Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, we're going all the way across the pond to talk to Jonathan Slobom, and Jonathan has a unique situation in that he's a marketing consultant, working with what they call a business center in the UK.
The set up is similar to what we would call a coworking space or an office where lots of different businesses gathered together, and they provide supportive services to those organizations.
So we had a great conversation about the opportunities to really create something within their space, serving that business community. We talked about the Profit Activators, and how to be of service to the people they already have, and then, to create a unique opportunity by looking at what they have in terms of excess capacity they can redeploy.
There are some great ideas here, especially now, when people have capacity that can be used differently.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
BreakthroughDNA.com
EmailMastery.com
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 188
Dean: Jonathan.
Jonathan: Dean. Crikey, hello!
Dean: How are you?
Jonathan: I'm really well. It's a strange feeling because I feel like I know you really well, but we've never met.
Dean: Well, there we go. Excuse me. How do I say your last name?
Jonathan: Slobom. It's German in origin, but slightly anglicized. And in German, it would be -, which actually means sloe, as in the fruit, and bom, which is tree. Sloe tree.
Dean: Okay. Well, there you go.
Jonathan: My heritage is incredibly English, but I have got a great-great-grandfather that came across from Germany and married an English lady. And -
Dean: Well, there you go. Well, you have the-
Jonathan: ... strange surname.
Dean: You have the right accent to be of British heritage. That's-
Jonathan: I think so, yeah.
Dean: Very good, yeah. That's funny. Where in England are you?
Jonathan: So, I'm in Buckinghamshire in a place called Amersham. So you might have seen it on the Tube map. So if you're coming north out of London on the Metropolitan Line, it is the very last stop coming out of London.
Dean: Okay. Okay, perfect. Well, there you go.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: I mean, because it's interesting to see the different regional accents.
Jonathan: Oh, yeah.
Dean: I've been to London now eight years in a row doing my Breakthrough Blueprint events, and so I've gotten to see different regions have the different accents, so yours is distinct. But you sound exactly like my friend Mike Monday, who I suspect might be from the same area as you. So, anyway, let's talk about what you've got going on, because we've got the whole hour here and I want to make sure that we get the right thing done while we're here.
Jonathan: Okay. I think this one's a little bit different to anything I've certainly heard on -.
Dean: Okay, tell me.
Jonathan: Well, I run my own marketing strategy consultancy, and I don't really want help with the consultancy because things go well. I've got a very good reputation for getting results. I also generally work on word of mouth for my business, which is a lovely place to be. And like all overnight successes, it's taken me the best part of 10 years to get here. But part of my reputation of getting great results, one of my clients - this high standard that I set for myself is underperforming. And when you work on your own, sometimes it's difficult to find people who have a similar mindset and you can mastermind with to try and understand how you can get a better result.
Dean: Right.
Jonathan: And that's what I'd love to be able to do with you today is mastermind around one of my clients where I'd like to get even better results.
Dean: Perfect. That happens a lot, actually. Not on this show, but I do a lot of consulting like that where people have a specific client and we'll talk and brainstorm that strategy or think things through. So this is good to see what that's like.
Jonathan: Okay.
Dean: So tell me about your client, then. Because everything that I do is almost identical to what we do on the podcast here. In real life, every time I'm thinking through a new engagement, what I'm doing is I'm overlaying the eight profit activators on top of what's going on. So I use it as a diagnostic tool, right, just to get the lay of the land and to see what's going on, what the opportunity is. And I think it would be a good thing for us to do for your client. And when we start it out, we kind of just think about even the division of the before unit, the during unit, and the after unit to kind of get a lay of the land of what's going on in the business to see where the opportunity is. So tell me about the business and then we can go from there.
Jonathan: Okay. So it's a business center based out in Oxfordshire, which has around 70 businesses and over 300 people based in it. It's been going for 20 years and the original founder is still involved with the business, and he's a fantastic visionary. And he set out 20 years ago to say that the property market treats their customers as tenants, and that's wrong, because they should treat them as clients. And if you treat them well, as proper clients, - good B2B relationship, you don't need to, therefore, have long, onerous, one-sided contracts because the customer would actually want to stay with you longer if you serve them correctly. That, at the time, was quite a revolutionary concept. But for those people that engaged with it, those customers, it proved to be fantastic and really meet their needs, to the extent where there are still some original clients still at Bloxham Mill, which is the name of the business center, to this very day.
