Keep Your Expenses as Low as Possible

Transcript

Transcript of the recorded lesson. Recorded 2023, reviewed 2026.

In this video we're going to talk about whether or not you need a physical office for your business. For the first two years of Lister Pros we worked out of my house. I had a spare bedroom before my fourth son was born and my garage became a storage facility for customer signs and lock boxes. If you're in the storage inventory business like we were, you're going to need a physical office, storage unit or garage to store your inventory. In most cases you are likely operating a media-only business and I would say you do not need a physical office especially if you're working alone. When my son took over the extra bedroom we moved Lister Pros to the real estate office

I was previously working at since they gave us warehouse access. After about a year we stopped offering signposts and lockbox installation and moved to a smaller office more centrally located in Tempe. Fast forward to today we do have an office but employees don't work out of it. Our employees work from home or in the field. We realize that a physical office isn't necessary for this kind of business. As long as your people have all the tools and resources to be successful and know what is expected of them. Another thing we've learned is that our team is more productive when not constantly being interrupted by others.

We accomplished less when we had an office full of employees. Currently we only use our office space for onboarding new employees, meetings and providing studio services to our customers. If you're working with others you will definitely need to find a way to stay connected if you don't have a physical office. At Lister Pros we currently stay connected with a software platform called Workplace. I also create weekly update videos to keep everyone in the loop as to what is going on at Lister Pros, customer feedback, recognition, as well as discussing company priorities. I wouldn't recommend starting your business with a physical location especially in the beginning stages of your business.

It's important to keep costs as low as possible when starting out so that you can use that money that would have gone to rent on equipment and other business priorities like customer acquisition. That being said, if you do have a lot of money set aside for your business do what you feel works best for you. Well that's going to do it for this video. Reach out if you guys have any questions. We'll see you guys on the next one.