There’s no better time to start a small business than now! As we spend so much time online, business owners can grow their startups by running and promoting their businesses online to connect with both employees and customers. It’s been made even easier by the normalisation of the gig economy due to the growth of remote working.
Whether you’re motivated to start your own business because you want to be your boss or enjoy the digital nomad lifestyle, there are plenty of different successful business models and profitable business ideas you can take inspiration from to get started with your new venture.
Setting up a service-based business could be the best way for you to successfully monetise your entrepreneurship. Read on to find out why.
What is a service-based business?
While e-commerce businesses can be very profitable, it’s an industry that can be hard to break into for small businesses as you will need to develop or source products, manage the distribution of those products, and compete with big players like Amazon.
An easier and potentially even more profitable new business to set up is a service-based business. Take the skills you already have and use them to help people. Serve your customers by doing tasks for them. Depending on the service you provide, this could be completed online, in person, or a mix of the two. The size of a service-based business is flexible. You can do it solo or expand into a whole team to serve your target audience.
18 Top Service Business Ideas
So what kind of service-based business should you set up? Well, it does depend on your skills and interests. Ask yourself what you’re good at and what you enjoy. Here are a few business ideas to get you thinking.
1. Personal Training Services
Have you ever considered being a personal trainer? It’s perfect for you if you’re passionate about health and wellness. You could have a background in healthcare or have been on a fitness journey yourself and refined what works for you. To stand out from other personal trainers, pick a specific target audience who want to achieve a specific result, for example, business owners who want to have more energy throughout the day but struggle to find time to look after themselves.
2. Home Cleaning Services
A lot of people struggle to keep up with the house chores (or have no interest in trying). There are also times when people value the support of professionals in doing a deep clean of the house such as when moving or redecorating. Various tasks can be encompassed in this type of business, including maintenance cleaning, deep cleaning, room organization, and dry cleaning. Choose the service you’d like to provide in-home.
3. Graphic Design Services
Graphic design is an in-demand skill because visual content is included in so many areas of life. You could design logos and social media imagery for businesses. You could design product packaging. Or how about print publications like books, magazines, and newspapers? You can learn how to use popular graphic design software through online tutorials, making it a very accessible new business.
4. Event Planning and Management
Becoming an events planner is a great business opportunity for service providers. Consumers are willing to invest money in an expert when they have a special event coming up such as a wedding, launch, or even a significant birthday. You can help people by taking the stress of organizing the event off their plates and utilising your knowledge and experience to ensure the event runs smoothly.
5. Pet Care Services
We love our pets! As pet owners want someone they can trust to look after their pets when they are at work or out of town, establishing yourself as a trusted pet-sitting business could be very lucrative. Another way for animal lovers to work with pets is pet grooming. Keep dogs happy, healthy, and looking good by offering washing, trimming, and styling services.
6. Virtual Assistant Services
If you want to be a home-based service provider, offering virtual assistance could be for you. This is very similar to being a personal assistant but done fully online. You support a business owner or company manager with admin tasks, from day-to-day tasks such as email inbox management and diary management to bigger tasks such as project management.
7. Home Staging Services
Moving house is one of the most stressful times in someone’s life so any help is very much appreciated. So you could set up a business to help out by offering home staging services. This is when you prepare the house to be sold. Depending on the state of the house, what this involves varies. It could be cleaning, tidying, and posing the furniture. Or it could need paint touch-ups and redecoration too. This ensures the home looks its best for valuation by the real estate agent and viewing for potential buyers.
8. Language Translation Services
Due to globalisation, there are many times when people who speak different languages need to communicate and ensure nothing is getting lost in translation, for example, in business meetings. So if you are fluent in more than one language, you can build a successful business translating. This could be translating an in-person meeting, an online meeting, or even documentation.
9. Personal Styling and Wardrobe Consulting
Do you have an eye for fashion? There are plenty of people who would pay for your advice and support helping them choose what to wear. Often public figures have personal stylists that collate their wardrobes and find outfits for special events. Additionally, members of the general public would like a consultation on the colours and types of clothes that suit them. You could even build a team of stylists across multiple locations.
10. Life Coaching Services
Everyone has times in their life when they don’t know what to do. They feel stuck. This is when they can turn to a life coach to talk through their situation and uncover the best way to move forward. It can be an incredibly satisfying service to provide. Depending on your experience and know-how, you can specify your client base as a particular type of person who needs help with a particular issue.