The reality is, though, that the business is very, very much built around him, his drive, his connections, and marketing, the world, moved on. And they found it increasingly difficult to generate clients. And when I got involved, there was no marketing as you and I would understand marketing. It was really, really built around historic relationships. So I've put in place a lot of the basics. We've improved the website. We've introduced social media channels. I opened up - and partner channels. But in spite of all this great effort, we haven't got to the holy grail which we'd love to get to, which is where there is a formula that works that I can say with a high degree of certainty every time we take the following actions, we get a predictable outcome. And that's where I'd like to get to. The overlay we've got is that here in the UK, last year, things weren't brilliant because we had the whole uncertainty around Brexit, and then globally, as everybody knows, since the turn of the year, we've had the whole issue of COVID-19.
So that, for me, is an opportunity rather than a threat, and we need to reassess the business in the eyes of the consumer. So what is the customer now looking for? And I think the whole - fully serviced, so effectively plug-and-play offices. And - flexible, so short-term contracts that you can renew and also without any difficulty, is exactly where people want to be. Secondly, you've got people aren't commuting as much anymore. They're working from home. And I've got a strong suspicion that there will be an awful lot of people where the novelty of working from home is wearing off a little bit now. And they can't get on a train and commute into the big cities, but where can they work from which is professional? And then the final opportunity is that there are businesses that are based in the big cities that will be saying, "Well, can we locate somewhere else which is easier to get to than commuting by train? Or do we create some satellite offices around the UK?" So I've got these different user groups.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: And what I'm also - not just tap into your knowledge as a marketing expert, but one who's got expertise in real estate, as well.
Dean: So just so we're not confused in the definitions of things, when you're talking about a business center, are you talking about what we may call a coworking space? Just so I get a sense of what we're talking about-
Jonathan: Sure.
Dean: ... what the business actually does. Here, coworking spaces, they would have a bigger office, but then divide it up into leasing out little small offices or desks or workspaces in the thing. Is that what you're talking about?
Jonathan: It is. So the lowest entry level point would be to create a virtual office. So it's a mailing address, phones answered. Second level would be that you can use it for hot desking, so you could hire a desk short-term. Third option would be to hire a dedicated office from 2 up to a maximum size of about 25 people. And - literally got the whole gamut from a 2-person office up to a 25-person office on the site. And then onsite, as well-
Dean: Okay, great.
Jonathan: ... there's meeting rooms and proper reception. By that, I mean with proper meet and greet, they'll handle your guests. And finally, onsite café so that people can get foods and drinks and also use it as an informal meeting area.
Dean: I love it. Okay. So this is what we would kind of call all the equity or all the best profit for a company like that would be derived in the after unit, meaning tenants who are established and stay, and stay and stay and stay. That would be what the target is, right? It's not ... How long do people stay there? You mentioned that some of them are there from the beginning.
Jonathan: Yeah. The average duration is about six years.
Dean: Okay, great. So that's what I mean about the after unit. If I'm overlaying on this, what I would look for is in the last 12 months, how much of the revenue came from the after unit, meaning people who are in there ... How long - lease are people signing? Are they-
Jonathan: Well, the great beauty of the leases that we offer people is that they're normally a minimum of three months, and then there's a notice period on top, which can be as short as one month but often is three months, and therefore, they voluntarily stay because we treat them as clients and we value them and cherish them.
Dean: Perfect. And then their month-to-month after that? So I would look at making the divisions for the during unit and the after unit. I would count that first three months as the during unit experience.
Jonathan: Okay.
Dean: Right? That's where we're going to get somebody in. We're going to get the established. We're going to make sure that they're having a great experience and that they transition then into the after unit. And knowing that if we can get them past the three months, there's a good chance they're going to stay for six years. Right? That's the way that you're looking at it.
So then I would look at how much of the revenue that comes right now is after unit attributable. Like how much of ... When we look at how high is high, how much capacity do you have? And what does that look like? How close to capacity are you? Is there a waiting list, or is there-
Jonathan: No. There has been, historically.
There has been, historically, but at the moment, we are under-occupied. So we've got about 80% occupancy.
Dean: Okay. So you've got 20% left. 20%.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: And now, the thing is, for your business center, that 20% is much more profitable than the first 20% because all of the fixed overheads and stuff are already paid at that point. They've got to come out of all of the things. So every dollar that you add on this last 20% is proportionately much more profitable than the dollars on the first 20%.
Jonathan: Yeah. Just like an airplane, the same principle, isn't it?
Dean: Yeah. Perfect. Okay. And now with the ... Is that number going up or down? Or is it trending down?
Jonathan: Oh, it's trending upwards.
Dean: Meaning that it's becoming more and more vacant?
Jonathan: Meaning that, yeah, during COVID-19, we've had some clients that have really, really struggled. Their businesses are in trouble.
Dean: Yes.
Jonathan: And-
Dean: I got it.
