282. How Gina Schreck’s Marketing Background and Flair for Events Attracts Coworking Members
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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
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TRANSCRIPTION
282. How Gina Schreck’s Marketing Background and Flair for Events Attracts Coworking Members
00:00:02 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast where every week I keep you updated on the latest trends and how-tos in Coworking. I owned and operated Coworking spaces for eight years and then served as the executive director of the Global Workspace Association for five years. And today I work with hundreds of operators and community managers every month, allowing me to bring you thought provoking operator case studies and inspirational interviews with industry thought leaders to help you confidently stay on top of what's important and what you can apply to your own role in the Coworking industry.
00:00:44 Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me today. It is holiday season. We've got a lot going on. We're running our 2023 Design to Thrive workshop this week. I can't wait. My Coworking Startup School members are moving and gro. We have a group that is starting their build out outside of Nashville.
00:01:07 I have a member in Minneapolis who just signed her first two members and has lots of questions. If you have opened a space, you remember what those first few weeks of actually getting ready to open. She gets her certificate of occupancy this week and just trying to figure out all the things. But she is super excited. We have some other folks that are still negotiating a lease and trying to wrap that up.
00:01:32 Actually we have a lot of folks negotiating leases right now because that is what takes the longest and can require the most support. Making sure you have the right deal and are asking for the right things and, and all of that. So lots happening. If you're thinking about opening a space in 2023, we'd love to have you join us in the Coworking Startup School group.
00:01:51 Today's guest is Gina Schreck and I have known of Gina for quite a while but have not really gotten to know her. She was in our Creative Coworking partnerships course, which is around management agreements and other creative deal structures cuz she's looking to expand on her fabulous business that she's built even though she opened in March, 2021 of those stories and she was at the GWA conference this year we get to maybe do a little dancing at the seventies party,
00:02:19 but that's about about it. I remember she had some really great fringe on her outfit, so I asked Gina if she'd sit down and tell me a little bit more about herself and if we could hit record while we did that. And speaking of which, Gina and her daughter, her daughter helped to run the business. They have their own podcast, which I think is super cool and Gina has one of those backgrounds that I think points really well to success in Coworking,
00:02:44 you never know, but she has been an entrepreneur for a long time. She started her first business at the age of 23. She ran a marketing agency for 26 years. She loves hosting events. So I think her marketing background and her, her passion for events really help her attract her customers and also grow a really strong community. She's really proud of the community that they've built at The Village Workspace and they have 11,000 square feet with 30 offices.
00:03:13 You know, I love that density. That is a great business model. And she is full and her space is beautiful. You can see the images on the website. Another one of those spaces that I would love to be a member of and Gina is looking to grow. So I know that you guys listening love a good operator story and just kinda love the behind the scenes of what operators are up to and how their journey has been and what they're thinking about next.
00:03:42 So you are gonna enjoy this interview with Gina. Welcome. I am here with Gina Schreck and I reached out because we have encountered each other a few times but have not gotten to like sit down and like have coffee and talk it out. So I said Gina, can we hit record? I Know it's like About years. Yes. I'm so glad.
00:04:06 So yeah, I wanna dive into, into all things Gina. My best friend's name is Gina, by the way. One of my best friends. Well, Too Fun. Yeah, so I love that name. It's kind of a unique, I don't know very many Gina's. I know There's not many, you know, back in the back, back in my day I think there were more.
00:04:23 Oh my God, my 11 year old says that to me all the time and it makes me insane. I'm like, I am not ancient history young lady. Back in your day, mom. I Know. Back in the Old day for the internet. Yeah, exactly. Let me tell you about dial up. I know. So yeah. Okay,
00:04:44 so I wanna hear all about you. So you are outside of Denver. Can you talk about kind of where you are and then I wanna hear like where did you grow up and what was your little background before Coworking and what was your Coworking moment? How did, how did you get into Coworking? Just all the Things. Wait, San Jose State University.
00:05:04 Yeah, and I, I went to school in Hawaii. I lived in, yeah, I mean I've, I'm just outside of Denver, just south, like 25 minutes south of downtown Denver in Centennial, Colorado or the Denver Tech Center. And yeah, I grew up in California and the Bay Area and my whole family still lives there in Santa Clara,
00:05:21 San Jose. Then We please come say hi next time you're here. You know, I'm like, I know This close to the airport. I can see the planes take off from my backyard. My mom is five minutes from the San Jose airport. That's great. And my sister and my, my sister's been a realtor there in that area forever and now is doing,
00:05:39 building out some land in Yosemite area. But we moved to, to Hawaii when I was in junior high. I went to junior high and high school in Hawaii. Cause my stepdad was in the military. Okay. I, my interesting fact is I took a boat to school every day across Pearl Harbor. That's wild. That's a really interesting fact. That is a cool fact.
