307. Automating your Coworking Space Operations So Your Team can Focus on the Humans

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307. Automating your Coworking Space Operations So Your Team can Focus on the Humans

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."

00:00:45,"Welcome to the Everything Coworking Podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for joining me. So this hasn't happened to me in a very long time, but I just talked to myself without the microphone, without the record button on for like 20 minutes, which is probably too long for an intro. Anyway, so let's start over and keep this shorter."

00:01:06,"Okay, so here is what's happening. We are doing a part one and part two of my interview with Brian Watson. Brian is the founder of Altspace and Altspace runs Unstaffed locations. They have an ambassador model, so not exactly unstaffed, but powered by automations in mountain towns in Colorado. And he has been on the podcast before, roughly a year ago, and his YouTube video of our interview,"

00:01:37,"I should say the YouTube video of our interview is my most popular YouTube video by far. So by many, many multiples. So either there's some bot that is viewing his video or it might be because he embedded it on his website, which is a great marketing tip. So any of you who have been guests, please put our YouTube video on your website and make us go viral."

00:01:59,"So anyway, I if assuming it's not a bot, people are interested in this topic. So Brian is back and he's been testing and iterating and we had a really thought-provoking conversation and since he's so popular, I decided to work it. And I'm posting this as part one and part two. So we're gonna keep you in a little bit of suspense. We're gonna post part of the interview this week and part of the interview next week."

00:02:24,"And why are people so excited about this topic? Well, here's what I think. I think that for a long time we have kind of applied a template model, if you will, to how a Coworking space gets run. And this is done partly because it works really well when it works really well. However, no two Coworking spaces are the same."

00:02:43,"I work with a lot of Coworking space operators. I help start Coworking spaces with operators and I run operator mastermind programs. So, and I run the Community Manager University programs. So I see a lot of different business models and what's happening and what's working and what's not working. And staffing a Coworking space full-time does not always work for the model. It's hard to do if the space is small."

00:03:04,"If you're in a smaller market, then maybe a larger space is not warranted. Maybe you own a building and that is the space that you have. And so the full-time staff model doesn't make a lot of sense. I have some folks in our operator group who have had some life changes and they can't be as involved in their space and they're figuring out how I'm gonna staff this thing."

00:03:25,"And people are thinking creatively about sort of what the mix looks like. Brian talks about this a lot and one of the sort of arguments he makes for the approach, he's not arguing for the approach, he's not saying it works for every space, but one of the thought-provoking things that we talk about is that it is a real challenge for the Community Manager to actually spend time with the humans in the space because they have so many operational duties,"

00:03:49,"keeping the space clean, onboarding members, operating members, you know, greeting guests, handling leads that come in planning events. So it's hard for them to spend actual time with the humans. What if you could remove some of that operational burden? Does it need to be done on site? Can some of it be automated? And then does the person who spends time with the humans need to be full-time?"

00:04:12,"Or can you sort of break out what gets done where? And Brian's experimenting with some offerings that would allow him to centralize some of the operational work and potentially, you know, lead flow and things like that and handle that for a lot of Coworking spaces. So he and I are gonna talk more in detail about that. But we talk about just a lot of thought provoking ideas that you might apply to your own Coworking business."

00:04:37,"And I think the template model. So we like the template model because when I say template model, I say like the sort of like office dense model that we know makes money, but a lot of people wanna do something a little bit different and need creative ways to figure out how do I make this work? How can I serve the customer that I want,"

00:04:56,"have a really great performing space, but maybe pull out some of the expenses or, you know, adjust where the the operational lift gets done. So that's what we talk about part one and part two. So I know you're gonna love this conversation. And before we dive in, one more element of suspense here. I just wanna mention that if you are a landlord or an operator and you've been thinking about pursuing a management agreement or if you've been approached by an operator,"

00:05:28,"if you're a landlord to do a management agreement and you're not sure how to evaluate the deal in front of you, you're not sure exactly what the model looks like, you're not sure what the build out cost should be, you're not sure how to evaluate a partner or same for an operator if you’re not sure exactly how to structure an agreement with a landlord."

