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Home Office Essentials
Part 1: Basic Home Office Equipment
Aaah! Working at home! Fuzzy bunny slippers. Quiet moments of contemplation.
Free, unrestricted access to a fully-stocked refrigerator. Add the advantages
of low overhead, income tax reductions, and not commuting, and you can understand
why so many small business owners choose to operate out of home offices.
Being one of those fortunate people who gets to work at home most of the time, here’s my list of home office essentials and home office “nice-to-haves”.
Basic Home Office Equipment
Zoning regulations may determine whether or not you can even have a home office. Before you start a home-based business, it’s important to find out whether or not home-based businesses are allowed in your location; some cities/towns don’t allow businesses to be operated in residential areas.
A separate home office space. It’s important to have a designated space, preferably a room where can work in isolation, away from distractions.
Having a designated home office space also makes it easier to calculate percentages of home business use expenses that you can deduct on your income tax. (See Calculating The Home-Based Business Tax Deduction.)
When you’re choosing the home office space in your home, remember to choose a location that has all the relevant wiring for the equipment you’re going to need, (such as telephone and cable jacks), and space for all of your chosen home office equipment, including things such as filing cabinets. Otherwise you’ll waste too much time wandering through your home looking for this or that. The Basics of Small or Home Office Design will show you how to plan your office design around the power, lighting and ventilation needs of your office space.
You may also need an attractive home office space if you’re going to consult with clients on the premises. This space needs to be kept “business-like” (uncluttered by things such as children’s toys), and private. When you’re choosing a room for your home office, consider the space the client will have to walk through to get to the meeting room. He or she won’t form a very good impression of your operation if he has to stroll through your laundry room or follow you through a labyrinth into a dark corner of your basement before she gets to talk business.
Filing cabinet(s) – and a good filing system. To deal with those once-yearly chores, such as income taxes, and whatever daily crises crop up, you have to have a filing system that allows you to lay your hands on exactly whatever piece of paper you need. See my Data Management Library for articles on how to set up and use a good filing system.
Basic home office furniture. Definitely you’ll need a desk for your home office (large enough to hold a computer and still leave enough room for a desktop work space), and an office chair. Whatever other home office furniture you need will depend on how much equipment you have and what kind of business you’re running. If you have a printer and or fax machine, for instance, you’ll need stands for them. See Office Design On The Cheap for tips on saving money on office furniture and equipment. If your business involves meeting with clients in your home office, you’ll need some attractive chairs and perhaps a coffee table.
Family support. Whether or not your family members are actively working in your business, they need to support you to the degree that they’ll give you the time and space to run a home-based business.
Nice to Have Home Office Essentials:
A really supportive family, that pitches in and helps out.
A really comfortable office chair. Because you’re going to spend a lot of time sitting in it, get the most comfortable office chair you can afford for your home office.
You have the basic furniture and equipment for your home office now. But what about those technological gadgets that will make it easier for you to work at home? Continue on to the next page...
Part 2: Essential Home Office Technology
If you're going to set up a home office, you're going to have to invest in technological
devices. But if your eyes widen like the proverbial kid in the candy store whenever
you walk into the computer store, you need to plan your technological purchases
for your home office carefully.
Determine what you absolutely need to run your business, determine your budget, make a list, and stick to it. To help harden your resolve, here's my list of technological devices no home office can do without.
A second phone line for your business is a home office essential. Having only
one line for your home and your home office makes you look unprofessional. Also
a second phone line makes it easier to answer the phone in a professional manner.
When people call your home-based business, they shouldn’t get someone
who just says, “Hello”, and then going through the conversational
awkwardness of determining whether or not they’ve reached the business
they’re trying to contact.
They should get someone who says, “Gloria’s Gift Services. Gloria
speaking. How may I help you?” Phone Answering Tips To Win Business gives
more phone answering advice.
If you’re Internet-connected, and your modem operates over a phone line, a second telephone line is even more crucial for your home office. Customers trying to reach you when you’re online are not going to be impressed with a continual busy signal. (If the service is available in your area, I strongly recommend switching to a cable modem, which entirely avoids this problem.)
Make sure your business line has its own answering machine, so you can set up professional-sounding messages for those times you can’t answer the phone. The recorded messages that many people have on the machines that pick up their personal phone calls, such as, “Hi, you’ve reached the Swift family. We can’t come to the phone right now because we’re bathing the dog,” are a turn-off for business callers.
Your business’ recorded message should state the name of your business, welcome the caller, and provide any necessary additional information, such as the number of your cell phone, if you’re out on a call but can be reached by cell, or your hours of operation. Keep your business message updated. If, for instance, you’re closed for a holiday, say so in your recorded message and state when you’re going to reopen.
Business cards. Get these professionally printed, and keep lots of them with you to hand out to people you meet, stick up on bulletin boards in malls, and attach to whatever professional documents you produce, such as estimates and reports. (See my Business Cards library for tips on business card design and using your business cards as marketing vehicles.)
