Question: I’m a hard-working father of two with one on the way my wife’s expecting early next year. To supplement my income I’ve turned a hobby of DJ’ing at parties into a small business. I’m willing to spend money to start up the new company but want to do it cost effectively. Can you recommend how best to market my services?

Answer: Besides the obvious bridal shows and the Yellow Pages, which you know can get expensive there are other avenues you may want to pursue.

For instance, take a look at the places brides, grooms or their parents might be shopping. That could be a wide range of places like department stores, beauty salons, bridal shops, jewelry stores, or specialty stores like Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, etc.

You might want to prepare a flyer that could be distributed in or around those locations. (Of course, if you want to solicit inside the store you’ll need permission.)

Consider doing your own public relations by getting the local life/calendar section of your newspaper to write a story about your business. If you’re really creative, you might get an even bigger piece in one of the national publications.

You can probably set up a Web site, but that might get expensive to operate and maintain, though there are a lot of creative ways to market yourself via e-mail just like the note you sent me!

You’ll need to be a bit inventive (maybe even outrageous) to get people’s attention. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there do whatever works!

Q: I am an architect who is self-employed. I get to design a lot of phenomenal projects and believe that I have enough experience to identify the really good ones from the bad. I’m tired of just doing work for hire, however, and would like to own a piece of the project I’m working on. How do I make the transition?

A: Think of yourself as an independent movie producer. There are several ways a producer makes money. You can borrow a page from their business practices to get more juice out of the fruit of your efforts. Here are a few ways how:

? Identify projects and own them yourself. This is the riskiest option, but it can be the most lucrative.

? Do not take any cash fee for your services, but ask for an equity stake in the project. This is a bit less risky, but you’ll need enough money socked away in your bank account to be able to support yourself until the project pays off or be able to take the hit if it never pays off.

Split your fees between cash and equity. This will hedge your bet it will give you some cash flow, to protect your downside, and give you some equity in the project, as your upside. You may even discover that your client likes this kind of arrangement because it binds you to the project and that will make her feel good about your commitment.

Of course, nothing is cut and dried, and I would strongly recommend that you pick and choose your spots. You may want to start off with the most conservative approach and then, as you build expertise in investing in your projects as well as getting a reputation, you can take a few more risks.

Q: As a mother of three young children, I have a hard time trying to start a full-time business. But around the holidays, I wish there were a way to make some extra money, without having to go out into the workplace. What do you think?

A: Well, you have two things going for you: your need to make money around the holidays and consumers’ propensity for spending it!

Of course, it’s too late for Christmas, but you should probably start doing some research now so you’ll be ready next year. Like stores, online retailers could use some extra help at this time of year you may want to identify your skills and offer your services for the next rush of holiday shoppers.

If you like to research and write, you might want to market a newsletter that would come out four or six times a year (around appropriate gift-giving holidays). It could provide a service to subscribers by giving advice and tips, like reviews of the best toys (and where to buy them at the lowest prices), cooking tips, gift-giving tips, etc. Over time, this could even become a regular newsletter providing additional services to your subscribers, and your holiday issues could become special issues.

There are other very basic types of seasonal “businesses” that can work well from home to make some extra holiday spending cash: gift baskets, gift-wrapping services, child care services, catering, specialty foods, flower arrangements (dry and fresh), holiday home decorating, custom-made gifts, knitted sweaters, blankets, needlepoint, ceramics, and so on. You might get some ideas out of holiday issues of Good Housekeeping, Ladies Home Journal and Martha Stewart as well.

Q: I read your Business Journal commentary the other day about the TrizecHahn redevelopment project at Hollywood & Highland (“Starting Over,” Nov. 16). I own several specialty athletic stores in Southern California and wanted to know if you thought it was a good time to consider opening up a new store in Hollywood.

A: It’s a great idea! The reason I wrote the article in the first place was my strong belief that, just as businesses flourished in Times Square following its redevelopment, the time is ripe for entrepreneurs and retailers to open or relocate their business to this area.

For the most part, rents are probably not at the high they will reach after the $358 million project opens. Depending on how much you can afford to spend on rent and design, you may want to consider being as close to this project as possible. If you can afford it and you have an original retail concept, you might want to look into obtaining some retail space within the project as well.

This area is going to be very hot within the next few years. The time is probably right to start shopping for a location there.

About 9.5 million tourists will pass through Hollywood & Highland every year. Let’s keep that number in perspective: 30 million people go to Las Vegas each year. But this is only a few blocks long, not an entire city. This type of traffic is a retailer’s dream come true!

Lorraine Spurge is a personal finance advisor, author of “Money Clips: 365 Tips That Will Pay One Day at a Time,” and business news commentator. She can be reached at (818) 705-3740 or by e-mail at [email protected].