Some entrepreneurs find best office right at home

For the working class, the American dream often becomes a distant exit off a highway lined with overbearing bosses, lengthy commutes and few hours spent with family. A common, and sometimes lucrative, solution to the traditional 40-hour workweek is a home-based business.

On last count, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated one-third of home-based workers are self-employed. Of the 7 million self-employed people who work at home, two-thirds operate a home-based business. Home-based business categories range from managerial positions to sales to administrative and even construction.

Southern Nevada has always had a vibrant entrepreneurial spirit. This is reflected by the many resources, most of which are free for the taking, that exist within the community to encourage and assist business ventures, particularly the home-based sort. One, the Nevada Microenterprise Initiative, is a nonprofit agency with two locations statewide.

It hosts a number of services for businesses with five employees or fewer, a large percentage of which are home-based. Anna Siefert, the agency's operations manager, said that educating new-business owners is a labor of love.

"We do this because we are passionate about it," she said. "Home-based business is not a small segment of the business world."

A central feature at the microenterprise center is the microloan program to assist entrepreneurs with capital expenses.

The center also hosts workshops, many at no cost or on a sliding scale, to help new opportunists with an array of typical business issues, such as taxes, licenses and financing options. The curriculum for these courses is provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, an entrepreneurial training foundation with nearly $2 billion in assets. In addition to the courses, the microenterprise office houses a library of how-to startup guides courtesy of Entrepreneur.com.

Businesses and their license compliance are tracked by the state Department of Taxation. Many people work out of their homes in an effort to fly under the radar of traditional employment regulations and may not even realize when they are not in compliance with local or other laws.

"Every county, every city is different when it comes to business licenses," Siefert said. "Many people don't know about zoning issues."

The Internal Revenue Service is also on the lookout for home-based business-related tax schemes. Oftentimes a bogus home-based business is invented to create deductions. Also, many legitimate home-based businesses try to deduct personal living expenses, falling into a tax trap unintentionally only because they don't have the knowledge to avoid the pitfalls.

Local home-based writer Lisa McQuerrey left a traditional position when her job was set to move and she was just a few months from having her first child. Being in the right place at the right time earned her a coveted speech writing position and has kept her from punching a time clock ever since.

"My first client was the state of Nevada," McQuerrey said. "It doesn't get much better than that."

Once the managing editor of Nevada Women magazine, McQuerrey found being her own boss was quite lucrative.

"My very first year in freelancing, I made more money than in the previous five years of working in traditional jobs," she said.

Several years later, she serves a list of clients ranging from the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Greenspun Media Group and the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.

Through her work with the chamber, an opportunity arose for McQuerrey to sit on an exploratory committee known as the Home-based Business Alliance of Southern Nevada, affording her a short-lived, but successful glimpse into the needs of home-based businesses.

"We had great hands-on seminars," she said. "We really wanted to make it a one-stop shop for everyone."

The alliance helped new business owners with everything from licensing to financing.

"We started realizing that the needs of home-based businesses were similar to those of other small businesses," McQuerrey said. "Even though the group disbanded, the spirit of it went into chamber programs already in existence."

Today, the Las Vegas Chamber hosts the Business Education Series, workshops and luncheons that provide insight on being successful in the local economy as well as a networking opportunity. These events usually feature a local businessperson as a keynote speaker.

Many work-from-home opportunities present themselves every day. But to protect themselves from offers that sound too good to be true, would-be home workers should consult the local chapter of the Better Business Bureau.

One home-based directory is taking it a step forward. Texas-based Abili-Staff Ltd. hosts the Web site www.moneyfromhome.com, which offers hundreds of business plans both nationally and globally for those interested in working from home. General Manager Terri Murphy said a closely guarded "secret recipe" in the company's screening process has kept their listings scam-free since establishing in 1996.

"It's partially a technical process and partially an intuitive process," she said.

Abili-Staff also established a number of partner Web sites to help educate its potential business partners and clients. The nonprofit site, Work-at-Home.org, is an online tool that helps to facilitate the unique business lifestyle. Through forums and tip-sharing, members of this online community can further insure a home-based business safe from the taint of scams.

Another useful tool created by Abili-Staff is the income test, hosted by their site www.jobsformoms.com. The test helps those looking to replace a traditional job with a work-from-home position to calculate how much money they need to earn. Oftentimes, the home-based opportunity need not match the traditional income.

"Many people discover through this test that even though they may be earning a substantial five-digit income per year with their outside job, after they pay day care, and commuting costs, they're actually only earning literally pennies per hour for each hour they're away from home," Murphy said.

A niche service or product can be a ticket to making your own rules and setting up a sought-after service in the community. Larry and Gayla Ryser retired from their traditional careers and put many years of customer service experience to work for Television Monitoring Services. After five years building the business with a portion of their retirement bankroll, business is booming.

By recording local and national news, Television Monitoring Services can provide news footage crucial to legal proceedings, public relations or to serve as a memento of a New Year's Eve celebration.

Though they work at home, the Rysers manage to squeeze in a fair amount of business networking. They belong to the News Data Service Network, which allows them to share the clips they record within the monitoring communities of all 210 major markets.

"We've expanded the business five and a half times since we bought it," Larry said. "We've established new services for folks but we've never raised our prices the whole time we've been in business. The only con is I work too much, but I don't mind the long hours as long as I'm working for myself."

Moving the office into their residence, the Rysers have done away with a lot of overhead and have kept the cost of their services competitive.

Another perk of their unique business is the allowance it gives them to strengthen family ties.

"The grandkids are here every day," Larry said. The home-based nature of the business saves on daycare for the Ryser's grown children.

The Ryser's Television Monitoring Services is one of two businesses of its kind in the area, and yet they maintain there is no rivalry.

"We have a friendly competition," Larry said. "The town is big enough for the both of us. It works to our advantage to help each other."

Many licenses issued in Southern Nevada are in the category of janitorial and cleaning services. Michigan native Margie McKenna began cleaning houses with a friend to pass her days as a stay-at-home mom after her sons started school.

In 2001, a postdivorce relocation to Las Vegas put her in charge of her own home-based business. A handful of family and friends supported her venture and their word-of-mouth advertising kept her steadily booked from Day One.

"Business was booming within one year," McKenna said. "Business is still going strong; I turn people down all the time."

McKenna bids residential projects at varying rates. She wouldn't disclose her salary but says she's successful.

"I make enough to pay a house payment, a work-vehicle payment, a fun-vehicle payment and raise two boys," she said. "We live very comfortably."

The biggest perk for McKenna is being a strong single-parent in her household.

"I can flex my schedule around me," she said. "I've always been able to be there for my kids."

Siefert recommends that new business owners recognize the needs and resources a young business may require. She recommends new owners build strong ties to a banker, attorney, insurance agent and bookkeeper or certified public accountant to meet real-world business challenges.

Siefert also recommends that anyone interested in launching a home business clearly defines goals, products, potential customers and direct or indirect competition.

"You need to know the market and understand the trends," Siefert said. "And you have to know how to position yourself within the market."

McQuerrey, a big-time advocate for home-based business, pushes the issue of going by the book to keep one running smoothly.

"If you get yourself legit, you open yourself up to a lot more opportunity," she said.

Murphy said that one of Abili-Staff's hundreds of business plans, ranging from growing bonsai trees to franchises, can be a perfect fit for someone with a niche idea, but may not be for the unmotivated.

"Some people really need the social interaction of the workplace," she said. "People that are 'people people' will be frustrated at home."

This story first appeared in the Business Press. Sara Cureton writes for the Review-Journal's sister publication and can be reached at scureton@lvbusinesspress.com | 387-5273