00:05:56 And then I moved back to California and went to college there and then moved to Denver in 88 and have lived in Denver ever since. Okay. Followed a man out here and have lived out here ever since. And I love it in Denver until about December, January, February I get whiny and I need warm weather and so I usually have to go somewhere or we bought a house in Arizona and thinking,
00:06:23 oh we'll do the snowboard snowbird thing. But we were too busy opening the space that we ended up selling the last year we Go. Oh my gosh. Ok. But the good thing about Denver, you know, I spent 15 years in, in Chicago and winter there is like brutal, at least in Denver. Like it's sunny 300 days a year and sometimes the snow will melt and come back and,
00:06:43 And that's what I love about it. And I, I do love the fact that we get to ski and you do have the seasons. It just sometimes is too cold. I owned a marketing agency for 26 years and I belonged to the National Speakers Association. I was the president of the National Speakers Association. Did all the speaker girl thing, traveled a ton speaking,
00:07:04 we had a team of 12 people. So at that time we were looking for office spaces and we kept going in places looking for offices we didn't like. And I went to speak at an event in Indianapolis and the event was held in this space. I didn't know it was a Coworking space, it was called Developer Town. And it was the coolest place.
00:07:24 They had bought this giant warehouse and had put tiny houses in it. And each house was, it really was bro working because it was all guys. And it was, you had an app developer, you had a web developer, you had an seo, but they were riding bikes up and down the little streets. It was so cute. I came back and I told my husband,
00:07:43 oh my gosh, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna buy a warehouse and I'm gonna put it in and we're gonna do marketing and websites and graphic design. And he like, you're buy a warehouse. What? And I kind of put it on the back burner, but every time we were looking for office space, I would think, oh It would be cool you were stuck.
00:08:04 I just wanna do this myself. Yeah. And then we just, I, I said, you know what, I'm gonna call a broker and I'm gonna talk to a broker and just see. And I said, okay, maybe I don't wanna warehouse space in an area that's kind of sketchy. I wanted it to be safe. I wanted it to be female focused because our team was all women.
00:08:21 And I kept thinking, okay, we work late at night, I wanna go out somewhere safe. I wanted it to be easy access free parking. No downtown. So little by little I was kind of identifying the target market, which was us. And we ended up finding a space, and actually I'm trying, I'm a huge podcast junkie and I can remember I was going,
00:08:41 there's gotta be a podcast about Coworking and I found your podcast probably 2018. And I binge listened to every single episode and then I listened to him again and I kept thinking, okay, I feel ready enough to look for a space. I hired Mara Houser because you said that's what we should do. I hired Ruben Low for SEO because that's what you said we should do.
00:09:05 And truly to this day, when people say How did you survive the pandemic? I really do. I attributed to those things of going the things you said, even things like make sure your hallways aren't too big. Eight foot hallways people, you know, like little tips like that. I look and go, I walk in Coworking spaces that have gone under in the last year and I go,
00:09:25 oh, I can tell you why. So I, I learned a lot and I'm so grateful to you in the podcast. And we opened our space March 2nd, 2020. Oh my god. I know. But I really feel like we got to hunker down and build the community and that was what we just felt like we're here to love on people. Like I feel like we are here to make sure people feel like they belong.
00:09:52 And then we happen to have offices and we have 30 offices. We only have 11,000 square feet here. We're getting ready to expand another 10,000 here. And I'm trying to get another location, but it's 28,000 square feet and that one scares me. I know. Are you ready for that? That's big. No, but I Right. I'm like, wait,
00:10:14 are we ever supposed to be ready? No. I dunno. That one, that one I'm, I'm leery but it has a restaurant as part of it. A big cafe. But are you going to run the restaurant? No, I would lease that out. Okay. Lease it out. Got it. Yeah. Have you met We we do work and wellness.
00:10:31 So we have workspace and then we have therapists and we have, you know, aestheticians and massage therapy as the wellness side. Hi, this is Josh Fried CEO of Proximity. When we started Proximity, we did it for one reason. We didn't like how hard it was to run our Coworking spaces. At first we tried testing different space management software on the market and look,
00:10:55 we found that we had to use multiple software solutions. Then we spent way too much time trying to sync them all together. And then we spent even more time training our staff and worse yet our members on how to use this overcomplicated solution. We ended up going circles, attempting to manage our software instead of letting software do what it's supposed to, which is helped run our business.
00:11:16 Our members were frustrated. We were frustrated. We just didn't think it should be so hard to operate a Coworking space. So we built our own solution to make Coworking spaces easier to manage all packaged up in one, easy to use platform refined by feedback from hundreds of Coworking spaces over the last five years. Proximity software is simple for operators and best of all members and it is backed by our award winning US based customer support team.
00:11:45 It's time to stop settling for overcomplicate software, get software that was actually purpose built for Coworking by Coworking Space operators. See it for yourself. Our team is available to chat with Everything Coworking podcast listeners and you can schedule your call today@proximity.space slash Jamie. Yeah. And fitness like here we have a a 2000 square foot fitness center with showers and, and people actually use it.
00:12:10 We have a personal trainer that comes twice a week with people and pulled yoga classes in there. So yeah, there's just aspects that I keep going. I mean it's all, I really feel like a selfish endeavor cause I just go, what do I want in a workspace? And then, and it's been amazing. Well and you need enough space to deliver all of that.
