Nearly 13 million Americans run a business from their home full time, and another 8 million telecommute. But if you want to build a profitable enterprise, an extra phone and table wedged by your bed won’t cut it. The good news: You need not spend lavishly to create a smart, attractive work space.
Consider Mike Brennan, 33, a sales and marketing consultant in Scituate, Mass., who earns about $35,000 a year. In January 1995, he invested a manageable $6,000 to transform a spare bedroom into a 12-foot-by-12-foot office.
Like Brennan, count on spending at least $5,000 to $6,000 to outfit a productive home office. To get you started, we consulted more than two dozen small- and home-office experts, who gave us the lowdown on everything from file cabinets to fax machines. Here are your best moves:
– Check zoning regulations in your city or county before you buy so much as an extension cord. If your town ordinances hamper your plans for a home-based business, petition the city council. “You’ll need to quash their fears of intrusive messengers, parking nightmares and other disruptive activity to convince them to waive the rules,” says Paul Edwards, a self-employment consultant in Los Angeles and co-author of “Working from Home” (Tarcher/Putnam, $15.95). Just don’t ignore the law. If you’re busted, you can face hefty fines and even imprisonment.
– Choose the right room in your home–ideally, about the size of a 12-foot-by-12-foot bedroom. It should be dedicated to work and nothing else, or you could lose some tax breaks. Spend some time in the room before you start the conversion. If you plan to see clients, have a ground-floor office with a separate outside entrance.
– Buy the best equipment you can afford. Not only have computer prices dropped 50 percent since 1990, but today “you’ll get a lot more for your money,” says John Goetz, a computer-equipment analyst with Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif. Figure on spending around $4,000 for the essentials, including your telephone, fax and computer.
If cash is tight or you’re worried about your equipment quickly becoming obsolete, consider leasing instead of buying. Superstores and specialty office-equipment outlets commonly lease basic office equipment. If your business is less than a year old, retailers may require you to sign a personal guarantee stating that you’ll pay them even if your business goes under.
Leases typically run from one to five years. The longer the lease, the smaller your payments. If you think you’ll want the equipment at the end of the lease period, ask about buyout policies. Once your lease has expired, many retailers will allow you to buy the equipment for 10 percent of the original price quote. In the long run, of course, leasing is more expensive than buying, so most people are better off buying when their cash flow improves.
PCs are probably the best choice for most people: Not only are they slightly cheaper than Macs, but they allow you to choose from a wider array of standard business software. However, if you’re looking for a computer that’s easy to use, a Mac may be a better bet.
– Buy a monitor separately. The quality of monitors included in computer package deals is often poor. Result: undue eyestrain. Good-quality monitors cost as little as $300 to $400 today, so it makes sense to spring for one. Two solid choices for PCs and Macs: NEC’s 15-inch C500 color monitor with anti-glare coating ($400) or Viewsonic’s 15-inch 15GS color monitor ($400). If you plan to design do-it-yourself promotional brochures with Microsoft Publisher ($80), for example, or if you want to view several documents at once, consider a larger 17-inch monitor such as NEC’s XV17+ ($800).
– Get a high-quality laser printer. While the print quality of inkjet devices has risen dramatically in recent years, the near-photographic sharpness of a laser is still unrivaled. Today’s black-and-white lasers run only $200 to $300 more than inkjets.
– Install at least two phone lines dedicated to your business. Get one line for your business phone and another for faxes and on-line computer access. Installation cost: about $100 each, depending on where you live. Also, opt for the most professional and efficient voice-mail system that you are able to afford. Clients hate to be cut off in midsentence while trying to leave a message on a rundown answering machine.
Instead, sign up for voice-mail service from your local phone company for a mere $5 to $10 a month. Or try the Phonemate 9870 phone/answering machine (cost: $200), which comes with two lines, speaker capability, and hold and conference buttons.
– Invest in a stand-alone fax machine. If you send or receive fewer than, say, five faxes per week, a computer/fax combo is an economical choice. A PC with built-in faxing capability costs only about $100 more than one without. However, if your fax is built into your computer, you must leave your computer on all the time to receive faxes. A stand-alone machine is better. Choose a plain-paper model, which will run you about $200 more than the annoying thermal kind that use slick, curly paper.
– Pick a copier that makes at least 12 copies per minute, such as Canon’s PC 720 ($700). Powerful copiers that also collate cost several thousand dollars–a prohibitive amount for many startups. If you’ll need to copy more than 750 pages a week, you’re better off leasing a high-end machine than buying a low-end one. Typical three-year lease cost for a $6,000 machine: about $200 a month.
– Don’t skimp on the chair. According to Robert Revelle, president of Ergonomic Support Systems, a consulting firm in Yardley, Pa., your chair is the single most important piece of furniture in your office. You’ll need to shell out at least $400 for an ergonomic chair–one specially engineered to support your body properly, with an adjustable cushioned seat and five-wheeled legs.
– Have a minimum of two desk surfaces–one for paperwork and one for your computer. The ideal writing desk is 30 inches high and the computer desk 26 inches, allowing your elbows to remain at healthy right angles while you type. To hold a computer, phone and papers, your total table surface should be about 22 to 30 square feet.
