We Need an Office

We Need an Office

- Lessons Learned, Episode 28

I need to preface this post with an important point: As a rule, you should delay getting an office outside the home for as long as possible. Most IT consultants will never need one for business reasons ever. I say "for business reasons" because you may need one simply to get work done without distractions.

Having said that, when you need an office, you need an office. In our case, we had grown to having one fulltime and on part-time tech, a part-time administrative assistant, and myself. Meeting at my home office was not ever part of the plan. The techs and I often met at a coffee shop and planned our day from there. 

But it was obvious that we needed a place for equipment and supplies to live, and that I need to move paperwork-related things to an area we all had access to.

Luckily, I was started what would become the local IT consultant's group, so I knew people. A friend ran a programming business. They had an office that was barely used, and it had a conference room. It was actually the perfect example of what we *didn't* need: It was nice and pricey, and had amenities we didn't need.

But they had a spare office with a locking door within their office space. So I rented that. It was a few hundred dollars a month with no internet or phone lines included. That's okay. We could set up a network as needed, and we'd already figured out how to get by with cell phones and an automated attendant.

We had that space for less than a year when we grew to the point that we needed a real office of our own. The one settled on was exactly what we did need: It was warehousey, off the beaten path, with four walls and pretty much nothing else. 

It did have a small lockable office. I gave that to the admin, and promoted her to office manager. A locked file cabinet in that locked room held personnel files, client contracts, and whatever else we had that needed to be under lock and key. 

Eventually, we'd add a locking storage closet that we built and the landlord puttied and painted. And we built a small server room in the back with a through-the-wall air conditioner and a bunch of dedicated 30-amp circuits. We'll return to this room in a future post.

The new office was very large and very open. As I was getting into the book publishing business, we used book shelves to create a "wall" separating that business from the tech business. About 200 square feet was dedicated to Great Little Book. About 1,000 was for KPEnterprises (my IT company).

One of our clients offered us some office dividers if we hauled them away, so we happily did that. These created our tech bullpen with great long bench and desks for several technicians. My desk was shared with a large table we got somewhere. I just had a space near the front of our warehouse-like office. The

All in all, it was a very comfy, usable space. No two chairs or desks matched. But they all worked fine. Eventually, we did buy good ergonomic chairs for everyone.

The rent was cheap and the landlord loved us. We had that office for more than eight years. I think the rent was $1,100/month when we moved out. It took up about 1/3 of the first floor of a two-story building. The second story was all artist studios and one photographer.

Much of the history of my first IT company is tied to that building and that office. Today, it's owned by a cider mill, run by the guy who had a first-floor space on the opposite end of the building from us, back in the day.

Over the years, we've only had a few offices. We definitely needed an office when we were growing like crazy. We even considered finding additional space, at one point. But people and circumstances lead us in another direction. That's a story for another day.

Would I Change Anything?

I started by saying that you should delay getting an office for as long as possible. I still think that's true for most people. It just makes sense financially. It was the right decision for us.

If I could roll back the clock, I would do exactly what we did. Our office was never intended for clients to visit. We sat around the big table a lot, but no client ever did. I think we had one client visit one time ever. Our business model was based on going to their business, not having them come to ours.

By any measure, this office was inexpensive. If there's one thing I'd change, it would be this: I would have *kept* that office when I sold the business, and rented part of it to my old company. Instead, Mike moved us to a much smaller office for a little less money. Oh well.

Our office was definitely humble and not a marble showcase. And it definitely got the job done.

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All comments welcome.

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Episode 28

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/p/lessons-learned-blog-series.html

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

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Updated for Members: The Roadmap on Client Roadmaps

Over at the Small Biz Thoughts Technology Community, we have thousands of resources - and we know that means you might get lost or overwhelmed. So, we've created "Roadmaps" to help you get started on specific topics. Members can find all of our roadmaps by simply going to https://www.smallbizthoughts.org/resource-library/roadmap/ (log in first).

