Should I Keep My Office, or Work From Home?

Commentary October 25, 2010 at 01:27 PM
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Last week I blogged about a client who has faulty expectations. A number of you made some great comments, and for that, I thank you (here's an example). Should I fire him or not?

I believe that will be inevitable, but for now I will take the "wait and see" approach. There is always a potential downside when you fire a client. However, in this case the client is 600 miles away and not closely connected to my local area. Therefore, any sour grapes he may develop over this will likely not cause negative repercussions. I will probably allow more time to pass before making this decision. Let's move on.

Another issue has surfaced recently, at least in my mind. Should I maintain an outside office or move it back to my home? I have had an office outside my home for about two years now. It occurred to me the other day that I only spend about two to three days a week there. The rest of the time I work from home. Basically, all I need to conduct business is an Internet connection and a desk. Having an office separate from the home does add a level of credibility, though.

This is not a cash-flow problem as the business is strong enough to support an outside office. It's more of a matter of utility. Am I getting the maximum utility from my office? The answer is clearly no. Moreover, I have no employees at this time so the decision is one which affects myself, my clients, and, of course, future clients. I decided to "poll" my existing clients and here's what they've said.

 

I framed the question by saying this decision will be greatly influenced by my clients. If they feel I should leave my office where it is, then that's what I'll do. If they feel that moving my office to my house is absolutely no problem then I would take that into serious consideration. So far, they believe that I should move my office to my home.

The only possible downside I can see is with a potential new client. In my experience the ultra-wealthy like to meet at their place as they are usually very busy people. In this case, having a home office has no downside. Another option would be to secure a neutral place to conduct meetings. There are a few places in the city that offer "virtual office" services. For a mere $20 an hour, I can rent a nice conference room with all the amenities.

In any event, even though this decision is not under consideration due to a cash-flow crunch, it would save about $1,500 a month which could be deployed to other areas of the business.

I should mention that our new house is a five-year-old custom built home with over 5600 square feet of living area. We bought it from the bank for a little over half price.

What do you think? Office in the home or not?

Thanks for reading.

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