364. Building Broker Relationships and Sales Strategies with Evan Preslopsky, Senior Sales Manager at Venture X
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
Everything Coworking Featured Resources:
Masterclass: 3 Behind-the-Scenes Secrets to Opening a Coworking Space
TRANSCRIPTION
364. Building Broker Relationships and Sales Strategies with Evan Preslopsky, Senior Sales Manager at Venture X
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 coworking industry."
00:00:44,"Welcome to the Everything coworking podcast. This is your host, Jamie Russo. Thank you for tuning in once again. If you're a regular listener and if you're new here, welcome. My guest today is Evan Preslopsky. He is the senior sales manager at Venture X and office evolution in the kind of greater Charlotte area, and he has kind of a unique position in that. He essentially started his career in coworking five years ago right out of undergrad."
00:01:18,"And there are not many folks who can say that their first job ever was coworking and that they've done it for five years. So it's a family business. His father in law is a franchisee with Venture X and office evolution, and through some acquisitions, they grew really quickly. They are up to six locations in five years. I know, crazy hard to do if you're doing a real estate search and signing leases."
00:01:44,"So I love to chat with Evan. So first, follow him on LinkedIn if you like. Evan, and are kind of interested in his sales background. He's really active on LinkedIn and again, somewhat unique in our industry because he is at a multi site location, brand location. They, you know, have centralized some roles, like the sales role, which is unique. That usually doesn't happen until you get to five or six locations."
00:02:13,"And there just aren't that many brands that get to five to six locations, especially in six years. So I love chatting with Evan about his experience in sales in coworking, kind of, you know, from the nitty gritty of, you know, what they're systematizing and what systems they're using and what his day looks like to, you know, how he closes the tour to what is his sales mindset."
00:02:35,"So I've chatted with Evan about this before. We run a program for community managers called community manager, university and sales for the non salesy. Community manager is one of our favorite topics because typically we have community managers who are wearing some sort of sales role, even if it's just to give tours. But they don't usually come from sales backgrounds. Right. The nurturing community manager. It's usually more community focused, more operations focused, but then is responsible for giving tours and managing leads."
00:03:07,"And a lot of those folks aren't trained and don't have any practice doing that. So I would say a couple times a year, we add to our training library and do a sales topic. So I love picking Evan's brain on this topic. And, you know, he shares a lot of what the little behind the scenes on how they're optimizing their sales process at Venture X in his market, how much they rely on brokers for selling their bigger locations, and just kind of this mindset of being really consistent and just, you know, just, you know, kind of really managing those leads really carefully."
00:03:48,"Consistency and persistency wins in sales. So I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation. I know I did. So thank, huge thanks to Evan for taking the time to do this. He was actually kind of out of the office this week on a family trip. So I think you're going to enjoy this one. And if you do, leave us a rating and review in iTunes. Apple Podcasts."
00:04:11,"I don't ask for that very often, and I should do that more. I'm always hounding the folks we work with about getting their Google reviews. So the Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast reviews, are really helpful to us. So hit that subscribe button and open up your podcast app and leave us a review, and we will see you same time, same place next week. Welcome. I am here with Evan Preslopsky, who's a senior sales manager at Venture X and office evolution, based out of Charlotte."
00:04:40,"But he is recording in a podcast studio in Dallas today. Yep, that's correct. Are you at another Venture X where I am. Whose podcast studio are you in? Yeah, we weren't staying year one, unfortunately, because there is one that does have a studio. I'm at Beehive Dallas. They're like an event venue, coworking space, and then podcast studio. Okay, very cool. So did they give you the equipment they provided the."
00:05:07,"Yeah, the mics, the board here, headphones. I just got my computer for the video, but, yeah, everything else worked together is connected with Bluetooth. And here we are. Okay. I love it. Wait, did you know how to use the board? I don't even know how to use the board. No, no. There's like the strip and. Oh, my gosh, that's brilliant. Okay. That's what I need. You might have to take photos of them."
00:05:30,"Gio is always like, we need to record at the conferences and I'm like, gio, we need a lot of equipment to do that. And. Yeah, which we should just do because I keep saying that if we just had bought it like two years ago, then it would be worth it by now because when you record solo, you don't really need that. But as soon as you have in a room, you need the board and the extra mics and all that stuff."
00:05:52,"So. Yeah, yeah. And it helped out. I was going to use my Airpods and then, I mean, just being in the coworking world, I'm connected to like peer space, liquid space and all the third parties. Like, there surely is a podcaster around here that's affordable. And it was great. Okay. I love it. That's perfect. Are you in Dallas for fun? Like family visit or. Yeah, just, just a family visit."
00:06:11,"We had a, a cousin who graduated and he, earlier this year and we didn't get to take a like a little celebration trip for him yet, so he decided on Dallas. We got in yesterday and we're here through Sunday, so. But pretty much all week. Okay, nice. Yeah. Um, okay. Are you from Charlotte? Um, I stay Charlotte area. We, my family moved there 2011, went to high school there, then went to college at UNC Charlotte."
00:06:38,"And then I moved away for about two years and then came back in 2021. We've been there since then. So my adult life basically has been around there, been there, got it. Okay, so you graduated right before the pandemic and then your whole career has been coworking. How did this, how did this happen? How did you get to Venture X? Or is it Venture X or office evolution first?"
00:07:01,"Venture X first. Okay. Yeah. So I'll give you kind of like the background. So when I was in college, I was working full time at a planet fitness. And then I think after my sophomore year, I switched over to a construction company in the summer, was working super long hours just trying to save up a lot of money. And then I ended up getting into their office doing estimating, which is sales, but it's very boring."