00:12:30 Yeah. So you're doing That might be a little big but I'm, we're we're still But it has the restaurant in it. Wait side. No. Have you met Jen Teke in Golden? Oh no, I haven't met her yet. You Too would like fall in love with each other. I Know I, because she has a coffee shop but I think she's One with a coffee shop and then she's opening with a food hall adjacent to Coworking.
00:12:55 She is just lovely. I need to, I'm making a little note. You two should totally hang out. You'd have to maybe go out to Golden, but Yeah, It's like minutes. Not too From we're here but so bad. Yeah, it's been such a fun journey and you know, I work with my two daughters so that was another thing of my daughters Have go to Jen.
00:13:14 You two have to connect. Okay. Wow. Both girls work with me in my marketing agency. Okay. And then my youngest daughter who's 26, she got recruited away by VMware. Big tech company. Yeah. Who could pay her way more than I could then You can, I know. Did she give out here or is that, or they in Colorado?
00:13:32 No, she's here. She's she's, yeah she's here in Colorado. She works on a virtual team so she comes in here and works occasionally. But my older daughter who's 31, she works here with me. She really runs this one. Okay. And it's been really fun. Okay. So tell me about the marketing agency. I'm just sort of curious about that cause you've since sold it.
00:13:53 What did it focus on? Yeah, Just, and also I'm curious, do you think marketing is, I mean really, I know this is a business about community and people, but it's also about customer acquisition and attracting those people and sort of, do you feel like your marketing background was an advantage once you Oh my gosh, it's why we filled our space.
00:14:14 It's like that's how we filled it. We, we didn't even start paying for marketing Google ads or anything until we had been open maybe a year and a half. Like which really is reversed because we, we should have filled it that. But we, we were able to do all the things and we filled it with a lot of marketing and I would say marketing being event marketing because we became an event marketing.
00:14:36 We did a lot of events, brought in people, I networked into some of the groups that I wanted in here and I did a trade where they could hold their board meetings in here and then I would be at their events and be a sponsor. And yeah. And I think that really helped the social media. I would say social media is about staying in touch with your community that you already have.
00:14:58 Yeah. But customer acquisition was through our Google My business, which used to be Google profile, you know, so those type of things, knowing the difference. And we would run our own, you know, marketing the first year and a half. And then I was like, you know, now our social media is more about showcasing the events we do here just so people can,
00:15:17 oh there's a holiday fair coming up next week and they can go. I was gonna say, I'm on just on your website and I see your Yep. And So we do a lot of events, a lot. Well and I can tell, I always say events are tricky cuz they're not for everyone. And I can tell by your energy that you probably love.
00:15:32 Like I love doing that, doing that and hosting and being a part of that. So, But it's a ton of work. And even this past Saturday, I was here till 11 o'clock because we had a big fundraiser for a nonprofit that I'm involved in and they had their event here and it's exhausting but I love it so much that I keep, and you know,
00:15:51 I keep saying, and Craig, we were laughing at a lot of the other spaces around here, don't do a lot of events and they're like, you're crazy spending so much time on the events. But a lot of them are, we do weekly lunch and learns and some of 'em we do 'em, you know, I'll do a class on Google my business and Taylor did one on customer journey.
00:16:09 My other daughter did one on Canva, how to use Canva. And it's just our goal is helping the businesses in here grow so they need more offices. Totally. I mean, and that's natural for you with your background. So what was the focus of your marketing agency? So the first interesting before social media, see back in the day before there was internet,
00:16:32 when we used to go to Kinkos and make copies and brochures, we worked in the cable industry, which was interesting. It was one of our very first customers. We worked with every single cable company out there. And we helped their marketing and sales teams prepare for the competitor, which was satellite dish. So satellite, when it first came on the scene,
00:16:50 we went and did the training and worked with them on putting materials together and had a mystery shop and did all of those things in that area. And then I worked, then we kind of took on a lot of hotel chains and one of 'em was the Hyatt Regency and the Park Hyatts. And we were working with them because there was this new thing coming on the scene,
00:17:09 social media and it was brand new and here's what you have to do and it's, you're gonna need to. And they came up and said, oh, our marketing teams just aren't tech savvy. Can you do it for us? And I'm always the person that says Absolutely. Right? Yes, absolutely. Yes. And I would leave going, oh my gosh,
00:17:29 how are we going to manage the social media for these hotels? Well then I end up hiring people that, we built a team that we did it for them and we would monitor, you know, 24 hours a day at the hotels customer service and Twitter People. Yeah, I was gonna say that for big brands is a whole different ballgame. There's,
00:17:47 there's so much more like activity and write customer comments and things to, So we had a blogging team that wrote blog content. I did a lot of our blogging and then, you know, we would do lots of video and we started our podcast. So it was one of those things we just knew. And being in marketing, I had to be on all these channels.
00:18:09 I was putting out tons of content as the Gina Schreck brand. Yeah. Okay. And then we also had the social connect brand, which we re rebranded and became very social focused and did digital marketing. We had an advertising person that did all the ads for companies. So it was one of those, it was a small agency, but it was,
00:18:27 we managed a lot of big brands and their things. And then it just became one of those things that was overwhelming when I was thinking of opening a coworker space, I thought, I don't know that I can do both. And I had a guy for three years that kept approaching me wanting to buy our company because he owned a web and SEO company.
