174. The 80/20 Rule Applied to Coworking Businesses

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174. The 80/20 Rule Applied to Coworking Businesses

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything co-working podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host coworking space owner and trend expert. Jamie Russo, Welcome to the everything coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. I'm so glad to have you with me today. I'm so glad to have you a part of this community,

00:00:37 as we say, a Scion era to 2020, it start looking forward to 2021. So I've been on kind of this theme of looking forward to 2021 planning, taking control of your business, being more focused and intentional. So this podcast goes along with that theme, it is about applying the 80 20 rule to your coworking business. And if you're a long-time podcast listener,

00:01:03 I've mentioned this concept a couple of times and I've threatened before. So, you know, I need to do an episode on this topic. So I'm attacking it today. I think this is kind of a high level introduction. I feel like there's a lot we could do with this topic. And I'd love to kind of workshop this with some listeners at some point,

00:01:22 because I bet there are some folks out there who have some really great thoughts on this. I can think of a few people who I know have read the 80 20 book that I'm going to refer to you in a minute. So before we dive into that topic, a couple of things I want to share. If you're working on opening a coworking space,

00:01:39 I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. If you're working on starting a coworking space, I want to share with you three decisions that I see successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. This comes from my very broad network of operators and including those that I've helped start their business.

00:02:03 I've been doing this for about three years now, running my coworking startup school. So I see the process, the mistakes, the learnings, the results that my students make. And I want to share those insights with you. This masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour, which includes Q and a time. If you'd like to join me, please register at www dot everything.

00:02:24 coworking.com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space and like we're talking about a little bit today on the podcast, you're starting to look ahead to 2021. And you're wondering how the heck to plan for such an unknown today. If you're listening on Wednesday, the day this comes out is your last chance to register for the first session of the three-part series.

00:02:50 So if you're listening and it's Wednesday, you still have time drop what you're doing and go to everything. coworking.com forward slash thrive. 2021. The first session is free. If you want to do the full three sessions, you can pay to do that and have access to the recordings and all that good stuff after the workshop is over. And when I say workshop,

00:03:14 it's definitely a workshop. So it's not sort of talking head webinar. We're going to work on your plans for 2021. We're going to do some breakout sessions. We have a couple of guest speakers. We, the agenda is jam packed with action. So we don't have a lot of time for guest speakers, but I'm excited about the couple that we have.

00:03:32 So again, if you're listening to this and you can still register everything, coworking.com forward slash thrive 2021. All right. So let's dive into this topic of the 80 20 rule for coworking spaces. So first I have to share the source of some of this inspiration, which is 80 20 sales and marketing by Perry Marshall. I'm going to link to it in the show notes.

00:04:00 I think this is episode one 74. If you go to everything, coworking.com and scroll down on the homepage, you see the latest podcasts. If you're listening to it after this, I think it's one 74. You can find it. I'm linking to the book on Amazon 80, 20 sales and marketing by Perry. Marshall, raise your hand, send me a note.

00:04:20 If you've read it, I would love to hear from you and love to hear your insights on how you 80, 20 your business. So I'm going to introduce the concept and give some examples, but I would love to hear from you and maybe I'll pose this in the Facebook group. I'm doing also a Facebook live on the topic. Again, it this'll be the day it comes out.

00:04:40 So if you haven't listened to it yet, we're going to have a discussion in the Facebook group at 11 Pacific time, Wednesday, November 11th. And if you miss the Facebook live, you can always go back to Facebook and find that after the fact. Okay? So here's the thing about the 80 20 rule. It's easy to be really busy all day long in a coworking business and not get the right things done.

00:05:09 I think it's even easier to pay your team to be in this space all day and have them not get the right things done. I've definitely been in that camp. We want to think about what, what are the right areas of focus? How much time should you and your team focus on any given priority in a given day or week or month? So let's approach this question using the 80 20 rule.

00:05:38 So the 80 20 rule was originally called the parades principle, which if you've ever taken an economics class, you will learn about the predo principle. It States that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of the consequences come from just 20% of the causes or the vital few in air quotes. My source for that definition is Wikipedia, which I also linked to in the show notes.

