paste them under your action line, and you're ready to take it to the printer. If you have a computer, there are many software programs that can be used to design your flyer. In addition, most of them also include clip art.
In essence, you have a professional advertising "billboard." You can check around in your area, especially with the advertising classes at your local colleges, but generally they'll do no better than you can do on your own, using the instructions we've just given you, and they'll charge you $50 to $100.
Once you have this advertising flyer completed, take it to a nearby quick print shop and have about 200 copies printed. You should be able to get two copies on a standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheet, and running 100 sheets of paper through the press is going to cost well under $10. For just a few cents more, have the printer cut them in half with his machine cutter, so you will have 200 copies of the advertising flyer.
Now take these flyers, along with a box of thumbtacks, and put them up on all the free bulletin boards you can find - grocery stores, Laundromats, beauty salons, office building lounges, cafeterias, post offices, and wherever else such announcements are allowed.
When a prospective customer calls, have your appointment book and a pencil handy. Be friendly and enthusiastic. Explain what you do - everything from changing the beds to vacuuming, dusting and polishing the furniture and cleaning the bathroom to the dishes and the laundry. Or, everything except the dishes and the laundry - whatever you have decided on as your policy.
When they ask how much you charge, simply tell them six to ten dollars an hour, but for a firm cost quote, you'll need to see the home and make a detailed estimate for them. Then without much of a pause, ask if 4:30 this afternoon would be convenient for them, or if 5:30 would be better. You must pointedly ask if you can come to make your cost proposal at a certain time, or the decision may be put off, and you may come up with a "no sale."
Just as soon as you have an agreement on the time to make you cost proposal and marked it in your appointment book, ask for name, address and telephone number.
Jot this information down on a 3 by 5 card, along with the date and the notation: Prospective Customer. Then you file this card in a permanent card file. Save these cards, because there are literally hundreds of ways to turn this prospect file into real cash, once you've accumulated a sizeable number of names, addresses and phone numbers.
When you go to see your prospect in person, always be on time. A couple of minutes early won't hurt you, but a few minutes late will definitely be detrimental to your closing the sale. Always be well groomed. Dress as a successful business owner. Be confident and sure of yourself; be knowledgeable about what you can do as well as understanding of the prospect's needs and wants. Do not smoke, even if invited by the prospect, and never accept a drink - even coffee - until after you have a signed contract in your briefcase.
Actually, once you've made the sale, the best thing is to shake hands with your new customer, thank him, and leave. A little small talk after the sale is appropriate, but becoming too friendly is not. You create an impression, and preserve it, by maintaining a business-like relation ship.
When you go to make your cost estimate, take along a ruled tablet such as those used by elementary school students, carbon paper, a calculator and your appointment book. Some people find it easier to work with a clipboard and ordinary blank paper with carbon. Later on, you may want to have general checklists printed up for each room in the house, with blank lines or space for special instructions.
Whatever you use, it's important to appear methodical, thorough and professional, while leading the prospect through the specifics he or she wants you to take care of: "Now, you want the carpet vacuumed and all the furniture dusted and those two end tables, the coffee table and the piano polished as well, I assume?"
Simply identify the specific room at the top of the sheet of paper, then lead your prospect through the cleaning steps of each room, covering everything in it. Your implications of putting everything in "ready for company" shape will cause the customer to forget about the cost, and hire you to do a complete job. Always have a carbon paper under each piece of paper you're writing on, and always look around each room one more time before leaving it; then ask the prospect if he or she can think of any special instructions you should note for that room.
Finally, when you've gone through each room in the house with the prospect, come back to the kitchen and sit down at the table. Take out your calculator and add up the time you estimate each job in each room will take to complete. Total the time for each room.
Be liberal, thinking that if you can do the carpet job in 15 minutes, it will usually take the ordinary person 30 minutes. Convert the total minutes for each room into hours and tenths of hours per room. Add the totals for each room to arrive at your total hours to clean the entire house.
Talk with your customer briefly, wondering how she can ever find the time to get everything done at home, especially when holding down a full-time job. A little bit of small talk, a quick mental evaluation of the customer's ability to pay, plus your knowledge that you can get everything done in four hours, instead of the six hours it would take most people, and you summarize by saying:
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