How to Start Your Own Santa Letter Business
From the perspective of adults, one of the wonderful joys of childhood is seeing the excitement on the faces of little ones when they get a personalized letter from someone as magical and all-knowing as Santa Claus. While the job of composing these festive notes is strictly a seasonal one, it's a fairly easy endeavor to launch if you have lots of friends with children or live in a community that's family friendly.
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Things You'll Need
- Computer Printer Website Holiday stationery Matching envelopes Postage Checking or PayPal account
Instructions
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Determine whether you'll need a license to operate a letter-writing business from your home. Cities and counties throughout the U.S. have different regulations regarding home-based businesses, most of which are predicated on the amount of income being generated and whether clients come into the home for products and services (i.e., a garage beauty salon, consulting, tax preparation) or communicate entirely by phone and email.
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Decide whether you want to give your home-based business an official name. If so, you'll need to check with your state's secretary of state's office to make sure it is available. If so, you'll then pay the requisite fees. You should open a business checking account or a PayPal account.
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Design a colorful and easy to navigate website. This should include an introduction to your services, what you charge for each letter, the method of payment, and a questionnaire so that parents, guardians and teachers can supply you with information regarding the child's age, pets, friends, hobbies, favorite games, recent or upcoming vacations, and what he would like for Christmas.
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Develop a template so that the replies to the questionnaire can be entered and automatically formatted.
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Incorporate clip art holiday images in the margins of your letter. Thousands of free images are available on the Internet (see Resources).
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Print your letters on festive holiday stationery. (And don't forget to proofread the content. Heaven forbid that Santa should make spelling and grammar errors!)
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Spread the word to your family, friends, and co-workers that you are going to be writing Santa letters. If you keep the price low (survey what the competition is charging), word will get out pretty fast. In the meantime, you may also want to contact local daycare centers, Mommy & Me clubs, and pediatrician's offices about your new business. Advertising in a weekly community newspaper can generate inquiries, too.
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Tips & Warnings
If you are sending letters to young children in the same household, you may want to have multiple templates on hand so that it won't look as if Santa got lazy. This could be something as simple as rearranging the order of the text or using different graphics. To save on postage, you might want to offer the parents the option of receiving the finished Santa letters via email to print on their own computers. Some parents, in fact, may prefer this method as opposed to giving their home address to a stranger. Plan a year ahead; holiday stationery and cards sell for as much as 50 percent off the day after Christmas.
Keep accurate records of your expenditures (which could be tax deductible) and your income (which you'll have to pay taxes on). An accountant can advise you on expenditures that can be claimed as business deductions.
Resources
- Photo Credit Photo courtesy of morguefile.com
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Comments
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what do you have to do to be able to do the santa an photos for people can u just go an do it or do I have to apply somewhere to do it.
