Physical Location for My Offline Biz....thoughts?

I have been contemplating the same thing.

I would personally go for the $500/month plan to have my own office. That way I could do videos and webinars and what not and not have to deal with all the background noise.

I know it's more expensive but I personally would go for that one.

Thanks RK, never thought of those issues! The $500 place is an old tattoo place that has some sweet floors and sort of cubicles. Cant get for few months tho.

I guess I can relate to your scenario... I used to work for companies located at other countries and we work and converse through Skype. I had a dog before that won't stop barking and family members that also don't seem to understand that I am busy at times. I guess transferring to an out-of-home office is a better option if you want the solitude and the peace of mind when you are working.

Right now there are lots of title companies, mortgage companies, real estate companies, etc. that are drastically down in numbers. What about approaching one of them to rent out an empty office in their space?

Would choose the storefront especially at that low price point. Shared space is destructing and seems to many amateurish, that's where most IT start-ups come from. Proximity to the house is also a big plus. My old office as a block away from my house and I enjoyed that fact tremendously
Good luck!

I've been looking into shared offices also and I actually like the idea. I would only be using mine for interviews when I hire sales people, so I wouldn't need to use it that much.

I guess it all depends on your needs. The offices I have been finding have conference rooms, break rooms, etc (starting at around $197 per month)..so if you did want to record anything you could use those rooms. I'm pretty sure the *roommates* would be respectable.

Ah yes, the dog as well...she's and "angel" but she growls when she wants in the office and growls to get out and growls and bumps my arm to go out every hour or less...I guess she's worse than the girls!

Working from home definitely has its drawbacks. My son is in JK, so still very young, and it has been very difficult getting a quiet house for those important calls I have to make sometimes.

$500 / month is a lot, but if you can swing it and your business is growing at a good pace, it can certainly pay for itself in no time.

Don't forget about a few of the little things that many people seem to overlook when renting that $500 a month space.

Utilities: Gas, Electric, Internet
Property Taxes
Insurance
Eating out more
Gas to drive back and forth
Upkeep, lawn care, snow removal
Trash Removal
Signage
Loneliness, some people just don't work well in an empty office.

There are others, but that is a quick list.

We have shared spaces here where you rent an office or desk space, get all the fax/mail/receptionist/etc. features AND can put your sign out front...so keep looking, they must exist in the good old Mother Country too.

You don't want something where people can just wander in and around, and talk loudly. Something "upstairs" is good for deterring that kind of behavior ("behaviour" for the Canadians).

Also some have furnished boardrooms you can book for a certain # of hours a month, included in the contract.

But really it comes down to the profit/loss analysis. Will the extra work you can do compared to now with all its distractions, plus the added income from having a physical place to meet people, add up to more than the cost of the place?

Probably does, probably does.

Ya Digital Traffic is right with it getting expensive pretty quick, BUT I'm a huge proponent of having your own office. I'm about 10 times more productive having a place to come to away from the wife and baby. Plus, since I moved out of my basement I've had about 20 meetings with clients here. That because you are way more inclined to say "let's meet at my office". It instantly gives you more credibility.

Typically commercial leases are for a few years so I would try and get it for a one year term. That might just make you feel more comfortable. However, because you are locked down you will hustle a lot harder knowing you have an office space to pay for.

I say go for it! Take that leap of faith.

Free feel to PM me if you have anymore specific questions.

Sean

Wow people are all over the place with this one. I'm glad I posted this because there are so many considerations I did NOT think of.

I am going to look at a few more shared places today while I'm out drumming up business (really nice day out and I can get out of the igloo for the day).

I know the issues with the dedicated places are mostly with a much higher over-all overhead and having to man it 9-5 m-f which is NOT where I want to be just yet. I still want to spend more on building my sales force and out with the business owners.

I think you hit it on the head Jay in that I have to consider it an income vs expenses as you are right, if I run into too much, it will NOT be profitable and may even eat into my passive income.

One of my first jobs was at a liquor store in Las Vegas and OH DO I REMEMBER THE RANDOM WALKINS and the quiet days!

Will let people know what I see today. So far the best prospect is this place Office Rentals/Leasing | Boardroom Rentals | Windsor | The Coffe Office as Jerry said it may produce some business by itself. But I am sort of stuck on the sign situation...can live with it tho.

I don't know if this is appropriate for your situation or not, but here's what I did..

I used to run an IT consultancy, where 99% of my work was at the clients offices. I thought I could get bigger clients / contracts if I oeprated from an office myself. I found some premises really close to my house that were a little rundown, but were being offered cheap because of that. With a little TLC, it looked great. I had a family member look after the office for me during the day, manning the telephones, liaising with suppliers / couriers etc.

