Oh for a co-worker

NINE hours of isolation or 30 minutes trapped by the office bore? The attentions of the boss or the distractions of daytime TV? The choice between slogging to the office and working from home can be pretty unappealing. For increasing numbers of people, the answer is “co-working”.

The concept of co-working is elastic but at its broadest means working alongside, and often collaborating with, people you wouldn’t normally. Users book a space in a co-working office, plonk themselves down where they can and start beavering away. (Opening the laptop in a Starbucks is not quite the same thing: enough stick-in-the-muds go to coffee shops to drink coffee that it is not a proper working environment.)
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The idea first surfaced a few years back, but according to Steve King of Emergent Research, a California-based outfit, it reached an inflection-point about 18 months ago. The absolute numbers are still small: Mr King reckons there are now around 760 office-based co-working facilities in America, up from 405 in 2010.

Their rise is fueled by several things, including technologies such as cloud computing; more women and freelancers in the workforce, which means greater demand for flexible work arrangements; and economic pressure on firms’ property costs. Nor is the trend confined to office workers. An organization called Bio Curious recently opened a community biology lab in California’s Bay Area. Budding chefs share kitchens; communal workshops known as “maker spaces” are springing up too.

Some co-working spaces are dedicated facilities, others are set up within business incubators or company offices. Campbell McKellar, who runs a website called Loosecubes where people can find spaces to work, says that 65% of the 2,800 workplaces available are inside small, private companies with desks to spare. Creative and media businesses with a culture of bringing lots of people together to work on specific projects are heavily represented among both users and space providers.

New co-working chains are emerging, with names like The Hub and NextSpace. More established firms have also cottoned on to the trend. Regus, a big provider of managed office space, has a product called Businessworld that offers cardholders flexible access to its facilities. Mark Dixon, Regus’s boss, likens it to having airport business lounges in city centres, and says that products like this already account for 20% of the firm’s revenue, up from almost nothing before the financial crisis.

Purists are sniffy about the likes of Regus. Generation Y-ers do not aspire to work in airport lounges: Loose cubes offers people a choice of working atmospheres that include the “hacker vibe” (black T-shirts and not much in the way of light, apparently). The benefits of collaboration are stressed. One strand of the co-working movement is the “jelly”, an informal event, often held at specific times of the week, where people gather to work together. Co-working evangelists also emphasize the role of each facility’s “host”, a person who organizes social events for users, introduces people to each other and spots opportunities for collaboration.

Still, there should be room for many different styles of co-working, particularly if it takes off among larger companies. Some big firms are trying to soup up innovation by getting people to co-work internally: the striking new Sydney offices of Macquarie, a bank, have no personal desks and emphasise collaborative working. Others have already started shedding their own properties: Yell, a directories business, is now using Regus memberships to give its salespeople in Britain access to office space when they want it. Drew Jones, co-author of a book on co-working, thinks that there is scope to turn empty retail space in the suburbs of big cities into large co-working facilities. Compared with city-centre offices, these would take less time for people to commute to and cost less for firms to buy or rent space in.

None of this signals the end of the conventional office. Corporate cultures move slowly, for one thing. Managers worry about how to deal with issues such as confidentiality. Some job functions will always benefit from being in one location. But co-working multiplies the options that people have when they ask themselves: “Where shall I work today?” For that reason alone, it will keep spreading.

A recent consumer survey found that a full 85% of us are willing to pay more for a product or service if it means a better customer experience. That means that no matter what you’re selling, what customers think of you and your business is as important to them as your actual product and its price tag. Obviously the cornerstone of getting a reputation for stellar customer service is to provide great customer service, but how do you inspire confidence before someone has tried you out?

