Thursday, November 27, 1997

Consider a home business

By NANCY MICHAELS / Scripps Howard News Service

It's been called 'the quiet revolution,' but increasingly, the home business is becoming a force to be reckoned with.

In 1996 there were nearly 25 million self-employed people working from home, up from 23 million the year before, according to IDC/Link, a New York subsidiary of the Massachusetts market research firm, International Data Corp.

The advantages to working from home include flexibility and low overhead. But what sort of businesses are suited to a home? With the exception of heavy manufacturing, just about everything although some are a better fit than others. According to a recent AT&T Survey, roughly half of these are service firms.

The rest are:

Sales: 17 percent

Technical and administrative support: 15 percent

Repair services: 11 percent

Arts: 5 percent

If you're just thinking about starting a home business, you may want to start off slowly with something you can do while still working your regular job. Following are brief descriptions of three types of businesses you can run on weekends and evenings:

Desktop Publishing: For this you'll need graphic design and layout skills, a computer, printer, and publishing software such as Pagemaker or QuarkXPress. It also doesn't hurt to have a scanner.

To get the word out about your endeavor, do some pro bono work for a church, school or charitable organization. Desktop publishers charge $35 to $60 per hour or $25 to $30 per printed page.

Tutoring: You may be a natural-born teacher who never went into education or perhaps you're proficient in a certain academic area and want to pass your knowledge along. If so, consider tutoring. One of the advantages of tutoring is that, aside from advertising and marketing, there are practically no startup costs.

Most tutors settle on a certain age group to teach, from kindergarten through college age. Some zero in on preparing students to take the SATs or graduate school entrance exams.

How you market your service depends on what age group you're targeting. Print up a brochure or use your resume as one, and leave it at schools or colleges. Develop a relationship with the guidance counselors in the school and ask them to refer clients to you. Depending on the area of the country, tutors can charge anywhere from $25 to $50 per hour.

Accountant: If you've always been a number cruncher, this is one career that translates naturally to a home-based business. You'll want a computer, printer, accounting software and a calculator. As an accountant, be prepared to work long hours during tax season. The rest of the year, how much time you spend on the business depends on how much advertising you do.

An accountant can pick up a lot of work through word-of-mouth advertising as well as more traditional methods, such as the Yellow Pages and direct-mail. One CPA used a Val-Pak coupon during tax time, offering $10 off a tax return. She credits that decision with building her business.

What you charge depends on where you live, your level of expertise and how long you've been in business.

Our economy is quickly evolving from manufacturing to relying chiefly on producing information and providing service. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 80 percent of all jobs in this country by 2000 will be service oriented. This has created vast opportunities for those wishing to set up shop at home.

Whatever you choose to do, you'll most likely succeed if you tap into your own resources. The most successful home businesses are born of the owners' skills, talents and personal passion.

(Nancy Michaels, a small-business marketing consultant, is author of the audiotape and 50-page resource guide, "How to Be a Big Fish in Any Pond. " Her company, Impression Impact, is at 369 Lindsay Pond Rd., Concord, MA, 01742.)