The location you chose when you started your business probably came about out of convenience, finances, and opportunity, but as the years have gone on you may realize your current location isn’t best for business growth.
It’s time to get outta Dodge.
There are more than a few signs that will show that your business needs to move:
· Employment – The area may not provide the necessary talent to fill the positions. You may do an extensive search and luck out to find someone qualified in your area, but when you’re scraping the job pool, then you know it’s best to move.
· Competition – The area may have become extremely saturated. The success of your business may have spurred copy-cat businesses that aren’t ashamed of opening nearby to poach your customers and stifle your growth.
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· Finances – The area may not provide the appropriate flexibility (or opportunity) with finances. Your location may have raised rates on taxes or perhaps your growth isn’t aligned with the socio-economics of your customers anymore.
These represent a small set of reasons why you may be considering a move of your business, but there are plenty more, especially when personal reasons come into play. Whatever the reasons may be – you feel it’s time to go.
Here is how you can go about moving your business:
You will need to alert and assure everyone about the move well in advance to see how much of your talent is willing to make the transition, how many positions you’ll need to replace, relocation fees for those that may come along (if you wish to provide), and a great deal of paperwork for logistics, business licensing, and taxes.
Once you have people understanding the decision – it will then be time to do the heavy lifting. Since there are many components to your business and it isn’t just something like getting a friend with a truck to help move into a new apartment – you’ll want professional services. It’s likely you’ll be looking at long distance movers to get to your ideal location. When choosing them, you’ll want to look over their services and assess factors like insurance and storage options.
Begin delegating responsibilities for the move to those that are coming along and empower employees with tech so they can continue to conduct their routine without having to be in the office. The move will take some time, but you’ll want to continue as normal. The best way to continue is to utilize SaaS services, temporary offices, and outsourcing.
Create a list and begin updating all the major assets of your business. You will want to update your business listings online (such as social and review-type sites). You’ll also want to update business cards, letterheads, email signatures, and basically anything that immediately comes to mind where your address, hours, and operation are shown. For those smaller items that may slip through, you could create small “bounties” for employees or customers to encourage them to alert you about where the misinformation shows so that you may update it accordingly.
Finally, put out a massive campaign to alert the marketplace about your presence. Take out advertising in the local paper. Utilize social sites to spread the word. Blast out emails to your customers. Dig some research on the competition and go after their leads. Get the word out as hard as you can and make your presence known. Do what you can to retain existing customers during a move but also take this new opportunity to challenge yourself (and team) to capture the new marketplace.
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Moving a business is tough work but considering there are greater opportunities to be had, it makes it an obvious choice for those that approach it in a logical manner. The opportunity of greater profits, better talent, and flexible finances are just a few touched on in this article but many more will become apparent once you reach the new location.
You can also see that the process of moving isn’t at all complicated when it comes to the physical side of products and lodging. With the right selection of services, you can be up and on your way without having to burn through operational budgets like so many others have done before.
Good luck out there and here’s to finding greener pastures. Cheers!