By Kyle Courtright
As a small business owner, a question that I hear fairly frequently is, “So do you work from home or do you have an office somewhere?” When I tell people that I work from home, the follow up question I sometimes hear is, “Do you want to eventually have an office space somewhere else?”
How do you decide? What are the pros and cons?
One of the biggest and most obvious factors is money. For a retail space to make sense, it needs to increase your revenue enough to cover the cost of rent and then some. If you only are getting retail space to move your desk from your home to your new office space, that may not be a financially responsible decision. Retail space doesn’t come cheap.
If you’re looking for a change of scenery, head to Starbucks for an afternoon, or go sit outside to make calls. Moving to a retail space solely to switch things up is going to cost you. However, if opening a retail space allows you to be more productive, ship more orders, and hire new employees, then it could be a great decision!
On the flip side, if you are currently in a retail office space and money is tight, switching to a home office could help put a little more cash in your pocket. Would it be an adjustment? Definitely. There would be logistics to figure out but it could pay off in the long run.
There is something to be said for separation between home life and work life. Sometimes it can be tough to balance the two from a home office. If you’re anything like me, it’s tough to turn of your “work brain” quickly.
When I graduated from college I got a job working for a company that was about 30 minutes away from my apartment. At first, the commute was tough, but after awhile I began to realize that those 30 minutes were really helpful. It allowed me time to decompress after a long day, and gave me time to turn off my work brain.
It all comes down to your business, there’s not one right answer that works for everybody. What are your day-to-day needs? Would you be willing to make the switch?
Just because at one point a home office made more sense, doesn’t mean it will always make more sense. As small business owners we all have to learn to be flexible, and to make changes as our businesses grow. Will there be growing pains? Absolutely. Small business owners are tough. I work with small business owners everyday, and they never cease to amaze me. Learning to grow with your business is hard. Having the right type of office space goes a long way in the day to day success and efficiency of your business.
What about you? What office space works best for your business?
