297. Part II: What To Do When You’re Selling A Coworking Product That People Aren’t Searching For

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,

00:00:29 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. Welcome to the Everything Coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me. For those of you who are watching on video and our YouTube channel is getting more and more popular.

00:00:58 So for those of you who join us on YouTube, thank you. I'm wearing my Burlingame A Y S O sweatshirt. One of the hats that I wear is I am the regional commissioner for our local A Y S O region. That is a three-year commitment and in year two, I sort of feel like I might know what I'm doing. We'll see,

00:01:18 and we're supposed to have a board meeting tonight because we tried last week and the power was out in our town. So we did not have quorum, a quorum. I learned that it's a quorum when I got corrected by Grammarly in my email, so we're trying again tonight. But the gentleman who is presenting, we're looking to update our end-of-season tournament rules,

00:01:39 does not have power. So we are having some crazy storms, lots of wind, lots of rain. So anyway, kind of a crazy night. Hopefully, you can't hear the weather. Hopefully, my microphone is giving me good audio. Okay, so last week on the podcast we talked about this idea that the best business models are known prescriptions for known problems.

00:02:05 And we talked about why the Coworking business is easier. If you are in a market where folks know that Coworking is a solution and you have a product mix that is waited on offices, meeting rooms and mail, generally those products solve a problem that people know they have and are Searchie for solutions to solve. Did I say that right? Tongue twisting here.

00:02:35 So a challenging, you know, the laundromat is an easy business because not the laundromat, yeah, the laundromat or the dry cleaner. I was really thinking about the dry cleaner, although that's probably a terrible business post covid, if you need something dry cleaned, you can't do it at home. So how do I get something dry cleaned? I Google dry cleaner near me,

00:02:53 I solve a problem, I can find the solution. I know it's a problem. We went through lots of this last week, so I'm not gonna repeat it again. The challenge with anything besides the private office, the business identity packages and meeting rooms, is that those products like a dedicated desk or flex desk or Hot Desk or whatever we call them,

00:03:13 you call them in your business, those are products that generally the co-working business made up as an alternative to the office for people that don't really need an office and don't want to pay for an office. So if you don't value an office, you don't wanna pay the price that we assign to a private office. So we assign lower price and value to open space or dedicated desks.

00:03:37 So we sort of invented those products for folks as an alternative, which works great if you're in a market where people know enough about Coworking to show up looking for a solution and say, oh yeah, I could use a dedicated desk, or I could use a Flex desk, or know enough about Coworking and feel like it addresses a problem that they have and they're on your website and they understand what those products are and they join.

00:03:59 And that happens all the time, right? If you're listening and you have a co-working space, you have sold all of those products. The challenge is you may not be selling enough of them. And this is more of a challenge post covid. So I work with over a hundred operators through our Community Manager program, through our operator membership, through our Coworking,

00:04:20 Startup, School. Although our Coworking Startup School members don't quite, you know, know the challenges yet, they're about to get into them. But we talk about these with them because they wanna get in front of these challenges, right? And that's the advantage they have for taking Startup School is they learn from all of you that have gone before them. So we talk about these challenges all the time post covid,

00:04:42 it is easier to sell offices, it is harder to sell dedicated desks and flex desks. There are exceptions you may know or be one of those operators that has no problem selling these products. But what I often hear is phrases like, well, you know, we just can't fill more than half of our dedicated desks at a time. Or, you know,

00:05:04 we have a lot of capacity in our Coworking area and it feels really quiet and we're having trouble filling it and it's a chicken or egg problem. Or just, you know, people are really hesitant. They're on Zoom calls, they think they need an office. It's hard to talk them into a dedicated desk or a Coworking desk. And part of that is the,

00:05:23 the sheer numbers of people who come in. If you track, and I'm hosting a session on KPIs at Juicy, so ping me on Instagram, getting our dms on Instagram or just, you know what, you can send us an email. I don't spend a lot of time on social media as I don't encourage you to, I probably should spend more time on it,

