252. Scaling through Coworking Management Agreements with Ann Long

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252. Scaling through Coworking Management Agreements with Ann Long

00:00:01 Welcome to the Everything Coworking 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. My guest today is Ann Long, and I think I neglected to give her a proper introduction when I kicked up the podcast.

00:00:38 I want to make sure I do that. And is the founder of Burbity Workspaces. And she, her first location was Liberty like Coworking in Liberty lake Washington, which is near Spokane Washington. She now has an umbrella brand under Burbity. So if you go to Burbity.com, you will see that she has three locations up and running. She's working on a fourth location,

00:01:03 and you're going to find an story very inspirational because Ann started with 4,300 square feet in January of 2020, so terrible timing, but she survived. And she has now said that first location was a lease. And then she did a management agreement with her landlord and then did a marketing agreement with her landlord. And now is working with a second landlord that is in a nearby town on 28,000 square feet of flex and Coworking,

00:01:34 and then 12,000 feet of co warehousing. So she shares a little bit about her journey about her evolution in terms of, you know, lease to management agreement, what her team looks like, what her business models look like with each of those locations, how she drives her leads a little bit about her tech stack. I had a lot more questions for Ann,

00:01:58 but we ran out of time. So I hope that Ann will come back. I also mentioned in our conversation and works with us on the Everything Coworking team. She hosts some of our Community Manager University calls, which I am super grateful for because she does not have a lot of time. So we have to get those books well in advance. She does those Q and a calls and she'll sometimes host our Flight Group calls and does some other things.

00:02:24 So we appreciate Ann and I've been wanting to tell Ann's story for a while. So I'm super thankful that she made time to do this. She has a lot going on. So without further ado here is my conversation with Ann. Welcome. I am here today with Ann Long and is the founder of Burbity Workspaces and some brands underneath that umbrella brand. And you can walk us through that.

00:02:50 Her first, I think her first base was Liberty lake Coworking in Spokane Washington. And thank you for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Jamie. It's great to be here with you. Yes. So this is dual purpose because you have so much going on that I've been like, I need to understand what Ann's working on. So I'm going to rope her into doing a podcast episode so that we can catch up and everyone else can hear even our little pre-chat.

00:03:19 I thought we should be recording. Cause I think people are, you know, people love to be a fly on the wall in terms of what everybody else is trying to figure out. So Absolutely. That's how we have to learn. I Know I'm so, and I want to hear your story because you are like moving and shaking, but I first have to say,

00:03:35 I, I first met you. We've not met in person, but we're about to Yay. I know I have to do my posts. The GC team has been sending me my promo templates. So we'll get to see each other in Washington. So how far are you from Seattle? We're in Spokane. It's about a four and a half hour drive.

00:03:57 Oh, okay. It's not super close. That's where, why you were like dry fly. So we're going to meet, but, and we met like two years ago, was it two years ago? I hosted a workshop at the end of the year and Anne had this fancy, like Trello board that I was very impressed and she asked me because she's like,

00:04:17 I don't think that was even a thing, but for whatever, I was like, Ann was on my radar screen. So, and does some Company For us, she jumps into our Community Manager University group. And that group is on fire these days. So those QA calls, you're not even getting through all the questions. Right. That's what was happening.

00:04:39 No, they are amazing. They're amazing group of people love it. Oh, fun. I often think, you know, for people who are having a hard time hiring, I wish they could just get some inspiration and some optimism from listening to that group because it's such an engaged group and they're all over it. So yes. So Anne, thank you for doing that.

00:04:58 And sometimes you run our Flight Group calls, so and some, and jumping into the Everything Coworking team, which we really appreciate, which is the other reason I wanted to have you on the podcast and like people need to know and story. Okay. So speaking of your story, tell us your Coworking story. How did a little bit of your kind of professional background and,

00:05:16 and how you, or you got into Coworking? Well, I come from the airline industry and I was there for a very long time, a couple of decades, but I left the court, my corporate job, which was a sales position that I was in for about 12 years and started my own entrepreneur or my own consulting business as a customer experience strategist.

00:05:40 And I thought, oh, I just wish I had my own space to host my clients. That would be so awesome. People. Aren't very candid during our conversations when we're in their office space and there must Be a Walzer listening, like Listening. Exactly. Even the owners are, you know, I don't really can't really say, cause someone can hear what's happening.

