You have to do your homework!

Are you looking to upgrade your current office, or planning to relocate and trying to figure out how to furnish your new "home"? There are many pitfalls that small businesses run into when trying to navigate the waters in the office furniture market. And you can't (read: shouldn't) jump in with both feet before being prepared for what's involved in this complicated, and very important decision. There are a number of things a small business owner must think about before even starting the process, to help avoid mistakes that we've seen other clients make:

Project Team
Who is managing your procurement process? Is it you? Your office manager? Purchasing? Think of the hours the process will take, and then multiply it by the hourly cost of that employee, and add that cost into your budget. And what about their day-to-day responsibilities? And do they really know the complexities of the solutions available? Office furniture can be overwhelming and complicated, believe it or not. Think of large, often expensive Tinker Toys. You should know that there are ways to bring in an expert that will facilitate this process for you, often at little or no cost.

Pricing
Speaking of costs,  well-defined budget will go a long way. Your external team can’t help if they don’t know what they have to work with. Is it realistic? How can you determine what the cost may be? Are you including installation and delivery, sales tax, freight costs, finish level? Do you have cash on hand to make the purchase, or are you looking to finance the purchase? Would you rather spend your cash, or finance it and keep your assets liquid? There are many creative ways to make this type of purchase that will both preserve your cash and help you take advantage of the tax benefits of investing in your business.

Product Selection
How do you know what you want when there’s so much out there? Each metro area has multiple commercial office companies to choose from. And each of them carry different lines of furniture along multiple quality levels and price points. In fact, each dealership typically carries upwards of 100 manufacturers. And each manufacturer typically has 30-40 products within their line to choose from. Are you planning to get multiple quotes? How do you know they’re comparable quality? Unless you're lucky enough to have a staff member who is well-versed in office furniture, you should enlist the help of an expert to help you navigate the waters when it comes to choosing the right products for your space.

Consensus
Consensus-based decision-making has been identified as a major pain point for small business owners. Will you have buy-in from the rest of the team? . How do you get to a point where your team agrees that you've selected the right solution? It is nearly impossible to get input from your entire company about to get to the point where everyone is on board. How do you manage multiple perspectives, among the executive team as well as internal departments? Addressed properly, you can build excitement as well as consensus company-wide around the upcoming changes.

Branding
Are you giving the right impression to both potential clients AND potential employees? The cost of furnishing your space goes well beyond the initial purchase price - most companies find that their largest overall business expense is their human capital, and finding and retaining the most talented workers takes more than just a great salary. Talent also considers the work environment when choosing among multiple offers. And then there's the external client, which is the key to keeping your business alive. What do your customers think when they enter your space? Do you want to show how tech-savvy you are? Or that you're a solid company, not a fly-by-night operation? What do they think when they invest their time to come to your space to consider giving your their business? Branding your space properly will help you get the most out of your investment.

 

Flexibility

How did your last purchase work out for what you want to do now? Could it have been better if you’d planned for the future? It is very common that your existing furniture is in good shape, but it just doesn't fit into your current working culture. Who is doing the design work on your new project? Is it you with graph paper and a tape measure? Are they able to assess the trends and build a current, 5-year and 10-year plan, or are they just looking at what you need right now? Do you have the proper tools and resources to create a space that will scale to your current and future business needs? Most small- to medium-sized businesses only buy office furniture every 12-15 years. How will your business have changed 10 years from now? Get the most from your investment by implementing a proper plan that will accommodate your future plans.

 

Timing

When do you need to have workspaces ready for use? Do you know how long it takes from start to finish? There is so much more work that needs to happen before an order is placed. You MUST allow time for decision-making, choosing finishes, logistics planning, shipping time, warehousing (very important when moving into a new space), installation and punch list completion. That means you should start thinking about what you want to do and where you want to go with it RIGHT NOW.

 

I will be addressing these pitfalls and solutions in future posts. Sign up for my newsletter to learn more about how to properly plan and furnish your office space, or contact me to schedule a complimentary free consultation.

Where would you rather sit?

I'm constantly amazed at where people are forced to do their work for 8+ hours a day. Uninspiring, dysfunctional and just plain ugly.

