Ruminating, I remind you, means both thinking deeply and chewing cud.That said, I’ve been ruminating on the idea that the 100 million people who say they’d like to work from home, plus the 28 million who already do, may provide the impetus for the return of daily home deliveries. Add skyrocketing fuel costs, pandemics, and possible chemical/biological/nuclear terror and lots of people may stay home in the future. Certainly a lot more than do now, given current trends.

Today we receive only mail and newspapers on a daily basis, bottled water and Charles Chips periodically, pizza (even pot, apparently) on request; but the dry cleaner, the baker, the milkman, and others used to stop at the house daily. Less frequently the ice man cameth, the scissor/knife sharpener would stop by, the coal company would deliver to your home, and you could buy produce and ice-cream from street vendors. For that matter the service station would pick up your car and deliver it back fixed, doctors made house calls and fixed you right there, and drug stores delivered—all at no extra charge. And let’s not brush off the Fuller Man.

I haven’t googled the real reasons why home deliveries stopped, but I’ll go out on a short, low limb and say it was because folks stopped being at home after WW2. Rosie The Riveter started working, and then the two paycheck household meant more people out and about that could stop to do errands, and less people were at home to answer the door. According to one white paper by a UK consulting firm for retailers:

“In the past, as customers we experienced extremely high levels of customer service and home delivery effectiveness. It was based on the fact that as customers, we purchased locally, the local supplier took products into stock and as a business had fantastic local knowledge. This left us with a comprehensive service for all our home delivery needs. But as retail businesses have consolidated and distribution has become national rather than local, distribution hubs and just-in-time fulfillment approaches have been adopted. Furthermore many retail sectors have experienced product price deflation, reducing margins and increased competition. Consequently the ability to provide a comprehensive free of charge delivery service has become extremely difficult.”

“Unfortunately, as customers we like to have options. But once the product has been purchased we seem to have little if any choice of the delivery service we receive. This poor choice has led to a national pass time of ‘war stories’; ‘Who has had the worst or most unreliable experience when it comes to home delivery’. . . .However, now with new technology, retailers have expanded their influence from the high street into the sitting room. They have striven to create 1:2:1 relationships with their customers, continually extending their business, their brand and culture right into our homes through the [Internet]. As customers, we have readily adopted this new buying experience. We enjoy the speed, the option to personally reflect our buying behavior in the virtual store. We now expect the efficiency and flexibility that we get at the point of sale to extend to the total shopping experience.”

All of which is to ask, assuming I’m right, if—literally and figuratively—telework is the road less traveled and people will be home more and spend less time on the road, is someone gonna start making deliveries? FedEx established FedEx Home Delivery in March of 2000, using independent contractors so they’re on it, calling it an exciting opportunity and stating plans to double capacity in the next few years. Besides, modern software allows efficient least-cost routing, so it makes sense for white vans to do it. And brown. Maybe an upstart will go green, who knows.

Three years? Five Years? Ten? My guess is it will happen, but it’s hard to say when. Arthur Clarke in Profiles of the Future cautions that we tend to be too conservative on short term prognostications, and too optimistic on long term ones.

Update: as I was saying . . .

We’re not sure why, but it seems the telecommuting and home-based business world has attracted more than its fair share of scam artists.

Perhaps the problem is because this way of working is so new that people don’t really know what to expect or accept. So, as South American revolutionary Che Guevera put it, “Where there is confusion there is opportunity.” That, and anyone would love to have something for nothing, good pay for an easy job.

But the world doesn’t work like that. Telecommuting jobs and running a home-based business demand the same effort as any other job or business with the added ingredient that you have to be your own boss too.

So how do you spot a scam? Well, have you ever heard of anyone having to pay a company to work? Didn’t think so, it works the other way around. Companies pay you to work.

Same deal when you’re working from home. If a website or mail order offer tries to sell you on a job that requires that you pay them to get it then guess who’s going to make the easy money? Yup, it ain’t you!

For that matter when was the last time you heard of a company hiring people for good pay to do nothing? (Well, okay there are some government jobs like that, but that’s a different issue.) Companies are in business to make money. Making money takes work, so they expect employees to perform. If a company offers you an opportunity that’s easy, requires no work, and is a cash machine then you can be sure it’s a rip off. If it was easy and such a great money-maker everyone would be doing it, now wouldn’t they?

A few other buzz-words and phrases to watch for: no skill required, unlimited income, turnkey opportunity, big money fast—and our favorite—make money while you sleep. Yeah, right. There’s only one profession we know of that involves making money in bed, and sleeping is distinctly not part of the deal.

Don’t call 900 numbers for information, don’t send postage paid envelopes for more information, don’t pay for more information, and don’t buy training materials. Any legitimate company that is looking for good employees pays to find them, pays to recruit them, pays to inform them about the job and company, and pays to train them.

Beyond that, all the caveats that apply to working for a company in an office apply to working for one in your jammies. Check the firm out out, find out how long they’ve been around, how successful they are, what their employees think of them, what their employee turnover rate is. All that and more is available online, and for free in libraries.

Finally, keep this in mind: scammers are experts at pulling your strings. Why do they offer easy jobs for high pay? Because lots of people want a job like that. Why do they offer jobs that require no experience and no expertise? Because lots of desperate people want a way to make money quick with no background or skills.

What happens when people are desperate? They take chances, they ignore their better judgment, they try for the fast buck . . . and they end up losers.

Good pay or a profitable business takes knowledge, experience and hard work. Different people have different skills and different jobs have different requirements. So the job market offers a range of jobs for a range of pay. And there is one you can do from home.