00:18:45 Okay. So he wanted to, He wanted to consolidate and bring that into his business. And so basically he just bought our clients the book of business and our team and I was like, yes. And thank you. Do you miss it? Do I mean, do you ever, no, Not a day. Not a day. Like I love this so much.
00:19:06 I love, like today I was just interviewing another person that we're bringing on and I told her, I said, it's like you're running a bed and breakfast. So every day you're greeting, like you might think, oh I have to get the newsletter out. And somebody comes up to you and wants to just tell you about their day and you're thinking they're interrupting you.
00:19:24 But you have to remember that is your job. Right. Listening to them, celebrating with them, ringing the champagne bell if they just landed a client or just getting up and hugging someone because you could tell that they have tears in their eyes and something bad happened. Yeah. That's your job. And then the newsletter can get out whenever. Yeah. And it's still gotta get out.
00:19:45 You still gotta figure it out. It's like that's secondary. That can get out even though you think that that's your number one task. Yeah. And I love that part so much. I mean it's just so rewarding. And I see people all the time saying, this business saved my life. Like this Coworking space saved me during the pandemic where I just had somebody that I could come in and talk about being afraid and talk about,
00:20:08 you know, what my business is doing. And yeah, it's really cool. And last week I saw really cool, it was kind of like, it's a wonderful life. We had one member who was falling behind in her rent and the rest of the group came together and they all paid her rent through the first of the year. Oh My gosh.
00:20:25 They were like, she's just going through a rough patch and we're gonna help her. And I was just like, this place Wows. Wow. That's what it's all about. That's amazing. Yeah. 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 wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass.
00:20:46 Three behind the Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space. If you're working on opening a Coworking space, I wanna share the three decisions that I've seen successful operators make when they're creating their Coworking business. The master class is totally free, it's about an hour and include some q and a. If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass.
00:21:11 If you already have a Coworking space, I wanna 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 many courses that cover the major buckets of the Community Manager role from community management operations,
00:21:38 sales 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,
00:22:11 build their own peer network. 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 slash Community Manager. Okay. Little sidetrack but podcast. So you go to marketing podcast, which you now use for your Coworking business. And I love, we're doing a how I did this session and I didn't even know there's so many people who podcast like in Coworking and then others who are curious about it.
00:22:38 So yeah, tell us a little bit about It. And we do a podcast, we do a podcast class every quarter. How to get your podcast started from A to Z in two weeks. You're gonna have a podcast in two weeks. And we walk through all the steps and we have all the equipment here. We have a podcast and video studio that I'm in right now.
00:22:56 And I've had it because I used to do a weekly podcast and it was, it's called the, it used to be called the Journey with Gina. And it was all about the journey about entrepreneurship. And then we talked about marketing, how to build your business and use marketing. And it was great because you get to interview people who you may never get to be in front of.
00:23:13 And so people will say yes to being on your podcast. And so it was a great marketing tool. And I had written, I had worked on the Idiots Guide to Social Media book and then I wrote a book called Social Media Doesn't Work unless You Do. And so as I was promoting the book and speaking, I would get people to be on the podcast and talk about their marketing.
00:23:32 Well then in Coworking I started saying, okay, I don't want it to just be focused on marketing anymore. So we tweaked it and Taylor joined me as my co-host and then we bring in a guest and it's so much more fun because now it's not so serious. It's like we do a fun, we do segments and now it's the journey with Gina and Taylor.
00:23:50 Wait, Taylor your daughter? That's my daughter. Okay. Yeah. And, and so we interview either people in here or we interviewed our mailman. He's, oh my gosh, That's hilarious. And he had amazing eyebrows and we were like, okay Christian, tell us about your eyebrows. How do you get your eyebrows like that? And so he told us his eyebrows secrets and we go,
00:24:10 you're so fun. And he's always listening to podcasts as he's doing his route. So we talked about that and I said, would you be on our podcast? Who interviews? That is so funny. I love it. We have the woman who comes in and does cakes for us and stuff bake. She has a bakery in town. As we said,
00:24:29 we wanna interview all the local businesses who support our business. And so it's been so fun and I Just love, I have two follow up questions to that. One is, how does it function as a marketing tool? Like is it sort of like social where it's for your members? Or is there like an roi? Like does it attract new customers?
00:24:48 It does attract new customers. Okay. And I think this is true in any business that's doing a podcast, you think of who's my ideal customer? Yeah. Ask them if they, if you could interview them and learn how they started their business. And guess what? Tell 'em that you're doing the interview in your podcast studio and they come in, we now sell podcast memberships to people who not,
00:25:07 they're not even in our Coworking space. Yep. They buy a membership for $120 a month and they get up to 10 hours a month usage. If they don't use the hours, they don't roll over, but they just get to use it. Yep. They have to go online and schedule it, but it's Still, I would love that by the way,
00:25:22 One of those things Yeah. That it's like it And your fabulous background. Oh we have like on this side, there's a black velvet curtain with gold frames that hang down and then we've got, yeah. So it's like We have A lot of Instagram Instagramable places and spots. But I just think as a podcaster, I love learning about other businesses in our world.
