Making work a party

More women are ditching the structure and stress of the office to peddle cosmetics, clothes -- even sex toys -- from home

By Molly B. Hamilton | Special to SunSpot

November 17, 2003

Kim Hilliard, 33, has been selling products for Southern Living at Home out her Millersville residence for 2 1/2 years. She is among a growing number of Baltimore-area women with home-based firms. "The business is very simple, but you really have to love it." (SunSpot photo by Donna M. Griffin / November 17, 2003)

After 12 years of attending Catholic school, Dana Barish was more than prepared to run a business.

Yet the products the Annapolis resident sells are a far cry from the conservative doctrine of her education. "Slumber Parties by Dana" is a home-based franchise selling sex paraphernalia -- what Barish, 33, describes as all the essentials to "put the sparks back into people's relationships and the spice back into their bedroom."

"It took me awhile before I got up the nerve to tell my mom what I was doing," said Barish, who became a distributor for Slumber Parties Inc., based in Baton Rouge, La., in March 2002. But with 90 active recruits, her mother's perception has changed. "She recently passed out my catalog at the family reunion."

Barish is among a growing number of women in the Baltimore region who are operating businesses out of their homes. While exact figures are hard to come by, more women are realizing that the best way to balance raising a family with earning an income is by using their home -- and their personal network of contacts -- to sell an array of goods.

And, not unlike the Tupperware parties introduced to American consumers in 1948, products ranging from clothing to jewelry to cookware -- even sex paraphernalia -- are holding their own against such standard home-sales fare as cosmetics and cleaning supplies.

Start-ups skyrocket

"When women are coming out of the workplace and are opening their own businesses, they have the flexibility of deciding what the heck they want to do," said Maureen Petron, a spokeswoman for the National Association for the Self-Employed, an organization of 250,000 member businesses based in Washington.

The association, founded in 1981, estimates that there are 9.1 million self-employed women in America.

"When you're doing all of these things [in running your own business], and you're playing a variety of roles, you need to love what you're doing."

Amy Robinson of the Direct Selling Association, a Washington-based group of 200 companies that provide products to distributors, agreed.

"Mary Kay sells cosmetics, but there are five million other products being sold out there," Robinson said. "Any consumer product you want to buy is available through direct selling. Seventy-five to 80 percent of direct sellers are women."

In fact, a NASE survey showed that the number of start-up businesses by women has grown by double digits annually from 2000 to 2003, significantly outpacing the growth rate of the 1990s.

The survey, the results of which were released last week, also found that women-owned start-ups are outpacing businesses established by men this year by a 2-to-1 ratio. Technology and workplace trends also have helped the situation, the association said.

"Women want the flexibility," Petron said. "They want to be able to have time to spend with their families, time to spend with their communities and time to spend with their businesses. They simply want to be able to better manage their home and work lives."

Women outpace men

Maryland and Baltimore officials are unable to estimate the number of home-based businesses. Mike Griffin, assessment supervisor with the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation, explained that while the state issues about 29,000 licenses each year, they apply to any type of home-based business.

According to NASE's survey of 1,000 randomly selected self-employed women and men, nearly a third of them reported starting their businesses since 2001, while 9.8 percent of them said they set up shop this year. That compared with 5.1 percent of male respondents reporting that they started their businesses this year.

In addition, 25 percent of the businesses owned by women provided professional services, 15 percent were in retailing and 13 percent were involved in a range of consumer services -- including plumbing and automotive repair -- the association's survey said. Sixty-seven percent of the respondents were from 35 to 54 years old.

While 85 percent of the women surveyed said they gave up working for somebody else to start their own companies, 43.7 percent said they changed careers to do so, the survey said.

In addition, 22.5 percent of them worked their businesses part time, NASE said, and the businesses are the sole source of income for 55 percent of the survey's female respondents. Only 40 percent reported having a spouse working full-time outside the home.