When Small Businesses Grow Beyond the Garage

All My Sons Moving & Storage provides commercial moving services for businesses of every size, including the small businesses that have just broken out of the garage.

Somewhere between your very first order and when over a hundred began pouring in every day, your home-based business started soaring. Now, you have more specialized equipment than you have space for, inventory bursting out of the shelves on every wall, and your family begging you for their space back. The time has come for the next major step in your business: Expansion.

Whether your home-based business is in landscaping, event planning, photography, or online commerce, your garage and home office are likely packed to the brim with the business assets that have helped you make it this far. All My Sons believes that those things matter. They represent the investment you made in yourself and your dream, as well as the vision you have for the future of your business. 

After over 30 years of helping companies of every size make moves for expansion, All My Sons Moving & Storage has learned all the best practices for helping a small business leave the garage. Here are the tips and tricks for making your first business move smooth and painless.

For some small home-based businesses, the choice to expand comes with growing capital and notoriety as a business. For others, the thing that’s holding them back from success might be the space at home.

How do you decide it’s time for your home-based business to expand? Take a look at your day to day operations and see if any of the following are true of your small business.

• Fulfilling Orders or Loading Equipment Takes Too Long: Does loading the trailer for your landscaping business seem to take ages longer than it should? Or has completing orders turned into a scavenger hunt through the various packed storage shelves throughout your home? When you’re out to impress customers, every second counts and time lost getting things done could mean lost revenue for your business. 

• You’ve Run Out of Organization Hacks: Your current setup no longer functions the way it needs to, and you’ve tried every organizational hack in the books to keep it working with little to no improvement. The problem might be lack of space, and the only solution is expansion.

• You Need a More Professional Image: If you meet clients or potential business partners at your home, then your professional image could be holding you back. For better or worse, the state of your business premises speaks volumes about your work ethic, your organizational skills, and your ability to fulfill the needs of your customers, employees, and partners. You can make a better impression in your own dedicated business space. 

• You’ve Had to Turn Down Opportunities Because of Space: If you’re receiving more business than you have space for, you might have to turn down customers, opportunities, and partnerships. This equals lost revenue, decreased productivity, and missed connections your business could have really benefited from. 

• Enhanced Security is a Must: You have inventory and assets to protect, and your home security system isn’t up for the job. You might need security that a dedicated storage space, warehouse, or office can provide, such as surveillance cameras and controlled access.   

• You Need Your Home Spaces Back: A change in your personal life might call for the business to move out. You could be welcoming a new addition to the family, taking care of an aging parent, or needing your garage back to keep a new vehicle. 

Seeing the signs? It’s time for your business to move on from the garage.

When your business is ready for space beyond the garage but not a warehouse, office, or storefront, then a storage unit can be an economical alternative to keeping everything at home. Obtaining a storage unit for your small business allows you to reclaim your living spaces, and can help you keep your business life and personal life separate.

All My Sons performed roughly 13,000 local moves into a storage unit across almost 100 nationwide locations in 2025, so we know a thing or two about moving businesses into storage. Get the garage back for your family’s personal vehicles and move your business inventory into a storage unit by taking the following steps.

• Find a Storage Unit that Suits Your Needs: Consider the important questions about what you’re storing and how often you need to access those items. If you are in and out of your storage unit daily, then you will want a unit that you can easily access with your business vehicle, such as a drive-up storage unit. When you’re looking to store items that are sensitive to severe temperature fluctuations, you want a little extra environmental protection such as temperature-controlled units.

• Take Inventory of What You’re Storing: Your business might already be using an inventory management system. Now is the perfect time to evaluate if that system will continue to work for you as you transition into a new space. Before you start packing for the business move, update your inventory system and consider creating a moving inventory so that you and your employees know exactly what’s going into your new business storage unit. 

• Organize Your Storage Unit: You’re going to be in and out of your storage unit often, fetching equipment and grabbing merchandise to fulfill orders, so make sure your storage space is organized to keep things easy. Map the unit by ease of access, leave aisles for navigation, and label all boxes and bins clearly. Take full advantage of your vertical space by purchasing shelving units that allow you to pack your storage unit as high you’re able to climb. 

When you move your business into a storage unit, you can separate your work and home life without spending exorbitant funds on a commercial real estate lease. You can use any money you save for other business investments like marketing, hiring additional employees, or developing new products and services. Maybe the next time your business needs more space, you’ll be ready for something beyond a storage unit, but until then a storage unit could fulfill all your major needs.

For some home-based businesses like online retailers, contractors, artists, and distributors, the next step in their business plan will be renting a warehouse space. For a business that’s been operating out of a garage, a warehouse space allows plenty of room to grow and flourish. Fulfilling orders no longer takes over the spare bedroom or living room, and you can have the vertical space to store as much inventory as you need.

Will a move into a warehouse be the right move for your small business? 

• Choose Your Ideal Warehouse Space: Not all warehouses are expansive buildings made to move thousands of products every day. For a business just moving out of the garage, a small warehouse could provide all the needed space without breaking the business move budget. Some small-bay warehouse rental companies offer shared communal spaces and equipment, which is could be the perfect solution for a small business moving beyond the garage. A traditional warehouse lease will require a 3 to 5 year time commitment, but smaller co-warehouse spaces might offer greater flexibility.

