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Designing Your Office with a Growth Mindset

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Nu
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Show Notes 

Brian: So this is episode six, but it's actually the second episode that we're recording today in our brand new Faircloth podcast studio at our...

Mary: Dedicated studio space!

Brian: That's pretty exciting. But it's related to our conversation today because we're speaking about how important it is to think about designing an office space that your employees, that your team can be successful in.

Mary: Yeah. And I think definitely having a dedicated studio, if you have a podcast that you're recording, is a good goal to have.

Brian: Yeah. As we've been moving into this new space, having to record remotely and coordinate has been a challenge. Having a dedicated space helps you stay on task, stay productive, and stay moving ahead. So yeah. We're going to be looking today at two rounds of moving. We as a business have been in three different locations over the past five or six years, and we've learned some lessons. We've had some challenges that we want speak about. But Mary, so you've been obviously working with other businesses in the past. So what has been one of your worst kind of work office space environments that you remember?

Mary: Oh wow. So one of my first jobs out of college when I graduated was I did data entry for a company and it was in a tiny, tiny office. It was smaller than this studio actually. And there were eight of us.

Brian: Aaw like in a room like this?

Mary: Like this, but it was wall to wall and there was a desk on one side and a desk on the other side with side by side computers. And we were all scrunched in there together, just typing away all day.

Brian: Were you doing data entry over the phone?

Mary: Some of us would be on the phone and some of us would be on computers. It was never quiet in there. Very little wiggle room. It got very hot in the summers.

Brian: So for someone like you, introverts need space, I'm guessing that was a challenge. Well that's not a problem here.

Mary: Yeah. I could probably go into several areas and you'd never find me. What about you? What's your office horror story?

Brian: My office horror story was when we were located on Jonestown Road, and if you actually visited our current space, we've named our three conference rooms after the roads that we've been on. And you can actually in the future, if you're local to Winston actually rent these spaces to help you grow your business. Um, but anyway, so my office horror story was, we were, our Jonestown office, which was about 850 to 900 square feet. And one of our current conference rooms actually is probably a little bit bigger that than the entire space now. And so we had five or six employees at that point, so we were scrunched in there, but that was in the very tiny office. I was meeting with a client, and another employee went to use the restroom.

I'm not quite sure if the ventilation wasn't good in the building or what. But it was an incredibly awkward time, um, because, uh, they use the restroom and the smell just engulfed the entire small little conference office space to, I was with this potential client.

Mary: So did that maybe impact, maybe even subconsciously that the fact that your office now is about the opposite side of any restrooms in this new place?

Brian: It's very possible. I never really thought about that, but it's possible that that stench just burned into my skull so deeply, that I could ever be in that bathroom. But I'm sure that as a listener, you have been in some good office environments and you've been in some bad office environments. Either way, if you had the opportunity to think through how you would design the space, it's very possible that you would make some changes. And so today's conversation is about thinking through why it would be important to design a space that is relevant to your employees, but also very helpful. So Mary, just as an employee, why is it an important, when you're thinking about a company you're going to work for, why is a space important to you?

Mary: Yeah, so I'll let you in on a secret. So before I took this job, I was considering a couple of other positions. And the other contender, I would've been working in a cubicle in this huge room of all cubicles, just a sea of gray. And that honestly was kind of a point of contention for me where I was thinking about, you know, is this where I want to be eight or nine hours of a day, right? I think a good environment is important. Uh, productivity, obviously, is a factor. If you're in a place that's distracting in any way or that doesn't make you feel inspired. If you're working in a creative field like I do, then yeah, that's going to be detrimental to your ability to do your job. And I think office culture is huge now. And you know, if you're in an environment that doesn't contribute to a good office culture, that's also going to impact your job and your ability to do that job

Brian: Well. I'm really glad that you decided to work for Nu. But today we're going to be talking about the things that we learned from moving to the previous location and then the things that we've learned in this current process. So let's jump right into round one. So one of the biggest reasons why we wanted to move, besides running out of space, was our business was changing. So you know, we've just celebrated 20 years of being in business. And for those that don't know, we actually began as a printing company. Our original name was Le Print Express and we just sold our print division just earlier this year. So we've been printing all 20 years of our existence. But as we added marketing and web services, people would come into our old office space and say, it looks like Kinkos. And it was like a knife in the back, because we were not trying to present ourselves as Kinko's. So one of the biggest reasons why we decided to move was to help our clientele or our potential clients understand what we were about as a company.

Mary: I think we've all had that experience where we've walked into a business expecting one thing and if you get something completely different, it throws you off and maybe makes you less likely to want to make a purchase, right?

Brian: So one of the biggest reasons why we moved was to be able to set that right environment for our clientele and be able to set that tone. So that was five or six years ago. At that point, the open office environment became super, super, super trendy. As an employee who was in that space, what were some of the challenges that, that we experienced?

