208. Ted Laatz Previews the New SUCCESS Space Concept

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208. Ted Laatz Previews the New SUCCESS Space Concept

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. Hey there, this is Jamie Russo host of the everything co-working podcast. Thank you for joining me. We are really officially in December. We just had the 4th of July or independence day in the United States.

00:00:38 So here we go. Make sure you're taking some time and recharging over the summer. So today's guest is Ted lats, COO of success magazine. And I used to be a success magazine reader. I had a coach who suggested that I read it, and this brand has been around for almost 125 years. They started back in 1897 and they were somewhat recently acquired and their acquirer happened to kind of put some pieces together and decide they wanted to create a coworking business.

00:01:17 So Ted their COO shares the model they've created and how it's different from your typical co-working space. So I just wanted to mention as part of my intro for those of you that follow me and have done my masterclass, which I'll mention in a minute, you know, I have some pretty specific suggestions about creating a successful coworking space, which are challenged by some of the things that Ted talks about,

00:01:44 but I love it when people test new models, I don't know any model that is testing the pieces that they're putting together with the success space model. So it'll be super interesting to watch. And this is entrepreneurship at its best, right? Looking for opportunities to tweak a model, to do something differently, to do something the way that you think will work really well.

00:02:09 So they've assembled a team of experts. They are uniquely combining three revenue streams, which means three full time staff in a 5,000 square foot space. They have a cafe up front which will be about 1500 square feet, and then 3,500 square feet of workspace in the back. And the workspace will employ a coach like a business coach, probably who can double as a career coach.

00:02:39 So that coach is certified by the success group. They have a certification program that they offer and the workspace will offer billing starting by the minute. I know very few spaces that do this. I know one in San Francisco that combines the cafe in the front with billing, I think is by the hour, not by the minute, but most folks don't even bill by the hour.

00:03:06 So really interesting model. I love that they're testing something new. They're opening their first location in Tampa in the fall of 2021. So we're going to stay tuned before I jump into my interview with Ted, if you are working on opening a coworking space, I want to share with you three behind the scenes secrets to opening a coworking space. These are things that I've seen in my experience,

00:03:31 looking at a lot of P and L's a lot of projections, a lot of operations that I've seen, you know, kind of make or break coworking spaces as they're getting a launched. So I share three decisions that I see successful operators make when they're creating their coworking business. This master class is totally free. It's about an hour. If you'd like to join me,

00:03:54 you can register@everythingcoworking.com forward slash masterclass. And now here is my conversation with Ted. Definitely give some thought to the model and are there things that are thought provoking that you might test in your own model as a way of thinking differently and adding a revenue stream? So enjoy my conversation with Ted Ted. Thank you for joining me today. I cannot wait to hear what you're up to.

00:04:23 Ted is the COO of success magazine, and he's here to share with us his new co-working venture or successes new co-working venture called success space. Ted. I told you in our pre-chat that I have been a success magazine reader, and I didn't realize until I read your release, that the success brand has been around since 1897. That is amazing Coming up on our 120 fifth year anniversary wild.

00:04:53 Okay. So we'll get into a little bit of detail about what success is for the folks who are listening, who don't know, but maybe kind of fold that into what is your coworking story? How did the success brand decide to kind of manifest some of what it's doing into a physical space? I would love to hear the background. Sure. Yeah.

00:05:15 Most definitely. And thank you, Jamie, for having me on it's really my pleasure. So, you know, high level success, like you said, personal development concept, right? Success magazine been around for almost a hundred and twenty-five years now and was recently acquired by exp world holdings. Okay. And ESD role holdings is the owner of few different businesses,

00:05:42 one being exp Realty and another being Verbella and Verbella is a virtual meeting software. Okay. And so, you know, at one point our, our founder Glenn Sanford recognized that there is a need for a co-working space, a co-working space concept, but didn't really have the, the branding to go with it. And so after the acquisition of success, it really became a natural fit to a couple of success branding with the co-working concept.

00:06:22 But we really didn't want to just go out and do kind of the same concept as you know, as we've kind of seen out there for awhile. And we wanted to incorporate some of the great features that success has into the concept. And so we put together a team of experts in, in each individual piece of the business. And so that would be,

00:06:52 you know, experts in franchising co-working and cafe, as well as coaching and brought all of them together and started brainstorming on what a new model would really look like and what a new model would look like in conjunction with Verbella our virtual office space platform. And in light of, you know, what's, what's changed in society because of COVID right. And,

00:07:20 and the new working habits because of COVID. And so we, we took all that together and that's how we brought together, you know, the success based concept. Okay. I wouldn't have guessed that. Isn't it interesting how, yeah. That acquisition just kind of like presented this well, how do we fit these things together? And, and it makes perfect sense when you describe it that way.