• Consider Amenities, Security, and Networking Opportunities: Before signing any leases, take a look at what’s being offered at your prospective warehouse space. Security like controlled access and 24/7 surveillance are a must for small businesses that handle expensive products. You should also take a look around the neighborhood and see how close you are to your current and future customers.

• Maximize Vertical Space: One big advantage of warehouse space is the high ceilings. In your garage, you only had a maximum of about 10 feet to work with. In a dedicated small industrial warehouse space, you could have up to 24 feet of clear height to work with. This means you can stack products up on massive vertical shelves and have plenty of space left over. 

Moving your home-based business into a warehouse also enables you to separate your work and home life. In addition, when you have your very own warehouse space, you can further impress prospective business partners and future clientele. A warehouse helps legitimize the work you’re doing for your business. With the keys to your very own warehouse, you’ll feel even more official. 

Maybe it’s time your home-based business selling products and merchandise had its own designated brick-and-mortar storefront. With a designated storefront, you’ll have a whole new customer base you’ve never had before: the daily foot traffic of your chosen location.

Once you’ve chosen an ideal location and signed a lease, here’s a few tips to help ease the transition from garage to storefront.

• Ensure Your Inventory Will Fit in Allotted Space: When choosing your ideal storefront, pick a space that has adequate storage to meet your needs. Or you could use a combination of a storefront and a storage unit to keep business running smoothly. 

• Plan the Layout of Your Storefront: Before you move a single box, design the layout of your storefront to look attractive to your potential customers. Stage your products in a way that entices people to come inside and look around. You might even consult an interior design specialist to ensure your space looks as good as possible.

• Set a Date for a Grand Opening: Even if you’ve done business in a community for years, when you open a storefront for the first time you’ll meet loads of new customers who haven’t heard of your business before. Introduce yourself to your neighborhood by holding a grand opening. Offer a grand opening sale, door prizes, or perform a ribbon-cutting ceremony to get people talking about your business.

Moving from the garage to a retail storefront will be a big step for your business. Once you have your own physical address and customers who stumble into your store on the daily, the entire dynamic of your business changes. Make sure to protect your inventory by choosing the best commercial movers for the job. 

Your consulting business, marketing agency, or other office-based home business can further its own success by moving out of the home office. With a physical address to point to, you can impress future partners, clients, employees, and customers, not to mention it’ll be easier to sort your business mail from personal mail.

All My Sons Moving & Storage performed almost 6,000 small office local moves in 2025, so we understand how to make an office transition easier. If you’re thinking about moving your home-based business into an office, here’s a few steps you should take.

• Declutter Your Business: Every item you need to move equals money in your moving budget and time on the clock. The fastest way to save on your move, and to ensure that your new office space is the productive dream you’re hoping for, is to declutter what you’re taking with you. Now is the time to purge broken chairs, outdated technology, and anything else you’re hanging onto because you’re not sure how to dispose of it. If you have bulky items to dispose of, call a same-day junk removal company for responsible disposal. 

• Determine Your Business Essentials: Every business, just like every home office, has essential items that help it to function and thrive. Identify the items your business absolutely needs from your home office, and any new items that you might need to purchase to make the new office space fully functional. 

• Notify Interested Parties of Your Change in Address: Make a list of who to notify of your move, including any business partners you have, any charities or organizations you support, and of course your customer email list if you have one. Use Form 8822-B to inform the IRS of your change in business address.

In a new office, you can watch your productivity soar and see new business growth. Enjoy networking with fellow business professionals in your new building, and bask in the view from your new office window.

Ready to make a seamless business move? Take some advice from us, the experts in commercial moving services, and make a detailed moving plan prior to your move out of the home. If you need a partner in helping ease the transition, you can always get a quote from All My Sons.

Begin your business move out of the garage by taking the following steps.

• Create Your Business Moving Budget: Write out the costs for all your moving needs, including preparing the new location, any business legal fee that come with the transition, and account for the lost productivity you might face because of the logistics of the move. 

• Gather Packing Supplies: You will need packing materials to get all your inventory from point A to point B. You can save significant time and allot your energy to other more important business moving tasks when you choose full-service professional packing through All My Sons. 

• Get Quotes from Professional Movers: Aim to obtain 3 to 5 quotes from moving companies that are licensed, insured, and who have experience with commercial moving. If you are moving across state lines, make sure your movers have a USDOT number from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Watch out for common moving scam red flags. 

• Create Your Organized Business Space: Provided your new space is ready for move-in, and all repairs, renovations, and remodeling efforts are already complete, the next step in your move will be to plan the layout of your space for maximum productivity. Then, when move day arrives, you will know precisely where to direct movers to place all furniture, inventory, and office equipment.

• Communicate with Customers and Partners: All throughout your move, be sure to keep an open line of communication with your customers and partners. Announce your move, schedule site down-time if necessary, and send updates with your new address as soon as you’re settled in.

Your small business officially has its own space, congratulations! Take a moment to celebrate this important victory, and then roll up your sleeves and get right back to work.

When your small home-based business is ready to expand beyond your garage, then you can ask All My Sons Moving & Storage to help manage every aspect of your move, from the careful planning and packing to the heavy loading and lifting. Our team of moving professionals understands that your business assets are valued treasures, and we aim to treat every item you own as though it belongs to a beloved family member. Call 1-866-726-1579 to reach one of our locations across the United States or get your quote online.