What I found after 2 years, was that I had entertained probably 2 clients there, and the rest was still me closing deals at THEIR offices.

At the time, I also had a detached garage in my back garden, so I had that converted into an office for me. Nowehere near as big as the offices I had rented, but more than adequate for little old me. The family member still came over to look after things but he eventually found himself a new job and I used a VA for the telephone call taking.

I found that even stepping out of my house to walk a few yards to my garage was enough to take me out of the home mindset and I still managed to achieve a lot more work. Plus, in the UK at least, I still owned the "real estate" AND could still claim expenses off my home utility bills as working from home.

It seemed a win/win for me.

Moral of the story? - having an office made NO difference to me getting new clients, just took away from my bottom line. And, as someone else suggested, it's not just the office rent you have to think about. All the other bills and services you have to sign up to add up REAL QUICK!

Btw, I am checking with a real agent I sell leads to about shared space in their brand new offices. I think the one advantage to that is A LOT of real estate agents moonlight as sales people for other things and hell, why not give them commissions for work sent my way.

While I don't want to make it seem like I'm rushing you into something I can say from experience if you are looking for the absolute perfect space you're probably not going to find it. You'll always find little things that will hold you back from finally taking the leap.

Of course, you want something that is going to meet your needs, but I doubt that you'll find something that ticks every box on your list.

Weight the pros and the cons and then make your decision. If it's just not right for you right now then move on and revisit it in 6 months or so. Or set a monthly revenue goal that will then make it comfortable for you.

Being an entrepreneur involves taking risks and this is definitely one of them.

Hope that helps!

Sean

John,

Shared offices are cool. Have done that before. an advantage is that they have built in receptionists and office equipment... Plus you have a built in community to participate in while you are building your own. I like them. Thinking of doing it myself soon. Maybe not shared on this one, but am starting to miss "going to work", instead of always working. I "get" it.

Sometimes the feeling comes and passes, but I have thought of going back to the route of having an office with a few workers...who can be supervised and managed in house.

Yes we can all have virtual teams if we work hard for them, but in house is the most productive "IME".

Ps. It would be nice to have an office manager for times when you want to exercise your option of not going in. Or even to video manage sometimes. The owner of the last call center I managed in 2007 manages his "managers" that way.

A few years ago, in my advertising life, I bartered a motel
room (local, independent) for exposure in a publication I
was producing. They loved it.

Hugh

Well I looked all around today. There is so much office/retail space available its not even funny. I have my eye on a new plaza with 400sqft of brand new space for $500/mn all in! Unbelievable how cheap it is here. It is also off the beaten path (in a financial offices area) so I dont see random people looking for shelter. It would give me a sign space facing a highway. Still not sure I want to go that high just yet but it is minutes to my house.

I looked at a place today that was $250/mn with not one window, smelled like cigarettes and pot and had a garage next to it and the landlord tried to sell me a video package for my business! Sheesh. Is everyone doing offline?

Shared coffee office is still lookin like the best experience for the buck.

<edit>Opps, Just got call from my real agent friend said there is space there for $150 all in with internet as well.

You know I have worked from home and from a store front...and I would work from home any day. More flexiblity. But here is a suggestion...you can get a place just for meeting clients that shares a receptionist and space....for meetings and do the day to day stuff from home. goodluck

Hi John J,

Here's my experience...

Have worked from home. Have owned a dedicated office. Have worked out of shared spaces. All have their pros and cons. You just have to figure out how much you can afford to compromise for what you choose.

Working from home...

* Family distractions - Since I've been married distractions have been normal. However, I do take the time to explain to my wifey that if she distracts me i.e. steals from my time, I don't get paid, I don't get paid, the family suffers that much in lost income... that put paid to distractions to a high degree. As for the baby, since he doesn't understand all that, I have him at the nanny's during "office hours" and once he's home, I shut off the computer or if I MUST work, I ask my wife to help watch him.... I work in the living room facing the TV... I work better that way and manage to zone out all the noise from the TV or people around if I have to... so I don't get distracted.

For other people who take me for granted working from home, I make it very clear that though I work from home I ain't kidding around and won't tolerate any infractions on me, besides I buy a lot more new stuff than they do, more often so my purchases do more talking than I have to... by now people pretty much leave me alone all day every day even weekends... and since I love the peace and quiet, I ain't complaining.

Working from a dedicated office... This did nothing to increase business, it just ate my income more than any other thing... I had 5 full time staff and all that plus other expenses helped to shut that down quick when business was slow.