00:05:42 but just send us an email. You can send it at to hello Everything Coworking dot com and we have a discount code for our loyal listeners. So if you're thinking about going to Juicy and would like a discount, little side tangent, but my session is on KPIs and you just reminded me that I need to do some prep calls for that panel. So if you are paying attention to your KPIs,

00:06:04 one of the things that you're tracking is how many tours are coming in and what product they're interested in, and what the conversions rate rates look like on those products. So it is likely that you have a lot more tours coming in for private offices than you do dedicated desks or Coworking. It is also likely that your conversion rate is higher if you're tracking by product type or offices because again,

00:06:28 it's a known problem. People know there's a solution out there and they've budgeted for it and it's probably less of a discretionary budget. So folks that need offices probably need them to run their businesses. So if there's an economic downturn, if gas prices go up, if there's inflation, all the things we're dealing with now, they're not as likely to drop their offices.

00:06:48 And maybe you've got them in a year-long commitment, but dedicated desks and Coworking, that's a harder sale because those are discretionary choices. People are, don't need those, right? That those are more optional and so it, they can be harder to sell when the economy is not booming. And that is the time period we're in now. So I don't have all of the answers,

00:07:14 so I should just confess that right away. But what I do have is the ability to facilitate this conversation and share some thoughts that I have based on the conversations that I'm a part of and share things that I see other folks doing or some ideas that people are sharing. So I think it's important that we figure out a form to have these conversations. We do those,

00:07:39 we certainly do that in our operator membership. We'd love to have you join us. You can find that on our website under work with us. I want to interrupt you for a minute with a special offer. If you are an operator that is getting ready to launch or your space is less than a year old and less than 200 members, office rnd is piloting a program called Flex Startup program,

00:08:04 which allows you to save 50% on your first year with office r and D Flex to help you grow your Coworking space. As many of you know, I run programs that help operators launch. I run mastermind programs for operators that are in business and a Community Manager program. And we have lots of members that love using r and d office r and d.

00:08:26 It's kind of an all-in-one platform that has fantastic analytics, meeting room management, lots of integrations, all the things as I like to say. So it's a fan favorite of the Everything Coworking program members. So I'm excited that you get a chance to kind of get started with it at a discounted rate. So 50% off of your first year, you can learn more about the offer and sign up for a demo by going to Everything Coworking dot com slash rnd.

00:09:01 That's Everything Coworking dot com slash rnd. We'll also throw that link in the show notes. So if you open your podcast app, you can grab the link right there. So here's some thoughts that I have with this challenge of selling products that solve problems that people don't necessarily know they have. First, if you haven't opened a space yet, focus on the solutions that people know exist.

00:09:27 So build more private spaces, rely less on dedicated desks and co-working. I'm not saying, you know, build a model that you don't want to run, but build a model that provides solutions that consumers are buying. And I think we talked a lot about that on the first episode, the previous episode, but I just wanted to, I thought it was worth repeating.

00:09:51 So the next step is if you have filled your offices and now you're an existing operator, you have dedicated desks and co-working spaces, okay, so what are the levers that you can pull to sell more of those desks? So first I would say if you've tried all the things and they're not working and it's been months and you're not seeing any change in net new memberships for those products,

00:10:18 it may be that that's not gonna change for a while. Coworking can be cyclical, so we should be coming into an upturn in sales. So holidays are typically a tricky time. People don't make a lot of decisions, but starting January, February, March, April, those should be really strong months. And then summer is gonna be challenging again. And then fall typically in a,

00:10:40 and this is, sorry, in US seasons, I know we have friends down under listening who are in completely opposite seasons. So seasons matter, you know, alignment with school year matters. But outside of those factors, if you are not improving your conversions and your net new members, meaning like that number is ticking up every month and not sort of staying the same or going down,

00:11:05 then it may be that these products just are not gonna work for your market unless there's some lever that you haven't pulled yet. And we can talk about that in a minute. I think the lever that is probably left is not an easy one. I do speak with folks who have actual marketing holes, funnel holes, you know, that aren't doing all the right marketing things and do have challenges in their sales funnels.

