Back in March 2016 my wife and I were driving each other mad by working together in the same room all day everyday. Our house had become an office in its entirety. We moved it to a space much larger than we needed as we had visions of running our own little company with about 5 employee’s by the end of the year.
So why in Septemeber 2017 did we give it all up and move our office back home?
Change of Work
When we first started up we were having meetings in coffee shops with clients and that wasn’t what we wanted to do with them. We wanted to give them the experience of coming to us personally without being harassed by noisy dogs.
Something we learnt though (and me especially) is that were dreadful sales people. We loved our work dearly and could talk about it all day long but it just wasn’t clicking with people coming through the door.
We changed tack and now work pretty much exclusively with marketing agencies (aside from the odd video production company). Why? Because they are great at selling their products and sell them all day long. They want to offer video and web design to their clients and we provide that. We are glorified contractors and that’s just perfect for us.
Location
My work takes me all over the South and middle of England (sorry northerners you haven’t seen me yet, I’m working on it) and while Swindon is a great base as you’re slap bang in the middle of the m4 and it’s only an hour each way to London and Bristol, my clients are not in Swindon.
It’s easier for me to go to them than for them to come to me. After all, it’s normally just me or it’s two of us. If it’s a client, it’s generally 3-4 people.
Different Sectors to Work In
I work across a wide range from corporate to construction to education. I also have a side business filming weddings (which is very handy during the dry months) and all of it requires me to edit where ever my PC is and I’m filming on location.
So my paid for monthly office became a glorified store room.
The Guilt
There is a massive and overwhelming guilt that is leaving the dogs for vast periods of time everyday. After nearly 18 months, they didn’t know whether we were coming and going.
The Solution
After 18 months we decided enough was enough, remoddled the house and moved the office back home. All the annoyances that drove us insane we’ve now worked out how to solve. I work upstairs and my wife works downstairs.
Each of us have our own area to work and I wake up in the morning and start work as opposed to the commute to the office (which granted was only 15 minutes away but we had to time it all around the dogs). Now with our new set up we can do what we love more and not feel guilty about leaving the dogs.
That is mostly because one of them is collapsed under my desk and the other one is on my lap making sure I don’t go anywhere and meet my KPI’s. All he demands is a constant supply of cuddles and gravy bones.
Moving back home to work has been the best thing we could have done. It wasn’t about the financials, it was all about productivity. Our productivity has rocketed and our focus is now on the future of growing relationships with new clients all from the comfort of our own home/office.
If you’ve been on the fence about it and have the room to move back home from home ask yourself the question “what time did you leave the office tonight?” I found it wasn’t until 10pm at night 4 out of 5 nights a week and that’s not healthy at all.
Small business owners take notice.