Sweat rewards; We've got the hots for you: Hot business, hot opportunities, hot markets, hot trends. Grab a cold drink, because 2002 is gonna be a scorcher

Entrepreneur, Dec, 2001 by Amanda C. Kooser, Geoff Williams

And it's definitely growing. Bobette Reeder, president of the International Coach Federation (ICF) in Washington, DC, notes that when she received her coach training in 1995, there were possibly two credible coaching colleges. Today, 42 recognized schools of fer coaching education and training, 10 of them accredited by ICF. And ICF, which boasts 4,500 members, is growing by some 200 members each month.

Childress says you can make more money if you recruit corporate clients and offer additional services. For instance, she recently added a Web site, www.ihavegoals.com, to offer her own brand of do-it-yourself life coaching for cash-strapped clients.

Members pay $12.95 a month to set, organize and monitor goals online. Combining the dual consumer demands of coaching and convenience is just one way entrepreneurs can use their fertile imaginations to fuel opportunity as a life coach.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

When the sky is charcoal-black and the Atlantic Ocean is lapping the shores of Ohio, your alternative energy company may be spared from mobs seeking revenge against environmentally unfriendly companies.

But alternative energy is more than a feel-good industry; it's a chance to make money. A recent study by Glean Edge, a green-technology consulting firm, suggests the alternative energy industry will generate $82 billion worth of electrical power by 2010, up from $7 billion today.

"There is quite a bit of opportunity in this market," says Gary Markowitz of Kilojolts Consulting Group, an energy business consulting firm. But he warns that entrepreneurs entering this market should be "highly educated [in energy] and have been in this field for a while. They need to really understand the marketplace."

For instance, wind power is a growing energy source, but you wouldn't want to operate a wind energy company in Florida, where the winds are typically mild. In Chicago, it's another, story: Within the next five years, the city plans to buy 20 percent of its electricity for its streetlights, subways and public buildings from wind power and solar power sources. Since 1998, wind power as an alternative energy source in the world has expanded by about 30 percent a year.

Solar energy is no slouch either, with sales of photovoltaic panels (solar cells) having grown 37 percent in 2000.

Markowitz says some areas ripe for the plucking are in "distributive generation," which involves smaller, electric-generating units using alternative energy sources--like biomass, natural gas, diesel, wind, solar fuel cells--in close proximity to the end-users of the electricity.

Alternative energy is paying off for entrepreneurs like Paul Szilagyi, 45-year-old CEO of TransTeq, an 80-employee company with a fleet of 19 hybrid buses (run on gas and electric power) in Denver; it's the world's largest fleet of its kind. By the end of 2001, TransTeq was expected to clear $5 million.

Observes Szilagyi: "The three primary drivers in the transportation sector--better fuel economy, lower pollution and less congestion--are now Main Street issues throughout the world. This was not the case a decade ago."