Funny video of a new team collaboration software from Mercury Grove
An official announcement will be out on the wire in a few days, but I’m beating myself to the punch line by posting a little bit about it here. The new Alliance Virtual Offices is up and running. We are working on a number of udpates to the site and to clean up our processes, but it’s ready to go.
Here’s a link to the sitemap: http://www.alliancevirtualoffices.com/sitemap.xml
I recently ran into a funny story about an executive suites company that I thought I’d share. I was speaking with one of the marketing managers who wanted my opinion on their competitor’s website. At the time, I didn’t know this, but this competitor is a fierce competitor of theirs. If I divulge why, anyone who reads this who knows the industry would know who I was referring to, so I will refrain from giving more information. Just know that they are fierce competitors outside the USA. Both are very upscale, have multiple centers and are very well capitalized.
Anway, I took a look at their websites and both had just completed a redesign and the competitor had done a terrible job from an SEO standpoint. It was completely a flash site without regard to doing anything to make the flash readable. Otherwise it was beautiful to look at… oh, and it was abominable from a usability standpoint.
What I found out later was that the board of directors for both companies spend a lot of time searching on Google to see how they’re doing, and they constantly seek to be #1 for “executive suites.” Anyone who knows SEO and knows the executive suites industry, knows that while the term “executive suites” is important, it’s not where the money is. Yes, it’s good, but if you focus on that, you lose.
So, please executive boards… stick with the big picture. Let someone else worry with the details of SEO… or become an expert. At that point it’s OK to dive in the details, I guess. If that’s what you really want to do.
Many of the best capitalized executive suites companies and landlords continue to open new executive suites. Servcorp, Regus, Premier Business Centers and Corporate Office Centers are the executive suites that seem to be doing the most work, but I’m sure there are others. Carr Workplaces is also one to watch, and I wouldn’t be surprised if BusinessSuites, backed by Luci Baines Johnson’s company, expands.
On the virtual office front, I expect to see a few small competitors to Davinci Virtual pop up, but nothing that will threaten them too much. Their biggest threats may be Regus and other established businesses outside the executive suites industry, such as Call Ruby.
My main form of generating traffic to aBetterOffice.com is through search engine optimization. I spend a lot of time trying to ensure I get some good quality (unpaid) links pointing to my site. One of my goals was to be on as few “resource” or “links” pages as I could be. While it’s fine to have a link on one of these pages, it’s typically much better if it’s on a different page. I won’t go into why except to say those links are too watered down.
Anyway, I would take a “resource” link if that was my option, but I always try to talk people I’m working with to put links to my site in other places on their sites.
Well, despite my best efforts, I did get my first resource page link. I’m happy with it because there are only a few other resources on the page, and it’s from one of the best sites in the industry.
No complaints here. Check it out:
http://www.corporateofficecenters.com/links.php
A few months ago I ran into a new website called Downsize Your Office while researching office space related websites. At the time, it was unfinished and had a number of articles from aBetterOffice on it. Since then it has taken shape and focuses on providing helpful content about how companies can save money by, you guessed it, downsizing their office space footprint.
The concept of downsizing an office continues to gain steam, and the executive suite industry is in a great position to capitalize on the idea. The biggest obstacle remains, however. How can executive suites sell the idea to large enterprise? I used to work in the printer industry and for the last 5 years the push has been to sell services rather than merely printers and related supplies. Huge dedicated sales and sales engineer teams have been deployed to help companies understand that by managing their “fleet” of printers, they can save millions.
In order for the executive suite industry to capitalize, it’s got to mobilize a sales team to aggressively go after this type of business. Unlike the printer industry, where there are several multi-billion dollar companies with tremendous resources and salespeople with experience in selling multi-million dollar contracts to large enterprise, the executive suite industry has only one giant and even they are much smaller than the Xeroxes, HPs and Lexmarks of the world. This will make it tough for the movement to gain traction.
But, I’m not doubting the industry can do it. It’s just a big obstacle, and it’s going to take a long time. I’d keep my eye on Regus, Pacific Business Centers, ABCN and all the large e-brokers (and probably some others) as companies who can get around the obstacle.
Austin Centre Executive Suites is a new serviced office space in Austin, TX. From what I can tell, it replaces AustinSuites, which has moved to 700 Lavaca (this info is not comfirmed yet).
This business center at 701 Brazos St. is owned by commercial real estate firm T. Stacy & Associates. We see and hear this trend happening more often, where real estate firms are taking over management of executive suites after the exit of a previous operator, or unleased blocks of space are being converted. I expect to see more of this continue.
I recently started following a newbie to the office suite world on Twitter (@smartoffice). By the looks of their website, it seems they know a bit about marketing and design. I’m excited to see photography, and hopefully video, of their offices. The name of the company is Smart Office of Texas, the soon-to-be-newest office space in San Antonio!
Regus Launches New Website
New site is fine, but not a vast improvement. The two best things they’ve done is put their offerings as the top navigation elements. Other one is focus on their customer set in the showcase on the home page. Those two things are important. The thing I don’t understand is the fact they have moved the locator tool to a low visibility position. I think this is their highest ROI element on the site. Location, location, location… help your users find your 1000+ locations.
