Since my blog about working in a home office generated more comments than any other recent post, I thought I would provide a
lagniappe.
Peter Shankman is noted web guru who has built a multimillion dollar business out of a spare room in his home. If anyone is an expert on home based businesses, it’s him. He provided some insightful tips for home-officers, summarized here:
Have more than one way to get online. That way your business won’t go out just because your cable does. “I have a wireless card, I have a BlackBerry, somewhere in the closet I have a modem,” notes Shankman.
Train people how to contact you. Having watched others wrestle with the home phone/personal cell phone/business phone/business cell phone issue, Shankman was asked how many cellphones he has. The answer is “one phone, one BlackBerry,” but he prefers email, which both friends and clients have been trained to use. “If you get my voice mail, it says to email me or text me, and I’ll return the call that much quicker,” Shankman says. “And I do.” (
Personal comment: the new free service called Google Voice allows you to create a single number that will ring any and all phones you or your associates have…wherever they are. A single number can be on your website, and your business cards. It’s brand new; look into it.)
Try to be as paperless as possible. Scan what you can, and keep it digitally. Even signed documents can be printed, signed/dated, and scanned. Cuts down on a lot of time wasted filing, and wasted space in your tight home-office quarters. “…I don’t even own a fax machine; there’s no point.”
As you grow, consider a dispersed team. Shankman’s first employee, his assistant Meagan, works from a home office on the West Side of Manhattan. His second and third employees work from their homes in White Plains, N.Y., and Scottsdale, Ariz., respectively. Since you are not looking directly at these people, they need to come through trusted networks, which leads to …
Hire well. When you trust your employees, privacy issues become irrelevant. “I hire people who are good at what I’m not,” says Shankman. He rents an office for the day when he needs to conduct hiring interviews, but he asks questions geared to making sure that the person is comfortable with a non-traditional office.
Good stuff. Good luck.
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
-- John le Carré, English author