(This article is one of twenty-five(25)
contained in Tayo Solagbade’s Ebook titled "25
Articles/True Stories On Self-Development, Entrepeneuring
& Web Marketing To Help You Succeed More Often")
A Home Office Will Usually Do(At
Least For A Start)
In many cases, nothing could be further
from the truth than the assertion many people make, that one
needs an office to operate from when starting-up. In my early
startup days, many times after people had excitedly engaged
me in discussion about my work, they would ask me - "Where
is your office?". My prepared answer was always
“I work from home”.
A lot of individuals as soon as they heard this, simply got
turned off and never got back to me. As far as they were concerned,
if I did not have an office, I could not be a serious business
person!
From the time I started my business,
I had promised myself - based on a detailed analysis of the
nature of products and services I aimed to deliver - that
I wasn't’ going to spend ANY money on an office space
- talk less of staff. I believe that my conviction has now
proved to be well based. I say this after extensive reflection,
over more than four years. It is obvious that it was not my
lack of an office that prevented me from doing more business
than I have done! People who wanted me called me up, sent
me e-mails, came looking for me at my SOHO (Small Office Home
Office) - including the Center for Management Development!
What Really Matters Is That You
Have A Product/Service That People Want
The fact is that if you have a product
or a service that people really want and need, they will find
a way to get to you and pay good money to get it! Find the
right price for your product or service that you offer, and
then make yourself accessible - either by going to the customers
or strategically locating yourself where they can get to you.
So this issue of having an office for
your business to start-up, as far as I’m concerned,
is just a joke. For most types of businesses, having an office
will not guarantee that you will get taken any more seriously
than if you do not have one. If anything, it would add to
your overheads in so many ways, as one additional, related
expense or the other would creep in over time.
As a matter of fact, a seasoned entrepreneur
and highly successful Independent Consultant Herman Holtz
once wrote - in his book "The
Concise Guide To Becoming An Independent Consultant"(John
Wiley and Sons, Inc, 1999 - that even his big corporate
clients expressed approval of his efforts to keep his overheads
low when they visited his home based office!
Having said the foregoing, I must not
fail to add that the corporate clients referred to in Holtz's
case belong to a culture in which clients predominantly look
for professionals who can deliver results and not those who
devote needless time and money to creating an excessively
impressive appearance. In the environment where I have had
to operate as an entrepreneur, the "thinking" of
clients or prospects very often is radically different and
you will find yourself getting penalised by way of rejection
simply because your office does not look "flashy"
enough - or worse, you use a home office!
Achievement Of Long Term Success
Will Often Depend On A Startup Entrepreneur’s Financial
Intelligence – And Frugality
Despite the foregoing, I still believe
people who keep looking for start-up entrepreneurs with flashy
cars, tastefully furnished office spaces etc before they patronize
them will probably end up engaging incompetent persons who
cover their lack of proficiency with lavish expense on office
space. Very few REAL and financially intelligent entrepreneurs
will go investing that heavily in overheads-generating items
before they’ve been able to make good money to show
decent profitability. Many of those who tried to do so in
the past, do not have good tales to tell today.
I’ll give a quick example. I
know someone who started her business by getting an office
space, furnishing it tastefully, putting in phones, air-conditioning
etc. Then she recruited an assistant, a secretary and an office
boy. After everything was set, they began looking for business.
Letters were sent out, meetings held, follow-up calls made
etc. Unfortunately, not a single account was secured. Six
months passed and this lady had been paying her staff salaries
even though no business had been coming in. Power outages
repeatedly ate into her rapidly depleting funds as fuel had
to be bought for the generator.
Then there was the issue of the personal
expenses she was incurring on her side - domestically. She
had a housekeeper and a cook who also needed to be paid! To
cut the long story short, she got to a point when she could
no longer pay her staff on time - both in the office and on
the home front. This led to repeat instances of friction between
her and them. Some sudden resignations happened, but she (stubbornly)
replaced the “deserters’ with others (who would
accept less pay than those before them). Eventually, she had
to give it up.
There’s NOTHING Wrong With
Starting Humbly - In A Home Office OR On A Kitchen Table!
The lesson here is quite obvious. You
need to hold on to as much of your money as you can in those
start-up days/months. Most entrepreneurs will find that they
can combine many of the jobs for which others choose to recruit
staff quite effectively. We have
heard the stories of how many successful people started their
businesses on their kitchen tables. It only makes good
common sense to do this. When you’re more able, you
can gradually add to your numbers - but at the early stages,
start small and conserve your resources as much as possible.
You have been warned!
Read my article titled Practical
Guiding Philosophies For Entrepreneurial Success, in which
I explain (under the subheading "Procrastinate
When It Comes To Spending™"), why
when you want to do any heavy business–related spending,
you may need to stay off “doing it “ for at least
another 24 – 48 hours, or for
as long as reasonably possible - till you're convinced it
is inevitable. 
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