00:06:08 If you'd like to check it out, here are some examples, again from Wikipedia that are broad not having to do with coworking, we are going to talk about after we kind of lay the base of what the 80 20 principle is, we will apply it to coworking. So the parades principle also could be seen as applying to taxation in the U S for example,

00:06:30 the top 20% of earners paid roughly 80 to 90% of all federal income taxes in 2000 and 2006. And again, in 2018 in computer science, the parades principle can be applied to optimization efforts. For example, Microsoft noticed that by fixing the top 20% of the most reported bugs, 80% of the related errors in crashes in a given system would be eliminated in baseball.

00:07:02 15% of all the players last year produced 85% of the total wins with the other 85% of the players creating 15% of the wins in healthcare. You can see how this applies to just about everything in the United States. I apologize. Wikipedia seems to be very us focused, at least in this example. And so all the examples are us focused. In one instance,

00:07:31 20% of patients have been found to use 80% of healthcare resources. So 20% of the unhealthy population uses 80% of healthcare resources. Okay. Here's another totally different example. Many video rental shops reported in 1988, going back a little bit here that 80% of revenue came from 20% of videotapes. That probably makes complete sense. And you may have some of your favorites that you watching in 1988,

00:08:05 that 80% of the other video tape shoppers were shopping for. So finally, you can see how the 80 20 rule is super prevalent. Let's apply this to our business. So more relevant to our discussion. It is an Axiom of business management that 80% of sales come from 20% of clients. And I want you to think about your own business and see if that's true.

00:08:36 That may not hold entirely true for coworking, but I can think of some examples. So we might also assume that 80% of our leads come from 20% of our sources. We can say 20% of our members will probably very engaged in our community while 80% will be less. So, and I have been exposed to this 80 20 rule for awhile. I'd never had thought about this one.

00:09:05 I did an interview with Steve King, way, way, way back. Steve King does a lot of like sort of anthropological research in some data-based research, quantitative research, but also qualitative research and coworking spaces. And he and I did an episode about loneliness and how coworking can help solve the loneliness epidemic. But he made this note that we should expect the 80 20 rule when it comes to heavy engagement in community efforts in coworking spaces.

00:09:35 So for those of you who are like, Oh, I do these events and the same people come every time, totally normal. It's the 80 20 rule. And you should keep doing what you're doing because 20% of our members really, really want those events. And the 80% don't care that much, but Steve King pointed this out. We can assume that they appreciate the fact that it's an option and that they will participate sometimes,

00:10:02 or they at least like the fact that there's kind of this community mojo happening. Even if they're not the ones who are coming to all the happy hours and all the potlucks and things like that. We might assume that 20% of our members drink 80% of the coffee. 20% of our virtual male clients might produce 80% of our mail. So I think the 80 20 rule is definitely found in coworking.

00:10:25 And the question I want to pose today is what are the 20% of activities in your coworking business that drive 80% of your results? So I'm going to say that one more time, cause this is what we're talking about for the rest of the episode here. What are the 20% of activities in your coworking business that drive 80% of your results? So in my last episode,

00:10:52 if you haven't listened to it yet, it was kind of a nine step planning approach to 21, which we're going to go through in the workshop that I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, first session is November 12th. And one of the topics that I talked about in that episode was this challenge for entrepreneurs that we love squirrels and spaghetti. We love shiny objects.

00:11:16 We love testing things to see what works and this can be distracting and this can be detrimental to our business. So if it wasn't for the visionary entrepreneur, then we would never open coworking spaces, right. But when it comes to actually running the business, running a business, if you do it really well and focus on the basics that get the results that you want to see can be a little bit boring,

00:11:45 because really it's about doing the same things over and over again and doing them really, really well. Kevin Whelan, he's been on the podcast a couple of times, follow him on LinkedIn. If you don't, he's been posting more on LinkedIn. He used to send a lot of newsletters. I'm sure that's still in his plan, but he's been posting some really great short insights on LinkedIn.