00:07:26,"You basically look at the blueprints for a job site. We did underground electrical work. You go into this thing called blue Beam. You draw up all the square footages and then send over proposal. They say yes or no, or like, hey, you're a little high on the price, you're a little low, like fix this. And then that was it. There's not, there wasn't a lot of fail creativity and personal interaction."
00:07:47,"Yeah, exactly. It was super boring. But I did that, that part time. My last two years of school and then did that full time right after I graduated. And then I started at Venturex in September of 2019. I graduated in May 2019. There's a few months after I graduated, switched over to the BX. I got into it because my, he's my father in law now, but at the time, my wife and I, then we were engaged."
00:08:12,"He was in franchising, wanted to get into something new. We went to a franchise expo. Looked at, I think we looked at like bojangles, birderfy, like a few restaurant chains, just a bunch of different. That's kind of funny. I do always wonder like, right, what did the franchisees consider and then land on coworking? Yep. Yeah. Well, we had seen Venturex on the list before and I, it sounded really cool."
00:08:37,"It's a cool name. I like the color scheme. And I was like, that sounds cool. I had no idea what coworking was. This was back in like April of 2019. So before he even graduated. And then we went to the expo. They had a booth. So we talked with Matt Causa, who's on like the real estate team, a few other people, and then he left. We went back home."
00:08:57,"A month later, he got with a business partner. They decided they were going to do a location. They came to me because they knew I hated my job, what I was doing in the estimating for construction. He was like, well, we're going to open a location in Durham. Do you want to be the first employee? Do you want to run it? This is what it's about. And I was like, well, it sounds awesome."
00:09:13,"Community driven. You meet all these business owners, sales. I don't know, it just sounded, it hit all the things for me. So first location was in Durham. He knew that I was marrying his daughter in the fall of that year. We were going to be living in high school. He had all the insights on your life plan. Pretty much. He was a year younger than me, went to High Point University."
00:09:36,"High point is right in between Charlotte and Durham. Like an hour and a half from each. A little bit closer to Durham. But I would be living in high point and commuting to Durham to run that location. I was like, you know what? He's like entrusting me as the guy. So I'm going to be the guy. So that's kind of how we got into it. We just, I thought it sounded cool."
00:09:53,"So we talked to him and here we are. Wait, so how many locations now? We have six venture xs and one office. Evolution. Wait, since 2019? Yep. Thats impressive. Yeah, it was a quick turnaround because we opened Durham basically at the end of 2019, and then in February of 2020, purchased three serendipity labs and converted them to bedtrack. Oh, we went from, like, one to four really quickly."
00:10:22,"Yeah, I was going to say. I mean, because usually it's like, the lease process, it's, like, really hard to get one a year just because, well, if you have the capital, but even if you have the capital, just the process of, like, real estate search, lease signing, people get really. Who want to scale get really impatient, so. Wow, that's fun. I don't know how the kind of serendipity thing came across their plate."
00:10:45,"I think just because it was in our target areas, our target markets there was Charlotte, Greenville, South Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. Charlotte and Greenville were already open. Charleston was opening April of 2020. And so they just kind of all kind of roped in together right at the same time. And it sounded kind of crazy because that was right there. It sounds kind of crazy by looking back at the lots of energy."
00:11:08,"So. Yeah, but they were like. I mean, looking at it now, it's like Covid happened a few months after Durham opened and a month after we got these other three locations. Like, how did we survive? Yeah. And it was. I mean, it was kind of a blessing that we got them at that time because Charlotte and Greenville had already been open for a few years. So it came with seasoned, like, coworking staff."
00:11:28,"I was brand new to this. I had no idea what coworking was the year prior, so I was, like, totally new. So we acquire these locations, get people who had been doing it for a while, learned from them. We opened Charleston. I believe it's 70% occupancy. Even in Covid with some really, really large companies, take space there, thankfully, and that kind of through. Yeah. Okay. So it."
00:11:51,"I do. I love your background, as in fit in fitness. Did you sell memberships? Yeah, yeah. Planet fitness. Yeah. Started as a part timer in high school, moved my way up through management in college, did full time, sold memberships. Believe it or not, we actually cleaned, like, 80% of the time. Those. Our franchise owner was, like, super, super, I guessy about the cleaning, which was fine. Cause now I go into gyms, I'm like, that's gross."
00:12:16,"That needs clean. That means. Or even the coworking space. I always say, like, I feel like it's not really coachable. Although maybe you did learn it. I mean. Cause you would have been a guy out of college, who knows how clean your dorm room or apartment was. Like, you trained your brain, but just that eye. To walk into a coworking space and be like, the pillow's out of place, or, you know, the whiteboard has markers on it."
00:12:38,"Like, not everybody notices those things. No, it's the same thing. I go to cafe, I look at the kind of where the cups are placed. Are the shelves dusty? Is the bridge gross. Is the microwave growth? Is there like dust in the corner as I'm walking around the floor? And probably not everybody sees it, but I like trained to look for all that stuff. I mean, we like dusted the trusses, just the giant truck I had to deadlift and pick up treadmills so we could vacuum and clean treadmills on the toggin, like meticulous."
00:13:07,"But I appreciate having done that because now I like to think our spaces are really clean. Totally. And also, I mean, that's really part of your brand, right? The Venturex brand is very stylish, but professional. I think it's a great brand. Well, while we're on the branding piece, the office evolution was at a pre exist that wasn't a pre existing location. But why oe instead of Venturex for that one?"
