David van den Berg
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 24, 2005 12:00 AM
In eight years, Lynne Brunetto has gone from having a home-based business to employing 18 in two southeast Valley offices.
Brunetto owns Community Wellness & Safety of Arizona, which provides such services as pre-employment fingerprinting, tuberculosis skin testing and notarized criminal-history affidavits for prospective teachers as well as hearing and vision tests for children.
The company is one of two non-governmental organizations in Arizona authorized by the Transportation Security Administration to do fingerprinting of aviation-industry employees, Brunetto said. advertisement
Every year gets better, Brunetto said of her business' growth.
She declined to provide specific revenue figures.
When Brunetto ran the business from her home, the company took its services to customers and her employees all worked from their homes. But there came a point where that no longer was feasible because her employees needed a place to work, Brunetto said.
We couldn't grow any more, said Brunetto, 42, a registered nurse who lives in Gilbert. We needed a place where customers could come to.
Brunetto's story is rare, according to small-business observers.
Fewer than 5 percent of home-based businesses nationwide move into storefronts, said Bruce Hodgman, deputy director of the Arizona office of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Hodgman was citing figures from a 2000 SBA study.
Home-based businesses tend to stay in the home, he said. People just really like working out of their home. They're very happy because of the lifestyle change.
Access to capital also keeps home-based businesses at home, Hodgman said. He said his agency works with people struggling to get capital to move their business out of the home.
Rudy Lewis, program director of the Maryland-based National Association for Home Based Businesses, said the home is a business incubator and there is little need for home-based businesses to move out into the community.
There's a lot of tools you can use to stay home, he said.
For those home-based business owners who do choose to leave, Lewis said it's not easy. Finding good employees is important, he said.
You've got to prepare to leave the home, he said. It's just not the same world.
When she started the business, Brunetto, wanted to have more time with her small children.
But one of the reasons she moved the business out of her house was to separate her home and work lives.
That's something people starting a home-based business need to find a way to do, she said.
If you had a regular job, you would work a normal 8-to-5 shift, she said. You have to be able to close the door to your office at closing time and know it will be there the next day in order to maintain a healthy family life.
Community Wellness and Safety's locations are 522 N. Gilbert Road, Suite 104, in Gilbert, and 8400 S. Kyrene Road, Suite 122, in Tempe. The Tempe office opened in April. |
Background-check rise small business' lifeblood 