00:12:06 And he mentioned this concept of sticking to the basics, which I think is so critical right now because we feel very desperate and very tempted to test things. And we'll talk about that in a second. So let's say at the highest levels at this, sorry, let's ask ourselves at the highest level, what are your priorities for your coworking space? What are the 20% of activities that drive 80% of your results?

00:12:37 So I'm just going to sort of, you know, draw a line and say, here's what I think are the core activities that drive. Most of our, Results getting more leads, closing, more leads. Retaining members sounds simple. There's a bunch of activity activities that sort of fall into those buckets, but we're going to go through some examples later in the episode,

00:13:01 and you'll see that it's super easy to get distracted from these core activities. Super easy, especially if the owner is a visionary and if you're listening and if you haven't read rocket fuel, Gino Wickman is the author of traction, which talks about the EOS process. And he also wrote rocket fuel. And I only read it recently and it was like, mindblowing you'll know,

00:13:28 you need to read it and know which profile you are. If you're the CEO visionary or the integrator, if you're an integrator, you're going to have a lot less trouble being sort of adherent to these concepts. If you are the visionary CEO, you have the squirrel and spaghetti problem that I talked about in my last episode. So integrators, you might be started nodding your head like,

00:13:53 well, of course, no, I don't get distracted. I know what all my KPIs are and I track them and that's going just fine. So hang in there, listen to the episode. I think you'll get some value out it out of it, even if this is not difficult for you. And you'll have some empathy for others that you work with,

00:14:09 who struggle with this more, maybe a business partner, for example. So as I started to say earlier, I want to circle back on this topic. Before we dive into the details about 80, 20, your coworking business. I want to recognize that right now while I'm recording this. And this is also going to be a blog post because I think there it's,

00:14:29 it's pretty detailed. So I wanted you to be able to reference a detailed version of it. The blog post will be posted shortly after the podcast, probably about a week. My blog posts poster is taking the rest of this week off. So we're gonna have a little delay. I want to recognize during this time we are still managing through a global pandemic.

00:14:52 So right now, many of you are doing everything you can to keep the doors open. And what I want to sort of recognize is that right now you are chasing some long tail air quotes, again, opportunities that might fall out of the 20% rule. So we're trying to sell a few of many different types of memberships. We're trying to sell memberships to a lot of different segments of members.

00:15:18 We're trying to expand our product mix outside of our core offerings. We're trying marketing channels that have never brought in a lot of leads, but right now we'll take all the leads we can get, no matter how much work they take to get I get it, you're doing what you need to do to keep the lights on and to sleep at night. So what I want to encourage you to do is do the 20% activities first.

00:15:43 And this is what Kevin Whelan was talking about in his post on LinkedIn, do not get into a mode where you're throwing spaghetti at a wall, testing something new each week and taking your eye off of your core business drivers. You can chase shiny objects and throw spaghetti at the wall. That should be T so we'll, let's 80 20 that 80% of your time should be spent doing the core things in your business that,

00:16:10 you know, drive results because you've tested them 20% of your time. You can spend chasing shiny objects and testing new things that then may become the 80% of what you do in your business. So it's not neither either or, or never, never have any fun and try new things. It's just make sure that you have your priorities documented that you track them,

00:16:38 and that you're only spending a certain portion of your time. We'll call it 20% experimenting. Okay? So let's 80 20, the 20% of activities that drive 80% of the results in your business. You see why you need to see this in blog format here again are the key activities that drive results in a coworking business and lots of businesses. Of course,

00:17:01 getting more leads, converting more leads, retaining more members. So let's tackle getting more leads. First, what 20% of your lead sources provide 80% of your leads. So this is where I would love some collaboration. And I also would say, there's probably an 80 20 rule here, right? So 80% of coworking businesses are going to operate and line up with this list.

00:17:30 20% are going to be unique and get their leads from other places. So know which camp you're in, or, you know, are you a typical coworking space? And you're gonna fall into the 80% or are you unique? And you're going to fall under the 20%. You're going to have some things that aren't showing up on my list. So here's the list I came up.