Social media is a great way to establish a reputation beyond the reach of your storefront or online shopping cart. We recently posted some great advice, with informative links, on our blog. Building your reputation for customer service with social media is as easy as 1-2-3:

1. Build Your Fan Base — Facebook is a great first step to building a networked fan base. Why do you need one? Market research shows that 60% of Facebook users are more likely to recommend a brand they’ve “liked.” And, with more than 500 million users, “60% of Facebook users” is a lot of people.
2. Give Voice to the Customers — Social media makes it easy for everyone to complain — and for those complaints to go instantly global. However, when you quickly turn a complaint into a satisfactory resolution, that’s also done on the worldwide stage. Twitter, in particular, has transformed the ability to put your commitment to your customers front and center.
3. Go Local — Geolocation apps are becoming increasingly popular as the smart-phone revolution continues. For businesses with a local presence, the ability to reach out to willing consumers with spur-of-the-moment deals is a cheap, friendly, high-ROI gift from the business-development gods.

I will be updating some of Erica’s Emails and her words of wisdom to our site. I feel that she can be a wonderful asset to all of our clients and friends. I encourage you to accept her FREE offer to become a member of her “community” and actively listen, learn and participate. See more of Erica’s marketing pearls of wisdom by visiting our MARKETING PAGE.

The New York state legislature is set to vote this week on a bill that would ban apartment sublets that last less than a month, which if passed would have a significant impact on online vacation rental services like AirBnB, Roomorama, HomeAway, and even classifieds behemoth Craigslist.

In recent years, there’s been a surge in popularity for short-term apartment rentals and housing exchange services that let users offer anything from luxury lofts to pull-out couches–especially in states like New York, whose eponymous island metropolis is known for housing prices so exorbitant that many tourists seek alternatives to hotels and residents look for a way to make up for sky-high rents and mortgages. Online services like HomeAway and AirBnB have made the whole process more accessible and less sketchy, opening up short-term sublets to a market that might not be comfortable with Craigslist.

Right now, this practice is only illegal if the renter or homeowner lives in a building in which it’s explicitly against the rules. But the bill, known as A10008, would ban sublets of less than a month in “Class A multiple dwellings,” a legal term that encompasses most apartment buildings intended for long-term residences. (There’s also the “Class B multiple dwelling” designation referring to more temporary housing, like a hotel, rooming house, dormitory, or residences “designed as private dwellings but occupied by one or two families with five or more transient boarders, roomers, or lodgers in one household.”)

Supporters of the bill say that it’s an issue of safety, citing fire codes and housing maintenance regulations; they also bring up tax issues, the claim that it’s illegal to run an apartment building as a hotel, and that short-term sublets can easily lead to scams.

Opponents of the bill say it’s an infringement of homeowners’ rights and have accused supporters of caving to pressure from hotel industry lobbyists who see the lower rates on the likes of Craigslist and AirBnB as a threat.

“The accommodations it seeks to prohibit are…offered by NYC tenants and apartment owners who are acting within the bounds of their agreements with their tenants, condominium management, and co-op boards,” one commenter on the bill remarked. “If these organizations or individuals feel there is a liability or inconvenience to allowing overnight guests in their non-hotel buildings, that should be their choice–not the choice of politicians who receive perks and campaign donations from corporations owning hotels.”

Let’s face it; most small businesses do the bulk of their business locally. So, the thought of gaining access to Facebook’s 300 trillion users (may be more by now) isn’t that relevant or useful.

However, if those local businesses could use the some of the new powerful online tools and platforms to gain access to the 200-300 social media users in their town, now that might just make some sense.

There are many ways to filter, sort, aggregate and otherwise take advantage of social media tools that can specifically benefit even the smallest neighborhood oriented business.

Below are five things any local business can do to get more business using social media tools

1) Start a Local Group Online

Most social network platforms offer some form of group creation. Any member has the ability to start a group around a niche or pretty much any topic – including a local topic. Sites such as Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn and Slideshare all allow members to create and manage groups.

For example here’s a local independent merchant group in Austin, TX using a Flickr Group to promote it’s “Keep Austin Weird” slogan.

This Boston Networking Group on LinkedIn was founded by Jeff Popin, owner of BostonEventGuide.com. With over 3,000 members, there’s a pretty good bet this group serves as a conduit for Popin’s main business locally.

2) Find and Network with Local Bloggers

Using tools such as Placeblogger, outside.in, Bloglines you can locate bloggers in your community that might have an interest in writing about your business or industry or actively linking to your blog.