00:06:01 So experimented was working in co-working spaces, which I'd never heard of before I was, you know, in the corporate world that was not in my realm of things. And I tried a few throughout the country and loved them. I loved the energy. I love the decor. I love the productivity that I had. I had worked from home for many years,

00:06:24 10 plus years. Oh wow. And my productivity skyrocketed my focus time skyrocketed and I got to meet new people, which was amazing. And I just loved everything about it. So I thought maybe I should open a coworking space so I can, I'll just do my, my consulting on the side or both, you know, I could do both. No,

00:06:45 no, no. It must focus on consulting. Must focus on that business. So I did and about a year later it just kept bubbling up and the Coworking thing. And so I said to my husband, you know, let's just, can we let's just do it. It'll be, let's do it. So we did. And we focused on Liberty lake because it's a hotbed of entrepreneurs and remote workers at the,

00:07:06 now this is all prior to COVID and young families. That was the other target we needed to. And my avatar at the time was graphic designers and software engineers. That's who I wanted in this space. And that was all that, there was a lot of those in Liberty lake. So we found a 4,600 square foot space and we deleted and we built out 12 offices.

00:07:33 We have six dedicated desks and then we had flex space. They're about eight flex desks. So that's how it all started. That's where we started. And we opened our doors in January of 2020. Oh my gosh. I always like so many people have that story. I feel like, wow, I forgot that. That was your story. Okay.

00:07:59 What is your husband actively involved in the business? He's actively involved. He actually runs Liberty lake now that I have opened another location. And so we've kind of run it together, but he he's there every day. Okay. He's okay. We'll have to talk about that later is that, well now you're in different locations. That might be kind of ideal.

00:08:20 So it's not like you're hanging out all day every day. Yeah. The best of both worlds. So I feel like most people who take 4,000 square feet on their first try do not know to do the product mix that you did. How did you decide to do that? Boom, I'm not, well, It's all a blur, but It is kind of a little bit of a blur to be honest.

00:08:44 However, Jamie, I will tell you, I listened to your podcast day and night, day and night, Literally. And that gave me a lot of fuel, a lot of fuel and it just helps so much by hearing other people's stories of what worked for them and what didn't work. So thank you, Jamie, for, for your inspiration and your help along the way.

00:09:10 And to everyone like you, who's willing to share their story. Right? Exactly. Absolutely. I'm very scrappy, which I think, you know now, but so I, I laid it all out myself. The Tia is that the landlord actually paid for the TIS. I had to pay, I think five grand. That was it. Wow. And then he paid for everything else,

00:09:30 which was awesome. That helped a lot. Was it from shell or was it like, was it a fresh build-out or did you kind of work with the second gen space? I did work with the second gen space. It was an open concept space. They had some offices already in the perimeter and they also had two conference rooms, which we are one conference room that we kept.

00:09:53 So there was quite a bit that we were able to work with, but we added, I don't remember exactly how many offices, I want to say eight offices to the existing and otherwise that hadn't been all been opened. So that worked real, real well. I will say that my probably I still had too much flex space in it now, knowing now what I know flex space for us is just not a moneymaker.

00:10:23 Do you think in my program, The market or the folks that you attract, what about your software engineers and your designers? I have in my space every day, I probably have about three flex space people on average. And that's probably been, that's been pretty consistent since my opened. So initially I had, I think 12 seats opened in there we've recently can reconfigured it.

00:10:46 So I think we're down to four flex spaces and then we have two pods that I can get monthly rent on now. So that that's helped to Wait, what does the pod look like? It's kind of a micro office. I believe it's about seven by eight. And it has, if This, from someone, was this a scrappy story? No,

00:11:09 this one, I actually bought a new, I did buy that new as a trend from trend wall And They are eight foot walls with glass open top Lockable doors. Okay. But you're, you're selling it. We sold them And the open top is fine. It is fine. I'm not, I I'm not got any complaints. I'm not a hundred percent happy with the open top.

00:11:37 I'm I've got bids out now for sound masking. Oh, got it. Which is expensive to install. So yeah. But I feel like that's good. Cause you've been debating the open top. You had to try it. I had to try it. Yeah. And then the Liberty lake location, we have concrete walls or sorry, concrete floor. Yeah.

