Moving can be pretty nerve-wracking, especially when relocating a business is concerned. However, it becomes even more difficult when small businesses are concerned because they generally have a smaller budget to allocate towards the move and the downtime some small businesses need to go through can have serious negative consequences.
On the other hand, if you approach the move with the right mindset and prepare for it well in advance, you should have no serious difficulties coming up with roses. That’s why we’ve put together some pro tips that should make the entire move significantly easier on everyone involved – your business included – so check them out.
Assess the situation beforehand
Before you pack up your boxes and contact the moving team, you should assess the situation. What this means is that you should hold a staff meeting and analyze what needs to be moved, when, and in which order. By determining the order of things, you’ll be able to organize the entire move much more seamlessly and come up with a good moving strategy that will seriously reduce your business’s downtime.
Make a list
Creating a to-do list should be your next step. By putting everything in writing it will be much easier to stay on track with everything that needs to be done.
This way, it will be much more difficult to forget about any major task that needs to be taken care of which will reduce the chances of any serious mistakes. Not only that but if you divide the entire moving process into smaller, more manageable tasks, it will make you feel much calmer about the entire endeavor.
Make a moving budget
You should also plan out a moving budget as soon as you start considering the move. This way, you’ll know exactly how much money you can afford to spend on it, and it will also allow you to make any necessary changes and alterations if you determine that the plan you wanted to go with simply doesn’t fit your budget.
Set up your new office before the moving date
Next, once you’ve created a “battle plan” and decided how you want to approach the matter, you should make sure that your new office space is move-in ready. What this means is that you should visit your new location before the actual move and clean it thoroughly.
If necessary, make sure you paint it and see if there are any additional repairs you need to take care of. This is best when done beforehand because it will be much more difficult to take care of everything if you have office furniture – and employees – in the way.
Spend your money wisely
Now, even if you’ve set aside a hefty budget for the move, you should still try to save money as much as you can. So, instead of hiring an expensive moving company and risking your equipment and office furniture being damaged in the transport, you can ask your employees if they’d like to help you with the move.
More often than not, they will be more than happy to help. So, pack up your things, ask your employees – or even friends and family – to help you out, and hire a moving truck to relocate all the items yourself. There are various companies, such as the Budget Truck Hire that offer all types of vehicles so that you can choose one – or more – that fits your moving needs.
Purge
Moving to a new office space is the perfect time to purge your current office of any unnecessary items. Anything that’s broken and needs to be replaced anyways should not make it to the moving truck. Also, any irrelevant or excess files should have no place in the moving truck either – instead, you should shred them or scan them and upload them to your office cloud.
Dedicating some time to cleaning out your old office will, generally speaking, reduce your moving costs, because you won’t actually have to spend any resources on moving the items you don’t really need.
Inform your clients and customers
Finally, you should make sure that you inform your clients and customers about the move. As soon as you start planning the move, inform your customers via email, and your website, and even put up notices throughout your current office space that you will be moving to the new location (don’t forget to add the new address) on a certain date.
This way, your customers won’t get concerned if they notice that your business is temporarily unavailable because you’ve informed them well ahead of time.
As you can see, with some planning, the right organizational skills, and some help from your employees, you’ll be able to relocate your business quickly, easily, and, most importantly stress-free. So, the next time you need to relocate your business, keep these tips in mind.
