Partner Article

3 REASONS FOR PROPERTY OWNERS TO CONSIDER CO-WORKING

More and more airtime is being spent on discussing co-working these days. I’m pretty confident that all of this talk will ultimately translate into action in the North East of England, and the rest of the UK, where I’ve been extolling the virtues of co-working for the past couple of years; my mission started because it was clear that with the growth of home-based business new resources were needed, but the space marketplace hadn’t yet responded.

I’m delighted to be able to say that, two years on, change is starting to happen. New co-working spaces are starting to open; [Colleagues on Tap co-working days](http://spaceontap.com/co-working/? target=)are selling out to people keen to try out the co-working scene as an antedote to the isolation of working at home; and the number of ‘Google alerts’ I receive on co-working is increasing every day!

Why the interest? Well I’d love to take full responsibility for the shift in awareness and attitude to co-working in the North East of England, but really, although there’s still a latent demand from homeworkers and freelancers in the most part (in this region at least), people are slowly starting to recognise that co-working presents a real opportunity. Defining that opportunity depends, of course, on who you are, so we’ll start there …

If you’re a business owner, manager or employee with plans for business development and growth, co-working provides you the perfect opportunity. For a few ideas about why, watch this short 15 minute webinar [Co-working’s good for business](http://www.spaceontap.com/news/149/Co-working-is-good-for-business/? target=).

This Blog, however, turns to you if you own or manage property that, at present, is not quite so full as you’d like. As well as presenting an amazing opportunity to your potential tenant customers, there are 3 really good reasons why you should seriously consider developing shared workspace, to enable co-working, at your place.

Property owners, here are 3 reasons why co-working is an opportunity for you

1. You could expand your marketplace exponentially overnight

If you’re reading this as a property owner, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you have space sitting empty, and in most cases that will be in the form of offices that could house probably 4, 8 or 12 people, or sometimes even more than that. Obviously there are businesses that are able to fill those spaces, but they really are in the minority, so could your marketing efforts be falling on deaf ears?

I’m not one for figures usually, but in this instance I think there are some UK Government statistics that are worth stating to set the scene (Source: BIS):

• In 2011, of the estimated 4.5 million businesses in the UK, 74% of them do not employ anyone, and a further 21% only employ between 1 and 9 staff.
• 62% of UK businesses are sole traders.
• Only 4.6 in every 100 companies have 10 or more employees
• and get this … between 2010 and 2011 there was a growth in the proportion of businesses without employees of nearly 4%, against an overall net fall in business stock of (2.4%). So the army of business owners, working on their own, is growing, and it’s estimated that they’re contributing a massive combined turnover of £202 billion a year!

So, if you break down your unit of sale from, say, a 12 person office to 12 individual rentable desks, you can maintain the income potential of the space, but your marketplace suddently increases exponentially overnight; the figures speak for themselves!

2. You will meet people who can help you to grow your business

The general business ethos surrounding successful co-working spaces is one of collaboration; a proactive exchange of know-how, skills and contacts amongs business people who, albeit they work independently, make connections with each other through their workspace.

By providing that workspace, you, de facto, become part of that community. As a direct result you will also have the opportunity to share the knowledge that’s being exchanged; the impact of that speaks for itself.

3. You’ll have a captive audience for marketing your other services

Housing, or hosting, a co-working community provides you with a perfect opportunity to market your business and your services to a brand new set of potential customers which is, usually, hard to reach.

The rapidly expanding homeworking and home business markets, for example, who may be looking for space solutions for occasional or regular use, are unlikely to fit into your usual customer profile. Not to labour on the stats again, but according to ONS (Office of National Statistics) estimations there are at least 3.5 million people now running businesses from home in the UK (and that’s a figure that’s been inflated to £5m+ by some parties), and home-based businesses are presently the biggest source of start-ups.

Even if you don’t add the people who are working at home on an employed basis, that’s a lot of people who have no ‘back office’, no support infrastructure, no business address, and so on. Imagine operating without an office address, or an IT department, or without a photocopier, a call handler, or a place to hold meetings with customers or colleagues … Now consider what products and services you have on offer, or could have on offer, to that burgeoning community of loners, many of whom are probably located within just a few miles of your premises.

Through providing a space for co-working, even on an occasional basis, you can secure a foot-hold in the home business community, and this could become a really interesting business opportunity for you.

Finally back to the business owners, the army of lone workers who are looking for ways to grow their business.

In reality the success of the co-working ‘revolution’ ultimately rests with you! But having the space available to provide you a starting point for exploring the opportunities that co-working could lead to is pretty much key to transforming this from a great idea to a genuine opportunity. So if you’re interested in co-working, and see its value for your business, talk to property owners and managers, suggest the introduction of a co-working space to them, and if they’d like to give it a whirl, running a few co-working events through the [Colleagues on Tap Associate Scheme](http://www.spaceontap.com/co-working/#associate_scheme“ target=) is the ideal place to start.

If you ‘re interested in the development of co-working in North East England join the [Co-working North East Linkedin group](http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Coworking-North-East-4524842/about“ target=); you’ll be in good company.

[Jayne Graham](http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaynegrahamspaceontap“ target=), Founder & Director of Space on Tapand Colleagues on Tap co-working days for homeworkers.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Colleagues on Tap .