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Guest post by: Candice Clem Become an Author

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If you’ve picked up a newspaper, turned on the TV, or simply talked to some of your friends and family in the last six months, you undoubtedly know that the downturn of the economy has caused many Americans to become jobless. The unemployment rate in many states has skyrocketed; with California seeing unemployment numbers approaching 10% (almost double what it was a year ago). While many economists predict that we’ll be back on track in a year or so, there are still millions of Americans who have been displaced in the current economy who simply cannot wait a year for a stable job come along. As unemployment starts to run out for many, the outlook for the better part of 2009 is decidedly grim.

There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel, and it may come from a somewhat unexpected source: starting your own business. While many would laugh at the idea of starting a new business in this economy, the fact remains that many franchises have actually shown growth during the recession. While nothing is guaranteed, with many new low cost franchises now available, taking the small risk of starting a home business will quite likely pay off and create a stable job for anyone interested in starting their own work at home franchise. Here’s a look at some of the industries that have seen either growth or very little decline in the last year and a couple new franchises available in each category.

Vending
Weighing in at $28 billion/year, vending isn’t just spare change, it’s a massive industry with room for growth. Like it or not, when recession hits, people start to spend their money differently, and one of the industries that benefits is vending. Many Americans "trim the fat" economically by buying more fast food, grabbing a can of soda instead of a latte, or killing the afternoon munchies with a $.75 candy bar instead of a $2 energy bar. While these decisions may not be the healthiest choices, consumers clearly value a cheap meal when money is tight.

Revive Energy Vending offers a great alternative to the unhealthy choices of candy, energy drinks and soda by providing the Revive energy mint: a healthy blend of either guarana, caffeine, green tea and ginseng or a superfood blend of acai, goji and mangosteen. This product took almost 3 years to engineer and earned Revive Energy Vending the award of "Best Energy Supplement of 2008." To top it all off, the products sells at a whopping 285% markup, so it’s easy for a franchisee to deploy several of these machines and start making serious money, right off the bat.

For a different twist on vending, take a look at The Back Rubber. This work from home business takes the beloved American institution of leather massage chairs, places them in strategic, high-traffic locations and then generates substantial profits, with the only ongoing expense being location leases and electricity. As a franchisee with The Back Rubber, you can start with only a few chairs, earn a few hundred dollars a month and supplement your income, or you can place several dozen chairs all over town and quite easily reach a six figure income.

Internet Home Based Businesses
The allure of a work at home business is stronger than ever; offering more tax breaks for home offices than ever before and offering a completely viable business model due to the advent of internet telecommuting. It’s difficult to find a job where you can work from home completely, and it may be even harder in the current job market, but when starting your own home business, you can begin working from home on your very first day. Armed with a phone, a laptop and an internet connection, you have all the basic tools needed to run your business successfully, and the reduced overhead of a home business will only equate to bigger profits for your business.

Canyon Leasing is a frontrunner in the little-known industry of equipment leasing. Many SME’s (small and medium enterprises) fall into the predicament of needing specialized equipment (such as plotting printers or copy machines) yet they will either only use it a few times a year, or cannot afford to purchase it yet. This is where a Canyon Leasing franchise comes into play. By connecting SME’s in need of equipment with equipment vendors and dealers, Canyon Leasing allows even the smallest of small businesses to do business with the same tools as the multi-national conglomerates.

In a similar fashion, Instant Imprints offers one-off printing and embroidery, signs and banners. If you’ve ever needed to create some t-shirts to promote an event, or to give to your staff as employee appreciation, you have probably discovered the high cost of short-run silk screening. An example taken from a popular print shop shows that an order of 32 silk screened t-shirts will cost about 10 times as much as a larger run of a couple thousand. There is a great niche market for the people who only need a couple hundred prints of their company logo or event theme and Instant Imprints exists to fill the void. In addition to competitive prices on silk-screening, they also offer a plethora of other print services, such as embroidery, signs and banners; all designed to serve SME’s, sports teams and private parties.

While the outlook in our current economy is anything but great, there are still plenty of opportunities to make a great living and a home business is perhaps one of the best options with the least amount of risk. These are just a handful of the available work from home businesses currently available, and starting a home business now, although it may be a bit scary, can set you up to succeed in the current economy and then flourish once it finally comes back around.

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