John Edwards: 5 reason why you should choose FIXIE over office rent
How much do you shell out monthly to pay for your office rent? This question triggers financial nightmares, especially if your business isn’t going how you planned it. Everyone needs a space to work out of, but office rent keeps increasing year on year, making it difficult for most businesses to keep up. These increments hit sole proprietorships and small businesses the most.
Thankfully, you don’t always have to work from traditional office spaces to meet business objectives. You can opt to work from home or visit your nearest coffee shop for free Wi-Fi. But while you work rent-free with these strategies, you may not get much work done.
There are too many distractions on the home front, and most coffee shops don’t have a reliable network connection. Not to mention, you could be tempted to spend all your spare change on coffee and bagels. Not an ideal situation.
The ideal alternative to a traditional office space is a coworking space. The good thing about coworking spaces is that they combine all the essentials of a fully functional office and the home front’s flexibility at a fraction of the cost.
For most coworking space providers, like KAPTAR, there are many coworking space packages to choose from. Opting for a fixed plan—usually called a FIXIE—would be the best option for most people.
Here we have outlined five reasons why you should subscribe to FIXIE over office rent.
1. FIXIE costs a fraction of the traditional monthly office lease.
The most apparent benefit of coworking spaces is the cost. Do you know how much it costs to rent, say a two-person office? Such a space will set you back at least $1000, and that’s monthly.
So what if you’re working with a small team or operate in costly cities like New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and more? For instance, in New York, the average cost to rent office space is $74 per square foot annually ($6.16/sqft./month). So on average, 100 square feet of office space will cost you $7400. That works out to about $616 per month.
And this is just basic rent. You still have to shell out money for office supplies, coffee, stationeries, workstation furniture, security, Wi-Fi, cleaners, and more. These extras are a lot of financial commitment for any business. Plus, if you’re an independent contractor or a small business, you don’t need much space or all these overhead costs.
With a FIXIE coworking plan, you can get all these perks and more for a fraction of the cost. And you get your dedicated workstation to customize as you please. Many FIXIE plans will include access to meeting rooms, conference calls, 24/7 access to your workstation, and more. And this coworking package is usually available in the low hundreds.
2. FIXIE optimizes your collaboration and networking opportunities.
Imagine that you’re a freelance writer who wants to start a writing service review platform like Pick The Writer or Writing Judge. Researching and developing reviews comes naturally to you. You can also deal with email management and other aspects of your customer relationship.
However, you know nothing about web design and development or graphic design, and you need someone to help you set up the website. While at your coworking space, you strike up a conversation with the person next to you, and you discover that he is a freelance web designer. You probably get the drift at this point.
Working out of a coworking space allows you to meet people from various works and industries. People with complementary skills that you can work with on your project or theirs. These people become part of your network and can even be a source of referrals in the future.
Working out of a traditional office space essentially locks you away from the world. It doesn’t expose you to these massive opportunities for genuine one-on-one networking and collaboration.
3. A FIXIE coworking space helps to boost your productivity.
Besides the networking opportunities and affordability, a coworking space can help to boost your creativity and productivity. For many people, working from their company’s office, from home, or even a nearby coffee shop are not ideal scenarios.
At home, you have responsibilities beyond work and will possibly need to juggle these responsibilities while at home. This reality can impede your creative juices, and consequently, your work output. For a traditional office space, the monotony of the office environment can be mentally dampening as well.
If you subscribe to a FIXIE coworking space, you immediately free yourselves from these shackles. If you opt for a FIXIE closer to home, you get to cut out the long daily commute to your office.
Also, a coworking space allows you to draw from the energy of other professionals, each committed to their craft. Being in such an environment can boost your energy and push you to want to get work done.
4. FIXIE gives you a professional appearance.
Unlike other coworking packages, paying a FIXIE rate allows you full customization access to your workstation. You can make your space look and feel as professional as possible.
This is a good idea, especially for handling client meetings. You can’t always set up a meeting with clients at their home or yours. It gives off an air of unprofessionalism on your end. Also, there are security concerns surrounding home meetings. This is especially true for new clients.
A FIXIE coworking space eliminates these security issues as well as gives your business a professional front. Existing and prospective clients will be impressed by how seriously you take your business. And consequently, they’ll be more open to start or keep working with you.
5. A FIXIE workspace provides higher flexibility.
There are many reasons behind the growing number of companies and individuals shying away from traditional office leases. One of the primary reasons is that the terms of a lease for traditional commercial buildings are relatively rigid.
It is not uncommon to hear of lease policies that prevent you from terminating your lease before a specific time or putting down some advance payments and extra charges. These problems are non-existent with suitable coworking spaces.
With a FIXIE plan, you usually pay an affordable fixed price per month. This plan gives you access to your workstation, meeting rooms, conference calls, and more. And with a FIXIE, this access is all-day, every day, including weekends.
If you try it out your first month and decide that it’s not the right fit, you can simply terminate your membership at the end of the month, with no hard feelings and no unnecessary hurdles to jump through. The flexible agreements associated with coworking spaces is what makes them ideal for many businesses.
Final Words
Of course, while coworking spaces are generally better than traditional office spaces, not all are created equal. Before opting for a FIXIE coworking plan, ensure to thoroughly check the offer against your current business situation to make sure that it’s a good fit.
You’ll usually have to consider your budget, the office essentials they provide, distance from clients, and a lot of other stuff. An excellent way to evaluate a coworking space would be to use it for a day or two on an hourly rate basis. If you like the experience, you’re set. If you don’t, you can simply walk away.
John Edwards is a writing specialist who is looking for ways of self-development in the field of writing and blogging. New horizons in his beloved business always attract with their varieties of opportunities. Therefore, it is so important for him to do the writing.
