It could certainly be argued that there has never been a better time to start your own home-based business, whether it is to replace your already existing job or as an addition to increase your monthly earnings and make your lifestyle a much more comfortable one.
There are plenty of different types of work available to you. Some may very well require you to leave your home and put some effort in, whereas others can be done completely from your laptop or even your cell phone.
General domestic assistant or odd job person
There are so many people in need of assistance for the everyday occurrences that do not require any special training, such as helping with their shopping, cutting their grass, or even general household chores that cannot be done by some that are less able or elderly. Helping a neighbor when you have spare time and they have none can be a very rewarding venture. All you need to have is a kind heart and a caring nature.
You may very well find that by helping one person in your neighborhood with tasks that they cannot do, you will very soon have a few clients in need of your assistance as word travels fast when people require help.
Courier driving
You could set yourself up as a courier, you will need to let your insurance company know that you are using your vehicle for business as well as personal use, but you will not necessarily need to own a van or even a large car. It will all depend on the size of the loads you are happy to collect and deliver.
Finding work may not be as difficult as you first imagine. Obviously, there are always take-out facilities wanting to hire those individuals that are happy to become door dash people, but there are other types of courier work available too.
A decent load board like the truckstop.com load board will show you what courier jobs are available in your local area so that you will be able to choose which ones you are interested in. The websites that offer load boarding work like a bulletin board, potential customers post jobs of various sizes in most locations, and couriers bid on those jobs. This means that if you have a shipping job that takes you out of town, you could potentially find one in the area to bring back into town so that your trip both ways end up as paid work.
Selling online
Selling items online is big business, whether you are looking to enter the new item market or just resell second-hand, preloved items. The best bit about doing this is that you do not, unless you want to, even have to have a website of your own. Using sites such as eBay or Amazon, to name just a couple of the vast choices available, you will not even have to worry about collecting money from your customers as all this is taken care of for you, so your customers do not have access to any of your banking details as it is all held by the selling site.
In fact, all you will require to run this sort of business is your cell phone, some stock, a selling account with one or more of the websites mentioned, and a bank account. As with all this kind of business, it is best to give as much information as you can on the product or item that you are selling and that you supply plenty of photos so that your potential customers can see in detail want it is that they intend to purchase. This kind of business relies heavily on good positive feedback, so you are going to have to watch what your customers are saying about your service and your products. So, keeping your customers well informed about their orders and answering any questions is an absolute must.
Affiliate marketing
If you are happy with setting up a website, then you could look into becoming an affiliate for a product or a company. This can generate a good and comfortable passive income if it is done well and you know a little bit about what you are doing.
There are plenty of companies that are actively looking for website owners to become affiliates with their products and put their adverts in front of as many good-quality leads as possible in order to generate sales. As an affiliate, you will first have to approach one of these companies to gain a contract, then you will require a website which you will write, or pay others to write, articles that are loosely connected to the affiliate product that you are advertising. In order to keep people going to your website, you are going to have to write articles regularly, so it is not a complete stand away from income. However, it is a minimalistic job load once you are up and running and have multiple affiliates links around your site.
It is important to realize that there are quite a lot of differences in the type of amount you are likely to be paid as an affiliate; for instance’ you are likely to be paid more if the contract you are involved in relies on those that click through from your page to actually purchase the product or service rather than a contract that is paid per click-through, however, what you will have to gauge is whether it is better to have a good handful of click-throughs at the lower rate or just a couple at the higher one.
The amount you will get paid also depends on the product or services that are advertised in the affiliate link. For instance, it stands to reason that the payment will be far lower for click-through on a stationery product than, say, on that of cosmetic surgery services. But as mentioned before, you will have to have your articles loosely connected to the subject, you are not going to get many click-throughs by talking about stationery when you want them to click the link for cosmetic surgery, but you may do if your article is based on beauty.
