Choosing an office location is an important part of starting your business. There are many considerations you must undertake before you decide that you’ve found the right place. Let’s take a moment to see what they are.
A Strategy for Choosing Your New Office Location
By having a strategy for your business you’ll be prepared to thoroughly vet all of your options. Here are some of the things you’ll need to keep in mind while putting your strategy together.
Decide What Type of Location You Need
There are five common types of office locations. Take a moment to consider which of these would work best for you. They include:
- Home-based businesses are great if you have enough space to work from home.
- Retail businesses aren’t limited to strip malls or downtown locations. Some other places you may consider include airports, special event kiosks, and even free-standing buildings.
- Mobile businesses are great now that mobile credit card readers are available. With these businesses you can go where you think people need your services most.
- Commercial business space allows the flexibility for more growth. These work best for those businesses that don’t rely much on consumer traffic.
- Industrial sites are available for manufacturing or distribution businesses. They’ll offer you a lot of warehouse space and typically offer easy access to major transportation routes.
Make Sure the Location Fits Into Your Budget
One of your major priorities is to find a location that fits your budget. Make sure to factor in location-specific costs for things like taxes, minimum wage requirements, and utility upgrades. These considerations will allow you to make a well-educated choice for your business. You may even want to talk to other business owners in the area to see what they think about the area.
Consider Your Brand’s Image
When choosing your office location you also need to think about your brand. For instance, you wouldn’t want to put an office supply store in a location where there are a lot of high-end boutiques. You also don’t want to put an upscale restaurant in the middle of a college town.
Take Your Vendors and Suppliers Into Consideration
Make sure that the area you choose is easy for your vendors and suppliers to reach so you don’t have significant delays in maintaining your inventory levels. This is important, especially when you have a few options available to you. Make sure you choose the easiest, least expensive one.
Check Out the Neighborhood
You shouldn’t underestimate the safety of the office location. Not only do you want to think about the safety of you and your employees but also that of your business. This is especially important when you have inventory that’s at high risk of being stolen.
Make Sure There’s a Demand for Your Business
It’s also important to make sure that the location you choose isn’t saturated by your competition. Ideally, you want to find an area where your product or service is in high demand and you don’t have much competition. It’s also a good idea to find a location near other complementary businesses. This will help ensure that your business fits into the local market well.
Take Recruiting Efforts Into Consideration
So you can easily hire employees to work at your office location it’s important to make sure that the area is accessible to public transportation. Otherwise, you’ll rule out many talented people who rely on it. Finding talented employees is important to the success of your business.
Check Out the Parking
Your business may be attractive but if you don’t have enough parking it won’t be desirable to a lot of people. Besides ensuring that you’re located near public transportation, you’ll also want to ensure that there’s a convenient parking lot. If customers have to pay for parking, they may be unwilling to do so, but you could easily make up for that if you’re willing to offer validation.
The Bottom Line
There are many things you must consider when choosing your office location. Unfortunately, the work doesn’t end there though. Once you find the perfect location you’ll need help moving into it. That’s where we at Quality Installers are here to help. Contact us once you find the right location and we’ll help you move in and set up shop.
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