You’ve been running a business out of your home, and doing a great job of it. It’s hard to survive as an entrepreneur these days, so you deserve an applause for making it past the hard part – the launch. Now you’re steady, and your name is out there. People are calling and it’s time to expand. But how do you know when an office space is part of that expansion? Ask yourself these questions:
Are you running out of places to meet clients? Coffee shops work fine when you are a one-man show starting off, networking and getting your feet wet in your market. However, as you grow, you need an image to match your size. When the big dealers come through your doors, it’s best if those doors lead to your office, and not to the corner coffee shop. Not only that, but as you may already have found, the noise and chatter around you in a café, plus the lack of high-speed Internet and tiny table space can be a barrier to working comfortably.
Do you have employees? Are you about to hire employees? While sometimes it’s great to have work-at-home employment arrangements, keep in mind that so long as your staff work remotely, you can consider them consultants. There is not much control over a team that works without a monitoring system, let alone the impact of collaboration. If you plan to outsource, consider what parts of your business should definitely remain in-house. You will find that even if your team consists largely of sales reps on the road a lot, there needs to be a touch down point of some sort. Where will they go if they need supplies? What if their computers go down, are they out of a job until they’re fixed? As an employer, you need to consider these factors and provide the right space for employees to be productive and feel like they’re part of your company.
Do you hold lots of meetings? Perhaps your company is run by partners. In that case, your meetings will only get longer as your business grows. Sitting around a coffee table in the living room won’t cut it when work needs to get done and there are children playing or other distractions keeping you from concentrating. Often it works the other way too – your living mates might find you a disturbance to their own personal life. Simply put, you need a boardroom.
Are you productive working at home? You can answer this question for yourself honestly and truthfully. When your work is separate from your home environment, do you get more done? This is a personality trait that can go either way for different people. Even if you have a home office, if the answer for you is “no”, then be sure that as your business demands more from you, an office space will be a requirement.
Do you get walk by traffic or in-person drop-offs? If so, this should be a red alert to you – you need a professional space where clients, customers and potential business can find you, and not your house. Running out of a home as a mortgage broker, accountant or similar service where meeting with clients is necessary (maybe not daily, but certainly often), then be sure that sometimes you’ll get an expected visitor who thought they could just stop by to get something to you instead of mailing it. Even worse, if you use a post office box that is not labeled as “PO Box”, your customers will feel severely inconvenienced. It makes a difference to have a “just in case” space for your professional image. Even if you need to utilize a virtual office for now, take this point seriously.
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you are likely a prime candidate for an office space. Don’t feel like an office space will be a drain on your budget – if anything it should be considered an investment. It will not only help you, it will benefit your clients and your staff, and thus your business overall.
