My Career After My Profession: Innovative Business Ideas For Smart Nurse Entrepreneurs.

Are you a student nurse or a professional nurse practitioner seeking to commence your own business aside your regular job to earn some extra cash to supplement your income?

If yes, then you should be absolutely ready to take the next step in the entrepreneurial journey.

The nursing profession as you may know is one of the hot cake jobs in Ghana and some part of the world. In this regard, many perceive the profession as one which does not provide room for extra career opportunities.

This means that approximately 95% of a nurse activities of daily living revolves around the work place and home with about 5% for rest to await the next shift. Hence, the nurse inability to entertain any extra career opportunity.

However, the above is not entirely true. This is because, the sweet aspect about nursing is that it is a flexible profession hence you commencing a business will not interfere with your job as a nurse.

Reasons being that nurses can work full time, part time or as an agency nurse. Therefore, nurses have the ability to easily undulate the amount of time they wish to spend working as a nurse and to nurture a new career.

In this regard, I have grouped few innovative business ideas that the nurse can nurture with little or no money into two main categories coupled with sub-categories in order to keep them organized. Let take a ride into them if you are ready to take a step in the entrepreneurial journey.

HEALTHCARE RELATED BUSINESSES

These are businesses that you can commence by taking advantage of your acquired professional nursing knowledge, skills and experience. Therefore, as a student nurse or a professional nurse practitioner who seeks to work beyond the bedside of patients, you might want to:

• Establish and manage a LICENSE PHARMACEUTICAL SHOP. In other words a drug store to sell over-the-counter medications in your vicinity. The nurse’s knowledge in pharmacology and experience in drug administration makes this absolutely possible.

• Set up an IN-HOUSE NURSING CARE AGENCY which provides adequate and professional nursing care to patients in the comfort of their homes at a negotiable fee.

• Set up a BUSINESS THAT SELLS MEDICAL SUPPLIES to patients, fellow nurses, doctors and target hospitals. You can engage in the buy and sell of patients care items - disinfectants, oral antiseptics, and adult diapers- and medical instruments such as glucose meters, digital blood pressure monitors, stethoscopes, and sphygmomanometers.

• Establish a PRIVATE NURSE CONSULTANCY AGENCY which provides professional advice to entry nurses who are about starting their profession. This consultancy agency can also provide professional nursing care advice to anybody who seeks an urgent professional nurse knowledge.

• WRITE AND SELL BOOKS OR EBOOKS pertaining to healthcare related topic to enlighten the general populace and fellow nurses. The nurse’s ability to conduct research makes this entirely possible.

• CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE to teach people basic healthcare and nursing skills. Teachable is an online service which allows you to create your own online courses for free. You might want to check out how to create your own online course at teachable. You might also want to preview other nurse’s videos on YouTube for assistance.

• Make extra cash by TEACHING STUDENT NURSES (teacher/lecturer) at any nursing training school if you have the passion for teaching. Although this may be considered as intrapreneurship and not entrepreneurship it will fetch you sufficient money to take care of certain bills and to sustain yourself and family.

TALENT AND SKILL RELATED BUSINESSES.

These are businesses that are outside the range of the nursing profession. However, these business are either embedded within you or can be learned. Hence, all you have to do is to examine yourself, identify your natural talent and skills, and then take advantage of what you have found to establish your own business.

One attractive aspect of using your talent and skills to earn money is that you do not have to struggle so much to make it attractive because it is naturally appealing and rewarding. However, there is the need for perpetual training to enhance mastering of your talents and skills.

If you believe you have identifiable talent and skills you might want to consider what Isaac Sesi outlined in his blog post titled: 101 smart businesses you can start with little money at - 2eweboys.com

According to Isaac Sesi…

If MUSIC and MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS is your talent, you could:

• Offer private music or voice training lessons to individuals and singing groups.
• Record your own music and upload to YouTube. Charlie Puth and Justin Bieber are well-known musicians today. Their initial breakthrough came through their own music videos which they put on YouTube.
• Form a music or instrumental band with your friends and play at events or gigs. PL Crew is a well-known gospel instrumental band based in Ghana.
• Be a backing vocalist for a singer.

If DRAWING or ART is your talent, you could:

• Make and sell your own art or paintings online, on the streets, in exhibitions, etc. All you need to start advertising your own work is an Instagram or Facebook page.
• Offer private art classes or create an online art course.
• Start an art blog.

If ELOQUENT SPEAKING is your talent, you might want to:

• Offer MC Services. 
• Be a spoken word artist.
• Do jingles and voice overs for radio advertisers.

If COMEDY is your talent, you could:

• Be a stand-up comedian. Kevin Hart is well known for his comedy talent.
• Start a comedy podcast.  Tikya Kwadwo has been able to use his excellent command of the Twi language to create a comedy podcast on his Facebook page which reaches 100,000 people every week. Companies pay him to show their ads at the end of his podcasts.
• Write good comedy punch lines for speakers and MCs.

If CREATIVE WRITING is your talent, you could:

• Start a creative writing blog.
• Write poems and literary pieces for people. David Antwi, a dental surgeon, writes some of the most romantic poems ever for people for a fee.
• Be an editor for a magazine, publication, newspaper, news website or blog.
• Write CV and cover letters for people.

If ACTING Is Your Talent, you could:

• Do promotional videos for companies
• Direct plays and movies.

If you are really good at COOKING, you could:

• Offer private cooking services for homes and companies.
Start a cooking blog or YouTube channel.
• Write a cook or recipe book.
• Offer online cooking courses.
• Making and selling pastries and local confectionaries for events.

If BEAUTY and FASHION are your strong suits, you could:

• Be a makeup artist.
• Be a hair stylist or braid ladies’ hair.
• Offer manicure and pedicure services.
• Offer massaging services.
• Design and make your own clothes.

If you are good at using SOCIAL MEDIA or have a huge social media following you can

• Promote products and brands on your social media pages at a fee.
• Help companies and celebrities increase their social media followers.
• Offer social media consultancy for individuals who want to build their brands.

If you are good at HANDICRAFTS or making things with your hands you can:

• Make and sell local bead jewellery.
• Make and sell locally made handbags or purses.
• Make and sell locally made footwear.
• Make knitted and crocheted clothing and accessories.

SUMMARY.

You should actually be super exhausted from reading all these. Nonetheless, I am pretty sure it was worth it.

If none of the above list of possible business ideas relates to your skills.

The good news is there are several sites providing free online courses for any skill you want to attain.

You might want to check out these sites: Coursera, edX and Udacity to learn any desired skills for free.

However, as you’re at it, I would like to remind you that the entrepreneurial journey is not an easy one and thus a step in this journey requires that you remain focus, ambitious, persistent and be relentlessly hardworking towards the achievement of your goals.

This is because, your desire to be an exceptional entrepreneur resides largely around your ability to become a dynamic and an exceptional person whose level of optimism does not undulate but rather spikes to an infinite height.

Wish you the best of everything in the entrepreneurial journey.

By: Samuel Edem Cofie

You might want to read - 101 smart businesses you can start with little money at - 2eweboys.com by Isaac Sesi.