So I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Orlando right now, thinking I need a military firing range to get some peace and quiet to get some work done. I’m on a working vacation this week and have tried several different local coffee shops and this Starbucks, but I haven’t had great luck.

Compared to even the mediocre coffee shops in Indianapolis, I realized not every coffee shop gives a crap about their customers, let alone the returning ones. If I lived here in Orlando, I can imagine I would be on a months-long quest to find a decent coffee shop where I would want to spend several hours at a time. I thought I had a winner with one — gorgeous decor, nice ambience, and it was quiet — but the wifi was nonexistent (something about Macs not being able to interface properly with their router). I turned to a Starbucks as a last resort, but was bombarded with the same Starbucks experience: too loud, snail-slow wifi, and bitter coffee.

My good friend and fellow entre-commuter, Kelly (r), at my favorite coffee shop, Hubbard & Cravens.

Entre-commuters (telecommuting entrepreneurs) often work from coffee shops for their meeting, turning a small two-top table into a desk for the day. And the good ones pay for the privilege, spending office rent money on coffee instead. For those of us who entre-commute even a few times a week, finding a good coffee shop can mean days, weeks, and months of rabid loyalty, which can turn into hundreds of dollars a month, and a few thousand in a year, from a single customer. Returning and loyal customers are often the lifeblood of many small independent coffee shops.

Here are five ways coffee shops can earn ongoing business from entre-commuters.

1. Turn down the damn music! Most Starbucks blast their music at concert-level volumes. I’ve got my earbuds on in this one, and it’s still painfully loud. The music should be the backdrop to the coffee shop experience, and not the reason we’re here. It’s not a freaking concert. For entre-commuters who want to have meetings in coffee shops, they don’t want to do it where they have to shout to be heard.
2. Have wifi system accessible by all operating systems. I occasionally run into coffee shops whose routers can’t handle Macs. “Something about the Mac’s security codes don’t quite line up with the router,” say the baristas. Many of the entre-commuters I see have Macs. While it’s not an even 50/50 split, there are enough freelancers and small business owners who use Macs that you’re alienating a big part of your audience by not giving them access.
3. Have a wifi system that doesn’t choke when more than three people are on it. Most wifi systems can handle more than a few people, but if your system gets hung up when more than four users are online, you need more bandwidth. Otherwise, you’ll only ever have more than a few users in your store. The wifi system at my favorite coffee shop doesn’t start bogging down until 12 or so people are on it, and even then, it only gets slow. It doesn’t stop.
4. Have a meeting room or place where people can get a little privacy. The coolest meeting room setup I ever saw was at a Starbucks in Louisville. It was a refurbished community bank, and they kept the two meeting rooms. They set up a program where people could reserve the room for $50. They would then receive a $30 coffee card to share with their guests. Another Indianapolis coffee shop, South Bend Chocolate Company, has a meeting room they just share for free, on a first come, first serve basis. Both places are regular stops for businesspeople who need a casual meeting place.
5. Have a lot of power plugs for laptops. If people don’t have a place to power up, they won’t hang out. The good coffee shops have a power plug every few feet. The bad ones make 20 people share one plug. With some basic rewiring, or even creative use of some power strips, they can give laptop users a place to plug in and recharge while they get work done. I know a lot of people who avoid certain coffee shops because they don’t have any public plugs.

While some coffee shops may want to avoid the entre-commuter crowd, they aren’t looking at the big picture. A good entre-commuter should spend around $4 every couple hours, dropping $8 – $10 in 4 – 5 hours. These regulars are worth $50 per week, $2500 per year. Having a group of regulars who are each responsible for $2,500 a year should be the goal of the owner of any decent coffee shop.

To be fair, entre-commuters also need to learn to be respectful of the coffee shop owners who need to turn tables in order to turn a profit. Spend enough money to justify your taking up the table for several hours, or go get an office. Practice good entre-commuter etiquette.

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One of the things I love about Indianapolis is the business cooperation, especially among the small businesses and entrepreneurs. I saw a lot of this when several of us would get together at The Bean Cup in Greenwood for a Mobile Work Day.

I didn’t get there as often as I wanted, and we didn’t call it a Mobile Work Day, but I did get to spend some time with Doug Karr, Jason Bean, James Paden, and Stephen Coley of Brandswag.

It’s actually an efficient way to work. Many times I learned about new information, heard about new services and best practices, and even got some help fixing a couple problems that had plagued me for months. It was also a way to strengthen friendships and working relationships. I have a few more people I feel comfortable calling for help and/or referring business to.

Since then, I’ve tried to start up Mobile Work Days in other areas of town. I’ve had them at Gourmet Grounds of Geist in Fishers, and Hubbard and Cravens in Broad Ripple. While attendance has been small, the idea has been embraced by the social media pros and entrepreneurs in the area. I think Mobile Work Days may be a new way of doing business and boosting our local economy.

So we’re going to try to make this a real thing, a real way of doing business.

What is a Mobile Work Day?

A Mobile Work Day (#MobileWorkDay) is where entrepreneurs and small businesspeople hang out in a local coffee shop and get some work done with other entrepreneurs and SMBs.

We pick local coffee shops, as opposed to Starbucks, for a number of reasons:

1. Free wifi. None of this paid wifi or AT&T crap. I know some Starbucks now offer free wifi, but that’s because the locals have been doing it for years.
2. The coffee is better. ‘Nuff said.
3. Local shops are more conducive to groups. A lot of the locals have tables you can shove together for groups of 6 or more. At the Bean Cup, we would sometimes take up half their tables and have 16 – 20 people working together in one long row of tables. Unfortunately, they may have had the biggest seating available, so that option may be lost to us.
4. Money you spend at local shops come back to the community. When you spend $1 at a local shop, $.40 stays in the area. When you spend $1 at a Starbucks, only $.13 stays.

There are no rules or expectations for what you work on, how long you stay, or when you show up or leave. Our only request is that you spend some money at the place. Get a cup of coffee and a refill, or a latte and a muffin. Buy some lunch and a water. Just make it worth the coffee shop’s while for having us take up some tables for a few hours.

Ultimately, Mobile Work Days are good for the community. Hosting one at a local coffee shop helps their business, and it boosts our own local economy by supporting local merchants. Besides, if we want local support for our own businesses, we need to support them. If you’re an entrepreneur who has meetings at big chains, don’t be surprised if your local community can’t or won’t support you in return.

Our next Mobile Work Day is Thursday, November 19 at Hubbard & Cravens at 6229 Carrollton Rd., in Broad Ripple. We’ll start at around 8:30 or 9:00, and go until about 4:00 or 5:00.

We’ll start holding these on the 3rd Thursday of every month, and we’ll try to come up with some different places to hold it. If you have any suggestions, let me hear them. Our criteria is free, reliable wifi, the ability to hold a group of at least 10 mobile professionals while still taking good care of their regular crowd.

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