Times of prosperity conceal all kinds of inefficiency. Outside of base payroll, probably the greatest expense for most small businesses is office rent.
Your receptionist in a virtual office
You know what you have after you pay rent? RECEIPTS!! That’s it. That’s the list.
If your office or office-warehouse are now underutilized, perhaps it is time to rethink your specific needs.
There are various possibilities to consider.
- Reallocate space in existing office.
- Sublet an empty office or two, within your space.
- Renegotiate with your landlord to move into a smaller complex within your building or complex.
- Move your business operations into a home office and rent storage space.
- Rent a virtual office and rent storage space (if necessary).
- Move into an office (or office warehouse) sharing information situation. I’ve seen up to 8 or 10 businesses share space as a wedding one-stop situation.
Work style is a personal thing. You may find it too distracting to function in a home office. My dad (Martin Ebon), who worked as a freelance writer, from the time I was 12, until he retired, rented a share office space in Manhattan, walking distance from Grand Central Station. He took the train, downtown, every morning, and treated his work as a 9 to 5 job. He thrived within the discipline of that environment and enjoyed being just a bicycle-messenger trip away from publishers.
Jerry Edwards, CPCE (Chef’s Expressions) runs a highly successful catering business and also does consulting work. He regularly works from a beautifully designed home-office space 1-2 days a week. It is perfectly OK for staff members to call him with questions, if needed. However, he finds his physical absence from the office creates an atmosphere where people automatically do more problem solving, before picking up the phone to call him.
Today, one of the happy-medium opportunities is the choice to rent a Virtual Office Space, along with its associated amenities (answering service, receptionist, conference room and more).
For some businesses, that’s all that’s needed. For others, a Virtual Office is the means of separating your sales office from your operations or warehouse.
It’s true that for many people, a laptop with wireless access can allow you to have almost anywhere at anytime. However, an office in a virtual suite of offices is a great enhancement over meeting a prospective client in a coffee house.
Article about offices, anywhere
I was prompted to write this post after reading an article this morning in USA Today. describing a wide range of office choices by different businesses. A catering company is one of the examples.
It’s worth a read. There may be a nugget in the article for YOU to adjust or make a change.
Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority
Andy,
What a great article about the utilization of space. This recently became a concern for my photography studio. After evaluation of the use it became clear that we had more space than we needed for some tasks and not enough for others. We started looking around for a “different” space and found one just a block away that suites our needs and our evaluation is that after careful design our work flow will become more streamlined. It helps that I save $2000 a month too….
Thanks!
I love working from home but sometimes it’s a little challenging to keep work life separate from home life – especially since my husband is right next to me also working from home! I don’t think I’d trade it in for a “real” office space yet.
On a side note, that’s quite the resume your father had!