Hello everybody!
Here's the situation. Me and a buddy run a small computer repair shop. We've been open for about 1 year and 8 months now. The problem is (I believe) our location. It's not in a shopping plaza or anything that has foot traffic. It's on a busy street but nobody really stops unless they have specific purpose (around us there's lawyers, Tax services, and Insurance.
Right now all of our clients pretty much come from Google, Yellow pages, and few other small referrals. We get pretty much 0 clients that just "saw" our location.
At the end of the year our contract is up and we have to decide what to do (re-new for 1 more year, move, or close business) I say close business because we do make money, but all that goes to pay rent, utilities, advertising and that's about it. There's really no room for "profit" that we get to keep for us.
I've had to keep 2 jobs- one main one that pays me, and my business as a secondary that doesn't. My buddy does that same so right now we both work Mon-Fri 9-5 somewhere else and I have my wife stay at the business to answer calls, and check in computers as they come in. After work I go to the biz to repair anything that came in so it can be picked up the next day.
I realize I cannot keep doing this if I want a successful business so I have decided to look for a new, better exposed, place. Well I found one that is perfect! It's about double the size of what we have now (1200sq ft vs us now 600sq ft) but the big thing is the price. Since it's on a very good, prime location they are asking $35.50/sq ft so the monthly payment will be ~$3000 compared to $600 that we pay now!
So my big question is, is it worth the risk? I mean I'm stuck between a place that doesn't really make me any profits but has cheap overhead OR a new place that has TONS of exposure and foot traffic but it's 5 times more expensive just to rent out AND I have to invest more $$$ to make it presentable - make it into a repair shop/retail store?
ANY suggestions would be great because I don't know what to do!
Thank you
Bookmarks