343. Brandon Houston on building a vibrant community hub in a town of 20,000 in Collingwood, ON
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
TRANSCRIPTION
343. Brandon Houston on building a vibrant community hub in a town of 20,000 in Collingwood, ON
00:00:00,"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 a thought provoking operator,"
00:00:26,"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. I have a guest today Brandon Houston, who many of you may have met. He shows up at conferences. I know he's been to the Juicy Conference at least once,"
00:00:58,"and we did not meet in person while we were there. And he has his community managers go through our Community Manager University program. So I really enjoy them. And I could tell that the Collingwood Foundry, which is a Coworking community, not a Coworking space, her Brandon's description, that it's a pretty special place. And I think I was proven right on that,"
00:01:22,"talking to Brandon and going through his Google reviews. So it was great to get his perspective and get an better understanding of how he sets the tone for the culture and how he's created such a special place. The Collingwood Foundry is in Collingwood, Ontario, and the population today is roughly 25,000 people. It's grown since the pandemic, and they have over 200 members,"
00:01:48,"I think he said 220 plus, and they only have four private offices. So it's a great example of 7,000 feet. I, I think this is a special sauce. Not everyone can recreate this, but Brandon has created a pretty special place with members that really value the community and the connections that are made in that Coworking community. So he, he shares some,"
00:02:13,"some, just some great kind of perspective on how that has come to be. He did share a little bit, you know, on the air and off the air. He said, you know, he started just, he had taken a lease on a space as a business owner and had extra space and thought, you know, well, let's see if,"
00:02:29,"if Coworking will fly here and if I can cover some of the lease. And it's turned into something, you know, far more special than that. And now, again, 7,000 feet of, of community space. So you're gonna enjoy this discussion. There are some really good nuggets in here, both sort of philosophical, and he throws out a couple of really useful nuggets that you might wanna borrow."
00:02:50,"So, without further ado, here is Brandon Houston, the founder of the Collingwood Foundry in Collingwood, Ontario. Brandon Houston, thank you for joining me today. Brandon is the founder at Collingwood Foundry in Collingwood, Ontario in Canada, which is near Toronto. I was, I was locating you on the map earlier. Pretty close to Toronto. Yeah, About two North."
00:03:16,"Yeah. And like right on the water. Yeah, right on Georgian Bay. Yeah. Okay. So did you grow up there? I did not. I've been here for almost 10 years now. I grew up actually closer to Detroit, Michigan in Ontario, close to Windsor. Okay, Okay. Got it. So Canadian, but yes, not Collingwood."
00:03:34,"Okay. How did you end up in Collingwood population? 21,500 ish. Yeah. To be honest, I ended up here because of a woman. That's what, that's what brought me to the area. Love. Exactly. Did she grow up there? She did not, no. She moved here earlier than I did. And unfortunately that story didn't last."
00:03:57,"Okay. But I fell in love with the community, so I stayed around. Okay. You know what, yes, I see that. And I, I wanna set the stage. I don't always do this, but it's Google Business Month in the Community Manager University. And your Community Manager is in that group. And I was like, Hmm, I wonder what Brandon's reviews are."
00:04:19,"And you, your space is beloved. The first review. I cannot say enough good about this space. I got introduced to the Collingwood Foundry community before I even knew it, knew I needed it. Since then, this place and the people in it have had an immeasurable impact on both my business and my life. Great people, great vibes, cool collaborations,"
00:04:43,"tons of laughs and delicious coffee too. Highly recommend it. The next one I have to read too, I love this place so much that I became a proud ambassador. This place has given me one of the greatest gifts as a new calling wood resident community in all cap. I highly recommend this space to anyone, blah, blah, blah. A great space,"
00:05:05,"sexy coffee. You have, you have to tell us what's sexy about the coffee. I was like, I've never seen that adjective with coffee before. Anyway I could. So Colleen Wood must be special. You've fallen in love with it and stayed and you've created a special place. I mean, I love, we talk about that at our Google Business training."
00:05:27,"Like those are the kinds of reviews you want, you know, you don't like, you don't, people like, oh, it's a, you know, a nice design and the internet's good. You want, like, I'm like, can I join? How do I, how do I get some of that? Okay. So move to Collingwood. What is your,"
00:05:44,"tell us your professional backstory and how did you get into Coworking? Yeah, so I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years now. My first business was a web development agency that I ran for 11 years before selling it. During that time myself and two others started our fir first Coworking space in 2011, which a lot of people didn't know Coworking at that time,"
00:06:06,"especially in a small community. Those were early days. I mean, early, early those, yeah. Yeah. Very early days. So we started our first Coworking space then, so that's kind of where I dipped my toes into it. So the Foundry is my second Coworking space. Left that other one behind. When I moved outta that community and moved into Collingwood."
