No-one who runs their own business is likely to take an office move lightly, by any means. The simple fact is that without the necessary level of commitment and attention, you quickly find yourself without a job and without a business, or at the very least – with a massive reduction in income, and with a serious degree of damage done to your professional credibility and reputation. Any move of any kind is by its very nature bound to be a particularly difficult and stressful event; there is, after all, an enormous list of things which need to be done to a good standard in order for the move to be carried off with relative success. Among these are the need to arrange proper removals and transport between both properties (will the boot of your car be good enough to get the job done? Are you going to need to call up several of your friends for help? Hire a professional moving agency, or use man and van hire?), the need to properly organize and plan your packing and unpacking in order to minimize mess, and allow yourself to get back on your feet and back to normal life as soon as possible, etc. The difference between a normal move and an office move, however, is that an office move is simply a more high stakes task than a personal move. If you botch a personal move, or hit a massive and unexpected stumbling block, then you can expect to spend a certain amount of time being quite uncomfortable and having to work hard to get everything properly back on track. The stakes during an office move, however, are your livelihood and your business. If your move is plagued by difficulty, delay and unforeseen trouble, it can threaten your whole lifestyle in a dramatic and complicated manner.The simple fact is that if you’re moving offices, you just have to get it right. So what are some of the key tips to getting the whole process carried out smoothly? Take a Full Inventory of Everything The first thing to do, is to make sure that you absolutely have your head around what items you need to move between offices. In order to do this, you need to have a clear and comprehensive idea of what you have, what state it’s in, and how valuable it is to your business. Your old half-broken coffee maker isn’t top priority. Your business-specific hardware, however, is.Make a real list. Account for everything, note its value, and then pack and label it all very clearly so that there’s no opportunity for things to become lost or disorganized.Have The Layout of Your New Office Planned Perfectly When you move into your new office, you’ve got to be quick off the mark. If you’re sluggish about anything, you risk serious damage to the stability of your business and the continuity which your customers (and the general public) will expect.Having the layout of your new office planned out perfectly (complete with notes about which items should go in which rooms) will give you a huge headstart and a clear sense of direction as soon as you get in the door. By planning in this way, you’ll be able to get back to business as usual as quickly as possible. Inform People About What’s Going On You need to be very sure that your clients as well as the public know exactly what’s going on with your business during this period. If there’s any ambiguity or confusion about the state of your business, it creates a sense of uncertainty. That sense of uncertainty erodes trust immediately – and if you lose the trust of your target market, it may be an enormously uphill climb in order to regain it.