Ramon Suarez

Coworking Quotes to Share

This is a collection of quotes from The Coworking Handbook that I use for social media and that may be useful as notes for those that have already read it. If you find any quote helpful, please share it with the world.

Focus on delivering value to every single person who joins your coworking space

Use these events, dynamics and tools to strengthen your coworking community links

Close the sale and get paid!

The faster we can strengthen the links among coworkers… the more durable, valuable and profitable the relationship with each coworker will be

Questions to ask when members leave, come for a try out, participate in an event…

Your website is where most of your coworking clients are going to learn about you

Yes, coworking spaces can be profitable

Talk to your clients and put yourself in their shoes

What are the main points of a coworking space leasing contract?

Start Now!

The community of coworkers is what makes a coworking space sustainable in the long term

Coworking or co-working? Skip the hyphen, even AP says coworking :)

The 6 actionable principles of influence that every coworking space owner needs to master

Coworking is not a silver bullet… You need to work hard to promote your space

Help others help the community and you

Coworking spaces are offices not libraries

You are building relationships with humans, not companies

As your coworking community grows you will grow with it

Consider this when designing a coworking space

Good goals are those that you can measure and that give you and idea about the future of your business

There is a bright future for coworking spaces and you are building it

Use this journalists & influencers tracking template

There’s content worthy of sharing all around you

Sending a message out that is not perfect is infinitely better than not sending any message out

A coworking community is not a zero sum game

What to do before, during and after the events you host at your coworking space

What legal entity should I use for my coworking business?

Community adds value to your coworking business and to others

There are 11 checklists and thinking aids in The Coworking Handbook to help you get things done faster

How much space does a single coworking desk take?

How to deal with journalists and influencers

Things to consider when choosing a new location for your coworking space

The marketing and business side of a coworking community

The structure of a basic coworking space website

When you start a coworking community you are the first member

Find coworking floor space calculations

Your biggest coworking competitor is the home of your prospective client

Is location important for a coworking space?

Should a coworking space be profitable? YES!

Who are the clients of coworking spaces?

Cash is the emperor of your universe

Common coworking contracts and agreements

Investors spreadsheet template

Promote and help the promoters of community activities

Understand the different pricing models of coworking spaces

If you are running a coworking business your goal is to get more coworkers and keep them

The most important thing about starting a coworking community: you don’t need a space

The good thing about organizing events is that not many people are willing to do the work

Understand the business model of coworking

Do you want to know what to publish on your coworking space blog?

What’s the optimal size of a coworking space?

Without building relationships among the members of a community, you only have a collection of people

Coworking expands your professional and personal networks

Work for yourself, not by yourself

Community talk is not a hippie dream; it is about adding value to others and to your business

“…odds are this book has the answers to questions… you might not have thought of yet” @tonybgoode

“This book has been a big help, and has also saved me a lot of money in my start-up phase” William Wells

Increase your productivity at a coworking space

Coworking increases your self-confidence

“Ramon’s… deep expertise comes through across the topics covered in the book” @Smallbizlabs

“wish it was available two years ago when we were just getting started :)” @amsoell

Do you want to know how coworking spaces reach success? Learn from my experience

Coworking benefit: you’ll find new clients and increase your income

The main hurdle to coworking success is lack of knowledge and experience

Is coworking too noisy or too quiet?

Focus and concentrate better in a coworking space

Learn how to succeed in managing your coworking space

The main aspects of managing a coworking space: community, marketing & sales, space, finance, legal

Communities are about people,not brands,logos or Facebook pages.The glue that binds them is human relationships

“It is really an outstanding book, so complete and practical. Congratulations!” Professor Jean Bellemans

Do you work better from home or from a coworking space?

