I run a small SEO operation from my house, and I don?t envision moving to an office any time soon. As much as I?d like to have an office, a move is not in the budget. What I?m really worried about is how we are perceived by clients when we don?t have a professional space to bring them into. Has anyone dealt with something like this? Do you keep your customers at arms length, howso? Or how do you explain your location to the customer? How do they react if they know you work from home?

It's okay to work from home. Just be sure to tell your customers that your office is your home as well and if you must meet with them do so in a professional public place such as Star Bucks or something.

Be as professional as you can be as well so show up wearing a business suit. Your image tells the customer alot about you and your business and you are already operating from home so you'll need to get the impression of them thinking "who am I dealing with" out of their heads.

Be prepared each time and offer to pay for a small drink. If you do this then you will soon find it easier to work from home.

Another thing you can do (if you reside in a house) is redecorate the front room as if it is an office.

When I started my business from home I removed most of the living room funiture into my bedroom and the living area became my office. I have a three bedroom home and I made the master bedroom into the lounge or living area. I now use one of the smaller bedrooms as my room. This way I can bring clients over to my home when I plan their parties.

I own a sign company and although we have industrial space for manufacturing, its not great for office work. I worked (and other members) from home for quite a while - Vonage phone and internet allows you to be "anywhere". We used a virtual office for a while...they answered the 800# and then forwarded to individual lines/extensions...we could go in and use their conference room X number of hours per month etc... it worked out well.

We have since expanded and are now in an office building but for what we needed, the VO worked great. Please contact me about SEO if you will loganbaker@goldenrulesigns.com

Sincerely,

Logan P. Baker - President

www.goldenrulesigns.com

http://www.vcdsigns.com

A business with no sign is a sign of no business.

Some other suggestions:

Find a local business that has a meeting room and ask if you can use it occasionally. Sometimes they may charge a small fee. You could always barter the occasional SEO workup for them in exchange for use of their meeting space.

Hotels usually have some sort of facility. I know that you can get them fairly cheap to free in off seasons.

Depending on the size of the community you live in there are businesses who will sublet an extra office or some desk space that you can use on an as needed basis. I like this solution quite a bit. For something in the neighborhood of $100 - $250 per month you can get a desk, internet, meeting facilities, and someone to answer phones for you. Remember that with your skills you can trade some web work or SEO work for desk space. Many times all you have to do is ask or make the suggestion.

Real Estate offices and brokerages are great candidates for this type of arrangement. Many have conference rooms and even offices you can use on an "as available" basis to meet clients because their realtors are either out most of the time or they have such turn over that its not a big deal for them to let you sit at a desk in an unoccupied office for a little while. Plus, realtors are cheap. They won't spend money if they don't have to. Its part of surviving the business. So if they can get expensive SEO and good page placement for letting you use their facilities from time to time then that's a bonus for them.

If that doesn't work out another tactic is to find two or three other home based business owners and see if they are interested in leasing a small office somewhere. You can use Outlook to schedule using the office to avoid conflicts. If you aren't afraid of a little open source software there are some great scheduling packages on sourceforge.net.

For that matter, if you were to find the right group of people you could lease a small house or an apartment in an area zoned for business and get a rider on your contract that you can sublet it and run your own small office facility that you can use anytime you want.

The other source of space for you to do this with is some small industrial space. Depending on your area you can find a ton of space for a few cents per square foot, and lots of industrial complexes have clients who would happily sublet a couple of hundred feet of space to help cover costs.

The other source of facilities that are popular are the myriad of business incubators that are around. You don't have to be a member of them. Most will rent you access to their facilities for a reasonable rate.

Small airports usually have a lot of unused space. I'm a pilot and there are always unused conference rooms or some of the Fixed Base Operators (FBO) have business facilities for those people who fly in to do business. I've met at these before and it adds a bit of mystic and character to you and your business.

A couple of other things to know about home office and utilizing outside space is that you can get some significant tax advantages by utilizing your home as the workspace. If you rent then you can directly deduct the prorata value of the square footage that you use for your business. If you own and are paying a mortgage then a portion of that is deductible. If you own and paid in full, then you can find many great maintenance deductions. Get a CPA to do this work for you and encourage them to go look for this type of deduction.

I know that my wife wouldn't go for allowing me to set up in our living room, but to set up a nice office in our spare bedroom is well within the limits and most people who do business are aware that a home business operating out of a home doesn't mean you are not professional. But you do have to be careful not to make it unprofessional. Appearance, comfort, and organization without family interruptions is critical.

That being said, I don't like having my clients know where I live. I have kids and work with lots of people who, while great business people, I wouldn't want to bring home for dinner. And I have a hard enough time separating home and work. That's just me.

There is also the alternative of building a small exterior office that is on your property but not attached to the house. These really aren't that expensive and can add a great deal of credibility and privacy to your effort as well as being a very nice space for you to work in. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2006/07/71462

And how cool would this be: http://www.yurts.com/

All the best,

Gail

"Things are difficult only while you don't understand them."

This is definitely a concept worth revisiting for all of us. With the internet the way it is more and more people are telecommuting with great success, but there's a real challenge to stay professional in the midst of it. Luckily, with SEO there's really no need for an office, you can create an email and home phone office space that looks just as professional. Obviously extra steps will need to be taken if you have to bring them into your home, but...how often does this happen?

I worked as a freelance copywriter for several years out of my home and managed to convince some people that I actually worked for a large company! I bought my own domain name and emails, and setup a decent website for starters. I've also used several virtual attendants, most recently gotvmail's advanced 1-800 number; the differences here with client perception are enormous, since a voicemail service will professionally forward calls to different extensions (your landline, mobile, etc). Some people told me it was overkill but all this stuff didn't really add up to that much per month, and I was getting tons of business towards the end. But then I never had to invite a client into my home. My guess is that in that case you'll want to isolate your office from the rest of your living space somehow, and keep everything as organized and as professional as possible. But it strikes me that SEO wouldn't really call for this all that often. I've had clients in other countries before...they can't really stop by in those instances!

MG1