00:13:33,"Yeah, so it actually was pre existing. It was another franchise owner. And then when United franchise Group, our parent company, I guess, bought office evolution and put it under the umbrella, that owner, I think he wanted to retire and was like, hey, I'm looking to sell. It was in our market, so we already had it like 90% full. We just took it over and that's kind of like under my belt now."
00:13:55,"So I sell for the Charlotte region. So I do that location, which is like North Charlotte. I do ventracs right near downtown. And then I do our new one in Fort Mill, South Carolina, which is like 20 minutes south of Charlotte. Yeah, it was already open. And branding wise, they're smaller off. The solutions are just the smaller. The Metrox is a little more basic office space. You walk in at the front desk, you have a small cafe, very small, like coworking or dedicated desk section."
00:14:21,"And then it's just, it's just offices. The whole location is like maybe 10,000 sqft. Ventracas are 20 to 30,000 sqft typically. So they're just bigger. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so your gym membership sales, do you think that I kind of love that background because we. I feel, I feel like it's great sales training. It's like if you can get through selling gym memberships, you just like, you know, the process, you know, a lot of like tools or how to like understand people's motivations and how to kind of be persistent and close."
00:14:55,"Like, can you just talk about kind of that as a, as a baseline for your career at Venturex? Yeah. It comes down to like, what I think most salespeople should do is you're not selling a product or a service. You're selling a solution to somebody's problem. And at Planet Fitness, you know, it was people wanted to get in shape and they wanted, at least at planet fitness, a more beginner kind of experience."
00:15:20,"A cheap experience. That's one of the best things about plant fitness. It's really affordable. But their problem was they wanted to get in better shape or be connected with a gym network that has hundreds of locations around the country, that they travel a lot. And that was one of the perks they were looking for. Youre just matching what you provide to their problem and you ditch that as the solution."
00:15:41,"Same thing with coworking. People come to you, they may be needing an office. Well, they dont just want an office to have an office. Every now and then you run into somebody whos like that. But typically thats not the bottom line problem. They need it for ad burns. To some people nowadays who really need it for legal reasons, the company or the type of business they run has to have a closed door shut office like it has to."
00:16:03,"So that's the problem. We have a solution. Here it is. And a lot of people just need a place to work out. If they don't feel good at homeworking, they get distracted. They need a place to come to outside of a coffee shop, just outside of almost like a third place to come to. They have home coffee shop. Working space is a little more quiet. Professionally, you have a good network of people, but you're not pitching like, hey, this desk right here in this chair, this is what you need."
00:16:26,"This is why you're coming here. No, they're coming here because the problem is they get distracted. They'll get this work done. Well, here's where you can get that work done. So it's kind of the same thing. You're. You're providing a solution to somebody's problem. Yeah, I'm interrupting for a second. Are you working on starting a coworking space? I often emphasize how important the planning stage is. You've heard me say most unrecoverable issues happen well before you open your doors."
00:16:57,"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, 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."
00:17:29,"So we want to 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."
00:17:56,"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. You can grab that training at everything coworking.com"
00:18:27,"forward slash masterclass so were you a natural fit for sales or was it something you learned over time? I'd say I learned it initially. I was. I used to be, like, really, really shy. Um, and I didn't really grow out of that until probably in 2020, like, when I got into. Which is a weird time to, to get over being shy, right? Well, I think I had to because we didn't have as much inbound in 2020."
00:18:56,"Trying to. Yep. Like, in a time where nobody wants to go to a workspace, but to kind of get creative, do more outbound. And I was like, well, I mean, the worst someone can tell me is no. Or at that time it was like, not right now, but maybe when vaccines come out or in a few months or next year. So I'm like, cool, that's fine. Even if someone does say no."
00:19:17,"I mean, in sales, you can't take it personally. You just, you absolutely can't take anything personally. And I learned that along the way, too. But, no, I think I grew to love it. I don't think anybody really grows up and is like, I'm going to be a salesman. It doesn't really happen, but you, you get into it and you learn to love it, and then you just get better and better the more you practice."
00:19:35,"Yeah. Okay, well, we're going to take a detour. Tell me about your love for fitness. Yeah, my. My dad was a bodybuilder in his thirties and forties. So when I was younger, would compete. Yeah. Yeah. Was compete. Nothing crazy. Not big time, not a pro or anything like that. But he was always, always in the gym lifting weights. I was in the gym with him a lot of as a kid at like daycare and stuff, but like, I would see him working out."
00:20:00,"I was always just in like that kind of environment. So then I started playing sports. I think probably around fourth or fifth grade, I started to really take note of like muscle and was like, oh, this is cool. I want to be big and strong a because it looks cool, because it's going to help me like play football. Football is like my main thing. So he kind of helped me get started in the gym."
00:20:24,"He lived in Florida for a little while, so we would go down, see him over the summers and we would go to the gym, go to plant fitness, go to golds gym and just, just work out. It was super fun. And then when I go back home, I was like, oh, I need to get a gym membership. But I was too young at the time. When I finally turned, like, I think twelve or 13, we somehow talked the gym people into getting me a membership."
00:20:44,"He had to get on the phone, my mom was there. We were like, all right, just sign him up. But hes just coming in to lift, nothing crazy. So I got my first membership. I think I was twelve and I was training to be bigger and better at football. Then high school comes around. During high school, sports usually take like a body wellness or some sort of lifting class."
00:21:02,"Really catered towards your sport. So most of it was athletic, olympic style lifting, not really bodybuilding. But then in the off season, I would work out again with my dad and siblings and we would go to the YMCA or whatever gym was around us and more bodybuilding style training. Then after high school, didn't play football in college, I was still lifting, kind of like a mix of bodybuilding and football athletic lifting."
