As an entrepreneur, you’re probably running your business out of your home. You’ve got a post office box for your mail. You set up a dedicated phone number on Skype. You’ve converted your dining room into an office space and every day you sit in it and do your work. As your business grows, though, you find that the little bit of space you’ve carved out for yourself isn’t enough anymore.
There are lots of reasons that you need to find more space for your company:
Maybe you’ve expanded enough that you need help and it’s time to hire employees. You can’t exactly expect your new assistant or new sales team to sit on the floor in your living room.
You make your products yourself and demand has driven up the supply quantity that you need to keep on hand.
You’ve started new direct mail and guerilla marketing campaigns and the materials have over taken every spare inch of space in your house.
Your spouse has threatened divorce if you order any more inventory or supplies because getting through your home is like sidling along the labyrinth.
The type of space you need is going to depend upon what you intend to do with it.
If you’re taking on an assistant or hiring some employees to help you with your sales (or other parts of your business), you’re going to need office space. In some cities, like Portland or Indianapolis, office space is prevalent and, for the most part, affordable. In other cities, like Las Vegas or Louisville, finding the right office space is difficult and, often expensive. In these cities, you might have an easier time setting up as part of an office park.
Setting up in an office park does have some benefits. The park usually has a built in mail service (especially if the park is just a really big building). It might even offer reception services (which saves you the hassle of having to hire someone). Maintenance and grounds keeping is typically taken care of as well.
If the problem is simply a matter of needing space to store stuff, you can easily solve the problem by renting a storage unit. Here’s the good news: it is easy, whether you live in Portland, Indianapolis, Las Vegas or Louisville to look locally to rent temporary storage when downsizing office space. Even better, this temporary storage is usually super cheap. You can rent a unit for the duration of your marketing campaign or while you figure out how to work with a drop shipper and then clean it out and viola! Done! No muss, no fuss.
It might even be worth it to go with a storage unit in which to store supplies and files so that you can rent a smaller and, therefore cheaper, office space for your company.
Really, the type of space and services you need are going to depend upon the ways in which your business is expanding and where you want to take it.