It is 2019!! For 10 years now you have worked for a big company that provided you your own large office. But, your career is not going the direction you wanted. You’re thinking it might be time to do your own thing.
There are millions of people who are in this same situation today. The decision to make a move to doing “your own thing” starts by asking yourself a few questions.
That first question is…where do I locate my business?
This leads to another question that leads to another question that leads to another question…and so on.
The questions seem to never stop and usually will not if the answer to any of these questions leads to the wrong answer.
Let’s take it from the beginning…the first question..where do you locate your business?
Do you set up an office at home?
Today, 90% of the time..for obvious reasons the answer to the question concerning locating your business at home should be No.
A few years ago, locating your business from your home was the smart thing to do. But today, conducting business from home just will not work. Consumers..even B2B consumers…shy away from businesses who operate out of their home.
Having a small office at home is another matter, but calling your home your business address or conducting business from home…just works against what you are trying to do.
Most new businesses require constantly meeting face to face with a lot of people at all times during the day. Asking someone to meet with you at a coffee shop to talk about serious business does not portray a very serious professional image. Asking someone over to your home to meet doesn’t portray a very comfortable image either.
Office Outside the Home
OK, you get it and you start to look outside the home for an office. Smart move!
6 Years ago, your choices outside the home were to rent an office space where you had to provide for everything, like Heating and Air Condition, janitorial services, garbage pick up, phones, internet, wifi..etc.
Or lease space in an “Executive Office Suite” where you get most everything included in your rent, like an awesome mailing address, a lobby, a receptionist and an office with a desk… but then have to purchase everything from Coffee to meeting rooms.
Both of these types of offices work and provide the professional image a new business executive needs but both have their obvious drawbacks that relate to High Overhead costs.
Shared Workspaces are Iffy
This brings us to the third alternative,…Shared Workspace…or what was called two years ago…Coworking Space.
The answer to the question of if Shared Workspace is a good place to locate your business would be… “Maybe”..but leaning to be “No”
Why?
Unless your business is selling flip-flops and cargo pants…most of the Shared Workspaces probably are not going to offer you a serious professional or executive image.
The coworking office space environment started in the late 1990’s during the start-up “.com” business craze. That is when the counter culture of dressing down for business hit bottom.
However, this move to dressing down did not change how human beings interact with each other when they are herded up on concrete floors in a warehouse with glass-in offices. To keep people happy in the early days of the coworking environment things had to be kept casual. Again..this was great for businesses that run on beer and pretzels.
But then business attire was again redefined…or actually..undefined as was the case.
The Wrong Self Image Kills Business
Let’s take a short stroll through how business attire has effected a business’ image.
The “Casual Friday” attire employees and executives were allowed to wear on Fridays started in corporate America in the late ’80s as a workplace morale boost. Then in the ’90s came the “.com” era where businesses were built in basements and garages by well-educated sociopaths who had no care in self-image. This is where the Silicon Valley Dress Code started.
Today, the clashes of the casual wear cultures of the past have brought back the clean-shaven sport jacket and slack look for businessmen and well-coordinated White House Black Market look for the businesswoman.
Why?
It goes back to that interaction human beings have with each other. It is a human instinct that allows a person to trust another person.
In the business world, the human instinct is to judge a person by how they look and how they carry themselves. If they look professional there is a very good chance they take pride in their profession. If they appear to don’t care about how they look they probably are not going to care how they do their business.
The shared workspaces are starting to see a more upscale attire being worn by most of their tenants. Some shared workspaces, I am sure, are starting to look to doing some sort of screening of potential tenants to protect the professional atmosphere they have worked hard to develop.
The bottom line is still: First Impressions Make or Break a business.
Locate Where Professionalism Thrives
Making a mistake with where you locate your business could cost you your business. Being located in a shared workspace with other business people who care less about how they look will affect your business image. Plus their lack of concern for their image could also kill your business.
It is nearly impossible to explain to a potential customer why the person in the glass front office next to your office appears to have just overhauled the engine of his F350 and why the group of people in the glass front conference room across the hall are having a pep-rally.
Unless your business offers consumers engine parts for F350’s or markets pep rally’s…these types of distractions will not help your business grow.
Eventually…like within the next 12 months…in order for shared workspaces to keep their preferred tenants, for more than a few hours, they are going to have to change their come-one-come-all open-door business plan to offer more exclusive office space for the business executives conscious of their consumer’s wants.
If you can find a location that offers shared workspace offices where everyone there is on the same page of the Nordstrom catalog then the answer to the question… is this space the place to be?…would be…Yes!!
Let me know how I can help.
