255. Coworking Plans that Provide Access
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Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
Creative Coworking Partnerships: How to negotiate and structure management agreements from the landlord and operator perspective
TRANSCRIPTION
255. Coworking Plans that Provide Access
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. I am so glad to be here with you today. This is going to be a shorter episode,
00:00:37 but hopefully with a big thought provoking idea for you, or maybe validation of something you're already doing. So first I wanted to say hello, we've been kind of all business on the intros lately. So when I get to do a solo episode, I like to say hi, share a little bit about what we're up to. We've been super busy, maybe too busy.
00:01:02 It's probably a sign when people are constantly messaging you and saying, you put out so much content, how do you do this? Good question. So this week we did a really fun session. So we have a new program that we're doing. It will be open to the public sometimes. So we opened the first session to the public. It's how I did this series.
00:01:25 So it's a little bit pulled from some things that I'm involved with. And of course, if any of you listened to the, how I built this podcast, that's always an inspiration. But the idea for how I did this is to get a few operators to share in pretty good behind the scenes detail, something they're doing, that's working for them. So I think one of the challenges as owners of businesses is that it's hard to know what other people are up to,
00:01:54 right? What are you doing? That's working for you. So I have the ability to kind of curate those sessions and bring them to you. So our first one was public and then the next few will be open to our members of the new Everything Coworking academy, which we have just launched. You can check it out by going to Everything Coworking dot com forward slash academy.
00:02:18 So the first, how I did this was around choosing a CRM. So we had three awesome operators who have been in my Flight Group program, which is the precursor to the Everything Coworking academy for a long time. And they shared pipe drive, active campaign and HubSpot. So you get the recording of that. If you join the academy, we'd love to see you,
00:02:42 but it was just super detailed. They walked through how they use each CRM and their business, why they picked it, et cetera. And we had a very lively chat group. So anybody who was there, it was super fun for us to do. And thank you for making it extra engaging. So I've been busy. This is scheduling out the next,
00:03:02 how I did this sessions for the next few months. We're really looking forward to those. The next one is going to be how I scaled from one to multiple locations. That is a direct request from our existing member, one of our existing members. And I know that's always on the minds of folks who are working on a next location, what does that scaling process look like?
00:03:23 How do you staff, how does marketing and sales change, et cetera? And we've a bunch of other things that go into the membership. So we do an expert training every month, I'm doing office hours. So if you have something you just want to kind of walk through for 15 minutes, you can book an office hours session. We're doing marketing and real estate office hours with marketing and real estate experts who work in Coworking.
00:03:48 So if you remember, you can sign up for that. We're doing quarterly masterminds and networking. And what did I miss? That might be it and a quarterly expert, monthly expert training. In addition to the, how I did this. So it's a lot, but I love it. We're super, super excited about the folks that have joined. Again,
00:04:06 if you're interested, you can find that at Everything Coworking dot com forward slash academy, and of course we'll have it linked up in the show notes. So the other big thing we've been up to, I promise we'll get to the episode in a second, but I'm maybe even more excited about this is in December of 2019. We launched our Community Manager University,
00:04:24 which has been growing ever since. And I love that program because I love community managers or owner operators. We have a few of those in that group as well. And the group is super engaged, which I love. So there we do a monthly training and we do a monthly Q and a call and there's a slack group and we just relaunched the platform that we use to house the training and with that relaunched our certification program.
00:04:52 So I actually want to mention to anybody who's listening, who is in the program and did not get certified, but did the work, please send us an email because we want to get you certified. So that's all up and running. It's super automated. It's so exciting. A huge thank you to our first four community managers that did their certification this month and helped us work out the kinks.
00:05:17 And we have a bunch of folks that are almost done with our certification. Just Thomas with the root co-working is certified Donna McEntire with the workshop and root in New Zealand. Thank you, Donna Nikki, right with Riverworks Coworking and Chelsea Lopez from the post workspaces all did their certifications this month. I think Chelsea did hers before she had day one at the post.
00:05:42 She's the new Community Manager. They're so super awesome. They're posting to LinkedIn. When they get their certification, they can add it to their certification section on LinkedIn. They get an official certificate and all that good stuff. So if you have anybody you want to enroll in the Community Manager University program, you can also find that on our website. Okay.
