About 30 years ago, I came to the USA and had great difficulty finding a job as Civil Engineer. Most of my applications resulted in polite regret letters citing one reason or the other for the refusal. When I spoke to a friend (who had come here many years earlier), he told me that the reasons given in the letters were all nonsense. The real reason was that the companies had no jobs. I had committed the cardinal sin of arriving here during a business down cycle or economic contraction.  At the time, I did not understand the full implications of what he said. Now however, after many years in the USA, I have lived through several ups and downs of the Economy and have a healthy respect for the Business Cycle. Further, I often hear about some acquaintances who have suffered heavy losses in their business start ups. These are hard working and intelligent people, but they started their business near the peak of a business cycle; consequently they paid almost the maximum price for purchasing their business, just before it was ready to go into a slump. Buying a business near an Economic cycle peak is a very risky move.Different stages of the business cycle exhibit different characteristics-Near the peak of a business cycle, you may observe the following:Your commute takes longer (if you drive).You have to park further and further from the train, (if you commute by rail).You often have to stand in the train, bus or subway.At the mall, parking may take several minutes to find.Prices of groceries and gasoline go up almost on a weekly basis.All your neighbors have purchased new, often bigger and luxury autos.Your friends are putting up additions to their houses or remodeling their kitchens.Handymen need 30 days notice for the smallest repair job.People are very confident about the future.Near the bottom (or trough) of a business cycle:You often reach work early, because the commute is easier (if you still have a job).You get comfortable seats in the train and good parking.At the Mall, you park in under two minutes and the checkout is very quick.The newspaper has many coupons for things you can actually use.Repairmen are happy to come and give you a free Estimate for work.People are gloomy about the future.       So much for subjective observations. For more objective readings, an excellent source is the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) at www.nber.org/cycles/. According to their studies, the last ten business cycles had an average duration of 67 months, with 57 months up and 10 months down. So roughly, we can say that we have 5 years of expansion followed by 1 year of contraction. Incidentally, the Economy last peaked in December 2007 and this was formally recognized in December 2008.While the NBER readings are an excellent and authoritative source of information, their determinations are made several months after the peak or trough is over. If you are interested in anticipating a recession or recovery before it begins, the Stock market is an early predictor of a turn in the economy. For this, you can look at a chart of the stock market as represented by the S&P 500 index and superimpose the 150 day and 200 day averages. The averages are useful in smoothing out the day to day gyrations of the market and show the general direction, or trend of the market, as smooth lines. These lines serve as advance indicators. In an expanding economy, these lines have an upward slope. As the economy begins to weaken, these trend lines flatten out and gradually turn down. This is a fairly reliable sign that economic growth will soon turn negative. Several months later (say 9 to 18), these lines again turn up, signaling that the economy will soon be improving.These trend lines can also be used as stock market entry and exit signals. In the 2000-2001, as well as the 2008 market meltdown, these signals could have saved the stock market investor from considerable losses, roughly 30-35% in each instance. So it pays to be aware of the Business Cycle.Let me quote from the 1969 hit song “Spinning Wheel” by the pop group “Blood Sweat and Tears.”"What goes upmust come downspinning wheelgot to go aroundtalkin’ ’bout your troublesit’s a cryin’ sinRide a painted ponylet the spinning wheel spin”(Blood, Sweat & Tears, 1969)In general, anybody who buys an economy-sensitive business or makes a large investment in the late stages of a business cycle, risks undergoing an experience involving “Blood, Sweat and Tears”, when the Economy does its next swan dive.

Your search for an easy home based business probably won’t produce what you’re hoping for. The thought that one can uncover a hidden gem type business that allows you to cash in without working hard is a mistake. Far too often we fail to see reality because we only see the success stories of the individuals who are making it appear simple. Although finding a simple 1-2-3 easy home based business is like trying to find a needle in a haystack, you CAN make your journey to success easier by following a few simple guidelines.Why Some People Make The Easy Home Based Business ClaimFirst of all, you need to understand the difference between an easy home based business and people who make it appear to be easy. Recalling a particular event I attended, I listened as a team member boldly announced “this is the easiest thing I have ever done in my life.” While she found the process easy to implement and make money with, it can send the wrong message to people. It can force people to setting unrealistic expectations concerning their personal results, since everybody brings various skills and personalities to the table. Background, previous experience, and established skills are all part of the reason that some people are being honest about working with an easy home based business. In her case, it was easy because she already developed business skills, people skills, and already carried a certain level of influence with people. Not everybody starts a business in the same way, with the same skills.
