Ooh it’d be great to get some community feedback on this – Zarir 'Zed' Vakil, Alex Pitt, Jen Whitfield, Caoimhe Kelly, Pete Domican, Saori Okada, Shalaka Laxman, Mike Richardson, Emma Wallace, Nikhil, Y E Leong, Tracey Rob Perera, Nikki Eve Wallis, Duncan Dalzel-Job, Ilaria Vilkelis, Roshana Arasaratnam, Stephen Fleming

Looks broadly right. My thought that we want to prioritise partnerships for products and services that we couldn’t expect to provide from within the membership. Othership is something that we can all benefit from and it’s something that we’re unlikely to be able to conjure up in the near future. However.you can do deals with accountants and lawyers but they’re easily recommendable from within the community if asked and I’d suggest, over time, we should be looking to attract (more?) small business accountants and employment lawyers into the community who could easily cover 80-90% of member normal needs. Straight forward products like software/apps where we can get a discount are obviously welcome.

Hello Alan, this is a great idea.

I use co-working at least 50% of the time and feel like I could find an accountant that’s a better fit and cheaper based on how much work they actually do.

Do enough members have a need for Virtual Assistants? Particularly if specialising in portfolio career tasks. My issue is finding a good fit for each of the varied tasks.

More generally, two things spring to mind.

One is a flexible package of the sort of tools/services you describe above, tailored to a few of TPC’s regular member-types, if that exists.

The other is a general coaching/mentoring/business advice service that provides entry-level general advice that could help members understand what sort of specific advice they need, and where to find it.

As with so many services, people are afraid to commit because they don’t know what’s right for them and there is so much coaching to choose from!

A cost-effective starter-pack if you like.

In terms of tools/services to offer, I had a call yesterday with someone marketing a huge WfH London exhibition in November.

The list of exhibitors is a good indication of what’s out there and who it’s aimed at:

https://www.workingfromhomelive.co.uk/exhibitors

If I was looking to grow my home office design business right now then I would definitely consider sharing a small stand. (£4k for 2 days though…)

I second pete and @Duncan on preferred rates co-working access and like the idea of a virtual assistant service. Perhaps there could be two toolkit’s for portfolio professionals – ”starter” and ”advanced” with software/hosting/web tools, etc./subscriptions to services needed at each stage of this journey.