profitable

1. Worm Farming – despite the draw for making millions (of worms, not dollars), you are better off not getting into this as a business in the next few years.  The reason is that unless you, yourself, are going to be using the wigglers, there is too much competition for fertilizer generators over the next few years.  Oh, sure, worm castings (that is fancy talk for their poo) are like Superman style fertilizer.  A few castings mixed with water and you have Super Fertilizer.  You have to be careful when you use it so you don’t kill or burn your plants but the stuff works.  You can try to sell the stuff but the chain stores already carry similar products and you will have to undercut them.  As a footnote, yes, the worms are self-sustaining and to some, they are awesome pets (well, if you mean by “awesome” that they don’t bark in the middle of the night or crow like roosters in the morning), they still take up space and make castings.

 

 

 

2. Medical technician – I think we have way more radiologists (x-ray technicians), phlebotomists (the people who draw blood for lab work or donations), and other technical chops related to medical needs unless you actually are programming code for heart pumps, firmware, etc.  Thanks to tons of websites and surveys stating how much of a need we would have for these types of jobs I see that (at least in major cities), there is a surplus of these type of people.  If I am work, drop me a line or post below and give us your take on this particular aspect of business.

 For people coming to America to look for positions in these fields as well, for the immediate future, more and more hospitals and private medical services are limiting their hours, closing their doors, and just finding it not cost effective due to tough insurance reimbursements to stay in business.  Also, if you are thinking of working in India, they already have a surplus of medical technicians there was well.  If you are going into this field to carry on the family business, go for it, otherwise, you may want to rethink this vocation.

 

 

3. Medical billing – This particular gig has been hyped up even more than being a medical technician.  Too many people are doing this and there aren’t enough doctors, hospitals or solvent insurance companies to make a living with this.  You may get some accounts but competition is pretty fierce out there already.

4. Recruiter Business -  With more and more companies requiring you to apply through their Internet portals, the position of recruiter is being delegated for specific niche positions or industries where they require a little more extensive screening than their websites offer.  If you think you have the skills for that niche, I would say give it a try,  otherwise, I have seen more recruiters fail than succeed in the last few years.  Start up costs may be low but failure rate is high.

5. Childcare Facilities – Much to the chagrin of some working mothers, you are seeing more and more childcare facilities close.  The reasons?  It could be one of the Three “L”s:  Licensing problems, liability issues, lawsuits.  Daycare centers boom and bust in terms of being scrutinized by local authorities depending on how many kids get hurt and what makes it into the media.  A lot of daycare centers try working under the table with cash only.  That isn’t a good idea, especially if you get caught.  For existing daycare centers, with more parents getting laid off, they aren’t getting paid and in some cases their kids are being yanked from the centers. 

You also better make sure you have a lot of insurance and you have the appropriate legal documents for the parents to sign.  Despite all of that, you still may get sued.  That would take the joy out of taking care of kids for me. 

Ah, you may be saying, “Kim, but I have a huge house. My sister and I love children and we can handle it.  I raised ten kids of my own.” 

Okay, but you really want to make sure that you know what you are doing.  There is a difference between taking care of your own kids and a bunch of other kids that you don’t know about.  What if one of them has a predilection for starting fires at four years old?  In any case, good luck, keep the kids away from sharp objects and make sure you have some liability protection. Check out your local economic market before you decide to start up this gig.  A lot of popular markets are just glutted.

 

 

6.   Web Designer - Unless you have some artistic talent that you have won awards with, or a burning desire to do this (in which case you will overcome the odds and be a success at ANYTHING you do) I would stay away from this.  The market is not only saturated, there are too many tools available that allow you to build your own for free from the ground up.  The pay isn’t what it use to be and it takes time to build up your client base and skills to make a decent living doing this.

7. Mediator - People use to try to get into this business because they thought it was “easy money”.  Ha!  The field is glutted with a lot of bad mediators who got into this business because they didn’t need to go to law school to be able to actually make money in the legal system.  Please don’t get me wrong.  I am a mediator-arbitrator and I make some money at this.  The operative word in the last sentence is “SOME”.  

It has taken me a LONG time to get to this position and over the years more and more people have gotten into the profession, at least here in Southern California.  By all means learn the skills of mediation and negotiation and if you decide to get into this business, be aware that you need to do a lot of pro bono (that means “for free”) work in order to get your own practice going. 

Unfortunately, there are already a lot of people doing just that in this business.  Similar to the other gigs, if you have a burning desire to do this, realize you won’t get rich if you make it in this business.  You will have a hard enough time trying to just make a living at it.

8. Travel Agent - There use to be a need for this job for people who are on the go and didn’t have time to plan their vacations.  Now, thanks to easy access to websites that will do everything for you except fill your airplane with gas and tuck you in your bed in your hotel room in French Polynesia’s Bora Bora, it is all self-service.  If there are any perks (discount flights, hotel stays off season, etc) think of getting a gig where you can earn enough money to pay for the travel perks yourself without having to sweat a few years to actually reap the benefits of the discounts. 

A lot of the airlines and hotels are dealing directly with the public and offering greater discounts, seasonally speaking, to their guests directly. 

9. Telephone Sales -  More and more people are simply getting on the DNC (Do Not Call) list and they are not tolerating cold calls by phone.  Because of so much fraud over the years and misleading phone calls, the entire industry has been hung up on.  Unless you really are into cold calling and getting a lot of rejection, I would stay away from this job.

 

10. Anything that you start up that has a buzz word that you have to ask yourself will sound stupid one to two years from now.  Right now, the buzz word is “green”.  “We are going green.”  “You know that our environmentally safe products are great because we’ve gone green.” 

With all due respect to all the groups mentioned here, a few years ago in different markets you   could have purchased products and done business with people who were “Freedom Supporting”  “Black Owned” “Christian Values” “American” “100% European” “World Wide Web Enabled” “Child Friendly” “Meatlovers Only”, etc. 

 

 

You get the picture. 

There are a lot of marketing buzzwords or causes that have come and gone.  Now, because of the environment, everything is “Green” and of course, “Eco Friendly”.  Don’t get me wrong.  That may be a GREAT marketing tool in some markets.  If you are actually selling only goods that are  “Made In America” that is a legitimate and honest hook and the tenth point in this article doesn’t apply to you. 

Take for example my case. 

I have a vested interest in finding a cure and treatments for Rett Syndrome for my daughter, Arianna.  I go to Rett functions and see other girls with the Rett gene.  Their is a lot of love, suffering and joy in our lives.  Making people aware of Rett Syndrome is important to me.  Part of all my proceeds from all my book sales go to researching a cure for Rett Syndrome.  Rett Syndrome affects a girl born once every fifteen minutes.  Boys born with the Rett gene die at birth.  The disease affects people regardless of race, creed and color and it is often misdiagnosed.  I have been saying that (and following through) for years.  It is part of what I do. 

If whatever it is you are doing is important to you, like staying green, go ahead and use that in your business as part of the name or marketing.

Just note that the tenth point applies to people who throw the name on for the marketing appeal as a hook to get customers to check them out and weasel their way into getting you to buy something. 

Just do yourself a favor and unless you actually are going to live and breathe your cause, pick a name that you won’t regret a few years down the line if you are still in business that long.

Good luck!  If you  think that I may owe you guys and gals an article on ten businesses that you might want to be in, drop me a line or post…

Practical Money Making-Surviving Recession, Layoffs, Credit Problems, Generating Passive Income Streams, Working Full Time or Part Time and Retirement 

 
Kim Isaac Greenblatt

Tags: Business, jobs

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 12:09 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.