Setting Up the Home Office/Small Office According to Inc. magazine, more small businesses were launched from the home than from a physical commercial site. One of the primary reasons, of course, is money. It takes far less capital to launch and maintain an eCommerce site than a physical storefront or office. Still, there are things you need to consider when working a business from home. Traffic and Liability Though you will be selling products or services online, you must consider the kinds of traffic you will incur by bringing in inventory and shipping it out. Salespeople, mail and package carriers, and even clients for your service may have to visit your home for you to do business. Your neighbors may not appreciate the additional trucks and people that would continually parade through your neighborhood. You may need to check on the zoning regulations in your area to see what kind of business you can run from your home. In addition, your home may be part of a home owner's association and its CC&Rs (home owner's association rules and regulations) may prohibit any type of commercial activity from your home. Then there's insurance. Will your insurance carrier cover accidents or other types of liability incidents that may occur on your site if they are business related? You may need business insurance. Space Considerations The available working area to do business is another consideration. First, where will you store your inventory if you're selling products? A home is not a warehouse. If your products are small and nonperishable, you can store them in your garage. But if you must carry a sizable number of large products, you will most probably need to rent storage space. Even if you can store your inventory in your home, if your business takes off, you will need more space for stock and for shipping and handling of the orders. Second, consider your workspace itself. If you have your office in a room in your home, a computer, desk, printer, fax machine, copy machine, file cabinets, and so on will take up space, and as you grow your business, you will need more and more space. In a home that does double duty, either business or family, one or the other, will eventually be displaced. Think about privacy. Is your work space quiet? Can you close out noises from your home? Barking dogs and noisy children do not project a professional image. Family Considerations That brings us to your family life. Working at home is not all the pleasure it's cut out to be. Will your office be a private space of your home? What about family intrusions? Will you have separate home and business phone lines? If not, how will your family answer the phone for business? If you do have a separate business line, how do you keep the family from using your business phone? And how about the computer you use for business? Will other family members need it for their personal purposes? Then there's the possible resentment in your home from family members who feel you are not paying attention to them.
The key question here is "Can you keep your business and family life separate with a home business?" There are many distractions in a home that may keep you away from your business or slow your business down. Basic Image Considerations A business needs a professional image. A professionallooking Yahoo! store will accomplish this online. But there are other image criteria to consider. Business Address If you have a homebased business, you may or may not want to use your home address for business purposes. Deciding to use your address usually depends on what that address is. For example, suppose you live in an apartment. Your address of 1111 Park Lane might sound fine, but 1111 Park Lane, Apt. #4 may not project the image you are looking for. If you decide not to use your home address, you may opt for a P.O. box or use a mail service such as The UPS Store (www.theupsstore.com), and Mail Boxes Etc. (www.mbe.com). Using such a service will give you a private mailing address, access to delivery of large packages, and 24-hour access to your mailbox. Using a physical address will give your business a professional image. You can still decide to use a P.O. box, but customers tend to feel more comfortable doing business with you if there is a physical address. Another benefit of having a physical address is the ability to receive packages. Some companies will not deliver to a P.O. box. Business Collateral Material Take into account the look of your collateral materialbusiness cards, letterhead, and envelopes. Spend some money and have a graphic designer create a professionallooking image for your company collateral material. Don't use those preperforated business cards you can buy at office stores. Nowadays, you can get 1,000 professionally printed business cards for less than $30. Also, your stationery, business cards, and promotional flyers are a great place to further promote your storefront. Make sure you add your URL and company email address to all your collateral material. Business Phone We spoke about a dedicated phone line for your business. Get one. And have it accessible only from your home office. Do the same with your fax line. Also, place a dedicated answering machine on your business line with a professional welcome message and your hours of operation for customer service calls. Customers like to know when they can personally reach you.
Finally, a good book for everything you should know about running a home business is Start Your Own Home Business In No Time. But if you decide that your home is not a suitable place to run your business then you might want to consider renting a small office. |