00:05:46,"Lot of different ways to do creative deal structures, a traditional management agreement is one of them. There's a lot of ways that you can get creative. So Giovanni Palavicini, my co-host of the Flex Uncensored podcast, we have opened the our management agreement course and we are gonna run it live for the first cohort starting on June 20, no, June 29th, sorry,"

00:06:10,"Gio's going to Alaska for 10 days. So when he comes back, we're gonna start running that cohort so until the 20th you can register to get into the cohort and we'll run it live and then it will be posted to our course library with recordings of the sessions and all of the resources and checklists and templates and workbooks and all those good things that go with the course."

00:06:34,"And we will be hosting live Q&A calls on an ongoing basis as well. So I'll put the details, you can get all the details at Everything Coworking dot com slash management agreements if you wanna see what's covered and see if it's a fit for you. So you can scroll through and kind of look through all the details. And certainly if you have any questions let me know."

00:06:53,"We'll put the link in the show notes. And don't forget you gotta register by June 20th. So without further ado, here's my conversation Part A with Brian Watson. Okay, we are diving right in. I'm here with Brian Watson. Brian, thank you for joining me. Brian is currently the co-founder of Altspace and my most watched ever YouTube. I think we hit a nerve on our last discussion."

00:07:23,"Oh my gosh, I don't know. Or it's the fact that it's, I've noticed it's on your website, so I thought well maybe that's where it all comes from. Anyway, we were just starting to talk before we recorded about the fact that you have a new member of the family. I don't know, I was thinking about our podcast yesterday, my daughter's 11,"

00:07:39,"and she is in that age where she thinks it's normal to be a YouTuber. Oh yeah, yeah. Like she Thinks she's gonna make money on YouTube at some point. As soon as I let her post to YouTube I was like, Hey, maybe it should be your summer project to like start creating some content. She's like, you said I can't,"

00:07:57,"you won't let me. I was like, okay, let's, we'll think about it. I was Like, what are you gonna post about? Because I, I think May, and then I was thinking about you and our viral episode and then I was like, I wonder if Brian has any kids that think they're gonna be YouTubers Not yet, But not yet."

00:08:11,"But I'm, I'm sure we'll be having that discussion here in the years to come. Wait, girl or boy? Little girl. Eva. Eva, Yeah. 10 months old right now. 10 Months. Okay. Yeah. So you're out of like being shell-shocked. But yeah, it's a lot of work to have a kid. It's just a completely different thing that like,"

00:08:31,"it's so funny cuz I always say this, but everyone's like, how is it? And it's like, I could never explain to myself before having a kid, what's you like to have a kid? Yep. And now you just don't really know what you did without your free time before you had a kid. But it's, it's awesome. And she's great and yeah,"

00:08:49,"it's, it's definitely a new adventure and she's amazing. It's fascinating always to me that people have children all the time, but no one can explain or prepare or teach someone else like how to be ready for that. Yeah. It's one of those fascinating things like in life You're, you're either like in, in the club or you are not, or you're not,"

00:09:12,"You can't like imagine. Totally. It's so interesting. Yeah. And all the different stages. I am in the stage now where I just try to keep my mouth shut as often as possible because my 11 year old is, you know, they talk about teenagers, but actually adolescent starts earlier. So A different categorization. Yeah. So we won't talk about parenting,"

00:09:34,"but I have to mention this like the, so at this age, so I'm reading this book about teenage emotions and it's modern and very interesting. So it talks about how kids want to create their own brand. So I was like, oh, I can relate to this like as a business owner and like, you know Yeah. I was like, I totally get this."

00:09:55,"And so they do not specifically want the brand to have anything to do with their parents. Oh yeah. Parents are Anti anti brandand. Exactly. This is very interesting. So any, even if I think I'm an interesting human who does interesting things, she wants like, I don't know anything, nothing to do with it. Her brand is totally different."

00:10:17,"So this was like mind blowing to me. I was like, okay, I get it. And she's annoyed with a lot of things that I say. I mean she's still like, we still have a great relationship, but I have to shut my mouth a lot and test my zen Patience and listening skills, Which is totally different from having a 10 month old or a three year old,"

00:10:39,"or like all the parenting skills, like you should have another kid because I didn't, and I never reused any of the skills. And now I have learning new ones. Well everyone just says like, you're constantly, like in a new phase you're constantly learning, but just, they just like push on all the things that you need to work on all the time."

00:10:58,"You know, it just brings it to the surface. And Cause I have as a human Yes. Are amplified by this kid. So anyway. Okay, so you're in, you're in Grand Junction, we are just chatting about that with fam, but you have seven locations, no employees and hundreds of happy customers. I love that description. It's so fun."

