Ideas For A Small Fly In Community.

[Moccassin]

Hello every one in SBF.net!

Well, I live in a small community where every thing charges you an arm and a leg! Groceries, Air line tickets, Gas.

I'm just looking for small business ideas to try and prosper a little in my community. Any Input or idea from any one would
be cool to here.

I've already started a little delivery service to generate a little bit of money.The delivery is on its fourth week right now.
Each week, its made $10.00 more in profits. So its picking up. Tips are good too.

All the money that I generate from the delivery service I hold on to. I Don`t touch that money for personal expenses.
I plan on using the money I generate to advance the business and expand to other opportunities with in my small community.



Feel free to pitch ideas. Ask Questions. I am open to any kind of input. Lets have fun with this!

[OBGregg]

Lots depends on where exactly you are. I always like to look at ways to overcome geographic limitations (grow your market beyond the local area).

So, in your case - based on your "Northern Wild" location, you may have an opportunity to market the location to hunters & fishermen from the south. You could be a guide, or guide broker matching up the hunters with local guides and arranging all the transportation and lodging (making sure all the money flows through your company). The nice thing about the broker option is that you can scale it. If you are the guide, you can't grow the business.

Just an idea.

[tmerrill]

Can you start hiring people for our delivery business? Or is the community too small for that? If you can, you might be able to increase the number of deliveries your business does. If you community is really in the middle of nowhere, you might be able to find a teenager who would do it for cheap. I hope that gives you more ideas.

[Moccassin]

Guiding is definitely an option in the future. My pops and uncles grandpa are guides. My dad was going to shoot for a guiding business near by but had trouble doing so with the community not far from us. About old trap lines and such. But all that kind of stuff can be figured out when I'm ready to invest in something major like that.

I am unable to hire any one at the moment. But I have come up with an idea of asking for a summer student next month.They usually have this program every year for students and more then half of them end up cutting grass. When there's no more grass or anything left for them to do they just sit around and collect pay until some thing comes up. So, I figure getting a student who will be getting pay from the program he or she is in will be no problem.

The next step that was looking forward to was opening a little corner store next to my home which is right in
the center of town. Good location I think. But 2 other things have come up that I might invest in. A ice cream shop (would be new to the community) and photography equipment.

[BNB]

I imagine an ice cream shop in a very small community to be a pretty major challenge.

[Moccassin]

I would believe so as well. I'm going to out of boredom take on that challenge tho and see what it generates. We can brake even
off of what we make or simply don't make anything. If it doesn't work, its on to the next thing until we find something that works
and generates a little bit of cash flow.

The delivery service in its 4th week had its weakest out come. I'll keep it going tho since I might score a free employee through
the summer job program. I might as well run it through the winter too and see if it picks up more because of the weather. Most
likely will I imagine.


Keep on with the input guys and girls!

[KHooten]

Maybe a sno cone stand? I'm not sure how much of an investment you would have to put into that. However, I know in my community during the summer there are always several of these open and they do very well.

[huggytree]

you could open a Walmart? that would drive down the prices and help your community.....it would kill all the local small business, but it would help lift up the average persons free spending cash..

im shocked a delivery business works in a small community....my idea of a small town may be different than yours.....how many buildings in your down town?

what are you delivering?

id stay away from sno cones and ice cream....ice cream makers are expensive and your profit is $.25 per cone....good luck becoming rich

my philosophy is always to sell a few $10,000 products rather than sell 30,000 $1 products.....think big

i make much more profit on $10,000 jobs than i do on $200 jobs.....and i think i work physically harder on many of the $200 jobs

we dont know what your community needs? personally if your town is very small id recommend leaving....small towns=small opportunity

many small towns are poor and run down....the smaller the more run down

[KHooten]

you could open a Walmart? that would drive down the prices and help your community.....it would kill all the local small business, but it would help lift up the average persons free spending cash..