Working out of a shared office space is great as far as seeing people every day, it did nothing to drum up more business and did nothing more to make me work more, I am very hard working no matter where I work out of, I tend to think I am more productive when I can work at a pace I set and like and not have to wake up early, go out early, commute, then sit to work in a restricted space with restricted time. It may help me focus more sure but if I really wanted to, I'd focus very nicely no matter where I chose to work.

Frankly, here's where I am right now... had been considering going back to a shared office till I read your OP and the other posts, now I see I have a great deal working from home... my expenses are all in one space, not home and office--just home. The whole family's out the whole day... and so are my neighbors, there has never been a quieter place to work from during the day. I can't have serious business prospects and clients over to the house for meetings but I meet at their offices (I'm an independent contractor and consultant, people tend to expect ME to visit not vice versa, plus by visiting myself i control the arrival time and even the start of the meetings since I can take off if they waste my time and I make it clear I'm very time conscious so noone does waste my time anymore these days). Plus I can also have business lunches etc, if need be. if you wait for the client to show up, many times they won't, they'll give excuses and that'll be that, or they can show up anytime they like and you can't do a thing to control that either.

So, for me, home works best FOR NOW till anything major changes. For you, you have to see what works based on what compromises you can make and what overall costs are cashwise as well as non-cashwise. For us online folks, not everyone is in 100% the same circumstance though many have similar settings, some or many things vary.

Lastly, I like to look at things this way... I promote virtual services, so why do I NEED a physical presence when I can do it all virtually? This helps to sell my virtual services even easier... I get clients from way across town and even from other cities sometimes without ever meeting them in person--all done via email and phone.

Having an office does add prestige, so if you're willing to pay for prestige and can afford it based on what comes in monthly for you, then go ahead and pay for it. Otherwise, try to make what you CAN afford work by creating really serious boundaries etc where necessary. For example, if you work from home and have a dedicated room, keep it locked when you're there and even when you're not. Make it OUT OF BOUNDS... no negotiations, it ain't a family space... it's a work space. Period... may seem hard handed but have you ever met a happy business owner who didn't have boundaries and who didn't need to make the tough decisions?

Good luck,

Kunle

Have you considered any virtual offices? They don't require a lease, offer a lot of flexibility, and are usually in Class A office buildings. The last one I looked at had a program where you could use their facilities for a certain number of hours each month, and if additional time is needed, it was billed at $15/hour.

The biggest downside to these arrangements is that it isn't "your office," meaning you cannot leave anything there and the space you use (office, cubicle, or conference room) will not be the same each time.

OK, bit of an update. I finally found an ideal location for $500/mn for everything but net and phone. It is an off the side professional plaza (brand new) that has corporate offices written all over it (which is where I am at now). So I have decided to take shared space for 2 months and then when summer break starts, get it. The guy says nothing is moving fast anyway (most are moving back into their homes around me). It is 5 minutes away and TOTALLY projects what I am about.

So when the kids are starting summer vacation, I am moving in I hope.

The other advantage (maybe or maybe not) is I have access to angel investors in the area. Have not had much luck with them yet and dont really feel like I need them but at least I can have watercooler discussions with them to gain higher level clients.

Will keep people updated.

WOW! Sounds perfect John!

Good for you.

I was hoping you would go for the nice one. Honestly in 2003 my business partner didnt agree when I was deadset on the plushest office in Nashville... But you know what? The vibe in that place was so prosperous that it rubbed off on my employees and you couldnt RUN them away from their offices... then when it blew up so fast that we outgrew it, I kept it for corporate, and a few telemarketers...and I got a second location in a seedier part of town that wasnt as nice... and those telemarketers failed miserably, even the ones I sent over from my GOOD office.

I didnt blame them, the contrast made me feel cheap too training there.

Dont believe the hype. It DOES make a difference.

You feeling this good will make ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

Awesome!

Check out Regus. They have shared office environments all over the world. They have a wide range of options where you can do a virtual address with a few meetings a month or a full on serviced office, and lots of options in between. Plus you can access them anywhere they have a facility. I would suspect you could get right in too.

Might be a bit spendy, but not sure. Won't hurt to ask.

Speaking from personal experience if you decide to go the shared office route, see if you can find a business that could be a good long term partner. I don't know what services you sell, but if you can find a company that is not in a competitive space but has very similar targets you may get more long term benefits than say a real estate office. For instance, if you do websites and seo, find a good size pr firm that has space. They may be able to provide a lot more long term business once you have built that relationship just physically being there everyday. May take a bit of work to find that right place, but a good long term investment in my opinion.