00:06:24,"And when I moved to Collingwood after selling my web agency, I acquired a video production company. And the foundry came out of an idea of how can we better utilize our office space. We had a significant amount of office space that we weren't using, and I thought, you know what? I know the model. Let's throw open the doors. I don't know the community very well 'cause I'd only been here for a few months,"
00:06:45,"but let's throw open the doors and, and see if there is an interest in Coworking in Collingwood. And to my surprise, there was our first member, Carl, who is actually still a member today, that was back in about 2017. He actually showed up asking for a job with my video production company, and I sold him a desk instead. Nice,"
00:07:06,"nice move. I'm, I'm not gonna pay you, you pay me and comfy. And that happened with a few people actually. But that was, that was kind of what started the ball rolling and to, to see if there was a bit of a community here. Collingwood's got a pretty heavy density of creatives in this area, so a lot of writers and graphic designers and web developers."
00:07:26,"So they all just kind of after time gravitated towards, towards the foundry. Yeah, that makes sense. Is Collingwood kind of a place, like do people go there when they're kind of done with Toronto kind of thing? Or what's, what's the vibe? Yeah. More so now since the pandemic. Yeah. Prior to, so we've seen a significant amount of growth."
00:07:45,"We're probably edging up towards 25 or 26,000 now, but prior to what we're mostly known for is we're a ski community because we're right next door to Blue Mountain and several other, I I think there's six in the area, private ski clubs. So we, we do attract a lot of people from the city that come up here on weekends, have weekend chalets,"
00:08:08,"that sort of thing. And after, you know, a few years of spending time up here, a lot of people realized that they, they like the outdoor nature. They like the lifestyle. Why not move up here and make it more permanent? And then when the pandemic happened, more people realized that they wanted out of the city and moved up to the Collingwood area."
00:08:25,"Ken Wilmot lives in Collingwood part of the time. He does, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he does. I've gotten to know Kane a little bit. I'm actually a member at the F 45 gym that his wife Tanya works at. So that's actually how I met him originally. They're both super fit. She's super fit and yeah, Absolutely. That's hilarious."
00:08:44,"Okay. So that's, that's what you do for workouts. Okay. So this what, you had some experience in Coworking, but you were like, I, I mean, did you wonder, you wondered obviously about the market a little bit. So how big is your space? So we are at 7,000 square feet now. Wow. When we first started,"
00:09:02,"we were a little over 4,000. We've actually expanded twice Okay. Over the last few years. Okay. Do you own or lease the building? We lease. I would love to own it. That has not, that's not come to fruition yet. I'd say the building owners think it's worth a little more than, than I do, but I would love to at some point Someday,"
00:09:21,"maybe your view of that will overlap. Okay. And then mostly open plan, not a lot of offices. 7,000 feet. Impressive. Yeah, it, when we first started out, we were only open space. We didn't have any private offices in that 4,400 square feet that we had. We had two boardrooms and two call rooms, and the rest was all open desk space."
00:09:44,"When we expanded our second time, that was when we finally put four private offices in. So that's what we have now in the, the latest expansion. Okay. Does this work because the, your members like, don't need a lot of phone time? Partly, I, I would say we did learn there's some growing pains there. We did learn that we needed some more than two call rooms."
00:10:10,"So we actually have seven call rooms in the space. So our original two, and then we've actually put some call booths in. So we've, there's two different companies that we, we purchased booths from and they're kind of spread throughout the space, including the one that I'm, I'm currently sitting in. So that need was there, but the majority of our members weren't interested in having their own private office space full time."
00:10:32,"They actually came here because of the, the community and the interaction that they're experiencing. Okay. I love it. Okay. So the one you're in, which I've seen from, so Emily was in the Community Manager program for a long time, and then Megan's in there now. You make great hiring decisions. I can tell They're fantastic. I actually did a call with Emily when she was transitioning."
00:10:52,"She's like, oh, you know, I was like, I'll totally talk to you. You're so amazing. Yeah. Is this a prefab, like what, you've got this like mossy green wall in there, what's going on here? Yeah, so this is, this is one of the framer acoustic booths. It'ss the, it's, it's considered the fore person."
00:11:09,"I'd say it's four people if you're really comfortable with each other, but it, it seats, it seats too well. So it's a good one-on-one consultation booth. Okay. And then it's just a glass wall here. And then I worked with a local artist to do this moss wall installation, so it's just preserved moss. And it became kind of the show piece of our first expansion on the main floor when we,"
00:11:28,"when we built it out. Yeah, it looks great on Zoom. Okay. And do you podcast? What's with the fancy mic? So I, I'd like to say yes, my intention and why I purchased all this equipment was to actually start a podcast a few years ago that never came to be. It's still a spark in the back of my mind,"
00:11:46,"and I've been working with a couple of others to, to potentially get that off the ground. But because I had all the equipment, we have this booth, which actually works quite well for recording. We, we lend out the equipment to members. We have a few that run their own podcasts. Oh, nice. Okay. So the equipment's available for members to borrow."
