Is it more practical to rent a commercial space or hire a sales representative?

I am a new mom and I have a small online business. My inventory is all over my house and with an 11 mo. old baby, my house becomes almost unliveable. I have been thinking of renting a small commercial space to get my inventory organized and attract more customers. After crunching numbers, I will end up spending $20 to $25K to get my store up and running. My monthly overhead will be $2,225 to 2,600/mo if I run the store my self. Another option is to rent a public storage and hire a person to sell my products to suppliers and other retail stores. This way, I can have more quality time with my baby. If I do this, my monthly overhead will be around $3,900 to 4,200/mo but I don't have to shell out $20K to $25K to start. Which of the two options do you think will give me more revenue and will be more beneficial to my family?

For right now, I'd take the conservative route and do nothing. When the business gets large enough, you want to hire someone to DUPLICATE your effort, not replace you.

Hiring a sales/inventory person will be the best move, and should be done when your revenue stream can support their salary and bennies....

Are those really your only options? What type of business is this? Does your husband/boyfriend or family members help any? You can also delegate some of the responsibilty by contracting another small business owner to do the work for you. Write up what you want done, and solicit bids for your project. That can save you money in your overhead. They wont be on your payroll, they will be another business expense. Check out this website: www.wilkinsworks.com. It is currently under construction, but will be available on Saturday.

Your second thought is best, keep your expenses down..That is what will bring you down. The fact is you can invest money building a nice site and in getting hits, do mass marketing. Built an affiliate type business there are lots of people looking to build their own business. Get software program for $1000 that duplicates your site and automatically offers an override commission. You can even sell this opportunity as a home business for 49.95 and charge for hosting only your master site can use payment support, you control the orders.