Sound like your office? There are so many ways to update your space without spending a ton of money. Question is: what areas are your priority, and what is your budget?

We all know that most companies have been squirreling away money for years now, just waiting for "things to get better". How about investing in your current space with either inexpensive updates like refreshing the paint and reconfiguring your workstations for a quick fix?

The best way to get started is to consult with an expert. Everyone gets ideas from Pinterest and HGTV (myself included), but enlisting the help of someone whose job it is to work with commercial interiors is the first step in starting the process. You need a plan, folks!

Something to get the juices flowing...where would you rather sit?

What you lose when you buy office furniture online

In the Age of Information, it seems like everything moves much more quickly than it used to. In days gone by, when you were out to a meeting, at lunch or on vacation, you were disconnected from the office and things were just handled or waited while you were away. Now, everyone is strapped to their smartphone, and business moves at the speed of light. In some regard, this is good, in that the days of waiting for a response from someone for weeks are over and we all expect a response almost immediately. We can get tasks accomplished more quickly and efficiently. When we need to find out information, we simply Google it and find the answers we need. This is great, right?

Unfortunately, along with the speed of technology, we are losing the personal contact it takes to make a complicated project move along smoothly - on time, on budget, no miscommunications. This is where the role of the office furniture dealership comes into play. While email and web searches are an hourly occurrence in my world, there are times when you need to consult with an expert in the topic you're interested in, to have a simple conversation where both parties can talk about options and possibilities in a back-and-forth manner. While Google and Bing can direct you to random answers to your question, a live person can share ideas the way a search engine never can. 

In addition, most office furniture dealerships will provide some level of design services on the front end in order to earn your business. Unless you are extremely well-versed in taking measurements and drawing a floorplan, creating a drawing yourself on graph paper can be a very time-consuming task. Wouldn't it be much easier to let the experts do this work for you? This will also create a living electronic file that can be modified at will, making revisions much more quickly.

After the floorplan is created, the layout needs to be conceptualized. While you may think you know exactly what you want to do, there are so many trends and value-engineering "tricks of the trade" that you may not be aware of or have seen in your internet searches. Again, the dealership works with the products and software on a daily basis, and can provide recommendations that you may never have thought of. And while it may seem like inviting a salesperson into your business means a sales pitch or products that are outside of your budget, we not only have access to hundreds of options, but also truly want to help you to create a space that reflects your company's personality, fits your financial goals, helps attract and retain great personnel and helps your employees work more efficiently, all while making the best use of your real estate. 

Finding ideas online can be a great start to help get an idea of what you'd like the end result to be, but a flawless execution with products that are commercial grade, warrantied and carefully chosen to meet your objectives takes an expert. After all, you wouldn't hire me to do your job, would you?

Don't Sit on the Furniture!

Published on The Daily Reporter web site on January 14th, 2008

When moving to a new building or growing a business, the last thing on any owner or project manager to-do list is developing a well-planned furniture relocation or replacement strategy.
But putting together just such a plan is an essential element to any successful commercial real-estate project.

People wait too long to start thinking about furniture for their new or remodeled space. By the time they realize they might need more furniture or a different configuration of what they already have, there is no time left to analyze what will work best for their needs, their budget or their space.

As a result, clients, in order to get their new furniture in and their business up and running on schedule, are forced to choose from a quick-ship program that provides limited, and often premium-priced, products, colors and configurations.

Most commercial furniture dealerships don’t have a warehouse stocked full of furniture for the taking. Everything is made to order based on customer selections. Lead times vary between 10 days to 10 weeks, and if you want a specific look, a green product or certain parts to help in the reconfiguration of existing furniture, they need to know as soon as possible.

So don’t sit on the furniture decision.

Furniture can do many things for your company. Not only does space planning and product selection help put more bodies in the space and build in flexibility to plan for future growth, it can also influence and impact productivity of the organization.

The ability to attract and retain the right employees is crucial for most companies. The younger generation entering the work force is more concerned than its predecessors about the image and vibe of a company. The design and layout of your space can be a key element to attracting those young professionals.