Jonathan: ... they've either left of they're on notice to leave.
Dean: I got it. Okay, perfect. So one of the things that I would look at, then, is how many people are in the during unit right now? In that first three months or in the first ... It's probably been ... It's that a temporary kind of glitch? You haven't had anybody sign a new lease in the last 60 days, for sure.
Jonathan: You'd be surprised. We actually have.
Dean: Oh, okay. Okay.
Jonathan: We've had two new clients in the last ... They're only small, but nevertheless, we've had two new clients during the COVID crisis.
Dean: Okay. Oh, great. And so what's the velocity kind of thing of that? How much of it would be people who are in that first three months kind of thing? -
Jonathan: Currently, how many businesses out of-
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: Three or four. So we're looking at less than 5%.
Dean: Okay, great. Yeah. So mostly, this is truly mostly the after unit?
Jonathan: It is, yeah.
Dean: Okay.
Jonathan: Clearly very, very strong. Very strong.
Dean: Okay. And then how do you find people on the before unit? What's the message that you use to attract new people?
Jonathan: Okay. So there are some large introducers who run national websites, and we work with them. So they pass a lead through to us and that converts, we have to pay them a commission. We also work with local property companies, surveyors, who always have a good, steady flow of inquiries across all types of property. So we've got strong relationships into those local communities. We have affiliated and work closely with the local Chamber of Commerce, as well, which is strong in the area. We've also used a lot of digital marketing in the past and tried to get our own direct traffic from the larger companies. By that, I mean, they want to take five seats in an office or more. That has proved to be very expensive and not cashflow positive.
Dean: Right. So I'm wondering-
Dean: ... it's an interesting thing where you've got this space ... On the relationship things that you're - the challenge with those is that you're not in control of the-
Jonathan: No.
Dean: ... velocity of those, right? It's not a vending machine where you can turn it on and off yourself, right? You're not going right to people. You're depending on other people to go in there. Now, when you look at the radius around your business center, how far spread are people, your clients? Of all the after unit ones, are they within how many miles radius of the business center?
Jonathan: Roughly 25 miles. But obviously, it's not a nice concentric circle.
Dean: Right. Got it. So part of the thing, this is an interesting approach, when you are advertising it, how would your ads appear? How are you positioning what you're offering? What is it that ...
Jonathan: So we major on the fact that it is fully-serviced and very flexible and easy access based in the countryside so that effectively, you can have a plug-and-play office. So if you wanted to sign off on a Friday, we could have you up and running by 9:15 on a Monday morning. And that has happened in some instances.
The challenge is that some of our clients, and these tend to be the ones which are higher value, come to us often from outside of the area. So they're actually looking to relocate their business from a different part of the country or outside of this 25-mile catchment area.
Dean: Right.
Jonathan: And that's where the introducers, because they have national reach, produce customers for us that we've found it very, very expensive to engage with.
Dean: I gotcha. Okay. One of the strategies that I've used for a lot of things is something I call a horse for sale type of ad. And what I - learned from this years ago is that just the simplicity of that sometimes the best way to sell a horse is with a sign that says, "Horse for sale." And I'll give you a couple of examples there. Because you've got a business center that you're positioning a little bit differently than office space kind of thing, ultimately, what you're looking for, ultimately, it's a flavor of office space, right? Yeah. it's within the idea of office space. But the core primary need is office space. That's what somebody's looking for, right?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: And the fact that you offer so much more than just office space, it's a great thing. So what I might experiment with in a situation like this is running an ad that had a ... "Office for lease." Or let, is that what you would call it?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: "Office for let."
Jonathan: Yeah, yeah.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: And the name of the area. What's the name of the town?
Jonathan: Bloxham, but the nearest major town is called-
Dean: Bloxham?
Jonathan: ... is Banbury. Yeah.
Dean: Okay. So, "Banbury office space for let." And then just put a ... How would people be describing the amount of what they're looking for? What's the most popular thing? Is it single office? Is it by square feet or square meters, or by-
Jonathan: Number of seats. Number of desks. Desks or seats for someone.
Dean: Perfect.
Jonathan: The denominator that the customer uses. The industry talks about square footage, but customers don't.
Dean: Okay. And what would be the number of seats that would be the most popular?
Jonathan: Between three and six.
Dean: Okay. And so that's how I would look at this is running an ad, "Banbury office space for lease, four-seat." And then I would just use amplifiers, things that are all the positive things that somebody would not rule it out kind of thing, but things that would say, "Short-term lease or longterm." What would be the other things that you might say would be-
Jonathan: Flexible.
Dean: ... positive?