00:12:01,"They can just pop in, reserve the space and, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Very nice. I know, I didn't even have the like, suspended mic. Yeah. My ceiling. I don't, yeah. I can't do that in here. Okay. So do you still own the video production company? What, like what's your, what's your professional like life look like today?"
00:12:21,"Yeah, so I, not any longer. I, what I've moved more into is I do a bit of consulting now for, for Coworking spaces. I've worked with a, a few others now. Mostly, I would say rural, like suburban and rural Coworking, not so much the urban Coworking. Yeah. And it's really around community building and, and building out those spaces,"
00:12:40,"working on potentially some other locations as well, because we've built out this calling Wood Foundry Collective, which Yeah, I wanna hear about that. It's Gonna be a bit of a network. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'm also a counselor as of a year and a half ago for the town of Collingwood. So I'm a municipal counselor as well."
00:12:57,"Wow. Wait, so that's like a political role. What did it tell? Okay, Yeah. Yeah. So I'm one of nine that includes the mayor and the deputy mayor that runs the town. Interesting. Okay. Huh. I'm interrupting for a second. Are you working on starting a Coworking space? I often emphasize how important the planning stage is."
00:13:21,"You've heard me say most unrecoverable issues happen well before you open your doors and they are related to the size of your space, your real estate deal, and a few other things. If you think you are going to pick your favorite Coworking space and reverse engineer what you think you see happening in there, and then pick your own paint colors and your favorite furniture,"
00:13:48,"you are in for a surprise. This business is really about making the right fundamental decisions that align with your individual personal and financial goals. So we wanna help you avoid the mistakes that a lot of operators make in planning and launching that can really set you back in terms of time and finances. So we have got your back, we have created a free training to help you really get behind the three key decisions that we think are the most critical for you to get right when you're designing your Coworking business."
00:14:27,"The model, not the colors, the model. And these insights come from years of operating, designing the model for two different locations, and then my work with hundreds of operators as they work on their businesses. So grab your spot in our training class. You can watch it anytime it's totally on demand. And start your Coworking journey with confidence and the right strategies in place."
00:14:54,"You can grab that training at Everything Coworking dot com slash masterclass. Cool. You're super engaged. Yes. I very quickly got involved in the community like I did back in my hometown being an entrepreneur for 20 years. Yeah. The first thing I did was go and meet everybody at the business development center, local economic development office, join networking groups. So I,"
00:15:18,"I became kind of entrenched in that, in that ecosystem pretty quickly. Nice. So you do, I am trying to think of what it is. I've seen it on Instagram. You write blog posts sometimes, and Megan was like, oh yeah. When Brandon does stuff like people show up, is there like a lunch that you do once a month or like,"
00:15:37,"so yeah. What does your engagement in the Coworking space look like? How much, you know, how much time do you spend on it? You've got your Community Manager is and is your team full-time or are you just staffed part-time? So it's, it's myself and Megan, and Megan is full time and I spend the majority of my time here as well when I'm not in municipal meetings."
00:15:56,"So most of my time is spent at the Foundry just really interacting with, with our members. One of the things we do on a regular basis that I think really helped drive some of the growth here is we run a weekly event called Common Ground. Okay. And it's, it, it's a weekly Wednesday morning, one hour long entrepreneurial group that you don't need to be a member of the foundry for."
00:16:15,"It's on our main floor. Coffee's free come for the conversation. It's really for people to come and support each other's businesses. And that's kind of acted as a bit of a funnel to, to drive membership into the, into the, the Coworking space. And is something you do every single Wednesday. It's like your signature event every Wednesday Is bold every Wednesday."
00:16:34,"But easier than Making waffles though, probably. Yes. It's, it, it can be, it's, it's a bit of work, but I really enjoy it. I really enjoy the community that's built around it. We put it on hold a couple times, but so much demand to bring it back. We brought it back this year 'cause it was on hold for a couple months."
00:16:51,"Been running it pretty much since the foundry opened. So it it in in various capacities. That's probably the most popular event that we run. We do some other ones pitch competitions twice a year for, for local businesses. But we do one called a five by five, which is kind of like a mini TED talk that we run at the local theater."
