Category: Business Blog

Having a home business can allow you a lot of freedom, and there’s no feeling quite like being your own boss. However, there comes a time in many home businesses when it’s time to move away from home to allow for more expansion. Is it time to move your business away from home? We explore this question in more detail below…

You Want To Grow Your Business

If you want to grow your business, a great way to do this can be to move away from home. Setting up your new business premises can allow for expansion and growth in many ways. Your business can appear more professional, you have room to hire staff, and you can purchase equipment that you may not have been able to purchase at home.

You’re Experiencing Interruptions At Home

Experiencing interruptions at home can be one of the biggest drawbacks of working there. If people are coming over to see you because they don’t believe that you’re actually doing any work, or you’re constantly answering the house phone to nuisance calls, it could be time to move away.

Make Sure You’re Ready For The Move

You need to be ready to move out of your home, as you don’t want to over stretch your business for the sake of appearing more professional. If you’re renting out office space to improve your credibility, you might be better off looking at a virtual office. Virtual offices still give you a professional address and telephone answering service, and you can even make use of meetings rooms.

Finding The Right Premises

If you’re still set on moving out and finding a new business premises, you’ll need to think of your client base, who you work with, and the sort of people you’re looking to hire. However, if you’re working with people who are scattered all over, you can usually get away with a business park or industrial estate for cheaper rates.

If you want to attract customers by having them walk in off the street, then you’re going to need a location that gets a lot of foot traffic. One important thing to note about having customers on your premises, is that it must be safe. Places like Allcott Commercial can check premises over so you feel more confident, and having insurance is recommended too. The last thing you want to do is put your customers or employees at risk. It could ruin your business reputation!

Things To Consider

There are a few things you’ll want to consider when you’re contemplating moving away from home, including:

• How many members of staff do you want to hire?
• Can you hire virtual staff members instead, such as a copywriter and a virtual assistant?
• What is your budget?
• How much will your overheads increase?
• Will the area be suitable for the work you do?
• Will it be easily accessible for customers and employees?

So, is it time to move your business away from home? Listen to your gut and you should know the answer

When it comes to advertising, we all have the same end goal. We want to get out business and products out there, stand out from our competitors and reach the customers who are interested in buying from us. However, when it comes to marketing and promotion, things are always changing. Advancing technology, changing consumer demand and the way we live our lives all influence the way people shop and therefore the way we need to target them to generate interest.

Don’t overlook offline techniques

In the modern age it’s easy to assume that all marketing needs to be done online. After all, much of our businesses are now run online- and with so many people using the internet it’s an accessible way to get yourself out there. Online marketing methods are of course essential to most kinds of businesses, but that’s not to say you should look ‘old fashioned’ methods too. You could market directly at a business expo or host your own event- go to a t shirt printing company and have them create some tops for your staff with your company name. You could recruit sales staff and have them canvas for sales or conduct presentations with clients. You could even put up posters, billboards and hand out flyers if you’re a local business that sells mainly to customers nearby in the area.

Think about networking

For a successful business, you need connections. This could involve chasing larger clients to work with or simply getting your customers to spread the word to people they think will also be interested. If you already have good connections with old clients and colleagues then you’re one step ahead, but consider the cold market too. Work out which network marketing techniques will best allow you to generate leads online, then you can reach out to target customers on social media. Connecting with people in real life, whether you’re handing out promotional merch or having casual conversations is a fantastic way to give people a personal experience and make your brand feel real in the eyes of potential customers.

Utilise influencers.

In recent years, influencers such as bloggers, Youtubers and social networking personalities have become incredibly influential. These people can often have followings that rival that of Hollywood actors. Working with an influencer means you get to put your product or business out there to a massive group of people. Influencers are more relatable than your average celebrity, and consumers are more likely to listen to a trustworthy voice than a commercial advert and so this is definitely something to get on board with.

Experiment with mobile advertising

Mobile phones might be nothing new, however using them to advertising on is. Now that a massive proportion of the population owns a smartphone, creating an app or advertising via browsers is a great way to get your business seen. Mobile advertising can be extremely powerful if it’s done correctly so be sure to do some research and consider branching out your marketing here.

It’s considered the norm to work as an employee. You either have set hours where you go to work, or are given a rota ahead of time with your shift details- and you’re responsible for working during those times. While this is something that suits the masses, there are lots of people that struggle with this kind of working pattern. Maybe you suffer with a mental or physical illness, or perhaps you have care commitments such as looking after children or elderly/disabled loved ones. While you’re still willing and capable of work, getting yourself to a workplace and having to work for specific hours might not be something that’s possible. Maybe you have good and bad days and need your working hours to reflect this, or perhaps you simply don’t enjoy structure and don’t work well being micromanaged. Either way, there are many people who suit a more flexible working day, a way to earn money during hours that suit them. Thankfully, the accessibility of the internet has made it easier for more of us than ever to be able to do this- and those that either would have struggled at work or otherwise have been unemployed are able to earn a living on their own term. Here are a few of the ways they’ve been able to do this.

Start a home business

When you run a business, you’re the boss. You can work hours that suit you and run your company around any other commitments you have in your life. There are plenty of business you can start without much money and don’t even require you to leave the house. You could create an online store and either buy and sell items for a profit, or make your own items if you have a skill or passion. You could sell directly from your home- anything from cakes for all occasions to propagated seedlings depending on what you love to do. In many cases, you can turn a hobby into a business so it doesn’t feel like work and is something you genuinely enjoy doing. While it can take time to get established, later down the line it could quite easily be earning you a full time income. There are lots of types of softwares that can completely automate areas of your home business, or you could outsource areas that you’re not confident in.

Write a blog

Do you already write an established blog as a hobby? If so, why not look into ways to monetise? If you’ve only made a limited amount of money from it so far, then there are things you can do to make it more attractive to sponsors and advertisers. First would be to re-think your design, blogging is becoming increasingly professional and sponsors will want to work with the most attractive sites. You could work with a designer, otherwise a premade template from a site like Etsy can be bought cheaply and look really effective. The next would be to improve your domain authority, this is a metric that tells people how much influence your site has online. One of the ways you can improve this is by getting other high quality sites to link back to you. If you have a network of bloggers that you speak to, find out if they would be interested in link swapping, otherwise guest posting (with a link in the post back to your own site) is a great way to go about it.

Freelance

Finally, if you have a skill such as writing or design then you will be in demand. Sign up to a freelancing site and you can take on the work as and when you want it. You could do this around another job, to supplement your business or blogging income or as your main source of income. Since you can choose the work you want to do, you’re in control of your workflow. You just need to make sure you meet deadlines for the work that you choose to do.