2. Set up a school of 'self-selling'. Teach students of your school how to sell themselves and impress. For example: the opposite sex, work colleagues, job interviews, etc. Hold classes; give individual tuition, or teach people through CDs or correspondence courses.
3. Start a mail order firm which sells plans, books and supplies to origami hobbyists. Advertise your catalogue in craft magazines.
4. Be a professional family budget adviser. Just as a careers adviser gives advice on career improvement and development, your service gives advice on understanding home finance, setting a budget, planning for the future, and simple saving tips.
5. Design and make leather stamp wallets for philatelists. These wallets are for keeping duplicates and stamps for sale. The wallets might vary in size from the pocket to the desktop. Sell the wallets through stamp shops or from ads in stamp magazines.
6. Begin a mail order business which sells fund raising aids and accessories. For example: booklets about fund raising ideas, bingo calling machines, scratch cards and many others. Produce a catalogue about your goods and send it to clubs, societies, associations and schools.
7. Put together a debt collection training course for small businesses. Every small business is a potential client. A key selling point is that the cost of the course could be quickly recovered from the more efficient collection of debts.
8. Write and publish a book about betting on horses. In the book include details of betting systems and suggestions about how to assess the likely performance of horses. Sell copies of your book to horse racing punters from newspaper ads or by direct mail.
9. Produce a series of CDs about how to stop or reduce vices and bad habits. The CDs might have titles like 'How to Stop Snoring', 'How to Cut Down on Drinking', 'How to Pack Up Gambling', etc. Sell the CDs by mail order and through a wide range of shops.
10. Put together a correspondence course about how to become an amateur magician. The aim of this course is to teach people how to do numerous basic tricks. Thus, this is a foundation course for amateur magicians. Also, sell the products that are required by the course.
11. Package selections of empty matchboxes. Distribute these packets of matchboxes to newsagents to be sold to children who collect matchboxes. Or get these packets of matchboxes stocked at other shops visited by collectors, for example, stamp or modelling shops.
12. Set up a business which produces a selection of novelty packets of seeds for garden weeds. These seeds might have the same appeal as stink bombs. Sell the packets of seeds through gift or joke shops.
13. Set up an enterprise which delivers table flowers on a regular basis to: restaurants, hair salons, dental surgeries, the offices of professional services, etc. Call on these businesses to sell your service.
14. Earn money from selling cactuses door to door. Carry your cactuses in a cinema usherette type tray.
15. Start a craft business which makes a selection of cactus products. These products such as paperweights, book ends, desk sets, etc., have live cactuses growing out of them.
16. Begin a firm which makes concrete, mini models of cows. Each model is painted to look like a real cow. These cows are for gardeners to put on lawns to evoke the atmosphere of the countryside. Get these model cows stocked at as many garden centres as possible.
17. Set up a business which sells garden fountains to up market householders. Produce quality sales literature and advertise in select magazines. Pay professional builders to do the installation work.
18. Buy ordinary plastic model kits of aircraft and boats. Construct the kits and hand paint them in their original colours. Sell the finished models from a stall at fairs and markets.
19. Bring out kits for making relief pictures with wood. For example, a kit for making a rural scene might include wooden pieces cut in the shape of: trees, animals, clouds, buildings, etc. Sell the kits either by mail order to craft workers, or through shops which sell craft products.
20. Start a seasonal business which sells bulbs door to door. This business is best operated by two people: one calls on houses and the other moves a handcart full of bulbs.
21. Sell novelty trays of English soil to expatriates. A home sick expatriate can return to English soil simply by standing in this tray. The principle of this business can be easily applied to any other nationals. Also, stick a tiny national flag into the soil of each tray.
22. Set up a company director exchange service. Your service arranges for one or two directors in different companies to swap places at board meetings. Use the telephone or direct mail to sell your service to businesses.
23. Import specialist magazines from overseas English speaking countries. For example, magazines relating to unusual hobbies or sports. Your task is to build up lists of subscribers in this country. Begin by writing to overseas publishers to ask if they will supply magazines at a discount.
24. Begin and build a weed removal and control round. Operate this round like a window cleaning round. You might do this work yourself. Alternatively, employ teenagers and retired people, and give them a round like newsagents give paper boys a round.
25. Put together business which sells vintage magazines and other paper-based products with low postage costs.
26. Write and publish a series of booklets or CDs about how to make money from flowers and plants. The titles might include: 'Starting a Florists', 'Setting Up a Nursery' and 'How to Open a Garden Centre'. Use ads in gardening magazines to sell the booklets or CDs.
