How to make a profit in a week

A journalist calls to ask how long it takes to make a profit when starting out in business. ‘It depends on the business’ replies Emma Jones ‘but I’d say it’s perfectly possible to turn a profit within the week.’ Here’s the feature to discover if Emma got her facts right.

Let’s take a business

This feature will not apply to all businesses but let’s take the example of someone providing goods and services to consumers (a craft business) and someone offering professional services (a book
-keeper.)  This is how they each become profitable by week end.

Example 1: The craft business

Monday

Make item with cost of raw materials being £5.50
Photograph item with family camera, ensuring professional/high quality presentation

Tuesday

Upload profile and photo to 3 craft sites which levy a small charge (or free) for listing and exercise a sales commission. Sites such as:

Etsy.com – listing fee of 20 cents per item and 3.5% sales commission

MISI.co.uk – listing fee of 20p per item and 3% sales commission

Coriandr.com - listing fee of 20p per item and 2.5% sales commission

Wednesday

Promote product via Twitter and Facebook. Include a link to the shop so people can click and buy.
Send an email to friends and family (personal, as opposed to group email) to announce the product and, again, with a link

Thursday

Upload pictures of your product to Flickr so the large audience there can see it too.
If you have a webcam, make a short recording of you making products and upload to YouTube
Call local stores and boutiques to ask if they would consider selling your stock

Friday

You’ve attracted interest and made a sale! Sales price is £25.99

Cost of making sale:

Raw materials: £5.50

Listing fee: 20p

Sales commission: 78p

Marketing & promotion: zero cost but your time

Profit for the week: £19.51

Example 2: The book keeper

Monday

Start a blog using free blogging platforms such as blogger.com or wordpress.com – with helpful posts on book-keeping technique, this will help you be seen as an expert in your field

Promote blog via Twitter

Produce business cards. A pack of 50 cards can be bought for £12.99 from Moo.com

Tuesday

Attend local networking event

Post in online business forums with helpful book-keeping advice

Wednesday

Approach small business sites with an article for them to upload that will interest & assist readers (include a link back to your blog so people can make contact)

Thursday

Call local accountancy practice to ask if they require outsourced book-keeping

Friday

Secure first client! Contract to carry out book-keeping for local home business at rate of £50 per month.

Cost of making sale:

Business cards: £12.99

Promotion and networking: zero cost but your time

Profit in first month: £37.01

Doing the sums

The beauty of both these examples is that all this promotion and sales generating activity can be done by ‘Working 5 to 9’ ie it’s possible to keep hold of the day job and build your business (and profit) by working nights and weekends.

The secret is in keeping costs low (by being home based and making the mot of free social media tools) and focusing on making that first sale. In which case, it’s perfectly possible to realise profit in just five days. What’s stopping you? Get that business started! 

NB. This feature assumes access to a home PC/laptop therefore costs of IT equipment not included.

Emma Jones is Founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’ Her next book ‘Working 5 to 9 – how to start a business in your spare time’ will be published in May 2010
 

See all Rock Guides to Business