Business ideas for women
When you see an article titled “small business ideas for women,” you can almost predict its content. Nobody needs to tell you about monetizing a blog, selling on Etsy or eBay, selling homemade baked goods or arranging gift baskets. Not that there´s anything wrong with these businesses. In fact, many women find them quite profitable, but that´s the real problem. Too many women are already out there, doing the same thing. To quote Stephen Sondheim, “You gotta have a gimmick, if you wanna´ have a chance.” Here are 10 small business ideas for women who think outside the box.
1. Profit From Your Passions
Julianne Weinmann has a passion for skiing. She also loves vintage ski posters, jewelry, memorabilia, ski fiction and poetry, which are all loved by franchise women and entrepreneur women. When she created Ski Tales, she found a way to combine all of her passions into one website, and monetize it for prosperity. Ski Tales allows guests to share their adult, teen and children´s ski stories and poetry. She pays her contributors with gifts from her ski related flea market. The website also offers ski technique advise, as well as a list of ski-related books, along with their Amazon Affiliate link, which are great marketing business opportunities women can appreciate. If you plan to ski at Camelback Mountain, you can rent her condo at the resort. This type of multidimensional approach covers a multitude of bases, making it stand out from other small business ideas for women—especially pertaining to business ideas for women over 40.
2. Coach Your Life Skills
Harvard Business Review reports that life coaching is a $1 billion a year industry, but many people do not really understand what it actually is. The folks at Lifecoaching.com note that the method:
is profoundly different from consulting, mentoring, advice, therapy, or counseling. The coaching process addresses specific personal projects, business successes, general conditions and transitions in the client’s personal life, relationships or profession by examining what is going on right now, discovering what your obstacles or challenges might be, and choosing a course of action to make your life be what you want it to be.
Typical subjects include:
- Relationships
- Stress Management and Balance
- Spirituality and Personal Growth
- Small Business Development
- Career Planning
- Motivation and Time Management Techniques
- Creativity Training for Artists, Writers, Musicians and Performers
- Finances
- Health, Fitness Aging, Lifestyle and Wellness
- Marriage and Parenting
Some people evolve into life coaching, after their involvement in other coaching-oriented careers. Leanne Ellington built a six figure income with her fitness bootcamps. After years in the industry, she became acutely aware of how women, herself included, engage in a negative self talk that prevents them from actually reaching their health and fitness goals. The Ditch the Bitch idea started with a hilarious video, sung to the tune of Opposites Attract. It features Leanne arguing with her “double,” the bitch.
I love my body
I think you´re fat
Of course, it went viral, and a simple video lead to a new, life coaching career for women who were tired of listening to their own inner bitch. Although the video was already an effective marketing tool, Leanne added to the plan by featuring a Google Hangout, where she showed the coaching process in action.
3. Go Global
Katya Barry calls herself a Global Attitude Architect. Her journey started when she was 15, and her parents took her out of Russia and sent her to a boarding school in the UK. As she describes the experience
Intensely pleasurable, uplifting rushes of energy always surged through me whenever we were sitting around the dinner table sharing Chinese takeout while listening to Thai pop music, helping African girls with their funky hair styles, and trying to understand all the foreign languages being spoken (French, German, Spanish, and Arabic).
This experience inspired a life of international travel. In 2013, she created the Foreignator Conference, an online workshop with numerous inspiring speakers. Katya now has a company that helps turn small business ideas for women in the international sector into reality.
4. Translation
Speaking of going global, as businesses appeal to an international marketplace, the need for translators and interpreters increases. That year overseas might pay off, afterall!
5. Healthcare Consulting
The combination of aging baby boomers and the confusing changes of the Affordable Care Act means that many women will soon be confused about their healthcare. Some will need assistance to help them cut through the red tape. Elderly women might not have computer access, and will need someone to help them with the online registration process. A healthcare consultant can help with the planning, and even assist on tasks such as purchasing medications and accompanying clients to their doctor appointments.
6. Custom Pet Clothing Designers
Do you think nothing of sitting down and knitting a coat for your dog? Why not turn your talents into a profitable business? This works exceptionally well for hard to fit breeds, such as greyhounds. Market your services breed with rescue organizations, and possibly offer a discount. Grow your business by connecting with another pet clothing maker, such a person who designs collars.
7. Interactive Cooking Show
Do your friends envy your culinary skills? Share your secrets and make a profit. With tools such as skype and video-conferencing, it´s now easier than ever.
8. Online English as a Second Language Teacher
Online English classes are nothing new, but if you have a group of theatrically-minded friends, you can make things more interesting by creating a video that tells a story. At the end of each story chapter, you can interact with the student, by asking questions to test their comprehension.
9. Online Casting Director
In a book titled “Women in American Theatre,” casting director Juliet Taylor argues that that women, because of their willingness to get to know people really well, make the best casting directors. Of course, if you have worked in this industry, you have started at the bottom, worked your way up, and developed a significant network in the process. The online casting director is a new, yet developing industry. It allows casting directors to expand the playing field, by allowing actors to audition by video. Producers often rely on online directors to help them make last minute casting decisions, which occur when the original actor takes ill, and can´t perform the role.
10. Concierge
There´s nothing new about being a concierge, but you can make it more interesting by working in athletic resort area. A sport concierge can stock the condo fridge, arrange lessons, rent gear, and take care of other necessities.
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