The moment you set up your office is the moment you truly feel like a business owner. Finally, you have a physical space to make your entrepreneurial dreams come to life. Ironically, it’s when you decide to move offices that you wish you wouldn’t have had any in the first place. Relocating your business is one of the most stressful things an owner can put themselves through, second only to hiring staff. To make the transition easier on everyone, here are six helpful tips.

Plan Well In Advance

Relocating an entire company is no simple task. You need to find a new location and building, consider your employees, pack up your current office, and so much more. To take the pressure of yourself a little, you should start planning well in advance, ideally six to twelve months ahead. You should also plan out every detail of your move, creating a timeline for you to follow.

Choose The Right Time

All office moves are disruptive in some way, but you should aim to keep this to a minimum where possible. You can do this by choosing your moving date widely. Try to avoid a timeline that clashes with peak trading days, like public holidays, and instead go for a period business is usually slow. This way, sales shouldn’t be affected too much, so you won’t lose money.

Talk To Your Team

Good communication with your employees is always important, but when it comes to a task as large as relocating, you need to put in extra effort to keep them informed. Make sure that they know as early as possible about your plans so that they can make some of their own. After all, this move affects them too. You should also assign moving tasks clearly and responsibly.

Consider Selling Your Business

I know what you’re thinking – If I’m planning to relocate, why would I sell my business? Thankfully, the answer to this is simple. While it is possible to move an entire company, there are many challenges to face along the way, especially if your staff aren’t on board. Rather than deal with this, some entrepreneurs opt to sell their companies and buy a similar one elsewhere instead.

Assign A Project Manager

You may be the one in charge, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be the one in charge of your move. After all, you still have all of your regular work to be getting on with, without piling on a load more. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, you could assign one of your staff as the project manager. This should be someone that can trust, with plenty of time on their hands.

Bring In The Professionals

Moving offices is a completely different undertaking to moving house. This is a much more complicated task, often with larger and more expensive items to be transported. With that in mind, it shouldn’t be something you attempt yourself. A professional removal company has the experience to do this safely, as well as the insurance to protect important office equipment.

Relocating a business will never be stress-free, but, hopefully, with this advice, you can make the transition a little smoother.