Growing a home business is a challenging, and sometimes daunting, endeavor. Historically, in the United States, the conventional wisdom held that business startups had a failure rate of 95 percent by their fifth year and that half fail by the end of their first year. However, in 2006, the Small Business Administration (SBA) (www.sba.gov) published more recent data that indicated that approximately 65 percent of startups survive the first two years. Those same numbers showed that after four years, 44 percent of startups were still operating.

Today, the question of how those statistics look after the severe recession during the past 18 to 24 months remains unanswered. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs whose home businesses have survived the first two years still have a chance to continue to survive and grow. Opportunities for expanding home businesses leads are different today as e-marketing has evolved and the number of online resources available has expanded.

The growth in popularity of 3G technologies is adding to the arsenal of tools available to home businesses to compete with larger, more established businesses. With the ability to reach out to customers and have them access Web sites via hand-held devices, small entrepreneurs are able to increase their sales revenue. In addition, the boom in social networks (such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others) provides still further opportunities to grow.

For example, one home-based hand-crafted jewelry business, Thorne Brook Designs, that started in 2006 and succeeded in growing for three years, is continuing to expand by e-marketing in widespread geographic regions through the use of Facebook. Admittedly, becoming proficient with information technologies takes time and effort that can otherwise be used to focus on the core business, but the double-digit growth of this one company during the current recession demonstrates its value.

The next technological opportunity may well come from mobile social networking via hand-held devices. As personal communication technologies become increasingly ubiquitous and more versatile, these platforms will increase in importance in e-marketing. The ability to shop online anywhere/anytime and then communicate with ever expanding networks of potential additional customers will present powerful opportunities for top home business leads and new sales. As customers buy from home businesses and then tell friends in their networks about their purchases, revenue growth will occur.

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