00:11:56 And metal roof. So it's more of an issue, whereas which we'll get into in a little bit, the second location has batting in the roof. So that helps a lot. Oh, a ton. Yes. The concrete and metal is tough. Acoustic challenge. Yeah. Okay. So how did you, so during COVID, what was your occupancy like during COVID?

00:12:19 So we opened in January and at that time I think we had two or I don't even remember Jamie. It is a blur, but I want to say we had four orphans, office offices occupied. I lost two and I did have one flex person that just kept coming in. So basically there was four of us in the office for a year. Yeah.

00:12:46 We hung on and we now we've been full for about a year and a half. All of our offices have Been Full On the offices. Yeah. And your pods. All right. Okay. So in that year, while you've been recovering from a very challenging year, you have a lot of new projects going on, walk us through them. How did there happen opportunities?

00:13:12 What you're thinking size, you know, model, all the things. So the, the owner of the building I'm in the at Liberty lake approached me in January before COVID and said, Hey, I really wouldn't like to talk to you about an opportunity about working together. I'm sorry. This is not January before COVID it was the January after 2021, I guess.

00:13:38 Yeah. Okay. And the location he was talking about was a plug and play location of a building that he owned six minutes from Liberty lake, my location in Liberty lake. So I, wasn't not really hot on the idea, but the space he, we tour, I toured the space with them and it was gorgeous. It was plug and play.

00:13:58 I think I told you about it when I was so excited when I first thought, and after a long time of going back and forth and figuring this all out, we decided to go for it. So we opened that location and December of last year, and it was a long process of trying to get things ironed out and what we're going to do.

00:14:22 And are we going to do this? And we danced for a very long time, but it's going well now, so that we decided to put the plug and play place is 16,000 square feet. This is our sixth. This is our second location. Right. Obviously much larger than Liberty lake. And we have 13 offices there. And then we were trying to figure out how are we going to add more offices?

00:14:52 Is this going to go, is this going to work? Whatever. So we added 21 pods. Again, this is like a cubicle on steroids, but walls, lockable doors, beautiful WhatsApp. And these don't have tops And no top. Yeah. Okay. And we put 21 of those in, we just finished those about a month ago and we've have nine left.

00:15:21 So they're going quite, quite quickly. All of our offices sold out in within three weeks of opening. So we got really lucky. I think I pre-sold maybe three offices before we opened. Once you were officially open big Gas, they just got quick. When you say plug and play with 16,000 feet, the whole space, or was it a bigger,

00:15:48 It was bigger. It is bigger. It's actually 30,000 square feet. The whole suite is, but we haven't the owner hasn't divided that last, that other 15, whatever, 14,000 square feet out yet. So it's, you can still see it. If you're in our space, you can still see all that empty space back there. But they're negotiating a lease now with a completely different tenant in that space.

00:16:11 So yeah, The third 30, I remember 30,000, like that's a lot of space. And so the plugin play, there was a company in there that just left Furniture, Casualty. Yeah. Awful hard, hard, hard to see them. And, but they left and the cool thing. I mean, I shouldn't say that they left everything. They left the furniture,

00:16:36 they left the chairs, they didn't leave the artwork or, and they, but they left refrigerators. So they went bankrupt after we go through the whole bankruptcy thing. And then the, anyway, the owner ended up buying it from the bankruptcy attorney. Okay. All that, all that furniture for not a lot of money, which was good. Wow.

00:16:56 So the only thing we really had to do is put artwork and soft seating and that's about it and the pots. So the existing offices, it sounds like they work well. Were they larger than you want it to be sometimes? Or oftentimes the challenge with second gen space is you get, you know, a four person office that you really wish was one to two,

00:17:17 but do you want to spend money to make it smaller? So what, yeah. How did that work in that space? The offices that were prebuilt were eight by 10, 10 by 10 and 10 by 12. Wow. Yeah. So that was really cool. Then we had one other office that I called a team suite and it's about, I think it's around 300 square feet or I don't remember exactly,

00:17:43 but I have it, I have it set up for seven people and I sold it. It's there'll be in next month. So they also took that company is a, one of these enterprise companies that shutting their real estate and they were moved from 45,000 square feet and wanted just to space for people to land when they want to come into the office, then it took four pods and that team suite.