Our most popular roadmaps are:

• The Service Department Roadmap
• The Service Manager Roadmap
• The Hiring and Employee Onboarding Roadmap
• The Marketing Roadmap

Each of these is a "place to start" with a given topic. It's a place where we can bring together a book chapter, an audio program, a mini-class, some checklists, etc. Each roadmap contains some great resources that will get you headed in the right direction.

Of course, each also links out to related products, whole books, longer training, and so forth.

Yesterday, we posted the one-hour training on Client Engagement in an Uncertain Economy. Of course it's posted as stand-alone content for members, but we've also added it to the Roadmap on Client Roadmaps. 

We've bundled up the webinar along with questionnaires, checklists, and other training options. Members can view the webinar in our on-screen viewer, which works across all your devices - and remembers where you left off when you bounce from one device to another. Check it out today.

As always: Download those resources and customize them for YOUR business. 

Nothing happens by itself.

Members: Check it out today.

Non-members: Now's a great time to join. Memberships start at only $799.

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Karl Takes a Vacation

Karl Takes a Vacation - 

- Lessons Learned, Episode 27

I was in business for about five years when I took my first real vacation. I'd taken plenty of time "off" before, but this was to be a disconnected vacation.

At the time, I had one part-time employee, Jim. He knew all my clients, and they knew him. He was not always sure about how to solve problems, and he relied on me a great deal. It was the perfect situation in which many business owners would simply say, "I can't take a vacation; the business can't run without me."

But I was willing to give it a try for three reasons:

1) We had a great system. We had rock-solid processes, which were documented. And, therefore, I had great confidence that I could be gone for fourteen days without a true emergency.

2) I had more confidence in Jim than he had in himself. He was talented. He was experienced. And even though he relied on me a great deal, some of that had to do with self-confidence rather than lack of troubleshooting skills.

3) Although I was mostly out of touch, I was also in a nearby national forest, so I could scamper down the hill and be at a client's office the same day. And I would be in phone range within an hour.

This was back when cell phones were quite reliable in cities, but were unusable in truly rural areas. (I actually wish were still the case, for the most part.)

And while I learned that our processes were as good as I suspected, and that Jim was as good as I suspected, I also learned another important lesson on that trip.

We were staying in a cabin on Lake Tahoe, inside a national park. The cabin had electricity and running water, but no stove or cooking facilities. There was no heat as these cabins are regularly buried in snow during the winter, so people only stay there in the non-frozen months.

Once a day, normally after dinner, I walked up to the public road from our camp and used a public phone to check my voicemail. I got a report from Jim every day. And almost message was upbeat and positive. But there were also several frustrated messages explaining a problem, describing what he'd tried, and asking for help. And the very next message said that he had tried one more thing, researched something, or just plain figured it out.

In other words, even when very frustrated, he learned that he could figure things out. I stored this little bit of knowledge to help me manage future technicians. Sometimes, people have to stop asking for help ALL the time and just take a deep breath, then go at it again.

I failed to mention one other piece of advice I had given Jim before I left:

You don't need to get help from me alone. Feel free to contact Microsoft, Intel, HP, and even one of our competitors in the local IT user group. You have lots of resources we've built over the years as relationships. Manufacturers and distributors have warranties and guarantees. We're a Microsoft partner. You're not alone.

You're never alone in this job.

In the end, I never had to drive down the mountain. We never cut our vacation short. And for the next three summers, we went back to that same camp. And I checked my voicemail less and less each time.

It's true that people who start IT consulting businesses tend to be the most technically knowledgeable, and they are more familiar with the clients' systems. But it's NOT true that your team can't get along without you.

You can - and you MUST - take vacations. You need to recharge your batteries. You also need to spend time with your family. Nothing happens by itself. That includes growing your technicians' independence and building a sustainable business that you can run for decades without having a hear attack.

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All comments welcome.

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Episode 27

This Episode is part of the ongoing Lessons Learned series. For all the information, and an index of Lessons Learned episodes, go to the Lessons Learned Page. https://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/p/lessons-learned-blog-series.html

Leave comments and questions below. And join me next week, right here.

Subscribe to the blog so you don't miss a thing.

:-)