Last updated on September 5th, 2010 at 06:05 pm

I was recently looking to take on a long term project for a new client that is based in Sheffield, the work would have involved training the clients’ staff over a long period with each course lasting for at least a week and in some cases 2 or 3 weeks at a time.

Because of the distance and the locations involced I decided it would be easier to try and rent some office space near their offices meaning that we could run the training in their area rather than having their staff coming down to Peterborough for a week at a time.  This was both better for the trainees, more cost effective and an awful lot easier to arrange.

So began the task of looking for a meeting room or serviced offices in Sheffield to get prices and availability details.  You may think that this is an easy job with the number of companies that are on the Internet, advertising office space, at least I did to start with.  However, I very quickly realised that many of these firms fell into one of three categories :-

1. They were resellers and that they were all “selling” the same office space
2. They were interested in people that wanted to rent a meeting room for an hour or so
3. They were interested in people that wanted to rent an office for a period of at least a year.

Having spent what seemed like days but was only really hours searching the net for a firm that rented what we wanted I decided to look at hotels to see if they would be willing to block book a meeting room for weeks at a time – I soon discounted this as the cost was too high (it seems that a guaranteed booking for a meeting room for several weeks was not going to get any discounted rates from the hotels that I spoke to, not even if I was going to book some accommodation at the same time).

I was starting to get a little desperate as without the training facilities I could not even start to bid for the work – and it was something that both the prospective client and I had spent many hours discussing and we were both keen to go ahead with.

Imagine my surprise when I was in the area a few days later going to a swimming gala at the Sheffield pool and I drove past the business park and saw an advert for serviced offices.  Making a note of the website address (www.simplyoffices.net) I used the free wi-fi at the pool to look at their website and it seemed that their facilities were just what I was looking for.  The offices are run by a firm of accountants and are set on the ground floor of the office block, is less than a mile from the M1 and has easy access to the city centre.

A quick call to them on the following Monday and I arranged a visit to have a look around.  Terms were discussed – their prices start from £149 per week + VAT and I was able to confirm a price with my prospective client.

Now all I have to do is wait for the decision from the client, ring and book the workspace and put together the training course.