00:17:10,"And then we're involved in a bunch of other events on an occasional basis partnering with the local business development center. So I'm curious about, since you do some work with other spaces that are in smaller, you know, rural areas, do you like, I I would guess that part of your success is like the community is fairly like entrepreneurial freelancers and then there's you who's like probably pretty visible and kind,"
00:17:42,"you know, kind of a galvanizer like a, you know, a sort of a central figure. Does that have to exist for success? Like what, what's your, Brian Watson's been on the podcast a couple times. Do you know Brian from proximity? Yeah, I mean, he's not proximity anymore and I think he just sold Altspace. He's like,"
00:18:00,"we're, we're I a couple chapters behind, but, but his video, the, probably both of them, at least the first one, I think he put it on his website. But it's by far, like many, many, many times my most popular video. And I don't, I don't know if it's him or if it's the topic, so I'm just,"
00:18:19,"you know, I'm curious 'cause he had unstaffed spaces where, you know, no one was around, but in places where people need like good wifi and you know, they might wanna come together. But k kind of a different model from, from what you're doing there. So I'm just curious kind of about your, like what you see and or what other types of spaces you're,"
00:18:37,"you're working with and, and how's that working and sort of, is there any sort of like, like layer for, you know, framework for success for those types of spaces? Yeah, I think in a smaller community it does take somebody that's a, a bit of a community ambassador or a bit of a, an advocate for the local entrepreneurial community."
00:18:56,"I know that's really what's worked well in this space as well as in my, my prior space. It kind of takes that, like my video production company was the anchor tenant, the first anchor tenant of this space. And yeah, I love, I love that by the way. 'cause I think that's like such a valid way to start and to experiment."
00:19:11,"So yeah. I, Yeah, it, yeah, it, it really is because that's one of the hardest things starting out a new space is it's that chicken and egg. It's like you wanna build this Coworking space, but how do you get people in if there's no people there? Right. It, it's, so you almost need to, and and I've had this conversation with others."
00:19:26,"When you're starting a new space, it's almost good to, to pre-sell the concept so that you have two or three anchor companies or anchor tenants in the space from the get go. So that there's already a bit of that, that community built out. 'cause it is really hard when it's just you starting the space and you're sitting alone in a, at a desk."
00:19:44,"We can all remember, I mean, I remember those days and, and I started in 2012. That's a long time ago. And I could still literally remember that feeling of where is everyone. Yeah, yeah. So it takes someone to kind of Right. And the pre-selling and yeah, we, we teach a lot of pre-selling in our Startup school because exactly the,"
00:20:05,"the chicken or egg issue. So I, I mean, are there other sort of like, if, if folks are listening who are in smaller communities and are trying to like validate the idea, because 20,000 is not a lot of, it's not tiny. I grew up in a town with more cows than people, so no Coworking in my town. So it's not tiny,"
00:20:23,"but it's not big. It's not a maybe a no brainer. What, what are sort of some of the key like around education, around like how do you validate, how do you know this thing's gonna work? How do you sort of remove some of the risk for people who are in smaller markets? Yeah, I think, and, and actually one of the advantages that,"
00:20:43,"that I think some of the Coworking spaces in smaller markets has is it's much easier to develop relationships with your local economic development office, your local business development center, your local chamber of commerce. So that's actually a really easy way to validate if there might be a community there for it. But it also acts as a bit of a way to develop a referral network."
00:21:04,"So we actually, we have the business center that, that sends us referrals of people that move into the community. Somebody will come into the, the business center or say, you know, they're moving to Collingwood, they have a small business, or they're just starting their business. One of the things they have asked in the past is, have you gone to the Foundry yet?"
00:21:23,"You need to stop in there and and meet the people at the foundry. Yeah. Okay. So it's, it's a, it's a great way to, to drive some of that growth in a small town. And I think it's much more accessible to, to have access to those, those individuals in, in that government role than maybe it is in,"
00:21:39,"in a larger urban center. Yeah. I opened in Chicago and I was like, I'm not gonna join the chamber because like it felt so hu huge and not Yeah. But in a smaller town and Right. Sometimes those economic development groups are like really hungry for a resource like that and it checks a box for them to say, right, have you checked out the foundry yet?"
00:22:02,"Some of those support services you can get from that, that group. And I also love, so I don't know if Emily invented this, but your 28 day campaign in February, I I I'm always asking your team, like, can you please tell everyone else, because it's such a good example, I think of building relationships and a unique thing that you can do to build those relationships in a smaller market."
00:22:27,"Like again, I, in Chicago it's like so noisy, right? Like in a big market, it's like just not the same to be able to cut through that. But you do this 28 days of business giveaways, so you get local businesses to donate something and then I can't remember how it works if there's tagging or drawings or, or whatever, but it's pretty incredible."
00:22:48,"A lot of work. But Yeah, yeah. It, it, it is a bit of work. I started it actually during the pandemic when we went through that period of shutdown. Yeah. And all of our brick and mortar businesses were shut down. So it was a way that I, I've, I've always been a big advocate of buy local support local,"
00:23:04,"whenever you can, that sort of thing. Which is actually I think where one of the references of the coffee comes from in, in that Google review, the sexy sexy coffee. The sexy coffee. It's a local, it's a local coffee roastery that, that we buy from because it, it, it's, it's called Good Grief. That's the name of the coffee."
