Let potential clients know you mean business with a well-presented office

Setting up a business from home means your initial investment and overheads stay low, but when the business starts to grow and you are juggling your home life it can be difficult to maintain the balance.

1. Create your own workspace and learn to ignore domestic chaos
Gay Turner, who runs her public relations company Gay Turner Public Relations, from her home near Southam in Warwickshire, insists that having your own separate space to work in, however small, is vital. ‘It stops anyone interfering with vital equipment or anything else left lying around,’ she says. ‘Also, a dedicated work area separates you from whatever is going on in your household. You train yourself to ignore mess, toys, unwashed dishes, piles of ironing and dog hair on the carpet.’

2. Be self-disciplined
Having to climb the stairs to Gay Turner’s first floor “office” also helped put some physical space between her professional and domestic life. Never let your children play with any of your working tools especially your computer or mobile phone and ban any pets from your working area. Go to “work” at the same time each day and have strict breaks and finishing times to make sure you don’t waste any time during the day. 

3. Look the part to feel the part
Of course, you can easily slob about in PJs and no one would know – apart from you. However, even in these more relaxed times, it’s important to remember that your clients and customers expect a professional service, so you need to set high standards and never compromise. ‘I always dress tidily and wear make-up,’ says Turner, ‘because it put me in work mode and helped me to concentrate.’ Always be professional in your attitude if you want to be taken seriously and your business to grow.

4. Remember your home office is a real office
Qualified, experienced sole traders can achieve a competitive edge over their larger rivals, providing the same level of service and expertise at a lower rate, due to your lower overheads, and ability to offer a more flexible personal service. 
You don’t have to tell people you work from home. It is irrelevant, as long as you are providing an exemplary service. Don’t volunteer the information that you work from home unless you want clients to know. You can maintain total privacy by using a proper business address if you rent a mailbox or a PO box.

5. Install a separate phone line
There will always be clients who take advantage, believing that as you always work round the clock; ringing after normal office hours is not an intrusion. Ask your other half to say you are in a meeting if you cannot take a call – whatever you are actually doing. Don’t let your children answer the phone during working hours, or better still, get a separate dedicated business line with an answering machine that can take over at the end of the day.