Sistas should always remember the sky is the limit and she should keep on pressing on because she can have what she want and be what she want. One of the biggest advantages in Atlanta for a sistas to make boss moves is the availability of skyscraper Class B suites in the Atlanta downtown area to establish business models practiced in global urban centers like New York, Chicago, Tokyo and Hong Kong and apply what works here in Atlanta.
We are going to talk about how sistas can establish entrepreneurial operations within a skyscraper and the best business models we think she should look into further. Now if you think about it – what are the advantages of being in a skyscraper? Well, you sistas cannot have a white van full of thug smash and grab your inventory on the 37th floor, huh? Your customers are amazed going downtown and have validated parking and take the elevator up to your 48th floor pad with an overlooking view of the city and the landscape – prep them up for the sale. And the biggest advantage is a sista can stand next to the window of her 58th floor office, sip her coffee and curl a smile as she look down on all the little people walking on the sidewalk and think about the people in her life who didn’t want to see her rise to this level of the game.
Patterns and Practices of a Skyscraper Business Model
When you think of upstart entrepreneurs who get a downtown office, these people just paying for a desk and a plush chair and a feeling of being important. You sistas do not want this fronting lifestyle from a skyscraper office space – what you sistas want to do is maximize that space for business and make transactions and deals happen and that means you convert that office space as a place where business is done in a way that respect the skyscraper way of doing business. So let’s talk about the elements of the skyscraper business model you want to consider.
Offer Services For Other Entities. This is where you use the office space to sell products on behalf of other merchants and entrepreneurs. You are not subleasing but you are using the office space to host products and services and they pay you to be hosted at your pie in the sky location.
Provide the “Wow You Doing Good Girl!” Effect. You sistas want an office that has a nice view and lots of floor-to-ceiling windows that show the outside downtown activity. So when a customer walk into the lobby and the person downstairs greet them and they up on the elevator to the suite and they come into your office space, they feel like they been transported up to somewhere special.
Mobile-Driven Interactions. You sistas can take advantage of mobile technology and mobile commerce creating HTML5 mobile web sites allowing potential clients to book appointment times to come visit your office and use a micro-ticketing system. So instead of random people popping up at your office, you do like the medical office and people come in who have appointments. This also allow you to setup a limit to make sure your office is not overcrowded and also make sure you know who shows up and when and more important, you are a good tenant in the skyscraper.
The Top 5 Skyscraper Business Models
The sistas should realize the business models we are presenting are already done all over the world but not so much in the USA but these business models proven to be a success. This is a great opportunity for sistas to take advantage of skyscrapers and establish these kind of business models while most of the office space in Atlanta is priced low. I really prefer downtown Atlanta due to the mass transit station and abundance of parking and you also know I prefer the Peachtree Center although there are other skyscrapers in Atlanta that works just as well. Okay sistas let’s talk about our favorite skyscraper business models.
Digital Coupon Redemption Model. This is similar to the Groupon Store model we profiled on this blog that was set in a high rise in Hong Kong near their Times Square. What a sista can setup is a web site that promote offers and tickets and events and people can pick up their tickets or small gifts or deals from the office. Or provide samples and swag bags as promotional materials to loyal users. The sista can regulate foot traffic on how many people per hour can come up the elevator through an appointment booking system via mobile phone. To me, this buy online/pickup service positioned in a skyscraper is a beautiful clienteling experience that a customer will appreciate. And at the end of the day, all this business model mostly need is some $150 Samsung laser printers to print out the coupons or use the Kinko’s over on Courtland or in the Equitable building to create custom coupon packaging.
Physical Presence for Digital Brands. You take the office space and place nice flat-panel touch screens and a table touch display and kiosks to promote specific web sites for a fee. So if someone is launching their web site and want everyday people to learn about their web site in a physical environment, you sistas offer a service that present their web site to people in Atlanta, show everyday people how to use the web site and sign up customers to the web site for a commission fee. Web sites can book a day or week to host their web site in your office and promote people to come visit your office to learn about their web site and probably receive a free gift. This is a huge opportunity and will work for bank web sites, mobile payment web sites or web sites that use mobile technology like QR codes and NFC and how to use it.
