‘Will Work at Home’ sounds like a sign a bum on the corner would hold. Doesn’t make any more sense than the pilot with a sign around his neck ‘Will Fly For Food’ joke you sometimes see in flight schools. Both are an attractive way to earn a living, so begging for them is, well, a joke.

Still, there are some employees who have to beg for the opportunity because their bosses have a sweatshop or typing pool managment mentality. Top managment gets it, from all we’ve read (over 250 studies, in case your wondered), but middle managers still don’t. Why?

We think it goes back to the difference between product and process. Some managers realize it’s product that counts, and are adept enough and confident enough to create a results oriented work environment. Other managers seem to think process is what counts (they’re the ones that use meaningless buzzwords like  “encapsulate testability as a reality check,” and schedule lots of meetings where no decisions are made.)

So what’s the solution? Top management needs to drag middle managers into the 21st century, even if they’re kicking and scream about, “that’s not how we used to do it.” People like you need to start asking to be managed based on results not perfect attendence.

Kate was on a nationwide radio show recently, and a caller—a saleswoman—asked how she could convince her boss to let her telecommute and work from home. Kate said, “Ask him to judge your performance based on sales. If you can close as many deals from home as in the office what does he care if you’re working in your jammies?”

The host remarked that radio ad salespeople are notorious, from managements view, for always being out of the office, perhaps having 3 martini lunches. Kate’s response, “what difference does it make if they hit their quota?”

He didn’t get the point, interestingly.

Home buyers may have been stupid (or dishonest) and banks may have been stupid (or dishonest), but either way (or both) the mortgage crisis has spilled over in to other banking areas making the threat of a credit crunch likely.

According to CFO Magazine “Recent studies and reports from lenders show that small businesses are either having a harder time getting credit or struggling to pay off their debt.” To some large extent, that is because banks simply don’t want to take the risk of lending. In fact, over the last year, SBA loans to small businesses are also down 18%, a sign that even the government is reluctant to invest in a market which it thinks may end up with high default rates.

If you’re a business owner with an outstanding business or home equity loan, here are some action steps you should take:

• 1. Stay informed about the health and stability of your bank. If they get into trouble, it may roll downhill.
• 2. Understand that if slowing economy weighs on this year’s performance, your financial statements for year-end 2008 may worry your banker. If your 2007 performance was good, now may be the time to set up a line of credit—just in case.
• 3.Understand and obey all the terms and conditions of your borrowing agreement. If your bank has routinely allowed you to violate loan terms in the past, such as failing topay down your line of credit annually or borrowing from another financial institution without permission, don’t assume it will fly in the future.
• 4. Understand how and why lenders make their lending decisions. Understand how they value your collateral and what financial targets they expect you to hit.
• 5. If your financial situation is weak, especially if you’ve had two years of losses, Be CAREFUL. During the last credit crunch many banks overreacted and started calling in loans without listening to reason.
• 6. Establish and maintain a strong relationship with your banker. Make sure your banker, and a at least a couple of his or her associates, knows you by name. A knee-jerk reaction on their part is far less likely if they know you.
• 7. If you’re uncomfortable or unfamiliar with issues in items 1-6, seek professional help. Someone who really understands what’s going on can help before things get critical.

When all else fails, many are forced to credit cards for financing. If you are forced to leverage your credit cards, be sure read the fine print. One late payment and you could find yourself with an interest rate that’s almost guaranteed to cause a default.

Insufficient capital is one of the greatest risks to a company.

Falling home values could mean trouble for home owners too. And that’s true of individuals too. We recently received a notice in the mail that our home equity line of credit has been reduced by $120,000. If we’d been fully borrowed on the line, we’d have had to come up with the difference between the old value and the new value in a hurry. We hadn’t used it at all, but if we had we could have been in a world of hurt.

With a little advance planning you can weather the trough of credit availability that the next year or two may bring.

For some reason medical billing has attracted more than it’s fair share of scams. If you’re interested in working at home doing medical billing be particularly wary of pitches that promise easy money with little or no effort. In fact, if you’re interested in working from doing anything be particularly wary of pitches that promise easy money with little or no effort. The world just doesn’t work that way.

If you’re looking to start your own medical billing business, learn about the challenges involved in medical billing, including the complex laws which apply before you fork over $200 or $500 or $3500. And understand that up to a year of training may be necessary in order to even begin to market your medical billing services to healthcare providers.

