Home Office Warrior | Home Office Warrior

Do you tell your clients you work out of a home office? SURVEY SAYS…

Sep 17, 2008

I have been kicking this question around for sometime. I even asked the question on twitter and got a few responses:

@halosecretarial — I do tell my clients I work at home, I’m proud of it!

@norcross — Since the home-based work I do is individual by nature, most people assume I do.

@AprilTara — My clients know I work from home too, but none have ever asked. It doesn’t really come up.

@Zstasiuk — I did not tell clients when I was doing this. I think it is a matter of personal comfort and confidence.

@shedworking — Absolutely always tell them. In fact, I tell them that I can only work from my shed and if not than tough…

In order to get even more input into my little quandary, I put quick survey up which some of you have taken the time to answer. And I want to thank those who participated and voted. Here are the results:

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Of those who did vote, two left comments too:

Sparky Firepants — In my line of work (illustration & animation), I think people kind of like the fact that I work from a home studio. I think it puts the business relationship on a more personal level, which I strive for. I rarely meet with my clients in person and have only had one over to my home studio. He has exactly the same setup in his home, so it wasn’t a strange experience for him. They usually don’t ask, but if it comes up, I always tell ‘em like it is. If anyone ever complained, it would be an indication that we wouldn’t be a good fit anyway.

Dobes Vandermeer — Even though we’re selling online accounting software, we’re not ashamed of working at home, we’ve even blogged about it. We hire consultants and coaches who also work from home. Of course, our secure servers are NOT in our home, they are in a 24/7 monitored data center. I think there might be some people who’d think it was weird that customer support is ringing someone’s home line, but transparency and honesty seem to be the way of the future for businesses with integrity, so that the way we go.

The “Somtimes” vote was the one I find the most interesting. My question to these folks, when do you and when don’t you tell a client you work out of a home office?

I have had my office in my home since Janurary, 2005. I have only lost one client because of it. My position has always been, if you have a problem with me working from a home office, I don’t want you as a client anyway. I for one think this is the position we should take too. We should never discount or feel ashamed that we have picked a lifestyle that enables us to work in an environment, our homes, which gives us a commute of a matter of seconds. Which gives me more time to spend with my wife and children. And saves me money on overhead and the hassle of dealing with onsite employees. Finally, we should not apologize ever for making a sound economic decision.

If any of you would like to comment to keep the conversation going on this topic, please do. I would love to get more comments on this topic as it is a “hot button” with many who work from a home office.

Home Based Business, Home Office Warrior, Telecommuting Written By Grant Griffiths Comments (6)

The Great British Home Business Survey

Aug 20, 2008

The largest ever survey of home businesses in the UK is underway. The 2008 Home Business Report is asking home businesses across the land questions on their business, lifestyle and technology, in a bid to uncover what’s happening in entrepreneurial homes.

The survey is timely, with several recent announcements on the rise in the number of people starting and growing a business from home.

Want to know who home business owners turn to for advice, which is the most popular room to convert into a home office, or how much is spent each year on homeworking technology? This survey will provide the answers. It will also reveal the UK’s top home business hotspots.

The survey is being managed by home business company, Enterprise Nation, and supported by BT.

Emma Jones, Founder of Enterprise Nation, said:

“This survey will be the largest of its kind in the UK. Never before have so many home based businesses been quizzed on their ambitions, lifestyle habits and tech tendencies! The survey is being sent to more than 200,000 companies and we’re confident the responses will make for interesting reading. The home remains the most popular start-up location in the UK and we’re about to reveal why this is, and why we expect it to remain so.”

John Anderson, Managing Director BT regions said:

“The home has now become a popular start-up location. More than 5,600 home businesses are launched in the UK each month and BT Business is dedicated to enabling this dynamic community to compete and thrive. We recognise the economic prosperity home businesses bring to local neighbourhoods across the UK regions and the critical role technology plays in underpinning their ability to compete and their long-term growth. Working with Enterprise Nation, we hope this report will help us and our local business network even better understand the current and future needs of this community and how we can help with their broader business challenges.”