00:17:49 Your most of your leads are going to come from these few sources and we probably should 80 20 this list. It may be too long. I have to read the 80 20 marketing book again, your Google, my business listing your website slash SEO search engine optimization, Google ads, Facebook ads, hosting events that align with your ICA and that your IC is your ideal community.

00:18:16 Avatar. What are other sources of leads that you might spend time on that would fall into the 80% bucket? So this is not the 20% of activities that buy, provide most of your results. These are the other activities that we do that get us some results, but not the core drivers of leads, social media posts. I am taking a firm stand that I love that you engage with your community.

00:18:47 And it's a requirement. This is, I put this as number one, because this is the one that slides around for people. And by that, I mean, organic social media, not paid ads because paid ads are in the bucket and Facebook may not work excellently for your business. You have to test it to know if it lands into that 20% Google ads most usually does.

00:19:09 It depends on a lot of things. What market you're in your strategy, et cetera, but you need to be careful with social media because this is most often a vanity metric. We can educate our market. We can do a lot of things with social media, but I want you to remember that any post that you put up for organic reach, you're not paying for reach reaches 10% of your audience.

00:19:33 So if you have a thousand followers, 100 people will see any of your posts and active searching does not happen on social media. So we're not here to argue about social media, but I have to mention why this is on the list of things that probably don't drive actual leads. And I see people say that social media drives lead for them. I'm not sure.

00:19:54 I believe it's well tested as a driver or maybe you're a unique business. And for some reason, people are finding you on social media, sort of word of mouth, tell a friend kind of concept. Of course people can discover you, but most active searching happens on Google, not on Instagram or Facebook. Okay. So that was number one on the list.

00:20:19 We're talking about the other sources of leads that give us some leads, but not most of our leads emailing your marketing list. Of course, I think you should do this for sure, but it's probably not driving most of your leads, member referrals, attending networking events outside of your space, posting flyers, outside of your space, having really great signage.

00:20:41 Again, this may depend on your location. That may be a huge driver for you sponsoring local community events, hosting events that do not align with your ICA community. Co-promotion I E giveaways, which you might be doing on social media. These are all healthy activities, but when it comes to prioritizing your time and the time of your team or the contractors that you're paying,

00:21:07 we need to 80 20 and know where we put our money and our time first. So first we make sure our Google, my business listing our website, our paid ads and hosting events, getting people into the space that align exactly with our core ICA. We do those things. First. We do the social media. We do the emailing, your marketing list,

00:21:31 the member, referral programs, all the other stuff. Awesome. When you can have, when you have time for that, when the first list is optimized, dive into the next ones. But if your website is not optimized, please do not be posting flyers because the leads are always going to come through your Google, my business listing, or your website.

00:21:51 And so if your website and your Google, my list, Google, my business listing are not firing on all cylinders and converting really well into tours. Anything else you're doing? Doesn't matter. So do those first super important, okay. Let's 80 20, our lead conversion. What 20% of activities drive 80% of your conversions. This was harder to 80 20 for me.

00:22:19 So on the 20% of activities that are core, I said, making sure the lead shows up for a tour, giving a great tour. And I do. I love doing sales funnel training because I think it's super core to our business and not something that many of us come to the business, having experience with. I train our community managers in our community manager university,

00:22:42 get this training, which I think is really important. They for sure have probably never been introduced to the concept of a sales funnel and you're probably not training them on it. So sign them up for the community manager university program, if you want them to get exposure to the sales funnel. So the 20% of activities that drive 80% of our lead conversion,

00:23:03 making sure the lead shows up for a tour, sending emails, sending calendar invites, et cetera, giving a great tour. So making sure your team is well-trained on how to deliver a tour. What Questions to ask what the flow is, How to get at the needs assessment of the member, how to make the right offer to them, connecting the potential member with their right membership offer.

