For anyone starting up a business that we intend to go places, those early sacrifices can throw up a multitude of Sophie’s Choice-style outcomes. For example, when we are looking at a productive working space, we could feel that a commercial property is the only way to go. After all, the benefits of having one have been shown to increase productivity, the company culture, and the list goes on. But when it’s just us, and we are at the very beginning, by ourselves, with one computer and a dream, can we get by with a home office? And specifically, can we build a massively successful business from a modest home setting?
The Growth Factor
At the very beginning, all we need is a small setup, and while it’s simple enough to keep us afloat, especially as we don’t have to pay out for a office space, how realistically can we grow a business from home? When building up a big business, even from within the comfort of our own home, we still have to work hard at that professional imagery. No doubt you’ve been on many business websites where you think that they don’t really care about the image they present, not just because they work from home, and clearly it’s a very unprofessional setup they’ve got, but the website looks shoddy, and there’s no sense of effort in any of the imagery or content. When working from home, the address we have has to be on our contact details. But when you have a residential address on your correspondence, this may very well communicate to potential clients that you aren’t that professional. Instead, invest in a mailbox service. There are many virtual offices that provide these services for a monthly fee, and this is a very tiny example of what the little things can do, as far as increasing your professional aesthetics is concerned. We have to remember that in growing our business, we still have to keep some sense of rigidity and professionalism. Because we are growing a business out of our home, it means that we shouldn’t get complacent. Blurring our work and life together can be easily done in the home office environment…
The Work-life Balance Dilemma
In many ways, a home office can be limiting, especially when you envision the sky being the limit. What we have to give weight to is, when growing a company from our own home, that we don’t succumb to some form of complacency. Working at home, as has been discussed before, can be very difficult, but for those people that have to clock in and clock out in an office setting, find that the environment can stifle them, and they would want to work at home, purely because they would want to have a lie-in, or laze on the couch. This is not an option for us when we are working at home; we have to set up a working environment, and we have to stick to it. And while there are so many positives to working at home, if we begin to embody that working at home mentality where we can complete a task whenever we want to, this is not going to result in steady growth. When it’s just you working, you have to motivate yourself.
Do We Outgrow Our Home Office?
It depends on the growth of the company, and what you really want to communicate to your clients and customers. For many businesses, this home-grown aesthetic becomes part of the USP. The small manufacturers of food based products that boast natural ingredients are all about the home-grown imagery. But if this isn’t part of your master plan, and your company is increasing at such a rate that you have to go up to an office space, this is a natural part of the journey. But when you’re hiring other employees, this can prove to be a big drain on your finances, no matter how fast you are accelerating. In which case, a home working set up is vital. There are many businesses that do this successfully, and it’s a fantastic way for you to keep track of the pennies, and while anxieties may arise as far as communication is concerned, you can get a comprehensive provider like Optimum that can cater for every communicative aspect. It provides your telephone, your internet, your streaming, and it’s all going to help as far as managing these remote employees are concerned. In this respect, a home office is all you need.
There are plenty of examples where people have started businesses out in their garages or spare rooms, but for those that made a success of their endeavors, it wasn’t just about the hard work, it was about that idea of being professional, regardless of the environment. We can all feel excited about growing a business from our home because we don’t have to commute or pay extra money, but this is only one piece of the puzzle.
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