00:06:03 So today we're going to talk about a simple idea that I want to make sure you're thinking about. Some of you certainly are because I talk to lots of you every month and want to share some of the nuggets that I hear. So we're talking about Coworking plans that provide access. And I keep thinking about this concept and kind of more broadly, you know,
00:06:28 how the segmentation around what people want from a workspace has changed post COVID. You know, if you listened to my early podcast, episodes, believe don't we're on episode. I think this is 2 55. So if you go way back or not even way back, just pre COVID, you would hear me talk about not encouraging a 10 day pass or encouraging you to make it really expensive and unattractive because the view was,
00:07:00 look, people need to understand that this is a membership. You can't buy day passes at a gym without it getting really expensive. You want people to realize they need to be a full-time member. They need to belong. And part of that comes out of looking at sales funnels and for a long time, my own included, I can still remember, you know,
00:07:22 just battling over. Do I get rid of this 10 day pass because everybody wants it and it's so cheap. And so I'm not making any money. And just looking at the sales funnel and realizing you need a lot of demand for the 10 day pass in order to make money. And it used to be that open space was harder to sell, and we just didn't have enough demand to make a lot of money.
00:07:46 And so it was better to force people in quotes into a full-time membership. And you may never have agreed with me on that, but today I think it's totally different. So we see people offer full-time memberships. They're probably not that common. And the good news. There's a couple of, I think really pieces of good news here. One is the demand for access and part time memberships is going through the roof,
00:08:12 right? There's this whole new segment of enterprise, remote workers. People can work from anywhere, all the things it used to be really the only users of co-working spaces, you know, executive suites or whatever name you give to them. We're pretty, full-time people who own their own business, small businesses, freelancers, that kind of thing. And the demand side has just really opened up post COVID.
00:08:36 And so there's a lot of people out there who want access and who wants sometimes to work in a coworking space. Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion. If you're working on opening a coworking space, I want to invite you to join me for my free masterclass three behind the scenes secrets to opening a co-working space.
00:08:59 If you're working on opening a coworking space, I want to share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their Coworking business. The masterclass is totally free. It's about an hour and includes some Q and a. If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com forward slash masterclass. If you already have a coworking space,
00:09:22 I want to make sure you know, about Community Manager, University, Community Manager, University is a training and development platform for community managers, and it can be for owner operators. It has content training resources templates from day one to general manager. The platform includes mini courses that cover the major buckets of the Community Manager role from community management, operations, sales,
00:09:47 and marketing, finance, and leadership. The content is laid out in a graduated learning path. So the Community Manager can identify what content is most relevant to them, depending on their experience and kind of jump in from there. We provide a live brand new training every single month for the Community Manager group. We also host a live Q and a call every single month so that the community managers can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers build their own peer network.
00:10:22 We also have a private slack group for the group. So if you're interested in learning more, you can go to Everything, Coworking dot com forward slash Community Manager. So the demand numbers, you know, the top of the funnel is bigger now. So that's good. I think the other piece is we're getting smarter about how to serve that group, right?
00:10:42 Just really, I'd still talk about this a lot. And I think we're getting so much smarter when we do our build-outs and put in phone rooms, understanding that, you know, it's pretty rare that there's a person who joined a coworking space who doesn't need to make phone calls. And so, you know, maybe that 10 day pass was for the pretty occasional user who didn't really do a lot of zoom.
00:11:06 Didn't have a lot of client calls, you know, it was kind of an independent operating type of role. And, you know, almost like there's just not that many people in that situation, right? So that's part of the reason I was always like, those are hard to sell. I mean, not going to get a lot of those. And now we designed spaces without a lot of access to places to make phone calls,
00:11:27 and that allows us to better sell and sell more of, so there's more demand and we're creating a better experience for the people who work in open space. One of my Flight Group members, actually, Jeff Cicala, who is one of the founders of studio workspace. He was our pipe drive demonstrator on our, how I did this. And they have a little bit of a formula for how many phone booth,
00:11:52 two open seats. And that includes their dedicated and their flex desks. And it's a lot of places to make phone calls. And I, you know, I, I get, I hear that trend on the, so I also, I didn't mention this to me. What I've been busy doing, launched a new podcast with Giovanni pelvis Cine, who is in the flex solutions group at Avison young.
00:12:13 He's been in the industry for a long time. He is awesome. We interviewed Sarah Travers. This is not live yet. I have to remember what's alive and what's not live. So go subscribe. If you're interested to the flex uncensored podcast we interviewed last week, Sarah Travers, who's the CEO at work bar. She was at juicy and I'd never met her in person.
00:12:34 And I was slightly riveted by our conversation with her on the podcast. So you will get to be riveted. Also, I will say, you know, CEOs and many of you are CEOs that are, you know, she's used to talking about their story, right? It's a very polished story, but I think what they're doing is really amazing and they have a fair amount of open space.
00:13:00 She said their favorite member is the 10 day member. I think she said they really don't want people in there more than 10 days a month. And it's part of their story. They're very wellness focused. They have the first well certified co-working space in the world. She thinks that it's healthier for people to have variety and come in 10 days a month.
00:13:22 Not really more than that. So they love that member and because they serve that member so well. And I said this to her on the podcast is Sarah. I think you guys are doing this, you know, better than a lot of people. Because again, we're still really learning kind of how I think how to serve that member in a way that makes the space super usable for them.
