Are you a Kitchen Table Kinda Girl?

Then you need coworking in your life. Many of us work alone, or remotely and spend much of our working life at our kitchen table, otherwise known as your ‘home office’. When you do get out to see clients or contacts then it’s in a coffee shop or hotel lounge with expensive coffee and perhaps the local mother and toddler group at the table next to you. So what’s the alternative? A permanent office? I can’t afford one and don’t need one all the time. And do you want to give up 100% of your kitchen table? I like working at home, I like the flexibility and frankly I like the comfort of knowing that my smalls are whizzing round in the machine as I’m taking an international SKYPE call. But I also like to have somewhere that I can go for a one to one meeting, where I have to put on the corporate mantle and leave the comfort of my kitchen table and where I know that I’m going to bump into other like minded people over the coffee machine – and we all know that some of the most amazing projects and ideas have been born in the office kitchen.

So where do I go? I use the coworking space and meeting rooms at The Drum in Llandudno. The coworking room is bright, comfortable and is a great place to have a client meeting. It’s a business hub and for me shows that I mean business. It’s a step above ‘let’s meet in Starbucks’ or in a hotel, slightly more formal (but not too much), there’s great coffee and fast wifi. There are always other people in the room and there’s a real business buzz throughout the whole building. I don’t need to book, I can just pitch up when I need to. When I need a more formal setting then I just book the boardroom, a private space, great for meetings, training or presentations.

And the great thing is that I can afford it, I only pay when I use the room and as a Network She member then there is an exclusive Network rate of just £5 per day (that’s already cheaper than my coffee shop bill would have been). The larger meeting room rates start at £50 which is great value when compared to using a hotel conference room when I need more space.

For me there’s no downside, it’s a cost effective way of doing business. It’s flexible and affordable and puts my business above the ‘lets meet in Starbucks’ category. I’m not giving up my kitchen table quite yet and possibly never will but having a corporate alternative as and when I feel it’s needed has definitely taken me and my business up a notch.

Maria McLean