Career Opportunities

With a Challenging Economy, Creativity Wins

As a firm believer in continuous evolution of a company’s products, services and branding, a gigantic light bulb illuminated above my head this week while reading an article in The Wall Street Journal.

A growing trend in some major U.S. cities for people who regularly spend time lingering, sometimes working, in coffee shops, is to abandon these establishments in favor of the lobbies, restaurants and bars of popular downtown hotels. It seems that many of these wayfarers are growing weary of some the conditions at their favorite Starbucks, citing high noise levels, crowded tables, limited bathroom availability and insufficient electrical connections as key reasons for toting their laptops elsewhere.

The author interviewed several people who are part of the trend, such as a 33-year-old sales executive who spends three days a week in the lobby of one of Chicago’s newly-renovated boutique hotels conducting business via cell phone and laptop. He loves the comfortable seating, high ceilings and less crowded conditions, and figures he spends, on average, $5 per day there.

An independent consultant in New York visits and works in the lobby of one of Manhattan’s newer hotels about once a month. His full day of morning coffee, luncheon meat pie, bottled water and five o’clock beer totals about $60. For this he gets free Wi-Fi to complement the sizeable tables and cushy chairs that comprise his makeshift workspace. According to hotel sources quoted, about 90% of daytime food and beverage revenue comes from mobile workers like these. (Apparently most of the actual hotel guests are relegated to such mundane tasks as attending meetings, or visiting clients. Hence, they’re not part of “the 90%.”)

So far, hoteliers apparently really like the trend, believing that having a lobby full of stylish, busy-looking people creates a buzz, as well as contributes to the kind of atmosphere that attracts new customers as hotel guests and restaurant/bar patrons. There is, however, a universal concern that the types of people that work and linger in their hotels properly reflect each establishment’s image and brand objectives.

So, let’s do a brief recap:

• People spend as little as $5 per day for the use of a trendy, rent-free, visually-inspiring workspace, with free electricity, Wi-Fi, comfortable, roomy seating and unrivaled ambiance, where they can meet and impress friends and associates
• Hotels, for the most part, not only think this is great, but are actually trying to promote the expansion of this trend
• Hmmmmm…

…ARE YOU #@%&*$#@# KIDDING ME??!!

But wait! (Back to the beginning where the bulb went on.) For the person willing to take a chance, not only is opportunity knocking, it’s breaking down the door with a sledgehammer. Consider this…

Why not start a business as a full-time Mobile Worker? An enterprising person might be able to parlay this into something really big. Think about it…if you were unbelievably good at sitting around in lobbies of hotels, why wouldn’t businesses PAY YOU to do so? You could begin by charging a healthy, but no doubt reasonable, hourly rate, and maybe expand the concept to trendy restaurants and outdoor cafes. (Heck, you’d eventually be able to market to coffee shops once they lost all their business because of you.) And, why limit yourself to one location, neighborhood or type of business? As demand for your service grows, you might need to invest in a specially-built transport van – a rolling wardrobe. You could dress the part to meet the image needs of any type or level of business. And – if you were especially enterprising – you could start to hire people to work for you, expand your client base, purchase a fleet of vans.

Yep. No more investing your hard-earned $5 for the “privilege” of parking your butt in their opulent, open, newly-renovated lobbies, while stressfully playing Words With Friends with friends. A career as a highly paid, professional “Business Sitter” awaits you.

What a “Win/Win” situation for all! Happy hoteliers, busy clothiers, van sales rise markedly. Yea!!

And when you get to the point where you can afford to do a real corporate identity program, give us a call. That’s all I’m asking for in return.