00:25:46 Like we've interviewed our mayor, we've interviewed and she now works out of here. Okay. Yeah. So it's kinda like you can approach people that might be untouchable in your mind and ask 'em if you could hear their origin stories and interview them for their knowledge and they just learn about you and then they're telling other people to listen to your podcast and it's drawing a bigger crowd.
00:26:08 You set to market your podcast, you know? Yes. But you have content to market. Totally. Okay, so then my follow up question, which you started to answer was Craig, you know, issued his summary from your meeting. I wanted to argue you Waste money. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to argue with some of it. Right.
00:26:27 So the podcast, he was like, doesn't make any money. Yeah. And That actually was written wrong. That was not our discussion in that meeting was podcast equipment. It wasn't that podcasting studios necessarily, cuz Craig has a couple good podcasting studios. One of his is in a, in one of his Coworking spaces that nobody uses. He said, but I definitely think that's his location is unique,
00:26:51 that one. But we talked about how many of us have purchased, you know, how many ring lights do you need? How many backdrops do you really need? I mean we have every adapter dongle, you know, and we talked about how much equipment we've wasted money on because we have the podcast studio. But I think the podcast studio, you have to work to sell it as to your members,
00:27:14 which means you have to teach people how to do it. Yes. So that's where we figure the classes are important. And then to outsiders, that's where the revenue comes from. Yep. Is getting outside people to come in. And number one, they come in bringing guests, they come in here to do regular podcasts. Their guests have never seen a Coworking space.
00:27:32 Right. So we have one woman, she works with people, moms in hospitals who have postpartum. So she brings in all these experts and we had a group come in here with her and they're like, wait, what is this place? We could hold meetings here. And now they hold their regular board meetings here. I love that. Okay. You,
00:27:49 You have to use it as the tool And you have to be intentional about it. And I think some people sort of build it and it sits and yeah, like lots of things. What's the hourly rate for your podcast studio? We were charging $60 an hour and people were paying it. And then we realized, okay, there's other podcast studios around that are less money and we weren't seeing as much booking,
00:28:11 you know, as many bookings as we like. So we lowered the price of $25 an hour or $120 for 10 hours or the membership. Yeah. So I think that that actually really matters because I mean, you probably feel the same way. It's, it's like, I mean I, mine is definitely a marketing tool, but I have a lot of costs already to producing it.
00:28:34 And so if I don't need, I would like a studio with beautiful backdrops, 60 bucks an hour would be a little bit of a like hurdle. I'd be like, you know, yeah. But right. The 25, I'd buy the membership all day long and then long done. I'll tell you another way, it's a marketing tool. It's kind of like having a fitness center in your space.
00:28:53 Very few people use the fitness center, but when everybody tours they're like, wow, I Love It. Fitness center. Same thing with the media room. People are always blown away. Cause we have a stage, we have a lot of professional speakers who come in and use the space because that's my network. So they'll come in and go, oh my gosh,
00:29:10 I could do all my virtual training videos here. And so, and they're wowed by the fact that we have all the stuff. They may not use it, but it's still. So I look at that and go, there's your marketing dollars as well. If you look at it and say, I'm making money from it by them coming in and doing other things Seems to value sort of.
00:29:29 Yeah. Yep. Yeah, totally. Okay. So what types of companies are in your space? It's interesting, we have a big association here. They have six offices and Oh wow. And half of their, their employees work from home and then only a, there's a few of 'em. I think it's less than half that work in here every day.
00:29:46 So we have a big association's obesity medicine association. So they, their clients are doctors. There's an association for everything. There's an association for everything. They're in here. We have a metro pool, so they're a pool service company. We have two different offices with two different types of attorneys. We have two financial, like asset management companies. We have a couple speakers,
00:30:09 couple coaches. But the bigger, the larger businesses are service. Like we have a roofing company here, ah, some blue collarish and then we have two aestheticians and three. And They see clients there. Is that right? They bring clients here. Yeah. Okay. So it's been interesting to see the variety because at first we thought our target market would be younger,
00:30:34 maybe thirties, which if you go downtown, you know your avatar is younger, they're younger down there. Yeah. I kept thinking I'm, this was my daughters and I, when we were opening, I said, I think we're gonna attract my age because we're in the suburbs. Yeah. We're gonna attract the moms who are busy, who drive. We don't need a bus route,
00:30:52 train route. They're gonna be coming in. They've got soccer practice to get to after. You know, and that really has been, we're seeing a much older person in here than we ever thought. Which I love because they've got the money to pay for rental. Yeah. You know, and we've had people in here since day one. I mean we're coming up,
00:31:13 this march will be three years and probably five of our offices are the same people. And then the rest came in that first year and we've been full for about, we've been completely full with a wait list for about six months. So you're recovered from totally Like we have a VIP wait list and what that means is you can come in here and work at our hot desks until an office Opens.