00:21:27,"And then in 2017, I decided I was going to compete in a bodybuilding show. That's kind of when I made the switch to like purely bodybuilding style lifting, and I've been doing that since then. That's awesome. So where do you work out now? So we live just west of Charlotte. There's a gym called ultimate fitness. Like old school, grungy, just good, like hardcore lifting gym. That's where I lift five days a week."
00:21:54,"Occasionally I go to planet fitness with my wife because she goes there just at different times than me throughout the week, but we'll go together on Saturdays. Charlotte's got a few new gyms that just opened up and I always like going and exploring new gyms. New locations. So I'll do that like once a month here in Dallas. I went to a gym last night called absolutely comp and it was beautiful."
00:22:12,"Had like some of the coolest equipment. The most equipment I've ever seen. It sounds kind of hard. That's a hardcore name. It. The people in there were very hardcore. Like, I'm pretty serious in the gym. They had me beat. They were. They were pretty hardcore. Nice. But I've never been to a gym so packed at like eight or 09:00 p.m. like, we went late last night and it was insanity, which is cool for them, but, like, I don't want to go back."
00:22:36,"It was way too busy. Too much. Yeah, it was too much. The gym itself was awesome. It was beautiful. But we're going to try another one here in Dallas soon and then. Yeah, anywhere I go, I always just try gyms. We were at the Ventrac franchise group Expo in Nashville back in July, and I ubered from the hotel to a gym because I went to the hotel gym and it was not."
00:22:53,"It didn't cut it. Yeah, yeah. Didn't cover. So I was like, I'm going to go to a gym. So I tried out a gym there and it's just something fun I like to do. Yeah, I love it. Is your wife as into fitness as you are? Yeah, yeah, she is. And I'm, like, growing, so obviously, like, LinkedIn is big for me. Instagram is where most of, like, all my fitness content goes."
00:23:13,"It's just totally different platforms. You don't really post what you post on Instagram onto LinkedIn, but I'm growing a fitness coaching business on Instagram. So she comes with me a lot to record, take photos because she went to school for all of that. So she's kind of like my own personal photographer videographer. And we'll sit down, we'll edit your media manager pretty much. Yeah, no, she's amazing, but yeah, no, she got into fitness a few years ago and now we're both like, anywhere we go, we go try the new gyms together and face and cool videos and stuff like that."
00:23:44,"That's awesome. Yeah, my husband and I used to work out together and then I got into Crossfit and that is not his thing. So. Yeah, no, that's not for me. I tried that. But you have to find what you love, right? Because you're so into it and you love it. And so even when you travel, you do it, but you only make. You only work that hard to, like, get a workout in if you really enjoy it."
00:24:08,"Yeah, yeah. I tried to crossfit with a friend who I met through LinkedIn. I was at visiting Durham, and he lives around that area, and he does crossfit. So I was like, you know what? I'll go. I'll go try it with you. It was very hard. It's so difficult. I'm glad I did it, but it's like, so cardio heavy. It is. Bodybuilding is not cardio heavy lifting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah."
00:24:28,"Well, we won't wait. I do have to ask you about trifecta, though. That was on your LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah. Trifecta is a meal prep company. I started using them for my last competition, which was last April 2023. You can order, like, normal meal prep food, like prepared meals and stuff. You just heat up and they're, they're good to go. Or you can order just like, a bunch of chicken or so for fit."
00:24:50,"Yeah, just like that. Yeah. And when you're doing a competition prep for bodybuilding, it's all very clean, very lean, lots of protein. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I, like, have to eat a lot, and I don't necessarily enjoy spending a lot of my free time cooking, so I ordered a lot of just cooked chicken through them and would eat that throughout the week. But then I, like, applied for their affiliate program, became an affiliate."
00:25:14,"Now I've got, like, a discount code or a link for people. That's right. And because. Do you use it on your instagram with your coaching? Yeah, that totally makes sense. Yeah. I tried trifecta way back in the day. I don't eat meat. I only eat fish. So, yeah, I love the, like, keep it simple, like, just done for you. I don't have to think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah."
00:25:40,"Okay, back to coworking. Okay. The. Yeah, I'm curious about, I mean, you kind of. You, like, built the plane. What do they say? Built. You built the plane while. While it was, you know, flying. Like you never done sales for. So you started out as a community manager, but I'm guessing sort of hybrid, like, community manager in charge of filling the space. And now you do regional sales."
00:26:03,"Yeah, yeah. I mean, how do you think about the sales process in this industry? Which is kind of a broad question, but maybe you're talking about being solutions oriented. I find so not that many. You're in a unique position where you work for a multi site owner, and so you're kind of overseeing sales across multiple locations, and you've developed this expertise. At this point, there are a lot of managers who don't consider themselves to be salespeople."
00:26:36,"How do you think about the sales process? What do you think Venturex does really well? And do you have any advice for thinking about sales as a hat that you're wearing and the process? What are some of the things you think are really good about the process that you run? You don't have to give away any trade secrets, but just, you know, kind of. Yeah, no. Okay, so let me answer the."
00:27:02,"I know I jammed a lot of questions in there, so, yeah, started community manager, did a little bit of, like, hybrid. But people who don't necessarily call themselves, like, salespeople or they may not truly, like, enjoy sales, but they're in that position. Yeah, I just. I don't know. I think I've always taken a very casual approach to sales. I'm not very pushy. Everyone thinks, like, oh, don't be like a used car salesman or like that old fashioned kind of sales person."
