Fortune Telling
Your immediate reaction is likely to be one of two things:
- How can I do that I don't have any kind of gift that allows me to see the future?
- How can I do that there is no such thing?
The truth is that you do not need to be able to see the future to make money from this concept, nor do you need to believe in anything mystical (although it helps if you do). Millions of people believe in fortune telling, whether it be through astrology (come on you know you read your stars sometimes), tarot cards, numerology or something more mystical like a crystal ball.
For this idea I want to stay with astrology and numerology as they are more "scientific". There are calculations that you can perform in order to come up with the same answer as someone else performing the same method of fortune telling.
If you are not sure what is involved in astrology or numerology then I suggest you do some background reading. Your local library will have a selection of books on both if you want to get into detail, or you can look on the internet. I found the following sites on Google www.astrology-numerology.com/num-intro.html and www.astrology.about.com which give a lot of information about the subjects.
Of course you could go down the road of performing all the calculations for your customers, providing a detailed personalised report and talking to them about what you have found. I have however seen 2 people in the past, both of whom profess to having no gift make a reasonable income from doing something quite different.
What was done in both cases was to re-package generic materials, in one case it was the astrology column of a local newspaper which was copied directly from an astrological diary, and in the other it was an astrological software package which produced a nice report, my friend personalised the cover including date and time of birth and bound it nicely but in neither case was there any actual calculating being done by the business owner.
In the first case there was clearly a breach of copyright under our current legal system but I am not sure what the position would have been when this happened; I was a child so probably in excess of 20 years ago. In the second case I believe the software was sold with the intention of providing multiple reports, so the only question would be whether it is ethical to use a computer for the calculations. Given that the calculations are essentially mathematical and that computers are more accurate than humans for most complex mathematical calculations you can probably argue that it is ok.
There are plenty of web sites and software options that are available for you to use to create your reports. A little research should help you to find software, or information that you can simply re-use. So with the addition of a printer (if you don't already have one) and a cheap binding machine you can be in business.
We suggest the following ways of marketing your business:
EBay
Website
Local Newspaper
Networking
Shop
A quick search in EBAY shows approximately 400 items relating to horoscopes, some of which are astrological reports. They do not retail for large sums of money (approx. $5) but remember that your only cost is paper, ink and postage unless you intend to sell E-reports when there is 0 cost except for the time of generating and emailing the report. You may be able to package different levels of detail for different costs, so a starter report retails at $5, a more complex report retails at $20 and a full report might sell for $50. Market the $5 report in EBay and include details of the more expensive reports when customers buy from you.
Searching on www.google.com gives about 800,000 hits for "numerology report" which means that this will be a very competitive area for you to get into. Assuming that you can put together a site which is both attractive and informative you will need to market it heavily to drive traffic. Offline advertising will help to drive your traffic as will more low key activities such as including website address on your business cards, email signature etc. if you would like a free report on how I have gone about driving traffic to my site then drop me an email using brad@ideas2earn.com with the title "free report on internet traffic".
Advertising in your local newspaper will be a great way of driving business. You should aim to advertise at least once a month and try to get a slot near to the paper's horoscope section. You may also consider writing some articles for the newspaper on related themes; you could for example do one a month on different methods of fortune telling. Naturally include a link to your website at the bottom of each article.
Initially your best contacts will come through networking, you can give away the lower level reports to friends and family and show them an example of the more complex reports. Explain that these more complex reports take more time to compile and to double check the details, and explain the benefits of them. Let them take away the free reports even if they are not interested in buying an upgrade, as they are likely to tell their own friends and relatives about your new business.
Opening a shop for this kind of business is a little different to a business where you sell physical products. You do not need much space and a booth in an existing shop, shopping mall or arcade may be sufficient. Try to find a location where there is plenty of foot traffic and people are relaxed, examples might include a beachside promenade, or a shopping centre in a tourist city such as York, or Bath where there is a feeling of the old world and a mystical experience might seem more appropriate. Your cost of set up will be low but in a high traffic area your rent will always be high, make sure you enjoy this business by trying some of the other marketing methods before you commit yourself to the expense.
There is not really any stock as such. If you are providing nicely bound reports then you will want some quality paper and a good printer but these are cheap to come by. You can find your report generators by searching on the internet and you can decide yourself whether to buy a software program to run the calculations, or simply to use an online calculator.
There are plenty of sceptics, but do your research and you should be able to answer questions from those who are curious.
You do not need to justify your prices. Make sure you have different levels of service from $5 or free to $50 or more for the most detailed. Your customers will decide what it is worth to them.
Give your better customers discount coupons for their friends or maybe a
small gift as a thank you if they bring more than 2 or 3 customers.