00:11:30 If that is you, then you're lucky because that is probably fixable. If you're pretty savvy and you've been doing this for a while, then you may just need to be realistic about the contribution that those products are gonna make to your revenue and to your profit. And you may need to write them off essentially. That is kind of what I would do as a business owner.

00:11:51 I would, I'm not saying give up, but I'm saying if you rely on that revenue to pay your mortgage, send your kids to gymnastics class, that would be me. In terms of the fees that I pay to the local gymnastics class, I want you to think about, okay, maybe that re we're not gonna see that revenue, so maybe you have to look at that as bonus revenue.

00:12:14 Again, don't give up on it. You could convert that space into offices. That depends on your real estate model, the length of your lease, access to cash to do that. So that's one option. Take the space and create more private spaces or refocus your effort and find some other way to generate that income either within your business, by building your mail program,

00:12:36 focusing on meeting room revenue or outside of your business. A lot of folks don't only do Coworking, so you likely had some profession before this. Do some consulting, you know, start a side hustle. I don't mean to, you know, say this, what's the word I'm looking for? Like, you know, throw this out sort of lightly.

00:12:56 But I always had other roles when I was a Coworking space operator, I did consulting and I had two locations, I was still doing consulting, I ran the Global Workspace Association while operating spaces. I started my Coworking Startup School while running my co-working spaces. So I always had other ways to generate revenue and I think it's good to diversify. So it may be time to just simply be realistic that you're having a hard time selling those products.

00:13:24 And let's talk just for a couple minutes about why that is, which I think will shift into, you know, what's the lever that's left for you to try, if you think your sales funnel and your marketing is really on point, I think the mental dissonance that we're having right now is that there's a lot of industry discussion, lot of Kool-Aid drinking out there and I'm sure I'm guilty of that when,

00:13:50 which is why sometimes I just, I just wanna break it down and say, look, sometimes we just need to be realistic and write that off. So the industry Kool-Aid is anybody who, there's so many more people today who have a choice around where they're going to work. Not everyone, right? There are plenty of people who need to be in a physical location,

00:14:10 but so many people who used to have to go to an office somewhere who don't have to anymore, they have a choice. So we think, oh my gosh, the total addressable market, the tam just became enormous and all I need is this little tiny sliver of market share to make my business hit a home run. I just need, you know,

00:14:33 250 people, whatever the number is for you. That's not that many, right? Of all the total addressable market out there, of all the people who could work at my Coworking space and make that choice, some of them would be paying out of pocket, some of them might have a stipend, some are remote workers, some are small businesses giving up leases.

00:14:52 Where are all of these people that could come take my Coworking memberships and my dedicated desks? They must be out there. I think they all are, they are out there. But the challenge is there, there are a few challenges. One is not everybody's get gonna get it paid for. I do think that's happening more and more. So we know that the major platforms like Desk Pass,

00:15:14 LiquidSpace, Aflex, it's you know, DeSana, et cetera, they are doing deals with corporations and selling access to their platforms and the corporations are paying, we, we know this is happening and some of you are seeing in that, that in your space it's probably skewed towards specific markets. So if you're in a small market, maybe you're not seeing very much of that action.

00:15:38 And also that's a major change management initiative on the side of the end user who is not an entrepreneur. So I had this awesome, I think I should, I just wanna zoom out for a second. I think that there are some other macro things happening here and I think that as an industry we still have a lot of work to do around understanding our consumer and what motivates them and what gets them to make a decision around joining a space.

