In this episode, Mark and I Discuss:
- What does leadership mean?
- Who is a leader?
- What does it mean to lead?
- How do we lead through times of crisis when we feel like we are in early leadership stages?
- What are your favorite sources of leadership development and inspiration?
For the full show notes Click Here
In this episode, Mike and I Discuss:
- Global coworking space revenue vs. March 2020
- Global meeting room revenue vs. March 2020
- Creative approaches operators are taking to replace meeting room revenue
- Technology operators are using to create super simple and safe meeting room reservations
- High tech and low-tech ways to signal safety to members as they come back to the space
For the full show notes Click Here
In this episode, Craig and I Discuss:
- The 2019 GWA Industry Benchmark Survey
- Overview of respondents and how that might impact the data (size, years in business)
- The value of benchmarking data for operators trying to get a sense of how to model out a coworking pro forma
- How might our view of this data be impacted by COVID-19?
- How might product mixes shift going forward vs. what we see in the survey results?
- Membership tenure by product type (coworking, dedicated desk, office)
- What the data says about marketing tactics and the relative effectiveness
For the full show notes Click Here
We are living through some character-building times. Some of you have experienced great loss and devastation this year living through COVID-19 and the senseless loss of black lives.
We are all processing 2020 in our personal lives. As business owners, we are often in leadership positions because of our visibility and role in content creation and dissemination. We shape communities, cultures and content. Like it or not, members in our community are watching us and some are following us.
This is a time of great reflection on our role as leaders.
Enerspace Palo Alto is closing on May 31 (unrelated to COVID-19).
What a milestone.
But you should know I'm one of those crazy people that craves change and big problems to solve.
I also look forward to more focus on serving YOU.
In this episode, I share 10 lessons that I've learned over the last 8 years as a coworking space owner.
I am a Donald Miller junkie. He is the author of the Storybrand framework which I would describe as "life changing." One of my Coworking Startup School students named her dog after him. No joke.
Donald Miller talks about "Internal and External" problems. He argues that our businesses might be designed to solve "external" problems (i.e, I need an office), but we humans hit the "buy button" to solve internal problems (i.e., I feel more professional when I have an office to go to.).
I want to challenge you to not forget about the internal problems we solve when you're talking to potential customers. It's easy to get caught up in the challenges of de-densification and health and safety protocols. But the humans have needs beyond avoiding germs. That's what they're showing up to solve.
By this time, you've probably watched your share of webinars about the impact of COVID-19 on commercial real estate. They are generally helpful but likely a bit high-level and still leave you wondering...but what do I actually need to DO?
Mara Hauser has a unique super-power. She owns a commercial interiors design firm and is CEO of 25N Coworking with locations around the U.S.
This combination of expertise and her no-nonsense style created her "Back to Business" guide for coworking spaces.
For the full show notes click here.
Are you thinking about starting a coworking space or managing through this crazy season and wondering if you should continue with your expansion plans?
In this episode, I go through a SWOT Analysis of the coworking industry. I review the "internal" strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats based on a wide range of inputs from industry players.
My conclusion? Have a listen!
Charlie Morris is the Practice Leader for Flexible Office Solutions team at Avison Young. We talk about:
- Avison Young's approach to serving their constituencies with flexible office solutions.
- What the transition period will look like for both flexible office users and operators?
- What the "new normal" look like for both flexible office users and operators.
- The success factors for operators surviving the COVID-19 global pandemic.
- Activating closer relationships between operators and asset owners.
For the full show notes Click Here
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
Resources Mentioned in this Podcast:
Navigating the SBA loan application process for a coworking space can be challenging. Amanda Lewan, co-founder of Bamboo Detroit and Hasan Mirjan, founder of SpherePad and then SphereMail, share tips for success based on their own experience.
For the full show notes click here
Interested in learning more about taking your community digital (and monetizing it?)
- Jessica shares Groundswell’s experience pivoting to an online, digital membership the second her doors closed. The digital membership levels mirrored her physical membership tiers, but added unique value to her members beyond the one-size-fits-all Zoom webinars model.
- How Jess knew where to start and how to act quickly to make a transition from physical to virtual.
- Why this is the perfect time to craft and test a digital membership
- How digital memberships can help you to serve more entrepreneurs without expanding your physical space.
- Why scaling doesn’t HAVE to look like additional physical locations.
Grab our resources at coworkinggoesdigital.com!
For the full show notes click here
If you are working on opening a coworking space, the single most important step you can take to ensure your success is to determine very precisely the profile of your target member. If you do that, and then make all following decisions based on that profile, then you are set up for success.
If you already operate a coworking space, your target member has been tested. This is a great time to ask yourself:
Have you attracted your target member or sort of a mish-mash of profiles? Are you happy with your membership make-up? Or is this an opportunity to clarify your target member and re-enter the market with a crystal-clear offering and messaging? Is your target member as profitable as you need them to be to make your business sustainable?