Jonathan:
Flexible is definitely one. Because we allow people to change the size of their office at short notice without penalizing them.
Dean: Yeah. So - somebody in the realm of things that that might be the thing, flexible, 3 to 10-seat office. Because you're not talking ... Even though you could have ... What would be the most that you could have, that you could accommodate right now?
Jonathan: 25.
Dean: 25? Okay.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: So when you look at ... But the majority are probably going to be made up of getting four, six spots, right?
Jonathan: Correct. Correct.
Dean: So I would go with that as all you're looking for. I would not advertise it as a business center, per se, right? Like where you're trying to do the present it as something different in the ad, but I would present it as the core thing. That it's a four-seat office. Now, those offices, they might be less expensive than a standalone. Would it? Or is it more expensive than a standalone?
Jonathan: When you actually work it out, because this is fully serviced, and that literally means that you get one bill a month that covers everything, insurance, the utilities, the cleaning.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: So the headline price is high, but if you were to do the maths, you'd work out it's actually cheaper to be based in Bloxham Mill than it is to do all these things yourself.
Dean: Okay. Right. So when you look at those things, then, I would look at saying the things that somebody would be looking for, right? Now, I'll give you examples of how we've used this or how I've discovered this whole thing. In real estate, specifically. I was working with a gentleman who was selling new construction lofts on San Francisco. And they had 20-something of them, 20 units of them, available. And they were shells. Meaning you buy the shell and you finish however you want. They had just divided this older building into 20-plus, I think it was 22 or '3, individual loft spaces that you could buy. And they were advertising and talking about the project, to try and brand the name of the project.
And what we did, they were spending thousands of dollars on running full-page ads in the San Francisco Chronicle. And we ran a little classified ad, this was even before the internet, but we ran a little classified ad that just said, "SoMa," which was south of market, was the area, "Really cool loft. You finish inside. Details on voicemail." And it was just the bare minimum that somebody would say, "Oh, I'm looking for a loft space. Let me call and see about this." Then when people called, they would listen to the voicemail that would say, "Hey, it's Jack. If you're calling about the loft, here's the address. It's this. And I'm going to be there on Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 if you want to pop by." And that was it. And we ended up having 28 people come through the open house when they were getting nothing from the big ads, right?
So what we're looking for, and the way I would translate that, is I would look for one tenant who's considering an office space for three to six people, and just appear like this one office space that you have. Rather than trying to get them to think a new thought of, "Maybe we should consider a business center."
Jonathan: Yeah. It's a vastly simplified message you're talking about, aren't you?
Dean: Yes. Yes. That's it. Because no matter what, ultimately, you need that, anyway. You need somebody who's looking for a three to six-seat office anyway, right?
Jonathan: Yeah. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: You do.
Dean: And so that, I think, is the first approach that I would take. And I would constantly kind of keep that ad running because you're going to build up a pool of people that way, too.
Jonathan: And when you say run the ad, what springing to your mind? You're talking about digital media, physical media? Or both?
Dean: Yeah. Both. Everything. Where would somebody-
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: You're talking about a 25-mile radius, so where would somebody there ... I think I would certainly run Facebook ads.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: We've done this with franchise sales, looking for ... Just instead of talking about a franchise and talking about the system kind of thing and that franchises are available, we talk about one business that's for sale, right? So it seems like it's a local business that's for sale in Banbury.
Jonathan: Yes.
Dean: Yeah. And so that's the thing. What you're looking for is just this office space that's available in Banbury and that people say, "Oh, I'm looking for that. Let me click through and get the info about that." And I would just use Facebook lead ads for that.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: Right? Just so they can download the info right there.
Jonathan: And so with the decision making process, what we also have found is that, clearly, there's two types of customer. There's one that takes a very deliberate action because they do some form or search and they're doing a search because they're planning to move in the very near future.
Dean: Yes.
Jonathan: There's another type of customer who they're planning a long way in advance. They're thinking about the move. And those could be ... The bigger the office they want, the more planned they are in their approach.
Dean: Sure.
Jonathan: And there's this challenge that we've got to identify those opportunities in the first place, and then stay in their awareness and highly relevant to those without actually seeming salesy or spammy.
Dean: Right.
Jonathan: And that's always a challenge because I know with what you're really good at in marketing, there is always a downloadable document which adds credibility and that is really interesting and becomes a further discussion or engagement point - go back to your website or go back to social media because they want more of what you've got. It's more difficult with a business center because the message doesn't evolve.