Community is an elastic concept, like so many others in the world of coworking

“finished @CoHandbook GREAT reference book w lots of practical info you can put into action” @coworkingdan

“Coworking bible!” Derryn Williamson

When you start a coworking community you are the first member

Everything about opening, operating and growing a successful coworking space

Coworking makes you happier .- @me_bx

Improve your health coworking

When your clients become aware of the value of coworking with you they will become true coworkers

“You must read this if you are planning to open/opening a coworking space!” @shalf

“The Coworking Handbook is a must have resource for anyone starting or running a coworking space” @Smallbizlabs

Learn what you need to know to launch your coworking space and have a clear view of its business potential

A coworking community is based on experience, participation, responsibility and relationships

“I’m enjoying reading the @cohandbook Coworking Handbook by @ramonsuarez! Make sure to check it out!” @bradneuberg

“Well written concise but packed with helpful information about starting a coworking space business” Vincent Tabor

Everything you need to know about opening, operating and growing a successful coworking space in 204 pages

Find talent and people to work with at coworking spaces

Your community is formed by and has a role in different communities that go beyond the walls of your coworking space

“Loved every minute of this book” Nathan D. Curtis

How to value and nurture your coworking community

Get more coworking clients, save time,reduce your workload, take full advantage of your space, focus on what matters

The business model of coworking is not complicated

One of your roles is to help build trust among the coworking members

“It’s called The Coworking Handbook for a reason: because it is!” @tonybgoode

You are building relationships with other human beings, it is not a one way street

There are always different communities and sub-communities interacting in your coworking space

Looking for ideas to design your coworking space?

May 20, 2019

Coworking Benefits: The Global Movement You Should Care About

Customize the Infographic With Your Own URL

Are you considering launching a coworking space? Do you work in one now? Maybe you’ve never even heard of the concept. Regardless, that’s why I’m writing this blog. I want to tell you more about the global movement of coworking, and how it’s changing the lives of so many entrepreneurs and freelancers worldwide.

Coworking brings endless benefits to coworkers. From increased productivity to happiness, and plenty in-between. However, I’ve gone ahead and compiled the top ten so you can get an idea of why you should consider coworking for your business.

Expedited Growth

Coworking gives you the right environment to focus on your current and future goals while helping you be more productive.
Expand Your Network

You never know who you might meet in a co-working space. You might make some friends, you might make some professional contacts. You might make both! Coworking spaces are all about communities. The people behind these communities want to bring people together who share common interests. You might also get the chance to find new clients and grow your income, talent and people to work with, and more. By introducing yourself to others, you never know what you might achieve.
No Distractions

We all know how frustrating it can be to work in a traditional office environment and be distracted by coworkers’ questions the whole time. If you work from home, you’re vulnerable to distractions by your family. In a coworking space, people respect your privacy – but they’re there to support you if you need it. You can crack on with work, free from distraction, and get more done, faster.
Zero temptation

Working from home is dangerous. The fridge is right there at all times, as is the pantry full of treats. By working in a coworking space, you’ll be forced to eat nothing but the lunch you packed for yourself. Speaking of temptation, there’s also no TV to watch or cozy bed to cuddle up and nap in. You’ll only be surrounded by other hard-working professionals! Coworking spaces get you out of your home (and out of your PJs) where you can work in a clean, professional environment and work like the professional you are.
Stay inspired

It’s easy to feel alone when you’re working from home by yourself. If you see countless people working hard around you, you’ll be inspired to do the same. In coworking spaces, you’re usually surrounded by people from all sorts of industries, exposing you to all kinds of different ideas and ways to stay motivated. In coworking spaces, you’re never alone – unlike if you were isolated at home. You’ll embark on a journey with others who also go through good times and bad times!
Be Creative

By getting out of your home and surrounding yourself with more interesting people, you’re more likely to tap into your creative side more of the time. Coffee breaks in coworking spaces are where the magic happens, and incredible ideas are born. You can share your ideas with others and hear their input – it could just change everything. Coworking spaces have also been found to increase self-confidence by helping you to establish a better working routine.
Better work/life balance

