Power surge - RB Balch & Associates Inc.'s Rochelle Balch as Entrepreneurial Woman SOHO Business Owner of the Year - Entrepreneurial Woman

"I just decided to do it," says Rochelle Balch, 47, explaining the decision to launch her own computer consulting firm four years ago. "[I figured] if it worked, great. If it didn't, I'd be no worse off."

Turns out, Balch ended up a whole lot better than merely "no worse off." The transformation from downsized employee to founder of Glendale, Arizona-based RB Balch & Associates Inc. lifted the homebased entrepreneur into an entirely new stratosphere. Last year, she recorded sales in excess of $2 million. This year, she expects to download $2.5 million.

Not that it happened easily for our Entrepreneurial Woman SOHO Business Owner of the Year. Indeed, Balch pulled many an all-nighter during her business's first few years. Sure, she'd heard how important it was for homebased entrepreneurs to set up boundaries for themselves to keep from burning out - but to Balch's way of thinking, that just wasn't realistic. "When you start off, you're [working] 24 hours a day," she says. "I don't care what anybody says - that's just what you do."

And that's just what she did. Although it was difficult landing those first few accounts, Balch's computer consultancy went into overdrive once U-Haul agreed to give her a shot in the summer of 1993. "I told [the manager] I was new and really wanted him to give me a chance," she says. "He could have said no and hung up like all the rest of them, but he said, 'All right, let me see what you've got.'"

Since that pivotal moment, Balch and the 30 independent contractors who work for her have gone on to consult with other big-name companies such as American Express and Circle K. As if running a thriving business and raising a 12-year-old daughter weren't enough, Balch also finds the time to participate in a variety of community volunteer efforts, including teaching classes to homebased entrepreneurs.

Any advice for women entrepreneurs hoping to follow in her footsteps? "The main thing is you have to be extremely confident," Balch urges. "You have to exude confidence - it has to be dripping out of your pores."

And whatever you do, Balch stresses, don't sell either yourself or your business short - especially if yours is a homebased operation. "You can either be an itsy-bitsy homebased business and treat yourself as somebody who works at home," she says, "or you can treat yourself as a business owner who happens to be based out of your house and portray [a professional] image."

Clearly, Balch made the right choice - and she knows it. Far from eager to run her business out of a commercial office, Balch is instead planning to move her family and company into a two-story house later this year. The move makes sense: With a booming business and a soon-to-be-teenage daughter besides, Balch needs the extra space.

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