00:27:27,"But I'm just. I don't know. I think also because I'm a little bit younger and I started it when I was pretty young, I've just always been just myself. I'm just casual, like, you're a person. I'm a person. You may be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but at the end of the day, you're a person. And that's just something we can all relate to. And so you don't have to be daily and come across that way."
00:27:48,"You just listen to a lot of it. I would say listening is huge. Listen to their needs, what their problem is. And then if you have the solution for it, or if you don't have exactly what they need, try to get creative to match the best you can, what you have available in your space to what they're looking for, and then provide it to them. And then you just keep the conversation, just the conversation you're asking, like, here's what we have."
00:28:10,"Here's what you were looking for. Here's kind of where we align on everything. You think that there's an approach that we can take. So I would just say for the people who are a little bit uncomfortable or not a big fan of being in sales, just, like, keep it real casual. It's not that. It's not that hard. And I think they, the people who get sold to a lot appreciate people who are just, like, talking to them like they're a person."
00:28:33,"They're not like, good afternoon, so and so. Hope you've had. Hope you've had a great day so far. The weather's been awesome here. Like it's, nobody cares. No, it's really talking just like you're talking to somebody. It's always just like, be casual Venturex. I think what we do that could be something that the mom and pop shops are the one off coworking locations could do as well."
00:28:57,"That would help them is systemize the best you can. Especially being in a multi location franchise group. That's been a huge thing for the past, almost past twelve months. We focused on is how much can we systemize and automate across the board. So we don't have people in our Greenville location doing something differently than our Charlotte location. And then both of those are doing something different than Durham."
00:29:21,"It's like you need to try to make sure everything is done the same and it can be repeatable. And then my other piece of advice is just track everything. No piece of data is worth throwing away. You need to track all the leads, come in where they came from, did they respond, like, everything you can? Because at the beginning we didn't really have the platform to do so."
00:29:43,"Now we've been using HubSpot for years. Our franchise group switched over to yardy for our CRM, which is amazing. But you've got to track all of your data and keep it. Like, that's a huge one. But I don't know, that's my little bit of advice for them, I'd say. Yeah, I mean, I think just, even just doing the basics. And to your point, systematizing. I see a lot of people with like the post it notes of people they need to follow up with, like, no, that's what it was at the beginning."
00:30:12,"Like we, I had a, what's it called? Like a notebook paper that you like flipped there. And I was like writing down who's following up with tomorrow. And now HubSpot's beautiful. And you throw in your tasks and they can send you reminders. Then even if you don't use HubSpot, there's plenty of other platforms out there that can, that can help you and help you grow. Yeah. And just like, I mean, even a notebook, if you're really diligent about the process and following up."
00:30:36,"I do feel like sometimes in this business, people are really passionate about people, but aren't passionate about sort of the process and the systems. And it's like, well, the only way you could be passionate about people is if you have members in a sustainable business. And a lot of that is just being really diligent about lead management. Hey there, I'm jumping in again. This time. I'm 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."
00:31:11,"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. 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."
00:31:43,"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. 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."
00:32:17,"So I'm 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. 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."
00:32:49,"And we also provide a 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, that go with the role. So that 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."
00:33:17,"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. So we have some of the I'm just going to 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 event swipe files, our sales and marketing modules."
00:33:51,"We have tour training. We have the training on the full coworking sales funnel 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, how to set up automations, how to do a new member onboarding audit, simple ways to use AI to boost your productivity."
00:34:30,"We have over 40 courses in the program, so we cover higher level topics and then we also cover things that are timely, like the CMRA updates, Google Business updates, etcetera. So we get together monthly to do official training 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."
00:35:01,"You can learn more and register at everything coworking.com forward Slash communitymanager now back to our episode. So do you talk about kind of your role as a regional salesperson? Do leads come in at the location level? Which ones do you manage or not manage? What is the overall flow look like? Yeah, so they do come into the location. The one downside, I would say to franchising, at least how we have it set up, is I can't have one HubSpot account for the three locations I manage."
00:35:36,"I have three separate HubSpot accounts. So three separate pipeline. Okay. Separate emails, so it is location specific for us. So, which I guess is kind of fine because I am able to like keep everything separate and I'm not responding to a fort mill lead and, or I'm, I'm not like responding from my Fort mill mind to an office evolution lead up in university or something like that. Like it's all separate."
00:36:01,"Yeah, it is location specific for myself. It's those three in the Charlotte area. So I have like my three inboxes pulled up and then I usually will knock out my tasks for one location at a time. So I'm not flipping back and forth all the time. That was like something I struggled with initially. When I first, when I went from one to three, it was like, oh, an email came through for you and I got to switch over and do this one."
00:36:21,"But I wasn't done with Fortnill. Now I gotta go back to this one. I was getting them mixed up and I was like, okay, an email comes through, we're not in like life or death situation. I don't need to immediately switch over and go to this one. If I have the capacity or just the time to do so. Whatever I'm doing for the Charlotte location isn't as pressing as a new lead coming in, then I will switch over and take on that new lead."
00:36:42,"But it is per location. Right now we have automation set up that started a few months ago. When a new lead does come in through our website, they automatically get emailed, they'll automatically get followed up with for like two or three times and then it will task me to reach out and call or text if we haven't heard back yet. But if they do respond, it cuts off the automation and then I take it over."
00:37:03,"So that's helped a lot, especially with multi locations not having to actually physically respond to every lead that comes in. Because if I'm doing something like this or if I'm traveling or someone reaches out over the weekend, they're not having to wait until Monday for someone to reach out. They're still getting an email saying like, thank you for reaching out. What are you looking for? We'd love to help something like that."