00:31:39 Opens. Yep. And they get priority when an office. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And real estate, we have two big realtor groups that have eight people in a bullpen style office and another one that has a coaching real estate group. So yeah, it's a good variety, which I like because yeah, when economy hits one sector, you may lose that sector.
00:32:00 So you know, the variety I think helps strengthen and then they all work, they all do business with each other, which I love Too. I love that too. I know that's like a really diverse membership. Yeah, it's really cool. The realtors are using the roofing and the pool people and they're, you know, using the attorneys here who do business law.
00:32:18 So it's super cool to see the community kind of come together and, but again, I think the events are what people connect over the events and they meet each other. This in 23 we already have our theme. It's the adventures and friendship and we're gonna do a skydiving event where we get a group together to go skydiving and we're, we're gonna do a kayaking thing here at Cherry Creek Reservoir.
00:32:43 We're gonna do some hiking trips. So I just feel like adventure type things bond people into the relationships. Totally. And so we are lining up all those type of events for 2023. I love that we don't talk about that very much. Like offsite type things probably cuz a lot of communities can't get their people to do it. What do you think it is about your community that makes them open to it?
00:33:06 I Think it's the friendships that I see forming and I just think, okay, how do you deepen? Yeah. I mean I've been just fascinated by the whole concept of friends at work and the value to your mental health and really looking at the wellness. Taylor went and got certified, my daughter got certified to become a well certified, you pay $300 and go through this course on well certification.
00:33:26 And the architect we hired for the build out is well certified. And one of the things we kept talking about is, you know, it's friendships, it's eating together, it's bringing those type of events together. And I just started saying, how do you take that further? How do you deepen any relationship? It's doing things that you have to be vulnerable and a lot your going a little deeper than just surface level at a class or at a networking event.
00:33:51 Yeah. So we said let's start doing some of that, that type of event and see what happens. And people like, they're so excited. People are so ex excited. A lot of 'em are going, I'm not gonna skydive, but I'll come and cheer. That Would Be me. We need a ground crew. I've done this twice with women's.
00:34:07 I'll bring the snacks, take up skydiving and we say, you're gonna set the table. We're gonna have champagne and snacks from the celebration after and you're gonna be our photographers. And yeah. And it's just people, they just, you know, the friendships go deeper. So I love it. Interesting. Yeah, so I was, I told you I was just interviewing Peter Chi and he just sent,
00:34:28 spent a couple months flying and driving across the country and so he went to tons of different Coworking spaces and he said, you know, it's just very interesting where you go into some and there's some sort of like secret sauce and I feel like you've, you have it because it's a unique community. You know, I run a Community Manager University. And so we've lots of community managers talking about it can be really hard to get the right mix of people.
00:34:53 And then it's So true. When we do a tour, people will come out of their office and go, oh my gosh, are you thinking of working here? Oh my God, it's, And I'm going, I did not pay them to say that. You're like, I would just step aside. And Yeah, they're so bought into it that I said if we weren't here one day,
00:35:13 they could run this like they know and take care of each other and they could, they could do a tour and close the sale. It's amazing. It's really interesting. Yeah. I feel like this, this might be your next speaking topic. I know. You know, and another thing is I'm older and I keep saying at 55 I decided to do this.
00:35:34 And so I said, I'm also on this mission to help people realize you still have so much in you to give. To do. Yeah. And contribute and build Community and creativity and Right. Building things. This Experience and wisdom. It's like right now it's time to help build other people's businesses. I work in the women's prison here and I go in there and we do a leadership program in there.
00:35:56 But now what's happening is three of 'em have recently gotten out and I'm working with them on a business idea they had that they wanted to start. And I said, there's another idea, like helping these people start business. I wanna do a shark tank for these people who are coming out of prisons. And there's another organization here that we pull into this prison reform thing that we're working on and we're pulling them in and they,
00:36:22 they go into prisons and do programs on entrepreneurship. And so I said, we wanna be that transition to help them connect with coaching and help get a website going. Get their marketing. So to me, when you start reaching out to the community like that, you start seeing that, okay, our community is more than just the people who rent an office.
00:36:42 Yeah. How do we help this community go out and connect to the community out there too? So there's, yeah, there's, there's a lot of work to do. Well and I think, I think it takes, you know, to your point about, you know, being at a certain life stage, it can take life experience to be able to connect those dots.
00:37:02 You're connecting a lot of dots and the confidence to like experiment and let's see if this works and Yeah. Yeah. And you're right, it's like every job you've ever had prepares you for that moment that you're doing the next one. But then you're learning things. So I look and go, oh, I'm connecting customer journey things from the job I had.
00:37:21 You know? So it's always like, I just feel like you're giving, you have so much more to give back the older you get. And I just think that message has to get out there. Especially to women who think, you know, 50, I'm washed up, I'm done. It's like, oh girl, you're, let's talk about what 60 you still have to do.
