The Essential Guide to Finding the Best Location for Your Business

You’ve probably heard the saying, “location, location, location”, more times than you would like to admit. But choosing the best place for your start-up to grow is the single most important thing you do as a business.

Your location can be the key to your success, so just when you thought the financial pressure wasn’t enough, now you need to think long and hard about where you want to be.

With so many considerations such as the company’s needs, employees and services, it can be an overwhelming decision that is not to be taken lightly. Any bad decision and it can massively affect overall sales, the how costly it is to run, and the overall representation of the brand.

City Centre vs Business Park

There’s no such thing as one size fits all when it comes to office space, so before you sign up to an inappropriate lease, take a moment to think about your own business needs. With many entrepreneurs boasting about their own space it can be easy to get caught up in the hype without realising that your requirements are entirely different to theirs.

Cost is essentially going to be a deciding factor, and these can vary greatly depending on whether you’re looking for a city centre location or a business park unit.

For many small businesses there are many reasons to move a business to a city centre, but with excessive rental fees what you’re often paying for is the luxury a city address printed on your stationary. Admittedly it will instantly impress your customers and clients, but is it just the glamour you’re paying for?

Don’t move any options off the table until you’ve listed out the pros and cons of each location that you’ve found. You may be surprised at which one is left standing.

Consider Connectivity

Although prime locations such as London and Manchester may be out of the budget this does not necessarily mean that your business cannot be taken seriously.

Last year, Manchester was reported to be the top regional city for starting a business, but this doesn’t mean that just because you can afford a shoebox in trendy Shoreditch or a studio office overlooking the docks that your office space is useful.

London alone currently has the worse broadband speeds in the UK, and if connectivity is something your business needs to run successfully then your glamorous new office space is going to be as useful as a chocolate teapot.  Although Mayor Boris Johnson has announced plans that London will have superfast broadband by 2018, there are already cities across the UK that can offer better connectivity and transport solutions to London.

For example, the small city of Peterborough is currently being fitted with a gigabit infrastructure thanks to a £30 million investment, making it the UK’s first city with new gigabit technology.

The world is your oyster so don’t let location limit you.

Know the Neighbourhood

The likelihood is that you won’t be moving along when you find your new space, so getting to know the area is important to ensure that your employees are going to be comfortable in their new working environment.

As well as checking the transport links available and any amenities, you should also check the security of the location to ensure that crime is not going to disturb your working environment.

Nobody likes to feel insecure when they’ve got to pull a few late nights.

Negotiate

What you pay for can vary greatly depending on location and the inclusions of the office space, but don’t think that just because there’s a set price that it’s not up for negotiation.

Many landlords come with a “me” mentality, only interested in their own needs rather than those who are paying the bills, but you should be ready to negotiate your lease, especially if it has not been fully furnished, or if there are no telephone connections.

Find out the costs of these and discuss them with your landlord, after all they could benefit greatly from your business and the adaptations that you make from the space.