sole proprietors
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- randommail
these are questions for sole proprietors of their own design studio.
Do you have, what one would consider an official "home office"?
And where do you meet clients?
- bjladams0
my business partner and i work from our kitchen tables, picnic tables, couches - wherever, no real office set up. we normally meet clients at their offices or suggest cafe's that we do work for, as it looks good to be bringing people around a lot.
- utopian0
I have a home office, and about 90% of the time I meet my clients at their office, restaurant, and or cafe. And rarely do hey come to my home office.
- Miguex0
^
same as the above.
I actually work out of coffee shops at least 2 days a week, I get pretty bored of working alone at my place, the change of environment makes wonders for my productivity.
- randommail0
I do the same as above.
But do you guys ever think that not having a formal office, even if it's for 1 or 2 people, hurts credibility with potential new clients?- I think the quality of the work is more important to good clients.Josev
- It would hurt more to have a tiny office with 1-2 peopleformed
- i think it is largely dependent on who your clients are as well... for some, this would be an issue.showpony
- I think most wouldn't like unless they were getting a massive dealformed
- 1-2 people = could disappear tomorrowformed
- Josev0
I had an office until 6 months ago but finally gave it up. Most shared offices have an open plan and I'm not very productive in spaces like that. We had a pretty cool brick loft with 16 ft ceilings. In the three years I was there I only had a client visit once. Most of my clients want to go to cafes to meet.
- bmacneill0
I think having a small office of 1-2 people is actually worse than just working out of the house. At least if you work out of the house you can use the "well, it's just me, and we're cheap" excuse. If you have a small office and it's a dump, the client will be wondering why you can't get your act together and have a big company/office.
I had the small, dumpy office and lost several big potential clients because of it. They saw our website, loved the work, then came to visit us at our low-rent office and the balloon was deflated.
- yup, this is the flip side of the coin IMOrandommail
- I can't imagine a situation where 1-2 people in a dumpy office would be helpful!formed
- sublocked0
Yeah I work in a spare bedroom most of the time, but find myself inventing places to go to change scenery which usually leads to a mini boost of productivity.
Been looking for cowork space, or perhaps an executive suite just so I don't have to go to a cafe anymore. I get sick of going to *bux.
- gramme0
Same here. Home office. I'll meet smaller clients here because they don't care about my lack of "serious" office or manpower. With bigger clients, I meet them at their office or some cafe, etc.
That's all changing next week, though. Moving into an office this Saturday so I can hit the ground running on Monday. I'll still work from home one or two days a week. No concrete plans about that yet, just kinda playing it by ear. The building owner is letting me go month to month till I know for sure if I like the space.
- SeriousFreelancing0
Kinda hard for me to meet my clients... as I'm always moving from place to place... I don't think it's necessary to have a studio unless the city you're in provides enough clients for you to pay rent at a studio and pay rent at home.
- lukus_W20
Get an office.
- or find a co-working space to work at.lukus_W2
- I tried a co-working space and I found it to be noisy and not really all that great - only benefit was having a meeting room and the occasional collaboration but overall not worth it.traut
- the occasional collab. I found it to overall not be worth it.traut
- randommail0
I'm looking into something like this http://wework.com/
Can I get your guys' opinions or reactions?I just wish these sorts of spaces were a little less "branded."
- those are some great prices.VikingKingEleven
- Maybe get a virtual office, and use the conference room for the meetings. That could look more legitpinkfloyd
- fyoucher10
Work from home. Converted the 2nd master bedroom to a home office (two desks, couches, filing cabinets, etc. Pretty modern looking, looks completely different from the rest of the house). If I lived closer to the city I'd probably get an office but right now I just don't think I could get over the 20 step commute. I'm going to eventually hire some people but right now I live to far away from civilization for someone to commute to me. NYC, LA, or SF would be ideal but I'll probably have a hard time convincing my wife to move out there.
The biggest issue for me is separating work from being at home and not thinking about work. Right now I'm basically working all day, taking a few hours to eat dinner and study, and responding to clients emails until I fall asleep. I tried doing the 9am to 5pm cutoff but I'm on the east coast and half of my clients are on the west coast, so I usually try to be accessible as long as they are working.
I've never met with any clients face to face, it's all through email and phone which is probably a good thing since I only shave every two weeks.