Home vs. Office Space

[akj]

For those of you who do photo restoration for a living, do you work out of your home or do you rent an office somewhere? I can see where there would be advantages and disadvantages for each. What do you think they are? If you work out of your home do you ever have customers come to you? Do you have signs, a meeting area, etc.?

Just curious!

Amanda

[Ed_L]

Hi Amanda,

I think some of the advantages of having an office outside the home is that many people will see that as a sign of a legitimate business, and you would probably have a better location. If the location is good enough, you might get by with less costly advertising. It would also certainly be easier to keep your work in front of the public. The biggest disadvantage might be cost. Not only would you have the rent to pay, but you would have travel, and maybe higher insurance premiums. In most areas, you would likely have to take in quite a bit more work in order to justify the move. Your 8 - 12 hour day might turn into a 14 - 16 hour day. If you are running a successful business now, you probably know that there are very few 8 hour days. I would have to do a lot of thinking about it before I decided to move to an office outside the home. I'm sure there are many other pros and cons about that subject.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Ditto what Ed said. I work out of my home and found that it may turn off some customers who view that as not as professional. I now point out the benifits to potential customers that an office is actually an unneeded expense that would needlessy drive up my prices. That helped.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Akj, I run my business out of my home in a converted portion of the basement. Overhead(as in rent, utilities,etc.) can put a real bind on the cash resources especially when just starting out and even if you are already established the slow times can eat up any profits you make pretty quickly. I suppose a home based business may cause some potential customers to shy away although I think that as Ed and Dj pointed out explaining to prospective clients the distinct benifits of having a home based business helps allay fears. Around here it is considered a sign of good business sense to Own your own building or to work out of your home. Businesses that rent space are looked at with guarded suspicion, the theory being that if you own(either the building your business occupies or work from your home) you are less likely to answer the call of the wild in the wee hours of the morning taking with you all avaliable funds and anything else which can be carried away. Besides, I like working at home. I dont have to walk too far to get at the refrig. OH YEA--ED what the heck is an 8 hour day? I havenot enjoyed one since I retired!! If you find a spare one send it this way-Please!!! Tom