00:37:23,"Is that like an AI automation? This came up at the conference this week. Was it like a hot topic? And fans have actually, on the panel said they initiated this process and realized like 50% of their leads were coming in nights and weekends. 50%. And then nobody's answering for sometimes two days later. Right. If it's the weekend. So it's an automated, like some, like, is it a sales spot that's trying to hubs, but not, not necessarily a sales bot, it's just a HubSpot automation."
00:37:54,"The HubSpot has always had like sequences you can put people through. It's essentially the same thing. Yeah. Just when a new lead comes in, based it in our pipeline under new lead for a few minutes, and then it will automatically send them that first email, move them over to qualified lead in our pipeline, and it keeps them there until they respond. Once they respond, we'll take it over and move it down."
00:38:13,"And that's part of what you've been working on is like designing that whole process and like, what is the flow like and. Right. What's the user experience? Okay. Yeah. And that's been a huge thing our franchise is focused on. And now that that's taken care of, we've got some other, other projects are working now. Yeah. Always looking to improve. And like I said, systemize and automate. That is like, that's been the slogan for the year."
00:38:35,"Totally. Okay, so leads going at the location level. Do the managers at that level do anything with them or do you handle everything kind of centralized? As of right now, I myself and the other sales managers at our location handle all office leads. If it's a virtual office, community membership, which is our basically coworking or hot desk membership or dedicated desk, they are taken over by our community managers most of the time."
00:39:03,"If it's virtual or community, they can be sent back to the website. They'll still reach out and email them, but they can be directed to the website to sign up for those memberships. So it just saves a lot of time from us having to put all this time enough to hunt down people for a Vo or a community membership. Dedicated desks are now on the website as well, so those are being pushed that way too."
00:39:24,"E commerce, like, meaning. Yeah, you can buy, you can come in for a tour. Yep. Trying to make it as easy as possible. Because some people don't necessarily want to have a full conversation. They're like, hey, I just want a community membership. Right, cool. Here's the link. I know, yeah. And Yardy has always done that really well. I think that's one of their strengths. So do you go and do tours if it's a big lead or does that?"
00:39:46,"Yeah. Typically I will do office tours if I am up in university or at our Charlotte location and a fort mill lead comes in for like the one to two person office, I might. I probably won't leave that location and come down them. Just spending a lot of time on the road. I try to spend at least the least amount of time possible on the road is my goal."
00:40:07,"Yeah. If it's a bigger lead, I don't know, four or five people or more, then I'll come in and do that tour. Okay. What's your favorite way to close a tour? I feel like people with no sales training get stuck. Like, I know what. What do I do? You know, what do I do at the end? You know, sort of like, physically in person, and then, like, what is kind of the general follow up process look like?"
00:40:32,"Well, I think it varies depending on their timeline. One of the very first questions I ask people on a tour is, what is your timeline for moving in? Typically, if it's a smaller deal, they could get started right then and there. So if I know that at the end of the tour, then I'll ask them, like, out of everything you seem today, like, are any of these kind of a good starting point for you?"
00:40:55,"And if so, do you want to get started on that today or like tomorrow? We can start the paper you asked the question you offer like, you could sign up right now, we could pick. Yeah, yeah. And that's not the case all the time. A lot of, especially the bigger leads that we deal with now. It could be a commercial real estate broker coming in and doing the tour by themselves or with the clients or the client came in and they have, like, several other tours that day that they've set up."
00:41:17,"So I know they're not going to sign right then and there, but then in the tour, it's basically asking them once again, like, out of everything you've seen today, do you guys have any additional questions? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And then it's like, I'll be sending a proposal your way this afternoon with everything we looked at today and additional information. If you guys come across some other coworking locations, if I know they're touring other spots, I'll kind of ask them to, like, look at those before they make a final decision."
00:41:47,"Look at what I have and come back to me with some questions they have. Because a lot of times if you don't kind of put that out there, like you're willing to negotiate, they'll go sign elsewhere before even running. And you want the opportunity to have a conversation. Yeah, yeah. You could end it that way. But most of the time, if they're not kind of ready to go right then and there, or that week, if, like, I'm just Altonia Papua this afternoon and I'll check in with you tomorrow morning after you've got time to look it over, and we'll keep the conversation going and then take hands and on your way."
00:42:14,"Yep. And then what do you do if you get ghosted? Oh, yeah. You asked about the follow up process. So when somebody gets a proposal, like, I sent one out this morning, I usually give them a day to look it over. So what's a Tuesday? So I'll follow up with them Thursday morning. If they don't respond at all Thursday, I may shoot them another message Friday, give them the weekend, and then I'll probably then call them sometime on Monday."
00:42:39,"I'm usually not, like, calling immediately the next day. I give them some time. People are busy. Actually. You look at the companies that you're dealing with. If they are sometimes, like, you're dealing with a CFO or something, this may not be the next thing on their list. So you don't want to bother them. You don't want to be. Yeah. Like nagging. Yeah. Or annoying. But you do still have to do your job and follow up."
00:43:02,"So I usually give people a little bit of time. And most of the time, in my head, the sales process for an office that's bigger than really four or five people could be a few weeks to a month, maybe two months. If it is like, they have a lease coming up and it's not quite ready yet, you'll know if people are ready to go right then and there because they'll tell you, yeah, we're willing to start this week or next week."
00:43:23,"Then, you know, you can move that along faster, but most of the time, it doesn't happen that fast. Yeah, yeah. I always say, like, people need to be project managed to some extent. Right. Like, to your point, like, if it's a CFO or somebody who's got, like, other needs. Yeah. Back to your, like, you can't take it personally, but you also can't just, like, let it go because you think, oh, they're not interested."
