Trying to find the right office for rent can be a really difficult task. People rarely think about how much the real estate you occupy influences your business. With a retail business, of course, the effect is quite obvious. A restaurant on the right block will do a lot of business even if it isn’t very good. A restaurant on the wrong block will go broke even if it is excellent. With offices for rent, however, the effects can be more vague. Sometimes, clients won’t even be consciously aware that your office location and quality effects their choices of whether or not to continue working with you. It really does, however. Take my word for it ? I speak from experience. I have had more good and bad experiences with retail space for rent than most people.
Our last office for rent was in a big, utilitarian looking building downtown. It was a solidly built, old building, and some people would even find it beautiful. Nonetheless, in the context of the area around it, it was nothing much to look at. It had been an area that was subject to a great deal of urban blight until recently. In the past few years, new offices for rent have been put up all around our building. Although in some ways it was more attractive and striking than the new construction, it was also a reminder of the way the city used to be. I think on some level this lost us clients. We had very nice clean offices for rent, and a very professional staff, but somehow we seemed to lose clients to nearby competitors.
Soon after that, we moved into a brand-new office for rent. We didn’t do it because we thought it would increase business, but because our landlord was hiking rates on us for not doing enough maintenance on the property. The new building was, in my opinion, not as good looking. It was clearly quickly put up and cheaply constructed. Nevertheless, the newness of it seemed to strike people.
We work in a very cutting edge industry, so having our offices for rent in an old building seemed somehow out of place. People comment on our new ?look?, even though we had changed nothing but our location. It was striking how much of a difference new rental offices made. Now, we are doing better than ever, and I believe this is at least partly because of the brand new building.