Guidelines For Your Easy Home Based Business Journey1. Begin with proper expectations. When a result doesn’t match the expectation it is easy to get frustrated and give up. If you have never run a business before, never been self employed before or never worked from home before, it wouldn’t be realistic to assume the same easy home based business claim that others might. Most likely it will take time for you to develop the necessary skills and self discipline required to build a serious business. Overnight success is an anomaly in the home business arena. When you hear the stories about people who attain quick success, you are not hearing the whole story. For most of those people, that success was the result of failing forward, meaning they probably made several attempts before they found a niche where they could use the skills they learned. Expectations are a double edge sword, because you need to have positive expecations for results while expecting that challenges are a part of the process.2. Commit yourself completely. Building a flourishing home business takes time and patience. If you are not naturally a patient person, you need to learn it quickly. Commitment means seeing your goals through completion. This will require that you learn new skills and become devoted to mastering those skills. Making a commitment also means that you will discipline yourself to investing a specific amount of time to your business each day or week. An easy home based business is not found, it is created by your commitment to follow through.3. Make appropriate sacrifices. Learn to view everything as short term sacrifices for the long term gain. If you genuinely want to grow to be a professional you will have to give up to go up. This means saying good bye to certain habits or luxuries like watching TV, evening outings with friends, or relaxing after a day at work. You have a new business now, and much like a new baby, it requires your time and attention in order to flourish. In the beginning you have to expect that your life will get out of balance, where working becomes a bigger priority. Eventually when you build it right, you can say good bye to your day job and resume rewarding yourself with some fun!4. Work in your area of passion. When you are looking for an easy home based business, keep in mind that although you won’t find an easy ticket to success, your journey will be much easier if you choose something you can get totally excited about. You need a product or service that you can truly stand behind and are excited to learn about and share with others. Nothing can throw a big wrench in your learning curve like buying into a business you have mediocre feelings about.5. Support is a must. Given that an easy home based business is really not that easy, having a good support team is vital. Please understand that not everybody is going to understand why you missed the party, or are always busy, and you may lose friends along the way. If you are married or have children it is important they be on the same page with your goals, so they can give you the time you need to build your business. When you face a challenge or difficulty, you need to have people around you to uplift you and encourage you. You will also need additional support besides your family. When you start you new business make sure the company offers the support and training that you will need to develop your skills.Easy Home Based Business Is Like Following A RecipeAs stated, succeeding with your own business doesn’t equate to landing that perfect easy home based business. It has more to do with knowing how to make your journey to success a little easier. Getting to your destination will not be a piece of cake. No two people follow a recipe exactly the same way, making the result just a little different for everyone. Besides, doesn’t the recipe always taste sweeter when your hard work and effort finally produces the result you want? An easy home based business is merely a business made easy by overcoming obstacles and failing forward.