For the full show notes click here
Stew grew up near Seattle with a love of working on cars...but not outside in the driveway during rainy season....and storing all the tools was becoming an issue...so he created Stew's Self-Service Garage.
Stew’s Self Service Garage is your oasis in the middle of an auto repair desert. Fix your car yourself, save money, and Be Your Own Mechanic!
Stew shares his story, details about his business model and his plans for the future.
For the full show notes click here
This episode talks about:
Larry's case studies of the purpose-driven ecosystems he's helped to facilitate in Chicago, are some of the most inspiring stories I've heard yet around the significant outcomes that can be achieved by bringing the right communities of people together.
For the full show notes click here.
It's important to continue the conversation on the Coronavirus. Let's talk about:
For the full blog post that corresponds with this episode, click here.
Don is an OG in the coworking world. He co-founded COCO Coworking and Fueled Collective.
He's now working on select strategic projects, one of them being the Pro platform offered by LIquidSpace.
More large employers are embracing coworking, but they don't approach their space search the same way that small businesses do.
Someone in corporate real estate may place 20 teams across the country. They need a one-stop platform to find space for all of their needs vs. working one-to-one with independent operators.
LiquidSpace Pro aggregates independent operators, giving them access to the enterprise demand and making it easy for the enterprise customers to find great, local space for their employees.
Flip Howard ran a dry cleaning business at SMU out of an executive suite office. He thought that business looked a lot more interesting than the dry cleaning business.He sold that business to the guy that went on to create Tom's shoes!
Today Flip has over 20 locations and 70 employees, including several "lifers" to whom he credits much of the brands success. "The team is everything," Flip declared in our conversation. He shares his team structure both at the location level and centrally.
Flip also shares his experience surviving 2 recessions and a recent re-brand. He also shares his unique approach to winning in a crowded Dallas market.
For the full show notes click here.
When operators/owners hire Community Managers, they have often been running the space themselves for some time and get really anxious about replacing themselves with someone who cares as much as they do about the business.
One way to align interests is to create a bonus structure that rewards the community manager based on revenue, or memberships closed. On this episode, I consider the Community Manager role and determine what type of compensation structure aligns well with the responsibilities of the typical Community Manager.
Selling 5/10 Day membership passes can be dangerous to your coworking business...specifically your bottom line.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why we are tempted to sell uber flexible memberships
- The math that makes them dangerous
- When there's a time and a place for very "light" membership options
For the full show notes click here.
Dan Zakai has been busy. He co-founded the first Mindspace location in 2014 and has grown the brand to 30 locations across multiple countries over the past 6 years.
He shares:
- His vision for the business as they opened their first location and how that's evolved
- How he thinks 2020 will play out for the coworking industry
- What it's like to operate a team across multiple countries
- How Europe and the U.S. coworking markets are different
- How they are leveraging management agreements to continue their profitable growth
- And more...
View the full show notes here
What's the goal of focusing on the right things in your coworking business in 2020?
1. Get more members
2. Keep more members
3. Make a bigger impact and meet your financial goals
In this episode, Jamie Russo provides a detailed walkthrough of the five things you can focus on in your business this year to get results.
1. Creating systems in your business that help you to consistently hit the fundamentals that drive your business forward
2. Training and developing your team so that you can work "on" the business while they work "in the business," and so that you can support their professional development and retain your strong team, longer.
3. Getting found first! Consistently focusing on local search will help you get found first so that you can get potential members through your door and wow them with your tour.
For the full show notes click here
Kevin Whelan's goal is to help coworking spaces get full, faster.
Kevin leverages his deep marketing and industry expertise to share his advice on how we can drive greater success by starting with the basics and following a consistent process in designing our marketing plans.
Kevin walks through his 5 step framework. We talk about the temptation to take the "fire, aim, ready" approach in our businesses and how that's sometimes OK if we circle back and root ourselves in a consistent process.
Make sure to access Kevin's interactive marketing plan worksheet at www.everspaces.com/plan.
Jamie Orr co-founded Cowork Tahoe in 2014. After buying a building, expanding that space and settling into life as a coworking space operator in South Lake Tahoe, a town of 30,000 and home to Heavenly Mountain, a Vail Resort, she decided that she wasn't satisfied with her abiity to serve her members with the coworking technology then available.
Drawing from her Silicon Valley roots, she decided to design and build a new app to suit her vision. She found a CTO in a Cowork Tahoe member (talk about serendipty!) and they launched the beta at the end of 2018.
In this episode, she talks about how her mobile-first app allows her to serve her members and gives her more flexibility as an operator, and how she's going out on a limb to serve the niche coworking operators that offer childcare services.
Some community evolves through serendipitous interactions. Most community is facilitated and intentionally developed. Hosting the right member events is one of the best ways that we can help our coworking communities develop meaningful, authentic relationships.
In this episode, I go through a framework for developing your member events program including when to host events and what to host in order to drive maximum participation.
For the Full Show Notes Click here