What Do You If A Prospect or Client Asks You - "Do You Have An Office?" - The Solution!

My reply is that I work from home. It doesn't make sense to me to have to charge my clients more in order to pay for office space that is not needed for the work they will receive.

You could always get a virtual address. But if you're a one man band people are going to work at home because that's the cheapest option. True business people understand the reasons that you are working from your home.

Now with the price of fuel, it makes more sense than ever to work from home if you have that option available to you.

I'd say option 4 above....

I think if a potential client is asking "Do you have an office?" that's a closing question.
They probably wouldn't care if they weren't interested. What they want to know is
will they be able to contact you if they need help. Are you gonna be around if they
sign a contract with you.

I'd answer truthfully either, "Yes, let me give you our office address, it's _______________. And all of our business details, including my personal contact info will be in your welcome pack. Let's get you started and I'll get that right over to you...."

OR, "Actually I work from home. Our team meets online often and work together for our clients. In fact I'm sure you'll be meeting my assistant when we go over your welcome pack. But don't worry, I live and work in the city and am easy to reach 24/7. Are you ready to get started?"

I tell them I work out of my office here at the cigar lounge (smoking a CAO as I type this) but I'd be happy to meet them at a coffee shop (two doors down), at lunch, or at their office.

My point is - if you don't make it a big deal - they normally don't.

Also if they have that big of a problem with it I doubt I want them as customers.

Tim

Once my business is bigger, I plan on getting office that is shared with other people. You have a person who answers the phone, gets your mail, and acts like an employee but isn't. Also you do a have furnished office if you do want to meet clients there, and they do have a conference room you can use for bigger meetings. Also they have offices in other towns you can use while out of town. They have these in all cities big and small, in fact there is one 1 mile from my home for only $200 a month.

Because I'm an online entity I don't have a problem telling people that I am FORTUNATE ENOUGH to work from home. My office is the laptop I carry. Once I equate my situation to the online world, I seldom get looks or feedback about my office situation.

Especially when I'm pulling out my wallet to pay for lunch.

Keeping things positive instead of (almost) apologizing for not having one will make all of the difference in the world.

I get a lot of people saying, "Wow! You are one of those who go to work in your pajamas!". And, my standard response is, "Oh, you're supposed to wear pajamas???"

What a great ice-breaker.

PS. I had an office for about 10 years and have been working from my home for the past 2+. This is MUCH better.

Until they experience this for themselves and get comfortable with their business, it will continue to be an unfounded fear. In today's marketplace the location of an office is rarely a deal breaker, especially at home.

Be honest in answering them and develop a pat answer that you're comfortable with. I usually say "I have 2 studio offices in the home." It's true. I also make a policy not to have foot traffic or invite prospects in. Clients on occasion, yes. New advertisers that want to drop off money and "see" me, yes, but I control it.

For the past five years I've met most prospects and clients at their office (1st choice), local coffee shops and my local chamber (using their conference table).

Personally I think it comes from insecurity, fueled by fear of the unknown. I tell people a storefront or office will guarantee a certain percent of business. But is does not guarantee repeat business and will not capture everyone. If you can afford it, set up a public office, but in no way does it deter from your success. If a prospect makes it a deal breaker be thankful, you didn't want them as a client anyway.

The question itself shouldn't be a deal breaker, but there are a variety of underlying causes that can be behind the question that can cause real problems.

Meeting clients at their office is an excellent strategy btw!

Great post, Steve. The "office question" I believe speaks to whether you are an established business with roots, a history, and some sort of an organizational structure in place.

The inference is that if you have an office, you most likely have other clients, employees, fixed costs, elements of "legitimacy" that spell security and longer term reliability and stability.

Although I've rarely been asked the question, I have previously answered with:
"Though I do keep an office, it is primarily utilized by various staff for technical and administrative functions, as most client-facing work takes place at clients' offices throughout the city and I'm hardly ever there."

Cheers,

Hanif

I've been asked this many times over the years, sometimes I had an office, sometimes I hadn't. Currently, I don't have an office (but my partner is getting one this month for sales reps).

My typically response is this:

"No, I actually work out of my home - I only work with a select few clients and like to keep my business small and profitable. I don't want to grow and have a huge office, with overhead and have to raise my rates. I want to enjoy life and provide extreme value to my clients so I don't have an office. If you want to meet, I can schedule to meet at a conference room".

You can rent out conference rooms if you need to, or you can meet at a Panera Bread, Starbucks or any other location that has internet access, if need-by.