00:07:46 I love it. So I'd love to hear what you talked about, sir. We want to do some of these a little different than what's already out there. What will the member experience look like at a success space? Sure. So, you know, typically when you notice, right, typical co-working concept tend to be downtown, you know, large MSA,

00:08:12 you know, anywhere from 15 to 20,000 square foot of work space, you know, mix of large office and small offices, you know, day spaces, whatever it might be. Right. And so what we said is, number one, all right. You know, what's changed in society since COVID, you know, and so because of that change,

00:08:33 what we said is we're not going to necessarily place these downtown. We're going to go to where the consumer would get on the, on ramp to go to that downtown. Okay. Number two, we don't want huge overhead, you know, 15 or 20,000 square feet. So we're going more with a five square foot concept. And number three, we want multiple revenue streams.

00:09:01 And so as we were brainstorming that multiple revenue stream concept and keeping in mind our success Alliance, you know, we came up with, and someone said this to me once, and it was really brilliant that Starbucks is a coworking facility. They just sell, they just make their revenue one lock at a time. Right. And I thought that was really brilliant.

00:09:25 And so with that, you know, the front call it 1500 square feet of our space is actually a cafe where we serve coffee pastries. You know, anything that you can imagine from some of the other brands out there, we do all of that as well in that front 1500 square feet, as well as you know, for, you know, more towards the afternoon beer,

00:09:50 wine, shark, crude, retrace, bedsheet, trays, those types of, and so, you know, so number one, that first 1500 square feet open to the general public. They can come in work in that space, whatever it might be, but in the back of that 1500 square feet, a glass wall that leads into our coworking facility.

00:10:11 And so anybody that's in the first portion can come into that back area and actually start working in the coworking facility. And so we changed the concept again to, you know, not necessarily bill by the week or the month or whatever, we've taken our billing all the way down to the, by the minute. And so someone can come in from the cafe and walk into the coworking facility,

00:10:34 sign up and literally stay there for five minutes, 10 minutes or a year, whatever it might be and have different billing options available to them. And so that's kind of that back 3,500 square feet, you know, plus or minus as a space is that coworking area. But then also built inside of that coworking area is call it somewhere around a 10 by 10,

00:10:56 12 by 12 office for it success coach. And this is the coach that's been actually certified through our success coaching system. And if you think about all the different entrepreneurs out there, or corporate workers, executives, whatever, it might be, that, that this needs someone to bounce ideas office off of, especially that individual entrepreneur, right? If someone that's in the trenches trying to figure things out,

00:11:21 we have a coach available for them. So they can come in, work in our co-working facility, have a coach available that they can bounce ideas office off of share a thought with. And so that's really kind of explained the different spaces in our space, plus the three different revenue streams, you know, and so that person can come in and out have their,

00:11:43 their, you know, pastries and coffee in the morning and work in the, the coworking facility, wind down their day with a nice glass of wine and our board and, you know, move on from there. And so it's a very interesting concept and I would say fairly different from most others that are out there. I'm super interested in the, on staff coach.

00:12:08 So will that be like an Allah cart? Is that a subscription? How, and believe me, my audience knows things may change as you learn. And, you know, as you, as you actually, you know, get feet on the ground and figure out how people use this resource, but I love, we talk a lot about actually I would call it a success path,

00:12:29 which is not my term, but makes me think about what you're potentially trying to provide, which is how do you give someone more than just access to space, you know? Right. How do you kind of take them along, whatever journey is is appropriate for them. So I'm curious yet, like, is the coach yet subscription or just when I need something,

00:12:50 how, how, what does the model look like there? So we'll have different levels of coaching built in. So some might be, you know, initially we will do maybe a few meetings a month just talking about business concepts in general, right? This, for those individuals that, that might need a little help with accounting concepts or whatever might those be,

00:13:12 then go on to another level will be a group coaching. So there, you know, and then we can move on to a third level, which will be individual coaching, excuse me, purchase on, you know, block hourly blocks. And then, you know, fourth level will be elite coaching where we really have a, you know, an,

00:13:34 an additional coaching group that can really help that person as well. So a few different levels in there for each individual person. So yes, and I love your building in lunch-and-learns and, you know, member events sort of all in one with the, the educational sessions and then the group coaching. I love the idea of group coaching too. I would guess that there's a lot of stickiness.

