357. Five Simple Hospitality Ideas to Try in Your Coworking Space
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
TRANSCRIPTION
357. Five Simple Hospitality Ideas to Try in Your Coworking Space
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 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 co working industry."
00:00:43,"Hey there. Before we dive into this episode, I want to share with you something that you may know. If you're a longtime listener to the podcast, virtual mailbox services are really taking off, and your coworking space is in the perfect position to benefit. If you are ready to kickstart or level up your virtual mailbox service and add a reliable revenue stream that grows and compounds to your business, we've got just the thing for you."
00:01:11,"We're excited to open up the mailbox moneymaker challenge again. Starting on September 16, we'll spend about ten weeks guiding you through the entire process, step by step. We'll cover everything from setting up with the post office to finding clients, pricing strategies, marketing your virtual services on your coworking website, and more. You'll get everything you need, the forms, the templates, the sops that you need to keep things running smoothly, and we'll even show you how to operate your virtual mailbox service without losing focus on your core business."
00:01:45,"This is a common concern that we hear. The best part? You could have your virtual mail service up and running by November. Registration starts on September 3, but you could get on the waitlist right now@mailboxchallenge.com. dot last time one of our challenge members secured nine leads in just one week. We hope you'll join us. Get on the waitlist@mailboxchallenge.com. dot welcome to the Everything co working podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo."
00:02:16,"Thank you for joining me today. So we had this week a special discussion in our community manager group about 2024 co working trends, and I love when we can get online together and share and get different perspectives. It was a great group and a great discussion, so I wanted to share a few nuggets with you, a little insiders look into what we get up to in the community manager university."
00:02:42,"So one of our trends was hospitality, and I love talking about this topic because it's such a buzzword in the industry, and I think we're all still thinking through, what does that mean? And sometimes I think we put a lot of weight on it and overthink it and think that we're not doing hospitality unless we're doing heavy food and beverage, like we have a cafe or we have on site catering, or we have really high staff to membership ratios, so we're heavily staffing."
00:03:15,"We interviewed Beth de Gaffin Reed from Oklahoma City, and she talked about the fact that she always wants one of her team members at the front desk so they can greet clients, and they just really use their heavier staffing model to go above and beyond for their members, and they price that into their memberships, and their members really appreciate that. And that is not necessarily the model for everyone."
00:03:38,"But each of us can think about how hospitality fits into our space or your space. So we talked about, what does hospitality mean? One of the members on our call lives in a pretty small market, and she's trying to be mostly unstaffed. She is, the owner is around. We do have owners in the community manager group who are also operating the space in the community manager role. So she's around, but really trying to create a self sufficient community."
00:04:10,"She has a beautiful space. And so she was, first, she was like, oh, I want a checklist for hospitality. And I was like, oh, that's such a fun thought. Like, I love, I always loved the idea of checklists. We try to do checklists whenever we can in our programs, but I was like, I think hospitality can mean different things to different people, and it can look different based on your models."
00:04:33,"For example, for her, she's unstaffed and so her hospitality really is all around anticipating what her members might need over communicating. Lots of signage in the space, QR codes, access if they need, if they have a 911 to get a hold of her if they need to, but really thinking through everything they might need when they're in the space so that they can just get it on demand versus having to go to a front desk and ask for it."
00:05:02,"So really, in that case, about anticipating, and I think even when we are staffed, that is a huge benefit. And there are a few things we're going to talk about today that I think have really shifted recently. I do think hospitality requires having an abundance mindset, so not a scarcity mindset, although certainly we have to always think about budget and the costs that we're incurring when we consider how, what does hospitality look like for our members?"
00:05:40,"A few other things we talked about, I just wanted to share. These are like really simple ideas, but I thought it was worth sharing to get your thoughts going, um, around how this might fit into your space. So even simple things like the meeting rooms are well stocked with dry erase markers and adapters. And the adapters either are really easy to access or you can check them out at the front desk, but someone offers them or makes them really readily available so that your folks can come in and just plug and play and not have to worry about, oh, did we bring our own supplies?"
00:06:17,"And I can remember as a space owner, being so irritated by how quickly the dry erase markers disappeared and felt that was an expense I was incurring. But if you get into that service mentality and you just want those things to be available and you're going to get over those minor costs, it can make a big difference. Okay. A lot of our hospitality ideas were, of course, food related."