00:13:46 I won't go into all the details, but they're super intentional about their space design. They have. Okay. I have to mention it. It's a spoiler alert, but she talks about the neighborhoods and you may have heard an interview with her neighborhoods. They design neighborhoods into their workspaces. So they have a library where it's super quiet. They have a switchboard,
00:14:09 which is where you can go. If you need to take zoom calls and you don't care if other people are on zoom calls. So you're just talking to a team member. Why take up a pho phone room when you're talking to a team members, maybe not a super confidential conversation, but it's on zoom. So you can be in a room with your noise,
00:14:25 canceling headphones on and talk while other people are talking and they just train their members how this works and it works. So I think operators like Sarah are, and you know, the whole work bar team are really leading the way in terms of figuring out how to serve that member. I will say I was super skeptical. I knew they didn't have a lot of private offices,
00:14:48 so they don't build a lot of small private offices. They do large team Swedes and then a bunch of meeting rooms and phone rooms and open space. And that doesn't work for a lot of people. I tried. That's what I said to run the podcast, Sarah, you know, I tell my Coworking Startup School students, this doesn't work, but they're making it work.
00:15:08 And I told her, I think it's really, you know, some of their secret sauce, but you can learn how to do that too. And some of you probably are doing really well with this. So I thought it was super interesting. She said the 10 day member is her favorite member. And I used to say, don't offer that. So back to my point on the theme of today's episode,
00:15:28 Coworking plans that provide access, here's a little bit of what I see happening think about. And I mentioned this in my weekly email, if you're not on our email list, you are missing out. We announced the academy opening last week. So go to the website and get yourself on, on the email list. But last week, my email weekly email was about segmentation.
00:15:52 And you want to be thinking really hard about segmenting your members, who are they, and what buckets do they fit into, not 10 buckets, but three or four buckets. And for sure you have the access bucket. So the group that wants to get out of their house sometimes, but not all the time. So they need access to a place.
00:16:13 And so what does that look like? So here's what I see operators doing. That's working, creating access plans that build loyalty and recurring revenue. So I will lighten up on the, you know, you should do a 10 day pass, but I want it to be recurring. So, you know, this model is really about recurring revenue. Certainly we love,
00:16:37 you know, one-off meetings that add up to a nice bump and we're gonna talk about that in a second. But you know, recurring revenue is what helps us sleep at night and it'll help build loyalty with your users. So I'm sure you're getting a lot of bespoke requests for memberships. Assuming you have a pretty simple offering on your website, which I still like,
00:17:01 people are probably saying, well, but I want this kind of thing. And I do think you should have something on your website that says, call us if you need something else because we like simplicity. And there are a lot of people who are trying to figure out how they, you know, use Coworking, how they give employees access to a space and what that bundle looks like.
00:17:25 So you can try to simplify it on the backend, but you might need to talk through it with people and sort of point them into access plans. And when you're thinking about those access plans, here's what I want your goal to be. Obviously you have to negotiate what you're going to negotiate, but your goal should be, find a way to integrate recurring revenue and have sort of a minimum plan if can,
00:17:49 so that people are paying for access, even if they don't use it. Because I think we're sort of in this time period where we haven't really seen the end user show up yet. And so the HR groups who are reaching out and they want to do something, if you offer them the, oh, we'll give you, you know, 50 day passes and we'll just deduct them when your folks come in,
00:18:16 that works. If people are coming in and if they're not, then you're sort of holding space for them in a sense and not getting paid for it. So sell a minimum plan, say, look, here's the minimum plan to have access to the space because we can only do this for so many companies, you know, say, can do this for 10 companies.
00:18:34 If you want to be on the list of 10, then here's the minimum monthly plan. It's recurring revenue, there's a membership, you know, there's an access fee. And then there's like a minimum plan that gets them 20 day passes or whatever it is that makes sense. And then you build them on a per use basis. That is just a suggestion.
00:18:55 It can be however you want to build it out. But the framework I want you to be thinking about is recurring revenue. If they want access, then your framing should be, at some point will fill up. And so if you want us to save room for your people, when they come in, then we need a minimum plan in place for that in order to do that.
00:19:16 So put that together. So I see operators also doing this with meeting rooms space. And part of that is to build loyalty because there might be, you know, many options for folks to hold meetings that may not be, so it depends on your market, but to get them to think, okay, when I hold a meeting, I go to X coworking space because they have the meeting space I need and I am a member there.
00:19:42 And so I can just book it on the app. And I, you know, maybe I have QC access and I know how the coffee works and where the restrooms are and super easy. And from your perspective, you can have recurring revenue. So there's a meeting room membership fee. So this is what I see folks experimenting with. And they get member rates on the meeting room and they are essentially a member.