Dean: Right, exactly. But you've got the available space. It's just availability. The inventory, really, is what it is. What you've got room for right now. And I mean, the fact that you're so flexible is you're always going to have some number of ways to divide up a ... You could accommodate 20-odd people. Or I don't know whether the way everybody's positioned in there, whether you could accommodate 20 in kind of one section of the building, or if-
Jonathan: Yeah. When a bigger opportunity comes along like that, if we haven't got the space immediately available, we would often approach our clients and ask them to move. And so it's a great two-way relationship. Because we are flexible, they tend to be flexible with us.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: And we can create the space. We take down the walls and we create a nice big open-plan office for the right type of opportunity.
Dean: Yes. Got it. Okay. And so there's that flexibility. I think that's fantastic. So that's one option. That's how I would kind of approach it first is just keep that constant loop there and allow the tenants or clients or however you refer to them to always be aware, too. Do they refer people?
Jonathan: Yes. But this is where you're going to be able to help me. We don't stimulate any action. It's just purely as when they feel like it, rather than-
Jonathan: ... we've actually got a referral scheme in place.
Dean: Yeah. Okay. So then the other thing that I would look at now is if you're really ... How do you typically stack up on that vacancy rate? Are you usually 100% full? Or are you typically that 20% or 10% or what have you ...
Jonathan: So at its peak, there was a waiting list. And sort of the peak would have been probably three or four years ago now, before I was involved with the business.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: There would have been a waiting list. And that has slowly come down and down and down. And over the last year, we've actually started to get to those point where we are now where we've got around 20% vacancy.
Dean: Okay.
Jonathan: Accelerated by Brexit and COVID.
Dean: Yeah. The other thing that I would look at with that is look at that as an asset that you have, right? You've got an asset of 20% space that's virtually at ... You have no extra cost for it, really. Slight incremental cost. So you've got essentially some free office space there. To start thinking about, "How could we use that space to create a profit center that could be more useful than having a tenant in there?" And so you start to think what kinds of services would be great to offer to the 300 people, or whatever, that you have in there. What would be some things that would work for all of those businesses?
Jonathan: This is really reassuring to hear you say this, because we've already started to move down that road.
Dean: Okay.
Jonathan: So we've got a gym onsite. We've also got a hairdresser who was doing quite well before COVID-19. And then without any prompting from us, some of the clients actually got together and arranged for yoga classes at lunchtime. So we're now starting to take over the management of the yoga classes. But these ancillary services are definitely something that people are seeking, without a doubt.
Dean: Yeah. You think about a massage center or a-
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: The things. Or a daycare. Or something.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: That all of these things, when you start to think, "What would make their lives better?" A concierge service, a VA service, like a scalable assistant pool for them.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: All of that kind of stuff-
Jonathan: But-
Dean: ... where you start to think, "Boy, we've got the opportunity here for a ... We can really serve these few hundred people that we have."
Jonathan: I mean, it's great, because what we've done during this shutdown is that we've upgraded the telephony so that people can actually now reroute the telephony basically to anywhere in the world - smartphones, or we could actually handle their calls for them, and they can -. So if they're not in the office and they want us to handle the calls, we'll answer it. And we know the company, so we'll name the company, but we should also talk about the people. And probably even sometimes actually know a little bit about it to handle the inquiry proactively. And we've just upgraded the broadband so there's a huge capacity now for broadband. So that when people come back and they want to use online conferencing a lot, lot more than historically has been the case, we're going to have plenty of capacity to meet that.
What I keep coming back to, though, Dean, is this whole thing around awareness. And I think it's really interesting that what you're saying is, "Think of the for the 20% - capacity at the moment as an asset."
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: And therefore, if we're going out in the media and we're listing the offices that we've got available, if there's some value in not just saying it in an ad or on our landing page, but actually having ... I'm just thinking aloud and I'm thinking of what I've heard what you've said in previous podcasts, like the directory or the update. We make it into a significant document that's actually worth going back to our website every month because you've now got the June or July update of-
Dean: Yes.
Jonathan: ... Bloxham Mills availability.
Dean: Yeah. I always love those. I love any time if there's changing data that people are interested in, that's always a great foundation to build the communication system around. That can be flagship data, that each month, here's the new, or each quarter, or whatever it is. I think that's an interesting thing. What types of businesses are in this business center? When you look at them, are there categories? What's going on in that?
Jonathan: There's quite a lot of what I would classify as tech businesses.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: So it might be as simple as IT support, - people. People who are then specialist tech, so they help out architects, for example, with specialist technology. We've got somebody that also deals with cybersecurity, but they work very, very high-level, so they work with government and they work with large financial institutions. So we're definitely strong in the tech sector. And we've got a lot around what you might classify as people and mindfulness. So we've got companies that are smaller but they specialize in business psychology, personal psychology. We've even got one that specialize in mental health first aid, which is a really interesting proposition, because basically, if you damage your hand in a small accident, you know exactly what to do. But what happens if somebody in front of you displays issues around mental health? A lot of people don't know what to do.