00:16:10 Because that behavior I think was so easy and clear and obvious when we were mostly focusing on entrepreneurs or startups or it used to be that we really were focusing on supporting like professional services, accountants, lawyers, people who you know, have the income and a clear need for an office. That's just what they do. Attorneys go to an office, accountants go to an office,

00:16:35 startups go to an office, right? And they still generally do, but that doesn't drive growth, right? The growth comes from all the small businesses giving up leases and all their remote employees that might become co-working users, maybe not full-time but meeting room drop-ins, et cetera. So again, some of that is happening but there's a lot of change management that has to get done and behavior change for that to happen.

00:16:59 So I have been talking about this with a lot of folks and I think some of the insights. So I had a conversation over the weekend. Mara Houser's daughters fiance's aunt gave me a ride home from the mountain because we went skiing and we got a flat tire on the way and my husband had to take the car to get two new tires, which is always a treat.

00:17:26 And so we needed a ride home, my daughter and I did. So she gave us a ride home and we completely nerded out on consumer insights and research around co-working. And she is a consumer insights professional. She worked for Nike and some other companies and that's like her area of expertise and she's super interested in co-working. So we just went to town and then I've had a bunch of conversations with operators about,

00:17:49 I had one today and I won't, you know, say his name but I'll give him credit if he, if he wants me to give him credit. But you know, he said a couple of things. One is like it can feel like you're the new kid, you know at a high school when you joined a Coworking space. And I actually just joined a Coworking space last week and that's exactly how I feel.

00:18:08 I feel kind of awkward and I owned Coworking spaces for eight years in two different markets and I run a PO Coworking podcast and still I feel like the new kid and I am gonna do a separate podcast for my academy operator members and talk about that experience. I really enjoy the space. So I'm not picking on the space at all. I'm just saying I think that's a really normal feeling and I hadn't articulated it like that.

00:18:33 But I've talked to Mark Gilbreath from LiquidSpace and we probably talked about this on the podcast we did together recently. You know, that folks need to get out of their comfort zone and be pretty motivated to go into a co-working space. They've never used one before, they don't know how it works, they don't know how you're supposed to behave. I kind of felt that way today.

00:18:52 I actually had to go down to the space because my power went out and I had, you know, calls all day and I couldn't take the calls cause I couldn't get online. So I hustled down to the Coworking space and I had some logistical errors in booking meeting rooms and the meeting rooms were full and I had to take a call in the lobby and like,

00:19:11 and the, the space has eight room phone booths. It is stacked with phone rooms and they were all busy. 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. Three behind the scene Secrets to opening a Coworking Space.

00:19:34 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 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 slash masterclass. If you already have a Coworking space,

00:19:57 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, sales and marketing, finance and leadership.

00:20:25 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 Manager can work through any challenges that they're having or opportunities get ideas from other community managers,

00:20:55 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. So anyway, I had some like awkward moments, it was raining, I had my coat, I didn't know where to put my coat, you know, at some point later in the day I saw somebody open this mystery closet that was the coat closet and I was like,

00:21:19 oh my god, there's a coat closet here no one told me. So just like these little awkward things I keep running into people like walking around corners and I don't know who they are. And so we do this awkward like oops, sorry, you know, so that will change. I know, but anyway, I should be super comfortable in a Coworking space and even I have those like awkward feelings and it's not enough to keep me from going.

00:21:40 But so that insight and this idea that most people don't know what to do in a Coworking space. Oh the other thing that the, the co-working space owner who said, who had the insight about feeling like high school also said that also one of his team members had talked to somebody who said, I'm not cool enough to work there. Probably she has like a normal corporate job and thought co-working spaces are for entrepreneurs and I am not an entrepreneur and therefore I will not fit in.

00:22:10 Wow, what an insight, right? So that is probably a thought that more than one person is having. That may be a theme we don't know cuz we don't do market research. I would love for the association to do market research and I might have said this last time, but I would also really, really, really love for the association to do the gut milk campaign.