00:11:22,"Yeah. So for anybody, I'll put the link to our, our viral YouTube video in the show notes for anybody who wants to go back to that, but we should, that was a while ago. It was, it's probably like two, maybe two and a half, three years ago now. No, No, no, no, no. It's not long ago."

00:11:37,"Is that wrong? No, I'll have to look it up, but I will totally fact check our assumptions, but okay. That sounds Good. Yeah. Okay. But for those that haven't seen the video or listened to the podcast, let's do, yeah, we'll give a little context, a little background and then we'll do some updates. Totally. So yeah,"

00:11:55,"And no pressure for this one to also go viral. Brian, you have to be really interesting and compelling. I was like, I better make sure I'm wearing a different outfit than last time. Yeah, that's hilarious. We were just dressed exactly the same. Yeah, you were at least in a different location last time. So we're all, yeah."

00:12:12,"Yeah, We're a little different at least obviously. So Probably a year March of 2022. Oh, well then that's not bad at all. This is a perfect, Not totally not bad at all. Yeah. Update. Yeah. Okay, so synopsis of the last one was we were coming out of Covid. Yeah. And really, I live on the western slope of Colorado and we've done a lot of work,"

00:12:32,"especially with like rural spaces, but I think this conversation translates to a lot of people. I know that you do consulting with all sorts of spaces and you know, I was just listening to the, to Arisa podcast that you were doing and you and the other guy were talking about really kind of like that like 10,000 square foot threshold of like feasibility in a lot of these spaces."

00:12:54,"And I think that was always, you know, obviously my background, I, I was a co-founder of Proximity and we got to work with all sorts of co co-founders and space operators around the country as you get to as well. And I think that the big question that always comes up is just viability of business. And for us living in rural communities,"

00:13:15,"I was at Telluride at the same time, now we're in Grand Junction, but it's basically all rural. And the thing that always not bothered, but just like that thing that just you can't get rid of, you know, was the belief that Coworking spaces are an incredible asset for communities. They're so important. They have so much impact. And yet in a lot of these communities that can't sustain 150,000 square foot WeWork or like some of these bigger spaces,"

00:13:44,"you really have no other choice than to go smaller or really the options are these smaller footprints, but how do you make them viable? Right? And the reason that it was, so this question that would just always nag at me is because we really started in Coworking from a economic development and community impact standpoint. And so the equation has always been historically they're like grant funded or yeah,"

00:14:09,"whatever. And so that doesn't necessarily mean that it's gonna be sustainable for a long time. And so you have these like, this like cyclical nature of like impact, you know, community impact and then the grants go away or the volunteers go away and then you, you lose all that momentum. And so coming out of Covid, my wife and I were working out of a Coworking space in Telluride."

00:14:32,"I was working full-time, she was working full-time and the space that we were working out of closed. And so it displaced everyone. We found a location that was a perfect kind of alternative solution. We opened the Coworking space in that location, but we knew that because both of us were full-time and only had so much capacity, it really needed to be automated."

00:14:54,"And so we built it kind of automated from day one and just said, you know, whether we're here or not, we want the, the space to be an asset to this community. We want people to engage here, we want people to be able to use this resource, but we need to do it as automated as possible. And then we had the opportunity to purchase several other Coworking spaces kind of throughout the region."

00:15:16,"And so we tested that model and then, you know, expanded the way that we were doing it and kind of fully committed to the automation. And I think the other thing that we found was, there's several things that we found that we can kind of talk about more today. But the other thing is the business model. Not just the square footage,"

00:15:34,"but if you're, if you have a space manager at every single location, that really impacts the business model and the, the, the viability of that business. And so you really do need kind of economies of scale, especially with smaller footprints in order to make it all work and sustainable. And the sustainability part was so important if you want to have long-term kind of vision or long-term impact that will be sustainable for a long time."

00:16:03,"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 r and d is piloting a program called Flex Startup program, which allows you to save 50% on your first year with office r and D Flex to help you grow your Coworking space."

00:16:30,"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. 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."

00:16:55,"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. That's Everything Coworking dot com slash O N d."