00:18:09 Okay. So, and I just Googled the population of Liberty lake. It says a 9,800. Is that right? Probably incorporated. Yeah, but Literally from, Oh yeah. We're pulling from we're right. Literally three miles from north, from the Idaho border. So we're pulling from post falls, Idaho and Spokane valley. So I wouldn't, yeah, the whole,

00:18:34 like, I dunno, it's somebody going to take a seven person office? I would have been a little, like, I don't know. Wow. The new one, the new locations in Spokane valley. Okay. The second location, which it looks like it is like six minutes from Liberty lake. So I know I was thinking who's going to take this,

00:18:54 so Okay. A hundred thousand roughly so bigger. Yup. Yeah. Spokane, Valley's bigger for sure. And the Spokane Metro area, it's like 280,000 ish. Yeah. So, So this relationship is on a management agreement with the landlord. Yes. And it took you over a year to get that one done 80 minutes and you knew each other. I remember,

00:19:21 you're like, okay, this is taking forever, you know, kind of a give and take. And also COVID up and down probably. Oh my gosh. Weren't we all just trying to figure out is what's the right, what's the right move. Right. What is the right move? We don't know what the right move is, but you know,

00:19:35 hindsight's 2020. And now what we've, I've discovered now, after getting feasibility studies done that, luckily we're in a really good spot and we are, there's not a lot of flex space in our area. So You're seeing people, people get it and they understand. So, but that brings me to my next question, which is how did you, what's your marketing?

00:19:57 What are your marketing secrets and What did you fill those offices so quickly? I have a phenomenal marketing person that is outsourced, but she's been with us for a year now. And I have wasted a ton of money in my, and my life on marketing, spending the money on the wrong things or trying to do it myself Or not alone. Yes.

00:20:24 Right. We all have done that. And I decided, you know what, this is not my lane and I'm not doing it anymore. And so I looked for somebody that was Google certified and kept up her Google certification because it changes like every 30 days, no, not that often, but you know, their algorithms change and their platform changes. So she's a local person and she runs all my SEO,

00:20:48 all of my Google ads and my website. And that's my secret having her, you know, and she just does it. I don't have to say she's one of the person that just makes it happen. And I love that She knows what needs to get done. Yeah. Did she run ads for the new location? She did. Okay. So that helps to fill the new location.

00:21:09 Yeah. As soon as we got birdie established for buddy workspaces established, we started the SEO immediately. And I think then we knew it was going to be Spokane valley. So we knew the location. So she started running those probably in September. Okay. And we opened in December. Okay. Got it. Is she responsible for the email opt-in on your homepage?

00:21:34 She is. I use the example all the time because you know, in my startup school, the email list building is, I don't know how much it pays off for you, but for some, if you're running a model, I get a lot of folks in the startup school who are running. Like they need a high volume of members for their model to work.

00:21:55 So, you know, they're going to open a female focus space and they're going to sell a lot of like social memberships. They're going to run a lot of events and they're banking on event revenue. And they need to have an email list because you, it's hard to, you can't really sell those on Google because people are not searching for that. Right there.

00:22:15 It's a slightly different model I would say. So the email list building is super important. So I pull up your website and say, look, here's an example of something that's relevant to a local market. So I don't know how much it pays off for you, but I, I love that you do it. We do. And I have a pretty high rate.

00:22:35 I don't spam. I don't do it once a week. I don't, I do it once a month newsletter or I'll do certain campaigns or whatever, you know, maybe not a lot. I really don't do it a lot. And I have a very high, I have a 40, a little over 40% open rate, which is, I think pretty good.

00:22:55 Right. Great, great. Yeah. So I'm pretty careful with that list. I don't give them a bunch of, So be consistent with it. So you get that email address and then you're being consistent with it, which is great for anybody not doing newsletters because I'm a huge fan. You don't have to do it weekly. Some people do. And that works really well with them or for them,

00:23:19 but even just to do it monthly to your point and I'll link to Ann's website, you can take a look at her, her opt-in because I think folks struggle with like, what would I use for an opt-in? And you just found something that works really well. And we should know it has been up for awhile. It's not, you don't feel the pressure to change it all the time it's working.

