Early this year, I got myself a real office, bought some furniture and computer hardware, built a small team, and took my “home based” business to the next level. It cost me a bomb but have never regretted it – and I’ll tell you why.

A lot of people since have asked me why I no longer work from home. It’s a choice I made based on several compelling reasons. Keep in mind that I have been working from home full time for about two years before making the leap. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working from home – don’t panic if you’re home based!

My reasons are pretty simple actually:

• I wanted to build a team – I want to build a team of people, and it wasn’t possible to do that from home. I was working one year by myself, then I had some part time team members and eventually now I have two full-time team members. This is my most important reason for starting an office.
• I was losing concentration – It’s pretty easy to push yourself forward when you’re “working in your underwear” so to speak. Money was no longer an issue and I was getting pretty lazy with a lot of other distractions on my mind. Productivity was going down the drain. Working at home can get pretty lonely sometimes too.
• My offline business needs – I’m also into a lot of offline events this year including my coaching sessions in Malaysia. I also published a book so it would make more sense for my customers to have an office address they can mail to and drop by, just in case they needed some help. I used to stay at home a lot because it took a lot of will power to get dressed and go out (for work purposes) but now I have better access to most companies I need to deal with for my business, and I’m also ready to just get in my car and drop by their location if need be.

I still do work from home, but rarely. I’m currently living in a rented apartment which is pretty uncomfortable to work in. Plus the TV is only a few steps away. However, I’ve already bought a new apartment which I’ll be moving into early next year. In that apartment I will re-create my working space so that I can work from both my office, and at home too.

There was this strong connection to working from home, especially when I teach people how to make money online while working from home. That’s exactly what I did too till December 2007 and I was already making a stable five-figure income from the Internet by then. But my journey isn’t complete and this is the route I must take.

Who knows what the ultimate destination may be? It might bring me to a different country, it may even bring me back to my home office.