00:23:27 It's kind of a, sorry, kind of repeated that with the tour, getting a potential member to come in for a trial day and then your followup communication, which often falls sort of falls off as we get distracted with other 80% non-core activities. And I'm going to give an example of this in a minute. So emails, texts, phone calls. So 20% of the activities that drive 80% of our lead conversion,

00:23:55 making sure the lead shows up for a tour, giving a great tour, connecting the potential member with the right offer, getting a potential member to come in for a trial day that we could argue, whether that's on the list or not, follow-up communication. Other sources of conversion, adding them to our marketing newsletter that may help, you know, sort of longterm they're in the pipeline.

00:24:16 I always also, we train on that in our community manager university. It's just not the first thing you should be doing running retargeting ads. If someone's come in, you can retarget them on Facebook, on Google. Try to stay top of mind with them, get to make, get them to make a decision. And there are other activities that you can do in conversion,

00:24:37 but they're not core. Let's talk about member retention. What 20% of activities drive 80% of our member retention. And remember, it's so much less expensive to retain members than it is to get new members. New members cost money. They cost ad dollars. They cost time. They cost team resources. So retaining members is the most profitable thing that you can do for your business.

00:25:04 And sometimes we forget that when we're focused on getting new members in the door. So especially during this time when we're refilling our spaces, stay focused on member retention. We talk a lot about that in our community manager university as well. What are activities we can do that are safe and socially distance, but that still Connect members. So the 20% of activities that drive member retention members connecting with other members,

00:25:31 members, doing business with other members, making money with other members, members, having positive interactions with the staff and members feeling comfortable or proud to bring clients to the space. Now, again, depending on the type of space you have, that list may look slightly different. Other member retention activities that we might do, but probably aren't core free snacks,

00:25:53 guest speakers, staff, connecting one-on-one with members while they need to have a positive experience. One of the complaints I hear a lot from community managers is that member who just eats all their time, you know, that is not a retention activity that is getting stuck with a member that can't cut themselves off staff, providing services to members, such as booking conference rooms,

00:26:16 printing, et cetera. So we talk a lot about that. Some in our community manager group too, how do we teach our members to fish, right? How do we get them to do the things that be self-sufficient in this space? Because that's not really a retention tool, that's them being lazy. That's what I think anyway. So again, these are all going to be in a blog post on the site.

00:26:38 So you can reference here's, what's important. We've talked about what are likely the 20% of activities that drive 80% of the results in your business. You have to know what these are for your business. You probably can start with these lists and get pretty close. And then you may reorder some things were, were adjust the lists. You should know your KPIs,

00:27:01 which is a key performance indicator and track them so that you can 80 20 your own business. So again, 80% of coworking spaces will probably have the same core business drivers and associated KPIs, but 20% of you will be unique. So document the metrics, that's essentially what a KPI is. What are we tracking? That's really core to our business, document your metrics with the activities that you're using to get more leads,

00:27:29 close, more leads, and retain more members, review those metrics in your weekly team meeting. And in the blog post, I'm going to put a link to our weekly team meeting template. We train on the weekly team meeting in the community manager group. And I should do training for owners because this is such an important activity. If you are trying to have a consistent,

00:27:54 measurable business that gets results. And if your attraction follower, the team meeting is life or death. So if you're just getting started with KPIs or key performance indicators for your business, or if you want to make sure you're not missing any, I have a very, very comprehensive guide. It's a co-working KPI guide that you can download from the website and we'll put the link in the blog post.

00:28:18 It is very comprehensive. So make sure you 80, 20 it to your needs. It's like the kitchen sink and I've debated, I should, I should probably 80, 20 that list and make a version that is 80 20, but it's got all the things on it that you could look at. It's I think it's actually a really great resource. It's got the KPIs and then it has the sources and kind of how you find it and where you can track it in your business.

00:28:43 Okay. So let's talk about some examples of how on paper, this all sounds easy and it, you probably are thinking, yeah, that's what I do in my business. That's how I roll. I totally get it. Sometimes the visionary entrepreneur is not as self-aware as we could be. And that is my profile. I can role as an integrator when I need to.

