Small scale business ideas – When you spend money to purchase a product or pay for a service at a privately owned local store, that money goes to pay a worker in your neighborhood, who, in turn, is likely to spend money at another neighborhood business. The more that small scale businesses leverage their potential to support each other, the greater their capacity to create a thriving local business community. We can hereby deduce that small scale businesses are integral parts of local economies.
According to World Bank, Small Businesses represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide, Additionally, the small scale business stats further demonstrate that expansions by these smaller companies comprise an additional 60% of the jobs created. The evidence suggests that small scale businesses indeed create a substantial majority of net new jobs in an average year.
Because an increased unemployment rate has been one of the macroeconomic problems of most developing countries, starting up a small scale business is never a bad idea to try out.
MEANING OF A SMALL SCALE BUSINESS
Small scale business ideas varies from one country to another. It depends on whether it is a developed or developing country but the underlying concept is the same. Different countries use various measures of size depending on their level of development. The common yardsticks are the total number of employees, total investment, and sales turnover.
A small scale business can be defined in terms of annual sales, asset valuation, net profit, balance sheet totals, and the size of the business including the number of employees available in the business.
There are numerous small profitable business ideas that you can venture into depending on your area of interest. Below is the list of small scale business ideas you can choose from:
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
Small scale business ideas could make business owners would want to save a lot in terms of time, salary cost, and training costs. Instead of hiring a full-time employee for a small job, they could choose to outsource it to someone.
As a virtual assistant, you are charged with tasks like social media management, preparing reports, managing calendars, appointments, and emails. However, virtual support duties are not limited to clerical work. Many virtual assistants provide marketing, web design, bookkeeping, and other services. If you are willing to become a VA, click here to get started.
PROOFREADER
Small scale business ideas need someone to proofread things they are publishing for their customers to read, especially blog posts and newsletters. Proofreaders are also very important to authors of articles for human consumption, either for publication or digital use.
Proofreaders review the final draft of a piece of writing to ensure consistency and accuracy in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formatting. If you have got a flair for quality writing and paying attention to details, taking up a proofreading business idea could be what you should act on.
There are a lot of courses on the business of proofreading which you can enroll for with little or no cost. You can click here to get on the journey of becoming a successful proofreader.
FREELANCE WRITING
In today’s digital world, many businesses simply don’t exist in a fixed physical location. Those companies need workers who can work independently, in their own space. The life of a freelance writer is indeed an independent one with a great deal of flexibility.
A freelance writer is a writer who works on a self-employed basis. They can work for just one magazine or, more often, they write for several different publications at a time. Freelance writers provide content for blogs, eBooks, websites, and also highly optimized content for search engines as a way to rank in Google. You can get hands-on writing skills online at the comfort of your home to become a professional writer.
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
With the advent of the internet and digital marketplace, more companies deem it fit to embrace social media for customer acquisition, and social media management is often essential.
Social media managers are in charge of representing a company across several social media channels as the sole voice of the brand. You will also monitor social media analytics using free or paid tools and respond to questions and comments according to the company’s voice and guidelines.
This is never a bad business idea if you know how to work your way through the nitty-gritty of how these social medial channels work. This infographic from Meltwater shows all of the tasks that a social media manager might do in one day.
FACEBOOK ADS MANAGER
As of 2019, Facebook reported that 60 million local business pages have been created since their launch. This is a testament to the power of Facebook engagement and advertising for businesses. More businesses are finding out that if they want to remain competitive in the digital marketplace, they need to get on Facebook.
Facebook Ads Manager create, edit, monitor and analyze paid promotional Facebook campaigns for businesses. If you are the type that loves surfing through Facebook, making bucks out of what you love doing looks more interesting.
BLOG WRITER
With the developing online market, blogs have become a vital part of it. Blog writing means writing content to be published on a blog. Through blog writing, bloggers get the opportunity of sharing their thoughts and ideas with hundreds or even thousands of people every day.
You can get started as a freelance blog writer by creating a blog of your own. This will serve as a platform to help sharpen your writing skills.
LOW-CONTENT EBOOK CREATOR
If you aren’t a professional writer yet or you don’t have the patience to produce a novel, low content books may be a perfect alternative for you if you have the goal to publish a book as digital content.