00:17:23,"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 you connected me with, with the San Louis Valley Group, which we'll have to talk about after recording. It's like blowing my mind. I work with a lot of folks, a lot of folks that come through my Startup school do not fall into the 10,000 foot category."

00:17:45,"And in a lot of markets today, it's super interesting. It's really hard to like qualify for that much space. Landlords are be super picky. You have to have this giant, it's hard. And so right. For me, when I get those folks, I'm like, okay, if we're not going with the traditional model, right? How do we make this work?"

00:18:03,"Yeah. So I love these conversations and the San Louis Valley Group, I mean wow. Made up of these incredible folks who are in super small markets but wanna make an impact, wanna serve a community, maybe have grants, how do they make it work? It's not gonna look like a traditional Coworking space. So I that I think this happens all the time and isn't as well covered sort of by the media and Yeah,"

00:18:28,"it's challenging as a, you know, content creator. I think you're talking about the, you know, the Jerry Alexander discussion where we're like, yeah, 10,000 feet is like a no-brainer, right? So if you're just talking like, how do you do the simplest model and make it profitable, well that's it. But then lots of people aren't gonna go that route."

00:18:45,"Totally. And, and everybody has a different why, right? Like the San San Luis Valley group is fascinating. Landlords that wanna contribute but have to figure out, you know, the Boys and Girls Club for the Valley is there and just bought a building and they wanna put a bunch of non-profits together. And it's like not everybody's after, you know,"

00:19:02,"producing, you know, 20, 25% margin on their space. Yeah. So, so yeah. I love the conversations where it's like, okay, what else works? How do we make this possible? Totally. And I think, you know, that was always one of the very first questions you should be asking when you're consulting with companies is like,"

00:19:18,"what does success look like? How are we quantum? Yeah. What's your why success? What do you need to accomplish? Totally. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think a, a lot of different entities have, especially with Coworking, have different ways that they are measuring success. But again, vi long-term viability and sustainability must be a part of the ac the equation,"

00:19:39,"you know? And so we have to figure that out. And so I think, you know, that was really kind of the, the driver of how we began that discussion. And I think that we've really shown that it's working well. You know, I think the other thing that is has changed a lot is consumer behavior post covid has just changed a lot."

00:20:00,"And so I think, you know, there's a lot of people that are especially remote workers that are traveling. We have a lot of like men and women who are like doing the Van Life thing, traveling all over and still need to get stuff done that still got board meetings that they've gotta jump in. Yeah. Right. Whatever. And so good wifi Access,"

00:20:20,"right. That they can't get. Yeah. Yep. And so, you know, just knowing like guaranteed 24 7 access, they can get in there, they can get their work done and they can kind of be on their way. Like I think that that is like another big shift that we've seen post covid and, and having a system that is, you know,"

00:20:40,"touchless self-service and that they can rely upon and they know that they can get in and get to work and everything has been good. You know, that's a, that's a different type of customer than the person that's like living there or moved there and is looking to build a whole community out of your Coworking space. And so I think that that's just another segment of customers that you didn't really have as much before."

00:21:01,"Wait, so I am curious that I get this resistance from folks, the 24 7 access. How do you just, were like, you know what, we need to get over that. Like whatever sort of concerns or stories around that not being cool for members. Like I get a lot of folks who are like, no way am I letting non-member, you know,"

00:21:21,"do somebody have to be a member to come in 24 7 or can they get access if they're passing through? How do you think about that? I mean, so, you know, the way that we really think we have, we have cameras in all of our spaces. I know, that's what I was saying. You know, door access and cameras have at it."

00:21:37,"I mean, so all of our spaces are closed to the public, they're locked, you know, and so you don't have like random people just walking in Yeah. Cause they are, are locked. And so it's a payment access basically. And so you have cameras and you know, the majority of people that are working there are still coming in during like regular hours or whatever."

00:21:58,"And you know, every Coworking space has, its, its kind of family group of members that are there. So, you know, you've got a lot of eyes in the space. And so that's how we really deal with it. We, we've never had any issues. And I think, I think it is something that is easy for people to say,"

00:22:15,"like, it's gonna be too scary or there's like too much risk there. But I think really the, having the, the doors locked all the time and having a payment gateway there provides a lot of accountability. There's cameras there. I was laughing, I was thinking, I was listening to a podcast with the Airbnb guys, you know, and, and they were saying like,"

00:22:37,"when they first started, everyone was like, strangers in your house, this is the worst idea ever We get in my bed. No freaking Way. So it is one of those things that a lot of people, you know, would be deterred from that kind of set up at first. But I think again, I think it's something that we have kind of the risk tolerance to say like,"

00:23:00,"there's only so much you could do, you know, to kind of protect yourself. We've done all those things and it's, it's, it's never been a big deal And it's like a risk benefit thing for you. You're like, look, we're trying to make a model that works. We're trying to support this segment of humans and they need access and they're not maybe gonna be full-time members."