Luxury Cube Shop. You create a luxury cube shop where you charge merchants to host their products in cubes and you have walls of cubes along the wall and a place for people to browse and purchase merchant products. This is not the glass panels cube shops you see in China and Southeast Asia, but cherry wood museum quality cube displays. These products can also be listed on an e-commerce web site where a mobile customer can buy online and pick up later and they can browse other products in the cubes while they are there. You sistas charge for rental, charge handling fee for payment processing and fulfilment and also have an appointment schedule feature for the e-commerce BOPIS to establish the best time to pick up the product to avoid crowds. Please note that the Global Urban Collective on Facebook had a preview of the next generation of cube shops and we will talk about this later.
Clienteling Fulfillment. A while ago, we talked about the rash of diamond store robberies because diamond stores were popping up like hair weave shops during the late-2000s and being targeted. In that article, I explained the best move is like the diamond district and jewelry row model in big urban areas where if you want a real diamond, you don’t talk to the guy at the bottom store, you take the elevator up to the 37th floor where you are in a lush office and meet a high-clientele sales staff to deliver the high value product. Well, this is the same thing a sista can do, use the office space to sell products and deliver it in person in the office – set appointments on the mobile phone and bring them in to close the sale. It could even be a subscription service product but the treatment of a customer feeling special is priceless and they will stay a customer just for that experience.
BYOD Instructional Courses. The goal of running courses is the same as throwing parties, you focus on the number of people who can show up and maximize the time between the customers. So 12-20 downtown workers paying $275 for a two-day course on how to manage grocery shopping and couponing and that adds up to $4,000 to $5,000 per class and you can run several 90 minute classes a day. That will definitely pay rent and pay instructors salaries and then even better. You can run this operation on a BYOD (bring your own device) and students can activate with a serial code to a web site to start the course. (Bonus: offer USB power bank rental add-on) Think of those DUI courses and how much money they be making per AA session and you sistas can run the same kind of collaborative meetings where people are paying for different courses. In addition, you sistas can consider online courses that can be taken and show up just a day and sign up more people to the office. Do not be a dummy like the HBCUs and sleep on online education and the potential for thousands of students taking your courseware from around the world.
How Sistas Should Approach Skyscrapers Business Models in Atlanta.
Now that we talked about how you sistas can establish skyscraper business models and the concepts to incorporate, you sistas may want to think how you can approach this opportunity. One of the things we want sistas to do first is consider running a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to obtain a skyscraper space. Another thing is to write a proposal to the operators and financiers of many of the downtown Atlanta skyscrapers like Banyan Street for example who operate the Peachtree Center Mall and propose the new concept you want to bring. Around the world in Europe and Asia, many commercial property owners are giving space to startup entrepreneurs to create a culture and cluster hub and eventually develop long term tenants. It’s time for these commercial property owners in Atlanta to wake up and realize this trend of creating hub spaces and stop thinking someone out there is going to come to downtown Atlanta and spend $43/square foot because that just ain’t going to happen like that.
The takeaway is for sistas to not think of commercial real estate as an office where she have a desk and office chair and look at ways to use that “office space” as a place to do business in a way that interact with small spaces and mobile devices that allow you to leverage skyscrapers as spaces in the sky to conduct your business. What we can do in Atlanta is identify the commercial real estate owners in Atlanta and view the space they got and research the vacancy and propose these new models and rates and look for underwriters as well as crowdfund a pioneer sista to try it out first. So the sistas can definitely look into transforming the skyscraper office model into a manageable place to do business in Atlanta and be that diva in the sky running her own thing like a boss.
Resources for the Atlanta Skyscraper Sistas
Curbed Atlanta – http://atlanta.curbed.com – commercial real estate news and opportunities in Atlanta
Bizspace – http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/bizspace – commercial real estate listings