Working from Home vs Coworking

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 Laura from YourLaura.comWorking from home can seem like a luxury in the world of self-employment. It definitely has its pros - you can choose your own hours, avoid the hideousness of public transport and even have the odd lie-in. It’s cheap and likely to be quiet if you need or prefer to work in a peaceful environment.

The problem is though, when the novelty of Jeremy Kyle, too many biscuits and not getting dressed until 3pm every day wears off, working from home can be distracting and unproductive. For me, the first few weeks of working from home in my pyjamas was great. After two months I hated continuously working alone, was becoming stuck for ideas, completely out of sync with a work/life routine and generally feeling a bit uninspired.

I heard from a friend that coworking can be a good solution for freelancers or self-employed folk like myself, so I tried Rentadesk. Whilst it doesn’t seem very business savvy to be forking out extra cash on something that isn’t really necessary, it can actually be hugely beneficial to your business. And your sanity. You get all the luxuries of an office – a desk, a kitchen, the odd boozy Friday night; if you’re lucky - an office hottie - but also retain your independence. Overall, my work time is definitely more productive because I feel like I’m ‘at work’.

Also, you’re probably going to be surrounded by likeminded people who you can network and brainstorm with and potentially work with in some form. Who knows, if you’re really nice you might even make some friends.

Of course, it all depends on the nature of your work, your situation and your business/work objectives, plus the type of person that you are. If you’re not a fan of people, coworking probably won’t be for you. Then again if you find it difficult to network in the traditional sense, it could be a good way to get you speaking to people in a more informal environment and make some great contacts. If nothing else, it encourages you to get dressed at least 5 days a week. Working from home can definitely lead to one becoming sartorially sloppy. And I speak from experience.

What are your experiences and thoughts on working from home versus co working?

Spare Desk vs Coworking

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If you're a freelancer or startup, a spare desk located in a larger company's office space can be an easy option if you already have a relationship working onsite with a larger client, perhaps by having supplied them with some of your freelancer services, or having worked for them as an employee in the past.

Often there's a client - contractor relationship here, where they need your skillset but don't need you to work for them full-time, so they pay you partly by providing you with a subsidised spare desk usually in a place where none of their employees want to work - next to the WC or photocopier!

So the spare desk solution can be a quick and easy stop-gap for when you are initially transforming from employee to freelancer, and resources are tight.

The downside is that you are disconnected from the host in the sense that they are a different business to yours and that the power relationship is unequal - it's THEIR office space after all! If they need more space or don't need to use your freelance skills anymore they may turf you out.

You're also missing out on the huge networking potential that is available in a space full of other freelancers - a space like a coworking space, where there is a mix of startups, freelancers and up-and-running smaller businesses with a wide range of expertise and experience.

Do you want to be an outsider huddled using a spare desk, or an equal participant in an active coworking group that can both challenge and support your business goals and objectives?

Rentadesk is London's original coworking space, we have a variety of freelancers, startups and entrepreneurs working in a close-knit business community, drop by and see us some time!

How to get feedback from a lost sale?

How can you find out *why* a prospective client rejects your service? Why would they want to tell you, after all - they have more important things to do, such as starting to use your competitors service!

Don't ask your existing customers - they have already bought *despite* these barriers to sale, so they’re no help in identifying the barriers. You can listen to them to increase your service's value, but not to identify the barriers to sale.

Every truthful piece of feedback from a lost sale allows you to hone your service offering until it represents compelling value to your chosen client niche. It also feeds back into devising a clearer pre-qualifying process so that you don't waste time on unsuitable prospects in the first place. One of the most useful outcomes of analysing a lost sale is to find out if the prospective client understood correctly what you offered - if not, you need to fine-tune your *sales message* to remove unsuitable prospects.

Now how to get that truthful feedback? They just rejected you, they don't want to hurt your feelings, and they want to move on… One way is to word the email in a way that the person involved in the sale is not the one asking for the feedback - the feedback is going to their manager, or a third party company collecting data. It is possible to find the real truth behind the lost sale if you use an independent person or company to do the questioning.

Now offer some free stuff - give something away, cash to their favourite charity so that they get something of value out of giving you feedback, or alternatively a shopping voucher for their own personal use. Budget for whatever you can afford; don't skimp!

So here's the basic template:

- make sure you have the contact details of the lost client.

- email the lost client, here's an example:

Subject: We'll Donate £15 To Your Favourite Charity Today!

Dear [Lost Client],

Thank you for considering [name of your service], I understand that you have chosen not to use our service on this occasion.

To help us improve we’d appreciate your feedback to understand where we missed the mark, and to show our appreciation we would like to make a donation of £15 to your favourite charity.

Just click on [your website feedback page] to leave your feedback and select your favourite charity.

Thank you for your time!

--
Kind Regards,
The Marketing Team
[Your company]

I have partnered the email with a web feedback form in this example, but you could simply have everything in the text of an email that they could respond to directly.

Here's an example webform that I use with Rentadesk to collect feedback (If you are looking for an easy to use hosted form provider I recommend Formstack.com, and for making charitable donations I use justgiving.com/giving which provides a receipt that you can email to the lost client):

Hope you find this useful in fine tuning your sales message and breaking down those barriers to sale! Let me know your own experiences, comments and feedback welcomed!

Rentadesk Coworking Community Intro (London Soho)

An introduction to the Rentadesk Coworking Community offering desk spaces and offices in London Soho for freelancers, small businesses, and budding entrepreneurs.

Unbranded Office Space Vs Branded Office Space

When I first setup Rentadesk my gut feeling was that small businesses and freelancers would prefer to work in an unbranded office space vs branded office space as it allowed them more flexibilty on how to present their own companies - visiting clients need not know whether you have a single desk, an office or the entire building.

For example, we decided against placing a Rentadesk name plate on the building, hanging a directory of company names in the entrance hallways, and we did not put any A-frame advertising stands outside the front door. From Rentadesk's viewpoint this could be seen as disadvantageous as we are loosing out on some free advertising, but is it something Rentadeskers care about?

To find out we polled Rentadeskers to see what they thought; was branded better than unbranded? Apart from a few easy-going souls who "didn't mind", we had an almost unanimous response (see graph below)

Here are some of the comments we received:

"Definitely not!"

"Prefer to have a white label office offering as helps with a professional look of the co-working environment"

"Better to keep it anonymous/unbranded as it makes our businesses look more authentic/stable/fixed"

"Would ruin the vibe to be honest"

"I'd prefer not really, it makes the companies in here look a bit amateur as the 'Rentadesk' brand is very literal"

"Branding would make it immediately obvious to clients and suppliers that we are using a coworking space. This would then remove some of the prestige of having a Soho address and would be a negative in my book."

"Looks less impressive to our visitors if it's branded"

"This has to remain White Label. Otherwise potential clients will understand that you are not as big as the address makes out"

..and a minority of positive branding sentiment:

"Go ahead and brand it"

"Minimal branding - it's good for meetings, etc. to have it non branded"

The message seems clear... do not brand the office space!