I was reading the local paper
and came across a picture of the cleanest garage I
ever saw. In addition to a picture of the garage there
was a picture of a gentlemen, in his late 60's
cleaning the cobwebs with an extension pole. I thought
to myself I have never seen a garage so clean in my
life. The accompanying article was discussing how this
individual and another had painted and put cabinets in
their garages, and how you could eat off this garage
floor.
Now we have all seen those storage cabinets for
garages, but how many of us ever get them and if we
do, don't we fill them up and then the garage goes
back to looking like it did before we got them.
Imagine if someone would come to your home, condo or
townhouse and clean out, paint and organize that
garage for you; and you would tell them how you want
it done. I am not talking about those expensive ads
we've all seen where they can come in and re-do your
garage. Not many of us have thousands of dollars to
spend on our garages.
It got me to thinking that this could be the perfect
business for someone who loves to clean and organize.
You could network with one of the local home depot
places to provide you cabinets, or you could take your
re-sale number and purchase them directly from the
manufacturer, rather than dealing with a local
company. The only negative sometimes with dealing
directly with the manufacturer, you might have to
purchase larger quantities or they might have minimum
order requirements.
You could run small classified ads in your local
paper, in specialty papers in your area or make up
flyers with a before and after picture of what you
could do with someone's garage. You'd meet with the
homeowner and discuss where certain items would be
placed, inform them of your services: painting and
providing cabinets and then re-organizing the garage
for them. If it were me I would certainly get half of
my fee up front (which would also include the cost of
the cabinets).
Like the article I read, get your local paper to
feature your business. Show them a before and after
picture. It would certainly be a great way to get you
more business. Remember a picture is worth a thousand
words.
What should you charge. I really don't know. However,
if I were thinking about starting this business I'd
call homeowners and ask them what they would pay. Tell
homeowners you are doing a survey and just want to
know if they would be interested if someone would
paint, and re-organize their garage, and if so, what
would it be worth to them. You would also have to find
out the cost of the cabinets beforehand so that you
could factor this into your cost; in addition to how
much paint you would need for the average garage. You
would obviously want a paint that is easy to clean.
The biggest thing is to decide how much time it would
take and what you want to make per hour. If it were
me, I would do it on a sliding scale. By this, I mean
it would depend on how much work the garage needed.
You could also do quarterly, or semi-annual follow-up
for webs and washing of the walls and floors and do
any re-organizing.
I might be way out of line, maybe somebody is already
doing it. Again, I don't mean the redesigning and
remodeling companies we've all seen, I mean a small or
homebased business owner.
Anyway, it was just a thought! It gives those of you
that think there is no type of business you can run an
idea of how some business ideas come about. Think
about what you like to do, what your passionate about,
and see if you can develop a business around your
interests.
Copyright 2002 DeFiore Enterprises
About author
Interested in having your own
successful, home based creative real estate investing
business? Chuck and Sue have been helping folks start
successful home based businesses for over 19 years,
and we can help you too! To see how, visit
http://www.homebusinesssolutions.com
for the latest FREE tips and tricks, educational
products and coaching in creative real estate
investing and home based businesses. No time to visit
the site? Subscribe to our "how to" Home Business
Solutions Digest, it's like having your own personal
coach:
mailto:subscribeHBS@homebusinesssolutions.com
.gif)