Insomnia isn’t uncommon in people who work from home. Why? Because they can’t separate home from business. By traveling to a coworking space each day, you’ll get into the habit of mentally isolating home from work to enjoy a better work/life balance, and of course, better sleep. It’s best to switch off at the end of the day then focus on work again tomorrow. Coworking spaces help you establish and stick to a routine while still keeping to your own schedule. These spaces are designed to adapt to your needs!
Better Health and Happiness

Studies show that loneliness can literally wreak havoc on your well-being. By being in the company of others, you can recharge your physical and mental batteries. There’s something about seeing familiar friendly faces every day that make us feel good.
Better Internet

This one pretty much speaks for itself. Coworking spaces must have fast internet to cater to the needs of people across all sorts of industries – like video editors and graphic designers or animators who demand high speed and performance. Take advantage of it!
Save money

Not only will you not have to travel or sit in mind-numbing traffic, maximizing your income-producing hours, but you can also save on utility bills seeing as coworking spaces cover this expense themselves. You also never have to worry about dealing with service providers or repairs. If something goes wrong at the coworking space, they have to fix it – not you! Also, renting a coworking space is far cheaper than renting a traditional office.

Honestly, this is just the beginning – and the only way to experience the coworking difference is to try it out for yourself!

If you run a coworking space yourself or are planning to, get the complete Coworking Handbook to improve your business right away.

May 2, 2019

New Coworking Handbook PDF

If you prefer to download and use PDF documents you are in luck. I’ve just released the book in its four languages.

Use any of the links below to buy it:

Coworking Handbook (English PDF) Manuel du coworking (PDF Français) Manuel do coworking (PDF Português) Coworking Handboek (Nederlands PDF)

The book is a bestseller in paper and as a Kindle ebook. Most people buy the paper version.

Are there any other formats you need?

March 7, 2019

A Course to Grow Your Coworking Space Community

Launch offer: use code CoworkingHandbook for a 25% discount

A lot of coworking space operators have complained over the years that one of the biggest problems they have is their community. They suffer to start them, to grow them and to keep them healthy. If you are having these issues, this coworking community course is for you.

Growing and working with your community should not be a problem. It should mean work but not something to suffer through.

I’ve been involved in community building since I was a teenager and started volunteering. In my university years I worked doing public relations for night clubs and also started working in marketing and communication, doing media production, and then working in public affairs and promoting the startup scene in Brussels. All this experience helped me a lot when I decided to start my coworking space.

It Is a Skill

No, community building is not a natural trait of my personality. I was a dork at school and I’m not the most likable person in the world all of the time, but I can get over it easily and build relationships and communities.

Community building is something I’ve learned to do and so can you. You need to care and be willing to step over your personally imposed limitations, to grow.

I used my community skills to grow Betacowork and to build such an amazing community that three of its members ended buying the coworking space.

Start on Monday

Yes, the course starts on Monday (March 4) and you can get in with a discount: use the code CoworkingHandbook .

Because this is the first edition of the course I’ve slashed the pricing.

What I’ve not compromised is the content. Every weekday (yes, you get weekends off) you will get a new lesson. With these lessons you will get tasks to do in your coworking space that will already help you even before the course is finished. These lessons take into account that you already have a full time job. The course is broken up in chunks to help you do what you have to do and not waste time. In just 28 days you will be reaping the benefits of your commitment.

I Will Be Helping You

I will be participating in the course community area and also available via messaging.

Building a community is something I’ve done multiple times. Join the coworking community challenge and we will grow yours together.

February 26, 2019

Coworking Is Dead

Coworking is dead. I know it may sound a bit harsh and that it may lead to confusion. The practice of coworking is alive and kicking, but the name coworking has lost its sense. Anybody offering any kind of shared workspace is calling it coworking, although most of them don’t do any coworking.

From the early days of coworking there was a community focus that differentiated coworking from traditional business centers that just provided hot desking.

