Half of all small businesses are home-based according to the SBA Office of Advocacy. But the SBA guaranteed fewer loans in FY2008, but only because of a “perfect storm” of tightened credit by commercial lenders, declining creditworthiness, and reduced demand for loans from small business borrowers uncertain about the future.

SBA posted a record year in 2007 with nearly 100,000 loans approved, but that number dropped by nearly 30 percent in 2008.  (About 1% of small business have SBA loans). Oddly, average loan size increased from $142,000 to $183,000 between FY2007 and FY 2008. But the good news is these loans may actually contribute to more sustainable and successful small businesses. You start off with more money, you’re more likely to succeed, in other words. Or at least last longer.

According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) only 3 percent of the owners cited the cost and availability of credit as their primary business problem, far from the record 37 percent reached in 1982. Additionally, 34 percent reported that they found the money they needed, compared to 5 percent who reported problems obtaining financing. (The remainder did not want/need to borrow).

We’ve compiled everything we’ve learned from 25+ years as a banker, investor, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur into an all new and up-to-date eBook. Finding Money—Secrets of a Former Banker includes information about small business loans, raising money from angels and other private investors, venture capital, government loans, grants, preparing a business plan or financing application, and other money management advice. Finding Money is available for immediate download. Order your copy today.

Here are a few concise tips to help you through this credit crunch. (Count on it lasting at least through 2009, and probably into 2010 if no other major events extend it.)

1. Use your credit, your cash is always good. Credit may be tight, but if you have credit lines and credit cards use them instead of your savings. (Just don’t get late on credit card payments. They’ll eat you alive).
2. Borrow if you can. That may seem to contradict tip #1, but if you can borrow, do it! Pay back the loan in a short time (six months). Think of the money you spend on interest as an investment in your credit rating.
3. Don’t over-extend or get cocky and cancel your credit line. If you’re in pretty good shape right now, be careful not to put yourself in a risky financial situation. Even if you don’t need it, hang on to your home equity credit line, if you have one. The bank has probably reduced your maximum because of depreciated home values, but that cushion could be mighty handy if you need it when other credit is tight. What’s more, canceling a loan with a good credit history can actually hurt your credit rating.
4. Don’t max out your credit line or your credit cards. It makes you look desperate—or careless—and now is not the time to have money people questioning your ability to pay
5. Keep your borrowings on lines of credit and credit cards at less than half of the available credit.
6. Don’t borrow short term for long term purposes.

We’ve compiled everything we’ve learned from 25+ years as a banker, investor, venture capitalist, and entrepreneur into an all new and up-to-date eBook. Finding Money—Secrets of a Former Banker includes information about small business loans, raising money from angels and other private investors, venture capital, government loans, grants, preparing a business plan or financing application, and other money management advice. Finding Money is available for immediate download. Order your copy today.

The term freelance made its debut alongside Robin Hood, “king of outlaws, prince of good fellows,” in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Set in 12th century England, this 1819 novel dubbed a medieval mercenary—someone who would carry his lance into battle for a price—a freelance.

Today, the country’s 10.3 million freelancers represent about seven percent of the U.S. workforce. They joust for work in a variety of fields such as writing, programming, graphic design, Web development, marketing, sales, law, accounting, engineering and art. The trend toward freelancing has grown steadily since the millennium. Career Builder’s 2008 Job Forecast indicates the momentum will continue. “In the midst of economic uncertainties, employers are turning to freelance or contract workers to help support business initiatives,” says the report. Almost a third of surveyed employers expect to work with freelancers in the coming year.

Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation cites four factors that have fueled the growth of the freelance industry:

The Social Contract of work—in which employees traded loyalty for security—crumbled.” In other words, when employers stopped being loyal to employees, no longer offering job security that would carry their workers from their first paycheck to their gold watch, employees stopped being loyal to employers.

“Individuals needed a large company less, because the means of production—that is, the tools necessary to create wealth—went from expensive, huge, and difficult for one person to operate to cheap, houseable, and easy for one person to operate . . . I call it Digital Marxism,” writes Pink, “In an age of inexpensive computers, wireless handheld devices, and ubiquitous low-cost connections to a global communications network, workers can now own the means to production.

Widespread, long-term prosperity allowed people to think of work as a way not only to make money, but also to make meaning.

The half-life of organizations began shrinking, assuring that the individuals will outlive any organization for which they work.

Merger mania, now-you-see-‘em-now-you-don’t startups, and spectacular implosions at companies such as Enron, Bear Stearns, and Arthur Anderson demonstrate the tenuous nature of employment today.
Pink also points out that we now live in a society where eighty-five percent of people were not around during the Great Depression. “The Great Depression profoundly and permanently affected the attitudes of the people who lived through it . . . that haunting economic fear—and the public attitudes it engendered—is no longer seared in the American consciousness,” writes Pink.

Fueling the demand side of the equation, companies both small and large turn to freelancers to:

• Lower costs by saving on benefits, employer share of taxes, offices and other organizational overhead;
• Reduce their operating leverage—by trading the fixed cost of an employee for the variable cost of a freelancer;
• Increase their access to skilled workers and slow the Baby Boomer brain drain;
• Keep pace in an environment of accelerated change;
• Gain access to new ideas and perspectives;
• Increase accountability (freelancers being the ultimate pay for performance workers);
• Quickly ramp up or down in times of growth or decline.

A trend with many names—outsourcing, offshoring, homeshoring, subcontracting, on-demand working, whatever you want to call it—is a trend that’s good news if you’re a prospective freelancer.

Remember the YouTube video your, um, friend posted on your behalf? The one where you were dancing the Macarena in combat boots and a pink tutu that belonged to your little sister?

Do ya’ really think IBM’s gonna be impressed when they see it? Not so much.

Before you go job shopping, Google yourself and see what lurks in your virtual closet. As simple as that sounds, a study conducted by ExecuNet, the executive career and business networking organization showed almost a quarter of executives have never done it. “For better or worse, the Internet provides recruiters and employers with a wealth of unfiltered information that’s used to evaluate candidates,” says Dave Opton, CEO and Founder of ExecuNet. “From a candidate’s perspective, there’s no question that managing your reputation online is as important as it is offline.” Their 2007 survey of over one hundred thirty independent and corporate recruiters revealed that over eighty percent use search engines to learn more about job candidates, and over forty percent have rejected people based on what they found.

Blog posts, Web comments about prior employers, book or movie reviews, photo or video posts, revealing memberships and unseemly nicknames or email addresses (e.g. IHateToWork@nothere.com) all contribute to a prospective employer’s decision about whether to hire you.

You might want to also take a look at the quantity of your online posts. If you’re a prolific blogger with a full time job that doesn’t pay you to blog, a prospective boss might wonder whether you’ll be blogging on company time.

In any event, you need to know what’s out there so you can start planning your excuses, er, strategy for deflecting them.