00:23:17,"We're not gonna know their birthdate and their dog's name. But yeah, I had a break in, I hate talking about this, but I do talk about it each of my locations in Chicago and Palo Alto. I think once you go through that you're like, somebody's gonna try, it's Bad. It's, they're gonna do it. It's not gonna be the people who paid for a day pass."

00:23:36,"Totally. Yeah. They're, yeah. So surviving that is pretty, pretty brutal. So yeah, I'm in the camp of, you know, when it makes sense. I mean there are are people who don't wanna do it and don't want any outside folks, but your model is different. And to your point, who you're serving and the sustainability factor."

00:23:51,"Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. So I guess what other questions or Yeah, I mean anything you've changed since we last talked, you were doing, you know, around the automation front, like anything that is working super well, not working and Yeah. What I mean, so now that you've done this for a while, like what advice would you give to people thinking about the automation factor?"

00:24:14,"The other thing I would say that I think is interesting potentially since we last talked is I think a lot of focus on like the public versions. You know, the WeWorks and of course they're, who knows Yep. The turnout. Yep. And this like model that works and there are 100% people pursuing that in a sort of scalable, like building a business sort of way."

00:24:39,"The work bars that I was just at juicy a couple, well, maybe a month ago now. And I thought what was interesting is just a lot of discussion around what, how else can the model work? You know, to your point, like not everybody's gonna do a 10,000 square foot space that's really focused on, you know, dense office use."

00:24:57,"I mean there's a lot of people really experimenting with like the clubhouse approach, the work club approach, the let's what if we do a small space but events makes a bunch of the money and food, food, beverage. Just people like really think to your point, like what do people wanna buy? What do they need? Hey, I just wanted to jump in really quickly before we continue with our discussion."

00:25:20,"If you're working on opening a co-working space, I wanna invite you to join me for my free masterclass. Three behind the Scenes Secrets to Opening a co-Working Space. If you're working on opening a co-working 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."

00:25:43,"If you'd like to join me, you can register at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass. 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."

00:26:09,"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. 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."

00:26:38,"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. 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."

00:27:02,"Totally. Well, and I think that, you know, Coworking is still in its infancy, right? Totally. And I think that, you know, it's funny because we've been in it for a decade now and, and yet there's still so much evolution that's taking place and I think, I think really kind of the macro environment that we're going through is having everyone's kind of looking and saying like,"

00:27:23,"again, how do we make this model work? Things are getting more expensive, margins are getting lower, you know? Yeah, yeah. Money is getting more expensive and, and and less accessible. And so, you know, what do we do? You know, and I think that that is another reason why I think, you know, leaning into technology solutions,"

00:27:43,"automation solutions really is a good way, probably the best way to increase margin and to increase efficiency, right? And so I think, you know, whether you're like us and you're running, you know, small spaces or I know a lot of brands are running multiple locations in a region or something like that. And you know, if you can augment your team with,"

00:28:08,"with technology and, and systemization that allows for your customers to engage and interact with, with everyone, you know, you can get a lot of the stuff that you were doing done with technology now that you just couldn't have gotten done 10 years ago. And I think people's ability to adopt those things are, are becoming more and more accessible too. And so I think,"

00:28:30,"you know, in this window of time where everyone's kind of trying to figure out how do we make all these things work? What are the things that we should be implementing? I think really being able to kind of double down and say, what we found is that because we committed to being like building a technology stack that allowed us to automate, there's a couple things that happened."

00:28:52,"A, it made a model that would not have been profitable in the old version, profitable. It's given us a lot of time back because, you know, so much of Coworking owner or space manager's job is like logistics. You know, like what we've really helped them do is our system automates member onboarding and management. And so, you know, how many times are you answering phone calls or you're just trying to get people in the system or explain how all that stuff works."