00:23:19,"Okay. It's phenomenal coffee. But I've always, so our coffee, our tea, our water filter that we have here is all local. We, everything that we stock here, we try to write down to the soap, we try to support local. So the 28 days of giveaways came out of this. How do we give back to the local community?"
00:23:37,"How do we support them during this time where they're really having a, you know, a challenging experience keeping their, their doors open when they, they can't have foot traffic coming in. Yeah. So, because a lot of our business comes through word of mouth and referral, we don't spend a lot on marketing. I know that kind of goes against a lot,"
00:23:53,"a lot of the advice of marketing, but we, we don't spend a lot. So the idea of 28 days away, 28 days was, well, I'm gonna go around and I'm gonna buy a hundred dollars gift card from every, from 28 businesses. And we, we have people nominate the businesses over social media, so we don't pick them, but the community picks them."
00:24:13,"And then, and then I go around and buy $2,800 gift cards. And then one day each throughout February, we, we give a card away a day for that entire month. And we did it for two years, put it on hold for a year, and then brought it back this year again, which I guess it was 29 days this year."
00:24:31,"And yeah, we, we don't even ask them to donate it, we just go around. So $2,900 in marketing investment is the way that I look at it and it helps out other community businesses. Yeah. If anyone wants to steal this idea, you can find it on their Instagram. I I love it. And I, I get it. You don't have a lot of marketing levers to pull."
00:24:51,"I mean, in a market of 25,000 people, you're not gonna run Google ads, maybe Facebook ads. How did you, did, did people in your town know about Coworking when you opened? Or kind of what was the, what what was the, you know, I, you mentioned, you know, these events and draws people in, but Yeah."
00:25:13,"How did, how did you sort of get that initial group of folks Into Yeah, I would say in, I would say in 2017, the majority of the people that I ran into did understand what Coworking was. And I think a lot of that was because they had come from Toronto. They, yeah, there were several Coworking spaces throughout the city in Toronto."
00:25:31,"So it wasn't, it wasn't an obscure idea to a lot of them. So, but really, I, I didn't really even sell it as a Coworking space. I still don't, I I actually try not to call it a Coworking space. Okay. If possible, I try to call it a Coworking community because it's community first. Yeah, yeah."
00:25:47,"Is is the way that we focus on it, even though we are butts in seats. Sure. It's really about the interaction that all of our members have with each other. And, and then it just became word of mouth referral. So one member mentioned it to somebody else in the creative sector that he's worked with and brought them in and then another came in and another,"
00:26:05,"and, and it just kind of grew from there. We're sitting as of today at 227 members, which for a town this size, I think is, is not incredible bad. It's incredible. Totally not bad. I know Megan was like, so we're pretty full, you know, and everybody else on the call is like, how, you know,"
00:26:25,"Hey there, I'm jumping in again this time. I am speaking to those of you that are either getting ready to hire a Community Manager or who have a Community Manager and you would like to support their training and development. We know how challenging it can be for Coworking space operators to create their own training and development material to support their community managers. And this is so important in terms of onboarding new community managers and supporting the growth of your existing community managers."
00:27:00,"And we're getting towards the end of the year, what a great holiday gift end of year gift to give to your Community Manager. So the platform is really around a couple of things. One is access to a community of like-minded folks. We have a very active Slack group with really wonderful questions that are posed every single day. And we find that's one of the biggest values."
00:27:26,"We have community managers from all over the world, and this is an excellent group of community managers that have invested time and effort into getting better at that role. And they are the kind of folks that you want your Community Manager to be by and hanging out with and they know their stuff or sometimes they don't and they ask questions and we help them out."
00:27:47,"So I am in the group, we have coaches that are in the group to support them. So we love when they ask questions for things they need help with because the other aspect of the program is really around helping them get resources they need to make their jobs easier and to learn things that they can use in their role to be better at their job."
00:28:07,"So we provide some done for you resources like Google business posts, detailed event ideas, et cetera, that they can just kind of grab and go and use. And we also provide monthly resources that add to our training library so they can do our certification. And then we have a lot of electives that help them kind of get better at all the things that,"
00:28:33,"that go with the role. So the, our community managers wear a lot of hats. So we break our content into industry knowledge for new community managers, community building operations, sales and marketing and leadership. So the leadership bucket is great for our more advanced community managers. We also have virtual office and digital mail training and coffee training for anybody who needs to know how to use commercial coffee brewers."