Well I guess if he had the means to start a Wal-Mart then that would be a great idea, but I was under the impression he was looking for small business ideas not ideas that were going to require a huge investment.


id stay away from sno cones and ice cream....ice cream makers are expensive and your profit is $.25 per cone....good luck becoming rich

As I said before I'm not sure what the cost of a sno cone machine would be, however I do know that the profit margin on sno cones is in the 65% range. So unless you're selling your sno cones for $.50 per sno cone then you would be making much more than $.25 per sno cone. As I mentioned before there are several sno cone stands where I live and they all do very well during the summer.

Now, as he mentioned you definitley won't get rich from one sno cone stand but you could make some extra cash if that's what you're after.

I'm not saying you should go open a sno cone stand right now. It was just a suggestion that probably wouldn't take a huge investment and could potentially yeild good returns.

[huggytree]

i did the plumbing for a ice cream business.....the machine was $80,000 (and may have even been used for that price)....he sold cones for $2.00

he went under after 1 year....unless your going to sell in HUGE volume selling anything for $1 or $2 isnt going to work well

maybe sno cone makers only cost a thousand or two...i dont know...but that doesnt change the volume in a small community....its not like your going to sell thousands a day of them....your going to sell a 100 a day in the summer and 0 in the winter....it all goes back to the posters definition of a small town....

the Walmart response was kinda a joke....its my sense of humor

[KHooten]

Wow $80,000 for an ice cream machine is crazy.

Yeah, I agree Huggytree you're not going to sell enough sno cones to make a ton of cash. And yes it would absolutely be a seasonal business. It was merely a suggestion for a small scale business idea that could generate a little extra income.


the Walmart response was kinda a joke....its my sense of humor Gottcha :)

[Moccassin]

Wal Mart, nice...lol.....Well, we dont really have a down town area. Every thing is kinda spread out. We got 2 little convient stores, 1 little grocery store, 1 small restaurant all spread around town.

Yeah, I actually think a soft ice cream stand will do ok here this summer. I mean it isnt going to be a huge ice cream shop. A simple little machine at a decent price. And it is really just to scrape some extra cash.

Every thing that I'm doing right now is out of my house. So I planned to build a little building next to my house. From there, maybe open up a little shop and compete with the other 2 local convient stores. My lumber would come up to about $1,300. Getting it up here though is the tricky part. Putting it all on cargo (air) will be pricey. I'm not sure if there will be a barge coming this year. I can wait for winter road season to go pick it as well. I'm not to sure what I'm going to do about that yet.

[BNB]

id stay away from sno cones and ice cream....ice cream makers are expensive and your profit is $.25 per cone....good luck becoming rich

my philosophy is always to sell a few $10,000 products rather than sell 30,000 $1 products.....think big



Companies have made billions on micro-transactions and $1 products.

I have a million dollar company with quite a few employees (employer paid health care too!) selling $2 - $7 name badges.

I would also say that it's hard to sell $10,000 products, and of the many friends I have who own businesses, the ones selling the big ticket items are usually the ones struggling the most.

[ayonnat]

What if you were able to offer the local business owners ways to save on the services that they are using to run their business? If you were able to do this then maybe they would start to bring down their prices because they are saving on their overhead costs now so that would make then drive prices down.

[billbenson]

my philosophy is always to sell a few $10,000 products rather than sell 30,000 $1 products.....think big

i make much more profit on $10,000 jobs than i do on $200 jobs.....and i think i work physically harder on many of the $200 jobs



I agree with Huggy that it is easier to make money selling expensive stuff / services than inexpensive. But then he did give the walmart analogy and last I checked they make money selling inexpensive products on low margins.

Since you are in a small town, I would assume costs of doing business are lower. My first job was selleing for a California company. California is expensive. The thing is I did it from Florida which has a relatively low cost of living and no state taxes. For people working here wages suck, but why do you have to live and work in the same place.