Here a some good places to read up on the ‘ner do wells who are out to hornswaggle your search for fame and fortune:

Federal Trade Commission - Project False Hopes

Ripoff Report

In the end the best advice is that if it sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.

Back in my days as a small business lender, I asked a loan applicant why he wanted to borrow money from a bank when his accounts showed an abundance of cash. He imparted the following wisdom that I’ve carried with me ever since: Use your credit—your cash is always good. But most business owners don’t have the luxury of being cash-rich and for them, the bankers rarely come a callin’.

You’d think it would be easy to raise a small amount of money, easier than if is a large amount, anyway. But that’s not really true. It takes just as much paperwork for a lender to document a $1,000 loan as it does a $100,000 loan, so there really aren’t many places where you can rent small amounts of money. (That’s essentially what you’re doing when you borrow money, after all.)

The easiest way to round up a small amount of money is to borrow on credit cards. And it’s often the cheapest alternative as well, since many issuers have very low teaser rates (0-4%). Just be sure you either pay the balance before the rate changes (usually in a 3-6 months) or pay it off with another low rate credit card. Duh, you do that already, right?

What you may not realize is that if you have good credit you can get a load of credit cards, and you don’t have to go through an elaborate loan approval process to find out if you qualify. Fill out one short form and with good credit you’ve got your money. And, if you pay your bills on time, you’ll be building a good credit history that will help you when it comes time to apply for a larger loan. The moral of the story is apply for the cards BEFORE you get into a cash crunch.

The bad news about credit cards is that because they’re so easy to obtain, it’s easy to get in over your head and wind up more debt than you can handle. So start slow! Be careful about buying more supplies or brochures or paper or whatever than you need just because the per-unit price is lower at higher quantities. Don’t borrow more than you need to support existing orders either. And pay your bills before you pay yourself. Handle these small ‘loans’ right and you’ll build a strong credit history that will pave the way to more traditional financing.

Credit history problems are common. and there’s no magic potion for fixing past problems. But like everything else in running a successful business, if you work hard at it you can fix the problem. (If it was easy everyone would be rich, right?) Just don’t ever give up.

Here’s what we suggest:

1) First find out exactly what’s in your credit record. The three big credit reporting agencies are Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian. Order a copy of your credit report from each of them (you’re entitled to a free report if you’ve recently been declined for credit). Spend some time on their sites reading up on consumer credit rights.

2) If there was a legitimate reason for your credit problems (i.e. health problems, divorce, etc.), write a paragraph explaining the situation and request that the credit agencies add it to your credit report. Check out their websites for instructions on how to go about this.

3) To start to restore your credit, try to get a small loan from a bank, even if you have to secure it by a deposit for the same amount. Then repay that loan over a six month period, being sure to stay on time with all you payments. Do this several times for increasing larger amounts.

4) If you still can’t find a lender to do the deal, see if you can convince a friend or family member with a good credit record to co-sign with you on the loan.

One final warning, don’t use a company that claims they’ll fix your credit. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is. If they’re legitimate, all they do is use the consumer credit laws to remove inaccuracies in your credit record. But you don’t need them to do it; you can do the same thing yourself.

The FTC has some good advice about the truths and scams in credit fixer business. You might also find some help from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling or the Consumer Credit Counseling Services. Both are non-profit organizations that help people with credit problems.

Finally, even if you think you have pristine credit, because of credit fraud, identity theft, and stupid mistakes by credit reporting agencies, it’s important to regularly check your credit reports. Federal law requires the three big reporting agencies to make them available, free of charge, on an annual basis. You can order them all at once from AnnualCreditReport.com. For a nominal fee, they’ll also provide your all-important credit score.

Starting a home-based business from scratch can be a daunting prospect. An alternative is to buy a business that’s already up and running.

The problem, of course, is that for every profitable and stable business that becomes available for sale, there are many more qualified buyers than sellers.

And you have to wonder why someone would be selling a perfectly good business. Often your “opportunity” is someone else’s headache. As you research the opportunity, you need to look for reasons the owner is selling beyond what he or she has told you. Is the business losing money? Is it cash poor? Has it reached it’s peak and now it’s on the way down. Has something artificially inflated income or reduced expenses in the past year or two? Is a new competitor threatening to take business away? Is there some regulatory change looming? Are product costs poised to escalate? Is there some technology on the horizon that threatens to make this company obsolete?

The good thing about purchasing an existing business is that you have the opportunity to the historical numbers for hints about what’s really going on. As a buyer, you have every right to review the tax returns for the business you are buying as well as the financial statements and supporting documents such as agings of accounts receivable (what the small business is owed from customers), and accounts payable (what the small business owes to its vendors — and if the operator is paying within terms). If you’re not comfortable evaluating the numbers, be sure to have someone do it for you. This could be the biggest opportunity of your life or the biggest mistake.

Unfortunately, you can’t believe everything you see. Even copies of tax returns have to be suspect. That why, for example, based on the demonstrated lack of integrity of many sellers, all tax returns are verified with the IRS when banks are processing SBA loans.

The internet can provide you with background and access to research data on most industries. We just discovered our local library provides free access online to InfoTrac, a collection of over 47 million full text articles from 4500 magazines and most newspapers going back to 1980. Industry membership organizations and franchises are a great source of information too.

If you want to borrow money, a lenders primary concern will be the company’s historical cash flow. If your seller claims they “really make more than we report”, it’s not going to convince your lender unless you can actually document the missing income.

Remember that a lender will not finance 100% of your new venture. You’ll need to have equity (your own money) in the business—at least 25-30% for an SBA loan; demonstrate that you have the management experience to run the business; and demonstrate that historically, the business generated sufficient cash flow to pay off the loan.