315 – A Look Inside Work Club, An Exclusive Co-Working Space Designed To Ignite Collaboration, Creativity & Inspiration

10 years ago I had an idea to create a co-working space. My idea was along the lines of Qantas Club meets your home office. This interview is with a guy who not only had the same idea but has executed with passion and courage. And now … I’m a client of his!

Work Club is redefining the whole idea of co-working, serviced offices and business clubs by focusing on the workspace as a whole. Owner and founder Soren Trampedach is passionate about functional design, diversity and furniture. Soren has consulted  and continues to consult on workplace optimisation and trends for some really big players like Google, Microsoft and Deloitte so he knows a thing or two about how to create an inspirational place to work.

He also has a tonne of courage. Ever since the beginning of Work Club they have remained exclusive, only taking a limited number of people from any given industry. That has meant saying no to a lot of potential clients. Soren reminds his staff that compromising on their values is like peeing in your pants. It might feel nice in the beginning but it soon becomes cold and smelly.

In this chat we discuss:

• Soren’s theory on Leonardo DaVinci and diversity
• Functional design for workspaces
• The importance of beautiful furniture
• The art of story telling
• The importance of intention in every little thing you do
• The business failings that lead to Work Club
• The power of a community and his version of TED – The Florence Guild

Also, a big thank you to everyone who has tweeted @VirginAustralia about your excitement that your favourite marketing podcast will be aired from 35,000 feet in the air. It’s never too late to get excited and I’d love for you to tweet them if you haven’t already.

I defer a listener question to good friend and original co-host of Australia’s best marketing podcast Luke Moulton from Plankton Digital about whether or not you should post videos to Youtube or Facebook.

EPISODE TIMELINE

00:33  Welcome & overview
02:00 Insights in to WebCentral
03:41  Today’s guest introduction – Soren Trampedach of Work Club
05:00  Interview with Soren Trampedach – Part 1
12:42  Insights in to Cornerstone Business Solutions
14:05  Interview with Soren Trampedach – Part 2
36:58  My top 3 attention grabbers from my chat with Soren Trampedach
38:25  Motivational marketing quote of the week
41:27  Listener question
44:12  Wrap-up and insights in to next week’s guests

EPISODE SPONSORS (PLEASE SUPPORT THEM)

WebCentral listener offer – Helping your website get found, fast.

RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED

Work Club’s official website
Episode #226 with Keith Abraham on how to run your business with passion and purpose
Episode #294 with Booby Edwards from Squatty Potty on how to create viral videos
Lukee’s official website – Plankton Digital
Timbo’s new marketing book The Boomerang Effect

MY TOP 3 MARKETING ATTENTION GRABBERS FROM THIS EPISODE

1. Be grateful for your failures – sometimes they’re the best thing that could happen to us at the time. I encourage you to reflect back on a time where you failed and you thought the sky was going to fall in; only to look back now and realise it was the best thing that could have happened.
2. Passion is the ultimate marketing – Past guest and passion expert Keith Abraham would agree with this – his big belief is that “Nothing truly happens until someone is passionate about something.” Check out my chat with him if you’re keen to get clearer on your passion and purpose.
3. Be selective with who you sell to – Now, I get the fact that not all businesses have this luxury and that this takes incredible courage, but being selective can pay off in the long term.

INSPIRATIONAL MARKETING QUOTE

I hear this quote quite often – especially from those in the finance, real estate and IT industries.

“We’re flat out. We don’t do any marketing,
and we don’t need any marketing.”

What’s the marketing lesson?

Guess what, I don’t agree!

Let’s break it down:

“We don’t do any marketing …”

You may not think you do, but YES you do. As I always say, everything is marketing and marketing is everything. If you’ve got a logo, a business card, a website, a slide deck, a brochure then you do marketing.

If you network, have a voicemail message, write proposals, are active on social media, send quotes or even have an email signature … then guess what? You do marketing.

Now let’s look at the second part of that quote –

“We’re so flat out that … we don’t need any marketing.”

Well, first of all, congrats on having that much business. I hope you’re making plenty of money, and selling to clients that you love to work with. And that’s the key – as small business owners we want to work with the right types of clients. Clients that give us joy, that make doing great work for them easy.

Because, if that isn’t the case, then I’d suggest you start creating marketing that both attracts the right clients, and helps those who aren’t your ideal clients to self-select themselves out of doing business with you.

You could even go as far as having a section of your website titled “We’re not for you if …” and then list all the attributes of those you don’t want to work with.

Or take the more positive approach with a section titled “We do our best work for …” and then list all the attributes of your ideal client.

Or, you could do what Soren from Work Club does, and implement an interview process where you both get to know each other.

I just had mine, and guess what?

I passed.

OVER TO YOU …

What was your biggest marketing learning or ah-ha moment from this episode?

Leave your comment below.

My guest and I respond to each and every comment.