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- 3 Minute Read
- 09th May 2017
How coworking in London helped our business grow
In this guest article, Anna Gibbon of Google Partners digital marketing agency, The Click Hub explains how moving from Exeter to a coworking space in Central London helped their business grow and evolve exponentially...
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8th Floor office, Ikea-catalogue interiors, incredible views over London - it’s safe to say we were pretty enamoured with The Office Group’s Paddington Building from the offset. At the time, however, we didn’t quite realise just how much co-working would help our business to grow.
Here’s our story.
In June 2016, we were a small Exeter-based digital marketing agency looking to expand to London. Our business had been steadily growing over the last few years but we knew that, in order to achieve our goals, London was the place to be and now was the time to be there. We began looking at coworking spaces, as opposed to more traditional offices, for several reasons.
Firstly, our London office would be a one-man band, to begin with. Even though the nature of our business means meeting and interacting with clients on a daily basis, something more cold and corporate has the potential to feel quite isolating. We also needed somewhere that was flexible and cost-effective for one person, with a permanent desk, reception and meeting rooms. What’s more, co-working affords access to prime locations across the city and allows you to host clients or pitch to new businesses in modern, stylish and professional environments.
This kind of wow-factor can be invaluable when trying to win over new businesses. Finally, we knew most co-working facilities have larger office spaces available to rent within the same building, meaning little uprooting or disruption would be necessary as we continued to expand.
"Co-working affords access to prime locations across the city and allows you to host clients or pitch to new businesses in modern, stylish and professional environments."
Coworking ended up fulfilling more than just these requirements though. It has been particularly advantageous to our business, as it has allowed us to meet many like-minded and similar sized companies. Using co-working spaces is ideal for B2B businesses like us, as the flexibility of co-working attracts a wide range of startups and SMEs, many of which fall into our target consumer bracket. Bringing together some of the most diverse workforces in the country, co-working has, first and foremost, given us great exposure to potential clients as well as other agencies we can work in partnership with.
The Office Group itself is extremely open to working in partnership with those who have chosen to grow their business in their co-working spaces across London. For instance, we recently partnered up with TOG to run a digital marketing seminar for other members, in which we guided people through the basics of SEO.
The seminar was a huge success and a fantastic opportunity to get our brand in front of several new businesses at once. A few weeks later, one happy attendee told us that their website had jumped to page one after following our advice, while others decided to come on board as clients or potential partners.
"Bringing together some of the most diverse workforces in the country, coworking has, first and foremost, given us great exposure to potential clients..."
Not only are we building our client-base here thanks to co-working then, we feel we are establishing ourselves as a trusted and reliable brand too. The Office Group’s networking and knowledge share events further allow us to do so, whilst also presenting the opportunity to learn from others.
More than this, the way in which The Office Group works with companies like ourselves and hosts such events is exemplary of the real nature of co-working; the desire to nurture small businesses and startups, to help them evolve by building communities and encouraging these companies to support each other too.
We’ve been lucky enough to benefit from all of this first-hand, and continue growing on a daily basis as a result.
By Anna Gibbon
If you think coworking could benefit your business, contact us today.