00:22:32 I think there's so much work to do around awareness, which is what I'm kind of gonna get to next. I keep talking about this theme. I think that it is really challenging to be in a market where folks are not co-working aware and they don't identify with a problem that is solved by Coworking. So I talked in my email newsletter this week about my own personal sort of breakdown that made me say I really just have to get out of the house.

00:23:00 I hadn't identified a Coworking space nearby that I wanted to join. There just aren't that many in my market. And the one that I really wanted to join is 30 minutes away, which is an hour out of my day. And I am an Enneagram three and I'm very focused on being efficient and that is a lot of time out of my day. But I finally like went through this whole ROI conversation in my head about the use of that time and how important it was for me to leave the house,

00:23:25 how important it is to my mindset and my happiness and all those things are true. But even I had to have that pep talk with myself. And so think about people who just don't even know about Coworking and can't identify. So I had this, you know, just like moment of like, you know, the last straw or whatever, you know,

00:23:43 I was telling my husband like I just feel bland and I feel, I'm trying to remember what the other words I put it in my newsletter, the wor, the words that I used. You know, I just don't feel like myself when I'm at home all the time. And I think lots of people feel that way, but they don't know that it's a problem that should be solved and can be solved by Coworking.

00:24:06 They just don't know. And the thing, so one of the arguments you might be having is, well I had Coworking members or I had dedicated desk members before the pandemic and now they're gone. And I think that is partly because behavior change is also hard. So all those people that you had before went home and they made nice home offices. I have a really nice home office,

00:24:28 it's really nice. It was a guest room and at some point during Covid I said we, I don't mean it's like ridiculously fancy, I just mean I think I talked about this on a previous podcast. I use this awesome app. They're no longer in business, it was called Modsy. And they pick the paint colors and I have a couch in my office at home and I have it all set up for my Zoom calls.

00:24:47 I will tell you I was a complete disaster on my Zoom calls today because I have not figured out like the lighting and all the accessories I need when I go to the Coworking space. But it takes a lot of like energy to break out of the inertia that we have from being at home. So that is a human behavior challenge. That is probably the real problem for all of the folks that used to be members and now are not.

00:25:14 And so how do you make a case to them to get their butts out of their home offices and back into the Coworking space if they're the kind of consumer whose mind you can shift. So I'll contrast myself to my husband. My husband works in finance, he works for a company, it's not a huge company. You know, probably half the company's remote.

00:25:37 He's certainly remote. He works at home and I said, I am joining a co-working space. I have to leave the house every day. And he said, I do not, I'm staying at home and I'm very happy here. He's like, it would make no sense to me for me to leave the house and drive and sit on Zoom calls all day because that's mostly what he does.

00:25:56 He's on, you know, zoom calls all day. His mindset, nothing about his routine to him would be any better if he did it at Coworking space. Giovanni and I did an interview with a gentleman who is the chief operating officer of asset management for Madison Marquette. That is a mouthful and I think I got it right. And he homes, he doesn't homeschool,

00:26:18 his wife homeschools their five jotters and he was so, he's so happy to be at home. He does all his work at home. He loves being at home with the family. He doesn't waste commute time, he can have lunch with them, dinner with them, you know, et cetera. No problem that he has no like mindset, mojo, productivity,

00:26:36 nope, he's good at home. So there's just this whole segment of people who are good at home. You cannot change their mind, mind, you cannot talk them into joining your dedicated desk and your co-working. But there are people whose minds you can change. So the challenge is, is how do we do that? They are not Searchie for you.

00:26:55 This is the challenge, right? With selling our co-working and dedicated desk memberships. They are not on Google Googling for you because they don't know that you exist and they don't know that the problems they have of loneliness, lack of productivity, you know, distractions don't have any mojo, feel kind of blah blah blah. You know, all the like kind of phrases and mindset challenges that we could identify.

00:27:21 They, they don't know that those are solvable problems and that they get solved by joining a Coworking community. And so they're not looking and so you have to get in front of them. And what I think is really challenging is that that kind of work is, I don't think really meant for a small business to tackle, but you, the Coworking space owner have decided that you are passionate about this business and passionate about serving your members and attracting your members and now you have co-working and dedicated desk memberships that maybe are challenging to sell.