00:29:22,"It's like the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And then if you're, if you have space managers that you're cycling through, you know, not everyone's doing things the same way. And so that standardization is Yeah. Is difficult to manage because different people are, do that process differently when you, when you're leveraging a system,"

00:29:43,"you know, we're iterating on it all the time, so it's getting better and better and better and then it's better for everyone forever basically. Right? Right. And so I think it's Like a software update sort of you're just like, It's a software update. Yeah. Load this into the how we do things and Yeah, totally. Oh, we're getting the same question,"

00:30:01,"you know, five times in a week. Let's answer that question in our initial onboarding outreach, you know, to people. And then it's updated for everyone in perpetuity. Right. And so I think being able to kind of double down on that system allows us to kind of make rapid iteration and, and eliminate those problems moving forward. And so I think,"

00:30:25,"you know, I think that there's trade offs to all that stuff. The other thing is, you know, we've swung the pendulum kind of as far as we can on that side, but I think, you know, I've, I've talked to, to several space operators or you know, Coworking space owners that have multiple locations and they're trying to figure out the spaces and the events and all of these like kind of different components that they're like bringing together."

00:30:51,"And so I think what is nice is by automating onboarding and management, you know, that's stuff you just don't have to worry about anymore. And then if you've got more of like a regional team that are like a plus players at events or whatever, if you want to do that, then that team can run that region, you know, and really just focus on that and not get bogged down by the other stuff that is Yeah."

00:31:15,"And meeting Becomes a distraction mean Focus on Events or programming or human relationship. Right. And so I think part of the challenge of space management is just the constant changing of direction day to day. Like, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna do X, y, Z. Oh wait, no I'm not. Cuz someone's coming up and talking to me."

00:31:37,"And so shifting all the time is not the most efficient way to work, I think cuz we know that. So like our joke, cause I was like, if you wanna get stuff done, go to the Coworking space unless you're the space manager and then you'll not get anything done ever. Right? And so, so we just said, you know,"

00:31:54,"we kind of tried to look at it and say what are the the different components that need to get done at our spaces in order for them to be operating? You know? And so the space member onboarding and management was a segment of the job. Yeah. Yeah. And so we could say we're gonna eliminate the need for anyone to really focus on this because we're gonna build a system that's gonna do it and we can then we can kind of tweak that and make it better and better and better where we don't have to allocate as much time or we're not replicating the work over and over."

00:32:28,"It's just done for us on the, and again, go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say, I mean your point about, you know, a lot of the role is logistics, even if we don't want it to be, I've been talking to a lot of asset owners who are trying to figure out, you know, they have space."

00:32:42,"Does it make sense to do flex? And I was just talking to one this morning. They're they're, they're pretty significant asset owner around the country and their asset manager was on. She's like, okay, so terrified about like, what happens if I have a manager and they quit or they're out. And I was like, exactly. Because the challenge is a lot of this role we were talking about like the profile of who you hire,"

00:33:08,"and I said, look, the challenge is like a lot of this role is like all the little things that you can't imagine are happening, like onboarding and offboarding, all the things you just mentioned. And I said you can automate slash outsource some of that. Which I think, you know, to your point, even for people with teams on site,"

00:33:24,"like does it make sense to sort of separate the two and I run this Community Manager program and it's like, right, we need, you have Tyre Unicorn who likes people and likes systems And detailed and everything, right? Yes. And it's like, oh, and they have to like cleaning toilets and they have to like make all these other things. Right?"

00:33:44,"And so it's like segment the work. Yeah. Does it make sense to decouple? And I think that's another thing that, right, as the industry's evolving, you're like, well how else could this be done? Maybe it makes sense to really automate or take. So I think that's a really interesting conversation. I'm curious, so you could decouple those probably first spaces of a lot of sizes,"

00:34:06,"but the model that you're running, what do you think is the max square footage that can support being pretty Automated? Something like, like how big? Yeah, I think, you know, I think that we could do, we could go well past 10 or like, we're in a building that's 20,000 square feet here. So we're, it's 20,000, 10 and 10 Offices in like three fourths of the building."

