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Running a business from home is often the first choice for start-ups. You get the best of all worlds in terms of convenience and small overheads while you find your feet, and sometimes home remains the best place for your business operations.
It depends a lot on your business model. If you’re running a service that’s computer based, such as writing or as a virtual assistant, you don’t need much more than a fast internet connection and a quiet place for your computer.
Things get a bit more demanding, though, for other types of business, such as if you need to meet clients face to face, or you sell items and have an expanding stock inventory.
When you reach the point where your home no longer offers a comfortable or convenient base of operations, it’s time to look at your options for expansion or streamlining.
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Options to Consider When Your Home Business Outgrows Your House
- Warehousing – unless you’re experiencing (or planning) exponential growth, this option might be a bit overkill. You could think about sharing the space with a fellow entrepreneur, although you’d have to consider the legal ramifications and have proper contracts drawn up, so each party understands their obligations and liabilities. You’ll also have to factor in VAT and business rates when you’re working out your costs. In addition, security of the warehouse, such as appropriate locks on all doors and windows, and a suitable alarm system in place would need to be considered to ensure stock does not get stolen.
- Self Storage Units – can be a viable option for some business models that need storage more than office or workspace, especially when it comes to storage for online businesses. You’re not tied to a long contract, you have maximum flexibility regarding space so you can upgrade easily to take advantage of seasonal fluctuations, and some self storage facilities welcome business users. They’ll even help by taking deliveries when you’re not there.
- Flexible Offices – when you need an actual office, this is a new way of renting. Again, there’s no long contract to tie you down, they’re mostly carpeted with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities, totally private and professional, ready to move into complete with a phone line. If you do find yourself wanting to add any office furniture, you could check out sites like www.officemonster.co.uk to get some inspiration and see what’s available. Furniture is a great way for you to put your own stamp on a rented space.
When you reach the point in your business when you need to make some changes so you can move forward and carry on growing, it pays to take a moment and figure out what you really need. Unless money is no object (and for a successful business, money is always a big object), needs might come before wants.
Work out what you can afford, given the improved opportunity for better income that comes with enhanced working conditions.
Would Better Organisation Help?
A review of your figures might indicate you’re jumping the gun by thinking about expanding your base of operations. In that case, would a spot of reorganising at home let you move closer to affording business premises?
This especially applies to stock inventories.
Try one or two of these ideas to make your existing space work more efficiently:
- Have a regular stock take and cull your slow movers or non-sellers. A lightening sale can help shift stuff that’s hanging around too long, making way for more profitable lines.
- If you can’t have a stock room, have a stock area in the house so all your boxes are in one place and you can find them faster.
- Use transparent storage boxes so you can see what’s in there.
- Even with transparent boxes, use labels.
- Label your shelves as well as your boxes. Having areas of shelving dedicated to specific stock items means you can quickly see what’s low, and equally quickly unpack and shelve new stock as it arrives.
Do you prefer working from home?
If you have become used to working from home and do not want to change, we highly recommend that you consider running an entirely home-based business. This could be either making your business fully home-dependent or by purchasing a home-based franchise. If you are interested in learning more about buying a franchise, the good news is that there are a variety of different franchise businesses you can invest in and startup. An excellent place to start would be to visit a franchise directory such as Franchise UK to find the perfect franchise for you.
Digitise Your Records
If your business is very new and you’re not sure what records you should be keeping, the HMRC website is an excellent resource that explains everything. You can also still phone and speak to a person if you need some individual help.
It may not be possible to go completely paperless yet, but there is still a lot we no longer need to keep on physical record. Paper records take up a surprising amount of space, so cutting down frees up more room for stock.
When you’re considering digital records, remember to keep backups. It’s been repeated so often it’s now boring to hear, but it’s still too easy to put it off forever until it’s too late so it’s always worth a nudge to get it done.
- Use a separate hard drive, a flash drive, cloud storage, or a mixture of all three.
- Take a regular copy of all the important stuff on your computer onto a physical drive and keep it somewhere out of the house.
- Your self storage room or locker would be a good, secure place.
- Try and do this monthly so if the worst happens you haven’t lost years of work.
Hopefully, we’ve given you a few ideas to mull over as you think about moving your business to the next level. There are lots of options, and sometimes it just takes a little suggestion to spark off some new ideas of your own.