00:37:40 You know? Yeah. Okay. Maybe you have a couple of speaking topics Brewing here. It's like, I just think community friendship. I do feel like there's just something in that that I see. I see it transform people that never have had a friend at work or they're solopreneurs and they've never really thought about, oh I need a friend. And as you get older,
00:38:01 I'm starting a pod, another podcast with my husband and we're calling finding Fred and Ethel because he and I started taking pickleball classes and we were realizing we don't have friends outside of like, we have four kids. So our kids are now married, they're our friends. Wow. But I go, as you get older, you've gotta have friends. And so I go at work,
00:38:22 I have friends now that we could do stuff and I, I just told 'em, I said, it's interesting how older couples say they don't have friends. The friendship thing and I think has a lot of different arms to it. Yeah, I know. Why not start another one? What else Is gonna say? That's hilarious. I, so yeah,
00:38:38 I think, wait you said, I can't remember if it was before we hit record or not, that you could be like a professional podcaster. I do think that's unique and I have the same problem. I wanna start, I have ideas for podcasts all the time that are right, not like work related. Yeah. And I have to Like, I literally have So Many ideas.
00:38:56 Yeah. I have one woman who works in here, when she was released from prison, she was looking for a job. Somebody here was hiring in our workspace. And I said, here's her story, here's where she's coming from. Here's, and she, the transition when you get outta prison is really hard. Like some of them have never have never held a cell phone in their hands.
00:39:16 So I was talking to her and she said, I'd love to start a podcast. And I go, that's a perfect pod. So I usually come up with tons of podcast ideas, but I love it so much cuz you get to be curious and learn from people. Wait, who does your editing for your podcast? Taylor? My daughter. It Does.
00:39:33 Yeah. You know what? And so my daughter's only 11 and actually I have, she could learn it and I've thought of it cause I was like, well if I didn't have to pay for all of my editing, that's kind the limiting factor and the show notes. Ah, do do show notes. Yeah. Taylor, Taylor did a lot of our podcast editing and video editing for clients when we had our agency.
00:39:53 So she is tech savvy, which is another benefit. See I should have had 10 children cuz I could have had a lot more of them employed because Taylor does All first seems like enough to me. I mean, my son, I have one son who's an electrician. He did all the electric, he did all the build out electric work here. My oldest son lives in the Bay Area.
00:40:15 He worked for Oracle for years and then started his own audio production. He does commercials and video music videos. He's there in the Bay Area in Oakland. And he came out here and helped us set up all the equipment for the podcast. So see you gotta get all the kids to, I love it. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the expansion,
00:40:36 the next space. What are you thinking? What's driving the expansion? What are, yeah, what's, And you know, I went to the GWA conference and I have to say I left so inspired. I loved it so much. Number one, it was so cool to hear other people talking about how many locations I had, how hard it was or how easy it is now and how and what I always have to hear,
00:40:57 okay. Other people are doing this. So, you know, it's possible. So when you feel like something's impossible in your business, you always go, okay, wait a minute. Yeah. Other people, You know, it's doable. Yeah. It's just gonna be hard and I can do hard things. And so it was great to hear. Cause I feel like the hardest thing is going from your first space to your second space because you still don't have enough credibility to get,
00:41:23 and I, I don't know, I've had somebody want to be an investment group, but they immediately started telling me how they did. They wanted it to be less female focused, less event driven, less. And I was just like, oh yeah, you're not my people. Right. So you have to find the right people who believe in what you're doing.
00:41:41 And I, I mean, when I say female, Don't get outta your way. Like we have, we probably have 40% men in here. Okay. But we have nap rooms with velvet lounge chairs, a bathrooms have chandeliers and speakers in the bathrooms. And you know, to me that's female focused because that's what I want. Yeah. It's not like we're girly pink,
00:42:01 it's just that it's, we focus on female entrepreneurs and the guys love it here. And so I don't know that investment, I don't know, I, I'm feeling like I'm stuck in this place of, if I take a loan to do this build out, that's a, you know, huge undertaking. Yeah. Then I'm paying a loan payment and,
00:42:19 you know, $70,000, you know, payments. Then I, last week was why, why don't I look at getting SBA loan and buying this building that I'm in? And so I'm just in that stage of needing that financial Yeah. Piece. And my husband is very business savvy. He helps start home advisor, which is now Angie's List. But he also is the logic brain that says,
00:42:44 at our age, aren't we ready to slow down? Yeah. And, and I have To and not take too many risks maybe. Yeah. And that's exactly, he's like, we're not at a stage where we should be taking on this. And I'm saying, let me find out how I can reduce the risk. Yeah. Let me get all the data needed.
00:43:02 Then I come to him and go, okay, here's what's I'm, here's what I'm doing. I'm doing this, doing this, doing this. But he would be a great financial advisor if he wasn't married to me, The spouse support is tricky. Totally. It's, it's Really interesting. I've learned you have to go to different people at different stages of your ideas and your spouse may be the one you go to after,
00:43:24 maybe Not first. Yeah, Yeah. Yes. My, the same Way cheerleaders first, you know. Yep. Yeah. I thought GWA was great to connect with people who can encourage and give you that. Here's what I've done. So, and that's why I love the group that we have here in Denver with our, you know, Coworking alliance group that you just get the encouragement and the next week I'm meeting with one of the guys who owns a,
00:43:50 a competitive brand right here. And he, you know, he and I are in the same city with one of our, one of his spaces. But he said, let's meet next week and I'll, I'll share kind of what I've done in the getting investor side. So yeah. That's where I am. I, I feel like this brand, what we've built is so magical and important and I feel like why wouldn't I want to expand?
