Big & Sturdy or Light & Nimble Business Model

If you want to form relationships with a professional client base (engineers, architects, etc.) I think the brick and mortar will be needed. If you are doing local boundaries and mortgage work, probably the light and nimble approach is better.

I think it depends on your long-range goals. "Having to expand" is different than having the opportunity to expand. If you are going to keep a very small shop (2-3 people) you may be able to juggle the virtual office concept but it will be a juggle. If your long term plan is to continue to expand, an actual office is going to be a better bet. There are successful "home" offices that can be outbuildings with no difference than a commercially located office.

As previously stated, to successfully court many clients, a commercial location is necessary. There is a branding that happens over time with a high visibility location also.

Be the future, light and nimble! I think that offices are going the way that buggy whips went.

You'd be surprised and how much more efficient you can be without the additional overhead, and the daily headaches of managing individuals. I would pay on a per project base.

I'm far from an expert on such matters, but it seems to me you may need to blend the two models to fit your needs. So much of business is based on appearances and impressions. It really depends upon the type of business you're after. The best sources of steady work tend to be other businesses, engineering, utility, realty, and having a brick and mortar store front sends the message that your stable and reliable. What kind of impression do you want to make and what is the goal of your business? It helps to have a clear idea of where you want to take your business.

I have a home office and do the survey work out of my Camaro. All I do is large commercial projects for architects, engineers, and developers. I don't see any need for my having a traditional office and neither do they.

We are no longer in the day and age where showing off your office has a significant impact.

Even some Fortune 500 companies are pushing their employees to work from home.

Clients care about results. Stay lean and mean with a virtual office. If you don't, your competitors will.

> I am in a position of having to expand from a one man shop. The question is would a surveyor do better with the traditional "brick & mortar" business (maybe owning a building, renting space to others, owning computers, copiers, plotters, etc.).... or would a "virtual office" approach be better (work from a home office & set up the van as a mobile workspace, Skype with an off site CAD person.. i.e. more technology, but less physical assets)?
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> Curious on your thoughts.
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> Thank You,
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> Ray

> I don't see any need for my having a traditional office and neither do they.
As I understand it, you had already formed long term relationships with your client base when you undertook your current business model. Is that so?

What works for a one-man shop, as both you and rpage have successfully run, may not work for a larger operation.

> We are no longer in the day and age where showing off your office has a significant impact.
Implicit in a light and nimble business model is a high turnover in staff as you gear up and wind down. That is not likely to impress your client base much. Nor is it likely to escape the notice of high quality potential employees in your local market.

The value in the brick and mortar is not so much in impressing clients as in showing your employees that you are in it for the long haul.

> You'd be surprised and how much more efficient you can be without the additional overhead, and the daily headaches of managing individuals.
You are making the case for remaining a solo shop rather than advising how to expand.

>I would pay on a per project base.
Then they wouldn't be employees. They would be independent business people. Quality control would become an issue. Billing issues on some government contracts. Where are you going to find this pool of talent that will work on those terms that isn't already in business for themselves? Will they be available for the next project? You'd have to put a team together for every assignment.

Whether or not you agree there's an implication (I don't), delivering results trumps everything, for both clients and employees. If I lose a few clients because they don't like my virtual model, so be it. I save a ton in efficiency to more than make up for it, if I need to.

> > We are no longer in the day and age where showing off your office has a significant impact.

> Implicit in a light and nimble business model is a high turnover in staff as you gear up and wind down. That is not likely to impress your client base much. Nor is it likely to escape the notice of high quality potential employees in your local market.
>
> The value in the brick and mortar is not so much in impressing clients as in showing your employees that you are in it for the long haul.

Big & Sturdy or Light & Nimble Business Model>Norman

Well son, after putting in 30 years surveying around here I can put together a pretty good outfit. I dont't often help, but the times I have its worked out well. A couple of guys that I have worked with previously can handle field work, and another couple of folks have carlson at home (bought and paid for) and are standup draftsmen and techs.

Thats just me though, no need for an fancy office, although mine is pretty nice. I have space for clients and can handle the rest by internet.

Big & Sturdy or Light & Nimble Business Model>rpage

What does your business plan say about this situation? Mine says if i hit a certain dollar figure I will have to hire someone. Came close in 2007, but I am slowly climbing back. My hire would not share my office however, at least according to my business plan 🙂

Ray
How about a little of both?
I now do most of my work at the kitchen table or in my truck, but a few years back I had a partner and 6 to 10 employees. Now it's just me and the kids, but I still own the office building. I no longer "go in" to work every day, but it's nice to have the office for the occasional meeting and it stores all my files, books and extra gear. One reason that I keep the office building is that it has two apartment rentals that pay the mortgage. It is a good investment and if I go back to having employees I will diffidently use it. It sounds like you are thinking of having a building with extra space to rent also. So I guess the bottom line is whats your bottom line telling you?

Big & Sturdy or Light & Nimble Business Model>Norman

Of course I'm not suggesting that it can't be done, especially after one has spent a lifetime building up solid business relationships. I do assert that if your aim is to build a business it's going to be easier to do with a brick and mortar base of operations.

>do the survey work out of my Camaro

I am impressed... I can barely fit all the stuff I use in a Suburban.

These responses show the type of surveyor who hangs out on this site. Not that it is a bad thing, mind you. There just are not many surveyors who work at those “Big & Sturdy” firms hanging out here. I submit there is a reason that most of the posters here are more of the “Light & Nimble” group. I submit there is a reason most of the others don’t hang out here much. So for this question, you will undoubtedly get the advice that Light & Nimble is the way to go because that works best for them. You will not get much of the other viewpoint. Nuff said bout that!

Myself, I love the “Big & Sturdy” business plan if it will work where you are. I love the challenges of diversity of daily work. I love working side by side with other competent people (who are even be employees). I find myself motivated by new opportunities, new types of surveying, new software and new equipment. What a great day when everyone is back from the field, downloading the day’s work for the office surveyors and you can see the well-oiled machinery working! There is so much that can be done by a good team of workers. There are so many benefits that I could not bring to the firm by myself.

If the business model pencils out and you are that type of a person, you should follow that path. Just be sure you have the business skills to make the operation work at that scale. There can be great rewards in both business relationships and financial returns. There have been many projects that I was proud to work on that would not have gone to one of the “Light & Nimble” surveyors (and vice versa, of course). Look at yourself and see which person you are and go with that one.

Many of us who are solo with a home office spent years at large firms and are very familiar with both types of operations, which is why we chose solo.

Yup, I put in my 20 plus at two firms that had in excess of 30 employees most of the time. , I had the opportunity to but in the second place but decided that I would rather survey than manage. I had spent a long time managing and was just tired of it.

I felt there was a better way for what unlike to do, which is; property line staking, resolving disputes, pre-design topos, alta, court work, gps networks, and the such.

:good:

I shut down a successful small firm to go to work for a big company because I prefer the kind of work a big firm does. Plus I get to mentor half a dozen guys (and girls) that are going to be future surveyors one day and that was never going to be the case when I was running my solo firm

I might be biased though, Luke CO PLS hired me for my first surveying job at G&O in 1988 after I quit my job as a campaign advisor at a PAC.