The Best and Worst Places to Meet Clients When You Work from Home

If you run your business from the comfort of your home office, then you know that it can be a challenge to successfully arrange a meeting with clients. Sure, it’s an ideal space for you, but your dining room doesn’t exactly exude the professional feeling you’re hoping to convey.

When the moment arrives that you need to meet with a client, host a meeting, or even run a seminar,  coming up with an answer to the simple question, “Where should we meet?” can be tricky.

Where is the best place to meet in order to develop further credibility and build your business in a focused, professional environment? And, more importantly,  which locations should you be sure to avoid when you set up your next appointment? Let’s break down the best and worst places to meet clients when you work from home.

Places You SHOULDN’T Meet Your Clients

There are countless places to chat with clients or conduct group meetings, but they are not all created equal. You don’t want to ruin your professional online persona with a less-than-ideal meeting place. Here are the main locations to avoid if you want to grow your company in a safe, productive way:

 

• Your Home: Not only does meeting at your home give your company an undeveloped, unprofessional appearance, but it’s also unsafe. It’s a lot easier to switch conference rooms than it is to pack up and move your home if you meet with a new client who turns out to be much different than their initial impression.

 

Also, it’s one thing to run a business from your home, but it’s another to conduct appointments with clients from your home. You take your company seriously and your meeting space should come across just as seriously. Don’t jeopardize a new deal or potential client by conducting a meeting at the same table where you sit down for your morning cereal.

 

• The Local Coffee Shop: Sure, plenty of people meet to talk business at the local coffee chain around the corner. But that also means that each location is loaded with distractions. Between the steamer making lattes and the blender whirring in the background, there’s loads of noise interference, not to mention the distractions of all the other people trying to conduct lunchtime business when you meet at the local coffee shop.

 

Another problem with a bustling coffee shop is the lack of confidentiality. If you and your clients are dealing with personal or confidential matters, the last place you should be meeting is a coffee shop full of people. Even gathering payment information can compromise a client’s bank account and make them feel uneasy if you’re meeting in a public place.

You probably wouldn’t share your credit card number when a stranger is sitting at the table next to yours, and you wouldn’t enter your payment information while browsing on an unsecured, public wireless network, so why would you expect your client to do the same?

Earn your clients’ trust by meeting with them in a secure location where there won’t be others listening in.

The Best Place to Meet Clients

So where should you meet clients? Here’s a solution: When your work-from-home company needs a real-life office, you can easily reserve a meeting space in a virtual workplace. In fact, you can even find larger spaces that are suitable for corporate events.

Whether you need a large conference room, a team room or an executive office, a virtual workspace gives you a location to meet in-person that is as credible as your online persona. You can continue to build your brand as a contemporary, approachable, and professional company by using a designated meeting space.

In addition to the perks of having a virtual receptionist, a business mailing address, and a local phone number and answering service, your virtual workspace can include access to meeting spaces that fit into your schedule, without the sound of lattes steaming in the background to distract you or your client from the task at hand.

Need to set up a big meeting soon? Victory Workspace has a solution that will fit your specific needs. Go ahead and reserve a conference room, office, or meeting room and build your credibility with a professional, peaceful, focused environment. Schedule a tour and check out our superior meeting spaces today, and see how our professional workspaces can take your company to the next level.