An Idea for an Additional Service/Profit Center

I was reading the July issue of Inc. magazine and came across the story of ScanDigital, a company that scans and color-corrects photos. This sounds like an excellent add-on service for a home inventory service business -- and really, I see our industry going towards more full-service "disaster preparedness & recovery" in the next 3-5 years anyway. (I see this including not only inventorying property, but also marking it (i.e., DataDots); equipping households with disaster plans and emergency preparedness kits; consulting on securing valuables -- especially for quick evacuations, etc.)

You can read about a similar company in this article. It's not necessarily to offer "dirt cheap" pricing -- most of the prospects you're working with will be your existing customers, and this will be the first time they've heard of this service. As long as you're competitive with online rates (don't forget that your customers will save shipping and handling charges), you should be able to make some extra money off this service.

In the Inc. article, ScanDigital reports their average order is $330, and they get the majority of their customers via word of mouth. They als get residual revenue from customers, reporting that 15 to 20 percent of customers order mugs, additional prints, DVD slide shows, and calendars.