Go big or stay home?

[rydods]

So...For all of the larger/mid-sized sign companies, what made you choose to go large? Do you regret it? Would you change anything?
For the smaller companies mainly working from home, do you plan to go big or are you happy with what you have now?
I am currently one of the smaller companies. I worked for a larger one for 8 years before the company closed. I've worked (9 years now) out of my basement and have expanded to 1 smaller heated garage with a loft and 1 larger unheated. I swear I go back and forth daily on why I would want to expand to a larger facility in our downtown area. I have a cousin who owns an apparel business in town and it's always been our dream to work together under 1 large roof as 2 businesses offering our services together.
I have more than enough space to add on to my property. I live on a major highway, I sleep well at night even during our slower months. However, I know we could do more, better visibility, no barking dogs, getting our house back, strange people stopping by at all hours, having to tell my wife to keep her car parked outside, cringing every time I see a customer walk by the corvette we're wrapping to get up to our office.

 

[rjssigns]

Tough question to answer since it is a personal decision. I work from home and it's been good. Could never justify the numbers of having a separate shop and all that comes with it. Best advice I can give is always deliver a quality product on time.
I've had clients tell me that I'm not the cheapest, but they come back because I do exactly what I say I'm going to do.
It's the same reason I'm back doing yacht transoms an hour away from home.

I will have to come up and visit sometime. Used to spend a lot of time on Keyes Lake.

 

[Cori Ann Lund]

I have been in the business for almost 25 years I am now in a bit of a decision for myself - I started in my garage (and part of the Basement) and then moved to a shop in 1997 and have been in the same place since. I rent the place I am in - My old landlord sold the place 7 years ago (share the building with a Mechanic) with my new Landlord the rent has gone up 3 times in the last 2 years. It just went up again for April - so I have asked if this is going to be an ongoing thing - (as it did not jump in a small amount it added $600.00 more in a year on top of what I normally paid) and every year they said they will visit it but just in the pattern I am thinking the rent will continue going up. I would definitely look at the expense if you are moving into another building as you have more expenses to think about other than having it in your home. So I would definitely look at the added cost - I do get leaving work at work and having your home your home as now my husband is not interested in me moving back as part of me would like to but that is just frustration talking at the moment.... Good Luck - it is a tough decision I agree with rjsigns continue doing good work and being on time. All the Best.....

 

[Pauly]

Im not one to work at home. To many distractions ect.
Home is for living. Workshop is for working. I especially wouldn't like my clients visiting my home. Having clients come to an office is a lit more appealing. Especially for the client.

 

[StarSign]

What are your long and short term goals? Could you emotionally and financially handle the move and what comes with it?

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I work from home and I like it. My shop is a separate building from my house so there's some separation there. I like that I don't have to interact with customers face-to-face too often, most interaction is online or over the phone. I am getting too busy to be a one-man shop but instead of expanding I have countered that by raising prices and started to just take jobs that I can make good money on and are pretty easy...turning down ones that are uncomfortably large or too small to fool with. I like having a small business along with the freedom of just dealing with myself. Others may want to conquer the world and if you're like that you may want to expand.

 

[ddarlak]

sounds like your answering your own question, sounds like working at home has detracted from your home life. time to get the shop out of the house.

 

[Billct2]

So many variables, financial, emotional and others. When I started in this business it was with the idea of having a shop in the garage, a pick up and my dog...things went in another direction and there's no way to go back there now but it definitely is an appealing idea.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Do a C/B of staying at home versus going out in a shop. What has more value, what costs more between the two.

There are going to be sacrifices no matter which one you choose, the question is, which sacrifices are going to cost you less? What someone else chose and why they did so, may not be a blip on our radar at this point in time etc. So while asking around may give you some more variables that you may not have thought of, it's really going to be which one is going to cost you less and that's going to depend on what evaluation you have given the pros and cons of each route that affect you.

 

[Gene@mpls]

And keep in mind that having a bunch of employees is like running a daycare center.

 

[Midnight]

I work from home and I like it. My shop is a separate building from my house so there's some separation there. I like that I don't have to interact with customers face-to-face too often, most interaction is online or over the phone. I am getting too busy to be a one-man shop but instead of expanding I have countered that by raising prices and started to just take jobs that I can make good money on and are pretty easy...turning down ones that are uncomfortably large or too small to fool with. I like having a small business along with the freedom of just dealing with myself. Others may want to conquer the world and if you're like that you may want to expand.

 

[Midnight]

You described me and my shop to a tee..lol...I have a shop at my house..I hardly deal with people there...I turn down jobs that I don't want to do and I'm a one man army there...I wouldn't change a thing...

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I make about 15k a month... I've kind of maxed out what I can do in a month though..working 50 hours a week but I'm not complaining yet.