00:29:07 And I probably used to be an integrator, but I am definitely the, have the squirrel spaghetti problem in a big way. So I'm always, always trying to recognize it and notice when I do these things and these examples are probably things that I've done. So they may sound like silly examples that could come from like the office. But I think these happen to real people in real life like us.

00:29:32 So here's my first example. It's entitled. Why are we buying this crazy expensive local coffee? Anyway, this was a post in the Facebook group recently and it had some great responses to it. So if you're not in the Facebook group, you can find just search for the everything co-working group on Facebook. You are reviewing your expenses at the end of the month,

00:29:54 and you notice that your coffee bill keeps going up. Coffee is one of your biggest expenses. So all of a sudden you start wondering why is it that you're buying this expensive locally roasted coffee? There must be a cheaper, but good enough solution. So you open your Slack app, you fire off a Slack message to your team that says something like good morning,

00:30:21 I'm reviewing the monthly expenses and we're spending a lot on coffee. Can you look for alternatives that are more budget friendly? Here's what was on your community. Manager's agenda for the hour or so of focus time that they actually get each day. And that focus time should fall into the bucket of the 20% of activity activities that drive 80% of your results, right?

00:30:48 So your team should be focusing on the 20%. They should be 80 20. So two of the things on your community managers list were email five happy members, the Google review requests template. So that activity rolls up under getting more leads, which is showing them social proof that people love your space on your Google. My business listing, which gets tons of traffic.

00:31:14 The second thing on her list was to post photos from the most recent member event to the Google, my business listing, because same thing, social proof. Also Google has an algorithm that loves updated content. So I talk about this all the time, but you need to post new reviews and you need to post new photos and offers to your Google. My business listing.

00:31:34 These are core activities and your community manager was going to spend time on those today. Now your community manager is going to spend her time worrying about the backlash she might get from the members that rave about how good the coffee is. It's their favorite part of the day. It's where they gather. It's where they chit chat. It makes them super happy when they come in in the morning.

00:31:57 Now she's all a flutter worried about the reaction that she's going to get. If she has to change, she's also going to get frustrated because now she feels like you're springing this big change request on her without even discussing it. You sent it as a Slack message. Now she'll likely be distracted because she's frustrated and less productive. Can you imagine this happening in your business?

00:32:20 I certainly have done that very similar thing before Ben looking at something, get all fired up, send off the Slack message, not even thinking about whether it's an 80 20 activity, whether it's in the 20% of things that drive results. And if it's not being very clear when I, which should not be on Slack about things that are not core where this falls in the priority list.

00:32:46 So if you wanted to consider the coffee budget, then this should be something you bring up at the bottom of your priority list on your weekly meeting and have a conversation about what the impact would be. Does your community manager think that this is a lever that you can pull? How does she, what does she think about the coffee expense? Is there anything else you might do to kind of manage that expense?

00:33:10 Or this is the other challenge with trying to manage expenses, which I know you're all trying to do right now. I totally get it, but in normal times, just get a new member coffee paid for, right? Let your team focus on lead generation and lead conversion. And then we don't need to worry about the coffee expense. As a matter of fact,

00:33:28 one of the responses to that post in the Facebook group was that, Hey, coffee expenses going up is a good thing. It means you have more members coming in more often and they're drinking more coffee. So, but we've all been through this. So I wanted to use that as an example. My second example is why does so-and-so have twice as many followers on Instagram than we do.

00:33:52 We need to fix that a S a P you're scrolling through your Instagram feed and you click on the profile of another local space. They have twice as many followers as you do. Your ego is now on high alert. How could this be? You wonder your space is far more hip and community oriented. You walk out of your office with your phone in your hand and that offensive Instagram profile up,

00:34:16 and you look for your community manager, who you find straightening up and disinfecting the conference room for the next booking. You step right into that room. You skip the small talk and you get right to the point. You stick the phone in front of her nose and announced, I need you to spend more time on social media. The space Crosstown is kicking our butts.

