As the owner/operator of The Office Suites at Jefferson Park, a business center in North Andover, Massachusetts, I often ask prospective small business owners to describe their needs.
Typical Small Business Office Space Needs
- I just need a place to work
- I have no need for any services
- All I need is an office with a phone and an internet connection
- I don’t need a telephone, I use my mobile telephone for all my calls
To me, this presents a welcome challenge. The small business owner has already acknowledged they need office space, so my task is reduced to simply convincing them the services we offer are a valuable enhancement to their business.
Since many small business owners are not familiar with the business center concept, they often do not have a full understanding of why our services are valuable and important to the success of their business.
When most people think of support services, they think of traditional secretarial services such as typing, spreadsheets, and database management, even creating PowerPoint and other graphic design projects. What they often do not think about is the value of the stability and structure a serviced business center offers
their company.
Ways a Business Center Can Benefit a Small Business
Here are some of the “one more things” you may want to consider when determining the value of this alternative:
A professional business address
800 Turnpike Street, Suite 300
North Andover, MA 01845
is much better than: 52 Cherry Lane or PO Box 2432
Dependable infrastructure
To be sure, you have a cell phone and all the required technology, at your finger tips in your home office, but what if the copy machine jams, the printer runs out of ink or you need to post a package that Stamps.com can’t process? Depending on when this happens, it could ruin your day or cost you an important deal. At a serviced business center, it is not your job to fix faulty equipment and there is almost always a redundancy in service options. You can focus on your customers while we focus on getting things done.
The Business Center Community
This concept may seem intangible, but it is real. Many people think that they are just as productive at home, but most people are not. There are often distractions when working at home that you will not have working in a professional office. It is not a question of how many hours you sit at your desk or talk on the phone. It is a question of overall productivity. The value of working in a professional environment with a culture of success and achievement may be difficult to quantify but it is definately real.
Most of our small business clients are in sales of one kind or another. Some are pure peddlers, serving as a Sales Manager for a Fortune 500 Company. Others are local, self-employed professionals. Whether they are selling a product or selling themselves and their services, they are all in sales. They also tend to be gregarious, outgoing and friendly. While some folks come to a business center because they have no good at-home solution, others have the opposite problem. They find the loneliness and isolation of a home office to be a debilitating challenge that is very difficult to overcome and definitely affects their productivity. For these folks a serviced business center is a perfect solution.
We recently wrote a whitepaper to help explain the benefits of a shared office center. Please feel free to download a copy.
For small business owners who are working at home, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is whether to move your business to an outside office. A fundamental question to ask is how, and why, did I make the decision to work from home in the first place. Two perspectives that may not be obvious are economics and the value of the perceived need. Typical full-time shared office space plans run from $500 to $700 per month, depending on the type of plan, office size, and location. Traditional leasing options can run much more and require a long-term commitment. Understanding the options that are available for your business is very important in the decision-making process.
Why Would I Spend the Money to Pay for An Office?
The economic debate revo
lved around the question “I have everything I need at home, why would I want to spend the money for an outside office?” Asking this question that way, it is hard not to conclude that it would be extravagant and wasteful not to work from home. A better question would be; “If all things were equal, would I rather work from home or from an outside office?” If the answer is “No”, the issue now becomes one that asks why don’t I prefer to work from home, what are the advantages of an outside office and how much is that worth.
How Are You Handling the At-Home Distractions?
On the other hand, the benefits of an outside office are less tangible and more difficult to measure. The obvious ones are the distractions that abound at home, kids crying, dogs barking, yard work that needs attention and special requests from the real boss, like “can you pick up the kids from school today?”
What Life/Work Issues Are Important to You?