00:13:57 Some operators will do like masterminds and, but what it's a unique owner typically that would be sort of equipped and want to post them themselves. So I'm curious about the profile of a franchisee. Are they in the professional development space, you know, do they deliver the coaching or does the franchisee really just kind of own the business and they hire the coach?

00:14:23 What does that look Like? They could be the coach. They don't have to be the coach. So we have that certification available. They can hire that coach, you know, on a salary basis, whatever it might be. We've had one or two that said I'd really like to be that coach. And that's okay too, but you know, doesn't necessarily have to be,

00:14:42 we have quite a few people that just want to own one or multiple units And they just liked the concept and they can kind of plug all the pieces together. Yeah. Again, going back to, you know, lower overhead, multiple revenue streams, you know, appealing to a lot of different people. So what does the staff look like to support the revenue streams?

00:15:04 Is there a barista? The coach is the coach of the barista now. So you're going to have, you know, a staff in the cafe just as you would with any other cafe. Right. So a manager in the cafe with baristas and that type of thing, you're going to have a concierge, welcoming people into the, the coworking facility taking care of their needs,

00:15:25 and you'll have a coach in that coworking facility as well. Got it. So will the, is the idea that the coach is full-time or does the owner kind of, okay, so what does, is there like an ideal sort of profile or, or mindset who joins besides the charcuterie and the cafe access who joins your space versus, you know, the one that sort of more generic model down the street?

00:15:55 Yeah. So a few different things, the nice thing is with the cafe, anybody can come into the cafe, right? So that, that kind of is a business. That number one is in and of itself, but number two feeds into the coworking facility, right. Cause how many people go to other cafes just to work? And so it serves a dual purpose,

00:16:17 but then number two, again, what's the typical consumer, you know, I don't know that many entrepreneurs per se are going to coworking facilities as much when they're downtown and that type of thing. And so for us, by going to the suburbs where, you know, I would hope that we're more attracted to the entrepreneur, but we're also available to those that,

00:16:43 you know, you hear a lot and see a lot of articles now of whether companies are, you know, just not bringing people back or bringing them back on a, you know, part-time remote part-time in office. And again, the point of being out where they live is so that we can be that, you know, when they're not in their office location yup.

00:17:05 The work anywhere, the hub and spoke, I know the, the, where we work has never been such a hot conversation and, you know, such an evolution of what's possible. Well, and with our, you know, you can go to success space, I'm sorry, success world, download.com. And that's actually the virtual office space that we have.

00:17:27 So when you talk about hub and spoke, part of our model is, you know, really that virtual space can be the hub with these other spaces being spoken. And so, you know, in success world, we have meeting rooms, we have convention halls, boots. Wow. We have all of those various things as well. And so it really is bringing together that,

00:17:56 that, you know, virtual and in real life kind of relationship. So that, so you talked to, well, some of that technology, so you, that's an, I assume that sort of lives in the cloud. So you can access that. Yeah. You mentioned sort of virtual meeting rooms being a part of what happens at the space. So this is a place where people could come together and interact with colleagues who are anywhere In the world.

00:18:22 Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, you could be in one success base or wherever at home, whatever it might be, someone else could be, be both download a success world. You can meet inside of there and collaborate there's digital boards that you can put, you know what you're speaking about up on the board, again, there's literally an entire convention hall with booths and everything.

00:18:44 I mean, it's a, it's a full on office building basically Super interesting. We'll have to check it out. We are doing for our industry association conference this year, the global workspace association, we're doing a hybrid in-person but virtual access. And we're always looking, we're always evaluating platforms because that, that is certainly th that world has evolved a lot over the past couple of years as well.

00:19:13 So, And I have a little history working with our events team as part of that as well prior to doing this. So yeah. Happy to, to share thoughts on that. So I, I'm curious about, you know, the, the rest of the, for folks who don't know much about success, I'd love just to kind of back up and,

00:19:33 you know, talk a little bit about what the brand does and, and are there any other components of that that will kind of manifest in the physical space? So, yeah, I mean, so success magazine again has been around for almost 125 years now. Personal development magazine is really, you know, what it's been all about, you know, I'm seeing you,

00:19:54 you know, you're familiar with a lot of people who have been on the cover over the years. You know, Tony Robbin, Jim Roan is someone from the personal development field that I have absolutely loved and was a big part of the magazine at one point. And so it's been around and, you know, really focused on that personal development. And now we're also taking that brand and really,

00:20:17 you know, building it out even more with the coaching, with the speakers bureau, with all of those various things that, you know, really couple nicely with, with success enterprises, success magazine. So I think it's, it's also an interesting sort of intersection. You talked about remote workers and, you know, one of the things that's happening is people want to work from anywhere.