Let’s start with a definition of coworking that I wrote and used for the European Coworking Assembly when I was the president, and that was also approved (and ignored) by the then nascent coalition of Belgian coworking spaces.

Coworking definition

These are the elements that define a real coworking space:

Calls itself or the service it offers coworking.
Has a fully dedicated space for coworking (not just a few hours or a cafeteria shared with patrons).
Has an active community of members, not just clients.
Has at least one facilitator dedicated to connect the members and build trust among them, engaging in activities to build the coworking community.
Treats coworkers as 1st class clients.
Promotes and encourage collaboration, interaction and serendipity.
Offers one or many kinds of membership (full or part time).
Does not discriminate who can become a member or how they can participate with hidden or implicit rules.

These elements should be self evident, but they are not. I’ve seen websites of business centers that just had coworking written in white on white background, in an attempt to trick search engines. These centers did not use coworking to define their services because they saw it as a lesser offering, not worth it of the standing of their business.

Many had absolutely no interactions among the members and did not want to get involved in anything beyond having a reception. Some said that they had a community because they included it in the contract (legal WTF). When meeting these spaces they said that it was not worth it to invest effort on the community side because it was a lot of work and they did not see a clear financial link to their profits (at a time where their businesses were losing clients and contracting).

Most did not have a single person dedicated to the members beyond the reception. No connections, no event organization… Just mail, photocopies and telling visits where their meeting room was. They definitely did not do a single thing to promote any collaboration among the members. In fact for business centers this run against their core offering of a private office.

Way too many treated coworkers as second class clients, as fillers of bad space that could not be dedicated to have an office and “real” clients.

The discrimination part is trickier to evaluate, but some centers will not admit members based on personal preferences and discrimination, not on a public set of requirements.

The WeWork bullet

The beginnings of coworking spaces where mostly of ignorance, paternalization and dismissal by traditional office space providers and many professionals that did not understand the new service it was offering.

Then WeWork arrived and managed to get the word coworking in media all over the world. They managed to turn hot desking into something cool by using a modernized design and the word coworking (although from my visits I saw that their buildings are mostly focused on providing offices, even single person offices).

Me and many others fell for it too. We saw it as an opportunity to show that coworking was great and that it was a business. I shared messages in social media about their rounds and valuations as a way to promote my own space.

The death of coworking

Soon traditional business centers saw an opportunity to renew their offering just by changing the name, not by adding any value, riding the WeWork and the coworking wave.

As the word coworking became more commonplace, everybody started using it for shared offices, for bars… for anything where there was the tiniest shared space.

Many consultants wanting to become cooler towards corporations started naming their offices coworking spaces so that it would be easier to sell their innovation services and conferences, using the “coworking space” as a loss leader.

Today the word coworking is well known but it is dead. It has lost all meaning. Except it is still alive in many real coworking spaces around the world, delivering value to the coworkers and dynamizing local ecosystems and economies.

The future of coworking

Real coworking spaces have a bright future ahead of them, because they deliver value to an ever growing number of independent professionals and small entrepreneurs. Some remote/displaced employees take advantage of them too, but their numbers are much smaller. There is a lot of work to be done with less and less jobs, that is being provided by independent workers and small companies that do the job done by bigger companies not so long ago.

As long as coworking spaces focus on delivering value to the coworkers and going beyond a simple desk offering they will be able to compete and thrive. The biggest competitor of coworking spaces is still the home of the prospective coworkers, which is free. There’s no way to compete in price, the competition has to be in value.

True coworking spaces walk the walk of community, they do not just pay lip service to it.

If the clients just want a place to work, they can and will also join coworking spaces, and once they are in they will be trapped by the relationships being built and the opportunities that do not exist in other working spaces because they lack a community.

There will always be challenges, as with any business, but because there’s a fundamental value offering attached to coworking spaces they have a meaningful future as businesses.

If you want to create and grow the community side of your coworking space, I’ve created a course that will help you: the Coworking Community Challenge. Check it out and let me know what you think.

February 8, 2019