To Staff or Not to Staff. That is the question we explore in this episode.
Here’s what we dive into:
Staffed vs. Unstaffed Spaces: Why might an operator choose to run a space without staff? What are the trade-offs?
Real-Life Experiences: Hear about operators that successfully operate unstaffed spades.
Coffee Culture: Learn creative ways to manage coffee service in unstaffed coworking environments—because let’s face it, coffee is the lifeblood of productivity!
Hybrid Models: Explore how some coworking spaces are blending staffed and unstaffed models to maximize flexibility and efficiency for their members.
Decision-Making Tips: Get practical advice on choosing the right model for your coworking space based on target audience, location, budget, and long-term goals.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
You love a little extra revenue...flex memberships are hard to sell, so you're happy to have a little more buzz in the space with the day passers...but day passers can be high maintenance, it can be challenging to make sure they have a great experience, and sometimes it feels like they are more work than they're worth.
Day passes create the ultimate flexibility for the commitment-phobic user. So if you offer them at an attractive price, you might get repeat day pass users who never upgrade to a recurring membership, helping you to sleep a little easier at night.
Who does not offer them?
Lucid Private Offices
Gather
Here are a few tips to encourage day passers to upgrade to recurring memberships:
Raise the price of your day pass. If the daily rate of your lowest recurring membership is not significantly less than your day pass, you won't get your day pass users to upgrade. There's both a monetary cost and a mental cost to committing to a recurring fee. You have to make it attractive enough to overcome that resistance.
Create a more compelling "fence" between your day pass and a recurring membership. If you don't want to encourage repeat day pass purchases, don't give them the benefits of membership.
Run periodic promotions to create urgency and scarcity. Humans generally operate on inertia. You have to give them a really compelling reason to change their behavior. Encourage the upgrade by offering new-members-only promotions with a compelling discount on a recurring membership for a short period. You could put a minimum membership commitment on the promo such as 3 months, to avoid having day passers upgrade for one month only.
And if the admin cost of offering day passes is just too high, don't do it.
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space