The kitchen table agency — a post-Corona business model for the creative industries
If you’re reading this while working from home, then I’ve a suggestion for you — stop working for someone else and start your own home-based business.
My suggestion is particularly directed to those of you who, like me, work in the commercial creative industries — designers, web developers, marketers, video makers, illustrators, photographers, copywriters, events professionals and the like. And it applies to freelancers as well as to staffers.
I have a further suggestion. Your business should be of a particular type — a kitchen table agency.
No office, no staff
A kitchen table agency is the next step on from being freelance. It means working from your kitchen table — or your back bedroom, garden shed or favourite café — and employing a team of remote-working freelancers rather than salaried staff.
The idea that coronavirus has any kind of silver lining may seem massively far-fetched, but the enforced switch to home working will very likely mark the start of a more widespread and permanent shift. In simple terms, it begs the question — why work at home for somebody else? Once you’ve proved the concept of home working, why not use it as the basis for your own business?
The fact is that the advantages are too numerous for this particular genie to be shoved back in the bottle.
A business model for our times
For too long the view that our work should be convenient, enjoyable and in balance with the rest of our lives has been in conflict with the concept of work being all about delivering effective results. The received wisdom — a hangover from the factory system––was that you can have one but not the other.
Kitchen table agencies help resolve the conflict. They take the reality of home working and leverage its benefits to offer a business model that should enable the creative industries to thrive in the post-Corona world.
A port in the storm
The trend towards this model has been emerging across the creative professions for a few years, as people like designers, developers, marketers and content specialists have realised the sense in setting up small agencies.
However, the looming global economic crisis should rapidly accelerate the trend, because it makes the case for kitchen table agencies even stronger. There are two reasons why. The first is that freelance creatives will recognise that, by being able to service far more clients than they could when flying solo, they have a degree of insurance against any drop in demand. The second is obvious: since they have low overheads, kitchen table agencies can price their services competitively — which will be a massive draw to cash strapped clients.
Your flexible friend
Price though is not the only driver. Flexibility is also key. I’ve spoken to scores of kitchen table agency founders and invariably it was their desire for a flexible working life that drove them to start the business. No surprise there.
But here’s the interesting bit. Very often the key attraction for clients is that kitchen table agencies put flexibility at the core of their service. In my experience, this is usually in at least one of three ways.
The first is by positioning themselves as a resource that can be turned on and off in line with clients’ demands and budgets. This is a big draw for clients with unpredictable workflows who wish to avoid shelling out on retainers.
The second is by offering to embed freelancers within the clients’ in-house team. Here they score over recruitment agencies with their high fees and (all too often) pushy sales techniques.
The third is the ability to quickly locate and deploy specialist talent. Many kitchen table agencies have perfected the art of sourcing experts for niche projects — a challenge with which both clients and conventional agencies often struggle.
The happiness thing
While competitive pricing and flexibility are obvious advantages, for me the biggest one lies in a simple truth: if you build your working life around your personal priorities and hire freelancers who do the same, then you — and they — will be happier.
And, as everyone bar the most Neanderthal of employers knows, people do their best work when they are happy. This simple equation counters the common perception that kitchen table agencies can’t compete with bricks and mortar agencies on quality.
The wider benefits
What of the wider benefits? One big one is that kitchen table agencies can utilise the skills of people who are too often locked out of conventional employment structures, such as parents of young children, people with disabilities and the geographically isolated.
Then there’s the obvious environmental benefit: more home working equals less commuting equals a reduced carbon footprint. And what could be more important than that?
If you’re currently weighing up the pros and cons of being forced to work from home why not make the leap to starting your own agency and turn a temporary fix into a permanent solution. Who knows, by helping to swell the small army of happy workers you might just provide a very modest boost to public mood.
And, let’s face it, right now every little helps.
(For more help with starting and growing your KitchenTable agency take a look at my book The KitchenTable Method and my online course on Teachable — free extracts of which are available here. I shall soon be launching The KitchenTable Community, which will be a virtual community and marketplace for small creative agencies.)
