Whether you’re looking at summer jobs or for year-round supplemental income, an errand business has a lot of potential. With low startup costs and a flexible schedule, learning how to start an errand business provides a quick way to generate income. For this reason, it’s one of the best teen business ideas for kids who have driver’s licenses and are comfortable driving around. Think of people in your neighborhood who need help running errands. People with full-time jobs often find it hard to find time to run across town after work or in the evenings. Stay at home parents with young children can find an afternoon emergency grocery trip too overwhelming. In addition to people who are busy, people who are sick or disabled may have a hard time getting out. With a reliable car, a calendar, a map and a phone, you have the tools you need to open your enterprise.
How To Start An Errand Business
Determine your target customers. You may want to envision a 10 mile radius from your home and consider that your base service area. You can advertise to businesses and individuals within that base.If your town is small enough, you can offer deliveries anywhere within the city limits. However, if you live in a more widespread city, you may want to limit your errands to a particular area.
If the area around your home doesn’t offer enough business, you can target other types of customers. Go to your senior citizen center or assisted living facilities and offer to pick up dry cleaning, medicines from the pharmacy or food from the grocery store.
Contact home business owners and offer to make daily runs to the post office or office supply store.
Once you’ve found your customers, treat them well. The service you provide is a convenience for them, but not always a necessity. Your customer service and reliability are essential in establishing repeat business.
Consider also your pricing. While your prices need to be high enough to give you a profit, if they are too high, you’ll lose business. Remember that this is a quantity based business, and the more customers you can find within a small travel area, the better for you.
How to Charge
So how do you establish your price? You can mimic cab drivers, and set a rate per mileage (look on Mapquest or Google to get mileage and directions from one point to another). You could base charge an hourly rate as well. You might charge more for emergency runs.Growing Your Business
It’s easy to expand your business beyond errand running. You could chauffeur people who have difficulty getting out of the house by themselves, or you could start a transportation service to take children to school.You could work with home business owners as a personal assistant, helping them so they can focus on building their business.
And, with a strong sense of customer service and demonstrated reliability, you can have a successful business of your own. Learning how to start an errand business can get you into your own business quickly and will provide a solid foundation upon which to provide valuable add-on services.
No comments:
Post a Comment