A Yellow Pages listing. Invest in a separate listing for your business, even when you’re operating out of a home office. It enhances your professional credibility and makes it much easier for potential customers/clients to find you.
A computer. Consider what business tasks you’re going to use your computer for before you buy one; for instance, if you run a computer graphics business, you’ll need high-storage capacity. As a minimum, you’ll need a computer that’s business-capable, with at least a 2 GHz processor and 512 MB Ram, so you can multi-task a business suite such as MS Office.
An ISP (Internet Service Provider). Even if your business isn’t directly related to the Internet, the 'Net is a valuable source of business-related information, and how can you possibly function without e-mail? An Internet connection is now definitely a home office essential.
When it comes to technological devices that it would be nice to have in the home office, the sky's the limit. But you'll find a few suggestions to make your work at home more productive on the next page.
Part 3: Nice-To-Have Home Office Technology
Besides the basics, there are other technological devices that can make working
in your home office much more productive.
Whether or not you need a cell phone depends on what kind of business you’re operating; if you’re running a service business out of your home office you should have one, because of the percentage of potential clients who don’t bother to leave messages and won’t call back if they can’t reach you the first time. When was the last time you met a realtor who didn’t have a cell phone and a pager, for example?
A fax machine. Only if you need to be able to physically feed documents into a fax machine at your home office. Otherwise, let your computer handle this chore. Fax software will allow you to send and receive documents.
A printer. What kind does your home office need? That depends on your printing needs.
If you need to print high-quality colour documents, then you’ll need to invest in a top-of-the-line color printer for your home office. If not, you should be able to get away with a black and white printer. If you only occasionally need documents such a full-color brochures printed, it may be more economical to buy a basic printer and get your high-quality documents done by a professional printing company. You'll find a whole range of monochrome and color printers suitable for home offices in my collection of Printer Top Picks articles, including my recommendations for Multifunction B&W Laser Printers. For more help deciding whether or not you need a color printer, see Before You Buy A Color Printer.
A copier, if you need one. Here are my Top Picks for Home Office Copiers. Once again, it may be more economical to take your documents to a business that provides copying services and run off copies there.
A large monitor for your computer. You might move this one into the “Essentials” category if, like me, you spend a great deal of time using your computer. The price of larger monitors has dropped considerably, and I can’t believe what a difference it makes.
The best speaker phone money can buy. When you're working in your home office, the advantages of being able to use your phone hands-free are enormous.
A business web site. Even if the business has no connection to e-commerce, having a web site gives you professional credibility, and is yet another way to reach your potential customers. A business web site doesn’t have to be gigantic and full of fancy graphics to do the job; it just needs to present your business in a clear, attractive manner. "Why Isn't My Web Site Working?' will guide you through through the process of building a business web site that works. If you don’t have the skills to produce a business web site yourself, there are a great many people who do and will do the job for a reasonable rate.
So now you have all the "stuff" to run your home office, from office furniture through technological devices to make working at home easier. But isn't it a little crowded in there? On the next page are resources to help you with home office design.
Part 4: Home Office Design
The next step of bulding a home office that works is spending some time on home
office design. If you’re like me, you just take all your home office equipment
to your designated home office space, take everything out of its box, hook it
up, and spend the next decade of your life tripping over cords and moving things
to get to the things you need, but there is a better way. Ideally, a home office
should enhance your work, not hinder it, so time spent on home office design
is time well spent.
The Basics of Small or Home Office Design will show you how to plan your office design around the power, lighting and ventilation needs of your office space.
Office Design On The Cheap explains how to create a functional home office without spending a bundle; it provides tips for saving money on office furniture and equipment such as office desks, filing cabinets, computers and printers.
Home Office Safety, by About Mobile Office Technology Guide Catherine Roseberry, explains how to ensure that your children or pets will not be harmed by anything in your home office.
If you’re interested in marrying function and design, you might enjoy these articles that explain how to make your home office attractive and efficient.
5 Home Office Design Tips for Better Productivity.
Darrell Zahorsky shows you how a few simple changes in your home office design can boost your business productivity (About Small Business Information).
Feng Shui In Your Home Office Design. Tips from About Feng Shui Guide Debbie DeSpirt for using the Feng Shui principles to design a home office that will bring wealth and success.
Setting Up Your Home Office. Tips on organizing your home office and your time from HomeBasedWork.com.
Create a Home Office Design That Matches Your Work Style. Guidelines for designing a home office that's functional and attractive from Home Decorating Made Easy.
Conquering Your Space: Stellar Home Office Furnishings Fuse Practicality and Pizazz. Suzanne Martin. A guide to designing the kind of office space that you'll actually love to work in (National Association for the Self-Employed).
Nine Steps Toward the Home Office of Your Dreams. Debra Cash. Specific advice for planning and using your ideal office space (Inc.com).
Don't let your home office work space work against you! These articles will
provide you with plenty of ideas for home office design that will give you productivity...
and pleasure
From Susan Ward,
Your Guide to Small Business: Canada
http://sbinfocanada.about.com/
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