00:29:02,"So we are have some of the, I'm just gonna give you kind of a sampling of content that we have. So in our community building modules, we have hosting your first member events, building community with budget friendly events, member events, swipe files, our sales and marketing modules. We have tour training, we have the training on the full Coworking sales funnel,"
00:29:27,"so they understand what that looks like. We have social media planning frameworks. We have, what else do we have? Three simple steps to an effective marketing newsletter. These are just some of our samples. Ooh. These are some of our best utilized topics. Demystifying the process of letting your Coworking members use your address for their Google business listing, how to close a tour operations modules,"
00:29:53,"how to set up automations, how to do a new member onboarding audit. Simple ways to use AI to boost your productivity. We have over 40 courses in the program, so we cover kind of higher level topics. And then we also cover things that are timely, like the CMRA updates, Google business updates, et cetera. So we get together monthly to do official training,"
00:30:19,"and we also host a best practice sharing call, which is one of the fan favorites of the group and the Slack group. So if you have any questions at all about the program, don't hesitate to reach out. You can learn more and register at Everything Coworking dot com forward slash Community Manager. Now, back to our episode with All Flex. I mean,"
00:30:42,"I, I think I get really interested in, you know, sort of what that secret sauce looks like. 'cause I don't think everybody can do that. I don't think everybody can create a Coworking community and, and not everybody wants to. I think it's pretty incredible to have 7,000 feet with four offices and to have 200 plus members. And your, obviously your,"
00:31:03,"you know, your reviews talk about exactly what you hoped and what your language, you know, is about as communities. So Yeah, I think I, I think some of it comes from the values that I, I try to instill in it. So at the beginning of common ground, every week when we run that event, one of the things that I say,"
00:31:21,"we always set the intentions for the meeting, and one of the things that I say is this community is about net giving over networking. Yeah. And what that means is you're coming here to support each other rather than just coming here to sell to each other. And I think that set a tone for everybody that walks into this space and everybody that becomes members,"
00:31:39,"because it has become such a collaborative community that people have started businesses together outta the space. People have hired each other for projects. So it's, it's this little ecosystem that, that has evolved that I'm, it just, it makes me smile. It makes me happy to, to see when, when our members help each other out. Yeah. But it's,"
00:32:01,"to your point, it's intentional and you're being really consistent about sort of setting that tone and the culture. It, it doesn't happen by accident. Yeah. That's really, yeah, It, yeah, it's a, for a while, I, I would say for a few years I kind of took a step back and said, you know, I'm not the one that that did this."
00:32:20,"Everybody that's in this space is the, are the ones that have created this, this ecosystem. And I, I, I fully agree with that. I, it, it was setting those values from the outset, but everybody that steps in here really has that instilled in them as well and, and continues to attract other people with those, with those same values."
00:32:38,"Yeah. So I'm curious, I mean, kind of back to the, the smaller market model, you have 7,000 feet that really cannot be unstaffed, but what's your view on sort of the unstaffed model? Is that, yeah, I'm just curious. I I think it can work. I think it can absolutely work. I I do think it goes back to trying to find some key anchor tenants that act a bit of like ambassadors for Yeah."
00:33:05,"For the space. Because the, I think the reason that most of our members are here is not just because they, they need a space to work. They're actually here to be around other people and, and have those interactions. And we saw that a lot over the last two years. But prior to 2020, we were mostly, I would say almost a hundred percent business owners and entrepreneurs."
00:33:27,"Now we're a mix of remote workers and entrepreneurs. And it's because those people that have been working from home wanna be around other people. They wanna have, you know, it's that water cooler talk. It's that, that social interaction. So much so that we do a member survey every year and we ask, you know, what are we doing well?"
00:33:46,"What would you like to see improved? What are, what are you enjoying and what do you wanna see more of? And, and hands down, the majority of the responses we get are, we want more social events. We want to be able to, so we run thirsty Thursdays every Thursday at four. And it's really just a, a social for everybody to get together."
00:34:04,"We run, we get, we have a group that goes and does pickleball. We have a skiing group, other members of created a Foundry, WhatsApp group on their own so that members can get together and go skiing together and go hiking together. People just want to be around each other. So any, anybody that's starting a non-staff space, it's, it's not impossible to do."
00:34:27,"I, I'd say it's fairly easy to do, but it's, it's putting some key people in there as members to, to sort of drive that, that engagement and that growth. Yeah. I love the phrase Galvanizer, one of our Community Manager members use that term. And I, you know, that person who's not afraid to be like, I don't know everybody here,"
00:34:49,"but let's go skiing. You know? Yeah. You need a co. So it doesn't have to be the owner or the a staff person, but Yeah. It's kind of identifying who will those people be and how do you en Right. Encourage that or put a few things in place to kind of support that. Yeah. And one of the things that we've done that I think would work well in a,"
00:35:07,"in an unstaffed space is we have an ambassador program and we have a few members that are part of that ambassador program, and they take a day a week to work the front desk. So while we are, we have one full-time, Community Manager, we have members that run their own businesses that a day a week actually help out with the front desk and do tours and help with some of the operational stuff."
