Scaling Up Business with Bill Gallagher 109: Frank Cottle discusses Creating A Flexible, Yet Productive Team.
There is more than one way to work in a team setting these days. At an office, at home, remote, or a combination of the three. Today’s guest discusses the different ways you can create a team that incorporates flexibility and yet is still responsive to the daily needs of a business.
Frank Cottle is the Chairman and Founder of Alliance Virtual Offices and Alliance Business Centers Network. He is a recognized expert within the business center, executive suite, and virtual office industries and often speaks on topics related to all forms of alternative officing.
Frank and his partners built buildings with the purpose to house and host executive suite centers for professionals who needed a quiet and private space to work. These are quite different compared to the more open space, coffee-shop-esque feel of a co-working facility.
Frank explains the difference between service offices, coworking spaces, and incubators. Technically, these working spaces combine people, place, and technology into a single bundled product that’s delivered with a highly flexible service agreement. However, each of these spaces offers a different type of brand promise.
Virtual office spaces help the small businessman and startup founder create effective growth by lowering their monthly business expenses on rent, utilities, staff, and office equipment.
However, they don’t just house small business professionals. The two biggest groups who use Frank’s service offices are actually the government and the global Fortune 1000. Large companies are changing their business models radically.
If you looked at an annual report five years ago from a large company in the bay area, they would have had roughly 300,000 ‘employees’ in the report. Today, that number is listed as ‘workforce’ with about 20-25% being listed as contractors. This shift is drastic when you think about how much money companies are saving in leasehold debt.
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