Dean: Right.
Jonathan: And they help companies close that gap. So there's a lot of interesting companies. And then on top of that, you've got some true innovators that literally see surface capacity in a market and create mechanics by which that surface capacity could be used. So this company is called Play More Golf, and they have relationships with golf courses around the UK who might be quiet midweek, and they then generate customers for those businesses, those golf courses, when they're quiet. So it is very-
Dean: Excess capacity.
Jonathan: ... broad.
Dean: Excess capacity-
Jonathan: Yeah. It is very broad.
Dean: ... is one of the greatest-
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: ... underused resources available. I mean, yeah.
Jonathan: So there are some true entrepreneurs in the building, definitely.
Dean: Okay. So you start to think about, really, what would be services that would serve them, that would be most helpful? And so then I would look at that, at your last 20% that's available, is your lowest cost. But it's also your highest profit, right? So you start to look at what's the amount of revenue that you can generate from that? More than what you could do just renting out the space.
You may be able to capture ... And imagine that the ... How does the owner of the center measure their return on the investment? Are they measuring it on per square foot basis? How much they're-
Jonathan: Yeah. The bottom line is per square foot, ultimately.
Dean: Yeah. How many square feet do you have total?
Jonathan: Gosh, I don't know quite how that totaled out, to be honest with you, Dean. I can definitively say it's around 300 people in 70 businesses.
Dean: Yes. Okay. So you look at that and those might be some neat opportunities. There might be some other opportunities to incubate some businesses, as well.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: Like using some of that space as a ... If you're looking at-
Jonathan: That's a good idea.
Dean: ... running business plan contests kind of thing. Or setting up areas where ... Do you ever have an investors club meet where people can pitch their ideas to get funding?
Jonathan: No. But the answer is not a definitive no. So just before lockdown what I had arranged is that we worked with local schools and we gave the schools the opportunity to come along to Bloxham Mill and the students to pitch their ideas to us as part of their studies. And the reason we did that is because what we wanted to do was get students, but their parents, as well, to come along, because we know that if we get people over the threshold of Bloxham Mill, there's a high conversion rate. Our biggest problem is in the before unit, actually getting people to take notice of us and getting them to come to the Bloxham Mill Business Center.
Dean: Right. Yeah. So I think that's the thing of perhaps bringing attention to it by making ... We always talk about the more cheese, less whiskers approach, where if you're attracting people, if they're seeking it out with the scent of potential money for their business, that the businesses in the area, the people who are running their business from their garage or from their bedroom or wherever, they come out of the woodwork.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: And now you know who they are. That's part of the thing is getting this list of potential people. It's not an unlimited pool. It's a fixed kind of pool of people who are running businesses within 25 miles.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: No, that's a really ... - it's an excellent idea to extend that and actually be a place where locally or regionally we're getting a reputation for incubating businesses, because we could actually, as you say, think of that space as an asset and therefore, if they were to have discounted rates from us to help them get these businesses started, not only if they got a lower and flexible overhead, but they're in an environment which would be quite stimulating for them to operate.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: And they'll meet some interesting people.
Dean: Yeah. And you could partner with angel investors who do angel investing. And that could be a great thing. I don't know what the financial stability of the whole place is and whether that 20% vacancy cost is a problem or whether it's profitable still that they could use that asset in exchange for being part of the angel investment in a business like that.
Jonathan: We could use it that way. But this is an incredibly stable ... In terms of availability, clearly, we've come off a peak, and that's reducing the profit. But there is no danger at all. So a situation here where we need to rebuild, we need to build confidence, we need to build awareness amongst people. And we need a boost, big, big boost, as we're talking now, to the before unit. That's definitely our weakness, with no doubt about it.
Dean: Right. And that might be a great thing that you could get market value plus a premium as the face value of an investment in a startup or in a company that's ready to grow. Something beyond startup, but the initial scaling of a business. Do you have meeting space where you could have kind of open plan meeting where somebody could hold an event in the space?
Jonathan: Oh, gosh, yeah. Yeah. We've got a small theater.
Dean: Oh, okay, perfect. So maybe that theater becomes-
Jonathan: We could probably get 80 people in there.
Dean: It might be an interesting idea that you ... All you need to do is become 25-mile famous in that little radius, right? That you think about yourself as a local TV station that you're creating a local reality show, centered at the center, that's broadcasting out these pitches. That maybe it's the first Friday of every month, people get to come and pitch their ideas. Or-
Jonathan: Yeah. That's a really good idea.
