It’s tempting to think that the success of your company depends above all on how it deals with customers. Nonetheless, you should be careful not to underestimate other factors – especially those that could hinder your organisation’s ability to establish contact with customers in the first place.
The address indicating where your workplace is physically located could be instrumental to this. Here are some particularly significant reasons why your corporate address alone could – especially in a fiercely competitive market – make or break your business.
People will judge your business from its address
Yes, that might feel wrong – but first impressions do count for a lot, and your company’s address could actually be one of first things many people learn about it.
Someone could initially stumble across your business through a Google search throwing up a list of companies relevant to the search query. From here, the user could easily click through to Google Maps and see photographic imagery of your office’s (hopefully pleasing-looking) surroundings.
Your company’s location should match its values and branding
To see why, you should refer back to one story told in an Inc. article, where Felipe E Oliveira – the founder of Percival Beer Co. – decided to open a brewery in Boston’s Dorchester neighbourhood.
This move made sense from a branding point of view, as the brewery’s beers very much reflected the local area. One of these beers was called Dot Ale 1630, with the “Dot” part also a local nickname for Dorchester.
You don’t have to publicly reveal your home address
If you currently run your business from home, you should put serious thought to potentially moving your workforce – however large or small it is – into a dedicated office, or at least using what is called a ‘virtual address’. This is where you can continue working from home but get a work-specific address to advertise.
Entrepreneur Darren Mudd of Small Biz Geek recalls once working for a male jeweller who used a virtual address because he knew that listing his home address online would be a security risk.
High-end office amenities are available at great-value prices
Even if your corporate finances are tight for the time being, a ‘proper’ office in an attractive location could be much easier for you to source than you had realised.
For example, it is perfectly possible for businesses to rent serviced offices in Victoria, the prestigious central London area, that come complete with private suites, on-site meeting rooms and even, at the centre of each office, a large pro-working lounge.
The right address can also attract the right employees
If you want especially talented candidates to apply for the job vacancies you post, it would be ideal for your workplace to be located somewhere these people know they could easily reach day after day if they indeed got the job.
So, if your workplace isn’t sited somewhere with good public transport links, you could look into whether you would be able to change that, such as by renting an office actually meeting this criterion.
