Here are some new businesses - and take you through every single step. This is your step-by-step guide to starting your own business:


1. Event or Meeting Planner. If you have excellent organizational skills and enjoy arranging and organizing formal events and happenings, this business could be for you. An event or meeting planner arranges and coordinates meetings and other events for companies, professionals, non-governmental organizations, associations and large international organizations handling everything from room reservations, airport pick-ups, dinner menus to entertainment. Meeting planners usually organize conferences, sales meetings, conventions, trade shows, fund-raising events, special banquets, hospitality events, shareholder meetings, international symposia, and other professionally oriented events.

The tasks of an event planner normally depend on the needs and requirement of the clients as well as on the planner's specialization. Your main tasks are to establish meeting design and objectives, select and negotiate with site and facilities, create the budget, handle housing and transportation, plan the program, establish registration procedures, prepare back-up contingency plans, manage food and drinks, produce and print meeting materials, schedule promotion and publicity, manage exhibits, among others. To start in this business, you need to have a perfectionist's attention to detail and a wide array of contacts in the travel, presentation, transportation and hotel industries. In addition to handling a wide array of elements needed for a successful event, you should be adept at negotiations and troubleshoot crisis situations.

This business is ideally suited for those with background in public relations, communications or travel. You can start by volunteering to coordinate an event for an employer, a friend's company, church or other groups. You can also start by working with a meeting planner in your area and taking on a portion of the tasks. This will allow you to gain skills in organizing events, and a first-hand look at what it takes to succeed in the business. The best ways to get ahead in this business is through networking in business groups and associations, contacting visitor's bureau and city's convention to learn of forthcoming events.


3. Public Relations. A typical public relations specialist promotes people, products and events to the media or other resources in a variety of ways including press releases, special events and press conferences. However, there are fifteen elements of public relations: community relations, counseling, employee/member relations, fund raising or development, government affairs including lobbying, industry relations, investor or financial relations, issues management, marketing communications, media relations, minority or multicultural relations, public affairs, publicity, research, special events and public participation.

As a public relations specialist, you can specialize in a variety of ways. Some specialize in crisis communications, Web publicity, copywriting, annual reports, non-profit sector, or authors and writers. To start in this business, you need to gain training and experience. You may start with your own business by developing a plan publicizing your new venture and credentials to the right market. You can also offer volunteer to do publicity for your favorite charity, your friend's business, or even a local candidate.


4. Computer Repair. As more and more households and businesses embrace computer technology, the demand for repairing broken computer hardware will continue to increase. As a computer repair technician, your job is to maintain and fix computers at a customer's business site or at home. Your service could include swapping motherboards, data recovery, disaster recovery, repairing network problems, removing viruses, installing software, troubleshooting modem and communication problems, repairing notebooks, and others.

To maintain and repair computers, you need first to know how they work and what to do when they don't. You need to know the mechanical workings of a computer, their interfaces and connections. If there are parts that need replacement, you must know where to get the components. You can develop your technical knowledge through reading books, taking courses on computer repair, videos and hands-on experience. Succeeding in this business, however, entails more than technical know-how. You need to have the personality and ability to provide a high level of service, as this is a customer-service oriented business.

Computer repair is one of the most lucrative home businesses available.

5. Medical Transcriptionist. If you love typing and the medical lingo, the medical transcription business is for you. A medical transcriptionist transcribes the medical records dictated by a healthcare professional, including letters, histories, physicals, progress reports, and chart notes. With the growing complexity of medicine, mounting threat of litigation and increasing demand on their time, the healthcare industry has relied on keeping dictated notes to document all aspects of their patient's history and pushed the medical transcription business into a billion naira industry.

Superior listening skills, fast typing speed, and aptitude for science and language are required to succeed in this business. You need to have an understanding of medical diagnostic procedures and the medical specialties you work with, enough to know the medical terms and spell them correctly. This business is a good fit for those with medical background. If you have not studied or worked in the medical field before, you can take home-study course, correspondence course or classroom training in a vocational or technical school. To get clients, check with your existing contacts, other transcription services or solicit clients directly. You can also check out Internet sites that contract medical transcriptionists and use the Internet to send out documents.

One downside, though: the emergence of voice-recognition technology where doctors could sit down on their computers and dictate their notes while the computer "types" may reduce demand for the medical transcriptionists. Nonetheless, even with the presence of this technology, medical transcriptionists will still be needed as it allows medical professionals to dictate notes on the tape recorder or over the phone while driving, walking or in the elevator. In addition, such technology can even be a boon for transcribers as it allows them to focus on their editing skills instead of typing speed.