Can You Rent Outer Space?

Mysteriously, there is a good chance your company has extra space in its office or warehousing because of downsizing or the lack of demand for your product.

One of the best ways to reduce your expenses and increase your cash flow is to rent out your business space you are not currently using.

This seems to be a growing trend to say the least.  Leif Berner of Southern Material Handling (www.SoutherMaterialHandling.com) leased out his extra space starting from 10 years ago.  Not only did it reduce his expenses but the rent allowed him to eventually purchase the building adding to his business assets.

Who would sublease you ask?  The market is there to rent extra office space.  I personally subleased an office when ConnectionForce.com was getting started.  It allowed us to save money on our new startup but also saved me time on procuring business communication tools and systems.  The first day we moved our office in we had full use of the internet, phone, conference rooms and receptionist.  This was immensely valuable.

If you are thinking about renting out your extra space then consider visiting www.istopover.com, there you can list and purchase extra business space from all over the country.  iStopove.com is a very interesting website.

If you are renting out a cubicle or an entire warehouse; a few things to consider before you rent:

1. Price accordingly

You won’t make a million dollars off your extra space (well maybe you will). If you can’t upfit your extra space to be a complete and separate office you can’t charge market rates.

You will be competing you adhoc space with office space with full facilities and design.  You will have to go below market price per square foot to be attractive.

2. Can you easily partition the space to be separate from your business? 

In Southern Material Handling's case all it needed was a partition to accommodate the new tenant.  Many service related businesses need very few physical resources to operate like Real Estate or Tax Preparation.

3. What resources are you willing to share?

Will you let your renter have use of the central fax machine, copier, phone system, internet, bathrooms?  What about the front receptionist, can she take calls for your renter?  Can your renter use your conference room?

When we rented our first office we did have full use of the facilities and all of these amenities.  With a little communication use of these resources was extremely valuable in getting ConnectionForce.com up and running.

4. Communicate

Even though you are reducing your expenses, you are now a landlord and you get all the headaches that come with it as well.  Make sure you communicate with your new tenant on your office protocol.  No, your office protocol is not common sense.

A few things to cover:

• Scheduling the conference room.
• Labeling their food for the community fridge (yes people do steal your food).
• Bathroom protocol if there are both men and women in the office.
• Security – they are now a tenant and have every right to keys and security codes.
• Receptionist Use.

With the right level of communication and a little adjustment renting out your extra space is a viable option to reduce your expenses and increase your cash flow.

Who we are:

This blog is dedicated to help businesses increase productivity, decrease expenses and increase cash flow.

At ConnectionForce, we have created the very first online sales filter to allow you to pre-screen potential vendors before you agree to a meet with them.

Our goal is to totally eradicate Cold Calling as a sales technique within the next 5 years. (2015)

We are committed to making office managers and purchasers jobs easier by making sales people better. 

Learn more here

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