A few years ago, the FTC surfed the Internet and newspaper classifieds looking for ads promising consumers they could make fast, easy money running medical billing businesses from home. Hundreds of ads from dozens of companies were identified, and the Feds discovered that many of them were just rackets offering bogus credit cards or easy loans for a ridiculous fee to whoever called. Those that actually pitched medical billing products included:

• Electronic Processing Services, Inc., et al. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, marketed a $480 medical billing work-at-home opportunity, misrepresenting that the doctors whose names were supplied were likely to hire consumers to process their billing claims, and that consumers could expect to make a certain amount of money as medical billers.
• International Trader, d/b/a Premier Business Solutions, et al. A Nevada corporation, based in Los Angeles, California, marketed work-at-home medical billing opportunities through classified advertisements for $189. Through their telemarketing pitch, they misrepresented: 1) that they would provide consumers with the names of doctors likely to use them to process billing claims from home; 2) that consumers buying their materials could expect to earn a specific level of income (between $15 and $45 per hour); and 3) that consumers could readily obtain a refund upon request.
• Medical-Billing.Com, Inc., d/b/a Professional Management Consultants, et al. A Texas corporation based in Carrollton, Texas, sold their medical billing package for between $3,500 and $9,500. In telemarketing their program, they allegedly made numerous misrepresentations, including promises that: 1) they would help recruit doctors who would use the consumers to process their billing; 2) customers would earn substantial income providing billing services for health care professionals; and 3) they would give customers a full refund if the program did not meet their performance expectations.
• Electronic Medical Billing, Inc., et al. A Nevada corporation operating in Mission Viejo, California, sold a medical billing work-at-home business opportunity to consumers for $325. They misrepresented: 1) that the doctors whose names they provided to consumers were likely to hire them to do their billing; and 2) that consumers could expect to make a certain level of income through medical billing (between $25,000 and $50,000 a year, according to their classified ads).
• Physicians Healthcare Development (PHD Billing), Inc., et al. Based in Burbank, California, pitched a work-at-home medical billing opportunity for $319 to $425, telling consumers that they could make between $3 and $15 for each claim processed. They misrepresented that the system they sell will instantly enable consumers to launch a home-based billing business, that consumers can earn substantial income for this work, and that the doctors whose names they provided were prepared to hire the consumers to process their claims.

If you get a pitch that sounds like one of these you can be sure you’re being scammed.

Another disturbing trend we alluded to on earlier posts in our economy series has raised its ugly head. Four big-city mayors told Congress yesterday that they’re overwhelmed by infrastructure needs and can’t maintain their water systems, roads and rail networks without more federal help. Nevermind install an information utility alongside water and electric public services.

CNN quotes the Kansas City, Missouri Mayor: “We’re having a quiet collapse of prosperity.” They all agreed the state of the nation’s infrastructure is poor and getting worse, and blamed much of the decay on shortsighted thinking by local, state and federal officials.

The American Society of Civil Engineers back that up with estimates that to bringing the nation’s transportation and resources networks up to a properly functional level would require $1.6 trillion and five years of work. And that’s just to fix what needs fixin’, never mind meet future needs.

Consider this: according to the Texas Transportation Institute the average U.S. traveler is delayed 51.5 hours annually due to traffic and infrastructure-related congestion in the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas. The delays range from 93 hours in Los Angeles to 14 hours in Pittsburgh. Combined, these delays waste 1.78 billion gallons of fuel each year and waste almost $50.3 billion in congestion costs. Furthermore, the average delay in these metropolitan areas has increased by almost 35.3 hours since 1982.

So when you pour gas in a funnel, what do you do when the funnel starts to overflow? Duh, reduce the flow. And that’s exactly what telecommuting can do for highways.

But does The Dodd-Hagel National Infrastructure Bank Act, a bipartisan measure that addresses the critical needs of our nation’s major infrastructure systems, even mention telecommunications or telecommuting? NooOOOooo. Have we become so self-centered as a nation that we aren’t willing to take a creative look at what needs to be done, and make the investment necessary, to ensure our grandkids have a tolerable future?

In fact, there’s no creative thinking required to realizing that an ubiquitous information utility—broadband and wifi everywhere—would energize our economy the same way that rural electrification did in the mid-1930s.

There are lots of reasons why the backbone of our nation is crumbling, as is the case with any problem, but as a country we need a major dose of reality. Blame it on TV, blame on religion, blame it on Dr. Spock or on crumbling school systems, but wishful thinking and ignorance seem to be acceptable norms anymore. We need to honestly look at where we really are and where we’re going, and set some clear goals for where we want to be. The fact that the rate of change is accelerating is no excuse, to the contrary that’s what makes such an effort an imperative.

I’m by nature an optimist, but combined with all the other economic issues I’ve written about lately, things are looking pretty grim for my grandchildren.

According to a University of Michigan study, every year more people start home businesses than people who have babies (generally started at home too, we suspect).

The SBA estimates there are 25.8 million small businesses in the United States and 52% of them are home-based. Of the 23 million non-farm businesses, women owned 6.5 million of them. Two-thirds of new  firms survive at least two years, and about 44% survive at least four.

Major factors in a firm’s remaining open include having enough money (savings or loans), being large enough to have employees to help with the stuff you’re not good at, your education level, and why you started the firm in the first place—such as a better work/life balance or simply wanting to be your own boss. (That way if you hate your boss, you have no one to blame but yourself.)

At dinner last night we discussed what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur at length and concluded there is only one thing that matters: commitment. If you’re willing to do anything to make a business successful you probably will. There are successes started by people that were penniless, did everything themselves, and were high school drop outs.

But make no mistake, the idea of making thousands of dollars a week while you sleep ain’t gonna happen. Commitment inevitable means hard work, and long hours. The nice thing about having your own business, someone once said, is that you only have to work half a day—the only question is which 12 hours.

Yes, you can!