00:06:43,"Um, so someone brought up having special drinks for happy hours. And so in that case, it's really about knowing your members personal preferences, which, if you have hundreds of members, is going to be pretty difficult to do. But you can pay attention and make note about what seems to be relevant to your members if they come to happy hour or if they're not coming. Why are they not coming?"
00:07:09,"So one of the examples came up that sometimes folks don't drink alcoholic beverages and that's becoming more and more common. And so what can you have available for your members who you know dont want that or that you dont know but you want to make it available? And an example came up for me again, a little bit of a scarcity mindset. I can remember my community manager in Palo Alto buying this specialty."
00:07:39,"I think it was Martinelli is sparkling apple juice. Some of you may also love it. So apparently we had a member, it was their favorite thing. And I can remember just scanning through the budget and the order for happy hour or whatever and noticing that on there. And I was like, so are we ordering special drinks for every member? And she was like, they really like this. And at the time, I remember being just thinking about, like, the expense of it."
00:08:08,"And the mindset really has just shifted, right? It's no, we embrace the opportunity to know what our members prefer and to go that extra mile when we can and when it's not a huge, huge deal. And I think I remember thinking it was like $8 or something. And, okay, do we really want to thinking through, what if we spent that on everybody? This would get to be really expensive."
00:08:35,"And the truth is, not everybody needs something specialized all the time. And that if you get into that mindset. Your members really appreciate that personalized touch. Um, a couple of other folks mentioned they have members who have things that they really love. Like on donut day, they're bringing in donuts, but they also know the special flavors or varieties that their members enjoy, like chocolate, old fashions. And they said their members love that it's donut day, but also love that they know their favorite donuts are going to be in that assortment."
00:09:09,"Another one of our community managers said they have a little candy jar at the front desk, which would kill me. I would hit it every time. They said they had members who would come in for meetings that they knew loved Peanut M and Ms. And so they would pull out those little mini packet of peanut M and Ms and just put them on top of the candy bowl."
00:09:29,"So again, just really knowing some of those individual preferences and what a delight it is when you come in and your favorite thing is there and you didn't have to ask for it. Some things that are not as personalized but also play into simple things you can do for hospitality. I saw a great post by 25 north co working today. They were pushing their snack cards around the space and these were really attractive snack carts, I have to say, but did not look complicated."
00:10:01,"But the idea of the snack cart just totally up leveled the concept of offering snacks to members, right? Instead of just putting them out on a tray on a counter in your cafe area or break room, they create a little, they have a little cart, which I'm sure probably came from Amazon and wasn't very expensive, and made this nice arrangement of the snacks and took it around to folks that are in their offices or in a meeting room."
00:10:27,"Maybe you're not interrupting meetings, but a really nice way to just up level and make it feel more like a service than just a simple snack offering. So I love that idea. And something else we were talking about in our community manager slack group was ordering lunch and billing members. So the question came up how what's your best practice for billing members? What's the easiest way to do it and still make it seamless for them?"
00:10:54,"But just this idea of, hey, we're going to do a group lunch order. Let us know what you want. Maybe you've negotiated discounts with local restaurants. This is actually something else 25 north used to do. Probably still does it. Get discounts on a few things off of the menu and offer those up to members and just place the order. So you're doing the service of providing lunch, they're paying for it, but you've placed the order and then you've created a socializing opportunity for those that want to do it."
00:11:22,"And then this is a funny one, but one of our community managers said they have a member who gets a lot of mail, and that's unusual. Most of your mail members will not get a lot of mail. And she said he comes in and he really likes it when they're ordered by size of envelope. So the big envelopes are on the bottom, not just like a random stack of mail."
00:11:45,"So she said she takes a little extra time and just makes sure it's in a nice logical order for him. And so it's just the little things that can make people really just appreciate you and appreciate you, feel appreciated, feel seen and feel like you're just doing that little extra touch that oftentimes doesn't cost anything and doesn't take a lot of extra time, but just is thoughtful and makes them feel more special than they feel at home or at Starbucks or probably even the co working space down the street."
00:12:22,"So those are just a few ideas. I wanted to share those nuggets from our conversation with our community manager group. And of course, if you have a community manager that wants to join in on those conversations, they're always recorded for those who can't make it live. And we have an active Slack group where we talk about these things as well. Make sure you check out our community manager program at community manager hold on."
00:12:46,"Everything coworking.com forward Slash community manager okay, we will see you same time, same place next week. Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you like what you heard, tell a friend, hit that subscribe button and leave us a rating and review. It makes a huge difference in helping others like you find us. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to everything coworking.com"
00:13:16,"dot 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.
.