Networking with relevant bloggers locally, commenting on their blog posts, and maybe even contributing a post is a great way to create additional local exposure. Don’t forget to seek out and add blogs from traditional media publications locally as well. Most radio, TV and news journalists have been asked to write a blog as part of their job, these can be great local social media contacts if you take the time to build relationships though their blogs.

3) Hold Meetups and Tweetups

Using a social media tool like MeetUp, you create and promote local events and tap the user base of MeetUp to create additional awareness about your seminars, product demonstrations, open houses, and grand openings.

Here a home remodeler in Encinitas, CA is offering a workshop on green remodeling through MeetUP.

TweetUps, a gathering of people in a community using Twitter, have become very popular ways to meet others locally that believe in the power of social media. That alone can be enough common ground to network on. Search locally for the term TweetUp and don’t be surprised to find one schedule in your community.

The online social media network Biznik allows members to join its online platform, but belong to a local community and promote in-person local events on the site.

4) Find local leads

Finding local prospects or potential strategic partners on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is pretty simple through the use of the powerful search interfaces built into all. Simply searching by City is a great way to find other people using social media in your community. A service such as Twellowhood or LocalTweeps may aid in your search to find other businesses in your community using Twitter.

Many smart marketers are also employing some of the advanced features of Twitter Search to find people locally and filter their tweets to turn up leads. An auto body shop might set-up searches for people talking about being in an accident and reach out to them with advice for what to do to get the best quote. A computer network service provider can use advanced search to find people locally complaining about their network being down.

Naked Pizza in New Orleans uses Twitter to publish exclusive offers to followers and attributes a significant rise in business using to this tactic.

Cupcakes on Wheels, a Los Angeles mobile cupcake business, tweets its location throughout the day so followers can find its signature brown vans.

Facebook’s Ad Targeting is also another great way to reach only local prospects on the Facebook platform. One of the targeting criteria is geography, so you can create ads that promote your web site or Facebook Fan page that are only shown to people in the geographic region you choose

5) Enhance Local Search Results

No matter how you put social media to use to create engagement locally, simply creating profiles on dozens of social media sites and linking those sites with local keyword content back to your main web site will help your site do better when people search locally. Creating very brand and local optimized profiles on sites like YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare will help with overall links to your site. Creating and enhancing local profiles on Google Maps, Yahoo and Bing Local will help you show up higher in the local results.

Finally, don’t forget to get active with the social review sites like Yelp! and Insider Pages. Ask, and even teach, your local customers hot to write reviews about your business. Currently Google Maps and Bing Local add these reviews to their local profile database too.

Using the technology and ability to access large groups of social media users locally has become a proven small business marketing tactic and is a great way to further enhance the face-to-face relationship building you already do.

Image credit: gloom

John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing.

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The details in these articles are great. But we do even more! We drive traffic to your business in a variety of ways including our art receptions every 45 days! For more details, visit The St Clair Gallery

Unfortunately most entrepreneurs are told they have the skills to sell.  But they never learn how to get the truth out of prospects on what the problems are that the prospect is having.  Prospects will often lie and tell you everything is ok.  They will often not give you the information you need to close the sale, and you will end up with a ton of prospects that are always “almost ready” to close but never close.

There is only one way around this:   “LEARN SALES” What is Sales? “Sales” is simply solving a problem that a prospect has, with your product or service.

Check out Dan’s Boe’s site   http://bethefire.com/index.html for more information about his courses and the many people who have attended. EastCountyBiz is looking forward to hosting a presentation with Dan early in the new year, we’ll keep you posted. ECB 

HUBZone Program
Mission:
To promote job growth, capital investment, and economic development to historically underutilized business zones, referred to as HUBZones, by providing contracting assistance to small businesses located in these economically distressed communities

Location map showing HUBZone location:
 http://map.sba.gov/hubzone/hzqry.asp?scope=-116956132%7C32793172%7C1.08938174937242%7C0.803828591861328&command=zmout&zoomrect=99%7C133%7C0%7C0&panshift=&mapimage.x=99&mapimage.y=133

SBA site: http://www.sba.gov/hubzone/

Department of Housing and Urban Development site:
http://www.hud.gov/offices/osdbu/about/sbtypes.cfm