Equipment Financing/LeasingOne avenue is equipment financing/leasing. Equipment lessors help small and medium size businesses obtain equipment financing and equipment leasing when it is not available to them through their local community bank.The goal for a distributor of wholesale produce is to find a leasing company that can help with all of their financing needs. Some financiers look at companies with good credit while some look at companies with bad credit. Some financiers look strictly at companies with very high revenue (10 million or more). Other financiers focus on small ticket transaction with equipment costs below $100,000.Financiers can finance equipment costing as low as 1000.00 and up to 1 million. Businesses should look for competitive lease rates and shop for equipment lines of credit, sale-leasebacks & credit application programs. Take the opportunity to get a lease quote the next time you’re in the market.Merchant Cash AdvanceIt is not very typical of wholesale distributors of produce to accept debit or credit from their merchants even though it is an option. However, their merchants need money to buy the produce. Merchants can do merchant cash advances to buy your produce, which will increase your sales.Factoring/Accounts Receivable Financing & Purchase Order FinancingOne thing is certain when it comes to factoring or purchase order financing for wholesale distributors of produce: The simpler the transaction is the better because PACA comes into play. Each individual deal is looked at on a case-by-case basis.Is PACA a Problem? Answer: The process has to be unraveled to the grower.Factors and P.O. financers do not lend on inventory. Let’s assume that a distributor of produce is selling to a couple local supermarkets. The accounts receivable usually turns very quickly because produce is a perishable item. However, it depends on where the produce distributor is actually sourcing. If the sourcing is done with a larger distributor there probably won’t be an issue for accounts receivable financing and/or purchase order financing. However, if the sourcing is done through the growers directly, the financing has to be done more carefully.An even better scenario is when a value-add is involved. Example: Somebody is buying green, red and yellow bell peppers from a variety of growers. They’re packaging these items up and then selling them as packaged items. Sometimes that value added process of packaging it, bulking it and then selling it will be enough for the factor or P.O. financer to look at favorably. The distributor has provided enough value-add or altered the product enough where PACA does not necessarily apply.Another example might be a distributor of produce taking the product and cutting it up and then packaging it and then distributing it. There could be potential here because the distributor could be selling the product to large supermarket chains – so in other words the debtors could very well be very good. How they source the product will have an impact and what they do with the product after they source it will have an impact. This is the part that the factor or P.O. financer will never know until they look at the deal and this is why individual cases are touch and go.What can be done under a purchase order program?P.O. financers like to finance finished goods being dropped shipped to an end customer. They are better at providing financing when there is a single customer and a single supplier.Let’s say a produce distributor has a bunch of orders and sometimes there are problems financing the product. The P.O. Financer will want someone who has a big order (at least $50,000.00 or more) from a major supermarket. The P.O. financer will want to hear something like this from the produce distributor: ” I buy all the product I need from one grower all at once that I can have hauled over to the supermarket and I don’t ever touch the product. I am not going to take it into my warehouse and I am not going to do anything to it like wash it or package it. The only thing I do is to obtain the order from the supermarket and I place the order with my grower and my grower drop ships it over to the supermarket. “This is the ideal scenario for a P.O. financer. There is one supplier and one buyer and the distributor never touches the inventory. It is an automatic deal killer (for P.O. financing and not factoring) when the distributor touches the inventory. The P.O. financer will have paid the grower for the goods so the P.O. financer knows for sure the grower got paid and then the invoice is created. When this happens the P.O. financer might do the factoring as well or there might be another lender in place (either another factor or an asset-based lender). P.O. financing always comes with an exit strategy and it is always another lender or the company that did the P.O. financing who can then come in and factor the receivables.The exit strategy is simple: When the goods are delivered the invoice is created and then someone has to pay back the purchase order facility. It is a little easier when the same company does the P.O. financing and the factoring because an inter-creditor agreement does not have to be made.Sometimes P.O. financing can’t be done but factoring can be.Let’s say the distributor buys from different growers and is carrying a bunch of different products. The distributor is going to warehouse it and deliver it based on the need for their clients. This would be ineligible for P.O. financing but not for factoring (P.O. Finance companies never want to finance goods that are going to be placed into their warehouse to build up inventory). The factor will consider that the distributor is buying the goods from different growers. Factors know that if growers don’t get paid it is like a mechanics lien for a contractor. A lien can be put on the receivable all the way up to the end buyer so anyone caught in the middle does not have any rights or claims.The idea is to make sure that the suppliers are being paid because PACA was created to protect the farmers/growers in the United States. Further, if the supplier is not the end grower then the financer will not have any way to know if the end grower gets paid.Example: A fresh fruit distributor is buying a big inventory. Some of the inventory is converted into fruit cups/cocktails. They’re cutting up and packaging the fruit as fruit juice and family packs and selling the product to a large supermarket. In other words they have almost altered the product completely. Factoring can be considered for this type of scenario. The product has been altered but it is still fresh fruit and the distributor has provided a value-add.The idea for factoring/P.O. Financing is to get into the nuts and bolts of every single deal to ascertain if it is doable.