00:23:36 Right. And you're are you referring to burberry.com? Oh no. Do you follow Like Liberty lake Coworking LL Coworking dot com. Yeah. Is there a different one on burberry.com? Probably. Hmm. Okay. Well, can you talk about, yeah. What's your decision with, oh, is this your updated? Is this sort of your, your main website now?

00:23:59 Right. Okay. So you have a, it's your kind of your umbrella brand and now your locations live under it. Right? Got it. So the Sprague waits, which w so Sullivan valley commons is the one you're talking about now, Correct? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Tell us about the next one. So Sprague is a marketing agreement. This is also with the same owner of this building,

00:24:26 that Sullivan valley comments. Okay. He wanted to do office space in this wonderful renovated building and it's gorgeous and he needed help trying to market it and figure it all out. And it's purely office space with conference rooms. It doesn't, there is no Coworking in it. So we have a marketing agreement and it's under the Burbity brand. And so that's a totally different model than the other two.

00:24:56 And we started leasing that one out in July of 2021, and we have one office lab. So we're done good there too. Hey, I want to interrupt this podcast for a quick announcement. We are launching a series for our Everything Coworking members, and some of the series will be open to the public. So the first one is open to everyone listening.

00:25:24 It is a new series called how I did this. And the first event will be three coworking operators demo three CRMs CRM is customer relationship management. And if you are in business, you may already have a CRM. This is one of the biggest challenges people have is getting one set up, figuring out which one to use. So we've asked three operators to share how their CRMs work for them,

00:25:49 active campaign, HubSpot and pipe drive. They're gonna pull it up, show it on their screen and answer all of your questions. The first event is May 25th, which is a Wednesday at 12:00 PM. Pacific 3:00 PM. Eastern. We hope that you can join us. Live. Our members will get the recorded event, but anybody who's not a member should join us live.

00:26:12 You can register to join us at Everything. Coworking dot com forward slash how I did this. We hope to see you there. That's Everything. Coworking dot com forward slash how I did this. So it's not staffed. It's just a self-serve or It's not. Well, we have a community coordinator over there that she's there a couple days a week. She's the point of contact and the agreement there is that she gets a reduced,

00:26:43 significantly reduced rate on her rent. She And she works there and her office is there. It works really, really good. So if we have new members coming in, she can welcome them and get them set up with their, So she has her own separate business. She has her own separate business. She's contracted her to do this role. I think people talk about this all the time,

00:27:05 like how to manage that. Is it an ambassador? Is it right? Do I have a member who would actually be interested in this? How did you identify her? Did you post for the role or did you? I did not. I know her. I've known her for a very long time and she just approached me and said, what, what would you think?

00:27:23 And I said, I think that's a great idea. Let's give it a whirl. So that's how it, how it went down. And she was a flex space member at Liberty lake. And this location is much closer to her house and she gets her own office away from her family. She loves it. It's perfect for her. And so her expense is covered in your marketing agreement.

00:27:46 So you call it a marketing agreement because he built, did he build it and design and design it. So you're really kind of selling it and lightly managing. I'm not really managing it too much. Tara's really managing it. I sell it and market it for him. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So tell me a little bit about the model in the Spokane valley location.

00:28:14 It was already built out. So that's an interesting partnership opportunity because you're not negotiating, although you had to add the pods and yeah. So what does that mean? You don't have to spill all the beans, but what's the general structure there, It's a management agreement and it was my first management agreement and you know, it's gonna work out fine. I knew going into it,

00:28:39 it's a profit share. I don't get a management fee and that part was negotiated and hindsight's 2020. I probably would have done a little differently, but it's going to work out fine. I'm just not going to get paid as quickly as I would have. I went the other way. Yeah. But, but my percentage is better. Okay. So there's that?

00:29:05 Yeah. It's tricky. It's hard to know. And there are a lot of like levers to pull. Right. And he has put a lot of money into this space. Right. And he wanted some skin in the game and I get it. I totally understand that. You didn't, did you pay, did you put anything in for nothing? Right.

