How Coworking is Turning Out to Be a Boon for Freelance Marketers

As Indian commercial space is evolving every passing minute, coworking spaces, which are now very common for professionals in the west, are now gaining momentum in India as well. A lot of solopreneurs, individual contractors or freelancers along with startups and small businesses are now starting to work in a coworking space.

As gig economy is growing in India; it is also interesting to know that the government of India has also involved many of these gig workers in the project of Digital India, Swachch Bharat, and Smart City. According to an estimate by Truelancer, India had close to 15 million freelancers in 2015 and the figures, released in 2016, with the majority of them belonging to areas as diverse as IT, app development, designing and content writing.

The freelancers have grown on a major scale in the last 4 year and freelancing is only going to increase rapidly in years to come. But there are a few prime hardships that most freelancers usually go through. Listed below are a few:

• Owing to the fact that most freelancers work as individuals, often they need to multitask.
• Most of the freelancers are often hard-pressed for time.
• Can’t pay undivided attention to their core product or business idea as they tend to get distracted by the operational front which is also very much essential.
• Mostly work in a tight budget.
• Although they crave for an organized way to carry out their work, yet often the organization plans get overpowered by the lack of time or adequate budget to get an exclusive office equipped with hired hands and other essentials.

More often than not, these roadblocks significantly impact the growth or success of these freelancers. The freelancers usually get bogged down with the operational details of their work area. Although these may not be as significant as a business strategy, project planning, funding, and client sourcing, etc., yet they are very much important. Since a freelancer alone works as the Founder, CEO as well as the hired help of their company, at the end of the day there is too much left on their plates.

Who is a freelance marketing consultant?

A freelance marketing consultant provides marketing consultancy on an independent basis. A freelance marketing consultant is not a typical marketing employee; he or she is not permanently bound to any company or employer. They even search for clients on their own and work one to one with them.

This job is traditionally done at home or even at a workspace provided by the client. The freelance marketer’s tenure with the client expires as soon as the project they were working on is completed. A freelance marketing consultant is like temporary employees who outsource their services only when needed.

How are Coworking spaces a boon to the freelancers?

Coworking spaces are more like a one-stop solution to get rid of most roadblocks in the way of freelancers. Coworking offers flexibility to the freelancers so that they can expand their professional horizons or even scale them down. Leasing a workspace, taking care of the legal agreements, designing the workspace, setting up the workspace, equipping it with infrastructure, etc. is a quite cumbersome process. Apart from budgetary implications, this is more time and energy-sapping work. Also, once ready, the workspace will need to be maintained constantly, draining both, time as well as capital.

Coworking spaces take care of all these hassles. It provides a hassle-free, already equipped, safe unencumbered facility for a freelancer to just move in, settle down and start working without having even to put in an effort of thoughts about up keeping the workspace, equipment, maintenance, etc.

For example, myHQ is one such organization that provides coworking spaces for individuals and teams at extremely affordable rates. Their workspaces are well furnished, fulfilled with a wonderful cafeteria as well as beautiful lounges. They also have free WiFi facilities for co-workers to coexist and work hassle-free.

Another good thing about these coworking spaces is that they offer a plug and play or ready to start kind of feature. Flexible working hours, power backup, customized office desks and cabins, meeting rooms, pantry, cafeteria, print, scanning, courier, front desks, postage handling are among the add-on facilities at these coworking spaces. This is certainly a boon for freelance marketing consultants as well as other freelancers and soloprenures.

How do coworking spaces provide an enriching experience to the freelancing community as a whole?

As per various research groups, the sudden hike in interest upon coworking spaces is the perks, multitude of facilities and hassle-free operations. There is also a lot of other upsides to these coworking spaces apart from just the materialistic ones. A few of them are listed below.

1) Work environment

Workplace plays a crucial role in the quality of work and productivity. It also plays a vital role in fuelling creativity by bringing together people from various walks of life and creating a space for the exchange of innovative ideas. Coworking spaces also work as a break-through from the monotonicity and stress of working alone from home or from a boring office cubicle.

2) Collaboration of ideas

While working with a group of creative people, you will always find that every person has different ideas to share. And thus, there is better exposure to different ways of thinking and come up with ideas that could change the way things work.

3) Networking

By bringing together professionals from a plethora of professions, coworking provides opportunities to interact with people outside of one’s organization. Thriving in a diverse environment not only brings about a positive mental impact on the freelancers but also allows them to broaden their professional horizons by collaborating or networking with their co-workers. In addition, it also helps in learning from experienced professionals who are working in the same space.

4) A sense of community

Working in a coworking space isn’t just sharing a workplace with various professionals; it is more like joining a community. Apart from being able to create a personal and professional bond with the co-workers, coworking spaces often host a variety of events which the whole co-working community can attend together. This makes the work environment a little less stressful and allows every individual to have a tight group of people to fall back upon in times of need.

With the advent of millennials looking for more flexible and remote workstyle, there is a need for workspaces to evolve accordingly. Coworking spaces are trying to just do that. If you are a freelancer or a remote worker, try working out of a coworking space and you’ll see the difference.

Author Bio:

[thrive_testimonial name=”” company=”” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/vinayak.jpg”]Vinayak Agarwal is the co-founder of myHQ, a startup with a mission to revolutionize the way millennials work. An entrepreneur at heart, Vinayak is an IIT Delhi alum and he worked with Goldman Sachs for 2 years before starting myHQ. They are creating a network of beautiful & inspiring coworking spaces and work cafes for people to work, network and co-create from. myHQ is also a vibrant community of 10,000+ entrepreneurs, freelancers and working professionals.[/thrive_testimonial]