00:27:55 And so I don't know who's going to do it again. I would love for the association to do it. So did we talk about the got milk campaign? I grew up on a dairy farm in the nineties ish. I'm not gonna tell you how old I am, but the got milk campaign was huge when I was a kid and I ha I was involved in the dairy promotion board.

00:28:16 I won't tell you in what way unless you do one of those, you know, two truths and a lie games with me and then it usually comes up cuz it's a good one. So the American Dairy Association paid for that campaign. They, you know, all the dairy farmers pay, you know, or if they're members they pay into the association.

00:28:35 So the association said the thing we can do to be helpful is convince people that drinking milk is good for them. And it worked because if you grew up at the same time that I grew up, you know, you know, you remember the, the guy with the peanut butter who the, the Aaron Burr trivia ad and all sorts of good ones.

00:28:53 I mean I had all the got milk t-shirts when I was a kid. So that campaign taught people why milk is good for you parents, right moms, it was there, it existed to make sure that moms knew that your kids need calcium and vitamin D to make healthy bones and teeth and all those things and it was very successful and we need that type of education in the Coworking industry for the average consumer who's open to this messaging.

00:29:20 It's hard for the independent operator to do that. So I don't know what the answer is to that. Some independent operators are gonna tackle this on their own. And here's what I would make super, super clear. Again, this is not a Google ad solution because Google ads are work when people are actively Searchie for something, it's well and there's some changes to that but we'll let,

00:29:44 we'll have Ruben come on and talk about that. Facebook though is generally Facebook slash Instagram is interrupting people, right? So I got an email from the Bomo club today, I'm on their email distribution list, they're in Albany, New York and the subject line was the Bull Moose Club is your solution for isolation. And I was like, that is exactly what I mean.

00:30:08 So you have to already be interested in Coworking because you're already on their email list. So it's not the perfect example, but what if that was a Facebook ad then somebody who I would use words that people use, the average consumer's not gonna use the word isolation, they're gonna say I'm lonely or you know, I feel like I, maybe they use the word community,

00:30:28 I think that's a word we use more. So we'd have to do the research to really figure out like what words are the consumers using and identifying with. So maybe it's isolation, but I loved it. They're not saying we sell dedicated desks for you. We say it's the M Club said it's your solution for isolation. Yes, we need more of that messaging because it's connecting the dot for the person who doesn't think they need an office.

00:30:54 But hey, what you do need is a membership, you know, come work here and you won't be so isolated. So we need more awareness advertising. The consumer insights woman that I, hold on, I'm blanking on her name, I think it's Sarah that I was with this weekend. Sh I was like, what would you do? And she said definitely Facebook ads.

00:31:16 And she said I would test a quiz, I would test a quiz that uses the language that people identify with, like, you know, productivity, loneliness, whatever it is. Like I can't remember anyway, I can't remember the details of what we talked about. I would di would love to get her on the podcast to talk about this. But basically,

00:31:33 you know, you're scrolling through your Facebook or Instagram feed and there's a quiz that you can take and then the outcome is a recommendation that says you should join your local co-working space to solve this, you know, distracted problem or eating at home problem or you know, whatever challenge people are having that they don't know can be solved by a Coworking space. So how do you lure them in with the symptom that they might recognize and connect the dots for them that Coworking solves that problem.

00:31:59 The same operator that was giving me the awesome insights today about feeling like you're in high school and you know, Coworking spaces are too cool for me. Also said they've been working on a campaign that they're gonna run on Facebook ads connecting the dots for people about how you use a Coworking space. So don't assume people know, right? If they know they're Google Searchie for you and they've found you,

00:32:20 but if they don't know, you have to tell them. So they've done a lot of analog connecting those dots like sidewalk signs and flyers now they're gonna do it digitally. So we did have the conversation. It is not a great idea to run your own Facebook ads without becoming really, really educated in how they work because you're not gonna succeed if you don't know how they work and probably have some coaching.