00:29:22 It's all My time and my energy and my, you know, a lot of time, like I work a lot. Yeah. I'm always there seven days a week. We're trying to get that dial back right now, but yeah. So you're managing that space. You haven't a community, man. I do. I have A, I have a Community Manager that she's full time and that helps tremendously.

00:29:50 That's been, she's been a godsend. Okay, Awesome. Okay. And then you have another new project in the works. Do we have another new project? The beginning of the call? I was like, man, are you staying sane? Because this is all like within the last year, roughly. Yeah. Yeah. That's why I can never keep it straight every time I'm on a call with you.

00:30:09 I'm like, okay, so which one is this? That's what I'm taking notes though. I It's a little crazy, but the next one that we're going to open up and next year it is 28,000 square feet in Coworking slash event space. And then we have an additional approximately 12,000 square feet for code warehousing. So we're excited about that one. That was going to be a totally different model.

00:30:38 I mean, it's going to be a management agreement. So the model, the model is going to be different than the one I have right now for sure. But it's a total, it's a new build out. It's an existing building, but taking it down to the studs and starting over in the co and the office space, Different landlord, Different landlord,

00:30:58 different partner. How did you connect with, so the first landlord was your landlord that you signed a lease with, which I feel like it's sort of the easiest, you know, you are in our management agreement course. And I feel like, but the folks like actively working on projects, it tends to be a landlord that they knew versus kind of hunting for another landlord.

00:31:18 So how did you connect with the second landlord? I reached out to him. I saw an article in the business journal about this property that they recently purchased. And I thought, whatever I got to lose, I, I, I knew I wanted to have another coworking space on the north north side of Spokane. And also on the south side of Spokane,

00:31:41 this location is not either one of those. However, I had a couple of other signs pointing me to that location instead. So I listened to those and that very next day, I saw this article in the newspaper about this new location and that they had just purchased it and they didn't know what they were going to do with it. So I reached out to the owner and played a little game with myself and just put a little sticky note on my computer.

00:32:10 Ha you know, reached out to him. He has no idea who I am and got to the gatekeeper and told her what I wanted and what I wanted to talk to him about. And I put my little note on my sticky pad saying, okay, two weeks later, you call back and just be persistent. But what happened was she called? He called me back the very next day and said,

00:32:28 I want to talk to you. And, but I'm going to have you talk to my CEO. So we set up the meeting the very next week and he came out to see the space at Liberty lake. This is before we opened our Sullivan location and loved it, heal up it, the CEO did, and we had a couple more meetings. And then he brought in the guy,

00:32:52 the owner, and I had a present pitched in my presentation and he said, I'm in that. Okay. That sounds great. So you see, it seems like you have some, maybe slight regrets about the deal you negotiated on the first one and the 18 months it took to get there. But did that contribute to you having sort of the confidence to have these conversations?

00:33:18 Yeah, Absolutely. Absolutely. Just like anything, right? Yeah. Get the first one done. I mean, even your first, you know, you leased the first base, right. Prove the model and then learn from that. Okay. So did you pitch the co warehousing or did that come from your conversation? Yeah, I poached. I pitched both and you know,

00:33:38 showed them the differences, what it would cost, you know, what he could make in this space for peers to get rent and what he could get if he was to do a management deal and showed them the long-term difference in what the revenue would be for them. And that sold them, Show me the money. Yeah. So, I mean, it's been Telling a story though.

00:33:59 I think that the super and beyond It was a great yeah. And it was, you know, it's a law, it's a process. You don't know what the thing is. You don't know these. I didn't know them. Right. I didn't know. What do they want, what are they thinking about for the space There's processes work? How do,

00:34:16 how do do they go in front of a board to make all these decisions? I don't know all those answers. And so it was a little bit going into the dark, but you know, we're now. So that was July that we started that now we're here in April, so I'm learning a lot about them. And now we've got a cadence of our meetings.

00:34:33 We meet every couple of weeks and talk about the project and it's a process. It's a long process. You can't get impatient. I tend to get a little impatient sometimes, but The typical entrepreneur, right? Like go now, no, I thought I would have this by now, you know, my five locations and, you know, be riding off into the sense that Nope.

00:34:57 And then you get attorneys involved and you have to have them review things. And then that takes time. Right. So there's, you know, there's just gotta be patient and that's, that's my advice. So a couple of questions. Do you have a signed agreement with them or are you still negotiating? We're still negotiating. We have, our letter of intent is in place a signed letter of intent.

