By the Numbers

How Many Businesses Have Nowhere to Meet?

The SBA Office of Advocacy reports that more than 60% of US small businesses are home based. That is the majority of the market operating without a lobby, a conference table, or a door that closes. Most of those owners solve it the same way, with a coffee shop, a hotel lobby, or the customer’s kitchen table, and most of them have never stopped to ask what that choice costs them when the conversation turns serious.

What Is Wrong With Meeting at a Coffee Shop?

Three things, and they get worse as the deal gets bigger. Privacy is the first: if the conversation covers health, money, a legal matter, or a contract, the people at the next table should not be hearing it, and in regulated fields that exposure is a real liability. Control is the second: you cannot manage noise, seating, or whether a table is free when your customer arrives. Presentation is the third: a shared table tells a prospect something about the size of your operation, and it is rarely the message you were going for.

Before the Meeting

Somebody Has to Answer the Call That Books It

The meeting is the second step. The first is a phone call, and roughly 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered during business hours. Consumer research from TransUnion found nearly 80% of people still consider the phone an important channel for reaching a business, especially when the matter involves money, urgency, or trust. Those are exactly the calls that turn into meetings. A live receptionist who answers your business calls and books the appointment on the spot is what fills the meeting room in the first place.

On the Ground in Boulder

Where Boulder Businesses Actually Meet Customers

Boulder is comfortable with informality, and for a first coffee that is genuinely an advantage. It stops working when the conversation turns into a term sheet, a diligence question, or a customer contract. Downtown parking is limited, Pearl Street is loud, and a laptop screen with financials on it is visible to the whole room. Reserving a private meeting room by the hour gives a Boulder company the option to switch registers when the stakes change, without signing a lease for a boardroom it would use four times a month.

The Solution

What Should You Actually Look For?

Meeting space you can book by the hour, in a professional building, without signing a lease for a room you would use a few times a month. Co-working gets you a desk and an open floor, which is a different product and a poor fit for a confidential conversation. Intelligent Office pairs private meeting rooms with a real business address and live receptionists who answer your business calls, so the whole customer path from first call to handshake happens in one place.

• Private rooms bookable by the hour, not a monthly lease
• A professional address on the same building your customer drives to
• Live receptionists answering your business calls and setting the meeting
• Mail handling, so your business stops running through your house

Watch

Intelligent Office vs Co-working

This clip compares Intelligent Office with a co-working membership, which is the choice most owners are actually weighing when they need somewhere to meet a customer. The difference comes down to what is included and who is answering your phone.

Why Intelligent Office Boulder Is Built Around Real People

The meeting matters, and so does the call that set it up. Our Boulder team is staffed by real receptionists who answer your business calls, so a partner, an investor, or a customer reaches a person instead of a founder on a trail. We handle your mail, provide a real Boulder business address, and open a meeting room when you need one.

Learn more about Intelligent Office Boulder

Sources

Figures in this article are drawn from the SBA Office of Advocacy small business profile, TransUnion consumer phone channel research and published missed-call statistics.