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When Diane Valletta lost her job as director of sales promotions with a midsized insurance company and was unable to find employment right away, she launched her own successful marketing-communications company from her Chicago home.

For years, researchers have reported on the increasing number of women getting out of the home and into the work force. But new research shows that millions of women, like Valletta, are part of the work force yet stay at home. A recent study by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners (NFWBO) shows that 3.5 million women own home-based businesses, providing 14 million full- and part-time jobs.

There were a total of 15 million home-based businesses nationwide in 1995, according to the National Association of Home Based Businesses, in Baltimore.

Julie Weeks, the NFWBO's director of research, says that although no formal studies of the number of home-based businesses owned by women were done before the one by her group, evidence suggests that such businesses are on the increase. She attributes the proliferation to "technology making it possible to open a business anywhere."

Computers, faxes, modems, on-line information services, and the ability to conduct business by telephone enable entrepreneurs to link up with clients from home and, in many cases, to open their businesses with an initial investment of less than $10,000.

Contrary to popular belief, said the NFWBO study, it's not for the purpose of taking care of children that most women choose home as the location of their businesses. Of the 1,435 women surveyed, only 32 percent had children at home.

Women cite an assortment of reasons for starting businesses at home, but corporate downsizing is one of the main ones, says Suzanne Tufts, president and CEO of American Woman's Economic Development, a New York City-based, nonprofit organization that trains, counsels, and offers support to women entrepreneurs.

Many women who fall victim to corporate downsizing use the company's severance package to help launch a home-based business, often with the former employer as an initial client. Other women decide to take control of their lives by starting a home-based business before the pink slip arrives.

There are other factors that have pulled women out of the corporate environment and into home-based businesses. "The glass ceiling, the fact that many corporations were not family-friendly, and women wanting more flexibility and refusing to work 60 or 70 hours a week" all have contributed, says Judith Obermayer, whose company, Obermayer Associates, in West Newton, Mass., does consulting work for start-up technology companies.

Most home-based businesses owned by women are service-related, ranging from computer consulting to desktop publishing to public relations. Only about 17 percent of women's home-based businesses produce goods, says the NFWBO's Weeks.

The chief difficulties that the women face are securing an initial bank loan and raising enough capital to sustain the business, according to the NFWBO study.

But success stories abound. Lane Nemeth started a home-based business, Discovery Toys, in 1978 in Martinez, Calif. By the early 1980s, the business, which sells toys at parties, had moved out of her home and into an office complex. Last year its revenue reached $93 million.

In 1992, Joanne Winthrop started the Basket Connection, making baskets in her Portland, Ore., home. After several years the business produced $300,000 in revenue. Winthrop is moving to a new home on 13 acres and plans to build a warehouse on the property to store the baskets.

A 1995 study of 1,000 home-based businesses by AT&T Home Business Resources--a division of the telecommunications company that provides services for home-based businesses--showed that one-third had revenue of $60,000 a year or more--compared with only one-quarter of other small businesses--and that one in 10 had revenue of more than $100,000 annually.

To succeed at a home-based business, "it takes discipline and technology," says Valletta, the Chicago marketing-communications entrepreneur.

Experts in the field say that before starting a home-based business, you should meet with a lawyer or accountant to review the tax implications of self-employment, make sure local zoning allows home-based businesses, and separate your personal life at home from your business.

The NFWBO's Weeks sees no end in sight for the trend toward women running businesses from home. With technology continuing to advance at a fast pace, she says, "the number of women-owned firms located at home will likely increase."

# posted by Medical Information : 2:02 AM