00:32:46 I totally get they're exp it's expensive to hire a Facebook ads manager. It feels especially wonky in our industry because if you're in a market, if you're in a smaller market where people are not aware, then you're not gonna be able to spend very much on Facebook ads. You're gonna spend much more on the management of the ads, which is like always this frustrating dynamic.

00:33:04 But I would encourage you, if you wanna sort of take the bull by the horns and take on this education effort than find a Facebook ads manager that you trust or take a really good class and practice and test and play the long game. So this is not gonna be a silver bullet where you run ads for a few weeks and all of a sudden everybody in town's like,

00:33:28 I got it, I'm lonely, you're distracted, I'm coming in the Coworking space, that's probably not gonna happen. It's gonna be a longer play where you have to just kind of stay in front of them and whittle them down until they, something clicks for them and they say, I gotta do it. Cuz people will come up with a lot of excuses.

00:33:46 The guy I was talking to you today, and this is just fresh, I have great conversations with a lot of folks on this topic and I got some great emails from folks, I asked folks to respond and they all talked about the loneliness factor and how that's the dot they connect once people are in the door. I think the challenge is how do you connect that dot for people who don't even know you exist?

00:34:07 That's the challenge, right? Because we need people to look for us, find us come in for a tour. So, okay, I'm gonna stop here cuz I have to go to my soccer call. I could keep talking about this. So again, I don't have all the answers, but I think it's super important to be realistic about what selling and not selling.

00:34:26 Is there something you can tweak on the product? We've talked about that before. Maybe it's the name I was talking to this consumer insights person. I was like, do you think it's weird that we call them dedicated desk and we invented that term and consumers have no idea what that means. So I've talked about that a lot in the podcast before. Some folks are experimenting with different names,

00:34:44 they're experimenting with making dedicated desks more pod like that's tweaking, like the product. And anything you can do to make the product more office like then becomes a solution to a known problem. So that's positive. It doesn't solve the problem that people aren't aware, aren't connecting the dots between problems they may have in solutions. So tweaking the product or the pricing or anything like that.

00:35:08 It's just challenging when people, even when you don't have the demand in the first place. So, so if you think your sales funnel is, you know, pretty nailed down, then I think the education is the missing gap, which is a pretty big challenge for an independent operator to undertake. And I think you have to do it as at scale as you can.

00:35:30 I think it's awesome to do bootstrappy things. I think if you wanna make it sustainable, you're probably looking at something like a Facebook ad campaign that runs your, you know, brand awareness education. Not a super clear r o i, but something you can test. And again, just be realistic about what those products are gonna contribute while you're working on those things or testing other things.

00:35:52 You may need to look for other sources of revenue if you're in that situation or if you're expanding and, and working on new locations, then you know, you just wanna be really careful about your product mix and making sure you're not oversupplying a product that folks just aren't really buying today. And look five years from today, three years from today, two years,

00:36:15 who knows, we could be having a completely different conversation because this industry 100% is changing a lot all the time. And so the switch will start flipping at some point, but we don't know when that will be. We all thought maybe it would have switched by flipped the switch would have flipped by now. And so I think some folks are feeling the sense of disappointment that their expectations are not being met.

00:36:39 So again, I, I'm not not optimistic, I just wanna be realistic about what it's gonna take for this to shift. So looking forward to more conversations on this topic. If you have any insights to share, please drop us a note. We'd love to hear your thoughts or join us of course in our operator membership. We'd love to see you on our monthly calls.

00:37:03 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 like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week.

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Jamie RussoMarch 23, 2023Comment

297. Part II: What To Do When You’re Selling A Coworking Product That People Aren’t Searching For

297. Part II: What To Do When You’re Selling A Coworking Product That People Aren’t Searching For

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