Best Small Business Ideas For Women – Becoming a Craft Broker

I recently ran into a woman who had come up with one of the best small business ideas for women I’ve seen in my many years of investing. She had always been interested in homemade crafts but try as she did, she couldn’t seem to pick up on any of the crafting herself. She’d spent years taking different classes and trying different mediums but nothing seemed to work for her. Out of no where one day she had her bright idea – becoming a crafting broker.

She knew several people who made wonderful crafts but simply weren’t interested in the business end of things. They sold a few pieces here and there when they happened to come across people who were interested but mostly they stored the crafts they made. She didn’t like the idea that these beautiful pieces were not being enjoyed. She started asking a few of these ladies if they’d allow her to market their crafts.

All she did was taking photographs of the crafts she was interested in selling and write up compelling product descriptions on sites like Ebay and Etsy. She sold everything on consignment, meaning she did not offer her customers any payment until the items were actually sold. Once they were sold, she simply sent the crafts out, took her cut and gave the remaining profits to her customers.

She was able to use this wonderful business idea to make money for people who didn’t have the professional mindset to market their own products, and could also immerse herself in the world of crafting. It was a win-win for everyone involved.

Starting a Grant Writing Consulting Business

Grant writing is attracting a lot of attention these days. More and more people are investigating how to supplement their income, or replace their day job altogether, by writing grants. I am often asked the question, how can I start my own grant writing consulting business? I would urge you to consider the matter very carefully. Making the transition is not as easy as it seems.

There are two major prerequisites one should have before marketing his or herself as an accomplished grant writer. These are having:

1) a track record of successful grant proposals; and

2) nonprofit knowledge and experience.

There are numerous people out there touting themselves as professional grant writers. Meanwhile, they have little to no field or nonprofit grant writing experience. They think because they are confident in their writing ability, or have a background in technical writing, that they would easily make the transition. Grant writing and technical writing are very different.

Grant writing is similar to technical writing in that you’re gathering information about various subject matters. As a grant writing consultant, you may have one client or multiple clients with varying missions and programs. Having a technical writing background will allow you to write about numerous subject matters with ease.

Grant writing is dissimilar to technical writing in that it is an emotional appeal. One has to be able to merge the technical side of the argument with the emotional side. People who give away money do so because they have an emotional or personal connection to a cause. It is the grant writer’s job to convince the grant or donor that their charity deserves the grant more than the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of other asking charities.

Anyone can print a business card and say they are capable of delivering such a product. However, I would dare to say, as a CEO or Executive Director of a nonprofit looking to outsource my grant writing the chances of me hiring someone with no track record, knowledge, or field experience would be close to zero. I have heard far too many horror stories about the unethical practices of people claiming to be professional grant writers. This behavior makes nonprofit leaders distrustful and resistant to the idea of outsourcing their grant writing.

If you are an experienced grant writer and you have the documentation to prove it, you can start your own home-based grant writing consulting business with very little start up costs. When I started 2 1/2 years ago, I developed a presentation folder that included:

1) a portfolio of foundations that had approved my proposals;

2) my bio with professional related experience;

3) a brochure listing the types of projects I had worked on; and

4) a postcard that highlighted the benefits of working with my company ($ secured to date, affordability, and free grants research).

I made a short presentation to a few people I knew who managed nonprofits. Then I used local grantee lists to start a database in order to send out advertisements. Each month I would mail a postcard to the nonprofits on my list and follow up with a phone call. I got my first few clients using this marketing strategy. Soon after, those clients began to refer their colleagues and the rest is history.