Mary: Oh, the noise. The noise was huge. Um, a lack of privacy. Our walls didn't reach the ceiling.

Brian: Right. So we had meeting spaces, with doors, but not necessarily with walls. Right. So the wall went up about nine or 10 feet and then the ceilings were, you know, 10, 12, 13. So what we tried to do was create this like open air feeling.

Mary: It's great at first, right? Everybody's open. Everybody's working together, but when you get down to the day to day, there was no privacy. If you wanted to have, you know, a more private conversation with your supervisor, we had to leave.

Brian: Which caused a lot of anxiety I think for the team. Because anytime that we had to have just a semiprivate conversation, even if nothing was wrong, we had to go leave and go to Mcdonald's or Starbucks. And so what started as something that we wanted to create transparency actually created anxiety within our team because we did not have some sort of privacy.

Mary: Yeah. You would see, you know, three or four people go offsite and you can't help but think, oh, what's going on?

Brian: Right. We'll get to how we fixed that in our current space. But you know, if you're looking at designing your space now, you want to be thinking through, okay, is the open environment a good thing for you? And we'll speak later about how we solved that. The second thing that we did that we found was we wanted to find a landlord that wanted to grow with us. We were a small business and you know, we wanted the atmosphere to look a certain way, but we did not have a ton of money just to dump into the space. So when we were looking for spaces, we would find great spaces, but then we would find a landlord that was not willing to help with upfit. Some people would help with upfit, but would give something like $5,000 and that wouldn't get go very far. So we found a landlord who was willing to build out the space to our specs, and then build that into the rent over the next five years. So what I would encourage you to do is don't settle just for a space. If you don't have the funds to be able to update the way you want, find a landlord that's going to work with you.

Mary: Yeah. This is something I heard years ago. I don't even remember where, but, uh, just as a saying go where the love is. So I think, you know, find someone who has, you know, maybe they don't share your vision, but they have a vision for you and they want to help you grow. You know, if you find someone like that, then I think you're lucky.

Brian: Yeah, definitely. So, um, big tip, you know, go find the love. The third thing that we learned is when you move locations you need to communicate, communicate, communicate. So at our location on Benton road, we were next to our landlord, who actually owned a paint store. And they had recently moved about two years before we moved into our space. And their business almost completely died because they did not communicate to their customers that they were moving. They moved and put up a little sign and said, we've moved. That story actually helped us to make sure that in our communication with our clients, that we began in the communication months in advance. And we continued the communication well into a year after we moved in the space. Because if we didn't that communication, we could, you know, have also been impacted with our sales.

Mary: Yeah, definitely. I drove by the old office the other day and I think there are signs are still up there that say we've moved.

Brian: Right. Okay. Well great. So those are three things that we've learned from round one, moving into the Benton road space. We're going to come back after a commercial break and we're going to talk about our current space and the things that we've learned going into this new space. So stay tuned.

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Mary: Welcome back. Today we are talking about moving and designing your office for growth and how to make an an office that everybody can work in productively. Before the break we talked about our first round, which I actually didn't experience myself, but I experienced the outcome of that, which was our move from Jonestown to Benton Road. We talked about open offices, how maybe they're not so great. We talked about finding a landlord who is willing to grow with you and communicating, which is most important, communicating with your clients and your customers. Make sure that they know you're moving. So we are actually in our first week into our new space.

Brian: Finally, yes. We started looking for spaces two years ago.

Mary: I remember because I've been here about two years and I think week two, you announced, hey, we're moving this year.

Brian: Yeah. So that goes into something we did not realize, was this: planning for setbacks. So round one moved very quickly. We signed the lease in the September of that of the previous year that we moved in. We moved in in April. So, um, we signed the lease, they updated the space and we moved in by April. And at that point I thought that was slow. But I've learned through this process of almost being two years from trying to find this space, it's been 13 months since we signed the lease, before we actually were able to semi work into the office. So one of the biggest lessons that we have learned is you need to plan for the setbacks, plan for things following a different timeline, than maybe what your contractors are saying. And thankfully the setbacks did not impact our business, but had we not sold our print business, we would not have had a place to actually work out of. So plan for some overlap-- and I meet some significant overlap because we were originally told that we can move in the space between January and March, March 31st at the latest. And what is today's date? May 29th. Yeah, so almost two months after the latest, the latest date that we were told that we would be in,

Mary: I remember a time when they were saying, oh, January 1st. Definitely!

Brian: Yeah. And so something that I think that you need to be planning for is potential setbacks in your timeline. One of the things that we learned about our open office environment was we needed spaces for privacy. Um, not only for meetings, but conversations. And even if they're not like serious conversations, um, but you know, having a conversation, you know, about an employee's productivity or you know, growth opportunities or maybe their next steps, we want to make sure that they're not being broadcast throughout the entire space.

