The art of collaboration: land your dream client with Workspace

Designer Solomia Zoumaras signed a creative collaboration with her dream client. Find out how a coaching workshop sparked her success.

It can be a solitary life for sole traders and small businesses. A collaborative working environment and business workshops are the key to building out contacts, finding new avenues of growth and maximising potential. Workspace customer, designer Solomia Zoumaras, has made the most of her studio membership at Brickfields in Hoxton – read about how she took her business from good to great during lockdown after attending a Workspace event hosted by coach Matt Essam. 

It all started with a workshop

Back in February, Solomia popped into the Freelance Freedom Workshop held at Brickfields. The 90-minute coaching workshop hosted by Matt left her feeling inspired and full of hope about her burgeoning product design business. Matt had shared his three key strategies to help established freelancers:

1. Stand out from the competition

2. Get paid what they're worth

3. Find work they love with dream client

But a fortnight later, lockdown hit. Solomia had to hunker down and try to work from home. She remembered Matt's promise at the end of the workshop: a free 30-minute consultation. 

Workspace customer Solomia Zoumaras with her creations, including a “White Pearl” cocktail glass, for her client Coya in Mayfair

He tailored a six-week coaching programme for Solomia, which helped her to identify the projects she cared most about, pitch to her dream clients and fine-tune her existing commissions. Matt also introduced Solomia to hundreds of like-minded freelancers on his private Facebook support group, the Creative Life Club.

Collaborate with others to generate more revenue

Collaboration with other entrepreneurs is key to winning more business, says Matt. Government statistics show that, on average, companies with no employees make less money than those with employees. 

Matt says, “Collaboration offers great opportunities to reflect on your business and hear other people’s challenges – you realise that you’re not alone. When you work on your own it can be quite isolating and it’s often difficult to see the wood for the trees.”

Above: Matt Essam from Freelance Freedom

Therefore, sole traders and small businesses need to compensate for the lack of a team by forging strong links with other entrepreneurs. Solomia says, “The Creative Life Club is really useful: all his members are on there and we share pitches, stories, questions, anything business-related.”

Matt helped Solomia re-discover her love of basketball, a sport she played professionally as a teenager until she quit to attend university. She used her newly-learned skill of “social pitching” to reach out to professional basketball team London Lions on Instagram, and asked other entrepreneurs in the Creative Life Club to help refine her social pitches. 

Through Instagram, Solomia engineered a face-to-face pitch meeting with one of the London Lions’ top execs to suggest modernising their sports trophies, using recycled materials collected from sports games. 

Bring your passion to your work

Solomia brought her love and understanding of the sport and her sustainable ethos to the negotiating table  – winning her a contract to re-design the London Lions’ end of season trophy.

She says, “Matt’s course helped me look back at past memories of things that made me happy. If you can work with people that you share experiences with, it’s a pro. Even after I stopped playing basketball it was still a passion within me. I live to watch [the sport] so to design basketball trophies is a dream come true.

“I remember the squeaky sound of trainers on the courts – I want to bring those sounds alive with a material like a silicone so that when a player holds the trophy they can relate to that, which creates a powerful connection.”

Solomia is back in her studio full time and using her newfound collaborative skills to generate more projects. She says, “There is a sense of community here which is fantastic, the centre managers look after us. They are trying to find new, innovative ways of working around the restrictions.” 

Workspace’s tight-knit community and packed events calendar give you the opportunity to network with other like-minded entrepreneurs and gain valuable business insights. Find out more here about our events that can help you discover your true potential and grow your business. 

Do you work in the creative industry and win business through referrals or direct enquiries? Keep an eye out for Matt’s next free, 90-minute workshop to learn how to attract your dream client and watch his free, 30-minute training video on how to 10X your average project value.   

Find your perfect studio or office at one of our business centres in lively East London, a home for the city’s growing businesses. Lock Studios’ 90 light-filled offices are spread over six floors, which also boast high-spec meeting rooms and communal areas. Mare Street Studios offers uber-cool studios in the heart of Hackney, available furnished or unfurnished with connectivity included, while Brickfields in Hoxton has breakout areas, meeting rooms and award-winning, superfast WiFi throughout the building – so you can work anywhere you like, uninterrupted.

Workspace has properties in over 60 locations across London that offer flexible space and operate safe social distancing and increased hygiene measures. Find the right space for you today.