More importantly, and probably more difficult to quantify are the emotional and psychological challenges of working from home. I always enjoy the twenty minute ride from work to home. It’s an important separation between the work life and home life and is valuable time in which to make that transition. Personally, I could never work effectively from home, whether I was in a basement make-shift office or a spacious upper floor suite. If I didn’t get in the car and drive to work, it never really felt like I was on the job. Finally, during the work day itself, as a person dedicated to sales professionalism, I could never feel exactly at the top of my game, making an important sales pitch from my home office. Other benefits include professional administrative support, improved IT infrastructure, business office furnishings, and business networking opportunties with other business people within the office center.
How Much Are You Willing to Invest in Your Business?
The final challenge you should contemplate is how much do you want to invest in your business. Most likely, you have already made a significant commitment in time and other resources. Are the benefits of improved productivity, a more professional image, and professional administrative support, worth the additional cost? In the big picture, $500-700/mo is not a huge amount to give your business every chance of success.
The Next Step: - How to Evaluate Alternative Office Space Solutions
The next step in your decision making process should be to evaluate different office space alternatives in your area to see which ones work for your business. Our next article will address this process in more detail.
Shared office space is an excellent choice for at-home business owners looking for their first outside office. We've developed a whitepaper to help you understand the benefits of leasing an office in a business office center.
Download a free copy of our whitepaper 7 Reasons Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow.
“And One More Thing”……
This was a theme used by Steve Jobs when introducing new technologies at Apple. I just finished the biography about Steve by Walter Isaacson and found it fascinating. If you are interested in reading about how one person started a business from nothing and build it to become the largest corporation in the world, it is a great read.
For work-at-home professionals, moving your business out of your home is one of the most critical decisions you will need to make. In relating back to the Steve Jobs theme, there is much to think about. Locating your business in the most advantageous position is critical to your success.
Do You Need an Office Outside of Your Home?
The most common rationale from the work-at-home professional for not seeking an outside the home office, is the issue of need. If I have a beautiful office at home, no family members to interrupt my concentration, no need to have customers/clients visit me and no need for any services provided by a business center, why would I ever consider leaving my home office. It is difficult to challenge this logic based on these tangible considerations. If in fact, these were the only factors in the decision process, the business center concept would be in decline. In fact the reverse is true. There are more professionals today supported in some fashion by traditional business centers and their spinoffs than ever before.
Changing Office Solutions for a More Dynamic Workforce
My belief is that a new paradigm in office solutions is underway. Throughout the nineties and the first decade of the new century, the way business was conducted changed dramatically. Simply put, email and the internet eliminated the need for additional secretarial services and much of the face-to-face contact in doing business. These technologies replaced the phone and the fax machine. There was no need to meet as a group to complete your daily work assignments. In the past few years however, the dynamic has begun to change.
The Need for Face-to-Face Collaboration is Increasing
At an increasing frequency, I hear clients speak of the need to collaborate directly with customers and associates. This has fostered the development of new office solutions such as coworking, part-time office sharing and various forms of virtual office plans. I also find it interesting that despite the wide spread use of Facebook, Skype and 4G mobile technology, there is a return to the need of business people to meet with their clients in person. This need to “look them in the eye” can only be achieved through direct and personal contact. Steve Jobs certainly appreciated the need to talk face-to-face, often going on long walks in order to close business deals or interview new employees.
Business Office Centers Allow Business Owners to "Cross Pollinate"
If you are currently working from home, I encourage you to consider these alternatives and determine if some form of this office solution might be right for you. To bring this posting full circle, Steve Jobs was totally immersed in every aspect of Apple, right down to the layout and furnishing of company facilities. He was adamant that Apple buildings be designed to encourage chance meetings of folks who did not see each other in the normal flow of work. He believed this was an essential way to cross pollinate thinking and product development, and that this ultimately produced a better final product. Maybe we would all benefit if we thought and acted a little more like Steve Jobs did.
To help work-at-home business owners in the decision-making process, The Office Suites at Jefferson Park developed a whitepaper, 7 Reasons Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow. I hope it helps you with your decision making process.