I'd say either do what Huggy suggested and sell specialized products or services in you small town or live in your small town and do business elsewhere. There is a big internet world out there not to mention contracting services. You don't need to live where you work.

[huggytree]

Companies have made billions on micro-transactions and $1 products.

I have a million dollar company with quite a few employees (employer paid health care too!) selling $2 - $7 name badges.
I would also say that it's hard to sell $10,000 products, and of the many friends I have who own businesses, the ones selling the big ticket items are usually the ones struggling the most.

it doesnt need to be a $10,000 product......but the closer the product is to $10,000 vs $1 is where i was going.

you have a million dollar company selling $2-7 name badges.....i have a $600,000 company all by myself working 1,200 hours a year in the field....and i also have health insurance.....my sales can range from $200 to $45,000 per job.....it takes a bit more effort to get the $45,000 job, but the profit margin is a lot better......you need to work a lot harder and take a lot more risks to make $1,000,000 in sales for your $2 product....while I am ONE PERSON working 1,200 hours to sell $600,000.........and from that $1,000,000 in sales you may take less profit home in your pocket than i do by myself.....i can argue all day about how its better to sell less of an expensive product than sell millions of $1 products...


Moccassin: your definition of a small town was exactly what i was thinking of....i dont think there is a way to make a good/profitable business in a town like yours. anything you do will just be a struggle to survive.....if you wish to start a business either go internet or move....id move for better opportunity

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[BP Writer]

Are there any interesting/marketable products uniquely available from where you are that you could sell to the rest of America? (e.g. nature based, or artisan based, etc.)

[BNB]

i can argue all day about how its better to sell less of an expensive product than sell millions of $1 products...

We don't need to argue. But you are telling me I have to work a lot harder and take a lot more risks to sell $2 products - that's a big assumption on your part. When I have an order of 25,000 name badges and do $75,000 in sales, takes 1 week of work from my staff.... I'm neither taking more risk or working any harder. Generally speaking though, I'd rather have 20,000 customers that purchase regularly than 10 big customers... audience and list building provides substantial leverage and lowers risk drastically. I'm not sure I would agree that it's less risky to have such few customers. Though I'm not suggesting you have 10 customers, it's just a general comparison.

I have friends who make a living off 2 - 3 sales a year of big ticket items. They are always stressed and waiting for that next big thing - which may or may not come in. I had this same discussion with them when I started my business - and now I work closely with one on small ticket items.

I'm sorry you were so offended by my comment, it wasn't meant that way. Merely pointing out that the price of an item is very small piece of a very large pie - meaning, I'd rather sell $5 hotdogs to a guaranteed crowd of 50,000 people than $25 filet mignon to an empty restaurant. Or I would rather sell $25 filet at a busy hotel than $5 hotdogs outside Home Depot. It's silly to argue about the cost of the item you are selling when there are so many variables when it comes to making a business decision.

[huggytree]

i wasnt offended....its almost impossible to do

by having employees your taking a huge risk....all i was saying was that at the end of the year our incomes may be similar, but because of the type of business you chose you have alot more risk than i do....as a 1 man plumbing shop i almost cant lose...its almost impossible to go out of business.....but when i hire employees then i have to find continuous work...and the risk of going under is 100x more

i have no idea how much you make and am assuming way too much..i know....im just trying to push the low risk of staying small and selling higher priced items instead of your route.....2 completely different routes to success..

i would never get into a business that i need 3 sales a year....thats taking my idea to the extreme.....im just trying to get the snow cone idea eliminated as doomed to fail

[billbenson]

Fella's: Blockbuster closed or is closing and from what you say Huggy, half the contractors and even one man plumbing shops have closed in your area. They are just different business models. If either one of you failed, you have the experience of the business you built and can probably do it again. Might be inconvenient. Have to move or other issues you would prefer not to deal with. But you would move on.