 

[klingsdesigns]

We are working out of our home and garage. Area in home is about 13x25, and garage is 26x26. We have a 7ft high garage door. We have rented out shop space by the hour when we have installs that need a bigger garage door. We have thought about moving too for the last two years. Not sure if we want a commercial spot to by/rent, or buy a bigger house and build a shop off of that or on the same property. Commercial pricing is insane around here right now, and so is building. We are maxed out as far as space. Feel like we need more space to even work more efficiently.I think if i were you i would just add on to your property. If we could, we would have done that 5 years ago.

 

[equippaint]

A friend of mine has worked from home doing IT and currently web development for a large company. He has always rented a room from a friend to work out of despite having plenty of room at home. Just for the normalcy and discipline to separate life from work.
Ive said this on here before in similar threads. I have 9 employees and not a week goes by that I am not brainstorming how I will unearth myself from this ball and chain to just go work from my house by myself or pay off my shop and just keep 1 guy. The costs and stress exponentially increase with growth and all that added revenue that you thought would lineally go into the bank just flies out the window. Yes, net goes up but I always feel like I'm chasing the end of pi for absolutely no reason.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

I think I more prefer solo now. Last year I had a guy work with me and I had to let him go in January because of some personal issues he was going through. When I had en employee I got stressed making sure I had planned "enough" for him to do in a day, everyday and the costs associate with keeping him paid during slow times. He worked three days a week but I felt like I had metal "relief" when it was his off days and I was alone.

At first I was nervous about not being able to do two-person jobs, having to dig holes again or cut poly and do the "labor" part of the work around here but I Now I just take jobs I can do myself and I've been getting more exercise doing the physical parts of the installs. I did notice my NET went from 55% to 65% because of the reduced labor cost.

 

[WrapYourCar]

I've always run from an office/factory, but when we purchased our first factory the tenant still had an extra 6 months on his lease... I offered him $1k to leave early (to save us having to move twice) but he ended up staying, so we had to run from home for a bit. There are pros and cons from running at home, not having to drive anywhere at the start of the day was good.. but I think its much better to run from a factory. It was awkward having clients come into your home, and even though most are friendly... when things go missing you start to worry! One time my son who was about 7 yrs old at the time, took my wifes diamond ring from the kitchen and was playing with it... he put it in his pocket and forgot he had it there. We were convinced that a client must have snatched it! Only after pressing him he admitted to playing with it... and only after i searched everywhere i found it in his dirty shorts (luckily not in the laundry yet!).

I have a small team me and my wife at the moment, and my brother in law helps part-time for install jobs. We are about to purchase a much bigger office, and will most likely need to start chasing more sales and hire a full timer to help with the new load of work we will be dealing with. As stressful as this is, I think it's a good motivator and aslong as you are still managing your work/personal life balance.. that is the key. I still am committed to attending most of my kids sports and my own personal hobby sports games weekly. I don't plan on growing massive, but a team of 3-5 people would be ideal.

I try not to take too many time consuming jobs such as vehicle wraps, as i find them very tiring and stressful. (ironic that my nickname is WrapYourCar) haha. I suppose i thought of the name when i thought I was getting good at it! Anyway I find one of the keys to success these days is being high ranked in SEO.

 

[rydods]

What are your long and short term goals? Could you emotionally and financially handle the move and what comes with it?

My long term goal would be to offer both my business and my cousin's apparel business in one location. Sometimes I try to picture production being separate from a storefront downtown area and it seems more ideal. I believe I could financially handle the move but I know it would be very stressful and like I said, I currently sleep well even at our slower months.

 

[rydods]

Thanks for the comments & suggestions! I plan to keep close tabs on our financial situation over the coming months to see if purchasing a property will be affordable. I'll also weigh the emotional pros and cons. It's nice to hear what others have to say in our industry.

I agree about employees and the difficulty that is attached to them. When I started, hiring was so exciting. If I can't handle the load, I'll hire. If someone needs a job, I'll hire. If I don't want to do it, I'll hire. 2 years ago, I was up to 5 employees. I lost 1 to maternity leave and she didn't come back (thank GOD!), 1 to retirement and 1 to a waitress position (she was on the edge of firing due to countless phone usage warnings). There's just me, my graphic designer, and my Mom who's the production manager. My wife helps a little with the books, but not too much. I'd go on about why I believe spouses shouldn't work together but that's a whole other story.
With the others gone, I think this is one of the main reasons I sleep better at night! And taking the workload back upon myself, I realized just how much I love doing every aspect of this business. (Except vinyl removal) 6 years ago, I hired my best friend. Long story short, We are no longer friends. Less employees=less stress. If I ever hire again, it's going to be a manager to handle any future employees I decide to hire.

 

[gnemmas]

One question worth asking ourselves is: are we running a Business or are we having a Job? What will we be when we are 65 or 70 years old?

Home based or not, we need to generate enough profit to set aside some for retirement. Net profit is Sales minus All expenses, including your salary. And put that away in IRA.

I find it appealing to collect rent when I retired. Buy a shop building with SBA (just need 10% down), pay mortgage instead of rent. In 20 to 25 years, you would own the building free and clear, and hopefully also has a Business that is worth something.