27. Begin a firm which hires out: window boxes, bottle gardens, exotic plants, tubs of plants and hanging baskets. Your clients will include: offices, banks, pubs, hair salons, restaurants, exhibitions, etc. Also provide your clients with a maintenance service.
28. Learn about flower arranging at evening classes then earn money from teaching others in your own home. Give afternoon classes to pensioners and housewives or househusbands. A major attraction of the classes is that they act as a social occasion.
29. Set up a production line which turns out mini gardens in bowls and pots. Sell the mini gardens from your own market stall, or find a diversity of retailers to stock them.
30. Design and make herb gardens for the house or garden. Produce the herb gardens in a range of different containers such as bottles, tubs, trays, large pots or hanging pots. Sell these gardens through suitable retailers or by mail order.
31. Devise a selection of scents specially designed for love letters and greeting cards. For example, the scent of roses for love letters and pine trees for Christmas cards. Set up a business which manufactures, packages and distributes the scents.
32. Bring out a range of herbal or hop filled pillows. Make pillows for different functions. For example: pillows which are an aid for people who have difficulty sleeping; siesta pillows for the garden; nap pillows for the living room and pillows which are specially designed for day dreaming.
33. Devise and organise the manufacture of cosmetics for bald heads. The vacant space on a man's bald head is not something which should be covered up, but it is a canvas for an artist. For example, a bald head might feature: wavy lines, a rainbow, sunburst, or a colour to match the eyes.
34. Begin an enterprise which manufactures old fashioned, reliable flypaper. With the current concern about the effect of aerosols on the ozone layer, it is time for flypaper to be revived.
35. Make wooden puzzles for children. For example, brightly painted wooden shapes have to be fitted into the corresponding hole in a block of wood. Or make a flat wooden animal like a dinosaur or rabbit. Cut this animal into lots of peculiar shapes so it is a challenge to assemble.
36. Hand paint pictures or witty statements on small squares of wood. For example, the pictures might feature animals and the statements might be about cooking like 'Oliver Twist's Favourite Kitchen'. Add a magnet to the back of each square so these can be stuck to fridges and other white goods.
37. Set up a mail order business which promotes the hobby of collecting seashells. Bring out a catalogue which has a large selection of seashells, collecting accessories and books about seashells.
38. Write and publish a newsletter about how to start a newsletter publishing business. Each issue of the newsletter might be a lesson about one of the various topics involved in beginning and running a successful newsletter.
39. Start a mail order business which sells health improvement books, booklets and CDs. Discover what titles are available from publishers and produce your own catalogue. Also publish some of your own booklets and CDs.
40. Earn money from selling all sorts of formulae by post. For example, formulae to DIY enthusiasts, housewives, hobbyists, craft workers and many others. Produce either a general directory which has universal appeal, or bring out specialised booklets for different markets.
41. Introduce to your area a daily home visiting morning manicure service. Build up a timetable of appointments with different clients. Or work for a local hotel providing a manicure up service for the guests.
42. Write and produce a CD for those who want to stop smoking. Sell this course from newspaper or magazine ads or by direct mail to business people.
43. Bring out a series of booklets or CDs which have titles like 'How to Cure Boredom', 'How to Beat Depression', 'How to Get Out of a Rut', 'How to Beat Back Pain', etc. Sell copies by mail order, to mail order booksellers, or get them stocked at shops.
44. Start a business which rents out drum kits and electric guitars. Advertise your business both in the local press and in the windows of newsagents. Provide customers with a delivery service.
45. Make money from bringing out your own happiness plants. A happiness plant is any plant which it can be claimed gives off an unseen aura or odour which humans find pleasing. Sell these plants from a market stall or by mail order.
46. Found your own institute of beauty. This institute would be the beauty world's equivalent to: 1) a finishing school (young people learn about make up), or 2) a secretarial school (provide courses for people who want a career in the world of beauty).
47. Start a walking menu board (sandwich board with a giant menu on it) service. Sell this promotional service to restaurants and cafes throughout your region.
48. Hire premises at a busy tourist site and take portrait photographs of tourists. Add a novelty to the photographs by, for example, dressing the tourists as Victorians or cowboys from the Wild West. Print the photos on the spot and add a sepia, aged look.
49. Reprint old photographs of a town and mount in attractive frames. Sell these framed photographs through the shops of that town. One way to find suitable old photographs is to advertise in a town for residents who have old photographs.
50. Begin a business which produces and sells a correspondence course about how to trace your own ancestry. Call your business a school of ancestral research. Advertise your course in a wide range of publications.