00:35:29,"And in turn they get a free eight day a month membership. Okay. So it's something that I think you could probably do in an unstaffed space is find some of those key people that, that can be those ambassadors to help when there's not somebody there to, to actually work on the day to day. Okay. So I'd love to hear a little bit about,"
00:35:48,"I think I remember Emily saying, like, talking about the fact that she does not sit at the front desk all the time, and that sometimes she would sit and sort of have time to work on things. Your team is all, all often like the most consistent attendees at our Community Manager calls. So I love that. And that's probably your leadership saying,"
00:36:07,"look, you know, we're doing this, you should show up to these calls. 'cause some of them don't, you know, don't show up and some can't. Right. Because, but I think I'd love to sort of hear your, you know, sort of, I don't know your thinking, your approach to that, because I think sometimes it's challenging."
00:36:21,"The front desk can be really busy. You want your team like focused on, you know, doing the job and so it doesn't create the space for them to sort of work on projects or Yeah. Or do things like show up to our community managers, manager calls. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about sort of that philosophy and how it plays out?"
00:36:40,"Yeah. I mean it's definitely, I look at it as a collaborative effort. The con in combination with myself, our Community, Manager and our ambassadors. There's always, I'd say two or three people that are there that can help somebody out if they need help with the printer, which is the bane of my existence. And Every player could, could have less staff if we didn't need to deal with the printer."
00:37:02,"I know. Yeah. So, so it, it, it gives that, that space or that room for, you know, if I have to jump into a meeting or Megan has to jump into a meeting, there is somebody there to, to pick up the slack. And, and I am, I'm almost always there to, to pick up that slack if,"
00:37:18,"if Megan has something that, that she needs to go do. So it, it's, you know, I think I started that from the beginning and, and we've just kind of operated that way going forward. When I first started the space, I didn't have a Community Manager, it was, it was me. So it, it's actually, it,"
00:37:36,"it lightens things actually now having these ambassadors and the Community Manager to be able to support each other and it cuts down on the, the amount of day-to-day work that each individual has. Yeah. I think it probably reduces burnout. It feels, you know, more supportive, more like a little bit of a collective effort. And not every owner can be present."
00:37:54,"I mean, some folks have multiple locations, they can't, you know, I totally get it, but I I, I get a very sort of healthy sense from from Yeah. From Emily and now Megan on, you know, how they view that role. So yeah. It's, it's, it's good for, I think it's good for others to sometimes hear like,"
00:38:11,"you know, how do you manage that? How do you think about that? So, okay, so you were recently in Moab. Tell us about your trip. Yes. So I drove to Moab, Utah in my Jeep Wrangler. It was a 56 hour round trip drive because in December I decided to sign up for an 85 kilometer three day stage race,"
00:38:32,"trail race. So that's what I drove to Kam Wait on a bike? No, running. Running. Okay. And running. Yeah. So, so through the desert and the mountains there, it's, it's, it's an event that's been running for two years now by an organization called Trans Rockies. It, it's so fun. It's such a fun event."
00:38:49,"It's a great community of people. So I decided to sign up in December. Probably should have signed up sooner than that because I'm not a runner. So two months to train was not a lot, but it was amazing. I'd never been to Utah before, so I made it a road trip. Okay. And what the race is three days long Do where,"
00:39:08,"tell us what the, where do you go? Yeah. Each, each day was a different loop. So day one and three was a little over 20 kilometers, and day two was a little over 40 kilometers. Wow. That's, is that like a marathon? It it's an, yeah. So 85 is the equivalent of two Marathons. Make me do the math."
00:39:29,"Yeah. Okay. Wow. Incredible. Okay. Did you find a Coworking space in Moab? I did not, no. There's a, did you look or was It your I briefly looked, but I, I, my, my head was right in that race. Totally. Yeah. You're like, I don't, Didn't do much else. I,"
00:39:47,"but I'm not really Well. Yeah, yeah. So I wonder, maybe he's listening. There was a gentleman who reached out and we did some calls. He was in our Community Manager program for a little bit, and he, I, he, I, he was in Moab and he had, I think he owned a building and he wanted to do it on the second floor."
00:40:06,"And he said he gets a lot of like van lifers and people who were coming through and he a place to work. And so he may still be in progress on that, who knows. But I was curious when you said that. So would you do it again? Definitely. I'm already considering signing up again. Okay. Wow. And you went by yourself?"
00:40:24,"I did, yeah. Solo trip camped along the way. I, I'm a, I'm, I love road trips, so it was an easy one for me to decide on. Okay. Very cool. I love it. And no juicy for you this year? I don't think so. Not gonna be able to pull it off. Too many other things going on in,"
00:40:41,"in both the municipal politics space and, and at the foundry we're looking at expanding to some other locations. So that's, that's been what I've been focusing on lately. Locations out of town. Yeah. Locations outta town. So we actually have, there is another location in Collingwood that is primarily private office. It's not, it's not owned by the foundry,"
00:41:03,"it's independent. So we've, what we've done over the last few years is systemize and put processes in place and kind of package everything up that we run as the foundry so that we can drop those processes and systems in place in other Coworking spaces. So we've done that with another one in town here. And then we're looking at doing that at another location,"
00:41:25,"potentially maybe two more. And the idea is to build it out as this foundry collective. And the goal is to be able to connect a broader community of business owners and entrepreneurs and remote workers so that they can move between locations if they are visiting these other areas. And we also have a series of perks in the communities, partners with local businesses, that sort of thing."
