Tweet

Choosing your premises

Written by: Timur Sultanov

Article Overview: When it comes to choosing premises for your business, it's a balancing act. You'll have to satisfy the needs of your business, your employees, your customers and your business associates. And yourself of course.

Choosing your premises

Your choice of premises is always going to boil down to what type of business you own and the amount you can afford. But before your search begins, you need to decide what your needs are.

These will include the size and layout of the property as well as the appearance of the building. You may have special requirements in terms of structure, too.

For your employees, and visitors, there needs to be a range of facilities such as toilets and a kitchen as well as suitable access and adequate parking space. Then there are also the utilities to think of, in terms of power and drainage.

Your choice of location will have a huge impact on your premises. A prime location means higher cost – but what constitutes a prime location, and how important location actually is, varies depending on the type of business you own.

For example, retail businesses will need to be in town centres or retail parks/shopping centres to capture passing trade.

A factory on the other hand will need bigger premises, so a more remote location, where the land is cheaper, will make more sense.

Good public transport links are crucial wherever you are, so you can keep both employees and customers content.

Having the option to alter, expand, or to simply leave your premises altogether is of paramount importance.

This element of flexibility is something that Ian McRae, principal of Chadwick

McRae Chartered Surveyors, says should be at the front of your mind when looking at prospective premises.

“It's wise to have both an entry and an exit strategy,” he says.

“This comes down to an element of flexibility, you should always have one eye on the future – say five, 10, even 20 years ahead.”

Ian adds that professional advice and help from a chartered surveyor is often invaluable, especially if you're entering the commercial property market for the first time.

“You have to understand that when you meet up with landlords you are dealing with expert property professionals. Just because you've bought a house you are still entering an area where you are a rank amateur. So I would strongly advise you to seek professional advice.

“Every situation is different, but when I have a client I ask them ‘What is your business? Tell me about your business and where do you see it going?' From this you can choose the correct premises for a company.”

He adds that he has seen many business owners who are looking to rent often fall down at the first hurdle because they don't try to impress their prospective landlords.

“Many prospective tenants are bad at selling themselves.

When a landlord is showing you round a property be mindful that he will be weighing you up and deciding whether you're capable of paying on time and keeping him or her happy.”

A spokesman for The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) explains how a chartered surveyor begins the process of helping a start-up find premises:

“We will create a brief that will ensure you consider all relevant issues such as location, the nature of your business, your staff requirements and ways of working, before searching amongst our own contacts for estate agents and economic development units available in your area.”

But if you do prefer to go it alone, then there are numerous places to search.

You can look at the internet, get in touch with your local council, speak to an estate agent or even look at adverts in the window of your local newsagents.

Alternatively you could employ a commercial agent. This is someone who has expertise in the property market and will keep you up to date on developments for which you pay them a commission.

Related Articles
  12.0 Business premises: Support for Growth-oriented Women Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, 2005
  Entrepreneurs – Your Check List For Starting A New Business
  Loans and overdrafts
  Introduction to going green
  Tips when looking for business premises

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Join Hand with Developer - If you know about traditional businesses then you will know that they require start up capital for premises/ equipment etc. Web businesses in reality are not that different other than their premises are predominately their website. Effective you have a number of options which in order of up front capital is: 1) Design yourself with the likes of Frontpage or trial of Dreamweaver 2) Off the shelf solution 3) Off the shelf script and/ or purchased template
Meeting Clients - I prefer to meet clients at their own premises so I can get an inside view at what they actually do and how I could help improve their business. They can then take me through all of their business processes in real life and I can offer instant suggestions along the way. Other places I have met before include informal meetings over Thai food at night or simply talking about basic requirements over dinner. Although I find it hard to [i:19g7cb81]negociate[/i:19g7cb81] over dinner and prefer a follow up rather than initial discussions over a dinner.
Cafe Expenses - Hi Michele I used to work in a place that had a cafe that broke even every month. This is due to the fact that we couldn't get enough people through buying food and drinks to make a profit and the expenses consisted of: - Staff wages - Not selling all food so it would go to waste - Rent for occupying the premises - Selling products that had a low turn over - Customers would never come back a 2nd time due to the location I would imagine a restaurant would be the same with the hardest part attracting people every night to make a profit while setting your prices at the right price to keep people coming back.
No more bake sales? - [quote:3va8g16b]For instance, selling homemade goods like cookies, muffins or pancakes is much better than simply selling boxed chocolates because it teaches kids how to bake/cook, [/quote:3va8g16b] Actually, now I think about it, I wonder if the kids weren't selling cookies or candybars, as I'd seen them do in the past, because of the new law here in the States which says that candy and pop machines are no longer allowed on school premises. Maybe it's now illegal for school fundraisers to sell candy! [Heck, it's probably illegal for a kid to even bring a candybar of his own to school, and he'll get his parents arrested if he does so...] And the government will probablly get in the act and shut down all bake sales because they were made using "un-inspected" home kitchens instead of ones "guaranteed" to be safe... Ah, me... Big Brother is getting bigger and bigger by the second...
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="jacksonp":1y3g8bot]that is quite true.We all should avoid these kind of techniques.I am here sharing few more points which we should take in mind..As an experienced person of SEO I want to share here some facts which should be avoided by us.I hope that these will help some of the newcomers a lot.. Choosing a title that has no relation to the content on the page Using extremely lengthy titles that are unhelpful to users Using a single title tag across all of your site’s pages or a large group of pages Stuffing unneeded keywords in your title tags Writing description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page Multiple domains Multiple identical sites Cross Linking[/quote:1y3g8bot] re: Cross Linking, how do you define that? I thought linking to other pages on your website (that are related) was a good thing...maybe that's not what you meant.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Google Panda and Your Search Engine Rankings

Why Marketing Outsourcing is Growing So Quickly

Small Business Internet Marketing

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.