00:43:45,"Because they might well be, but they just have other things. Yeah. On. On their to do list, and they haven't gotten. Exactly. Yeah. That's why one of the first questions I ask is, what is your timeline? Does that kind of tell. Do you kind of immediately think, like, okay, this was going to be a longer, longer play, or, we're going to get this done within the next week or two?"
00:44:03,"I know people in software sales that have 15 to 20 plus outreaches with no response until they hear something. And those are some bigger deals, but, like, yes, it's a longer play, but it's a big deal. I have one right now in Charlotte looking at a bigger office who I've been talking with since February. That office they're looking at has been occupied since then, but they're in a lease that is coming up here in Q four."
00:44:28,"That office they're interested in is coming open in Q four, but I've kept the conversation going since February, so I knew it wasn't going to close back then. It was just, we're going to check in once a month, once every other month, and then as it gets closer to Q four, now it starts to pick up. So knowing they're a bigger company, this is kind of a tip to people who haven't dealt with big, bigger companies yet, but, like, try to get as much information sent their way as early as possible, because they may have a huge legal team that's gonna have to look through everything, and they may pick apart your agreement, and you have to change some things here and there."
00:45:03,"And if you don't realize all that until it's like two weeks, until they're ready to move in. It causes massive headaches. So with them, they've toured like, three times, I think, since, no, four times. First time in February, 3 times between July and now. And on that last four, I was like, I'm going to send you an agreement. It's not the official one. Look over all the terms and conditions."
00:45:23,"Will let me know, like if you need any changes or anything. So we can talk this out now. So when you are ready to move in, we're not still dealing with this. So with the big guys, you got to get as much done as possible, as early as possible. Yeah, I love that we forget because we're, you know, just because you're nimble and can do things really quickly doesn't mean they can."
00:45:43,"Yeah. Especially when the legal team gets involved. Any other sort of, like, mindset, aspects of the role that you like to keep in mind that might be helpful sales wise? I always think of being successful in sales. You kind of have to be a robot. It is repetitive. You're getting a new lead in and you're starting at the same point with them, but you've just done all these steps with this other lead, and now you're basically starting it with a new person."
00:46:15,"But you can't take anything personally. Just be a robot. Do your follow ups. Once you've done all your inbound and responded to everybody, now you get into your outbound, start prospecting people. LinkedIn is huge, especially in our industry. Most of the people that we deal with are going to be on LinkedIn. So I find a lot of our outbound approaches successful that way. I don't know, I just think sales, just to be successful, you have to be very robotic and organized."
00:46:44,"It's not like we were saying in the past, like, sticky notes of, hey, I got to follow up with this person and, oh, here's the sticky. This person. Be organized, be systematic, and just follow those steps and keep going. You've got to just be relentless with, with the follow ups with. It's just something you can't quit still. Like, you just keep going. You get told no, like 90% of the time."
00:47:06,"Right. But it's a numbers game, right. So, yeah, you just have to follow every lead through and then some percentage of them. Yeah, yeah. I made a post on LinkedIn the other day about being relentless, and I've got this tattoo on my arm that means to be relentless. So, like, just something I live by. And it thankfully that I'm in sales translate sales. You just got to keep going and keep going."
00:47:27,"And keep going. Totally. And you don't have to tell me which one. But do you use an app for your LinkedIn prospecting or is it mostly like DM's like in sales Navigator? Mostly sales navigator or just DM's and connecting with people? If I'm doing the outbound prospecting it is usually I read an article in the Charlotte Business Journal or something like that about a company who I had one."
00:47:53,"Probably the biggest outbound deal I closed early this year was I read a company who signed a lease for some brand new office building in Charlotte. It thankfully had the brokers on the deal. So I reached out to the broker, I was like congratulations, thats awesome. I see they just signed up this space. I dont know if theres going to be a delay in their build out, are they going to need some swing space in the meantime?"
00:48:16,"And he was like not with this group, but I've got another group who is actually in another coworking space. They don't have any big offices and they're outgrowing it. Do you have anything that fits them? Turned into a massive deal for us. So that was like one example of just reading and reaching out that way. Strictly through LinkedIn. It's kind of the same way you read an article, you see something in the news about a company, look up the company on LinkedIn, go to their employees."
00:48:41,"You could go to sales now to see who kind of like their top execs are of. You can also just find a lot of that on LinkedIn as well. If you don't have sales nav, connect with them. My very first connection message is like, thanks, are happy to connect. And I don't try to push or sell anything right then and there. Not all of them are really active on LinkedIn."
00:49:00,"If you are, that's fantastic. Like their most recent post, leave a comment and then maybe follow up a day or two later. Be like, you know, I connected with you for a reason. Here's why. Because you don't want to like pretend you connected to them and then like pitch them and then pitch them again and keep going. You want them to know like, hey, it wasn't just random."
00:49:18,"Like this is why I'm here. And a lot of times they appreciate that. Yeah. And you're actually looking at their profile. I get a lot of messages where I'm like, I'm sorry, did you look at my profile? Yeah. And that's where you can tell like if somebody's running some sort of campaign through some sort of app, it's like it just doesn't filter for that. But yeah, I. Yeah, people have made some, but you know, it sort of leaves a bad."
00:49:44,"I just sort of discount them when it's, I understand like the efficiency of doing it that way. But yeah, I love that approach. So how, how many, how, what percentage of your leads come from brokers? I say in Charlotte and Charleston we probably get, I don't know, like a number, but it's a good, it's a good majority from brokers, especially the bigger deals. Mostly anything that's like ten people or more is going to come through a broker."
