The SPI Business Model

what a passive income business model looks like. This is the foundation of my profitable online If you’ve read The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, this will be somewhat familiar to you.

Top 10 Ways to Make Money Online - Lewis Howes

Home is Where The Start-Up Is

Did you know that:

There are more than 2.1 million home-based businesses in the UK, out of a total of 4.5 million small and medium-sized enterprises? Home-based businesses have a combined turnover of over £364 billion? Over 60% of new businesses are started at home?

These are amongst the findings in a a new Home Business Report compiled by Enterprise Nation with support from BT.  And as headlines they show the value of home-based business to the economy.

The report uncovers growth in the number of home businesses - a 2.9% increase from 2005 to 2006.  1,400 new businesses are started from home each week.  The highest growth is coming from mums, young people and the over 50s - so home business, the report says, is a route to bringing people into employment who otherwise might not have contributed to the economy.

What kind of businesses are they?  According to the report, the fastest growing sectors for home businesses are in the business and professional services sector (such as accountants and website developers), onlinetrading (such as eBay-ers), personal services (such as home interior designers, hairdressers, party planners), food (products and caterers), and domestic energy (including people selling excess DIY ‘green’ power back into the national grid).

So while hi-tech is part of the picture, it's not the whole story.  However, people starting up businesses in more traditional fields are also becoming increasingly IT-savvy, and many have websites and use e-commerce platforms to punch above their weight.
Growing the home business

Amongst home business entrepreneurs surveyed by Enterprise Nation for the report, there is almost universal determination to grow the business.  But most do not see this as being about increasing the number of their employees. 63% said they would rather outsource projects and new work rather than increase headcount.

In many ways this ties in with the ethos of running a home business, where people are seeking both to reduce overheads and to have a way of life that provides a distinctive blending of home and work life, rather than wanting to recreate a large company on their doorstep.

Most home businesses, however, feel that there is a lack of business support available for them.  And as many business grants from local or regional agencies focus on creating employed jobs, government needs to look more broadly at ways to create wealth.
Why work from home?

According to the report, there are 3 main reasons why people choose to run a business from home:

Savings - starting out at home saves money in avoiding the cost of an extra office It also saves time. A new business owner can gain up to 20 extra days per year through giving up the daily commute. This is time that can be spent on growing the business, rather than sitting in traffic jams.
    Technology – advances in technology mean that almost any trade can now be carried out at home. Business owners are developing their websites as a virtual window to the world and utilising software to manage projects, work with partners and develop new business.
    The work/life blend – people are heading home to be close to family and friends. Starting and growing a business from home is enabling thousands of families to be together, work together and share the financial rewards. Research for BT shows that ‘Flexibility/working the hours I choose’ and ‘Better work/life balance’ were the two most popular factors when business owners chose to start from home, coming in at a higher ranking than ‘lower overhead costs.

And with the growth in home-based businesses amongst the over 50s, it would seem that there may be evidence of more mature workers wanting to realise their dream through running their own business, rather than working towards retirement making money for someone else.  And in the context of an ageing society, it would be interesting to know how many are planning to work beyond normal retirement age.

Home business 10 point action plan

The Home Business Report proposes a 10 point action plan that government should adopt to support and promote home business.  This involves:

- Gathering better data on the extent, needs and performance of home business

- Designing new government policies and programes to support home based business, e.g. by looking at how business expansion grants are applied

- Introducing tax relief for for home business owners, recognizing their social and environmental value

- Developing more local physical infrastructure to support home businesses, e.g. funding live/work developments and 'hub' facilities for home-based business.

There are similarities here to the recommendations in the report Under the Radar, produced by the Live/Work Network for the Commission for Rural Communities.  With this gathering weight of evidence, we will have to see how government and local agencies respond.

http://www.flexibility.co.uk/flexwork/location/home-enterprise.htm

Research Work at Home Scams -How to Investigate Work from Home Job Listings

Anne Rippy / The Image Bank / Getty Images

Work from home job postings are everywhere. There are listings for data entry jobs, research positions, multi-level marketing opportunities, and a variety of other ways to make a lot of money fast. In fact, there are so many of them that work at home schemes are on the National Consumers League's list of Top 10 Frauds.

Unfortunately, most of those positions aren't what most people would consider a "real" job or any kind of job at all. There are no benefits, no hourly wage or salary, only a promise of making money. Sometimes these opportunities are supposedly so lucrative that fees are charged to give you the listings, provide you information .on getting started, or to set up your business.

Just Say No
The simple answer to the question of whether you should pay for work from home job listings, in a word, is no. Despite what the work at home ads and companies might promise you, legitimate employers pay you, not the other way around.

Typical Work at Home Scams
Review these typical work at home scamsto research the type of opportunities that are legitimate before you waste time applying.

Too Good to Be True
Take a look at these sample work from home ads:

$1000 A Day From Home
Automated - No Sales
Cash Money Every Day
Get Paid Paid Daily via ATM 
With this one, you don't have to do much other than go to any ATM machine to collect.

Work from Home Part Time
Earn $10K or more a month
This ad had a disclaimer in a tiny font at the bottom of the page which said there is risk involved and you might not do as well. The "might not do as well" part was repeated at least four times in the disclaimer.

If you think about it logically, the chances of making money doing a minimal amount work simply aren't high - other than, perhaps, for the people making money scamming others. Think twice before you click on anything that sounds too good to be true - it is.

Find Company Information
If you're still not sure, and remember, companies can be very creative about how they advertise their opportunities because they want you to think that the position is legitimate, there are places to research work at home companies.

Better Business Bureau (BBB)
Enter the company name or the web site into the Better Business Bureau search box to find out whether there have been complaints and whether the company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau. I entered the name of a company I was interested in and found there had been seven complaints, all of which were unresolved and discovered that the company's record was unsatisfactory.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) 
The FTC provides information on commission actions. For example, operators of online malls that disguised themselves as legitimate business opportunities settled Federal Trade Commission charges that they were actually illegal pyramid schemes.

Scam.com: Work at Home Scams 
The Work at Home Scams Bulletin Board has information on work at home scams and registered users can post questions about scams. There is also aMLM/Pyramid Scams bulletin board.

Finally, be wary and be careful. Despite the best efforts of computer systems and staff, it's hard for job sites to stop work at home scams from being posted. Posters are creative and sophisticated and are continually coming up with new ways to advertise their information.

Report a Scam
Have you been scammed or almost scammed? Here's how to report a scam, including where and how to report an employment scam.

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/workathomehelp/a/homescam2.htm