It is hard to believe that it has been one year since we moved into our office in Wymondham. It hasn’t exactly been the year we planned but we have made the most of it!
Even though we have been in business for nearly 8 years now, I made the decision to close our Norwich office and move it to my hometown in Wymondham at the end of 2019. I have lived in Wymondham for nearly 6 years now and my twins attend one of the local primary schools, so it made sense to have our office here too!
In December 2019, the team packed up the office in Norwich and we moved everything into our new office in Back Lane on the last day before Christmas break.
After a well-deserved break, we spent the first week in January 2020 (including our little people!) building furniture, figuring our desk positions, networking cables, unpacking boxes etc and we were pleased with the open plan space we had created. We added a few more finishing touches, including our first signs and planned for our open day on Friday 28th February 2020.
The open day was a huge success and we welcomed approximately 50 people throughout the day – some were clients, some business contacts, and some local business owners.
We were very excited to start building a local presence, supporting our local residents and building some good local business relationships. What we were not expecting was to close our doors less than 1 month later – our first ever National Lockdown!
Our whole business was structured around meeting our clients face to face, mostly in the comfort and privacy of their own homes, so we had to adjust very quickly. Within one week everything was set up for telephone and video call appointments, and the team were fully trained ready to see, hear and help our clients.
With all our advisors having young children we were facing the joys of juggling work with home schooling. In the end, our clients and business contacts became very comfortable with seeing our children in the background during our appointments and on occasion having full conversations with them.
As with most small businesses it has not been the easiest 12 months, and we have had to make difficult decisions and changes to our business structure. However, we have had incredibly supportive clients and business contacts which has helped us to continue. Whilst I was not expecting another National Lockdown at the start of 2021, we are looking forward to opening the office up again and we may even have another open day!
1st Anniversary for local Will Writer