4 Reasons to Move Your Work From Home Business Into an Office
By Nick J Jones
Why you should look for office space rather than work from home.
Working from home is often seen as 'the dream'. Telecommuting, as it is sometimes known, is pitched as a great way to work. Surrounded by comfortable surroundings, no office politics, no stressful commute with huge traffic jams and no petrol costs - it is easy to see the attraction of setting up business working from home.
And it certainly has its benefits for those starting a company. I am currently going through the process of starting a recruitment company working from home and I am very much enamored by the cost savings... but as soon as the money starts coming in I shall be moving the home office out of the spare room and into a serviced office space.
But why? Surely with so many benefits it is better to work from home than it is to work from a office space?
Maybe, but too often the benefits of home working are sold to you whilst the downsides are, well, down-played. So here I am going to give you a chance to understand just what they are.
- Professionalism.
One of the more obvious ones. If you have a client request to meet you at your 'office' it is unlikely that your front room/dining room/office area, no matter how smart, will give the right professional image that you are trying to convey. Working from an office, especially serviced offices, will provide you are far more professional business face to present to clients, both current and prospective. - Separating work from the rest of your life.
If you work from home it is far too easy to nip into the office (aka the spare room) to do just a little more. I am already finding that my work life is eating more and more into my personal life and anecdotes from other 'work from home' individuals I speak to say much the same thing. If you are going to work from home successfully you need to be able to easily press the 'stop button' on your business brain... always difficult for anyone starting their own company. For those unable to separate, getting any sort of office space, even if using someone else's garage (as a last resort, see point 1), should be seen as one of the first and most vital expenditures. - The value added services.
Starting a home business does save you money, but it doesn't give you those 'value added services' that you get from office working. The onsite professionals to deal with server issues, phone lines and fax machines (the bane of my life). The value of having a receptionist as part of your building fees shouldn't be underestimated. They can help with useful things like call blocking or forwarding, meeting customers and providing an additional 'professional face' to your business. - Ease.
Renting an office or even just a desk in an office somewhere is a lot easier than turning that spare room into an office. In the office you just turn up (assuming it is a serviced office). For the work from home business you have plenty of things to do. Never mind any clearing out any furniture/junk in there you also have the efforts of fitting in extra telephone lines, talking to the local council about change of use for part of the building, rearranging insurance in a manner that doesn't violate your current insurance or mortgage and many many other 'little things' that take up time and money.
Now I am not suggesting that working from home is a bad idea, as I said I currently setting up a work from home business myself. What I am saying is that you should consider the cons as well as the pro's before deciding if office or home working is right for you.
Whatever you decide, I hope it works out for you.
Nick (sometimes known as Recruitment Nick) is an entrepreneur currently starting up his own work from home recruitment company.
He is blogging about his efforts, including providing helpful articles and tips, over on his business start up blog. This is his 2nd start up, having previously startup up and run a small business marketing firm for 2 years.
Other achievements include setting from scratch up a number of recruitment arms for various companies and managing to ignore the credit crunch!
Follow his efforts on http://recruitmentnick.net
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