As we approach the Ribbon Cutting for our recent move of our office to our new location I was reflecting on the journey of the last 18 months. Yes 18 months! Are you planning to move your office? – It’s a great idea to start at least a year in advance. Scouting for property is the easy part, my business partner will assure you of that. However, the buildout, planning, architects, contractors, and IT are significant decisions that cannot be made hastily if you want to move without interrupting your service.
Moving our behavioral health billing office to a new location was just as much a need as a want. I am grateful for that. Our company has grown considerably in the last three years- from 3 to 33 employees. This found us bursting at the seams in our 2500 square foot space. When my business partner came to me last January, yes, January 2017, and informed me the move would take a year, I gaffed… seriously, I thought to myself, why would we beginning planning so soon?
Much to my surprise and a testimony to his strategy, it took almost one year to the day to get this project off the ground. There are so many facets to an office move, I can hardly list them all. What I can speak to is the enormous amount of time, patience, strategy and organization this takes. There are so many incidentals that are critical to the daily operations of our company – not one can be missed. Ultimately, we could not allow the move to impact the ability of our customers to treat their clients. In order to accomplish this, it was critical that we got as granular as possible. No detail was too small – nothing was overlooked. Our move was seamless, at least to our customers. On this end we were prepared to deal with any “surprises” as we transitioned locations.
My business partner will soon be sharing his journey with orchestrating this move. I am in awe at the number of tasks he had juggled at once with this project. Running the operation seems easy to me when compared to sitting in on IT planning meetings, reading blue prints, orchestrating contractors, architect and permits- and this is a small sampling of what he did to ensure a safe, unified move. Thank goodness he is extraordinary at it. My suggestion to any business owner who is planning a move in the next year, is start now. It’s never too soon to begin the planning. I assure you it will take at least one year. You won’t regret the time put into the details. And, your customers will only remember the incredible Ribbon Cutting celebration because you did everything possible to not interfere with their ability to operate.
