Everyone aspires to have an aesthetically pleasing office or studio space for their small business. But often it seems that business owners hold back and just make do with how the space already is, whether a leased office space or a spare room converted into a home office (including spare room crap pushed to one side now).
And I fully appreciate that, at first glance, wanting and creating a beautiful office interior can seem a bit superficial. But there is so much more to it than just having a nice looking space that you (and others) work in. Today I'm going to be sharing 3 key reasons why you should invest time and money creating a beautiful office interior for your small business.
01. Get that much needed work motivation and productivity boost from your lovely office interior
Create a work space that you genuinely want to work in for several hours everyday. Create a space that you're proud of, and feel happy and comfortable in every time you begin your work day. If your work space is uninspiring, are you going to feel inspired in any way to have a productive and successful day as a small business owner?
A quick caveat that I also mentioned in a recent blog post, A look inside the office interior of Studio Cotton. If you're at the beginning stages of creating a mood board or a folder of lovely images of inspiring workspaces, don't get too side-tracked by all the great office designs and interior ideas you'll find on Pinterest or Instagram etc.
And what I mean is, before you start buying loads of paint colours and furniture because it looked great in an image saved in your Pinterest board, have a real think about what you and the business needs from your workspace in order to be productive and successful. You don't want to risk wasting money on things that don't really reflect your business ethos or what your workspace needs, no matter how nice it looks.
So, do you need an office interior with soft tones and plenty of built-in storage to create a minimal, head-clearing space to help keep you focused? Or maybe you need a bit of visual stimulation through colours and decorative items to get the creative juices flowing first thing in the morning? These kind of questions will help determine what style and design will truly benefit your business through its office interior. And an interior designer can help you even further in creating the perfect work space (hint, hint).
Two of the most effective ways of transforming an office interior is with a well-considered colour or material palette and the lighting. Adding a bit of colour into your interior with paint is probably the most cost-effective to create a beautiful office interior. I've written a blog post on how to successfully use coloured paint in an office if you need a bit of office interior inspiration.
And having enough lighting, as well as having the right level of brightness and light colour, is so important in a working environment. For areas in your office space that don't receive much daylight, or even working during darker Winter seasons, you're going to need plenty of artificial lighting. If you want to learn a bit more about interior lighting have a read of this recent blog post.
02. Use your office interior as a great marketing tool for your small business
So if you already have or intend to invest time and money into creating a lovely office interior for you and your business team to work in, you should fully utilise your work interior and use it as a marketing tool for your business. Studio Cotton, a brand, website and marketing agency, do a great job of making their studio space work hard for their website and social media platforms. Their studio interior allows them to create so much on-brand digital marketing content to use daily.
Hire a photographer (or take lots of your own photos if you're a successful DIY-photographer) and have a computer folder of images ready for you to use on all your business' relevant social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or even LinkedIn. Get some overall interior shots as well as some close-up angles of some nice finishes, fittings, or team members working away so you've got plenty of digital marketing content areas covered.
These photos of your snazzy office interior can also be used throughout your website or in adverts promoting your brand and business offerings, and on top of that legitimise your small business. This way you can avoid using bog-standard stock images that show random people and work environments that don't reflect your business or its ethos at all.
Essentially, use your office interior in your business digital marketing content to help your small business be memorable and stand out in your industry. You should want to promote your business (successfully) to as many potential clients and/or customers as possible!
Which leads onto the third reason to have a beautiful office interior...
03. Impress new clients and new talent with your inspiring office interior
As mentioned at the beginning, it might seem a bit superficial or sound like I'm encouraging you to boast about/show-off your office space... But if you want a successful business with all the great clients and team members, it really is worth thinking about how your office interior will be viewed and interpreted by those ideal people.
If you're a small business that holds client meetings in your workplace, you definitely want to set a good impression from the very first visit because let's not lie, everyone does judge a book by its cover, even a little bit.
A beautiful office interior, even just spaces like the welcome area and meeting room that the client comes into contact with, can make them feel more relaxed; they may respect you more as a business owner; feel more trusting towards your small business and/or the project at hand. Especially when wanting to land a new client, your office interior should convince them that your small business is the bee's knees.
Just a solo-preneur working from a home office and hosting video calls and meetings? Think about what the client/customer can see in your background. (This point is also valid even if you're a small business having to temporarily work from home because of the dreaded C-word currently). With virtual meetings you don't need to be too over the top with any interior design or styling. It's more about getting a balance between avoiding a plain and boring background and avoiding an overly-distracting and busy background.
Much like new clients, the same goes for scouting out new team members for a growing small business. You of course want to be hiring the best talent that you can, and you'll most likely be hosting interviews in your workplace. So don't forget that whilst you're assessing whether an interviewee is the right fit for your small business, that same person will also be deciding if they definitely want to work for you.
I can almost guarantee that part of their decision making process will be determining whether your office interior and work environment is somewhere they would enjoy working in everyday - reiterating Reason Number 1 here! If they're a talented individual they probably have other job offers lined up with other competition in your industry, and your inspiring and comfortable office space might just be what seals the deal for your small business.
So there you have it, 3 very good reasons to have a beautiful office interior and get started on improving your own for your small business. I also just want to highlight that creating an inspiring office space doesn't have to be a ridiculously expensive experience. Check out my blog post with Studio Cotton, if you haven't already, to find out how much it cost them to achieve their memorable, on-brand pink studio.
If you're interested in working together on an interior design project for your small business, check out my office interior design service. You can also drop an email at hello@studiosk.co.uk.
(Cover image: Toa Heftiba via Unsplash)
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