In 1987, before the high boom, Route 114 in North Andover was just beginning to be developed into a commercial strip and Jefferson Park was under construction. David Herrick and David Keene, two business partners, saw an opportunity and 25 years later they have hosted nearly 1,000 companies at the Office Suites at Jefferson Park in North Andover, a shared-service business center.
Business Center Changes with the Times
“When we started out, the personal computer was starting to become popular and the fax machine was actually a rarity”, said Herrick. “But of course today it is all about much more sophisticated technology and much different ways of doing business. The Office Suites at Jefferson Park offers private individual offices, virtual offices, coworking space as well as all of the attendant services provided by a staff headed up by Office Manager Julie Pomodoro who has been with the company since its inception.”
“Most of our clients are small, local businesses,” Pomodoro explains. The types of business who have offices here include lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, tax firms and sales people. However, we also have a number of national and even international companies who have a regional employee located here.” Indeed over the years several Fortune 500 companies including IBM, GE, and US Bancorp have located at the Office Suites. Pomodoro continues by saying “This is the perfect environment for start-up companies because we can put you in business instantly with whatever furniture you need, whatever technology you need, and whatever services you need. We have conference rooms, reception areas, kitchenettes and staff areas that are all shared, so the cost to any one of the more than 100 clients, is minimal. Plus, you can expand or contract as your business dictates without any long-term obligation.
Jefferson Park Offers Friendly and Collegial Atmosphere
”The Office Suites at Jefferson Park also offers a unique collegial atmosphere. Mark Henry, CEO of Bach Pharmaceutical has been a client at Jefferson Park for over 20 years. “There is a special camaraderie here at Jefferson Park,” Henry explained. “We’ll gather around the coffee machine, or meet in the mail room. The staff gets to know you too. They do such a great job, they often know what I want, before I even know what I want.”
About 20 years ago, one of our clients had the idea to have an indoor golf tournament,” Pomodoro explained. “We decided to give it a try, and now it has become an annual event. It gives our clients a chance to know each other and thank them for their business.”
For Herrick, 25 years have passed quickly. “We have survived numerous recessions and growth spurts,” recalled Herrick. “During the late 1990s, the dot-com boom produced the greatest demand for our offices. Since then, our client base has stabilized. Now most of our clients live within a five to ten mile radius so they have an easy commute as well as all of the space and services they need to help their businesses thrive.”
For a small business, keeping costs under control can mean the difference between survival and extinction. I've shared some of the reasons why our clients have done so well in our whitepaper, 7 Reasons Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow.
Office Space Alternatives for Small Businesses
Small business owners have a lot of decisions to make. One of the most critical decisions they will make is where should they locate their business? Many start-up businesses begin as home businesses with an office in a spare bedroom or basement. However, as the business grows, they quickly realize, working at home isn’t productive. For many years, traditional office leases were the only alternative. While shared service and business centers have existed for many years, they began to gain popularity in the 1990s. Demand exploded with the arrival of the "dot-com" era. Today, many entrepreneurs aren’t looking for a traditional office at all. They are opting to work in “co-working” facilities where many other professionals work in cubicles or in small offices.
Traditional Commercial Office Space
If you have a well-established business with more than 10 employees and require specific office layouts and features, traditional office space will most likely be your only alternative. Leasing a traditional office space can also be very complex and confusing. There are many factors involved, all of which must be negotiated. Understanding your options and negotiating a lease in your favor requires an experienced commercial real estate broker as well as advise from your financial and legal services professionals.
Shared Office Space Alternatives
If you are a solo entrepreneur, a small professional services firm or an outside employee like a sales executive, shared office space may make more sense. A shared office center provides private offices or workspace areas, conference rooms and often telephone and administrative services.
Other benefits of leasing shared office space:
- Short-term and flexible leases
- Lower operating and overhead costs
- Costs are usually built into monthly lease payments
- Administrative costs (telephone receptionist, administrative assistants) are also shared
- IT and telephone services are included
- Offices are often furnished
- Different types of plans are available to meet your needs
Shared office centers are available in most major metropolitan areas and in many suburban office parks too.