I had a group of 5 close friends from college. All engineers went in different directions. One got married, one went to work in a government job, one went to work in military warfare design, one starts and sells companies, and I became a salesman. All have different risk / reward ratios. Although, the funny thing is the guy that got the government job is really at the highest risk right now. He's loosing salary, retirement, medical benefits etc. And because he took the secure job, he thought he would never need to worry about that.

I sold big bucks sales for companies for 20 plus years . $2M quota and a deal was at least a $1M sale. I always made quota. That one would be a little more difficult self employed. But then, people like that usually can do consulting to fill in the gaps.

My friend that starts businesses and sells them. He's a millionaire. Works on ideas and develops vc contacts, engineering contacts in india etc all the time and every year or two builds a compay.In a way, he's like a stock borker. if if gets negative signals on losses he bails out asap. He also holds a bunch of patents that can't hurt.

Different strokes for different folks. Do what you are good at.

[huggytree]

actually most of the 1 man plumbing shops are still in business...its the large/medium ones that are gone....lots of 20-40 man shops are down to 3-4 guys....there's TONS of new 1 man shops

the 1 man shops that went under focused on being cheap....working 60 hour days just to make 40 hours of journeyman pay....when the 60 hours didnt exist anymore they went under.

[billbenson]

Fella's: Blockbuster closed or is closing and from what you say Huggy, half the contractors and even one man plumbing shops have closed in your area. They are just different business models. If either one of you failed, you have the experience of the business you built and can probably do it again. Might be inconvenient. Have to move or other issues you would prefer not to deal with. But you would move on.

I had a group of 5 close friends from college. All engineers went in different directions. One got married, one went to work in a government job, one went to work in military warfare design, one starts and sells companies, and I became a salesman. All have different risk / reward ratios. Although, the funny thing is the guy that got the government job is really at the highest risk right now. He's loosing salary, retirement, medical benefits etc. And because he took the secure job, he thought he would never need to worry about that.

I sold big bucks sales for companies for 20 plus years . $2M quota and a deal was at least a $1M sale. I always made quota. That one would be a little more difficult self employed. But then, people like that usually can do consulting to fill in the gaps.

My friend that starts businesses and sells them. He's a millionaire. Works on ideas and develops vc contacts, engineering contacts in india etc all the time and every year or two builds a compay.In a way, he's like a stock borker. if if gets negative signals on losses he bails out asap. He also holds a bunch of patents that can't hurt.

Different strokes for different folks. Do what you are good at.

[BNB]

i wasnt offended....its almost impossible to do

by having employees your taking a huge risk....all i was saying was that at the end of the year our incomes may be similar, but because of the type of business you chose you have alot more risk than i do....as a 1 man plumbing shop i almost cant lose...its almost impossible to go out of business.....but when i hire employees then i have to find continuous work...and the risk of going under is 100x more

i have no idea how much you make and am assuming way too much..i know....im just trying to push the low risk of staying small and selling higher priced items instead of your route.....2 completely different routes to success..

i would never get into a business that i need 3 sales a year....thats taking my idea to the extreme.....im just trying to get the snow cone idea eliminated as doomed to fail

By the snow cone idea might not be doomed to fail. You have to understand what "success" is for the person to decide that. What if he could work 20 hours a week and make an extra $2500/month... in his small community and by his standards, that could be a home run!

However, I would probably agree that the snow cone route may not be the best idea :)

I don't necessarily agree that having employees is more risky. Generally when you have employees, you can afford the employees. And great employees like we have really helps expand the business. BNB is growing exponentially, and I credit a lot of that to our wonderful staff. We are looking to add 5 new jobs within the next 2 months, I think that's fantastic.

But back to risk. Risk can mean a couple different things. There is emotional risk, meaning, if I had to let an employee go due to lack of business, that is a very difficult and taxing on myself as well as the employee. But on a more technical and financial side - think about this, if business slows down, there are 11 others who are on the chopping block before I am - I'd say that's pretty good when it comes to risk.