00:35:23 And we are just finishing up the budgeting with that's what we're actually meeting again today. Talk about the final budgeting and the management agreement is done with the exception of adding some exhibits of what we need to add in there for budgets and things. So, So will this one be management fee and profit share? Yeah. So both. Okay. Yeah. It's a big,

00:35:49 big space, you know, I mean, You'll have to do, you're kind of in the weeds, so I don't want to, you know, make you share a lot of details of what we were talking a little bit about it in advance. And I think it's because they're doing such an extensive build-out right. It's not a second gen space. It's like down to the studs,

00:36:07 start from scratch. Like, you know, you're talking about really trying to figure out what does the build-out look like? You know, they want pretty high-end sounds like they have big plans for the space. Yeah. How do you align your interests and make sure right. You get what you need and they're willing, you know, without great that they want a beautiful space and want to spend on the build-out.

00:36:30 But generally the management agreement that gets paid back and I come out of, you know, profit share. So there's a tension there. That's what we're going to have some, some discussions around to find out exactly what, what is coming out of my budget, what payback is coming out of our, you know, my budget and what are they going to take on because there's tenant improvements for the entire building and which has not,

00:36:55 the entire building does not encompass just me. There's a lot more to the building. So we'll have to figure that out. And it's a new one for them too. So we're, we're working through it. Okay. I ended up the early part of what takes the time. So will you ever sign a lease again? I don't think so. I don't know.

00:37:18 I mean, I'm not going to, I never have learned early in my life, never to say never, but I really liked the way the management agreement deals go so far. So good. Sometimes I am hesitant to mention your example, because I feel like this is a lot of management activity in a small market. Although it may be that you're in a smaller market that makes it work.

00:37:43 I don't know, you know, a couple of agreements with a landlord that you reached from, which is great. You know, who he was that least, although you probably didn't know him very well. I think you started talking about the management agreement and the, you know, this new building that's going up, but I love the story because it's like,

00:38:01 right. Never say never, you don't, you don't know what opportunity is out there. And they're probably excited to be bringing these amenities to the area They are. And you know, and what's, what's fun too, is I'm getting more known in the area. We, I mean, we have a couple of other co-working spaces, but I have another company or sorry,

00:38:20 another person who is involved with, we have several universities here. Okay. Big universities. And we have one person that's starting a, a new incubator type of program. And so she's excited to be a part of in our space. And that that's what is, that's what fuels me, is being able to support the small businesses in our community and all these phenomenal entrepreneurs that are just making some really cool things.

00:38:54 And I have the best seat in the house. That's what I stayed up. All my, I get to watch it all happen, unfold so much fun. I have a couple of tactical questions. How much energy do you spend on social media? Not too much right now, I've gone back and forth and back and forth with this one. And I,

00:39:17 you know, I was really good about it for a long time, but now we're lean. We're very lean team and I have to make my priorities. And unfortunately, that's just not one of them right now. I asked not to, to judge, because I guess that was the case. And it's a matter of you sort of 80 20, right?

00:39:36 Like, well look, where am I going to get the results? You're you hired somebody who is doing your ads and your SEO, and you're keeping your website all up to date. As you add these locations and the social factor, I'm sure you would love to. And probably as you're working on this new building that maybe gets a lot of publicity,

00:39:53 maybe it starts to become more of a play, but you don't need it to fill your spaces so far. Oh, far I have for our location. And again, we're in a, we may be in an anomaly. I'm not sure, but for our location, I'm not seeing the payback for the time and money I spend on posting. I don't see the payback,

00:40:17 but I think So on our April, it was April, April training. Kristin put together like a, how I did this on some social media projects that folks had done. And I will love hearing like really creative stories that people do. So Emily Knight who's with the Foundry, I think Collingwood, Foundry she's in Collingwood, which is outside of Toronto. They did this February campaign.