With technology becoming more affordable and easier to use, you can sell your ebooks on Amazon or your website.
CUSTOM GIFT CREATOR
Being a custom gift creator is one of the lists of small scale business ideas you can start with little capital. Most companies now look for gifts that are unique, yet useful to give their clients or employees on special occasions such as festive periods.
You can make use of Canva app to make those designs even if you don’t have prior knowledge of design. You then get those designs printed on shirts, souvenirs, stationeries, etc. and make money from it selling it either online, local shops, or at a trade exhibition.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 13% increase in demand for graphic designers by 2020. As new businesses start up becomes dependent on the Internet, graphic designers will play an increasingly crucial role in businesses.
Graphic designers use a variety of media (fonts, shapes, colors, images) to communicate an idea or identity to be used in advertising and promotions. The end goal of graphic designers is to make the organizations that hire them recognizable and prominent.
Some graphic design jobs require a university degree, but not all design jobs require it. Your skill as a designer is what most employers find as their top priority, not a four-year degree. You can learn practical applications of graphic design from online courses and books thereby teaching yourself new concepts and relevant software such as Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc.
FOOD DELIVERY DRIVER
As a food delivery driver, you will be able to work with food production businesses by helping them transport food items from production areas to their customers. To become a successful food delivery driver, you must have a thorough understanding of an area’s street grid.
Just like a pizza boy that works with a pizza-making brand, he takes the pizza directly to customers whenever orders are being made. He sometimes collects payments on behalf of the pizza brand if the customer opts for an option to pay on delivery. The same also applies to a food delivery driver.
There are lots of food delivery apps you can sign up with and get to work for multiple delivery companies. Some delivery companies expect to meet up with their stated requirements to work with them as a food delivery driver.
ONLINE COURSE CREATOR
Most people now turn to enroll in online courses because they can do that from the comfort of their homes. They don’t need to go to a physical training school and this saves them time, stress, and efforts. If you are the type that has a passion for teaching, you can thereby turn your hobby into an online course and make a living doing what you love.
Although, some online course creators are known as educators in their areas of expertise. But you don’t need to know so well or become an expert before becoming an online course creator. You can get more experience in the process which will help improve your skills.
There are several platforms available to help you sell your online courses and you make some bucks doing that. Skillshare and Udemy are great platforms to sell your online course.
TIPS TO BOOST YOUR SMALL SCALE BUSINESS IDEAS
Starting a successful small scale business either as a self-employed individual or as a side hustle has always been rewarding but it requires a lot of planning and persistence. Do you intend to start up a small scale business? Is there any small scale business idea you find feasible? We have outlined some useful tips to get you started:
AREA OF INTEREST
Using the list of small scale businesses above, you can choose out of it depending on your passion and interest. This serves as a foundation for all other steps involved in setting up successful small scale business.
BUSINESS PLAN
You will need to have a structured and effective business plan in place. This has to do with market testing, feasibility, the viability of the business idea, and effective marketing strategy. These will give you insights on how well your small scale business ideas can survive in the market.
FINANCING YOUR BUSINESS
Finances have always been one of the major barriers in setting up small scale business. But there are still some small scale business ideas you can start up with little or no capital. You have to define your capital structure and its composition. You can request for help from family and friends or probably request for loans from microfinance banks.
BEAT YOUR COMPETITORS
Starting up a small scale business, you should understand that no idea is new. This means that you will have competitors that do the same thing you are about to venture into. You have to study your competitor and leverage on their area of weakness so you can have your market share.
KEEP IMPROVING YOUR SKILLS
Due to change in trends, improving your skills to meet up with the present market requirements will help your business survive. It’s always good to start with the resources you have in terms of knowledge, finances, and experience. In the process, you will get to gain more experience.
BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY AS A SMALL SCALE BUSINESS OWNER
Most small scale business ideas are easy to execute because it requires little cost. It doesn’t mean you have to quit your regular job to start a small scale business. You can start up as a self-employed or rather make it a side hustle. With the aid of internet marketing, you can market your business to your target audience even with a smaller budget.