Inefficiency is the enemy of productivity. A furniture layout can be designed around the who, what, where, when and how. How do the employees work? Who works together? What is their job function? Where are they working and when?

Anyone can create a floor plan for your business, but only trained professionals are capable of creating the most powerful and inspirational design for your business. Image is everything. Visitors get a feel for what you do and your culture by the atmosphere surrounding the work environment. The physical space and product selection can be designed to reflect and compliment the image of your business.

Is green design a factor? Protecting the environment and using environmentally friendly products and materials is becoming increasingly important.

Do you want your new furniture to count toward Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design credits? Have you considered the options for furniture disposal? All of these issues should be addressed in the beginning of a project.

Think about expectations for the space and product options well in advance. If given enough time, a highly functional, aesthetically pleasing and cohesive space can be designed to encourage inspiration and cultivate productivity.

5 Barriers to Transforming Your Business

There are five challenges very common in growing businesses. And not so coincidentally they are five challenges that we can help you through. We are Forrer Business Interiors, the largest business interiors design resource in Wisconsin. Our process is totally focused on your business and making your employees more inspired and more productive. If your business is facing any situations similar to those outlined, we’d love to become your partner in confronting those challenges.

1. How to Attract & Retain the right people.
The real power of the workforce continues to get younger. The skills of the gen-Y set are what your business needs to get ahead in your industry. However, before you can utilize their talent, energy and skills you have to bring them into your business. And their goals and values and what they look for in an employer are not the same as their predecessors, making them a complicated puzzle. But one that’s well worth solving. And the most desirable of the candidates often have multiple offers to choose from before they commit to an employer. How do they make their decision? Believe it or not they place a premium on the vibe they get in the work place. Which means the design and layout of your work place is very influential in winning the gen-Y worker.

2. Inefficiency is the enemy of productivity.
The challenge is to increase output utilizing only the resources that you already have. But how? You need to put the right people together. And put them together the right way. Help them to interact more effectively. Help them to be more productive when they’re working alone. Help them work faster. Help them to think bigger. Much of this is a workspace management issue. It can be achieved by setting up areas within your business to allow people to collaborate more productively. Or by setting up individual workstations for them that are conducive to doing the work. Finding the floor plan that unlocks human potential in your workplace and cuts down on inefficiency is everything. It’s not magic by any means. But it’s not easy. And not everyone who can create a design for your business can also create the most powerful design for your business.

3. How to grow in a space you’ve already outgrown.
Thriving businesses face another consistent challenge – growing in staff faster than they grow in square feet. For the growing business, new wings and new buildings just aren’t as easy to come by as new clients. When that’s the case you simply have to get the very most out of the space that you have. And you have to do it in such a way that you don’t disrupt the work you’re doing or disenfranchise your workforce. Their spirit and vitality must be maintained to maintain your growth. Believe it or not, when it’s well managed, reconfiguring your workspace can actually make you more productive and more efficient. But be careful in choosing your partner. Not everyone who says they can guide you through the process is qualified to guide you through the process successfully.

4. Paying for what you can’t yet afford.
Leveraging money to maximum advantage can give you the ability to accomplish things you might never have thought possible. Finding a way to cash flow your way through expenses is a powerful strategy to elevate your business outcomes. The projects this strategy enables can increase morale, which might make the difference between winning and losing a contract. It can create a more efficient work place design that leads to increased productivity. Looking at expenses from a new vantage point can open up new opportunities for you. The business that makes best use of its financing options can best present itself as a step above the others in its competitive set. And the payout from winning just one piece of new business through that strategy can make the time and expense well worth it.

5. Projecting tomorrow’s image today.
Your business is being considered by a prospect, they come to your offices to get a feel for what you do and your culture. The moment they walk in the door, you’re being evaluated. And the judgment begins even before your receptionist has a chance to speak. What does your physical space say to them? What do your furnishings say about your business? Are you cutting edge? Are you barely keeping up? Every chair, coffee table and office configuration say something so full consideration must be given to all design details – even those that might feel inconsequential to you. Because you never know, they might mean everything to your business. The old adage is true. You’ve only got one chance to make a first impression. Make the most of every opportunity.