There’s nothing like hindsight when it comes to costly decision making. Better than nothing, is getting advice from those in the know. Choosing where to locate your business can be an expensive or minor financial glitch. Take your pick.

In the mother post of Location, Location, Location we had a list of pros and cons. Now we’ll see how these designers have located themselves.

Abhijit’s happy at home

Working at home is great, you can save a lot of time and effort by skipping travel. You can really boost your productivity by building your own environment. However, it also comes with its cons, the biggest being that, the line between work and home can get blur easily and at a point disappear. Not being able to meet people physically also takes its toll. That is why to stay motivated and focused I maintain discipline and a process. Having said that, working at home also teaches you a lot of things since you end up doing more than just your work. I am quite ‘at home’ when working at home!

Abhijit Nadgouda | Freelance Software Professional
iface Consulting

Leslie’s dedicated

I do not recommend working from home for most creatives. Creatives (generally speaking) have a hard enough time separating themselves from their work. When you add working from home into the mix, you usually end up with the creative working too many hours and being unproductive with her/his time. However, often it is the only option financially for many. If you must work from home, you need to have a space that is exclusively dedicated to your office. The kids don’t get to use the computer there (get a separate one for the home use), for example. Then you need to select your standard working hours and go to work during those hours (and only during those hours, except for the rare crunch-mode). Work is work, not-work is not working.

Sharing can be great option. It lowers the cost for the creatives sharing the space and it can mean sharing clients. For example, if you do web design, share with a print designer.

Me, I have a dedicated home office–a separate room, with a door. When I go to work, I go to work. I get up, get dressed (don’t work in your PJs!), and go to work. But, it is easier (mentally) for me to do that than it is for many creatives.

Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua | Creative/Marketing Consultant & Coach
Burns Auto Parts–Consultants | Burns Auto Parts blog | Podcast | Book

Neil’s located

Once the business was underway, we set up an office area in the basement of our townhouse. It was totally separate from the rest of the house. As a matter of practice, we met with clients on their turf, not ours. Occasionally, a client would swing by and we’d meet in our living room. Clients never saw the office area.

After we took on our first employees – two project managers/sales people – it was time to spread our wings and move out of the townhouse. As luck would have it, one of our clients was a retail real estate company. We did a barter deal for office space. It was a raw space, so we were able to custom design the interior. That lasted two years and we needed more space. We moved to another office building, closer to home and stayed there for a few years. After a downturn in the economy, lots of stress and blood pressure that was through the roof, we decided to bring the business back into the house. It was a good move and I’ve worked from home every since. You can’t beat the two-second commute.

Neil (nt) Tortorella | Marketing Manager
Tortorella Design | The Marketing Mind | Creative Latitude | BoDo Team | Marketing Minute

Jay’s domainly SOHO

Having sampled working in hired space, shared and our own offices, I prefer to work from home. It saves travel time and I can work totally flexible hours. Once I’ve started something, I hate being interrupted, so I have the luxury of turning off outside contact if I choose. My SOHO is my domain.

Usually my clients contact me by phone, email or ICQ and I like to visit new clients in their offices: It gives me an idea of how they operate, they have all their present materials on hand and I can put faces to names when calling.

Since they have lots of work for me on a regular basis, I also have my own desk in one client’s office. They like me there and I am happy to oblige, provided I come and go to my own schedule and my portable office (laptop, mobile phone, etc) comes with me. That way, I am still available to my other clients and can work on my own projects, if I have a spare moment.

Jeanette (jay) Wickham | Systems Manager
FastCoconut.com | NO!SPEC | BoDo Team | Ask jay

Cat’s online

I started out working at a home office and was fairly happy with the situation. Well, except for the times when a client would call, coinciding with my son flushing a loud toilet (and being a kid, he’d leave the door open). Or when a client would be shown in unannounced and I’d still be in pj’s.

My financial manager was building an office in Bandar (‘town’ in Malay) and made a serious offer to share space and staff. The office was beautifully done, centrally located, but as it turns out it, not my cuppa.

This, coupled with a second attempt at working out of an office convinced me I’m better suited at working on my own. In the silence, or not, of my own choosing.

As I moved out of print and into web and running Creative Latitude, I rarely met up with clients. Even if they were in the same country. From personal experience, at times too much time is wasted on meetings, most unnecessarily long. Forget getting the spiel together. First you have the personal preparation, then the drive over, the waiting, the meeting, the small talk in the meeting, the constant interruptions, the small talk after the meeting, and the drive back. Again, not my cuppa.

By xing out on-site meetings, I’ve saved not only myself hours of time, but for my clients as well. Skype and Airport R Us.

Catherine (cat) Morley | Project Manager
Creative Latitude | NO!SPEC | Katz-i | FastCoconut.com | BoDo team

Our next post in the Starting Out and Setting Up Series will cover equipment needed to fill in your office. Whether you’ve chosen to work at home, or out.

Until then,
The BoDo Team
cat - nt - jay