11. Bookkeeping Services
With the rise of small businesses comes the rise of opportunities for bookkeepers to help them out with the financial side. During the chaos of running a business, business owners can find it hard to do financial tasks within a timely manner such as keeping records up to date, completing the payroll, and managing taxes. As a bookkeeper, you have a unique opportunity to help small businesses to achieve the financial goals set out in their business plan.
12. Digital Marketing Business
Another service small business owners invest in is digital marketing. These days this takes a lot of different forms. You could become an email marketing specialist, help people to manage their podcasts, or work in the area of social media management. As well as niching according to the type of digital marketing you help with, you can specialize in a certain skill.
For example, if you want to work on websites, you could be a website designer, provide SEO services or provide website copywriting services. With the rise of content marketing and social media marketing, you have plenty of options if you decide to offer marketing services.
13. Landscaping Services
Professional landscaping is more than just standard lawn care. Landscapers create and maintain a beautiful outdoor space for their clients, choosing the best plants for the environment and installing special features like a pond. It combines creative, technical, and practical skills.
14. Handyman
DIY isn’t for everyone. Some people would prefer to call for help than assemble furniture or fix a dripping tap themselves. So if you’re good at completing maintenance tasks and minor repairs, this could be the business idea for you. It’s a very flexible business model allowing you to start on your own and gradually build a team.
15. Rental property management
Investing in property and turning them into short-term or long-term lets is a lucrative opportunity. Especially with the rise of AirBnb. But managing the rental property (or properties) can turn into a full-time job! That’s why a lot of landlords prefer to outsource rental property management and rely on someone else to handle day-to-day tasks such as cleaning the property between guests.
16. Vehicle Maintenance
Everyone knows car issues can be a nightmare! So why not set up a mobile vehicle maintenance business? As well as keeping the car clean with car wash services, it’s possible to check the car for any technical issues and if it’s only minor, fix it then and there. This does require a good understanding of vehicles but if you have the know-how, it can be very profitable.
17. Photographer and Videographer
We all love capturing things on camera. In certain instances, consumers appreciate that paying a pro will result in much better photos and videos. As a photographer and videographer, you could target businesses, taking photos and videos for marketing purposes. Or you could capture personal moments such as weddings and other special events.
18. Customer Support Services
A lot of businesses have ways for their customers to contact them to ask questions and get help. For example, ecommerce businesses have customers asking them about a delivery, and software providers need to help customers through any issues they have using the tool. This happens on various platforms including phone calls, emails, and webchat. You could build a team of people who can act as customer representatives and answer customer queries for the business, removing the burden from the in-house team.
Take Your Service-Based Business to the Next Level With Podium
Small business owners marketing services to their target audience need a strong strategy to build enough trust that customers will put the responsibility of completing their tasks in the hands of the business. Generally, services aren’t bought on impulse but after a trusting relationship has been built.
You can fast-track the strengthening of your relationship with potential clients with a few key marketing strategies. First, build a consistent stream of online reviews from happy customers. Podium can help with this element of reputation management as we have review software that makes collecting online reviews so much easier. Another way we make marketing easier is our omnichannel inbox where you can manage all messages across the different platforms you use to promote your online business.
A super easy market strategy to improve your relationship with your target audience is adding a webchat function to your website so potential customers can reach out to you when they’re thinking about using your business. Want to be able to take customer calls too? We’ve got a VoIP phone system for that (coming in 2024)! As you communicate with customers, you’ll collect a lot of data which is well worth streamlining using our CRM for efficiency.
Set yourself up for success with Podium.
FAQs
What is the difference between a product-based business and a service-based business?
Most online businesses can be categorised into either product-based businesses or service-based businesses. What they deliver to their customers is quite different. Product-based businesses sell products, whether physical products like clothing or digital products like downloadable files for monthly planning templates.
On the other hand, service-based businesses are paid by customers to deliver a service i.e. the completion of a task. This too can be digital such as creating content that can be done fully through online interactions or in-person, such as lawn care at their property.
How can I attract clients and build a strong customer base for my service-based business?
Communication with your audience and customers is key. It’s unlikely that potential customers will see one piece of marketing material from your business and buy straight away. Once they have purchased, they need continued interaction to keep buying.
A great way to create multiple touch points that build a strong relationship with your customer base is text marketing. Send short and sweet messages regularly to build trust, familiarity, and memorability. Try out our text marketing tool to see how much easier it can be to attract clients and build a strong customer base.