I haven't run across a business owner that doesn't "get" it, and if they don't, they're not for me.

The select few clients bit is top notch. It sounds like you have gotten good at filtering out the bad eggs.

If people ask I just tell them I work from home. I have yet to have anyone object to this. Because they are all jealous and want to work from home too.

Mainly when I get asked that question it is because people want to meet with me or drop by.

I meet with clients either at their place or at a restaurant or coffee shop. They always buy which is nice.

I may get an office someday. But I really like that pajama commute.

Answer to the question "Do you have an office"

"Are you kidding me? LOL" (Ad liberally from there).

When asked the question, "Do you have an office", I respond..."Why do you ask?", or "Is my having an office, important to you?" If it is important to them, I quickly terminate the conversation because they will become a member of "the dreaded circle of doom" client, who is never happy. Don't need them, don't want them because you see, I decide who I'm going to work with. I work for myself because I don't like bosses and I set the rules...not arrogant, just particular.

This has never been an issue when I told them I work out of my home office. Many consultants do this. And I also don't position myself as a "web guy." That may help.

Is this a challenge for some? Do your potential clients really have an issue with this?

I agree with Tiduslite8 as posted above. I'd let the quality of my work and excellent customer service speak for itself.

Alright - I'll be honest, after much persuasion - Steve has asked me to come on here and write a little bit of a post on a dilemma I'm facing at the moment. You'll see from my post history I don't really post much on Warrior Forum as I'm very underground. This is something I've always strongly believed and that is:

*It is important to separate work and home life. Running any kind of business is generally very hard work (at least to start off with) and you need to be able to at least forget about it somewhat at evenings and weekends*

Hold that thought, I'll come back to it in a moment....

Firstly - I want to have a little rant and address all of these people saying they work from home to save money or reduce overheads. There is nothing wrong working from home, (Heck, Steve does and I do some days - and I myself used to full time).

HOWEVER:

Please DO NOT use 'it will lower overheads for my clients' as the 100% excuse if you're doing offline consulting. This is total BS and really falls into the 'poverty mindset' category. Basically meaning 'i'm undercharging my offline clients, so I can barley scrape by earning a living and can't afford spending a few hundred a month on an office space'.

Don't get me wrong, if you're just starting out or if you're trying to quit working full time - I totally get that you have to keep overheads down.

However, if you are working full time providing internet marketing services or offline consulting to people - then you really need to consider having a basecamp and the money you earn should EASILY cover the costs. The monthly rent of a small office shouldn't really be an issue for you - unless you actually WANT to work from home as thats the lifestyle choice you've gone for.

(Hell, when I moved to Manchester in the summer - I went for an office 4 times the size of the last one and haven't taken on any more staff - I feel its that important).

So going back to what I said earlier, if you take work and home life seriously - it can be tremendously beneficial to have an office to switch yourself into 'work mood'.

Personally, even before I was earning a full time living - I managed to get a small shared office (like a hot desk facility) as I identified this really early on.

Since then I've been in a number of offices, and I don't really treat them like a conventional place of work - where everythings a bit dull and boring. I try and make them more like homes, without a bed. So I have a desk, but also inspiring decorations and general 'cool stuff' I guess. This keeps me happy, keeps staff happy and also anyone who comes to visit (I often have friends just pop in during the day to hang out - can be counter-productive, but its one of the benefits of what we do).

Which brings me to my own personal current dilemma.

I'm currently in the process of starting a new business, which is VERY VERY different to the stuff we do at the moment which is largely online.

It will involve meeting A LOT more clients face to face and also sometimes small teams of people.

My concern is, that our office is a little too informal to have these guys to for a meeting - they may walk in and either mistake it for a work at home flat, or even just generally not really 'get it'.

So my options are:

1) Have meetings in Starbucks downstairs (thats like what I used to often do with Steve in a different cafe as he said before)

2) Hire meeting rooms in a near by *boring* 80's business style office centre. Where they rent them by the hour. Convenient that its only next door, but they want to bill us for all sorts of extras on top of the hourly meeting room rental fee - including basic stuff like internet - which I don't really agree with.

3) Bring them into our weird and wonderful world. Where the office matches the brand and personality of my existing business - but won't fit in with the ethos of the new one - running the risk of looking a little unprofessional at worst - or a definite eccentric at best.

Anyway - that was a pretty long post! Be interesting to hear what you guys suggest!

As many have stated above, it's about a mindset wondering if you are "stable".