00:34:37 We can't have that postmark make the post dinner, whatever you need to do, just make sure we're keeping up again. Does that sound like a ridiculous scene from office space or the, the show, the office, or does that kind of hit close to home? It is a little, you know, dramatize to for TV, but imagine this scenario,

00:35:01 I'm sure you've done similar because I have think about our community manager who doesn't consider social media, content planning, and strategy to be in her zone of genius in the first place. And it is not on the list of 20% of activities that drive results in the business. But ego steps in, we are upset about vanity metrics, and now it's a thing.

00:35:28 So, so our community manager goes back to her desk. She looks dejectedly at her list of priorities for the day, which included adding an automated reminder sequence, email sequence for scheduled tours to make sure that they show up. And she had a phone call follow-ups to three tours from the day before to answer their questions and increase the likelihood of conversion. But now her boss has told her she needs to focus on social media and get more followers and get more engagement right now.

00:36:03 So again, these sound a little dramatize, but if we're honest with ourselves, we likely recognize that there are a couple of challenges with focusing on things. There are actually three, three challenges that we're focusing on. Things that truly drive results in our business. One is taking the time to define track and evaluate our KPIs. So even knowing what those 20% of activities are,

00:36:30 that make a difference in our business. The second is we need to create a plan that we follow and that we track that maps out, how we'll prioritize those key drivers in our daily and weekly work. And the third challenge is we need to avoid getting distracted by activities that seem important or urgent, but really just get in the way of our team,

00:36:54 getting the things done that truly get us more leads, close, more leads, and retain more members. So as we head into the new year or really any time, because you shouldn't, you don't need to just do your planning in the new year. If you're listening to this in March or June, it is never too late to get your plan together.

00:37:16 So anytime you're working on business priorities, here are the 80 20 principles to keep in mind for your coworking business. Your easiest leads will come from active searchers that you find on Google or that come to your website. Your easiest revenue will come from current members. Don't get so distracted looking for new leads that you let your member onboarding processes and community building efforts,

00:37:39 stall. You will close more leads when you have a tight sales funnel process. So here's how to stay focused on the 20% of your activities that drive 80% of your results. I know it's a mouthful, the 20% of things that matter create a detailed project plan with clear priorities that you review every single week with your team, put them in your eye trackers that I use in my business.

00:38:04 I put them as hyperlinks in the meeting agenda that we use every single week. So we have this very long, many, many, many page document. We use a new page every week so that we can refer back to old notes. And we have a section at the top for the trackers that we use to go through what we need to be looking at so that I don't forget.

00:38:24 And so that my team remembers to update the trackers as we go along. So they don't get way behind. Don't distract your team from their priorities. And I would encourage you to do this, empower your team, to call you out when you're distracting. And if you don't have a team, you may need some accountability partners find some other folks that are also the owner and manager of their space.

00:38:52 Maybe do a weekly meeting with them. I have some accountability partners that I use for things like this, just for brainstorming. And, but we started doing our kind of Monday, top priorities, putting those in Slack. It doesn't have to be somebody in your business if it's just you for now, but the accountability can mean everything because you might be doing the social media thing to yourself.

00:39:15 You might be scrolling through and saying, wait, why don't we have more followers? And then you send yourself on this rabbit chain, rabbit, chase, rabbit hole, whatever it is so fine, the accountability either with your team or with someone else that understands your system and will make time for you. So this was an introduction. I think we could dive deeper into each of these buckets,

00:39:37 but I wanted to introduce the 80 20 approach to the coworking business. So again, grab the book 80 20 sales and marketing by Perry Marshall on Amazon, or you can, I think I might've audio booked it. You can listen to, because I can find the paper copy. I was just looking for it on my bookshelf and I couldn't find it so you can audio listen to it as well and find this blog post.

00:40:05 We will post it about the week after the podcast comes out and you can dive into the details and integrated into your 20, 21 planning process. Okay. That is it. Until next week, we are going to get back to some really fantastic operator and community manager interviews coming up. So look forward to you next talking to you next week. Hopefully I'll get to see you in the Facebook group or on the masterclass.

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