00:20:42 And another thing that's happening is people are thinking a lot about what do I really want right in life. And so I don't know if our remote work managers want to be thinking about this, but I could see entrepreneurs using the coach as well as, you know, remote workers who are trying to figure out, right. What do I want to do with the next 10 years of my life that having access to that kind of mindset piece and,

00:21:08 and coaching fuels, That'll definitely be woven into the space too. Right? Part of the decorations will be success magazine covers with, you know, all sorts of people you're aware, you know, are aware of, there'll be on the wall to see. Right. I love it. Well, and you're right. And you might develop some future, you know,

00:21:28 magazine cover folks from, from the coworking space model. So tell us about the first location, where will it be? Yeah. Give us some details. Yeah. The first location will be in Tampa, so, or, you know, the suburb of Tampa, the Tampa market. And, you know, it'll be open probably in the next few months.

00:21:50 So we're, you know, moving right along there, have a lot of people have already reached out for other markets already, you know, just, just based off of, you know, hearing about our concept and conversations like this. And so I think, you know, the rest of the 2021 and 22 are going to be a high growth, you know,

00:22:13 18 months. So I'm Curious with the cafe portion of the space is an ideal location sort of like retail level. And is it like a main street play or what are sort of the best locations that you're envisioning? Yeah, so we built out a profile of kind of our ideal areas, but yes, you know, 5,000 square foot space strip center,

00:22:39 you know, located in a, in a high foot traffic strip center really is kind of the, the ideal location. Exactly. Well, again, I mean, not to, it's been a tough year for retail businesses in, you know, shopping centers and whatnot, but for the real estate owners, this is one of those concepts that can fit really nicely into space.

00:23:06 And I would guess there's a lot of that open around the country and that's, you know, probably one of the reasons you're seeing some interest in the model because it and the varied revenue streams make a lot of sense for that type of location as well. Very much so. So if someone's listening and they are intrigued by the concept, is do you have kind of an ideal profile of a franchisee?

00:23:33 Like, do they have a, you said they might be a coach might not be, and how do they learn more about the concept if they, if they want to get more details? Yeah. So anybody can start it franchise.com. So the best franchise.com is our franchising website. And, you know, again, no, they do not have to be a coach or want to be a coach.

00:23:55 It can be anywhere from someone that does want, you know, to, to take on that role or an individual operator, just looking for, you know, one space maybe to your point, they have a space previously used for, you know, something else that they'd like to convert right now, you know, or a multi unit investor, you know,

00:24:15 high net worth individual that might want to do that as well. So we have, we have options available for, you know, a lot of different profiles. So I don't know that we necessarily have. Yep. Nope. It makes sense. Somebody who's though interested in, I think, you know, aligns with kind of, you know, your,

00:24:32 your goals for the space and the unique revenue streams and the coaching. Yeah. I love, I think this industry is really interesting because we're still at a point where geographically, you can compete on, you know, room in the market for multiple locations. Right. But it gets exciting when, oh, there's already, you know, Tampa already has co-working spaces and you're creating an option that speaks to a specific segment.

00:25:02 So it's, it's not exactly niche, but you've, you've created these layers that make it a really interesting concept and will probably appeal to folks. So it's an exciting time to be getting into the industry. I'm excited for you. And I bet you're learning a ton about the industry and you will continue to learn a ton as you open your first location and franchisees put their flavors,

00:25:28 you know, on this space. So I can't, I can't wait to watch. I would love to come visit your, your first location. We'd love to have you on. And like I said, we, you know, I brought in, you know, team members already from deep history and co-working in the cafe industry, in the coaching industry.

00:25:47 And so all of that expertise is coming together here in this one location. So while I've learned a lot, we do have people on the team that really, you know, we're, we're not just throwing spaghetti for the seats. Yeah. Putting it all together and creating, you know, a new concept. So yeah. Well, thank you for sharing.

00:26:05 I can't wait to have you or somebody else on your team back when you know, you're a few locations in and have, I can only imagine the insights that you'll have to share on how people use the space and you know, the right, how, how folks are adopting this new way of working, who may not have ever used a co-working space before.

00:26:25 So I welcome the opportunity to come back. Yeah. It'll be fun to watch your journey. Thank you for taking the time for those listening. I have notes on some of the resources that were mentioned. We'll put them in the show notes, so you can go to the website and the grab the links so that you can reference. If you're interested in franchising,

00:26:48 we'll make sure those links are available so that you can learn more. So thank you again. And we'll look forward to hearing the updates, Jamie.

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