00:44:14 But then I go, okay, this is a huge hurdle to jump. But So you mentioned you were looking at space. Is it, how close is it to your first space? About 40 minute. Well, no, it's probably like 30 minutes. It is west of Denver and we are south of Denver. So it's another suburb, Lakewood Arvada.
00:44:33 So it's, it's gonna hit another area that's similar to this. There's not a lot of competition out there right now. There's office evolution. So, you know, I keep looking at that going, okay, there's not a lot of competition. Is there a reason? But I did talk to Craig Bowie who runs, he can run these reports and show you the,
00:44:53 the numbers and he's like, it would be, it would work, it would be great. He goes, that's a big, that's a big space. But it could work. I think the wellness side is where I think splitting it work and wellness is why I think it could. Yeah. I could go that bigger size because we could do, you know,
00:45:10 nails, Hair, you could do more of it. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Chiropractor. Yeah. Which I think is just becoming more and more on trend because people want like that quality of life. And speaking of pickleball, the podcast, you'll laugh the interview that, that is live today on the other podcast with Giovanni. Yeah.
00:45:31 This woman is a writer for Co-Star and she was talking about how companies are starting to put in pickleball courts as amenities because people, we Talked about it here. I said, you know what, we have a space out back, we might be able to do a pickleball. I said, give me a couple more lessons. I've only done one lesson.
00:45:47 I go, we're gonna get pickleball go going here next spring. Which could be super fun for a community I've never played. So Yeah. It's, you know what I love for people my age, I love the fact that there's not a ton of running. It's active, but it's not, you don't have to be super athletic to get into it.
00:46:04 Yeah. And the courts are small that Yeah. I think it's one of those things you see a lot of 40, 50, 60 year olds. Our instructor was 77. That's hilarious. It At the middle. And he was amazing. I was like, my husband goes, I'm inspired, I could do this for a long time. My husband's been in martial arts forever.
00:46:25 Okay. So he does. And he does Brazilian jiujitsu. And he was just doing, so he does like intense athletics. I'm like, I want something he and I can do together. Together. Totally. So I said pickle ball could be it. If we're gonna find Fred Ethel, we've gotta be doing some act activities with them. That's hilarious.
00:46:44 Right. Well, right. And something to do in your, well pickle balls outside. You wouldn't put it inside, right? Well, no, in the classes that we're doing are inside on an indoor tennis court. Okay. Well it's not an indoor tennis court. It's on an indoor basketball court. And they put the nets the other direction and they made three pickleball courts in the basketball gym.
00:47:05 Okay. Okay. Well it Could be indoor or Outdoor, so. Right. Your 28,000 square feet might, We might be able to fit one in there. You might. Okay. Well we're running outta time. Very fun. Yeah. Okay. This was great. I feel like I could continue our coffee date. Maybe we could switch next time we'll have wine.
00:47:25 Exactly. And next time. Yeah, next time I'm, you're in Denver or I'm in in California. I'll definitely, totally, And you know what? My in-laws live in Highlands Ranch. Did I have, I mentioned that. What? Yeah. We have not. So my husband's parents and his sister and her husband and three kids that's, we were there last year for Thanksgiving.
00:47:43 We have not been since. And so he's gonna go for a business trip. I was hoping we were gonna go around Thanksgiving time again. We are not. The next time we come I'm gonna, yeah. Highlands Ranch is like, I go through Highlands Ranch. I'm a Castle rock, which is south of Highlands Ranch. So Super close for sure.
00:48:01 And I can't believe, I feel like I've Googled, maybe I'm just not looking quite far enough. I always look when I'm there, Coworking near me, CrossFit near me. Cuz there's no CrossFit over there either. Actually there, see, there is a CrossFit gym right in Castle Rock where I live. And there's one in Highlands Ranch now. Is it,
00:48:18 maybe it's cuz I haven't been there in a while and yeah, it was still like, I think last November was still a little like, oh. All the things. I know that's true. Yeah, I know. Wait, what about Highlands Ranch for Coworking? I, I've actually thought about that because there's not a lot, there's, you know,
00:48:36 there's the office evolution ranges and those kinda things there, which always tells you, oh, there's a market. So I Think, so We serve Highlands Ranch, a lot of people from Highland here, Centennial. We, we pull from like Parker Highlands Ranch. Okay. Castle Rock even. So that's, that's like 15 minutes from Here. Okay. So yeah.
00:48:56 Okay. Well, we'll see. I know, I look forward to following your journey, Gina. And having a glass of wine when I'm in town. Yeah. Versa. Versa as well. Well, thank you so much. This has been an honor. So fun to talk to you. Likewise. Thank you for taking the time to do this.
00:49:12 I look forward to the next one. Me too. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review. It makes a huge difference in helping others like you find us. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to Everything Coworking dot com.
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