00:20:06 And so when they come in, they're more trained than a guest, which makes it easier for your team also. So you may not give them direct access or, you know, you can decide kind of how you manage that. Or what's, automateable, maybe it's not really easy to give them to our excess for their meeting room membership, but assuming they're coming in during staffed hours,
00:20:26 probably not a huge deal anyway, but it gives them kind of more ownership and again, recurring revenue. So they're paying some monthly fee in order to be a member and get the member rates. You decide what that is, might be $50, et cetera. So the other thing I would be thinking about in terms of access plans is meaning room revenue.
00:20:49 So kind of similar to the meeting room access plan, but think about we'll do other episodes and get folks in who are talking about their meeting room revenue, but in general meeting room revenue is off the charts for a lot of operators. If you have a smaller space, you may not be seeing this uptick. I do think the uptake is happening for larger meeting rooms and for larger spaces that have multiple meeting rooms.
00:21:15 The reports we get are astounding around what people are doing in terms of monthly revenue for meeting rooms. And folks are still trying to, you know, get creative about kind of how they leverage that and harness it. You may not be able to get, you know, sort of that repeat, you know, monthly membership from some of the bigger meeting room needs,
00:21:37 but think about how you, you know, you can bundle in access to things that they need during the day. So we had Lindsey on from B lamb a few episodes ago, if you missed it, that one is a must go back to, and she was talking about how they're really focusing on corporate events and they can bundle in the morning hip hop class because they have a gym.
00:22:00 And so many of you have access to some sort of studio or gym or, or amenity, even if it's not in your building, can you coordinate that for them? It's simple, right? Can you make it easy if there's something nearby? So she said, you know, they had a group that did hip hop yoga in the morning, and then they used her cafe and had their,
00:22:19 you know, coffee and croissants. And then they did their team-building meetings. And then they did cooking class at the end of the day. And lots of you have kitchens and, you know, things that can be used for that. And I was brainstorming with one of my members this week and she said, you know, they've got folks in there for multiple day meetings and some people need to meet,
00:22:40 some people need to get work done. So she's thinking about like, well, how do I bundle meeting room plus like the day pass or access to a large team suite where they can sit and, you know, get heads down, work done, just, you know, think more broadly about what folks might need when they come and use the space beyond,
00:22:58 you know, the basics like catering, but what else can they do in the space? And again, I think this is easier for bigger spaces to do. And I do think we'll start to see larger spaces happening because this demand is there, right? You may have a smaller space because you didn't see the meeting room demand coming, or, you know,
00:23:17 et cetera. And you may be in a market where you, that doesn't show up. And so that's not for you, it's sort of business as usual, but we're seeing a lot of folks kind of really harnessing meeting room demand. And if you're not seeing it, but you think you should definitely figure out where you should be listed, do some SEO work on your website,
00:23:38 do some blog posts about meeting rooms, do some work to get that demand, build some relationships with local meeting. You know, mostly you just, you want to be able to get found for meeting room. If you open an incognito window and Google, you know, meeting rooms and whatever town you're in and see if you come up and if you don't come up,
00:23:58 you probably have some work to do. And I think it's worth doing if, if that, you know, if you're in a decent size market where people are having meetings, because I won't go into kind of all, you know, all the detail, I said, this would be short and I'm already making it longer than I said I would. But a lot of the demand is for larger spaces.
00:24:15 And so for the folks that are looking for meeting room space, that may never have been really looking before. There probably are not a lot of options besides hotels, right? You know, maybe there's a library, maybe there's community center. There's probably not a lot of places. You can have a meeting besides a hotel. So if you have great meeting rooms,
00:24:37 especially if you have larger meeting rooms, you are that option. That's not a hotel. And there are so many advantages versus a hotel hotels, harder to book for meetings. They have a lot more minimum requirements. You need to buy their catering. You, you know, they're expensive, you need to buy their technology. And so you were super appealing,
00:24:56 especially if you have great parking and all of those things. So make yourself found and get after that meeting room revenue. So, okay. That's what I wanted to share. Again, if you are interested in getting in, you know, access to other operators and getting the behind the scenes into what they're up to the best way to do that is to join our academy.
00:25:18 We would love to have you join. It has just kind of reopened and you can find more details at Everything. Coworking dot com forward slash academy. And if you have any questions about it, feel free to reach out. We will see you next week. Hey there, thanks for sticking with us through the end of the episode, don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast player.
00:25:41 And if you were enjoying the podcast, please go leave us a review. It helps other folks find the podcast who are thinking about starting a coworking space or already operating a coworking space and are looking to stay up to speed on tips and trends. And we started a YouTube channel. We'd love to have you catch us on video. You can join us for podcast,
00:26:06 videos, and Q and a videos and other things that we post to the channel. We'd love to see you there.
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