The Survey can be accessed via the home page at Enterprise Nation and takes only a few minutes to complete. It is open to anyone who is starting and growing a business from home. The research is being undertaken by Trends Research Ltd and analysed on a regional/postcode basis. Data from respondents will not be shared with third parties.

Full results will be available in the 2008 Home Business Report, launched during BT’s Small Business Week

It will be made available as a free download at Enterprise Nation .

About Enterprise Nation

Enterprise Nation is the home business company. The company hosts the UK’s largest website for people starting and growing a business from home, runs the Home Business Awards, produces the annual Home Business Report and advises Government on the topic.

Enterprise Nation founder, Emma Jones, has just authored her first book Spare Room Start Up: How to Start a Business from Home that was Waterstones business book of the month on publication and is a best-seller on Amazon.

About Small Business Week

Small Business Week is even bigger for 2008, bringing together more small companies, government agencies and business organisations in a wider range of events and discussions, in more locations across the UK.

During the week of 13th October a range of government, business and independent organisations will come together once again to celebrate the country’s 4.3 million small businesses, explore the issues they face, whilst championing their cause and highlighting the opportunities, resources and support structures that are available to ensure this community continues to flourish.

The week will see a host of initiatives and activities taking place at locations across the UK, including a national launch event and debate at the BT Tower in London, a series of ‘Better Business’ events, round table discussions, web seminars, podcasts and advice clinics. Check the site regularly for updates about events in your area and other ways you can get involved.

About Trends Research Ltd

Trends Research brings together several organisations with direct involvement in the UK’s small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) community.

The company carries out a regular monthly survey amongst thousands of SMEs. This Business Barometer survey tracks levels of business performance, optimism and confidence amongst SMEs and is supplemented by other one-off surveys.

The company believes that only through large scale, regular research is it possible to understand SME’s moods and the key concerns. Trends Research is the first to make this possible.

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Looking for Home Office Warriors

Aug 03, 2008

We are working on a project where we want to feature as many home office warriors we can in a post and more in the very near future. But to make it successful, I need your help. I need all of you to comment on this post with a link to your own site. I want to make this a great list of home office warriors.

In addition to the “list”, be watching very soon on HOW for a new feature where you can have your home office featured every second of every day. And we are working on one other special offerings coming soon.

So, leave your comments or you can email me, but I would rather you commented. My email address is grant@g2webmedia.com

Featured, Home Based Business, Home Office Warrior, Home Office Worker Written By Grant Griffiths Comments (23)

Home Office Highway Give Away

Jul 30, 2008

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Home Office Highway is giving away some of the tools and technology like those that empowered the mobile home office. Make your own roamin’ home office hum. THERE’S STILL TIME TO ENTER! Click here. Or visit SIGN-UP FORM . The winner will be named in August 2008. Click for Contest Rules. Entry deadline is July 31. Winner will be announced in August. Good Luck!

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Home Office Warrior was referenced today at CNNMoney.com

Jul 08, 2008

We were mentioned today in an article CNNMoney.com Small Business in a post called Life at Basecamp - six months in where the writer talks about how he migrated his business’ project-management to online collaboration tools. Interesting that he found that it started out easy and became costly and complex.

Not sure what Jonathan Blum meant when he called HOW a decentralized blog. However, his final points about basecamp was, “for basic business environments, I can still recommend Basecamp as a good starting point.”

He goes on to state, “as you grow, listen up, [e]xpect to either make a major investment in developing your own financial and tracking software that works with Basecamp to make it do what you need, or budget for integrating another, more traditional, and more complex project-management system with Basecamp - or plan on abandoning the software entirely.”

Which is actually what we have done at G2 Web Media as we are building our own to meet are needs which we have not been able to do with Basecamp or its cousin Active Collab.

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