Name: Sofia Babenkova

Year: Senior

Majors: Economics, Russian and Eastern European Studies

Minor: Business Institutions

CFS Program: Business Field Studies

Employer: Level Office

Level Office is a real-estate company that provides coworking spaces for startups and small companies. It is a startup itself, opening its first doors in Chicago in 2013. 5 years later there are 23 locations across the country and many more set to open this year. What allows them to be successful is the fact that they are the owners and operators of their own buildings which allows them to keep prices low and office spaces open to customization.

Working at Level Office has been a blast! There are five total marketing interns – four of us are from Northwestern and one is from Kent State. We’ve each been in put in charge of one or two markets and been told to go forth and find clients for their office space. While some direction was given, it’s been really interesting to develop our own strategies and see what works and what doesn’t. We work directly under, and in the same office as, the National Sales Manager which gives us a really interesting insight into the workings of the company on a national scale.

The most thrilling part of the internship so far actually happened last week. Level Office recently bought a building in Minneapolis. The first floor is completed so some office space is available but there are four more floors that are currently under construction. While it seems obvious that it is hard to “pre-lease” office space when clients cannot view the actual space they will be occupying, employees were starting to get worried that this would be a struggling market due to lack of interest. However, bright and early on Wednesday morning we got a call from a potential client who said, “Our coworking space is shutting down. They just told us today and we have to be out by the upcoming Tuesday. Can I please come in and see your space immediately?” So here we were, a brand-new building with lots of space and a competitor who was shutting down, leaving all their clients flocking to us. My manager booked a flight to Minnesota immediately to help deal with the sudden influx of leads and in the following two days made six sales which grew to eight by the time the start of the following week. For reference, usually the goal is to sell 4-5 offices a month. Opportunities like this don’t happen often and it was really interesting to be present on Wednesday to see how everyone scrambled together to pursue as many people as possible.

I’m really looking forward to see what the second half of this internship brings.