Mary: Yeah, definitely. And I know for me especially, sometimes I just like to have a little privacy when I'm talking. Taking client calls was always huge. I would have to kind of close myself up as much as possible in the old space.

Brian: So how did we solve that problem that was created in round one into version two?

Mary: Well, I am currently in a room where the walls go all the way up to the ceiling!

Brian: That's a step up from our old office! Um, but we have a mix in this space. So we've kept the feel of an open office environment, where it's free flowing. But we also have areas where employees can go and have private conversations. And it's not just about private conversations. They can just get alone by themselves and buckle down on their work.

Mary: Yeah. Which is huge for an office of introverts, which we are.

Brian: Um, so the other thing that we learned, we, we did a survey for our team, when we were looking at new spaces and the overwhelming request was what?

Mary: Windows, windows, windows. I think I put windows in all caps in my survey answer. I want to be able to see the outside world. Actually, I once worked in an office that was an old warehouse and there were five of us and we worked in the back of the warehouse and there were no windows. And so I never saw the light of day for the entire time I worked there.

Brian: Yeah. So we've definitely solved that in today's new space. But what's interesting is now we have the alternative problem. Now we have to think about shades, and the light that's impacting our screens. So, you know, you learn something, you make some adjustments, and then you've got to figure out how to deal with that. Something else, that we've learned through this process is the installers that are doing the day to day work- I don't want to insult them, but they, but they don't know squat. And what I mean by that is, for example, we have doors installed for some of these offices. And they were asking me, well, which way do you want the door to swing? And I was like, well, I don't know. You know, I'd never done this before. And so they made a recommendation. Um, the problem is their recommendation was not thinking through furniture and other elements of the space,

Mary: And that comes down to, you know, they don't know our business. So they didn't know how these spaces would be used. So they're going off of basic recommendations.

Brian: Right. And so I think something that I learned in this process was the importance of exploring other spaces and offices. I wish I had gone to some other spaces downtown and just to see how their environments work, you know, which way do the doors swing. It's not something I would've ever thought about asking. Um, but the people that are kind of the boots on the ground doing the work there, they're very good at doing the work, but they may not necessarily have the wisdom or the experience to speak about aesthetics or design or how this is going to impact. For one of our conference rooms, we were swinging door in and it was hitting the chairs. And that was with no one in the room. And so having some thought to little things like, okay, how was this door going to swing, would be helpful to think about.

Mary: I think another you can do is, you know, just take a day in your normal work environment, just be very mindful of what you're doing and kind of take note. Like, oh, hey, you know, maybe this light is too close to me or, I wish I had this door opening out or I wish that there was a slightly larger window here.

Brian: It's a little things that you just don't even think about. I mean, yeah. Yesterday, we were experiencing like the new sounds of the space. I mean that was something that was interesting because we walked in here and it was like dead silence. It was like completely silent. So what, what do we do?

Mary: One of my coworkers and I, we made a priority. We took a break from work and we went and fished out the wireless speakers and a set up a DJ system.

Brian: Well, sweet. And the last thing that I want to say is something that we didn't necessarily experience so much in round one was expect random expenses. So this space is about two and a half times the size of our previous space. And my guess is we had three or four times the amount of random expenses that I didn't think about. For example, the doors. We wanted to buy permanent doorstoppers to keep the doors semi-open. And you know, not that big of an expense, but it was not something that we had budgeted for. In our previous space, the landlord had taken care of the towel holders, the toilet paper holders, all of those bathroom elements. But in this space, that was not part of my expenses. So again, not again a huge expense, but we have double the bathrooms that we had in our previous space. So just planning for those little expenses and budgeting is really important.

Mary: And I think planning for expenses, even after the fact. I know now that we've moved in, we're all noticing little things that were missing that we didn't think of before. So just, you know, plan for things that you're not going to think of.

Brian: So in summary, if you are thinking about moving your space or maybe even just doing a renovation, the thing that I would say over anything, is just take time and plan, ask your team their thoughts. They may have some crazy thoughts -

Mary: Like naming all the conference rooms after Harry Potter characters.

Brian: Yeah, that was a bad idea. Um, at least for me. So up until now, you've been hearing Mary and I, um, but our next podcast is going to be our first guest speaker, a guest interview. We're going to be having a company called RightPath on and we're going to be talking about hiring and the cost of hiring good people and the cost of hiring bad people. So until next time, remember that friction in your organization is going to slow your growth, but simplicity is going to help build that momentum.

Austin: Thanks for listening to growth made simple. We'll be here the first and third Wednesday of every month to bring you the freshest, the smartest, and the newest inbound marketing insight on this side of the Mason Dixon line. Now go find your favorite pump up jams before it's time to get out of the car.


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