00:41:48,"Yep. Very cool. I know I am not sort of very mobile 'cause I have a 12-year-old, but it's interesting, you know, how people like to move around these days. We have a, a member in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is not maybe the most exciting place in the country. And she said she's shocked by how many like day passes and people kind of coming through and staying there for a while,"
00:42:11,"like Yeah. On some sort of road trip or whatever. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well let's wrap up with, you've been doing this for a while, since 2011. What, what are you most excited about right now in Coworking? Ooh, That is a great question actually. It's something that came out in an email from you today, I believe."
00:42:31,"And that is this whole concept around hospitality. So last year I read a book called Unreasonable Hospitality, which is, has become, I think, my favorite book. I know, I, I was looking 'cause I have it on my, although I love the, did you do the audio version or did you read it? No, I, I read it."
00:42:48,"I love holding a physical book in my hands. Yeah. So I, I, he, The author, he, wait, it's Remember, it's Will Guera, I think is the, the author. Yeah. He narrated it. And I just love his, you know, you totally get like his personality and get the, get the vibe. Yeah."
00:43:03,"Yeah. It's, it's, that's, that's what I think excites me because even though the, the book focuses on, you know, the restaurant industry, which is what we normally think of hospitality as, and you mentioned hotels, I think we, we have this opportunity as Coworking spaces to instill hospitality into the things that we do here. And to me,"
00:43:21,"what that looks like is making a connection for a member if they say that they have a need or, you know, providing local coffee or it, it's all about the little things that you can do that people will turn around and wanna write really nice reviews on Google for, For your sexy coffee and your community. Yeah, I do think, you know,"
00:43:44,"I like your bus, your, your sort of culture is a good example of the community piece is both community and a form of hospitality. A form of like, we care, we wanna connect you, we wanna help you professionally. Or it sounds like you have a lot of social connections that happen for people who wanna, you know, pickleball together or ski together or whatever."
00:44:07,"But yeah, like Faci being willing to be the ones who help facilitate that or having an ambassador who does it, or, and just being intentional about that and setting up ways for, do you, so how do your members communicate? Do you have a Slack, slack group or? We do, yeah. So we have Slack, we also have a discussion board."
00:44:25,"We use Exodus as our, our platform to manage the space. Okay. So there's the discussion board there. Some use Slack, some don't. We try to just be, be wherever they are and if they choose to use that. So it, it's a fairly active community on Slack. We have a bunch of channels. I also go in and,"
00:44:43,"and post local business support services, things like that. That's how they, they mainly interact outside of the space. And then in the space, obviously it's meetings and running into each other in the kitchen. Yeah. And yeah, The Good Face-to-Face Mojo, that one gets from Yeah. Showing up At a car. Yeah. And we run, so on Slack we run Donut."
00:45:02,"I'm not sure if you're familiar with the, the donut plugin. So it's, it's a lot of fun. It's, what it does is members can choose to join the, the donut group and once a week it'll pair you up with another random member for you to go for a real life coffee together and just have a conversation. And it, so it's,"
00:45:22,"it's a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. I Love that because it sort of takes the, like asking someone out, you know, thing out of it. Like, well, they said we should, let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Okay. That's a good tip. That's a great Weekend. Yeah, and sometimes they,"
00:45:38,"sometimes they just sit and, and have a coffee together on the couch. Sometimes they go to the coffee shop across the road, which we have a great relationship with. Yeah. Okay. I love that idea. I might have to, to use that one. Okay. We are out of time, Brandon. Thank you. It was great to meet you."
00:45:56,"I, we've been in the same room before and have not like connected and I just, I feel like I, you know, you're active in the Facebook group and I love that you put your team in the Community, Manager University and have just been really curious about your story and, and I mean, what you're doing is pretty incredible in a small market."
00:46:12,"So I think there's a lot to learn and I appreciate you being, being willing to share your, your story and, and, and nuggets that might help others. So thanks for taking the time. Well, thanks so much. I I really appreciate being asked to, to come on today. All right. Well hopefully we'll see each other in real life at a conference or,"
00:46:29,"or something sometime soon. Thank you. I hope so. Thanks. 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,"
00:46:53,"head over to Everything Coworking dot com. We'll see you next week."
For the full show notes of this episode, click here.
Want to join our coworking conversation in the Everything Coworking Facebook Group? Find us here!
Looking for a specific episode? Go to the episode index here.
.