To learn more about leasing shared office space, download our free whitepaper,7 Reasons Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow
How does a young attorney launch a new law practice from home and create a professional image? For attorney Jason Ebacher, having two young children at home created a real dilemma. How could he meet with clients when his office was in his house? The answer for him was a virtual office plan at the Office Suites at Jefferson Park.
Jason works full time for the Essex County Sheriff’s department. He graduated from the Massachusetts School of Law in 2006 and provides real estate and construction law services for clients in the Merrimack Valley.
Jason thought that leasing an office may be the best way to go. He consulted with a local real estate agent who recommended looking at office space in a shared-office center. He looked at several alternatives, and realized he didn’t need a full time office plan. Jason decided on a virtual office plan at the Office Suites at Jefferson Park in North Andover, Mass. Besides the fact that the shared office center was close to his home, they provided a full range of professional services to help him create a more professional image for his firm.
The Office Suites helped him create a more professional image for his practice by providing a business address, live telephone answering services, and most importantly for him, the ability to use their conference rooms to meet clients.
“Having a virtual office plan at the Office Suites at Jefferson Park has really worked out, explained Jason. “The conference rooms are readily available and the staff is really great. The onsite owners and administrative staff are very friendly and extremely accommodating.”
Download Free Whitepaper 7 Reasons Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow
Many people dream about starting their own business and being their own boss. Starting your new business at home is a great way to save money and nurture your business without having the high overhead costs of leasing an office for a long period.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 64% of self-employed workers work at home.
Working at home has both benefits and drawbacks. At-home workers often fight constant distractions or they don't have the professional workspace they were accustomed to in their full-time office job. Some additional challenges to working at home include:
- Difficult to meet with clients - Work at home business owners must always go to the client's office or a central location to conduct meetings.
- Privacy and security - Most at-home workers don't want to list their home address and telephone numbers as their business address.
- Professional Image - It is challenging to create a professional image without a live receptionist or professional business address.
Here are five ways a part-time office can help your business:
Part-Time Offices Provide an Office When You Need It
One great way to create a professional image for your at-home business is to obtain a part-time office or virtual office from a local business center. Business centers provide private offices or cubical-style workspaces on a full time or part-time basis. Many centers provide live telephone receptionists, high-speed internet access, conference rooms, and administrative services. Part-time office space plans can be obtained by leasing for a set number of months (the typical period is 12 months, but most office centers offer flexible terms). A newer alternative is a day-office. This is a program where you reserve an office or conference room for a day or even part of a day.
Create a Professional Image
Every business needs to impress their clients. First impressions are critical in establishing credibility and building a professional reputation. For instance, you can have a professional receptionist answer and screen your telephone calls. Some office centers also provide screened call forwarding to your home telephone or mobile telephone.
Share office space costs
A shared office center spreads overhead costs like heat and utilities with all of their clients. Business telephone lines and high-speed internet access can cost a small business hundreds of dollars a month. Business centers can also provide better services and equipment than you could afford to have at home.
A professional environment
At first, working at home can be novel and exciting. However, many home workers find they miss the water cooler talk and lunch time walks with co-workers. An office center can provide that human contact.
Networking Opportunities
Networking can be the most-cost effective marketing method for a business owner. Shared office centers can provide both informal and formal business networking opportunities.
There are many types of office centers located in your town or city. Many office centers are located in downtown business districts. However, suburban office parks offer convenient locations, free parking, and easy access to major highways and public transportation.
About the Office Suites at Jefferson Park
The Office Suites at Jefferson Park is a full-service office center offering full-time residential office space, part-time office space, and virtual offices. Conveniently located in North Andover, Massachusetts, the attractive, three-story brick facility is just 25 miles north of Boston and centrally located between Manchester, NH Airport and Boston’s Logan Airport. The Office Suites provides fully furnished private offices, full-time administrative staff, conference rooms, videoconferencing facilities, telephone and high-speed internet services.