00:40:44 It's a small market, lots of local businesses. They gave a gift certificate away from each business for 28 days, which was like a major undertaking. Although they scheduled it all in advance, which she said she loved. She basically like, didn't think about it for 28 days. I love stories like that. But I think oftentimes that's why I like to talk about it on the podcast is I want people to think like,

00:41:10 what is the ROI in the time? Or if you're paying somebody to do it, the interview I had yesterday, he said, you know, we paid somebody for awhile. It was pretty bland, just didn't work. And so same thing, they, you know, they have a lot of SEO value. So anyway, and then my other question,

00:41:28 wait, SEO or no social media yet team. How are, I think one of the other challenges folks have in your shoes is like, you have a lot to do all of a sudden, so you have your husband get this part-time person. How do you handle? I have a full-timer at Sullivan and then a part-time person at Sprague Sprague just kind of runs it,

00:41:52 do much therapy at Sullivan. I've also have another part-timer that just kind of comes in and helps. I just recently started having him come in Freeman and helped me set up for events for the weekends Paid events that you're hosting. These are events that are, they rent our space out. Yeah. Okay. So on the weekends, that's what I'm saying.

00:42:16 I'm working on the weekends. I would come in and get the assaults. They meant all set up for them. And so he's going to start doing that. And, and then I have another, you know, a totally different staffing plan for the new location. Cause that's big. And how do you get your finances done? I have a bookkeeper and a tax.

00:42:36 Okay. Yeah. So the bookkeeper, my husband does the Liberty lake Coworking and then the bookkeeper handles all of the birdie. And when you need to create spreadsheets for your management agreement negotiations, do you do those? I did the first one and now, and I did the second one too for the presentation. And so he's the owner of the, of the new location has taken my information and put it into his own spreadsheet,

00:43:03 which I like much better than mine, to be honest, Let him run his model and what I need them to understand it clearly on how they're doing, you know, so they can run it. They run it through their other businesses and stuff too. So yes, I do do my own performance, but I'm assuming that's what you're asking about is the performance part.

00:43:23 Yeah. I just like to dig in a little bit to figure out, I think it's, you know, the, the, how do we get everything done and right. You're doing pitch decks spreadsheets, which takes time. And so, yeah. You're and so your, your comp, I saw your first spreadsheet and I know you're comfortable with, with spreadsheets,

00:43:40 so that's a huge benefit, but I think, And then I also have a CFO that is, you know, a consultant is a CFO perspective is the name of this company. And so I run things by him like, am I, I need sanity checks on certain things or can you double check my formulas? That makes the, if there's anything wrong here,

00:44:00 that's not my forte. It honestly is not, but I'm getting better and better at it. But so I always have him double check things for me. That's awesome. Kind of a, yeah, that's a sanity check on the team and then you are a proximity users that Right. I am. Yeah. And all the locations will run on proximity.

00:44:18 Do your members have what kind of access do they have? Two other spaces. That's a great question. Flex users. It's really easy to just punch, punch them in or out or whatever location. So punch, punch, pass users can do it. I'm having a difficult time getting my brain around how to allow them to use Meeting Room, conference room space at other locations because it's different buckets and it's a different,

00:44:44 it's not, I don't know how I can't, I can't describe the complexity of it, but it is more complex. Yeah. So I don't know how we're going to work around that. I would love for them to be able to use all of it. Yeah. Do you use their door access? I do not. I'm curious. I always like to ask,

00:45:02 I feel like these are the questions people are like, well, what is she using and how is that working? Yeah. Both locations already had door access, all three locations and it's the same. So we use fobs to get in and out. Okay. Got it. Okay. And I have 75 more questions that I would like to ask you,

00:45:21 but it is at the top of the hour, starting to be respectful of your time. We might, I think for sure, we have to do a part two because you have so much going on. And I think Jamie, Your perspective and your learnings and I mean, I'm sure you probably feel like you're drinking from the fire hose a little bit,

00:45:37 but there's so much learning that comes out of that. So I can only imagine what your business will look like a year from now. So we would love to have you back. Thank you with everything you have going on. Okay. Thank you. And I can tell you without the support of anybody else, all coworking operators, anybody I've ever reached out to has always been more than willing to help me,

00:45:58 give me some advice, point me in the right direction. And that's one of the things I just love about this Coworking industry. So it was a thank you for having me, Jamie and fun as always. And I'll see you in person in a few weeks. Yes, I can't wait. Awesome. Thanks Ann. Hey there, thanks for sticking with us through the end of the episode,

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