Dean: Right. You almost make it that it's like the entrepreneurial center of the universe, that 25-mile radius.
Jonathan: Yeah. Well, - advantage of this, as well, because that is social media content that's worth engaging with.
Dean: Right. That's the whole thing.
Jonathan: And that's a huge advantage over, to, just as you've highlighted, repeating some of those earlier messages about the actual business center. We can talk about what happens in it, as well as what it actually is.
Dean: Right.
Jonathan: Yeah. And that's my-
Dean: Yeah, especially if those-
Jonathan: ... awareness -
Dean: Yeah. That might be a great reality show type of thing to show. People are always fascinated by the documenting what's happening.
Jonathan: Yeah. No. It's good stuff. It's amazing listening to you. When you're in the thick of it and you're working hard with clients and to sit back like we're just doing now and just hear some of the ideas and think them through, with hindsight, they sound obvious. But sometimes, they're harder to think of when you're actually-
Dean: Right, I get it.
Jonathan: ... really heavily involved.
Dean: Yeah. That's why I always like to really just get to the edges, right? When you define the edges of something, meaning we're really talking about the impact that we can make in that 25-mile radius, I don't know what the registrations are for businesses in the UK, but I imagine that people have to register a business in some way.
Jonathan: Yeah, they do.
Dean: Right?
Jonathan: Yes.
Dean: And so I imagine that that's a knowable number. That there's some-
Jonathan: It is.
Dean: ... fixed number of businesses, solopreneurs or small businesses that are started in that 25-mile zone.
Jonathan: I think that's it ... There will undoubtedly be some, and I suspect there'll be an awful lot more, because of the impact of COVID-19, that slowed down the economy. Companies are downsizing. There will be people made redundant. And essentially those people will set up their own business.
Dean: Yeah. How many people can you-
Jonathan: So-
Dean: How many people sit in your theater?
Jonathan: At a squeeze, we could probably get 80 in there.
Dean: Okay. So it might be an interesting thing to start having some education event, almost like the Google Talks, or do you know things that are-
Jonathan: Ah, no, yeah, TED Talk type approach would be-
Dean: Yeah, exactly.
Jonathan: ... fantastic, wouldn't it? Yeah.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think we could even do that now because it is a big enough space that even with social distancing, there would still be a reasonable number of people in the room.
Dean: And part of the real value of it is to record them, to video record them-
Jonathan: Yes.
Dean: ... and be able to broadcast them or to archive them.
Jonathan: No, excellent. Really good to hear these ideas, definitely.
Dean: Yeah. But the other thing, too, is allowing, providing ... We've been talking, doing a podcast with Dan Sullivan called The Joy of Procrastination. And one of the things-
Jonathan: I've heard it.
Dean: Yeah. One of the things we've been talking about, we're closing in on 100 episodes of that. And we're going to transition it from The Joy of Procrastination to a new podcast series that we're calling Welcome to Cloudlandia. And-
Jonathan: Yes.
Dean: ... we've been talking about this migration of society to the cloud. And that this migration and this transition from mainland to Cloudlandia is-
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: ... the biggest shift that we've ever seen in history. And so there are changing needs that businesses have, right? There are some things that can only be done on the mainland. And there are some things that done need to at all be done on the mainland. You can 100% do them in the cloud. And so understanding that and knowing what are the things that could support, offer mainland support, outpost support, to cloud-based businesses, is a pretty broad category.
Jonathan: Yeah. Which I think, and tell me you really agree, I think with offices, that means that the way a business will view that office space will be much more flexible. They might have 20 employees but only actually need an office for 7 or 10 employees because they know that they're not all going to be in the business at the same time.
Dean: Right. That's exactly right.
Jonathan: Yeah.
Dean: And so you start to think like, "What are the things that ..." All the before unit stuff of any business can be done in the cloud and all the after unit stuff, really, can be done in the cloud. It's only really things that have to be done need to be done in proximity to other people. If you're talking about collaborating, there are certain things that it makes sense to be together for collaboration. But-
Jonathan: Yeah. We're social animals, at the end of the day, as humans, a - podcast - a sit down. If you and I were sitting down face-to-face with a pot of coffee, I think we'd get even further into this.
Dean: Right, exactly. But you think there's another thing that one of the things that I may be looking for is that these businesses that you already have are sort of already onboard with having physical offices. But what if some of these businesses or services that you use these spaces for are to help them expand into Cloudlandia? That if you had video and podcast studio capabilities to help produce those things. If you had a Facebook agency there where you can help with them growing their businesses. That's the kind of things that would give somebody an advantage.
