7 Ways Coworking Helps You Win More Clients
Guest Post by Aaron Beashel, Qwilr
Over the last decade, office design and workspaces have undergone a serious and impactful transformation. The “cubicle farms” traditionally associated with offices quickly became a thing of the past. These cramped workspaces (with poorly executed layouts and lack of inspiration) were replaced with innovative workstation designs and spaces tailored to improve culture, inspire the creative spirit, enhance communication and boost the bottom line.
More than Just Saving Money
Although many businesses view coworking as a way to lower overhead and reduce the impact on their expense reports, modern coworking spaces do so much more for a company than just saving a few bucks.
The utilization of coworking has proven so effective for business growth and prosperity that even major corporations have taken note; attempting to reverse-engineer what makes coworking members so successful.
The likes of Bank of America, Starbucks, and Salesforce rank among the behemoths employing the use of coworking spaces in their businesses.
This list will help you understand the value of coworking as it relates to company growth and winning more clients. Read on to find out why coworking might be the right move for your organization.
How Coworking Earns you More Business
Better Allocation of Resources
If the goal of your company is to earn new clients and grow, the last thing you need is to overspend on overhead and expensive office leases. Similarly to how digitizing operations with online business documents (like invoices, legal contracts, business proposals , etc) saves businesses time and money, coworking can free up valuable resources and improve overall performance. Each business should plan on budgeting their expenses to be in alignment with their short, mid and long-term objectives.
Limited funds means creates an opportunity cost to choosing one expense over another. Traditional office space can run into the thousands of dollars, quickly eating up financial resources. In contrast, coworking spaces often allow companies to save thousands monthly, with some options costing only into the hundreds of dollars monthly. These saved funds can be allocated to business priorities and objectives such as earning new customers. Ask yourself, what would those thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising do for your business?
2. Enhanced Credibility, Legitimacy and Professionalism
For newly established businesses or freelance professionals, working from home or a small office might not scream “legitimate” and “trustworthy” to new prospective clients.
Despite the convenience and low cost of working from your home or even a small office, the humble appearances might hurt your business and hinder you from earning the new clients your brand deserves.
Not only do coworking spaces offer a full array of amenities and productivity enhancers, but they provide a professional, private and upscale space to meet with new and existing clients. This, in turn, can increase the perceived credibility of your organization and lead to closing and keeping more deals.
3. Networking
Especially important for new businesses and budding entrepreneurs, networking is one of the most powerful business growth catalysts on the planet. Best of all, it is no cost and high yield as a marketing tactic. Yet small businesses and individual professionals don’t often get the chance to network when they operate out of their home or small office. Coworking spaces, by contrast, are designed to encourage networking with other professionals and businesses, facilitating comradery, communication, synergies, and even potential partnerships.
As such, coworking offers a unique opportunity to establish valuable relationships with other business owners, professionals, and freelancers operating across a broad range of industries.
4. Culture-driven Performance Enhancement
Company culture is the foundation upon which your enterprise is built. It drives purpose, focus, collaboration, teamwork and more. The right culture can make or break an organization. Coworking is renowned for the propensity to build relationships, facilitate positive interactions, instill a sense of community and purpose, and drive performance.
5. Dedicated Distraction-free Workplace
Working from home, a café, or business centers can be wrought with pitfalls, one of which is regular distractions. Interruptions are the last thing you need when trying to optimize and streamline operations and improve performance. Coworking spaces are carefully designed to reduce distractions and facilitate focused work.
6. Encourage a Healthy Work-life Balance
Work-life balance can impact solopreneurs the same as it does an entire workforce, and it can go one of two ways: they can work too much, letting their professional lives seep into their personal ones, causing issues with boundaries, relationships, and even burn out; or, it can result in too much “personal” time on the company clock when they need to focus. Neither scenario is good for helping a business grow and prosper. Coworking provides a clearly defined workspace to optimize efficiency and performance when on the job, but also gives workers the ability to relax and unwind when not at their workstation/area.
7. Autonomy and Flexibility
Research shows that providing responsible workforces with greater autonomy and control over their workday can increase performance, leading to more business and enhanced departmental KPIs. Coworking spaces are often accessible 24/7, allowing workers to get the job done when they feel focused and able to get the most out of their time. It also opens the possibility for workers to hit tight deadlines by staying as late as necessary to get the job done right.
Closing Thoughts About Coworking and Earning More Business
Coworking provides budding businesses, entrepreneurs and expanding global enterprises with affordable, efficient and innovative workspaces that are custom-tailored to drive new growth and prosperity for those that take advantage. When thinking about office space, consider visiting a few coworking spaces in your area. You may be pleasantly surprised at how much they can help you earn more business.
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About the Author: Aaron Beashel is Head of Marketing at Qwilr, and has been in charge of building the growth engines of some of the fastest-growing B2B SaaS companies around the globe.
