Hard Times!..The Woe's of moving a Small Business

Now what am I going to do? My life has changed so much personally. I've moved over 100 miles from where I use to live. Everything about me has changed... Including the business side of me. In order to make this kind of move, I had to temporarily close my accounting business. I have been a business owner for over 10 years. It took me at least 6 of those 10 years to get a customer base and regular business clients. Some of my clients I have been doing business with from the very beginning. Because of my business I had to think long and hard about moving such a distance away. I knew it would mean me having to basically start over with my business too. In recent years my business started to level off. I hadn't been able to acquire many new customers. Thanks to on-line billing services and on-line payroll services, the accounting side of my business hadn't been doing well. I only had a few customers. But on the income tax side of the business, I had a real following.

The income tax side of business was actually flourishing and continuing to grow. I was able to acquire new customers every year. The business had gotten so good till I was getting income tax customers even after the deadline. Closing my business and losing those customers was not easy. I knew it would cause a financial hit to our overall budget. I knew it would be a while before I would be making money again through my business and that it would take a while to build back up my clientele. I had somewhat of a calling to move to the country. You know that something, that gets stuck in your mind and stays there even tho you haven't acted on it... I knew it was something I was going to eventually do. So I took the leap of faith and I shut down my business! I had the promise of a few customers actually still continuing to do business with me. Some of my customers didn't care where I was moving, just as long as I could still do business with them. So I managed to keep a very small amount of customers. But here's the real problem. It's not acquiring new customers or networking to get new customers.

The problem is, I had no idea of all the hardships and situations that would come up during our move! I have had so many unexpected incidents come out of nowhere! I made sure to plan everything out! I got estimates and did research on everything. I even had a budget for unexpected expenses. But I found out quick that I had way more unexpected expenses than I had money! Even some of the things that I had planned and set, didn't go as planned! I had to really learn how to rock with the tide and stay persistent. I did! It took a lot of work, but I'm here. OK, now that I'm here what's keeping me from business? I set aside a budge for a small building to put on the property for me to work out of. I also put aside a budget for start-up expenses and office supplies. Nevertheless, all of my budgets gave way to just getting moved and situated on our new property. We moved on a property that had just land and trees! No utilities! That meant I had to have the land cleared and prepared for a house before I could even move in. I planned for this but it did not go as planned. Things were way over budget! This also meant I had to make the sacrifice of spending the money set aside for my business. Depressing I know! Doing this meant that I would have to wait before I could get a building and start my business back up! I have customers waiting on me to get set up! Oh no!.

It took some thinking for a minute, but I decided to turn one of my bedrooms into my (temporary) office! I had to do something. I didn't want to lose the few customers I had. So I set up in one of the guest bedrooms for now. It has worked out so far. I made it through income tax season with my home office. The few customers I have didn't mind coming to my home to do business. My office looked similar to my old office so most everybody felt comfortable. Believe it or not, I even managed to pick up two or three new customers this year! I was not expecting to get any new customers but it happened. Gaining new customers gave me hope. Now I feel like I might be able to have a go with my business after all. Although I still have a long way to go, I'm very thankful to be able to start again in business. I'm looking forward to my new life in business!