00:34:32,"Okay. And then kind of that flexible Coworking in the last quarter. So right now this is a, a, a building that my buddy owns. And so we're really providing all the like ongoing management in the, in the flexible space. But then all of his offices, you know, we can update the codes and stuff like that for them. And so I think,"

00:34:56,"again, I think like this is just another thing that by shifting fully we've had to work through of like, what about like space tours and what about Right. You know, all of that stuff. And I think what what we found is that by trial and error. So what I'll, I'll give you just a quick story so that we can kind of talk about,"

00:35:17,"you know, when we're back and forth. So we have spaces over like a two and a half hour, you know, drive or whatever. And so when we first started, I was doing tours. You could book a tour online and then I would drive and go meet people and do the tours. Well that, that wasn't very sustainable or you know,"

00:35:36,"there was, there was a time where it was like, oh, I'm supposed to be in spot A and I'm in spot B today. Right? Like life happens. And so guess what? We just started doing phone tours and calling in and then I can log in on the cameras and walk them through and get them in the space, which, you know,"

00:35:56,"is a great explainer of like how our system works. It's all automated. Pull your phone out, we're gonna do This. Yeah, yeah. Totally. And so it's Almost like an onboarding, right? If they convert, okay. They've done it one time and it's, It's even nicer in a lot of ways because you know, it's so to the point,"

00:36:13,"you know, it's like, Hey, I'm interested in an office. I'm doing one today with someone. Cool. You get in, I can log in, see you we're walking, they're walking through the space, I'm watching them. We can kind of talk about where everything's at. At the same time I'm like, who are you? What do you do?"

00:36:31,"Why did, why did you move over here? You know, This person's got their headphones on, like just chit chatting with you. Yep. Which again, I like, normally I'd be like, this is probably not the ideal way to do it. But it actually, you know, in doing a lot of them and converts probably the same amount as in person."

00:36:50,"I don't doubt that. Because I think this, I think, and again this is something I talk to operators a lot about is it's not a complicated model, but lots of operators don't execute it that well. Yep. They don't even give a great in-person tour. Yep. Well and again, you're asking like Them down and you know all the things to ask,"

00:37:10,"which is really just engaging the person like a human. Totally. Then You can totally do it virtually. Yeah. And, And you probably be better than, you know, a huge percentage of, I'm not picking on anybody who's listening out there, but I think a lot of tour processes and people giving them could have better training. Well, totally."

00:37:28,"And I think it's, again, this is the world that we kind of live in today too, which is a hybrid world. Yeah. Right. Like digital virtual communication and in person. Right. And so I think, you know, when we're done, if you would walk through the space, I would've known, this is Jamie, she lives in California,"

00:37:46,"she's moving to Colorado, she has a podcast. Cool. We can talk about that. And I would, I would say I'm gonna connect you with these three people you know, in this space so you can engage with them, walk you through the space, talk about the amenities. There's the office you want or the desk you want or the flex seating you want."

00:38:04,"Great, looks awesome, hang up. I text you a direct link to the membership that you told me you wanted to buy and call me if you need anything or text me if you need anything. And then two seconds later I see 'em sign up online. Like, so what if they Don't? Do you have a a like a sales process? Yeah,"

00:38:21,"like a follow up. Yeah. So How many operators don't have that in place? I feel like automating like really focuses you get your crap together and have your whole sales funnel just down. It forces you to do that. Yeah. And so, and then again, it's set and done for everyone forever, you know? And I think, and it also forces you to kind of test things that you,"

00:38:44,"when you can rely on humans, which I think is good, it allows you to not have to do that cuz you can just figure it out or Yeah. You know, someone will just figure things out. But the system is not built. And so I think, you know, this process allows you to build that system. The other thing that I would say is,"

00:39:04,"again, kind of the, the world that we live in, I think a lot of people are like, well what about the relationship that you're building with people? Yeah. You can build relationships with people on the phone or through Zoom or through whatever. And then when we see each other in person, it's like, what's up? You know? Yeah."

00:39:21,"And so again, I think there are tradeoffs to everything, but I think that these are some of the benefits and some of the ways that the world has changed in our favor. And you know, we were talking about tours and, and conversion ratios on tours being about the same. And even if they're off 5% or 10%, which I would say they're probably not,"

00:39:44,"it's probably about the same. How much money are you saving at each one of those locations by adjusting to this? And does that make financial sense to make that decision? A hundred percent. Absolutely. Okay, that wraps part A of my conversation with Brian Watson. Tune in same place, same time next week for Part B. We'll see you then. Thank you for listening to today's episode."

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