You can learn more about part time offices and day offices by downloading our free whitepaper 7 Reasons Why Shared Office Space Can Help Your Business Grow.
Free Office Space Locator
Are you looking for an office center in a different location? click here for a convenient office finder application.
Vision Care Plan Executive Finds a WorkSpace for his Business
When Larry Ford found himself left out in the cold because his office facility in Andover, Mass. was closing, he looked at a number of workspace options in the Merrimack Valley.
He ended up at the Office Suites at Jefferson Park (OSJP) in North Andover, Mass. That was in 1988. 23 years later, Larry still has his office at the Office Suites and he couldn’t be happier.
Shared Office Space Plays Substantial Role in Marketing Success
As the Regional V.P. for Avesis, Inc., a Phoenix, Arizona based provider of vision care plans, Larry depends on the administrative staff at OSJP to help him with regular mailings and marketing campaigns. “Their administrative services have played a substantial role in my success,” declares Ford. The ownership is very flexible, and it is extremely easy to work with the administrative staff.”
Friendly and Responsive Ownership Eases Pains of Moving
“We once had to move our office from one building to another,” recalled Ford. “The OSJP staff handled everything. The whole move went very well.”
Providing Office Space Solutions North of Boston Since 1987
Since 1987, The Office Suites at Jefferson Place has helped over 1000 clients find a home for their business.
Download Free Whitepaper
When Carla (Cricones) Page and Jillian Cote considered starting a law firm together, the Mass. School of Law graduates wanted to project a professional image for their new practice.
The Law Offices of Cricones and Cote, LLC provides family law, divorce, and personal injury legal services to clients in both Essex and Middlesex Counties in Massachusetts. The attorneys conducted an online search and came across the Office Suites at Jefferson Park. The executive office center provides shared office space, a live receptionist, administrative support, high-speed internet access and several well-equipped conference rooms for their 100+ clients.
Carla liked the convenient location on Rte. 114 with easy access to both the Essex County and Middlesex County courts. She also appreciated the free, off-street parking, access to conference rooms, and the professional image a live receptionist provides.
“We looked at other offices in the area, but none of them provided the receptionist or secretarial services, explained Carla. “The administrative staff provides all types of services for us including copying, sending documents to our clients, and always having someone available for our clients to drop off documents for us.
Carla also explained, “It was beneficial as a new business to have a professional image and receptionist. Our business has done very well and grown.” As their law practice expanded, the Office Suites as Jefferson Park was able to accommodate them. In fact, the law firm recently upgraded to a larger office.
Since 1986, The Office Suites at Jefferson Park has helped over 1000 clients find a home for their business.
To learn more about how shared office space can help your company grow, download our free whitepaper.
Office Suites at Jefferson Park Announces New Whitepaper, 7 Reasons Why Shared Office Space Can Help Your Company Grow.
This new whitepaper offers tips for business people who want to learn how to leverage shared office space to help their company grow. The whitepaper also discusses how using a shared office center can help businesses project a professional image and reduce overhead costs.
Shared office space is often used by business people who are working at home, service professionals such as lawyers and accountants, or large companies who need office space for their outside sales professionals.
Many small business owners want a professional address and live receptionist to project a more professional image for their business. Business centers with shared office space provide these services along with conference rooms, administrative services, and high-speed internet service.
The Whitepaper also discusses shared office plans, flexible lease options, conference rooms, business networking opportunities, and video conferencing services.
There are thousands of shared office centers located around the world. Many business office centers provide various plans including full-time office space, part-time office space, virtual offices, and drop-in services.
David Herrick is owner/operator of the Office Suites at Jefferson Park located in North Andover, Massachusetts. David has operated his shared office center for 25 years and has helped over 1,000 clients find a home for their business.
To get a copy of the whitepaper, click here.