Because Arise works with its agents as independent contractors, there's another wrinkle in their business model that makes them attractive to potential clients. Arise agents actually pay for the privilege of being trained to work for a particular client. This gives them far more motivation to deliver on their performance goals than an hourly employee who's just punching the clock.

And there's no shortage of such motivated people: While it's got those 7,500 agents on board already, Arise has almost twice that amount-some 14,000-being evaluated and trained in the pipeline today.

The evaluation, mind you, is a two-way street. Because qualified home-based agents have a number of companies they could work for today, including Arise competitors such as LiveOps, VIP Desk, and Alpine Access. A few larger companies also play in the space, such as West Corporation's West at Home division, TeleTech's Teletech at Home, and professional services giant Convergys.

Arise saw its top line grow nearly 100 percent in 2006 and is looking at another 100 percent in 2007. What's more, contracts the company has signed for 2008 are triple the total of 2006.

Most recently, Selden says Arise just signed a five-year deal worth eight figures annually with a Fortune 100 company.

And there's more where that came from: Despite all the xenophobic political posturing over the moving of American jobs overseas, companies still spend $150 billion annually in the U.S. on call center services.

If she has her way, Selden and your neighbor down the street are going to be taking an ever-bigger piece of that action.