Questions About Starting a Shared Office Franchise

The market for shared office space is experiencing an exponential boom. Flexible workspaces comprise a sizable sector of the commercial real estate market. Developers are attempting to turn their properties into shared office premises. If you are one of the savvy investor seeking to get involved in the coworking office industry, one of your best options is opting for a shared office franchise that will help you penetrate this burgeoning market. This post will offer more information about shared office space franchise to help you make all the right choices.

Are you thinking of opening a coworking space or Shared Office in your town?

Shared office franchising firms have created perfect models for purchasing, building out, branding, operating, and marketing coworking spaces. The number of shared office franchising companies is increasing because of their remarkable success, making the business model offer a sizable return on investment. Read on to learn more about some questions to ask when considering investing in a shared office space franchise. 

1. Who is the Competition?

Are there other coworking spaces in your town? Go visit them. What are they like? Do they cater to just one clientele? Can you see a niche for what you want to do?

Perhaps you want to be welcoming to a broader mix of people. The broader the mix of people you cater to, the bigger pool your market is and the more people there will be who are interested in your space.

2. What Space is Available in the Area?

If you have expensive space, you have less margin to make mistakes. Know the difference between full-service, triple net and gross leases as you’re comparing properties.

Never fall in love with just one space because, if you can’t get that one, you need to find another. You should always be putting in offers on about three at one time. This is assuming you’re just leasing space. There are other ways to do this where you’re partnering with a landlord or buying a building.

3. What Are the Demographics of the Area?

Do you have plenty of knowledge workers in the area you’re looking at? Your real estate broker will be able to provide a lot of this information for you. One tip is to find out how close the nearest Starbucks is. If they’re in the area, it’s one indication that you’ve picked a location with knowledge workers and sufficient traffic.

For most coworking models, you want to be in a vibrant town core, so think about what’s in walking distance: Restaurants? Coffee shops? Drinks? A park?

4. Do People in the Neighborhood Have Disposable Income?

Whether you like it or not, your cost to a potential member really does come out of disposable income. Your biggest competition is the dining room table.

As you look at the demographics of an area, look at those calculations of disposable income. Your best market is not one that is super wealthy or super poor. Areas where there are young kids are a good indication that people need a workspace. And areas where people live in smaller spaces are good.

5. Do You Have the Contractor Base You’ll Need?

Do you know about building out a site? There’s a good bit of actual construction in opening a coworking space. In some cases, the landlord can handle this for you, but you still need to have someone on your team who knows something about construction and contractors.

6. Do You Have a Good Designer?

Design is vitally important. Get a good designer. People have choices and sometimes they don’t even know why they’re choosing one space over another. They will choose to go into your space if it’s welcoming and bright. It doesn’t have to be expensively done, but it has to make you feel good to walk in and work there. Find spaces with as much natural light as possible.

Include green building strategies in your plans to reduce operating costs and demonstrate that you are environmentally thoughtful. Think about motion sensors for lighting. You’ll save on your utility and replacement costs if you put LED lighting in at the beginning.

We all like natural concrete and hardwood floors, but more hard surfaces make a place unpleasant to work in. Be sure you have enough soft surfaces to absorb sound. Be sure you have some kind of noise cancellation, whether you decide to use music, or white, pink, brown or grey noise.

7. How Will You Lay Out Your Space?

You are, in effect, renting space. You’re renting space and you’re converting it into a membership for use of the space. You can’t have a lot of wasted space. Think of how you can build around a courtyard feel, which will give you a sense of vibrancy.

8. What Type of Plans Will You Offer?

If you can do the work to be open 24/7, you vastly increase your pool. Even if your place is empty outside working hours, people want to know they’ve got 24/7 access if they need it.

Your demographics will help you define your plans. Do you have a lot of consultants who may just need to use conference rooms or offices to meet with people? Do you have remote workers who just need a few days a week? How about teams who want to share plans? With Satellite Deskworks, all of this is easy and automatically tracked.

9. Does the Franchisor Have Sufficient Expertise and Experience in the Coworking Space Industry?

Expertise and experience are earned over time in the industry. When venturing into the shared office industry, it is advisable to choose a franchise you can rely on to offer you the invaluable perks that accompany the serious experience. You will have to evaluate the founding history and performance of any shared office franchise you may be considering. It is essential to choose an office franchise that has an excellent track record and vast experience in different aspects of developing and managing a coworking space. 

Great questions to ask include how long the shared office franchise has been in business, how many locations they have, and their management policy.  A great perk of investing in a franchise is having a dedicated team that you can rely on to handle the nitty-gritty. The longer a franchise has been in business, the more likely they are to offer you reliable support. 

10. Does the Shared Office Franchise Have Good Knowledge of my Marketplace?

America’s workforce has unique needs for their shared office spaces depending on the profession, geography, and company culture. You will need to choose a shared office franchise that has an excellent understanding of your marketplace. Office spaces are being developed in suburban office centers and central business districts in all metropolitan areas in the country. Your marketplace may respond better to premises that are in the suburbs over the central business district or vice versa. 

Since all cities have a different commercial city inventory, your preferred shared office franchise will need to perform due diligence on your market. When testing a potential franchisor’s understanding of your marketplace, you can ask them about current competition in your region, entry strategies, emerging competition, and expansion strategies. Do not limit yourself by only courting one office franchise, consider different options and compare their analyses. When you analyze the results you will be able to make an informed choice of the best-shared office franchise for you. 

11. What Comprehensive Support Does the Franchisor Provide?

The biggest advantage of choosing a franchise is enjoying a comprehensive range of services that will help you launch your shared office business without a hitch. The services include acquisition services e.g. property evaluation, architectural design, interior design, IT solutions, business plans, operation models, online learning resources, staff training materials, brand awareness campaigns, bookkeeping, payroll, accounting, and reporting services.

Some franchisors offer most of these services to franchisees, but be sure to find out their specific terms and conditions of service. A shared office franchise will benefit you with services that help in day-to-day operations, long-range planning, growth management, and research. You will need to choose a franchisor that has responsive staff and high-quality services. 

12. Do I Know the Needs of my Coworking Space Market?

You will need to do some homework before meeting franchisors. Market mapping is an essential part of the necessary legwork to do. A great start is performing an online search to discover how saturated your region is. You can search your geographic specifier alongside terms like flexible space, coworking space, satellite office space, shared working space, serviced office space, distributed workforce office space, and co-op office space. The search will reveal which franchised and non-franchised brands have locations in your area. It will also reveal your market’s current shared office space inventory.