Because they've got access to a professional podcast setup without having to have all that stuff themselves. Same with the video things. If all they have to do is to concentrate on the content without having to worry about the how to do it, that could be a great profit center.
Jonathan: And culturally, it's in line with what the whole business center is about. It's allowing people to work on their businesses rather than in their businesses.
Dean: Yeah. Right.
Jonathan: And so you can actually just do your podcast rather than having to worry about all the technicalities of how. And I think it is massively distracting for a huge number of businesses just to try and work out that how.
Dean: Yes. Agreed. And that leaves room, then, for somebody like you, as a strategist, to help them come up with the strategy of what to do. But then you've also got access to the tools to execute it.
Jonathan: And it's a big positioning statement, isn't it? Because the very fact you've got that studio says to people, "This is a go-ahead center. They're on the case. They understand where the world is going to in Cloudlandia, because they've got the tools."
Dean: Yes. That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
Jonathan: Yeah. Excellent, Dean.
Dean: That could be the thing is it's a mainland outpost for cloud-based businesses. I mean, that's a cool category, I think.
Jonathan: Yeah. Mainland for Cloudlandia. Yeah, it's very good.
Dean: Yeah. So what's that stimulated? As we kind of think -
Jonathan: I think it's-
Dean: ... started and what we've either confirmed what you were thinking or thunk a new thought, or?
Jonathan: I think it's done a couple of things. It's highlighted a lot of things that I know that the highlighting is really, really important. And we are weak on the early stages of that customer engagement. And then some of these ideas that you've helped develop, we've done some of them, but you've just taken them to the next level, and I'm going to have to digest this. But I am convinced, now, that I've written down four or five really good ideas. I think the whole thing around allowing startups or smaller scale-ups to come into the center on preferential terms would be a very strong positioning and there's a lot of story value in that. I really think that's a strong one.
Dean: Yeah.
Jonathan: I liked the idea, as well, of giving people reason to come to our website and engage with us to find out about availability. And I'm thinking that what we should do here is not just talk about literally what the availability is, but we do an internal newsletter to customers or clients, and I'm thinking there's absolutely no reason why that can't actually form part of the communication that we put out to potential clients. So it's two things. What's available physically at Bloxham Mill at the moment, but what's going on at Bloxham Mill? And that can be who's moved in, that could be the fact that we're supporting scale-up businesses. It could be that we've put the new IT infrastructure in place. There's a lot that we could say that I think would be engaging for somebody that is considering an office like Bloxham Mill Business Center.
And give them a reason to keep returning.
Dean: That's awesome. I like it.
Jonathan: Do you think that was strong enough? I mean, that's-
Dean: Yes. Absolutely. I mean, the whole ... There's so many of those things. It's really if you're drawing attention and you're making it that this center is in support of growing businesses like that, I think you're on track.
Jonathan: And then I think the final thing is what you said originally, which is actually that the headline message is a very, very simple message. And because there are so many good things to say about Bloxham Mill, we are slightly in the trap of trying to communicate all the good things without actually being very, very clear, "What is it?"
Dean: Right. Yeah. And so I think that's the thing, just the, "Horse for sale," would certainly fill the available space. But I think that the more exciting opportunity is to really think about how to deploy that asset in a way that's going to be more fulfilling for everyone.
Jonathan: Yes. Yeah.
Dean: Well, that was fun.
Jonathan: It's so valuable. Thank you very much for your time. It's a great-
Dean: Next time I'm across, I'll have to come up and see the center in action.
Jonathan: You'd be more than welcome.
Dean: I just know to get on the train, it's the last stop on the Tube.
Jonathan: No, no, that's where I live. But for you, Dean, we'd love to welcome you, but if you'd like to come up, it's the main line straight out of London, less than an hour to come and get to us.
Dean: Oh, perfect.
Jonathan: So we could definitely sort something out with no doubt about it.
Dean: Well, there we go. Now I get something to look forward to. I love to explore while I'm there.
Jonathan: Well, there's an open invitation. You know where I am. And you'd be very welcome.
Dean: Perfect. Well, thank you so much.
Jonathan: Excellent. Thank you very much for your time.
Dean: It's been fun.
Jonathan: Very valuable.
Dean: Okay.
Jonathan: As always.
Dean: I'll talk to you soon.
Jonathan: Okay, bye-bye.
Dean: And there we have it. Another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation or go deeper in how the eight profit activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to MoreCheeseLessWhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and you can listen to the back episodes, of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes. Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the eight profit activators are part of the breakthrough DNA process. And you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the eight profit activators at BreakthroughDNA.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about breakthrough DNA, as an operating system, that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there. So that's it for this week. Have a great week. And we will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.