00:50:12,"Anything under that is either directly through the website or through LoopNet. All of our spaces are listed on LoopNet and we've optimized those pages to like look, that used to be very traditional office focused. They have changed over the past year to add a lot of coworking features and highlight our spaces as coworking spaces. So we're not getting leads for like retail shops or hair salons and stuff like that."
00:50:34,"So LoopNet complaint all the time. Right? The hair salon in particular for whenever region? Yeah, yeah. The LoopNet has definitely picked up for us a good bit. Direct through the website are most of the smaller ones. Occasionally you'll get like a five, maybe a ten person office through there, which is always nice. Yeah. But I would say broker relations, that was my biggest focus when I came down to Charlotte to handle that location a few years ago and it has paid just tenfold."
00:51:04,"You've got to have good broker relationships in your areas because you want to be top of mind whenever a lead comes across their plate and it could fit what you have. I think the majority of the brokers in Charlotte, when they think about working, they think me and thats because I was building those relationships for at least a year straight when I first got to Charlotte and started that location."
00:51:27,"That is what I dove into and I just recommend that across the board youve got to have good broker relations. Yeah, I think people underestimate. I mean, and it doesn't, if you don't have the ten person plus office, it may not be as relevant. Correct? Yeah. If you've got a lot of smaller spots or this location that I'm in right now is mostly like event focused or meeting room focused, a little bit different."
00:51:51,"But if you've got, if you've got those spaces that are a little bit bigger, then you've got to have the broker connections. Yeah. I remember at juicy there was a woman from serendipity on stage and I can't remember, it was a giant percentage. And I should have this as a note somewhere, but it was like a smaller percentage of their leads. But a very large percentage of their revenue comes from brokers because they're bigger deals."
00:52:18,"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Our Charlotte location have some huge. Or not Charlotte. Our franchises, Charlotte, Greenville and Charleston have some huge offices. Like 20 to 40 people. Like some big time offices. Most of those leads all come from brokers, which means a lot of our revenue comes from broker leads. Yep, yep. And again, just your sounds like you were just like really consistent, really persistent with them and then."
00:52:45,"Yeah, eventually, yeah. I think people get told they're kind of like big and scary and they're not. Again, they're just humans. Yeah, exactly. Occasionally the senior broker might be a little snooty. That's okay. We deal with them just the same. But a lot of them are just like us. They'll go enjoy a cup of coffee. They'll come to your networking events. If you host a broker open house, those are the people you want around you."
00:53:08,"Most of the time, the senior level brokers are dealing with huge 30,000 square foot floor plate office lead in downtown areas. They're not really doing coworking stuff. So it's like the middle to associate level, beginner level brokers are kind of who you want to connect with. And then as they move up, you want to stay with them. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's funny, I was just thinking like, there are not maybe there are zero people like you who started their career in coworking, you know, which is interesting."
00:53:37,"Like, it didn't use to be anybody ever came from coworking. And, you know, your whole, most of your career is the industry. I mean, pretty much like the planet fitness was just under three years, but I mean, that was like high school with mid college and then their construction company was just around three years and then, yeah, working. Now it's officially been five years and running strong."
00:53:59,"So yeah, it's kind of cool to see. I wish I could have been in it like earlier, before COVID I never got to really see like the, I guess like the true, like WeWork rise of like 2018 2019. I saw the crash and then Covid, so I wish I could have seen. There were some tough years in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely. I just, I wish I could have seen truly like what coworking was like in 2018 2019 because all ive really known was two, three months before COVID Yeah, and then since then, which now its amazing."
00:54:31,"Covid was a rough year, but really since then, coworking has been, like, on the rise, which is. Its good to see. Yeah. Okay. My last question is, how do you think that being fit and healthy plays into your success at work? I would say this may just be something personal that I think. But when, like, when I see somebody who's fit and in shape, I think they. Well, a."
00:54:55,"I respect it because it's something that you can't really pay to get. You are diligent and taking care of yourself. So I know this person works hard at something. They kind of hold high respect for themselves, taking care of their own body to look a certain way, to feel a certain way. So I don't know. I think when you walk in a room and you're like, dang, that person works out."
00:55:17,"Like, it kind of like, demands attention and respect them in my eyes. I don't know. That's how I see it. I think it helps me just like, look, I don't know, look a certain way. Like I care about something, care about myself. And I just think it helps with respect. Especially me being like a younger guy. When I first started, I was like 22, so people were looking at me like, who is this kid, like, coming in here selling stuff?"
00:55:37,"Oh, he's kind of big. He works out all right. So he's like, he's good at something. Let's see what he's, let's see what he has to say. And now that I'm getting a little bit older, I say that I'm still young, but it's. I don't know. I think it just helps with people looking at you and seeing like they are willing to work towards something and they earned that."
00:55:52,"That wasn't given. Your. Your body and your health can only change if you put in the work and people recognize that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'll let you get back to your trip. Thank you for taking the time to do this today and for showing up in a professional podcast studio. Yeah, no, I hope it sounds good. It sounds good, indeed. So I'm hoping it totally sounds great. Yeah, I love it."
00:56:17,"Well, I appreciate you having me. I've been connected with you for years and to finally, like, I know we spoke on the phone, I think earlier last year at some point, but to actually, like, have a full on conversation, talk about coworking and diving into everything's been awesome. Awesome. Good. Okay, well, enjoy the rest of your trip in Dallas. Cool. Thank you very much. Talk to you later."
00:56:36,"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. If you'd like to learn more about our education and coaching programs, head over to everythingcoworking.com. we'll see you next week."
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