I work for a kitchen and bath remodelling company, so maybe it’s natural that we have a showroom full of kitchen displays and so forth. It’s a lot of overheard: $2k a month in rent, and of course the displays don’t come cheap either.
Do you have an actual location that your clients can visit? If not, I’m interested in where you meet clients, and how you handle the design process.
Edit: I have a hunch I’ll get laid off before Christmas, so naturally my thoughts are turning towards the future. I’m trying to imagine what sort of business I might run for myself, eventually.
Edited 10/15/2007 10:19 pm ET by Biff_Loman
Replies
we have an office with a confrence room I can bring clients into.
We do not have a showroom though.
Thought about it, however the cost to keep it up and make it diverse enough is daunting.
So no show room, but an office on the "right side of town" is my answer.
our industry unless you're a big outfit, you really don't need a meeting office. It's so perfect to meet at the clients home or site where things can be discussed where they're right in front of you.
The bigger companies will have offices with recpetion etc. but don't think that you need it to get started. If you get to the point where you need to have someone fulltime handling calls paperwork etc then you can start to think about such things.
for me (and I'm small) meet at clients home, discuss design process. come back to clients with drawings etc. If you have an archy involved, client can meet archy at their offices.
Edited 10/16/2007 12:33 am by alrightythen
My shop has a front office. We built cabinets for function and they double as display. We have a nice kitchen in there to. Clients feel relaxed when they come in. I built a partial banqeut table that serves as a conferance table. Its been working real well for us.
If your starting out keep the OVERHEAD DOWN!!!!
-Lou
Keep overhead down. . . Yeah, it's overhead that's putting the hurt on my employers' business, and they've been around for 20 years.Unfortunately, I'm overhead, which is why I'm expecting to get the axe.Edit: Our clients tend to gather in the functioning kitchen area in the showroom. All our displays are out of date anyway, so the working kitchen gets used to illustrate my boss's design concepts.
Edited 10/16/2007 8:19 am ET by Biff_Loman
with guys who's business run out of a shop like yourself, obviously you have more potential to have a reception/showroom or whatever, as you've already got a buuilding/unit that you are working out of.
For sure it's a nice thing to have, if it make sense for ones business. View Image View Image
We are in the process of building new offices and such in a recently purchased building. As Cag said we found the cost of a show room daunting. Huge out lay and the minute something is no longer a trend or not available you are doomed to replace it. Not to mention damage etc.
We are going with a reception area that has some display room for pictures, sales brochures, a few mobile product displays and the offices will include some of our products used for function. We are also building a small conference room for client/etc. meetings.
Starting out, unless you have deep deep pockets I can't imagine how you would handle something even as modest as what we are doing. Keeping overhead to a minimum is the key to staying alive and being flexible. With the exception of the down payment and the initial remodeling material costs we won't have $1k a month in overhead on the building when done which is the reason we can afford to do this move. Otherwise 2 offices and a bathroom would be it which is what we have now. DanT