Start a Community Directory Business   by Peter Engelbrecht

Here is a great work at home idea that nobody is actively engaged in as a direct money making business, but rather I have noticed that this idea is being worked, and vary sparsely, by real estate agents who are disguising their community directory as a service to the community. Their real motive is to drive business back to themselves by having a directory with their picture and name on the front and back cover in each house of that particular neighborhood.

This is how it works, you find a smallish community or sub-division, 150-houses will work just fine. You prepare a short letter that informs the community that you are preparing a directory for the community, which will serve as the neighborhood phone book and resource. You will mail this letter to all the residents homes along with a questionnaire that asks some applicable information to be included in the directory:

Names of Parents Names of Children Address Phone Number Whether any of the children do any part-time jobs, if yes, which one and when available.

Include an envelope addressed back to yourself, but without postage since you do not know which residents will return the questionnaire.

While you are waiting for the residents information to be returned back to you, you need to call, write or visit real estate agents, brokers, doctors and dentist offices informing them that you are putting together the community directory and that you can sell them the exclusive rights to the directory. For a fee, you will include on the front and back covers of the directory their business information and picture if so desired. You will find a taker if someone knows that they can be a prominent fixture in the house all year around. You can follow this same routing the following year in order to capture all of the new residents who have moved into the community. This also serves as a good excuse to build a continuous income stream.

So how much money can you make? Well, let us take our 150-house example. Postage will cost you roughly $55 to mail out all your letters and questionnaires to the neighbors. You can design a price-scaling schedule, but to have exclusive rights to a neighborhood a business should be willing to pay you at least $200. Not counting your time and effort, from a monetary standpoint you could make an easy $145 for each neighborhood of this size. The objective here is to become the person that owns this neighborhood. Once you are in, others will not feel as comfortable trying to get in. A word of caution you should inform the businesses that purchase advertising that they are exclusive under your program, but there is nothing stopping others from doing the same business and giving another business the same exposure to the residents that you gave to them.

About the Author

Diagonal Street Business Services offers work at home articles and business ideas to stay at home moms. If you are thinking of starting a business, visit the Best Business Idea and Resource Site.