There are plenty of valid reasons for moving your business. Maybe you’ve outgrown your current location, you want better visibility, or costs have gone up. But have you thought through all the ways a move can affect your business? Before you choose a new destination and start shopping for commercial moving companies, consider:
How Will the Business Move Impact Your Current Customers?
Getting access to a new customer base is a compelling reason to move — but before you start packing up, stop and think through how the move would impact your current customers. Who are there, where do they live or where are their businesses located, and how do they use your goods or services?
If a move would make you less accessible or visible to your current customer base, maybe you should think about expanding your current location or opening a second location.
If you are a retailer, carefully consider the traffic flow to your potential new location before making a decision. You may be able to get demographic and retail statistics from your broker or local Chamber of Commerce or SBA office. If you do decide to move, keep your clients in the loop early and find ways to retain them, such as with incentives to visit the new location.
What About Your Employees?
If you’re moving to a new city or state, or even across town, consider how the move will affect your employees’ quality of life and what you can do to retain them: If their commute is long, could you let some of them work from home, schedule flex time or add a commuting bonus to make extra travel more palatable? If you’re moving further away, the cost and risks associated with relocating employees or finding a new workforce may outweigh other savings or gains you make by moving. Make sure your key staff are part of your decision-making process and figure out who is on board and who you might lose with such a move. On the other hand, perhaps you will find a location near a key source of trained workers, or close to a university, or one with easy access to mass transit or within an easy commute for employees, all of which can make it easier for you to attract good workers. In any case, plan ahead to cover staff that may be lost during or after a move to reduce the impact of lost knowledge, skills or productivity on your business.
Are There Hidden Costs in Moving Your Business?
Paying for the move itself, buying furnishing, relocating employees and marketing your business in the new location aren’t the only costs of moving. Consider other more subtle effects, such as your supply chain: Will you be further from your vendors or suppliers? What about other business contacts and services – do you have a support network in place at the new location? And, what about regulatory agencies? How will your tax burden change, and will your customers’ tax burden shift as well? If you find yourself coming up against a lot of hidden costs, it might be more feasible to expand your current location or look into ways of increasing productivity without a move.
What About Quality of Life After a Move?
There are other considerations in a business move besides costs, such as availability of services and crime. These considerations along with others can affect you and your employees’ quality of life. Even if you’ve just moved across town, if it’s hard to get to, and there are no nearby nice places for a meal or a lunchtime walk, employees will take notice. And, if you’re moving long distance, pay special attention to the regional variations in work culture. There’s a world of difference between the easygoing “jeans are fine” corporate environment of the West Coast, the suit-clad environment of the East Coast where you’re expected to regularly work late nights, or the laissez-faire business culture in some parts of the South. And if you’re considering a move to a location that’s perceived as having a poorer quality of life than your current community, you may have trouble attracting quality workers or retaining the core staff from your current operation that you’ll have to send to start the new location.Don’t forget your digital business presence
One last thing that a lot of business overlook once they’ve moved. If you depend heavily on search engine rankings for retail traffic or for clients to find you, a physical address change can affect your rankings for an extended period after the move. So add to your post-move checklist to carefully update as many of the listings you have online as possible so you have a single consistent address out there. And be sure to update business licenses right away as well as some of the online listing services pull information from county and other business license databases.
Have You Considered Bounce-Back Time?
Ok, you’ve decided to move. Now take a step back and think about life after the move. No matter how good a move looks on paper, a little bounce-back time – the period in which you absorb not just the cost and logistics of moving but also the time it takes to ramp up operations in the new location – is inevitable. Depending on your business, that bounce-back time could range from days to months or longer. Factor in some down time, move quickly to resolve surprise issues that come up, be sure adjust your budget for a short term spike in spending and maybe some lost sales, and you’ll be set to better handle that post-move adjustment period.
FIND A BUSINESS MOVER YOU CAN TRUST
If your careful consideration of the pros and cons shows that benefits of moving your business outweigh the costs, congratulations. Lock up that new office or factory space, pour over your blueprints and get to work on a move plan. Your plan should include finding an efficient, trustworthy and reliable commercial moving company that offers full logistical support for your upcoming move. At Move 4 Less, as experienced business movers, we do more than move boxes around. We’ll also help coordinate your move with your new and old telecom and IT providers, provide packing materials for everything from file boxes to bubble wrap, and help provide you with the tools you need to organize a successful move. We can box, crate and move everything, from your gym equipment to the corporate suite fine artwork. And, your move manager will be there throughout the process, to help you plan and execute each step. We’ll help make sure your move goes smoothly, so you can get on with making the most of your new business location.
