Reprints Online

Learn  how to start a soap business and you can make a part-time income quickly. It's not as easy as it might look though. That's because many others have gone before you.

If you learn how to start a soap business the right way, it's one of the very quickest manufacturing businesses you can get into. See, that's what a soap business is. It's a manufacturing business as well as a marketing company. So there's a lot to learn and many ways to go wrong. Here's what to look at as you get going.

Tip 1: Get the product right.

Not too long ago I was asked to talk to a friend about what I know about starting up a soap business. Maybe that's because the word is out among our circle of friends about all the soap we've moved. After the discussion, the friend discussed her plan and then showed us her product. Her idea was to make the primitive soap, which she showed us.

Folks, the days of moving crude soap at a profit are pretty well gone. You have too much competition. Learn to make professional looking soap first and then go from there. It's easy to do, if you get the right information.

Tip 2: Imaginary scents don't sell.

A common comment among beginning soapmakers is about the lack of smell. "Why does my soap not smell? I put in the amount called for in the recipe." Know what you call soap that doesn't smell? Unscented soap!!! Or I refer to it as imaginary scents. Those won't sell. Here's the deal. You can put the right amount of scent in soap. You just have to learn how to calculate what the right amount is. Don't trust anybody's recipe. If they're wrong, guess who pays? Which leads to...

Tip 3: Make it yours.

You really need your own soaps. That means something that is truly unique about your products. Otherwise your soap is lost in a sea of other homemade soap. The stuff is everywhere, much of it poorly made and poorly marketed. By now most people are familiar with homemade soap and they already have heard the pitch about homemade soap being better than commercial soap. That's old news. What they want to know is why is yours better than the next soapmaker's product. Sorry... That's called competition.

Tip 4: Sell a lot in a hurry.

You could sell door-to door! But what a drag that would be. See, you have a low price item with a moderate mark-up. You must move quite a volume to make a profit. The best way to do that is to find an outlet where you can move a lot of product in a hurry at a close to retail price. There's a way to do it and it's worked for years.

Tip 5: Repeat is the key.

Soap gets used up, at least a lot of it does. What that means for you is repeat sales. That only happens if you stay in touch with customers. That's easy to do if you design your sales system the right way. It's simple as collecting some information and using the simplest of marketing materials.

A homemade soap business is easy to start and fast to get going. That's just what my family did. Starting from nothing, we designed, produced and marketed 35,000 plus bars of soap in our spare time. We sold lots of other stuff too. There's a demand for quality soap and people just keep using soap and looking for more.