Notary/Business Plan Idea

[Slyder]

Those that know me know that I have been in the job search for a while. I'm one of those classified as "under employed" and thus not counted in the Unemployment numbers. Well I started to think about ways to make some side money to help pay the bills and my sister-in-law's husband suggested getting a notary stamp and that he makes a great side living just stamping wills, deeds, etc for various groups. I want to try and expand upon that.

I want to try and find a way to do more than just that and wanted to see if there's any ideas to make this more than just a side business.

I wanted to include taxes starting next year, accounting (my degree), and notary. I do plan on advertising on facebook/twitter/etc. but I wanted to try and get more of the general idea together first. Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks.

[cbenoit108]

My initial thoughts are these kinds of businesses do exist. My quick search for "taxes,accounting,notary" came up with a lot of CPA firm types. Here's one example of a individual:
https://www.thumbtack.com/mo/hercula...otary-services

and one of a company: We off a full range of finanial services.

As a result, you need to find a niche somewhere within that domain. To me, one of the areas you could help in is hourly accounting for small businesses. Most small businesses don't have someone to balance the books, because it's not enough work for a salaried person and it is left up to the owner themselves. Of course, most of them do not have an accounting background, and it takes them away from their core business which is probably what they would rather be doing. As a result, you could become their "3 hour a week accountant" type and do it for multiple companies. My worry on the tax end of things is that the competition is fierce, it's a VERY seasonal business(as in, you go from little to no work to being bombarded with super long hours as naturally, most of America waits until the last few weeks to do their taxes) and many "professional firms" offer it. I would think about how do you integrate businesses that are complementary that allows you to sell/work with the same clients across each area.

ex.
You become the "3 hour a week" accountant for 6 small businesses. You also try to get them to have you do their taxes as an add-on to your normal services. This also allows you to "sell" something similar like the notary aspect when you are at each business. This also helps with the seasonal aspect, because you know in November who will utilize you from a income tax perspective come March/April. Also, because you are helping them weekly with their books, you know them already and their individual tax situations. It also means you have some/more control about the flow of tax work rather than waiting on individuals to give you their W2s, etc. You can still do individual taxes, as ancillary (ex offer a discount to individual employees of said companies).

Solve a pain point, and I think your main "goal" is to help people/companies who are in a odd spot where they are larger than 1 employee so they need to balance their books, but they aren't big enough to afford a full-time accountant and incur the 40 hr a week or salaried + benefits cost. Build that business as your central area of expertise, and build out from there --increasing the value of each small business to you financially and otherwise. Thinking of course about what other pain points that business owner and such has.

I hope this helps! Best of luck to you.