Two Great Small Business Ideas

Full disclosure - neither of these two ideas were mine originally. They were shared with me by folks who are much more brillant and creative. I, however, have no qualms stealing the ideas and sharing them with you.

1. Charitable coupons - I get literally hundreds of requests a year asking for product donations for charitable events. And as much as I'd love to help each and every one - especially since I'm on the Board of one myself and know how much those product donations help - it's just not possible if I ever actually want to be profitable. Someone last week approached me about product donations for their gift bags for their event or, she said, "you could send us some coupons that we could put in our gift bags." So simple and yet so totally brillant. That simple idea doesn't cost me a lot and gives me the opportunity to make some money back via retail sales (or at the very least, does some brand building for me) and they get something for free to include in their gift bags for their attendees. Win - Win and absolutely brillant. So I had a stack of coupon postcards made up with a fantastic product shot on one side and the offer of 25% off online orders through our webstore. Tied it in with a coupon code (so I can track how many, if any, sales come from a certain charitable event) and an expiration date and sent them off. All in all I'm probably looking at $.03 per card so while not completely free for me it is certainly cost effective. I'm excited about being able to offer charities this alternative rather than simply having to tell them that I won't be able to help out.

2. Virtual Tradeshow Booth - a friend sent this idea to me since I've been bemoaning the 'should I go should I not go' thing regarding certain tradeshows. I've said it before, they're bloody expensive and in this economy there's not even a garuntee that buyers are going to take the time and expense to travel to the show themselves. Instead, what someone created was a .asp popup on their website that enabled buyers to walk through a virtual tradeshow booth and learn about new products and show specials. It's again such a simple but such a smart idea. I'm going to talk to my web guy next week and see what it would entail and how much it would cost to pull one of those together in advance of the tradeshows this Fall to at least have an alternative for people who aren't flying to the shows.